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Apple IIc Plus.
The final Apple II model was the Apple IIc Plus introduced in 1988. It was the same size and shape as the IIc that came before it, but the 5.25-inch floppy drive had been replaced with a -inch drive, the power supply was moved inside the case, and the processor was a fast 4 MHz 65C02 processor that actually ran 8-bit Apple II software faster than the II.
The IIc Plus also featured a new keyboard layout that matched the Platinum IIe and II. Unlike the IIe IIc and II, the IIc Plus came only in one version (American) and was not officially sold anywhere outside the US. The Apple IIc Plus ceased production in 1990, with its two-year production run being the shortest of all the Apple II computers.
Apple IIe Card.
Although not an extension of the Apple II line, in 1990 the Apple IIe Card, an expansion card for the Macintosh LC, was released. Essentially a miniaturized Apple IIe computer on a card (using the Mega II chip from the Apple II), it allowed the Macintosh to run 8-bit Apple IIe software through hardware emulation, with an option to run at roughly double the speed of the original IIe (about 1.8 MHz). However, the video output was emulated in software, and, depending on how much of the screen the currently running program was trying to update in a single frame, performance could be much slower compared to a real IIe. This is due to the fact that writes from the 65C02 on the IIe Card to video memory were caught by the additional hardware on the card, so the video emulation software running on the Macintosh side could process that write and update the video display. But, while the Macintosh was processing video updates, execution of Apple II code would be temporarily halted.
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With a breakout cable which connected to the back of the card, the user could attach up to two UniDisk or Apple 5.25 Drives, up to one UniDisk 3.5 drive, and a DE-9 Apple II joystick. Many of the LC's built-in Macintosh peripherals could also be "borrowed" by the card when in Apple II mode, including extra RAM, the Mac's internal 3.5-inch floppy drives, AppleTalk networking, any ProDOS-formatted hard disk partitions, the serial ports, mouse, and real-time clock. The IIe card could not, however, run software intended for the 16-bit Apple II.
Advertising, marketing, and packaging.
Mike Markkula, a retired Intel marketing manager, provided the early critical funding for Apple Computer. From 1977 to 1981, Apple used the Regis McKenna agency for its advertisements and marketing. In 1981, Chiat-Day acquired Regis McKenna's advertising operations and Apple used Chiat-Day. At Regis McKenna Advertising, the team assigned to launch the Apple II consisted of Rob Janoff, art director, Chip Schafer, copywriter and Bill Kelley, account executive. Janoff came up with the Apple logo with a bite out of it. The design was originally an olive green with matching company logotype all in lowercase. Steve Jobs insisted on promoting the color capability of the Apple II by putting rainbow stripes on the Apple logo. In its letterhead and business card implementation, the rounded "a" of the logotype echoed the "bite" in the logo. This logo was developed simultaneously with an advertisement and a brochure; the latter being produced for distribution initially at the first West Coast Computer Faire.
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Since the original Apple II, Apple has paid high attention to its quality of packaging, partly because of Steve Jobs' personal preferences and opinions on packaging and final product appearance. All of Apple's packaging for the Apple II series looked similar, featuring much clean white space and showing the Apple rainbow logo prominently. For several years up until the late 1980s, Apple used the Motter Tektura font for packaging, until changing to the Apple Garamond font.
Apple ran the first advertisement for the Apple II, a two-page spread ad titled "Introducing Apple II", in "BYTE" in July 1977. The first brochure, was entitled "Simplicity" and the copy in both the ad and brochure pioneered "demystifying" language intended to make the new idea of a home computer more "personal." The Apple II introduction ad was later run in the September 1977 issue of "Scientific American".
Apple later aired eight television commercials for the Apple II, emphasizing its benefits to education and students, along with some print ads.
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Clones.
The Apple II was frequently cloned, both in the United States and abroad, in a similar way to the IBM PC. According to some sources (see below), more than 190 different models of Apple II clones were manufactured. Most could not be legally imported into the United States. Apple sued and sought criminal charges against clone makers in more than a dozen countries.
Data storage.
Cassette.
Originally the Apple II used Compact Cassette tapes for program and data storage. A dedicated tape recorder along the lines of the Commodore Datasette was never produced; Apple recommended using the Panasonic RQ309 in some of its early printed documentation. The uses of common consumer cassette recorders and a standard video monitor or television set (with a third-party RF modulator) made the total cost of owning an Apple II less expensive and helped contribute to the Apple II's success.
Cassette storage may have been inexpensive, but it was also slow and unreliable. The Apple II's lack of a disk drive was "a glaring weakness" in what was otherwise intended to be a polished, professional product. Recognizing that the II needed a disk drive to be taken seriously, Apple set out to develop a disk drive and a DOS to run it. Wozniak spent the 1977 Christmas holidays designing a disk controller that reduced the number of chips used by a factor of 10 compared to existing controllers. Still lacking a DOS, and with Wozniak inexperienced in operating system design, Jobs approached Shepardson Microsystems with the project. On April 10, 1978, Apple signed a contract for $13,000 with Shepardson to develop the DOS.
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Even after disk drives made the cassette tape interfaces obsolete they were still used by enthusiasts as simple one-bit audio input-output ports. Ham radio operators used the cassette input to receive slow scan TV (single frame images). A commercial speech recognition Blackjack program was available, after some user-specific voice training it would recognize simple commands (Hit, stand). Bob Bishop's "Music Kaleidoscope" was a simple program that monitored the cassette input port and based on zero-crossings created color patterns on the screen, a predecessor to current audio visualization plug-ins for media players. Music Kaleidoscope was especially popular on projection TV sets in dance halls.
The OS Disk.
Apple and many third-party developers made software available on tape at first, but after the Disk II became available in 1978, tape-based Apple II software essentially disappeared from the market. The initial price of the Disk II drive and controller was US$595, although a $100 off coupon was available through the Apple newsletter "Contact". The controller could handle two drives and a second drive (without controller) retailed for $495.
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The Disk II single-sided floppy drive used 5.25-inch floppy disks; double-sided disks could be used, one side at a time, by turning them over and notching a hole for the write protect sensor. The first disk operating systems for the were and DOS 3.2, which stored 113.75 KB on each disk, organized into 35 tracks of 13 256-byte sectors each. After about two years, DOS 3.3 was introduced, storing 140 KB thanks to a minor firmware change on the disk controller that allowed it to store 16 sectors per track. (This upgrade was user-installable as two PROMs on older controllers.) After the release of DOS 3.3, the user community discontinued use of except for running legacy software. Programs that required DOS 3.2 were fairly rare; however, as DOS 3.3 was not a major architectural change aside from the number of sectors per track, a program called MUFFIN was provided with DOS 3.3 to allow users to copy files from DOS 3.2 disks to DOS 3.3 disks. It was possible for software developers to create a DOS 3.2 disk which would also boot on a system with firmware.
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Later, double-sided drives, with heads to read both sides of the disk, became available from third-party companies. (Apple only produced double-sided 5.25-inch disks for the Lisa 1 computer).
On a DOS 3.x disk, tracks 0, 1, and most of track 2 were reserved to store the operating system. (It was possible, with a special utility, to reclaim most of this space for data if a disk did not need to be bootable.) A short ROM program on the disk controller had the ability to seek to track zero which it did without regard for the read/write head's current position, resulting in the characteristic "chattering" sound of a Disk II boot, which was the read/write head hitting the rubber stop block at the end of the rail – and read and execute code from sector 0. The code contained in there would then pull in the rest of the operating system. DOS stored the disk's directory on track 17, smack in the middle of the 35-track disks, in order to reduce the average seek time to the frequently used directory track. The directory was fixed in size and could hold a maximum of 105 files. Subdirectories were not supported.
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Most game publishers did not include DOS on their floppy disks, since they needed the memory it occupied more than its capabilities; instead, they often wrote their own boot loaders and read-only file systems. This also served to discourage "crackers" from snooping around in the game's copy-protection code, since the data on the disk was not in files that could be accessed easily.
Some third-party manufacturers produced floppy drives that could write 40 tracks to most 5.25-inch disks, yielding 160 KB of storage per disk, but the format did not catch on widely, and no known commercial software was published on 40-track media. Most drives, even Disk IIs, could write 36 tracks; a two byte modification to DOS to format the extra track was common.
The Apple Disk II stored 140 KB on single-sided, "single-density" floppy disks, but it was very common for Apple II users to extend the capacity of a single-sided floppy disk to 280 KB by cutting out a second write-protect notch on the side of the disk using a "disk notcher" or hole puncher and inserting the disk flipped over. Double-sided disks, with notches on both sides, were available at a higher price, but in practice the magnetic coating on the reverse of nominally single-sided disks was usually of good enough quality to be used (both sides were coated in the same way to prevent warping, although only one side was certified for use). Early on, diskette manufacturers routinely warned that this technique would damage the read/write head of the drives or wear out the disk faster, and these warnings were frequently repeated in magazines of the day. In practice, however, this method was an inexpensive way to store twice as much data for no extra cost, and was widely used for commercially released floppies as well.
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Later, Apple IIs were able to use 3.5-inch disks with a total capacity of 800 KB and hard disks. did not support these drives natively; third-party software was required, and disks larger than about 400 KB had to be split up into multiple "virtual disk volumes."
DOS 3.3 was succeeded by ProDOS, a 1983 descendant of the Apple ///'s SOS. It added support for subdirectories and volumes up to 32 MB in size. ProDOS became the DOS of choice; AppleWorks and other newer programs required it.
Legacy.
The Apple II series of computers had an enormous impact on the technology industry and expanded the role of microcomputers in society. The Apple II was the first personal computer many people ever saw. Its price was within the reach of many middle-class families, and a partnership with MECC helped make the Apple II popular in schools. By the end of 1980 Apple had already sold over 100,000 Apple IIs, and at the introduction of the II, models in the range had been sold. However, in other markets, the range saw rather more limited adoption, with only 120,000 units selling in the UK over this nine-year period.
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The Apple II's popularity bootstrapped the computer game and educational software markets and began the boom in the word processor and computer printer markets. The first spreadsheet application, VisiCalc, was initially released for the Apple II, and many businesses bought them just to run VisiCalc. Its success drove IBM in part to create the IBM PC, which many businesses purchased to run spreadsheet and word processing software, at first ported from Apple II versions.
The Apple II's slots, allowing any peripheral card to take control of the bus and directly access memory, enabled an independent industry of card manufacturers who together created a flood of hardware products that let users build systems that were far more powerful and useful (at a lower cost) than any competing system, most of which were not nearly as expandable and were universally proprietary. The first peripheral card was a blank prototyping card intended for electronics enthusiasts who wanted to design their own peripherals for the Apple II.
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Specialty peripherals kept the Apple II in use in industry and education environments for many years after Apple Computer stopped supporting the Apple II. Well into the 1990s every clean-room (the super-clean facility where spacecraft are prepared for flight) at the Kennedy Space Center used an Apple II to monitor the environment and air quality. Most planetariums used Apple IIs to control their projectors and other equipment.
Even the game port was unusually powerful and could be used for digital and analog input and output. The early manuals included instructions for how to build a circuit with only four commonly available components (one transistor and three resistors) and a software routine to drive a common Teletype Model 33 machine. Don Lancaster used the game port I/O to drive a LaserWriter printer.
Modern use.
Today, emulators for various Apple II models are available to run Apple II software on macOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, homebrew enabled Nintendo DS and other operating systems. Numerous disk images of Apple II software are available free over the Internet for use with these emulators. AppleWin and MESS are among the best emulators compatible with most Apple II images. The MESS emulator supports recording and playing back of Apple II emulation sessions, as does Home Action Replay Page (a.k.a. HARP).
There is still a small annual convention, KansasFest, dedicated to the platform.
In 2017, the band 8 Bit Weapon released the world's first 100% Apple II-based music album entitled, "Class Apples". The album featured dance-oriented cover versions of classical music by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart recorded directly off the Apple II motherboard.
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Apple III
The Apple III (styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced by Apple Computer and released in 1980. Running the Apple SOS operating system, it was intended as the successor to the Apple II; however, it was largely considered a failure in the market. It was designed to provide features business users wanted: a true typewriter-style keyboard with upper and lowercase letters (the Apple II only supported uppercase at the time) and an 80-column display.
It had the internal code name of "Sara", named after Wendell Sander's daughter. The system was announced on May 19, 1980, and released in late November that year. Serious stability issues required a design overhaul and a recall of the first 14,000 machines produced. The Apple III was formally reintroduced on November 9, 1981.
