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Tritium
Tritium ( or ) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or 3H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen. The nucleus of tritium (sometimes called a triton) contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the common isotope hydrogen-1 (protium) contains just one proton, and that of hydrogen-2 (deuterium) contains one proton and one neutron.
Naturally occurring tritium is extremely rare on Earth. The atmosphere has only trace amounts, formed by the interaction of its gases with cosmic rays. It can be produced by irradiating lithium metal or lithium-bearing ceramic pebbles in a nuclear reactor.
Tritium is used as a radioactive tracer, in radioluminescent light sources for watches and instruments, and, along with deuterium, as a fuel for nuclear fusion reactions with applications in energy generation and weapons.
The name of this isotope is derived from Greek "τρίτος" ("trítos"), meaning "third".
Tritium was first detected in 1934 by Ernest Rutherford, Mark Oliphant, and Paul Harteck after bombarding deuterium with deuterons. Deuterium is another isotope of hydrogen. However, their experiment could not isolate tritium, which was later accomplished by Luis Alvarez and Robert Cornog, who also realized tritium's radioactivity. Willard F. Libby recognized that tritium could be used for radiometric dating of water and wine.
While tritium has several different experimentally determined values of its half-life, the National Institute of Standards and Technology lists (). It decays into helium-3 by beta decay as in this nuclear equation:
and it releases 18.6 keV of energy in the process. The electron's kinetic energy varies, with an average of 5.7 keV, while the remaining energy is carried off by the nearly undetectable electron antineutrino. Beta particles from tritium can penetrate only about 6.0 mm of air, and they are incapable of passing through the dead outermost layer of human skin. The unusually low energy released in the tritium beta decay makes the decay (along with that of rhenium-187) appropriate for absolute neutrino mass measurements in the laboratory (the most recent experiment being KATRIN).
The low energy of tritium's radiation makes it difficult to detect tritium-labeled compounds except by using liquid scintillation counting.
Tritium is most often produced in nuclear reactors by neutron activation of lithium-6.The release and diffusion of tritium and helium produced by the fission of lithium can take place within ceramics referred to as breeder ceramics. The production of tritium from lithium-6 in such breeder ceramics is possible with neutrons of any energy, and is an exothermic reaction yielding 4.8 MeV. In comparison, the fusion of deuterium with tritium releases about 17.6 MeV of energy. For applications in proposed fusion energy reactors, such as ITER, pebbles consisting of lithium bearing ceramics including Li2TiO3 and Li4SiO4, are being developed for tritium breeding within a helium cooled pebble bed (HCPB), also known as a breeder blanket.
High-energy neutrons can also produce tritium from lithium-7 in an endothermic (net heat consuming) reaction, consuming 2.466 MeV. This was discovered when the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test produced an unexpectedly high yield.
High-energy neutrons irradiating boron-10 will also occasionally produce tritium:
A more common result of boron-10 neutron capture is and a single alpha particle.
Tritium is also produced in heavy water-moderated reactors whenever a deuterium nucleus captures a neutron. This reaction has a quite small absorption cross section, making heavy water a good neutron moderator, and relatively little tritium is produced. Even so, cleaning tritium from the moderator may be desirable after several years to reduce the risk of its escaping to the environment. Ontario Power Generation's "Tritium Removal Facility" processes up to of heavy water a year, and it separates out about of tritium, making it available for other uses.
Deuterium's absorption cross section for thermal neutrons is about 0.52 millibarns, whereas that of oxygen-16 () is about 0.19 millibarns and that of oxygen-17 () is about 240 millibarns.
Tritium is an uncommon product of the nuclear fission of uranium-235, plutonium-239, and uranium-233, with a production of about one atom per 10,000 fissions.
The release or recovery of tritium needs to be considered in the operation of nuclear reactors, especially in the reprocessing of nuclear fuels and in the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The production of tritium is not a goal, but rather a side-effect. It is discharged to the atmosphere in small quantities by some nuclear power plants.
In June 2016 the Tritiated Water Task Force released a report on the status of tritium in tritiated water at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, as part of considering options for final disposal of the stored contaminated cooling water. This identified that the March 2016 holding of tritium on-site was
760 TBq (equivalent to 2.1 g of tritium or 14 mL of tritiated water) in a total of 860,000 m3 of stored water. This report also identified the reducing concentration of tritium in the water extracted from the buildings etc. for storage, seeing a factor of ten decrease over the five years considered (2011–2016), 3.3 MBq/L to 0.3 MBq/L (after correction for the 5% annual decay of tritium).
According to a report by an expert panel considering the best approach to dealing with this issue, ""Tritium could be separated theoretically, but there is no practical separation technology on an industrial scale. Accordingly, a controlled environmental release is said to be the best way to treat low-tritium-concentration water.""
Tritium's decay product helium-3 has a very large cross section (5330 barns) for reacting with thermal neutrons, expelling a proton, hence it is rapidly converted back to tritium in nuclear reactors.
Tritium occurs naturally due to cosmic rays interacting with atmospheric gases. In the most important reaction for natural production, a fast neutron (which must have energy greater than 4.0 MeV) interacts with atmospheric nitrogen:
Worldwide, the production of tritium from natural sources is 148 petabecquerels per year. The global equilibrium inventory of tritium created by natural sources remains approximately constant at 2,590 petabecquerels. This is due to a fixed production rate and losses proportional to the inventory.
According to a 1996 report from Institute for Energy and Environmental Research on the US Department of Energy, only of tritium had been produced in the United States from 1955 to 1996. Since it continually decays into helium-3, the total amount remaining was about at the time of the report.
Tritium for American nuclear weapons was produced in special heavy water reactors at the Savannah River Site until their closures in 1988. With the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) after the end of the Cold War, the existing supplies were sufficient for the new, smaller number of nuclear weapons for some time.
The production of tritium was resumed with irradiation of rods containing lithium (replacing the usual control rods containing boron, cadmium, or hafnium), at the reactors of the commercial Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station from 2003–2005 followed by extraction of tritium from the rods at the new Tritium Extraction Facility at the Savannah River Site beginning in November 2006. Tritium leakage from the rods during reactor operations limits the number that can be used in any reactor without exceeding the maximum allowed tritium levels in the coolant.
Tritium has an atomic mass of 3.0160492 u. Diatomic tritium (2 or 2) is a gas at standard temperature and pressure. Combined with oxygen, it forms a liquid called tritiated water (2).
Tritium's specific activity is .
Tritium figures prominently in studies of nuclear fusion because of its favorable reaction cross section and the large amount of energy (17.6 MeV) produced through its reaction with deuterium:
All atomic nuclei contain protons as their only electrically charged particles. They therefore repel one another because like charges repel. However, if the atoms have a high enough temperature and pressure (for example, in the core of the Sun), then their random motions can overcome such electrical repulsion (called the Coulomb force), and they can come close enough for the strong nuclear force to take effect, fusing them into heavier atoms.
The tritium nucleus, containing one proton and two neutrons, has the same charge as the nucleus of ordinary hydrogen, and it experiences the same electrostatic repulsive force when brought close to another atomic nucleus. However, the neutrons in the tritium nucleus increase the attractive strong nuclear force when brought close enough to another atomic nucleus. As a result, tritium can more easily fuse with other light atoms, compared with the ability of ordinary hydrogen to do so.
The same is true, albeit to a lesser extent, of deuterium. This is why brown dwarfs (so-called failed stars) cannot utilize ordinary hydrogen, but they do fuse the small minority of deuterium nuclei.
Like the other isotopes of hydrogen, tritium is difficult to confine. Rubber, plastic, and some kinds of steel are all somewhat permeable. This has raised concerns that if tritium were used in large quantities, in particular for fusion reactors, it may contribute to radioactive contamination, although its short half-life should prevent significant long-term accumulation in the atmosphere.
The high levels of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing that took place prior to the enactment of the Partial Test Ban Treaty proved to be unexpectedly useful to oceanographers. The high levels of tritium oxide introduced into upper layers of the oceans have been used in the years since then to measure the rate of mixing of the upper layers of the oceans with their lower levels.
Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen, which allows it to readily bind to hydroxyl radicals, forming tritiated water (HTO), and to carbon atoms. Since tritium is a low energy beta emitter, it is not dangerous externally (its beta particles are unable to penetrate the skin), but it can be a radiation hazard when inhaled, ingested via food or water, or absorbed through the skin. HTO has a short biological half-life in the human body of 7 to 14 days, which both reduces the total effects of single-incident ingestion and precludes long-term bioaccumulation of HTO from the environment. The biological half life of tritiated water in the human body, which is a measure of body water turn over, varies with the season. Studies on the biological half life of occupational radiation workers for free water tritium in the coastal region of Karnataka, India, show that the biological half life in the winter season is twice that of the summer season.
Tritium has leaked from 48 of 65 nuclear sites in the US. In one case, leaking water contained of tritium per litre, which is 375 times the EPA limit for drinking water.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that in normal operation in 2003, 56 pressurized water reactors released of tritium (maximum: 2,080 Ci; minimum: 0.1 Ci; average: 725 Ci) and 24 boiling water reactors released (maximum: 174 Ci; minimum: 0 Ci; average: 27.7 Ci), in liquid effluents.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, self-illuminating exit signs improperly disposed in municipal landfills have been recently found to contaminate waterways.
The legal limits for tritium in drinking water vary from country to country. Some figures are given below:
The American limit is calculated to yield a dose of 4.0 millirems (or 40 microsieverts in SI units) per year. This is about 1.3% of the natural background radiation (roughly 3,000 μSv).
The beta particles emitted by the radioactive decay of small amounts of tritium cause chemicals called phosphors to glow. This radioluminescence is used in self-powered lighting devices called betalights, which are used for night illumination of firearm sights, watches, exit signs, map lights, navigational compasses (such as current-use M-1950 U.S. military compasses), knives and a variety of other devices. Tritium has replaced radioluminescent paint containing radium in this application. The latter can cause bone cancer and has been banned in most countries for decades. , commercial demand for tritium is 400 grams per year and the cost is approximately US$30,000 per gram.
Tritium is an important component in nuclear weapons. It is used to enhance the efficiency and yield of fission bombs and the fission stages of hydrogen bombs in a process known as "boosting" as well as in external neutron initiators for such weapons.
These are devices incorporated in nuclear weapons which produce a pulse of neutrons when the bomb is detonated to initiate the fission reaction in the fissionable core (pit) of the bomb, after it is compressed to a critical mass by explosives. Actuated by an ultrafast switch like a krytron, a small particle accelerator drives ions of tritium and deuterium to energies above the 15 keV or so needed for deuterium-tritium fusion and directs them into a metal target where the tritium and deuterium are adsorbed as hydrides. High-energy fusion neutrons from the resulting fusion radiate in all directions. Some of these strike plutonium or uranium nuclei in the primary's pit, initiating nuclear chain reaction. The quantity of neutrons produced is large in absolute numbers, allowing the pit to quickly achieve neutron levels that would otherwise need many more generations of chain reaction, though still small compared to the total number of nuclei in the pit.
Before detonation, a few grams of tritium-deuterium gas are injected into the hollow "pit" of fissile plutonium or uranium. The early stages of the fission chain reaction supply enough heat and compression to start deuterium-tritium fusion, then both fission and fusion proceed in parallel, the fission assisting the fusion by continuing heating and compression, and the fusion assisting the fission with highly energetic (14.1 MeV) neutrons. As the fission fuel depletes and also explodes outward, it falls below the density needed to stay critical by itself, but the fusion neutrons make the fission process progress faster and continue longer than it would without boosting. Increased yield comes overwhelmingly from the increase in fission. The energy released by the fusion itself is much smaller because the amount of fusion fuel is so much smaller. The effects of boosting include:
The tritium in a warhead is continually undergoing radioactive decay, hence becoming unavailable for fusion. Furthermore, its decay product, helium-3, absorbs neutrons if exposed to the ones emitted by nuclear fission. This potentially offsets or reverses the intended effect of the tritium, which was to generate many free neutrons, if too much helium-3 has accumulated from the decay of tritium. Therefore, it is necessary to replenish tritium in boosted bombs periodically. The estimated quantity needed is 4 grams per warhead. To maintain constant levels of tritium, about 0.20 grams per warhead per year must be supplied to the bomb.
One mole of deuterium-tritium gas would contain about 3.0 grams of tritium and 2.0 grams of deuterium. In comparison, the 20 moles of plutonium in a nuclear bomb consists of about 4.5 kilograms of plutonium-239.
Since tritium undergoes radioactive decay, and is also difficult to confine physically, the much larger secondary charge of heavy hydrogen isotopes needed in a true hydrogen bomb uses solid lithium deuteride as its source of deuterium and tritium, producing the tritium "in situ" during secondary ignition.
During the detonation of the primary fission bomb stage in a thermonuclear weapon (Teller-Ullam staging), the sparkplug, a cylinder of 235U/239Pu at the center of the fusion stage(s), begins to fission in a chain reaction, from excess neutrons channeled from the primary. The neutrons released from the fission of the sparkplug split lithium-6 into tritium and helium-4, while lithium-7 is split into helium-4, tritium, and one neutron. As these reactions occur, the fusion stage is compressed by photons from the primary and fission of the 238U or 238U/235U jacket surrounding the fusion stage. Therefore, the fusion stage breeds its own tritium as the device detonates. In the extreme heat and pressure of the explosion, some of the tritium is then forced into fusion with deuterium, and that reaction releases even more neutrons.
Since this fusion process requires an extremely high temperature for ignition, and it produces fewer and less energetic neutrons (only fission, deuterium-tritium fusion, and splitting are net neutron producers), lithium deuteride is not used in boosted bombs, but rather for multi-stage hydrogen bombs.
Tritium is an important fuel for controlled nuclear fusion in both magnetic confinement and inertial confinement fusion reactor designs. The experimental fusion reactor ITER and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) will use deuterium-tritium fuel. The deuterium-tritium reaction is favorable since it has the largest fusion cross section (about 5.0 barns) and it reaches this maximum cross section at the lowest energy (about 65 keV center-of-mass) of any potential fusion fuel.
The Tritium Systems Test Assembly (TSTA) was a facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory dedicated to the development and demonstration of technologies required for fusion-relevant deuterium-tritium processing.
Tritium is sometimes used as a radiolabel. It has the advantage that almost all organic chemicals contain hydrogen, making it easy to find a place to put tritium on the molecule under investigation. It has the disadvantage of producing a comparatively weak signal.
Tritium can be used in a betavoltaic device to create an atomic battery to generate electricity.
Aside from chlorofluorocarbons, tritium can act as a transient tracer and has the ability to "outline" the biological, chemical, and physical paths throughout the world oceans because of its evolving distribution. Tritium has thus been used as a tool to examine ocean circulation and ventilation and, for such purposes, is usually measured in Tritium Units where 1 TU is defined as the ratio of 1 tritium atom to 1018 hydrogen atoms, approximately equal to 0.118 Bq/liter. As noted earlier, nuclear weapons testing, primarily in the high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere, throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s introduced large amounts of tritium into the atmosphere, especially the stratosphere. Before these nuclear tests, there were only about 3 to 4 kilograms of tritium on the Earth's surface; but these amounts rose by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude during the post-test period. Some sources reported natural background levels were exceeded by approximately 1,000 TU in 1963 and 1964 and the isotope is used in the northern hemisphere to estimate the age of groundwater and construct hydrogeologic simulation models. Recent scientific sources have estimated atmospheric levels at the height of weapons testing to approach 1,000 TU and pre-fallout levels of rainwater to be between 5 and 10 TU. In 1963 Valentia Island Ireland recorded 2,000 TU in precipitation.
While in the stratosphere (post-test period), the tritium interacted with and oxidized to water molecules and was present in much of the rapidly produced rainfall, making tritium a prognostic tool for studying the evolution and structure of the hydrologic cycle as well as the ventilation and formation of water masses in the North Atlantic Ocean. Bomb-tritium data were used from the Transient Tracers in the Ocean (TTO) program in order to quantify the replenishment and overturning rates for deep water located in the North Atlantic. Bomb-tritium also enters the deep ocean around the Antarctic. Most of the bomb tritiated water (HTO) throughout the atmosphere can enter the ocean through the following processes: a) precipitation, b) vapor exchange, and c) river runoff – these processes make HTO a great tracer for time-scales up to a few decades. Using the data from these processes for 1981, the 1 TU isosurface lies between 500 and 1,000 meters deep in the subtropical regions and then extends to 1,500–2,000 meters south of the Gulf Stream due to recirculation and ventilation in the upper portion of the Atlantic Ocean. To the north, the isosurface deepens and reaches the floor of the abyssal plain which is directly related to the ventilation of the ocean floor over 10 to 20-year time-scales.
Also evident in the Atlantic Ocean is the tritium profile near Bermuda between the late 1960s and late 1980s. There is a downward propagation of the tritium maximum from the surface (1960s) to 400 meters (1980s), which corresponds to a deepening rate of approximately 18 meters per year. There are also tritium increases at 1,500 meters depth in the late 1970s and 2,500 meters in the middle of the 1980s, both of which correspond to cooling events in the deep water and associated deep water ventilation.
From a study in 1991, the tritium profile was used as a tool for studying the mixing and spreading of newly formed North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), corresponding to tritium increases to 4 TU. This NADW tends to spill over sills that divide the Norwegian Sea from the North Atlantic Ocean and then flows to the west and equatorward in deep boundary currents. This process was explained via the large-scale tritium distribution in the deep North Atlantic between 1981 and 1983. The sub-polar gyre tends to be freshened (ventilated) by the NADW and is directly related to the high tritium values (> 1.5 TU). Also evident was the decrease in tritium in the deep western boundary current by a factor of 10 from the Labrador Sea to the Tropics, which is indicative of loss to ocean interior due to turbulent mixing and recirculation.
In a 1998 study, tritium concentrations in surface seawater and atmospheric water vapor (10 meters above the surface) were sampled at the following locations: the Sulu Sea, the Fremantle Bay, the Bay of Bengal, the Penang Bay, and the Strait of Malacca. Results indicated that the tritium concentration in surface seawater was highest at the Fremantle Bay (approximately 0.40 Bq/liter), which could be accredited to the mixing of runoff of freshwater from nearby lands due to large amounts found in coastal waters. Typically, lower concentrations were found between 35 and 45 degrees south latitude and near the equator. Results also indicated that (in general) tritium has decreased over the years (up to 1997) due to the physical decay of bomb tritium in the Indian Ocean. As for water vapor, the tritium concentration was approximately one order of magnitude greater than surface seawater concentrations (ranging from 0.46 to 1.15 Bq/liter). Therefore, the water vapor tritium is not affected by the surface seawater concentration; thus, the high tritium concentrations in the vapor were concluded to be a direct consequence of the downward movement of natural tritium from the stratosphere to the troposphere (therefore, the ocean air showed a dependence on latitudinal change).
In the North Pacific Ocean, the tritium (introduced as bomb tritium in the Northern Hemisphere) spread in three dimensions. There were subsurface maxima in the middle and low latitude regions, which is indicative of lateral mixing (advection) and diffusion processes along lines of constant potential density (isopycnals) in the upper ocean. Some of these maxima even correlate well with salinity extrema. In order to obtain the structure for ocean circulation, the tritium concentrations were mapped on 3 surfaces of constant potential density (23.90, 26.02, and 26.81). Results indicated that the tritium was well-mixed (at 6 to 7 TU) on the 26.81 isopycnal in the subarctic cyclonic gyre and there appeared to be a slow exchange of tritium (relative to shallower isopycnals) between this gyre and the anticyclonic gyre to the south; also, the tritium on the 23.90 and 26.02 surfaces appeared to be exchanged at a slower rate between the central gyre of the North Pacific and the equatorial regions.
The depth penetration of bomb tritium can be separated into 3 distinct layers. Layer 1 is the shallowest layer and includes the deepest, ventilated layer in winter; it has received tritium via radioactive fallout and lost some due to advection and/or vertical diffusion and contains approximately 28% of the total amount of tritium. Layer 2 is below the first layer but above the 26.81 isopycnal and is no longer part of the mixed layer. Its 2 sources are diffusion downward from the mixed layer and lateral expansions outcropping strata (poleward); it contains about 58% of the total tritium. Layer 3 is representative of waters that are deeper than the outcrop isopycnal and can only receive tritium via vertical diffusion; it contains the remaining 14% of the total tritium.
The impacts of the nuclear fallout were felt in the United States throughout the Mississippi River System. Tritium concentrations can be used to understand the residence times of continental hydrologic systems (as opposed to the usual oceanic hydrologic systems) which include surface waters such as lakes, streams, and rivers. Studying these systems can also provide societies and municipals with information for agricultural purposes and overall river water quality.
In a 2004 study, several rivers were taken into account during the examination of tritium concentrations (starting in the 1960s) throughout the Mississippi River Basin: Ohio River (largest input to the Mississippi River flow), Missouri River, and Arkansas River. The largest tritium concentrations were found in 1963 at all the sampled locations throughout these rivers and correlate well with the peak concentrations in precipitation due to the nuclear bomb tests in 1962. The overall highest concentrations occurred in the Missouri River (1963) and were greater than 1,200 TU while the lowest concentrations were found in the Arkansas River (never greater than 850 TU and less than 10 TU in the mid-1980s).
Several processes can be identified using the tritium data from the rivers: direct runoff and outflow of water from groundwater reservoirs. Using these processes, it becomes possible to model the response of the river basins to the transient tritium tracer. Two of the most common models are the following:
Unfortunately, both models fail to reproduce the tritium in river waters; thus, a two-member mixing model was developed that consists of 2 components: a prompt-flow component (recent precipitation – "piston") and a component where waters reside in the basin for longer than 1 year ("well-mixed reservoir"). Therefore, the basin tritium concentration becomes a function of the residence times within the basin, sinks (radioactive decay) or sources of tritium, and the input function.
For the Ohio River, the tritium data indicated that about 40% of the flow was composed of precipitation with residence times of less than 1 year (in the Ohio basin) and older waters consisted of residence times of about 10 years. Thus, the short residence times (less than 1 year) corresponded to the "prompt-flow" component of the two-member mixing model. As for the Missouri River, results indicated that residence times were approximately 4 years with the prompt-flow component being around 10% (these results are due to the series of dams in the area of the Missouri River).
As for the mass flux of tritium through the main stem of the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, data indicated that approximately 780 grams of tritium has flowed out of the River and into the Gulf between 1961 and 1997, an average of 7.7 PBq/yr. And current fluxes through the Mississippi River are about 1 to 2 grams per year as opposed to the pre-bomb period fluxes of roughly 0.4 grams per year. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31306 |
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician, attorney, cybersecurity consultant and public speaker who acts as an attorney to President Donald Trump. Politically first a Democrat, then an Independent in the 1970s, and a Republican since the 1980s, Giuliani served as United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983. That year he became the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, holding the position until 1989. He served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
When Giuliani took office as Mayor of New York City, he appointed a new police commissioner, William Bratton, who applied the broken windows theory of urban decay, which holds that minor disorders and violations create a permissive atmosphere which leads to further and more serious crimes which can threaten the safety of a city; to prevent major crime, the theory holds, the police should enforce seemingly minor "quality-of-life" laws such as those outlawing public drinking, littering, and jay-walking. Within several years, Giuliani was widely credited for making major improvements in the city's quality of life and lowering the rate of violent crimes. While Giuliani was still Mayor, he ran for the United States Senate in 2000; however, he withdrew from the race upon learning of his prostate cancer diagnosis. Giuliani was named "Time" Person of the Year for 2001, and was given an honorary knighthood in 2002 by Queen Elizabeth II for his leadership in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
In 2002, Giuliani founded Giuliani Partners (consulting), acquired and later sold Giuliani Capital Advisors (investment banking), and joined a Texas firm while opening a Manhattan office for the firm renamed Bracewell & Giuliani (legal services). Giuliani sought the Republican Party's 2008 presidential nomination, and was considered the early front runner in the race, before withdrawing from the race to endorse the eventual nominee, John McCain. Giuliani was considered a potential candidate for New York Governor in 2010 and for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Both times, he declined to run, and instead remained in the business sector.
In April 2018, Giuliani became one of President Trump's personal lawyers. Since then, he has frequently appeared in the media in defense of Trump. In late 2019, multiple sources reported that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which Giuliani had once led, was investigating him for allegedly committing multiple felonies relating to his activities in Ukraine.
Giuliani was born in an Italian-American enclave in East Flatbush in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents, Harold Angelo Giuliani (1908–1981) and Helen Giuliani (née D'Avanzo; 1909–2002), both children of Italian immigrants. Giuliani is of Tuscan origins from his father side, as his paternal grandparents (Rodolfo and Evangelina Giuliani) were born in Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy. He was raised a Roman Catholic. Harold Giuliani, a plumber and a bartender, had trouble holding a job, and was convicted of felony assault and robbery, serving time in Sing Sing. After his release he worked as an enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who ran an organized crime operation involved in loan sharking and gambling at a restaurant in Brooklyn. The family lived in East Flatbush, Brooklyn until Harold died of prostate cancer in 1981, after which Helen moved to Manhattan's Upper East Side.
When Giuliani was seven years old in 1951, his family moved from Brooklyn to Garden City South, where he attended the local Catholic school, St. Anne's. Later, he commuted back to Brooklyn to attend Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, graduating in 1961.
Giuliani attended Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx, where he majored in political science with a minor in philosophy and considered becoming a priest.
Giuliani was elected president of his class in his sophomore year, but was not re-elected in his junior year. He joined the Phi Rho Pi fraternity. He graduated in 1965. Giuliani decided to forgo the priesthood and instead attended the New York University School of Law in Manhattan, where he made the NYU Law Review and graduated "cum laude" with a Juris Doctor degree in 1968.
Giuliani started his political life as a Democrat. He volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968. He also worked as a Democratic Party committeeman on Long Island in the mid-1960s and voted for George McGovern for president in 1972.
Upon graduation, Giuliani clerked for Judge Lloyd Francis MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.
Giuliani did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War. His conscription was deferred while he was enrolled at Manhattan College and NYU Law. Upon graduation from the latter in 1968, he was classified 1-A (available for military service), but in 1969 he was reclassified 2-A (essential civilian) as Judge MacMahon's law clerk. In 1970, Giuliani received a high draft lottery number; he was not called up for service although by then he had been reclassified 1-A.
In 1975, Giuliani switched his party registration from Democratic to Independent as he was recruited to Washington, D.C. during the Ford administration, where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Harold "Ace" Tyler. His first high-profile prosecution was of Democratic U.S. Representative Bertram L. Podell (NY-13), who was convicted of corruption. From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter administration, Giuliani practiced law at the Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler law firm, as chief of staff to his previous DC boss, Ace Tyler. Tyler later became critical of Giuliani's turn as a prosecutor, calling his tactics "overkill".
On December 8, 1980, one month after the election of Ronald Reagan brought Republicans back to power in Washington, he switched his party affiliation from Independent to Republican. Giuliani later said the switches were because he found Democratic policies "naïve", and that "by the time I moved to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me." Others suggested that the switches were made in order to get positions in the Justice Department. Giuliani's mother maintained in 1988 that:
In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General in the Reagan administration, the third-highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised the U.S. Attorney Offices' federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the United States Marshals Service. In a well-publicized 1982 case, Giuliani testified in defense of the federal government's "detention posture" regarding the internment of more than 2,000 Haitian asylum seekers who had entered the country illegally. The U.S. government disputed the assertion that most of the detainees had fled their country due to political persecution, alleging instead that they were "economic migrants". In defense of the government's position, Giuliani testified that "political repression, at least in general, does not exist" under President of Haiti Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime.
In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which was technically a demotion but was sought by Giuliani because of his desire to personally litigate cases. It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, resulting in the convictions of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken. He also focused on prosecuting drug dealers, organized crime, and corruption in government. He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions and 25 reversals. As a federal prosecutor, Giuliani was credited with bringing the perp walk, parading of suspects in front of the previously alerted media, into common use as a prosecutorial tool. After Giuliani "patented the perp walk", the tool was used by increasing numbers of prosecutors nationwide.
Giuliani's critics claimed that he arranged for people to be arrested, then dropped charges for lack of evidence on high-profile cases rather than going to trial. In a few cases, his arrests of alleged white-collar criminals at their workplaces with charges later dropped or lessened, sparked controversy, and damaged the reputations of the alleged "perps". He claimed veteran stock trader Richard Wigton, of Kidder, Peabody & Co., was guilty of insider trading; in February 1987 he had officers handcuff Wigton and march him through the company's trading floor, with Wigton in tears. Giuliani had his agents arrest Tim Tabor, a young arbitrageur and former colleague of Wigton, so late that he had to stay overnight in jail before posting bond.
Within three months, charges were dropped against both Wigton and Tabor; Giuliani said, "We're not going to go to trial. We're just the tip of the iceberg," but no further charges were forthcoming and the investigation did not end until Giuliani's successor was in place. Giuliani's high-profile raid of the Princeton/Newport firm ended with the defendants having their cases overturned on appeal on the grounds that what they had been convicted of were not crimes.
In the Mafia Commission Trial, which ran from February 25, 1985, through November 19, 1986, Giuliani indicted 11 organized crime figures, including the heads of New York's so-called "Five Families", under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) on charges including extortion, labor racketeering, and murder for hire. "Time" magazine called this "Case of Cases" possibly "the most significant assault on the infrastructure of organized crime since the high command of the Chicago Mafia was swept away in 1943", and quoted Giuliani's stated intention: "Our approach is to wipe out the five families." Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano evaded conviction when he and his underboss, Thomas Bilotti, were murdered on the streets of Midtown Manhattan on December 16, 1985. However, three heads of the Five Families were sentenced to 100 years in prison on January 13, 1987. Genovese and Colombo leaders, Tony Salerno and Carmine Persico received additional sentences in separate trials, with 70-year and 39-year sentences to run consecutively. He was assisted by three Assistant United States Attorneys: Michael Chertoff, the eventual second United States Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act; John Savarese, now a partner at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz; and Gil Childers, a later deputy chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of New York and now managing director in the legal department at Goldman Sachs.
According to an FBI memo revealed in 2007, leaders of the Five Families voted in late 1986 on whether to issue a contract for Giuliani's death. Heads of the Lucchese, Bonanno, and Genovese families rejected the idea, though Colombo and Gambino leaders, Carmine Persico and John Gotti, encouraged assassination. In 2014, it was revealed by a former Sicilian Mafia member and informant, Rosario Naimo, that Salvatore Riina, a notorious Sicilian Mafia leader, had ordered a murder contract on Giuliani during the mid-1980s. Riina allegedly was suspicious of Giuliani's efforts prosecuting the American Mafia and was worried that he might have spoken with Italian anti-mafia prosecutors and politicians, including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were both murdered in 1992 in separate car bombings. According to Giuliani, the Sicilian Mafia offered $800,000 for his death during his first year as mayor of New York in 1994.
Ivan Boesky was a Wall Street arbitrageur who had amassed a fortune of about $200 million by betting on corporate takeovers. He was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for making investments based on tips received from corporate insiders. These stock and options acquisitions were sometimes brazen, with massive purchases occurring only a few days before a corporation announced a takeover. Although insider trading of this kind was illegal, laws prohibiting it were rarely enforced until Boesky was prosecuted. Boesky cooperated with the SEC and informed on several others, including junk bond trader Michael Milken. Per agreement with Giuliani, Boesky received a -year prison sentence along with a $100 million fine. In 1989, Giuliani charged Milken under the RICO Act with 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. In a highly publicized case, Milken was indicted by a grand jury on these charges.
Giuliani was U.S. Attorney until January 1989, resigning as the Reagan administration ended. He garnered criticism until he left office for his handling of cases, and was accused of prosecuting cases to further his political ambitions. He joined the law firm White & Case in New York City as a partner. He remained with White & Case until May 1990, when he joined the law firm Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky, also in New York City.
Giuliani first ran for New York City mayor in 1989, when he attempted to unseat three-term incumbent Ed Koch. He won the September 1989 Republican Party primary election against business magnate Ronald Lauder, in a campaign marked by claims that Giuliani was not a true Republican and by an acrimonious debate. In the Democratic primary, Koch was upset by Manhattan Borough president David Dinkins.
In the general election, Giuliani ran as the fusion candidate of both the Republican and the Liberal Parties. The Conservative Party, which had often co-lined the Republican party candidate, withheld support from Giuliani and ran Lauder instead. Conservative Party leaders were unhappy with Giuliani on ideological grounds. They cited the Liberal Party's endorsement statement that Giuliani "agreed with the Liberal Party's views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer and tuition tax credits".
During two televised debates, Giuliani framed himself as an agent of change, saying, "I'm the reformer," that "If we keep going merrily along, this city's going down," and that electing Dinkins would represent "more of the same, more of the rotten politics that have been dragging us down." Giuliani pointed out that Dinkins had not filed a tax return for many years and of several other ethical missteps, in particular a stock transfer to his son. Dinkins filed several years of returns and said the tax matter had been fully paid off. He denied other wrongdoing, saying "what we need is a mayor, not a prosecutor," and that Giuliani refused to say "the R-word—he doesn't like to admit he's a Republican." Dinkins won the endorsements of three of the four daily New York newspapers, while Giuliani won approval from the "New York Post".
In the end, Giuliani lost to Dinkins by a margin of 47,080 votes out of 1,899,845 votes cast, in the closest election in New York City's history. The closeness of the race was particularly noteworthy considering the small percentage of New York City residents who are registered Republicans and resulted in Giuliani being the presumptive nominee for a re-match with Dinkins at the next election.
Four years after he was beaten by Dinkins, Giuliani again ran for mayor. Once again, Giuliani also ran on the Liberal Party line but not the Conservative Party line, which ran activist George Marlin. The city was suffering from a spike in unemployment associated with the nationwide recession, with local unemployment rates going from 6.7% in 1989 to 11.1% in 1992, although crime rates had already begun to decline under Dinkins.
Giuliani promised to focus the police department on shutting down petty crimes and nuisances as a way of restoring the quality of life:
Dinkins and Giuliani never debated during the campaign, because they were never able to agree on how to approach a debate. Dinkins was endorsed by "The New York Times" and "Newsday", while Giuliani was endorsed by the "New York Post" and, in a key switch from 1989, the "Daily News". Giuliani went to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, seeking his blessing and endorsement.
Giuliani won by a margin of 53,367 votes. He became the first Republican elected Mayor of New York City since John Lindsay in 1965.
Giuliani's opponent in 1997 was Democratic Manhattan Borough president Ruth Messinger, who had beaten Al Sharpton in the September 9, 1997 Democratic primary. In the general election, Giuliani once again had the Liberal Party and not the Conservative Party listing. Giuliani ran an aggressive campaign, parlaying his image as a tough leader who had cleaned up the city. Giuliani's popularity was at its highest point to date, with a late October 1997 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll showing him as having a 68 percent approval rating; 70 percent of New Yorkers were satisfied with life in the city and 64 percent said things were better in the city compared to four years previously.
Throughout the campaign he was well ahead in the polls and had a strong fund-raising advantage over Messinger. On her part, Messinger lost the support of several usually Democratic constituencies, including gay organizations and large labor unions. The local daily newspapers—"The New York Times", "Daily News", "New York Post" and "Newsday"—all endorsed Giuliani over Messinger.
In the end, Giuliani won 58% of the vote to Messinger's 41%, and became the first registered Republican to win a second term as mayor while on the Republican line since Fiorello H. La Guardia in 1941. Voter turnout was the lowest in 12 years, with 38% of registered voters casting ballots. The margin of victory included gains in his share of the African American vote (20% compared to 1993's 5%) and the Hispanic vote (43% from 37%) while maintaining his base of white ethnic, Catholic and Jewish voters from 1993.
Giuliani served as mayor of New York City from 1994 through 2001.
In Giuliani's first term as mayor, the New York City Police Department—at the instigation of Commissioner Bill Bratton—adopted an aggressive enforcement/deterrent strategy based on James Q. Wilson's "Broken Windows" approach. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as graffiti, turnstile jumping, cannabis possession, and aggressive panhandling by "squeegee men", on the theory that this would send a message that order would be maintained. The legal underpinning for removing the "squeegee men" from the streets was developed under Giuliani's predecessor, Mayor David Dinkins. Bratton, with Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple, also created and instituted CompStat, a computer-driven comparative statistical approach to mapping crime geographically and in terms of emerging criminal patterns, as well as charting officer performance by quantifying criminal apprehensions. Critics of the system assert that it creates an environment in which police officials are encouraged to underreport or otherwise manipulate crime data. An extensive study found a high correlation between crime rates reported by the police through CompStat and rates of crime available from other sources, suggesting there had been no manipulation. The CompStat initiative won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from the Kennedy School of Government.
During Giuliani's administration, crime rates dropped in New York City. The extent to which Giuliani deserves the credit is disputed. Crime rates in New York City had started to drop in 1991 under previous mayor David Dinkins, three years before Giuliani took office. The rates of most crimes, including all categories of violent crime, made consecutive declines during the last 36 months of Dinkins's four-year term, ending a 30-year upward spiral. A small nationwide drop in crime preceded Giuliani's election, and some critics say he may have been the beneficiary of a trend already in progress. Additional contributing factors to the overall decline in New York City crime during the 1990s were the addition of 7,000 officers to the NYPD, lobbied for and hired by the Dinkins administration, and an overall improvement in the national economy. Changing demographics were a key factor contributing to crime rate reductions, which were similar across the country during this time. Because the crime index is based on that of the FBI, which is self-reported by police departments, some have alleged that crimes were shifted into categories the FBI doesn't collect.
Giuliani's supporters cite studies concluding that the decline in New York City's crime rate in the 1990s and 2000s exceeds all national figures and therefore should be linked with a local dynamic that was not present as such anywhere else in the country: what University of California, Berkeley sociologist Frank Zimring calls "the most focused form of policing in history". In his book "The Great American Crime Decline", Zimring argues that "up to half of New York's crime drop in the 1990s, and virtually 100 percent of its continuing crime decline since 2000, has resulted from policing."
Bratton was featured on the cover of "Time Magazine" in 1996. Giuliani reportedly forced Bratton out after two years, in what was seen as a battle of two large egos in which Giuliani was not tolerant of Bratton's celebrity. Bratton went on to become chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. Giuliani's term also saw allegations of civil rights abuses and other police misconduct under other commissioners after Bratton's departure. There were police shootings of unarmed suspects, and the scandals surrounding the torture of Abner Louima and the killings of Amadou Diallo, Gidone Busch and Patrick Dorismond. Giuliani supported the New York City Police Department, for example by releasing what he called Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public, including a sealed juvenile file.
The Giuliani administration advocated the privatization of failing public schools and increasing school choice through a voucher-based system. Giuliani supported protection for illegal immigrants. He continued a policy of preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and Naturalization Service about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal aliens should be able to take actions such as sending their children to school or reporting crimes to the police without fear of deportation.
During his mayoralty, gay and lesbian New Yorkers received domestic partnership rights. Giuliani induced the city's Democratic-controlled New York City Council, which had avoided the issue for years, to pass legislation providing broad protection for same-sex partners. In 1998, he codified local law by granting all city employees equal benefits for their domestic partners.
Several of Giuliani's appointees to head City agencies became defendants in criminal proceedings.
In 2000, Giuliani appointed 34-year-old Russell Harding, the son of Liberal Party of New York leader and longtime Giuliani mentor Raymond Harding, to head the New York City Housing Development Corporation, although Harding had neither a college degree nor relevant experience. In 2005, Harding pleaded guilty to defrauding the Housing Development Corporation and to possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Russell Harding committed suicide in 2012.
In a related matter, Richard Roberts, appointed by Giuliani as Housing Commissioner and as chairman of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, pleaded guilty to perjury after lying to a grand jury about a car Harding had bought for him with City funds.
Giuliani was a longtime backer of Bernard Kerik, who started out as an NYPD detective driving for Giuliani's campaign. Giuliani appointed him as the Commissioner of the Department of Correction and then as the Police Commissioner. Giuliani was also the godfather to Kerik's two youngest children. After Giuliani left office, Kerik was subject to state and federal investigations resulting in his pleading guilty in 2006, in a Bronx Supreme Court, to two unrelated ethics violations. Kerik was ordered to pay $221,000 in fines. Kerik then pleaded guilty in 2009, in a New York district court, to eight federal charges, including tax fraud and false statements, and on February 18, 2010, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison. Giuliani was not implicated in any of the proceedings.
Due to term limits, Giuliani could not run in 2001 for a third term as mayor. In November 1998, four-term incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement and Giuliani immediately indicated an interest in running in the 2000 election for the now-open seat. Due to his high profile and visibility Giuliani was supported by the state Republican Party. Giuliani's entrance led Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel and others to recruit then-U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton to run for Moynihan's seat, hoping she might combat his star power.
An early January 1999 poll showed Giuliani trailing Clinton by 10 points. In April 1999, Giuliani formed an exploratory committee in connection with the Senate run. By January 2000, Giuliani had reversed the polls situation, pulling nine points ahead after taking advantage of several campaign stumbles by Clinton. Nevertheless, the Giuliani campaign was showing some structural weaknesses; so closely identified with New York City, he had somewhat limited appeal to normally Republican voters in Upstate New York. The New York Police Department's fatal shooting of Patrick Dorismond in March 2000 inflamed Giuliani's already strained relations with the city's minority communities, and Clinton seized on it as a major campaign issue. By April 2000, reports showed Clinton gaining upstate and generally outworking Giuliani, who said his duties as mayor prevented him from campaigning more. Clinton was now eight to ten points ahead of Giuliani in the polls.
Then followed four tumultuous weeks in which Giuliani learned he had prostate cancer and needed treatment; his extramarital relationship with Judith Nathan became public and the subject of a media frenzy; he announced a separation from his wife Donna Hanover and, after much indecision, on May 19 announced his withdrawal from the Senate race.
Giuliani was prominent in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. He made frequent appearances on radio and television on September 11 and afterwards—for example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air was a factor in the attack. In his public statements, Giuliani said:
The 9/11 attacks occurred on the scheduled date of the mayoral primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates to succeed Giuliani. The primary was immediately delayed two weeks to September 25. During this period, Giuliani sought an unprecedented three-month emergency extension of his term from January1 to April1 under the New York State Constitution (Article3 Section 25). He threatened to challenge the law imposing term limits on elected city officials and run for another full four-year term, if the primary candidates did not consent to the extension of his mayoralty. In the end leaders in the State Assembly and Senate indicated that they did not believe the extension was necessary. The election proceeded as scheduled, and the winning candidate, the Giuliani-endorsed Republican convert Michael Bloomberg, took office on January 1, 2002 per normal custom.
Giuliani claimed to have been at the Ground Zero site "as often, if not more, than most workers... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them." Some 9/11 workers have objected to those claims. While his appointment logs were unavailable for the six days immediately following the attacks, Giuliani logged 29 hours at the site over three months beginning September 17. This contrasted with recovery workers at the site who spent this much time at the site in two to three days.
When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal suggested the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause," Giuliani asserted, "There is no moral equivalent for this act. There is no justification for it... And one of the reasons I think this happened is because people were engaged in moral equivalency in not understanding the difference between liberal democracies like the United States, like Israel, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism. So I think not only are those statements wrong, they're part of the problem." Giuliani subsequently rejected the prince's $10 million donation to disaster relief in the aftermath of the attack.
Giuliani has been widely criticized for his decision to locate the Office of Emergency Management headquarters on the 23rd floor inside the 7World Trade Center building. Those opposing the decision perceived the office as a target for a terrorist attack in light of the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993. The office was unable to coordinate efforts between police and firefighters properly while evacuating its headquarters. Large tanks of diesel fuel were placed in 7World Trade to power the command center. In May 1997, Giuliani put responsibility for selecting the location on Jerome M. Hauer, who had served under Giuliani from 1996 to 2000 before being appointed by him as New York City's first Director of Emergency Management. Hauer has taken exception to that account in interviews and provided Fox News and "New York Magazine" with a memo demonstrating that he recommended a location in Brooklyn but was overruled by Giuliani. Television journalist Chris Wallace interviewed Giuliani on May 13, 2007, about his 1997 decision to locate the command center at the World Trade Center. Giuliani laughed during Wallace's questions and said that Hauer recommended the World Trade Center site and claimed that Hauer said the WTC site was the best location. Wallace presented Giuliani a photocopy of Hauer's directive letter. The letter urged Giuliani to locate the command center in Brooklyn, instead of lower Manhattan. The February 1996 memo read, "The [Brooklyn] building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan."
In January 2008, an eight-page memo was revealed which detailed the New York City Police Department's opposition in 1998 to location of the city's emergency command center at the Trade Center site. The Giuliani administration overrode these concerns.
The 9/11 Commission Report noted that lack of preparedness could have led to the deaths of first responders at the scene of the attacks. The Commission noted that the radios in use by the fire department were the same radios which had been criticized for their ineffectiveness following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Family members of 9/11 victims have said these radios were a complaint of emergency services responders for years. The radios were not working when Fire Department chiefs ordered the 343 firefighters inside the towers to evacuate, and they remained in the towers as the towers collapsed. However, when Giuliani testified before the 9/11 Commission he said the firefighters ignored the evacuation order out of an effort to save lives. Giuliani testified to the Commission, where some family members of responders who had died in the attacks appeared to protest his statements. A 1994 mayoral office study of the radios indicated that they were faulty. Replacement radios were purchased in a $33 million no-bid contract with Motorola, and implemented in early 2001. However, the radios were recalled in March 2001 after a probationary firefighter's calls for help at a house fire could not be picked up by others at the scene, leaving firemen with the old analog radios from 1993. A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission", argued that the Commission had not pursued a tough enough line of questioning with Giuliani.
An October 2001 study by the National Institute of Environmental Safety and Health said cleanup workers lacked adequate protective gear.
Giuliani gained international attention in the wake of the attacks and was widely hailed for his leadership role during the crisis. Polls taken just six weeks after the attack showed a 79 percent approval rating among New York City voters. This was a dramatic increase over the 36 percent rating he had received a year earlier, which was an average at the end of a two-term mayorship. Oprah Winfrey called him "America's Mayor" at a 9/11 memorial service held at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2001. Other voices denied it was the mayor who had pulled the city together. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us together and our decency brought us together. We would have come together if Bozo was the mayor," said civil rights activist Al Sharpton, in a statement largely supported by Fernando Ferrer, one of three main candidates for the mayoralty at the end of 2001. "He was a power-hungry person," Sharpton also said.
Giuliani was praised by some for his close involvement with the rescue and recovery efforts, but others argue that "Giuliani has exaggerated the role he played after the terrorist attacks, casting himself as a hero for political gain." Giuliani has collected $11.4 million from speaking fees in a single year (with increased demand after the attacks). Before September 11, Giuliani's assets were estimated to be somewhat less than $2 million, but his net worth could now be as high as 30 times that amount. He has made most of his money since leaving office.
On December 24, 2001, "Time" magazine named Giuliani its Person of the Year for 2001. "Time" observed that, before 9/11, Giuliani's public image had been that of a rigid, self-righteous, ambitious politician. After 9/11, and perhaps owing also to his bout with prostate cancer, his public image became that of a man who could be counted on to unite a city in the midst of its greatest crisis. Historian Vincent J. Cannato concluded in September 2006:
For his leadership on and after September 11, Giuliani was given an honorary knighthood (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II on February 13, 2002.
Giuliani initially downplayed the health effects arising from the September 11 attacks in the Financial District and lower Manhattan areas in the vicinity of the World Trade Center site. He moved quickly to reopen Wall Street, and it was reopened on September 17. In the first month after the attacks, he said "The air quality is safe and acceptable."
Giuliani took control away from agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, leaving the "largely unknown" city Department of Design and Construction in charge of recovery and cleanup. Documents indicate that the Giuliani administration never enforced federal requirements requiring the wearing of respirators. Concurrently, the administration threatened companies with dismissal if cleanup work slowed. In June 2007, Christie Todd Whitman, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reportedly said the EPA had pushed for workers at the WTC site to wear respirators but she had been blocked by Giuliani. She said she believed the subsequent lung disease and deaths suffered by WTC responders were a result of these actions. However, former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, then with the Giuliani campaign, replied, "All workers at Ground Zero were instructed repeatedly to wear their respirators."
Giuliani asked the city's Congressional delegation to limit the city's liability for Ground Zero illnesses to a total of $350 million. Two years after Giuliani finished his term, FEMA appropriated $1 billion to a special insurance fund, called the World Trade Center Captive Insurance Company, to protect the city against 9/11 lawsuits.
In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters issued a letter asserting that Giuliani rushed to conclude the recovery effort once gold and silver had been recovered from World Trade Center vaults and thereby prevented the remains of many victims from being recovered: "Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill," it said, adding: "Hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them." Lawyers for the International Association of Fire Fighters seek to interview Giuliani under oath as part of a federal legal action alleging that New York City negligently dumped body parts and other human remains in the Fresh Kills Landfill.
Since leaving office as mayor, Giuliani has remained politically active by campaigning for Republican candidates for political offices at all levels. When George Pataki became Governor in 1995, this represented the first time the positions of both Mayor and Governor were held simultaneously by Republicans since John Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller. Giuliani and Pataki were instrumental in bringing the 2004 Republican National Convention to New York City. He was a speaker at the convention, and endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election by recalling that immediately after the World Trade Center towers fell,
Similarly, in June 2006, Giuliani started a website called Solutions America to help elect Republican candidates across the nation.
After campaigning on Bush's behalf in the U.S. presidential election of 2004, he was reportedly the top choice for Secretary of Homeland Security after Tom Ridge's resignation. When suggestions were made that Giuliani's confirmation hearings would be marred by details of his past affairs and scandals, he turned down the offer and instead recommended his friend and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. After the formal announcement of Kerik's nomination, information about Kerik's past—most notably, that he had ties to organized crime, had failed to properly report gifts he had received, had been sued for sexual harassment and had employed an undocumented alien as a domestic servant—became known, and Kerik withdrew his nomination.
On March 15, 2006, Congress formed the Iraq Study Group (ISG). This bipartisan ten-person panel, of which Giuliani was one of the members, was charged with assessing the Iraq War and making recommendations. They would eventually unanimously conclude that contrary to Bush administration assertions, "The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and called for "changes in the primary mission" that would allow "the United States to begin to move its forces out of Iraq".
On May 24, 2006, after missing all the group's meetings, including a briefing from General David Petraeus, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, Giuliani resigned from the panel, citing "previous time commitments". Giuliani's fundraising schedule had kept him from participating in the panel, a schedule which raised $11.4 million in speaking fees over 14 months, and that Giuliani had been forced to resign after being given "an ultimatum to either show up for meetings or leave the group" by group leader James Baker. Giuliani subsequently said he had started thinking about running for president, and being on the panel might give it a political spin.
Giuliani was described by "Newsweek" in January 2007 as "one of the most consistent cheerleaders for the president's handling of the war in Iraq" and as of June 2007, he remained one of the few candidates for president to unequivocally support both the basis for the invasion and the execution of the war.
Giuliani spoke in support of the removal of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK, also PMOI, MKO) from the United States State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The group was on the State Department list from 1997 until September 2012. They were placed on the list for killing six Americans in Iran during the 1970s and attempting to attack the Iranian mission to the United Nations in 1992. Giuliani, along with other former government officials and politicians Ed Rendell, R. James Woolsey, Porter Goss, Louis Freeh, Michael Mukasey, James L. Jones, Tom Ridge, and Howard Dean, were criticized for their involvement with the group. Some were subpoenaed during an inquiry about who was paying the prominent individuals' speaking fees. Giuliani and others wrote an article for the conservative publication "National Review" stating their position that the group should not be classified as a terrorist organization. They supported their position by pointing out that the United Kingdom and the European Union had already removed the group from their terrorism lists. They further assert that only the United States and Iran still listed it as a terrorist group. However, Canada did not delist the group until December 2012.
In November 2006 Giuliani announced the formation of an exploratory committee toward a run for the presidency in 2008. In February 2007 he filed a "statement of candidacy" and confirmed on the television program "Larry King Live" that he was indeed running.
Early polls showed Giuliani with one of the highest levels of name recognition and support among the Republican candidates. Throughout most of 2007 he was the leader in most nationwide opinion polling among Republicans. Senator John McCain, who ranked a close second behind the New York Mayor, had faded, and most polls showed Giuliani to have more support than any of the other declared Republican candidates, with only former Senator Fred Thompson and former Governor Mitt Romney showing greater support in some per-state Republican polls. On November 7, 2007, Giuliani's campaign received an endorsement from evangelist, Christian Broadcasting Network founder, and past presidential candidate Pat Robertson. This was viewed by political observers as a possibly key development in the race, as it gave credence that evangelicals and other social conservatives could support Giuliani despite some of his positions on social issues such as abortion and gay rights.
Giuliani's campaign hit a difficult stretch during the last two months of 2007, when Bernard Kerik, whom Giuliani had recommended for the position of Secretary of Homeland Security, was indicted on 16 counts of tax fraud and other federal charges. The media reported that when Giuliani was the mayor of New York, he billed several tens of thousands of dollars of mayoral security expenses to obscure city agencies. Those expenses were incurred while he visited Judith Nathan, with whom he was having an extramarital affair (later analysis showed the billing to likely be unrelated to hiding Nathan). Several stories were published in the press regarding clients of Giuliani Partners and Bracewell & Giuliani who were in opposition to goals of American foreign policy. Giuliani's national poll numbers began steadily slipping and his unusual strategy of focusing more on later, multi-primary big states rather than the smaller, first-voting states was seen at risk.
Despite his strategy, Giuliani competed to a substantial extent in the January 8, 2008 New Hampshire primary but finished a distant fourth with 9 percent of the vote. Similar poor results continued in other early contests, when Giuliani's staff went without pay in order to focus all efforts on the crucial late January Florida Republican primary. The shift of the electorate's focus from national security to the state of the economy also hurt Giuliani, as did the resurgence of McCain's similarly themed campaign. On January 29, 2008, Giuliani finished a distant third in the Florida result with 15 percent of the vote, trailing McCain and Romney. Facing declining polls and lost leads in the upcoming large Super Tuesday states, including that of his home New York, Giuliani withdrew from the race on January 30, endorsing McCain.
Giuliani's campaign ended up $3.6 million in arrears, and in June 2008 Giuliani sought to retire the debt by proposing to appear at Republican fundraisers during the 2008 general election, and have part of the proceeds go towards his campaign. During the 2008 Republican National Convention, Giuliani gave a prime-time speech that praised McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, while criticizing Democratic nominee Barack Obama. He cited Palin's executive experience as a mayor and governor and belittled Obama's lack of same, and his remarks were met with wild applause from the delegates. Giuliani continued to be one of McCain's most active surrogates during the remainder of McCain's eventually unsuccessful campaign.
Following the end of his presidential campaign, Giuliani's "high appearance fees dropped like a stone". He returned to work at both Giuliani Partners and Bracewell & Giuliani. Giuliani explored hosting a syndicated radio show, and was reported to be in talks with Westwood One about replacing Bill O'Reilly before that position went to Fred Thompson (another unsuccessful 2008 GOP presidential primary candidate). During the March 2009 AIG bonus payments controversy, Giuliani called for U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to step down and said the Obama administration lacked executive competence in dealing with the ongoing financial crisis.
Giuliani said his political career was not necessarily over, and did not rule out a 2010 New York gubernatorial or 2012 presidential bid. A November 2008 Siena College poll indicated that although Governor David Paterson—promoted to the office via the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal a year before—was popular among New Yorkers, he would have just a slight lead over Giuliani in a hypothetical matchup. By February 2009, after the prolonged Senate appointment process, a Siena College poll indicated that Paterson was losing popularity among New Yorkers, and showed Giuliani with a fifteen-point lead in the hypothetical contest. In January 2009, Giuliani said he would not decide on a gubernatorial run for another six to eight months, adding that he thought it would not be fair to the governor to start campaigning early while the governor tries to focus on his job. Giuliani worked to retire his presidential campaign debt, but by the end of March 2009 it was still $2.4 million in arrears, the largest such remaining amount for any of the 2008 contenders. In April 2009, Giuliani strongly opposed Paterson's announced push for same-sex marriage in New York and said it would likely cause a backlash that could put Republicans in statewide office in 2010. By late August 2009, there were still conflicting reports about whether Giuliani was likely to run.
On December 23, 2009, Giuliani announced that he would not seek any office in 2010, saying "The main reason has to do with my two enterprises: Bracewell & Giuliani and Giuliani Partners. I'm very busy in both." The decisions signaled a possible end to Giuliani's political career. During the 2010 midterm elections, Giuliani endorsed and campaigned for Bob Ehrlich and Marco Rubio.
On October 11, 2011, Giuliani announced that he was not running for president. According to Kevin Law, the Director of the Long Island Association, Giuliani believed that "As a moderate, he thought it was a pretty significant challenge. He said it's tough to be a moderate and succeed in GOP primaries," Giuliani said "If it's too late for (New Jersey Governor) Chris Christie, it's too late for me."
At a Republican fund-raising event in February 2015, Giuliani said, "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president [Obama] loves America," and "He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country." In response to criticism of the remarks, Giuliani said, "Some people thought it was racist—I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother... This isn't racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism." White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said he agreed with Giuliani "that it was a horrible thing to say", but he would leave it up to the people who heard Giuliani directly to assess whether the remarks were appropriate for the event. Although he received some support for his controversial comments, Giuliani said he also received several death threats within 48 hours.
Giuliani supported Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He gave a prime time speech during the first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention. Earlier in the day, Giuliani and former 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson appeared at an event for the pro-Trump Great America PAC. Giuliani also appeared in a Great America PAC ad entitled "Leadership". Giuliani's and Jeff Sessions's appearances were staples at Trump campaign rallies.
During the campaign, Giuliani praised Trump for his worldwide accomplishments and helping fellow New Yorkers in their time of need. He defended Trump against allegations of racism, sexual assault, and not paying any federal income taxes for as long as two decades.
In August 2016, Giuliani, while campaigning for Trump, claimed that in the "eight years before Obama" became president, "we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States." On the contrary, 9/11 happened during George W. Bush's first term. Politifact brought up four more counter-examples (the 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting, the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks, the 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting and the 2006 UNC SUV attack) to Giuliani's claim. Giuliani later said he was using "abbreviated language".
Giuliani was believed to be a likely pick for Secretary of State in the Trump administration. However, on December 9, 2016, Trump announced that Giuliani had removed his name from consideration for any Cabinet post.
On January 12, 2017, the president-elect named Giuliani his informal cybersecurity adviser. The status of this informal role for Giuliani is unclear because, in November 2018, Trump created the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), headed by Christopher Krebs as director and Matthew Travis as deputy.
In January 2017, Giuliani said he advised President Trump in matters relating to Executive Order 13769, which barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The order also suspended the admission of all refugees for 120 days.
Giuliani has drawn scrutiny over his ties to foreign nations, regarding not registering per the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
In mid April 2018, Giuliani joined Trump's legal team, which dealt with the special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Giuliani said his goal was to negotiate a swift end to the investigation.
In early May, Giuliani made public that Trump had reimbursed his personal attorney Michael Cohen $130,000 that Cohen had paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels for her agreement not to talk about her alleged affair with Trump. Cohen had earlier insisted he used his own money to pay Daniels, and he implied that he had not been reimbursed. Trump had previously said he knew nothing about the matter. Within a week, Giuliani said some of his own statements regarding this matter were "more rumor than anything else".
Later in May 2018, Giuliani, who was asked on whether the promotion of the Spygate conspiracy theory is meant to discredit the special counsel investigation, said the investigators "are giving us the material to do it. Of course, we have to do it in defending the president... it is for public opinion" on whether to "impeach or not impeach" Trump. In June 2018, Giuliani claimed that a sitting president cannot be indicted: "I don't know how you can indict while he's in office. No matter what it is... If [President Trump] shot [then-FBI director] James Comey, he'd be impeached the next day... Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him."
In June 2018, Giuliani also said Trump should not testify to the special counsel investigation because "our recollection keeps changing." In early July, Giuliani characterized that Trump had previously asked Comey to "give [then-national security adviser Michael Flynn] a break". In mid-August, Giuliani denied making this comment: "What I said was, that is what Comey is saying Trump said." On August 19 on "Meet the Press", Giuliani argued that Trump should not testify to the special counsel investigation because Trump could be "trapped into perjury" just by telling "somebody's version of the truth. Not the truth." Giuliani's argument continued: "Truth isn't truth." Giuliani later clarified that he was "referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements".
In late July, Giuliani defended Trump by saying "collusion is not a crime" and that Trump had done nothing wrong because he "didn't hack" or "pay for the hacking". He later elaborated that his comments were a "very, very familiar lawyer's argument" to "attack the legitimacy of the [special counsel] investigation". He also described and denied several supposed allegations that have never been publicly raised, regarding two earlier meetings among Trump campaign officials to set up the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting with Russian citizens. In late August, Giuliani said the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower "meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about [Hillary] Clinton."
Additionally in late July, Giuliani attacked Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen as an "incredible liar", two months after calling Cohen an "honest, honorable lawyer". In mid-August, Giuliani defended Trump by saying: "The president's an honest man."
It was reported in early September that Giuliani said the White House could and likely would prevent the special counsel investigation from making public certain information in its final report which would be covered by executive privilege. Also according to Giuliani, Trump's personal legal team is already preparing a "counter-report" to refute the potential special counsel investigation's report.
Giuliani privately urged Trump in 2017 to extradite Fethullah Gülen.
In an interview with Olivia Nuzzi in "New York" magazine, Giuliani, who is a Roman Catholic of Italian descent, said, "Don't tell me I'm anti-Semitic if I oppose [George Soros]... I'm more of a Jew than Soros is." George Soros is a Hungarian-born Jew who survived The Holocaust. The Anti-Defamation League replied, "Mr. Giuliani should apologize and retract his comments immediately unless he seeks to dog whistle to hardcore anti-Semites and white supremacists who believe this garbage."
Since at least May 2019, Giuliani has been pushing for Volodymyr Zelensky, the newly elected president of Ukraine, to investigate the oil company Burisma, whose board of directors formerly included Joe Biden's son Hunter, as well as to check if there were any irregularities in the Ukrainian investigation of Paul Manafort. He said such investigations would be beneficial to his client's defense, and that his efforts had Trump's full support. Giuliani met with Ukrainian officials to press this case in June 2019 and August 2019. In July 2019, "Buzzfeed News" reported that two Soviet-born Americans, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were acting as liaisons between Giuliani and Ukrainian government officials in this effort. Parnas and Fruman, who have extensively donated to Republican causes, have neither registered as foreign agents in the United States, nor been evaluated and approved by the State Department. Giuliani reacted: "This (report) is a pathetic effort to cover up what are enormous allegations of criminality by the Biden family." Despite the allegations, as of September 2019, there has been no evidence produced of any wrongdoing by the Bidens. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25938 |
Renaissance dance
Renaissance dances belong to the broad group of historical dances. During the Renaissance period, there was a distinction between country dances and court dances. Court dances required the dancers to be trained and were often for display and entertainment, whereas country dances could be attempted by anyone. At Court, the formal entertainment would often be followed by many hours of country dances which all present could join in. Dances described as country dances such as Chiarantana or Chiaranzana remained popular over a long period – over two centuries in the case of this dance. A Renaissance dance can be likened to a ball.
Knowledge of court dances has survived better than that of country dances as they were collected by dancing masters in manuscripts and later in printed books. The earliest surviving manuscripts that provide detailed dance instructions are from 15th century Italy. The earliest printed dance manuals come from late 16th century France and Italy. The earliest dance descriptions in England come from the Gresley manuscript, 1500, found in the Derbyshire Record Office, D77 B0x 38 pp 51–79. These have been recently published as "Cherwell Thy Wyne (Show your joy): Dances of fifteenth-century England from the Gresley manuscript". The first printed English source appeared in 1651, the first edition of Playford.
The dances in these manuals are extremely varied in nature. They range from slow, stately "processional" dances (bassadance, pavane, almain) to fast, lively dances (galliard, coranto, canario). The former, in which the dancers' feet were not raised high off the floor were styled the "dance basse" while energetic dances with leaps and lifts were called the "haute dance". Queen Elizabeth I enjoyed galliards, and "la spagnoletta" was a court favourite.
Some were choreographed, others were improvised on the spot. One dance for couples, a form of the galliard called volta, involved a rather intimate hold between the man and woman, with the woman being lifted into the air while the couple made a turn. Other dances, such as branles or bransles, were danced by many people in a circle or line.
Our knowledge of 15th-century Italian dances comes mainly from the surviving works of three Italian dance masters: Domenico da Piacenza, Antonio Cornazzano and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro. Their work deals with similar steps and dances, though some evolution can be seen. The main types of dances described are bassa danza and "balletto". These are the earliest European dances to be well-documented, as we have a reasonable knowledge of the choreographies, steps and music used.
Many groups exist that recreate historical music and dance from the Renaissance period | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25944 |
Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a representative of Deconstructivism and is the author of ‘Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan’.
He is seen by some as one of the truly significant architectural thinkers and urbanists of his generation, by others as a self-important iconoclast. In 2000, Rem Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize. In 2008, "Time" put him in their top 100 of "The World's Most Influential People".
Remment Koolhaas, usually abbreviated to Rem Koolhaas, was born on 17 November 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, to Anton Koolhaas (1912–1992) and Selinde Pietertje Roosenburg (born 1920). His father was a novelist, critic, and screenwriter. Two documentary films by Bert Haanstra for which his father wrote the scenarios were nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature, one won a Golden Bear for Short Film. His maternal grandfather, Dirk Roosenburg (1887–1962), was a modernist architect who worked for Hendrik Petrus Berlage, before opening his own practice. Rem Koolhaas has a brother, Thomas, and a sister, Annabel. His paternal cousin was the architect and urban planner Teun Koolhaas (1940–2007). The family lived consecutively in Rotterdam (until 1946), Amsterdam (1946–1952), Jakarta (1952–1955), and Amsterdam (from 1955).
His father strongly supported the Indonesian cause for autonomy from the colonial Dutch in his writing. When the war of independence was won, he was invited over to run a cultural programme for three years and the family moved to Jakarta in 1952. "It was a very important age for me," Koolhaas recalls "and I really lived as an Asian."
In 1969, Koolhaas co-wrote "The White Slave", a Dutch film noir, and later wrote an unproduced script for American soft-porn king Russ Meyer.
He was a journalist in 1963 at age 19 for the "Haagse Post" before starting studies in architecture in 1968 at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, followed, in 1972, by further studies with Oswald Mathias Ungers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, followed by studies at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City.
Koolhaas first came to public and critical attention with OMA (The Office for Metropolitan Architecture), the office he founded in 1975 together with architects Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis and (Koolhaas's wife) Madelon Vriesendorp in London. They were later joined by one of Koolhaas's students, Zaha Hadid – who would soon go on to achieve success in her own right. An early work which would mark their difference from the then dominant postmodern classicism of the late 1970s, was their contribution to the Venice Biennale of 1980, curated by Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi, titled "Presence of the Past". Each architect had to design a stage-like "frontage" to a Potemkin-type internal street; the façades by , Frank Gehry and OMA were the only ones that did not employ Post-Modern architecture motifs or historical references.
Other early critically received (yet unbuilt) projects included the Parc de la Villette, Paris (1982) and the residence for the Prime Minister of Ireland (1979), as well as the Kunsthal in Rotterdam (1992). These schemes would attempt to put into practice many of the findings Koolhaas made in his book "Delirious New York" (1978), which was written while he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, directed by Peter Eisenman.
Koolhaas's book "Delirious New York" set the pace for his career. Koolhaas analyzes the "chance-like" nature of city life: "The City is an addictive machine from which there is no escape" "Rem Koolhaas...defined the city as a collection of “red hot spots.” (Anna Klingmann). As Koolhaas himself has acknowledged, this approach had already been evident in the Japanese Metabolist Movement in the 1960s and early 1970s.
A key aspect of architecture that Koolhaas interrogates is the "Program": with the rise of modernism in the 20th century the "Program" became the key theme of architectural design. The notion of the Program involves "an act to edit function and human activities" as the pretext of architectural design: epitomised in the maxim form follows function, first popularised by architect Louis Sullivan at the beginning of the 20th century. The notion was first questioned in "Delirious New York", in his analysis of high-rise architecture in Manhattan. An early design method derived from such thinking was "cross-programming", introducing unexpected functions in room programmes, such as running tracks in skyscrapers. More recently, Koolhaas unsuccessfully proposed the inclusion of hospital units for the homeless into the Seattle Public Library project (2003).
The next controversial publication by Koolhaas was "S,M,L,XL", together with Bruce Mau, Jennifer Sigler, and Hans Werlemann (1995), a 1376-page tome combining essays, manifestos, diaries, fiction, travelogues, and meditations on the contemporary city. The layout of the massive, chaotic book influenced architectural publishing, some would say for the worse, and such books—full-colour graphics and dense texts—have since become common. Ostensibly, "S,M,L,XL" gives a record of the actual implementation of "Manhattanism" throughout the various (mostly unrealized) projects and texts OMA had generated up to that time. The part lexicon-type layout (with a marginal "dictionary" composed by Jennifer Sigler, who also edited the book) spawned a number of concepts in architectural theory, in particular "Bigness": the contention that 'old' architectural principles (composition, scale, proportion, detail) no longer apply when a building acquires Bigness. The book argues that this was demonstrated in OMA's scheme for the development of "Euralille" (1990–94), a new centre for the city of Lille in France, a city returned to prominence by its position on the new rail route from Paris to London via the Channel Tunnel. OMA sited a train station, two centres for commerce and trade, an urban park, and 'Congrexpo' (, a contemporary "Grand Palais" with a large concert hall, three auditoria and an exhibition space) with Cecil Balmond.
Koolhaas's next publications were a byproduct of his position as professor at Harvard University, in the Design school's "Project on the City"; firstly the 720-page "Mutations", followed by "The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping" (2002) and "The Great Leap Forward" (2002).
All three books published student work analysing what others would regard as "non-cities", sprawling conglomerates such as Lagos in Nigeria, west Africa, which the authors argue are highly functional despite a lack of infrastructure. The authors also examine the influence of shopping habits and the recent rapid growth of cities in China. Critics of the books have criticised Koolhaas for being cynical – as if Western capitalism and globalization demolish all cultural identity – highlighted in the notion expounded in the books that "In the end, there will be little else for us to do but shop". Perhaps such caustic cynicism can be read as a "realism" about the transformation of cultural life, where airports and even museums (due to finance problems) rely just as much on operating gift shops. It does, however, demonstrate one of the architect's characteristic devices for deflecting criticism: attack the client or subject of study after completing the work.
When it comes to transforming these observations into practice, Koolhaas mobilizes what he regards as the omnipotent forces of urbanism into unique design forms and connections organised along the lines of present-day society. Koolhaas continuously incorporates his observations of the contemporary city within his design activities: calling such a condition the ‘culture of congestion’. Again, shopping is examined for "intellectual comfort", whilst the unregulated taste and densification of Chinese cities is analysed according to "performance", a criterion involving variables with debatable credibility: density, newness, shape, size, money etc.
In 2003, "Content", a 544-page magazine-style book designed by &&& Creative and published by Koolhaas, gives an overview of the last decade of OMA projects including his designs for the Prada shops, the Seattle Public Library, a plan to save Cambridge from Harvard by rechanneling the Charles River, Lagos' future as Earth's third-biggest city, as well as interviews with Martha Stewart and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.
In 2005, Rem Koolhaas co-founded "Volume Magazine" together with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman. "Volume Magazine" – the collaborative project by Archis (Amsterdam), AMO Rotterdam and C-lab (Columbia University NY) – is a dynamic experimental think tank devoted to the process of spatial and cultural reflexivity. It goes beyond architecture’s definition of ‘making buildings’ and reaches out for global views on architecture and design, broader attitudes to social structures, and creating environments to live in. The magazine stands for a journalism which detects and anticipates, is proactive and even pre-emptive – a journalism which uncovers potentialities, rather than covering done deals.
In the late nineties, while working on the design for the new headquarters for Universal (currently Vivendi), OMA was first exposed to the full pace of change that engulfed the world of media and with it the increasing importance of the virtual domain. It led Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) to establish a new company, AMO, exclusively dedicated to research, headed by Reinier de Graaf.
Indeed, online marketing and propaganda has been a hallmark of OMA's rise in the current century. It has also led to pointed criticism, such as the recent critique by "New York Magazine" critic Justin Davidson, who found a recent Guggenheim exhibition "mildly amusing if it weren’t such terrible waste — of attention, of gallery square footage, of resources, talent, and expertise. Bored with being an architect and building things, Koolhaas lets his fingertips graze important topics, genuine insights, and actual lives. He treats them all as ironic bric-a-brac, meaningless souvenirs of his meanderings through a fragile world. How frustrating that the Guggenheim couldn’t force a little more intellectual rigor on this romp." Research projects, generally accompanied by exhibitions, have also included curating the Venice Biennale several times and producing a "critical" exhibition about the pseudo-history behind historic preservation.
Following the signing of Treaties of Nice in May 2001, which made Brussels the de facto capital of the European Union, the then President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi and the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt invited Koolhaas to discuss the necessities and requirements of a European capital.
During these talks and as an impetus for further discussion, Koolhaas and his think-tank AMO suggested the development of a visual language. This idea inspired a series of drawings and drafts, including the "Barcode". The barcode seeks to unite the flags of the EU member countries into a single, colourful symbol. In the current European flag, there is a fixed number of stars. In the barcode however, new Member States of the EU can be added without space constraints. Originally, the barcode displayed 15 EU countries. In 2004, the symbol was adapted to include the ten new Member States.
Since the time of the first drafts of the barcode it has very rarely been officially used by commercial or political institutions. During the Austrian EU Presidency 2006, it was officially used for the first time. The logo was used for the EU information campaign, but was very negatively criticized. In addition to the initial uproar caused by the Estonian flag stripes being displayed incorrectly, the proposed flag failed to achieve its main objective as a symbol. Critics pointed the lack of capability to relate the signified (the mental concept, the European Union) with the signifier (the physical image, the stripes) as the major problem, as well as the presented justification for the order in which the color stripes were displayed (as every country in the EU should be regarded as equal in importance and priority).
With his Prada projects, Koolhaas ventured into providing architecture for the fleeting world of fashion and with celebrity-studded cachet: not unlike Garnier's Opera, the central space of Koolhaas' Beverly Hills Prada store is occupied by a massive central staircase, ostensibly displaying select wares, but mainly the shoppers themselves. The notion of selling a brand rather than marketing clothes was further emphasised in the Prada store on Broadway in Manhattan, New York, which had previously been owned by the Guggenheim: the museum signs were not removed during the outfitting of the new store, as if emphasizing the premises as a cultural institution. The Broadway Prada store opened in December 2001, cost €32 million to build, and has 2,300 square meters of retail space.
Prior to his Prada project in New York, Koolhaas was behind another remodeling project on the other side of town. Koolhaas redesigned a 1929 bank and transformed it into a one-of-a-kind, 296 seat, performance space for Second Stage Theatre in Manhattan.
Probably the most costly and celebrated OMA projects of the new century were the massive Central China Television Headquarters Building in Beijing, China, and the new building for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the equivalent of the NASDAQ in China. In his design for the new CCTV headquarters in Beijing (2009), Koolhaas did not opt for the stereotypical skyscraper, often used to symbolise and landmark such government enterprises; he patented a "horizontal skyscraper" in the U.S. The building, popularly called "The Big Pants" by Beijing residents, was designed as a series of volumes which attempt to tie together the numerous departments onto the nebulous site, but also introduce routes (again, the concept of cross-programming) for the general public through the site, allowing them some degree of access to the production procedure. An unfortunate incident that highlighted the folly of the circulation scheme (no effective fire egress for people on the upper floors), was the construction fire that nearly destroyed the building and a nearby hotel in 2009.
Recently, he has changed the organization of his office to a partnership. Partners next to him are Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Jason Long, Iyad Alsaka, Victor van der Chijs and managing partner David Gianotten. The partner Ole Scheeren left OMA in March 2010 to start his own practice.Koolhaas now heads offices in Europe (OMA*AMO Rotterdam), North America (OMA*AMO Architecture PC New York) and Asia (OMA Beijing).
The head office in Rotterdam did a master plan for the White City area of London; a harbour redevelopment and contemporary art Museum in Riga, the Cordoba Congress Centre in Spain; the redevelopment of the Mercati Generali in Rome, an architectural centre, offices and housing in Copenhagen, the new head office of Rothschild Bank in London and multi-use towers in Rotterdam and The Hague. It is also working on various masterplans in the Netherlands and Belgium and shopping centres in Rotterdam and Ostrava. In addition the Rotterdam office has a number of activities in the Middle East including office and residential towers and master plans in Dubai, three master plans in Ras al-Khaimah and several public buildings in Qatar. With his Rotterdam office Koolhaas is also designing a science center for Hamburg’s HafenCity.
At the office in Manhattan Koolhaas is leading by Shohei Shigematsu is now designing an extension of Cornell University (NY), 111 First Street, a high rise residential building and hotel in Jersey City (NJ) and a high end residential tower with CAA screening room at One Madison Park in NYC.
OMA has left its imprint on many architecture students and architects who have worked at the office during their careers. Architects such as Bjarke Ingels (BIG), Jeanne Gang (Studio Gang), Amale Andraos and her husband Dan Wood (WORKac) are just some of the names of the many architects that have worked in the office.
Koolhaas was previously married to Madelon Vriesendorp, an artist who is the mother of his two children, Charlie, a photographer, and Tomas, a filmmaker. Koolhaas divorced Vriesendorp in 2012. He has known his current partner Petra Blaisse, an interior and landscape designer since 1986. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25945 |
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano ( , ; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015) and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (2016). He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.
Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, into a family of builders. His grandfather had created a masonry enterprise, which had been expanded by his father, Carlo Piano, and his father's three brothers, into the firm Fratelli Piano. The firm prospered after World War II, constructing houses and factories and selling construction materials. When his father retired the enterprise was led by Renzo's older brother, Ermanno, who studied engineering at the University of Genoa. Renzo studied architecture at the Milan Polytechnic University. He graduated in 1964 with a dissertation about modular coordination ("coordinazione modulare") supervised by Giuseppe Ciribini and began working with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters.
Piano taught at the Polytechnic University from 1965 until 1968, and expanded his horizons and technical skills by working in two large international firms, for the modernist architect Louis Kahn in Philadelphia and for the Polish engineer Zygmunt Stanlislaw Makowski in London. He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa, in 1968, with a roof of steel and reinforced polyester, and created a continuous membrane for the covering of a pavilion at the Milan Triennale in the same year. In 1970, he received his first international commission, for the Pavilion of Italian Industry for Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan. He collaborated with his brother Ermanno and the family firm, which manufactured the structure. It was lightweight and original composed of steel and reinforced polyester, and it appeared to be simultaneously artistic and industrial.
The 1970 Osaka structure was greatly admired by the British architect Richard Rogers, and in 1971 the two men decided to open their own firm, Piano and Rogers, where they worked together from 1971 to 1977. The first project of the firm was the administrative building of B&B Italia, an Italian furniture company, in Novedrate, Como, Italy. This design featured suspended container and an open bearing structure, with the conduits for heating and water on the exterior painted in bright colors (blue, red and yellow). These unusual features attracted considerable attention in the architectural world, and influenced the choice of the jurors who selected Piano and Rogers to design the Pompidou Center.
In 1971 the thirty-four-year old Piano and Richard Rogers, thirty-eight, in collaboration with the Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini, competed with the major architectural firms in the United States and Europe, and were awarded the commission for the most prestigious project in Paris, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the new French national museum of 20th century art. The award came a surprise, to the architectural world, since the two were little-known, and had no experience with museums or other major structures. "The New York Times" declared that their design "turned the architecture world upside down". More literally it turned architecture inside-out, since in the new museum, the apparent structural frame of the building and the heating and air conditioning ducts were on the exterior, painted in bright colors. The escalator, in a transparent tube, crossed the facade of the building at a diagonal. The building was an astonishing success, entirely transforming the character of a run-down commercial section near the Marais in Paris, and made Piano one of the best-known architects in the world.
The media dubbed the style of the building as "high-tech", but this was later disputed by Piano. "Beaubourg," he said, "was a joyous urban machine, a creature which might have come out of a Jules Verne novel, a sort of bizarre boat in dry dock... It is a double provocation; a challenge to academism, but also a parody of the imagery of technology of our time. To consider it as a high-tech object is a mistake."
In 1977 Piano ended his collaboration with Rogers and began a new collaboration with engineer Peter Rice, who had assisted in the design of the Pompidou Center. They established their offices in Genoa. One of their first projects was a plan for the rehabilitation of the old port of Otranto from an industrial site into a commercial and tourist attraction (1977). Their first major building was the Menil Collection, in art museum for the art collector Dominique de Menil. The chief requirements of the owner for this building was to make the maximum use of natural light in the interiors. Piano wrote, "Paradoxically, the Menil Collection, with its serenity, its calm, its discretion, is much more modern, scientifically speaking, than the Beaubourg." The Menil Collection building, with its simple gray and white cubic forms, is the stylistic opposite of the Pompidou Center. The technological innovations were not expressed on the facade, but in the high-tech but discreet systems of shutters and screens and air conditioning which allowed maximum illumination while protecting against the intense Texas heat and sunlight.
In the mid-1980s Piano and his firm took on a wide variety of projects, using the most advanced technology available, but, in contrast to the Pompidou Center, as discreetly as possible. His portable pavilion for IBM (1983–86) was an example; designed with Peter Rice, it a lightweight portable tunnel for expositions. It composed of a series of pyramids of polycarbonate supported by a wooden frame, and could be transported in a truck. It was designed to integrate the scenery outside into displays in the interior. He designed a two major reconstruction projects in northern Italy; the reanimation of the old port of his native city, Genoa, and the conversion and modernization of the gigantic and historic Fiat factory in Turin, Italy. For the Fiat Lingotto factory, he preserved the enormous main structure, including its famous oval test track for automobiles on the roof, but added new structures, including a concert hall beneath the building, a heliport, and a glass domed conference center on the roof. He continued his modifications and additions over two decades; without destroying the historic core of the building. The most recent was a museum for the art collection of the Fiat head Giovanni Agnelli in an elegant glass and steel box perched on the roof, as if it were about to take off; it was nicknamed the "Flying bank vault".
Piano also carried out a large program for revitalization of the old port of Genoa to transform it from a rundown industrial area into a cultural center and tourist attraction. He prolonged streets to give access to the port, transformed old port buildings into cultural and commercial buildings, added a library, an aquarium and an auditorium, a botanical garden in glass dome and a giant multi-armed crane, modeled after the old cranes of the port, which hoists visitors high in the air for a view of the port.
In addition, he designed the new headquarters of his firm, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (1989–91), on a series of stepped terraces hanging over the Mediterranean to the west of the city. The building is accessed by an eight-passenger funicular railway car which shuttles up and down the hillside.
"The Whale" Bercy 2 is a shopping mall with 70 stores and 36,000 m2 located in Paris Charenton, along the bankside of the river Seine and the "Périphérique" ring road.
Inaugurated on April 24, 1990, the building is only the third work of architect after the Center Pompidou. The cyclopean wooden structure, covered with 27,000 satin stainless steel tiles and pierced with oculus to let an overhead light pass, is completely innovative. Its curvature which follows the turn of a ramp on the ring road evokes a large airship, hence the nicknames "The Zeppelin" or "The Whale".
In 1988 Piano and Rice won an international competition for a new airport to be constructed on an artificial island in the port of Osaka, Japan. The main terminal he designed was extremely long (1.7 kilometers), with a very low profile, so that the controllers in the control tower could always see the aircraft on the runways. The frequent earthquakes in the Japanese islands required special building techniques; the structure is mounted on hydraulic joints which adjust to movements of the earth. The long, curving roof is covered with 82,000 panels of stainless steel, which reflect the sunlight, and is supported by arches 83 meters long, which give a feeling of openness.
The Fondation Beyeler is a private art museum in Riehen, near Basel, Switzerland, built for the art collection of Ernst Beyeler. Although it opened in the same year as the Guggenheim Bilbao of Frank Gehry, in spirit it was exactly the opposite. It was designed, at the request of the founder, to inspire tranquility, with white walls, light-colored wooden floors, and natural light. The wall separating the museum from the neighboring road constructed of porphyry stone from Patagonia. also used in different parts of the Museum.
The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Nouméa, New Caledonia (1991–98), is among the most unusual of Piano's works. A joint project between New Caledonia and the French government, it is designed to display the culture of the Kanak people. The project uses a combination of traditional and modern material; local wood, along with glass and aluminum. The complex is located on a narrow peninsula in a lagoon with prevailing winds. Piano designed a series of curved wooden screens, from 9 to 28 meters high, to protect the exposition structures, then three "villages" of structures; one for welcome and exhibitions space; one for an auditorium and media center; and one for service functions. The curving wooden pavilions, inspired in form by the local architecture, have a double wooden skin to protect against the weather, but also let in the sunlight. While it is devoted to the local culture, some of the buildings, particularly the towering reception center, with curving walls and wooden spires, are strikingly post-modern in form.
His other projects begun in the 1990s included the New Metropolis Museum in Amsterdam, which later became the science museum and technology NEMO (1992–97), placed on the edge of the harbor, and resembling the hull of an enormous ship; the Parco della Musica, a complex of music performance halls in Rome (1994–2002), Each was entirely different from the others, and in this period it was difficult to discern a specific element that or style defined his architecture, other than careful craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Potsdamer Platz is a historic square in the heart of Berlin Germany, which had been largely destroyed during World War II, and then divided by the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin. When a major reconstruction was commenced in 1990, Piano was selected to design the new buildings on five of the fifteen sites of the project, with the requirement that the buildings have roofs of copper, and facades of clear glass and materials of a baked earth color. Other architects engaged in the enormous project included Rafael Moneo, Arata Isozaki, and his former partner, Richard Rogers. The centerpiece of Piano's part of the project was the Debis building, composed of four different buildings of different sizes but in the same style. Distinctive elements include an atrium 28 meters high, and a 21-story tower whose east, south and west facades are covered with double walls of glass separated by 70 centimeters, which reduced the need for air conditioning and heating. The complex also included an IMAX movie theater, restaurant and shops. The 36-meter dome of the IMAX theater was visible from a distance and also from the street, through the clear glass of the facade. Piano wrote in "The Disobedience of the Architect" (2004) that he tried to match his architecture to the personality of a city. "The Berliners are accustomed to living outdoors, and to a certain form of conviviality." The new Potsdamer Platz was designed to capture the Berliner's "sense of gaiety, their sense of humor...Why should a city be demoralizing? The beautiful thing about a city is that it is a place of meetings and surprises."
Aurora Place in Sydney, Australia (1996–2009) is composed of two towers, an eighteen-story residential building next to a forty-one story office building with different facades but similar metal and glass sunscreens on the roofs. The lower tower was an early example of the luxury high-rise residential buildings by star architects in the center large cities which became very popular in the early 21st century. The office tower has a discreetly peculiar form; the east façade bulges out slightly from its base, reaching its maximum width at the top floors. The curved and twisted shape of east the façade echoes that of the Sydney Opera House on the harbor. The exterior glass curtain-wall extends beyond the main frame, creating an illusion that the wall is independent of the building. of its Glass shutters on the exterior can be opened for ventilation, and Piano designed an exterior skin combining glass and ceramics to regulate the intensity of the sunlight. The office building has interior winter gardens on each floor, and earth-colored ceramic tiles give a dash of color to the facade.
The Auditorium Niccolo Paganini is a concert hall constructed inside a former sugar mill in the historic center of the city of Parma, Italy. The theater has 780 seats placed on a slope for maximum visibility of the stage. Piano retained the original exterior walls of the main building, but removed the transversal interior walls and replaced them with glass walls, so the entire interior is visible from the outside, and those inside can see the park outside the theater.
The Maison Hermès in the Ginza commercial district of Tokyo is the flagship store in Japan of the French luxury brand. The building is ten stories high, with three floors underground, and includes space for expositions and for a small museum on the history of the firm. The building is highly geometrical; precisely 44.55 meters high, with a facade composed of 13,000 pieces of glass each exactly 45 by 45 centimeters. The panels of glass were made in Florence, Italy, and placed in supports made in Switzerland, for assembly in Japan. Each piece of the facade is designed to be able to move four millimeters to resist earthquakes. When illuminated a night, the building is intended to resemble a "magic lantern".
The Parco della Musica is the complex of music venues located in the Rome neighborhood which hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics. The park has three theaters, the largest with 2800 seats; when completed it was the largest symphonic concert hall in Europe. Piano acknowledged that his inspiration for the interior plan was the vineyard style seating, placed around the orchestra, of the Berlin Philharmonic by Hans Sharon. The three brick concert halls covered with what New York Times critic Sam Lubell described as "weathered armadillo-like steel shells," which looked forbidding in photographs but in person were "lovely"; and noted that the theaters "inside are heavy with wood, fabrics, and typical Piano elegance." He called the whole complex "deceptively simple but smart.".
In the first decade of the 21st century, a wave of new art museums or museum wings were built to house the collections of wealthy art patrons. Piano, who had been building art museums since 1977, was one of the most active and creative designers of these new buildings; though the requirements and the collections were often similar, he usually succeeded in giving each museum a distinct look and personality. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas, was funded with 60 million dollars by Raymond Nasher, who had made a fortune in developing shopping centers, to display his collection of modern sculpture, which includes works by Auguste Rodin, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse and Alberto Giacometti. The building is very simple in form, like his early Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and does not distract from the sculptures within; six walls of travertine marble with a glass ceiling that filters the light define five long galleries, while outside a sunken sculpture garden is placed four or five meters below the street level, away sheltered from noise giving the appearance of an overgrown archeological excavation.
The Zentrum Paul Klee near Berne, Switzerland (1999–2005), continued his series of art museums each very different from the others. It was designed in large part to protect the fragile drawings of Paul Klee from sunlight. It housed in a series galleries resembling rolling hills in the Swiss countryside. Piano explained that the shape of the galleries was inspired by naval architecture and the hulls of ships, which were adapted to the form of waves as his building was adapted to the landscape.
The original building of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, designed by Richard Meier, and inspired by the form of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City of Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in 1983. Piano's project added four new structures; a pavilion for exhibitions, a gallery for special collections, a building for offices, and a residence hall for the Atlanta College Of Art, creating 16,000 meters of additional space. Both the new building and the original building are a gleaming white. A glass bridge with two levels connects the main pavilion with the original part of the museum. The careful management of external light is a particular feature of Piano's buildings; the High Museum Extension rows of curving fan-shaped panels on the facade and on the interior ceiling with filter the sunlight. From the parvis on the outside, the white facade gives the impression that the building has no weight at all.
The extension of the Morgan Library in New York City is next to the original library, a monument of Beaux-Arts architecture designed by McKim, Meade and White (1903), which had been expanded several times. Piano extensively renovated the existing structures and a built a new building the same height as the historic building, with a simple rectangular facade that complemented it. He also added a six-meter cube as a small exhibit space, an underground auditorium with 199 seats, and a glass-walled atrium which united all the parts, old a new. The architecture critic of the "New York Times", Nicolai Ouroussoff, wrote, "the result is a space with the weight of history and the lightness of clouds...a sublime expression of the architect's preoccupation with light."
Piano's design for the New York Times Building was chosen after competition whose entrants included projects by Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Cesar Pelli. The competition rules asked for a building that be as open and transparent as possible, to symbolize the connection between the newspaper and the city. The first six floors are occupied by an atrium with restaurants, shops and a conference center. The distinctive Piano feature of the tower is the clear glass curtain wall outside the facade, and rising higher than the facade itself. The curtain is composed of clear glass and a frame of ceramic tubes suspended 61 centimeters from the facade; it serves as a sunscreen, eliminating the need for tinted or sintered glass.
In 1989, after their old museum buildings were damaged by an earthquake, the trustees of the California Academy of Sciences decided to rebuild their entire complex of twelve buildings, including an aquarium, planetarium, and a museum of Natural History, located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Piano's plan called for "a group of volumes under a single roof, a little like a village." The roof itself, 1.5 hectares in area, was covered with vegetation, and blends with the surrounding park. The facade of the building also harmonizes smoothly with the nearby turn-of-the-century greenhouse that is a landmark of the Park. Three cupolas are placed under the high roof, ceiling, lit by natural light through round portholes on their roofs; they contain the entry hall, a botanical garden, and a planetarium. Piano's design for the new building was described by the "New York Times" as a "comforting reminder of the civilizing function of great art in a barbaric age".
In 2000 the City of Chicago launched a major program of cultural buildings in Millennium Park with a new concert hall by Frank Gehry and a new wing of the beaux-arts building Art Institute of Chicago. With its construction of glass, steel and white stone, the new wing is carefully harmonized with the old structure, and, like his other art museums, makes maximum use of natural light. A horizontal sunscreen on the roof, nicknamed the "flying carpet", is a graceful update of his rooftop art museum on the Lingotto factory in Turin. He also designed a minimalist steel bridge connecting the sculpture terrace of the museum to Millennium Park. Nikolai Ouroussof, critic of the "New York Times", noted that some aspects of the building recalled the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who had made much of his career in Chicago. "The taut forms and refined details, the elevation of an industrial aesthetic to an art form all are hallmarks of Mies's work." But he noted particularly Piano's masterful control of light within the building: "...it is the light that most people will notice... The glass roof of the top-floor galleries is supported on delicate steel trusses. Rows of white blades rest on top of the trusses to filter out strong southern light; thin fabric panels soften the view from below... On a clear afternoon you can catch faint glimpses through the structural frame of clouds drifting by overhead. But most of the time the art takes center stage, everything else fading quietly into the background It is this obsessive refinement that raises Mr. Piano's best architecture to the level of art."
The Shard, built over the underground station of London Bridge, is sixty-six stories and 305 meters high, which made it, when completed in 2012, the tallest skyscraper in Europe. Inside, it contains luxury residences and a hotel, along with offices, shops, restaurants, and cultural centers. It has a wide base and a split pinnacle point which seems to disappear into the clouds, like, as Piano described it, "a bell tower of the 16th century, or the mast of great ship...Often buildings of great height are aggressive and arrogant symbols of power and egoism," but the Shard is designed "to express its sharp and light presence in the urban panorama of London." Like his other tall buildings, the glass sunscreen on the exterior extends slightly above the building itself, appearing to split apart at the top. The critical reaction to the tower was predictably mixed. Simon Jenkins of the "Guardian" of London saw it as a foreign attack on the traditional London skyline and monuments: "This tower is anarchy. It conforms to no planning policy. It marks no architectural focus or rond-point. It offers no civic forum or function, just luxury flats and hotels. It stands apart from the City cluster and pays no heed to its surrounding context in scale, materials or ground presence. It seems to have lost its way from Dubai to Canary Wharf... The Shard has slashed the face of London for ever." However, Jonathan Glancy in the London "Telegraph" defended Piano's building: "The criticism – hurled against Piano like the spears of Ancient Britons fighting the civilised Romans – is, I think, a bottled up attack on our low standards of design and the beetle-browed politics that have allowed so many poor tall buildings to have been rushed up around St Paul's. The Shard, whatever its flaws – and all its many floors – is a much better building than most of the flakes below it."
The Central Saint Giles at the extreme end of Oxford Street in London (2002–10) is a complex composed of 56 luxury apartments, 53 less-expensive apartments, and 37,000 square meters of offices grouped around a public square with shops and restaurants, covering 7000 square meters. The site was originally occupied by a Ministry of Defence building. A tower of fifteen stories holds the 109 residences, while the offices are in a larger building of eleven stories to the east. The distinctive element is color; the buildings are covered with ceramic tiles varnished green, orange, lime green, and yellow. "Cities should not be dull and repetitive", Piano declared. "One of the reason we find them so beautiful and interesting is that they are full of surprises; even the idea of color represents a joyful surprise."
Commissioned to design a "transformation" of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Piano designed a new building, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA (BCAM) (2008), with 5574 square meters of space, as well as the BP Grand Entrance, an entrance pavilion with 750 square meters of space, and the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion (2010). The BCAM facade is concrete covered with plaques of cream-colored Italian travertine, harmonizing with the older buildings of the museum complex, but added distinctive Piano touches; finlike white sun shutters on the roof softening the sunlight, a red escalator on the outside of the main facade, and a stairway suspended by red cables on the other facade, reminiscent of the Centre Pompidou. The Resnik Pavilion, to the north of the BCAM, has 4180 square metes of space, with travertine covered walls to the east and west, glass walls on the north and south, and a roof with vertical glass shutters that open to the sky. Describing this project, Piano wrote: "It's not enough that the light is perfect. You also have a need for calm, serenity, and even a quality of voluptuousness connected with the contemplation of a work of art." Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of "The New York Times", admired the interior of the BCAM but was less impressed by the exteriors: "There is little of the formal freedom that is at the heart of the city's architectural legacy; nor is there much evidence of the structural refinement that we have come to expect in Mr. Piano's best work. The museum's monumental travertine form and lipstick-red exterior stairways are a curious mix of pomposity and pop-culture references. It's an architecture without conviction."
The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Norway (2006–12) was designed to revive an old port and industrial area southwest of the center of Oslo with an art museum and offices, and to provide a destination and attraction on the edge of the picturesque fjord. The project has three buildings, two museum buildings and an office building, under a single glass roof, which covers 6000 square meters. The construction materials include both steel and wood beams. A canal and walkway connect the museum with another area under development nearby, while the museum and walkway offer views of the fjord and center of Oslo. A sculpture park with works of Anish Kapoor, Louise Bourgeois and other notable sculptors is placed between the museum and the water. The museum building on one side of the canal holds permanent exhibits, while the building on the other side is used for temporary exhibits. A bridge over the canal the two museum buildings. The construction materials include steel, glass and wooden beams, while the facades The facades that are not made of glass are covered with finely-crafted weathered panels, in the tradition of Scandinavian architecture.
The extension of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (2007–13) is an addition to the museum designed by Louis Kahn the modernist architect for whom Piano worked at the beginning of his career, completed in 1972. The building faces the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, designed by Tadao Ando (2002). The new gallery occupies 7595 square meters, compared with 11,148 square meters for the Kahn building, and cost 135 million dollars. Piano created a dramatic new entrance for the museum, with huge windows showing the bright red furniture against the alabaster white walls within. The materials used in the new museum included light-colored concrete, to harmonize with the Kahn building, combined with beams and ceilings of Douglas fir, and floors of white oak and an abundance of double-paned and fritted glass. The museum also includes modern ecological features including a vegetal roof, photovoltaic cells on the roof, geothermal wells, and LED lighting. Piano wrote: "Our building echoes the Kahn building through its height, its scale and its general plan, but our building has a character that is more transparent and more open. Light, discreet (half of the surfaces are underground), it nonetheless has its own character and creates a dialogue between the old and the new." However, the museum also attracted critics, who said it was not ambitious enough. Mark Lamster, architecture critic of the "Dallas Morning News", wrote: "With its almost impossibly smooth walls and squared columns of titanium-treated concrete, Piano's front facade evinces a clinical, stoic perfectionism... Altogether, the assembly is a minor miracle of construction. Most impressive are the beams: 100-foot-long bars of laminated Douglas fir, trucked from Canada. But for all its technical mastery, it offers none of the elemental majesty of Kahn's building across the lawn. It is deferential to a fault."
The Whitney Museum of American Art decided to move from its original building on Madison Avenue, constructed by Marcel Breuer in 1966, to a new location at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington in Manhatttan, a neighborhood once occupied by meat packing houses, next to the High Line, a riverside highway and park. The museum, with nine levels, has an asymmetric industrial look to match the architecture of the neighborhood. In addition to its interior galleries, it has 1207 square meters of open-air exhibit space on a large terrace atop one section of the building. It was built of steel, concrete, and stone, but also with pine wood and other materials recycled from demolished factories. Jule Iovine, architecture critic of the "Wall Street Journal", called it "a welcoming, creative machine" thanks to its "open, changeable spaces," and Michael Kimmelman, critic of the "New York Times", called it "an outdoor perch to see and be seen... There's a generosity to the architecture, a sense of art connecting with the city and vice versa".
Beginning in 2008, Piano rebuilt an existing structure to house the Harvard Art Museums, a consolidation of collections of the three art museums associated with Harvard University. The new museum preserved the picturesque brick Ivy-League facade of the 1925 Fogg Museum (1925), but added a new space in the courtyard, covered by a pyramidal glass roof, which increased the gallery space by 40 percent. The renovation adds six levels of galleries, classrooms, lecture halls, and new study areas providing access to parts of the 250,000-piece collection of the museums. The new building was opened in November 2014.
The 'City Gate' project in Valletta, Malta was the complete reorganization of the principal entrance to the Maltese capital of Valletta. It included a massive City Gate through the 16th-century city walls, an open-air theatre ‘machine’ within the ruins of the former Royal Opera House, and the construction of a new Parliament building. The gate project was controversial, though the old gate it replaced was only built in the 1960s, in the Italian rationalist style. The "theater machine" is particularly unusual; the original idea was that in summertime a steel portable theater with stage and wings and a thousand seats can be installed inside the ruins of the 19th century opera house, which had been destroyed in World War II. It has its own stage equipment and technology for reproducing the acoustics of a traditional opera house. When performances are not taking place, the "machine" was meant to turn back into a public square and gathering place. The Parliament House (2011–15) is a mixture of modern technique and technology with the massive stone look of the city's old walls.
The Centro Botín in Santander, Spain is a private sponsored project by the Fundación Botín whose aim is to be a hub for the promotion of culture both as a museum and as study centre. It consists on two buildings standing on columns over the sea line at the Bay of Santander. The western building hosts the exhibition space of 5,000 square meters and the eastern is the one dedicated to study which hosts an auditorium, study rooms and other installations. Both are connected by a suspended square and set of stairs and platforms named "pachinko". This was Piano's first project in Spain and had some controversy over its location. Critics describe the building as sublime and striking due to the conjunction of light, views and design that the buildings propose.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens, Greece is one of Piano's most dramatic projects. Located next to Falirio Bay at Kalithea, an ancient Greek port, four kilometers south of central Athens, on a site which served as a parking lot for the 2004 Summer Olympics, it combines the Greek National Library and a new opera house for the Greek National Opera alongside with the Stavros Niarchos Park, an urban park covering an area of 210.000 square meters. An artificial hill was created to raise the building and give it a view of the nearby sea. The opera house has a 1400-seat main theater and a smaller "black box" theater of 400 seats. On top of the opera house a square horizontal glass box is placed, called "Pharos (Lighthouse)," similar to the perch of the art museum atop the Lingotto factory in Turin. The entire structure is covered by a single flat roof, which provides shade, and which is covered with 10,000 square meters of photovoltaic cells, generating 1.5 megawatts of energy, designed to the building self-sufficient in energy during working hours. The cost of the project was 588 million dollars.
In 1998, Piano won the Pritzker Prize, often considered the Nobel Prize of architecture. The jury citation compared Piano to Michelangelo and da Vinci and credited him with "redefining modern and postmodern architecture."
In 2006, Piano was selected by "TIME" as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was chosen as the 10th most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment" category.
On 18 March 2008, he became an honorary citizen of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In August 2013, he was appointed Senator for Life in the Italian Senate by President Giorgio Napolitano.
Piano founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) in 1981. In 2017 it had 150 collaborators in offices in Paris, Genoa, and New York.
In 2004, he became head of the Renzo Piano Foundation, dedicated to the promotion of the architectural profession. Since June 2008, the headquarters has been co-located with his architectural office at Punta Nave, near Genoa.
After his nomination as Senator for life in 2013, Renzo Piano set up a team of young architects called G124 whose mission is to work on transformation of Italy's major cities suburbs. Team members are paid with Renzo Piano senator's salary and change every year through a public selection. Projects have been developed in Turin, Milan, Padua, Venice and Rome.
Piano resides in Paris with his second wife Milly and four children, Carlo, Matteo, Lia - from his first wife - and Giorgio. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25946 |
Refraction
In physics, refraction is the change in direction of a wave passing from one medium to another or from a gradual change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomenon, but other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction. How much a wave is refracted is determined by the change in wave speed and the initial direction of wave propagation relative to the direction of change in speed.
For light, refraction follows Snell's law, which states that, for a given pair of media, the ratio of the sines of the angle of incidence "θ1" and angle of refraction "θ2" is equal to the ratio of phase velocities ("v"1 / "v"2) in the two media, or equivalently, to the indices of refraction ("n"2 / "n"1) of the two media.
Optical prisms and lenses use refraction to redirect light, as does the human eye. The refractive index of materials varies with the wavelength of light, and thus the angle of the refraction also varies correspondingly. This is called dispersion and causes prisms and rainbows to divide white light into its constituent spectral colors.
Refraction of light can be seen in many places in our everyday life. It makes objects under a water surface appear closer than they really are. It is what optical lenses are based on, allowing for instruments such as glasses, cameras, binoculars, microscopes, and the human eye. Refraction is also responsible for some natural optical phenomena including rainbows and mirages.
A correct explanation of refraction involves two separate parts, both a result of the wave nature of light.
As described above, the speed of light is slower in a medium other than vacuum. This slowing applies to any medium such as air, water, or glass, and is responsible for phenomena such as refraction. When light leaves the medium and returns to a vacuum, and ignoring any effects of gravity, its speed returns to the usual speed of light in a vacuum, "c".
Common explanations for this slowing, based upon the idea of light scattering from, or being absorbed and re-emitted by atoms, are both incorrect. Explanations like these would cause a "blurring" effect in the resulting light, as it would no longer be travelling in just one direction. But this effect is not seen in nature.
A more correct explanation rests on light's nature as an electromagnetic wave. Because light is an oscillating electrical/magnetic wave, light traveling in a medium causes the electrically charged electrons of the material to also oscillate. (The material's protons also oscillate but as they are around 2000 times more massive, their movement and therefore their effect, is far smaller). A moving electrical charge emits electromagnetic waves of its own. The electromagnetic waves emitted by the oscillating electrons, interact with the electromagnetic waves that make up the original light, similar to water waves on a pond, a process known as constructive interference. When two waves interfere in this way, the resulting "combined" wave may have wave packets that pass an observer at a slower rate. The light has effectively been slowed. When the light leaves the material, this interaction with electrons no longer happens, and therefore the wave packet rate (and therefore its speed) return to normal.
Consider a wave going from one material to another where its speed is slower as in the figure. If it reaches the interface between the materials at an angle one side of the wave will reach the second material first, and therefore slow down earlier. With one side of the wave going slower the whole wave will pivot towards that side. This is why a wave will bend away from the surface or toward the normal when going into a slower material. In the opposite case of a wave reaching a material where the speed is higher, one side of the wave will speed up and the wave will pivot away from that side.
Another way of understanding the same thing is to consider the change in wavelength at the interface. When the wave goes from one material to another where the wave has a different speed "v", the frequency "f" of the wave will stay the same, but the distance between wavefronts or wavelength "λ"="v"/"f" will change. If the speed is decreased, such as in the figure to the right, the wavelength will also decrease. With an angle between the wave fronts and the interface and change in distance between the wave fronts the angle must change over the interface to keep the wave fronts intact. From these considerations the relationship between the angle of incidence "θ1", angle of transmission "θ2" and the wave speeds "v1" and "v2" in the two materials can be derived. This is the law of refraction or Snell's law and can be written as
The phenomenon of refraction can in a more fundamental way be derived from the 2 or 3-dimensional wave equation. The boundary condition at the interface will then require the tangential component of the wave vector to be identical on the two sides of the interface. Since the magnitude of the wave vector depend on the wave speed this requires a change in direction of the wave vector.
The relevant wave speed in the discussion above is the phase velocity of the wave. This is typically close to the group velocity which can be seen as the truer speed of a wave, but when they differ it is important to use the phase velocity in all calculations relating to refraction.
A wave traveling perpendicular to a boundary, i.e. having its wavefronts parallel to the boundary, will not change direction even if the speed of the wave changes.
For light, the refractive index "n" of a material is more often used than the wave phase speed "v" in the material. They are, however, directly related through the speed of light in vacuum "c" as
In optics, therefore, the law of refraction is typically written as
Refraction occurs when light goes through a water surface since water has a refractive index of 1.33 and air has a refractive index of about 1. Looking at a straight object, such as a pencil in the figure here, which is placed at a slant, partially in the water, the object appears to bend at the water's surface. This is due to the bending of light rays as they move from the water to the air. Once the rays reach the eye, the eye traces them back as straight lines (lines of sight). The lines of sight (shown as dashed lines) intersect at a higher position than where the actual rays originated. This causes the pencil to appear higher and the water to appear shallower than it really is.
The depth that the water appears to be when viewed from above is known as the "apparent depth". This is an important consideration for spearfishing from the surface because it will make the target fish appear to be in a different place, and the fisher must aim lower to catch the fish. Conversely, an object above the water has a higher "apparent height" when viewed from below the water. The opposite correction must be made by an archer fish.
For small angles of incidence (measured from the normal, when sin θ is approximately the same as tan θ), the ratio of apparent to real depth is the ratio of the refractive indexes of air to that of water. But, as the angle of incidence approaches 90o, the apparent depth approaches zero, albeit reflection increases, which limits observation at high angles of incidence. Conversely, the apparent height approaches infinity as the angle of incidence (from below) increases, but even earlier, as the angle of total internal reflection is approached, albeit the image also fades from view as this limit is approached.
Refraction is also responsible for rainbows and for the splitting of white light into a rainbow-spectrum as it passes through a glass prism. Glass has a higher refractive index than air. When a beam of white light passes from air into a material having an index of refraction that varies with frequency, a phenomenon known as dispersion occurs, in which different coloured components of the white light are refracted at different angles, i.e., they bend by different amounts at the interface, so that they become separated. The different colors correspond to different frequencies.
The refractive index of air depends on the air density and thus vary with air temperature and pressure. Since the pressure is lower at higher altitudes, the refractive index is also lower, causing light rays to refract towards the earth surface when traveling long distances through the atmosphere. This shifts the apparent positions of stars slightly when they are close to the horizon and makes the sun visible before it geometrically rises above the horizon during a sunrise.
Temperature variations in the air can also cause refraction of light. This can be seen as a heat haze when hot and cold air is mixed e.g. over a fire, in engine exhaust, or when opening a window on a cold day. This makes objects viewed through the mixed air appear to shimmer or move around randomly as the hot and cold air moves. This effect is also visible from normal variations in air temperature during a sunny day when using high magnification telephoto lenses and is often limiting the image quality in these cases.
In a similar way, atmospheric turbulence gives rapidly varying distortions in the images of astronomical telescopes limiting the resolution of terrestrial telescopes not using adaptive optics or other techniques for overcoming these atmospheric distortions.
Air temperature variations close to the surface can give rise to other optical phenomena, such as mirages and Fata Morgana. Most commonly, air heated by a hot road on a sunny day deflects light approaching at a shallow angle towards a viewer. This makes the road appear reflecting, giving an illusion of water covering the road.
In medicine, particularly optometry, ophthalmology and orthoptics, "refraction" (also known as "refractometry") is a clinical test in which a phoropter may be used by the appropriate eye care professional to determine the eye's refractive error and the best corrective lenses to be prescribed. A series of test lenses in graded optical powers or focal lengths are presented to determine which provides the sharpest, clearest vision.
Water waves travel slower in shallower water. This can be used to demonstrate refraction in ripple tanks and also explains why waves on a shoreline tend to strike the shore close to a perpendicular angle. As the waves travel from deep water into shallower water near the shore, they are refracted from their original direction of travel to an angle more normal to the shoreline.
In underwater acoustics, refraction is the bending or curving of a sound ray that results when the ray passes through a sound speed gradient from a region of one sound speed to a region of a different speed. The amount of ray bending is dependent on the amount of difference between sound speeds, that is, the variation in temperature, salinity, and pressure of the water.
Similar acoustics effects are also found in the Earth's atmosphere. The phenomenon of refraction of sound in the atmosphere has been known for centuries; however, beginning in the early 1970s, widespread analysis of this effect came into vogue through the designing of urban highways and noise barriers to address the meteorological effects of bending of sound rays in the lower atmosphere. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25948 |
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a psychoactive drug to induce an altered state of consciousness for pleasure, by modifying the perceptions, feelings, and emotions of the user. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an intoxicating effect. Generally, recreational drugs are in three categories: depressants (drugs that induce a feeling of relaxation and calm); stimulants (drugs that induce a sense of energy and alertness); and hallucinogens (drugs that induce perceptual distortions such as hallucination).
In popular practice, recreational drug use generally is a tolerated social behaviour, rather than perceived as the medical condition of self-medication. However, heavy use of some drugs is socially stigmatized. Many people also use prescribed and controlled depressants such as opioids, along with opiates, and benzodiazepines.
Recreational drugs include alcohol (as found in beer, wine, and distilled spirits); cannabis (legal to possess nationally in certain countries and state/province-wide or locally in others) and hashish; nicotine (tobacco); caffeine (coffee, tea, and soft drinks); prescription drugs; and the controlled substances listed as controlled drugs in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961) and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) of the United Nations. What controlled substances are considered generally unlawful to possess varies by country, but usually includes methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, MDMA and club drugs. In 2015, it was estimated that about 5% of people aged 15 to 65 had used controlled drugs at least once (158 million to 351 million).
Many researchers have explored the etiology of recreational drug use. Some of the most common theories are: genetics, personality type, psychological problems, self-medication, gender, age, instant gratification, basic human need, curiosity, rebelliousness, a sense of belonging to a group, family and attachment issues, history of trauma, failure at school or work, socioeconomic stressors, peer pressure, juvenile delinquency, availability, historical factors, or sociocultural influences. There has not been agreement around any one single cause. Instead, experts tend to apply the biopsychosocial model. Any number of these factors are likely to influence an individual's drug use as they are not mutually exclusive. Regardless of genetics, mental health or traumatic experiences, social factors play a large role in exposure to and availability of certain types of drugs and patterns of drug use.
According to addiction researcher Martin A. Plant, many people go through a period of self-redefinition before initiating recreational drug use. They tend to view using drugs as part of a general lifestyle that involves belonging to a subculture that they associate with heightened status and the challenging of social norms. Plant says, “From the user's point of view there are many positive reasons to become part of the milieu of drug taking. The reasons for drug use appear to have as much to do with needs for friendship, pleasure and status as they do with unhappiness or poverty. Becoming a drug taker, to many people, is a positive affirmation rather than a negative experience.”
Anthropological research has suggested that humans "may have evolved to counter-exploit plant neurotoxins". The ability to use botanical chemicals to serve the function of endogenous neurotransmitters may have improved survival rates, conferring an evolutionary advantage. A typically restrictive prehistoric diet may have emphasised the apparent benefit of consuming psychoactive drugs, which had themselves evolved to imitate neurotransmitters. Chemical–ecological adaptations, and the genetics of hepatic enzymes, particularly cytochrome P450, have led researchers to propose that "humans have shared a co-evolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances that is millions of years old."
Severity and type of risks that come with recreational drug use vary widely with the drug in question and the amount being used. There are many factors in the environment and within the user that interact with each drug differently. Overall, some studies suggest that alcohol is one of the most dangerous of all recreational drugs; only heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamines are judged to be more harmful. However, studies which focus on a moderate level of alcohol consumption have concluded that there can be substantial health benefits from its use, such as decreased risk of cardiac disease, stroke and cognitive decline. This claim has been disputed. Researcher David Nutt stated that these studies showing benefits for "moderate" alcohol consumption lacked control for the variable of what the subjects were drinking, beforehand. Experts in the UK have suggested that some drugs that may be causing less harm, to fewer users (although they are also used less frequently in the first place), include cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and ecstasy. These drugs are not without their own particular risks.
The concept of "responsible drug use" is that a person can use drugs recreationally or otherwise with reduced or eliminated risk of negatively affecting other aspects of one's life or other people's lives. Advocates of this philosophy point to the many well-known artists and intellectuals who have used drugs, experimentally or otherwise, with few detrimental effects on their lives. Responsible drug use becomes problematic only when the use of the substance significantly interferes with the user's daily life.
Responsible drug use advocates that users should not take drugs at the same time as activities such as driving, swimming, operating machinery, or other activities that are unsafe without a sober state. Responsible drug use is emphasized as a primary prevention technique in harm-reduction drug policies. Harm-reduction policies were popularized in the late 1980s, although they began in the 1970s counter-culture, when cartoons explaining responsible drug use and the consequences of irresponsible drug use were distributed to users. Another issue is that the illegality of drugs in itself also causes social and economic consequences for those using them—the drugs may be "cut" with adulterants and the purity varies wildly, making overdoses more likely—and legalization of drug production and distribution would reduce these and other dangers of illegal drug use. Harm reduction seeks to minimize the harm that can occur through the use of various drugs, whether legal (e.g., alcohol and nicotine), or illegal (e.g., heroin and cocaine). For example, people who take drugs intravenously (crack cocaine, heroin) can minimize harm to both themselves and members of the community through proper injecting technique, using new needles and syringes each time, and proper disposal of all injecting equipment.
In efforts to curtail recreational drug use, governments worldwide introduced several laws prohibiting the possession of almost all varieties of recreational drugs during the 20th century. The West's "War on Drugs" however, is now facing increasing criticism. Evidence is insufficient to tell if behavioral interventions help prevent recreational drug use in children.
One in four adolescents has used an illegal drug and one in ten of those adolescents who need addiction treatment get some type of care. School-based programs are the most commonly used method for drug use education despite the success rates of these intervention programs this success is highly dependent on the commitment of participants.
Alcohol is the most widely used drug in Australia. 86.2% of Australians aged 12 years and over have consumed alcohol at least once in their lifetime, compared to 34.8% of Australians aged 12 years and over who have used cannabis at least once in their lifetime.
In the 1960s, the number of Americans who had tried cannabis at least once increased over twentyfold. In 1969, the FBI reported that between the years 1966 and 1968, the number of arrests for marijuana possession, which had been outlawed throughout the United States under Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, had increased by 98%. Despite acknowledgement that drug use was greatly growing among America's youth during the late 1960s, surveys have suggested that only as much as 4% of the American population had ever smoked marijuana by 1969. By 1972, however, that number would increase to 12%. That number would then double by 1977.
The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 classified marijuana along with heroin and LSD as a Schedule I drug, i.e., having the relatively highest abuse potential and no accepted medical use. Most marijuana at that time came from Mexico, but in 1975 the Mexican government agreed to eradicate the crop by spraying it with the herbicide paraquat, raising fears of toxic side effects. Colombia then became the main supplier. The "zero tolerance" climate of the Reagan and Bush administrations (1981–93) resulted in passage of strict laws and mandatory sentences for possession of marijuana and in heightened vigilance against smuggling at the southern borders. The "war on drugs" thus brought with it a shift from reliance on imported supplies to domestic cultivation (particularly in Hawaii and California). Beginning in 1982, the Drug Enforcement Administration turned increased attention to marijuana farms in the United States, and there was a shift to the indoor growing of plants specially developed for small size and high yield. After over a decade of decreasing use, marijuana smoking began an upward trend once more in the early 1990s, especially among teenagers, but by the end of the decade this upswing had leveled off well below former peaks of use.
Many movements and organizations are advocating for or against the liberalization of the use of recreational drugs, notably cannabis legalization. Subcultures have emerged among users of recreational drugs, as well as among those who abstain from them, such as teetotalism and "straight edge".
The prevalence of recreational drugs in human societies is widely reflected in fiction, entertainment, and the arts, subject to prevailing laws and social conventions. In video games, for example, enemies are often drug dealers, a narrative device that justifies the player killing them. Other games portray drugs as a kind of "power-up"; their effect is often unrealistically conveyed by making the screen wobble and blur.
The following substances are used recreationally:
Drugs are often associated with a particular route of administration. Many drugs can be consumed in more than one way. For example, marijuana can be swallowed like food or smoked, and cocaine can be "sniffed" in the nostrils, injected, or, with various modifications, smoked.
Many drugs are taken through various routes. Intravenous route is the most efficient, but also one of the most dangerous. Nasal, rectal, inhalation and smoking are safer. The oral route is one of the safest and most comfortable, but of little bioavailability.
Depressants are psychoactive drugs that temporarily diminish the function or activity of a specific part of the body or mind. Colloquially, depressants are known as "downers", and users generally take them to feel more relaxed and less tense. Examples of these kinds of effects may include anxiolysis, sedation, and hypotension. Depressants are widely used throughout the world as prescription medicines and as illicit substances. When these are used, effects may include anxiolysis (reduction of anxiety), analgesia (pain relief), sedation, somnolence, cognitive/memory impairment, dissociation, muscle relaxation, lowered blood pressure/heart rate, respiratory depression, anesthesia, and anticonvulsant effects. Depressants exert their effects through a number of different pharmacological mechanisms, the most prominent of which include facilitation of GABA or opioid activity, and inhibition of adrenergic, histamine or acetylcholine activity. Some are also capable of inducing feelings of euphoria (a happy sensation). The most widely used depressant by far is alcohol.
Stimulants or "uppers", such as amphetamines or cocaine, which increase mental or physical function, have an opposite effect to depressants.
Depressants, in particular alcohol, can cause psychosis. A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis by Murrie et al found that the rate of transition from opioid, alcohol and sedative induced psychosis to schizophrenia was 12%, 10% and 9% respectively.
Antihistamines (or "histamine antagonists") inhibit the release or action of histamine. "Antihistamine" can be used to describe any histamine antagonist, but the term is usually reserved for the classical antihistamines that act upon the H1 histamine receptor. Antihistamines are used as treatment for allergies. Allergies are caused by an excessive response of the body to allergens, such as the pollen released by grasses and trees. An allergic reaction causes release of histamine by the body. Other uses of antihistamines are to help with normal symptoms of insect stings even if there is no allergic reaction. Their recreational appeal exists mainly due to their anticholinergic properties, that induce anxiolysis and, in some cases such as diphenhydramine, chlorpheniramine, and orphenadrine, a characteristic euphoria at moderate doses. High dosages taken to induce recreational drug effects may lead to overdoses. Antihistamines are also consumed in combination with alcohol, particularly by youth who find it hard to obtain alcohol. The combination of the two drugs can cause intoxication with lower alcohol doses.
Hallucinations and possibly delirium resembling the effects of Datura stramonium can result if the drug is taken in much higher than therapeutical dosages. Antihistamines are widely available over the counter at drug stores (without a prescription), in the form of allergy medication and some cough medicines. They are sometimes used in combination with other substances such as alcohol.
The most common unsupervised use of antihistamines in terms of volume and percentage of the total is perhaps in parallel to the medicinal use of some antihistamines to stretch out and intensify the effects of opioids and depressants. The most commonly used are hydroxyzine, mainly to stretch out a supply of other drugs, as in medical use, and the above-mentioned ethanolamine and alkylamine-class first-generation antihistamines, which are – once again as in the 1950s – the subject of medical research into their anti-depressant properties.
For all of the above reasons, the use of medicinal scopolamine for recreational uses is also seen.
Analgesics (also known as "painkillers") are used to relieve pain (achieve analgesia). The word "analgesic" derives from Greek "αν-" ("an-", "without") and "άλγος" ("álgos", "pain"). Analgesic drugs act in various ways on the peripheral and central nervous systems; they include paracetamol (para-acetylaminophenol, also known in the US as acetaminophen), the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as the salicylates, and opioid drugs such as hydrocodone, codeine, heroin and oxycodone. Some further examples of the brand name prescription opiates and opioid analgesics that may be used recreationally include Vicodin, Lortab, Norco (hydrocodone), Avinza, Kapanol (morphine), Opana, Paramorphan (oxymorphone), Dilaudid, Palladone (hydromorphone), and OxyContin (oxycodone).
Tranquilizers (GABAergics):
Stimulants, also known as "psychostimulants", induce euphoria with improvements in mental and physical function, such as enhanced alertness, wakefulness, and locomotion. Due to their effects typically having an "up" quality to them, stimulants are also occasionally referred to as "uppers". Depressants or "downers", which decrease mental or physical function, are in stark contrast to stimulants and are considered to be their functional opposites.
Stimulants enhance the activity of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Common effects may include increased alertness, awareness, wakefulness, endurance, productivity, and motivation, arousal, locomotion, heart rate, and blood pressure, and a diminished desire for food and sleep.
Use of stimulants may cause the body to significantly reduce its production of natural body chemicals that fulfill similar functions. Once the effect of the ingested stimulant has worn off the user may feel depressed, lethargic, confused, and miserable. This is referred to as a "crash", and may provoke reuse of the stimulant.
Amphetamines are a significant cause of drug-induced psychosis. Importantly, a 2019 meta-analysis found that 22% of people with amphetamine-induced psychosis transition to a later diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Examples include:
Hallucinogens can be divided into three broad categories: psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants. They can cause subjective changes in perception, thought, emotion and consciousness. Unlike other psychoactive drugs such as stimulants and opioids, hallucinogens do not merely amplify familiar states of mind but also induce experiences that differ from those of ordinary consciousness, often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as trance, meditation, conversion experiences, and dreams.
Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants have a long worldwide history of use within medicinal and religious traditions. They are used in shamanic forms of ritual healing and divination, in initiation rites, and in the religious rituals of syncretistic movements such as União do Vegetal, Santo Daime, Temple of the True Inner Light, and the Native American Church. When used in religious practice, psychedelic drugs, as well as other substances like tobacco, are referred to as entheogens.
Hallucinogen-induced psychosis occurs when psychosis persists despite no longer being intoxicated with the drug. It is estimated that 26% of people with hallucinogen-induced psychosis will transition to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. This is less than the transition rate of cannabis (34%) but higher than amphetamines (22%).
Starting in the mid-20th century, psychedelic drugs have been the object of extensive attention in the Western world. They have been and are being explored as potential therapeutic agents in treating depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcoholism, and opioid addiction. Yet the most popular, and at the same time most stigmatized, use of psychedelics in Western culture has been associated with the search for direct religious experience, enhanced creativity, personal development, and "mind expansion". The use of psychedelic drugs was a major element of the 1960s counterculture, where it became associated with various social movements and a general atmosphere of rebellion and strife between generations.
Inhalants are gases, aerosols, or solvents that are breathed in and absorbed through the lungs. While some "inhalant" drugs are used for medical purposes, as in the case of nitrous oxide, a dental anesthetic, inhalants are used as recreational drugs for their intoxicating effect. Most inhalant drugs that are used non-medically are ingredients in household or industrial chemical products that are not intended to be concentrated and inhaled, including organic solvents (found in cleaning products, fast-drying glues, and nail polish removers), fuels (gasoline (petrol) and kerosene), and propellant gases such as Freon and compressed hydrofluorocarbons that are used in aerosol cans such as hairspray, whipped cream, and non-stick cooking spray. A small number of recreational inhalant drugs are pharmaceutical products that are used illicitly, such as anesthetics (ether and nitrous oxide) and volatile anti-angina drugs (alkyl nitrites).
The most serious inhalant abuse occurs among children and teens who "[...] live on the streets completely without family ties". Inhalant users inhale vapor or aerosol propellant gases using plastic bags held over the mouth or by breathing from a solvent-soaked rag or an open container. The effects of inhalants range from an alcohol-like intoxication and intense euphoria to vivid hallucinations, depending on the substance and the dosage. Some inhalant users are injured due to the harmful effects of the solvents or gases, or due to other chemicals used in the products that they are inhaling. As with any recreational drug, users can be injured due to dangerous behavior while they are intoxicated, such as driving under the influence. Computer cleaning dusters are dangerous to inhale, because the gases expand and cool rapidly upon being sprayed. In some cases, users have died from hypoxia (lack of oxygen), pneumonia, cardiac failure or arrest, or aspiration of vomit.
Examples include:
Plants:
Substances (also not necessarily psychoactive plants soaked with them):
Minimally psychoactive plants which contain mainly caffeine and theobromine:
Most known psychoactive plants:
"Solanaceae" plants—contain atropine, hyoscyamine and scopolamine
Cacti with mescaline:
Other plants:
Fungi:
Psychoactive animals: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25949 |
Robert Frost
Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in America. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes.
Frost was honored frequently during his lifetime and is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution." He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.
Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, to journalist William Prescott Frost, Jr., and Isabelle Moodie. His mother was a Scottish immigrant, and his father descended from Nicholas Frost of Tiverton, Devon, England, who had sailed to New Hampshire in 1634 on the "Wolfrana".
Frost was a descendant of Samuel Appleton, one of the early settlers of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and Rev. George Phillips, one of the early settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts.
Frost's father was a teacher and later an editor of the "San Francisco Evening Bulletin" (which later merged with "The San Francisco Examiner"), and an unsuccessful candidate for city tax collector. After his death on May 5, 1885, the family moved across the country to Lawrence, Massachusetts, under the patronage of (Robert's grandfather) William Frost, Sr., who was an overseer at a New England mill. Frost graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892. Frost's mother joined the Swedenborgian church and had him baptized in it, but he left it as an adult.
Although known for his later association with rural life, Frost grew up in the city, and he published his first poem in his high school's magazine. He attended Dartmouth College for two months, long enough to be accepted into the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. Frost returned home to teach and to work at various jobs, including helping his mother teach her class of unruly boys, delivering newspapers, and working in a factory maintaining carbon arc lamps. He did not enjoy these jobs, feeling his true calling was poetry.
In 1894, he sold his first poem, "My Butterfly. An Elegy" (published in the November 8, 1894, edition of the "New York Independent") for $15 ($ today). Proud of his accomplishment, he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White, but she demurred, wanting to finish college (at St. Lawrence University) before they married. Frost then went on an excursion to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and asked Elinor again upon his return. Having graduated, she agreed, and they were married at Lawrence, Massachusetts on December 19, 1895.
Frost attended Harvard University from 1897 to 1899, but he left voluntarily due to illness. Shortly before his death, Frost's grandfather purchased a farm for Robert and Elinor in Derry, New Hampshire; Frost worked the farm for nine years while writing early in the mornings and producing many of the poems that would later become famous. Ultimately his farming proved unsuccessful and he returned to the field of education as an English teacher at New Hampshire's Pinkerton Academy from 1906 to 1911, then at the New Hampshire Normal School (now Plymouth State University) in Plymouth, New Hampshire.
In 1912, Frost sailed with his family to Great Britain, settling first in Beaconsfield, a small town outside London. His first book of poetry, "A Boy's Will", was published the next year. In England he made some important acquaintances, including Edward Thomas (a member of the group known as the Dymock poets and Frost's inspiration for "The Road Not Taken"), T. E. Hulme, and Ezra Pound. Although Pound would become the first American to write a favorable review of Frost's work, Frost later resented Pound's attempts to manipulate his American prosody. Frost met or befriended many contemporary poets in England, especially after his first two poetry volumes were published in London in 1913 ("A Boy's Will") and 1914 ("North of Boston").
In 1915, during World War I, Frost returned to America, where Holt's American edition of "A Boy's Will" had recently been published, and bought a farm in Franconia, New Hampshire, where he launched a career of writing, teaching, and lecturing. This family homestead served as the Frosts' summer home until 1938. It is maintained today as The Frost Place, a museum and poetry conference site. He was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Harvard in 1916. During the years 1917–20, 1923–25, and, on a more informal basis, 1926–1938, Frost taught English at Amherst College in Massachusetts, notably encouraging his students to account for the myriad sounds and intonations of the spoken English language in their writing. He called his colloquial approach to language "the sound of sense."
In 1924, he won the first of four Pulitzer Prizes for the book "New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes". He would win additional Pulitzers for "Collected Poems" in 1931, "A Further Range" in 1937, and "A Witness Tree" in 1943.
For forty-two years – from 1921 to 1962 – Frost spent almost every summer and fall teaching at the Bread Loaf School of English of Middlebury College, at its mountain campus at Ripton, Vermont. He is credited as a major influence upon the development of the school and its writing programs. The college now owns and maintains his former Ripton farmstead, a National Historic Landmark, near the Bread Loaf campus. In 1921 Frost accepted a fellowship teaching post at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he resided until 1927 when he returned to teach at Amherst. While teaching at the University of Michigan, he was awarded a lifetime appointment at the University as a Fellow in Letters. The Robert Frost Ann Arbor home was purchased by The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and relocated to the museum's Greenfield Village site for public tours. Throughout the 1920s, Frost also lived in his colonial era home in Shaftsbury, VT. The home opened as the Robert Frost Stone House Museum in 2002 and was given to Bennington College in 2017.
In 1934, Frost began to spend winter months in Florida. In March 1935, he gave a talk at the University of Miami. In 1940, he bought a plot in South Miami, Florida, naming it "Pencil Pines"; he spent his winters there for the rest of his life. In her memoir about Frost's time in Florida, Helen Muir writes, "Frost had called his five acres "Pencil Pines" because he said he had never made a penny from anything that did not involve the use of a pencil." His properties also included a house on Brewster Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard's 1965 alumni directory indicates Frost received an honorary degree there. Although he never graduated from college, Frost received over 40 honorary degrees, including ones from Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge universities, and was the only person to receive two honorary degrees from Dartmouth College. During his lifetime, the Robert Frost Middle School in Fairfax, Virginia, the Robert L. Frost School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the main library of Amherst College were named after him.
In 1960, Frost was awarded a United States Congressional Gold Medal, ""In recognition of his poetry, which has enriched the culture of the United States and the philosophy of the world,"" which was finally bestowed by President Kennedy in March 1962. Also in 1962, he was awarded the Edward MacDowell Medal for outstanding contribution to the arts by the MacDowell Colony.
Frost was 86 when he read at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. Frost originally attempted to read his poem "Dedication", which was written for the occasion, but was unable to read it due to the brightness of the sunlight, so he recited his poem "The Gift Outright" from memory instead.
In the summer of 1962, Frost accompanied Interior Secretary Stewart Udall on a visit to the Soviet Union in hopes of meeting Nikita Khrushchev to lobby for peaceful relations between the two Cold War powers.
Frost died in Boston on January 29, 1963 of complications from prostate surgery. He was buried at the Old Bennington Cemetery in Bennington, Vermont. His epitaph quotes the last line from his poem, "The Lesson for Today" (1942): "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."
One of the original collections of Frost materials, to which he himself contributed, is found in the Special Collections department of the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts. The collection consists of approximately twelve thousand items, including original manuscript poems and letters, correspondence and photographs, as well as audio and visual recordings. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a small collection of his papers. The University of Michigan Library holds the Robert Frost Family Collection of manuscripts, photographs, printed items, and artwork. The most significant collection of Frost's working manuscripts is held by Dartmouth.
Robert Frost's personal life was plagued by grief and loss. In 1885 when he was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving the family with just eight dollars. Frost's mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, he had to commit his younger sister Jeanie to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness apparently ran in Frost's family, as both he and his mother suffered from depression, and his daughter Irma was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression.
Elinor and Robert Frost had six children: son Elliot (1896–1900, died of cholera); daughter Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899–1983); son Carol (1902–1940, committed suicide); daughter Irma (1903–1967); daughter Marjorie (1905–1934, died as a result of puerperal fever after childbirth); and daughter Elinor Bettina (died just one day after her birth in 1907). Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.
The poet/critic Randall Jarrell often praised Frost's poetry and wrote "Robert Frost, along with Stevens and Eliot, seems to me the greatest of the American poets of this century. Frost's virtues are extraordinary. No other living poet has written so well about the actions of ordinary men; his wonderful dramatic monologues or dramatic scenes come out of a knowledge of people that few poets have had, and they are written in a verse that uses, sometimes with absolute mastery, the rhythms of actual speech". He also praised "Frost's seriousness and honesty", stating that Frost was particularly skilled at representing a wide range of human experience in his poems.
Jarrell's notable and influential essays on Frost include the essays "Robert Frost's 'Home Burial'" (1962), which consisted of an extended close reading of that particular poem, and "To The Laodiceans" (1952) in which Jarrell defended Frost against critics who had accused Frost of being too "traditional" and out of touch with Modern or Modernist poetry. In Frost's defense, Jarrell wrote "the regular ways of looking at Frost's poetry are grotesque simplifications, distortions, falsifications—coming to know his poetry well ought to be enough, in itself, to dispel any of them, and to make plain the necessity of finding some other way of talking about his work." And Jarrell's close readings of poems like "Neither Out Too Far Nor In Too Deep" led readers and critics to perceive more of the complexities in Frost's poetry.
In an introduction to Jarrell's book of essays, Brad Leithauser notes that "the 'other' Frost that Jarrell discerned behind the genial, homespun New England rustic—the 'dark' Frost who was desperate, frightened, and brave—has become the Frost we've all learned to recognize, and the little-known poems Jarrell singled out as central to the Frost canon are now to be found in most anthologies". Jarrell lists a selection of the Frost poems he considers the most masterful, including "The Witch of Coös", "Home Burial", "A Servant to Servants", "Directive", "Neither Out Too Far Nor In Too Deep", "Provide, Provide", "Acquainted with the Night", "After Apple Picking", "Mending Wall", "The Most of It", "An Old Man's Winter Night", "To Earthward", "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", "Spring Pools", "The Lovely Shall Be Choosers", "Design", and "Desert Places".
In 2003, the critic Charles McGrath noted that critical views on Frost's poetry have changed over the years (as has his public image). In an article called "The Vicissitudes of Literary Reputation," McGrath wrote, "Robert Frost ... at the time of his death in 1963 was generally considered to be a New England folkie ... In 1977, the third volume of Lawrance Thompson's biography suggested that Frost was a much nastier piece of work than anyone had imagined; a few years later, thanks to the reappraisal of critics like William H. Pritchard and Harold Bloom and of younger poets like Joseph Brodsky, he bounced back again, this time as a bleak and unforgiving modernist."
In "The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry", editors Richard Ellmann and Robert O'Clair compared and contrasted Frost's unique style to the work of the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson since they both frequently used New England settings for their poems. However, they state that Frost's poetry was "less [consciously] literary" and that this was possibly due to the influence of English and Irish writers like Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats. They note that Frost's poems "show a successful striving for utter colloquialism" and always try to remain down to earth, while at the same time using traditional forms despite the trend of American poetry towards free verse which Frost famously said was "'like playing tennis without a net.'"
In providing an overview of Frost's style, the Poetry Foundation makes the same point, placing Frost's work "at the crossroads of nineteenth-century American poetry [with regard to his use of traditional forms] and modernism [with his use of idiomatic language and ordinary, every day subject matter]." They also note that Frost believed that "the self-imposed restrictions of meter in form" was more helpful than harmful because he could focus on the content of his poems instead of concerning himself with creating "innovative" new verse forms.
An earlier 1963 study by the poet James Radcliffe Squires spoke to the distinction of Frost as a poet whose verse soars more for the difficulty and skill by which he attains his final visions, than for the philosophical purity of the visions themselves. "He has written at a time when the choice for the poet seemed to lie among the forms of despair: Science, solipsism, or the religion of the past century ... Frost has refused all of these and in the refusal has long seemed less dramatically committed than others ... But no, he must be seen as dramatically uncommitted to the single solution ... Insofar as Frost allows to both fact and intuition a bright kingdom, he speaks for many of us. Insofar as he speaks through an amalgam of senses and sure experience so that his poetry seems a nostalgic memory with overtones touching some conceivable future, he speaks better than most of us. That is to say, as a poet must."
The classicist Helen H. Bacon has proposed that Frost's deep knowledge of Greek and Roman classics influenced much of his work. Frost's education at Lawrence High School, Dartmouth, and Harvard "was based mainly on the classics". As examples, she links imagery and action in Frost's early poems "Birches" (1915) and "Wild Grapes" (1920) with Euripides' "Bacchae". She cites the certain motifs, including that of the tree bent down to earth, as evidence of his "very attentive reading of "Bacchae", almost certainly in Greek". In a later poem, "One More Brevity" (1953), Bacon compares the poetic techniques used by Frost to those of Virgil in the "Aeneid". She notes that "this sampling of the ways Frost drew on the literature and concepts of the Greek and Roman world at every stage of his life indicates how imbued with it he was".
In "Contemporary Literary Criticism", the editors state that "Frost's best work explores fundamental questions of existence, depicting with chilling starkness the loneliness of the individual in an indifferent universe." The critic T. K. Whipple focused on this bleakness in Frost's work, stating that "in much of his work, particularly in "North of Boston", his harshest book, he emphasizes the dark background of life in rural New England, with its degeneration often sinking into total madness."
In sharp contrast, the founding publisher and editor of "Poetry", Harriet Monroe, emphasized the folksy New England persona and characters in Frost's work, writing that "perhaps no other poet in our history has put the best of the Yankee spirit into a book so completely." She notes his frequent use of rural settings and farm life, and she likes that in these poems, Frost is most interested in "showing the human reaction to nature's processes." She also notes that while Frost's narrative, character-based poems are often satirical, Frost always has a "sympathetic humor" towards his subjects.
In June 1922 the Vermont State League of Women's Clubs elected Frost as Poet laureate of Vermont. When a "New York Times" editorial strongly criticised the decision of the Women's Clubs, Sarah Cleghorn and other women wrote to the newspaper defending Frost.
On July 22, 1961, Frost was named Poet laureate of Vermont by the state legislature through Joint Resolution R-59 of the Acts of 1961, which also created the position.
Frost was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 31 times. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25951 |
Rotary dial
A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone number to a telephone exchange.
On the rotary phone dial, the digits are arranged in a circular layout so that a finger wheel may be rotated against spring tension with one finger. Starting from the position of each digit and rotating to the fixed finger stop position, the angle through which the dial is rotated corresponds to the desired digit. Compact telephones with the dial in the handset had all holes equally spaced in the dial, and a spring-loaded finger stop with limited travel.
When released at the finger stop, the wheel returns to its home position driven by the spring at a speed regulated by a centrifugal governor device. During this return rotation, the dial interrupts the direct electrical current of the telephone line (local loop) the specific number of times associated with each digit and thereby generates electrical pulses which the telephone exchange decodes into each dialed digit. Each of the ten digits is encoded in sequences to correspond to the number of pulses, so the method is sometimes called "decadic dialing".
Dial pulsing contacts are normally closed, in series with the rest of the circuit components. Pulses briefly open the contacts for roughly 50 milliseconds. The earphone is disconnected by the dial mechanism when dialing to prevent very loud clicking from being heard in the earphone. Slow-release relays in the central office keep the phone from being disconnected by dial pulses.
The first patent for a rotary dial was granted to Almon Brown Strowger (November 29, 1892) as , but the commonly known form with holes in the finger wheel was not introduced until about 1904. While used in telephone systems of the independent telephone companies, rotary dial service in the Bell System in the United States was not common until the introduction of the Western Electric model 50AL in 1919.
From the 1970s onward, the rotary dial was gradually supplanted by DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) push-button dialing, first introduced to the public at the 1962 World's Fair under the trade name "Touch-Tone". Touch-tone technology primarily used a keypad in the form of a rectangular array of push-buttons. Although no longer in common use, the rotary dial's legacy remains in the verb "to dial (a telephone number)".
From as early as 1836 onward, various suggestions and inventions of dials for sending telegraph signals were reported. After the first commercial telephone exchange was installed in 1878, the need for an automated, user-controlled method of directing a telephone call became apparent. Addressing the technical shortcomings, Almon Brown Strowger invented a telephone dial in 1891. Before 1891, numerous competing inventions, and 26 patents for dials, push-buttons, and similar mechanisms, specified methods of signalling a destination telephone station that a subscriber wanted to call. Most inventions involved costly, intricate mechanisms and required the user to perform complex manipulations.
The first commercial installation of a telephone dial accompanied the first commercial installation of a 99-line automatic telephone exchange in La Porte, Indiana, in 1892, which was based on the 1891 Strowger designs. The original dials required complex operational sequences. A workable, albeit error-prone, system was invented by the Automatic Electric Company using three push-buttons on the telephone. These buttons represented the hundreds, tens, and single units of a telephone number. When calling the subscriber number 163, for example, the user had to push the hundreds button once, followed by six presses of the tens button, and three presses of the units button. In 1896, this system was supplanted by an automatic "contact-making machine", or "calling device". Further development continued during the 1890s and the early 1900s in conjunction with improvements in switching technology.
Almon Brown Strowger was the first to file a patent for a rotary dial on December 21, 1891, which was awarded on November 29, 1892, as . The early rotary dials used lugs on a finger plate instead of holes, and the pulse train was generated without the control of spring action or a governor on the forward movement of the wheel, which proved to be difficult to operate correctly.
On rotary dial phones smaller numbers, such as 2, are dialed more rapidly than longer numbers, such as 9 (because the dial turns much further with a 9). In 1947, area codes were introduced in the United States, so as to facilitate direct distance dialing first by operators, then by subscribers. In the original system in use until 1995, the first digit of the area code could not be a one or a zero, but the second number had to be a one or zero. This allowed mechanical switching equipment in the central offices to distinguish local from "long distance" calls.
Therefore, the lowest and most quickly dialed code was 212; the highest and slowest 909. The Bell System, in developing the original area codes, assigned the lowest codes to the areas where they would be most used: the large cities. 212, the lowest number, was New York City. The next to lowest, 213 and 312, were Los Angeles and Chicago. 214 was Dallas and 412 was Pittsburgh. A high number like 919 was assigned to North Carolina. An even higher number, 907 (higher because the 0 counts as 10), was Alaska.
In the 1950s, plastic materials were introduced in dial construction, replacing metal which was heavier and subject to higher wear.
Despite their lack of modern features, rotary phones occasionally find special uses. For instance, the anti-drug Fairlawn Coalition of the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C., persuaded the phone company to reinstall rotary-dial pay phones in the 1980s to discourage loitering by drug purchasers, since the dials could not be used to leave coded digital messages on dealers' pagers. They are also retained for authenticity in historic properties such as the U.S. Route 66 Blue Swallow Motel, which date back to the era of named exchanges and pulse dialing.
A rotary dial typically features a circular construction. The shaft that actuates the mechanical switching mechanism is driven by the finger wheel, a disk that has ten finger holes aligned close to the circumference. The finger wheel may be transparent or opaque permitting the viewing of the face plate, or number plate below, either in whole, or only showing the number assignment for each finger hole. The faceplate is printed with numbers, and sometimes letters, corresponding to each finger hole. The 1 is normally set at approximately 60 degrees clockwise from the uppermost point of the dial, or approximately at the 2 o'clock position, and then the numbers progress counterclockwise, with the 0 being at about 5 o'clock. A curved device called a finger stop sits above the dial at approximately the 4 o'clock position. The physical nature of the dialing mechanism on rotary phones allowed the use of physical locking mechanisms to prevent unauthorized use. The lock could be integral to the phone itself or a separate device inserted through the finger hole nearest the finger stop to prevent the dial from rotating.
In the USA. there were two principal dial mechanisms, the more common being Western Electric for the Bell System, the other being made by Automatic Electric.
The Western Electric dial had spur gears to power the governor, so the governor and dial shafts were parallel.
The Automatic Electric governor shaft was parallel to the plane of the dial. Its shaft had worm gearing in which, very atypically, the gear drove the worm. The worm, highly polished, had extreme pitch, its teeth at about 45° to its axis. This was the same as the gearing for the speed-limiting fan in traditional music boxes.
The Western Electric governor was a cup surrounding spring-loaded pivoted weights with friction pads. The Automatic Electric governor had weights on the middles of curved springs made from strip stock. When it speeded up after the dial was released, the weights moved outward, pulling the ends of their springs together. Springs were fixed to a collar on the shaft at one end, and to the hub of a sliding brake disc at the other end. At speed, the brake disc contacted a friction pad. This governor was similar to that in spring-driven windup phonograph turntables of the early 20th century.
Both types had wrap-spring clutches for driving their governors. When winding the dial-return spring, these clutches disconnected to let the dial turn quickly. When the dial was released, the clutch spring wrapped tightly to drive the governor.
While winding the dial, a spring-centered pawl in the Western Electric dial wiggled off-center when driven by the cam on the dial shaft. Teeth on that cam were spaced apart by the same angle as dial hole spacing. During winding, the pawl moved off-center away from the normally-closed pulsing contacts. When the dial was released, the cam teeth moved the pawl the other way to open and release the dial contacts.
In the Automatic Electric dial, the pulsing cam and governor were driven by a wrap-spring clutch as the dial returned. When winding, that clutch disconnected both cam and governor.
When winding a Western Electric dial, one could feel the pawl being moved by the cam, although the feel was subtle. Winding an Automatic Electric dial, however, felt extremely smooth.
In addition to the numbers, the faceplate is often printed with letters corresponding to each finger hole. In North America, traditional dials have letter codes displayed with the numbers under the finger holes in the following pattern: 1, 2 ABC, 3 DEF, 4 GHI, 5 JKL, 6 MNO, 7 PRS, 8 TUV, 9 WXY, and 0 (sometimes Z) Operator. Letters were associated with the dial numbers to represent telephone exchange names in communities having more than 9,999 telephone lines, and additionally given a meaningful mnemonic to facilitate memorization of individual telephone numbers by incorporating their exchange names. For example: "RE7-xxxx" represented "REgent 7-xxxx", 'Regent' being a local exchange name used in Canada, derived from an earlier precursor telephone number, '7xxxx' –with callers actually dialing '73-7xxxx' (737-xxxx).
The use of letters on dials was proposed in 1917 by W. G. Blauvelt of AT&T. Large cities like New York would ultimately require a seven-digit number, but some tests in the early 1900s indicated that the short-term memory span of many people could not handle seven digits and many dialling errors due to memory lapse might occur (the documentation for these tests is lost). Hence the first Panel automatic exchanges cutover in 1915 in Newark, New Jersey used "semiautomatic" operation with the local operator keying the number for the caller. And as large cities would have both manual and automatic exchanges for some years, the numbers for manual or automatic exchanges would have the same format (originally MULberry 3456, with three letters then four numbers), which could be either spoken or dialled.
In the United Kingdom the letter "O" was combined with the digit "0" rather than "6". In large cities the seven-digit numbers comprised three letters for the exchange name, followed by four numbers. Older Australian rotary dial telephones had each number's corresponding letter printed on a paper disc in the centre of the plate, with space where the subscriber could add the phone number. The paper was protected by a clear plastic disc, held in place by a form of retaining ring which also served to locate the disc radially. The Australian letter-to-number mapping was A=1, B=2, F=3, J=4, L=5, M=6, U=7, W=8, X=9, Y=0, so the phone number BX 3701 was in fact 29 3701. When Australia around 1960 changed to all-numeric telephone dials, a mnemonic to help people associate letters with numbers was the sentence, "All Big Fish Jump Like Mad Under Water eXcept Yabbies." However, such letter codes were not used in all countries.
Dials outside Canada, the United States, and large cities in Britain (before all-figure dialling) usually did not bear alphabetic characters or an indication of the word "operator" in addition to numbers. Alphabetic designation of exchanges with Cyrillic letters (А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ж, И, К, Л for each of the digits from 1 through 0 respectively) was also used for a short period in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, but by the next decade this practice was largely discontinued.
To dial a number, the user puts a finger in the corresponding finger hole and rotates the dial clockwise until it reaches the finger stop. The user then pulls out the finger, and a spring in the dial returns it to the resting position. For example, if the user dials "6" on a North American phone, electrical contacts operated by a cam on the dial shaft and a pawl will open and close six times as the dial returns to home position, thus sending six pulses to the central office.
Different pulse systems are used, varying from country to country. For example, Sweden uses one pulse to signal the number zero, and 10 pulses to signal the number nine. New Zealand uses ten pulses minus the number desired; so dialing 7 produces three pulses. In Norway, the North American system with the number '1' corresponding to one pulse was used, except for the capital, Oslo, which used the same "inverse" system as in New Zealand.
For this reason, the numbers on the dial are shifted in different countries, or even in different areas of one country, to work with their system because of the difference of the number arrangement on the dial. The dial numbering can occur in four different formats, with 0 adjacent either to the 1 or the 9, and the numbers running in ascending or descending order, with either the 0, 1 or 9 being closest to the finger stop.
Rotary dial telephones have no redial feature; the complete number has to be dialed for every attempted call.
Since the late 1940s, telephones were redesigned with the numbers and letters on a ring outside the finger wheel to provide better visibility.
A relic of these differences is found in emergency telephone numbers used in various countries; the United Kingdom selected 999 due to the ease of converting call office dials to make free calls. "0" for the Operator was already free, and the cam that removed the shunt on the line when the dial was rotated to the "0" position could be altered to include the adjacent digit "9" (and "8" if required) so that calls to "0" and "999" could be made without inserting coins. In New Zealand, 111 was selected because New Zealand reverse-numbered dials make each digit "1" send 9 pulses to the central office/telephone exchange (like "9" in Britain), allowing British exchange equipment to be used off the shelf.
Early dials worked by direct or forward action. The pulses were generated as the dial turned toward the finger stop position. When the user's hand motion was erratic, it produced wrong numbers. In the late 19th century, the dial was refined to operate automatically by a recoil spring. The user selected the digit to be dialed, rotated the dial to the finger stop, then released it. The spring caused the dial to rotate back to its home position during which time constant speed was maintained with a centrifugal governor.
Dials at user stations typically produced pulses at the rate of ten pulses per second (pps), while dials on operator consoles on Crossbar or electronic exchanges often pulsed at 20 pps.
The rotary dial governor is subject to wear and aging, and may require periodic cleaning, lubrication and adjustment by a telephone technician. In the video, the green LED shows the dial impulse pulses and the red LED shows the dial's off-normal contact function.
Off-normal contacts typically serve two additional functions. They may implement a shunt across the transmitter circuit and induction coil to maximize the pulsing signal of the dial by eliminating all internal impedances of the telephone set. Another function is to short-circuit the telephone receiver during dialing, to prevent audible clicking noise from being heard by the telephone user.
Some telephones include a small dial built into the handset, with a movable finger stop. The user rotates the dial clockwise until the finger stop ceases moving, then releases both. In this design the holes extend around the full circumference of the dial, allowing a reduced diameter. This was introduced by Western Electric on the compact Trimline telephone, the first to locate the dial in the handset. In Spain, such phones were manufactured for CTNE (Compañía Telefónica Nacional de España) by Málaga-based factory "CITESA", being named as "Góndola" phones by its particular shape. Spanish Góndola sets were fitted from the beginning with a red LED series connected with the line, allowing the dial ("disco" in Spanish) to be backlit while dialling. For that, the LED was bridged by an anti-parallel Zener diode, to allow the DC to pass even if the line polarity were reversed. In case of line polarity reversal, the LED would not light, but the phone would work anyway. The LED and Zener diode were contained in the same package for ease of assembly in manufacturing.
In the UK, some early phones (in the mid to late 1960's) were built which continued to provide the same rotary-dial signalling on their PABX by using a separate converter to give 10-PPS, but were operated with buttons. Some of these, such as the GPO 726 or 728 can be distinguished from touch-tone phones by the lack of * and # keys and unusual key layout.
Later so-called "Self-Contained" (SC) Keyphones used a line-powered electronic circuit within the phone to convert the keyed-in digits to give 10-PPS that was required to work on normal Strowger, Crossbar or Electronic public exchanges. They are GPO (BT) type 756 (no-battery), 1/764 & 2/764 or 765 (with NiCD batteries), or 766 (no-battery) to name a few. These also do not have the * or # keys. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25960 |
Revolution
In political science, a revolution (Latin: "revolutio", "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due to perceived oppression (political, social, economic) or political incompetence. In book V of the "Politics", the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) described two types of political revolution:
Revolutions have occurred through human history and vary widely in terms of methods, duration and motivating ideology. Their results include major changes in culture, economy and socio-political institutions, usually in response to perceived overwhelming autocracy or plutocracy.
Scholarly debates about what does and does not constitute a revolution center on several issues. Early studies of revolutions primarily analyzed events in European history from a psychological perspective, but more modern examinations include global events and incorporate perspectives from several social sciences, including sociology and political science. Several generations of scholarly thought on revolutions have generated many competing theories and contributed much to the current understanding of this complex phenomenon.
Notable revolutions during later centuries include the creation of the United States through the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), the French Revolution (1789–1799), the Spanish American wars of independence (1808–1826), the European Revolutions of 1848, the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Chinese Revolution of the 1940s, the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and the European Revolutions of 1989.
The word ""revolucion"" is known in French from the 13th century, and "revolution" in English by the late fourteenth century, with regard to the revolving motion of celestial bodies. "Revolution" in the sense of representing abrupt change in a social order is attested by at least 1450. Political usage of the term had been well established by 1688 in the description of the replacement of James II with William III. This incident was termed the ""Glorious Revolution"".
There are many different typologies of revolutions in social science and literature.
Alexis de Tocqueville differentiated between;
One of several different Marxist typologies divides revolutions into;
Charles Tilly, a modern scholar of revolutions, differentiated between;
Mark Katz identified six forms of revolution;
These categories are not mutually exclusive; the Russian revolution of 1917 began with urban revolution to depose the Czar, followed by rural revolution, followed by the Bolshevik coup in November. Katz also cross-classified revolutions as follows;
A further dimension to Katz's typology is that revolutions are either against (anti-monarchy, anti-dictatorial, anti-communist, anti-democratic) or for (pro-fascism, communism, nationalism etc.). In the latter cases, a transition period is often necessary to decide on the direction taken.
Other types of revolution, created for other typologies, include the social revolutions; proletarian or communist revolutions (inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with Communism); failed or abortive revolutions (revolutions that fail to secure power after temporary victories or large-scale mobilization); or violent vs. nonviolent revolutions.
The term "revolution" has also been used to denote great changes outside the political sphere. Such revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed in society, culture, philosophy, and technology much more than political systems; they are often known as social revolutions. Some can be global, while others are limited to single countries. One of the classic examples of the usage of the word "revolution" in such context is the Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution or the Commercial Revolution. Note that such revolutions also fit the "slow revolution" definition of Tocqueville.
A similar example is the Digital Revolution.
Perhaps most often, the word "revolution" is employed to denote a change in social and political institutions. Jeff Goodwin gives two definitions of a revolution. First, a broad one, including
any and all instances in which a state or a political regime is overthrown and thereby transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional and/or violent fashion.
Second, a narrow one, in which
revolutions entail not only mass mobilization and regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for state power.
Jack Goldstone defines a revolution as
an effort to transform the political institutions and the justifications for political authority in society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and non-institutionalized actions that undermine authorities.
Political and socioeconomic revolutions have been studied in many social sciences, particularly sociology, political sciences and history. Among the leading scholars in that area have been or are Crane Brinton, Charles Brockett, Farideh Farhi, John Foran, John Mason Hart, Samuel Huntington, Jack Goldstone, Jeff Goodwin, Ted Roberts Gurr, Fred Halliday, Chalmers Johnson, Tim McDaniel, Barrington Moore, Jeffery Paige, Vilfredo Pareto, Terence Ranger, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Theda Skocpol, James Scott, Eric Selbin, Charles Tilly, Ellen Kay Trimberger, Carlos Vistas, John Walton, Timothy Wickham-Crowley, and Eric Wolf.
Scholars of revolutions, like Jack Goldstone, differentiate four current 'generations' of scholarly research dealing with revolutions. The scholars of the first generation such as Gustave Le Bon, Charles A. Ellwood, or Pitirim Sorokin, were mainly descriptive in their approach, and their explanations of the phenomena of revolutions was usually related to social psychology, such as Le Bon's crowd psychology theory.
Second generation theorists sought to develop detailed theories of why and when revolutions arise, grounded in more complex social behavior theories. They can be divided into three major approaches: psychological, sociological and political.
The works of Ted Robert Gurr, Ivo K. Feierbrand, Rosalind L. Feierbrand, James A. Geschwender, David C. Schwartz, and Denton E. Morrison fall into the first category. They followed theories of cognitive psychology and frustration-aggression theory and saw the cause of revolution in the state of mind of the masses, and while they varied in their approach as to what exactly caused the people to revolt (e.g., modernization, recession, or discrimination), they agreed that the primary cause for revolution was the widespread frustration with socio-political situation.
The second group, composed of academics such as Chalmers Johnson, Neil Smelser, Bob Jessop, Mark Hart, Edward A. Tiryakian, and Mark Hagopian, followed in the footsteps of Talcott Parsons and the structural-functionalist theory in sociology; they saw society as a system in equilibrium between various resources, demands and subsystems (political, cultural, etc.). As in the psychological school, they differed in their definitions of what causes disequilibrium, but agreed that it is a state of a severe disequilibrium that is responsible for revolutions.
Finally, the third group, which included writers such as Charles Tilly, Samuel P. Huntington, Peter Ammann, and Arthur L. Stinchcombe followed the path of political sciences and looked at pluralist theory and interest group conflict theory. Those theories see events as outcomes of a power struggle between competing interest groups. In such a model, revolutions happen when two or more groups cannot come to terms within a normal decision making process traditional for a given political system, and simultaneously have enough resources to employ force in pursuing their goals.
The second generation theorists saw the development of the revolutions as a two-step process; first, some change results in the present situation being different from the past; second, the new situation creates an opportunity for a revolution to occur. In that situation, an event that in the past would not be sufficient to cause a revolution (e.g., a war, a riot, a bad harvest), now is sufficient; however, if authorities are aware of the danger, they can still prevent a revolution through reform or repression.
Many such early studies of revolutions tended to concentrate on four classic cases: famous and uncontroversial examples that fit virtually all definitions of revolutions, such as the Glorious Revolution (1688), the French Revolution (1789–1799), the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Chinese Revolution (also known as the Chinese Civil War) (1927–1949). In his "The Anatomy of Revolution", however, the Harvard historian Crane Brinton focused on the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution.
In time, scholars began to analyze hundreds of other events as revolutions (see List of revolutions and rebellions), and differences in definitions and approaches gave rise to new definitions and explanations. The theories of the second generation have been criticized for their limited geographical scope, difficulty in empirical verification, as well as that while they may explain some particular revolutions, they did not explain why revolutions did not occur in other societies in very similar situations.
The criticism of the second generation led to the rise of a third generation of theories, with writers such as Theda Skocpol, Barrington Moore, Jeffrey Paige, and others expanding on the old Marxist class conflict approach, turning their attention to rural agrarian-state conflicts, state conflicts with autonomous elites, and the impact of interstate economic and military competition on domestic political change Particularly Skocpol's "States and Social Revolutions" became one of the most widely recognized works of the third generation; Skocpol defined revolution as "rapid, basic transformations of society's state and class structures [...] accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below", attributing revolutions to a conjunction of multiple conflicts involving state, elites and the lower classes.
From the late 1980s a new body of scholarly work began questioning the dominance of the third generation's theories. The old theories were also dealt a significant blow by new revolutionary events that could not be easily explain by them. The Iranian and Nicaraguan Revolutions of 1979, the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines and the 1989 Autumn of Nations in Europe saw multi-class coalitions topple seemingly powerful regimes amidst popular demonstrations and mass strikes in nonviolent revolutions.
Defining revolutions as mostly European violent state versus people and class struggles conflicts was no longer sufficient. The study of revolutions thus evolved in three directions, firstly, some researchers were applying previous or updated structuralist theories of revolutions to events beyond the previously analyzed, mostly European conflicts. Secondly, scholars called for greater attention to conscious agency in the form of ideology and culture in shaping revolutionary mobilization and objectives. Third, analysts of both revolutions and social movements realized that those phenomena have much in common, and a new 'fourth generation' literature on contentious politics has developed that attempts to combine insights from the study of social movements and revolutions in hopes of understanding both phenomena.
Further, social science research on revolution, primarily work in political science, has begun to move beyond individual or comparative case studies towards large-N empirical studies assessing the causes and implications of revolution. Initial studies generally rely on the Polity Project’s data on democratization. Such analyses, like those by Enterline, Maoz, and Mansfield and Snyder, identify revolutions based on regime changes indicated by a change in the country’s score on Polity’s autocracy to democracy scale. More recently, scholars like Jeff Colgan have argued that Polity, which measures the degree of democratic or autocratic authority in a state's governing institutions based on the openness of executive recruitment, constraints on executive authority, and political competition, is inadequate because it measures democratization, not revolution, and fails to account for regimes which come to power by revolution but fail to change the structure of the state and society sufficiently to yield a notable difference in Polity score. Instead, Colgan offers a new data set on revolutionary leaders which identifies governments that "transform the existing social, political, and economic relationships of the state by overthrowing or rejecting the principal existing institutions of society." This most recent data set has been employed to make empirically-based contributions to the literature on revolution by identifying links between revolution and the likelihood of international disputes.
Revolutions have also been approached from anthropological perspectives. Drawing on Victor Turner’s writings on ritual and performance, Bjorn Thomassen has argued that revolutions can be understood as "liminal" moments: modern political revolutions very much resemble rituals and can therefore be studied within a process approach. This would imply not only a focus on political behavior "from below", but also to recognize moments where "high and low" are relativized, made irrelevant or subverted, and where the micro and macro levels fuse together in critical conjunctions.
Economist Douglass North argued that it is much easier for revolutionaries to alter formal political institutions such as laws and constitutions than to alter informal social conventions. According to North, inconsistencies between rapidly changing formal institutions and slow-changing informal ones can inhibit effective sociopolitical change. Because of this, the long-term effect of revolutionary political restructuring is often more moderate than the ostensible short-term effect.
While revolutions encompass events ranging from the relatively peaceful revolutions that overthrew communist regimes to the violent Islamic revolution in Afghanistan, they exclude "coups d'état", civil wars, revolts, and rebellions that make no effort to transform institutions or the justification for authority (such as Józef Piłsudski's May Coup of 1926 or the American Civil War), as well as peaceful transitions to democracy through institutional arrangements such as plebiscites and free elections, as in Spain after the death of Francisco Franco. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25964 |
Roland TB-303
The Roland TB-303 Bass Line is a synthesizer released by the Roland Corporation in 1982. Designed to simulate bass guitars, it was a commercial failure and was discontinued in 1984. However, cheap second-hand units were adopted by electronic musicians, and its "squelching" or "chirping" sound became a foundation of electronic dance music genres such as house and techno. It has inspired numerous clones.
The TB-303 was designed by Tadao Kikumoto, who also designed the Roland TR-909 drum machine. It was marketed as a "computerised bass machine" to replace the bass guitar. However, according to "Forbes," it instead produces a "squelchy tone more reminiscent of a psychedelic mouth harp than a stringed instrument".
The TB-303 has a single oscillator, which produces either a "buzzy" sawtooth wave or a "hollow-sounding" square wave. This is fed into a 24dB low-pass filter, which is manipulated by an envelope generator. Users program notes and slides using a built-in sequencer.
The 303's unrealistic sound made it unpopular with its target audience, musicians who wanted to replace bass guitars. It was discontinued in 1984, and Roland sold off remaining units cheaply.
The Chicago group Phuture bought a cheap 303 and began experimenting. By manipulating the synthesizer as it played, they created a unique "squelching, resonant and liquid sound". This became the foundation of "Acid Tracks", which was released in 1987 and created the acid genre. Acid, with the 303 as a staple sound, became popular worldwide, particularly as part of the UK's emerging rave culture known as the second summer of love.
"Rip It Up", by the Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice, which reached #8 in the UK singles chart in February 1983, was the first UK top 10 hit to feature the 303. Another early use of a TB-303 (in conjunction with a TR-808 drum machine) is Indian musician Charanjit Singh's 1982 album "Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat." It remained obscure until the early 21st century, and is now recognized as a kind of proto-acid, though the originators of acid-house had never heard it..
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as new acid styles emerged, the TB-303 was often overdriven, producing a harsher sound, such as on Hardfloor's 1992 EP "Acperience" and Interlect 3000's 1993 EP "Volcano". In other instances the TB-303 was distorted and processed, such as on Josh Wink's 1995 hit "Higher State of Consciousness".
As only 10,000 303 units were manufactured, the popularity of acid caused a dramatic increase in the price of used units. According to the "Guardian", as of 2014, units sold for over £1,000. In 2011, the "Guardian" listed the release of the TB-303 as one of the 50 key events in the history of dance music. It has inspired numerous clones. In 2014, Roland released the TB-3, a synthesizer emulating TB-303 circuitry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25969 |
RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric (GE). In 1932, RCA became an independent company after GE was required to divest its ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit.
An innovative and progressive company, RCA was the dominant electronics and communications firm in the United States for over five decades. RCA was at the forefront of the mushrooming radio industry in the early 1920s, as a major manufacturer of radio receivers, and the exclusive manufacturer of the first superheterodyne models. RCA also created the first nationwide American radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The company was also a pioneer in the introduction and development of television, both black and white and especially, color television. During this period, RCA was closely identified with the leadership of David Sarnoff. He was general manager at the company's founding, became president in 1930, and remained active, as chairman of the board, until the end of 1969.
During the 1970s, RCA's seemingly impregnable stature began to weaken as it attempted to expand from its main focus of the development and marketing of consumer electronics into a diversified multinational conglomerate. The company suffered enormous financial losses in the mainframe computer industry and other failed projects such as the CED videodisc. Though the company rebounded by the mid 1980s, RCA was reacquired by General Electric in 1986, which over the next few years liquidated most of the corporation's assets. Today, RCA exists as a brand name only; the various RCA trademarks are currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment and Technicolor, which in turn license the brand name to several other companies including Voxx International, Curtis International, AVC Multimedia, TCL Corporation and Express LUCK International, Ltd. for their products.
RCA originated as a reorganization of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (commonly called "American Marconi"). In 1897, the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, Limited, was founded in London to promote the radio (then known as "wireless telegraphy") inventions of Guglielmo Marconi. As part of worldwide expansion, in 1899 American Marconi was organized as a subsidiary company, holding the rights to use the Marconi patents in the United States and Cuba. In 1912 it took over the assets of the bankrupt United Wireless Telegraph Company, and from that point forward it had been the dominant radio communications company in the United States.
With the entry of the United States into World War One in April 1917, the government took over most civilian radio stations, to use them for the war effort. Although the overall U.S. government plan was to restore civilian ownership of the seized radio stations once the war ended, many Navy officials hoped to retain a monopoly on radio communication even after the war. Defying instructions to the contrary, the Navy began purchasing large numbers of stations outright. With the conclusion of the conflict, Congress turned down the Navy's efforts to have peacetime control of the radio industry, and instructed the Navy to make plans to return the commercial stations it controlled, including the ones it had improperly purchased, to the original owners.
Due to national security considerations, the Navy was particularly concerned about returning the high-powered international stations to American Marconi, since a majority of its stock was in foreign hands, and the British already largely controlled the international undersea cables. This concern was increased by the announcement in late 1918 of the formation of the Pan-American Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Company, a joint venture between American Marconi and the Federal Telegraph Company, with plans to set up service between the United States and South America.
The Navy had installed a high-powered Alexanderson alternator, built by General Electric (GE), at the American Marconi transmitter site in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It proved to be superior for transatlantic transmissions to the spark transmitters that had been traditionally used by the Marconi companies. Marconi officials were so impressed by the capabilities of the Alexanderson alternators that they began making preparations to adopt them as their standard transmitters for international communication. A tentative plan made with General Electric proposed that over a two-year period the Marconi companies would purchase most of GE's alternator production. However, this proposal was met with disapproval, on national security grounds, by the U.S. Navy, which was concerned that this would guarantee British domination of international radio communication.
The Navy, claiming it was acting with the support of President Wilson, looked for an alternative that would result in an "all-American" company taking over the American Marconi assets. In April 1919 two naval officers, Admiral H. G. Bullard and Commander S. C. Hooper, met with GE's president, Owen D. Young, asking that he suspend the pending alternator sales to the Marconi companies. This move would leave General Electric without a buyer for its transmitters, so the officers proposed that GE purchase American Marconi, and use the assets to form its own radio communications subsidiary. Young consented to this proposal, which, effective November 20, 1919, transformed American Marconi into the Radio Corporation of America. The new company was promoted as being a patriotic gesture. RCA's incorporation papers required that its officers needed to be U.S. citizens, with a majority of its stock held by Americans.
RCA retained most of the American Marconi staff, although Owen Young became the new company's head as the chairman of the board. Former American Marconi vice president and general manager E. J. Nally become RCA's first president. Nally's term ended on December 31, 1922, and he was succeeded the next day by Major General James G. Harbord. Harbord, in turn, resigned the presidency on January 3, 1930, replacing Owen D. Young as the company's chairman of the board. He was succeeded, as RCA's third president, by David Sarnoff, who had been the company's general manager at its founding. RCA worked closely with the federal government and felt it deserved to maintain its predominant role in U.S. radio communications. At the company's recommendation, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Rear Admiral Bullard "to attend the stockholders' and director's meetings... in order that he may present and discuss informally the Government's views and interests".
As of its founding RCA was the largest radio communications firm in the United States. American Marconi had been falling behind industry advances, particularly in vacuum tube technology, and GE needed access to additional patents before its new subsidiary could be fully competitive. The result was a series of negotiations and a complicated set of cross-licensing agreements between various companies. On July 1, 1920, an agreement was made with the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), which purchased 500,000 shares of RCA, although it would divest these shares in early 1923. The United Fruit Company held a small portfolio of radio patents and signed two agreements in 1921. GE's traditional electric company rival, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Corporation, had also purchased rights to some critical patents, including one for heterodyne receiving originally issued to Reginald Fessenden, plus regenerative circuit and superheterodyne receiver patents issued to Edwin Armstrong. Westinghouse used this position to negotiate a cross-licensing agreement, effective July 1, 1921, that included a concession that 40% of RCA's equipment purchases would be from Westinghouse. Following these transactions, GE owned 30.1% of RCA's stock, Westinghouse 20.6%, AT&T 10.3%, and United Fruit 4.1%, with the remaining 34.9% owned by individual shareholders.
In 1930, RCA agreed to occupy the yet-to-be-constructed landmark building of the Rockefeller Center complex, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, which in 1933 became known as the RCA Building (later renamed the GE Building, now the Comcast Building). This lease was critical for enabling the massive project to proceed as a commercially viable venture—David Rockefeller cited RCA's action as being responsible for "the salvation of the project".
At the time RCA was founded in 1919 all radio and telegraphic communications between China and the US, including official communications, were run through either German radio or British cables. The US Navy wanted a reluctant RCA to seek a concession in China (even though RCA's other Asian concessions were operating at a loss). With RCA's agreement the transmitter was completed in 1928, but when another American interest signed a similar agreement with China in 1932 RCA claimed breach of contract in "Radio Corporation of America v China".
RCA's primary business objectives at its founding were to provide equipment and services for seagoing vessels, and "worldwide wireless" communication in competition with the undersea cables. To provide the international service, the company soon undertook a massive project to build a "Radio Central" communications hub at Rocky Point, Long Island, New York, designed to achieve "the realization of the vision of communication engineers to transmit messages to all points of the world from a single centrally located source". Construction began in July 1920, and the site was dedicated on November 5, 1921, after two of the antenna spokes had been completed, and two of the 200-kilowatt alternators installed. The debut transmissions received replies from stations in 17 countries.
Although the initial installation would remain in operation, the additional antenna spokes and alternator installations would not be completed, due to a major discovery about radio signal propagation. While investigating transmitter "harmonics" – unwanted additional radio signals produced at higher frequencies than a station's normal transmission frequency – Westinghouse's Frank Conrad unexpectedly found that in some cases the harmonics could be heard farther than the primary signal, something previously thought impossible, as high-frequency shortwave signals, which had poor groundwave coverage, were thought to have a very limited transmission range. In 1924, Conrad demonstrated to Sarnoff that a low-powered shortwave station in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania could be readily received in London by a simple receiver using a curtain rod as an antenna, matching, at a small fraction of the cost, the performance of the massive alternator transmitters. In 1926 Dr. Harold H. Beverage further reported that a shortwave signal, transmitted on a 15-meter wavelength (approximately 20 MHz), was received in South America more readily during the daytime than the 200-kilowatt alternator transmissions.
The Alexanderson alternators, control of which had led to RCA's formation, were now considered obsolete, and international communication would be primarily conducted using vacuum tube transmitters operating on shortwave bands. RCA would continue to operate international telecommunications services for the remainder of its existence, through its subsidiary RCA Communications, Inc., and later the RCA Global Communications Company.
International shortwave was in turn largely supplanted by communications satellites, especially for distributing network radio and television programming. In 1975, the company formed RCA American Communications, which operated its Satcom series of geostationary communications satellites.
The introduction of organized radio broadcasting in the early 1920s resulted in a dramatic reorientation and expansion of RCA's business activities. The development of vacuum tube radio transmitters made audio transmissions practical, in contrast with the earlier transmitters which were limited to sending the dits-and-dahs of Morse code. Since at least 1916, when he was still at American Marconi, David Sarnoff had proposed establishing broadcasting stations, but his memos to management promoting the idea for sales of a "Radio Music Box" had not been followed up at the time.
Starting around 1920 a small number of broadcasting stations began operating, and soon interest in the innovation was spreading nationwide. In the summer of 1921, a Madison Square Garden employee, Julius Hopp, devised a plan to raise charitable funds by broadcasting, from ringside, the July 2, 1921 Dempsey-Carpentier heavyweight championship fight to be held in Jersey City, New Jersey. Hopp recruited theaters and halls as listening locations that would charge admission fees to be used as charitable donations. He also contacted RCA's J. Andrew White, the acting president of the National Amateur Wireless Association (NAWA), an organization originally formed by American Marconi which had been inherited by RCA. White agreed to recruit the NAWA membership for volunteers to provide assistance at the listening sites, and also enlisted David Sarnoff for financial and technical support. RCA was authorized to set up a temporary longwave radio station, located in Hoboken a short distance from the match site, and operating under the call letters WJY. For the broadcast White and Sarnoff telephoned commentary from ringside, which was typed up and then read over the air by J. Owen Smith. The demonstration was a technical success, with a claimed audience of 300,000 listeners throughout the northeast.
RCA quickly moved to expand its broadcasting activities. In the fall of 1921, it set up its first full-time broadcasting station, WDY, at the Roselle Park, New Jersey company plant. By 1923 RCA was operating three stations—WJZ (now WABC) and WJY in New York City, and WRC (now WTEM) in Washington, D.C. A restriction imposed by AT&T's interpretation of the patent cross-licensing agreements required that the RCA stations remain commercial free, and they were financed by profits from radio equipment sales.
Beginning in 1922, AT&T became heavily involved in radio broadcasting, and soon became the new industry's most important participant. From the beginning, AT&T's policy was to finance stations by commercial sponsorship of the programs. The company also created the first radio network, centered on its New York City station WEAF (now WFAN), using its long-distance telephone lines to interconnect stations. This allowed them to economize by having multiple stations carry the same program.
RCA and its partners soon faced an economic crisis, as the costs of providing programming threatened to exceed the funds available from equipment profits. The problem was resolved in 1926 when AT&T unexpectedly decided to exit the radio broadcasting field. RCA purchased, for $1,000,000, AT&Ts two radio stations, WEAF and WCAP in Washington, D.C., as well as its network operations. These assets formed the basis for the creation of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), with ownership divided between RCA (50%), General Electric (30%), and Westinghouse (20%) until 1930, when RCA assumed 100% ownership. This purchase also included the right to begin commercial operations. NBC formed two radio networks that eventually expanded nationwide: the NBC-Red Network, with flagship station WEAF, and NBC-Blue, centered on WJZ. Although NBC was originally promoted as expecting to just break even economically, it soon became extremely profitable, which would be an important factor in helping RCA survive the economic pressures of the Great Depression that began in late 1929.
Concerned that NBC's control of two national radio networks gave it too much power over the industry, in 1941 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) promulgated a rule designed to force NBC to divest one of them. This order was upheld by the U.S Supreme Court, and on October 12, 1943, the NBC-Blue network was sold to candy magnate Edward J. Noble for $8,000,000, and renamed "The Blue Network, Inc." In 1946 the name was changed to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The "Red" network retained the NBC name and remained under RCA ownership until 1986.
For two decades the NBC radio network's roster of stars provided ratings consistently surpassing those of its main competitor, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). But in 1948, as the transition from radio to television was beginning, NBC's leadership came under attack due to what became known as the "Paley raids", named after the president of CBS, William S. Paley. After World War II the tax rate for annual incomes above $70,000 was 77%, while capital gains were taxed at 25%. Paley worked out an accounting technique whereby individual performers could set up corporations that allowed their earnings to be taxed at the significantly lower rate. Instead of NBC responding with a similar package, Sarnoff decided that this accounting method was legally and ethically wrong. NBC's performers did not agree, and most of the top stars, including Amos and Andy, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Edgar Bergen, Burns and Allen, Ed Wynn, Fred Waring, Al Jolson, Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra moved from NBC to CBS. As a result, CBS boasted of having sixteen of the twenty top-rated programs in 1949. The consequences would carry over to television, where CBS maintained its newfound dominance for decades. Paley had personally worked to woo the performers, while Sarnoff professed his indifference to the defections, stating at an annual meeting that "Leadership built over the years on a foundation of solid service cannot be snatched overnight by buying a few high-priced comedians. Leadership is not a laughing matter."
RCA acted as the sales agent for a small line of Westinghouse and GE branded receivers and parts used by home constructors, originally for a limited market of amateur radio enthusiasts. By 1922, the rise of broadcasting had dramatically increased the demand for radio equipment by the general public, and this development was reflected in the title of RCA's June 1, 1922 catalog, "Radio Enters the Home". RCA began selling receivers under the "Radiola" name, marketing equipment produced by GE and Westinghouse under the production agreement that allocated a 60%–40% ratio in output between the two companies. Although the patent cross-licensing agreements had been intended to give the participants domination of equipment sales, the tremendous growth of the market led to fierce competition, and in 1925 RCA fell behind Atwater Kent as the leader in receiver sales. RCA was particularly hamstrung by the need to coordinate its sales within the limits of the GE/Westinghouse production quotas, and often had difficulty keeping up with industry trends. However, it made a key advance in early 1924 when it began to sell the first superheterodyne receivers, whose high level of performance increased the brand's reputation and popularity. RCA was the exclusive manufacturer of superheterodyne radio sets until 1930. Until late 1927, all RCA receivers ran on batteries, but at that point plug-in AC sets were introduced, which provided another boost in sales.
RCA inherited American Marconi's status as a major producer of vacuum tubes, which were branded Radiotron in the United States. Especially after the rise of broadcasting, they were a major profit source for the company. RCA's strong patent position meant that the company effectively set the selling prices for vacuum tubes in the U.S., which were significantly higher than in Europe, where Lee de Forest had allowed a key patent issued to him to lapse. RCA was responsible for creating a series of innovative products, ranging from octal base metal tubes co-developed with General Electric before World War II, to miniaturized Nuvistor tubes used in the tuners of the New Vista series of TV sets. The Nuvistor tubes were a last major vacuum tube innovation, and were meant to compete with the newly introduced transistor. By 1975, RCA had completely switched from tubes to solid-state devices in their television sets, except for the cathode ray tube (CRT) picture tube.
The rise of radio broadcasting during the early 1920s, which provided unlimited free entertainment in the home, had a detrimental effect on the American phonograph record industry. In 1929, RCA purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the world's largest manufacturer of both records and phonographs, including its popular showcase "Victrola" line. This acquisition became known as the RCA Victor division, and included majority ownership of Victor's Japanese subsidiary, the Victor Company of Japan (JVC), formed in 1927.
With the purchase of Victor, RCA acquired the western hemisphere rights to the famous Nipper/"His Master's Voice" trademark. RCA Victor popularized combined radio receiver-phonographs, and also created RCA Photophone, a movie sound-on-film system that competed with William Fox's sound-on-film Movietone and Warner Bros.' sound-on-disc Vitaphone. Initially, RCA had little true interest in the phonograph record business; in the acquisition of Victor, RCA was primarily interested in the record company's superior distribution and sales capabilities through Victor's large established network of authorized dealers and extensive, efficient manufacturing facilities in Camden, New Jersey. Immediately following the purchase of Victor, RCA began planning the manufacture of radio sets and components on Victor's Camden assembly lines, while decreasing the production of Victrolas and records.
RCA Victor began selling the first all-electric Victrola in 1930. In 1931, RCA Victor introduced 33⅓ revolutions-per-minute (rpm) records, which were a commercial failure during the Great Depression, partly because the playback equipment was very expensive, and also because the audio performance of the new records was generally poor; the new format used the same groove size as existing 78 rpm records, and it would require the smaller-radius stylus of the later microgroove systems to achieve acceptable slower-speed performance. additionally, the new records were pressed in a pliable material called Victrolac, which wore out rapidly.
During the nadir of the record business in America in the early 1930s, the manufacture of phonographs had all but ceased; extant older phonographs were now obsolete, so in 1932, RCA Victor introduced the inexpensive Duo Jr., a small, basic turntable designed to be plugged into radio sets. Also during the 1930s, RCA sold the modernistic RCA Victor M Special, a polished aluminum portable record player designed by John Vassos that has become an icon of Thirties American industrial design. In 1949, RCA Victor released the first 45 rpm "single" records, as a response to CBS/Columbia's successful introduction of its microgroove 33⅓ rpm "LP" format. RCA Victor began selling 33⅓ rpm LP records in 1950, and in 1951 CBS/Columbia began selling 45 rpm records.
RCA also made investments in the movie industry, but they performed poorly. In April 1928 RCA Photophone, Inc., was organized by a group of companies including RCA to develop sound-movie technology. In the fall of 1927, RCA had purchased stock in Film Booking Office (FBO), and on October 25, 1928, with the help of Joseph P. Kennedy, the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation (RKO) studio was formed by merging FBO with Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation (KAO), a company whose holdings included motion picture theaters. The theaters in which RKO had an interest provided a potential market for the RCA Photophone sound systems. RCA ownership of RKO stock expanded from approximately 25% in 1930 to approximately 61% in 1932. However, the RKO studio encountered severe financial problems, going into receivership from early 1933 to 1940. RCA sold its holdings in order to raise funds for its basic operations.
Following years of industry complaints that the cross-licensing agreements between RCA, GE and Westinghouse had in effect created spheres-of-influence for the participating companies, resulting in illegal monopolies, in May 1930 the U.S. Department of Justice brought antitrust charges against the three companies. After a long period of negotiation, in 1932 the Justice Department accepted a consent agreement which removed the restrictions established by the cross-licensing agreements, and also provided that RCA would become a fully independent company. As a result, GE and Westinghouse gave up their ownership interests in RCA, while RCA was allowed to keep its factories. In order to give RCA a chance to establish itself, GE and Westinghouse were required to refrain from competing in the radio business for the next two and one-half years.
RCA began TV development in early 1929, after an overly optimistic Vladimir K. Zworykin convinced Sarnoff that a commercial version of his prototype system could be produced in a relatively short time for $100,000. Following what would actually be many years of additional research and millions of dollars, RCA demonstrated an all-electronic black-and-white television system at the 1939 New York World's Fair. RCA began regular experimental television broadcasting from the NBC studios to the New York metropolitan area on April 30, 1939 via station W2XBS, channel 1 (which evolved into WNBC channel 4) from the new Empire State Building transmitter on top of the structure. Around this time, RCA began selling its first television set models, including the TRK-5 and TRK-9, in various New York stores. However, the FCC had not approved the start of commercial television operations, because technical standards had not been yet been finalized. Concerned that RCA's broadcasts were an attempt to flood the market with sets that would force it to adopt RCA's current technology, the FCC stepped in to limit its broadcasts.
Following the adoption of National Television System Committee (NTSC) recommended standards, the FCC authorized the start of commercial television broadcasts on July 1, 1941. The entry of the United States into World War II a few months later greatly slowed its deployment, but RCA resumed selling television receivers almost immediately after the war ended in 1945. ("See also:" History of television)
In 1950, the FCC adopted a standard for color television that had been promoted by CBS, but the effort soon failed, primarily because the color broadcasts could not be received by existing black-and-white sets. As the result of a major research push, RCA engineers developed a method of "compatible" color transmissions that, through the use of interlacing, simultaneously broadcast color and black-and-white images, which could be picked up by both color and existing black-and-white sets. In 1953, RCA's all-electronic color TV technology was adopted as the standard for American television. At that time, Sarnoff predicted annual color TV sales would reach 1.78 million in 1956, but the sets were expensive and difficult to adjust, and there was initially a lack of color programming, so sales lagged badly and the actual 1956 total would only be 120,000. RCA's ownership of NBC proved to be a major benefit, as that network was instructed to promote its color program offerings; even so, it was not until 1968 that color TV sales in the U.S. surpassed those of black-and-white sets.
While lauding the technical prowess of his RCA engineers who had developed color TV, David Sarnoff, in marked contrast to William Paley, president of CBS, did not disguise his dislike for popular TV programs. His authorized biography even boasted that "no one has yet caught him in communion with one of the upper dozen or so top-rated programs" and "The popular programs, to put the matter bluntly, have very little appeal for him."
