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Human anatomy, physiology and biochemistry are complementary basic medical sciences, which are generally taught to medical students in their first year at medical school. Human anatomy can be taught regionally or systemically; that is, respectively, studying anatomy by bodily regions such as the head and chest, or stud... |
Metazoans are a multicellular organism, with different groups of cells serving different functions. The most basic types of metazoan tissues are epithelium and connective tissue, both of which are present in nearly all invertebrates. The outer surface of the epidermis is normally formed of epithelial cells and secretes... |
Marcello Malpighi, the father of microscopical anatomy, discovered that plants had tubules similar to those he saw in insects like the silk worm. He observed that when a ring-like portion of bark was removed on a trunk a swelling occurred in the tissues above the ring, and he unmistakably interpreted this as growth sti... |
Spiders a class of arachnids have four pairs of legs; a body of two segments—a cephalothorax and an abdomen. Spiders have no wings and no antennae. They have mouthparts called chelicerae which are often connected to venom glands as most spiders are venomous. They have a second pair of appendages called pedipalps attach... |
The Hellenistic Egyptian city of Alexandria was the stepping-stone for Greek anatomy and physiology. Alexandria not only housed the biggest library for medical records and books of the liberal arts in the world during the time of the Greeks but was also home to many medical practitioners and philosophers. Great patrona... |
Herophilus became known for his anatomical works, making impressive contributions to many branches of anatomy and many other aspects of medicine. Some of the works included classifying the system of the pulse, the discovery that human arteries had thicker walls than veins, and that the atria were parts of the heart. He... |
His distinction between the arteries and veins—the arteries carrying the air through the body, while the veins carry the blood from the heart was a great anatomical discovery. Erasistratus was also responsible for naming and describing the function of the epiglottis and the heart's valves, including the tricuspid. Duri... |
Incredible feats were made during the third century BCE in both the digestive and reproductive systems. Herophilus discovered and described not only the salivary glands but also the small intestine and liver. He showed that the uterus is a hollow organ and described the ovaries and uterine tubes. He recognized that spe... |
Medieval to early modern.
Anatomy developed little from classical times until the sixteenth century; as the historian Marie Boas writes, "Progress in anatomy before the sixteenth century is as mysteriously slow as its development after 1500 is startlingly rapid". Between 1275 and 1326, the anatomists Mondino de Luzzi, ... |
In England, anatomy was the subject of the first public lectures given in any science; these were provided by the Company of Barbers and Surgeons in the 16th century, joined in 1583 by the Lumleian lectures in surgery at the Royal College of Physicians.
Late modern.
Medical schools began to be set up in the United Stat... |
The teaching of anatomy in Britain was transformed by Sir John Struthers, Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University of Aberdeen from 1863 to 1889. He was responsible for setting up the system of three years of "pre-clinical" academic teaching in the sciences underlying medicine, including especially anatomy. This s... |
Before the modern medical era, the primary means for studying the internal structures of the body were dissection of the dead and inspection, palpation, and auscultation of the living. The advent of microscopy opened up an understanding of the building blocks that constituted living tissues. Technical advances in the d... |
Equally important advances have occurred in "non-invasive" techniques for examining the body's interior structures. X-rays can be passed through the body and used in medical radiography and fluoroscopy to differentiate interior structures that have varying degrees of opaqueness. Magnetic resonance imaging, computed tom... |
Affirming the consequent
In propositional logic, affirming the consequent (also known as converse error, fallacy of the converse, or confusion of necessity and sufficiency) is a formal fallacy (or an invalid form of argument) that is committed when, in the context of an indicative conditional statement, it is stated th... |
A related fallacy is denying the antecedent. Two related "valid" forms of logical argument include "modus tollens" (denying the consequent) and "modus ponens" (affirming the antecedent).
Formal description.
Affirming the consequent is the action of taking a true statement formula_3 and invalidly concluding its converse... |
Of the possible forms of "mixed hypothetical syllogisms," two are valid and two are invalid. Affirming the antecedent (modus ponens) and denying the consequent (modus tollens) are valid. Affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent are invalid.
Additional examples.
Example 1
One way to demonstrate the invalidity... |
Example 3
In "Catch-22", the chaplain is interrogated for supposedly being "Washington Irving"/"Irving Washington", who has been blocking out large portions of soldiers' letters home. The colonel has found such a letter, but with the chaplain's name signed.
