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odql_11774 | 'Nude Descending A Staircase' is perhaps the most famous painting by which 20th century artist? | Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (French: Nu descendant un escalier n° 2) is a 1912 painting by Marcel Duchamp. The work is widely regarded as a Modernist classic and has become one of the most famous of its time. Before its first presentation at the Parisian 1912 Salon des Indépendants, it was rejected by the Cubists as too Futurist. Yet the work was exhibited with the same group at Galeries J. Dalmau, Exposició d'Art Cubista, in Barcelona, 20 April–10 May 1912, and subsequently caused a huge stir during its exhibition at the 1913 Armory Show in New York. The painting was reproduced in Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques by Guillaume Apollinaire, published in 1913. Nude Descending a Staircase is in the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Description
The work, an oil painting on canvas with dimensions of 147 cm × 89.2 cm (57.9 in × 35.1 in) in portrait, seemingly depicts a figure demonstrating an abstract movement in its ochres and browns. The discernible "body parts" of the figure are composed of nested, conical and cylindrical abstract elements, assembled together in such a way as to suggest rhythm and convey the movement of the figure merging into itself. Dark outlines limit the contours of the body while serving as motion lines that emphasize the dynamics of the moving figure, while the accented arcs of the dotted lines seem to suggest a thrusting pelvic motion. The movement seems to be rotated counterclockwise from the upper left to the lower right corner, where the gradient of the apparently frozen sequence corresponding to the bottom right to top left dark, respectively, becomes more transparent, the fading of which is apparently intended to simulate the "older" section. At the edges of the picture, the steps are indicated in darker colors. The center of the image is an amalgam of light and dark, that becomes more piqued approaching the edges. The overall warm, monochrome bright palette ranges from yellow ochre to dark, almost black tones. The colors are translucent. At the bottom left Duchamp placed the title "NU DESCENDANT UN ESCALIER" in block letters, which may or may not be related to the work. The question of whether the figure represents a human body remains unanswered; the figure provides no clues to its age, individuality, character, or sex.
Background
The painting combines elements of both the Cubist and Futurist movements. In the composition, Duchamp depicts motion by successive superimposed images, similar to stroboscopic motion photography. Duchamp also recognized the influence of the stop-motion photography of Étienne-Jules Marey, particularly Muybridge's Woman Walking Downstairs from his 1887 picture series, published as The Human Figure in Motion.
Duchamp submitted the work to appear with the Cubists at the 28th exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants, Paris, 25 March through 16 May 1912. It appeared under the number 1001 of the catalogue, entitled simply Nu descendant l'escalier, not Nu descendant un escalier n° 2. This catalogue revealed the title of the painting to the general public for the first time, even though the painting itself would be absent from the exhibition. It has been noted disquisitively that the number 1001 of Duchamp's entry at the 1912 Indépendants catalogue also happens to represent in the form 10.01 the integer 2 in the Golden ratio base, related to the golden section, something of much interest to the Duchamps and others of the Puteaux Group. This, of course, was by chance—and it is not known whether Duchamp was familiar enough with the mathematics of the golden ratio to have made such a connection—as it was by chance too the relation to Arabic Manuscript of One Thousand and One Nights dating back to the 14th century.
Duchamp's brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, sent by the hanging committee, asked him to voluntarily withdraw the painting, or paint over the title and rename it something else. According to Duchamp, Cubists such as Albert Gleizes found that his nude wasn't quite in line with what they had already investigated [tracée]. The hanging committee objected to the work, Duchamp stressed, on the grounds that it had "too much of a literary title", and that "one doesn't paint a nude descending a staircase, that's ridiculous... a nude should be respected".
It was also believed that the descending nude came too close to the influences of Italian Futurism. Although the Section d'Or Cubists tolerated and even enjoyed the presence of foreign artists (e.g., Constantin Brâncuși, František Kupka, Alexander Archipenko, Amedeo Modigliani and Joseph Csaky), the French Cubists kept the door firmly closed to the influence of foreign trends. During the month of February 1912, a large Futurist exhibition was held in Paris at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. Duchamp later denied the Futurist influence, claiming that the distance between Paris and Italy was too large for any tenable influences to occur.
In an interview with the museum curator Katherine Kuh, Marcel Duchamp spoke about his Nude Descending a Staircase and its relation to Futurism and the photographic motion studies of Muybridge and Marey:
In 1912 ... the idea of describing the movement of a nude coming downstairs while still retaining static visual means to do this, particularly interested me. The fact that I had seen chronophotographs of fencers in action and horse galloping (what we today call stroboscopic photography) gave me the idea for the Nude. It doesn't mean that I copied these photographs. The Futurists were also interested in somewhat the same idea, though I was never a Futurist. And of course the motion picture with its cinematic techniques was developing then too. The whole idea of movement, of speed, was in the air.
Duchamp later recalled of the relation between motion and his nude:
My aim was a static representation of movement, a static composition of indications of various positions taken by a form in movement—with no attempt to give cinema effects through painting. The reduction of a head in movement to a bare line seemed to me defensible.
And with regard to the petition by the hanging committee of the Indépendants:
I said nothing to my brothers. But I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not be very much interested in groups after that.
Despite the controversy—whether it was seen as such at the time or not—the work was shown with its original title at the Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie de la Boétie, October 1912, and with the same group of artists that exhibited at the Indépendants. His work also appeared in the illustrations to Du "Cubisme", and he participated in the La Maison Cubiste (Cubist House), organized by the designer André Mare for the Salon d'Automne of 1912 (a few months after the Indépendants). "The impression is", writes art historian Peter Brooke, "it was precisely because he wished to remain part of the group that he withdrew the painting; and that, far from being ill treated by the group, he was given a rather privileged position, probably through the patronage of Picabia".
It has been claimed (by others) that Duchamp never forgave his brothers and former colleagues for censoring his work.
Duchamp subsequently submitted the painting to the 1913 Armory Show in New York City where Americans, accustomed to naturalistic art, were scandalized. The painting, exhibited in the 'Cubist room', was submitted with the title Nu descendant un escalier, was listed in the catalogue (no. 241) with the French title. A postcard printed for the occasion showed the painting for the first time with the English translation Nude Descending a Staircase. Julian Street, an art critic for the New York Times wrote that the work resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory," and cartoonists satirized the piece. It spawned dozens of parodies in the years that followed. A work entitled Food Descending a Staircase was exhibited at a show parodying the most outrageous works at the Armory, running concurrently with the show at The Lighthouse School for the Blind. In American Art News, there were prizes offered to anyone who could find the nude.
After attending the Armory Show and seeing Marcel Duchamp's nude, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote (using his own, also valid translation): "Take the picture which for some reason is called 'A Naked Man Going Down Stairs'. There is in my bathroom a really good Navajo rug which, on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory, is a far more satisfactory and decorative picture. Now, if, for some inscrutable reason, it suited somebody to call this rug a picture of, say, 'A Well-Dressed Man Going Up a Ladder', the name would fit the facts just about as well as in the case of the Cubist picture of the 'Naked Man Going Down Stairs'. From the standpoint of terminology each name would have whatever merit inheres in a rather cheap straining after effect; and from the standpoint of decorative value, of sincerity, and of artistic merit, the Navajo rug is infinitely ahead of the picture."
Provenance
During the Armory Show the painting was bought by the San Francisco lawyer and art dealer Frederic C. Torrey, who hung it in his home in Berkeley. In 1919, after commissioning a full-size copy of the work, Torrey sold the original to Louise and Walter Conrad Arensberg. In 1954 it entered the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a bequest from the Arensbergs. There it is displayed as part of the permanent collection alongside preliminary studies and a later copy by Duchamp.
Homage
* The stroboscopic photograph "A Nude Descends a Staircase" by Gjon Mili (1942).
* The painting "Ema" by Gerhard Richter.
* The painting Femme nue montant l'escalier by Joan Miró conserved at his foundation in Barcelona.
* The cover and title of Dude Descending a Staircase (2003), a music album by Apollo 440.
* The same-titled instrumental on Bruce Cockburn's music album Life Short Call Now (2006).
* The play Interrogating the Nude by Doug Wright
* The play Artist Descending a Staircase by Tom Stoppard.
* The poem Nude Descending a Staircase by X.J. Kennedy.
* The painting Nude Duck Descending a Staircase by Chuck Jones.
* The Dudley Do-Right cartoon "Stolen Art Masterpiece" features a painting title "Newt Descending a Staircase".
* The song "Naked Girl Falling down the Stairs" by the Cramps.
* In the 1933 screwball comedy Three-Cornered Moon, when a struggling artist dating Claudette Colbert is evicted, his landlord slides a Duchamp-esque painting down the front stairs of the building.
* A 2004 painting by Paul Roberts titled Nude Descending.
* In the poem "Journey: The North Coast" by Australian poet "Robert Gray", the line "Down these slopes move, as a nude descends a staircase,/ slender white gum trees" is an allusion to this artwork.
* A same-titled choral work for men's voices composed in 1980 by Allen Shearer and recorded by Chanticleer on their album, Out of This World (1994).
* Stephanie Caloia nude descending a staircase, 1981, a photograph by Patricia Monaco.
* A Calvin and Hobbes strip in which Calvin reenacts the painting, first published Nov. 3, 1993.
* Nude Descending a Staircase, video sculpture by Shigeko Kubota (1976).
==================================================
20th-century art—and what it became as modern art—began with modernism in the late 19th century. Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (Les Nabis), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke ("The Bridge") in Germany. Fauvism in Paris introduced heightened non-representational colour into figurative painting. Die Brücke strove for emotional Expressionism. Another German group was Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), led by Kandinsky in Munich, who associated the blue rider image with a spiritual non-figurative mystical art of the future. Kandinsky, Kupka, R. Delaunay and Picabia were pioneers of abstract (or non-representational) art. Cubism, generated by Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Gleizes and others rejected the plastic norms of the Renaissance by introducing multiple perspectives into a two-dimensional image. Futurism incorporated the depiction of movement and machine age imagery. Dadaism, with its most notable exponents, Marcel Duchamp, who rejected conventional art styles altogether by exhibiting found objects, notably a urinal, and too Francis Picabia, with his Portraits Mécaniques.
Parallel movements in Russia were Suprematism, where Kasimir Malevich also created non-representational work, notably a black canvas. The Jack of Diamonds group with Mikhail Larionov was expressionist in nature.
Image:Matisse-Woman-with-a-Hat.jpg|Henri Matisse, Woman with a Hat, 1905
Image:Derain CharingCrossBridge.png|André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
Image:Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.jpg|Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907
File:Georges Braque, 1908, Le Viaduc de L'Estaque (Viaduct at L'Estaque), oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm, private collection.jpg|Georges Braque, Le Viaduc de L'Estaque (Viaduct at L'Estaque), 1908
File:Jean Metzinger, Le goûter, Tea Time, 1911, 75.9 x 70.2 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art.jpg|Jean Metzinger, Le goûter (Tea Time), 1911, Philadelphia Museum of Art. André Salmon dubbed this painting "The Mona Lisa of Cubism"
Image:Recoveredgleizes.jpg|Albert Gleizes, Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon, Paysage avec personnage, 1911
File:Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase.jpg|Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art
File:Vassily Kandinsky, 1913 - Composition 7.jpg|Wassily Kandinsky Composition VII, 1912
Image:František Kupka, 1912, Amorpha, fugue en deux couleurs (Fugue in Two Colors), 210 x 200 cm, Narodni Galerie, Prague.jpg|František Kupka, Amorpha, Fugue in Two Colors, 1912
Image:Robert Delaunay, 1913, Premier Disque, 134 cm, 52.7 inches, Private collection.jpg|Robert Delaunay, Le Premier Disque, 1912–13
Image:De Chirico's Love Song.jpg|Giorgio de Chirico, Love Song 1914, Museum of Modern Art
File:Kazimir Malevich, 1915, Black Suprematic Square, oil on linen canvas, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.jpg|Kasimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915
Dadaism preceded Surrealism, where the theories of Freudian psychology led to the depiction of the dream and the unconscious in art in work by Salvador Dalí. Kandinsky's introduction of non-representational art preceded the 1950s American Abstract Expressionist school, including Jackson Pollock, who dripped paint onto the canvas, and Mark Rothko, who created large areas of flat colour. Detachment from the world of imagery was reversed in the 1960s by the Pop Art movement, notably Andy Warhol, where brash commercial imagery became a Fine Art staple. Warhol also minimised the role of the artist, often employing assistants to make his work and using mechanical means of production, such as silkscreen printing. This marked a change from Modernism to Post-Modernism. Photorealism evolved from Pop Art and as a counter to Abstract Expressionists.
Subsequent initiatives towards the end of the century involved a paring down of the material of art through Minimalism, and a shift toward non-visual components with Conceptual art, where the idea, not necessarily the made object, was seen as the art. The last decade of the century saw a fusion of earlier ideas in work by Jeff Koons, who made large sculptures from kitsch subjects, and in the UK, the Young British Artists, where Conceptual Art, Dada and Pop Art ideas led to Damien Hirst's exhibition of a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine.
Some important movements
*Symbolism (arts)
*Divisionism
*Fauvism
*Cubism
*Futurism
*Cubo-Futurism
*Orphism
*Purism
*Synchromism
*Surrealism
*Suprematism
*Bauhaus
*Dadaism
*De Stijl
*Social Realism
*American Regionalism
*Butoh
*Biomorphism
*Abstract Expressionism
*Tachisme
*Lyrical Abstraction
*Informalism
*COBRA
*Outsider art (art brut)
*Fluxus
*Neo-Dada
*Rayonism
*Art Deco
*Color Field painting
*Arte Povera
*Zero Group
*Pop Art
*Photorealism
*Minimalism
*Conceptual art
*Neo-expressionism
*Appropriation art
*Installation art
*Digital art
*Op Art
*Modernism
*Late Modernism
*Remodernism | [
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"kasimir malevich",
"albert gleizes",
"jean metzinger",
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"františek kupka",
"henri matisse"
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sfq_25532 | Which is the largest species of British grouse? | Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes, in the family Phasianidae. Grouse are frequently assigned to the subfamily Tetraoninae (sometimes Tetraonidae), a classification supported by mitochondrial DNA sequence studies, and applied by the American Ornithologists' Union, ITIS, and others. Grouse inhabit temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, from pine forests to moorland and mountainside, from 83°N (rock ptarmigan in northern Greenland) to 28°N (Attwater's prairie chicken in Texas).
Description
Grouse are heavily built like other Galliformes such as chickens. They range in length from 31 to, and in weight from . Males are bigger than females—twice as heavy in the western capercaillie, the biggest member of the family. Grouse have feathered nostrils. Their legs are feathered to the toes, and in winter the toes, too, have feathers or small scales on the sides, an adaptation for walking on snow and burrowing into it for shelter. Unlike other Galliformes, they have no spurs.
Feeding and habits
These birds feed mainly on vegetation—buds, catkins, leaves, and twigs—which typically accounts for over 95% of adults' food by weight. Thus, their diets vary greatly with the seasons. Hatchlings eat mostly insects and other invertebrates, gradually reducing their proportion of animal food to adult levels. Several of the forest-living species are notable for eating large quantities of conifer needles, which most other vertebrates refuse. To digest vegetable food, grouse have big crops and gizzards, eat grit to break up food, and have long intestines with well-developed caeca in which symbiotic bacteria digest cellulose.
Forest species flock only in autumn and winter, though individuals tolerate each other when they meet. Prairie species are more social, and tundra species (ptarmigans, Lagopus) are the most social, forming flocks of up to 100 in winter. All grouse spend most of their time on the ground, though when alarmed, they may take off in a flurry and go into a long glide.
Most species stay within their breeding range all year, but make short seasonal movements; many individuals of the ptarmigan (called rock ptarmigan in the US) and willow grouse (called willow ptarmigan in the US) migrate hundreds of kilometers.
Reproduction
In all but one species (the willow ptarmigan), males are polygamous. Many species have elaborate courtship displays on the ground at dawn and dusk, which in some are given in leks. The displays feature males' brightly colored combs and in some species, brightly colored inflatable sacs on the sides of their necks. The males display their plumage, give vocalizations that vary widely between species, and may engage in other activities, such as drumming or fluttering their wings, rattling their tails, and making display flights. Occasionally, males fight.
The nest is a shallow depression or scrape on the ground, often in cover, with a scanty lining of plant material. The female lays one clutch, but may replace it if the eggs are lost. She begins to lay about a week after mating and lays one egg every day or two; the clutch comprises five to 12 eggs. The eggs have the shape of hen's eggs and are pale yellow, sparsely spotted with brown. On laying the second-last or last egg, the female starts 21 to 28 days of incubation. Chicks hatch in dense, yellow-brown down and leave the nest immediately. They soon develop feathers and can fly shortly before they are two weeks old. The female (and the male in the willow grouse) stays with them and protects them until their first autumn, when they reach their mature weights (except in the male capercaillies). They are sexually mature the following spring, but often do not mate until later years.
