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A coin featuring a horseman was issued to celebrate the Muslim conquest of Lakhnauti with inscriptions in Sanskrit and Arabic. An abortive Islamic invasion of Tibet was also mounted by Bakhtiyar. Bengal was under the formal rule of the Delhi Sultanate for approximately 150 years. Delhi struggled to consolidate control over Bengal. Rebel governors often sought to assert autonomy or independence. Sultan Iltutmish re-established control over Bengal in 1225 after suppressing the rebels. Due to the considerable overland distance, Delhi's authority in Bengal was relatively weak. It was left to local governors to expand territory and bring new areas under Muslim rule, such as through the Conquest of Sylhet in 1303.
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In 1338, new rebellions sprung up in Bengal's three main towns. Governors in Lakhnauti, Satgaon and Sonargaon declared independence from Delhi. This allowed the ruler of Sonargaon, Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah, to annexe Chittagong to the Islamic administration. By 1352, the ruler of Satgaon, Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah, unified the region into an independent state. Ilyas Shah established his capital in Pandua. The new breakaway state emerged as the Bengal Sultanate, which developed into a territorial, mercantile and maritime empire. At the time, the Islamic world stretched from Muslim Spain in the west to Bengal in the east.
The initial raids of Ilyas Shah saw the first Muslim army enter Nepal and stretched from Varanasi in the west to Orissa in the south to Assam in the east. The Delhi army continued to fend off the new Bengali army. The Bengal-Delhi War ended in 1359 when Delhi recognised the independence of Bengal. Ilyas Shah's son Sikandar Shah defeated Delhi Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq during the Siege of Ekdala Fort. |
Ilyas Shah's son Sikandar Shah defeated Delhi Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq during the Siege of Ekdala Fort. A subsequent peace treaty recognised Bengal's independence and Sikandar Shah was gifted a golden crown by the Sultan of Delhi. The ruler of Arakan sought refuge in Bengal during the reign of Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah. Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah later helped the Arakanese king to regain control of his throne in exchange for becoming a tributary state of the Bengal Sultanate. Bengali influence in Arakan persisted for 300 years. Bengal also helped the king of Tripura to regain control of his throne in exchange for becoming a tributary state. The ruler of the Jaunpur Sultanate also sought refuge in Bengal. The vassal states of Bengal included Arakan, Tripura, Chandradwip and Pratapgarh. At its peak, the Bengal Sultanate's territory included parts of Arakan, Assam, Bihar, Orissa, and Tripura. The Bengal Sultanate experienced its greatest military success under Alauddin Hussain Shah, who was proclaimed as the conqueror of Assam after his forces led by Shah Ismail Ghazi overthrew the Khen dynasty and annexed large parts of Assam. |
The Bengal Sultanate experienced its greatest military success under Alauddin Hussain Shah, who was proclaimed as the conqueror of Assam after his forces led by Shah Ismail Ghazi overthrew the Khen dynasty and annexed large parts of Assam. In maritime trade, the Bengal Sultanate benefited from Indian Ocean trade networks and emerged as a hub of re-exports. A giraffe was brought by African envoys from Malindi to Bengal's court and was later gifted to Imperial China. Ship-owing merchants acted as envoys of the Sultan while travelling to different regions in Asia and Africa. Many rich Bengali merchants lived in Malacca. Bengali ships transported embassies from Brunei, Aceh and Malacca to China. Bengal and the Maldives had a vast trade in shell currency. The Sultan of Bengal donated funds to build schools in the Hejaz region of Arabia.
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The five dynastic periods of the Bengal Sultanate spanned from the Ilyas Shahi dynasty, to a period of rule by Bengali converts, to the Hussain Shahi dynasty, to a period of rule by Abyssinian usurpers; an interruption by the Suri dynasty; and ended with the Karrani dynasty. The Battle of Raj Mahal and the capture of Daud Khan Karrani marked the end of the Bengal Sultanate during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar. In the late 16th-century, a confederation called the Baro-Bhuyan resisted Mughal invasions in eastern Bengal. The Baro-Bhuyan included twelve Muslim and Hindu leaders of the Zamindars of Bengal. They were led by Isa Khan, a former prime minister of the Bengal Sultanate. By the 17th century, the Mughals were able to fully absorb the region to their empire.
Mughal period.
Mughal Bengal had the richest elite and was the wealthiest region in the subcontinent. Bengal's trade and wealth impressed the Mughals so much that it was described as the "Paradise of the Nations" by the Mughal Emperors. A new provincial capital was built in Dhaka. Members of the imperial family were appointed to positions in Mughal Bengal, including the position of governor ("subedar"). Dhaka became a centre of palace intrigue and politics. Some of the most prominent governors included Rajput general Man Singh I, Emperor Shah Jahan's son Prince Shah Shuja, Emperor Aurangzeb's son and later Mughal emperor Azam Shah, and the influential aristocrat Shaista Khan. During the tenure of Shaista Khan, the Portuguese and Arakanese were expelled from the port of Chittagong in 1666. Bengal became the eastern frontier of the Mughal administration. By the 18th century, Bengal became home to a semi-independent aristocracy led by the Nawabs of Bengal. Bengal premier Murshid Quli Khan managed to curtail the influence of the governor due to his rivalry with Prince Azam Shah. Khan controlled Bengal's finances since he was in charge of the treasury. He shifted the provincial capital from Dhaka to Murshidabad.
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In 1717, the Mughal court in Delhi recognised the hereditary monarchy of the Nawab of Bengal. The ruler was officially titled as the "Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa", as the Nawab ruled over the three regions in the eastern subcontinent. The Nawabs began issuing their own coins but continued to pledge nominal allegiance to the Mughal emperor. The wealth of Bengal was vital for the Mughal court because Delhi received its biggest share of revenue from the Nawab's court. The Nawabs presided over a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity, including an era of growing organisation in textiles, banking, a military-industrial complex, the production of fine quality handicrafts, and other trades. A process of proto-industrialisation was underway. Under the Nawabs, the streets of Bengali cities were filled with brokers, workers, peons, naibs, wakils, and ordinary traders. The Nawab's state was a major exporter of Bengal muslin, silk, gunpowder and saltpetre. The Nawabs also permitted European trading companies to operate in Bengal, including the British East India Company, the French East India Company, the Danish East India Company, the Austrian East India Company, the Ostend Company, and the Dutch East India Company. The Nawabs were also suspicious of the growing influence of these companies.
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Under Mughal rule, Bengal was a centre of the worldwide muslin and silk trades. During the Mughal era, the most important centre of cotton production was Bengal, particularly around its capital city of Dhaka, leading to muslin being called "daka" in distant markets such as Central Asia. Domestically, much of India depended on Bengali products such as rice, silks and cotton textiles. Overseas, Europeans depended on Bengali products such as cotton textiles, silks and opium; Bengal accounted for 40% of Dutch imports from Asia, for example, including more than 50% of textiles and around 80% of silks. From Bengal, saltpetre was also shipped to Europe, opium was sold in Indonesia, raw silk was exported to Japan and the Netherlands, cotton and silk textiles were exported to Europe, Indonesia, and Japan, cotton cloth was exported to the Americas and the Indian Ocean. Bengal also had a large shipbuilding industry. In terms of shipbuilding tonnage during the 16th–18th centuries, economic historian Indrajit Ray estimates the annual output of Bengal at 223,250 tons, compared with 23,061 tons produced in nineteen colonies in North America from 1769 to 1771.
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Since the 16th century, European traders traversed the sea routes to Bengal, following the Portuguese conquests of Malacca and Goa. The Portuguese established a settlement in Chittagong with permission from the Bengal Sultanate in 1528 but were later expelled by the Mughals in 1666. In the 18th-century, the Mughal Court rapidly disintegrated due to Nader Shah's invasion and internal rebellions, allowing European colonial powers to set up trading posts across the territory. The British East India Company eventually emerged as the foremost military power in the region; and defeated the last independent Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.
Colonial era (1757–1947).
The British East India Company began influencing and controlling the Nawab of Bengal from 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, thus signalling the start of British influence in India. British control of Bengal increased between 1757 and 1793 while the Nawab was reduced to a puppet figure.
with the Presidency of Fort William asserting greater control over the entire province of Bengal and neighbouring territories. Calcutta was named the capital of British territories in India in 1772. The presidency was run by a military-civil administration, including the Bengal Army, and had the world's sixth earliest railway network. Between 1833 and 1854, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Governor-General of India for many years. Great Bengal famines struck several times during colonial rule (notably the Great Bengal famine of 1770 and Bengal famine of 1943). Under British rule, Bengal experienced the deindustrialisation of its pre-colonial economy.
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Company policies led to the deindustrialisation of Bengal's textile industry. The capital amassed by the East India Company in Bengal was invested in the emerging Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, in industries such as textile manufacturing. Economic mismanagement, alongside drought and a smallpox epidemic, directly led to the Great Bengal famine of 1770, which is estimated to have caused the deaths of between 1 million and 10 million people.
In 1862, the Bengal Legislative Council was set up as the first modern legislature in India. Elected representation was gradually introduced during the early 20th century, including with the Morley-Minto reforms and the system of dyarchy. In 1937, the council became the upper chamber of the Bengali legislature while the Bengal Legislative Assembly was created. Between 1937 and 1947, the chief executive of the government was the Prime Minister of Bengal.
The Bengal Presidency was the largest administrative unit in the British Empire. At its height, it covered large parts of present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia, and Singapore. In 1830, the British Straits Settlements on the coast of the Malacca Straits was made a residency of Bengal. The area included the erstwhile Prince of Wales Island, Province Wellesley, Malacca and Singapore. In 1867, Penang, Singapore and Malacca were separated from Bengal into the Straits Settlements. British Burma became a province of India and a later a Crown colony in itself. Western areas, including the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and The Punjab, were further reorganised. Northeastern areas became Colonial Assam.
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In 1876, about 200,000 people were killed in Bengal by the Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 in the Barisal region. About 50 million were killed in Bengal due to massive plague outbreaks and famines which happened in 1895 to 1920, mostly in western Bengal.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was initiated on the outskirts of Calcutta, and spread to Dhaka, Chittagong, Jalpaiguri, Sylhet and Agartala, in solidarity with revolts in North India. The failure of the rebellion led to the abolition of the Company Rule in India and establishment of direct rule over India by the British, commonly referred to as the British Raj. The late 19th and early 20th century Bengal Renaissance had a great impact on the cultural and economic life of Bengal and started a great advance in the literature and science of Bengal. Between 1905 and 1911, an abortive attempt was made to divide the province of Bengal into two: Bengal proper and the short-lived province of Eastern Bengal and Assam where the All India Muslim League was founded. In 1911, the Bengali poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Bengal played a major role in the Indian independence movement, in which revolutionary groups were dominant. Armed attempts to overthrow the British Raj began with the rebellion of Titumir, and reached a climax when Subhas Chandra Bose led the Indian National Army against the British. Bengal was also central in the rising political awareness of the Muslim population—the All-India Muslim League was established in Dhaka in 1906. The Muslim homeland movement pushed for a sovereign state in eastern India with the Lahore Resolution in 1943. Hindu nationalism was also strong in Bengal, which was home to groups like the Hindu Mahasabha. In spite of a last-ditch effort by politicians Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Sarat Chandra Bose to form a United Bengal, when India gained independence in 1947, Bengal was partitioned along religious lines. The western joined India (and was named West Bengal) while the eastern part joined Pakistan as a province called East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan, giving rise to Bangladesh in 1971). The circumstances of partition were bloody, with widespread religious riots in Bengal.
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Partition of Bengal (1947).
On 27 April 1947, the last Prime Minister of Bengal Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy held a press conference in New Delhi where he outlined his vision for an independent Bengal. Suhrawardy said "Let us pause for a moment to consider what Bengal can be if it remains united. It will be a great country, indeed the richest and the most prosperous in India capable of giving to its people a high standard of living, where a great people will be able to rise to the fullest height of their stature, a land that will truly be plentiful. It will be rich in agriculture, rich in industry and commerce and in course of time it will be one of the powerful and progressive states of the world. If Bengal remains united this will be no dream, no fantasy". On 2 June 1947, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee told the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom that there was a "distinct possibility Bengal might decide against partition and against joining either Hindustan or Pakistan".
On 3 June 1947, the Mountbatten Plan outlined the partition of British India. On 20 June, the Bengal Legislative Assembly met to decide on the partition of Bengal. At the preliminary joint meeting, it was decided (126 votes to 90) that if the province remained united, it should join the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. At a separate meeting of legislators from West Bengal, it was decided (58 votes to 21) that the province should be partitioned and West Bengal should join the Constituent Assembly of India. At another meeting of legislators from East Bengal, it was decided (106 votes to 35) that the province should not be partitioned and (107 votes to 34) that East Bengal should join the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan if Bengal was partitioned. On 6 July, the Sylhet district of Assam voted in a referendum to join East Bengal.
