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Markov was an atheist. In 1912, he responded to Leo Tolstoy's excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church by requesting his own excommunication. The Church complied with his request. In 1913, the council of St. Petersburg elected nine scientists honorary members of the university. Markov was among them, but his election was not affirmed by the minister of education. The affirmation only occurred four years later, after the February Revolution in 1917. Markov then resumed his teaching activities and lectured on probability theory and the calculus of differences until his death in 1922.
Angst Angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. "Anguish" is its Latinate equivalent, and the words "anxious" and "anxiety" are of similar origin. Etymology. The word "angst" was introduced into English from the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch word and the German word . It is attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Sigmund Freud. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil. In other languages (with words from the Latin for "fear" or "panic"), the derived words differ in meaning; for example, as in the French and . The word "angst" has existed in German since the 8th century, from the Proto-Indo-European root , "restraint" from which Old High German developed. It is pre-cognate with the Latin , "tensity, tightness" and , "choking, clogging"; compare to the Ancient Greek () "strangle". It entered English in the 19th century as a technical term used in psychiatry, though earlier cognates existed, such as "ange".
Existentialism. In existentialist philosophy, the term "angst" carries a specific conceptual meaning. The use of the term was first attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). In "The Concept of Anxiety" (originally translated as "The Concept of Dread"), Kierkegaard used the word "Angest" (in common Danish, "angst", meaning "dread" or "anxiety") to describe a profound and deep-seated condition. Where non-human animals are guided solely by instinct, said Kierkegaard, human beings enjoy a freedom of choice that we find both appealing and terrifying. It is the anxiety of understanding of being free when considering undefined possibilities of one's life and the immense responsibility of having the power of choice over them. Kierkegaard's concept of angst reappeared in the works of existentialist philosophers who followed, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Heidegger, each of whom developed the idea further in individual ways. While Kierkegaard's angst referred mainly to ambiguous feelings about moral freedom within a religious personal belief system, later existentialists discussed conflicts of personal principles, cultural norms, and existential despair.
Music. Existential angst makes its appearance in classical musical composition in the early twentieth century as a result of both philosophical developments and as a reflection of the war-torn times. Notable composers whose works are often linked with the concept include Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss (operas ' and '), Claude Debussy (opera "", ballet "Jeux"), Jean Sibelius (especially the Fourth Symphony), Arnold Schoenberg ("A Survivor from Warsaw"), Alban Berg, Francis Poulenc (opera "Dialogues of the Carmelites"), Dmitri Shostakovich (opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", symphonies and chamber music), Béla Bartók (opera "Bluebeard's Castle"), and Krzysztof Penderecki (especially "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima"). Angst began to be discussed in reference to popular music in the mid- to late 1950s, amid widespread concerns over international tensions and nuclear proliferation. Jeff Nuttall's book "Bomb Culture" (1968) traced angst in popular culture to Hiroshima. Dread was expressed in works of folk rock such as Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" (1963) and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". The term often makes an appearance in reference to punk rock, grunge, nu metal, and works of emo where expressions of melancholy, existential despair, or nihilism predominate.
Anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response to a present threat, whereas anxiety is the anticipation of a future one. It is often accompanied by nervous behavior such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints, and rumination. Anxiety is a feeling of uneasiness and worry, usually generalized and unfocused as an overreaction to a situation that is only subjectively seen as menacing. It is often accompanied by muscular tension, restlessness, fatigue, inability to catch one's breath, tightness in the abdominal region, nausea, and problems in concentration. Anxiety is closely related to fear, which is a response to a real or perceived immediate threat (fight-or-flight response); anxiety involves the expectation of a future threat including dread. People facing anxiety may withdraw from situations which have provoked anxiety in the past.
The emotion of anxiety can persist beyond the developmentally appropriate time-periods in response to specific events, and thus turning into one of the multiple anxiety disorders (e.g. generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder). The difference between "anxiety disorder" (as mental disorder) and "anxiety" (as normal emotion), is that people with an anxiety disorder experience anxiety excessively or persistently during approximately 6 months, or even during shorter time-periods in children. Anxiety disorders are among the most persistent mental problems and often last decades. Anxiety can also be experienced within other mental disorders, e.g., obsessive–compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder. Anxiety vs. fear. Anxiety is distinguished from fear, which is an appropriate cognitive and emotional response to a perceived threat. Anxiety is related to the specific behaviors of fight-or-flight responses, defensive behavior or escape. There is a false presumption that often circulates that anxiety only occurs in situations perceived as uncontrollable or unavoidable, but this is not always so. David Barlow defines anxiety as "a future-oriented mood state in which one is not ready or prepared to attempt to cope with upcoming negative events," and that it is a distinction between future and present dangers which divides anxiety and fear. Another description of anxiety is agony, dread, terror, or even apprehension. In positive psychology, anxiety is described as the mental state that results from a difficult challenge for which the subject has insufficient coping skills.
Fear and anxiety can be differentiated into four domains: (1) duration of emotional experience, (2) temporal focus, (3) specificity of the threat, and (4) motivated direction. Fear is short-lived, present-focused, geared towards a specific threat, and facilitating escape from threat. On the other hand, anxiety is long-acting, future-focused, broadly focused towards a diffuse threat, and promoting excessive caution while approaching a potential threat and interferes with constructive coping. Joseph E. LeDoux and Lisa Feldman Barrett have both sought to separate automatic threat responses from additional associated cognitive activity within anxiety. Symptoms. Anxiety can be experienced with long, drawn-out daily symptoms that reduce quality of life, known as chronic (or generalized) anxiety, or it can be experienced in short spurts with sporadic, stressful panic attacks, known as acute anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety can range in number, intensity, and frequency, depending on the person. However, most people do not suffer from chronic anxiety.
Anxiety can induce several psychological pains (e.g. depression) or mental disorders, and may lead to self-harm or suicide. The behavioral effects of anxiety may include withdrawal from situations which have provoked anxiety or negative feelings in the past. Other effects may include changes in sleeping patterns, changes in habits, increase or decrease in food intake, and increased motor tension (such as foot tapping). The emotional effects of anxiety may include feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching for signs of danger, and a feeling of empty mindedness. as well as "nightmares/bad dreams, obsessions about sensations, déjà vu, a trapped-in-your-mind feeling, and feeling like everything is scary." It may include a vague experience and feeling of helplessness. The cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about suspected dangers, such as an irrational fear of dying or having a heart attack, when in reality all one is experiencing is mild chest pain, for example.
The physiological symptoms of anxiety may include: Types. There are various types of anxiety. Existential anxiety can occur when a person faces angst, an existential crisis, or nihilistic feelings. People can also face mathematical anxiety, somatic anxiety, stage fright, or test anxiety. Social anxiety refers to a fear of rejection and negative evaluation (being judged) by other people. Existential. The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, in "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844), described anxiety or dread associated with the "dizziness of freedom" and suggested the possibility for positive resolution of anxiety through the self-conscious exercise of responsibility and choosing. In "Art and Artist" (1932), the psychologist Otto Rank wrote that the psychological trauma of birth was the pre-eminent human symbol of existential anxiety and encompasses the creative person's simultaneous fear of – and desire for – separation, individuation, and differentiation. The theologian Paul Tillich characterized existential anxiety as "the state in which a being is aware of its possible nonbeing" and he listed three categories for the nonbeing and resulting anxiety: ontic (fate and death), moral (guilt and condemnation), and spiritual (emptiness and meaninglessness). According to Tillich, the last of these three types of existential anxiety, i.e. spiritual anxiety, is predominant in modern times while the others were predominant in earlier periods. Tillich argues that this anxiety can be accepted as part of the human condition or it can be resisted but with negative consequences. In its pathological form, spiritual anxiety may tend to "drive the person toward the creation of certitude in systems of meaning which are supported by tradition and authority" even though such "undoubted certitude is not built on the rock of reality".
According to Viktor Frankl, the author of "Man's Search for Meaning", when a person is faced with extreme mortal dangers, the most basic of all human wishes is to find a meaning of life to combat the "trauma of nonbeing" as death is near. Depending on the source of the threat, psychoanalytic theory distinguishes three types of anxiety: realistic, neurotic and moral. Test, performance, and competitive. Test. According to Yerkes-Dodson law, an optimal level of arousal is necessary to best complete a task such as an exam, performance, or competitive event. However, when the anxiety or level of arousal exceeds that optimum, the result is a decline in performance. Test anxiety is the uneasiness, apprehension, or nervousness felt by students who have a fear of failing an exam. Students who have test anxiety may experience any of the following: the association of grades with personal worth; fear of embarrassment by a teacher; fear of alienation from parents or friends; time pressures; or feeling a loss of control. Sweating, dizziness, headaches, racing heartbeats, nausea, fidgeting, uncontrollable crying or laughing and drumming on a desk are all common. Because test anxiety hinges on fear of negative evaluation, debate exists as to whether test anxiety is itself a unique anxiety disorder or whether it is a specific type of social phobia. The DSM-IV classifies test anxiety as a type of social phobia.
Research indicates that test anxiety among U.S. high-school and college students has been rising since the late 1950s. Test anxiety remains a challenge for students, regardless of age, and has considerable physiological and psychological impacts. Management of test anxiety focuses on achieving relaxation and developing mechanisms to manage anxiety. The routine practice of slow, Device-Guided Breathing (DGB) is a major component of behavioral treatments for anxiety conditions. Performance and competitive. Performance anxiety and competitive anxiety () happen when an individual's performance is measured against others. An important distinction between competitive and non-competitive anxiety is that competitive anxiety makes people view their performance as a threat. As a result, they experience a drop in their ordinary ability, whether physical or mental, due to that perceived stress. Competitive anxiety is caused by a range of internal factors including high expectations, outside pressure, lack of experience, and external factors like the location of a competition. It commonly occurs in those participating in high pressure activities like sports and debates. Some common symptoms of competitive anxiety include muscle tension, fatigue, weakness, sense of panic, apprehensiveness, and panic attacks.
There are 4 major theories of how anxiety affects performance: Drive theory, Inverted U theory, Reversal theory, and The Zone of Optimal Functioning theory. "Drive theory" believes that anxiety is positive and performance improves proportionally to the level of anxiety. This theory is not well accepted. The "Inverted U theory" is based on the idea that performance peaks at a moderate stress level. It is called Inverted U theory because the graph that plots performance against anxiety looks like an inverted "U". "Reversal theory" suggests that performance increases in relation to the individual's interpretation of their arousal levels. If they believed their physical arousal level would help them, their performance would increase, if they didn't, their performance would decrease. For example: Athletes were shown to worry more when focusing on results and perfection rather than the effort and growth involved. The "Zone of Optimal Functioning theory" proposes that there is a zone where positive and negative emotions are in a balance which lead to feelings of dissociation and intense concentration, optimizing the individual's performance levels.
Stranger, social, and intergroup anxiety. Humans generally require social acceptance and thus sometimes dread the disapproval of others. Apprehension of being judged by others may cause anxiety in social environments. Anxiety during social interactions, particularly between strangers, is common among young people. It may persist into adulthood and become social anxiety or social phobia. "Stranger anxiety" in small children is not considered a phobia. In adults, an excessive fear of other people is not a developmentally common stage; it is called social anxiety. According to Cutting, social phobics do not fear the crowd but the fact that they may be judged negatively. Social anxiety varies in degree and severity. For some people, it is characterized by experiencing discomfort or awkwardness during physical social contact (e.g. embracing, shaking hands, etc.), while in other cases it can lead to a fear of interacting with unfamiliar people altogether. Those with this condition may restrict their lifestyles to accommodate the anxiety, minimizing social interaction whenever possible. Social anxiety also forms a core aspect of certain personality disorders, including avoidant personality disorder.
To the extent that a person is fearful of social encounters with unfamiliar others, some people may experience anxiety particularly during interactions with outgroup members, or people who share different group memberships (i.e., by race, ethnicity, class, gender, etc.). Depending on the nature of the antecedent relations, cognitions, and situational factors, intergroup contact may be stressful and lead to feelings of anxiety. This apprehension or fear of contact with outgroup members is often called interracial or intergroup anxiety. As is the case with the more generalized forms of social anxiety, intergroup anxiety has behavioral, cognitive, and affective effects. For instance, increases in schematic processing and simplified information processing can occur when anxiety is high. Indeed, such is consistent with related work on attentional bias in implicit memory. Additionally recent research has found that implicit racial evaluations (i.e. automatic prejudiced attitudes) can be amplified during intergroup interaction. Negative experiences have been illustrated in producing not only negative expectations, but also avoidant, or antagonistic, behavior such as hostility. Furthermore, when compared to anxiety levels and cognitive effort (e.g., impression management and self-presentation) in intragroup contexts, levels and depletion of resources may be exacerbated in the intergroup situation.