Populations
Grouse make up a considerable part of the vertebrate biomass in the Arctic and Subarctic. Their numbers may fall sharply in years of bad weather or high predator populations—significant grouse populations are a major food source for lynx, foxes, martens, and birds of prey. However, because of their large clutches, they can recover quickly.
The three tundra species have maintained their former numbers. The prairie and forest species have declined greatly because of habitat loss, though popular game birds such as the red grouse and the ruffed grouse have benefited from habitat management. Most grouse species are listed by the IUCN as "least concern" or "near threatened", but the greater and lesser prairie chicken are listed as "vulnerable" and the Gunnison grouse is listed as "endangered". Some subspecies, such as Attwater's prairie chicken and the Cantabrian capercaillie, and some national and regional populations are also in danger.
Sexual size dimorphism
Male size selection
The phenotypic difference between males and females is called sexual dimorphism. Male grouse tend to be larger than female grouse, which seems to hold true across all the species of grouse, with some difference within each species in terms of how drastic the size difference is. The hypothesis with the most supporting evidence for the evolution of sexual dimorphism in grouse is sexual selection. Sexual selection favors large males; stronger selection for larger size in males leads to greater size dimorphism. Female size will increase correspondingly as male size increases, and this is due to heredity (but not to the extent of the male size). This is because females that are smaller will still be able to reproduce without a substantial disadvantage, but this is not the case with males.
Mating behavior selection
Male grouse display lekking behavior, which is when many males come together in one area and put on displays to attract females. Females selectively choose among the males present for traits they find more appealing. Male grouse exhibit two types: typical lekking and exploded lekking. In typical lekking, males display in small areas, and in exploded lekking, displays are done in areas that do not have many resources for females. Male grouse can also compete with one another for access to female grouse through territoriality, in which a male defends a territory which has resources that females need, like food and nest sites. These differences in male behavior in mating systems account for the evolution of body size in grouse. Males of territorial species were smaller than those of exploded lekking species, and males of typical lekking species were the largest overall. The male birds that exhibit lekking behavior, and have to compete with other males for females to choose them, have higher sexual size dimorphism. This supports the hypothesis of sexual selection affecting male body size and also gives an explanation for why some species of grouse have a more drastic difference between male and female body size than others.
Differences in sexual dimorphism seen in other bird species
Sexual size dimorphism can manifest itself differently between grouse and other birds. In some cases, the female is dominant over the male in breeding behavior, which can result in females that are larger than the males.
In culture
Grouse are game, and hunters kill millions each year for food, sport, and other uses. In the United Kingdom, this takes the form of driven grouse shooting. The male black grouse's tail feathers are a traditional ornament for hats in areas such as Scotland and the Alps. Folk dances from the Alps to the North American prairies imitate the displays of lekking males.
Species
Genus Falcipennis
* Siberian grouse, Falcipennis falcipennis
* Spruce grouse, Falcipennis canadensis
** Franklin's grouse, Falcipennis (canadensis) franklinii
Genus Dendragapus
* Dusky grouse, Dendragapus obscurus
* Sooty grouse, Dendragapus fuliginosus
Genus Lagopus – ptarmigans
* Willow ptarmigan, Lagopus lagopus
** Red grouse, Lagopus (lagopus) scoticus
* Rock ptarmigan, Lagopus muta
* White-tailed ptarmigan, Lagopus leucura
Genus Tetrao – black grouse
* Black grouse, Tetrao tetrix
* Caucasian grouse, Tetrao mlokosiewiczi
* Western capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus
** Cantabrian capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus cantabricus
* Black-billed capercaillie, Tetrao Tetrao urogalloides
Genus Tetrastes
* Hazel grouse, Tetrastes bonasia
* Chinese grouse, Tetrastes sewerzowi
Genus Bonasa
* Ruffed grouse, Bonasa umbellus
Genus Centrocercus – sage grouse
* Sage grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus
* Gunnison grouse, Centrocercus minimus
Genus Tympanuchus – prairie grouse
* Sharp-tailed grouse, Tympanuchus phasianellus
** Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, T. phasianellus columbianus
* Greater prairie chicken, Tympanuchus cupido
** Attwater's prairie chicken, Tympanuchus cupido attwateri
** Heath hen, Tympanuchus cupido cupido (extinct, 1932)
* Lesser prairie chicken Tympanuchus pallidicinctus | [
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sfq_20651 | "Which company's advertising slogan states: ""It does exactly what is says on the tin.""?" | "It does exactly what it says on the tin" (often quoted as "does what it says on the tin") was originally an advertising slogan in the United Kingdom, which then became a common idiomatic phrase. It colloquially means that the name of something is an accurate description of its qualities. It is akin to the previously existing phrases "by name and by nature" and "it lives up to its name".
It originated in a series of television advertisements by the woodstain and wood-dye manufacturer Ronseal, initiated in 1994 and still being broadcast .
The slogan was created by Liz Whiston and Dave Shelton at the London advertising agency HHCL. The idea of the phrase was to emphasise that the company's products would act and last for the amount of time exactly as described on the tin can. The word tin is generally used even when the product is sold in a different type of container, although box is also sometimes used. The expression soon entered common usage in the UK.Jim Blythe. Consumer behaviour, pg.116
Such is the phrase's ubiquity in the UK that in a 2011 news report concerning the copyrighting of phrases and expressions, a copyright expert expressed surprise that Ronseal used such a common, everyday phrase in their advertising.
The phrase is also commonly known and used in Ireland. The Ronseal advertising campaign has also been shown there, and UK television is widely available in Ireland. In 2004, toothpaste manufacturer Colgate began a similar copycat advertising campaign in Ireland stating that its product "does exactly what it says on the tube".
The phrase is a registered trademark of the Sherwin-Williams Company, the owner of Ronseal, across the European Community for products including paints, varnishes, and wood preservatives (E3085826).
In 2007, a song titled "What It Says on the Tin" was released by a British singer Katie Melua. Although the song is about relationships, the phrase has a similar meaning. | [
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"britvic",
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bb_7501 | Who had a 1960s hit with Step Inside Love? | "Step Inside Love" is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited as "Lennon–McCartney") for Cilla Black in 1967 as a theme for her TV series Cilla, which first aired on 30 January 1968.
Background
In late 1967 McCartney was approached to write the theme by Cilla and her series producer Michael Hurll. He recorded the original demo version at his London home, accompanying himself on guitar, which consisted of just one verse and the chorus.
Black's recording of this song was used as the theme during the early weeks of the show, until it was decided that the song needed an additional verse, so McCartney came to the BBC Theatre and wrote it there. According to Hurll, the opening line of the second verse ("You look tired, love") came from McCartney's observation of Cilla looking tired from the long rehearsals for the TV show. McCartney then added a third verse and this version was recorded as a studio demo at Chappell Studios in London on 21 November 1967, with McCartney on guitar accompanying Cilla on vocals. This demo was the basis for the single, although where the McCartney demos were recorded in the key of D, the final arrangement of the single version was transposed up a fourth to G, to take advantage of Cilla's higher register.
The single version of the song (with Cilla singing live over the studio backing track) was premiered on 5 March 1968 edition of her show; the single was released on 8 March 1968, and reached number eight on the British charts in April 1968. The record also reached Number 15 in Ireland in the same month. The recording was also featured on Black's third solo studio album Sher-oo! Remixed club versions of Cilla's original 1960s vocal were released in 2009 on her album Cilla All Mixed Up.
In 2002, DJ Tommy Sandhu managed to coax Cilla back into the recording studio to re-record "Step Inside Love". Sandhu then remixed the song and 3,000 white labels of it were sent to British clubs under the name "TS vs CB". The 12" charted at number three on Music Weeks club chart. A maxi single of all of these remixes was released to download worldwide on 30 November 2009.
In 2010, during a BBC interview, Black revealed that the song had been banned in South Africa due to fears that the lyrics contained hidden sexual elements.
McCartney recording
McCartney recorded the song on 16 September 1968 during The Beatles (a.k.a. "The White Album") sessions, but it did not appear on the album. After ad libbing "Step Inside Love", McCartney led the group into "Los Paranoias", which (despite George Harrison not being present) was credited to all four members of the band. The two songs were released as a single CD track on Anthology 3 in 1996.
The Beatles personnel
*Paul McCartney –vocals, acoustic guitar
*John Lennon –bongos
*Ringo Starr –claves
Personnel per The Beatles Bible
Other versions
Madeline Bell later of pop band Blue Mink recorded a version on her 1968/69 Doin' Things album, released on Philips Records.
The Paper Dolls recorded a version on their 1968 album Paper Dolls House, released on Pye and again on Paper Dolls House: The Pye Anthology, released on CD on Sanctuary in 2001.
On 15 September 1997 EMI Records released The Abbey Road Decade: 1963–73, a three-disc compilation album of Black's recordings. It featured the single version of "Step Inside Love", an Italian-language version (M'Innamoro), the original demo (featuring McCartney), and an alternate take.
Recordings of "Step Inside Love" as the Beatles may have performed it are available on the 1989 album by Bas Muys entitled Secret Songs: Lennon & McCartney and on the 1998 release It's Four You by the Australian tribute band The Beatnix.
Steve Dawson of rock band Saxon recorded a version on his 2003 Pandemonium Circus album, released on Angel Air Records. | [
"madeline bell",
"the paper dolls",
"paul mccartney",
"cilla black",
"steve dawson",
"the beatnix",
"dusty springfield",
"lulu",
"petula clark",
"sandie shaw"
] | 3 | D | [
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sfq_18623 | About whom did Eric Clayton write Layla? | "Layla" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally released by their blues rock band Derek and the Dominos, as the thirteenth track from their album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (November 1970). Its famously contrasting movements were composed separately by Clapton and Gordon. Rita Coolidge, in her autobiography "Delta Lady" which was released in March 2016, claims she co-wrote the piano coda.
The song was inspired by a love story that originated as a poem The Story of Layla and Majnun in 5th-Century Iran, later was adopted by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi, a copy of which Ian Dallas had given to Clapton. The book moved Clapton profoundly, as it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful, unavailable woman and who went crazy because he could not marry her. In his autobiography, Clapton states, "Ian Dallas told me the tale of Layla and Manjun [sic], a romantic Persian love story in which a young man, Manjun [sic], falls passionately in love with the beautiful Layla, but is forbidden by her father to marry her and goes crazy with desire." The song was further inspired by Clapton's then unrequited love for Pattie Boyd, the wife of his friend and fellow musician George Harrison of The Beatles.
"Layla" was unsuccessful on its initial release. The song has since experienced great critical and popular acclaim, and is often hailed as being among the greatest rock songs of all time. Two versions have achieved chart success, the first in 1972 and the second (without the piano coda) 20 years later as an acoustic Unplugged performance by Clapton. In 2004, "Layla" was ranked number 27 on Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and the acoustic version won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.
Background
In 1966 George Harrison married Pattie Boyd, a model he met during the filming of A Hard Day's Night. During the late 1960s, Clapton and Harrison became close friends. Clapton contributed uncredited guitar work on Harrison's song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on The Beatles' White Album, and Harrison co-wrote and played guitar pseudonymously (as L'Angelo Misterioso) on Cream's "Badge" from Goodbye. However, between his tenures in Cream and Blind Faith, Clapton fell in love with Boyd.
The title, "Layla", was inspired by the story of Layla and Majnun, by the 12th-century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi. When he wrote "Layla", Clapton had been told the story by his friend Ian Dallas, who was in the process of converting to Islam. Nizami's tale, about a moon princess who was married off by her father to a man she didn't love, resulting in Majnun's madness, struck a deep chord with Clapton.
Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton in 1979 during a concert stop in Tucson, Arizona. Harrison was not bitter about the divorce and attended Clapton's wedding party with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. During their relationship, Clapton wrote another love ballad for Pattie called "Wonderful Tonight" (1977). Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1988 after several years of separation.
Writing and recording
After the breakup of Cream, Clapton tried his hand with several groups, including Blind Faith and the husband-and-wife duo Delaney and Bonnie. In the spring of 1970, he was told that some members of Delaney and Bonnie's backup band, notably bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon, and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, were leaving the group. Seizing the opportunity, Clapton formed a new group, which became Derek and the Dominos.
During the recording of the album, Duane Allman joined Clapton's fledgling band as a guest. Clapton and Allman, already mutual fans, were introduced at an Allman Brothers concert by Tom Dowd. The two hit it off well and soon became good friends. Dowd said of their guitar-playing chemistry: "There had to be some sort of telepathy going on because I've never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that rate and level. One of them would play something, and the other reacted instantaneously. Never once did either of them have to say, 'Could you play that again, please?' It was like two hands in a glove. And they got tremendously off on playing with each other." Dowd was already famous for a variety of work and had worked with Clapton in his Cream days (Clapton once called him "the ideal recording man"); his work on the album would be another achievement. For the making of his biographical film Tom Dowd and the Language of Music, he remixed the original master tapes of "Layla," saying, "There are my principles, in one form or another."
Clapton originally wrote "Layla" as a ballad, with lyrics describing his unrequited love for Boyd, but the song became a "rocker" when Allman reportedly composed the song's signature riff. With the band assembled and Dowd producing, "Layla" was recorded in its now-familiar rock form. The recording of the first section consisted of sixteen tracks of which six guitar tracks: a rhythm track by Clapton, three tracks of harmonies played by Clapton (the main power chord riff on both channels and two harmonies against that main riff, one on the left channel and one on the right channel), a track of solos by Allman (fretted solos with bent notes during the verses and a slide solo during the outro), and one track with both Allman and Clapton playing duplicate solos (the 7-note "signature" riff doubled in two octaves and the 12-note "signature" riff doubled in unison). The 7-note "signature" riff was very similar to the vocal melody of the lyric "There is nothing I can do" from "As the Years Go Passing By", as recorded by Albert King from 1967's album Born Under a Bad Sign and the last five notes of the 12-note "signature" riff were written by Allman. According to Clapton, Allman played the first seven notes of the 12-note "signature" riff fretted and the last five notes on slide in standard tuning. Each player used one input of the same two-input Fender Champ amplifier.
Shortly afterward, Clapton returned to the studio, where he heard Jim Gordon playing a piano piece he had composed separately. Clapton, impressed by the piece, convinced Gordon to allow it to be used as part of the song. Though only Gordon has been officially credited with this part, Whitlock claimed, "Jim took that piano melody from his ex-girlfriend Rita Coolidge. I know because in the D&B days I lived in John Garfield's old house in the Hollywood Hills and there was a guest house with an upright piano in it. Rita and Jim were up there in the guest house and invited me to join in on writing this song with them called 'Time.' ... Her sister Priscilla wound up recording it with Booker T. Jones. ... Jim took the melody from Rita's song and didn't give her credit for writing it. Her boyfriend ripped her off." "Time" ended up on the album Chronicles by Booker T. and Priscilla Jones which was released in 1973.
"Layla's" second movement was recorded roughly a week after the first, with Gordon playing his piano part, Clapton playing acoustic guitar and slide guitar, and Allman playing electric and bottleneck slide guitar. After Dowd spliced the two movements together, "Layla" was complete.
Due to the circumstances of its composition, "Layla" is defined by two movements, each marked by a riff. The first movement, which was recorded in the key of D minor for choruses and C-sharp minor for verses, is centred around the "signature riff", a guitar piece utilising hammer-ons, pull-offs, and power chords. The first section contains the overdub-heavy slide guitar solo, played by Allman. By placing his slide at points beyond the end of the fretboard, Allman was able to play notes at a higher pitch than could be played with standard technique. Dowd referred to this as "notes that aren't on the instrument!"
The second movement, Jim Gordon's contribution, is commonly referred to as the "piano coda." Originally played in C major, the tape speed of the coda was increased slightly during mixing. The resulting pitch is somewhere between C and C sharp. The piano interlude at the end of the song is augmented by an acoustic guitar, and is also the accompaniment to the outro-solo. The same melody is played on Allman's slide guitar, albeit one octave higher. Gordon does not improvise or deviate from the piano part; Clapton and Allman are the ones who improvise the melody. The song ends with Allman playing his signature high-pitched "bird call" on his slide guitar.
As Clapton commented on his signature song:
Or, as his inspiration, Pattie Boyd, once said, "I think that he was amazingly raw at the time... He's such an incredible musician that he's able to put his emotions into music in such a way that the audience can feel it instinctively. It goes right through you."
Personnel
* Eric Clapton – lead vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar
* Duane Allman – lead guitar, slide guitar
* Bobby Whitlock – Hammond organ, piano, background vocals
* Carl Radle – bass
* Jim Gordon – drums, percussion, piano
* Tom Dowd – producer
Beyond the original album
The album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs opened to lacklustre sales as the album never actually reached the music charts in the United Kingdom, possibly in part because Clapton's name was found only on the back cover. In addition, the song's length proved prohibitive for radio airplay. As a result an edited version of the song, trimmed to 2:43, was released as a single in March 1971 by Atco Records in the United States. The version peaked at #51 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. When "Layla" was re-released on the 1972 compilations The History of Eric Clapton and Duane Allman's An Anthology and then released as a single, it charted at number seven in the United Kingdom and reached position ten in the United States. With good sales figures, the Billboard magazine was able to rank the Rock single as the 60th best-selling song in 1972.