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The English barrister Cyril Radcliffe was instructed to draw the borders of Pakistan and India. The Radcliffe Line created the boundary between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, which later became the Bangladesh-India border. The Radcliffe Line awarded two-thirds of Bengal as the eastern wing of Pakistan, although the historic Bengali capitals of Gaur, Pandua, Murshidabad and Calcutta fell on the Indian side close to the border with Pakistan. Dhaka's status as a capital was also restored.
Geography.
Most of the Bengal region lies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta, but there are highlands in its north, northeast and southeast. The Ganges Delta arises from the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers and their respective tributaries. The total area of Bengal is —West Bengal is and Bangladesh .
The flat and fertile Bangladesh Plain dominates the geography of Bangladesh. The Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet region are home to most of the mountains in Bangladesh. Most parts of Bangladesh are within above the sea level, and it is believed that about 10% of the land would be flooded if the sea level were to rise by . Because of this low elevation, much of this region is exceptionally vulnerable to seasonal flooding due to monsoons.
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The highest point in Bangladesh is in Mowdok range at . A major part of the coastline comprises a marshy jungle, the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world and home to diverse flora and fauna, including the royal Bengal tiger. In 1997, this region was declared endangered.
West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south. The state has a total area of . The Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in the northern extreme of the state belongs to the eastern Himalaya. This region contains Sandakfu ()—the highest peak of the state. The narrow Terai region separates this region from the plains, which in turn transitions into the Ganges delta towards the south. The Rarh region intervenes between the Ganges delta in the east and the western plateau and high lands. A small coastal region is on the extreme south, while the Sundarbans mangrove forests form a remarkable geographical landmark at the Ganges delta.
At least nine districts in West Bengal and 42 districts in Bangladesh have arsenic levels in groundwater above the World Health Organization maximum permissible limit of 50 μg/L or 50 parts per billion and the untreated water is unfit for human consumption. The water causes arsenicosis, skin cancer and various other complications in the body.
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Geographic distinctions.
North Bengal.
North Bengal is a term used for the north-western part of Bangladesh and northern part of West Bengal. The Bangladeshi part comprises Rajshahi Division and Rangpur Division. Generally, it is the area lying west of Jamuna River and north of Padma River, and includes the Barind Tract. Politically, West Bengal's part comprises Jalpaiguri Division and most of Malda division (except Murshidabad district) together and Bihar's parts include Kishanganj district. Darjeeling Hilly are also part of North Bengal. The people of Jaipaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar usually identify themselves as North Bengali. North Bengal is divided into Terai and Dooars regions. North Bengal is also noted for its rich cultural heritage, including two UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Aside from the Bengali majority, North Bengal is home to many other communities including Nepalis, Santhal people, Lepchas and Rajbongshis.
Northeast Bengal.
Northeast Bengal refers to the Sylhet region, which today comprises the Sylhet Division of Bangladesh and Karimganj district in the Indian state of Assam. The region is famous for its fertile land terrain, many rivers, extensive tea plantations, rainforests and wetlands. The Brahmaputra and Barak river are the geographic markers of the area. The city of Sylhet is its largest urban centre, and the region is known for its unique regional Sylheti language. The ancient name of the region is Srihatta and Nasratshahi. The region was ruled by the Kamarupa and Harikela kingdoms as well as the Bengal Sultanate. It later became a district of the Mughal Empire. Alongside the predominant Bengali population resides a small Garo, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Khasia and other tribal minorities.
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The region is the crossroads of Bengal and northeast India.
Central Bengal.
Central Bengal refers to the Dhaka Division of Bangladesh. It includes the elevated Madhupur tract with a large Sal tree forest. The Padma River cuts through the southern part of the region, separating the greater Faridpur region. In the north lies the greater Mymensingh and Tangail regions.
South Bengal.
South Bengal covers the southwestern Bangladesh and the southern part of the Indian state of West Bengal. The Bangladeshi part includes Khulna Division, Barisal Division and the proposed Faridpur Division The part of South Bengal of West Bengal includes Presidency division, Burdwan division and Medinipur division.
The Sundarbans, a major biodiversity hotspot, is located in South Bengal. Bangladesh hosts 60% of the forest, with the remainder in India.
Southeast Bengal.
Southeast Bengal refers to the hilly-coastal Chittagonian-speaking and coastal Bengali-speaking areas of Chittagong Division in southeastern Bangladesh. The region is noted for its thalassocratic and seafaring heritage. The area was dominated by the Bengali Harikela and Samatata kingdoms in antiquity. It was known to Arab traders as "Samandar" in the 9th century. During the medieval period, the region was ruled by the Chandra dynasty, the sultanate of Bengal, the kingdom of Tripura, the kingdom of Mrauk U, the Portuguese Empire and the Mughal Empire, prior to the advent of British rule. The Chittagonian language, a sister of Bengali is prevalent in coastal areas of southeast Bengal. Along with its Bengali population, it is also home to Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups, including the Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya and Bawm peoples.
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Southeast Bengal is considered a bridge to Southeast Asia and the northern parts of Arakan are also historically considered to be a part of it.
Places of interest.
There are four World Heritage Sites in the region, including the Sundarbans, the Somapura Mahavihara, the Mosque City of Bagerhat and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. Other prominent places include the Bishnupur, Bankura temple city, the Adina Mosque, the Caravanserai Mosque, numerous zamindar palaces (like Ahsan Manzil and Cooch Behar Palace), the Lalbagh Fort, the Great Caravanserai ruins, the Shaista Khan Caravanserai ruins, the Kolkata Victoria Memorial, the Dhaka Parliament Building, archaeologically excavated ancient fort cities in Mahasthangarh, Mainamati, Chandraketugarh and Wari-Bateshwar, the Jaldapara National Park, the Lawachara National Park, the Teknaf Game Reserve and the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh is home to the longest natural sea beach in the world with an unbroken length of 120 km (75 mi). It is also a growing surfing destination. St. Martin's Island, off the coast of Chittagong Division, is home to the sole coral reef in Bengal.
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Other regions.
Bengal was a regional power of the Indian subcontinent. The administrative jurisdiction of Bengal historically extended beyond the territory of Bengal proper. In the 9th century, the Pala Empire of Bengal ruled large parts of northern India. The Bengal Sultanate controlled Bengal, Assam, Arakan, Bihar and Orissa at different periods in history. In Mughal Bengal, the Nawab of Bengal had a jurisdiction covering Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Bengal's administrative jurisdiction reached its greatest extent under the British Empire, when the Bengal Presidency extended from the Straits of Malacca in the east to the Khyber Pass in the west. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, administrative reorganisation drastically reduced the territory of Bengal.
Several regions bordering Bengal proper continue to have high levels of Bengali influence. The Indian state of Tripura has a Bengali majority population. Bengali influence is also prevalent in the Indian regions of Assam, Meghalaya, Bihar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; as well as in Myanmar's Rakhine State.
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Arakan.
Arakan (now Rakhine State, Myanmar) has historically been under strong Bengali influence. Since antiquity, Bengal has influenced the culture of Arakan. The ancient Bengali script was used in Arakan. An Arakanese inscription recorded the reign of the Bengali Candra dynasty. Paul Wheatley described the "Indianization" of Arakan.
According to Pamela Gutman, "Arakan was ruled by kings who adopted Indian titles and traditions to suit their own environment. Indian Brahmins conducted royal ceremonies, Buddhist monks spread their teachings, traders came and went and artists and architects used Indian models for inspiration. In the later period, there was also influence from the Islamic courts of Bengal and Delhi". Arakan emerged as a vassal state of the Bengal Sultanate. It later became an independent kingdom. The royal court and culture of the Kingdom of Mrauk U was heavily influenced by Bengal. Bengali Muslims served in the royal court as ministers and military commanders. Bengali Hindus and Bengali Buddhists served as priests. Some of the most important poets of medieval Bengali literature lived in Arakan, including Alaol and Daulat Qazi. In 1660, Prince Shah Shuja, the governor of Mughal Bengal and a pretender of the Peacock Throne of India, was forced to seek asylum in Arakan. Bengali influence in the Arakanese royal court persisted until Burmese annexation in the 18th-century.
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The modern-day Rohingya population is a legacy of Bengal's influence on Arakan. The Rohingya genocide resulted in the displacement of over a million people between 2016 and 2017, with many being uprooted from their homes in Rakhine State.
Assam.
The Indian state of Assam shares many cultural similarities with Bengal. The Assamese language uses the same script as the Bengali language. The Barak Valley has a Bengali-speaking majority population. During the Partition of India, Assam was also partitioned along with Bengal. The Sylhet Division joined East Bengal in Pakistan, with the exception of Karimganj which joined Indian Assam. Previously, East Bengal and Assam were part of a single province called Eastern Bengal and Assam between 1905 and 1912 under the British Raj.
Assam and Bengal were often part of the same kingdoms, including Kamarupa, Gauda and Kamata. Large parts of Assam were annexed by Alauddin Hussain Shah during the Bengal Sultanate. Assam was one of the few regions in the subcontinent to successfully resist Mughal expansion and never fell completely under Mughal rule.
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Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Bengali is the most spoken language among the population of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a strategically important archipelago which is controlled by India as a federal territory. The islands were once used as a British penal colony. During World War II, the islands were seized by the Japanese and controlled by the Provisional Government of Free India. Anti-British leader Subhash Chandra Bose visited and renamed the islands. Between 1949 and 1971, the Indian government resettled many Bengali Hindus in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Bihar.
In antiquity, Bihar and Bengal were often part of the same kingdoms. The ancient region of Magadha covered both Bihar and Bengal. Magadha was the birthplace or bastion of several pan-Indian empires, including the Mauryan Empire, the Gupta Empire and the Pala Empire. Bengal, Bihar and Orissa together formed a single province under the Mughal Empire. The Nawab of Bengal was styled as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
Chittagong Hill Tracts.
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The Chittagong Hill Tracts is the southeastern frontier of Bangladesh. Its indigenous population includes Tibeto-Burman ethnicities, including the Chakma people, Bawm people and Mro people among others. The region was historically ruled by tribal chieftains of the Chakma Circle and Bohmong Circle. In 1713, the Chakma Raja signed a treaty with Mughal Bengal after obtaining permission from Emperor Farrukhsiyar for trade with the plains of Chittagong. Like the kings of Arakan, the Chakma Circle began to fashion themselves using Mughal nomenclatures and titles. They initially resisted the Permanent Settlement and the activities of the East India Company. The tribal royal families of the region came under heavy Bengali influence. The Chakma queen Benita Roy was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore. The region was governed by the Chittagong Hill Tracts manual under colonial rule. The manual was significantly amended after the end of British rule; and the region became fully integrated with Bangladesh.
Malay Archipelago.
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Through trade, settlements and the exchange of ideas; parts of Maritime Southeast Asia became linked with Bengal. Language, literature, art, governing systems, religions and philosophies in ancient Sumatra and Java were influenced by Bengal. Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms in Southeast Asia depended on the Bay of Bengal for trade and ideas. Islam in Southeast Asia also spread through the Bay of Bengal, which was a bridge between the Malay Archipelago and Indo-Islamic states of the Indian subcontinent. A large number of wealthy merchants from Bengal were based in Malacca. Bengali ships were the largest ships in the waters of the Malay Archipelago during the 15th century.
Between 1830 and 1867, the ports of Singapore and Malacca, the island of Penang, and a portion of the Malay Peninsula were ruled under the jurisdiction of the Bengal Presidency of the British Empire. These areas were known as the Straits Settlements, which was separated from the Bengal Presidency and converted into a Crown colony in 1867.
Meghalaya.
The Indian state of Meghalaya historically came under the influence of Shah Jalal, a Muslim missionary and conqueror from Sylhet. During British rule, the city of Shillong was the summer capital of Eastern Bengal and Assam (modern Bangladesh and Northeast India). Shillong boasted the highest per capita income in British India.
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North India.
The ancient Mauryan, Gupta and Pala empires of the Magadha region (Bihar and Bengal) extended into northern India. The westernmost border of the Bengal Sultanate extended towards Varanasi and Jaunpur. In the 19th century, Punjab and the Ceded and Conquered Provinces formed the western extent of the Bengal Presidency. According to the British historian Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, "The Bengal Presidency, an administrative jurisdiction introduced by the East India Company, would later include not only the whole of northern India up to the Khyber Pass on the north-west frontier with Afghanistan, but would spread eastwards to Burma and Singapore as well".
