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Background for part 4 of the series

Here is the background for my new book (part 4 of the series)
Photography has been characterized, from the early beginnings and based on its properties, as either art or science. Commentators were unsure how to categorize the new medium with its photogenic drawings (Talbot). Early photographers, not content with exploiting the objective and mechanical nature of the final picture, tried hard to convince the art community that photography was more than a recording medium with which nature copied itself without the help of the human operator. The initial excitement that the new technology could produce pictures without any human interference became soon a threat to the photographer, the illustrator and the engraver.

The early comments focused on the ability of the new process to reproduce a part of the real world without human intervention. There was much amazement that there could exist a tool with which nature could take its own picture. One could admire the capability of the machine to reproduce the finest detail that the eye failed to record. The nineteenth century was after all the age of materialism. A growing segment of the public accepted the efficacy of the machine as the embodiment of a new era, the modern one. The exhibitions in London (Crystal Palace, 1851) and Paris (Eiffel Tower, Exposition Universelle, 1889) showed the impact of the engineer’s and scientist’s ingenuity and mechanical achievement. The photographic camera was only one of many mechanical instruments of that age. It had the advantage that the machine-made image and its easy reproducibility matched the increasing demand for realistic images in the magazines and journals. Many painters looked with dismay at the enhanced realism of the images made with the photographic camera. The mechanical limitations of the camera were known and artists used all kinds of technique to produce images with a style that emulated the best of the classical painters. On the other hand many artists exploited the technical capabilities of the camera to produce optically accurate images. Baudelaire wrote a scathing critique of the Salon of 1859, where many photographs, made with several techniques and styles were exhibited. Many photographers claimed that their pictures were to be included in the domain of art. Baudelaire however denunciated photography as an art form. He listed the proper functions of photography: for record-making, as a note-taking tool and for scientific investigation. His friend Delacroix carefully noted the limitations of the photographic process and concluded that photography, used carefully, could be an asset to painting.

The description of photography as a medium oscillated between two extremes: art as photography and photography as art. Behind this dichotomy however there lurked another one. The distinction between art and science and between art and craft did not disappear, but surfaced time and time again as the main topic for a comprehensive account of photography. Scientists and technologists used the photographic technique for practical work and even for non-pictorial work, suitably referred to as non-art. In contrast the history of photography has been described as an orderly succession of the major artists in the history of the medium.
‘Non-art’ as a category also includes the snapshot (instantaneous) and detective photography, promoted by Eastman in the 1880s and finally including also the casual street photography.
In the final analysis, photography can be divided by the basic dichotomy of art and non-art. When the history of photography is approached as part of the general history of the visual arts, it is inevitable to include a discussion of the major trends in art history since the start of photography: impressionism, modernism, snapshot aesthetic and post modernism. When the history of photography is mainly concerned with non-art, the topics of science (reality), vernacular snapshot, social processes, technique, instrument development, and image quality (high resolution) have to be addressed.

Photography is intimately connected with human perception. For good reason the analogy between the eye and the lens has been stressed as a sensible idea.
Our culture is a visual culture. Vision is the main sense with which we experience and analyse the world around us. Martin Jay has characterized the twentieth century as an ocularcentric culture. The underlying cultural and scientific theories of vision, perception and reality have to be sketched and used as a background for a better understanding of the culture and technique of photography.

The Leica rangefinder camera straddles several domains. The Leica rangefinder cameras was one of the preferred tools used by a fair proportion of the classical art and iconic photographers. The optical qualities and the mechanical construction earned it the enviable reputation of being the first precision miniature camera. Its small size, accurate rangefinder and smooth handling enabled a new direction and style in snapshot photography.

After its announcement in 1839, the technique of photography was a very complex one and only suitable for the daring entrepreneur, the curious scientist and the wealthy amateur. The technology used during most of the nineteenth century (large wooden cameras, glass plates, emulsions, chemicals, lenses) was not very stable and quite xpensive. This allowed the photographer to influence the result and made him a decisive element in the processing chain. The discussion about the nature of photography as art or non-art obscured the assessment of the new medium and its most common use as a tool for recording physical reality.
Photographic technology (at least till the digital capture became the dominant technology) is a closed ecosystem. The components were provided by many small cottage industries or had to be produced by the photographers themselves. The number of active photographers around 1880 was too low to sustain a large scale profitable industry.
If nothing had changed, photography would have stayed a niche technology for the rich amateur and a tool for scientists and lithographical craftsmen.
Eastman, whose company produced photographic products, concluded that to become more profitable the scale of production had to increase substantially. He therefore created a mass market for his photographic products. In order to reach this goal he had to target the ordinary person, the public at large. The taking of photographs had to become cheap and easy to seduce the common man and woman to start taking pictures. The Kodak era started in 1880 and lasted till the end of the twentieth century. It was the century of the snapshot, the domestic photograph made by millions of people to record memorable events and persons. The Leica camera, introduced in 1924/1925, gave a new impetus to the style of candid photography: the precision miniature camera quickly became the dominant tool in the photographic ecosystem, where the rangefinder camera carved out its own niche till today.
The urge to use the Leica rangefinder camera was partly functional because of its propensity for high-quality scientific and domestic images and partly technical because of its precision-mechanical feel.
Professor Weizenbaum, one of my guiding lights in computer science, once during a lecture told the audience that he took lousy pictures with his Leica M3, but he took pictures because he liked the sound of the shutter. Here he hints at one of the most important actual arguments for choosing and using a Leica camera: the Leica RF camera is a perfect example of technical eroticism.

The Leica camera is also intimately connected to the world of art. Many iconic images were made with the Leica camera. Who does not know the Che Guevara picture by Korda (Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez), the girl in the rear window of a car by Erwitt, the kissing couple by Eisenstaedt. The classic pictures by Cartier-Bresson (“The Eye of the Century”) have inspired and still inspire many Leica photographers. The number of Leica photographers that have been allowed into the hall of fame of art photography constitutes only a minute proportion of the hundreds of thousands of Leica users who use the camera to record domestic events and persons without any other goal that to record what it interesting at the moment of pressing the shutter release button. Most of these pictures are considered as non-art and therefore as having no value by the members of the art community. Many Leica photographers feel the need to comply to the rules of composition that have been laid down by the canon of art aestheticism.

The humble vernacular snapshot has to be elevated to the level of the so-called snapshot-aesthetic to be of some interest. The common snapshot has been described as low art because it depicts ordinary life in photographs taken by amateurs who take pictures without artistic intentions. The ordinary snapshot is characterized by a highly ritualized style and composition with the main object in the center. The typical shutter speed and aperture are 1/50 and f/8. The important difference with photography as an art form (the Kantian aesthetic) is the social function of the photograph. The production and use of the photograph as a family snapshot is always embedded in a social ritual and has no artistic goal. The same style of photographs with ordinary objects as its main theme has been elevated to high art in the form of the snapshot aesthetic, as practiced by the street photographers in Paris and New York from 1930 to 1960. Many of these photographers used a Leica rangefinder camera, because in that period it was the only reliable and easy-to-use compact camera. The style of fast shooting precluded the use of the rangefinder and zone focusing was the norm, most often with the 35 mm wide-angle lens for extended depth of field.
The connection between the Leica RF camera with the 35 mm lens and the snapshot aesthetic of the street photographers has defined the public role and status of the Leica camera. There is a distinct danger in focusing too much attention on the small selection of acknowledged art photographs as typical for the medium as a whole.
The history of photography is documented with at most two hundred photographs, selected by an historian of art or photography. Bill Jay has remarked that any such small and personal selection out of the millions of pictures that have been taken since the 1820s produces a distorted view of the real history of photography. The millions of domestic snapshots, by art critics referred to as low art or by sociologists as middle brow art, are not included in the official history.

The photographic style of the so-called snapshot aesthetic, was made respectfully in the world of art by the MoMa exhibition in 1967 ’New documents”, featuring then unknown photographers Arbus, Friedlander, Winogrand. Szarkowski, the curator of the exhibition wrote that what united these three photographers is a belief that the world is worth looking at without theorizing. The pictures showed the causal style of ordinary snapshots and the subject matter was ordinary or at best a bit bizarre. The street was the theatre of urban space and the new style was in fact a continuation of the famous Kodak moment and the humanistic photography of the French, mainly Parisian photographers. Why these pictures by the three Americas were accepted as art is a matter of debate. A main reason is the mere fact that they were exhibited in a famous museum and another reason might be that these pictures indicated a major departure from the conventional style of art photography, exemplified by Steichen, Weston and Adams.