In 1982 "Layla" was re-released as a single in the United Kingdom, and peaked at number four. This time the whole seven-minute single charted, containing the trailing two-thirds which is instrumental only. Critical opinion since has been overwhelmingly positive. Dave Marsh, in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, wrote that "there are few moments in the repertoire of recorded rock where a singer or writer has reached so deeply into himself that the effect of hearing them is akin to witnessing a murder or a suicide... to me 'Layla' is the greatest of them." Marsh listed "Layla" at number 156 in his The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.
In May 1980, "Layla" was covered by the London Symphony Orchestra, but without the lyrics, being recorded at EMI Studio One, Abbey Road, London. A similar version has been performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. On 20 September 1983 a benefit show called the ARMS Charity Concert for Multiple Sclerosis at the Royal Albert Hall in London featured a jam with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page performing "Layla". Clapton, Beck, and Page were the Yardbirds' successive lead guitarists from 1963 to 1968.
In 2003 the Allman Brothers Band began playing the song in concert. Warren Haynes sang the vocal, Gregg Allman played the piano part, and Derek Trucks played Duane Allman's guitar parts during the coda. The performances were seen as a tribute not only to Allman, but also to producer Tom Dowd, who had died the previous year. Eric Clapton recorded yet a third version. "Layla" appears as track seven on Play the Blues: Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center. Personnel on this version include Wynton Marsalis ( vocals, trumpet), Eric Clapton ( vocals, guitar), Victor Goines ( clarinet), Marcus Printup (trumpet), Chris Crenshaw (trombone, vocals), Don Vappie (banjo), Chris Stainton (keyboards), Dan Nimmer ( piano), Carlos Henriquez ( bass), and Ali Jackson ( drums).
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Unplugged version
Recording
In 1992, Clapton was invited to play for the MTV Unplugged series. On 16 January 1992, he recorded an acoustic album, accompanied by a concert film, at the Bray Studios in Bray, Berkshire. Although the production team and Clapton's staff liked the recordings, Clapton did not want to release either the album or the concert film. Finally, Clapton agreed to release the album in a limited edition. When Unplugged sold out, Clapton gave Warner Bros. and Reprise Records the permission to delete the limited album production. For the album, Clapton decided to record both new material like "Tears in Heaven" and "Lonely Stranger" and old songs he grew up with such as "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" or enjoyed listening to or had written as a grown man like "San Francisco Bay Blues" and "Layla". Clapton who plays acoustic guitar and sings on the live track, was backed by Andy Fairweather Low who played acoustic rhythm guitar, Nathan East on acoustic bass guitar and background vocals, Ray Cooper on percussion, Steve Ferrone on drums, Katie Kissoon and Tessa Niles on background vocals as well as Chuck Leavell on piano. Pianist Chuck Leavell recalled recording the acoustic version of "Layla" felt natural to him and liked that the band was given some space to play during the body of the song and not just during the reprise like it is on the original recording. "It gave us a chance to interpret the song in our way and it did work out well and it gave it a re-birth i think.", Leavell said. The acoustic version of "Layla" was produced by Russ Titelman.
Clapton recorded the acoustic version of "Layla" on a C.F. Martin & Co. steel-string acoustic guitar in OOO-42 style from 1939 which was hand built in Nazareth, Pennsylvania (No. OOO-42/73234). Clapton called this guitar one of the finest instruments he has ever used and called its sound "incredible". The auction house Christie's noted, "the guitar became one of the most enduring images of recent music history" being a part of the Unplugged album cover. Christie's expert for the musical department Kerry Keane called the instrument "in the hands of Eric Capton singly responsible for the repolarization of playing acoustic guitar today". When Keane played the guitar, he also remarked an "amazing" sound as the acoustic guitar seems to have a "wonderfully balanced tone [which is] loud and sweet at the same time with an incredible bass note." The vintage instrument was estimated to sell between $60,000 to $80,000 but was in the end sold for $791,500.
Arrangement
Rhythm acoustic guitar player Andy Fairweather Low was invited by Clapton to his flat in Chelsea, London to work out the songs to be recorded for the Unplugged album in January 1992. During the process, Clapton suggested that it would be a good idea to do another version of "Layla". Fairweather Low agreed because he had wanted to release one himself as a big Derek and the Dominos fan. Clapton thought that the perfect arrangement for the rock anthem would be a shuffle because he always liked changing the tempo of a song and looking at something from a different angle.
When Clapton was asked about the acoustic version of the song by the MTV Network, he replied: "'Layla' sort of mystified me. I have done it the same all these years and never ever considered trying to revamp it. And a lot of artists do that, you know? Bob Dylan for instance changes everything everytime he plays it and I thought this was another great opportunity to just take it off on a different path, to put it to a shuffle and for a start, making it acoustic denied all the riffs, really. They would have sounded a bit weak, I think, on the acoustic guitar, so it just seemed to become Jazzier somehow. And of course, I'm singing it a whole octave down. So it gives it a nice kind of atmosphere."
The song was written in the key of D minor which Clapton recalled pushed him to the top of his singing range. When Clapton slowed it down, Fairweather Low suggested Clapton should sing the track a whole octave down. The British Rock musician was pleased with the result as it sounded "nice" and "sort of Jazzy" to him. The new arrangement slowed down and re-worked the original riff and dispensed with the piano coda. Because Clapton changed the arrangement of his rock anthem so much, he decided to introduce this version to the unsuspecting live audience by stating: "See if you can spot this one."
Reception
AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine reviewed "Layla" seemed to be the Unplugged album's hit which the critic describes as a "slow crawl through Derek & the Dominos' version, turning that anguished howl of pain into a cozy shuffle and the whole album proceeds at a similar amiable gait, taking its time and enjoying detours into old blues standards." Journalist Steve Hochman called the acoustic version a "low-key but seductive recasting". Music broadcaster VH1 thinks the Unplugged version revealed Clapton's guitar skills in the acoustic setting, which was particulary obvious on the re-working of "Layla" that "stressed Clapton's tender side without forfeitting intensity." Entertainment Weekly journalists picked the tune as the mega hit off the Unplugged album. The critics especially liked Leavell's piano work on the song, as it adds a smoky-jazz-joint torch-song ambience that's both expectation shattering and emotionally compelling to the tune.
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Legacy
In 1970, Jamrock Entertaiment listed "Layla" as the best song of the year. Acclaimed Music rated the original version as the best song of 1970 and the 12th most popular song of the 1970s. In 1972, "Layla" was one of the most performed songs of the year, and was just a year after its original release considered a "Rock standard". With its re-release in 1982, the Rock song cemented its reputation as a global Rock hit track. The tune features also one of the most iconic Rock guitar riffs of all-time and is in addition to that one of the popular songs written about a woman. It is featured on a number of "greatest ever" lists. The song was chosen by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of their "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll", and Rolling Stone ranked the song at #27 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The Recording Industry Association of America ranked "Layla" at number 118 on their Songs of the Century on March 7 in 2001. Music critic Dave Marsh placed the tune on number two for his "Best Singles of the Year 1972" compilation. With its makeover in 1992 for the Unplugged album, "Layla" became an all-time hit song, as it won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1993, and was broadcast nonstop in 1992 and 1993 on the radio, in stores, and on television around the globe. In 1992, "Layla" was the most performed song of the year, and won a BMI Broadcasting Award for radio and television appearances of the 1992 "Layla" for more than two million times in summer of 1994 – just one and a half years after "Layla" had been released as an acoustic version. As of 2011, "Layla" attained more than six million broadcasts on television and the radio or performances on other records and during live concerts. | [
"rita coolidge",
"priscilla jones",
"bonnie delaney",
"tessa niles",
"katie kissoon",
"jim gordon",
"patti boyd",
"layla",
"nizami ganjavi",
"majnun"
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bb_9273 | In astrology the constellation Leo represents the Lion slain by whom? | Leo is one of the constellations of the zodiac, lying between Cancer to the west and Virgo to the east. Its name is Latin for lion, and to the ancient Greeks represented the Nemean Lion killed by the mythical Greek hero Heracles (known to the ancient Romans as Hercules) as one of his twelve labors. Its symbol is (Unicode ♌). One of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, Leo remains one of the 88 modern constellations today, and one of the most easily recognizable due to its many bright stars and a distinctive shape that is reminiscent of the crouching lion it depicts. The lion's mane and shoulders also form an asterism known as "the Sickle," which to modern observers may resemble a backwards "question mark."
Notable features
Stars
Leo contains many bright stars, many of which were individually identified by the ancients. There are four stars of first or second magnitude, which render this constellation especially prominent:
* Regulus, designated Alpha Leonis, is a blue-white main-sequence star of magnitude 1.34, 77.5 light-years from Earth. It is a double star divisible in binoculars, with a secondary of magnitude 7.7. Its traditional name (Regulus) means "the little king".
* Beta Leonis, called Denebola, is at the opposite end of the constellation to Regulus. It is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.23, 36 light-years from Earth. The name Denebola means "the lion's tail".
* Algieba, Gamma Leonis, is a binary star with a third optical component; the primary and secondary are divisible in small telescopes and the tertiary is visible in binoculars. The primary is a gold-yellow giant star of magnitude 2.61 and the secondary is similar but at magnitude 3.6; they have a period of 600 years and are 126 light-years from Earth. The unrelated tertiary, 40 Leonis, is a yellow-tinged star of magnitude 4.8. Its traditional name, Algieba, means "the forehead".
* Delta Leonis, called Zosma, is a blue-white star of magnitude 2.58, 58 light-years from Earth.
* Epsilon Leonis is a yellow giant of magnitude 3.0, 251 light-years from Earth.
* Zeta Leonis, called Adhafera, is an optical triple star. The brightest and only star designated Zeta Leonis, is a white giant star of magnitude 3.65, 260 light-years from Earth. The second brightest, 39 Leonis, is widely spaced to the south and of magnitude 5.8. 35 Leonis is to the north and of magnitude 6.0.
* Iota Leonis is a binary star divisible in medium amateur telescopes; they are divisible in small amateur telescopes at their widest in the years 2053–2063. To the unaided eye, Iota Leonis appears to be a yellow-tinged star of magnitude 4.0. The system, 79 light-years from Earth, has components of magnitude 4.1 and 6.7 with a period of 183 years.
* Tau Leonis is a double star visible in binoculars. The primary is a yellow giant of magnitude 5.0, 621 light-years from Earth. The secondary is a star of magnitude 8. 54 Leonis is a binary star 289 light-years from Earth, divisible in small telescopes. The primary is a blue-white star of magnitude 4.5 and the secondary is a blue-white star of magnitude 6.3.
The other named stars in Leo are Mu Leonis, Rasalas (an abbreviation of "Al Ras al Asad al Shamaliyy," meaning "The Lion's Head Toward the South"); and Theta Leonis, Chertan or Coxa ("hip").
Leo is also home to one bright variable star, the red giant R Leonis. It is a Mira variable with a minimum magnitude of 10 and normal maximum magnitude of 6; it periodically brightens to magnitude 4.4. R Leonis, 330 light-years from Earth, has a period of 310 days and a diameter of 450 solar diameters.
The star Wolf 359 (CN Leonis), one of the nearest stars to Earth at 7.8 light-years away, is in Leo. Wolf 359 is a red dwarf of magnitude 13.5; it periodically brightens by one magnitude or less because it is a flare star. Gliese 436, a faint star in Leo about 33 light years away from the Sun, is orbited by a transiting Neptune-mass extrasolar planet.
The carbon star CW Leo (IRC +10216) is the brightest star in the night sky at the infrared N-band (10 μm wavelength).
The star SDSS J102915+172927 (Caffau's star) is a population II star in the galactic halo seen in Leo. It is about 13 billion years old, making it one of the oldest stars in the Galaxy. It has the lowest metallicity of any known star.
Modern astronomers, including Tycho Brahe in 1602, excised a group of stars that once made up the "tuft" of the lion's tail and used them to form the new constellation Coma Berenices (Berenice's hair), although there was precedent for that designation among the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Deep-sky objects
Leo contains many bright galaxies; Messier 65, Messier 66, Messier 95, Messier 96, Messier 105, and NGC 3628 are the most famous, the first two being part of the Leo Triplet.
The Leo Ring, a cloud of hydrogen and helium gas, is found in orbit of two galaxies found within this constellation.
M66 is a spiral galaxy that is part of the Leo Triplet, whose other two members are M65 and NGC 3628. It is at a distance of 37 million light-years and has a somewhat distorted shape due to gravitational interactions with the other members of the Triplet, which are pulling stars away from M66. Eventually, the outermost stars may form a dwarf galaxy orbiting M66. Both M65 and M66 are visible in large binoculars or small telescopes, but their concentrated nuclei and elongation are only visible in large amateur instruments.
M95 and M96 are both spiral galaxies 20 million light-years from Earth. Though they are visible as fuzzy objects in small telescopes, their structure is only visible in larger instruments. M95 is a barred spiral galaxy. M105 is about a degree away from the M95/M96 pair; it is an elliptical galaxy of the 9th magnitude, also about 20 million light-years from Earth.
NGC 2903 is a barred spiral galaxy discovered by William Herschel in 1784. It is very similar in size and shape to the Milky Way and is located 25 million light-years from Earth. In its core, NGC 2903 has many "hotspots", which have been found to be near regions of star formation. The star formation in this region is thought to be due to the presence of the dusty bar, which sends shock waves through its rotation to an area with a diameter of 2,000 light-years. The outskirts of the galaxy have many young open clusters.
Leo is also home to some of the largest structures in the observable universe. Some of the structures found in the constellation are the Clowes–Campusano LQG, U1.11, U1.54, and the Huge-LQG, which are all large quasar groups; the latter being the second largest structure known (see also NQ2-NQ4 GRB overdensity).
Meteor showers
The Leonids occur in November, peaking on November 14–15, and have a radiant close to Gamma Leonis. Its parent body is Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which causes significant outbursts every 35 years. The normal peak rate is approximately 10 meteors per hour.
The January Leonids are a minor shower that peaks between January 1 and 7.
History and mythology
Leo was one of the earliest recognized constellations, with archaeological evidence that the Mesopotamians had a similar constellation as early as 4000 BCE. The Persians called Leo Ser or Shir; the Turks, Artan; the Syrians, Aryo; the Jews, Arye; the Indians, Simha, all meaning "lion".
Some mythologists believe that in Sumeria, Leo represented the monster Humbaba, who was killed by Gilgamesh.
In Babylonian astronomy, the constellation was called UR.GU.LA, the "Great Lion"; the bright star Regulus was known as "the star that stands at the Lion's breast." Regulus also had distinctly regal associations, as it was known as the King Star.
In Greek mythology, Leo was identified as the Nemean Lion which was killed by Heracles (Hercules to the Romans) during the first of his twelve labours. The Nemean Lion would take women as hostages to its lair in a cave, luring warriors from nearby towns to save the damsel in distress, to their misfortune. The Lion was impervious to any weaponry; thus, the warriors' clubs, swords, and spears were rendered useless against it. Realizing that he must defeat the Lion with his bare hands, Hercules slipped into the Lion's cave and engaged it at close quarters. When the Lion pounced, Hercules caught it in midair, one hand grasping the Lion's forelegs and the other its hind legs, and bent it backwards, breaking its back and freeing the trapped maidens. Zeus commemorated this labor by placing the Lion in the sky.
The Roman poet Ovid called it Herculeus Leo and Violentus Leo. Bacchi Sidus (star of Bacchus) was another of its titles, the god Bacchus always being identified with this animal. However, Manilius called it Jovis et Junonis Sidus (Star of Jupiter and Juno).
Astrology
, the Sun appears in the constellation Leo from August 10 to Sept 10. In tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Leo from July 23 to August 27, and in sidereal astrology, from August 16 to September 17.
Visualizations
Leo is commonly represented as if the sickle-shaped asterism of stars is the back of the Lion's head. The sickle is marked by six stars: Epsilon Leonis, Mu Leonis, Zeta Leonis, Gamma Leonis, Eta Leonis, and Alpha Leonis. The lion's tail is marked by Beta Leonis (Denebola) and the rest of his body is delineated by Delta Leonis and Theta Leonis.