Damage to the computer's reputation had already been done, however, and it failed to do well commercially. Development stopped, and the Apple III was discontinued on April 24, 1984. Its last successor, the III Plus, was dropped from the Apple product line in September 1985.
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An estimated 65,000 to 75,000 Apple III computers were sold. The Apple III Plus brought this up to approximately 120,000. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak stated that the primary reason for the Apple III's failure was that the system was designed by Apple's marketing department, unlike Apple's previous engineering-driven projects. The Apple III's failure led Apple to reevaluate its plan to phase out the Apple II, prompting the eventual continuation of development of the older machine. As a result, later Apple II models incorporated some hardware and software technologies of the Apple III.
Overview.
Design.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs expected hobbyists to purchase the Apple II; however, because of VisiCalc and Disk II, small businesses purchased 90% of the computers. The Apple III was designed to be a business computer and successor. Though the Apple II contributed to the inspirations of several important business products, such as VisiCalc, Multiplan, and Apple Writer, the computer's hardware architecture, operating system, and developer environment are limited. Apple management intended to clearly establish market segmentation by designing the Apple III to appeal to the 90% business market, leaving the Apple II to home and education users. Management believed that "once the Apple III was out, the Apple II would stop selling in six months", Wozniak said.
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The Apple III is powered by a 2 megahertz Synertek 6502A or 6502B 8-bit CPU (operating effectively between 1.4 to 1.8 MHz due to video or memory refresh cycles) and, like some of the later machines in the Apple II family, uses bank switching techniques to address memory beyond the 6502's traditional 64 KB limit, up to 256 KB in the III's case. Third-party vendors produced memory upgrade kits that allow the Apple III to reach up to 512 KB of random-access memory (RAM). Other Apple III built-in features include an 80-column, 24-line display with upper and lowercase characters, a numeric keypad, dual-speed (pressure-sensitive) cursor control keys, 6-bit (DAC) audio, and a built-in 140-kilobyte 5.25-inch floppy disk drive. Graphics modes include 560x192 in black and white, and 280x192 with 16 colors or shades of gray. Unlike the Apple II, the Disk III controller is part of the logic board.
The Apple III is the first Apple product to allow the user to choose both a screen font and a keyboard layout: either QWERTY or Dvorak. These choices cannot be changed while programs were running. This was unlike the Apple IIc, which has a keyboard switch directly above the keyboard, allowing the user to switch on the fly.
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Software.
The Apple III introduced an advanced operating system called Apple SOS, pronounced "apple sauce". Its ability to address resources by name allows the Apple III to be more scalable than the Apple II's addressing by physical location such as codice_1 and codice_2. Apple SOS allows the full capacity of a storage device to be used as a single volume, such as the Apple ProFile hard disk drive, and it supports a hierarchical file system. Some of the features and code base of Apple SOS were later adopted into the Apple II's ProDOS and GS/OS operating systems, as well as Lisa 7/7 and Mac OS.
With a starting price of $4,340 (equivalent to $17,356 as of 2024) and a maximum price of $7,800 (equivalent to $31,194 as of 2024), the Apple III was more expensive than many of the CP/M-based business computers that were available at the time. Few software applications other than VisiCalc are available for the computer; according to a presentation at KansasFest 2012, fewer than 50 Apple III-specific software packages were ever published, most shipping when the III Plus was released. However this number is proven to be wildly incorrect, given the manual 'RESOURCE GUIDE: Of Apple /// and Apple /// Plus Software and Hardware' published and released by Apple Computer, Inc. in May 1984 lists in excess of 500+ software packages produced by many and varied publishers. Given software publishers and specialised hardware manufacturers such as On-Three, Inc. produced products for the Apple III well in to the late 90s, in excess of 500 products can also be seen as way too conservative.
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Because Apple did not view the Apple III as suitable for hobbyists, it did not provide much of the technical software information that accompanies the Apple II. Originally intended as a direct replacement to the Apple II, it was designed to be backward compatible with Apple II software. However, since Apple did not want to encourage continued development of the II platform, Apple II compatibility exists only in a special Apple II Mode which is limited in its capabilities to the emulation of a basic Apple II Plus configuration with of RAM.
Special chips were intentionally added to prevent access from Apple II Mode to the III's advanced features such as its larger amount of memory.
Peripherals.
The Apple III has four expansion slots, a number that "inCider" in 1986 called "miserly"., also saying Apple II cards are compatible but risk violating government RFI regulations, and require Apple III-specific device drivers; "BYTE" stated that "Apple provides virtually no information on how to write them". As with software, Apple provided little hardware technical information with the computer but Apple III-specific products became available, such as one that made the computer compatible with the Apple IIe. Several new Apple-produced peripherals were developed for the Apple III. The original Apple III has a built-in real-time clock, which is recognized by Apple SOS. The clock was later removed from the "revised" model, and was instead made available as an add-on.
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Along with the built-in floppy drive, the Apple III can also handle up to three additional external Disk III floppy disk drives. The Disk III is only officially compatible with the Apple III. The Apple III Plus requires an adaptor from Apple to use the Disk III with its DB-25 disk port.
With the introduction of the revised Apple III a year after launch, Apple began offering the ProFile external hard disk system. Priced at $3,499 for 5 MB of storage, it also required a peripheral slot for its controller card.
Backward compatibility.
The Apple III has the built-in hardware capability to run Apple II software. In order to do so, an emulation boot disk is required that functionally turns the machine into a standard 48-kilobyte Apple II Plus, until it is powered off. The keyboard, internal floppy drive (and one external Disk III), display (color is provided through the 'B/W video' port) and speaker all act as Apple II peripherals. The paddle and serial ports can also function in Apple II mode, however with some limitations and compatibility issues.
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Apple engineers added specialized circuitry with the sole purpose of blocking access to its advanced features when running in Apple II emulation mode. This was done primarily to discourage further development and interest in the Apple II line, and to push the Apple III as its successor. For example, no more than of RAM can be accessed, even if the machine has of RAM or higher present. Many Apple II programs require a minimum of of RAM, making them impossible to run on the Apple III. Similarly, access to lowercase support, 80 columns text, or its more advanced graphics and sound are blocked by this hardware circuitry, making it impossible for even skilled software programmers to bypass Apple's lockout. A third-party company, Titan Technologies, sold an expansion board called the III Plus II that allows Apple II mode to access more memory, a standard game port, and with a later released companion card, even emulate the Apple IIe.
Certain Apple II slot cards can be installed in the Apple III and used in native III-mode with custom written SOS device drivers, including Grappler Plus and Liron 3.5 Controller.
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Revisions.
After overheating issues were attributed to serious design flaws, a redesigned logic board was introduced in mid-December 1981 – which included a lower power supply requirement, wider circuit traces and better-designed chip sockets. The $3,495 revised model also includes 256 KB of RAM as the standard configuration. The 14,000 units of the original Apple III sold were returned and replaced with the entirely new revised model.
Apple III Plus.
Apple discontinued the III in October 1983 because it violated FCC regulations, and the FCC required the company to change the redesigned computer's name. It introduced the Apple III Plus in December 1983 at a price of US$2,995. This newer version includes a built-in clock, video interlacing, standardized rear port connectors, 55-watt power supply, 256 KB of RAM as standard, and a redesigned, Apple IIe-like keyboard.
Owners of the Apple III could purchase individual III Plus upgrades, like the clock and interlacing feature, and obtain the newer logic board as a service replacement. A keyboard upgrade kit, dubbed "Apple III Plus upgrade kit" was also made available – which included the keyboard, cover, keyboard encoder ROM, and logo replacements. This upgrade had to be installed by an authorized service technician.
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Design flaws.
According to Wozniak, the Apple III "had 100 percent hardware failures". Former Apple executive Taylor Pohlman stated that:
Jobs insisted on the idea of having no fan or air vents, in order to make the computer run quietly. He would later push this same ideology onto almost all Apple models he had control of, from the Apple Lisa and Macintosh 128K to the iMac. To allow the computer to dissipate heat, the base of the Apple III was made of heavy cast aluminum, which supposedly acts as a heat sink. One advantage to the aluminum case was a reduction in RFI (Radio Frequency Interference), a problem which had plagued the Apple II series throughout its history. Unlike the Apple II, the power supply was mounted – without its own shell – in a compartment separate from the logic board. The decision to use an aluminum shell ultimately led to engineering issues which resulted in the Apple III's reliability problems. The lead time for manufacturing the shells was high, and this had to be done before the motherboard was finalized. Later, it was realized that there was not enough room on the motherboard for all of the components unless narrow traces were used.
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Many Apple IIIs were thought to have failed due to their inability to properly dissipate heat. "inCider" stated in 1986 that "Heat has always been a formidable enemy of the Apple ///", and some users reported that their Apple IIIs became so hot that the chips started dislodging from the board, causing the screen to display garbled data or their disk to come out of the slot "melted". "BYTE" wrote, "the integrated circuits tended to wander out of their sockets". It has been rumored Apple advised customers to tilt the front of the Apple III six inches above the desk and then drop it to reseat the chips as a temporary solution. Other analyses blame a faulty automatic chip insertion process, not heat.
Case designer Jerry Manock denied the design flaw charges, insisting that tests proved that the unit adequately dissipated the internal heat. The primary cause, he claimed, was a major logic board design problem. The logic board used "fineline" technology that was not fully mature at the time, with narrow, closely spaced traces. When chips were "stuffed" into the board and wave-soldered, solder bridges would form between traces that were not supposed to be connected. This caused numerous short circuits, which required hours of costly diagnosis and hand rework to fix. Apple designed a new circuit board with more layers and normal-width traces. The new logic board was laid out by one designer on a huge drafting board, rather than using the costly CAD-CAM system used for the previous board, and the new design worked.
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Earlier Apple III units came with a built-in real time clock. The hardware, however, would fail after prolonged use. Assuming that National Semiconductor would test all parts before shipping them, Apple did not perform this level of testing. Apple was soldering chips directly to boards and could not easily replace a bad chip if one was found. Eventually, Apple solved this problem by removing the real-time clock from the Apple III's specification rather than shipping the Apple III with the clock pre-installed, and then sold the peripheral as a level 1 technician add-on.
BASIC.
Microsoft and Apple each developed their own versions of BASIC for the Apple III. Apple III Microsoft BASIC was designed to run on the CP/M platform available for the Apple III. Apple Business BASIC shipped with the Apple III. Donn Denman ported Applesoft BASIC to SOS and reworked it to take advantage of the extended memory of the Apple III.
Both languages introduced a number of new or improved features over Applesoft BASIC. Both languages replaced Applesoft's single-precision floating-point variables using 5-byte storage with the somewhat-reduced-precision 4-byte variables, while also adding a larger numerical format. Apple III Microsoft BASIC provides double-precision floating-point variables, taking 8 bytes of storage, while Apple Business BASIC offers an extra-long integer type, also taking 8 bytes for storage. Both languages also retain 2-byte integers, and maximum 255-character strings.
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Other new features common to both languages include:
Some features work differently in each language:
Microsoft BASIC additional features.
There is no support for graphics provided within the language, nor for reading analog controls or buttons; nor is there a means of defining the active window of the text screen.
Business BASIC additional features.
Apple Business BASIC eliminates all references to absolute memory addresses. Thus, the POKE command and PEEK() function were not included in the language, and new features replaced the CALL statement and USR() function. The functionality of certain features in Applesoft that had been achieved with various PEEK and POKE locations is now provided by:
External binary subroutines and functions are loaded into memory by a single INVOKE disk-command that loads separately-assembled code modules. A PERFORM statement is then used to call an INVOKEd procedure by name, with an argument-list. INVOKEd functions would be referenced in expressions by EXFN. (floating-point) or EXFN%. (integer), with the function name appended, plus the argument-list for the function.
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Graphics are supported with an INVOKEd module, with features including displaying text within graphics in various fonts, within four different graphics modes available on the Apple III.
Reception.
"The Apple III is unlikely to approach the success of the Apple II", "InfoWorld" said in January 1981. Citing the III's high price, manufacturing delays, limited disk storage, and small software library, the magazine asked "why buy a $5000 computer with an emulator when most of the programs you need run directly on a $2500 computer".