"P" in this case is 'The chaplain signs his own name', and "Q"... |
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (, ; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Russian origin. He is widely considered one of the greatest directors in cinema history. His films explore spiritual and metaphysical themes and are known for their slow pacing and long tak... |
Tarkovsky was the recipient of numerous accolades throughout his career, including the FIPRESCI prize, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in addition to the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his debut film, "Ivan's Childhood" as well as the BAFTA Fi... |
Andrei's paternal grandfather Aleksandr Karlovich Tarkovsky (in ) was a Polish nobleman who worked as a bank clerk. His wife Maria Danilovna Rachkovskaya was a Romanian language teacher who arrived from Iași. Andrei's maternal grandmother Vera Nikolayevna Vishnyakova (née Dubasova) belonged to an old Dubasov family of ... |
In 1939, Tarkovsky enrolled at the Moscow School No. 554. During the war, the three evacuated to Yuryevets, living with his maternal grandmother. In 1943, the family returned to Moscow. Tarkovsky continued his studies at his old school, where the poet Andrei Voznesensky was one of his classmates. He studied piano at a ... |
Film school student.
Upon returning from the research expedition in 1954, Tarkovsky applied at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and was admitted to the film-directing program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush (Irina) whom he married in April 1957.
The early Khrushchev era offered good opportunities fo... |
During his third year at the VGIK, Tarkovsky met Andrei Konchalovsky. They found much in common as they liked the same film directors and shared ideas on cinema and films. In 1959, they wrote the script "Antarctica – Distant Country", which was later published in the "Moskovsky Komsomolets". Tarkovsky submitted the scr... |
In 1965, he directed the film "Andrei Rublev" about the life of Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter. "Andrei Rublev" was not, except for a single screening in Moscow in 1966, immediately released after completion due to problems with Soviet authorities. Tarkovsky had to cut the film several times,... |
From 1973 to 1974, he shot the film "Mirror", a highly autobiographical and unconventionally structured film drawing on his childhood and incorporating some of his father's poems. In this film Tarkovsky portrayed the plight of childhood affected by war. Tarkovsky had worked on the screenplay for this film since 1967, u... |
During 1975, Tarkovsky also worked on the screenplay "Hoffmanniana", about the German writer and poet E. T. A. Hoffmann. In December 1976, he directed "Hamlet", his only stage play, at the Lenkom Theatre in Moscow. The main role was played by Anatoly Solonitsyn, who also acted in several of Tarkovsky's films. At the en... |
Film career outside the Soviet Union.
During the summer of 1979, Tarkovsky traveled to Italy, where he shot the documentary "Voyage in Time" together with his long-time friend Tonino Guerra. Tarkovsky returned to Italy in 1980 for an extended trip, during which he and Guerra completed the script for the film "Nostalghi... |
At a press conference in Milan on 10 July 1984, he announced that he would never return to the Soviet Union and would remain in Western Europe. He stated, "I am not a Soviet dissident, I have no conflict with the Soviet Government," but if he returned home, he added, "I would be unemployed." At that time, his son Andri... |
"The Sacrifice" was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and received the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, the FIPRESCI prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. As Tarkovsky was unable to attend due to his illness, the prizes were collected by his son.
Death.
In Tarkovsky's last entry (15 December 1986), he wrote: "But ... |
Influences and thoughts on film.
Tarkovsky became a film director during the mid and late 1950s, a period referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw, during which Soviet society opened to foreign films, literature and music, among other things. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of European, American and Japanese directors, a... |
Tarkovsky perceived that the art of cinema has only been truly mastered by very few filmmakers, stating in a 1970 interview with Naum Abramov that "they can be counted on the fingers of one hand". In 1972, Tarkovsky told film historian Leonid Kozlov his ten favorite films. The list is as follows: "Diary of a Country Pr... |
He was also not a fan of blockbusters or science fiction, largely dismissing the latter for its "comic book" trappings and vulgar commercialism. He equally liked George Lucas's "Star Wars" according to his son, Andrei A. Tarkovsky.
Cinematic style.
In a 1962 interview, Tarkovsky argued: "All art, of course, is intellec... |
Tarkovsky developed a theory of cinema that he called "sculpting in time". By this he meant that the unique characteristic of cinema as a medium was to take our experience of time and alter it. Unedited movie footage transcribes time in real time. By using long takes and few cuts in his films, he aimed to give the view... |
Director Ingmar Bergman commented on Tarkovsky:
Contrarily, however, Bergman conceded the truth in the claim made by a critic who wrote that "with "Autumn Sonata" Bergman does Bergman", adding: "Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films, and that Fellini began to make Fellini films [...] Buñuel nearly always made Buñuel ... |
Filmography.