Odisha.
Odisha, previously known as Orissa, has a significant Bengali minority. Historically, the region has faced invasions from Bengal, including an invasion by Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah. Parts of the region were ruled by the Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal. The Nawab of Bengal was styled as the "Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa" because the Nawab was granted jurisdiction over Orissa by the Mughal Emperor.
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Tibet.
During the Pala dynasty, Tibet received missionaries from Bengal who influenced the emergence of Tibetan Buddhism. One of the most notable missionaries was Atisa. During the 13th century, Tibet experienced an Islamic invasion by the forces of Bakhtiyar Khalji, the Muslim conqueror of Bengal.
Tripura.
The princely state of Tripura was ruled by the Manikya dynasty until the 1949 Tripura Merger Agreement. Tripura was historically a vassal state of Bengal. After assuming the throne with military support from the Bengal Sultanate in 1464, Ratna Manikya I introduced administrative reforms inspired by the government of Bengal. The Tripura kings requested Sultan Barbak Shah to provide manpower for developing the administration of Tripura. As a result, Bengali Hindu bureaucrats, cultivators and artisans began settling in Tripura. Today, the Indian state of Tripura has a Bengali-majority population. Modern Tripura is a gateway for trade and transport links between Bangladesh and Northeast India. In Bengali culture, the celebrated singer S. D. Burman was a member of the Tripura royal family.
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Flora and fauna.
The flat Bengal Plain, which covers most of Bangladesh and West Bengal, is one of the most fertile areas on Earth, with lush vegetation and farmland dominating its landscape. Bengali villages are buried among groves of mango, jackfruit, betel nut and date palm. Rice, jute, mustard and sugarcane plantations are a common sight. Water bodies and wetlands provide a habitat for many aquatic plants in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. The northern part of the region features Himalayan foothills ("Dooars") with densely wooded Sal and other tropical evergreen trees. Above an elevation of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), the forest becomes predominantly subtropical, with a predominance of temperate-forest trees such as oaks, conifers and rhododendrons. Sal woodland is also found across central Bangladesh, particularly in the Bhawal National Park. The Lawachara National Park is a rainforest in northeastern Bangladesh. The Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh is noted for its high degree of biodiversity.
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The littoral Sundarbans in the southwestern part of Bengal is the largest mangrove forest in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The region has over 89 species of mammals, 628 species of birds and numerous species of fish. For Bangladesh, the water lily, the oriental magpie-robin, the hilsa and mango tree are national symbols. For West Bengal, the white-throated kingfisher, the chatim tree and the night-flowering jasmine are state symbols. The Bengal tiger is the national animal of Bangladesh and India. The fishing cat is the state animal of West Bengal.
Politics.
Today, the region of Bengal proper is divided between the sovereign state of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. The Bengali-speaking Barak Valley forms part of the Indian state of Assam. The Indian state of Tripura has a Bengali-speaking majority and was formerly the princely state of Hill Tipperah. In the Bay of Bengal, St. Martin's Island is governed by Bangladesh; while the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has a plurality of Bengali speakers and is governed by India's federal government as a union territory.
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Bangladeshi Republic.
The state of Bangladesh is a parliamentary republic based on the Westminster system, with a written constitution and a President elected by parliament for mostly ceremonial purposes. The government is headed by a Prime Minister, who is appointed by the President from among the popularly elected 300 Members of Parliament in the Jatiyo Sangshad, the national parliament. The Prime Minister is traditionally the leader of the single largest party in the Jatiyo Sangshad. Under the constitution, while recognising Islam as the country's established religion, the constitution grants freedom of religion to non-Muslims.
Between 1975 and 1990, Bangladesh had a presidential system of government. Since the 1990s, it was administered by non-political technocratic caretaker governments on four occasions, the last being under military-backed emergency rule in 2007 and 2008. The Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are the two most dominant political parties in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is a member of the UN, WTO, IMF, the World Bank, ADB, OIC, IDB, SAARC, BIMSTEC and the IMCTC. Bangladesh has achieved significant strides in human development compared to its neighbours.
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Indian Bengal.
West Bengal is a constituent state of the Republic of India, with local executives and assemblies- features shared with other states in the Indian federal system. The president of India appoints a governor as the ceremonial representative of the union government. The governor appoints the chief minister on the nomination of the legislative assembly. The chief minister is the traditionally the leader of the party or coalition with most seats in the assembly. President's rule is often imposed in Indian states as a direct intervention of the union government led by the prime minister of India. The Bengali-speaking zone of India carries 48 seats in the lower house of India, Lok Sabha.
Each state has popularly elected members in the Indian lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha. Each state nominates members to the Indian upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha.
The state legislative assemblies also play a key role in electing the ceremonial president of India. The former president of India, Pranab Mukherjee, was a native of West Bengal and a leader of the Indian National Congress. The current leader of opposition of India, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is from West Bengal. He has been elected from Baharampur Lok Sabha constituency.
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The major political forces in the Bengali-speaking zone of India are the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress, the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Bengali-speaking zone of India is considered stronghold for Communism in India. Bengalis are known not to vote on communal lines but in recent years this conception has how changed. The West Bengal based Trinamool Congress is now the third largest party of India in terms of number of MP or MLA after the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress. Earlier the Communist Party of India (Marxist) held this position.
Crossborder relations.
India and Bangladesh are the world's first and eighth most populous countries respectively. Bangladesh-India relations began on a high note in 1971 when India played a major role in the liberation of Bangladesh, with the Indian Bengali populace and media providing overwhelming support to the independence movement in the former East Pakistan. The two countries had a twenty five-year friendship treaty between 1972 and 1996. However, differences over river sharing, border security and access to trade have long plagued the relationship. In more recent years, a consensus has evolved in both countries on the importance of developing good relations, as well as a strategic partnership in South Asia and beyond. Commercial, cultural and defence co-operation have expanded since 2010, when Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Manmohan Singh pledged to reinvigorate ties.
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The Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi operates a Deputy High Commission in Kolkata and a consular office in Agartala. India has a High Commission in Dhaka with consulates in Chittagong and Rajshahi. Frequent international air, bus and rail services connect major cities in Bangladesh and Indian Bengal, particularly the three largest cities- Dhaka, Kolkata and Chittagong. Undocumented immigration of Bangladeshi workers is a controversial issue championed by right-wing nationalist parties in India but finds little sympathy in West Bengal. India has since fenced the border which has been criticised by Bangladesh.
Economy.
The Ganges Delta provided advantages of fertile soil, ample water, and an abundance of fish, wildlife, and fruit. Living standards for Bengal's elite were relatively better than other parts of the Indian subcontinent. Between 400 and 1200, Bengal had a well-developed economy in terms of land ownership, agriculture, livestock, shipping, trade, commerce, taxation, and banking. The apparent vibrancy of the Bengal economy in the beginning of the 15th century is attributed to the end of tribute payments to the Delhi Sultanate, which ceased after the creation of the Bengal Sultanate and stopped the outflow of wealth. Ma Huan's travelogue recorded a booming shipbuilding industry and significant international trade in Bengal.
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In 1338, Ibn Battuta noticed that the silver taka was the most popular currency in the region instead of the Islamic dinar. In 1415, members of Admiral Zheng He's entourage also noticed the dominance of the taka. The currency was the most important symbol of sovereignty for the Sultan of Bengal. The Sultanate of Bengal established an estimated 27 mints in provincial capitals across the kingdom. These provincial capitals were known as Mint Towns. These Mint Towns formed an integral aspect of governance and administration in Bengal.
The taka continued to be issued in Mughal Bengal, which inherited the sultanate's legacy. As Bengal became more prosperous and integrated into the world economy under Mughal rule, the taka replaced shell currency in rural areas and became the standardised legal tender. It was also used in commerce with the Dutch East India Company, the French East India Company, the Danish East India Company and the British East India Company. Under Mughal rule, Bengal was the centre of the worldwide muslin trade. The muslin trade in Bengal was patronised by the Mughal imperial court. Muslin from Bengal was worn by aristocratic ladies in courts as far away as Europe, Persia and Central Asia. The treasury of the Nawab of Bengal was the biggest source of revenue for the imperial Mughal court in Delhi. Bengal had a large shipbuilding industry. The shipbuilding output of Bengal during the 16th and 17th centuries stood at 223,250tons annually, which was higher than the volume of shipbuilding in the nineteen colonies of North America between 1769 and 1771.
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Historically, Bengal has been the industrial leader of the subcontinent. Mughal Bengal saw the emergence of a proto-industrial economy backed up by textiles and gunpowder. The organised early modern economy flourished till the beginning of British rule in the mid 18th-century, when the region underwent radical and revolutionary changes in government, trade, and regulation. The British displaced the indigenous ruling class and transferred much of the region's wealth back to the colonial metropole in Britain. In the 19th century, the British began investing in railways and limited industrialisation. However, the Bengali economy was dominated by trade in raw materials during much of the colonial period, particularly the jute trade.
The partition of India changed the economic geography of the region. Calcutta in West Bengal inherited a thriving industrial base from the colonial period, particularly in terms of jute processing. East Pakistan soon developed its industrial base, including the world's largest jute mill. In 1972, the newly independent government of Bangladesh nationalised 580 industrial plants. These industries were later privatised in the late 1970s as Bangladesh moved towards a market-oriented economy. Liberal reforms in 1991 paved the way for a major expansion of Bangladesh's private sector industry, including in telecoms, natural gas, textiles, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, steel and shipbuilding. In 2022, Bangladesh was the second largest economy in South Asia after India.
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The region is one of the largest rice producing areas in the world, with West Bengal being India's largest rice producer and Bangladesh being the world's fourth largest rice producer. Three Bengali economists have been Nobel laureates, including Amartya Sen and Abhijit Banerjee who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics and Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Intra-Bengal trade.
Bangladesh and India are the largest trading partners in South Asia, with two-way trade valued at an estimated US$16 billion. Most of this trade relationship is centred on some of the world's busiest land ports on the Bangladesh-India border. The Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal Initiative seeks to boost trade through a Regional Motor Vehicles Agreement.
Demographics.
The Bengal region is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. With a population of 300 million, Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world after the Han Chinese and Arabs.
According to provisional results of 2011 Bangladesh census, the population of Bangladesh was 149,772,364; however, CIA's "The World Factbook" gives 163,654,860 as its population in a July 2013 estimate. According to the provisional results of the 2011 Indian national census, West Bengal has a population of 91,347,736. "So, the Bengal region, , has at least 241.1 million people. This figures give a population density of 1003.9/km2; making it among the most densely populated areas in the world.
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Bengali is the main language spoken in Bengal. Many phonological, lexical, and structural differences from the standard variety occur in peripheral varieties of Bengali across the region. Other regional languages closely related to Bengali include Sylheti, Chittagonian, Chakma, Rangpuri/Rajbangshi, Hajong, Rohingya, and Tangchangya.
According to the 2011 Indian census, 18% of the Bengali-speakers are bilingual of whom half can speak Hindi, and 5% are trilingual.
In general, Bengalis are followers of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism with a significant number are Irreligious.
In addition, several minority ethnolinguistic groups are native to the region. These include speakers of other Indo-Aryan languages (e.g., Bishnupriya Manipuri, Oraon Sadri, various Bihari languages), Tibeto-Burman languages (e.g., A'Tong, Chak, Koch, Garo, Megam, Meitei (officially called "Manipuri"), Mizo, Mru, Pangkhua, Rakhine/Marma, Kok Borok, Riang, Tippera, Usoi, various Chin languages), Austroasiatic languages (e.g., Khasi, Koda, Mundari, Pnar, Santali, War), and Dravidian languages (e.g., Kurukh, Sauria Paharia).
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Life expectancy is around 72.49 years for Bangladesh and 70.2 for West Bengal. In terms of literacy, West Bengal leads with 77% literacy rate, in Bangladesh the rate is approximately 72.9%. The level of poverty in West Bengal is at 19.98%, while in Bangladesh it stands at 12.9%
West Bengal has one of the lowest total fertility rates in India. West Bengal's TFR of 1.6 roughly equals that of Canada.
Major cities.
The Bengal region is home to the some of major urban areas of the world, Dhaka is the 4th largest urban areas of the world. Kolkata is 17th largest urban area.
Culture.
Language.
The Bengali language developed between the 7th and 10th centuries from Apabhraṃśa and Magadhi Prakrit. It is written using the indigenous Bengali alphabet, a descendant of the ancient Brahmi script. Bengali is the 5th most spoken language in the world. It is an eastern Indo-Aryan language and one of the easternmost branches of the Indo-European language family. It is part of the Bengali-Assamese languages. Bengali has greatly influenced other languages in the region, including Odia, Assamese, Chakma, Nepali and Rohingya. It is the sole state language of Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. It is also the seventh most spoken language by total number of speakers in the world.