Despite devoting the majority of its R&D to the Apple III and so ignoring the II that for a while dealers had difficulty in obtaining the latter, the III's technical problems made marketing the computer difficult. Ed Smith, who after designing the APF Imagination Machine worked as a distributor's representative, described the III as "a complete disaster". He recalled that he "was responsible for going to every dealership, setting up the Apple III in their showroom, and then explaining to them the functions of the Apple III, which in many cases didn't really work".
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Sales.
"BYTE" reported in 1982 that Apple had sold only 10,000 of the original Apple III, compared to 350,000 Apple IIs sold by the end of 1981. Pohlman reported that Apple was only selling 500 units a month by late 1981, mostly as replacements. The company was able to eventually raise monthly sales to 5,000, but the IBM PC's successful launch had encouraged software companies to develop for it instead, prompting Apple to shift focus to the Lisa and Macintosh. The PC almost ended sales of the Apple III, the most closely comparable Apple computer model. By early 1984, sales were primarily to existing III owners, Apple itself—its 4,500 employees were equipped with some 3,000-4,500 units—and some small businesses. Apple finally discontinued the Apple III series on April 24, 1984, four months after introducing the III Plus, after selling only up to 75,000 units and replacing 14,000 defective units.
Jobs said the company lost "incalculable amounts" of money on the Apple III. Wozniak estimated that Apple had spent $100 million on the III instead of improving the II and better competing against IBM. Pohlman claimed that there was a "stigma" at Apple associated with having contributed to the computer. Most employees who worked on the III reportedly left Apple.
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Legacy.
The file system and some design ideas from Apple SOS, the Apple III's operating system, were part of Apple ProDOS and Apple GS/OS, the major operating systems for the Apple II following the demise of the Apple III, as well as the Apple Lisa, which was the de facto business-oriented successor to the Apple III. The hierarchical file system influenced the evolution of the Macintosh: while the original Macintosh File System (MFS) was a flat file system designed for a floppy disk without subdirectories, subsequent file systems were hierarchical. By comparison, the IBM PC's first file system (again designed for floppy disks) was also flat and later versions (designed for hard disks) were hierarchical.
In popular culture.
At the start of the Walt Disney Pictures film "Tron", lead character Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) is seen hacking into the ENCOM mainframe using an Apple III.
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AVL tree
In computer science, an AVL tree (named after inventors Adelson-Velsky and Landis) is a self-balancing binary search tree. In an AVL tree, the heights of the two child subtrees of any node differ by at most one; if at any time they differ by more than one, rebalancing is done to restore this property. Lookup, insertion, and deletion all take time in both the average and worst cases, where formula_1 is the number of nodes in the tree prior to the operation. Insertions and deletions may require the tree to be rebalanced by one or more tree rotations.
The AVL tree is named after its two Soviet inventors, Georgy Adelson-Velsky and Evgenii Landis, who published it in their 1962 paper "An algorithm for the organization of information". It is the first self-balancing binary search tree data structure to be invented.
AVL trees are often compared with red–black trees because both support the same set of operations and take formula_2 time for the basic operations. For lookup-intensive applications, AVL trees are faster than red–black trees because they are more strictly balanced. Similar to red–black trees, AVL trees are height-balanced. Both are, in general, neither weight-balanced nor formula_3-balanced for any formula_4;
AVL trees are more rigidly balanced than RB trees with an asymptotic relation AVL/RB ≈0.720 of the maximal heights. For insertions and deletions, Ben Pfaff shows in 79 measurements a relation of AVL/RB between 0.677 and 1.077 with median ≈0.947 and geometric mean ≈0.910.
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Aliphatic compound
In organic chemistry, hydrocarbons (compounds composed solely of carbon and hydrogen) are divided into two classes: aromatic compounds and aliphatic compounds (; G. "aleiphar", fat, oil). Aliphatic compounds can be saturated (in which all the C-C bonds are single, requiring the structure to be completed, or 'saturated', by hydrogen) like hexane, or unsaturated, like hexene and hexyne. Open-chain compounds, whether straight or branched, and which contain no rings of any type, are always aliphatic. Cyclic compounds can be aliphatic if they are not aromatic.
Structure.
Aliphatics compounds can be saturated, joined by single bonds (alkanes), or unsaturated, with double bonds (alkenes) or triple bonds (alkynes). If other elements (heteroatoms) are bound to the carbon chain, the most common being oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and chlorine, it is no longer a hydrocarbon, and therefore no longer an aliphatic compound. However, such compounds may still be referred to as aliphatic if the hydrocarbon portion of the molecule is aliphatic, e.g. aliphatic amines, to differentiate them from aromatic amines.
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The least complex aliphatic compound is methane (CH4).
Properties.
Most aliphatic compounds are flammable, allowing the use of hydrocarbons as fuel, such as methane in natural gas for stoves or heating; butane in torches and lighters; various aliphatic (as well as aromatic) hydrocarbons in liquid transportation fuels like petrol/gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel; and other uses such as ethyne (acetylene) in welding.
Examples of aliphatic compounds.
The most important aliphatic compounds are:
Important examples of low-molecular aliphatic compounds can be found in the list below (sorted by the number of carbon-atoms):
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Astrology
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Different cultures have employed forms of astrology since at least the 2nd millennium BCE, these practices having originated in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.
Most, if not all, cultures have attached importance to what they observed in the sky, and some—such as the Hindus, Chinese, and the Maya—developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Western astrology, one of the oldest astrological systems still in use, can trace its roots to 19th–17th century BCE Mesopotamia, from where it spread to Ancient Greece, Rome, the Islamic world, and eventually Central and Western Europe. Contemporary Western astrology is often associated with systems of horoscopes that purport to explain aspects of a person's personality and predict significant events in their lives based on the positions of celestial objects; the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems.
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Throughout its history, astrology has had its detractors, competitors and skeptics who opposed it for moral, religious, political, and empirical reasons. Nonetheless, prior to the Enlightenment, astrology was generally considered a scholarly tradition and was common in learned circles, often in close relation with astronomy, meteorology, medicine, and alchemy. It was present in political circles and is mentioned in various works of literature, from Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca. During the Enlightenment, however, astrology lost its status as an area of legitimate scholarly pursuit.
Following the end of the 19th century and the wide-scale adoption of the scientific method, researchers have successfully challenged astrology on both theoretical and experimental grounds, and have shown it to have no scientific validity or explanatory power. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing in the western world, and common belief in it largely declined, until a continuing resurgence starting in the 1960s.
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Etymology.
The word "astrology" comes from the early Latin word "astrologia", which derives from the Greek —from ἄστρον "astron" ("star") and -λογία "-logia", ("study of"—"account of the stars"). The word entered the English language via Latin and medieval French, and its use overlapped considerably with that of "astronomy" (derived from the Latin "astronomia"). By the 17th century, "astronomy" became established as the scientific term, with "astrology" referring to divinations and schemes for predicting human affairs.
History.
Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, and Maya developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. A form of astrology was practised in the Old Babylonian period of Mesopotamia, . "Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa" is one of earliest known Hindu texts on astronomy and astrology ("Jyotisha"). The text is dated between 1400 BCE to final centuries BCE by various scholars according to astronomical and linguistic evidences. Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE). Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, creating horoscopic astrology. Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with "Chaldean wisdom". After the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe and translated into Latin. Major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of poets such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer, and of playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.
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Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition. It was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. At the end of the 17th century, new scientific concepts in astronomy and physics (such as heliocentrism and Newtonian mechanics) called astrology into question. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined.
Ancient world.
Ancient applications.
Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. Early evidence for humans making conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles, appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that lunar cycles were being noted as early as 25,000 years ago. This was a first step towards recording the Moon's influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organising a communal calendar. Farmers addressed agricultural needs with increasing knowledge of the constellations that appear in the different seasons—and used the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities. By the 3rd millennium BCE, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars.
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Scattered evidence suggests that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa is thought to have been compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE. A scroll documenting an early use of electional astrology is doubtfully ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash ( – 2124 BCE). This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favourable for the planned construction of a temple. However, there is controversy about whether these were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is therefore attributed to the records of the first dynasty of Babylon (1950–1651 BCE). This astrology had some parallels with Hellenistic Greek (western) astrology, including the zodiac, a norming point near 9 degrees in Aries, the trine aspect, planetary exaltations, and the dodekatemoria (the twelve divisions of 30 degrees each). The Babylonians viewed celestial events as possible signs rather than as causes of physical events.
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The system of Chinese astrology was elaborated during the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BCE) and flourished during the Han dynasty (2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE), during which all the familiar elements of traditional Chinese culture – the Yin-Yang philosophy, theory of the five elements, Heaven and Earth, Confucian morality – were brought together to formalise the philosophical principles of Chinese medicine and divination, astrology, and alchemy.
The ancient Arabs that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam used to profess a widespread belief in fatalism ("ḳadar") alongside a fearful consideration for the sky and the stars, which they held to be ultimately responsible for every phenomena that occurs on Earth and for the destiny of humankind. Accordingly, they shaped their entire lives in accordance with their interpretations of astral configurations and phenomena.
Ancient objections.
The Hellenistic schools of philosophical skepticism criticized astrology, alongside all other beliefs. Criticism of astrology by academic skeptics such as Carneades, Cicero, and Favorinus; Pyrrhonists such as Sextus Empiricus; and neoplatonists such as Plotinus, has been preserved.
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Carneades argued that belief in fate denies free will and morality; that people born at different times can all die in the same accident or battle; and that contrary to uniform influences from the stars, tribes and cultures are all different.
Cicero, in "De Divinatione", leveled a critique of astrology that some modern philosophers consider to be the first working definition of pseudoscience and the answer to the demarcation problem. The philosopher of science Massimo Pigliucci, building on the work of the historian of science, Damien Fernandez-Beanato, argues that Cicero outlined a "convincing distinction between astrology and astronomy that remains valid in the twenty-first century." Cicero stated the twins objection (that with close birth times, personal outcomes can be very different), later developed by Augustine. He argued that since the other planets are much more distant from the Earth than the Moon, they could have only very tiny influence compared to the Moon's. He also argued that if astrology explains everything about a person's fate, then it wrongly ignores the visible effect of inherited ability and parenting, changes in health worked by medicine, or the effects of the weather on people. The historian Stefano Rapisarda notes that the text is formally "equally balanced between "pro" and "contra", and no final or definite answer is given."
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Favorinus argued that it was absurd to imagine that stars and planets would affect human bodies in the same way as they affect the tides, and equally absurd that small motions in the heavens cause large changes in people's fates.
Sextus Empiricus argued that it was absurd to link human attributes with myths about the signs of the zodiac, and wrote an entire book, "Against the Astrologers" (Πρὸς ἀστρολόγους, "Pros astrologous"), compiling arguments against astrology. "Against the Astrologers" was the fifth section of a larger work arguing against philosophical and scientific inquiry in general, "Against the Professors" (Πρὸς μαθηματικούς, "Pros mathematikous").
Plotinus, a neoplatonist, had a lasting interest in astrology, including the question of how the world of humans could be affected by the stars, and (if so) whether astrology could predict events on Earth. He argued that since the fixed stars are much more distant than the planets, it is laughable to imagine the planets' effect on human affairs should depend on their position with respect to the zodiac. He also argues that the interpretation of the Moon's conjunction with a planet as good when the moon is full, but bad when the moon is waning, is clearly wrong, as from the Moon's point of view, half of its surface is always in sunlight; and from the planet's point of view, waning should be better, as then the planet sees some light from the Moon, but when the Moon is full to us, it is dark, and therefore bad, on the side facing the planet in question.
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Hellenistic Egypt.
In 525 BCE, Egypt was conquered by the Persians. The 1st century BCE Egyptian Dendera Zodiac shares two signs – the Balance and the Scorpion – with Mesopotamian astrology.
With the occupation by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, Egypt became Hellenistic. The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander after the conquest, becoming the place where Babylonian astrology was mixed with Egyptian Decanic astrology to create Horoscopic astrology. This contained the Babylonian zodiac with its system of planetary exaltations, the triplicities of the signs and the importance of eclipses. It used the Egyptian concept of dividing the zodiac into thirty-six decans of ten degrees each, with an emphasis on the rising decan, and the Greek system of planetary Gods, sign rulership and four elements. 2nd century BCE texts predict positions of planets in zodiac signs at the time of the rising of certain decans, particularly Sothis. The astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy lived in Alexandria. Ptolemy's work the "Tetrabiblos" formed the basis of Western astrology, and, "...enjoyed almost the authority of a Bible among the astrological writers of a thousand years or more."
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Greece and Rome.
The conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great exposed the Greeks to ideas from Syria, Babylon, Persia and central Asia. Around 280 BCE, Berossus, a priest of Bel from Babylon, moved to the Greek island of Kos, teaching astrology and Babylonian culture. By the 1st century BCE, there were two varieties of astrology, one using horoscopes to describe the past, present and future; the other, theurgic, emphasising the soul's ascent to the stars. Greek influence played a crucial role in the transmission of astrological theory to Rome.
The first definite reference to astrology in Rome comes from the orator Cato, who in 160 BCE warned farm overseers against consulting with Chaldeans, who were described as Babylonian 'star-gazers'. Among both Greeks and Romans, Babylonia (also known as Chaldea) became so identified with astrology that 'Chaldean wisdom' became synonymous with divination using planets and stars. The 2nd-century Roman poet and satirist Juvenal complains about the pervasive influence of Chaldeans, saying, "Still more trusted are the Chaldaeans; every word uttered by the astrologer they will believe has come from Hammon's fountain."
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One of the first astrologers to bring Hermetic astrology to Rome was Thrasyllus, astrologer to the emperor Tiberius, the first emperor to have had a court astrologer, though his predecessor Augustus had used astrology to help legitimise his Imperial rights.
Medieval world.
Hindu.
The main texts upon which classical Indian astrology is based are early medieval compilations, notably the "", and "Sārāvalī" by .
The "Horāshastra" is a composite work of 71 chapters, of which the first part (chapters 1–51) dates to the 7th to early 8th centuries and the second part (chapters 52–71) to the later 8th century. The "Sārāvalī" likewise dates to around 800 CE. English translations of these texts were published by N.N. Krishna Rau and V.B. Choudhari in 1963 and 1961, respectively.
Islamic.
Astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars following the collapse of Alexandria to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th. The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754–775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as "Bayt al-Hikma" 'House of Wisdom', which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad, and Sahl ibn Bishr, ("a.k.a." "Zael"), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century.
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Europe.
In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville argued in his "Etymologiae" that astronomy described the movements of the heavens, while astrology had two parts: one was scientific, describing the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the stars, while the other, making predictions, was theologically erroneous.
The first astrological book published in Europe was the "Liber Planetis et Mundi Climatibus" ("Book of the Planets and Regions of the World"), which appeared between 1010 and 1027 AD, and may have been authored by Gerbert of Aurillac. Ptolemy's second century AD "Tetrabiblos" was translated into Latin by Plato of Tivoli in 1138. The Dominican theologian Thomas Aquinas followed Aristotle in proposing that the stars ruled the imperfect 'sublunary' body, while attempting to reconcile astrology with Christianity by stating that God ruled the soul. The thirteenth century mathematician Campanus of Novara is said to have devised a system of astrological houses that divides the prime vertical into 'houses' of equal 30° arcs, though the system was used earlier in the East. The thirteenth century astronomer Guido Bonatti wrote a textbook, the "Liber Astronomicus", a copy of which King Henry VII of England owned at the end of the fifteenth century.
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In "Paradiso", the final part of the "Divine Comedy", the Italian poet Dante Alighieri referred "in countless details" to the astrological planets, though he adapted traditional astrology to suit his Christian viewpoint, for example using astrological thinking in his prophecies of the reform of Christendom.
John Gower in the fourteenth century defined astrology as essentially limited to the making of predictions. The influence of the stars was in turn divided into natural astrology, with for example effects on tides and the growth of plants, and judicial astrology, with supposedly predictable effects on people. The fourteenth-century sceptic Nicole Oresme however included astronomy as a part of astrology in his "Livre de divinacions". Oresme argued that current approaches to prediction of events such as plagues, wars, and weather were inappropriate, but that such prediction was a valid field of inquiry. However, he attacked the use of astrology to choose the timing of actions (so-called interrogation and election) as wholly false, and rejected the determination of human action by the stars on grounds of free will. The friar Laurens Pignon (c. 1368–1449) similarly rejected all forms of divination and determinism, including by the stars, in his 1411 "Contre les Devineurs". This was in opposition to the tradition carried by the Arab astronomer Albumasar (787–886) whose "Introductorium in Astronomiam" and "De Magnis Coniunctionibus" argued the view that both individual actions and larger scale history are determined by the stars.
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In the late 15th century, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola forcefully attacked astrology in "Disputationes contra Astrologos", arguing that the heavens neither caused, nor heralded earthly events. His contemporary, Pietro Pomponazzi, a "rationalistic and critical thinker", was much more sanguine about astrology and critical of Pico's attack.
Renaissance and Early Modern.
Renaissance scholars commonly practised astrology. Gerolamo Cardano cast the horoscope of king Edward VI of England, while John Dee was the personal astrologer to queen Elizabeth I of England. Catherine de Medici paid Michael Nostradamus in 1566 to verify the prediction of the death of her husband, king Henry II of France, made by her astrologer Lucus Gauricus. Major astronomers who practised as court astrologers included Tycho Brahe in the royal court of Denmark, Johannes Kepler to the Habsburgs, Galileo Galilei to the Medici, and Giordano Bruno who was burnt at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600. The distinction between astrology and astronomy was not entirely clear. Advances in astronomy were often motivated by the desire to improve the accuracy of astrology. Kepler, for example, was driven by a belief in harmonies between Earthly and celestial affairs, yet he disparaged the activities of most astrologers as "evil-smelling dung".
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Ephemerides with complex astrological calculations, and almanacs interpreting celestial events for use in medicine and for choosing times to plant crops, were popular in Elizabethan England. In 1597, the English mathematician and physician Thomas Hood made a set of paper instruments that used revolving overlays to help students work out relationships between fixed stars or constellations, the midheaven, and the twelve astrological houses. Hood's instruments also illustrated, for pedagogical purposes, the supposed relationships between the signs of the zodiac, the planets, and the parts of the human body adherents believed were governed by the planets and signs. While Hood's presentation was innovative, his astrological information was largely standard and was taken from Gerard Mercator's astrological disc made in 1551, or a source used by Mercator. Despite its popularity, Renaissance astrology had what historian Gabor Almasi calls "elite debate", exemplified by the polemical letters of Swiss physician Thomas Erastus who fought against astrology, calling it "vanity" and "superstition." Then around the time of the new star of 1572 and the comet of 1577 there began what Almasi calls an "extended epistemological reform" which began the process of excluding religion, astrology and anthropocentrism from scientific debate. By 1679, the yearly publication La Connoissance des temps eschewed astrology as a legitimate topic.
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Enlightenment period and onwards.
During the Enlightenment, intellectual sympathy for astrology fell away, leaving only a popular following supported by cheap almanacs. One English almanac compiler, Richard Saunders, followed the spirit of the age by printing a derisive "Discourse on the Invalidity of Astrology", while in France Pierre Bayle's "Dictionnaire" of 1697 stated that the subject was puerile. The Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift ridiculed the Whig political astrologer John Partridge.
In the second half of the 17th century, the Society of Astrologers (1647–1684), a trade, educational, and social organization, sought to unite London's often fractious astrologers in the task of revitalizing astrology. Following the template of the popular "Feasts of Mathematicians" they endeavored to defend their art in the face of growing religious criticism. The Society hosted banquets, exchanged "instruments and manuscripts", proposed research projects, and funded the publication of sermons that depicted astrology as a legitimate biblical pursuit for Christians. They commissioned sermons that argued Astrology was divine, Hebraic, and scripturally supported by Bible passages about the Magi and the sons of Seth. According to historian Michelle Pfeffer, "The society's public relations campaign ultimately failed." Modern historians have mostly neglected the Society of Astrologers in favor of the still extant Royal Society (1660), even though both organizations initially had some of the same members.
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Astrology saw a popular revival starting in the 19th century, as part of a general revival of spiritualism and—later, New Age philosophy, and through the influence of mass media such as newspaper horoscopes. Early in the 20th century the psychiatrist Carl Jung developed some concepts concerning astrology, which led to the development of psychological astrology.
Principles and practice.
Advocates have defined astrology as a symbolic language, an art form, a science, and a method of divination. Though most cultural astrology systems share common roots in ancient philosophies that influenced each other, many use methods that differ from those in the West. These include Hindu astrology (also known as "Indian astrology" and in modern times referred to as "Vedic astrology") and Chinese astrology, both of which have influenced the world's cultural history.
Western.
Western astrology is a form of divination based on the construction of a horoscope for an exact moment, such as a person's birth. It uses the tropical zodiac, which is aligned to the equinoctial points.
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Western astrology is founded on the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies such as the Sun, Moon and planets, which are analysed by their movement through signs of the zodiac (twelve spatial divisions of the ecliptic) and by their aspects (based on geometric angles) relative to one another. They are also considered by their placement in houses (twelve spatial divisions of the sky). Astrology's modern representation in western popular media is usually reduced to sun sign astrology, which considers only the zodiac sign of the Sun at an individual's date of birth, and represents only 1/12 of the total chart.
The horoscope visually expresses the set of relationships for the time and place of the chosen event. These relationships are between the seven 'planets', signifying tendencies such as war and love; the twelve signs of the zodiac; and the twelve houses. Each planet is in a particular sign and a particular house at the chosen time, when observed from the chosen place, creating two kinds of relationship. A third kind is the aspect of each planet to every other planet, where for example two planets 120° apart (in 'trine') are in a harmonious relationship, but two planets 90° apart ('square') are in a conflicted relationship. Together these relationships and their interpretations are said to form "...the language of the heavens speaking to learned men."
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Along with tarot divination, astrology is one of the core studies of Western esotericism, and as such has influenced systems of magical belief not only among Western esotericists and Hermeticists, but also belief systems such as Wicca, which have borrowed from or been influenced by the Western esoteric tradition. Tanya Luhrmann has said that "all magicians know something about astrology," and refers to a table of correspondences in Starhawk's "The Spiral Dance", organised by planet, as an example of the astrological lore studied by magicians.
Hindu.
The earliest Vedic text on astronomy is the "Vedanga Jyotisha"; Vedic thought later came to include astrology as well.
Hindu natal astrology originated with Hellenistic astrology by the 3rd century BCE, though incorporating the Hindu lunar mansions. The names of the signs (e.g. Greek 'Krios' for Aries, Hindi 'Kriya'), the planets (e.g. Greek 'Helios' for Sun, astrological Hindi 'Heli'), and astrological terms (e.g. Greek 'apoklima' and 'sunaphe' for declination and planetary conjunction, Hindi 'apoklima' and 'sunapha' respectively) in Varaha Mihira's texts are considered conclusive evidence of a Greek origin for Hindu astrology. The Indian techniques may also have been augmented with some of the Babylonian techniques.
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Chinese and East Asian.
Chinese astrology has a close relation with Chinese philosophy (theory of the three harmonies: heaven, earth and man) and uses concepts such as yin and yang, the Five phases, the 10 Celestial stems, the 12 Earthly Branches, and shichen (時辰 a form of timekeeping used for religious purposes). The early use of Chinese astrology was mainly confined to political astrology, the observation of unusual phenomena, identification of portents and the selection of auspicious days for events and decisions.
The constellations of the Zodiac of western Asia and Europe were not used; instead the sky is divided into Three Enclosures (三垣 sān yuán), and Twenty-Eight Mansions (二十八宿 èrshíbā xiù) in twelve Ci (). The Chinese zodiac of twelve animal signs is said to represent twelve different types of personality. It is based on cycles of years, lunar months, and two-hour periods of the day (the shichen). The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, and the cycle proceeds through 11 other animal signs: the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. Complex systems of predicting fate and destiny based on one's birthday, birth season, and birth hours, such as "ziping" and Zi Wei Dou Shu () are still used regularly in modern-day Chinese astrology. They do not rely on direct observations of the stars.
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The Korean zodiac is identical to the Chinese one. The Vietnamese zodiac is almost identical to the Chinese, except for second animal being the "Water Buffalo" instead of the "Ox", and the fourth animal the "Cat" instead of the "Rabbit". The Japanese have since 1873 celebrated the beginning of the new year on 1 January as per the Gregorian calendar. The Thai zodiac begins, not at Chinese New Year, but either on the first day of the fifth month in the Thai lunar calendar, or during the Songkran festival (now celebrated every 13–15 April), depending on the purpose of the use.
Theological viewpoints.
Ancient.
Augustine (354430) believed that the determinism of astrology conflicted with the Christian doctrines of man's free will and responsibility, and God not being the cause of evil, but he also grounded his opposition philosophically, citing the failure of astrology to explain twins who behave differently although conceived at the same moment and born at approximately the same time.