H.A. Rey has suggested an alternative way to connect the stars, which graphically shows a lion walking. The stars delta Leonis, gamma Leonis, eta Leonis, and theta Leonis form the body of the lion, with gamma Leonis being of the second magnitude and delta Leonis and theta Leonis being of the third magnitude. The stars gamma Leonis, zeta Leonis, mu Leonis, epsilon Leonis, and eta Leonis form the lion's neck, with epsilon Leonis being of the third magnitude. The stars mu Leonis, kappa Leonis, lambda Leonis, and epsilon Leonis form the head of the lion. Delta Leonis and beta Leonis form the lion's tail: beta Leonis, also known as Denebola, is the bright tip of the tail with a magnitude of two. The stars theta Leonis, iota Leonis, and sigma Leonis form the left hind leg of the lion, with sigma Leonis being the foot. The stars theta Leonis and rho Leonis form the right hind leg, with rho Leonis being the foot. The stars eta Leonis and Alpha Leonis mark the lion's heart, with alpha Leonis, also known as Regulus, being the bright star of magnitude one. The stars eta Leonis and omicron Leonis form the right front foot of the Lion.
Namesakes
USS Leonis (AK-128) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the Latin version of this constellation name. | [
"zeus",
"hercules",
"atlas",
"perseus",
"theseus",
"apollo",
"bacchus",
"jupiter",
"manilius",
"ovid"
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qb_6235 | The Star of ‘who’ appears on the National flag of Israel? | The flag of Israel (Hebrew: דגל ישראל Degel Yisra'el, Arabic: علم إسرائيل 'Alam Isra'īl) was adopted on October 28, 1948, five months after the establishment of the State of Israel. It depicts a blue hexagram on a white background, between two horizontal blue stripes.
The blue colour is described as "dark sky-blue",Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs publication [http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern%20History/Israel%20at%2050/The%20Flag%20and%20the%20Emblem The Flag and the Emblem] by art historian Alec Mishory, wherein he quotes "The Provisional Council of State Proclamation of the Flag of the State of Israel" made on October 28, 1948 by Joseph Sprinzak, Speaker. and varies from flag to flag, ranging from a hue of pure blue, sometimes shaded almost as dark as navy blue, to hues about 75% toward pure cyan and shades as light as very light blue. The flag was designed for the Zionist Movement in 1891. The basic design recalls the Tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl, which is white with black or blue stripes. The symbol in the center represents the Star of David ("Magen David"), a Jewish symbol dating from late medieval Prague, which was adopted by the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
In 2007, an Israeli flag measuring 660 x and weighing was unfurled near the ancient Jewish fortress of Masada, breaking the world record for the largest flag.
Origin of the flag
The blue stripes are intended to symbolize the stripes on a tallit, the traditional Jewish prayer shawl. The portrayal of a Star of David on the flag of the State of Israel is a widely acknowledged symbol of the Jewish people and of Judaism.
The Israelites used a blue colored dye called tekhelet; this dye may have been made from the marine snail Murex trunculus. This dye was very important in both Jewish and non-Jewish cultures of this time, and was used by royalty and the upper class in dyeing their clothing, sheets, curtains, etc. (The dye from a related snail can be processed to form Tyrian purple called argaman.)
In the Bible, the Israelites are commanded to have one of the threads of their tassels (tzitzit) dyed with tekhelet; "so that they may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them (Num 15:39)." Tekhelet corresponds to the colour of the divine revelation (Midrash Numbers Rabbah xv.). Sometime near the end of the Talmudic era (500–600 CE) the industry that produced this dye collapsed. It became more rare; over time, the Jewish community lost the tradition of which species of shellfish produced this dye. Since Jews were then unable to fulfil this commandment, they have since left their tzitzit (tallit strings) white. However, in remembrance of the commandment to use the tekhelet dye, it became common for Jews to have blue or purple stripes woven into the cloth of their tallit.
The idea that the blue and white colours were the national colour of the Jewish people was voiced early on by Ludwig August Frankl (1810–1894), an Austrian Jewish poet. In his poem, "Judah's Colours", he writes:
When sublime feelings his heart fill, he is mantled in the colors of his country. He stands in prayer, wrapped in a sparkling robe of white.
The hems of the white robe are crowned with broad stripes of blue; Like the robe of the High Priest, adorned with bands of blue threads.
These are the colours of the beloved country, blue and white are the colours of Judah; White is the radiance of the priesthood, and blue, the splendors of the firmament.
In 1885, the agricultural village of Rishon LeZion used a blue and white flag designed by Israel Belkind and Fanny Abramovitch in a procession marking its third anniversary. In 1891, Michael Halperin, one of the founders of the agricultural village Nachalat Reuven flew a similar blue and white flag with a blue hexagram and the text "" (Nes Ziona, "a banner for Zion": a reference to Jeremiah 4:6, later adopted as the modern name of the city). A blue and white flag, with a Star of David and the Hebrew word "Maccabee", was used in 1891 by the Bnai Zion Educational Society. Jacob Baruch Askowith (1844–1908) and his son Charles Askowith designed the "flag of Judah," which was displayed on July 24, 1891, at the dedication of Zion Hall of the B'nai Zion Educational Society in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Based on the traditional tallit, or Jewish prayer shawl, that flag was white with narrow blue stripes near the edges and bore in the center the ancient six-pointed Shield of David with the word "Maccabee" in gilt letters.
In Herzl's 1896 Der Judenstaat, he stated:
Wir haben keine Fahne. Wir brauchen eine. Wenn man viele Menschen führen will, muss man ein Symbol über ihre Häupter erheben. Ich denke mir eine weisse Fahne, mit sieben goldenen Sternen. Das weisse Feld bedeutet das neue, reine Leben; die Sterne sind die sieben goldenen Stunden unseres Arbeitstages. Denn im Zeichen der Arbeit gehen die Juden in das neue Land.
We have no flag, and we need one. If we desire to lead many men, we must raise a symbol above their heads. I would suggest a white flag, with seven golden stars. The white field symbolizes our pure new life; the stars are the seven golden hours of our working-day. For we shall march into the Promised Land carrying the badge of honor.
David Wolffsohn (1856–1914), a businessman prominent in the early Zionist movement, was aware that the nascent Zionist movement had no official flag, and that the design proposed by Theodor Herzl was gaining no significant support, wrote:
At the behest of our leader Herzl, I came to Basle to make preparations for the Zionist Congress. Among many other problems that occupied me then was one that contained something of the essence of the Jewish problem. What flag would we hang in the Congress Hall? Then an idea struck me. We have a flag—and it is blue and white. The talith (prayer shawl) with which we wrap ourselves when we pray: that is our symbol. Let us take this Talith from its bag and unroll it before the eyes of Israel and the eyes of all nations. So I ordered a blue and white flag with the Shield of David painted upon it. That is how the national flag, that flew over Congress Hall, came into being.
While this flag emphasizes Jewish religious symbols, Theodor Herzl wanted the flag to have more universal symbols: 7 golden stars symbolizing the 7-hour working quota of the enlightened state-to-be, which would have advanced socialist legislations.
In 1897, the First Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland, to consider re-establishing a homeland for Jews in Palestine. [http://www.flag-of-israel.org Morris Harris], a member of New York Hovevei Zion, used his awning shop to design a suitable banner and decorations for the reception, and his mother Lena Harris sewed the flag. The flag was made with two blue stripes and a large blue Star of David in the center, the colours blue and white chosen from the design of the tallit. The flag was ten feet by six feet—in the same proportions as the flag of the United States—and became known as the Flag of Zion. It was accepted as the official Zionist flag at the Second Zionist Congress held in Switzerland in 1898, and the State of Israel later adopted the design as the official flag, upon declaration of Israel as an independent state in 1948.
A flag with blue and white stripes and a Magen David in the center flew with those of other nationalities from one of the buildings at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. It flew there in relation to large meetings of Zionists. That expo was the World's Fair hosting the 1904 Summer Olympics.
Interpretation of colours
Criticism
From Israeli Arabs
Some Israeli Arab politicians, as well as the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel have requested a re-evaluation of the Israeli flag, arguing that the Star of David at the flag's centre is an exclusively Jewish symbol.
From Orthodox Jews
The Hasidim in particular were vociferous in their opposition to early Zionism and often protested against the Zionists. They even went as far as banning the Star of David, originally a religious symbol appearing only in the synagogue, which had now become "defiled" by the Zionists. Rabbi Moses Feinstein called the Israeli flag "a foolish and meaningless object" and discouraged its display in synagogues. The Chazon Ish wrote that praying in a synagogue decorated with an Israeli flag should be avoided even if there was no other synagogue in the area. Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, also forbade the flying of the Israeli flag in synagogues, calling it "a reminder of the acts of the evil-doers." Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum referred to the flag as the "flag of heresy" and viewed it as an object of idol worship. Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel never display the Israeli flag and there are some fringe groups who resort to burning it on Israel’s independence day.
"Nile to Euphrates" conspiracy
It is a popular conspiracy in the Arab World that the blue stripes on the Israeli flag actually represent the rivers Nile and Euphrates as the boundaries of Eretz Yisra'el, the land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible. Those making this allegation insist that the flag "secretly" represents the desire of Jews to conquer all of the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers, which would involve conquering and ruling over much of Egypt, all of Jordan, most of Syria, and part of Iraq. Yasser Arafat, Iran and Hamas also made the allegation,[http://www.webcitation.org/query?urlhttp://www.geocities.com/Heartland/9766/arafat.htm&date
2009-10-25+07:30:29 Playboy Interview: Yasir Arafat], Playboy, September 1988.ARAFAT: Yes, because they don't want it. Look at the slogans they use: that
the land of Israel is from the Euphrates to the Nile. This was written for many years over the entrance to the Knesset, the parliament. It shows their national ambition—they want to advance to the Jordan River. One Israel for them, what's left for us...
Do you know what the meaning of the Israeli flag is?
PLAYBOY: No.
ARAFAT: It is white with two blue lines. The two lines represent two rivers, and in between is Israel. The rivers are the Nile and the Euphrates. and repeatedly tied
this notion to the stripes on the Israeli flag. Rubinstein, Danny. [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo
501543&contrassID=1 Inflammatory legends], Haaretz, November 15, 2004. Accessed April 3, 2006.
Both Zionist and anti-Zionist authors have debunked the claim that the stripes on the flag represent territorial ambitions. Daniel Pipes notes "In fact, the blue lines derive from the design on the traditional Jewish prayer shawl", and Danny Rubinstein points out that "Arafat ... added, in interviews that he gave in the past, that the two blue stripes on the Israeli flag represent the Nile and the Euphrates .... No Israeli, even those who demonstrate understanding for Palestinian distress, will accept the ... nonsense about the blue stripes on the flag, which was designed according to the colours of the traditional tallit (prayer shawl)". Persistent critic of Israel and Zionism Israel Shahak is equally explicit. In his The Zionist Plan for the Middle East he states:
...the persistent, and completely false declarations, which were made by some of the most important Arab leaders, that the two blue stripes of the Israeli flag symbolize the Nile and the Euphrates, while in fact they are taken from the stripes of the Jewish praying shawl (Talit).
Saqr Abu Fakhr, an Arab writer, has also spoken out against this idea. He writes that the "Nile to Euphrates" claim regarding the flag is one of seven popular misconceptions and/or myths about Jews which, despite being unfounded and having abundant evidence refuting them, continue to circulate in the Arab world.
Nevertheless, the Hamas Covenant states "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates," and as recently as January 29, 2006, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar issued a demand for Israel to change its flag, citing the "Nile to Euphrates" argument.
Reference in the Nuremberg Laws
Paragraph 4 in "The Laws for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour", part of the infamous Nazi Nuremberg Laws of 1935, states that 1. "Jews are forbidden to display the Reich and national flag or the [German] national colours. 2. On the other hand, they are permitted to display the Jewish colours. The exercise of this right is protected by the State." Paragraph 5.3 described the penalty for infringing "1": up to one year's imprisonment plus fine, or one of these. The "Jewish colours" referred to in this article were blue and white.
Famous Israeli flags
* The "Ink Flag" of 1949, which was raised during the War of Independence near present-day Eilat. This homemade flag's raising on a pole by several Israeli soldiers was immortalized in a photograph that has been compared with the famous photograph of the United States Flag being raised atop Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima in 1944. Like the latter photograph, the Ink Flag raising has also been reproduced as a memorial.
* The Israeli flag that stayed flying throughout the siege of Fort Budapest during the Yom Kippur War, which is currently preserved in the Israeli Armored Corps memorial at Latrun. Fort Budapest was the only strongpoint along the vaunted Bar-Lev Line to remain in Israeli hands during the war.
* The 2007 World Record Flag, which was unveiled at an airfield near the historic mountain fortress of Masada. The flag, manufactured in the Philippines, measured 660 x and weighed , breaking the previous record, measured and verified by representatives for the Guinness Book of Records. It was made by Filipino entrepreneur and Evangelical Christian Grace Galindez-Gupana as a religious token and diplomatic gesture of support for Israel. | [
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sfq_17164 | The song Burning Bridges by the Mike Curb Congregation is sung over the opening credits of which film? | Michael "Mike" Curb (born December 24, 1944, Savannah, Georgia, United States) is an American musician, record company executive, and NASCAR car owner. A Republican, he served as the 42nd Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979 to 1983 under Democratic Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr. He was acting governor of California while Brown spent time outside of California pursuing presidential ambitions. He is also the founder of Curb Records as well as an inductee of the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame. He is of Mexican heritage.
Early music career
As a freshman at San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University at Northridge), while working in the practice rooms of the Department of Music, Curb wrote the song "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda (Go Little Honda)" which the company selected for its ad campaign. Dropping out of college in 1963 at the age of 19, Curb formed his first record company, Sidewalk Records (a predecessor of Curb Records) and helped launch the careers of West Coast rock and roll artists such as the Stone Poneys (featuring Linda Ronstadt), The Arrows (featuring Davie Allan) and the Electric Flag (featuring Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles).
Curb scored the music for the short film, Skaterdater (1965), as well as The Wild Angels (1966), Thunder Alley (1967), Devil's Angels (1967), The Born Losers (1967) - the first of the Billy Jack films, Maryjane (1968), The Wild Racers (1968), The Savage Seven (1968), The Big Bounce (1969), The Sidehackers (1969) and Black Water Gold (1970). In 1969, he merged his company with MGM and became President of MGM Records and Verve Records. Curb composed or supervised over 50 film scores and wrote over 400 songs.
Curb organized his own musical group, The Mike Curb Congregation in the 1960s; they had a Top 40 pop hit in early 1971 with the title cut from their album Burning Bridges (written and composed by Lalo Schifrin and Mike Curb) which was used as the theme of Clint Eastwood's film Kelly's Heroes. They had an adult contemporary chart hit in 1970 with the song "Sweet Gingerbread Man" from the film The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart and had a minor hit in 1973 with the Sherman Brothers composition "It's A Small Small World". The group was featured on Sammy Davis, Jr.'s number-one Billboard Hot 100 hit of 1972, "The Candy Man" (the Aubrey Woods version was featured in the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) and in 1978, the Mike Curb Congregation was featured in the musical The Magic of Lassie, starring James Stewart. They recorded "Together, a New Beginning" in 1980, the theme song for Ronald Reagan's successful presidential bid that year. The Mike Curb Congregation were weekly regulars on Glen Campbell's CBS' National Network Television Show.
In 1969, Curb signed Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman to Capitol Records.
In the 1970s, Curb wrote for and produced Roy Orbison, the Osmond Family, Lou Rawls, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Solomon Burke; he also signed artists such as the Sylvers, Eric Burdon, War, Richie Havens, the Five Man Electrical Band, Gloria Gaynor, Johnny Bristol, Exile and The Four Seasons. Curb ran a short-lived country music subsidiary label for Motown called Hitsville Records. Curb composed "It Was a Good Time" for Liza Minnelli's Emmy Award winning Liza with a Z. He also received BMI awards for composing "Burning Bridges" for Clint Eastwood's Kelly's Heroes, and for composing "All for the Love of Sunshine", which was Hank Williams, Jr.'s first #1 Record.
MGM anti-drug controversy
In 1970, Billboard reported that "MGM Records president Mike Curb has dropped 18 acts who, in his opinion, promote and exploit hard drugs through music." Billboard reported that Curb was alarmed by the drug-related deaths of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Alan Wilson of Canned Heat. Among the groups thought to be included in the purge were The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa. However Zappa spoke out against drug use throughout his career and by early 1969 had fulfilled his MGM/Verve contract and moved to his own Bizarre Records label, distributed by Warner Bros.
Curb claimed he had industry support, but the only record company official he cited, Bill Gallagher, the president of Paramount Records, contradicted him. Columbia Records president Clive Davis said Curb was "grandstanding," and that his anti-drug stance had made him "a minor hero of the Nixon administration." In 1997, Curb said the affair had happened at a time when "you were considered a freak if you spoke out against drugs."
Throughout Mike Curb's career he has helped artists through drug and substance abuse issues through numerous charities.