The question ‘what is art’, is in most history books conveniently evaded. To answer such a simple question, one would have to plunge into the deep waters of art theory and art history, not to mention theories of aesthetics or even philosophies of aesthetics. It suffices to refer to a handful iconic works of art and to note how close the photograph that is being assessed is to any one of the established works of art. It is inevitable that such an assessment is personal and subjective.
Art critique is often interpreted as negative, because the art reviewer has a set of norms that is assumed to define the quality of the art work. In reality the art critic describes what in his view are the merits of the work. There is some resemblance to the evaluation of the technical quality of a photograph. Image quality can be described in a subjective way and with the help of a number of measurement techniques. When the last method has been selected it is possible that the amount of aberrations can be objectively established. Such an approach is not possible when discussing the criteria that define that elusive concept of ‘art’.

Art critique is impossible without a reference to one of the theories of art. The two most important theories are now the modernist and post-modernist theories of art. Most theorists would claim that only the post-modernist theory has any relevance for the current evaluation of the visual arts.
Critics of photography follow generally the following steps: describing, interpreting, evaluating and theorizing. A background theory is necessary to put these actions into context. For example: post-modernism claims that every work of (visual) art must be interpreted as a text where symbols take the place of words. The common reference is the visual language that photographers need to learn in order to create meaningful photographs. Interpretation is a most important activity because interpreting a picture loads it with meaning and provide an answer to the question: ‘what is it about?’.

There are large practical and theoretical problems when one wishes to define photographic pictures as art. Notwithstanding these problems, there are a number of iconic photographs that define the medium.
Camera manufacturers are keen to relate their products with iconic art photographs.
The reason is obvious and quite simple. Photographs are made by photographers who use photographic equipment. Any serious photographer will assume or will be persuaded to assume that using a certain type of camera will enable him to take the same kind of pictures. Leitz in particular used the strategy of connecting famous scientists, explorers and later photographers with the Leitz products to promote the Leica camera. There was also a very logical argument for this strategy: the possibilities of the novel concept of the Leica had to be explained to the photographic world. The Leica Company follows the same strategy even today. The photographic world has however changed dramatically and the use of pictures as demonstrations of the capabilities and qualities of the equipment is losing its effectiveness.

The idea of archetypes of iconic pictures that set the norm for any serious photographer to copy or emulate is still prevalent in the world of photography. No one fails to photograph a blind accordionist, a barber shop entrance or a deserted gas station, because these images are part of the collective memory of the art of photography.
Leica photographers face the double challenge to comply with the standards from the art world and the standards from the technical domain. To be taken seriously as a Leica photographer, they are under the obligation to adopt the standards of what is considered to be good Leica photography. Historically, Leica photography is also closely tied to a certain level of image quality. The reputation of the Leica lenses is legendary. One of the arguments to invest in a camera system as expensive as a Leica rangefinder camera and its range of lenses, is the potential for a level of image clarity, usually linked to medium format systems.
Photography can be defined as an art and a craft. The skill to produce a technically accurate image can be learned, while the creativity to produce a work of art is a gift. This at least is the common view of the matter. To rediscover the joy of photography, the Leica photographer needs to shake off the yoke of the art canon.
As soon as one realizes that the art industry of galleries, artists and museums follows economic laws that capitalize on the human art instinct (a biologically regulated drive), one can look at the icons and canons of modern photographic art with a fresh view.

Photographic criticism is a personal and subjective act of judgment and interpretation. Every photographer should be free to adopt any set of rules he wishes to use. The basic requirement is a sense of pride in one’s own ability to take the pictures one likes. When the Zone System was imperative for monochrome photographers, many supporters of the system selected motives where the command of the rules of the system could be demonstrated. The motives themselves were rather boring (from today’s perspective): white pained buildings in blazing sun with deep dark shadows. Printing the full tonal scale in the darkroom was the rule and the photographer who succeeded could be proud of the result. It is not different these days with the use of digital Leica M cameras. The Zone System may be anathema, but it has been replaced by a cult of sharpness, not in the least inspired by the high optical quality of the Leica M lenses and the resolving power of the solid-state sensor. The low noise (grain in the context of classical emulsions) and high sensitivity of the imager system promote the impression of high sharpness. Many Leica M users (including the small but growing class of film emulsion aficionados) exploit sharpness techniques and select suitable motives for the task. Not every Leica photographer is enamoured by this approach. The basic dichotomy in photographic criticism is the one that divides photography in two segments: science and art. The focus on sharpness definitely falls into the category of science. The focus on meaning and composition falls into the category of art.
It is important to make sure that one does not throw away the baby with the bathwater and to replace one obsession with another one. Art photography has been cultivated for a long period. Leica M photography is strongly associated with the theme of street photography and the decisive moment. Since Cartier-Bresson’s book (L’Image à la Sauvette (The image on the run), every Leica photographer is at least aware of the cult of the decisive moment. Since the New Vision movement in art and photography, every one knows about the power of the clear photograph, taken from an unusual angle. Both approaches are in themselves valuable and can co-exist side by side.

Domestic snapshot photography is not part of any of these two categories. The important events and persons in daily life are photographed in stereotyped situations (the example of the standard tourist picture is well-known). Many photographs are made with a limited command of the basic photographic techniques.
The reality of the daily environment is taken for granted. What you see is what exists. Most photographers know that there is a difference between what one observes and what the camera records. Vision and reality as subjects of science and philosophy are highly complex phenomena that defy simple explanations. The photographer who records his daily life and the things and persons that interest him most, knows, at least intuitively, that there is a big difference in the way the camera records real life and the brain processes the information from ‘out there’. Almost every manual of photography includes a chapter on the topic of learning to see photographically. This is an acknowledgment of the fact that the human eye and the lens of the camera see things differently and see different things. Only by comparing the photograph with the original view, can we see the importance of such a statement. The bad point is of course that we do not have an objective record of what we saw when we took the photograph. The human memory is a poor recording and retrieval instrument. This is one of the reasons why we take pictures at all: to preserve at least a record of what was there when we took the picture. It is the case that the brain processes the information projected on the retina based on a set of rules that are part biological, part social and part cultural. Photographers often remark that photographs are highly personalized (even intentional) versions of reality because of the choices that the photographer has: select frame, viewpoint, moment of shutter release, focal length, shutter speed and aperture. Included in this list is the quality and quantity of the light that illuminates the subject. Most handbooks of photography try to explain the effect of each of these choices in great depth. The choice of all these photo-technical parameters in a precise combination and applied to specific subject matter produce a more or less artful picture. In theory there is an infinite number of combinations and permutations and the skilful choice and application of subject matter and technique is the defining characteristic of an artistically inclined photographer.

What is the relation between this discussion about the intentionality and meaning of a photograph and the Leica photographer who uses the camera as a simple recording instrument? The photographer has three main elements to play with: the gaze, the chance moment and the objects in reality. Weston, Renger-Patzsch and Feinimger noted that it is the Thing Itself (with capitals) that should inspire the photographer to record as cleanly as possible (or as objectively as possible) the real object. Because the camera records whatever is before the lens at the moment of the shutter release and the eye only sees selectively what is beyond the head, thee is room for a detective approach, the one Sherlock Holmes applies to solve a mystery. This is a strong argument for the so-called high-resolution photography.
When one looks at a photograph, the important question is to ask what happens here. The core of the matter is that a photograph is a statement, it is a form of communication. This is a most modern approach: (digital) image processing is based on information theory and the mathematics behind it. The message of the photograph, however simple it may be (“I made this picture because I liked to make this picture”) is more forceful when there is no nice composition to distract the viewer. A beautiful composition will push away the observation or the detection of what is going on. Winogrand said that every photograph is a contention between form and content: one is always threatening to overwhelm the other. The Dutch photographer Fieret dismisses aesthetic rules as guiding principles and specifically wants to produce ‘sloppy’ pictures.

It is important to note that the snapshot aesthetic is a continuation of the amateur aesthetic that flourished since the introduction of the Kodak Box around 1890. The actual discussion centres around the dividing line between fine-art and vernacular photography. The Kodak snapshot was followed by the Leica snapshot with the well-known characteristics of immediacy and handheld shooting. The limitations of the original Leica rangefinder forced the photographer to position his subject in the center or to look over the camera to estimate his framing. William Morgan wrote in 1944:

“The snapshot has become, in truth, a folk art, spontaneous, almost effortless, yet deeply expressive. It is an honest art, partly because it doesn’t occur to the average snapshooter to look beyond reality, partly because the natural domain of the camera is in the world of things as they are, and partly because it is simply more trouble to make an untrue picture than a true picture.”
My goal is to follow this approach and to discuss modern high-resolution photographic techniques that may help the user of the Leica rangefinder camera to rediscover the joy of snapshot photography. There is however more to say about snapshot or candid or domestic or vernacular photography. There are many names for the same subject!
When we take pictures of events and things in the daily environment, we have to be aware of two problems: (1) reality is not what it seems to the casual observer: there is much debate in modern physics and philosophy what it is and whether it does exist at all and (2) neurophysiology and vision science tells us that the brain is constructing the image of reality we assume to observe. The camera has no brain and records diligently what is physically possible.
It is not the camera that has to be tamed to reproduce what the eye sees (the common artistic approach). It is the eye that has to be educated to detect what is out there in the real world without the interfering and mediating brain. Such an approach suits the stated goal of the design of Leica lenses to record a maximum amount of fine detail. Discussions between Winogrand and Meyerowitz among others focused on technical matters related to the handheld camera and its small negative. One of the topics was the question how much information could be put on a small negative.