RCA professional video cameras and studio gear, particularly of the TK-40/41 series, became standard equipment at many American television network affiliates, as RCA CT-100 ("RCA Merrill" to dealers) television sets introduced color television to the public.
In 1941, a few months before the United States entered World War II, the cornerstone was laid for a research and development facility in Princeton, New Jersey called RCA Laboratories. Led for many years by Elmer Engstrom, it was used to develop many innovations, including color television, the electron microscope, CMOS-based technology, heterojunction physics, optoelectronic emitting devices, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), videocassette recorders, direct broadcast television, direct broadcast satellite systems and high-definition television.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, RCA plants switched to war production. In September of 1942, work began on a secret project for the US Navy called Madame X. The Bloomington, Indiana, plant was one of the first of five RCA plants to produce Madame X. Madame X was a VT fuse, which is a proximity fuse used to electronically detonate a projectile's payload when it was in range of its target, as opposed to relying on a direct hit. James V. Forrestal, former secretary of the Navy said, "The proximity fuse had helped blaze the trail to Japan. Without the protection this ingenious device has given the surface ships of the fleet, our westward push could not have been so swift and the cost in men and ships would have been immeasurably greater." During World War II, RCA was involved in radar and radio development in support of the war effort, and ranked 43rd among United States corporations in the value of wartime military production contracts. During and after the war, RCA set up several new divisions for defense, space exploration and other activities. The RCA Service Corporation provided large numbers of staff for the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line. RCA units won five Army–Navy "E" Awards for Excellence in production. Also during the war, ties between RCA and JVC were severed.
In 1955, RCA sold its Estate large appliance operations to Whirlpool Corporation. As part of the transaction, Whirlpool was given the right to market "RCA Whirlpool" appliances through the mid-1960s.
RCA Made equipment for repairing radios such as oscilloscopes.
RCA Graphic Systems Division (GSD) was an early supplier of electronics designed for the printing and publishing industries. It contracted with German company Rudolf Hell to market adaptations of the Digiset photocomposition system as the Videocomp, and a Laser Color Scanner. The Videocomp was supported by a Spectra computer that ran the Page-1 and, later the Page-II and FileComp composition systems. RCA later sold the Videocomp rights to Information International Inc.
RCA became a major proponent of the eight-track tape cartridge, which it launched in 1965. The eight-track cartridge initially had a huge and profitable impact on the consumer marketplace. Sales of the 8-track tape format declined when consumers increasingly favored the 4-track compact cassette tape format developed by Philips.
"RCA Communication Systems" is a brand of radio communications equipment, including two-way radios. The RCA brand is used under license.
RCA was one of a number of companies in the 1960s that entered the mainframe computer field in order to challenge the market leader International Business Machines (IBM) (see also: Computing). Although at this time computers were almost universally used for routine data processing and scientific research, in 1964 Sarnoff, who prided himself as a visionary, predicted that "The computer will become the hub of a vast network of remote data stations and information banks feeding into the machine at a transmission rate of a billion or more bits of information a second... Eventually, a global communications network handling voice, data and facsimile will instantly link man to machine—or machine to machine—by land, air, underwater, and space circuits. [The computer] will affect man's ways of thinking, his means of education, his relationship to his physical and social environment, and it will alter his ways of living. ... [Before the end of this century, these forces] will coalesce into what unquestionably will become the greatest adventure of the human mind."
RCA marketed a Spectra 70 computer line that was hardware, but not software, compatible with IBM's System/360 series. It also produced the RCA Series, which competed against the IBM System/370. This technology was leased to the English Electric company, which used it for their System 4 series, which were essentially RCA Spectra 70 clones. RCA's TSOS operating system was the first mainframe, demand paging, virtual memory operating system on the market. By 1971, despite a significant investment, RCA had only a 4% market share, and it was estimated that it would cost around $500 million over the next five years to remain competitive with the IBM/370 series. On September 17 1971, the RCA Board of Directors announced its decision to close its computer systems division (RCA-CSD), which would be written off as a $490 million company loss. Sperry Rand's UNIVAC division took over the RCA computer division in January, 1972.
On January 1, 1965, Robert Sarnoff succeeded his father as RCA's president, although the elder Sarnoff remained in control as chairman of the board.
The younger Sarnoff sought to modernize RCA's image with the introduction in 1968 of a new, futuristic-looking (at the time) logo (the letters 'RCA' in block, modernized form), replacing the original lightning bolt logo, and the virtual retirement of both the Victor and Nipper/His Master's Voice trademarks. The RCA Victor Division was now known as RCA Records; 'Victor' was now restricted to the album covers and labels of RCA's regular popular record releases, while the Nipper trademark was seen only on the album covers of Red Seal records.
In 1969, the company name was officially changed from "Radio Corporation of America" to the "RCA Corporation", to reflect its broader range of corporate activities and expansion into other countries. At the end of that same year David Sarnoff, after being incapacitated by a long-term illness, was removed as the company's chairman of the board. He died in 1971.
RCA's exit from the mainframe computer market in 1971 marked a milestone in its transition from electronics and technology toward diversification as a multinational business conglomerate. During the late 1960s and 1970s, the company made a wide-ranging series of acquisitions, including Hertz (rental cars), Banquet (frozen foods and TV dinners), Coronet (carpeting), Random House (publishing) and Gibson (greeting cards). However, the company was slipping into financial disarray, with wags calling it "Rugs Chickens & Automobiles" (RCA), to poke fun at its new direction.
Robert Sarnoff's tenure as RCA president was unsuccessful, marked by falling profits, in addition to being disliked personally by many company executives. He was ousted in a 1975 "boardroom coup" led by Anthony Conrad, who became the new company president. Conrad resigned less than a year later after he admitted failing to file income tax returns for six years. His successor, Edgar H. Griffiths, proved to be unpopular and retired in early 1981. Thornton Bradshaw would be the next, and last, RCA president.
RCA maintained its high standards of engineering excellence in broadcast engineering and satellite communications equipment, but ventures such as the NBC radio and television networks declined.
Beginning in 1976, largely due to popular demand and attempting to reconnect RCA to its heritage, Griffiths revived the Nipper/His Master's Voice trademark. RCA Records reinstated Nipper to most record labels in countries where RCA held the rights to the trademark. Nipper was also once again widely used in RCA newspaper and magazine advertisements, as well as store displays and many promotional items such as T-shirts, watches, key chains, coffee mugs and stuffed toys. The trademark was also printed on RCA shipping cartons, painted on RCA delivery and service trucks and reappeared for a time on RCA television sets and CED Videodisc players. Several TV news reports and newspaper articles about Nipper's return appeared at the time.
Around 1980, RCA corporate strategy reported on moving manufacture of its television sets to Mexico. RCA was still profitable in 1983, when it switched manufacturing of its VHS VCRs from Panasonic to Hitachi.
Projects attempting to establish new consumer electronics products during this era, lost money. An RCA Studio II home video game console, introduced in 1977, was canceled just under two years later due to poor sales. A capacitance electronic (CED) videodisc system, marketed under the SelectaVision name, was launched in 1981 after several years of delays. The system was practically obsolete by the time it finally did appear, and never developed the manufacturing volumes that even approached the numbers needed to substantially bring down its price. The system was unable to compete against the newer, recordable and increasingly cheaper videotape technology. RCA abandoned the manufacture of CED players in 1984 and discs in 1986, after a loss of several hundred million dollars.
In 1981, Columbia Pictures sold its share in the home video division to RCA and outside of North America this division was renamed to "RCA/Columbia Pictures International Video (now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)". The following year, within North America, it was renamed to "RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video". In 1983, Arista Records owner Bertelsmann sold 50% of Arista to RCA. In 1985, Bertelsmann and RCA formed a joint venture called RCA/Ariola International, which took over management of RCA Records.
In 1984, RCA Broadcast Systems Division moved from Camden, New Jersey, to the site of the RCA antenna engineering facility in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. On October 3, 1985, RCA announced it was closing the Broadcast Systems Division. In the years that followed, the broadcast product lines developed in Camden were terminated or sold off, and most of the old RCA Victor buildings and factories in Camden were demolished, except for a few of the nearly century old, original Victor buildings that had been declared national historic buildings. For several years, RCA spinoff L-3 Communications Systems East was headquartered in the famous Nipper Building, but has since moved to an adjacent building built by the city for them. The Nipper Building was restored and now houses shops and luxury loft apartments.
In December 1985, it was announced that General Electric would reacquire its former subsidiary for $6.28 billion in cash, or $66.50 per share of stock. The sale was completed the next year, and despite initial assurances that RCA would continue to operate as a mostly autonomous unit, GE proceeded to immediately sell off most of the RCA assets. (After the 2011 sale of NBC to Comcast, the only RCA unit which GE retained was Government Services.) GE disposed of its 50% interest in RCA Records to its partner Bertelsmann, and the company was renamed BMG Music, for Bertelsmann Music Group. In 1987, RCA Global Communications Inc., a division with roots dating back to RCA's founding, was sold to the MCI Communications Corporation. The rights to make RCA and GE-branded televisions and other consumer electronics products were purchased in 1988 by the French company Thomson Consumer Electronics, in exchange for some of Thomson's medical businesses. (For information on the RCA brand after 1986, see RCA (trademark).) That same year, its semiconductor business (including the former RCA Solid State unit and Intersil) was bought by Harris Corporation. In 1991, GE sold its share in RCA/Columbia to Sony Pictures which renamed the unit "Columbia TriStar Home Video" (later further renamed to Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, now Sony Pictures Home Entertainment). This merger surpassed the Capital Cities/ABC merger that happened earlier in 1985 as the largest non-oil merger in business history.
Sarnoff Labs was put on a five-year plan whereby GE would fund all the labs' activities for the first year, then reduce its support to near zero after the fifth year. This required Sarnoff Labs to change its business model to become an industrial contract research facility. In 1988 it was transferred to SRI International (SRI) as the David Sarnoff Research Center, and subsequently renamed the Sarnoff Corporation. In January 2011 it was fully integrated into SRI.
GE sold all of its radio station holdings to various owners, and the NBC Radio Network to Westwood One. In 2011, a controlling interest in the National Broadcasting Company, by this time part of the multimedia NBC Universal venture that included TV and cable, was sold by GE to Comcast, and in 2013, Comcast acquired the remaining interest.
RCA antique radios, and early color television receivers such as the RCA Merrill/CT-100, are among the more sought-after collectible radios and televisions, due to their popularity during the golden age of radio and the historic significance of the RCA name, as well as their styling, manufacturing quality and engineering innovations. Most collectable are the pre-war television sets manufactured by RCA beginning in 1939, including the TRK-5, TRK-9 and TRK-12 models.
The "RCA Heritage Museum" was established at Rowan University in 2012.
The historic RCA Victor Building 17, the "Nipper Building", in Camden, New Jersey, was converted to luxury apartments in 2003.
A type of plug/jack combination used in audio and video cables is still called the RCA connector.
To this day, a variety of consumer electronics including 2-in-1 tablets, televisions and telephones, home appliances and more are sold under the RCA brand name.
Numerous former RCA manufacturing sites have been reported to be polluted with industrial waste. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25970 |
Rubik's Cube
The Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer. Rubik's Cube won the 1980 German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle. , 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide, making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.
On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. Some later versions of the cube have been updated to use coloured plastic panels instead, which prevents peeling and fading. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white, and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube. An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.
Although Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. Many speedcubers continue to practice it and similar puzzles; they also compete for the fastest times in various categories. Since 2003, the World Cube Association, the international governing body of Rubik's Cube, has organised competitions worldwide and recognises world records.
In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2×2×2 "Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups" and filed a Canadian patent application for it. Nichols's cube was held together by magnets. Nichols was granted on 11 April 1972, two years before Rubik invented his Cube.
On 9 April 1970, Frank Fox applied to patent an "amusement device", a type of sliding puzzle on a spherical surface with "at least two 3×3 arrays" intended to be used for the game of noughts and crosses. He received his UK patent (1344259) on 16 January 1974.
In the mid-1970s, Ernő Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest. Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart. He did not realise that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new Cube and then tried to restore it. Rubik applied for a patent in Hungary for his "Magic Cube" ("Bűvös kocka" in Hungarian) on 30 January 1975, and HU170062 was granted later that year.
The first test batches of the Magic Cube were produced in late 1977 and released in Budapest toy shops. Magic Cube was held together with interlocking plastic pieces that prevented the puzzle being easily pulled apart, unlike the magnets in Nichols's design. With Ernő Rubik's permission, businessman Tibor Laczi took a Cube to Germany's Nuremberg Toy Fair in February 1979 in an attempt to popularise it. It was noticed by Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and they signed a deal with Ideal Toys in September 1979 to release the Magic Cube worldwide. Ideal wanted at least a recognisable name to trademark; of course, that arrangement put Rubik in the spotlight because the Magic Cube was renamed after its inventor in 1980. The puzzle made its international debut at the toy fairs of London, Paris, Nuremberg, and New York in January and February 1980.
After its international debut, the progress of the Cube towards the toy shop shelves of the West was briefly halted so that it could be manufactured to Western safety and packaging specifications. A lighter Cube was produced, and Ideal decided to rename it. "The Gordian Knot" and "Inca Gold" were considered, but the company finally decided on "Rubik's Cube", and the first batch was exported from Hungary in May 1980.
After the first batches of Rubik's Cubes were released in May 1980, initial sales were modest, but Ideal began a television advertising campaign in the middle of the year which it supplemented with newspaper adverts. At the end of 1980, Rubik's Cube won a German Game of the Year special award and won similar awards for best toy in the UK, France, and the US. By 1981, Rubik's Cube had become a craze, and it is estimated that in the period from 1980 to 1983 around 200 million Rubik's Cubes were sold worldwide. In March 1981, a speedcubing championship organised by the Guinness Book of World Records was held in Munich, and a Rubik's Cube was depicted on the front cover of "Scientific American" that same month. In June 1981, "The Washington Post" reported that Rubik's Cube is "a puzzle that's moving like fast food right now ... this year's Hoola Hoop or Bongo Board", and by September 1981, "New Scientist" noted that the cube had "captivated the attention of children of ages from 7 to 70 all over the world this summer."
As most people could solve only one or two sides, numerous books were published including David Singmaster's "Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube"" (1980) and Patrick Bossert's "You Can Do the Cube" (1981). At one stage in 1981, three of the top ten best selling books in the US were books on solving Rubik's Cube, and the best-selling book of 1981 was James G. Nourse's "The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube" which sold over 6 million copies. In 1981, the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited a Rubik's Cube, and at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee a six-foot Cube was put on display. ABC Television even developed a cartoon show called "Rubik, the Amazing Cube". In June 1982, the First Rubik's Cube World Championship took place in Budapest and would become the only competition recognized as official until the championship was revived in 2003.
In October 1982, "The New York Times" reported that sales had fallen and that "the craze has died", and by 1983 it was clear that sales had plummeted. However, in some Communist countries, such as China and USSR, the craze had started later and demand was still high because of a shortage of Cubes.
Rubik's Cubes continued to be marketed and sold throughout the 1980s and ’90s, but it was not until the early 2000s that interest in the Cube began increasing again. In the US, sales doubled between 2001 and 2003, and "The Boston Globe" remarked that it was "becoming cool to own a Cube again". The 2003 World Rubik's Games Championship was the first speedcubing tournament since 1982. It was held in Toronto and was attended by 83 participants. The tournament led to the formation of the World Cube Association in 2004. Annual sales of Rubik branded cubes were said to have reached 15 million worldwide in 2008. Part of the new appeal was ascribed to the advent of Internet video sites, such as YouTube, which allowed fans to share their solving strategies. Following the expiration of Rubik's patent in 2000, other brands of cubes appeared, especially from Chinese companies. Many of these Chinese branded cubes have been engineered for speed and are favoured by speedcubers.
Taking advantage of an initial shortage of Cubes, many imitations and variations appeared, many of which may have violated one or more patents. Today, the patents have expired and many Chinese companies produce copies of—and in nearly all cases, improvements upon—the Rubik and V-Cube designs.
Nichols assigned his patent to his employer Moleculon Research Corp., which sued Ideal in 1982. In 1984, Ideal lost the patent infringement suit and appealed. In 1986, the appeals court affirmed the judgment that Rubik's 2×2×2 Pocket Cube infringed Nichols's patent, but overturned the judgment on Rubik's 3×3×3 Cube.
Even while Rubik's patent application was being processed, Terutoshi Ishigi, a self-taught engineer and ironworks owner near Tokyo, filed for a Japanese patent for a nearly identical mechanism, which was granted in 1976 (Japanese patent publication JP55-008192). Until 1999, when an amended Japanese patent law was enforced, Japan's patent office granted Japanese patents for non-disclosed technology within Japan without requiring worldwide novelty. Hence, Ishigi's patent is generally accepted as an independent reinvention at that time. Rubik applied for more patents in 1980, including another Hungarian patent on 28 October. In the United States, Rubik was granted on 29 March 1983, for the Cube. This patent expired in 2000.
Rubik's Brand Ltd. also holds the registered trademarks for the word "Rubik" and "Rubik's" and for the 2D and 3D visualisations of the puzzle. The trademarks have been upheld by a ruling of the General Court of the European Union on 25 November 2014 in a successful defence against a German toy manufacturer seeking to invalidate them. However, European toy manufacturers are allowed to create differently shaped puzzles that have a similar rotating or twisting functionality of component parts such as for example Skewb, Pyraminx or Impossiball.
On 10 November 2016, Rubik's Cube lost a ten-year battle over a key trademark issue. The European Union's highest court, the Court of Justice, ruled that the puzzle's shape was not sufficient to grant it trademark protection.
A standard Rubik's Cube measures on each side. The puzzle consists of 26 unique miniature cubes, also called "cubies" or "cubelets". Each of these includes a concealed inward extension that interlocks with the other cubes while permitting them to move to different locations. However, the centre cube of each of the six faces is merely a single square façade; all six are affixed to the core mechanism. These provide structure for the other pieces to fit into and rotate around. Hence, there are 21 pieces: a single core piece consisting of three intersecting axes holding the six centre squares in place but letting them rotate, and 20 smaller plastic pieces which fit into it to form the assembled puzzle.
Each of the six centre pieces pivots on a screw (fastener) held by the centre piece, a "3D cross". A spring between each screw head and its corresponding piece tensions the piece inward, so that collectively, the whole assembly remains compact but can still be easily manipulated. The screw can be tightened or loosened to change the "feel" of the Cube. Newer official Rubik's brand cubes have rivets instead of screws and cannot be adjusted.
The Cube can be taken apart without much difficulty, typically by rotating the top layer by 45° and then prying one of its edge cubes away from the other two layers. Consequently, it is a simple process to "solve" a Cube by taking it apart and reassembling it in a solved state.
There are six central pieces which show one coloured face, twelve edge pieces which show two coloured faces, and eight corner pieces which show three coloured faces. Each piece shows a unique colour combination, but not all combinations are present (for example, if red and orange are on opposite sides of the solved Cube, there is no edge piece with both red and orange sides). The location of these cubes relative to one another can be altered by twisting an outer third of the Cube by increments of 90 degrees, but the location of the coloured sides relative to one another in the completed state of the puzzle cannot be altered; it is fixed by the relative positions of the centre squares. However, Cubes with alternative colour arrangements also exist; for example, with the yellow face opposite the green, the blue face opposite the white, and red and orange remaining opposite each other.
Douglas Hofstadter, in the July 1982 issue of "Scientific American", pointed out that Cubes could be coloured in such a way as to emphasise the corners or edges, rather than the faces as the standard colouring does; but neither of these alternative colourings has ever become popular.
The puzzle was originally advertised as having "over 3,000,000,000 (three billion) combinations but only one solution". Depending on how combinations are counted, the actual number can be significantly higher.
The original (3×3×3) Rubik's Cube has eight corners and twelve edges. There are 8! (40,320) ways to arrange the corner cubes. Each corner has three possible orientations, although only seven (of eight) can be oriented independently; the orientation of the eighth (final) corner depends on the preceding seven, giving 37 (2,187) possibilities. There are 12!/2 (239,500,800) ways to arrange the edges, restricted from 12! because edges must be in an even permutation exactly when the corners are. (When arrangements of centres are also permitted, as described below, the rule is that the combined arrangement of corners, edges, and centres must be an even permutation.) Eleven edges can be flipped independently, with the flip of the twelfth depending on the preceding ones, giving 211 (2,048) possibilities.
which is approximately 43 quintillion. To put this into perspective, if one had one standard-sized Rubik's Cube for each permutation, one could cover the Earth's surface 275 times, or stack them in a tower 261 light-years high.
The preceding figure is limited to permutations that can be reached solely by turning the sides of the cube. If one considers permutations reached through disassembly of the cube, the number becomes twelve times larger:
which is approximately 519 quintillion possible arrangements of the pieces that make up the Cube, but only one in twelve of these are actually solvable. This is because there is no sequence of moves that will swap a single pair of pieces or rotate a single corner or edge cube. Thus, there are 12 possible sets of reachable configurations, sometimes called "universes" or "orbits", into which the Cube can be placed by dismantling and reassembling it.
The preceding numbers assume the center faces are in a fixed position. If one considers turning the whole cube to be a different permutation, then each of the preceding numbers should be multiplied by 24. A chosen color can be on one of six sides, and then one of the adjacent colors can be in one of four positions; this determines the positions of all remaining colors.
The original Rubik's Cube had no orientation markings on the centre faces (although some carried the words "Rubik's Cube" on the centre square of the white face), and therefore solving it does not require any attention to orienting those faces correctly. However, with marker pens, one could, for example, mark the central squares of an unscrambled Cube with four coloured marks on each edge, each corresponding to the colour of the adjacent face; a cube marked in this way is referred to as a "supercube". Some Cubes have also been produced commercially with markings on all of the squares, such as the Lo Shu magic square or playing card suits. Cubes have also been produced where the nine stickers on a face are used to make a single larger picture, and centre orientation matters on these as well. Thus one can nominally solve a Cube yet have the markings on the centres rotated; it then becomes an additional test to solve the centres as well.
Marking Rubik's Cube's centres increases its difficulty, because this expands the set of distinguishable possible configurations. There are 46/2 (2,048) ways to orient the centres since an even permutation of the corners implies an even number of quarter turns of centres as well. In particular, when the Cube is unscrambled apart from the orientations of the central squares, there will always be an even number of centre squares requiring a quarter turn. Thus orientations of centres increases the total number of possible Cube permutations from 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 (4.3×1019) to 88,580,102,706,155,225,088,000 (8.9×1022).
When turning a cube over is considered to be a change in permutation then we must also count arrangements of the centre faces. Nominally there are 6! ways to arrange the six centre faces of the cube, but only 24 of these are achievable without disassembly of the cube. When the orientations of centres are also counted, as above, this increases the total number of possible Cube permutations from 88,580,102,706,155,225,088,000 (8.9×1022) to 2,125,922,464,947,725,402,112,000 (2.1×1024).
In Rubik's cubers' parlance, a memorised sequence of moves that has a desired effect on the cube is called an algorithm. This terminology is derived from the mathematical use of "algorithm", meaning a list of well-defined instructions for performing a task from a given initial state, through well-defined successive states, to a desired end-state. Each method of solving the Cube employs its own set of algorithms, together with descriptions of what effect the algorithm has, and when it can be used to bring the cube closer to being solved.
Many algorithms are designed to transform only a small part of the cube without interfering with other parts that have already been solved so that they can be applied repeatedly to different parts of the cube until the whole is solved. For example, there are well-known algorithms for cycling three corners without changing the rest of the puzzle or flipping the orientation of a pair of edges while leaving the others intact.
Some algorithms do have a certain desired effect on the cube (for example, swapping two corners) but may also have the side-effect of changing other parts of the cube (such as permuting some edges). Such algorithms are often simpler than the ones without side-effects and are employed early on in the solution when most of the puzzle has not yet been solved and the side-effects are not important. Most are long and difficult to memorise. Towards the end of the solution, the more specific (and usually more complicated) algorithms are used instead.
Rubik's Cube lends itself to the application of mathematical group theory, which has been helpful for deducing certain algorithms – in particular, those which have a "commutator" structure, namely "XYX"−1"Y"−1 (where "X" and "Y" are specific moves or move-sequences and "X"−1 and "Y"−1 are their respective inverses), or a "conjugate" structure, namely "XYX"−1, often referred to by speedcubers colloquially as a "setup move". In addition, the fact that there are well-defined subgroups within the Rubik's Cube group enables the puzzle to be learned and mastered by moving up through various self-contained "levels of difficulty". For example, one such "level" could involve solving cubes which have been scrambled using only 180-degree turns. These subgroups are the principle underlying the computer cubing methods by Thistlethwaite and Kociemba, which solve the cube by further reducing it to another subgroup.
Many 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube enthusiasts use a notation developed by David Singmaster to denote a sequence of moves, referred to as "Singmaster notation". Its relative nature allows algorithms to be written in such a way that they can be applied regardless of which side is designated the top or how the colours are organised on a particular cube.
When a prime symbol ( ′ ) follows a letter, it denotes an anticlockwise face turn; while a letter without a prime symbol denotes a clockwise turn. These directions are as one is looking at the specified face. A letter followed by a 2 (occasionally a superscript 2) denotes two turns, or a 180-degree turn. "R" is right side clockwise, but "R′" is right side anticlockwise. The letters "x", "y", and "z" are used to indicate that the entire Cube should be turned about one of its axes, corresponding to R, U, and F turns respectively. When "x", "y", or "z" are primed, it is an indication that the cube must be rotated in the opposite direction. When they are squared, the cube must be rotated 180 degrees.
The most common deviation from Singmaster notation, and in fact the current official standard, is to use "w", for "wide", instead of lowercase letters to represent moves of two layers; thus, a move of "Rw" is equivalent to one of "r".
For methods using middle-layer turns (particularly corners-first methods), there is a generally accepted "MES" extension to the notation where letters "M", "E", and "S" denote middle layer turns. It was used e.g. in Marc Waterman's Algorithm.
The 4×4×4 and larger cubes use an extended notation to refer to the additional middle layers. Generally speaking, uppercase letters ("F B U D L R") refer to the outermost portions of the cube (called faces). Lowercase letters ("f b u d l r") refer to the inner portions of the cube (called slices). An asterisk (L*), a number in front of it (2L), or two layers in parentheses (Ll), means to turn the two layers at the same time (both the inner and the outer left faces) For example: ("Rr")' "l"2 "f"' means to turn the two rightmost layers anticlockwise, then the left inner layer twice, and then the inner front layer anticlockwise. By extension, for cubes of 6×6×6 and larger, moves of three layers are notated by the number 3, for example, 3L.
An alternative notation, Wolstenholme notation, is designed to make memorising sequences of moves easier for novices. This notation uses the same letters for faces except it replaces U with T (top), so that all are consonants. The key difference is the use of the vowels O, A, and I for clockwise, anticlockwise, and twice (180-degree) turns, which results in word-like sequences such as LOTA RATO LATA ROTI (equivalent to LU′R′UL′U′RU2 in Singmaster notation). Addition of a C implies rotation of the entire cube, so ROC is the clockwise rotation of the cube around its right face. Middle layer moves are denoted by adding an M to corresponding face move, so RIM means a 180-degree turn of the middle layer adjacent to the R face.
Another notation appeared in the 1981 book "The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube". Singmaster notation was not widely known at the time of publication. The faces were named Top (T), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R), Front (F), and Posterior (P), with + for clockwise, – for anticlockwise, and 2 for 180-degree turns.
Another notation appeared in the 1982 "The Ideal Solution" book for Rubik's Revenge. Horizontal planes were noted as tables, with table 1 or T1 starting at the top. Vertical front to back planes were noted as books, with book 1 or B1 starting from the left. Vertical left to right planes were noted as windows, with window 1 or W1 starting at the front. Using the front face as a reference view, table moves were left or right, book moves were up or down, and window moves were clockwise or anticlockwise.
Although there are a significant number of possible permutations for Rubik's Cube, a number of solutions have been developed which allow solving the cube in well under 100 moves.
Many general solutions for the Cube have been discovered independently. David Singmaster first published his solution in the book "Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube"" in 1981. This solution involves solving the Cube layer by layer, in which one layer (designated the top) is solved first, followed by the middle layer, and then the final and bottom layer. After sufficient practice, solving the Cube layer by layer can be done in under one minute. Other general solutions include "corners first" methods or combinations of several other methods. In 1982, David Singmaster and Alexander Frey hypothesised that the number of moves needed to solve the Cube, given an ideal algorithm, might be in "the low twenties". In 2007, Daniel Kunkle and Gene Cooperman used computer search methods to demonstrate that any 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube configuration can be solved in 26 moves or fewer.
In 2008, Tomas Rokicki lowered that number to 22 moves, and in July 2010, a team of researchers including Rokicki, working with Google, proved the so-called "God's number" to be 20. This is optimal, since there exist some starting positions which require a minimum of 20 moves to solve. More generally, it has been shown that an "n"×"n"×"n" Rubik's Cube can be solved optimally in Θ("n"2 / log("n")) moves.
A solution commonly used by speedcubers was developed by Jessica Fridrich. This method is called CFOP standing for "cross, F2L, OLL, PLL". It is similar to the layer-by-layer method but employs the use of a large number of algorithms, especially for orienting and permuting the last layer. The cross is done first, followed by first layer corners and second layer edges simultaneously, with each corner paired up with a second-layer edge piece, thus completing the first two layers (F2L). This is then followed by orienting the last layer, then permuting the last layer (OLL and PLL respectively). Fridrich's solution requires learning roughly 120 algorithms but allows the Cube to be solved in only 55 moves on average.
A now well-known method was developed by Lars Petrus. In this method, a 2×2×2 section is solved first, followed by a 2×2×3, and then the incorrect edges are solved using a three-move algorithm, which eliminates the need for a possible 32-move algorithm later. The principle behind this is that in layer-by-layer, one must constantly break and fix the completed layer(s); the 2×2×2 and 2×2×3 sections allow three or two layers (respectively) to be turned without ruining progress. One of the advantages of this method is that it tends to give solutions in fewer moves. For this reason, the method is also popular for fewest move competitions.
The Roux Method, developed by Gilles Roux, is similar to the Petrus method in that it relies on block building rather than layers, but derives from corners-first methods. In Roux, a 3×2×1 block is solved, followed by another 3×2×1 on the opposite side. Next, the corners of the top layer are solved. The cube can then be solved using only moves of the U layer and M slice.
Most beginner solution methods involve solving the cube one layer at a time, using algorithms that preserve what has already been solved. The easiest layer by layer methods require only 3–8 algorithms.
In 1981, thirteen-year-old Patrick Bossert developed a solution for solving the cube, along with a graphical notation, designed to be easily understood by novices. It was subsequently published as "You Can Do The Cube" and became a best-seller.
In 1997, Denny Dedmore published a solution described using diagrammatic icons representing the moves to be made, instead of the usual notation.
Philip Marshall's "The Ultimate Solution to Rubik's Cube" takes a different approach, averaging only 65 twists yet requiring the memorisation of only "two" algorithms. The cross is solved first, followed by the remaining edges, then five corners, and finally the last three corners.
The most move optimal online Rubik's Cube solver programs use Herbert Kociemba's Two-Phase Algorithm which can typically determine a solution of 20 moves or fewer. The user has to set the colour configuration of the scrambled cube, and the program returns the steps required to solve it.
Speedcubing (or speedsolving) is the practice of trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the shortest time possible. There are a number of speedcubing competitions that take place around the world.
A speedcubing championship organised by the Guinness Book of World Records was held in Munich on 13 March 1981. The contest used standardised scrambling and fixed inspection times, and the winners were Ronald Brinkmann and Jury Fröschl with times of 38.0 seconds. The first world championship was the 1982 World Rubik's Cube Championship held in Budapest on 5 June 1982, which was won by Minh Thai, a Vietnamese student from Los Angeles, with a time of 22.95 seconds.
Since 2003, the winner of a competition is determined by taking the average time of the middle three of five attempts. However, the single best time of all tries is also recorded.
The World Cube Association maintains a history of world records.
In 2004, the WCA made it mandatory to use a special timing device called a Stackmat timer.
In addition to the main 3x3x3 event, the WCA also holds events where the cube is solved in different ways:
In Blindfolded Solving, the contestant first studies the scrambled cube (i.e., looking at it normally with no blindfold), and is then blindfolded before beginning to turn the cube's faces. Their recorded time for this event includes both the time spent memorizing the cube and the time spent manipulating it.
In Multiple Blindfolded, all of the cubes are memorised, and then all of the cubes are solved once blindfolded; thus, the main challenge is memorising many – often ten or more – separate cubes. The event is scored not by time but by the number of points achieved after the one hour time limit has elapsed. The number of points achieved is equal to the number of cubes solved correctly, minus the number of cubes unsolved after the end of the attempt, where a greater number of points is better. If multiple competitors achieve the same number of points, rankings are assessed based on the total time of the attempt, with a shorter time being better.
In Fewest Moves solving, the contestant is given one hour to find a solution and must write it down.
File:Rubik's Cube variants.jpg|thumb|250px|alt=Rubik's Cube Variants|Variations of Rubik's Cubes. Top row: V-Cube 7, Professor's Cube, V-Cube 6. Bottom row: Rubik's Revenge, original Rubik's Cube, Pocket Cube. Clicking on a cube in the picture will redirect to the respective cube's page. (Note:scrambled states)
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poly 964 370 1082 448 1065 545 970 622 865 545 875 445 Pocket Cube
poly 620 370 844 363 862 536 850 680 628 682 Rubik's Cube
poly 455 280 570 440 580 605 355 705 255 530 220 363 Rubik's Revenge
poly 540 75 780 90 780 225 760 360 620 365 605 420 560 420 505 340 500 235 Professor's Cube
poly 890 50 1125 90 1065 420 1040 420 965 365 930 390 850 380 845 365 830 360 840 205 V-Cube 6
poly 255 50 320 90 405 225 420 290 210 360 230 460 210 465 150 410 90 320 60 240 45 155 120 100 190 70 V-Cube 7
There are different variations of Rubik's Cubes with up to thirty-three layers: the 2×2×2 (Pocket/Mini Cube), the standard 3×3×3 cube, the 4×4×4 (Rubik's Revenge/Master Cube), and the 5×5×5 (Professor's Cube) being the most well known. As of 1981, the official Rubik's Brand has licensed twisty puzzle cubes only up to the 5×5×5. The 17×17×17 "Over The Top" cube (available late 2011) was until December 2017 the largest (and most expensive, costing more than two thousand dollars) commercially sold cube. A mass-produced 17×17×17 was later introduced by the Chinese manufacturer YuXin. A working design for a 22×22×22 cube exists and was demonstrated in January 2016, and a 33×33×33 in December 2017. Chinese manufacturer ShengShou has been producing cubes in all sizes from 2×2×2 to 15×15×15 (as of May 2020), and have also come out with a 17×17×17.
Non-licensed physical cubes as large as 17×17×17 based on the V-Cube patents are commercially available to the mass-market; these represent about the limit of practicality for the purpose of "speed-solving" competitively (as the cubes become increasingly ungainly and solve-times increase quadratically).
There are many variations of the original cube, some of which are made by Rubik. The mechanical products include Rubik's Magic, 360, and Twist. Also, electronics like Rubik's Revolution and Slide, were also inspired by the original. One of the newest 3×3×3 Cube variants is Rubik's TouchCube. Sliding a finger across its faces causes its patterns of coloured lights to rotate the same way they would on a mechanical cube. The TouchCube also has buttons for hints and self-solving, and it includes a charging stand. The TouchCube was introduced at the American International Toy Fair in New York on 15 February 2009.
The Cube has inspired an entire category of similar puzzles, commonly referred to as "twisty puzzles", which includes the cubes of different sizes mentioned above as well as various other geometric shapes. Some such shapes include the tetrahedron (Pyraminx), the octahedron (Skewb Diamond), the dodecahedron (Megaminx), and the icosahedron (Dogic). There are also puzzles that change shape such as Rubik's Snake and the Square One.
In 2011, Guinness World Records awarded the "largest order Rubiks magic cube" to a 17×17×17 cube, made by Oskar van Deventer. On 2 December 2017, Grégoire Pfennig announced that he had broken this record, with a 33×33×33 cube, and that his claim had been submitted to Guinness for verification. On 8 April 2018, Grégoire Pfennig announced another world record, the 2x2x50 cube. Whether this is a replacement for the 33x33x33 record, or an additional record, remains to be seen.
Some puzzles have also been created in the shape of the Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra, such as Alexander's Star (a great dodecahedron). Grégoire Pfennig has also created at least one puzzle in the shape of a small stellated dodecahedron.
Puzzles have been built resembling Rubik's Cube, or based on its inner workings. For example, a cuboid is a puzzle based on Rubik's Cube, but with different functional dimensions, such as 2×2×4, 2×3×4, and 3×3×5. Many cuboids are based on 4×4×4 or 5×5×5 mechanisms, via building plastic extensions or by directly modifying the mechanism itself.
Some custom puzzles are not derived from any existing mechanism, such as the Gigaminx v1.5-v2, Bevel Cube, SuperX, Toru, Rua, and 1×2×3. These puzzles usually have a set of masters 3D printed, which then are copied using moulding and casting techniques to create the final puzzle.
Other Rubik's Cube modifications include cubes that have been extended or truncated to form a new shape. An example of this is the Trabjer's Octahedron, which can be built by truncating and extending portions of a regular 3×3×3. Most shape mods can be adapted to higher-order cubes. In the case of Tony Fisher's Rhombic Dodecahedron, there are 3×3×3, 4×4×4, 5×5×5, and 6×6×6 versions of the puzzle.
Puzzles, like Rubik's Cube, can be simulated by computer software, which provides functions such as recording of player metrics, storing scrambled Cube positions, conducting online competitions, analysing of move sequences, and converting between different move notations. Software can also simulate very large puzzles that are impractical to build, such as 100×100×100 and 1,000×1,000×1,000 cubes, as well as virtual puzzles that cannot be physically built, such as 4- and 5-dimensional analogues of the cube.
Google has released the Chrome Cube Lab in association with Ernő Rubik. The site has various interactive objects based on Rubik's Cube. Customised versions of Rubik's Cube can be created and uploaded. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25971 |
Red Army Faction
The Red Army Faction (RAF; , ), also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (, ), was a West German far-left militant organization founded in 1970. Key early figures included Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler and Ulrike Meinhof, among others. Ulrike Meinhof was involved in Baader's escape from jail in 1970. The West German/German government as well as most Western media and literature considered the Red Army Faction to be a terrorist organization.
The Red Army Faction engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and shoot-outs with police over the course of three decades. Their activity peaked in late 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as the "German Autumn". The RAF has been held responsible for thirty-four deaths, including many secondary targets, such as chauffeurs and bodyguards, as well as many injuries throughout its almost thirty years of activity. Although better-known, the RAF conducted fewer attacks than the Revolutionary Cells, which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995.
Sometimes the group is talked about in terms of generations:
On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the Reuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the submachine-gun red star, declaring that the group had dissolved. In 1999, after a robbery in Duisburg, evidence pointing to Ernst-Volker Staub and Daniela Klette was found, causing an official investigation into a re-founding.
In total, the RAF killed 34 people, and 27 members or supporters were killed.
The usual translation into English is the Red Army "Faction"; however, the founders wanted it not to reflect a splinter group but rather an embryonic militant unit that was embedded, in or part of, a wider communist workers' movement, i.e. a "fraction" of a whole.
The group always called itself the "Rote Armee Fraktion", never the Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang. The name refers to all incarnations of the organization: the "first generation" RAF, which consisted of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and others; the "second generation" RAF; and the "third generation" RAF, which existed in the 1980s and 90s. The terms "Baader-Meinhof Gang" and "Baader-Meinhof Group" were first used by the media and the government. The group never used these names to refer to itself, since it viewed itself as a co-founded group consisting of numerous members and not a group with two figureheads.
The origins of the group can be traced back to the student protest movement in West Germany. Industrialized nations in the late 1960s experienced social upheavals related to the maturing of the "baby boomers", the Cold War, and the end of colonialism. Newly found youth identity and issues such as racism, women's liberation, and anti-imperialism were at the forefront of left-wing politics. Many young people were alienated, from both their parents and the institutions of state. The historical legacy of Nazism drove a wedge between the generations and increased suspicion of authoritarian structures in society (some analysts see the same occurring in post-fascism Italy, giving rise to ""Brigate Rosse"").
In West Germany there was anger among leftist youth at the post-war denazification in West Germany and East Germany, which was perceived as a failure or as ineffective, as former (actual and supposed) Nazis held positions in government and the economy. The Communist Party of Germany had been outlawed since 1956. Elected and appointed government positions down to the local level were often occupied by ex-Nazis. Konrad Adenauer, the first Federal Republic chancellor (in office 1949–1963), had even appointed former Nazi sympathiser Hans Globke as Director of the Federal Chancellery of West Germany (in office 1953–1963).
The radicals regarded the conservative media as biased—at the time conservatives such as Axel Springer, who was implacably opposed to student radicalism, owned and controlled the conservative media including all of the most influential mass-circulation tabloid newspapers. The emergence of the Grand Coalition between the two main parties, the SPD and CDU, with former Nazi Party member Kurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor, occurred in 1966. This horrified many on the left and was viewed as a monolithic, political marriage of convenience with pro-NATO, pro-capitalist collusion on the part of the social democratic SPD. With about 90% of the Bundestag controlled by the coalition, an Extra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) was formed with the intent of generating protest and political activity outside of government. In 1972 a law was passed—the Radikalenerlass—that banned radicals or those with a "questionable" political persuasion from public sector jobs.
Some radicals used the supposed association of large parts of society with Nazism as an argument against any peaceful approaches:
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:
RAF founder Ulrike Meinhof had a long history in the Communist Party. Holger Meins had studied film and was a veteran of the Berlin revolt; his short feature "How To Produce A Molotov Cocktail" was seen by huge audiences. Jan Carl Raspe lived at the Kommune 2; Horst Mahler was an established lawyer but also at the center of the anti-Springer revolt from the beginning. From their own personal experiences and assessments of the socio-economic situation they soon became more specifically influenced by Leninism and Maoism, calling themselves "Marxist-Leninist" though they effectively added to or updated this ideological tradition. A contemporaneous critique of the Red Army Faction's view of the state, published in a pirate edition of "Le Monde Diplomatique", ascribed to it "state-fetishism"—an ideologically obsessive misreading of bourgeois dynamics and the nature and role of the state in post-WWII societies, including West Germany.
It is claimed that property destruction during the Watts riots in the United States in 1965 influenced the practical and ideological approach of the RAF founders, as well as some of those in Situationist circles.
The writings of Antonio Gramsci and Herbert Marcuse were drawn upon. Gramsci wrote on power, cultural, and ideological conflicts in society and institutions—real-time class struggles playing out in rapidly developing industrial nation states through interlinked areas of political behavior, Marcuse on coercion and hegemony in that cultural indoctrination and ideological manipulation through the means of communication ("repressive tolerance") dispensed with the need for complete brute force in modern 'liberal democracies'. His "One-Dimensional Man" was addressed to the restive students of the sixties. Marcuse argued that only marginal groups of students and poor alienated workers could effectively resist the system. Both Gramsci and Marcuse came to the conclusion that the ideological underpinnings and the 'superstructure' of society was vitally important in the understanding of class control (and acquiescence). This could perhaps be seen as an extension of Marx's work as he did not cover this area in detail. "Das Kapital", his mainly economic work, was meant to be one of a series of books which would have included one on society and one on the state, but his death prevented fulfillment of this.
Many of the radicals felt that Germany's lawmakers were continuing authoritarian policies and the public's apparent acquiescence was seen as a continuation of the indoctrination the Nazis had pioneered in society (Volksgemeinschaft). The Federal Republic was exporting arms to African dictatorships, which was seen as supporting the war in Southeast Asia and engineering the remilitarization of Germany with the U.S.-led entrenchment against the Warsaw Pact nations.
Ongoing events further catalyzed the situation. Protests turned into riots on 2 June 1967, when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, visited West Berlin. There were protesters but also hundreds of supporters of the Shah, as well as a group of fake supporters armed with wooden staves, there to disturb the normal course of the visit. These extremists beat the protesters. After a day of angry protests by exiled Iranian radical Marxists, a group widely supported by German students, the Shah visited the Berlin Opera, where a crowd of German student protesters gathered. During the opera house demonstrations, German student Benno Ohnesorg was shot in the head by a police officer while attending his first protest rally. The officer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, was acquitted in a subsequent trial. It was later discovered that Kurras had been a member of the West Berlin communist party "SEW" and had also worked for the Stasi, though there is no indication that Kurras' killing of Ohnesorg was under anyone's, including the Stasi's, orders.
Along with perceptions of state and police brutality, and widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, Ohnesorg's death galvanized many young Germans and became a rallying point for the West German New Left. The Berlin 2 June Movement, a militant-Anarchist group, later took its name to honor the date of Ohnesorg's death.
On 2 April 1968 Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader, joined by Thorwald Proll and Horst Söhnlein, set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt as a protest against the Vietnam war. They were arrested two days later.
On 11 April 1968 Rudi Dutschke, a leading spokesman for protesting students, was shot in the head in an assassination attempt by the right-wing sympathizer Josef Bachmann. Although badly injured, Dutschke returned to political activism with the German Green Party before his death in a bathtub in 1979, as a consequence of his injuries.
Axel Springer's populist newspaper "Bild-Zeitung", which had run headlines such as "Stop Dutschke now!", was accused of being the chief culprit in inciting the shooting. Meinhof commented, "If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action."
All four of the defendants charged with arson and endangering human life were convicted, for which they were sentenced to three years in prison. In June 1969, however, they were temporarily paroled under an amnesty for political prisoners, but in November of that year, the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) demanded that they return to custody. Only Horst Söhnlein complied with the order; the rest went underground and made their way to France, where they stayed for a time in a house owned by prominent French journalist and revolutionary, Régis Debray, famous for his friendship with Che Guevara and the "foco" theory of guerrilla warfare. Eventually they made their way to Italy, where the lawyer Mahler visited them and encouraged them to return to Germany with him to form an underground guerrilla group.
The Red Army Faction was formed with the intention of complementing the plethora of revolutionary and radical groups across West Germany and Europe, as a more class conscious and determined force compared with some of its contemporaries. The members and supporters were already associated with the 'Revolutionary Cells' and 2 June Movement as well as radical currents and phenomena such as the Socialist Patients' Collective, Kommune 1 and the Situationists.
Baader was arrested again in April 1970, but on 14 May 1970 he was freed by Meinhof and others. Less than a month later, Gudrun Ensslin would write an article in a West Berlin underground paper by the name of "Agit883 (Magazine for Agitation and Social Practice)", demanding for a call to arms and a building of the Red Army. The article ended with the words, "Develop the class struggles. Organize the proletariat. Start the armed resistance!" Baader, Ensslin, Mahler, and Meinhof then went to Jordan, where they trained with Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas and looked to the Palestinian cause for inspiration and guidance. But RAF organization and outlook were also partly modeled on the Uruguayan Tupamaros movement, which had developed as an urban resistance movement, effectively inverting Che Guevara's Mao-like concept of a peasant or rural-based guerrilla war and instead situating the struggle in the metropole or cities.
Many members of the RAF operated through a single contact or only knew others by their codenames. Actions were carried out by active units called 'commandos', with trained members being supplied by a quartermaster in order to carry out their mission. For more long-term or core cadre members, isolated cell-like organization was absent or took on a more flexible form.
In 1969 the Brazilian revolutionary Carlos Marighella published his "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla". He described the urban guerrilla as:
The importance of small arms training, sabotage, expropriation, and a substantial safehouse/support base among the urban population was stressed in Marighella's guide. This publication was an antecedent to Meinhof's 'The Urban Guerrilla Concept' and has subsequently influenced many guerrilla and insurgent groups around the globe. Although some of the Red Army Faction's supporters and operatives could be described as having an anarchist or libertarian communist slant, the group's leading members professed a largely Marxist-Leninist ideology. That said, they shied away from overt collaboration with communist states, arguing along the lines of the Chinese side in the Sino-Soviet split that the Soviet Union and its European satellite states had become traitors to the communist cause by, in effect if not in rhetoric, giving the United States a free pass in their exploitation of Third World populations and support of "useful" Third World dictators. Nevertheless, RAF members did receive intermittent support and sanctuary over the border in East Germany during the 1980s.
When they returned to West Germany, they began what they called an "anti-imperialistic struggle," with bank robberies to raise money and bomb attacks against U.S. military facilities, German police stations, and buildings belonging to the Axel Springer press empire. In 1970, a manifesto authored by Meinhof used the name "RAF" and the red star logo with a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun for the first time.
After an intense manhunt, Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, Meins, and Raspe were eventually caught and arrested in June 1972.
After the arrest of the protagonists of the first generation of the RAF, they were held in solitary confinement in the newly constructed high security Stammheim Prison north of Stuttgart. When Ensslin devised an "info system" using aliases for each member (names deemed to have allegorical significance from "Moby Dick"), the four prisoners were able to communicate, circulating letters with the help of their defense counsel.
To protest against their treatment by authorities, they went on several coordinated hunger strikes; eventually, they were force-fed.
Holger Meins died of self-induced starvation on 9 November 1974. After public protests, their conditions were somewhat improved by the authorities.
The so-called second generation of the RAF emerged at that time, consisting of sympathizers independent of the inmates. This became clear when, on 27 February 1975, Peter Lorenz, the CDU candidate for mayor of Berlin, was kidnapped by the 2 June Movement (allied to the RAF) as part of pressure to secure the release of several other detainees. Since none of these were on trial for murder, the state agreed, and those inmates (and later Lorenz himself) were released.
On 24 April 1975, the West German embassy in Stockholm was seized by members of the RAF; two of the hostages were murdered as the German government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt refused to give in to their demands. Two of the hostage-takers died from injuries they suffered when the explosives they planted mysteriously detonated later that night.
On 21 May 1975, the Stammheim trial of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and Raspe began, named after the district in Stuttgart where it took place. The Bundestag had earlier changed the Code of Criminal Procedure so that several of the attorneys who were accused of serving as links between the inmates and the RAF's second generation could be excluded.
On 9 May 1976, Ulrike Meinhof was found dead in her prison cell, hanging from a rope made from jail towels. An investigation concluded that she had hanged herself, a result hotly contested at the time, triggering a plethora of so-called conspiracy theories. Other theories suggest that she took her life because she was being ostracized by the rest of the group. There is, however, evidence to the contrary of this hypothesis.
During the trial, more attacks took place. One of these was on 7 April 1977, when Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback, his driver, and his bodyguard were shot and killed by two RAF members while waiting at a red traffic light. Buback, who had been a Nazi member during WWII, was considered by RAF as one of the key persons for their trial. Among other things, two years earlier, while being interviewed by "Stern" magazine, he stated that "Persons like Baader don't deserve a fair trial." In February 1976, when interviewed by "Der Spiegel" he stated that "We do not need regulation of our jurisdiction, national security survives thanks to people like me and Herold (chief of BKA), who always find the right way..."
Eventually, on 28 April 1977, the trial's 192nd day, the three remaining defendants were convicted of several murders, more attempted murders, and of forming a terrorist organization; they were sentenced to life imprisonment.
A new section of Stammheim Prison was built especially for the RAF and was considered one of the most secure prison blocks around the world at the time. The prisoners were transferred there in 1975 (three years after their arrest). The roof and the courtyard were covered with steel mesh. During the night, the precinct was illuminated by fifty-four spotlights and twenty-three neon bulbs. Special military forces, including snipers, guarded the roof. Four hundred police officers along with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution patrolled the building. The mounted police officers rotated on a double shift. One hundred more GSG-9 tactical police officers reinforced the police during the trial while BKA detectives guarded the front of the court area. Finally, helicopters overflew the area.
Accredited media correspondents had to pass a police road block 400 meters from the court. The police noted their data and the number-plate and photographed their cars. After that they had to pass three verification audits, and finally they were undressed and two judicial officials thoroughly searched their bodies. They were allowed to keep only a pencil and a notepad inside the court. Their personal items including their identities were withheld by the authorities during the trial. Every journalist could attend the trial only twice (two days). "The Times" questioned the possibility whether a fair trial could be conducted under these circumstances which involved siege-like conditions. "Der Spiegel" wondered whether that atmosphere anticipated "the condemnation of the defendants who were allegedly responsible for the emergency measures."
During visits from lawyers and, more rarely, relatives (friends were not allowed), three jailers would observe the conversations the prisoners had with their visitors. The prisoners were not allowed to meet each other inside the prison, until late-1975 when a regular meeting time was established (30 minutes, twice per day), during which they were guarded.
The judges and their pasts are considered important by supporters of the accused. Judge Weiss (Mahler's trial) had judged Joachim Raese (president of the Third Reich's court) as innocent seven times. When he threatened Meinhof that she would be put into a glass cage she answered caustically, "So you are threatening me with Eichmann's cage, fascist?" (Adolf Eichmann who was an "Obersturmbannführer" in the SS, was held inside a glass cage during his trial in Israel). Siegfried Buback, the RAF's main trial judge in Stammheim, had been a Nazi Party member. Along with Federal Prosecutor Heinrich Wunder (who served as senior government official in the Ministry of Defense), Buback had ordered the arrest of Rudolf Augstein and other journalists regarding the "Spiegel" affair in 1962. Theodor Prinzing was accused by defense attorney Otto Schily of having been appointed arbitrarily, displacing other judges.
At several points in the Stammheim trial, microphones were turned off while defendants were speaking. They were often expelled from the hall, and other actions were taken. It was later revealed that the conversation they had between themselves as well as with their attorneys were recorded. Finally it was reported by both the defendants' attorneys and some of the prison's doctors, that the physical and psychological state of the prisoners held in solitary confinement and white cells was such that they couldn't attend the long trial days and defend themselves appropriately. By the time the Stammheim trial began in early-1975, some of the prisoners had already been in solitary confinement for three years.
Two former members of the RAF, Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Gerhard Müller, testified under BKA's orders, as revealed later. Their statements were often contradictory, something that was also commented on in the newspapers. Ruhland himself later reported to "Stern" that his deposition was prepared in cooperation with police. Müller was reported to "break" during the third hunger strike in the winter of 1974–1975 which lasted 145 days. The prosecution offered him immunity for the murder of officer Norbert Schmidt in Hamburg (1971), and blamed Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin, and Raspe instead. He was eventually freed and relocated to the US after getting a new identity and 500,000 Deutschmarks.
The government hastily approved several special laws for use during the Stammheim trial. Lawyers were excluded from trial for the first time since 1945, after being accused of various inappropriate actions, such as helping to form criminal organizations (Section 129, Criminal Law). The authorities invaded and checked the lawyers' offices for possible incriminating material. Minister of Justice Hans-Jochen Vogel stated proudly that no other Western state had such extensive regulation to exclude defense attorneys from a trial. Klaus Croissant, Hans-Christian Ströbele, Kurt Groenewold, who had been working preparing for the trial for three years, were expelled the second day of the trial. On 23 June 1975, Croissant, Ströbele (who had already been expelled), and Mary Becker were arrested, and in the meantime police invaded several defense attorneys' offices and homes, seizing documents and files. Ströbele and Croissant were remanded and held for four and eight weeks respectively. Croissant had to pay 80,000 Deutschmarks, report weekly to a police station, and had his transport and identity papers seized.
The defense lawyers and prisoners were not the only ones affected by measures adopted for the RAF-trial. On 26 November 1974 an unprecedented mobilization by police and GSG-9 units, to arrest 23 suspected RAF members, included invasion of dozens of homes, left-wing bookstores, and meeting places, and arrests were made. No guerrillas were found. BKA's chief, Horst Herold stated that despite the fact that "large-scale operations usually don't bring practical results, the impression of the crowd is always a considerable advantage."
On 16 February 1979 Croissant was arrested (on the accusation of supporting criminal organization — section 129) after France denied his request for political asylum, and was sentenced to a prison term of two and half years to be served in Stammheim prison.
The general approach by defendants and their attorneys was to highlight the political purpose and characteristics of RAF.
On 13 and 14 January 1976 the defendants readied their testimony (about 200 pages), in which they analyzed the role of imperialism and its struggle against the revolutionary movements in the countries of the "third world". They also expounded the fascistization of West Germany and its role as an imperialistic state (alliance with the U.S. over Vietnam). Finally they talked about the task of urban guerrillas and undertook the political responsibility for the bombing attacks. Finally their lawyers (following Ulrike Meinhof's proposal) requested that the accused be officially regarded as prisoners of war.
On 4 May (five days before Meinhof's death) the four defendants demanded to provide data about the Vietnam War. They claimed that since the military intervention in Vietnam by the U.S. (and indirectly, the FRG), had violated international law, the U.S. military bases in West Germany were justifiable targets of international retaliation. They requested several politicians (like Richard Nixon and Helmut Schmidt) as well as some former U.S. agents (who were willing to testify) to be called as witnesses.
Later when their requests were rejected, U.S. agents Barton Osbourne (ex-CIA, ex-member of the Phoenix Program), G. Peck (NSA), and Gary Thomas gave extensive interviews (organized by defense lawyers) on 23 June 1976 where they explained how FRG support was crucial for U.S. operations in Vietnam. Peck concluded that the RAF "was the response to criminal aggression of the U.S. government in Indochina and the assistance of the German government. The real terrorist was my government." Thomas presented data about the joint operations of FRG and U.S. secret services in Eastern Europe. He had also observed the Stammheim trial and referred to a CIA instructor teaching them how to make a murder look like a suicide. These statements were confirmed by the CIA case officer Philip Agee.
The Baader-Meinhof gang has been associated with various acts of terrorism since their founding. The first act of terrorism attributed to the group after the student Benno Ohnesorg had been killed by a policeman in 1967 was the bombing of the Kaufhaus Schneider department store. On 2 April 1968, affiliates of the group firebombed the store and caused an estimated US$200,000 in property damage. Prominent members of the bombing included Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, two of the founders of the Baader-Meinhof gang. The bombs detonated at midnight when no one was in the store, thus no one was injured. As the bombs ignited, Gudrun Ensslin was at a nearby payphone, yelling to the German Press Agency, "This is a political act of revenge."
On 11 May 1972, the Baader-Meinhof gang placed three pipe bombs at a United States headquarters in Frankfurt. The bombing resulted in the death of a U.S officer and the injury of 13 other people. The stated reason for the bombing was a political statement in protest of U.S imperialism, specifically, a protest of several mining facilities that belonged to the U.S in North Vietnam harbors.
On 19 May 1972, members of the Baader-Meinhof gang armed six bombs in the Axel Springer Verlag in Hamburg. Only three of the five bombs exploded, but it was enough to injure 36 people.
On 24 May 1972, just two weeks after the bombing of the United States headquarters in Frankfurt, the group set several car bombs off at the Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg. The bombing resulted in the death of three U.S officers and the injury of five others.
On 10 November 1974, the group killed Günter von Drenkmann, the president of Germany's superior court of justice. The killing occurred after a string of events that led to a failed kidnapping by the 2 June Movement, a group that splintered off the Baader-Meinhof group after the death of Holger Meins by hunger strike in prison.
Starting in February 1975 and continuing through March 1975, the 2 June Movement kidnapped Peter Lorenz, who at the time, was the Christian Democratic candidate in the race for the mayor of West Berlin. In exchange for the release of Lorenz, the group demanded that many Baader-Meinhof and 2 June Movement members that were imprisoned for reasons other than violence be released from jail. The government obliged and released several of these members for the safe release of Lorenz.
On 24 April 1975, six members affiliated with the Baader-Meinhof group seized the West German Embassy in Stockholm. The group took hostages and set the building to explode. They demanded the release of several imprisoned members of the Baader-Meinhof gang. The government refused the request, which led to the execution of two of the hostages. A few of the bombs that were intended to blow up the embassy prematurely detonated, which resulted in the death of two of the six Baader-Meinhof affiliates. The other four members eventually surrendered to the authorities.
In May 1975, several British intelligence reports circulated that stated that the Baader-Meinhof gang had stolen mustard gas from a joint U.S. and British storage facility. The reports also indicated that the Baader-Meinhof gang had intended to use the stolen gas in German cities. It eventually turned out that the mustard gas canisters were merely misplaced; however, the Baader-Meinhof gang still successfully capitalized on the news by frightening several different agencies.
During the early 1980s, German and French newspapers reported that the police had raided a Baader-Meinhof gang safe house in Paris and had found a makeshift laboratory that contained flasks full of "Clostridium botulinum", which makes botulinum toxin. These reports were later found to be incorrect; no such lab was ever found.
On 30 July 1977, Jürgen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank, was shot and killed in front of his house in Oberursel in a botched kidnapping. Those involved were Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar, and Susanne Albrecht, the sister of Ponto's goddaughter.
Following the convictions, Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former officer of the SS who was then President of the German Employers' Association (and thus one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany) was abducted in a violent kidnapping. On 5 September 1977, Schleyer's convoy was stopped by the kidnappers reversing a car into the path of Schleyer's vehicle, causing the Mercedes in which he was being driven to crash. Once the convoy was stopped, five masked assailants immediately shot and killed three policemen and the driver and took Schleyer hostage. One of the group (Sieglinde Hofmann) produced her weapon from a pram she was pushing down the road.
A letter was then received by the federal government, demanding the release of eleven detainees, including those in Stammheim. A crisis committee was formed in Bonn, headed by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, which, instead of acceding, resolved to employ delaying tactics to give the police time to discover Schleyer's location. At the same time, a total communication ban was imposed on the prison inmates, who were now allowed visits only from government officials and the prison chaplain.
The crisis dragged on for more than a month, while the "Bundeskriminalamt" carried out its biggest investigation to date. Matters escalated when, on 13 October 1977, Lufthansa Flight 181 from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt was hijacked. A group of four PFLP members took control of the plane (which was named "Landshut"). The leader introduced himself to the passengers as "Captain Mahmud" who would be later identified as Zohair Youssef Akache. When the plane landed in Rome for refueling, he issued the same demands as the Schleyer kidnappers, plus the release of two Palestinians held in Turkey and payment of US$15 million.
The Bonn crisis team again decided not to give in. The plane flew on via Larnaca, then Dubai, and then to Aden, where flight captain Jürgen Schumann, whom the hijackers deemed not cooperative enough, was brought before an improvised "revolutionary tribunal" and executed on 16 October. His body was dumped on the runway. The aircraft again took off, flown by the co-pilot Jürgen Vietor, this time headed for Mogadishu, Somalia.
A high-risk rescue operation was led by Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, then undersecretary in the chancellor's office, who had been secretly flown in from Bonn. At five past midnight (CET) on 18 October, the plane was stormed in a seven-minute assault by GSG 9, an elite unit of the German federal police. All four hijackers were shot; three of them died on the spot. None of the passengers were seriously hurt and Wischnewski was able to phone Schmidt and tell the Bonn crisis team that the operation had been a success.
Half an hour later, German radio broadcast the news of the rescue, which the Stammheim inmates could hear on their radios. During the course of the night, Baader was found dead from a gunshot to the back of his head, and Ensslin was found hanged in her cell; Raspe died in the hospital the next day from a gunshot wound to the head. Irmgard Möller, who had several stab wounds in the chest, survived and was released from prison in 1994.
On 18 October 1977, Hanns-Martin Schleyer was shot to death by his captors en route to Mulhouse, France. The next day, on 19 October, Schleyer's kidnappers announced that he had been "executed" and pinpointed his location. His body was recovered later that day in the trunk of a green Audi 100 on Rue Charles Péguy. The French newspaper "Libération" received a letter declaring:
The official inquiry concluded that the group made a collective decision to commit suicide on a predetermined night. However, the autopsy and police reports contained several contradictory statements.
It has been questioned how Baader and Raspe managed to obtain a gun in the high-security prison wing specially constructed for the first generation RAF members. Independent investigations showed that the inmates' lawyers were able to smuggle in weapons and equipment despite the high security, something that the lawyers themselves denied, arguing that every meeting with their clients was observed by jailers. The claims were based primarily on the testimonies of Hans-Joachim Dellwo, brother of RAF prisoner Karl-Heinz Dellwo, and Volker Speitel, the husband of RAF member Angelika Speitel, who were arrested on 2 October 1977 and charged with belonging to a criminal organization. The fact that they both received lighter sentences, and after release were given new identities, raises the question as to whether they were acting under police pressure and an immunity proposal (as was the case with the ex-RAF members and perjurers Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Gerhard Müller). However, based on these testimonies, the defense attorneys Armin Newerla and Arndt Müller were tried in 1979, and one year later they were convicted of weapon smuggling, receiving three and a half years and four years and eight-month sentences respectively.
As regards Möller, only a total commitment to her cause could have allowed Möller to inflict the four stab wounds found near her heart. She claims that it was actually an extrajudicial killing, orchestrated by the German government, in response to Red Army Faction demands that the prisoners be released.
A few more questions that were raised regarding the death night were:
Finally, the international commission that had been formed to investigate Ulrike Meinhof's death, and hadn't been dissolved at the time, noticed that on both nights (8–9 May 1976; the night Meinhof had allegedly committed suicide, and 17–18 October 1977), an auxiliary was in charge of surveillance rather than the usual guard. They also discovered an uncontrolled entrance to the seventh floor which led to the roof. The authorities claimed they were unaware of this until 4 November 1977.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in late December 1991 was a serious blow to Leninist groups, but well into the 1990s attacks were still being committed under the name RAF. Among these were the killing of Ernst Zimmermann, CEO of MTU Aero Engines, a German engineering company; another bombing at the US Air Force's Rhein-Main Air Base (near Frankfurt), which targeted the base commander and killed two bystanders; a car bomb attack that killed Siemens executive Karl-Heinz Beckurts and his driver; and the shooting of Gerold von Braunmühl, a leading official at Germany's foreign ministry.
On 30 November 1989, Deutsche Bank chairman Alfred Herrhausen was killed with a highly complex bomb when his car triggered a photo sensor in Bad Homburg. On 1 April 1991, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, leader of the government "Treuhand" organization responsible for the privatization of the East German state economy, was shot and killed. The assassins of Zimmermann, von Braunmühl, Herrhausen, and Rohwedder were never reliably identified.
After German reunification in 1990, it was confirmed that the RAF had received financial and logistic support from the Stasi, the security and intelligence organization of East Germany, which had given several members (who had chosen to leave the group) shelter and new identities. This was already generally suspected at the time. In 1978 part of the group was exfiltrated through Yugoslavia to communist Poland to avoid a manhunt in Germany. Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Peter Boock, Rolf Wagner, and Sieglinde Hoffmann spent most of the year in SB facilities in Mazury district, where they were also going through series of training programs along with others from Arab countries.
In 1992, the German government assessed that the RAF's main field of engagement now was missions to release imprisoned RAF members. To weaken the organization further the government declared that some RAF inmates would be released if the RAF refrained from violent attacks in the future. Subsequently, the RAF announced their intention to "de-escalate" and refrain from significant activity.
The last action taken by the RAF took place in 1993 with a bombing of a newly built prison in Weiterstadt by overcoming the officers on duty and planting explosives. Although no one was seriously injured, this operation caused property damage amounting to 123 million Deutschmarks (over 50 million euros).
The last big action against the RAF took place on 27 June 1993. A "Verfassungsschutz" (internal secret service) agent named Klaus Steinmetz had infiltrated the RAF. As a result, Birgit Hogefeld and Wolfgang Grams were arrested in Bad Kleinen. Grams and GSG 9 officer Michael Newrzella died during the mission. Due to a number of operational mistakes involving the various police services, German Minister of the Interior Rudolf Seiters took responsibility and resigned from his post.
On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the Reuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the machine-gun red star, declaring the group dissolved:
In response to this statement, former BKA President Horst Herold said, "With this statement the Red Army Faction has erected its own tombstone."
Horst Mahler, a founding RAF member, is now a vocal Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier. In 2005, he was sentenced to six years in prison for incitement to racial hatred against Jews. He is on record as saying that his beliefs have not changed: "Der Feind ist der Gleiche" (The enemy is the same).
In 2007, amidst widespread media controversy, German president Horst Köhler considered pardoning RAF member Christian Klar, who had filed a pardon application several years before. On 7 May 2007, pardon was denied; regular parole was later granted on 24 November 2008. RAF member Brigitte Mohnhaupt was granted release on five-year parole by a German court on 12 February 2007 and Eva Haule was released 17 August 2007.
In 2011, the last imprisoned RAF member Birgit Hogefeld was released on parole.
Police in Europe investigating the whereabouts of Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg and Daniela Klette stated that a search has been made in Spain, France and Italy after initial reports suggested that they could be hiding in the Netherlands in 2017 after being suspected for masterminding robberies in supermarkets and cash transit vehicles in Wolfsburg, Bremen and Cremlingen between 2011 and 2016.
The following is a list of all known RAF Commando Units. Most RAF units were named after deceased RAF members, while others were named after deceased members of international militant left-wing groups such as the Black Panthers, Irish National Liberation Army, and the Red Brigades.
Numerous West German film and TV productions have been made about the RAF. These include Klaus Lemke's telefeature "Brandstifter" ("Arsonists") (1969); Volker Schloendorff and Margarethe von Trotta's co-directed "The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum" (a 1978 adaptation of Heinrich Böll's novel "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum"); "Germany in Autumn" (1978), co-directed by 11 directors, including Alexander Kluge, Volker Schloendorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder , and Edgar Reitz; Fassbinder's "Die dritte Generation" ("The Third Generation") (1979); Margarethe von Trotta's "Die bleierne Zeit" ("The German Sisters"/"Marianne and Juliane") (1981); and Reinhard Hauff's "Stammheim" (1986). Post-reunification German films include Christian Petzold's "Die innere Sicherheit" ("The State I Am In") (2000); Kristina Konrad's "Grosse Freiheit, Kleine Freiheit" ("Greater Freedom, Lesser Freedom" (2000); and Christopher Roth's "Baader" (2002).
The best known recent film was Uli Edel's 2008 "The Baader Meinhof Complex" (German: "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex"), based on the bestselling book by Stefan Aust. The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in both the 81st Academy Awards and 66th Golden Globe Awards.
Outside Germany, films include Swiss director Markus Imhoof's "Die Reise" ("The Journey") (1986). On TV, there was Heinrich Breloer's "Todesspiel" ("Death Game") (1997), a two-part docu-drama, and Volker Schloendorff's "Die Stille nach dem Schuss" ("The Legend of Rita") (2000).
There have been several documentaries: "Im Fadenkreuz – Deutschland & die RAF" (1997, several directors); Gerd Conradt's "Starbuck Holger Meins" (2001); Andres Veiel's "Black Box BRD" (2001); Klaus Stern's "Andreas Baader – Der Staatsfeind" ("Enemy of the State") (2003); Ben Lewis's "In Love With Terror", for BBC Four (2003); and "Ulrike Meinhof – Wege in den Terror" ("Ways into Terror") (2006).
The 2010 feature documentary "Children of the Revolution" tells Ulrike Meinhof's story from the perspective of her daughter, journalist and historian Bettina Röhl, while Andres Veiel's 2011 feature film "If Not Us, Who?" provides a context for the RAF's origins through the perspective of Gudrun Ensslin's partner Bernward Vesper. In 2015, Jean-Gabriel Périot released his feature-length, found-footage documentary "A German Youth" on the Red Amy Faction. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25973 |
Radiosity (computer graphics)
In 3D computer graphics, radiosity is an application of the finite element method to solving the rendering equation for scenes with surfaces that reflect light diffusely. Unlike rendering methods that use Monte Carlo algorithms (such as path tracing), which handle all types of light paths, typical radiosity only account for paths (represented by the code "LD*E") which leave a light source and are reflected diffusely some number of times (possibly zero) before hitting the eye. Radiosity is a global illumination algorithm in the sense that the illumination arriving on a surface comes not just directly from the light sources, but also from other surfaces reflecting light. Radiosity is viewpoint independent, which increases the calculations involved, but makes them useful for all viewpoints.
Radiosity methods were first developed in about 1950 in the engineering field of heat transfer. They were later refined specifically for the problem of rendering computer graphics in 1984 by researchers at Cornell University and Hiroshima University.
Notable commercial radiosity engines are Enlighten by Geomerics (used for games including Battlefield 3 and ); 3ds Max; form•Z; LightWave 3D and the Electric Image Animation System.
The inclusion of radiosity calculations in the rendering process often lends an added element of realism to the finished scene, because of the way it mimics real-world phenomena. Consider a simple room scene.
The image on the left was rendered with a typical direct illumination renderer. There are "three types" of lighting in this scene which have been specifically chosen and placed by the artist in an attempt to create realistic lighting: spot lighting with shadows (placed outside the window to create the light shining on the floor), ambient lighting (without which any part of the room not lit directly by a light source would be totally dark), and omnidirectional lighting without shadows (to reduce the flatness of the ambient lighting).
The image on the right was rendered using a radiosity algorithm. There is only one source of light: an image of the sky placed outside the window. The difference is marked. The room glows with light. Soft shadows are visible on the floor, and subtle lighting effects are noticeable around the room. Furthermore, the red color from the carpet has bled onto the grey walls, giving them a slightly warm appearance. None of these effects were specifically chosen or designed by the artist.
The surfaces of the scene to be rendered are each divided up into one or more smaller surfaces (patches).
A view factor (also known as "form factor") is computed for each pair of patches; it is a coefficient describing how well the patches can see each other. Patches that are far away from each other, or oriented at oblique angles relative to one another, will have smaller view factors. If other patches are in the way, the view factor will be reduced or zero, depending
on whether the occlusion is partial or total.
The view factors are used as coefficients in a linear system of rendering equations. Solving this system yields the radiosity, or brightness, of each patch, taking into account diffuse interreflections and soft shadows.
Progressive radiosity solves the system iteratively with intermediate radiosity values for the patch, corresponding to bounce levels. That is, after each iteration, we know how the scene looks after one light bounce, after two passes, two bounces, and so forth. This is useful for getting an interactive preview of the scene. Also, the user can stop the iterations once the image looks good enough, rather than wait for the computation to numerically converge.
Another common method for solving the radiosity equation is "shooting radiosity," which iteratively solves the radiosity equation by "shooting" light from the patch with the most energy at each step. After the first pass, only those patches which are in direct line of sight of a light-emitting patch will be illuminated. After the second pass, more patches will become illuminated as the light begins to bounce around the scene. The scene continues to grow brighter and eventually reaches a steady state.
The basic radiosity method has its basis in the theory of thermal radiation, since radiosity relies on computing the amount of light energy transferred among surfaces. In order to simplify computations, the method assumes that all scattering is perfectly diffuse. Surfaces are typically discretized into quadrilateral or triangular elements over which a piecewise polynomial function is defined.
After this breakdown, the amount of light energy transfer can be computed by using the known reflectivity of the reflecting patch, combined with the view factor of the two patches. This dimensionless quantity is computed from the geometric orientation of two patches, and can be thought of as the fraction of the total possible emitting area of the first patch which is covered by the second.
More correctly, radiosity "B" is the energy per unit area leaving the patch surface per discrete time interval and is the combination of emitted and reflected energy:
where:
If the surfaces are approximated by a finite number of planar patches, each of which is taken to have a constant radiosity "Bi" and reflectivity "ρi", the above equation gives the discrete radiosity equation,
where "Fij" is the geometrical view factor for the radiation leaving "j" and hitting patch "i".
This equation can then be applied to each patch. The equation is monochromatic, so color radiosity rendering requires calculation for each of the required colors.
The equation can formally be solved as matrix equation, to give the vector solution:
This gives the full "infinite bounce" solution for B directly. However the number of calculations to compute the matrix solution scales according to "n"3, where "n" is the number of patches. This becomes prohibitive for realistically large values of "n".
Instead, the equation can more readily be solved iteratively, by repeatedly applying the single-bounce update formula above. Formally, this is a solution of the matrix equation by Jacobi iteration. Because the reflectivities ρi are less than 1, this scheme converges quickly, typically requiring only a handful of iterations to produce a reasonable solution. Other standard iterative methods for matrix equation solutions can also be used, for example the Gauss–Seidel method, where updated values for each patch are used in the calculation as soon as they are computed, rather than all being updated synchronously at the end of each sweep. The solution can also be tweaked to iterate over each of the sending elements in turn in its main outermost loop for each update, rather than each of the receiving patches. This is known as the "shooting" variant of the algorithm, as opposed to the "gathering" variant. Using the view factor reciprocity, "A"i "F"ij = "A"j "F"ji, the update equation can also be re-written in terms of the view factor "F"ji seen by each "sending" patch "A"j:
This is sometimes known as the "power" formulation, since it is now the total transmitted power of each element that is being updated, rather than its radiosity.
The view factor "F"ij itself can be calculated in a number of ways. Early methods used a "hemicube" (an imaginary cube centered upon the first surface to which the second surface was projected, devised by Michael F. Cohen and Donald P. Greenberg in 1985). The surface of the hemicube was divided into pixel-like squares, for each of which a view factor can be readily calculated analytically. The full form factor could then be approximated by adding up the contribution from each of the pixel-like squares. The projection onto the hemicube, which could be adapted from standard methods for determining the visibility of polygons, also solved the problem of intervening patches partially obscuring those behind.
However all this was quite computationally expensive, because ideally form factors must be derived for every possible pair of patches, leading to a quadratic increase in computation as the number of patches increased. This can be reduced somewhat by using a binary space partitioning tree to reduce the amount of time spent determining which patches are completely hidden from others in complex scenes; but even so, the time spent to determine the form factor still typically scales as "n" log "n". New methods include adaptive integration.
The form factors "F"ij themselves are not in fact explicitly needed in either of the update equations; neither to estimate the total intensity ∑j "F"ij "B"j gathered from the whole view, nor to estimate how the power "A"j "B"j being radiated is distributed. Instead, these updates can be estimated by sampling methods, without ever having to calculate form factors explicitly. Since the mid 1990s such sampling approaches have been the methods most predominantly used for practical radiosity calculations.
The gathered intensity can be estimated by generating a set of samples in the unit circle, lifting these onto the hemisphere, and then seeing what was the radiosity of the element that a ray incoming in that direction would have originated on. The estimate for the total gathered intensity is then just the average of the radiosities discovered by each ray. Similarly, in the power formulation, power can be distributed by generating a set of rays from the radiating element in the same way, and spreading the power to be distributed equally between each element a ray hits.
This is essentially the same distribution that a path-tracing program would sample in tracing back one diffuse reflection step; or that a bidirectional ray tracing program would sample to achieve one forward diffuse reflection step when light source mapping forwards. The sampling approach therefore to some extent represents a convergence between the two techniques, the key difference remaining that the radiosity technique aims to build up a sufficiently accurate map of the radiance of all the surfaces in the scene, rather than just a representation of the current view.
Although in its basic form radiosity is assumed to have a quadratic increase in computation time with added geometry (surfaces and patches), this need not be the case. The radiosity problem can be rephrased as a problem of rendering a texture mapped scene. In this case, the computation time increases only linearly with the number of patches (ignoring complex issues like cache use).
Following the commercial enthusiasm for radiosity-enhanced imagery, but prior to the standardization of rapid radiosity calculation, many architects and graphic artists used a technique referred to loosely as false radiosity. By darkening areas of texture maps corresponding to corners, joints and recesses, and applying them via self-illumination or diffuse mapping, a radiosity-like effect of patch interaction could be created with a standard scanline renderer (cf. ambient occlusion).
Static, pre-computed radiosity may be displayed in realtime via Lightmaps on current desktop computers with standard graphics acceleration hardware.
One of the advantages of the Radiosity algorithm is that it is relatively simple to explain and implement. This makes it a useful algorithm for teaching students about global illumination algorithms. A typical direct illumination renderer already contains nearly all of the algorithms (perspective transformations, texture mapping, hidden surface removal) required to implement radiosity. A strong grasp of mathematics is not required to understand or implement this algorithm.
Typical radiosity methods only account for light paths of the form LD*E, i.e. paths which start at a light source and make multiple diffuse bounces before reaching the eye. Although there are several approaches to integrating other illumination effects such as specular and glossy reflections, radiosity-based methods are generally not used to solve the complete rendering equation.
Basic radiosity also has trouble resolving sudden changes in visibility (e.g. hard-edged shadows) because coarse, regular discretization into piecewise constant elements corresponds to a low-pass box filter of the spatial domain. Discontinuity meshing uses knowledge of visibility events to generate a more intelligent discretization.
Radiosity was perhaps the first rendering algorithm in widespread use which accounted for diffuse indirect lighting. Earlier rendering algorithms, such as Whitted-style ray tracing were capable of computing effects such as reflections, refractions, and shadows, but despite being highly global phenomena, these effects were not commonly referred to as "global illumination." As a consequence, the terms "diffuse interreflection" and "radiosity" both became confused with "global illumination" in popular parlance. However, the three are distinct concepts.
The radiosity method, in the context of computer graphics, derives from (and is fundamentally the same as) the radiosity method in heat transfer. In this context, radiosity is the total radiative flux (both reflected and re-radiated) leaving a surface; this is also sometimes known as radiant exitance. Calculation of radiosity, rather than surface temperatures, is a key aspect of the radiosity method that permits linear matrix methods to be applied to the problem. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25974 |
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror, or commonly The Terror (), was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First French Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and spurious accusations of treason by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.
There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, giving the date as either 5 September, June or March, when the Revolutionary Tribunal came into existence. Others, however, cite the earlier time of the September Massacres in 1792, or even July 1789, when the first killing of the revolution occurred. There is a consensus that it ended with the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794 and resulting Thermidorian Reaction. By then, 16,594 official death sentences had been dispensed throughout France since June 1793, of which 2,639 were in Paris alone.
There was a sense of emergency among leading politicians in France in the summer of 1793 between the widespread civil war and counter-revolution. Bertrand Barère exclaimed on 5 September 1793 in the Convention: "Let's make terror the order of the day!" They were determined to avoid street violence such as the September Massacres of 1792 by taking violence into their own hands as an instrument of government.
Robespierre in February 1794 in a speech explained the necessity of terror:
Some historians argue that such terror was a necessary reaction to the circumstances. Others suggest there were additional causes, including ideological and emotional.
Enlightenment thought emphasized the importance of rational thinking and began challenging legal and moral foundations of society, providing the leaders of the Reign of Terror with new ideas about the role and structure of government.
Rousseau's "Social Contract" argued that each person was born with rights, and they would come together to form a government that would then protect those rights. Under the social contract, the government was required to act for the general will, which represented the interests of everyone rather than a few factions. Drawing from the idea of a general will, Robespierre felt that the French Revolution could result in a Republic built for the general will but only once those who fought this ideal were expelled. Those who resisted the government were deemed "tyrants" fighting against the virtue and honor of the general will. The leaders felt that their ideal version of government was threatened from the inside and outside of France, and terror was the only way to preserve the dignity of the Republic created from French Revolution.
The writings of Baron de Montesquieu, another Enlightenment thinker of the time, greatly influenced Robespierre as well. Montesquieu's "Spirit of the Laws" defines a core principle of a democratic government: virtue—described as "the love of laws and of our country." In Robespierre's speech to the National Convention on 5 February 1794, titled "Virtue & Terror", he regards virtue as being the "fundamental principle of popular or democratic government." This was, in fact, the same virtue defined by Montesquieu almost 50 years prior. Robespierre believed that the virtue needed for any democratic government was extremely lacking in the French people. As a result, he decided to weed out those he believed could never possess this virtue. The result was a continual push towards Terror. The Convention used this as justification for the course of action to "crush the enemies of the revolution…let the laws be executed…and let liberty be saved."
Though some members of the Enlightenment greatly influenced revolutionary leaders, cautions from other Enlightenment thinkers were blatantly ignored. Voltaire's warnings were often overlooked, though some of his ideas were used for justification of the Revolution and the start of the Terror. He protested against Catholic dogmas and the ways of Christianity, stating, "of all religions, the Christian should, of course, inspire the most toleration, but till now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men." These criticisms were often used by Robespierre and other leaders as justification for their anti-religious reforms. In his "Philosophical Dictionary", Voltaire states, "we are all steeped in weakness and error; let us forgive each other our follies; that is the first law of nature" and "every individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of his opinion, is a monster."
After the beginning of the French Revolution, the surrounding monarchies did not show great hostility towards the rebellion. Though mostly ignored, Louis XVI was later able to find support in Leopold II of Austria (brother of Marie Antoinette) and Frederick William II of Prussia. On 27 August 1791, these foreign leaders made the Pillnitz Declaration, saying they would restore the French monarch if other European rulers joined. In response to what they viewed to be the meddling of foreign powers, France declared war on 20 April 1792. However, at this point, the war was only Prussia and Austria against France. France began this war with a large series of defeats, which set a precedent of fear of invasion in the people that would last throughout the war.
Massive reforms of military institutions, while very effective in the long run, presented the initial problems of inexperienced forces and leaders of questionable political loyalty. In the time it took for officers of merit to use their new freedoms to climb the chain of command, France suffered. Many of the early battles were definitive losses for the French. There was the constant threat of the Austro-Prussian forces which were advancing easily toward the capital, threatening to destroy Paris if the monarch was harmed. This series of defeats, coupled with militant uprisings and protests within the borders of France, pushed the government to resort to drastic measures to ensure the loyalty of every citizen, not only to France but more importantly to the Revolution.
While this series of losses was eventually broken, the reality of what might have happened if they persisted hung over France. The tide would not turn from them until September 1792 when the French won a critical victory at Valmy preventing the Austro-Prussian invasion. While the French military had stabilized and was producing victories by the time the Reign of Terror officially began, the pressure to succeed in this international struggle acted as justification for the government to pursue its tyrannical actions. It was not until after the execution of Louis XVI and the annexation of the Rhineland that the other monarchies began to feel threatened enough to form the First Coalition. The Coalition, consisting of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Holland, and Sardinia began attacking France from all directions, besieging and capturing ports and retaking ground lost to France. With so many similarities to the first days of the Revolutionary Wars for the French government, with threats on all sides, unification of the country became a top priority. As the war continued and the Reign of Terror began, leaders saw a correlation between using terror and achieving victory. Well phrased by Albert Soboul, "terror, at first an improvised response to defeat, once organized became an instrument of victory." The threat of defeat and foreign invasion may have helped spur the origins of the Terror, but the timely coincidence of the Terror with French victories added justification to its growth.
During the Reign of Terror, the sans-culottes and the Hébertists put pressure on the National Convention delegates and contributed to the overall instability of France. The National Convention was bitterly split between the Montagnards and the Girondins. The Girondins were more conservative leaders of the National Convention, while the Montagnards supported radical violence and pressures of the lower classes. Once the Montagnards gained control of the National Convention, they began demanding radical measures. Moreover, the sans-culottes, the urban workers of France, agitated leaders to inflict punishments on those who opposed the interests of the poor. The sans-culottes’ violent demonstrations pushing their demands, created constant pressure for the Montagnards to enact reform. The sans-culottes fed the frenzy of instability and chaos by utilizing popular pressure during the Revolution. For example, the sans-culottes sent letters and petitions to the Committee of Public Safety urging them to protect their interests and rights with measures such as taxation of foodstuffs that favored workers over the rich. They advocated for arrests of those deemed to oppose reforms against those with privilege, and the more militant members would advocate pillage in order to achieve the desired equality. The resulting instability caused problems that made forming the new Republic and achieving full political support critical.
The Reign of Terror was characterized by a dramatic rejection of long-held religious authority, its hierarchical structure, and the corrupt and intolerant influence of the aristocracy and clergy. Religious elements that long stood as symbols of stability for the French people, were replaced by reason and scientific thought. The radical revolutionaries and their supporters desired a cultural revolution that would rid the French state of all Christian influence. This process began with the fall of the monarchy, an event that effectively defrocked the State of its sanctification by the clergy via the doctrine of Divine Right and ushered in an era of reason.
Many long-held rights and powers were stripped from the church and given to the state. In 1789, church lands were expropriated and priests killed or forced to leave France. A Festival of Reason was held in the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was renamed "The Temple of Reason", and the old traditional calendar was replaced with a new revolutionary one. The leaders of the Terror tried to address the call for these radical, revolutionary aspirations, while at the same time trying to maintain tight control on the de-Christianization movement that was threatening to the clear majority of the still devoted Catholic population of France. The tension sparked by these conflicting objectives laid a foundation for the "justified" use of terror to achieve revolutionary ideals and rid France of the religiosity that revolutionaries believed was standing in the way.
On 10 March 1793 the National Convention set up the Revolutionary Tribunal. Among those charged by the tribunal, about half were acquitted (though the number dropped to about a quarter after the enactment of the Law of 22 Prairial on 10 June 1794). In March rebellion broke out in the Vendée in response to mass conscription, which developed into a civil war. Discontent in the Vendée lasted – according to some accounts—until after the Terror.
On 6 April 1793 the National Convention established the Committee of Public Safety, which gradually became the "de facto" war-time government of France. The Committee oversaw the Reign of Terror. "During the Reign of Terror, at least 300,000 suspects were arrested; 17,000 were officially executed, and perhaps 10,000 died in prison or without trial."
On 2 June 1793 the Parisian "sans-culottes" surrounded the National Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed-price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to sans-culottes alone. With the backing of the national guard, they persuaded the Convention to arrest 29 Girondist leaders. In reaction to the imprisonment of the Girondin deputies, some thirteen departments started the Federalist revolts against the National Convention in Paris, which were ultimately crushed.
On 24 June 1793 the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, the French Constitution of 1793. It was ratified by public referendum, but never put into force.
On 13 July 1793 the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat—a Jacobin leader and journalist—resulted in a further increase in Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the king, was removed from the Committee of Public Safety on 10 July 1793. On 27 July 1793 Robespierre became part of the Committee of Public Safety.
On 23 August 1793 the National Convention decreed the "levée en masse":
On 9 September the Convention established paramilitary forces, the "revolutionary armies", to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the imprisonment of vaguely defined "suspects". This created a mass overflow in the prison systems. On 29 September, the Convention extended price fixing from grain and bread to other essential goods, and also fixed wages.
On 10 October the Convention decreed that "the provisional government shall be revolutionary until peace." On 24 October the French Republican Calendar was enacted. The trial of the Girondins started on the same day, they were executed on 31 October.
Anti-clerical sentiments increased during 1793 and a campaign of dechristianization occurred. On 10 November (20 Brumaire Year II of the French Republican Calendar), the Hébertists organized a Festival of Reason.
On 14 Frimaire (5 December 1793) the National Convention passed the Law of Frimaire, which gave the central government more control over the actions of the representatives on mission.
On 16 Pluviôse (4 February 1794), the National Convention decreed the abolition of slavery in all of France and in French colonies.
On 8 and 13 Ventôse (26 February and 3 March 1794), Saint-Just proposed decrees to confiscate the property of exiles and opponents of the revolution, known as the Ventôse Decrees.
By the end of 1793, two major factions had emerged, both threatening the Revolutionary Government: the Hébertists, who called for an intensification of the Terror and threatened insurrection, and the Dantonists, led by Georges Danton, who demanded moderation and clemency. The Committee of Public Safety took actions against both. The major Hébertists were tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal and executed on 24 March. The Dantonists were arrested on 30 March, tried on 3 to 5 April and executed on 5 April.
On 20 Prairial (8 June 1794) the Festival of the Supreme Being was celebrated across the country; this was part of the Cult of the Supreme Being, a deist national religion. On 22 Prairial (10 June), the National Convention passed a law proposed by Georges Couthon, known as the Law of 22 Prairial, which simplified the judicial process and greatly accelerated the work of the Revolutionary Tribunal. With the enactment of the law, the number of executions greatly increased, and the period from this time to the Thermidorian Reaction became known as "The Great Terror" ().
On 8 Messidor (26 June 1794), the French army won the Battle of Fleurus, which marked a turning point in France's military campaign and undermined the necessity of wartime measures and the legitimacy of the Revolutionary Government.
The fall of Robespierre was brought about by a combination of those who wanted more power for the Committee of Public Safety (and a more radical policy than he was willing to allow) and the moderates who completely opposed the revolutionary government. They had, between them, made the Law of 22 Prairial one of the charges against him, so that, after his fall, to advocate terror would be seen as adopting the policy of a convicted enemy of the republic, putting the advocate's own head at risk. Between his arrest and his execution, Robespierre may have tried to commit suicide by shooting himself, although the bullet wound he sustained, whatever its origin, only shattered his jaw. Alternatively, he may have been shot by the gendarme Merda. The great confusion that arose during the storming of the municipal Hall of Paris, where Robespierre and his friends had found refuge, makes it impossible to be sure of the wound's origin. In any case, Robespierre was guillotined the next day.
The reign of the standing Committee of Public Safety was ended. New members were appointed the day after Robespierre's execution, and limits on terms of office were fixed (a quarter of the committee retired every three months). The Committee's powers were gradually eroded. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25975 |
Ideal (ring theory)
In ring theory, a branch of abstract algebra, an ideal is a special subset of a ring. Ideals generalize certain subsets of the integers, such as the even numbers or the multiples of 3. Addition and subtraction of even numbers preserves evenness, and multiplying an even number by any other integer results in another even number; these closure and absorption properties are the defining properties of an ideal. An ideal can be used to construct a quotient ring similarly to the way that, in group theory, a normal subgroup can be used to construct a quotient group.
Among the integers, the ideals correspond one-for-one with the non-negative integers: in this ring, every ideal is a principal ideal consisting of the multiples of a single non-negative number. However, in other rings, the ideals may be distinct from the ring elements, and certain properties of integers, when generalized to rings, attach more naturally to the ideals than to the elements of the ring. For instance, the prime ideals of a ring are analogous to prime numbers, and the Chinese remainder theorem can be generalized to ideals. There is a version of unique prime factorization for the ideals of a Dedekind domain (a type of ring important in number theory).
The related, but distinct, concept of an ideal in order theory is derived from the notion of ideal in ring theory. A fractional ideal is a generalization of an ideal, and the usual ideals are sometimes called integral ideals for clarity.
Ideals were first proposed by Richard Dedekind in 1876 in the third edition of his book "Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie" (English: "Lectures on Number Theory"). They were a generalization of the concept of ideal numbers developed by Ernst Kummer. Later the concept was expanded by David Hilbert and especially Emmy Noether.
For an arbitrary ring formula_1, let formula_2 be its additive group. A subset formula_3 is called a left ideal of formula_4 if it is an additive subgroup of formula_4 that "absorbs multiplication from the left by elements of formula_4"; that is, formula_3 is a left ideal if it satisfies the following two conditions:
A right ideal is defined with the condition ""r x" ∈ "I"" replaced by ""x r" ∈ "I"". A two-sided ideal is a left ideal that is also a right ideal, and is sometimes simply called an ideal.
We can view a left (resp. right, two-sided) ideal of "R" as a left (resp. right, bi-) "R"-submodule of "R" viewed as an "R"-module. When "R" is a commutative ring, the definitions of left, right, and two-sided ideal coincide, and the term ideal is used alone.
To understand the concept of an ideal, consider how ideals arise in the construction of rings of "elements modulo". For concreteness, let us look at the ring ℤ"n" of integers modulo a given integer "n" ∈ ℤ (note that ℤ is a commutative ring). The key observation here is that we obtain ℤ"n" by taking the integer line ℤ and wrapping it around itself so that various integers get identified. In doing so, we must satisfy two requirements: 1) "n" must be identified with 0 since "n" is congruent to 0 modulo "n", and 2) the resulting structure must again be a ring. The second requirement forces us to make additional identifications (i.e., it determines the precise way in which we must wrap ℤ around itself). The notion of an ideal arises when we ask the question: What is the exact set of integers that we are forced to identify with 0? The answer is, unsurprisingly, the set "n"ℤ = {"nm" | "m"∈ℤ} of all integers congruent to 0 modulo "n". That is, we must wrap ℤ around itself infinitely many times so that the integers ..., "n ⋅ -2", "n ⋅ -1", "n ⋅ +1", "n ⋅ +2", ... will all align with 0. If we look at what properties this set must satisfy in order to ensure that ℤ"n" is a ring, then we arrive at the definition of an ideal. Indeed, one can directly verify that "n"ℤ is an ideal of ℤ.
Remark. Identifications with elements other than 0 also need to be made. For example, the elements in 1 + "n"ℤ must be identified with 1, the elements in 2 + "n"ℤ must be identified with 2, and so on. Those, however, are uniquely determined by "n"ℤ since "ℤ" is an additive group.
We can make a similar construction in any commutative ring "R": start with an arbitrary "x" ∈ "R", and then identify with 0 all elements of the ideal "xR" = { "x r" : "r" ∈ "R" }. It turns out that the ideal "xR" is the smallest ideal that contains "x", called the ideal generated by "x". More generally, we can start with an arbitrary subset "S" ⊆ "R", and then identify with 0 all the elements in the ideal generated by "S": the smallest ideal ("S") such that "S" ⊆ ("S"). The ring that we obtain after the identification depends only on the ideal ("S") and not on the set "S" that we started with. That is, if ("S") = ("T"), then the resulting rings will be the same.
Therefore, an ideal "I" of a commutative ring "R" captures canonically the information needed to obtain the ring of elements of "R" modulo a given subset "S" ⊆ "R". The elements of "I", by definition, are those that are congruent to zero, that is, identified with zero in the resulting ring. The resulting ring is called the quotient of "R" by "I" and is denoted "R/I". Intuitively, the definition of an ideal postulates two natural conditions necessary for "I" to contain all elements designated as "zeroes" by "R/I":
It turns out that the above conditions are also sufficient for "I" to contain all the necessary "zeroes": no other elements have to be designated as "zero" in order to form "R/I". (In fact, no other elements should be designated as "zero" if we want to make the fewest identifications.)
Remark. If "R" is not necessarily commutative, the above construction still works using two-sided ideals.
"For the sake of succinctness, some results are stated only for left ideals but are usually also true for right ideals with appropriate notation changes."
"To simplify the description all rings are assumed to be commutative. The non-commutative case is discussed in detail in the respective articles."
Ideals are important because they appear as kernels of ring homomorphisms and allow one to define factor rings. Different types of ideals are studied because they can be used to construct different types of factor rings.
Two other important terms using "ideal" are not always ideals of their ring. See their respective articles for details:
The sum and product of ideals are defined as follows. For formula_18 and formula_62, left (resp. right) ideals of a ring "R", their sum is
which is a left (resp. right) ideal,
and, if formula_59 are two-sided,
i.e. the product is the ideal generated by all products of the form "ab" with "a" in formula_18 and "b" in formula_62.
Note formula_99 is the smallest left (resp. right) ideal containing both formula_18 and formula_62 (or the union formula_102), while the product formula_103 is contained in the intersection of formula_18 and formula_62.
The distributive law holds for two-sided ideals formula_106,
If a product is replaced by an intersection, a partial distributive law holds:
where the equality holds if formula_18 contains formula_62 or formula_112.
Remark: The sum and the intersection of ideals is again an ideal; with these two operations as join and meet, the set of all ideals of a given ring forms a complete modular lattice. The lattice is not, in general, a distributive lattice. The three operations of intersection, sum (or join), and product make the set of ideals of a commutative ring into a quantale.
If formula_59 are ideals of a commutative ring "R", then formula_114 in the following two cases (at least)
(More generally, the difference between a product and an intersection of ideals is measured by the Tor functor:formula_118)
An integral domain is called a Dedekind domain if for each pair of ideals formula_119, there is an ideal formula_112 such that formula_121. It can then be shown that every nonzero ideal of a Dedekind domain can be uniquely written as a product of maximal ideals, a generalization of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.
In formula_32 we have
since formula_124 is the set of integers which are divisible by both formula_125 and formula_126.
Let formula_127 and let formula_128. Then,
In the first computation, we see the general pattern for taking the sum of two finitely generated ideals, it is the ideal generated by the union of their generators. In the last three we observe that products and intersections agree whenever the two ideals intersect in the zero ideal. These computations can be checked using Macaulay2.
Ideals appear naturally in the study of modules, especially in the form of a radical.
Let "R" be a commutative ring. By definition, a primitive ideal of "R" is the annihilator of a (nonzero) simple "R"-module. The Jacobson radical formula_135 of "R" is the intersection of all primitive ideals. Equivalently,
Indeed, if formula_137 is a simple module and "x" is a nonzero element in "M", then formula_138 and formula_139, meaning formula_140 is a maximal ideal. Conversely, if formula_141 is a maximal ideal, then formula_141 is the annihilator of the simple "R"-module formula_143. There is also another characterization (the proof is not hard):
For a not-necessarily-commutative ring, it is a general fact that formula_145 is a unit element if and only if formula_146 is (see the link) and so this last characterization shows that the radical can be defined both in terms of left and right primitive ideals.
The following simple but important fact (Nakayama's lemma) is built-in to the definition of a Jacobson radical: if "M" is a module such that formula_147, then "M" does not admit a maximal submodule, since if there is a maximal submodule formula_148, formula_149 and so formula_150, a contradiction. Since a nonzero finitely generated module admits a maximal submodule, in particular, one has:
A maximal ideal is a prime ideal and so one has
where the intersection on the left is called the nilradical of "R". As it turns out, formula_154 is also the set of nilpotent elements of "R".
If "R" is an Artinian ring, then formula_155 is nilpotent and formula_156. (Proof: first note the DCC implies formula_157 for some "n". If (DCC) formula_158 is an ideal properly minimal over the latter, then formula_159. That is, formula_160, a contradiction.)
Let "A" and "B" be two commutative rings, and let "f" : "A" → "B" be a ring homomorphism. If formula_18 is an ideal in "A", then formula_162 need not be an ideal in "B" (e.g. take "f" to be the inclusion of the ring of integers Z into the field of rationals Q). The extension formula_163 of formula_18 in "B" is defined to be the ideal in "B" generated by formula_162. Explicitly,
If formula_62 is an ideal of "B", then formula_168 is always an ideal of "A", called the contraction formula_169 of formula_62 to "A".
Assuming "f" : "A" → "B" is a ring homomorphism, formula_18 is an ideal in "A", formula_62 is an ideal in "B", then:
It is false, in general, that formula_18 being prime (or maximal) in "A" implies that formula_163 is prime (or maximal) in "B". Many classic examples of this stem from algebraic number theory. For example, embedding formula_180. In formula_181, the element 2 factors as formula_182 where (one can show) neither of formula_183 are units in "B". So formula_184 is not prime in "B" (and therefore not maximal, as well). Indeed, formula_185 shows that formula_186, formula_187, and therefore formula_188.
On the other hand, if "f" is surjective and formula_189 then:
Remark: Let "K" be a field extension of "L", and let "B" and "A" be the rings of integers of "K" and "L", respectively. Then "B" is an integral extension of "A", and we let "f" be the inclusion map from "A" to "B". The behaviour of a prime ideal formula_198 of "A" under extension is one of the central problems of algebraic number theory.
The following is sometimes useful: a prime ideal formula_199 is a contraction of a prime ideal if and only if formula_200. (Proof: Assuming the latter, note formula_201 intersects formula_202, a contradiction. Now, the prime ideals of formula_203 correspond to those in "B" that are disjoint from formula_202. Hence, there is a prime ideal formula_205 of "B", disjoint from formula_202, such that formula_207 is a maximal ideal containing formula_208. One then checks that formula_205 lies over formula_199. The converse is obvious.)
Ideals can be generalised to any monoid object formula_211, where formula_4 is the object where the monoid structure has been forgotten. A left ideal of formula_4 is a subobject formula_3 that "absorbs multiplication from the left by elements of formula_4"; that is, formula_3 is a left ideal if it satisfies the following two conditions:
A right ideal is defined with the condition "formula_223" replaced by "'formula_224". A two-sided ideal is a left ideal that is also a right ideal, and is sometimes simply called an ideal. When formula_4 is a commutative monoid object respectively, the definitions of left, right, and two-sided ideal coincide, and the term ideal is used alone. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25977 |
Reversi
Reversi is a strategy board game for two players, played on an 8×8 uncheckered board. It was invented in 1883. Othello, a variant with a change to the board's initial setup, was patented in 1971.
There are sixty-four identical game pieces called "disks" (often spelled "discs"), which are light on one side and dark on the other. Players take turns placing disks on the board with their assigned color facing up. During a play, any disks of the opponent's color that are in a straight line and bounded by the disk just placed and another disk of the current player's color are turned over to the current player's color. The object of the game is to have the majority of disks turned to display your color when the last playable empty square is filled.
Englishmen Lewis Waterman and John W. Mollett both claim to have invented the game of Reversi in 1883, each denouncing the other as a fraud. The game gained considerable popularity in England at the end of the nineteenth century. The game's first reliable mention is in 21 August 1886 edition of "The Saturday Review". Later mention includes an 1895 article in "The New York Times", which describes Reversi as "something like Go Bang, [...] played with 64 pieces." In 1893, the German games publisher Ravensburger started producing the game as one of its first titles. Two 18th-century continental European books dealing with a game that may or may not be Reversi are mentioned on page fourteen of the Spring 1989 "Othello Quarterly", and there has been speculation, so far without documentation, that the game has older origins.
The modern version of the game—the most regularly used rule-set, and the one used in international tournaments—is marketed and recognized as Othello. It was patented in Japan in 1971 by (autonym: Satoshi Hasegawa), then a 38-year-old salesman.
The game differs from Reversi in that the first four pieces go in the center, but in a standard diagonal pattern, rather than being placed by players. Additionally, where Reversi ends as soon as either player cannot make a move, in Othello the player without a move simply passes.
Hasegawa established the Japan Othello Association on March 1973, and held the first national Othello championship on 4 April 1973 in Japan. The Japanese game company Tsukuda Original launched Othello in late April 1973 in Japan under Hasegawa's license, which led to an immediate commercial success.
The name was selected by Hasegawa as a reference to the Shakespearean play "Othello, the Moor of Venice", referring to the conflict between the Moor Othello and Iago, and more controversially, to the unfolding drama between Othello, who is black, and Desdemona, who is white. The green color of the board is inspired by the image of the general Othello, valiantly leading his battle in a green field. It can also be likened to a jealousy competition (jealousy being the central theme in Shakespeare's play, which popularized the term "green-eyed monster"), since players engulf the pieces of the opponent, thereby turning them to their possession.
Othello was first launched in the U.S. in 1975 by Gabriel Industries and it also enjoyed commercial success there. Reportedly, Othello game sales have exceeded $600 million and more than 40 million classic games have been sold in over 100 different countries.
Hasegawa also wrote "How to Othello (Osero No Uchikata)" in Japan in 1974, which was later translated into English and published in the U.S. in 1977 as "How to Win at Othello".
Kabushiki Kaisha Othello, which is owned by Hasegawa, registered the trademark "OTHELLO" for board games in Japan and Tsukuda Original registered the mark in the rest of the world. All intellectual property regarding Othello outside Japan is now owned by MegaHouse, a Japanese toy company that acquired PalBox, the successor to Tsukuda Original.
Each of the disks' two sides corresponds to one player; they are referred to here as "light" and "dark" after the sides of "Othello" pieces, but any counters with distinctive faces are suitable. The game may for example be played with a chessboard and Scrabble pieces, with one player "letters" and the other "backs".
The historical version of Reversi starts with an empty board, and the first two moves made by each player are in the four central squares of the board. The players place their disks alternately with their colors facing up and no captures are made. A player may choose to not play both pieces on the same diagonal, different from the standard "Othello" opening. It is also possible to play variants of Reversi and "Othello" where the second player's second move may or must flip one of the opposite-colored disks (as variants closest to the normal games).
For the specific game of "Othello" (differing from the historical Reversi), the rules state that the game begins with four disks placed in a square in the middle of the grid, two facing white side up, two pieces with the dark side up, with same-colored disks on a diagonal with each other. Convention has initial board position such that the disks with dark side up are to the north-east and south-west (from both players' perspectives), though this is only marginally meaningful to play (where opening memorization is an issue, some players may benefit from consistency on this). If the disks with dark side up are to the north-west and south-east, the board may be rotated by 90° clockwise or counterclockwise. The dark player moves first.
Dark must place a piece with the dark side up on the board, in such a position that there exists at least one straight (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal) occupied line between the new piece and another dark piece, with one or more contiguous light pieces between them. In the below situation, dark has the following options indicated by translucent pieces:
After placing the piece, dark turns over (flips, captures) all light pieces lying on a straight line between the new piece and any anchoring dark pieces. All reversed pieces now show the dark side, and dark can use them in later moves—unless light has reversed them back in the meantime. In other words, a valid move is one where at least one piece is reversed.
If dark decided to put a piece in the topmost location (all choices are strategically equivalent at this time), one piece gets turned over, so that the board appears thus:
Now light plays. This player operates under the same rules, with the roles reversed: light lays down a light piece, causing a dark piece to flip. Possibilities at this time appear thus (indicated by transparent pieces):
Light takes the bottom left option and reverses one piece:
Players take alternate turns. If one player can not make a valid move, play passes back to the other player. When neither player can move, the game ends. This occurs when the grid has filled up or when neither player can legally place a piece in any of the remaining squares. This means the game may end before the grid is completely filled. This possibility may occur because one player has no pieces remaining on the board in that player's color. In over-the-board play this is generally scored as if the board were full (64–0).
Examples where the game ends before the grid is completely filled:
The player with the most pieces on the board at the end of the game wins. An exception to this is that if a clock is employed then if one player defaults on time that player's opponent wins regardless of the board configuration, with varying methods to determine the official score where one is required.
In common practice over the internet, opponents agree upon a time-control of, typically, from one to thirty minutes per game per player. Standard time control in the World Championship is thirty minutes, and this or something close to it is common in over-the-board (as opposed to internet) tournament play generally. In time-defaulted games, where disk differential is used for tie-breaks in tournaments or for rating purposes, one common over-the-board procedure for the winner of defaulted contests to complete both sides' moves with the greater of the result thereby or one disk difference in the winner's favor being the recorded score. Games in which both players have the same number of disks their color at the end (almost always with a full-board 32–32 score) are not very common, but also not rare, and these are designated as 'ties' and scored as half of a win for each player in tournaments. The term 'draw' for such may also be heard, but is somewhat frowned upon.
What are generally referred to as "transcript sheets" are generally in use in tournament over-the-board play, with both players obligated to record their game's moves by placing the number of each move in an 8×8 grid. This both enables players to look up past games of note and tournament directors and players to resolve disputes (according to whatever specific rules are in place) where claims that an illegal move, flip or other anomaly are voiced. An alternative recording method not requiring a grid is also in use, where positions on a board are labeled left to right by letters "a" through "h" and top to bottom (far-to-near) by digits "1" through "8" (Note that this is the opposite of the chess standard, with numerals running upward away from the side (White) that has "a" through "h" left to right, and also that the perspective may be that of either player (with no fixed standard)), so that the very first move of a game may be (based upon standard starting setup) d3, c4, f5 or e6. This alternate notational scheme is used primarily in verbal discussions or where a linear representation is desirable in print, but may also be permissible as during-game transcription by either or both players.
Tournament play using ordinary sets rather than a computer interface—where this can not be an issue—have various ways of handling illegal moves and over- or underflipping (flips that should not be made but are or should be but are not). For example, permitting either player (perpetrator or its opponent) to make a correction going back some fixed number of moves (after which no remedy is available) is one procedure that has been used.
Significant variants of the game, such as where the starting position differs from standard or the objective is to have the fewest pieces one's color at the end, are sometimes—but rarely—played.
Invented by the British mathematician and three times runner-up at the World Championship and five times British Champion Graham Brightwell, this is the tie-breaker that is now used in many tournaments including the W.O.C. If two players have the same number of points in the thirteen rounds W.O.C. Swiss, the tie is resolved in favour of the player with the higher Brightwell Quotient.
The Brightwell Quotient (BQ) is calculated as follows:
Good Othello computer programs play very strongly against human opponents. This is mostly due to difficulties in human look-ahead peculiar to Othello: The interchangeability of the disks and therefore apparent strategic meaninglessness (as opposed to chess pieces for example) makes an evaluation of different moves much harder. This can be demonstrated with blindfold games, as the memorization of the board demands much more dedication from the players than in blindfold chess.
Also the game has been particularly attractive to programmers.
Therefore, the best Othello computer programs have easily defeated the best humans since 1980, when the program "The Moor" beat the reigning world champion.
In 1997, Logistello defeated the human champion Takeshi Murakami with a score of 6–0.
Analysts have estimated the number of legal positions in Othello is at most 1028, and it has a game-tree complexity of approximately 1058. Mathematically, Othello still remains unsolved. Experts have not absolutely resolved what the outcome of a game will be where both sides use perfect play. However, analysis of thousands of high-quality games (most of them computer-generated) appears to lead to a reliable conclusion (pending actual proof if true) that, on the standard 8×8 board, perfect play on both sides results in a draw. When generalizing the game to play on an "n"×"n" board, the problem of determining if the first player has a winning move in a given position is PSPACE-complete. On 4×4 and 6×6 boards under perfect play, the second player wins. The first of these proofs is relatively trivial, and the second dates to around 1990. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25978 |
Radix sort
In computer science, radix sort is a non-comparative sorting algorithm. It avoids comparison by creating and distributing elements into buckets according to their radix. For elements with more than one significant digit, this bucketing process is repeated for each digit, while preserving the ordering of the prior step, until all digits have been considered. For this reason, radix sort has also been called bucket sort and digital sort.
Radix sort can be applied to data that can be sorted lexicographically, be they integers, words, punch cards, playing cards, or the mail.
Radix sort dates back as far as 1887 to the work of Herman Hollerith on tabulating machines.
Radix sorting algorithms came into common use as a way to sort punched cards as early as 1923.
The first memory-efficient computer algorithm was developed in 1954 at MIT by Harold H. Seward.
Computerized radix sorts had previously been dismissed as impractical because of the perceived need for variable allocation of buckets of unknown size.
Seward's innovation was to use a linear scan to determine the required bucket sizes and offsets beforehand, allowing for a single static allocation of auxiliary memory.
The linear scan is closely related to Seward's other algorithm — counting sort.
In the modern era, radix sorts are most commonly applied to collections of binary strings and integers. It has been shown in some benchmarks to be faster than other more general purpose sorting algorithms, sometimes 50% to three times as fast .
Radix sorts can be implemented to start at either the most significant digit (MSD) or least significant digit (LSD).
For example, with 1234, one could start with 1 (MSD) or 4 (LSD).
LSD radix sorts typically use the following sorting order: short keys come before longer keys, and then keys of the same length are sorted lexicographically. This coincides with the normal order of integer representations, like the sequence [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]. LSD sorts are generally stable sorts.
MSD radix sorts are most suitable for sorting strings or fixed-length integer representations.
A sequence like [b, c, e, d, f, g, ba] would be sorted as [b, ba, c, d, e, f, g]. If lexicographic ordering is used to sort variable-length integer in base 10, then numbers from 1 to 10 would be output as [1, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], as if the shorter keys were left-justified and padded on the right with blank characters to make the shorter keys as long as the longest key. MSD sorts are not necessarily stable if the original ordering of duplicate keys must always be maintained.
Other than the traversal order, MSD and LSD sorts differ in their handling of variable length input.
LSD sorts can group by length, radix sort each group, then concatenate the groups in size order.
MSD sorts must effectively 'extend' all shorter keys to the size of the largest key and sort them accordingly, which can be more complicated than the grouping required by LSD.
However, MSD sorts are more amenable to subdivision and recursion.
Each bucket created by an MSD step can itself be radix sorted using the next most significant digit, without reference to any other buckets created in the previous step.
Once the last digit is reached, concatenating the buckets is all that is required to complete the sort.
Input list (base 10):
Starting from the rightmost (last) digit, sort the numbers based on that digit:
Sorting by the next left digit:
And finally by the leftmost digit:
Each step requires just a single pass over the data, since each item can be placed in its bucket without comparison with any other element.
Some radix sort implementations allocate space for buckets by first counting the number of keys that belong in each bucket before moving keys into those buckets. The number of times that each digit occurs is stored in an array.
Although it's always possible to pre-determine the bucket boundaries using counts, some implementations opt to use dynamic memory allocation instead.
Input list, fixed width numeric strings with leading zeros:
First digit, with brackets indicating buckets:
Next digit:
Final digit:
All that remains is concatenation:
Radix sorts operates in O("nw") time, where "n" is the number of keys, and "w" is the key length.
LSD variants can achieve a lower bound for "w" of 'average key length' when splitting variable length keys into groups as discussed above.
Optimized radix sorts can be very fast when working in a domain that suits them.
They are constrained to lexicographic data, but for many practical applications this is not a limitation.
Large key sizes can hinder LSD implementations when the induced number of passes becomes the bottleneck.
Binary MSD radix sort, also called binary quicksort, can be implemented in-place by splitting the input array into two bins - the 0s bin and the 1s bin. The 0s bin is grown from the beginning of the array, whereas the 1s bin is grown from the end of the array. The 0s bin boundary is placed before the first array element. The 1s bin boundary is placed after the last array element. The most significant bit of the first array element is examined. If this bit is a 1, then the first element is swapped with the element in front of the 1s bin boundary (the last element of the array), and the 1s bin is grown by one element by decrementing the 1s boundary array index. If this bit is a 0, then the first element remains at its current location, and the 0s bin is grown by one element. The next array element examined is the one in front of the 0s bin boundary (i.e. the first element that is not in the 0s bin or the 1s bin). This process continues until the 0s bin and the 1s bin reach each other. The 0s bin and the 1s bin are then sorted recursively based on the next bit of each array element. Recursive processing continues until the least significant bit has been used for sorting. Handling signed integers requires treating the most significant bit with the opposite sense, followed by unsigned treatment of the rest of the bits.
In-place MSD binary-radix sort can be extended to larger radix and retain in-place capability. Counting sort is used to determine the size of each bin and their starting index. Swapping is used to place the current element into its bin, followed by expanding the bin boundary. As the array elements are scanned the bins are skipped over and only elements between bins are processed, until the entire array has been processed and all elements end up in their respective bins. The number of bins is the same as the radix used - e.g. 16 bins for 16-Radix. Each pass is based on a single digit (e.g. 4-bits per digit in the case of 16-Radix), starting from the most significant digit. Each bin is then processed recursively using the next digit, until all digits have been used for sorting.
Neither in-place binary-radix sort nor n-bit-radix sort, discussed in paragraphs above, are stable algorithms.
MSD Radix Sort can be implemented as a stable algorithm, but requires the use of a memory buffer of the same size as the input array. This extra memory allows the input buffer to be scanned from the first array element to last, and move the array elements to the destination bins in the same order. Thus, equal elements will be placed in the memory buffer in the same order they were in the input array. The MSD-based algorithm uses the extra memory buffer as the output on the first level of recursion, but swaps the input and output on the next level of recursion, to avoid the overhead of copying the output result back to the input buffer. Each of the bins are recursively processed, as is done for the in-place MSD Radix Sort. After the sort by the last digit has been completed, the output buffer is checked to see if it is the original input array, and if it's not, then a single copy is performed. If the digit size is chosen such that the key size divided by the digit size is an even number, the copy at the end is avoided.
Radix sort, such as two pass method where counting sort is used during the first pass of each level of recursion, has a large constant overhead. Thus, when the bins get small, other sorting algorithms should be used, such as insertion sort. A good implementation of Insertion sort is fast for small arrays, stable, in-place, and can significantly speed up Radix Sort.
Note that this recursive sorting algorithm has particular application to parallel computing, as each of the bins can be sorted independently. In this case, each bin is passed to the next available processor. A single processor would be used at the start (the most significant digit). By the second or third digit, all available processors would likely be engaged. Ideally, as each subdivision is fully sorted, fewer and fewer processors would be utilized. In the worst case, all of the keys will be identical or nearly identical to each other, with the result that there will be little to no advantage to using parallel computing to sort the keys.
In the top level of recursion, opportunity for parallelism is in the counting sort portion of the algorithm. Counting is highly parallel, amenable to the parallel_reduce pattern, and splits the work well across multiple cores until reaching memory bandwidth limit. This portion of the algorithm has data-independent parallelism. Processing each bin in subsequent recursion levels is data-dependent, however. For example, if all keys were of the same value, then there would be only a single bin with any elements in it, and no parallelism would be available. For random inputs all bins would be near equally populated and a large amount of parallelism opportunity would be available.
Note that there are faster parallel sorting algorithms available, for example optimal complexity O(log("n")) are those of the Three Hungarians and Richard Cole and Batcher's bitonic merge sort has an algorithmic complexity of O(log2("n")), all of which have a lower algorithmic time complexity to radix sort on a CREW-PRAM. The fastest known PRAM sorts were described in 1991 by David Powers with a parallelized quicksort that can operate in O(log(n)) time on a CRCW-PRAM with "n" processors by performing partitioning implicitly, as well as a radixsort that operates using the same trick in O("k"), where "k" is the maximum keylength. However, neither the PRAM architecture or a single sequential processor can actually be built in a way that will scale without the number of constant fan-out gate delays per cycle increasing as O(log("n")), so that in effect a pipelined version of Batcher's bitonic mergesort and the O(log("n")) PRAM sorts are all O(log2("n")) in terms of clock cycles, with Powers acknowledging that Batcher's would have lower constant in terms of gate delays than his Parallel quicksort and radix sort, or Cole's merge sort, for a keylength-independent sorting network of O(nlog2("n")).
Radix sorting can also be accomplished by building a trie (or radix tree) from the input set, and doing a pre-order traversal, keeping only the leaves' values.
This is similar to the relationship between heapsort and the heap data structure. This can be useful for certain data types, see Burstsort. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25980 |
Tug of war
Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport that pits two teams against each other in a test of strength: teams pull on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal being to bring the rope a certain distance in one direction against the force of the opposing team's pull.
The "Oxford English Dictionary" says that the phrase "tug of war" originally meant "the decisive contest; the real struggle or tussle; a severe contest for supremacy". Only in the 19th century was it used as a term for an athletic contest between two teams who haul at the opposite ends of a rope.
The origins of tug of war are uncertain, but this sport was practised in Cambodia, ancient Egypt, Greece, India and China. According to a Tang dynasty book, "The Notes of Feng", tug of war, under the name "hook pulling" (牽鉤), was used by the military commander of the State of Chu during the Spring and Autumn period (8th to 5th centuries BC) to train warriors. During the Tang dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang promoted large-scale tug of war games, using ropes of up to with shorter ropes attached, and more than 500 people on each end of the rope. Each side also had its own team of drummers to encourage the participants.
In ancient Greece the sport was called "helkustinda" (Greek: ἑλκυστίνδα), "efelkustinda" (ἐφελκυστίνδα) and "dielkustinda" (διελκυστίνδα), which derives from "dielkō" (διέλκω), meaning amongst others "I pull through", all deriving from the verb "helkō" (ἕλκω), "I draw, I pull". "Helkustinda" and "efelkustinda" seem to have been ordinary versions of tug of war, while "dielkustinda" had no rope, according to Julius Pollux. It is possible that the teams held hands when pulling, which would have increased difficulty, since handgrips are more difficult to sustain than a grip of a rope. Tug of war games in ancient Greece were among the most popular games used for strength and would help build strength needed for battle in full armor.
Archeological evidence shows that tug of war was also popular in India in the 12th century:
Tug of war stories about heroic champions from Scandinavia and Germany circulate Western Europe where Viking warriors pull on animal skins over open pits of fire in tests of strength and endurance, in preparation for battle and plunder.
1500 and 1600 – tug of war is popularised during tournaments in French châteaux gardens and later in Great Britain
1800 – tug of war begins a new tradition among seafaring men who were required to tug on lines to adjust sails while ships were under way and even in battle.
The Mohave people occasionally used tug-of-war matches as means of settling disputes.
There are tug of war clubs in many countries, and both men and women participate.
The sport was part of the Olympic Games from 1900 until 1920, but has not been included since. The sport is part of the World Games. The Tug of War International Federation (TWIF), organises World Championships for nation teams biannually, for both indoor and outdoor contests, and a similar competition for club teams.
In England the sport was formally governed by the AAA until 1984, but is now catered for by the Tug of War Association (formed in 1958), and the Tug of War Federation of Great Britain (formed in 1984). In Scotland, the Scottish Tug of War Association was formed in 1980. The sport also features in Highland Games there.
Between 1976 and 1988 Tug of War was a regular event during the television series "Battle of the Network Stars". Teams of celebrities representing each major network competed in different sporting events culminating into the final event, the Tug of War. Lou Ferrigno's epic tug-o'-war performance in May 1979 is considered the greatest feat in 'Battle' history.
The sport is played almost in every country in the world. However, a small selection of countries have set up a national body to govern the sport. Most of these national bodies are associated then with the International governing body call TWIF which stands for The Tug of War International Federation. As of 2008 there are 53 countries associated with TWIF, among which are Scotland, Ireland, England, India, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, South Africa and the United States.
In Myanmar (Burma), the tug of war, called "lun hswe" (; ) has both cultural and historical origins. It features as an important ritual in "phongyibyan", the ceremonial cremation of high-ranking Buddhist monks, whereby the funerary pyres are tugged between opposite sides. The tug of war is also used as a traditional rainmaking custom, called "mo khaw" (; ), to encourage rain. The tradition originated during the rain of King Shinmahti in the Bagan era. The Rakhine people also hold tug of war ceremonies called "yatha hswe pwe" (ရထားဆွဲပွဲ) during the Burmese month of Tabodwe.
In Indonesia, "Tarik Tambang" is a popular sport held in many events, such as the Indonesian Independence Day celebration, school events, and scout events. The rope used is called "dadung", made from fibers of "lar" between two jousters. Two cinder blocks are placed a distance apart and the two jousters stand upon the blocks with a rope stretched between them. The objective for each jouster is to either a) cause their opponent to fall off their block, or b) to take their opponent's end of the rope from them.
In Japan, the tug of war (綱引き/Tsunahiki in Japanese) is a staple of school sports festivals. The tug-of-war is also a traditional way to pray for a plentiful harvest throughout Japan and is a popular ritual around the country. The Kariwano Tug-of-war in Daisen, Akita, is said to be more than 500 years old, and is also a national folklore cultural asset. The Underwater Tug-of-War Festival in Mihama, Fukui is 380 years old, and takes place every January. The Sendai Great Tug of War in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima is known as "Kenka-zuna" or "brawl tug". Around 3,000 men pull a huge rope which is long. The event is said to have been started by feudal warlord Yoshihiro Shimadzu, with the aim of boosting the morale of his soldiers before the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. Nanba Hachiman Jinja's tug-of-war, which started in the Edo period, is Osaka's folklore cultural asset. The Naha Tug-of-war in Okinawa is also famous.
Juldarigi (, also "chuldarigi") is a traditional Korean sport similar to tug of war. It has a ritual and divinatory significance to many agricultural communities in the country and is performed at festivals and community gatherings. The sport uses two huge rice-straw ropes, connected by a central peg, which is pulled by teams representing the East and West sides of the village (the competition is often rigged in favor of the Western team). A number of religious and traditional rituals are performed before and after the actual competition.
Several areas of Korea have their own distinct variations of "juldarigi", and similar tug-of-war games with connections to agriculture are found in rural communities across Southeast Asia.
A variant, originally brought to New Zealand by Boston whalers in the 1790s, is played with five-person teams lying down on cleated boards. The sport is played at two clubs in Te Awamutu and Hastings, supported by the New Zealand Tug of War Association.
The Peruvian children's series "Nubeluz" featured its own version of tug-of-war (called "La Fuerza Glufica"), where each team battled 3-on-3 on platforms suspended over a pool of water. The object was simply to pull the other team into the pool.
In Poland, a version of tug of war is played using a dragon boat, where teams of 6 or 8 attempt to row towards each other.
In the Basque Country, this sport is considered a popular rural sport, with many associations and clubs. In Basque, it is called "Sokatira".
In the USA - A form of Tug of War using 8 handles is used in competition at camps, schools, churches, and other events. The rope is called an "Oct-O Pull" and provides two way, four way and 8-way competition for 8 to 16 participants at one time.
Puddle Pull is a biannual tug of war contest held at Miami University. The event is a timed, seated variation of tug of war in which fraternities and sororities compete. In addition to the seated participants, each team has a caller who coordinates the movements of the team.
Although the university hosted an unrelated freshman vs. sophomores tug of war event in the 1910s and 1920s, the first record of modern Puddle Pull is its appearance as a tug of war event in the school's newspaper, The Miami Student, in May 1949. This fraternity event was created by Frank Dodd of the Miami chapter of Delta Upsilon. Originally, the event was held as a standing tug of war over the Tallawanda stream near the Oxford waterworks bridge in which the losers were pulled into the water. This first event was later seen as a driving force for creating interfraternity competitive activities (Greek Week) at Miami University. As a part of moving to a seated event, a new rule was created in 1966 to prohibit locks and created the event that is seen today with the exception of a large pit that was still being dug in between the two teams. The event is held in a level grass field and uses a 2-inch diameter rope that is at least 50 feet long is used for the event. Footholes or "pits" are dug for each participant at 20-inch intervals. The pits are dug with a flat front and an angled back. Women began to compete sporadically starting in the 1960s and became regular participants as sorority teams in the mid-1980s.
The Hope College Pull is an annual tug-of-war contest held across the Black River in Holland, Michigan on the fourth Saturday after Labor Day. Competitors are 40 members of the freshman and sophomore classes.
Two teams of eight, whose total mass must not exceed a maximum weight as determined for the class, align themselves at the end of a rope approximately in circumference. The rope is marked with a "centre line" and two markings to either side of the centre line. The teams start with the rope's centre line directly above a line marked on the ground, and once the contest (the "pull") has commenced, attempt to pull the other team such that the marking on the rope closest to their opponent crosses the centre line, or the opponents commit a foul.
Lowering one's elbow below the knee during a pull, known as "locking", is a foul, as is touching the ground for extended periods of time. The rope must go under the arms; actions such as pulling the rope over the shoulders may be considered a foul. These rules apply in highly organized competitions such as the World Championships. However, in small or informal entertainment competitions, the rules are often arbitrarily interpreted and followed.
A contest may feature a moat in a neutral zone, usually of mud or softened ground, which eliminates players who cross the zone or fall into it.
Aside from the raw muscle power needed for tug of war, it is also a technical sport. The cooperation or "rhythm" of team members play an equally important role in victory, if not more, than their physical strength. To achieve this, a person called a "driver" is used to harmonize the team's joint traction power. He moves up and down next to his team pulling on the rope, giving orders to them when to pull and when to rest (called "hanging"). If he spots the opponents trying to pull his team away, he gives a "hang" command, each member will dig into the grass with his/her boots and movement of the rope is limited. When the opponents are played out, he shouts "pull" and rhythmically waves his hat or handkerchief for his team to pull together. Slowly but surely, the other team is forced into surrender by a runaway pull. Another factor that affects the game that is little known are the players' weights. The heavier someone is, the more static friction their feet have to the ground, and if there isn't enough friction and they weigh too little, even if he/she is pulling extremely hard, the force won't go into the rope. Their feet will simply slide along the ground if their opponent(s) have better static friction with the ground. In general, as long as one team has enough static friction and can pull hard enough to overcome the static friction of their opponent(s), that team can easily win the match.
In addition to injuries from falling and from back strains (some of which may be serious), catastrophic injuries may occur and permanent damage to the body, such as finger, hand, or even arm amputations. Amputations or avulsions may result from two causes: looping or wrapping the rope around a hand or wrist, and impact from elastic recoil if the rope breaks. Amateur organizers of tugs of war may underestimate the forces generated, or overestimate the breaking strength of common ropes, and may thus be unaware of the possible consequences if a rope snaps under extreme tension. The broken ends of a rope made with a somewhat elastic polymer such as common nylon can reach high speeds, and can easily sever fingers. For this reason, specially engineered tug of war ropes exist that can safely withstand the forces generated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25982 |
Regular semantics
Regular semantics is a computing term which describes one type of guarantee provided by a data register shared by several processors in a parallel machine or in a network of computers working together. Regular semantics are defined for a variable with a single writer but multiple readers. These semantics are stronger than safe semantics but weaker than atomic semantics: they guarantee that there is a total order to the write operations which is consistent with real-time and that read operations return either the value of the last write completed before the read begins, or that of one of the writes which are concurrent with the read.
Regular semantics are weaker than linearizability.
Consider the example shown below, where the horizontal axis represents time and the arrows represent the interval during which a read or write operation takes place. According to a regular register's definition, the third read should return 3 since the read operation is not concurrent with any write operation. On the other hand, the second read may return 2 or 3, and the first read may return either 5 or 2. The first read could return 3 and the second read could return 2. This behavior would not satisfy atomic semantics. Therefore, regular semantics is a weaker property than an atomic semantics. On the other hand, Lamport proved that a linearizable register may be implemented from registers with safe semantics, which are weaker than regular registers.
A single-writer multi-reader (SWMR) atomic semantics is an SWMR regular register if any of its execution history H satisfies the following property:
r1 and r2 are any two read invocations: (r1 →H r2) ⇒ ¬π(r2) →H π(r1)
Before we get into the proof, first we should know what does the new/old inversion mean. As it shown in the picture below, by looking at the execution we can see that the only difference between a regular execution and an atomic execution is when a = 0 and b = 1.In this execution, when we consider the two read invocations R.read() → a
followed by R.read() → b, our first value (new value) is a = 0 while the second value (old value) is b=1. This is actually the main difference between atomacity and regularity.
The theorem above states that a Single writer multi-reader regular register without new or old inversion
is an atomic register. By looking at the picture we can say that as R.read() → a →H R.read() → b
and R.write(1) →H R.write(0), it is not possible to have π (R.read() → b) =R.write(1) and π (R.read() → a) = R.write(0) if the execution is atomic.
For proving the theorem above, first we should prove that the register is safe, next we should show that the register is regular, and then at the end we should show that the register does not allow for new/old inversion which proves the atomicity.
By the definition of the atomic register we know that a Single writer multiple reader atomic register is regular and satisfies the no new/old
inversion property. So,we only need to show that a regular register with no new/old inversion is atomic.
We know that for any two read invocations (r1 and r2) when the register is regular and there is no new/old inversion
(r1 →H r2) ⇒sn(π(r1)) ≤ sn(π(r2)). For any execution(M)there is a total order (S)which includes the same operation invocations. We can state that S is built as follow:
we start from the total order on the write operations and we will insert the read operation as follow:
first: Read operation(r) is inserted after the associated write operation(π(r)).Second: If two read operations (r1,r2) have the same (sn(r1)=sn(r2)) then first insert the operation which starts first in the execution.
S includes all the operation invocation of M, from which it follows that S and M are equivalent. Since all the operations are ordered based on their sequence number,S is slightly a total order. Furthermore, this total order is an execution of M only adds an order on operations that are overlapping in M. If there is no overlapping between a read and write operations, there is no difference between the regularity and atomicity. Finally, we can state that S is legal since each read operation gets the last written value that comes before it in the total order. Therefore, the corresponding history is linearizable. Since this reasoning does not rely on a particular
history H, it implies that the register is atomic.
Since atomicity (linearizability) is a local property, we can state that a set of SWMR regular registers behave atomically as soon as each of them satisfies the no new/old inversion property. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25983 |
Ray Kurzweil
Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American inventor and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.
Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. He was the recipient of the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize for 2001. And in 2002 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has received 21 honorary doctorates, and honors from three U.S. presidents. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. "Inc." magazine ranked him #8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir".
Kurzweil has written seven books, five of which have been national bestsellers. "The Age of Spiritual Machines" has been translated into 9 languages and was the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in science. Kurzweil's 2005 book "The Singularity Is Near" was a "New York Times" bestseller, and has been the #1 book on Amazon in both science and philosophy. Kurzweil speaks widely to audiences both public and private and regularly delivers keynote speeches at industry conferences like DEMO, SXSW, and TED. He maintains the news website KurzweilAI.net, which has over three million readers annually.
Kurzweil has been employed by Google since 2012, where he is a director of engineering.
Kurzweil grew up in the New York City borough of Queens. He attended NYC Public Education Kingsbury Elementary School PS188. He was born to secular Jewish parents who had emigrated from Austria just before the onset of World War II. He was exposed via Unitarian Universalism to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing. His Unitarian church had the philosophy of many paths to the truth – the religious education consisted of studying a single religion for six months before moving on to the next. His father, Fredric, was a concert pianist, a noted conductor, and a music educator. His mother, Hannah was a visual artist. He has one sibling, his sister Enid.
Kurzweil decided he wanted to be an inventor at the age of five. As a young boy, Kurzweil had an inventory of parts from various construction toys he'd been given and old electronic gadgets he'd collected from neighbors. In his youth, Kurzweil was an avid reader of science fiction literature. At the age of eight, nine, and ten, he read the entire Tom Swift Jr. series. At the age of seven or eight, he built a robotic puppet theater and robotic game. He was involved with computers by the age of 12 (in 1960), when only a dozen computers existed in all of New York City, and built computing devices and statistical programs for the predecessor of Head Start. At the age of fourteen, Kurzweil wrote a paper detailing his theory of the neocortex. His parents were involved with the arts, and he is quoted in the documentary "Transcendent Man" as saying that the household always produced discussions about the future and technology.
Kurzweil attended Martin Van Buren High School. During class, he often held onto his class textbooks to seemingly participate, but instead, focused on his own projects which were hidden behind the book. His uncle, an engineer at Bell Labs, taught young Kurzweil the basics of computer science. In 1963, at age 15, he wrote his first computer program. He created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. In 1965, he was invited to appear on the CBS television program "I've Got a Secret", where he performed a piano piece that was composed by a computer he also had built. Later that year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention; Kurzweil's submission to Westinghouse Talent Search of his first computer program alongside several other projects resulted in him being one of its national winners, which allowed him to be personally congratulated by President Lyndon B. Johnson during a White House ceremony. These activities collectively impressed upon Kurzweil the belief that nearly any problem could be overcome.
While in high school, Kurzweil had corresponded with Marvin Minsky and was invited to visit him at MIT, which he did. Kurzweil also visited Frank Rosenblatt at Cornell.
He obtained a B.S. in computer science and literature in 1970 at MIT. He went to MIT to study with Marvin Minsky. He took all of the computer programming courses (eight or nine) offered at MIT in the first year and a half.
In 1968, during his sophomore year at MIT, Kurzweil started a company that used a computer program to match high school students with colleges. The program, called the Select College Consulting Program, was designed by him and compared thousands of different criteria about each college with questionnaire answers submitted by each student applicant. Around this time, he sold the company to Harcourt, Brace & World for $100,000 (roughly $670,000 in 2013 dollars) plus royalties.
In 1974, Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. and led development of the first omni-font optical character recognition system, a computer program capable of recognizing text written in any normal font. Before that time, scanners had only been able to read text written in a few fonts. He decided that the best application of this technology would be to create a reading machine, which would allow blind people to understand written text by having a computer read it to them aloud. However, this device required the invention of two enabling technologies—the CCD flatbed scanner and the text-to-speech synthesizer. Development of these technologies was completed at other institutions such as Bell Labs, and on January 13, 1976, the finished product was unveiled during a news conference headed by him and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind. Called the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the device covered an entire tabletop.
Kurzweil's next major business venture began in 1978, when Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial version of the optical character recognition computer program. LexisNexis was one of the first customers, and bought the program to upload paper legal and news documents onto its nascent online databases.
Kurzweil sold his Kurzweil Computer Products to Xerox, where it was known as Xerox Imaging Systems, later known as Scansoft, and he functioned as a consultant for Xerox until 1995. In 1999, Visioneer, Inc. acquired ScanSoft from Xerox to form a new public company with ScanSoft as the new company-wide name. Scansoft merged with Nuance Communications in 2005.
Kurzweil's next business venture was in the realm of electronic music technology. After a 1982 meeting with Stevie Wonder, in which the latter lamented the divide in capabilities and qualities between electronic synthesizers and traditional musical instruments, Kurzweil was inspired to create a new generation of music synthesizers capable of accurately duplicating the sounds of real instruments. Kurzweil Music Systems was founded in the same year, and in 1984, the Kurzweil K250 was unveiled. The machine was capable of imitating a number of instruments, and in tests musicians were unable to discern the difference between the Kurzweil K250 on piano mode from a normal grand piano. The recording and mixing abilities of the machine, coupled with its abilities to imitate different instruments, made it possible for a single user to compose and play an entire orchestral piece.
Kurzweil Music Systems was sold to South Korean musical instrument manufacturer Young Chang in 1990. As with Xerox, Kurzweil remained as a consultant for several years. Hyundai acquired Young Chang in 2006 and in January 2007 appointed Raymond Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems.
Concurrent with Kurzweil Music Systems, Kurzweil created the company Kurzweil Applied Intelligence (KAI) to develop computer speech recognition systems for commercial use. The first product, which debuted in 1987, was an early speech recognition program.
Kurzweil started Kurzweil Educational Systems (KESI) in 1996 to develop new pattern-recognition-based computer technologies to help people with disabilities such as blindness, dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in school. Products include the Kurzweil 1000 text-to-speech converter software program, which enables a computer to read electronic and scanned text aloud to blind or visually impaired users, and the Kurzweil 3000 program, which is a multifaceted electronic learning system that helps with reading, writing, and study skills.
Kurzweil sold KESI to Lernout & Hauspie. Following the legal and bankruptcy problems of the latter, he and other KESI employees purchased the company back. KESI was eventually sold to Cambium Learning Group, Inc.
During the 1990s, Kurzweil founded the Medical Learning Company. The company's products included an interactive computer education program for doctors and a computer-simulated patient. Around the same time, Kurzweil started KurzweilCyberArt.com—a website featuring computer programs to assist the creative art process. The site used to offer free downloads of a program called AARON—a visual art synthesizer developed by Harold Cohen—and of "Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet", which automatically creates poetry. During this period he also started KurzweilAI.net, a website devoted towards showcasing news of scientific developments, publicizing the ideas of high-tech thinkers and critics alike, and promoting futurist-related discussion among the general population through the Mind-X forum.
In 1999, Kurzweil created a hedge fund called "FatKat" (Financial Accelerating Transactions from Kurzweil Adaptive Technologies), which began trading in 2006. He has stated that the ultimate aim is to improve the performance of FatKat's A.I. investment software program, enhancing its ability to recognize patterns in "currency fluctuations and stock-ownership trends." He predicted in his 1999 book, "The Age of Spiritual Machines," that computers will one day prove superior to the best human financial minds at making profitable investment decisions.
In June 2005, Kurzweil introduced the "Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader" (K-NFB Reader)—a pocket-sized device consisting of a digital camera and computer unit. Like the Kurzweil Reading Machine of almost 30 years before, the K-NFB Reader is designed to aid blind people by reading written text aloud. The newer machine is portable and scans text through digital camera images, while the older machine is large and scans text through flatbed scanning.
In December 2012, Kurzweil was hired by Google in a full-time position to "work on new projects involving machine learning and language processing". He was personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page. Larry Page and Kurzweil agreed on a one-sentence job description: "to bring natural language understanding to Google".
He received a Technical Grammy on February 8, 2015, specifically for his invention of the Kurzweil K250.
Kurzweil has joined the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a cryonics company. In the event of his declared death, Kurzweil plans to be perfused with cryoprotectants, vitrified in liquid nitrogen, and stored at an Alcor facility in the hope that future medical technology will be able to repair his tissues and revive him.
Kurzweil is agnostic about the existence of a soul. On the possibility of divine intelligence, Kurzweil has said, "Does God exist? I would say, 'Not yet.'"
Kurzweil married Sonya Rosenwald Kurzweil in 1975 and has two children. Sonya Kurzweil is a psychologist in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts, working with women, children, parents and families. She holds faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and William James College for Graduate Education in Psychology. Her research interests and publications are in the area of psychotherapy practice. Kurzweil also serves as an active Overseer at Boston Children's Museum.
He has a son, Ethan Kurzweil, who is a venture capitalist, and a daughter, Amy Kurzweil, who is a writer and cartoonist. Kurzweil is a cousin of writer Allen Kurzweil.
Kurzweil said "I realize that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can’t get them to work, but because the timing is wrongnot all of the enabling factors are at play where they are needed. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment."
For the past several decades, Kurzweil's most effective and common approach to doing creative work has been conducted during his lucid dreamlike state which immediately precedes his awakening state. He claims to have constructed inventions, solved difficult problems, such as algorithmic, business strategy, organizational, and interpersonal problems, and written speeches in this state.
Kurzweil's first book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines", was published in 1990. The nonfiction work discusses the history of computer artificial intelligence (AI) and forecasts future developments. Other experts in the field of AI contribute heavily to the work in the form of essays. The Association of American Publishers awarded it the status of "Most Outstanding Computer Science Book" of 1990.
In 1993, Kurzweil published a book on nutrition called "The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life". The book's main idea is that high levels of fat intake are the cause of many health disorders common in the U.S., and thus that cutting fat consumption down to 10% of the total calories consumed would be optimal for most people.
In 1999, Kurzweil published "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which further elucidates his theories regarding the future of technology, which themselves stem from his analysis of long-term trends in biological and technological evolution. Much emphasis is on the likely course of AI development, along with the future of computer architecture.
Kurzweil's next book, published in 2004, returned to human health and nutrition. "" was co-authored by Terry Grossman, a medical doctor and specialist in alternative medicine.
"The Singularity Is Near", published in 2005, was made into a movie starring Pauley Perrette from NCIS. In February 2007, Ptolemaic Productions acquired the rights to "The Singularity Is Near", "The Age of Spiritual Machines", and "Fantastic Voyage", including the rights to film Kurzweil's life and ideas for the documentary film "Transcendent Man", which was directed by Barry Ptolemy.
"Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever", a follow-up to "Fantastic Voyage", was released on April 28, 2009.
Kurzweil's book "How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed," was released on Nov. 13, 2012. In it Kurzweil describes his Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind, the theory that the neocortex is a hierarchical system of pattern recognizers, and argues that emulating this architecture in machines could lead to an artificial superintelligence.
Kurzweil's latest book and first fiction novel, "Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine", follows a girl who uses her intelligence and the help of her friends to tackle real-world problems. It follows a structure akin to the scientific method. Chapters are organized as year-by-year episodes from Danielle's childhood and adolescence. The book comes with companion materials, "A Chronicle of Ideas", and "How You Can Be a Danielle" that provide real-world context. The book was released in April 2019.
In 2010, Kurzweil wrote and co-produced a movie directed by Anthony Waller called "The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future", which was based in part on his 2005 book "The Singularity Is Near". Part fiction, part non-fiction, the film blends interviews with 20 big thinkers (such as Marvin Minsky) with a narrative story that illustrates some of his key ideas, including a computer avatar (Ramona) who saves the world from self-replicating microscopic robots. In addition to his movie, an independent, feature-length documentary was made about Kurzweil, his life, and his ideas, called "Transcendent Man". Filmmakers Barry Ptolemy and Felicia Ptolemy followed Kurzweil, documenting his global speaking-tour. Premiered in 2009 at the Tribeca Film Festival, "Transcendent Man" documents Kurzweil's quest to reveal mankind's ultimate destiny and explores many of the ideas found in his "New York Times" bestselling book "The Singularity Is Near", including his concepts of exponential growth, radical life expansion, and how we will transcend our biology. The Ptolemys documented Kurzweil's stated goal of bringing back his late father using AI. The film also features critics who argue against Kurzweil's predictions.
In 2010, an independent documentary film called "Plug & Pray" premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival, in which Kurzweil and one of his major critics, the late Joseph Weizenbaum, argue about the benefits of eternal life.
The feature-length documentary film "The Singularity" by independent filmmaker Doug Wolens (released at the end of 2012), showcasing Kurzweil, has been acclaimed as "a large-scale achievement in its documentation of futurist and counter-futurist ideas” and “the best documentary on the Singularity to date."
Kurzweil frequently comments on the application of cell-size nanotechnology to the workings of the human brain and how this could be applied to building AI. While being interviewed for a February 2009 issue of "Rolling Stone" magazine, Kurzweil expressed a desire to construct a genetic copy of his late father, Fredric Kurzweil, from DNA within his grave site. This feat would be achieved by exhumation and extraction of DNA, constructing a clone of Fredric and retrieving memories and recollections—from Ray's mind—of his father. Kurzweil kept all of his father's records, notes, and pictures in order to maintain as much of his father as he could. Ray Kurzweil is known for taking over 200 pills a day, meant to reprogram his biochemistry. This, according to Kurzweil, is only a precursor to the devices at the nano scale that will eventually replace a blood-cell, self updating of specific pathogens to improve the immune system.
In his 1999 book "The Age of Spiritual Machines", Kurzweil proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially. He gave further focus to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled "The Law of Accelerating Returns", which proposed an extension of Moore's law to a wide variety of technologies, and used this to argue in favor of John von Neumann's concept of a technological singularity. Kurzweil suggests that this exponential technological growth is counter-intuitive to the way our brains perceive the world—since our brains were biologically inherited from humans living in a world that was linear and local—and, as a consequence, he claims it has encouraged great skepticism in his future projections.
Kurzweil was working with the Army Science Board in 2006 to develop a rapid response system to deal with the possible abuse of biotechnology. He suggested that the same technologies that are empowering us to reprogram biology away from cancer and heart disease could be used by a bioterrorist to reprogram a biological virus to be more deadly, communicable, and stealthy. However, he suggests that we have the scientific tools to successfully defend against these attacks, similar to the way we defend against computer software viruses. He has testified before Congress on the subject of nanotechnology, advocating that nanotechnology has the potential to solve serious global problems such as poverty, disease, and climate change. "Nanotech Could Give Global Warming a Big Chill".
In media appearances, Kurzweil has stressed the extreme potential dangers of nanotechnology but argues that in practice, progress cannot be stopped because that would require a totalitarian system, and any attempt to do so would drive dangerous technologies underground and deprive responsible scientists of the tools needed for defense. He suggests that the proper place of regulation is to ensure that technological progress proceeds safely and quickly, but does not deprive the world of profound benefits. He stated, "To avoid dangers such as unrestrained nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest priority on the continuing advance of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity."
Kurzweil admits that he cared little for his health until age 35, when he was found to suffer from a glucose intolerance, an early form of type II diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease). Kurzweil then found a doctor (Terry Grossman, M.D.) who shares his somewhat unconventional beliefs to develop an extreme regimen involving hundreds of pills, chemical intravenous treatments, red wine, and various other methods to attempt to live longer. Kurzweil was ingesting "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea" every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to "reprogram" his biochemistry. By 2008, he had reduced the number of supplement pills to 150. By 2015 Kurzweil further reduced his daily pill regimen down to 100 pills.
Kurzweil has made a number of bold claims for his health regimen. In his book "The Singularity Is Near", he claimed that he brought his cholesterol level down from the high 200s to 130, raised his HDL (high-density lipoprotein) from below 30 to 55, and lowered his homocysteine from an unhealthy 11 to a much safer 6.2. He also claimed that his C-reactive protein "and all of my other indexes (for heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions) are at ideal levels." He further claimed that his health regimen, including dramatically reducing his fat intake, successfully "reversed" his type 2 diabetes. ("The Singularity Is Near", p. 211)
He has written three books on the subjects of nutrition, health, and immortality: "The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life", "" and "Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever". In all, he recommends that other people emulate his health practices to the best of their abilities. Kurzweil and his current "anti-aging" doctor, Terry Grossman, now have two websites promoting their first and second book.
Kurzweil asserts that in the future, everyone will live forever. In a 2013 interview, he said that in 15 years, medical technology could add more than a year to one's remaining life expectancy for each year that passes, and we could then "outrun our own deaths". Among other things, he has supported the SENS Research Foundation's approach to finding a way to repair aging damage, and has encouraged the general public to hasten their research by donating.
According to Kurzweil, technologists will be creating synthetic neocortexes based on the operating principles of the human neocortex with the primary purpose of extending our own neocortexes. He claims that the neocortex of an adult human consists of approximately 300 million pattern recognizers. He draws on the commonly accepted belief that the primary anatomical difference between humans and other primates that allowed for superior intellectual abilities was the evolution of a larger neocortex. He claims that the six-layered neocortex deals with increasing abstraction from one layer to the next. He says that at the low levels, the neocortex may seem cold and mechanical because it can only make simple decisions, but at the higher levels of the hierarchy, the neocortex is likely to be dealing with concepts like being funny, being sexy, expressing a loving sentiment, creating a poem or understanding a poem, etc. According to Kurzweil, these higher levels of the human neocortex were the enabling factor for the human development of language, technology, art, and science. He stated, "If the quantitative improvement from primates to humans with the big forehead was the enabling factor to allow for language, technology, art, and science, what kind of qualitative leap can we make with another quantitative increase? Why not go from 300 million pattern recognizers to a billion?”
Kurzweil's standing as a futurist and transhumanist has led to his involvement in several singularity-themed organizations. In December 2004, Kurzweil joined the advisory board of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. In October 2005, Kurzweil joined the scientific advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation. On May 13, 2006, Kurzweil was the first speaker at the Singularity Summit at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. In May 2013, Kurzweil was the keynote speaker at the 2013 proceeding of the Research, Innovation, Start-up and Employment (RISE) international conference in Seoul.
In February 2009, Kurzweil, in collaboration with Google and the NASA Ames Research Center, announced the creation of the Singularity University training center for corporate executives and government officials. The University's self-described mission is to "assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges". Using Vernor Vinge's Singularity concept as a foundation, the university offered its first nine-week graduate program to 40 students in 2009.
Kurzweil's first book, "The Age of Intelligent Machines", presented his ideas about the future. It was written from 1986 to 1989 and published in 1990. Building on Ithiel de Sola Pool's "Technologies of Freedom" (1983), Kurzweil claims to have forecast the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to new technologies such as cellular phones and fax machines disempowering authoritarian governments by removing state control over the flow of information. In the book, Kurzweil also extrapolated preexisting trends in the improvement of computer chess software performance to predict that computers would beat the best human players "by the year 2000". In May 1997, chess World Champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Deep Blue computer in a well-publicized chess match.
Perhaps most significantly, Kurzweil foresaw the explosive growth in worldwide Internet use that began in the 1990s. At the time of the publication of "The Age of Intelligent Machines", there were only 2.6 million Internet users in the world, and the medium was unreliable, difficult to use, and deficient in content. He also stated that the Internet would explode not only in the number of users but in content as well, eventually granting users access "to international networks of libraries, data bases, and information services". Additionally, Kurzweil claims to have correctly foreseen that the preferred mode of Internet access would inevitably be through wireless systems, and he was also correct to estimate that the latter would become practical for widespread use in the early 21st century.
In October 2010, Kurzweil released his report, "How My Predictions Are Faring" in PDF format, analyzing the predictions he made in his book "The Age of Intelligent Machines" (1990), "The Age of Spiritual Machines" (1999) and "The Singularity is Near" (2005). Of the 147 predictions, Kurzweil claimed that 115 were "entirely correct", 12 were "essentially correct", 17 were "partially correct", and only 3 were "wrong". Adding together the "entirely" and "essentially" correct, Kurzweil's claimed accuracy rate comes to 86%.
Daniel Lyons, writing in "Newsweek" magazine, criticized Kurzweil for some of his predictions that turned out to be wrong, such as the economy continuing to boom from the 1998 dot-com through 2009, a US company having a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion by 2009, a supercomputer achieving 20 petaflops, speech recognition being in widespread use and cars that would drive themselves using sensors installed in highways; all by 2009. To the charge that a 20 petaflop supercomputer was not produced in the time he predicted, Kurzweil responded that he considers Google a giant supercomputer, and that it is indeed capable of 20 petaflops.
Kurzweil's predictions for 2009 were mostly inaccurate, claims "Forbes" magazine. For example, Kurzweil predicted, "The majority of text is created using continuous speech recognition." This is not the case.
In 1999, Kurzweil published a second book titled "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which goes into more depth explaining his futurist ideas. The third and final part of the book is devoted to predictions over the coming century, from 2009 through 2099. In "The Singularity Is Near" he makes fewer concrete short-term predictions, but includes many longer-term visions.
He states that with radical life extension will come radical life enhancement. He says he is confident that within 10 years we will have the option to spend some of our time in 3D virtual environments that appear just as real as real reality, but these will not yet be made possible via direct interaction with our nervous system. "If you look at video games and how we went from pong to the virtual reality we have available today, it is highly likely that immortality in essence will be possible." He believes that 20 to 25 years from now, we will have millions of blood-cell sized devices, known as nanobots, inside our bodies fighting against diseases, improving our memory, and cognitive abilities. Kurzweil says that a machine will pass the Turing test by 2029, and that around 2045, "the pace of change will be so astonishingly quick that we won't be able to keep up, unless we enhance our own intelligence by merging with the intelligent machines we are creating". Kurzweil states that humans will be a hybrid of biological and non-biological intelligence that becomes increasingly dominated by its non-biological component. He stresses that "AI is not an intelligent invasion from Mars. These are brain extenders that we have created to expand our own mental reach. They are part of our civilization. They are part of who we are. So over the next few decades our human-machine civilization will become increasingly dominated by its non-biological component. In "Transcendent Man" Kurzweil states "We humans are going to start linking with each other and become a metaconnection we will all be connected and all be omnipresent, plugged into this global network that is connected to billions of people, and filled with data." Kurzweil states in a press conference that we are the only species that goes beyond our limitations — "we didn't stay in the caves, we didn't stay on the planet, and we're not going to stay with the limitations of our biology". In his singularity based documentary he is quoted saying "I think people are fooling themselves when they say they have accepted death".
In 2008, Kurzweil said in an expert panel in the National Academy of Engineering that solar power will scale up to produce all the energy needs of Earth's people in 20 years. According to Kurzweil, we only need to capture 1 part in 10,000 of the energy from the Sun that hits Earth's surface to meet all of humanity's energy needs.
Kurzweil was referred to as "the ultimate thinking machine" by "Forbes" and as a "restless genius" by "The Wall Street Journal". PBS included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. "Inc." magazine ranked him #8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir".
Although the idea of a technological singularity is a popular concept in science fiction, some authors such as Neal Stephenson and Bruce Sterling have voiced skepticism about its real-world plausibility. Sterling expressed his views on the singularity scenario in a talk at the Long Now Foundation entitled "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole". Other prominent AI thinkers and computer scientists such as Daniel Dennett, Rodney Brooks, David Gelernter and Paul Allen also criticized Kurzweil's projections.
In the cover article of the December 2010 issue of "IEEE Spectrum", John Rennie criticizes Kurzweil for several predictions that failed to become manifest by the originally predicted date. "Therein lie the frustrations of Kurzweil's brand of tech punditry. On close examination, his clearest and most successful predictions often lack originality or profundity. And most of his predictions come with so many loopholes that they border on the unfalsifiable."
Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, agrees with Kurzweil's timeline of future progress, but thinks that technologies such as AI, nanotechnology and advanced biotechnology will create a dystopian world. Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation, has called the notion of a technological singularity "intelligent design for the IQ 140 people...This proposition that we're heading to this point at which everything is going to be just unimaginably different—it's fundamentally, in my view, driven by a religious impulse. And all of the frantic arm-waving can't obscure that fact for me."
Some critics have argued more strongly against Kurzweil and his ideas. Cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter has said of Kurzweil's and Hans Moravec's books: "It's an intimate mixture of rubbish and good ideas, and it's very hard to disentangle the two, because these are smart people; they're not stupid." Biologist P. Z. Myers has criticized Kurzweil's predictions as being based on "New Age spiritualism" rather than science and says that Kurzweil does not understand basic biology. VR pioneer Jaron Lanier has even described Kurzweil's ideas as "cybernetic totalism" and has outlined his views on the culture surrounding Kurzweil's predictions in an essay for Edge.org entitled "One Half of a Manifesto".
British philosopher John Gray argues that contemporary science is what magic was for ancient civilizations. It gives a sense of hope for those who are willing to do almost anything in order to achieve eternal life. He quotes Kurzweil's Singularity as another example of a trend which has almost always been present in the history of mankind.
"The Brain Makers", a history of artificial intelligence written in 1994 by HP Newquist, noted that "Born with the same gift for self-promotion that was a character trait of people like P.T. Barnum and Ed Feigenbaum, Kurzweil had no problems talking up his technical prowess . . . Ray Kurzweil was not noted for his understatement."
In a 2015 paper, William D. Nordhaus of Yale University, takes an economic look at the impacts of an impending technological singularity. He comments: "There is remarkably little writing on Singularity in the modern macroeconomic literature." Nordhaus supposes that the Singularity could arise from either the demand or supply side of a market economy, but for information technology to proceed at the kind of pace Kurzweil suggests, there would have to be significant productivity trade-offs. Namely, in order to devote more resources to producing super computers we must decrease our production of non-information technology goods. Using a variety of econometric methods, Nordhaus runs six supply side tests and one demand side test to track the macroeconomic viability of such steep rises in information technology output. Of the seven tests only two indicated that a Singularity was economically possible and both of those two predicted, at minimum, 100 years before it would occur. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25984 |
Rutherford scattering
Rutherford scattering is the elastic scattering of charged particles by the Coulomb interaction. It is a physical phenomenon explained by Ernest Rutherford in 1911 that led to the development of the planetary Rutherford model of the atom and eventually the Bohr model. Rutherford scattering was first referred to as Coulomb scattering because it relies only upon the static electric (Coulomb) potential, and the minimum distance between particles is set entirely by this potential. The classical Rutherford scattering process of alpha particles against gold nuclei is an example of "elastic scattering" because neither the alpha particles nor the gold nuclei are internally excited. The Rutherford formula (see below) further neglects the recoil kinetic energy of the massive target nucleus.
The initial discovery was made by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden in 1909 when they performed the gold foil experiment in collaboration with Rutherford, in which they fired a beam of alpha particles (helium nuclei) at foils of gold leaf only a few atoms thick. At the time of the experiment, the atom was thought to be analogous to a plum pudding (as proposed by J. J. Thomson), with the negatively-charged electrons (the plums) studded throughout a positive spherical matrix (the pudding). If the plum-pudding model were correct, the positive "pudding", being more spread out than in the correct model of a concentrated nucleus, would not be able to exert such large coulombic forces, and the alpha particles should only be deflected by small angles as they pass through.
However, the intriguing results showed that around 1 in 8000 alpha particles were deflected by very large angles (over 90°), while the rest passed through with little deflection. From this, Rutherford concluded that the majority of the mass was concentrated in a minute, positively-charged region (the nucleus) surrounded by electrons. When a (positive) alpha particle approached sufficiently close to the nucleus, it was repelled strongly enough to rebound at high angles. The small size of the nucleus explained the small number of alpha particles that were repelled in this way. Rutherford showed, using the method outlined below, that the size of the nucleus was less than about (how much less than this size, Rutherford could not tell from this experiment alone; see more below on this problem of lowest possible size). As a visual example, Figure 1 shows the deflection of an alpha particle by a nucleus in the gas of a cloud chamber.
Rutherford scattering is now exploited by the materials science community in an analytical technique called Rutherford backscattering.
The differential cross section can be derived from the equations of motion for a particle interacting with a central potential. In general, the equations of motion describing two particles interacting under a central force can be decoupled into the center of mass and the motion of the particles relative to one another. For the case of light alpha particles scattering off heavy nuclei, as in the experiment performed by Rutherford, the reduced mass is essentially the mass of the alpha particle and the nucleus off of which it scatters is essentially stationary in the lab frame.
Substituting into the Binet equation, with the origin of coordinate system formula_1 on the target (scatterer), yields the equation of trajectory as
where , is the speed at infinity, and is the impact parameter.
The general solution of the above differential equation is
and the boundary condition is
Solving the equations and its derivative using those boundary conditions, we can obtain
Then the deflection angle is
To find the scattering cross section from this result consider its definition
Since the scattering angle is uniquely determined for a given and , the number of particles scattered into an angle between and must be the same as the number of particles with associated impact parameters between and . For an incident intensity , this implies the following equality
For a radially symmetric scattering potential, as in the case of the Coulomb potential, , yielding the expression for the scattering cross section
Plugging in the previously derived expression for the impact parameter we find the Rutherford differential scattering cross section
This same result can be expressed alternatively as
where is the dimensionless fine structure constant, is the non-relativistic kinetic energy of the particle in MeV, and .
For head-on collisions between alpha particles and the nucleus (with zero impact parameter), all the kinetic energy of the alpha particle is turned into potential energy and the particle is at rest. The distance from the center of the alpha particle to the center of the nucleus () at this point is an upper limit for the nuclear radius, if it is evident from the experiment that the scattering process obeys the cross section formula given above.
Applying the inverse-square law between the charges on the alpha particle and nucleus, one can write:
Assumptions:
1. There are no external forces acting on the system. Thus the total energy (K.E.+P.E.) of the system is constant.
2. Initially the alpha particles are at a very large distance from the nucleus.
Rearranging:
For an alpha particle:
Substituting these in gives the value of about , or 27 fm. (The true radius is about 7.3 fm.) The true radius of the nucleus is not recovered in these experiments because the alphas do not have enough energy to penetrate to more than 27 fm of the nuclear center, as noted, when the actual radius of gold is 7.3 fm. Rutherford realized this, and also realized that actual impact of the alphas on gold causing any force-deviation from that of the coulomb potential would change the "form" of his scattering curve at high scattering angles (the smallest impact parameters) from a hyperbola to something else. This was not seen, indicating that the surface of the gold nucleus had not been "touched" so that Rutherford also knew the gold nucleus (or the sum of the gold and alpha radii) was smaller than 27 fm.
The extension of low-energy Rutherford-type scattering to relativistic energies and particles that have intrinsic spin is beyond the scope of this article. For example, electron scattering from the proton is described as Mott scattering, with a cross section that reduces to the Rutherford formula for non-relativistic electrons. If no "internal" energy excitation of the beam or target particle occurs, the process is called "elastic scattering", since energy and momentum have to be conserved in any case. If the collision causes one or the other of the constituents to become excited, or if new particles are created in the interaction, then the process is said to be "inelastic scattering". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25985 |
Robert Langlands
Robert Phelan Langlands, (; born October 6, 1936) is an American-Canadian mathematician. He is best known as the founder of the Langlands program, a vast web of conjectures and results connecting representation theory and automorphic forms to the study of Galois groups in number theory, for which he received the 2018 Abel Prize. He is an emeritus professor and occupies Albert Einstein's office at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Langlands was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada, in 1936. In 1945 he moved to White Rock, near the US border, where his parents had a shop selling building materials.
He graduated from Semiahmoo Secondary School and started enrolling at the University of British Columbia at the age of 16, receiving his undergraduate degree in 1957; he continued on there to receive an M. Sc. in 1958. He then went to Yale University where he received a Ph.D. in 1960.
His first academic position was at Princeton University from 1960 to 1967, where he worked as an associate professor. He was a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley from 1964 to 1965 and between 1967 and 1972 he was a professor at Yale University. He was appointed Hermann Weyl Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1972, and became professor emeritus in January 2007.
Langlands' Ph.D. thesis was on the analytical theory of Lie semigroups, but he soon moved into representation theory, adapting the methods of Harish-Chandra to the theory of automorphic forms. His first accomplishment in this field was a formula for the dimension of certain spaces of automorphic forms, in which particular types of Harish-Chandra's discrete series appeared.
He next constructed an analytical theory of Eisenstein series for reductive groups of rank greater than one, thus extending work of Hans Maass, Walter Roelcke, and Atle Selberg from the early 1950s for rank one groups such as . This amounted to describing in general terms the continuous spectra of arithmetic quotients, and showing that all automorphic forms arise in terms of cusp forms and the residues of Eisenstein series induced from cusp forms on smaller subgroups. As a first application, he proved the Weil conjecture on Tamagawa numbers for the large class of arbitrary simply connected Chevalley groups defined over the rational numbers. Previously this had been known only in a few isolated cases and for certain classical groups where it could be shown by induction
As a second application of this work, he was able to show meromorphic continuation for a large class of -functions arising in the theory of automorphic forms, not previously known to have them. These occurred in the constant terms of Eisenstein series, and meromorphicity as well as a weak functional equation were a consequence of functional equations for Eisenstein series. This work led in turn, in the winter of 1966–67, to the now well known conjectures making up what is often called the Langlands program. Very roughly speaking, they propose a huge generalization of previously known examples of reciprocity, including (a) classical class field theory, in which characters of local and arithmetic abelian Galois groups are identified with characters of local multiplicative groups and the idele quotient group, respectively; (b) earlier results of Martin Eichler and Goro Shimura in which the Hasse–Weil zeta functions of arithmetic quotients of the upper half plane are identified with -functions occurring in Hecke's theory of holomorphic automorphic forms. These conjectures were first posed in relatively complete form in a famous letter to Weil, written in January 1967. It was in this letter that he introduced what has since become known as the -group and along with it, the notion of functoriality.
The book by Hervé Jacquet and Langlands on presented a theory of automorphic forms for the general linear group , establishing among other things the Jacquet–Langlands correspondence showing that functoriality was capable of explaining very precisely how automorphic forms for related to those for quaternion algebras. This book applied the adelic trace formula for and quaternion algebras to do this. Subsequently, James Arthur, a student of Langlands while he was at Yale, successfully developed the trace formula for groups of higher rank. This has become a major tool in attacking functoriality in general, and in particular has been applied to demonstrating that the Hasse–Weil zeta functions of certain Shimura varieties are among the -functions arising from automorphic forms.
The functoriality conjecture is far from proven, but a special case (the octahedral Artin conjecture, proved by Langlands and Tunnell) was the starting point of Andrew Wiles' attack on the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture and Fermat's last theorem.
In the mid-1980s Langlands turned his attention to physics, particularly the problems of percolation and conformal invariance. In 1995, Langlands started a collaboration with Bill Casselman at the University of British Columbia with the aim of posting nearly all of his writings—including publications, preprints, as well as selected correspondence—on the Internet. The correspondence includes a copy of the original letter to Weil that introduced the -group. In recent years he has turned his attention back to automorphic forms, working in particular on a theme he calls `beyond endoscopy'.
Langlands has received the 1996 Wolf Prize (which he shared with Andrew Wiles), the 2005 AMS Steele Prize, the 1980 Jeffery–Williams Prize, the 1988 NAS Award in Mathematics from the National Academy of Sciences, the 2006 Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, the 2007 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences (with Richard Taylor) for his work on automorphic forms. In 2018 Langlands was awarded the Abel Prize for "his visionary program connecting representation theory to number theory.".
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1972 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1981. In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
In 2003, Langlands received a doctorate "honoris causa" from Université Laval.
In 2019, Langlands was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada.
On Jan.10, 2020, Langlands was honoured at Semiahmoo Secondary. A mural has been specially made for Langlands as he graduated from Semiahmoo Secondary.
Langlands spent a year in Turkey in 1967–68, where his office at the Middle East Technical University was next to that of Cahit Arf. In addition to his mathematical studies, Langlands likes to learn foreign languages, both for better understanding of foreign publications on his topic and just as a hobby. He speaks French, Turkish and German, and reads (but does not speak) Russian.
Langlands is married to Charlotte Lorraine Cheverie. They have four children. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25986 |
Rickets
Rickets is a condition that results in weak or soft bones in children. Symptoms include bowed legs, stunted growth, bone pain, large forehead, and trouble sleeping. Complications may include bone fractures, muscle spasms, an abnormally curved spine, or intellectual disability.
The most common cause of rickets is a vitamin D deficiency. This can result from eating a diet without enough vitamin D, dark skin, too little sun exposure, exclusive breastfeeding without vitamin D supplementation, celiac disease, and certain genetic conditions. Other factors may include not enough calcium or phosphorus. The underlying mechanism involves insufficient calcification of the growth plate. Diagnosis is generally based on blood tests finding a low calcium, low phosphorus, and a high alkaline phosphatase together with X-rays.
Prevention for exclusively breastfed babies is vitamin D supplements. Otherwise, treatment depends on the underlying cause. If due to a lack of vitamin D, treatment is usually with vitamin D and calcium. This generally results in improvements within a few weeks. Bone deformities may also improve over time. Occasionally surgery may be done to correct bone deformities. Genetic forms of the disease typically require specialized treatment.
Rickets occurs relatively commonly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It is generally uncommon in the United States and Europe, except among certain minority groups. It begins in childhood, typically between the ages of 3 and 18 months old. Rates of disease are equal in males and females. Cases of what is believed to have been rickets have been described since the 1st century, and the condition was widespread in the Roman Empire. The disease was common into the 20th century. Early treatments included the use of cod liver oil.
Signs and symptoms of rickets can include bone tenderness, and a susceptibility for bone fractures particularly greenstick fractures. Early skeletal deformities can arise in infants such as soft, thinned skull bones – a condition known as craniotabes, which is the first sign of rickets; skull bossing may be present and a delayed closure of the fontanelles.
Young children may have bowed legs and thickened ankles and wrists; older children may have knock knees. Spinal curvatures of kyphoscoliosis or lumbar lordosis may be present. The pelvic bones may be deformed. A condition known as rachitic rosary can result as the thickening caused by nodules forming on the costochondral joints. This appears as a visible bump in the middle of each rib in a line on each side of the body. This somewhat resembles a rosary, giving rise to its name. The deformity of a pigeon chest may result in the presence of Harrison's groove.
Hypocalcemia, a low level of calcium in the blood can result in tetany – uncontrolled muscle spasms. Dental problems can also arise.
An X-ray or radiograph of an advanced sufferer from rickets tends to present in a classic way: the bowed legs (outward curve of long bone of the legs) and a deformed chest. Changes in the skull also occur causing a distinctive "square headed" appearance known as "caput quadratum". These deformities persist into adult life if not treated. Long-term consequences include permanent curvatures or disfiguration of the long bones, and a curved back.
Maternal deficiencies may be the cause of overt bone disease from before birth and impairment of bone quality after birth. The primary cause of congenital rickets is vitamin D deficiency in the mother's blood, which the baby shares. Vitamin D ensures that serum phosphate and calcium levels are sufficient to facilitate the mineralization of bone. Congenital rickets may also be caused by other maternal diseases, including severe osteomalacia, untreated celiac disease, malabsorption, pre-eclampsia, and premature birth. Rickets in children is similar to osteoporosis in the elderly, with brittle bones. Pre-natal care includes checking vitamin levels and ensuring that any deficiencies are supplemented.
Also exclusively breast-fed infants may require rickets prevention by vitamin D supplementation or an increased exposure to sunlight.
In sunny countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Bangladesh, there is sufficient endogenous vitamin D due to exposure to the sun. However, the disease occurs among older toddlers and children in these countries, which in these circumstances is attributed to low dietary calcium intakes due to a mainly cereal-based diet.
Those at higher risk for developing rickets include:
Diseases causing soft bones in infants, like hypophosphatasia or hypophosphatemia can also lead to rickets.
Strontium is allied with calcium uptake into bones; at excessive dietary levels strontium has a rachitogenic (rickets-producing) action.
Sunlight, especially ultraviolet light, lets human skin cells convert vitamin D from an inactive to active state. In the absence of vitamin D, dietary calcium is not properly absorbed, resulting in hypocalcaemia, leading to skeletal and dental deformities and neuromuscular symptoms, e.g. hyperexcitability. Foods that contain vitamin D include butter, eggs, fish liver oils, margarine, fortified milk and juice, portabella and shiitake mushrooms, and oily fishes such as tuna, herring, and salmon. A rare X-linked dominant form exists called vitamin D-resistant rickets or X-linked hypophosphatemia.
Cases have been reported in Britain in recent years of rickets in children of many social backgrounds caused by insufficient production in the body of vitamin D because the sun's ultraviolet light was not reaching the skin due to use of strong sunblock, too much "covering up" in sunlight, or not getting out into the sun. Other cases have been reported among the children of some ethnic groups in which mothers avoid exposure to the sun for religious or cultural reasons, leading to a maternal shortage of vitamin D; and people with darker skins need more sunlight to maintain vitamin D levels.
Rickets had historically been a problem in London, especially during the Industrial Revolution. Persistent thick fog and heavy industrial smog permeating the city blocked out significant amounts of sunlight to such an extent that up to 80 percent of children at one time had varying degrees of rickets in one form or the other. It is sometimes known "the English Disease" in some foreign languages (e.g. German: 'Die englische Krankheit', Dutch: 'Engelse ziekte', Hungarian: "angolkor").
Vitamin D natural selection hypotheses:
Rickets is often a result of vitamin D3 deficiency. The correlation between human skin color and latitude is thought to be the result of positive selection to varying levels of solar ultraviolet radiation. Northern latitudes have selection for lighter skin that allows UV rays to produce vitamin D from 7-dehydrocholesterol. Conversely, latitudes near the equator have selection for darker skin that can block the majority of UV radiation to protect from toxic levels of vitamin D, as well as skin cancer.
An anecdote often cited to support this hypothesis is that Arctic populations whose skin is relatively darker for their latitude, such as the Inuit, have a diet that is historically rich in vitamin D. Since these people acquire vitamin D through their diet, there is not a positive selective force to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight.
Environment mismatch:
Ultimately, vitamin D deficiency arises from a mismatch between a population's previous evolutionary environment and the individual's current environment. This risk of mismatch increases with advances in transportation methods and increases in urban population size at high latitudes.
Similar to the environmental mismatch when dark-skinned people live at high latitudes, Rickets can also occur in religious communities that require long garments with hoods and veils. These hoods and veils act as sunlight barriers that prevent individuals from synthesizing vitamin D naturally from the sun.
In a study by Mithal et al., Vitamin D insufficiency of various countries was measured by lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D. 25(OH)D is an indicator of vitamin D insufficiency that can be easily measured. These percentages should be regarded as relative vitamin D levels, and not as predicting evidence for development of rickets.
Asian immigrants living in Europe have an increased risk for vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D insufficiency was found in 40% of non-Western immigrants in the Netherlands, and in more than 80% of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants.
The Middle East, despite high rates of sun-exposure, has the highest rates of rickets worldwide. This can be explained by limited sun exposure due to cultural practices and lack of vitamin D supplementation for breast-feeding women. Up to 70% and 80% of adolescent girls in Iran and Saudi Arabia, respectively, have vitamin D insufficiency. Socioeconomic factors that limit a vitamin D rich diet also plays a role.
In the United States, vitamin D insufficiency varies dramatically by ethnicity. Among males aged 70 years and older, the prevalence of low serum 25(OH) D levels was 23% for non-Hispanic whites, 45% for Mexican Americans, and 58% for non-Hispanic blacks. Among women, the prevalence was 28.5%, 55%, and 68%, respectively.
A systematic review published in the Cochrane Library looked at children up to three years old in Turkey and China and found there was a beneficial association between vitamin D and rickets. In Turkey children getting vitamin D had only a 4% chance of developing rickets compared to children who received no medical intervention. In China, a combination of vitamin D, calcium and nutritional counseling was linked to a decreased risk of rickets.
With this evolutionary perspective in mind, parents can supplement their nutritional intake with vitamin D enhanced beverages if they feel their child is at risk for vitamin D deficiency.
Rickets may be diagnosed with the help of:
Osteochondrodysplasias also known as genetic bone diseases may mimic the clinical picture of rickets in regard to the features of bone deformities. The radiologic picture and the laboratory findings of serum calcium, phosphate and alkaline phosphatase, are important differentiating factors. Blount's disease is an important differential diagnosis because it causes knee defomities in a similar fashion to rickets namely bow legs or genu varum. Infants with rickets can have bone fractures. This sometimes leads to child abuse allegations. This issue appears to be more common for solely nursing infants of black mothers, in winter in temperate climates, suffering poor nutrition and no vitamin D supplementation. People with darker skin produce less vitamin D than those with lighter skin, for the same amount of sunlight.
The most common treatment of rickets is the use of vitamin D. However, orthopedic surgery is occasionally needed.
Treatment involves increasing dietary intake of calcium, phosphates and vitamin D. Exposure to ultraviolet B light (most easily obtained when the sun is highest in the sky), cod liver oil, halibut-liver oil, and viosterol are all sources of vitamin D.
A sufficient amount of ultraviolet B light in sunlight each day and adequate supplies of calcium and phosphorus in the diet can prevent rickets. Darker-skinned people need to be exposed longer to the ultraviolet rays. The replacement of vitamin D has been proven to correct rickets using these methods of ultraviolet light therapy and medicine.
Recommendations are for 400 international units (IU) of vitamin D a day for infants and children. Children who do not get adequate amounts of vitamin D are at increased risk of rickets. Vitamin D is essential for allowing the body to uptake calcium for use in proper bone calcification and maintenance.
Sufficient vitamin D levels can also be achieved through dietary supplementation and/or exposure to sunlight. Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is the preferred form since it is more readily absorbed than vitamin D2. Most dermatologists recommend vitamin D supplementation as an alternative to unprotected ultraviolet exposure due to the increased risk of skin cancer associated with sun exposure. Endogenous production with full body exposure to sunlight is approximately 250 µg (10,000 IU) per day.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), all infants, including those who are exclusively breast-fed, may need vitamin D supplementation until they start drinking at least of vitamin D-fortified milk or formula a day.
Occasionally surgery is need to correct severe and persistent deformities of the lower limbs, especially around the knees namely genu varum and genu valgum. Surgical correction of rachitic deformities can be achieved through osteotomies or guided growth surgery. Guided growth surgery has almost replaced the use of corrective osteotomies. The functional results of guided growth surgery in children with rickets are satisfactory. While bone osteotomies work through acute/immediate correction of the limb deformity, guided growth works through gradual correction.
In developed countries, rickets is a rare disease (incidence of less than 1 in 200,000). Recently, cases of rickets have been reported among children who are not fed enough vitamin D.
In 2013/2014 there were fewer than 700 cases in England. In 2019 the number of cases hospitalised was said to be the highest in 50 years.
Rickets occurs relatively commonly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Greek physician Soranus of Ephesus, one of the chief representatives of the Methodic school of medicine who practiced in Alexandria and subsequently in Rome, reported deformation of the bones in infants as early as the first and second centuries AD. Rickets was not defined as a specific medical condition until 1645, when an English physician Daniel Whistler gave the earliest known description of the disease. In 1650 a treatise on rickets was published by Francis Glisson, a physician at Caius College, Cambridge, who said it had first appeared about 30 years previously in the counties of Dorset and Somerset. In 1857, John Snow suggested rickets, then widespread in Britain, was being caused by the adulteration of bakers' bread with alum. German pediatrician Kurt Huldschinsky successfully demonstrated in the winter of 1918–1919 how rickets could be treated with ultraviolet lamps. The role of diet in the development of rickets was determined by Edward Mellanby between 1918–1920. In 1923, American physician Harry Steenbock demonstrated that irradiation by ultraviolet light increased the vitamin D content of foods and other organic materials. Steenbock's irradiation technique was used for foodstuffs, but most memorably for milk. By 1945, rickets had all but been eliminated in the United States.
The word "rickets" may be from the Old English word "wrickken" ('to twist'), although because this is conjectured, several major dictionaries simply say "origin unknown". The name "rickets" is plural in form but usually singular in construction. The Greek word "rachitis" (ῥαχίτης, meaning "in or of the spine") was later adopted as the scientific term for rickets, due chiefly to the words' similarity in sound. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25987 |
RGB color model
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.
The main purpose of the RGB color model is for the sensing, representation, and display of images in electronic systems, such as televisions and computers, though it has also been used in conventional photography. Before the electronic age, the RGB color model already had a solid theory behind it, based in human perception of colors.
RGB is a "device-dependent" color model: different devices detect or reproduce a given RGB value differently, since the color elements (such as phosphors or dyes) and their response to the individual R, G, and B levels vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, or even in the same device over time. Thus an RGB value does not define the same "color" across devices without some kind of color management.
Typical RGB input devices are color TV and video cameras, image scanners, and digital cameras. Typical RGB output devices are TV sets of various technologies (CRT, LCD, plasma, OLED, quantum dots, etc.), computer and mobile phone displays, video projectors, multicolor LED displays and large screens such as Jumbotron. Color printers, on the other hand are not RGB devices, but subtractive color devices (typically CMYK color model).
This article discusses concepts common to all the different color spaces that use the RGB color model, which are used in one implementation or another in color image-producing technology.
To form a color with RGB, three light beams (one red, one green, and one blue) must be superimposed (for example by emission from a black screen or by reflection from a white screen). Each of the three beams is called a "component" of that color, and each of them can have an arbitrary intensity, from fully off to fully on, in the mixture.
The RGB color model is "additive" in the sense that the three light beams are added together, and their light spectra add, wavelength for wavelength, to make the final color's spectrum. This is essentially opposite to the subtractive color model, particularly the CMY color model, that applies to paints, inks, dyes, and other substances whose color depends on "reflecting" the light under which we see them. Because of properties, these three colors create white, this is in stark contrast to physical colors, such as dyes which create black when mixed.
Zero intensity for each component gives the darkest color (no light, considered the "black"), and full intensity of each gives a white; the "quality" of this white depends on the nature of the primary light sources, but if they are properly balanced, the result is a neutral white matching the system's white point. When the intensities for all the components are the same, the result is a shade of gray, darker or lighter depending on the intensity. When the intensities are different, the result is a colorized hue, more or less saturated depending on the difference of the strongest and weakest of the intensities of the primary colors employed.
When one of the components has the strongest intensity, the color is a hue near this primary color (red-ish, green-ish, or blue-ish), and when two components have the same strongest intensity, then the color is a hue of a secondary color (a shade of cyan, magenta or yellow). A secondary color is formed by the sum of two primary colors of equal intensity: cyan is green+blue, magenta is blue+red, and yellow is red+green. Every secondary color is the "complement" of one primary color; when a primary and its complementary secondary color are added together, the result is white: cyan complements red, magenta complements green, and yellow complements blue.
The RGB color model itself does not define what is meant by "red", "green", and "blue" colorimetrically, and so the results of mixing them are not specified as absolute, but relative to the primary colors. When the exact chromaticities of the red, green, and blue primaries are defined, the color model then becomes an absolute color space, such as sRGB or Adobe RGB; see RGB color spaces for more details.
The choice of primary colors is related to the physiology of the human eye; good primaries are stimuli that maximize the difference between the responses of the cone cells of the human retina to light of different wavelengths, and that thereby make a large color triangle.
The normal three kinds of light-sensitive photoreceptor cells in the human eye (cone cells) respond most to yellow (long wavelength or L), green (medium or M), and violet (short or S) light (peak wavelengths near 570 nm, 540 nm and 440 nm, respectively). The difference in the signals received from the three kinds allows the brain to differentiate a wide gamut of different colors, while being most sensitive (overall) to yellowish-green light and to differences between hues in the green-to-orange region.
As an example, suppose that light in the orange range of wavelengths (approximately 577 nm to 597 nm) enters the eye and strikes the retina. Light of these wavelengths would activate both the medium and long wavelength cones of the retina, but not equally—the long-wavelength cells will respond more. The difference in the response can be detected by the brain, and this difference is the basis of our perception of orange. Thus, the orange appearance of an object results from light from the object entering our eye and stimulating the different cones simultaneously but to different degrees.
Use of the three primary colors is not sufficient to reproduce "all" colors; only colors within the color triangle defined by the chromaticities of the primaries can be reproduced by additive mixing of non-negative amounts of those colors of light.
The RGB color model is based on the Young–Helmholtz theory of trichromatic color vision, developed by Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz in the early to mid-nineteenth century, and on James Clerk Maxwell's color triangle that elaborated that theory (circa 1860).
The first experiments with RGB in early color photography were made in 1861 by Maxwell himself, and involved the process of combining three color-filtered separate takes. To reproduce the color photograph, three matching projections over a screen in a dark room were necessary.
The additive RGB model and variants such as orange–green–violet were also used in the Autochrome Lumière color plates and other screen-plate technologies such as the Joly color screen and the Paget process in the early twentieth century. Color photography by taking three separate plates was used by other pioneers, such as the Russian Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky in the period 1909 through 1915. Such methods lasted until about 1960 using the expensive and extremely complex tri-color carbro Autotype process.
When employed, the reproduction of prints from three-plate photos was done by dyes or pigments using the complementary CMY model, by simply using the negative plates of the filtered takes: reverse red gives the cyan plate, and so on.
Before the development of practical electronic TV, there were patents on mechanically scanned color systems as early as 1889 in Russia. The color TV pioneer John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first RGB color transmission in 1928, and also the world's first color broadcast in 1938, in London. In his experiments, scanning and display were done mechanically by spinning colorized wheels.
The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began an experimental RGB field-sequential color system in 1940. Images were scanned electrically, but the system still used a moving part: the transparent RGB color wheel rotating at above 1,200 rpm in synchronism with the vertical scan. The camera and the cathode-ray tube (CRT) were both monochromatic. Color was provided by color wheels in the camera and the receiver.
More recently, color wheels have been used in field-sequential projection TV receivers based on the Texas Instruments monochrome DLP imager.
The modern RGB shadow mask technology for color CRT displays was patented by Werner Flechsig in Germany in 1938.