Medieval.
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Modern.
Martin Luther denounced astrology in his "Table Talk". He asked why twins like Esau and Jacob had two different natures yet were born at the same time. Luther also compared astrologers to those who say their dice will always land on a certain number. Although the dice may roll on the number a couple of times, the predictor is silent for all the times the dice fails to land on that number.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church maintains that divination, including predictive astrology, is incompatible with modern Catholic beliefs such as free will:
Scientific analysis and criticism.
The scientific community rejects astrology as having no explanatory power for describing the universe, and considers it a pseudoscience. Scientific testing of astrology has been conducted, and no evidence has been found to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions. There is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth that does not contradict basic and well understood aspects of biology and physics. Those who have faith in astrology have been characterised by scientists including Bart J. Bok as doing so "...in spite of the fact that there is no verified scientific basis for their beliefs, and indeed that there is strong evidence to the contrary".
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Confirmation bias is a form of cognitive bias, a psychological factor that contributes to belief in astrology. Astrology believers tend to selectively remember predictions that turn out to be true, and do not remember those that turn out false. Another, separate, form of confirmation bias also plays a role, where believers often fail to distinguish between messages that demonstrate special ability and those that do not. Thus there are two distinct forms of confirmation bias that are under study with respect to astrological belief.
Demarcation.
Under the criterion of falsifiability, first proposed by the philosopher of science Karl Popper, astrology is a pseudoscience. Popper regarded astrology as "pseudo-empirical" in that "it appeals to observation and experiment," but "nevertheless does not come up to scientific standards." In contrast to scientific disciplines, astrology has not responded to falsification through experiment.
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The philosopher Paul Thagard asserts that astrology cannot be regarded as falsified in this sense until it has been replaced with a successor. In the case of predicting behaviour, psychology is the alternative. To Thagard a further criterion of demarcation of science from pseudoscience is that the state-of-the-art must progress and that the community of researchers should be attempting to compare the current theory to alternatives, and not be "selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations." Progress is defined here as explaining new phenomena and solving existing problems, yet astrology has failed to progress having only changed little in nearly 2000 years. To Thagard, astrologers are acting as though engaged in normal science believing that the foundations of astrology were well established despite the "many unsolved problems", and in the face of better alternative theories (psychology). For these reasons Thagard views astrology as pseudoscience.
For the philosopher Edward W. James, astrology is irrational not because of the numerous problems with mechanisms and falsification due to experiments, but because an analysis of the astrological literature shows that it is infused with fallacious logic and poor reasoning.
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Effectiveness.
Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity. Where it has made falsifiable predictions under controlled conditions, they have been falsified. One famous experiment included 28 astrologers who were asked to match over a hundred natal charts to psychological profiles generated by the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) questionnaire. The double-blind experimental protocol used in this study was agreed upon by a group of physicists and a group of astrologers nominated by the National Council for Geocosmic Research, who advised the experimenters, helped ensure that the test was fair and helped draw the central proposition of natal astrology to be tested. They also chose 26 out of the 28 astrologers for the tests (two more volunteered afterwards). The study, published in "Nature" in 1985, found that predictions based on natal astrology were no better than chance, and that the testing "...clearly refutes the astrological hypothesis."
In 1955, the astrologer and psychologist Michel Gauquelin stated that though he had failed to find evidence that supported indicators like zodiacal signs and planetary aspects in astrology, he did find positive correlations between the diurnal positions of some planets and success in professions that astrology traditionally associates with those planets. The best-known of Gauquelin's findings is based on the positions of Mars in the natal charts of successful athletes and became known as the "Mars effect". A study conducted by seven French scientists attempted to replicate the claim, but found no statistical evidence. They attributed the effect to selective bias on Gauquelin's part, accusing him of attempting to persuade them to add or delete names from their study.
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Geoffrey Dean has suggested that the effect may be caused by self-reporting of birth dates by parents rather than any issue with the study by Gauquelin. The suggestion is that a small subset of the parents may have had changed birth times to be consistent with better astrological charts for a related profession. The number of births under astrologically undesirable conditions was also lower, indicating that parents choose dates and times to suit their beliefs. The sample group was taken from a time where belief in astrology was more common. Gauquelin had failed to find the Mars effect in more recent populations, where a nurse or doctor recorded the birth information.
Dean, a scientist and former astrologer, and psychologist Ivan Kelly conducted a large scale scientific test that involved more than one hundred cognitive, behavioural, physical, and other variables—but found no support for astrology. Furthermore, a meta-analysis pooled 40 studies that involved 700 astrologers and over 1,000 birth charts. Ten of the tests—which involved 300 participants—had the astrologers pick the correct chart interpretation out of a number of others that were not the astrologically correct chart interpretation (usually three to five others). When date and other obvious clues were removed, no significant results suggested there was any preferred chart.
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Lack of mechanisms and consistency.
Testing the validity of astrology can be difficult, because there is no consensus amongst astrologers as to what astrology is or what it can predict. Most professional astrologers are paid to predict the future or describe a person's personality and life, but most horoscopes only make vague untestable statements that can apply to almost anyone.
Many astrologers believe that astrology is scientific, while some have proposed conventional causal agents such as electromagnetism and gravity. Scientists reject these mechanisms as implausible since, for example, the magnetic field, when measured from Earth, of a large but distant planet such as Jupiter is far smaller than that produced by ordinary household appliances.
Western astrology has taken the earth's axial precession (also called precession of the equinoxes) into account since Ptolemy's "Almagest", so the "first point of Aries", the start of the astrological year, continually moves against the background of the stars. The tropical zodiac has no connection to the stars; tropical astrologers distinguish the constellations from their historically associated sign, thereby avoiding complications involving precession. Charpak and Broch, noting this, referred to astrology based on the tropical zodiac as being "...empty boxes that have nothing to do with anything and are devoid of any consistency or correspondence with the stars." Sole use of the tropical zodiac is inconsistent with references made, by the same astrologers, to the Age of Aquarius, which depends on when the vernal point enters the constellation of Aquarius.
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Astrologers usually have only a small knowledge of astronomy, and often do not take into account basic principles—such as the precession of the equinoxes, which changes the position of the sun with time. They commented on the example of Élizabeth Teissier, who wrote that, "The sun ends up in the same place in the sky on the same date each year", as the basis for the idea that two people with the same birthday, but a number of years apart, should be under the same planetary influence. Charpak and Broch noted that, "There is a difference of about twenty-two thousand miles between Earth's location on any specific date in two successive years", and that thus they should not be under the same influence according to astrology. Over a 40-year period there would be a difference greater than 780,000 miles.
Reception in the social sciences.
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Nicholas Campion, both an astrologer and academic historian of astrology, argues that Indigenous astronomy is largely used as a synonym for astrology in academia, and that modern Indian and Western astrology are better understood as modes of cultural astronomy or ethnoastronomy. Roy Willis and Patrick Curry draw a distinction between propositional ' and metaphoric ' in the ancient world, identifying astrology with the latter and noting that the central concern of astrology "is not knowledge (factual, let alone scientific) but (ethical, spiritual and pragmatic)". Similarly, historian of science Justin Niermeier-Dohoney writes that astrology was "more than simply a science of prediction using the stars and comprised a vast body of beliefs, knowledge, and practices with the overarching theme of understanding the relationship between humanity and the rest of the cosmos through an interpretation of stellar, solar, lunar, and planetary movement." Scholars such as Assyriologist Matthew Rutz have begun using the term "astral knowledge" rather than astrology "to better describe a category of beliefs and practices much broader than the term 'astrology' can capture."
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Cultural impact.
Western politics and society.
In the West, political leaders have sometimes consulted astrologers. For example, the British intelligence agency MI5 employed Louis de Wohl as an astrologer after it was reported that Adolf Hitler used astrology to time his actions. The War Office was "...interested to know what Hitler's own astrologers would be telling him from week to week." In fact, de Wohl's predictions were so inaccurate that he was soon labelled a "complete charlatan", and later evidence showed that Hitler considered astrology "complete nonsense". After John Hinckley's attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan, first lady Nancy Reagan commissioned astrologer Joan Quigley to act as the secret White House astrologer. However, Quigley's role ended in 1988 when it became public through the memoirs of former chief of staff, Donald Regan.
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In 1953, the sociologist Theodor W. Adorno conducted a study of the astrology column of a Los Angeles newspaper as part of a project examining mass culture in capitalist society. Adorno believed that popular astrology, as a device, invariably leads to statements that encouraged conformity—and that astrologers who go against conformity, by discouraging performance at work etc., risk losing their jobs. Adorno concluded that astrology is a large-scale manifestation of systematic irrationalism, where individuals are subtly led—through flattery and vague generalisations—to believe that the author of the column is addressing them directly. Adorno drew a parallel with the phrase opium of the people, by Karl Marx, by commenting, "occultism is the metaphysic of the dopes."
A 2005 Gallup poll and a 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that 25% of US adults believe in astrology, while a 2018 Pew survey found a figure of 29%. According to data released in the National Science Foundation's 2014 "Science and Engineering Indicators" study, "Fewer Americans rejected astrology in 2012 than in recent years." The NSF study noted that in 2012, "slightly more than half of Americans said that astrology was 'not at all scientific,' whereas nearly two-thirds gave this response in 2010. The comparable percentage has not been this low since 1983." Astrology apps became popular in the late 2010s, some receiving millions of dollars in Silicon Valley venture capital.
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India and Japan.
In India, there is a long-established and widespread belief in astrology. It is commonly used for daily life, particularly in matters concerning marriage and career, and makes extensive use of electional, horary and karmic astrology. Indian politics have also been influenced by astrology. It is still considered a branch of the Vedanga. In 2001, Indian scientists and politicians debated and critiqued a proposal to use state money to fund research into astrology, resulting in permission for Indian universities to offer courses in Vedic astrology.
In February 2011, the Bombay High Court reaffirmed astrology's standing in India when it dismissed a case that challenged its status as a science.
In Japan, strong belief in astrology has led to dramatic changes in the fertility rate and the number of abortions in the years of Fire Horse. Adherents believe that women born in "hinoeuma" years are unmarriageable and bring bad luck to their father or husband. In 1966, the number of babies born in Japan dropped by over 25% as parents tried to avoid the stigma of having a daughter born in the hinoeuma year.
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Literature and music.
The fourteenth-century English poets John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer both referred to astrology in their works, including Gower's "Confessio Amantis" and Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales". Chaucer commented explicitly on astrology in his "Treatise on the Astrolabe", demonstrating personal knowledge of one area, judicial astrology, with an account of how to find the ascendant or rising sign.
In the fifteenth century, references to astrology, such as with similes, became "a matter of course" in English literature.
In the sixteenth century, John Lyly's 1597 play, "The Woman in the Moon", is wholly motivated by astrology, while Christopher Marlowe makes astrological references in his plays "Doctor Faustus" and "Tamburlaine" (both c. 1590), and Sir Philip Sidney refers to astrology at least four times in his romance "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" (c. 1580). Edmund Spenser uses astrology both decoratively and causally in his poetry, revealing "...unmistakably an abiding interest in the art, an interest shared by a large number of his contemporaries." George Chapman's play, "Byron's Conspiracy" (1608), similarly uses astrology as a causal mechanism in the drama. William Shakespeare's attitude towards astrology is unclear, with contradictory references in plays including "King Lear", "Antony and Cleopatra", and "Richard II". Shakespeare was familiar with astrology and made use of his knowledge of astrology in nearly every play he wrote, assuming a basic familiarity with the subject in his commercial audience. Outside theatre, the physician and mystic Robert Fludd practised astrology, as did the quack doctor Simon Forman. In Elizabethan England, "The usual feeling about astrology ... [was] that it is the most useful of the sciences."
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In seventeenth century Spain, Lope de Vega, with a detailed knowledge of astronomy, wrote plays that ridicule astrology. In his pastoral romance "La Arcadia" (1598), it leads to absurdity; in his novela "Guzman el Bravo" (1624), he concludes that the stars were made for man, not man for the stars. Calderón de la Barca wrote the 1641 comedy "Astrologo Fingido" (The Pretended Astrologer); the plot was borrowed by the French playwright Thomas Corneille for his 1651 comedy "Feint Astrologue".