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Bengali binds together a culturally diverse region and is an important contributor to regional identity. The 1952 Bengali Language Movement in East Pakistan is commemorated by UNESCO as International Mother Language Day, as part of global efforts to preserve linguistic identity.
Currency.
In both Bangladesh and West Bengal, currency is commonly denominated as taka. The Bangladesh taka is an official standard bearer of this tradition, while the Indian rupee is also written as taka in Bengali script on all of its banknotes. The history of the taka dates back centuries. Bengal was home one of the world's earliest coin currencies in the first millennium BCE. Under the Delhi Sultanate, the taka was introduced by Muhammad bin Tughluq in 1329. Bengal became the stronghold of the taka. The silver currency was the most important symbol of sovereignty of the Sultanate of Bengal. It was traded on the Silk Road and replicated in Nepal and China's Tibetan protectorate. The Pakistani rupee was scripted in Bengali as taka on its banknotes until Bangladesh's creation in 1971.
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Literature.
Bengali literature has a rich heritage. It has a history stretching back to the 3rd century BCE, when the main language was Sanskrit written in the brahmi script. The Bengali language and script evolved from Magadhi Prakrit. Bengal has a long tradition in folk literature, evidenced by the "Chôrjapôdô", "Mangalkavya", "Shreekrishna Kirtana", "Maimansingha Gitika" or "Thakurmar Jhuli". Bengali literature in the medieval age was often either religious (e.g. Chandidas), or adaptations from other languages (e.g. Alaol). During the Bengal Renaissance of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Bengali literature was modernised through the works of authors such as Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Satyendranath Dutta, Begum Rokeya and Jibanananda Das. In the 20th century, prominent modern Bengali writers included Syed Mujtaba Ali, Jasimuddin, Manik Bandopadhyay, Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Buddhadeb Bose, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Humayun Ahmed.
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Prominent contemporary Bengali writers in English include Amitav Ghosh, Tahmima Anam, Jhumpa Lahiri and Zia Haider Rahman among others.
Personification.
The Bangamata is a female personification of Bengal which was created during the Bengali Renaissance and later adopted by the Bengali nationalists. Hindu nationalists adopted a modified Bharat Mata as a national personification of India. The Mother Bengal represents not only biological motherness but its attributed characteristics as well – protection, never ending love, consolation, care, the beginning and the end of life. In Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem of Bangladesh, Rabindranath Tagore has used the word "Maa" (Mother) numerous times to refer to the motherland i.e. Bengal.
Art.
The Pala-Sena School of Art developed in Bengal between the 8th and 12th centuries and is considered a high point of classical Asian art. It included sculptures and paintings.
Islamic Bengal was noted for its production of the finest cotton fabrics and saris, notably the Jamdani, which received warrants from the Mughal court. The Bengal School of painting flourished in Kolkata and Shantiniketan in the British Raj during the early 20th century. Its practitioners were among the harbingers of modern painting in India. Zainul Abedin was the pioneer of modern Bangladeshi art. The country has a thriving and internationally acclaimed contemporary art scene.
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Architecture.
Classical Bengali architecture features terracotta buildings. Ancient Bengali kingdoms laid the foundations of the region's architectural heritage through the construction of monasteries and temples (for example, the Somapura Mahavihara). During the sultanate period, a distinct and glorious Islamic style of architecture developed the region. Most Islamic buildings were small and highly artistic terracotta mosques with multiple domes and no minarets. Bengal was also home to the largest mosque in South Asia at Adina. Bengali vernacular architecture is credited for inspiring the popularity of the bungalow.
The Bengal region also has a rich heritage of Indo-Saracenic architecture, including numerous zamindar palaces and mansions. The most prominent example of this style is the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata.
In the 1950s, Muzharul Islam pioneered the modernist terracotta style of architecture in South Asia. This was followed by the design of the Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban by the renowned American architect Louis Kahn in the 1960s, which was based on the aesthetic heritage of Bengali architecture and geography.
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Sciences.
The Gupta dynasty, which is believed to have originated in North Bengal, pioneered the invention of chess, the concept of zero, the theory of Earth orbiting the Sun, the study of solar and lunar eclipses and the flourishing of Sanskrit literature and drama.
The educational reforms during the British Raj gave birth to many distinguished scientists in Bengal. Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent. IEEE named him one of the fathers of radio science. He was the first person from the Indian subcontinent to receive a US patent, in 1904. In 1924–25, while researching at the University of Dhaka, Satyendra Nath Bose well known for his works in quantum mechanics, provided the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. Meghnad Saha was the first scientist to relate a star's spectrum to its temperature, developing thermal ionization equations (notably the Saha ionization equation) that have been foundational in the fields of astrophysics and astrochemistry. Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri was a physicist, known for his research in general relativity and cosmology. His most significant contribution is the eponymous Raychaudhuri equation, which demonstrates that singularities arise inevitably in general relativity and is a key ingredient in the proofs of the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems.
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In the United States, the Bangladeshi-American engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan emerged as the "father of tubular designs" in skyscraper construction. Ashoke Sen is an Indian theoretical physicist whose main area of work is string theory. He was among the first recipients of the Fundamental Physics Prize "for opening the path to the realisation that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory".
Music.
The Baul tradition is a unique heritage of Bengali folk music. The 19th century mystic poet Lalon Shah is the most celebrated practitioner of the tradition. Other folk music forms include Gombhira, Bhatiali and Bhawaiya. Hason Raja is a renowned folk poet of the Sylhet region. Folk music in Bengal is often accompanied by the ektara, a one-stringed instrument. Other instruments include the dotara, dhol, flute, and tabla. The region also has a rich heritage in North Indian classical music.
Cuisine.
Bengali cuisine is the only traditionally developed multi-course tradition from the Indian subcontinent. Rice and fish are traditional favourite foods, leading to a saying that "fish and rice make a Bengali". Bengal's vast repertoire of fish-based dishes includes Hilsa preparations, a favourite among Bengalis. Bengalis make distinctive sweetmeats from milk products, including "Rôshogolla", "Chômchôm", and several kinds of "Pithe". The old city of Dhaka is noted for its distinct Indo-Islamic cuisine, including biryani, bakarkhani and kebab dishes.
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Boats.
There are 150 types of Bengali country boats plying the 700 rivers of the Bengal delta, the vast floodplain and many oxbow lakes. They vary in design and size. The boats include the dinghy and sampan among others. Country boats are a central element of Bengali culture and have inspired generations of artists and poets, including the ivory artisans of the Mughal era. The country has a long shipbuilding tradition, dating back many centuries. Wooden boats are made of timber such as "Jarul" (dipterocarpus turbinatus)," sal" (shorea robusta), "sundari" (heritiera fomes), and "Burma teak" (tectons grandis). Medieval Bengal was shipbuilding hub for the Mughal and Ottoman navies. The British Royal Navy later utilised Bengali shipyards in the 19th century, including for the Battle of Trafalgar.
Attire.
Bengali women commonly wear the "shaŗi" , often distinctly designed according to local cultural customs. In urban areas, many women and men wear Western-style attire. Among men, European dressing has greater acceptance. Men also wear traditional costumes such as the "panjabi" with "dhoti" or "pyjama", often on religious occasions. The lungi, a kind of long skirt, is widely worn by Bangladeshi men.
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Festivals.
For Bengali Muslims, the major religious festivals are Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Mawlid, Muharram, and Shab-e-Barat. For Bengali Hindus, the major religious festivals include Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Janmashtami and Rath Yatra. In honour of Bengali Buddhists and Bengali Christians, both Buddha's Birthday and Christmas are public holidays in the region. The Bengali New Year is the main secular festival of Bengali culture celebrated by people regardless of religious and social backgrounds. The biggest congregation in Bengal is the Bishwa ijtema, which is also the world's second largest Islamic congregation. Other Bengali festivals include the first day of spring and the Nabanna harvest festival in autumn.
Media.
Bangladesh has a diverse, outspoken and privately owned press, with the largest circulated Bengali language newspapers in the world. English-language titles are popular in the urban readership. West Bengal had 559 published newspapers in 2005, of which 430 were in Bengali. Bengali cinema is divided between the media hubs of Dhaka and Kolkata.
Sports.
Cricket and football are popular sports in the Bengal region. Local games include sports such as Kho Kho and Kabaddi, the latter being the national sport of Bangladesh. An Indo-Bangladesh "Bengali Games" has been organised among the athletes of the Bengali speaking areas of the two countries. |
Bucket argument
Isaac Newton's rotating bucket argument (also known as Newton's bucket) is a thought experiment that was designed to demonstrate that true rotational motion cannot be defined as the relative rotation of the body with respect to the immediately surrounding bodies. It is one of five arguments from the "properties, causes, and effects" of "true motion and rest" that support his contention that, in general, true motion and rest cannot be defined as special instances of motion or rest relative to other bodies, but instead can be defined only by reference to absolute space. Alternatively, these experiments provide an operational definition of what is meant by "absolute rotation", and do not pretend to address the question of "rotation relative to "what"?" General relativity dispenses with absolute space and with physics whose cause is external to the system, with the concept of geodesics of spacetime.
Background.
These arguments, and a discussion of the distinctions between absolute and relative time, space, place and motion, appear in a scholium at the end of Definitions sections in Book I of Newton's work, "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (1687) (not to be confused with General Scholium at the end of Book III), which established the foundations of classical mechanics and introduced his law of universal gravitation, which yielded the first quantitatively adequate dynamical explanation of planetary motion.
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Despite their embrace of the principle of rectilinear inertia and the recognition of the kinematical relativity of apparent motion (which underlies whether the Ptolemaic or the Copernican system is correct), natural philosophers of the seventeenth century continued to consider true motion and rest as physically separate descriptors of an individual body. The dominant view Newton opposed was devised by René Descartes, and was supported (in part) by Gottfried Leibniz. It held that empty space is a metaphysical impossibility because space is nothing other than the extension of matter, or, in other words, that when one speaks of the space between things one is actually making reference to the relationship that exists between those things and not to some entity that stands between them. Concordant with the above understanding, any assertion about the motion of a body boils down to a description over time in which the body under consideration is at "t"1 found in the vicinity of one group of "landmark" bodies and at some "t"2 is found in the vicinity of some other "landmark" body or bodies.
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Descartes recognized that there would be a real difference, however, between a situation in which a body with movable parts and originally at rest with respect to a surrounding ring was itself accelerated to a certain angular velocity with respect to the ring, and another situation in which the surrounding ring were given a contrary acceleration with respect to the central object. With sole regard to the central object and the surrounding ring, the motions would be indistinguishable from each other assuming that both the central object and the surrounding ring were absolutely rigid objects. However, if neither the central object nor the surrounding ring were absolutely rigid then the parts of one or both of them would tend to fly out from the axis of rotation.
For contingent reasons having to do with the Inquisition, Descartes spoke of motion as both absolute and relative.
By the late 19th century, the contention that "all motion is relative" was re-introduced, notably by Ernst Mach (1883).
The argument.
Newton discusses a bucket () filled with water hung by a cord. If the cord is twisted up tightly on itself and then the bucket is released, it begins to spin rapidly, not only with respect to the experimenter, but also in relation to the water it contains. (This situation would correspond to diagram B above.)
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Although the relative motion at this stage is the greatest, the surface of the water remains flat, indicating that the parts of the water have no tendency to recede from the axis of relative motion, despite proximity to the pail. Eventually, as the cord continues to unwind, the surface of the water assumes a concave shape as it acquires the motion of the bucket spinning relative to the experimenter. This concave shape shows that the water is rotating, despite the fact that the water is at rest relative to the pail. In other words, it is not the relative motion of the pail and water that causes concavity of the water, contrary to the idea that motions can only be relative, and that there is no absolute motion. (This situation would correspond to diagram D.) Possibly the concavity of the water shows rotation relative to "something else": say absolute space? Newton says: "One can find out and measure the true and absolute circular motion of the water".
In the 1846 Andrew Motte translation of Newton's words:
The argument that the motion is absolute, not relative, is incomplete, as it limits the participants relevant to the experiment to only the pail and the water, a limitation that has not been established. In fact, the concavity of the water clearly involves gravitational attraction, and by implication the Earth also is a participant. Here is a critique due to Mach arguing that only relative motion is established:
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The degree in which Mach's hypothesis is integrated in general relativity is discussed in the article Mach's principle; it is generally held that general relativity is not entirely Machian.