Early personal computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as those from Apple, and Commodore's Commodore VIC-20, used composite video whereas the Commodore 64 and the Atari family used S-Video derivatives. IBM introduced a 16-color scheme (four bits—one bit each for red, green, blue, and intensity) with the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) for its first IBM PC (1981), later improved with the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) in 1984. The first manufacturer of a truecolor graphics card for PCs (the TARGA) was Truevision in 1987, but it was not until the arrival of the Video Graphics Array (VGA) in 1987 that RGB became popular, mainly due to the analog signals in the connection between the adapter and the monitor which allowed a very wide range of RGB colors. Actually, it had to wait a few more years because the original VGA cards were palette-driven just like EGA, although with more freedom than VGA, but because the VGA connectors were analog, later variants of VGA (made by various manufacturers under the informal name Super VGA) eventually added true-color. In 1992, magazines heavily advertised true-color Super VGA hardware.
One common application of the RGB color model is the display of colors on a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid-crystal display (LCD), plasma display, or organic light emitting diode (OLED) display such as a television, a computer's monitor, or a large scale screen. Each pixel on the screen is built by driving three small and very close but still separated RGB light sources. At common viewing distance, the separate sources are indistinguishable, which tricks the eye to see a given solid color. All the pixels together arranged in the rectangular screen surface conforms the color image.
During digital image processing each pixel can be represented in the computer memory or interface hardware (for example, a "graphics card") as binary values for the red, green, and blue color components. When properly managed, these values are converted into intensities or voltages via gamma correction to correct the inherent nonlinearity of some devices, such that the intended intensities are reproduced on the display.
The Quattron released by Sharp uses RGB color and adds yellow as a sub-pixel, supposedly allowing an increase in the number of available colors.
RGB is also the term referring to a type of component video signal used in the video electronics industry. It consists of three signals—red, green, and blue—carried on three separate cables/pins. RGB signal formats are often based on modified versions of the RS-170 and RS-343 standards for monochrome video. This type of video signal is widely used in Europe since it is the best quality signal that can be carried on the standard SCART connector. This signal is known as RGBS (4 BNC/RCA terminated cables exist as well), but it is directly compatible with RGBHV used for computer monitors (usually carried on 15-pin cables terminated with 15-pin D-sub or 5 BNC connectors), which carries separate horizontal and vertical sync signals.
Outside Europe, RGB is not very popular as a video signal format; S-Video takes that spot in most non-European regions. However, almost all computer monitors around the world use RGB.
A framebuffer is a digital device for computers which stores data in the so-called "video memory" (comprising an array of Video RAM or similar chips). This data goes either to three digital-to-analog converters (DACs) (for analog monitors), one per primary color or directly to digital monitors. Driven by software, the CPU (or other specialized chips) write the appropriate bytes into the video memory to define the image. Modern systems encode pixel color values by devoting eight bits to each of the R, G, and B components. RGB information can be either carried directly by the pixel bits themselves or provided by a separate color look-up table (CLUT) if indexed color graphic modes are used.
A CLUT is a specialized RAM that stores R, G, and B values that define specific colors. Each color has its own address (index)—consider it as a descriptive reference number that provides that specific color when the image needs it. The content of the CLUT is much like a palette of colors. Image data that uses indexed color specifies addresses within the CLUT to provide the required R, G, and B values for each specific pixel, one pixel at a time. Of course, before displaying, the CLUT has to be loaded with R, G, and B values that define the palette of colors required for each image to be rendered. Some video applications store such palettes in PAL files ("Age of Empires" game, for example, uses over half-a-dozen) and can combine CLUTs on screen.
This indirect scheme restricts the number of available colors in an image CLUT—typically 256-cubed (8 bits in three color channels with values of 0–255)—although each color in the RGB24 CLUT table has only 8 bits representing 256 codes for each of the R, G, and B primaries combinatorial math theory says this means that any given color can be one of 16,777,216 possible colors. However, the advantage is that an indexed-color image file can be significantly smaller than it would be with only 8 bits per pixel for each primary.
Modern storage, however, is far less costly, greatly reducing the need to minimize image file size. By using an appropriate combination of red, green, and blue intensities, many colors can be displayed. Current typical display adapters use up to 24-bits of information for each pixel: 8-bit per component multiplied by three components (see the Digital representations section below (24bits = 2563, each primary value of 8 bits with values of 0–255). With this system, 16,777,216 (2563 or 224) discrete combinations of R, G, and B values are allowed, providing millions of different (though not necessarily distinguishable) hue, saturation and lightness shades. Increased shading has been implemented in various ways, some formats such as .png and .tga files among others using a fourth greyscale color channel as a masking layer, often called RGB32.
For images with a modest range of brightnesses from the darkest to the lightest, eight bits per primary color provides good-quality images, but extreme images require more bits per primary color as well as the advanced display technology. For more information see High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging.
In classic cathode ray tube (CRT) devices, the brightness of a given point over the fluorescent screen due to the impact of accelerated electrons is not proportional to the voltages applied to the electron gun control grids, but to an expansive function of that voltage. The amount of this deviation is known as its gamma value (formula_1), the argument for a power law function, which closely describes this behavior. A linear response is given by a gamma value of 1.0, but actual CRT nonlinearities have a gamma value around 2.0 to 2.5.
Similarly, the intensity of the output on TV and computer display devices is not directly proportional to the R, G, and B applied electric signals (or file data values which drive them through digital-to-analog converters). On a typical standard 2.2-gamma CRT display, an input intensity RGB value of (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) only outputs about 22% of full brightness (1.0, 1.0, 1.0), instead of 50%. To obtain the correct response, a gamma correction is used in encoding the image data, and possibly further corrections as part of the color calibration process of the device. Gamma affects black-and-white TV as well as color. In standard color TV, broadcast signals are gamma corrected.
In color television and video cameras manufactured before the 1990s, the incoming light was separated by prisms and filters into the three RGB primary colors feeding each color into a separate video camera tube (or "pickup tube"). These tubes are a type of cathode ray tube, not to be confused with that of CRT displays.
With the arrival of commercially viable charge-coupled device (CCD) technology in the 1980s, first, the pickup tubes were replaced with this kind of sensor. Later, higher scale integration electronics was applied (mainly by Sony), simplifying and even removing the intermediate optics, thereby reducing the size of home video cameras and eventually leading to the development of full camcorders. Current webcams and mobile phones with cameras are the most miniaturized commercial forms of such technology.
Photographic digital cameras that use a CMOS or CCD image sensor often operate with some variation of the RGB model. In a Bayer filter arrangement, green is given twice as many detectors as red and blue (ratio 1:2:1) in order to achieve higher luminance resolution than chrominance resolution. The sensor has a grid of red, green, and blue detectors arranged so that the first row is RGRGRGRG, the next is GBGBGBGB, and that sequence is repeated in subsequent rows. For every channel, missing pixels are obtained by interpolation in the demosaicing process to build up the complete image. Also, other processes used to be applied in order to map the camera RGB measurements into a standard RGB color space as sRGB.
In computing, an image scanner is a device that optically scans images (printed text, handwriting, or an object) and converts it to a digital image which is transferred to a computer. Among other formats, flat, drum and film scanners exist, and most of them support RGB color. They can be considered the successors of early telephotography input devices, which were able to send consecutive scan lines as analog amplitude modulation signals through standard telephonic lines to appropriate receivers; such systems were in use in press since the 1920s to the mid-1990s. Color telephotographs were sent as three separated RGB filtered images consecutively.
Currently available scanners typically use charge-coupled device (CCD) or contact image sensor (CIS) as the image sensor, whereas older drum scanners use a photomultiplier tube as the image sensor. Early color film scanners used a halogen lamp and a three-color filter wheel, so three exposures were needed to scan a single color image. Due to heating problems, the worst of them being the potential destruction of the scanned film, this technology was later replaced by non-heating light sources such as color LEDs.
A color in the RGB color model is described by indicating how much of each of the red, green, and blue is included. The color is expressed as an RGB triplet ("r","g","b"), each component of which can vary from zero to a defined maximum value. If all the components are at zero the result is black; if all are at maximum, the result is the brightest representable white.
These ranges may be quantified in several different ways:
For example, brightest saturated red is written in the different RGB notations as:
In many environments, the component values within the ranges are not managed as linear (that is, the numbers are nonlinearly related to the intensities that they represent), as in digital cameras and TV broadcasting and receiving due to gamma correction, for example. Linear and nonlinear transformations are often dealt with via digital image processing. Representations with only 8 bits per component are considered sufficient if gamma encoding is used.
Following is the mathematical relationship between RGB space to HSI space (hue, saturation, and intensity: HSI color space):
formula_2
If formula_3 , then formula_4.
The RGB color model is one of the most common ways to encode color in computing, and several different binary digital representations are in use. The main characteristic of all of them is the quantization of the possible values per component (technically a "sample" ) by using only integer numbers within some range, usually from 0 to some power of two minus one (2"n" − 1) to fit them into some bit groupings. Encodings of 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 and 16 bits per color are commonly found; the total number of bits used for an RGB color is typically called the color depth.
Since colors are usually defined by three components, not only in the RGB model, but also in other color models such as CIELAB and Y'UV, among others, then a three-dimensional volume is described by treating the component values as ordinary Cartesian coordinates in a Euclidean space. For the RGB model, this is represented by a cube using non-negative values within a 0–1 range, assigning black to the origin at the vertex (0, 0, 0), and with increasing intensity values running along the three axes up to white at the vertex (1, 1, 1), diagonally opposite black.
An RGB triplet ("r","g","b") represents the three-dimensional coordinate of the point of the given color within the cube or its faces or along its edges. This approach allows computations of the color similarity of two given RGB colors by simply calculating the distance between them: the shorter the distance, the higher the similarity. Out-of-gamut computations can also be performed this way.
The RGB color model for HTML was formally adopted as an Internet standard in HTML 3.2, though it had been in use for some time before that. Initially, the limited color depth of most video hardware led to a limited color palette of 216 RGB colors, defined by the Netscape Color Cube. With the predominance of 24-bit displays, the use of the full 16.7 million colors of the HTML RGB color code no longer poses problems for most viewers.
The web-safe color palette consists of the 216 (63) combinations of red, green, and blue where each color can take one of six values (in hexadecimal): #00, #33, #66, #99, #CC or #FF (based on the 0 to 255 range for each value discussed above). These hexadecimal values = 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, 255 in decimal, which = 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100% in terms of intensity. This seems fine for splitting up 216 colors into a cube of dimension 6. However, lacking gamma correction, the perceived intensity on a standard 2.5 gamma CRT / LCD is only: 0%, 2%, 10%, 28%, 57%, 100%. See the actual web safe color palette for a visual confirmation that the majority of the colors produced are very dark.
The syntax in CSS is:
where # equals the proportion of red, green, and blue respectively. This syntax can be used after such selectors as "background-color:" or (for text) "color:".
Proper reproduction of colors, especially in professional environments, requires color management of all the devices involved in the production process, many of them using RGB. Color management results in several transparent conversions between device-independent and device-dependent color spaces (RGB and others, as CMYK for color printing) during a typical production cycle, in order to ensure color consistency throughout the process. Along with the creative processing, such interventions on digital images can damage the color accuracy and image detail, especially where the gamut is reduced. Professional digital devices and software tools allow for 48 bpp (bits per pixel) images to be manipulated (16 bits per channel), to minimize any such damage.
ICC-compliant applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, use either the Lab color space or the CIE 1931 color space as a "Profile Connection Space" when translating between color spaces.
All luminance–chrominance formats used in the different TV and video standards such as YIQ for NTSC, YUV for PAL, YDBDR for SECAM, and YPBPR for component video use color difference signals, by which RGB color images can be encoded for broadcasting/recording and later decoded into RGB again to display them. These intermediate formats were needed for compatibility with pre-existent black-and-white TV formats. Also, those color difference signals need lower data bandwidth compared to full RGB signals.
Similarly, current high-efficiency digital color image data compression schemes such as JPEG and MPEG store RGB color internally in YCBCR format, a digital luminance-chrominance format based on YPBPR. The use of YCBCR also allows computers to perform lossy subsampling with the chroma channels (typically to 4:2:2 or 4:1:1 ratios), which reduces the resultant file size. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25989 |
Richard Garfield
Richard Channing Garfield (born June 26, 1963) is an American mathematician, inventor, and game designer. Garfield created "", which is considered to be the first modern collectible card game (CCG). "Magic" debuted in 1993 and its success spawned many imitations. Garfield oversaw the successful growth of "Magic" and followed it with other game designs. Included in these are "Keyforge", "Netrunner", "BattleTech(CCG)", "", "Star Wars Trading Card Game", "The Great Dalmuti", "Artifact", and the board game "RoboRally". He also created a variation of the card game Hearts called Complex Hearts. Garfield first became passionate about games when he played the roleplaying game "Dungeons & Dragons", so he designed "Magic" decks to be customizable like roleplaying characters. Garfield and "Magic" are both in the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame.
Garfield was born in Philadelphia and spent his childhood in many locations throughout the world as a result of his father's work in architecture. His family eventually settled in Oregon when he was twelve. Garfield is the great-great-grandson of U.S. President James A. Garfield and his grand-uncle invented the paper clip. He is also the nephew of Fay Jones, who, already an established artist, illustrated one "Magic" card for him.
While Garfield always had an interest in puzzles and games, his passion was kick-started when he was introduced to "Dungeons & Dragons". Garfield designed his first game when he was 13.
In 1985, Garfield received a Bachelor of Science degree in computer mathematics. After college, he joined Bell Laboratories, but soon after decided to continue his education and attended the University of Pennsylvania, studying combinatorial mathematics for his PhD. Garfield studied under Herbert Wilf and earned a Ph.D. in combinatorial mathematics from Penn in 1993. His thesis was "On the Residue Classes of Combinatorial Families of Numbers". Shortly thereafter, he became a professor of mathematics at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
While searching for a publisher for "RoboRally", which he designed in 1985, Wizards of the Coast began talking to Garfield through Mike Davis, but the game looked too expensive for a new company like Wizards to produce. Peter Adkison of Wizards of the Coast expressed interest in a fast-playing game with minimal equipment, something that would be popular at a game convention. Adkison asked Garfield to develop a game that was cheaper to produce than "RoboRally", that might be more portable and even easy to carry around to conventions; Garfield did have an idea about combining baseball cards with a card game and began turning that rough idea into a complete game over the next week.
Garfield built on older prototypes of games that dated back to at least 1982, when he had created a "Cosmic Encounter"-inspired card game called "Five Magics." Garfield thus combined ideas from two previous games to invent the first trading card game, "". At first, Garfield and Adkison called the game "Manaclash," and worked on it in secret during Palladium's lawsuit against Wizards, protecting the game's intellectual property under a shell company called Garfield Games. Garfield began designing "Magic" as a Penn graduate student. Garfield's playtesters were mostly fellow Penn students.
"Magic: The Gathering" launched in 1993. Playtesters began independently developing expansion packs, which were then passed to Garfield for his final edit. In June 1994, Garfield left academia to join Wizards of the Coast as a full-time game designer . Garfield managed the hit game wisely, balancing player experience with business needs and allowing other designers to contribute creatively to the game. With his direction, Wizards established a robust tournament system for "Magic", something that was new to hobby gaming.
Wizards finally published Garfield's "RoboRally" in 1994. Wizards published Garfield's ""-based CCG "Jyhad" in 1994, but changed the name to "" in 1995 to avoid offending Muslims. "Netrunner" (1996) was Garfield's CCG based on "Cyberpunk 2020", where he included an element that made it an entirely asymmetrical game, with the two players having different cards, abilities, and goals. Wizards published the "BattleTech Collectible Card Game" in 1996, based on Garfield's design. Peter Adkison was developing a "Dungeons & Dragons" MMORPG based on a design from Garfield and Skaff Elias, but left Wizards in December 2000 after Hasbro sold the "D&D" computer rights and cancelled the project.
In 1999, Garfield was inducted into the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame alongside "Magic". He was a primary play tester for the "Dungeons & Dragons" 3rd edition bookset, released by Wizards in 2000. He eventually left Wizards to become an independent game designer.
He still sporadically contributes to "". More recently, he has created the board games "Pecking Order" (2006) and "Rocketville" (2006). The latter was published by Avalon Hill, a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast. He has shifted more of his attention to video games, having worked on the design and development of "Schizoid" and "Spectromancer" as part of Three Donkeys LLC. He has been a game designer and consultant for companies including Electronic Arts and Microsoft.
Garfield taught a class titled "The Characteristics of Games" at the University of Washington. It is now taught as part of the University of Washington's Certificate in Game Design.
A partial list of games designed by Garfield: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25991 |
Roman legion
A Roman legion (Latin "legio", "military levy, conscription", from "legere" "to choose") was the largest military unit of the Roman army.
A legion was roughly of brigade size, composed of 4,200 infantry and 300 cavalry in the republican period, extended to 5,200 infantry and 120 auxilia in the imperial period.
In the early Roman Kingdom "legion" may have meant the entire Roman army, but sources on this period are few and unreliable. The subsequent organization of legions varied greatly over time but legions were typically composed of around five thousand soldiers. During much of the republican era, a legion was divided into three lines of ten "maniples". In the late republic and much of the imperial period (from about 100 BC), a legion was divided into ten cohorts, each of six (or five) centuries. Legions also included a small "ala", or cavalry, unit. By the third century AD, the legion was a much smaller unit of about 1,000 to 1,500 men, and there were more of them. In the fourth century AD, East Roman border guard legions ("limitanei") may have become even smaller. In terms of organisation and function, the republican era legion may have been influenced by the ancient Greek and Macedonian phalanx.
For most of the Roman Imperial period, the legions formed the Roman army's elite heavy infantry, recruited exclusively from Roman citizens, while the remainder of the army consisted of auxiliaries, who provided additional infantry and the vast majority of the Roman army's cavalry. (Provincials who aspired to citizenship gained it when honourably discharged from the auxiliaries.) The Roman army, for most of the Imperial period, consisted mostly of auxiliaries rather than legions.
Many of the legions founded before 40 BC were still active until at least the fifth century, notably Legio V Macedonica, which was founded by Augustus in 43 BC and was in Egypt in the seventh century during the Islamic conquest of Egypt.
Because legions were not permanent units until the Marian reforms (c. 107 BC), and were instead created, used, and disbanded again, several hundred legions were named and numbered throughout Roman history. To date, about 50 have been identified. The republican legions were composed of levied men that paid for their own equipment and thus the structure of the Roman army at this time reflected the society, and at any time there would be four consular legions (with command divided between the two ruling consuls) and in time of war extra legions could be levied. Toward the end of the 2nd century BC, Rome started to experience manpower shortages brought about by property and financial qualifications to join the army. This prompted consul Gaius Marius to remove property qualifications and decree that all citizens, regardless of their wealth or social class, were made eligible for service in the Roman army with equipment and rewards for fulfilling years of service provided by the state. The Roman army became a volunteer, professional and standing army which extended service beyond Roman citizens but also to non-citizens who could sign on as "auxillia" (auxiliaries) and were rewarded Roman citizenship upon completion of service and all the rights and privileges that entailed. In the time of Augustus, there were nearly 50 upon his succession but this was reduced to about 25–35 permanent standing legions and this remained the figure for most of the empire's history.
The legion evolved from 3,000 men in the Roman Republic to over 5,200 men in the Roman Empire, consisting of centuries as the basic units. Until the middle of the first century, ten cohorts (about 500 men) made up a Roman legion. This was later changed to nine cohorts of standard size (with six centuries at 80 men each) with the first cohort being of double strength (five double-strength centuries with 160 men each). By the fourth century AD, the legion was a much smaller unit of about 1,000 to 1,500 men, and there were more of them. This had come about as the large formation legion and auxiliary unit, 10,000 men, was broken down into smaller units - originally temporary detachments - to cover more territory. In the fourth century AD, East Roman border guard legions ("limitanei") may have become even smaller. In terms of organisation and function, the Republican era legion may have been influenced by the ancient Greek and Macedonian phalanx.
The size of a typical legion varied throughout the history of ancient Rome, with complements of 4,200 legionaries and 300 equites (drawn from the wealthier classes – in early Rome all troops provided their own equipment) in the republican period of Rome (the infantry were split into 10 cohorts each of four maniples of 120 legionaries), to 5,200 men plus 120 auxiliaries in the imperial period (split into 10 cohorts, nine of 480 men each, plus the first cohort holding 800 men).
In the period before the raising of the "legio" and the early years of the Roman Kingdom and the Republic, forces are described as being organized into "centuries" of roughly one hundred men. These centuries were grouped together as required and answered to the leader who had hired or raised them. Such independent organization persisted until the 2nd century BC amongst light infantry and cavalry, but was discarded completely in later periods with the supporting role taken instead by allied troops. The roles of century leader (later formalized as a centurion), second in command and standard bearer are referenced in this early period.
Rome's early period is undocumented and shrouded in myths, but those myths tell that during the rule of Servius Tullius, the census (from Latin: "censeō" – accounting of the people) was introduced. With this all Roman able-bodied, property-owning male citizens were divided into five classes for military service based on their wealth and then organized into centuries as sub-units of the greater Roman army or "legio" (multitude). Joining the army was both a duty and a distinguishing mark of Roman citizenship; during the entire pre-Marian period the wealthiest land owners performed the most years of military service. These individuals would have had the most to lose should the state have fallen.
At some point, possibly in the beginning of the Roman Republic after the kings were overthrown, the "legio" was subdivided into two separate legions, each one ascribed to one of the two consuls. In the first years of the Republic, when warfare was mostly concentrated on raiding, it is uncertain if the full manpower of the legions was summoned at any one time. In 494 BC, when three foreign threats emerged, the dictator Manius Valerius Maximus raised ten legions which Livy says was a greater number than had been raised previously at any one time.
Also, some warfare was still conducted by Roman forces outside the legionary structure, the most famous example being the campaign in 479 BC by the clan army of gens Fabia against the Etruscan city of Veii (in which the clan was annihilated). Legions became more formally organized in the 4th century BC, as Roman warfare evolved to more frequent and planned operations, and the consular army was raised to two legions each.
In the Republic, legions had an ephemeral existence. Except for Legio I to IV, which were the consular armies (two per consul), other units were levied by campaign. Rome's Italian allies were required to provide approximately ten cohorts (auxilia were not organized into legions) to support each Roman Legion.
In the middle of the Republic, legions were composed of the following units:
Each of these three lines was subdivided into (usually 10) chief tactical units called maniples. A maniple consisted of two centuries and was commanded by the senior of the two centurions. At this time, each century of hastati and principes consisted of 60 men; a century of triarii was 30 men. These 3,000 men (twenty maniples of 120 men, and ten maniples of 60 men), together with about 1,200 velites and 300 cavalry gave the mid Republican ("manipular") legion a nominal strength of about 4,500 men.
"See also List of Roman legions for details of notable late Republican legions"
"See also Sub-Units of the Roman legion"
The Marian reforms (of Gaius Marius) enlarged the centuries to 80 men, and grouped them into six-century "cohorts" (rather than two-century maniples). Each century had its own standard and was made up of ten units ("contubernia") of eight men who shared a tent, a millstone, a mule and cooking pot.
Following the reforms of the general Marius in the 2nd century BC, the legions took on the second, narrower meaning that is familiar in the popular imagination as close-order citizen heavy infantry.
At the end of the 2nd century BC, Gaius Marius reformed the previously ephemeral legions as a professional force drawing from the poorest classes, enabling Rome to field larger armies and providing employment for jobless citizens of the city of Rome. However, this put the loyalty of the soldiers in the hands of their general rather than the State of Rome itself. This development ultimately enabled Julius Caesar to cross the Rubicon with an army loyal to him personally and effectively end the Republic.
The legions of the late Republic and early Empire are often called "Marian" legions. Following the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC, Marius granted all Italian soldiers Roman citizenship. He justified this action to the Senate by saying that in the din of battle he could not distinguish Roman from ally. This effectively eliminated the notion of allied legions; henceforth all Italian legions would be regarded as Roman legions, and full Roman citizenship was open to all the regions of Italy. At the same time, the three different types of heavy infantry were replaced by a single, standard type based on the "Principes": armed with two heavy javelins called "pila" (singular "pilum"), the short sword called "gladius", chain mail ("lorica hamata"), helmet and rectangular shield ("scutum").
The role of allied legions would eventually be taken up by contingents of allied auxiliary troops, called "Auxilia". "Auxilia" contained specialist units, engineers and pioneers, artillerymen and craftsmen, service and support personnel and irregular units made up of non-citizens, mercenaries and local militia. These were usually formed into complete units such as light cavalry, light infantry or "velites", and labourers. There was also a reconnaissance squad of 10 or more light mounted infantry called "speculatores" who could also serve as messengers or even as an early form of military intelligence service.
As part of the Marian reforms, the legions' internal organization was standardized. Each legion was divided into "cohorts". Prior to this, cohorts had been temporary administrative units or tactical task forces of several maniples, even more transitory than the legions themselves. Now the cohorts were ten permanent units, composed of 6 centuries and in the case of the first cohort 5 double strength centuries each led by a centurion assisted by an "optio". The cohorts came to form the basic tactical unit of the legions. Ranking within the legion was based on length of service, with the senior Centurion commanding the first century of the first cohort; he was called the "primus pilus" (First Spear), and reported directly to the superior officers (legates and tribuni). All career soldiers could be promoted to the higher ranks in recognition of exceptional acts of bravery or valour. A newly promoted junior Centurion would be assigned to the sixth century of the tenth cohort and slowly progressed through the ranks from there.
Every legion had a large baggage train, which included 640 mules (1 mule for every 8 legionaries) just for the soldiers' equipment. To keep these baggage trains from becoming too large and slow, Marius had each infantryman carry as much of his own equipment as he could, including his own armour, weapons and 15 days' rations, for about 25–30 kg (50–60 pounds) of load total. To make this easier, he issued each legionary a cross stick to carry their loads on their shoulders. The soldiers were nicknamed "Marius' Mules" because of the amount of gear they had to carry themselves. This arrangement allowed for the possibility for the supply train to become temporarily detached from the main body of the legion, thus greatly increasing the army's speed when needed.
A typical legion of this period had 5,120 legionaries as well as a large number of camp followers, servants and slaves. Legions could contain as many as 11,000 fighting men when including the auxiliaries. During the Later Roman Empire, the legion was reduced in size to 1,000 to allow for easier provisioning and to expand the regions under surveillance. Numbers would also vary depending on casualties suffered during a campaign; Julius Caesar's legions during his campaign in Gaul often only had around 3,500 men.
Tactics were not very different from the past, but their effectiveness was largely improved because of the professional training of the soldiers.
After the Marian reforms and throughout the history of Rome's Late Republic, the legions played an important political role. By the 1st century BC, the threat of the legions under a demagogue was recognized. Governors were not allowed to leave their provinces with their legions. When Julius Caesar broke this rule, leaving his province of Gaul and crossing the Rubicon into Italy, he precipitated a constitutional crisis. This crisis and the civil wars which followed brought an end to the Republic and led to the foundation of the Empire under Augustus in 27 BC.
"See List of Roman legions of the early Empire"
"See also Sub-Units of the Roman legion"
Generals, during the recent Republican civil wars, had formed their own legions and numbered them as they wished. During this time, there was a high incidence of "Gemina" (twin) legions, where two legions were consolidated into a single organization (and was later made official and put under a legatus and six duces). At the end of the civil war against Mark Antony, Augustus was left with around fifty legions, with several double counts (multiple Legio Xs for instance). For political and economic reasons, Augustus reduced the number of legions to 28 (which diminished to 25 after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, in which 3 legions were completely destroyed by the Germanics).
Beside streamlining the army, Augustus also regulated the soldiers' pay. At the same time, he greatly increased the number of auxiliaries to the point where they were equal in number to the legionaries. He also created the Praetorian Guard along with a permanent navy where served the "liberti", or freed slaves.
The legions also became permanent at this time, and not recruited for particular campaigns. They were also allocated to static bases with permanent "castra legionaria" (legionary fortresses).
Augustus' military policies proved sound and cost effective, and were generally followed by his successors. These emperors would carefully add new legions, as circumstances required or permitted, until the strength of the standing army stood at around 30 legions (hence the wry remark of the philosopher Favorinus that "It is ill arguing with the master of 30 legions"). With each legion having 5,120 legionaries usually supported by an equal number of auxiliary troops (according to Tacitus), the total force available to a legion commander during the Pax Romana probably ranged from 11,000 downwards, with the more prestigious legions and those stationed on hostile borders or in restive provinces tending to have more auxiliaries. By the time of the emperor Severus, 193-211, the auxiliaries may have composed 55 to 60% of the army, 250,000 of 447,000. Some legions may have even been reinforced at times with units making the associated force near 15,000–16,000 or about the size of a modern division.
Throughout the imperial era, the legions played an important political role. Their actions could secure the empire for a usurper or take it away. For example, the defeat of Vitellius in the Year of the Four Emperors was decided when the Danubian legions chose to support Vespasian.
In the empire, the legion was standardized, with symbols and an individual history where men were proud to serve. The legion was commanded by a "legatus" or "legate". Aged around thirty, he would usually be a senator on a three-year appointment. Immediately subordinate to the legate would be six elected "military tribunes" – five would be staff officers and the remaining one would be a noble heading for the Senate (originally this tribune commanded the legion). There would also be a group of officers for the medical staff, the engineers, record-keepers, the "praefectus castrorum" (commander of the camp) and other specialists such as priests and musicians.
In the Later Roman Empire, the number of legions was increased and the Roman Army expanded. There is no evidence to suggest that legions changed in form before the Tetrarchy, although there is evidence that they were smaller than the paper strengths usually quoted. The final form of the legion originated with the elite "legiones palatinae" created by Diocletian and the Tetrarchs. These were infantry units of around 1,000 men rather than the 5,000, including cavalry, of the old Legions. The earliest "legiones palatinae" were the "Lanciarii", "Joviani", "Herculiani" and "Divitenses".
The 4th century saw a very large number of new, small legions created, a process which began under Constantine II. In addition to the elite "palatini", other legions called "comitatenses" and "pseudocomitatenses", along with the "auxilia palatina", provided the infantry of late Roman armies. The Notitia Dignitatum lists 25 "legiones palatinae", 70 "legiones comitatenses", 47 "legiones pseudocomitatenses" and 111 "auxilia palatina" in the field armies, and a further 47 "legiones" in the frontier armies. Legion names such as "Honoriani" and "Gratianenses" found in the Notitia suggest that the process of creating new legions continued through the 4th century rather than being a single event. The names also suggest that many new legions were formed from "vexillationes" or from old legions. In addition, there were 24 vexillationes palatini, 73 vexillationes comitatenses; 305 other units in the Eastern limitanei and 181 in the Western limitanei. A rare instance of apparent direct continuity between the legions of the early Empire and those of the post-6th century army was "Legion V Macedonica"; created in 43 BC, recorded in the "Notitia Dignitatum" as a "legione comitatense" under the title of "Quinta Macedonica" and surviving in Egypt until the Arab conquest of 637 AD.
According to the late Roman writer Vegetius' "De Re Militari", each century had a ballista and each cohort had an onager, giving the legion a formidable siege train of 59 Ballistae and 10 Onagers, each manned by 10 "libritors" (artillerymen) and mounted on wagons drawn by oxen or mules. In addition to attacking cities and fortifications, these would be used to help defend Roman forts and fortified camps (castra) as well. They would even be employed on occasion, especially in the later Empire, as field artillery during battles or in support of river crossings.
Despite a number of organisational changes, the Legion system survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It was continued within the Eastern Roman Empire until the 7th century, when reforms begun by Emperor Heraclius to counter the increasing need for soldiers resulted in the Theme system. Despite this, the Eastern Roman/Byzantine armies continued to be influenced by the earlier Roman legions, and were maintained with similar levels of discipline, strategic prowess, and organization.
Aside from the rank and file legionary (who received the base wage of 10 assēs a day or 225 denarii a year), the following list describes the system of officers which developed within the legions from the Marian reforms (104 BC) until the military reforms of Diocletian (c. 290).
The rank of centurion was an officer grade that included many ranks, meaning centurions had very good prospects for promotion. The most senior centurion in a legion was known as the "primus pilus" (first file or spear), who directly commanded the first century of the first cohort and commanded the whole first cohort when in battle. Within the second to tenth cohorts, the commander of each cohort's first century was known as a "pilus prior" and was in command of his entire cohort when in battle. The seniority of the pilus prior centurions was followed by the five other century commanders of the first cohort, who were known as "primi ordines".
The six centuries of a normal cohort, were, in order of precedence:
The centuries took their titles from the old use of the legion drawn up in three lines of battle using three classes of soldier. (Each century would then hold a cross-section of this theoretical line, although these century titles were now essentially nominal.) Each of the three lines is then sub-divided within the century into a more forward and a more rear century.
From the time of Gaius Marius onwards, legionaries received 225 "denarii" a year (equal to 900 "Sestertii"); this basic rate remained unchanged until Domitian, who increased it to 300 denarii. In spite of the steady inflation during the 2nd century, there was no further rise until the time of Septimius Severus, who increased it to 500 denarii a year. However, the soldiers did not receive all the money in cash, as the state deducted a clothing and food tax from their pay. To this wage, a legionary on active campaign would hope to add the booty of war, from the bodies of their enemies and as plunder from enemy settlements. Slaves could also be claimed from the prisoners of war and divided amongst the legion for later sale, which would bring in a sizeable supplement to their regular pay.
All legionary soldiers would also receive a "praemia" (veterans' benefits) on completion of their term of service of 25 years or more: a sizeable sum of money (3,000 "denarii" from the time of Augustus) and/or a plot of good farmland (good land was in much demand); farmland given to veterans often helped in establishing control of the frontier regions and over rebellious provinces. Later, under Caracalla, the "praemia" increased to 5,000 "denarii".
From 104 BC onwards, each legion used an aquila (eagle) as its standard symbol. The symbol was carried by an officer known as aquilifer, and its loss was considered to be a very serious embarrassment, and often led to the disbanding of the legion itself. Normally, this was because any legion incapable of regaining its eagle in battle was so severely mauled that it was no longer effective in combat.
In "Gallic War" (Bk IV, Para. 25), Julius Caesar describes an incident at the start of his first invasion of Britain in 55 BC that illustrated how fear for the safety of the eagle could drive Roman soldiers. When Caesar's troops hesitated to leave their ships for fear of the Britons, the aquilifer of the tenth legion threw himself overboard and, carrying the eagle, advanced alone against the enemy. His comrades, fearing disgrace, 'with one accord, leapt down from the ship' and were followed by troops from the other ships.
With the birth of the Roman Empire, the legions created a bond with their leader, the emperor himself. Each legion had another officer, called imaginifer, whose role was to carry a pike with the "imago" (image, sculpture) of the emperor as "pontifex maximus".
Each legion, furthermore, had a "vexillifer" who carried a vexillum or "signum", with the legion name and emblem depicted on it, unique to the legion. It was common for a legion to detach some sub-units from the main camp to strengthen other corps. In these cases, the detached subunits carried only the vexillum, and not the aquila, and were called, therefore, "vexillationes". A miniature vexillum, mounted on a silver base, was sometimes awarded to officers as a recognition of their service upon retirement or reassignment.
Civilians could also be rewarded for their assistance to the Roman legions. In return for outstanding service, a citizen was given an arrow without a head. This was considered a great honour and would bring the recipient much prestige.
The military discipline of the legions was quite harsh. Regulations were strictly enforced, and a broad array of punishments could be inflicted upon a legionary who broke them. Many legionaries became devotees in the cult of the minor goddess Disciplina, whose virtues of frugality, severity and loyalty were central to their code of conduct and way of life.
Montesquieu wrote that "the main reason for the Romans becoming masters of the world was that, having fought successively against all peoples, they always gave up their own practices as soon as they found better ones."
Examples of ideas that were copied and adapted include weapons like the gladius (Iberians) and warship design (cf. Carthaginians' quinquereme), as well as military units, such as heavy mounted cavalry and mounted archers (Parthians and Numidians). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25994 |
Reciprocating engine
A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine (although there are also pneumatic and hydraulic reciprocating engines) that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types. The main types are: the internal combustion engine, used extensively in motor vehicles; the steam engine, the mainstay of the Industrial Revolution; and the niche application Stirling engine. Internal combustion engines are further classified in two ways: either a spark-ignition (SI) engine, where the spark plug initiates the combustion; or a compression-ignition (CI) engine, where the air within the cylinder is compressed, thus heating it, so that the heated air ignites fuel that is injected then or earlier.
There may be one or more pistons. Each piston is inside a cylinder, into which a gas is introduced, either already under pressure (e.g. steam engine), or heated inside the cylinder either by ignition of a fuel air mixture (internal combustion engine) or by contact with a hot heat exchanger in the cylinder (Stirling engine). The hot gases expand, pushing the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. This position is also known as the Bottom Dead Center (BDC), or where the piston forms the largest volume in the cylinder. The piston is returned to the cylinder top (Top Dead Centre) (TDC) by a flywheel, the power from other pistons connected to the same shaft or (in a double acting cylinder) by the same process acting on the other side of the piston. This is where the piston forms the smallest volume in the cylinder. In most types the expanded or "exhausted" gases are removed from the cylinder by this stroke. The exception is the Stirling engine, which repeatedly heats and cools the same sealed quantity of gas. The stroke is simply the distance between the TDC and the BDC, or the greatest distance that the piston can travel in one direction.
In some designs the piston may be powered in both directions in the cylinder, in which case it is said to be double-acting.
In most types, the linear movement of the piston is converted to a rotating movement via a connecting rod and a crankshaft or by a swashplate or other suitable mechanism. A flywheel is often used to ensure smooth rotation or to store energy to carry the engine through an un-powered part of the cycle. The more cylinders a reciprocating engine has, generally, the more vibration-free (smoothly) it can operate. The power of a reciprocating engine is proportional to the volume of the combined pistons' displacement.
A seal must be made between the sliding piston and the walls of the cylinder so that the high pressure gas above the piston does not leak past it and reduce the efficiency of the engine. This seal is usually provided by one or more piston rings. These are rings made of a hard metal, and are sprung into a circular groove in the piston head. The rings fit closely in the groove and press lightly against the cylinder wall to form a seal, and more heavily when higher combustion pressure moves around to their inner surfaces.
It is common to classify such engines by the number and alignment of cylinders and total volume of displacement of gas by the pistons moving in the cylinders usually measured in cubic centimetres (cm³ or cc) or litres (l) or (L) (US: liter). For example, for internal combustion engines, single and two-cylinder designs are common in smaller vehicles such as motorcycles, while automobiles typically have between four and eight, and locomotives, and ships may have a dozen cylinders or more. Cylinder capacities may range from 10 cm³ or less in model engines up to thousands of liters in ships' engines.
The compression ratio affects the performance in most types of reciprocating engine. It is the ratio between the volume of the cylinder, when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the volume when the piston is at the top of its stroke.
The bore/stroke ratio is the ratio of the diameter of the piston, or "bore", to the length of travel within the cylinder, or "stroke". If this is around 1 the engine is said to be "square", if it is greater than 1, i.e. the bore is larger than the stroke, it is "oversquare". If it is less than 1, i.e. the stroke is larger than the bore, it is "undersquare".
Cylinders may be aligned in line, in a V configuration, horizontally opposite each other, or radially around the crankshaft. Opposed-piston engines put two pistons working at opposite ends of the same cylinder and this has been extended into triangular arrangements such as the Napier Deltic. Some designs have set the cylinders in motion around the shaft, such as the Rotary engine.
In steam engines and internal combustion engines, valves are required to allow the entry and exit of gases at the correct times in the piston's cycle. These are worked by cams, eccentrics or cranks driven by the shaft of the engine. Early designs used the D slide valve but this has been largely superseded by Piston valve or Poppet valve designs. In steam engines the point in the piston cycle at which the steam inlet valve closes is called the cutoff and this can often be controlled to adjust the torque supplied by the engine and improve efficiency. In some steam engines, the action of the valves can be replaced by an oscillating cylinder.
Internal combustion engines operate through a sequence of strokes that admit and remove gases to and from the cylinder. These operations are repeated cyclically and an engine is said to be 2-stroke, 4-stroke or 6-stroke depending on the number of strokes it takes to complete a cycle.
In some steam engines, the cylinders may be of varying size with the smallest bore cylinder working the highest pressure steam. This is then fed through one or more, increasingly larger bore cylinders successively, to extract power from the steam at increasingly lower pressures. These engines are called Compound engines.
Aside from looking at the power that the engine can produce, the Mean Effective Pressure (MEP), can also be used in comparing the power output and performance of reciprocating engines of the same size. The mean effective pressure is the fictitious pressure which would produce the same amount of net work that was produced during the power stroke cycle. This is shown by:
and therefore:
Whichever engine with the larger value of MEP produces more net work per cycle and performs more efficiently.
An early known example of rotary to reciprocating motion is the crank mechanism. The earliest hand-operated cranks appeared in China during the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD). The Chinese used the crank-and-connecting rod for operating querns as far back as the Western Han dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD). Eventually crank-and-connecting rods were used in the inter-conversion of rotary and reciprocating motion for other applications such as flour-sifting, silk-reeling machines, treadle spinning wheels, and furnace bellows driven either by horses or waterwheels. Several saw mills in Roman Asia and Byzantine Syria during the 3rd–6th centuries AD had a crank and connecting rod mechanism which converted the rotary motion of a water wheel into the linear movement of saw blades. In 1206, Arab engineer Al-Jazari invented a crankshaft.
The reciprocating engine developed in Europe during the 18th century, first as the atmospheric engine then later as the steam engine. These were followed by the Stirling engine and internal combustion engine in the 19th century. Today the most common form of reciprocating engine is the internal combustion engine running on the combustion of petrol, diesel, Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or compressed natural gas (CNG) and used to power motor vehicles and engine power plants.
One notable reciprocating engine from the World War II Era was the 28-cylinder, Pratt & Whitney R-4360 "Wasp Major" radial engine. It powered the last generation of large piston-engined planes before jet engines and turboprops took over from 1944 onward. It had a total engine capacity of , and a high power-to-weight ratio.
The largest reciprocating engine in production at present, but not the largest ever built, is the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke diesel engine of 2006 built by Wärtsilä. It is used to power the largest modern container ships such as the Emma Mærsk. It is five stories high (), long, and weighs over in its largest 14 cylinders version producing more than 84.42 MW (114,800 bhp). Each cylinder has a capacity of , making a total capacity of for the largest versions.
For piston engines, an engine's capacity is the engine displacement, in other words the volume swept by all the pistons of an engine in a single movement. It is generally measured in litres (l) or cubic inches (c.i.d., cu in, "or" in³) for larger engines, and cubic centimetres (abbreviated cc) for smaller engines. All else being equal, engines with greater capacities are more powerful and consumption of fuel increases accordingly (although this is not true of every Reciprocating engine), although power and fuel consumption are affected by many factors outside of engine displacement.
Reciprocating engines can be characterized by their specific power, which is typically given in kilowatts per litre of engine displacement (in the U.S. also horsepower per cubic inch). The result offers an approximation of the peak power output of an engine. This is not to be confused with fuel efficiency, since high efficiency often requires a lean fuel-air ratio, and thus lower power density. A modern high-performance car engine makes in excess of 75 kW/L (1.65 hp/in3).
Reciprocating engines that are powered by compressed air, steam or other hot gases are still used in some applications such as to drive many modern torpedoes or as pollution-free motive power. Most steam-driven applications use steam turbines, which are more efficient than piston engines.
The French-designed FlowAIR vehicles use compressed air stored in a cylinder to drive a reciprocating engine in a local-pollution-free urban vehicle.
Torpedoes may use a working gas produced by high test peroxide or Otto fuel II, which pressurise without combustion. The Mark 46 torpedo, for example, can travel underwater at fuelled by Otto fuel without oxidant.
Quantum heat engines are devices that generate power from heat that flows from a hot to a cold reservoir.
The mechanism of operation of the engine can be described by the laws of quantum mechanics.
Quantum refrigerators are devices that consume power with the purpose to pump heat from a cold to a hot reservoir.
In a reciprocating quantum heat engine, the working medium is a quantum system such as spin systems or a harmonic oscillator.
The Carnot cycle and Otto cycle are the ones most studied.
The quantum versions obey the laws of thermodynamics. In addition, these models can justify the assumptions of
endoreversible thermodynamics.
A theoretical study has shown that it is possible and practical to build a reciprocating engine that is composed of a single oscillating atom. This is an area for future research and could have applications in nanotechnology.
There are a large number of unusual varieties of piston engines that have various claimed advantages, many of which see little if any current use: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25995 |
Radical feminism
Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts.
Radical feminists view society as fundamentally a patriarchy in which men dominate and oppress women. Radical feminists seek to abolish the patriarchy in order to "liberate everyone from an unjust society by challenging existing social norms and institutions." This includes opposing the sexual objectification of women, raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence against women, and challenging the concept of gender roles. Shulamith Firestone wrote in "The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution" (1970): "[T]he end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male "privilege" but of the sex "distinction" itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally."
Early radical feminism, arising within second-wave feminism in the 1960s, typically viewed patriarchy as a "transhistorical phenomenon" prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, "not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form" and the model for all others. Later politics derived from radical feminism ranged from cultural feminism to more syncretic politics that placed issues of class, economics, etc. on a par with patriarchy as sources of oppression.
Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in anarchist feminism, socialist feminism, and Marxist feminism).
Radical feminists assert that society is a patriarchy in which the class of men are the oppressors of the class of women. They propose that the oppression of women is the most fundamental form of oppression, one that has existed since the inception of humanity. As radical feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson wrote in her foundational piece "Radical Feminism" (1969):
The first dichotomous division of this mass [mankind] is said to have been on the grounds of sex: male and female ... it was because half the human race bears the burden of the reproductive process and because man, the ‘rational’ animal, had the wit to take advantage of that, that the childbearers, or the 'beasts of burden,' were corralled into a political class: equivocating the biologically contingent burden into a political (or necessary) penalty, thereby modifying these individuals’ definition from the human to the functional, or animal.
Radical feminists argue that, because of patriarchy, women have come to be viewed as the "other" to the male norm, and as such have been systematically oppressed and marginalized. They further assert that men as a class benefit from the oppression of women. Patriarchal theory is not generally defined as a belief that all men always benefit from the oppression of all women. Rather, it maintains that the primary element of patriarchy is a relationship of dominance, where one party is dominant and exploits the other for the benefit of the former. Radical feminists believe that men (as a class) use social systems and other methods of control to keep women (and non-dominant men) suppressed. Radical feminists seek to abolish patriarchy by challenging existing social norms and institutions, and believe that eliminating patriarchy will liberate everyone from an unjust society. Ti-Grace Atkinson maintained that the need for power fuels the male class to continue oppressing the female class, arguing that "the "need" men have for the role of oppressor is the source and foundation of all human oppression".
The influence of radical-feminist politics on the women's liberation movement was considerable. Redstockings co-founder Ellen Willis wrote in 1984 that radical feminists "got sexual politics recognized as a public issue", created second-wave feminism's vocabulary, helped to legalize abortion in the USA, "were the first to demand total equality in the so-called private sphere" ("housework and child care ... emotional and sexual needs"), and "created the atmosphere of urgency" that almost led to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. The influence of radical feminism can be seen in the adoption of these issues by the National Organization for Women (NOW), a feminist group that had previously been focused almost entirely on economic issues.
The ideology of radical feminism in the United States developed as a component of the women's liberation movement. It grew largely due to the influence of the civil rights movement, that had gained momentum in the 1960s, and many of the women who took up the cause of radical feminism had previous experience with radical protest in the struggle against racism. Chronologically, it can be seen within the context of second wave feminism that started in the early 1960s. The primary players and the pioneers of this second wave of feminism included Shulamith Firestone, Kathie Sarachild, Ti-Grace Atkinson, Carol Hanisch, and Judith Brown. Many local women's groups in the late sixties, such as the UCLA Women's Liberation Front (WLF), offered diplomatic statements of radical feminism's ideologies. UCLA's WLF co-founder Devra Weber recalls, "the radical feminists were opposed to patriarchy, but not necessarily capitalism. In our group at least, they opposed so-called male dominated national liberation struggles".
These women helped secure the bridge that translated radical protest for racial equality over to the struggle for women's rights; by witnessing the discrimination and oppression to which the black population was subjected, they were able to gain strength and motivation to do the same for their fellow women. They took up the cause and advocated for a variety of women's issues, including abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, access to credit, and equal pay. Most women of color (who were predominantly working-class) did not participate in the formation of the radical feminist movement because it did not address many issues that were relevant to those from a working-class background. But for those who felt compelled to stand up for the cause, radical action was needed, so they took to the streets and formed consciousness raising groups to rally support for the cause and recruit people willing to fight for it. Later, second-wave radical feminism saw greater numbers of black feminists and other women of color participating.
In the 1960s, radical feminism emerged simultaneously within liberal feminist and working-class feminist discussions, first in the United States, then in the United Kingdom and Australia. Those involved had gradually come to believe that it was not only the middle-class nuclear family that oppressed women, but that it was also social movements and organizations that claimed to stand for human liberation, notably the counterculture, the New Left, and Marxist political parties, all of which were male-dominated and male-oriented. In the United States, radical feminism developed as a response to some of the perceived failings of both New Left organizations such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and feminist organizations such as NOW. Initially concentrated in big cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, DC, and on the West Coast, radical feminist groups spread across the country rapidly from 1968 to 1972.
At the same time parallel trends of thinking developed outside the USA: The Women’s Yearbook from Munich gives a good sense of early 1970s feminism in West Germany: “Their Yearbook essay on behalf of the autonomous feminist movement argued for patriarchy as the oldest, most fundamental relationship of exploitation. Hence the necessity of feminists' separating from men's organizations on the Left, since they would just use women's efforts to support their own goals, in which women's liberation did not count. The editors of Frauenjahrbuch 76 also explicitly distanced themselves from the language of liberalism, arguing that "equal rights define women's oppression as women's disadvantage." They explicitly labeled the equal rights version of feminism as wanting to be like men, vehemently rejecting claims that "women should enter all the male-dominated areas of society. More women in politics! More women in the sciences, etc. . . . Women should be able to do everything that men do." Their position—and that of the autonomous feminists represented in this 1976 yearbook—instead was that:
"This principle that 'we want that too' or 'we can do it too' measures emancipation against men and again defines what we want in relationship to men. Its content is conformity to men. . . . Because in this society male characteristics fundamentally have more prestige, recognition and above all more power, we easily fall into the trap of rejecting and devaluing all that is female and admiring and emulating all that is considered male. . . . The battle against the female role must not become the battle for the male role. . . . The feminist demand, which transcends the claim for equal rights, is the claim for self-determination."
Radical feminists introduced the use of consciousness raising (CR) groups. These groups brought together intellectuals, workers, and middle-class women in developed Western countries to discuss their experiences. During these discussions, women noted a shared and repressive system regardless of their political affiliation or social class. Based on these discussions, the women drew the conclusion that ending of patriarchy was the most necessary step towards a truly free society. These consciousness-raising sessions allowed early radical feminists to develop a political ideology based on common experiences women faced with male supremacy. Consciousness raising was extensively used in chapter sub-units of the National Organization for Women (NOW) during the 1970s. The feminism that emerged from these discussions stood first and foremost for the liberation of women, as women, from the oppression of men in their own lives, as well as men in power. Radical feminism claimed that a totalizing ideology and social formation—"patriarchy" (government or rule by fathers)—dominated women in the interests of men.
Within groups such as New York Radical Women (1967–1969; no relation to the present-day socialist feminist organization Radical Women), which Ellen Willis characterized as "the first women's liberation group in New York City", a radical feminist ideology began to emerge that declared that "the personal is political" and "sisterhood is powerful", formulations that arose from these consciousness-raising sessions. This call to women's activism was coined by Kathie Sarachild in the 1960s. New York Radical Women fell apart in early 1969 in what came to be known as the "politico-feminist split" with the "politicos" seeing capitalism as the source of women's oppression, while the "feminists" saw male supremacy as "a set of material, institutionalized relations, not just bad attitudes". The feminist side of the split, which soon began referring to itself as "radical feminists", soon constituted the basis of a new organization, Redstockings. At the same time, Ti-Grace Atkinson led "a radical split-off from NOW", which became known as The Feminists. A third major stance would be articulated by the New York Radical Feminists, founded later in 1969 by Shulamith Firestone (who broke from the Redstockings) and Anne Koedt.
During this period, the movement produced "a prodigious output of leaflets, pamphlets, journals, magazine articles, newspaper and radio and TV interviews". Many important feminist works, such as Koedt's essay "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" (1970) and Kate Millet's book "Sexual Politics" (1970), emerged during this time and in this milieu.
At the beginning of this period, "heterosexuality was more or less an unchallenged assumption". Among radical feminists, the view became widely held that, thus far, the sexual freedoms gained in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, in particular, the decreasing emphasis on monogamy, had been largely gained by men at women's expense. This assumption of heterosexuality would soon be challenged by the rise of political lesbianism, closely associated with Atkinson and The Feminists.
Redstockings and The Feminists were both radical feminist organizations, but held rather distinct views. Most members of Redstockings held to a materialist and anti-psychologistic view. They viewed men's oppression of women as ongoing and deliberate, holding individual men responsible for this oppression, viewing institutions and systems (including the family) as mere vehicles of conscious male intent, and rejecting psychologistic explanations of female submissiveness as blaming women for collaboration in their own oppression. They held to a view—which Willis would later describe as "neo-Maoist"—that it would be possible to unite all or virtually all women, as a class, to confront this oppression by personally confronting men.
The Feminists held a more idealistic, psychologistic, and utopian philosophy, with a greater emphasis on "sex roles", seeing sexism as rooted in "complementary patterns of male and female behavior". They placed more emphasis on institutions, seeing marriage, family, prostitution, and heterosexuality as all existing to perpetuate the "sex-role system". They saw all of these as institutions to be destroyed. Within the group, there were further disagreements, such as Koedt's viewing the institution of "normal" sexual intercourse as being focused mainly on male sexual or erotic pleasure, while Atkinson viewed it mainly in terms of reproduction. In contrast to the Redstockings, The Feminists generally considered genitally focused sexuality to be inherently male. Ellen Willis, the Redstockings co-founder, would later write that insofar as the Redstockings considered abandoning heterosexual activity, they saw it as a "bitter price" they "might have to pay for [their] militance", whereas The Feminists embraced separatist feminism as a strategy.
The New York Radical Feminists (NYRF) took a more psychologistic (and even biologically determinist) line. They argued that men dominated women not so much for material benefits as for the ego satisfaction intrinsic in domination. Similarly, they rejected the Redstockings view that women submitted only out of necessity or The Feminists' implicit view that they submitted out of cowardice, but instead argued that social conditioning simply led most women to accept a submissive role as "right and natural".
Radical feminism was not and is not only a movement of ideology and theory. Radical feminists also take direct action. In 1968, they protested against the Miss America pageant in order to bring "sexist beauty ideas and social expectations" to the forefront of women's social issues. Even though there weren't any bras burned on that day, this protest is famous for the phrase "bra-burner". "Feminists threw their bras—along with "woman-garbage" such as girdles, false eyelashes, steno pads, wigs, women's magazines, and dishcloths—into a "Freedom Trash Can", but they did not set it on fire". In 1970, more than one hundred feminists staged an 11-hour sit-in at the "Ladies' Home Journal". These women demanded that the editor "be removed and replaced by a woman editor". The Ladies Home Journal, "with their emphasis on food, family, fashion, and femininity, played an important role in maintaining the status quo and thus were instruments of women's oppression". One member explains the motivation of the protest noting that they "were there to destroy a publication which feeds off of women's anger and frustration, a magazine which destroys women. In addition, they "used a variety of tactics-demonstrations and speakouts" about topics such as rape. Through "tireless[ly] organizing among friends and coworkers, on street corners, in supermarkets and ladies' rooms" these radical feminists were able gain an amazing amount of exposure". The movement gained momentum, while a "prodigious output of leaflets, pamphlets, journals, magazine articles, newspaper and radio and TV interviews" were produced.
In France and West Germany radical feminists developed further direct actions:
On 6 June 1971 the title of the Stern (magazine) showed 28 German actresses and journalists confessing “We Had an Abortion!” unleashing a campaign against the abortion ban. The journalist Alice Schwarzer had organized this following the French example .
Later in 1974, Alice Schwarzer persuaded 329 doctors to admit in "Der Spiegel" publicly to having performed abortions and she found a woman willing to terminate her pregnancy on camera with vacuum aspiration, thereby promoting this method and show it on the German television news magazine Panorama.
The women’s centers did abortion counseling, compiled a list of Dutch abortion clinics, visited them and organized bus trips every two weeks. Police accused the organizers of illegal conspiracy. "The center used these arrests to publicize its strategy of civil disobedience and raised such a public outcry that the prosecutions were dropped. The bus trips continued without police interference. This victory was politically significant in two respects... while the state did not change the law, it did back off from enforcing it, deferring to women's collective power. The feminist claim to speak for women was thus affirmed by both women and the state."
Groups of radical feminists left the Catholic and Protestant church in protest of its abortion policy thus refusing to finance the churches with their taxes. In Germany those baptized in one of the officially recognized churches have to document that they have formally left the church in order not to be responsible for paying church tax.
Lesbian groups and women’s centers joined forces throughout Germany against a witch-hunt by the press against two women who had arranged the murder an abusive husband. 146 female journalists and 41 male colleagues successfully petitioned the German Press Council to censure the “Springer company publications ... for their sensationalist coverage of this trial.”
Helped women to gain knowledge about how their own bodies functioned so they would no longer be at the mercy of the medical profession. An outgrowth of this movement was the founding of the (FFGZ) in Berlin in 1974.
Radical feminists have generally formed small activist or community associations around either consciousness raising or concrete aims. Many radical feminists in Australia participated in a series of squats to establish various women's centers, and this form of action was common in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By the mid-1980s many of the original consciousness raising groups had dissolved, and radical feminism was more and more associated with loosely organized university collectives. Radical feminism can still be seen, particularly within student activism and among working-class women. In Australia, many feminist social organizations accepted government funding during the 1980s, and the election of a conservative government in 1996 crippled these organizations. The movement also arose in Israel among Jews. While radical feminists aim to dismantle patriarchal society, their immediate aims are generally concrete. Common demands include:
Radical feminists have written about a wide range of issues regarding the sex industry—which they tend to oppose—including but not limited to: harm to women during the production of pornography, the social harm from consumption of pornography, the coercion and poverty that leads women to become prostitutes, the long-term effects of prostitution, the raced and classed nature of prostitution, and male dominance over women in prostitution and pornography.
Radical feminists argue that most women who become prostitutes are forced into it by a pimp, human trafficking, poverty, drug addiction, or trauma such as child sexual abuse. Women from the lowest socioeconomic classes—impoverished women, women with a low level of education, women from the most disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities—are over-represented in prostitution all over the world. Catharine MacKinnon asked: "If prostitution is a free choice, why are the women with the fewest choices the ones most often found doing it?" A large percentage of prostitutes polled in one study of 475 people involved in prostitution reported that they were in a difficult period of their lives, and most wanted to leave the occupation.
MacKinnon argues that "In prostitution, women have sex with men they would never otherwise have sex with. The money thus acts as a form of force, not as a measure of consent. It acts like physical force does in rape." They believe that no person can be said to truly consent to their own oppression and no-one should have the right to consent to the oppression of others. In the words of Kathleen Barry, consent is not a "good divining rod as to the existence of oppression, and consent to violation is a fact of oppression". Andrea Dworkin wrote in 1992:
She argued that "prostitution and equality for women cannot exist simultaneously" and to eradicate prostitution "we must seek ways to use words and law to end the abusive selling and buying of girls' and women's bodies for men's sexual pleasure".
Radical feminist thinking has analyzed prostitution as a cornerstone of patriarchal domination and sexual subjugation of women that impacts negatively not only on the women and girls in prostitution but on all women as a group, because prostitution continually affirms and reinforces patriarchal definitions of women as having a primary function to serve men sexually. They say it is crucial that society does not replace one patriarchal view on female sexuality—e.g., that women should not have sex outside marriage/a relationship and that casual sex is shameful for a woman, etc.—with another similarly oppressive and patriarchal view—acceptance of prostitution, a sexual practice based on a highly patriarchal construct of sexuality: that the sexual pleasure of a woman is irrelevant, that her only role during sex is to submit to the man's sexual demands and to do what he tells her, that sex should be controlled by the man, and that the woman's response and satisfaction are irrelevant. Radical feminists argue that sexual liberation for women cannot be achieved so long as we normalize unequal sexual practices where a man dominates a woman. "Feminist consciousness raising remains the foundation for collective struggle and the eventual liberation of women".
Radical feminists strongly object to the patriarchal ideology that has been one of the justifications for the existence of prostitution, namely that prostitution is a "necessary evil", because men cannot control themselves; therefore it is "necessary" that a small number of women be "sacrificed" to be used and abused by men, to protect "chaste" women from rape and harassment. These feminists see prostitution as a form of slavery, and say that, far from decreasing rape rates, prostitution leads to a sharp "increase" in sexual violence against women, by sending the message that it is acceptable for a man to treat a woman as a sexual instrument over which he has total control. Melissa Farley argues that Nevada's high rape rate is connected to legal prostitution. Nevada is the only US state that allows legal brothels, and it is ranked 4th out of the 50 U.S. states for sexual assault crimes.
Indigenous women are particularly targeted for prostitution. In Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and Taiwan, studies have shown that indigenous women are at the bottom of the race and class hierarchy of prostitution, often subjected to the worst conditions, most violent demands and sold at the lowest price. It is common for indigenous women to be over-represented in prostitution when compared with their total population. This is as a result of the combined forces of colonialism, physical displacement from ancestral lands, destruction of indigenous social and cultural order, misogyny, globalization/neoliberalism, race discrimination and extremely high levels of violence perpetrated against them.
Radical feminists, notably Catharine MacKinnon, charge that the production of pornography entails physical, psychological, and/or economic coercion of the women who perform and model in it. This is said to be true even when the women are presented as enjoying themselves. It is also argued that much of what is shown in pornography is abusive by its very nature. Gail Dines holds that pornography, exemplified by gonzo pornography, is becoming increasingly violent and that women who perform in pornography are brutalized in the process of its production.
Radical feminists point to the testimony of well known participants in pornography, such as Traci Lords and Linda Boreman, and argue that most female performers are coerced into pornography, either by somebody else, or by an unfortunate set of circumstances. The feminist anti-pornography movement was galvanized by the publication of "Ordeal", in which Linda Boreman (who under the name of "Linda Lovelace" had starred in "Deep Throat") stated that she had been beaten, raped, and pimped by her husband Chuck Traynor, and that Traynor had forced her at gunpoint to make scenes in "Deep Throat", as well as forcing her, by use of both physical violence against Boreman as well as emotional abuse and outright threats of violence, to make other pornographic films. Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Women Against Pornography issued public statements of support for Boreman, and worked with her in public appearances and speeches.
Radical feminists hold the view that pornography contributes to sexism, arguing that in pornographic performances the actresses are reduced to mere receptacles—objects—for sexual use and abuse by men. They argue that the narrative is usually formed around men's pleasure as the only goal of sexual activity, and that the women are shown in a subordinate role. Some opponents believe pornographic films tend to show women as being extremely passive, or that the acts which are performed on the women are typically abusive and solely for the pleasure of their sex partner. On-face ejaculation and anal sex are increasingly popular among men, following trends in porn. MacKinnon and Dworkin defined pornography as "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words that also includes women dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities..."
Radical feminists say that consumption of pornography is a cause of rape and other forms of violence against women. Robin Morgan summarizes this idea with her oft-quoted statement, "Pornography is the theory, and rape is the practice." They charge that pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and coercion of women, and reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment. In her book "Only Words" (1993), MacKinnon argues that pornography "deprives women of the right to express verbal refusal of an intercourse".
MacKinnon argued that pornography leads to an increase in sexual violence against women through fostering rape myths. Such rape myths include the belief that women really want to be raped and that they mean yes when they say no. It is disputed that "rape myths perpetuate sexual violence indirectly by creating distorted beliefs and attitudes about sexual assault and shift elements of blame onto the victims". Additionally, according to MacKinnon, pornography desensitizes viewers to violence against women, and this leads to a progressive need to see more violence in order to become sexually aroused, an effect she claims is well documented.
German radical feminist Alice Schwarzer is one proponent of the view that pornography offers a distorted sense of men and women's bodies, as well as the actual sexual act, often showing performers with synthetic implants or exaggerated expressions of pleasure, engaging in fetishes that are presented as popular and normal.
Radical lesbians are distinguished from other radical feminists through their ideological roots in political lesbianism. Radical lesbians see lesbianism as an act of resistance against the political institution of heterosexuality, which they view as violent and oppressive towards women. Julie Bindel has written that her lesbianism is "intrinsically bound up" with her feminism.
During the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1970s, straight women within the movement were challenged on the basis of their heterosexual identities perpetuating the very patriarchal systems that they were working to undo. A large fraction of the movement sought to reform sexist institutions while "leaving intact the staple nuclear unit of oppression: heterosexual sex". Others saw the logic of lesbianism as a strong political act to end male dominance and as central to the women's movement.
Radical lesbians criticized the women's liberation movement for its failure to criticize the "psychological oppression" of heteronormativity, which they believe to be "the sexual foundation of the social institutions". They argued that heterosexual love relationships perpetuate patriarchal power relations through "personal domination" and therefore directly contradicted the values and goals of the movement. As one radical lesbian wrote, "no matter what the feminist does, the physical act [of heterosexuality] throws both women and man back into role playing... all of her politics are instantly shattered". They argued that the women's liberation movement would not be successful without challenging heteronormativity.
Radical lesbians believe lesbianism actively threatens patriarchal systems of power. They defined lesbians not only by their sexual preference, but by their liberation and independence from men. Lesbian activists Sydney Abbot and Barbara Love argued that "the lesbian "has" freed herself from male domination" through disconnecting from them not only sexually, but also "financially and emotionally". They argue that lesbianism fosters the utmost independence from gendered systems of power, and from the "psychological oppression" of heteronormativity.
Rejecting norms of gender, sex and sexuality is central to radical lesbian feminism. Lesbianism as a political act represents an ability to create identity from all aspects of the human condition, both masculine and feminine, while rejecting societal identities that are imposed onto bodies by a culture. Radical lesbians believed that "lesbian identity was a 'woman-identified' identity'", meaning it should be defined by and with reference to women, rather than in relation to men.
In their manifesto "The Woman-Identified Woman", the lesbian radical feminist group Radicalesbians underline the necessity of creating a "new consciousness" that rejects normative definitions of womanhood and femininity, which center on the powerlessness. This redefinition of womanhood and femininity means freeing lesbian identities from harmful and divisive stereotypes. As Abbot and Love argued in "Is Women's Liberation a Lesbian Plot?" (1971):
As long at the word 'dyke' can be used to frighten women into a less militant stand, keep women separate from their sisters, and keep them from giving primacy to anything other than men and family—then to that extent they are dominated by male culture.
Radical lesbians reiterate this thought, writing, "in this sexist society, for a woman to be independent means she can't be a woman, she must be a dyke". The rhetoric of a woman-identified-woman has been criticized for its exclusion of heterosexual women. According to some critics, "[lesbian feminism's use of] woman-identifying rhetorics should be considered rhetorical failures". Other critics argue that the intensity of radical lesbian feminist politics, on top of the preexisting stigma around lesbianism, gave a bad face to the feminist movement and provided fertile ground for tropes like the man-hater or bra burner.
Since the 1970s, there has been a debate among radical feminists about transgender identities. In 1978, the Lesbian Organization of Toronto voted to become womyn-born womyn only and wrote:
A woman's voice was almost never heard as a woman's voice—it was always filtered through men's voices. So here a guy comes along saying, "I'm going to be a girl now and speak for girls." And we thought, "No you're not." A person cannot just join the oppressed by fiat.
Some radical feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, John Stoltenberg and Monique Wittig, have supported recognition of trans women as women, which they describe as "trans-inclusive" feminism, while others, such as Mary Daly, Janice Raymond, Robin Morgan, Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffreys, Julie Bindel, and Robert Jensen, have argued that the transgender movement perpetuates patriarchal gender norms and is incompatible with radical-feminist ideology.
Those who exclude trans women from womanhood or women's spaces refer to themselves as "gender critical" and are referred to by others as trans-exclusionary. Radical feminists in particular who exclude trans women are often referred to as "trans-exclusionary radical feminists" or "TERFs", an acronym to which they object, say is inaccurate (citing, for example, their inclusion of trans men as women), and argue is a slur or even hate speech. These feminists argue that because trans women are assigned male at birth, they are accorded corresponding privileges in society, and even if they choose to present as women, the fact that they have a choice in this sets them apart from people assigned female. Gender-critical or trans-exclusionary radical feminists in particular say that the difference in behavior between men and women is the result of socialization. Lierre Keith describes femininity as "a set of behaviors that are, in essence, ritualized submission", and hence, gender is not an identity but a caste position, and gender-identity politics are an obstacle to gender abolition. They hold the same position with respect to race and class. Julie Bindel argued in 2008 that Iran carries out the highest number of sex-change operations in the world, because "surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact", and that "it is precisely this idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females that underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'." According to the BBC in 2014, there are no reliable figures regarding gender-reassignment operations in Iran.
In "" (1979), the lesbian radical feminist Janice Raymond argued that "transsexuals ... reduce the female form to artefact, appropriating this body for themselves". In "The Whole Woman" (1999), Germaine Greer wrote that largely male governments "recognise as women men who believe that they are women ... because [those governments] see women not as another sex but as a non-sex"; she continued that if uterus-and-ovaries transplants were a mandatory part of sex-change operations, the latter "would disappear overnight". Sheila Jeffreys argued in 1997 that "the vast majority of transsexuals still subscribe to the traditional stereotype of women" and that by transitioning they are "constructing a conservative fantasy of what women should be ... an essence of womanhood which is deeply insulting and restrictive." In "Gender Hurts" (2014), she referred to sex reassignment surgery as "self-mutilation", and she used pronouns that refer to biological sex; she argued that feminists need to know "the biological sex of those who claim to be women and promote prejudicial versions of what constitutes womanhood", and that "use by men of feminine pronouns conceals the masculine privilege bestowed upon them by virtue of having been placed in and brought up in the male sex caste".
By contrast, trans-inclusive radical feminists claim that a biology-based or sex-essentialist ideology itself upholds patriarchal constructions of womanhood. Andrea Dworkin argued as early as 1974 that transgender people and gender identity research have the potential to radically undermine patriarchal sex essentialism: "work with transsexuals, and studies of formation of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two discrete biological sexes. That information threatens to transform the traditional biology of sex difference into the radical biology of sex similarity. That is not to say that there is one sex, but that there are many. The evidence which is germane here is simple. The words "male" and "female," "man" and "woman," are used only because as yet there are no others." In 2015, radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon said that "male dominant society has defined women as a discrete biological group forever. If this was going to produce liberation, we'd be free ... To me, women is a political group. I never had much occasion to say that, or work with it, until the last few years when there has been a lot of discussion about whether trans women are women ... I always thought I don't care how someone becomes a woman or a man; it does not matter to me. It is just part of their specificity, their uniqueness, like everyone else's. Anybody who identifies as a woman, wants to be a woman, is going around being a woman, as far as I'm concerned, is a woman."
Gail Dines, an English radical feminist, spoke in 2011 about the appeal of radical feminism to young women: "After teaching women for 20-odd years, if I go in and I teach liberal feminism, I get looked [at] blank ... I go in and teach radical feminism, bang, the room explodes."
Early in the radical feminism movement, some radical feminists theorized that "other kinds of hierarchy grew out of and were modeled on male supremacy-were in effect specialized forms of male supremacy". Therefore, the fight against male domination took priority because "the liberation of women would mean the liberation of all". This view is contested, particularly by intersectional feminism and black feminism. Critics argue that this ideology accepts the notion that identities are singular and disparate, rather than multiple and intersecting. For example, understanding women's oppression as disparate assumes that "men, in creating and maintaining these systems, are acting purely as men, in accordance with peculiarly male characteristics or specifically male supremacist objectives".
Ellen Willis' 1984 essay "Radical Feminism and Feminist Radicalism" says that within the New Left, radical feminists were accused of being "bourgeois", "antileft", or even "apolitical", whereas they saw themselves as "radicalizing the left by expanding the definition of radical". Early radical feminists were mostly white and middle-class, resulting in "a very fragile kind of solidarity". This limited the validity of generalizations based on radical feminists' experiences of gender relations, and prevented white and middle-class women from recognizing that they benefited from race and class privilege. Many early radical feminists broke ties with "male-dominated left groups", or would work with them only in "ad hoc" coalitions. Willis, although very much a part of early radical feminism and continuing to hold that it played a necessary role in placing feminism on the political agenda, criticized its inability "to integrate a feminist perspective with an overall radical politics", while viewing this limitation as inevitable in the context of the time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25998 |
Ray tracing (graphics)
In computer graphics, ray tracing is a rendering technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light as pixels in an image plane and simulating the effects of its encounters with virtual objects. The technique is capable of producing a high degree of visual realism, more so than typical scanline rendering methods, but at a greater computational cost. This makes ray tracing best suited for applications where taking a relatively long time to render can be tolerated, such as in still computer-generated images, and film and television visual effects (VFX), but more poorly suited to real-time applications such as video games, where speed is critical in rendering each frame.
Ray tracing is capable of simulating a variety of optical effects, such as reflection and refraction, scattering, and dispersion phenomena (such as chromatic aberration).
The idea of ray tracing comes from as early as the 16th century when it was described by Albrecht Dürer, who is credited for its invention. In 1982, Scott Roth used the related term "ray casting" in the context of computer graphics. The first film to use ray tracing was Compleat Angler (1979), produced by Bell Labs engineer Turner Whitted. Until 2013, large scale global illumination was faked with additional lighting for major films. The 2013 Pixar film "Monsters University" was the first animated film to use ray tracing for all lighting and shading.
Optical ray tracing describes a method for producing visual images constructed in 3D computer graphics environments, with more photorealism than either ray casting or scanline rendering techniques. It works by tracing a path from an imaginary eye through each pixel in a virtual screen, and calculating the color of the object visible through it.
Scenes in ray tracing are described mathematically by a programmer or by a visual artist (typically using intermediary tools). Scenes may also incorporate data from images and models captured by means such as digital photography.
Typically, each ray must be tested for intersection with some subset of all the objects in the scene. Once the nearest object has been identified, the algorithm will estimate the incoming light at the point of intersection, examine the material properties of the object, and combine this information to calculate the final color of the pixel. Certain illumination algorithms and reflective or translucent materials may require more rays to be re-cast into the scene.
It may at first seem counterintuitive or "backward" to send rays "away" from the camera, rather than "into" it (as actual light does in reality), but doing so is many orders of magnitude more efficient. Since the overwhelming majority of light rays from a given light source do not make it directly into the viewer's eye, a "forward" simulation could potentially waste a tremendous amount of computation on light paths that are never recorded.
Therefore, the shortcut taken in ray tracing is to presuppose that a given ray intersects the view frame. After either a maximum number of reflections or a ray traveling a certain distance without intersection, the ray ceases to travel and the pixel's value is updated.
On input we have (in calculation we use vector normalization and cross product):
The idea is to find the position of each viewport pixel center formula_9 which allows us to find the line going from eye formula_10 through that pixel and finally get the ray described by point formula_10 and vector formula_12 (or its normalisation formula_13). First we need to find the coordinates of the bottom left viewport pixel formula_14 and find the next pixel by making a shift along directions parallel to viewport (vectors formula_15 i formula_16) multiplied by the size of the pixel. Below we introduce formulas which include distance formula_17 between the eye and the viewport. However, this value will be reduced during ray normalization formula_13 (so you might as well accept that formula_19 and remove it from calculations).
Pre-calculations: let's find and normalise vector formula_20 and vectors formula_21 which are parallel to the viewport (all depicted on above picture)
note that viewport center formula_24, next we calculate viewport sizes formula_25 divided by 2 including aspect ratio formula_26
and then we calculate next-pixel shifting vectors formula_28 along directions parallel to viewport (formula_29), and left bottom pixel center formula_30
Calculations: note formula_32 and ray formula_33 so
Above formula was tested in this javascript project (works in browser).
In nature, a light source emits a ray of light which travels, eventually, to a surface that interrupts its progress. One can think of this "ray" as a stream of photons traveling along the same path. In a perfect vacuum this ray will be a straight line (ignoring relativistic effects). Any combination of four things might happen with this light ray: absorption, reflection, refraction and fluorescence. A surface may absorb part of the light ray, resulting in a loss of intensity of the reflected and/or refracted light. It might also reflect all or part of the light ray, in one or more directions. If the surface has any transparent or translucent properties, it refracts a portion of the light beam into itself in a different direction while absorbing some (or all) of the spectrum (and possibly altering the color). Less commonly, a surface may absorb some portion of the light and fluorescently re-emit the light at a longer wavelength color in a random direction, though this is rare enough that it can be discounted from most rendering applications. Between absorption, reflection, refraction and fluorescence, all of the incoming light must be accounted for, and no more. A surface cannot, for instance, reflect 66% of an incoming light ray, and refract 50%, since the two would add up to be 116%. From here, the reflected and/or refracted rays may strike other surfaces, where their absorptive, refractive, reflective and fluorescent properties again affect the progress of the incoming rays. Some of these rays travel in such a way that they hit our eye, causing us to see the scene and so contribute to the final rendered image.
The first ray tracing algorithm used for rendering was presented by Arthur Appel in 1968. This algorithm has since been termed "ray casting". The idea behind ray casting is to trace rays from the eye, one per pixel, and find the closest object blocking the path of that ray. Think of an image as a screen-door, with each square in the screen being a pixel. This is then the object the eye sees through that pixel. Using the material properties and the effect of the lights in the scene, this algorithm can determine the shading of this object. The simplifying assumption is made that if a surface faces a light, the light will reach that surface and not be blocked or in shadow. The shading of the surface is computed using traditional 3D computer graphics shading models. One important advantage ray casting offered over older scanline algorithms was its ability to easily deal with non-planar surfaces and solids, such as cones and spheres. If a mathematical surface can be intersected by a ray, it can be rendered using ray casting. Elaborate objects can be created by using solid modeling techniques and easily rendered.
The next important research breakthrough came from Turner Whitted in 1979. Previous algorithms traced rays from the eye into the scene until they hit an object, but determined the ray color without recursively tracing more rays. Whitted continued the process. When a ray hits a surface, it can generate up to three new types of rays: reflection, refraction, and shadow. A reflection ray is traced in the mirror-reflection direction. The closest object it intersects is what will be seen in the reflection. Refraction rays traveling through transparent material work similarly, with the addition that a refractive ray could be entering or exiting a material. A shadow ray is traced toward each light. If any opaque object is found between the surface and the light, the surface is in shadow and the light does not illuminate it. This recursive ray tracing added more realism to ray traced images.
Ray tracing-based rendering's popularity stems from its basis in a realistic simulation of light transport, as compared to other rendering methods, such as rasterization, which focuses more on the realistic simulation of geometry. Effects such as reflections and shadows, which are difficult to simulate using other algorithms, are a natural result of the ray tracing algorithm. The computational independence of each ray makes ray tracing amenable to a basic level of parallelization, but the divergence of ray paths makes high utilization under parallelism quite difficult to achieve in practice.
A serious disadvantage of ray tracing is performance (though it can in theory be faster than traditional scanline rendering depending on scene complexity vs. number of pixels on-screen). Until the late 2010s, ray tracing in real time was usually considered impossible on consumer hardware for nontrivial tasks. Scanline algorithms and other algorithms use data coherence to share computations between pixels, while ray tracing normally starts the process anew, treating each eye ray separately. However, this separation offers other advantages, such as the ability to shoot more rays as needed to perform spatial anti-aliasing and improve image quality where needed.
Although it does handle interreflection and optical effects such as refraction accurately, traditional ray tracing is also not necessarily photorealistic. True photorealism occurs when the rendering equation is closely approximated or fully implemented. Implementing the rendering equation gives true photorealism, as the equation describes every physical effect of light flow. However, this is usually infeasible given the computing resources required.
The realism of all rendering methods can be evaluated as an approximation to the equation. Ray tracing, if it is limited to Whitted's algorithm, is not necessarily the most realistic. Methods that trace rays, but include additional techniques (photon mapping, path tracing), give a far more accurate simulation of real-world lighting.
The process of shooting rays from the eye to the light source to render an image is sometimes called "backwards ray tracing", since it is the opposite direction photons actually travel. However, there is confusion with this terminology. Early ray tracing was always done from the eye, and early researchers such as James Arvo used the term "backwards ray tracing" to mean shooting rays from the lights and gathering the results. Therefore, it is clearer to distinguish "eye-based" versus "light-based" ray tracing.
While the direct illumination is generally best sampled using eye-based ray tracing, certain indirect effects can benefit from rays generated from the lights. Caustics are bright patterns caused by the focusing of light off a wide reflective region onto a narrow area of (near-)diffuse surface. An algorithm that casts rays directly from lights onto reflective objects, tracing their paths to the eye, will better sample this phenomenon. This integration of eye-based and light-based rays is often expressed as bidirectional path tracing, in which paths are traced from both the eye and lights, and the paths subsequently joined by a connecting ray after some length.
Photon mapping is another method that uses both light-based and eye-based ray tracing; in an initial pass, energetic photons are traced along rays from the light source so as to compute an estimate of radiant flux as a function of 3-dimensional space (the eponymous photon map itself). In a subsequent pass, rays are traced from the eye into the scene to determine the visible surfaces, and the photon map is used to estimate the illumination at the visible surface points. The advantage of photon mapping versus bidirectional path tracing is the ability to achieve significant reuse of photons, reducing computation, at the cost of statistical bias.
An additional problem occurs when light must pass through a very narrow aperture to illuminate the scene (consider a darkened room, with a door slightly ajar leading to a brightly lit room), or a scene in which most points do not have direct line-of-sight to any light source (such as with ceiling-directed light fixtures or torchieres). In such cases, only a very small subset of paths will transport energy; Metropolis light transport is a method which begins with a random search of the path space, and when energetic paths are found, reuses this information by exploring the nearby space of rays.
To the right is an image showing a simple example of a path of rays recursively generated from the camera (or eye) to the light source using the above algorithm. A diffuse surface reflects light in all directions.
First, a ray is created at an eyepoint and traced through a pixel and into the scene, where it hits a diffuse surface. From that surface the algorithm recursively generates a reflection ray, which is traced through the scene, where it hits another diffuse surface. Finally, another reflection ray is generated and traced through the scene, where it hits the light source and is absorbed. The color of the pixel now depends on the colors of the first and second diffuse surface and the color of the light emitted from the light source. For example, if the light source emitted white light and the two diffuse surfaces were blue, then the resulting color of the pixel is blue.
As a demonstration of the principles involved in ray tracing, consider how one would find the intersection between a ray and a sphere. This is merely the math behind the line–sphere intersection and the subsequent determination of the colour of the pixel being calculated. There is, of course, far more to the general process of ray tracing, but this demonstrates an example of the algorithms used.
In vector notation, the equation of a sphere with center formula_36 and radius formula_37 is
Any point on a ray starting from point formula_39 with direction formula_40 (here formula_40 is a unit vector) can be written as
where formula_43 is its distance between formula_44 and formula_39. In our problem, we know formula_36, formula_37, formula_39 (e.g. the position of a light source) and formula_40, and we need to find formula_43. Therefore, we substitute for formula_44:
Let formula_53 for simplicity; then
Knowing that d is a unit vector allows us this minor simplification:
This quadratic equation has solutions
The two values of formula_59 found by solving this equation are the two ones such that formula_60 are the points where the ray intersects the sphere.
Any value which is negative does not lie on the ray, but rather in the opposite half-line (i.e. the one starting from formula_39 with opposite direction).
If the quantity under the square root ( the discriminant ) is negative, then the ray does not intersect the sphere.
Let us suppose now that there is at least a positive solution, and let formula_59 be the minimal one. In addition, let us suppose that the sphere is the nearest object on our scene intersecting our ray, and that it is made of a reflective material. We need to find in which direction the light ray is reflected. The laws of reflection state that the angle of reflection is equal and opposite to the angle of incidence between the incident ray and the normal to the sphere.
The normal to the sphere is simply
where formula_64 is the intersection point found before. The reflection direction can be found by a reflection of formula_40 with respect to formula_66, that is
Thus the reflected ray has equation
Now we only need to compute the intersection of the latter ray with our field of view, to get the pixel which our reflected light ray will hit. Lastly, this pixel is set to an appropriate color, taking into account how the color of the original light source and the one of the sphere are combined by the reflection.
Adaptive depth control means that the renderer stops generating reflected/transmitted rays when the computed intensity becomes less than a certain threshold. There must always be a set maximum depth or else the program would generate an infinite number of rays. But it is not always necessary to go to the maximum depth if the surfaces are not highly reflective. To test for this the ray tracer must compute and keep the product of the global and reflection coefficients as the rays are traced.
Example: let Kr = 0.5 for a set of surfaces. Then from the first surface the maximum contribution is 0.5, for the reflection from the second: 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.25, the third: 0.25 × 0.5 = 0.125, the fourth: 0.125 × 0.5 = 0.0625, the fifth: 0.0625 × 0.5 = 0.03125, etc. In addition we might implement a distance attenuation factor such as 1/D2, which would also decrease the intensity contribution.
For a transmitted ray we could do something similar but in that case the distance traveled through the object would cause even faster intensity decrease. As an example of this, Hall & Greenberg found that even for a very reflective scene, using this with a maximum depth of 15 resulted in an average ray tree depth of 1.7.
We enclose groups of objects in sets of hierarchical bounding volumes and first test for intersection with the bounding volume, and then only if there is an intersection, against the objects enclosed by the volume.
Bounding volumes should be easy to test for intersection, for example a sphere or box (slab). The best bounding volume will be determined by the shape of the underlying object or objects. For example, if the objects are long and thin then a sphere will enclose mainly empty space and a box is much better. Boxes are also easier for hierarchical bounding volumes.
Note that using a hierarchical system like this (assuming it is done carefully) changes the intersection computational time from a linear dependence on the number of objects to something between linear and a logarithmic dependence. This is because, for a perfect case, each intersection test would divide the possibilities by two, and we would have a binary tree type structure. Spatial subdivision methods, discussed below, try to achieve this.
Kay & Kajiya give a list of desired properties for hierarchical bounding volumes:
The first implementation of an interactive ray tracer was the LINKS-1 Computer Graphics System built in 1982 at Osaka University's School of Engineering, by professors Ohmura Kouichi, Shirakawa Isao and Kawata Toru with 50 students. It was a massively parallel processing computer system with 514 microprocessors (257 Zilog Z8001's and 257 iAPX 86's), used for rendering realistic 3D computer graphics with high-speed ray tracing. According to the Information Processing Society of Japan: "The core of 3D image rendering is calculating the luminance of each pixel making up a rendered surface from the given viewpoint, light source, and object position. The LINKS-1 system was developed to realize an image rendering methodology in which each pixel could be parallel processed independently using ray tracing. By developing a new software methodology specifically for high-speed image rendering, LINKS-1 was able to rapidly render highly realistic images." It was used to create an early 3D planetarium-like video of the heavens made completely with computer graphics. The video was presented at the Fujitsu pavilion at the 1985 International Exposition in Tsukuba." It was the second system to do so after the Evans & Sutherland Digistar in 1982. The LINKS-1 was reported to be the world's most powerful computer in 1984.
The earliest public record of "real-time" ray tracing with interactive rendering (i.e., updates greater than a frame per second) was credited at the 2005 SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference as being the REMRT/RT tools developed in 1986 by Mike Muuss for the BRL-CAD solid modeling system. Initially published in 1987 at USENIX, the BRL-CAD ray tracer was an early implementation of a parallel network distributed ray tracing system that achieved several frames per second in rendering performance. This performance was attained by means of the highly optimized yet platform independent LIBRT ray tracing engine in BRL-CAD and by using solid implicit CSG geometry on several shared memory parallel machines over a commodity network. BRL-CAD's ray tracer, including the REMRT/RT tools, continue to be available and developed today as open source software.
Since then, there have been considerable efforts and research towards implementing ray tracing at real-time speeds for a variety of purposes on stand-alone desktop configurations. These purposes include interactive 3D graphics applications such as demoscene productions, computer and video games, and image rendering. Some real-time software 3D engines based on ray tracing have been developed by hobbyist demo programmers since the late 1990s.
In 1999 a team from the University of Utah, led by Steven Parker, demonstrated interactive ray tracing live at the 1999 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics. They rendered a 35 million sphere model at 512 by 512 pixel resolution, running at approximately 15 frames per second on 60 CPUs.
The OpenRT project included a highly optimized software core for ray tracing along with an OpenGL-like API in order to offer an alternative to the current rasterisation based approach for interactive 3D graphics. Ray tracing hardware, such as the experimental Ray Processing Unit developed by Sven Woop at the Saarland University, has been designed to accelerate some of the computationally intensive operations of ray tracing. On March 16, 2007, the University of Saarland revealed an implementation of a high-performance ray tracing engine that allowed computer games to be rendered via ray tracing without intensive resource usage.
On June 12, 2008 Intel demonstrated a special version of "", titled "", using ray tracing for rendering, running in basic HD (720p) resolution. ETQW operated at 14–29 frames per second. The demonstration ran on a 16-core (4 socket, 4 core) Xeon Tigerton system running at 2.93 GHz.
At SIGGRAPH 2009, Nvidia announced OptiX, a free API for real-time ray tracing on Nvidia GPUs. The API exposes seven programmable entry points within the ray tracing pipeline, allowing for custom cameras, ray-primitive intersections, shaders, shadowing, etc. This flexibility enables bidirectional path tracing, Metropolis light transport, and many other rendering algorithms that cannot be implemented with tail recursion. OptiX-based renderers are used in Autodesk Arnold, Adobe AfterEffects, Bunkspeed Shot, Autodesk Maya, 3ds max, and many other renderers.
Imagination Technologies offers a free API called OpenRL which accelerates tail recursive ray tracing-based rendering algorithms and, together with their proprietary ray tracing hardware, works with Autodesk Maya to provide what 3D World calls "real-time raytracing to the everyday artist".
In 2014, a demo of the PlayStation 4 video game "The Tomorrow Children", developed by Q-Games and SIE Japan Studio, demonstrated new lighting techniques developed by Q-Games, notably cascaded voxel cone ray tracing, which simulates lighting in real-time and uses more realistic reflections rather than screen space reflections.
Nvidia offers hardware-accelerated ray tracing in their GeForce RTX and Quadro RTX GPUs, currently based on the Turing architecture. The Nvidia hardware uses a separate functional block, publicly called an "RT core". This unit is somewhat comparable to a texture unit in size, latency, and interface to the processor core. The unit features BVH traversal, compressed BVH node decompression, ray-AABB intersection testing, and ray-triangle intersection testing.
AMD offers interactive ray tracing on top of OpenCL on Vega graphics cards through Radeon ProRender. The company is reportedly planning to release the second generation Navi GPUs with hardware-accelerated ray tracing in 2020.
The next generation consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will support dedicated ray tracing hardware components in their GPUs for real-time ray tracing effects.
Various complexity results have been proven for certain formulations of the ray tracing problem. In particular, if the decision version of the ray tracing problem is defined as follows – given a light ray's initial position and direction and some fixed point, does the ray eventually reach that point, then the referenced paper proves the following results: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26000 |
Ron Carter
Ronald Levin Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history.
Carter is also a cellist who has recorded numerous times on that instrument. Some of his studio albums as a leader include: "Blues Farm" (1973); "All Blues" (1973); "Spanish Blue" (1974); "Anything Goes" (1975); "Yellow & Green" (1976); "Pastels" (1976); "Piccolo" (1977); "Third Plane" (1977); "Peg Leg" (1978); "A Song for You" (1978); "Etudes" (1982); "The Golden Striker" (2003); "Dear Miles" (2006); "Ron Carters' Great Big Band" (2011).
He was a member of the Miles Davis Quintet in the mid 1960s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and drummer Tony Williams. Carter joined Davis's group in 1963, appearing on the album "Seven Steps to Heaven" and the follow-up "E.S.P.". Carter also performed on some of Hancock, Williams and Shorter's recordings during the sixties for Blue Note Records. He was a sideman on many Blue Note recordings of the era, playing with Sam Rivers, Freddie Hubbard, Duke Pearson, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Horace Silver and many others. He was elected to the "Down Beat" Jazz Hall of Fame in 2012. In 1993, he won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group and another Grammy in 1998 for "an instrumental composition for the film" "Round Midnight". In 2010 he was honored with France's premier cultural award, the medallion and title of Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Carter was born in Ferndale, Michigan. He started to play cello at the age of 10.
His first jobs as a jazz musician were playing bass with Jaki Byard and Chico Hamilton. His first records were made with Eric Dolphy (another former member of Hamilton's group) and Don Ellis, in 1960. His own first date as leader, "Where?", with Eric Dolphy, Charlie Persip, Mal Waldron, George Duvivier, and a date also with Dolphy called "Out There" with George Duvivier and Roy Haynes and Carter on cello; its advanced harmonies and concepts were in step with the third stream movement.
Carter came to fame via the second Miles Davis Quintet in the mid 1960s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and drummer Tony Williams. Carter joined Davis's group in 1963, appearing on the album "Seven Steps to Heaven" and the follow-up "E.S.P.", the latter being the first album to feature only the full quintet. It also featured three of Carter's compositions (the only time he contributed compositions to Davis's group). He stayed with Davis until 1968 (when he was replaced by Dave Holland), and participated in a couple of studio sessions with Davis in 1969 and 1970. Although he played electric bass occasionally during this era of early jazz-rock fusion, he has subsequently stopped playing that instrument, and in the 2000s plays only double bass.
Carter also performed on some of Hancock, Williams and Shorter's recordings during the sixties for Blue Note Records. He was a sideman on many Blue Note recordings of the era, playing with Sam Rivers, Freddie Hubbard, Duke Pearson, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Horace Silver, and others. He also played on soul-pop star Roberta Flack's album "First Take".
After leaving Davis, Carter was for several years a mainstay of CTI Records, making albums under his own name and also appearing on many of the label's records with a diverse range of other musicians. Notable musical partnerships in the 1970s and 1980s included Joe Henderson, Houston Person, Hank Jones, Gabor Szabo and Cedar Walton. During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet. In 1986, Carter played double bass on "Big Man on Mulberry Street" on Billy Joel's album "The Bridge".
In 1993, he won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Group and another Grammy in 1998 for "an instrumental composition for the film" "Round Midnight". He appears on the alternative hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest's influential album "The Low End Theory" on a track called "Verses from the Abstract". He appeared as a member of the jazz combo the Classical Jazz Quartet. In 1994, Carter appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album, "".
The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African-American community, was heralded as "Album of the Year" by "TIME". In 2001, Carter collaborated with Black Star and John Patton to record "Money Jungle" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album, "Red Hot + Indigo", a tribute to Duke Ellington.
Carter is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Music Department of City College of New York, having taught there for 20 years, and received an honorary Doctorate from the Berklee College of Music in Spring 2005. He joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York City in 2008, teaching bass in the school's Jazz Studies program. Carter made an appearance in Robert Altman's 1996 film, "Kansas City". The end credits feature him and fellow bassist Christian McBride duetting on "Solitude".
Carter sits on the Advisory Committee of the Board of Directors of The Jazz Foundation of America and on the Honorary Founder's Committee. Carter has worked with the Jazz Foundation since its inception to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.
Most recently, Carter appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series "Treme" entitled "What Is New Orleans" and his authorized biography, "Ron Carter: Finding the Right Notes", () by Dan Ouellette, was published by ArtistShare in 2008. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26002 |
Radian
The radian (symbol: rad) is the SI unit for measuring angles, and is the standard unit of angular measure used in many areas of mathematics. The length of an arc of a unit circle is numerically equal to the measurement in radians of the angle that it subtends; one radian is just under 57.3 degrees (expansion at ). The unit was formerly an SI supplementary unit, but this category was abolished in 1995 and the radian is now considered an SI derived unit. The radian is defined in the SI as being a dimensionless value, and its symbol is accordingly often omitted, especially in mathematical writing.
Radian describes the plane angle subtended by a circular arc as the length of the arc divided by the radius of the arc. One radian is the angle subtended at the center of a circle by an arc that is equal in length to the radius of the circle. More generally, the magnitude in radians of such a subtended angle is equal to the ratio of the arc length to the radius of the circle; that is, , where "θ" is the subtended angle in radians, "s" is arc length, and "r" is radius. Conversely, the length of the enclosed arc is equal to the radius multiplied by the magnitude of the angle in radians; that is, .
While it is normally asserted that as the ratio of two lengths, the radian is a "pure number", Mohr and Phillips dispute this assertion. However, in mathematical writing the symbol "rad" is almost always omitted. When quantifying an angle in the absence of any symbol, radians are assumed, and when degrees are meant the symbol ° is used. The radian is defined as 1. There is controversy as to whether it is satisfactory in the SI to consider angles to be dimensionless since they can be measured in degrees, radians or cycles. This can lead to problems when considering the units for frequency and the Planck constant.
It follows that the magnitude in radians of one complete revolution (360 degrees) is the length of the entire circumference divided by the radius, or , or 2. Thus 2 radians is equal to 360 degrees, meaning that one radian is equal to 180/ degrees.
The relation formula_1 can be derived using the formula for arc length. Taking the formula for arc length, or formula_2. Assuming a unit circle; the radius is therefore one. Knowing that the definition of radian is the measure of an angle that subtends an arc of a length equal to the radius of the circle, we know that formula_3. This can be further simplified to formula_4. Multiplying both sides by formula_5 gives formula_6.
The concept of radian measure, as opposed to the degree of an angle, is normally credited to Roger Cotes in 1714. He described the radian in everything but name, and he recognized its naturalness as a unit of angular measure. Prior to the term "radian" becoming widespread, the unit was commonly called "circular measure" of an angle.
The idea of measuring angles by the length of the arc was already in use by other mathematicians. For example, al-Kashi (c. 1400) used so-called "diameter parts" as units where one diameter part was radian and they also used sexagesimal subunits of the diameter part.
The term "radian" first appeared in print on 5 June 1873, in examination questions set by James Thomson (brother of Lord Kelvin) at Queen's College, Belfast. He had used the term as early as 1871, while in 1869, Thomas Muir, then of the University of St Andrews, vacillated between the terms "rad", "radial", and "radian". In 1874, after a consultation with James Thomson, Muir adopted "radian". The name "radian" was not universally adopted for some time after this. "Longmans' School Trigonometry" still called the radian "circular measure" when published in 1890.
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures and International Organization for Standardization specify rad as the symbol for the radian. Alternative symbols used 100 years ago are c (the superscript letter c, for "circular measure"), the letter r, or a superscript , but these variants are infrequently used as they may be mistaken for a degree symbol (°) or a radius (r). So, for example, a value of 1.2 radians would most commonly be written as 1.2 rad; other notations include 1.2 r, 1.2, 1.2, or 1.2.
As stated, one radian is equal to 180/ degrees. Thus, to convert from radians to degrees, multiply by 180/.
For example:
Conversely, to convert from degrees to radians, multiply by /180.
For example:
formula_13
Radians can be converted to turns (complete revolutions) by dividing the number of radians by 2.
The length of circumference of a circle is given by formula_14, where formula_15 is the radius of the circle.
So the following equivalent relation is true:
formula_16[Since a formula_17 sweep is needed to draw a full circle]
By the definition of radian, a full circle represents:
Combining both the above relations:
formula_23 radians equals one turn, which is by definition 400 gradians (400 gons or 400g). So, to convert from radians to gradians multiply by formula_24, and to convert from gradians to radians multiply by formula_25. For example,
In calculus and most other branches of mathematics beyond practical geometry, angles are universally measured in radians. This is because radians have a mathematical "naturalness" that leads to a more elegant formulation of a number of important results.
Most notably, results in analysis involving trigonometric functions are simple and elegant when the functions' arguments are expressed in radians. For example, the use of radians leads to the simple limit formula
which is the basis of many other identities in mathematics, including
Because of these and other properties, the trigonometric functions appear in solutions to mathematical problems that are not obviously related to the functions' geometrical meanings (for example, the solutions to the differential equation formula_31, the evaluation of the integral formula_32, and so on). In all such cases it is found that the arguments to the functions are most naturally written in the form that corresponds, in geometrical contexts, to the radian measurement of angles.
The trigonometric functions also have simple and elegant series expansions when radians are used; for example, the following Taylor series for sin "x" :
If "x" were expressed in degrees then the series would contain messy factors involving powers of /180: if "x" is the number of degrees, the number of radians is , so
Mathematically important relationships between the sine and cosine functions and the exponential function (see, for example, Euler's formula) are, again, elegant when the functions' arguments are in radians and messy otherwise.
Although the radian is a unit of measure, it is a dimensionless quantity. This can be seen from the definition given earlier: the angle subtended at the centre of a circle, measured in radians, is equal to the ratio of the length of the enclosed arc to the length of the circle's radius. Since the units of measurement cancel, this ratio is dimensionless.
Although polar and spherical coordinates use radians to describe coordinates in two and three dimensions, the unit is derived from the radius coordinate, so the angle measure is still dimensionless.
The radian is widely used in physics when angular measurements are required. For example, angular velocity is typically measured in radians per second (rad/s). One revolution per second is equal to 2 radians per second.
Similarly, angular acceleration is often measured in radians per second per second (rad/s2).
For the purpose of dimensional analysis, the units of angular velocity and angular acceleration are s−1 and s−2 respectively.
Likewise, the phase difference of two waves can also be measured in radians. For example, if the phase difference of two waves is ("k"⋅2) radians, where "k" is an integer, they are considered in phase, whilst if the phase difference of two waves is (), where "k" is an integer, they are considered in antiphase.
Metric prefixes have limited use with radians, and none in mathematics. A milliradian (mrad) is a thousandth of a radian and a microradian (μrad) is a millionth of a radian, i.e. .
There are 2 × 1000 milliradians (≈ 6283.185 mrad) in a circle. So a milliradian is just under of the angle subtended by a full circle. This "real" unit of angular measurement of a circle is in use by telescopic sight manufacturers using (stadiametric) rangefinding in reticles. The divergence of laser beams is also usually measured in milliradians.
An approximation of the milliradian (0.001 rad) is used by NATO and other military organizations in gunnery and targeting. Each angular mil represents of a circle and is % or 1.875% smaller than the milliradian. For the small angles typically found in targeting work, the convenience of using the number 6400 in calculation outweighs the small mathematical errors it introduces. In the past, other gunnery systems have used different approximations to ; for example Sweden used the "streck" and the USSR used . Being based on the milliradian, the NATO mil subtends roughly 1 m at a range of 1000 m (at such small angles, the curvature is negligible).
Smaller units like microradians (μrad) and nanoradians (nrad) are used in astronomy, and can also be used to measure the beam quality of lasers with ultra-low divergence. More common is arc second, which is rad (around 4.8481 microradians). Similarly, the prefixes smaller than milli- are potentially useful in measuring extremely small angles. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26003 |
Redshift (disambiguation)
Redshift is a phenomenon in physics, especially astrophysics
Redshift or red shift may also refer to: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26004 |
Mass racial violence in the United States
Mass racial violence in the United States, also called race riots, can include such disparate events as:
In the latter half of the 19th century California state and Federal authorities, incited aided and financed miners, settlers, ranchers and people's militias to enslave, kidnap, murder, and exterminate a major proportion of displaced Native American Indians. The latter were sometimes contemptuously referred to as "Diggers", for their practice of digging up roots to eat. Many of the same policies of violence were used here against the indigenous population as the United States had done throughout its territory.
California statehood, private militias, Federal reservations, and sections of the US Army all participated in a deliberate campaign to wipe out California Indians with the state and federal governments paying millions of dollar to militias who hunted and murdered Indians, Federal Reservations deliberately starving Indians to death by reducing caloric distribution to them from 480–910 to 160–390 and the U.S. Army killed 1,680 to 3,741 California Indians themselves. California governor Peter Burnett even predicted: "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected. While we cannot anticipate the result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert." Between 1850 and 1852 the state appropriated almost one million dollars for the activities of these militias, and between 1854 and 1859 the state appropriated another $500,000, almost half of which was reimbursed by the federal government. Numerous books have been written on the subject of the California Indian genocide such as "Genocide and Vendetta: The Round Valley Wars in Northern California" by Lynwood Carranco and Estle Beard, "Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846–1873" by Brendan C. Lindsay, and "An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846–1873" by Benjamin Madley among others. That last book by Madley caused California governor Jerry Brown to recognize the genocide. Even Guenter Lewy famous for the phrase: "In the end, the sad fate of America's Indians represents not a crime but a tragedy, involving an irreconcilable collision of cultures and values" concedes that what happened in California may constitute genocide: "some of the massacres in California, where both the perpetrators and their supporters openly acknowledged a desire to destroy the Indians as an ethnic entity, might indeed be regarded under the terms of the convention as exhibiting genocidal intent." In a speech before representatives of Native American peoples in June, 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom apologized for the genocide. Newsom said, "That's what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that's the way it needs to be described in the history books."
By one estimate, at least 4,500 California Indians were killed between 1849 and 1870. Contemporary historian Benjamin Madley has documented the numbers of California Indians killed between 1846 and 1873; he estimates that during this period at least 9,400 to 16,000 California Indians were killed by non-Indians. Most of the deaths took place in what he defined as more than 370 massacres (defined as the "intentional killing of five or more disarmed combatants or largely unarmed noncombatants, including women, children, and prisoners, whether in the context of a battle or otherwise"). Professor Ed Castillo, of Sonoma State University, estimates that more were killed: "The handiwork of these well armed death squads combined with the widespread random killing of Indians by individual miners resulted in the death of 100,000 Indians in the first two years of the gold rush."
Riots defined by "race" have taken place between ethnic groups in the United States since at least the 18th century and they may have also occurred before it. During the early-to-mid- 19th centuries, violent rioting occurred between Protestant "Nativists" and recently arrived Irish Catholic immigrants.
The San Francisco Vigilance Movements of 1851 and 1856 have been described as responses to rampant crime and government corruption. But, since the late 20th century, historians have noted that the vigilantes had a nativist bias; they systematically attacked Irish immigrants, and later they attacked Mexicans and Chileans who came as miners during the California Gold Rush, and Chinese immigrants. During the early 20th century, racial or ethnic violence was directed by whites against Filipinos, Japanese and Armenians in California, who had arrived in waves of immigration.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Italian immigrants were subject to racial violence. In 1891, eleven Italians were lynched by a mob of thousands in New Orleans. In the 1890s a total of twenty Italians were lynched in the South.
Immediately following the Civil War, political pressure from the North called for a full abolition of slavery. The South's lack of voting power led to the passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, which in theory gave African-American and other minority males equality and voting rights, along with abolishing slavery. Although the federal government originally kept troops in the South to protect these new freedoms, this time of progress was cut short.
By 1877 the North had lost its political will in the South and while slavery remained abolished, the Black Codes and segregation laws helped erase most of the freedoms passed by the 14th and 15th amendments. Through violent economic tactics and legal technicalities, African-Americans were forced into sharecropping and were gradually removed from the voting process.
Lynching, defined as "the killing of an individual or small group of individuals by a 'mob' of people" was a particular form of ritualistic murder, often involving the majority of the local white community. Lynching was sometimes announced in advance and became a spectacle for an audience to witness. Lynchings in the United States dropped in number from the 1880s to the 1920s, but there were still an average of about 30 lynchings per year during the 1920s. A study done of 100 lynchings from 1929 to 1940 discovered that at least one third of the victims were innocent of the crimes they were accused of.
Racial and ethnic cleansing took place on a large scale in this time period, particularly towards Native Americans, who were forced off their land and relocated to reservations. Along with Native Americans, Chinese Americans in the Pacific Northwest and African Americans throughout the United States were rounded up and expunged from towns under threat of mob rule, often intending to harm their targets.
Though the Roosevelt administration, under tremendous pressure, engaged in anti-racist propaganda and in some cases helped push for African-American employment, African Americans were still experiencing immense violence, particularly in the South. In March 1956, United States Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina created the Southern Manifesto, which promised to fight to keep Jim Crow alive by all legal means.
This continuation of support for Jim Crow and segregation laws led to protests in which many African-Americans were violently injured out in the open at lunchroom counters, buses, polling places and local public areas. These protests did not eviscerate racism, but it forced racism to become used in more coded or metaphorical language instead of being used out in the open.
Today racial violence has changed dramatically, as open violent acts of racism are rare, but acts of police brutality and the mass incarceration of racial minorities continues to be a major issue facing the United States. The War on Drugs has been noted as a direct cause for the dramatic increase in incarceration, which has risen from 300,000 to more than 2,000,000 from 1980 to 2000 in the nation's prison system, though it does not account for the disproportionate African American homicide and crime rate, which peaked before the War on Drugs began.
Like lynchings, race riots often had their roots in economic tensions or in white defense of the color line. In 1887, for example, ten thousand workers at sugar plantations in Louisiana, organized by the Knights of Labor, went on strike for an increase in their pay to $1.25 a day. Most of the workers were black, but some were white, infuriating Governor Samuel Douglas McEnery, who declared that "God Almighty has himself drawn the color line." The militia was called in, but withdrawn to give free rein to a lynch mob in Thibodaux. The mob killed between 20 and 300 blacks. A black newspaper described the scene:
'Six killed and five wounded' is what the daily papers here say, but from an eye witness to the whole transaction we learn that no less than thirty-five Negroes were killed outright. Lame men and blind women shot; children and hoary-headed grandsires ruthlessly swept down! The Negroes offered no resistance; they could not, as the killing was unexpected. Those of them not killed took to the woods, a majority of them finding refuge in this city.
In 1891, a mob lynched Joe Coe, a black worker in Omaha, Nebraska suspected of attacking a young white woman from South Omaha. Approximately 10,000 white people, mostly ethnic immigrants from South Omaha, reportedly swarmed the courthouse, setting it on fire. They took Coe from his jail cell, beating and then lynching him. Reportedly 6,000 people visited Coe's corpse during a public exhibition, at which pieces of the lynching rope were sold as souvenirs. This was a period when even officially sanctioned executions, such as hangings, were regularly conducted in public.
Labor and immigrant conflict was a source of tensions that catalyzed as the East St. Louis riot of 1917. White rioters, many of them ethnic immigrants, killed an estimated 100 black residents of East St. Louis, after black residents had killed two white policemen, mistaking the car they were riding in for a previous car of white occupants who drove through a black neighborhood and fired randomly into a crowd of black people . White-on-Black race riots include the Atlanta riots (1906), the Omaha and Chicago riots (1919), part of a series of riots in the volatile post-World War I environment, and the Tulsa massacre (1921).
The Chicago race riot of 1919 grew out of tensions on the Southside, where Irish descendants and African Americans competed for jobs at the stockyards, and where both were crowded into substandard housing. The Irish descendants had been in the city longer, and were organized around athletic and political clubs.
A young black Chicagoan, Eugene Williams, paddled a raft near a Southside Lake Michigan beach into "white territory", and drowned after being hit by a rock thrown by a young white man. Witnesses pointed out the killer to a policeman, who refused to make an arrest. An indignant black mob attacked the officer. Violence broke out across the city. White mobs, many of them organized around Irish athletic clubs, began pulling black people off trolley cars, attacking black businesses, and beating victims. Having learned from the East St. Louis riot, the city closed down the street car system, but the rioting continued. A total of 23 black people and 15 white people were killed.
The 1921 Tulsa race massacre was the result of economic competition, and white resentment of black successes in Greenwood, which was compared to Wall Street and filled with independent businesses. In the immediate event, black people resisted white people who tried to lynch 19-year-old Dick Rowland, who worked at shoeshines. Thirty-nine people (26 black, 13 white) were confirmed killed. An early 21st century investigation of these events has suggested that the number of casualties could be much higher. White mobs set fire to the black Greenwood district, destroying 1,256 homes and as many as 200 businesses. Fires leveled 35 blocks of residential and commercial neighborhood. Black people were rounded up by the Oklahoma National Guard and put into several internment centers, including a baseball stadium. White rioters in airplanes shot at black refugees and dropped improvised kerosene bombs and dynamite on them.
By the 1960s, decades of racial, economic, and political forces, which generated inner city poverty, resulted in race riots within minority areas in cities across the United States. The beating and rumored death of cab driver John Smith by police, sparked the 1967 Newark riots. This event became, per capita, one of the deadliest civil disturbances of the 1960s. The long and short term causes of the Newark riots are explored in depth in the documentary film "Revolution '67" and many news reports of the times. The riots in Newark spread across the United States in most major cities and over 100 deaths were reported. Many inner city neighborhoods in these cities were destroyed. The assassinations of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee and later of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles in 1968 also led to nationwide rioting across the country with similar mass deaths. During the same time period, and since then, violent acts committed against African-American churches and their members have been commonplace.
During the 1980s and '90s a number of riots occurred that were related to longstanding racial tensions between police and minority communities. The 1980 Miami riots were catalyzed by the killing of an African-American motorist by four white Miami-Dade Police officers. They were subsequently acquitted on charges of manslaughter and evidence tampering. Similarly, the six-day 1992 Los Angeles riots erupted after the acquittal of four white LAPD officers who had been filmed beating Rodney King, an African-American motorist. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, the Director of the Harlem-based Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture has identified more than 100 instances of mass racial violence in the United States since 1935 and has noted that almost every instance was precipitated by a police incident.
The Cincinnati riots of 2001 were caused by the killing of 19-year-old African-American Timothy Thomas by white police officer Stephen Roach, who was subsequently acquitted on charges of negligent homicide. The 2014 Ferguson unrest occurred against a backdrop of racial tension between police and the black community of Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the police shooting of Michael Brown; similar incidents elsewhere such as the shooting of Trayvon Martin sparked smaller and isolated protests. According to the Associated Press' annual poll of United States news directors and editors, the top news story of 2014 was police killings of unarmed black people, including Brown, as well as the investigations and the protests afterward. During the 2017 Unite the Right Rally, an attendee drove his car into a crowd of people protesting the rally, killing 32-year-old Heather D. Heyer and injuring 19 others, and was indicted on federal hate crime charges.
1985 Police bomb and murder peaceful organization MOVE in Philadelphia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26007 |
Robert Johnson
Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generations of musicians. He is now recognized as a master of the blues, particularly the Delta blues style.
As an itinerant performer who played mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances, Johnson had little commercial success or public recognition in his lifetime. He participated in only two recording sessions, one in San Antonio in 1936, and one in Dallas in 1937, that produced 29 distinct songs (with 13 surviving alternate takes) recorded by famed Country Music Hall of Fame producer Don Law. These songs, recorded at low fidelity in improvised studios, were the totality of his recorded output. Most were released as 10-inch, 78 rpm singles from , with a few released after his death. Other than these recordings, very little was known of him during his life outside of the small musical circuit in the Mississippi Delta where he spent most of his life; much of his story has been reconstructed after his death by researchers. Johnson's poorly documented life and death have given rise to much legend. The one most closely associated with his life is that he sold his soul to the devil at a local crossroads to achieve musical success.
His music had a small, but influential, following during his life and in the two decades after his death. In late 1938 John Hammond sought him out for a concert at Carnegie Hall, "From Spirituals to Swing", only to discover that Johnson had died. Brunswick Records, which owned the original recordings, was bought by Columbia Records, where Hammond was employed. Musicologist Alan Lomax went to Mississippi in 1941 to record Johnson, also not knowing of his death. Law, who by then worked for Columbia Records, assembled a collection of Johnson's recordings titled "King of the Delta Blues Singers" that was released by Columbia in 1961. It is widely credited with finally bringing Johnson's work to a wider audience. The album would become influential, especially on the nascent British blues movement; Eric Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived." Musicians such as Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and Robert Plant have cited both Johnson's lyrics and musicianship as key influences on their own work. Many of Johnson's songs have been covered over the years, becoming hits for other artists, and his guitar licks and lyrics have been borrowed by many later musicians.
Renewed interest in Johnson's work and life led to a burst of scholarship starting in the 1960s. Much of what is known about him was reconstructed by researchers such as Gayle Dean Wardlow and Bruce Conforth, especially in their 2019 award-winning biography of Johnson: "Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson" (Chicago Review Press). Two films, the 1991 documentary "The Search for Robert Johnson" by John Hammond, Jr., and a 1997 documentary, "Can't You Hear the Wind Howl, the Life and Music of Robert Johnson", which included reconstructed scenes with Keb' Mo' as Johnson, were attempts to document his life, and demonstrated the difficulties arising from the scant historical record and conflicting oral accounts.
Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first induction ceremony, in 1986, as an early influence on rock and roll. He was awarded a posthumous Grammy Award in 1991 for "The Complete Recordings", a 1990 compilation album. His single "Cross Road Blues" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and he was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. In 2003, David Fricke ranked Johnson fifth in "Rolling Stone" magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, possibly on May 8, 1911, to Julia Major Dodds (born October 1874) and Noah Johnson (born December 1884). Julia was married to Charles Dodds (born February 1865), a relatively prosperous landowner and furniture maker, with whom she had ten children. Charles Dodds had been forced by a lynch mob to leave Hazlehurst following a dispute with white landowners. Julia left Hazlehurst with baby Robert, but in less than two years she brought the boy to Memphis to live with her husband, who had changed his name to Charles Spencer. Robert spent the next 8–9 years growing up in Memphis and attending the Carnes Avenue Colored School where he received lessons in arithmetic, reading, language, music, geography, and physical exercise. It was in Memphis that he acquired his love for, and knowledge of, the blues and popular music. His education and urban context placed him apart from most of his contemporary blues musicians.
Robert rejoined his mother around 1919/20 after she married an illiterate sharecropper named Will "Dusty" Willis. They originally settled on a plantation in Lucas Township, Crittenden County, Arkansas, but soon moved across the Mississippi river to Commerce in the Mississippi Delta, near Tunica and Robinsonville. They lived on the Abbay & Leatherman Plantation. Julia's new husband was 24 years her junior. Robert was remembered by some residents as "Little Robert Dusty", but he was registered at Tunica's Indian Creek School as Robert Spencer. In the 1920 census, he is listed as Robert Spencer, living in Lucas, Arkansas, with Will and Julia Willis. Robert was at school in 1924 and 1927. The quality of his signature on his marriage certificate suggests that he was relatively well educated for a boy of his background. A school friend, Willie Coffee, who was interviewed and filmed in later life, recalled that as a youth Robert was already noted for playing the harmonica and jaw harp. Coffee recalled that Robert was absent for long periods, which suggests that he may have been living and studying in Memphis.
Once Julia informed Robert about his biological father Robert adopted the surname Johnson, using it on the certificate of his marriage to sixteen-year-old Virginia Travis in February 1929. She died in childbirth shortly after. Surviving relatives of Virginia told the blues researcher Robert "Mack" McCormick that this was a divine punishment for Robert's decision to sing secular songs, known as "selling your soul to the Devil". McCormick believed that Johnson himself accepted the phrase as a description of his resolve to abandon the settled life of a husband and farmer to become a full-time blues musician.
Around this time, the blues musician Son House moved to Robinsonville, where his musical partner Willie Brown lived. Late in life, House remembered Johnson as a "little boy" who was a competent harmonica player but an embarrassingly bad guitarist. Soon after, Johnson left Robinsonville for the area around Martinsville, close to his birthplace, possibly searching for his natural father. Here he perfected the guitar style of House and learned other styles from Isaiah "Ike" Zimmerman. Zimmerman was rumored to have learned supernaturally to play guitar by visiting graveyards at midnight.
When Johnson next appeared in Robinsonville, he seemed to have miraculously acquired a guitar technique. House was interviewed at a time when the legend of Johnson's pact with the devil was well known among blues researchers. He was asked whether he attributed Johnson's technique to this pact, and his equivocal answers have been taken as confirmation.
While living in Martinsville, Johnson fathered a child with Vergie Mae Smith. He married Caletta Craft in May 1931. In 1932, the couple settled for a while in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in the Delta, but Johnson soon left for a career as a "walking" or itinerant musician, and Caletta died in early 1933.
From 1932 until his death in 1938, Johnson moved frequently between the cities of Memphis and Helena, and the smaller towns of the Mississippi Delta and neighboring regions of Mississippi and Arkansas. On occasion, he traveled much further. The blues musician Johnny Shines accompanied him to Chicago, Texas, New York, Canada, Kentucky, and Indiana. Henry Townsend shared a musical engagement with him in St. Louis. In many places he stayed with members of his large extended family or with female friends. He did not marry again but formed some long-term relationships with women to whom he would return periodically. In other places he stayed with whatever woman he was able to seduce at his performance. In each location, Johnson's hosts were largely ignorant of his life elsewhere. He used different names in different places, employing at least eight distinct surnames.
Biographers have looked for consistency from musicians who knew Johnson in different contexts: Shines, who traveled extensively with him; Robert Lockwood, Jr., who knew him as his mother's partner; David "Honeyboy" Edwards, whose cousin Willie Mae Powell had a relationship with Johnson. From a mass of partial, conflicting, and inconsistent eyewitness accounts, biographers have attempted to summarize Johnson's character. "He was well mannered, he was soft spoken, he was indecipherable". "As for his character, everyone seems to agree that, while he was pleasant and outgoing in public, in private he was reserved and liked to go his own way". "Musicians who knew Johnson testified that he was a nice guy and fairly average—except, of course, for his musical talent, his weakness for whiskey and women, and his commitment to the road."
When Johnson arrived in a new town, he would play for tips on street corners or in front of the local barbershop or a restaurant. Musical associates have said that in live performances Johnson often did not focus on his dark and complex original compositions, but instead pleased audiences by performing more well-known pop standards of the day – and not necessarily blues. With an ability to pick up tunes at first hearing, he had no trouble giving his audiences what they wanted, and certain of his contemporaries later remarked on his interest in jazz and country music. He also had an uncanny ability to establish a rapport with his audience; in every town in which he stopped, he would establish ties to the local community that would serve him well when he passed through again a month or a year later.
Shines was 20 when he met Johnson in 1936. He estimated Johnson was maybe a year older than himself (Johnson was actually 4 years older). Shines is quoted describing Johnson in Samuel Charters's "Robert Johnson":
During this time Johnson established what would be a relatively long-term relationship with Estella Coleman, a woman about 15 years his senior and the mother of the blues musician Robert Lockwood, Jr. Johnson reportedly cultivated a woman to look after him in each town he played in. He reputedly asked homely young women living in the country with their families whether he could go home with them, and in most cases, he was accepted, until a boyfriend arrived or Johnson was ready to move on.
In 1941, Alan Lomax learned from Muddy Waters that Johnson had performed in the area around Clarksdale, Mississippi. By 1959, the historian Samuel Charters could add only that Will Shade, of the Memphis Jug Band, remembered Johnson had once briefly played with him in West Memphis, Arkansas. In the last year of his life, Johnson is believed to have traveled to St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and New York City. In 1938, Columbia Records producer John H. Hammond, who owned some of Johnson's records, directed the record producer Don Law seek out Johnson to book him for the first "From Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York. On learning of Johnson's death, Hammond replaced him with Big Bill Broonzy, but he played two of Johnson's records from the stage.
In Jackson, Mississippi, around 1936, Johnson sought out H. C. Speir, who ran a general store and also acted as a talent scout. Speir put Johnson in touch with Ernie Oertle, who, as a salesman for the ARC group of labels, introduced Johnson to Don Law to record his first sessions in San Antonio, Texas. The recording session was held on November 23–25, 1936, in room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, which Brunswick Records had set up to be a temporary recording studio. In the ensuing three-day session, Johnson played 16 selections and recorded alternate takes for most of them. He reportedly performed facing the wall, which has been cited as evidence he was a shy man and reserved performer. This conclusion was played up in the inaccurate liner notes of the 1961 album "King of the Delta Blues Singers". The slide guitarist Ry Cooder had speculated that Johnson played facing a corner to enhance the sound of the guitar, a technique he called "corner loading". This idea has been thoroughly debunked, however, and there is no evidence that Johnson ever recorded facing into an corner. This false notion came about from a misreading of the original notes from the session and from Frank Driggs liner notes for the first Johnson reissue.
Among the songs Johnson recorded in San Antonio were "Come On in My Kitchen", "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Cross Road Blues". The first to be released were "Terraplane Blues" and "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", probably the only recordings of his that he would live to hear. "Terraplane Blues" became a modest regional hit, selling 5,000 copies.
His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", was part of a cycle of spin-offs and response songs that began with Leroy Carr's "Mean Mistreater Mama" (1934). According to Elijah Wald, it was "the most musically complex in the cycle" and stood apart from most rural blues as a thoroughly composed lyric, rather than an arbitrary collection of more or less unrelated verses. In contrast to most Delta players, Johnson had absorbed the idea of fitting a composed song into the three minutes of a 78-rpm side. Most of Johnson's "somber and introspective" songs and performances come from his second recording session.
Johnson traveled to Dallas, Texas, for another recording session with Don Law in a makeshift studio at the Vitagraph (Warner Brothers) Building, at 508 Park Avenue, on June 19–20, 1937 where Brunswick Record Corporation was located on the third floor. Eleven records from this session would be released within the following year. Johnson did two takes of most of these songs, and recordings of those takes survived. Because of this, there is more opportunity to compare different performances of a single song by Johnson than for any other blues performer of his time and place. Johnson recorded almost half of the 29 songs that make up his entire discography in Dallas.
Johnson died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27, near Greenwood, Mississippi, of poisoning. He had been playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town about from Greenwood.
Johnson had been having an affair with a married woman named Beatrice Davis. While at a dance at a store called Three Forks just outside of Greenwood, her husband Ralph gave Johnson a bottle of whiskey containing dissolved mothballs. The drink was not intended to kill Johnson, but merely make him sick and teach him a lesson for having an affair with his wife. Johnson is reported to have begun feeling ill the evening after and had to be helped back to his room in the early morning hours. Over the next three days his condition steadily worsened. Witnesses reported that he died in a convulsive state of severe pain.
Ralph Davis was unaware that Johnson had been diagnosed with an ulcer a month before. The mothballs not only made him ill, but irritated his ulcer so much it made him vomit violently, rupturing the varices in his esophagus. This caused Johnson to hemorrhage and eventually bleed to death. Upon hearing of his death Johnson's half-sister Carrie Harris traveled to Greenwood from Memphis, had his body exhumed from the cheap pine box in which the county had buried him, and placed in a proper casket, reburied at the same site. She also requested an investigation to his death but nothing was discovered. The LeFlore County registrar, Cornelia Jordan, wrote the following note on the back of Johnson's death certificate:
The exact location of Johnson's grave is officially unknown; three different markers have been erected at possible sites in church cemeteries outside Greenwood.
John Hammond, Jr., in the documentary "The Search for Robert Johnson" (1991), suggests that owing to poverty and lack of transportation Johnson is most likely to have been buried in a pauper's grave (or "potter's field") very near where he died.
According to legend, as a young man living on a plantation in rural Mississippi, Johnson had a tremendous desire to become a great blues musician. One of the legends often told say that Johnson was instructed to take his guitar to a crossroad near Dockery Plantation at midnight. (There are claims for at least a dozen other sites as the location of the crossroads.) There he was met by a large black man (the Devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. The Devil played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. This story of a deal with the Devil at the crossroads mirrors the legend of Faust. In exchange for his soul, Johnson was able to create the blues for which he became famous.
This legend was developed over time and has been chronicled by Gayle Dean Wardlow, Edward Komara and Elijah Wald, who sees the legend as largely dating from Johnson's rediscovery by white fans more than two decades after his death. Son House once told the story to Pete Welding as an explanation of Johnson's astonishingly rapid mastery of the guitar. Welding reported it as a serious belief in a widely read article in "Down Beat" in 1966. Other interviewers failed to elicit any confirmation from House and there were fully two years between House's observation of Johnson as first a novice and then a master.
Further details were absorbed from the imaginative retellings by Greil Marcus and Robert Palmer. Most significantly, the detail was added that Johnson received his gift from a large black man at a crossroads. There is dispute as to how and when the crossroads detail was attached to the Robert Johnson story. All the published evidence, including a full chapter on the subject in the biography "Crossroads", by Tom Graves, suggests an origin in the story of the blues musician Tommy Johnson. This story was collected from his musical associate Ishman Bracey and his elder brother Ledell in the 1960s. One version of Ledell Johnson's account was published in David Evans's 1971 biography of Tommy Johnson, and was repeated in print in 1982 alongside House's story in the widely read "Searching for Robert Johnson", by Peter Guralnick.
In another version, Ledell placed the meeting not at a crossroads but in a graveyard. This resembles the story told to Steve LaVere that Ike Zimmerman of Hazlehurst, Mississippi, learned to play the guitar at midnight while sitting on tombstones. Zinnerman is believed to have influenced the playing of the young Johnson. Recent research by the blues scholar Bruce Conforth, in "Living Blues" magazine, makes the story clearer. Johnson and Ike Zimmerman did practice in a graveyard at night, because it was quiet and no one would disturb them, but it was not the Hazlehurst cemetery as had been believed: Zimmerman was not from Hazlehurst but nearby Beauregard, and he did not practice in one graveyard, but in several in the area. Johnson spent about a year living with and learning from Zimmerman, who ultimately accompanied Johnson back to the Delta to look after him. This entire episode of Johnson's life is heavily documented in the award-winning biography "Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson" by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow (Chicago Review Press: 2019).
While Dockery, Hazlehurst and Beauregard have each been claimed as the locations of the mythical crossroads, there are also tourist attractions claiming to be "The Crossroads" in both Clarksdale and Memphis. Residents of Rosedale, Mississippi, claim Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the intersection of Highways 1 and 8 in their town, while the 1986 movie "Crossroads" was filmed in Beulah, Mississippi. The blues historian Steve Cheseborough wrote that it may be impossible to discover the exact location of the mythical crossroads, because "Robert Johnson was a rambling guy".
See generally "Crossroads" main article, "blues songs" section.
Some scholars have argued that the devil in these songs may refer not only to the Christian figure of Satan but also to the African trickster god Legba, himself associated with crossroads. Folklorist Harry M. Hyatt wrote that, during his research in the South from 1935 to 1939, when African-Americans born in the 19th or early 20th century said they or anyone else had "sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads," they had a different meaning in mind. Hyatt claimed there was evidence indicating African religious retentions surrounding Legba and the making of a "deal" (not selling the soul in the same sense as in the Faustian tradition cited by Graves) with the so-called devil at the crossroads.
This view that the devil in Johnson's songs is derived from an African deity was disputed by the blues scholar David Evans in an essay published in 1999, "Demythologizing the Blues":
The musicologist Alan Lomax dismissed the myth, stating, "In fact, every blues fiddler, banjo picker, harp blower, piano strummer and guitar framer was, in the opinion of both himself and his peers, a child of the Devil, a consequence of the black view of the European dance embrace as sinful in the extreme".
Johnson is considered a master of the blues, particularly of the Delta blues style. Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stones, said in 1990, "You want to know how good the blues can get? Well, this is it". But according to Elijah Wald, in his book "Escaping the Delta", Johnson in his own time was most respected for his ability to play in a wide range of styles, from raw country slide guitar to jazz and pop licks, and for his ability to pick up guitar parts almost instantly upon hearing a song. His first recorded song, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues", in contrast to the prevailing Delta style of the time, more resembled the style of Chicago or St. Louis, with "a full-fledged, abundantly varied musical arrangement". Unusual for a Delta player of the time, a recording exhibits what Johnson could do entirely outside of a blues style. "They're Red Hot", from his first recording session, shows that he was also comfortable with an "uptown" swing or ragtime sound similar to that of the Harlem Hamfats, but as Wald remarked, "no record company was heading to Mississippi in search of a down-home Ink Spots ... [H]e could undoubtedly have come up with a lot more songs in this style if the producers had wanted them."
An important aspect of Johnson's singing was his use of microtonality. These subtle inflections of pitch help explain why his singing conveys such powerful emotion. Eric Clapton described Johnson's music as "the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice". In two takes of "Me and the Devil Blues" he shows a high degree of precision in the complex vocal delivery of the last verse: "The range of tone he can pack into a few lines is astonishing." The song's "hip humor and sophistication" is often overlooked. "[G]enerations of blues writers in search of wild Delta primitivism", wrote Wald, have been inclined to overlook or undervalue aspects that show Johnson as a polished professional performer.
Johnson is also known for using the guitar as "the other vocalist in the song", a technique later perfected by B. B. King and his personified guitar named Lucille: "In Africa and in Afro-American tradition, there is the tradition of the talking instrument, beginning with the drums ... the one-strand and then the six-strings with bottleneck-style performance; it becomes a competing voice ... or a complementary voice ... in the performance."
Johnson mastered the guitar, being considered today one of the all-time greats on the instrument. His approach was complex and musically advanced. When Keith Richards was first introduced to Johnson's music by his bandmate Brian Jones, he asked, "Who is the other guy playing with him?", not realizing it was Johnson playing one guitar. "I was hearing two guitars, and it took a long time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself", said Richards, who later stated that "Robert Johnson was like an orchestra all by himself". "As for his guitar technique, it's politely reedy but ambitiously eclectic—moving effortlessly from hen-picking and bottleneck slides to a full deck of chucka-chucka rhythm figures."
In "The Story with Dick Gordon", Bill Ferris, of American Public Media, said, "Robert Johnson I think of in the same way I think of the British Romantic poets, Keats and Shelley, who burned out early, who were geniuses at wordsmithing poetry ... The Blues, if anything, are deeply sexual. You know, 'my car doesn't run, I'm gonna check my oil' ... 'if you don't like my apples, don't shake my tree'. Every verse has sexuality associated with it."
In "The Guardian"s music blog from May 2010, Jon Wilde speculated without proof that Johnson's recordings may have been "accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78 [rpm records], or else were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting". He did not give a source for this statement. Biographer Elijah Wald and other musicologists dispute this hypothesis on various grounds, including that Johnson's extant recordings were made on five different days, spread across two years at two different studios, making uniform speed changes or malfunctions highly improbable. In addition, fellow musicians, contemporaries and family who worked with or witnessed Johnson perform spoke of his recordings for more than 70 years preceding Wilde's hypothesis without ever suggesting that the speed of his performances had been altered.
Johnson fused approaches specific to Delta blues to those from the broader music world. The slide guitar work on "Rambling on My Mind" is pure Delta and Johnson's vocal there has "a touch of ... Son House rawness", but the train imitation on the bridge is not at all typical of Delta blues—it is more like something out of minstrel show music or vaudeville. Johnson did record versions of "Preaching the Blues" and "Walking Blues" in the older bluesman's vocal and guitar style (House's chronology has been questioned by Guralnick). As with the first take of "Come On in My Kitchen", the influence of Skip James is evident in James's "Devil Got My Woman", but the lyrics rise to the level of first-rate poetry, and Johnson sings with a strained voice found nowhere else in his recorded output.
The sad, romantic "Love in Vain" successfully blends several of Johnson's disparate influences. The form, including the wordless last verse, follows Leroy Carr's last hit "When the Sun Goes Down"; the words of the last sung verse come directly from a song Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded in 1926. Johnson's last recording, "Milkcow's Calf Blues" is his most direct tribute to Kokomo Arnold, who wrote "Milkcow Blues" and influenced Johnson's vocal style.
"From Four Until Late" shows Johnson's mastery of a blues style not usually associated with the Delta. He croons the lyrics in a manner reminiscent of Lonnie Johnson, and his guitar style is more that of a ragtime-influenced player like Blind Blake. Lonnie Johnson's influence is even clearer in two other departures from the usual Delta style: "Malted Milk" and "Drunken Hearted Man". Both copy the arrangement of Lonnie Johnson's "Life Saver Blues". The two takes of "Me and the Devil Blues" show the influence of Peetie Wheatstraw, calling into question the interpretation of this piece as "the spontaneous heart-cry of a demon-driven folk artist".
Johnson has had enormous impact on music and musicians, but outside his own time and place and even the genre for which he was famous. His influence on contemporaries was much smaller, in part because he was an itinerant performer—playing mostly on street corners, in juke joints, and at Saturday night dances—who worked in a then undervalued style of music. He also died young after recording only a handful of songs. Johnson, though well-traveled and admired in his performances, was little noted in his lifetime, and his records were even less appreciated. "Terraplane Blues", sometimes described as Johnson's only hit record, outsold his others, but was still only a minor success.
If one had asked black blues fans about Johnson in the first 20 years after his death, writes Elijah Wald, "the response in the vast majority of cases would have been a puzzled 'Robert who?'" This lack of recognition extended to black musicians: "As far as the evolution of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor figure, and very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note". Columbia Records released the album "King of the Delta Blues Singers", a compilation of Johnson's recordings, in 1961, which introduced his work to a much wider audience—fame and recognition he received only long after his death.
Johnson was honored with two markers on the Mississippi Blues Trail, one at his birthplace in Hazlehurst and another at his presumed gravesite in Greenwood.
Johnson's greatest influence has been on genres of music that developed after his death: rock and roll and rock. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included four of his songs in a set of 500 they deemed to have shaped the genre:
Johnson recorded these songs a decade and a half before the advent of rock and roll, dying a year or two later. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him as an early influence in its first induction ceremony, in 1986, almost a half century after his death. Marc Meyers, of the "Wall Street Journal", wrote that "His 'Stop Breakin' Down Blues' from 1937 is so far ahead of its time that the song could easily have been a rock demo cut in 1954."
Many of the artists who claim to have been influenced by Johnson the most, injecting his revolutionary stylings into their work and recording tribute songs and collections, are prominent rock musicians from the United Kingdom. His impact on these musicians, who contributed to and helped to define rock and roll and rock music, came from the compilation of his works released in 1961 by Columbia Records ("King of the Delta Blues Singers").
Among the artists who cite Johnson as an influence:
Johnson's revolutionary guitar playing has led contemporary critics, assessing his talents through the handful of old recordings available, to rate him among the greatest guitar players of all time:
Musicians who proclaim Johnson's profound impact on them—including Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton—all rated in the top ten with him on each of these lists. The boogie bass line he fashioned for "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" has now passed into the standard guitar repertoire. At the time it was completely new, a guitarist's version of something people would otherwise have heard only from a piano. Reggie Ugwu in the New York Times said that Johnson, "imitating the boogie-woogie style of piano playing, used his guitar to play rhythm, bass and slide simultaneously, all while singing."
Until the 2019 publication of Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow's biography, "Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson", little of Johnson's early life was known. Two marriage licenses for Johnson have been located in county records offices. The ages given in these certificates point to different birth dates, but Conforth and Wardlow suggest that Johnson lied about his age in order to obtain a marriage licence. Carrie Thompson claimed that her mother, who was also Robert's mother, remembered his birth date as May 8, 1911. He was not listed among his mother's children in the 1910 census giving further credence to a 1911 birthdate. Although the 1920 census gives his age as 7, suggesting he was born in 1912 or 1913, the entry showing his attendance at Indian Creek School, in Tunica, Mississippi more accurately listed him as being 14 years old.
Five significant dates from his career are documented: Monday, Thursday and Friday, November 23, 26, and 27, 1936, at a recording session in San Antonio, Texas; and Saturday and Sunday, June 19 and 20, 1937, at a recording session in Dallas. His death certificate, discovered in 1968, lists the date and location of his death.
Johnson's records were admired by record collectors from the time of their first release, and efforts were made to discover his biography, with virtually no success. A relatively full account of Johnson's brief musical career emerged in the 1960s, largely from accounts by Son House, Johnny Shines, David Honeyboy Edwards and Robert Lockwood. In 1961, the sleeve notes to the album "King of the Delta Blues Singers" included reminiscences of Don Law who had recorded Johnson in 1936. Law added to the mystique surrounding Johnson, representing him as very young and extraordinarily shy.
The blues researcher Mack McCormick began researching his family background in 1972, but died in 2015 without ever publishing his findings. McCormick's research eventually became as much a legend as Johnson himself. In 1982, McCormick permitted Peter Guralnick to publish a summary in "Living Blues" (1982), later reprinted in book form as "Searching for Robert Johnson". Later research has sought to confirm this account or to add minor details. A revised summary acknowledging major informants was written by Stephen LaVere for the booklet accompanying the compilation album "Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings" (1990), and is maintained with updates at the Delta Haze website. The documentary film "The Search for Robert Johnson" contains accounts by McCormick and Wardlow of what informants have told them: long interviews of David "Honeyboy" Edwards and Johnny Shines and short interviews of surviving friends and family. Another film, "Can't You Hear the Wind Howl: The Life and Music of Robert Johnson," combines documentary segments with recreated scenes featuring Keb' Mo' as Johnson with narration by Danny Glover. Shines, Edwards and Robert Lockwood contribute interviews. These published biographical sketches achieve coherent narratives, partly by ignoring reminiscences and hearsay accounts which contradict or conflict with other accounts.
Until the 1980s, it was believed that no images of Johnson had survived. However, three images of Johnson were located in 1972 and 1973, in the possession of his half-sister Carrie Thompson. Two of these, known as the "dime-store photo" (early 1930s) and the "studio portrait" (1935), were copyrighted by Stephen LaVere (who had obtained them from the Thompson family) in 1986 and 1989, respectively, with an agreement to share any ensuing royalties 50% with the Johnson estate, at that time administered by Thompson. The "dime-store photo" was first published, almost in passing, in an issue of Rolling Stone magazine in 1986, and the studio portrait in a 1989 article by Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow in "78 Quarterly". Both were subsequently featured prominently in the printed materials associated with the 1990 CBS box set of the "complete" Johnson recordings, as well as being widely republished since that time. Because Mississippi courts in 1998 determined that Robert Johnson's heir was Claud Johnson, a son born out of wedlock, the "estate share" of all monies paid to LaVere by CBS and others ended up going to Claud Johnson, and attempts by the heirs of Carrie Thompson to obtain a ruling that the photographs were her personal property and not part of the estate were dismissed. In his book "Searching for Robert Johnson", Peter Guralnick stated that the blues archivist Mack McCormick showed him a photograph of Johnson with his nephew Louis, probably taken at the same time as the famous "pinstripe suit" photograph, showing Louis dressed in his United States Navy uniform; this picture, along with the "studio portrait", were both lent by Carrie Thompson to McCormick in 1972. This photograph has never been made public.
Another photograph, purporting to show Johnson posing with the blues musician Johnny Shines, was published in the November 2008 issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine. Its authenticity was claimed by the forensic artist Lois Gibson and by Johnson's estate in 2013, but has been disputed by some music historians, including Elijah Wald, Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow, who considered that the clothing suggests a date after Johnson's death and that the photograph may have been reversed and retouched. Further, both David "Honeyboy" Edwards and Robert Lockwood failed to identify either man in the photo. Facial recognition software concluded that neither man was Johnson or Shines. Finally, Gibson claimed the photo was from 1933-34 while it is now known that Johnson did not meet Shines until early 1937. In December 2015, a fourth photograph was published, purportedly showing Johnson, his wife Calletta Craft, Estella Coleman, and Robert Lockwood Jr. This photograph was also declared authentic by Lois Gibson, but her identification of Johnson has been dismissed by other facial recognition experts and blues historians. There are a number of glaring errors in this photo: it has been proven that Craft died before Johnson met Coleman, the clothing could not be prior to the late 1940s, the furniture is from the 1950s, the Coca-Cola bottle cannot be from prior to 1950, etc..
A third photograph of Johnson, this time smiling, was published in 2020. It is believed to have been taken in Memphis on the same occasion as the verified photograph of him with a guitar and cigarette (part of the "dime-store" set), and is in the possession of Annye Anderson, Johnson's step-sister (Anderson is the daughter of Charles Dodds, later Spencer, who was married to Robert's mother but was not his father). As a child, Anderson grew up in the same family as Johnson and has claimed to have been present, aged 10 or 11, on the occasion the photograph was taken. This photograph was published in "Vanity Fair" in May 2020, as the cover image for a book, "Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson", written by Anderson in collaboration with author Preston Lauterbach, and is considered to be authentic by Johnson scholar Elijah Wald.
Johnson left no will. In 1998, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that Claud Johnson, a retired truck driver living in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, was the son of Robert Johnson and his only heir. The court heard that he had been born to Virgie Jane Smith (later Virgie Jane Cain), who had a relationship with Robert Johnson in 1931. The relationship was attested to by a friend, Eula Mae Williams, but other relatives descended from Robert Johnson's half-sister, Carrie Harris Thompson, contested Claud Johnson's claim. The effect of the judgment was to allow Claud Johnson to receive over $1 million in royalties. Claud Johnson died, aged 83, on June 30, 2015, leaving six children.
The "Radiolab" podcast "Crossroads", broadcast initially April 16, 2012, on NPR, raises the possibility that more than one Robert Johnson was traveling around the region making music at the time of the subject's life — perhaps confusing related biographical information. This would not be surprising, however, since blues musicians from this time often claimed they were someone else. Robert Johnson even occasionally claimed to be Lonnie Johnson.
Eleven 78-rpm records by Johnson were released by Vocalion Records during his lifetime. A twelfth was issued posthumously. Johnson's estate holds the copyrights to his songs.
In 1961, Columbia Records released "King of the Delta Blues Singers" on vinyl, the album representing the first modern-era release of Johnson's performances, which started the "re-discovery" of Johnson as blues artist.
Columbia Records issued a second volume, "King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. II", in 1970.
"The Complete Recordings", a two-disc set, released on August 28, 1990, contains almost everything Johnson recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes. (Another alternate take of "Traveling Riverside Blues" which was released by Sony on the CD "King of the Delta Blues Singers" and was included in early printings of the paperback edition of Elijah Wald's "Escaping the Delta".)
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Johnson's birth, May 8, 2011, Sony Legacy released "Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection", a re-mastered 2-CD set of all 42 of his recordings and two brief fragments, one of Johnson practicing a guitar figure and the other of Johnson saying, presumably to engineer Don Law, "I wanna go on with our next one myself." Reviewers commented that the sound quality of the 2011 release was a substantial improvement on the 1990 release.
The National Recording Preservation Board added "The Complete Recordings" to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2003. The board annually selects songs that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" for inclusion in the Registry.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included four songs by Johnson in its list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". A memorial to him reads, "Robert Johnson stands at the crossroads of American music, much as a popular folk legend has it he once stood at Mississippi crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for guitar-playing prowess.
On September 17, 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a Robert Johnson 29-cent commemorative postage stamp.
Tribute albums to Robert Johnson include the following: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26010 |
Receptive aphasia
Wernicke's aphasia, also known as receptive aphasia, sensory aphasia or posterior aphasia, is a type of aphasia in which individuals have difficulty understanding written and spoken language. Patients with Wernicke's aphasia demonstrate fluent speech, which is characterized by typical speech rate, intact syntactic abilities and effortless speech output. Writing often reflects speech in that it tends to lack content or meaning. In most cases, motor deficits (i.e. hemiparesis) do not occur in individuals with Wernicke's aphasia. Therefore, they may produce a large amount of speech without much meaning. Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia are typically unaware of their errors in speech and do not realize their speech may lack meaning. They typically remain unaware of even their most profound language deficits.
Like many acquired language disorders, Wernicke's aphasia can be experienced in many different ways and to many different degrees. Patients diagnosed with Wernicke's aphasia can show severe language comprehension deficits; however, this is dependent on the severity and extent of the lesion. Severity levels may range from being unable to understand even the simplest spoken and/or written information to missing minor details of a conversation. Many diagnosed with Wernicke's aphasia have difficulty with repetition in words and sentences and/or working memory.
Wernicke's aphasia was named after German physician Carl Wernicke, who is credited with discovering the area of the brain responsible for language comprehension (Wernicke's area).
The following are common symptoms seen in patients with Wernicke's aphasia:
"Impaired comprehension": deficits in understanding (receptive) written and spoken language. This is because Wernicke's area is responsible for assigning meaning to the language that is heard, so if it is damaged, the brain cannot comprehend the information that is being received.
"Poor word retrieval": ability to retrieve target words is impaired. This is also referred to as "anomia".
"Fluent speech": individuals with Wernicke's aphasia do not have difficulty with producing connected speech that flows. Although the connection of the words may be appropriate, the words they are using may not belong together or make sense (see "Production of jargon" below).
"Production of jargon": speech that lacks content, consists of typical intonation, and is structurally intact. Jargon can consist of a string of neologisms, as well as a combination of real words that do not make sense together in context. May include word salads.
"Awareness": Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia are often not aware of their incorrect productions, which would further explain why they do not correct themselves when they produce jargon, paraphasias, or neologisms.
"Paraphasias":
"Neologisms": nonwords that have no relation to the target word.
"Circumlocution": talking around the target word.
"Press of speech": run-on speech.
"Lack of hemiparesis": typically, no motor deficits are seen with a localized lesion in Wernicke's area.
"Reduced retention span": reduced ability to retain information for extended periods of time.
"Impairments in reading and writing": impairments can be seen in both reading and writing with differing severity levels.
How to differentiate from other types of aphasia
The most common cause of Wernicke's aphasia is stroke. Strokes may occur when blood flow to the brain is completely interrupted or severely reduced. This has a direct effect on the amount of oxygen and nutrients being able to supply the brain, which causes brain cells to die within minutes. The primary classifications of stroke are hemorrhagic (ruptured blood vessel), or ischemic (blood clot reduces or completely stops blood flow). Two of the most common types of hemorrhagic stroke are subarachnoid hemorrhage and intracerebral hemorrhage. Subarachnoid hemorrhage is when an artery near the surface of the brain bursts causing blood to leak into the space between the brain and skull. Meanwhile intracerebral hemorrhage occurs when a blood vessel inside the brain bursts, causing spillage into surrounding brain tissue. Three main causes of these hemorrhagic strokes are hypertension (uncontrolled high blood pressure), aneurisms (weak spots in blood vessel walls), and arteriovenous malformations (rupture of abnormal tangle of thin-walled blood vessels). As previously noted the other major classification for a stroke is an ischemic stroke. The ischemic strokes, which are the most common form of stroke, are further broken down and can be classified as embolic or thrombotic. Embolic strokes occur when a blood clot forms away from the brain, typically in the heart. A small portion of this clot breaks away and travels through the blood vessels until eventually reaching a small enough vessel in the brain that it can no longer pass through, causing a blockage. Thrombotic strokes on the other hand are due to the formation of a blood clot directly formed in one of the arteries that supply the brain. In general, stroke is the number one leading cause of disability worldwide.,
"The middle cerebral arteries supply blood to the cortical areas involved in speech, language and swallowing. The left middle cerebral artery provides Broca's area, Wernicke's area, Heschl's gyrus, and the angular gyrus with blood". Therefore, in patients with Wernicke's aphasia, there is typically an occlusion to the left middle cerebral artery.
As a result of the occlusion in the left middle cerebral artery, Wernicke's aphasia is most commonly caused by a lesion in the posterior superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area). This area is posterior to the primary auditory cortex (PAC) which is responsible for decoding individual speech sounds. Wernicke's primary responsibility is to assign meaning to these speech sounds. The extent of the lesion will determine the severity of the patients deficits related to language. Damage to the surrounding areas (perisylvian region) may also result in Wernicke's aphasia symptoms due to variation in individual neuroanatomical structure and any co-occurring damage in adjacent areas of the brain.
"Aphasia is usually first recognized by the physician who treats the person for his or her brain injury. Most individuals will undergo a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scan to confirm the presence of a brain injury and to identify its precise location." In circumstances where a person is showing possible signs of aphasia, the physician will refer him or her to a speech-language pathologist (SLP) for a comprehensive speech and language evaluation. SLPs will examine the individual's ability to express him or herself through speech, understand language in written and spoken forms, write independently, and perform socially.
The American Speech, Language, Hearing Association (ASHA) states a comprehensive assessment should be conducted in order to analyze the patient's communication functioning on multiple levels; as well as the effect of possible communication deficits on activities of daily living. Typical components of an aphasia assessment include: case history, self report, oral-motor examination, language skills, identification of environmental and personal factors, and the assessment results. A comprehensive aphasia assessment includes both formal and informal measures.
Formal assessments:
Informal assessments:
Informal assessments aide in the diagnosis of patients with suspected aphasia.
Diagnostic information should be scored and analyzed appropriately. Treatment plans and individual goals should be developed based on diagnostic information, as well as patient and caregiver needs, desires, and priorities.
According to Bates et al. (2005), "the primary goal of rehabilitation is to prevent complications, minimize impairments, and maximize function". The topics of intensity and timing of intervention are widely debated across various fields. Results are contradictory: some studies indicate better outcomes with early intervention, while other studies indicate starting therapy too early may be detrimental to the patient's recovery. Recent research suggests, that therapy be functional and focus on communication goals that are appropriate for the patient's individual lifestyle.
Specific treatment considerations for working with individuals with Wernicke's aphasia (or those who exhibit deficits in auditory comprehension) include using familiar materials, using shorter and slower utterances when speaking, giving direct instructions, and using repetition as needed.
Neuroplasticity: Role in Recovery
Neuroplasticity is defined as the brain's ability to reorganize itself, lay new pathways, and rearrange existing ones, as a result of experience. Neuronal changes after damage to the brain such as collateral sprouting, increased activation of the homologous areas, and map extension demonstrate the brain's neuroplastic abilities. According to Thomson, "Portions of the right hemisphere, extended left brain sites, or both have been shown to be recruited to perform language functions after brain damage. All of the neuronal changes recruit areas not originally or directly responsible for large portions of linguistic processing. Principles of neuroplasticity have been proven effective in neurorehabilitation after damage to the brain. These principles include: incorporating multiple modalities into treatment to create stronger neural connections, using stimuli that evoke positive emotion, linking concepts with simultaneous and related presentations, and finding the appropriate intensity and duration of treatment for each individual patient.
Auditory comprehension is a primary focus in treatment for Wernicke's aphasia, as it is the main deficit related to this diagnosis. Therapy activities may include:
Anomia is consistently seen in aphasia, so many treatment techniques aim to help patients with word finding problems. One example of a semantic approach is referred to as semantic feature analyses. The process includes naming the target object shown in the picture and producing words that are semantically related to the target. Through production of semantically similar features, participants develop more skilled in naming stimuli due to the increase in lexical activation.
Neuroplasticity is a central component to restorative therapy to compensate for brain damage. This approach is especially useful in Wernicke's aphasia patients that have suffered from a stroke to the left brain hemisphere.
"Schuell's stimulation approach" is a main method in traditional aphasia therapy that follows principles to retrieve function in the auditory modality of language and influence surrounding regions through stimulation. The guidelines to have the most effective stimulation are as follows:
Auditory stimulation of language should be intensive and always present when other language modalities are stimulated.
Schuell’s stimulation utilizes stimulation through therapy tasks beginning at a simplified task and progressing to become more difficult including:
The social approach involves a collaborative effort on behalf of patients and clinicians to determine goals and outcomes for therapy that could improve the patient's quality of life. A conversational approach is thought to provide opportunities for development and the use of strategies to overcome barriers to communication. The main goals of this treatment method are to improve the patient's conversational confidence and skills in natural contexts using conversational coaching, supported conversations, and partner training.
Additionally, it is important to include the families of patients with aphasia in treatment programs. Clinicians can teach family members how to support one another, and how to adjust their speaking patterns to facilitate their loved one's treatment and rehabilitation.
Prognosis is strongly dependent on the location and extent of the lesion (damage) to the brain. Many personal factors also influence how a person will recover, which include age, previous medical history, level of education, gender, and motivation. All of these factors influence the brain's ability to adapt to change, restore previous skills, and learn new skills. It is important to remember that all the presentations of Receptive Aphasia may vary. The presentation of symptoms and prognosis are both dependent on personal components related to the individual's neural organization before the stroke, the extent of the damage, and the influence of environmental and behavioral factors after the damage occurs. The quicker a diagnosis of a stroke is made by a medical team, the more positive the patient's recovery may be. A medical team will work to control the signs and symptoms of the stroke and rehabilitation therapy will begin to manage and recover lost skills. The rehabilitation team may consist of a certified speech-language pathologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, and the family or caregivers. The length of therapy will be different for everyone, but research suggests that intense therapy over a short amount of time can improve outcomes of speech and language therapy for patients with aphasia. Research is not suggesting the only way therapy should be administered, but gives insight on how therapy affects the patient's prognosis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26011 |
Rehoboam
Rehoboam (; Hebrew: רְחַבְעָם, "Reḥav'am"; Greek: Ροβοαμ, "Rovoam"; ) was the first king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was a son of and the successor to Solomon and a grandson of David. In the account of I Kings and II Chronicles, he was initially king of the United Monarchy of Israel, but after the ten northern tribes of Israel rebelled in 932/931 BC to form the independent Northern Kingdom of Israel, under the rule of Jeroboam, Rehoboam remained as king only of the Kingdom of Judah, or southern kingdom.
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, "Solomon's wisdom and power were not sufficient to prevent the rebellion of several of his border cities. Damascus under Rezon secured its independence [from] Solomon; and Jeroboam, a superintendent of works, his ambition stirred by the words of the prophet Ahijah (), fled to Egypt. Thus before the death of Solomon, the apparently unified kingdom of David began to disintegrate. With Damascus independent and a powerful man of Ephraim, the most prominent of the Ten Tribes, awaiting his opportunity, the future of Solomon's kingdom became dubious".
According to , Solomon had broken the mandate of the Torah by marrying foreign wives and being influenced by them, worshipping and building shrines to the Moabite and Ammonite gods.
Rehoboam's mother, Naamah, was an Ammonitess, and thus one of the foreign wives whom Solomon married. In the Revised Version she is referred to as "" the" Ammonitess".
Conventional biblical chronology dates the start of Rehoboam's reign to the mid-10th century BC. His reign is described in and and in in the Hebrew Bible. Rehoboam was 41 years old (16 in Chapter 12 of Kings III in the Septuagint) when he ascended the throne.
The assembly for the coronation of Solomon's successor, Rehoboam, was called at Shechem, the one sacredly historic city within the territory of the Ten Tribes. Before the coronation took place the assembly requested certain reforms in the policy followed by Rehoboam's father, Solomon. The reforms requested would materially reduce the royal exchequer and hence its power to continue the magnificence of Solomon's court. The older men counselled Rehoboam at least to speak to the people in a civil manner (it is not clear whether they counselled him to accept the demands). However, the new king sought the advice from the young men he had grown up with, who advised the king to show no weakness to the people, and to tax them even more, which Rehoboam did.
Although the ostensible reason was the heavy burden laid upon Israel because of Solomon's great outlay for buildings and for the luxury of all kinds, the other reasons include the historical opposition between the north and the south. The two sections had acted independently until David, by his victories, succeeded in uniting all the tribes, though the Ephraimitic jealousy was ever ready to develop into open revolt. Religious considerations were also operative. The building of the Temple was a severe blow for the various sanctuaries scattered through the land, and the priests of the high places probably supported the revolt. Josephus (Ant., VIII., viii. 3) has the rebels exclaim: "We leave to Rehoboam the Temple his father built."
Jeroboam and the people rebelled, with the ten northern tribes breaking away and forming a separate kingdom. The new breakaway kingdom continued to be called Kingdom of Israel, and was also known as Samaria, or Ephraim or the northern kingdom. The realm Rehoboam was left with was called Kingdom of Judah.
During Rehoboam's 17-year reign, he retained Jerusalem as Judah's capital but
Rehoboam went to war against the new Kingdom of Israel with a force of 180,000 soldiers. However, he was advised against fighting his brethren, and so returned to Jerusalem. The narrative reports that Israel and Judah were in a state of war throughout his 17-year reign.
In the fifth year of Rehoboam's reign, Shishak, king of Egypt, brought a huge army and took many cities. According to Joshua, son of Nadav, the mention in 2 Chronicles 11, 6 sqq., that Rehoboam built fifteen fortified cities, indicates that the attack was not unexpected. The account in Chronicles states that Shishak marched with 1,200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen and troops who came with him from Egypt: Libyans, Sukkites, and Kushites. Shishak's armies captured all of the fortified towns leading to Jerusalem between Gezer and Gibeon. When they laid siege to Jerusalem, Rehoboam gave Shishak all of the treasures out of the temple as a tribute. The Egyptian campaign cut off trade with south Arabia via Elath and the Negev that had been established during Solomon's reign. Judah became a vassal state of Egypt.
Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines. They bore him 28 sons and 60 daughters. His wives included Mahalath, the daughter of Jerimoth the son of David, and Abihail, the daughter of Eliab the son of Jesse. His sons with Mahalath were Jeush, Shemariah, and Zaham. After Mahalath he married his cousin Maacah, daughter of Absalom, David's son. His sons with Maacah were Abijah, Attai, Ziza, and Shelomith. The names of his other wives, sons and all his daughters are not given.
Rehoboam reigned for 17 years. When he died he was buried beside his ancestors in Jerusalem. He was succeeded by his son Abijah.
The fact that Rehoboam, the son of King Solomon, was born of an Ammonite woman (I Kings, xiv. 21-31) also made it difficult to maintain the Messianic claims of the house of David; but it was adduced as an illustration of divine Providence which selected the "two doves," Ruth, the Moabite, and Naamah, the Ammonitess, for honourable distinction (B. Ḳ. 38b). Naamah An Ammonitess; one of Solomon's wives and mother of Rehoboam (I Kings xiv. 21, 31; II Chron. xii. 13). In the second Greek account (I Kings xii. 24) Naamah is said to have been the daughter of Hanun (Ἄνα), son of Nahash, a king of Ammon (II Sam. x. 1-4). Naamah is praised, in B. Ḳ. 38b, for her righteousness, on account of which Moses had previously been warned by God not to make war upon the Ammonites (comp. Deut. ii. 19), as Naamah was to descend from them.
Rehoboam was the son of an Ammonite woman; and when David praised God because it was permissible to marry Ammonites and Moabites, he held the child upon his knees, giving thanks for himself as well as for Rehoboam, since this permission was of advantage to them both (Yeb. 77a). Rehoboam was stricken with a running sore as a punishment for the curse which David had invoked upon Joab (II Sam. iii. 29) when he prayed that Joab's house might forever be afflicted with leprosy and running sores (Sanh. 48b). All the treasures which Israel had brought from Egypt were kept until the Egyptian king Shishak (I Kings xiv. 25, 26) took them from Rehoboam (Pes. 119a).
Using the information in Kings and Chronicles, Edwin Thiele has calculated the date for the division of the kingdom is 931–930 BC. Thiele noticed that for the first seven kings of Israel (ignoring Zimri's inconsequential seven-day reign), the synchronisms to Judean kings fell progressively behind by one year for each king. Thiele saw this as evidence that the northern kingdom was measuring the years by a non-accession system (first partial year of reign was counted as year one), whereas the southern kingdom was using the accession method (it was counted as year zero). Once this was understood, the various reign lengths and cross-synchronisms for these kings were worked out, and the sum of reigns for both kingdoms produced 931/930 BC for the division of the kingdom when working backwards from the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. According to newer chronologists such as Gershon Galil and Kenneth Kitchen, however, the values are 931 BC for the beginning of the coregency and 915/914 BC for Rehoboam's death.
One episode which the Bible places during the reign of Rehoboam, and which is confirmed by the records from the Bubastite Portal in Karnak and another archaeological find (without the specific mention of the name Rehoboam), is the Egyptian invasion of Judea by the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I, who is identified by many with the biblical King Shishak. One of the most difficult issues in identifying Shishak with Shoshenq I is the biblical statement that "King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He seized the treasures of the Lord's temple and the royal palace" (), making this Shoshenq's biggest prize, whereas the Bubastite Portal lists do not include Jerusalem or any city from central Judea among the surviving names in the list of Shoshenq's conquests.
In Westworld (TV series), Rehoboam is the name of a powerful AI operated by Incite Inc. It is the successor of another powerful AI called Solomon. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26022 |
RS-232
In telecommunications, RS-232, Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a "DTE" ("data terminal equipment") such as a computer terminal, and a "DCE" ("data circuit-terminating equipment" or "data communication equipment"), such as a modem. The standard defines the electrical characteristics and timing of signals, the meaning of signals, and the physical size and pinout of connectors. The current version of the standard is "TIA-232-F Interface Between Data Terminal Equipment and Data Circuit-Terminating Equipment Employing Serial Binary Data Interchange", issued in 1997. The RS-232 standard had been commonly used in computer serial ports and is still widely used in industrial communication devices.
A serial port complying with the RS-232 standard was once a standard feature of many types of computers. Personal computers used them for connections not only to modems, but also to printers, computer mice, data storage, uninterruptible power supplies, and other peripheral devices.
RS-232, when compared to later interfaces such as RS-422, RS-485 and Ethernet, has lower transmission speed, short maximum cable length, large voltage swing, large standard connectors, no multipoint capability and limited multidrop capability. In modern personal computers, USB has displaced RS-232 from most of its peripheral interface roles. Few computers come equipped with RS-232 ports today, so one must use either an external USB-to-RS-232 converter or an internal expansion card with one or more serial ports to connect to RS-232 peripherals. Nevertheless, thanks to their simplicity and past ubiquity, RS-232 interfaces are still used—particularly in industrial machines, networking equipment, and scientific instruments where a short-range, point-to-point, low-speed wired data connection is fully adequate.
The Electronic Industries Association (EIA) standard RS-232-C as of 1969 defines:
The standard does not define such elements as the character encoding (i.e. ASCII, EBCDIC, or others), the framing of characters (start or stop bits, etc.), transmission order of bits, or error detection protocols. The character format and transmission bit rate are set by the serial port hardware, typically a UART, which may also contain circuits to convert the internal logic levels to RS-232 compatible signal levels. The standard does not define bit rates for transmission, except that it says it is intended for bit rates lower than 20,000 bits per second.
RS-232 was first introduced in 1960 by the Electronic Industries Association (EIA) as a "Recommended Standard". The original DTEs were electromechanical teletypewriters, and the original DCEs were (usually) modems. When electronic terminals (smart and dumb) began to be used, they were often designed to be interchangeable with teletypewriters, and so supported RS-232.
Because the standard did not foresee the requirements of devices such as computers, printers, test instruments, POS terminals, and so on, designers implementing an RS-232 compatible interface on their equipment often interpreted the standard idiosyncratically. The resulting common problems were non-standard pin assignment of circuits on connectors, and incorrect or missing control signals. The lack of adherence to the standards produced a thriving industry of breakout boxes, patch boxes, test equipment, books, and other aids for the connection of disparate equipment. A common deviation from the standard was to drive the signals at a reduced voltage. Some manufacturers therefore built transmitters that supplied +5 V and −5 V and labeled them as "RS-232 compatible".
Later personal computers (and other devices) started to make use of the standard so that they could connect to existing equipment. For many years, an RS-232-compatible port was a standard feature for serial communications, such as modem connections, on many computers (with the computer acting as the DTE). It remained in widespread use into the late 1990s. In personal computer peripherals, it has largely been supplanted by other interface standards, such as USB. RS-232 is still used to connect older designs of peripherals, industrial equipment (such as PLCs), console ports, and special purpose equipment.
The standard has been renamed several times during its history as the sponsoring organization changed its name, and has been variously known as EIA RS-232, EIA 232, and, most recently as TIA 232. The standard continued to be revised and updated by the Electronic Industries Association and since 1988 by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). Revision C was issued in a document dated August 1969. Revision D was issued in 1986. The current revision is "TIA-232-F Interface Between Data Terminal Equipment and Data Circuit-Terminating Equipment Employing Serial Binary Data Interchange", issued in 1997. Changes since Revision C have been in timing and details intended to improve harmonization with the CCITT standard V.24, but equipment built to the current standard will interoperate with older versions.
Related ITU-T standards include V.24 (circuit identification) and V.28 (signal voltage and timing characteristics).
In revision D of EIA-232, the D-subminiature connector was formally included as part of the standard (it was only referenced in the appendix of RS-232-C). The voltage range was extended to ±25 volts, and the circuit capacitance limit was expressly stated as 2500 pF. Revision E of EIA-232 introduced a new, smaller, standard D-shell 26-pin "Alt A" connector, and made other changes to improve compatibility with CCITT standards V.24, V.28 and ISO 2110.
Specification document revision history:
Because RS-232 is used beyond the original purpose of interconnecting a terminal with a modem, successor standards have been developed to address the limitations. Issues with the RS-232 standard include:
In the book "PC 97 Hardware Design Guide", Microsoft deprecated support for the RS-232 compatible serial port of the original IBM PC design. Today, RS-232 has mostly been replaced in personal computers by USB for local communications. Advantages compared to RS-232 are that USB is faster, uses lower voltages, and has connectors that are simpler to connect and use. Disadvantages of USB compared to RS-232 are that USB is far less immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and that maximum cable length is much shorter (15 meters for RS-232 v.s. 3 - 5 meters for USB depending on USB speed used).
In fields such as laboratory automation or surveying, RS-232 devices may continue to be used. Some types of programmable logic controllers, variable-frequency drives, servo drives, and computerized numerical control equipment are programmable via RS-232. Computer manufacturers have responded to this demand by re-introducing the DE-9M connector on their computers or by making adapters available.
RS-232 ports are also commonly used to communicate to headless systems such as servers, where no monitor or keyboard is installed, during boot when operating system is not running yet and therefore no network connection is possible. A computer with an RS-232 serial port can communicate with the serial port of an embedded system (such as a router) as an alternative to monitoring over Ethernet.
In RS-232, user data is sent as a time-series of bits. Both synchronous and asynchronous transmissions are supported by the standard. In addition to the data circuits, the standard defines a number of control circuits used to manage the connection between the DTE and DCE. Each data or control circuit only operates in one direction, that is, signaling from a DTE to the attached DCE or the reverse. Because transmit data and receive data are separate circuits, the interface can operate in a full duplex manner, supporting concurrent data flow in both directions. The standard does not define character framing within the data stream, or character encoding.
The RS-232 standard defines the voltage levels that correspond to logical one and logical zero levels for the data transmission and the control signal lines. Valid signals are either in the range of +3 to +15 volts or the range −3 to −15 volts with respect to the "Common Ground" (GND) pin; consequently, the range between −3 to +3 volts is not a valid RS-232 level. For data transmission lines (TxD, RxD, and their secondary channel equivalents), logic one is represented as a negative voltage and the signal condition is called "mark". Logic zero is signaled with a positive voltage and the signal condition is termed "space". Control signals have the opposite polarity: the asserted or active state is positive voltage and the de-asserted or inactive state is negative voltage. Examples of control lines include request to send (RTS), clear to send (CTS), data terminal ready (DTR), and data set ready (DSR).
The standard specifies a maximum open-circuit voltage of 25 volts: signal levels of ±5 V, ±10 V, ±12 V, and ±15 V are all commonly seen depending on the voltages available to the line driver circuit. Some RS-232 driver chips have inbuilt circuitry to produce the required voltages from a 3 or 5 volt supply. RS-232 drivers and receivers must be able to withstand indefinite short circuit to ground or to any voltage level up to ±25 volts. The slew rate, or how fast the signal changes between levels, is also controlled.
Because the voltage levels are higher than logic levels typically used by integrated circuits, special intervening driver circuits are required to translate logic levels. These also protect the device's internal circuitry from short circuits or transients that may appear on the RS-232 interface, and provide sufficient current to comply with the slew rate requirements for data transmission.
Because both ends of the RS-232 circuit depend on the ground pin being zero volts, problems will occur when connecting machinery and computers where the voltage between the ground pin on one end, and the ground pin on the other is not zero. This may also cause a hazardous ground loop. Use of a common ground limits RS-232 to applications with relatively short cables. If the two devices are far enough apart or on separate power systems, the local ground connections at either end of the cable will have differing voltages; this difference will reduce the noise margin of the signals. Balanced, differential serial connections such as RS-422 or RS-485 can tolerate larger ground voltage differences because of the differential signaling.
Unused interface signals terminated to ground will have an undefined logic state. Where it is necessary to permanently set a control signal to a defined state, it must be connected to a voltage source that asserts the logic 1 or logic 0 level, for example with a pullup resistor. Some devices provide test voltages on their interface connectors for this purpose.
RS-232 devices may be classified as Data Terminal Equipment (DTE) or Data Circuit-terminating Equipment (DCE); this defines at each device which wires will be sending and receiving each signal. According to the standard, male connectors have DTE pin functions, and female connectors have DCE pin functions. Other devices may have any combination of connector gender and pin definitions. Many terminals were manufactured with female connectors but were sold with a cable with male connectors at each end; the terminal with its cable satisfied the recommendations in the standard.
The standard recommends the D-subminiature 25-pin connector up to revision C, and makes it mandatory as of revision D. Most devices only implement a few of the twenty signals specified in the standard, so connectors and cables with fewer pins are sufficient for most connections, more compact, and less expensive. Personal computer manufacturers replaced the DB-25M connector with the smaller DE-9M connector. This connector, with a different pinout (see Serial port pinouts), is prevalent for personal computers and associated devices.
Presence of a 25-pin D-sub connector does not necessarily indicate an RS-232-C compliant interface. For example, on the original IBM PC, a male D-sub was an RS-232-C DTE port (with a non-standard current loop interface on reserved pins), but the female D-sub connector on the same PC model was used for the parallel "Centronics" printer port. Some personal computers put non-standard voltages or signals on some pins of their serial ports.
The standard does not define a maximum cable length, but instead defines the maximum capacitance that a compliant drive circuit must tolerate. A widely used rule of thumb indicates that cables more than long will have too much capacitance, unless special cables are used. By using low-capacitance cables, communication can be maintained over larger distances up to about . For longer distances, other signal standards, such as RS-422, are better suited for higher speeds.
Since the standard definitions are not always correctly applied, it is often necessary to consult documentation, test connections with a breakout box, or use trial and error to find a cable that works when interconnecting two devices. Connecting a fully standard-compliant DCE device and DTE device would use a cable that connects identical pin numbers in each connector (a so-called "straight cable"). "Gender changers" are available to solve gender mismatches between cables and connectors. Connecting devices with different types of connectors requires a cable that connects the corresponding pins according to the table below. Cables with 9 pins on one end and 25 on the other are common. Manufacturers of equipment with 8P8C connectors usually provide a cable with either a DB-25 or DE-9 connector (or sometimes interchangeable connectors so they can work with multiple devices). Poor-quality cables can cause false signals by crosstalk between data and control lines (such as Ring Indicator).
If a given cable will not allow a data connection, especially if a gender changer is in use, a null modem cable may be necessary. Gender changers and null modem cables are not mentioned in the standard, so there is no officially sanctioned design for them.
A minimal "3-wire" RS-232 connection consisting only of transmit data, receive data, and ground, is commonly used when the full facilities of RS-232 are not required. Even a two-wire connection (data and ground) can be used if the data flow is one way (for example, a digital postal scale that periodically sends a weight reading, or a GPS receiver that periodically sends position, if no configuration via RS-232 is necessary). When only hardware flow control is required in addition to two-way data, the RTS and CTS lines are added in a 5-wire version.
The following table lists commonly used RS-232 signals (called "circuits" in the specifications) and their pin assignments on the recommended DB-25 connectors. (See Serial port pinouts for other commonly used connectors not defined by the standard.)
The signals are named from the standpoint of the DTE. The ground pin is a common return for the other connections, and establishes the "zero" voltage to which voltages on the other pins are referenced. The DB-25 connector includes a second "protective ground" on pin 1; this is connected internally to equipment frame ground, and should not be connected in the cable or connector to signal ground.
"Ring Indicator" (RI) is a signal sent from the DCE to the DTE device. It indicates to the terminal device that the phone line is ringing. In many computer serial ports, a hardware interrupt is generated when the RI signal changes state. Having support for this hardware interrupt means that a program or operating system can be informed of a change in state of the RI pin, without requiring the software to constantly "poll" the state of the pin. RI does not correspond to another signal that carries similar information the opposite way.
On an external modem the status of the Ring Indicator pin is often coupled to the "AA" (auto answer) light, which flashes if the RI signal has detected a ring. The asserted RI signal follows the ringing pattern closely, which can permit software to detect distinctive ring patterns.
The Ring Indicator signal is used by some older uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) to signal a power failure state to the computer.
Certain personal computers can be configured for wake-on-ring, allowing a computer that is suspended to answer a phone call.
The Request to Send (RTS) and Clear to Send (CTS) signals were originally defined for use with half-duplex (one direction at a time) modems such as the Bell 202. These modems disable their transmitters when not required and must transmit a synchronization preamble to the receiver when they are re-enabled. The DTE asserts RTS to indicate a desire to transmit to the DCE, and in response the DCE asserts CTS to grant permission, once synchronization with the DCE at the far end is achieved. Such modems are no longer in common use. There is no corresponding signal that the DTE could use to temporarily halt incoming data from the DCE. Thus RS-232's use of the RTS and CTS signals, per the older versions of the standard, is asymmetric.
This scheme is also employed in present-day RS-232 to RS-485 converters. RS-485 is a multiple-access bus on which only one device can transmit at a time, a concept that is not provided for in RS-232. The RS-232 device asserts RTS to tell the converter to take control of the RS-485 bus so that the converter, and thus the RS-232 device, can send data onto the bus.
Modern communications environments use full-duplex (both directions simultaneously) modems. In that environment, DTEs have no reason to deassert RTS. However, due to the possibility of changing line quality, delays in processing of data, etc., there is a need for symmetric, bidirectional flow control.
A symmetric alternative providing flow control in both directions was developed and marketed in the late 1980s by various equipment manufacturers. It redefined the RTS signal to mean that the DTE is ready to receive data from the DCE. This scheme was eventually codified in version RS-232-E (actually TIA-232-E by that time) by defining a new signal, "RTR (Ready to Receive)", which is CCITT V.24 circuit 133. TIA-232-E and the corresponding international standards were updated to show that circuit 133, when implemented, shares the same pin as RTS (Request to Send), and that when 133 is in use, RTS is assumed by the DCE to be asserted at all times.
In this scheme, commonly called "RTS/CTS flow control" or "RTS/CTS handshaking" (though the technically correct name would be "RTR/CTS"), the DTE asserts RTR whenever it is ready to receive data from the DCE, and the DCE asserts CTS whenever it is ready to receive data from the DTE. Unlike the original use of RTS and CTS with half-duplex modems, these two signals operate independently from one another. This is an example of hardware flow control. However, "hardware flow control" in the description of the options available on an RS-232-equipped device does not always mean RTS/CTS handshaking.
Equipment using this protocol must be prepared to buffer some extra data, since the remote system may have begun transmitting just before the local system deasserts RTR.
The EIA-232 standard specifies connections for several features that are not used in most implementations. Their use requires 25-pin connectors and cables.
The DTE or DCE can specify use of a "high" or "low" signaling rate. The rates, as well as which device will select the rate, must be configured in both the DTE and DCE. The prearranged device selects the high rate by setting pin 23 to ON.
Many DCE devices have a loopback capability used for testing. When enabled, signals are echoed back to the sender rather than being sent on to the receiver. If supported, the DTE can signal the local DCE (the one it is connected to) to enter loopback mode by setting pin 18 to ON, or the remote DCE (the one the local DCE is connected to) to enter loopback mode by setting pin 21 to ON. The latter tests the communications link, as well as both DCEs. When the DCE is in test mode, it signals the DTE by setting pin 25 to ON.
A commonly used version of loopback testing does not involve any special capability of either end. A hardware loopback is simply a wire connecting complementary pins together in the same connector (see "loopback").
Loopback testing is often performed with a specialized DTE called a bit error rate tester (or BERT).
Some synchronous devices provide a clock signal to synchronize data transmission, especially at higher data rates. Two timing signals are provided by the DCE on pins 15 and 17. Pin 15 is the transmitter clock, or send timing (ST); the DTE puts the next bit on the data line (pin 2) when this clock transitions from OFF to ON (so it is stable during the ON to OFF transition when the DCE registers the bit). Pin 17 is the receiver clock, or receive timing (RT); the DTE reads the next bit from the data line (pin 3) when this clock transitions from ON to OFF.
Alternatively, the DTE can provide a clock signal, called transmitter timing (TT), on pin 24 for transmitted data. Data is changed when the clock transitions from OFF to ON, and read during the ON to OFF transition. TT can be used to overcome the issue where ST must traverse a cable of unknown length and delay, clock a bit out of the DTE after another unknown delay, and return it to the DCE over the same unknown cable delay. Since the relation between the transmitted bit and TT can be fixed in the DTE design, and since both signals traverse the same cable length, using TT eliminates the issue. TT may be generated by looping ST back with an appropriate phase change to align it with the transmitted data. ST loop back to TT lets the DTE use the DCE as the frequency reference, and correct the clock to data timing.
Synchronous clocking is required for such protocols as SDLC, HDLC, and X.25.
A secondary data channel, identical in capability to the primary channel, can optionally be implemented by the DTE and DCE devices. Pin assignments are as follows:
Other serial signaling standards may not interoperate with standard-compliant RS-232 ports. For example, using the TTL levels of near +5 and 0 V puts the mark level in the undefined area of the standard. Such levels are sometimes used with GPS receivers and depth finders.
A 20 mA current loop uses the absence of 20 mA current for high, and the presence of current in the loop for low; this signaling method is often used for long-distance and optically isolated links. Connection of a current-loop device to a compliant RS-232 port requires a level translator. Current-loop devices can supply voltages in excess of the withstand voltage limits of a compliant device. The original IBM PC serial port card implemented a 20 mA current-loop interface, which was never emulated by other suppliers of plug-compatible equipment.
Other serial interfaces similar to RS-232:
When developing or troubleshooting systems using RS-232, close examination of hardware signals can be important to find problems. A simple indicator device uses LEDs to show the high/low state of data or control pins. Y cables may be used to allow using another serial port to monitor all traffic on one direction. A serial line analyzer is a device similar to a logic analyzer but specialized for RS-232's voltage levels, connectors, and, where used, clock signals. The serial line analyzer can collect, store, and display the data and control signals, allowing developers to view them in detail. Some simply display the signals as waveforms; more elaborate versions include the ability to decode characters in ASCII or other common codes and to interpret common protocols used over RS-232 such as SDLC, HDLC, DDCMP, and X.25. Serial line analyzers are available as standalone units, as software and interface cables for general-purpose logic analyzers and oscilloscopes, and as programs that run on common personal computers and devices. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26023 |
Running
Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is in contrast to walking, where one foot is always in contact with the ground, the legs are kept mostly straight and the center of gravity vaults over the stance leg or legs in an inverted pendulum fashion. A feature of a running body from the viewpoint of spring-mass mechanics is that changes in kinetic and potential energy within a stride occur simultaneously, with energy storage accomplished by springy tendons and passive muscle elasticity. The term running can refer to any of a variety of speeds ranging from jogging to sprinting.
Running in humans is associated with improved health and life expectancy.
It is assumed that the ancestors of humankind developed the ability to run for long distances about 2.6 million years ago, probably in order to hunt animals. Competitive running grew out of religious festivals in various areas. Records of competitive racing date back to the Tailteann Games in Ireland between 632 BCE and 1171 BCE, while the first recorded Olympic Games took place in 776 BCE. Running has been described as the world's most accessible sport.
It is thought that human running evolved at least four and a half million years ago out of the ability of the ape-like Australopithecus, an early ancestor of humans, to walk upright on two legs.
Early humans most likely developed into endurance runners from the practice of persistence hunting of animals, the activity of following and chasing until a prey is too exhausted to flee, succumbing to "chase myopathy" (Sears 2001), and that human features such as the nuchal ligament, abundant sweat glands, the Achilles tendons, big knee joints and muscular glutei maximi, were changes caused by this type of activity (Bramble & Lieberman 2004, et al.). The theory as first proposed used comparative physiological evidence and the natural habits of animals when running, indicating the likelihood of this activity as a successful hunting method. Further evidence from observation of modern-day hunting practice also indicated this likelihood (Carrier et al. 1984).
According to Sears (p. 12) scientific investigation (Walker & Leakey 1993) of the Nariokotome Skeleton provided further evidence for the Carrier theory.
Competitive running grew out of religious festivals in various areas such as Greece, Egypt, Asia, and the East African Rift in Africa. The Tailteann Games, an Irish sporting festival in honor of the goddess Tailtiu, dates back to 1829 BCE, and is one of the earliest records of competitive running. The origins of the Olympics and Marathon running are shrouded by myth and legend, though the first recorded games took place in 776 BCE. Running in Ancient Greece can be traced back to these games of 776 BCE.
Running gait can be divided into two phases in regard to the lower extremity: stance and swing. These can be further divided into absorption, propulsion, initial swing and terminal swing. Due to the continuous nature of running gait, no certain point is assumed to be the beginning. However, for simplicity, it will be assumed that absorption and footstrike mark the beginning of the running cycle in a body already in motion.
Footstrike occurs when a plantar portion of the foot makes initial contact with the ground. Common footstrike types include forefoot, midfoot and heel strike types. These are characterized by initial contact of the ball of the foot, ball and heel of the foot simultaneously and heel of the foot respectively. During this time the hip joint is undergoing extension from being in maximal flexion from the previous swing phase. For proper force absorption, the knee joint should be flexed upon footstrike and the ankle should be slightly in front of the body. Footstrike begins the absorption phase as forces from initial contact are attenuated throughout the lower extremity. Absorption of forces continues as the body moves from footstrike to midstance due to vertical propulsion from the toe-off during a previous gait cycle.
Midstance is defined as the time at which the lower extremity limb of focus is in knee flexion directly underneath the trunk, pelvis and hips. It is at this point that propulsion begins to occur as the hips undergo hip extension, the knee joint undergoes extension and the ankle undergoes plantar flexion. Propulsion continues until the leg is extended behind the body and toe off occurs. This involves maximal hip extension, knee extension and plantar flexion for the subject, resulting in the body being pushed forward from this motion and the ankle/foot leaves the ground as initial swing begins.
Most recent research, particularly regarding the footstrike debate, has focused solely on the absorption phases for injury identification and prevention purposes. The propulsion phase of running involves the movement beginning at midstance until toe off. From a full stride length model however, components of the terminal swing and footstrike can aid in propulsion.
Set up for propulsion begins at the end of terminal swing as the hip joint flexes, creating the maximal range of motion for the hip extensors to accelerate through and produce force. As the hip extensors change from reciporatory inhibitors to primary muscle movers, the lower extremity is brought back toward the ground, although aided greatly by the stretch reflex and gravity. Footstrike and absorption phases occur next with two types of outcomes. This phase can be only a continuation of momentum from the stretch reflex reaction to hip flexion, gravity and light hip extension with a heel strike, which does little to provide force absorption through the ankle joint. With a mid/forefoot strike, loading of the gastro-soleus complex from shock absorption will serve to aid in plantar flexion from midstance to toe-off.
As the lower extremity enters midstance, true propulsion begins. The hip extensors continue contracting along with help from the acceleration of gravity and the stretch reflex left over from maximal hip flexion during the terminal swing phase. Hip extension pulls the ground underneath the body, thereby pulling the runner forward. During midstance, the knee should be in some degree of knee flexion due to elastic loading from the absorption and footstrike phases to preserve forward momentum. The ankle joint is in dorsiflexion at this point underneath the body, either elastically loaded from a mid/forefoot strike or preparing for stand-alone concentric plantar flexion.
All three joints perform the final propulsive movements during toe-off. The plantar flexors plantar flex, pushing off from the ground and returning from dorsiflexion in midstance. This can either occur by releasing the elastic load from an earlier mid/forefoot strike or concentrically contracting from a heel strike. With a forefoot strike, both the ankle and knee joints will release their stored elastic energy from the footstrike/absorption phase. The quadriceps group/knee extensors go into full knee extension, pushing the body off of the ground. At the same time, the knee flexors and stretch reflex pull the knee back into flexion, adding to a pulling motion on the ground and beginning the initial swing phase. The hip extensors extend to maximum, adding the forces pulling and pushing off of the ground. The movement and momentum generated by the hip extensors also contributes to knee flexion and the beginning of the initial swing phase.
Initial swing is the response of both stretch reflexes and concentric movements to the propulsion movements of the body. Hip flexion and knee flexion occur beginning the return of the limb to the starting position and setting up for another footstrike. Initial swing ends at midswing, when the limb is again directly underneath the trunk, pelvis and hip with the knee joint flexed and hip flexion continuing. Terminal swing then begins as hip flexion continues to the point of activation of the stretch reflex of the hip extensors. The knee begins to extend slightly as it swings to the anterior portion of the body. The foot then makes contact with the ground with footstrike, completing the running cycle of one side of the lower extremity.
Each limb of the lower extremity works opposite to the other. When one side is in toe-off/propulsion, the other hand is in the swing/recovery phase preparing for footstrike. Following toe-off and the beginning of the initial swing of one side, there is a flight phase where neither extremity is in contact with the ground due to the opposite side finishing terminal swing. As the footstrike of the one hand occurs, initial swing continues. The opposing limbs meet with one in midstance and midswing, beginning the propulsion and terminal swing phases.