There is at least one convincing argument to follow the path of the domestic snapshot photography.
Several historians of photography assume that among the many snapshots there should be a handful of accidental masterpieces, that are unknown because no one sees them. Domestic snapshot photography resides in the domain of the ‘visual trophies’, highly ritualized and at the same time quite spontaneous photographs of ordinary things, persons and events.
In the Leica world the number of snapshots vastly exceeds the number of intentionally artistic photographs.
Leitz/Leica have sold about 700.000 film loading rangefinder M-cameras and about 150.000 solid-state sensor equipped rangefinder M-cameras. This last estimate is derived from these observations: every year since the announcement of the M8 between 10.000 and 20.000 cameras have been produced. During the ten years since 2006 a minimum of 100.000 and a maximum of 200.000 have been made. The average is 150.000.
Only a small minority of these 850.000 cameras have been employed by artist-photographers: let us say about a few hundreds. The majority of Leica cameras then have been used to record daily domestic scenes. When we assume that every single camera in its entire life has been clicked about a thousand times (a very low estimate), then there must have been made at least close to a billion (850.000.000) pictures with a Leica rangefinder camera since 1954. Only a fraction of these have been recognized as photographic art.
Another approach would be to look at current usage.
There are now some 150.000 Leica cameras in actual use since the announcement of the Leica M3. This is a rough estimate. I guess that only 5% of the film loading cameras is in actual use and 70% of the digital cameras. That is 40.000 plus 100.000 equals 140.000 cameras. Every year 500 pictures are being taken, again a very low estimate given the appetite for digital snapshooting. That would amount to a whopping 70 million pictures in 2016 alone. How many of these would fall into the category of photographic masterpieces? Hardly a handful if at all! When the merits of the casual photographs are compared with the yardstick of current aesthetic theory there are indeed hardly any masterpieces. But this approach is backing the wrong horse. Currently, Leica’s Photo Gallery shows mainly old masters and hardly any new ones. The focus on iconic photographs is certainly not helpful when one sees the snapshot as a document for immortalizing the present.

This poses the question why do we take photographs in the first place. An answer to this question can be found in the tale by Italo Calvino: “Adventures of a Photographer”.
The next question is a logical continuation.
Why use a Leica rangefinder camera? When one considers only the final result (the image or print), there is not much to argue in favor of the Leica camera. Many modern cameras can deliver the same image quality, thanks to the powerful image processing algorithms. The much discussed special optical characteristic of three dimensionality of Leica lenses is hardly visible in the thin sensor surface.
The big advantage of the original Leica I camera was its size, the reliability of the mechanism, the quality of the optics and the eye-level framing. Of these characteristics, the size is the most important. Small size and weight are necessary ingredients for the casual photographer who cares for the style of the instantaneous photograph.
The picture is always judged with reference to the function it has for the person who took the photograph or the function which the maker thinks it could fulfil for another person (the famous intentionality of a picture). Artistic photography depends on genre and aesthetic qualities, however nebulously defined. When the picture is considered as non-art, any genre will do and the quality of the picture becomes a technical issue. In addition, the practice of photography as an activity or process, its social dimension and its role as a craft, are important elements to consider.
The Leica rangefinder camera has the advantage that the user will be aware of the process and technique of photography. Photography with a Leica rangefinder is easy: just pick up the camera and start taking pictures. There is a whole world to discover as soon as one discards the artistic template in one’s head. Visual templates, derived from iconic pictures, have the bad habit of guiding the photographer to seek for these templates in real life. The important rule of Sherlock Holmes (looking with your eyes is not observing with your eyes) is easily forgotten. Observing is only possible when the detective knows a lot about what he observes. Finding the reality behind the commonplace is a goal of the photographer who accepts the rules of the high-resolution snapshot with the Leica M.


What is counselling?

There is no clear distinction between counselling and psychotherapy; both are talking therapies that allow people to explore their feelings and emotions and the effect they have on their lives.

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How does counselling help?

In private practice counselling might be best for clients with everyday problems, while psychotherapy might be more appropriate for clients with severe or acute symptoms. In reality, however, you are likely to receive a blend.

Clients have many different reasons for coming to counselling or psychotherapy. Often, clients encounter distressing or stressful experiences or situations which they’d like to talk about in a safe setting.

Distressing or stressful experiences might include present circumstances of bereavement or separation. It might include major life transitions or experiences from the past, from childhood for example.

Some people seek therapy to help them deal with specific psychological or behavioural traits which they’d like to alter, such as compulsive thoughts or difficulties relating to other people.

Others seek counselling to help them explore a general feeling that their lives are not quite right, or to cope with feelings of depression or anxiety. Some look to counselling as part of their effort to discover or create meaning in their lives.

Many people are attracted to counselling as an opportunity to undertake positive personal development in a safe and supportive environment: you don’t need to have ‘a problem’ to find counselling useful.

Counselling for depression helps and supports people who are suffering from feelings of unhappiness, sadness and distress. These negative feelings may come and go, they may be constant and they may become serious.

What can you expect from a session?

Our approach to counselling is what is known as ‘client centred’ therapy. This differs from behavioural and psychodynamic approaches by focusing on current, subjective, issues rather than an unconscious cause. We are not going to excavate your past but rather focus on what is blocking, or troubling you, in the present.

Occasionally, issues will be more complex than they first appear, so various therapies may become useful. These will be integrated into your current programme if we think it will be beneficial for you. This is called integrative counselling.

We aim to help anyone who comes to us, including children and young adults. This is because life can be incredibly taxing at any stage of life and mental well-being can be affected by events that happen at any age.

All of our services are completely confidential. No client information is ever given out to third parties.If you would like to find out if we could help you, we invite you to contact us.


Millimeter-Wave Phaseless Antenna Measurement Based on a Modified Off-Axis Holography Setup

Ana Arboleya*, Juha Ala-Laurinaho, Jaime Laviada, Yuri Alvarez, Fernando Las-Heras, Antti Räisänen

*Tämän työn vastaava kirjoittaja

    Tutkimustuotos: LehtiartikkeliArticleScientificvertaisarvioitu

    1 Sitaatiot (Scopus)

    A novel scheme for planar near-field phaseless antenna measurement based on off-axis holography is presented. Separation of the image terms of the hologram is artificially increased by multiplexing the measurements of two sub-sampled holograms generated with two 180A degrees phase-shifted reference waves. Combination of both sub-sampled holograms produces replicas of the image terms at half a period distance of the originals in the spectral domain, while the amplitude of the original image terms is highly reduced, easing the filtering process of the desired replica. The higher separation of the image terms reduces overlapping making the method suitable also for the characterization of medium and low gain antennas in the near-field. As the separation is artificially increased, the reference antenna can be placed close to the antenna under test allowing to reduce the scan distance and the sensitivity to scan axis errors. Nevertheless, spatial multiplexing requires the retrieved data to be spatially low-pass filtered to remove the effect of the aliasing. Mirror reflection is used for illuminating the acquisition plane with the reference wave, being the phase shift achieved by means of a mechanical displacement of the mirror. The effect of the location of the reference antenna on the position and shape of the image terms and their replicas has been studied through numerical simulations for a setup in the W-band. Experimental validation of the method is presented for the characterization of three different antennas at 94 GHz.

    DOI - pysyväislinkit
    TilaJulkaistu - helmikuuta 2016
    OKM-julkaisutyyppiA1 Julkaistu artikkeli, soviteltu

    Siteeraa tätä


By Guest Author 16/09/2019

I heard that carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the world’s atmosphere. Not 0.4% or 4%, but 0.04%! How can it be so important in global warming if it’s such a small percentage?

Jason West, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

I am often asked how carbon dioxide can have an important effect on global climate when its concentration is so small – just 0.041% of Earth’s atmosphere. And human activities are responsible for just 32% of that amount.

I study the importance of atmospheric gases for air pollution and climate change. The key to carbon dioxide’s strong influence on climate is its ability to absorb heat emitted from our planet’s surface, keeping it from escaping out to space.