All observers agree that the surface of rotating water is curved. However, the explanation of this curvature involves centrifugal force for all observers with the exception of a truly stationary observer, who finds the curvature is consistent with the rate of rotation of the water as they observe it, with no need for an additional centrifugal force. Thus, a stationary frame can be identified, and it is not necessary to ask "Stationary with respect to what?":
A supplementary thought experiment with the same objective of determining the occurrence of absolute rotation also was proposed by Newton: the example of observing two identical spheres in rotation about their center of gravity and tied together by a string. Occurrence of tension in the string is indicative of absolute rotation; see Rotating spheres.
Detailed analysis.
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The historic interest of the rotating bucket experiment is its usefulness in suggesting one can detect absolute rotation by observation of the shape of the surface of the water. However, one might question just how rotation brings about this change. Below are two approaches to understanding the concavity of the surface of rotating water in a bucket.
Newton's laws of motion.
The shape of the surface of a rotating liquid in a bucket can be determined using Newton's laws for the various forces on an element of the surface. For example, see Knudsen and Hjorth. The analysis begins with the free body diagram in the co-rotating frame where the water appears stationary. The height of the water "h" = "h"("r") is a function of the radial distance "r" from the axis of rotation Ω, and the aim is to determine this function. An element of water volume on the surface is shown to be subject to three forces: the vertical force due to gravity Fg, the horizontal, radially outward centrifugal force FCfgl, and the force normal to the surface of the water Fn due to the rest of the water surrounding the selected element of surface. The force due to surrounding water is known to be normal to the surface of the water because a liquid in equilibrium cannot support shear stresses. To quote Anthony and Brackett:
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Moreover, because the element of water does not move, the sum of all three forces must be zero. To sum to zero, the force of the water must point oppositely to the sum of the centrifugal and gravity forces, which means the surface of the water must adjust so its normal points in this direction. (A very similar problem is the design of a , where the slope of the turn is set so a car will not slide off the road. The analogy in the case of rotating bucket is that the element of water surface will "slide" up or down the surface unless the normal to the surface aligns with the vector resultant formed by the vector addition Fg + FCfgl.)
As "r" increases, the centrifugal force increases according to the relation (the equations are written per unit mass):
where "Ω" is the constant rate of rotation of the water. The gravitational force is unchanged at
where "g" is the acceleration due to gravity. These two forces add to make a resultant at an angle "φ" from the vertical given by
which clearly becomes larger as "r" increases. To ensure that this resultant is normal to the surface of the water, and therefore can be effectively nulled by the force of the water beneath, the normal to the surface must have the same angle, that is,
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leading to the ordinary differential equation for the shape of the surface:
or, integrating:
where "h"(0) is the height of the water at "r" = 0. In other words, the surface of the water is parabolic in its dependence upon the radius.
Potential energy.
The shape of the water's surface can be found in a different, very intuitive way using the interesting idea of the potential energy associated with the centrifugal force in the co-rotating frame.
In a reference frame uniformly rotating at angular rate Ω, the fictitious centrifugal force is conservative and has a potential energy of the form:
where "r" is the radius from the axis of rotation. This result can be verified by taking the gradient of the potential to obtain the radially outward force:
The meaning of the potential energy (stored work) is that movement of a test body from a larger radius to a smaller radius involves doing work against the centrifugal force and thus gaining potential energy. But this test body at the smaller radius where its elevation is lower has now lost equivalent gravitational potential energy.
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Potential energy therefore explains the concavity of the water surface in a rotating bucket. Notice that at equilibrium the surface adopts a shape such that an element of volume at any location on its surface has the same potential energy as at any other. That being so, no element of water on the surface has any incentive to move position, because all positions are equivalent in energy. That is, equilibrium is attained. On the other hand, were surface regions with lower energy available, the water occupying surface locations of higher potential energy would move to occupy these positions of lower energy, inasmuch as there is no barrier to lateral movement in an ideal liquid.
We might imagine deliberately upsetting this equilibrium situation by somehow momentarily altering the surface shape of the water to make it different from an equal-energy surface. This change in shape would not be stable, and the water would not stay in our artificially contrived shape, but engage in a transient exploration of many shapes until non-ideal frictional forces introduced by sloshing, either against the sides of the bucket or by the non-ideal nature of the liquid, killed the oscillations and the water settled down to the equilibrium shape.
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To see the principle of an equal-energy surface at work, imagine gradually increasing the rate of rotation of the bucket from zero. The water surface is flat at first, and clearly a surface of equal potential energy because all points on the surface are at the same height in the gravitational field acting upon the water. At some small angular rate of rotation, however, an element of surface water can achieve lower potential energy by moving outward under the influence of the centrifugal force; think of an object moving with the force of gravity closer to the Earth's center: the object lowers its potential energy by complying with a force. Because water is incompressible and must remain within the confines of the bucket, this outward movement increases the depth of water at the larger radius, increasing the height of the surface at larger radius, and lowering it at smaller radius. The surface of the water becomes slightly concave, with the consequence that the potential energy of the water at the greater radius is increased by the work done against gravity to achieve the greater height. As the height of water increases, movement toward the periphery becomes no longer advantageous, because the reduction in potential energy from working with the centrifugal force is balanced against the increase in energy working against gravity. Thus, at a given angular rate of rotation, a concave surface represents the stable situation, and the more rapid the rotation, the more concave this surface. If rotation is arrested, the energy stored in fashioning the concave surface must be dissipated, for example through friction, before an equilibrium flat surface is restored.
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To implement a surface of constant potential energy quantitatively, let the height of the water be formula_10: then the potential energy per unit mass contributed by gravity is formula_11 and the total potential energy per unit mass on the surface is
with formula_13 the background energy level independent of "r". In a static situation (no motion of the fluid in the rotating frame), this energy is constant independent of position "r". Requiring the energy to be constant, we obtain the parabolic form:
where "h"(0) is the height at "r" = 0 (the axis). See Figures 1 and 2.
The principle of operation of the centrifuge also can be simply understood in terms of this expression for the potential energy, which shows that it is favorable energetically when the volume far from the axis of rotation is occupied by the heavier substance. |
Roman Breviary
The Roman Breviary (Latin: "Breviarium Romanum") is a breviary of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church. A liturgical book, it contains public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office (i.e., at the canonical hours, the Christians' daily prayer).
The volume containing the daily hours of Catholic prayer was published as the "Breviarium Romanum" (Roman Breviary) from its "editio princeps" in 1568 under Pope Pius V until the reforms of Paul VI (1974), when replaced by the Liturgy of the Hours.
In the course of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, Pope Pius V (r. 1566–1572) imposed the use of the Roman Breviary, mainly based on the "Breviarium secundum usum Romanae Curiae", on the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. Exceptions are the Benedictines and Dominicans, who have breviaries of their own, and
two surviving local use breviaries:
Origin of name.
The Latin word "breviarium" generally signifies "abridgement, compendium". This wider sense has often been used by Christian authors, e.g. "Breviarium fidei, Breviarium in psalmos, Breviarium canonum, Breviarium regularum".
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In liturgical language specifically, "breviary" ("breviarium") has a special meaning, indicating a book furnishing the regulations for the celebration of Mass or the canonical Office, and may be met with under the titles "Breviarium Ecclesiastici Ordinis", or "Breviarium Ecclesiæ Romanæ". In the 9th century, Alcuin uses the word to designate an office abridged or simplified for the use of the laity. Prudentius of Troyes, about the same period, composed a "Breviarium Psalterii". In an ancient inventory occurs "Breviarium Antiphonarii", meaning "Extracts from the Antiphonary". In the "Vita Aldrici" occurs "sicut in plenariis et breviariis Ecclesiæ ejusdem continentur". Again, in the inventories in the catalogues, such notes as these may be met with: "Sunt et duo cursinarii et tres benedictionales Libri; ex his unus habet obsequium mortuorum et unus Breviarius", or, "Præter Breviarium quoddam quod usque ad festivitatem S. Joannis Baptistæ retinebunt", etc. Monte Cassino in c. 1100 obtained a book titled "Incipit Breviarium sive Ordo Officiorum per totam anni decursionem".
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From such references, and from others of a like nature, Quesnel gathers that by the word "Breviarium" was at first designated a book furnishing the rubrics, a sort of Ordo. The usage of "breviary" to mean a book containing the entire canonical office appears to date from the 11th century.
Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085) having abridged the order of prayers, and having simplified the Liturgy as performed at the Roman Court, this abridgment received the name of Breviary, which was suitable, since, according to the etymology of the word, it was an abridgment. The name has been extended to books which contain in one volume, or at least in one work, liturgical books of different kinds, such as the Psalter, the Antiphonary, the Responsoriary, the Lectionary, etc. In this connection it may be pointed out that in this sense the word, as it is used nowadays, is illogical; it should be named a Plenarium rather than a Breviarium, since, liturgically speaking, the word Plenarium exactly designates such books as contain several different compilations united under one cover.
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History.
Early history.
The canonical hours of the Breviary owe their remote origin to the Old Covenant when God commanded the Aaronic priests to offer morning and evening sacrifices. Other inspiration may have come from David's words in the Psalms "Seven times a day I praise you" (Ps. 119:164), as well as, "the just man meditates on the law day and night" (Ps. 1:2). Regarding Daniel "Three times daily he was kneeling and offering prayers and thanks to his God" (Dan. 6:10).
In the early days of Christian worship the Sacred Scriptures furnished all that was thought necessary, containing as it did the books from which the lessons were read and the psalms that were recited. The first step in the evolution of the Breviary was the separation of the Psalter into a choir-book. At first the president of the local church (bishop) or the leader of the choir chose a particular psalm as he thought appropriate. From about the 4th century certain psalms began to be grouped together, a process that was furthered by the monastic practice of daily reciting the 150 psalms. |
From about the 4th century certain psalms began to be grouped together, a process that was furthered by the monastic practice of daily reciting the 150 psalms. This took so much time that the monks began to spread it over a week, dividing each day into hours, and allotting to each hour its portion of the Psalter. St Benedict in the 6th century drew up such an arrangement, probably, though not certainly, on the basis of an older Roman division which, though not so skilful, is the one in general use. Gradually there were added to these psalter choir-books additions in the form of antiphons, responses, collects or short prayers, for the use of those not skilful at improvisation and metrical compositions. Jean Beleth, a 12th-century liturgical author, gives the following list of books necessary for the right conduct of the canonical office: the Antiphonarium, the Old and New Testaments, the "Passionarius (liber)" and the "Legendarius" (dealing respectively with martyrs and saints), the "Homiliarius" (homilies on the Gospels), the "Passionarius (liber)" and the "Legendarius" (dealing respectively with martyrs and saints), the "Homiliarius" (homilies on the Gospels), the "Sermologus" (collection of sermons) and the works of the Fathers, besides the "Psalterium" and the "Collectarium". To overcome the inconvenience of using such a library the Breviary came into existence and use. |
besides the "Psalterium" and the "Collectarium". To overcome the inconvenience of using such a library the Breviary came into existence and use. Already in the 9th century Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, had in a "Breviarium Psalterii" made an abridgment of the Psalter for the laity, giving a few psalms for each day, and Alcuin had rendered a similar service by including a prayer for each day and some other prayers, but no lessons or homilies.
Medieval breviaries.
The Breviary proper only dates from the 11th century; the earliest manuscript containing the whole canonical office is of the year 1099, and is in the Mazarin library. Gregory VII (pope 1073–1085), too, simplified the liturgy as performed at the Roman court, and gave his abridgment the name of Breviary, which thus came to denote a work which from another point of view might be called a Plenary, involving as it did the collection of several works into one. There are several extant specimens of 12th-century Breviaries, all Benedictine, but under Innocent III (pope 1198–1216) their use was extended, especially by the newly founded and active Franciscan order. These preaching friars, with the authorization of Gregory IX, adopted (with some modifications, e.g. the substitution of the "Gallican" for the "Roman" version of the Psalter) the Breviary hitherto used exclusively by the Roman court, and with it gradually swept out of Europe all the earlier partial books (Legendaries, Responsories), etc., and to some extent the local Breviaries, like that of Sarum. Finally, Nicholas III (pope 1277–1280) adopted this version both for the curia and for the basilicas of Rome, and thus made its position secure.
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Before the rise of the mendicant orders (wandering friars) in the 13th century, the daily services were usually contained in a number of large volumes. The first occurrence of a single manuscript of the daily office was written by the Benedictine order at Monte Cassino in Italy in 1099. The Benedictines were not a mendicant order, but a stable, monastery-based order, and single-volume breviaries are rare from this early period.