Tarkovsky is mainly known as a film director. During his career he directed seven feature films, as well as three shorts from his time at VGIK. His features are:
He also wrote several screenplays. Furthermore, he directed the play "Hamlet" for the stage in Moscow, directed the opera "Boris Godunov" in Lond... |
Unproduced screenplays.
"Concentrate".
Concentrate (, "Kontsentrat") is a never-filmed 1958 screenplay by Tarkovsky. The screenplay is based on Tarkovsky's year in the taiga as a member of a research expedition, prior to his enrollment in film school. It's about the leader of a geological expedition, who waits for the ... |
"Hoffmanniana".
Hoffmanniana () is a never-filmed 1974 screenplay by Tarkovsky. The screenplay is based on the life and work of German author E. T. A. Hoffmann. In 1974, an acquaintance from Tallinnfilm approached Tarkovsky to write a screenplay on a German theme. Tarkovsky considered Thomas Mann and E. T. A. Hoffmann,... |
Awards and commemoration.
Numerous awards were bestowed on Tarkovsky throughout his lifetime.
Under the influence of Glasnost and Perestroika, Tarkovsky was finally recognized in the Soviet Union in the Autumn of 1986, shortly before his death, by a retrospective of his films in Moscow. After his death, an entire issue... |
Tarkovsky has been the subject of several documentaries. Most notable is the 1988 documentary "Moscow Elegy", by Russian film director Alexander Sokurov. Sokurov's own work has been heavily influenced by Tarkovsky. The film consists mostly of narration over stock footage from Tarkovsky's films. "Directed by Andrei Tark... |
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa remarked on Tarkovsky's films as saying: "His unusual sensitivity is both overwhelming and astounding. It almost reaches a pathological intensity. Probably there is no equal among film directors alive now." Kurosawa also commented: "I love all of Tarkovsky's films. I love his perso... |
The Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov remarked that watching Tarkovsky's film, "Ivan's Childhood" was his main inspiration to become a filmmaker by saying: "I did not know how to do anything and I would not have done anything if there had not been "Ivan's Childhood"".
The Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke voted for "... |
The German filmmaker Wim Wenders dedicated his film "Wings of Desire" to Tarkovsky (along with François Truffaut and Yasujirō Ozu).
The French filmmaker Chris Marker directed a documentary film as a homage to Tarkovsky called "One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich" and used Tarkovsky's concept of "The Zone" (from th... |
The Indian-born British American novelist Salman Rushdie praised Tarkovsky and his work "Solaris" by calling it "a sci-fi masterpiece".
Film historian Steven Dillon says that much of subsequent film was deeply influenced by the films of Tarkovsky.
Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñarritu is a huge fan of Tarkovsky... |
The Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto was an admirer of Tarkovsky's work, describing his penultimate solo album, "async" as "a soundtrack for an imaginary Tarkovsky film." On Tarkovsky's overall influence on his own work, Sakamoto stated, "As I've been making music and trying to go deeper and deeper, I was finally abl... |
Ambiguity
Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making for several interpretations; others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement who... |
Ambiguity in human language is argued to reflect principles of efficient communication. Languages that communicate efficiently will avoid sending information that is redundant with information provided in the context. This can be shown mathematically to result in a system that is ambiguous when context is neglected. In... |
The context in which an ambiguous word is used often makes it clearer which of the meanings is intended. If, for instance, someone says "I put $100 in the bank", most people would not think someone used a shovel to dig in the mud. However, some linguistic contexts do not provide sufficient information to make a used wo... |
More problematic are words whose multiple meanings express closely related concepts. "Good", for example, can mean "useful" or "functional" ("That's a good hammer"), "exemplary" ("She's a good student"), "pleasing" ("This is good soup"), "moral" ("a good person" versus "the lesson to be learned from a story"), "righteo... |
For the notion of, and theoretic results about, syntactic ambiguity in artificial, formal languages (such as computer programming languages), see Ambiguous grammar.
Usually, semantic and syntactic ambiguity go hand in hand. The sentence "We saw her duck" is also syntactically ambiguous. Conversely, a sentence like "He ... |
Philosophy.