The ‘Keeling Curve,’ named for scientist Charles David Keeling, tracks the accumulation of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, measured in parts per million. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, CC BY

Early greenhouse science

A blanket in the atmosphere

Earth constantly receives energy from the sun and radiates it back into space. For the planet’s temperature to remain constant, the net heat it receives from the sun must be balanced by outgoing heat that it gives off.

The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all types of EM radiation – energy that travels and spreads out as it goes. The sun is much hotter than the Earth, so it emits radiation at a higher energy level, which has a shorter wavelength. NASA

Most incoming shortwave radiation from the sun passes through the atmosphere without being absorbed. But most outgoing infrared radiation is absorbed by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Then they can release, or re-radiate, that heat. Some returns to Earth’s surface, keeping it warmer than it would be otherwise.

Earth receives solar energy from the sun (yellow), and returns energy back to space by reflecting some incoming light and radiating heat (red). Greenhouse gases trap some of that heat and return it to the planet’s surface. NASA via Wikimedia

Research on heat transmission

During the Cold War, the absorption of infrared radiation by many different gases was studied extensively. The work was led by the U.S. Air Force, which was developing heat-seeking missiles and needed to understand how to detect heat passing through air.

This research enabled scientists to understand the climate and atmospheric composition of all planets in the solar system by observing their infrared signatures. For example, Venus is about 870 F (470 C) because its thick atmosphere is 96.5% carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide levels rise and fall around the world, changing seasonally with plant growth and decay.

Observing the greenhouse effect

Small change, big effects


In an ideal world, all signs and videos would load instantly, and this would allow the transitions from one sign to the next (or from one video to the next) to also happen instantly.

However, although device performance keeps improving, it does still take a small amount of time for a SignStix Player to load images, or cue-up the next video.  This article describes how these transitions are handled, so that you can plan for them when designing your signage.

Note that this is quite a technical topic.  You should only need to read it if you have complex signage and the transitions are not as you expect.  The description below applies to version 2.10 (Android) Players.

Signage Transitions in a Sequence

General Case

As an example, suppose that a sequence contains Sign A (looping once) and Sign B (looping twice).

By default, when the Player reaches the end of Sign A, it pauses on the final frame of Sign A until Sign B has loaded. This pause is often very short (e.g. a fraction of a second), but it may be longer if Sign B contains lots of large images.  As soon as Sign B has finished loading, the Player switches immediately from the final frame of Sign A to the first frame of Sign B.

When Sign B reaches the end of its first iteration, there is no pause before it starts its second iteration. This is because all the images needed by Sign B are already loaded, so the final frame of Sign B is followed immediately by the first frame of Sign B when it loops round.

When Sign B reaches the end of its second (final) iteration, the Player pauses on the final frame of Sign B while it loads Sign A.  Again, the length of this pause depends on the number and size of images in Sign A. Once Sign A has loaded, the Player switches immediately to the first frame of Sign A, and so on.

Synchronised Case

The situation is slightly different if the Player is synchronised i.e. it has a ‘Synchronisation Method’ set in Device Admin.  This is usually the case with video-walls.

To keep ‘in-sync’, the Players rely on consistent timing.  For example, if one Player takes 0.3 seconds to load the next sign, while another Player takes 0.4 seconds, there’s a risk of the Players becoming 0.1 second out-of-sync.  It doesn’t sound much, but if that happened a few times, the wall would soon look very bad indeed!

To even-out these variations, synchronised Players have to make some assumptions.  Specifically, they assume that 1 second is typically enough to load the next sign. This is known as the ‘pre-roll’ allowance.

What if Sign B only takes 0.4 seconds to load on a given Player?  The Player will pause on the final frame of Sign A for the 0.4 seconds while Sign B is loading, then it will switch immediately to the first frame of Sign B. It will then pause on that first frame of Sign B for 0.6 seconds until the 1 second pre-roll allowance has elapsed. When the 1 second is up, Sign B will proceed to play normally.

What if Sign B is very large and takes 1.3 seconds to load?  In this case, the Player will pause on the final frame of Sign A for 1.3 seconds, and then switch immediately to Sign B, but starting it 0.3 seconds into Sign B. As a result, the first 0.3 seconds of Sign B will be skipped.  This behaviour allows all the Players in the wall to remain in-sync, even when there are significant variations in the performance of each Player.

Interactive Case

When playing an interactive sign, a fast response from the Player is paramount.  For example, suppose a user touches a ‘Show Me More’ button, which is designed to jump to a complex sign elsewhere in the sequence.  If the screen froze for a second or more while the new sign was loading, the experience would feel sluggish.

To avoid this, the Player pre-loads the entire sequence if one or more of the signs has an element of interactivity.  The great advantage of this is that, once the sequence has loaded, jumping to a different sign is instantaneous.  This provides a much smoother user experience.

The disadvantage (and the reason that this feature is not applied for all sequences) is that loading the entire sequence consumes more graphics memory.  If the memory limit is in danger of being exceeded, the Player will automatically reduce the resolution of the largest images until the whole sequence fits within the limit.  In the case of a long sequence with signs containing lots of large images, this may result in reduced graphics quality.

So, what are the conclusions for signage design?

  1. There will often be a short pause on the final frame of a sign.  For example, if a sign ends with a fade-to-black, there may be a short period of black screen before the next sign starts.  If this is deemed undesirable, consider fading to something else (e.g. white, or a logo), or not using a fade.
  2. In a synchronised scenario (e.g. video-wall), there may be a short pause (up to one second) on the first frame of a simple sign, so consider whether the design of that first frame is suitable for pausing on.
  3. In a synchronised scenario (e.g. video-wall), a sign with lots of large images might not start playing from its very first frame (especially if you are using an older slower device).  So avoid placing any vital animation at the very beginning of a large sign in case it gets skipped over.  Start the animation a little way into the sign instead.
  4. With interactive sequences, the sign transitions are instantaneous, but try to avoid long sequences with lots of large images otherwise the graphics quality may be reduced.

Video Transitions in a Playlist

General Case

As videos are generally more complex than images, they can take longer to ‘cue-up’.  In a non-video-wall situation, there is a 2.5 second delay at the start of each video.

During this time the video box is not displayed.  It will appear when the first frame of the video is ready to be displayed.

If there are 2 videos in a playlist, say, the video box is removed from the screen once its final frame has been displayed.  It reappears 2.5 seconds later when the first frame of the second video is ready.

Video-Wall Case

When video-wall mode is enabled for a device (in Device Admin), a different video component is used ‘under the hood’ in the Player.  This video component requires a shorter pre-roll time.

There will be a 1.5 second delay before the first video starts to play.  The video box will not be displayed during this period.  It will appear when the first frame of the video is ready.

If there are 2 videos in a playlist, say, the behaviour at the transition depends on the ‘type’ of the videos.  Videos are deemed to have the same type if they have:

– The same video resolution.
– The same video frame-rate.
– The same audio sample-rate (if audio is present).
– The same number of audio channels (if audio is present).
– Been uploaded to the SignStix server using ‘Make Compatible’.

If the videos have the same type, the Player can use a feature called ‘Seamless Video’, which means that the second video starts immediately after the first video has finished with no delay at all.

If the videos are of different types, the Player will pause on the final frame of the first video for 1.5 seconds, and then start playing the second video.

Note that Seamless Video applies to videos within the same playlist but it does not apply from one sign to another.  So even if all the videos have the same type, there will still be a 1.5 second delay at the start of the second sign before the video box appears.

So, what are the conclusions for signage and video design?

  1. If the default behaviour (2.5 second pre-roll delay) is undesirable, consider switching the device into video-wall mode to benefit from a shorter pre-roll (1.5 seconds) and the Seamless Video feature.  You are free to use video-wall mode even if the device is not actually part of a video-wall.
  2. Try to ensure that videos in the same playlist have the same ‘type’ (resolution, frame-rate etc.) so that they can be played seamlessly when in video-wall mode.
  3. If you are trying to synchronise the animation on a sign with the start of the video, please bear in mind the pre-roll delays that apply (to signage and video) in your case.
    • E.g. if your device(s) are synchronised and in video-wall mode, there is a 1 second pre-roll for the signage and a 1.5 second pre-roll for the video.  So the first frame of the video will appear when the signage animation is at the 0.5 second mark (or frame 13 in Creator).
    • E.g. if your device is not synchronised and not in video-wall mode, there is no signage pre-roll (the sign starts from its beginning as soon as it’s loaded), and there is a 2.5 second video pre-roll.  So the video will start when the signage animation is at the 2.5 second mark (or frame 63 in Creator).
  4. A sign’s video box can disappear briefly (while a video is being cued-up), so consider the background of the sign.  If the sign has been designed specifically for a particular video or playlist, you might want to choose a background that matches the video.  If you add a background, make sure that the video box is set (in Creator) to play on the ‘Front Plane’ so that the background is drawn behind it.
  5. If you are designing a sequence that includes multiple video signs, try to ensure that all those signs have the Video Box on the same plane (front or back).  If the player has to change video planes (from front to back or vice versa) during playback, it can take several seconds at the transition (this is a system limitation).