Political career
Encouraged to enter politics in part by Ronald Reagan, Curb was elected lieutenant governor of California in 1978, defeating the incumbent Democrat, Mervyn M. Dymally. Democratic candidate Jerry Brown was re-elected governor in the same year. During much of Brown's 1979–1980 bid to become the Democratic presidential candidate, Curb served as acting governor, vetoing legislation, issuing executive orders and making appointments; actions the California's Supreme Court upheld as Curb's constitutional prerogative. Curb worked with Harvey Milk on the campaign against the Briggs Initiative and persuaded Reagan to oppose it, leading to its defeat. Curb has been a leading conservative supporter of gay rights ever since.
Curb lost the 1982 Republican gubernatorial nomination to California attorney general George Deukmejian. In 1986, Curb ran again for lieutenant governor as the Republican nominee against the incumbent Democrat Leo T. McCarthy in a bitterly contested race that largely centered around punishment for drug trafficking and violent crimes. A vocal opponent of drug use, Curb advocated extension of the death penalty to include drug pushers whose narcotics trafficking resulted in a death.
In 1980 Curb served as the National Co-Chairman of Ronald Reagan’s successful presidential campaign. Curb also served as the Chairman of the convention program in Detroit and was later appointed by President Reagan, to be chairman of the national finance committee in Washington DC.
Involvement in car racing
A motorsport enthusiast, Curb is a co-owner of the Curb Agajanian Performance Group, a team that has won 10 national championships. His sponsorship and ownership have included three of NASCAR's most celebrated drivers: he previously owned Richard Petty's famed #43 in 1984 and 1985, including the 199th and 200th career wins for Petty. Curb was also a sponsor for Dale Earnhardt during his 1980 Winston Cup championship winning season, and sponsored Darrell Waltrip's #12 Toyota Tundra in the Craftsman Truck Series, driven by Joey Miller in 2006. Curb-Agajanian also ran cars for many years in the Indianapolis 500 with drivers including Billy Boat and Dan Wheldon with whom he won the 2011 Indianapolis 500.
Curb was the only car owner to win in all 10 NASCAR auto racing series in the United States – the Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel and Winston Cup), the Xfinity Series (formerly the Nationwide series and Busch Series), the Camping World Truck Series (formerly the Craftsman Truck Series), the Grand-Am Rolex Daytona Prototype National Sports Car Series (now the United Sports Car Series merged with American Le Mans), the IMSA GT Series (formerly IMSA Camel GT), Continental Series (formerly IMSA GTS), the Late Model All American Series, the Modifieds and the K&N East and West Series. Curb became the only car owner/entrant who has won in the ten different series.
Curb was also the co-owner with Richard Childress of the #98 Chevrolet driven by Austin Dillon. Curb is also a long-time sponsor of ThorSport Racing in the Camping World Truck Series, being part-owner of the team's #98 Toyota driven by Rico Abreu. Since 2012, he has maintained a similar partnership with Phil Parsons Racing in the Sprint Cup Series, which also runs the #98.
The Curb Racing team have cars in United States Automobile Club (USAC) competition. Their drivers Christopher Bell and Rico Abreu won the 2013 and 2014 USAC National Midget tours.
Public honors
In Nashville, Curb has become a civic leader and benefactor of Belmont University, where his donation toward the construction of a new arena resulted in it being named the Curb Event Center. The University also runs "The Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business." He also endowed the Curb Center and the Curb Creative Campus program at Vanderbilt University and the Mike Curb Institute of Music at Rhodes College in Memphis. In 2001, Curb was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame. In 2003, Curb was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Curb was next inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
In August 2006, Curb pledged $10 million to California State University, Northridge (in Los Angeles) to endow his alma mater's arts college and provide a lead gift for the university's planned regional performing arts center that will serve as a "learning laboratory" for students. Of the $10 million gift, $5 million will support CSUN's College of Arts, Media, and Communication, one of the university's largest colleges that offers degree and certificate programs for more than 4,400 students. Four million of that will go into a general endowment for the college, and $1 million will endow a faculty chair specializing in music industry studies. As a result, the college was named in his honor.
On June 29, 2007, Curb was honored with the 2,341st star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On October 21, 2010, CSU Channel Islands dedicated the Mike Curb Studio in Napa Hall on the Camarillo, California university campus. The studio provides a new film and video production and post-production facility to the campus.
Curb has also endowed numerous other colleges and programs for the underserved communities.
In 2014 Curb was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
Discography
Albums
Collaboration albums
Singles
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bb_9281 | The cauliflower was first cultivated on or in the region of what island? | Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea, in the family Brassicaceae. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head (the white curd) is eaten. The cauliflower head is composed of a white inflorescence meristem. Cauliflower heads resemble those in broccoli, which differs in having flower buds. Brassica oleracea also includes broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, collard greens, and kale, though they are of different cultivar groups.
History
The oldest record of cauliflower dates back to the 6th century B.C. In the 2nd century, Pliny included what he called cyma among his descriptions of cultivated plants in Natural History: "Ex omnibus brassicae generibus suavissima est cyma," ("Of all the varieties of cabbage the most pleasant-tasted is cyma"). Pliny's descriptions likely refer to the flowering heads of an earlier cultivated variety of Brassica oleracea, but comes close to describing modern cauliflower. In the 12th century, three varieties were described in Spain as introductions from Syria, where it had doubtless been grown for more than a thousand years. It is found in the writings of the Arab botanists Ibn al-'Awwam and Ibn al-Baitar, in the 12th and 13th centuries when its origins were said to be Cyprus.
François Pierre La Varenne employed chouxfleurs in Le cuisinier françois. They were introduced to France from Genoa in the 16th century, and are featured in Olivier de Serres' Théâtre de l'agriculture (1600), as cauli-fiori "as the Italians call it, which are still rather rare in France; they hold an honorable place in the garden because of their delicacy", but they did not commonly appear on grand tables until the time of Louis XIV. It was introduced in India in 1822 from England by the British.
Etymology
The origin of the name is from the Latin word caulis (cabbage) and flower.
Classification and identification
Major groups
There are four major groups of cauliflower.
; Italian: This specimen is diverse in appearance, biennial and annual in type. This group also includes white, Romanesco, various brown, green, purple, and yellow cultivars. This type is the ancestral form from which the others were derived.
; Northern European annuals: Used in Europe and North America for summer and fall harvest, it was developed in Germany in the 18th century, and includes the old cultivars Erfurt and Snowball.
; Northwest European biennial: Used in Europe for winter and early spring harvest, this was developed in France in the 19th century, and includes the old cultivars Angers and Roscoff.
; Asian: A tropical cauliflower used in China and India, it was developed in India during the 19th century from the now-abandoned Cornish type, and includes old varieties Early Benaras and Early Patna.
Varieties
There are hundreds of historic and current commercial varieties used around the world. A comprehensive list of about 80 North American varieties is maintained at North Carolina State University.
Colours
; White: White cauliflower is the most common color of cauliflower.
; Orange: Orange cauliflower (B. oleracea L. var. botrytis) contains 25% more vitamin A than white varieties. This trait originated from a natural mutant found in a cauliflower field in Canada. Cultivars include 'Cheddar' and 'Orange Bouquet'.
; Green: Green cauliflower, of the B. oleracea botrytis group, is sometimes called broccoflower. It is available in the normal curd shape and with a fractal spiral curd called Romanesco broccoli. Both have been commercially available in the U.S. and Europe since the early 1990s. Green-curded varieties include 'Alverda', 'Green Goddess' and 'Vorda'. Romanesco varieties include 'Minaret' and 'Veronica'.
; Purple: The purple color in this cauliflower is caused by the presence of the antioxidant group anthocyanins, which can also be found in red cabbage and red wine. Varieties include 'Graffiti' and 'Purple Cape'.
In Great Britain and southern Italy, a broccoli with tiny flower buds is sold as a vegetable under the name "purple cauliflower"; it is not the same as standard cauliflower with a purple curd.
File:Woolworths-cauliflower.jpg|White cauliflower
File:orange cauliflower.png|Orange cauliflower
File:Purplec.png|Purple cauliflower
Production
In 2013, global production of cauliflowers (combined for production reports with broccoli) was 22.3 million tonnes, with China and India together accounting for 76% of the total (table). Secondary producers, each having about 0.5 million tonnes annually, were Spain, Mexico and Italy (table).
Nutrition
100 grams of raw white cauliflower provides 25 calories, is low in fat, carbohydrates, dietary fiber and protein (table). It has a high content (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C and moderate levels (10-19% DV) of several B vitamins and vitamin K (table).
Phytochemicals
Cauliflower contains several phytochemicals, common in the cabbage family, that are under preliminary research for their potential properties, including isothiocyanates and glucosinolates.
Boiling reduces the levels of cauliflower compounds, with losses of 20–30% after five minutes, 40–50% after ten minutes, and 75% after thirty minutes. However, other preparation methods, such as steaming, microwaving, and stir frying, have no significant effect on the compounds.
Cooking
Cauliflower can be roasted, boiled, fried, steamed, pickled, or eaten raw. When cooking, the outer leaves and thick stalks are removed, leaving only the florets. The leaves are also edible, but are most often discarded. The florets should be broken into similar-sized pieces so they are cooked evenly. After eight minutes of steaming, or five minutes of boiling, the florets should be soft, but not mushy (depending on size). Stirring while cooking can break the florets into smaller, uneven pieces.
Low carbohydrate dieters can use cauliflower as a reasonable substitute for potatoes or rice; while they can produce a similar texture, or mouth feel, they lack the starch of the originals. Like certain legumes (including chickpeas), it can be turned into a flour from which such foods as pizza or biscuits are made.
File:Aloo gobi.jpg|Aloo gobi, an Indian dish prepared with cauliflower and potato
File:Gekochter Blumenkohl.jpg|Cooked cauliflower
Fractal dimension
Cauliflower has been noticed by mathematicians for its distinct fractal dimension, predicted to be about 2.8.
One of the fractal properties of cauliflower is that every branch, or "module", is similar to the entire cauliflower. Another quality, also present in other plant species, is that the angle between "modules," as they become more distant from the center, is 360 degrees divided by the golden ratio. | [
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dpql_3539 | All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least how many years? | Scotch whisky, often simply called Scotch, is malt whisky or grain whisky made in Scotland. Scotch whisky must be made in a manner specified by law.
All Scotch whisky was originally made from malted barley. Commercial distilleries began introducing whisky made from wheat and rye in the late 18th century. Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: single malt Scotch whisky, single grain Scotch whisky, blended malt Scotch whisky (formerly called "vatted malt" or "pure malt"), blended grain Scotch whisky, and blended Scotch whisky.
All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three years. Any age statement on a bottle of Scotch whisky, expressed in numerical form, must reflect the age of the youngest whisky used to produce that product. A whisky with an age statement is known as guaranteed-age whisky.
The first written mention of Scotch whisky is in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, 1495. A friar named John Cor was the distiller at Lindores Abbey in the Kingdom of Fife.
Many Scotch whisky drinkers will refer to a unit for drinking as a dram.
Regulations and labelling
Legal definition
As of 23 November 2009, the Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 (SWR) define and regulate the production, labelling, packaging as well as the advertising of Scotch whisky in the United Kingdom. They replace previous regulations that focused solely on production. International trade agreements have the effect of making some provisions of the SWR apply in various other countries as well as in the UK. The SWR define "Scotch whisky" as whisky that is:
* Produced at a distillery in Scotland from water and malted barley (to which only whole grains of other cereals may be added) all of which have been:
** Processed at that distillery into a mash
** Converted at that distillery to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems
** Fermented at that distillery only by adding yeast
** Distilled at an alcoholic strength by volume of less than 94.8% (190 US proof)
* Wholly matured in an excise warehouse in Scotland in oak casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 L for at least three years
* Retaining the colour, aroma, and taste of the raw materials used in, and the method of, its production and maturation
* Containing no added substances, other than water and plain (E150A) caramel colouring
* Comprising a minimum alcoholic strength by volume of 40% (80 US proof)
Labelling
A Scotch whisky label comprises several elements that indicate aspects of production, age, bottling, and ownership. Some of these elements are regulated by the SWR, and some reflect tradition and marketing. The spelling of the term "whisky" is often debated by journalists and consumers. Scottish, Australian and Canadian whiskies use "whisky", Irish whiskies use "whiskey", while American and other styles vary in their spelling of the term.
The label always features a declaration of the malt or grain whiskies used. A single malt Scotch whisky is one that is entirely produced from malt in one distillery. One may also encounter the term "single cask", signifying the bottling comes entirely from one cask. The term "blended malt" signifies that single malt whisky from different distilleries are blended in the bottle. The Cardhu distillery also began using the term "pure malt" for the same purpose, causing a controversy in the process over clarity in labelling – the Glenfiddich distillery was using the term to describe some single malt bottlings. As a result, the Scotch Whisky Association declared that a mixture of single malt whiskies must be labelled a "blended malt". The use of the former terms "vatted malt" and "pure malt" is prohibited. The term "blended malt" is still debated, as some bottlers maintain that consumers confuse the term with "blended Scotch whisky", which contains some proportion of grain whisky.
The brand name featured on the label is usually the same as the distillery name (for example, the Talisker Distillery labels its whiskies with the Talisker name). Indeed, the SWR prohibit bottlers from using a distillery name when the whisky was not made there. A bottler name may also be listed, sometimes independent of the distillery. In addition to requiring that Scotch whisky be distilled in Scotland, the SWR require that it also be bottled and labelled in Scotland. Labels may also indicate the region of the distillery (for example, Islay or Speyside).
Alcoholic strength is expressed on the label with "Alcohol By Volume" ("ABV") or sometimes simply "Vol". Typically, bottled whisky is between 40% and 46% ABV. Whisky is considerably stronger when first emerging from the cask—normally 60–63% ABV. Water is then added to create the desired bottling strength. If the whisky is not diluted before bottling, it can be labelled as cask strength.
A whisky's age may be listed on the bottle providing a guarantee of the youngest whisky used. An age statement on the bottle, in the form of a number, must reflect the age of the youngest whisky used to produce that product. A whisky with an age statement is known as guaranteed age whisky. Scotch whisky without an age statement may, by law, be as young as three years old. In the early 21st century, such "No age statement" whiskies became more common, as distilleries responded to the depletion of aged stocks caused by improved sales.
A label may carry a distillation date or a bottling date. Whisky does not mature once bottled, so if no age statement is provided, one may calculate the age of the whisky if both the distillation date and bottling date are given.
Labels may also carry various declarations of filtration techniques or final maturation processes. A Scotch whisky labelled as "natural" or "non-chill-filtered" has not been through a filtration process during bottling that removes compounds that some consumers see as desirable. Whisky is aged in various types of casks—and often in used sherry or port casks—during distinct portions of the maturation process, and will take on characteristics, flavour and aromas from such casks. Special casks are sometimes used at the end of the maturation process, and such whiskies may be labelled as "wood finished", "sherry/port finished", and so on.
Types
There are two basic types of Scotch whisky, from which all blends are made:
* Single malt Scotch whisky means a Scotch whisky produced from only water and malted barley at a single distillery by batch distillation in pot stills.
* Single grain Scotch whisky means a Scotch whisky distilled at a single distillery but, in addition to water and malted barley, may involve whole grains of other malted or unmalted cereals. "Single grain" does not mean that only a single type of grain was used to produce the whisky—rather, the adjective "single" refers only to the use of a single distillery (and making a "single grain" requires using a mixture of grains, as barley is a type of grain and some malted barley must be used in all Scotch whisky).
Excluded from the definition of "single grain Scotch whisky" is any spirit that qualifies as a single malt Scotch whisky or as a blended Scotch whisky. The latter exclusion is to ensure that a blended Scotch whisky produced from single malt(s) and single grain(s) distilled at the same distillery does not also qualify as single grain Scotch whisky.
Three types of blends are defined for Scotch whisky:
* Blended malt Scotch whisky means a blend of two or more single malt Scotch whiskies from different distilleries.
* Blended grain Scotch whisky means a blend of two or more single grain Scotch whiskies from different distilleries.
* Blended Scotch whisky means a blend of one or more single malt Scotch whiskies with one or more single grain Scotch whiskies.
The five Scotch whisky definitions are structured in such a way that the categories are mutually exclusive. The 2009 regulations changed the formal definition of blended Scotch whisky to achieve this result, but in a way that reflected traditional and current practice: before the 2009 SWR, any combination of Scotch whiskies qualified as a blended Scotch whisky, including for example a blend of single malt Scotch whiskies.
As was the case under the Scotch Whisky Act 1988, regulation 5 of the SWR 2009 stipulates that the only whisky that may be manufactured in Scotland is Scotch whisky. The definition of manufacture is "keeping for the purpose of maturation; and keeping, or using, for the purpose of blending, except for domestic blending for domestic consumption". This provision prevents the existence of two "grades" of whisky originating from Scotland, one “Scotch whisky” and the other, a "whisky – product of Scotland" that complies with the generic EU standard for whisky. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, allowing non-Scotch whisky production in Scotland would make it difficult to protect Scotch whisky as a distinctive product.