Upper extremity function serves mainly in providing balance in conjunction with the opposing side of the lower extremity. The movement of each leg is paired with the opposite arm which serves to counterbalance the body, particularly during the stance phase. The arms move most effectively (as seen in elite athletes) with the elbow joint at an approximately 90 degrees or less, the hands swinging from the hips up to mid chest level with the opposite leg, the Humerus moving from being parallel with the trunk to approximately 45 degrees shoulder extension (never passing the trunk in flexion) and with as little movement in the transverse plane as possible. The trunk also rotates in conjunction with arm swing. It mainly serves as a balance point from which the limbs are anchored. Thus trunk motion should remain mostly stable with little motion except for slight rotation as excessive movement would contribute to transverse motion and wasted energy.
Recent research into various forms of running has focused on the differences, in the potential injury risks and shock absorption capabilities between heel and mid/forefoot footstrikes. It has been shown that heel striking is generally associated with higher rates of injury and impact due to inefficient shock absorption and inefficient biomechanical compensations for these forces. This is due to forces from a heel strike traveling through bones for shock absorption rather than being absorbed by muscles. Since bones cannot disperse forces easily, the forces are transmitted to other parts of the body, including ligaments, joints and bones in the rest of the lower extremity all the way up to the lower back. This causes the body to use abnormal compensatory motions in an attempt to avoid serious bone injuries. These compensations include internal rotation of the tibia, knee and hip joints. Excessive amounts of compensation over time have been linked to higher risk of injuries in those joints as well as the muscles involved in those motions. Conversely, a mid/forefoot strike has been associated with greater efficiency and lower injury risk due to the triceps surae being used as a lever system to absorb forces with the muscles eccentrically rather than through the bone. Landing with a mid/forefoot strike has also been shown to not only properly attenuate shock but allows the triceps surae to aid in propulsion via reflexive plantarflexion after stretching to absorb ground contact forces. Thus a mid/forefoot strike may aid in propulsion.
However, even among elite athletes there are variations in self selected footstrike types. This is especially true in longer distance events, where there is a prevalence of heel strikers. There does tend however to be a greater percentage of mid/forefoot striking runners in the elite fields, particularly in the faster racers and the winning individuals or groups. While one could attribute the faster speeds of elite runners compared to recreational runners with similar footstrikes to physiological differences, the hip and joints have been left out of the equation for proper propulsion. This brings up the question as to how heel striking elite distance runners are able to keep up such high paces with a supposedly inefficient and injurious foot strike technique.
Biomechanical factors associated with elite runners include increased hip function, use and stride length over recreational runners. An increase in running speeds causes increased ground reaction forces and elite distance runners must compensate for this to maintain their pace over long distances.
These forces are attenuated through increased stride length via increased hip flexion and extension through decreased ground contact time and more force being used in propulsion. With increased propulsion in the horizontal plane, less impact occurs from decreased force in the vertical plane. Increased hip flexion allows for increased use of the hip extensors through midstance and toe-off, allowing for more force production.
The difference even between world-class and national-level 1500-m runners has been associated with more efficient hip joint function. The increase in velocity likely comes from the increased range of motion in hip flexion and extension, allowing for greater acceleration and velocity. The hip extensors and hip extension have been linked to more powerful knee extension during toe-off, which contributes to propulsion.
Stride length must be properly increased with some degree of knee flexion maintained through the terminal swing phases, as excessive knee extension during this phase along with footstrike has been associated with higher impact forces due to braking and an increased prevalence of heel striking. Elite runners tend to exhibit some degree of knee flexion at footstrike and midstance, which first serves to eccentrically absorb impact forces in the quadriceps muscle group. Secondly it allows for the knee joint to concentrically contract and provides major aid in propulsion during toe-off as the quadriceps group is capable of produce large amounts of force.
Recreational runners have been shown to increase stride length through increased knee extension rather than increased hip flexion as exhibited by elite runners, which serves instead to provide an intense braking motion with each step and decrease the rate and efficiency of knee extension during toe-off, slowing down speed. Knee extension however contributes to additional stride length and propulsion during toe-off and is seen more frequently in elite runners as well.
Leaning forward places a runner's center of mass on the front part of the foot, which avoids landing on the heel and facilitates the use of the spring mechanism of the foot. It also makes it easier for the runner to avoid landing the foot in front of the center of mass and the resultant braking effect. While upright posture is essential, a runner should maintain a relaxed frame and use their core to keep posture upright and stable. This helps prevent injury as long as the body is neither rigid nor tense. The most common running mistakes are tilting the chin up and scrunching shoulders.
Exercise physiologists have found that the stride rates are extremely consistent across professional runners, between 185 and 200 steps per minute. The main difference between long- and short-distance runners is the length of stride rather than the rate of stride.
During running, the speed at which the runner moves may be calculated by multiplying the cadence (steps per minute) by the stride length. Running is often measured in terms of pace in minutes per mile or kilometer. Different types of stride are necessary for different types of running. When sprinting, runners stay on their toes bringing their legs up, using shorter and faster strides. Long distance runners tend to have more relaxed strides that vary.
While there exists the potential for injury while running (just as there is in any sport), there are many benefits. Some of these benefits include potential weight loss, improved cardiovascular and respiratory health (reducing the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases), improved cardiovascular fitness, reduced total blood cholesterol, strengthening of bones (and potentially increased bone density), possible strengthening of the immune system and an improved self-esteem and emotional state. Running, like all forms of regular exercise, can effectively slow or reverse the effects of aging. Even people who have already experienced a heart attack are 20% less likely to develop serious heart problems if more engaged in running or any type of aerobic activity.
Although an optimal amount of vigorous aerobic exercise such as running might bring benefits related to lower cardiovascular disease and life extension, an excessive dose (e.g., marathons) might have an opposite effect associated with cardiotoxicity.
Running can assist people in losing weight, staying in shape and improving body composition. Research suggests that the person of average weight will burn approximately 100 calories per mile run. Running increases one's metabolism, even after running; one will continue to burn an increased level of calories for a short time after the run. Different speeds and distances are appropriate for different individual health and fitness levels. For new runners, it takes time to get into shape. The key is consistency and a slow increase in speed and distance. While running, it is best to pay attention to how one's body feels. If a runner is gasping for breath or feels exhausted while running, it may be beneficial to slow down or try a shorter distance for a few weeks. If a runner feels that the pace or distance is no longer challenging, then the runner may want to speed up or run farther.
Running can also have psychological benefits, as many participants in the sport report feeling an elated, euphoric state, often referred to as a "runner's high". Running is frequently recommended as therapy for people with clinical depression and people coping with addiction. A possible benefit may be the enjoyment of nature and scenery, which also improves psychological well-being (see Ecopsychology § Practical benefits).
In animal models, running has been shown to increase the number of newly created neurons within the brain. This finding could have significant implications in aging as well as learning and memory. A recent study published in "Cell Metabolism" has also linked running with improved memory and learning skills.
Running is an effective way to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and tension. It helps people who struggle with seasonal affective disorder by running outside when it's sunny and warm. Running can improve mental alertness and also improves sleep, which is needed for good mental health. Both research and clinical experience have shown that exercise can be a treatment for serious depression and anxiety even some physicians prescribe exercise to most of their patients. Running can have a longer lasting effect than anti-depressants.
Many injuries are associated with running because of its high-impact nature. Change in running volume may lead to development of patellofemoral pain syndrome, iliotibial band syndrome, patellar tendinopathy, plica syndrome, and medial tibial stress syndrome. Change in running pace may cause Achilles Tendinitis, gastrocnemius injuries, and plantar fasciitis. Repetitive stress on the same tissues without enough time for recovery or running with improper form can lead to many of the above. Runners generally attempt to minimize these injuries by warming up before exercise, focusing on proper running form, performing strength training exercises, eating a well balanced diet, allowing time for recovery, and "icing" (applying ice to sore muscles or taking an ice bath).
Some runners may experience injuries when running on concrete surfaces. The problem with running on concrete is that the body adjusts to this flat surface running, and some of the muscles will become weaker, along with the added impact of running on a harder surface. Therefore, it is advised to change terrain occasionally – such as trail, beach, or grass running. This is more unstable ground and allows the legs to strengthen different muscles. Runners should be wary of twisting their ankles on such terrain. Running downhill also increases knee stress and should, therefore, be avoided. Reducing the frequency and duration can also prevent injury.
Barefoot running has been promoted as a means of reducing running related injuries, but this remains controversial and a majority of professionals advocate the wearing of appropriate shoes as the best method for avoiding injury. However, a study in 2013 concluded that wearing neutral shoes is not associated with increased injuries.
Another common, running-related injury is chafing, caused by repetitive rubbing of one piece of skin against another, or against an article of clothing. One common location for chafe to occur is the runner's upper thighs. The skin feels coarse and develops a rash-like look. A variety of deodorants and special anti-chafing creams are available to treat such problems. Chafe is also likely to occur on the nipple. There are a variety of home remedies that runners use to deal with chafing while running such as band-aids and using grease to reduce friction. Prevention is key which is why form fitting clothes are important.
An iliotibial band is a muscle and tendon that is attached to the hip and runs the length of the thigh to attach to the upper part of the tibia, and the band is what helps the knee to bend. This is an injury that is located at the knee and shows symptoms of swelling outside the knee. Iliotibial band syndrome is also known as "runner's knee" or "jogger's knee" because it can be caused by jogging or running. Once pain or swelling is noticeable it is important to put ice on it immediately and it's recommended to rest the knee for better healing. Most knee injuries can be treated by light activity and much rest for the knee. In more serious cases, arthroscopy is the most common to help repair ligaments but severe situations reconstructive surgery would be needed. A survey was taken in 2011 with knee injuries being 22.7% of the most common injuries.
A more known injury is medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS) which is the accurate name for shin splints. This is caused during running when the muscle is being overused along the front of the lower leg with symptoms that affect 2 to 6 inches of the muscle. Shin Splints have sharp, splinter-like pain, that is typically X-rayed by doctors but is not necessary for shin splints to be diagnosed. To help prevent shin splints it's commonly known to stretch before and after a workout session, and also avoid heavy equipment especially during the first couple of workout sessions. Also to help prevent shin splints don't increase the intensity of a workout more than 10% a week. To treat shin splints it's important to rest with the least amount of impact on your legs and apply ice to the area. A survey showed that shin splints 12.7% of the most common injuries in running with blisters being the top percentage at 30.9%.
Running is both a competition and a type of training for sports that have running or endurance components. As a sport, it is split into events divided by distance and sometimes includes permutations such as the obstacles in steeplechase and hurdles. Running races are contests to determine which of the competitors is able to run a certain distance in the shortest time. Today, competitive running events make up the core of the sport of athletics. Events are usually grouped into several classes, each requiring substantially different athletic strengths and involving different tactics, training methods, and types of competitors.
Running competitions have probably existed for most of humanity's history and were a key part of the ancient Olympic Games as well as the modern Olympics. The activity of running went through a period of widespread popularity in the United States during the running boom of the 1970s. Over the next two decades, as many as 25 million Americans were doing some form of running or jogging – accounting for roughly one tenth of the population. Today, road racing is a popular sport among non-professional athletes, who included over 7.7 million people in America alone in 2002.
Footspeed, or sprint speed, is the maximum speed at which a human can run. It is affected by many factors, varies greatly throughout the population, and is important in athletics and many sports.
The fastest human footspeed on record is 44.7 km/h (12.4 m/s, 27.8 mph), seen during a 100-meter sprint (average speed between the 60th and the 80th meter) by Usain Bolt.
Track running events are individual or relay events with athletes racing over specified distances on an oval running track. The events are categorized as sprints, middle and long-distance, and hurdling.
Road running takes place on a measured course over an established road (as opposed to track and cross country running). These events normally range from distances of 5 kilometers to longer distances such as half marathons and marathons, and they may involve scores of runners or wheelchair entrants.
Cross country running takes place over the open or rough terrain. The courses used for these events may include grass, mud, woodlands, hills, flat ground and water. It is a popular participatory sport and is one of the events which, along with track and field, road running, and racewalking, makes up the umbrella sport of athletics.
The majority of popular races do not incorporate a significant change in elevation as a key component of a course. There are several, disparate variations that feature significant inclines or declines. These fall into two main groups.
The naturalistic group is based on outdoor racing over geographical features. Among these are the cross country-related sports of fell running (a tradition associated with Northern Europe) and trail running (mainly ultramarathon distances), the running/climbing combination of skyrunning (organised by the International Skyrunning Federation with races across North America, Europe and East Asia) and the mainly trail- and road-centred mountain running (governed by the World Mountain Running Association and based mainly in Europe).
The second variety of vertical running is based on human structures, such as stairs and man-made slopes. The foremost type of this is tower running, which sees athletes compete indoors, running up steps within very tall structures such as the Eiffel Tower or Empire State Building.
Sprints are short running events in athletics and track and field. Races over short distances are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event – the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other. There are three sprinting events which are currently held at the Olympics and outdoor World Championships: the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 400 metres. These events have their roots in races of imperial measurements which were later altered to metric: the 100 m evolved from the 100-yard dash, the 200 m distances came from the furlong (or 1/8 of a mile), and the 400 m was the successor to the 440-yard dash or quarter-mile race.
At the professional level, sprinters begin the race by assuming a crouching position in the starting blocks before leaning forward and gradually moving into an upright position as the contest progresses and momentum is gained. Athletes remain in the same lane on the running track throughout all sprinting events, with the sole exception of the 400 m indoors. Races up to 100 m are largely focused upon acceleration to an athlete's maximum speed. All sprints beyond this distance increasingly incorporate an element of endurance. Human physiology dictates that a runner's near-top speed cannot be maintained for more than thirty seconds or so as lactic acid builds up, and leg muscles begin to be deprived of oxygen.
The 60 metres is a common indoor event and it an indoor world championship event. Other less-common events include the 50 metres, 55 metres, 300 metres and 500 metres which are used in some high and collegiate competitions in the United States. The 150 metres, is rarely competed: Pietro Mennea set a world best in 1983, Olympic champions Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey went head-to-head over the distance in 1997, and Usain Bolt improved Mennea's record in 2009.
Middle distance running events are track races longer than sprints up to 3000 metres. The standard middle distances are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle distance event. The 880-yard run, or half-mile, was the forebear to the 800 m distance and it has its roots in competitions in the United Kingdom in the 1830s. The 1500 m came about as a result of running three laps of a 500 m track, which was commonplace in continental Europe in the 1900s.
Examples of longer-distance running events are long distance track races, marathons, ultramarathons, and multiday races.
These days athletes use gadgets, such as a step counter, GPS watch, smartphone, and smartwatch, to keep an eye on the distance covered, pace, heart rate, and cadence. Wearables become as essential a part of a runner's kit as the shoes on their feet and help ensure they get as much out of their running sessions as possible. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26032 |
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian Surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art and conceptual art.
René Magritte was born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, Belgium, in 1898. He was the oldest son of Léopold Magritte, a tailor and textile merchant, and Régina (née Bertinchamps), who was a milliner before she got married. Little is known about Magritte's early life. He began lessons in drawing in 1910.
On 12 March 1912, his mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the River Sambre. This was not her first attempt at taking her own life; she had made many over a number of years, driving her husband Léopold to lock her into her bedroom. One day she escaped, and was missing for days. Her body was later discovered a mile or so down the nearby river.
According to a legend, 13-year-old Magritte was present when her body was retrieved from the water, but recent research has discredited this story, which may have originated with the family nurse. Supposedly, when his mother was found, her dress was covering her face, an image that has been suggested as the source of several of Magritte's paintings in 1927–1928 of people with cloth obscuring their faces, including "Les Amants".
Magritte's earliest paintings, which date from about 1915, were Impressionistic in style. During 1916–1918, he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, under Constant Montald, but found the instruction uninspiring. He also took classes at the Académie Royale from the painter and poster designer Gisbert Combaz. The paintings he produced during 1918–1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the figurative Cubism of Metzinger.
From December 1920 until September 1921, Magritte served in the Belgian infantry in the Flemish town of Beverlo near Leopoldsburg. In 1922, Magritte married Georgette Berger, whom he had met as a child in 1913. Also during 1922, the poet Marcel Lecomte showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio de Chirico's "The Song of Love" (painted in 1914). The work brought Magritte to tears; he described this as "one of the most moving moments of my life: my eyes "saw" thought for the first time."
In 1922–1923, Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, "The Lost Jockey" ("Le jockey perdu"), and held his first solo exhibition in Brussels in 1927. Critics heaped abuse on the exhibition.
Depressed by the failure, he moved to Paris where he became friends with André Breton and became involved in the Surrealist group. An illusionistic, dream-like quality is characteristic of Magritte's version of Surrealism. He became a leading member of the movement, and remained in Paris for three years. In 1929 he exhibited at Goemans Gallery in Paris with Salvador Dalí, Jean Arp, de Chirico, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Picabia, Picasso and Yves Tanguy.
On 15 December 1929 he participated in the last publication of La Revolution Surrealiste No. 12, where he published his essay "Les mots et les images", where words play with images in sync with his work The Treachery of images.
Galerie Le Centaure closed at the end of 1929, ending Magritte's contract income. Having made little impact in Paris, Magritte returned to Brussels in 1930 and resumed working in advertising. He and his brother, Paul, formed an agency which earned him a living wage. In 1932, Magritte joined the Communist Party, which he would periodically leave and rejoin for several years. In 1936 he had his first solo exhibition in the United States at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York, followed by an exposition at the London Gallery in 1938.
During the early stages of his career, the British surrealist patron Edward James allowed Magritte to stay rent-free in his London home, where Magritte studied architecture and painted. James is featured in two of Magritte's works painted in 1937, "Le Principe du Plaisir" ("The Pleasure Principle") and "La Reproduction Interdite", a painting also known as "Not to Be Reproduced".
During the of Belgium in World War II he remained in Brussels, which led to a break with Breton. He briefly adopted a colorful, painterly style in 1943–44, an interlude known as his "Renoir period", as a reaction to his feelings of alienation and abandonment that came with living in German-occupied Belgium.
In 1946, renouncing the violence and pessimism of his earlier work, he joined several other Belgian artists in signing the manifesto "Surrealism in Full Sunlight". During 1947–48, Magritte's "Vache period," he painted in a provocative and crude Fauve style. During this time, Magritte supported himself through the production of fake Picassos, Braques, and de Chiricos—a fraudulent repertoire he was later to expand into the printing of forged banknotes during the lean postwar period. This venture was undertaken alongside his brother Paul and fellow Surrealist and "surrogate son" Marcel Mariën, to whom had fallen the task of selling the forgeries. At the end of 1948, Magritte returned to the style and themes of his pre-war surrealistic art.
In France, Magritte's work has been showcased in a number of retrospective exhibitions, most recently at the Centre Georges Pompidou (2016–2017). In the United States his work has been featured in three retrospective exhibitions: at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1992, and again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. An exhibition entitled "The Fifth Season" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2018 focused on the work of his later years.
Politically, Magritte stood to the left, and retained close ties to the Communist Party, even in the post-war years. However, he was critical of the functionalist cultural policy of the Communist left, stating that "Class consciousness is as necessary as bread; but that does not mean that workers must be condemned to bread and water and that wanting chicken and champagne would be harmful. (...) For the Communist painter, the justification of artistic activity is to create pictures that can represent mental luxury." While remaining committed to the political left, he thus advocated a certain autonomy of art. Spiritually, Magritte was an agnostic.
Popular interest in Magritte's work rose considerably in the 1960s, and his imagery has influenced pop, minimalist, and conceptual art. In 2005 he was 9th in the Walloon version of "De Grootste Belg" ("The Greatest Belgian"); in the Flemish version he was 18th.
Magritte married Georgette Berger in June 1922. Georgette was the daughter of a butcher in Charleroi, and first met Magritte when she was 13 and he was 15. They met again 7 years later in Brussels in 1920 and Georgette, who had also studied art, became Magritte's model, muse, and wife.
In 1936 Magritte's marriage became troubled when he met a young performance artist, Sheila Legge, and began an affair with her. Magritte arranged for his friend, Paul Colinet, to entertain and distract Georgette, but this led to an affair between Georgette and Colinet. Magritte and his wife did not reconcile until 1940.
Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on 15 August 1967, aged 68, and was interred in Schaerbeek Cemetery, Evere, Brussels.
Magritte's work frequently displays a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. The use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, "The Treachery of Images" ("La trahison des images"), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe ""Ceci n'est pas une pipe"" ("This is not a pipe"), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an "image" of a pipe. It does not "satisfy emotionally"—when Magritte was once asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.
Magritte used the same approach in a painting of an apple: he painted the fruit and then used an internal caption or framing device to deny that the item was an apple. In these ""Ceci n'est pas"" works, Magritte points out that no matter how naturalistically we depict an object, we never do catch the item itself.
Among Magritte's works are a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings. Elsewhere, Magritte challenges the difficulty of artwork to convey meaning with a recurring motif of an easel, as in his "The Human Condition" series (1933, 1935) or "The Promenades of Euclid" (1955), wherein the spires of a castle are "painted" upon the ordinary streets which the canvas overlooks. In a letter to André Breton, he wrote of "The Human Condition" that it was irrelevant if the scene behind the easel differed from what was depicted upon it, "but the main thing was to eliminate the difference between a view seen from outside and from inside a room." The windows in some of these pictures are framed with heavy drapes, suggesting a theatrical motif.
Magritte's style of surrealism is more representational than the "automatic" style of artists such as Joan Miró. Magritte's use of ordinary objects in unfamiliar spaces is joined to his desire to create poetic imagery. He described the act of painting as "the art of putting colors side by side in such a way that their real aspect is effaced, so that familiar objects—the sky, people, trees, mountains, furniture, the stars, solid structures, graffiti—become united in a single poetically disciplined image. The poetry of this image dispenses with any symbolic significance, old or new."
René Magritte described his paintings as "visible images which conceal nothing; they evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, 'What does that mean?'. It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable."
Magritte's constant play with reality and illusion has been attributed to the early death of his mother. Psychoanalysts who have examined bereaved children have hypothesized that Magritte's back and forth play with reality and illusion reflects his "constant shifting back and forth from what he wishes—'mother is alive'—to what he knows—'mother is dead'."
Contemporary artists have been greatly influenced by René Magritte's stimulating examination of the fickleness of images. Some artists who have been influenced by Magritte's works include John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Jan Verdoodt, Martin Kippenberger, Duane Michals, Storm Thorgerson, and Luis Rey. Some of the artists' works integrate direct references and others offer contemporary viewpoints on his abstract fixations.
Magritte's use of simple graphic and everyday imagery has been compared to that of the pop artists. His influence in the development of pop art has been widely recognized, although Magritte himself discounted the connection. He considered the pop artists' representation of "the world as it is" as "their error," and contrasted their attention to the transitory with his concern for "the feeling for the real, insofar as it is permanent." The 2006–2007 LACMA exhibition "Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images" examined the relationship between Magritte and contemporary art.
The 1960s brought a great increase in public awareness of Magritte's work. Thanks to his "sound knowledge of how to present objects in a manner both suggestive and questioning", his works have been frequently adapted or plagiarized in advertisements, posters, book covers and the like. Examples include album covers such as "Beck-Ola" by The Jeff Beck Group (reproducing Magritte's "The Listening Room"), Alan Hull's 1973 album Pipedream which used "The Philosopher's Lamp", Jackson Browne's 1974 album "Late for the Sky", with artwork inspired by "The Empire of Light", Oregon's album "Oregon" referring to "Carte Blanche", the Firesign Theatre's album "Just Folks... A Firesign Chat" based on "The Mysteries of the Horizon", and Styx's album "The Grand Illusion" incorporating an adaptation of the painting "The Blank Check". The Nigerian rapper Jesse Jagz's 2014 album "" has cover art inspired by Magritte's works. In 2015 the band Punch Brothers used "The Lovers" as the cover of their album "The Phosphorescent Blues".
The logo of Apple Corps, The Beatles' company, is inspired by Magritte's "Le Jeu de Mourre", a 1966 painting.
Paul Simon's song "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog after the War," inspired by a photograph of Magritte by Lothar Wolleh, appears on the 1983 album "Hearts and Bones".
John Cale wrote a song titled "Magritte". The song appears on the 2003 album "HoboSapiens".
Tom Stoppard wrote a Surrealist play called "After Magritte".
John Berger scripted the book "Ways of Seeing" using images and ideologies regarding Magritte. Douglas Hofstadter's book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" uses Magritte works for many of its illustrations. "The Treachery of Images" was used in a major plot in L. J. Smith's "The Forbidden Game".
Magritte's imagery has inspired filmmakers ranging from the surrealist Marcel Mariën to mainstream directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Bernardo Bertolucci, Nicolas Roeg, John Boorman and Terry Gilliam.
According to Ellen Burstyn, in the 1998 documentary "The Fear of God: 25 Years of "The Exorcist"", the iconic poster shot for the film "The Exorcist" was inspired by Magritte's "L'Empire des Lumières".
In the 1992 movie "Toys", Magritte's work was influential in the entire movie but specifically in a break-in scene, featuring Robin Williams and Joan Cusack in a music video hoax. Many of Magritte's works were used directly in that scene.
In the 1999 movie "The Thomas Crown Affair" starring Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo and Denis Leary, the Magritte painting "The Son of Man" was prominently featured as part of the plot line.
Gary Numan's 1979 album "The Pleasure Principle" was a reference to Magritte's painting of the same name.
In John Green's fictional novel (2012) and movie (2014), "The Fault in Our Stars", the main character Hazel Grace Lancaster wears a tee shirt with Magritte's, "The Treachery of Images", (This is not a pipe.) Just prior to leaving her mother to visit her favorite author, Hazel explains the drawing to her confused mother and states that the author's novel has "several Magritte references", clearly hoping the author will be pleased with the reference.
The official music video of Markus Schulz's "Koolhaus" under his Dakota guise was inspired from Magritte's works.
A street in Brussels has been named "Ceci n'est pas une rue" (This is not a street).
The Magritte Museum opened to the public on 30 May 2009 in Brussels. Housed in the five-level neo-classical Hotel Altenloh, on the Place Royale, it displays some 200 original Magritte paintings, drawings and sculptures including "The Return", "Scheherazade" and "The Empire of Light". This multidisciplinary permanent installation is the biggest Magritte archive anywhere and most of the work is directly from the collection of the artist's widow, Georgette Magritte, and from Irene Hamoir Scutenaire, who was his primary collector. Additionally, the museum includes Magritte's experiments with photography from 1920 on and the short Surrealist films he made from 1956 on.
Another museum is located at 135 Rue Esseghem in Brussels in Magritte's former home, where he lived with his wife from 1930 to 1954. A painting, "Olympia" (1948), a nude portrait of Magritte's wife by Magritte, was stolen from this museum on the morning of 24 September 2009 by two armed men. The stolen work is said to be worth about US$1.1 million. "Olympia" was returned to the museum early January 2012. The thieves returned the painting because they were unable to sell it on the black market due to its fame. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26034 |
Rudolf Diesel
Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel ( (); 18 March 1858 – 29 September 1913) was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the Diesel engine, and for his suspicious death at sea. Diesel was the namesake of the 1942 film "Diesel".
Diesel was born in the house Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth No. 38 in Paris, France in 1858 the second of three children of Elise (née Strobel) and Theodor Diesel. His parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodor Diesel, a bookbinder by trade, left his home town of Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1848. He met his wife, a daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, in Paris in 1855 and became a leather goods manufacturer there.
Only few weeks after his birth, Diesel was given away to a Vincennes farmer family, where he spent his first nine months. When he was returned to his family, they moved into the flat 49 in the . At the time, the Diesel family suffered from financial difficulties, thus young Rudolf Diesel had to work in his father's workshop and deliver leather goods to customers using a barrow. He attended a Protestant-French school and soon became interested in social questions and technology. Being a very good student, 12-year-old Diesel received the Société pour l'Instruction Elémentaire bronze medal and had plans to enter Ecole Primaire Supérieure in 1870.
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War the same year, his family was forced to leave, as were many other Germans. They settled in London, England, where Diesel attended an English school. Before the war's end, however, Diesel's mother sent 12-year-old Rudolf to Augsburg to live with his aunt and uncle, Barbara and Christoph Barnickel, to become fluent in German and to visit the "Königliche Kreis-Gewerbeschule" (Royal County Vocational College), where his uncle taught mathematics.
At the age of 14, Diesel wrote a letter to his parents saying that he wanted to become an engineer. After finishing his basic education at the top of his class in 1873, he enrolled at the newly founded Industrial School of Augsburg. Two years later, he received a merit scholarship from the Royal Bavarian Polytechnic of Munich, which he accepted against the wishes of his parents, who would rather have seen him start to work.
One of Diesel's professors in Munich was Carl von Linde. Diesel was unable to graduate with his class in July 1879 because he fell ill with typhoid fever. While waiting for the next examination date, he gained practical engineering experience at the Sulzer Brothers Machine Works in Winterthur, Switzerland. Diesel graduated in January 1880 with highest academic honours and returned to Paris, where he assisted his former Munich professor, Carl von Linde, with the design and construction of a modern refrigeration and ice plant. Diesel became the director of the plant one year later.
In 1883, Diesel married Martha Flasche, and continued to work for Linde, gaining numerous patents in both Germany and France.
In early 1890, Diesel moved to Berlin with his wife and children, Rudolf Jr, Heddy, and Eugen, to assume management of Linde's corporate research and development department and to join several other corporate boards there. As he was not allowed to use the patents he developed while an employee of Linde's for his own purposes, he expanded beyond the field of refrigeration. He first worked with steam, his research into thermal efficiency and fuel efficiency leading him to build a steam engine using ammonia vapour. During tests, however, the engine exploded and almost killed him. His research into high compression cylinder pressures tested the strength of iron and steel cylinder heads. One exploded during a run in. He spent many months in a hospital, followed by health and eyesight problems.
Ever since attending lectures of Carl von Linde, Diesel intended designing an internal combustion engine based on the more thermally efficient Carnot cycle. He worked on this idea for a several years, and in 1892, he considered his theory to be completed. The same year, Diesel was given the German patent DRP 67207. In 1893, he published a treatise entitled "Theory and Construction of a Rational Heat-engine to Replace the Steam Engine and The Combustion Engines Known Today", that he had been working on since early 1892. This treatise formed the basis for his work on and invention of the Diesel engine. By summer 1893, Diesel had realised that his initial theory was erroneous, which led him to file another patent application for the corrected theory in 1893.
Diesel understood thermodynamics and the theoretical and practical constraints on fuel efficiency. He knew that as much as 90% of the energy available in the fuel is wasted in a steam engine. His work in engine design was driven by the goal of much higher efficiency ratios.
In his engine, fuel was injected at the end of the compression stroke and was ignited by the high temperature resulting from the compression. From 1893 to 1897, Heinrich von Buz, director of MAN SE in Augsburg, gave Rudolf Diesel the opportunity to test and develop his ideas.
The first successful Diesel engine ran in 1897 and is now on display at the German Technical Museum in Munich.
Rudolf Diesel obtained patents for his design in Germany and other countries, including the United States.
He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1978.
On the evening of 29 September 1913, Diesel boarded the GER steamer SS "Dresden" in Antwerp on his way to a meeting of the Consolidated Diesel Manufacturing company in London, England. He took dinner on board the ship and then retired to his cabin at about 10 p.m., leaving word to be called the next morning at 6:15 a.m.; but he was never seen alive again. In the morning his cabin was empty and his bed had not been slept in, although his nightshirt was neatly laid out and his watch had been left where it could be seen from the bed. His hat and neatly folded overcoat were discovered beneath the afterdeck railing.
Ten days later, the crew of the Dutch boat "Coertzen" came upon the corpse of a man floating in the North Sea near Norway. The body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that it was unrecognizable, and they did not bring it aboard. Instead, the crew retrieved personal items (pill case, wallet, I.D. card, pocketknife, eyeglass case) from the clothing of the dead man, and returned the body to the sea. On 13 October, these items were identified by Rudolf's son, Eugen Diesel, as belonging to his father. On 14 October 1913 it was reported that Diesel's body was found at the mouth of the Scheldt by a boatman, but he was forced to throw it overboard because of heavy weather.
There are various theories to explain Diesel's death. Certain people, such as his biographer Grosser, and Hans L. Sittauer (both in 1978) argue that Rudolf Diesel committed suicide. Another line of thought suggests that he was murdered, given his refusal to grant the German forces the exclusive rights to using his invention; indeed, Diesel boarded the SS "Dresden" with the intent of meeting with representatives of the British Royal Navy to discuss the possibility of powering British submarines by Diesel engine – he never made it ashore. Yet, evidence is limited for all explanations, and his disappearance and death remain unsolved.
Shortly after Diesel's disappearance, his wife Martha opened a bag that her husband had given to her just before his ill-fated voyage, with directions that it should not be opened until the following week. She discovered 200,000 German marks in cash (US$1.2 million today) and a number of financial statements indicating that their bank accounts were virtually empty. In a diary Diesel brought with him on the ship, for the date 29 September 1913, a cross was drawn, possibly indicating death.
After Diesel's death, his engine underwent much development and became a very important replacement for the steam piston engine in many applications. Because the Diesel engine required a heavier, more robust construction than a gasoline engine, it saw limited use in aviation. However, the Diesel engine became widespread in many other applications, such as stationary engines, agricultural machines and off-highway machinery in general, submarines, ships, and much later, locomotives, trucks, and in modern automobiles.
The Diesel engine has the benefit of running more fuel-efficiently than gasoline engines due to much higher compression ratios and longer duration of combustion, which means the temperature rises more slowly, allowing more heat to be converted to mechanical work.
Diesel was interested in using coal dust or vegetable oil as fuel, and in fact, his engine was run on peanut oil. Although these fuels were not immediately popular, during 2008 rises in fuel prices, coupled with concerns about oil reserves, have led to the more widespread use of vegetable oil and biodiesel.
The primary fuel used in diesel engines is the eponymous diesel fuel, derived from the refinement of crude oil. Diesel is safer to store than gasoline, because its flash point is approximately 175 °F (79.4 °C) higher, and it will not explode.
In a book titled "Diesel Engines for Land and Marine Work", Diesel said that "In 1900 a small Diesel engine was exhibited by the Otto company which, on the suggestion of the French Government, was run on arachide [peanut] oil, and operated so well that very few people were aware of the fact. The motor was built for ordinary oils, and without any modification was run on vegetable oil. I have recently repeated these experiments on a large scale with full success and entire confirmation of the results formerly obtained." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26035 |
Reform Judaism
Reform Judaism (also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism) is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of the faith, the superiority of its ethical aspects to the ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous revelation, closely intertwined with human reason and intellect, and not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai. A liberal strand of Judaism, it is characterized by a lessened stress on ritual and personal observance, regarding Jewish Law as non-binding and the individual Jew as autonomous, and a great openness to external influences and progressive values. The origins of Reform Judaism lie in 19th-century Germany, where its early principles were formulated by Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his associates. Since the 1970s, the movement has adopted a policy of inclusiveness and acceptance, inviting as many as possible to partake in its communities, rather than strict theoretical clarity. It is strongly identified with progressive political and social agendas, mainly under the traditional Jewish rubric "Tikkun Olam", or "Repairing of the World". "Tikkun Olam" is a central motto of Reform Judaism, and action for its sake is one of the main channels for adherents to express their affiliation. The movement's greatest center today is in North America.
The various regional branches sharing these beliefs, including the American Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the Movement for Reform Judaism (MRJ) and Liberal Judaism in Britain, and the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, are all united within the international World Union for Progressive Judaism. Founded in 1926, the WUPJ estimates it represents at least 1.8 million people in 50 countries: close to a million registered adult congregants, as well as almost as many unaffiliated individuals who identify with the denomination. This makes it the second-largest Jewish denomination worldwide.
Its inherent pluralism and great importance placed on individual autonomy impede any simplistic definition of Reform Judaism; its various strands regard Judaism throughout the ages as derived from a process of constant evolution. They warrant and obligate further modification and reject any fixed, permanent set of beliefs, laws or practices. A clear description became particularly challenging since the turn toward a policy favouring inclusiveness ("Big Tent" in the United States) over a coherent theology in the 1970s. This largely overlapped with what researchers termed as the transition from "Classical" to "New" Reform in America, paralleled in the other, smaller branches across the world. The movement ceased stressing principles and core beliefs, focusing more on the personal spiritual experience and communal participation. This shift was not accompanied by a distinct new doctrine or by the abandonment of the former, but rather with ambiguity. The leadership allowed and encouraged a wide variety of positions, from selective adoption of "halakhic" observance to elements approaching religious humanism.
The declining importance of the theoretical foundation, in favour of pluralism and equivocalness, did draw large crowds of newcomers. It also diversified Reform to a degree that made it hard to formulate a clear definition of it. Early and "Classical" Reform were characterized by a move away from traditional forms of Judaism combined with a coherent theology; "New Reform" sought, to a certain level, the reincorporation of many formerly discarded elements within the framework established during the "Classical" stage, though this very doctrinal basis became increasingly obfuscated. Critics, like Rabbi Dana Evan Kaplan, warned that Reform became more of a "Jewish activities club", a means to demonstrate some affinity to one's heritage in which even rabbinical students do not have to believe in any specific theology or engage in any particular practice, rather than a defined belief system.
In regard to God, while some voices among the spiritual leadership approached religious and even secular humanism – a tendency that grew increasingly from the mid-20th century, both among clergy and constituents, leading to broader, dimmer definitions of the concept – the movement had always officially maintained a theistic stance, affirming the belief in a personal God.
Early Reform thinkers in Germany clung to this precept; the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform described the "One God... The God-Idea as taught in our sacred Scripture" as consecrating the Jewish people to be its priests. It was grounded on a wholly theistic understanding, although the term "God-idea" was excoriated by outside critics. So was the 1937 Columbus Declaration of Principles, which spoke of "One, living God who rules the world". Even the 1976 San Francisco Centenary Perspective, drafted at a time of great discord among Reform theologians, upheld "the affirmation of God... Challenges of modern culture have made steady belief difficult for some. Nevertheless, we ground our lives, personally and communally, on God's reality." The 1999 Pittsburgh Statement of Principles declared the "reality and oneness of God". British Liberal Judaism affirms the "Jewish conception of God: One and indivisible, transcendent and immanent, Creator and Sustainer".
The basic tenet of Reform theology is a belief in a continuous, or progressive, revelation, occurring continuously and not limited to the theophany at Sinai, the defining event in traditional interpretation. According to this view, all holy scripture of Judaism, including the Pentateuch, were authored by human beings who, although under divine inspiration, inserted their understanding and reflected the spirit of their consecutive ages. All the People Israel are a further link in the chain of revelation, capable of reaching new insights: religion can be renewed without necessarily being dependent on past conventions. The chief promulgator of this concept was Abraham Geiger, generally considered the founder of the movement. After critical research led him to regard scripture as a human creation, bearing the marks of historical circumstances, he abandoned the belief in the unbroken perpetuity of tradition derived from Sinai and gradually replaced it with the idea of progressive revelation.
As in other liberal denominations, this notion offered a conceptual framework for reconciling the acceptance of critical research with the maintenance of a belief in some form of divine communication, thus preventing a rupture among those who could no longer accept a literal understanding of revelation. No less importantly, it provided the clergy with a rationale for adapting, changing and excising traditional mores and bypassing the accepted conventions of Jewish Law, rooted in the orthodox concept of the explicit transmission of both scripture and its oral interpretation. While also subject to change and new understanding, the basic premise of progressive revelation endures in Reform thought.
In its early days, this notion was greatly influenced by the philosophy of German idealism, from which its founders drew much inspiration: belief in humanity marching toward a full understanding of itself and the divine, manifested in moral progress towards perfection. This highly rationalistic view virtually identified human reason and intellect with divine action, leaving little room for direct influence by God. Geiger conceived revelation as occurring via the inherent "genius" of the People Israel, and his close ally Solomon Formstecher described it as the awakening of oneself into full consciousness of one's religious understanding. The American theologian Kaufmann Kohler also spoke of the "special insight" of Israel, almost fully independent from direct divine participation, and English thinker Claude Montefiore, founder of Liberal Judaism, reduced revelation to "inspiration", according intrinsic value only to the worth of its content, while "it is not the place where they are found that makes them inspired". Common to all these notions was the assertion that present generations have a higher and better understanding of divine will, and they can and should unwaveringly change and refashion religious precepts.
In the decades around World War II, this rationalistic and optimistic theology was challenged and questioned. It was gradually replaced, mainly by the Jewish existentialism of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, centered on a complex, personal relationship with the creator, and a more sober and disillusioned outlook. The identification of human reason with Godly inspiration was rejected in favour of views such as Rosenzweig's, who emphasized that the only content of revelation is it in itself, while all derivations of it are subjective, limited human understanding. However, while granting higher status to historical and traditional understanding, both insisted that "revelation is certainly not Law giving" and that it did not contain any "finished statements about God", but, rather, that human subjectivity shaped the unfathomable content of the Encounter and interpreted it under its own limitations. The senior representative of postwar Reform theology, Eugene Borowitz, regarded theophany in postmodern terms and closely linked it with quotidian human experience and interpersonal contact. He rejected the notion of "progressive revelation" in the meaning of comparing human betterment with divine inspiration, stressing that past experiences were "unique" and of everlasting importance. Yet he stated that his ideas by no means negated the concept of ongoing, individually experienced revelation by all.
Reform Judaism emphasizes the ethical facets of the faith as its central attribute, superseding the ceremonial ones. Reform thinkers often cited the Prophets' condemnations of ceremonial acts, lacking true intention and performed by the morally corrupt, as testimony that rites have no inherent quality. Geiger centered his philosophy on the Prophets' teachings (He named his ideology "Prophetic Judaism" already in 1838), regarding morality and ethics as the stable core of a religion in which ritual observance transformed radically through the ages. However, practices were seen as a means to elation and a link to the heritage of the past, and Reform generally argued that rituals should be maintained, discarded or modified based on whether they served these higher purposes. This stance allowed a great variety of practice both in the past and the present. In "Classical" times, personal observance was reduced to little beyond nothing. The postwar "New Reform" lent renewed importance to practical, regular action as a means to engage congregants, abandoning the sanitized forms of the "Classical".
Another key aspect of Reform doctrine is the personal autonomy of each adherent, who may formulate his own understanding and expression of his religiosity. Reform is unique among all Jewish denominations in placing the individual as the authorized interpreter of Judaism. This position was originally influenced by Kantian philosophy and the great weight it lent to personal judgement and free will. This highly individualistic stance also proved one of the movement's great challenges, for it impeded the creation of clear guidelines and standards for positive participation in religious life and definition of what was expected from members.
The notion of autonomy coincided with the gradual abandonment of traditional practice (largely neglected by most members, and the Jewish public in general, before and during the rise of Reform) in the early stages of the movement. It was a major characteristic during the "Classical" period, when Reform closely resembled Protestant surroundings. Later, it was applied to encourage adherents to seek their own means of engaging Judaism. "New Reform" embraced the criticism levied by Rosenzweig and other thinkers at extreme individualism, laying a greater stress on community and tradition. Though by no means declaring that members were bound by a compelling authority of some sort – the notion of an intervening, commanding God remained foreign to denominational thought. The "New Reform" approach to the question is characterized by an attempt to strike a mean between autonomy and some degree of conformity, focusing on a dialectic relationship between both.
The movement never entirely abandoned "halakhic" (traditional jurisprudence) argumentation, both due to the need for precedent to counter external accusations and the continuity of heritage, but had largely made ethical considerations or the spirit of the age the decisive factor in determining its course. The German founding fathers undermined the principles behind the legalistic process, which was based on a belief in an unbroken tradition through the ages merely elaborated and applied to novel circumstances, rather than subject to change. Rabbi Samuel Holdheim advocated a particularly radical stance, arguing that the "halakhic" Law of the Land is Law principle must be universally applied and subject virtually everything to current norms and needs, far beyond its weight in conventional Jewish Law.
While Reform rabbis in 19th-century Germany had to accommodate conservative elements in their communities, at the height of "Classical Reform" in the United States, "halakhic" considerations could be virtually ignored and Holdheim's approach embraced. In the 1930s and onwards, Rabbi Solomon Freehof and his supporters reintroduced such elements, but they too regarded Jewish Law as too rigid a system. Instead, they recommended that selected features will be readopted and new observances established in a piecemeal fashion, as spontaneous "minhag" (custom) emerging by trial and error and becoming widespread if it appealed to the masses. The advocates of this approach also stress that their responsa are of non-binding nature, and their recipients may adapt them as they see fit. Freehof's successors, such as Rabbis Walter Jacob and Moshe Zemer, further elaborated the notion of "Progressive "Halakha"" along the same lines.
Reform sought to accentuate and greatly augment the universalist traits in Judaism, turning it into a faith befitting the Enlightenment ideals ubiquitous at the time it emerged. The tension between universalism and the imperative to maintain uniqueness characterized the movement throughout its entire history. Its earliest proponents rejected Deism and the belief that all religions would unite into one, and it later faced the challenges of the Ethical movement and Unitarianism. Parallel to that, it sought to diminish all components of Judaism that it regarded as overly particularist and self-centered: petitions expressing hostility towards gentiles were toned down or excised, and practices were often streamlined to resemble surrounding society. "New Reform" laid a renewed stress on Jewish particular identity, regarding it as better suiting popular sentiment and need for preservation.
One major expression of that, which is the first clear Reform doctrine to have been formulated, is the idea of universal Messianism. The belief in redemption was unhinged from the traditional elements of return to Zion and restoration of the Temple and the sacrificial cult therein, and turned into a general hope for salvation. This was later refined when the notion of a personal Messiah who would reign over Israel was officially abolished and replaced by the concept of a Messianic Age of universal harmony and perfection. The considerable loss of faith in human progress around World War II greatly shook this ideal, but it endures as a precept of Reform.
Another key example is the reinterpretation of the election of Israel. The movement maintained the idea of the Chosen People of God, but recast it in a more universal fashion: it isolated and accentuated the notion (already present in traditional sources) that the mission of Israel was to spread among all nations and teach them divinely-inspired ethical monotheism, bringing them all closer to the Creator. One extreme "Classical" promulgator of this approach, Rabbi David Einhorn, substituted the lamentation on the Ninth of Av for a celebration, regarding the destruction of Jerusalem as fulfilling God's scheme to bring his word, via his people, to all corners of the earth. Highly self-centered affirmations of Jewish exceptionalism were moderated, although the general notion of "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" retained. On the other hand, while embracing a less strict interpretation compared to the traditional one, Reform also held to this tenet against those who sought to deny it. When secularist thinkers like Ahad Ha'am and Mordecai Kaplan forwarded the view of Judaism as a civilization, portraying it as a culture created by the Jewish people, rather than a God-given faith defining them, Reform theologians decidedly rejected their position – although it became popular and even dominant among rank-and-file members. Like the Orthodox, they insisted that the People Israel was created by divine election alone, and existed solely as such. The 1999 Pittsburgh Platform and other official statements affirmed that the "Jewish people is bound to God by an eternal "B'rit", covenant".
As part of its philosophy, Reform anchored reason in divine influence, accepted scientific criticism of hallowed texts and sought to adapt Judaism to modern notions of rationalism. In addition to the other traditional precepts its founders rejected, they also denied the belief in the future bodily resurrection of the dead. It was viewed both as irrational and an import from ancient middle-eastern pagans. Notions of afterlife were reduced merely to the immortality of the soul. While the founding thinkers, like Montefiore, all shared this belief, the existence of a soul became harder to cling to with the passing of time. In the 1980s, Borowitz could state that the movement had nothing coherent to declare in the matter. The various streams of Reform still largely, though not always or strictly, uphold the idea. The 1999 Pittsburgh Statement of Principles, for example, used the somewhat ambiguous formula "the spirit within us is eternal".
Along these lines, the concept of reward and punishment in the world to come was abolished as well. The only perceived form of retribution for the wicked, if any, was the anguish of their soul after death, and vice versa, bliss was the single accolade for the spirits of the righteous. Angels and heavenly hosts were also deemed a foreign superstitious influence, especially from early Zoroastrian sources, and denied.
The first and primary field in which Reform convictions were expressed was that of prayer forms. From its beginning, Reform Judaism attempted to harmonize the language of petitions with modern sensibilities and what the constituents actually believed in. Jakob Josef Petuchowski, in his extensive survey of Progressive liturgy, listed several key principles that defined it through the years and many transformations it underwent. The prayers were abridged, whether by omitting repetitions, excising passages or reintroducing the ancient triennial cycle for reading the Torah; vernacular segments were added alongside or instead of the Hebrew and Aramaic text, to ensure the congregants understood the petitions they expressed; and some new prayers were composed to reflect the spirit of changing times. But chiefly, liturgists sought to reformulate the prayerbooks and have them express the movement's theology. Blessings and passages referring to the coming of the Messiah, return to Zion, renewal of the sacrificial cult, resurrection of the dead, reward and punishment and overt particularism of the People Israel were replaced, recast or excised altogether.
In its early stages, when Reform Judaism was more a tendency within unified communities in Central Europe than an independent movement, its advocates had to practice considerable moderation, lest they provoke conservative animosity. German prayerbooks often relegated the more contentious issues to the vernacular translation, treating the original text with great care and sometimes having problematic passages in small print and untranslated. When institutionalized and free of such constraints, it was able to pursue a more radical course. In American "Classical" or British Liberal prayerbooks, a far larger vernacular component was added and liturgy was drastically shortened, and petitions in discord with denominational theology eliminated.
"New Reform", both in the United States and in Britain and the rest of the world, is characterized by larger affinity to traditional forms and diminished emphasis on harmonizing them with prevalent beliefs. Concurrently, it is also more inclusive and accommodating, even towards beliefs that are officially rejected by Reform theologians, sometimes allowing alternative differing rites for each congregation to choose from. Thus, prayerbooks from the mid–20th century onwards incorporated more Hebrew, and restored such elements as blessing on phylacteries. More profound changes included restoration of the "Gevorot" benediction in the 2007 "Mishkan T'filah", with the optional "give life to all/revive the dead" formula. The CCAR stated this passage did not reflect a belief in Resurrection, but Jewish heritage. On the other extreme, the 1975 "Gates of Prayer" substituted "the Eternal One" for "God" in the English translation (though not in the original), a measure that was condemned by several Reform rabbis as a step toward religious humanism.
During its formative era, Reform was oriented toward lesser ceremonial obligations. In 1846, the Breslau rabbinical conference abolished the second day of festivals; during the same years, the Berlin Reform congregation held prayers without blowing the Ram's Horn, phylacteries, mantles or head covering, and held its Sabbath services on Sunday. In the late 19th and early 20th century, American "Classical Reform" often emulated Berlin on a mass scale, with many communities conducting prayers along the same style and having additional services on Sunday. An official rescheduling of Sabbath to Sunday was advocated by Kaufmann Kohler for some time, though he retracted it eventually. Religious divorce was declared redundant and the civil one recognized as sufficient by American Reform in 1869, and in Germany by 1912; the laws concerning dietary and personal purity, the priestly prerogatives, marital ordinances and so forth were dispensed with, and openly revoked by the 1885 Pittsburgh Platform, which declared all ceremonial acts binding only if they served to enhance religious experience. From 1890, converts were no longer obligated to be circumcised. Similar policy was pursued by Claude Montefiore's Jewish Religious Union, established at Britain in 1902. The Vereinigung für das Liberale Judentum in Germany, which was more moderate, declared virtually all personal observance voluntary in its 1912 guidelines.
"New Reform" saw the establishment and membership lay greater emphasis on the ceremonial aspects, after the former sterile and minimalist approach was condemned as offering little to engage in religion and encouraging apathy. Numerous rituals became popular again, often after being recast or reinterpreted, though as a matter of personal choice for the individual and not an authoritative obligation. Circumcision or Letting of Blood for converts and newborn babies became virtually mandated in the 1980s; ablution for menstruating women gained great grassroots popularity at the turn of the century, and some synagogues built mikvehs (ritual baths). A renewed interest in dietary laws (though by no means in the strict sense) also surfaced at the same decades, as were phylacteries, prayer shawls and head coverings. Reform is still characterized by having the least engaged public on average: for example, of those polled by Pew in 2013, only 34% of registered synagogue members (and only 17% of all those who state affinity) attend services once a month and more.
While defined mainly by their progress away from ritual, proto-Reform also pioneered new ones. In the 1810s and 1820s, the circles (Israel Jacobson, Eduard Kley and others) that gave rise to the movement introduced confirmation ceremonies for boys and girls, in emulation of parallel Christian initiation rite. These soon spread outside the movement, though many of a more traditional leaning rejected the name "confirmation". In the "New Reform", Bar Mitzvah largely replaced it as part of the re-traditionalization, but many young congregants in the United States still perform one, often at the Feast of Weeks. Confirmation for girls eventually developed into the Bat Mitzvah, now popular among all except strictly Orthodox Jews.
Some branches of Reform, while subscribing to its differentiation between ritual and ethics, chose to maintain a considerable degree of practical observance, especially in areas where a conservative Jewish majority had to be accommodated. Most Liberal communities in Germany maintained dietary standards and the like in the public sphere, both due to the moderation of their congregants and threats of Orthodox secession. A similar pattern characterizes the Movement for Reform Judaism in Britain, which attempted to appeal to newcomers from the United Synagogue, or to the IMPJ in Israel.
Its philosophy made Progressive Judaism, in all its variants, much more able to embrace change and new trends than any of the major denominations. It was the first to adopt innovations such as gender equality in religious life. As early as 1846, the Breslau conference announced that women must enjoy identical obligations and prerogatives in worship and communal affairs, though this decision had virtually no effect in practice. Lily Montagu, who served as a driving force behind British Liberal Judaism and WUPJ, was the first woman in recorded history to deliver a sermon at a synagogue in 1918, and set another precedent when she conducted a prayer two years later. Regina Jonas, ordained in 1935 by later chairman of the Vereinigung der liberalen Rabbiner Max Dienemann, was the earliest known female rabbi to officially be granted the title. In 1972, Sally Priesand was ordained by Hebrew Union College, which made her America's first female rabbi ordained by a rabbinical seminary, and the second formally ordained female rabbi in Jewish history, after Regina Jonas. Reform also pioneered family seating, an arrangement that spread throughout American Jewry but was only applied in continental Europe after World War II. Egalitarianism in prayer became universally prevalent in the WUPJ by the end of the 20th century.
Tolerance for LGBT and ordination of LGBT rabbis were also pioneered by the movement. Intercourse between consenting adults was declared as legitimate by the Central Conference of American Rabbis in 1977, and openly gay clergy were admitted by the end of the 1980s. Same-sex marriage were sanctioned by the end of the following decade. In 2015, the URJ adopted a Resolution on the Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People, urging clergy and synagogue attendants to actively promote tolerance and inclusion of such individuals.
American Reform, especially, turned action for social and progressive causes into an important part of religious commitment. From the second half of the 20th century, it employed the old rabbinic notion of "Tikkun Olam", "repairing the world", as a slogan under which constituents were encouraged to partake in various initiatives for the betterment of society. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism became an important lobby in service of progressive causes such as the rights of women, minorities, LGBT, and the like. "Tikkun Olam" has become the central venue for active participation for many affiliates, even leading critics to negatively describe Reform as little more than a means employed by Jewish liberals to claim that commitment to their political convictions was also a religious activity and demonstrates fealty to Judaism. Dana Evan Kaplan stated that "Tikkun Olam "has incorporated only leftist, socialist-like elements. In truth, it is political, basically a mirror of the most radically leftist components of the Democratic Party platform, causing many to say that Reform Judaism is simply 'the Democratic Party with Jewish holidays'."" Rabbi Jakob Josef Petuchowski complained that under the influence of secular Jews who constitute most of its congregants since the 1950s, when lack of religious affiliation was particularly frowned upon, "Reform Judaism is today in the forefront of secularism in America... Very often indistinguishable from the ACLU... The fact of the matter is that it has, somewhere along the line, lost its religious moorings." In Israel, the Religious Action Center is very active in the judicial field, often resorting to litigation both in cases concerning civil rights in general and the official status of Reform within the state, in particular.
While opposed to interfaith marriage in principle, officials of the major Reform rabbinical organisation, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), estimated in 2012 that about half of their rabbis partake in such ceremonies. The need to cope with this phenomenon – 80% of all Reform-raised Jews in the United States wed between 2000 and 2013 were intermarried – led to the recognition of patrilineal descent: all children born to a couple in which a single member was Jewish, whether mother or father, was accepted as a Jew on condition that they received corresponding education and committed themselves as such. Conversely, offspring of a Jewish mother only are not accepted if they do not demonstrate affinity to the faith. A Jewish status is conferred unconditionally only on the children of two Jewish parents.
This decision was taken by the British Liberal Judaism in the 1950s. The North American Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) accepted it in 1983, and the British Movement for Reform Judaism affirmed it in 2015. The various strands also adopted a policy of embracing the intermarried and their spouses. British Liberals offer "blessing ceremonies" if the child is to be raised Jewish, and the MRJ allows its clergy to participate in celebration of civil marriage, though none allow a full Jewish ceremony with "chupah" and the like. In American Reform, 17% of synagogue-member households have a converted spouse, and 26% an unconverted one. Its policy on conversion and Jewish status led the WUPJ into conflict with more traditional circles, and a growing number of its adherents are not accepted as Jewish by either the Conservative or the Orthodox. Outside North America and Britain, patrilineal descent was not accepted by most. As in other fields, small WUPJ affiliates are less independent and often have to deal with more conservative Jewish denominations in their countries, such as vis-à-vis the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel or continental Europe.
The term "Reform" was first applied institutionally – not generically, as in "for reform" – to the Berlin Reformgemeinde (Reform Congregation), established in 1845. Apart from it, most German communities that were oriented in that direction preferred the more ambiguous "Liberal", which was not exclusively associated with Reform Judaism. It was more prevalent as an appellation for the religiously apathetic majority among German Jews, and also to all rabbis who were not clearly Orthodox (including the rival Positive-Historical School). The title "Reform" became much more common in the United States, where an independent denomination under this name was fully identified with the religious tendency. However, Isaac Meyer Wise suggested in 1871 that "Progressive Judaism" was a better epithet. When the movement was institutionalized in Germany between in 1898 and 1908, its leaders chose "Liberal" as self-designation, founding the Vereinigung für das Liberale Judentum. In 1902, Claude Montefiore termed the doctrine espoused by his new Jewish Religious Union as "Liberal Judaism", too, though it belonged to the more radical part of the spectrum in relation to the German one.
In 1926, British Liberals, American Reform and German Liberals consolidated their worldwide movement – united in affirming tenets such as progressive revelation, supremacy of ethics above ritual and so forth – at a meeting held in London. Originally carrying the provisional title "International Conference of Liberal Jews", after deliberations between "Liberal", "Reform" and "Modern", it was named World Union for Progressive Judaism on 12 July, at the conclusion of a vote. The WUPJ established further branches around the planet, alternatively under the names "Reform", "Liberal" and "Progressive". In 1945, the Associated British Synagogues (later Movement for Reform Judaism) joined as well. In 1990, Reconstructionist Judaism entered the WUPJ as an observer. Espousing another religious worldview, it became the only non-Reform member. The WUPJ claims to represent a total of at least 1.8 million people – these figures do not take into account the 2013 PEW survey, and rely on the older URJ estimate of a total of 1.5 million presumed to have affinity, since updated to 2.2 million – both registered synagogue members and non-affiliates who identify with it.
Worldwide, the movement is mainly centered in North America. The largest WUPJ constituent by far is the Union for Reform Judaism (until 2003: Union of American Hebrew Congregations) in the United States and Canada. As of 2013, the Pew Research Center survey calculated it represented about 35% of all 5.3 million Jewish adults in the U.S., making it the single most numerous Jewish religious group in the country. Steven M. Cohen deduced there were 756,000 adult Jewish synagogue members – about a quarter of households had an unconverted spouse (according to 2001 findings), adding some 90,000 non-Jews and making the total constituency roughly 850,000 – and further 1,154,000 "Reform-identified non-members" in the United States. There are also 30,000 in Canada. Based on these, the URJ claims to represent 2.2 million people. It has 845 congregations in the U.S. and 27 in Canada, the vast majority of the 1,170 affiliated with the WUPJ that are not Reconstructionist. Its rabbinical arm is the Central Conference of American Rabbis, with some 2,300 member rabbis, mainly trained in Hebrew Union College. As of 2015, the URJ was led by President Rabbi Richard Jacobs, and the CCAR headed by Rabbi Denise Eger.
The next in size, by a wide margin, are the two British WUPJ-affiliates. In 2010, the Movement for Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism respectively had 16,125 and 7,197 member households in 45 and 39 communities, or 19.4% and 8.7% of British Jews registered at a synagogue. Other member organizations are based in forty countries around the world. They include the Union progressiver Juden in Deutschland, which had some 4,500 members in 2010 and incorporates 25 congregations, one in Austria; the Nederlands Verbond voor Progressief Jodendom, with 3,500 affiliates in 10 communities; the 13 Liberal synagogues in France; the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism (5,000 members in 2000, 35 communities); the Movement for Progressive Judaism (Движение прогрессивного Иудаизма) in the CIS and Baltic States, with 61 affiliates in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus and several thousands of regular constituents; and many other, smaller ones.
With the advent of Jewish emancipation and acculturation in Central Europe during the late 18th century, and the breakdown of traditional patterns and norms, the response Judaism should offer to the changed circumstances became a heated concern. Radical, second-generation Berlin "maskilim" (Enlightened), like Lazarus Bendavid and David Friedländer, proposed to reduce it to little above Deism or allow it to dissipate. A more palatable course was the reform of worship in synagogues, making it more attractive to a Jewish public whose aesthetic and moral taste became attuned to that of Christian surroundings. The first considered to have implemented such a course was the Amsterdam Ashkenazi congregation, Adath Jessurun. In 1796, emulating the local Sephardic custom, it omitted the "Father of Mercy" prayer, beseeching God to take revenge upon the gentiles. The short-lived Adath Jessurun employed fully traditional argumentation to legitimize its actions, but is often regarded a harbinger by historians.
A relatively thoroughgoing program was adopted by Israel Jacobson, a philanthropist from the Kingdom of Westphalia. Faith and dogma were eroded for decades both by Enlightenment criticism and apathy, but Jacobson himself did not bother with those. He was interested in decorum, believing its lack in services was driving the young away. Many of the aesthetic reforms he pioneered, like a regular vernacular sermon on moralistic themes, would be later adopted by the modernist Orthodox. On 17 July 1810, he dedicated a synagogue in Seesen that employed an organ and a choir during prayer and introduced some German liturgy. While Jacobson was far from full-fledged Reform Judaism, this day was adopted by the movement worldwide as its foundation date. The Seesen temple – a designation quite common for prayerhouses at the time; "temple" would later become, somewhat misleadingly (and not exclusively), identified with Reform institutions via association with the elimination of prayers for the Jerusalem Temple – closed in 1813. Jacobson moved to Berlin and established a similar one, which became a hub for like-minded individuals. Though the prayerbook used in Berlin did introduce several deviations from the received text, it did so without an organizing principle. In 1818, Jacobson's acquaintance Edward Kley founded the Hamburg Temple. Here, changes in the rite were eclectic no more and had severe dogmatic implications: prayers for the restoration of sacrifices by the Messiah and Return to Zion were quite systematically omitted. The Hamburg edition is considered the first comprehensive Reform (with a capital R) liturgy.
While Orthodox protests to Jacobson's initiatives were scant, dozens of rabbis throughout Europe united to ban the Hamburg Temple. Its leaders attempted to justify themselves based on canonical sources, being still attached to old modes of thought. They had the grudging support of one rabbi, Aaron Chorin of Arad (and even he never acceded to the abrogation of the Messianic doctrine). The massive Orthodox reaction halted the advance of the new trend, confining it to the port city for the next twenty years. Although many synagogues introduced mild aesthetic modifications as the process of acculturation spread throughout Central Europe, synchronized with the breakdown of traditional society and growing religious laxity, those were carefully crafted in order to assuage conservative elements – albeit the latter often opposed them anyhow; vernacular sermons or secular education for rabbis were much resisted – and lacked a serious ideological undertone. One of the first to adopt such was Hamburg's own Orthodox community under the newly appointed Rabbi Isaac Bernays. The less strict but still traditional Isaac Noah Mannheimer of the Vienna Stadttempel and Michael Sachs in Prague, who both significantly altered custom but wholly avoided dogmatic issues or overt injury to Jewish Law, set the pace for most of Europe.
An isolated, yet much more radical step in the same direction as Hamburg's was taken across the ocean in 1824. The younger congregants in the Charleston synagogue "Beth Elohim" were disgruntled by present conditions and demanded change. Led by Isaac Harby and other associates, they formed their own prayer group, "The Reformed Society of Israelites". Apart from strictly aesthetic matters, like having sermons and synagogue affairs delivered in English, rather than Middle Spanish (as was customary among Western Sephardim), they had almost their entire liturgy solely in the vernacular, in a far greater proportion compared to the Hamburg rite. And chiefly, they felt little attachment to the traditional Messianic doctrine and possessed a clearly heterodox religious understanding. In their new prayerbook, authors Harby, Abram Moïse and David Nunes Carvalho unequivocally excised pleas for the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple; during his inaugural address on 21 November 1825, Harby stated their native country was their only Zion, not "some stony desert", and described the rabbis of old as "Fabulists and Sophists... Who tortured the plainest precepts of the Law into monstrous and unexpected inferences". The Society was short-lived, and they merged back into Beth Elohim in 1833. As in Germany, the reformers were laymen, operating in a country with little rabbinic presence.
In the 1820s and 1830s, philosophers like Solomon Steinheim imported German idealism into the Jewish religious discourse, attempting to draw from the means it employed to reconcile Christian faith and modern sensibilities. But it was the new scholarly, critical Science of Judaism ("Wissenschaft des Judentums") that became the focus of controversy. Its proponents vacillated whether and to that degree it should be applied against the contemporary plight. Opinions ranged from the strictly Orthodox Azriel Hildesheimer, who subjugated research to the predetermined sanctity of the texts and refused to allow it practical implication over received methods; via the Positive-Historical Zecharias Frankel, who did not deny "Wissenschaft" a role, but only in deference to tradition, and opposed analysis of the Pentateuch; and up to Abraham Geiger, who rejected any limitations on objective research or its application. He is considered the founding father of Reform Judaism.
Geiger wrote that at seventeen already, he discerned that the late "Tannaim" and the "Amoraim" imposed a subjective interpretation on the Oral Torah, attempting to diffuse its revolutionary potential by linking it to the Biblical text. Believing that Judaism became stale and had to be radically transformed if it were to survive modernity, he found little use in the legal procedures of "Halakha", arguing that hardline rabbis often demonstrated they will not accept major innovations anyway. His venture into higher criticism led him to regard the Pentateuch as reflecting power struggles between the Pharisees on one hand, and the Saducees who had their own pre-Mishnaic "Halakha". Having concluded the belief in an unbroken tradition back to Sinai or a divinely dictated Torah could not be maintained, he began to articulate a theology of progressive revelation, presenting the Pharisees as reformers who revolutionized the Saducee-dominated religion. His other model were the Prophets, whose morals and ethics were to him the only true, permanent core of Judaism. He was not alone: Solomon Formstecher argued that Revelation was God's influence on human psyche, rather than encapsulated in law; Aaron Bernstein was apparently the first to deny inherent sanctity to any text when he wrote in 1844 that, "The Pentateuch is not a "chronicle" of God's revelation, it is a "testimony" to the inspiration His consciousness had on our forebears." Many others shared similar convictions.
In 1837, Geiger hosted a conference of like-minded young rabbis in Wiesbaden. He told the assembled that the "Talmud must go". In 1841, the Hamburg Temple issued a second edition of its prayerbook, the first Reform liturgy since its predecessor of 1818. Orthodox response was weak and quickly defeated. Most rabbinic posts in Germany were now manned by university graduates susceptible to rationalistic ideas, which also permeated liberal Protestantism led by such figures as Leberecht Uhlich. They formed the backbone of the nascent Reform rabbinate. Geiger intervened in the Second Hamburg Temple controversy not just to defend the prayerbook against the Orthodox, but also to denounce it, stating the time of mainly aesthetic and unsystematic reforms has passed. In 1842, the power of progressive forces was revealed again: when Geiger's superior Rabbi Solomon Tiktin attempted to dismiss him from the post of preacher in Breslau, 15 of 17 rabbis consulted by the board stated his unorthodox views were congruous with his post. He himself differentiated between his principled stance and quotidian conduct. Believing it could be implemented only carefully, he was moderate in practice and remained personally observant.
Second only to Geiger, Rabbi Samuel Holdheim distinguished himself as a radical proponent of change. While the former stressed continuity with the past, and described Judaism as an entity that gradually adopted and discarded elements along time, Holdheim accorded present conditions the highest status, sharply dividing the universalist core from all other aspects that could be unremittingly disposed of. Declaring that old laws lost their hold on Jews as it were and the rabbi could only act as a guide for voluntary observance, his principal was that the concept of "the Law of the Land is the Law" was total. He declared mixed marriage permissible – almost the only Reform rabbi to do so in history; his contemporaries and later generations opposed this – for the Talmudic ban on conducting them on Sabbath, unlike offering sacrifice and other acts, was to him sufficient demonstration that they belonged not to the category of sanctified obligations ("issurim") but to the civil ones ("memonot"), where the Law of the Land applied. Another measure he offered, rejected almost unanimously by his colleagues in 1846, was the institution of a "Second Sabbath" on Sunday, modeled on Second Passover, as most people desecrated the day of rest.
The pressures of the late Vormärz era were intensifying. In 1842, a group of radical laymen determined to achieve full acceptance into society was founded in Frankfurt, the "Friends of Reform". They abolished circumcision and declared that the Talmud was no longer binding. In response to pleas from Frankfurt, virtually all rabbis in Germany, even Holdheim, declared circumcision obligatory. Similar groups sprang in Breslau and Berlin. These developments, and the need to bring uniformity to practical reforms implemented piecemeal in the various communities, motivated Geiger and his like-minded supporters into action. Between 1844 and 1846, they convened three rabbinical assemblies, in Braunschweig, Frankfurt am Main and Breslau respectively. Those were intended to implement the proposals of Aaron Chorin and others for a new "Sanhedrin", made already in 1826, that could assess and eliminate various ancient decrees and prohibitions. A total of forty-two people attended the three meetings, including moderates and conservatives, all quite young, usually in their thirties.
The conferences made few concrete far-reaching steps, albeit they generally stated that the old mechanisms of religious interpretation were obsolete. The first, held on 12–19 June 1844, abolished "Kol Nidrei" and the humiliating Jewish oath, still administered by rabbis, and established a committee to determine "to which degree the Messianic ideal should be mentioned in prayer". Repeating the response of the 1806 Paris Grand Sanhedrin to Napoleon, it declared intermarriage permissible as long as children could be raised Jewish; this measure effectively banned such unions without offending Christians, as no state in Germany allowed mixed-faith couples to have non-Christians education for offspring. It enraged critics anyhow. A small group of traditionalists also attended, losing all votes. On the opposite wing were sympathizers of Holdheim, who declared on 17 June that "science already demonstrated that the Talmud has no authority either from the dogmatic or practical perspective... The men of the Great Assembly had jurisdiction only for their time. We possess the same power, when we express the spirit of ours." The majority was led by Geiger and Ludwig Philippson, and was keen on moderation and historical continuity.
The harsh response from the strictly Orthodox came as no surprise. Moshe Schick declared "they have blasphemed against the Divinity of the Law, they are no Israelites and equal to Gentiles". Yet they also managed to antagonize more moderate progressives. Both S. L. Rapoport and Zecharias Frankel strongly condemned Braunschweig. Another discontented party were Christian missionaries, who feared Reform on two accounts: it could stem the massive tide of conversions, and loosen Jewish piety in favor of liberal, semi-secularized religion that they opposed among Christians as well, reducing the possibility they would ever accept new dogma fully.
Frankel was convinced to attend the next conference, held in Frankfurt on 15–28 July 1845, after many pleas. But he walked out after it passed a resolution that there were subjective, but no objective, arguments for retaining Hebrew in the liturgy. While this was quite a trivial statement, well grounded in canonical sources, Frankel regarded it as a deliberate breach with tradition and irreverence toward the collective Jewish sentiment. The 1840s, commented Meyer, saw the crystallization of Reform, narrowing from "reformers (in the generic sense)" who wished to modernize Judaism to some degree or other (including both Frankel and the Neo-Orthodox Samson Raphael Hirsch) "a broad stream that embraced all opponents of the premodern status quo... to a more clearly marked current which rejected not only the religious mentality of the ghetto, but also the modernist Orthodoxy which altered form but not substance". After his withdrawal, the conference adopted another key doctrine that Frankel opposed, and officially enshrined the idea of a future Messianic era rather than a personal redeemer. Rabbi David Einhorn elucidated a further notion, that of the Mission to bring ethical monotheism to all people, commenting that, "Exile was once perceived as a disaster, but it was progress. Israel approached its true destiny, with sanctity replacing blood sacrifice. It was to spread the Word of the Lord to the four corners of the earth."
The last meeting, convened in Breslau (13–24 July 1846), was the most innocuous. The Sabbath, widely desecrated by the majority of German Jews, was discussed. Participants argued whether leniencies for civil servants should be enacted, but could not agree and released a general statement about its sanctity. Holdheim shocked the assembled when he proposed his "Second Sabbath" scheme, astonishing even the radical wing, and his motion was rejected offhand. They did vote to eliminate the Second Day of Festivals, noting it was both an irrelevant rabbinic ordinance and scarcely observed anyway.
While eliciting protest from the Orthodox, Frankfurt and Breslau also incensed the radical laity, which regarded them as too acquiescent. In March 1845, a small group formed a semi-independent congregation in Berlin, the Reformgemeinde. They invited Holdheim to serve as their rabbi, though he was often at odds with board led by Sigismund Stern. They instituted a drastically abridged prayerbook in German and allowed the abolition of most ritual aspects.
Practice and liturgy were modified in numerous German congregations. Until the conferences, the only Reform prayerbooks ever printed in Europe were the two Hamburg editions. In the 1850s and 1860s, dozens of new prayerbooks which omitted or rephrased the cardinal theological segments of temple sacrifice, ingathering of exiles, Messiah, resurrection and angels – rather than merely abbreviating the service; excising non-essential parts, especially piyyutim, was common among moderate Orthodox and conservatives too – were authored in Germany for mass usage, demonstrating the prevalence of the new religious ideology. And yet, Geiger and most of the conferences' participants were far more moderate than Holdheim. While he administered in a homogeneous group, they had to serve in unified communities, in which traditionalists held separate services but still had to be respected. Changes were decidedly restrained. Liturgists were often careful when introducing their changes into the Hebrew text of prayers, less than with the German translation, and some level of traditional observance was maintained in public. Except Berlin, where the term "Reform" was first used as an adjective, the rest referred to themselves as "Liberal".
Two further rabbinical conferences much later, in 1869 and 1871 at Leipzig and Augsburg respectively, were marked with a cautious tone. Their only outcome was the bypassing of the Loosening of the Shoe ceremony via a prenuptial agreement and the establishment of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, though officially non-denominational, as a rabbinical seminary. While common, noted Michael Meyer, the designation "Liberal Jew" was more associated with political persuasion than religious conviction. The general Jewish public in Germany demonstrated little interest, especially after the 1876 law under which communal affiliation and paying parish taxes were no longer mandatory.
Outside Germany, Reform had little to no influence in the rest of the continent. Radical lay societies sprang in Hungary during the 1848 Revolution but soon dispersed. Only in Germany, commented Steven M. Lowenstein, did the extinction of old Jewish community life lead to the creation of a new, positive religious ideology that advocated principled change. In Western and Central Europe, personal observance disappeared, but the public was not interested in bridging the gap between themselves and the official faith. Secular education for clergy became mandated by mid-century, and "yeshivas" all closed due to lack of applicants, replaced by modern seminaries; the new academically-trained rabbinate, whether affirming basically traditional doctrines or liberal and influenced by "Wissenschaft", was scarcely prone to anything beyond aesthetic modifications and de facto tolerance of the laity's apathy. Further to the east, among the unemancipated and unacculturated Jewish masses in Poland, Romania and Russia, the stimulants that gave rise either to Reform or modernist Orthodoxy were scarce. The few rich and westernized Jews in cities like Odessa or Warsaw constructed modern synagogues where mild aesthetic reforms, like vernacular sermons or holding the wedding canopy indoors, rather than under the sky, were introduced. Regarded as boldly innovative in their environs, these were long since considered trivial even by the most Orthodox in Germany, Bohemia or Moravia. In the east, the belated breakdown of old mores led not to the remodification of religion, but to the formulation of secular conceptions of Jewishness, especially nationalistic ones.
In 1840, several British Jews formed the West London Synagogue of British Jews, headed by Reverend David Woolf Marks. While the title "Reform" was occasionally applied to them, their approach was described as "neo-Karaite", and was utterly opposite to continental developments. Only a century later did they and other synagogues embrace mainland ideas and established the British Movement for Reform Judaism.
At Charleston, the former members of the Reformed Society gained influence over the affairs of "Beth Elohim". In 1836, Gustavus Poznanski was appointed minister. At first traditional, but around 1841, he excised the Resurrection of the Dead and abolished the Second day of festivals, five years before the same was done at the Breslau conference.
Apart from that, the American Reform movement was chiefly a direct German import. In 1842, Har Sinai Congregation was founded by German-Jewish immigrants in Baltimore. Adopting the Hamburg rite, it was the first synagogue established as Reformed on the continent. In the new land, there were neither old state-mandated communal structures, nor strong conservative elements among the newcomers. While the first generation was still somewhat traditional, their Americanized children were keen on a new religious expression. Reform quickly spread even before the Civil War. While fueled by the condition of immigrant communities, in matters of doctrine, wrote Michael Meyer, "However much a response to its particular social context, the basic principles are those put forth by Geiger and the other German Reformers – progressive revelation, historical-critical approach, the centrality of the Prophetic literature."
The rabbinate was almost exclusively transplanted – Rabbis Samuel Hirsch, Samuel Adler, Gustav Gottheil, Kaufmann Kohler, and others all played a role both in Germany and across the ocean – and led by two individuals: the radical Rabbi David Einhorn, who participated in the 1844–1846 conferences and was very much influenced by Holdheim (though utterly rejecting mixed marriage), and the moderate pragmatist Isaac Meyer Wise, who while sharing deeply heterodox views was more an organizer than a thinker. Wise was distinct from the others, arriving early in 1846 and lacking much formal education. He was of little ideological consistency, often willing to compromise.
Quite haphazardly, Wise instituted a major innovation when introducing family pews in 1851, after his Albany congregation purchased a local church building and retained sitting arrangements. While it was gradually adopted even by many Orthodox Jews in America, and remained so well into the 20th century, the same was not applied in Germany until after World War II. Wise attempted to reach consensus with the traditionalist leader Rabbi Isaac Leeser in order to forge a single, unified, American Judaism. In the 1855 Cleveland Synod, he was at first acquiescent to Leeser, but reverted immediately after the other departed. The enraged Leeser disavowed any connection with him. Yet Wise's harshest critic was Einhorn, who arrived from Europe in the same year. Demanding clear positions, he headed the radical camp as Reform turned into a distinct current.
On 3–6 November 1869, the two and their followers met in Philadelphia. Described by Meyer as American Reform's "declaration of independence", they stated their commitment to the principles already formulated in Germany: priestly privileges, the belief in Resurrection, and a personal Messiah were denied. A practical, far-reaching measure, not instituted in the home country until 1910, was acceptance of civil marriage and divorce. A "get" was no longer required. In 1873, Wise founded the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (since 2003, Union for Reform Judaism), the denominational body. In 1875, he established the movement's rabbinical seminary, Hebrew Union College, at Cincinnati, Ohio. He and Einhorn also quarreled in the matter of liturgy, each issuing his own prayerbook, "Minhag America" (American Rite) and "Olat Tamid" (Regular Burnt Offering) respectively, which they hoped to make standard issue. Eventually, the Union Prayer Book was adopted in 1895. The movement spread rapidly: in 1860, when it began its ascent, there were few Reform synagogues and 200 Orthodox in the United States. By 1880, a mere handful of the existing 275 were not affiliated with it.
The proponents of Reform or progressive forms of Judaism had consistently claimed since the early nineteenth-century that they sought to reconcile Jewish religion with the best of contemporary scientific thought. The science of evolution was arguably the scientific idea that drew the most sustained interest. A good example is the series of twelve sermons published as "The Cosmic God" (1876) by Isaac Meyer Wise, who offered an alternative theistic account of transmutation to that of Darwinism, which he dismissed as ‘homo-brutalism’. Other Reform rabbis who were more sympathetic to Darwinian conceptions of evolution were Kaufmann Kohler, Emil G. Hirsch, and Joseph Krauskopf. These engaged with high profile sceptics and atheists such as Robert Ingersoll and Felix Adler as well as with proponents of biological evolutionary theory, with the result that a distinctly panentheistic character of US Reform Jewish theology was observable.
In 1885, Reform Judaism in America was confronted by challenges from both flanks. To the left, Felix Adler and his Ethical Movement rejected the need for the Jews to exist as a differentiated group. On the right, the recently arrived Rabbi Alexander Kohut, an adherent of Zecharias Frankel, lambasted it for having abandoned traditional Judaism. Einhorn's son-in-law and chief ideologue, Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, invited leading rabbis to formulate a response. The eight clauses of the Pittsburgh Platform were proclaimed on 19 November. It added virtually nothing new to the tenets of Reform, but rather elucidated them, declaring unambiguously that: "Today, we accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives." The platform was never officially ratified by either the UAHC or HUC, and many of their members even attempted to disassociate from it, fearing that its radical tone would deter potential allies. It indeed motivated a handful of conservatives to cease any cooperation with the movement and withdraw their constituencies from the UAHC. Those joined Kohut and Sabato Morais in establishing the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. It united all non-Reform currents in the country and would gradually develop into the locus of Conservative Judaism.
The Pittsburgh Platform is considered a defining document of the sanitized and rationalistic "Classical Reform", dominant from the 1860s to the 1930s. At its height, some forty congregations adopted the Sunday Sabbath and UAHC communities had services without most traditional elements, in a manner seen in Europe only at the Berlin Reformgemeinde. In 1889, Wise founded the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the denominational rabbinic council.
However, change loomed on the horizon. From 1881 to 1924, over 2,400,000 immigrants from Eastern Europe drastically altered American Jewry, increasing it tenfold. The 40,000 members of Reform congregations became a small minority overnight. The newcomers arrived from backward regions, where modern education was scarce and civil equality nonexistent, retaining a strong sense of Jewish ethnicity. Even the ideological secularists among them, all the more so the common masses which merely turned lax or nonobservant, had a very traditional understanding of worship and religious conduct. The leading intellectuals of Eastern European Jewish nationalism castigated western Jews in general, and Reform Judaism in particular, not on theological grounds which they as laicists wholly rejected, but for what they claimed to be assimilationist tendencies and the undermining of peoplehood. This sentiment also fueled the often cool manner in which the denomination is perceived in Israeli society, originally established on the basis of these ideologies.
While at first alienated from all native modernized Jews, a fortiori the Reform ones, the Eastern Europeans did slowly integrate. Growing numbers did begin to enter UAHC prayerhouses. The CCAR soon readopted elements long discarded in order to appeal to them: In the 1910s, inexperienced rabbis in the East Coast were given as shofars ram horns fitted with a trumpet mouthpiece, seventy years after the Reformgemeinde first held High Holiday prayers without blowing the instrument. The five-day workweek soon made the Sunday Sabbath redundant. Temples in the South and the Midwest, where the new crowd was scant, remained largely Classical.
In Germany, Liberal communities stagnated since mid-century. Full and complete Jewish emancipation granted to all in the German Empire in 1871 largely diffused interest in harmonizing religion with "Zeitgeist". Immigration from Eastern Europe also strengthened traditional elements. In 1898, seeking to counter these trends, Rabbi Heinemann Vogelstein established the Union of Liberal Rabbis (Vereinigung der liberalen Rabbiner). It numbered 37 members at first and grew to include 72 by 1914, about half of Germany's Jewish clergy, a proportion maintained until 1933. In 1908, Vogelstein and Rabbi Cäsar Seligmann also founded a congregational arm, the Union for Liberal Judaism in Germany ("Vereinigung für das Liberale Judentum in Deutschland"), finally institutionalizing the current that until then was active as a loose tendency. The Union had some 10,000 registered members in the 1920s. In 1912, Seligmann drafted a declaration of principles, "Guiding Lines towards a Program for Liberal Judaism" (Richtlinien zu einem Programm für das liberale Judentum). It stressed the importance of individual consciousness and the supremacy of ethical values to ritual practice, declared a belief in a messianic age and was adopted as "a recommendation", rather than a binding decision.
In 1902, Claude Montefiore and several friends, including Lily Montagu and Israel Abrahams, founded the Jewish Religious Union (JRU) in London. It served as the cornerstone of Liberal Judaism in Britain. Montefiore was greatly influenced by the ideas of early German Reformers. He and his associates were mainly driven by the example and challenge of Unitarianism, which offered upper-class Jews a universal, enlightened belief. Meyer noted that while he had original strains, Montefiore was largely dependent on Geiger and his concepts of progressive revelation, instrumentality of ritual et cetera. His Liberal Judaism was radical and puristic, matching and sometimes exceeding the Berlin and American variants. They sharply abridged liturgy and largely discarded practice. Langton has argued for the distinctly Anglo-Jewish character of the movement, which was dominated by Montefiore's idiosyncratic ideas.
In 1907, the former Consistorial rabbi Louis-Germain Lévy, who shared a similar worldview, formed the Union Libérale Israélite de France, a small congregation that numbered barely a hundred families. It eventually evolved into the Liberal Jewish Movement of France.
Seligmann first suggested the creation of an international organization. On 10 July 1926, representatives from around the world gathered in London. Rabbi Jacob K. Shankman wrote they were all "animated by the convictions of Reform Judaism: emphasized the Prophets' teachings as the cardinal element, progressive revelation, willingness to adapt ancient forms to contemporary needs". The conference was attended by representatives of the German Liberal Union, the British JRU, the American UAHC and CCAR, and Lévy from France. After weighing their options, they chose "Progressive", rather than either "Liberal" or "Reform", as their name, founding the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It began to sponsor new chapters globally. The first was founded in the Netherlands, where two synagogues formed the Verbond voor Liberaal-Religieuze Joden in Nederland on 18 October 1931.
Already in 1930, the West London Synagogue affiliated with WUPJ. In the coming decade, waves of refugees from Nazi Germany arrived in Britain, bringing with them both the moderation of German Liberal Judaism (few mingled with the radical JRU) and a cadre of trained rabbis. Only then did British Reform emerge as a movement. 1942 saw the founding of the Associated British Synagogues, which joined the WUPJ in 1945. Preserving the relative traditionalism of Germany, they later adopted the name "Reform Synagogues of Great Britain" (since 2005, Movement for Reform Judaism), distinct from the smaller "Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues", which succeeded the JRU. Tens of thousands of refugees from Germany brought their Liberal Judaism to other lands as well. In 1930, the first Liberal congregation, Temple Beth Israel Melbourne, was founded in Australia. In June 1931, the South African Jewish Religious Union for Liberal Judaism was organised, soon employing HUC-ordained Moses Cyrus Weiler. The Congregação Israelita Paulista of São Paulo, first branch in South America, was established in 1936. German refugees also founded a Liberal community named "Emet ve-Emuna" in Jerusalem, but it joined the Conservatives by 1949.
Kohler retired in 1923. Rabbi Samuel S. Cohon was appointed HUC Chair of Theology in his stead, serving until 1956. Cohon, born near Minsk, was emblematic of the new generation of East European-descended clergy within American Reform. Deeply influenced by Ahad Ha'am and Mordecai Kaplan, he viewed Judaism as a Civilization, rather than a religion, though he and other Reform sympathizers of Kaplan fully maintained the notions of Election and revelation, which the latter denied. Cohon valued Jewish particularism over universalist leanings, encouraging the reincorporation of traditional elements long discarded, not as part of a comprehensive legalistic framework but as means to rekindle ethnic cohesion. His approach echoed popular sentiment in the East Coast. So did Solomon Freehof, son to immigrants from Chernihiv, who advocated a selective rapprochement with "Halakha", which was to offer "guidance, not governance"; Freehof advocated replacing the sterile mood of community life, allowing isolated practices to emerge spontaneously and reincorporating old ones. He redrafted the Union Prayer Book in 1940 to include more old formulae and authored many responsa, though he always stressed compliance was voluntary.
Cohon and Freehof rose against the background of the Great Depression, when many congregations teetered on the threshold of collapse. Growing Antisemitism in Europe led German Liberals on similar paths. Rabbis Leo Baeck, Max Dienemann and Seligmann himself turned to stressing Jewish peoplehood and tradition. The Nazis' takeover in 1933 effected a religious revival in communities long plagued by apathy and assimilation. The great changes convinced the CCAR to adopt a new set of principles. On 29 May 1937, in Columbus, Ohio, a "Declaration of Principles" (eschewing the more formal, binding "platform"), promoted a greater degree of ritual observance, supported Zionism – considered by the Classicists in the past as, at best, a remedy for the unemancipated Jewish masses in Russia and Romania, while they did not regard the Jews as a nation in the modern sense – and opened not with theology, but by the statement, "Judaism is the historical religious experience of the Jewish people". The Columbus Principles signified the transformation from "Classical" to the "New Reform Judaism", characterized by a lesser focus on abstract concepts and a more positive attitude to practice and traditional elements.
The Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel reinforced the tendency. The Americanization and move to the suburbs in the 1950s facilitated a double effect: the secular Jewish ideologies of the immigrants' generation, like Bundism or Labour Zionism, became anachronistic. Military service exposed recruits to the family-oriented, moderate religiosity of middle-class America. Many sought an affiliation in the early years of the Cold War, when lack of such raised suspicion of leftist or communist sympathies. The "Return to Tradition", as it was termed, smoothed the path for many such into UAHC. It grew from 290 communities with 50,000 affiliated households in 1937 to 560 with 255,000 in 1956. A similar shift to nostalgic traditionalism was expressed overseas. Even the purist Liberals in Britain introduced minor customs that bore sentimental value; Bar Mitzvah replaced confirmation.
World War II shattered many of the assumptions about human progress and benevolence held by liberal denominations, Reform included. A new generation of theologians attempted to formulate a response. Thinkers such as Eugene Borowitz and J.J. Petuchowski turned mainly to existentialism, portraying humans in a fragile, complex relationship with the divine. While religious humanism was ever-present, it remained confined to a small group, and official positions retained a theistic approach. But the main focus in American Reform lay elsewhere: in 1946, Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath was appointed President of the UAHC. He turned the notion of Tikkun Olam, "repairing of the world", into the practical expression of affiliation, leading involvement in the civil rights movement, Vietnam War opposition and other progressive causes. In 1954, the first permanent Reform congregation was established in the State of Israel, again at Jerusalem. The Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism was registered in 1971, and the worldwide movement moved the WUPJ's headquarters to Jerusalem in 1974, signalling its growing attachment to Zionism.
The 1960s and 70s saw the rise of multiculturalism and the weakening of organized religion in favour of personal spirituality. A growing "return to ethnicity" among the young made items such as prayer shawls fashionable again. In 1963, HUC-graduate Sherwin Wine seceded to form the openly atheistic Birmingham Temple, declaring that for him Judaism was a cultural tradition, not a faith. Knowing that many in their audience held quite overlapping ideas, the pressure on the CCAR to move toward nontheism grew.
In 1975, the lack of consensus surfaced during the compilation of a new standard prayer book, "Gates of Prayer". To accommodate all, ten liturgies for morning service and six for evening were offered for each congregation to choose of, from very traditional to one that retained the Hebrew text for God but translated it as "Eternal Power", condemned by many as de facto humanistic. "Gates of Prayer" symbolized the movement's adoption of what would be termed "Big Tent Judaism", welcoming all, over theological clarity. In the following year, an attempt to draft a new platform for the CCAR in San Francisco ended with poor results. Led by Borowitz, any notion of issuing guidelines was abandoned in favour of a "Centenary Perspective" with few coherent statements. The "Big Tent", while taking its toll on the theoreticians, did substantially bolster constituency. The UAHC slowly caught up with Conservative Judaism on the path toward becoming the largest American denomination. Yet it did not erase boundaries completely, and rejected outright those who held syncretic beliefs like Jewbu and Messianic Judaism, and also Sherwin Wine-style Secular Humanistic Judaism. Congregation Beth Adam, which excised all references to God from its liturgy, was denied UAHC membership by a landslide vote of 113:15 in 1994.
In 1972, the first Reform female rabbi, Sally Priesand, was ordained at HUC. In 1977, the CCAR declared that the biblical ban on male same-sex intercourse referred only to the pagan customs prevalent at the time it was composed, and gradually accepted openly LGBT constituents and clergy. The first LGBT rabbi, Stacy Offner, was instated in 1988, and full equality was declared in 1990. Same-sex marriage guidelines were published in 1997. In 1978, UAHC President Alexander Schindler admitted that measures aimed at curbing intermarriage rates by various sanctions, whether on the concerned parties or on rabbis assisting or acknowledging them (ordinances penalizing such involvement were passed in 1909, 1947 and 1962), were no longer effective. He called for a policy of outreach and tolerance, rejecting "intermarriage, but not the intermarried", hoping to convince gentile spouses to convert. In 1983, the CCAR accepted patrilineal descent, a step taken by British Liberals already in the 1950s. UAHC membership grew by 23% in 1975–1985, to 1.3 million. An estimated 10,000 intermarried couples were joining annually.
On 26 May 1999, after a prolonged debate and six widely different drafts rejected, a "Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism" was adopted in Pittsburgh. It affirmed the "reality and oneness of God", the Torah as "God's ongoing revelation to our people", and committed to the "ongoing study of the whole array of Commandments and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community. Some of these sacred obligations have long been observed by Reform Jews; others, both ancient and modern, demand renewed attention." While the wording was carefully crafted in order not to displease the estimated 20%–25% of membership that retained Classicist persuasions, it did raise condemnation from many of them. In 2008, the Society for Classical Reform Judaism was founded to mobilize and coordinate those who preferred the old universalist, ethics-based and less-observant religious style, with its unique aesthetic components. SCRJ leader, Rabbi Howard A. Berman, claimed that the neo-traditional approach, adopted by the URJ, alienated more congregants than those it drew in. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26036 |
Reconstructionist Judaism
Reconstructionist Judaism is a modern Jewish movement that views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization and is based on the conceptions developed by Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983). The movement originated as a semi-organized stream within Conservative Judaism and developed from the late 1920s to 1940s, before it seceded in 1955 and established a rabbinical college in 1967. (The central organization of the movement renamed itself to Reconstructing Judaism in 2018, but the ideology's name remains unchanged.)
There is substantial theological diversity within the movement. "Halakha", the collective body of Jewish law, is not considered as normative and binding, as it was in pre-modern Jewish communities that legislated for their members, but as the basis for the ongoing evolution of meaningful Jewish practice. In contrast with the Reform movement's stance during the time he was writing, Kaplan believed that "Jewish life [is] meaningless without Jewish law", and one of the planks he wrote for The proto-Reconstructionist Society for the Jewish Renascence stated: "We accept the halakha, which is rooted in the Talmud, as the norm of Jewish life, availing ourselves, at the same time, of the method implicit therein to interpret and develop the body of Jewish Law in accordance with the actual conditions and spiritual needs of modern life." The movement also emphasizes positive views toward modernity, and has an approach to Jewish custom which aims toward communal decision-making through a process of education and distillation of values from traditional Jewish sources.
The movement's 2011 "A Guide to Jewish Practice" describes a Reconstructionist approach to Jewish practice as "post-"halakhic" because we live in a post-"halakhic" world — a world where Jewish law cannot be enforced. Obligation and spiritual discipline exist without the enforcement of a functioning legal system. Thus we take "halakha" seriously as a source and resource that can shape expectations while not necessarily seeing ourselves as bound by inherited claims of obligation. Therefore the practices advocated in this Guide are not monolithic, and the voices of a lively group of commentators provide further insights, arguments and alternative approaches that span the broad range of views advocated by Reconstructionist rabbis and scholars. The Guide assumes that thoughtful individuals and committed communities can handle diversity and will of necessity reach their own conclusions."
Reconstructionism was developed by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983) and his son-in-law, Rabbi Ira Eisenstein (1906–2001), over a period of time from the late 1920s to the 1940s. After being ridiculed by Orthodox rabbis for his focus on issues in the community and the sociopolitical environment, Kaplan and a group of followers founded the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ) in 1922. Its goal was to give rabbis the opportunity to form new outlooks on Judaism in a more progressive manner. Kaplan was the leader of the SAJ until 1945, when Eisenstein took over. In 1935, Kaplan published his book, "Judaism as a Civilization: Toward a Reconstruction of American Jewish Life". It was this book that Kaplan claimed was the beginning of the Reconstructionist movement. "Judaism as a Civilization" suggested that historical Judaism be given a "revaluation… in terms of present-day thought." Reconstructionism was able to spread with several other forms of literature, most notably the "New Haggadah" (1941) which for the first time blended Kaplan's ideologies in Jewish ceremonial literature.
Although Kaplan did not want Reconstructionism to branch into another Jewish denomination, it was on the inevitable track of becoming one. At the Montreal conference in 1967, Reconstructionist leaders called for a rabbinical school in which rabbis could be ordained under the Reconstructionist ideology and lead Reconstructionist congregations. By the fall of 1968, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College was opened in Philadelphia. Along with the establishment of the college, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association formed, which gave rabbis a strong network in the religious leadership of Reconstructionism. The founding of these institutions were great strides in its becoming the fourth movement in North American Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative and Reform being the other three).
Reconstructionist Judaism is the first major movement of Judaism to originate in North America; the second is the Humanistic Judaism movement founded in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine.
Kaplan believed that, in light of advances in philosophy, science and history, it would be impossible for modern Jews to continue to adhere to many of Judaism's traditional theological claims. In agreement with Orthodox theology (articulated by prominent medieval Jewish thinkers including Maimonides), Kaplan affirmed that God is not anthropomorphic in any way. All anthropomorphic descriptions of God are understood to be metaphorical. Kaplan's theology went further to claim that God is not personal, and not a conscious being, nor can God in any way relate to or communicate with humanity. Kaplan's theology defines God as the sum of all natural processes that allow people to become self-fulfilled.
To believe in God means to accept life on the assumption that it harbors conditions in the outer world and drives in the human spirit which together impel man to transcend himself. To believe in God means to take for granted that it is man's destiny to rise above the brute and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society. In brief, God is the Power in the cosmos that gives human life the direction that enables the human being to reflect the image of God.
Most "classical" Reconstructionist Jews (those agreeing with Kaplan) reject traditional forms of theism, though this is by no means universal. Many Reconstructionist Jews are deists, but the movement also includes Jews who hold Kabbalistic, pantheistic (or panentheistic) views of God, and some Jews who believe in the concept of a personal God.
Kaplan's theology, as he explicitly stated, does not represent the only Reconstructionist understanding of theology and theology is not the cornerstone of the Reconstructionist movement. Much more central is the idea that Judaism is a civilization, and that the Jewish people must take an active role in ensuring its future by participating in its ongoing evolution.
Consequently, a strain of Reconstructionism exists which is distinctly non-Kaplanian. In this view, Kaplan's assertions concerning belief and practice are largely rejected, while the tenets of an "evolving religious civilization" are supported. The basis for this approach is that Kaplan spoke for his generation; he also wrote that every generation would need to define itself and its civilization for itself. In the thinking of these Reconstructionists, what Kaplan said concerning belief and practice is not applicable today. This approach may include a belief in a personal God, acceptance of the concept of "chosenness", a belief in some form of resurrection or continued existence of the dead, and the existence of an obligatory form of "halakha". In the latter, in particular, there has developed a broader concept of "halakhah" wherein concepts such as "Eco-Kashrut" are incorporated.
Reconstructionist Judaism holds that the traditional halakhic system is incapable of producing a code of conduct that is meaningful for, and acceptable to, the vast majority of contemporary Jews, and thus must be reinterpreted in each new time period. Unlike classical Reform Judaism, Reconstructionism holds that a person's default position should be to incorporate Jewish laws and tradition into their lives, unless they have a specific reason to do otherwise. However some Reconstructionists believe that halakha is neither normative, nor binding, but are general guidelines.
Reconstructionism promotes many traditional Jewish practices. Thus, the commandments have been replaced with "folkways", non-binding customs that can be democratically accepted or rejected by the congregations. Folkways that are promoted include keeping Hebrew in the prayer service, studying Torah, daily prayer, wearing "kippot" ("yarmulkes"), "tallitot" and "tefillin" during prayer, and observance of the Jewish holidays.
In practice, Kaplan's books, especially "The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion" and "Judaism as a Civilization" are "de facto" statements of principles. In 1986, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association (RRA) and the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot (FRCH) passed the official "Platform on Reconstructionism". It is not a mandatory statement of principles, but rather a consensus of current beliefs. Major points of the platform state that:
Most Reconstructionists do not believe in revelation (the idea that God reveals his will to human beings). This is dismissed as supernaturalism. Kaplan posits that revelation "consists in disengaging from the traditional context those elements in it which answer permanent postulates of human nature, and in integrating them into our own ideology…the rest may be relegated to archaeology".
Many writers have criticized the movement's most widely held theology, religious naturalism. David Ray Griffin and Louis Jacobs have objected to the redefinitions of the terms "revelation" and "God" as being intellectually dishonest, and as being a form of "conversion by definition"; in their critique, these redefinitions take non-theistic beliefs and attach theistic terms to them. Similar critiques have been put forth by Rabbis Neil Gillman, Milton Steinberg, and Michael Samuels.
Reconstructionist Judaism is egalitarian with respect to gender roles. All positions are open to all genders; they are open to lesbians, gay men, and transgender individuals as well.
Reconstructionist Judaism allows its rabbis to determine their own policy regarding officiating at intermarriages. Some congregations accept patrilineal as well as matrilineal descent, and children of one Jewish parent, of any gender, are considered Jewish by birth if raised as Jews. This contrasts with the traditional interpretations of Jewish law of both Rabbinical Judaism, in which a child is Jewish by birth if its mother was Jewish; and of Karaite Judaism, in which a child is Jewish by birth if its "father" was Jewish.
The role of non-Jews in Reconstructionist congregations is a matter of ongoing debate. Practices vary between synagogues. Most congregations strive to strike a balance between inclusivity and integrity of boundaries. The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (JRF) has issued a non-binding statement attempting to delineate the process by which congregations set policy on these issues, and sets forth sample recommendations. These issues are ultimately decided by local lay leadership. Mixed Jewish/Non-Jewish couples, however, are welcome in Reconstructionist congregations.
In 2015 the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College voted to accept rabbinical students in interfaith relationships, making Reconstructionist Judaism the first type of Judaism to officially allow rabbis in relationships with non-Jewish partners. In making the decision, the movement considered that “many younger progressive Jews, including many rabbis and rabbinical students, now perceive restrictions placed on those who are intermarried as reinforcing a tribalism that feels personally alienating and morally troubling in the 21st century.” In April 2016 nineteen Reconstructionist rabbis announced they will form an offshoot group in part to protest the decision to allow rabbis to have non-Jewish partners.
Over 100 synagogues and "havurot", mostly in the United States and Canada, were affiliated with the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. As of June 3, 2012 the Reconstructionist movement has been restructured. A joint institution consisting of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the congregational organization is now the primary organization of the movement. The movement's new designation was first "Jewish Reconstructionist Communities," and in 2018 became Reconstructing Judaism. Rabbi Deborah Waxman was inaugurated as the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities on October 26, 2014. As the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, she is believed to be the first woman and first lesbian to lead a Jewish congregational union, and the first lesbian to lead a Jewish seminary; the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College is both a congregational union and a seminary. Waxman is a 1999 graduate of RRC.
The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College educates rabbis. The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association is the professional organization of Reconstructionist rabbis. The Jewish Reconstructionist youth organization is named No'ar Hadash. Camp Havaya (formerly Camp JRF) in South Sterling, Pennsylvania is the Reconstructionist movement's summer sleep away camp.
Originally an offshoot of Conservative Judaism, Reconstructionism retains warm relations with Reform Judaism. Orthodox Judaism, however, considers Reconstructionism to be in violation of proper observance of interpretation of Jewish law. The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation is a member of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, in which it gained an observer status in 1990. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26037 |
Photek
Rupert Parkes (born 6 September 1971), known as Photek, is a Los Angeles–based, British record producer, film and TV composer, and electronic music DJ. Photek was born and raised in Ipswich, Suffolk, England.
Photek has contributed music to several film, TV and video game productions, such as "Blade" in 1998. He also scored "Gang Related" with director Allen Hughes.
He received three consecutive Grammy Award nominations in the category of Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for Daft Punk "End of Line" from the "" movie soundtrack in 2012, Moby "Lie Down In Darkness" in 2013 and Bob Marley "One Love/People Get Ready" in 2014.
Photek composed the soundtrack for the show "How to Get Away with Murder".
Initially interested in hip hop, Parkes expanded his style with elements of soul and jazz. His first instrument was a tenor saxophone, but when a piano arrived in the family home his focus shifted to composition as opposed to performance. By 1992, he had switched from the saxophone to a sequencer. Within the next year he started to perform under the stage name Photek.
Parkes began his first forays into releasing music in 1993 under a plethora of different names. Some of the early releases include the jungle-styled tracks "Jump" under the name Studio Pressure on Certificate 18, 'Dolphin Tune' under the name Aquarius on LTJ Bukem's Good Looking Records and 'Pulse Of Life' under the name The Sentinel on Basement Records. The first release under the Photek production name came in 1994 with "Touching Down... Planet Photek", released on his own Photek label. Photek's breakthrough release in 1995 was the "Natural Born Killa" drum'n'bass EP for Goldie's Metalheadz. In 1996, Photek contributed two tracks on the "Wipeout 2097"/"Wipeout" XL soundtracks.
Photek's debut album was "Modus Operandi" in 1997, through Virgin Records. In 1997, Virgin Records released Photek's "Ni Ten Ichi Ryu". A year later, Photek released his second album "Form & Function". The album comprised four tracks that had previously only been available on limited release vinyl in the early 1990s, plus six remixes and versions by Photek himself as well as other contemporaries Digital, Peshay & Decoder, Doc Scott, and J Majik.
In 2000, Photek released his "Solaris" album, turning his attention from drum and bass to Chicago house and minimal techno. On the single "Mine to Give", he cooperated with Robert Owens to create a No. 1 Billboard single.
"One Nation" – the dubplate that had been available as a white label for over a decade, saw an official release on "Form & Function Vol. 2". The newer productions on the album showed Photek using a broader sound palette, taking influence from his composition and soundtrack work by including orchestrated passages. There are references to a more rock and industrial sound.
After a four-year hiatus from releasing music under the Photek moniker, Parkes produced a series of EPs in 2011. He was invited to contribute to BBC Radio 1's 'Essential Mix' series in October 2012. In the same year, Parkes released the album "KU:PALM".
Photek's remix of Daft Punk's "End of Line" for the Disney movie "" earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Remix in 2012. He received Grammy nominations in the same category for the following 2 years, with remixes for Moby and Bob Marley.
Now based in Los Angeles, Photek scored the second season of ABC's "How to Get Away with Murder" in fall of 2015, and continued recording of the follow up to "KU:PALM" and various movie and computer game scoring projects.
Photek has remixed many artists in his career such as David Bowie, Björk and Goldie. Additional production work on the Nine Inch Nails album "With Teeth" led to his remix of their track, "The Hand That Feeds", which got him KROQ daytime rotation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26039 |
Homosexuality and religion
The relationship between religion and homosexuality has varied greatly across time and place, within and between different religions and denominations, with regard to different forms of homosexuality and bisexuality. Generally speaking as well as by denomination, the present-day doctrines of the world's major religions vary vastly in their attitudes toward these sexual orientations.
Among the religious denominations which generally oppose these orientations, there are many different types of actions which they may take: this can range from quietly discouraging homosexual activity, explicitly forbidding same-sex sexual practices among adherents and actively opposing social acceptance of homosexuality, to execution. Religious fundamentalism has been found to correlate positively with anti-homosexual bias. This is the case with common religiosity too, which typically predicts homophobic attitudes but has also been found to lead to physical antigay hostility, in a lab experiment. Religious opposition to gay adoption was found to be explained by collectivistic values (loyalty, authority, purity) and low flexibility in existential issues, and not by high prosocial inclinations for the weak. Attitudes toward homosexuality have been found to be determined not only by personal religious beliefs, but by the interaction of those beliefs with the predominant national religious context—even for people who are less religious or who do not share their local dominant religious context. Many argue that it is homosexual actions which are sinful, rather than same-sex attraction itself. To this end, some discourage labeling individuals according to sexual orientation. Several organizations exist that assert that conversion therapy can help diminish same-sex attraction.
However, some adherents of many religions view the two sexual orientations positively, and some religious denominations may bless same-sex marriages and support LGBT rights, and the amount of those that do are continuously increasing around the world as much of the developed world enacts laws supporting LGBT rights.
Historically, some cultures and religions accommodated, institutionalized, or revered, same-sex love and sexuality; such mythologies and traditions can be found around the world. The status on homosexuality in Hinduism is ambiguous. Hindu texts contain few specific references to same-sex relations, though some punish it. Ayoni sex which includes oral and anal sex never came to be viewed as much of a sin like in Christianity nor a serious crime and could be practiced in some cases. Sikh wedding ceremonies are non-gender specific, and so same-sex marriage is possible within Sikhism.
Regardless of their position on homosexuality, many people of faith look to both sacred texts and tradition for guidance on this issue. However, the authority of various traditions or scriptural passages and the correctness of translations and interpretations are continually disputed.
The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have traditionally forbidden sodomy, believing and teaching that such behavior is sinful. Today some denominations within these religions are accepting of homosexuality and inclusive of homosexual people, such as Reform Judaism, the United Church of Christ and the Metropolitan Community Church. Some Presbyterian and Anglican churches welcome members regardless of same-sex sexual practices, with some provinces allowing for the ordination and inclusion of gay and lesbian clerics, and affirmation of same-sex unions. Reform Judaism incorporates lesbian and gay rabbis and same-sex marriage liturgies, while Reconstructionist Judaism and Conservative Judaism in the US allows for lesbian and gay rabbis and same-sex unions.
The Torah (first five books of the Hebrew Bible) is the primary source for Jewish views on homosexuality. It states that: "[A man] shall not lie with another man as [he would] with a woman, it is a תועבה "toeba" ("abomination")" (Leviticus 18:22). (Like many similar commandments, the stated punishment for willful violation is the death penalty, although in practice rabbinic Judaism no longer believes it has the authority to implement death penalties.)
Orthodox Judaism views homosexual acts as sinful. In recent years, there has been approaches claiming only the sexual anal act is forbidden and considered abomination by the Torah, while the sexual orientation and even other sexual activities are not considered a sin. Conservative Judaism has engaged in an in-depth study of homosexuality since the 1990s with various rabbis presenting a wide array of responsa (papers with legal arguments) for communal consideration. The official position of the movement is to welcome homosexual Jews into their synagogues, and also campaign against any discrimination in civil law and public society, but also to uphold a ban on anal sex as a religious requirement.
Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism in North America and Liberal Judaism in the United Kingdom view homosexuality to be acceptable on the same basis as heterosexuality. Progressive Jewish authorities believe either that traditional laws against homosexuality are no longer binding or that they are subject to changes that reflect a new understanding of human sexuality. Some of these authorities rely on modern biblical scholarship suggesting that the prohibition in the Torah was intended to ban coercive or ritualized homosexual sex, such as those practices ascribed to Egyptian and Canaanite fertility cults and temple prostitution.
Christian denominations hold a variety of views on the issue of homosexual activity, ranging from outright condemnation to complete acceptance. Most Christian denominations welcome people attracted to the same sex, but teach that homosexual acts are sinful. These denominations include the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox church, the Oriental Orthodox churches, Confessional Lutheran denominations such as the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the United Methodist Church, and some other mainline denominations, such as the Reformed Church in America and the American Baptist Church, as well as Conservative Evangelical organizations and churches, such as the Evangelical Alliance, and fundamentalist groups and churches, such as the Southern Baptist Convention. Pentecostal churches such as the Assemblies of God, as well as Restorationist churches, like Jehovah's Witnesses and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also take the position that homosexual sexual activity is sinful.
Liberal Christians are supportive of homosexuals. Some Christian denominations do not view monogamous same sex relationships as bad or evil. These include the United Church of Canada, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the churches of the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Church of Sweden, the Lutheran, reformed and united churches in Evangelical Church of Germany, the Church of Denmark, the Icelandic Church, the Church of Norway and the Protestant Church of the Netherlands. In particular, the Metropolitan Community Church, a denomination of 40,000 members, was founded specifically to serve the Christian LGBT community, and is devoted to being open and affirming to LGBT people. The United Church of Christ and the Alliance of Baptists also condone gay marriage, and some parts of the Anglican and Lutheran churches allow for the blessing of gay unions. Within the Anglican communion there are openly gay clergy; for example, Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool are openly homosexual bishops in the US Episcopal Church and Eva Brunne in Lutheran Church of Sweden. The Episcopal Church's recent actions vis-a-vis homosexuality have brought about increased ethical debate and tension within the Church of England and worldwide Anglican churches. In the United States and many other nations, the religious people are becoming more affirming of same-sex relationships. Even those in denominations with official stances are liberalizing, though not as quickly as those in more affirming religious groups.
Passages from the Mosaic Covenant and its broader Old Testament context have been interpreted to mean that anyone who is engaging in homosexual practices should be punished with death (Leviticus ; cf. Genesis ; Judges ; 2 Peter ; Jude ). HIV/AIDS has also been portrayed by some Christian fundamentalists such as Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell as a punishment by God against homosexuals. In the 20th century, theologians like Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann, Hans Küng, John Robinson, Bishop David Jenkins, Don Cupitt, Bishop Jack Spong challenged traditional theological positions and understandings of the Bible; following these developments some have suggested that passages have been mistranslated, are taken out of context, or that they do not refer to what we understand as "homosexuality."
Conservative denominations generally oppose same-sex sexual relations based on Old Testament and New Testament texts that describe human sexual relations as strictly heterosexual by God's design (Genesis ; ; Matthew ; 1 Corinthians ; Ephesians ), which God declared "very good" (Genesis ). As such, it is argued that sexual desires and actions that contradict God's design are deemed sinful and are condemned by God (e.g. "and with a male you [singular masculine] shall not lie [sexually] as with a female, that is an abomination," Leviticus ; cf. Leviticus ). Since love does not rejoice in unrighteousness or iniquity (cf. 1 Corinthians ), and since homosexual desires and actions are believed to remain contrary to God's design and condemned by God as sinful / iniquity (e.g. "in general", Romans ; "passively", 1 Corinthians ; "actively", including but not limited to "pederasty," 1 Corinthians ; 1 Timothy ; considered sexually "immoral", Galatians ; Colossians ; Ephesians ), adherents of conservative denominations believe that genuine love for God and humanity is best expressed by following God rather than the world (Acts ; cf. Jeremiah ; Romans ).
Where the Catholic view is founded on a natural law argument informed by scripture and proposed by Thomas Aquinas, the traditional conservative Protestant view is based on an interpretation of scripture alone. Protestant conservatives also see homosexual relationships as an impediment to heterosexual relationships. They interpret some Biblical passages to be commandments to be heterosexually married. Catholics, on the other hand, have accommodated unmarried people as priests, monks, nuns and single lay people for over a thousand years. A number of self-described gay and 'ex-gay' Christians have reported satisfaction in mixed-orientation marriages.
The Catholic Church teaches that those who are attracted to persons of the same sex are called to practice chastity, just like everyone else has to before they get married. The Catholic Church does not regard homosexual activity as an expression of the marital sacrament, which it teaches is only possible within a lifelong commitment of a marriage between a man and a woman. According to the Church's sexual ethics, homosexual activity falls short in the complementarity (male and female organs complement each other) and fecundity (openness to new life) of the sexual act.
The views of the Catholic Church, which discourages individuals from acting on sexual desires that they believe to be sinful, and harmful to themselves and others, both physically and mentally. As yet there is no evidence the church is willing to bend on this issue, until then the evidence cited here demonstrates the Catholic Church is unaccepting of homosexual behavior, regardless of what pew studies of parishioners individual views may suggest. Whilst these suggest a growing trend of LGBT acceptance in some Catholic churches, it does however hide a darker picture. There are currently active Ministries which teach the doctrine and interpret the scripture, also point out the majority of the sex abuse in the church have been propagated by homosexuals, upon children of the same sex.
The teachings of the Catholic Church on same-sex attraction are summarized in the "Catechism":
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
Despite the Catholic Church's beliefs, teachings, and doctrinal stance on homosexuality, there have been many thousands of credible, documented cases of Catholic priests and clergy who have sexually abused children, both girl and boy minors, but especially young boys. In general these cases did not gain public attention or significant coverage in the media until the 1990s. In 2002, media coverage of widespread sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church began to surface throughout Europe, Australia, Chile, and the United States. Since then, cases of sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church have increasingly been viewed in earnest as a major issue of concern by those within and outside of the Catholic Church.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that no one should arouse sexual feelings outside of marriage, including those towards members of the same sex. The LDS church recognizes that feelings of same-sex attraction may not change or be overcome in this earth life, and expect all un-married members, gay or straight, to abstain from any and all sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage. The LDS church maintains that feelings and inclinations toward the same sex (i.e., homosexual feelings or "temptations") are not inherently sinful, but engaging in homosexual behavior is in conflict with the "doctrinal principle, based on sacred scripture … that marriage between a man and a woman is essential to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." Those who experience same-sex attraction should continually exercise self-control and reliance on the atonement of Jesus Christ in order to refrain from acting on such feelings. The LDS church strongly opposes same-sex marriage and teaches that marriage is only to be between a man and a woman, and that this is essential to God's eternal plan.
Such issues are addressed on the LDS church website "Love One Another: A Discussion on Same-Sex Attraction".
All major Islamic schools disapprove of homosexuality, Islam views same-sex desires as an unnatural temptation; and sexual relations are seen as a transgression of the natural role and aim of sexual activity. Islamic teachings (in the "hadith" tradition) presume same-sex attraction, extol abstention and (in the Qur'an) condemn consummation.
The discourse on homosexuality in Islam is primarily concerned with activities between men. There are, however, a few hadith which mention homosexual behavior among women; The fuqaha’ are agreed that "there is no hadd punishment for lesbianism, because it is not zina. Rather a ta’zeer punishment must be imposed, because it is a sin…'" Although punishment for lesbianism is rarely mentioned in the histories, al-Tabari records an example of the casual execution of a pair of lesbian slavegirls in the harem of al-Hadi, in a collection of highly critical anecdotes pertaining to that Caliph's actions as ruler.
Bahá'í law limits permissible sexual relations to those between a man and a woman in marriage. Believers are expected to abstain from sex outside matrimony. Bahá'ís do not, however, attempt to impose their moral standards on those who have not accepted the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. The Bahá'í Faith takes no position on the sexual practices of those who are not adherents. While requiring uprightness in all matters of morality, whether sexual or otherwise, the Bahá’í teachings also take account of human frailty and call for tolerance and understanding in regard to human failings. In this context, to regard homosexuals with prejudice would be contrary to the spirit of the Bahá’í teachings.
Among the religions that originated in ancient and medieval India, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, teachings regarding homosexuality are less clear than among the Abrahamic traditions, and religious authorities voice diverse opinions. In 2005, an authority figure of Sikhism condemned same-sex marriage and the practice of homosexuality. However, many people in Sikhism do not oppose gay marriage. Hinduism is diverse, with no supreme governing body, but the majority of swamis opposed same-sex relationships in a 2004 survey, and a minority supported them. Ancient religious texts such as the Vedas often refer to people of a third gender known as hijra, who are neither female nor male. Some see this third gender as an ancient parallel to modern western lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex identities.
Hinduism has taken various positions, ranging from positive to neutral or antagonistic. Referring to the nature of Samsara, the Rigveda, one of the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism says 'Vikruti Evam Prakriti' (perversity/diversity is what nature is all about, or, "what seems unnatural is also natural"). A "third gender" has been acknowledged within Hinduism since Vedic times. Several Hindu texts, such as Manu Smriti and Sushruta Samhita, assert that some people are born with either mixed male and female natures, or sexually neuter, as a matter of natural biology. However, Hindu texts like the Manusmirti do treat Homosexuality as a sin legally punishable. In addition, each Hindu denomination had developed distinct rules regarding sexuality, as Hinduism is not unified and is decentralized in essence.
Several Hindu religious laws contain injunctions against homosexual activity, while some Hindu theories do not condemn lesbian relations and some third-gendered individuals were highly regarded. Hindu groups are historically not unified regarding the issue of homosexuality, each one having a distinct doctrinal view.
The Indian Kama Sutra, written around 150 BC, contains passages describing eunuchs or "third-sex" males performing oral sex on men. The text describes Kama as one of the three objectives to be achieved in life. Though it forbids the educated Brahmins, bureaucrats and wisemen from practicing Auparishtaka (oral sex).
Similarly, some medieval Hindu temples and artifacts openly depict both male homosexuality and lesbianism within their carvings, such as the temple walls at Khajuraho. Some infer from these images that at least part of the Hindu society and religion were previously more open to variations in human sexuality than they are at present.
Ayoni sex, which includes oral and anal sex, never came to be viewed as much of a sin like in Christianity nor a serious crime and could be practiced in some cases. Close friendship between people of same genders has also been seen as permissible in Hindu texts.
In some Hindu sects (specifically among the hijras), many divinities are androgynous. There are Hindu deities who are intersex (both male and female); who manifest in all three genders; who switch from male to female or from female to male; male deities with female moods and female deities with male moods; deities born from two males or from two females; deities born from a single male or single female; deities who avoid the opposite sex; deities with principal companions of the same sex, and so on.
Several Hindu priests have performed same-sex marriages, arguing that love is the result of attachments from previous births and that marriage, as a union of spirit, is transcendental to gender.
The most common formulation of Buddhist ethics are the Five Precepts and the Eightfold Path, one should neither be attached to nor crave sensual pleasure. The third of the Five Precepts is "To refrain from committing sexual misconduct." However, "sexual misconduct" is a broad term, and is subjected to interpretation relative to the social norms of the followers.
The determination of whether or not same-gender relations is appropriate for a layperson is not considered a religious matter by many Buddhists.
According to the Pāli Canon & Āgama (the Early Buddhist scriptures), there is not any saying that same or opposite gender relations have anything to do with sexual misconduct, and some Theravada monks express that same-gender relations do not violate the rule to avoid sexual misconduct, which means not having sex with someone under age (thus protected by their parents or guardians), someone betrothed or married and who have taken vows of religious celibacy.
Some later traditions gradually began to add new restrictions on sexual misconduct, like non-vagina sex, though its situations seem involving coerced sex. This non-vagina sex as sexual misconduct view is not based on what Buddha's said, but from some later Abhidharma texts.
Buddhism is often characterized as distrustful of sensual enjoyment and sexuality in general. Traditionally, sex and lust are seen as hindering to spiritual progress in most schools of Buddhism; as such monks are expected to refrain from all sexual activity, and the Vinaya (the first book of the Tripitaka) specifically prohibits sexual intercourse, then further explain that anal, oral, and vaginal intercourse amount to sexual intercourse, which will result in permanent exclusion from Sangha. A notable exception in the history of Buddhism occurred in Japan during the Edo period, in which male homosexuality, or more specifically, love between young novices and older monks, was celebrated.
References to pandaka, a eunuch/impotence category that is sometimes interpreted to include homosexual males, can be found throughout the Pali canon as well as other Sanskrit scriptures. In the Chinese version of Sarvastivada Vinaya, the pandaka is mentioned as also trying to have sex with women, not just men. Leonard Zwilling refers extensively to Buddhaghosa's Samantapasadika, where "pandaka" are described as being filled with defiled passions and insatiable lusts, and are dominated by their libido. Some texts of the Abhidharma state that a "pandaka" cannot achieve enlightenment in their own lifetime, (but must wait for rebirth) and Asanga and Vasubandhu discussed if a pandaka was able to be enlightened or not. According to one scriptural story, Ananda—Buddha's cousin and disciple—was a "pandaka" in one of his many previous lives.
Some later classic Buddhist masters and texts disallow contact between monks/Bodhisattva and "pandakas"/women and classify non-vagina sex as sexual misconduct, including for lay followers.
The third of the five precepts of Buddhism states that one is to refrain from sexual misconduct; this precept has sometimes been interpreted to include homosexuality. The Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism interprets sexual misconduct to include lesbian and gay sex, and indeed any sex other than penis-vagina intercourse, including oral sex, anal sex, and masturbation or other sexual activity with the hand; the only time sex is acceptable is when it performed for its purpose of procreation. When interviewed by Canadian TV news anchor Evan Solomon on about whether or not homosexuality is acceptable in Buddhism, the Dalai Lama responded that "it is sexual misconduct." However, the Dalai Lama supports human rights for all, "regardless of sexual orientation."
In Thailand, some accounts propose that "homosexuality arises as a karmic consequence of violating Buddhist proscriptions against heterosexual misconduct. These karmic accounts describe homosexuality as a congenital condition which cannot be altered, at least in a homosexual person's current lifetime, and have been linked with calls for compassion and understanding from the non-homosexual populace." However, Buddhist leaders in Thailand have also condemned homosexuality, ousted monks accused of homosexual acts, and banned kathoey from ordination. In 2009, Senior monk Phra Maha Wudhijaya Vajiramedh introduced a "good manners" curriculum for novices in the monkhood, stating to the BBC that he was concerned by "the flamboyant behaviour of gay and transgender monks, who can often be seen wearing revealingly tight robes, carrying pink purses and having effeminately-shaped eyebrows."
A later popular Japanese legend attributed the introduction of monastic homosexuality to Japan to Shingon founder Kukai, although scholars now dismiss the veracity of this assertion, pointing out his strict adherence to the Vinaya. Nonetheless, the legend served to "affirm same sex relation between men and boys in seventeenth century Japan." However, Japanese Buddhist scholar and author of "Wild Azaleas" Kitamura Kigin argued that there was a tendency in monasteries to avoid heterosexuality and to encourage homosexuality.
Although Mahayana Buddhism has some texts against homosexuality (from later Abhidharma texts & Buddhist apocrypha), the majority of its teachings assert that all beings who correctly practice the dharma may reach enlightenment, since all possess an innate Buddha nature. Enlightenment being achievable even in a single life.
The capacity of Buddhism to reform itself and its great variety of distinct beliefs and schools, provide many liberal streams of Buddhism, which are accepting of all sexual orientations. Reformist Buddhism is predominant in the west and in some eastern cosmopolitan cities.
Sikhism has no written view on the matter, but in 2005, a Sikh religious authority described homosexuality as "against the Sikh religion and the Sikh code of conduct and totally against the laws of nature," and called on Sikhs to support laws against gay marriage. Many Sikhs are against this view, however, and state that the Sikh Scriptures promote equality and do not condemn homosexuality.
Marriage in Sikhism is seen as a union of souls. In Sikhism, the soul is seen as genderless, and the outward appearance of human beings (man, woman) is a temporary state. Same-sex marriage advocates refer to this fact.
In Sikh Scripture
The Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib, is the highest authority in the Sikhism, it is seen as the 11th and eternal Guru. It serves as a guide to Sikhs on how to live positive lives, and details what behavior is expected of all Sikhs. It is seemingly silent on the subject of homosexuality; however, married life is encouraged time and again in Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Whenever marriage is mentioned, it is always in reference to a man and a woman. Some Sikhs believe that Guru Granth Sahib Ji is the complete guide to life, and if a marriage between two of the same sexes is not mentioned, it is therefore not right. The counterargument to this is that man and woman are only mentioned in this way to give light to the relationship of the soul and the soul force as being one. This denies gender and sex as an issue. Thus, Sikhism is more concerned with ones attainment of enlightenment rather than habitual desires such as sexuality. True love is attained through the Guru and no man speaks on behalf of the Guru as the Granth is open to interpretation and misrepresentation.
There are five vices (habitual desires) outlined in the Guru Granth Sahib that one should try to control. One of these vices is lust, and some Sikhs believe that homosexual thoughts and behaviour are just manifestations of lust. However, Sikhs that are more accepting of homosexuality claim that this is equally applicable to heterosexuals. These same Sikhs believe that Guru Nanak's emphasis on universal equality and brotherhood is fundamentally in support of the human rights of homosexuals.
Views on homosexuality tend not to be a primary concern in Sikh teachings, as the universal goal of a Sikh is to have no hate or animosity to any person, regardless of race, caste, color, creed, gender, or sex
The Guru's silence on homosexuality has led to a history of ambivalence on the topic.
The Vendidad, one of the later Zoroastrian texts composed in the Artificial Young Avestan language, has not been dated precisely. It is thought that some concepts of law, uncleanliness, dualism, and salvation were shared between the religions, and subsequent interactions between the religions are documented by events such as the release of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity by Zoroastrian Cyrus the Great in 537 BC, and the Biblical account of the Magi visiting the infant Jesus.
The Vendidad generally promotes procreation: "the man who has a wife is far above him who lives in continence; he who keeps a house is far above him who has none; he who has children is far above the childless man; he who has riches is far above him who has none." It details the penance for a worshipper who submits to sodomy under force as "Eight hundred stripes with the Aspahe-astra, eight hundred stripes with the Sraosho-charana." (equal to the penalty for breaking a contract with the value of an ox), and declares that for those participating voluntarily "For that deed there is nothing that can pay, nothing that can atone, nothing that can cleanse from it; it is a trespass for which there is no atonement, for ever and ever". However, those not practicing the Religion of Mazda were pardoned for past actions upon conversion. It has been argued that, in ancient times, those prohibitions against sodomy didn't apply to eunuchs.
However, many Zoroastrians, termed "reformists", eschew the teachings of the Vendidad as corruptions of Zoroaster's original message, claiming the rules do not conform with 'Good Words, Good Thoughts and Good Deeds', and therefore have no spiritual significance. Hence, many of these reformist Zoroastrians are openly accepting and supportive of the LGBT community and same-sex marriage.
Among the Taoic religions of East Asia, such as Taoism, passionate homosexual expression is usually discouraged because it is believed to not lead to human fulfillment.
Confucianism, being primarily a social and political philosophy, focused little on sexuality; whether homosexual or heterosexual. However, the ideology did emphasize male friendships, and Louis Crompton has argued that the "closeness of the master-disciple bond it fostered may have subtly facilitated homosexuality". Homosexuality is not mentioned in the Analects of Confucius.
There is no single official position on homosexuality in Taoism, as the term Taoism is used to describe a number of disparate religious traditions.
In a similar way to Buddhism, Taoist schools sought throughout history to define what would be sexual misconduct. The precept against Sexual Misconduct is sex outside your marriage. The married spouses () usually in Chinese suggest male with female, though the scripture itself does not explicitly say anything against same-gender relations. Many sorts of precepts mentioned in the Yunji Qiqian (), The Mini Daoist Canon, does not explicitly say anything against same-gender relations as well.
Homosexuality is not unknown in Taoist history, such as during the Tang dynasty when Taoist nuns exchanged love poems. Attitudes about homosexuality within Taoism often reflect the values and sexual norms of broader Chinese society (see Homosexuality in China).
The Radical Faeries are a worldwide queer spiritual movement, founded in 1979 in the United States.
The Wiccan "Charge of the Goddess", one of the most famous texts in Neopaganism, states in the words of the Goddess, "all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals". In traditional forms of Wicca, such as Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca, magic is often performed between a man and a woman, and the "Great Rite" is a sex ritual performed between a Priest and Priestess representing the God and Goddess; however, this is not generally seen as excluding homosexuals or magic between same-sex couples. Most groups still insist, however, that initiations be conferred from man to woman or woman to man.
Satanism, in both the theistic and the LaVey tradition, is open to all forms of sexual expression, and does not preclude homosexuality.
The first ordained minister of a major religious sect in the U.S. or Canada to come out as gay was the UU Minister James Stoll in 1969. There have been UUA resolutions supporting people regardless of sexual orientation since 1970. Unitarian Universalism was the first denomination to accept openly transgender people as full members with eligibility to become clergy; in 1988 the first openly transgender person was ordained by the Unitarian Universalist Association.
The Unitarian Universalist Association has supported the marriage equality since 1996 and compared those who resisted such equality to the resistance to the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, and the end of anti-miscegenation laws. Several congregations have undertaken a series of organizational, procedural and practical steps to become acknowledged as a "Welcoming Congregation": a congregation which has taken specific steps to welcome and integrate gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender (GLBT) members. UU ministers perform same-sex unions and now same-sex marriages where legal (and sometimes when not, as a form of civil protest). On 29 June 1984, the Unitarian Universalists became the first major church "to approve religious blessings on homosexual unions." Unitarian Universalists have been in the forefront of the work to make same-sex marriages legal in their local states and provinces, as well as on the national level. Gay men and lesbians are also regularly ordained as ministers, and a number of gay and lesbian ministers have, themselves, now become legally married to their partners. In May 2004, Arlington Street Church, Boston was the site of the first state-sanctioned same-sex marriage in the United States. The official stance of the UUA is for the legalization of same-sex marriage—"Standing on the Side of Love." In 2004 UU Minister Rev. Debra Haffner of The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing published An Open Letter on Religious Leaders on Marriage Equality to affirm same-sex marriage from a multi-faith perspective.
Humanism is a non-religious, non-theistic approach to life that supports full equality for LGBTQ individuals, including the right to marry. "Humanism and Its Aspirations", a statement of humanist principles from the American Humanist Association, states that "humanists are concerned for the well being of all, are committed to diversity, and respect those of differing yet humane views...work to uphold the equal enjoyment of human rights and civil liberties in an open, secular society and maintain it is a civic duty to participate in the democratic process and a planetary duty to protect nature's integrity, diversity, and beauty in a secure, sustainable manner." The American Humanist Association provides a LGBT Humanist Pride award and has funded a LGBT-inclusive prom for Itawamba County Agricultural High School in Mississippi. The organisation LGBT Humanists UK "is a United Kingdom-based not-for-profit that campaigns for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality and human rights and promotes Humanism as an ethical worldview." It was formerly an independent group, but since 2012 has been a part of the charity Humanists UK. In 2009 they gave Stephen Fry an award "for his services to humanism and gay rights."
Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson, who is gay, once wrote that "humanists have always been champions of LGBT rights" and cited his organisation's many years campaigning for decriminalisation and LGBT equality in the UK, including legal same-sex marriages. He pointed out the large number of LGBT people in the movement, including Stephen Fry, Christian Jessen, and Peter Tatchell, as well as historical associations with humanism like the writer Virginia Woolf and E M Forster. In a statement following the Orlando nightclub shooting for the International Humanist and Ethical Union, of which Copson is also President, he went further, saying "Humanism is the ultimate, long-standing and unfaltering ally of LGBTI people everywhere".
In Candomblé, homosexuality is usually accepted and explained by the sex of one's orisha. Homosexuality would be more probable in a man with a female orisha, a woman with a male orisha, or any of them with an androgynous orisha (such as Olokun).
Unification Church founder Susrith opposed homosexuality and compared gay people to "dirty dung-eating dogs". He prophesied that "gays will be eliminated" in a "purge on God's orders".
Opposition to same-sex marriage and LGBT rights is often associated with conservative religious views. The American Family Association and other religious groups have promoted boycotts of corporations whose policies support the LGBT community.
In conservative Islamic nations, laws generally prohibit same-sex sexual behaviour, and interpretation of Sharia Law on male homosexuality carries the death penalty. This has been condemned as a violation of human rights by human rights organisation Amnesty International and by the writers of the Yogyakarta principles. With the signature of the US in 2009, the proposed UN declaration on LGBT rights has now been signed by every European secular state and all western nations, as well as other countries—67 members of the UN in total. An opposing statement put forward by Muslim nations was signed by 57 member states, mostly in Africa and Asia. 68 out of the total 192 countries have not yet signed either statement. In 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution initiated by South Africa supporting LBGT rights ("See Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity at the United Nations") | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26040 |
RPGnet
RPGnet is a role-playing game website. It includes sections on wargames, tabletop games and video games, as well as columns on gaming topics.
RPGnet was founded in 1996 by Emma and Sandy Antunes, Shawn Althouse (etrigan) and Brian David Phillips, as a way to unify a number of transient game sites. In 2001 it was purchased by Skotos Tech, but maintains creative and editorial autonomy. Currently it is being run by Shannon Appelcline of Skotos, while a number of volunteer moderators and administrators help maintain the forums.
Originally based on Matt's WWWBoard script, the 1997 RPGnet forums were formatted in earlier message boards threaded style, being mostly dedicated to game design and industry news. With the change to vBulletin on 2002, new sections catering to the growing player and enthusiast user bases were added. The boards used vBulletin for the next sixteen years, until November, 2018, when they were migrated to the XenForo 2 software package.
Over time, the RPGnet forums have grown to encompass a broad range of subjects related to gaming and modern media. "Tabletop Roleplaying Open", the general game discussion forum, has the most posts per day. There are also video games, play-by-post and board games forums, a section dedicated to game design, publishing and brainstorming in general, while the "Other Media" covers television, comic books, movies and books. The site also hosts small forums for photography, parenting, and other specific interests.
Like most large forums, RPGnet has developed numerous in-jokes, taglines, and recurring flame wars. Many game writers, artists, and designers post. Content and conduct rules are enforced by moderators, who "can do what they feel is necessary in their best judgment to promote the well-being of the forums," even going beyond any written rules, "in order to keep the forums friendly and welcoming." A list of sanctions and bans on users assessed by the moderators is available for public view. RPGnet policies have occasionally been referenced by other platforms and forums when drawing their own policies.
A wide range of tastes are present on the forums. Smaller niche and indie role-playing games are particularly well represented and the latest releases often generate a great deal of discussion. Threads on Dungeons & Dragons, World of Darkness, GURPS and other popular systems are fairly common. Exalted is known for generating a particularly large number of discussion threads.
Other websites will excerpt or reference forum posts that (much as with the Fark PhotoShop contests) have lasting value, such as ZenDesign excerpting WoW-erizing movie quotes and From the Shop Floor borrowing from the Demotivators thread.
Reviews have been an important part of RPGnet since its inception. Today, RPGnet has an active archive of approximately 13,000 reviews. Most reviews are of roleplaying games or supplements. In the last few years, users have contributed numerous reviews of board and card games. RPGnet also publishes reviews of movies, books, music albums and comics, though less frequently.
The review system was overhauled in early 2003 and since then reviews have appeared with numerous cross-references in an effort to improve navigation of the large review archive.
Currently, reviews appear on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. RPG reviews are published on Mondays and Fridays, while reviews of other products are published on Wednesdays.
RPGnet currently has approximately 20 regular columns. Columns are posted on a four-week, Monday-Friday schedule (with 3 to 4 columns posted during a typical week, as per columnist cooperation), with any "extra weeks" in the schedule filled in with additional columns, as they become available. Most columns cover gamemasters offering advice on running roleplaying games to other gamemasters, but there is some variety. This site has become noted as a source for player theory on role-playing games, and these are often written by authors with an academic background.
Notable columns have included: 52 Pickup which promised to offer a new game every week for a year (it got to about a dozen before the initial author gave up, then another dozen before the second one did); Behind the Counter which continues to detail the runnings of a gaming retail store; and Freelancing is Not Free which describes how to freelance in the gaming industry. Noteworthy columnists have included game industry veterans such as Ross Winn, Chad Underkoffler and Matt Drake. Sandy Antunes' monthly column has run without interruption since inception.
The forums include threads describing actual play of role-playing games in concrete terms. These threads include descriptions of how players have overcome specific challenges, and they allow observers to view how a role-playing game is performed without having to actually participate.
The columns software was upgraded in 2006, and it now includes full RSS feeds as well as a variety of database-oriented lookups and full integration into the RPGnet forums.
Prior to 2008, Columns Editing was handled by C.W. Richeson (2008), Shannon Appelcline (2006–2007), Michael Fiegel (2001–2005) and Sandy Antunes (inception - 2001). As of January 2008, it is handled by Shannon Appelcline.
RPGnet columns have been referenced on Slashdot (including "Gaming Girls of GenCon" and "A History of Wizards of the Coast"), as well as on many blogs and gaming sites.
The RPGnet wiki was added in early 2005. Initially conceived as a place for people jointly design roleplaying supplements and game systems, it has also been used assemble an encyclopedia of roleplaying terms and resources, and compile information about ongoing campaigns taking place on the forums.
The RPGnet Wiki is built on MediaWiki, the same software used by Wikipedia.
In 2006, RPGnet added a catalog of role-playing games known as the Gaming Index. This system is intended to hold every English RPG product, and is searchable through a variety of means, notable hyperlinks to other products by the publisher, authors or game line and links to RPGnet's reviews of the product. Users can add products, rank, and comment on them. As of November 13, 2018, the site has 19832 games, 3250 additional editions, and 2245 magazines, accounting for 1458 unique game systems.
RPGnet formerly featured a RPG store, which is a RPGnet-branded version of RPGShop. The site also offers a membership program which gives subscribers early access to reviews, a few forum privileges, and online access to some Days of Wonder games.
The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) publishes a semi-annual journal called "Games and Education". As of 1998, past issues of this journal are archived on the RPGnet site. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26041 |
Szczecin
Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; known also by other alternative names) is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major seaport and Poland's seventh-largest city. As of December 2019, the population was 401,907.
Szczecin is located on the river Oder, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. Szczecin is adjacent to the town of Police and is the urban centre of the Szczecin agglomeration, an extended metropolitan area that includes communities in the German states of Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The city's recorded history began in the 8th century as a Lechitic Pomeranian stronghold, built at the site of the Ducal castle. In the 12th century, when Szczecin had become one of Pomerania's main urban centres, it lost its independence to Piast Poland, the Duchy of Saxony, the Holy Roman Empire and Denmark. At the same time, the House of Griffins established themselves as local rulers and the population was Christianized. After the Treaty of Stettin in 1630, the town came under the control of the Swedish Empire and became in 1648 the Capital of Swedish Pomerania until 1720, when it was acquired by the Kingdom of Prussia and then the German Empire. Following World War II Stettin became part of Poland in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, resulting in the almost complete expulsion of the pre-war German population.
Szczecin is the administrative and industrial centre of West Pomeranian Voivodeship and is the site of the University of Szczecin, Pomeranian Medical University, Maritime University, West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin Art Academy, and the see of the Szczecin-Kamień Catholic Archdiocese. From 1999 onwards, Szczecin has served as the site of the headquarters of NATO's Multinational Corps Northeast.
Szczecin was a candidate for the European Capital of Culture in 2016.
"Szczecin" and "Stettin" are the Polish and German equivalents of the same name, which is of Slavic origin, though the exact etymology is the subject of ongoing research.
In "Etymological dictionary of geographical names of Poland", Maria Malec lists eleven theories regarding the origin of the name, including derivations from either: a Slavic word for hill peak, (), or the plant fuller's teasel (), or the personal name "Szczota".
Other medieval names for the town are "Burstaborg" (in the Knytlinga saga) and "Burstenburgh" (in the Annals of Waldemar). These names, which literally mean "brush burgh", are likely derived from the translation of the city's Slavic name (assuming derivation No. 2 for that).
The recorded history of Szczecin began in the eighth century, as Vikings and West Slavs settled Pomerania. The Slavs erected a new stronghold on the site of the modern castle.
Since the 9th century, the stronghold was fortified and expanded toward the Oder bank. Mieszko I of Poland took control of Pomerania during the Early Middle Ages and the region became part of Poland in the 10th century. However, already Mieszko II Lambert (1025 ~ 1034) effectively lost control over the area and had to accept German suzeranity over the area of the Oder lagoon. Subsequent Polish rulers, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Liutician federation all aimed to control the territory.
After the decline of the neighbouring regional centre Wolin in the 12th century, the city became one of the more important and powerful seaports of the Baltic Sea.
In a campaign in the winter of 1121–1122, Bolesław III Wrymouth, the Duke of Poland, gained control of the region, including the city of Szczecin and its stronghold.
The inhabitants were Christianized by two missions of Bishop Otto of Bamberg in 1124 and 1128. At this time, the first Christian church of Saints Peter and Paul was erected. Polish minted coins were commonly used in trade in this period. The population of the city at that time is estimated to be at around 5,000–9,000 people.
Polish rule ended with Boleslaw's death in 1138. During the Wendish Crusade in 1147, a contingent led by the German margrave Albert the Bear, an enemy of Slavic presence in the region, papal legate, bishop Anselm of Havelberg and Konrad of Meissen besieged the town. There, a Polish contingent supplied by Mieszko III the Old joined the crusaders. However, the citizens had placed crosses around the fortifications, indicating they already had been Christianised. Duke Ratibor I of Pomerania, negotiated the disbanding of the crusading forces.
After the Battle of Verchen in 1164, Szczecin duke Bogusław I, Duke of Pomerania became a vassal of the Duchy of Saxony's Henry the Lion. In 1173 Szczecin castellan Wartislaw II, could not resist a Danish attack and became vassal of Denmark. In 1181, Bogusław became a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1185 Bogusław again became a Danish vassal. Following a conflict between his heirs and Canute VI of Denmark, the settlement was destroyed in 1189, but the fortress was reconstructed and manned with a Danish force in 1190. While the empire restored its superiority over the Duchy of Pomerania in the Battle of Bornhöved in 1227, Szczecin was one of two bridgeheads remaining under Danish control (until 1235; Wolgast until 1241/43 or 1250).
In the second half of the 12th century, a group of German tradesmen ("multus populus Teutonicorum" from various parts of the Holy Roman Empire) settled in the city around St.Jacob's Church, which was donated in 1180 by Beringer, a trader from Bamberg, and consecrated in 1187. Hohenkrug (now in Szczecin Struga) was the first village in the Duchy of Pomerania that was clearly recorded as German ("villa teutonicorum") in 1173. Ostsiedlung accelerated in Pomerania during the 13th century. Duke Barnim I of Pomerania granted Szczecin a local government charter in 1237, separating the German settlement from the Slavic community settled around the St. Nicholas Church in the neighbourhood of Kessin (). In the charter, the Slavs were put under German jurisdiction.
When Barnim granted Szczecin Magdeburg rights in 1243, part of the Slavic settlement was reconstructed. The duke had to promise to level the burgh in 1249. Most Slavic inhabitants were resettled to two new suburbs north and south of the town. The last records of Slavs in Stettin are from the 14th century, when a Slavic bath (1350) and bakery are recorded, and within the walls, Slavs lived in a street named "Schulzenstrasse". By the end of the 14th century, the remaining Slavs had been assimilated.
In 1249 Barnim I also granted Magdeburg town privileges to the town of Damm (also known as Altdamm) on the eastern bank of the Oder. Damm merged with neighbouring Szczecin on 15October 1939 and is now the Dąbie neighbourhood. This town had been built on the site of a former Pomeranian burg, "Vadam" or "Dambe", which Boleslaw had destroyed during his 1121 campaign.
On 2 December 1261, Barnim I allowed Jewish settlement in Szczecin in accordance with the Magdeburg law, in a privilege renewed in 1308 and 1371. The Jewish Jordan family was granted citizenship in 1325, but none of the 22 Jews allowed to settle in the duchy in 1481 lived in the city, and in 1492, all Jews in the duchy were ordered to convert to Christianity or leavethis order remained effective throughout the rest of the Griffin era.
In 1273 in Szczecin duke of Poznań and future King of Poland Przemysł II married princess Ludgarda, granddaughter of Barnim I, Duke of Pomerania, in order to strengthen the alliance between the two rulers.
Szczecin was part of the federation of Wendish towns, a predecessor of the Hanseatic League, in 1283. The city prospered due to its participation in the Baltic Sea trade, primarily with herring, grain, and timber; craftsmanship also prospered, and more than forty guilds were established in the city. The far-reaching autonomy granted by the House of Griffins was in part reduced when the dukes reclaimed Stettin as their main residence in the late 15th century. The anti-Slavic policies of German merchants and craftsmen intensified in this period, resulting in measures such as bans on people of Slavic descent joining craft guilds, a doubling of customs tax for Slavic merchants, and bans against public usage of their native language. The more prosperous Slavic citizens were forcibly stripped of their possessions, which were then handed over to Germans. In 1514 the guild of tailors added a "Wendenparagraph" to its statutes, banning Slavs.
While not as heavily affected by medieval witchhunts as other regions of the empire, there are reports of the burning of three women and one man convicted of witchcraft in 1538.
In 1570, during the reign of John Frederick, Duke of Pomerania, a congress was held at Stettin ending the Northern Seven Years' War. During the war, Stettin had tended to side with Denmark, while Stralsund tended toward Swedenas a whole, however, the Duchy of Pomerania tried to maintain neutrality. Nevertheless, a Landtag that had met in Stettin in 1563 introduced a sixfold rise in real estate taxes to finance the raising of a mercenary army for the duchy's defence. Johann Friedrich also succeeded in elevating Stettin to one of only three places allowed to coin money in the Upper Saxon Circle of the Holy Roman Empire, the other two places being Leipzig and Berlin. Bogislaw XIV, who resided in Stettin beginning in 1620, became the sole ruler and Griffin duke when Philipp Julius, Duke of Pomerania died in 1625. Before the Thirty Years' War reached Pomerania, the city, as well as the entire duchy, declined economically due to the decrease in importance of the Hanseatic League and a conflict between Stettin and Frankfurt an der Oder.
Following the Treaty of Stettin of 1630, the town (along with most of Pomerania) was allied to and occupied by the Swedish Empire, which managed to keep the western parts of Pomerania after the death of BogislawXIV in 1637. From the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Stettin became the Capital of Swedish Pomerania. Stettin was turned into a major Swedish fortress, which was repeatedly besieged in subsequent wars. The Treaty of Stettin (1653) didn't change this, but due to the downfall of the Swedish Empire after Charles XII, the city went to Prussia in 1720. Instead Stralsund became Capital of the last remaining parts of Swedish Pomerania 1720–1815.
Wars inhibited the city's economic prosperity, which had undergone a deep crisis during the devastation of the Thirty Years' War and was further impeded by the new Swedish-Brandenburg-Prussian frontier, cutting Stettin off from its traditional Farther Pomeranian hinterland. Due to a Plague during the Great Northern War, the city's population dropped from 6,000 people in 1709 to 4,000 in 1711. In 1720, after the Great Northern War, Sweden was forced to cede the city to King Frederick William I of Prussia. Stettin was made the capital city of the Brandenburg-Prussian Pomeranian province, since 1815 reorganised as the Province of Pomerania. In 1816 the city had 26,000 inhabitants.
The Prussian administration deprived Stettin of her right to administrative autonomy, abolished guild privileges as well as its status as a staple town, and subsidised manufacturers. Also, colonists were settled in the city, primarily Huguenots.
In October 1806, during the War of the Fourth Coalition, believing that he was facing a much larger force, and after receiving a threat of harsh treatment of the city, the Prussian commander Lieutenant General Friedrich von Romberg agreed to surrender the city to the French led by General Lassalle. In fact, Lassalle had only 800 men against vonRomberg's 5,300 men. In March 1809 Romberg was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for giving up Stettin without a fight.
From 1683 to 1812, one Jew was permitted to reside in Stettin, and an additional Jew was allowed to spend a night in the city in case of "urgent business". These permissions were repeatedly withdrawn between 1691 and 1716, also between 1726 and 1730 although else the Swedish regulation was continued by the Brandenburg-Prussian administration. Only after the Prussian Edict of Emancipation of 11March 1812, which granted Prussian citizenship to all Jews living in the kingdom, did a Jewish community emerge in Stettin, with the first Jews settling in the town in 1814. Construction of a synagogue started in 1834; the community also owned a religious and a secular school, an orphanage since 1855, and a retirement home since 1893. The Jewish community had between 1,000 and 1,200 members by 1873 and between 2,800 and 3,000 members by 192728. These numbers dropped to 2,701 in 1930 and to 2,322 in late 1934.
After the Franco Prussian war of 1870–1871, 1,700 French POWs were imprisoned there in deplorable conditions, resulting in the death of 600 of them; after the Second World War monuments in their memory were built by the Polish authorities.
Until 1873, Stettin remained a fortress. When part of the defensive structures were levelled, a new neighbourhood, "Neustadt" ("New Town") as well as water pipes, sewerage and drainage, and gas works were built to meet the demands of the growing population.
Stettin was on the path of Polish forces led by Stefan Czarniecki moving from Denmark, which led his forces to the city, is today mentioned in the Polish anthem, and numerous locations in the city honour his name.
Stettin developed into a major Prussian port and became part of the German Empire in 1871. While most of the province retained its agrarian character, Stettin was industrialised, and its population rose from 27,000 in 1813 to 210,000 in 1900 and 255,500 in 1925. Major industries that flourished in Stettin from 1840 were shipbuilding, chemical and food industries, and machinery construction. Starting in 1843, Stettin became connected to the major German and Pomeranian cities by railways, and the water connection to the Bay of Pomerania was enhanced by the construction of the Kaiserfahrt (now Piast) canal. The city was also a scientific centre; for example, it was home to the Entomological Society of Stettin.
On 20 October 1890, some of the city's Poles created the "Society of Polish-Catholic Workers" in the city, one of the first Polish organisations. In 1897 the city's ship works began the construction of the pre-dreadnought battleship "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse". In 1914, before World WarI, the Polish community in the city numbered over 3,000 people. These were primarily industrial workers and their families who came from the Poznań (Posen) area and a few local wealthy industrialists and merchants. Among them was Kazimierz Pruszak, director of the Gollnow industrial works and a Polish patriot, who predicted the eventual "return" of Szczecin to Poland.
During the interwar period, Stettin was Weimar Germany's largest port on the Baltic Sea, and her third-largest port after Hamburg and Bremen. Cars of the Stoewer automobile company were produced in Stettin from 1899 to 1945. By 1939, the Reichsautobahn BerlinStettin was completed.
Stettin played a major role as an entrepôt in the development of the Scottish herring trade with the Continent, peaking at an annual export of more than 400,000 barrels in 1885, 1894 and 1898. Trade flourished till the outbreak of the First World War and resumed on a reduced scale during the years between the wars.
In the March 1933 German elections to the Reichstag, the Nazis and German nationalists from the German National People's Party (or DNVP) won most of the votes in the city, together winning 98,626 of 165,331 votes (59.3%), with the NSDAP getting 79,729 (47.9%) and the DNVP 18,897 (11.4%).
In 1935 the Wehrmacht made Stettin the headquarters for WehrkreisII, which controlled the military units in all of Mecklenburg and Pomerania. It was also the area headquarters for units stationed at StettinI and II; Swinemünde; Greifswald; and Stralsund.
In the interwar period, the Polish minority numbered 2,000 people. A number of Poles were members of the Union of Poles in Germany (ZPN), which was active in the city from 1924. A Polish consulate was located in the city between 1925 and 1939. On the initiative of the consulate and ZPN activist Maksymilian Golisz, a number of Polish institutions were established, e.g., a Polish Scout team and a Polish school. German historian Musekamp writes, "however, only very few Poles were active in these institutions, which for the most part were headed by employees of the [Polish] consulate." The withdrawal of the consulate from these institutions led to a general decline of these activities, which were in part upheld by Golisz and Aleksander Omieczyński. Intensified repressions by the Nazis, who exaggerated the Polish activities to propagate an infiltration, led to the closing of the school. In 1938 the head of Szczecin's Union of Poles unit, Stanisław Borkowski, was imprisoned in Oranienburg. In 1939 all Polish organisations in Stettin were disbanded by the German authorities. Golisz and Omieczyński were murdered during the war. According to Musekamp, the role of the pre-war Polish community was exaggerated for propagandistic purposes in post-war Poland which made "the numerically insignificant Polonia of Stettin... probably the best-researched social group" in the history of the city". After the defeat of Nazi Germany, a street in Szczecin was named after Golisz.
During World War II, Stettin was the base for the German 2nd Motorised Infantry Division, which cut across the Polish Corridor and was later used in 1940 as an embarkation point for Operation Weserübung, Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway.
On 15 October 1939, neighbouring municipalities were joined to Stettin, creating Groß-Stettin, with about 380,000 inhabitants, in 1940. The city had become the third-largest German city by area, after Berlin and Hamburg.
As the war started, the number of non-Germans in the city increased as slave workers were brought in. The first transports came in 1939 from Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Łódź. They were mainly used in a synthetic silk factory near Stettin. The next wave of slave workers was brought in 1940, in addition to PoWs who were used for work in the agricultural industry. According to German police reports from 1940, 15,000 Polish slave workers lived within the city.
During the war, 135 forced labour camps for slave workers were established in the city. Most of the 25,000 slave workers were Poles, but Czechs, Italians, Frenchmen and Belgians, as well as Dutch citizens, were also enslaved in the camps.
In February 1940, the Jews of Stettin were deported to the Lublin reservation. International press reports emerged, describing how the Nazis forced Jews, regardless of age, condition and gender, to sign away all property and loaded them onto trains headed to the camp, escorted by members of the SA and SS. Due to publicity given to the event, German institutions ordered such future actions to be made in a way unlikely to attract public notice. The action was the first deportation of Jews from prewar territory in Nazi Germany.
Allied air raids in 1944 and heavy fighting between the German and Soviet armies destroyed 65% of Stettin's buildings and almost all of the city centre, the seaport, and local industries. Polish Home Army intelligence assisted in pinpointing targets for Allied bombing in the area of Stettin. The city itself was covered by the Home Army's "Bałtyk" structure, and Polish resistance infiltrated Stettin's naval yards. Other activities of the resistance consisted of smuggling people to Sweden.
The Soviet Red Army captured the city on 26April. While the majority of the almost 400,000 inhabitants had left the city, between 6,000 and 20,000 inhabitants remained in late April.
On 28 April 1945 Polish authorities tried to gain control, but in the following month, the Polish administration was twice forced to leave. Finally the permanent handover occurred on 5July 1945. In the meantime, part of the German population had returned, believing it might become part of the Soviet occupation zone of Germany. The Soviet authorities had already appointed the German Communists Erich Spiegel and Erich Wiesner as mayors. Stettin is located mostly west of the Oder river, which was expected to become Poland's new western border, placing Stettin in East Germany. This would have been in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement between the victorious Allied Powers, which envisaged the new border to be in "a line running from the Baltic Sea immediately west of Swinemünde, and thence along the Oder River[...]". Because of the returnees, the German population of the town swelled to 84,000. The mortality rate was at 20%, primarily due to starvation. However, Stettin and the mouth of the Oder River () became Polish on 5July 1945, as had been decided in a treaty signed on 26July 1944 between the Soviet Union and the Soviet-controlled Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKWN) (also known as "the Lublin Poles", as contrasted with the London-based Polish government-in-exile). On 4October 1945, the decisive land border of Poland was established west of the 1945 line, but it excluded the Police (Pölitz) area, the Oder river itself, and the Stettin port, which remained under Soviet administration. The Oder river was handed over to Polish administration in September 1946, followed by the port between February 1946 and May 1954.
After World War II the city was transferred to Poland. Stettin was transformed from a German into a Polish city as it was renamed Szczecin. While in 1945 the number of pre-war inhabitants dropped to 57,215 on 31 October 1945, the systematic expulsion started on 22 February 1946 and continued until late 1947. In December 1946 about 17,000 German inhabitants remained, while the number of Poles living in the city reached 100,000. To ease the tensions between settlers from different regions, and help overcome fear caused by the continued presence of the Soviet troops, a special event was organised in April 1946 with 50,000 visitors in the partly destroyed city centre. Settlers from Central Poland made up about 70% of Szczecin's new population. In addition to Poles, Ukrainians from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union settled there. In 1945 and 1946 the city was the starting point of the northern route used by the Jewish underground organisation Brichah to channel Jewish displaced persons from Central and Eastern Europe to the American occupation zone.
Szczecin was rebuilt, and the city's industry was expanded. At the same time, Szczecin became a major Polish industrial centre and an important seaport (particularly for Silesian coal) for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany. Cultural expansion was accompanied by a campaign resulting in the "removal of all German traces". In 1946 Winston Churchill prominently mentioned Szczecin in his Iron Curtain speech: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent".
The 1962 Szczecin military parade led to a road traffic accident in which a tank of the Polish People's Army crushed bystanders, killing seven children and injuring many more. The resultant panic in the crowd led to further injuries in the rush to escape. The incident was covered up for many years by the Polish communist authorities.
The city witnessed anti-communist revolts in 1970. In 1980, one of the four "August Agreements", which led to the first legalisation of the trade union Solidarity, was signed in Szczecin. The introduction of martial law in December 1981 met with a strike by the dockworkers of Szczecin shipyard, joined by other factories and workplaces in a general strike. All these were suppressed by the authorities. Pope John Paul II visited the city on 11June 1987. Another wave of strikes in Szczecin broke out in 1988 and 1989, which eventually led to the Round Table Agreement and first semi-free elections in Poland.
Szczecin has been the capital of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999.
Szczecin has an oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfb") with some humid continental ("Dfb") characteristics in normal not updated, typical of Western Pomerania. The winters are cold more than on the immediate coast and the summers are warm, but still with some moderation, especially the Baltic Sea.
The average air temperature in Szczecin ranges from 8 to 8.4 °C. The hottest month is July with a temperature of 15.8 °C to 20.3 °C, the coldest January from -4.1 °C to 2.6 °C. Air temperature below 0 °C occurs on average over 86 days a year, most frequently in January and February. The average annual rainfall is 537 mm, the average rainfall in the cool half-year is 225 mm, and in the warmer half-year is 350 mm. On average, 167 days with precipitation occurs.
Szczecin's architectural style is due to trends popular in the last half of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century: Academic art and Art Nouveau. In many areas built after 1945, especially in the city centre, which had been destroyed due to Allied bombing, social realism is prevalent.
The city has an abundance of green areas: parks and avenueswide streets with trees planted in the island separating opposing traffic (where often tram tracks are laid); and roundabouts. Szczecin's city plan resembles that of Paris, mostly because Szczecin was rebuilt in the 1880s according to a design by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who had redesigned Paris under Napoléon III. This pattern of street design is still used in Szczecin, as many recently built (or modified) city areas include roundabouts and avenues.
During the city's reconstruction in the aftermath of World War II, the communist authorities of Poland wanted the city's architecture to reflect an old Polish Piast era. Since no buildings from that time existed, instead Gothic as well as Renaissance buildings were picked as worthy of conservation. The motivation behind this decision was that Renaissance architecture was used by the Griffin dynasty, which had Lechitic and West Slavic roots and was seen to be of Piast extraction by some historians. This view was manifested, for example, by erecting respective memorials, and the naming of streets and enterprises, while German traces were replaced by symbols of three main categories: Piasts, the martyrdom of Poles, and gratitude to the Soviet and Polish armies which had ended the Nazi atrocities against Polish citizens.
The ruins of the former Griffin residence, initially renamed "Piast Palace", also played a central role in this concept and were reconstructed in Renaissance style, with all traces of later eras removed. In general, post-Renaissance buildings, especially those from the 19th and early 20th centuries, were deemed unworthy of conservation until the 1970s, and were in part used in the "Bricks for Warsaw" campaign (an effort to rebuild Warsaw after it had been systematically razed following the Warsaw Uprising): with 38 million bricks, Szczecin became Poland's largest brick supplier. The Old Town was rebuilt in the late 1990s, with new buildings, some of which were reconstructions of buildings destroyed in World WarII.
The Gothic monuments preserved to this day are parts of European Route of Brick Gothic, along with monuments of other Pomeranian cities, e.g. Stargard, Kamień Pomorski, Sławno and Chełmno.
A portion of the Szczecin Landscape Park in the forest of Puszcza Bukowa lies within Szczecin's boundaries.
The city is administratively divided into districts (Polish: "dzielnica"), which are further divided into smaller neighbourhoods. The governing bodies of the latter serve the role of auxiliary local government bodies called "Neighbourhood Councils" (Polish: "Rady Osiedla"). Elections for neighbourhood councils are held up to six months after each City Council election. Voter turnout is rather low (on 20May 2007 it ranged from 1.03% to 27.75% and was 3.78% on average). Councillors are responsible mostly for small infrastructure like trees, park benches, playgrounds, etc. Other functions are mostly advisory.
Babin, Barnucin, Basen Górniczy, Błędów, Boleszyce, Bystrzyk, Cieszyce, Cieśnik, Dolina, Drzetowo, Dunikowo, Glinki, Grabowo, Jezierzyce, Kaliny, Kępa Barnicka, Kijewko, Kluczewko, Kłobucko, Kniewo, Kraśnica, Krzekoszów, Lotnisko, Łasztownia, Niemierzyn, Odolany, Oleszna, Podbórz, Port, os.Przyjaźni, Rogatka, Rudnik, Sienna, Skoki, Słowieńsko, Sosnówko, Starków, Stoki, Struga, Śmierdnica, os.Świerczewskie, Trzebusz, Urok, Widok, Zdunowo.
Up to the end of World War II, the vast majority of the population of Stettin were Lutheran Protestants. Historically, the number of inhabitants doubled from 6,081 in 1720, to 12,360 in 1740, and reached 21,255 in 1812, with only 476 Catholics and 5 Jews. By 1852 the population was 48,028, and 58,487 ten years later (1861), including 1,065 Catholics and 1,438 Jews. In 1885 it was 99,543, and by 1905 it ballooned to 224,119 settlers (incl. the military), among them 209,152 Protestants, 8,635 Catholics and 3,010 Jews. In 1939 the number of inhabitants reached 268,421 persons according to German sources including 233,424 Protestants, 10,845 Catholics, and 1,102 Jews. The current population of Szczecin by comparison was 406,427 in 2009. Following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Szczecin, much like most other major urban centers in Poland, saw an unprecedented influx of foreign nationals, an overwhelming majority of them Ukrainians; in July 2017 26 thousand of them were officially registered as living and working in Szczecin, with unofficial estimates going as high as 50 thousand, thus making up more than 10% of the city's inhabitants.
Recently, the city has favoured the centre right Civic Platform. Nearly two-thirds (64.54%) of votes cast in the second round of the 2010 presidential election went to the Civic Platform's Bronisław Komorowski, and in the following year's Polish parliamentary election the party won 46.75% of the vote in the Szczecin constituency with Law and Justice second garnering 21.66% and Palikot's Movement third with 11.8%.
There are a few theatres and cinemas in Szczecin:
and many historic places as:
The current local cuisine in Szczecin was mostly shaped in the mid-20th century by people who settled in the city from other parts and regions of Poland, including the former Eastern Borderlands. The most renowned dishes of the area are pasztecik szczeciński and paprykarz szczeciński.
Pasztecik szczeciński is a deep-fried yeast dough stuffed with meat or vegetarian filling, served in specialised bars as a fast food. The first bar serving pasztecik szczeciński, Bar "Pasztecik" founded in 1969, is located on Wojska Polskiego Avenue 46 in the centre of Szczecin. Pasztecik szczeciński is usually served with clear borscht.
Paprykarz szczeciński is a paste made by mixing fish paste (around 50%) with rice, onion, tomato concentrate, vegetable oil, salt and a mixture of spices including chili powder to put it on a sandwich. It is available in most grocery stores in the country.
The word "szczeciński" in both names, pasztecik szczeciński and paprykarz szczeciński, is an adjective from the name of the city of Szczecin, the place of its origin.
There are many popular professional sports teams in Szczecin area. The most popular sport today is probably football (thanks to Pogoń Szczecin being promoted to play in Ekstraklasa in the 2012/2013 season). Amateur sports are played by thousands of Szczecin citizens and also in schools of all levels (elementary, secondary, university).
As can be seen above, many teams in Szczecin are named after Pogoń Lwów, a team from the Eastern Borderlands.
Every year in September the men's tennis tournament Pekao Szczecin Open is held in Szczecin.
Szczecin is served by Solidarity Szczecin–Goleniów Airport, which is northeast of central Szczecin. There is also a grass airstrip within city limits, the Szczecin-Dąbie Airstrip.
Szczecin has a tram network comprising 12 tram lines serving 95 tram stops and measuring in length. Tram transport is operated by the Tramwaje Szczecińskie (TS).
Szczecin's first horse tram opened in 1879, running from Gałczyńskiego Square to Staszica Street. In 1896 the first line using electric traction was opened. By 1900, the horse trams had been entirely replaced by electric trams.
Szczecin has a bus network of 70 bus routes. Bus transport is operated by 4companies: SPA Dąbie, SPA Klonowica, SPPK and PKS Szczecin.
Of all bus routes, 50 lines are designated as normal. At nighttime, Szczecin is served by a night bus network of 16 routes. There are also 7express bus lines, which do not serve all stops on their route.
The recently upgraded A6 motorway serves as the southern bypass of the city, and connects to the German A11 autobahn (portions of which are currently undergoing upgrade), from where one can reach Berlin in about 90 minutes (about ). Road connections with the rest of Poland are of lower quality (no motorways), though the S3 Expressway has improved the situation after the stretch from Szczecin to Gorzów Wielkopolski opened in 2010, and then another section connecting to A2 motorway opened in May 2014. Construction of express roads S6 and S10 to run east from Szczecin has also started, though these roads will not be fully completed in the near future.
The main train stationSzczecin Główny railway stationis situated in the city centre (Kolumba Street). Szczecin has good railway connections with "Solidarity" Szczecin–Goleniów Airport and the rest of Poland, e.g., Świnoujście, Kołobrzeg, Poznań, Wrocław, Warsaw and Gdańsk. Szczecin is also connected with Germany (Berlin (Gesundbrunnen) and through Pasewalk to Neubrandenburg and Lübeck), but only by two single-track, non-electrified lines. Because of this, the rail connection between Berlin and Szczecin is much slower and less convenient than one would expect between two European cities of that size and proximity.
The Port of Szczecin is the third largest port in Poland and handles almost 10million tons of cargo annually (data from 2006). This is a harbour of the Baltic Sea and the Oder river.
Over the long course of its history Szczecin has been a place of birth and of residence for many famous individuals, including Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, composer Carl Loewe, writer Alfred Döblin, actress Dita Parlo, mathematician Hermann Günther Grassmann, Roman Catholic priest Carl Lampert, poet Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński, Helena Majdaniec - "the queen of Polish Twist", and singer Violetta Villas.
Szczecin is twinned with: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28456 |
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was a neutrino observatory located 2100 m underground in Vale's Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. The detector was designed to detect solar neutrinos through their interactions with a large tank of heavy water.
The detector was turned on in May 1999, and was turned off on 28 November 2006. The SNO collaboration was active for several years after that analyzing the data taken.
The director of the experiment, Art McDonald, was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015 for the experiment's contribution to the discovery of neutrino oscillation.
The underground laboratory has been enlarged into a permanent facility and now operates multiple experiments as SNOLAB. The SNO equipment itself is currently being refurbished for use in the SNO+ experiment.
The first measurements of the number of solar neutrinos reaching the earth were taken in the 1960s, and all experiments prior to SNO observed a third to a half fewer neutrinos than were predicted by the Standard Solar Model. As several experiments confirmed this deficit the effect became known as the solar neutrino problem. Over several decades many ideas were put forward to try to explain the effect, one of which was the hypothesis of neutrino oscillations. All of the solar neutrino detectors prior to SNO had been sensitive primarily or exclusively to electron neutrinos and yielded little to no information on muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos.
In 1984, Herb Chen of the University of California at Irvine first pointed out the advantages of using heavy water as a detector for solar neutrinos. Unlike previous detectors, using heavy water would make the detector sensitive to two reactions, one reaction sensitive to all neutrino flavours, the other reaction sensitive to only electron neutrino. Thus, such a detector can measure neutrino oscillations directly. A location in Canada was attractive because Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which maintains large stockpiles of heavy water to support its CANDU reactor power plants, was willing to lend the necessary amount (worth at market prices) at no cost.
The Creighton Mine in Sudbury, among the deepest in the world and accordingly low in background radiation, was quickly identified as an ideal place for Chen's proposed experiment to be built, and the mine management was willing to make the location available for only incremental costs.
The SNO collaboration held its first meeting in 1984. At the time it competed with TRIUMF's KAON Factory proposal for federal funding, and the wide variety of universities backing SNO quickly led to it being selected for development. The official go-ahead was given in 1990.
The experiment observed the light produced by relativistic electrons in the water created by neutrino interactions. As relativistic electrons travel through a medium, they lose energy producing a cone of blue light through the Cherenkov effect, and it is this light that is directly detected.
The SNO detector target consisted of of heavy water contained in a acrylic vessel. The detector cavity outside the vessel was filled with normal water to provide both buoyancy for the vessel and radiation shielding. The heavy water was viewed by approximately 9,600 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) mounted on a geodesic sphere at a radius of about . The cavity housing the detector was the largest in the world at such a depth, requiring a variety of high-performance rock bolting techniques to prevent rock bursts.
The observatory is located at the end of a drift, named the "SNO drift", isolating it from other mining operations. Along the drift are a number of operations and equipment rooms, all held in a clean room setting. Most of the facility is Class 3000 (fewer than 3,000 particles of 1 μm or larger per 1 ft3 of air) but the final cavity containing the detector is an even stricter Class 100.
In the charged current interaction, a neutrino converts the neutron in a deuteron to a proton. The neutrino is absorbed in the reaction and an electron is produced. Solar neutrinos have energies smaller than the mass of muons and tau leptons, so only electron neutrinos can participate in this reaction. The emitted electron carries off most of the neutrino's energy, on the order of 5–15 MeV, and is detectable. The proton which is produced does not have enough energy to be detected easily. The electrons produced in this reaction are emitted in all directions, but there is a slight tendency for them to point back in the direction from which the neutrino came.
In the neutral current interaction, a neutrino dissociates the deuteron, breaking it into its constituent neutron and proton. The neutrino continues on with slightly less energy, and all three neutrino flavours are equally likely to participate in this interaction. Heavy water has a small cross section for neutrons, and when neutrons capture on a deuterium nucleus a gamma ray (photon) with roughly 6 MeV of energy is produced. The direction of the gamma ray is completely uncorrelated with the direction of the neutrino. Some of the neutrons wander past the acrylic vessel into the light water, and since light water has a very large cross section for neutron capture these neutrons are captured very quickly. A gamma ray with roughly 2.2 MeV of energy is produced in this reaction, but because the energy of the photons are not above the detector's energy threshold (meaning above the threshold for the photomultipliers), they are not directly observable. The gamma ray collides with an electron through Compton scattering and the accelerated electron can be detected through Cherenkov radiation.
In the elastic scattering interaction, a neutrino collides with an atomic electron and imparts some of its energy to the electron. All three neutrinos can participate in this interaction through the exchange of the neutral Z boson, and electron neutrinos can also participate with the exchange of a charged W boson. For this reason this interaction is dominated by electron neutrinos, and this is the channel through which the Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) detector can observe solar neutrinos. This interaction is the relativistic equivalent of billiards, and for this reason the electrons produced usually point in the direction that the neutrino was travelling (away from the sun). Because this interaction takes place on atomic electrons it occurs with the same rate in both the heavy and light water.
On 18 June 2001, the first scientific results of SNO were published, bringing the first clear evidence that neutrinos oscillate (i.e. that they can transmute into one another), as they travel in the sun. This oscillation in turn implies that neutrinos have non-zero masses. The total flux of all neutrino flavours measured by SNO agrees well with the theoretical prediction. Further measurements carried out by SNO have since confirmed and improved the precision of the original result.
Although Super-K had beaten SNO to the punch, having published evidence for neutrino oscillation as early as 1998, the Super-K results were not conclusive and did not specifically deal with solar neutrinos. SNO's results were the first to directly demonstrate oscillations in solar neutrinos. This was important to the standard solar model. The results of the experiment had a major impact on the field, as evidenced by the fact that two of the SNO papers have been cited over 1,500 times, and two others have been cited over 750 times. In 2007, the Franklin Institute awarded the director of SNO Art McDonald with the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics. In 2015 the Nobel Prize for Physics was jointly awarded to Arthur B. McDonald, and Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo, for the discovery of neutrino oscillations.
The SNO detector would have been capable of detecting a supernova within our galaxy if one had occurred while the detector was online. As neutrinos emitted by a supernova are released earlier than the photons, it is possible to alert the astronomical community before the supernova is visible. SNO was a founding member of the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) with Super-Kamiokande and the Large Volume Detector. No such supernovae have yet been detected.
The SNO experiment was also able to observe atmospheric neutrinos produced by cosmic ray interactions in the atmosphere. Due to the limited size of the SNO detector in comparison with Super-K the low cosmic ray neutrino signal is not statistically significant at neutrino energies below 1 GeV.
Large particle physics experiments require large collaborations. With approximately 100 collaborators, SNO was a rather small group compared to collider experiments. The participating institutions have included:
Although no longer a collaborating institution, Chalk River Laboratories led the construction of the acrylic vessel that holds the heavy water, and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited was the source of the heavy water. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28462 |
Super-Kamiokande
Super-Kamiokande (abbreviation of Super-Kamioka Neutrino Detection Experiment, also abbreviated to Super-K or SK; ) is a neutrino observatory located under Mount Ikeno near the city of Hida, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It is located underground in the Mozumi Mine in Hida's Kamioka area. The observatory was designed to detect high-energy neutrinos, to search for proton decay, study solar and atmospheric neutrinos, and keep watch for supernovae in the Milky Way Galaxy.
It consists of a cylindrical stainless steel tank about in height and diameter holding 50,000 tons of ultrapure water. Mounted on an inside superstructure are about 13,000 photomultiplier tubes that detect light from Cherenkov radiation. A neutrino interaction with the electrons of nuclei of water can produce an electron or positron that moves faster than the speed of light in water, which is lower than the speed of light in a vacuum. This creates a cone of Cherenkov radiation light, which is the optical equivalent to a sonic boom. The Cherenkov light is recorded by the photomultiplier tubes. Using the information recorded by each tube, the direction and flavor of the incoming neutrino is determined.
The Super-K is located underground in the Mozumi Mine in Hida's Kamioka area. It consists of a cylindrical stainless steel tank that is tall and in diameter holding 50,000 tons of ultrapure water. The tank volume is divided by a stainless steel superstructure into an inner detector (ID) region, which is in height and in diameter, and outer detector (OD) which consists of the remaining tank volume. Mounted on the superstructure are 11,146 photomultiplier tubes (PMT) in diameter that face the ID and 1,885 PMTs that face the OD. There is a Tyvek and blacksheet barrier attached to the superstructure that optically separates the ID and OD.
A neutrino interaction with the electrons or nuclei of water can produce a charged particle that moves faster than the speed of light in water, which is slower than the speed of light in a vacuum. This creates a cone of light known as Cherenkov radiation, which is the optical equivalent to a sonic boom. The Cherenkov light is projected as a ring on the wall of the detector and recorded by the PMTs. Using the timing and charge information recorded by each PMT, the interaction vertex, ring direction and flavor of the incoming neutrino is determined. From the sharpness of the edge of the ring the type of particle can be inferred. The multiple scattering of electrons is large, so electromagnetic showers produce fuzzy rings. Highly relativistic muons, in contrast, travel almost straight through the detector and produce rings with sharp edges.
Construction of the predecessor of the present Kamioka Observatory, the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo began in 1982 and was completed in April 1983. The purpose of the observatory was to detect whether proton decay exists, one of the most fundamental questions of elementary particle physics.
The detector, named KamiokaNDE for Kamioka Nucleon Decay Experiment, was a tank in height and in width, containing 3,048 metric tons (3,000 tons) of pure water and about 1,000 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) attached to its inner surface. The detector was upgraded, starting in 1985, to allow it to observe solar neutrinos. As a result, the detector (KamiokaNDE-II) had become sensitive enough to detect neutrinos from SN 1987A, a supernova which was observed in the Large Magellanic Cloud in February 1987, and to observe solar neutrinos in 1988. The ability of the Kamiokande experiment to observe the direction of electrons produced in solar neutrino interactions allowed experimenters to directly demonstrate for the first time that the sun was a source of neutrinos.
The Super-Kamiokande project was approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture in 1991 for total funding of approximately $100 M. The US portion of the proposal, which was primarily to build the OD system, was approved by the US Department of Energy in 1993 for $3 M. In addition the US has also contributed about 2000 20 cm PMTs recycled from the IMB experiment.
Despite successes in neutrino astronomy and neutrino astrophysics, Kamiokande did not achieve its primary goal, the detection of proton decay. Higher sensitivity was also necessary to obtain high statistical confidence in its results. This led to the construction of Super-Kamiokande, with fifteen times the water and ten times as many PMTs as Kamiokande. Super-Kamiokande started operation in 1996.
The Super-Kamiokande Collaboration announced the first evidence of neutrino oscillation in 1998. This was the first experimental observation supporting the theory that the neutrino has non-zero mass, a possibility that theorists had speculated about for years. The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Super-Kamiokande researcher Takaaki Kajita alongside Arthur McDonald for their work on neutrino oscillations.
On 12 November 2001, about 6,600 of the photomultiplier tubes (costing about $3000 each) in the Super-Kamiokande detector imploded, apparently in a chain reaction or cascading failure, as the shock wave from the concussion of each imploding tube cracked its neighbours. The detector was partially restored by redistributing the photomultiplier tubes which did not implode, and by adding protective acrylic shells that are hoped will prevent another chain reaction from recurring (Super-Kamiokande-II).
In July 2005, preparations began to restore the detector to its original form by reinstalling about 6,000 PMTs. The work was completed in June 2006, whereupon the detector was renamed Super-Kamiokande-III. This phase of the experiment collected data from October 2006 till August 2008. At that time, significant upgrades were made to the electronics. After the upgrade, the new phase of the experiment has been referred to as Super-Kamiokande-IV. SK-IV collected data on various natural sources of neutrinos, as well as acted as the far detector for the Tokai-to-Kamioka (T2K) long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment.
SK-IV continued until June 2018. After that, the detector underwent a full refurbishment during Autumn of 2018. On 29 January 2019 the detector resumed data-taking.
The Super-Kamiokande (SK) is a Cherenkov detector used to study neutrinos from different sources including the Sun, supernovae, the atmosphere, and accelerators. It is also used to search for proton decay. The experiment began in April 1996 and was shut down for maintenance in July 2001, a period known as "SK-I". Since an accident occurred during maintenance, the experiment resumed in October 2002 with only half of its original number of ID-PMTs. In order to prevent further accidents, all of the ID-PMTs were covered by fiber-reinforced plastic with acrylic front windows. This phase from October 2002 to another closure for an entire reconstruction in October 2005 is called "SK-II". In July 2006, the experiment resumed with the full number of PMTs and stopped in September 2008 for electronics upgrades. This period was known as "SK-III". The period after 2008 is known as "SK-IV". The phases and their main characteristics are summarised in table 1.
In the previous phases, the ID-PMTs processed signals by custom electronics modules called analog timing modules (ATMs). Charge-to-analog converters (QAC) and time-to-analog converters (TAC) are contained in these modules that had dynamic range from 0 to 450 picocoulombs (pC) with 0.2 pC resolution for charge and from −300 to 1000 ns with 0.4 ns resolution for time. There were two pairs of QAC/TAC for each PMT input signal, this prevented dead time and allowed the readout of multiple sequential hits that may arise, e.g. from electrons that are decay products of stopping muons.
The SK system was upgraded in September 2008 in order to maintain the stability in the next decade and improve the throughput of the data acquisition systems, QTC-based electronics with Ethernet (QBEE). The QBEE provides high-speed signal processing by combining pipelined components. These components are a newly developed custom charge-to-time converter (QTC) in the form of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a multi-hit time-to-digital converter (TDC), and field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Each QTC input has three gain ranges – “Small”, “Medium” and “Large” – the resolutions for each are shown in Table.
For each range, analog to digital conversion is conducted separately, but the only range used is that with the highest resolution that is not being saturated. The overall charge dynamic range of the QTC is 0.2–2500 pC, five times larger than the old . The charge and timing resolution of the QBEE at the single photoelectron level is 0.1 photoelectrons and 0.3 ns respectively, both are better than the intrinsic resolution of the 20-in. PMTs used in SK. The QBEE achieves good charge linearity over a wide dynamic range. The integrated charge linearity of the electronics is better than 1%. The thresholds of the discriminators in the QTC are set to −0.69 mV (equivalent to 0.25 photoelectron, which is the same as for SK-III). This threshold was chosen to replicate the behavior of the detector during its previous ATM-based phases.
Gadolinium will be introduced into the Super-Kamiokande tank in late 2019, and begin operation in later 2019 or early 2020. This is known as the SK-Gd project (other names include SuperKGd, SUPERK-GD, and similar names).
Nuclear fusion in the Sun and other stars turns protons into neutrons with the emission of neutrinos. Beta decay in the Earth and in supernovas turns neutrons into protons with the emission of anti-neutrinos. The Super-Kamiokande detects electrons knocked off a water molecule producing a flash of blue Cherenkov light, and these are produced both by neutrinos and antineutrinos. A rarer instance is when an antineutrino interacts with a proton in water to produce a neutron and a positron.
Gadolinium has an affinity for neutrons and produces a bright flash of gamma rays when it absorbs one. Adding gadolinium to the Super-Kamiokande allows it to distinguish between neutrinos and antineutrinos. Antineutrinos produce a double flash of light about 30 microseconds apart, first when the neutrino hits a proton and second when gadolinium absorbs a neutron. The brightness of the first flash allows physicists to distinguish between low energy antineutrinos from the Earth and high energy antineutrinos from supernovas. In addition to observing neutrinos from distant supernovas, the Super-Kamiokande will be able to set off an alarm to inform astronomers around the world of the presence of a supernova in the Milky Way within one second of it occurring.
The biggest challenge was whether the detector's water could be continuously filtered to remove impurities without removing the gadolinium at the same time. A 200-ton prototype called EGADS with added gadolinium sulfate was installed in the Kamioka mine and operated for years. It finished operation in 2018 and showed that the new water purification system would remove impurities while keeping the gadolinium concentration stable. It also showed that gadolinium sulfate would not significantly impair the transparency of the otherwise ultrapure water, or cause corrosion or deposition on existing equipment or on the new valves that will later be installed in the Hyper-Kamiokande.
The outer shell of the water tank is a cylindrical stainless-steel tank 39 m in diameter and 42 m in height. The tank is self-supporting, with concrete backfilled against the rough-hewn stone walls to counteract water pressure when the tank is filled. The capacity of the tank exceeds 50 ktons of water.
The basic unit for the ID PMTs is a “supermodule”, a frame which supports a 3×4 array of PMTs. Supermodule frames are 2.1 m in height, 2.8 m in width and 0.55 m in thickness. These frames are connected to each other in both the vertical and horizontal directions. Then the whole support structure is connected to the bottom of the tank and to the top structure. In addition to serving as rigid structural elements, supermodules simplified the initial assembly of the ID. Each supermodule was assembled on the tank floor and then hoisted into its final position. Thus the ID is in effect tiled with supermodules. During installation, ID PMTs were pre-assembled in units of three for easy installation. Each supermodule has two OD PMTs attached on its back side. The support structure for the bottom PMTs is attached to the bottom of the stainless-steel tank by one vertical beam per supermodule frame. The support structure for the top of the tank is also used as the support structure for the top PMTs.
Cables from each group of 3 PMTs are bundled together. All cables run up the outer surface of the PMT support structure, i.e., on the OD PMT plane, pass through cable ports at the top of the tank, and are then routed into the electronics huts.
The thickness of the OD varies slightly, but is on average about 2.6 m on top and bottom, and 2.7 m on the barrel wall, giving the OD a total mass of 18 kilotons. OD PMTs were distributed with 302 on the top layer, 308 on the bottom, and 1275 on the barrel wall.
To protect against low energy background radiation from radon decay products in the air, the roof of the cavity and the access tunnels were sealed with a coating called Mineguard. Mineguard is a spray-applied polyurethane membrane developed for use as a rock support system and radon gas barrier in the mining industry.
The average geomagnetic field is about 450 mG and is inclined by about 45° with respect to the horizon at the detector site. This presents a problem for the large and very sensitive PMTs which prefer a much lower ambient field. The strength and uniform direction of the geomagnetic field could systematically bias photoelectron trajectories and timing in the PMTs. To counteract this 26 sets of horizontal and vertical Helmholtz coils are arranged around the inner surfaces of the tank. With these in operation the average field in the detector is reduced to about 50 mG. The magnetic field at various PMT locations were measured before the tank was filled with water.