Special Note for Older ‘Wedge’ Devices

For customers using EKD08/RK3288 ‘wedge’ devices with single screens (not video walls), please be aware that adding a background (as suggested above) may result in your video being obscured by the background (despite the video being set to play on the ‘Front Plane’).  If this causes you a problem, there are two options for working round it:

    1. In SignStix Creator, make the video box fractionally smaller so that it doesn’t occupy every pixel of the screen e.g. set the size of the box to ‘Custom’ and then use the View Dimensions panel to set it to 1920 x 1079 (instead of 1920 x 1080).  Alternatively:
    2. In Device Admin, enable video-wall mode for the device (to make a video wall with one screen).


Investigating reported reads and hits per day - Security Center 5.6

Security Center User Guide 5.6

Security Center 5.6

You can view the number of reads and hits per day for a specific date range, using the Reads/hits per day report.

What you should know

The statistics in this report helps you to assess the performance of Patrollers and fixed Sharp cameras in the field. For example, if you want to see how efficient the location of a mounted fixed Sharp is, you can search for that Sharp, and set a time range of a week.

  1. From the home page, open the Reads/hits per day task.
  2. Set up the query filter for your report. Choose one or more of the following filters:
    Custom fields
    Restrict the search to a pre-defined custom field for the entity. This filter only appears if custom fields are defined for the entity, and if the custom field was made visible to you when it was created or last configured.
    Hit rules
    Select the hit rules to include in the report.
    Hit type
    Select the type of hits to include in the report: Permit, Shared permit, Overtime, and Hotlist.
    LPR units - Patrollers
    Restrict the search to Genetec Patroller™ units (including all their fitted LPR units) and/or LPR units representing fixed Sharp cameras on the Genetec Patroller™ unit.
    Reject reason
    Reason selected by the Genetec Patroller™ user when rejecting a hit. Reject reasons are created and customized in Config Tool. This filter only affects the value in the Rejected hits column.
    Time range
    The time range for the report.
    Select the Patroller user name, or the Patrollers’ parent user groups.
  3. Click Generate report.

    The read and hit events are listed in the report pane.

  4. View the statistics on the total number of reads, hits, and hit actions taken during the selected time range in the Statistics section.


Tesla has delivered its first cars made in China, marking a major milestone for the electric vehicle maker.

Fifteen Model 3 sedans were handed over at the company’s so-called “Gigafactory” near Shanghai.

It comes as Elon Musk’s company aims to secure a significant slice of the world’s biggest car market.

Tesla’s move into the country comes as the trade war has forced other American companies to shift production out of China.

US technology giants Apple, Google, HP, and Dell have all reportedly started the process of moving production from China to other Asian countries.

Tesla had previously imported all of the cars it sold in China, which meant they were hit with tariffs.

The Chinese plant is part of the Silicon Valley-based car maker’s plans to increase its presence in China and ease the negative impact of the trade war.

The company isn’t just expanding its manufacturing into China. In November, it revealed plans to build a huge European production facility on the outskirts of Berlin in Germany.

During a ceremony at the company’s multi-billion dollar plant, 15 of its employees received cars they had purchased.

The event means deliveries of cars have started a little over a year after construction of the factory got underway.

Tesla said that it wanted to start handing over vehicles before the Lunar New Year beginning on 25 January, and now plans to scale up deliveries from the start of 2020.

The Chinese-made Model 3, priced at $50,000 (£38,000) before subsidies, will compete with local electric car makers, including NIO and Xpeng Motors, as well as global brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz.


Astrology for january 28 2020

You often make excellent in physics and you usually have a yearning for the mysterious. You may be very successful in building up enterprises and business, but you may, however, just as easily go in for some professional life or take some public or political career. You may able to make such good numbers of friend through-out your life and it exists near about your whole life. Those who are born in the month of January, December, May, June, and August, may be the closest friend to you. But be selective while you are choosing your friends.

You may get some solid and best friends. The people who are born during these days, they will have the severe tendency of acidity, indigestion, pain in feet. Instead of that you may have a great vitality. You have a tendency to get cold very early and you may suffer a lot for this. This also leads you a severe breathing problem.

Before taking any kind of medicine, you must get a wide regarding that medicine because there have a chance that you may suffer due to unnecessary and wrong intake of medicine.

If you want to avoid these kinds of problems, you may stay in such places with dry climate. The most favourable colours for you are any shade of grey, all types of violet, purple and even black. To increase your personality and magnetic vibrations you can use all shades of gold or yellow.

Other date formats

The all shades of sapphire blue, any shades of pastel colours and even grey are lucky for the romantic couples. You may prosper a lot in the field of business and even industrial fields. So you can invest youre a proportion of money in the above respective fields. It may return you a huge amount of money which will make your financial condition to a high level.

You may able to flourish your career to a long extent if you may attach with the public sectors. Your magnetic influence on others gives you a better success at your financial condition. At the same time you may put your leg in the scandals and calumny situations if you are hankering after money and fame. You may start your career in the field of business. You may achieve your dictator quality in the private sectors with your distinctive quality. Those, who are born during these above days, are also favourable for their students career. The students may able to achieve their perspective goals.

YEAR Person Born on January 28th If you are born on January 28th then Astrology or numerology can predicts many information about you as every year on January 28th Sun will be in same position. Every planets has different frequency and take more or less time to revolve around Sun compared to earth , hence all the other planet will be in different location every year on January 28th. Sun is the most powerful among all other powers hence Being Sun on a fixed location on January 28th on your birth date, a lot can be predicted about you from your horoscope or kundali..

Friends: You may able to make such good numbers of friend through-out your life and it exists near about your whole life. Health: The people who are born during these days, they will have the severe tendency of acidity, indigestion, pain in feet. Colours: The most favourable colours for you are any shade of grey, all types of violet, purple and even black.

People can rub you the wrong way, but you can also be a little more sensitive than usual as well. Part of this may be about miscommunication or a misunderstanding.

Chinese Calendar of January 2020

People around you may seem hard to please, but it can also be a reflection of your own unrest. Consider your feelings, but try not to let them distract you from your goals for far too long.

Taking a small break for refreshment if it can be managed, however, would be welcome. You may need to ride things out and let different scenarios play around in your head for now. The Moon spends a pleasant time in your entertainment, creativity, and romance sector today, dear Cancer, and this can serve to boost your mood. Productivity can be a little tricky today, however, as Mercury and Venus connect, mostly because sticking to a particular idea or path without distraction is challenging under this influence.

It can also point to the mixing of business with social matters in uncomfortable or distracting ways. Restlessness might alternatively be the result of differing tastes and interests that are challenging to integrate. It may be that you need to take a break from a current endeavor and then return to it later when you feel fresher.

You can be especially sensitive if people do not recognize your efforts or services. Aim to sort out your opinions on a matter today, and take your time on this. In many ways, the day plays in your favor, dear Leo, but your biggest problem today may be distractions.

It can be a small challenge to buckle down and get things done. Dissatisfaction has a way of making itself known, and might often pull your attention away from your duties. You may need a bit of emotional space, perhaps a little extra time to process a message or your feelings about a matter, before committing your full attention to something.

Weekly Horoscopes by Madame Clairevoyant Week of January 28

Today requires some patience. Mercury and Venus connect now, dear Virgo, but are also in minor challenging aspect with one another. This can get you to a beautiful new perspective, but not without some small problems surfacing before you arrive at this mental destination. Explore your feelings now, but not to the point that you feel overwhelmed.

12 Zodiac Signs

You and others may be more sensitive than usual about words expressed, which may not seem right. You are on the verge of understanding a love or creative matter more fully, but today, take things slowly. Watch for a tendency to want to spend away your troubles, but if you can use a little pampering or a break from the routine and you can manage such a break now, then this may be the right time to treat yourself. This process is important. Misunderstandings are likely so that if you experience a disconnect, try not to make big decisions based only on it.

While there is quite a bit of desire for making connections today, dear Sagittarius, there is also some tendency for some things to get lost in the translation. As a result, it can be difficult getting yourself going on any particular thing, primarily due to distractions and emotional states. Intentions are likely right, but words chosen may not be perfect now.

Spend a little more time playing with alternatives now for best results. Alternatively, you may need to put something out of your mind temporarily so that you can come back to it at a later time with fresh energy. You are a little more sensitive to imbalances in your life, especially with the messages you receive today. Above are astrological event highlights for the day.