Trait. Anxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term "personality trait". Trait anxiety reflects a stable tendency across the lifespan of responding with acute, state anxiety in the anticipation of threatening situations (whether they are actually deemed threatening or not). A meta-analysis showed that a high level of neuroticism is a risk factor for development of anxiety symptoms and disorders. Such anxiety may be conscious or unconscious. Personality can also be a trait leading to anxiety and depression and their persistence. Through experience, many find it difficult to collect themselves due to their own personal nature. Choice or decision. Anxiety induced by the need to choose between similar options is recognized as a problem for some individuals and for organizations. In 2004, Capgemini wrote: "Today we're all faced with greater choice, more competition and less time to consider our options or seek out the right advice." Overthinking a choice is called analysis paralysis. In a decision context, unpredictability or uncertainty may trigger emotional responses in anxious individuals that systematically alter decision-making. There are primarily two forms of this anxiety type. The first form refers to a choice in which there are multiple potential outcomes with known or calculable probabilities. The second form refers to the uncertainty and ambiguity related to a decision context in which there are multiple possible outcomes with unknown probabilities.
Panic disorder. Panic disorder may share symptoms of stress and anxiety, but it is actually very different. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs without any triggers. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this disorder can be distinguished by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear. Someone with panic disorder will eventually develop constant fear of another attack and as this progresses it will begin to affect daily functioning and an individual's general quality of life. It is reported by the Cleveland Clinic that panic disorder affects 2 to 3 percent of adult Americans and can begin around the time of the teenage and early adult years. Some symptoms include: difficulty breathing, chest pain, dizziness, trembling or shaking, feeling faint, nausea, fear that you are losing control or are about to die. Even though they have these symptoms during an attack, the main symptom is the persistent fear of having future panic attacks. Anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by exaggerated feelings of anxiety and fear responses. Anxiety is a worry about future events and fear is a reaction to current events. These feelings may cause physical symptoms, such as a fast heart rate and shakiness. There are a number of anxiety disorders: including generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder, and selective mutism. The disorder differs by what results in the symptoms. People often have more than one anxiety disorder.
Anxiety disorders are caused by a complex combination of genetic and environmental factors. To be diagnosed, symptoms typically need to be present for at least six months, be more than would be expected for the situation, and decrease a person's ability to function in their daily lives. Other problems that may result in similar symptoms include hyperthyroidism, heart disease, caffeine, alcohol, or cannabis use, and withdrawal from certain drugs, among others. Without treatment, anxiety disorders tend to remain. Treatment may include lifestyle changes, counselling, and medications. Counselling is typically with a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. Medications, such as antidepressants or beta blockers, may improve symptoms. A 2023 review found that regular physical activity is effective for reducing anxiety. About 12% of people are affected by an anxiety disorder in a given year and between 12% and 30% are affected at some point in their life. They occur about twice as often in women than they do in men, and generally begin before the age of 25. The most common anxiety disorders are specific phobias, which affect nearly 12% of people, and social anxiety disorder, which affects 10% of people at some point in their life. They affect those between the ages of 15 and 35 the most and become less common after the age of 55. Rates appear to be higher in the United States and Europe.
Short- and long-term anxiety. Anxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term "trait". Whereas trait anxiety represents worrying about future events, anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by feelings of anxiety and fears. Four ways to be anxious. In his book "Anxious: The Modern Mind in the Age of Anxiety" Joseph LeDoux examines four experiences of anxiety through a brain-based lens: Co-morbidity. Anxiety disorders often occur with other mental health disorders, particularly major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, or certain personality disorders. It also commonly occurs with personality traits such as neuroticism. This observed co-occurrence is partly due to genetic and environmental influences shared between these traits and anxiety. It is common for those with obsessive–compulsive disorder to experience anxiety. Anxiety is also commonly found in those who experience panic disorders, phobic anxiety disorders, severe stress, dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, and some neurotic disorders.
Anxiety has also been linked to the experience of intrusive thoughts. Studies have revealed that individuals who experience high levels of anxiety (also known as clinical anxiety) are highly vulnerable to the experience of intense intrusive thoughts or psychological disorders that are characterised by intrusive thoughts. Risk factors. Anxiety disorders are partly genetic, with twin studies suggesting 30-40% genetic influence on individual differences in anxiety. Environmental factors are also important. Twin studies show that individual-specific environments have a large influence on anxiety, whereas shared environmental influences (environments that affect twins in the same way) operate during childhood but decline through adolescence. Specific measured 'environments' that have been associated with anxiety include child abuse, family history of mental health disorders, and poverty. Anxiety is also associated with drug use, including alcohol and caffeine, as well as benzodiazepines, which are often prescribed to treat anxiety.
Genetics. Genetics and family history (e.g. parental anxiety) may put an individual at increased risk of an anxiety disorder, but generally external stimuli will trigger its onset or exacerbation. Estimates of genetic influence on anxiety, based on studies of twins, range from 25 to 40% depending on the specific type and age-group under study. For example, genetic differences account for about 43% of variance in panic disorder and 28% in generalized anxiety disorder. Longitudinal twin studies have shown the moderate stability of anxiety from childhood through to adulthood is mainly influenced by stability in genetic influence. When investigating how anxiety is passed on from parents to children, it is important to account for sharing of genes as well as environments, for example using the intergenerational children-of-twins design.
Medical conditions. Many medical conditions can cause anxiety. This includes conditions that affect the ability to breathe, like COPD and asthma, and the difficulty in breathing that often occurs near death. Conditions that cause abdominal pain or chest pain can cause anxiety and may in some cases be a somatization of anxiety; the same is true for some sexual dysfunctions. Conditions that affect the face or the skin can cause social anxiety especially among adolescents, and developmental disabilities often lead to social anxiety for children as well. Life-threatening conditions like cancer also cause anxiety. Furthermore, certain organic diseases may present with anxiety or symptoms that mimic anxiety. These disorders include certain endocrine diseases (hypo- and hyperthyroidism, hyperprolactinemia), metabolic disorders (diabetes), deficiency states (low levels of vitamin D, B2, B12, folic acid), gastrointestinal diseases (celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, inflammatory bowel disease), heart diseases, blood diseases (anemia), cerebral vascular accidents (transient ischemic attack, stroke), and brain degenerative diseases (Parkinson's disease, dementia, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease), among others.
Substance-induced. Several drugs can cause or worsen anxiety, whether in intoxication, withdrawal or as side effect. These include alcohol, tobacco, sedatives (including prescription benzodiazepines), opioids (including prescription pain killers and illicit drugs like heroin), stimulants (such as caffeine, cocaine and amphetamines), hallucinogens, and inhalants. While many often report self-medicating anxiety with these substances, improvements in anxiety from drugs are usually short-lived (with worsening of anxiety in the long term, sometimes with acute anxiety as soon as the drug effects wear off) and tend to be exaggerated. Acute exposure to toxic levels of benzene may cause euphoria, anxiety, and irritability lasting up to 2 weeks after the exposure. Psychological. Poor coping skills (e.g., rigidity/inflexible problem solving, denial, avoidance, impulsivity, extreme self-expectation, negative thoughts, affective instability, and inability to focus on problems) are associated with anxiety. Anxiety is also linked and perpetuated by the person's own pessimistic outcome expectancy and how they cope with feedback negativity. Temperament (e.g., neuroticism) and attitudes (e.g. pessimism) have been found to be risk factors for anxiety.
Cognitive distortions such as overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, mind reading, emotional reasoning, binocular trick, and mental filter can result in anxiety. For example, an overgeneralized belief that something bad "always" happens may lead someone to have excessive fears of even minimally risky situations and to avoid benign social situations due to anticipatory anxiety of embarrassment. In addition, those who have high anxiety can also create future stressful life events. Together, these findings suggest that anxious thoughts can lead to anticipatory anxiety as well as stressful events, which in turn cause more anxiety. Such unhealthy thoughts can be targets for successful treatment with cognitive therapy. Psychodynamic theory posits that anxiety is often the result of opposing unconscious wishes or fears that manifest via maladaptive defense mechanisms (such as suppression, repression, anticipation, regression, somatization, passive aggression, dissociation) that develop to adapt to problems with early objects (e.g., caregivers) and empathic failures in childhood. For example, persistent parental discouragement of anger may result in repression/suppression of angry feelings which manifests as gastrointestinal distress (somatization) when provoked by another while the anger remains unconscious and outside the individual's awareness. Such conflicts can be targets for successful treatment with psychodynamic therapy. While psychodynamic therapy tends to explore the underlying roots of anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy has also been shown to be a successful treatment for anxiety by altering irrational thoughts and unwanted behaviors.
Evolutionary psychology. An evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance regarding potential threats in the environment as well as increased tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. This may cause false positive reactions but an individual with anxiety may also avoid real threats. This may explain why anxious people are less likely to die due to accidents. There is ample empirical evidence that anxiety can have adaptive value. Within a school, timid fish are more likely than bold fish to survive a predator. When people are confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show increased blood flow in the amygdala. In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors. Social. Social risk factors for anxiety include a history of trauma (e.g., physical, sexual or emotional abuse or assault), bullying, early life experiences and parenting factors (e.g., rejection, lack of warmth, high hostility, harsh discipline, high parental negative affect, anxious childrearing, modelling of dysfunctional and drug-abusing behaviour, discouragement of emotions, poor socialization, poor attachment, and child abuse and neglect), cultural factors (e.g., stoic families/cultures, persecuted minorities including those with disabilities), and socioeconomics (e.g., uneducated, unemployed, impoverished although developed countries have higher rates of anxiety disorders than developing countries).
A 2019 comprehensive systematic review of over 50 studies showed that food insecurity in the United States is strongly associated with depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Food-insecure individuals had an almost 3 fold risk increase of testing positive for anxiety when compared to food-secure individuals. Gender socialization. Contextual factors that are thought to contribute to anxiety include gender socialization and learning experiences. In particular, learning mastery (the degree to which people perceive their lives to be under their own control) and instrumentality, which includes such traits as self-confidence, self-efficacy, independence, and competitiveness fully mediate the relation between gender and anxiety. That is, though gender differences in anxiety exist, with higher levels of anxiety in women compared to men, gender socialization and learning mastery explain these gender differences. Treatment. The first step in the management of a person with anxiety symptoms involves evaluating the possible presence of an underlying medical cause, the recognition of which is essential in order to decide the correct treatment. Anxiety symptoms may mask an organic disease, or appear associated with or as a result of a medical disorder.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for anxiety disorders and is a first line treatment. CBT appears to be equally effective when carried out via the internet. While evidence for mental health apps is promising, it is preliminary. Anxiety often affects relationships, and interpersonal psychotherapy addresses these issues by improving communication and relationship skills. Psychopharmacological treatment can be used in parallel to CBT or can be used alone. As a general rule, most anxiety disorders respond well to first-line agents. Such drugs, also used as anti-depressants, are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, that work by blocking the reuptake of specific neurotransmitters and resulting in the increase in availability of these neurotransmitters. Additionally, benzodiazepines are often prescribed to individuals with anxiety disorder. Benzodiazepines produce an anxiolytic response by modulating GABA and increasing its receptor binding. A third common treatment involves a category of drug known as serotonin agonists. This category of drug works by initiating a physiological response at 5-HT1A receptor by increasing the action of serotonin at this receptor. Other treatment options include pregabalin, tricyclic antidepressants, and moclobemide, among others.
Anxiety is considered to be a serious psychiatric illness that has an unknown true pervasiveness due to affected individuals not asking for proper treatment or aid, and due to professionals missing the diagnosis. Prevention. The above risk factors give natural avenues for prevention. Psychological or educational interventions have a small yet statistically significant benefit for the prevention of anxiety in varied population types. Improvement in dietary intake and habits may also help lower the risk of anxiety.