The arrangement of the Psalms in the Rule of St. Benedict had a profound impact upon the breviaries used by secular and monastic clergy alike, until 1911 when Pope Pius X introduced his reform of the Roman Breviary. In many places, every diocese, order or ecclesiastical province maintained its own edition of the breviary.
However, mendicant friars travelled frequently and needed a shortened, or abbreviated, daily office contained in one portable book, and single-volume breviaries flourished from the thirteenth century onwards. These abbreviated volumes soon became very popular and eventually supplanted the Catholic Church's Curia office, previously said by non-monastic clergy.
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Early printed editions.
Before the advent of printing, breviaries were written by hand and were often richly decorated with initials and miniature illustrations telling stories in the lives of Christ or the saints, or stories from the Bible. Later printed breviaries usually have woodcut illustrations, interesting in their own right but with poor relation to the beautifully illuminated breviaries.
The beauty and value of many of the Latin Breviaries were brought to the notice of English churchmen by one of the numbers of the Oxford "Tracts for the Times", since which time they have been much more studied, both for their own sake and for the light they throw upon the English Prayer-Book.
Early printed Breviaries were locally distributed and quickly worn out by daily use. As a result, surviving copies are rare; of those editions which survive at all, many are known only by a single copy.
In Scotland the only one which has survived the convulsions of the 16th century is "Aberdeen Breviary", a Scottish form of the Sarum Office (the Sarum Rite was much favoured in Scotland as a kind of protest against the jurisdiction claimed by the diocese of York), revised by William Elphinstone (bishop 1483–1514), and printed at Edinburgh by Walter Chapman and Androw Myllar in 1509–1510. Four copies have been preserved of it, of which only one is complete; but it was reprinted in facsimile in 1854 for the Bannatyne Club by the munificence of the Duke of Buccleuch. It is particularly valuable for the trustworthy notices of the early history of Scotland which are embedded in the lives of the national saints. Though enjoined by royal mandate in 1501 for general use within the realm of Scotland, it was probably never widely adopted. The new Scottish "Proprium" sanctioned for the Catholic province of St Andrews in 1903 contains many of the old Aberdeen collects and antiphons.
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The Sarum or Salisbury Breviary itself was very widely used. The first edition was printed at Venice in 1483 by Raynald de Novimagio in folio; the latest at Paris, 1556, 1557. While modern Breviaries are nearly always printed in four volumes, one for each season of the year, the editions of the Sarum never exceeded two parts.
Early modern reforms.
Until the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, every bishop had full power to regulate the Breviary of his own diocese; and this was acted upon almost everywhere. Each monastic community, also, had one of its own. Pope Pius V (r. 1566–1572), however, while sanctioning those which could show at least 200 years of existence, made the Roman obligatory in all other places. But the influence of the Roman rite has gradually gone much beyond this, and has superseded almost all the local uses. The Roman has thus become nearly universal, with the allowance only of additional offices for saints specially venerated in each particular diocese. |
The Roman has thus become nearly universal, with the allowance only of additional offices for saints specially venerated in each particular diocese. Some parts of the prefaces at the beginning of the English Prayer-Book are free translations of those of Quignonez. The Pian Breviary was again altered by Sixtus V in 1588, who introduced the revised Vulgate, in 1602 by Clement VIII (through Baronius and Bellarmine), especially as concerns the rubrics, and by Urban VIII (1623–1644), a purist who altered the text of certain hymns.
In the 17th and 18th centuries a movement of revision took place in France, and succeeded in modifying about half the Breviaries of that country. Historically, this proceeded from the labours of Jean de Launoy (1603–1678), "le dénicheur des saints", and Louis Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont, who had shown the falsity of numerous lives of the saints; theologically it was produced by the Port Royal school, which led men to dwell more on communion with God as contrasted with the invocation of the saints. This was mainly carried out by the adoption of a rule that all antiphons and responses should be in the exact words of Scripture, which cut out the whole class of appeals to created beings. The services were at the same time simplified and shortened, and the use of the whole Psalter every week (which had become a mere theory in the Roman Breviary, owing to its frequent supersession by saints' day services) was made a reality. These reformed French Breviaries—e.g. the Paris Breviary of 1680 by Archbishop François de Harlay (1625–1695) and that of 1736 by Archbishop Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc (1655–1746)—show a deep knowledge of Holy Scripture, and much careful adaptation of different texts.
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Later modern reforms.
During the pontificate of Pius IX, a strong Ultramontane movement arose against the French breviaries of 1680 and 1736. This was inaugurated by Montalembert, but its literary advocates were chiefly Prosper Guéranger, abbot of the Benedictine monastery Solesmes, and Louis Veuillot (1813–1883) of the "Univers". The movement succeeded in suppressing the breviaries, the last diocese to surrender being Orleans in 1875. The Jansenist and Gallican influence was also strongly felt in Italy and in Germany, where breviaries based on the French models were published at Cologne, Münster, Mainz and other towns. Meanwhile, under the direction of Benedict XIV (pope 1740–1758), a special congregation collected much material for an official revision, but nothing was published. In 1902, under Leo XIII, a commission under the presidency of Louis Duchesne was appointed to consider the breviary, the missal, the Roman Pontifical and the Roman Ritual.
Significant changes came in 1910 with the reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X. This revision modified the traditional psalm scheme so that, while all 150 psalms were used in the course of the week, these were said without repetition. Those assigned to the Sunday office underwent the least revision, although noticeably fewer psalms are recited at Matins, and both Lauds and Compline are slightly shorter due to psalms (or in the case of Compline the first few verses of a psalm) being removed. Pius X was probably influenced by earlier attempts to eliminate repetition in the psalter, most notably the liturgy of the Benedictine congregation of St. Maur. However, since Cardinal Quignonez's attempt to reform the Breviary employed this principle—albeit with no regard to the traditional scheme—such notions had floated around in the western Church, and can particularly be seen in the Paris Breviary.
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Pope Pius XII introduced optional use of a new translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew to a more classical Latin. Most breviaries published in the late 1950s and early 1960s used this "Pian Psalter".
Pope John XXIII also revised the Breviary in 1960, introducing changes drawn up by his predecessor Pope Pius XII. The most notable alteration is the shortening of most feasts from nine to three lessons at Matins, keeping only the Scripture readings (the former lesson i, then lessons ii and iii together), followed by either the first part of the patristic reading (lesson vii) or, for most feasts, a condensed version of the former second Nocturn, which was formerly used when a feast was reduced in rank and commemorated.
Abrogation and subsequent reauthorization.
The Second Vatican Council, in his Constitution "Sacrosanctum Concilium", asked the Pope for a comprehensive reform of the Hours. As a result, in 1970 the Breviary was replaced by the "Liturgy of the Hours", which is divided into six different volumes: Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter and two for the Ordinary Time; the new Hours were promulgated by Pope Paul VI in his apostolic constitution "Laudis canticum".
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In his apostolic letter "Summorum Pontificum", Pope Benedict XVI allowed clerics to fulfill their obligation of prayer using the 1962 edition of the Roman Breviary in lieu of the Liturgy of the Hours.
Contents of the Roman Breviary.
At the beginning stands the usual introductory matter, such as the tables for determining the date of Easter, the calendar, and the general rubrics. The Breviary itself is divided into four seasonal parts—winter, spring, summer, autumn—and comprises under each part:
These parts are often published separately.
The Psalter.
This psalm book is the very backbone of the Breviary, the groundwork of the Catholic prayer-book; out of it have grown the antiphons, responsories and versicles. Until the 1911 reform, the psalms were arranged according to a disposition dating from the 8th century, as follows: Psalms 1–108, with some omissions, were recited at Matins, twelve each day from Monday to Saturday, and eighteen on Sunday. The omissions were said at Lauds, Prime and Compline. Psalms 109-147 (except 117, 118, and 142) were said at Vespers, five each day. Psalms 148-150 were always used at Lauds, and give that hour its name. The text of this Psalter is that commonly known as the Gallican. The name is misleading, for it is simply the second revision (A.D. 392) made by Jerome of the old "Itala" version originally used in Rome. Jerome's first revision of the "Itala" (A.D. 383), known as the Roman, is still used at St Peter's in Rome, but the "Gallican", thanks especially to St Gregory of Tours, who introduced it into Gaul in the 6th century, has ousted it everywhere else. The Antiphonary of Bangor proves that Ireland accepted the Gallican version in the 7th century, and the English Church did so in the 10th.
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Following the 1911 reform, Matins was reduced to nine Psalms every day, with the other psalms redistributed throughout Prime, Terce, Sext, and Compline. For Sundays and special feasts Lauds and Vespers largely remained the same, Psalm 118 remained distributed at the Little Hours and Psalms 4, 90, and 130 were kept at Compline.
The "Proprium de Tempore".
This contains the office of the seasons of the Christian year (Advent to Trinity), a conception that only gradually grew up. There is here given the whole service for every Sunday and weekday, the proper antiphons, responsories, hymns, and especially the course of daily Scripture reading, averaging about twenty verses a day, and (roughly) arranged thus:
The "Proprium Sanctorum".
This contains the lessons, psalms and liturgical formularies for saints' festivals, and depends on the days of the secular month. The readings of the second Nocturn are mainly hagiological biography, with homilies or papal documents for certain major feasts, particularly those of Jesus and Mary. Some of this material has been revised by Leo XIII, in view of archaeological and other discoveries. The third Nocturn consists of a homily on the Gospel which is read at that day's Mass. Covering a great stretch of time and space, they do for the worshipper in the field of church history what the Scripture readings do in that of biblical history.
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The "Commune Sanctorum".
This comprises psalms, antiphons, lessons, &c., for feasts of various groups or classes (twelve in all); e.g. apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. These offices are of very ancient date, and many of them were probably in origin proper to individual saints. They contain passages of great literary beauty. The lessons read at the third nocturn are patristic homilies on the Gospels, and together form a rough summary of theological instruction.
Extra services.
Here are found the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Office for the Dead (obligatory on All Souls' Day), and offices peculiar to each diocese.
Elements of the Hours.
It has already been indicated, by reference to Matins, Lauds, &c., that not only each day, but each part of the day, has its own office, the day being divided into liturgical "hours." A detailed account of these will be found in the article Canonical Hours. Each of the hours of the office is composed of the same elements, and something must be said now of the nature of these constituent parts, of which mention has here and there been already made. They are: psalms (including canticles), antiphons, responsories, hymns, lessons, little chapters, versicles and collects.
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Psalms.
Before the 1911 reform, the multiplication of saints' festivals, with practically the same festal psalms, tended to repeat the about one-third of the Psalter, with a correspondingly rare recital of the remaining two-thirds. Following this reform, the entire Psalter is again generally recited each week, with the festal psalms restricted to only the highest-ranking feasts. As in the Greek usage and in the Benedictine, certain canticles like the Song of Moses (Exodus xv.), the Song of Hannah (1 Sam. ii.), the prayer of Habakkuk (iii.), the prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii.) and other similar Old Testament passages, and, from the New Testament, the Magnificat, the Benedictus and the Nunc dimittis, are admitted as psalms.
Antiphons.
The antiphons are short liturgical forms, sometimes of biblical, sometimes of patristic origin, used to introduce a psalm. The term originally signified a chant by alternate choirs, but has quite lost this meaning in the Breviary.
Responsories.
The responsories are similar in form to the antiphons, but come at the end of the psalm, being originally the reply of the choir or congregation to the precentor who recited the psalm.
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Hymns.
The hymns are short poems going back in part to the days of Prudentius, Synesius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Ambrose (4th and 5th centuries), but mainly the work of medieval authors.
Lessons.
The lessons, as has been seen, are drawn variously from the Bible, the Acts of the Saints and the Fathers of the Church. In the primitive church, books afterwards excluded from the canon were often read, e.g. the letters of Clement of Rome and the Shepherd of Hermas. In later days the churches of Africa, having rich memorials of martyrdom, used them to supplement the reading of Scripture. Monastic influence accounts for the practice of adding to the reading of a biblical passage some patristic commentary or exposition. Books of homilies were compiled from the writings of SS. Augustine, Hilary, Athanasius, Isidore, Gregory the Great and others, and formed part of the library of which the Breviary was the ultimate compendium. In the lessons, as in the psalms, the order for special days breaks in upon the normal order of ferial offices and dislocates the scheme for consecutive reading. The lessons are read at Matins (which is subdivided into three nocturns).
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Little chapters.
The little chapters are very short lessons read at the other "hours."
Versicles.
The versicles are short responsories used after the little chapters in the minor hours. They appear after the hymns in Lauds and Vespers.
Collects.