There can be tension and feelings of restlessness or impatience, as what we want to do may not feel perfectly right, or we may be lacking the courage. Science has explained many things, answered many questions, showed that many beliefs of ancient nations are unfounded and erroneous, but astrology has remained almost the same as it was about years ago. Astrology existed in the time before Copernicus, at a time when Earth was the centre of the world, at a time when the Sun circled the Earth. In this and similar articles you can find so much information about your horoscope sign, and primarily about your date of birth, that also has specific information.

You can not disrupt people who are born on the January 28 or limit their freedom.

What's Your Zodiac Animal?

They are Aquariuses after all, and they appreciate their freedom above everything. They are the people who adore travelling, and they prefer adventures that are unusual, exotic and distant destinations, and not boring tours or cruises on the big ships that most people love, for example — they are different and are not afraid to show it. These people are pioneers in every sense of the word and not one who only blindly follow others -they have their own rules and principles, and stubbornly stick to them.

Almost all representatives of the January 28 have a very unusual and creative sense of communication — they talk so that, when you talk to these people you have the feeling that every corner of the world is theirs. After all, they are true, honest and do not flee from their nature.


Find Your True North

Light Watkins

Light Watkins is the founder of The Shine Movement and author of Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying and The Inner Gym: A 30-Day Workout For Strengthening Happiness. He’s been active in the meditation and wellness space for nearly two decades, and he’s also given a popular TEDx talk titled Debunking The 5 Most Common Meditation Myths.


The Flat Earth Wiki
The Flat Earth Wiki
Log in

The Ancient Greeks

From The Flat Earth Wiki
Revision as of 20:17, 28 June 2020 by Tom Bishop (talk | contribs) (→Continuous Universe)

Championed by Aristotle, the the theory of a Round Earth began in classical antiquity, contradicting the prevailing belief of a Flat Earth. Aristotle founded his theory on three proofs, which are still cited and in use today[1]. As Greek and Roman influence and culture spread throughout the ages the concept of a Round Earth overthrew the ancient knowledge, establishing itself as the cornerstone of Western civilization.

Aristotle's Round Earth Proofs

Aristotle is credited as being the first to propose that the earth was round based on physical evidence[2]. Around this time, at the birth of Western Science, philosophers had begun to believe that the world could be explained by natural processes. Leading philosophers of Ancient Greece rejected the prevailing divine guidance of the world as absurdity, and instead sought to diminish the divine influence by postulating alternative explanations[3]. In this effort the Greek philosophers sparked a secular movement which continues to this very day. The Round Earth Theory is championed as Western Science's triumphant victory in overthrowing the ignorance of the past, and is prided to have been discovered entirely through human reason and intellect.

Aristotle gives three observations for the new world model:

Sinking Ship Effect

See the Sinking Ship Effect

Rising and Setting

See Sunrise and Sunset

Lunar Eclipse

See the section Lunar Eclipse due to EA - Curved Shadow

Eratosthenes' Shadow Experiment

See Eratosthenes on Diameter

Continuous Universe

  • That perfect circles can exist
  • That space can be infinitely long
  • Time can likewise be infinitely divided, or infinitely long
  • Light rays travel in perfectly straight lines into infinity
  • Perspective lines recede infinitely and continuously into the distance

                  —Historian of science Dr. James Hannam, author of "God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science" (bio, source)

                  —Suzane Glass, Analyze This!: Understanding the Scientific Method

                  —Wikipedia article on Roger Bacon, Father of the Scientific Method

                  —Roger Bacon, De mirabile potestate artis et naturae

                  —Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

                  —Diane Stranz, Aristotle: Wrong About Everything

1 Modern scholars continue to champion Aristotle's arguments as proof of the Earth's sphericity. From p.242 of When The Earth Was Flat by cosmology historian Dirk Couprie, Ph.D., we read:

  “ Recently, several scholars highly praised Aristotle’s empirical arguments. Stephen Hawking admired Aristotle for delivering “two good arguments for believing that the earth was a round sphere rather than a flat plane.”9 [Professor of Philosophy] Daniel Graham stated, “Aristotle defends and indeed proves the sphericity of the earth in the De Caelo with adequate scientific arguments.”10 [Theoretical Physicist] Carlo Rovelli, in a paper on Aristotle’s physics, wrote about Aristotle’s most famous argument, which used the shape of the shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse to prove the earth’s sphericity: “This proves empirically, and very solidly indeed, that the earth has a shape that is (approximately) spherical.”11 ”

2 Although the topic of a round Earth was discussed beforehand, Aristotle is credited by the American Physical Society as perhaps the first to argue that the earth was round based on physical evidence:

  “ It was around 500 B.C. that Pythagoras first proposed a spherical Earth, mainly on aesthetic grounds rather than on any physical evidence. Like many Greeks, he believed the sphere was the most perfect shape. Possibly the first to propose a spherical Earth based on actual physical evidence was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who listed several arguments for a spherical Earth: ships disappear hull first when they sail over the horizon, Earth casts a round shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse, and different constellations are visible at different latitudes. ”

Astronomy Professor Michael Zeilik credits Aristotle with the same on p.31 in his Astronomy: The Evolving Universe:

  “ Aristotle was the first person to describe in detail simple observations to demonstrate that the earth must be round ”

3 In regards to the origin of science as an effort to usurp religion, on p.7 of Science and Religion: Understanding the Issues (Archive) its author Professor Nancy Morvillo tells us:

  “ The ancient Greek philosophers are revered in history as they were the first to reject the notion that natural events are caused by supernatural forces. According to their philosophies, natural phenomena were not caused by vengeful and whimsical gods; rather, nature behaved in a constant and uniform fashion. Therefore, to the Greek philosophers, it was irrational to ascribe the workings of the natural world to gods. ”

Aristotle utilizes his science to try to reject religion. From the journal Notre Dame Philsophical Reviews we see:

  “ Aristotle is highly critical of the anthropomorphizing of divinities, pervasive throughout Greek culture. He thinks not only that the stories told about the traditional gods are absurd, but that these gods do not exist, though he is prepared to allow that certain myths about the gods are possibly more edifying than others. So, Aristotle thinks that Greek "religion" is mostly irredeemably false.
...In the first chapter, Segev gives an account of Aristotle's reasons for rejecting traditional religion. As he demonstrates, Aristotle's rejection follows from his own scientific philosophy, especially as this is found in his physics, ethics, and metaphysics. ”


New York outlaws the leasing of companion animals including dogs and cats. According to the Governor’s office the practice of leasing companion animals has resulted in balloon payments and predatory interest rates that lower income pet owners cannot afford. As a result, pets are repossessed, traumatizing both owners and their pets. The amended law will prohibit the use of a dog or a cat as security for payments in contracts and financing agreements with pet dealers.


April 19, 2020

A Road to the Standard Grand Unified Theory

Nobuhiro Maekawaaaae-mail:

Department of Physics, Kyoto University,

Kyoto 606-8502, Japan

In this talk111 This talk is based on the works [1, 2, 3]. , we propose a GUT scenario in which doublet-triplet splitting is naturally realized in unification using the Dimopoulos-Wilczek mechanism [4] and the realistic mass matrices of quarks and leptons are obtained in a simple way. For the neutrino sector, bi-maximal neutrino mixing angles are realized. Moreover, the generic interaction is allowed, namely, all the terms which are allowed by the symmetry are included in the scenario. Therefore, once we fix the integer number charges of the anomalous symmetry, which plays an essential role in the scenario, all the scales, GUT breaking scale, mass scales of superheavy particles, are determined. The scenario can be extended into unification, in which a condition for suppression of flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) is automatically satisfied.

1 Introduction

In this talk, we propose a scenario of grand unified theory (GUT) with anomalous gauge symmetry, which has the following interesting features[1];

  1. The doublet-triplet (DT) splitting is realized using Dimopoulos-Wilczek mechanism [4, 5, 6, 7].

  2. The proton decay via dimension five operator is suppressed.

  3. Realistic quark and lepton mass matrices can be obtained in a simple way. Especially in neutrino sector, bi-large neutrino mixing is realized.

  4. The symmetry breaking scales are determined by the anomalous charges.

  5. The mass spectrum of the super heavy particles is fixed by the anomalous charges.

  6. The problem is also naturally solved[2].

As a consequence of the above features, the fact that the GUT scale is smaller than the Planck scale is strongly connected to the improvement of the undesired GUT relation between the Yukawa couplings ( also) while keeping . Moreover, it is remarkable that the interaction is generic, namely, all the interactions, which are allowed by the symmetry, are taken into account. Therefore, once we fix the field contents with their quantum numbers, all the interactions are determined except the coefficients of order one. Moreover the above scenario can be extended into unification[3], in which a suppression condition of FCNC is automatically satisfied. In unification, the twisting mechanism[8] is essential.