A. A. Milne Alan Alexander Milne (; 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English writer best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as children's poetry. Milne was primarily a playwright before the huge success of Winnie-the-Pooh overshadowed his previous work. He served as a lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the First World War and as a captain in the Home Guard in the Second World War. Milne was the father of bookseller Christopher Robin Milne, upon whom the character Christopher Robin is based. It was during a visit to London Zoo, where Christopher became enamoured with the tame and amiable bear Winnipeg, that Milne was inspired to write the story of Winnie-the-Pooh for his son. Milne bequeathed the original manuscripts of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories to the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, his alma mater. Early life and military career.
Milne joined the British Army during World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, on 1 February 1915 as a second lieutenant (on probation). His commission was confirmed on 20 December 1915. He served on the Somme as a signals officer from July–November 1916, but caught trench fever and was invalided back to England. Having recuperated, he worked as a signals instructor, before being recruited into military intelligence to write propaganda articles for MI7 (b) between 1917 and 1918. He was discharged on 14 February 1919, and settled in Mallord Street, Chelsea. He relinquished his commission on 19 February 1920, retaining the rank of lieutenant. After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled "Peace with Honour" (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's "War with Honour". During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of fellow English writer (and Authors XI cricket teammate) P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the light-hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend (e.g. in "The Mating Season") by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers... But I loved his stuff."
Milne married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt (1890–1971) in 1913 and their son Christopher Robin Milne was born in 1920. In 1925, Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex. During World War II, Milne was a captain in the British Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain "Mr. Milne" to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid; and by August 1953, "he seemed very old and disenchanted." Milne died in January 1956, aged 74. Literary career. 1903 to 1925. After graduating from Cambridge University in 1903, A. A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to "Punch", joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor. During this period he published 18 plays and three novels, including the murder mystery "The Red House Mystery" (1922). His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems, "When We Were Very Young", which were illustrated by "Punch" staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard. A collection of short stories for children "A Gallery of Children", and other stories that became part of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, were first published in 1925.
Milne was an early screenwriter for the nascent British film industry, writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films (founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel). These were "The Bump", starring Aubrey Smith; "Twice Two"; "Five Pound Reward"; and "Bookworms". Some of these films survive in the archives of the British Film Institute. Milne had met Howard when the actor starred in Milne's play "Mr Pim Passes By" in London. Looking back on this period (in 1926), Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story, he was told that what the country wanted from a ""Punch" humorist" was a humorous story; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another two years, he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books. He concluded that "the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory "con amore" as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others." 1926 to 1928.
Milne is most famous for his two "Pooh" books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin Milne (1920–1996), and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named Edward, was renamed Winnie after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The Pooh" comes from a swan the young Milne named "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy Growler ("a magnificent bear") as the model. The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into A. A. Milne's stories, and two more characters – Rabbit and Owl – were created by Milne's imagination. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now on display in New York where 750,000 people visit them every year. The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, South East England, where the Pooh stories were set. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest at Cotchford Farm, , and took his son on walking trips there. E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books. The adult Christopher Robin commented: "Pooh's Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical." Popular tourist locations at Ashdown Forest include: "Galleon's Lap", "The Enchanted Place", the "Heffalump Trap" and "Lone Pine", "Eeyore's Sad and Gloomy Place", and the wooden "Pooh Bridge" where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks.
Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in "Punch" magazine in February 1924 and republished that year in "When We Were Very Young". Pooh first appeared in the "London Evening News" on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called "The Wrong Sort of Bees". "Winnie-the-Pooh" was published in 1926, followed by "The House at Pooh Corner" in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, "Now We Are Six", was published in 1927. All four books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milne also published four plays in this period. He also "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P. G. Wodehouse's "A Damsel in Distress". "The World of Pooh" won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. 1929 onward. The success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war "Punch" from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in "The Red House Mystery" (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot in his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" in the eponymous collection that appeared in 1950). But once Milne had, in his own words, "said goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of his four principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.
Another reason Milne stopped writing children's books, and especially about Winnie-the-Pooh, was that he felt "amazement and disgust" over the immense fame his son was exposed to, and said that "I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him. I do not want CR Milne to ever wish that his name were Charles Robert." In his literary home, "Punch", where the "When We Were Very Young" verses had first appeared, Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem "The Norman Church" and an assembly of articles entitled "Year In, Year Out" (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author). In 1929, Milne adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel "The Wind in the Willows" for the stage as "Toad of Toad Hall". The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," could not survive translation to the theatre. A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel. It was first performed at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool, on 21 December 1929 before it made its West End debut the following year at the Lyric Theatre on 17 December 1930. The play was revived in the West End from 1931 to 1935, and since the 1960s there have been West End revivals during the Christmas season; actors who have performed in the play include Judi Dench and Ian McKellen.
Milne and his wife became estranged from their son, who came to resent what he saw as his father's exploitation of his childhood and came to hate the books that had thrust him into the public eye. Christopher's marriage to his first cousin, Lesley de Sélincourt, distanced him still further from his parents – Lesley's father and Christopher's mother had not spoken to each other for 30 years. Death and legacy. Commemoration. A. A. Milne died at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, on 31 January 1956, aged 74. A memorial service took place on 10 February at All Hallows-by-the-Tower church in London. The rights to A. A. Milne's Pooh books were left to four beneficiaries: his family, the Royal Literary Fund, Westminster School and the Garrick Club. After Milne's death in 1956, his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger, whose widow sold the rights after Slesinger's death to Walt Disney Productions, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, as well as Pooh-related merchandise. In 2001, the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the estate to the Disney Corporation for $350m. Previously Disney had been paying twice-yearly royalties to these beneficiaries. The estate of E. H. Shepard also received a sum in the deal. The UK copyright on the text of the original Winnie the Pooh books expires on 1 January 2027; at the beginning of the year after the 70th anniversary of the author's death (PMA-70), and has already expired in those countries with a PMA-50 rule. This applies to all of Milne's works except those first published posthumously. The illustrations in the Pooh books will remain under copyright until the same amount of time after the illustrator's death has passed; in the UK, this will be 1 January 2047.
In the US, copyright on the four children's books (including the illustrations) expired 95 years after publication of each of the books. Specifically: copyright on the book "When We Were Very Young" expired in 2020; copyright on the book "Winnie-the-Pooh" expired in 2022; copyright on the book "Now We Are Six" expired in 2023; and copyright on the book "The House at Pooh Corner" expired in 2024. In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2 million at auction at Sotheby's, London. "Forbes" magazine ranked Winnie the Pooh the most valuable fictional character in 2002; Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone had annual sales of more than $5.9 billion. In 2005, Winnie the Pooh generated $6 billion, a figure surpassed only by Mickey Mouse. A memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest, unveiled by Christopher Robin in 1979, commemorates the work of A. A. Milne and Shepard in creating the world of Pooh. The inscription states they "captured the magic of Ashdown Forest, and gave it to the world". Milne once wrote of Ashdown Forest: "In that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."
In 2003, "Winnie-the-Pooh" was ranked number 7 on the BBC's The Big Read poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels". In 2006, Winnie-the-Pooh received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, marking the 80th birthday of Milne's creation. Marking the 90th anniversary of Milne's creation of the character, and the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, "Winnie-the-Pooh Meets the Queen" (2016) sees Pooh meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The illustrated and audio adventure is narrated by the actor Jim Broadbent. Also in 2016, a new character, a Penguin, was unveiled in "The Best Bear in All the World", which was inspired by a long-lost photograph of Milne and his son Christopher with a toy penguin. An exhibition entitled "" appeared at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 9 December 2017 to 8 April 2018. The composer Harold Fraser-Simson, a near neighbour, produced six books of Milne songs between 1924 and 1932. The poems have been parodied many times, including in the books "When We Were Rather Older" and "Now We Are Sixty". The 1963 film "The King's Breakfast" was based on Milne's poem of the same name.
Milne has been portrayed in television and film. Domhnall Gleeson plays him in "Goodbye Christopher Robin", a 2017 biographical drama film. In the 2018 fantasy film "Christopher Robin", an extension of the Disney Winnie the Pooh franchise, Tristan Sturrock plays Milne, and filming took place at Ashdown Forest. An elementary school in Houston, Texas, operated by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), is named after Milne. The school, A. A. Milne Elementary School in Brays Oaks, opened in 1991. Archive. The original manuscripts for "Winnie-the-Pooh" and "The House at Pooh Corner" are archived at Trinity College Library, Cambridge. The bulk of A. A. Milne's papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection, established at the centre in 1964, consists of manuscript drafts and fragments for over 150 of Milne's works, as well as correspondence, legal documents, genealogical records, and some personal effects. The library division holds several books formerly belonging to Milne and his wife Dorothy. The center also has small collections of correspondence from Christopher Robin Milne and Milne's frequent illustrator E. H. Shepard.
Religious views. Milne did not speak out much on the subject of religion, although he used religious terms to explain his decision, while remaining a pacifist, to join the British Home Guard. He wrote: "In fighting Hitler we are truly fighting the Devil, the Anti-Christ ... Hitler was a crusader against God." His best known comment on the subject was recalled on his death: He wrote in the poem "Explained": He also wrote in the poem "Vespers":
Asociación Alumni Asociación Alumni, usually just Alumni, is an Argentine rugby union club located in Tortuguitas, Greater Buenos Aires. The senior squad currently competes at Top 12, the first division of the Unión de Rugby de Buenos Aires league system. The club has ties with former football club Alumni because both were established by Buenos Aires English High School students. History. Background. The first club with the name "Alumni" played association football, having been found in 1898 by students of Buenos Aires English High School (BAEHS) along with director Alexander Watson Hutton. Originally under the name "English High School A.C.", the team would be later obliged by the Association to change its name, therefore "Alumni" was chosen, following a proposal by Carlos Bowers, a former student of the school. Alumni was the most successful team during the first years of Argentine football, winning 10 of 14 league championships contested. Alumni is still considered the first great football team in the country. Alumni was reorganised in 1908, "in order to encourage people to practise all kinds of sports, specially football". This was the last try to develop itself as a sports club rather than just as a football team, as Lomas, Belgrano and Quilmes had successfully done in the past, but the efforts were not enough. Alumni played its last game in 1911 and was definitely dissolved on April 24, 1913.
Rebirth through rugby. In 1951, two guards of the BAEHS, Daniel Ginhson (also a former player of Buenos Aires F.C.) and Guillermo Cubelli, supported by the school's alumni and fathers of the students, decided to establish a club focused on rugby union exclusively. Former players of Alumni football club and descendants of other players already dead gave their permission to use the name "Alumni". On December 13, in a meeting presided by Carlos Bowers himself (who had proposed the name "Alumni" to the original football team 50 years before), the club was officially established under the name "Asociación Juvenil Alumni", also adopting the same colors as its predecessor. The team achieved good results and in 1960 the club presented a team that won the third division of the Buenos Aires league, reaching the second division. Since then, Alumni has played at the highest level of Argentine rugby and its rivalry with Belgrano Athletic Club is one of the fiercest local derbies in Buenos Aires. Alumni would later climb up to the first division winning 5 titles: 4 consecutive between 1989 and 1992, and the other in 2001. In 2002, Alumni won its first Nacional de Clubes title, defeating Jockey Club de Rosario 23–21 in the final. Players. Current roster. As of January 2018:
Axiom An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'. The precise definition varies across fields of study. In classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement that is so evident or well-established, that it is accepted without controversy or question. In modern logic, an axiom is a premise or starting point for reasoning. In mathematics, an "axiom" may be a "logical axiom" or a "non-logical axiom". Logical axioms are taken to be true within the system of logic they define and are often shown in symbolic form (e.g., ("A" and "B") implies "A"), while non-logical axioms are substantive assertions about the elements of the domain of a specific mathematical theory, for example "a" + 0 = "a" in integer arithmetic. Non-logical axioms may also be called "postulates", "assumptions" or "proper axioms". In most cases, a non-logical axiom is simply a formal logical expression used in deduction to build a mathematical theory, and might or might not be self-evident in nature (e.g., the parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry). To axiomatize a system of knowledge is to show that its claims can be derived from a small, well-understood set of sentences (the axioms), and there are typically many ways to axiomatize a given mathematical domain.