The collects come at the close of the office and are short prayers summing up the supplications of the congregation. They arise out of a primitive practice on the part of the bishop (local president), examples of which are found in the Didachē (Teaching of the Apostles) and in the letters of Clement of Rome and Cyprian. With the crystallization of church order, improvisation in prayer largely gave place to set forms, and collections of prayers were made which later developed into Sacramentaries and Orationals. The collects of the Breviary are largely drawn from the Gelasian and other Sacramentaries, and they are used to sum up the dominant idea of the festival in connection with which they happen to be used.
Celebration.
Before 1910, the difficulty of harmonizing the "Proprium de Tempore" and the "Proprium Sanctorum", to which reference has been made, was only partly met in the thirty-seven chapters of general rubrics. Additional help was given by a kind of Catholic Churchman's Almanack, called the "Ordo Recitandi Divini Officii", published in different countries and dioceses, and giving, under every day, minute directions for proper reading. In 1960, John XXIII simplified the rubrics governing the Breviary in order to make it easier to use.
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Every cleric in Holy Orders, and many other members of religious orders, must publicly join in or privately read aloud (i.e. using the lips as well as the eyes—it takes about two hours in this way) the whole of the Breviary services allotted for each day. In large churches where they were celebrated the services were usually grouped; e.g. Matins and Lauds (about 7.30 A.M.); Prime, Terce (High Mass), Sext, and None (about 10 A.M.); Vespers and Compline (4 P.M.); and from four to eight hours (depending on the amount of music and the number of high masses) are thus spent in choir.
Lay use of the Breviary has varied throughout the Church's history. In some periods laymen did not use the Breviary as a manual of devotion to any great extent. The late Medieval period saw the recitation of certain hours of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, which was based on the Breviary in form and content, becoming popular among those who could read, and Bishop Challoner did much to popularise the hours of Sunday Vespers and Compline (albeit in English translation) in his "Garden of the Soul" in the eighteenth century. The Liturgical Movement in the twentieth century saw renewed interest in the Offices of the Breviary and several popular editions were produced, containing the vernacular as well as the Latin.
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The complete pre-Pius X Roman Breviary was translated into English (by the Marquess of Bute in 1879; new ed. with a trans, of the Martyrology, 1908), French and German. Bute's version is noteworthy for its inclusion of the skilful renderings of the ancient hymns by J.H. Newman, J.M. Neale and others. Several editions of the Pius X Breviary were produced during the twentieth century, including a notable edition prepared with the assistance of the sisters of Stanbrook Abbey in the 1950s. Two editions in English and Latin were produced in the following decade, which conformed to the rubrics of 1960, published by Liturgical Press and Benziger in the United States. These used the Pius XII psalter. Baronius Press's revised edition of the Liturgical Press edition uses the older Gallican psalter of St. Jerome. This edition was published and released in 2012 for pre-orders only. In 2013, the publication has resumed printing and is available on Baronius' website.
Under Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Catholic bishops, priests, and deacons are again permitted to use the 1961 edition of the Roman Breviary, promulgated by Pope John XXIII to satisfy their obligation to recite the Divine Office every day.
Online resources.
In 2008, a website containing the Divine Office (both Ordinary and Extraordinary) in various languages, "i-breviary", was launched, which combines the modern and ancient breviaries with the latest computer technology. |
Boomer (disambiguation)
A boomer, or baby boomer, is a child born between 1946 and 1964.
Boomer may refer to: |
B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.
Skinner developed behavior analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviorism, and founded the experimental analysis of behavior, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behavior, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box), and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book "Schedules of Reinforcement".
Skinner was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles. He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his 1948 utopian novel, "Walden Two", while his analysis of human behavior culminated in his 1958 work, "Verbal Behavior".
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Skinner, John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviorism. Accordingly, a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.
Early life.
Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, to Grace and William Skinner, the latter of whom was a lawyer. Skinner became an atheist after a Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the hell that his grandmother described. His brother Edward, two and a half years younger, died at age 16 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Skinner's closest friend as a young boy was Raphael Miller, whom he called Doc because his father was a doctor. Doc and Skinner became friends due to their parents' religiousness and both had an interest in contraptions and gadgets. They had set up a telegraph line between their houses to send messages to each other, although they had to call each other on the telephone due to the confusing messages sent back and forth. During one summer, Doc and Skinner started an elderberry business to gather berries and sell them door to door. They found that when they picked the ripe berries, the unripe ones came off the branches too, so they built a device that was able to separate them. The device was a bent piece of metal to form a trough. They would pour water down the trough into a bucket, and the ripe berries would sink into the bucket and the unripe ones would be pushed over the edge to be thrown away.
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Education.
Skinner attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, with the intention of becoming a writer. He found himself at a social disadvantage at the college because of his intellectual attitude. He was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.
He wrote for the school paper, but, as an atheist, he was critical of the traditional mores of his college. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1926, he attended Harvard University, where he would later research and teach. While attending Harvard, a fellow student, Fred S. Keller, convinced Skinner that he could make an experimental science of the study of behavior. This led Skinner to invent a prototype for the Skinner box and to join Keller in the creation of other tools for small experiments.
After graduation, Skinner unsuccessfully tried to write a novel while he lived with his parents, a period that he later called the "Dark Years". He became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from the poet Robert Frost, concluding that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. His encounter with John B. Watson's "behaviorism" led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own version of behaviorism.
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Career.
Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a researcher for some years. In 1936, he went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to teach. In 1945, he moved to Indiana University, where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946 to 1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his life. In 1973, Skinner was one of the signers of the "Humanist Manifesto II".
Personal life.
In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne "Eve" Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (later Vargas) and Deborah (later Buzan; married Barry Buzan). Yvonne died in 1997, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Death.
Skinner's public exposure had increased in the 1970s, he remained active even after his retirement in 1974, until his death. In 1989, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia and died on August 18, 1990, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ten days before his death, he was given the lifetime achievement award by the American Psychological Association and gave a talk concerning his work.
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Contributions to psychology.
Behaviorism.
Skinner referred to his approach to the study of behavior as "radical behaviorism", which originated in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested experimentally. This philosophy of behavioral science assumes that behavior is a consequence of environmental histories of reinforcement (see applied behavior analysis). In his words:
Foundations of Skinner's behaviorism.
Skinner's ideas about behaviorism were largely set forth in his first book, "The Behavior of Organisms" (1938). Here, he gives a systematic description of the manner in which environmental variables control behavior. He distinguished two sorts of behavior which are controlled in different ways:
Both of these sorts of behavior had already been studied experimentally, most notably: respondents, by Ivan Pavlov; and operants, by Edward Thorndike. Skinner's account differed in some ways from earlier ones, and was one of the first accounts to bring them under one roof.
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The idea that behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences raises several questions. Among the most commonly asked are these:
1. Origin of operant behavior.
Skinner's answer to the first question was very much like Darwin's answer to the question of the origin of a 'new' bodily structure, namely, variation and selection. Similarly, the behavior of an individual varies from moment to moment; a variation that is followed by reinforcement is strengthened and becomes prominent in that individual's behavioral repertoire. "Shaping" was Skinner's term for the gradual modification of behavior by the reinforcement of desired variations. Skinner believed that 'superstitious' behavior can arise when a response happens to be followed by reinforcement to which it is actually unrelated.
2. Control of operant behavior.
The second question, "how is operant behavior controlled?" arises because, to begin with, the behavior is "emitted" without reference to any particular stimulus. Skinner answered this question by saying that a stimulus comes to control an operant if it is present when the response is reinforced and absent when it is not. For example, if lever-pressing only brings food when a light is on, a rat, or a child, will learn to press the lever only when the light is on. Skinner summarized this relationship by saying that a discriminative stimulus (e.g. light or sound) sets the occasion for the reinforcement (food) of the operant (lever-press). This three-term contingency (stimulus-response-reinforcer) is one of Skinner's most important concepts, and sets his theory apart from theories that use only pair-wise associations.
3. Explaining complex behavior.
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Most behavior of humans cannot easily be described in terms of individual responses reinforced one by one, and Skinner devoted a great deal of effort to the problem of behavioral complexity. Some complex behavior can be seen as a sequence of relatively simple responses, and here Skinner invoked the idea of "chaining". Chaining is based on the fact, experimentally demonstrated, that a discriminative stimulus not only sets the occasion for subsequent behavior, but it can also reinforce a behavior that precedes it. That is, a discriminative stimulus is also a "conditioned reinforcer". For example, the light that sets the occasion for lever pressing may also be used to reinforce "turning around" in the presence of a noise. This results in the sequence "noise – turn-around – light – press lever – food." Much longer chains can be built by adding more stimuli and responses.
However, Skinner recognized that a great deal of behavior, especially human behavior, cannot be accounted for by gradual shaping or the construction of response sequences. Complex behavior often appears suddenly in its final form, as when a person first finds his way to the elevator by following instructions given at the front desk. To account for such behavior, Skinner introduced the concept of rule-governed behavior. First, relatively simple behaviors come under the control of verbal stimuli: the child learns to "jump," "open the book," and so on. After a large number of responses come under such verbal control, a sequence of verbal stimuli can evoke an almost unlimited variety of complex responses.
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Reinforcement.
Reinforcement, a key concept of behaviorism, is the primary process that shapes and controls behavior, and occurs in two ways: "positive" and "negative". In "The Behavior of Organisms" (1938), Skinner defines "negative reinforcement" to be synonymous with "punishment", i.e. the presentation of an aversive stimulus. This definition would subsequently be re-defined in "Science and Human Behavior" (1953).
In what has now become the standard set of definitions, "positive" reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the occurrence of some event (e.g., praise after some behavior is performed), whereas "negative" reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event (e.g., opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by the cessation of rain falling on you).
Both types of reinforcement strengthen behavior, or increase the probability of a behavior reoccurring; the difference being in whether the reinforcing event is something applied (positive reinforcement) or something removed or avoided (negative reinforcement). Punishment can be the "application" of an aversive stimulus/event (positive punishment or punishment by contingent stimulation) or the "removal" of a desirable stimulus (negative punishment or punishment by contingent withdrawal). Though punishment is often used to suppress behavior, Skinner argued that this suppression is temporary and has a number of other, often unwanted, consequences. Extinction is the absence of a rewarding stimulus, which weakens behavior.
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Writing in 1981, Skinner pointed out that Darwinian natural selection is, like reinforced behavior, "selection by consequences". Though, as he said, natural selection has now "made its case," he regretted that essentially the same process, "reinforcement", was less widely accepted as underlying human behavior.
Schedules of reinforcement.
Skinner recognized that behavior is typically reinforced more than once, and, together with Charles Ferster, he did an extensive analysis of the various ways in which reinforcements could be arranged over time, calling it the "schedules of reinforcement".
The most notable schedules of reinforcement studied by Skinner were continuous, interval (fixed or variable), and ratio (fixed or variable). All are methods used in operant conditioning.
Token economy.
"Skinnerian" principles have been used to create token economies in a number of institutions, such as psychiatric hospitals. When participants behave in desirable ways, their behavior is reinforced with tokens that can be changed for such items as candy, cigarettes, coffee, or the exclusive use of a radio or television set.
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"Verbal Behavior".
Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior, Skinner set about attempting to extend his then-new functional, inductive approach to the complexity of human verbal behavior. Developed over two decades, his work appeared in the book "Verbal Behavior". Although Noam Chomsky was highly critical of "Verbal Behavior", he conceded that Skinner's "S-R psychology" was worth a review. Behavior analysts reject Chomsky's appraisal of Skinner's work as merely "stimulus-response psychology," and some have argued that this mischaracterization highlights a poor understanding of Skinner's work and the field of behavior analysis as a whole.
"Verbal Behavior" had an uncharacteristically cool reception, partly as a result of Chomsky's review, partly because of Skinner's failure to address or rebut any of Chomsky's criticisms. Skinner's peers may have been slow to adopt the ideas presented in "Verbal Behavior" because of the absence of experimental evidence—unlike the empirical density that marked Skinner's experimental work.
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Scientific inventions.
Operant conditioning chamber.
An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a "Skinner box") is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of animal behavior. It was invented by Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. As used by Skinner, the box had a lever (for rats), or a disk in one wall (for pigeons). A press on this "manipulandum" could deliver food to the animal through an opening in the wall, and responses reinforced in this way increased in frequency. By controlling this reinforcement together with discriminative stimuli such as lights and tones, or punishments such as electric shocks, experimenters have used the operant box to study a wide variety of topics, including schedules of reinforcement, discriminative control, delayed response ("memory"), punishment, and so on. By channeling research in these directions, the operant conditioning chamber has had a huge influence on course of research in animal learning and its applications. It enabled great progress on problems that could be studied by measuring the rate, probability, or force of a simple, repeatable response. However, it discouraged the study of behavioral processes not easily conceptualized in such terms—spatial learning, in particular, which is now studied in quite different ways, for example, by the use of the water maze.