Philosophers (and other users of logic) spend a lot of time and effort searching for and removing (or intentionally adding) ambiguity in arguments because it can lead to incorrect conclusions and can be used to deliberately conceal bad arguments. For example, a politician might say, "I oppose taxes which hi... |
In continental philosophy (particularly phenomenology and existentialism), there is much greater tolerance of ambiguity, as it is generally seen as an integral part of the human condition. Martin Heidegger argued that the relation between the subject and object is ambiguous, as is the relation of mind and body, and par... |
Simone de Beauvoir tries to base an ethics on Heidegger's and Sartre's writings (The Ethics of Ambiguity), where she highlights the need to grapple with ambiguity: "as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it ... And the ethics which they have proposed to their disc... |
It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting". Other continental philosophers suggest that concepts such as life, nature, and sex are ambiguous. Corey Anton has argued that we cannot be certain what is separate from or unified with somethi... |
Literature and rhetoric.
In literature and rhetoric, ambiguity can be a useful tool. Groucho Marx's classic joke depends on a grammatical ambiguity for its humor, for example: "Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know". Songs and poetry often rely on ambiguous words for art... |
Expressions.
Ambiguous expressions often appear in physical and mathematical texts.
It is common practice to omit multiplication signs in mathematical expressions. Also, it is common to give the same name to a variable and a function, for example, Then, if one sees there is no way to distinguish whether it means formul... |
The order of operations may depend on the context. In most programming languages, the operations of division and multiplication have equal priority and are executed from left to right. Until the last century, many editorials assumed that multiplication is performed first, for example, formula_4 is interpreted as in thi... |
Examples of potentially confusing ambiguous mathematical expressions.
An expression such as formula_7 can be understood to mean either formula_8 or Often the author's intention can be understood from the context, in cases where only one of the two makes sense, but an ambiguity like this should be avoided, for example b... |
Ambiguous terms in physics and mathematics.
Some physical quantities do not yet have established notations; their value (and sometimes even dimension, as in the case of the Einstein coefficients), depends on the system of notations. Many terms are ambiguous. Each use of an ambiguous term should be preceded by the defin... |
The Berry paradox arises as a result of systematic ambiguity in the meaning of terms such as "definable" or "nameable". Terms of this kind give rise to vicious circle fallacies. Other terms with this type of ambiguity are: satisfiable, true, false, function, property, class, relation, cardinal, and ordinal.
Mathematica... |
Biology.
In structural biology, ambiguity has been recognized as a problem for studying protein conformations. The analysis of a protein three-dimensional structure consists in dividing the macromolecule into subunits called domains. The difficulty of this task arises from the fact that different definitions of what a ... |
The orthodox Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton regularly employed paradox to tease out the meanings in common concepts that he found ambiguous or to reveal meaning often overlooked or forgotten in common phrases: the title of one of his most famous books, "Orthodoxy" (1908), itself employed such a paradox.
Music.
In mus... |
The opposite of such ambiguous images are impossible objects.
Pictures or photographs may also be ambiguous at the semantic level: the visual image is unambiguous, but the meaning and narrative may be ambiguous: is a certain facial expression one of excitement or fear, for instance?
Social psychology and the bystander ... |
Computer science.
In computer science, the SI prefixes kilo-, mega- and giga- were historically used in certain contexts to mean either the first three powers of 1024 (1024, 10242 and 10243) contrary to the metric system in which these units unambiguously mean one thousand, one million, and one billion. This usage is p... |
Abel
Abel ( "Hébel", in pausa "Hā́ḇel"; "Hábel"; , "Hābēl") is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within the Abrahamic religions. Born as the second son of Adam and Eve, the first two humans created by God, he was a shepherd who offered his firstborn flock to God as a religious offering. God accepted Abel's offer... |
Abel is invoked in the litany for the dying in the Roman Catholic Church, and his sacrifice is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass along with those of Abraham and Melchizedek. The Alexandrian Rite commemorates him with a feast day on December 28.
According to the Coptic Book of Adam and Eve (at 2:1–15), and the Syriac C... |
Sethian Gnostic interpretation.
In the Apocryphon of John, a work belonging to Sethian Gnosticism, Abel is the offspring of Yaldaboath and Eve, who is placed over the elements of water and earth as Elohim, but was only given his name as a form of deception.
Mandaean interpretation.