Any axiom is a statement that serves as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. Whether it is meaningful (and, if so, what it means) for an axiom to be "true" is a subject of debate in the philosophy of mathematics. Etymology. The word "axiom" comes from the Greek word ("axíōma"), a verbal noun from the verb ("axioein"), meaning "to deem worthy", but also "to require", which in turn comes from ("áxios"), meaning "being in balance", and hence "having (the same) value (as)", "worthy", "proper". Among the ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians, axioms were taken to be immediately evident propositions, foundational and common to many fields of investigation, and self-evidently true without any further argument or proof. The root meaning of the word "postulate" is to "demand"; for instance, Euclid demands that one agree that some things can be done (e.g., any two points can be joined by a straight line). Ancient geometers maintained some distinction between axioms and postulates. While commenting on Euclid's books, Proclus remarks that "Geminus held that this [4th] Postulate should not be classed as a postulate but as an axiom, since it does not, like the first three Postulates, assert the possibility of some construction but expresses an essential property." Boethius translated 'postulate' as "petitio" and called the axioms "notiones communes" but in later manuscripts this usage was not always strictly kept.
Historical development. Early Greeks. The logico-deductive method whereby conclusions (new knowledge) follow from premises (old knowledge) through the application of sound arguments (syllogisms, rules of inference) was developed by the ancient Greeks, and has become the core principle of modern mathematics. Tautologies excluded, nothing can be deduced if nothing is assumed. Axioms and postulates are thus the basic assumptions underlying a given body of deductive knowledge. They are accepted without demonstration. All other assertions (theorems, in the case of mathematics) must be proven with the aid of these basic assumptions. However, the interpretation of mathematical knowledge has changed from ancient times to the modern, and consequently the terms "axiom" and "postulate" hold a slightly different meaning for the present day mathematician, than they did for Aristotle and Euclid. The ancient Greeks considered geometry as just one of several sciences, and held the theorems of geometry on par with scientific facts. As such, they developed and used the logico-deductive method as a means of avoiding error, and for structuring and communicating knowledge. Aristotle's posterior analytics is a definitive exposition of the classical view.
An "axiom", in classical terminology, referred to a self-evident assumption common to many branches of science. A good example would be the assertion that: When an equal amount is taken from equals, an equal amount results. At the foundation of the various sciences lay certain additional hypotheses that were accepted without proof. Such a hypothesis was termed a "postulate". While the axioms were common to many sciences, the postulates of each particular science were different. Their validity had to be established by means of real-world experience. Aristotle warns that the content of a science cannot be successfully communicated if the learner is in doubt about the truth of the postulates. The classical approach is well-illustrated by Euclid's "Elements", where a list of postulates is given (common-sensical geometric facts drawn from our experience), followed by a list of "common notions" (very basic, self-evident assertions). Modern development. A lesson learned by mathematics in the last 150 years is that it is useful to strip the meaning away from the mathematical assertions (axioms, postulates, propositions, theorems) and definitions. One must concede the need for primitive notions, or undefined terms or concepts, in any study. Such abstraction or formalization makes mathematical knowledge more general, capable of multiple different meanings, and therefore useful in multiple contexts. Alessandro Padoa, Mario Pieri, and Giuseppe Peano were pioneers in this movement.
Structuralist mathematics goes further, and develops theories and axioms (e.g. field theory, group theory, topology, vector spaces) without "any" particular application in mind. The distinction between an "axiom" and a "postulate" disappears. The postulates of Euclid are profitably motivated by saying that they lead to a great wealth of geometric facts. The truth of these complicated facts rests on the acceptance of the basic hypotheses. However, by throwing out Euclid's fifth postulate, one can get theories that have meaning in wider contexts (e.g., hyperbolic geometry). As such, one must simply be prepared to use labels such as "line" and "parallel" with greater flexibility. The development of hyperbolic geometry taught mathematicians that it is useful to regard postulates as purely formal statements, and not as facts based on experience. When mathematicians employ the field axioms, the intentions are even more abstract. The propositions of field theory do not concern any one particular application; the mathematician now works in complete abstraction. There are many examples of fields; field theory gives correct knowledge about them all.
It is not correct to say that the axioms of field theory are "propositions that are regarded as true without proof." Rather, the field axioms are a set of constraints. If any given system of addition and multiplication satisfies these constraints, then one is in a position to instantly know a great deal of extra information about this system. Modern mathematics formalizes its foundations to such an extent that mathematical theories can be regarded as mathematical objects, and mathematics itself can be regarded as a branch of logic. Frege, Russell, Poincaré, Hilbert, and Gödel are some of the key figures in this development. Another lesson learned in modern mathematics is to examine purported proofs carefully for hidden assumptions. In the modern understanding, a set of axioms is any collection of formally stated assertions from which other formally stated assertions follow – by the application of certain well-defined rules. In this view, logic becomes just another formal system. A set of axioms should be consistent; it should be impossible to derive a contradiction from the axioms. A set of axioms should also be non-redundant; an assertion that can be deduced from other axioms need not be regarded as an axiom.
It was the early hope of modern logicians that various branches of mathematics, perhaps all of mathematics, could be derived from a consistent collection of basic axioms. An early success of the formalist program was Hilbert's formalization of Euclidean geometry, and the related demonstration of the consistency of those axioms. In a wider context, there was an attempt to base all of mathematics on Cantor's set theory. Here, the emergence of Russell's paradox and similar antinomies of naïve set theory raised the possibility that any such system could turn out to be inconsistent. The formalist project suffered a setback a century ago, when Gödel showed that it is possible, for any sufficiently large set of axioms (Peano's axioms, for example) to construct a statement whose truth is independent of that set of axioms. As a corollary, Gödel proved that the consistency of a theory like Peano arithmetic is an unprovable assertion within the scope of that theory. It is reasonable to believe in the consistency of Peano arithmetic because it is satisfied by the system of natural numbers, an infinite but intuitively accessible formal system. However, at present, there is no known way of demonstrating the consistency of the modern Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms for set theory. Furthermore, using techniques of forcing (Cohen) one can show that the continuum hypothesis (Cantor) is independent of the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms. Thus, even this very general set of axioms cannot be regarded as the definitive foundation for mathematics.
Other sciences. Experimental sciences - as opposed to mathematics and logic - also have general founding assertions from which a deductive reasoning can be built so as to express propositions that predict properties - either still general or much more specialized to a specific experimental context. For instance, Newton's laws in classical mechanics, Maxwell's equations in classical electromagnetism, Einstein's equation in general relativity, Mendel's laws of genetics, Darwin's Natural selection law, etc. These founding assertions are usually called "principles" or "postulates" so as to distinguish from mathematical "axioms". As a matter of facts, the role of axioms in mathematics and postulates in experimental sciences is different. In mathematics one neither "proves" nor "disproves" an axiom. A set of mathematical axioms gives a set of rules that fix a conceptual realm, in which the theorems logically follow. In contrast, in experimental sciences, a set of postulates shall allow deducing results that match or do not match experimental results. If postulates do not allow deducing experimental predictions, they do not set a scientific conceptual framework and have to be completed or made more accurate. If the postulates allow deducing predictions of experimental results, the comparison with experiments allows falsifying (falsified) the theory that the postulates install. A theory is considered valid as long as it has not been falsified.
Now, the transition between the mathematical axioms and scientific postulates is always slightly blurred, especially in physics. This is due to the heavy use of mathematical tools to support the physical theories. For instance, the introduction of Newton's laws rarely establishes as a prerequisite neither Euclidean geometry or differential calculus that they imply. It became more apparent when Albert Einstein first introduced special relativity where the invariant quantity is no more the Euclidean length formula_1 (defined as formula_2) > but the Minkowski spacetime interval formula_3 (defined as formula_4), and then general relativity where flat Minkowskian geometry is replaced with pseudo-Riemannian geometry on curved manifolds.
Mathematical logic. In the field of mathematical logic, a clear distinction is made between two notions of axioms: "logical" and "non-logical" (somewhat similar to the ancient distinction between "axioms" and "postulates" respectively). Logical axioms. These are certain formulas in a formal language that are universally valid, that is, formulas that are satisfied by every assignment of values. Usually one takes as logical axioms "at least" some minimal set of tautologies that is sufficient for proving all tautologies in the language; in the case of predicate logic more logical axioms than that are required, in order to prove logical truths that are not tautologies in the strict sense. Examples. Propositional logic. In propositional logic, it is common to take as logical axioms all formulae of the following forms, where formula_5, formula_6, and formula_7 can be any formulae of the language and where the included primitive connectives are only "formula_8" for negation of the immediately following proposition and "formula_9" for implication from antecedent to consequent propositions:
Each of these patterns is an "axiom schema", a rule for generating an infinite number of axioms. For example, if formula_13, formula_14, and formula_15 are propositional variables, then formula_16 and formula_17 are both instances of axiom schema 1, and hence are axioms. It can be shown that with only these three axiom schemata and "modus ponens", one can prove all tautologies of the propositional calculus. It can also be shown that no pair of these schemata is sufficient for proving all tautologies with "modus ponens". Other axiom schemata involving the same or different sets of primitive connectives can be alternatively constructed. These axiom schemata are also used in the predicate calculus, but additional logical axioms are needed to include a quantifier in the calculus. First-order logic. Axiom of Equality.<br>Let formula_18 be a first-order language. For each variable formula_19, the below formula is universally valid. formula_20 This means that, for any variable symbol formula_19, the formula formula_20 can be regarded as an axiom. Additionally, in this example, for this not to fall into vagueness and a never-ending series of "primitive notions", either a precise notion of what we mean by formula_20 (or, for that matter, "to be equal") has to be well established first, or a purely formal and syntactical usage of the symbol formula_24 has to be enforced, only regarding it as a string and only a string of symbols, and mathematical logic does indeed do that.
Another, more interesting example axiom scheme, is that which provides us with what is known as Universal Instantiation: Axiom scheme for Universal Instantiation.<br>Given a formula formula_5 in a first-order language formula_18, a variable formula_19 and a term formula_28 that is substitutable for formula_19 in formula_5, the below formula is universally valid. formula_31 Where the symbol formula_32 stands for the formula formula_5 with the term formula_28 substituted for formula_19. (See Substitution of variables.) In informal terms, this example allows us to state that, if we know that a certain property formula_36 holds for every formula_19 and that formula_28 stands for a particular object in our structure, then we should be able to claim formula_39. Again, "we are claiming that the formula" formula_40 "is valid", that is, we must be able to give a "proof" of this fact, or more properly speaking, a "metaproof". These examples are "metatheorems" of our theory of mathematical logic since we are dealing with the very concept of "proof" itself. Aside from this, we can also have Existential Generalization:
Axiom scheme for Existential Generalization. Given a formula formula_5 in a first-order language formula_18, a variable formula_19 and a term formula_28 that is substitutable for formula_19 in formula_5, the below formula is universally valid. formula_47 Non-logical axioms. Non-logical axioms are formulas that play the role of theory-specific assumptions. Reasoning about two different structures, for example, the natural numbers and the integers, may involve the same logical axioms; the non-logical axioms aim to capture what is special about a particular structure (or set of structures, such as groups). Thus non-logical axioms, unlike logical axioms, are not "tautologies". Another name for a non-logical axiom is "postulate". Almost every modern mathematical theory starts from a given set of non-logical axioms, and it was thought that, in principle, every theory could be axiomatized in this way and formalized down to the bare language of logical formulas. Non-logical axioms are often simply referred to as "axioms" in mathematical discourse. This does not mean that it is claimed that they are true in some absolute sense. For instance, in some groups, the group operation is commutative, and this can be asserted with the introduction of an additional axiom, but without this axiom, we can do quite well developing (the more general) group theory, and we can even take its negation as an axiom for the study of non-commutative groups.
Examples. This section gives examples of mathematical theories that are developed entirely from a set of non-logical axioms (axioms, henceforth). A rigorous treatment of any of these topics begins with a specification of these axioms. Basic theories, such as arithmetic, real analysis and complex analysis are often introduced non-axiomatically, but implicitly or explicitly there is generally an assumption that the axioms being used are the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with choice, abbreviated ZFC, or some very similar system of axiomatic set theory like Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory, a conservative extension of ZFC. Sometimes slightly stronger theories such as Morse–Kelley set theory or set theory with a strongly inaccessible cardinal allowing the use of a Grothendieck universe is used, but in fact, most mathematicians can actually prove all they need in systems weaker than ZFC, such as second-order arithmetic. The study of topology in mathematics extends all over through point set topology, algebraic topology, differential topology, and all the related paraphernalia, such as homology theory, homotopy theory. The development of "abstract algebra" brought with itself group theory, rings, fields, and Galois theory.