The most famous piece of music influenced by astrology is the orchestral suite "The Planets". Written by the British composer Gustav Holst (1874–1934), and first performed in 1918, the framework of "The Planets" is based upon the astrological symbolism of the planets. Each of the seven movements of the suite is based upon a different planet, though the movements are not in the order of the planets from the Sun. The composer Colin Matthews wrote an eighth movement entitled "Pluto, the Renewer", first performed in 2000, as the suite was written prior to Pluto's discovery. In 1937, another British composer, Constant Lambert, wrote a ballet on astrological themes, called "Horoscope". In 1974, the New Zealand composer Edwin Carr wrote "The Twelve Signs: An Astrological Entertainment" for orchestra without strings. Camille Paglia acknowledges astrology as an influence on her work of literary criticism "Sexual Personae" (1990). The American comedian Harvey Sid Fisher is known for his comedic songs about astrology.
Astrology features strongly in Eleanor Catton's "The Luminaries", recipient of the 2013 Man Booker Prize.
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Abyssinia (disambiguation)
Abyssinia is a historical name for the Ethiopian Empire.
Abyssinia may also refer to:
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Algebraic extension
In mathematics, an algebraic extension is a field extension such that every element of the larger field is algebraic over the smaller field ; that is, every element of is a root of a non-zero polynomial with coefficients in . A field extension that is not algebraic, is said to be transcendental, and must contain transcendental elements, that is, elements that are not algebraic.
The algebraic extensions of the field formula_1 of the rational numbers are called algebraic number fields and are the main objects of study of algebraic number theory. Another example of a common algebraic extension is the extension formula_2 of the real numbers by the complex numbers.
Some properties.
All transcendental extensions are of infinite degree. This in turn implies that all finite extensions are algebraic. The converse is not true however: there are infinite extensions which are algebraic. For instance, the field of all algebraic numbers is an infinite algebraic extension of the rational numbers.
Let be an extension field of , and . The smallest subfield of that contains and is commonly denoted formula_3 If is algebraic over , then the elements of can be expressed as polynomials in with coefficients in "K"; that is, formula_4, the smallest ring containing and . In this case, formula_5 is a finite extension of and all its elements are algebraic over . In particular, formula_5 is a -vector space with basis formula_7, where "d" is the degree of the minimal polynomial of . These properties do not hold if is not algebraic. For example, formula_8 and they are both infinite dimensional vector spaces over formula_9
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An algebraically closed field "F" has no proper algebraic extensions, that is, no algebraic extensions "E" with "F" < "E". An example is the field of complex numbers. Every field has an algebraic extension which is algebraically closed (called its algebraic closure), but proving this in general requires some form of the axiom of choice.
An extension "L"/"K" is algebraic if and only if every sub "K"-algebra of "L" is a field.
Properties.
The following three properties hold:
These finitary results can be generalized using transfinite induction:
This fact, together with Zorn's lemma (applied to an appropriately chosen poset), establishes the existence of algebraic closures.
Generalizations.
Model theory generalizes the notion of algebraic extension to arbitrary theories: an embedding of "M" into "N" is called an algebraic extension if for every "x" in "N" there is a formula "p" with parameters in "M", such that "p"("x") is true and the set
is finite. It turns out that applying this definition to the theory of fields gives the usual definition of algebraic extension. The Galois group of "N" over "M" can again be defined as the group of automorphisms, and it turns out that most of the theory of Galois groups can be developed for the general case.
Relative algebraic closures.
Given a field "k" and a field "K" containing "k", one defines the relative algebraic closure of "k" in "K" to be the subfield of "K" consisting of all elements of "K" that are algebraic over "k", that is all elements of "K" that are a root of some nonzero polynomial with coefficients in "k".
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Ani DiFranco
Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco (; born September 23, 1970) is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz. She has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe.
DiFranco supports many social and political movements by performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums and speaking at rallies. Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed grassroots cultural and political organizations supporting causes including abortion rights and LGBT visibility. She counts American folk singer and songwriter Pete Seeger among her mentors.
DiFranco released a memoir, "No Walls and the Recurring Dream", on May 7, 2019, via Viking Books and made "The New York Times" Best Seller list.
On February 9, 2024, DiFranco made her Broadway debut in "Hadestown" as Persephone, reprising the role she played in the concept album of the same name.
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Early life and education.
DiFranco was born in Buffalo, New York, on September 23, 1970, the daughter of Elizabeth (Ross) and Dante Americo DiFranco, who had met while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her father was of Italian descent, and her mother was from Montreal. DiFranco started playing Beatles covers at local bars and busking with her guitar teacher, Michael Meldrum, at the age of nine. By 14 she was writing her own songs. She played them at bars and coffee houses throughout her teens. DiFranco graduated from the Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts high school at 16 and began attending classes at Buffalo State College. She was living by herself, having moved out of her mother's apartment after she became an emancipated minor when she was 15.
Career.
DiFranco started her own record company, Righteous Babe Records, in 1989 at age 19. She released her self-titled debut album in the winter of 1990, shortly after relocating to New York City. There, she took poetry classes at The New School, where she met poet Sekou Sundiata, who was to become a friend and mentor. She toured steadily for the next 15 years, pausing only to record albums. Appearances at Canadian folk festivals and increasingly larger venues in the U.S. reflected her increasing popularity on the North American folk and roots scene. Throughout the early and mid-1990s DiFranco toured solo and also as a duo with Canadian drummer Andy Stochansky.
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In September 1995, DiFranco participated in a concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio, inaugurating the opening of the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. She later released a CD on Righteous Babe of the concert "Til We Outnumber Em" featuring artists such as DiFranco, Billy Bragg, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Arlo Guthrie, Indigo Girls, Dave Pirner, Tim Robbins, and Bruce Springsteen with 100 percent of proceeds going to the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum educational department.
In 1996, bassist Sara Lee joined the touring group, whose live rapport is showcased on the 1997 album "Living in Clip". DiFranco would later release Lee's solo album "Make It Beautiful" on Righteous Babe. In 1998, Stochansky left to pursue a solo career as a singer-songwriter. A new touring ensemble consisting of Jason Mercer on bass, Julie Wolf on keyboards, and Daren Hahn on drums, augmented at times by a horn section, accompanied DiFranco on tour between 1998 and 2002.
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The 1990s were a period of heightened exposure for DiFranco, as she continued playing ever larger venues around the world and attracted international attention of the press, including cover stories in "Spin", "Ms.", and "Magnet", among others, as well as appearances on MTV and VH1. Her playfully ironic cover of the Bacharach/David song "Wishin' and Hopin'" appeared under the opening titles of the film "My Best Friend's Wedding".
She guest starred on a 1998 episode of the Fox sitcom "King of the Hill", as the voice of Peggy's feminist guitar teacher, Emily.
Beginning in 1999, Righteous Babe Records began releasing albums by other artists including Sara Lee, Sekou Sundiata, Arto Lindsay, Bitch and Animal, That One Guy, Utah Phillips, Hamell on Trial, Andrew Bird, Kurt Swinghammer, Buddy Wakefield, Anaïs Mitchell and Nona Hendryx.
On September 11, 2001, DiFranco was in Manhattan and later penned the poem "Self Evident" about the experience. The poem was featured in the book "It's a Free Country: Personal Freedom in America After September 11". The poem's title also became the name of DiFranco's first book of poetry released exclusively in Italy by Minimum Fax. It was later also featured in "Verses", a book of her poetry published in the U.S. by Seven Stories press. DiFranco has written and performed many spoken-word pieces throughout her career and was showcased as a poet on the HBO series "Def Poetry" in 2005.
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Since her 2005 release "Knuckle Down" (co-produced by Joe Henry) DiFranco's touring band and recordings have featured bass player Todd Sickafoose and in turns other musicians such as Allison Miller, Andy Borger, Herlin Riley, and Terence Higgins on drums and Mike Dillon on percussion and vibes.
On September 11, 2007, she released the first retrospective of her career, a two-disc compilation entitled "Canon" and simultaneously a retrospective collection of poetry book "Verses". On September 30, 2008, she released "Red Letter Year".
In 2009, DiFranco appeared at Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden, debuting her revamped version of the 1930s labor anthem "Which Side Are You On?" in a duet with Bruce Cockburn and also duetting with Kris Kristofferson on the folk classic "There's a Hole in the Bucket".
DiFranco released an album on January 17, 2012, "¿Which Side Are You On?". It includes collaborations with Pete Seeger, Ivan Neville, Cyril Neville, Skerik, Adam Levy, Righteous Babe recording artist Anaïs Mitchell, CC Adcock, and a host of New Orleans–based horn players known for their work in such outfits as Galactic, Bonerama, and Rebirth Brass Band.
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In 2014, she released her eighteenth album, "Allergic to Water". In 2017, she released her nineteenth, "Binary".
On May 7, 2019, DiFranco released a memoir, "No Walls and the Recurring Dream", via Viking Books. It is described as a "coming-of-age story".
In 2021, DiFranco released the album "Revolutionary Love" which was largely inspired by Valarie Kaur's book "See No Stranger."
DiFranco signed the October 2023 Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden calling for a ceasefire during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Personal life.
DiFranco came out as bisexual in her twenties, and has written songs about love and sex with women and men. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality in the song "In or Out" on the album "Imperfectly" (1992). However, in 2015 she told the blog GoPride.com that she was "not so queer anymore, but definitely a woman-centered woman and just a human rights-centered artist." In a 2019 interview with "Jezebel", she stated that she preferred the term "queer" because "bisexual" "always sounded very medical, like something you do to a frog in 9th grade science or something", and further added that "the irony is I'm pretty fuckin' hetero, which is unfortunate for me because many of my deepest connections are with women. But, naw, I just like what's in boys' pants better." In 1998, she married her sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada. DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced in 2003.
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In 1990, she wrote "Lost Woman Song", which was inspired by abortions she had at ages eighteen and twenty.
DiFranco's father died in the summer of 2004. In July 2005, DiFranco developed tendinitis and took a nine-month hiatus from touring. In January 2007 DiFranco gave birth to her first child, a daughter, at her Buffalo home. She married the child's father, Mike Napolitano, also her regular producer, in 2009. In an interview on September 13, 2012, DiFranco mentioned that she was pregnant with her second child. In April 2013, she gave birth to her second child, a son.
DiFranco has resided in the Bywater, New Orleans, neighborhood since 2008.
DiFranco has described herself as an atheist. On the subject of religion, DiFranco has stated:
DiFranco has spoken critically of cancel culture, saying it is "just gonna get us nowhere" and "The human family can't divorce each other". DiFranco herself has received criticism for planning a 2013 songwriting retreat at Nottoway, a former slave plantation. She cancelled the retreat three days after the news broke, writing on her website, "I needed a wake-up call and you gave it to me." In a 2019 interview, she said of her choices at the time, "I should have found the ultimate humility to put down my own hurt, and all of the misconceptions or mis-truths out there. You have to make yourself accountable. There's a greater pain that's bigger than me, and it's more important."
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DiFranco wrote in her memoir that she "[sympathized] with both sides" regarding the controversial trans-exclusionary policies of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. In a 2019 interview, she elaborated on this statement, discussing her perception that cisgender women were being "asked again ... to move over and make room for somebody else," and later expressed that she understood the difficulty "for anybody outside of a very specific group to experience it the way that group does," saying that "maybe [women's spaces] should be a little more [inclusive]".
Critical reception.
DiFranco has been a critical success for much of her career, with a career album average of 55 on Metacritic. "Living in Clip", DiFranco's 1998 double live album, is the only one to achieve gold record status to date. DiFranco was praised by "The Buffalo News" in 2006 as "Buffalo's leading lady of rock music".
Starting in 2003, DiFranco was nominated four consecutive times for Best Recording Package at the Grammy Awards, winning in 2004 for "Evolve".
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On July 21, 2006, DiFranco received the Woman of Courage Award at the National Organization for Women (NOW) Conference and Young Feminist Summit in Albany, New York. DiFranco was one of the first musicians to receive the award, given each year to a woman who has set herself apart by her contributions to the feminist movement.
In 2009, DiFranco received the Woody Guthrie Award for being a voice of positive social change.
Music.
Style.
DiFranco's guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.
Although DiFranco's music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums incorporating first punk, then funk, hiphop, and jazz influences.
While primarily an acoustic guitarist she has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998's "Little Plastic Castle"; a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's "Wishin' and Hopin'; strings on the 1997 live album "Living in Clip" and 2004's "Knuckle Down"; and electronics and synthesizers in 1999's "To the Teeth" and 2006's "Reprieve".