A standard fiducial volume of approximately 22.5 ktons is defined as the region inside a surface drawn 2.00 m from the ID wall to minimize the anomalous response causing by natural radioactivity in the surrounding rock.
An online monitor computer located in the control room reads data from the DAQ host computer via an FDDI link. It provides shift operators with a flexible tool for selecting event display features, makes online and recent-history histograms to monitor detector performance, and performs a variety of additional tasks needed to efficiently monitor status and diagnose detector and DAQ problems. Events in the data stream can be skimmed off and elementary analysis tools can be applied to check data quality during calibrations or after changes in hardware or online software.
To detect and identify such bursts as efficiently and promptly as possible Super-Kamiokande is equipped with an online supernova monitor system. About 10,000 total events are expected in Super-Kamiokande for a supernova explosion at the center of our Galaxy. Super-Kamiokande can measure a burst with no dead-time, up to 30,000 events within the first second of a burst. Theoretical calculations of supernova explosions suggest that neutrinos are emitted over a total time-scale of tens of seconds with about a half of them emitted during the first one or two seconds. The Super-K will search for event clusters in specified time windows of 0.5, 2 and 10 s. Data are transmitted to realtime SN-watch analysis process every 2 min and analysis is completed typically in 1 min. When supernova (SN) event candidates are found, formula_1 is calculated if the event multiplicity is larger than 16, where formula_1 is defined as the average spatial distance between events, i.e.
formula_3
Neutrinos from supernovae interact with free protons, producing positrons which are distributed so uniformly in the detector that formula_1 for SN events should be significantly larger than for ordinary spatial clusters of events. In the Super-Kamiokande detector, Rmean for uniformly distributed Monte Carlo events shows that no tail exists below formula_1⩽1000 cm. For the “alarm” class of burst, the events are required to have formula_1⩾900 cm for 25⩽formula_7⩽40 or formula_1⩾750 cm for formula_7>40. These thresholds were determined by extrapolation from SN1987A data. The system will run special processes to check for spallation muons when burst candidates meeting “alarm” criteria and make a primarily decision for further process. If the burst candidate passes these checks, the data will be reanalyzed using an offline process and a final decision will be made within a few hours. During the Super-Kamiokande I running, this never occurred.
One of the important capabilities for [Super-Kamiokande] is to reconstruct the direction to supernova. By neutrino–electron scattering, formula_10, a total of 100–150 events are expected in case of a supernova at the center of our Galaxy. The direction to supernova can be measured with angular resolution
formula_11
where N is the number of events produced by the ν–e scattering. The angular resolution, therefore, can be as good as δθ∼3° for a supernova at the center of our Galaxy. In this case, not only time profile and the energy spectrum of a neutrino burst, but also the information on direction of supernova can be provided.
There is a process called the “slow control” monitor, as part of the online monitoring system, watches the status of the HV systems, the temperatures of electronics crates and the status of the compensating coils used to cancel the geomagnetic field. When any deviation from norms is detected, it will alert physicists to prompt to investigate, take appropriate action, or notify experts.
To monitor and control the offline processes that analyze and transfer data, a set of software was sophisticatedly developed. This monitor allows non-expert shift physicists to identify and repair common problems to minimize down time, and the software package was a significant contribution to the smooth operation of the experiment and its overall high lifetime efficiency for data taking.
The energy of the Sun comes from the nuclear fusion in its core where a helium atom and an electron neutrino are generated by 4 protons. These neutrinos emitted from this reaction are called solar neutrinos. Photons, created by the nuclear fusion in the center of the Sun, take millions of years to reach the surface; on the other hand, solar neutrinos arrive at the earth in eight minutes due to their lack of interactions with matter. Hence, solar neutrinos make it possible for us to observe the inner Sun in "real-time" that takes millions of years for visible light.
In 1999, the Super-Kamiokande detected strong evidence of neutrino oscillation that successfully explained the solar neutrino problem. The Sun and about 80% of the visible stars produce their energy by the conversion of hydrogen to helium via
formula_12 MeV
Consequently, stars are a source of neutrinos, including our Sun. These neutrinos primarily come through the pp-chain in lower masses, and for cooler stars, primarily through CNO-chains of heavier masses.
In the early 1990s, particularly with the uncertainties that accompanied the initial results from Kamioka II and the Ga experiments, no individual experiment required a non-astrophysical solution of the solar neutrino problem. But in aggregate, the Cl, Kamioka II, and Ga experiments indicated a pattern of neutrino fluxes that was not compatible with any adjustment of the SSM. This in turn helped motivate a new generation of spectacularly capable active detectors. These experiments are Super-Kamiokande, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), and Borexino. Super-Kamiokande was able to detect elastic scattering (ES) events
formula_13
which, due to the charged-current contribution to formula_14 scattering, has a relative sensitivity to formula_14 s and heavy-flavor neutrinos of ∼7:1. Since the direction of the recoil electron is constrained to be very forward, the direction of the neutrinos are kept in the direction of recoil electrons. Here, formula_16 is provided where formula_17 is the angle between the direction of recoil electrons and the Sun's position. This shows that the formula_18 solar neutrino flux can be calculated to be formula_19. Comparing to the SSM, the ratio is formula_20. The result clearly indicates the deficit of solar neutrinos.
Atmospheric neutrinos are secondary cosmic rays produced by the decay of particles resulting from interactions of primary cosmic rays (mostly protons) with Earth atmosphere. The observed atmospheric neutrino events fall into four categories. Fully contained (FC) events have all their tracks in the inner detector, while partially contained (PC) events have escaping tracks from the inner detector. Upward through-going muons (UTM) are produced in the rock beneath the detector and go through the inner detector. Upward stopping muons (USM) are also produced in the rock beneath the detector, but stop in the inner detector.
The number of observed number of neutrinos is predicted uniformly regardless of the zenith angle. However, Super-Kamiokande found that the number of upward going muon neutrinos (generated on the other side of the Earth) is half of the number of downward going muon neutrinos in 1998. This can be explained by the neutrinos changing or oscillating into some other neutrinos that are not detected. This is called neutrino oscillation; this discovery indicates the finite mass of neutrinos and suggests an extension of the Standard Model. Neutrinos oscillate in three flavors, and all neutrinos have their rest mass. Later analysis in 2004 suggested a sinusoidal dependence of the event rate as a function of “Length/Energy”, which confirmed the neutrino oscillations.
The K2K experiment was a neutrino experiment from June 1999 to November 2004. This experiment was designed to verify oscillations observed by Super-Kamiokande through muon neutrinos. It gives first positive measurement of neutrino oscillations in conditions that both source and detector are under control. The Super-Kamiokande detector plays an important role in the experiment as the far detector. Later experiment T2K experiment continued as the second generation follow up to the K2K experiment.
T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) experiment is a neutrino experiment collaborated by several countries including Japan, United States and others. The goal of T2K is to gain deeper understanding of parameters of neutrino oscillation. T2K has made a search for oscillations from muon neutrinos to electron neutrinos, and announced the first experimental indications for them in June 2011. The Super-Kamiokande detector plays as the "far detector". The Super-K detector will record the Cherenkov radiation of muons and electrons created by interactions between high energy neutrinos and water.
The proton is assumed to be absolutely stable in the Standard Model. However, the Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) predict that protons can decay into lighter energetic charged particles such as electrons, muons, pions, or others which can be observed. Kamiokande helps to rule out some of these theories. Super-Kamiokande is currently the largest detector for observation of proton decay.
The 50 ktons pure water is continually reprocessed at rate about 30 tons/h in a closed system since early 2002. Now, raw mine water is recycled through the first step (particle filters and RO) for some time before other processes, which involve expensive expendables, are imposed. Initially, water from the Super-Kamiokande tank is passed through nominal 1 μm mesh filters to remove dust and particles, which reduce the transparency of the water for Cherenkov photons, and provide a possible radon source inside the Super-Kamiokande detector. A heat exchanger is used to cool down the water in order to reduce the PMT dark noise level as well as suppress the growth of bacteria. Surviving bacteria are killed by UV sterilizer stage. A cartridge polisher (CP) eliminates heavy ions which also reduce water transparency and include radioactive species. The CP module increases the typical resistivity of recirculating water from 11MΩ cm to 18.24 MΩ cm, approaching chemical limit. Originally, ion-exchanger (IE) was included in system, but it was removed when IE resin was found to be a significant radon source. The RO step that removes additional particulates, and the introduction of Rn-reduced air into the water that increases radon removal efficiency in the vacuum degasifier (VD) stage which follows were installed in 1999. After that, a VD removes dissolved gases in the water. These gases are dissolved in water with a serious background of events source for solar neutrinos in the MeV energy range and the dissolved oxygen encourages the growth of bacteria. The removal efficiency is about 96%. Then, the ultra filter (UF) is introduced to remove particles whose minimum size corresponds to molecular weight approximately 10,000 (or about 10 nm diameter) thanks to hollow fiber membrane filters. Finally, a membrane degasifier (MD) removes radon dissolved in water, and the measured removal efficiency for radon is about 83%. The concentration of radon gases is miniaturized by realtime detectors. In June 2001 typical radon concentrations in water coming into the purification system from the Super-Kamiokande tank were <2 mBq m−3, and in water output by the system, 0.4±0.2 mBq m−3.
Purified Air is supplied in the gap between the water surface and the top of the Super-Kamiokande tank. The air purification system contains three compressors, a buffer tank, dryers, filters, and activated charcoal filters. A total of 8 m3 of activated charcoal is used. The last 50 L of charcoal is cooled to −40 °C to increase removal efficiency for radon. Typical flow rates, dew point, and residual radon concentration are 18 m3/h, −65 °C (@+1 kg/cm2), and a few mBq m−3, respectively. Typical radon concentration in the dome air is measured to be 40 Bq m−3. Radon levels in the mine tunnel air, near the tank cavity dome, typically reach 2000–3000 Bq m−3 during the warm season, from May until October, while from November to April the radon level is approximately 100–300 Bq m−3. This variation is due to the chimney effect in the ventilation pattern of the mine tunnel system; in cold seasons, fresh air flows into the Atotsu tunnel entrance that is a relatively short path through exposed rock before reaching the experimental area, while in the summer, air flows out the tunnel, drawing radon-rich air from deep within the mine past the experimental area.
In order to keep radon levels in the dome area and water purification system below 100 Bq m−3, fresh air is continually pumped at approximately 10 m3/min from outside the mine which generates a slight over-pressure in the Super-Kamiokande experimental area to minimize the entry of ambient mine air. A “Radon Hut” (Rn Hut) was constructed near the Atotsu tunnel entrance to house equipment for the dome air system: a 40 hp air pump with 10 m^3 min−1 /15 PSI pump capacity, air dehumidifier, carbon filter tanks, and control electronics. In autumn 1997, an extended intake air pipe was installed at a location approximately 25 m above the Atotsu tunnel entrance. This low level satisfies that goals of air quality so that carbon filter regeneration operations would no longer be required.
Offline data processing is produced both in Kamioka and United States.
The offline data processing system is located in Kenkyuto and is connected to Super-Kamiokande detector with 4 km FDDI optical fiber link. Data flow from online system is 450 kbytes s−1 on average, corresponding to 40 Gbytes day−1 or 14 Tbytes yr−1. Magnetic tapes are used in offline system to store data and most of the analysis is accomplished here. The offline processing system is designed platform-independent because different computer architectures are used for data analysis. Because of this, the data structures are based on ZEBRA bank system developed in CERN as well as the ZEBRA exchange system.
Event data from Super-Kamiokande online DAQ system basically contains a list of number of hit PMT, TDC and ADC counts, GPS time-stamps and other housekeeping data. For solar neutrino analysis, lowering the energy threshold is a constant goal, so it is a continual effort to improve the efficiency of reduction algorithms; however, changes in calibrations or reduction methods require reprocessing of earlier data. Typically, 10 Tbytes of raw data is processed every month so that a large amount of CPU power and high-speed I/O access to the raw data. In addition, extensive Monte Carlo simulation processing is also necessary.
Offline system was designed to meet demand of all these: tape storage of a large database (14 Tbytes yr−1), stable semi-realtime processing, nearly continuous re-processing and Monte Carlo simulation. The computer system consists of 3 major sub-systems: the data server, the CPU farm and the network at the end of Run I.
A system dedicated to offsite offline data processing was set up at the Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY to process raw data sent from Kamioka. Most of the reformatted raw data is copied from system facility in Kamioka. At Stony Brook, a system was set up for analysis and further processing. At Stony Brook the raw data were processed with a multi-tape DLT drive. The first stage data reduction processes were done for the high energy analysis and for the low energy analysis. The data reduction for the high energy analysis was mainly for atmospheric neutrino events and proton decay search while the low energy analysis was mainly for the solar neutrino events. The reduced data for the high energy analysis was further filtered by other reduction processes and the resulting data were stored on disks. The reduced data for the low energy were stored on DLT tapes and sent to University of California, Irvine for further processing.
This offset analysis system continued for 3 years until their analysis chains were proved to produce equivalent results. Thus, in order to limit manpower, collaborations were concentrated to a single combined analysis
In 1998, Super-K found first strong evidence of neutrino oscillation from the observation of muon neutrinos changed into tau-neutrinos.
SK has set limits on proton lifetime and other rare decays and neutrino properties. SK set a lower bound on protons decaying to kaons of 5.9 × 1033 yr
Super-Kamiokande is the subject of Andreas Gursky's 2007 photograph, "Kamiokande" and was featured in an episode of "".
In September 2018, the detector was drained for maintenance, affording a team of Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporters the opportunity to obtain 4K resolution video from within the detection tank. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28464 |
Stimulated emission
Stimulated emission is the process by which an incoming photon of a specific frequency can interact with an excited atomic electron (or other excited molecular state), causing it to drop to a lower energy level. The liberated energy transfers to the electromagnetic field, creating a new photon with a phase, frequency, polarization, and direction of travel that are all identical to the photons of the incident wave. This is in contrast to spontaneous emission, which occurs at random intervals without regard to the ambient electromagnetic field.
The process is identical in form to atomic absorption in which the energy of an absorbed photon causes an identical but opposite atomic transition: from the lower level to a higher energy level. In normal media at thermal equilibrium, absorption exceeds stimulated emission because there are more electrons in the lower energy states than in the higher energy states. However, when a population inversion is present, the rate of stimulated emission exceeds that of absorption, and a net optical amplification can be achieved. Such a gain medium, along with an optical resonator, is at the heart of a laser or maser.
Lacking a feedback mechanism, laser amplifiers and superluminescent sources also function on the basis of stimulated emission.
Electrons and their interactions with electromagnetic fields are important in our understanding of chemistry and physics.
In the classical view, the energy of an electron orbiting an atomic nucleus is larger for orbits further from the nucleus of an atom. However, quantum mechanical effects force electrons to take on discrete positions in orbitals. Thus, electrons are found in specific energy levels of an atom, two of which are shown below:
When an electron absorbs energy either from light (photons) or heat (phonons), it receives that incident quantum of energy. But transitions are only allowed between discrete energy levels such as the two shown above.
This leads to emission lines and absorption lines.
When an electron is excited from a lower to a higher energy level, it's unlikely for it to stay that way forever.
An electron in an excited state may decay to a lower energy state which is not occupied, according to a particular time constant characterizing that transition. When such an electron decays without external influence, emitting a photon, that is called "spontaneous emission". The phase and direction associated with the photon that is emitted is random. A material with many atoms in such an excited state may thus result in radiation which has a narrow spectrum (centered around one wavelength of light), but the individual photons would have no common phase relationship and would also emanate in random directions. This is the mechanism of fluorescence and thermal emission.
An external electromagnetic field at a frequency associated with a transition can affect the quantum mechanical state of the atom without being absorbed. As the electron in the atom makes a transition between two stationary states (neither of which shows a dipole field), it enters a transition state which does have a dipole field, and which acts like a small electric dipole, and this dipole oscillates at a characteristic frequency. In response to the external electric field at this frequency, the probability of the electron entering this transition state is greatly increased. Thus, the rate of transitions between two stationary states is increased beyond that of spontaneous emission. A transition from the higher to a lower energy state produces an additional photon with the same phase and direction as the incident photon; this is the process of stimulated emission.
Stimulated emission was a theoretical discovery by Albert Einstein within the framework of the old quantum theory, wherein the emission is described in terms of photons that are the quanta of the EM field. Stimulated emission can also occur in classical models, without reference to photons or quantum-mechanics. (See also Laser#history.)
Stimulated emission can be modelled mathematically by considering an atom that may be in one of two electronic energy states, a lower level state (possibly the ground state) (1) and an "excited state" (2), with energies "E"1 and "E"2 respectively.
If the atom is in the excited state, it may decay into the lower state by the process of spontaneous emission, releasing the difference in energies between the two states as a photon. The photon will have frequency "ν"0 and energy "hν"0, given by:
where "h" is Planck's constant.
Alternatively, if the excited-state atom is perturbed by an electric field of frequency "ν"0, it may emit an additional photon of the same frequency and in phase, thus augmenting the external field, leaving the atom in the lower energy state. This process is known as stimulated emission.
In a group of such atoms, if the number of atoms in the excited state is given by "N"2, the rate at which stimulated emission occurs is given by
where the proportionality constant "B"21 is known as the "Einstein B coefficient" for that particular transition, and "ρ"("ν") is the radiation density of the incident field at frequency "ν". The rate of emission is thus proportional to the number of atoms in the excited state "N"2, and to the density of incident photons.
At the same time, there will be a process of atomic absorption which "removes" energy from the field while raising electrons from the lower state to the upper state. Its rate is given by an essentially identical equation,
The rate of absorption is thus proportional to the number of atoms in the lower state, "N"1. Einstein showed that the coefficient for this transition must be identical to that for stimulated emission:
Thus absorption and stimulated emission are reverse processes proceeding at somewhat different rates. Another way of viewing this is to look at the "net" stimulated emission or absorption viewing it as a single process. The net rate of transitions from "E"2 to "E"1 due to this combined process can be found by adding their respective rates, given above:
Thus a net power is released into the electric field equal to the photon energy "hν" times this net transition rate. In order for this to be a positive number, indicating net stimulated emission, there must be more atoms in the excited state than in the lower level: formula_6. Otherwise there is net absorption and the power of the wave is reduced during passage through the medium. The special condition formula_7 is known as a population inversion, a rather unusual condition that must be effected in the gain medium of a laser.
The notable characteristic of stimulated emission compared to everyday light sources (which depend on spontaneous emission) is that the emitted photons have the same frequency, phase, polarization, and direction of propagation as the incident photons. The photons involved are thus mutually coherent. When a population inversion (formula_6) is present, therefore, optical amplification of incident radiation will take place.
Although energy generated by stimulated emission is always at the exact frequency of the field which has stimulated it, the above rate equation refers only to excitation at the particular optical frequency formula_9 corresponding to the energy of the transition. At frequencies offset from formula_9 the strength of stimulated (or spontaneous) emission will be decreased according to the so-called line shape.
Considering only homogeneous broadening affecting an atomic or molecular resonance, the spectral line shape function is described as a Lorentzian distribution
where formula_12 is the full width at half maximum or FWHM bandwidth.
The peak value of the Lorentzian line shape occurs at the line center, formula_13. A line shape function can be normalized so that its value at formula_9 is unity; in the case of a Lorentzian we obtain
Thus stimulated emission at frequencies away from formula_9 is reduced by this factor. In practice there may also be broadening of the line shape due to inhomogeneous broadening, most notably due to the Doppler effect resulting from the distribution of velocities in a gas at a certain temperature. This has a Gaussian shape and reduces the peak strength of the line shape function. In a practical problem the full line shape function can be computed through a convolution of the individual line shape functions involved. Therefore, optical amplification will add power to an incident optical field at frequency formula_17 at a rate given by
The stimulated emission cross section is
where
Stimulated emission can provide a physical mechanism for optical amplification. If an external source of energy stimulates more than 50% of the atoms in the ground state to transition into the excited state, then what is called a population inversion is created. When light of the appropriate frequency passes through the inverted medium, the photons are either absorbed by the atoms that remain in the ground state or the photons stimulate the excited atoms to emit additional photons of the same frequency, phase, and direction. Since more atoms are in the excited state than in the ground state then an amplification of the input intensity results.
The population inversion, in units of atoms per cubic meter, is
where "g"1 and "g"2 are the degeneracies of energy levels 1 and 2, respectively.
The intensity (in watts per square meter) of the stimulated emission is governed by the following differential equation:
as long as the intensity "I"("z") is small enough so that it does not have a significant effect on the magnitude of the population inversion. Grouping the first two factors together, this equation simplifies as
where
is the "small-signal gain coefficient" (in units of radians per meter). We can solve the differential equation using separation of variables:
Integrating, we find:
or
where
The saturation intensity "I"S is defined as the input intensity at which the gain of the optical amplifier drops to exactly half of the small-signal gain. We can compute the saturation intensity as
where
The minimum value of formula_32 occurs on resonance, where the cross section formula_33 is the largest. This minimum value is:
For a simple two-level atom with a natural linewidth formula_35, the saturation time constant formula_36.
The general form of the gain equation, which applies regardless of the input intensity, derives from the general differential equation for the intensity "I" as a function of position "z" in the gain medium:
where formula_38 is saturation intensity. To solve, we first rearrange the equation in order to separate the variables, intensity "I" and position "z":
Integrating both sides, we obtain
or
The gain "G" of the amplifier is defined as the optical intensity "I" at position "z" divided by the input intensity:
Substituting this definition into the prior equation, we find the general gain equation:
In the special case where the input signal is small compared to the saturation intensity, in other words,
then the general gain equation gives the small signal gain as
or
which is identical to the small signal gain equation (see above).
For large input signals, where
the gain approaches unity
and the general gain equation approaches a linear asymptote:
.3 Laser Fundamentals, William T. Silfvast | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28469 |
Siberian Husky
The Siberian Husky (, tr. ) is a medium-sized working dog breed. The breed belongs to the Spitz genetic family. It is recognizable by its thickly furred double coat, erect triangular ears, and distinctive markings, and is smaller than a very similar-looking dog, the Alaskan Malamute.
Siberian Huskies originated in Northeast Asia where they are bred by the Chukchi people for sled-pulling, guarding, and companionship. It is an active, energetic, resilient breed, whose ancestors lived in the extremely cold and harsh environment of the Siberian Arctic. William Goosak, a Russian fur trader, introduced them to Nome, Alaska during the Nome Gold Rush, initially as sled dogs.
The first of the dogs arrived in the Americas 12,000 years ago around the commencement of the Holocene period, however people and their dogs did not settle in the Arctic until the Paleo-Eskimo people 4,500 years ago and then the Thule people 1,000 years ago, with both emigrating from Siberia. The Siberian Husky was originally developed by the Chukchi people of the Chukchi Peninsula in eastern Siberia. They were brought to Nome, Alaska, in 1908 for sled-dog racing.
In 1989, a study was made of ancient canis remains dated to the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene that had been uncovered by miners decades earlier around Fairbanks, Alaska. These were identified as "Canis lupus" and described as "short-faced wolves". The collection was separated into those specimens that looked more wolf-like (i.e. the Beringian wolf), and those that looked more dog-like and in comparison to the skulls of Eskimo dogs from both Greenland and Siberia thought to be their forerunners.
In 2015, a study using a number of genetic markers indicated that the Siberian Husky, the Alaskan Malamute and the Alaskan husky share a close genetic relationship between each other and were related to Chukotka sled dogs from Siberia. They were separate to the two Inuit dogs, the Canadian Eskimo Dog and the Greenland Dog. In North America, the Siberian Husky and the Malamute both had maintained their Siberian lineage and had contributed significantly to the Alaskan husky, which showed evidence of crossing with European breeds that were consistent with this breed being created in post-colonial North America.
Nearly all dog breeds' genetic closeness to the gray wolf is due to admixture. However, several Arctic dog breeds show a genetic closeness with the now-extinct Taymyr wolf of North Asia due to admixture. These breeds are associated with high latitudes - the Siberian Husky and Greenland dog that are also associated with arctic human populations and to a lesser extent, the Shar-Pei and Finnish Spitz. An admixture graph of the Greenland dog indicates a best-fit of 3.5% shared material, however an ancestry proportion ranging between 1.4% and 27.3% is consistent with the data. This indicates admixture between the Taymyr wolf population and the ancestral dog population of these four high-latitude breeds. This introgression could have provided early dogs living in high latitudes with phenotypic variation beneficial for adaption to a new and challenging environment. It also indicates the ancestry of present-day dog breeds descends from more than one region.
A Siberian Husky has a double coat that is thicker than that of most other dog breeds. It has two layers: a dense undercoat and a longer topcoat of short, straight guard hairs. It protects the dogs effectively against harsh Arctic winters, and also reflects heat in the summer. It is able to withstand temperatures as low as . The undercoat is often absent during shedding. Their thick coats require weekly grooming.
Siberian Huskies come in a variety of colors and patterns, usually with white paws and legs, facial markings, and tail tip. The most common coats are black and white, then less common copper-red and white, grey and white, pure white, and the rare "agouti" coat, though many individuals have blondish or piebald spotting. Some other individuals also have the "saddle back" pattern, in which black-tipped guard hairs are restricted to the saddle area while the head, haunches and shoulders are either light red or white. Striking masks, spectacles, and other facial markings occur in wide variety. All coat colors from black to pure white are allowed. Merle coat patterns are not permitted by the American Kennel Club (AKC) and The Kennel Club (KC). This pattern is often associated with health issues and impure breeding.
The American Kennel Club describes the Siberian Husky's eyes as "an almond shape, moderately spaced and set slightly obliquely." The AKC breed standard is that eyes may be brown, blue or black; one of each or Particoloured are acceptable (complete is heterochromia). These eye-color combinations are considered acceptable by the American Kennel Club. The parti-color does not affect the vision of the dog.
Show-quality dogs are preferred to have neither pointed nor square noses. The nose is black in gray dogs, tan in black dogs, liver in copper-colored dogs, and may be light tan in white dogs. In some instances, Siberian Huskies can exhibit what is called "snow nose" or "winter nose." This condition is called hypopigmentation in animals. "Snow nose" is acceptable in the show ring.
Siberian Husky tails are heavily furred; these dogs will often curl up with their tails over their faces and noses in order to provide additional warmth. As pictured, when curled up to sleep the Siberian Husky will cover its nose for warmth, often referred to as the "Siberian Swirl". The tail should be expressive, held low when the dog is relaxed, and curved upward in a "sickle" shape when excited or interested in something.
The breed standard indicates that the males of the breed are ideally between tall at the withers and weighing between . Females are smaller, growing to between tall at the withers and weighing between . The people of Nome referred to Siberian Huskies as "Siberian Rats" due to their size of , versus the Alaskan Malamute's size of .
The Husky usually howls instead of barking. They have been described as escape artists, which can include digging under, chewing through, or even jumping over fences.
Because the Siberian Husky had been raised in a family setting by the Chukchi and not left to fend for themselves they could be trusted with children. The ASPCA classifies the breed as good with children. It also states they exhibit high energy indoors, have special exercise needs, and may be destructive "without proper care".
Siberian Huskies have a high prey drive due to the Chukchi allowing them to roam free in the summer. The dogs hunted in packs and preyed on wild cats, birds, and squirrels, but with training can be trusted with other small animals. They would only return to the Chukchi villages when the snow returned and food became scarce. Their hunting instincts can still be found in the breed today.
A fence is recommended for this breed as a pet, although some have been known to overcome fences as high as . Electric pet fencing may not be effective. They need the frequent companionship of people and other dogs, and their need to feel as part of a pack is very strong.
A 1999 ASPCA publication shows the average life span of the Siberian Husky is 12 to 14 years. Health issues in the breed are mainly genetic, such as seizures and defects of the eye (juvenile cataracts, corneal dystrophy, canine glaucoma and progressive retinal atrophy) and congenital laryngeal paralysis. Hip dysplasia is not often found in this breed; however, as with many medium or larger-sized canines, it can occur. The Orthopedic Foundation for Animals currently has the Siberian Husky ranked 155th out of a possible 160 breeds at risk for hip dysplasia, with only two percent of tested Siberian Huskies showing dysplasia.
Siberian Huskies used for sled racing may also be prone to other ailments, such as gastric disease, bronchitis or bronchopulmonary ailments ("ski asthma"), and gastric erosions or ulcerations.
Modern Siberian Huskies registered in the US are largely the descendants of the 1930 Siberia imports and of Leonhard Seppala’s dogs, particularly Togo. The limited number of registered foundational dogs has led to some discussion about their vulnerability to the founder effect.
The original sled dogs bred and kept by the Chukchi were thought to have gone extinct, but Benedict Allen, writing for "Geographical" magazine in 2006 after visiting the region, reported their survival. His description of the breeding practiced by the Chukchi mentions selection for obedience, endurance, amiable disposition, and sizing that enabled families to support them without undue difficulty.
With the help of Siberian Huskies, entire tribes of people were able not only to survive, but to push forth into "terra incognita".
The Siberian Husky, Samoyed, and Alaskan Malamute are all breeds directly descended from the original sled dog. It is thought that the term "husky" is a corruption of the nickname "Esky" once applied to the Eskimo and subsequently to their dogs.
Dogs from the Anadyr River and surrounding regions were imported into Alaska from 1908 (and for the next two decades) during the gold rush for use as sled dogs, especially in the "All-Alaska Sweepstakes," a 408-mile (657-km) distance dog sled race from Nome, to Candle, and back. Smaller, faster and more enduring than the 100- to 120-pound (45- to 54-kg) freighting dogs then in general use, they immediately dominated the Nome Sweepstakes. Leonhard Seppala, the foremost breeder of Siberian Huskies of the time, participated in competitions from 1909 to the mid-1920s.
On February 3, 1925, Gunnar Kaasen was first in the 1925 serum run to Nome to deliver diphtheria serum from Nenana, over 600 miles to Nome. This was a group effort by several sled-dog teams and mushers, with the longest (264 miles or 422 km) and most dangerous segment of the run covered by Leonhard Seppala and his sled team lead dog Togo. The event is despicted in the 2019 film "Togo" and is also loosely depicted in the 1995 animated film "Balto", as the name of Gunnar Kaasen's lead dog in his sled team was Balto, although unlike the real dog, Balto the character was portrayed as half wolf in the film. In honor of this lead dog, a bronze statue was erected at Central Park in New York City. The plaque upon it is inscribed, Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925. Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence
In 1930, exportation of the dogs from Siberia was halted. The same year saw recognition of the Siberian Husky by the American Kennel Club. Nine years later, the breed was first registered in Canada. The United Kennel Club recognized the breed in 1938 as the "Arctic Husky," changing the name to Siberian Husky in 1991. Seppala owned a kennel in Nenana before moving to New England, where he became partners with Elizabeth Ricker. The two co-owned the Poland Springs kennel and began to race and exhibit their dogs all over the Northeast.
As the breed was beginning to come to prominence, in 1933 Navy Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd brought about 50 Siberian Huskies with him on an expedition in which he hoped to journey around the 16,000-mile coast of Antarctica. Many of the dogs were trained at Chinook Kennels in New Hampshire. Called Operation Highjump, the historic trek proved the worth of the Siberian Husky due to its compact size and greater speeds. Siberian Huskies also served in the United States Army's Arctic Search and Rescue Unit of the Air Transport Command during World War II. Their popularity was sustained into the 21st century. They were ranked 16th among American Kennel Club registrants in 2012, rising to 14th place in 2013.
Siberian huskies gained in popularity with the story of the "Great Race of Mercy," the 1925 serum run to Nome, featuring Balto and Togo. Although Balto is considered the more famous, being the dog that delivered the serum to Nome after running the final 53-mile leg, it was Togo who made the longest run of the relay, guiding his musher Leonhard Seppala on a 91-mile journey that included crossing the deadly Norton Sound to Golovin.
In 1960, the US Army undertook a project to construct an under the ice facility for defense and space research, Camp Century, part of Project Iceworm involved a 150+ crew who also brought with them an unofficial mascot, a Siberian Husky named Mukluk.
Huskies were extensively used as sled dogs by the British Antarctic Survey in Antarctica between 1945 and 1994. A bronze monument to all of BAS's dog teams sits outside its Cambridge headquarters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28475 |
Skiing
Skiing is a means of transport using skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Ski Federation (FIS).
Skiing has a history of almost five millennia. Although modern skiing has evolved from beginnings in Scandinavia, it may have been practiced more than 100 centuries ago in what is now China, according to an interpretation of ancient paintings. However, this continues to be debated.
The word "ski" is one of a handful of words that Norway has exported to the international community. It comes from the Old Norse word "skíð" which means "split piece of wood or firewood".
Asymmetrical skis were used in northern Finland and Sweden until at least the late 19th century. On one foot, the skier wore a long straight non-arching ski for sliding, and a shorter ski was worn on the other foot for kicking. The underside of the short ski was either plain or covered with animal skin to aid this use, while the long ski supporting the weight of the skier was treated with animal fat in a similar manner to modern ski waxing.
Early skiers used one long pole or spear. The first depiction of a skier with two ski poles dates to 1741.
Troops on continental Europe were equipped with skis by 1747.
Skiing was primarily used for transport until the mid-19th century, but since then has also become a recreation and sport. Military ski races were held in Norway during the 18th century, and ski warfare was studied in the late 18th century. As equipment evolved and ski lifts were developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, two main genres of skiing emerged—Alpine (downhill) skiing and Nordic skiing. The main difference between the two is the type of ski binding (the way in which the ski boots are attached to the skis).
Also called "downhill skiing", Alpine skiing typically takes place on a piste at a ski resort. It is characterized by fixed-heel bindings that attach at both the toe and the heel of the skier's boot. Ski lifts, including chairlifts, bring skiers up the slope. Backcountry skiing can be accessed by helicopter, snowcat, hiking and snowmobile. Facilities at resorts can include night skiing, après-ski, and glade skiing under the supervision of the ski patrol and the ski school. Alpine skiing branched off from the older Nordic type of skiing around the 1920s when the advent of ski lifts meant that it was no longer necessary to climb back uphill. Alpine equipment has specialized to the point where it can now only be used with the help of lifts.
The Nordic disciplines include cross-country skiing and ski jumping, which both use bindings that attach at the toes of the skier's boots but not at the heels. Cross-country skiing may be practiced on groomed trails or in undeveloped backcountry areas. Ski jumping is practiced in certain areas that are reserved exclusively for ski jumping.
Telemark skiing is a ski turning technique and FIS-sanctioned discipline, which is named after the Telemark region of Norway. It uses equipment similar to Nordic skiing, where the ski bindings are attached only at the toes of the ski boots, allowing the skier's heel to be raised throughout the turn. However, the skis themselves are often the same width as Alpine skis.
The following disciplines are sanctioned by the FIS. Many have their own world cups and are included in the Winter Olympic Games.
Equipment used in skiing includes:
Technique has evolved along with ski technology and ski geometry. Early techniques included the telemark turn, the stem, the stem Christie, snowplough, and parallel turn.
New parabolic designs like the Elan SCX have enabled the more modern carve turn.
Originally and primarily a winter sport, skiing can also be practiced indoors without snow, outdoors on grass, on dry ski slopes, with ski simulators, or with roller skis. A treadmill-like surface can also be used, to enable skiing while staying in the same place. Sand skiing involves sliding on sand instead of snow, but the skier uses conventional skis, ski poles, bindings and boots. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28478 |
Spice Girls
The Spice Girls are an English pop girl group formed in 1994. The group comprises Melanie Brown, also known as Mel B ("Scary Spice"), Melanie Chisholm, also known as Mel C ("Sporty Spice"), Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice"), Geri Halliwell ("Ginger Spice"), and Victoria Beckham ("Posh Spice"). They were signed to Virgin Records and released their debut single "Wannabe" in 1996; it hit number one in 37 countries and commenced their global success. Their debut album "Spice" sold more than 31 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album by a female group in history. Their follow-up album, "Spiceworld" sold over 20 million copies worldwide. The Spice Girls have sold 85 million records worldwide, making them the best-selling girl group of all time, one of the best-selling pop groups of all time, and the biggest British pop success since The Beatles. Among the highest profile acts in 1990s popular culture, "Time" called them "arguably the most recognizable face" of Cool Britannia, the mid-1990s celebration of youth culture in the UK.
Measures of their success include international record sales, a 2007–2008 reunion tour, a 2019 reunion tour, vast merchandising enterprises, iconic symbolism such as Halliwell's Union Jack dress representing "girl power", and a film, "Spice World". The group became one of the most successful marketing engines ever, earning up to $75 million per year, with their global gross income estimated at $500–800 million by May 1998. Under the guidance of their mentor and manager Simon Fuller, the Spice Girls embraced merchandising and became a regular feature of the British and global press. In 1996, "Top of the Pops" magazine gave each member of the group aliases, which were adopted by the group and media. According to "Rolling Stone" journalist and biographer David Sinclair, "Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh, and Sporty were the most widely recognised group of individuals since John, Paul, George, and Ringo". With the "girl power" label, the Spice Girls were popular cultural icons of the 1990s. They are cited as part of the 'second wave' 1990s British Invasion of the US.
In the mid-1990s, relatives Bob and Chris Herbert of Heart Management decided to create a girl group to compete with popular boy bands, such as Take That and East 17, which dominated the pop music scene at the time. In February 1994, together with financier Chic Murphy, they placed an advertisement in the trade magazine "The Stage" asking for singers to audition for an all-female pop band at Danceworks studios. Approximately 400 women attended the audition, during which they were placed in groups of 10 and danced a routine to "Stay" by Eternal, followed by solo auditions in which they were asked to perform songs of their own choosing. After several weeks of deliberation, Victoria Adams, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm, and Michelle Stephenson were among 12 women chosen to a second round of auditions in April; Geri Halliwell also attended the second audition, despite missing the first.
A week after the second audition, the women were asked to attend a recall at Nomis Studios in Shepherds Bush, performing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" on their own and in a group. During the session, Adams, Brown, Chisholm, Halliwell and Stephenson were selected for a band initially named "Touch". The group moved to a house in Maidenhead, Berkshire, and spent most of 1994 practising songs which had been written for them by Bob Herbert's long-time associates John Thirkell and Erwin Keiles. During the first two months, they worked on demos at South Hill Park Recording Studios in Bracknell with producer/studio owner Michael Sparkes and songwriter/arranger Tim Hawes. According to Stephenson, the material the group was given was "very, very young pop"; one of the songs they recorded, "Sugar and Spice", would be the source of their final band name. They also worked on various dance routines at the Trinity Studios in Knaphill, near Woking, Surrey. A few months into the training period, Stephenson was fired from the group and replaced with Emma Bunton. It was also during this time that Halliwell came up with the band name Spice.
The group felt insecure about the lack of a contract and was frustrated by the direction in which Heart Management was steering them. In October 1994, armed with a catalogue of demos and dance routines, they began touring management agencies. They persuaded Bob Herbert to set up a showcase performance for the group in front of industry writers, producers, and A&R men in December 1994 at the Nomis Studios, where they received an "overwhelmingly positive" reaction. Due to the large interest in the group, the Herberts quickly set about creating a binding contract for them. Encouraged by the reaction they had received at the Nomis showcase, all five members delayed signing contracts on legal advice from, among others, Adams's father.
In March 1995, the group parted from Heart Management due to their frustration with the company's unwillingness to listen to their visions and ideas. To ensure they kept control of their own work, they allegedly stole the master recordings of their discography from the management offices. That same day, the group tracked down Sheffield-based producer Eliot Kennedy, who had been present at the showcase, and persuaded him to work with them. They were introduced to record producers Absolute, who in turn brought them to the attention of Simon Fuller of 19 Entertainment, who signed them to his company in March 1995. During the summer of that year, the group toured record labels in London and Los Angeles with Fuller, signing a deal with Virgin Records in September 1995. Their name was changed to Spice Girls, as a rapper was already using the name "Spice". From this point on until the summer of 1996, the group continued to write and record tracks for their debut album while extensively touring the west coast of the US, where they signed a publishing deal with Windswept Pacific.
On 7 July 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut single "Wannabe" in the United Kingdom. In the weeks leading up to the release, the music video for "Wannabe" (directed by Swedish commercials director Johan Camitz and shot in April at the entrance and main staircase of the St. Pancras Grand Hotel in London), got a trial airing on music channel The Box. The video was an instant hit, and was aired up to seventy times a week at its peak. After the video was released, the Spice Girls had their first live TV slot on broadcast on LWT's "Surprise Surprise". The first music press interview appeared in "Music Week". In July 1996, the group conducted their first interview with Paul Gorman, the contributing editor of music paper "Music Week", at Virgin Records' Paris headquarters. His piece recognised that the Spice Girls were about to institute a change in the charts away from Britpop and towards out-and-out pop. He wrote: "JUST WHEN BOYS with guitars threaten to rule pop life – Damon's all over "Smash Hits", Ash are big in "Big!" and Liam can't move for tabloid frenzy – an all-girl, in-yer-face pop group have arrived with enough sass to burst that rockist bubble." The song entered the UK Singles Chart at number three before moving up to number one the following week and staying there for seven weeks. The song proved to be a global hit, hitting number one in 37 countries, including four weeks atop the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the US, and becoming not only the biggest selling debut single by an all-female group but also the biggest-selling single by an all-female group of all time.
Riding a wave of publicity and hype, the group released their next singles in the UK and Europe; in October "Say You'll Be There" was released topping the charts at number one for two weeks. In December "2 Become 1" was released, becoming their first Christmas number-one and selling 462,000 copies in its first week, making it the fastest selling single of the year. The two tracks continued the group's remarkable sales, giving them three of the top five biggest selling songs of 1996 in the UK. In November 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut album "Spice" in Europe. The success was unprecedented and drew comparisons to Beatlemania, leading the press to dub it "Spice mania" and the group the "Fab Five". In seven weeks "Spice" had sold 1.8 million copies in Britain alone, making the Spice Girls the fastest selling British act since the Beatles. In total, the album sold over 3 million copies in Britain, the biggest-selling album of all time in the UK by a female group, certified 10× Platinum, and peaked at number one for fifteen non-consecutive weeks. In Europe the album became the biggest-selling album of 1997 and was certified 8× Platinum by the IFPI for sales in excess of 8 million copies.
That same month the Spice Girls attracted a crowd of 500,000 when they switched on the Christmas lights in Oxford Street, London. At the same time, Simon Fuller started to set up million pound sponsorship deals for the Spice Girls with Pepsi, Walkers, Impulse, Cadbury's and Polaroid. In December 1996, the group won three trophies at the "Smash Hits" awards at the London Arena, including best video for "Say You'll Be There". In January 1997, the group released "Wannabe" in the United States. The single, written by the Spice Girls, Richard Stannard, and Matt Rowe also proved to be a catalyst in helping the Spice Girls break into the notoriously difficult US market when it debuted on the Hot 100 Chart at number eleven. At the time, this was the highest-ever debut by a non-American act, beating the previous record held by the Beatles for "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the joint highest entry for a debut act beating Alanis Morissette with "Ironic". "Wannabe" reached number one in the US for four weeks. In February 1997, "Spice" was released in the US, and became the biggest-selling album of 1997 in the US, peaking at number one, and was certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA for sales in excess of 7.4 million
copies. The album is also included in the Top 100 Albums of All Time list of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on US sales. In total, the album sold over 23 million copies worldwide becoming the biggest-selling album in pop music history by an all-female group.
Later that month, the Spice Girls won two Brit Awards for Best British Video, "Say You'll Be There" and Best British Single for "Wannabe". The group performed "Who Do You Think You Are" to open the 1997 Brit Awards, with Geri Halliwell wearing a Union Jack mini-dress that became one of pop history's most famed outfits. In March 1997, a double A-side of "Mama"/"Who Do You Think You Are" was released in Europe, the last from "Spice", which once again saw them at number one, making the Spice Girls the first group in history since the Jackson 5 to have four consecutive number one hits. "Girl Power!", The Spice Girls' first book and manifesto was launched later that month at the Virgin Megastore. It sold out its initial print run of 200,000 copies within a day, and was eventually translated into more than 20 languages. In April, "One Hour of Girl Power" was released; it sold 500,000 copies in the UK between April and June to become the best-selling pop video ever. In May, "Spice World" was announced by the Spice Girls at the Cannes Film Festival. The group also performed their first live British show, for the Royalty of Great Britain. At the show, they breached royal protocol when Mel B and then Geri Halliwell planted kisses on Prince Charles' cheeks and pinched his bottom, causing controversy. At the Ivor Novello Awards, the group won International Hit of the Year and Best-Selling British Single awards for "Wannabe". In June 1997, "Spice World" began filming and wrapped in August. In September, the Spice Girls performed "Say You'll Be There" at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and won Best Dance Video for "Wannabe". The MTV Awards came five days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, with tributes paid to her throughout the ceremony. Mel C stated, “We'd like to dedicate this award to Princess Diana, who is a great loss to our country." At the 1997 "Billboard" Music Awards the group won four awards; New Artist of the Year, "Billboard" Hot 100 Singles Group of the Year, "Billboard" 200 Group of the Year, and "Billboard" 200 Album of the Year for "Spice".
In October 1997, the Spice Girls released the first single from "Spiceworld", "Spice Up Your Life". It entered the UK Singles Chart at number one on 19 October 1997, making it the group's fifth consecutive number-one single. That same month, Simon Fuller took the Spice Girls east to perform their first live major concert to 40,000 fans in Istanbul, Turkey. Later, the group launched The Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal, then travelled to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela, who announced, "These are my heroes." This was the year when the Spice Girls reached the height of their career. In November, the Spice Girls released their second album, "Spiceworld". The album was a global best seller. It set a new record for the fastest-selling album when it shipped seven million copies over the course of two weeks. Gaining favourable reviews, the album went on to sell over 10 million copies in Europe, Canada, and the United States combined, and 13 million copies worldwide. Criticised in the United-States for releasing the album just nine months after their debut there, which gave the group two simultaneous Top 10 albums in the Billboard album charts, and suffering from over-exposure at home, the Spice Girls began to experience a media backlash. The group was criticised for the number of sponsorship deals signed—over twenty in total—and they began to witness diminishing international chart positions. Nevertheless, the Spice Girls remained the biggest-selling pop group of both 1997 and 1998.
On 7 November 1997, the group performed "Spice Up Your Life" in the 1997 MTV Europe Music Awards. After this performance, the Spice Girls made the decision to take over the running of the group themselves, and fired their manager Simon Fuller. The firing was front-page news around the world. Many commentators speculated that Fuller had been the true mastermind behind the group, and that this was the moment when the band lost their impetus and direction. Later that month, the Spice Girls became the first pop group to host ITV's "An Audience with..."; their show was watched by 11.8 million viewers in the UK, one fifth of the population. In December 1997, the second single from "Spiceworld", "Too Much", was released, becoming the group's second Christmas number-one and their sixth consecutive number-one single in the UK. The group ended 1997 as the year's most played artist on American radio. At the 1998 American Music Awards on 26 January, the Spice Girls won the awards for Favorite Pop Album, Favorite New Artist, and Favorite Pop Group. In February 1998, they won a special award for overseas success at the 1998 Brit Awards, with combined sales of albums and singles for over of 45 million records worldwide. That night, the group performed their next single, "Stop", their first track not to reach number one in Britain (it entered at number two).
In early 1998, the Spice Girls embarked on the Spiceworld world tour covering Europe and North America, starting in Dublin, Ireland on 24 February 1998 before moving to mainland Europe, and then returning to Britain for two gigs at Wembley Arena. Later that year, the Spice Girls were invited to sing on the official England World Cup song "How Does It Feel (To Be on Top of the World)", the last song recorded with Halliwell until 2007. On 31 May 1998, Halliwell announced her departure from the Spice Girls through her solicitor. Halliwell claimed that she was suffering from exhaustion and wanted to take a break. Rumours of a power struggle with Brown as the reason for her departure were circulated by the press. Halliwell's departure from the group shocked fans and became one of the biggest entertainment news stories of the year, making news headlines the world over. The four remaining members were adamant that the group would carry on.
Halliwell's departure was the subject of a lawsuit by Aprilia World Service B.V. (AWS), a manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters. On 9 March 1998, Halliwell informed the other members of the group of her intention to withdraw from the group, yet the girls signed an agreement with AWS on 24 March and again on 30 April and participated in a commercial photo shoot on 4 May in Milan, eventually concluding a contract with AWS on 6 May 1998. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales held that their conduct constituted a misrepresentation by giving the impression that Halliwell intended to remain part of the group in the foreseeable future, allowing AWS to rescind their contract with the Spice Girls. This is now the leading case in English law on misrepresentation by conduct.
"Viva Forever" was the last single released from "Spiceworld". The video for the single was made before Halliwell's departure and features the girls in stop-motion animated form. The North American tour began in West Palm Beach on 15 June, and grossed $60 million over 40 sold-out performances.
While on tour in the United-States, the group continued to record new material and released a new song, "Goodbye", before Christmas in 1998. The song was seen as a tribute to Geri Halliwell, and when it topped the UK Singles Chart it became their third consecutive Christmas number-one – equalling the record previously set by the Beatles. Later in 1998, Bunton and Chisholm appeared at the 1998 MTV Europe Music Awards without their other band members, and the group won two awards: "Best Pop Act" and "Best Group" for a second time. In late 1998, Brown and Adams announced they were both pregnant; Brown was married to dancer Jimmy Gulzer and became known as Mel G for a brief period. She gave birth to daughter Phoenix Chi in February 1999. One month later, Adams gave birth to son Brooklyn, whose father was then Manchester United footballer David Beckham. Later that year, she married Beckham in a highly publicised wedding in Ireland.
The Spice Girls returned to the studio in August 1999, after an eight-month recording break to start work on their third and last studio album. The album's sound was initially more pop-influenced, similar to their first two albums, and included production from Eliot Kennedy. The album's sound took a mature direction when American producers like Rodney Jerkins, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis came on to collaborate with the group. In December 1999 they performed live for a UK-only tour, Christmas in Spiceworld, in London and Manchester, also showcasing new songs from the third album. During 1999, the group recorded the character Amneris' song "My Strongest Suit" in Elton John's and Tim Rice's "Aida", a concept album which would later go on to fuel the musical version of Verdi's "Aida". The band performed again at the 2000 Brit Awards, where they received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Despite being at the event, Halliwell did not join her former bandmates on stage. In November 2000, the group released "Forever". Sporting a new edgier R&B sound, the album received a lukewarm response from critics.
In the US, the album peaked at number thirty-nine on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart. In the UK, the album was released the same week as Westlife's "Coast to Coast" album and the chart battle was widely reported by the media, where Westlife won the battle reaching number one in the UK, leaving the Spice Girls at number two. The lead single from "Forever", the double A-side "Holler"/"Let Love Lead the Way", became the group's ninth number one single in the UK. However the song failed to break onto the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart stateside, instead peaking at number seven on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles. "Holler" did peak at number thirty-one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in 2000. The only major performance of the lead single came at the MTV Europe Music Awards on 16 November 2000. In total, "Forever" achieved only a fraction of the success of its two best-selling predecessors, selling five million copies. In January 2001, the group unofficially announced that they were beginning an indefinite hiatus and would be concentrating on their solo careers in regards to their foreseeable future, although they pointed out that the group was not splitting.
On 28 June 2007, the group held a press conference at The O2 Arena revealing their intention to reunite. The plan to re-form had long been speculated by the media, but the group finally confirmed their intention to embark upon a worldwide concert tour, starting in Vancouver on 2 December 2007. Filmmaker Bob Smeaton directed an official documentary on the reunion. It was entitled "Spice Girls: Giving You Everything" and was first aired on Australia's Fox8 on 16 December 2007, followed by BBC One in the UK, on 31 December. Ticket sales for the first London date of the Return of the Spice Girls tour sold out in 38 seconds. It was reported that over one million people signed up in the UK alone and over five million worldwide for the ticket ballot on the band's official website. Sixteen additional dates in London were added, all selling out within one minute. In the United States, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Jose shows also sold out, prompting additional dates to be added. It was announced that the
Spice Girls would be playing dates in Chicago and Detroit and Boston, as well as additional dates in New York to keep up with the demand. On the first concert in Canada, they performed to an audience of 15,000 people, singing twenty songs and changing a total of eight times. Along with the tour sellout, the Spice Girls licensed their name and image to Tesco's UK supermarket chain.
The group's comeback single, "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)", was announced as the official Children in Need charity single for 2007 and was released 5 November. The first public appearance on stage by the Spice Girls occurred at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, where they performed two songs, 1998 single "Stop" and the lead single from their greatest hits album, "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)". The show was filmed by CBS on 15 November 2007 for broadcast on 4 December 2007. They also performed both songs live for the BBC Children in Need telethon on 16 November 2007 from Los Angeles. The release of "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)" peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart, making it the group's lowest charting British single to date. The album peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart. On 1 February 2008, it was announced that due to personal and family commitments their tour would come to an end in Toronto on 26 February 2008, meaning that tour dates in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Cape Town and Buenos Aires were cancelled. Overall, the tour produced some $107.2 million in ticket sales and merchandising, with sponsorship and ad deals bringing the total to $200 million. In March 2008, the group won the coveted "Icon Awards" at the 95.8 Capital Awards; Bunton and Chisholm collected the award. In June, they captured the Glamour Award for the Best Band; Bunton, Brown and Halliwell received the award at the event. In September, the Spice Girls won the "Best Live Return Award" at the 2008 Live Vodafone Music Awards, beating acts such as Led Zeppelin and the Sex Pistols. Bunton was there to collect the award.
In 2010, the group was nominated for a Brit Award in the new category, "Best Performance of the 30th Year" for their 1997 Brit Awards performance of their songs, "Wannabe" and "Who Do You Think You Are". The group later won the award which was received by Halliwell and Brown. The group along with Simon Fuller also teamed with Judy Craymer and Jennifer Saunders to develop a Spice Girls musical, "Viva Forever!". Although the group were not in the musical, they influenced the show's cast and production choices in a story which uses the music, similar to ABBA's music in "Mamma Mia!".
Two years later, in June 2012, the group reunited for the first time in four years for the press conference in London to promote the launch of "Viva Forever!". The press conference was held at St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, the location where the group filmed the music video for "Wannabe", sixteen years earlier, to the day. In August 2012, after much speculation and anticipation from the press and the public, the group performed a medley of "Wannabe" and "Spice Up Your Life" at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, reuniting solely for the event. Their performance received great response from critics and audiences and became the most tweeted moment of the entire Olympics with over 116,000 tweets on Twitter per minute. In December 2012, the group reunited once again for the premiere of "Viva Forever!" at the West End's Piccadilly Theatre. In addition to the promotion of the musical, the group appeared in the documentary, "Spice Girls' Story: Viva Forever!" which aired on 24 December 2012 on ITV1.
On 8 July 2016, Brown, Bunton, and Halliwell released a video celebrating the 20th anniversary of their first single "Wannabe", alongside a website under the name "The Spice Girls - GEM" and teased news from them as a three-piece. Brown later clarified that "GEM" was not a new name for the three-piece but rather simply the name of the website. Beckham and Chisholm opted not to take part in a reunion project, with Brown reaffirming their positions in saying, "Victoria's busy [...] Mel C's doing her own album" and noted that both members gave the three-piece their blessing to continue with the project. On 23 November 2016, a new song, "Song for Her", was leaked online. Following Halliwell's announcement of her pregnancy, the project was cancelled.
On 5 November 2018, Brown, Bunton, Chisholm and Halliwell announced a tour for 2019. Beckham declined to join due to commitments regarding her fashion business. The Spice World – 2019 Tour commenced at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland on 24 May 2019. A 13 date European tour, it concluded with three concerts at London's Wembley Stadium, with the last taking place on 15 June 2019. The tour produced 700,000 spectators and earned $78.2 million. Despite sound problems in the early concerts, Anna Nicholson in "The Guardian" writes, “As nostalgia tours go, this could hardly have been bettered. Victoria’s dry wit was missed, but some passive-aggressive patter and a food fight is how you really sell a tour.”
On 30 April 2019, the group teamed up with the children's book franchise "Mr. Men", in order to create many derivative products such as books, cups, bags and coasters. On 13 June 2019, it was reported that Paramount Animation president Mireille Soria had green lit an animated film based on the group, with all five members returning. The project will be produced by Simon Fuller, with Karen McCullah and Kiwi Smith writing the screenplay, and will feature both previous and original songs. The film will feature the band as superheroes. A director has not yet been announced.
The Spice Girls broke onto the music scene at a time when alternative rock, hip-hop and R&B dominated global music charts. The modern pop phenomenon that the Spice Girls created by targeting early members of Generation Y was credited with changing the global music landscape, bringing about the global wave of late 1990s and early 2000s teen pop acts such as Hanson, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and NSYNC.
The Spice Girls have also been credited with paving the way for the girl groups and female pop singers that have come after them. In the UK, they are credited for their massive commercial breakthrough in the previously male-dominated pop music scene, leading to the widespread formation of new girl groups in the late 1990s and early 2000s including All Saints, B*Witched, Atomic Kitten, Girls Aloud and Sugababes, hoping to emulate the Spice Girls’ success. 21st-century girl groups, including The Pussycat Dolls, 2NE1, Girls' Generation, Little Mix and Fifth Harmony, continue to cite the group as a major source of influence, as have female singers, including Lady Gaga, Jess Glynne, Alexandra Burke, Kim Petras, Charli XCX, Rita Ora, Demi Lovato and Carly Rae Jepsen. During her 2005 "Reflections" concert series, Filipina superstar Regine Velasquez performed a medley of Spice Girls songs consisting of "Wannabe", "Say You'll Be There", "2 Become 1", "Who Do You Think You Are" and "Holler", as a tribute to the band she says were a major influence on her music. Danish singer-songwriter MØ decided to pursue music after watching the Spice Girls on TV as a child, saying in a 2014 interview: "I have them and only them to thank—or to blame—for becoming a singer." 15-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Adele credits the Spice Girls as a major influence in regard to her love and passion for music, stating that "they made me what I am today".
The phrase "girl power" put a name to a social phenomenon, but the slogan was met with mixed reactions. The phrase was a label for the particular facet of post classical neo-feminist empowerment embraced by the band: that a sensual, feminine appearance and equality between the sexes need not be mutually exclusive. This concept was by no means original in the pop world: both Madonna and Bananarama had employed similar outlooks. The phrase itself had also appeared in a few songs by British girl groups and bands since at least 1987; most notably, it was the name of British pop duo Shampoo's 1996 single and album, later credited by Halliwell as the inspiration for the Spice Girls' mantra. In a Christmas 1996 interview with "The Spectator" magazine, Halliwell spoke of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as being an inspiration for the group: “We are true Thatcherites. Thatcher was the first Spice Girl, the pioneer of our ideology.”
However, it was not until the emergence of the Spice Girls in 1996 with "Wannabe", that the concept of "girl power" exploded onto the common consciousness. The phrase was regularly uttered by all five members—although most closely associated with Halliwell—and was often delivered with a peace sign. The slogan also featured on official Spice Girls merchandise and on some of the outfits the group members wore. The Spice Girls' version was distinctive. Its message of empowerment appealed to young girls, adolescents and adult women, and it emphasised the importance of strong and loyal friendship among females. According to "Billboard" magazine, they demonstrated real, noncompetitive female friendship, singing: "If you wannabe my lover, you gotta get with my friends. Make it last forever; friendship never ends."
In all, the focused, consistent presentation of "girl power" formed the centrepiece of their appeal as a band. Some commentators credit the Spice Girls with reinvigorating mainstream feminism—popularised as "girl power"—in the 1990s, with their mantra serving as a gateway to feminism for their young fans. On the other hand, some critics dismissed it as no more than a shallow marketing tactic, while others took issue with the emphasis on physical appearance, concerned about the potential impact on self-conscious and/or impressionable youngsters. Regardless, the phrase became a cultural phenomenon, adopted as the mantra for millions of girls and even making it into the "Oxford English Dictionary".
In summation of the concept, author Ryan Dawson said, "The Spice Girls changed British culture enough for Girl Power to now seem completely unremarkable."
The Spice Girls' debut single "Wannabe" has been hailed as an "iconic girl power anthem". In 2016, the United Nations' Global Goals "#WhatIReallyReallyWant" campaign filmed a global remake of the original music video for "Wannabe" to highlight gender inequality issues faced by women across the world. The video, which was launched on YouTube and ran in movie theatres internationally, featured British girl group M.O, Canadian "viral sensation" Taylor Hatala, Nigerian-British singer Seyi Shay and Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez lip-syncing to the song in various locations around the world. In response to the remake, Beckham said, "How fabulous is it that after 20 years the legacy of the Spice Girls’ girl power is being used to encourage and empower a whole new generation?"
At the 43rd People's Choice Awards in January 2017, American actress Blake Lively dedicated her "Favorite Dramatic Movie Actress" award to "girl power" in her acceptance speech, and credited the Spice Girls, saying: "What was so neat about them was that they’re all so distinctly different, and they were women, and they owned who they were, and that was my first introduction into girl power." In 2018, "Rolling Stone" named the Spice Girls’ girl power on "The Millennial 100", a list of 100 people, music, cultural touchstones and movements that have shaped a generation (those born between 1980 and 1995).
The term "Cool Britannia" became prominent in the media and represented the new political and social climate that was emerging with the advances made by New Labour and the new UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Coming out of a period of 18 years of Conservative government, Tony Blair and New Labour were seen as young, cool, and appealing, a driving force in giving Britain a feeling of euphoria and optimism.
Although by no means responsible for the onset of "Cool Britannia", the arrival of the Spice Girls added to the new image and re-branding of Britain, and underlined the growing world popularity of British, rather than American, pop music. This fact was underlined at the 1997 Brit Awards; the group won two awards but it was Halliwell's iconic red, white and blue Union Jack mini-dress that appeared in media coverage around the world, becoming an enduring image of "Cool Britannia". In 2016, "Time" acknowledged the Spice Girls as "arguably the most recognisable face" of "Cool Britannia".
The Spice Girls are considered style icons of the 1990s; their image and styles becoming inextricably tied to the band's identity. They are credited with setting 1990s fashion trends such as Buffalo platform shoes and double bun hairstyles. The group have also been noted for the memorable outfits they have worn, the most iconic being Halliwell's Union Jack dress from the 1997 Brit Awards. The dress was sold at a charity auction to the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe for £41,320, giving Halliwell the Guinness World Record at that time for the most expensive piece of pop star clothing ever sold. Their style has inspired other celebrities including Katy Perry, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, and Bollywood actress Anushka Ranjan.
The Spice Girls' image was deliberately aimed at young girls, an audience of formidable size and potential. Instrumental to their range of appeal within the target demographic were the bandmates' five divergent personalities and styles, which encouraged fans to identify with one member or another and were a departure from previous bands. This marketing of each member's individuality was reinforced by the distinctive nicknames adopted by each member of the group. Their concept of each band member having a distinct style identity has been influential to later teen pop groups such as boy band One Direction.
Shortly after "Wannabe"'s release, a lunch with Peter Loraine, then-editor of "Top of the Pops", inadvertently led the Spice Girls to adopt the nicknames that ultimately played a key role in their marketability and the way their international audience identified with them. After the lunch, Loraine and his editorial staff decided to devise nicknames for each member of the group based on their personalities. In an interview with "Music Week", Loraine explained that, "In the magazine we used silly language and came up with nicknames all the time so it came naturally to give them names that would be used by the magazine and its readers; it was never meant to be adopted globally." Shortly after using the nicknames in a magazine feature on the group, Loraine received calls from other British media outlets requesting permission to use them, and before long the nicknames were synonymous with the Spice Girls.
Each Spice Girl had a unique, over-the-top style that served as an extension of her public persona, becoming her trademark look.
In their one-off reunion at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony, the Spice Girls performed in updated high fashion versions of their signature outfits, after entering the Olympic Stadium in five black cabs which lit up with LEDs, each decorated with their individual trademark emblems (Posh: sparkling black, Sporty: racing stripes, Scary: leopard print, Baby: pink and Ginger: the Union Jack Flag).
At the height of "Spice mania", the group were involved in a prolific marketing phenomenon. They advertised for an unprecedented number of brands, becoming the most merchandised group in music history, and were a frequent feature of the global press.
According to "Rolling Stone's" David Sinclair, "So great was the daily bombardment of Spice images and Spice product that it quickly became oppressive even to people who were well disposed towards the group." This was even parodied in the video for their song "Spice Up Your Life", which depicts the group going around a futuristic dystopian city in a space ship surrounded by billboards and adverts featuring them. Throughout the American leg of their 1998 Spiceworld world tour, commercials were played on large concert screens before the shows and during intermissions. It was the first time advertising had been used in pop concerts and was met with mixed reactions in the music industry. Nevertheless, it opened up a whole new concert revenue stream, with music industry pundits predicting more acts would follow the Spice Girls' lead.
In his analysis of the group's influence on 21st century popular culture two decades after their debut, John Mckie of the BBC noted that while other stars had used brand endorsements in the past, "the Spice brand was the first to propel the success of the band". "The Guardian"'s Sylvia Patterson also wrote of what she called the Spice Girls' true legacy: "[T]hey were the original pioneers of the band as brand, of pop as a ruthless marketing ruse, of the merchandising and sponsorship deals that have dominated commercial pop ever since."
The mainstream media embraced the Spice Girls at the peak of their success. The group received regular international press coverage and were constantly followed by paparazzi. Paul Gorman of "Music Week" said of the media interest in the Spice Girls in the late 1990s: "They inaugurated the era of cheesy celebrity obsession which pertains today. There is lineage from them to the Kardashianisation not only of the music industry, but the wider culture." The "Irish Independent's" Tanya Sweeney agreed that "[t]he vapidity of paparazzi culture could probably be traced back to the Spice Girls' naked ambitions", while Mckie predicted that, "[f]or all that modern stars from Katy Perry to Lionel Messi exploit brand endorsements and attract tabloid coverage, the scale of the Spice Girls' breakthrough in 1996 is unlikely to be repeated—at least not by a music act."
The Spice Girls have been labelled the biggest pop phenomenon of the 1990s due to their international record sales, iconic symbolism and "omnipresence" in the late 1990s. The group appeared on the cover of the July 1997 edition of "Rolling Stone" accompanied with the headline, "Spice Girls Conquer the World". At the 2000 Brit Awards, the group received the Outstanding Contribution to Music Award to mark their success in the global music scene in the 1990s. The iconic symbolism of the Spice Girls in the 1990s is partly attributed to their era-defining outfits, the most notable being the Union Jack dress that Geri Halliwell wore at the 1997 Brit Awards. The dress has achieved iconic status, becoming one of the most prominent symbols of 1990s pop culture. The status of the Spice Girls as 1990s pop icons is also attributed to their vast merchandising and willingness to be a part of a media-driven world. Their unprecedented appearances in adverts and the media solidified the group as a phenomenon—an icon of the decade and for British music.
Some sources, especially those in the United Kingdom, regard the Spice Girls as gay icons. In a UK survey of more than 5,000 gay men and women, Victoria Beckham placed 12th and Halliwell placed 43rd in a ranking of the Top 50 gay icons of all time. Halliwell was also the recipient of the Honorary Gay Award at the 2016 Attitude Awards. In a 2005 interview, Emma Bunton attributed their large gay fan base to the group's fun-loving nature, open-mindedness, and their love of fashion and dressing up, concluding that: "I'm so flattered that we've got such a huge gay following, it's amazing."
In 1999, a study conducted by the British Council found that the Spice Girls were the second-best-known Britons internationally—only behind then-Prime Minister Tony Blair—and the best-known Britons in Asia. In 2004, they featured in the VH1 series "I Love the '90s" for the year 1997, which was broadcast in the United States. In 2005, Emma Bunton was a presenter on the VH1 sequel, "", with 1998 covering Geri Halliwell's exit from the group. In 2006, ten years after the release of their debut single, the Spice Girls were voted the biggest cultural icons of the 1990s with 80 percent of the votes in a UK poll of 1,000 people carried out for the board game "Trivial Pursuit", stating that "Girl Power" defined the decade. The Spice Girls also ranked number ten in the E! TV special, "The 101 Reasons the '90s Ruled".
The Spice Girls became media icons in Great Britain and a regular feature of the British press. During the peak of their worldwide fame in 1997, the paparazzi were constantly seen following them everywhere to obtain stories and gossip about the group, as a supposed affair between Emma Bunton and manager Simon Fuller, or constant split rumours which became fodder for numerous tabloids. Rumours of in-fighting and conflicts within the group also made headlines, with the rumours suggesting that Geri Halliwell and Melanie Brown in particular were fighting to be the leader of the group. Brown, who later admitted that she used to be a "bitch" to Halliwell, said the problems had stayed in the past. The rumours reached their height when the Spice Girls dismissed their manager Simon Fuller during the power struggles, with Fuller reportedly receiving a £10 million severance cheque to keep quiet about the details of his sacking. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28480 |
Statistical mechanics
Statistical mechanics, one of the pillars of modern physics, describes how macroscopic observations (such as temperature and pressure) are related to microscopic parameters that fluctuate around an average. It connects thermodynamic quantities (such as heat capacity) to microscopic behavior, whereas, in classical thermodynamics, the only available option would be to measure and tabulate such quantities for various materials.
Statistical mechanics is necessary for the fundamental study of any physical system that has many degrees of freedom. The approach is based on statistical methods, probability theory and the microscopic physical laws.
It can be used to explain the thermodynamic behaviour of large systems. This branch of statistical mechanics, which treats and extends classical thermodynamics, is known as statistical thermodynamics or equilibrium statistical mechanics.
Statistical mechanics can also be used to study systems that are out of equilibrium. An important sub-branch known as non-equilibrium statistical mechanics (sometimes called statistical dynamics) deals with the issue of microscopically modelling the speed of irreversible processes that are driven by imbalances. Examples of such processes include chemical reactions or flows of particles and heat. The fluctuation–dissipation theorem is the basic knowledge obtained from applying non-equilibrium statistical mechanics to study the simplest non-equilibrium situation of a steady state current flow in a system of many particles.
In physics, two types of mechanics are usually examined: classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. For both types of mechanics, the standard mathematical approach is to consider two concepts:
Using these two concepts, the state at any other time, past or future, can in principle be calculated.
There is however a disconnection between these laws and everyday life experiences, as we do not find it necessary (nor even theoretically possible) to know exactly at a microscopic level the simultaneous positions and velocities of each molecule while carrying out processes at the human scale (for example, when performing a chemical reaction). Statistical mechanics fills this disconnection between the laws of mechanics and the practical experience of incomplete knowledge, by adding some uncertainty about which state the system is in.
Whereas ordinary mechanics only considers the behaviour of a single state, statistical mechanics introduces the statistical ensemble, which is a large collection of virtual, independent copies of the system in various states. The statistical ensemble is a probability distribution over all possible states of the system. In classical statistical mechanics, the ensemble is a probability distribution over phase points (as opposed to a single phase point in ordinary mechanics), usually represented as a distribution in a phase space with canonical coordinates. In quantum statistical mechanics, the ensemble is a probability distribution over pure states, and can be compactly summarized as a density matrix.
As is usual for probabilities, the ensemble can be interpreted in different ways:
These two meanings are equivalent for many purposes, and will be used interchangeably in this article.
However the probability is interpreted, each state in the ensemble evolves over time according to the equation of motion. Thus, the ensemble itself (the probability distribution over states) also evolves, as the virtual systems in the ensemble continually leave one state and enter another. The ensemble evolution is given by the Liouville equation (classical mechanics) or the von Neumann equation (quantum mechanics). These equations are simply derived by the application of the mechanical equation of motion separately to each virtual system contained in the ensemble, with the probability of the virtual system being conserved over time as it evolves from state to state.
One special class of ensemble is those ensembles that do not evolve over time. These ensembles are known as "equilibrium ensembles" and their condition is known as "statistical equilibrium". Statistical equilibrium occurs if, for each state in the ensemble, the ensemble also contains all of its future and past states with probabilities equal to the probability of being in that state. The study of equilibrium ensembles of isolated systems is the focus of statistical thermodynamics. Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics addresses the more general case of ensembles that change over time, and/or ensembles of non-isolated systems.
The primary goal of statistical thermodynamics (also known as equilibrium statistical mechanics) is to derive the classical thermodynamics of materials in terms of the properties of their constituent particles and the interactions between them. In other words, statistical thermodynamics provides a connection between the macroscopic properties of materials in thermodynamic equilibrium, and the microscopic behaviours and motions occurring inside the material.
Whereas statistical mechanics proper involves dynamics, here the attention is focussed on "statistical equilibrium" (steady state). Statistical equilibrium does not mean that the particles have stopped moving (mechanical equilibrium), rather, only that the ensemble is not evolving.
A sufficient (but not necessary) condition for statistical equilibrium with an isolated system is that the probability distribution is a function only of conserved properties (total energy, total particle numbers, etc.).
There are many different equilibrium ensembles that can be considered, and only some of them correspond to thermodynamics. Additional postulates are necessary to motivate why the ensemble for a given system should have one form or another.
A common approach found in many textbooks is to take the "equal a priori probability postulate". This postulate states that
The equal a priori probability postulate therefore provides a motivation for the microcanonical ensemble described below. There are various arguments in favour of the equal a priori probability postulate:
Other fundamental postulates for statistical mechanics have also been proposed.
There are three equilibrium ensembles with a simple form that can be defined for any isolated system bounded inside a finite volume. These are the most often discussed ensembles in statistical thermodynamics. In the macroscopic limit (defined below) they all correspond to classical thermodynamics.
For systems containing many particles (the thermodynamic limit), all three of the ensembles listed above tend to give identical behaviour. It is then simply a matter of mathematical convenience which ensemble is used. The Gibbs theorem about equivalence of ensembles was developed into the theory of concentration of measure phenomenon, which has applications in many areas of science, from functional analysis to methods of artificial intelligence and big data technology.
Important cases where the thermodynamic ensembles "do not" give identical results include:
In these cases the correct thermodynamic ensemble must be chosen as there are observable differences between these ensembles not just in the size of fluctuations, but also in average quantities such as the distribution of particles. The correct ensemble is that which corresponds to the way the system has been prepared and characterized—in other words, the ensemble that reflects the knowledge about that system.
Once the characteristic state function for an ensemble has been calculated for a given system, that system is 'solved' (macroscopic observables can be extracted from the characteristic state function). Calculating the characteristic state function of a thermodynamic ensemble is not necessarily a simple task, however, since it involves considering every possible state of the system. While some hypothetical systems have been exactly solved, the most general (and realistic) case is too complex for an exact solution. Various approaches exist to approximate the true ensemble and allow calculation of average quantities.
There are some cases which allow exact solutions.
One approximate approach that is particularly well suited to computers is the Monte Carlo method, which examines just a few of the possible states of the system, with the states chosen randomly (with a fair weight). As long as these states form a representative sample of the whole set of states of the system, the approximate characteristic function is obtained. As more and more random samples are included, the errors are reduced to an arbitrarily low level.
There are many physical phenomena of interest that involve quasi-thermodynamic processes out of equilibrium, for example:
All of these processes occur over time with characteristic rates, and these rates are of importance for engineering. The field of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics is concerned with understanding these non-equilibrium processes at the microscopic level. (Statistical thermodynamics can only be used to calculate the final result, after the external imbalances have been removed and the ensemble has settled back down to equilibrium.)
In principle, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics could be mathematically exact: ensembles for an isolated system evolve over time according to deterministic equations such as Liouville's equation or its quantum equivalent, the von Neumann equation. These equations are the result of applying the mechanical equations of motion independently to each state in the ensemble. Unfortunately, these ensemble evolution equations inherit much of the complexity of the underlying mechanical motion, and so exact solutions are very difficult to obtain. Moreover, the ensemble evolution equations are fully reversible and do not destroy information (the ensemble's Gibbs entropy is preserved). In order to make headway in modelling irreversible processes, it is necessary to consider additional factors besides probability and reversible mechanics.
Non-equilibrium mechanics is therefore an active area of theoretical research as the range of validity of these additional assumptions continues to be explored. A few approaches are described in the following subsections.
One approach to non-equilibrium statistical mechanics is to incorporate stochastic (random) behaviour into the system. Stochastic behaviour destroys information contained in the ensemble. While this is technically inaccurate (aside from hypothetical situations involving black holes, a system cannot in itself cause loss of information), the randomness is added to reflect that information of interest becomes converted over time into subtle correlations within the system, or to correlations between the system and environment. These correlations appear as chaotic or pseudorandom influences on the variables of interest. By replacing these correlations with randomness proper, the calculations can be made much easier.
Another important class of non-equilibrium statistical mechanical models deals with systems that are only very slightly perturbed from equilibrium. With very small perturbations, the response can be analysed in linear response theory. A remarkable result, as formalized by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, is that the response of a system when near equilibrium is precisely related to the fluctuations that occur when the system is in total equilibrium. Essentially, a system that is slightly away from equilibrium—whether put there by external forces or by fluctuations—relaxes towards equilibrium in the same way, since the system cannot tell the difference or "know" how it came to be away from equilibrium.
This provides an indirect avenue for obtaining numbers such as ohmic conductivity and thermal conductivity by extracting results from equilibrium statistical mechanics. Since equilibrium statistical mechanics is mathematically well defined and (in some cases) more amenable for calculations, the fluctuation-dissipation connection can be a convenient shortcut for calculations in near-equilibrium statistical mechanics.
A few of the theoretical tools used to make this connection include:
An advanced approach uses a combination of stochastic methods and linear response theory. As an example, one approach to compute quantum coherence effects (weak localization, conductance fluctuations) in the conductance of an electronic system is the use of the Green-Kubo relations, with the inclusion of stochastic dephasing by interactions between various electrons by use of the Keldysh method.
The ensemble formalism also can be used to analyze general mechanical systems with uncertainty in knowledge about the state of a system. Ensembles are also used in:
In 1738, Swiss physicist and mathematician Daniel Bernoulli published "Hydrodynamica" which laid the basis for the kinetic theory of gases. In this work, Bernoulli posited the argument, still used to this day, that gases consist of great numbers of molecules moving in all directions, that their impact on a surface causes the gas pressure that we feel, and that what we experience as heat is simply the kinetic energy of their motion.
In 1859, after reading a paper on the diffusion of molecules by Rudolf Clausius, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell formulated the Maxwell distribution of molecular velocities, which gave the proportion of molecules having a certain velocity in a specific range. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28481 |
Solstice
A solstice is an event occurring when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countries, the seasons of the year are determined by reference to the solstices and the equinoxes.
The term "solstice" can also be used in a broader sense, as the day when this occurs. The day of a solstice in either hemisphere has either the most sunlight of the year (summer solstice) or the least sunlight of the year (winter solstice) for any place other than the Equator. Alternative terms, with no ambiguity as to which hemisphere is the context, are "June solstice" and "December solstice", referring to the months in which they take place every year.
The word "solstice" is derived from the Latin "sol" ("sun") and "sistere" ("to stand still"), because at the solstices, the Sun's declination appears to "stand still"; that is, the seasonal movement of the Sun's daily path (as seen from Earth) pauses at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction.
For an observer on the North Pole, the Sun reaches the highest position in the sky once a year in June. The day this occurs is called the June solstice day. Similarly, for an observer on the South Pole, the Sun reaches the highest position on the December solstice day. When it is the summer solstice at one Pole, it is the winter solstice on the other. The Sun's westerly motion never ceases as Earth is continually in rotation. However, the Sun's motion in declination comes to a stop at the moment of solstice. In that sense, solstice means "sun-standing".
This modern scientific word descends from a Latin scientific word in use in the late Roman Republic of the 1st century BC: "solstitium". Pliny uses it a number of times in his "Natural History" with a similar meaning that it has today. It contains two Latin-language morphemes, "sol", "sun", and "-stitium", "stoppage".
The Romans used "standing" to refer to a component of the relative velocity of the Sun as it is observed in the sky. Relative velocity is the motion of an object from the point of view of an observer in a frame of reference. From a fixed position on the ground, the Sun appears to orbit around Earth.
To an observer in an inertial frame of reference, planet Earth is seen to rotate about an axis and revolve around the Sun in an elliptical path with the Sun at one focus. Earth's axis is tilted with respect to the plane of Earth's orbit and this axis maintains a position that changes little with respect to the background of stars. An observer on Earth therefore sees a solar path that is the result of both rotation and revolution.
The component of the Sun's motion seen by an earthbound observer caused by the revolution of the tilted axis – which, keeping the same angle in space, is oriented toward or away from the Sun – is an observed daily increment (and lateral offset) of the elevation of the Sun at noon for approximately six months and observed daily decrement for the remaining six months. At maximum or minimum elevation, the relative yearly motion of the Sun perpendicular to the horizon stops and reverses direction.
Outside of the tropics, the maximum elevation occurs at the summer solstice and the minimum at the winter solstice. The path of the Sun, or ecliptic, sweeps north and south between the northern and southern hemispheres. The days are longer around the summer solstice and shorter around the winter solstice. When the Sun's path crosses the equator, the length of the nights at latitudes +L° and −L° are of equal length. This is known as an equinox. There are two solstices and two equinoxes in a tropical year.
The seasons occur because the Earth's axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its orbital plane (the plane of the ecliptic) but currently makes an angle of about 23.44° (called the obliquity of the ecliptic), and because the axis keeps its orientation with respect to an inertial frame of reference. As a consequence, for half the year the Northern Hemisphere is inclined toward the Sun while for the other half year the Southern Hemisphere has this distinction. The two moments when the inclination of Earth's rotational axis has maximum effect are the solstices.
At the June solstice the subsolar point is further north than any other time: at latitude 23.44° north, known as the Tropic of Cancer. Similarly at the December solstice the subsolar point is further south than any other time: at latitude 23.44° south, known as the Tropic of Capricorn. The subsolar point will cross every latitude between these two extremes exactly twice per year.
Also during the June solstice, places on the Arctic Circle (latitude 66.56° north) will see the Sun just on the horizon during midnight, and all places north of it will see the Sun above horizon for 24 hours. That is the midnight sun or midsummer-night sun or polar day. On the other hand, places on the Antarctic Circle (latitude 66.56° south) will see the Sun just on the horizon during midday, and all places south of it will not see the Sun above horizon at any time of the day. That is the polar night. During the December Solstice, the effects on both hemispheres are just the opposite. This sees polar sea ice re-grow annually due to lack of sunlight on the air above and surrounding sea.
The concept of the solstices was embedded in ancient Greek celestial navigation. As soon as they discovered that the Earth is spherical they devised the concept of the celestial sphere, an imaginary spherical surface rotating with the heavenly bodies ("ouranioi") fixed in it (the modern one does not rotate, but the stars in it do). As long as no assumptions are made concerning the distances of those bodies from Earth or from each other, the sphere can be accepted as real and is in fact still in use. The Ancient Greeks use the term" "ηλιοστάσιο" (heliostāsio)", meaning "stand of the Sun".
The stars move across the inner surface of the celestial sphere along the circumferences of circles in parallel planes perpendicular to the Earth's axis extended indefinitely into the heavens and intersecting the celestial sphere in a celestial pole. The Sun and the planets do not move in these parallel paths but along another circle, the ecliptic, whose plane is at an angle, the obliquity of the ecliptic, to the axis, bringing the Sun and planets across the paths of and in among the stars.*
Cleomedes states:The band of the Zodiac ("zōdiakos kuklos", "zodiacal circle") is at an oblique angle ("loksos") because it is positioned between the tropical circles and equinoctial circle touching each of the tropical circles at one point ... This Zodiac has a determinable width (set at 8° today) ... that is why it is described by three circles: the central one is called "heliacal" ("hēliakos", "of the sun").
The term heliacal circle is used for the ecliptic, which is in the center of the zodiacal circle, conceived as a band including the noted constellations named on mythical themes. Other authors use Zodiac to mean ecliptic, which first appears in a gloss of unknown author in a passage of Cleomedes where he is explaining that the Moon is in the zodiacal circle as well and periodically crosses the path of the Sun. As some of these crossings represent eclipses of the Moon, the path of the Sun is given a synonym, the "ekleiptikos (kuklos)" from "ekleipsis", "eclipse".
The two solstices can be distinguished by different pairs of names, depending on which feature one wants to stress.
The traditional East Asian calendars divide a year into 24 solar terms (節氣). Xiàzhì (pīnyīn) or Geshi (rōmaji) () is the 10th solar term, and marks the summer solstice. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 90° (around June 21) and ends when the Sun reaches the longitude of 105° (around July 7). Xiàzhì more often refers in particular to the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 90°.
Dōngzhì (pīnyīn) or Tōji (rōmaji) () is the 22nd solar term, and marks the winter solstice. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 270° (around December 22) and ends when the Sun reaches the longitude of 285° (around January 5). Dōngzhì more often refers in particular to the day when the Sun is exactly at the celestial longitude of 270°.
The solstices (as well as the equinoxes) mark the middle of the seasons in East Asian calendars. Here, the Chinese character 至 means "extreme", so the terms for the solstices directly signify the summits of summer and winter.
The term "solstice" can also be used in a wider sense, as the date (day) that such a passage happens. The solstices, together with the equinoxes, are connected with the seasons. In some languages they are considered to start or separate the seasons; in others they are considered to be centre points (in England, in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, the period around the northern solstice is known as midsummer). Midsummer's Day, defined as St. Johns Day by the Christian Church, is June 24, about three days after the solstice itself). Similarly December 25 is the start of the Christmas celebration, and is the day the Sun begins to return to the Northern Hemisphere. The traditional British and Irish (often) main rent and meeting days of the year: "the usual quarter days" was at first those of the solstices and equinoxes.
Many cultures celebrate various combinations of the winter and summer solstices, the equinoxes, and the midpoints between them, leading to various holidays arising around these events. During the southern or winter solstice, Christmas is the most widespread contemporary holiday, while Yalda, Saturnalia, Karachun, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Yule are also celebrated around this time. In East Asian cultures, the Dongzhi Festival is celebrated on the winter solstice. For the northern or summer solstice, Christian cultures celebrate the feast of St. John from June 23 to 24 (see St. John's Eve, Ivan Kupala Day), while Modern pagans observe Midsummer, known as Litha among Wiccans. For the vernal (spring) equinox, several springtime festivals are celebrated, such as the Persian Nowruz, the observance in Judaism of Passover, the rites of Easter in most Christian churches, as well as the Wiccan Ostara. The autumnal equinox is associated with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and the Wiccan Mabon.
In the southern tip of South America, the Mapuche people celebrate We Tripantu (the New Year) a few days after the northern solstice, on June 24. Further north, the Atacama people formerly celebrated this date with a noise festival, to call the Sun back. Further east, the Aymara people celebrate their New Year on June 21. A celebration occurs at sunrise, when the sun shines directly through the Gate of the Sun in Tiwanaku. Other Aymara New Year feasts occur throughout Bolivia, including at the site of El Fuerte de Samaipata.
In the Hindu calendar, two sidereal solstices are named Makara Sankranti which marks the start of Uttarayana and Karka Sankranti which marks the start of Dakshinayana. The former occurs around January 14 each year, while the latter occurs around July 14 each year. These mark the movement of the Sun along a sidereally fixed zodiac (precession is ignored) into Makara, the zodiacal sign which corresponds with Capricorn, and into Karka, the zodiacal sign which corresponds with Cancer, respectively.
The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station celebrates every year on June 21 a midwinter party, to celebrate that the Sun is at its lowest point and coming back.
The Fremont Solstice Parade takes place every summer solstice in Fremont, Seattle, Washington in the United States.
The reconstructed Cahokia Woodhenge, a large timber circle located at the Mississippian culture Cahokia archaeological site near Collinsville, Illinois, is the site of annual equinox and solstice sunrise observances. Out of respect for Native American beliefs these events do not feature ceremonies or rituals of any kind.
Unlike the equinox, the solstice time is not easy to determine. The changes in solar declination become smaller as the Sun gets closer to its maximum/minimum declination. The days before and after the solstice, the declination speed is less than 30 arcseconds per day which is less than of the angular size of the Sun, or the equivalent to just 2 seconds of right ascension.
This difference is hardly detectable with indirect viewing based devices like sextant equipped with a vernier, and impossible with more traditional tools like a gnomon or an astrolabe. It is also hard to detect the changes on sunrise/sunset azimuth due to the atmospheric refraction changes. Those accuracy issues render it impossible to determine the solstice day based on observations made within the 3 (or even 5) days surrounding the solstice without the use of more complex tools.
Accounts do not survive but Greek astronomers must have used an approximation method based on interpolation, which is still used by some amateurs. This method consists of recording the declination angle at noon during some days before and after the solstice, trying to find two separate days with the same declination. When those two days are found, the halfway time between both noons is estimated solstice time. An interval of 45 days has been postulated as the best one to achieve up to a quarter-day precision, in the solstice determination.
In 2012, the journal DIO found that accuracy of one or two hours with balanced errors can be attained by observing the Sun's equal altitudes about S = twenty degrees (or d = about 20 days) before and after the summer solstice because the average of the two times will be early by q arc minutes where q is (πe cosA)/3 times the square of S in degrees (e = earth orbit eccentricity, A = earth's perihelion or Sun's apogee), and the noise in the result will be about 41 hours divided by d if the eye's sharpness is taken as one arc minute.
Astronomical almanacs define the solstices as the moments when the Sun passes through the solstitial colure, i.e. the times when the apparent geocentric longitude of the Sun is equal to 90° (summer solstice) or 270° (winter solstice). The dates of the solstice varies each year and may occur a day earlier or later depending on the time zone. The solstices always occur between June 20 and 22 and between December 20 and 23 with the 21st and 22nd being the most common dates.
Using the current official IAU constellation boundaries – and taking into account the variable precession speed and the rotation of the ecliptic – the solstices shift through the constellations as follows (expressed in astronomical year numbering in which the year 0 = 1 BC, −1 = 2 BC, etc.):
The 687-day orbit of Mars around the Sun (almost twice that of the Earth) causes its summer and winter solstices to occur at approximately 23-month intervals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28483 |
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 ( or ; "Satellite-1", or "PS-1", Простейший Спутник-1 or "Prosteyshiy Sputnik-1", "Elementary Satellite 1") was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957 where it orbited for three weeks before its batteries died, then silently for two more months before falling back into the atmosphere. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by radio amateurs, and the 65° inclination and duration of its orbit made its flight path cover virtually the entire inhabited Earth. The satellite's unanticipated success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the Cold War. The launch was the beginning of a new era of political, military, technological, and scientific developments. The name "Sputnik" is Russian for spouse/traveling companion or satellite when interpreted in an astronomical context.
Tracking and studying Sputnik 1 from Earth provided scientists with valuable information. The density of the upper atmosphere could be deduced from its drag on the orbit, and the propagation of its radio signals gave data about the ionosphere.
Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR (now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The satellite travelled at about , taking 96.2 minutes to complete each orbit. It transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, which were monitored by radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 21 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik burned up on 4 January 1958 while reentering Earth's atmosphere, after three months, 1440 completed orbits of the Earth, and a distance travelled of about .
On 17 December 1954, chief Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev proposed a developmental plan for an artificial satellite to the Minister of the Defence Industry, Dimitri Ustinov. Korolev forwarded a report by Mikhail Tikhonravov, with an overview of similar projects abroad. Tikhonravov had emphasized that the launch of an orbital satellite was an inevitable stage in the development of rocket technology.
On 29 July 1955, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced through his press secretary that, during the International Geophysical Year (IGY), the United States would launch an artificial satellite. Four days later, Leonid I. Sedov, a leading Soviet physicist, announced that they too would launch an artificial satellite. On 8 August, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union approved the proposal to create an artificial satellite. On 30 August Vasily Ryabikov—the head of the State Commission on the R-7 rocket test launches—held a meeting where Korolev presented calculation data for a spaceflight trajectory to the Moon. They decided to develop a three-stage version of the R-7 rocket for satellite launches.
On 30 January 1956 the Council of Ministers approved practical work on an artificial Earth-orbiting satellite. This satellite, named "Object D", was planned to be completed in 1957–58; it would have a mass of and would carry of scientific instruments. The first test launch of "Object D" was scheduled for 1957. Work on the satellite was to be divided among institutions as follows:
Preliminary design work was completed in July 1956 and the scientific tasks to be carried out by the satellite were defined. These included measuring the density of the atmosphere and its ion composition, the solar wind, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays. This data would be valuable in the creation of future artificial satellites; a system of ground stations was to be developed to collect data transmitted by the satellite, observe the satellite's orbit, and transmit commands to the satellite. Because of the limited time frame, observations were planned for only 7 to 10 days and orbit calculations were not expected to be extremely accurate.
By the end of 1956 it became clear that the complexity of the ambitious design meant that 'Object D' could not be launched in time because of difficulties creating scientific instruments and the low specific impulse produced by the completed R-7 engines (304 sec instead of the planned 309 to 310 sec). Consequently, the government rescheduled the launch for April 1958. Object D would later fly as Sputnik 3.
Fearing the U.S. would launch a satellite before the USSR, OKB-1 suggested the creation and launch of a satellite in April–May 1957, before the IGY began in July 1957. The new satellite would be simple, light (), and easy to construct, forgoing the complex, heavy scientific equipment in favour of a simple radio transmitter. On 15 February 1957 the Council of Ministers of the USSR approved this simple satellite, designated 'Object PS'. This version allowed the satellite to be tracked visually by Earth-based observers, and it could transmit tracking signals to ground-based receiving stations. The launch of two satellites, PS-1 and PS-2, with two R-7 rockets (8K71), was approved, provided that the R-7 completed at least two successful test flights.
The R-7 rocket was initially designed as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by OKB-1. The decision to build it was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on 20 May 1954. The rocket was the most powerful in the world; it was designed with excessive thrust since they were unsure how heavy the hydrogen bomb payload would be. The R-7 was also known by its GRAU (later GURVO, the Russian abbreviation for "Chief Directorate of the Rocket Forces") designation 8K71. At the time, the R-7 was known to NATO sources as the T-3 or M-104, and Type A. A special reconnaissance commission selected Tyuratam for the construction of a rocket proving ground, the 5th Tyuratam range, usually referred to as "NIIP-5", or "GIK-5" in the post-Soviet time. The selection was approved on 12 February 1955 by the Council of Ministers of the USSR, but the site would not be completed until 1958. Actual work on the construction of the site began on 20 July by military building units. On 14 June 1956, Korolev decided to adapt the R-7 rocket to the 'Object D' (Sputnik 3), that would later be replaced by the much lighter 'Object PS' (Sputnik 1).
The first launch of an R-7 rocket (8K71 No.5L) occurred on 15 May 1957. A fire began in the Blok D strap-on almost immediately at liftoff, but the booster continued flying until 98 seconds after launch when the strap-on broke away and the vehicle crashed some downrange. Three attempts to launch the second rocket (8K71 No.6) were made on 10–11 June, but an assembly defect prevented launch. The unsuccessful launch of the third R-7 rocket (8K71 No.7) took place on 12 July. An electrical short caused the vernier engines to put the missile into an uncontrolled roll which resulted in all of the strap-ons separating 33 seconds into the launch. The R-7 crashed about from the pad.
The launch of the fourth rocket (8K71 No.8), on 21 August at 15:25 Moscow Time, was successful. The rocket's core boosted the dummy warhead to the target altitude and velocity, reentered the atmosphere, and broke apart at a height of after traveling . On 27 August, the TASS issued a statement on the successful launch of a long-distance multistage ICBM. The launch of the fifth R-7 rocket (8K71 No.9), on 7 September, was also successful, but the dummy was also destroyed on atmospheric re-entry, and hence needed a redesign to completely fulfill its military purpose. The rocket, however, was deemed suitable for satellite launches, and Korolev was able to convince the State Commission to allow the use of the next R-7 to launch PS-1, allowing the delay in the rocket's military exploitation to launch the PS-1 and PS-2 satellites.
On 22 September a modified R-7 rocket, named Sputnik and indexed as 8K71PS, arrived at the proving ground and preparations for the launch of PS-1 began. Compared to the military R-7 test vehicles, the mass of 8K71PS was reduced from 280 tonnes to 272 tonnes; its length with PS-1 was and the thrust at liftoff was .
PS-1 was not designed to be controlled; it could only be observed. Initial data at the launch site would be collected at six separate observatories and telegraphed to NII-4. Located back in Moscow (at Bolshevo), NII-4 was a scientific research arm of the Ministry of Defence that was dedicated to missile development. The six observatories were clustered around the launch site, with the closest situated from the launch pad.
A second, nationwide observation complex was established to track the satellite after its separation from the rocket. Called the Command-Measurement Complex, it consisted of the coordination center in NII-4 and seven distant stations situated along the line of the satellite's ground track. These tracking stations were located at Tyuratam, Sary-Shagan, Yeniseysk, Klyuchi, Yelizovo, Makat in Guryev Oblast, and Ishkup in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Stations were equipped with radar, optical instruments, and communications systems. Data from stations were transmitted by telegraphs into NII-4 where ballistics specialists calculated orbital parameters.
The observatories used a trajectory measurement system called "Tral", developed by OKB MEI (Moscow Energy Institute), by which they received and monitored data from transponders mounted on the R-7 rocket's core stage. The data was useful even after the satellite's separation from the second stage of the rocket; Sputnik's location was calculated from the data on the second stage's location which followed Sputnik at a known distance. Tracking of the booster during launch had to be accomplished through purely passive means such as visual coverage and radar detection. R-7 test launches demonstrated that the tracking cameras were only good up to an altitude of , but radar could track it for almost .
Outside the Soviet Union, the satellite was tracked by amateur radio operators in many countries. The booster rocket was located and tracked by the British using the Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, the only telescope in the world able to do so by radar. Canada's Newbrook Observatory was the first facility in North America to photograph Sputnik 1.
The chief constructor of Sputnik 1 at OKB-1 was Mikhail S. Khomyakov. The satellite was a diameter sphere, assembled from two hemispheres that were hermetically sealed with O-rings and connected by 36 bolts. It had a mass of . The hemispheres were 2 mm thick, and were covered with a highly polished 1 mm-thick heat shield made of an aluminium–magnesium–titanium alloy, AMG6T. The satellite carried two pairs of antennas designed by the Antenna Laboratory of OKB-1, led by Mikhail V. Krayushkin. Each antenna was made up of two whip-like parts, in length, and had an almost spherical radiation pattern.
The power supply, with a mass of , was in the shape of an octagonal nut with the radio transmitter in its hole. It consisted of three silver-zinc batteries, developed at the All-Union Research Institute of Power Sources (VNIIT) under the leadership of Nikolai S. Lidorenko. Two of these batteries powered the radio transmitter and one powered the temperature regulation system. The batteries had an expected lifetime of two weeks, and operated for 22 days. The power supply was turned on automatically at the moment of the satellite's separation from the second stage of the rocket.
The satellite had a one-watt, radio transmitting unit inside, developed by Vyacheslav I. Lappo from "NII-885", the Moscow Electronics Research Institute, that worked on two frequencies, 20.005 and 40.002 MHz. Signals on the first frequency were transmitted in 0.3 s pulses (near f = 3 Hz) (under normal temperature and pressure conditions onboard), with pauses of the same duration filled by pulses on the second frequency. Analysis of the radio signals was used to gather information about the electron density of the ionosphere. Temperature and pressure were encoded in the duration of radio beeps. A temperature regulation system contained a fan, a dual thermal switch, and a control thermal switch. If the temperature inside the satellite exceeded , the fan was turned on; when it fell below , the fan was turned off by the dual thermal switch. If the temperature exceeded or fell below , another control thermal switch was activated, changing the duration of the radio signal pulses. Sputnik "1" was filled with dry nitrogen, pressurized to 1.3 atm. The satellite had a barometric switch, activated if the pressure inside the satellite fell below 130 kPa, which would have indicated failure of the pressure vessel or puncture by a meteor, and would have changed the duration of radio signal impulse.
While attached to the rocket, Sputnik 1 was protected by a cone-shaped payload fairing, with a height of . The fairing separated from both Sputnik and the spent R-7 second stage at the same time as the satellite was ejected. Tests of the satellite were conducted at OKB-1 under the leadership of Oleg G. Ivanovsky.
The control system of the Sputnik rocket was adjusted to an intended orbit of , with an orbital period of 101.5 min. The trajectory had been calculated earlier by Georgi Grechko, using the USSR Academy of Sciences' mainframe computer.
The Sputnik rocket was launched on 4 October 1957 at 19:28:34 UTC (5 October at the launch site) from Site No.1 at NIIP-5. Telemetry indicated that the strap-ons separated 116 seconds into the flight and the core stage engine shutdown 295.4 seconds into the flight. At shutdown, the 7.5-tonne core stage (with PS-1 attached) had attained an altitude of above sea level, a velocity of , and a velocity vector inclination to the local horizon of 0 degrees 24 minutes. This resulted in an initial orbit of by , with an apogee approximately lower than intended, and an inclination of 65.1 degrees and a period of 96.2 minutes.
A fuel regulator in the booster also failed around 16 seconds into launch, which resulted in excessive RP-1 consumption for most of the powered flight and the engine thrust being 4% above nominal. Core stage cutoff was intended for T+296 seconds, but the premature propellant depletion caused thrust termination to occur one second earlier when a sensor detected overspeed of the empty RP-1 turbopump. There were of LOX remaining at cutoff.
At 19.9 seconds after engine cut-off, PS-1 separated from the second stage and the satellite's transmitter was activated. These signals were detected at the IP-1 station by Junior Engineer-Lieutenant V.G. Borisov, where reception of Sputnik 1's "beep-beep-beep" tones confirmed the satellite's successful deployment. Reception lasted for two minutes, until PS-1 fell below the horizon. The Tral telemetry system on the R-7 core stage continued to transmit and was detected on its second orbit.
The designers, engineers and technicians who developed the rocket and satellite watched the launch from the range. After the launch they drove to the mobile radio station to listen for signals from the satellite. They waited about 90 minutes to ensure that the satellite had made one orbit and was transmitting before Korolev called Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.
On the first orbit the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) transmitted: "As result of great, intense work of scientific institutes and design bureaus the first artificial Earth satellite has been built." The R-7 core stage, with a mass of 7.5 tonnes and a length of 26 meters, also reached Earth orbit. It was a first magnitude object following behind the satellite and visible at night. Deployable reflective panels were placed on the booster in order to increase its visibility for tracking. A small highly polished sphere, the satellite was barely visible at sixth magnitude, and thus harder to follow optically. The batteries ran out on 26 October 1957, after the satellite completed 326 orbits.
The core stage of the R-7 remained in orbit for two months until 2 December 1957, while Sputnik 1 orbited for three months, until 4 January 1958, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth.
The Soviets provided details of Sputnik 1 before the launch, but few outside the Soviet Union noticed. After reviewing information publicly available before the launch, the science writer Willy Ley wrote in 1958: Organized through the citizen science project Operation Moonwatch, teams of visual observers at 150 stations in the United States and other countries were alerted during the night to watch for the satellite at dawn and during the evening twilight as it passed overhead. The USSR requested amateur and professional radio operators to tape record the signal being transmitted from the satellite.
News reports at the time pointed out that "anyone possessing a short wave receiver can hear the new Russian earth satellite as it hurtles over this area of the globe." Directions, provided by the American Radio Relay League, were to "Tune in 20 megacycles sharply, by the time signals, given on that frequency. Then tune to slightly higher frequencies. The 'beep, beep' sound of the satellite can be heard each time it rounds the globe." The first recording of Sputnik 1's signal was made by RCA engineers near Riverhead, Long Island. They then drove the tape recording into Manhattan for broadcast to the public over NBC radio. However, as Sputnik rose higher over the East Coast, its signal was picked up by W2AEE, the ham radio station of Columbia University. Students working in the university's FM station, WKCR, made a tape of this, and were the first to rebroadcast the Sputnik signal to the American public (or whoever could receive the FM station).
The Soviet Union agreed to transmit on frequencies that worked with the United States' existing infrastructure, but later announced the lower frequencies. Asserting that the launch "did not come as a surprise", the White House refused to comment on any military aspects. On 5 October the Naval Research Laboratory captured recordings of Sputnik 1 during four crossings over the United States. The USAF Cambridge Research Center collaborated with Bendix-Friez, Westinghouse Broadcasting, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to obtain a video of Sputnik's rocket body crossing the pre-dawn sky of Baltimore, broadcast on 12 October by WBZ-TV in Boston.
The success of Sputnik 1 seemed to have changed minds around the world regarding a shift in power to the Soviets.
The USSR's launch of Sputnik 1 spurred the United States to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA) in February 1958 to regain a technological lead.
In Britain, the media and population initially reacted with a mixture of fear for the future, but also amazement about human progress. Many newspapers and magazines heralded the arrival of the Space Age. However, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, containing the dog Laika, the media narrative returned to one of anti-communism and many people sent protests to the Russian embassy and the RSPCA.
Sputnik 1 was not immediately used for Soviet propaganda. The Soviets had kept quiet about their earlier accomplishments in rocketry, fearing that it would lead to secrets being revealed and failures being exploited by the West. When the Soviets began using Sputnik in their propaganda, they emphasized pride in the achievement of Soviet technology, arguing that it demonstrated the Soviets' superiority over the West. People were encouraged to listen to Sputnik's signals on the radio and to look out for Sputnik in the night sky. While Sputnik itself had been highly polished, its small size made it barely visible to the naked eye. What most watchers actually saw was the much more visible 26-metre core stage of the R-7. Shortly after the launch of PS-1, Khrushchev pressed Korolev to launch another satellite to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, on 7 November 1957.
The launch of Sputnik 1 surprised the American public, and shattered the perception created by American propaganda of the United States as the technological superpower, and the Soviet Union as a backward country. Privately, however, the CIA and President Eisenhower were aware of progress being made by the Soviets on Sputnik from secret spy plane imagery. Together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Army Ballistic Missile Agency built Explorer 1, and launched it on 31 January 1958. Before work was completed, however, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on 3 November 1957. Meanwhile, the televised failure of "Vanguard TV3" on 6 December 1957 deepened American dismay over the country's position in the Space Race. The Americans took a more aggressive stance in the emerging space race, resulting in an emphasis on science and technological research, and reforms in many areas from the military to education systems. The federal government began investing in science, engineering, and mathematics at all levels of education. An advanced research group was assembled for military purposes. These research groups developed weapons such as ICBMs and missile defense systems, as well as spy satellites for the U.S.
Initially, U.S. President Eisenhower was not surprised by Sputnik 1. He had been forewarned of the R-7's capabilities by information derived from U-2 spy plane overflight photos, as well as signals and telemetry intercepts. The Eisenhower administration's first response was low-key and almost dismissive. Eisenhower was even pleased that the USSR, not the U.S., would be the first to test the waters of the still-uncertain legal status of orbital satellite overflights. Eisenhower had suffered the Soviet protests and shoot-downs of Project Genetrix (Moby Dick) balloons and was concerned about the probability of a U-2 being shot down. To set a precedent for "freedom of space" before the launch of America's secret WS-117L spy satellites, the U.S. had launched Project Vanguard as its own "civilian" satellite entry for the International Geophysical Year. Eisenhower greatly underestimated the reaction of the American public, who were shocked by the launch of Sputnik and by the televised failure of the Vanguard Test Vehicle 3 launch attempt. The sense of anxiety was inflamed by Democratic politicians and professional cold warriors, who portrayed the United States as woefully behind. One of the many books that suddenly appeared for the lay-audience noted seven points of "impact" upon the nation: Western leadership, Western strategy and tactics, missile production, applied research, basic research, education, and democratic culture.
The U.S. soon had a number of successful satellites, including Explorer 1, Project SCORE, and Courier 1B. However, public reaction to the Sputnik crisis spurred America to action in the Space Race, leading to the creation of both the Advanced Research Projects Agency (renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in 1972), and NASA (through the National Aeronautics and Space Act), as well as increased U.S. government spending on scientific research and education through the National Defense Education Act.
Sputnik also contributed directly to a new emphasis on science and technology in American schools. With a sense of urgency, Congress enacted the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which provided low-interest loans for college tuition to students majoring in math and science. After the launch of Sputnik, a poll conducted and published by the University of Michigan showed that 26% of Americans surveyed thought that Russian sciences and engineering were superior to that of the United States. (A year later, however, that figure had dropped to 10% as the U.S. began launching its own satellites into space.)
One consequence of the Sputnik shock was the perception of a "missile gap". This became a dominant issue in the 1960 Presidential campaign.
One irony of the Sputnik event was the initially low-key response of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party newspaper "Pravda" only printed a few paragraphs about Sputnik 1 on 4 October.
Sputnik also inspired a generation of engineers and scientists. Harrison Storms, the North American designer who was responsible for the X-15 rocket plane, and went on to head the effort to design the Apollo command and service module and Saturn V launch vehicle's second stage, was moved by the launch of Sputnik to think of space as being the next step for America. Astronauts Alan Shepard (who was the first American in space) and Deke Slayton later wrote of how the sight of Sputnik 1 passing overhead inspired them to their new careers.
The launch of Sputnik 1 led to the resurgence of the suffix "-nik" in the English language. The American writer Herb Caen was inspired to coin the term "beatnik" in an article about the Beat Generation in the "San Francisco Chronicle" on 2 April 1958.
The flag of the Russian city of Kaluga, which, due to its importance as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's birthplace, is very focused on space, features a small Sputnik in the left section.
At least two vintage duplicates of Sputnik 1 exist, built apparently as backup units. One resides just outside Moscow in the corporate museum of Energia, the modern descendant of Korolev's design bureau, where it is on display by appointment only. Another is in the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. Unlike Energia's unit, it has no internal components, but it does have casings and molded fittings inside (as well as evidence of battery wear), which suggest it was built as more than just a model. Authenticated by the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, the unit was auctioned in 2001 and purchased by an anonymous private buyer, who donated it to the museum. Two more Sputnik backups are said to be in the personal collections of American entrepreneurs Richard Garriott and Jay S. Walker.
In 1959, the Soviet Union donated a replica of Sputnik to the United Nations. There are other full-size Sputnik replicas (with varying degrees of accuracy) on display in locations around the world, including the National Air and Space Museum in the US, the Science Museum in England, the Powerhouse Museum in Australia, and outside the Russian embassy in Spain.
Three one-third scale student-built replicas of Sputnik 1 were deployed from the Mir space station between 1997 and 1999. The first, named Sputnik 40 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, was deployed in November 1997. Sputnik 41 was launched a year later, and Sputnik 99 was deployed in February 1999. A fourth replica was launched, but never deployed, and was destroyed when Mir was deorbited. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28484 |
Steve Jackson Games
Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine "Pyramid".
Founded in 1980, six years after the birth of "Dungeons & Dragons", and before the height of role-playing games, SJGames created several role-playing and strategy games with science fiction themes. SJGames borrowed and expanded upon ideas pioneered by strategy game companies such as Metagaming Concepts, Avalon Hill and TSR. SJGames' early titles were all microgames initially sold in 4×7 inch ziploc bags, and later in the similarly sized Pocket Box. Games such as "Ogre", "Car Wars", and "G.E.V" (an "Ogre" spin-off) were popular during SJGames' early years. Prolific game designers such as Loren Wiseman and Jonathan Leistiko have worked for Steve Jackson Games.
Today SJGames publishes games of numerous varieties (card games, board games, strategy games) and genres (fantasy, sci-fi, gothic horror); they also published the book "Principia Discordia", the sacred text of the Discordian religion.
On March 1, 1990, the Secret Service raided the offices of Steve Jackson Games, seizing three computers, two laser printers, dozens of floppy disks, and the master copy of GURPS Cyberpunk; a genre toolkit for cyberpunk games, written by Loyd Blankenship, the hacker and an employee at the time. The Secret Service believed that Blankenship had illegally accessed Bell South systems, and uploaded a document possibly affecting 9-1-1 systems onto Steve Jackson Games's public bulletin board system; and, furthermore, that GURPS Cyberpunk would help others commit computer crimes. During their investigation, the Secret Service also read (and deleted) private emails on one of the computers. Though the materials were later returned in June, Steve Jackson Games filed suit in federal court, winning at trial.
The raid helped form the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was founded in July 1990.
In April–May 2012, Steve Jackson Games ran a successful Kickstarter.com campaign for a new "Designer's Edition" of "Ogre". The final game was planned to weigh 14 pounds or more, partly because the high level of extra funding achieved in the kickstarter enabled significant game additions.
Steve Jackson Games' main product line, in terms of sales, is the "Munchkin" card game, followed by the role-playing system "GURPS".
Gaming magazines produced by Steve Jackson Games have included:
In "Uplink", a 2001 computer hacking simulation game by British software company Introversion Software, there is a company named Steve Jackson Games. While this company may occasionally offer hacking contracts to the player, its main feature is a Public Access Server which, if accessed, displays the following information:
Steve Jackson Games
Public Access Server
ATTENTION
This computer system has been seized
by the United States Secret Service
in the interests of National Security.
Your IP has been logged.
This jokingly refers to the 1990 raid by the US Secret Service. As noted in the Ultimate Uplink Guide, this was "put into the game because of the Secret Service Raid on the company, for supposedly making a 'Hacking Guide'. This guide was actually a work of total fiction for a game the company was making, and contained technology that didn't even exist". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28485 |
Stella Artois
Stella Artois ( ) is a Belgian pilsner of between 4.8 and 5.2 percent ABV which was first brewed by Brouwerij Artois (the Artois Brewery) in Leuven, Belgium, in 1926. Since 2008, a 4.8 percent ABV version has also been sold in Britain, Ireland, Canada and Australia. Stella Artois is now owned by Interbrew International B.V. which is a subsidiary of the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV.
In 1708, Sébastien Artois became head brewer at the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven, a brewery established in 1366. Artois purchased the brewery in 1717 and renamed it Brouwerij Artois.
In 1926, Brouwerij Artois launched Stella as a Christmas beer, named after the Christmas star. First sold in the winter season, it eventually became available year-round, with exports into the broad European market commencing in 1930. Production was halted for a period when operations were suspended during World War II. By 1960, about 100 million litres of Stella Artois were being produced annually. Whitbread began to brew it under contract in the United Kingdom in 1976.
In 1988, Brouwerij Artois was a founding member in the merger creating Interbrew. That year, Taylorbrands founder David Taylor created a new package design, bottle design, and shape. The original 1926 bottle label inspired the design, which replaced a 1960s design. The design incorporates the horn symbol and the 1366 date of the original Den Hoorn brewery. The label also shows medals for excellence awarded to Brouwerij Artois at a number of trade exhibitions in Belgium in the 19th and 20th centuries. The name Stella Artois is held within a cartouche which was influenced by the style of Belgian architecture in Leuven.
In 1993, Interbrew moved production of Stella Artois into a new, fully automated brewery in Leuven. In 2004, Interbrew was part of the merger creating InBev, and by 2006, total annual production volume of Stella Artois exceeded one billion litres.
In 2008, InBev was part of the merger creating the Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) brewery company. That same year, a lower-alcohol version, Stella Artois 4%, was introduced in the UK market. In 2011, a cider, Stella Artois Cidre, was launched.
In 2012, AB InBev reduced the alcohol content of their beers for the UK market, from 5% to 4.8%. The original UK strength of Stella Artois was 5.2%. According to Freddy Delvaux, former head of the in-house laboratory, the Belgian version was 33 IBU when he joined the lab in 1973, compared to just 20 IBU in 2014.
Stella Artois is brewed in Belgium (in the plants at Leuven and Jupille) and the United Kingdom, as well as in other countries. Much of the beer exported from Europe is produced at InBev's brewery in Belgium, and packaged in the Beck's Brewery in Bremen, Germany. Stella Artois is also brewed for the Australian market by Lion. In the United States, Stella Artois is imported and distributed by Anheuser-Busch. For the Hungarian market, Stella Artois is brewed in Bőcs, Hungary, by Borsod Brewery, under licence from InBev.
Stella Artois is available on draught and in several packaged sizes.
Initially, brewers Whitbread launched Stella in the UK with a campaign by its then advertising agency Allen, Brady and Marsh. The theme was "strength". With copy by Rod Allen, art direction by Bob Stannard and creative direction by Peter Monkcom, the ads featured the slogan "Stella's for the fellas who take their lager strong". The images showed a Stella-monogrammed half-pint glass (due to its strength) – in one advertisement with a muscular 'glass arm' for a handle, in the other a glass sitting beside a torn-in-half telephone directory. This was the same creative unit which was involved, at the time, in Whitbread's launch of Trophy Bitter "The pint that thinks it's a quart".
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Stella Artois advertising slogan in the United Kingdom was "Reassuringly Expensive". The UK television advertising campaigns became known for their distinctive style of imitating European cinema and their leitmotiv inspired by Giuseppe Verdi's "La forza del destino". The campaigns began with a series of advertisements based on the 1986 French film "Jean de Florette", directed by the British duo Anthea Benton and Vaughan Arnell, moving on to other genres, including war films, silent comedy and surrealism. They have used notable film directors such as Jonathan Glazer. Furthermore, the brand makes extensive use of the French language in its advertising campaigns, even though the beer brand originates from the monolingual Dutch-speaking city of Leuven. An example of this can be seen in the advertising campaign for Stella Artois Cidre, in which the tag-line "C'est cidre, not cider" is used, although this cider is produced in Zonhoven, which also lies in the Dutch-speaking Flemish Region.
Stella Artois is advertised as containing "only 4 ingredients: hops, malted barley, maize and water". Yeast is also an ingredient used in the fermentation process, but almost all of it is removed before packaging. Since 2009, Stella Artois has been suitable for vegans, as isinglass (fish bladder) is no longer used to remove trace amounts of yeast.
In 2012, AB InBev lobbyists, Portland Communications, were exposed in a political scandal in the United Kingdom, when a member of the Labour opposition party pointed out that the company, then owned by Tim Allan, a former advisor to ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair, was trying to remove the expression "wife beater" from this Wikipedia article. The effort related to Stella Artois carrying that nickname in the United Kingdom, due to a perceived connection between binge drinking and domestic violence.
Stella Artois has been associated with film in the UK since 1994, organising events, sponsoring television, and hosting a website. Stella Artois has been or is a primary sponsor of the Cannes, Melbourne, and Sundance film festivals, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Dallas International Film Festival, and the Little Rock Film Festival.
Stella Artois has broadcast several Super Bowl ads, as part of Anheuser–Busch InBev's overall ad buys during the game. The brand made its debut during Super Bowl XLV in 2011, in an ad starring Adrien Brody aired during Super Bowl XLV 2011. The commercial was heavily criticized in the Belgian media for giving the impression that the beer is French. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28486 |
Suebi
The Suebi (or Suebians, also spelled Suevi, Suavi, ) were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and Czechia. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names such as the Marcomanni, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones, and Lombards. New groupings formed later such as the Alamanni and Bavarians and two kingdoms in the Migration Period were simply referred to as Suebian.
Although Tacitus specified that the Suebian group was not an old tribal group itself, the Suebian peoples are associated by Pliny the Elder with the Irminones, a grouping of Germanic peoples who claimed ancestral connections. Tacitus mentions Suebian languages, and a geographical "Suevia".
The Suevians were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with the invasion of Gaul by the Germanic king Ariovistus during the Gallic Wars. Unlike Tacitus he described them as a single people, distinct from the Marcomanni, within the larger Germanic category who he saw as a growing threat to Gaul and Italy in the first century BC, as they had been moving southwards aggressively, at the expense of Gallic tribes, and establishing a Germanic presence in the immediate areas north of the Danube. In particular, he saw the Suebians as the most warlike of the Germanic peoples.
During the reign of Augustus the first emperor, Rome made aggressive campaigns into "Germania", east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, pushing towards the Elbe. After suffering a major defeat to the Romans in 9 BC, Maroboduus became king of a Suevian kingdom which was established within the protective mountains and forests of Bohemia. The Suevians did not join the alliance led by Arminius.
Under the reign of Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century AD, the Marcomanni, perhaps under pressure from East Germanic tribes to their north, invaded Italy.
By the Crisis of the Third Century, new Suebian groups had emerged, and Italy was invaded again by the Juthungi, while the Alamanni ravaged Gaul and settled the Agri Decumates. The Alamanni continued exerting pressure on Gaul, while the Alamannic chieftain Chrocus played an important role in elevating Constantine the Great to Roman Emperor.
By the late 4th century AD, the Middle Danubian frontier inhabited by the Quadi and Marcomanni received large numbers of Gothic and other eastern peoples, escaping disturbances associated with the Huns. In 406 AD, Suebian tribes led by Hermeric, together with other Danubian groups including Alans and Vandals, crossed the Rhine and overran Gaul and Hispania. They eventually established the Kingdom of the Suebi in northwestern Spain and Portugal. With the breaking up of Hunnic power after the Battle of Nedao there was also a short-lived Kingdom of the Suebi on the Danube, under Hunimund. They were defeated by the Ostrogoths, one of the peoples of eastern origin who had been allies of the Huns. In the sixth century the Suevic Longobards moved from the Elbe to become one of the major powers of the Middle Danube, in competition with the dynasties from the east such as the Herules, Gepids and Ostrogoths.
During the last years of the decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Suebian general Ricimer was its de facto ruler. The Lombards, with many Danubian peoples both Suebian and eastern, later settled Italy and established the Kingdom of the Lombards.
The Alamanni, Bavarii and Thuringii who remained in "Germania" gave their names to the still-existing German regions of Swabia, Bavaria and Thuringia respectively. Suebian languages are thought to be the main source of the later High German languages, including standard German and the dialects predominant in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria, which experienced the Second consonant shift some time after about 600 AD. And given the closeness to these dialects to Dutch and Low German, it is likely that Suebian languages also strongly influenced the development of those languages as well.
Etymologists trace the name from Proto-Germanic *"swēbaz" based on the Proto-Germanic root *"swē-" found in the third-person reflexive pronoun, giving the meaning "one's own" people, in turn from an earlier Indo-European root "*swe-" (Polish "swe, swój, swoi," Latin "sui," Sanskrit "swa", each meaning "one's own").
The etymological sources list the following ethnic names as being from the same root: Suiones (whence also the name of the Swedes), Samnites, Sabellians, and Sabines, indicating the possibility of a prior more extended and common Indo-European ethnic name, "our own people". Notably, the Semnones, known to classical authors as one of the largest Suebian groups, also seem to have a name with this same meaning, but recorded with a different pronunciation by the Romans.
Alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic word for "vagabond".
Caesar placed the Suebi east of the Ubii apparently near modern Hesse, in the position where later writers mention the Chatti, and he distinguished them from their allies the Marcomanni. Some commentators believe that Caesar's Suebi were the later Chatti or possibly the Hermunduri, or Semnones. Later authors use the term "Suebi" more broadly, "to cover a large number of tribes in central Germany".
While Caesar treated them as one Germanic tribe within an alliance, albeit the largest and most warlike one, later authors, such as Tacitus, Pliny the Elder and Strabo, specified that the Suevi "do not, like the Chatti or Tencteri, constitute a single nation. They actually occupy more than half of Germania, and are divided into a number of distinct tribes under distinct names, though all generally are called Suebi". Although no classical authors explicitly call the Chatti Suevic, Pliny the Elder (23 AD – 79 AD), reported in his "Natural History" that the Irminones were a large grouping of related Germanic "gentes" or "tribes" including not only the Suebi, but also the Hermunduri, Chatti and Cherusci. Whether or not the Chatti were ever considered Suevi, both Tacitus and Strabo distinguish the two partly because the Chatti were more settled in one territory, whereas Suevi remained less settled.
The definitions of the greater ethnic groupings within Germania were apparently not always consistent and clear, especially in the case of mobile groups such as the Suevi. Whereas Tacitus reported three main kinds of German peoples, Irminones, Istvaeones, and Ingaevones, Pliny specifically adds two more "genera" or "kinds", the Bastarnae and the Vandili (Vandals). The Vandals were tribes east of the Elbe, including the well-known Silingi, Goths, and Burgundians, an area that Tacitus treated as Suebic. That the Vandals might be a separate type of Germanic people, corresponding to the modern concept of East Germanic, is a possibility that Tacitus also noted, but for example the Varini are named as Vandilic by Pliny, and specifically Suebic by Tacitus.
At one time, classical ethnography had applied the name "Suevi" to so many Germanic tribes that it appeared as if, in the first centuries AD, that native name would replace the foreign name "Germans".
The modern term "Elbe Germanic" similarly covers a large grouping of Germanic peoples that at least overlaps with the classical terms "Suevi" and "Irminones". However, this term was developed mainly as an attempt to define the ancient peoples who must have spoken the Germanic dialects that led to modern Upper German dialects spoken in Austria, Bavaria, Thuringia, Alsace, Baden-Württemberg and German speaking Switzerland. This was proposed by Friedrich Maurer as one of five major "Kulturkreise" or "culture-groups" whose dialects developed in the southern German area from the first century BC through to the fourth century AD. Apart from his own linguistic work with modern dialects, he also referred to the archaeological and literary analysis of Germanic tribes done earlier by Gustaf Kossinna In terms of these proposed ancient dialects, the Vandals, Goths and Burgundians are generally referred to as members of the Eastern Germanic group, distinct from the Elbe Germanic.
In the time of Caesar, southern Germany was Celtic, but coming under pressure from Germanic groups led by the Suebi. As described later by Tacitus, what is today southern Germany between the Danube, the Main river, and the Rhine had been deserted by the departure of two large Celtic nations, the Helvetii in modern Schwaben and the Boii further east near the Hercynian forest. In addition, also near the Hercynian forest Caesar believed that the Celtic Tectosages had once lived. All of these peoples had for the most part moved by the time of Tacitus. Nevertheless, Cassius Dio wrote that the Suebi, who dwelt across the Rhine, were called Celts, which could mean that some Celtic groups were absorbed by larger Germanic tribal confederations.
Strabo (64/63 BC – c. 24 AD), in Book IV (6.9) of his "Geography" also associates the Suebi with the Hercynian Forest and the south of Germania north of the Danube. He describes a chain of mountains north of the Danube that is like a lower extension of the Alps, possibly the Swabian Alps, and further east the Gabreta Forest, possibly the modern Bohemian forest. In Book VII (1.3) Strabo specifically mentions as Suevic peoples the Marcomanni, who under King Marobodus had moved into the same Hercynian forest as the Coldui (possibly the Quadi), taking over an area called "Boihaemum". This king "took the rulership and acquired, in addition to the peoples aforementioned, the Lugii (a large tribe), the Zumi, the Butones, the Mugilones, the Sibini, and also the Semnones, a large tribe of the Suevi themselves". Some of these tribes were "inside the forest" and some "outside of it". Tacitus confirms the name "Boiemum", saying it was a survival marking the old traditional population of the place, the Celtic Boii, though the population had changed.
Tacitus describes a series of very powerful Suebian states in his own time, running along the north of the Danube which was the frontier with Rome, and stretching into the lands where the Elbe originates in the modern day Czech Republic. Going from west to east the first were the Hermunduri, living near the sources of the Elbe and stretching across the Danube into Roman Rhaetia. Next came the Naristi, the Marcomanni, and then the Quadi. The Quadi are on the edge of greater Suebia, having the Sarmatians to the southeast.
Claudius Ptolemy the geographer did not always state which tribes were Suebi, but along the northern bank of the Danube, from west to east and starting at the "desert" formerly occupied by the Helvetii, he names the Parmaecampi, then the Adrabaecampi, and then a "large people" known as the Baemoi (whose name appears to recall the Boii again), and then the Racatriae. North of the Baemoi, is the Luna forest which has iron mines, and which is south of the Quadi. North of the Adrabaecampi, are the Sudini and then the Marcomanni living in the Gambreta forest. North of them, but south of the Sudetes mountains (which are not likely to be the same as the modern ones of that name) are the Varisti, who are probably the same as Tacitus' "Naristi" mentioned above.
Jordanes writes that in the early 4th century the Vandals had moved to the north of the Danube, but with the Marcomanni still to their west, and the Hermunduri still to their north. A possible sign of confusion in this comment is that he equates the area in question to later Gepidia, which was further south, in Pannonia, modern Hungary, and east of the Danube. In general, as discussed below, the Danubian Suebi, along with the neighbours such as the Vandals, apparently moved southwards into Roman territories, both south and east of the Danube, during this period.
Caesar describes the Suebi as pressing the German tribes of the Rhine, such as the Tencteri, Usipetes and Ubii, from the east, forcing them from their homes. While emphasizing their warlike nature he writes as if they had a settled homeland somewhere between the Cherusci and the Ubii, and separated from the Cherusci by a deep forest called the Silva Bacenis. He also describes the Marcomanni as a tribe distinct from the Suebi, and also active within the same alliance. But he does not describe where they were living.
Strabo wrote that the Suebi "excel all the others in power and numbers." He describes Suebic peoples (Greek "ethnē") as having come to dominate Germany between the Rhine and Elbe, with the exception of the Rhine valley, on the frontier with the Roman empire, and the "coastal" regions north of the Rhine.
The geographer Ptolemy (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168), in a fairly extensive account of Greater Germany, makes several unusual mentions of Suebi between the Rhine and the Elbe. He describes their position as stretching out in a band from the Elbe, all the way to the northern Rhine, near the Sugambri. The "Suevi Langobardi" are the Suevi located closest to the Rhine, far to the east of where most sources report them. To the east of the Langobardi, are the "Suevi Angili", extending as far north as the middle Elbe, also to the east of the position reported in other sources. It has been speculated that Ptolemy may have been confused by his sources, or else that this position of the Langobardi represented a particular moment in history.
As discussed below, in the third century a large group of Suebi, also referred to as the Allemanni, moved up to the Rhine bank in modern Schwaben, which had previously been controlled by the Romans. They competed in this region with Burgundians who had arrived from further east.
Strabo does not say much about the Suebi east of the Elbe, saying that this region was still unknown to Romans, but mentions that a part of the Suebi live there, naming only specifically the Hermunduri and the Langobardi. But he mentions these are there because of recent defeats at Roman hands which had forced them over the river. (Tacitus mentions that the Hermunduri were later welcomed on to the Roman border at the Danube.) In any case he says that the area near the Elbe itself is held by the Suebi.
From Tacitus and Ptolemy we can derive more details:
Note that while various errors and confusions are possible, Ptolemy places the Angles and Langobardi west of the Elbe, where they may indeed have been present at some points in time, given that the Suebi were often mobile.
It is already mentioned above that stretching between the Elbe and the Oder, the classical authors place the Suebic Semnones. Ptolemy places the Silingi to their south in the stretch between these rivers. These Silingi appear in later history as a branch of the Vandals, and were therefore likely to be speakers of East Germanic dialects. Their name is associated with medieval Silesia. Further south on the Elbe are the Baenochaemae and between them and the Askibourgian mountains Ptolemy names a tribe called the Batini (Βατεινοὶ), apparently north and/or east of the Elbe.
According to Tacitus, around the north of the Danubian Marcomanni and Quadi, "dwelling in forests and on mountain-tops", live the Marsigni, and Buri, who "in their language and manner of life, resemble the Suevi". (Living partly subject to the Quadi are the Gotini and Osi, who Tacitus says speak respectively Gaulish and Pannonian, and are therefore not Germans.) Ptolemy also places the "Lugi Buri" in mountains, along with a tribe called the Corconti. These mountains, stretching from near the upper Elbe to the headwaters of the Vistula, he calls the Askibourgian mountains. Between these mountains and the Quadi he adds several tribes, from north to south these are the Sidones, Cotini (possibly Tacitus' Gotini) and the Visburgi. There is then the Orcynian (Hercyian) forest, which Ptolemy defines with relatively restricted boundaries, and then the Quadi.
Beyond this mountain range (probably the modern Sudetes) where the Marsigni and Buri lived, in the area of modern southwest Poland, Tacitus reported a multitude of tribes, the most widespread name of which was the Lugii. These included the Harii, Helveconae, Manimi, Helisii and Naharvali. (Tacitus does not mention the language of the Lugii.) As mentioned above, Ptolemy categorizes the Buri amongst the Lugii, and concerning the Lugii north of the mountains, he named two large groups, the Lougoi Omanoi and the Lougoi Didounoi, who live between the "Suevus" river (probably the Saale (Sorb Soława) or Oder river) and the Vistula, south of the Burgundi.
These Burgundians who according to Ptolemy lived between the Baltic sea Germans and the Lugii, stretching between the Suevus and Vistula rivers, were described by Pliny the Elder (as opposed to Tacitus) as being not Suevic but Vandili, amongst whom he also included the Goths, and the Varini, both being people living north of them near the Baltic coast. Pliny's "Vandili" are generally thought to be speakers of what modern linguists refer to as Eastern Germanic. Between the coastal Saxons and inland Suebi, Ptolemy names the Teutonari and the "Viruni" (presumably the Varini of Tacitus), and further east, between the coastal Farodini and the Suebi are the Teutones and then the Avarni. Further east again, between the Burgundians and the coastal Rugiclei were the "Aelvaeones" (presumably the Helveconae of Tacitus).
Tacitus called the Baltic sea the Suebian sea. Pomponius Mela wrote in his "Description of the World" (III.3.31) beyond the Danish isles are "the farthest people of Germania, the Hermiones".
North of the Lugii, near the Baltic Sea, Tacitus places the Gothones (Goths), Rugii, and Lemovii. These three Germanic tribes share a tradition of having kings, and also similar arms - round shields and short swords. Ptolemy says that east of the Saxons, from the "Chalusus" river to the "Suevian" river are the Farodini, then the Sidini up to the "Viadua" river, and after these the "Rugiclei" up to the Vistula river (probably the "Rugii" of Tacitus). He does not specify if these are Suevi.
In the sea, the states of the Suiones, "powerful in ships" are, according to Tacitus, Germans with the Suevic (Baltic) sea on one side and an "almost motionless" sea on the other more remote side. Modern commentators believe this refers to Scandinavia. Closely bordering on the Suiones and closely resembling them, are the tribes of the Sitones. Ptolemy describes Scandinavia as being inhabited by Chaedini in the west, Favonae and Firaesi in the east, Finni in the north, Gautae and Dauciones in the south, and Levoni in the middle. He does not describe them as Suebi.
Tacitus describes the non-Germanic Aestii on the eastern shore of the "Suevic Sea" (Baltic), "whose rites and fashions and style of dress are those of the Suevi, while their language is more like the British." After giving this account, Tacitus says: "Here Suebia ends." Therefore, for Tacitus "geographic" "Suebia" comprises the entire periphery of the Baltic Sea, including within it tribes not identified as Suebi or even Germanic. On the other hand, Tacitus does clearly consider there to be not only a Suebian region, but also Suebian languages, and Suebian customs, which all contribute to making a specific tribe more or less "Suebian".
Caesar noted that rather than grain crops, they spent time on animal husbandry and hunting. They wore animal skins, bathed in rivers, consumed milk and meat products, and prohibited wine, allowing trade only to dispose of their booty and otherwise they had no goods to export. They had no private ownership of land and were not permitted to stay resident in one place for more than one year. They were divided into 100 cantons, each of which had to provide and support 1000 armed men for the constant pursuit of war.
Strabo describes the Suebi and people from their part of the world as highly mobile and nomadic, unlike more settled and agricultural tribes such as the Chatti and Cherusci:...they do not till the soil or even store up food, but live in small huts that are merely temporary structures; and they live for the most part off their flocks, as the Nomads do, so that, in imitation of the Nomads, they load their household belongings on their wagons and with their beasts turn whithersoever they think best.
Notable in classical sources, the Suebi can be identified by their hair style called the "Suebian knot", which "distinguishes the freeman from the slave"; or in other words served as a badge of social rank. The same passage points out that chiefs "use an even more elaborate style".
Tacitus mentions the sacrifice of humans practiced by the Semnones in a sacred grove and the murder of slaves used in the rites of Nerthus practiced by the tribes of Schleswig-Holstein. The chief priest of the Naharvali dresses as a woman and that tribe also worships in groves. The Harii fight at night dyed black. The Suiones own fleets of rowing vessels with prows at both ends.
While there is debate possible about whether all tribes identified by Romans as Germanic spoke a Germanic language, the Suebi are generally agreed to have spoken one or more Germanic languages. Tacitus refers to Suebian languages, implying there was more than one by the end of the first century. In particular, the Suebi are associated with the concept of an "Elbe Germanic" group of early dialects spoken by the Irminones, entering Germany from the east, and originating on the Baltic. In late classical times, these dialects, by now situated to the south of the Elbe, and stretching across the Danube into the Roman empire, experienced the High German consonant shift that defines modern High German languages, and in its most extreme form, Upper German.
Modern Swabian German, and Alemannic German more broadly, are therefore "assumed to have evolved at least in part" from Suebian. However, Bavarian, the Thuringian dialect, the Lombardic language spoken by the Lombards of Italy, and standard "High German" itself, are also at least partly derived from the dialects spoken by the Suebi. (The only non-Suebian name among the major groups of Upper Germanic dialects is High Franconian German, but this is on the transitional frontier with Central German, as is neighboring Thuringian.)
Julius Caesar (100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) describes the Suebi in his firsthand account, "De Bello Gallico", as the "largest and the most warlike nation of all the Germans".
Caesar confronted a large army led by a Suevic King named Ariovistus in 58 BC who had been settled for some time in Gaul already, at the invitation of the Gaulish Arverni and Sequani as part of their war against the Aedui. He had already been recognized as a king by the Roman senate. Ariovistus forbade the Romans from entering into Gaul. Caesar on the other hand saw himself and Rome as an ally and defender of the Aedui.
The forces Caesar faced in battle were composed of "Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, and Suevi". While Caesar was preparing for conflict, a new force of Suebi was led to the Rhine by two brothers, Nasuas and Cimberius, forcing Caesar to rush in order to try to avoid the joining of forces.
Caesar defeated Ariovistus in battle, forcing him to escape across the Rhine. When news of this spread, the fresh Suebian forces turned back in some panic, which led local tribes on the Rhine to take advantage of the situation and attack them.
Also reported within Caesar's accounts of the Gallic wars, the Suebi posed another threat in 55 BC. The Germanic Ubii, who had worked out an alliance with Caesar, were complaining of being harassed by the Suebi, and the Tencteri and Usipetes, already forced from their homes, tried to cross the Rhine and enter Gaul by force. Caesar bridged the Rhine, the first known to do so, with a pile bridge, which though considered a marvel, was dismantled after only eighteen days. The Suebi abandoned their towns closest to the Romans, retreated to the forest and assembled an army. Caesar moved back across the bridge and broke it down, stating that he had achieved his objective of warning the Suebi. They in turn supposedly stopped harassing the Ubii. The Ubii were later resettled on the west bank of the Rhine, in Roman territory.
Cassius Dio (c. 150 – 235 AD) wrote the history of Rome for a Greek audience. He reported that, shortly before 29 BC, the Suebi crossed the Rhine, only to be defeated by Gaius Carrinas who, along with the young Octavian Caesar, celebrated a triumph in 29 BC. Shortly after they turn up fighting a group of Dacians in a gladiatorial display at Rome celebrating the consecration of the Julian hero-shrine.
Suetonius (c. 69 AD – after 122 AD), gives the Suebi brief mention in connection with their defeat against Nero Claudius Drusus in 9 BC. He says that the Suebi and Sugambri "submitted to him and were taken into Gaul and settled in lands near the Rhine" while the other Germani were pushed "to the farther side of the river Albis" (Elbe). He must have meant the temporary military success of Drusus, as it is unlikely the Rhine was cleared of Germans. Elsewhere he identifies the settlers as 40,000 prisoners of war, only a fraction of the yearly draft of militia.
Florus (c. 74 AD – c. 130 AD), gives a more detailed view of the operations of 9 BC. He reports that the Cherusci, Suebi and Sicambri formed an alliance by crucifying twenty Roman centurions, but that Drusus defeated them, confiscated their plunder and sold them into slavery. Presumably only the war party was sold, as the Suebi continue to appear in the ancient sources.
Florus's report of the peace brought to Germany by Drusus is glowing but premature. He built "more than five hundred forts" and two bridges guarded by fleets. "He opened a way through the Hercynian Forest", which implies but still does not overtly state that he had subdued the Suebi. "In a word, there was such peace in Germany that the inhabitants seemed changed ... and the very climate milder and softer than it used to be."
In the "Annales" of Tacitus, it is mentioned that after the defeat of 9 BC the Romans made peace with Maroboduus, who is described as king of the Suevians. This is the first mention of any permanent king of the Suebi. However, Maroboduus was in most sources referred to as the king of the Marcomanni, a tribal name that had already been distinct from the Suebi in Caesar's time. (As discussed above, it is not sure which Suebi were the Suebi of Caesar, but at least they were distinguished from the Marcomanni.) However, Maroboduus was also described as Suebian, and his association with the Marcomanni more specifically comes after the Langobards and Semnones were specifically said to have left his kingdom, having previously been under his rule. At some point in this period the Marcomanni had come to be settled in the forested regions once inhabited by the Boii, in and around Bohemia, under his rule.
Augustus planned in 6 AD to destroy the kingdom of Maroboduus, which he considered to be too dangerous for the Romans. The later Emperor Tiberius commanded twelve legions to attack the Marcomanni, but the outbreak of a revolt in Illyria, and the need for troops there, forced Tiberius to conclude a treaty with Maroboduus and to recognize him as king.
After the death of Drusus, the Cherusci annihilated three legions at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and thereafter "... the empire ... was checked on the banks of the Rhine." While elements of the Suevi may have been involved, this was an alliance mainly made up of non-Suebic tribes from northwestern Germany, the Cherusci, Marsi, Chatti, Bructeri, Chauci, and Sicambri. The kingdom of the Marcomanni and their allies stayed out of the conflict and when Maroboduus was sent the head of the defeated Roman leader Varus, he sent it on to Rome for burial. Within his own alliance were various Suebic peoples, Hermunduri, Quadi, Semnones, Lugii, Zumi, Butones, Mugilones, Sibini and Langobards.
Subsequently, Augustus placed Germanicus, the son of Drusus, in charge of the forces of the Rhine and he, after dealing with a mutiny among his troops, proceeded against the Cherusci and their allies, breaking their power finally at the battle of Idistavisus, a plain on the Weser. All eight legions and supporting units of Gauls were required in order to accomplish this. Germanicus' zeal led finally to his being replaced (17 AD) by his cousin Drusus, Tiberius' son, as Tiberius thought it best to follow his predecessor's policy of limiting the empire. Germanicus certainly would have involved the Suebi, with unpredictable results.
Arminius, leader of the Cherusci and allies, now had a free hand. He accused Maroboduus of hiding in the Hercynian Forest while the other Germans fought for freedom, and of being the only king among the Germans. The two groups "turned their arms against each other." The Suebic Semnones and Langobardi rebelled against their king and went over to the Cherusci. Left with only the Marcomanni and Herminius' uncle, who had defected, Maroboduus appealed to Drusus, now governor of Illyricum, and was given only a pretext of aid.
The resulting battle was indecisive but Maroboduus withdrew to Bohemia and sent for assistance to Tiberius. He was refused on the grounds that he had not moved to help Varus. Drusus encouraged the Germans to finish him off. A force of Goths under Catualda, a Marcomannian exile, bought off the nobles and seized the palace. Maroboduus escaped to Noricum and the Romans offered him refuge in Ravenna where he remained the rest of his life. He died in 37 AD. After his expulsion the leadership of the Marcomanni was contested by their Suebic neighbours and allies, the Hermunduri and Quadi.
In the 2nd century AD, the Marcomanni entered into a confederation with other peoples including the Quadi, Vandals, and Sarmatians, against the Roman Empire. The war began in 166, when the Marcomanni overwhelmed the defences between Vindobona and Carnuntum, penetrated along the border between the provinces of Pannonia and Noricum, laid waste to Flavia Solva, and could be stopped only shortly before reaching Aquileia on the Adriatic sea. The war lasted until Marcus Aurelius' death in 180.
In the third century Jordanes claims that the Marcomanni paid tribute to the Goths, and that the princes of the Quadi were enslaved. The Vandals, who had moved south towards Pannonia, were apparently still sometimes able to defend themselves.
In 259/60, one or more groups of Suebi appear to have been the main element in the formation of a new tribal alliance known as the Alemanni who came to occupy the Roman frontier region known as the Agri Decumates, east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes simply referred to as Suebi by contemporaries, and the region came to be known as Swabia - a name which survives to this day. People in this region of Germany are still called Schwaben, a name derived from the Suebi. One specific group in the region in the 3rd century, sometimes distinguished from the Alamanni, were the Juthungi, which a monument found in Augsburg refers to as Semnones.
These Suebi for the most part stayed on the right bank of the Rhine until 31 December 406, when much of the tribe joined the Vandals and Alans in breaching the Roman frontier by crossing the Rhine, perhaps at Mainz, thus launching an invasion of northern Gaul. It is thought that this group probably contained a significant amount of Quadi, moving out of their homeland under pressure from Radagaisus.
Other Suebi apparently remained in or near to the original homeland areas near the Elbe and the modern Czech Republic, occasionally still being referred to by this term. They expanded eventually into Roman areas such as Switzerland, Austria, and Bavaria, possibly pushed by groups arriving from the east.
Further south, a group of Suebi settled in parts of Pannonia, after the Huns were defeated in 454 in the Battle of Nedao. Later, the Suebian king Hunimund fought against the Ostrogoths in the battle of Bolia in 469. The Suebian coalition lost the battle, and parts of the Suebi therefore migrated to southern Germany. Probably the Marcomanni made up one significant part of these Suebi, who probably lived in at least two distinct areas. Later, the Lombards, a Suebic group long known on the Elbe, came to dominate the Pannonian region before successfully invading Italy.
Another group of Suebi, the so-called "northern Suebi" were mentioned in 569 under the Frankish king Sigebert I in areas of today's Saxony-Anhalt which were known as Schwabengau or Svebengau at least until the 12th century. In addition to the Svebi, Saxons and Lombards, returning from the Italian Peninsula in 573, are mentioned.
Suebi under king Hermeric, probably coming from the Alemanni, the Quadi, or both, worked their way into the south of France, eventually crossing the Pyrenees and entering the Iberian Peninsula which was no longer under Imperial rule since the rebellion of Gerontius and Maximus in 409.
Passing through the Basque country, they settled in the Roman province of Gallaecia, in north-western Hispania (modern Galicia, Asturias, and Northern Portugal), swore fealty to Emperor Honorius and were accepted as "foederati" and permitted to settle, under their own autonomous governance. Contemporaneously with the self-governing province of Britannia, the kingdom of the Suebi in Gallaecia became the first of the sub-Roman kingdoms to be formed in the disintegrating territory of the Western Roman Empire. Suebic Gallaecia was the first kingdom separated from the Roman Empire to mint coins.
The Suebic kingdom in Gallaecia and northern Lusitania was established in 410 and lasted until 584. Smaller than the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy or the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania, it reached a relative stability and prosperity—and even expanded military southwards—despite the occasional quarrels with the neighbouring Visigothic kingdom.
The Germanic invaders and immigrants settled mainly in rural areas, as Idacius clearly stated: "The Hispanic, spread over cities and oppida..." and the "Barbarians, govern over the provinces". According to Dan Stanislawski, the Portuguese way of living in Northern regions is mostly inherited from the Suebi, in which small farms prevail, distinct from the large properties of Southern Portugal. Bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga and former capital of Roman Gallaecia, became the capital of the Suebi. Orosius, at that time resident in Hispania, shows a rather pacific initial settlement, the newcomers working their lands or serving as bodyguards of the locals. Another Germanic group that accompanied the Suebi and settled in Gallaecia were the Buri. They settled in the region between the rivers Cávado and Homem, in the area known as Terras de Bouro (Lands of the Buri).
As the Suebi quickly adopted the local language, few traces were left of their Germanic tongue, but for some words and for their personal and land names, adopted by most of the Galicians. In Galicia four parishes and six villages are named "Suevos" or "Suegos", i.e. "Sueves", after old Suebic settlements.
The Visigoths were sent in 416 by the Emperor Honorius to fight the Germanic invaders in Hispania, but they were re-settled in 417 by the Romans as "foederati" in Aquitania after completely defeating the Alans and the Silingi Vandals. The absence of competition permitted first, the Asdingi Vandals, and later, the Suebi, to expand south and east. After the departure of the Vandals for Africa in 429 Roman authority in the peninsula was reasserted for 10 years except in northwest where the Suevi were confined. In its heyday Suebic Gallaecia extended as far south as Mérida and Seville, capitals of the Roman provinces of Lusitania and Betica, while their expeditions reached Zaragoza and Lleida after taking the Roman capital, Merida in 439. The previous year 438 Hermeric ratified the peace with the Gallaeci, the local and partially romanized rural population, and, weary of fighting, abdicated in favour of his son Rechila, who proved to be a notable general, defeating first Andevotus, "Romanae militiae dux", and later Vitus "magister utriusque militiae". In 448, Rechila died, leaving the crown to his son Rechiar who had converted to Roman Catholicism c. 447. Soon, he married a daughter of the Gothic king Theodoric I, and began a wave of attacks on the Tarraconense, still a Roman province. By 456 the campaigns of Rechiar clashed with the interests of the Visigoths, and a large army of Roman federates (Visigoths under the command of Theodoric II, Burgundians directed by kings Gundioc and Chilperic) crossed the Pyrenees into Hispania, and defeated the Suebi near modern-day Astorga. Rechiar was executed after being captured by his brother-in-law, the Visigothic king Theodoric II. In 459, the Roman Emperor Majorian defeated the Suebi, briefly restoring Roman rule in northern Hispania. Nevertheless, the Suebi became free of Roman control forever after Majorian was assassinated two years later. The Suebic kingdom was confined in the northwest in Gallaecia and northern Lusitania where political division and civil war arose among several pretenders to the royal throne. After years of turmoil, Remismund was recognized as the sole king of the Suebi, bringing forth a politic of friendship with the Visigoths, and favoring the conversion of his people to Arianism.
In 561 king Ariamir called the catholic First Council of Braga, which dealt with the old problem of the Priscillianism heresy. Eight years after, in 569, king Theodemir called the First Council of Lugo, in order to increase the number of dioceses within his kingdom. Its acts have been preserved through a medieval resume known as "Parrochiale Suevorum" or "Divisio Theodemiri".
In 570 the Arian king of the Visigoths, Leovigild, made his first attack on the Suebi. Between 572 and 574, Leovigild invaded the valley of the Douro, pushing the Suebi west and northwards. In 575 the Suebic king, Miro, made a peace treaty with Leovigild in what seemed to be the beginning of a new period of stability. Yet, in 583 Miro supported the rebellion of the Catholic Gothic prince Hermenegild, engaging in military action against king Leovigild, although Miro was defeated in Seville when trying to break on through the blockade on the Catholic prince. As a result, he was forced to recognize Leovigild as friend and protector, for him and for his successors, dying back home just some months later. His son, king Eboric, confirmed the friendship with Leovigild, but he was deposed just a year later by his brother-in-law Audeca, giving Leovigild an excuse to attack the kingdom. In 585 AD, first Audeca and later Malaric, were defeated and the Suebic kingdom was incorporated into the Visigothic one as its sixth province. The Suebi were respected in their properties and freedom, and continued to dwell in Gallaecia, finally merging with the rest of the local population during the early Middle Ages.
The Suebi remained mostly pagan, and their subjects Priscillianist until an Arian missionary named Ajax, sent by the Visigothic king Theodoric II at the request of the Suebic unifier Remismund, in 466 converted them and established a lasting Arian church which dominated the people until the conversion to Trinitarian Catholicism the 560s.
Mutually incompatible accounts of the conversion of the Suebi to Orthodox Catholic Trinitarian Christianity of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils are presented in the primary records:
Most scholars have attempted to meld these stories. It has been alleged that Chararic and Theodemir must have been successors of Ariamir, since Ariamir was the first Suebic monarch to lift the ban on Catholic synods; Isidore therefore gets the chronology wrong. Reinhart suggested that Chararic was converted first through the relics of Saint Martin and that Theodemir was converted later through the preaching of Martin of Dumio. Dahn equated Chararic with Theodemir, even saying that the latter was the name he took upon baptism. It has also been suggested that Theodemir and Ariamir were the same person and the son of Chararic. In the opinion of some historians, Chararic is nothing more than an error on the part of Gregory of Tours and never existed. If, as Gregory relates, Martin of Dumio died about the year 580 and had been bishop for about thirty years, then the conversion of Chararic must have occurred around 550 at the latest. Finally, Ferreiro believes the conversion of the Suebi was progressive and stepwise and that Chararic's public conversion was only followed by the lifting of a ban on Catholic synods in the reign of his successor, which would have been Ariamir; Thoedemir was responsible for beginning a persecution of the Arians in his kingdom to root out their heresy.
The name of the Suebi also appears in Norse mythology and in early Scandinavian sources. The earliest attestation is the Proto-Norse name "Swabaharjaz" ("Suebian warrior") on the Rö runestone and in the place name Svogerslev. Sváfa, whose name means "Suebian", was a Valkyrie who appears in the eddic poem "Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar". The kingdom "Sváfaland" also appears in this poem and in the "Þiðrekssaga". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28487 |
Ski
A ski is a narrow strip of semi-rigid material worn underfoot to glide over snow. Substantially longer than wide and characteristically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or partially secured heel. For climbing slopes, ski skins (originally made of seal fur, but now made of synthetic materials) can be attached at the base of the ski.
Originally intended as an aid to travel over snow, they are now mainly used recreationally in the sport of skiing.
The word "ski" comes from the Old Norse word which means "cleft wood", "stick of wood" or "ski". In Old Norse common phrases describing skiing were "fara á skíðum" (to travel, move fast on skis), "renna" (to move swiftly) and "skríða á skíðum" (to stride on skis). In modern Norwegian the word "ski" has largely retained the Old Norse meaning in words for split firewood, wood building materials (such as bargeboards) and roundpole fence. In Norwegian this word is usually pronounced . In Swedish, another language evolved from Old Norse, the word is (plural, ).
English and French use the original Norwegian spelling , and modify the pronunciation. Prior to 1920, English usage of "skee" and "snow-shoe" was often seen. In Italian, it is pronounced similarly to Norwegian, but the spelling is modified accordingly: . Portuguese and Spanish adapt the word to their linguistic rules: and . In German, spellings "Ski" and "Schi" are in use, both pronounced . In Dutch, the word is and the pronunciation was originally as in Norwegian, but since approximately the 1960s changed to . In Welsh the word is spelled "sgi". Many languages make a verb form out of the noun, such as "to ski" in English, in French, in Spanish and Portuguese, in Italian, in Dutch, or or (as above also or ) in German. Norwegian and Swedish do not form a verb from the noun.
Finnish has its own ancient words for skis and skiing: "ski" is and "skiing" is . The word "suksi" goes back to the Proto-Uralic period, with cognates such as Erzya "soks", Mansi "tåut" and Nganasan "tuta." The Sami also have their own words for "skis" and "skiing": for example, the Lule Sami word for "ski" is and skis are called . The Sami use for the verb "to ski" (the term may date back to 10,000 years before present).
The oldest wooden skis found were in Russia (c. 6300–5000 BCE), Sweden (c. 5200 BCE) and Norway (c. 3200 BCE) respectively.
Nordic ski technology was adapted during the early 20th century to enable skiers to turn at higher speeds. New ski and ski binding designs, coupled with the introduction of ski lifts to carry skiers up slopes, enabled the development of alpine skis. Meanwhile, advances in technology in the Nordic camp allowed for the development of special skis for skating and ski jumping.
This type of ski was used at least in northern Finland and Sweden until the 1930s. On one leg, the skier wore a long straight non-arching ski for sliding, and on the other a shorter ski for kicking. The bottom of the short ski was either plain or covered with animal skin to aid this use, while the long ski supporting the weight of the skier was treated with animal fat in similar manner to modern ski waxing. Early record of this type of skis survives in works of Olaus Magnus. He associates them to Sami people and gives Sami names of "savek" and "golos" for the plain and skinned short ski.
Finnish names for these are "lyly" and "kalhu" for long and short ski.
The seal hunters at the Gulf of Bothnia had developed a special long ski to sneak into shooting distance to the seals' breathing holes, though the ski was useful in moving in the packed ice in general and was made specially long, 3–4 meters, to protect against cracks in the ice. This is called "" in Swedish.
Around 1850, artisans in Telemark, Norway, invented the cambered ski. This ski arches up in the middle, under the binding, which distributes the skier's weight more evenly across the length of the ski. Earlier plank-style skis had to be thick enough not to bow downward and sink in the snow under the skier’s weight. This new design made it possible to build a thinner, lighter ski, that flexed more easily to absorb the shock of bumps, and that maneuvered and ran faster and more easily. The design also included a sidecut that narrowed the ski underfoot while the tip and tail remained wider. This enabled the ski to flex and turn more easily.
Skis traditionally were hand-carved out of a single piece of hardwood such as Hickory, Birch or Ash. These woods were used because of their density and ability to handle speed and shock-resistance factors associated with ski racing. Because of Europe’s dwindling forests, the ability to find quality plank hardwood became difficult, which led to the invention of the laminated ski. Beginning in 1891, skimakers in Norway began laminating two or more layers of wood together to make lighter cross country running skis. These evolved into the multi-laminated high-performance skis of the mid-1930s.
A laminated ski is a ski composed of two different types of wood which are glued together. A top layer of soft wood is glued to a thin layer under a surface of hardwood. This combination actually created skis which were much lighter and more maneuverable than the heavy, hardwood skis that preceded them. Although lighter and stronger, laminated skis did not wear well. The water-soluble glues used at the time failed; warping and splitting along the glue edges (delaminating) occurred frequently and rapidly. In 1922, a Norwegian skier, Thorbjorn Nordby, developed strong, waterproof glue which stopped the problem of splitting, therefore developing a much tougher laminated ski. Research and design of laminated skis rapidly progressed. In 1933, a new design technology was introduced involving an outer hardwood shell completely encasing an inner layer of lighter wood, successfully eliminating spontaneously splitting glue lines. This early design eventually evolved into an advanced laminating technique which is referred to today as single-shell casing technology.
In 1950, Howard Head introduced the Head Standard, constructed by sandwiching aluminum alloy around a plywood core. The design included steel edges (invented in 1928 in Austria,) and the exterior surfaces were made of phenol formaldehyde resin which could hold wax. This hugely successful ski was unique at the time, having been designed for the recreational market rather than for racing.
1962: a fibreglass ski, Kneissl's White Star, was used by Karl Schranz to win two gold medals at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. By the late '60s fibreglass had mostly replaced aluminum.
In 1974, Magne Myrmo became the last world champion (Falun, 15 km cross-country) using wooden skis.
In 1975, the torsion box ski construction design is patented. The patent is referenced by Kästle, Salomon, Rottefella, and Madshus. In 1993 Elan introduced the Elan SCX model, skis with a much wider tip and tail than waist. When tipped onto their edges, they bend into a curved shape and carve a turn. Cross-country techniques use different styles of turns; edging is not as important, and skis have little sidecut. For many years, alpine skis were shaped similarly to cross-country, simply shorter and wider, but the Elan SCX introduced a radial sidecut design that dramatically improved performance. Other companies quickly followed suit, one Austrian ski designer admitting, "It turns out that everything we thought we knew for forty years was wrong." Line Skis, the first free-ski focused ski company inspired the newschool freeskiing movement with its twin-tip ski boards in 1995. The first company to successfully market and mass-produce a twin-tip ski to ski switch (skiing backwards) was the Salomon Group, with its 1080 ski in 1998.
Described in the direction of travel, the front of the ski, typically pointed or rounded, is the tip, the middle is the waist and the rear is the tail. Skis have four aspects that define their basic performance: length, width, sidecut and camber. Skis also differ in more minor ways to address certain niche roles. For instance, "mogul skis" are softer to absorb shocks, "powder skis" are wider to provide more float and "rocker skis" bent upwards ("reverse camber") at the tip and tail to make it easier to turn in deep and heavy snow.
Skis have evolved from being constructed from solid wood to using a variety of materials including carbon-Kevlar to make skis stronger, torsionally stiffer, lighter, and more durable. Ski manufacturing techniques allow skis to be made in one or a combination of three designs:
Laminated skis are built in layers. Materials such as fiberglass, steel, aluminum alloy, or plastic are layered and compressed above and below the core. Laminated construction is the most widely used manufacturing process in the ski industry today. The first successful laminate ski, and arguably the first modern ski was the Head Standard, introduced in 1950, which sandwiched aluminum alloy around a plywood core.
The Dynamic VR7 introduced a new construction method in which a smaller wooden core was wrapped in wet fibreglass, as opposed to pre-dried sheets of fibreglass being glued to the core (essentially replacing metal sheets). The result was a torsion box, which made the ski much stronger. The VR7, and its more famous follow-on VR17, was the first fibreglass ski that could be used for men's racing, and quickly took over that market. Over time, materials for both the core and torsion box have changed, with wood, various plastic foams, fibreglass, kevlar and carbon fiber all being used in different designs. Torsion box designs continue to dominate cross-country ski designs, but is less common for alpine and ski touring.
During the 1980s, Bucky Kashiwa developed a new construction technique using a rolled stainless steel sheet forming three sides of a torsion box over a wooden core, with the base of the ski forming the bottom. Introduced in 1989, the Volant skis proved expensive to produce, and in spite of numerous positive reviews, the company never became profitable. In 1990, the Salomon S9000 took the same basic concept but replaced the steel with plastics, producing a design they called "monocoque". Now referred to as the "cap ski" design, the concept eliminates the need to wrap the core and replaces this with a single-step process that is much less expensive to produce. Cap ski construction dominates alpine ski construction today.
The classical wooden ski consists of a single long piece of suitable wood that is hand-carved to produce the required shape. Early designs were generally rectangular in cross-section, with the tip bent up through the application of steam. Over time the designs changed, and skis were thinned out to the sides, or featured prominent ridges down the center.
In the history of skiing many types of skis have been developed, designed for different needs, of which the following is a selection.
Ski design has evolved enormously since the beginnings of the modern sport in mid-19th-century Norway. Modern skis typically have steel edges, camber, side cut, and possibly reverse camber. During the 1990s side cut became more pronounced to make it easier to carve turns. Alpine skis typically have fixed-heel bindings. Specialised types of alpine skis exist for certain uses, including twin-tip skis for freestyle skiing, alpine touring ski, and monoski.
In Nordic skiing the skier is not reliant on ski lifts to get up hills, and so skis and boots tend to be lighter, with a free heel to facilitate walking. Styles of Nordic skiing equipment include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28489 |
Swedish cuisine
Swedish cuisine is the traditional food of the Swedish. Due to Sweden's large north-to-south expanse, there are regional differences between the cuisine of North and South Sweden.
Historically, in the far north, meats such as reindeer, and other (semi-)game dishes were eaten, some of which have their roots in the Sami culture, while fresh vegetables have played a larger role in the South. Many traditional dishes employ simple, contrasting flavours, such as the traditional dish of meatballs and brown cream sauce with tart, pungent lingonberry jam (slightly similar in taste to cranberry sauce).
Swedes have traditionally been very open to foreign influences, ranging from French cuisine during the 17th and 18th centuries, to the sushi and caffé latte of today.
Swedish cuisine could be described as centered around cultured dairy products, crisp and soft (often sugared) breads, berries and stone fruits, beef, chicken, lamb, pork, eggs, and seafood. Potatoes are often served as a side dish, often boiled. Swedish cuisine has a huge variety of breads of different shapes and sizes, made of rye, wheat, oat, white, dark, sourdough, and whole grain, and including flatbreads and crispbreads. There are many sweetened bread types and some use spices. Many meat dishes, especially meatballs, are served with lingonberry jam. Fruit soups with high viscosity, like rose hip soup and blueberry soup ("blåbärssoppa") served hot or cold, are typical of Swedish cuisine. Butter and margarine are the primary fat sources, although olive oil is becoming more popular. Sweden's pastry tradition features a variety of yeast buns, cookies, biscuits and cakes; many of them are in a very sugary style and often eaten with coffee ("fika").
The importance of fish has governed Swedish population and trade patterns far back in history. For preservation, fish were salted and cured. Salt became a major trade item at the dawn of the Scandinavian middle ages, which began circa 1000 AD. Cabbage preserved as sauerkraut and various kinds of preserved berries, apples, etc. were used once as a source of vitamin C during the winter (today sauerkraut is very seldom used in Swedish cuisine). Lingonberry jam, still a favourite, may be the most traditional and typical Swedish way to add freshness to sometimes rather heavy food, such as steaks and stews.
Sweden's long winters explain the lack of fresh vegetables in many traditional recipes. In older times, plants that would sustain the population through the winters were cornerstones; various turnips such as the "kålrot" (rutabaga) (aptly named 'swede' in British English) were gradually supplanted or complemented by the potato in the 18th century. A lack of distinct spices made everyday food rather bland by today's standards, although a number of local herbs and plants have been used since ancient times. This tradition is still present in today's Swedish dishes, which are still rather sparingly spiced.
Both before and after this period, some new Germanic dishes were also brought in by immigrants, such as people related to the Hanseatic League, settling in Stockholm, Visby, and Kalmar. Swedish traders and aristocrats naturally also picked up some food traditions in foreign countries; cabbage rolls ("kåldolmar") being one example. Cabbage rolls were introduced in Sweden by Karl XII who came in contact with this dish at the time of the Battle of Poltava and during his camp in the Turkish Bender and later introduced by his Ottoman creditors, who moved to Stockholm in 1716. An of "kåldolmar" was first published in 1765 in the fourth edition of "Hjelpreda i Hushållningen för Unga Fruentimber" by Cajsa Warg, though it was closer to the Turkish "dolma" than later dishes.
Swedish "husmanskost" denotes traditional Swedish dishes with local ingredients, the classical everyday Swedish cuisine. The word "husmanskost" stems from "husman", meaning 'house owner', and the term was originally used for most kinds of simple countryside food outside of towns. Genuine Swedish "husmanskost" used predominantly local ingredients such as pork in all forms, fish, cereals, milk, potato, root vegetables, cabbage, onions, apples, berries etc.; beef and lamb were used more sparingly. Beside berries, apples are the most used traditional fruit, eaten fresh or served as apple pie, apple sauce, or apple cake. Time-consuming cooking methods such as "redningar" (roux) and "långkok" (literally 'long boil') are commonly employed and spices are sparingly used. Examples of Swedish husmanskost are pea soup ("ärtsoppa"), boiled and mashed carrots, potato and rutabaga served with pork ("rotmos med fläsk"), many varieties of salmon (such as "gravlax", "inkokt lax", fried, pickled), varieties of herring (most commonly pickled, but also fried, "au gratin", etc.), fishballs ("fiskbullar"), meatballs ("köttbullar"), potato dumplings with meat or other ingredients ("palt"), potato pancake ("raggmunk"), varieties of porridge ("gröt"), a fried mix of pieces of potato, different kind of meats, sausages, bacon and onion ("pytt i panna"), meat stew with onion ("kalops"), and potato dumplings with a filling of onions and pork ("kroppkakor"). Many of the dishes would be considered comfort food for the nostalgic value.
Dishes akin to Swedish "husmanskost" and food traditions are found also in other Scandinavian countries; details may vary.
Sweden is part of the vodka belt and historically distilled beverages, such as "brännvin" and snaps, have been a traditional daily complement to food.
Consumption of wine in Sweden has increased during the last fifty years, partly at the expense of beer and stronger alcoholic beverages.
In many countries, locally produced wines are combined with local "husmanskost".
"Husmanskost" has undergone a renaissance during the last decades as well known (or famous) Swedish chefs, such as Tore Wretman, have presented modernised variants of classical Swedish dishes. In this "nouvel husman" the amount of fat (which was needed to sustain hard manual labour in the old days) is reduced and some new ingredients are introduced. The cooking methods are tinkered with as well, in order to speed up the cooking process or enhance the nutritional value or flavour of the dishes. Many Swedish restaurateurs mix traditional "husmanskost" with a modern, gourmet approach.
Swedish traditional dishes, some of which are many hundreds of years old, others perhaps a century or less, are still a very important part of Swedish everyday meals, in spite of the fact that modern day Swedish cuisine adopts many international dishes.
Internationally, the most renowned Swedish culinary tradition is the "smörgåsbord" and, at Christmas, the "julbord", including well known Swedish dishes such as "gravlax" and meatballs.
In Sweden, traditionally, Thursday has been "soup day" because the maids had half the day off and soup was easy to prepare in advance. One of the most traditional Swedish soups, "ärtsoppa" is still served in many restaurants and households every Thursday, a tradition since the middle ages. "Ärtsoppa" is a yellow pea soup, commonly served with pancakes as dessert. This is a simple meal, a very thick soup, basically consisting of boiled yellow peas, a little onion, salt and small pieces of pork. It is often served with mustard and followed by a dessert of thin pancakes (see "pannkakor"). The Swedish Armed Forces also serve their conscripts pea soup and pancakes every Thursday.
Potatoes are eaten year-round as the main source of carbohydrates, and are a staple in many traditional dishes. Not until the last 50 years have pasta or rice become common on the dinner table.
There are several different kinds of potatoes: the most appreciated is the "new potato", a potato which ripens in early summer, and is enjoyed at the traditional midsummer feast. New potatoes at midsummer are served with pickled herring, chives, sour cream, and the first strawberries of the year are traditionally served as dessert.
The most highly regarded mushroom in Sweden is the chanterelle, which is considered a delicacy. The chanterelle is usually served as a side dish together with steaks, or fried with onions and sauce served on an open sandwich. Second to the chanterelle, and considered almost as delicious, is the porcini mushroom, or "karljohansvamp", named after Charles XIV John (Karl XIV Johan) who introduced its use as food.
In August, at the traditional feast known as "kräftskiva", crayfish party, Swedes eat large amounts of crayfish, boiled and then marinated in a broth with salt, a little bit of sugar, and a large amount of dill weed.
Some Swedish dishes are:
Meals consists of breakfast in the early morning ("frukost"), a light lunch before noon ("lunch"), and a heavy dinner ("middag") around six or seven in the evening. It is also common to have a snack, often a sandwich or fruit, in between meals ("mellanmål"). Most Swedes also have a coffee break in the afternoon, often together with a pastry ("fika"). In all primary schools, and most, but not all secondary schools, a hot meal is served at lunch as part of Sweden's welfare state. According to the Swedish school law, this meal has to be nutrient dense.
Breakfast usually consists of open sandwiches ("smörgås"), possibly on crisp bread ("knäckebröd"). The sandwich is most often buttered, with toppings such as hard cheese, cold cuts, caviar, "messmör" (a Norwegian sweet spread made from butter and whey), ham ("skinka"), and tomatoes or cucumber. "Filmjölk" (fermented milk/buttermilk), or sometimes yogurt, is also traditional breakfast food, usually served in a bowl with cereals such as corn flakes, muesli, or porridge ("gröt") is sometimes eaten at breakfast, made of oat meal, cream of wheat eaten with milk and jam or cinnamon with sugar. Common drinks for breakfast are milk, juice, tea, or coffee. Swedes are among the most avid milk and coffee drinkers in the world.
Swedes sometimes have sweet toppings on their breads, such as jam (like the French and Americans), or chocolate (like the Danes), although many older Swedes chose not to use these sweet toppings. However, orange marmalade on white bread is common, usually with morning coffee or tea.
Many traditional kinds of Swedish bread, such as "sirapslimpa" (less fashionable today, but still very popular) are somewhat sweetened in themselves, baked with small amounts of syrup. Like in many other European countries, there are also lots of non-sweetened breads, often made with sourdough ("surdeg"). Swedish breads may be made from wholegrain, fine grain, or anything in between, and there are white, brown, and really dark (like in Finland) varieties which are all common. "Barkis" or "bergis" is a localised version of "challah" usually made without eggs and at first only available in Stockholm and Göteborg where Jews first settled but now available elsewhere.
A limited range of fish and other seafood is an important part of the Swedish cuisine. Farmed salmon from Norway has become increasingly popular. And pickled, sweetened herring, "inlagd sill", is the most traditional of Swedish appetizers. Shrimp and lobster are specialties of the Skagerrak coast. There is also the fermented Baltic herring that with its pungent aroma is both loved and hated ‒ in Swedish: "surströmming".
Common desserts include:
In recent years, American brownies, cookies, and cupcakes have become popular in Swedish cafés and restaurants.
"Bakelser" and other types of "kaffebröd" (or more colloquially "fikabröd") are various forms of pastries, pieces of cake, cookies, and buns that are usually consumed, with coffee (see "fika"). Popular kinds of "kaffebröd" available in a traditional Swedish "konditori" (coffee shop / pâtisserie) include:
In the summer, various seasonal fruit cakes are common. Strawberry and cream cake is highly regarded. Strawberries are also often eaten on their own with sugar and milk or cream. In the late summer and autumn, apple cakes and pies are baked. The apple cake is often served with vanilla custard, but sometimes with ice cream or whipped cream.
During the winter holidays, traditional candy and pastries include:
Other typical Swedish candy includes:
Sweden is second placed among the heaviest coffee drinking countries in the world. Milk consumption in Sweden is also very high, second only to Finland. Milk is bought in milk cartons, and it is no coincidence that Tetra Pak, the world's largest maker of milk cartons, was founded in Sweden. Milk is considered the standard drink to have with meals during weekdays in many families, for both children and adults.
Fruit soups, especially rose hip soup and bilberry soup, are eaten or drunk, usually hot during the winter.
The most important of stronger beverages in the Swedish cuisine is "Brännvin", which is a general term that includes mainly two kinds of beverages: "akvavit" and vodka. When consumed traditionally it is often served as a "snaps", but vodka is also popularly consumed as a drink ingredient. Renat is often considered to be the national vodka of Sweden, but other highly popular brands are Explorer Vodka and Absolut Vodka, the latter being one of the world's best-known liquor brands. Most forms of "brännvin" have around 40% alcohol.
The production of liquor has a tradition dating back to the 18th century and was at a high in the 1840s. Since the 1880s, the state-owned Systembolaget has a monopoly on selling spirits with more than 3.5% ABV, limiting access. "Hembränt" (moonshine) used to be made in rural Sweden, but production has lessened in recent years due to more liberal rules for the import of alcohol as well as increased smuggling.
"Punsch" is a traditional liqueur in Sweden that was immensely popular during the 19th century. It was adopted as the drink of choice by university students, and many traditional songs from that time are about the consumption of "punsch" or are meant to be sung during the collective festivities that were part of the cultural life in the universities' student associations at the time and still is.
Beer is also widely consumed in Sweden and the typical Swedish beer is lager of a bright and malty kind. The brands Pripps Blå and Norrlands Guld are common examples. In the last few decades, many small breweries ("microbreweries") have emerged all over Sweden offering a wide range of styles and brands. Nils Oscar Brewery, Dugges Ale och Porterbryggeri and Närke Kulturbryggeri are examples of these young Swedish microbreweries. Many microbreweries in Sweden are inspired by the US craft beer movement, brewing American styles or styles commonly associated with American craft breweries, e.g. American Pale Ale and American IPA.
Brödinstitutet ('The Bread Institute') once campaigned with a quotation from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, recommending eating six to eight slices of bread daily. Drinking milk has also been recommended and campaigned for by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare; it is often recommended to drink two to three glasses of milk per day. A survey conducted on behalf of Mjölkfrämjandet, an organisation promoting consumption of Swedish milk, concluded that 52% of Swedes surveyed drink milk at least once a day, usually one glass with lunch and another glass or two in the evening or morning.
Low-fat products, wholemeal bread and other alternatives are common ‒ grocery stores usually sell milk in four or five different fat levels, from 3% to 0.1%. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28490 |
Submachine gun
A submachine gun, abbreviated SMG, is a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to shoot handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun.
The submachine gun was developed during World War I (1914–1918). At its peak during World War II (1939–1945), millions of SMGs were made as close quarter offensive weapons, particularly for trench raiding. After the war, new SMG designs appeared frequently. However, by the 1980s, SMG usage decreased. Today, submachine guns have been largely replaced by assault rifles, which have a greater effective range and are capable of penetrating the helmets and body armor used by modern infantry. However, submachine guns are still used by military special forces and police SWAT teams for close quarters battle (CQB) because they are "a pistol-caliber weapon that's easy to control, and less likely to over-penetrate the target".
During World War I, the Austrians introduced the world's first machine pistol: the Steyr Repetierpistole M1912/P16. The Germans also experimented with machine pistols by converting pistols such as the Mauser C96 and Luger P-08 from semi-automatic to fully automatic operation and adding detachable stocks. Carbine-type automatic weapons firing pistol rounds were developed during the latter stages of World War I by Italy, Germany and the United States. Their improved firepower and portability offered an advantage in trench warfare.
In 1915, the Italians introduced the Villar-Perosa aircraft machine gun. It fired pistol-caliber 9mm Glisenti ammunition, but was not a true submachine gun, as it was originally designed as a mounted weapon. This odd design was then modified into the OVP 1918 carbine-type submachine gun, which then evolved into the 9×19mm Parabellum Beretta Model 1918 after the end of World War I. Both the OVP 1918 and the Beretta 1918 had a traditional wooden stock, a 25-round top-fed box magazine, and had a cyclic rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.
The Germans initially used heavier versions of the P08 pistol equipped with a detachable stock, larger-capacity snail-drum magazine and a longer barrel. By 1918, Bergmann Waffenfabrik had developed the 9 mm Parabellum MP 18, the first practical submachine gun. This weapon used the same 32-round snail-drum magazine as the Luger P-08. The MP 18 was used in significant numbers by German stormtroopers employing infiltration tactics, achieving some notable successes in the final year of the war. However, these were not enough to prevent Germany's collapse in November 1918. After World War I, the MP 18 would evolve into the MP28/II SMG,
which incorporated a simple 32-round box magazine, a semi & full auto selector, and other minor improvements.
The .45 ACP Thompson submachine gun had been in development at approximately the same time as the Bergmann and the Beretta. However, the war ended before prototypes could be shipped to Europe. Although it had missed its chance to be the first purpose-designed submachine gun to enter service, it became the basis for later weapons and had the longest active service life of the three.
In the interwar period the "Tommy Gun" or "Chicago Typewriter" became notorious in the U.S. as a gangster's weapon; the image of pinstripe-suited James Cagney types wielding drum-magazine Thompsons caused some military planners to shun the weapon. However, the FBI and other U.S. police forces themselves showed no reluctance to use and prominently display these weapons. Eventually, the submachine gun was gradually accepted by many military organizations, especially as World War II loomed, with many countries developing their own designs.
Changes in design accelerated during the war, with the trend being one of the abandonment of complex and finely made pre-war designs like the Thompson submachine gun to weapons designed for cheap mass-production and easy replacement like the M3 Grease Gun.
The Italians were among the first to develop submachine guns during World War I. However, they were slow to produce them under Mussolini; the 9 mm Parabellum Beretta Model 1938 was not available in large numbers until 1943. The 38 was made in a successive series of improved and simplified models all sharing the same basic layout. The Beretta has two triggers, the front for semi-auto and rear for full-auto. Most models use standard wooden stocks, although some models were fitted with an MP40-style under-folding stock and are commonly mistaken for the German SMG. The 38 series was extremely robust and proved very popular with both Axis forces and Allied troops (who used captured Berettas). It is considered the most successful and effective Italian small arm of World War II. The 38 series is the longest serving of the world's SMGs, as later models can still be seen in the hands of Italian military and police forces.
In 1939, the Germans introduced the 9 mm Parabellum MP38 during the invasion of Poland. However, the MP38 production was still just starting and only a few thousand were in service at the time. It proved to be far more practical and effective in close quarters combat than the standard-issue German Kar 98K bolt-action rifle. From it, the simplified and modernized MP40 (commonly and erroneously referred to as Schmeisser) was developed and made in large numbers; about a million were made during World War II. The MP40 was lighter than the MP38. It also used more stamped parts, making it faster and cheaper to produce. The MP38 and MP40 were the first SMGs to use plastic furniture and a practical folding stock. They would set the fashion for all future SMG designs.
During the Winter War, the badly outnumbered Finnish used the Suomi KP/-31 in large numbers against the Russians with devastating effect. Finnish ski troops became known for appearing out of the woods on one side of a road, raking Soviet columns with SMG fire and disappearing back into the woods on the other side. During the Continuation War, the Finnish Sissi patrols would often equip every soldier with KP/-31s. The Suomi fired 9 mm Parabellum ammo from a 71-round drum magazine (although often loaded with 74 rounds). "This SMG showed to the world the importance of the submachine gun to the modern warfare", prompting the development, adoption and mass production of submachine guns by most of the world's armies. The Suomi was used in combat until the end of the Lapland war, was widely exported and remained in service to the late 1970s.
In 1940, the Russians introduced the 7.62×25mm PPD-40 and later the more easily manufactured PPSh-41 in response to their experience during the Winter War against Finland. The PPSh's 71-round drum magazine is a copy of the Suomi's. Later in the war they developed the even more readily mass-produced PPS submachine gun - all firing the same small but high-powered Tokarev cartridges. The USSR would go on to make over 6 million PPSh-41s and 2 million PPSs by the end of World War II. Thus, the Soviet Union could field huge numbers of submachine guns against the Wehrmacht, with whole infantry battalions being armed with little else. Even in the hands of conscripted soldiers with minimal training, the volume of fire produced by massed submachine guns could be overwhelming.
In 1941, Britain adopted the 9 mm Parabellum Lanchester submachine gun. Following the Dunkirk evacuation, and with no time for the usual research and development for a new weapon, it was decided to make a direct copy of the German MP 28. However this gun, the Lanchester, proved to be difficult and expensive to manufacture. Shortly thereafter, the simpler STEN submachine gun was developed, which was much cheaper and faster to make. Over 4 million STEN Guns were made during World War II. Indeed, the STEN was so cheap and easy to produce that towards the end of World War II as their economic base approached crisis, Germany started manufacturing their own copy (the MP 3008) . After the war, the British replaced the STEN with the Sterling submachine gun. Britain also used many M1928 Thompson submachine guns during World War II.
The United States and its allies used the Thompson submachine gun, especially the simplified M1. However, the Thompson was still expensive and slow to produce. Therefore, the U.S. developed the M3 submachine gun or "Grease Gun" in 1942, followed by the improved M3A1 in 1944. While the M3 was no more effective than the Tommy Gun, it was made primarily of stamped parts and welded together, and so, it could be produced much faster and at fraction of the cost of a Thompson. It could be configured to fire either .45 ACP or 9mm Luger ammunition. The M3A1 was among the longest serving submachine guns designs, being produced into the 1960s and serving in US forces into the 1990s.
The Owen Gun is a 9mm Parabellum Australian submachine gun designed by Evelyn Owen in 1939. The Owen is a simple, highly reliable, open bolt, blowback SMG. It was designed to be fired either from the shoulder or the hip. It is easily recognisable, owing to its unconventional appearance, including a quick-release barrel and butt-stock, double pistol grips, top-mounted magazine, and unusual offset right-side-mounted sights. The Owen was the only entirely Australian-designed and constructed service submachine gun of World War II and was used by the Australian Army from 1943 until the mid-1960s, when it was replaced by the F1 submachine gun. Only about 45,000 Owens were produced during the war for a unit cost of about A$30.
Experience in close-range city combat led to the German military desiring a weapon representing a compromise between the high fire volume of the SMG and the accuracy of a full-size rifle; after a false start with the FG 42, this led to the development of the MP 44 select-fire assault rifle, the first weapon to be called such. In the years following the war, this new format would begin to gradually replace the submachine gun in military use to a large, but not total, extent.
After World War II, "new submachine gun designs appeared almost every week to replace the admittedly rough and ready designs which had appeared during the war. Some (the better ones) survived, most rarely got past the glossy brochure stage." Most of these survivors were cheaper, easier and faster to make than their predecessors. As such, they were widely distributed.
In 1945, Sweden introduced the 9 mm Parabellum Carl Gustav M/45 with a design borrowing from and improving on many design elements of earlier submachine-gun designs. It has a tubular stamped steel receiver with a side folding stock. The M/45 was widely exported, and especially popular with CIA operatives and U.S. Special Forces during the Vietnam War. In U.S. service it was known as the "Swedish-K". In 1966, the Swedish government blocked the sale of firearms to the United States because it opposed the Vietnam War. As a result, in the following year Smith & Wesson began to manufacture an M/45 clone called the M76.
In 1946, Denmark introduced the Madsen M-46, and in 1950, an improved model the Madsen M-50. These 9 mm Parabellum stamped steel SMGs featured a unique clamshell type design, a side folding stock and a grip-safety on the magazine housing. The Madsen was widely exported and especially popular in Latin America, with variants made by several countries.
In 1948, Czechoslovakia introduced the Sa vz. 23 series. This 9 mm Parabellum SMG introduced several innovations: a progressive trigger for selecting between semi-automatic and full auto fire, a telescoping bolt that extends forward wrapping around the barrel and a vertical handgrip housing the magazine and trigger mechanism. The vz. 23 series was widely exported and especially popular in Africa and the Middle East with variants made by several countries. The vz. 23 inspired the development of the Uzi submachine gun.
In 1949, France introduced the MAT-49 to replace the hodgepodge of French, American, British, German and Italian SMGs in French service after World War II. The 9 mm Parabellum MAT-49 is an inexpensive stamped steel SMG with a telescoping wire stock, a pronounced folding magazine housing and a grip safety. This "wildebeast like design" proved to be an extremely reliable and effective SMG, and was used by the French well into the 1980s. It was also widely exported to Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
In 1954, Israel introduced a 9 mm Parabellum open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine gun called the Uzi (after its designer Uziel Gal). The Uzi was one of the first weapons to use a telescoping bolt design with the magazine housed in the pistol grip for a shorter weapon. The Uzi has become the most popular submachine gun in the world, with over 10 million units sold, more
than any other submachine gun.
In 1959, Beretta introduced the Model 12. This 9 mm Parabellum submachine gun was a complete break with previous Beretta designs. It is a small, compact, very well made SMG and among the first to use telescoping bolt design. The M12 was designed for mass production and was made largely of stamped steel and welded together. It is identified by its tubular shape receiver, double pistol grips, a side folding stock and the magazine housed in front of the trigger guard. The M12 uses the same magazines as the Model 38 series.
In the 1960s, Heckler & Koch developed the 9 mm Parabellum MP5 submachine gun. The MP5 is based on the G3 rifle and uses the same closed-bolt roller-delayed blowback operation system. This makes the MP5 more accurate than open-bolt SMGs, such as the Uzi. The MP5 is also one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by 40 nations and numerous military, law enforcement, intelligence, and security organizations.
In 1969, Steyr introduced the MPi 69. This 9 mm Parabellum open-bolt, blowback-operated SMG has a telescoping bolt and is similar in appearance to the Uzi SMG. It has a vertical pistol-grip into which the magazine is inserted, a longer horizontal front grip area and a telescoping wire buttstock. The receiver is a squared stamped steel tube which partly nestles inside a large plastic molding (resembling a lower receiver) which contains the forward hand-grip, vertical pistol-grip and the fire control group, making the MPi 69 one of the first firearms to use a plastic construction in this way. It has a progressive trigger and is also unusual among modern SMGs, as the MPi 69 is cocked by a dual-purpose lever also used as the front sling attachment point.
In the 1970s, extremely compact submachine guns, such as the .45ACP Mac-10 and .380 ACP Mac-11, were developed to be used with silencers or suppressors. While these SMGs received enormous publicity, and were prominently displayed in films and television, they were not widely adopted by military or police forces. These smaller weapons led other manufacturers to develop their own compact SMGs, such as the Micro-UZI and the H&K MP5K.
By the 1980s, the demand for new submachine guns was very low and could be easily met by existing makers with existing designs. However, following H&K's lead, other manufacturers began designing submachine guns based on their existing assault rifle patterns. These new SMGs offered a high degree of parts commonality with parent weapons, thereby easing logistical concerns.
In 1987, Colt introduced the Colt 9mm SMG based on the M16 rifle. The Colt SMG is a closed bolt, blowback operated SMG and the overall aesthetics are identical to most M16 type rifles. The magazine well is modified using a special adapter to allow the use of smaller 9mm magazines. The magazines themselves are a copy of the Israeli UZI SMG magazine, modified to fit the Colt and lock the bolt back after the last shot. The Colt is widely used by U.S. police forces and the USMC.
In 1998, H&K introduced the last widely distributed SMG, the UMP "Universal Machine Pistol". The UMP is a 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP, closed-bolt blowback-operated SMG, based on the H&K G36 assault rifle. It features a predominantly polymer construction and was designed to be a lighter and cheaper alternative to the MP5. The UMP has a side-folding stock and is available with four different trigger group configurations. It was also designed to use a wide range of Picatinny rail mounted accessories
In 2004, Izhmash introduced the Vityaz-SN a 9 mm Parabellum, closed bolt straight blowback operated submachine gun. It is based on the AK-74 rifle and offers a high degree of parts commonality with the AK-74. It is the standard submachine gun for all branches of Russian military and police forces.