This list could be expanded to include most fields of mathematics, including measure theory, ergodic theory, probability, representation theory, and differential geometry. Arithmetic. The Peano axioms are the most widely used "axiomatization" of first-order arithmetic. They are a set of axioms strong enough to prove many important facts about number theory and they allowed Gödel to establish his famous second incompleteness theorem. We have a language formula_48 where formula_49 is a constant symbol and formula_50 is a unary function and the following axioms: The standard structure is formula_56 where formula_57 is the set of natural numbers, formula_50 is the successor function and formula_49 is naturally interpreted as the number 0. Euclidean geometry. Probably the oldest, and most famous, list of axioms are the 4 + 1 Euclid's postulates of plane geometry. The axioms are referred to as "4 + 1" because for nearly two millennia the fifth (parallel) postulate ("through a point outside a line there is exactly one parallel") was suspected of being derivable from the first four. Ultimately, the fifth postulate was found to be independent of the first four. One can assume that exactly one parallel through a point outside a line exists, or that infinitely many exist. This choice gives us two alternative forms of geometry in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to exactly 180 degrees or less, respectively, and are known as Euclidean and hyperbolic geometries. If one also removes the second postulate ("a line can be extended indefinitely") then elliptic geometry arises, where there is no parallel through a point outside a line, and in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to more than 180 degrees.
Real analysis. The objectives of the study are within the domain of real numbers. The real numbers are uniquely picked out (up to isomorphism) by the properties of a "Dedekind complete ordered field", meaning that any nonempty set of real numbers with an upper bound has a least upper bound. However, expressing these properties as axioms requires the use of second-order logic. The Löwenheim–Skolem theorems tell us that if we restrict ourselves to first-order logic, any axiom system for the reals admits other models, including both models that are smaller than the reals and models that are larger. Some of the latter are studied in non-standard analysis. Role in mathematical logic. Deductive systems and completeness. A deductive system consists of a set formula_60 of logical axioms, a set formula_61 of non-logical axioms, and a set formula_62 of "rules of inference". A desirable property of a deductive system is that it be complete. A system is said to be complete if, for all formulas formula_5, formula_64 that is, for any statement that is a "logical consequence" of formula_61 there actually exists a "deduction" of the statement from formula_61. This is sometimes expressed as "everything that is true is provable", but it must be understood that "true" here means "made true by the set of axioms", and not, for example, "true in the intended interpretation". Gödel's completeness theorem establishes the completeness of a certain commonly used type of deductive system.
Note that "completeness" has a different meaning here than it does in the context of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, which states that no "recursive", "consistent" set of non-logical axioms formula_61 of the Theory of Arithmetic is "complete", in the sense that there will always exist an arithmetic statement formula_5 such that neither formula_5 nor formula_70 can be proved from the given set of axioms. There is thus, on the one hand, the notion of "completeness of a deductive system" and on the other hand that of "completeness of a set of non-logical axioms". The completeness theorem and the incompleteness theorem, despite their names, do not contradict one another. Further discussion. Early mathematicians regarded axiomatic geometry as a model of physical space, implying, there could ultimately only be one such model. The idea that alternative mathematical systems might exist was very troubling to mathematicians of the 19th century and the developers of systems such as Boolean algebra made elaborate efforts to derive them from traditional arithmetic. Galois showed just before his untimely death that these efforts were largely wasted. Ultimately, the abstract parallels between algebraic systems were seen to be more important than the details, and modern algebra was born. In the modern view, axioms may be any set of formulas, as long as they are not known to be inconsistent.
Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , which is the West Semitic word for "ox". Letters that arose from alpha include the Latin letter A and the Cyrillic letter А. Uses. Greek. In Ancient Greek, alpha was pronounced and could be either phonemically long ([aː]) or short ([a]). Where there is ambiguity, long and short alpha are sometimes written with a macron and breve today: . In Modern Greek, vowel length has been lost, and all instances of alpha simply represent the open front unrounded vowel . In the polytonic orthography of Greek, alpha, like other vowel letters, can occur with several diacritic marks: any of three accent symbols (), and either of two breathing marks (), as well as combinations of these. It can also combine with the iota subscript (). Greek grammar. In the Attic–Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, long alpha fronted to (eta). In Ionic, the shift took place in all positions. In Attic, the shift did not take place after epsilon, iota, and rho (; ). In Doric and Aeolic, long alpha is preserved in all positions.
Privative a is the Ancient Greek prefix or , added to words to negate them. It originates from the Proto-Indo-European (syllabic nasal) and is cognate with English "un-". Copulative a is the Greek prefix or . It comes from Proto-Indo-European . Mathematics and science. The letter alpha represents various concepts in physics and chemistry, including alpha radiation, angular acceleration, alpha particles, alpha carbon and strength of electromagnetic interaction (as fine-structure constant). Alpha also stands for thermal expansion coefficient of a compound in physical chemistry. In ethology, it is used to name the dominant individual in a group of animals. In aerodynamics, the letter is used as a symbol for the angle of attack of an aircraft and the word "alpha" is used as a synonym for this property. In astronomy, α is often used to designate the brightest star in a constellation. In mathematics, the letter alpha is used to denote the area underneath a normal curve in statistics to denote significance level when proving null and alternative hypotheses. It is also commonly used in algebraic solutions representing quantities such as angles. In mathematical logic, α is sometimes used as a placeholder for ordinal numbers. It is used for Stoneham numbers.
Most occurrences of alpha in science are the lowercase alpha. The uppercase letter alpha is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercase Latin A. The proportionality operator "∝" (in Unicode: U+221D) is sometimes mistaken for alpha. International Phonetic Alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter ɑ, which looks similar to the lower-case alpha, represents the open back unrounded vowel. History and symbolism. Origin. The Phoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek in the early 8th century BC, perhaps in Euboea. The majority of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet were adopted into Greek with much the same sounds as they had had in Phoenician, but "ʼāleph", the Phoenician letter representing the glottal stop , was adopted as representing the vowel ; similarly, "hē" and "ʽayin" are Phoenician consonants that became Greek vowels, epsilon and omicron , respectively. Plutarch. Plutarch, in "Moralia", presents a discussion on why the letter alpha stands first in the alphabet. Ammonius asks Plutarch what he, being a Boeotian, has to say for Cadmus, the Phoenician who reputedly settled in Thebes and introduced the alphabet to Greece, placing "alpha" first because it is the Phoenician name for ox—which, unlike Hesiod, the Phoenicians considered not the second or third, but the first of all necessities. "Nothing at all," Plutarch replied. He then added that he would rather be assisted by Lamprias, his own grandfather, than by Dionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. For Lamprias had said that the first articulate sound made is "alpha", because it is very plain and simple—the air coming off the mouth does not require any motion of the tongue—and therefore this is the first sound that children make.
According to Plutarch's natural order of attribution of the vowels to the planets, alpha was connected with the Moon. Alpha and Omega. As the first letter of the alphabet, Alpha as a Greek numeral came to represent the number 1. Therefore, Alpha, both as a symbol and term, is used to refer to the "first", or "primary", or "principal" (most significant) occurrence or status of a thing. The New Testament has God declaring himself to be the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (, KJV, and see also ). Consequently, the term "alpha" has also come to be used to denote "primary" position in social hierarchy, examples being the concept of dominant "alpha" members in groups of animals. Unicode. All code points with or but without (for accented Greek characters, see Greek diacritics: Computer encoding):
Alvin Toffler Alvin Eugene Toffler (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016) was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world's outstanding futurists. Toffler was an associate editor of "Fortune" magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed "information overload". In 1970, his first major book about the future, "Future Shock", became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies. He and his wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, "The Third Wave", in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication. His later focus, via their other best-seller, "Powershift", (1990), was on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.
He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, and a business consultant. Toffler's ideas and writings were a significant influence on the thinking of business and government leaders worldwide, including China's Zhao Ziyang, and AOL founder Steve Case. Early life. Alvin Toffler was born on October 4, 1928, in New York City, and raised in Brooklyn. He was the son of Rose (Albaum) and Sam Toffler, a furrier, both Polish Jews who had migrated to America. He had one younger sister. He was inspired to become a writer at the age of 7 by his aunt and uncle, who lived with the Tofflers. "They were Depression-era literary intellectuals," Toffler said, "and they always talked about exciting ideas." Toffler graduated from New York University in 1950 as an English major, though by his own account he was more focused on political activism than grades. He met his future wife, Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell (nicknamed "Heidi"), when she was starting a graduate course in linguistics. Being radical students, they decided against further graduate work and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where they married on April 29, 1950.
Career. Seeking experiences to write about, Alvin and Heidi Toffler spent the next five years as blue collar workers on assembly lines while studying industrial mass production in their daily work. He compared his own desire for experience to other writers, such as Jack London, who in his quest for subjects to write about sailed the seas, and John Steinbeck, who went to pick grapes with migrant workers. In their first factory jobs, Heidi became a union shop steward in the aluminum foundry where she worked. Alvin became a millwright and welder. In the evenings Alvin would write poetry and fiction, but discovered he was proficient at neither. His hands-on practical labor experience helped Alvin Toffler land a position at a union-backed newspaper, a transfer to its Washington bureau in 1957, then three years as a White House correspondent, covering Congress and the White House for a Pennsylvania daily newspaper. They returned to New York City in 1959 when "Fortune" magazine invited Alvin to become its labor columnist, later having him write about business and management. After leaving "Fortune" magazine in 1962, Toffler began a freelance career, writing long form articles for scholarly journals and magazines. His 1964 "Playboy interviews" with Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand were considered among the magazine's best. His interview with Rand was the first time the magazine had given such a platform to a female intellectual, which as one commentator said, "the real bird of paradise Toffler captured for Playboy in 1964 was Ayn Rand."
Toffler was hired by IBM to conduct research and write a paper on the social and organizational impact of computers, leading to his contact with the earliest computer "gurus" and artificial intelligence researchers and proponents. Xerox invited him to write about its research laboratory and AT&T consulted him for strategic advice. This AT&T work led to a study of telecommunications, which advised the company's top management to break up the company more than a decade before the government forced AT&T to break up. In the mid-1960s, the Tofflers began five years of research on what would become "Future Shock", published in 1970. It has sold over 6 million copies worldwide, according to the "New York Times," or over 15 million copies according to the Tofflers' Web site. Toffler coined the term "future shock" to refer to what happens to a society when change happens too fast, which results in social confusion and normal decision-making processes breaking down. The book has never been out of print and has been translated into dozens of languages.
He continued the theme in "The Third Wave" in 1980. While he describes the first and second waves as the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the "third wave," a phrase he coined, represents the current information, computer-based revolution. He forecast the spread of the Internet and email, interactive media, cable television, cloning, and other digital advancements. He claimed that one of the side effects of the digital age has been "information overload," another term he coined. In 1990, he wrote "Powershift", also with the help of his wife, Heidi. In 1996, with American business consultant Tom Johnson, they co-founded Toffler Associates, an advisory firm designed to implement many of the ideas the Tofflers had written on. The firm worked with businesses, NGOs, and governments in the United States, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and other countries. During this period in his career, Toffler lectured worldwide, taught at several schools and met world leaders, such as Mikhail Gorbachev, along with key executives and military officials.