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DiFranco has stated that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar – that's not where the heart of it is. I use the word 'folk' in reference to punk music and rap music. It's an attitude, it's an awareness of one's heritage, and it's a community. It's subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority."
Musical collaborations, cover versions, and samples.
DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists. In 1997, she appeared on Canadian songwriter Bruce Cockburn's "Charity of Night" album. In 1998, she produced fellow folksinger Dan Bern's album "Fifty Eggs".
She developed a deep association with folksinger and social activist Utah Phillips throughout the mid-1990s, sharing her stage and her audience with the older musician until his death in 2008 and resulting in two collaborative albums: "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" (1996) and "Fellow Workers" (1999, with liner notes by Howard Zinn). "The Past" is built around Phillips's storytelling, an important part of his art that had not previously been documented on recordings; on the album, DiFranco provides musical settings for his speaking voice. The followup, "Fellow Workers", was recorded live in Daniel Lanois's Kingsway Studio in New Orleans and features Phillips fronting DiFranco's touring band for a collection of songs and stories.
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Prince recorded two songs with DiFranco in 1999, "Providence" on her "To the Teeth" album, and "Eye Love U, But Eye Don't Trust U Anymore" on Prince's "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" album. Funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker and rapper Corey Parker have both appeared on DiFranco's albums and featured appearances by her on theirs. Parker and DiFranco toured together in 1999.
She has appeared on several compilations of the songs of Pete Seeger and frequented his Hudson Clearwater Revival Festival. In 2001, she appeared on Brazilian artist Lenine's album "Falange Canibal". In 2002, her rendition of Greg Brown's "The Poet Game" appeared on "Going Driftless: An Artist's Tribute to Greg Brown". Also in 2002 she recorded a duet with Jackie Chan of the Irving Gordon song "Unforgettable" for a record of unlikely collaborations, "When Pigs Fly: Songs You Never Thought You'd Hear".
In 2005, she appeared on Dar Williams' record "My Better Self", duetting on William's cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb". She performed with Cyndi Lauper on "Sisters of Avalon" a track from Lauper's 2005 "The Body Acoustic" album. In 2006, she produced Hamell on Trial's album "Songs for Parents Who Enjoy Drugs". In 2008, she appeared on Todd Sickafoose's album "Tiny Resisters". In 2010, she co-produced a track with Margaret Cho called "Captain Cameltoe" for the comedian's "Cho Dependant" album. In 2011, she appeared on Rob Wasserman's album "Note of Hope", an exploration of the writings of Woody Guthrie with musical accompaniment, though the track in which she appeared, "Voice", was actually recorded 13 years earlier. Also in 2011 she duetted with Greg Dulli on the Twilight Singers record "Dynamite Steps".
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Other artists have covered and sampled DiFranco's work throughout the years. Her spoken word poem "Self Evident" was covered by Public Enemy founder Chuck D's group called Impossebulls. Alana Davis had some commercial success with DiFranco's song "32 Flavors".
Samples from the track "Coming Up" were used by DJ Spooky in his album "Live Without Dead Time", produced for AdBusters Magazine in 2003.
In 2010, DiFranco played Persephone on Anaïs Mitchell's album Hadestown.
DiFranco was approached by Zoe Boekbinder to work on their "Prison Music Project", an album of collaborations between incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers and musicians on the outside. DiFranco co-produced the project with Boekbinder and co-wrote and performed "Nowhere but Barstow and Prison." The album "Long Time Gone" was released on Righteous Babe Records in 2020 after ten years in the making.
Lyrical content.
Although much of DiFranco's material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights, poverty, and war. In 2008, she donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 tsunami.
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The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco's early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco's career as early as 1994. DiFranco's rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.
Label independence.
DiFranco cites her anti-corporate ethos for the main reason she decided to start her own label. This has allowed her a considerable degree of creative freedom over the years, including, for example, providing all instrumentals and vocals and recording the album herself at her home on an analog 8-track reel to reel, and handling much of the artwork and packaging design for her 2004 album "Educated Guess". She has referenced this independence from major labels in song more than once, including "The Million You Never Made" ("Not a Pretty Girl"), which discusses the act of turning down a lucrative contract, "The Next Big Thing" ("Not So Soft"), which describes an imagined meeting with a label head-hunter who evaluates the singer based on her looks, and "Napoleon" ("Dilate"), which sympathizes sarcastically with an unnamed friend who did sign with a label.
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The business grew organically starting in 1990 with the first cassette tape. Connections were made when women in colleges started duplicating and sharing tapes. Offers to play at colleges started coming in and her popularity grew largely by word of mouth and through women's groups or organizations. Zango and Goldenrod, two music distributors specializing in women's music, started carrying DiFranco's music. In general they sold music to independent music stores and women's book stores. In 1995, Righteous Babe Records signed with Koch International for DiFranco's release of "Not a Pretty Girl". Her records could then be found in large and small record stores alike.
DiFranco has occasionally joined with Prince in discussing publicly the problems associated with major record companies. Righteous Babe Records employs a number of people in her hometown of Buffalo. In a 1997 open letter to "Ms." magazine she expressed displeasure that what she considers a way to ensure her own artistic freedom was seen by others solely in terms of its financial success.
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Activism.
From the earliest days of her career, DiFranco has lent her voice and her name to a broad range of social movements, performing benefit concerts, appearing on benefit albums, speaking at rallies, and offering info table space to organizations at her concerts and the virtual equivalent on her website, among other methods and actions. In 1999, she created her own not-for-profit organization; as the Buffalo News has reported, "Through the Righteous Babe Foundation, DiFranco has backed various grassroots cultural and political organizations, supporting causes ranging from abortion rights to gay visibility."
During the first Gulf War, DiFranco participated in the anti-war movement. In early 1993 she played Pete Seeger's Clearwater Folk Festival for the first time. In 1998, she was a featured performer in the Dead Man Walking benefit concert series raising money for Sister Helen Prejean's "Not in Our Name" anti-death penalty organization. DiFranco's commitment to opposing the death penalty is longstanding; she has also been a long time supporter of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
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During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she actively supported and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, though in an open letter she made clear that if she lived in a swing state, she would vote for Al Gore to prevent George W. Bush from being elected.
In 2004, DiFranco visited Burma in order to learn about the Burmese resistance movement and the country's fight for democracy. During her travels she met with then-detained resistance leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Her song "In The Way" was later featured on "For the Lady", a benefit CD that donated all proceeds to the United States Campaign for Burma.
During the 2004 presidential primaries, she supported liberal, anti-war Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who appeared on stage with her during several of her concerts. After the primary season ended, and John Kerry was the clear Democratic candidate, DiFranco launched a "Vote Dammit!" tour of swing states encouraging audience members to vote. In 2005, she lobbied Congress against the proliferation of nuclear power in general and the placement of nuclear waste dumps on Indian land in particular. In 2008, she again backed Kucinich in his bid for the presidency.
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In 2002, Righteous Babe Records established the "Aiding Buffalo's Children" program in conjunction with members of the local community to raise funds for Buffalo's public school system. To kick off the program, DiFranco donated "a day's pay"—the performance fee from her concert that year at Shea's Performing Arts Center— to ABC and challenged her fans to do the same. Aiding Buffalo's Children has since been folded into the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo, contributing to a variety of charitable funds.
In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated DiFranco's newly adopted home town of New Orleans, she collected donations from fans around the world through The Righteous Babe Store website for the Katrina Piano Fund, helping musicians replace instruments lost in the hurricane, raising over $47,500 for the cause.
In 2010, after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, she performed at the "For Our Coast" benefit concert joining Marianne Faithfull, C. C. Adcock and others at the Acadiana Center for the Arts Theater in Lafayette, raising money for Gulf Aid Acadiana, and the Gulf Aid show with Lenny Kravitz, Mos Def, and others at Mardi Gras World River City in New Orleans, both shows raising money to help protect the wetlands, clean up the coast and to assist the fishermen and their families affected by the spill.
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DiFranco also sits on the board for The Roots of Music, founded by Rebirth Brass Band drummer Derrick Tabb. The organization provides free marching band instruction to children in the New Orleans area in addition to academic tutoring and mentoring.
DiFranco joined about 500,000 people at the March for Women's Lives in DC in April 2004. As an honored guest she marched in the front row for the three-mile route, along with Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo, Whoopi Goldberg, Gloria Steinem and others. Later in the day, DiFranco played a few songs on the main stage in front of the Capitol, including "Your Next Bold Move".
Scot Fisher, formerly Righteous Babe label president and DiFranco's manager for many years, has been a longtime advocate of the preservation movement in Buffalo. In 1999, he and DiFranco purchased a decaying church on the verge of demolition in downtown Buffalo and began the lengthy process of restoring it. In 2006, the building opened its doors again, first briefly as "The Church" and then as "Babeville," housing two concert venues, the record label's business office, and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.
DiFranco is also a member of the Toronto-based charity Artists Against Racism for which she participated in a radio PSA.
In October 2023, DiFranco signed an open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, of artists calling for a ceasefire of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
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Arene (disambiguation)
An Arene, or aromatic hydrocarbon, is a hydrocarbon with alternating double and single bonds between carbon atoms forming rings.
Arene may also refer to:
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Arizona Diamondbacks
The Arizona Diamondbacks are an American professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Diamondbacks compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West Division. The franchise was established on March 9, 1995, and began play in 1998 as an expansion team. The team plays its home games at Chase Field. Along with the Tampa Bay Rays, the Diamondbacks are one of the newest teams in the MLB and are the youngest team to win a World Series.
After a fifth-place finish in their inaugural season, the Diamondbacks made several off-season acquisitions, including future Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, who won four consecutive Cy Young Awards in his first four seasons with the team. In 1999, Arizona won 100 games and their first division championship. In 2001, they won the World Series over the three-time defending champion New York Yankees, becoming the fastest expansion team in major league history to win the World Series and the first and only men's major professional sports team in the State of Arizona to win a championship. 22 years later, they would return to the World Series, only to lose to the Texas Rangers in five games, thus earning the Diamondbacks their first World Series loss in team history.
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From 1998 to 2024, the Diamondbacks had an overall record of ().
History.
On March 9, 1995, Phoenix was awarded an expansion franchise to begin play for the season. A $130 million franchise fee was paid to Major League Baseball and on January 16, 1997, the Diamondbacks were voted into the National League. The Diamondbacks' first major league game was played against the Colorado Rockies on March 31, 1998, at Bank One Ballpark. The ballpark was renamed Chase Field in 2005, as a result of Bank One Corporation's merger with JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Since their debut, the Diamondbacks have won two Wild Card Series, five NL West division titles, two NL pennants, and the 2001 World Series.
They later became the fastest expansion franchise in baseball history to win a World Series. The Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in Game 7 during the 2001 postseason.
After beating the Philadelphia Phillies 4–2 in Game 7 of the 2023 NLCS at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, the Arizona Diamondbacks returned to the World Series for the first time since 2001 – against the Texas Rangers on October 27, 2023.
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They lost the series 4–1 at home in Arizona on November 1, 2023.
Logos and uniforms.
1998–2006.
The Diamondbacks' original colors were purple, black, teal and copper. Their logo was an italicized block letter "A" with a diamond pattern, with the crossbar represented by a snake's tongue. This period saw the Diamondbacks wear several uniform combinations.
At home, the Diamondbacks wore cream uniforms with purple pinstripes. The primary sleeved uniform, worn from 1998 to 2000, featured the full team name ("Diamond" and "Backs" stacked together) in front and chest numbers. The alternate sleeveless version contained the "A" logo on the right chest, and was paired with purple undershirts. Before the 2001 season, the sleeved uniform was changed to feature the "A" logo. In all three uniforms, player names were teal with purple trim, and numbers were purple with white with teal trim.
The Diamondbacks' primary road gray uniform also had purple pinstripes. The first version featured "Arizona" in purple with white and teal trim along with black drop shadows, with chest numbers added. Player names were in purple with white trim, and numbers were teal with white and purple trim. In 2001, the uniform became sleeveless with black undershirts, and the lettering scheme was changed to purple with white, copper and black accents.
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The alternate home purple uniform featured "Arizona" in teal with white and copper trim and black drop shadows. The letters were rendered in teal with copper and white trim, but were changed to copper with teal and white trim after only one season. This set was worn until 2002.
The alternate road black uniform featured the "A" logo on the right chest, while letters were purple with white trim and numbers were teal with white and purple trim. A zigzag pattern of teal, copper and purple was featured on the sleeves. In 2001, the uniform was changed to feature "Arizona" in front. The letters became purple with white and copper trim.