In 2009, KRISS USA introduced the KRISS Vector family of submachine guns. Futuristic in appearance, the KRISS uses an unconventional delayed blowback system combined with in-line design to reduce perceived recoil and muzzle climb. The KRISS comes in 9 mm Parabellum,
.45 ACP, .40 S&W, 9×21mm, 10mm Auto, and .357 SIG. It also uses standard Glock pistol magazines.
By 2010, compact assault rifles and personal defense weapons had replaced submachine guns in most roles. Factors such as the increasing use of body armor and logistical concerns have combined to limit the appeal of submachine guns. However, SMGs are still used by police (especially SWAT teams) for dealing with heavily armed suspects and by military special forces units for close quarters combat, due to their reduced size, recoil and muzzle blast. Submachine guns also lend themselves to the use of suppressors, particularly when loaded with subsonic ammunition. Variants of the Sterling and Heckler & Koch MP5 have been manufactured with integral suppressors.
Developed during the late 1980s, the personal defense weapon (PDW) is touted as a further evolution of the submachine gun. The PDW was created in response to a NATO request for a replacement for 9×19mm Parabellum submachine guns. The PDW is a compact automatic weapon that uses specially designed rifle-like cartridges to fire armor-piercing bullets and are sufficiently light to be used conveniently by non-combatant and support troops, and as an effective close quarters battle weapon for special forces and counter-terrorist groups.
Introduced in 1991, the FN P90 features a bullpup design with a futuristic appearance. It has a 50-round magazine housed horizontally above the barrel, an integrated reflex sight and fully ambidextrous controls. A simple blowback automatic weapon, it was designed to fire the proprietary FN 5.7×28mm cartridge which can penetrate soft body armor. The P90 was designed to have a length no greater than an average-sized man's shoulder width, to allow it to be easily carried and maneuvered in tight spaces, such as the inside of an infantry fighting vehicle. The P90 is currently in service with military and police forces in over 40 nations.
Introduced in 2001, the Heckler & Koch MP7 is a direct rival to the FN P90. It is a more conventional-looking design, and uses a short-stroke piston gas system as used on H&K's G36 and HK416 assault rifles, in place of a blowback system traditionally seen on submachine guns. The MP7 uses 20-, 30- and 40-round box magazines and fires the proprietary 4.6×30mm ammunition which can penetrate soft body armor. Due to the heavy use of polymers in its construction, the MP7 is much lighter than older SMG designs, being only with an empty 20-round magazine. The MP7 is currently in service with military and police forces in over 20 nations.
There are some inconsistencies in the classification of submachine guns. British Commonwealth sources often refer to SMGs as "machine carbines". Other sources refer to SMGs as "machine pistols" because they fire pistol-caliber ammunition, for example, the MP-40 and MP5, where "MP" stands for "Maschinenpistole" ("Submachine gun" in German, but cognate with the English term "Machine pistol"). However, the term "machine pistol" is also used to describe a handgun-style firearm capable of fully automatic or burst fire, such as the Stechkin, Beretta 93R and the H&K VP70. Also, Personal Defense Weapons such as the FN P90 and H&K MP7 are often called submachine guns. In addition, some compact assault rifles, such as the Colt XM177, HK53 and AKS-74U, have been historically referred to as submachine guns as they served in the latter's role. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28491 |
Squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots (including groundhogs), flying squirrels, and prairie dogs amongst other rodents. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa, and were introduced by humans to Australia. The earliest known fossilized squirrels date from the Eocene epoch, and among other living rodent families, the squirrels are most closely related to the mountain beaver and to the dormice.
The word "squirrel", first attested in 1327, comes from the Anglo-Norman "esquirel" which is from the Old French "escurel", the reflex of a Latin word "sciurus". This Latin word was borrowed from the Ancient Greek word σκίουρος, "skiouros", which means shadow-tailed, referring to the bushy appendage possessed by many of its members.
The native Old English word for the squirrel, "ācweorna", survived only into Middle English (as "aquerne") before being replaced. The Old English word is of Common Germanic origin, cognates of which are still used in other Germanic languages, including the German "Eichhörnchen" (diminutive of "Eichhorn", which is not as frequently used), the Norwegian "ikorn/ekorn", the Dutch "eekhoorn", the Swedish "ekorre" and the Danish "egern".
A group of squirrels is called a "dray" or a "scurry".
Squirrels are generally small animals, ranging in size from the African pygmy squirrel and least pygmy squirrel at in total length and just in weight, to the Bhutan giant flying squirrel at up to in total length, and several marmot species, which can weigh or more. Squirrels typically have slender bodies with bushy tails and large eyes. In general, their fur is soft and silky, though much thicker in some species than others. The coat color of squirrels is highly variable between—and often even within—species.
In most squirrel species, the hind limbs are longer than the fore limbs, while all species have either four or five toes on each paw. The paws, which include an often poorly developed thumb, have soft pads on the undersides and versatile, sturdy claws for grasping and climbing. Tree squirrels, unlike most mammals, can descend a tree head-first. They do so by rotating their ankles 180 degrees, enabling the hind paws to point backward and thus grip the tree bark from the opposite direction.
Squirrels live in almost every habitat, from tropical rainforest to semiarid desert, avoiding only the high polar regions and the driest of deserts. They are predominantly herbivorous, subsisting on seeds and nuts, but many will eat insects and even small vertebrates.
As their large eyes indicate, squirrels have an excellent sense of vision, which is especially important for the tree-dwelling species. Many also have a good sense of touch, with vibrissae on their limbs as well as their heads.
The teeth of sciurids follow the typical rodent pattern, with large incisors (for gnawing) that grow throughout life, and cheek teeth (for grinding) that are set back behind a wide gap, or diastema. The typical dental formula for sciurids is .
Many juvenile squirrels die in the first year of life. Adult squirrels can have a lifespan of 5 to 10 years in the wild. Some can survive 10 to 20 years in captivity. Premature death may be caused when a nest falls from the tree, in which case the mother may abandon her young if their body temperature is not correct. Many such baby squirrels have been rescued and fostered by a professional wildlife rehabilitator until they could be safely returned to the wild, although the density of squirrel populations in many places and the constant care required by premature squirrels means that few rehabilitators are willing to spend their time doing this and such animals are routinely euthanized instead.
Squirrels mate either once or twice a year and, following a gestation period of three to six weeks, give birth to a number of offspring that varies by species. The young are altricial, being born naked, toothless, and blind. In most species of squirrel, the female alone looks after the young, which are weaned at six to ten weeks and become sexually mature by the end of their first year. In general, the ground-dwelling squirrel species are social, often living in well-developed colonies, while the tree-dwelling species are more solitary.
Ground squirrels and tree squirrels are usually either diurnal or crepuscular, while the flying squirrels tend to be nocturnal—except for lactating flying squirrels and their young, which have a period of diurnality during the summer.
Because squirrels cannot digest cellulose, they must rely on foods rich in protein, carbohydrates, and fats. In temperate regions, early spring is the hardest time of year for squirrels because the nuts they buried are beginning to sprout (and thus are no longer available to eat), while many of the usual food sources have not yet become available. During these times, squirrels rely heavily on the buds of trees. Squirrels, being primarily herbivores, eat a wide variety of plants, as well as nuts, seeds, conifer cones, fruits, fungi, and green vegetation. Some squirrels, however, also consume meat, especially when faced with hunger. Squirrels have been known to eat small birds, young snakes, and smaller rodents, as well as bird eggs and insects. Some tropical squirrel species have shifted almost entirely to a diet of insects.
Predatory behavior has been observed in various species of ground squirrels, in particular the thirteen-lined ground squirrel. For example, Bernard Bailey, a scientist in the 1920s, observed a thirteen-lined ground squirrel preying upon a young chicken. Wistrand reported seeing this same species eating a freshly killed snake. Whitaker examined the stomachs of 139 thirteen-lined ground squirrels and found bird flesh in four of the specimens and the remains of a short-tailed shrew in one; Bradley, examining the stomachs of white-tailed antelope squirrels, found at least 10% of his 609 specimens' stomachs contained some type of vertebrate, mostly lizards and rodents. Morgart observed a white-tailed antelope squirrel capturing and eating a silky pocket mouse.
The living squirrels are divided into five subfamilies, with about 58 genera and some 285 species. The oldest squirrel fossil, "Hesperopetes", dates back to the Chadronian (late Eocene, about 40–35 million years ago) and is similar to modern flying squirrels.
A variety of fossil squirrels, from the latest Eocene to the Miocene, have not been assigned with certainty to any living lineage. At least some of these probably were variants of the oldest basal "protosquirrels" (in the sense that they lacked the full range of living squirrels' autapomorphies). The distribution and diversity of such ancient and ancestral forms suggest the squirrels as a group may have originated in North America.
Apart from these sometimes little-known fossil forms, the phylogeny of the living squirrels is fairly straightforward. The three main lineages are the Ratufinae (Oriental giant squirrels), Sciurillinae and all other subfamilies. The Ratufinae contain a mere handful of living species in tropical Asia. The neotropical pygmy squirrel of tropical South America is the sole living member of the Sciurillinae. The third lineage, by far the largest, has a near-cosmopolitan distribution. This further supports the hypothesis that the common ancestor of all squirrels, living and fossil, lived in North America, as these three most ancient lineages seem to have radiated from there; if squirrels had originated in Eurasia, for example, one would expect quite ancient lineages in Africa, but African squirrels seem to be of more recent origin.
The main group of squirrels also can be split into three subgroups, which yield the remaining subfamilies. The Sciurinae contains the flying squirrels (Pteromyini) and the Sciurini, which among others contains the American tree squirrels; the former have often been considered a separate subfamily, but are now seen as a tribe of the Sciurinae. The pine squirrels ("Tamiasciurus"), on the other hand, are usually included with the main tree squirrel lineage, but appear to be about as distinct as the flying squirrels; hence, they are sometimes considered a distinct tribe, Tamiasciurini.
Two of the three subfamilies are of about equal size, containing between nearly 70 and 80 species each; the third is about twice as large. The Sciurinae contains arboreal (tree-living) squirrels, mainly of the Americas and to a lesser extent Eurasia. The Callosciurinae is most diverse in tropical Asia and contains squirrels that are also arboreal, but have a markedly different habitus and appear more "elegant", an effect enhanced by their often very colorful fur. The Xerinae—the largest subfamily—are made up from the mainly terrestrial (ground-living) forms and include the large marmots and the popular prairie dogs, among others, as well as the tree squirrels of Africa; they tend to be more gregarious than other squirrels, which do not usually live together in close-knit groups. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28492 |
Shooting
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, sling, slingshot, crossbow, or bow). Even the acts of launching/discharging artillery, arrows, darts, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can be considered acts of shooting. When using a firearm, the act of shooting is often called firing as it involves initiating a combustion process (deflagration).
Shooting can take place in a shooting range or in the field, in shooting sports, hunting or in combat. The person involved in the shooting activity is called a shooter. A skilled, accurate shooter is a "marksman" or "sharpshooter", and a person's level of shooting proficiency is referred to as their "marksmanship".
Shooting has inspired competition, and in several countries rifle clubs started to form in the 19th century. Soon international shooting events evolved, including shooting at the Summer and Winter Olympics (from 1896) and World Championships (from 1897). The International Shooting Sport Federation still administers Olympic and non-Olympic rifle, pistol, shotgun, and running target shooting competitions, although there is also a large number of national and international shooting sports controlled by unrelated organizations.
Shooting technique differs depending on factors like the type of firearm used (from a handgun to a precision rifle); the distance to and nature of the target; the required precision; and the available time. Breathing and position play an important role when handling a handgun or a rifle. Some shooting sports, such as IPSC shooting and biathlon also include movement. The prone position, kneeling position, and standing position offer different amounts of support for the shooter.
In the United Kingdom shooting often refers to the activity of hunting game birds such as grouse or pheasants, or small game such as rabbits, with guns. A shooter is sometimes referred to as a "gun". Shooting may also refer to the culling of vermin with guns. Clay pigeon shooting is meant to simulate shooting live pigeons released from traps, after doing so was banned in the United Kingdom in 1921.
Shooting most often refers to the use of a gun (firearm or air gun), although it can also be used to describe discharging of any ranged weapons like a bow, crossbow, slingshot or even blow tube. The term "weapon" does not necessarily mean it is used as a combat tool, but as a piece of equipment to help the user best achieve the goal of their activities.
Shooting is also used in warfare, self-defense, crime and law enforcement. Duels were sometimes held using guns. Shooting without a target has applications such as celebratory gunfire, 21-gun salute, or firing starting pistols, incapable of releasing bullets.it is also used as personal weapon in ancient time it is used in form of bow-arrow and in modern as guns crossbow and more
In many countries, there are restrictions on what kind of firearm can be bought and by whom, leading to debate about how effective such measures are and the extent to which they should be applied. For example, attitudes towards guns and shooting in the United States are very different from those in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Canting is an alignment issue that occurs in shooting. Because scopes need to be mounted to a rifle in perfect parallel to the barrel and to ensure the cross hairs sit exactly where a bullet will go (POI), a small variation of even ¼ of one degree can cause great problems at longer ranges. A locking bar holds the mount in a perfect 90 degree to the rail system whereas a non-locking bar system can cant to the left or right. This canting (sometimes called jamming of surfaces) is caused by not matching the clamping surface perfectly to the rail. When tightened down, stress exerted on the base can cause the scope to be off from the POI by as much as several feet at 100–200 yards and gets progressively worse as range increases. Lower grade materials used in manufacturing of scope bases, inconsistent design tolerances from one manufacturer to another and other factors can cause twisting stress and cause the mount to move out of parallel with the rifle barrel. The locking bar system allows for even stress to be distributed and prevent canting of the scope mount. Another form of scope canting is caused by the rings themselves. Some mounts either have two or four screws on top of the scope ring that hold the scope in place. With the two-screw style, the ring usually aligns well but does not have the strength of the four screw system. When tightening the screws of the four screw type, the scope can twist in place, causing misalignment.
The four basic "NRA" or "competition" or "field" shooting positions, in order of steadiness/stability (the closer you get to the ground, the steadier you are), are prone, sitting, kneeling, and standing (also called "offhand").
Another common, but aided, shooting position is the bench shooting position. There are also numerous shooting aids from monopods to tripods to sandbags and complete gun cradles.
The rice paddy squat (or rice paddy prone) position is a moderate-stability position that supports both elbows, making it more stable than kneeling yet keeping a high level of mobility. Its higher center of gravity will still be less stable than sitting or prone. It was a traditionally taught marksmanship position but lost popularity after the Korean conflict. The heel-down squat/kneel combination has also been used to fire weapons – see image.
The sling is used to create isometric pressure to increase steadiness. While the use of a sling is of questionable value when shooting from the standing position, it is very much worth using from kneeling, sitting or prone. Proper use of the sling locks the rifle into the body and enhances that solid foundation so critical to delivering an accurate shot.
A type of shooting sling. All positions are strengthened through the use of a "hasty sling". The formal "tight sling" is detached from the rear sling swivel and tightened above the bicep of the supporting arm. Almost any carrying strap can be used in the "hasty sling" mode. There is often a compromise between the most comfortable "carry" length for shooter's sling and the ideal tension for a "hasty sling". The steadiness achieved is almost as good as a "tight competition sling" and it is a lot faster.
In ISSF shooting events, 3 out of 5 shooting positions are used. Positions not used are rice paddy squat and sitting position.
WBSF governs benchrest shooting.
IPSC shooting events use prone, offhand and supported shooting positions.
There are some competitions, such as felthurtigskyting, in which shooting position is freestyle. That means that the shooter decides which one of the four positions he'll use. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28495 |
Shooting sports
Shooting sports is a collective group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using various types of ranged weapons, mainly referring to man-portable guns (firearms and airguns, in forms such as handguns, rifles and shotguns) and bows/crossbows.
Different disciplines of shooting sports can be categorized by equipment, shooting distances, targets, time limits and degrees of athleticism involved. Shooting sports may involve both team and individual competition, and team performance is usually assessed by summing the scores of the individual team members. Due to the noise of shooting and the high (and often lethal) impact energy of the projectiles, shooting sports are typically conducted at either designated permanent shooting ranges or temporary shooting fields in the area away from settlements.
Historically, game shooting and target shooting has been exclusively limited to the upper-class and the gentry, with severe penalties for poaching. The National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom (NRA) was founded in 1860 to raise the funds for an annual national rifle meeting "for the encouragement of Volunteer Rifle Corps and the promotion of Rifle-shooting throughout Great Britain".
Target shooting was a favorite sport in colonial America, with the New England Puritans regularly testing their shooting skills for recreation and at militia training days. The Scotch Irish settlers on the frontier favored shooting matches sponsored by Tavern keepers. Turkey shoots were popular after harvest time. Contestants would pay an entry fee, and everyone who killed a tethered turkey at 110 yards for muskets or hundred and 65 yards for rifles could keep the bird. German gunsmith's in Pennsylvania began to manufacture Flintlock rifles in the 1720s, which became especially popular among hunters because of its long-range accuracy. It could be accurate to 200 yards. Along about 1820, percussion caps, and the locks that ignited them, became available, and nearly all new firearms began to be constructed using this ignition system. Many flintlock firearms were also subsequently converted to the percussion system, which was a relatively simple procedure that could be accomplished by local gunsmiths. Although percussion ignition did not add to the accuracy of the firearm, the time between when the firearm firing mechanism (or “lock”) started the sequence that lead to the ignition of the propellant in the barrel, was shortened drastically. This made getting smaller shot groups on the target more attainable as the possibility of the firearm moving off the aiming point after the shooter pressed the trigger was lessened. This shortened ignition time, which is referred to as “lock time” was (and still is) a very important factor in target shooting. The closed design of the percussion system materially improved reliability of the firearm, especially in rainy or damp conditions. Many flintlock firearms (including target rifles and pistols) were subsequently converted to percussion, a process that could be accomplished by most gunsmiths of the period. The faster “lock time” also made hitting fast-moving aerial targets with a cloud of tiny lead pellets (“shot”) fired from a smooth-bore firearm a real possibility. Practicing for game hunting by shooting at artificial aerial targets launched from spring-powered launching devices (“traps”) became highly popular and led to the development of the modern Trap, Skeet, and Sporting Clays shooting sports.
In 1831 a sportsman club in Cincinnati Ohio held a competitive shoot at pigeons and quail released from ground traps. German ethnic communities set up athletic clubs and shooting clubs, especially in the Midwestern states In the 1850–1917. period Breach loading shotguns introduced in the 1860s, and the knowledge of rifles by Civil War soldiers, made trap shooting popular. However, there was human humanitarian opposition to killing live birds—and the passenger pigeon was dying out—so glass or clay targets were used instead.
Concerned over poor marksmanship during the American Civil War, veteran Union officers Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association of America in 1871 for the purpose of promoting and encouraging rifle shooting on a "scientific" basis. In 1872, with financial help from New York state, a site on Long Island, the Creed Farm, was purchased for the purpose of building a rifle range. Named Creedmoor, the range opened in 1872, and became the site of the first National Matches until New York politics forced the NRA to move the matches to Sea Girt, New Jersey. The popularity of the National Matches soon forced the event to be moved to its present, much larger location: Camp Perry. In 1903, the U.S. Congress created the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP), an advisory board to the Secretary of the Army, with a nearly identical charter to the NRA. The NBPRP (now known as the Civilian Marksmanship Program) also participates in the National Matches at Camp Perry.
In 1903, the NRA began to establish rifle clubs at all major colleges, universities, and military academies. By 1906, youth programs were in full swing with more than 200 boys competing in the National Matches. Today, more than one million youth participate in shooting sports events and affiliated programs through groups such as 4-H, the Boy Scouts of America, the American Legion, U.S. Jaycees, NCAA, The USA High School Clay Target League, the Scholastic Clay Target Program, National Guard Bureau, ROTC, and JROTC.
French pistol champion and founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, participated in many of these early competitions. This fact certainly contributed to the inclusion of five shooting events in the 1896 Olympics. Over the years, the events have been changed a number of times in order to keep up with technology and social standards. the targets that formerly resembled humans or animals in their shape and size have are now a circular shape in order to avoid associating the sport with any form of violence. At the same time, some events have been dropped and new ones have been added. The 2004 Olympics featured three shooting disciplines (rifle, pistol, and shotgun) where athletes competed for 51 medals in 10 men's and 7 women's events—slightly fewer than the previous Olympic schedule.
In the Olympic Games, the shooting sport has always enjoyed the distinction of awarding the first medals of the Games. Internationally, the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) has oversight of all Olympic shooting events worldwide, while National Governing Bodies (NGBs) administer the sport within each country.
Having originally established shooting as an organized sport in the US, the NRA was the obvious choice to administer the United States participation in the Olympic games. The NRA dutifully managed and financially supported international and conventional shooting sports (i.e., National Matches) for over 100 years until the formation of USA Shooting.
Shooting at the Summer Olympics (at last edition Rio 2016), is competed in nine disciplines, six in bullseye (pistol and rifle) and three in skeet and trap (shotgun), The events will be six in Tokyo 2020.
Gun shooting sports are shot with either firearms or air guns, which can be either handguns, rifles and/or shotguns.
Handguns are handheld small arms designed to be shot off-hand without needing a shoulder stock. The two main subtypes of handguns are pistols and revolvers. They are much more convenient to carry in general, but usually have a shorter effective range and less accuracy compared to long guns such as rifles. In shooting sports, revolvers and semi-automatic pistols are the most commonly used.
A rifle is a long gun with a rifled barrel, and requires the use of both hands to hold and brace against the shoulder via a stock in order to shoot steadily. They generally have a longer range and greater accuracy than handguns, and are popular for hunting. In shooting sports, bolt action or semi-automatic rifles are the most commonly used.
A shotgun is similar to a rifle but often smoothbore and larger in caliber, and typically fires either a shell containing many smaller scattering sub-projectiles called shots, or a single large projectile called a slug. In shooting sports, shotguns are more often over/under-type break action or semi-automatic shotguns, and the majority of shotgun events are included in clay pigeon shooting.
"Bullseye shooting" is a category of pistol and rifle shooting disciplines where the objective is to achieve as many points as possible by hitting a round shooting target as close to the middle as possible with slow precision fire. These disciplines place a large emphasis on precision and accuracy through sight picture, breath and trigger control. Fixed and relatively long time limits give the competitors time to concentrate for a perfect shot. An example of bullseye shooting is the ISSF pistol and rifle disciplines, but there are also many other national and international disciplines which can be classified as bullseye shooting. The shooting distances are typically given in round numbers, such as 10 15, 25, 50, 100, 200 or 300 meters depending on firearm type and discipline. Competitions are usually shot from permanent shooting ranges and with the same target arrangement and distance from match to match. Usually the competitors each have their own shooting target and shoot beside each other simultaneously. Because of the relatively simple match format, beginners are often recommended bullseye shooting in order to learn the fundamentals of marksmanship. Bullseye shooting is part of the Summer Olympic Games, and a considerable amount of training is needed to become proficient.
Field-Shooting or Terrain-Shooting refer to a set of pistol and rifle shooting disciplines that usually are shot from temporary shooting ranges in the terrain at varying (and sometimes unknown) distances, rather than at permanent shooting ranges at fixed distances.
Clay pigeon shooting are shotgun disciplines shot at flying clay pigeon targets.
Running target shooting refers to a number of disciplines involving a shooting target—sometimes called a boar, moose, or deer—that is made to move as if it is a running animal. Events of this type include:
Shooting at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's moving target small-bore rifle
Shooting at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's disappearing target small-bore rifle
Practical shooting, also known as action shooting or dynamic shooting, is a generic term applicable to shooting sports where speed is of equal importance as precision. Many of the disciplines involve movement, and when using handguns they are often drawn from a holster.
Long range shooting is shooting held at such distances that sight adjustment based from judging atmospherical conditions become critical.
Benchrest shooting is concerned with shooting small groups with the rifleman sitting on a chair (bench) and the rifle supported from a table. Of all shooting disciplines, this is the most demanding equipment-wise. Depending on equipment class, international benchrest competitions are governed by either the World Benchrest Shooting Federation or World Rimfire and Air Rifle Benchrest Federation.
Metallic silhouette competitors shoot at animal-shaped steel silhouettes (chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams) that must be knocked down to score. Banks of 5 targets are placed at up to 500 meters, with distance and size of target determined by firearm class. Classes include Handguns, Small Bore Rifle (Hunter, Silhouette), High Power Rifle (Hunter, Silhouette), air rifle and black powder rifle. Handguns used in the Unlimited Categories are rifle-like in appearance; Thompson Contender, Remington XP-100, and other pistols are chambered in rifle calibers with the power, aerodynamic efficiency, and external ballistics required for precise shooting at 200 meters. There are silhouette categories appropriate for virtually all types of adjustable sight pistols and rifles, only excluding high-velocity armor-piercing rounds that would damage targets. Targets for open sighted guns are placed between 25 and 200 meters, and are designed to provide a usable size of the hit zone of about 1.5 milliradians (or 5 minutes of arc).
Muzzleloading are concerned with shooting replica (or antique) guns.
Paralympic shooting, also known as "shooting Para sport", is an adaptation of shooting sports for competitors with disabilities. Paralympic shooting first appeared in the Summer Paralympics at the 1976 Toronto Games. Para shooting is internationally governed by the International Paralympic Committee. To help establish fair competition, a shooting classification called Para-shooting classification in place for the Paralympic Games.
Shooting competitions for factory and service firearms, usually called Service Rifle, Service Pistol, Production, Factory or Stock, describe a set of disciplines or equipment classes where the types of permitted firearms are subject to type approval and few aftermarket modifications are permitted. Thus the terms refer to permitted equipment and modifications rather than the type of shooting format itself. The names Service Rifle and Service Pistol stem from that the equipment permitted for these types of competitions traditionally were based on standard issue firearms used by one or several armed forces and civilian versions of these, while the terms Production, Factory and Stock often are applied to more modern disciplines with similar restrictions on equipment classes. Factory and service classes are often "restrictive" in nature, and the types of firearms permitted are usually rugged, versatile and affordable. In comparison, more expensive custom competition equipment are popular in more "permissive" equipment classes. Both types of equipment classes can be found within many disciplines, such as bullseye, field, practical and long range shooting.
Plinking refers to informal target shooting done for pleasure or practice typically at non-standard targets such as tin cans, logs, cartons, fruits, or any other homemade or naturally occurring objects like rocks or tree branches. The primary appeals of plinking as a sport are the broad variety of easily available locations, minimal costs, freedom in practice styles, and more relaxing and less restrictive shooting experience.
The flexibility of target choice is also why plinking is popular. A small, three-dimensional target in an outdoors setting is much more akin to a real-world hunting and varminting scenario, presenting a better simulated opportunity to practice shooting skills. A plinking target will also often react much more positively to a hit than a paper target used in formal competitions, either audibly with a sharp impact sound (hence the name "plink") or visually by bouncing, splattering or falling over. Steel targets used for formal action and long range shooting competitions are also popular for plinking due to the ease of setting up and confirming good hits.
Athletic shooting sports are hybrid events of normally stationary shooting sport competitions and the sport of athletics or other physically demanding non-shooting sports. Many were borne from military exercises and emphasize physical endurance.
Modern competitive archery involves shooting arrows at a target for accuracy from a set distance or distances. A person who participates in archery is typically called an archer or a bowman, and a person who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite. The most popular competitions worldwide are called target archery. Another form, particularly popular in Europe and America, is field archery, which generally is shot at targets set at various distances in a wooded setting. 3D archery, which differs from field archery in that the targets are animal models, is also quite popular in the same regions. There are also several other lesser-known and historical forms, as well as archery novelty games. Note that the tournament rules vary from organization to organization. World Archery Federation rules are often considered normative, but large non-WA-affiliated archery organizations do exist with different rules. Competitive archery in the United States is governed by USA Archery and National Field Archery Association (NFAA), which also certifies instructors. Run archery is a shooting discipline connecting archery with running.
The International Crossbow Shooting Union ("Internationale Armbrustschützen Union" or IAU) was founded in Landshut, Germany on June 24, 1956, as the world governing body for crossbow target shooting. The IAU supervises World, Continental and International crossbow shooting championships in 3 disciplines; 30 m Match-crossbow, 10 m Match-crossbow and Field-crossbow shooting. IAU World Championships take place every two years with Continental Championships on intervening years. Other International and IAU-Cup events take place annually. World Crossbow Shooting Association (WCSA) organises competitions in 7 disciplines: Target, Target match play, Forest, Forest match play, 3D, Bench & prone target and Indoor target.
There are several competition styles of sport blowgun practised around the world. A standardization of competition style is based upon fukiya, and governed by the International Fukiyado Association. It is a 10-metre target shooting, using a standardized barrel caliber and length, and a standardized dart length and weight as outlined by IFA.
There are two more styles, both based upon the Cherokee Annual Gathering Blowgun Competition. The Field Style competition is similar to the winter Biathlon, where the shooter runs from a starting line to a target lane, shoots and retrieves the darts, and continues to the next station. The course length varies from 400 to 800 m with from 9 to 16 targets at various heights and shooting distances. The final style is the Long Distance target shoot. The target is a circle of 24 cm diameter, and the firing line is 20 m away. Three darts are fired by each shooter, at least one of which must stick in the target. All successful shooters move to the next round, moving back 2 m each time.
Confrontational shooting sports is a set of relatively new team sports using non-lethal ranged weapons that are safe enough to shoot at other people. Previously such games were not possible due to safety concerns since bows and guns are generally too lethal and dangerous for human targets, but the development of newer airgun and infrared technologies allowed for the development of safe confrontational disciplines. While initially only for sport and recreations, professional sport competitions are now held. These type of games are also used for tactical gunfight training by military and law enforcement agencies to some extent.
Olympic dueling is an archaic individual sport that sought to safely emulate the deadly practice of pistol duelling, akin to fencing emulating sword fighting. It involved the use of specially built primer-fired pistols to propel wax bullets. Two versions of the sport were demonstration events at the 1906 Olympics and 1908 Olympics. It was also a popular sport in France.
Paintball is a competitive sport in which players from opposing teams eliminate opponents out of play by hitting them with round, breakable, dye-filled oil and gelatin pellets ("paintballs"), shot from HPA/-powered air guns called paintball markers. It can be played on indoor or outdoor fields scattered with natural or artificial terrain, which players use for tactical cover. Paintball game types vary, but can include capture the flag, elimination, ammunition limits, defending or attacking a particular point or area, or capturing objects of interest hidden in the playing area. Depending on the variant played, games can last from seconds to hours, or even days in scenario play. The game was developed in the 1980s and now is regularly played at a formal sporting level with organized competition involving major tournaments, professional teams and players.
Airsoft is a competitive sport similar in concept to paintball, in which participants from opposing teams eliminate opponents by hitting each other with solid round plastic pellets launched from low-powered smoothbore air guns called airsoft guns. It is different to paintball in that airsoft pellets do not visibly mark the targets like paintballs, and thus the sport relies heavily on an honor system where a hit player has the ethical duty to call himself out of play, regardless of whether anyone else sees it happen. Most airsoft guns are also magazine-fed (unlike the commonly top-mounting pellet loader of paintball markers) with mounting platforms compatible with real firearm accessories, and tend to more closely resemble real guns in appearance, making them more popular for military simulation and historical reenactments. The greater toughness of airsoft pellets also allows the use of better powerplants and apparatus such as hop-up device for improved external ballistics, making the gameplay more accurately resemble real gunfights. They are also much cheaper for casual players to participate than paintball.
Airsoft gameplay varies in style and composition just like paintball and is played in both indoor and outdoor courses. Situations on the field frequently involve the use of real-life military tactics to achieve objectives, and it is not uncommon for participants to emulate the uniforms and equipment of real military and police organizations for a sense of realism. Games are normally supervised (and sometimes umpired) by trained on-site administrators, and players' airsoft guns are usually checked through a chronograph to enforce power output restrictions.
There are currently no formal national or international governing bodies for the airsoft sport. Competitive tournaments are usually organized by private clubs or among enthusiasts and professional/semi-professional teams (often referred to as "clans"), with rules and restrictions varying from event to event.
Laser tag (despite the name, laser is actually not used due to safety concerns) is a tag game played with infrared light guns and sensors worn on the body of the players. Since its birth in 1979, laser tag has evolved in both indoor and outdoor games, each with gameplay styles such as annihilation, capture the flag, domination, VIP protection, (usually sci-fi) role playing, etc. When compared to paintball and airsoft, laser tag is painless and very safe because it involves no projectile impacts, and indoor games may be considered less physically demanding because most indoor venues prohibit running or roughhousing.
More sophisticated forms of laser tag, such as MILES, are used (in conjunction with blanks) by militaries to allow for non-lethal combat training.
Archery Tag is a form of combat archery sport where participants shoot one another using a bow with arrows with large foam tips. The game's rules closely resemble dodgeball. The game begins with a number of arrows in the center of the arena. At the whistle, players race to collect them, before firing them at one another across the playing field. A player is eliminated if struck by an arrow, and a player can bring an eliminated teammate back into play by catching an arrow. To avoid injury, participants wear protective facemasks and use bows with less than draw weight. It was invented in 2011 by John Jackson of Ashley, Indiana, and experienced a boost in popularity from the "Hunger Games" books and film series, which feature a bow-wielding protagonist Katniss Everdeen. Jackson staged Archery Tag games at local premieres of the films. By 2014, Jackson had licensed the game to 170 locations, mostly in the United States, but also in Russia, Peru and Saudi Arabia.
Battle gaming variants of Archery Tag also exist, such as Dagorhir, Amtgard, Belegarth and Darkon, where archers are pitted among melee players welding foam weapons to simulate medieval battles.
eSports is the competitive playing of video games, often referring to play at the professional level. While the term eSports includes many types of video games unrelated to shooting sports, a major subset of eSports are the shooters, namely first-person shooters and third-person shooters. Matches of these games can take a variety of forms but traditionally take formats similar to paintball, involving teams of players whose objective is to eliminate the opposing team in simulated combat, often while also focusing other key objectives. Major games of these styles currently in professional play include (among others) "", "Overwatch", "Team Fortress 2", and "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds". Organized play is done both online or in-person. While there has been serious interest to include eSports in the Olympics and similar events, the inclusion of shooters has been less welcomed due to their often violent visual content. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28498 |
Sake
Sake, also spelled "saké" ( , also referred to as "Japanese rice wine)", is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name, unlike wine, in which alcohol is produced by fermenting sugar that is naturally present in fruit (typically grapes), sake, and indeed any East Asian rice wine, is produced by a brewing process more akin to that of beer, where starch is converted into sugars, which ferment into alcohol.
The brewing process for sake differs from the process for beer, where the conversion from starch to sugar and then from sugar to alcohol occurs in two distinct steps. Like other rice wines, when "sake" is brewed, these conversions occur simultaneously. The alcohol content differs between sake, wine, and beer; while most beer contains 3–9% ABV, wine generally contains 9–16% ABV, and undiluted sake contains 18–20% ABV (although this is often lowered to about 15% by diluting with water prior to bottling).
In Japanese, the character "sake" (kanji: 酒, ) can refer to any alcoholic drink, while the beverage called "sake" in English is usually termed nihonshu (; meaning 'Japanese wine'). Under Japanese liquor laws, sake is labelled with the word "seishu" (; 'clear wine'), a synonym not commonly used in conversation.
In Japan, where it is the national beverage, sake is often served with special ceremony, where it is gently warmed in a small earthenware or porcelain bottle and sipped from a small porcelain cup called a "sakazuki". As with wine, the recommended "serving temperature" of sake varies greatly by type.
The origin of sake is unclear. The earliest reference to the use of alcohol in Japan is recorded in the "Book of Wei" in the "Records of the Three Kingdoms". This 3rd-century Chinese text speaks of the Japanese drinking and dancing. Alcoholic beverages () are mentioned several times in the "kōjiki", Japan's first written history, which was compiled in 712. Bamforth (2005) places the probable origin of true sake (which is made from rice, water, and "kōji" mold (, "Aspergillus oryzae") in the Nara period (710–794). In the Heian period, sake was used for religious ceremonies, court festivals, and drinking games. Sake production was a government monopoly for a long time, but in the 10th century, temples and shrines began to brew sake, and they became the main centers of production for the next 500 years. The "Tamon-in Diary", written by abbots of Tamon-in (temple) from 1478 to 1618, records many details of brewing in the temple. The diary shows that pasteurization and the process of adding ingredients to the main fermentation mash in three stages were established practices by that time. In the 16th century, the technique of distillation was introduced into the Kyushu district from Ryukyu. The brewing of shōchū, called "Imo–sake" started, and was sold at the central market in Kyoto.
In the 18th century, Engelbert Kaempfer and Isaac Titsingh published accounts identifying sake as a popular alcoholic beverage in Japan; but Titsingh was the first to try to explain and describe the process of sake brewing. The work of both writers was widely disseminated throughout Europe at the beginning of the 19th century.
During the Meiji Restoration, laws were written that allowed anybody with the money and know-how to construct and operate their own sake breweries. Around 30,000 breweries sprang up around the country within a year. As time passed, the government levied increasing taxes on the sake industry and the number of breweries dwindled to 8,000.
Most of the breweries that grew and survived this period were established by wealthy landowners. Landowners who grew rice crops would have surplus rice at the end of the season. Rather than letting these leftovers go to waste, they shipped it to their breweries. The most successful of these family breweries still operate today.
During the 20th century, sake-brewing technology advanced. The government opened the sake-brewing research institute in 1904, and in 1907 the first government-run sake-tasting competition was held. Yeast strains specifically selected for their brewing properties were isolated and enamel-coated steel tanks arrived. The government started hailing the use of enamel tanks as easy to clean, lasting forever, and being devoid of bacterial problems. (The government considered wooden barrels to be unhygienic because of the potential bacteria living in the wood.) Although these things are true, the government also wanted more tax money from breweries, as using wooden barrels means that a significant amount of sake is lost to evaporation (approximately 3%), which could have otherwise been taxed. This was the end of the wooden-barrel age of sake and the use of wooden barrels in brewing was completely eliminated.
In Japan, sake has long been taxed by the national government. In 1898, this tax brought in about ¥5 million out of a total of about ¥120 million, about 4.6% of the government's total direct tax income.
During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905, the government banned the home brewing of sake. At the time, sake comprised 30% of Japan's tax revenue. Since home-brewed sake is tax-free, the logic was that by banning the home brewing of sake, sales would increase, and more tax revenue would be collected. This was the end of home-brewed sake, and the law remains in effect today even though sake sales now contribute only 2% of government income.
When World War II brought rice shortages, the sake-brewing industry was hampered as the government discouraged the use of rice for brewing. As early as the late 17th century, it had been discovered that small amounts of alcohol could be added to sake before pressing to extract aromas and flavors from the rice solids. During the war, pure alcohol and glucose were added to small quantities of rice mash, increasing the yield by as much as four times. 75% of today's sake is made using this technique. There were a few breweries producing "sake" that contained no rice at all. The quality of sake during this time varied greatly.
Postwar, breweries slowly recovered, and the quality of sake gradually increased. New players on the scene—beer, wine, and spirits—became popular in Japan, and in the 1960s beer consumption surpassed sake for the first time. Sake consumption continued to decrease while the quality of sake steadily improved.
Today, sake has become a world beverage with a few breweries in China, Southeast Asia, South America, North America, and Australia. More breweries are also turning to older methods of production.
While the rest of the world may be drinking more sake and the quality of sake has been increasing, sake production in Japan has been declining since the mid-1970s. The number of sake breweries is also declining. While there were 3,229 breweries nationwide in fiscal 1975, the number had fallen to 1,845 in 2007.
The oldest known sake brewery is from the 15th century near an area that was owned by Tenryū-ji, in Ukyō-ku, Kyoto. Unrefined sake was squeezed out at the brewery and there are about 180 holes (60 cm wide, 20 cm deep) for holding storage jars. A hollow (1.8 meter wide, 1 meter deep) for a pot to collect drops of pressed sake and 14th-century Bizen ware jars were also found. It is estimated to be utilized until the Onin War (1467–1477). Sake was brewed at Tenryū-ji during the Muromachi Period (1336–1573).
The rice used for brewing sake is called "saka mai" (sake rice), or officially "shuzō kōtekimai" (sake-brewing suitable rice). There are at least 80 types of sake rice in Japan. Among these, Yamadanishiki, Gohyakumangoku, Miyamanishiki and Omachi rice are popular. The grain is larger, stronger (if a grain is small or weak, it will break in the process of polishing), and contains less protein and lipid than ordinary table rice. Sake rice is used only for making sake, because it is unpalatable for eating.
Sake rice is usually polished to a much higher degree than rice that is used as food. The reason for polishing is a result of the composition and structure of the rice grain itself. The core of the rice grain is rich in starch, while the outer layers of the grain contain higher concentrations of fats, vitamins and proteins. Since higher concentration of fat and protein in the sake would lead to off-flavors and contribute rough elements to the sake, the outer layers of the sake rice grain is milled away in a polishing process, leaving only the starchy part of the grain (some sake brewers remove over 60% of the rice grain in the polishing process). That desirable pocket of starch in the center of the grain is called the shinpaku (心白). It usually takes two to three days to polish rice down to less than half its original size. The rice powder by-product of polishing is often used for making rice crackers, or Japanese sweets (i.e. Dango), and other food stuffs.
If the sake is made with rice that has a higher percentage of its husk and outer portion of the core milled off, then more rice will be required to make that particular sake, and it will take longer to produce. Thus, sake made with rice that has been highly milled is usually more expensive than a sake that has been made with less-polished rice. This does not always mean that sake made with highly-milled rice is of better quality than sake made by rice that has been milled less.
Rice polishing ratio, called "Seimai-buai" (see Glossary of sake terms) measures the degree of rice polishing. For example, rice polishing ratio of 60% means that the 60% of the original rice grain remains and the 40% has been polished away.
Water is one of the important ingredients for making sake. It is involved in almost every major process of sake brewing, from washing the rice to dilution of the final product before bottling. The mineral content of the water can be important in the final product. Iron will bond with an amino acid produced by the kōji to produce off flavors and a yellowish color. Manganese, when exposed to ultraviolet light, will also contribute to discoloration. Conversely potassium, magnesium, and phosphoric acid serve as nutrients for yeast during fermentation and are considered desirable. The yeast will use those nutrients to work faster and multiply resulting in more sugar being converted into alcohol. While soft water will typically yield sweeter sake, hard water with a higher nutrient content is known for producing drier-style sake.
The first region known for having great water was the Nada-Gogō in Hyōgo Prefecture. A particular water source called "Miyamizu" was found to produce high quality sake and attracted many producers to the region. Today Hyōgo has the most sake brewers of any prefecture.
Typically breweries obtain water from wells, though surface water can be used. Breweries may use tap water and filter and adjust components.
"Kōji-kin" ("Aspergillus oryzae") spores are another important component of sake. Kōji-kin is an enzyme-secreting fungus. In Japan, kōji-kin is used to make various fermented foods, including "miso" (a paste made from soybeans) and "shoyu" (soy sauce). It is also used to make alcoholic beverages, notably sake. During sake brewing, spores of kōji-kin are scattered over steamed rice to produce "kōji" (rice in which kōji-kin spores are cultivated). Under warm and moist conditions, the kōji-kin spores germinate and release enzymes called amylases that convert the rice starches into glucose. This process of starch conversion into simpler sugars (e.g. glucose or maltose) is called saccharification. Yeast then turns this glucose into alcohol via fermentation. Saccharification also occurs in beer brewing, where malt is used to convert starches from barley into maltose. However, whereas fermentation occurs "after" saccharification in beer brewing, saccharification (via kōji-kin) and fermentation (via yeast) occur "simultaneously" in sake brewing (see "Fermentation" below).
As kōji-kin is a microorganism used to manufacture food, its safety profile with respect to humans and the environment in sake brewing and other food-making processes must be considered. Various health authorities, including Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), consider kōji-kin ("A. oryzae") generally safe for use in food fermentation, including sake brewing. When assessing its safety, it is important to note that "A." "oryzae" lacks the ability to produce toxins, unlike the closely related "Aspergillus flavus". To date, there have been several reported cases of animals (e.g. parrots, a horse) being infected with "A. oryzae". In these cases the animals infected with "A. oryzae" were already weakened due to predisposing conditions such as recent injury, illness or stress, hence were susceptible to infections in general. Aside from these cases, there is no evidence to indicate "A. oryzae" is a harmful pathogen to either plants or animals in the scientific literature. Therefore, Health Canada considers "A. oryzae" “unlikely to be a serious hazard to livestock or to other organisms,” including "healthy or debilitated humans." Given its safety record in the scientific literature and extensive history of safe use (spanning several hundred years) in the Japanese food industry, the FDA and World Health Organization (WHO) also support the safety of "A. oryzae" for use in the production of foods like sake. In the US, the FDA classifies "A.oryzae" as a Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) organism.
Sake fermentation is a 3-step process called "sandan shikomi". The first step, called "hatsuzoe", involves steamed rice, water, and kōji-kin being added to the yeast starter called "shubo": a mixture of steamed rice, water, kōji, and yeast. This mixture becomes known as the "moromi" (the main mash during sake fermentation). The high yeast content of the shubo promotes the fermentation of the "moromi."
On the second day, the mixture is allowed to stand for a day to allow the yeast to multiply.
The second step (the third day of the process), called "nakazoe", involves the addition of a second batch of kōji, steamed rice, and water to the mixture. On the fourth day of the fermentation, the third step of the process, called "tomezoe", takes place. Here, the third and final batch of kōji, steamed rice, and water is added to the mixture to complete the 3-step process.
The fermentation process of sake is a multiple parallel fermentation, which is unique to sake. Multiple parallel fermentation is the conversion of starch into glucose followed by immediate conversion into alcohol. This process distinguishes sake from other liquors like beer because it occurs in a single vat, whereas with beer, for instance, starch to glucose conversion and glucose to alcohol conversion occur in separate vats. The breakdown of starch into glucose is caused by the kōji-kin fungus, while the conversion of glucose into alcohol is caused by yeast. Due to the yeast being available as soon as the glucose is produced, the conversion of glucose to alcohol is very efficient in sake brewing. This results in sake having a generally higher alcohol content than other types of liquor.
After the fermentation process is complete, the fermented moromi is pressed to remove the sake lees and then pasteurized and filtered for color. The sake is then stored in bottles under cold conditions (see "Maturation" below).
The entire process of making sake can range from 60–90 days (2–3 months), while the fermentation alone can take two weeks.
Like other brewed beverages, sake tends to benefit from a period of storage. Nine to twelve months are required for sake to mature. Maturation is caused by physical and chemical factors such as oxygen supply, the broad application of external heat, nitrogen oxides, aldehydes and amino acids, among other unknown factors.
is the job title of the sake brewer, named after Du Kang. It is a highly respected job in the Japanese society, with tōji being regarded like musicians or painters. The title of tōji was historically passed from father to son. Today new tōji are either veteran brewery workers or are trained at universities. While modern breweries with cooling tanks operate year-round, most old-fashioned sake breweries are seasonal, operating only in the cool winter months. During the summer and fall most tōji work elsewhere, commonly on farms, only periodically returning to the brewery to supervise storage conditions or bottling operations.
There are two basic types of sake: and . "Futsū-shu" is the equivalent of table wine and accounts for the majority of sake produced. "Tokutei meishō-shu" refers to premium sake distinguished by the degree to which the rice has been polished and the added percentage of brewer's alcohol or the absence of such additives. There are eight varieties of special-designation sake.
The four main grades of sake are "junmai", "honjozo", "ginjo" and "daiginjo". Generally "junmai" () is a term used for sake that is made of pure rice wine without any additional alcohol. The listing below has the highest quality at the top:
Some other terms commonly used in connection with sake:
The label on a bottle of sake gives a rough indication of its taste. Terms found on the label may include "nihonshu-do" (), "san-do" (), and "aminosan-do" ().
"Nihonshu-do" () or Sake Meter Value (SMV) is calculated from the specific gravity of the sake and indicates the sugar and alcohol content of the sake on an arbitrary scale. Typical values are between −3 (sweet) and +10 (dry), equivalent to specific gravities ranging between 1.007 and 0.998, though the maximum range of "Nihonshu-do" can go much beyond that. The "Nihonshu-do" must be considered together with "San-do" to determine the overall perception of dryness-sweetness, richness-lightness characteristics of a sake (for example, a higher level of acidity can make a sweet sake taste drier than it actually is).
"San-do" () indicates the concentration of acid, which is determined by titration with sodium hydroxide solution. This number is equal to the milliliters of titrant required to neutralize the acid in of sake.
"Aminosan-do" () indicates a taste of umami or savoriness. As the proportion of amino acids rises, the sake tastes more savory. This number is determined by titration of the sake with a mixture of sodium hydroxide solution and formaldehyde, and is equal to the milliliters of titrant required to neutralize the amino acids in 10 ml of sake.
Sake can have many flavor notes, such as fruits, flowers, herbs, and spices. Many types of sake have notes of apple from ethyl caproate, and banana from isoamyl acetate, particularly .
In Japan, sake is served chilled ("reishu" ), at room temperature ("jōon" or "hiya" ), or heated ("atsukan" ), depending on the preference of the drinker, the quality of the sake, and the season. Typically, hot sake is a winter drink, and high-grade sake is not drunk hot, because the flavors and aromas will be lost. This masking of flavor is the reason that low-quality and old sake is often served hot. There are gradations of temperature both for chilling and heating, about every , with hot sake generally served around , and chilled sake around , like white wine. Hot sake that has cooled ("kanzamashi" ) may be reheated.
Sake is traditionally drunk from small cups called "choko" or "o-choko" () and poured into the choko from ceramic flasks called "tokkuri". This is very common for hot sake, where the flask is heated in hot water and the small cups ensure that the sake does not get cold in the cup, but may also be used for chilled sake. Traditionally one does not pour one's own drink, which is known as "tejaku" (), but instead members of a party pour for each other, which is known as "shaku" (). This has relaxed in recent years, but is generally observed on more formal occasions, such as business meals, and is still often observed for the first drink.
Another traditional cup is the "masu", a box usually made of "hinoki" or "sugi", which was originally used for measuring rice. The masu holds exactly , so the sake is served by filling the masu to the brim; this is done for chilled or room temperature sake. In some Japanese restaurants, as a show of generosity, the server may put a glass inside the masu or put the masu on a saucer and pour until sake overflows and fills both containers.
Saucer-like cups called "sakazuki" are also used, most commonly at weddings and other ceremonial occasions, such as the start of the year or at the beginning of a kaiseki meal. In cheap bars, sake is often served room temperature in glass tumblers and called "koppu-zake" (). In more modern restaurants wine glasses are also used, and recently footed glasses made specifically for premium sake have also come into use.
Sake is traditionally served in units of (one "gō"), and this is still common, but other sizes are sometimes also available.
Traditionally sake is heated immediately before serving, but today restaurants may buy sake in boxes which can be heated in a specialized hot sake dispenser, thus allowing hot sake to be served immediately, though this is detrimental to the flavor. There are also a variety of devices for heating sake and keeping it warm, beyond the traditional tokkuri.
Aside from being served straight, sake can be used as a mixer for cocktails, such as tamagozake, saketinis or nogasake. Outside of Japan, the sake bomb, the origins of which are unclear, has become a popular drink in bars and Asia-themed karaoke clubs.
The Japanese Sake Association encourages people to drink chaser water for their health, and the water is called Yawaragi-mizu.
Traditionally sake was brewed only in the winter. While it can now be brewed year-round, there is still seasonality associated with sake, particularly artisanal ones. The most visible symbol of this is the "sugitama" (), a globe of cedar leaves traditionally hung outside a brewery when the new sake is brewed. The leaves start green, but turn brown over time, reflecting the maturation of the sake. These are now hung outside many restaurants serving sake. The new year's sake is called "shinshu" ("new sake"), and when initially released in late winter or early spring, many brewers have a celebration, known as "kurabiraki" (warehouse opening). Traditionally sake was best transported in the cool spring, to avoid spoilage in the summer heat, with a secondary transport in autumn, once the weather had cooled, known as "hiyaoroshi" ("cold wholesale distribution")—this autumn sake has matured over the summer.
There is not traditionally a notion of vintage of sake—it is generally drunk within the year, and if aged, it does not vary significantly from year to year. Today, with influence from wine vintages, some breweries label sake intended for aging with a vintage, but this is otherwise rare.
Sake is sold in volume units divisible by (a "gō"), the traditional Japanese unit for cup size: sake is traditionally sold by the gō-sized cup, or in a (one "shō," ten gō) sized flask. Today sake is also often sold in (four gō) bottles – note that this is almost the same as the standard for wine bottles, but is divisible into 4 gō. Particularly in convenience stores, sake may be sold in a single serving glass with a pull-off top ( "kappu-zake") – this is generally cheap sake – or in a small bottle.
In general, it is best to keep sake refrigerated in a cool or dark room, as prolonged exposure to heat or direct light will lead to spoilage. Sake stored at relatively high temperature can lead to formation of dicetopiperazine, a cyclo (Pro-Leu) that makes it bitter as it ages Sake has high microbiological stability due to its high content of ethanol, but incidences of spoilage have occurred. One of the microorganisms implicated in this spoilage is lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that has grown tolerant to ethanol and is referred to as hiochi-bacteria. Sake stored at room temperature is best consumed within a few months after purchase.
After opening a bottle of sake, it is best consumed within two or three hours. It is possible to store sake in the refrigerator, but it is recommended to consume it within two days. When premium sake is opened it begins to oxidize, which affects the taste. If the sake is kept in the refrigerator more than three days, it will lose its "best" flavor. This does not mean it should be disposed of if not consumed. Generally, sake can keep very well and taste good after weeks in the refrigerator. How long a sake will remain drinkable depends on the quality of the product, and whether it is sealed with a vacuum top to decrease oxidation.
Sake is often consumed as part of Shinto purification rituals. Sake served to gods as offerings prior to drinking are called or .
In a ceremony called "kagami biraki", wooden casks of sake are opened with mallets during Shinto festivals, weddings, store openings, sports and election victories, and other celebrations. This sake, called "iwai-zake" ("celebration sake"), is served freely to all to spread good fortune.
At the New Year many Japanese people drink a special sake called toso. Toso is a sort of iwai-zake made by soaking "tososan", a Chinese powdered medicine, overnight in sake. Even children sip a portion. In some regions, the first sips of toso are taken in order of age, from the youngest to the eldest. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28500 |
Scuba set
A scuba set is any breathing apparatus that is carried entirely by an underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure. Scuba is an anacronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Although strictly speaking the scuba set is only the diving equipment which is required for providing breathing gas to the diver, general usage includes the harness by which it is carried, and those accessories which are integral parts of the harness and breathing apparatus assembly, such as a jacket or wing style buoyancy compensator and instruments mounted in a combined housing with the pressure gauge, and in the looser sense it has been used to refer to any diving equipment used by the scuba diver, though this would more commonly and accurately be termed scuba equipment or scuba gear. Scuba is overwhelmingly the most common underwater breathing system used by recreational divers and is also used in professional diving when it provides advantages, usually of mobility and range, over surface supplied diving systems, and is allowed by the relevant code of practice.
Two basic functional systems of scuba are in general use: open-circuit-demand, and rebreather. In open-circuit demand scuba, the diver expels exhaled air to the environment, and requires each breath be delivered on demand by a diving regulator, which reduces the pressure from the storage cylinder. The breathing air is supplied through a demand valve when the diver reduces the pressure in the demand valve during inhalation.
In rebreather scuba, the system recycles the exhaled gas, removes carbon dioxide, and compensates for the used oxygen before the diver is supplied with gas from the breathing circuit. The amount of gas lost from the circuit during each breathing cycle depends on the design of the rebreather and depth change during the breathing cycle. Gas in the breathing circuit is at ambient pressure, and stored gas is provided through regulators or injectors, depending on design.
Within these systems, various mounting configurations may be used to carry the scuba set, depending on application and preference. These include back mount, which is generally used for recreational scuba and for bailout sets for surface supplied diving, side-mount, which is popular for tight cave penetrations, sling mount, used for stage-drop sets, decompression gas and bailout sets where the main gas supply is back mounted, and various non-standard carry systems for special circumstances.
The most immediate risk associated with scuba diving is drowning due to a failure of the breathing gas supply. This may be managed by diligent monitoring of remaining gas, adequate planning and provision of an emergency gas supply carried by the diver in a bailout cylinder or supplied by the diver's buddy.
The word "SCUBA" was coined in 1952 by Major Christian Lambertsen who served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1944 to 1946 as a physician. Lambertsen first called the closed circuit rebreather apparatus he had invented "Laru", an (acronym for Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit) but, in 1952, rejected the term "Laru" for "SCUBA" ("Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus"). Lambertsen's invention, for which he held several patents registered from 1940 to 1989, was a rebreather and is different from the open-circuit diving regulator and diving cylinder assemblies also commonly referred to as scuba.
Open-circuit-demand scuba is a 1943 invention by the Frenchmen Émile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau, but in the English language Lambertsen's acronym has become common usage and the name "Aqua-Lung" (often spelled "aqualung"), coined by Cousteau for use in English-speaking countries, has fallen into secondary use. As with radar, the acronym "scuba" has become so familiar that it is generally not capitalized and is treated as an ordinary noun. For example, it has been translated into the Welsh language as "sgwba".
"SCUBA" was originally an acronym, but the term scuba is currently used to refer to the apparatus or the practice of diving using the apparatus, either alone as a common noun, or as an adjective in scuba set and scuba diving respectively. It is also used as an adjective referring to equipment or activity relating to diving using self-contained breathing apparatus.
A diver uses a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba) to breathe underwater. Scuba provides the diver with the advantages of mobility and horizontal range far beyond the reach of an umbilical hose attached to surface-supplied diving equipment (SSDE).
Unlike other modes of diving, which rely either on breath-hold or on breathing supplied under pressure from the surface, scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually filtered compressed air, allowing them greater freedom of movement than with an air line or diver's umbilical and longer underwater endurance than breath-hold. Scuba diving may be done recreationally or professionally in a number of applications, including scientific, military and public safety roles, but most commercial diving uses surface supplied diving equipment for main gas supply when this is practicable. Surface supplied divers may be required to carry scuba as an emergency breathing gas supply to get them to safety in the event of a failure of surface gas supply.
There are divers who work, full or part-time, in the recreational diving community as instructors, assistant instructors, divemasters and dive guides. In some jurisdictions the professional nature, with particular reference to responsibility for health and safety of the clients, of recreational diver instruction, dive leadership for reward and dive guiding is recognised and regulated by national legislation.
Other specialist areas of scuba diving include military diving, with a long history of military frogmen in various roles. Their roles include direct combat, infiltration behind enemy lines, placing mines or using a manned torpedo, bomb disposal or engineering operations. In civilian operations, many police forces operate police diving teams to perform "search and recovery" or "search and rescue" operations and to assist with the detection of crime which may involve bodies of water. In some cases diver rescue teams may also be part of a fire department, paramedical service or lifeguard unit, and may be classed as public service diving.
There are also professional divers involved with underwater environment, such as underwater photographers or underwater videographers, who document the underwater world, or scientific diving, including marine biology, geology, hydrology, oceanography and underwater archaeology.
The choice between scuba and surface supplied diving equipment is based on both legal and logistical constraints. Where the diver requires mobility and a large range of movement, scuba is usually the choice if safety and legal constraints allow. Higher risk work, particularly in commercial diving, may be restricted to surface supplied equipment by legislation and codes of practice.
There are alternative methods that a person can use to survive and function while underwater, currently including:
Breathing from scuba is mostly a straightforward matter. Under most circumstances it differs very little from normal surface breathing. In the case of a full-face mask, the diver may usually breathe through the nose or mouth as preferred, and in the case of a mouth held demand valve, the diver will have to hold the mouthpiece between the teeth and maintain a seal around it with the lips. Over a long dive this can induce jaw fatigue, and for some people, a gag reflex. Various styles of mouthpiece are available off the shelf or as customised items, and one of them may work better if either of these problems occur.
The frequently quoted warning against holding one's breath on scuba is a gross oversimplification of the actual hazard. The purpose of the admonition is to ensure that inexperienced divers do not accidentally hold their breath while surfacing, as the expansion of gas in the lungs could over-expand the lung air spaces and rupture the alveoli and their capillaries, allowing lung gases to get into the pulmonary return circulation, the pleura, or the interstitial areas near the injury, where it could cause dangerous medical conditions. Holding the breath at constant depth for short periods with a normal lung volume is generally harmless, providing there is sufficient ventilation on average to prevent carbon dioxide buildup, and is done as a standard practice by underwater photographers to avoid startling their subjects. Holding the breath during descent can eventually cause lung squeeze, and may allow the diver to miss warning signs of a gas supply malfunction until it is too late to remedy.
Skilled open circuit divers can and will make small adjustments to buoyancy by adjusting their average lung volume during the breathing cycle. This adjustment is generally in the order of a kilogram (corresponding to a litre of gas), and can be maintained for a moderate period, but it is more comfortable to adjust the volume of the buoyancy compensator over the longer term.
The practice of shallow breathing or skip breathing in an attempt to conserve breathing gas should be avoided as it tends to cause a carbon dioxide buildup, which can result in headaches and a reduced capacity to recover from a breathing gas supply emergency. The breathing apparatus will generally increase dead space by a small but significant amount, and cracking pressure and flow resistance in the demand valve will cause a net work of breathing increase, which will reduce the diver's capacity for other work. Work of breathing and the effect of dead space can be minimised by breathing relatively deeply and slowly. These effects increase with depth, as density and friction increase in proportion to the increase in pressure, with the limiting case where all the diver's available energy may be expended on simply breathing, with none left for other purposes. This would be followed by a buildup in carbon dioxide, causing an urgent feeling of a need to breathe, and if this cycle is not broken, panic and drowning are likely to follow. The use of a low density inert gas, typically helium, in the breathing mixture can reduce this problem, as well as diluting the narcotic effects of the other gases.
Breathing from a rebreather is much the same, except that the work of breathing is affected mainly by flow resistance in the breathing loop. This is partly due to the carbon dioxide absorbent in the scrubber, and is related to the distance the gas passes through the absorbent material, and the size of the gaps between the grains, as well as the gas composition and ambient pressure. Water in the loop can greatly increase the resistance to gas flow through the scrubber. There is even less point in shallow or skip breathing on a rebreather as this does not even conserve gas, and the effect on buoyancy is negligible when the sum of loop volume and lung volume remains constant.
By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from unused oxygen, which is then recirculated. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash, the system giving a dive duration of up to about three hours. This apparatus had no way of measuring the gas composition during use. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. The British adapted the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus and the Germans adapted the Dräger submarine escape rebreathers, for their frogmen during the war. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented an underwater free-swimming oxygen rebreather in 1939, which was accepted by the Office of Strategic Services. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA,(an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus"), which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
Although a working demand regulator system had been invented in 1864 by Auguste Denayrouze and Benoît Rouquayrol, the first open-circuit scuba system developed in 1925 by Yves Le Prieur in France was a manually adjusted free-flow system with a low endurance, which limited the practical usefulness of the system. In 1942, during the German occupation of France, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Émile Gagnan designed the first successful and safe open-circuit scuba, known as the Aqua-Lung. Their system combined an improved demand regulator with high-pressure air tanks. This was patented in 1945. To sell his regulator in English-speaking countries Cousteau registered the Aqua-Lung trademark, which was first licensed to the U.S. Divers company, and in 1948 to Siebe Gorman of England, Siebe Gorman was allowed to sell in Commonwealth countries, but had difficulty in meeting the demand and the U.S. patent prevented others from making the product. The patent was circumvented by Ted Eldred of Melbourne, Australia, who developed the single-hose open-circuit scuba system, which separates the first stage and demand valve of the pressure regulator by a low-pressure hose, puts the demand valve at the diver's mouth, and releases exhaled gas through the demand valve casing. Eldred sold the first Porpoise Model CA single hose scuba early in 1952.
Early scuba sets were usually provided with a plain harness of shoulder straps and waist belt. The waist belt buckles were usually quick-release, and shoulder straps sometimes had adjustable or quick release buckles. Many harnesses did not have a backplate, and the cylinders rested directly against the diver's back. Early scuba divers dived without a buoyancy aid. In an emergency they had to jettison their weights. In the 1960s adjustable buoyancy life jackets (ABLJ) became available, which can be used to compensate for loss of buoyancy at depth due to compression of the neoprene wetsuit and as a lifejacket that will hold an unconscious diver face-upwards at the surface, and that can be quickly inflated. The first versions were inflated from a small disposable carbon dioxide cylinder, later with a small direct coupled air cylinder. A low-pressure feed from the regulator first-stage to an inflation/deflation valve unit an oral inflation valve and a dump valve lets the volume of the ABLJ be controlled as a buoyancy aid. In 1971 the stabilizer jacket was introduced by ScubaPro. This class of buoyancy aid is known as a buoyancy control device or buoyancy compensator.
A backplate and wing is an alternative configuration of scuba harness with a buoyancy compensation bladder known as a "wing" mounted behind the diver, sandwiched between the backplate and the cylinder or cylinders. Unlike stabilizer jackets, the backplate and wing is a modular system, in that it consists of separable components. This arrangement became popular with cave divers making long or deep dives, who needed to carry several extra cylinders, as it clears the front and sides of the diver for other equipment to be attached in the region where it is easily accessible. This additional equipment is usually suspended from the harness or carried in pockets on the exposure suit. Sidemount is a scuba diving equipment configuration which has basic scuba sets, each comprising a single cylinder with a dedicated regulator and pressure gauge, mounted alongside the diver, clipped to the harness below the shoulders and along the hips, instead of on the back of the diver. It originated as a configuration for advanced cave diving, as it facilitates penetration of tight sections of cave as, sets can be easily removed and remounted when necessary. The configuration allows easy access to cylinder valves, and provides easy and reliable gas redundancy. These benefits for operating in confined spaces were also recognized by divers who made wreck diving penetrations. Sidemount diving has grown in popularity within the technical diving community for general decompression diving, and has become a popular specialty for recreational diving.
Technical diving is recreational scuba diving that exceeds the generally accepted recreational limits, and may expose the diver to hazards beyond those normally associated with recreational diving, and to greater risks of serious injury or death. These risks may be reduced by appropriate skills, knowledge and experience, and by using suitable equipment and procedures. The concept and term are both relatively recent advents, although divers had already been engaging in what is now commonly referred to as technical diving for decades. One reasonably widely held definition is that any dive in which at some point of the planned profile it is not physically possible or physiologically acceptable to make a direct and uninterrupted vertical ascent to surface air is a technical dive. The equipment often involves breathing gases other than air or standard nitrox mixtures, multiple gas sources, and different equipment configurations. Over time, some equipment and techniques developed for technical diving have become more widely accepted for recreational diving.
The challenges of deeper dives and longer penetrations and the large amounts of breathing gas necessary for these dive profiles and ready availability of oxygen sensing cells beginning in the late 1980s led to a resurgence of interest in rebreather diving. By accurately measuring the partial pressure of oxygen, it became possible to maintain and accurately monitor a breathable gas mixture in the loop at any depth. In the mid 1990s semi-closed circuit rebreathers became available for the recreational scuba market, followed by closed circuit rebreathers around the turn of the millennium. Rebreathers are currently (2018) manufactured for the military, technical and recreational scuba markets.
Scuba sets are of two types:
Both types of scuba set include a means of supplying air or other breathing gas, nearly always from a high pressure diving cylinder, and a harness to attach it to the diver. Most open-circuit scuba sets have a demand regulator to control the supply of breathing gas, and most rebreathers have a constant-flow injector, or an electronically controlled injector to supply fresh gas, but also usually have an automatic diluent valve (ADV), which functions in the same way as a demand valve, to maintain the loop volume during descent.
Open-circuit-demand scuba exhausts exhaled air to the environment, and requires each breath to be delivered to the diver on demand by a diving regulator, which reduces the pressure from the storage cylinder and supplies it through the demand valve when the diver reduces the pressure in the demand valve slightly during inhalation.
The essential subsystems of an open-circuit scuba set are;
Additional components which when present are considered part of the scuba set are;
The buoyancy compensator is generally assembled as an integrated part of the set, but is not technically part of the breathing apparatus.
The cylinder is usually worn on the back. "Twin sets" with two low capacity back-mounted cylinders connected by a high pressure manifold were more common in the 1960s than now for recreational diving, although larger capacity twin cylinders ("doubles") are commonly used by technical divers for increased dive duration and redundancy. At one time a firm called Submarine Products sold a sport air scuba set with three manifolded back-mounted cylinders. Cave and wreck penetration divers sometimes carry cylinders attached at their sides instead, allowing them to swim through more confined spaces.
Newspapers and television news often wrongly describe open-circuit air scuba as "oxygen" equipment.
Constant flow scuba sets do not have a demand regulator; the breathing gas flows at a constant rate, unless the diver switches it on and off by hand. They use more air than demand regulated scuba. There were attempts at designing and using these for diving and for industrial use before the Cousteau-type aqualung became commonly available circa 1950. Examples were Charles Condert dress in the US (as of 1831), "Ohgushi's Peerless Respirator" in Japan (a bite-controlled regulator, as of 1918), and Commandant le Prieur's hand-controlled regulator in France (as of 1926); see Timeline of diving technology.
This system consists of one or more diving cylinders containing breathing gas at high pressure, typically , connected to a diving regulator. The demand regulator supplies the diver with as much gas as needed at the ambient pressure.
This type of breathing set is sometimes called an "aqualung". The word "Aqua-Lung", which first appeared in the Cousteau-Gagnan patent, is a trademark, currently owned by Aqua Lung/La Spirotechnique.
This is the first type of diving demand valve to come into general use, and the one that can be seen in classic 1960s television scuba adventures, such as Sea Hunt. They were often use with manifolded twin cylinders.
All the stages of this type of regulator are in a large valve assembly mounted directly to the cylinder valve or manifold, behind the diver's neck. Two large bore corrugated rubber breathing hoses connect the regulator with the mouthpiece, one for supply and one for exhaust. The exhaust hose is used to return the exhaled air to the regulator, to avoid pressure differences due to depth variation between the exhaust valve and final stage diaphragm, which would cause a free-flow of gas, or extra resistance to breathing, depending on the diver's orientation in the water. In modern single-hose sets this problem is avoided by moving the second-stage regulator to the diver's mouthpiece. The twin-hose regulators came with a mouthpiece as standard, but a full-face diving mask was an option.
Most modern open-circuit scuba sets have a diving regulator consisting of a first-stage pressure-reducing valve connected to the diving cylinder's output valve or manifold. This regulator reduces the pressure from the cylinder, which may be up to , to a lower pressure, generally between about 9 and 11 bar above the ambient pressure. A low-pressure hose links this with the second-stage regulator, or "demand valve", which is mounted on the mouthpiece. Exhalation occurs through a rubber one-way mushroom valve in the chamber of the demand valve, directly into the water quite close to the diver's mouth. Some early single hose scuba sets used full-face masks instead of a mouthpiece, such as those made by Desco and Scott Aviation (who continue to make breathing units of this configuration for use by firefighters).
Modern regulators typically feature high-pressure ports for pressure sensors of dive-computers and submersible pressure gauges, and additional low-pressure ports for hoses for inflation of dry suits and BC devices.
Most recreational scuba sets have a backup second-stage demand valve on a separate hose, a configuration called a "secondary", or "octopus" demand valve, "alternate air source", "safe secondary" or "safe-second". The idea was conceived by cave-diving pioneer Sheck Exley as a way for cave divers to share air while swimming single-file in a narrow tunnel, but has now become the standard in recreational diving. By providing a secondary demand valve the need to alternately breathe off the same mouthpiece when sharing air is eliminated. This reduces the stress on divers who are already in a stressful situation, and this in turn reduces air consumption during the rescue and frees the donor's hand.
Some diver training agencies recommend that a diver routinely offer their primary demand valve to a diver requesting to share air, and then switch to their own secondary demand valve. The idea behind this technique is that the primary demand valve is known to be working, and the diver donating the gas is less likely to be stressed or have a high carbon dioxide level, so has more time to sort out their own equipment after temporarily suspending the ability to breathe. In many instances, panicked divers have grabbed the primary regulators out of the mouths of other divers, so changing to the backup as a routine reduces stress when it is necessary in an emergency.
In technical diving donation of the primary demand valve is commonly the standard procedure, and the primary is connected to the first stage by a long hose, typically around 2 m, to allow gas sharing while swimming in single file in a narrow space as might be required in a cave or wreck. In this configuration the secondary is generally held under the chin by a loose bungee loop around the neck, supplied by a shorter hose, and is intended for backup use by the diver donating gas. The backup regulator is usually carried in the diver's chest area where it can be easily seen and accessed for emergency use. It may be worn secured by a breakaway clip on the buoyancy compensator, plugged into a soft friction socket attached to the harness, secured by sliding a loop of the hose into the shoulder strap cover of a jacket style BC, or suspended under the chin on a break-away bungee loop known as a necklace. These methods also keep the secondary from dangling below the diver and being contaminated by debris or snagging on the surroundings. Some divers store it in a BC pocket, but this reduces availability in an emergency.
Occasionally, the secondary second-stage is combined with the inflation and exhaust valve assembly of the buoyancy compensator device. This combination eliminates the need for a separate low pressure hose for the BC, though the low pressure hose connector for combined use must have a larger bore than for standard BC inflation hoses, because it will need to deliver a higher flow rate if it is used for breathing. This combination unit is carried in the position where the inflator unit would normally hang on the left side of the chest. With integrated DV/BC inflator designs, the secondary demand valve is at the end of the shorter BC inflation hose, and the donor must retain access to it for buoyancy control, so donation of the primary regulator to help another diver is essential with this configuration.
The secondary demand valve is often partially yellow in color, and may use a yellow hose, for high visibility, and as an indication that it is an emergency or backup device.
When a side-mount configuration is used, the usefulness of a secondary demand valve is greatly reduced, as each cylinder will have a regulator and the one not in use is available as a backup. This configuration also allows the entire cylinder to be handed off to the receiver, so a long hose is also less likely to be needed.
Some diving instructors continue to teach buddy-breathing from a single demand valve as an obsolescent but still occasionally useful technique, learned in addition to the use of the backup DV, since availability of two second stages per diver is now assumed as standard in recreational scuba.
There have been designs for a cryogenic open-circuit scuba which has liquid-air tanks instead of cylinders. Underwater cinematographer Jordan Klein, Sr. of Florida co-designed such a scuba in 1967, called "Mako", and made at least a prototype.
The Russian "Kriolang" (from Greek "cryo-" (= "frost" taken to mean "cold") + English "lung") was copied from Jordan Klein's "Mako" cryogenic open-circuit scuba. and were made until at least 1974. It would have to be filled a short time before use.
This type is mentioned here because it is very familiar in comics and other drawings, as a wrongly-drawn twin-hose two-cylinder aqualung, with one wide hose coming out of each cylinder top to the mouthpiece with no apparent regulator valve, much more often than a correctly-drawn twin-hose regulator (and often of such breathing sets being used by combat frogmen): see Underwater diving in popular culture#Errors about frogmen found in public media. It would not work in the real world.
A rebreather recirculates the breathing gas already used by the diver after replacing oxygen used by the diver and removing the carbon dioxide metabolic product. Rebreather diving is used by recreational, military and scientific divers where it can have advantages over open-circuit scuba. Since 80% or more of the oxygen remains in normal exhaled gas, and is thus wasted, rebreathers use gas very economically, making longer dives possible and special mixes cheaper to use at the cost of more complicated technology and more possible failure points. More stringent and specific training and greater experience is required to compensate for the higher risk involved. The rebreather's economic use of gas, typically of oxygen per minute, allows dives of much longer duration for an equivalent gas supply than is possible with open-circuit equipment where gas consumption may be ten times higher.
There are two main variants of rebreather – semi-closed circuit rebreathers, and fully closed circuit rebreathers, which include the subvariant of oxygen rebreathers. Oxygen rebreathers have a maximum safe operating depth of around , but several types of fully closed circuit rebreathers, when using a helium-based diluent, can be used deeper than . The main limiting factors on rebreathers are the duration of the carbon dioxide scrubber, which is generally at least 3 hours, increased work of breathing at depth, reliability of gas mixture control, and the requirement to be able to safely bail out at any point of the dive.
Rebreathers are generally used for scuba applications, but are also occasionally used for bailout systems for surface supplied diving.
The possible endurance of a rebreather dive is longer than an open-circuit dive, for similar weight and bulk of the set, if the set is bigger than the practical lower limit for rebreather size, and a rebreather can be more economical when used with expensive gas mixes such as heliox and trimix, but this may require a lot of diving before the break-even point is reached, due to the high initial and running costs of most rebreathers, and this point will be reached sooner for deep dives where the gas saving is more pronounced.
Until Nitrox, which contains more oxygen than air, was widely accepted in the late 1990s, almost all recreational scuba used simple compressed and filtered air. Other gas mixtures, typically used for deeper dives by technical divers, may substitute helium for some or all of the nitrogen (called Trimix, or Heliox if there is no nitrogen), or use lower proportions of oxygen than air. In these situations divers often carry additional scuba sets, called stages, with gas mixtures with higher levels of oxygen that are primarily used to reduce decompression time in staged decompression diving. These gas mixes allow longer dives, better management of the risks of decompression sickness, oxygen toxicity or lack of oxygen (hypoxia), and the severity of nitrogen narcosis. Closed circuit scuba sets (rebreathers) provide a gas mix that is controlled to optimise the mix for the actual depth at the time.
Gas cylinders used for scuba diving come in various sizes and materials and are typically designated by material – usually aluminium or steel, and size. In the U.S. the size is designated by their nominal capacity, the volume of the gas they contain when expanded to normal atmospheric pressure. Common sizes include 80, 100, 120 cubic feet, etc., with the most common being the "Aluminum 80". In most of the rest of the world the size is given as the actual internal volume of the cylinder, sometimes referred to as water capacity, as that is how it is measured and marked (WC) on the cylinder (10 liter, 12 liter, etc.).
Cylinder working pressure will vary according to the standard of manufacture, generally ranging from up to .
An aluminium cylinder is thicker and bulkier than a steel cylinder of the same capacity and working pressure, as suitable aluminium alloys have lower tensile strength than steel, and is more buoyant although actually heavier out of the water, which means the diver would need to carry more ballast weight. Steel is also more often used for high pressure cylinders, which carry more air for the same internal volume.
The common method of blending nitrox by partial pressure requires that the cylinder is in "oxygen service", which means that the cylinder and cylinder valve have had any non-oxygen-compatible components replaced and any contamination by combustible materials removed by cleaning.
Diving cylinders are sometimes colloquially called "tanks", "bottles" or "flasks" although the proper technical term for them is "cylinder".
The scuba set can be carried by the diver in several ways. The two most common basic mounting configurations are back-mount and side-mount, and back-mount may be expanded to include auxiliary side-mounting, including bungee-constrained low profile side-mount, and the less compact sling-mount or stage-mount arrangement.
Most common for recreational diving is the stabilizer jacket harness, in which a single cylinder, or occasionally twins, is strapped to the jacket style buoyancy compensator which is used as the harness. Some jacket style harnesses allow a bailout or decompression cylinder to be sling mounted from D-rings on the harness. A bailout cylinder can also be strapped to the side of the main back-mounted cylinder.
Another popular configuration is the backplate and wing arrangement, which uses a back inflation buoyancy compensator bladder sandwiched between a rigid backplate and the main gas cylinder or cylinders. This arrangement is particularly popular with twin or double cylinder sets, and can be used to carry larger sets of three or four cylinders and most rebreathers. Additional cylinders for decompression can be sling mounted at the diver's sides.
It is also possible to use a plain backpack harness to support the set, either with a horse-collar buoyancy compensator, or without any buoyancy compensator. This was the standard arrangement before the introduction of the buoyancy compensator, and is still used by some recreational and professional divers when it suits the diving operation.
Surface-supplied divers are generally required to carry an emergency gas supply, also known as a bailout set, which is usually back-mounted open circuit scuba connected into the breathing gas supply system by connecting an interstage hose to the gas switching block, (or bailout block), mounted on the side of the helmet or full-face mask, or on the diver's harness where it can easily be reached, but is unlikely to be accidentally opened. Other mounting arrangements may be used for special circumstances.
Side-mount harnesses support the cylinders by clipping them to D-rings at chest and hip on either or both sides, and the cylinders hang roughly parallel to the diver's torso when underwater. The harness usually includes a buoyancy compensator bladder. It is possible for a skilled diver to carry up to 3 cylinders on each side with this system.
An unusual configuration which does not appear to have become popular is the integrated harness and storage container. These units comprise a bag which contains the buoyancy bladder and the cylinder, with a harness and regulator components which are stored in the bag and unfolded to the working position when the bag is unzipped. Some military rebreathers such as the Interspiro DCSC also store the breathing hoses inside the housing when not in use.
Technical divers may need to carry several different gas mixtures. These are intended to be used at different stages of the planned dive profile, and for safety reasons it is necessary for the diver to be able to check which gas is in use at any given depth and time, and to open and close the supply valves when required, so the gases are generally carried in fully self-contained independent scuba sets, which are suspended from the harness at the diver's sides. This arrangement is known as stage mounting. Stage sets may be cached along a penetration guideline to be retrieved during exit for convenience. These are also sometimes called drop tanks.
Every scuba harness requires a system for supporting the cylinders on the harness, and a system for attaching the harness to the diver.
The most basic arrangement for a back-mounted set consists of a metal or webbing strap around the cylinder just below the shoulder, and another lower down the cylinder, to which webbing shoulder and waist straps are attached. Shoulder straps can be of fixed length to suit a particular diver, but are more often adjustable. Sometimes a quick release buckle is added to one or both of the shoulder straps. The waist belt has a buckle for closing and release. and the waist belt is usually adjustable for security and comfort. Various attachments have been used to attach the harness straps to the cylinder bands. A crotch strap is optional, and usually runs from the lower cylinder band to the front of the waistband. This strap prevents the set from riding upwards on the diver when in use. This arrangement is still occasionally seen in use.
The characteristic difference between this and the basic harness, is that a rigid or flexible backplate is added between the cylinder and the harness straps. The cylinder is attached to the backplate by metal or webbing straps, and the harness straps are attached to the backplate. In other respects the system is similar to the basic harness. Methods of fixing the cylinder include metal clamping bands, secured by bolts or lever operated clamps, or webbing straps, usually secured by cam buckles.
This style of harness was originally used in this simple form, but is currently more usually used with a back inflation wing type buoyancy compensator sandwiched between the cylinder and the backplate.
The combination of webbing strap and cam action buckle that is used to secure the cylinder to a buoyancy compensator or backplate is known as a cam band or cam strap. They are a type of tank band, which includes the stainless steel straps used to hold twin cylinder sets together. They generally rely on an over-centre lever action to provide tensioning and locking, which may be modified by length adjustment slots and secondary security fastening such as velcro to hold the free end in place. Most cam buckles for scuba are injection moulded plastic, but some are stainless steel. Many recreational scuba harnesses rely on a single cam band to hold the cylinder to the backplate. Other models provide two cam bands for security. A cam band can also be used on a sling or sidemount scuba set to attach the lower clip to the cylinder.
Stainless steel tank bands are the standard method for supporting manifolded twin cylinders, as they provide good support for the cylinders, minimise loads on the manifolds and provide simple and reliable attachment points for connection to a backplate
The most basic sidemount harness is little more than cylinders fitted with belt loops and slid onto the standard caver's belay or battery belt along with any extra weights needed to achieve neutral buoyancy, and a caver's belt mounted battery pack. This simple configuration is particularly low profile and suited to small cylinders.
A more complex but still minimalist system is a webbing harness with shoulder straps, waist belt and crotch strap, supporting a variety of sliders and D-rings for attachment of cylinders and accessories, with or without integrated weighting or separate weight belts, and with or without a back mounted buoyancy compensator, which may be attached to the harness, or directly to the diver. Cylinders are usually attached to a shoulder or chest D-ring and waist belt D-ring on each side.
In most scuba sets, a buoyancy compensator (BC) or buoyancy control device (BCD), such as a back-mounted wing or stabilizer jacket (also known as a "stab jacket"), is built into the harness. Although strictly speaking this is not a part of the breathing apparatus, it is usually connected to the diver's air supply, to provide easy inflation of the device. This can usually also be done manually via a mouthpiece, in order to save air while on the surface, or in case of a malfunction of the pressurized inflation system. The BCD inflates with air from the low pressure inflator hose to increase the volume of the scuba equipment and cause the diver gain buoyancy. Another button opens a valve to deflate the BCD and decrease the volume of the equipment and causes the diver to lose buoyancy. Some BCDs allow for integrated weight, meaning that the BCD has special pockets for the weights that can be dumped easily in case of an emergency. The function of the BCD, while underwater, is to keep the diver neutrally buoyant, "i.e.", neither floating up or sinking. The BCD is used to compensate for the compression of a wet suit, and to compensate for the decrease of the diver's mass as the air from the cylinder is breathed away.
Diving weighting systems increase the average density of the scuba diver and equipment to compensate for the buoyancy of diving equipment, particularly the diving suit, allowing the diver to fully submerge with ease by obtaining neutral or slightly negative buoyancy. Weighting systems originally consisted of solid lead blocks attached to a belt around the diver's waist, but some diving weighting systems are incorporated into the BCD or harness. These systems may use small nylon bags of lead shot or small weights which are distributed around the BCD, allowing a diver to gain a better overall weight distribution leading to a more horizontal trim in the water. Tank weights can be attached to the cylinder or threaded on the cambands holding the cylinder into the BCD.
Many closed circuit rebreathers use advanced electronics to monitor and regulate the composition of the breathing gas.
Rebreather divers and some open-circuit scuba divers carry extra diving cylinders for bailout in case the main breathing gas supply is used up or malfunctions. If the bailout cylinder is small, they may be called "pony cylinders". They have their own demand regulators and mouthpieces, and are technically distinct extra scuba sets. In technical diving, the diver may carry different equipment for different phases of the dive. Some breathing gas mixes, such as trimix, may only be used at depth, and others, such as pure oxygen, may only be used during decompression stops in shallow water. The heaviest cylinders are generally carried on the back supported by a backplate while others are side slung from strong points on the harness.
When the diver carries many diving cylinders, especially those made of steel, lack of buoyancy can be a problem. High-capacity BCs may be needed to allow the diver to effectively control buoyancy.
An excess of tubes and connections passing through the water tend to decrease swimming performance by causing hydrodynamic drag.
A diffuser is a component fitted over the exhaust outlet to break up the exhaled gas into bubbles small enough not to be seen above the surface the water, and make less noise (see acoustic signature). They are used in combat diving, to avoid detection by surface observers or by underwater hydrophones, Underwater mine disposal operations conducted by clearance divers, to make less noise, to reduce the risk of detonating acoustic mines, and in marine biology, to avoid disruption of fish behavior.
Designing an adequate diffuser for a rebreather is much easier than for open-circuit scuba, as the gas flow rate is generally much lower. An open-circuit diffuser system called the "scuba muffler" was prototyped by Eddie Paul in the early 1990s for underwater photographers John McKenney and Marty Snyderman; the prototype had two large filter stones mounted on the back of the cylinder with a hose connected to the exhaust ports of the second-stage regulator. The filter stones were mounted on a hinged arm to float above the diver, to set up a depth-pressure-differential suction effect to counteract the extra exhalation pressure needed to breathe out through the diffuser. The scuba muffler was claimed to cut the exhalation noise by 90%. Closed circuit rebreathers proved more useful in letting divers get near sharks.
Gas endurance of a scuba set is the time that the gas supply will last during a dive. This is influenced by the type of scuba set and the circumstances in which it is used.
The gas endurance of open-circuit-demand scuba depends on factors such as the capacity (volume of gas) in the diving cylinder, the depth of the dive and the breathing rate of the diver, which is dependent on exertion, fitness, physical size of the diver, state of mind, and experience, among other factors. New divers frequently consume all the air in a standard "aluminum 80" cylinder in 30 minutes or less on a typical dive, while experienced divers frequently dive for 60 to 70 minutes at the same average depth, using the same capacity cylinder, as they have learned more efficient diving techniques.
An open-circuit diver whose breathing rate at the surface (atmospheric pressure) is 15 litres per minute will consume 3 x 15 = 45 litres of gas per minute at 20 metres. [(20 m/10 m per bar) + 1 bar atmospheric pressure] × 15 L/min = 45 L/min). If an 11-litre cylinder filled to 200 bar is to be used until there is a reserve of 17% there is (83% × 200 × 11) = 1826 litres available. At 45 L/min the dive at depth will be a maximum of 40.5 minutes (1826/45). These depths and times are typical of experienced recreational divers leisurely exploring a coral reef using standard 200 bar "aluminum 80" cylinders as may be rented from a commercial recreational diving operation in most tropical island or coastal resorts.
A semi-closed circuit rebreather may have an endurance of about 3 to 10 times that of the equivalent open-circuit dive, and is less affected by depth; gas is recycled but fresh gas must be constantly injected to replace at least the oxygen used, and any excess gas from this must be vented. Although it uses gas more economically, the weight of the rebreather encourages the diver to carry smaller cylinders. Still, most semi-closed systems allow at least twice the duration of average sized open-circuit systems (around 2 hours) and are often limited by scrubber endurance.
An oxygen rebreather diver or a fully closed circuit rebreather diver consumes about 1 litre of oxygen corrected to atmospheric pressure per minute. Except during ascent or descent, the fully closed circuit rebreather that is operating correctly uses very little or no diluent. A diver with a 3-litre oxygen cylinder filled to 200 bar who leaves 25% in reserve will be able to do a 450-minute = 7.5 hour dive (3 litres × 200 bar × 0.75 litres per minute = 450 minutes). This endurance is independent of depth. The life of the soda lime scrubber is likely to be less than this and so will be the limiting factor of the dive.
In practice, dive times for rebreathers are more often influenced by other factors, such as water temperature and the need for safe ascent (see Decompression (diving)), and this is generally also true for large-capacity open-circuit sets.
Scuba sets contain breathing gas at high pressure. The stored energy of the gas can do considerable damage if released in an uncontrolled manner. The highest risk is during charging of cylinders, but injuries have also occurred when cylinders have been stored in excessively hot environment, which can increase the gas pressure, by the use of incompatible cylinder valves, which can blow out under load, or by rupture of regulator hoses in contact with the user, as a pressure of more than can rupture the skin, and inject gas into the tissues, along with possible contaminants.
Scuba is safety-critical equipment, as some modes of failure can put the user at immediate risk of death by drowning, and a catastrophic failure of a scuba cylinder can instantly kill or severely injure persons in the vicinity. Open circuit scuba is considered highly reliable if correctly assembled, tested, filled, maintained and used, and the risk of failure is fairly low, but high enough that it should be considered in dive planning, and where appropriate, precautions should be taken to allow appropriate response in case of a failure. Mitigation options depend on the circumstances and mode of failure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28502 |
Subtractive synthesis
Subtractive synthesis is a method of sound synthesis in which partials of an audio signal (often one rich in harmonics) are attenuated by a filter to alter the timbre of the sound. While subtractive synthesis can be applied to any source audio signal, the sound most commonly associated with the technique is that of analog synthesizers of the 1960s and 1970s, in which the harmonics of simple waveforms such as sawtooth, pulse or square waves are attenuated with a voltage-controlled resonant low-pass filter. Many digital, virtual analog and software synthesizers use subtractive synthesis, sometimes in conjunction with other methods of sound synthesis.
The basis of subtractive synthesis can be understood by considering the human voice; when a human speaks, sings or makes other vocal noises, the vocal folds act as an oscillator and the mouth and throat as a filter. Consider the difference between singing "oooh" and "aaah" , at the same pitch. The sound generated by the vocal folds is much the same in either case — a sound that is rich in harmonics. The difference between the two comes from the filtering applied with the mouth and throat. By changing the shape of the mouth, the frequency response of the filter is changed, removing (subtracting) some of the harmonics. The "aaah" sound has most of the original harmonics still present; the "oooh" sound has most of them removed (or, to be more precise, reduced in amplitude). By gradually changing from "oooh" to "aaah" and back again, a spectral glide is created, emulating the "sweeping filter" effect that is the basis of the "wah-wah" guitar effect.
Humans are also capable of generating something approximating white noise by making a "sshh" sound. If a person "synthesizes" a "jet plane landing" sound, this is achieved mostly by altering the shape of the mouth to filter the white noise into pink noise by removing the higher frequencies. The same technique (filtered white noise) can be used to electronically synthesize the sound of ocean waves and wind, and was used in early drum machines to create snare drum and other percussion sounds.
For example, say the word "shoe" slowly, but keep making the "sh" throughout the entire word instead of just the beginning. Also try making the "sh" sound, but with a smile expression, and then continue "sh" while changing to a puckered or kissing expression.
The following is an example of subtractive synthesis as it might occur in an electronic instrument. It was created with a personal computer program designed to emulate an analogue subtractive synthesizer. This example will attempt to imitate the sound of a plucked string.
"Whilst the following example illustrates how a desired sound might be achieved in practice, only the final three stages are really subtractive synthesis, and the early stages could be considered to be a form of additive synthesis."
In real music production, there is often an additional step. An oscillator with a very low frequency modulates one or more sounds over time, creating a dynamically changing sound. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28503 |
San Diego
San Diego (, ; ) is a city in the U.S. state of California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, approximately south of Los Angeles and immediately adjacent to the border with Mexico. With an estimated population of 1,423,851 as of July 1, 2019, San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest in California. It is part of the San Diego–Tijuana conurbation, the second-largest transborder agglomeration between the U.S. and a bordering country after Detroit–Windsor, with a population of 4,922,723 people. The city is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches, long association with the United States Navy, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center.
San Diego has been called "the birthplace of California". Historically home to the Kumeyaay people, it was the first site visited by Europeans on what is now the West Coast of the United States. Upon landing in San Diego Bay in 1542, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later. The Presidio and Mission San Diego de Alcalá, founded in 1769, formed the first European settlement in what is now California. In 1821, San Diego became part of the newly declared Mexican Empire, which reformed as the First Mexican Republic two years later. California became part of the United States in 1848 following the Mexican–American War and was admitted to the union as a state in 1850.
The city is the seat of San Diego County and is the economic center of the region as well as the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. San Diego's main economic engines are military and defense-related activities, tourism, international trade, and manufacturing. The presence of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), with the affiliated UCSD Medical Center, has helped make the area a center of research in biotechnology.
The original inhabitants of the region are now known as the San Dieguito and La Jolla people. The area of San Diego has been inhabited by the Kumeyaay people.
The first European to visit the region was explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, sailing under the flag of Castile but possibly born in Portugal. Sailing his flagship "San Salvador" from Navidad, New Spain, Cabrillo claimed the bay for the Spanish Empire in 1542, and named the site "San Miguel". In November 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno was sent to map the California coast. Arriving on his flagship "San Diego", Vizcaíno surveyed the harbor and what are now Mission Bay and Point Loma and named the area for the Catholic Saint Didacus, a Spaniard more commonly known as "San Diego de Alcalá". On November 12, 1602, the first Christian religious service of record in Alta California was conducted by Friar Antonio de la Ascensión, a member of Vizcaíno's expedition, to celebrate the feast day of San Diego.
The permanent colonization of California and of San Diego began in 1769 with the arrival of four contingents of Spaniards from New Spain and the Baja California peninsula. Two seaborne parties reached San Diego Bay: the "San Carlos", under Vicente Vila and including as notable members the engineer and cartographer Miguel Costansó and the soldier and future governor Pedro Fages, and the "San Antonio", under Juan Pérez. An initial overland expedition to San Diego from the south was led by the soldier Fernando Rivera and included the Franciscan missionary, explorer, and chronicler Juan Crespí, followed by a second party led by the designated governor Gaspar de Portolà and including the mission president (and now saint) Junípero Serra.
In May 1769, Portolà established the Fort Presidio of San Diego on a hill near the San Diego River. It was the first settlement by Europeans in what is now the state of California. In July of the same year, Mission San Diego de Alcalá was founded by Franciscan friars under Serra. By 1797, the mission boasted the largest native population in Alta California, with over 1,400 neophytes living in and around the mission proper. Mission San Diego was the southern anchor in Alta California of the historic mission trail El Camino Real. Both the Presidio and the Mission are National Historic Landmarks.
In 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain, and San Diego became part of the Mexican territory of Alta California. In 1822, Mexico began its attempt to extend its authority over the coastal territory of Alta California. The fort on Presidio Hill was gradually abandoned, while the town of San Diego grew up on the level land below Presidio Hill. The Mission was secularized by the Mexican government in 1834, and most of the Mission lands were granted to former soldiers. The 432 residents of the town petitioned the governor to form a pueblo, and Juan María Osuna was elected the first "alcalde" ("municipal magistrate"), defeating Pío Pico in the vote. (See, "List of pre-statehood mayors of San Diego".) However, San Diego had been losing population throughout the 1830s and in 1838 the town lost its pueblo status because its size dropped to an estimated 100 to 150 residents. Beyond town Mexican land grants expanded the number of California ranchos that modestly added to the local economy.
Americans gained an increased awareness of California, and its commercial possibilities, from the writings of two countrymen involved in the often officially forbidden, to foreigners, but economically significant hide and tallow trade, where San Diego was a major port and the only one with an adequate harbor: William Shaler's "Journal of a Voyage Between China and the North-Western Coast of America, Made in 1804" and Richard Henry Dana's more substantial and convincing account, of his 1834–36 voyage, the classic "Two Years Before the Mast".
In 1846, the United States went to war against Mexico and sent a naval and land expedition to conquer Alta California. At first they had an easy time of it capturing the major ports including San Diego, but the Californios in southern Alta California struck back. Following the successful revolt in Los Angeles, the American garrison at San Diego was driven out without firing a shot in early October 1846. Mexican partisans held San Diego for three weeks until October 24, 1846, when the Americans recaptured it. For the next several months the Americans were blockaded inside the pueblo. Skirmishes occurred daily and snipers shot into the town every night. The Californios drove cattle away from the pueblo hoping to starve the Americans and their Californio supporters out. On December 1 the Americans garrison learned that the dragoons of General Stephen W. Kearney were at Warner's Ranch. Commodore Robert F. Stockton sent a mounted force of fifty under Captain Archibald Gillespie to march north to meet him. Their joint command of 150 men, returning to San Diego, encountered about 93 Californios under Andrés Pico. In the ensuing Battle of San Pasqual, fought in the San Pasqual Valley which is now part of the city of San Diego, the Americans suffered their worst losses in the campaign. Subsequently, a column led by Lieutenant Gray arrived from San Diego, rescuing Kearny's battered and blockaded command.
Stockton and Kearny went on to recover Los Angeles and force the capitulation of Alta California with the "Treaty of Cahuenga" on January 13, 1847. As a result of the Mexican–American War of 1846–48, the territory of Alta California, including San Diego, was ceded to the United States by Mexico, under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. The Mexican negotiators of that treaty tried to retain San Diego as part of Mexico, but the Americans insisted that San Diego was "for every commercial purpose of nearly equal importance to us with that of San Francisco," and the Mexican–American border was eventually established to be one league south of the southernmost point of San Diego Bay, so as to include the entire bay within the United States.
The state of California was admitted to the United States in 1850. That same year San Diego has designated the seat of the newly established San Diego County and was incorporated as a city. Joshua H. Bean, the last alcalde of San Diego, was elected the first mayor. Two years later the city was bankrupt; the California legislature revoked the city's charter and placed it under control of a board of trustees, where it remained until 1889. A city charter was reestablished in 1889, and today's city charter was adopted in 1931.
The original town of San Diego was located at the foot of Presidio Hill, in the area which is now Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. The location was not ideal, being several miles away from navigable water at its port at La Playa. In 1850, William Heath Davis promoted a new development by the bay shore called "New San Diego", several miles south of the original settlement; however, for several decades the new development consisted only of a pier, a few houses and an Army depot for the support of Fort Yuma. After 1854, the fort became supplied by sea and by steamboats on the Colorado River and the depot fell into disuse. From 1857 to 1860, San Diego became the western terminus of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line, the earliest overland stagecoach and mail operation from the Eastern United States to California, coming from Texas through New Mexico Territory in less than 30 days.
In the late 1860s, Alonzo Horton promoted a move to the bayside area, which he called "New Town" and which became Downtown San Diego. Horton promoted the area heavily, and people and businesses began to relocate to New Town because its location on San Diego Bay was convenient to shipping. New Town soon eclipsed the original settlement, known to this day as Old Town, and became the economic and governmental heart of the city. Still, San Diego remained a relative backwater town until the arrival of a railroad connection in 1878.
In the early part of the 20th century, San Diego hosted the World's Fair twice: the Panama-California Exposition (1915) and the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935. Both expositions were held in Balboa Park, and many of the Spanish/Baroque-style buildings that were built for those expositions remain to this day as central features of the park. The buildings were intended to be temporary structures, but most remained in continuous use until they progressively fell into disrepair. Most were eventually rebuilt, using castings of the original façades to retain the architectural style. The menagerie of exotic animals featured at the 1915 exposition provided the basis for the San Diego Zoo. During the 1950s there was a citywide festival called Fiesta del Pacifico highlighting the area's Spanish and Mexican past. In the 2010s there was a proposal for a large-scale celebration of the 100th anniversary of Balboa Park, but the plans were abandoned when the organization tasked with putting on the celebration went out of business.
The southern portion of the Point Loma peninsula was set aside for military purposes as early as 1852. Over the next several decades the Army set up a series of coastal artillery batteries and named the area Fort Rosecrans. Significant U.S. Navy presence began in 1901 with the establishment of the Navy Coaling Station in Point Loma, and expanded greatly during the 1920s. By 1930, the city was host to Naval Base San Diego, Naval Training Center San Diego, San Diego Naval Hospital, Camp Matthews, and Camp Kearny (now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar). The city was also an early center for aviation: as early as World War I, San Diego was proclaiming itself "The Air Capital of the West". The city was home to important airplane developers and manufacturers like Ryan Airlines (later Ryan Aeronautical), founded in 1925, and Consolidated Aircraft (later Convair), founded in 1923. Charles A. Lindbergh's plane The Spirit of St. Louis was built in San Diego in 1927 by Ryan Airlines.
During World War II, San Diego became a major hub of military and defense activity, due to the presence of so many military installations and defense manufacturers. The city's population grew rapidly during and after World War II, more than doubling between 1930 (147,995) and 1950 (333,865). During the final months of the war, the Japanese had a plan to target multiple U.S. cities for biological attack, starting with San Diego. The plan was called "Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night" and called for kamikaze planes filled with fleas infected with plague ("Yersinia pestis") to crash into civilian population centers in the city, hoping to spread plague in the city and effectively kill tens of thousands of civilians. The plan was scheduled to launch on September 22, 1945, but was not carried out because Japan surrendered five weeks earlier.
After World War II, the military continued to play a major role in the local economy, but post-Cold War cutbacks took a heavy toll on the local defense and aerospace industries. The resulting downturn led San Diego leaders to seek to diversify the city's economy by focusing on research and science, as well as tourism.
From the start of the 20th century through the 1970s, the American tuna fishing fleet and tuna canning industry were based in San Diego, "the tuna capital of the world". San Diego's first tuna cannery was founded in 1911, and by the mid-1930s the canneries employed more than 1,000 people. A large fishing fleet supported the canneries, mostly staffed by immigrant fishermen from Japan, and later from the Portuguese Azores and Italy whose influence is still felt in neighborhoods like Little Italy and Point Loma. Due to rising costs and foreign competition, the last of the canneries closed in the early 1980s.
Downtown San Diego was in decline in the 1960s and 1970s, but experienced some urban renewal since the early 1980s, including the opening of Horton Plaza, the revival of the Gaslamp Quarter, and the construction of the San Diego Convention Center; Petco Park opened in 2004.
According to SDSU professor emeritus Monte Marshall, San Diego Bay is "the surface expression of a north-south-trending, nested graben". The Rose Canyon and Point Loma fault zones are part of the San Andreas Fault system. About east of the bay are the Laguna Mountains in the Peninsular Ranges, which are part of the backbone of the American continents.
The city lies on approximately 200 deep canyons and hills separating its mesas, creating small pockets of natural open space scattered throughout the city and giving it a hilly geography. Traditionally, San Diegans have built their homes and businesses on the mesas, while leaving the urban canyons relatively wild. Thus, the canyons give parts of the city a segmented feel, creating gaps between otherwise proximate neighborhoods and contributing to a low-density, car-centered environment. The San Diego River runs through the middle of San Diego from east to west, creating a river valley that serves to divide the city into northern and southern segments. During the historic period and presumably earlier as well, the river has shifted its flow back and forth between San Diego Bay and Mission Bay, and its fresh water was the focus of the earliest Spanish explorers. Miguel Costansó, a cartographer, wrote in 1769, "When asked by signs where the watering-place was, the Indians pointed to a grove which could be seen at a considerable distance to the northeast, giving to understand that a river or creek flowed through it, and that they would lead our men to it if they would follow." That river was the San Diego River. Several reservoirs and Mission Trails Regional Park also lie between and separate developed areas of the city.
Notable peaks within the city limits include Cowles Mountain, the highest point in the city at ; Black Mountain at ; and Mount Soledad at . The Cuyamaca Mountains and Laguna Mountains rise to the east of the city, and beyond the mountains are desert areas. The Cleveland National Forest is a half-hour drive from downtown San Diego. Numerous farms are found in the valleys northeast and southeast of the city.
In its 2013 ParkScore ranking, The Trust for Public Land reported that San Diego had the 9th-best park system among the 50 most populous U.S. cities. ParkScore ranks city park systems by a formula that analyzes acreage, access, and service and investment.
The City of San Diego recognizes 52 individual areas as Community Planning Areas. Within a given planning area there may be several distinct neighborhoods. Altogether the city contains more than 100 identified neighborhoods.
Downtown San Diego is located on San Diego Bay. Balboa Park encompasses several mesas and canyons to the northeast, surrounded by older, dense urban communities including Hillcrest and North Park. To the east and southeast lie City Heights, the College Area, and Southeast San Diego. To the north lies Mission Valley and Interstate 8. The communities north of the valley and freeway, and south of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, include Clairemont, Kearny Mesa, Tierrasanta, and Navajo. Stretching north from Miramar are the northern suburbs of Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch, Rancho Peñasquitos, and Rancho Bernardo. The far northeast portion of the city encompasses Lake Hodges and the San Pasqual Valley, which holds an agricultural preserve. Carmel Valley and Del Mar Heights occupy the northwest corner of the city. To their south are Torrey Pines State Reserve and the business center of the Golden Triangle. Further south are the beach and coastal communities of La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, and Ocean Beach. Point Loma occupies the peninsula across San Diego Bay from downtown. The communities of South San Diego, such as San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, are located next to the Mexico–United States border, and are physically separated from the rest of the city by the cities of National City and Chula Vista. A narrow strip of land at the bottom of San Diego Bay connects these southern neighborhoods with the rest of the city.
For the most part, San Diego neighborhood boundaries tend to be understood by its residents based on geographical boundaries like canyons and street patterns. The city recognized the importance of its neighborhoods when it organized its 2008 General Plan around the concept of a "City of Villages".
San Diego was originally centered on the Old Town district, but by the late 1860s the focus had shifted to the bayfront, in the belief that this new location would increase trade. As the "New Town" – present-day Downtown – waterfront location quickly developed, it eclipsed Old Town as the center of San Diego.
The development of skyscrapers over in San Diego is attributed to the construction of the El Cortez Hotel in 1927, the tallest building in the city from 1927 to 1963. As time went on, multiple buildings claimed the title of San Diego's tallest skyscraper, including the Union Bank of California Building and Symphony Towers. Currently the tallest building in San Diego is One America Plaza, standing tall, which was completed in 1991. The downtown skyline contains no super-talls, as a regulation put in place by the Federal Aviation Administration in the 1970s set a limit on the height of buildings within a radius of the San Diego International Airport. An iconic description of the skyline includes its skyscrapers being compared to the tools of a toolbox.
San Diego has one of the top-ten best climates in the United States, according to the "Farmers' Almanac" and has one of the two best summer climates in the country as scored by The Weather Channel. Under the Köppen–Geiger climate classification system, the San Diego area has been variously categorized as having either a semi-arid climate ("BSh" in the original classification and "BSkn" in modified Köppen classification with the n denoting summer fog) or a Mediterranean climate ("Csa"). San Diego's climate is characterized by warm, dry summers and mild winters, with most of the annual precipitation falling between December and March. The city has a mild climate year-round, with an average of 201 days above and low rainfall ( annually).
The climate in San Diego, like most of Southern California, often varies significantly over short geographical distances, resulting in microclimates. In San Diego, this is mostly because of the city's topography (the Bay, and the numerous hills, mountains, and canyons). Frequently, particularly during the "May gray/June gloom" period, a thick "marine layer" cloud cover keeps the air cool and damp within a few miles of the coast, but yields to bright cloudless sunshine approximately inland. Sometimes the June gloom lasts into July, causing cloudy skies over most of San Diego for the entire day. Even in the absence of June gloom, inland areas experience much more significant temperature variations than coastal areas, where the ocean serves as a moderating influence. Thus, for example, downtown San Diego averages January lows of and August highs of . The city of El Cajon just inland from downtown San Diego, averages January lows of and August highs of .
A sign of global warming, the average surface temperature of the water at Scripps Pier in the California Current has increased by almost 3 degrees since 1950, according to scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Annual rainfall along the coast averages and the median is . The months of December through March supply most of the rain, with February the only month averaging or more. The months of May through September tend to be almost completely dry. Although there are few wet days per month during the rainy period, rainfall can be heavy when it does fall. Rainfall is usually greater in the higher elevations of San Diego; some of the higher areas can receive per year. Variability from year to year can be dramatic: in the wettest years of 1883/1884 and 1940/1941 more than fell, whilst in the driest years there was as little as . The wettest month on record is December 1921 with .
Snow in the city is so rare that it has been observed only six times in the century-and-a-half that records have been kept. In 1949 and 1967, snow stayed on the ground for a few hours in higher locations like Point Loma and La Jolla. The other three occasions, in 1882, 1946, and 1987, involved flurries but no accumulation. On February 21, 2019, snow fell and accumulated in residential areas of the city, but none fell in the downtown area.
Like much of southern California, the majority of San Diego's current area was originally occupied on the west by coastal sage scrub and on the east by chaparral, plant communities made up mostly of drought-resistant shrubs. The steep and varied topography and proximity to the ocean create a number of different habitats within the city limits, including tidal marsh and canyons. The chaparral and coastal sage scrub habitats in low elevations along the coast are prone to wildfire, and the rates of fire increased in the 20th century, due primarily to fires starting near the borders of urban and wild areas.
San Diego's broad city limits encompass a number of large nature preserves, including Torrey Pines State Reserve, Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve, and Mission Trails Regional Park. Torrey Pines State Reserve and a coastal strip continuing to the north constitute one of only two locations where the rare species of Torrey Pine, "Pinus torreyana", is found. Due to the steep topography that prevents or discourages building, along with some efforts for preservation, there are also a large number of canyons within the city limits that serve as nature preserves, including Switzer Canyon, Tecolote Canyon Natural Park, and Marian Bear Memorial Park in San Clemente Canyon, as well as a number of small parks and preserves.
San Diego County has one of the highest counts of animal and plant species that appear on the endangered list of counties in the United States. Because of its diversity of habitat and its position on the Pacific Flyway, San Diego County has recorded 492 different bird species, more than any other region in the country. San Diego always scores high in the number of bird species observed in the annual Christmas Bird Count, sponsored by the Audubon Society, and it is known as one of the "birdiest" areas in the United States.
San Diego and its backcountry suffer from periodic wildfires. In October 2003, San Diego was the site of the Cedar Fire, at that time the largest wildfire in California over the past century. The fire burned , killed 15 people, and destroyed more than 2,200 homes. In addition to damage caused by the fire, smoke resulted in a significant increase in emergency room visits due to asthma, respiratory problems, eye irritation, and smoke inhalation; the poor air quality caused San Diego County schools to close for a week. Wildfires four years later destroyed some areas, particularly within Rancho Bernardo, as well as the nearby communities of Rancho Santa Fe and Ramona.
The city had a population of 1,307,402 according to the 2010 census, distributed over a land area of . The urban area of San Diego extends beyond the administrative city limits and had a total population of 2,956,746, making it the third-largest urban area in the state, after that of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Francisco metropolitan area. They, along with the Riverside–San Bernardino, form those metropolitan areas in California larger than the San Diego metropolitan area, which had a total population of 3,095,313 at the 2010 census.
The 2010 population represents an increase of just under 7% from the 1,223,400 people, 450,691 households, and 271,315 families reported in 2000. The estimated city population in 2009 was 1,306,300. The population density was . The racial makeup of San Diego was 58.9% White, 6.7% African American, 0.6% Native American, 15.9% Asian (5.9% Filipino, 2.7% Chinese, 2.5% Vietnamese, 1.3% Indian, 1.0% Korean, 0.7% Japanese, 0.4% Laotian, 0.3% Cambodian, 0.1% Thai). 0.5% Pacific Islander (0.2% Guamanian, 0.1% Samoan, 0.1% Native Hawaiian), 12.3% from other races, and 5.1% from two or more races. The ethnic makeup of the city was 28.8% Hispanic or Latino (of any race); 24.9% of the total population were Mexican American, 1.4% were Spanish American and 0.6% were Puerto Rican. Median age of Hispanics was 27.5 years, compared to 35.1 years overall and 41.6 years among non-Hispanic whites; Hispanics were the largest group in all ages under 18, and non-Hispanic whites constituted 63.1% of population 55 and older.
, San Diego has the third-largest homeless population in the United States; the city's homeless population has the largest percentage of homeless veterans in the nation. The population of homeless veterans in San Diego decreased to 1,150 people in 2016 from 2,100 in 2009.
In 2000 there were 451,126 households, out of which 30.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.6% were married couples living together, 11.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.8% were non-families. Households made up of individuals account for 28.0%, and 7.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.61, and the average family size was 3.30.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2000, 24.0% of San Diego residents were under 18, and 10.5% were 65 and over. the median age was 35.6; more than a quarter of residents were under age 20 and 11% were over age 65. Millennials (ages 18 through 34) constitute 27.1% of San Diego's population, the second-highest percentage in a major U.S. city. The San Diego County regional planning agency, SANDAG, provides tables and graphs breaking down the city population into five-year age groups.
In 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $45,733, and the median income for a family was $53,060. Males had a median income of $36,984 versus $31,076 for females. The per capita income for the city was $35,199. According to "Forbes" in 2005, San Diego was the fifth wealthiest U.S. city, but about 10.6% of families and 14.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.0% of those under age 18 and 7.6% of those age 65 or over. San Diego was rated the fifth-best place to live in the United States in 2006 by "Money" magazine, although it was no longer rated in the top 100 places by 2017. As of January 1, 2008 estimates by the San Diego Association of Governments revealed that the household median income for San Diego rose to $66,715, up from $45,733 in 2000.
San Diego was named the ninth-most LGBT-friendly city in the U.S. in 2013. The city also has the seventh-highest percentage of gay residents in the U.S. Additionally in 2013, San Diego State University (SDSU), one of the city's prominent universities, was named one of the top LGBT-friendly campuses in the nation.
According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, 68% of the population of the city identified themselves as Christians, with 32% professing attendance at a variety of churches that could be considered Protestant, and 32% professing Roman Catholic beliefs. while 27% claim no religious affiliation. The same study says that other religions (including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism) collectively make up about 5% of the population.
The largest sectors of San Diego's economy are defense/military, tourism, international trade, and research/manufacturing. In 2014, San Diego was designated by a "Forbes" columnist as the best city in the country to launch a small business or startup company.
San Diego recorded a median household income of $79,646 in 2018, an increase of 3.89% from $76,662 in 2017. The median property value in San Diego in 2018 was $654,700, and the average home has 2 cars per household.
The economy of San Diego is influenced by its deepwater port, which includes the only major submarine and shipbuilding yards on the West Coast. Several major national defense contractors were started and are headquartered in San Diego, including General Atomics, Cubic, and NASSCO.
San Diego hosts the largest naval fleet in the world: In 2008 it was home to 53 ships, over 120 tenant commands, and more than 35,000 sailors, soldiers, Department of Defense civilian employees and contractors. About 5 percent of all civilian jobs in the county are military-related, and 15,000 businesses in San Diego County rely on Department of Defense contracts.
Military bases in San Diego include US Navy facilities, Marine Corps bases, and Coast Guard stations.
The city is "home to the majority of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's surface combatants, all of the Navy's West Coast amphibious ships and a variety of Coast Guard and Military Sealift Command vessels".
Tourism is a major industry owing to the city's climate, beaches, and tourist attractions such as Balboa Park, Belmont amusement park, San Diego Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and SeaWorld San Diego. San Diego's Spanish and Mexican heritage is reflected in many historic sites across the city, such as Mission San Diego de Alcalá and Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Also, the local craft brewing industry attracts an increasing number of visitors for "beer tours" and the annual San Diego Beer Week in November; San Diego has been called "America's Craft Beer Capital."
San Diego County hosted more than 32 million visitors in 2012; collectively they spent an estimated $8 billion. The visitor industry provides employment for more than 160,000 people.
San Diego's cruise ship industry used to be the second-largest in California. Numerous cruise lines operate out of San Diego. However, cruise ship business has been in decline since 2008, when the Port hosted over 250 ship calls and more than 900,000 passengers. By 2016-2017 the number of ship calls had fallen to 90.
Local sight-seeing cruises are offered in San Diego Bay and Mission Bay, as well as whale-watching cruises to observe the migration of gray whales, peaking in mid-January. Sport fishing is another popular tourist attraction; San Diego is home to southern California's biggest sport fishing fleet.
San Diego's commercial port and its location on the United States–Mexico border make international trade an important factor in the city's economy. The city is authorized by the United States government to operate as a Foreign Trade Zone.
The city shares a border with Mexico that includes two border crossings. San Diego hosts the busiest international border crossing in the world, in the San Ysidro neighborhood at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. A second, primarily commercial border crossing operates in the Otay Mesa area; it is the largest commercial crossing on the California-Baja California border and handles the third-highest volume of trucks and dollar value of trade among all United States-Mexico land crossings.
One of the Port of San Diego's two cargo facilities is located in Downtown San Diego at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal. This terminal has facilities for containers, bulk cargo, and refrigerated and frozen storage, so that it can handle the import and export of many commodities. In 2009 the Port of San Diego handled 1,137,054 short tons of total trade; foreign trade accounted for 956,637 short tons while domestic trade amounted to 180,417 short tons.
Historically tuna fishing and canning was one of San Diego's major industries, and although the American tuna fishing fleet is no longer based in San Diego, seafood companies Bumble Bee Foods and Chicken of the Sea are still headquartered there.
San Diego hosts several major producers of wireless cellular technology. Qualcomm was founded and is headquartered in San Diego, and is one of the largest private-sector employers in San Diego. Other wireless industry manufacturers headquartered here include Nokia, LG Electronics, Kyocera International, Cricket Communications and Novatel Wireless. The largest software company in San Diego is security software company Websense Inc. San Diego also has the U.S. headquarters for the Slovakian security company ESET. San Diego has been designated as an iHub Innovation Center for potential collaboration between wireless and the life sciences.
The University of California, San Diego and other research institutions have helped to fuel the growth of biotechnology. In 2013, San Diego had the second-largest biotech cluster in the United States, below the Boston area and above the San Francisco Bay Area. There are more than 400 biotechnology companies in the area. In particular, the La Jolla and nearby Sorrento Valley areas are home to offices and research facilities for numerous biotechnology companies. Major biotechnology companies like Illumina and Neurocrine Biosciences are headquartered in San Diego, while many other biotech and pharmaceutical companies have offices or research facilities in San Diego. San Diego is also home to more than 140 contract research organizations (CROs) that provide contract services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
According to the City's 2016 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:
San Diego has high real estate prices. San Diego home prices peaked in 2005, and then declined along with the national trend. As of December 2010, prices were down 36 percent from the peak, median price of homes having declined by more than $200,000 between 2005 and 2010. As of May 2015, the median price of a house was $520,000. In November 2018 the median home price was $558,000. The San Diego metropolitan area had one of the worst housing affordability rankings of all metropolitan areas in the United States in 2009.
Consequently, San Diego has experienced negative net migration since 2004. A significant number of people moved to adjacent Riverside County, commuting daily to jobs in San Diego, while others are leaving the region altogether and moving to more affordable regions.
The city is governed by a mayor and a nine-member city council. In 2006, its government changed from a council–manager government to a strong mayor government, as decided by a citywide vote in 2004. The mayor is in effect the chief executive officer of the city, while the council is the legislative body. The City of San Diego is responsible for police, public safety, streets, water and sewer service, planning and zoning, and similar services within its borders. San Diego is a sanctuary city, however, San Diego County is a participant of the Secure Communities program. , the city had one employee for every 137 residents, with a payroll greater than $733 million.
The members of the city council are each elected from single-member districts within the city. The mayor and city attorney are elected directly by the voters of the entire city. The mayor, city attorney, and council members are elected to four-year terms, with a two-term limit. Elections are held on a non-partisan basis per California state law; nevertheless, most officeholders do identify themselves as either Democrats or Republicans. In 2007, registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans by about 7 to 6 in the city, and Democrats currently () hold a 6–3 majority in the city council. The current mayor, Kevin Faulconer, is a Republican. San Diego is the largest city in the United States to have a Republican mayor.
San Diego is part of San Diego County, and includes all or part of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th supervisorial districts of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, Other county officers elected in part by city residents include the Sheriff, District Attorney, Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk, and Treasurer/Tax Collector.
Areas of the city immediately adjacent to San Diego Bay ("tidelands") are administered by the Port of San Diego, a quasi-governmental agency which owns all the property in the tidelands and is responsible for its land use planning, policing, and similar functions. San Diego is a member of the regional planning agency San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). Public schools within the city are managed and funded by independent school districts (see below).
In the California State Senate, San Diego County encompasses the 38th, 39th and 40th districts, represented by , , and , respectively.
In the California State Assembly, lying partially within the city of San Diego are the 77th, 78th, 79th, and 80th districts, represented by , , , and , respectively.
In the United States House of Representatives, San Diego County includes parts or all of California's 49th, 50th, 51st, 52nd, and 53rd congressional districts, represented by , , , , and , respectively.
After narrowly supporting Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, San Diego provided majorities to all six Republican presidential candidates from 1968–1988. However, in more recent decades, San Diego has trended in favor of Democratic presidential candidates for president. George H.W. Bush in 1988 is the last Republican candidate to carry San Diego in a presidential election.
San Diego was the site of the 1912 San Diego free speech fight, in which the city restricted speech, vigilantes brutalized and tortured anarchists, and the San Diego Police Department killed a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
In 1916, rainmaker Charles Hatfield was blamed for $4 million in damages and accused of causing San Diego's worst , during which about 20 Japanese American farmers died.
Then-mayor Roger Hedgecock was forced to resign his post in 1985, after he was found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 12 counts of perjury, related to the alleged failure to report all campaign contributions. After a series of appeals, the 12 perjury counts were dismissed in 1990 based on claims of juror misconduct; the remaining conspiracy count was reduced to a misdemeanor and then dismissed.
A 2002 scheme to underfund pensions for city employees led to the San Diego pension scandal. This resulted in the resignation of newly re-elected Mayor Dick Murphy and the criminal indictment of six pension board members. Those charges were finally dismissed by a federal judge in 2010.
On November 28, 2005, U.S. Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigned after being convicted on federal bribery charges. He had represented California's 50th congressional district, which includes much of the northern portion of the city of San Diego. In 2006, Cunningham was sentenced to a 100-month prison sentence. He was released in 2013.
In 2005 two city council members, Ralph Inzunza and Deputy Mayor Michael Zucchet – who briefly took over as acting mayor when Murphy resigned – were convicted of extortion, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for taking campaign contributions from a strip club owner and his associates, allegedly in exchange for trying to repeal the city's "no touch" laws at strip clubs. Both subsequently resigned. Inzunza was sentenced to 21 months in prison. In 2009, a judge acquitted Zucchet on seven out of the nine counts against him, and granted his petition for a new trial on the other two charges; the remaining charges were eventually dropped.
In July 2013, three former supporters of mayor Bob Filner asked him to resign because of allegations of repeated sexual harassment. Over the ensuing six weeks, 18 women came forward to publicly claim that Filner had sexually harassed them, and multiple individuals and groups called for him to resign. Filner agreed to resign effective August 30, 2013, subsequently pleaded guilty to one felony count of false imprisonment and two misdemeanor battery charges, and was sentenced to house arrest and probation.
San Diego was ranked as the 20th-safest city in America in 2013 by "Business Insider". According to "Forbes" magazine, San Diego was the ninth-safest city in the top 10 list of safest cities in the U.S. in 2010. Like most major cities, San Diego had a declining crime rate from 1990 to 2000. Crime in San Diego increased in the early 2000s. In 2004, San Diego had the sixth lowest crime rate of any U.S. city with over half a million residents. From 2002 to 2006, the crime rate overall dropped 0.8%, though not evenly by category. While violent crime decreased 12.4% during this period, property crime increased 1.1%. Total property crimes per 100,000 people were lower than the national average in 2008.
According to Uniform Crime Report statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2010, there were 5,616 violent crimes and 30,753 property crimes. Of these, the violent crimes consisted of forcible rapes, 73 robberies and 170 aggravated assaults, while 6,387 burglaries, 17,977 larceny-thefts, 6,389 motor vehicle thefts and 155 acts of arson defined the property offenses. In 2013, San Diego had the lowest murder rate of the ten largest cities in the United States.
Public schools in San Diego are operated by independent school districts. The majority of the public schools in the city are served by the San Diego Unified School District, the second-largest school district in California, which includes 11 K–8 schools, 107 elementary schools, 24 middle schools, 13 atypical and alternative schools, 28 high schools, and 45 charter schools.
Several adjacent school districts which are headquartered outside the city limits serve some schools within the city; these include the Poway Unified School District, Del Mar Union School District, San Dieguito Union High School District, and Sweetwater Union High School District. In addition, there are a number of private schools in the city.
According to education rankings released by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2017, 44.4% percent of San Diegans (city, not county) ages 25 and older hold bachelor's degrees, compared to 30.9% in the United States as a whole. The census ranks the city as the ninth-most educated city in the United States, based on these figures.
Public colleges and universities in the city include San Diego State University (SDSU), the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and the San Diego Community College District, which includes San Diego City College, San Diego Mesa College, and San Diego Miramar College.
Private non-profit colleges and universities in the city include the University of San Diego (USD), Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU), National University's San Diego campus, University of Redlands' School of Business San Diego campus, Brandman University's San Diego campus, San Diego Christian College, and John Paul the Great Catholic University. For-profit institutions include Alliant International University (AIU), California International Business University (CIBU), California College San Diego, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising's San Diego campus, NewSchool of Architecture and Design, Platt College, Southern States University (SSU), UEI College, and Woodbury University School of Architecture's satellite campus.
There is one medical school in the city, the UCSD School of Medicine. There are three ABA accredited law schools in the city, which include California Western School of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and University of San Diego School of Law. There is also one law school, Western Sierra Law School, not accredited by the ABA.
The city-run San Diego Public Library system is headquartered downtown and has 36 branches throughout the city. The newest location is in Skyline Hills, which broke ground in 2015. The libraries have had reduced operating hours since 2003 due to the city's financial problems. In 2006 the city increased spending on libraries by $2.1 million. A new nine-story Central Library on Park Boulevard at J Street opened on September 30, 2013.
In addition to the municipal public library system, there are nearly two dozen libraries open to the public run by other governmental agencies, and by schools, colleges, and universities. Noteworthy are the Malcolm A. Love Library at San Diego State University, and the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego.
Many popular museums, such as the San Diego Museum of Art, the San Diego Natural History Museum, the San Diego Museum of Man, the Museum of Photographic Arts, and the San Diego Air & Space Museum, are located in Balboa Park, which is also the location of the San Diego Zoo. The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is located in La Jolla and has a branch located at the Santa Fe Depot downtown. The downtown branch consists of two buildings on two opposite streets. The Columbia district downtown is home to historic ship exhibits belonging to the San Diego Maritime Museum, headlined by the Star of India, as well as the unrelated San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum featuring the USS Midway aircraft carrier.
The San Diego Symphony at Symphony Towers performs on a regular basis; from 2004 to 2017 its director was Jahja Ling. The San Diego Opera at Civic Center Plaza, now directed by David Bennett, was ranked by Opera America as one of the top 10 opera companies in the United States. Old Globe Theatre at Balboa Park produces about 15 plays and musicals annually. The La Jolla Playhouse at UCSD is directed by Christopher Ashley. Both the Old Globe Theatre and the La Jolla Playhouse have produced the world premieres of plays and musicals that have gone on to win Tony Awards or nominations on Broadway. The Joan B. Kroc Theatre at Kroc Center's Performing Arts Center is a 600-seat state-of-the-art theatre that hosts music, dance, and theatre performances. The San Diego Repertory Theatre at the Lyceum Theatres in Westfield Horton Plaza produces a variety of plays and musicals. Hundreds of movies and a dozen TV shows have been filmed in San Diego, a tradition going back as far as 1898.
The San Diego region is home to one major professional team—Major League Baseball's San Diego Padres, who play at Petco Park.
From 1961 to the 2016 season, the team hosted a National Football League franchise, the San Diego Chargers. In 2017, they moved to Los Angeles and became the Los Angeles Chargers.
In two separate stints, the National Basketball Association had a franchise in San Diego, the San Diego Rockets from 1967 to 1971, and the San Diego Clippers from 1978 to 1984. The franchises moved to Houston and Los Angeles respectively.
From 1972 to 1975, San Diego was home to an American Basketball Association team. First named the Conquistadors ( "The Q's") the name was changed to the San Diego Sails for the 1975–76 season, but the team folded before completing that campaign.
In 2017 the San Diego 1904 FC club was organized as a proposed American professional Division II soccer team. The club's founders include several major-league soccer players. They intend to build a soccer stadium in Oceanside, approximately 40 miles north of downtown San Diego, and will play at the University of San Diego's Torero Stadium in the meantime. The team was originally announced to make its debut in the North American Soccer League in 2018. However, due to the cancellation of the 2018 NASL season, the expansion team is negotiating an agreement to join the United Soccer League in 2019.
San Diego has hosted numerous major sports events. Three NFL Super Bowl championships have been held at San Diego County Credit Union (SDCCU) Stadium. College football's annual bowl game, the Holiday Bowl, is also held at the stadium. The annual Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament (formerly the Buick Invitational) on the PGA Tour occurs at Torrey Pines Golf Course. This course was also the site of the 2008 U.S. Open Golf Championship. Parts of the World Baseball Classic were played at Petco Park in 2006 and 2009.
SDCCU Stadium also hosts international soccer games and supercross events. Soccer, American football, and track and field are also played in Balboa Stadium, the city's first stadium, constructed in 1914.
Rugby union is a developing sport in the city. The San Diego Legion were one of Major League Rugby's founding teams, beginning play in 2018. The San Diego Breakers played at Torero Stadium in the only PRO Rugby season before the league folded. The USA Sevens, a major international rugby event, was held there from 2007 through 2009. San Diego is also represented by Old Mission Beach Athletic Club RFC, the former home club of USA Rugby's former Captain Todd Clever. San Diego participated in the Western American National Rugby League between 2011 and 2013.
The semi-pro San Diego Surf of the American Basketball Association is located in the city. The San Diego Yacht Club hosted the America's Cup yacht races three times during the period 1988 to 1995. The amateur beach sport Over-the-line was invented in San Diego, and the annual world Over-the-line championships are held at Mission Bay every year.
Major professional teams:
Other top level professional teams
Minor League professional teams
San Diego hosts three NCAA Division I universities: San Diego State University; the University of California, San Diego; and the University of San Diego.
Published within the city are the daily newspaper, "The San Diego Union Tribune" and its online portal of the same name, and the alternative newsweeklies, the "San Diego CityBeat" and "San Diego Reader". "Times of San Diego" is a free online newspaper covering news in the metropolitan area. "Voice of San Diego" is a non-profit online news outlet covering government, politics, education, neighborhoods, and the arts. The "San Diego Daily Transcript" is a business-oriented online newspaper.
San Diego led U.S. local markets with 69.6 percent broadband penetration in 2004 according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
San Diego's first television station was KFMB, which began broadcasting on May 16, 1949. Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensed seven television stations in Los Angeles, two VHF channels were available for San Diego because of its relative proximity to the larger city. In 1952, however, the FCC began licensing UHF channels, making it possible for cities such as San Diego to acquire more stations. Stations based in Mexico (with ITU prefixes of XE and XH) also serve the San Diego market. Television stations today include XHTJB 3 (Once TV), XETV 6 (Canal 5), KFMB 8 (CBS, with CW/MNTV on DT2), KGTV 10 (ABC), XEWT 12 (Televisa Regional), KPBS 15 (PBS), KBNT-CD 17 (Univision), XHTIT-TDT 21 (Azteca 7), XHJK-TDT 27 (Azteca 13), XHAS 33 (Telemundo), K35DG-D 35 (UCSD-TV), KDTF-LD 51 (Telefutura), KNSD 39 (NBC), KZSD-LP 20 (Azteca America), KSEX-CD 42 (Infomercials), XHBJ-TDT 45 (Gala TV), XHDTV 49 (Milenio Televisión), KUSI 51 (Independent), XHUAA-TDT 57 (Canal de las Estrellas), and KSWB-TV 69 (Fox). San Diego has an 80.6 percent cable penetration rate.
Due to the ratio of U.S. and Mexican-licensed stations, San Diego is the largest media market in the United States that is legally unable to support a television station duopoly between two full-power stations under FCC regulations, which disallow duopolies in metropolitan areas with fewer than nine full-power television stations and require that there must be eight unique station owners that remain once a duopoly is formed (there are only seven full-power stations on the California side of the San Diego-Tijuana market). Though the E. W. Scripps Company owns KGTV and KZSD-LP, they are not considered a duopoly under the FCC's legal definition as common ownership between full-power and low-power television stations in the same market is permitted regardless to the number of stations licensed to the area. As a whole, the Mexico side of the San Diego-Tijuana market has two duopolies and one triopoly (Entravision Communications owns both XHAS-TV and XHDTV-TV, Azteca owns XHJK-TV and XHTIT-TV, and Grupo Televisa owns XHUAA-TV and XHWT-TV along with being the license holder for XETV-TV, which was formerly managed by California-based subsidiary Bay City Television).
San Diego's television market is limited to only San Diego county. The Imperial Valley has its own market (which also extends into western Arizona), while neighboring Orange and Riverside counties are part of the Los Angeles market. (Sometimes in the past, a missing network affiliate in the Imperial Valley would be available on cable TV from San Diego.)
The radio stations in San Diego include nationwide broadcaster, iHeartMedia; CBS Radio, Midwest Television, Entercom Communications, Finest City Broadcasting, and many other smaller stations and networks. Stations include: KOGO AM 600, KFMB AM 760, KCEO AM 1000, KCBQ AM 1170, K-Praise, KLSD AM 1360 "Air America", KFSD 1450 AM, KPBS-FM 89.5, Channel 933, Star 94.1, FM 94/9, FM News and Talk 95.7, Q96 96.1, KyXy 96.5, Free Radio San Diego (AKA Pirate Radio San Diego) 96.9FM FRSD, KWFN 97.3, KXSN 98.1, Jack-FM 100.7, 101.5 KGB-FM, KLVJ 102.1, KSON 103.7, Rock 105.3, and another "Pirate Radio" station at 106.9FM, as well as a number of local Spanish-language radio stations.
Water is supplied to residents by the Water Department of the City of San Diego. The city receives most of its water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Gas and electric utilities are provided by San Diego Gas & Electric, a division of Sempra Energy.
In the mid-20th century the city had mercury vapor street lamps. In 1978, the city decided to replace them with more efficient sodium vapor lamps. This triggered an outcry from astronomers at Palomar Observatory north of the city, concerned that the new lamps would increase light pollution and hinder astronomical observation. The city altered its lighting regulations to limit light pollution within of Palomar.
In 2011, the city announced plans to upgrade 80% of its street lighting to new energy-efficient lights that use induction technology, a modified form of fluorescent lamp producing a broader spectrum than sodium vapor lamps. The new system is predicted to save $2.2 million per year in energy and maintenance. The city stated the changes would "make our neighborhoods safer." They also increase light pollution.
In 2014, San Diego announced plans to become the first U.S. city to install cyber-controlled street lighting, using an "intelligent" lighting system to control 3,000 LED street lights.
With the automobile being the primary means of transportation for over 80 percent of residents, San Diego is served by a network of freeways and highways. This includes Interstate 5, which runs south to Tijuana and north to Los Angeles; Interstate 8, which runs east to Imperial County and the Arizona Sun Corridor; Interstate 15, which runs northeast through the Inland Empire to Las Vegas and Salt Lake City; and Interstate 805, which splits from I-5 near the Mexican border and rejoins I-5 at Sorrento Valley.
Major state highways include SR 94, which connects downtown with I-805, I-15 and East County; SR 163, which connects downtown with the northeast part of the city, intersects I-805 and merges with I-15 at Miramar; SR 52, which connects La Jolla with East County through Santee and SR 125; SR 56, which connects I-5 with I-15 through Carmel Valley and Rancho Peñasquitos; SR 75, which spans San Diego Bay as the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, and also passes through South San Diego as Palm Avenue; and SR 905, which connects I-5 and I-805 to the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
The stretch of SR 163 that passes through Balboa Park is San Diego's oldest freeway, and has been called one of America's most beautiful parkways.
San Diego's roadway system provides an extensive network of cycle routes. Its dry and mild climate makes cycling a convenient year-round option; however, the city's hilly terrain and long average trip distances make cycling less practicable. Older and denser neighborhoods around the downtown tend to be oriented to utility cycling. This is partly because of the grid street patterns now absent in newer developments farther from the urban core, where suburban style arterial roads are much more common. As a result, a majority of cycling is recreational. In 2006, San Diego was rated the best city (with a population over 1 million) for cycling in the U.S.
San Diego is served by the San Diego Trolley light rail system, by the SDMTS bus system, and by Coaster and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner commuter rail; northern San Diego county is also served by the Sprinter light rail line. The trolley primarily serves downtown and surrounding urban communities, Mission Valley, east county, and coastal south bay. A planned mid-coast extension of the Trolley will operate from Old Town to University City and the University of California, San Diego along the I-5 Freeway, with planned operation by 2021. The Amtrak and Coaster trains currently run along the coastline and connect San Diego with Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura via Metrolink and the Pacific Surfliner. There are two Amtrak stations in San Diego, in Old Town and the Santa Fe Depot downtown. San Diego transit information about public transportation and commuting is available on the Web and by dialing "511" from any phone in the area.
The city has two major commercial airports within or near its city limits. Downtown San Diego International Airport (SAN), also known as Lindbergh Field, is the busiest single-runway airport in the United States. It served over 24 million passengers in 2018, and is dealing with larger numbers every year. It is located on San Diego Bay, from downtown, and maintains scheduled flights to the rest of the United States (including Hawaii), as well as to Canada, Germany, Mexico, Japan, and the United Kingdom. It is operated by an independent agency, the San Diego Regional Airport Authority. Tijuana International Airport has a terminal within the city limits in the Otay Mesa district connected to the rest of the airport in Tijuana, Mexico via the Cross Border Xpress cross-border footbridge. It is the primary airport for flights to the rest of Mexico, and offers connections via Mexico City to the rest of Latin America. In addition, the city has two general-aviation airports, Montgomery Field (MYF) and Brown Field (SDM).
Recent regional transportation projects have sought to mitigate congestion, including improvements to local freeways, expansion of San Diego Airport, and doubling the capacity of the cruise ship terminal. Freeway projects included expansion of Interstates 5 and 805 around "The Merge" where these two freeways meet, as well as expansion of Interstate 15 through North County, which includes new high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) "managed lanes". A tollway (the southern portion of SR 125, known as the South Bay Expressway) connects SR 54 and Otay Mesa, near the Mexican border. According to an assessment in 2007, 37 percent of city streets were in acceptable condition. However, the proposed budget fell $84.6 million short of bringing streets up to an acceptable level. Expansion at the port has included a second cruise terminal on Broadway Pier, opened in 2010. Airport projects include expansion of Terminal Two.
San Diego has 17 sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28504 |
Spacecraft propulsion
Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. Space propulsion or in-space propulsion exclusively deals with propulsion systems used in the vacuum of space and should not be confused with launch vehicles. Several methods, both pragmatic and hypothetical, have been developed each having its own drawbacks and advantages.
Most satellites have simple reliable chemical thrusters (often monopropellant rockets) or resistojet rockets for orbital station-keeping and some use momentum wheels for attitude control. Soviet bloc satellites have used electric propulsion for decades, and newer Western geo-orbiting spacecraft are starting to use them for north–south station-keeping and orbit raising. Interplanetary vehicles mostly use chemical rockets as well, although a few have used ion thrusters and Hall-effect thrusters (two different types of electric propulsion) to great success.
Artificial satellites are first launched into the desired altitude by conventional liquid/solid propelled rockets after which the satellite may use onboard propulsion systems for orbital stationkeeping. Once in the desired orbit, they often need some form of attitude control so that they are correctly pointed with respect to the Earth, the Sun, and possibly some astronomical object of interest. They are also subject to drag from the thin atmosphere, so that to stay in orbit for a long period of time some form of propulsion is occasionally necessary to make small corrections (orbital station-keeping). Many satellites need to be moved from one orbit to another from time to time, and this also requires propulsion. A satellite's useful life is usually over once it has exhausted its ability to adjust its orbit.
For interplanetary travel, a spacecraft can use its engines to leave Earth's orbit. It is not explicitly necessary as the initial boost given by the rocket, gravity slingshot, monopropellant/bipropellent attitude control propulsion system are enough for the exploration of the solar system (see New Horizons). Once it has done so, it must somehow make its way to its destination. Current interplanetary spacecraft do this with a series of short-term trajectory adjustments. In between these adjustments, the spacecraft simply moves along its trajectory with a constant velocity. The most fuel-efficient means to move from one circular orbit to another is with a Hohmann transfer orbit: the spacecraft begins in a roughly circular orbit around the Sun. A short period of thrust in the direction of motion accelerates or decelerates the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit around the Sun which is tangential to its previous orbit and also to the orbit of its destination. The spacecraft falls freely along this elliptical orbit until it reaches its destination, where another short period of thrust accelerates or decelerates it to match the orbit of its destination. Special methods such as aerobraking or aerocapture are sometimes used for this final orbital adjustment.
Some spacecraft propulsion methods such as solar sails provide very low but inexhaustible thrust; an interplanetary vehicle using one of these methods would follow a rather different trajectory, either constantly thrusting against its direction of motion in order to decrease its distance from the Sun or constantly thrusting along its direction of motion to increase its distance from the Sun. The concept has been successfully tested by the Japanese IKAROS solar sail spacecraft.
No spacecraft capable of short duration (compared to human lifetime) interstellar travel has yet been built, but many hypothetical designs have been discussed. Because interstellar distances are very great, a tremendous velocity is needed to get a spacecraft to its destination in a reasonable amount of time. Acquiring such a velocity on launch and getting rid of it on arrival remains a formidable challenge for spacecraft designers.
When in space, the purpose of a propulsion system is to change the velocity, or "v", of a spacecraft. Because this is more difficult for more massive spacecraft, designers generally discuss spacecraft performance in "amount of change in momentum per unit of propellant consumed" also called specific impulse. The higher the specific impulse, the better the efficiency. Ion propulsion engines have high specific impulse (~3000 s) and low thrust whereas chemical rockets like monopropellant or bipropellant rocket engines have a low specific impulse (~300 s) but high thrust.
When launching a spacecraft from Earth, a propulsion method must overcome a higher gravitational pull to provide a positive net acceleration.
In orbit, any additional impulse, even very tiny, will result in a change in the orbit path.
1) Prograde/Retrogade (i.e. acceleration in the tangential/opposite in tangential direction) - Increases/Decreases altitude of orbit
2) Perpendicular to orbital plane - Changes Orbital inclination
The rate of change of velocity is called acceleration, and the rate of change of momentum is called force. To reach a given velocity, one can apply a small acceleration over a long period of time, or one can apply a large acceleration over a short time. Similarly, one can achieve a given impulse with a large force over a short time or a small force over a long time. This means that for manoeuvring in space, a propulsion method that produces tiny accelerations but runs for a long time can produce the same impulse as a propulsion method that produces large accelerations for a short time. When launching from a planet, tiny accelerations cannot overcome the planet's gravitational pull and so cannot be used.
Earth's surface is situated fairly deep in a gravity well. The escape velocity required to get out of it is 11.2 kilometers/second. As human beings evolved in a gravitational field of 1g (9.8 m/s²), an ideal propulsion system would be one that provides a continuous acceleration of 1g (though human bodies can tolerate much larger accelerations over short periods). The occupants of a rocket or spaceship having such a propulsion system would be free from all the ill effects of free fall, such as nausea, muscular weakness, reduced sense of taste, or leaching of calcium from their bones.
The law of conservation of momentum means that in order for a propulsion method to change the momentum of a space craft it must change the momentum of something else as well. A few designs take advantage of things like magnetic fields or light pressure in order to change the spacecraft's momentum, but in free space the rocket must bring along some mass to accelerate away in order to push itself forward. Such mass is called reaction mass.
In order for a rocket to work, it needs two things: reaction mass and energy. The impulse provided by launching a particle of reaction mass having mass "m" at velocity "v" is "mv". But this particle has kinetic energy "mv"²/2, which must come from somewhere. In a conventional solid, liquid, or hybrid rocket, the fuel is burned, providing the energy, and the reaction products are allowed to flow out the back, providing the reaction mass. In an ion thruster, electricity is used to accelerate ions out the back. Here some other source must provide the electrical energy (perhaps a solar panel or a nuclear reactor), whereas the ions provide the reaction mass.
When discussing the efficiency of a propulsion system, designers often focus on effectively using the reaction mass. Reaction mass must be carried along with the rocket and is irretrievably consumed when used. One way of measuring the amount of impulse that can be obtained from a fixed amount of reaction mass is the specific impulse, the impulse per unit weight-on-Earth (typically designated by formula_1). The unit for this value is seconds. Because the weight on Earth of the reaction mass is often unimportant when discussing vehicles in space, specific impulse can also be discussed in terms of impulse per unit mass. This alternate form of specific impulse uses the same units as velocity (e.g. m/s), and in fact it is equal to the effective exhaust velocity of the engine (typically designated formula_2). Confusingly, both values are sometimes called specific impulse. The two values differ by a factor of "g"n, the standard acceleration due to gravity 9.80665 m/s² (formula_3).
A rocket with a high exhaust velocity can achieve the same impulse with less reaction mass. However, the energy required for that impulse is proportional to the exhaust velocity, so that more mass-efficient engines require much more energy, and are typically less energy efficient. This is a problem if the engine is to provide a large amount of thrust. To generate a large amount of impulse per second, it must use a large amount of energy per second. So high-mass-efficient engines require enormous amounts of energy per second to produce high thrusts. As a result, most high-mass-efficient engine designs also provide lower thrust due to the unavailability of high amounts of energy.
Propulsion methods can be classified based on their means of accelerating the reaction mass. There are also some special methods for launches, planetary arrivals, and landings.
A reaction engine is an engine which provides propulsion by expelling reaction mass, in accordance with Newton's third law of motion. This law of motion is most commonly paraphrased as: "For every action there is an equal, and opposite, reaction".
Examples include both duct engines and rocket engines, and more uncommon variations such as Hall effect thrusters, ion drives and mass drivers. Duct engines are obviously not used for space propulsion due to the lack of air; however some proposed spacecraft have these kinds of engines to assist takeoff and landing.
Exhausting the entire usable propellant of a spacecraft through the engines in a straight line in free space would produce a net velocity change to the vehicle; this number is termed "delta-v" (formula_4).
If the exhaust velocity is constant then the total formula_4 of a vehicle can be calculated using the rocket equation, where "M" is the mass of propellant, "P" is the mass of the payload (including the rocket structure), and formula_6 is the velocity of the rocket exhaust. This is known as the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation:
For historical reasons, as discussed above, formula_6 is sometimes written as
where formula_1 is the specific impulse of the rocket, measured in seconds, and formula_11 is the gravitational acceleration at sea level.
For a high delta-v mission, the majority of the spacecraft's mass needs to be reaction mass. Because a rocket must carry all of its reaction mass, most of the initially-expended reaction mass goes towards accelerating reaction mass rather than payload. If the rocket has a payload of mass "P", the spacecraft needs to change its velocity by formula_4, and the rocket engine has exhaust velocity "ve", then the reaction mass "M" which is needed can be calculated using the rocket equation and the formula for formula_1:
For formula_4 much smaller than "ve", this equation is roughly linear, and little reaction mass is needed. If formula_4 is comparable to "ve", then there needs to be about twice as much fuel as combined payload and structure (which includes engines, fuel tanks, and so on). Beyond this, the growth is exponential; speeds much higher than the exhaust velocity require very high ratios of fuel mass to payload and structural mass.
For a mission, for example, when launching from or landing on a planet, the effects of gravitational attraction and any atmospheric drag must be overcome by using fuel. It is typical to combine the effects of these and other effects into an effective mission delta-v. For example, a launch mission to low Earth orbit requires about 9.3–10 km/s delta-v. These mission delta-vs are typically numerically integrated on a computer.
Some effects such as Oberth effect can only be significantly utilised by high thrust engines such as rockets; i.e., engines that can produce a high g-force (thrust per unit mass, equal to delta-v per unit time).
For all reaction engines (such as rockets and ion drives) some energy must go into accelerating the reaction mass. Every engine will waste some energy, but even assuming 100% efficiency, to accelerate an exhaust the engine will need energy amounting to
This energy is not necessarily lost- some of it usually ends up as kinetic energy of the vehicle, and the rest is wasted in residual motion of the exhaust.
Comparing the rocket equation (which shows how much energy ends up in the final vehicle) and the above equation (which shows the total energy required) shows that even with 100% engine efficiency, certainly not all energy supplied ends up in the vehicle - some of it, indeed usually most of it, ends up as kinetic energy of the exhaust.
The exact amount depends on the design of the vehicle, and the mission. However, there are some useful fixed points:
Some drives (such as VASIMR or electrodeless plasma thruster) actually can significantly vary their exhaust velocity. This can help reduce propellant usage or improve acceleration at different stages of the flight. However the best energetic performance and acceleration is still obtained when the exhaust velocity is close to the vehicle speed. Proposed ion and plasma drives usually have exhaust velocities enormously higher than that ideal (in the case of VASIMR the lowest quoted speed is around 15000 m/s compared to a mission delta-v from high Earth orbit to Mars of about 4000m/s).
It might be thought that adding power generation capacity is helpful, and although initially this can improve performance, this inevitably increases the weight of the power source, and eventually the mass of the power source and the associated engines and propellant dominates the weight of the vehicle, and then adding more power gives no significant improvement.
For, although solar power and nuclear power are virtually unlimited sources of "energy", the maximum "power" they can supply is substantially proportional to the mass of the powerplant (i.e. specific power takes a largely constant value which is dependent on the particular powerplant technology). For any given specific power, with a large formula_6 which is desirable to save propellant mass, it turns out that the maximum acceleration is inversely proportional to formula_6. Hence the time to reach a required delta-v is proportional to formula_6. Thus the latter should not be too large.
In the ideal case formula_23 is useful payload and formula_24 is reaction mass (this corresponds to empty tanks having no mass, etc.). The energy required can simply be computed as
This corresponds to the kinetic energy the expelled reaction mass would have at a speed equal to the exhaust speed. If the reaction mass had to be accelerated from zero speed to the exhaust speed, all energy produced would go into the reaction mass and nothing would be left for kinetic energy gain by the rocket and payload. However, if the rocket already moves and accelerates (the reaction mass is expelled in the direction opposite to the direction in which the rocket moves) less kinetic energy is added to the reaction mass. To see this, if, for example, formula_6=10 km/s and the speed of the rocket is 3 km/s, then the speed of a small amount of expended reaction mass changes from 3 km/s forwards to 7 km/s rearwards. Thus, although the energy required is 50 MJ per kg reaction mass, only 20 MJ is used for the increase in speed of the reaction mass. The remaining 30 MJ is the increase of the kinetic energy of the rocket and payload.
In general:
Thus the specific energy gain of the rocket in any small time interval is the energy gain of the rocket including the remaining fuel, divided by its mass, where the energy gain is equal to the energy produced by the fuel minus the energy gain of the reaction mass. The larger the speed of the rocket, the smaller the energy gain of the reaction mass; if the rocket speed is more than half of the exhaust speed the reaction mass even loses energy on being expelled, to the benefit of the energy gain of the rocket; the larger the speed of the rocket, the larger the energy loss of the reaction mass.
We have
where formula_29 is the specific energy of the rocket (potential plus kinetic energy) and formula_4 is a separate variable, not just the change in formula_31. In the case of using the rocket for deceleration; i.e., expelling reaction mass in the direction of the velocity, formula_31 should be taken negative.
The formula is for the ideal case again, with no energy lost on heat, etc. The latter causes a reduction of thrust, so it is a disadvantage even when the objective is to lose energy (deceleration).
If the energy is produced by the mass itself, as in a chemical rocket, the fuel value has to be formula_33, where for the fuel value also the mass of the oxidizer has to be taken into account. A typical value is formula_34 = 4.5 km/s, corresponding to a fuel value of 10.1MJ/kg. The actual fuel value is higher, but much of the energy is lost as waste heat in the exhaust that the nozzle was unable to extract.
The required energy formula_35 is
Conclusions:
These results apply for a fixed exhaust speed.
Due to the Oberth effect and starting from a nonzero speed, the required potential energy needed from the propellant may be "less" than the increase in energy in the vehicle and payload. This can be the case when the reaction mass has a lower speed after being expelled than before – rockets are able to liberate some or all of the initial kinetic energy of the propellant.
Also, for a given objective such as moving from one orbit to another, the required formula_4 may depend greatly on the rate at which the engine can produce formula_4 and maneuvers may even be impossible if that rate is too low. For example, a launch to Low Earth orbit (LEO) normally requires a formula_4 of ca. 9.5 km/s (mostly for the speed to be acquired), but if the engine could produce formula_4 at a rate of only slightly more than "g", it would be a slow launch requiring altogether a very large formula_4 (think of hovering without making any progress in speed or altitude, it would cost a formula_4 of 9.8 m/s each second). If the possible rate is only formula_48 or less, the maneuver can not be carried out at all with this engine.
The power is given by
where formula_50 is the thrust and formula_51 the acceleration due to it. Thus the theoretically possible thrust per unit power is 2 divided by the specific impulse in m/s. The thrust efficiency is the actual thrust as percentage of this.
If, e.g., solar power is used, this restricts formula_51; in the case of a large formula_34 the possible acceleration is inversely proportional to it, hence the time to reach a required delta-v is proportional to formula_34; with 100% efficiency:
Examples:
Thus formula_34 should not be too large.
The power to thrust ratio is simply:
Thus for any vehicle power P, the thrust that may be provided is:
Suppose a 10,000 kg space probe will be sent to Mars. The required formula_4 from LEO is approximately 3000 m/s, using a Hohmann transfer orbit. For the sake of argument, assume the following thrusters are options to be used:
Observe that the more fuel-efficient engines can use far less fuel; their mass is almost negligible (relative to the mass of the payload and the engine itself) for some of the engines. However, these require a large total amount of energy. For Earth launch, engines require a thrust to weight ratio of more than one. To do this with the ion or more theoretical electrical drives, the engine would have to be supplied with one to several gigawatts of power, equivalent to a major metropolitan generating station. From the table it can be seen that this is clearly impractical with current power sources.
Alternative approaches include some forms of laser propulsion, where the reaction mass does not provide the energy required to accelerate it, with the energy instead being provided from an external laser or other beam-powered propulsion system. Small models of some of these concepts have flown, although the engineering problems are complex and the ground-based power systems are not a solved problem.
Instead, a much smaller, less powerful generator may be included which will take much longer to generate the total energy needed. This lower power is only sufficient to accelerate a tiny amount of fuel per second, and would be insufficient for launching from Earth. However, over long periods in orbit where there is no friction, the velocity will be finally achieved. For example, it took the SMART-1 more than a year to reach the Moon, whereas with a chemical rocket it takes a few days. Because the ion drive needs much less fuel, the total launched mass is usually lower, which typically results in a lower overall cost, but the journey takes longer.
Mission planning therefore frequently involves adjusting and choosing the propulsion system so as to minimise the total cost of the project, and can involve trading off launch costs and mission duration against payload fraction.
Most rocket engines are internal combustion heat engines (although non combusting forms exist). Rocket engines generally produce a high temperature reaction mass, as a hot gas. This is achieved by combusting a solid, liquid or gaseous fuel with an oxidiser within a combustion chamber. The extremely hot gas is then allowed to escape through a high-expansion ratio nozzle. This bell-shaped nozzle is what gives a rocket engine its characteristic shape. The effect of the nozzle is to dramatically accelerate the mass, converting most of the thermal energy into kinetic energy. Exhaust speed reaching as high as 10 times the speed of sound at sea level are common.
Rocket engines provide essentially the highest specific powers and high specific thrusts of any engine used for spacecraft propulsion.
Ion propulsion rockets can heat a plasma or charged gas inside a magnetic bottle and release it via a magnetic nozzle, so that no solid matter need come in contact with the plasma. Of course, the machinery to do this is complex, but research into nuclear fusion has developed methods, some of which have been proposed to be used in propulsion systems, and some have been tested in a lab.
See rocket engine for a listing of various kinds of rocket engines using different heating methods, including chemical, electrical, solar, and nuclear.
Rather than relying on high temperature and fluid dynamics to accelerate the reaction mass to high speeds, there are a variety of methods that use electrostatic or electromagnetic forces to accelerate the reaction mass directly. Usually the reaction mass is a stream of ions. Such an engine typically uses electric power, first to ionize atoms, and then to create a voltage gradient to accelerate the ions to high exhaust velocities.
The idea of electric propulsion dates back to 1906, when Robert Goddard considered the possibility in his personal notebook.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published the idea in 1911.
For these drives, at the highest exhaust speeds, energetic efficiency and thrust are all inversely proportional to exhaust velocity. Their very high exhaust velocity means they require huge amounts of energy and thus with practical power sources provide low thrust, but use hardly any fuel.
For some missions, particularly reasonably close to the Sun, solar energy may be sufficient, and has very often been used, but for others further out or at higher power, nuclear energy is necessary; engines drawing their power from a nuclear source are called nuclear electric rockets.
With any current source of electrical power, chemical, nuclear or solar, the maximum amount of power that can be generated limits the amount of thrust that can be produced to a small value. Power generation adds significant mass to the spacecraft, and ultimately the weight of the power source limits the performance of the vehicle.
Current nuclear power generators are approximately half the weight of solar panels per watt of energy supplied, at terrestrial distances from the Sun. Chemical power generators are not used due to the far lower total available energy. Beamed power to the spacecraft shows some potential.
Some electromagnetic methods:
In electrothermal and electromagnetic thrusters, both ions and electrons are accelerated simultaneously, no neutralizer is required.
The law of conservation of momentum is usually taken to imply that any engine which uses no reaction mass cannot accelerate the center of mass of a spaceship (changing orientation, on the other hand, is possible). But space is not empty, especially space inside the Solar System; there are gravitation fields, magnetic fields, electromagnetic waves, solar wind and solar radiation. Electromagnetic waves in particular are known to contain momentum, despite being massless; specifically the momentum flux density P of an EM wave is quantitatively 1/c^2 times the Poynting vector S, i.e. P = S/c^2, where c is the velocity of light. Field propulsion methods which do not rely on reaction mass thus must try to take advantage of this fact by coupling to a momentum-bearing field such as an EM wave that exists in the vicinity of the craft. However, because many of these phenomena are diffuse in nature, corresponding propulsion structures need to be proportionately large.
There are several different space drives that need little or no reaction mass to function. A tether propulsion system employs a long cable with a high tensile strength to change a spacecraft's orbit, such as by interaction with a planet's magnetic field or through momentum exchange with another object. Solar sails rely on radiation pressure from electromagnetic energy, but they require a large collection surface to function effectively. The magnetic sail deflects charged particles from the solar wind with a magnetic field, thereby imparting momentum to the spacecraft. A variant is the mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion system, which uses a small cloud of plasma held in a magnetic field to deflect the Sun's charged particles. An E-sail would use very thin and lightweight wires holding an electric charge to deflect these particles, and may have more controllable directionality.
As a proof of concept, NanoSail-D became the first nanosatellite to orbit Earth.. As of August 2017, NASA confirmed the Sunjammer solar sail project was concluded in 2014 with lessons learned for future space sail projects.
Cubesail will be the first mission to demonstrate solar sailing in low Earth orbit, and the first mission to demonstrate full three-axis attitude control of a solar sail.
Japan also launched its own solar sail powered spacecraft IKAROS in May 2010. IKAROS successfully demonstrated propulsion and guidance and is still flying today.
A satellite or other space vehicle is subject to the law of conservation of angular momentum, which constrains a body from a net change in angular velocity. Thus, for a vehicle to change its relative orientation without expending reaction mass, another part of the vehicle may rotate in the opposite direction. Non-conservative external forces, primarily gravitational and atmospheric, can contribute up to several degrees per day to angular momentum, so secondary systems are designed to "bleed off" undesired rotational energies built up over time. Accordingly, many spacecraft utilize reaction wheels or control moment gyroscopes to control orientation in space.
A gravitational slingshot can carry a space probe onward to other destinations without the expense of reaction mass. By harnessing the gravitational energy of other celestial objects, the spacecraft can pick up kinetic energy. However, even more energy can be obtained from the gravity assist if rockets are used.
Beam-powered propulsion is another method of propulsion without reaction mass. Beamed propulsion includes sails pushed by laser, microwave, or particle beams.
There have been many ideas proposed for launch-assist mechanisms that have the potential of drastically reducing the cost of getting into orbit. Proposed non-rocket spacelaunch launch-assist mechanisms include:
Studies generally show that conventional air-breathing engines, such as ramjets or turbojets are basically too heavy (have too low a thrust/weight ratio) to give any significant performance improvement when installed on a launch vehicle itself. However, launch vehicles can be air launched from separate lift vehicles (e.g. B-29, Pegasus Rocket and White Knight) which do use such propulsion systems. Jet engines mounted on a launch rail could also be so used.
On the other hand, very lightweight or very high speed engines have been proposed that take advantage of the air during ascent:
Normal rocket launch vehicles fly almost vertically before rolling over at an altitude of some tens of kilometers before burning sideways for orbit; this initial vertical climb wastes propellant but is optimal as it greatly reduces airdrag. Airbreathing engines burn propellant much more efficiently and this would permit a far flatter launch trajectory, the vehicles would typically fly approximately tangentially to Earth's surface until leaving the atmosphere then perform a rocket burn to bridge the final delta-v to orbital velocity.
For spacecraft already in very low-orbit, air-breathing electric propulsion would use residual gases in the upper atmosphere as propellant. Air-breathing electric propulsion could make a new class of long-lived, low-orbiting missions feasible on Earth, Mars or Venus.
When a vehicle is to enter orbit around its destination planet, or when it is to land, it must adjust its velocity. This can be done using all the methods listed above (provided they can generate a high enough thrust), but there are a few methods that can take advantage of planetary atmospheres and/or surfaces.
Below is a summary of some of the more popular, proven technologies, followed by increasingly speculative methods.
Four numbers are shown. The first is the effective exhaust velocity: the equivalent speed that the propellant leaves the vehicle. This is not necessarily the most important characteristic of the propulsion method; thrust and power consumption and other factors can be. However:
The second and third are the typical amounts of thrust and the typical burn times of the method. Outside a gravitational potential small amounts of thrust applied over a long period will give the same effect as large amounts of thrust over a short period. (This result does not apply when the object is significantly influenced by gravity.)
The fourth is the maximum delta-v this technique can give (without staging). For rocket-like propulsion systems this is a function of mass fraction and exhaust velocity. Mass fraction for rocket-like systems is usually limited by propulsion system weight and tankage weight. For a system to achieve this limit, typically the payload may need to be a negligible percentage of the vehicle, and so the practical limit on some systems can be much lower.
Spacecraft propulsion systems are often first statically tested on Earth's surface, within the atmosphere but many systems require a vacuum chamber to test fully. Rockets are usually tested at a rocket engine test facility well away from habitation and other buildings for safety reasons. Ion drives are far less dangerous and require much less stringent safety, usually only a large-ish vacuum chamber is needed.
Famous static test locations can be found at Rocket Ground Test Facilities
Some systems cannot be adequately tested on the ground and test launches may be employed at a Rocket Launch Site.
A variety of hypothetical propulsion techniques have been considered that require a deeper understanding of the properties of
space, particularly inertial frames and the vacuum state. To date, such methods are highly speculative and include:
A NASA assessment of its Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program divides such proposals into those that are non-viable for propulsion purposes, those that are of uncertain potential, and those that are not impossible according to current theories. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28506 |
Second-order predicate
In mathematical logic, a second-order predicate is a predicate that takes a first-order predicate as an argument. Compare higher-order predicate.
The idea of second order predication was introduced by the German mathematician and philosopher Frege. It is based on his idea that a predicate such as "is a philosopher" designates a concept, rather than an object. Sometimes a concept can itself be the subject of a proposition, such as in "There are no Bosnian philosophers". In this case, we are not saying anything of any Bosnian philosophers, but of the concept "is a Bosnian philosopher" that it is not satisfied. Thus the predicate "is not satisfied" attributes something to the concept "is a Bosnian philosopher", and is thus a second-level predicate.
This idea is the basis of Frege's theory of number. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28510 |
Shining Path
The Communist Party of Peru (PCP) – Shining Path (), more commonly known as the Shining Path (), is a revolutionary communist party and political organization in Peru following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Gonzalo Thought.
When it first launched during the internal conflict in Peru in 1980, its goal was to overthrow the state by guerrilla warfare and replace it with a New Democracy. The Communist Party of Peru believed that by establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, inducing a cultural revolution, and eventually sparking a world revolution, they could arrive at full communism. Their representatives stated that the then-existing socialist countries were revisionist, and the Shining Path was the vanguard of the world communist movement. The Communist Party of Peru's ideology and tactics have influenced other Maoist insurgent groups such as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) and other Revolutionary Internationalist Movement-affiliated organizations. The Peruvian guerrillas were peculiar in that they had a high proportion of women. 50 per cent of the combatants and 40 per cent of the commanders were women.
The Shining Path has been widely condemned for its brutality, including violence deployed against peasants, trade union organizers, elected officials and the general public. The Shining Path is regarded as a terrorist organization by Peru, Japan, the United States, the European Union, and Canada, which consequently prohibit funding and other financial support for the group. Since the capture of its leader Abimael Guzmán in 1992, the Shining Path has declined in activity.
The common name of this group, the Shining Path, distinguishes it from several other Peruvian communist parties with similar names (see Communism in Peru). The name is derived from a maxim of José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of the original Peruvian Communist Party in the 1920s: "El Marxismo-Leninismo abrirá el sendero luminoso hacia la revolución" ("Marxism–Leninism will open the shining path to revolution").
This maxim was featured on the masthead of the newspaper of a Shining Path front group. Due to the number of Peruvian groups that refer to themselves as the Communist Party of Peru, groups are often distinguished by the names of their publications. The followers of this group are generally called "senderistas". All documents, periodicals, and other materials produced by the organization are signed by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). Academics often refer to them as PCP-SL.
The Shining Path was founded in 1969 by Abimael Guzmán, a former university philosophy professor (his followers referred to him by his nom de guerre Presidente Gonzalo), and a group of 11 others. His teachings created the foundation of its militant Maoist doctrine. It was an offshoot of the Communist Party of Peru — "Bandera Roja" (red flag), which in turn split from the original Peruvian Communist Party, a derivation of the Peruvian Socialist Party founded by José Carlos Mariátegui in 1928.
Antonio Díaz Martínez was an agronomist who became a leader of the Sendero Luminoso. His books, "Ayacucho, Hambre y Esperanza" (1969) and "China, La Revolución Agraria" (1978) expressed his own conviction of the necessity that revolutionary activity in Peru follow strictly the teachings of Mao Zedong. This was his important contribution to the ideology of Sendero Luminoso.
The Shining Path first established a foothold at San Cristóbal of Huamanga University, in Ayacucho, where Guzmán taught philosophy. The university had recently reopened after being closed for about half a century, and many students of the newly educated class adopted the Shining Path's radical ideology. Between 1973 and 1975, Shining Path members gained control of the student councils at the Universities of Huancayo and La Cantuta, and they also developed a significant presence at the National University of Engineering in Lima and the National University of San Marcos. Sometime later, it lost many student elections in the universities, including Guzmán's San Cristóbal of Huamanga. It decided to abandon recruiting at the universities and reconsolidate.
Beginning on March 17, 1980, the Shining Path held a series of clandestine meetings in Ayacucho, known as the Central Committee's second plenary. It formed a "Revolutionary Directorate" that was political and military in nature and ordered its militias to transfer to strategic areas in the provinces to start the "armed struggle". The group also held its "First Military School", where members were instructed in military tactics and the use of weapons. They also engaged in "Criticism and Self-criticism", a Maoist practice intended to purge bad habits and avoid the repetition of mistakes. During the existence of the First Military School, members of the Central Committee came under heavy criticism. Guzmán did not, and he emerged from the First Military School as the clear leader of the Shining Path. In 1992, Guzmán and other leaders of the Shining Path received life imprisonment sentences for their role in the Lucanamarca massacre, among other charges.
When Peru's military government allowed elections for the first time in twelve years in 1980, the Shining Path was one of the few leftist political groups that declined to take part. It chose to begin guerrilla war in the highlands of the Ayacucho Region. On May 17, 1980, on the eve of the presidential elections, it burned ballot boxes in the town of Chuschi. It was the first "act of war" by the Shining Path. The perpetrators were quickly caught, and additional ballots were shipped to Chuschi. The elections proceeded without further problems, and the incident received little attention in the Peruvian press.
Throughout the 1980s, the Shining Path grew both in terms of the territory it controlled and in the number of militants in its organization, particularly in the Andean highlands. It gained support from local peasants by filling the political void left by the central government and providing what they called "popular justice", public trials that disregard any legal and human rights that deliver swift and brutal sentences including public executions. This caused the peasantry of some Peruvian villages to express some sympathy for the Shining Path, especially in the impoverished and neglected regions of Ayacucho, Apurímac, and Huancavelica. At times, the civilian population of small, neglected towns participated in popular trials, especially when the victims of the trials were widely disliked.
The Shining Path's credibility benefited from the government's initially tepid response to the insurgency. For over a year, the government refused to declare a state of emergency in the region where the Shining Path was operating. The Interior Minister, José María de la Jara, believed the group could be easily defeated through police actions. Additionally, the president, Fernando Belaúnde Terry, who returned to power in 1980, was reluctant to cede authority to the armed forces since his first government had ended in a military coup. The result was that the peasants in the areas where the Shining Path was active thought the state was either impotent or not interested in their issues.
On December 29, 1981, the government declared an "emergency zone" in the three Andean regions of Ayacucho, Huancavelica, and Apurímac and granted the military the power to arbitrarily detain any suspicious person. The military abused this power, arresting scores of innocent people, at times subjecting them to torture during interrogation as well as rape. Police, military forces, and members of the "Popular Guerrilla Army" (Ejército Guerrillero Popular, or EGP) carried out several massacres throughout the conflict. Military personnel started to wear black ski-masks to hide their identities and protect their safety, and that of their families.
In some areas, the military trained peasants and organized them into anti-rebel militias, called "rondas". They were generally poorly equipped, despite being provided arms by the state. The rondas attacked the Shining Path guerrillas. The first such reported attack was in January 1983, near Huata, when "ronderos" killed 13 "senderistas" in February, in Sacsamarca. In March 1983, "ronderos" brutally killed Olegario Curitomay, one of the commanders of the town of Lucanamarca. They took him to the town square, stoned him, stabbed him, set him on fire, and finally shot him. The Shining Path's retaliation to this was brutal. In one of the worst attacks in the entire conflict, a group of guerrilla members came into town and going house by house, massacred dozens of villagers, including babies, with guns, hatchets, and axes. This action has come to be known as the Lucanamarca massacre.
The Shining Path's attacks were not limited to the countryside. It executed several attacks against the infrastructure in Lima, killing civilians in the process. In 1983, it sabotaged several electrical transmission towers, causing a citywide blackout, and set fire and destroyed the Bayer industrial plant. That same year, it set off a powerful bomb in the offices of the governing party, Popular Action. Escalating its activities in Lima, in June 1985, it blew up electricity transmission towers in Lima, producing a blackout, and detonated car bombs near the government palace and the justice palace. It was believed to be responsible for bombing a shopping mall. At the time, President Fernando Belaúnde Terry was receiving the Argentine president Raúl Alfonsín. In one of its last attacks in Lima, on July 16, 1992, the group detonated a powerful bomb on Tarata Street in the Miraflores District, full of civilian adults and children, killing 25 people and injuring an additional 155.
During this period, the Shining Path assassinated specific individuals, notably leaders of other leftist groups, local political parties, labor unions, and peasant organizations, some of whom were anti-Shining Path Marxists. On April 24, 1985, in the midst of presidential elections, it tried to assassinate Domingo García Rada, the president of the Peruvian National Electoral Council, severely injuring him and mortally wounding his driver. In 1988, Constantin (Gus) Gregory, an American citizen working for the United States Agency for International Development, was assassinated. Two French aid workers were killed on December 4 that same year. In August 1991, the group killed one Italian and two Polish priests in the Ancash Region. The following February, it assassinated María Elena Moyano, a well-known community organizer in Villa El Salvador, a vast shantytown in Lima.
By 1991, the Shining Path had gained control of much of the countryside of the center and south of Peru and had a large presence in the outskirts of Lima. As the organization grew in power, a cult of personality grew around Guzmán. The official ideology of the Shining Path ceased to be "Marxism–Leninism–Mao Tse-tung thought" and was instead referred to as "Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Gonzalo thought". The Shining Path fought against Peru's other major guerrilla group, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), as well as campesino self-defense groups organized by the Peruvian armed forces.
Although the reliability of reports regarding the Shining Path's atrocities remains a matter of controversy in Peru, the organization's use of violence is well documented. The Shining Path rejected the concept of human rights; a Shining Path document stated:
The Shining Path quickly seized control of large areas of Peru. The group had significant support among peasant communities, and it had the support of some slum dwellers in the capital and elsewhere. The Shining Path's Maoism probably did not have the support of many city dwellers. According to opinion polls, only 15% of the population considered subversion to be justifiable in June 1988, while only 17% considered it justifiable in 1991. In June 1991, "the total sample disapproved of the Shining Path by an 83 to 7 percent margin, with 10 percent not answering the question. Among the poorest, however, only 58% stated disapproval of the Shining Path; 11 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Shining Path, and some 31 percent would not answer the question." A September 1991 poll found that 21 percent of those polled in Lima believed that the Shining Path did not torture and kill innocent people. The same poll found that 13% believed that society would be more just if the Shining Path won the war and 22% believed society would be equally just under the Shining Path as it was under the government.
Polls have never been completely accurate since Peru has several anti-terrorism laws, including "apology for terrorism", that makes it a punishable offense for anyone who does not condemn the Shining Path. In effect, the laws make it illegal to support the group in any way.
Many peasants were unhappy with the Shining Path's rule for a variety of reasons, such as its disrespect for indigenous culture and institutions. However, they had also made agreements and alliances with some indigenous tribes. Some did not like the brutality of its "popular trials" that sometimes included "slitting throats, strangulation, stoning, and burning." Peasants were offended by the rebels' injunction against burying the bodies of Shining Path victims.
The Shining Path followed Mao Zedong's dictum that guerrilla warfare should start in the countryside and gradually choke off the cities. The Shining Path banned continuous drunkenness, but they did allow the consumption of alcohol.
In 1991, President Alberto Fujimori issued a law that gave the "rondas" a legal status, and from that time, they were officially called "Comités de auto defensa" ("Committees of Self-Defense"). They were officially armed, usually with 12-gauge shotguns, and trained by the Peruvian Army. According to the government, there were approximately 7,226 "comités de auto defensa" as of 2005; almost 4,000 are located in the central region of Peru, the stronghold of the Shining Path.
The Peruvian government also cracked down on the Shining Path in other ways. Military personnel were dispatched to areas dominated by the Shining Path, especially Ayacucho, to fight the rebels. Ayacucho, Huancavelica, Apurímac and Huánuco were declared emergency zones, allowing for some constitutional rights to be suspended in those areas.
Initial government efforts to fight the Shining Path were not very effective or promising. Military units engaged in many human rights violations, which caused the Shining Path to appear in the eyes of many as the lesser of two evils. They used excessive force and killed many innocent civilians. Government forces destroyed villages and killed "campesinos" suspected of supporting the Shining Path. They eventually lessened the pace at which the armed forces committed atrocities such as massacres. Additionally, the state began the widespread use of intelligence agencies in its fight against the Shining Path. However, atrocities were committed by the National Intelligence Service and the Army Intelligence Service, notably the La Cantuta massacre, the Santa massacre and the Barrios Altos massacre, which were committed by Grupo Colina.
After the collapse of the Fujimori government, interim President Valentín Paniagua established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the conflict. The Commission found in its 2003 "Final Report" that 69,280 people died or disappeared between 1980 and 2000 as a result of the armed conflict. The Shining Path was found to be responsible for about 54% of the deaths and disappearances reported to the Commission. A statistical analysis of the available data led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to estimate that the Shining Path was responsible for the death or disappearance of 31,331 people, 46% of the total deaths and disappearances. According to a summary of the report by Human Rights Watch, "Shining Path… killed about half the victims, and roughly one-third died at the hands of government security forces… The commission attributed some of the other slayings to a smaller guerrilla group and local militias. The rest remain unattributed." The MRTA was held responsible for 1.5% of the deaths. A 2019 study disputed the casualty figures from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, estimating instead "a total of 48,000 killings, substantially lower than the TRC estimate", and concluding that "the Peruvian State accounts for a significantly larger share than the Shining Path."
On September 12, 1992, El Grupo Especial de Inteligencia (GEIN) captured Guzmán and several Shining Path leaders in an apartment above a dance studio in the Surquillo district of Lima. GEIN had been monitoring the apartment since a number of suspected Shining Path militants had visited it. An inspection of the garbage of the apartment produced empty tubes of a skin cream used to treat psoriasis, a condition that Guzmán was known to have. Shortly after the raid that captured Guzmán, most of the remaining Shining Path leadership fell as well.
The capture of rebel leader Abimael Guzmán left a huge leadership vacuum for the Shining Path. "There is no No. 2. There is only Presidente Gonzalo and then the party," a Shining Path political officer said at a birthday celebration for Guzmán in Lurigancho prison in December 1990. "Without Presidente Gonzalo, we would have nothing."
At the same time, the Shining Path suffered embarrassing military defeats to self-defense organizations of rural "campesinos" — supposedly its social base. When Guzmán called for peace talks, the organization fractured into splinter groups, with some Shining Path members in favor of such talks and others opposed. Guzmán's role as the leader of the Shining Path was taken over by Óscar Ramírez, who himself was captured by Peruvian authorities in 1999. After Ramírez's capture, the group splintered, guerrilla activity diminished sharply, and peace returned to the areas where the Shining Path had been active.
Although the organization's numbers had lessened by 2003, a militant faction of the Shining Path called "Proseguir" ("Onward") continued to be active.
On May 21, 2002, a car bomb exploded outside the US embassy in Lima just before a visit by President George W. Bush. Nine people were killed, and 30 were injured; the attack was determined to be the work of the Shining Path.
On June 9, 2003, a Shining Path group attacked a camp in Ayacucho and took 68 employees of the Argentinian company Techint and three police guards as hostages. They had been working on the Camisea gas pipeline project that would take natural gas from Cusco to Lima. According to sources from Peru's Interior Ministry, the rebels asked for a sizable ransom to free the hostages. Two days later, after a rapid military response, the rebels abandoned the hostages; according to government sources, no ransom was paid. However, there were rumors that US$200,000 was paid to the rebels.
Government forces have captured three leading Shining Path members. In April 2000, Commander José Arcela Chiroque, called "Ormeño", was captured, followed by another leader, Florentino Cerrón Cardozo, called "Marcelo", in July 2003. In November of the same year, Jaime Zuñiga, called "Cirilo" or "Dalton", was arrested after a clash in which four guerrillas were killed and an officer was wounded. Officials said he took part in planning the kidnapping of the Techint pipeline workers. He was also thought to have led an ambush against an army helicopter in 1999 in which five soldiers died.
In 2003, the Peruvian National Police broke up several Shining Path training camps and captured many members and leaders. By late October 2003, there were 96 terrorist incidents in Peru, projecting a 15% decrease from the 134 kidnappings and armed attacks in 2002. Also for the year, eight or nine people were killed by the Shining Path, and 6 "senderistas" were killed and 209 were captured.
In January 2004, a man known as Comrade Artemio and identifying himself as one of the Shining Path's leaders, said in a media interview that the group would resume violent operations unless the Peruvian government granted amnesty to other top Shining Path leaders within 60 days. Peru's Interior Minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, said that the government would respond "drastically and swiftly" to any violent action. In September that same year, a comprehensive sweep by police in five cities found 17 suspected members. According to the interior minister, eight of the arrested were school teachers and high-level school administrators.
Despite these arrests, the Shining Path continued to exist in Peru. On December 22, 2005, the Shining Path ambushed a police patrol in the Huánuco region, killing eight. Later that day, they wounded an additional two police officers. In response, then President Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency in Huánuco and gave the police the power to search houses and arrest suspects without a warrant. On February 19, 2006, the Peruvian police killed Héctor Aponte, believed to be the commander responsible for the ambush. In December 2006, Peruvian troops were sent to counter renewed guerrilla activity, and according to high-level government officials, the Shining Path's strength has reached an estimated 300 members. In November 2007, police said they killed Artemio's second-in-command, a guerrilla known as JL.
In September 2008, government forces announced the killing of five rebels in the Vizcatan region. This claim was subsequently challenged by the APRODEH, a Peruvian human rights group, which believed that those who were killed were in fact local farmers and not rebels. That same month, Artemio gave his first recorded interview since 2006. In it, he stated that the Shining Path would continue to fight despite escalating military pressure. In October 2008, in Huancavelica Region, the guerrillas engaged a military convoy with explosives and firearms, demonstrating their continued ability to strike and inflict casualties on military targets. The conflict resulted in the death of 12 soldiers and two to seven civilians. It came one day after a clash in the Vizcatan region, which left five rebels and one soldier dead.
In November 2008, the rebels utilized hand grenades and automatic weapons in an assault that claimed the lives of 4 police officers. In April 2009, the Shining Path ambushed and killed 13 government soldiers in Ayacucho. Grenades and dynamite were used in the attack. The dead included eleven soldiers and one captain, and two soldiers were also injured, with one reported missing.
Poor communications were said to have made relay of the news difficult. The country's Defense Minister, Antero Flores Aráoz, said many soldiers "plunged over a cliff". His Prime Minister, Yehude Simon, said these attacks were "desperate responses by the Shining Path in the face of advances by the armed forces" and expressed his belief that the area would soon be freed of "leftover terrorists". In the aftermath, a Sendero leader called this "the strongest [anti-government] blow... in quite a while". In November 2009, Defense Minister Rafael Rey announced that Shining Path militants had attacked a military outpost in southern Ayacucho province. One soldier was killed and three others wounded in the assault.
On April 28, 2010, Shining Path rebels in Peru ambushed and killed a police officer and two civilians who were destroying coca plantations of Aucayacu, in the central region of Haunuco, Peru. The victims were gunned down by sniper fire coming from the thick forest as more than 200 workers were destroying coca plants. Since this attack, the Shining Path faction, based in the Upper Huallaga Valley of Peru and headed by Florindo Eleuterio Flores Hala, alias Comrade Artemio, has been operating in a survival mode and has lost 9 of their top 10 leaders to Peruvian National Police (PNP)-led capture operations. Two of the eight leaders were killed by PNP personnel during the attempted captures. Those nine arrested/killed Shining Path (Upper Huallaga Valley faction) leaders include Mono (Aug. 2009), Rubén (May 2010), Izula (Oct. 2010), Sergio (Dec. 2010), Yoli/Miguel/Jorge (Jun. 2011), Gato Larry (Jun. 2011), Oscar Tigre (Aug. 2011), Vicente Roger (Aug. 2011), and Dante/Delta (Jan. 2012).
This loss of leadership, coupled with a sweep of Shining Path (Upper Huallaga Valley) supporters executed by the PNP in November 2010, prompted Comrade Artemio to declare in December 2011 to several international journalists that the guerrilla war against the Peruvian Government has been lost and that his only hope was to negotiate an amnesty agreement with the Government of Peru.
On February 12, 2012, Comrade Artemio was found badly wounded after a clash with troops in a remote jungle region of Peru. President Ollanta Humala said the capture of Artemio marked the defeat of the Shining Path in the Alto Huallaga valley – a center of cocaine production. President Humala has stated that he would now step up the fight against the remaining bands of Shining Path rebels in the Ene-Apurímac valley. On March 3, Walter Diaz, the lead candidate to succeed Artemio, was captured, further ensuring the disintegration of the Alto Huallaga valley faction. On April 3, 2012, Jaime Arenas Caviedes, a senior leader in the group's remnants in Alto Huallaga Valley who was also regarded to be the leading candidate to succeed Artemio following Diaz's arrest, was captured. After Caviedes, alias "Braulio", was captured, Humala declared that the Shining Path was now unable to operate in the Alto Huallaga Valley.
On October 7, 2012, Shining Path rebels carried out an attack on three helicopters being used by an international gas pipeline consortium, in the central region of Cusco. According to the military Joint Command spokesman, Col. Alejandro Lujan, no one was kidnapped or injured during the attack.
On June 7, 2013, Comrade Artemio was convicted of terrorism, drug trafficking, and money laundering. He was sentenced to life in prison and a fine of $183 million.
On August 11, 2013, Comrade Alipio, the Shining Path's leader in the Ene-Apurímac Valley, was killed in a battle with government forces in Llochegua.
On April 9, 2016, on the eve of the country's presidential elections, the Peruvian government blamed remnants of the Shining Path for a guerilla attack that killed eight soldiers and two civilians.
On March 18, 2017, Shining Path snipers killed three police officers in the Ene Apurimac Valley. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28521 |
St Albans
St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England and the major urban area in the City and District of St Albans. It lies east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, about north-north-west of central London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and it became the Roman city of Verulamium. It is within the London commuter belt and the Greater London Built-up Area.
St Albans takes its name from the first British saint, Alban. The most elaborate version of his story, Bede's "Ecclesiastical History of the English People", relates that he lived in Verulamium, sometime during the 3rd or 4th century, when Christians were suffering persecution. Alban met a Christian priest fleeing from his persecutors and sheltered him in his house, where he became so impressed with the priest's piety that he converted to Christianity. When the authorities searched Alban's house, he put on the priest's cloak and presented himself in place of his guest. Consequently, he was sentenced to endure the punishments that were to be inflicted upon the priest, unless he renounced Christianity. Alban refused and was taken for execution. In later legends, his head rolled downhill after execution and a well sprang up where it stopped.
There was an Iron Age settlement known as Verulamium, Verlamion, or Verlamio, near the site of the present city, the centre of Tasciovanus' power and a major centre of the Catuvellauni from about 20 BC until shortly after the Roman invasion of AD 43. The name "Verulamium" is Celtic, meaning "settlement over or by the marsh". The town was on Prae Hill, 2 km to the west of modern St Albans, now covered by the village of St Michael's, Verulamium Park and the Gorhambury Estate. Although excavations done in 1996 produced finds which included silver coins from the Roman Republican era dating from 90/80 bc evidence of trade with the republic and that a settlement already existed on the site 50 years before Julius Caesar attempted to invade Britain, yet it is believed that the tribal capital was moved to the site by Tasciovanus (around 25 to 5 BC). Cunobelinus may have constructed Beech Bottom Dyke, a defensive earthwork near the settlement whose significance is uncertain.