Ideas and opinions. Toffler stated many of his ideas during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1998. "Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest," he said. "Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skills that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone." His opinions about the future of education, many of which were in "Future Shock", have often been quoted. An often misattributed quote, however, is that of psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy: "Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn." Early in his career, after traveling to other countries, he became aware of the new and myriad inputs that visitors received from these other cultures. He explained during an interview that some visitors would become "truly disoriented and upset" by the strange environment, which he described as a reaction to culture shock. From that issue, he foresaw another problem for the future, when a culturally "new environment comes to you ... and comes to you rapidly." That kind of sudden cultural change within one's own country, which he felt many would not understand, would lead to a similar reaction, one of "future shock", which he wrote about in his book by that title. Toffler writes:
In "The Third Wave", Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of "waves"—each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside. He describes the "First Wave" as the society after agrarian revolution and replaced the first hunter-gatherer cultures. The "Second Wave," he labels society during the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 17th century through the mid-20th century). That period saw the increase of urban industrial populations which had undermined the traditional nuclear family, and initiated a factory-like education system, and the growth of the corporation. Toffler said: The "Third Wave" was a term he coined to describe the post-industrial society, which began in the late 1950s. His description of this period dovetails with other futurist writers, who also wrote about the Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, terms which highlighted a scientific-technological revolution. The Tofflers claimed to have predicted a number of geopolitical events, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the future economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
Influences and popular culture. Toffler often visited with dignitaries in Asia, including China's Zhao Ziyang, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and South Korea's Kim Dae Jung, all of whom were influenced by his views as Asia's emerging markets increased in global significance during the 1980s and 1990s. Although they had originally censored some of his books and ideas, China's government cited him along with Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Gates as being among the Westerners who had most influenced their country. "The Third Wave" along with a video documentary based on it became best-sellers in China and were widely distributed to schools. The video's success inspired the marketing of videos on related themes in the late 1990s by Infowars, whose name is derived from the term coined by Toffler in the book. Toffler's influence on Asian thinkers was summed up in an article in "Daedalus", published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences: U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich publicly lauded his ideas about the future, and urged members of Congress to read Toffler's book, "Creating a New Civilization" (1995). Others, such as AOL founder Steve Case, cited Toffler's "The Third Wave" as a formative influence on his thinking, which inspired him to write "The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future" in 2016. Case said that Toffler was a "real pioneer in helping people, companies and even countries lean into the future."
In 1980, Ted Turner founded CNN, which he said was inspired by Toffler's forecasting the end of the dominance of the three main television networks. Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting, published Toffler's "Creating a New Civilization" in 1995. Shortly after the book was released, the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev hosted the Global Governance Conference in San Francisco with the theme, "Toward a New Civilization", which was attended by dozens of world figures, including the Tofflers, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Carl Sagan, Abba Eban and Turner with his then-wife, actress Jane Fonda. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was influenced by his works, and became a friend of the writer. Global marketer J.D. Power also said he was inspired by Toffler's works. Since the 1960s, people had tried to make sense out of the effect of new technologies and social change, a problem which made Toffler's writings widely influential beyond the confines of scientific, economic, and public policy. His works and ideas have been subject to various criticisms, usually with the same argumentation used against futurology: that foreseeing the future is nigh impossible.
Techno music pioneer Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" in "The Third Wave" as inspiring him to use the word "techno" to describe the musical style he helped to create Musician Curtis Mayfield released a disco song called "Future Shock," later covered in an electro version by Herbie Hancock. Science fiction author John Brunner wrote "The Shockwave Rider," from the concept of "future shock." The nightclub Toffler, in Rotterdam, is named after him. In the song "Victoria" by The Exponents, the protagonist's daily routine and cultural interests are described: "She's up in time to watch the soap operas, reads Cosmopolitan and Alvin Toffler". Critical assessment. Accenture, the management consultancy firm, identified Toffler in 2002 as being among the most influential voices in business leaders, along with Bill Gates and Peter Drucker. Toffler has also been described in a "Financial Times" interview as the "world's most famous futurologist". In 2006, the "People's Daily" classed him among the 50 foreigners who shaped modern China, which one U.S. newspaper notes made him a "guru of sorts to world statesmen." Chinese Premier and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was greatly influenced by Toffler. He convened conferences to discuss "The Third Wave" in the early 1980s, and in 1985 the book was the No. 2 best seller in China.
Author Mark Satin characterizes Toffler as an important early influence on radical centrist political thought. Newt Gingrich became close to the Tofflers in the 1970s and said "The Third Wave" had immensely influenced his own thinking and was "one of the great seminal works of our time." Selected awards. Toffler has received several prestigious prizes and awards, including the McKinsey Foundation Book Award for Contributions to Management Literature, Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, and appointments, including Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. In 2006, Alvin and Heidi Toffler were recipients of Brown University's Independent Award. Personal life. Toffler was married to Heidi Toffler (born Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell), also a writer and futurist. They lived in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California, and previously lived in Redding, Connecticut. The couple's only child, Karen Toffler (1954–2000), died at age 46 after more than a decade suffering from Guillain–Barré syndrome. Alvin Toffler died in his sleep on June 27, 2016, at his home in Los Angeles. No cause of death was given. He is buried at Westwood Memorial Park. Bibliography. Alvin Toffler co-wrote his books with his wife Heidi.
The Amazing Spider-Man The Amazing Spider-Man is an ongoing American superhero comic book series featuring the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man as its title character and main protagonist. Being in the mainstream continuity of the franchise, it was the character's first title, launching seven months after his introduction in the final issue of "Amazing Fantasy". The series began publication with a March 1963 cover date and has been published nearly continuously to date over six volumes with only one significant interruption. Issues of the title currently feature an issue number within its sixth volume, as well as a "legacy" number reflecting the issue's overall number across all "Amazing Spider-Man" volumes. The title reached 900 issues in 2022. The series began as a bimonthly periodical before being increased to monthly after four issues. It was the character's sole monthly headlining title until "Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man" would launch in 1976. After 441 issues, "The Amazing Spider-Man" was restarted in 1999 as issue No. 1 of Volume 2. It ran for 58 issues before reverting to the title's overall issue number with #500 in 2003. The series ran essentially continuously over the first two volumes from 1963 until its landmark 700th issue at the end of 2012 when it was replaced by "The Superior Spider-Man" as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch of Marvel's comic lines. The title was occasionally published biweekly during the first two volumes, and was published three times a month from 2008 to 2010. After the relaunch of "Action Comics" and "Detective Comics", "The Amazing Spider-Man" briefly became the highest-numbered active American comic book.
"The Amazing Spider-Man" returned with volume 3 in April 2014 following the conclusion of "The Superior Spider-Man" story arc after 31 issues. In late 2015, the series was relaunched with a fourth volume following the 2015 "Secret Wars" event. After 45 years, the volume was once again relaunched as part of "Marvel Legacy", returning to the overall "legacy" numbering with issue No. 789 in late 2017. Less than a year later, the series was relaunched again with a fifth volume as part of Marvel's "Fresh Start". For the first time, although the issue numbers were again restarted from #1, the issues also bore the overall "legacy" issue number. A sixth volume commenced in April 2022 to celebrate Spider-Man's 60th anniversary. Since the second volume, the title has had various release schedules, including monthly and bi-weekly, among others. Publication history. Writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Steve Ditko created the character of Spider-Man, and the pair produced 38 issues from March 1963 to July 1966. Ditko left after the 38th issue, while Lee remained as writer until issue 100. Since then, many writers and artists have taken over the monthly comic through the years, chronicling the adventures of Marvel's most identifiable hero.
"The Amazing Spider-Man" has been the character's flagship series for his first fifty years in publication, and was the only monthly series to star Spider-Man until "Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man", in 1976, although 1972 saw the debut of "Marvel Team-Up", with the vast majority of issues featuring Spider-Man along with a rotating cast of other Marvel characters. Most of the major characters and villains of the Spider-Man saga have been introduced in "Amazing", and with few exceptions, it is where most key events in the character's history have occurred. The title was published continuously until No. 441 (Nov. 1998) when Marvel Comics relaunched it as vol. 2 No. 1 (Jan. 1999), but on Spider-Man's 40th anniversary, this new title reverted to using the numbering of the original series, beginning again with issue No. 500 (Dec. 2003) and lasting until the final issue, No. 700 (Feb. 2013). 1960s. Due to strong sales on the character's first appearance in "Amazing Fantasy" No. 15, Spider-Man was given his own ongoing series in March 1963. The initial years of the series, under Lee and Ditko, chronicled Spider-Man's nascent career as a masked super-human vigilante with his civilian life as hard-luck yet perpetually good-humored and well-meaning teenager Peter Parker. Peter balanced his career as Spider-Man with his job as a freelance photographer for "The Daily Bugle" under the bombastic editor-publisher J. Jonah Jameson to support himself and his frail Aunt May. At the same time, Peter dealt with public hostility towards Spider-Man and the antagonism of his classmates Flash Thompson and Liz Allan at Midtown High School, while embarking on a tentative, ill-fated romance with Jameson's secretary, Betty Brant.
By focusing on Parker's everyday problems, Lee and Ditko created a groundbreakingly flawed, self-doubting superhero, and the first major teenaged superhero to be a protagonist and not a sidekick. Ditko's quirky art provided a stark contrast to the more cleanly dynamic stylings of Marvel's most prominent artist, Jack Kirby, and combined with the humor and pathos of Lee's writing to lay the foundation for what became an enduring mythos. Most of Spider-Man's key villains and supporting characters were introduced during this time. Issue No. 1 (Mar. 1963) featured the first appearances of J. Jonah Jameson and his astronaut son John Jameson, and the supervillain the Chameleon. It included the hero's first encounter with the superhero team the Fantastic Four. Issue No. 2 (May 1963) featured the first appearance of the Vulture and the Tinkerer as well as the beginning of Parker's freelance photography career at the newspaper "The Daily Bugle". The Lee-Ditko era continued to usher in a significant number of villains and supporting characters, including Doctor Octopus in No. 3 (July 1963); the Sandman and Betty Brant in No. 4 (Sept. 1963); the Lizard in No. 6 (Nov. 1963); Living Brain in No. 8 (Jan. 1964); Electro in No. 9 (Mar. 1964); Mysterio in No. 13 (June 1964); the Green Goblin in No. 14 (July 1964); Kraven The Hunter in No. 15 (Aug. 1964); reporter Ned Leeds in No. 18 (Nov. 1964); and the Scorpion in No. 20 (Jan. 1965). The Molten Man was introduced in No. 28 (Sept. 1965) which also featured Parker's graduation from high school. Peter began attending Empire State University in No. 31 (Dec. 1965), which featured the first appearances of friends and classmates Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn. Harry's father, Norman Osborn first appeared in No. 23 (April 1965) as a member of Jameson's country club but was not named nor revealed as Harry's father until No. 37 (June 1966).
One of the most celebrated issues of the Lee-Ditko run is No. 33 (Feb. 1966), the third part of the story arc "If This Be My Destiny...!", which features the dramatic scene of Spider-Man, through force of will and thoughts of family, escaping from being pinned by heavy machinery. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Steve Ditko squeezes every ounce of anguish out of Spider-Man's predicament, complete with visions of the uncle he failed and the aunt he has sworn to save." Peter David observed that "After his origin, this two-page sequence from "Amazing Spider-Man" No. 33 is perhaps the best-loved sequence from the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko era." Steve Saffel stated the "full page Ditko image from "The Amazing Spider-Man" No. 33 is one of the most powerful ever to appear in the series and influenced writers and artists for many years to come." and Matthew K. Manning wrote that "Ditko's illustrations for the first few pages of this Lee story included what would become one of the most iconic scenes in Spider-Man's history." The story was chosen as No. 15 in the 100 Greatest Marvels of All Time poll of Marvel's readers in 2001. Editor Robert Greenberger wrote in his introduction to the story that "These first five pages are a modern-day equivalent to Shakespeare as Parker's soliloquy sets the stage for his next action. And with dramatic pacing and storytelling, Ditko delivers one of the great sequences in all comics."
Although credited only as artist for most of his run, Ditko would eventually plot the stories as well as draw them, leaving Lee to script the dialogue. A rift between Ditko and Lee developed, and the two men were not on speaking terms long before Ditko completed his last issue, "The Amazing Spider-Man" No. 38 (July 1966). The exact reasons for the Ditko-Lee split have never been fully explained. Spider-Man successor artist John Romita Sr., in a 2010 deposition, recalled that Lee and Ditko "ended up not being able to work together because they disagreed on almost everything, cultural, social, historically, everything, they disagreed on characters..." In successor penciler Romita Sr.'s first issue, No. 39 (Aug. 1966), nemesis the Green Goblin discovers Spider-Man's secret identity and reveals his own to the captive hero. Romita's Spider-Man – more polished and heroic-looking than Ditko's – became the model for two decades. The Lee-Romita era saw the introduction of such characters as "Daily Bugle" managing editor Robbie Robertson in No. 52 (Sept. 1967) and NYPD Captain George Stacy, father of Parker's girlfriend Gwen Stacy, in No. 56 (Jan. 1968). The most important supporting character to be introduced during the Romita era was Mary Jane Watson, who made her first full appearance in No. 42 (Nov. 1966), although she first appeared in No. 25 (June 1965) with her face obscured and had been mentioned since No. 15 (Aug. 1964). Peter David wrote in 2010 that Romita "made the definitive statement of his arrival by pulling Mary Jane out from behind the oversized potted plant [that blocked the reader's view of her face in issue no. 25] and placing her on panel in what would instantly become an iconic moment." Romita has stated that in designing Mary Jane, he "used Ann-Margret from the movie "Bye Bye Birdie" as a guide, using her coloring, the shape of her face, her red hair and her form-fitting short skirts."