According to Mandaean beliefs and scr... |
Animal (disambiguation)
An animal is a multicellular, eukaryotic organism of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa.
Animal, Animals, or The Animal may also refer to: |
Aardvark
Aardvarks ( ; Orycteropus afer) are medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammals native to Africa. Aardvarks are the only living species of the family Orycteropodidae and the order Tubulidentata. They have a long proboscis, similar to a pig's snout, which is used to sniff out food.
They are afrotheres, a clade ... |
The name "Orycteropus" means "burrowing foot", and the name "afer" refers to Africa. The name of the aardvark's order, "Tubulidentata", comes from the tubule-style teeth.
Taxonomy.
The aardvark is not closely related to the pig; rather, it is the sole extant representative of the obscure mammalian order Tubulidentata, ... |
The first unambiguous tubulidentate was probably "Myorycteropus africanus" from Kenyan Miocene deposits. The earliest example from the genus "Orycteropus" was "Orycteropus mauritanicus", found in Algeria in deposits from the middle Miocene, with an equally old version found in Kenya. Fossils from the aardvark have been... |
Description.
The aardvark is vaguely pig-like in appearance. Its body is stout with a prominently arched back and is sparsely covered with coarse hairs. The limbs are of moderate length, with the rear legs being longer than the forelegs. The front feet have lost the pollex (or 'thumb'), resulting in four toes, while th... |
It is the largest member of the proposed clade Afroinsectiphilia. The aardvark is pale yellowish-grey in colour and often stained reddish-brown by soil. The aardvark's coat is thin, and the animal's primary protection is its tough skin. Its hair is short on its head and tail; however its legs tend to have longer hair. ... |
The sides of the nostrils are thick with hair. The tip of the snout is highly mobile and is moved by modified mimetic muscles. The fleshy dividing tissue between its nostrils probably has sensory functions, but it is uncertain whether they are olfactory or vibratory in nature. Its nose is made up of more turbinate bone... |
Digestive system.
The aardvark's stomach has a muscular pyloric area that acts as a gizzard to grind swallowed food up, thereby rendering chewing unnecessary. Its cecum is large. Both sexes emit a strong smelling secretion from an anal gland. Its salivary glands are highly developed and almost completely ring the neck;... |
Ecology and behaviour.
Aardvarks live for up to 23 years in captivity. Its keen hearing warns it of predators: lions, leopards, cheetahs, African wild dogs, hyenas, and pythons. Some humans also hunt aardvarks for meat. Aardvarks can dig fast or run in zigzag fashion to elude enemies, but if all else fails, they will s... |
The only fruit eaten by aardvarks is the aardvark cucumber. In fact, the cucumber and the aardvark have a symbiotic relationship as they eat the subterranean fruit, then defecate the seeds near their burrows, which then grow rapidly due to the loose soil and fertile nature of the area. The time spent in the intestine o... |
On a nightly basis they tend to be more active during the first portion of night (roughly the four hours between 8:00p.m. and 12:00a.m.); however, they do not seem to prefer bright or dark nights over the other. During adverse weather or if disturbed they will retreat to their burrow systems. They cover between per nig... |
When leaving the burrow at night, they pause at the entrance for about ten minutes, sniffing and listening. After this period of watchfulness, it will bound out and within seconds it will be away. It will then pause, prick its ears, twisting its head to listen, then jump and move off to start foraging.
Aside from diggi... |
Reproduction.
It is believed to exhibit polygamous breeding behavior. During mating, the male secures himself to the female's back using his claws, which can occasionally result in noticeable scratches. Males play no role on parental care.
Aardvarks pair only during the breeding season; after a gestation period of seve... |
Recent research suggests that aardvarks may be particularly vulnerable to alterations in temperature caused by climate change. Droughts negatively impact the availability of termites and ants, which comprise the bulk of an aardvark's diet. Nocturnal species faced with resource scarcity may increase their diurnal activi... |
The ancient Egyptian god Set is usually depicted with the head of an unidentified animal, whose similarity to an aardvark has been noted in scholarship.
The titular character and his families from "Arthur", an animated television series for children based on a book series and produced by WGBH, shown in more than 180 co... |
Aardwolf
The aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) is an insectivorous hyaenid species, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called the maanhaar-jackal (Afrikaans for "mane-jackal"), termite-eating hyena and civet hyena, based on its habit of secreting substances fr... |
The aardwolf is the only surviving species in the subfamily Protelinae. There is disagreement as to whether the species is monotypic, or can be divided into subspecies. A 2021 study found the genetic differences in eastern and southern aardwolves may be pronounced enough to categorize them as species.