Single grain
The majority of grain whisky produced in Scotland goes to make blended Scotch whisky. The average blended whisky is 60%–85% grain whisky.
Some higher-quality grain whisky from a single distillery is bottled as single grain whisky.
Blended malt
Blended malt whisky—formerly called vatted malt or pure malt (terms that are now prohibited in the SWR 2009)—is one of the least common types of Scotch: a blend of single malts from more than one distillery (possibly with differing ages). Blended malts contain only malt whiskies—no grain whiskies—and are usually distinguished from other types of whisky by the absence of the word "single" before "malt" on the bottle, and the absence of a distillery name. The age of the vat is that of the youngest of the original ingredients. For example, a blended malt marked "8 years old" may include older whiskies, with the youngest constituent being eight years old. Johnnie Walker Green Label and Monkey Shoulder are examples of blended malt whisky. Starting from November 2011, no Scotch whisky could be labelled as a vatted malt or pure malt, the SWR requiring them to be labelled blended malt instead.
Blended
Blended Scotch whisky constitutes about 90% of the whisky produced in Scotland. Blended Scotch whiskies contain both malt whisky and grain whisky. Producers combine the various malts and grain whiskies to produce a consistent brand style. Notable blended Scotch whisky brands include Bells, Dewar's, Johnnie Walker, Whyte and Mackay, Cutty Sark, J&B, The Famous Grouse, Ballantine's and Chivas Regal.
Independent bottlers
Most malt distilleries sell a significant amount of whisky by the cask for blending, and sometimes to private buyers as well. Whisky from such casks is sometimes bottled as a single malt by independent bottling firms such as Duncan Taylor, Master of Malt, Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead's, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Murray McDavid, Berry Brothers & Rudd, Douglas Laing, and others. These are usually labelled with the distillery's name, but not using the distillery's trademarked logos or typefaces. An "official bottling" (or "proprietary bottling"), by comparison, is from the distillery (or its owner). Many independent bottlings are from single casks, and they may sometimes be very different from an official bottling.
For a variety of reasons, some independent brands do not identify which facility distilled the whisky in the bottle. They may instead identify only the general geographical area of the source, or they simply market the product using their own brand name without identifying their source. This may, in some cases, be simply to give the independent bottling company the flexibility to purchase from multiple distillers without changing their labels.
History
According to the Scotch Whisky Association, Scotch whisky evolved from a Scottish drink called uisge beatha, which means "water of life". The earliest record of distillation in Scotland occurred as long ago as 1494, as documented in the Exchequer Rolls, which were records of royal income and expenditure. The quote above records eight bolls of malt given to Friar John Cor wherewith to make aqua vitae over the previous year. This would be enough for 1,500 bottles, which suggests that distillation was well-established by the late 15th century.
Whisky production was first taxed in 1644, causing a rise in illicit whisky distilling in the country. Around 1780, there were about eight legal distilleries and 400 illegal ones. In 1823, Parliament eased restrictions on licensed distilleries with the "Excise Act", while at the same time making it harder for the illegal stills to operate, thereby ushering in the modern era of Scotch production. Two events helped to increase whisky's popularity: first, the introduction in 1831 of the column still; the whisky produced with this process was generally less expensive to produce and also less intense and smoother, because a column still can perform the equivalent of multiple distillation steps in a continuous distillation process. Second, the phylloxera bug destroyed wine and cognac production in France in 1880.
Regions
Scotland was traditionally divided into four regions: The Highlands, The Lowlands, The Isle of Islay, and Campbeltown. Due to the large number of distilleries found there, the Speyside region is now also recognized by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) as a distinct region. The whisky-producing islands other than Islay are not recognised as a distinct region by the SWA, which groups them into the Highlands region.
* The Lowlands: The southernmost region of Scotland.
**There are 5 distilleries that remain in operation: Auchentoshan, Bladnoch, Glenkinchie, Annandale and Ailsa Bay from the Girvan Distillery plus three more—Daftmill, Eden Mill, and Kingsbarns—are currently pending their first releases.
* Speyside: Speyside gets its name from the River Spey, which cuts through this region and provides water to many of the distilleries.
**It has the largest number of distilleries, which includes: Aberlour, Balvenie, Cardhu, Cragganmore, Dalwhinnie, Glenfarclas, Glenglassaugh, Glenfiddich, Speyburn, The Macallan, The Glenlivet, and The Glenrothes.
**Encompassing the area surrounding the River Spey in north-east Scotland, once considered part of the Highlands, has almost half of the total number (approx. 105 as of 2013) of distilleries in Scotland within its geographic boundaries; consequently it is officially recognized as a distinct region.
* The Highlands: The Highlands is by far the largest region in Scotland both in area and in whisky production.
**Some Highland distilleries: Aberfeldy, Balblair, Ben Nevis, Dalmore, Glen Ord, Glenmorangie, Oban, Glendronach, Old Pulteney and Tomatin.
** The Islands, an unrecognised sub-region includes all of the whisky-producing islands (but excludes Islay): Arran, Jura, Mull, Orkney, and Skye: with their respective distilleries: Arran, Jura, Tobermory, Highland Park and Scapa, and Talisker.
* Campbeltown, once home to over 30 distilleries, currently has only three distilleries operating: Glen Scotia, Glengyle, and Springbank.
* Islay: has eight producing distilleries: Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Kilchoman, Lagavulin, and Laphroaig.
Although only five regions are specifically described, any Scottish locale may be used to describe a whisky if it is distilled entirely within that place; for example a single malt whisky distilled on Orkney could be described as Orkney Single Malt Scotch Whisky instead of as a Highland whisky. | [
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jp_3138 | What does a seismologist study? | Seismology (; from Greek σεισμός "earthquake" and -λογία "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. The field also includes studies of earthquake environmental effects, such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, oceanic, atmospheric, and artificial processes (such as explosions). A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology. A recording of earth motion as a function of time is called a seismogram. A seismologist is a scientist who does research in seismology.
History
Scholarly interest in earthquakes can be traced back to antiquity. Early speculations on the natural causes of earthquakes were included in the writings of Thales of Miletus (c. 585 BCE), Anaximenes of Miletus (c. 550 BCE), Aristotle (c. 340 BCE) and Zhang Heng (132 CE).
In 132 CE, Zhang Heng of China's Han dynasty designed the first known seismoscope.
In 1664, Athanasius Kircher argued that earthquakes were caused by the movement of fire within a system of channels inside the Earth.
In 1703, Martin Lister (1638 to 1712) and Nicolas Lemery (1645 to 1715) proposed that earthquakes were caused by chemical explosions within the earth.
The Lisbon earthquake of 1755, coinciding with the general flowering of science in Europe, set in motion intensified scientific attempts to understand the behaviour and causation of earthquakes. The earliest responses include work by John Bevis (1757) and John Michell (1761). Michell determined that earthquakes originate within the Earth and were waves of movement caused by "shifting masses of rock miles below the surface."
From 1857, Robert Mallet laid the foundation of instrumental seismology and carried out seismological experiments using explosives. He is also responsible for coining the word "seismology".
In 1897, Emil Wiechert's theoretical calculations led him to conclude that the Earth's interior consists of a mantle of silicates, surrounding a core of iron.
In 1906 Richard Dixon Oldham identified the separate arrival of P-waves, S-waves and surface waves on seismograms and found the first clear evidence that the Earth has a central core.
In 1910, after studying the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Harry Fielding Reid put forward the "elastic rebound theory" which remains the foundation for modern tectonic studies. The development of this theory depended on the considerable progress of earlier independent streams of work on the behaviour of elastic materials and in mathematics.
In 1926, Harold Jeffreys was the first to claim, based on his study of earthquake waves, that below the crust, the core of the Earth is liquid.
In 1937, Inge Lehmann determined that within the earth's liquid outer core there is a solid inner core.
By the 1960s, earth science had developed to the point where a comprehensive theory of the causation of seismic events had come together in the now well-established theory of plate tectonics.
Types of seismic wave
Seismic waves are elastic waves that propagate in solid or fluid materials. They can be divided into body waves that travel through the interior of the materials; surface waves that travel along surfaces or interfaces between materials; and normal modes, a form of standing wave.
Body waves
There are two types of body waves, P-waves and S-waves. Pressure waves or Primary waves (P-waves), are longitudinal waves that involve compression and rarefaction (expansion) in the direction that the wave is traveling. P-waves are the fastest waves in solids and are therefore the first waves to appear on a seismogram. S-waves, also called shear or secondary waves, are transverse waves that involve perpendicular motion to the direction of propagation. S-waves are slower than P-waves. Therefore, they appear later than P-waves on a seismogram. Fluids cannot support this perpendicular motion, or shear, so S-waves only travel in solids. P-waves travel in both solids and fluids.
Surface waves
The two primary types of surface waves are the Rayleigh waves,which has some compressional motion, and the Love wave, which does not. Rayleigh waves can be explained theoretically in terms of interacting P- and S-waves of vertical polarization that are required to satisfy the boundary conditions on the free surface. Love waves can exist in the presence of a subsurface layer, and they are formed by S-waves of horizontal polarization only. Surface waves travel more slowly than P-waves and S-waves; however, because they are guided by the surface of the Earth (and their energy is thus trapped near the Earth's surface) they can be much larger in amplitude than body waves, and can be the largest signals seen in earthquake seismograms. They are particularly strongly excited when their source is close to the surface of the Earth, as in a shallow earthquake or explosion.
Normal modes
Both body and surface waves are traveling waves; however, large earthquakes can also make the Earth "ring" like a bell. This ringing is a mixture of normal modes with discrete frequencies and periods of an hour or shorter. Motion caused by a large earthquake can be observed for up to a month after the event. The first observations of normal modes were made in the 1960s as the advent of higher fidelity instruments coincided with two of the largest earthquakes of the 20th century - the 1960 Valdivia earthquake and the 1964 Alaska earthquake. Since then, the normal modes of the Earth have given us some of the strongest constraints on the deep structure of the Earth.
Earthquakes
One of the first attempts at the scientific study of earthquakes followed the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Other notable earthquakes that spurred major advancements in the science of seismology include the 1857 Basilicata earthquake, 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1964 Alaska earthquake, the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake.
Controlled seismic sources
Seismic waves produced by explosions or vibrating controlled sources are one of the primary methods of underground exploration in geophysics (in addition to many different electromagnetic methods such as induced polarization and magnetotellurics). Controlled-source seismology has been used to map salt domes, anticlines and other geologic traps in petroleum-bearing rocks, faults, rock types, and long-buried giant meteor craters. For example, the Chicxulub Crater, which was caused by an impact that has been implicated in the extinction of the dinosaurs, was localized to Central America by analyzing ejecta in the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, and then physically proven to exist using seismic maps from oil exploration.
Detection of seismic waves
Seismometers are sensors that sense and record the motion of the Earth arising from elastic waves. Seismometers may be deployed at the Earth's surface, in shallow vaults, in boreholes, or underwater. A complete instrument package that records seismic signals is called a seismograph. Networks of seismographs continuously record ground motions around the world to facilitate the monitoring and analysis of global earthquakes and other sources of seismic activity. Rapid location of earthquakes makes tsunami warnings possible because seismic waves travel considerably faster than tsunami waves. Seismometers also record signals from non-earthquake sources ranging from explosions (nuclear and chemical), to local noise from wind or anthropogenic activities, to incessant signals generated at the ocean floor and coasts induced by ocean waves (the global microseism), to cryospheric events associated with large icebergs and glaciers. Above-ocean meteor strikes with energies as high as 4.2 × 1013 J (equivalent to that released by an explosion of ten kilotons of TNT) have been recorded by seismographs, as have a number of industrial accidents and terrorist bombs and events (a field of study referred to as forensic seismology). A major long-term motivation for the global seismographic monitoring has been for the detection and study of nuclear testing.
Mapping the earth's interior
Because seismic waves commonly propagate efficiently as they interact with the internal structure of the Earth, they provide high-resolution noninvasive methods for studying the planet's interior. One of the earliest important discoveries (suggested by Richard Dixon Oldham in 1906 and definitively shown by Harold Jeffreys in 1926) was that the outer core of the earth is liquid. Since S-waves do not pass through liquids, the liquid core causes a "shadow" on the side of the planet opposite of the earthquake where no direct S-waves are observed. In addition, P-waves travel much slower through the outer core than the mantle.
Processing readings from many seismometers using seismic tomography, seismologists have mapped the mantle of the earth to a resolution of several hundred kilometers. This has enabled scientists to identify convection cells and other large-scale features such as the large low-shear-velocity provinces near the core–mantle boundary.
Seismology and society
Earthquake prediction
Forecasting a probable timing, location, magnitude and other important features of a forthcoming seismic event is called earthquake prediction. Various attempts have been made by seismologists and others to create effective systems for precise earthquake predictions, including the VAN method. Most seismologists do not believe that a system to provide timely warnings for individual earthquakes has yet been developed, and many believe that such a system would be unlikely to give useful warning of impending seismic events. However, more general forecasts routinely predict seismic hazard. Such forecasts estimate the probability of an earthquake of a particular size affecting a particular location within a particular time-span, and they are routinely used in earthquake engineering.
Public controversy over earthquake prediction erupted after Italian authorities indicted six seismologists and one government official for manslaughter in connection with a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy on April 5, 2009. The indictment has been widely perceived as an indictment for failing to predict the earthquake and has drawn condemnation from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union. The indictment claims that, at a special meeting in L'Aquila the week before the earthquake occurred, scientists and officials were more interested in pacifying the population than providing adequate information about earthquake risk and preparedness.
Engineering seismology
Engineering seismology is the study and application of seismology for engineering purposes. It generally applied to the branch of seismology that deals with the assessment of the seismic hazard of a site or region for the purposes of earthquake engineering. It is, therefore, a link between earth science and civil engineering. There are two principal components of engineering seismology. Firstly, studying earthquake history (e.g. historical and instrumental catalogs of seismicity) and tectonics to assess the earthquakes that could occur in a region and their characteristics and frequency of occurrence. Secondly, studying strong ground motions generated by earthquakes to assess the expected shaking from future earthquakes with similar characteristics. These strong ground motions could either be observations from accelerometers or seismometers or those simulated by computers using various techniques.
Tools
Seismological instruments can generate large amounts of data. Systems for processing such data include:
* CUSP (Caltech-USGS Seismic Processing)
* RadExPro seismic software
* SeisComP3
Notable seismologists
* Aki, Keiiti
* Don L. Anderson
* Bolt, Bruce
* Claerbout, Jon
* Dziewonski, Adam Marian
* Ewing, Maurice
* Galitzine, Boris Borisovich
* Gamburtsev, Grigory A.
* Gutenberg, Beno
* Hough, Susan
* Jeffreys, Harold
* Jones, Lucy
* Kanamori, Hiroo
* Keilis-Borok, Vladimir
* Knopoff, Leon
* Lehmann, Inge
* Mallet, Robert
* Mercalli, Giuseppe
* Milne, John
* Mohorovičić, Andrija
* Oldham, Richard Dixon
* Fusakichi Omori
* Sebastião de Melo, Marquis of Pombal
* Press, Frank
* Richards, Paul G.
* Richter, Charles Francis
* Sekiya, Seikei
* Sieh, Kerry
* Paul G. Silver
* Tucker, Brian
* Vidale, John
* Wen, Lianxing
* Winthrop, John
* Zhang Heng | [
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bb_2462 | Milo's dog, The Phantom Tollbooth's 'watchdog'? | The Phantom Tollbooth is a children's fantasy adventure novel written by Norton Juster with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, published in 1961 by Random House (USA). It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one afternoon and, having nothing better to do, drives through it in his toy car, transporting him to the Kingdom of Wisdom, once prosperous but now troubled. There, he acquires two faithful companions and goes on a quest to restore to the kingdom its exiled princesses—named Rhyme and Reason—from the Castle in the Air. In the process, he learns valuable lessons, finding a love of learning. The text is full of puns and wordplay, and many events, such as when Milo unintentionally jumps to Conclusions, an island in Wisdom, explore the literal meanings of idioms.
In 1958, Juster had received a Ford Foundation grant for a children's book about cities. Unable to make progress on that project, he turned to writing what became The Phantom Tollbooth, his first book. His housemate, Feiffer, a cartoonist, interested himself in the project. Jason Epstein, an editor at Random House, bought the book and published. It has received strong acclaimed reviews and has sold in excess of three million copies, unexpectedly more than its predictions. It has been adapted into a film, opera, and play, and translated into many languages.