Lee and Romita toned down the prevalent sense of antagonism in Parker's world by improving Parker's relationship with the supporting characters and having stories focused as much on the social and college lives of the characters as they did on Spider-Man's adventures. The stories became more topical, addressing issues such as civil rights, racism, prisoners' rights, the Vietnam War, and political elections. Issue No. 50 (June 1967) introduced the highly enduring criminal mastermind the Kingpin, who would become a major force as well in the superhero series "Daredevil". Other notable first appearances in the Lee-Romita era include the Rhino in No. 41 (Oct. 1966), the Shocker in No. 46 (Mar. 1967), the Prowler in No. 78 (Nov. 1969), and the Kingpin's son, Richard Fisk, in No. 83 (Apr. 1970). 1970s. Several spin-off series debuted in the 1970s: "Marvel Team-Up" in 1972, and "The Spectacular Spider-Man" in 1976. A short-lived series titled "Giant-Size Spider-Man" began in July 1974 and ran six issues through 1975. "Spidey Super Stories", a series aimed at children ages 6–10, ran for 57 issues from October 1974 through 1982.
The flagship title's second decade took a grim turn with a story in #89-90 (Oct.-Nov. 1970) featuring the death of Captain George Stacy. This was the first Spider-Man story to be penciled by Gil Kane, who would alternate drawing duties with Romita for the next year-and-a-half and would draw several landmark issues. One such story took place in the controversial issues #96–98 (May–July 1971). Writer-editor Lee defied the Comics Code Authority with this story, in which Parker's friend Harry Osborn, was hospitalized after over-dosing on pills. Lee wrote this story upon a request from the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for a story about the dangers of drugs. Citing its dictum against depicting drug use, even in an anti-drug context, the CCA refused to put its seal on these issues. With the approval of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman, Lee had the comics published without the seal. The comics sold well and Marvel won praise for its socially conscious efforts. The CCA subsequently loosened the Code to permit negative depictions of drugs, among other new freedoms.
"The Six Arms Saga" of #100–102 (Sept.–Nov. 1971) introduced Morbius, the Living Vampire. The second installment was the first "Amazing Spider-Man" story not written by co-creator Lee, with Roy Thomas taking over writing the book for several months before Lee returned to write #105–110 (Feb.-July 1972). Lee, who was going on to become Marvel Comics' publisher, with Thomas becoming editor-in-chief, then turned writing duties over to 19-year-old Gerry Conway, who scripted the series through 1975. Romita penciled Conway's first half-dozen issues, which introduced the gangster Hammerhead in No. 113 (Oct. 1972). Kane then succeeded Romita as penciler, although Romita would continue inking Kane for a time. Issue 121 (June 1973 by Conway-Kane-Romita) featured the death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin in "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." Her demise and the Goblin's apparent death one issue later formed a story arc widely considered as the most defining in the history of Spider-Man. The aftermath of the story deepened both the characterization of Mary Jane Watson and her relationship with Parker.
In 1973 Gil Kane was succeeded by Ross Andru, whose run lasted from issue #125 (Oct. 1973) to #185 (Oct. 1978). Issue#129 (Feb. 1974) introduced the Punisher, who would become one of Marvel Comics' most popular characters. The Conway-Andru era featured the first appearances of the Man-Wolf in #124–125 (Sept.-Oct. 1973); the near-marriage of Doctor Octopus and Aunt May in #131 (Apr. 1974); Harry Osborn stepping into his father's role as the Green Goblin in #135–137 (Aug.-Oct.1974); and the original "Clone Saga", containing the introduction of Spider-Man's clone, in #147–149 (Aug.-Oct. 1975). Archie Goodwin and Gil Kane produced the title's 150th issue (Nov. 1975) before Len Wein became writer with issue No. 151. During Wein's tenure, Harry Osborn and Liz Allen dated and became engaged; J. Jonah Jameson was introduced to his eventual second wife, Marla Madison; and Aunt May suffered a heart attack. Wein's last story on "Amazing" was a five-issue arc in #176–180 (Jan.-May 1978) featuring a third Green Goblin (Harry Osborn's psychiatrist, Bart Hamilton).
Marv Wolfman, Marvel's editor-in-chief from 1975 to 1976, succeeded Wein as writer and, in his first issue, #182 (July 1978), had Parker propose marriage to Watson, who refused in the following issue. Keith Pollard succeeded Andru as artist shortly afterward and, with Wolfman, introduced the likable rogue the Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) in #194 (July 1979). As a love interest for Spider-Man, the Black Cat would go on to be an important supporting character for the better part of the next decade and remain a friend and occasional lover into the 2010s. 1980s. "The Amazing Spider-Man" #200 (Jan. 1980) featured the return and death of the burglar who killed Spider-Man's Uncle Ben. Writer Marv Wolfman and penciler Keith Pollard both left the title by mid-year, succeeded by Dennis O'Neil, a writer known for groundbreaking 1970s work at rival DC Comics, and penciler John Romita Jr. O'Neil wrote two issues of "The Amazing Spider-Man Annual" which were both drawn by Frank Miller. The 1980 "Annual" featured a team-up with Doctor Strange while the 1981 "Annual" showcased a meeting with the Punisher. Roger Stern, who had written nearly 20 issues of sister title "The Spectacular Spider-Man", took over "Amazing" with #224 (Jan. 1982). During his two years on the title, Stern augmented the backgrounds of long-established Spider-Man villains and, with Romita Jr., created the mysterious supervillain the Hobgoblin in #238–239 (Mar.–Apr. 1983). Fans engaged with the mystery of the Hobgoblin's secret identity, which continued throughout #244–245 and 249–251 (Sept.-Oct. 1983 and Feb.-April 1984). One lasting change was the reintroduction of Mary Jane Watson as a more serious, mature woman who becomes Peter's confidante after she reveals that she knows his secret identity. Stern also wrote "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #248 (Jan. 1984), a story which ranks among his most popular.
By mid-1984, Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over scripting and penciling. DeFalco helped establish Parker and Watson's mature relationship, laying the foundation for the characters' wedding in 1987. Notably, in #257 (Oct. 1984), Watson tells Parker that she knows he is Spider-Man, and in #259 (Dec. 1984), she reveals to Parker the extent of her troubled childhood. Other notable issues of the DeFalco-Frenz era include #252 (May 1984), the first appearance of Spider-Man's black costume, which the hero would wear almost exclusively for the next four years' worth of comics; the debut of criminal mastermind the Rose in #253 (June 1984); the revelation in #258 (Nov. 1984) that the black costume is a living being, a symbiote; and the introduction of the female mercenary Silver Sable in #265 (June 1985). DeFalco and Frenz were both removed from "The Amazing Spider-Man" in 1986 by editor Jim Owsley under acrimonious circumstances. A succession of artists including Alan Kupperberg, John Romita Jr., and Alex Saviuk penciled the series from 1987 to 1988, and Owsley wrote the book for the first half of 1987, scripting the five-part "Gang War" story (#284–288) that DeFalco plotted. Former "Spectacular Spider-Man" writer Peter David scripted #289 (June 1987), which revealed Ned Leeds as being the Hobgoblin although this was retconned in 1996 by Roger Stern into Leeds not being the original Hobgoblin after all.
David Michelinie took over as writer in the next issue, for a story arc in #290–292 (July–Sept. 1987) that led to the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in "Amazing Spider-Man Annual" No. 21. The "Kraven's Last Hunt" storyline by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod crossed over into "The Amazing Spider-Man" #293 and 294. Issue No.298 (Mar. 1988) was the first Spider-Man comic to be drawn by future industry star Todd McFarlane, the first regular artist on "The Amazing Spider-Man" since Frenz's departure. McFarlane revolutionized Spider-Man's look. His depiction – "Ditko-esque" poses, large eyes; wiry, contorted limbs; and messy, knotted, convoluted webbing – influenced the way virtually all subsequent artists would draw the character. McFarlane's other significant contribution to the Spider-Man canon was the design for what would become one of Spider-Man's most wildly popular antagonists, the supervillain Venom. Issue No. 299 (Apr. 1988) featured Venom's first appearance (a last-page cameo) before his first full appearance in #300 (May 1988). The latter issue featured Spider-Man reverting to his original red-and-blue costume.
Other notable issues of the Michelinie-McFarlane era include #312 (Feb. 1989), featuring the Green Goblin vs. the Hobgoblin; and #315–317 (May–July 1989), with the return of Venom. In July 2012, Todd McFarlane's original cover art for "The Amazing Spider-Man" No. 328 sold for a bid of $657,250, making it the most expensive American comic book art ever sold at auction at the time. 1990s. With a civilian life as a married man, the Spider-Man of the 1990s was different from the superhero of the previous three decades. McFarlane left the title in 1990 to write and draw a new series titled simply "". His successor, Erik Larsen, penciled the book from early 1990 to mid-1991. After issue No. 350, Larsen was succeeded by Mark Bagley, who had won the 1986 Marvel Tryout Contest and was assigned a number of low-profile penciling jobs followed by a run on "New Warriors" in 1990. Bagley penciled the flagship Spider-Man title from 1991 to 1996. During that time, Bagley's rendition of Spider-Man was used extensively for licensed material and merchandise.
Issues #361–363 (April–June 1992) introduced Carnage, a second symbiote nemesis for Spider-Man. The series' 30th-anniversary issue, No. 365 (Aug. 1992), was a double-sized, hologram-cover issue with the cliffhanger ending of Peter Parker's parents, long thought dead, reappearing alive. It would be close to two years before they were revealed to be impostors, who are killed in No. 388 (April 1994), scripter Michelinie's last issue. His 1987–1994 stint gave him the second-longest run as writer on the title, behind Stan Lee. Issue No. 375 was released with a gold foil cover. There was an error affecting some issues, which caused them to be missing the majority of the foil. With No. 389, writer J. M. DeMatteis, whose Spider-Man credits included the 1987 "Kraven's Last Hunt" story arc and a 1991–1993 run on "The Spectacular Spider-Man", took over the title. From October 1994 to June 1996, "Amazing" stopped running stories exclusive to it, and ran installments of multi-part stories that crossed over into all the Spider-Man books. One of the few self-contained stories during this period was in No. 400 (April 1995), which featured the death of Aunt May – later revealed to have been faked (although the death still stands in the MC2 continuity). The "Clone Saga" culminated with the revelation that the Spider-Man who had appeared in the previous 20 years of comics was a clone of the real Spider-Man. This plot twist was massively unpopular with many readers, and was later reversed in the "Revelations" story arc that crossed over the Spider-Man books in late 1996.
The Clone Saga tied into a publishing gap after No. 406 (Oct. 1995), when the title was temporarily replaced by "The Amazing Scarlet Spider" #1–2 (Nov.-Dec. 1995), featuring Ben Reilly. The series picked up again with No. 407 (Jan. 1996), with Tom DeFalco returning as writer. Bagley completed his 5½-year run by September 1996. A succession of artists, including Ron Garney, Steve Skroce, Joe Bennett, Rafael Kayanan and John Byrne penciled the book until the final issue, No. 441 (Nov. 1998), after which Marvel rebooted the title with vol. 2, No. 1 (Jan. 1999). Relaunch and the 2000s. Marvel began "The Amazing Spider-Man" relaunching the 'Amazing' comic book series with (vol. 2) #1 (Jan. 1999). Howard Mackie wrote the first 29 issues. The relaunch included the Sandman being regressed to his criminal ways and the "death" of Mary Jane, which was ultimately reversed. Other elements included the introduction of a new Spider-Woman (who was spun off into her own short-lived series) and references to John Byrne's miniseries "", which was launched at the same time as the reboot. Byrne also penciled issues #1–18 (from 1999 to 2000) and wrote #13–14, John Romita Jr. took his place soon after in October 2000. Mackie's run ended with "The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2001", which saw the return of Mary Jane, who then left Parker upon reuniting with him.