A 2006 molecular ... |
The aardwolf is about long, excluding its bushy tail, which is about long, and stands about tall at the shoulders. An adult aardwolf weighs approximately , sometimes reaching . The aardwolves in the south of the continent tend to be slightly smaller (about ) than the eastern version (around ). This makes the aardwolf t... |
There are two distinct populations: one in Southern Africa, and another in East and Northeast Africa. The species does not occur in the intermediary miombo forests.
An adult pair, along with their most-recent offspring, occupies a territory of .
Behavior and ecology.
Aardwolves are shy and nocturnal, sleeping in burrow... |
The territory is marked by both sexes, as they both have developed anal glands from which they extrude a black substance that is smeared on rocks or grass stalks in -long streaks. Aardwolves also have scent glands on the forefoot and penile pad. They often mark near termite mounds within their territory every 20 minute... |
Aardwolves are not fast runners nor are they particularly adept at fighting off predators. Therefore, when threatened, the aardwolf may attempt to mislead its foe by doubling back on its tracks. If confronted, it may raise its mane in an attempt to appear more menacing. It also emits a foul-smelling liquid from its ana... |
Unlike other hyenas, aardwolves do not scavenge or kill larger animals. Contrary to popular myths, aardwolves do not eat carrion, and if they are seen eating while hunched over a dead carcass, they are actually eating larvae and beetles. Also, contrary to some sources, they do not like meat, unless it is finely ground ... |
Gestation lasts between 89 and 92 days, producing two to five cubs (most often two or three) during the rainy season (October–December), when termites are more active. They are born with their eyes open, but initially are helpless, and weigh around . The first six to eight weeks are spent in the den with their parents.... |
Adobe
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Ter... |
Strength.
In dry climates, adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage if they are not reinforced. Cases ... |
Etymology.
The word "adobe" has existed for around 4,000 years with relatively little change in either pronunciation or meaning. The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian () word "ḏbt" "mud brick" (with vowels unwritten). Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian and finally to Coptic (), where it appeared as ⲧⲱ... |
No more than half the clay content should be expansive clays, with the remainder non-expansive illite or kaolinite. Too much expansive clay results in uneven drying through the brick, resulting in cracking, while too much kaolinite will make a weak brick. Typically the soils of the Southwest United States, where such c... |
In addition to being an inexpensive material with a small resource cost, adobe can serve as a significant heat reservoir due to the thermal properties inherent in the massive walls typical in adobe construction. In climates typified by hot days and cool nights, the high thermal mass of adobe mediates the high and low t... |
Uses.
Poured and puddled adobe walls.
Poured and puddled adobe (puddled clay, piled earth), today called "cob", is made by placing soft adobe in layers, rather than by making individual dried bricks or using a form. "Puddle" is a general term for a clay or clay and sand-based material worked into a dense, plastic state... |
Depending on the form into which the mixture is pressed, adobe can encompass nearly any shape or size, provided drying is even and the mixture includes reinforcement for larger bricks. Reinforcement can include manure, straw, cement, rebar, or wooden posts. Straw, cement, or manure added to a standard adobe mixture can... |
During the Great Depression, designer and builder Hugh W. Comstock used cheaper materials and made a specialized adobe brick called "Bitudobe." His first adobe house was built in 1936. In 1948, he published the book "Post-Adobe; Simplified Adobe Construction Combining A Rugged Timber Frame And Modern Stabilized Adobe,"... |
Adobe roof.
The traditional adobe roof has been constructed using a mixture of soil/clay, water, sand and organic materials. The mixture was then formed and pressed into wood forms, producing rows of dried earth bricks that would then be laid across a support structure of wood and plastered into place with more adobe.
... |
To construct a flat adobe roof, beams of wood were laid to span the building, the ends of which were attached to the tops of the walls. Once the vigas, latillas and brush are laid, adobe bricks are placed. An adobe roof is often laid with bricks slightly larger in width to ensure a greater expanse is covered when placi... |
In 1927, the Uniform Building Code (UBC) was adopted in the United States. Local ordinances, referencing the UBC added requirements to building with adobe. These included: restriction of building height of adobe structures to 1-story, requirements for adobe mix (compressive and shear strength) and new requirements whic... |
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