There the anomalous gauge symmetry[9], whose anomaly is cancelled by Green-Schwarz mechanism[10], plays an essential role in the scenario.

2 Relation between VEVs and anomalous charges and neutrino masses

In this section, we explain how the vacua of the Higgs fields are determined by the anomalous quantum numbers.[1, 3]

First of all, we show that none of the field with positive anomalous charge gets nonzero VEV if the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) mechanism works well in the vacuum. Let the gauge singlet fields be () with charges with and . From the flatness conditions of the superpotential we get equations plus one -flatness condition,

where . At a glance, these look to be over determined. However, the flatness conditions are not independent because the gauge invariance of the superpotential leads to a relation

Therefore, generically SUSY vacuum with exists (Vacuum a), because the coefficients of the above conditions are generally of order 1. However, if , we can take another vacuum (Vacuum b) with , which automatically satisfy the -flatness conditions . Then are determined by -flatness conditions with a constraint (2.2) and -flatness condition . Note that if (i.e., ), the VEVs of are less than the Planck scale, that can lead to Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism. If we fix the normalization of gauge symmetry so that the largest value in the negative charges equals -1 then the VEV of the field is determined from as , which breaks gauge symmetry. (The field becomes the Froggatt-Nielsen field .) On the other hand, other VEVs are determined by -flatness conditions of as , which is shown below. Since , it is sufficient to examine the terms linear in in the superpotential in order to determine . Therefore, in general the superpotential can be written

where . The -flatness conditions of fields require

which generally lead to solutions if these -flatness conditions determine the VEVs. Thus the F-flatness condition demands,

Here we have examined the VEVs of singlets fields, but generally the gauge invariant operator with negative charge has non-vanishing VEV if the -flatness conditions determine the VEV. Note that when , all the VEVs can be determined by the -flatness conditions . It means that there is no flat direction, namely no massless field. On the other hand, when , then there must be some massless fields related with the flat direction.

If the vacuum a is selected, the anomalous gauge symmetry is broken at the Planck scale and the FN mechanism does not work. Therefore, we cannot know the existence of the gauge symmetry from the low energy physics. On the other hand, if the vacuum b is selected, the FN mechanism works well and we can understand the signature of the gauge symmetry from the low energy physics. Therefore, it is natural to assume that the vacuum b is selected in our scenario, in which the gauge symmetry plays an important role for the FN mechanism. Namely, the VEVs of the fields vanish, that guarantee that the SUSY zero mechanism works well.

If an adjoint field has a VEV by the -flatness condition, the scale of the VEV is determined as because can be gauge invariant. Moreover, in addition to the adjoint field , we have to introduce spinor Higgs and to break into the standard gauge group. The VEV are determined by the anomalous charges as . This leads to

because of -flatness condition of gauge theory. Note that the scale of the VEVs are also determined by the anomalous charges, though the relation is different from the naive expectation . This is because the -flatness condition plays a critical role to determine the VEVs. Note that the power is half integer. This fact plays an important role to obtain bi-large mixing angles in neutrino sector, which will be discussed lator.

3 Doublet-triplet splitting with anomalous gauge symmetry

In this section, we show that DT splitting is naturally realized in GUT with anomalous gauge symmetry.

The minimal Higgs content to break into is one adjoint Higgs , a pair of spinor fields and and usual Higgs . All of them must have negative anomalous charges because they have non-vanishing VEVs. On the other hand, we have to introduce the same number of the fields with positive anomalous charges in order to make all fields massive222 Strictly speaking, some component fields are absorbed by the Higgs mechanism, so we do not have to introduce the same number of the fields with positive charges. However, it is not the case in unification.. The content of the Higgs sector with gauge symmetry is given in Table I, where the symbols denote a parity quantum numbers.

Table I. The lowercase letters represent the anomalous charges.

Here we have listed typical values of the anomalous charges. Among these fields, , , , and are expected to obtain non-vanishing VEVs around the GUT scale. As discussed in the previous section, the fields with positive charges have vanishing VEVs. It is surprising that the DT splitting mechanism is naturally embedded into the above minimal model in a sense.

Since the fields with non-vanishing VEVs have negative charges, only the -flatness conditions of fields with positive charge must be counted for determination of their VEVs. Moreover, we have only to take account of the terms in the superpotential which contain only one field with positive charge. This is because the terms with more positive charge fields do not contribute to the -flatness conditions, since the positive fields are assumed to have zero VEV. Therefore, in general, the superpotential required by determination of the VEVs can be written as

Here denotes the terms linear in the field, which has positive anomalous charge. Note, however, that terms including two fields with positive charge like give contributions to the mass terms but not to the VEVs.

We now discuss the determination of the VEVs. If , the superpotential is in general written as

where the suffixes 1 and 54 indicate the representation of the composite operators under the gauge symmetry, and , and are parameters of order 1. Here we assume to forbid the term , which destabilizes the DW form of the VEV . If we take , the -flatness of the field requires , which gives only two solutions , . Here is the number of solutions. The DW form is obtained when . Note that the higher terms are forbidden by the SUSY zero mechanism. If they are allowed, the number of possible VEVs other than the DW form becomes larger, and thus it becomes less natural to obtain the DW form. This is a critical point of this mechanism, and the anomalous gauge symmetry plays an essential role to forbid the undesired terms. It is also interesting that the scale of the VEV is automatically determined by the anomalous charge of , as noted in the previous section.

Next we discuss the -flatness condition of , which determines the scale of the VEV . , which is linear in the field, is given by

if . Then the -flatness condition of implies , and the -flatness condition requires . The scale of the VEV is determined only by the charges of and again. If we take , then we obtain the VEVs of the fields and as , which differ from the expected values and if .

Finally, we discuss the -flatness of and , which realizes the alignment of the VEVs and and imparts masses on the PNG fields. This simple mechanism was proposed by Barr and Raby [5]. We can easily assign anomalous charges which allow the following superpotential:

The -flatness conditions give . Recall that the VEV of is proportional to the generator as . Also , , is decomposed into , , and under . Since , not all components in the spinor vanish. Then is fixed to be , where is the charge of the component field in , which has non-vanishing VEV. It is interesting that no other component fields can have non-vanishing VEVs because of the -flatness conditions. If the field obtains a non-zero VEV (therefore, ), then the gauge group is broken to the standard gauge group. Once the direction of the VEV is determined, the VEV must have the same direction because of the -flatness condition. Therefore, . Thus, all VEVs have now been fixed.

We do not discuss the detail of the mass spectrum here. But all fields acquire the mass term except one pair of doublet Higgs fields[1]. We will discuss only the mass matrix of Higgs . Considering the additional mass term , we write the mass matrix of the Higgs fields and , which are decomposed from 5 and of , as

The colored Higgs obtain their masses of order . Since in general , the proton decay is naturally suppressed. The effective colored Higgs mass is estimated as , which is larger than the Planck scale, because . One pair of the doublet Higgs is massless, while another pair of doublet Higgs acquires a mass of order . The DW mechanism works well, although we have to examine the effect of the rather light additional Higgs.

There are several terms which must be forbidden for the stability of the DW mechanism. For example, , and induce a large mass of the doublet Higgs, and the term would destabilize the DW form of . We can easily forbid these terms using the SUSY zero mechanism. For example, if we choose , then is forbidden, and if we choose , then is forbidden. (It is interesting that the negative charge , which is required for the DT splitting, enhances the left-handed neutrino masses, as discussed in section 2.) Once these dangerous terms are forbidden by the SUSY zero mechanism, higher-dimensional terms which also become dangerous; for example, and are automatically forbidden, since only gauge invariant operators with negative charge can have non-vanishing VEVs. This is also an attractive point of our scenario.

In this section, we have proposed an natural DT splitting mechanism in which the anomalous gauge symmetry plays a critical role, and the VEVs and mass spectrum are automatically determined by the anomalous charges. In the next section, we examine a model with this DT splitting mechanism, which gives realistic mass matrices of quarks and leptons.

4 Quark and Lepton sector

In this section, we examine the simplest model to demonstrate how to determine everything from the anomalous charges.