The Roman city of Verulamium, the second-largest town in Roman Britain after Londinium, developed from the Celtic settlement and was granted the rank of "municipium" around AD 50, meaning that its citizens had what were known as "Latin Rights", a lesser citizenship status than a "colonia" possessed. It grew to a significant town, and as such received the attentions of Boudica of the Iceni in 61, when Verulamium was sacked and burnt on her orders:excavations preceding the museum's new entrance done in 1996-7 within the centre of the Roman town gave archaeologists the chance to date a black ash layer to 60-65 AD, thus confirming the Roman written record. It grew steadily; by the early 3rd century, it covered an area of about , behind a deep ditch and wall. Verulamium contained a forum, basilica and a theatre, much of which were damaged during two fires, one in 155 and the other in around 250. These were repaired and continued in use in the 4th century. The theatre was disused by the end of the 4th century. One of the few extant Roman inscriptions in Britain is found on the remnants of the forum (see Verulamium Forum inscription). The town was rebuilt in stone rather than timber at least twice over the next 150 years. Roman occupation ended between 400 and 450 AD
The body of St Alban was probably buried outside the city walls in a Roman cemetery near the present cathedral. His hillside grave became a place of pilgrimage. Recent investigation has uncovered a basilica there, indicating the oldest continuous site of Christian worship in Great Britain. In 429 Germanus of Auxerre visited the church and subsequently promoted the cult of St Alban.
A few traces of the Roman city remain visible, such as parts of the city walls, a hypocaust - still "in situ" under a mosaic floor, and the theatre, which is on land belonging to the Earl of Verulam, as well as items in the museum. Further remains beneath nearby agricultural land have only had a few exploratory trenches, have never been fully excavated and were, for a while, seriously threatened by deep ploughing, which ceased in 2005 after compensation was agreed. Test trenches in 2003 confirmed that serious damage had occurred to buildings on the northern side of Old Watling Street by deep ploughing. Permission needs to be granted to enable the full extent of the damage to the western half of Verulamium to be investigated.
After the Roman withdrawal the town became the centre of the territory or "regio" of the Anglo-Saxon "Waeclingas" tribe.
St Albans Abbey and the associated Anglo-Saxon settlement were founded on the hill outside the Roman city where it was believed St Alban was buried. An archaeological excavation in 1978, directed by Martin Biddle, failed to find Roman remains on the site of the medieval chapter house. As late as the eighth century the Saxon inhabitants of St Albans nearby were aware of their ancient neighbour, which they knew alternatively as Verulamacæstir or, under what H. R. Loyn terms "their own hybrid", Vaeclingscæstir, "the fortress of the followers of Wæcla", possibly a pocket of British-speakers remaining separate in an increasingly Saxonised area.
The medieval town grew on the hill to the east of Wæclingacaester where the Benedictine Abbey of St Albans was founded by Ulsinus in 793. There is some evidence that the original site was higher up the hill than the present building, which was begun in 1077. St Albans Abbey was the principal medieval abbey in England. The scribe Matthew Vickers lived there and the first draft of Magna Carta was drawn up there. It became a parish church after the dissolution of the Benedictine abbey in 1539 and was made a cathedral in 1877.
St Albans School was founded in AD 948. Matthew Paris was educated there and it is the only school in the English-speaking world to have educated a Pope (Adrian IV). Now a public school it has, since 1871, occupied a site to the west of the Abbey and includes the 14th-century Abbey Gateway. One of its buildings was a hat factory, a link with the city's industrial past.
On Abbey Mill Lane, the road between the Abbey and the school, are the palaces of the Bishops of St Albans and Hertford and Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, claimed to be the oldest pub in England.
Between 1403 and 1412 Thomas Wolvey was engaged to build a clock tower in the Market Place. It is the only extant medieval town belfry in England. The original bell, named for the Archangel Gabriel sounds F-natural and weighs one ton. Gabriel sounded at 4 am for the Angelus and at 8 or 9 pm for the curfew. The ground floor of the tower was a shop until the 20th century. The first- and second-floor rooms were designed as living chambers. The shop and the first floor were connected by a flight of spiral stairs. Another flight rises the whole height of the tower by 93 narrow steps and gave access to the living chamber, the clock and the bell without disturbing the tenant of the shop.
Two battles of the Wars of the Roses took place in or near the town. The First Battle of St Albans was fought on 22 May 1455 within the town, and the Second Battle of St Albans was fought on 17 February 1461, just to the north.
A street market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, founded by Abbot Ulsinus, still flourishes.
Before the 20th century St Albans was a rural market town, a Christian pilgrimage site, and the first coaching stop of the route to and from London, accounting for its numerous old inns. Victorian St Albans was small and had little industry. Its population grew more slowly than London, 8–9% per decade between 1801 and 1861, compared to the 31% per decade growth of London in the same period. The railway arrived relatively late, in 1858. In 1869 the extension of the city boundaries was opposed by the Earl of Verulam and many of the townsfolk, but there was rapid expansion and much building at the end of the century, and between 1891 and 1901 the population grew by 37%.
In 1877, in response to a public petition, Queen Victoria issued the second royal charter, which granted city status to the borough and Cathedral status to the former Abbey Church. The new diocese was established in the same year, in the main from parts of the large Diocese of Rochester.
In the inter-war years it became a centre for the electronics industry. In the post-World War II years it expanded rapidly as part of the post-War redistribution of population out of Greater London. It is now a popular tourist destination.
St Albans was an ancient borough created following the dissolution of the monastery in 1539. It consisted of the ancient parish of St Albans (also known as the Abbey parish) and parts of St Michael and St Peter. The municipal corporation was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and the boundary was adjusted to additionally include part of the parish of St Stephen. In 1887 the borough gained city status, following the elevation of St Albans Abbey to cathedral, and the boundary was adjusted to include part of the parish of Sandridge.
The Local Government Act 1894 divided parishes that were partly within municipal boroughs. The parts of St Michael, St Peter and Sandridge within the borough became the new parishes of St Michael Urban, St Peter Urban and Sandridge Urban. The part of St Stephen within the borough was absorbed by the parish of St Albans. The parishes that were formed outside the borough, that is St Michael Rural, St Peter Rural, Sandridge Rural and the reduced St Stephen, became part of St Albans Rural District in 1894.
In 1898 the parish of St Albans absorbed St Michael Urban, St Peter Urban and Sandridge Urban so the parish and borough occupied the same area. In 1901 the population of the borough was 16,019, growing to 18,133 in 1911. St Albans expanded in 1913 by gaining parts of Sandridge Rural (241 acres), St Michael Rural (138 acres), St Peter Rural (992 acres) and St Stephen (335 acres). In 1921 the population of the enlarged borough was 25,593, growing to 28,624 in 1931. It expanded again in 1935 as part of a county review order gaining more of St Michael Rural (890 acres), St Peter Rural (436 acres) and St Stephen (712 acres). The population of the borough was 44,098 in 1951 and 50,293 in 1961.
The borough was abolished on 1 April 1974 and St Albans became part of the new, larger City and District of St Albans. City status was transferred to the entire district by letters patent dated 9 July 1974. Local government services are now provided by Hertfordshire County Council (strategic services), St Albans City and District Council and eight local parish councils (limited local services). Within the town, the Ashley, Batchwood, Clarence, Cunningham, Marshalswick South, St Peters, Sopwell and Verulam wards have no parish councils, but since June 2013 a City Neighbourhood Committee has had comparable responsibilities for small parks, playgrounds, open spaces, war memorials, allotments and public conveniences within those wards.
St Albans is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Established in 1885, it is a county constituency in Hertfordshire, and elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
St Albans has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification "Cfb") similar to most of the United Kingdom.
Two railway stations serve the city: St Albans City station, which is situated east of the city centre, and St Albans Abbey station, which is situated approximately south-west of the city station.
St Albans City station is served by Thameslink services, on a frequent and fast rail link to central London. Suburban services stop at all stations on the route, while express services are non-stop to London St Pancras International. The journey from St Albans City station to St Pancras International is 18 minutes. Trains run north to Harpenden, Luton, Luton Airport Parkway and on to Bedford.
St Albans Abbey station is the terminus of a single-track branch line from Watford Junction station.
St Albans has a thriving cultural life, with regular concerts and theatre productions held at venues including Trestle Arts Base, St Albans Abbey, Maltings Arts Theatre, the Alban Arena, the Abbey Theatre, St Peter's Church and St Saviour's Church, given by numerous organisations including St Albans Bach Choir, St Albans Cathedral Choir, St Albans Cathedral Girls' Choir, St Albans Symphony Orchestra, St Albans Chamber Choir, St Albans Chamber Opera, The Company of Ten, St Albans Choral Society, and St Albans Organ Theatre. St Albans is also home to Trestle Theatre Company, who have been creating professional, innovative and inspirational physical storytelling theatre since 1981. Originally known for their work with masks, Trestle collaborates with UK and international artists to unify movement, music and text into a compelling theatrical experience. The Sandpit Theatre is a theatre attached to Sandringham School which hosts a wide variety of plays throughout the year, mainly performances put on by the pupils of Sandringham School. The school also hosts Best Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school for children aged 4 to 16.
The Odyssey Cinema (formerly the Odeon) on London Road is an independent, arthouse cinema that was restored and re-opened in 2014. Originally opened in 1931, it stands on the site of the Alpha Picture House, Hertfordshire's first cinema, which was opened in 1908 by film-making pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper.
The St Albans Museum service runs two museums: Verulamium Museum, which tells the story of everyday life in Roman Britain using objects from the excavations of the important Roman Town; and the Museum of St Albans, which focuses on the history of the town and of Saint Alban.
The Watercress nature reserve is by the River Ver and is run by the Watercress Wildlife Association.
St Albans Museums and Galleries Trust, in partnership with St Albans Museums and the University of Hertfordshire, have launched a project, "Renaissance: St Albans", to convert the old town hall into a museum and art gallery, combining the university's Margaret Harvey Gallery and the Museum of St Albans, which have closed in anticipation of the move. The cost of the project is £7.75m, of which (at February 2016) £6.3m has been raised.
The area is served by 92.6FM Radio Verulam, a community radio station.
The mixed character of St Albans and its proximity to London have made it a popular filming location. The Abbey and Fishpool Street areas were used for the pilot episode of the 1960s ecclesiastical TV comedy "All Gas and Gaiters". The area of Romeland, directly north of the Abbey Gateway and the walls of the Abbey and school grounds, can be seen masquerading as part of an Oxford college in some episodes of "Inspector Morse" (and several local pubs also appear). Fishpool Street, running from Romeland to St Michael's village, stood in for Hastings in some episodes of "Foyle's War". "Life Begins" was filmed largely in and around St Albans. The Lady Chapel in the Abbey itself was used as a location for at least one scene in Sean Connery's 1995 film "First Knight", whilst the nave of the Abbey was used during a coronation scene as a substitute for Westminster Abbey in "Johnny English" starring Rowan Atkinson. The 19th-century gatehouse of the former prison near the mainline station appeared in the title sequence of the TV series "Porridge", starring Ronnie Barker. The 2001 film "Birthday Girl" starring Ben Chaplin and Nicole Kidman was also partly filmed in St Albans.
More recently, several scenes from the film "Incendiary", starring Michelle Williams, Ewan McGregor and Matthew Macfadyen, were filmed in St Albans, focusing in particular on the Abbey and the Abbey Gateway. It has also been used the setting for the fictional town "Waltringham", in the TV show Humans.
In December 2007, Sport England published a survey which revealed that residents of St Albans were the 10th most active in England in sports and other fitness activities. 30.8% of the population participate at least 3 times a week for 90 minutes.
Clarence Park plays host to St Albans Cricket Club. The club currently runs four Saturday sides, playing in the Saracens Hertfordshire Cricket League and also two Sunday sides in the Chess Valley Cricket League. In 2008 the club's 1st XI won the Hertfordshire League Title. In the previous two seasons, the first XI came 5th (2011) and 4th (2012) in division one.
The local football team is St Albans City FC: its stadium is on the edge of Clarence Park and the team won promotion from the Conference South League in 2005–06. It played in the Nationwide Conference Division of the Football Conference for the 2006–07 season, but finished at the bottom of the table and was relegated.
St Albans Gymnastics Club, founded in 2005, provides the St Albans area with fun and effectively structured recreational classes as well as a professionally managed competitive squad.
St Albans is also home to St Albans Hockey Club, based in Oaklands, St Albans. The club is represented at National league level by both women's and men's teams, as well as other local league competitions. The club's nickname is "The Tangerines".
St Albans Centurions Rugby league Club have their ground at Toulmin Drive, St Albans. They play in the London Premier League. In 2007 and again in 2010 'The Cents', as they are known, won 'the triple' – topping the league, and becoming the Regional and National Champions of the Rugby League Conference Premier Divisions.
Old Albanian RFC is a rugby union club that plays at the Old Albanian sports complex. They play in National League 1 the third tier of the English rugby union system. Saracens A team and OA Saints Women's Rugby team also play here. This complex hosts the offices of the Aviva Premiership club Saracens (and have recently moved their home ground to Barnet).
St Albans RFC play at Boggymead Spring in Smallford.
Verulamians RFC (formerly Old Verulamians) play at Cotlandswick in London Colney.
St Albans is home to one of the country's oldest and finest indoor skateparks, the Pioneer Skatepark in Heathlands Drive, next to the former fire station. Its ramps are available to all skateboarders and inliners. A new outside mini ramp was built in March 2005. A second outdoor mini ramp was opened at Easter 2009.
St Albans is additionally home to a community of traceurs from around Hertfordshire.
St Albans was once home to the then most prestigious steeplechase in England. The Great St Albans chase attracted the best horses and riders from across Britain and Ireland in the 1830s and was held in such high esteem that when it clashed with the 1837 Grand National the top horses and riders chose to bypass Aintree. Without warning the race was discontinued in 1839 and was quickly forgotten.
St Albans was once home to Samuel Ryder, the founder of the Ryder Cup. He ran a very successful packet seeds business in the 1890s which at one time he ran from a packing warehouse on Holywell Hill (now Café Rouge). His interest in golf and sponsorship led to his donation of the now famous Ryder Cup. He is buried in Hatfield Road Cemetery, where in July 2012 the Olympic Torch Relay passed by to honour him.
St Albans has many state primary and secondary schools, and a number of independent schools.
The law school of the University of Hertfordshire used to be based in Hatfield Road in St Albans until it moved to the university's De Havilland campus in Hatfield in 2011. Hertfordshire County Council purchased the site. The interior of the former law school building has since been refurbished and now forms part of Alban City School, a state-funded Free School for primary aged children, which started taking reception class children in September 2012.
A campus of Oaklands College, a further education college, is also located in Smallford in St Albans. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28523 |
RNA splicing
RNA splicing, in molecular biology, is a form of RNA processing in which a newly made precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) transcript is transformed into a mature messenger RNA (mRNA). During splicing, introns (Non-coding regions) are removed and exons (Coding Regions) are joined together. For nuclear-encoded genes, splicing takes place within the nucleus either during or immediately after transcription. For those eukaryotic genes that contain introns, splicing is usually required in order to create an mRNA molecule that can be translated into protein. For many eukaryotic introns, splicing is carried out in a series of reactions which are catalyzed by the spliceosome, a complex of small nuclear ribonucleo proteins (snRNPs). Self-splicing introns, or ribozymes capable of catalyzing their own excision from their parent RNA molecule, also exist.
Several methods of RNA splicing occur in nature; the type of splicing depends on the structure of the spliced intron and the catalysts required for splicing to occur.
The word "intron" is derived from the terms "intragenic region", and "intracistron", that is, a segment of DNA that is located between two exons of a gene. The term intron refers to both the DNA sequence within a gene and the corresponding sequence in the unprocessed RNA transcript. As part of the RNA processing pathway, introns are removed by RNA splicing either shortly after or concurrent with transcription. Introns are found in the genes of most organisms and many viruses. They can be located in a wide range of genes, including those that generate proteins, ribosomal RNA (rRNA), and transfer RNA (tRNA).
Within introns, a donor site (5' end of the intron), a branch site (near the 3' end of the intron) and an acceptor site (3' end of the intron) are required for splicing. The splice donor site includes an almost invariant sequence GU at the 5' end of the intron, within a larger, less highly conserved region. The splice acceptor site at the 3' end of the intron terminates the intron with an almost invariant AG sequence. Upstream (5'-ward) from the AG there is a region high in pyrimidines (C and U), or polypyrimidine tract. Further upstream from the polypyrimidine tract is the branchpoint, which includes an adenine nucleotide involved in lariat formation. The consensus sequence for an intron (in IUPAC nucleic acid notation) is: G-G-[cut]-G-U-R-A-G-U (donor site) ... intron sequence ... Y-U-R-A-C (branch sequence 20-50 nucleotides upstream of acceptor site) ... Y-rich-N-C-A-G-[cut]-G (acceptor site). However, it is noted that the specific sequence of intronic splicing elements and the number of nucleotides between the branchpoint and the nearest 3’ acceptor site affect splice site selection. Also, point mutations in the underlying DNA or errors during transcription can activate a "cryptic splice site" in part of the transcript that usually is not spliced. This results in a mature messenger RNA with a missing section of an exon. In this way, a point mutation, which might otherwise affect only a single amino acid, can manifest as a deletion or truncation in the final protein.
Splicing is catalyzed by the spliceosome, a large RNA-protein complex composed of five small nuclear ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs). Assembly and activity of the spliceosome occurs during transcription of the pre-mRNA. The RNA components of snRNPs interact with the intron and are involved in catalysis. Two types of spliceosomes have been identified (major and minor) which contain different snRNPs.
In most cases, splicing removes introns as single units from precursor mRNA transcripts. However, in some cases, especially in mRNAs with very long introns, splicing happens in steps, with part of an intron removed and then the remaining intron is spliced out in a following step. This has been found first in the "Ultrabithorax" ("Ubx") gene of the fruit fly, "Drosophila melanogaster", and a few other "Drosophila" genes, but cases in humans have been reported as well.
Trans-splicing is a form of splicing that removes introns or outrons, and joins two exons that are not within the same RNA transcript.
Self-splicing occurs for rare introns that form a ribozyme, performing the functions of the spliceosome by RNA alone. There are three kinds of self-splicing introns, "Group I", "Group II" and "Group III". Group I and II introns perform splicing similar to the spliceosome without requiring any protein. This similarity suggests that Group I and II introns may be evolutionarily related to the spliceosome. Self-splicing may also be very ancient, and may have existed in an RNA world present before protein.
Two transesterifications characterize the mechanism in which group I introns are spliced:
The mechanism in which group II introns are spliced (two transesterification reaction like group I introns) is as follows:
tRNA (also tRNA-like) splicing is another rare form of splicing that usually occurs in tRNA. The splicing reaction involves a different biochemistry than the spliceosomal and self-splicing pathways.
In the yeast "Saccharomyces cerevisiae", a yeast tRNA splicing endonuclease heterotetramer, composed of TSEN54, TSEN2, TSEN34, and TSEN15, cleaves pre-tRNA at two sites in the acceptor loop to form a 5'-half tRNA, terminating at a 2',3'-cyclic phosphodiester group, and a 3'-half tRNA, terminating at a 5'-hydroxyl group, along with a discarded intron. Yeast tRNA kinase then phosphorylates the 5'-hydroxyl group using adenosine triphosphate. Yeast tRNA cyclic phosphodiesterase cleaves the cyclic phosphodiester group to form a 2'-phosphorylated 3' end. Yeast tRNA ligase adds an adenosine monophosphate group to the 5' end of the 3'-half and joins the two halves together. NAD-dependent 2'-phosphotransferase then removes the 2'-phosphate group.
Splicing occurs in all the kingdoms or domains of life, however, the extent and types of splicing can be very different between the major divisions. Eukaryotes splice many protein-coding messenger RNAs and some non-coding RNAs. Prokaryotes, on the other hand, splice rarely and mostly non-coding RNAs. Another important difference between these two groups of organisms is that prokaryotes completely lack the spliceosomal pathway.
Because spliceosomal introns are not conserved in all species, there is debate concerning when spliceosomal splicing evolved. Two models have been proposed: the intron late and intron early models (see intron evolution).
Spliceosomal splicing and self-splicing involve a two-step biochemical process. Both steps involve transesterification reactions that occur between RNA nucleotides. tRNA splicing, however, is an exception and does not occur by transesterification.
Spliceosomal and self-splicing transesterification reactions occur via two sequential transesterification reactions. First, the 2'OH of a specific "branchpoint" nucleotide within the intron, defined during spliceosome assembly, performs a nucleophilic attack on the first nucleotide of the intron at the 5' splice site, forming the "lariat intermediate". Second, the 3'OH of the released 5' exon then performs an electrophilic attack at the first nucleotide following the last nucleotide of the intron at the 3' splice site, thus joining the exons and releasing the intron lariat.
In many cases, the splicing process can create a range of unique proteins by varying the exon composition of the same mRNA. This phenomenon is then called alternative splicing. Alternative splicing can occur in many ways. Exons can be extended or skipped, or introns can be retained. It is estimated that 95% of transcripts from multiexon genes undergo alternative splicing, some instances of which occur in a tissue-specific manner and/or under specific cellular conditions. Development of high throughput mRNA sequencing technology can help quantify the expression levels of alternatively spliced isoforms. Differential expression levels across tissues and cell lineages allowed computational approaches to be developed to predict the functions of these isoforms.
Given this complexity, alternative splicing of pre-mRNA transcripts is regulated by a system of trans-acting proteins (activators and repressors) that bind to cis-acting sites or "elements" (enhancers and silencers) on the pre-mRNA transcript itself. These proteins and their respective binding elements promote or reduce the usage of a particular splice site. The binding specificity comes from the sequence and structure of the cis-elements, e.g. in HIV-1 there are many donor and acceptor splice sites. Among the various splice sites, ssA7, which is 3' acceptor site, folds into three stem loop structures, i.e. Intronic splicing silencer (ISS), Exonic splicing enhancer (ESE), and Exonic splicing silencer (ESSE3). Solution structure of Intronic splicing silencer and its interaction to host protein hnRNPA1 give insight into specific recognition. However, adding to the complexity of alternative splicing, it is noted that the effects of regulatory factors are many times position-dependent. For example, a splicing factor that serves as a splicing activator when bound to an intronic enhancer element may serve as a repressor when bound to its splicing element in the context of an exon, and vice versa. In addition to the position-dependent effects of enhancer and silencer elements, the location of the branchpoint (i.e., distance upstream of the nearest 3’ acceptor site) also affects splicing. The secondary structure of the pre-mRNA transcript also plays a role in regulating splicing, such as by bringing together splicing elements or by masking a sequence that would otherwise serve as a binding element for a splicing factor.
DNA damage affects splicing factors by altering their post-translational modification, localization, expression and activity. Furthermore, DNA damage often disrupts splicing by interfering with its coupling to transcription. DNA damage also has an impact on the splicing and alternative splicing of genes intimately associated with DNA repair. For instance, DNA damages modulate the alternative splicing of the DNA repair genes "Brca1" and "Ercc1".
Splicing events can be experimentally altered by binding steric-blocking antisense oligos such as Morpholinos or Peptide nucleic acids to snRNP binding sites, to the branchpoint nucleotide that closes the lariat,Split gene theory or to splice-regulatory element binding sites.
It has been suggested that one third of all disease-causing mutations impact on splicing. Common errors include:
Although many splicing errors are safeguarded by a cellular quality control mechanism termed nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), a number of splicing-related diseases also exist, as suggested above.
Allelic differences in mRNA splicing are likely to be a common and important source of phenotypic diversity at the molecular level, in addition to their contribution to genetic disease susceptibility. Indeed, genome-wide studies in humans have identified a range of genes that are subject to allele-specific splicing.
In plants, variation for flooding stress tolerance correlated with stress-induced alternative splicing of transcripts associated with gluconeogenesis and other processes.
In addition to RNA, proteins can undergo splicing. Although the biomolecular mechanisms are different, the principle is the same: parts of the protein, called inteins instead of introns, are removed. The remaining parts, called exteins instead of exons, are fused together.
Protein splicing has been observed in a wide range of organisms, including bacteria, archaea, plants, yeast and humans. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28524 |
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and comprises more than 30,000 students and 160,000 alumni. The university was created in an effort to expand higher education across Canada.
SFU is a member of multiple national and international higher education, including the Association of Commonwealth Universities, International Association of Universities, and Universities Canada. SFU has also partnered with other universities and agencies to operate joint research facilities such as the TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, which houses the world's largest cyclotron, and Bamfield Marine Station, a major centre for teaching and research in marine biology.
Undergraduate and graduate programs at SFU operate on a year-round, three-semester schedule. Consistently ranked as Canada’s top comprehensive university and named to the Times Higher Education list of 100 world universities under 50, SFU is also the first Canadian member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the world’s largest college sports association. In 2015, SFU became the second Canadian university to receive accreditation from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. SFU faculty and alumni have won 43 fellowships to the Royal Society of Canada, three Rhodes Scholarships and one Pulitzer Prize. Among the list of alumni includes two former premiers of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell and Ujjal Dosanjh, owner of the Vancouver Canucks NHL team, Francesco Aquilin, Prime Minister of Lesotho, Pakalitha Mosisili, director at the Max Planck Institute, Robert Turner, and humanitarian and cancer research activist, Terry Fox.
Simon Fraser University was founded upon the recommendation of a 1962 report entitled "Higher Education in British Columbia and a Plan for the Future", by John B. Macdonald. He recommended the creation of a new university in the Lower Mainland and the British Columbia Legislature gave formal assent on March 1, 1963 for the establishment of the university in Burnaby. The university was named after Simon Fraser, a North West Company fur trader and explorer. In May of the same year, Gordon M. Shrum was appointed as the university's first chancellor. From a variety of sites that were offered, Shrum recommended to the provincial government that the summit of Burnaby Mountain, 365 meters above sea level, be chosen for the new university. Architects Arthur Erickson and Geoffrey Massey won a competition to design the university, and construction began in the spring of 1964. The campus faces northwest over Burrard Inlet. Eighteen months later, on September 9, 1965, the university began its first semester with 2,500 students.
The campus was noted in the 1960s and early 1970s as a hotbed of political activism, culminating in a crisis in the Department of Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology in a dispute involving ideological differences among faculty. The resolution to the crisis included the dismantling of the department into today's separate departments. During this time, Thelma Finlayson became the University's first female faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences. She would later become their first professor emerita upon her retirement in 1979.
The school's original coat of arms was used from the university's inception until 2006, at which point the Board of Governors voted to adapt the old coat of arms and thereby register a second coat of arms. The adaptation replaced two crosslets with books after some in the university asserted the crosses had misled prospective foreign students into believing SFU was a private, religious institution rather than a public, secular one. In 2007, the university decided to register both the old coat of arms and the revised coat of arms featuring the books. In 2007, a new marketing logo was unveiled, consisting of white letters on block red.
SFU's president is Andrew Petter, whose term began on September 1, 2010. Petter succeeded Dr. Michael Stevenson, who held a decade-long post as president from 2000 to 2010. Petter's term ends on September 1, 2020, after which he will be replaced by Joy Johnson, who previously served as SFU's Vice-President Research.
In 2009, SFU became the first Canadian university to be accepted into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Starting in the 2011–2012 season, SFU competed in the NCAA's Division II Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) and has now transitioned all 19 Simon Fraser Clan teams into the NCAA.
SFU has the highest publication impact among Canadian comprehensive universities and the highest success rates per faculty member in competitions for federal research council funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). In 2007, the University began offering dual and double degree programs by partnering with international universities, such as a dual computing-science degree through partnership with Zhejiang University in China and a double Bachelor of Arts degree in conjunction with Australia's Monash University.
On September 9, 2015, SFU celebrated its 50th anniversary. Over its 50 years, the university educated over 130,000 graduates.
There are eight faculties at Simon Fraser University:
In the academic year 2010–11, SFU had 29,697 undergraduates, with 14,911 of them being full-time and 14,786 part-time. The university has grown in recent years, recently achieving an alumni population of over 100,000. It had 946 faculty members and 3,403 staff. In fall semester 2012, 4,269 International students enrolled, making up 17% of the undergraduate student body, one of the highest among Canadian universities. The majority of these international students (60%) come from Mainland China [and Hong Kong (6%)] and South Korea (6%). SFU's undergraduate student union is known as the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS).
The university enrolls over 5,000 graduate students in a wide range of full-time and part-time academic programs. International students constitute 20% of the graduate student population as a whole and 30–40% in science and technology areas. A Graduate Student Society supports and advocates for graduate students at the university.
SFU also offers non-credit programs and courses to adult students. , SFU Continuing Studies offers more than 300 courses and 27 certificate and diploma programs, mostly delivered either online or part-time from SFU's downtown Vancouver or Surrey campus. Continuing Studies also manages a part-time degree completion program, called SFU NOW: Nights or Weekends, for working adults pursuing a bachelor's degree.
Teaching assistants, tutor markers, sessional instructors, and language instructors at SFU are unionized. The union, the Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU), is independent. Faculty and lecturers are members of the Faculty Association. Staff are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Administrative and Professional Staff Association (APSA), or Polyparty. A few positions at the university such as some in Human Resources and senior administrative positions fall outside of the five associations or unions above.
Under the current president, Andrew Petter, SFU's administration has incurred a number of grievances and bad faith bargaining judgments. During their most recent rounds of bargaining, both the TSSU and CUPE local 3338 resorted to job action, and the BC Labour Relations Board found SFU's administration to be bargaining in bad faith with the CUPE local. Conflicts since then include unpaid wages (in Fall 2013, 18% of TSSU members reported that they were not paid on the first payday; by the term's third payday, some members still had not received their wages), and a health plan, redundant with the provincial health plan available to all international students after their first three months in-province and costing double a prior plan's cost, in which international students are automatically enrolled.
Simon Fraser University has placed in post-secondary school rankings. In the 2019 "Academic Ranking of World Universities" rankings, the university ranked 301–400 in the world and 13–18 in Canada. The 2020 "Times Higher Education World University Rankings" placed Simon Fraser 251–300 in the world, and 11–14 in Canada. The 2021 "QS World University Rankings" ranked the university 323rd in the world and thirteenth in Canada. In "U.S. News & World Report" 2020 global university rankings, the university placed 290th, and 12th in Canada. In "Maclean's" 2020 rankings, the university placed first in their comprehensive university category, and ninth in their reputation ranking for Canadian universities. Simon Fraser University was ranked in spite of having opted out from participation in Maclean's graduate survey since 2006.
Simon Fraser also placed in a number of rankings that evaluated the employment prospects of graduates. In "QS's" 2019 graduate employability ranking, the university ranked 301–500 in the world, and 10–17 in Canada.
In 2017, Simon Fraser University received a sponsored research income (external sources of research funds) of C$138.964 million, the 17th highest in Canada. In the same year, the university's faculty averaged a sponsored research income of $156,300, while graduates averaged $30,900.
Simon Fraser's research performance has been noted several bibliometric university rankings, which uses citation analysis to evaluates the impact a university has on academic publications. In 2019, the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities ranked Simon Fraser 378th in the world, and 16th in Canada. In University Ranking by Academic Performance's 2018–19 rankings, the university placed 362nd in the world, and 15th in Canada.
SFU also works with other universities and agencies to operate joint research facilities. These include Bamfield Marine Station, a major centre for teaching and research in marine biology; TRIUMF, a powerful cyclotron used in subatomic physics and chemistry research. SFU is also a partner institution in Great Northern Way Campus Ltd in Vancouver. In March 2006, SFU approved an affiliation agreement with a private college for international students to be housed adjacent to its Burnaby campus. This new college named Fraser International College, which was in the Multi Tenant Facility (now renamed as "Discovery 2 Building") located in Discovery Parks Trust SFU site, is now moved into "Discovery 1 Building" after Discovery Parks Trust returned the building to Simon Fraser University. The MODAL Research Group, based at Simon Fraser, partners with multiple Canadian universities and arts organizations to carry out multi-disciplinary research in the arts with an emphasis on the study of artistic learning and engagement.
In 2017, Simon Fraser University entered into an agreement with Huawei to receive cloud computing equipment.
Simon Fraser University has three campuses, each located in different parts of Greater Vancouver. SFU's original campus is located in Burnaby, atop Burnaby Mountain. The Vancouver campus consists of multiple buildings in downtown Vancouver and the Surrey campus is located inside Central City.
The downtown campus has expanded to include several other buildings in recent years, including the Segal Graduate School of Business. In September 2010, SFU Contemporary Arts moved into the Woodward's redevelopment, known as the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
SFU's three campuses are all accessible by public transit. The Vancouver campus is a block away from the Waterfront SkyTrain station while the Surrey campus is adjacent to the Surrey Central SkyTrain station. The Burnaby campus is linked to the Production Way–University, Burquitlam, and Sperling–Burnaby Lake SkyTrain stations by frequent shuttle bus service.
The main campus is located atop Burnaby Mountain, at an elevation of 365 metres, overlooking the Burrard inlet to the north. All major departments in the university are housed at the Burnaby campus. The library on the main campus is called the W. A. C. Bennett Library, named after the Social Credit Premier of B.C. who established it. The campus also has two gym-complexes, named the Lorne-Davies Complex and Chancellor's Gym. An international-sized swimming pool is located within the Lorne-Davies Complex. Since the relocation of the School of Contemporary Arts to the Woodward's location, the Burnaby campus production theatre has been vacant. Located within the heart of the campus is the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and three art galleries. The campus has been awarded numerous architectural awards over the years, including the Gold Medal for Lieutenant-Governor 2009 Awards in Architecture and the 2007 Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Prix du XXe siècle.
The Burnaby campus is composed of a vast complex of interconnected buildings spanning across of land on Burnaby Mountain, from the eastern end of the campus to the western side, where the UniverCity urban village is located. The campus consists of the following buildings:
The largest of the three SFU Libraries, the W.A.C. Bennett Library, is based on the SFU Burnaby campus, and holds over 2 million published books, 63,000 e-journal subscriptions, and 6,000 print subscriptions. Along with the UniverCity development agreement, residents of UniverCity are also allowed to borrow books from the library.
SFU also has a Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, which holds many exhibits created by students as part of the museum studies courses offered in the Department of Archaeology. Archaeological collections arising from excavations and other research by faculty, staff and students are housed in the museum. Several large wooden sculptures ('totem') poles from the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria represent the major art traditions of the indigenous coastal peoples of British Columbia. The museum holds a large collection of Indonesian wayang kulit shadow puppets and ethnographic objects from around the world. The museum's image collection holds over 120,000 35 mm slides and digital images of archaeological and ethnographic interest.
The SFU Library's Digital Collections provide internet access to digitized documents from a number of archival collections, such as Harrison Brown's Xi'an Incident collection, and the history of British Columbia and Western Canada in general, including documents from the Doukhobor migration from the Russian Empire to Saskatchewan and then to British Columbia assembled for donation to the university by John Keenlyside. Other highlights of the collection include The Vancouver Punk Collection, which includes more than 1200 posters as well as photographs, zines, and ephemera, the British Columbia Postcards Collection, and more than 9800 editorial cartoons from Canadian newspapers.
Simon Fraser University's art galleries include: SFU Gallery on the Burnaby campus (established 1970), Audain Gallery at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in Vancouver (established 2010), and Teck Gallery at Harbour Centre in Vancouver (established 1989). SFU Galleries stewards the Simon Fraser University Art Collection, that includes, in its holdings of over 5,500 works, significant regional and national art works spanning the last century.
The Bill Reid Centre for Northwest Coast Art Studies at SFU houses a collection of 50,000 objects, primarily digital images and digitized textual documents, which document the art, culture and history of different First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast. The collection includes explorers' drawings, sketches, paintings and original photography.
The SFU Burnaby campus provides residence to 1766 SFU and FIC students in 6 different areas, all located on the western side of the campus.
UniverCity is an urban community located on top of Burnaby Mountain, adjacent to Simon Fraser University. It has won several awards for sustainable planning and development. Envisioned in 1963 by Arthur Erickson and Geoffrey Massey, the area adjacent to the University was not officially rezoned for development until 30 years later. Development of the community began in early 2000, when Simon Fraser University commenced construction on a new residential and commercial area occupying approximately adjacent to the campus. , approximately 3000 people live in UniverCity. The main commercial district on University High Street now houses restaurants, stores, and a 20,000 square foot Nester's Market. A new elementary school, University Highlands Elementary, opened on September 1, 2010. Several new residential developments are currently in progress, including the construction of a 12-storey highrise in the heart of UniverCity.
The Surrey campus consists of two buildings located in Whalley / City Centre, Surrey. The main building is part of Central City, an architectural complex adjacent to the Surrey Central SkyTrain station. It was established in 2002 to absorb the students and programs of the former Technical University of British Columbia, which was closed by the provincial government. It has since expanded to house the Surrey operations of other SFU programs. The Central City complex that houses the campus was designed by architect Bing Thom and opened in 2006. The Fraser Library, a branch of the SFU Library, is located on this campus, and is the only branch with a games room. It also loans equipment to students in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology.
A separate five-floor building opened on April 25, 2019, across the street from the existing Central City complex. The building mainly houses the Sustainability Energy Engineering (SEE) program and supports 440 full-time students with engineering labs, classrooms, lecture halls and office spaces.
The Vancouver campus was launched in the 1980s with a store-front classroom. It was the first urban university classroom in British Columbia. A significant portion of funding for the building of the campus came from the private sector. The Vancouver campus has eight buildings spread across the downtown core: SFU Harbour Centre, the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, the Segal Graduate School of Business, SFU Contemporary Arts at the restored Woodward's Building, SFU Charles Chang Innovation Centre, SFU Vancity Office of Community Engagement at 312 Main, SFU VentureLabs, SFU Collection at Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, and SFU Contemporary Arts at 611 Alexander Visual Arts Studio. The original campus building at Harbour Centre, a rebuilt heritage department store, officially opened on May 5, 1989. Today, the entire campus serves more than 70,000 people annually. Approximately 10,000 are graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in courses and degree programs based downtown. The Belzberg Library is based at the Vancouver campus.
In September 2010, SFU Contemporary Arts relocated to the historic Woodward's district in downtown Vancouver known as the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. The SFU facility is part of the Woodward's revitalization project. The new facility accommodates the increasing enrollment of students in the programme and new cultural facilities, including the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental theatre, screening rooms, sound studios, and art galleries.
The student newspaper "The Peak" was established shortly after the university opened and is circulated throughout the University. CJSF-FM radio is the school's radio station, broadcasting from 90.1 FM to Burnaby and surrounding communities, online at www.cjsf.ca or on cable at 93.9 FM. The Simon Fraser Student Society provides funding for over 300 campus clubs. Various campus events include the annual Terry Fox Run, Gung Haggis Fat Choy, Clubs Week, and other multi-cultural events.
The Tau chapter of Phrateres, a non-exclusive, non-profit social-service club, was installed here in 1966. Between 1924 and 1967, 23 chapters of Phrateres were installed in universities across North America, including the Theta chapter nearby at the University of British Columbia.
Six Greek organizations have formed SFU arms, although none are recognized by the University pursuant to a policy enacted in 1966:
Fraternities:
Sororities:
Co-ed Professional Fraternities:
The university's varsity sports teams are called the Simon Fraser Clan, and the mascot is a Scottish Terrier named McFogg the Dog. In sports and other competitions, there tends to be a strong rivalry between SFU and The University of British Columbia.
The Clan is the first and currently the only athletic program from outside of the United States that competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Before joining the NCAA, the Clan used to compete in both the Canadian Interuniversity Sports (CIS, now U Sports) and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). In total, SFU has 15 varsity sport teams and 300 athletes. All varsity teams compete for their respective NCAA national championships, except for the Women's Wrestling team who competes for the Women's College Wrestling Association's national championship.
Beside the varsity teams, SFU also houses various competitive club teams, including Men's Lacrosse, who currently competes in the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association, and Men's Hockey, who currently competes in the British Columbia Intercollegiate Hockey League. Other club teams include rugby, cheerleading, rowing, quidditch, and field hockey.
SFU has won the NAIA NACDA Director's Cup five times, among others. On Friday, July 10, 2009, the NCAA announced that it had accepted SFU as a Division II member and would begin after a two-year transition period. SFU later competed in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. It is the first Canadian university to be accepted as a member of the NCAA at any level. In 2012, the Clan was accepted as the first international full member of the NCAA.
Many former Clan athletes later represented Canada during the Olympic Games, including gold medalists Carol Huynh and Daniel Igali, and Olympic medalists Sue Holloway and Hugh Fisher. Other Clan alumni include: Jay Triano, Chris Rinke and Carolyn Murray.
The University is governed in accordance with the British Columbia "University Act".
The convocation is composed of all faculty members, senators, and graduates (degree holders, including honorary alumni) of the university. Its main function is to elect the 4 convocation senators. Convocation ceremonies are held twice annually to confer degrees (including honorary degrees) as well as award diplomas and certificates.
The board is composed of the chancellor, the president, two student members, two faculty members, one staff member, and eight individuals appointed by the British Columbia government. Conventionally, the board is chaired by one of the government appointees. The board is responsible for the general management and governance of the university.
Board members :
The senate is composed of the chancellor, the president, vice-president, academic, vice-president, research, deans of faculties, dean of graduate studies, dean of continuing studies, associate vice-president, academic, university librarian, registrar (as senate secretary), 14 student members, 28 faculty members, and 4 convocation members (who are not faculty members). The senate is chaired by the president. The academic governance of the university is vested in the senate.
The chancellor is appointed by the board of governors on nomination by the alumni association and after consultation with the senate for a three-year term, which can be renewed once. The main responsibilities of the chancellor are to confer degrees and represent the university in formal functions.
The president and vice-chancellor is appointed by the board of governors based on a selection process jointly established by the board of governors and the senate of the university. As chief executive officer and chair of senate, the president is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the university.
Terry Fox was a notable alumnus of SFU. Diagnosed with bone cancer, which resulted in the amputation of his leg, the 18-year-old kinesiology major set out to run across Canada in the Marathon of Hope to raise funding and awareness about cancer. As a result of Terry Fox's legacy, running for charitable causes is now integrated within communities worldwide. He also inspired friend Rick Hansen's Man in Motion world tour by wheelchair. In 2001, SFU conferred an honorary degree to Betty Fox, mother of Terry Fox and honorary chair of the Terry Fox Foundation.
At each convocation, SFU awards honorary degrees to various people from around the world for their activities and pursuits. In 1967, SFU awarded an honorary LL.D. (doctor of laws) to Marshall McLuhan, the first honorary degree awarded by the university. Ida Halpern, an ethnomusicologist whose professional papers are held in part by SFU, was similarly awarded an honorary LL.D. in 1978. On April 20, 2004, SFU conferred honorary degrees upon three Nobel Peace Prize recipients: the 14th Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi. Other honorary alumni include award-winning filmmaker Costa-Gavras, skier Nancy Greene Raine, Milton Wong, Doris Shadbolt, economist Jeffrey Sachs, Peter Gzowski, Douglas Coupland, Lui Passaglia, Romeo Dallaire, Canadian businessman Stephen Jarislowsky, Iain Baxter, American agriculturalist Cary Fowler, experimental psychologist Steven Pinker, Martha Piper, Sarah McLachlan, Rick Hansen, Kim Campbell, Ray Hyman, and Bill Nye.
Due to the contemporary Brutalist architecture of the Burnaby Mountain campus, many buildings, including the WAC Bennett Library and Academic Quadrangle have been used for location shots in a variety of films and television programmes over the years.
Its first use as a film set was for the 1972 science fiction film "The Groundstar Conspiracy", in which the entire campus complex was used. It was then followed by "The Fly II", which has scenes shot inside and outside the Burnaby campus. The campus also appeared in the 1989 movie "American Boyfriends", set in 1965, with the buildings dressed to look like they were still under construction. The campus served as a high-tech corporate setting in the film "Antitrust". Recently, in addition to other Vancouver-area landmarks, many parts of the Burnaby campus were used for the filming of the movie "The 6th Day" as well as "Agent Cody Banks". The 2007 film "Personal Effects", was filmed in the newly constructed Blusson Hall at the Burnaby campus. In early 2008, the Burnaby campus was again used for filming, this time for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008 Remake). Filming of the 2012 movie "" starring Kate Beckinsale, began in early 2011 with parts of the AQ modified as part of the set. The SFU Surrey Campus has also been featured in blockbuster movies such as "I, Robot", "Fantastic Four", and "Catwoman". SFU was also the film location for "", representing the Corbulo Academy of Military Science.
The Burnaby campus has been prominently featured in science fiction television series such as "Stargate SG-1", "Battlestar Galactica", and "Andromeda". The Academic Quadrangle has also served as a backdrop for shots of "FBI headquarters" in the television series "The X-Files", as well as the "National Academy For Seers" in "Sliders". Exterior shots of the Academic Quadrangle have also been used in the Vancouver-based TV series "JPod" (based on the book). The SFU Surrey campus has been featured in several episodes of "Smallville" and "Caprica", with the entire mezzanine and registration area being transformed into the Caprica Inter-colonial Space Port. Recently, filming of the TV show "Hellcats" commenced in the West Gym of the Chancellor's Gymnasium in November 2010. In "Stargate SG-1", SFU was the homeworld for the technologically-advanced Tollan, as seen in the Tollan-centric episodes "Pretense" (season 3 Ep. 15) and "Between Two Fires" (season 5 Ep. 9). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28525 |
Solar wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the solar wind plasma also includes a mixture of materials found in the solar plasma: trace amounts of heavy ions and atomic nuclei C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, and Fe. There are also rarer traces of some other nuclei and isotopes such as P, Ti, Cr, Ni, Fe 54 and 56, and Ni 58,60,62. Embedded within the solar-wind plasma is the interplanetary magnetic field. The solar wind varies in density, temperature and speed over time and over solar latitude and longitude. Its particles can escape the Sun's gravity because of their high energy resulting from the high temperature of the corona, which in turn is a result of the coronal magnetic field.
At a distance of more than a few solar radii from the Sun, the solar wind reaches speeds of 250 to 750 kilometers per second and is supersonic, meaning it moves faster than the speed of the fast magnetosonic wave. The flow of the solar wind is no longer supersonic at the termination shock. The "Voyager 2" spacecraft crossed the shock more than five times between 30 August and 10 December 2007. "Voyager 2" crossed the shock about a billion kilometers closer to the Sun than the 13.5-billion-kilometer distance where "Voyager 1" came upon the termination shock. The spacecraft moved outward through the termination shock into the heliosheath and onward toward the interstellar medium. Other related phenomena include the aurora (northern and southern lights), the plasma tails of comets that always point away from the Sun, and geomagnetic storms that can change the direction of magnetic field lines.
The existence of particles flowing outward from the Sun to the Earth was first suggested by British astronomer Richard C. Carrington. In 1859, Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently made the first observation of what would later be called a solar flare. This is a sudden, localised increase in brightness on the solar disc, which is now known to often occur in conjunction with an episodic ejection of material and magnetic flux from the Sun's atmosphere, known as a coronal mass ejection. On the following day, a geomagnetic storm was observed, and Carrington suspected that there might be a connection, which is now attributed to the arrival of the coronal mass ejection in near-Earth space and its subsequent interaction with the Earth's magnetosphere. George FitzGerald later suggested that matter was being regularly accelerated away from the Sun and was reaching the Earth after several days.
In 1910 British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington essentially suggested the existence of the solar wind, without naming it, in a footnote to an article on Comet Morehouse. The idea never fully caught on even though Eddington had also made a similar suggestion at a Royal Institution address the previous year. In the latter case, he postulated that the ejected material consisted of electrons while in his study of Comet Morehouse he supposed them to be ions.
The first person to suggest that the ejected material consisted of both ions and electrons was Kristian Birkeland. His geomagnetic surveys showed that auroral activity was nearly uninterrupted. As these displays and other geomagnetic activity were being produced by particles from the Sun, he concluded that the Earth was being continually bombarded by "rays of electric corpuscles emitted by the Sun". In 1916, Birkeland proposed that, "From a physical point of view it is most probable that solar rays are neither exclusively negative nor positive rays, but of both kinds". In other words, the solar wind consists of both negative electrons and positive ions. Three years later in 1919, Frederick Lindemann also suggested that particles of both polarities, protons as well as electrons, come from the Sun.
Around the 1930s, scientists had determined that the temperature of the solar corona must be a million degrees Celsius because of the way it stood out into space (as seen during total eclipses). Later spectroscopic work confirmed this extraordinary temperature. In the mid-1950s Sydney Chapman calculated the properties of a gas at such a temperature and determined it was such a superb conductor of heat that it must extend way out into space, beyond the orbit of Earth. Also in the 1950s, Ludwig Biermann became interested in the fact that no matter whether a comet is headed towards or away from the Sun, its tail always points away from the Sun. Biermann postulated that this happens because the Sun emits a steady stream of particles that pushes the comet's tail away. Wilfried Schröder claimed that Paul Ahnert was the first to relate solar wind to comet tail direction based on observations of the comet Whipple-Fedke (1942g).
Eugene Parker realised heat flowing from the Sun in Chapman's model and the comet tail blowing away from the Sun in Biermann's hypothesis had to be the result of the same phenomenon, which he termed the "solar wind". In 1957, Parker showed, even though the Sun's corona is strongly attracted by solar gravity, it is such a good heat conductor that it is still very hot at large distances. Since gravity weakens as distance from the Sun increases, the outer coronal atmosphere escapes supersonically into interstellar space. Furthermore, Parker was the first person to notice that the weakening effect of the gravity has the same effect on hydrodynamic flow as a de Laval nozzle: it incites a transition from subsonic to supersonic flow.
Opposition to Parker's hypothesis on the solar wind was strong. The paper he submitted to "The Astrophysical Journal" in 1958 was rejected by two reviewers. It was saved by the editor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.
In January 1959, the Soviet spacecraft "Luna 1" first directly observed the solar wind and measured its strength, using hemispherical ion traps. The discovery, made by Konstantin Gringauz, was verified by "Luna 2", "Luna 3" and by the more distant measurements of "Venera 1". Three years later a similar measurement was performed by Neugebauer and collaborators using the "Mariner 2" spacecraft.
In the late 1990s, the Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer (UVCS) instrument on board the SOHO spacecraft observed the acceleration region of the fast solar wind emanating from the poles of the Sun and found that the wind accelerates much faster than can be accounted for by thermodynamic expansion alone. Parker's model predicted that the wind should make the transition to supersonic flow at an altitude of about 4 solar radii from the photosphere (surface); but the transition (or "sonic point") now appears to be much lower, perhaps only 1 solar radius above the photosphere, suggesting that some additional mechanism accelerates the solar wind away from the Sun. The acceleration of the fast wind is still not understood and cannot be fully explained by Parker's theory. The gravitational and electromagnetic explanation for this acceleration is, however, detailed in an earlier paper by 1970 Nobel laureate for Physics, Hannes Alfvén.
The first numerical simulation of the solar wind in the solar corona including closed and open field lines was performed by Pneuman and Kopp in 1971. The magnetohydrodynamics equations in steady state were solved iteratively starting with an initial dipolar configuration.
In 1990, the "Ulysses" probe was launched to study the solar wind from high solar latitudes. All prior observations had been made at or near the Solar System's ecliptic plane.
In 2006, the STEREO mission was launched to study coronal mass ejections and the solar corona using stereoscopy from two widely separated imaging systems. Each STEREO spacecraft carried two heliospheric imagers: highly sensitive wide-field cameras capable of imaging the solar wind itself, via Thomson scattering of sunlight off of free electrons. Movies from STEREO revealed the solar wind near the ecliptic, as a large-scale turbulent flow.
The "Voyager 1" probe reached the end of the solar wind bubble in 2012. The detection of solar wind dropped off precipitously at that time, and "Voyager 2" underwent a similar observation in 2018.
In 2018, NASA launched the "Parker Solar Probe", named in honor of Eugene Parker, on a mission to study the structure and dynamics of the solar corona, in an attempt to understand the mechanisms that cause particles to be heated and accelerated as solar wind. During its seven-year mission, the probe will make twenty-four orbits of the Sun, passing further into the corona with each orbit's perihelion, ultimately passing within 0.04 astronomical units of the Sun's surface. It is the first NASA spacecraft named for a living person, and Parker, at age 91, was on hand to observe the launch.
While early models of the solar wind relied primarily on thermal energy to accelerate the material, by the 1960s it was clear that thermal acceleration alone cannot account for the high speed of solar wind. An additional unknown acceleration mechanism is required and likely relates to magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere.
The Sun's corona, or extended outer layer, is a region of plasma that is heated to over a million kelvin. As a result of thermal collisions, the particles within the inner corona have a range and distribution of speeds described by a Maxwellian distribution. The mean velocity of these particles is about , which is well below the solar escape velocity of . However, a few of the particles achieve energies sufficient to reach the terminal velocity of , which allows them to feed the solar wind. At the same temperature, electrons, due to their much smaller mass, reach escape velocity and build up an electric field that further accelerates ions away from the Sun.
The total number of particles carried away from the Sun by the solar wind is about per second. Thus, the total mass loss each year is about solar masses, or about 1.3–1.9 million tonnes per second. This is equivalent to losing a mass equal to the Earth every 150 million years. However, only about 0.01% of the Sun's total mass has been lost through the solar wind. Other stars have much stronger stellar winds that result in significantly higher mass loss rates.
The solar wind is observed to exist in two fundamental states, termed the slow solar wind and the fast solar wind, though their differences extend well beyond their speeds. In near-Earth space, the slow solar wind is observed to have a velocity of , a temperature of ~105 K and a composition that is a close match to the corona. By contrast, the fast solar wind has a typical velocity of , a temperature of and it nearly matches the composition of the Sun's photosphere. The slow solar wind is twice as dense and more variable in nature than the fast solar wind.
The slow solar wind appears to originate from a region around the Sun's equatorial belt that is known as the "streamer belt", where coronal streamers are produced by magnetic flux open to the heliosphere draping over closed magnetic loops. The exact coronal structures involved in slow solar wind formation and the method by which the material is released is still under debate. Observations of the Sun between 1996 and 2001 showed that emission of the slow solar wind occurred at latitudes up to 30–35° during the solar minimum (the period of lowest solar activity), then expanded toward the poles as the solar cycle approached maximum. At solar maximum, the poles were also emitting a slow solar wind.
The fast solar wind originates from coronal holes, which are funnel-like regions of open field lines in the Sun's magnetic field. Such open lines are particularly prevalent around the Sun's magnetic poles. The plasma source is small magnetic fields created by convection cells in the solar atmosphere. These fields confine the plasma and transport it into the narrow necks of the coronal funnels, which are located only 20,000 kilometers above the photosphere. The plasma is released into the funnel when these magnetic field lines reconnect.
The wind exerts a pressure at typically in the range of (), although it can readily vary outside that range.
The ram pressure is a function of wind speed and density. The formula is
where mp is the proton mass, pressure P is in nPa (nanopascals), n is the density in particles/cm3 and V is the speed in km/s of the solar wind.
Both the fast and slow solar wind can be interrupted by large, fast-moving bursts of plasma called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. CMEs are caused by release of magnetic energy at the Sun. CMEs are often called "solar storms" or "space storms" in the popular media. They are sometimes, but not always, associated with solar flares, which are another manifestation of magnetic energy release at the Sun. CMEs cause shock waves in the thin plasma of the heliosphere, launching electromagnetic waves and accelerating particles (mostly protons and electrons) to form showers of ionizing radiation that precede the CME.
When a CME impacts the Earth's magnetosphere, it temporarily deforms the Earth's magnetic field, changing the direction of compass needles and inducing large electrical ground currents in Earth itself; this is called a geomagnetic storm and it is a global phenomenon. CME impacts can induce magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetotail (the midnight side of the magnetosphere); this launches protons and electrons downward toward Earth's atmosphere, where they form the aurora.
CMEs are not the only cause of space weather. Different patches on the Sun are known to give rise to slightly different speeds and densities of wind depending on local conditions. In isolation, each of these different wind streams would form a spiral with a slightly different angle, with fast-moving streams moving out more directly and slow-moving streams wrapping more around the Sun. Fast moving streams tend to overtake slower streams that originate westward of them on the Sun, forming turbulent co-rotating interaction regions that give rise to wave motions and accelerated particles, and that affect Earth's magnetosphere in the same way as, but more gently than, CMEs.
Over the Sun's lifetime, the interaction of its surface layers with the escaping solar wind has significantly decreased its surface rotation rate. The wind is considered responsible for comets' tails, along with the Sun's radiation. The solar wind contributes to fluctuations in celestial radio waves observed on the Earth, through an effect called interplanetary scintillation.
Where the solar wind intersects with a planet that has a well-developed magnetic field (such as Earth, Jupiter or Saturn), the particles are deflected by the Lorentz force. This region, known as the magnetosphere, causes the particles to travel around the planet rather than bombarding the atmosphere or surface. The magnetosphere is roughly shaped like a hemisphere on the side facing the Sun, then is drawn out in a long wake on the opposite side. The boundary of this region is called the magnetopause, and some of the particles are able to penetrate the magnetosphere through this region by partial reconnection of the magnetic field lines.
The solar wind is responsible for the overall shape of Earth's magnetosphere. Fluctuations in its speed, density, direction, and entrained magnetic field strongly affect Earth's local space environment. For example, the levels of ionizing radiation and radio interference can vary by factors of hundreds to thousands; and the shape and location of the magnetopause and bow shock wave upstream of it can change by several Earth radii, exposing geosynchronous satellites to the direct solar wind. These phenomena are collectively called space weather.
From the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a new study has taken place that proposes that it is easier for the solar wind to infiltrate the magnetosphere than previously believed. A group of scientists directly observed the existence of certain waves in the solar wind that were not expected. A recent study shows that these waves enable incoming charged particles of solar wind to breach the magnetopause. This suggests that the magnetic bubble forms more as a filter than a continuous barrier. This latest discovery occurred through the distinctive arrangement of the four identical Cluster spacecraft, which fly in a controlled configuration through near-Earth space. As they sweep from the magnetosphere into interplanetary space and back again, the fleet provides exceptional three-dimensional insights on the phenomena that connect the sun to Earth.
The research characterised variances in formation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) largely influenced by Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (which occur at the interface of two fluids) as a result of differences in thickness and numerous other characteristics of the boundary layer. Experts believe that this was the first occasion that the appearance of Kelvin–Helmholtz waves at the magnetopause had been displayed at high latitude dawnward orientation of the IMF. These waves are being seen in unforeseen places under solar wind conditions that were formerly believed to be undesired for their generation. These discoveries show how Earth's magnetosphere can be penetrated by solar particles under specific IMF circumstances. The findings are also relevant to studies of magnetospheric progressions around other planetary bodies. This study suggests that Kelvin–Helmholtz waves can be a somewhat common, and possibly constant, instrument for the entrance of solar wind into terrestrial magnetospheres under various IMF orientations.
The solar wind affects other incoming cosmic rays interacting with planetary atmospheres. Moreover, planets with a weak or non-existent magnetosphere are subject to atmospheric stripping by the solar wind.
Venus, the nearest and most similar planet to Earth, has 100 times denser atmosphere, with little or no geo-magnetic field. Space probes discovered a comet-like tail that extends to Earth's orbit.
Earth itself is largely protected from the solar wind by its magnetic field, which deflects most of the charged particles; however some of the charged particles are trapped in the Van Allen radiation belt. A smaller number of particles from the solar wind manage to travel, as though on an electromagnetic energy transmission line, to the Earth's upper atmosphere and ionosphere in the auroral zones. The only time the solar wind is observable on the Earth is when it is strong enough to produce phenomena such as the aurora and geomagnetic storms. Bright auroras strongly heat the ionosphere, causing its plasma to expand into the magnetosphere, increasing the size of the plasma geosphere and injecting atmospheric matter into the solar wind. Geomagnetic storms result when the pressure of plasmas contained inside the magnetosphere is sufficiently large to inflate and thereby distort the geomagnetic field.
Although Mars is larger than Mercury and four times farther from the Sun, it is thought that the solar wind has stripped away up to a third of its original atmosphere, leaving a layer 1/100th as dense as the Earth's. It is believed the mechanism for this atmospheric stripping is gas caught in bubbles of magnetic field, which are ripped off by solar winds. In 2015 the NASA Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission measured the rate of atmospheric stripping caused by the magnetic field carried by the solar wind as it flows past Mars, which generates an electric field, much as a turbine on Earth can be used to generate electricity. This electric field accelerates electrically charged gas atoms, called ions, in Mars' upper atmosphere and shoots them into space. The MAVEN mission measured the rate of atmospheric stripping at about 100 grams (≈1/4 lb) per second.
Mercury, the nearest planet to the Sun, bears the full brunt of the solar wind, and since its atmosphere is vestigial and transient, its surface is bathed in radiation.
Mercury has an intrinsic magnetic field, so under normal solar wind conditions, the solar wind cannot penetrate its magnetosphere and particles only reach the surface in the cusp regions. During coronal mass ejections, however, the magnetopause may get pressed into the surface of the planet, and under these conditions, the solar wind may interact freely with the planetary surface.
The Earth's Moon has no atmosphere or intrinsic magnetic field, and consequently its surface is bombarded with the full solar wind. The Project Apollo missions deployed passive aluminum collectors in an attempt to sample the solar wind, and lunar soil returned for study confirmed that the lunar regolith is enriched in atomic nuclei deposited from the solar wind. These elements may prove useful resources for lunar colonies.
The solar wind "blows a bubble" in the interstellar medium (the rarefied hydrogen and helium gas that permeates the galaxy). The point where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the interstellar medium is known as the heliopause and is often considered to be the outer border of the Solar System. The distance to the heliopause is not precisely known and probably depends on the current velocity of the solar wind and the local density of the interstellar medium, but it is far outside Pluto's orbit. Scientists hope to gain perspective on the heliopause from data acquired through the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission, launched in October 2008.
The end of the heliosphere is noted as one of the ways defining the extent of the Solar System, along with the Kuiper Belt, and finally the radius at which of the Sun's gravitational influcence is matched by other stars. The maximum extend of that Gravity has been estimated at between 50,000 AU to 2 light-years, compared to the edge of the heliopause (the outer edge of the heliosphere) which has been detected to end about 120 AU by the "Voyager 1" spacecraft.
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quiet Solar Wind equations. Astrophys. J., 198 (3), 755–759, 1975.
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thermal conduction for Solar Wind. Astrophys. J., 231 (3) 960–976, 1979. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28538 |
Self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence, idea or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to itself, that is, to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person nominative singular pronoun "I" in English.
Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, and linguistics. Self-referential statements are sometimes paradoxical, and can also be considered recursive.
In classical philosophy, paradoxes were created by self-referential concepts such as the omnipotence paradox of asking if it was possible for a being to exist so powerful that it could create a stone that it could not lift. The Epimenides paradox, 'All Cretans are liars' when uttered by an ancient Greek Cretan was one of the first recorded versions. Contemporary philosophy sometimes employs the same technique to demonstrate that a supposed concept is meaningless or ill-defined.
In mathematics and computability theory, self-reference (also known as Impredicativity) is the key concept in proving limitations of many systems. Gödel's theorem uses it to show that no formal consistent system of mathematics can ever contain all possible mathematical truths, because it cannot prove some truths about its own structure. The halting problem equivalent, in computation theory, shows that there is always some task that a computer cannot perform, namely reasoning about itself. These proofs relate to a long tradition of mathematical paradoxes such as Russell's paradox and Berry's paradox, and ultimately to classical philosophical paradoxes.
In game theory, undefined behaviors can occur where two players must model each other's mental states and behaviors, leading to infinite regress.
In computer programming, self-reference occurs in reflection, where a program can read or modify its own instructions like any other data. Numerous programming languages support reflection to some extent with varying degrees of expressiveness. Additionally, self-reference is seen in recursion (related to the mathematical recurrence relation) in functional programming, where a code structure refers back to itself during computation. 'Taming' self-reference from potentially paradoxical concepts into well-behaved recursions has been one of the great successes of computer science, and is now used routinely in, for example, writing compilers using the 'meta-language' ML. Using a compiler to compile itself is known as bootstrapping. Self-modifying code is possible to write (programs which operate on themselves), both with assembler and with functional languages such as Lisp, but is generally discouraged in real-world programming. Computing hardware makes fundamental use of self-reference in flip-flops, the basic units of digital memory, which convert potentially paradoxical logical self-relations into memory by expanding their terms over time. Thinking in terms of self-reference is a pervasive part of programmer culture, with many programs and acronyms named self-referentially as a form of humor, such as GNU ('Gnu's not Unix') and PINE ('Pine is not Elm'). The GNU Hurd is named for a pair of mutually self-referential acronyms.
Tupper's self-referential formula is a mathematical curiosity which plots an image of its own formula.
The biology of self-replication is self-referential, as embodied by DNA and RNA replication mechanisms. Models of self-replication are found in Conway's Game of Life and have inspired engineering systems such as the self-replicating 3D printer RepRap .
Self-reference occurs in literature and film when an author refers to his or her own work in the context of the work itself. Examples include Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote", Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Tempest" and "Twelfth Night", Denis Diderot's "Jacques le fataliste et son maître", Italo Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveler", many stories by Nikolai Gogol, "Lost in the Funhouse" by John Barth, Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author", Federico Fellini's "8½" and Bryan Forbes's "The L-Shaped Room". Speculative fiction writer Samuel R. Delany makes use of this in his novels Nova and Dhalgren. In the former, Katin (a space-faring novelist) is wary of a long-standing curse wherein a novelist dies before completing any given work. Nova ends mid-sentence, thus lending credence to the curse and the realization that the novelist is the author of the story; likewise, throughout Dhalgren, Delany has a protagonist simply named The Kid (or Kidd, in some sections), whose life and work are mirror images of themselves and of the novel itself. In the sci-fi spoof film Spaceballs, Director Mel Brooks includes a scene wherein the evil characters are viewing a VHS copy of their own story, which shows them watching themselves “watching themselves”, ad infinitum. Perhaps the earliest example is in Homer's "Iliad", where Helen of Troy laments: "for generations still unborn/we will live in song" (appearing in the song itself).
Self-reference in art is closely related to the concepts of breaking the fourth wall and meta-reference, which often involve self-reference. The short stories of Jorge Luis Borges play with self-reference and related paradoxes in many ways. Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" consists entirely of the protagonist listening to and making recordings of himself, mostly about other recordings. During the 1990s and 2000s filmic self-reference was a popular part of the rubber reality movement, notably in Charlie Kaufman's films "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation", the latter pushing the concept arguably to its breaking point as it attempts to portray its own creation, in a dramatized version of the Droste effect.
Various creation myths invoke self-reference to solve the problem of what created the creator. For example, the Egyptian creation myth has a god swallowing his own semen to create himself. The Ouroboros is a mythical dragon which eats itself.
The Quran includes numerous instances of self-referentiality.
The surrealist painter René Magritte is famous for his self-referential works. His painting "The Treachery of Images", includes the words "this is not a pipe", the truth of which depends entirely on whether the word "ceci" (in English, "this") refers to the pipe depicted—or to the painting or the word or sentence itself. M.C. Escher's art also contains many self-referential concepts such as hands drawing themselves.
A word that describes itself is called an "autological word" (or "autonym"). This generally applies to adjectives, for example sesquipedalian (i.e. "sesquipedalian" is a sesquipedalian word), but can also apply to other parts of speech, such as TLA, as a three-letter abbreviation for "three-letter abbreviation".
A sentence which inventories its own letters and punctuation marks is called an autogram.
There is a special case of meta-sentence in which the content of the sentence in the metalanguage and the content of the sentence in the object language are the same. Such a sentence is referring to itself. However some meta-sentences of this type can lead to paradoxes. "This is a sentence." can be considered to be a self-referential meta-sentence which is obviously true. However "This sentence is false" is a meta-sentence which leads to a self-referential paradox. Such sentences can lead to problems, for example, in law, where statements bringing laws into existence can contradict one another or themselves. Kurt Gödel claimed to have found such a paradox in the US constitution at his citizenship ceremony.
Self-reference occasionally occurs in the media when it is required to write about itself, for example the BBC reporting on job cuts at the BBC. Notable encyclopedias may be required to feature articles about themselves, such as Wikipedia's article on Wikipedia.
Fumblerules are a list of rules of good grammar and writing, demonstrated through sentences that violate those very rules, such as "Avoid cliches like the plague" and "Don't use no double negatives". The term was coined in a published list of such rules by William Safire. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28545 |
Sokal affair
The Sokal affair, also called the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to "Social Text", an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the journal's intellectual rigor, and specifically to investigate whether "a leading North American journal of cultural studies—whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross—[would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions".
The article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", was published in the magazine "Social Text" spring/summer 1996 "Science Wars" issue. It proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. At that time, the journal did not practice academic peer review and it did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist. Three weeks after its publication in May 1996, Sokal revealed in the magazine "Lingua Franca" that the article was a hoax.
The hoax caused controversy about the scholarly merit of commentary on the physical sciences by those in the humanities; the influence of postmodern philosophy on social disciplines in general; academic ethics, including whether Sokal was wrong to deceive the editors and readers of "Social Text"; and whether "Social Text" had exercised appropriate intellectual rigor.
In an interview on the U.S. radio program "All Things Considered", Sokal said he was inspired to submit the bogus article after reading "Higher Superstition" (1994), in which authors Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt claim that some humanities journals would publish anything as long as it had "the proper leftist thought" and quoted (or was written by) well-known leftist thinkers.
Gross and Levitt had been defenders of the philosophy of scientific realism, opposing postmodernist academics who questioned scientific objectivity. They asserted that anti-intellectual sentiment in liberal arts departments (and especially in English departments) caused the increase of deconstructionist thought, which eventually resulted in a deconstructionist critique of science. They saw the critique as a "repertoire of rationalizations" for avoiding the study of science.
Sokal reasoned that if the presumption of editorial laziness was correct, the nonsensical content of his article would be irrelevant to whether the editors would publish it. What would matter would be ideologic obsequiousness, fawning references to deconstructionist writers, and sufficient quantities of the appropriate jargon. Writing after the article was published and the hoax revealed, he stated:
The results of my little experiment demonstrate, at the very least, that some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting intellectually lazy. The editors of Social Text liked my article because they liked its conclusion: that "the content and methodology of postmodern science provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project" [sec. 6]. They apparently felt no need to analyze the quality of the evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the relevance of the arguments to the purported conclusion.
"Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" proposed that quantum gravity has progressive political implications, and that the "morphogenetic field" could be a valid theory of quantum gravity (a morphogenetic field is a concept adapted by Rupert Sheldrake in a way that Sokal characterized in the affair's aftermath as "a bizarre New Age idea"). Sokal wrote that the concept of "an external world whose properties are independent of any individual human being" was "dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook".
After referring skeptically to the "so-called scientific method", the article declared that "it is becoming increasingly apparent that physical 'reality is fundamentally "a social and linguistic construct". It went on to state that because scientific research is "inherently theory-laden and self-referential", it "cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counterhegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities" and that therefore a "liberatory science" and an "emancipatory mathematics", spurning "the elite caste canon of 'high science, needed to be established for a "postmodern science [that] provide[s] powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project".
Moreover, the article's footnotes conflate academic terms with sociopolitical rhetoric, e.g.:
Sokal submitted the article to "Social Text", whose editors were collecting articles for the "Science Wars" issue. "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" was notable as an article by a natural scientist. The biologist Ruth Hubbard also had an article in the issue. Later, after Sokal's self-exposure of his pseudoscientific hoax article in the journal "Lingua Franca", the "Social Text" editors said in a published essay that they had requested editorial changes that Sokal refused to make, and had had concerns about the quality of the writing, stating "We requested him (a) to excise a good deal of the philosophical speculation and (b) to excise most of his footnotes". Nonetheless, despite designating the physicist subsequently as having been a "difficult, uncooperative author", and noting that such writers were "well known to journal editors", "Social Text" published the article in acknowledgment of the author's credentials in the May 1996 Spring/Summer "Science Wars" issue. The editors did not seek peer review of the article by physicists or otherwise; they later defended this decision on the basis that "Social Text" was a journal for open intellectual inquiry and the article was not offered as a contribution to the physics discipline.
In the May 1996 issue of "Lingua Franca", in the article "A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies", Sokal revealed that "Transgressing the Boundaries" was a hoax and concluded that "Social Text" "felt comfortable publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult anyone knowledgeable in the subject" because of its ideological proclivities and editorial bias. In their defense, the "Social Text" editors said they believed that "Transgressing the Boundaries" "was the earnest attempt of a professional scientist to seek some kind of affirmation from postmodern philosophy for developments in his field" and that "its status as parody does not alter, substantially, our interest in the piece, itself, as a symptomatic document". Besides criticizing his writing style, the "Social Text" editors accused Sokal of behaving unethically in deceiving them.
Sokal said the editors' response demonstrated the problem he claimed. "Social Text", as an academic journal, published the article not because it was faithful, true and accurate to its subject but because an "academic authority" had written it and because of the appearance of the obscure writing. The editors said they considered it poorly written but published it because they felt Sokal was an academic seeking their intellectual affirmation. Sokal remarked:
"Social Text"'s response revealed that none of the editors had suspected Sokal's piece was a parody. Instead, they speculated Sokal's admission "represented a change of heart, or a folding of his intellectual resolve". Sokal found further humor in the idea that the article's absurdity was hard to spot:
In 1997, Sokal and Jean Bricmont co-wrote "Impostures intellectuelles" (U.S.: "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science", U.K.: "Intellectual Impostures", 1998). The book featured analysis of extracts from established intellectuals' writings that Sokal and Bricmont claimed misused scientific terminology. It closed with a critical summary of postmodernism and criticism of the strong programme of social constructionism in the sociology of scientific knowledge.
As Sokal revealed the hoax, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida was initially one of the objects of discredit in the United States, particularly in newspaper coverage. A U.S. weekly magazine used two images of Derrida, a photo and a caricature, to illustrate a "dossier" on the Sokal article. Derrida responded to the hoax in "Sokal et Bricmont ne sont pas sérieux" ("Sokal and Bricmont Aren't Serious"), first published on 20 November 1997 in "Le Monde". He called Sokal's action sad ("triste") for having trivialized Sokal's mathematical work and ruining the chance to carefully examine controversies about scientific objectivity. Derrida then faulted him and coauthor Jean Bricmont for what he considered an act of intellectual bad faith in describing their follow-up book, "Impostures intellectuelles" (UK: "Intellectual Impostures"; US: "Fashionable Nonsense"): they had published two articles almost simultaneously, one in English in "The Times Literary Supplement" on 17 October 1997 and one in French in "Libération" on 18–19 October 1997, but while the two articles were almost identical, they differed in how they treated Derrida. The English-language article had a list of French intellectuals who were not included in Sokal and Bricmont's book: "Such well-known thinkers as Althusser, Barthes, and Foucault—-who, as readers of the TLS will be well aware, have always had their supporters and detractors on both sides of the Channel—-appear in our book only in a minor role, as cheerleaders for the texts we criticize." The French-language list, however, included Derrida: "Des penseurs célèbres tels qu'Althusser, Barthes, Derrida et Foucault sont essentiellement absents de notre livre." Derrida may also have been sensitive to a slight difference between the French and English versions of "Impostures intellectuelles". In the French, his citation from the original hoax article is said to be an "isolated" instance of abuse, whereas the English text adds a parenthetical remark that Derrida's work contained "no systematic misuse (or indeed attention to) science." Derrida cried foul, but Sokal and Bricmont insisted that the difference between the articles was "banal." Nevertheless, Derrida concluded, as the title of his article indicates, that Sokal was not serious in his method, but had used the spectacle of a "quick practical joke" to displace the scholarship Derrida believed the public deserved.
Sociologist Stephen Hilgartner, the Cornell University science and technology studies department chairman, wrote "The Sokal Affair in Context" (1997), comparing Sokal's hoax to "Confirmational Response: Bias Among Social Work Journals" (1990), an article by William M. Epstein published in "Science, Technology & Human Values". Epstein used a similar method to Sokal's, submitting fictitious articles to real academic journals to measure their response. Though much more systematic than Sokal's work, it received scant media attention. Hilgartner argued that the "asymmetric" effect of the successful Sokal hoax compared with Epstein's experiment cannot be attributed to its quality, but that "Through a mechanism that resembles confirmatory bias, audiences may apply less stringent standards of evidence and ethics to attacks on targets that they are predisposed to regard unfavorably." As a result, according to Hilgartner, though competent in terms of method, Epstein's experiment was largely muted by the more socially accepted social work discipline he critiqued, while Sokal's attack on cultural studies, despite his lack of experimental rigor, was accepted. Hilgartner also argued that Sokal's hoax reinforced the presuppositions of various well-known media people such as George Will and Rush Limbaugh, so that his opinions were amplified by media outlets predisposed to agree with his argument.
The Sokal Affair scandal extended from academia to the public press. The anthropologist Bruno Latour, criticized in "Fashionable Nonsense", described the scandal as a "tempest in a tea cup". Retired Northeastern University mathematician turned social scientist Gabriel Stolzenberg wrote essays meant to discredit the statements of Sokal and his allies, arguing that they insufficiently grasped the philosophy they criticized, rendering their criticism meaningless. In "Social Studies of Science", Bricmont and Sokal responded to Stolzenberg, denouncing his "tendentious misrepresentations" of their work and criticizing Stolzenberg's commentary about the "strong programme" of the sociology of science. In the same issue, Stolzenberg replied, arguing that their critique and allegations of misrepresentation were based on misreadings. He advised readers to slowly and skeptically examine the arguments proposed by each party, bearing in mind that "the obvious is sometimes the enemy of the true".
In 2009, Cornell sociologist Robb Willer performed an experiment in which undergraduate students read Sokal's paper and were told either that it was written by another student or that it was by a famous academic. He found that students who believed the paper's author was a high-status intellectual rated it better in quality and intelligibility.
In 2017, James A. Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose initiated "The Grievance Studies affair", a project to create bogus academic papers on cultural, queer, race, gender, fat, and sexuality studies and submit them to academic journals. The authors' intent was to expose problems in "grievance studies", a term they apply to a subcategory of these academic topics in which "poor science is undermining the real and important work being done elsewhere".
The hoax began in 2017 and continued into 2018, when it was halted after one of the papers caught the attention of journalists, who quickly found its purported author, Helen Wilson, to be nonexistent. By that time, four of the 20 papers had been published, three had been accepted but not yet published, six had been rejected, and seven were still under review. One of the published papers had won special recognition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28547 |
Sweet tea
Sweet tea is a popular style of iced tea commonly consumed in countries such as the United States (especially common in the Southern United States), and Indonesia. Sweet tea is most commonly made by adding sugar or simple syrup to black tea either while the tea is brewing or still hot, although artificial sweeteners are also frequently used. Sweet tea is almost always served ice cold. It may sometimes be flavored, most commonly with lemon but also with peach, raspberry, or mint. The drink is sometimes tempered with baking soda to reduce its acidity.
Sweet tea is regarded as an important regional staple item in the cuisine of the Southern United States and Indonesia. The availability of sweet tea in restaurants and other establishments is popularly used as an indicator to gauge whether an area can be considered part of the South. Although sweet tea may be brewed with a lower sugar and calorie content than most fruit juices and sodas, it is not unusual to find sweet tea with a sugar level as high as 22 brix (percent weight sucrose in water) -- twice that of Coca-Cola.
Sweet tea began as an item of luxury due to the expensive nature of tea, ice, and sugar. Ice was possibly the most valued of the ingredients since it had to be shipped from afar at a time when access to cool drinking water was already a relative luxury. In modern times, it can be made in large quantities quickly and inexpensively.
The oldest known recipe for sweet iced tea was published in 1879 in a community cookbook called "Housekeeping in Old Virginia" by Marion Cabell Tyree, who was born in Virginia. The recipe called for green tea, since most sweet tea consumed during this period was green tea. However, during World War II, the major sources of green tea were cut off from the United States (due to the Japanese invasion and occupation of green tea producing regions), leaving them with tea almost exclusively from British India which produced black tea. Americans came out of the war drinking predominantly black tea. Sweet tea was once consumed as a punch mixed with liquor with flavorings of mint and cream, with mint julep being a close version of the punch drink with its similar ingredients.
In 2003, supposedly as an April Fool's joke, the Georgia House introduced a bill making it a "...misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature" to sell iced tea in a restaurant that did not also offer sweet iced tea on the menu. The bill never went to a vote. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28551 |
Cuisine of the Southern United States
The cuisine of the Southern United States developed in the traditionally defined American South. Tidewater, Appalachian, Cajun, Creole, Lowcountry, and Floribbean are examples of types of Southern cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have spread north, having an effect on the development of other types of American cuisine.
Many elements of Southern cooking—squash, corn (and its derivatives, including grits), and deep-pit barbecuing—are borrowings from southeast American Indian tribes such as the Caddo, Choctaw, and Seminole. Sugar, flour, milk, and eggs were among the ingredients that arrived from Europe with the early American colonists, while black-eyed peas, okra, rice, eggplant, sesame, sorghum, and melons, as well as most spices used in the South came from Africa.
The South's fondness for a full breakfast derives from the British full breakfast or fry-up. Many Southern foodways, especially in Appalachia, are Scottish or Border meals adapted to the new subtropical climate; pork, once considered informally taboo in Scotland, takes the place of lamb and mutton, and instead of chopped oats, Southerners eat grits, although oatmeal is much more common now than it once was.
Parts of the South have other cuisines, though. Creole cuisine is mostly vernacular French, West African and Spanish; Floribbean cuisine is Spanish-based with obvious Caribbean influences; and Tex-Mex has considerable Mexican and Native American influences.
A traditional Southern meal is pan-fried chicken, field peas (such as black-eyed peas), greens (such as collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, or poke sallet), mashed potatoes, cornbread or corn pone, sweet tea, and dessert—typically a pie (sweet potato, chess, shoofly, pecan, and peach are the most common), or a cobbler (peach, blackberry, sometimes apple in Kentucky or Appalachia).
Other Southern foods include grits, country ham, hushpuppies, beignets, Southern styles of succotash, brisket, meatloaf, chicken fried steak, buttermilk biscuits (may be served with butter, jelly, fruit preserves, honey, gravy or sorghum molasses), pimento cheese, boiled or baked sweet potatoes, pit barbecue, fried catfish, fried green tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, bread pudding, okra (principally dredged in cornmeal and fried, but also steamed, stewed, sauteed, or pickled), butter beans, and pinto beans.
"White barbecue sauce" made with mayonnaise, pepper and vinegar is a Northern Alabama specialty usually served with smoked barbecue chicken.
Fried chicken is among the region's best-known exports. It is believed that the Scots, and later Scottish immigrants to many southern states had a tradition of deep frying chicken in fat, unlike their English counterparts who baked or boiled chicken. Fried chicken is a capstone of both southern cuisine and history, since it is interwoven into certain people's culture and heritage, particularly the African-American people of the South. The origin of fried chicken's importance to African-American food-ways goes back to the early 1800s, when the only animals that slaves where allowed to own were yard chickens. Later in the 1800s, before the Civil War, fried chicken could also be sold by enslaved people to raise money to buy their freedom. Soon, this led to the association of African-Americans in the South and fried chicken. The stereotyping of fried chicken as a part of the culture of African-American people in the South developed over time, and helped it become one of the most popular and important southern cuisines in the United States. The importance of fried chicken to southern cuisine is apparent through the multiple traditions and different adaptations of fried chicken, like Nashville hot chicken from Prince's Hot Chicken Shack to the Original fried chicken blend at KFC or its Cajun-inspired cousin Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits
Pork is an integral part of the cuisine. Stuffed ham is served in Southern Maryland. A traditional holiday get-together featuring whole hog barbecue is known in Virginia and the Carolinas as a "pig pickin'". Green beans are often flavored with bacon and salt pork, turnip greens are stewed with pork and served with vinegar, ham biscuits (biscuits cut in half with slices of salt ham served between the halves) often accompany breakfast, and ham with red-eye gravy or country gravy is a common dinner dish. Country Ham, a heavily salt-cured ham, is common across the Southern United States, with the most well known being the Virginia-originating Smithfield ham.
Southern meals sometimes consist only of vegetables, with a little meat (especially salt pork) used in cooking but with no meat dish served. "Beans and greens"—white or brown beans served alongside a "mess" of greens stewed with a little bacon—is a traditional meal in many parts of the South. (Turnip greens are the typical greens for such a meal; they're cooked with some diced turnip and a piece of fatback.) Other low-meat Southern meals include beans and cornbread—the beans being pinto beans stewed with ham or bacon—and Hoppin' John (black-eyed peas, rice, onions, red or green pepper, and bacon).
Cabbage is largely used as the basis of coleslaw, both as a side dish and on a variety of barbecued and fried meats. Sauteéd red cabbage, flavored with vinegar and sugar, is popular in German-influenced areas of the South such as central Texas.
Butternut squash is common in winter, often prepared as a roasted casserole with butter and honey. Other typical vegetable sides include collard greens and congealed salads. Double stuffed potatoes with barbecue pork, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, mayonnaise and chives are served at barbecue restaurants throughout the South.
Country Captain is a regional dish of curry chicken and rice that dates back to at least the 1920s. It became well known after a Columbus, Georgia cook served the dish to then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. George Patton once said "If you can't give me a party and have Country Captain, meet me at the train with a bucket of it."
Georgia is known for peach cultivation and variations of Peach melba are commonly served as desserts. Chess pie is a traditional pastry made with eggs, butter and sugar or molasses. Bananas foster is a specialty of New Orleans..
Gulf seafood like black grouper, shrimp and swordfish can be found, and "channel catfish" ("Ictalurus punctatus") farmed locally in the Mississippi Delta region is especially popular in Oxford, Mississippi. Fried catfish battered in cornmeal is commonly served at local establishments with hot sauce and a side of fries and coleslaw. Oysters Rockefeller is a New Orleans specialty, believed to have originated in the state. Cajun-influenced dishes like gumbo and jambalaya often feature crawfish, oysters, blue crab and shrimp.
Chains serving Southern foods—often along with American comfort food—have had great success; many have spread across the country or across the world, while others have chosen to stay in the South. Pit barbecue is popular all over the American South; unlike the rest of the country, most of the rural South has locally owned, non-franchise pit-barbecue restaurants, many serving the regional style of barbecue instead of the nationally predominant Kansas City style. Family-style restaurants serving Southern cuisine are common throughout the South, and range from the humble and down-home to the decidedly upscale.
Southern cuisine varies widely by region. Generally speaking:
Southern Louisiana is geographically and politically part of the South, but its cuisine is probably best understood as having only mild Southern influences. Creole cuisine makes good use of many coastal animals—crawfish (commonly called crayfish outside the region), crab, oysters, shrimp, and saltwater fish. Mirliton, or chayote squash, is popular in Louisiana and harder to find in other parts of the South. Chicory coffee is sometimes preferred over the real thing—especially as an accompaniment to beignets.
The Lowcountry region of the coastal Carolinas and Georgia shares many of the same food resources as the Upper Gulf Coast: fish, shrimp, oysters, rice, and okra. It also displays some similarities to Creole and Cajun cuisines.
Because of its geographic location, Appalachia cuisine offers a wide range of ingredients and products that can be transformed using traditional methods and contemporary applications. Staples of Appalachian cuisine that are common in other regional cuisines of the south include coconut cream cake, peanut brittle, sweet potato casserole, pork chops, biscuits and gravy, and chicken and dumplings. Basic soul food dishes like collard greens, hominy, cracklings and ham hocks are also common to the Appalachian kitchen. European fruits—especially apples and pears—can grow in the mountains, and sweet fried apples are a common side dish. Appalachian cuisine also makes use of berries, both native and European, and some parts of the mountains are high enough or far enough north that sugar maple grows there—allowing for maple syrup and maple sugar production. Wild morel mushrooms and ramps (similar to scallions and leeks) are often collected; there are even festivals dedicated to ramps, and they figure in some Appalachian fairy tales. The diet included corn, beans, squash, mixed pickles, milk, cheeses, butter, cream, tea, and coffee.
Nineteenth-century meals included greens fried in bear grease, elk backstrap steaks and venison stew. Ashcakes were cornbread cooked directly on hearth coals. Cornbread was the most common bread in the mountains, and still remains a staple. Salt, a necessity for life, was always available (much of it coming from Saltville, Virginia), and local seasonings like spicebush were certainly known and used; but the only other seasonings used in the mountains are black pepper and flaked red pepper, along with a little use of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves around Christmas. Coffee, drunk without milk and only lightly sweetened, is a basic drink in Appalachia, often consumed with every meal; in wartime, chicory was widely used as a coffee substitute.
Rice and cane sugar, grown further south, were not easy to come by in Appalachia and generally sorghum, honey and maple syrup were used as sweetener in local dishes. Travel distances, conditions, and poor roads limited most early settlements to foods that could be grown or produced locally. For farmers, pigs and chickens were the primary source of meat, with many farmers maintaining their own smokehouses to produce a variety of hams, bacon, and sausages. Seafood, beyond the occasionally locally caught fresh-water fish (pan-fried catfish is much loved, as is trout in the mountains of western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia) and crawfish, were unavailable until modern times. However, Appalachia did offer a wide variety of wild game, with venison, rabbit and squirrel particularly common, thus helping to compensate for distance from major cities and transportation networks. The popularity of hunting and fishing in Appalachia means that game and fresh-water fish were often staples of the table. Deer, wild turkey, grouse and other game birds are hunted and utilized in many recipes from barbecue to curing and jerky.
Home canning, of both garden and foraged foods, is a strong tradition in Appalachia as well; mason jars are an everyday sight in mountain life; the most common canned foods are savory vegetables: green beans (half-runners, snaps), shelly beans (green beans that were more mature and had ripe beans along with the green husks), and tomatoes, as well as jam, jelly and local fruits. Dried pinto beans are a major staple food during the winter months, used to make the ubiquitous ham-flavored bean soup usually called soup beans. Kieffer pears and apple varietals are used to make pear butter and apple butter. Also popular are bread and butter pickles, fried mustard greens with vinegar, pickled beets, chow-chow (commonly called "chow"), a relish known as corn ketchup and fried green tomatoes; tomatoes are also used in tomato gravy, a variant of sausage gravy with a thinner, lighter roux. A variety of wild fruits like pawpaws, wild blackberries, and persimmons are also commonly available in Appalachia as well.
As wheat flour and baking powder/baking soda became available in the late 19th century, buttermilk biscuits became popular. Today, buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy are the classic Appalachian breakfast; they are also a common breakfast everywhere where Appalachian people have emigrated. Both North Carolina and West Virginia have statewide biscuit chain restaurants; many Southern or originally-Southern chains offer biscuits and gravy, and when McDonald's introduced a new breakfast menu selling either Egg McMuffins (with English muffins) or a variant with biscuits, the biscuit zone was practically a map of the South with the exception of Virginia, Maryland, and Florida.
The gravy for biscuits and gravy is typically sausage or sawmill, not the red-eye gravy (made with coffee) used in the lowland South. Pork drippings from frying sausage, bacon, and other types of pan-fried pork are collected and saved, used for making gravy and in greasing cast-iron cookware. (Note that Appalachia is overwhelmingly Protestant, the Catholic prohibition on meat-eating during Lent had no impact on Appalachian cuisine.) Chicken and dumplings and fried chicken remain much-loved dishes. Cornbread, corn pone, hominy grits, mush, cornbread pudding and hominy stew are also quite common foods, as corn is the primary grain grown in the Appalachian hills and mountains, but are less common than in the past. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28553 |
Second Coming
The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian, Islamic, and Baha'i belief regarding the return of Jesus after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messianic prophecies and is part of most Christian eschatologies.
Views about the nature of Jesus's Second Coming vary among Christian denominations and among individual Christians, as well as among Muslims.
Several different terms are used to refer to the Second Coming of Christ:
In the New Testament, the Greek word ἐπιφάνεια ("epiphaneia", appearing) is used five times to refer to the return of Christ.
The Greek New Testament uses the Greek term "parousia" (παρουσία, meaning "arrival", "coming", or "presence") twenty-four times, seventeen of them concerning Christ. However, parousia has the distinct reference to a period of time rather than an instance in time. At parousia is used to clearly describe the period of time that Noah lived. The Greek word "eleusi"s which means "coming" is not interchangeable with parousia. So this parousia or "presence" would be unique and distinct from anything that had occurred before. The word is also used six times referring to individuals (Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus, Titus, and Paul the Apostle ) and one time referring to the "coming of the lawless one".
Gustav Adolf Deissmann (1908) showed that the Greek word "parousia" occurred as early as the 3rd century BC to describe the visit of a king or dignitary to a city – a visit arranged in order to show the visitor's magnificence to the people.
Some Christian writings say that there will be a great deception before the Second Coming of Christ. In Matthew 24, Jesus states in the following passage:
Ellen G. White, the early Seventh-day Adventist leader, wrote:
Views about the nature of the Second Coming vary among Christian denominations and among individual Christians. A number of specific dates have been predicted for the Second Coming, some now in the distant past, others still in the future.
Most English versions of the Nicene Creed include the following statements:
Jesus was reported to have told his disciples,
Given that in his next statement Jesus notes that the exact day and hour is unknown even to himself, the simple meaning of his previous statement is that the Second Coming was to be witnessed by people literally living in that same generation. Some, such as Jerome, interpret the phrase "this generation" to mean in the lifetime of the Jewish race; however, other scholars believe that if Jesus meant "race" he would have used "genos" (race), not "genea" (generation).
Victor J. Stenger notes that Jesus is recorded as saying,
According to historian Charles Freeman, early Christians expected Jesus to return within a generation of his death and the non-occurrence of the second coming surprised the early Christian communities.
The position associating the Second Coming with 1st century events such as the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Jewish Temple in AD 70 is known as Preterism.
Some Preterists see this "coming of the Son of Man in glory" primarily fulfilled in Jesus' death on the cross. They believe the apocalyptic signs are already fulfilled including "the sun will be dark" (cf. ), the "powers ... will be shaken," (cf. ) and "then they will see" (cf. ). Yet some critics note that many are missing, such as "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." (). And "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." ()
It is the traditional view of Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, preserved from the early Church, that the Second Coming will be a sudden and unmistakable incident, like "a flash of lightning". They hold the general view that Jesus will not spend any time on the earth in ministry or preaching, but come to judge mankind. They also agree that the ministry of the Antichrist will take place right before the Second Coming.
Many Christian denominations consider this second coming of Christ to be the final and eternal judgment by God of the people in every nation resulting in the glorification of some and the punishment of others. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew.
A decisive factor in this Last Judgement during the second coming of Christ will be the question, if the corporal and spiritual works of mercy were practiced or not during lifetime. They rate as important acts of mercy, charity and justice. Therefore, and according to the Biblical sources (–), the conjunction of the Last Judgement and the works of mercy is very frequent in the pictorial tradition of Christian art.
Orthodox layman Alexander Kalomiros explains the original Church's position regarding the Second Coming in "River of Fire" and "Against False Union", stating that those who contend that Christ will reign on earth for a thousand years "do not wait for Christ, but for the Antichrist." The idea of Jesus returning to this earth as a king is a heretical concept to the Church, equated to "the expectations of the Jews who wanted the Messiah to be an earthly King." The Church instead teaches that which it has taught since the beginning.
According to the Catholic Church, the second coming will bring about the fullness of the reign of God and the consummation of the universe, mankind, and salvation. The Catholic Church believes there are three things that hasten the return of Jesus: the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in the liturgy; living with the mind of Jesus; and praying for the Lord to come, above all in the Eucharist.
The many denominations of Protestantism have differing views on the exact details of Christ's second coming. Only a handful of Christian organizations claim complete and authoritative interpretation of the typically symbolic and prophetic biblical sources.
A short reference to the second coming is contained in the Nicene Creed: "He [Jesus] shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and His kingdom shall have no end." An analogous statement is also in the biblical Pauline Creed ().
Some Protestant churches proclaim the Mystery of Faith to be: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again."
Latter-day Saint scriptures say that Christ will return, as stated in the Bible. They also teach that The LDS Church and its leaders do not make predictions of the actual date of the Second Coming.
Latter-day Saints have particularly distinct and specific interpretations of what are considered to be signs stated in the Book of Revelation.
According to LDS Church teachings, the restored gospel will be taught in all parts of the world prior to the Second Coming. Church members believe that there will be increasingly severe wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other man-made and natural disasters prior to the Second Coming.
Fundamental Belief #25 of the Seventh-day Adventist Church states:
Jehovah's Witnesses rarely use the term "second coming", preferring the term "presence" as a translation of "parousia". They believe that Jesus' comparison of ""the presence of the Son of man"" with ""the days of Noah"" at and suggests a duration rather than a moment of arrival. They also believe that biblical chronology points to 1914 as the start of Christ's "presence", which continues until the final battle of Armageddon. Other biblical expressions they correlate with this period include "the time of the end" (), "the conclusion of the system of things" (,; ) and "the last days" (; ). Witnesses believe Christ's millennial reign begins after Armageddon.
A recent survey (2010) showed that about 40% of Americans believe that Jesus is likely to return by 2050. This varies from 58% of white evangelical Christians, through 32% of Catholics to 27% of white mainline Protestants.
Belief in the Second Coming was popularised in the US in the late nineteenth century by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody and the premillennial interpretation became one of the core components of Christian fundamentalism in the 1920s.
In Rosicrucian esoteric Christian teaching, there is a clear distinction between the cosmic Christ, or Christ without, and the Christ within. According to this tradition, the Christ within is regarded as the true Saviour who needs to be born within each individual in order to evolve toward the future Sixth Epoch in the Earth's etheric plane, that is, toward the "new heavens and a new earth": the "New Galilee." The Second Coming or Advent of the Christ is not in a physical body, but in the new "soul body" of each individual in the etheric plane of the planet where man "shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." The "day and hour" of this event is not known. The esoteric Christian tradition teaches that first there will be a preparatory period as the Sun enters Aquarius, an astrological concept, by precession: the coming Age of Aquarius.
In Islam, Jesus (or Isa; ) is considered to be a Messenger of God and the "Masih" (messiah) who was sent to guide the Israelites ("banī isrā'īl") with a new scripture, the "Injīl". The belief in Jesus (and all other messengers of God) is required in Islam, and a requirement of being a Muslim. However, Muslims do not recognize Jesus as the Son of God, as they believe God has no equals, but instead as a prophet. The Quran states that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Muslims believe that Jesus performed all the miracles in the Gospels (With God's permission), but do not believe that Jesus was crucified.
In the Quran, the second coming of Jesus is heralded in Az-Zukhruf (the Quran's 43rd surah or chapter) as a sign of the Day of Judgment.
In his famous interpretation of the Quran or Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Azim, Ibn Kathir also uses this verse as proof of Jesus' second coming in the Quran.
There are also hadiths that clearly foretell of Jesus' future return such as: Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 43: "Kitab-ul-`Ilm" (Book of Knowledge), Hâdith Number 656:
According to Islamic tradition, Jesus' descent will be in the midst of wars fought by the "Mahdi" ("lit". "the rightly guided one"), known in Islamic eschatology as the redeemer of Islam, against the "Masih ad-Dajjal" (literally "false messiah", synonymous with the Antichrist) and his followers. Jesus will descend at the point of a white arcade, east of Damascus, dressed in saffron robes—his head anointed. He will then join the "Mahdi" in his war against the "Dajjal". Jesus, considered in Islam as a Muslim (one who submits to God) and one of God's messengers, will abide by the Islamic teachings. Eventually, Jesus will slay the Antichrist "Dajjal", and then everyone from the People of the Book ("ahl al-kitāb", referring to Jews and Christians) will believe in him. Thus, there will be one community, that of Islam.
After the death of the "Mahdi", Jesus will assume leadership. This is a time associated in Islamic narrative with universal peace and justice. Islamic texts also allude to the appearance of Ya'juj and Ma'juj (known also as Gog and Magog), ancient tribes which will disperse and cause disturbance on earth. God, in response to Jesus's prayers, will kill them by sending a type of worm in the napes of their necks. Jesus's rule is said to be around forty years, after which he will die, (according to Islam Jesus did not die on the cross but was taken up to heaven and continues to live until his return in the second coming). Muslims will then perform the "Salat al-Janazah" (funeral prayer) for him and bury him in the city of Medina in a grave left vacant beside Muhammad.
The Ahmadi sect, who identify as Muslims, believe that the promised Mahdi and Messiah arrived in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908). This is rejected by many Muslims, who consider the Ahmadiyya not to be Muslims.
The "hadith" (sayings of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad) and the Bible indicated that Jesus would return during the latter days. Islamic tradition commonly depicts that Jesus, upon his second coming, would be an "Ummati" (Muslim) and a follower of Muhammad and that he would revive the truth of Islam rather than fostering a new religion.
The Ahmadiyya movement interpret the Second Coming of Jesus prophesied as being that of a person "similar to Jesus" ("mathīl-i ʿIsā") and not his physical return, in the same way as John the Baptist resembled the character of the biblical prophet Elijah in Christianity. Ahmadis believe that Ghulam Ahmad demonstrated that the prophecy in Muslim and Christian religious texts were traditionally misunderstood to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth himself would return, and hold that Jesus survived the crucifixion and later died a natural death. Ahmadis consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (the founder of the movement), in both his character and teachings, to be representative of Jesus; and subsequently, he attained the same spiritual rank of Prophethood as Jesus. Thus, Ahmadis believe this prediction was fulfilled and continued by his movement.
According to the Bahá'í Faith, the Second Coming is based on the concept of an evolving, stepwise, progressive process that coincides with the advancement of human civilization from the beginning of humanity. The Bahá'í Faith explains that the Founders of the major world religions each represent a Return of the Word and Spirit of God as a new, unique personification sent by God upon earth, Who introduces a new set of teachings and laws and revelations, such that all major religions are part of Progressive Revelation (Baha'i) with each Coming building upon the major world religions emerging from earlier ages, verifying spiritual truths of a previous Dispensation, and fulfilling its prophesies regarding a future Return or Coming. Thus, the Second Coming of the Christ represents a continuation of God's Will as one continuous faith, albeit having different names due to the Founders of each religion as the voice of God, and as the "Way", the "Light", the "Truth" at different times in history.
Bahá'u'lláh announced that the return of Christ, understood as a reappearance of the Word and Spirit of God, was manifest in His person:
Baha'u'llah wrote to Pope Pius IX,
He goes on to refer to himself as the "Ancient of Days" and the "Pen of Glory". Baha'u'llah also said in this connection:
Baha'u'llah also wrote,
Followers of the Bahá'í Faith believe that the fulfillment of the prophecies of the second coming of Jesus, as well as the prophecies of the Maitreya in Buddhism, and many other religious prophecies, were begun by the Báb in 1844 and then by the events occurring during the days of Bahá'u'lláh. They regard the fulfillment of Christian prophecies by Baha'u'llah in a spiritual sense as the same pattern of Jesus' fulfillment of Jewish prophecies in a spiritual sense, where in both cases people were expecting the literal fulfillment of apocalyptic statements that led to rejections of the Return, instead of accepting fulfillment in symbolic and spiritual ways. Bahá'ís understand that the return of the Christ with a new name was intended by Jesus to be a Return in a spiritual sense, due to Jesus explaining in the Gospels that the return of Elijah in John the Baptist was a return in a spiritual sense.
Furthermore, Baha'is point to instances in the Bible, wherever the term, "The Glory of God" is used in the sense of being an entity, as a reference to Baha'u'llah. In the Arabic language, the name, Baha'u'llah, means the "Glory of God".
Judaism believes that Jesus is one of the false Jewish Messiah claimants because he failed to fulfill any Messianic prophecies, which include:
In the early developments of the Rastafari religion, Haile Selassie (the Ethiopian Emperor) was regarded as a member of the House of David, is worshipped as God incarnate, and is thought to be the "black Jesus" and "black messiah" – the second coming of Christ. It was claimed that Marcus Garvey preached the coming of the black messiah on the eve of Selassie's coronation. Due to this prophecy, Selassie was the source of inspiration of the poor and uneducated Christian populations of Jamaica, who believed that the Emperor would liberate the black people from the subjugation of European colonists.
In modern times some traditional Indian religious leaders have moved to embrace Jesus as an avatar, or incarnation, of God. In light of this, the Indian guru Paramahansa Yogananda, author of "Autobiography of a Yogi", wrote an extensive commentary on the Gospels published in 2004 in the two-volume set "The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You". The book offers a mystical interpretation of the Second Coming in which it is understood to be an inner experience, something that takes place within the individual heart. In the introduction of this book, Yogananda wrote that the true Second Coming is the resurrection within you of the Infinite Christ Consciousness. Also stated in the Book of Luke – "Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." ()
Daya Mata wrote in the preface of "The Second Coming of Christ" that the "two-volume scriptural treatise thus represents the inclusive culmination of Paramahansa Yogananda's divine commission to make manifest to the world the essence of original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ." In sharing her memories of when she wrote down his words, she shares – "the great Guru, his face radiantly enraptured, as he records for the world the inspired exposition of the Gospel teachings imparted to him through direct, personal communion with Jesus of Nazareth." Larry Dossey, M.D., wrote that "Paramahansa Yogananda’s "The Second Coming of Christ" is one of the most important analyses of Jesus’ teachings that exists...Many interpretations of Jesus’ words divide peoples, cultures, and nations; these foster unity and healing, and that is why they are vital for today’s world."
Jesus Christ returning to earth has been a theme in several movies and books, for example: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28554 |
Serialization
In computing, serialization (or serialisation) is the process of translating data structures or object state into a format that can be stored (for example, in a file or memory buffer) or transmitted (for example, across a network connection link) and reconstructed later (possibly in a different computer environment). When the resulting series of bits is reread according to the serialization format, it can be used to create a semantically identical clone of the original object. For many complex objects, such as those that make extensive use of references, this process is not straightforward. Serialization of object-oriented objects does not include any of their associated methods with which they were previously linked.
This process of serializing an object is also called marshalling an object in some situations. The opposite operation, extracting a data structure from a series of bytes, is deserialization, (also called unserialization or unmarshalling).
For some of these features to be useful, architecture independence must be maintained. For example, for maximal use of distribution, a computer running on a different hardware architecture should be able to reliably reconstruct a serialized data stream, regardless of endianness. This means that the simpler and faster procedure of directly copying the memory layout of the data structure cannot work reliably for all architectures. Serializing the data structure in an architecture-independent format means preventing the problems of byte ordering, memory layout, or simply different ways of representing data structures in different programming languages.
Inherent to any serialization scheme is that, because the encoding of the data is by definition serial, extracting one part of the serialized data structure requires that the entire object be read from start to end, and reconstructed. In many applications, this linearity is an asset, because it enables simple, common I/O interfaces to be utilized to hold and pass on the state of an object. In applications where higher performance is an issue, it can make sense to expend more effort to deal with a more complex, non-linear storage organization.
Even on a single machine, primitive pointer objects are too fragile to save because the objects to which they point may be reloaded to a different location in memory. To deal with this, the serialization process includes a step called "unswizzling" or "pointer unswizzling", where direct pointer references are converted to references based on name or position. The deserialization process includes an inverse step called "pointer swizzling".
Since both serializing and deserializing can be driven from common code (for example, the "Serialize" function in Microsoft Foundation Classes), it is possible for the common code to do both at the same time, and thus, 1) detect differences between the objects being serialized and their prior copies, and 2) provide the input for the next such detection. It is not necessary to actually build the prior copy because differences can be detected on the fly. The technique is called differential execution. This is useful in the programming of user interfaces whose contents are time-varying — graphical objects can be created, removed, altered, or made to handle input events without necessarily having to write separate code to do those things.
Serialization breaks the opacity of an abstract data type by potentially exposing private implementation details. Trivial implementations which serialize all data members may violate encapsulation.
To discourage competitors from making compatible products, publishers of proprietary software often keep the details of their programs' serialization formats a trade secret. Some deliberately obfuscate or even encrypt the serialized data. Yet, interoperability requires that applications be able to understand each other's serialization formats. Therefore, remote method call architectures such as CORBA define their serialization formats in detail.
Many institutions, such as archives and libraries, attempt to future proof their backup archives—in particular, database dumps—by storing them in some relatively human-readable serialized format.
The Xerox Network Systems Courier technology in the early 1980s influenced the first widely adopted standard. Sun Microsystems published the External Data Representation (XDR) in 1987. XDR is an open format, and standardized as STD 67 (RFC 4506).
In the late 1990s, a push to provide an alternative to the standard serialization protocols started: XML, an SGML subset, was used to produce a human readable text-based encoding. Such an encoding can be useful for persistent objects that may be read and understood by humans, or communicated to other systems regardless of programming language. It has the disadvantage of losing the more compact, byte-stream-based encoding, but by this point larger storage and transmission capacities made file size less of a concern than in the early days of computing. In the 2000s, XML was often used for asynchronous transfer of structured data between client and server in Ajax web applications. XML is an open format, and standardized as a W3C recommendation.
JSON, is a lighter plain-text alternative to XML which is also commonly used for client-server communication in web applications. JSON is based on JavaScript syntax, but is independent of JavaScript and supported in other programming languages as well. JSON is an open format, standardized as STD 90 (), ECMA-404, and ISO/IEC 21778:2017.
YAML, is a strict JSON superset and includes additional features such as a notion of tagging data types, support for non-hierarchical data structures, the option to structure data with indentation, and multiple forms of scalar data quoting. YAML is an open format.
Property lists are used for serialization by NeXTSTEP, GNUstep, macOS, and iOS frameworks. "Property list", or "p-list" for short, doesn't refer to a single serialization format but instead several different variants, some human-readable and one binary.
For large volume scientific datasets, such as satellite data and output of numerical climate, weather, or ocean models, specific binary serialization standards have been developed, e.g. HDF, netCDF and the older GRIB.
Several object-oriented programming languages directly support "object serialization" (or "object archival"), either by syntactic sugar elements or providing a standard interface for doing so. The languages which do so include Ruby, Smalltalk, Python, PHP, Objective-C, Delphi, Java, and the .NET family of languages. There are also libraries available that add serialization support to languages that lack native support for it. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28555 |
Separation of powers
The separation of powers is a representation for the governance of a state. Under this model, a state's government is divided into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities so that powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary, which is the " model. It can be contrasted with the fusion of powers in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems, where the executive and legislative branches overlap.
Separation of powers, therefore, refers to the division of responsibilities into distinct branches of government by limiting any one branch from exercising the core functions of another. The intent of separation of powers is to prevent the concentration of power by providing for checks and balances.
The separation of powers model is often imprecisely and metonymically used interchangeably with the " principle. While the model is a common type of separation, there are governments that have greater or fewer than three branches, as mentioned later in the article.
Aristotle first mentioned the idea of a "mixed government" or hybrid government in his work "Politics", where he drew upon many of the constitutional forms in the city-states of Ancient Greece. In the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate, Consuls and the Assemblies showed an example of a mixed government according to Polybius ("Histories", Book 6, 11–13).
John Calvin (1509–1564) favoured a system of government that divided political power between democracy and aristocracy (mixed government). Calvin appreciated the advantages of democracy, stating: "It is an invaluable gift if God allows a people to elect its own government and magistrates." In order to reduce the danger of misuse of political power, Calvin suggested setting up several political institutions that should complement and control each other in a system of checks and balances.
In this way, Calvin and his followers resisted political absolutism and furthered the growth of democracy. Calvin aimed to protect the rights and the well-being of ordinary people. In 1620 a group of English separatist Congregationalists and Anglicans (later known as the Pilgrim Fathers) founded Plymouth Colony in North America. Enjoying self-rule, they established a bipartite democratic system of government. The "freemen" elected the General Court, which functioned as legislature and judiciary and which in turn elected a governor, who together with his seven "assistants" served in the functional role of providing executive power. Massachusetts Bay Colony (founded 1628), Rhode Island (1636), Connecticut (1636), New Jersey, and Pennsylvania had similar constitutions – they all separated political powers. (Except for Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony, these English outposts added religious freedom to their democratic systems, an important step towards the development of human rights.) Books like William Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation" (written between 1630 and 1651) were widely read in England. So the form of government in the colonies was well known in the mother country, including to the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). He deduced from a study of the English constitutional system the advantages of dividing political power into the legislative (which should be distributed among several bodies, for example, the House of Lords and the House of Commons), on the one hand, and the executive and federative power, responsible for the protection of the country and prerogative of the monarch, on the other hand. (The Kingdom of England had no written constitution.)
During the English Civil War, the parliamentarians viewed the English system of government as composed of three branches - the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons - where the first should have executive powers only, and the latter two legislative powers. Few years later, one of the first documents proposing a tripartite system of separation of powers was the Instrument of Government, written by the English general John Lambert in 1653, and soon adopted as the constitution of England for few years during The Protectorate. The system comprised a legislative branch (the Parliament) and two executive branches, the English Council of State and the Lord Protector, all being elected (though the Lord Protector was elected for life) and having checks upon each other.
A further development in English thought was the idea that the judicial powers should be separated from the executive branch. This followed the use of the juridical system by the Crown to prosecute opposition leaders following the Restoration, in the late years of Charles II and during the short reign of James II (namely, during the 1680s).
The term "tripartite system" is commonly ascribed to French Enlightenment political philosopher Baron de Montesquieu, although he did not use such a term but referred to "distribution" of powers. In "The Spirit of the Laws" (1748), Montesquieu described the various forms of distribution of political power among a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. Montesquieu's approach was to present and defend a form of government whose powers were not excessively centralized in a single monarch or similar ruler (a form known then as "aristocracy"). He based this model on the Constitution of the Roman Republic and the British constitutional system. Montesquieu took the view that the Roman Republic had powers separated so that no one could usurp complete power. In the British constitutional system, Montesquieu discerned a separation of powers among the monarch, Parliament, and the courts of law.
Montesquieu argues that each Power should only exercise its own functions. He was quite explicit here:
Separation of powers requires a different source of legitimization, or a different act of legitimization from the same source, for each of the separate powers. If the legislative branch appoints the executive and judicial powers, as Montesquieu indicated, there will be no separation or division of its powers, since the power to appoint carries with it the power to revoke.
Montesquieu actually specified that the independence of the judiciary has to be real, and not merely apparent. The judiciary was generally seen as the most important of the three powers, independent and unchecked.
The principle of checks and balances is that each branch has power to limit or check the other two, which creates a balance between the three separate branches of the state. This principle induces one branch to prevent either of the other branches from becoming supreme, thereby securing political liberty.
Immanuel Kant was an advocate of this, noting that "the problem of setting up a state can be solved even by a nation of devils" so long as they possess an appropriate constitution to pit opposing factions against each other.
Checks and balances are designed to maintain the system of separation of powers keeping each branch in its place. The idea is that it is not enough to separate the powers and guarantee their independence but the branches need to have the constitutional means to defend their own legitimate powers from the encroachments of the other branches. They guarantee that the branches have the same level of power (co-equal), that is, are balanced, so that they can limit each other, avoiding the abuse of power. The origin of checks and balances, like separation of powers itself, is specifically credited to Montesquieu in the Enlightenment (in The Spirit of the Laws, 1748). Under this influence it was implemented in 1787 in the Constitution of the United States.
The following example of the separation of powers and their mutual checks and balances from the experience of the United States Constitution is presented as illustrative of the general principles applied in similar forms of government as well:
Constitutions with a high degree of separation of powers are found worldwide. A number of Latin American countries have electoral branches of government.
The Westminster system is distinguished by a particular entwining of powers, such as in New Zealand and Canada. Canada makes limited use of separation of powers in practice, although in theory it distinguishes between branches of government. New Zealand's constitution is based on the principle of separation of powers through a series of constitutional safeguards, many of which are tacit. The Executive's ability to carry out decisions often depends on the Legislature, which is elected under the mixed member proportional system. This means the government is rarely a single party but a coalition of parties. The Judiciary is also free of government interference. If a series of judicial decisions result in an interpretation of the law which the Executive considers does not reflect the intention of the policy, the Executive can initiate changes to the legislation in question through the Legislature. The Executive cannot direct or request a judicial officer to revise or reconsider a decision; decisions are final. Should there be a dispute between the Executive and Judiciary, the Executive has no authority to direct the Judiciary, or its individual members and vice versa.
Complete separation of powers systems are almost always presidential, although theoretically this need not be the case. There are a few historical exceptions, such as the Directoire system of revolutionary France. Switzerland offers an example of non-Presidential separation of powers today: It is run by a seven-member executive branch, the Federal Council. However, some might argue that Switzerland does not have a strong separation of powers system as the Federal Council is appointed by parliament (but not dependent on parliament) and, although the judiciary has no power of review, the judiciary is still separate from the other branches.
Australia does not maintain a strict separation between the legislative and executive branches of government—indeed, government ministers are required to be members of parliament—but the federal judiciary strictly guards its independence from the other two branches. However, under influence from the U.S. constitution, the Australian constitution does define the three branches of government separately, which has been interpreted by the judiciary to induce an implicit separation of powers. State governments have a similar level of separation of power but this is generally on the basis of convention, rather than constitution.
The Constitution of Austria was originally written by Hans Kelsen, the prominent constitutional scholar in Europe at that time. Kelsen was to serve as a part of the judicial court of review for Austria as part of its tripartite government.
The Constitution of the Czech Republic, adopted in 1992 immediately before the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, establishes the traditional tripartite division of powers and continues the tradition of its predecessor constitutions. The Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920, which replaced the provisional constitution adopted by the newly independent state in 1918, was modelled after the constitutions of established democracies such as those of the United Kingdom, United States and France, and maintained this division, as have subsequent changes to the constitution that followed in 1948 with the Ninth-of-May Constitution, the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia as well as the Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation of 1968.
According to the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, the government of France is divided into three branches:
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region established in 1997 pursuant to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty made between Britain and China in 1984, registered with the United Nations. The Hong Kong Basic Law, a national law of China that serves as the "de facto" constitution, divides the government into Executive, Legislative, and Judicial bodies.
However, according to the former Secretary for Security, Regina Ip, also a current member of the Executive Council(ExCo) and Legislative Council of Hong Kong, Hong Kong never practices Separation of Powers after the handover of Hong Kong back to China.
India follows constitutional democracy which offers a clear separation of powers. The judiciary is independent of the other two branches with the power to interpret the constitution. Parliament has the legislative powers. Executive powers are vested in the President who is advised by the Union Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister. The constitution of India vested the duty of protecting, preserving and defending the constitution with the President as common head of the executive, parliament, armed forces, etc.—not only for the union government but also the various state governments in a federal structure. All three branches have "checks and balances" over each other to maintain the balance of power and not to exceed the constitutional limits.
In Italy the powers are separated, even though the Council of Ministers needs a vote of confidence from both chambers of Parliament (which represents a large number of members, almost 1,000).
Like every parliamentary form of government, there is no complete separation between Legislature and Executive, rather a "continuum" between them due to the confidence link. The balance between these two branches is protected by Constitution and between them and the judiciary, which is really independent.
A note on the status of separation of power, checks and balances, and balance of power in Norway today.
In the original constitution of 1814 the Montesquieu concept was enshrined, and the people at the time had the same skepticism about political parties as the American founding fathers and the revolutionaries in France. Nor did people really want to get rid of the king and the Council of State (privy council). King and council was a known concept that people had lived with for a long time and for the most part were comfortable with. The 1814 constitution came about as a reaction to external events, most notable the Treaty of Kiel (see 1814 in Norway). There was no revolution against the current powers, as had been the case in the U.S. and France.
As there was no election of the executive, the king reigned supremely independent in selecting the members of the Council of State, no formal political parties formed until the 1880s. A conflict between the executive and legislature started developing in the 1870s and climaxed with the legislature impeaching the entire Council of State in 1884 (see ]). With this came a switch to a parliamentary system of government. While the full process took decades, it has led to a system of parliamentary sovereignty, where the Montesquieu idea of separation of powers is technically dead even though the three branches remain important institutions.
This "does not" mean that there are no checks and balances. With the introduction of a parliamentary system, political parties started to form quickly, which led to a call for electoral reform that saw the introduction of Party-list proportional representation in 1918. The peculiarities of the Norwegian election system generate 6–8 parties and make it extremely difficult for a single party to gain an absolute majority. It has only occurred for a brief period in the aftermath of World War II where the Labour Party had an absolute majority.
A multi-party system parliament that must either form a minority executive or a coalition executive functions as a perfectly good system of checks and balances even if it was never a stated goal for the introduction of multiparty system. The multiparty system came about in response to a public outcry of having too few parties and a general feeling of a lack of representation. For this reason, very little on the topic of separation of powers or checks and balances can be found in the works of Norwegian political sciences today.
The development of the British constitution, which is not a codified document, is based on fusion in the person of the Monarch, who has a formal role to play in the legislature (Parliament, which is where legal and political sovereignty lies, is the Crown-in-Parliament, and is summoned and dissolved by the Sovereign who must give his or her Royal Assent to all Bills so that they become Acts), the executive (the Sovereign appoints all ministers of His/Her Majesty's Government, who govern in the name of the Crown) and the judiciary (the Sovereign, as the fount of justice, appoints all senior judges, and all public prosecutions are brought in his or her name).
Although the doctrine of separation of power plays a role in the United Kingdom's constitutional life, the constitution is often described as having "a weak separation of powers" (A. V. Dicey) despite it being the one to which Montesquieu originally referred. For example, the executive forms a subset of the legislature, as did—to a lesser extent—the judiciary until the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister, the Chief Executive, sits as a member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, either as a peer in the House of Lords or as an elected member of the House of Commons (by convention, and as a result of the supremacy of the Lower House, the Prime Minister now sits in the House of Commons). Furthermore, while the courts in the United Kingdom are amongst the most independent in the world, the Law Lords, who were the final arbiters of most judicial disputes in the U.K. sat simultaneously in the House of Lords, the upper house of the legislature, although this arrangement ceased in 2009 when the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom came into existence. Furthermore, because of the existence of Parliamentary sovereignty, while the theory of separation of powers may be studied there, a system such as that of the U.K. is more accurately described as a "fusion of powers".
Until 2005, the Lord Chancellor fused in his person the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, as he was the ex officio Speaker of the House of Lords, a Government Minister who sat in Cabinet and was head of the Lord Chancellor's Department, which administered the courts, the justice system and appointed judges, and was the head of the Judiciary in England and Wales and sat as a judge on the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, the highest domestic court in the entire United Kingdom, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the senior tribunal court for parts of the Commonwealth. The Lord Chancellor also had certain other judicial positions, including being a judge in the Court of Appeal and President of the Chancery Division. The Lord Chancellor combines other aspects of the constitution, including having certain ecclesiastical functions of the established state church, making certain church appointments, nominations and sitting as one of the thirty-three Church Commissioners. These functions remain intact and unaffected by the Constitutional Reform Act. In 2005, the Constitutional Reform Act separated the powers with Legislative functions going to an elected Lord Speaker and the Judicial functions going to the Lord Chief Justice. The Lord Chancellor's Department was replaced with a Ministry of Justice and the Lord Chancellor currently serves in the position of Secretary of State for Justice.
The judiciary has no power to strike down primary legislation, and can only rule on secondary legislation that it is invalid with regard to the primary legislation if necessary.
Under the concept of parliamentary sovereignty, Parliament can enact any primary legislation it chooses. However, the concept immediately becomes problematic when the question is asked, "If parliament can do anything, can it bind its successors?" It is generally held that parliament can do no such thing.
Equally, while statute takes precedence over precedent-derived common law and the judiciary has no power to strike down primary legislation, there are certain cases where the supreme judicature has effected an injunction against the application of an act or reliance on its authority by the civil service. The seminal example of this is the Factortame case, where the House of Lords granted such an injunction preventing the operation of the "Merchant Shipping Act 1988" until litigation in the European Court of Justice had been resolved.
The House of Lords ruling in Factortame (No. 1), approving the European Court of Justice formulation that "a national court which, in a case before it concerning Community law, considers that the sole obstacle which precludes it from granting interim relief is a rule of national law, must disapply that rule", has created an implicit tiering of legislative reviewability; the only way for parliament to prevent the supreme judicature from injunctively striking out a law on the basis of incompatibility with Community law is to pass an act specifically removing that power from the court, or by repealing the "European Communities Act 1972".
The British legal systems are based on common law traditions, which require:
Separation of powers was first established in the United States Constitution, wherein the founding fathers included features of many new concepts, including hard-learned historical lessons about the checks and balances of power. Similar concepts were also prominent in the state governments of the United States. As colonies of Great Britain, the founding fathers considered that the American states had suffered an abuse of the broad power of parliamentarism and monarchy. As a remedy, the United States Constitution limits the powers of the federal government through various means—in particular, the three branches of the federal government are divided by exercising different functions. The executive and legislative powers are separated in origin by separate elections, and the judiciary is kept independent. Each branch controls the actions of others and balances its powers in some way.
In the Constitution, Article 1 Section I grants Congress only those "legislative powers herein granted" and proceeds to list those permissible actions in Article I Section 8, while Section 9 lists actions that are prohibited for Congress. The vesting clause in Article II places no limits on the Executive branch, simply stating that "The Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." The Supreme Court holds "The judicial Power" according to Article III, and judicial review was established in "Marbury v. Madison" under the Marshall court.
The presidential system adopted by the Constitution of the United States obeys the balance of powers sought, and not found, by the constitutional monarchy. The people appoint their representatives to meet periodically in a legislative body, and, since they do not have a king, the people themselves elect a preeminent citizen to perform, also periodically, the executive functions of the State.
The direct election of the head of state or of the executive power is an inevitable consequence of the political freedom of the people, understood as the capacity to appoint and depose their leaders. Only this separate election of the person who has to fulfill the functions that the Constitution attributes to the president, so different by its nature and by its function from the election of representatives of the electors, allows the executive power to be controlled by the legislative and submitted to the demands of political responsibility.
Judicial independence is maintained by appointments for life, which remove any dependence on the Executive, with voluntary retirement and a high threshold for dismissal by the Legislature, in addition to a salary that cannot be diminished during their service.
The federal government refers to the branches as "branches of government", while some systems use "government" exclusively to describe the executive. The Executive branch has attempted to claim power arguing for separation of powers to include being the Commander-in-Chief of a standing army since the American Civil War, executive orders, emergency powers, security classifications since World War II, national security, signing statements, and the scope of the unitary executive.
Belgium is currently a federated state that has imposed the " on different governmental levels. The constitution of 1831, considered one of the most liberal of its time for limiting the powers of its monarch and imposing a rigorous system of separation of powers, is based on three principles (represented in the Schematic overview of Belgian institutions).
" (horizontal separation of powers):
Subsidiarity (vertical separation of powers):
Secularism (separation of state and religion):
Three Lords:
Nine Ministers / Nine Courts, etc.
According to Sun Yat-sen's idea of "separation of the five powers", the government of the Republic of China has five branches:
The president and vice president as well as the defunct National Assembly are constitutionally not part of the above five branches. Before being abolished in 2005, the National Assembly was a standing constituent assembly and electoral college for the president and vice president. Its constitutional amending powers were passed to the legislative yuan and its electoral powers were passed to the electorate.
The relationship between the executive and legislative branches are poorly defined. An example of the problems this causes is the near complete political paralysis that results when the president, who has neither the power to veto nor the ability to dissolve the legislature and call new elections, cannot negotiate with the legislature when his party is in the minority. The examination and control yuans are marginal branches; their leaders as well as the leaders of the executive and judicial yuans are appointed by the president and confirmed by the legislative yuan. The legislature is the only branch that chooses its own leadership. The vice president has practically no responsibilities.
The central government of the People's Republic of China is divided among several state organs:
In the aftermath of the 43-day civil war in 1948 (after former President and incumbent candidate Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia tried to take power through fraud, by not recognising the results of the presidential election that he had lost), the question of which transformational model the Costa Rican State would follow was the main issue that confronted the victors. A Constituent Assembly was elected by popular vote to draw up a new constitution, enacted in 1949, and remains in force. This document was an edit of the constitution of 1871, as the constituent assembly rejected more radical corporatist ideas proposed by the ruling Junta Fundadora de la Segunda República (which, although having come to power by military force, abolished the armed forces). Nonetheless, the new constitution increased centralization of power at the expense of municipalities and eliminated provincial government altogether, and at the time it increased the powers of congress and the judiciary.
It established the three supreme powers as the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, but also created two other autonomous state organs that have equivalent power, but not equivalent rank. The first is the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones de Costa Rica (electoral branch), which controls elections and makes unique, unappealable decisions on their outcomes.
The second is the office of the Comptroller General (audit branch), an autonomous and independent organ nominally subordinate to the unicameral legislative assembly. All budgets of ministries and municipalities must pass through this agency, including the execution of budget items such as contracting for routine operations. The Comptroller also provides financial vigilance over government offices and office holders, and routinely brings actions to remove mayors for malfeasance, firmly establishing this organization as the fifth branch of the Republic.
The European Union is a supranational polity, and is neither a country nor a federation; but as the EU wields political power it complies with the principle of separation of powers. There are seven institutions of the European Union. In intergovernmental matters, most power is concentrated in the Council of the European Union—giving it the characteristics of a normal international organization. Here, all power at the EU level is in one branch. In the latter there are four main actors. The European Commission acts as an independent executive which is appointed by the Council in conjunction with the European Parliament; but the Commission also has a legislative role as the sole initiator of EU legislation.
An early maxim was: "The Commission proposes and the Council disposes"; and although the EU's lawmaking procedure is now much more complicated, this simple maxim still holds some truth. As well as both executive and legislative functions, the Commission arguably exercises a third, quasi-judicial, function under Articles 101 & 102 TFEU (competition law ); although the ECJ remains the final arbiter. The European Parliament is one half of the legislative branch and is directly elected. The Council itself acts both as the second half of the legislative branch and also holds some executive functions (some of which are exercised by the related European Council in practice). The European Court of Justice acts as the independent judicial branch, interpreting EU law and treaties. The remaining institution, the European Court of Auditors, is an independent audit authority (due to the sensitive nature of fraud in the EU).
The three branches in German government are further divided into six main bodies enshrined in the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany:
Besides the constitutional court, the judicial branch at the federal level is made up of five supreme courts—one for civil and criminal cases ("Bundesgerichtshof"), and one each for administrative, tax, labour, and social security issues. There are also state-based ("Länder / Bundesländer") courts beneath them, and a rarely used senate of the supreme courts.
The four independent branches of power in Hungary (the parliament, the government, the court system, and the office of the public accuser) are divided into six bodies:
The independent pillar status of the Hungarian public accuser's office is a unique construction, loosely modelled on the system Portugal introduced after the 1974 victory of the Carnation Revolution. The public accuser (attorney general) body has become the fourth column of Hungarian democracy only in recent times: after communism fell in 1989, the office was made independent by a new clause (XI) of the Constitution. The change was meant to prevent abuse of state power, especially with regards to the use of false accusations against opposition politicians, who may be excluded from elections if locked in protracted or excessively severe court cases.
To prevent the Hungarian accuser's office from neglecting its duties, natural human private persons can submit investigation requests, called "pótmagánvád," directly to the courts if the accusers' office refuses to. Courts will decide if the allegations have merit and order police to act in lieu of the accuser's office if warranted. In its decision No. 42/2005, the Hungarian constitutional court declared that the government does not enjoy such privilege and the state is powerless to further pursue cases if the public accuser refuses to do so.
Notable examples of states after Montesquieu that had more than three powers include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28561 |
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War (spring 218 – 201 BC), also referred to as The Hannibalic War and by the Romans the War Against Hannibal, was the second of three Punic Wars between the Roman Republic and Carthage, with the participation of Macedonia and Syracuse polities and Numidian and Iberian forces on both sides. It was one of the deadliest human conflicts of ancient times. Fought across the entire Western Mediterranean region for 17 years and regarded by Livy as the greatest war in history, it was waged with unparalleled resources, skill, and hatred. It saw hundreds of thousands killed, some of the most lethal battles in military history, the destruction of cities, and massacres and enslavements of civilian populations and prisoners of war by both sides.
The war began with the Carthaginian general Hannibal's conquest of the pro-Roman Iberian city of Saguntum in 219 BC, prompting a Roman declaration of war on Carthage in the spring of 218. Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia to cross the Alps and invade Roman Italy, followed by his reinforcement by Gallic allies and crushing victories over Roman armies at the battles of Trebia in 218 and Lake Trasimene in 217. Moving to southern Italy in 216, Hannibal annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled, at the Battle of Cannae. After the death or imprisonment of 130,000 Roman troops in two years, 40% of Rome's Italian allies defected to Carthage, giving it control over most of southern Italy. As Syracuse and Macedonia joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae, the conflict spread to Sicily and triggered the First Macedonian War in Greece. From 215–210 the Carthaginian army and navy launched repeated amphibious assaults to capture Roman Sicily and Sardinia, but were ultimately repulsed.
Against Hannibal's skill on the battlefield, the five-time consul Fabius Maximus organised a war of attrition against him, while fighting his allies and the other Carthaginian generals. Roman armies slowly recaptured most of the cities that had joined Carthage and defeated a Carthaginian attempt to reinforce Hannibal at Metaurus in 207. Southern Italy was devastated by the combatants, with hundreds of thousands of civilians killed or enslaved. In Iberia, which served as a major source of silver and manpower for the Carthaginian army, Roman operations were led by members of the Cornelii Scipiones. In 209, Publius Cornelius Scipio captured Carthago Nova, then won a streak of great victories, notably at Ilipa in 206, which permanently ended Carthaginian rule in Iberia. He invaded Carthaginian Africa in 204, inflicting two severe defeats on Carthage and her allies at Utica and the Great Plains that compelled the Carthaginian senate to recall Hannibal's army from Italy. The final engagement between Scipio and Hannibal took place at Zama in Africa in 202 and resulted in Hannibal's defeat and the imposition of harsh peace conditions on the Punic city. As a result, Carthage ceased to be a great power and became a Roman client state until its final destruction by Scipio Aemilianus in 146 BC during the Third Punic War. The Second Punic War overthrew the established balance of power of the ancient world and Rome rose to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean Basin for the next 600 years.
Carthage's defeat in the First Punic War meant the loss of Carthaginian Sicily to Rome under the terms of the Roman-dictated 241 BC Treaty of Lutatius. Rome exploited Carthage's distraction during the Truceless War against rebellious mercenaries and Libyan subjects to break the peace treaty and annex Carthaginian Sardinia and Corsica to Rome in 238 BC. Under the leadership of Hamilcar Barca and his family, Carthage defeated the rebels and began the Barcid conquest of Hispania from 237 BC onward. Control over Spain gave Carthage the silver mines, agricultural wealth, manpower, military facilities such as shipyards and territorial depth to stand up to future Roman demands with confidence.
Events leading to the war began with a decision by Hannibal, the new commander of troops in the Carthaginian province of Iberia, to consolidate power by provoking and defeating the surrounding Iberian tribesmen in battle. He was 26 years old. He had been voted commander by the army in Iberia on the assassination of the previous commander, Hasdrubal, in 221 BC. Hasdrubal had ruled by diplomacy rather than by victory. The military commander was also the provincial governor. He did not need the permission of the Carthaginian Senate to conduct operations.
From 226 BC, the Romans and Carthaginians were bound by a treaty specifying the Ebro River as the boundary between the two interests. The Romans were not to operate south of it nor the Carthaginians north. An exception was made for the large town of Saguntum, whose ruins are located just north of Valencia, south of the Ebro. It was to be neutral. At some unspecified time, Rome had made a separate treaty with it. This made it a key element to Carthage, but not Rome.
Having subdued all the tribes south of the Ebro, Hannibal undertook the siege of Saguntum in 219 BC with 15,000 men. After holding out for several months, Saguntum sent envoys to Rome asking for assistance. These arrived at the beginning of the consulships of Publius Cornelius and Tiberius Sempronius, who took office on March 15, 218 BC. After hearing from the envoys, the Roman Senate resolved to send Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Baebius Tamphilus to Hannibal at Saguntum to demand that he cease and desist. Being turned back by him at the coast, they went on to Carthage to lodge a criminal complaint of treaty violation with the Carthaginian Senate and demand the arrest of Hannibal and his extradition to Rome. The complaint was rejected. The two envoys returned to Rome just in time to hear the news that Saguntum had fallen and was destroyed; nearly all of the population had been executed and all the moveable wealth had been removed to Carthage.
"The effect on the Roman Senate was shattering", wrote Livy. "They knew they had never had to face a fiercer or more warlike foe... War was coming, and it would have to be fought in Italy, in defence of the walls of Rome, and against the world in arms." They passed a decree to raise six legions: 24,000 infantry with 1,800 cavalry and enlist 40,000 allied infantry and 4,400 cavalry; they also had on hand 220 quinqueremes and 20 light ships. Then they called an assembly of all free Romans to vote on the question of war. The vote was for war. Tiberius was to take two legions to Sicily and wait there for orders to invade Carthage; Publius was given another two legions and tasked with attacking the Carthaginian forces in Iberia. The aged but experienced Lucius Manlius was given the praetorship of two more legions to be kept in reserve in Cisalpine Gaul, where issues with the Gauls were beginning to develop. Each force of two legions was supported by greater numbers of Italian and other allied troops.
The Senate now sent a delegation of "all oldish men – Quintus Fabius Maximus, Marcus Livius, Lucius Aemilius, Gaius Licinius, and Quintus Baebius" with plenipotentiary powers: the right to withhold or declare war on an ad hoc basis. Having brought copies of past treaties, they asked the Carthaginian Senate to determine if Hannibal had acted as an individual or with the approval of the Senate. The Carthaginians denied that Rome had a treaty with Carthage, pointing out that they had repudiated the Ebro Treaty, claiming that it was unratified, in order to make another with Saguntum, which had previously been defined as neutral.
Livy gives a romanced account of the debate in the Carthaginian senate. After hours of study and debate, nothing could be resolved concerning Hannibal's legality. Fabius gathered a fold of his toga to his chest and offered it, saying "Here, we bring you peace and war. Take which you will." The Carthaginians replied "Whichever you please – we do not care." Fabius let the fold drop and proclaimed "We give you war." The senators shouted "We accept it; and in the same spirit we will fight it to the end."
The delegation returned through Spain, trying to encourage the tribes to revolt with little success, as Rome had lost credibility by failing to assist Saguntum. In Gaul, they were shouted down by assemblies of derisive citizens in full armor.
The highest priority in Carthaginian strategy was to keep the war away from Carthage's agricultural heartland in Africa and protect the property of the wealthy Carthaginian landowners who controlled Carthaginian politics. Spanish mines and sources of manpower comprised the second pillar of the Carthaginian power base and their protection was essential to maintaining Carthage's status as an independent continental great power. Hannibal's invasion of Italy forced the Romans to abandon their intended invasion of Africa and de-prioritize the reinforcement of Roman armies in Spain. Most Roman troops during the war fought in Italy, which became the main theater of the war as a result of Hannibal's offensive. Africa remained undisturbed by a Roman invasion army until 204 BC and the Roman military presence in Spain was confined to its northeastern corner until 209 BC. The continuation of Carthaginian rule in Africa and Spain enabled her to mobilize more armies and fleets, attempt the reconquest of Sicily and Sardinia from 215 to 210 BC and further invade Italy with Hasdrubal Barca's army in 208 BC and with Mago Barca's forces from 205 to 203 BC.
To win the war, Hannibal in Italy sought to build up a united front of the northern Italian Gallic tribes and south Italian city states to encircle Rome and confine it to central Italy, where it would pose a lesser threat to Carthage's power-political freedom of action. A Carthaginian protectorate over Italy would be created, enforced by the presence of Carthaginian soldier colonists and the Carthaginian annexation of parts of Italy. This would act as a check on Roman revanchism. Sicily and Sardinia were also to be regained for Carthage by sending expeditionary forces and allying with anti-Roman rebels on both islands.
The Carthaginian army in Spain under Hannibal marched from New Carthage (Cartagena, Spain) northwards along the coast in May or June of 218 BC, subduing the tribes between the Ebro river and the Pyrenees. Hannibal then entered Gaul and took his army by an inland route, avoiding the Roman allies along the coast. At the Battle of Rhone Crossing, Hannibal defeated a force of the Allobroges that sought to bar his way. A Roman fleet under the command of the brothers Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus and Publius Cornelius Scipio with an invasion force intended for northern Spain landed at Rome's ally Massalia by the Rhone river. Hannibal evaded the Romans and by an unknown route reached the Isère or the Durance at the foot of the Alps in autumn. Gnaeus Scipio continued to Iberia with the Roman army. The other commander, Publius Scipio, returned to Rome, realizing the danger of an invasion of Italy where the tribes of the Boii and Insubres were already in revolt. After 217 BC, he moved to Iberia.
Gnaeus Scipio landed his army at Cissa and won increasing support among the natives. The Carthaginian commander in the area, Hanno, refused to wait for Carthaginian reinforcements under Hasdrubal, attacked Scipio at the Battle of Cissa in late 218 BC and was defeated. The combined Roman and Massalian fleet and army posed a threat to the Carthaginians. In 217 BC, Hasdrubal moved up to engage them at the Battle of Ebro River. The 40 Carthaginian and Iberian vessels were severely defeated by the 55 Roman and Massalian ships in the second naval engagement of the war, with 29 Carthaginian ships lost. In the aftermath, the Carthaginian forces retreated, but the Romans remained confined to the area between the Ebro and Pyrenees.
In 218 BC, the Carthaginian navy was scouting Sicilian waters and preparing for a surprise attack on their former key stronghold of Lilybaeum on the western tip of the island. Twenty quinqueremes, loaded with 1,000 soldiers, raided the Aegadian Islands west of Sicily and eight ships intended to attack the Aeolian Islands, but were blown off-course in a storm towards the Straits of Messina. The Syracusan navy, then at Messina, captured three of those without resistance. Learning from their crews that a Carthaginian fleet was to attack Lilybaeum, Hiero II warned the Roman praetor Marcus Amellius there. As a result, the Romans prepared 20 quinqueremes, which intercepted and defeated the 35 Carthaginian quinqueremes in the Battle of Lilybaeum. Subsequently, consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus sailed with a fleet from Lilybaeum and captured the island of Malta from the Carthaginians without much of a fight.
In Cisalpine Gaul, the Gallic Boii and Insubres rebels attacked the Roman colonies of Placentia and Cremona, causing the Romans to flee to Mutina (modern Modena), which the Gauls then besieged. A Roman relief army under Praetor L. Manlius Vulso raised the siege but was ambushed and besieged itself. The Roman Senate sent one of Scipio's legions and 5,000 allied troops to aid Vulso. Scipio had to raise fresh troops to replace these and thus could not set out for Iberia until September 218 BC, giving Hannibal time to march from the Ebro to the Rhone.
Hannibal crossed the Alps, surmounting the difficulties of climate and terrain, and the guerrilla tactics of the native tribes. His exact route is disputed. Hannibal arrived with either 20,000 or 28,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 37 elephants in the territory of the Taurini, in what is now Piedmont, northern Italy. The Romans had not anticipated such an early arrival and their forces were still in their winter quarters. His surprise entry into the Italian peninsula led to the termination of Rome's main intended thrust, an invasion of Africa.
Hannibal's first action was to take the chief city of the hostile Taurini (in the area of modern-day Turin). Hannibal's army then routed the cavalry and light infantry of the Romans under Publius Scipio at the Battle of Ticinus. As a result of Rome's defeat at the Ticinus, all the Gauls except the Cenomani were induced to join the Carthaginian cause, bolstering Hannibal's army to at least 40,000 men. Even before news of the defeat at the river Ticinus had reached Rome, the Senate had ordered the consul Sempronius Longus to bring his army back from Sicily, where it had been preparing for the invasion of Africa, to join Scipio and face Hannibal. The united Roman force under the command of Sempronius Longus was lured into combat by Hannibal at the Battle of the Trebia. Hannibal's army encircled and destroyed the unprepared Romans. Only 10,000 Romans out of 42,000 were able to retreat to safety. Having secured his position in northern Italy by this victory, Hannibal quartered his troops for the winter among the Gauls. The latter joined his army in large numbers, bringing it up to 60,000 men.
The Roman Senate resolved to raise new armies against Hannibal under the recently elected consuls of 217 BC, Gnaeus Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius. To block Hannibal's advance into central Italy, Flaminius moved his army from Ariminum to Arretium, to cover the Apennine mountain passes into Etruria. His colleague Servilius deployed his freshly raised army at Ariminum to cover the route along the Adriatic coast. A third force, containing the survivors of previous engagements, was also stationed in Etruria under Scipio.
In early spring 217 BC, Hannibal decided to advance, leaving his wavering Gallic allies in the Po Valley, and crossed the Apennines unopposed. He avoided the Roman positions and took the only unguarded route into Etruria at the mouth of the Arno. This route was through a huge marsh, which happened to be more flooded than usual for spring. Hannibal's army marched for several days without finding convenient places to rest, suffering terribly from fatigue and lack of sleep. This led to the loss of part of the force, including, it seems, the few remaining elephants.
Arriving in Etruria, still in the spring of 217 BC, Hannibal tried without success to draw the main Roman army under Flaminius into a pitched battle by devastating the area the latter had been sent to protect. Hannibal then employed a new stratagem, when he marched around his opponent's left flank and effectively cut him off from Rome. Advancing through the uplands of Etruria, the Carthaginian now provoked Flaminius into a hasty pursuit without proper reconnaissance. Then, in a defile on the shore of Lake Trasimenus, Hannibal lay in ambush with his army. The ambush was a complete success: in the battle of Lake Trasimene Hannibal destroyed most of the Roman army and killed Flaminius with little loss to his own army. 6,000 Romans had been able to escape, but were caught and forced to surrender by Maharbal's Numidians. Furthermore, Geminus, aware of the fighting, sent his 4,000 cavalry in support, but it was also caught in Umbria and annihilated. Like after all previous engagements, the captured enemies were sorted according to whether they were Romans, who were held captive, or non-Romans, who were released to spread the propaganda that the Carthaginian army was in Italy to fight for their freedom against the Romans. Strategically, Hannibal had now disposed of the only field force that could check his advance on Rome but he did not attack the city. Instead, he marched to the south in the hope of winning over allies amongst the Greek and Italic population there.
The defeat at Lake Trasimene put the Romans in an immense state of panic, fearing for the very existence of their city. The Senate decided to appoint Quintus Fabius Maximus as "dictator". The Senate also appointed his "magister equitum" ("master of cavalry", who acted as his second-in-command): Marcus Minucius Rufus.
Fabius invented the Fabian strategy of avoiding open battle with his opponent, but constantly skirmishing with small detachments of the enemy. This course was not popular among the soldiers, earning Fabius the nickname "Cunctator" ("delayer"), since he seemed to avoid battle while Italy was being burned by the enemy. Having ravaged Apulia without provoking Fabius into a battle, Hannibal decided to march through Samnium to Campania, one of the richest and most fertile provinces of Italy, hoping that the devastation would draw Fabius into battle. As the year wore on, Hannibal decided that it would be unwise to winter in the already devastated plains of Campania but Fabius had ensured that all the mountain passes offering an exit were blocked. This situation led to the night battle of Ager Falernus in which the Carthaginians made good their escape by tricking the Romans into believing that they were heading to the heights above them. This was a severe blow to Fabius’ prestige.
Minucius, the "magister equitum", was one of the leading voices in the army against the adoption of the Fabian Strategy. As soon as he scored a minor success, by winning a skirmish with the Carthaginians near Geronium, the Senate promoted Minucius to the same "imperium" (power of command) as Fabius, whom he accused of cowardice. In consequence, the two men decided to split the army between them. Minucius' troops were swiftly lured into an ambush and decimated by Hannibal at the Battle of Geronium. Fabius rushed to his co-commander's assistance and Hannibal's forces immediately retreated. Subsequently, Minucius accepted Fabius' authority and ended their political conflict.
Fabius became unpopular in Rome, since his tactics did not lead to a quick end to the war. The Roman populace derided the "Cunctator", and at the elections of 216 BC elected as consuls Gaius Terentius Varro who advocated pursuing a more aggressive war strategy and Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who advocated a strategy in the middle between the Fabian tactics and the tactics suggested by Varro.
In the campaign of 217 BC, Hannibal had failed to obtain a following among the Italics. In the spring of 216 BC, he took the initiative and seized the large supply depot at Cannae in the Apulian plain. The Roman Senate authorized the raising of double-sized armies by the consuls Varro and Aemilius Paullus, a force of 86,000 men, the largest in Roman history up to that point.
The consuls Aemilius Paullus and Varro resolved to confront Hannibal and marched southward to Apulia. After a two-day march, they found him on the left bank of the river Aufidus, and encamped away. Hannibal capitalized on Varro's eagerness and drew him into a trap by using an envelopment tactic that eliminated the Roman numerical advantage by shrinking the surface area where combat could occur. Hannibal drew up his least reliable infantry in the centre of a semicircle, with the wings composed of the Gallic and Numidian horse. The Roman legions forced their way through Hannibal's weak centre, but the Libyan Mercenaries on the wings swung around their advance, menacing their flanks. The onslaught of Hannibal's cavalry was irresistible, and the cavalry commander Hasdrubal (not to be confused with Hannibal's brother who was campaigning in Iberia), routed the Roman cavalry on the Roman right wing and then swept around the rear of the Roman line and attacked Varro's cavalry on the Roman left, and then the legions, from behind. As a result, the Roman army was surrounded with no means of escape. Due to these brilliant tactics, Hannibal, with much inferior numbers, managed to destroy all but a small remnant of this force. At least 67,500 Romans were killed or captured at Cannae.
Livy notes, "How much more serious was the defeat of Cannae, than those which preceded it can be seen by the behaviour of Rome's allies; before that fateful day, their loyalty remained unshaken, now it began to waver for the simple reason that they despaired of Roman power." During that same year, the Greek cities in Sicily were induced to revolt against Roman political control, while the Macedonian king, Philip V, pledged his support to Hannibal – thus initiating the First Macedonian War against Rome. Hannibal also secured an alliance with newly appointed King Hieronymus of Syracuse, and Tarentum also came over to him around that time. Hannibal refused to attack Rome after Cannae. The Romans looked back on Hannibal's indecision as what saved Rome from certain defeat. Hannibal merely sent a delegation to Rome to negotiate a peace and another one offering to release his Roman prisoners of war for ransom, but Rome rejected all offers.
After Cannae, several south Italian cities allied themselves to Hannibal: the Apulian towns of Salapia, Arpi and Herdonia and many of the Lucanians. Mago marched south with a Carthaginian army detachment and, some weeks later, the Bruttians joined him. Simultaneously, Hannibal marched north with part of his forces and was joined by the Hirpini and the Caudini, two of the three Samnite cantons. The greatest gain was the second largest city of Italy, Capua, when Hannibal's army marched into Campania in 216 BC. The inhabitants of Capua held limited Roman citizenship and the aristocracy was linked to the Romans via marriage and friendship, but the possibility of becoming the supreme city of Italy after the evident Roman disasters proved too strong a temptation. The treaty between them and Hannibal can be described as an agreement of friendship, since the Capuans had no obligations, but provided the harbour through which Hannibal was reinforced.
In 216 BC, another disaster struck Rome as the consul-elect for 215, Lucius Postumius Albinus was ambushed along with his 25,000 soldiers by Boii Gauls northwest of Ariminum at the Battle of Silva Litana. Postumius had been tasked with harassing the pro-Carthaginian Gallic tribes and forcing them to retreat back to the Po Valley. The Roman army was slaughtered and Postumius killed. The news triggered renewed panic in Rome.
By 215 BC, Hannibal's alliance system covered the bulk of southern Italy, save for the Greek cities along the coast (except Croton, which was conquered by his allies), Rhegium, and the Latin colonies of Beneventum, Luceria in Samnium, Venusia in Apulia, Brundisium and Paestum. The independent Gaul he had established in northern Italy was still out of Roman control.
The port city of Locri defected to Carthage in the summer of 215 and was immediately used to build up the Carthaginian forces in Italy with cavalry, war elephants, silver and grain. It was the only time during the war that Carthage succeeded in sending reinforcements to Hannibal in Italy. A second force in 215, under Mago, consisting of 12,000 infantry, 1,500 cavalry and 20 elephants guarded by 60 warships, was also meant to land in Italy but bolstered Hasdrubal in Spain instead after the Carthaginian defeat there at Dertosa.
Hannibal had been able to win over a major allied base by his tremendous military success. He also regarded it as essential to take the city of Nola, a Roman fortress in Campania, a region that linked his various allies geographically and contained his most important harbour for supply. Prior to his first attempt, the pro-Carthage faction in the city had been eliminated by the Romans, so there was no chance of the city being betrayed. Hannibal repeatedly tried to take this city by assault or siege, but was thwarted three times, in 216, 215 and 214, by forces led by Marcus Claudius Marcellus. In 215, Hannibal besieged and starved Casilinum into submission, the other important site for controlling Campania.
The first Carthaginian expedition to Sardinia, in 215 BC, was under the command of Hasdrubal The Bald with his Punic-Sardinian subordinate Hampsicora. A previous pro-Carthaginian uprising had been defeated, while a storm had blown the Carthaginian fleet to the Balearic Islands. When they finally arrived at Sardinia, the Romans were aware of their intentions and had reinforced the unpopular garrison under Titus Manlius Torquatus to 20,000 infantry and 1,200 cavalry. These engaged and defeated the Carthaginians' 12,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry (plus an unknown number of elephants) and the remaining insurgent Sardinians at the Battle of Cornus. In the aftermath, the defeated expedition of 60 quinqueremes and several transports encountered a Roman raiding party from Africa with 100 quinqueremes. The Carthaginian fleet scattered and escaped save for seven ships. As a result, Sardinia, an important grain exporter, remained under Roman occupation.
The Roman army in Spain prevented the Carthaginians from sending reinforcements from Iberia to Hannibal or to the insurgent Gauls in northern Italy during critical stages of the war. Hasdrubal received orders from Carthage to move into Italy and join up with Hannibal to put pressure on the Romans in their homeland. Hasdrubal demurred, arguing that Carthaginian authority over the Spanish tribes was too fragile and the Roman forces in the area too strong for him to execute the planned movement. Hasdrubal acted by marching into Roman territory in 215 BC, besieged a pro-Roman town and offered battle at Dertosa. In this battle, he used his cavalry superiority to clear the field and to envelop the enemy on both sides with his infantry, a tactic that had been very successfully employed in Italy. However, the Romans broke through the thinned-out line in the centre and defeated both wings separately, inflicting severe losses, but not without taking heavy losses themselves. Hasdrubal now had no chance of reinforcing Hannibal in Italy.
The essence of Hannibal's campaign in Italy was to fight the Romans by using local resources and raising recruits from among the local population. His subordinate Hanno was able to raise troops in Samnium, but the Romans intercepted these new levies in the Battle of Beneventum (214 BC) and eliminated them before they came under the leadership of Hannibal. Hannibal could win allies, but defending them against the Romans was a new and difficult problem, as the Romans could still field multiple armies greatly outnumbering his own forces. Thus Fabius was able to take the Carthaginian ally Arpi in 213 BC.
While the Romans made little progress in the Iberian theatre, the Scipios were able to negotiate a new front in Africa by allying themselves with Syphax, a powerful Numidian king in North Africa. In 213 BC, he received Roman advisers to train his heavy infantry soldiers that had not yet been able to stand up to their Carthaginian counterparts. With this support, he waged war against the Carthaginian ally Gala. According to Appian, in 213 BC Hasdrubal left Iberia and fought Syphax, though history may have confused him with Hasdrubal Gisco; however, it did tie down Carthaginian resources. Hasdrubal Gisco is the son of the Gesco who had served together with Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's father, in Sicily during the First Punic War and son-in-law of Hanno the Elder who was one of Hannibal's lieutenants in Italy.
Syracuse, located on the sea routes Hannibal needed to secure supply, and Lilybaeum both remained in Roman hands. Hannibal was aided by the fact that Hiero II, the old tyrant of Syracuse and a staunch Roman ally, had died and his successor Hieronymus was discontented with his position in the Roman alliance. Hannibal dispatched two of his lieutenants, who were of Syracusian origin, to negotiate with Hieronymus. They succeeded in winning Syracuse over, at the price, however, of making the whole of Sicily a Syracusan possession. The Syracusans' ambitions were great, but the army they fielded was no match for the arriving Roman force, leading to the Siege of Syracuse from 213 BC onwards.
The Siege of Syracuse from 213 BC onwards, was marked by Archimedes' ingenuity in inventing war machines that made it impossible for the Romans to make any gains with traditional methods of siege warfare. It was imperative for the Romans to maintain control over Sicily, for otherwise the Carthaginians would be able to reinforce Hannibal in southern Italy with impunity. The Roman commitment would be matched by the Carthaginians.
A Carthaginian army of 25,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry and 12 elephants under Himilco was sent to relieve the city in 213, landing at and capturing Heraclea Minoa and followed up by taking Agrigentum. Himilco began taking over Roman-garrisoned towns in Sicily. The Roman garrison at Morgantina was betrayed from within, while the Roman garrison commander at nearby Enna heard of Morgantina's treachery and massacred Enna's civilian population. A general revolt against Roman rule in Sicily erupted, with Roman garrisons either being expelled from towns or exterminated by the rebels with Carthaginian support.
In Iberia, the Carthaginians after 214 were able to stop the wave of defections to Rome. The Scipio brothers captured Saguntum in 212 BC. In 211, they hired 20,000 Celtiberian mercenaries to reinforce their army of 30,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Observing that the Carthaginian armies were deployed apart from each other, with Hasdrubal Barca and 15,000 troops near Amtorgis, and Mago Barca and Hasdrubal Gisco, both with 10,000 troops, further to the west of Hasdrubal, the Scipio brothers planned to split their forces. Publius Scipio moved 20,000 Roman and allied soldiers to attack Mago Barca near Castulo, while Gnaeus Scipio took one double legion (10,000 troops) and the mercenaries to attack Hasdrubal Barca. This stratagem resulted in two battles, the Battle of Castulo and the Battle of Ilorca, which occurred within a few days of each other, usually combined as the Battle of the Upper Baetis (211 BC). Both battles ended in complete defeats for the Romans as Hasdrubal had bribed the Roman mercenaries to desert and return home without a fight. The isolated and outnumbered Romans were then killed off by the Carthaginians.
As a result of the battles, the Romans were thrown back to their situation of 218. They retreated to their coastal stronghold north of the Ebro, from which the Carthaginians failed to expel them. It is notable that the Roman soldiers decided to elect a new leader, since both commanders had been killed, a practice hitherto known only in Carthaginian or Hellenistic armies. Claudius Nero brought over reinforcements in 210 and stabilized the situation.
The climax of Carthaginian expansion was reached when the largest Greek city in Italy, Tarentum, switched sides in 212 BC. The Battle of Tarentum (212 BC) was a carefully planned coup by Hannibal and members of the city's democratic faction. There were two separate successful assaults on the gates of the city. This enabled the Carthaginian army, which had approached unobserved behind a screen of marauding Numidian horsemen, to enter the city by surprise and take all but the citadel where the Romans and their supporting faction were able to rally. The Carthaginians failed to take the citadel, but subsequent fortifications around this Roman stronghold put the city under Carthaginian control. However, the harbour was blocked and warships had to be transported overland to be launched at sea.
The Battle of Capua (212 BC) was a stalemate. The Romans decided to end the siege of Capua. As a result, the Capuan cavalry was reinforced with half of the available Numidian cavalry of 2,000.
In the Battle of Beneventum (212 BC), Hanno the Elder was again defeated, this time by Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, who also captured his camp. In the following Battle of the Silarus, in the same year, the Romans under Marcus Centenius were ambushed and lost all but 1,000 of their 16,000 effectives. Also, in 212 BC, the Battle of Herdonia resulted in another Roman defeat, with only 2,000 Romans out of a force of 18,000 surviving a direct attack by Hannibal's numerically superior forces, combined with an ambush that cut off the Roman line of retreat.
During the Roman Siege of Capua (211 BC), Hannibal again tried to regain use of his main harbour as in the previous year, by luring the Romans into a pitched battle. He was unsuccessful, and was also unable to lift the siege by assaulting the besiegers' defences. So he tried a strategem of staging a march towards Rome, hoping in this way to compel the enemy to abandon the siege and rush to defend their home city. However, only part of the besieging force left for Rome and, under continued siege, Capua fell to Rome soon afterwards. Hannibal fought another pitched battle near Rome.
In the spring of 212, Marcellus stormed the walls of Syracuse in a surprise night assault and conquered several districts inside the city. Himilco's army was crippled by the plague and the Romans defeated the Syracusan counter-attacks. Himilco and Hippocrates died soon thereafter of the disease. Bomilcar exited Syracuse's harbor without being troubled by the Romans and re-appeared with 130 quinqueremes and 700 supply ships to lift the siege for good. Poor weather prevented him from arriving before being intercepted by 100 ships under Marcellus. Before battle could be joined at Cape Pacyhnus, Bomilcar decided to flee, ordering the supply ships to return home while the Carthaginian battle fleet sailed to Tarentum. Syracuse fell soon after and Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier.
In 211 BC, Hannibal sent a force of Numidian cavalry to Sicily, which was led by the skilled Liby-Phoenician officer Mottones, who inflicted heavy losses on Marcellus' army through hit-and-run attacks. Agrigentum's Carthaginian garrison under Hanno engaged Marcellus at the river Himera and were crushed.
In 211 BC, Rome countered the Macedonian threat with a Greek alliance of the Aetolians, Elis, Sparta, Messenia and Attalus I of Pergamon, as well as two Roman allies, the Illyrians Pleuratus and Scerdilaidas.
In 210 BC, Scipio Africanus arrived in Spain with a proconsular "imperium" and more reinforcements that increased the strength of his army to 28,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry.
In a brilliant assault in 209 BC, Scipio succeeded in capturing lightly-defended Cartago Nova, which was the centre of Carthaginian power in Spain. Scipio had the population slaughtered to maximize terror and a vast booty of gold, silver and siege artillery was taken. He liberated many Iberian hostages kept by the Carthaginians to ensure the loyalty of the Iberian tribes to their domination. These hostages would prove disloyal to the Romans.
Carthage sent more reinforcements to Sicily and Hanno and Mottones went over to the offensive, capturing Macella and re-capturing Morgantina. Marcellus was succeeded by the praetor Marcus Cornelius, who first dealt with indiscipline in the Roman army, after which he checked the Carthaginian progress by taking Morgantina. The hyper-aggressive Roman consul Marcus Valerius Laevinus took charge in 210 BC and immediately marched on Agrigentum to evict Carthage from Sicily. Hanno demoted Mottones and Hanno's son was given the command of the cavalry instead. Mottones betrayed the Carthaginian cause and opened the gates of Agrigentum to the Romans. The Romans massacred the population of the city or sold them to slavery. Hanno and Epicydes fled to Carthage in a merchant ship. Laevinus captured 66 other Sicilian towns, of which 40 surrendered and 26 were taken through force or treachery. He put Sicilian farms back into production and the supply of grain to Rome was resumed in 209 BC.
In Italy, the second Battle of Herdonia (210 BC) was fought to lift the Roman siege of that allied city. Hannibal caught the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius Centumalus off guard during his siege of Herdonia and destroyed his army in a pitched battle with up to 13,000 Romans dead of 20,000. The defection of the allied city of Salapia in Apulia in 210 BC was achieved by treachery: the inhabitants massacred the Numidian garrison and went over to the Romans.
In 210 BC, the Battle of Numistro between Marcellus and Hannibal was inconclusive, but the Romans stayed on his heels until the also inconclusive Battle of Canusium in 209 BC. In the meantime, this battle enabled another Roman army under Fabius to approach Tarentum and take it by treachery in the second Battle of Tarentum (209 BC). Hannibal, at that time, had been able to disengage from Marcellus and was only away when the city, under the command of Carthalo, who was bound to Fabius by an agreement of hospitality, fell.
In the spring of 208 BC, Hasdrubal moved to engage Scipio at the Battle of Baecula. The Carthaginians were defeated, but Scipio was not able to prevent Hasdrubal from continuing his march to Italy in order to reinforce his brother Hannibal.
In the spring of 207 BC, Hasdrubal Barca marched across the Alps and invaded Italy with an army of 30,000 men to link up with Hannibal. In southern Italy, Gaius Claudius Nero waged an inconclusive skirmish against Hannibal at the Battle of Grumentum. Nero then tricked Hannibal into believing that the whole Roman army was still in camp, while he marched with a selected corps north and reinforced the Romans engaged against Hasdrubal. The combined Roman force attacked Hasdrubal and destroyed his army at the Battle of the Metaurus on 22 June 207 BC, killing Hasdrubal and scattering the survivors of his army. The outcome of Metaurus confirmed Roman dominance in Italy. Without Hasdrubal's troops, Hannibal was compelled to evacuate allied towns in Italy and withdraw to Bruttium.
In the Battle of Ilipa (206 BC), Scipio with 48,000 men, half of them Italians and the rest Spaniards, defeated a combined army of 54,500 men and 32 elephants under the command of Mago Barca, Hasdrubal Gisco and Masinissa, thus bringing Carthaginian dominance in Spain to an end. This catastrophic defeat sealed the fate of the Carthaginian presence in Iberia. It was followed by the Roman capture of Gades in 206 BC after the city had already rebelled against Carthaginian rule.
The Tribal leaders Indibilis and Mandonius (of the Ausetani) thought that, after the expulsion of the Carthaginians, the Romans would leave and they would gain control of Spain again. This didn't happen, however, so they participated with the mutineers at the Sucro camp against the Romans. This mutiny was ultimately squelched by Scipio Africanus. In 205 BC, a last attempt was made by Mago to recapture New Carthage when the Roman occupiers were shaken by a mutiny and an Iberian uprising against their new overlords; the attack was repulsed. So, in the same year, Mago left Spain, setting sail from the Balearic islands to Italy with his remaining forces. Carthage in 203 BC succeeded in recruiting at least 4,000 mercenaries from Iberia despite Rome's nominal control.
In 206 BC, there was a quick succession of kings in Eastern Numidia that temporarily ended with the division of the land between Carthage and the Western Numidian king Syphax, a former Roman ally. For this bargain, Syphax was to marry Sophonisba, daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco. Massinissa, who had thus lost his fiancee, went over to the Romans with whom he had already established contact during his military service in Spain.
At the same time, Scipio Africanus Major was given command of the legions in Sicily and was allowed to levy volunteers for his plan to end the war by an invasion of Africa. The legions in Sicily were mainly the survivors of Cannae, who were not allowed home until the war was finished. Scipio was also one of the survivors but, unlike the ordinary soldiers, had been allowed to return to Rome along with the other surviving tribunes, and had run successfully for public office and had been given command of the troops in Iberia.
After landing in Africa, Scipio besieged and failed to take the city of Utica in the Siege of Utica (204 BC). When a Carthaginian and Numidian relief army under Hasdrubal Barca and Syphax moved to confront Scipio, the Romans mounted a surprise attack on their enemies at the Battle of Utica (203 BC) and defeated them with complete success. Scipio broke out into the Carthaginian hinterland and a second Carthaginian-Numidian army was attacked and destroyed at the Battle of the Great Plains in 203 BC. King Syphax of the Massaesylians (western Numidians), was defeated and taken prisoner after the Battle of Cirta. Masinissa, a Numidian rival of Syphax and, at that time, an ally of the Romans, seized a large part of his kingdom with their help. These setbacks persuaded some in the Carthaginian Senate that it was time to sue for peace. Others pleaded for the recall of Hannibal and Mago, who were still fighting the Romans in Bruttium and Cisalpine Gaul, respectively.
In 205, Mago landed in Genua by sea the remnants of his Spanish army. This was the third Carthaginian force invading Italy. It soon received Gallic and Ligurian reinforcements. Mago's arrival in the north of the Italian peninsula was followed by Hannibal's Battle of Crotona in 204 in the south of the peninsula. Mago marched his reinforced army towards the lands of the Boii and Insubres, Carthage's main Gallic allies and a place of retreat for Hasdrubal's defeated remnants. His move was checked by four Roman legions and allies under Publius Varus and Marcus Cornelius Cethegus at the Battle of Insubria in 203. This hindered the third attempted invasion of Italy early, by preventing Mago from uniting with Hannibal's army in the south.
In 203 BC, while Scipio was carrying all before him in Africa and the Carthaginian peace party were arranging an armistice, Hannibal was recalled from Italy by the war party at Carthage. After leaving a record of his expedition engraved in Punic and Greek upon bronze tablets in the temple of Juno at Crotone, he sailed back to Africa. These records were later quoted by Polybius. Hannibal's arrival immediately restored the predominance of the war party, who placed him in command of a combined force of Mediterranean mercenaries, African levies and his veterans from Italy. In 202 BC, Hannibal met Scipio in a peace conference. Despite the two generals' mutual admiration, negotiations floundered, according to the Romans due to "Punic faith", meaning bad faith. This Roman expression referred to the alleged breach of protocols which ended the First Punic War by the Carthaginian attack on Saguntum, Hannibal's perceived breaches of what the Romans perceived as military etiquette (i.e., Hannibal's numerous ambuscades), as well as the armistice violated by the Carthaginians in the period before Hannibal's return.
The decisive Battle of Zama soon followed. Unlike most battles of the Second Punic War, the Romans had superiority in cavalry and the Carthaginians had superiority in infantry.
Scipio countered an expected Carthaginian elephant charge, which caused some of Hannibal's elephants to turn back into his own ranks, throwing his cavalry into disarray. The Roman cavalry was able to capitalize on this and drive the Carthaginian cavalry from the field. The battle remained closely fought and, at one point, it seemed that Hannibal was on the verge of victory. Scipio's cavalry then returned from chasing the Carthaginian cavalry and attacked Hannibal's rear. This two-pronged attack caused the Carthaginian formation to disintegrate and collapse. After their defeat, Hannibal convinced the Carthaginians to accept peace. Notably, he broke the rules of the assembly by forcibly removing a speaker who supported continued resistance. Afterwards, he was obliged to apologize for his behaviour.
Carthage lost Hispania forever, and Rome firmly established her power there over large areas. Rome imposed a war indemnity of 10,000 silver talents (300 tonnes/660,000 pounds), limited the Carthaginian navy to 10 ships (to ward off pirates), and forbade Carthage from raising an army without Roman permission. The Numidians took the opportunity to capture and plunder Carthaginian territory. Half a century later, when Carthage raised an army to defend itself from these incursions, Rome destroyed her in the Third Punic War (149–146 BC). Rome, on the other hand, by her victory, had taken a key step towards what ultimately became her domination of the Mediterranean world.
The end of the war did not meet with a universal welcome in Rome. When the Senate decided upon a peace treaty with Carthage, Quintus Caecilius Metellus, a former consul, said he did not look upon the termination of the war as a blessing to Rome, since he feared that the Roman people would now sink back again into its former slumbers, from which it had been roused by the presence of Hannibal. Others, most notably Cato the Elder, feared that if Carthage was not completely destroyed it would soon regain its power and pose new threats to Rome; he pressed for harsher peace conditions. Even after the peace, Cato insisted on the destruction of Carthage, ending all his speeches with "Carthage must be destroyed", even if they had nothing to do with Carthage.
Archaeology has discovered that the famous circular military harbour at Carthage, the Cothon, received a significant buildup during or after this war. Though shielded from external sight, it could house and quickly deploy about 200 triremes. This appears a surprising development as, after the war, one of the terms of surrender restricted the Carthaginian fleet to only ten triremes. One possible explanation: as has been pointed out for other Phoenician cities, privateers with warships played a significant role besides trade, even when the Roman Empire was fully established and officially controlled all coasts. In this case it is not clear whether the treaty included private warships. The only reference to Carthaginian privateers comes from the First Punic War: one such privateer, Hanno the Rhodian, owned a quinquereme (faster than the serial production models that the Romans had copied), manned with about 500 men and then among the heaviest warships in use. Later pirates in Roman waters are all reported with much smaller vessels, which could outrun naval vessels, but operated with lower personnel costs. Thus piracy was probably highly developed in Carthage and the state did not have a monopoly of military forces. Pirates probably played an important role in capturing slaves, one of the most profitable trade-goods, but merchant ships with tradeable goods and a crew were also their targets. No surviving source reports the fate of Carthaginian privateers in the periods between and after the Punic Wars.
Hannibal became a businessman for several years and later enjoyed a leadership role in Carthage. However, the Carthaginian nobility, upset by his policy of democratisation and his struggle against corruption, persuaded the Romans to force him into exile in Asia Minor, where he again led armies against the Romans and their allies on the battlefield. He eventually committed suicide (c. 182 BC) to avoid capture.
Constant low-level warfare persisted between Carthage and Numidia, but, by the time of the Third Punic War (149–146 BC), Carthage had lost most of its African territories and the Numidians traded independently with the Greeks.
In this conflict, intelligence played an important role on both sides. Hannibal mastered an intelligence service that enabled him to achieve outstanding victories. Likewise, Scipio Africanus Major's victories depended on information. In 217 BC, a Carthaginian resident spy in Rome—probably a Roman citizen—was caught and had his hands cut off as a punishment.
Livy portrayed the Punic War as "the most memorable of all wars that were ever waged: the war which the Carthaginians, under the conduct of Hannibal, maintained with the Roman people. For never did any states and nations more efficient in their resources engage in contest; nor had they themselves at any other period so great a degree of power and energy. They brought into action too no arts of war unknown to each other, but those which had been tried in the first Punic war; and so various was the fortune of the conflict, and so doubtful the victory, that they who conquered were more exposed to danger. The hatred with which they fought also was almost greater than their resources." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28563 |
Stuttgart
Stuttgart ( , also ; ; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known locally as the "Stuttgart Cauldron". It lies an hour from the Swabian Jura and the Black Forest. Its area has a population of 634,830, making it the sixth largest city in Germany. 2.8 million people live in the city's administrative region and 5.3 million people in its metropolitan area, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in Germany. The city and metropolitan area are consistently ranked among the top 20 European metropolitan areas by GDP; Mercer listed Stuttgart as 21st on its 2015 list of cities by quality of living, innovation agency 2thinknow ranked the city 24th globally out of 442 cities and the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked the city as a Beta-status world city in their 2014 survey., Stuttgart was one of the host cities for the official tournaments of the 1974 and 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Since the 7th millennium BC, the Stuttgart area has been an important agricultural area and has been host to a number of cultures seeking to utilize the rich soil of the Neckar valley. The Roman Empire conquered the area in 83 AD and built a massive near Bad Cannstatt, making it the most important regional centre for several centuries. Stuttgart's roots were truly laid in the 10th century with its founding by Liudolf, Duke of Swabia, as a stud farm for his warhorses. Initially overshadowed by nearby Cannstatt, the town grew steadily and was granted a charter in 1320. The fortunes of Stuttgart turned with those of the House of Württemberg, and they made it the capital of their county, duchy, and kingdom from the 15th century to 1918. Stuttgart prospered despite setbacks in the Thirty Years' War and devastating air raids by the Allies on the city and its automobile production during World War II. However, by 1952, the city had bounced back and it became the major economic, industrial, tourism and publishing centre it is today.
Stuttgart is also a transport junction, and possesses the sixth-largest airport in Germany. Several major companies are headquartered in Stuttgart, including Porsche, Bosch, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG, and Dinkelacker.
Stuttgart is unusual in the scheme of German cities. It is spread across a variety of hills (some of them covered in vineyards), valleys (especially around the Neckar river and the Stuttgart basin) and parks. This often surprises visitors who associate the city with its reputation as the "cradle of the automobile". The city's tourism slogan is "Stuttgart offers more". Under current plans to improve transport links to the international infrastructure (as part of the Stuttgart 21 project), the city unveiled a new logo and slogan in March 2008 describing itself as """" ("The new Heart of Europe"). For business, it describes itself as "Where business meets the future". In July 2010, Stuttgart unveiled a new city logo, designed to entice more business people to stay in the city and enjoy breaks in the area.
Stuttgart is a city with a high number of immigrants. According to Dorling Kindersley's "Eyewitness Travel Guide to Germany", "In the city of Stuttgart, every third inhabitant is a foreigner." 40% of Stuttgart's residents, and 64% of the population below the age of five, are of immigrant background.
Stuttgart, often nicknamed the ""Schwabenmetropole"" () in reference to its location in the centre of Swabia and the local dialect spoken by the native Swabians, has its etymological roots in the Old High German word "Stuotgarten", or "stud farm", because the city was founded in 950 AD by Duke Liudolf of Swabia to breed warhorses.
Originally, the most important location in the Neckar river valley was the hilly rim of the Stuttgart basin at what is today Bad Cannstatt. Thus, the first settlement of Stuttgart was a massive Roman "Castra stativa" (Cannstatt Castrum) built c. 90 AD to protect the Villas and vineyards blanketing the landscape and the road from Mogontiacum (Mainz) to Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg). As with many military installations, a settlement sprang up nearby and remained there even after the limes moved further east. When they did, the town was left in the capable hands of a local brickworks that produced sophisticated architectural ceramics and pottery. When the Romans were driven back past the Rhine and Danube rivers in the 3rd century by the Alamanni, the settlement temporarily vanished from history until the 7th century.
In 700, Duke Gotfrid mentions a "Chan Stada" in a document regarding property. Archaeological evidence shows that later Merovingian era Frankish farmers continued to till the same land the Romans did.
Cannstatt is mentioned in the Abbey of St. Gall's archives as ""Canstat ad Neccarum"" () in 708. The etymology of the name ""Cannstatt"" is not clear, but as the site is mentioned as "condistat" in the Annals of Metz (9th century), it is mostly derived from the Latin word "condita" ("foundation"), suggesting that the name of the Roman settlement might have had the prefix ""Condi-"." Alternatively, Sommer (1992) suggested that the Roman site corresponds to the "Civitas Aurelia G" attested to in an inscription found near Öhringen. There have also been attempts at a derivation from a Gaulish "*kondâti-" "confluence".
In 950 AD, Duke Liudolf of Swabia, son of the current Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, decided to establish a stud farm for his cavalry during the Hungarian invasions of Europe on a widened area of the Nesenbach river valley south of the old Roman castrum. The land and title of Duke of Swabia remained in Liudolf's hands until his rebellion was quashed by his father four years later. In 1089, Bruno of Calw built the precursor building to the Old Castle.
Stuttgart's viticulture, first documented in the Holy Roman Empire in the year 1108 AD, kept people in the area of that stud farm for some time, but the area was still largely overshadowed by nearby Cannstatt because of its role as a local crossroad for many major European trade routes. Nevertheless, the existence of a settlement here (despite the terrain being more suited for that original stud farm) during the High Middle Ages is provided by a gift registry from Hirsau Abbey dated to around 1160 that mentions a "Hugo de Stuokarten". A settlement at this locale was again mentioned in 1229, but this time by Pope Gregory IX. In 1219 AD, Stuttgart (then Stuotgarten) became a possession of Herman V, Margrave of Baden. In addition to Backnang, Pforzheim, and Besigheim, Hermann would also found the Stuttgart we know today in c. 1220. In 1251, the city passed to the Ulrich I von Württemberg as part of Mechthild von Baden's dowry. His son, Eberhard I "the Illustrious", would be the first to begin the many major expansions of Stuttgart under the House of Württemberg.
Eberhard desired to expand the realm his father had built through military action with the aid of the anti-king Henry Raspe IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, but was thwarted by the action of Emperor Rudolph I. Further resistance by Eberhard I against the Emperor's created Vogts and Bailiwicks as well as the newly appointed Duke of Swabia Rudolf II, Duke of Austria, eventually led to armed conflict and initial successes upon Emperor Rudolph I's death in 1291 against the Emperor's men. After initially defeating his regional rivals, Henry VII, newly elected as Emperor, decided to take action against Eberhard I in 1311 during his war with the Free imperial city of Esslingen by ordering his Vogt, Konrad IV von Weinberg, to declare war on Eberhard I. Eberhard I, defeated on the battlefield, lost Stuttgart and his castle (razed in 1311) to Esslingen and the city was thus managed by the city state from 1312 to 1315. Total destruction of the county was prevented by Henry VII's death on 24 August 1313 and the elections of Louis IV as King of the Germans and Frederick III as anti-king. Eberhard seized the opportunity granted to him by the political chaos, and recaptured his hometown and birthplace in 1316, and made much territorial gain. With peace restored at last, Eberhard began repairs and expansion to Stuttgart beginning with the reconstruction of Wirtemberg Castle, ancestral home to the House of Württemberg, in 1317 and then began expansion of the city's defenses. The early 1320s were an important one for Stuttgart: Eberhard I moved the seat of the county to the city to a new and expanded castle, the collegiate church in Beutelsbach, where previous members of the Württemberg dynasty had been buried prior to its destruction in 1311, moved to its current location in Stuttgart in 1320, and the town's Stiftkirche was expanded into an abbey, and the control of the Martinskirche by the Bishopric of Constance was broken by Papal order in 1321. A year after the city became the principal seat of the Counts of Württemberg in 1320, the city was granted status as a city and given civic rights. At the end of the 14th century, new suburbs sprang up around Leonhard Church and near the city's fortifications as well. Towards the end of the 15th century, Count Ulrich V began construction of a new suburb on the northeastern edge of the city around the Dominican monastery Hospitalkirche. In the 1457, the first Landtag of the Estates of Württemberg was established in Stuttgart and a similar institution was established in Leonberg. After the temporary partitions of the County of Württemberg by the Treaties of Nürtingen, Münsingen, and Esslingen, Stuttgart was once again declared the capital of the county in 1483.
In 1488, Stuttgart officially became the de facto residence of the Count himself as opposed to the location of his home, the Old Castle. Eberhard I, then Count Eberhard V, became the first Duke of Württemberg in 1495, and made Stuttgart the seat of the Duchy of Württemberg in addition to the County thereof. All this would be lost to the Württembergs during the reign of his son, Ulrich. Though Ulrich initially made territorial gains as a result of his decision to fight alongside the Emperor Maximilian I, he was no friend of the powerful Swabian League nor of his own subjects, who launched the Poor Conrad rebellion of 1514. Despite this and his rivalry with the Swabian League, his undoing would actually come in the form of his unhappy marriage to Sabina of Bavaria. In 1515, Ulrich killed an imperial knight and lover of Sabina's by the name of Hans von Hutten, obliging her to flee to the court of her brother, William IV, Duke of Bavaria, who successfully had Ulrich placed under Imperial ban twice. When the Emperor died in 1519, Ulrich struck, seizing the Free Imperial City of Reutlingen, prompting the League to intervene. That same year, Ulrich was soundly defeated and he was driven into exile in France and Switzerland following the League's conquest of Württemberg. Württemberg was then sold by the League to Emperor Charles V, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28565 |
Self-propelled artillery
Self-propelled artillery (also called mobile artillery or locomotive artillery) is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move towards its target. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mortar, and rocket artillery. They are high mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large field gun, howitzer, mortar, or some form of rocket/missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield.
In the past, self-propelled artillery has included direct-fire vehicles, such as assault guns and tank destroyers. These have been heavily armoured vehicles, the former providing close fire-support for infantry and the latter acting as specialized anti-tank vehicles.
Modern self-propelled artillery vehicles may superficially resemble tanks, but they are generally lightly armoured, too lightly to survive in direct-fire combat. However, they protect their crews against shrapnel and small arms and are therefore usually included as armoured fighting vehicles. Many are equipped with machine guns for defense against enemy infantry.
The key advantage of self-propelled over towed artillery is that it can be brought into action much faster. Before the towed artillery can be used, it has to stop, unlimber and set up the guns. To move position, the guns must be limbered up again and brought—usually towed—to the new location. By comparison, self-propelled artillery can stop at a chosen location and begin firing almost immediately, then quickly move on to a new position. This shoot-and-scoot ability is very useful in a mobile conflict and particularly on the advance.
Conversely, towed artillery was and remains cheaper to build and maintain. It is also lighter and can be taken to places that self-propelled guns cannot reach. Since the Vietnam War, heavy transport helicopters have also been used for rapid artillery deployment. So, despite the advantages of the self-propelled artillery, towed guns remain in the arsenals of many modern armies.
During the Thirty Years' War, early 17th century experiments were made with early types of horse artillery. Batteries towed light field guns where most or all of the crew rode horses into battle. The gunners were trained to quickly dismount, deploy the guns and provide instant fire support to cavalry, and act as a flexible reserve. The Russian army organized small units of horse artillery that were distributed among their cavalry formations in the early 18th century. While not forming large batteries and employing only lighter 2- and 3-pound guns, they were still effective and inflicted serious losses to Prussian units in the Seven Years' War. This inspired Frederick the Great to organize the first regular horse artillery unit in 1759. Other nations quickly realized the capability of the new arm and by the start of French Revolutionary Wars in 1790s Austria, Hannover, Portugal, Russia, France, Great Britain and Sweden had all formed regular units of horse artillery. The arm was employed throughout the Napoleonic Wars and remained in use throughout the entire 19th century and into the first half of the 20th century, when advances in weapons technology finally made it obsolete.
The British Gun Carrier Mark I was the first example of a self-propelled gun, fielded in 1917 during World War I. It was based on the first tank, the British Mark I and carried a heavy field gun. The gun could either be fired from the vehicle, or removed and set up as normal. In effect, the carrier replaced the use of a separate horse team or internal combustion engine powered artillery tractor, and allowed a new way for the gun to be used.
The next major advance can be seen in the Birch gun developed by the British for their motorised warfare experimental brigade (the Experimental Mechanized Force) after the end of the War. This mounted a field gun, capable of both the usual artillery trajectories and high angle anti-aircraft fire, on a tank style chassis. It was designed and built as part of a general approach to warfare where all arms, infantry and artillery included, would be able to operate over the same terrain as tanks. The Red Army also experimented with truck- and tank-mounted artillery, but produced none in quantity.
At the outbreak of World War II, virtually all artillery was still being moved around by artillery tractors or horses. While the German Blitzkrieg doctrine called for combined-arms action, which required fire support for armoured units, during the invasion of Poland and France this was provided by the Luftwaffe using Stuka dive-bombers effectively acting as artillery. Conventional towed howitzers followed.
As the war progressed, most nations developed self-propelled artillery. Some early attempts were often no more than a field gun or anti-tank gun mounted on a truck—a technique known in the British Army as carrying "portee". These were mobile, but lacked protection for the crew. The next step was to mount the guns on a tracked chassis (often that of an obsolete or superseded tank) and provide an armoured superstructure to protect the gun and its crew. Many of the early designs were improvised and the lessons learned led to better designs later in the war. For example, the first British design, "Bishop", carried the 25 pdr gun-howitzer, but in a mounting that severely limited the gun's performance. It was replaced by the more effective Sexton.
The Germans were particularly prolific with designs. They created many examples of lightly armored self-propelled anti-tank guns using captured French equipment (example Marder I), their own obsolete light tank chassis (Marder II), or ex-Czech chassis (Marder III). These led to better-protected Assault guns or Sturmgeschütz with fully enclosed casemates, built on medium tank chassis such as the Jagdpanzer IV and Jagdpanther. Some designs were based on existing chassis (such as the Brummbär), leftover chassis from cancelled programs (Elefant and Sturer Emil); others were converted from battle-damaged tanks (Sturmtiger). The single most-produced armored fighting vehicle design for Germany in WW II, the Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III) assault gun, in 1936–37 pioneered the later casemate-style fully enclosed armor that would be used on almost all late-war German self-propelled artillery and "Jagdpanzer"-format tank destroyers.
The Soviets experimented with truck-and tank-based self-propelled weapons, producing a few Komsomoletz tractor-mounted 57-mm ZiS-2 guns early in the war. By 1943, the series of "Samokhodnaya Ustanovka" casemate-armored vehicles had started to appear at the front, starting with the SU-85, and by late 1944 the SU-100, which mounted powerful guns on modern chassis adopting the full-casemate enclosure of the crew compartment as the Germans had done with the StuG III. These had the advantage of being relatively cheap to build and mounting a larger gun compared to the conventional tank that they were derived from, but at the expense of flexibility.
Heavily armoured assault guns were designed to provide direct-fire support to infantry in the face of enemy defenses. Although often similar to tank destroyers, they carried larger caliber guns with weaker anti-armor performance but capable of firing powerful HE projectiles. The German 105mm howitzer-armed StuH 42 based on the StuG III, and the immense 152mm howitzer-armed, Soviet ISU-152, both fully casemated in their design, are examples of this type of self-propelled artillery.
All major nations developed self-propelled artillery that would be able to provide indirect support while keeping pace with advancing armoured formations. These were usually lightly armoured vehicles with an open-topped hull; the US M7 Priest, British Sexton (25 pdr) and German Wespe and Hummel being typical examples. A different route was chosen by the Soviets, who did not develop a specialized indirect fire vehicle, but following a tradition of dual-purpose towed artillery, built a series of versatile assault guns with indirect fire capabilities (example ISU-152). A related and novel program was the development of the Soviet Katyusha self-propelled multiple rocket launchers, which were unarmored trucks with a simple rocket rack on the back, a cheap and crushingly effective weapon, provided area saturation was called for rather than accurate fire.