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Cumulative recorder.
The cumulative recorder makes a pen-and-ink record of simple repeated responses. Skinner designed it for use with the operant chamber as a convenient way to record and view the rate of responses such as a lever press or a key peck. In this device, a sheet of paper gradually unrolls over a cylinder. Each response steps a small pen across the paper, starting at one edge; when the pen reaches the other edge, it quickly resets to the initial side. The slope of the resulting ink line graphically displays the rate of the response; for example, rapid responses yield a steeply sloping line on the paper, slow responding yields a line of low slope. The cumulative recorder was a key tool used by Skinner in his analysis of behavior, and it was very widely adopted by other experimenters, gradually falling out of use with the advent of the laboratory computer and use of line graphs. Skinner's major experimental exploration of response rates, presented in his book with Charles Ferster, "Schedules of Reinforcement", is full of cumulative records produced by this device.
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Air crib.
The air crib is an easily cleaned, temperature- and humidity-controlled box-bed intended to replace the standard infant crib. After raising one baby, Skinner felt that he could simplify the process for parents and improve the experience for children. He primarily thought of the idea to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing. Skinner had some specific concerns about raising a baby in the rough environment where he lived in Minnesota. Keeping the child warm was a central priority (Faye, 2010). Though this was the main goal, it also was designed to reduce laundry, diaper rash, and cradle cap, while still allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable. Reportedly it had some success in these goals as it was advertised commercially with an estimate of 300 children who were raised in the air crib. "Psychology Today" tracked down 50 children and ran a short piece on the effects of the air crib. The reports came back positive and that these children and parents enjoyed using the crib (Epstein, 2005). One of these air cribs resides in the gallery at the Center for the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio (Faye, 2010).
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The air crib was designed with three solid walls and a safety-glass panel at the front which could be lowered to move the baby in and out of the crib. The floor was stretched canvas. Sheets were intended to be used over the canvas and were easily rolled off when soiled. Addressing Skinners' concern for temperature, a control box on top of the crib regulated temperature and humidity. Filtered air flowed through the crib from below. This crib was higher than most standard cribs, allowing easier access to the child without the need to bend over (Faye, 2010).
The air crib was a controversial invention. It was popularly characterized as a cruel pen, and it was often compared to Skinner's operant conditioning chamber (or "Skinner box"). Skinner's article in "Ladies Home Journal", titled "Baby in a Box", caught the eye of many and contributed to skepticism about the device (Bjork, 1997). A picture published with the article showed the Skinners' daughter, Deborah, peering out of the crib with her hands and face pressed upon the glass. Skinner also used the term "experiment" when describing the crib, and this association with laboratory animal experimentation discouraged the crib's commercial success, although several companies attempted to produce and sell it.
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In 2004, therapist Lauren Slater repeated a claim that Skinner may have used his baby daughter in some of his experiments. His outraged daughter publicly accused Slater of not making a good-faith effort to check her facts before publishing. Debora was quoted by the Guardian saying "According to "Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century", my father, who was a psychologist based at Harvard from the 1950s to the 90s, "used his infant daughter, Deborah, to prove his theories by putting her for a few hours a day in a laboratory box . . . in which all her needs were controlled and shaped". But it's not true. My father did nothing of the sort."
Teaching machine.
The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed learning. The machine embodies key elements of Skinner's theory of learning and had important implications for education in general and classroom instruction in particular.
In one incarnation, the machine was a box that housed a list of questions that could be viewed one at a time through a small window. (see picture.) There was also a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded.
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Skinner advocated the use of teaching machines for a broad range of students (e.g., preschool aged to adult) and instructional purposes (e.g., reading and music). For example, one machine that he envisioned could teach rhythm. He wrote:The instructional potential of the teaching machine stemmed from several factors: it provided automatic, immediate and regular reinforcement without the use of aversive control; the material presented was coherent, yet varied and novel; the pace of learning could be adjusted to suit the individual. As a result, students were interested, attentive, and learned efficiently by producing the desired behavior, "learning by doing."
Teaching machines, though perhaps rudimentary, were not rigid instruments of instruction. They could be adjusted and improved based upon the students' performance. For example, if a student made many incorrect responses, the machine could be reprogrammed to provide less advanced prompts or questions—the idea being that students acquire behaviors most efficiently if they make few errors. Multiple-choice formats were not well-suited for teaching machines because they tended to increase student mistakes, and the contingencies of reinforcement were relatively uncontrolled.
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Not only useful in teaching explicit skills, machines could also promote the development of a repertoire of behaviors that Skinner called self-management. Effective self-management means attending to stimuli appropriate to a task, avoiding distractions, reducing the opportunity of reward for competing behaviors, and so on. For example, machines encourage students to pay attention before receiving a reward. Skinner contrasted this with the common classroom practice of initially capturing students' attention (e.g., with a lively video) and delivering a reward (e.g., entertainment) before the students have actually performed any relevant behavior. This practice fails to reinforce correct behavior and actually counters the development of self-management.
Skinner pioneered the use of teaching machines in the classroom, especially at the primary level. Today computers run software that performs similar teaching tasks, and there has been a resurgence of interest in the topic related to the development of adaptive learning systems.
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Pigeon-guided missile.
During World War II, the US Navy required a weapon effective against surface ships, such as the German "Bismarck" class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical. To solve this problem, Skinner initiated Project Pigeon, which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system. Skinner trained pigeons through operant conditioning to peck a camera obscura screen showing incoming targets on individual screens (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019). This system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, with a pigeon placed in each. Within the ship, the three lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird. Thus, when the missile was launched from an aircraft within sight of an enemy ship, an image of the ship would appear on the screen. The screen was hinged, which connected the screens to the bomb's guidance system. This was done through four small rubber pneumatic tubes that were attached to each side of the frame, which directed a constant airflow to a pneumatic pickup system that controlled the thrusters of the bomb. Resulting in the missile being guided towards the targeted ship, through just the peck coming from the pigeon (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019).
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Despite an effective demonstration, the project was abandoned, and eventually more conventional solutions, such as those based on radar, became available. Skinner complained that "our problem was no one would take us seriously." Before the project was completely abandoned it was tested extensively in the laboratory. After the United States Army ultimately denied it the United States Naval Research Laboratory picked up Skinner's Research and renamed it Project ORCON, which was a contraction of "organic" and "control". Skinner worked closely with the US Naval Research Laboratory continuously testing the pigeon's tracking capacity for guiding missiles to their intended targets. In the end, the pigeons' performance and accuracy relied on so many uncontrollable factors that Project ORCON, like Project Pigeon before it, was again discontinued. It was never used in the field.
Verbal summator.
Early in his career Skinner became interested in "latent speech" and experimented with a device he called the "verbal summator". This device can be thought of as an auditory version of the Rorschach inkblots. When using the device, human participants listened to incomprehensible auditory "garbage" but often read meaning into what they heard. Thus, as with the Rorschach blots, the device was intended to yield overt behavior that projected subconscious thoughts. Skinner's interest in projective testing was brief, but he later used observations with the summator in creating his theory of verbal behavior. The device also led other researchers to invent new tests such as the tautophone test, the auditory apperception test, and the Azzageddi test.
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Influence on teaching.
Along with psychology, education has also been influenced by Skinner's views, which are extensively presented in his book "The Technology of Teaching", as well as reflected in Fred S. Keller's "Personalized System of Instruction" and Ogden R. Lindsley's "Precision Teaching".
Skinner argued that education has two major purposes:
He recommended bringing students' behavior under appropriate control by providing reinforcement only in the presence of stimuli relevant to the learning task. Because he believed that human behavior can be affected by small consequences, something as simple as "the opportunity to move forward after completing one stage of an activity" can be an effective reinforcer. Skinner was convinced that, to learn, a student must engage in behavior, and not just passively receive information.
Skinner believed that effective teaching must be based on positive reinforcement which is, he argued, more effective at changing and establishing behavior than punishment. He suggested that the main thing people learn from being punished is how to avoid punishment. For example, if a child is forced to practice playing an instrument, the child comes to associate practicing with punishment and thus develops feelings of dreadfulness and wishes to avoid practicing the instrument. This view had obvious implications for the then widespread practice of rote learning and punitive discipline in education. The use of educational activities as punishment may induce rebellious behavior such as vandalism or absence.
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Because teachers are primarily responsible for modifying student behavior, Skinner argued that teachers must learn effective ways of teaching. In "The Technology of Teaching" (1968), Skinner has a chapter on why teachers fail: He says that teachers have not been given an in-depth understanding of teaching and learning. Without knowing the science underpinning teaching, teachers fall back on procedures that work poorly or not at all, such as:
Skinner suggests that any age-appropriate skill can be taught. The steps are
Contributions to social theory.
Skinner is popularly known mainly for his books "Walden Two" (1948) and "Beyond Freedom and Dignity," (for which he made the cover of "Time" magazine). The former describes a fictional "experimental community" in 1940s United States. The productivity and happiness of citizens in this community is far greater than in the outside world because the residents practice scientific social planning and use operant conditioning in raising their children.
"Walden Two", like Thoreau's "Walden", champions a lifestyle that does not support war, or foster competition and social strife. It encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption, rich social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work, and leisure. In 1967, Kat Kinkade and others founded the Twin Oaks Community, using" Walden Two" as a blueprint. The community still exists and continues to use the Planner-Manager system and other aspects of the community described in Skinner's book, though behavior modification is not a community practice.
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In "Beyond Freedom and Dignity", Skinner suggests that a technology of behavior could help to make a better society. We would, however, have to accept that an autonomous agent is not the driving force of our actions. Skinner offers alternatives to punishment, and challenges his readers to use science and modern technology to construct a better society.
Political views.
Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that an effective and human science of behavioral control – a technology of human behavior – could help with problems as yet unsolved and often aggravated by advances in technology such as the atomic bomb. Indeed, one of Skinner's goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself. He saw political activity as the use of aversive or non-aversive means to control a population. Skinner favored the use of positive reinforcement as a means of control, citing Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel "" as an example of literature that "did not fear the power of positive reinforcement."
Skinner's book, "Walden Two", presents a vision of a decentralized, localized society, which applies a practical, scientific approach and behavioral expertise to deal peacefully with social problems. (For example, his views led him to oppose corporal punishment in schools, and he wrote a letter to the California Senate that helped lead it to a ban on spanking.) Skinner's utopia is both a thought experiment and a rhetorical piece. In "Walden Two", Skinner answers the problem that exists in many utopian novels – "What is the Good Life?" The book's answer is a life of friendship, health, art, a healthy balance between work and leisure, a minimum of unpleasantness, and a feeling that one has made worthwhile contributions to a society in which resources are ensured, in part, by minimizing consumption.
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Skinner described his novel as "my New Atlantis", in reference to Bacon's utopia.
Superstition' in the Pigeon" experiment.
One of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his favorite experimental animals, the pigeon. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions.Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals", and that this experiment shed light on human behavior:Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (e.g. Staddon and Simmelhag, 1971), while finding similar behavior, failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious reinforcement" explanation for it. By looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the "terminal response", which occurred in anticipation of food, and "interim responses", that occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food. Terminal responses seem to reflect classical (as opposed to operant) conditioning, rather than adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures. The causation of interim activities (such as the schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977).
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Criticism.
Noam Chomsky.
American linguist Noam Chomsky published a review of Skinner's "Verbal Behavior" in the linguistics journal "Language" in 1959. Chomsky argued that Skinner's attempt to use behaviorism to explain human language amounted to little more than word games. Conditioned responses could not account for a child's ability to create or understand an infinite variety of novel sentences. Chomsky's review has been credited with launching the cognitive revolution in psychology and other disciplines. Skinner, who rarely responded directly to critics, never formally replied to Chomsky's critique, but endorsed Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1972 reply.
Many academics in the 1960s believed that Skinner's silence on the question meant Chomsky's criticism had been justified. But MacCorquodale wrote that Chomsky's criticism did not focus on Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", but rather attacked a confusion of ideas from behavioral psychology. MacCorquodale also regretted Chomsky's aggressive tone. Furthermore, Chomsky had aimed at delivering a definitive refutation of Skinner by citing dozens of animal instinct and animal learning studies. On the one hand, he argued that the studies on animal instinct proved that animal behavior is innate, and therefore Skinner was mistaken. On the other, Chomsky's opinion of the studies on learning was that one cannot draw an analogy from animal studies to human behavior—or, that research on animal instinct refutes research on animal learning.
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