Though the book is on its face an adventure story, a major theme is the need for a love of education; through this, Milo applies what he has learned in school, advances in his personal development, and learns to love the life that previously bored him. Critics have compared its appeal to that of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Plot
Milo is a boy bored by the world around him; every activity seems a waste of time. He arrives home from another boring day at school to find a mysterious package. Among its contents are a small tollbooth and a map of "the Lands Beyond", illustrating the Kingdom of Wisdom (which will also guide the reader from its place on the endpapers of the book). Attached to the package is a note "For Milo, who has plenty of time". Warned by an included sign to have his destination in mind, he decides without much thought to go to Dictionopolis, assuming this is a pretend game to be played on the floor of his room. He maneuvers through the tollbooth in his electric toy car, and instantly finds himself driving on a road that is clearly not in his city apartment.
Milo begins with Expectations, a pleasant place where he starts on Wisdom's road. In Expectations, he seeks directions from the Whether Man, who is full of endless talk. As Milo drives on, he daydreams and soon is paying no attention at all, and gets lost in the Doldrums, a colorless place where nothing ever happens. Milo is soon joining the inhabitants, the Lethargarians, in killing time there, a pastime angrily interrupted by the arrival of Tock, an oversize talking dog with an alarm clock on each side (a "watchdog"), who tells Milo that only by thinking can he get out of the Doldrums. Head abuzz with unaccustomed thoughts, Milo is soon back on his road, and the watchdog joins him on his journey through Wisdom.
Milo and Tock travel to Dictionopolis, one of two capital cities of the divided Kingdom of Wisdom, and home to King Azaz the Unabridged. They meet King Azaz's cabinet officials and visit the Word Market, wherein are bought and sold the words and letters that empower the world. A fight between the Spelling Bee and the blustering Humbug breaks up the market, and Milo and Tock are arrested by the very short Officer Shrift. In prison, Milo meets the Which (not to be confused with Witch), also known as Faintly Macabre, long in charge of which words should be used in Wisdom. She tells him how the two rulers, King Azaz and his brother, the Mathemagician, had two adopted younger sisters, Rhyme and Reason, to whom everyone came to settle disputes. All lived in harmony until the rulers disagreed with the princesses' decision that letters (championed by Azaz) and numbers (by the Mathemagician) were equally important. They banished the princesses to the Castle in the Air, and since then, the land has had neither Rhyme nor Reason.
Milo and Tock leave the dungeon. King Azaz hosts them at a banquet where the guests literally eat their words, served to them on plates. After the meal, King Azaz lets Milo and Tock talk themselves into a dangerous quest to rescue the princesses. Azaz flatters the Humbug into being their guide, and boy, dog and insect set off for the Mathemagician's capital of Digitopolis as they must gain his approval before they can begin their quest.
Along the way, they meet such characters as Alec Bings, a little boy suspended in the air who sees through things and who will grow down until he reaches the ground. Milo then loses time in substituting for Chroma the Great, a conductor whose orchestra creates the colors of the world.
In Digitopolis, they meet the Mathemagician, who is still angry at Azaz, and who will not give his blessing to anything that his brother has approved. Milo maneuvers him into saying he will permit the quest if the boy can prove the two have concurred on anything since they banished the princesses. To the number wizard's shock, Milo proves that the two have agreed to disagree, and the Mathemagician gives his reluctant consent.
In the Mountains of Ignorance, the journeyers contend with demons like the Terrible Trivium and the Gelatinous Giant. After overcoming testing obstacles and their own fears, they reach the Castle in the Air. Princesses Rhyme and Reason welcome Milo and agree to return to Wisdom. Unable to enter the castle, the demons cut it loose, letting it drift away, but Milo realizes Tock can carry them down because time flies. The demons pursue, but the armies of Wisdom repel them. Rhyme and Reason heal the divisions in the old Kingdom of Wisdom, Azaz and the Mathemagician are reconciled, and all enjoy a three-day celebration.
Milo says goodbye and drives back through the tollbooth. Suddenly he is back in his own room, and discovers he has been gone only an hour, though his journey seemed to take weeks. He awakens the next day with plans to return to the kingdom, but finds the tollbooth gone when he gets home from school. A note instead is there, "For Milo, who now knows the way." The note states that the tollbooth is being sent to another child who needs help finding his direction in life. Milo is somewhat disappointed but agrees and looks at a now-interesting world around him, concluding that even if he found a way back, he might not have time to go, for there is so much to do right where he is.
Writing
Architect Norton Juster was living in his hometown of Brooklyn, after three years in the navy. In June 1960, he gained a $5,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to write a children's book about cities. Juster argued that the young baby boomers would soon have responsibility for the cities, and many lived in the suburbs and did not know them. In his proposal, he said he wanted "to stimulate and heighten perception – to help children notice and appreciate the visual world around them – to help excite them and shape their interest in an environment they will eventually reshape." Beginning with great enthusiasm, he ground to a halt with too many notes and too little progress. He took a weekend break with friends at Fire Island, and came back determined to put aside the cities book and seek inspiration in another writing project.
Juster's guilt over his lack of progress on the cities book had led him to write pieces of stories about a little boy named Milo, which he began to develop into a book.
Juster quit his job so that he could work on the book. His imagination fired by a boy who approached him on the street and with whom he discussed the nature of infinity, Juster wanted to finish the story about "a boy who asked too many questions" before returning to the book on cities. Juster shared his house in Brooklyn Heights with cartoonist Jules Feiffer whose bedroom was immediately below, and who could hear him pacing in the night. Feiffer was surprised to learn that his friend's insomnia was not caused by the cities book, but by a book about a boy. Juster showed Feiffer the draft to date, and, unbidden, the artist began sketching illustrations. Feiffer knew Judy Sheftel, who put deals together in the publishing trade and was his future bride. Sheftel got Jason Epstein, an innovative editor at Random House with a deep appreciation for children's literature, to agree to review the manuscript. Some at Random House considered the book's vocabulary too difficult: at the time, educators advised against children's literature containing words the target audience did not already know, fearing the unfamiliar would discourage young learners. Based on seven chapters of manuscript, plus a three-page outline of the rest of the story, Epstein bought the book.
Since Juster did the cooking for the housemates, if Feiffer wanted to eat, he had to do the drawings. Feiffer quickly realized the book would require illustrations of the type and quality that John Tenniel had created for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and although a nationally-known artist, doubted his competence to do the text justice. Feiffer considers the double-spread illustration of demons late in the book to be a success and one of his favorites. It differs from his usual style (which would involve a white background), and instead uses Gustave Doré's drawings as an inspiration.
It became a game, with Feiffer trying to draw things the way he wanted, and Juster trying to describe things that were impossible to sketch. These included the Triple Demons of Compromise—one short and fat, one tall and thin, and the third exactly like the first two. Feiffer got his revenge by depicting the author as the Whether Man, clad in a toga.
Repeated edits altered the protagonist's name (originally Tony), removed his parents entirely from the book, and deleted text attempting to describe how the tollbooth package had been delivered. Milo's age was removed from the text—early drafts have him aged eight or nine—as Juster decided not to state it, lest potential readers decide they were too old to care.
Themes
Since no one has ever bothered to explain the importance of learning to Milo, he regards school as the biggest waste of time in his life. Juster intended that the book speak to the importance of learning to love learning. Teaching methods that might bore children, by memorization for example, are mocked in the book, as in the case of the Spelling Bee. Like the Bee, the Humbug's insult to his fellow insect goes over Milo's head, but possibly not the reader's: "A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect." According to Mary Liston in her journal article on law in fantasy realms, "The Phantom Tollbooth concerns the difference between education and wisdom and what processes are conducive to synthesizing both, so as to encourage an attitude of engagement, alertness, and responsibility within an increasingly autonomous individual."
Another theme is the need for common sense to back up rules. Milo journeys through a land where, without Rhyme or Reason, the art of governance has been lost, leading to bizarre results. Milo repeatedly meets characters to whom words are more important than their meaning. The Whether Man, for all his talk, is unable to provide Milo with the information or guidance the boy wants, while Officer Shrift's investigation of the overturning of the Word Market contains the forms of law, without justice. The denizens around Digitopolis are little better; the twelve-faced Dodecahedron, named for what he is, turns the logic of his naming on its head when he asks if everyone with one face is called Milo. The attitudes now displayed by the adherents of both brothers are summed up by the Dodecahedron, "as long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?"
As Milo struggles with words and begins the process of making himself their master, he also has difficulty with numbers, especially when he speaks with .58 of a child, who with parents and two siblings (whom Milo does not meet) makes up an average family. Milo has had problems in school with mathematics and problem solving; his reaction to this encounter is to protest that averages are not real. The partial child enlightens Milo that there is beauty in math beyond the tedium of learning an endless set of rules, "one of the nicest things about mathematics, or anything else you might care to learn, is that many of the things which can never be, often are". Late in the book, Princess Reason counsels Milo, who has much learning ahead of him, not to be discouraged by its complexity, "You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons". An index card in the Juster papers sets forth the germ of the princess' "memorable" counsel to Milo, "Quite often the road to Rhyme + Reason is through the right mistakes."
Although Milo is bored with learning, that does not mean he knew nothing before his journey. He exhibits characteristics of a well-schooled child of his time; his speech is polite and peppered with "please" and "thank you", and when he unexpectedly encounters the partial child, he requests pardon for staring. He can count to a thousand, though his tact in bringing up the subject in the presence of the numbers-hating King Azaz is not the best. Mindful of his mother's admonition to eat lightly when a guest, he initially orders a light meal at the banquet, only to find the waiters bringing in insubstantial light beams. Not realizing he will be asked to eat his words, he then makes a plausible start at a speech before being interrupted by the king.
The Phantom Tollbooth displays Milo's growth; Leonard S. Marcus in his notes to its annotated edition writes that the boy learns to think in the abstract, pledging after his unintentional jump to Conclusions that he will not make up his mind again without a good reason. Milo does not accept the word of the demon of insincerity that he is a threat and is rewarded by learning he is not. Just for a moment, Milo is able to float in the air beside Alec Bings and see things from the perspective he will have as an adult, allowing the young reader to contemplate what it will be like to do the same. According to Liston, Milo "transforms himself from an unthinking and compliant Lethargarian to a young adult with greater consciousness, a firmer sense of self, and a newly found set of responsibilities".
Even though the day is won by Milo and his fellow questers, it is a great but not a permanent victory, as he hears the kingly brothers begin to argue again as he departs. Juster has written that it was his intent to get Milo out of there as quickly as possible, and that "the fight would have to be won again and again".
Milo's trip through the lands beyond the tollbooth teaches the previously bored child to appreciate both journey and destination. This is a lesson that had been unlearned by the citizens of Wisdom, as exemplified by the described fate of the twin cities of Reality and Illusions. Although the city of Illusions never actually existed, Reality was lost as its residents concentrated on getting to their destination as quickly as possible, and, unappreciated, the city withered away, unnoticed by the busy people who still hasten along its former streets. Milo meets his trials by defining himself as different from the kingdom's inhabitants, who either demand or accept conformity, as enforced by the kingdom's laws, which discourage (and even outlaw) thought. Milo cannot accept such laws, beginning when, in the Doldrums, he thinks, thus violating a local ordinance and separating himself from the thoughtless inhabitants. Liston opined that because the Kingdom of Wisdom's "laws require the impossible, they contradict what it means to be fully human".
Influences and comparisons
The Phantom Tollbooth contains allusions to many works, including those loved by Juster in his own upbringing. Some of Juster's favorite books as a child, including The Wind in the Willows, had endpaper maps; Juster insisted on one for his over Feiffer's opposition, going so far as to sketch one and require that his collaborator reproduce it in his own style. Juster was also inspired by his father Samuel's love of puns, with which the book is more than sprinkled. In his childhood, Juster spent much time listening to the radio. According to Juster, the need to envision the action when listening to radio serials helped inspire The Phantom Tollbooth, as well as yielding the character of Tock, based on sidekick Jim Fairfield from Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. Jim gave Tock his wisdom, courage, and adventurous spirit. As a child, Juster had synesthesia, and could only do arithmetic by making associations between numbers and colors. He remembered that the condition affected word associations. "One of the things I always did was think literally when I heard words. On the Lone Ranger [radio serial] they would say, 'Here come the Injuns!' and I always had an image of engines, of train engines."
Some of the incidents in the book stem from Juster's own past. In Digitopolis, the Numbers Mine, where gemlike numerals are dug for, recalled one of Juster's architecture professors at the University of Pennsylvania, who compared numbers and equations to jewels. The Marx Brothers films were a staple for Juster as a child and his father would quote lengthy passages from the movies; this inspired the unending series of straight-faced puns that fills the book.
Growing up in a Jewish-American household where the parents demanded high achievement, Juster was intimately familiar with expectations, though in his case many of his parents' hopes were centered on his older brother, an academic star. The Terrible Trivium, the well-dressed, polite demon who sets the questers to mindless tasks, was Juster's way of representing his own tendency to avoid what he should be doing in favor of a more congenial occupation, such as his evasion of the grant project to write The Phantom Tollbooth. Juster drew on Feiffer's life experiences as well; the Whether Man's adage "Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens" was a favorite of the cartoonist's mother.
Juster had not read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when he wrote The Phantom Tollbooth, but the two books, each about a bored child plunged into a world of absurd logic, have repeatedly been compared. According to Daniel Hahn in his 2012 article on the Juster book, "Alice is clearly Milo's closest literary kin". Milo's conversation with the Whether Man, which leaves him no more comprehending than when he came, recalls that of Alice with the Cheshire Cat. The questions of authority (something omnipresent for a child) and of justice run through both books; the Queen of Hearts' arbitrary justice is echoed, though with less violence, by Officer Shrift. Alice's sovereigns, representing the authority figures of Victorian childhood life, rule absolutely (though not necessarily effectively); a child of the post-World War II world, Milo journeys through a more bureaucratic realm. His quest is far more purposeful than the frustrating journey Alice experiences, and the outcome differs as well—Milo restores his kingdom while Alice overturns hers. Carroll leaves us uncertain if Alice has learned anything from her adventures, but Juster makes it clear that Milo has acquired tools he will need to find his way through life.
Publication and reception
The Phantom Tollbooth was published in September 1961. Its competition among new books for the minds and hearts of children included Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. The Bronze Bow, set in Biblical times, was newly available, and would bring Elizabeth George Speare her second Newbery Award in three years. Neither publisher nor first-time author expected many sales for The Phantom Tollbooth, but Juster was nevertheless disappointed not to find his work on store shelves. His mother, Minnie, did her part, as her son put it, "terrorizing" bookstore owners into displaying it.
Juster says the book was rescued from the remainders table when Emily Maxwell wrote a strong review of it in The New Yorker. Maxwell wrote, "As Pilgrim's Progress is concerned with the awakening of the sluggardly spirit, The Phantom Tollbooth is concerned with the awakening of the lazy mind." Hers was far from the only positive piece; children's author Ann McGovern reviewed it for The New York Times, writing "Norton Juster's amazing fantasy has something wonderful for anyone old enough to relish the allegorical wisdom of Alice in Wonderland and the pointed whimsy of The Wizard of Oz ". John Crosby wrote for the New York Herald Tribune, "In a world which sometimes seems to have gone mad, it is refreshing to pause and consider for a moment a book for children which contains a character called 'Faintly Macabre, the not-so-wicked Which.' The name of the book is The Phantom Tollbooth and it was written by a bearded elf named Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, who is the cleverest of the young neurotics". Dissenting was the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, which in March 1962 deemed the book an "intensive and extensive fantasy, heavily burdened with contrivance and whimsy".
In 1962, the book was published in Britain. Siriol Hugh-Jones wrote for The Times Literary Supplement, "The Phantom Tollbooth is something every adult seems sure will turn into a modern Alice ... The obvious guess is that the appeal of this sort of writing is directed towards just the sort of adults who derive a perfectly grown-up pleasure from regularly rereading the Alices. As one might expect, it is illustrated by every grown-up's favourite child-like pictures with the built-in sad sophistication, the work of Jules Feiffer." Jennifer Bourdillon reviewed it for The Listener, "This is the story of an imaginary journey, a sort of Pilgrim's Progress of a little boy in his car ... One would hardly have thought from the sound of this that it would have so magnetic an appeal, but the brilliant verbal humour and the weird and wonderful characters (the Dodecahedron. the Watchdog, Faintly Macabre) make it that rare delight, a book which parents and children can share." It reached Australia in 1963; The Canberra Times reviewer, J.E.B., deemed it memorable, causing readers to quote from it and leaf through its pages again.
Later history, editions and adaptations
After publication, Juster sent a copy of the book to the Ford Foundation, with an explanation of how the projected book on cities had transformed into The Phantom Tollbooth. He never heard back from them, and learned years later that they were delighted by the turn of events. With the book having become an unexpected hit, Juster found himself answering letters from young readers, and a few parents. He found that children understood the wordplay at different ages, and heard from the occasional college student as well. Some students wrote a second time after a gap of years "and they'll talk to me about a whole different book, normally. But now they've got a lot more of the words right. A lot more of the fun kind of crazy references". He learned too that readers were capable of more than he had intended, as in the case of the letter sent by the Mathemagician to King Azaz. Composed entirely of numbers, some readers assumed it was a code and set about breaking it, only to appeal to Juster for help when they were not successful. The numbers were not intended to have any meaning, and were used to convey that the Mathemagician's letter could not have been understood by Azaz or his advisors.