With issue No. 30 (June 2001), J. Michael Straczynski took over as writer and oversaw additional storylines – most notably his lengthy "Spider-Totem" arc, which raised the issue of whether Spider-Man's powers were magic-based, rather than as the result of a radioactive spider's bite. Additionally, Straczynski resurrected the plot point of Aunt May discovering her nephew was Spider-Man, and returned Mary Jane, with the couple reuniting in "The Amazing Spider-Man" (vol. 2) #50. Straczynski gave Spider-Man a new profession, having Parker teach at his former high school. Issue No. 30 began a dual numbering system, with the original series numbering (#471) returned and placed alongside the volume two number on the cover. Other longtime, rebooted Marvel Comics titles, including "Fantastic Four", likewise were given the dual numbering around this time. After (vol. 2) #58 (Nov. 2003), the title reverted completely to its original numbering for issue No. 500 (Dec. 2003). Mike Deodato Jr. penciled the series from mid-2004 until 2006.
That year Peter Parker revealed his Spider-Man identity on live television in the company-crossover storyline "Civil War", in which the superhero community is split over whether to conform to the federal government's new Superhuman Registration Act. This knowledge was erased from the world with the event of the four-part, crossover story arc, "", written partially by J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Joe Quesada, running through "The Amazing Spider-Man" #544–545 (Nov.-Dec. 2007), "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" No. 24 (Nov. 2007) and "The Sensational Spider-Man" No. 41 (Dec. 2007), the final issues of those two titles. Here, the demon Mephisto makes a Faustian bargain with Parker and Mary Jane, offering to save Parker's dying Aunt May if the couple will allow their marriage to have never existed, rewriting that portion of their pasts. This story arc marked the end of Straczynski's work on the title.
Issue No. 583 (March 2009) included a back-up story in which Spider-Man meets President Barack Obama. 2010s and temporary end of publication. Mark Waid scripted the opening of "The Gauntlet" storyline in issue No. 612 (Jan. 2010). The "Gauntlet" story was concluded by "Grim Hunt" (No. 634–637) which saw the resurrection of long-dead Spider-Man villain, Kraven the Hunter. The series became a twice-monthly title with Dan Slott as sole writer at issue No. 648 (Jan. 2011), launching the "" storyline. Eight additional pages were added per issue. "Big Time" saw major changes in Spider-Man/Peter Parker's life, Peter would start working at Horizon Labs and begin a relationship with Carlie Cooper (his first serious relationship since his marriage to Mary Jane), Mac Gargan returned as Scorpion after spending the past few years as Venom, Phil Urich would take up the mantle of Hobgoblin, and the death of J. Jonah Jameson's wife, Marla Jameson. Issues 654 and 654.1 saw the birth of Agent Venom, Flash Thompson bonded with the Venom symbiote, which would lead to Venom getting his own series "Venom (volume 2)". Starting in No.
Issues 654 and 654.1 saw the birth of Agent Venom, Flash Thompson bonded with the Venom symbiote, which would lead to Venom getting his own series "Venom (volume 2)". Starting in No. 659 and going to No. 665, the series built-up to the "Spider-Island" event which officially started in No. 666 and ended in No. 673. "Ends of the Earth" was the next event that ran from No. 682 through No. 687. This publishing format lasted until issue No. 700, which concluded the "Dying Wish" storyline, in which Parker and Doctor Octopus swapped bodies, and the latter taking on the mantle of Spider-Man when Parker apparently died in Doctor Octopus' body. "The Amazing Spider-Man" ended with this issue, with the story continuing in the new series "The Superior Spider-Man". Despite "The Superior Spider-Man" being considered a different series to "The Amazing Spider-Man", the first 33 issue run goes towards the legacy numbering of "The Amazing Spider-Man" acting as issues 701–733. In December 2013, the series returned for five issues, numbered 700.1 through 700.5, with the first two written by David Morrell and drawn by Klaus Janson. 2014 relaunch.
In January 2014, Marvel confirmed that "The Amazing Spider-Man" would be relaunched on April 30, 2014, starting from issue No. 1, with Peter Parker as Spider-Man once again. The first issue of this new version of "The Amazing Spider-Man" was, according to Diamond Comics Distributors, the "best-selling comic book... in over a decade." Issues #1–6 were a story arc called "Lucky to be Alive", taking place immediately after "Goblin Nation", with issues No. 4 and No. 5 being a crossover with the "Original Sin" storyline. Issue No. 4 introduced Silk, a new heroine who was bitten by the same spider as Peter Parker. Issues #7–8 featured a team-up between Ms. Marvel and Spider-Man, and had backup stories that tied into "Edge of Spider-Verse". The next major plot arc, titled "Spider-Verse", began in Issue No. 9 and ended in No. 15, features every Spider-Man from across the dimensions being hunted by Morlun, and a team-up to stop him, with Peter Parker of Earth-616 in command of the Spider-Men's Alliance. "The Amazing Spider-Man Annual" No. 1 of the relaunched series was released in December 2014, featuring stories unrelated to "Spider-Verse".
The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows. In 2015, Marvel started the universe wide Secret Wars event where the core and several other Marvel universes were combined into one big planet called Battleworld. Battleworld was divided into sections with most of them being self-contained universes. Marvel announced that several of these self-contained universes would get their own tie in series and one of them was "", an alternate universe where Peter Parker and Mary Jane are still married and give birth to their child Annie May Parker, written by Dan Slott. Despite the series being considered separate from the main "Amazing Spider-Man" series, the original 5 issue run is counted towards its legacy numbering acting as No. 752-756. 2015 relaunch.
In March 2018, it was announced that writer Nick Spencer would be writing the main semi-monthly "The Amazing Spider-Man" series beginning with a new No. 1, replacing long-time writer Dan Slott, as part of the Fresh Start relaunch that July. The first five-issue story arc was titled 'Back to Basics.' During the "Back to Basics" story, Kindred, a mysterious villain with some relation to Peter's past, was introduced, and Peter resumed his romantic relationship with Mary Jane once more. The first major story under Spencer was "Hunted" which ran through issues 16 through 23, the story also included four ".HU" issues for issues 16, 18, 19, and 20. The end of the story saw the death of long-running Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter, being replaced by his clone son, The Last Son of Kraven. 2020s. Issue 45 kicked off the "Sins Rising" story which saw the resurrected Sin-Eater carry out the plans of Kindred to cleanse the world of sin, particularly that of Norman Osborn. The story concluded with issue 49, issue 850 in legacy numbering, seeing Spider-Man and Green Goblin team up to defeat Sin-Eater. "Last Remains" started in issue 50 and concluded in issue 55, the story saw Kindred's plans come to fruition as he tormented Spider-Man. The story has also seen five ".LR" for issues 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54 which focused on The Order of the Web, a new faction of Spider-People consisting of Julia Carpenter (Madame Web), Miles Morales (Spider-Man), Gwen Stacy (Ghost-Spider), Cindy Moon (Silk), Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman), and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl) . The story also revealed that Kindred is Harry Osborn. "Last Remains" also received two fallout issues called "Last Remains Post-Mortem".
Nick Spencer concluded his run with the "Sinister War" story which wrapped up in No. 74 (legacy numbering 875). The story saw several retcons to the Spider-Man mythos including that Kindred was Gabriel and Sarah Stacy all along, the fact that the Stacy twins were actually genetically engineered beings using Norman Osborn and Gwen Stacy's DNA, that the Harry Osborn that returned in "Brand New Day" was actually a clone, and that Norman had made a deal with Mephisto where he sold Harry's soul to the demon. The story ended with the deaths of the Harry clone, Gabriel, and Sarah and the real Harry's soul being freed from Mephisto's grasp. After Spencer left the book, Marvel announced the "Beyond" era of Spider-Man would start in #75. The book would be moving back to the format it had during "Brand New Day" where it would have a rotating cast of writers including Kelly Thompson, Saladin Ahmed, Cody Ziglar, Patrick Gleason, and Zeb Wells. The book would also be released three times a month. "Beyond" would focus on Ben Reilly taking up the mantle of Spider-Man once again but backed by the Beyond corporation. Peter also falls ill and cannot be Spider-Man so he gives Ben his blessing to carry on as the main Spider-Man. However, following the conclusion of the storyline in #93, Peter has resumed active duties as Spider-Man, while Ben suffers a mental breakdown after losing his memories and becomes the villain Chasm. 2022 relaunch.
In January 2022, it was announced that writer Zeb Wells and John Romita Jr. would be working on a relaunched "The Amazing Spider-Man", bringing the number of volumes for the title to its sixth, with the series beginning in April 2022 as a semi-monthly publication. The relaunch encompasses both a legacy numbering of #900 as well as the 60th anniversary for the character. The relaunch took place months after a mysterious event that left Peter on bad terms with the superhero community and ended his relationship with Mary Jane. He ends up taking a job at Oscorp and begins working closely with Norman Osborn (who becomes the heroic Gold Goblin) and starts dating Black Cat. The volume's first crossover event was entitled "Dark Web", with Chasm having teamed up with Madelyne Pryor to bring limbo to Earth. It's later revealed that Benjamin Rabin, the emissary of the Mayan god of mischief Wayeb', sent Peter and Mary Jane to an alternate dimension to conduct a ceremony that would allow Wayeb to control the Earth. Peter was sent back to his Earth, while due to the alternative passage of time, Mary Jane and Paul, Rabin's son in that dimension, spent four years in the realm together and adopted two children. When Peter eventually rescued them, Mary Jane refused to part with her new family. Rabin then planned to sacrifice Mary Jane to resurrect Wayeb, but is ultimately stopped by Ms. Marvel sacrificing herself, but not before Rabin reveals that Paul and Mary Jane's kids were illusions created by him and ceased their existence. Mary Jane becomes the superheroine Jackpot using the bracelet acquired from the other dimension as Black Cat breaks up with Peter shortly before Janice Lincoln and Randy Robertson's wedding.
The second crossover event was entitled "Gang War", where Peter led a team of street-level superheroes to stop a massive war between New York's gangs led by Madam Masque, Tombstone, and Beetle. During an encounter with Kraven the Hunter, Peter temporarily becomes infected by Norman Osborn's sins and becomes the villainous Spider-Goblin. Eventually, Norman's sins return to him and he resumes being the Green Goblin. While fighting Spider-Man, the goblin reveals that he implanted a trigger phrase within Peters's mind that would bring forth the Spider-Goblin persona. Norman then sends Spider-Goblin to attack the Sinister Six, who he brutally defeats, but is stopped from killing them due to the intervention of Chasm. With help from the Living Brain and his allies, Peter is able to purge himself and Norman of the Goblin for good. Wells' run ended in June 2024 with a climactic showdown between Spider-Man and Tombstone, where the former stops the latter from killing his daughter to establish his dominance over New York's gangs. Peter also begins to date Shay Marken, a nurse at the Ravencroft Institute.
In July 2024, it was announced that following the conclusion of Wells' run, a 10-issue event would begin publication in the Fall called "The 8 Deaths of Spider-Man". The series was written by Joe Kelly and Justina Ireland and illustrated by Ed McGuinness and Gleb Melnikov. The event featured the recently crowned Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Doom designating Spider-Man as Earth's champion to take on Doctor Strange's annual task of facing the Scions of Cyttorak, giving him an arcane armor and eight reeds that could revive him if he got killed. After being killed several times and being forced to face Cyra's challenge of enduring the future deaths of his loved ones and millions of others, Peter became disillusioned and gave up until his inactivity nearly costs the lives of Aunt May and his friends. He uses his remaining reeds to resurrect them before teaming up with Juggernaut and the X-Men to take on Callix, who had been infected by the Blight and killed his siblings. After Callix kills him, Cyra, inspired by Peter's indomitable will, sacrifices her immortality to resurrect him and briefly imbue him with Juggernaut's strength. Cyttorak, seeing Peter willing to risk his life in the face of tragedy, decides to shield his remaining children from the Blight, saving the planet. 2025 relaunch. In December 2024, it was announced that Kelly would become the writer of a new volume of ASM that will launch after "8 Deaths of Spider-Man" in April 2025, with John Romita Jr. and Pepe Larraz providing the work on the art. Collected editions. See: Spider-Man Collected Editions

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