In addition to the Higgs sector in Table.I, we introduce only three representations with anomalous charges and one field with charge as the matter contents. These matter fields are assigned odd R-parity, while those of the Higgs sector are assigned even R-parity. Such an assignment of R-parity guarantees that the argument regarding VEVs in the previous section does not change if these matter fields have vanishing VEVs. We can give an argument to determine the allowed region of the anomalous charges to obtain desired terms while forbidding dangerous terms. Though this is a straightforward argument, we do not give it here. Instead, we give a set of anomalous charges with which all conditions are satisfied and a novel neutrino mass matrix is obtained: . Then the mass term of and of is written as

Since , because , the massive mode , the partner of , is given by

Therefore the three massless modes are written . The Dirac mass matrices for quarks and leptons can be obtained from the interaction

The mass matrices for the up quark sector and the down quark sector are

Note that the Yukawa couplings for are obtained only through the Yukawa couplings for the component , because we have no Yukawa couplings for . We can estimate the CKM matrix from these quark matrices as

which is consistent with the experimental value if we choose 333 Strictly speaking, if the Yukawa coupling originated only from the interaction 4.3, the mixing concerning to the first generation becomes smaller than the expected values because of a cancellation. In order to get the expected value of CKM matrix as in 4.5, non-renormalizable terms, for example, must be taken into account.. Since the ratio of the Yukawa couplings of top and bottom quarks is , a small value of is predicted by these mass matrices. The Yukawa matrix for the charged lepton sector is the same as the transpose of at this stage, except for an overall factor induced by the renormalization group effect. The mass matrix for the Dirac mass of neutrinos is given by

The right-handed neutrino masses come from the interaction

Therefore we can estimate the neutrino mass matrix:

Note that the overall factor has negative power, which can be induced by the effects discussed in sections 2 and 3. From these mass matrices in the lepton sector the MNS matrix is obtained as

This gives bi-maximal mixing angles for the neutrino sector, because . We then obtain the prediction , which is consistent with the experimental data [11, 12]: and . The relation is also an interesting prediction from this matrix, though CHOOZ gives a restrictive upper limit [13]. The neutrino mass is given by . If we take GeV, GeV and , then we get eV, eV and eV. It is surprising that such a rough approximation gives values in good agreement with the experimental values from the atmospheric neutrino and large mixing angle (LMA) MSW solution of the solar neutrino problem. This LMA solution for the solar neutrino problem gives the best fit to the present experimental data [14].

In addition to Eq. (4.3), the interactions

also contribute to the Yukawa couplings. Here is squared because it has odd parity. Since is proportional to the generator of , the contribution to the lepton Yukawa coupling is nine times larger than that to quark Yukawa coupling, which can change the unrealistic prediction at the GUT scale. Since the prediction at the GUT scale is consistent with experiment, the enhancement factor of can improve the situation. Note that the additional terms contribute mainly in the lepton sector. If we set , the additional matrices are

It is interesting that this modification essentially changes the eigenvalues of only the first and second generation. Therefore it is natural to expect that a realistic mass pattern can be obtained by this modification. This is one of the largest motivations to choose . Note that this charge assignment also determines the scale . It is suggestive that the fact that the breaking scale is slightly smaller than the Planck scale is correlated with the discrepancy between the naive prediction of the ratio from the unification and the experimental value444 Such an argument has been done also in [15].. It is also interesting that the SUSY zero mechanism plays an essential role again. When , the terms also contribute to the fermion mass matrices, though only to the first generation.

Proton decay mediated by the colored Higgs is strongly suppressed in this model. As mentioned in the previous section, the effective mass of the colored Higgs is of order , which is much larger than the Planck scale. Proton decay is also induced by the non-renormalizable term

which is also strongly suppressed.

Since the spectrum of the superheavy particles is fixed by anomalous charges, we can check whether the three gauge couplings are unified or not. This is a severe constraint to select a realistic model. There is an example in which the three gauge couplings meet at a scale. If we take the anomalous charges as , then the three gauge couplings are unified at the unification scale . Here we have to take the cutoff scale GeV. Therefore, in this model, the proton decay due to the dimension 6 operator may be seen in near future.

5 A natural solution for the problem

In our scenario, SUSY zero mechanism forbids the SUSY Higgs mass term . However, once SUSY is broken, the Higgs mass must be induced. The induced mass must be proportional to the SUSY breaking scale.

We now examine a solution for the problem in a simple example [2]. The essential point of this mechanism is that the VEV shift of a heavy singlet field by SUSY breaking. We introduce the superpotential , where and are singlet fields with positive anomalous charge and with negative charge , respectively (). Note that the single term of is not allowed by SUSY zero mechanism, while usual symmetry cannot forbid this term. This is an essential point of this mechanism. The SUSY vacuum is at and . After SUSY is broken, these VEVs are modified. To determine the VEV shift of , which we would like to know because the singlet with positive charge can couple to the Higgs field with negative charge, the most important SUSY breaking term is the tadpole term of , namely . Here is a SUSY breaking parameter of order of the weak scale. By this tadpole term, the VEV of appears as . If we have , the SUSY Higgs mass is obtained as , which is proportional to the SUSY breaking parameter and the proportional coefficient can be of order 1 if . Note that the -term of is calculated as . The Higgs mixing term can be obtained from the SUSY term and the SUSY breaking term as and , respectively. Therefore the relation is naturally obtained 555 If doublet-triplet splitting is realized by fine-tuning or some accidental cancellation, the Higgs mixing can become intermediated scale as discussed in Ref.[16], where is the GUT scale. However, once the doublet-triplet splitting is naturally solved as in Ref.[1], such a problem disappears . This is a solution for the problem. Note that the condition can be satisfied because both fields and have negative charges.

6 SUSY breaking and FCNC

We discuss SUSY breaking in this section. Since we should assign the anomalous charges dependent on the flavor to produce the hierarchy of Yukawa couplings, generically the non-degenerate scalar fermion masses are induced through the anomalous -term.666 The large SUSY breaking scale can avoid the flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) problem, but in our scenario it does not work because the anomalous charge of the Higgs is inevitably negative to forbid the Higgs mass term in tree level. Various experiments on the FCNC processes give strong constraints to the off-diagonal terms in the sfermion mass matrices on the basis on which the flavor changing terms appear only in the non-diagonality of the sfermion propagators as in Ref.[17]. The sfermion propagators can be expanded in terms of where is an average sfermion mass. As long as is sufficiently smaller than , it is enough to take the first term of this expansion and, then, the experimental information concerning FCNC and CP violating phenomena is translated into upper bounds on these ’s, where , the chirality index and the generation index . For example, the experimental value of mixing gives

with , an average value of squark masses.777 The CP violation parameter gives about one order severer constraints on the imaginary part of than the real part. We here concentrate ourselves only on the constraints from the real part of mixing, since under the other experimental constraints to the CP phase originated from SUSY breaking sector, which are mainly given by electric dipole moment, we may expect that the CP phases are small enough to satisfy the constraints from the imaginary part of the mixing. The process gives

where is an average mass of scalar leptons. In the usual anomalous scenario, can be estimated as

since the mass difference is given by , where is the anomalous charge of . Here the reason for appearing the coefficient is that the unitary diagonalizing matrices are given by

Therefore if the condition is satisfied, namely the sfermion masses of and are almost degenerate, the constraints from these FCNC processes become weaker. This is because the constraints from the mixing and the CP violation to the product are much stronger than those to or as shown in eq. (6.1) and (6.2). Therefore suppression of makes the constraints much weaker.

In the next section, we show that in unification, the above condition is automatically satisfied.

7 unification

In the case of , and of are naturally included in a single multiplet 27 of . The fundamental representation of contains 16 and 10 of automatically: Under ,

where the representation of are explicitly denoted in the above. Therefore the model naturally has the freedom for replacing matter fields by . In order to see how the replacement happens, we introduce the following Higgs fields which are relevant to determine the mass matrices of matter multiplets , whose charges are denoted as 888 We assume that (i=1,2,3):

  1. and : break into ,

  2. and : break into ,

  3. :Higgs field which includes the Higgs doublets.

The invariant superpotential for low energy Yukawa terms is,

and that for the replacement is

where we suppress the coefficients of order one and for the above we assume that for each pair so that there appears no SUSY zero.

The VEVs and induce the masses between and as

where we define a parameter as

Since , has larger masses than and . Therefore 3 massless modes tends to consist of and . Actually under some conditions, the 3 massless modes become

where the first terms of the right hand side are the main components of these massless modes and the other terms are mixing terms with heavy states, , and . This is almost the same situation as discussed in the previous section. Actually if we take , namely,

the massless modes discussed in the previous section are obtained. Namely, all the quark and lepton mass matrices are obtained even in this unification. Only the difference is that in unification the charge of the main part of second generation is fixed as . Therefore the condition for suppression of mixing, which was discussed in the previous section, is automatically satisfied.

Now that the constraints from the mixing (and the CP violation) become weaker as discussed above, we have larger region in the paramter space, where the lepton flavor violating processes like are appreciable. Actually, if the ratio of the VEV of to the gaugino mass squared at the GUT scale is given by

the scalar fermion mass square at the low energy scale is estimated as

where is a renormalization group factor. Therefore in our scenario, the eq.(6.2) for becomes

which is rewritten

Though the main contribution to vanishes, through the mixing in eq. (7.6) and (7.7), is estimated as