After the end of World War II, the assault gun fell from use with a general trend towards a single heavy gun-equipped vehicle, the main battle tank, although some wheeled AFV's such as the South African Rooikat, the Maneuver Combat Vehicle of the JGSDF, and the US M1128 MGS, among others, are still developed with large-caliber, direct fire weapons. Self-propelled indirect-fire artillery remains important and continues to develop alongside the general purpose field gun.
Many vehicles have used ancillary smoke mortars for local defense, which project one or more smoke grenades in a pattern that allows them to lay down a smoke screen some distance in order to conceal the vehicle from enemy observers. Mortar carriers are vehicles which carry a mortar as a primary weapon. Numerous vehicles have been used to mount mortars, from improvised civilian trucks used by insurgents, to modified IFV's, such as variants of the M3 half track and M113 APC, to vehicles specifically intended to carry a mortar, such as the 2S31 Vena. The Israeli Makmat is a mortar carrier based on the M4 Sherman tank chassis.
The Russian army uses a "2S4 Tyulpan" (Tulip) self-propelled 240 mm heavy mortar. Patria Hägglunds, a joint venture between Finnish Patria and Swedish BAE Systems Hägglunds manufactures AMOS (Advanced Mortar System), which is a 120 mm automatic twin barrelled, breech loaded mortar turret. There are also numerous AFV's and even MBT's that can be equipped with a mortar, either outside or inside of the cabin. The Israeli Merkava MBT carried a 60mm mortar in the small troop compartment in the rear, which fired through an opening in the roof, allowing the crew to remain protected. This was useful for fighting nearby infantry, as a mortar is shorter ranged and cheaper to shoot than the large main gun, as well as being better suited to wounding enemy infantry taking cover behind objects. However, since the mortar is only a secondary weapon in this case, the Merkava is not considered a mortar carrier.
Self-propelled artillery remains important in the equipment of many modern armies. It saw a significant role throughout the Cold War era conflicts and in the recent Gulf Wars.
Modern SP artillery is highly computerized with the ability to self survey firing positions using systems such as GPS and inertial navigation systems. This, in conjunction with digital fire control/ballistic computers and digital communications, allows individual guns to disperse over a wide area and still deliver rounds on target simultaneously with the other guns in their battery.
These capabilities also increase survivability many fold as modern SP artillery can displace and avoid counterbattery fire much more quickly and effectively and, if desired, more frequently than previously possible. In conjunction with modern logistic systems (where the SP gun's systems can track and report on ammunition consumption and levels) with similar navigation systems and palletized load dropping/lifting capabilities mean that the rapid displacement can occur without significant disruption to actually firing missions as it is possible for the ammunition to keep up with the guns.
A modern battery of six guns, each firing 43 kg projectiles with a burst firing speed of four rounds per minute, can deliver over a metric tonne of ordnance per minute for up to four minutes. This is an immense weight of fire, which can be delivered with very high accuracy.
One example of the increased firepower provided by modern mobile howitzers is the latest version, the "G6-52", of the 155 mm G6 howitzer. It can fire up to six rounds in quick succession that will land nearly simultaneously. This is achieved by firing the shells at different trajectories so that the first round has the longest flight time and the last round the shortest. This is an improvement of the concept of MRSI (Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact), itself an enhancement of the earlier TOT (Time On Target) concept. The necessary rapid reloading is made possible by an automated ammunition feed system.
Rockets have greater ranges and carry much more complex "shells" than guns since there is less of a restriction on size (calibre). The MLRS can be used to saturate a large area with sub-munitions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28566 |
Sinatra Doctrine
"Sinatra Doctrine" was the name that the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev used jokingly to describe its policy of allowing neighboring Warsaw Pact states to determine their own internal affairs. The name alluded to the song "My Way" popularized by Frank Sinatra—the Soviet Union was allowing these states to go their own way. Its implementation was part of Gorbachev's doctrine of "new political thinking".
The Sinatra Doctrine was a major break with the earlier Brezhnev Doctrine, under which the internal affairs of satellite states were tightly controlled by Moscow. This had been used to justify the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, as well as the invasion of the non-Warsaw Pact nation of Afghanistan in 1979. By the late 1980s, structural flaws within the Soviet system, growing economic problems, the rise of anti-communist sentiment and the effects of the Soviet–Afghan War made it increasingly impractical for the Soviet Union to impose its will on its neighbors.
The phrase was coined on 25 October 1989 by Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov. He was speaking to reporters in Helsinki about a speech made two days earlier by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. The latter had said that the Soviets recognized the freedom of choice of all countries, specifically including the other Warsaw Pact states. Gerasimov told the interviewer that, "We now have the Frank Sinatra doctrine. He has a song, "I Did It My Way." So every country decides on its own which road to take." When asked whether this would include Moscow accepting the rejection of communist parties in the Soviet bloc, he replied: "That's for sure… political structures must be decided by the people who live there."
The Sinatra Doctrine has been seen as Moscow giving permission to its allies to decide their own futures. In fact, it was a retrospective policy, as Soviet allies had already acquired much greater freedom of action. A month before Gerasimov's statement, Poland had elected its first non-communist government since the 1940s. The government of Hungary had opened its border with Austria on 2 May 1989, dismantling the Iron Curtain on its own border. As Hungary was one of the few countries that East Germans could travel to, thousands travelled there so that they could flee across the newly opened border to the West. To the great annoyance of the East German government, the Hungarians refused to stop the exodus.
These developments greatly disturbed hardline communists such as the East German leader Erich Honecker, who condemned the end of the traditional "socialist unity" of the Soviet bloc and appealed to Moscow to rein in the Hungarians. Honecker faced a growing crisis at home, with massive anti-government demonstrations in Leipzig and other East German cities. Shevardnadze's speech and Gerasimov's memorable description of the new policy amounted to a rebuff of Honecker's appeals.
The proclamation of the "Sinatra Doctrine" had dramatic effects across the Soviet bloc. The beleaguered East German government had hoped for a Soviet intervention to defend communism in East Germany and elsewhere. However, the announcement of the "Sinatra Doctrine" signalled that the Soviet Union would not aid the East German communists. A few weeks later the communist governments of East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria were ousted, and two months later the communist rulers of Romania suffered the same fate, signalling an end to the Cold War and to the division of Europe. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28568 |
Simplified molecular-input line-entry system
The simplified molecular-input line-entry system (SMILES) is a specification in the form of a line notation for describing the structure of chemical species using short ASCII strings. SMILES strings can be imported by most molecule editors for conversion back into two-dimensional drawings or three-dimensional models of the molecules.
The original SMILES specification was initiated in the 1980s. It has since been modified and extended. In 2007, an open standard called OpenSMILES was developed in the open-source chemistry community. Other linear notations include the Wiswesser line notation (WLN), ROSDAL, and SYBYL Line Notation (SLN).
The original SMILES specification was initiated by David Weininger at the USEPA Mid-Continent Ecology Division Laboratory in Duluth in the 1980s. Acknowledged for their parts in the early development were "Gilman Veith and Rose Russo (USEPA) and Albert Leo and Corwin Hansch (Pomona College) for supporting the work, and Arthur Weininger (Pomona; Daylight CIS) and Jeremy Scofield (Cedar River Software, Renton, WA) for assistance in programming the system." The Environmental Protection Agency funded the initial project to develop SMILES.
It has since been modified and extended by others, most notably by Daylight Chemical Information Systems. In 2007, an open standard called "OpenSMILES" was developed by the Blue Obelisk open-source chemistry community. Other 'linear' notations include the Wiswesser Line Notation (WLN), ROSDAL and SLN (Tripos Inc).
In July 2006, the IUPAC introduced the InChI as a standard for formula representation. SMILES is generally considered to have the advantage of being slightly more human-readable than InChI; it also has a wide base of software support with extensive theoretical backing (such as graph theory).
The term SMILES refers to a line notation for encoding molecular structures and specific instances should strictly be called SMILES strings. However, the term SMILES is also commonly used to refer to both a single SMILES string and a number of SMILES strings; the exact meaning is usually apparent from the context. The terms "canonical" and "isomeric" can lead to some confusion when applied to SMILES. The terms describe different attributes of SMILES strings and are not mutually exclusive.
Typically, a number of equally valid SMILES strings can be written for a molecule. For example, codice_1, codice_2 and codice_3 all specify the structure of ethanol. Algorithms have been developed to generate the same SMILES string for a given molecule; of the many possible strings, these algorithms choose only one of them. This SMILES is unique for each structure, although dependent on the canonicalization algorithm used to generate it, and is termed the canonical SMILES. These algorithms first convert the SMILES to an internal representation of the molecular structure; an algorithm then examines that structure and produces a unique SMILES string. Various algorithms for generating canonical SMILES have been developed and include those by Daylight Chemical Information Systems, OpenEye Scientific Software, MEDIT, Chemical Computing Group, MolSoft LLC, and the Chemistry Development Kit. A common application of canonical SMILES is indexing and ensuring uniqueness of molecules in a database.
The original paper that described the CANGEN algorithm claimed to generate unique SMILES strings for graphs representing molecules, but the algorithm fails for a number of simple cases (e.g. cuneane, 1,2-dicyclopropylethane) and cannot be considered a correct method for representing a graph canonically. There is currently no systematic comparison across commercial software to test if such flaws exist in those packages.
SMILES notation allows the specification of configuration at tetrahedral centers, and double bond geometry. These are structural features that cannot be specified by connectivity alone, and therefore SMILES which encode this information are termed isomeric SMILES. A notable feature of these rules is that they allow rigorous partial specification of chirality. The term isomeric SMILES is also applied to SMILES in which isomers are specified.
In terms of a graph-based computational procedure, SMILES is a string obtained by printing the symbol nodes encountered in a depth-first tree traversal of a chemical graph. The chemical graph is first trimmed to remove hydrogen atoms and cycles are broken to turn it into a spanning tree. Where cycles have been broken, numeric suffix labels are included to indicate the connected nodes. Parentheses are used to indicate points of branching on the tree.
The resultant SMILES form depends on the choices:
Atoms are represented by the standard abbreviation of the chemical elements, in square brackets, such as codice_4 for gold. Brackets may be omitted in the common case of atoms which:
All other elements must be enclosed in brackets, and have charges and hydrogens shown explicitly. For instance, the SMILES for water may be written as either codice_5 or codice_6. Hydrogen may also be written as a separate atom; water may also be written as codice_7.
When brackets are used, the symbol codice_8 is added if the atom in brackets is bonded to one or more hydrogen, followed by the number of hydrogen atoms if greater than 1, then by the sign codice_9 for a positive charge or by codice_10 for a negative charge. For example, codice_11 for ammonium (). If there is more than one charge, it is normally written as digit; however, it is also possible to repeat the sign as many times as the ion has charges: one may write either codice_12 or codice_13 for titanium(IV) Ti4+. Thus, the hydroxide anion () is represented by codice_14, the hydronium cation () is codice_15 and the cobalt(III) cation (Co3+) is either codice_16 or codice_17.
A bond is represented using one of the symbols codice_18.
Bonds between aliphatic atoms are assumed to be single unless specified otherwise and are implied by adjacency in the SMILES string. Although single bonds may be written as codice_10, this is usually omitted. For example, the SMILES for ethanol may be written as codice_20, codice_21 or codice_22, but is usually written codice_1.
Double, triple, and quadruple bonds are represented by the symbols codice_24, codice_25, and codice_26 respectively as illustrated by the SMILES codice_27 (carbon dioxide ), codice_28 (hydrogen cyanide HCN) and codice_29 (gallium arsenide).
An additional type of bond is a "non-bond", indicated with codice_30, to indicate that two parts are not bonded together. For example, aqueous sodium chloride may be written as codice_31 to show the dissociation.
An aromatic "one and a half" bond may be indicated with codice_32; see below.
Single bonds adjacent to double bonds may be represented using codice_33 or codice_34 to indicate stereochemical configuration; see below.
Ring structures are written by breaking each ring at an arbitrary point (although some choices will lead to a more legible SMILES than others) to make an acyclic structure and adding numerical ring closure labels to show connectivity between non-adjacent atoms.
For example, cyclohexane and dioxane may be written as codice_35 and codice_36 respectively. For a second ring, the label will be 2. For example, decalin (decahydronaphthalene) may be written as codice_37.
SMILES does not require that ring numbers be used in any particular order, and permits ring number zero, although this is rarely used. Also, it is permitted to reuse ring numbers after the first ring has closed, although this usually makes formulae harder to read. For example, bicyclohexyl is usually written as codice_38, but it may also be written as codice_39.
Multiple digits after a single atom indicate multiple ring-closing bonds. For example, an alternative SMILES notation for decalin is codice_40, where the final carbon participates in both ring-closing bonds 1 and 2. If two-digit ring numbers are required, the label is preceded by codice_41, so codice_42 is a single ring-closing bond of ring 12.
Either or both of the digits may be preceded by a bond type to indicate the type of the ring-closing bond. For example, cyclopropene is usually written codice_43, but if the double bond is chosen as the ring-closing bond, it may be written as codice_44, codice_45, or codice_46. (The first form is preferred.) codice_47 is illegal, as it explicitly specifies conflicting types for the ring-closing bond.
Ring-closing bonds may not be used to denote multiple bonds. For example, codice_48 is not a valid alternative to codice_49 for ethylene. However, they may be used with non-bonds; codice_50 is a peculiar but legal alternative way to write propane, more commonly written codice_51.
Choosing a ring-break point adjacent to attached groups can lead to a simpler SMILES form by avoiding branches. For example, cyclohexane-1,2-diol is most simply written as codice_52; choosing a different ring-break location produces a branched structure that requires parentheses to write.
Aromatic rings such as benzene may be written in one of three forms:
In the latter case, bonds between two aromatic atoms are assumed (if not explicitly shown) to be aromatic bonds. Thus, benzene, pyridine and furan can be represented respectively by the SMILES codice_62, codice_63 and codice_64.
Aromatic nitrogen bonded to hydrogen, as found in pyrrole must be represented as codice_65; thus imidazole is written in SMILES notation as codice_66.
When aromatic atoms are singly bonded to each other, such as in biphenyl, a single bond must be shown explicitly: codice_67. This is one of the few cases where the single bond symbol codice_10 is required. (In fact, most SMILES software can correctly infer that the bond between the two rings cannot be aromatic and so will accept the nonstandard form codice_69.)
The Daylight and OpenEye algorithms for generating canonical SMILES differ in their treatment of aromaticity.
Branches are described with parentheses, as in codice_70 for propionic acid and codice_71 for fluoroform. The first atom within the parentheses, and the first atom after the parenthesized group, are both bonded to the same branch point atom. The bond symbol must appear inside the parentheses; outside (E.g.: codice_72) is invalid.
Substituted rings can be written with the branching point in the ring as illustrated by the SMILES codice_73 (see depiction) and codice_74 (see depiction) which encode the 3 and 4-cyanoanisole isomers. Writing SMILES for substituted rings in this way can make them more human-readable.
Branches may be written in any order. For example, bromochlorodifluoromethane may be written as codice_75, codice_76, codice_77, or the like. Generally, a SMILES form is easiest to read if the simpler branch comes first, with the final, unparenthesized portion being the most complex. The only caveats to such rearrangements are:
The one form of branch which does "not" require parentheses are ring-closing bonds. Choosing ring-closing bonds appropriately can reduce the number of parentheses required. For example, toluene is normally written as codice_78 or codice_79, avoiding the parentheses required if written as codice_80 or codice_81.
SMILES permits, but does not require, specification of stereoisomers.
Configuration around double bonds is specified using the characters codice_33 and codice_34 to show directional single bonds adjacent to a double bond. For example, codice_84 (see depiction) is one representation of "trans"-1,2-difluoroethylene, in which the fluorine atoms are on opposite sides of the double bond (as shown in the figure), whereas codice_85 (see depiction) is one possible representation of "cis"-1,2-difluoroethylene, in which the fluorines are on the same side of the double bond.
Bond direction symbols always come in groups of at least two, of which the first is arbitrary. That is, codice_86 is the same as codice_84. When alternating single-double bonds are present, the groups are larger than two, with the middle directional symbols being adjacent to two double bonds. For example, the common form of (2,4)-hexadiene is written codice_88.
As a more complex example, beta-carotene has a very long backbone of alternating single and double bonds, which may be written codice_89.
Configuration at tetrahedral carbon is specified by codice_90 or codice_91. Consider the four bonds in the order in which they appear, left to right, in the SMILES form. Looking toward the central carbon from the perspective of the first bond, the other three are either clockwise or counter-clockwise. These cases are indicated with codice_91 and codice_90, respectively (because the codice_90 symbol itself is a counter-clockwise spiral).
For example, consider the amino acid alanine. One of its SMILES forms is codice_95, more fully written as codice_96. L-Alanine, the more common enantiomer, is written as codice_97 (see depiction). Looking from the nitrogen–carbon bond, the hydrogen (codice_8), methyl (codice_99), and carboxylate (codice_100) groups appear clockwise. D-Alanine can be written as codice_101 (see depiction).
While the order is which branches are specified in SMILES is normally unimportant, in this case it matters; swapping any two groups requires reversing the chirality indicator. If the branches are reversed so alanine is written as codice_102, then the configuration also reverses; L-alanine is written as codice_103 (see depiction). Other ways of writing it include codice_104, codice_105 and codice_106.
Normally, the first of the four bonds appears to the left of the carbon atom, but if the SMILES is written beginning with the chiral carbon, such as codice_107, then all four are to the right, but the first to appear (the codice_108 bond in this case) is used as the reference to order the following three: L-alanine may also be written codice_109.
The SMILES specification includes elaborations on the codice_90 symbol to indicate stereochemistry around more complex chiral centers, such as trigonal bipyramidal molecular geometry.
Isotopes are specified with a number equal to the integer isotopic mass preceding the atomic symbol. Benzene in which one atom is carbon-14 is written as codice_111 and deuterochloroform is codice_112.
To illustrate a molecule with more than 9 rings, consider cephalostatin-1, a steroidic 13-ringed pyrazine with the empirical formula C54H74N2O10 isolated from the Indian Ocean hemichordate "Cephalodiscus gilchristi":
Starting with the left-most methyl group in the figure:
Note that codice_41 appears in front of the index of ring closure labels above 9; see above.
The SMILES notation is described extensively in the SMILES theory manual provided by Daylight Chemical Information Systems and a number of illustrative examples are presented. Daylight's depict utility provides users with the means to check their own examples of SMILES and is a valuable educational tool.
SMARTS is a line notation for specification of substructural patterns in molecules. While it uses many of the same symbols as SMILES, it also allows specification of wildcard atoms and bonds, which can be used to define substructural queries for chemical database searching. One common misconception is that SMARTS-based substructural searching involves matching of SMILES and SMARTS strings. In fact, both SMILES and SMARTS strings are first converted to internal graph representations which are searched for subgraph isomorphism.
SMIRKS, a superset of "reaction SMILES" and a subset of "reaction SMARTS", is a line notation for specifying reaction transforms. The general syntax for the reaction extensions is codice_115 (without spaces), where any of the fields can either be left blank or filled with multiple molecules deliminated with a dot (codice_30), and other descriptions dependent on the base language. Atoms can additionally be identified with a number (e.g. codice_117) for mapping, for example in codice_118.
SMILES can be converted back to two-dimensional representations using structure diagram generation (SDG) algorithms (Helson, 1999). This conversion is not always unambiguous. Conversion to three-dimensional representation is achieved by energy-minimization approaches. There are many downloadable and web-based conversion utilities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28569 |
Soweto
Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for "South Western Townships". Formerly a separate municipality, it is now incorporated in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Suburbs of Johannesburg.
George Harrison and George Walker are today credited as the men who discovered an outcrop of the Main Reef of gold on the farm Langlaagte in February 1886. The fledgling town of Johannesburg was laid out on a triangular wedge of "uitvalgrond" (area excluded when the farms were surveyed) named Randjeslaagte, situated between the farms Doornfontein to the east, Braamfontein to the west and Turffontein to the south.
Within a decade of the discovery of gold in Johannesburg, 100,000 people flocked to this part of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republic in search of riches. They were of many races and nationalities. In October 1887 the government of the South African Republic (ZAR) bought the south-eastern portion of the farm Braamfontein. There were large quantities of clay, suitable for brickmaking, along the stream. The government decided that more money was to be made from issuing brick maker's licences at five shillings per month. The result was that many landless Dutch-speaking burghers (citizens) of the ZAR settled on the property and started making bricks. They also erected their shacks there. Soon the area was known either Brickfields or Veldschoendorp. Soon other working poor, Coloureds, Indians and Africans also settled there. The government, who sought to differentiate the white working class from the black, laid out new suburbs for the Burghers (Whites), Coolies (Indians), Malays (Coloureds) and Black Africans (Africans), but the whole area simply stayed multiracial.
Soweto was created in the 1930s when the White government started separating Blacks from Whites, creating black "townships". Blacks were moved away from Johannesburg, to an area separated from White suburbs by a so-called "cordon sanitaire" (or sanitary corridor) which was usually a river, railway track, industrial area or highway. This was carried out using the infamous 'Urban Areas Act' of 1923.
William Carr, chair of non-European affairs, initiated the naming of Soweto in 1959. He called for a competition to give a collective name to townships dotted around the South-west of Johannesburg. People responded to this competition with great enthusiasm. Among the names suggested to the City Council was KwaMpanza, meaning Mpanza's place, invoking the name of Mpanza and his role in bringing the plight of Orlando sub tenants to the attention of the City Council. The City Council settled for the acronym SOWETO (South West Townships). The name Soweto was first used in 1963 and within a short period of time, following the 1976 uprising of students in the township, the name became internationally known.
Soweto became the largest Black city in South Africa, but until 1976 its population could have status only as temporary residents, serving as a workforce for Johannesburg. It experienced civil unrest during the Apartheid regime. There were serious riots in 1976, sparked by a ruling that Afrikaans be used in African schools there; the riots were violently suppressed, with 176 striking students killed and more than 1,000 injured. Reforms followed, but riots flared up again in 1985 and continued until the first non-racial elections were held in April 1994.
In 2010, South Africa's oldest township hosted the final of the FIFA World Cup and the attention of more than a billion soccer spectators from all over the world was focused on Soweto.
In April 1904 there was a bubonic plague scare in the shanty town area of Brickfields. The town council decided to condemn the area and burn it down. Beforehand most of the Africans living there were moved far out of town to the farm Klipspruit (later called Pimville), south-west of Johannesburg, where the council had erected iron barracks and a few triangular hutments. The rest of them had to build their own shacks. The fire brigade then set the 1600 shacks and shops in Brickfields alight. Thereafter the area was redeveloped as Newtown. Pimville was next to Kliptown, the oldest Black residential district of Johannesburg and first laid out in 1891 on land which formed part of Klipspruit farm. The future Soweto was to be laid out on Klipspruit and the adjoining farm called Diepkloof.
In the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek and the subsequent Transvaal Colony it was lawful for people of colour to own fixed property. Consequently, the township of Sophiatown was laid out in 1903 and Blacks were encouraged to buy property there. For the same reasons Alexandra, Gauteng was planned for Black ownership in 1912. The subsequent Natives Land Act of 1913 did not change the situation because it did not apply to land situated within municipal boundaries.
In 1923 the Parliament of the Union of South Africa passed the Natives (Urban Areas) Act (Act No. 21 of 1923). The purpose of the Act was to provide for improved conditions of residence for natives in urban areas, to control their ingress into such areas and to restrict their access to intoxicating liquor. The Act required local authorities to provide accommodation for Natives (then the polite term for Africans or Blacks) lawfully employed and resident within the area of their jurisdiction. Pursuant to this Act the Johannesburg town council formed a Municipal Native Affairs Department in 1927. It bought 1 300 morgen of land on the farm Klipspruit No. 8 and the first houses in what was to become Orlando Location were built there in the latter half of 1930. The township was named after the chairman of the Native Affairs committee, Mr. Edwin Orlando Leake. In the end some 10,311 houses were built there by the municipality. In addition it built 4,045 temporary single-room shelters.
In about 1934 James Sofasonke Mpanza moved to 957 Pheele Street, Orlando, and lived there for the rest of his life. A year after his arrival in Orlando he formed his own political party, the Sofasonke Party. He also became very active in the affairs of the Advisory Board for Orlando. Towards the end of World War II there was an acute shortage of housing for Blacks in Johannesburg. By the end of 1943 the Sofasonke Party advised its members to put up their own squatters' shacks on municipal property. On Saturday 25 March 1944 the squat began. Hundreds of homeless people from Orlando and elsewhere joined Mpanza in marching to a vacant lot in Orlando West and starting a squatters camp. The City Council's resistance crumbled. After feverish consultations with the relevant government department, it was agreed that an emergency camp, which could house 991 families, be erected. It was to be called Central Western Jabavu. The next wave of land invasions took place in September 1946. Some 30,000 squatters congregated west of Orlando. Early the next year the City Council proclaimed a new emergency camp. It was called Moroka. 10,000 sites were made available immediately. Moroka became Johannesburg's worst slum area. Residents erected their shanties on plots measuring six metres by six metres. There were only communal bucket-system toilets and very few taps. The camps were meant to be used for a maximum of five years, but when they were eventually demolished in 1955, Moroka and Jabavu housed 89,000 people.
In 1941 the British Government built a military hospital next to the road between Johannesburg and Potchefstroom. The exact place was to be at the 8th milestone near the old Wayside Inn, owned by a Cornishman called John Albert Baragwanath. It was called The Imperial Military Hospital, Baragwanath. After the war the Transvaal Provincial Administration bought the hospital for £1 million. On 1 April 1948 the Black section of Johannesburg Hospital (known as Non-European Hospital or NEH) was transferred to Baragwanath Hospital. In 1997 the facility was renamed Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital after former General Secretary of the South African Communist Party, Chris Hani.
The National Party won the general election of 1948 and formed a new government. The party's policy was called apartheid, the Afrikaans word meaning separateness. They thought they could separate the various racial groups in South Africa. In those days the Johannesburg City Council did not support the National Party. The City Council and the central government competed to control the Black townships of Johannesburg.
Following the election of the new government, some 7,000 new houses were built in the first two or three years, but very little was done thereafter. In 1952 there was a breakthrough. Firstly the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research came up with a standard design for low-cost, four-roomed, forty-square-metre houses. In 1951 the Parliament passed the Building Workers Act, which permitted Blacks to be trained as artisans in the building trade. In 1952 it passed the Bantu Services levy Act, which imposed a levy on employers of African workers and the levy was used to finance basic services in Black townships. In 1954 the City Council built 5,100 houses in Jabavu and 1,450 in Mofolo.
The City Council's pride and joy was its economic scheme known as Dube Village. It was intended "primarily for the thoroughly urbanised and economically advanced Native". Stands, varying in size from fifty by hundred feet to forty by 70 feet, were made available on a thirty-year leasehold tenure. Tenants could erect their own dwellings in conformity with approved plans.
In June 1955, Kliptown was the home of an unprecedented Congress of the People, which adopted the Freedom Charter.
According to wiredspace, 44 the name Soweto was officially endorsed by the municipalities’ authorities only in 1963 after a special committee had considered various names. Apartheid governments’ intention was for Soweto to house the accommodate black people that were working for Johannesburg
“Incidentally, the name Soweto was officially endorsed by the municipal authorities only in 1963 after a special committee had sat for a long time, considering various names, including apartheid Townships and Verwoerdstad" (Gorodnov 1998:58). From the onset the Apartheid government purposed Soweto to house the bulk of the labour force which was needed by Johannesburg (1998:58). Africans used to live in areas surrounding the city, so the authorities felt it would be more expedient to concentrate black workers in one district that could be easily controlled (1998:58).
The new sub-economic townships took off in 1956, when Tladi, Zondi, Dhlamini, Chiawelo and Senoane were laid out providing 28,888 people with accommodation. Jabulani, Phiri and Naledi followed the next year. Sir Ernest Oppenheimer arranged a loan of £3 million from the mining industry, which allowed an additional 14,000 houses to be built. It was decided to divide Soweto into various language groups. Naledi, Mapetla, Tladi, Moletsane and Phiri were for Sotho- and Tswana-speaking people. Chiawelo for Tsonga and Venda. Dlamini Senaoane, Zola, Zondi, Jabulani, Emdeni and White City were for Zulus and Xhosas.
The central government was busy with its own agenda. The presence of Blacks with freehold title to land among Johannesburg's White suburbs irked them. In 1954 Parliament passed the Native Resettlement Act, which permitted the government to remove Blacks from suburbs like Sophiatown, Martindale, Newclare and Western Native Township. Between 1956 and 1960 they built 23,695 houses in Meadowlands and Diepkloof to accommodate the evicted persons. By 1960 the removals were more-or-less complete.
In 1959 the City Council launched a competition to find a collective name for all the townships south-west of the city's centre. It was only in 1963 that the City Council decided to adopt the name Soweto as the collective name.
In 1971 Parliament passed the Black Affairs Administration Act, No. 45 of 1971. In terms of this Act the central government appointed the West Rand Administration Board to take over the powers and obligations of the Johannesburg City Council in respect of Soweto. As chairman of the board it appointed Manie Mulder, a political appointment of a person who had no experience of the administration of native affairs.
Manie Mulder's most famous quote was given to the Rand Daily Mail in May 1976: "The broad masses of Soweto are perfectly content, perfectly happy. Black-White relationships at present are as healthy as can be. There is no danger whatever of a blow-up in Soweto."
Soweto came to the world's attention on 16 June 1976 with the Soweto uprising, when mass protests erupted over the government's policy to enforce education in Afrikaans rather than their native language. Police opened fire in Orlando West on 10,000 students marching from Naledi High School to Orlando Stadium. The rioting continued and 23 people died on the first day in Soweto, 21 of whom were black, including the minor Hector Pieterson, as well as two white people, including Dr Melville Edelstein, a lifelong humanitarian.
The impact of the Soweto protests reverberated through the country and across the world. In their aftermath, economic and cultural sanctions were introduced from abroad. Political activists left the country to train for guerrilla resistance. Soweto and other townships became the stage for violent state repression. Since 1991 this date and the schoolchildren have been commemorated by the International Day of the African Child.
In response, the apartheid state started providing electricity to more Soweto homes, yet phased out financial support for building additional housing.
Soweto became an independent municipality with elected black councilors in 1983, in line with the Black Local Authorities Act. Previously the townships were governed by the Johannesburg council, but from the 1970s the state took control.
Black African councilors were not provided by the apartheid state with the finances to address housing and infrastructural problems. Township residents opposed the black councilors as puppet collaborators who personally benefited financially from an oppressive regime. Resistance was spurred by the exclusion of blacks from the newly formed tricameral Parliament (which did include Whites, Asians and Coloreds). Municipal elections in black, coloured, and Indian areas were subsequently widely boycotted, returning extremely low voting figures for years. Popular resistance to state structures dates back to the Advisory Boards (1950) that co-opted black residents to advise whites who managed the townships.
In Soweto, popular resistance to apartheid emerged in various forms during the 1980s. Educational and economic boycotts were initiated, and student bodies were organized. Street committees were formed, and civic organizations were established as alternatives to state-imposed structures. One of the most well-known "civics" was Soweto's Committee of Ten, started in 1978 in the offices of "The Bantu World" newspaper. Such actions were strengthened by the call issued by African National Congress's 1985 Kabwe congress in Zambia to make South Africa ungovernable. As the state forbade public gatherings, church buildings like Regina Mundi were sometimes used for political gatherings.
In 1995, Soweto became part of the Southern Metropolitan Transitional Local Council, and in 2002 was incorporated into the City of Johannesburg. A series of bomb explosions rocked Soweto in October 2002. The explosions, believed to be the work of the Boeremag, a right-wing extremist group, damaged buildings and railway lines, and killed one person.
Soweto's population is predominantly black and the most common first language is Zulu.
Soweto landmarks include:
Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as subtropical highland (Cwb).
The suburb was not historically allowed to create employment centres within the area, so almost all of its residents are commuters to other parts of the city.
Metrorail operates commuter trains between Soweto and central Johannesburg. Soweto train stations are at Naledi, Merafe, Inhlazane, Ikwezi, Dube, Phefeni, Phomolong, Mzimhlophe, New Canada, Mlamlankunzi, Orlando, Nancefield, Kliptown, Tshiawelo and Midway.
The N1 Western Bypass skirts the eastern boundary of Soweto. There is efficient road access for many parts of the region along busy highways to the CBD and Roodepoort, but commuters are largely reliant on trains and taxis.
The N12 forms the southern border of Soweto.
A new section of the N17 road (South Africa) is under construction that will provide Soweto with a 4 lane highway link to Nasrec.
The M70, also known as the Soweto Highway, links Soweto with central Johannesburg via Nasrec and Booysens. This road is multi lane, has dedicated taxiways and passes next to Soccer City in Nasrec.
A major thoroughfare through Soweto is the Golden Highway. It provides access to both the N1 as well as the M1 highways.
Minibus taxis are a popular form of transport. In 2000 it was estimated that around 2000 minibus taxis operated from the Baragwanath taxi rank alone.
A Bus rapid transit system, "Rea Vaya", provides transport for around 16 000 commuters daily.
PUTCO has for many years provided bus commuter services to Soweto residents.
The area is mostly composed of old "matchbox" houses, or four-room houses built by the government, that were built to provide cheap accommodation for black workers during apartheid. However, there are a few smaller areas where prosperous Sowetans have built houses that are similar in stature to those in more affluent suburbs. Many people who still live in matchbox houses have improved and expanded their homes, and the City Council has enabled the planting of more trees and the improving of parks and green spaces in the area.
Hostels are another prominent physical feature of Soweto. Originally built to house male migrant workers, many have been improved as dwellings for couples and families.
In 1996, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality awarded tenders to Conrad Penny and his company Penny Brothers Brokers & Valuers (Pty) Ltd. for the valuation of the whole of Soweto (which at the time consisted of over 325 000 properties) for rating and taxing purpose. This was the single largest valuation ever undertaken in Africa.
Being part of the urban agglomerations of Gauteng, Soweto shares much of the same media as the rest of Gauteng province. There are however some media sources dedicated to Soweto itself:
Soweto is credited as one of the founding places for Kwaito and Kasi Rap, which is a style of hip hop specific to South Africa. This form of music, which combined many elements of house music, American hip-hop, and traditional African music, became a strong force amongst black South Africans.
Early Career
The experiences of other developing nations were examined at the Soweto entrepreneurship conference, which looked for ways to help turn the economic tide in townships.
SOWETO'S entrepreneurs gathered at the University of Johannesburg Soweto Campus on 13 and 14 April to engage with experts from all over the globe about how to enhance skills and value-add in township economies.
The restrictions on economic activities were lifted in 1977, spurring the growth of the taxi industry as an alternative to Soweto's inadequate bus and train transport systems.
In 1994 Sowetans earned on average almost six and a half times less than their counterparts in wealthier areas of Johannesburg (1994 estimates). Sowetans contribute less than 2% to Johannesburg's rates Some Sowetans remain impoverished, and others live in shanty towns with little or no services. About 85% of Kliptown comprises informal housing. The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee argues that Soweto's poor are unable to pay for electricity. The committee believes that the South African government's privatization drives will worsen the situation. Research showed that 62% of residents in Orlando East and Pimville were unemployed or pensioners.
There have been signs recently indicating economic improvement. The Johannesburg City Council began to provide more street lights and to pave roads. Private initiatives to tap Sowetans' combined spending power of R4.3 billion were also planned, including the construction of Protea Mall, Jabulani Mall, and the development of Maponya Mall, an upmarket hotel in Kliptown, and the Orlando Ekhaya entertainment center. Soweto has also become a Centre for nightlife and culture.
Well-known artists from Soweto, besides those mentioned above, include:
The Soweto Wine Festival was started in 2004. The three-night festival is hosted at the University of Johannesburg's Soweto Campus on Chris Hani Road in the first weekend of September. Organised by the Cape Wine Academy, the festival attracts over 6000 wine enthusiasts, over 100 of South Africa's finest wineries and well over 900 fine wines.
The Soweto Awards, which will become an annual event, honours those who have their roots in Soweto.
Former president Nelson Mandela received the Life Time Award from the first Soweto Awards in Johannesburg on 25 February 2001. The Legends Awards went to Gibson Kente, the "godfather" of township theatre, Felicia Mabuza-Suttle, a talk show host, Aggrey Klaaste, editor of the Sowetan newspaper and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, MP and African National Congress Women's League president.
By 2003 the Greater Soweto area consisted of 87 townships grouped together into Administrative Regions 6 and 10 of Johannesburg.
Estimates of how many residential areas make up Soweto itself vary widely. Some counts say that Soweto comprises 29 townships, whilst others find 34. The differences may be due to confusion arising from the merger of adjoining townships (such as Lenasia and Eldorado Park) with those of Soweto into Regions 6 and 10. The total number also depends on whether the various "extensions" and "zones" are counted separately, or as part of one main suburb. The 2003 Regional Spatial Development Framework arrived at 87 names by counting various extensions (e.g. Chiawelo's 5) and zones (e.g. Pimville's 7) separately. The City of Johannesburg's website groups the zones and extensions together to arrive at 32, but omits Noordgesig and Mmesi Park.
The list below provides the dates when some of Soweto's townships were established, along with the probable origins or meanings of their names, where available:
Other Soweto townships include Phomolong and Snake Park
Many parts of Soweto rank among the poorest in Johannesburg, although individual townships tend to have a mix of wealthier and poorer residents. In general, households in the outlying areas to the northwest and southeast have lower incomes, while those in southwestern areas tend to have higher incomes.
The economic development of Soweto was severely curtailed by the apartheid state, which provided very limited infrastructure and prevented residents from creating their own businesses. Roads remained unpaved, and many residents had to share one tap between four houses, for example. Soweto was meant to exist only as a dormitory town for black Africans who worked in white houses, factories, and industries. The 1957 Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act and its predecessors restricted residents between 1923 and 1976 to seven self-employment categories in Soweto itself. Sowetans could operate general shops, butcheries, eating houses, sell milk or vegetables, or hawk goods. The overall number of such enterprises at any time were strictly controlled. As a result, informal trading developed outside the legally-recognized activities.
By 1976 Soweto had only two cinemas and two hotels, and only 83% of houses had electricity. Up to 93% of residents had no running water. Using fire for cooking and heating resulted in respiratory problems that contributed to high infant mortality rates (54 per 1,000 compared to 18 for whites, 1976 figures.
The restrictions on economic activities were lifted in 1977, spurring the growth of the taxi industry as an alternative to Soweto's inadequate bus and train transport systems.
In 1994 Sowetans earned on average almost six and a half times less than their counterparts in wealthier areas of Johannesburg (1994 estimates). Sowetans contribute less than 2% to Johannesburg's rates. Some Sowetans remain impoverished, and others live in shanty towns with little or no services. About 85% of Kliptown comprises informal housing. The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee argues that Soweto's poor are unable to pay for electricity. The committee believes that the South African government's privatization drives will worsen the situation. Research showed that 62% of residents in Orlando East and Pimville were unemployed or pensioners.
There have been signs recently indicating economic improvement. The Johannesburg City Council began to provide more street lights and to pave roads. Private initiatives to tap Sowetans' combined spending power of R4.3 billion were also planned, including the construction of Protea Mall, Jabulani Mall, the development of Maponya Mall, an upmarket hotel in Kliptown, and the Orlando Ekhaya entertainment centre. Soweto has also become a centre for nightlife and culture.
The 1976 uprising is depicted in the film "A Dry White Season" (1989), starring Donald Sutherland, Marlon Brando, and Susan Sarandon, who portray white South Africans pursuing justice for the deaths of black Soweto residents which followed the demonstrations.
The American film "Stander" (2003) portrays the story of Andre Stander, a rogue police captain who sympathised with the state of apartheid and its corruption by becoming a bank thief. The Soweto uprising riots provided Stander's breaking point in the film.
Sara Blecher and Rimi Raphoto's popular documentary, "Surfing Soweto" (2006), addresses the phenomenon of young kids "surfing" on the roofs of Soweto trains and the social problem this represents.
The film "District 9" (2009) was shot in Tshiawelo, Soweto. The plot involves a species of aliens who arrive on Earth in a starving and helpless condition, seeking aid. The originally benign attempts to aid them turn increasingly oppressive due to the overwhelming numbers of aliens and the cost of maintaining them, and to increasing xenophobia on the part of humans who treat the intelligent and sophisticated aliens like animals while taking advantage of them for personal and corporate gain. The aliens are housed in shacks in a slum-like concentration camp called "District 9", which is in fact modern-day Soweto; an attempt to relocate the aliens to another camp leads to violence and a wholesale slaughter by South African mercenary security forces (a reference to historical events in "District Six", Cape Town, a mostly Coloured neighborhood subjected to forced segregation during the apartheid years). The parallels to apartheid South Africa are obvious but not explicitly remarked on in the film.
Films that include Soweto scenes:
The marches by students in Soweto are briefly mentioned in Linzi Glass' novel, "Ruby Red", which was nominated for the Carnegie Medal in 2008.
Soweto is also mentioned in Sheila Gordon's novel, "Waiting for the Rain".
The main protagonist from the Jonas Jonasson Novel "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden", Nombeko Mayeki was born in 1961 in Soweto.
In his first Anthology of Poems titled "In Quiet Realm" South African Soweto Born poet Lawrence Mduduzi Ndlovu dedicated a poem called "Soweto My Everything" to honour the place of his birth.
Clarence Carter has a song called "The Girl From Soweto" or "Where did the girl go, from Soweto".
Soweto is mentioned in the song "Burden of Shame" by the British band UB40, on their album "Signing off" (1980).
Singer–songwriter Joe Strummer, formerly of The Clash, referenced Soweto in his solo album "Streetcore" (song: "Arms Aloft"), as well as in The Clash's track, "Where You Gonna Go (Soweto)", found on the album "London Calling" (Legacy Edition).
The UK music duo Mattafix have a song called "Memories Of Soweto" on their album "Rhythm & Hymns" (2007).
Soweto is mentioned in the anti-apartheid song "Gimme Hope Jo'anna" by Eddy Grant. The line, "While every mother in a black Soweto fears the killing of another son", refers to police brutality during apartheid.
Miriam Makeba has the song: "Soweto Blues".
Dr. Alban's song "Free Up Soweto" was included in the album "Look Who's Talking" (1994).
The Mexican group Tijuana No! recorded the song "Soweto" for their first album "No", in reference to the city and the movements.
"Soweto" is the name of a song by the rap group Hieroglyphics.
The American band Vampire Weekend refers to its own musical style, a blend of indie rock and pop with African influences, as "Upper West Side Soweto", based on the same description of Paul Simon's album "Graceland."
"Soweto" is the title of the opening track of the album "Joined at the Hip", by Bob James and Kirk Whalum.
Brazilian singer-songwriter Djavan, in his 1987 album "Não É Azul, mas É Mar", recorded a song called "Soweto". Also this song inspired the naming of Brazilian pagode group "Soweto".
Native Sowetans
Soweto is the birthplace of:
Other residents | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28573 |
Sampo
In Finnish mythology, the Sampo or Sammas was a magical artifact of indeterminate type constructed by Ilmarinen that brought riches and good fortune to its holder (akin to the Cornucopia of Greek mythology). When the Sampo was stolen, it is said that Ilmarinen's homeland fell upon hard times and he sent an expedition to retrieve it, but in the ensuing battle it was smashed and lost at sea.
The Sampo is a pivotal element of the plot of the Finnish epic poem "Kalevala", compiled in 1835 (and expanded in 1849) by Elias Lönnrot based on earlier Finnish oral tradition.
In the expanded second version of the poem, the Sampo is forged by Ilmarinen, a legendary smith, as a task set by the Mistress of Pohjola in return for her daughter's hand.
Ilmarinen works for several days at a mighty forge until finally the Sampo is created:
Later, Louhi the sorceress steals the Sampo, provoking Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen to enter her stronghold in secret and retrieve it. Louhi, in reply, pursues them and combats Väinämöinen. In the struggle, Louhi is vanquished but the Sampo is destroyed.
The Sampo has been interpreted in many ways: a world pillar or world tree, a compass or astrolabe, a chest containing a treasure, a Byzantine coin die, a decorated Vendel period shield, a Christian relic, etc. In the "Kalevala", compiler Lönnrot interpreted it to be a quern or mill of some sort that made flour, salt, and gold out of thin air. The world pillar hypothesis was originally developed by historian of religions Uno Harva and the linguist Eemil Nestor Setälä in the early 20th century.
According to the archaeologist Elena Kuz'mina the Sampo mill myth originates from the Indo-European "skambhá" (support, pillar, column), and was borrowed into Finno-Ugric. In the "Atharvaveda" the 'skambhá' is a creature that supports the universe, analogous to the World Tree - the Sampo has been claimed to be the Finnish equivalent of the world tree.
The World Mill is a hypothesized mytheme shared by the mythologies of certain Indo-European-speaking peoples, involving the analogy of the cosmos or the firmament (Finnish: "Taivaankansi") and a rotating millstone.
In the Aarne–Thompson classification systems of Folk-Tales, tale type 565 refers to a magic mill that continuously produces food or salt. Examples include "Why the Sea is Salt" (Norway, based on the poem "Grottasöngr"), "Sweet porridge" (Germanic), and "The Water Mother" (Chinese). Such devices have been included into modern tales such as "Strega Nona" (1975, children's book). Variants on the theme with a cautionary tale and pupil-master relationship include "The Master and his Pupil" (English), and Goethe's 1797 poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice".
The Cornucopia of Greek mythology also produces endless goods, and some versions of the Grail myth emphasize how the Grail creates food and goods.
Japanese folktale "Shiofuki usu" speaks of a grindstone that could be used to create anything. Like Sampo, it too was lost to the sea, endlessly grinding salt.
The Mahabharatha speaks about the Akshaya Patra, a vessel or bowl capable of creating food. It stopped providing at the end of the day when the lady of the house had her last meal. Similarly in Irish myth the Cauldron of the Dagda ("coire ansic" or "un-dry cauldron") was a magical vessel that satisfied any number of people. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28575 |
Sysop
A sysop (; an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community. The phrase may also be used to refer to administrators of other Internet-based network services.
Co-sysops are users who may be granted certain admin privileges on a BBS. Generally, they help validate users and monitor discussion forums. Some co-sysops serve as file clerks, reviewing, describing, and publishing newly uploaded files into appropriate download directories.
Historically, the term "system operator" applied to operators of any computer system, especially a mainframe computer. In general, a sysop is a person who oversees the operation of a server, typically in a large computer system. Usage of the term became popular in the late 1980s and 1990s, originally in reference to BBS operators. A person with equivalent functions on a network host or server is typically called a "sysadmin", short for system administrator.
Because such duties were often shared with that of the sysadmin prior to the advent of the World Wide Web, the term "sysop" is often used more generally to refer to an administrator or moderator, such as a forum administrator. Hence, the term "sysadmin" is technically used to distinguish the professional position of a network operator. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28576 |
Skuld (Oh My Goddess!)
Skuld was one of a series of characters created by Kōsuke Fujishima, and is depicted as the younger sister of Belldandy, one of the two main protagonists of the series. Along with the characters of Belldandy, Urd and Keiichi Morisato, she is regarded as one of the four major characters in "Oh My Goddess!". Skuld's first appearance in the manga was in chapter 32, "The Third Goddess", but she has also been depicted in a novel ("Ah! My Goddess: First End"), three anime series—"Oh My Goddess!" (OVA), "Ah! My Goddess" and "The Adventures of Mini-Goddess"—and in "".
As with her fictional sisters, Belldandy and Urd, Skuld has her origins in Norse mythology. Skuld is one of the three Norns and represents the future (while Belldandy represents the present and Urd the past), and this role continues into the series, although the three "Oh My Goddess! " characters otherwise bear no resemblance to their Norse namesakes. Her affinity is with water, and her magic usually involves manipulating water. Unlike the problems with transliteration that were encountered with Belldandy (resulting in Verdandi becoming "Belldandy" in the manga), "Skuld" presented no difficulties for translators.
Skuld is the younger sister of Belldandy (who she refers to as Onee-sama, "lit." "Big sis" in the English anime) and is the third Goddess to appear to Keiichi Morisato. Skuld has a Goddess second class, type one, limited license, a category similar to her eldest sister Urd. Her true age is unknown, but her appearance (and actions) is that of a girl in her early teens.
Skuld is one of Yggdrasil's system debuggers. She compensates for her lack of magic power with her innate talent for invention which is known throughout Heaven (though it is revealed much later that this is also a type of magical ability). Skuld recharges her energy by consuming ice cream and travels via warm or hot water. (She can't swim.) She bears the emblem of the future.
Skuld is an engineering genius, capable of building just about anything out of the most mundane parts under most limited resources. Sample gadgets have included: explosives, a neutrino detector, glasses that allow user to see invisible "computer bugs," and even a device for removing a miniature black hole from Keiichi's body. Banpei-kun RX and the converted mannequin Sigel are "living" proof of her talent. She can compute equations and redesign even the most complex engineering blueprints in no time. All too frequently, though, she forgets to include "instructions" with her devices, which can create havoc if someone unsuspecting of their true power (such as Keiichi) interferes with them. Other times, she will concentrate too much on one aspect of a device (usually power) and forgets to compensate by boosting other aspects of the same device, making many of her inventions rather unstable. Though many of her contraptions tend to blow up, or self-destruct, she dislikes machines that have meaningless functions. In her battle with demonic puppet master, Mokkurkalfi she states that she dislikes machines whose prime directive is meaningless combat, and that a true mechanic must value the sanctity of his or her mecha's life.
In the manga, she has been gradually developing the ability to do magic. For a long time one of her only magic skills was the ability to imprint words (usually insults) on the surface of her targets, a power she often used when expressing frustration with Urd and Keiichi. Upon meeting a young boy named Sentaro, who taught her how to ride a bike, Skuld became determined to never quit and began to practice with her powers more, learning how to levitate small objects. When Sentaro was in danger, Skuld created a huge wave which saved him, although Urd, who was nearby, stated that it would have caused a huge flood if she hadn't been there to help contain it. Skuld's spells sometimes get out of control (which usually results in large waves of water), which Urd constantly teases her for. However, Urd states that losing control of a low level spell is proof of the depths of her true power.
Skuld's latent power is addressed once more in Chapter 256 of the manga in a one on one mecha battle with the demon Mokkurkalfi. Belldandy explains that Skuld uses a type of magic called Direct Manipulation, and has been able to unconsciously access this ability since the very beginning. This magic presents itself through Skuld's hands, and it is because of this magic that Skuld is always able to build machines even out of mundane objects. It is explained that Skuld's magical field is always active because of this, even if she's unconsciously aware of this fact. However, because Skuld has a low capacity her powers are restricted to building machines. Belldandy states that if Skuld were to hone this power, she could potentially be the strongest of the three sisters in the future. Urd on the other hand pleas to Keiichi to keep this a secret because she does not want her sister to get a big ego.
She travels to Earth after Belldandy's proximity to Keiichi started creating an increasing number of bugs in Heaven's supercomputer Yggdrasil. At least that was her official excuse, as she believed Belldandy was living with Keiichi against her will. She tried to convince Belldandy to return to Heaven to resolve the bug problem and at the same time with the ulterior motive of alleviating her loneliness. After realizing that Belldandy's relationship with Keiichi was not going to end any time soon, Skuld decides to stay on Earth and act as Belldandy's unofficial chaperone.
Skuld regularly clashes with her sister Urd, particularly when it comes to Belldandy's relationship with Keiichi. However, the two sisters do love each other and will work together to solve a problem or stave off a mutual threat.
In the manga, Skuld's engineering skills made her a minor celebrity around the Nekomi Tech campus, especially when she engaged in a "Robot Wars" competition with Keiichi's sister Megumi Morisato. Keiichi's friends are aware of Skuld's existence and of her living with Keiichi and Belldandy; however, they do not know of her "goddess" status.
Unlike Belldandy and Urd, Skuld did not possess an angel when she was first introduced. Later on in the manga she found an angel egg in Urd's room and accidentally swallowed it (whilst in the process of performing the classic little kid rebellion of touching something that was specifically marked as "hands off!", namely the egg.), leading to the birth of Noble Scarlet. Because of Skuld's lack of magic power, Noble Scarlet lacked the full unequivocal obedience an angel must have for her goddess. After interfering with Skuld's budding relationship with Sentaro, Noble Scarlet returned to her egg form as per Skuld's instruction ("If you do that again, you'll have to go back to your egg."). Urd promised that they'd meet again when Skuld gained enough power. In the meanwhile, Skuld wore the angel egg mounted on a necklace. Some time later, Skuld threw together a device with the intent of boosting her powers to the point that she could control and regain Noble Scarlet. When said gadget went out of control, Urd used her angel to save Skuld, thus unlocking World Of Elegance, and also revealing the back story as to why Urd couldn't initially call her and why she had Scarlet's egg in the first place - Urd wanted to "try again" since she had believed that she had sealed her angel away forever at its own birth. Later on the promise is fulfilled when Skuld calls forth Noble Scarlet in the fight against the Angel Eater. At this time, Skuld had gained the necessary power to control the angel and the only thing lacking was the desire to truly be with her.
Skuld generally carries her debugging mallet, used against Yggdrasil bugs (eight-legged rabbit-looking entities), as a precaution wherever she goes. Yggdrasil bugs can cause adverse effects to the surrounding area such as making it snow on a single house and causing the holy steed Sleipnir to temporarily show up in the temple, and the only way to counter such effects is by debugging. One way to debug is through squishing the bugs with a mallet. Other ways include various gadgets Skuld has built, such as the Mr. Bug Zapper.
Perper and Cornog described Skuld as being ""somewhat bratty" - a view that is in keeping with her behavior throughout the series. Skuld started as very defensive of Belldandy and interpreted anyone having any kind of intimate relationship with her as an attempt to steal Belldandy from her. She and Banpei repeatedly placed restrictions to limit Belldandy's and Keiichi's relationship. For a brief while it was also implied that Skuld had a crush on Keiichi; the second special episode of the first TV series (where she's grown up for a day) explored this angle by placing Skuld and Keiichi in situations where they appear as a couple. Over time ground rules have been worked out and there haven't been any recent episodes of relationship restriction enforcement.
Skuld also doesn't appear to get along with her oldest sister, Urd perhaps because Urd is somewhat the opposite of Belldandy. However, it is slowly revealed that Skuld and Urd share a complex love-hate relationship, and so even when they are gambling violently over rights to the television, it is obvious that they are "the very best of friends."
Being the inventor that she is, Skuld loves anything technical, but hates inefficiencies, flawed creations, and useless mechanics. This is Urd's favorite way of punishing Skuld whenever she touches or breaks any of Urd's potions and such, by making her create gadgets that do absolutely nothing useful. She has a tendency to get carried away fixing or improving anything she sees inefficient. Even when her original intention is to destroy it, she always ends up with something much better (usually more destructive). Most of her inventions, more often than not, have extra functions that make situations more complicated, including a self-destruct device in almost everything (including her Robot Wars robot...).
Like Chihiro Fujimi, Skuld has a weakness for cute things, albeit a different kind of cute. She squeals at things like plushies, cute animals and cute stuff, but also mechanical equipment and tools. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28577 |
Psychosis
Psychosis is an abnormal condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not. Symptoms may include false beliefs (delusions) and seeing or hearing things that others do not see or hear (hallucinations). Other symptoms may include incoherent speech and behavior that is inappropriate for the situation. There may also be sleep problems, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, and difficulties carrying out daily activities.
Psychosis has many different causes. These include mental illness, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, sleep deprivation, some medical conditions, certain medications, and drugs such as alcohol or cannabis. One type, known as postpartum psychosis, can occur after giving birth. The neurotransmitter dopamine is believed to play a role. Acute psychosis is considered primary if it results from a psychiatric condition and secondary if it is caused by a medical condition. The diagnosis of a mental illness requires excluding other potential causes. Testing may be done to check for central nervous system diseases, toxins, or other health problems as a cause.
Treatment may include antipsychotic medication, counselling, and social support. Early treatment appears to improve outcomes. Medications appear to have a moderate effect. Outcomes depend on the underlying cause. In the United States about 3% of people develop psychosis at some point in their lives. The condition has been described since at least the 4th century BC by Hippocrates and possibly as early as 1500 BC in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus.
A hallucination is defined as sensory perception in the absence of external stimuli. Hallucinations are different from illusions and perceptual distortions, which are the misperception of external stimuli. Hallucinations may occur in any of the senses and take on almost any form. They may consist of simple sensations (such as lights, colors, sounds, tastes, or smells) or more detailed experiences (such as seeing and interacting with animals and people, hearing voices, and having complex tactile sensations). Hallucinations are generally characterized as being vivid and uncontrollable. Auditory hallucinations, particularly experiences of hearing voices, are the most common and often prominent feature of psychosis.
Up to 15% of the general population may experience auditory hallucinations (though not all are due to psychosis). The prevalence in schizophrenia is generally put around 70%, but may go as high as 98%. Reported prevalence in bipolar disorder ranges between 11% and 68%. During the early 20th century, auditory hallucinations were second to visual hallucinations in frequency, but they are now the most common manifestation of schizophrenia, although rates vary between cultures and regions. Auditory hallucinations are most commonly intelligible voices. When voices are present, the average number has been estimated at three. Content, like frequency, differs significantly, especially across cultures and demographics. People who experience auditory hallucinations can frequently identify the loudness, location of origin, and may settle on identities for voices. Western cultures are associated with auditory experiences concerning religious content, frequently related to sin. Hallucinations may command a person to do something potentially dangerous when combined with delusions.
Extracampine hallucinations are perceptions outside the sensory apparatus for example a sound is perceived through the knee, or a visual extracampine hallucination is seeing by sensing that somebody is near to you, that is not there.
Visual hallucinations occur in roughly a third of people with schizophrenia, although rates as high as 55% are reported. The prevalence in bipolar disorder is around 15%. Content frequently involves animate objects, although perceptual abnormalities such as changes in lighting, shading, streaks, or lines may be seen. Visual abnormalities may conflict with proprioceptive information, and visions may include experiences such as the ground tilting. Lilliputian hallucinations are less common in schizophrenia, and occur more frequently in various types of encephalopathy such as peduncular hallucinosis.
A visceral hallucination, also called a cenesthetic hallucination, is characterized by visceral sensations in the absence of stimuli. Cenesthetic hallucinations may include sensations of burning, or re-arrangement of internal organs.
Psychosis may involve delusional beliefs. A delusion is commonly defined as an unrelenting sense of certainty maintained despite strong contradictory evidence. Delusions are context- and culture-dependent: a belief which inhibits critical functioning and is widely considered delusional in one population may be common (and even adaptive) in another, or in the same population at a later time. Since normative views may themselves contradict available evidence, a belief need not contravene cultural standards in order to be considered delusional.
Prevalence in schizophrenia is generally considered at least 90%, and around 50% in bipolar disorder.
The DSM-5 characterizes certain delusions as "bizarre" if they are clearly implausible, or are incompatible with the surrounding cultural context. The concept of bizarre delusions has many criticisms, the most prominent being judging its presence is not highly reliable even among trained individuals.
A delusion may involve diverse thematic content. The most common type is a persecutory delusion, in which a person believes that some entity is attempting to harm them. Others include delusions of reference (the belief that some element of one's experience represents a deliberate and specific act by or message from some other entity), delusions of grandeur (the belief that one possesses special power or influence beyond one's actual limits), thought broadcasting (the belief that one's thoughts are audible) and thought insertion (the belief that one's thoughts are not one's own).
The subject matter of delusions seems to reflect the current culture in a particular time and location. For example in the US, during the early 1900s syphilis was a common topic, during the second world war Germany, during the cold war communists, and in recent years technology has been a focus. . Some psychologists, such as those who practice the Open Dialogue method believe that the content of psychosis represent an underlying thought process that may, in part, be responsible for psychosis, though the accepted medical condition is that psychosis is due to a brain disorder.
Historically, Karl Jaspers classified psychotic delusions into "primary" and "secondary" types. Primary delusions are defined as arising suddenly and not being comprehensible in terms of normal mental processes, whereas secondary delusions are typically understood as being influenced by the person's background or current situation (e.g., ethnicity; also religious, superstitious, or political beliefs).
Disorganization is split into disorganized speech or thinking, and grossly disorganized motor behavior. Disorganized speech or thinking, also called formal thought disorder, is disorganization of thinking that is inferred from speech. Characteristics of disorganized speech include rapidly switching topics, called derailment or loose association; switching to topics that are unrelated, called tangential thinking; incomprehensible speech, called word salad or incoherence. Disorganized motor behavior includes repetitive, odd, or sometimes purposeless movement. Disorganized motor behavior rarely includes catatonia, and although it was a historically prominent symptom, it is rarely seen today. Whether this is due to historically used treatments or the lack thereof is unknown.
Catatonia describes a profoundly agitated state in which the experience of reality is generally considered impaired. There are two primary manifestations of catatonic behavior. The classic presentation is a person who does not move or interact with the world in any way while awake. This type of catatonia presents with waxy flexibility. Waxy flexibility is when someone physically moves part of a catatonic person's body and the person stays in the position even if it is bizarre and otherwise nonfunctional (such as moving a person's arm straight up in the air and the arm staying there).
The other type of catatonia is more of an outward presentation of the profoundly agitated state described above. It involves excessive and purposeless motor behaviour, as well as extreme mental preoccupation that prevents an intact experience of reality. An example is someone walking very fast in circles to the exclusion of anything else with a level of mental preoccupation (meaning not focused on anything relevant to the situation) that was not typical of the person prior to the symptom onset. In both types of catatonia there is generally no reaction to anything that happens outside of them. It is important to distinguish catatonic agitation from severe bipolar mania, although someone could have both.
Negative symptoms include reduced emotional expression, decreased motivation, and reduced spontaneous speech. Afflicted individuals lack interest and spontaneity, and have the inability to feel pleasure.
Brief hallucinations are not uncommon in those without any psychiatric disease. Causes or triggers include:
Traumatic life events have been linked with an elevated risk in developing psychotic symptoms. Childhood trauma has specifically been shown to be a predictor of adolescent and adult psychosis. Approximately 65% of individuals with psychotic symptoms have experienced childhood trauma (e.g., physical or sexual abuse, physical or emotional neglect). Increased individual vulnerability toward psychosis may interact with traumatic experiences promoting an onset of future psychotic symptoms, particularly during sensitive developmental periods. Importantly, the relationship between traumatic life events and psychotic symptoms appears to be dose-dependent in which multiple traumatic life events accumulate, compounding symptom expression and severity. This suggests trauma prevention and early intervention may be an important target for decreasing the incidence of psychotic disorders and ameliorating its effects.
From a diagnostic standpoint, organic disorders were believed to be caused by physical illness affecting the brain (that is, psychiatric disorders secondary to other conditions) while functional disorders were considered disorders of the functioning of the mind in the absence of physical disorders (that is, primary psychological or psychiatric disorders). Subtle physical abnormalities have been found in illnesses traditionally considered functional, such as schizophrenia. The DSM-IV-TR avoids the functional/organic distinction, and instead lists traditional psychotic illnesses, psychosis due to general medical conditions, and substance-induced psychosis.
Primary psychiatric causes of psychosis include the following:
Psychotic symptoms may also be seen in:
Stress is known to contribute to and trigger psychotic states. A history of psychologically traumatic events, and the recent experience of a stressful event, can both contribute to the development of psychosis. Short-lived psychosis triggered by stress is known as brief reactive psychosis, and patients may spontaneously recover normal functioning within two weeks. In some rare cases, individuals may remain in a state of full-blown psychosis for many years, or perhaps have attenuated psychotic symptoms (such as low intensity hallucinations) present at most times.
Neuroticism is an independent predictor of the development of psychosis.
Subtypes of psychosis include:
Cycloid psychosis is a psychosis that progresses from normal to full-blown, usually between a few hours to days, not related to drug intake or brain injury. The cycloid psychosis has a long history in European psychiatry diagnosis. The term "cycloid psychosis" was first used by Karl Kleist in 1926. Despite the significant clinical relevance, this diagnosis is neglected both in literature and in nosology. The cycloid psychosis has attracted much interest in the international literature of the past 50 years, but the number of scientific studies have greatly decreased over the past 15 years, possibly partly explained by the misconception that the diagnosis has been incorporated in current diagnostic classification systems. The cycloid psychosis is therefore only partially described in the diagnostic classification systems used. Cycloid psychosis is nevertheless its own specific disease that is distinct from both the manic-depressive disorder, and from schizophrenia, and this despite the fact that the cycloid psychosis can include both bipolar (basic mood shifts) as well as schizophrenic symptoms. The disease is an acute, usually self-limiting, functionally psychotic state, with a very diverse clinical picture that almost consistently is characterized by the existence of some degree of confusion or distressing perplexity, but above all, of the multifaceted and diverse expressions the disease takes. The main features of the disease is thus that the onset is acute, contains the multifaceted picture of symptoms and typically reverses to a normal state and that the long-term prognosis is good. In addition, diagnostic criteria include at least four of the following symptoms:
Cycloid psychosis occurs in people of generally 15–50 years of age.
A very large number of medical conditions can cause psychosis, sometimes called "secondary psychosis". Examples include:
Various psychoactive substances (both legal and illegal) have been implicated in causing, exacerbating, or precipitating psychotic states or disorders in users, with varying levels of evidence. This may be upon intoxication for a more prolonged period after use, or upon withdrawal. Individuals who have a substance induced psychosis tend to have a greater awareness of their psychosis and tend to have higher levels of suicidal thinking compared to individuals who have a primary psychotic illness. Drugs commonly alleged to induce psychotic symptoms include alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, cathinones, psychedelic drugs (such as LSD and psilocybin), κ-opioid receptor agonists (such as enadoline and salvinorin A) and NMDA receptor antagonists (such as phencyclidine and ketamine). Caffeine may worsen symptoms in those with schizophrenia and cause psychosis at very high doses in people without the condition.
Approximately three percent of people who are suffering from alcoholism experience psychosis during acute intoxication or withdrawal. Alcohol related psychosis may manifest itself through a kindling mechanism. The mechanism of alcohol-related psychosis is due to the long-term effects of alcohol consumption resulting in distortions to neuronal membranes, gene expression, as well as thiamin deficiency. It is possible in some cases that alcohol abuse via a kindling mechanism can cause the development of a chronic substance induced psychotic disorder, i.e. schizophrenia. The effects of an alcohol-related psychosis include an increased risk of depression and suicide as well as causing psychosocial impairments.
According to some studies, the more often cannabis is used the more likely a person is to develop a psychotic illness, with frequent use being correlated with twice the risk of psychosis and schizophrenia. While cannabis use is accepted as a contributory cause of schizophrenia by some, it remains controversial, with pre-existing vulnerability to psychosis emerging as the key factor that influences the link between cannabis use and psychosis. Some studies indicate that the effects of two active compounds in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), have opposite effects with respect to psychosis. While THC can induce psychotic symptoms in healthy individuals, CBD may reduce the symptoms caused by cannabis.
Cannabis use has increased dramatically over the past few decades whereas the rate of psychosis has not increased. Together, these findings suggest that cannabis use may hasten the onset of psychosis in those who may already be predisposed to psychosis. High-potency cannabis use indeed seems to accelerate the onset of psychosis in predisposed patients. A 2012 study concluded that cannabis plays an important role in the development of psychosis in vulnerable individuals, and that cannabis use in early adolescence should be discouraged.
Methamphetamine induces a psychosis in 26–46 percent of heavy users. Some of these people develop a long-lasting psychosis that can persist for longer than six months. Those who have had a short-lived psychosis from methamphetamine can have a relapse of the methamphetamine psychosis years later after a stressful event such as severe insomnia or a period of heavy alcohol abuse despite not relapsing back to methamphetamine. Individuals who have a long history of methamphetamine abuse and who have experienced psychosis in the past from methamphetamine abuse are highly likely to re-experience methamphetamine psychosis if drug use is recommenced. Methamphetamine-induced psychosis is likely gated by genetic vulnerability, which can produce long-term changes in brain neurochemistry following repetitive use.
Administration, or sometimes withdrawal, of a large number of medications may provoke psychotic symptoms. Drugs that can induce psychosis experimentally or in a significant proportion of people include amphetamine and other sympathomimetics, dopamine agonists, ketamine, corticosteroids (often with mood changes in addition), and some anticonvulsants such as vigabatrin. Stimulants that may cause this include lisdexamfetamine.
Meditation may induce psychological side effects, including depersonalization, derealization and psychotic symptoms like hallucinations as well as mood disturbances.
The first brain image of an individual with psychosis was completed as far back as 1935 using a technique called pneumoencephalography (a painful and now obsolete procedure where cerebrospinal fluid is drained from around the brain and replaced with air to allow the structure of the brain to show up more clearly on an X-ray picture).
Both first episode psychosis, and high risk status is associated with reductions in grey matter volume (GMV). First episode psychotic and high risk populations are associated with similar but distinct abnormalities in GMV. Reductions in the right middle temporal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus (STG), right parahippocampus, right hippocampus, right middle frontal gyrus, and left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are observed in high risk populations. Reductions in first episode psychosis span a region from the right STG to the right insula, left insula, and cerebellum, and are more severe in the right ACC, right STG, insula and cerebellum.
Another meta analysis reported bilateral reductions in insula, operculum, STG, medial frontal cortex, and ACC, but also reported increased GMV in the right lingual gyrus and left precentral gyrus. The Kraepelinian dichotomy is made questionable by grey matter abnormalities in bipolar and schizophrenia; schizophrenia is distinguishable from bipolar in that regions of grey matter reduction are generally larger in magnitude, although adjusting for gender differences reduces the difference to the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
During attentional tasks, first episode psychosis is associated with hypoactivation in the right middle frontal gyrus, a region generally described as encompassing the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). In congruence with studies on grey matter volume, hypoactivity in the right insula, and right inferior parietal lobe is also reported. During cognitive tasks, hypoactivities in the right insula, dACC, and the left precuneus, as well as reduced deactivations in the right basal ganglia, right thalamus, right inferior frontal and left precentral gyri are observed. These results are highly consistent and replicable possibly except the abnormalities of the right inferior frontal gyrus. Decreased grey matter volume in conjunction with bilateral hypoactivity is observed in anterior insula, dorsal medial frontal cortex, and dorsal ACC. Decreased grey matter volume and bilateral hyperactivity is reported in posterior insula, ventral medial frontal cortex, and ventral ACC.
Studies during acute experiences of hallucinations demonstrate increased activity in primary or secondary sensory cortices. As auditory hallucinations are most common in psychosis, most robust evidence exists for increased activity in the left middle temporal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus (i.e. Broca's area). Activity in the ventral striatum, hippocampus, and ACC are related to the lucidity of hallucinations, and indicate that activation or involvement of emotional circuitry are key to the impact of abnormal activity in sensory cortices. Together, these findings indicate abnormal processing of internally generated sensory experiences, coupled with abnormal emotional processing, results in hallucinations. One proposed model involves a failure of feedforward networks from sensory cortices to the inferior frontal cortex, which normally cancel out sensory cortex activity during internally generated speech. The resulting disruption in expected and perceived speech is thought to produce lucid hallucinatory experiences.
The two-factor model of delusions posits that dysfunction in both belief formation systems and belief evaluation systems are necessary for delusions. Dysfunction in evaluations systems localized to the right lateral prefrontal cortex, regardless of delusion content, is supported by neuroimaging studies and is congruent with its role in conflict monitoring in healthy persons. Abnormal activation and reduced volume is seen in people with delusions, as well as in disorders associated with delusions such as frontotemporal dementia, psychosis and Lewy body dementia. Furthermore, lesions to this region are associated with "jumping to conclusions", damage to this region is associated with post-stroke delusions, and hypometabolism this region associated with caudate strokes presenting with delusions.
The aberrant salience model suggests that delusions are a result of people assigning excessive importance to irrelevant stimuli. In support of this hypothesis, regions normally associated with the salience network demonstrate reduced grey matter in people with delusions, and the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is widely implicated in salience processing, is also widely implicated in psychotic disorders.
Specific regions have been associated with specific types of delusions. The volume of the hippocampus and parahippocampus is related to paranoid delusions in Alzheimer's disease, and has been reported to be abnormal post mortem in one person with delusions. Capgras delusions have been associated with occipito-temporal damage, and may be related to failure to elicit normal emotions or memories in response to faces.
Psychosis is associated with ventral striatal hypoactivity during reward anticipation and feedback. Hypoactivity in the left ventral striatum is correlated with the severity of negative symptoms. While anhedonia is a commonly reported symptom in psychosis, hedonic experiences are actually intact in most people with schizophrenia. The impairment that may present itself as anhedonia probably actually lies in the inability to identify goals, and to identify and engage in the behaviors necessary to achieve goals. Studies support a deficiency in the neural representation of goals and goal directed behavior by demonstrating that receipt (not anticipation) of reward is associated with a robust response in the ventral striatum; reinforcement learning is intact when contingencies about stimulus-reward are implicit, but not when they require explicit neural processing; reward prediction errors (during functional neuroimaging studies), particularly positive PEs are abnormal. A positive prediction error response occurs when there is an increased activation in a brain region, typically the striatum, in response to unexpected rewards. A negative prediction error response occurs when there is a decreased activation in a region when predicted rewards do not occur. ACC response, taken as an indicator of effort allocation, does not increase with reward or reward probability increase, and is associated with negative symptoms; deficits in dlPFC activity and failure to improve performance on cognitive tasks when offered monetary incentives are present; and dopamine mediated functions are abnormal.
Psychosis has been traditionally linked to the overactivity of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In particular to its effect in the mesolimbic pathway. The two major sources of evidence given to support this theory are that dopamine receptor D2 blocking drugs (i.e., antipsychotics) tend to reduce the intensity of psychotic symptoms, and that drugs that accentuate dopamine release, or inhibit its reuptake (such as amphetamines and cocaine) can trigger psychosis in some people (see stimulant psychosis).
NMDA receptor dysfunction has been proposed as a mechanism in psychosis. This theory is reinforced by the fact that dissociative NMDA receptor antagonists such as ketamine, PCP and dextromethorphan (at large overdoses) induce a psychotic state. The symptoms of dissociative intoxication are also considered to mirror the symptoms of schizophrenia, including negative symptoms. NMDA receptor antagonism, in addition to producing symptoms reminiscent of psychosis, mimics the neurophysiological aspects, such as reduction in the amplitude of P50, P300, and MMN evoked potentials. Hierarchical Bayesian neurocomputational models of sensory feedback, in agreement with neuroimaging literature, link NMDA receptor hypofunction to delusional or hallucinatory symptoms via proposing a failure of NMDA mediated top down predictions to adequately cancel out enhanced bottom up AMPA mediated predictions errors. Excessive prediction errors in response to stimuli that would normally not produce such a response is thought to root from conferring excessive salience to otherwise mundane events. Dysfunction higher up in the hierarchy, where representation is more abstract, could result in delusions. The common finding of reduced GAD67 expression in psychotic disorders may explain enhanced AMPA mediated signaling, caused by reduced GABAergic inhibition.
The connection between dopamine and psychosis is generally believed to be complex. While dopamine receptor D2 suppresses adenylate cyclase activity, the D1 receptor increases it. If D2-blocking drugs are administered, the blocked dopamine spills over to the D1 receptors. The increased adenylate cyclase activity affects genetic expression in the nerve cell, which takes time. Hence antipsychotic drugs take a week or two to reduce the symptoms of psychosis. Moreover, newer and equally effective antipsychotic drugs actually block slightly less dopamine in the brain than older drugs whilst also blocking 5-HT2A receptors, suggesting the 'dopamine hypothesis' may be oversimplified. Soyka and colleagues found no evidence of dopaminergic dysfunction in people with alcohol-induced psychosis and Zoldan et al. reported moderately successful use of ondansetron, a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, in the treatment of levodopa psychosis in Parkinson's disease patients.
A review found an association between a first-episode of psychosis and prediabetes.
Prolonged or high dose use of psychostimulants can alter normal functioning, making it similar to the manic phase of bipolar disorder. NMDA antagonists replicate some of the so-called "negative" symptoms like thought disorder in subanesthetic doses (doses insufficient to induce anesthesia), and catatonia in high doses). Psychostimulants, especially in one already prone to psychotic thinking, can cause some "positive" symptoms, such as delusional beliefs, particularly those persecutory in nature.
To make a diagnosis of a mental illness in someone with psychosis other potential causes must be excluded. An initial assessment includes a comprehensive history and physical examination by a health care provider. Tests may be done to exclude substance use, medication, toxins, surgical complications, or other medical illnesses. A person with psychosis is referred to as psychotic.
Delirium should be ruled out, which can be distinguished by visual hallucinations, acute onset and fluctuating level of consciousness, indicating other underlying factors, including medical illnesses. Excluding medical illnesses associated with psychosis is performed by using blood tests to measure:
Other investigations include:
Because psychosis may be precipitated or exacerbated by common classes of medications, medication-induced psychosis should be ruled out, particularly for first-episode psychosis. Both substance- and medication-induced psychosis can be excluded to a high level of certainty, using toxicology screening.
Because some dietary supplements may also induce psychosis or mania, but cannot be ruled out with laboratory tests, a psychotic individual's family, partner, or friends should be asked whether the patient is currently taking any dietary supplements.
Common mistakes made when diagnosing people who are psychotic include:
Only after relevant and known causes of psychosis are excluded, a mental health clinician may make a psychiatric differential diagnosis using a person's family history, incorporating information from the person with psychosis, and information from family, friends, or significant others.
Types of psychosis in psychiatric disorders may be established by formal rating scales. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) assesses the level of 18 symptom constructs of psychosis such as hostility, suspicion, hallucination, and grandiosity. It is based on the clinician's interview with the patient and observations of the patient's behavior over the previous 2–3 days. The patient's family can also answer questions on the behavior report. During the initial assessment and the follow-up, both positive and negative symptoms of psychosis can be assessed using the 30 item Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS).
The DSM-5 characterizes disorders as psychotic or on the schizophrenia spectrum if they involve hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, grossly disorganized motor behavior, or negative symptoms. The DSM-5 does not include psychosis as a definition in the glossary, although it defines "psychotic features", as well as "psychoticism" with respect to personality disorder. The ICD-10 has no specific definition of psychosis.
Factor analysis of symptoms generally regarded as psychosis frequently yields a five factor solution, albeit five factors that are distinct from the five domains defined by the DSM-5 to encompass psychotic or schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The five factors are frequently labeled as hallucinations, delusions, disorganization, excitement, and emotional distress. The DSM-5 emphasizes a psychotic spectrum, wherein the low end is characterized by schizoid personality disorder, and the high end is characterized by schizophrenia.
The evidence for the effectiveness of early interventions to prevent psychosis appeared inconclusive. But psychosis caused by drugs can be prevented. Whilst early intervention in those with a psychotic episode might improve short-term outcomes, little benefit was seen from these measures after five years. However, there is evidence that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may reduce the risk of becoming psychotic in those at high risk, and in 2014 the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended preventive CBT for people at risk of psychosis.
The treatment of psychosis depends on the specific diagnosis (such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or substance intoxication). The first-line treatment for many psychotic disorders is antipsychotic medication, which can reduce the positive symptoms of psychosis in about 7 to 14 days.
The choice of which antipsychotic to use is based on benefits, risks, and costs. It is debatable whether, as a class, typical or atypical antipsychotics are better. Tentative evidence supports that amisulpride, olanzapine, risperidone and clozapine may be more effective for positive symptoms but result in more side effects. Typical antipsychotics have equal drop-out and symptom relapse rates to atypicals when used at low to moderate dosages. There is a good response in 40–50%, a partial response in 30–40%, and treatment resistance (failure of symptoms to respond satisfactorily after six weeks to two or three different antipsychotics) in 20% of people. Clozapine is an effective treatment for those who respond poorly to other drugs ("treatment-resistant" or "refractory" schizophrenia), but it has the potentially serious side effect of agranulocytosis (lowered white blood cell count) in less than 4% of people.
Most people on antipsychotics get side effects. People on typical antipsychotics tend to have a higher rate of extrapyramidal side effects while some atypicals are associated with considerable weight gain, diabetes and risk of metabolic syndrome; this is most pronounced with olanzapine, while risperidone and quetiapine are also associated with weight gain. Risperidone has a similar rate of extrapyramidal symptoms to haloperidol.
Psychological treatments such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) are possibly useful in the treatment of psychosis, helping people to focus more on what they can do in terms of valued life directions despite challenging symptomology.
There are psychological interventions that seek to treat the symptoms of psychosis. In a 2019 review, nine classes of psychosocial interventions were identified: need adapted treatment, open dialogue, psychoanalysis/psychodynamic psychotherapy, major role therapy, soteria, psychosocial outpatient and inpatient treatment, milieu therapy, and CBT. This paper concluded that when on minimal or no medication "the overall evidence supporting the effectiveness of these interventions is generally weak".
Early intervention in psychosis is based on the observation that identifying and treating someone in the early stages of a psychosis can improve their longer term outcome. This approach advocates the use of an intensive multi-disciplinary approach during what is known as the critical period, where intervention is the most effective, and prevents the long-term morbidity associated with chronic psychotic illness.
The word "psychosis" was introduced to the psychiatric literature in 1841 by Karl Friedrich Canstatt in his work "Handbuch der Medizinischen Klinik". He used it as a shorthand for 'psychic neurosis'. At that time neurosis meant any disease of the nervous system, and Canstatt was thus referring to what was considered a psychological manifestation of brain disease. Ernst von Feuchtersleben is also widely credited as introducing the term in 1845, as an alternative to insanity and mania.
The term stems from Modern Latin "psychosis", "a giving soul or life to, animating, quickening" and that from Ancient Greek ψυχή ("psyche"), "soul" and the suffix -ωσις ("-osis"), in this case "abnormal condition".
In its adjective form "psychotic", references to psychosis can be found in both clinical and non-clinical discussions. However, in a non-clinical context, "psychotic" is generally used as a synonym for "insane".
The word was also used to distinguish a condition considered a disorder of the mind, as opposed to "neurosis", which was considered a disorder of the nervous system. The psychoses thus became the modern equivalent of the old notion of madness, and hence there was much debate on whether there was only one (unitary) or many forms of the new disease. One type of broad usage would later be narrowed down by Koch in 1891 to the 'psychopathic inferiorities'—later renamed abnormal personalities by Schneider.
The division of the major psychoses into manic depressive illness (now called bipolar disorder) and dementia praecox (now called schizophrenia) was made by Emil Kraepelin, who attempted to create a synthesis of the various mental disorders identified by 19th-century psychiatrists, by grouping diseases together based on classification of common symptoms. Kraepelin used the term 'manic depressive insanity' to describe the whole spectrum of mood disorders, in a far wider sense than it is usually used today.
In Kraepelin's classification this would include 'unipolar' clinical depression, as well as bipolar disorder and other mood disorders such as cyclothymia. These are characterised by problems with mood control and the psychotic episodes appear associated with disturbances in mood, and patients often have periods of normal functioning between psychotic episodes even without medication. Schizophrenia is characterized by psychotic episodes that appear unrelated to disturbances in mood, and most non-medicated patients show signs of disturbance between psychotic episodes.
Early civilizations considered madness a supernaturally inflicted phenomenon. Archaeologists have unearthed skulls with clearly visible drillings, some datable back to 5000 BC suggesting that trepanning was a common treatment for psychosis in ancient times. Written record of supernatural causes and resultant treatments can be traced back to the New Testament. Mark 5:8–13 describes a man displaying what would today be described as psychotic symptoms. Christ cured this "demonic madness" by casting out the demons and hurling them into a herd of swine. Exorcism is still utilized in some religious circles as a treatment for psychosis presumed to be demonic possession. A research study of out-patients in psychiatric clinics found that 30 percent of religious patients attributed the cause of their psychotic symptoms to evil spirits. Many of these patients underwent exorcistic healing rituals that, though largely regarded as positive experiences by the patients, had no effect on symptomology. Results did, however, show a significant worsening of psychotic symptoms associated with exclusion of medical treatment for coercive forms of exorcism.
The medical teachings of the fourth-century philosopher and physician Hippocrates of Cos proposed a natural, rather than supernatural, cause of human illness. In Hippocrates' work, the Hippocratic corpus, a holistic explanation for health and disease was developed to include madness and other "diseases of the mind." Hippocrates writes:
Hippocrates espoused a theory of humoralism wherein disease is resultant of a shifting balance in bodily fluids including blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. According to humoralism, each fluid or "humour" has temperamental or behavioral correlates. In the case of psychosis, symptoms are thought to be caused by an excess of both blood and yellow bile. Thus, the proposed surgical intervention for psychotic or manic behavior was bloodletting.
18th-century physician, educator, and widely considered "founder of American psychiatry", Benjamin Rush, also prescribed bloodletting as a first-line treatment for psychosis. Although not a proponent of humoralism, Rush believed that active purging and bloodletting were efficacious corrections for disruptions in the circulatory system, a complication he believed was the primary cause of "insanity". Although Rush's treatment modalities are now considered antiquated and brutish, his contributions to psychiatry, namely the biological underpinnings of psychiatric phenomenon including psychosis, have been invaluable to the field. In honor of such contributions, Benjamin Rush's image is in the official seal of the American Psychiatric Association.
Early 20th-century treatments for severe and persisting psychosis were characterized by an emphasis on shocking the nervous system. Such therapies include insulin shock therapy, cardiazol shock therapy, and electroconvulsive therapy. Despite considerable risk, shock therapy was considered highly efficacious in the treatment of psychosis including schizophrenia. The acceptance of high-risk treatments led to more invasive medical interventions including psychosurgery.
In 1888, Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt performed the first medically sanctioned psychosurgery in which the cerebral cortex was excised. Although some patients showed improvement of symptoms and became more subdued, one patient died and several developed aphasia or seizure disorders. Burckhardt would go on to publish his clinical outcomes in a scholarly paper. This procedure was met with criticism from the medical community and his academic and surgical endeavors were largely ignored. In the late 1930s, Egas Moniz conceived the leucotomy (AKA prefrontal lobotomy) in which the fibers connecting the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain were severed. Moniz's primary inspiration stemmed from a demonstration by neuroscientists John Fulton and Carlyle's 1935 experiment in which two chimpanzees were given leucotomies and pre- and post-surgical behavior was compared. Prior to the leucotomy, the chimps engaged in typical behavior including throwing feces and fighting. After the procedure, both chimps were pacified and less violent. During the Q&A, Moniz asked if such a procedure could be extended to human subjects, a question that Fulton admitted was quite startling. Moniz would go on to extend the controversial practice to humans suffering from various psychotic disorders, an endeavor for which he received a Nobel Prize in 1949. Between the late 1930s and early 1970s, the leucotomy was a widely accepted practice, often performed in non-sterile environments such as small outpatient clinics and patient homes. Psychosurgery remained standard practice until the discovery of antipsychotic pharmacology in the 1950s.
The first clinical trial of antipsychotics (also commonly known as neuroleptics) for the treatment of psychosis took place in 1952. Chlorpromazine (brand name: Thorazine) passed clinical trials and became the first antipsychotic medication approved for the treatment of both acute and chronic psychosis. Although the mechanism of action was not discovered until 1963, the administration of chlorpromazine marked the advent of the dopamine antagonist, or first generation antipsychotic. While clinical trials showed a high response rate for both acute psychosis and disorders with psychotic features, the side effects were particularly harsh, which included high rates of often irreversible Parkinsonian symptoms such as tardive dyskinesia. With the advent of atypical antipsychotics (also known as second generation antipsychotics) came a dopamine antagonist with a comparable response rate but a far different, though still extensive, side-effect profile that included a lower risk of Parkinsonian symptoms but a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Atypical antipsychotics remain the first-line treatment for psychosis associated with various psychiatric and neurological disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, dementia, and some autism spectrum disorders.
It is now known that dopamine is one of the primary neurotransmitters implicated in psychotic symptomology. Thus, blocking dopamine receptors (namely, the dopamine D2 receptors) and decreasing dopaminergic activity continues to be an effective but highly unrefined pharmacologic goal of antipsychotics. Recent pharmacological research suggests that the decrease in dopaminergic activity does not eradicate psychotic delusions or hallucinations, but rather attenuates the reward mechanisms involved in the development of delusional thinking; that is, connecting or finding meaningful relationships between unrelated stimuli or ideas. The author of this research paper acknowledges the importance of future investigation:
Freud's former student Wilhelm Reich explored independent insights into the physical effects of neurotic and traumatic upbringing, and published his holistic psychoanalytic treatment with a schizophrenic. With his incorporation of breathwork and insight with the patient, a young woman, she achieved sufficient self-management skills to end the therapy.
Psychiatrist David Healy has criticised pharmaceutical companies for promoting simplified biological theories of mental illness that seem to imply the primacy of pharmaceutical treatments while ignoring social and developmental factors that are known important influences in the aetiology of psychosis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24514 |
Paranoia
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process which is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself (i.e. the American colloquial phrase, ""Everyone is out to get me""). Paranoia is distinct from phobias, which also involve irrational fear, but usually no blame. Making false accusations and the general distrust of other people also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, an incident most people would view as an accident or coincidence, a paranoid person might believe was intentional. Paranoia is a central symptom of psychosis.
A common symptom of paranoia is the attribution bias. These individuals typically have a biased perception of reality, often exhibiting more hostile beliefs. A paranoid person may view someone else's accidental behavior as though it is with intent or threatening.
An investigation of a non-clinical paranoid population found that feeling powerless and depressed, isolating oneself, and relinquishing activities are characteristics that could be associated with those exhibiting more frequent paranoia.
Some scientists have created different subtypes for the various symptoms of paranoia including erotic, persecutory, litigious, and exalted.
Due to the suspicious and troublesome personality traits of paranoia, it is unlikely that someone with paranoia will thrive in interpersonal relationships. Most commonly paranoid individuals tend to be of a single status. According to some research there is a hierarchy for paranoia. The least common types of paranoia at the very top of the hierarchy would be those involving more serious threats. Social anxiety is at the bottom of this hierarchy as the most frequently exhibited level of paranoia.
Social circumstances appear to be highly influential on paranoid beliefs. Based on data collected by means of a mental health survey distributed to residents of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (in Mexico) and El Paso, Texas (in the United States), paranoid beliefs seem to be associated with feelings of powerlessness and victimization, enhanced by social situations. Potential causes of these effects included a sense of believing in external control, and mistrust which can be strengthened by lower socioeconomic status. Those living in a lower socioeconomic status may feel less in control of their own lives. In addition, this study explains that females have the tendency to believe in external control at a higher rate than males, potentially making females more susceptible to mistrust and the effects of socioeconomic status on paranoia.
Emanuel Messinger reports that surveys have revealed that those exhibiting paranoia can evolve from parental relationships and untrustworthy environments. These environments could include being very disciplinary, stringent, and unstable. It was even noted that, "indulging and pampering (thereby impressing the child that they are something special and warrants special privileges)," can be contributing backgrounds. Experiences likely to enhance or manifest the symptoms of paranoia include increased rates of disappointment, stress, and a hopeless state of mind.
Discrimination has also been reported as a potential predictor of paranoid delusions. Such reports that paranoia seemed to appear more in older patients who had experienced higher levels of discrimination throughout their lives. In addition to this it has been noted that immigrants are quite susceptible to forms of psychosis. This could be due to the aforementioned effects of discriminatory events and humiliation.
Many more mood-based symptoms, grandiosity and guilt, may underlie functional paranoia.
Colby (1981) defined "paranoid cognition" in terms of "persecutory delusions and false beliefs whose propositional content clusters around ideas of being harassed, threatened, harmed, subjugated, persecuted, accused, mistreated, wronged, tormented, disparaged, vilified, and so on, by malevolent others, either specific individuals or groups" (p. 518).
Three components of paranoid cognition have been identified by Robins & Post: "a) suspicions without enough basis that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving them; b) preoccupation with unjustified doubts about the loyalty, or trustworthiness, of friends or associates; c) reluctance to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against them" (1997, p. 3).
Paranoid cognition has been conceptualized by clinical psychology almost exclusively in terms of psychodynamic constructs and dispositional variables. From this point of view, paranoid cognition is a manifestation of an intra-psychic conflict or disturbance. For instance, Colby (1981) suggested that the biases of blaming others for one’s problems serve to alleviate the distress produced by the feeling of being humiliated, and helps to repudiate the belief that the self is to blame for such incompetence. This intra-psychic perspective emphasizes that the cause of paranoid cognitions are inside the head of the people (social perceiver), and dismiss the fact that paranoid cognition may be related with the social context in which such cognitions are embedded. This point is extremely relevant because when origins of distrust and suspicion (two components of paranoid cognition) are studied many researchers have accentuated the importance of social interaction, particularly when social interaction has gone awry. Even more, a model of trust development pointed out that trust increases or decreases as a function of the cumulative history of interaction between two or more persons.
Another relevant difference can be discerned among "pathological and non-pathological forms of trust and distrust". According to Deutsch, the main difference is that non-pathological forms are flexible and responsive to changing circumstances. Pathological forms reflect exaggerated perceptual biases and judgmental predispositions that can arise and perpetuate them, are reflexively caused errors similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It has been suggested that a "hierarchy" of paranoia exists, extending from mild social evaluative concerns, through ideas of social reference, to persecutory beliefs concerning mild, moderate, and severe threats.
A paranoid reaction may be caused from a decline in brain circulation as a result of high blood pressure or hardening of the arterial walls.
Drug-induced paranoia, associated with amphetamines, methamphetamine and similar stimulants has much in common with schizophrenic paranoia; the relationship has been under investigation since 2012. Drug-induced paranoia has a better prognosis than schizophrenic paranoia once the drug has been removed. For further information, see stimulant psychosis and substance-induced psychosis.
Based on data obtained by the Dutch NEMESIS project in 2005, there was an association between impaired hearing and the onset of symptoms of psychosis, which was based on a five-year follow up. Some older studies have actually declared that a state of paranoia can be produced in patients that were under a hypnotic state of deafness. This idea however generated much skepticism during its time.
In the DSM-IV-TR, paranoia is diagnosed in the form of:
According to clinical psychologist P. J. McKenna, "As a noun, paranoia denotes a disorder which has been argued in and out of existence, and whose clinical features, course, boundaries, and virtually every other aspect of which is controversial. Employed as an adjective, paranoid has become attached to a diverse set of presentations, from paranoid schizophrenia, through paranoid depression, to paranoid personality—not to mention a motley collection of paranoid 'psychoses', 'reactions', and 'states'—and this is to restrict discussion to functional disorders. Even when abbreviated down to the prefix para-, the term crops up causing trouble as the contentious but stubbornly persistent concept of paraphrenia".
At least 50% of the diagnosed cases of schizophrenia experience delusions of reference and delusions of persecution. Paranoia perceptions and behavior may be part of many mental illnesses, such as depression and dementia, but they are more prevalent in three mental disorders: paranoid schizophrenia, delusional disorder (persecutory type), and paranoid personality disorder.
The word "paranoia" comes from the Greek παράνοια ("paranoia"), "madness", and that from παρά ("para"), "beside, by" and νόος ("noos"), "mind". The term was used to describe a mental illness in which a delusional belief is the sole or most prominent feature. In this definition, the belief does not have to be persecutory to be classified as paranoid, so any number of delusional beliefs can be classified as paranoia. For example, a person who has the sole delusional belief that they are an important religious figure would be classified by Kraepelin as having 'pure paranoia'. The word “paranoia” is associated from the Greek word “para-noeo”. Its meaning was "derangement", or "departure from the normal". However, the word was used strictly and other words were used such as "insanity" or "crazy", as these words were introduced by Aurelius Cornelius Celsus. The term “paranoia” first made an appearance during plays of Greek tragedians, and was also used by sufficient individuals such as Plato and Hippocrates. Nevertheless, the word “paranoia” was the equivalent of “delirium” or “high fever”. Eventually, the term made its’ way out of everyday language for two millennia. “Paranoia” was soon revived as it made an appearance in the writings of the “nosologists”. It began to take appearance in France, with the writings of Rudolph August Vogel (1772) and Francois Boissier de Sauvage (1759).
According to Michael Phelan, Padraig Wright, and Julian Stern (2000), paranoia and paraphrenia are debated entities that were detached from dementia praecox by Kraepelin, who explained paranoia as a continuous systematized delusion arising much later in life with no presence of either hallucinations or a deteriorating course, paraphrenia as an identical syndrome to paranoia but with hallucinations. Even at the present time, a delusion need not be suspicious or fearful to be classified as paranoid. A person might be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia without delusions of persecution, simply because their delusions refer mainly to themselves.
It has generally been agreed upon that individuals with paranoid delusions will have the tendency to take action based on their beliefs. More research is needed on the particular types of actions that are pursued based on paranoid delusions. Some researchers have made attempts to distinguish the different variations of actions brought on as a result of delusions. Wessely et al. (1993) did just this by studying individuals with delusions of which more than half had reportedly taken action or behaved as a result of these delusions. However, the overall actions were not of a violent nature in most of the informants. The authors note that other studies such as one by Taylor (1985), have shown that violent behaviors were more common in certain types of paranoid individuals, mainly those considered to be offensive such as prisoners.
Other researchers have found associations between childhood abusive behaviors and the appearance of violent behaviors in psychotic individuals. This could be a result of their inability to cope with aggression as well as other people, especially when constantly attending to potential threats in their environment. The attention to threat itself has been proposed as one of the major contributors of violent actions in paranoid people, although there has been much deliberation about this as well. Other studies have shown that there may only be certain types of delusions that promote any violent behaviors, persecutory delusions seem to be one of these.
Having resentful emotions towards others and the inability to understand what other people are feeling seem to have an association with violence in paranoid individuals. This was based on a study of paranoid schizophrenics' (one of the common mental disorders that exhibit paranoid symptoms) theories of mind capabilities in relation to empathy. The results of this study revealed specifically that although the violent patients were more successful at the higher level theory of mind tasks, they were not as able to interpret others' emotions or claims.
Social psychological research has proposed a mild form of paranoid cognition, "paranoid social cognition", that has its origins in social determinants more than intra-psychic conflict. This perspective states that in milder forms, paranoid cognitions may be very common among normal individuals. For instance, it is not strange that people may exhibit in their daily life, self-centered thought such as they are being talked about, suspiciousness about other’ intentions, and assumptions of ill-will or hostility (i.e. people may feel as if everything is going against them). According to Kramer, (1998) these milder forms of paranoid cognition may be considered as an adaptive response to cope with or make sense of a disturbing and threatening social environment.
Paranoid cognition captures the idea that dysphoric self-consciousness may be related with the position that people occupy within a social system. This self-consciousness conduces to a hypervigilant and ruminative mode to process social information that finally will stimulate a variety of paranoid-like forms of social misperception and misjudgment. This model identifies four components that are essential to understanding paranoid social cognition: situational antecedents, dysphoric self-consciousness, hypervigilance and rumination, and judgmental biases.
Perceived social distinctiveness, perceived evaluative scrutiny and uncertainty about the social standing.
Refers to an aversive form of heightened 'public self-consciousness' characterized by the feelings that one is under intensive evaluation or scrutiny. Becoming self-tormenting will increase the odds of interpreting others' behaviors in a self-referential way.
Self-consciousness was characterized as an aversive psychological state. According to this model, people experiencing self-consciousness will be highly motivated to reduce it, trying to make sense of what they are experiencing. These attempts promote hypervigilance and rumination in a circular relationship: more hypervigilance generates more rumination, whereupon more rumination generates more hypervigilance. Hypervigilance can be thought of as a way to appraise threatening social information, but in contrast to adaptive vigilance, hypervigilance will produce elevated levels of arousal, fear, anxiety, and threat perception. Rumination is another possible response to threatening social information. Rumination can be related to the paranoid social cognition because it can increase negative thinking about negative events, and evoke a pessimistic explanatory style.
Three main judgmental consequences have been identified: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24515 |
Polybius
Polybius (; , "Polýbios"; – BC) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes the rise of the Roman Republic to the status of dominance in the ancient Mediterranean world. It includes his eyewitness account of the Sack of Carthage and Corinth in 146 BC, and the Roman annexation of mainland Greece after the Achaean War.
Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, which was influential on Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws" and the framers of the United States Constitution. He was also noted for witnessing the events that he recorded.
The leading expert on Polybius was F. W. Walbank (1909–2008), who for 50 years published studies related to him, including a long commentary of his "Histories" and a biography.
Polybius was born around 208 BC in Megalopolis, Arcadia, when it was an active member of the Achaean League. The town was revived, along with other Achaean states, a century before he was born.
Polybius' father, Lycortas, was a prominent, land-owning politician and member of the governing class who became "strategos" (commanding general) of the Achaean League. Consequently, Polybius was able to observe first hand during his first 40 years the political and military affairs of Megalopolis, gaining experience as a statesman. In his early years, he accompanied his father while travelling as ambassador. He developed an interest in horse riding and hunting, diversions that later commended him to his Roman captors.
In 182 BC, he was given quite an honor when he was chosen to carry the funeral urn of Philopoemen, one of the most eminent Achaean politicians of his generation. In either 169 BC or 170 BC, Polybius was elected hipparchus (cavalry officer) with the intention of fighting for Rome during the Third Macedonian War. This event often presaged election to the annual "strategia" (chief generalship). His early political career was devoted largely towards maintaining the independence of Megalopolis.
Polybius’ father, Lycortas, was a prominent advocate of neutrality during the Roman war against Perseus of Macedon. Lycortas attracted the suspicion of the Romans, and Polybius subsequently was one of the 1,000 Achaean nobles who were transported to Rome as hostages in 167 BC, and was detained there for 17 years. In Rome, by virtue of his high culture, Polybius was admitted to the most distinguished houses, in particular to that of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the conqueror in the Third Macedonian War, who entrusted Polybius with the education of his sons, Fabius and Scipio Aemilianus (who had been adopted by the eldest son of Scipio Africanus). Polybius remained on cordial terms with his former pupil Scipio Aemilianus and was among the members of the Scipionic Circle.
When Scipio defeated the Carthaginians in the Third Punic War, Polybius remained his counsellor. The Achaean hostages were released in 150 BC, and Polybius was granted leave to return home, but the next year he went on campaign with Scipio Aemilianus to Africa, and was present at the Sack of Carthage in 146, which he later described. Following the destruction of Carthage, Polybius likely journeyed along the Atlantic coast of Africa, as well as Spain.
After the destruction of Corinth in the same year, Polybius returned to Greece, making use of his Roman connections to lighten the conditions there. Polybius was charged with the difficult task of organizing the new form of government in the Greek cities, and in this office he gained great recognition.
In the succeeding years, Polybius resided in Rome, completing his historical work while occasionally undertaking long journeys through the Mediterranean countries in the furtherance of his history, in particular with the aim of obtaining firsthand knowledge of historical sites. He apparently interviewed veterans to clarify details of the events he was recording and was similarly given access to archival material. Little is known of Polybius' later life; he most likely accompanied Scipio to Spain, acting as his military advisor during the Numantine War.
He later wrote about this war in a lost monograph. Polybius probably returned to Greece later in his life, as evidenced by the many existent inscriptions and statues of him there. The last event mentioned in his "Histories" seems to be the construction of the Via Domitia in southern France in 118 BC, which suggests the writings of Pseudo-Lucian may have some grounding in fact when they state, "[Polybius] fell from his horse while riding up from the country, fell ill as a result and died at the age of eighty-two".
Polybius’ "Histories" cover the period from 264 BC to 146 BC. Its main focus is the period from 220 BC to 167 BC, describing Rome's efforts in subduing its arch-enemy, Carthage, and thereby becoming the dominant Mediterranean force. Books I through V of "The Histories" are the introduction for the years during his lifetime, describing the politics in leading Mediterranean states, including ancient Greece and Egypt, and culminating in their ultimate "συμπλοκή" or interconnectedness. In Book VI, Polybius describes the political, military, and moral institutions that allowed the Romans to succeed. He describes the First and Second Punic Wars. Polybius concludes the Romans are the pre-eminent power because they have customs and institutions which promote a deep desire for noble acts, a love of virtue, piety towards parents and elders, and a fear of the gods ("deisidaimonia").
He also chronicled the conflicts between Hannibal and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus such as the Battle of Ticinus, the Battle of the Trebia, the Siege of Saguntum, the Battle of Lilybaeum, and the Battle of Rhone Crossing. In Book XII, Polybius discusses the worth of Timaeus’ account of the same period of history. He asserts Timaeus' point of view is inaccurate, invalid, and biased in favor of Rome. Therefore, Polybius's "Histories" is also useful in analyzing the different Hellenistic versions of history and of use as a credible illustration of actual events during the Hellenistic period.
In the twelfth volume of his "Histories", Polybius defines the historian's job as the analysis of documentation, the review of relevant geographical information, and political experience. Polybius held that historians should only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of factual integrity in historical writing. In Polybius' time, the profession of a historian required political experience (which aided in differentiating between fact and fiction) and familiarity with the geography surrounding one's subject matter to supply an accurate version of events.
Polybius himself exemplified these principles as he was well travelled and possessed political and military experience. He did not neglect written sources that provided essential material for his histories of the period from 264 BC to 220 BC. When addressing events after 220 BC, he examined the writings of Greek and Roman historians to acquire credible sources of information, but rarely did he name those sources.
Polybius wrote several works, the majority of which are lost. His earliest work was a biography of the Greek statesman Philopoemen; this work was later used as a source by Plutarch when composing his "Parallel Lives", however the original Polybian text is lost. In addition, Polybius wrote an extensive treatise entitled "Tactics", which may have detailed Roman and Greek military tactics. Small parts of this work may survive in his major "Histories", but the work itself is lost, as well. Another missing work was a historical monograph on the events of the Numantine War. The largest Polybian work was, of course, his "Histories", of which only the first five books survive entirely intact, along with a large portion of the sixth book and fragments of the rest. Along with Cato the Elder (234–149 BC), he can be considered one of the founding fathers of Roman historiography.
Livy made reference to and uses Polybius' "Histories" as source material in his own narrative. Polybius was among the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination and criticism of tradition. He narrated his history based upon first-hand knowledge. "The Histories" capture the varied elements of the story of human behavior: nationalism, xenophobia, duplicitous politics, war, brutality, loyalty, valour, intelligence, reason, and resourcefulness.
Aside from the narrative of the historical events, Polybius also included three books of digressions. Book 34 was entirely devoted to questions of geography and included some trenchant criticisms of Eratosthenes, whom he accused of passing on popular preconceptions or "laodogmatika". Book 12 was a disquisition on the writing of history, citing extensive passages of lost historians, such as Callisthenes and Theopompus. Most influential was Book 6, which describes Roman political, military, and moral institutions, which he considered key to Rome's success; it presented Rome as having a mixed constitution in which monarchical, aristocratic, and popular elements existed in stable equilibrium. This enabled Rome to escape, for the time being, the cycle of eternal revolutions ("anacyclosis"). While Polybius was not the first to advance this view, his account provides the most cogent illustration of the ideal for later political theorists.
A key theme of "The Histories" is the good statesman as virtuous and composed. The character of the Polybian statesman is exemplified in that of Philip II. His beliefs about Philip's character led Polybius to reject historian Theopompus' description of Philip's private, drunken debauchery. For Polybius, it was inconceivable that such an able and effective statesman could have had an immoral and unrestrained private life as described by Theopompus.
In recounting the Roman Republic, Polybius stated that "the Senate stands in awe of the multitude, and cannot neglect the feelings of the people".
Other important themes running through "The Histories" are the role of Fortune in the affairs of nations, his insistence that history should be demonstratory, or "apodeiktike", providing lessons for statesmen, and that historians should be "men of action" ("pragmatikoi").
Polybius is considered by some to be the successor of Thucydides in terms of objectivity and critical reasoning, and the forefather of scholarly, painstaking historical research in the modern scientific sense. According to this view, his work sets forth the course of history's occurrences with clearness, penetration, sound judgment, and, among the circumstances affecting the outcomes, he lays special emphasis on geographical conditions. Modern historians are especially impressed with the manner in which Polybius used his sources, particularly documentary evidence as well as his citation and quotation of sources. Furthermore, there is some admiration of Polybius's meditation on the nature of historiography in Book 12. His work belongs, therefore, amongst the greatest productions of ancient historical writing. The writer of the "Oxford Companion to Classical Literature" (1937) praises him for his "earnest devotion to truth" and his systematic pursuit of causation.
It has long been acknowledged that Polybius's writings are prone to a certain hagiographic tone when writing of his friends, such as Scipio, and subject to a vindictive tone when detailing the exploits of his enemies, such as Callicrates, the Achaean statesman responsible for his Roman exile.
As a hostage in Rome, then as client to the Scipios, and after 146 BC, a collaborator with Roman rule, Polybius was probably in no position to freely express any negative opinions of Rome. Peter Green advises that Polybius was chronicling Roman history for a Greek audience, to justify what he believed to be the inevitability of Roman rule. Nonetheless, Green considers Polybius's "Histories" the best source for the era they cover. For Ronald Mellor, Polybius was a loyal partisan of Scipio, intent on vilifying his patron's opponents. Adrian Goldsworthy, while using Polybius as a source for Scipio's generalship, notes Polybius' underlying and overt bias in Scipio's favour. H. Ormerod considers that Polybius cannot be regarded as an 'altogether unprejudiced witness' in relation to his "betes noires"; the Aetolians, the Carthaginians, and the Cretans. Other historians perceive considerable negative bias in Polybius' account of Crete; on the other hand, Hansen notes that the same work, along with passages from Strabo and Scylax, proved a reliable guide in the eventual rediscovery of the lost city of Kydonia.
Polybius was responsible for a useful tool in telegraphy that allowed letters to be easily signaled using a numerical system (mentioned in Hist. X.45.6 ff.). This idea also lends itself to cryptographic manipulation and steganography.
This was known as the "Polybius square", where the letters of the alphabet were arranged left to right, top to bottom in a 5 x 5 square, (when used with the modern 26 letter alphabet, the letters "I" and "J" are combined). Five numbers were then aligned on the outside top of the square, and five numbers on the left side of the square vertically. Usually these numbers were arranged 1 through 5. By cross-referencing the two numbers along the grid of the square, a letter could be deduced.
In "The Histories", he specifies how this cypher could be used in fire signals, where long-range messages could be sent by means of torches raised and lowered to signify the column and row of each letter. This was a great leap forward from previous fire signaling, which could send prearranged codes only (such as, 'if we light the fire, it means that the enemy has arrived').
Other writings of scientific interest include detailed discussions of the machines Archimedes created for the defense of Syracuse against the Romans, where he praises the 'old man' and his engineering in the highest terms, and an analysis of the usefulness of astronomy to generals (both in the "Histories").
Polybius was considered a poor stylist by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing of Polybius' history that "no one has the endurance to reach [its] end". Nevertheless, clearly he was widely read by Romans and Greeks alike. He is quoted extensively by Strabo writing in the 1st century BC and Athenaeus in the 3rd century AD.
His emphasis on explaining causes of events, rather than just recounting events, influenced the historian Sempronius Asellio. Polybius is mentioned by Cicero and mined for information by Diodorus, Livy, Plutarch and Arrian. Much of the text that survives today from the later books of "The Histories" was preserved in Byzantine anthologies.
His works reappeared in the West first in Renaissance Florence. Polybius gained a following in Italy, and although poor Latin translations hampered proper scholarship on his works, they contributed to the city's historical and political discourse. Niccolò Machiavelli in his "Discourses on Livy" evinces familiarity with Polybius. Vernacular translations in French, German, Italian and English first appeared during the 16th century. Consequently, in the late 16th century, Polybius's works found a greater reading audience among the learned public. Study of the correspondence of such men as Isaac Casaubon, Jacques Auguste de Thou, William Camden, and Paolo Sarpi reveals a growing interest in Polybius' works and thought during the period. Despite the existence of both printed editions in the vernacular and increased scholarly interest, however, Polybius remained an "historian's historian", not much read by the public at large.
Printings of his work in the vernacular remained few in number — seven in French, five in English, and five in Italian.
Polybius' political analysis has influenced republican thinkers from Cicero to Charles de Montesquieu to the Founding Fathers of the United States. John Adams, for example, considered him one of the most important teachers of constitutional theory. Since the Age of Enlightenment, Polybius has in general held appeal to those interested in Hellenistic Greece and early Republican Rome, while his political and military writings have lost influence in academia. More recently, thorough work on the Greek text of Polybius, and his historical technique, has increased the academic understanding and appreciation of him as a historian.
According to Edward Tufte, he was also a major source for Charles Joseph Minard's figurative map of Hannibal's overland journey into Italy during the Second Punic War.
In his "Meditations On Hunting", Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset calls Polybius "one of the few great minds that the turbid human species has managed to produce", and says the damage to the "Histories" is "without question one of the gravest losses that we have suffered in our Greco-Roman heritage".
The Italian version of his name, Polibio, was used as a male first name - for example, the composer Polibio Fumagalli - though it never became very common.
The University of Pennsylvania has an intellectual society, the Polybian Society, which is named in his honor and serves as a non-partisan forum for discussing societal issues and policy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24516 |
Plutarch
Plutarch (; , "Ploútarkhos"; ; AD 46–after 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo. He is known primarily for his "Parallel Lives" and "Moralia". Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus ().
Plutarch was born to a prominent family in the small town of Chaeronea, about east of Delphi, in the Greek region of Boeotia. His family was wealthy. The name of Plutarch's father has not been preserved, but based on the common Greek custom of repeating a name in alternate generations, it was probably Nikarchus (). The name of Plutarch's grandfather was Lamprias, as he attested in "Moralia" and in his "Life of Antony".
His brothers, Timon and Lamprias, are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, which speak of Timon in particular in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus, in his 1624 work "Life of Plutarchus", recovered the name of Plutarch's wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not to grieve too much at the death of their two-year-old daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. He hinted at a belief in reincarnation in that letter of consolation.
The exact number of his sons is not certain, although two of them, Autobulus and the second Plutarch, are often mentioned. Plutarch's treatise "De animae procreatione in Timaeo" is dedicated to them, and the marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner parties recorded in the "Table Talk". Another person, Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch's son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. His treatise on marriage questions, addressed to Eurydice and Pollianus, seems to speak of the latter as having been recently an inmate of his house, but without any clear evidence on whether she was his daughter or not.
Plutarch was the uncle of Sextus of Chaeronea, who was one of the teachers of Marcus Aurelius, and who may have been the same person as the philosopher Sextus Empiricus.
Plutarch studied mathematics and philosophy at the Academy of Athens under Ammonius from 66 to 67.
At some point, Plutarch received Roman citizenship. As evidenced by his new name, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, his sponsor for citizenship was Lucius Mestrius Florus, a Roman of consular status whom Plutarch also used as a historical source for his "Life of Otho".
He lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek god Apollo. For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the site of the famous Delphic Oracle, twenty miles from his home. He probably took part in the Eleusinian Mysteries. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, and actively participated in local affairs, even serving as mayor. At his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the 78 essays and other works which have survived are now known collectively as the "Moralia".
In addition to his duties as a priest of the Delphic temple, Plutarch was also a magistrate at Chaeronea and he represented his home town on various missions to foreign countries during his early adult years. Plutarch held the office of archon in his native municipality, probably only an annual one which he likely served more than once. He busied himself with all the little matters of the town and undertook the humblest of duties.
The "Suda", a medieval Greek encyclopedia, states that Emperor Trajan made Plutarch procurator of Illyria. However, most historians consider this unlikely, since Illyria was not a procuratorial province, and Plutarch probably did not speak Illyrian.
According to the 8th/9th-century historian George Syncellus, late in Plutarch's life, Emperor Hadrian appointed him nominal procurator of Achaea – which entitled him to wear the vestments and ornaments of a consul.
Plutarch spent the last thirty years of his life serving as a priest in Delphi. He thus connected part of his literary work with the sanctuary of Apollo, the processes of oracle-giving and the personalities who lived or traveled there. One of his most important works is the "Why Pythia does not give oracles in verse" (Moralia 11) ( "Περὶ τοῦ μὴ χρᾶν ἔμμετρα νῦν τὴν Πυθίαν"). Even more important is the dialogue "On the E in Delphi" ("Περὶ τοῦ Εἶ τοῦ ἐν Δελφοῖς"), which features Ammonius, a Platonic philosopher and teacher of Plutarch, and Lambrias, Plutarch's brother. According to Ammonius, the letter E written on the temple of Apollo in Delphi originated from the following fact: the wise men of antiquity, whose maxims were also written on the walls of the vestibule of the temple, were not seven but actually five: Chilon, Solon, Thales, Bias and Pittakos. However, the tyrants Cleobulos and Periandros used their political power in order to be incorporated in the list. Thus, the E, which corresponds to number 5, constituted an acknowledgment that the Delphic maxims actually originated from the five real wise men.
The portrait of a philosopher exhibited at the exit of the Archaeological Museum of Delphi, dating to the 2nd century AD, had been in the past identified with Plutarch. The man, although bearded, is depicted at a relatively young age. His hair and beard are rendered in coarse volumes and thin incisions. The gaze is deep, due to the heavy eyelids and the incised pupils. The portrait is no longer thought to represent Plutarch.
But a fragmentary hermaic stele next to the portrait probably did once bear a portrait of Plutarch, since it is inscribed, "The Delphians along with the Chaeroneans dedicated this (image of) Plutarch, following the precepts of the Amphictyony" ("Δελφοὶ Χαιρωνεῦσιν ὁμοῦ Πλούταρχον ἔθηκαν | τοῖς Ἀμφικτυόνων δόγμασι πειθόμενοι" "Syll".3 843="CID" 4, no. 151).
Plutarch's surviving works were intended for Greek speakers throughout the Roman Empire, not just Greeks.
Plutarch's first biographical works were the Lives of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Vitellius. Of these, only the Lives of Galba and Otho survive. The Lives of Tiberius and Nero are extant only as fragments, provided by Damascius (Life of Tiberius, cf. his Life of Isidore) and Plutarch himself (Life of Nero, cf. Galba 2.1), respectively. These early emperors’ biographies were probably published under the Flavian dynasty or during the reign of Nerva (AD 96–98).
There is reason to believe that the two Lives still extant, those of Galba and Otho, "ought to be considered as a single work." Therefore, they do not form a part of the Plutarchian canon of single biographies – as represented by the Life of Aratus of Sicyon and the Life of Artaxerxes II (the biographies of Hesiod, Pindar, Crates and Daiphantus were lost). Unlike in these biographies, in "Galba-Otho" the individual characters of the persons portrayed are not depicted for their own sake but instead serve as an illustration of an abstract principle; namely the adherence or non-adherence to Plutarch's morally founded ideal of governing as a Princeps (cf. Galba 1.3; Moralia 328D–E).
Arguing from the perspective of Platonic political philosophy (cf. Republic 375E, 410D-E, 411E-412A, 442B-C), in "Galba-Otho" Plutarch reveals the constitutional principles of the Principate in the time of the civil war after Nero's death. While morally questioning the behavior of the autocrats, he also gives an impression of their tragic destinies, ruthlessly competing for the throne and finally destroying each other. "The Caesars' house in Rome, the Palatium, received in a shorter space of time no less than four Emperors", Plutarch writes, "passing, as it were, across the stage, and one making room for another to enter" (Galba 1).
"Galba-Otho" was handed down through different channels. It can be found in the appendix to Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" as well as in various Moralia manuscripts, most prominently in Maximus Planudes' edition where Galba and Otho appear as "Opera" XXV and XXVI. Thus it seems reasonable to maintain that "Galba-Otho" was from early on considered as an illustration of a moral-ethical approach, possibly even by Plutarch himself.
Plutarch's best-known work is the "Parallel Lives", a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues, vices, thus it being more of an insight into human nature than a historical account. The surviving "Lives" contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek "Life" and one Roman "Life", as well as four unpaired single "Lives".
As is explained in the opening paragraph of his "Life of Alexander", Plutarch was not concerned with history so much as the influence of character, good or bad, on the lives and destinies of men. Whereas sometimes he barely touched on epoch-making events, he devoted much space to charming anecdote and incidental triviality, reasoning that this often said far more for his subjects than even their most famous accomplishments. He sought to provide rounded portraits, likening his craft to that of a painter; indeed, he went to tremendous lengths (often leading to tenuous comparisons) to draw parallels between physical appearance and moral character. In many ways, he must be counted amongst the earliest moral philosophers.
Some of the "Lives", such as those of Heracles, Philip II of Macedon, Epaminondas, Scipio Africanus, Scipio Aemilianus and possibly Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus no longer exist; many of the remaining "Lives" are truncated, contain obvious lacunae or have been tampered with by later writers. Extant "Lives" include those on Solon, Themistocles, Aristides, Agesilaus II, Pericles, Alcibiades, Nicias, Demosthenes, Pelopidas, Philopoemen, Timoleon, Dion of Syracuse, Eumenes, Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus of Epirus, Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Coriolanus, Theseus, Aemilius Paullus, Tiberius Gracchus, Gaius Gracchus, Gaius Marius, Sulla, Sertorius, Lucullus, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Cato the Elder, Mark Antony, and Marcus Junius Brutus.
Plutarch's "Life of Alexander", written as a parallel to that of Julius Caesar, is one of only five extant tertiary sources on the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great. It includes anecdotes and descriptions of events that appear in no other source, just as Plutarch's portrait of Numa Pompilius, the putative second king of Rome, holds much that is unique on the early Roman calendar.
Plutarch devotes a great deal of space to Alexander's drive and desire, and strives to determine how much of it was presaged in his youth. He also draws extensively on the work of Lysippus, Alexander's favourite sculptor, to provide what is probably the fullest and most accurate description of the conqueror's physical appearance. When it comes to his character, Plutarch emphasizes his unusual degree of self-control and scorn for luxury: "He desired not pleasure or wealth, but only excellence and glory." As the narrative progresses, however, the subject incurs less admiration from his biographer and the deeds that it recounts become less savoury. The murder of Cleitus the Black, which Alexander instantly and deeply regretted, is commonly cited to this end.
Together with Suetonius's "The Twelve Caesars", and Caesar's own works "de Bello Gallico" and "de Bello Civili", this "Life" is the main account of Julius Caesar's feats by ancient historians. Plutarch starts by telling of the audacity of Caesar and his refusal to dismiss Cinna's daughter, Cornelia. Other important parts are those containing his military deeds, accounts of battles and Caesar's capacity of inspiring the soldiers.
However, this "Life" shows few differences between Suetonius' work and Caesar's own works (see "De Bello Gallico" and "De Bello Civili"). Sometimes, Plutarch quotes directly from the "De Bello Gallico" and even tells us of the moments when Caesar was dictating his works.
In the final part of this "Life", Plutarch recounts details of Caesar's assassination. The book ends by telling the destiny of his murderers, just after his detailed account of the scene when a phantom appeared to Brutus at night.
Plutarch's "Life of Pyrrhus" is a key text because it is the main historical account on Roman history for the period from 293 to 264 BC, for which neither Dionysius nor Livy have surviving texts.
The remainder of Plutarch's surviving work is collected under the title of the "Moralia" (loosely translated as "Customs and Mores"). It is an eclectic collection of seventy-eight essays and transcribed speeches, including "On Fraternal Affection"—a discourse on honour and affection of siblings toward each other, "On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great"—an important adjunct to his Life of the great king, "On the Worship of Isis and Osiris" (a crucial source of information on Egyptian religious rites), along with more philosophical treatises, such as "On the Decline of the Oracles", "On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance", "On Peace of Mind" and lighter fare, such as "Odysseus and Gryllus", a humorous dialogue between Homer's Odysseus and one of Circe's enchanted pigs. The "Moralia" was composed first, while writing the Lives occupied much of the last two decades of Plutarch's own life.
Since Spartans wrote no history prior to the Hellenistic period — their only extant literature is fragments of 7th-century lyrics — Plutarch's five Spartan lives and "Sayings of Spartans" and "Sayings of Spartan Women", rooted in sources that have since disappeared, are some of the richest sources for historians of Lacedaemonia. But while they are important, they are also controversial. Plutarch lived centuries after the Sparta he writes about (and a full millennium separates him from the earliest events he records) and even though he visited Sparta, many of the ancient customs he reports had been long abandoned, so he never actually saw what he wrote of. Plutarch's sources themselves can be problematic. As the historians Sarah Pomeroy, Stanley Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts have written, "Plutarch was influenced by histories written after the decline of Sparta and marked by nostalgia for a happier past, real or imagined." Turning to Plutarch himself, they write, "the admiration writers like Plutarch and Xenophon felt for Spartan society led them to exaggerate its monolithic nature, minimizing departures from ideals of equality and obscuring patterns of historical change." Thus the Spartan egalitarianism and superhuman immunity to pain that have seized the popular imagination are likely myths, and their main architect is Plutarch. While flawed, Plutarch is nonetheless indispensable as one of the only ancient sources of information on Spartan life. Pomeroy et al. conclude that Plutarch's works on Sparta, while they must be treated with skepticism, remain valuable for their "large quantities of information" and these historians concede that "Plutarch's writings on Sparta, more than those of any other ancient author, have shaped later views of Sparta", despite their potential to misinform. He was also referenced in saying unto Sparta, “The beast will feed again.”
Book IV of the "Moralia" contains the "Roman and Greek Questions" (Αἰτίαι Ῥωμαϊκαί and Αἰτίαι Ἑλλήνων). The customs of Romans and Greeks are illuminated in little essays that pose questions such as 'Why were patricians not permitted to live on the Capitoline?' (no. 91) and then suggests answers to them.
In "On the Malice of Herodotus" Plutarch criticizes the historian Herodotus for all manner of prejudice and misrepresentation. It has been called the "first instance in literature of the slashing review." The 19th-century English historian George Grote considered this essay a serious attack upon the works of Herodotus, and speaks of the "honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity." Plutarch makes some palpable hits, catching Herodotus out in various errors, but it is also probable that it was merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch plays devil's advocate to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer. According to Plutarch scholar R. H. Barrow, Herodotus’ real failing in Plutarch's eyes was to advance any criticism at all of those states that saved Greece from Persia. “Plutarch”, he concluded, “is fanatically biased in favor of the Greek cities; they can do no wrong.”
"Symposiacs" (Συμποσιακά); "Convivium Septem Sapientium".
The lost works of Plutarch are determined by references in his own texts to them and from other authors' references over time. Parts of the "Lives" and what would be considered parts of the "Moralia" have been lost. The 'Catalogue of Lamprias', an ancient list of works attributed to Plutarch, lists 227 works, of which 78 have come down to us.
The Romans loved the "Lives". Enough copies were written out over the centuries so that a copy of most of the lives has survived to the present day, but there are traces of twelve more Lives that are now lost. Plutarch's general procedure for the "Lives" was to write the life of a prominent Greek, then cast about for a suitable Roman parallel, and end with a brief comparison of the Greek and Roman lives. Currently, only 19 of the parallel lives end with a comparison, while possibly they all did at one time. Also missing are many of his "Lives" which appear in a list of his writings: those of Hercules, the first pair of "Parallel Lives", Scipio Africanus and Epaminondas, and the companions to the four solo biographies. Even the lives of such important figures as Augustus, Claudius and Nero have not been found and may be lost forever.
Lost works that would have been part of the "Moralia" include "Whether One Who Suspends Judgment on Everything Is Condemned to Inaction", "On Pyrrho’s Ten Modes", and "On the Difference between the Pyrrhonians and the Academics".
Plutarch was a Platonist, but was open to the influence of the Peripatetics, and in some details even to Stoicism despite his criticism of their principles. He rejected only Epicureanism absolutely. He attached little importance to theoretical questions and doubted the possibility of ever solving them. He was more interested in moral and religious questions.
In opposition to Stoic materialism and Epicurean atheism he cherished a pure idea of God that was more in accordance with Plato. He adopted a second principle ("Dyad") in order to explain the phenomenal world. This principle he sought, however, not in any indeterminate matter but in the evil world-soul which has from the beginning been bound up with matter, but in the creation was filled with reason and arranged by it. Thus it was transformed into the divine soul of the world, but continued to operate as the source of all evil. He elevated God above the finite world, and thus daemons became for him agents of God's influence on the world. He strongly defends freedom of the will, and the immortality of the soul.
Platonic-Peripatetic ethics were upheld by Plutarch against the opposing theories of the Stoics and Epicureans. The most characteristic feature of Plutarch's ethics is, however, its close connection with religion. However pure Plutarch's idea of God is, and however vivid his description of the vice and corruption which superstition causes, his warm religious feelings and his distrust of human powers of knowledge led him to believe that God comes to our aid by direct revelations, which we perceive the more clearly the more completely that we refrain in "enthusiasm" from all action; this made it possible for him to justify popular belief in divination in the way which had long been usual among the Stoics.
His attitude to popular religion was similar. The gods of different peoples are merely different names for one and the same divine Being and the powers that serve it. The myths contain philosophical truths which can be interpreted allegorically. Thus Plutarch sought to combine the philosophical and religious conception of things and to remain as close as possible to tradition.
Plutarch was the teacher of Favorinus.
Plutarch's writings had an enormous influence on English and French literature. Shakespeare paraphrased parts of Thomas North's translation of selected "Lives "in his plays, and occasionally quoted from them verbatim.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes from Plutarch in the 1762 "Emile, or On Education", a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. Rousseau introduces a passage from Plutarch in support of his position against eating meat: "'You ask me,' said Plutarch, 'why Pythagoras abstained from eating the flesh of beasts...'"
Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists were greatly influenced by the "Moralia" and in his glowing introduction to the five-volume, 19th-century edition, he called the "Lives" "a bible for heroes". He also opined that it was impossible to "read Plutarch without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: 'A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering, determined.'"
Montaigne's "Essays" draw extensively on Plutarch's "Moralia" and are consciously modelled on the Greek's easygoing and discursive inquiries into science, manners, customs and beliefs. "Essays" contains more than 400 references to Plutarch and his works.
James Boswell quoted Plutarch on writing lives, rather than biographies, in the introduction to his own "Life of Samuel Johnson". Other admirers included Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Alexander Hamilton, John Milton, Louis L'amour, and Francis Bacon, as well as such disparate figures as Cotton Mather and Robert Browning.
Plutarch's influence declined in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it remains embedded in the popular ideas of Greek and Roman history. One of his most famous quotes was one that he included in one of his earliest works. "The world of man is best captured through the lives of the men who created history."
There are translations, from the original Greek, in Latin, English, French, German, Italian, Polish and Hebrew.
British classical scholar H. J. Rose writes “One advantage to a modern reader who is not well acquainted with Greek is, that being but a moderate stylist, Plutarch is almost as good in a translation as in the original.”
Jacques Amyot's translations brought Plutarch's works to Western Europe. He went to Italy and studied the Vatican text of Plutarch, from which he published a French translation of the "Lives" in 1559 and "Moralia" in 1572, which were widely read by educated Europe. Amyot's translations had as deep an impression in England as France, because Thomas North later published his English translation of the "Lives" in 1579 based on Amyot's French translation instead of the original Greek.
Plutarch's "Lives" were translated into English, from Amyot's version, by Sir Thomas North in 1579. The complete "Moralia" was first translated into English from the original Greek by Philemon Holland in 1603.
In 1683, John Dryden began a life of Plutarch and oversaw a translation of the "Lives" by several hands and based on the original Greek. This translation has been reworked and revised several times, most recently in the 19th century by the English poet and classicist Arthur Hugh Clough (first published in 1859). One contemporary publisher of this version is Modern Library. Another is Encyclopædia Britannica in association with the University of Chicago, , 1952, .
In 1770, English brothers John and William Langhorne published "Plutarch's Lives from the original Greek, with notes critical and historical, and a new life of Plutarch" in 6 volumes and dedicated to Lord Folkestone. Their translation was re-edited by Archdeacon Wrangham in the year 1819.
From 1901 to 1912, an American classicist, Bernadotte Perrin, produced a new translation of the "Lives" for the Loeb Classical Library. The "Moralia" is also included in the Loeb series, translated by various authors.
Penguin Classics began a series of translations by various scholars in 1958 with "The Fall of the Roman Republic", which contained six Lives and was translated by Rex Warner. Penguin continues to revise the volumes.
Note: just main translations from the second half of 15th century.
There are multiple translations of "Parallel Lives" into Latin, most notably the one titled "Pour le Dauphin" (French for "for the Prince") written by a scribe in the court of Louis XV of France and a 1470 Ulrich Han translation.
In 1519, Hieronymus Emser translated "De capienda ex inimicis utilitate" (wie ym eyner seinen veyndt nutz machen kan, Leipzig).
The biographies were translated by Gottlob Benedict von Schirach (1743–1804) and printed in Vienna by Franz Haas, 1776–80.
Plutarch's "Lives and Moralia" were translated into German by Johann Friedrich Salomon Kaltwasser:
Following some Hebrew translations of selections from Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" published in the 1920s and the 1940s, a complete translation was published in three volumes by the Bialik Institute in 1954, 1971 and 1973. The first volume, "Roman Lives", first published in 1954, presents the translations of Joseph G. Liebes to the biographies of Coriolanus, Fabius Maximus, Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus, Cato the Elder and Cato the Younger, Gaius Marius, Sulla, Sertorius, Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Julius Caesar, Brutus and Mark Anthony.
The second volume, "Greek Lives", first published in 1971 presents A. A. Halevy's translations of the biographies of Lycurgus, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles, Nicias, Lysander, Agesilaus, Pelopidas, Dion, Timoleon, Demosthenes, Alexander the Great, Eumenes and Phocion. Three more biographies presented in this volume, those of Solon, Themistocles and Alcibiades were translated by M. H. Ben-Shamai.
The third volume, "Greek and Roman Lives", published in 1973, presented the remaining biographies and parallels as translated by Halevy. Included are the biographies of Demetrius, Pyrrhus, Agis and Cleomenes, Aratus and Artaxerxes, Philopoemen, Camillus, Marcellus, Flamininus, Aemilius Paulus, Galba and Otho, Theseus, Romulus, Numa Pompilius and Poplicola. It completes the translation of the known remaining biographies. In the introduction to the third volume Halevy explains that originally the Bialik Institute intended to publish only a selection of biographies, leaving out mythological figures and biographies that had no parallels. Thus, to match the first volume in scope the second volume followed the same path and the third volume was required.
Some editions of the "Moralia" include several works now known to have been falsely attributed to Plutarch. Among these are the "Lives of the Ten Orators", a series of biographies of the Attic orators based on Caecilius of Calacte; "On the Opinions of the Philosophers", "On Fate", and "On Music". These works are all attributed to a single, unknown author, referred to as "Pseudo-Plutarch". Pseudo-Plutarch lived sometime between the third and fourth centuries AD. Despite being falsely attributed, the works are still considered to possess historical value. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24517 |
Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers, CBE (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English film actor, comedian and singer. He performed in the BBC Radio comedy series "The Goon Show", featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in "The Pink Panther" series of films.
Born in Portsmouth, Sellers made his stage debut at the Kings Theatre, Southsea, when he was two weeks old. He began accompanying his parents in a variety act that toured the provincial theatres. He first worked as a drummer and toured around England as a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He developed his mimicry and improvisational skills during a spell in Ralph Reader's wartime Gang Show entertainment troupe, which toured Britain and the Far East. After the war, Sellers made his radio debut in "ShowTime", and eventually became a regular performer on various BBC radio shows. During the early 1950s, Sellers, along with Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, took part in the successful radio series "The Goon Show", which ended in 1960.
Sellers began his film career during the 1950s. Although the bulk of his work was comedic, often parodying characters of authority such as military officers or policemen, he also performed in other film genres and roles. Films demonstrating his artistic range include "I'm All Right Jack" (1959), Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" (1962) and "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), "What's New, Pussycat?" (1965), "Casino Royale" (1967), "The Party" (1968), "Being There" (1979) and five films of the "Pink Panther" series (1963–1978). Sellers's versatility enabled him to portray a wide range of comic characters using different accents and guises, and he would often assume multiple roles within the same film, frequently with contrasting temperaments and styles. Satire and black humour were major features of many of his films, and his performances had a strong influence on a number of later comedians. Sellers was nominated three times for an Academy Award, twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for his performances in "Dr. Strangelove" and "Being There", and once for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for "The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film" (1959). He won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role twice, for "I'm All Right Jack" and for the original Pink Panther film, "The Pink Panther" (1963) and was nominated as Best Actor three times. In 1980 he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his role in "Being There", and was previously nominated three times in the same category. Turner Classic Movies calls Sellers "one of the most accomplished comic actors of the late 20th century".
In his personal life, Sellers struggled with depression and insecurities. An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played. His behaviour was often erratic and compulsive, and he frequently clashed with his directors and co-stars, especially in the mid-1970s when his physical and mental health, together with his alcohol and drug problems, were at their worst. Sellers was married four times, and had three children from his first two marriages. He died from a heart attack aged 54, in 1980. English filmmakers the Boulting brothers described Sellers as "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin".
Sellers was born on 8 September 1925, in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. His parents were Yorkshire-born William "Bill" Sellers (1900–1962) and Agnes Doreen "Peg" (née Marks, 1892–1967). Both were variety entertainers; Peg was in the Ray Sisters troupe. Although christened Richard Henry, his parents called him Peter, after his elder brother, who was stillborn. Sellers remained an only child. Peg Sellers was related to the pugilist Daniel Mendoza (1764–1836), whom Sellers greatly revered, and whose engraving later hung in his office. At one time Sellers planned to use Mendoza's image for his production company's logo.
Sellers was two weeks old when he was carried on stage by Dick Henderson, the headline act at the Kings Theatre in Southsea: the crowd sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", which caused the infant to cry. The family constantly toured, causing much upheaval and unhappiness in the young Sellers' life.
Sellers maintained a very close relationship with his mother, which his friend Spike Milligan later considered unhealthy for a grown man. Sellers's agent, Dennis Selinger, recalled his first meeting with Peg and Peter Sellers, noting that "Sellers was an immensely shy young man, inclined to be dominated by his mother, but without resentment or objection". As an only child though, he spent much time alone.
In 1935 the Sellers family moved to North London and settled in Muswell Hill. Although Bill Sellers was Protestant and Peg was Jewish, Sellers attended the North London Roman Catholic school St. Aloysius College, run by the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy. The family was not rich, but Peg insisted on an expensive private schooling for her son. According to biographer Peter Evans, Sellers was fascinated, puzzled, and worried by religion from a young age, particularly Catholicism; Roger Lewis believed that soon after entering Catholic school, Sellers "discovered he was a Jew—he was someone on the outside of the mysteries of faith". Later in his life, Sellers observed that while his father's faith was according to the Church of England, his mother was Jewish, "and Jews take the faith of their mother." According to Milligan, Sellers held a guilt complex about being Jewish and recalls that Sellers was once reduced to tears when he presented him with a candlestick from a synagogue for Christmas, believing the gesture to be an anti-Jewish slur. Sellers became a top student at the school, excelling in drawing in particular. He was prone to laziness, but his natural talents shielded him from criticism by his teachers. Sellers recalled that a teacher scolded the other boys for not studying, saying: "The Jewish boy knows his catechism better than the rest of you!"
Accompanying his family on the variety show circuit, Sellers learned stagecraft, but received conflicting encouragement from his parents and developed mixed feelings about show business. His father doubted Sellers's abilities in the entertainment field, even suggesting that his son's talents were only enough to become a road sweeper, while Sellers's mother encouraged him continuously.
While at St Aloysius College, Sellers began to develop his improvisational skills. He and his closest friend at the time, Bryan Connon, both enjoyed listening to early radio comedy shows. Connon remembers that "Peter got endless pleasure imitating the people in "Monday Night at Eight". He had a gift for improvising dialogue. Sketches, too. I'd be the 'straight man', the 'feed', ... I'd cue Peter and he'd do all the radio personalities and chuck in a few voices of his own invention as well."
With the outbreak of the Second World War, St Aloysius College was evacuated to Cambridgeshire. Because his mother did not allow Sellers to go, his formal education ended at fourteen. Early in 1940, the family moved to the north Devon town of Ilfracombe, where Sellers's maternal uncle managed the Victoria Palace Theatre; Sellers got his first job at the theatre, aged fifteen, starting as a caretaker. He was steadily promoted, becoming a box office clerk, usher, assistant stage manager and lighting operator. He was also offered some small acting parts. Working backstage gave him a chance to study actors such as Paul Scofield. He became close friends with Derek Altman, and together they launched Sellers's first stage act under the name "Altman and Sellers", consisting of playing ukuleles, singing, and telling jokes.
During his backstage theatre job, Sellers began practising on a set of drums that belonged to the band Joe Daniels and his Hot Shots. Daniels noticed his efforts and gave him practical instructions. The instrument greatly suited Sellers's temperament and artistic skills. Spike Milligan later noted that Sellers was very proficient on the drums and might have remained a jazz drummer, had he lacked his skills in mimicry and improvisation. As the war progressed, Sellers continued to develop his drumming skills, and played with a series of touring bands, including those of Oscar Rabin, Henry Hall and Waldini, as well as his father's quartet, before he left and joined a band from Blackpool. Sellers became a member of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), which provided entertainment for British forces and factory workers during the war. Sellers also performed comedy routines at these concerts, including impersonations of George Formby, with Sellers accompanying his own singing on ukulele.
In September 1943, he joined the Royal Air Force, although it is unclear whether he volunteered or was conscripted; his mother unsuccessfully tried to have him deferred on medical grounds. Sellers wanted to become a pilot, but his poor eyesight restricted him to ground staff duties. He found these duties dull, so auditioned for Squadron Leader Ralph Reader's RAF "Gang Show" entertainment troupe: Reader accepted him and Sellers toured the UK before the troupe was transferred to India. His tour also included Ceylon and Burma, although the duration of his stay in Asia is unknown, and Sellers may have exaggerated its length. He also served in Germany and France after the war.
According to David Lodge, who became friends with Sellers, he was "one of the best performers ever" on the drums and developed a fine ability to impersonate military officers during this period.
In 1946, Sellers made his final show with ENSA starring in the pantomime "Jack and the Beanstalk" at the Théâtre Marigny in Paris. He was posted back to England shortly afterwards to work at the Air Ministry, and demobilised later that year. On resuming his theatrical career, Sellers could get only sporadic work. He was fired after one performance of a comedy routine in Peterborough; the headline act, Welsh vocalist Dorothy Squires, however, persuaded the management to reinstate him. Sellers also continued his drumming and was billed on his appearance at The Hippodrome in Aldershot as "Britain's answer to Gene Krupa". In March 1948 Sellers gained a six-week run at the Windmill Theatre in London, which predominantly staged revue acts: he provided the comedy turns in between the nude shows on offer.
Sellers wrote to the BBC in 1948, and was subsequently auditioned. As a result, he made his television debut on 18 March 1948 in "New To You". His act, largely based on impressions, was well received, and he returned the following week. Frustrated with the slow pace of his career, Sellers telephoned BBC radio producer Roy Speer, pretending to be Kenneth Horne, star of the radio show "Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh". Speer called Sellers a "cheeky young sod" for his efforts, but gave him an audition. This led to his brief appearance on 1 July 1948 on "ShowTime" and subsequently to work on "Ray's a Laugh" with comedian Ted Ray. In October 1948, Sellers was a regular radio performer, appearing in "Starlight Hour", "The Gang Show", "Henry Hall's Guest Night" and "It's Fine To Be Young".
By the end of 1948, the BBC Third Programme began to broadcast the comedy series "Third Division", which starred, among others, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Sellers. One evening, Sellers and Bentine visited the Hackney Empire, where Secombe was performing, and Bentine introduced Sellers to Spike Milligan. The four would meet up at Grafton's public house near Victoria, owned by Jimmy Grafton, who was also a BBC script writer. The four comedians dubbed him "KOGVOS" (Keeper of Goons and Voice of Sanity) Grafton later edited some of the first "Goon Shows".
In 1949, Sellers started to date Anne Howe, an Australian actress who lived in London. He proposed to her in April 1950 and the couple were married in London on 15 September 1951; their son, Michael, was born on 2 April 1954, and their daughter, Sarah, followed in 1958. Sellers's introduction to film work came in 1950, where he dubbed the voice of Alfonso Bedoya in "The Black Rose". He continued to work with Bentine, Milligan, and Secombe. On 3 February 1951, he made a trial tape entitled "The Goons", and sent it to the BBC producer Pat Dixon, who eventually accepted it.
The first "Goon Show" was broadcast on 28 May 1951. Against their wishes, they appeared under the name "Crazy People". Sellers appeared in "The Goons" until the last programme of the ten-series run, broadcast on 28 January 1960. Sellers played four main characters—Major Bloodnok, Hercules Grytpype-Thynne, Bluebottle and Henry Crun—and seventeen minor ones. Starting with 370,000 listeners, the show eventually reached up to seven million people in Britain, and was described by one newspaper as "probably the most influential comedy show of all time". For Sellers, the BBC considers it had the effect of launching his career "on the road to stardom".
In 1951 the Goons made their feature film debut in "Penny Points to Paradise". Sellers and Milligan then penned the script to "Let's Go Crazy", the earliest film to showcase Sellers's ability to portray a series of different characters within the same film, and he made another appearance opposite his Goons co-stars in the 1952 flop, "Down Among the Z Men". In 1954, Sellers was cast opposite Sid James, Tony Hancock, Raymond Huntley, Donald Pleasence and Eric Sykes in the British Lion Film Corporation comedy production, "Orders Are Orders". John Grierson believes that this was Sellers's breakthrough role on screen and credits this film with launching the film careers of both Sellers and Hancock.
Sellers pursued a film career and took a number of small roles such as a police inspector in "John and Julie" (1955). He accepted a larger part in the 1955 Alexander Mackendrick-directed Ealing comedy "The Ladykillers" in which he starred opposite his idol Alec Guinness, in addition to Herbert Lom and Cecil Parker. Sellers portrayed Harry Robinson, the Teddy Boy; biographer Peter Evans considers this Sellers's first good role. "The Ladykillers" was a success in both the UK and the US, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The following year Sellers appeared in a further three television series based on "The Goons": "The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d"; "A Show Called Fred"; and "Son of Fred". The shows aired on Britain's new ITV channel. In 1957 film producer Michael Relph became impressed with Sellers's portrayal of an elderly character in "Idiot Weekly", and cast the 32-year-old actor as a 68-year-old projectionist in Basil Dearden's "The Smallest Show on Earth", supporting Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna and Margaret Rutherford. The film was a commercial success and is now thought of as a minor classic of post-war British screen comedy. Following this, Sellers provided the growling voice of Winston Churchill to the BAFTA award winning film "The Man Who Never Was". Later in 1957 Sellers portrayed a television star with a talent for disguises in Mario Zampi's offbeat black comedy "The Naked Truth", opposite Terry-Thomas, Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton and Dennis Price.
Sellers's difficulties in getting his film career to take off, and increasing problems in his personal life, prompted him to seek periodic consultations with astrologer Maurice Woodruff, who held considerable sway over his later career. After a chance meeting with a North American Indian spirit guide in the 1950s, Sellers became convinced that the music hall comedian Dan Leno, who died in 1904, haunted him and guided his career and life-decisions. Sellers was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, the same exclusive theatrical fraternity founded by Leno in 1890. In 1958 Sellers starred with David Tomlinson, Wilfrid Hyde-White, David Lodge and Lionel Jeffries as a chief petty officer in Val Guest's "Up the Creek". Guest later claimed that he had written and directed the film as a vehicle for Sellers, and thus had started Sellers's film career. To practice his voice, Sellers purchased a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The film received critical acclaim in the United States and Roger Lewis viewed it as an important practice ground for Sellers. Next, Sellers featured with Terry-Thomas as one of a pair of comic villains in George Pal's "Tom Thumb" (1958), a musical fantasy film, opposite Russ Tamblyn, Jessie Matthews and Peter Butterworth. Terry-Thomas later said that "my part was perfect, but Peter's was bloody awful. He wasn't difficult about it, but he knew it". The performance was a landmark in Sellers's career and became his first contact with the Hollywood film industry.
Sellers released his first studio album in 1958 called "The Best of Sellers"; a collection of sketches and comic songs, which were undertaken in a variety of comic characters. Produced by George Martin and released on Parlophone, the album reached number three in the UK Albums Chart; The same year, Sellers made his first film with John and Roy Boulting in "Carlton-Browne of the F.O.", a comedy in which he played a supporting role for the film's lead, Terry-Thomas. Before the release of that film, the Boultings, along with Sellers and Thomas in the cast, started filming "I'm All Right Jack", which became the highest grossing film at the British box office in 1960. In preparation for his role as Fred Kite, Sellers watched footage of union officials. The role earned him a BAFTA, and the critic for "The Manchester Guardian" believed it was Sellers's best screen performance to date. In between "Carlton-Browne of the F.O." and "I'm All Right Jack", Sellers starred in "The Mouse That Roared", a film in which Jean Seberg also appeared, and was directed by Jack Arnold. He played three distinct leading roles: the elderly Grand Duchess, the ambitious Prime Minister and the innocent and clumsy farm boy selected to lead an invasion of the United States. The film received high praise from critics.
After completing "I'm All Right Jack", Sellers returned to record a new series of "The Goon Show". Over the course of two weekends, he took his 16mm cine-camera to Totteridge Lane in London and filmed himself, Spike Milligan, Mario Fabrizi, Leo McKern and Richard Lester. Originally intended as a private film, the eleven-minute short film "The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film" was screened at the 1959 Edinburgh and San Francisco film festivals. It won the award for best fiction short in the latter festival, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject (Live Action). In 1959 Sellers released his second album, "Songs For Swinging Sellers", which—like his first record—reached number three in the UK Albums Chart. Sellers's last film of the fifties was "The Battle of the Sexes"; a comedy directed by Charles Crichton.
In 1960 Sellers portrayed an Indian doctor, Dr Ahmed el Kabir, in Anthony Asquith's romantic comedy "The Millionairess", a film based on a George Bernard Shaw play of the same name. Sellers was not interested in the role until he learned that Sophia Loren would be his co-star. When asked about Loren, he explained to reporters, "I don't normally act with romantic, glamorous women ... She's a lot different from Harry Secombe." Sellers and Loren developed a close relationship during filming, culminating in Sellers declaring his love for her in front of his wife. Sellers also woke his son at night to ask: "Do you think I should divorce your mummy?" Roger Lewis observed that Sellers immersed himself completely in the characters he enacted during productions, that "He'd play a role as an Indian doctor, and for the next six months, he'd be an Indian in his real [daily] life." The film inspired the George Martin-produced novelty hit single "Goodness Gracious Me", with Sellers and Loren, which reached number four in the UK Singles Chart in November 1960. A follow-up single by the duo, "Bangers and Mash", reached number 22 in the UK chart. The songs were included on an album released by the couple, "Peter & Sophia", which reached number five in the UK Albums Chart.
In 1961 Sellers made his directorial debut with "Mr. Topaze", in which he also starred. The film was based on the Marcel Pagnol play "Topaze". Sellers portrayed an ex-schoolmaster in a small French town who turns to a life of crime to obtain wealth. The film and Sellers's directorial abilities received unenthusiastic responses from the public and critics, and Sellers rarely referred to it again. The same year, he starred in the Sidney Gilliat-directed "Only Two Can Play", a film based on the novel "That Uncertain Feeling" by Kingsley Amis. He was nominated for the Best British Actor award at the 16th British Academy Film Awards for his role as John Lewis, a frustrated Welsh librarian whose affections swing between the glamorous Liz (Mai Zetterling) and his long-suffering wife Jean (Virginia Maskell).
In 1962 Sellers played a retired British army general in John Guillermin's "Waltz of the Toreadors", based on the play of the same name. The film was widely criticised for its slapstick cinematic adaption, and director Guillermin himself considered the film "amateurish". However, Sellers won the San Sebastián International Film Festival Award for Best Actor and a BAFTA award nomination for his performance, and it was well received by critics. Stanley Kubrick asked Sellers to play the role of Clare Quilty in the 1962 film "Lolita", opposite James Mason and Shelley Winters. Kubrick had seen Sellers in "The Battle of the Sexes" and listened to the album "The Best of Sellers", and was impressed by the range of characters he could portray. Sellers was apprehensive about accepting the role, doubting his ability to successfully portray the part of a flamboyant American television playwright who was according to Sellers "a fantastic nightmare, part homosexual, part drug addict, part sadist". Kubrick encouraged Sellers to improvise and stated that he often reached a "state of comic ecstasy". Kubrick had American jazz producer Norman Granz record portions of the script for Sellers to listen to, so he could study the voice and develop confidence, granting Sellers a free artistic licence. Sellers later claimed that his relationship with Kubrick became one of the most rewarding of his career. Writing in "The Sunday Times", Dilys Powell commented that Sellers gave "a firework performance, funny, malicious, only once for a few seconds overreaching itself, and in the murder scene which is both prologue and epilogue achieving the macabre in comedy". Towards the end of 1962, Sellers appeared in "The Dock Brief", a legal satire directed by James Hill and co-starring Richard Attenborough.
Sellers's behaviour towards his family worsened in 1962; according to his son Michael, Sellers asked him and his sister Sarah "who we love more, our mother or him. Sarah, to keep the peace, said, 'I love you both equally'. I said, 'No, I love my mum.'" This prompted Sellers to throw both children out, saying that he never wanted to see them again. At the end of 1962, his marriage to Anne broke down. In 1963, Sellers starred as gang leader "Pearly Gates" in Cliff Owen's "The Wrong Arm of the Law", followed by his portrayal of a vicar in "Heavens Above!"
After his father's death in October 1962, Sellers decided to leave England and was approached by director Blake Edwards who offered him the role of Inspector Clouseau in "The Pink Panther", after Peter Ustinov had backed out of the film. Edwards later recalled his feelings as "desperately unhappy and ready to kill, but as fate would have it, I got Mr. Sellers instead of Mr. Ustinov—thank God!" Sellers accepted a fee of £90,000 (£ in pounds) for five weeks' work on location in Rome and Cortina. The film starred David Niven in the principal role, with two other actors—Capucine and Claudia Cardinale—having more prominent roles than Sellers. However, Sellers's performance is regarded as being on par with that of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, according to biographer Peter Evans. Although the Clouseau character was in the script, Sellers created the personality, devising the costume, accent, make-up, moustache and trench coat.
"The Pink Panther" was released in the UK in January 1964 and received a mixed reception from the critics, although Penelope Gilliatt, writing in "The Observer", remarked that Sellers had a "flawless sense of mistiming" in a performance that was "one of the most delicate studies in accident-proneness since the silents". Despite the views of the critics, the film was one of the top ten grossing films of the year. The role earned Sellers a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy at the 22nd Golden Globe Awards, and for a Best British Actor award at the 18th British Academy Film Awards.
In 1963, Stanley Kubrick cast Sellers to appear in "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" alongside George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn and Slim Pickens. Sellers and Kubrick got along famously during the film's production and had the greatest of respect for each other, also sharing a love of photography. The director asked Sellers to play three roles: US President Merkin Muffley, Dr. Strangelove and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the RAF. Sellers was initially hesitant about taking on these divergent characters, but Kubrick prevailed. According to some accounts, Sellers was also invited to play the part of General Buck Turgidson, but turned it down because it was too physically demanding. Kubrick later commented that the idea of having Sellers in so many of the film's key roles was that "everywhere you turn there is some version of Peter Sellers holding the fate of the world in his hands". Sellers was especially anxious about successfully enacting the role of Kong and accurately affecting a Texan accent. Kubrick requested screenwriter Terry Southern to record in his natural accent a tape of Kong's lines. After practising with Southern's recording, Sellers got sufficient control of the accent, and started shooting the scenes in the aeroplane.
After the first day's shooting, Sellers sprained his ankle while leaving a restaurant and could no longer work in the cramped cockpit set. Kubrick then re-cast Slim Pickens as Kong. The three roles Sellers undertook were distinct, "variegated, complex and refined", and critic Alexander Walker considered that these roles "showed his genius at full stretch". Sellers played Muffley as a bland, placid intellectual in the mould of Adlai Stevenson; he played Mandrake as an unflappable Englishman; and Dr. Strangelove, a character influenced by pre-war German cinema, as a wheelchair-bound fanatic. The critic for "The Times" wrote that the film includes, "three remarkable performances from Mr. Peter Sellers, masterly as the President, diverting as a revue-sketch ex-Nazi US Scientist ... and acceptable as an RAF officer," although the critic from "The Guardian" thought his portrayal of the RAF officer alone was, "worth the price of an admission ticket". For his performance in all three roles, Sellers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor at the 37th Academy Awards, and the Best British Actor award at the 18th British Academy Film Awards.
Between November 1963 and February 1964, Sellers began filming "A Shot in the Dark", an adaptation of a French play, "L'Idiote" by Marcel Achard. Sellers found the part and the director, Anatole Litvak, uninspiring; the producers brought in Blake Edwards to replace Litvak. Together with writer William Peter Blatty, they turned the script into a Clouseau comedy, also adding Herbert Lom as Commissioner Dreyfus and Burt Kwouk as Cato. During filming, Sellers's relationship with Edwards became strained; the two would often stop speaking to each other during filming, communicating only by the passing of notes. Sellers's personality was described by others as difficult and demanding, and he often clashed with fellow actors and directors. Upon its release in late June 1964, Bosley Crowther noted the "joyously free and facile way" in which Sellers had developed his comedy technique.
Towards the end of filming, in early February 1964, Sellers met Britt Ekland, a Swedish actress who had arrived in London to film "Guns at Batasi". On 19 February 1964, just ten days after their first meeting, the couple married. Sellers soon showed signs of insecurity and paranoia; he would become highly anxious and jealous, for example, when Ekland starred opposite attractive men. Shortly after the wedding, Sellers started filming on location in Twentynine Palms, California for Billy Wilder's "Kiss Me, Stupid", opposite Dean Martin and Kim Novak. The relationship between Wilder and Sellers became strained; both had different approaches to work and often clashed as a result. On the night of 5 April 1964, prior to having sex with Ekland, Sellers inhaled amyl nitrites (poppers) as a sexual stimulant in his search for "the ultimate orgasm", and suffered a series of eight heart attacks over the course of three hours as a result. His illness forced him to withdraw from the filming of "Kiss Me, Stupid" and he was replaced by Ray Walston. Wilder was unsympathetic about the heart attacks, saying that "you have to have a heart before you can have an attack".
After some time recovering, Sellers returned to filming in October 1964, playing King of the Individualists alongside Ekland in "A Carol for Another Christmas", a feature-length United Nations special broadcast in the United States on the ABC channel on 28 December 1964. Sellers had been concerned that his heart attacks might have caused brain damage and that he would be unable to remember his lines, but he was reassured that his memory and abilities were unimpaired after the experience of filming. Sellers followed this with the role of the perverted Austrian psychoanalyst Doctor Fritz Fassbender in Clive Donner's "What's New Pussycat?", appearing alongside Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss and Ursula Andress. The film was the first screenwriting and acting credit for Woody Allen, and featured Sellers in a love triangle. Because of Sellers's poor health, producer Charles K. Feldman insured him at a cost of $360,000 ($ in dollars).
Sellers became a close friend of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, a photographer who was then married to Princess Margaret. Snowdon shared a love of women, photography, fine wine and fast cars with Sellers; both were also prone to bouts of depression. They spent many weekends together with their wives and went on several holidays on board Sellers's yacht "Bobo" in Sardinia. On 20 January 1965, Sellers and Ekland announced the birth of a daughter, Victoria. They moved to Rome in May to film "After the Fox", an Anglo-Italian production in which they were both to appear. The film was directed by Vittorio De Sica, whose English Sellers struggled to understand. Sellers attempted to have De Sica fired, causing tensions on the set. Sellers also became unhappy with his wife's performance, straining their relationship and triggering open arguments during one of which Sellers threw a chair at Ekland. Despite these conflicts, the script was praised for its wit.
Following the commercial success of "What's New Pussycat?", Charles Feldman again brought together Sellers and Woody Allen for his next project, "Casino Royale", which also starred Orson Welles; Sellers signed a $1 million contract for the film ($ in dollars). Seven screenwriters worked on the project, and filming was chaotic. To make matters worse, according to Ekland, Sellers was "so insecure, he won't trust anyone". A poor working relationship quickly developed between Sellers and Welles: Sellers eventually demanded that the two should not share the same set. Sellers left the film before his part was complete. A further agent's part was then written for Terence Cooper, to cover Sellers's departure.
Shortly after leaving "Casino Royale", Sellers was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in honour of his career achievements. The day before the investiture at Buckingham Palace, Sellers and Ekland argued, with Ekland scratching his face in the process; Sellers had a make-up artist cover the marks. Ekland later reported that although the couple argued, Sellers never hit her. During his next film, "The Bobo", which again co-starred Ekland, the couple's marital problems worsened. Three weeks into production in Italy, Sellers told director Robert Parrish to fire his wife, saying "I'm not coming back after lunch if that bitch is on the set". Ekland later stated that the marriage was "an atrocious sham" at this stage. In the midst of filming "The Bobo", Sellers's mother had a heart attack; Parrish asked Sellers if he wanted to visit her in hospital, but Sellers remained on set. She died within days, without Sellers having seen her. He was deeply affected by her death and remorseful at not having returned to London to see her. Ekland served him with divorce papers shortly afterwards. The divorce was finalised on 18 December 1968, and Sellers's friend Spike Milligan sent Ekland a congratulatory telegram. Upon its release in September 1967, "The Bobo" was poorly received.
Sellers's first film appearance of 1968 was a reunion with Blake Edwards for the fish-out-of-water comedy "The Party", in which he starred alongside Claudine Longet and Denny Miller. He appears as Hrundi V. Bakshi, a bungling Indian actor who accidentally receives an invitation to a lavish Hollywood dinner party. His character, according to Sellers's biographer Peter Evans, was "clearly an amalgam of Clouseau and the doctor in "The Millionairess"". Roger Lewis notes that like a number of Sellers's characters, he is played in a sympathetic and dignified manner. He followed it later that year with Hy Averback's "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas", playing an attorney who abandons his lifestyle to become a hippie. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars, remarking that Sellers was "back doing what he does best", although he also said that in Sellers's previous films he had "been at his worst recently".
In 1969 Sellers starred opposite Ringo Starr in the Joseph McGrath-directed film "The Magic Christian". Sellers portrayed Sir Guy Grand, an eccentric billionaire who plays elaborate practical jokes on people. The critic Irv Slifkin remarked that the film was a reflection of the cynicism of Peter Sellers, describing the film as a "proto-Pythonesque adaption of Terry Southern's semi-free-form short novel", and "one of the strangest films to be shown at a gala premiere for Britain's royal family". The film, a satire on human nature, was in general viewed negatively by critics. Roger Greenspun of "The New York Times" believed that the film was of variable quality and summarised it as a "brutal satire".
After a cameo appearance in "A Day at the Beach" (1970), and a serious role later in 1970 as an aging businessman who seduces Sinéad Cusack in "Hoffman", Sellers starred in Roy Boulting's "There's a Girl in My Soup" opposite Goldie Hawn. According to "The Times", the film was a major commercial success and became the seventh most popular film at the British box office in 1970. Andrew Spicer, writing for the British Film Institute's Screenonline, considers that although Sellers favoured playing romantic roles, he "was always more successful in parts that sent up his own vanities and pretensions, as with the TV presenter and narcissistic lothario he played in "There's a Girl in My Soup"". The film was seen as a small revival of his career.
Sellers's next films, including Rodney Amateau's "Where Does It Hurt?" (1972) and Peter Medak's "Ghost in the Noonday Sun" (1974), were again poorly received, and his acting was viewed as frenetic rather than funny. Despite these setbacks, Sellers won the Best Actor award at the 1973 Tehran Film Festival for his tragi-comedic role as a street performer in Anthony Simmons's "The Optimists of Nine Elms". Fellow comedian and friend Spike Milligan believed that the early 1970s were for Sellers "a period of indifference, and it would appear at one time that his career might have come to a conclusion". This was echoed by Sellers's biographer, Peter Evans, who notes that out of nine films in the period, three were never released and five had flopped, while only "There's a Girl in My Soup" had been a success. In his private life, he had been seeing the twenty-three-year-old model Miranda Quarry. The couple married on 24 August 1970, despite Sellers's private doubts—expressed to his agent, Dennis Selinger—about his decision to re-marry.
On 20 April 1972, Sellers reunited with Milligan and Harry Secombe to record "The Last Goon Show of All", which was broadcast on 5 October. In May 1973, with his third marriage failing, Sellers went to the theatre to watch Liza Minnelli perform. He became entranced with Minnelli and the couple became engaged three days later, despite Minnelli's current betrothal to Desi Arnaz, Jr., and Sellers still being married. Their relationship lasted a month before breaking up. By 1974, Sellers's friends were concerned that he was having a nervous breakdown. Directors John and Roy Boulting considered that Sellers was "a deeply troubled man, distrustful, self-absorbed, ultimately self-destructive. He was the complete contradiction." Sellers was shy and insecure when out of character. When he was invited to appear on Michael Parkinson's eponymous chat show in 1974, he withdrew the day before, explaining to Parkinson that "I just can't walk on as myself". When he was told he could come on as someone else, he appeared dressed as a member of the Gestapo. After a few lines in keeping with his assumed character, he stepped out of the role and settled down and, according to Parkinson himself, "was brilliant, giving the audience an astonishing display of his virtuosity". In 1974, Sellers again claimed to have communicated with the long-dead music hall comic Dan Leno, who advised him to return to the role of Clouseau.
In 1974, Sellers portrayed a "sexually voracious" Queen Victoria in Joseph McGrath's comedic biographical film of the Scottish poet William McGonagall, "The Great McGonagall", starring opposite Milligan and Julia Foster. However, the film was a critical failure, and Sellers's career and life reached an all-time low. As a result, by 1974 he agreed to accept salaries of £100,000 and 10 per cent of the gross to appear in TV productions and advertisements, well below the £1 million he had once commanded per film. In 1973, he appeared in a Benson & Hedges cinema commercial; in 1975, he appeared in a series of advertisements for Trans World Airlines, in which he played several eccentric characters, including Thrifty McTravel, Jeremy "Piggy" Peak Thyme and an Italian singer, Vito. Biographer Michael Starr asserts that Sellers showed enthusiasm towards these roles, although the airline campaign failed commercially.
A turning point in Sellers's flailing career came in 1974, when he teamed up with Blake Edwards to make "The Return of the Pink Panther", starring alongside Christopher Plummer, Herbert Lom and Catherine Schell. The film was shot on a budget of £3 million and earned $33 million at the box office upon release in May 1975, reinvigorating Sellers's career as an A-list film star and restoring his millionaire status. The film earned Sellers a nomination for the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy award at the 33rd Golden Globe Awards. In 1976, he followed it with "The Pink Panther Strikes Again". During the filming from February to June 1976, the already fraught relationship between Sellers and Blake Edwards had seriously deteriorated. Edwards says of the actor's mental state at the time of "The Pink Panther Strikes Again", "If you went to an asylum and you described the first inmate you saw, that's what Peter had become. He was certifiable." With declining physical health, Sellers could at times be unbearable on set. His behaviour was regarded as unprofessional and childish, and he frequently threw tantrums, often threatening to abandon projects. Peter Evans mentioned that Sellers was a "volatile and perplexing character [who] left a trail of misery in his private life". He also noted that Sellers had a "compulsive personality and [was] an eccentric hypochondriac" who became addicted to various medicines aside from his recreational drug habits during this period. His difficult behaviour during productions was widely reported and made it more difficult for Sellers to get employment in the industry at a time when he most needed the work. Despite Sellers's deep personal problems, "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" was well received critically. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said of Sellers in the film, "There is, too, something most winningly seedy about Mr. Sellers' Clouseau, a fellow who, when he attempts to tear off his clothes in the heat of passion, gets tangled up in his necktie, and who, when he masquerades—for reasons never gone into—as Quasimodo, overinflates his hump with helium." Sellers's performance earned him a further nomination at the 34th Golden Globe Awards.
In March 1976 Sellers began dating actress Lynne Frederick, whom he married on 18 February 1977. Biographer Roger Lewis documents that of all of Sellers's wives, Frederick was the most poorly treated; Julian Upton likened it to a boxing match between a heavyweight and a featherweight, a relationship that "oscillated from ardour to hatred, reconciliation and remorse." Peter Evans claims that Milligan detested his friend's choice of partner and believed she was to blame for his increasing alcohol and cocaine dependency. On 20 March 1977, Sellers suffered a second major heart attack during a flight from Paris to London; he was subsequently fitted with a pacemaker. Sellers returned from his illness to undertake "Revenge of the Pink Panther"; although it was a commercial success, the critics were tiring of Inspector Clouseau. Julian Upton expressed the view that the strain behind the scenes began to manifest itself in the sluggish pace of the film, describing it as a "laboured, stunt-heavy hotchpotch of half-baked ideas and rehashed gags". Sellers too had become tired of the role, saying after production, "I've honestly had enough of Clouseau—I've got nothing more to give". Steven Bach, the senior vice-president and head of worldwide productions for United Artists, who worked with Sellers on "Revenge of the Pink Panther", considered that Sellers was "deeply unbalanced, if not committable: that was the source of his genius and his truly quite terrifying aspects as manipulator and hysteric." He refused to seek professional help for his mental issues. Sellers would claim that he had no personality and was almost unnoticeable, which meant that he "needed a strongly defined character to play." He would make similar references throughout his life: when he appeared on "The Muppet Show" in 1978, a guest appearance that earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in Variety or Music, he chose not to appear as himself, instead appearing in a variety of costumes and accents. When Kermit the Frog told Sellers he could relax and be himself, Sellers replied:
In 1979, Sellers starred alongside Lynne Frederick, Lionel Jeffries and Elke Sommer in Richard Quine's "The Prisoner of Zenda". He portrayed three roles, including King Rudolf IV and King Rudolf V—rulers of the fictional small nation of Ruritania—and Syd Frewin, Rudolf V's half-brother. Upon its release in May 1979, the film was well received; Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" observed how Sellers divided "his energies between a serious character and a funny one, but that it was his serious performance which was more impressive". However, Philip French, for "The Observer", was unimpressed by the film, describing it as "a mess of porridge" and stating that "Sellers reveals that he cannot draw the line between the sincere and the sentimental".
Later in 1979, Sellers starred opposite Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas and Jack Warden in the black comedy "Being There" as Chance, a simple-minded gardener addicted to watching TV who is regarded as a sage by the rich and powerful. In a BBC interview in 1971, Sellers had said that more than anything else, he wanted to play the role, and successfully persuaded the author of the book, Jerzy Kosinski, to allow him and director Hal Ashby to make the film, provided Kosinski could write the script. During filming, to remain in character, Sellers refused most interview requests and kept his distance from the other actors. Sellers considered Chance's walking and voice the character's most important attributes, and in preparing for the role worked alone with a tape recorder or with his wife, and then with Ashby, to perfect the clear enunciation and flat delivery needed to reveal "the childlike mind behind the words". Sellers described his experience of working on the film as "so humbling, so powerful", and co-star Shirley MacLaine found Sellers "a dream" to work with. Sellers's performance was universally lauded by critics and is considered by critic Danny Smith to be the "crowning triumph of Peter Sellers's remarkable career". Critic Frank Rich wrote that the acting skill required for this sort of role, with a "schismatic personality that Peter had to convey with strenuous vocal and gestural technique ... A lesser actor would have made the character's mental dysfunction flamboyant and drastic ... [His] intelligence was always deeper, his onscreen confidence greater, his technique much more finely honed": in achieving this, Sellers "makes the film's fantastic premise credible". The film earned Sellers a Best Actor award at the 51st National Board of Review Awards; the London Critics Circle Film Awards Special Achievement Award, the Best Actor award at the 45th New York Film Critics Circle Awards; and the Best Actor – Musical or Comedy award at the 37th Golden Globe Awards. Additionally, Sellers was nominated for the Best Actor award at the 52nd Academy Awards and the Best Actor in a Leading Role award at the 34th British Academy Film Awards.
In March 1980, Sellers asked his 15-year-old daughter Victoria what she thought about "Being There": she reported later that "I said yes, I thought it was great. But then I said, 'You looked like a little fat old man'. ... he went mad. He threw his drink over me and told me to get the next plane home." His other daughter Sarah told Sellers her thoughts about the incident and he sent her a telegram that read "After what happened this morning with Victoria, I shall be happy if I never hear from you again. I won't tell you what I think of you. It must be obvious. Goodbye, Your Father."
Sellers's last film was "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu", a comedic re-imagining of the eponymous adventure novels by Sax Rohmer; Sellers played both police inspector Nayland Smith and Fu Manchu, alongside Helen Mirren and David Tomlinson. The production of the film was troublesome before filming started, with two directors—Richard Quine and John Avildsen—fired before the script had been completed. Sellers also expressed dissatisfaction with his own portrayal of Manchu with his ill-health often causing delays. Arguments between Sellers and director Piers Haggard led to Haggard's firing at Sellers's instigation and Sellers took over direction, using his long-time friend David Lodge to direct some sequences. Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" described the film as "an indefensibly inept comedy", adding that "it is hard to name another good actor who ever made so many bad movies as Sellers, a comedian of great gifts but ferociously faulty judgment. "Manchu" will take its rightful place alongside such colossally ill-advised washouts as "Tell Me Where It Hurts", "The Bobo" and "The Prisoner of Zenda"".
Sellers's final performances were a series of advertisements for Barclays Bank. Filmed in April 1980 in Ireland, he played Monty Casino, a Jewish con-man. Four adverts were scheduled, but only three were filmed as Sellers collapsed in Dublin, again with heart problems. After two days in care—and against the advice of his doctors—he travelled to the Cannes Film Festival, where "Being There" was in competition. Sellers was again ill in Cannes, returning to his residence in Gstaad to work on the script for his next project, "Romance of the Pink Panther". At the urging of his friends, he made an appointment to undergo an angiogram at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on 30 July 1980, to see if he was able to undergo open-heart surgery. Spike Milligan later considered that Sellers's heart condition had lasted for over 15 years and had "made life difficult for him and had a debilitating effect on his personality." Sellers's fourth marriage to Frederick collapsed soon after.
Sellers had recently started to rebuild his relationship with his son Michael after the failure of the latter's marriage. Michael later said that "it marked the beginning of an all-too-brief closeness between us." Sellers admitted to his son that "he hated so many things he had done," including leaving his first wife, Anne, and his infatuation with Sophia Loren. In lighter moments, Sellers had joked that his epitaph should read "Star of stage, screen and alimony."
On 21 July 1980 Sellers arrived in London from Geneva. He checked into the Dorchester hotel, before visiting Golders Green Crematorium for the first time to see the location of his parents' ashes. He had plans to attend a reunion dinner with his "Goon Show" partners Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe, scheduled for the evening of 22 July. On the day of the dinner, Sellers took lunch in his hotel suite and shortly afterwards collapsed from a heart attack. He was taken to the Middlesex Hospital, London, and died just after midnight on 24 July 1980, aged 54.
Following Sellers's death, fellow actor Richard Attenborough said that Sellers "had the genius comparable to Chaplin", while the Boulting brothers considered Sellers as "a man of enormous gifts; and these gifts he gave to the world. For them, he is assured of a place in the history of art as entertainment." Burt Kwouk, who appeared as Cato in the "Pink Panther" films, stated that "Peter was a well-loved actor in Britain ... the day he died, it seemed that the whole country came to a stop. Everywhere you went, the fact that Peter had died seemed like an umbrella over everything". Director Blake Edwards thought that "Peter was brilliant. He had an enormous facility for finding really unusual, unique facets of the character he was playing". Sellers's friend and "Goon Show" colleague Spike Milligan was too upset to speak to the press at the time of Sellers's death, while fellow Goon Harry Secombe said "I'm shattered. Peter was such a tremendous artist. He had so much talent, it just oozed out of him"; in dark humour, referring to the missed dinner the Goons had planned, he added, "Anything to avoid paying for dinner". Secombe later declared to journalists "Bluebottle is deaded now". Milligan later said that "it's hard to say this, but he died at the right time." The "Daily Mail" described Sellers as "the greatest comic talent of his generation as well as a womanising drug-taker who married four times in a fruitless search for happiness", a "flawed genius" who, once he latched on to a comic idea, "loved nothing more than to carry it to extremes".
A private funeral service was held at Golders Green Crematorium on 26 July, conducted by Sellers's old friend, Canon John Hester. Sellers's final joke was the playing of "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller, a tune all the goons hated. He knew they would have to sit there in silence and listen to it. His body was cremated and his ashes were interred at the Crematorium. After her death in 1994, the ashes of his widow Lynne Frederick were interred with his. A memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 8 September 1980—what would have been Sellers's 55th birthday. Close friend Lord Snowdon read the twenty-third Psalm, Harry Secombe sang "Bread of Heaven" and the eulogy was read by David Niven.
Although Sellers was reportedly in the process of excluding Frederick from his will a week before he died, she inherited almost his entire estate worth an estimated £4.5 million (£ million in pounds) while his children received £800 each (£ in pounds). Spike Milligan appealed to her on behalf of Sellers's three children, but she refused to increase the amount. Sellers's only son, Michael, died of a heart attack at 52 during surgery on 24 July 2006, twenty-six years to the day after his father's death.
After his death, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer tried to continue with "Romance of the Pink Panther" and offered the role of Clouseau to Dudley Moore, who turned it down. The studio subsequently returned to Blake Edwards, who was adamant not to recast the character, feeling certain that no one could adequately replace Sellers. In 1982 Edwards released "Trail of the Pink Panther", which was composed entirely of deleted scenes from his past three "Panther" films. Frederick sued, claiming the use of the clips was a breach of contract; the court awarded her $1million ($ million today), plus 3.15 per cent of the film's profits and 1.36 per cent of its gross revenue.
Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said of the Pink Panther films "I'm not sure why Mr. Sellers and Mr. Lom are such a hilarious team, though it may be because each is a fine comic actor with a special talent for portraying the sort of all-consuming, epic self-absorption that makes slapstick farce initially acceptable—instead of alarming—and finally so funny." The film critic Elvis Mitchell said that Sellers was one of the few comic geniuses who was able to truly hide behind his characters, giving the audience no sense of what he was really like in real life. A feature of the characterisations undertaken by Sellers is that, regardless of how clumsy or idiotic they are, he ensured that they always retain their dignity. On his playing of Clouseau, Sellers said: "I set out to play Clouseau with great dignity because I feel that he thinks he is probably one of the greatest detectives in the world. The original script makes him out to be a complete idiot. I thought a forgivable vanity would humanise him and make him kind of touching."
Sellers' biographer, Ed Sikov, notes that because of this retained dignity, Sellers is "the master of playing men who have no idea how ridiculous they are." Social historian Sam Wasson notes the complexity in Sellers' performances in the "Pink Panther" films, which has the effect of alienating Clouseau from his environment. Wesson considers that "As 'low' and 'high' comedy rolled into one, it's the performative counterpoint to Edwardian sophisticated naturalism". This combination of "high" and "low", exemplified by Clouseau's attempting to retain dignity after a fall, means that within the film Clouseau was "the sole representative of humanity". Film critic Dilys Powell also saw the inherent dignity in the parts and wrote that Sellers had a "balance between character and absurdity". Richard Attenborough also thought that because of his sympathy, Sellers could "inject into his characterisations the frailty and substance of a human being".
Author Aaron Sultanik observed that in Sellers's early films, such as "I'm All Right Jack", he displays "deft, technical interpretations [that] pinpoint the mechanical nature of his comic characterization", which "... reduces each of his characters to a series of gross, awkward tics". Academic Cynthia Baron observed that Sellers's external characterisations led to doubt with reviewers as to whether Sellers's work was "true" acting. Critic Tom Milne saw a change over Sellers's career and thought that his "comic genius as a character actor was ... stifled by his elevation to leading man" and his later films suffered as a result. Sultanik agreed, commenting that Sellers's "exceptional vocal and physical technique" was under-used during his career in the US.
Academics Maria Pramaggiore and Tom Wallis remarked that Sellers fits the mould of a technical actor because he displays a mastery of physical characterisation, such as accent or physical trait. Writer and playwright John Mortimer saw the process for himself when Sellers was about to undertake filming on Mortimer's "The Dock Brief" and could not decide how to play the character of the barrister. By chance he ordered cockles for lunch and the smell brought back a memory of the seaside town of Morecambe: this gave him "the idea of a faded North Country accent and the suggestion of a scrappy moustache". So important was the voice as the starting point for character development, that Sellers would walk around London with a reel-to-reel tape recorder, recording voices to study at home.
"New York" magazine stated that all of the films starring Sellers as Clouseau showcased his "comedic brilliance". Sellers' friend and "Goon Show" colleague Spike Milligan said that Sellers "had one of the most glittering comic talents of his age", while English filmmakers John and Roy Boulting noted that he was "the greatest comic genius this country has produced since Charles Chaplin". Irv Slifkin said that the most prominent albeit ever-changing face in comedies of the 1960s was Sellers who "changed like a chameleon throughout the era, dazzling audiences". In a 2005 poll to find "The Comedian's Comedian", Sellers was voted 14 in the list of the top 20 greatest comedians by fellow comics and comedy insiders.
Sellers and "The Goon Show" were a strong influence on the Monty Python performers, with John Cleese calling him "the greatest voice man of all time", adding, "If he could listen to you for five minutes, he could do a perfect impersonation of you." The Goons were imported to the United States by the NBC program "Monitor", which played recorded Goon show episodes starting in 1955. The American comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre also cited the Goons as a big influence on their radio comedy style.
Sellers and the Goons were also an influence on Peter Cook, who described Sellers as "the best comic actor in the world". British actor Stephen Mangan stated that Sellers was a large influence, as did the comedians Mike Myers, Alan Carr and Rob Brydon. Sellers' characters Hrundi Bakshi ("The Party") and Inspector Clouseau ("The Pink Panther") later influenced comedian Rowan Atkinson's characters Mr. Bean and Johnny English. The comic performer Sacha Baron Cohen referred to Sellers as "the most seminal force in shaping [his] early ideas on comedy". Cohen was considered for the role of Sellers in the biographical film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". The three members of Spinal Tap—Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer—have also cited Sellers as being an influence on them, as has the US talk-show host Conan O'Brien. David Schwimmer is another whose approach was influenced by Sellers: "he could do anything, from Dr Strangelove to Inspector Clouseau. He was just amazing." As a kid Eddie Murphy developed playing multiple characters in imitation of his acting hero, with Chris Rock hailing Murphy’s performances (such as the multiple roles in "The Nutty Professor") "Peter Sellers-esque." Eddie Izzard notes that the Goons "influenced a new generation of comedians who came to be known as 'alternative'"—including himself, while the media historian Graham McCann states "the anarchic spirit of the Goon Show ... would inspire, directly or indirectly and to varying extents, ... "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "The Young Ones", "Vic Reeves Big Night Out", "The League of Gentlemen" [and] "Brass Eye"."
The stage play "Being Sellers" premiered in Australia in 1998, three years after the release of the biography by Roger Lewis, "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". In 2004, the book was turned into an HBO film with the same title, starring Geoffrey Rush. The play later transferred to New York in December 2010. "The Belfast Telegraph" notes how the film captured Sellers's "life of drugs, drink, fast cars and lots and lots of beautiful women". Although the film was widely praised by critics, Lord Snowdon and Britt Ekland were highly critical of it; Ekland said, "The film leaves you with the impression that Peter Sellers was essentially a likeable man when in reality he was a monster. He may have been a brilliant actor, but as a human being he had no saving graces at all". Snowdon disagreed with Ekland's verdict, and with the film, and stated that Sellers "had a light touch, a sense of humour, I can't bear to see him portrayed as somebody who was apparently without either ... The man on the screen is charmless, humourless and boring—the one thing you could never say about Peter."
Selected works, based on award nominations | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24518 |
Project Runeberg
Project Runeberg () is a digital cultural archive initiative that publishes free electronic versions of books significant to the culture and history of the Nordic countries. Patterned after Project Gutenberg, it was founded by Lars Aronsson and colleagues at Linköping University and began archiving Nordic-language literature in December 1992. As of 2015 it had accomplished digitization to provide graphical facsimiles of old works such as the "Nordisk familjebok", and had accomplished, in whole or in part, the text extractions and copyediting of these as well as esteemed Latin works and English translations from Nordic authors, and sheet music and other texts of cultural interest.
Project Runeberg is a digital cultural archive initiative patterned after the English-language cultural initiative, Project Gutenberg; it was founded by Lars Aronsson and colleagues at Linköping University, especially within the university group Lysator (see below), with the aim of publishing free electronic versions of books significant to the culture and history of the Nordic countries. The Project began archiving its first Nordic-language literature pieces (parts of the "Fänrik Ståls Sägner", of Nordic dictionaries and of a Bible from 1917) in December 1992.
In its naming, a moniker similar to "Gutenberg" was desired. The Project was thereby given the name of Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, and so contained a further allusion based on the meanings of its component parts—"Rune" (letter in Runic script) and "berg" (mountain)—so that in most Nordic languages it can be translated loosely as "mountain of letters".
The Project began archiving Nordic-language literature in December 1992. As of 2015 it had accomplished digitization to provide graphical facsimiles of old works such as the "Nordisk familjebok", and had accomplished, in whole or in part, the text extractions and copyediting of these as well as esteemed Latin works and English translations from Nordic authors—e.g., Carl August Hagberg's interpretations of Shakespeare's plays—and sheet music and other texts of cultural interest.
By 2001, technology—image scanning and optical character recognition techniques—had improved enough to allow full digitization and text extraction of important target texts, e.g., of both print editions of the Nordisk familjebok (45,000 pages). Project Runeberg is hosted by an academic computer group, Lysator, at Linköping University, in Linköping in southern Sweden. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24519 |
Pico (text editor)
Pico (Pine composer) is a text editor for Unix and Unix-based computer systems. It is integrated with the Pine e-mail client, which was designed by the Office of Computing and Communications at the University of Washington.
From the Pine FAQ: "Pine's message composition editor is also available as a separate stand-alone program, called PICO. PICO is a very simple and easy-to-use text editor offering paragraph justification, cut/paste, and a spelling checker...".
Pico does not support working with several files simultaneously and cannot perform a find and replace across multiple files. It also cannot copy partial text from one file to another (though it is possible to read text into the editor from a whole file in its working directory). Pico does support search and replace operations.
By comparison, some popular Unix text editors such as vi and Emacs provide a wider range of features than Pico; including regular expression search and replace, and working with multiple files at the same time. By comparison, Pico's simplicity makes it suitable for beginners.
A clone of Pico called nano, which is part of the GNU Project, was developed because Pico's earlier license had unclear redistribution terms. Newer versions of Pico as part of Alpine are released under the Apache License.
Pico features a number of commands for editing. Arrow keys move the cursor a character at the time in the direction of the movement. Inserting a character is done by pressing the corresponding character key in the keyboard, while giving commands (such as save, spell check, justify, search, etc.) is done using a control key.
The command is used to spell check. The speller is defined from the command line using the -s option. When a person writes files in different languages, the speller can be set to be a script that interacts with the user to select the language to be spelled.
The command is used to left justify text. Text is flowed in each line of a paragraph up to a limit set with the -r option in the command line. If no limit is given in the command line, then a default value of 72 characters per line is used. This limit is used to wrap lines during composition, as well as to justify text. The command justifies the text in the paragraph that the cursor is placed on. The command is used to justify the full file. In case that justification is not done correctly, or by mistake, it can be undone by pressing the command immediately after justification has been done.
The command is used to search for text. Search is done case insensitively, The search and replace command is not available by default, but must be enabled through the -b option in the command line.
Moving inside the editor can be done using the keyboard by using the arrow keys. Keys such as , or , scroll the text up or down (towards the beginning or end of the file, respectively). The commands , and move the cursor to the beginning or end of the file respectively, while the commands and move the cursor to the beginning and the end of the line that the cursor is located on.
The following command line options allow users to configure Pico before editing a file. This information can be obtained by starting Pico with the -h command. When Pico is invoked from Pine or Alpine some of the options below can be configured from their Setup Configuration Screen by either enabling a specific feature, or configuring a variable. Below is indicated the way to configure Pico from the command line, as well as how to configure it from Alpine. Possible starting arguments for the Pico editor are:
"All arguments may be followed by a file name to edit."
The options -dcs, -kcs and -syscs are not available in the Windows version of Pico. However, the Windows version of Pico also has four options (-cnf, -cnb, -crf, -crb) that are not available in unix versions of Pico; each option is defined as follows: -cnf for Color for Normal Foreground, -cnb for Color for Normal Background, -crf for Color for Reverse Foreground and -crf for Color for Reverse Background. Their possible values are black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white or a 3 digit number, such as 009, 064, or 137. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24521 |
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