The Diamondbacks initially wore four different cap versions. The primary home cap is all-purple, while the road cap is black with a teal brim. They also wore a cream cap with purple brim, and a teal cap with purple brim. All designs featured the primary "A" logo. In 1999, the road cap became all-black and contained the alternate "D-snake" logo rendered in copper. Also, the teal and cream alternate caps were dropped.
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The left sleeve of all four uniforms contained the snake logo with the full team name until the 2004 season, when it became exclusive to the road black uniform.
2007–2015.
The franchise unveiled new uniforms and colors of Sedona red, Sonoran sand and black on November 8, 2006. The red shade is named for the sandstone canyon at Red Rock State Park near Sedona, while the beige (sand) shade is named for the Sonoran Desert. A sleeve patch was added featuring a lowercase "d" and "b" configured to look like a snake's head. The team also kept the "D" logo, which was slightly altered and put on an all-red cap to be used as their game cap. They kept the "A" logo with the new colors applied to it, with a solid black cap used as the alternate cap. Arizona's updated color scheme bore a striking resemblance to the Houston Astros' color scheme (brick red, sand and black) that the Astros used until 2012, as well as the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, whose adoption of those colors predated the Diamondbacks by four years.
The white home uniform featured "D-Backs" in red with sand and black trim. The road gray uniform featured "Arizona" in red with sand and black trim. Player names were red with black trim while numbers were black with red trim.
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The alternate red uniform contained "D-Backs" in sand with red and black trim, with player names in sand with black trim and numbers in black with sand trim.
There were two versions of the alternate black uniform. One design has the alternate "A" logo on the right chest, while the other has "Arizona" written in red with black and sand trim. The latter was introduced in 2013 as a tribute to the victims of the Yarnell Hill Fire. On both uniforms, player names were sand with red trim, and numbers in red with sand trim.
2016–2023.
Before the 2016 season, the Diamondbacks reincorporated teal into its color scheme while keeping Sedona Red, Sonoran Sand and black. They also unveiled eight different uniform combinations, including two separate home white and away grey uniforms. One major difference between the two sets is that the non-teal uniforms feature a snakeskin pattern on the shoulders, while the teal-trimmed uniforms include a charcoal/grey snakeskin pattern on the back. Arizona also kept the throwback pinstriped sleeveless uniforms from their 2001 championship season for use during Thursday home games.
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Starting with the 2020 season, the Diamondbacks made slight redesigns to their uniforms. The snakeskin patterns were removed while the teal-trimmed grey uniforms were retired. The team also reverted to a standard grey uniform after wearing a darker shade on the previous set. Two home white uniforms remain in use: the primary Sedona Red and the alternate teal. They would also wear two black uniforms: one with the primary "A" logo on the left chest and the other with "Los D-Backs" trimmed in teal. Three cap designs were also unveiled, all with a black base: the primary "A" cap, the teal-trimmed "snake" cap (paired exclusively on the teal alternates), and the sand-trimmed "snake" cap with red brim (paired exclusively on the Sedona Red alternates). The Nike swoosh logo is also placed on the right chest near the shoulder. In 2022, the Diamondbacks introduced a red "A" cap with black brim.
In 2021, the Diamondbacks were one of seven teams to wear Nike "City Connect" uniforms. The design is primarily sand and has "Serpientes" in black script lettering emblazoned in front. The first "S" in "Serpientes" was shaped to resemble a rattlesnake. The right sleeve has the flag of Arizona patch recolored to the Diamondbacks' red, sand and black scheme, and the left sleeve has the "A" logo recolored to black and sand. Numerals are in red. The cap is primarily sand with black brim and has the "A" logo in black and sand; the regular batting helmet is used with the uniform. Initially, the Diamondbacks wore white pants with this uniform, but has since switched to sand pants.
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Before the 2023 season, the Diamondbacks promoted the alternate white uniform with teal accents to its primary home uniform and retired the previous Sedona Red white uniform. This is due to a new Nike rule that limits teams to four regular uniforms plus the "City Connect" uniform.
Since 2024.
Coming off their second World Series appearance in , the Diamondbacks unveiled refreshed uniform designs starting in 2024. Turquoise returned full-time as an accent color on all uniforms along with Sedona red and black, but sand was removed except on the "City Connect" uniform. The home uniform is now a cream base with black piping, featuring the "A" logo on the left chest. The road grey uniform with black piping featured "Arizona" in Sedona red with teal and black outlines. The alternate black uniform with teal piping shared the same features as the home uniform. The alternate Sedona red uniform incorporated the full "Diamondbacks" wordmark in black with teal and Sedona red outlines, along with teal numbers trimmed in black on the left chest. All uniforms featured the snake head alternate logo on either sleeve, with the sponsor logo (Avnet since 2023) on the other sleeve. The home cap is Sedona red with black brim and featured the "A" logo, and its all-black counterpart is worn with both the home and black alternate uniform. The road cap is black with Sedona red trim and featured the return of the "D-snake" logo and is worn with both the road and alternate Sedona red uniform. The all-Sedona red alternate cap shared the same features as the road cap and is worn with the Sedona red uniform.
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Radio and television.
On July 18, 2023, a federal bankruptcy court granted Bally Sports' parent company Diamond Sports Group a motion to decline its contract with the Diamondbacks as part of its chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a result, Major League Baseball's local media division assumed production of the Diamondbacks' regional telecasts (maintaining staff such as commentators) and distributed them via local television providers and MLB.tv. As of 2024, these games are branded as DBacks.TV. Games air on the following cable providers and networks:
The primary television play-by-play voice for the team's first nine seasons of play was Thom Brennaman, who also broadcast baseball and college football games nationally for Fox Television. Brennaman was the TV announcer for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds (along with his father Marty Brennaman) before being hired by Diamondbacks founder Jerry Colangelo in 1996, two years before the team would begin play.
In October 2006, Brennaman left the Diamondbacks to call games with his father for the Reds beginning in 2007, signing a four-year deal.
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On November 1, 2006, the team announced that the TV voice of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2002, Daron Sutton, would be hired as the Diamondbacks primary TV play-by-play voice. Sutton was signed to a five-year contract with a team option for three more years. Sutton's signature chants included "let's get some runs" when the D-backs trail in late innings.
Former Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs first baseman Mark Grace and knuckleballer Tom Candiotti were the Diamondbacks primary color analysts for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Former Diamondbacks third baseman Matt Williams also did color commentary on occasion, as did Cardinals and NBC broadcast legend Joe Garagiola, a longtime Phoenix-area resident and father of Joe Garagiola Jr., the first GM of the Diamondbacks.
The Diamondbacks announced in July 2007 that for the 2008 season, all regionally broadcast Diamondbacks TV games would be shown exclusively on Fox Sports Arizona (now Bally Sports Arizona) and a few could possibly be shown on the national "MLB on Fox" telecasts. Bally Sports Arizona is seen in 2.8 million households in Arizona and New Mexico. The previous flagship station since the inaugural 1998 season was KTVK (Channel 3), a popular over-the-air independent station (and former longtime ABC affiliate) in Phoenix.
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From 2009 to 2012, Grace and Sutton were tagged as the main broadcasters of the Diamondbacks with pre-game and postgame shows on Fox Sports Arizona, being hosted by Joe Borowski.
On June 21, 2012, Sutton was suspended indefinitely amid rumors of insubordination. On August 24, the team announced that Grace had requested an indefinite leave of absence after being arrested for his second DUI in less than two years. Grace was later indicted on four DUI counts.) For the remainder of the 2012 season, Sutton was replaced by Greg Schulte (Jeff Munn replaced Schulte on the radio broadcast) and Grace was replaced by Luis Gonzalez. At the end of the 2012 season, the team announced that neither Sutton nor Grace would return for the 2013 season.
On October 18, 2012, the team announced that Bob Brenly would return as a broadcaster to replace Grace and that he would be joined by then-ESPN personality Steve Berthiaume.
The English language flagship radio station is KTAR. Greg Schulte was the regular radio play-by-play voice, a 25-year veteran of sports radio in the Phoenix market, also well known for his previous work on Phoenix Suns, Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University (ASU) broadcasts. It was announced in February 2023 that he would be retiring after the 2023 MLB season. He would call games with analyst Tom Candiotti.
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Jeff Munn served as a backup radio play-by-play announcer until 2016; he served as the regular public address announcer at Chase Field in the early days of the franchise. He previously served as the public address announcer for the Suns in the 1990s at what became Footprint Center. He is also the play-by-play radio voice for ASU women's basketball. Mike Ferrin served in the same role for six years before parting ways with the team, and he was replaced by Chris Garagiola in December 2021.
Spanish broadcasts.
The flagship Spanish language radio station is KHOV-FM 105.1 with Oscar Soria, Rodrigo López, and Richard Saenz.
Games were televised in Spanish on KPHE-LP—with Oscar Soria and Jerry Romo as the announcers, but this arrangement ended prior to the 2009 season due to the team switching fully to Fox Sports Arizona and the lack of carriage of KPHE-LP on the Cox cable system.
Rivalry with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The rivalry between the Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers has been one of the fiercest divisional matchups for several years. Animosity between the two teams began to escalate during the 2010s in multiple incidents involving either team throwing pitches at one another or instigating into large-scale brawls between both benches. After eliminating the Diamondbacks and clinching the division on September 19, 2013, multiple Dodgers players celebrated the win by jumping into the pool at Chase Field. The two sides met during the 2017 National League Division Series as the Diamondbacks were swept 3–0 by the Dodgers en route to their appearance in the World Series that season. The Dodgers led the series 257–191 with a 3–0 lead in the postseason. After clinching the 2023 NL Wild Card berth and defeating the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Wild Card Series, the Diamondbacks played the Dodgers again in the 2023 NLDS. There, the Diamondbacks emphatically swept the Dodgers to even the all-time postseason record between the two clubs at 3–3.
Minor league affiliations.
The Arizona Diamondbacks farm system consists of seven minor league affiliates.
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Aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art. Aesthetics examines values about, and critical judgments of, artistic taste and preference. It thus studies how artists imagine, create, and perform works of art, as well as how people use, enjoy, and criticize art. Aesthetics considers why people consider certain things beautiful and not others, as well as how objects of beauty and art can affect our moods and our beliefs.
Aesthetics tries to find answers to what exactly is art and what makes good art. It considers what happens in our minds when we view visual art, listen to music, read poetry, enjoy delicious food, and engage in large artistic projects like creating and experiencing plays, fashion shows, films, and television programs. It can also focus on how humans regard various forms of beauty in the natural world. Its function is the "critical reflection on art, culture and nature".
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Etymology.
The word "aesthetic" is derived from the Ancient Greek (', "perceptive, sensitive, pertaining to sensory perception"), which in turn comes from (', "I perceive, sense, learn") and is related to ("", "perception, sensation"). Aesthetics in this central sense has been said to start with the series of articles on "The Pleasures of the Imagination", which the journalist Joseph Addison wrote in the early issues of the magazine "The Spectator" in 1712.
The term "aesthetics" was appropriated and coined with new meaning by the German philosopher Alexander Baumgarten in his dissertation "Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus" () in 1735; Baumgarten chose "aesthetics" because he wished to emphasize the experience of art as a means of knowing. Baumgarten's definition of aesthetics in the fragment "Aesthetica" (1750) is occasionally considered the first definition of modern aesthetics.
The term was introduced into the English language by Thomas Carlyle in his "Life of Friedrich Schiller" (1825).
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History of aesthetics.
The history of the philosophy of art as aesthetics covering the visual arts, the literary arts, the musical arts and other artists forms of expression can be dated back at least to Aristotle and the ancient Greeks. Aristotle writing of the literary arts in his "Poetics" stated that epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and dance are all fundamentally acts of mimesis, each varying in imitation by medium, object, and manner. Aristotle applies the term "mimesis" both as a property of a work of art and also as the product of the artist's intention and contends that the audience's realisation of the "mimesis" is vital to understanding the work itself.
Aristotle states that "mimesis" is a natural instinct of humanity that separates humans from animals and that all human artistry "follows the pattern of nature". Because of this, Aristotle believed that each of the mimetic arts possesses what Stephen Halliwell calls "highly structured procedures for the achievement of their purposes." For example, music imitates with the media of rhythm and harmony, whereas dance imitates with rhythm alone, and poetry with language.
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