As the book became acclaimed as a modern classic, it began to be used in the classroom, and Juster corresponded with some teachers. After the book's readers attained adulthood, they wrote of its influence on them. Novelist Cathleen Schine recalled, "it was as if someone had turned on the lights. The concepts of irony, of double entendre, of words as play, of the pleasure and inevitability of intellectual absurdity, were suddenly accessible to me. They made sense to me in an extremely personal way." British fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones read her copy so often it fell apart: "it didn't occur to us that it might be about something. It struck us as a little like The Wizard of Oz, only better." One reader, signing himself "Milo", wrote to Rolling Stone in 1970, "If you want to get freaked out of your undernourished head, pick up The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. They tell you it's a kids' book, but take my word for it, no one who reads it is ever the same. No hype."
The book continued to garner positive reviews and comments. In 1998, Amanda Foreman wrote for The Sunday Times of London, "I want to shout about The Phantom from the rooftops. I want to stand in Waterloo and press copies into people's hands. This is a book that should be in every home. ... Whether you are 8 or 88 Juster's mixture of allegorical wisdom and logical whimsy will take you on a journey of the spirit. The Phantom is a mappa mundi of our hearts, proving once again that in laughter and simplicity lies the truth of life". In a 2011 article written for the book's fiftieth anniversary, Adam Gopnik wrote, "The book is made magical by Juster's and Feiffer's gift for transforming abstract philosophical ideas into unforgettable images."
The book has been translated into many foreign languages, including Chinese, Croatian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Thai, Turkish and three different Spanish editions: one for Spain, one for Latin America, and one for Spanish speakers in the United States. Juster states that he does not know if the wordplay of the original carries through to the translated works. In 1970, Chuck Jones made it into a musical film of the same name, with Milo's room in live action, and animation beyond the tollbooth. Juster dislikes the film, describing it as "drivel". In February 2010, director Gary Ross began development of a remake of The Phantom Tollbooth, with the first draft of the script written by Alex Tse.
In 2011, The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth was published, which includes sketches and copies of Juster's handwritten drafts and word lists, Feiffer's early drawings, and an introduction and annotations by Leonard S. Marcus. A fiftieth anniversary edition was also published, with appreciations by Maurice Sendak, Michael Chabon and Philip Pullman. More than three million copies have been sold of the original book in the U.S. alone. It has been adapted into a small-scale opera with music by Arnold Black, and book by Juster and Sheldon Harnick, produced by Opera Delaware in 1995. It was then revamped into a musical that had its debut to strong reviews at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and then made a national tour.
The Phantom Tollbooth remains acknowledged as a classic of children's literature. Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association named it one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012, it was ranked number 21 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal.
Juster feels that his book still has relevance today, although children's lives have changed since 1961: | [
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sfq_8083 | With which trade is Hatton Garden in London traditionally associated? | Hatton Garden is a street and area in the district of Holborn in the London Borough of Camden. It is most famous for being London's jewellery quarter and centre of the UK diamond trade, but the area is also now home to a diverse range of media and creative businesses.
The name 'Hatton Garden' is derived from the garden of the London residence of the Bishop of Ely called Ely Place, which was given to Sir Christopher Hatton by Elizabeth I in 1581, during a vacancy of the see.
The area surrounding Hatton Garden has been the centre of London's jewellery trade since medieval times. The old City of London had certain streets, or quarters, dedicated to types of business, and the area around Hatton Garden became a centre for jewellers and jewellery.
Nearly 300 of the businesses in Hatton Garden are in the jewellery industry and over 55 shops represent the largest cluster of jewellery retailers in the UK. The largest of these companies is De Beers, the international family of companies that dominate the international diamond trade. De Beers has its headquarters in a complex of offices and warehouses just behind the main Hatton Garden shopping street. The area also plays host to a large number of media, publishing and creative businesses, including Blinkbox and Grey Advertising.
Hatton Garden has an extensive underground infrastructure of vaults, tunnels, offices and workshops.
Hatton Garden was also the home to the invention of the machine gun. Sir Hiram Maxim had a small factory at 57 Hatton Garden and in 1881 invented and started to produce the Maxim Gun, capable of firing 666 rounds a minute.
The nearby streets including Hatton Place and Saffron Hill have become more residential in recent years with the building of several blocks of 'luxury' apartments, including Da Vinci House situated in the former "Punch magazine" printworks and the architecturally distinctive Ziggurat Building.
Ely Place, off Hatton Garden, is home to St Etheldreda's Church – one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in England and one of only two remaining buildings in London dating from the reign of Edward I. A building with statues of charity school children is a former chapel and parish school, now known as Wren House.
In 1962, Lawrence Graff of Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond fame, opened the first retail jewellery store here.[http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/work/small-business/article.html?in_article_id
427792&in_page_id=10 Billionaire interviews: Laurence Graff Daily Mail UK. Vince Graff. 24 August 2009.] Retrieved 8 February 2010.
Crime
In July 1993 thieves stole £7 million worth of gems belonging to the jewellers Graff Diamonds - it was London's biggest gem heist of modern times.
In April 2015, an underground safe deposit facility in Hatton Garden area was burgled in the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary. The total stolen may have had a value of up to £200m, although court reports referred to a lesser figure of £14m. The theft is being investigated by the Flying Squad, a branch of the Specialist, Organised & Economic Crime Command within London's Metropolitan Police Service.
Street names etymologies
Hatton Garden has no formally defined boundaries - those utilised here are: Clerkenwell Road to the north, Farringdon Road to the east, Holborn and Charterhouse Street to the south and Gray's Inn road to the west.
* Baldwins Gardens – from Richard Baldwin (or Baldwyn), gardener to Queen Elizabeth I and treasurer of the Middle Temple, who owned property in the area in the 16th century
* Beauchamp Street – from Beauchamp Court, the Warwickshire birthplace of Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, local property owner
* Black Bull Yard - unknown' this yard has now largely been covered by shop developments and is not accessible to the public
* Bleeding Heart Yard – thought to be from the sign of a former pub in this area called the Bleeding Heart Philpotts, Trey. A Companion to Little Dorrit. Helms Information Ltd. 2003, p. 172.
* Brooke Street, Brooke’s Court and Brooke’s Market – after Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, who owned a house near here in the 17th century
* Charterhouse Street – Anglicisation of Chartreuse, from Grande Chartreuse, head monastery of the Carthusians in France - a nearby abbey was founded by monks of this order in 1371
* Clerkenwell Road – from a local well (‘the clerk’s well), which gave its name to the area to this district
* Dorrington Street – corruption of ‘Doddington’, from Anne Doddington, wife of Robert Grenville who owned a house near here in the 17th century
* Ely Court and Ely Place – after the Bishops of Ely, Cambridgeshire who owned much of this area prior to 1659
* Farringdon Road – from Sir William or Nicholas de Farnedon/Faringdon, local sheriffs or aldermen in the 13th century Mills, A., Oxford Dictionary of London Place Names, (2000)
* Greville Street – from Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, who owned a house near here in the 17th century
* Gray’s Inn Road – from Lord Gray of Wilton, owner of a local inn or town house which was later leased to lawyers in the 16th century
* Hatton Garden, Hatton Place and Hatton Wall – from Sir Christopher Hatton, who was ceded much of this area from the Bishops of Ely by Elizabeth I in 1659
* Holborn – thought to be from ‘hollow bourne’ i.e. the river Fleet which formerly flowed in a valley near here
* Kirby Street – from Christopher Hatton’s Kirby House in Northamptonshire
* Leather Lane – thought to come not from ‘leather’ but from Leofrun, a personal name in Old English. Formerly known as Le Vrunelane (13th century), Loverone Lane (14th century) and Liver Lane
* Leigh Place – from a certain ‘Leigh’, who bought land in the area from the Baldwin family in 1689
* Lily Place – unknown
* Onslow Street - unknown
* Portpool Lane – thought to be a corruption of ‘Purta’s Pool’, the local area is recorded as the manor of Purtepol in the early 13th century
* Saffron Hill and Saffron Street – these used to be the gardens of the Bishops of Ely, where they grew saffron
* St Cross Street – originally Cross Street, as it crossed land belonging to the Hatton family. The ‘St’ was added in 1937 to avoid confusion with numerous streets of the same name
* Verulam Street – from 16th – 17th century lawyer, scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon, later created Baron Verulam, who had chambers at Gray’s Inn opposite
* Viaduct Buildings – after their position directly adjacent to Holborn Viaduct
* Waterhouse Square – after Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Prudential Assurance Building which surrounds the square
Hatton Garden in fiction
Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (humorists of the 1960s and 1970s) celebrated Hatton Garden's connection with the jewellery trade in their song of a sewage worker, "Down Below":
Hatton Garden is the spot, down below
Where we likes to go a lot, down below,
Since a bloke from Leather Lane,
Dropped a diamond down the drain,
We'll be going there again, down below.
Hatton Garden features in the 1967 children's novel Smith by Leon Garfield, where the main character tries to elude two pursuers through the crumbling streets of 18th century Holborn.
The Avengers, Season 2, Episode 10, "Death on the Rocks," is set in the diamond business in Hatton Garden.http://www.dissolute.com.au/the-avengers-tv-series/series-2/210-death-on-the-rocks.html | [
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bb_6748 | The photocopying technology called Xerography is named from Greek 'xero' meaning? | A photocopier (also known as a copier or copy machine) is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process that uses electrostatic charges on a light-sensitive photoreceptor to first attract and then transfer toner particles (a powder) onto paper in the form of an image. Heat, pressure or a combination of both is then used to fuse the toner onto the paper. (Copiers can also use other technologies such as ink jet, but xerography is standard for office copying.)
Xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in 1959, and it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines.
Photocopying is widely used in the business, education, and government sectors. While there have been predictions that photocopiers will eventually become obsolete as information workers increase their use of digital document creation, storage and distribution, and rely less on distributing actual pieces of paper, as of 2015, photocopiers continue to be widely used. In the 2010s, there is a convergence in some high-end machines between the roles of a photocopier, a fax machine, a scanner, and a computer network-connected printer. As of 2015, some high-end machines can copy and print in color.
How it works (using xerography)
#Charging: cylindrical drum is electrostatically charged by a high voltage wire called a corona wire or a charge roller. The drum has a coating of a photoconductive material. A photoconductor is a semiconductor that becomes conductive when exposed to light.
#Exposure: A bright lamp illuminates the original document, and the white areas of the original document reflect the light onto the surface of the photoconductive drum. The areas of the drum that are exposed to light become conductive and therefore discharge to the ground. The area of the drum not exposed to light (those areas that correspond to black portions of the original document) remains negatively charged.
#Developing: The toner is positively charged. When it is applied to the drum to develop the image, it is attracted and sticks to the areas that are negatively charged (black areas), just as paper sticks to a balloon with a static charge.
#Transfer: The resulting toner image on the surface of the drum is transferred from the drum onto a piece of paper with a higher negative charge than the drum.
#Fusing: The toner is melted and bonded to the paper by heat and pressure rollers.
A negative photocopy inverts the colors of the document when creating a photocopy, resulting in letters that appear white on a black background instead of black on a white background. Negative photocopies of old or faded documents sometimes produce documents which have better focus and are easier to read and study.
History
Chester Carlson, the inventor of photocopying, was originally a patent attorney, as well as a part-time researcher and inventor. His job at the patent office in New York required him to make a large number of copies of important papers. Carlson, who was arthritic, found this to be a painful and tedious process. This motivated him to conduct experiments with photoconductivity. Carlson used his kitchen for his "electrophotography" experiments, and, in 1938, he applied for a patent for the process. He made the first photocopy using a zinc plate covered with sulfur. The words "10-22-38 Astoria" were written on a microscope slide, which was placed on top of more sulfur and under a bright light. After the slide was removed, a mirror image of the words remained. Carlson tried to sell his invention to some companies, but failed because the process was still underdeveloped. At the time, multiple copies were most commonly made at the point of document origination, using carbon paper or manual duplicating machines, and people did not see the need for an electronic machine. Between 1939 and 1944, Carlson was turned down by over 20 companies, including IBM and General Electric—neither of which believed there was a significant market for copiers.
In 1944, the Battelle Memorial Institute, a non-profit organization in Columbus, Ohio, contracted with Carlson to refine his new process. Over the next five years, the institute conducted experiments to improve the process of electrophotography. In 1947, Haloid Corporation (a small New York-based manufacturer and seller of photographic paper) approached Battelle to obtain a license to develop and market a copying machine based on this technology.
Haloid felt that the word "electrophotography" was too complicated and did not have good recall value. After consulting a professor of classical language at Ohio State University, Haloid and Carlson changed the name of the process to "xerography," which was derived from Greek words that meant "dry writing." Haloid called the new copier machines "Xerox Machines" and, in 1948, the word "Xerox" was trademarked. Haloid eventually changed its name to Xerox Corporation.
In 1949, Xerox Corporation introduced the first xerographic copier called the Model A. Xerox became so successful that, in North America, photocopying came to be popularly known as "xeroxing." Xerox has actively fought to prevent "Xerox" from becoming a genericized trademark. While the word "Xerox" has appeared in some dictionaries as a synonym for photocopying, Xerox Corporation typically requests that such entries be modified, and that people not use the term "Xerox" in this way. Some languages include hybrid terms, such as the widely used Polish term kserokopia ("xerocopy"), even though relatively few photocopiers are of the Xerox brand.
In the early 1950s, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduced a variation on the process called Electrofax, whereby images are formed directly on specially coated paper and rendered with a toner dispersed in a liquid.
During the 1960s and through the 1980s, Savin Corporation developed and sold a line of liquid-toner copiers that implemented a technology based on patents held by the company.
Before the widespread adoption of xerographic copiers, photo-direct copies produced by machines such as Kodak's Verifax were used. A primary obstacle associated with the pre-xerographic copying technologies was the high cost of supplies: a Verifax print required supplies costing USD $0.15 in 1969, while a Xerox print could be made for USD $0.03 including paper and labor. The coin-operated Photostat machines still found in some public libraries in the late 1960s made letter-size copies for USD $0.25 each, at a time when the minimum wage for a US worker was USD $1.65 per hour; the Xerox machines that replaced them typically charged USD $0.10.
Xerographic copier manufacturers took advantage of a high perceived-value of the 1960s and early 1970s, and marketed paper that was "specially designed" for xerographic output. By the end of the 1970s, paper producers made xerographic "runability" one of the requirements for most of their office paper brands.
Some devices sold as photocopiers have replaced the drum-based process with inkjet or transfer film technology.
Among the key advantages of photocopiers over earlier copying technologies are their ability:
* to use plain (untreated) office paper,
* to implement duplex (or two-sided) printing,
* Able to scan several pages automatically with an ADF, and
* eventually, to sort and/or staple output.
Color photocopiers
Colored toner became available in the 1950s, although full-color copiers were not commercially available until 3M released the Color-in-Color copier in 1968, which used a dye sublimation process rather than conventional electrostatic technology. The first electrostatic color copier was released by Xerox (the 6500) in 1973. Color photocopying is a concern to governments, as it facilitates counterfeiting currency and other documents: for more information, see Counterfeiting section.
Digital technology
There is an increasing trend for new photocopiers to adopt digital technology, thus replacing the older analog technology. With digital copying, the copier effectively consists of an integrated scanner and laser printer. This design has several advantages, such as automatic image quality enhancement and the ability to "build jobs" (that is, to scan page images independently of the process of printing them). Some digital copiers can function as high-speed scanners; such models typically offer the ability to send documents via email or to make them available on file servers.
A great advantage of digital copier technology is "automatic digital collation." For example, when copying a set of 20 pages 20 times, a digital copier scans each page only once, then uses the stored information to produce 20 sets. In an analog copier, either each page is scanned 20 times (a total of 400 scans), making one set at a time, or 20 separate output trays are used for the 20 sets.
Low-end copiers also use digital technology, but tend to consist of a standard PC scanner coupled to an inkjet or low-end laser printer, both of which are far slower than their counterparts in high-end copiers. However, low-end scanner-inkjets can provide color copying at a lower purchase price but with a much higher cost per copy. The cost of electronics is such that combined scanner-printers sometimes have built-in fax machines. (See Multifunction printer.)
Copyright issues
Photocopying material that is subject to copyright (such as books or scientific papers) is subject to restrictions in most countries. This is common practice, as the cost of purchasing a book for the sake of one article or a few pages can be excessive. The principle of fair use (in the United States) or fair dealing (in other Berne Convention countries) allows this type of copying for research purposes.
In certain countries, such as Canada, some universities pay royalties from each photocopy made at university copy machines and copy centers to copyright collectives out of the revenues from the photocopying, and these collectives distribute resulting funds to various scholarly publishers. In the United States, photocopied compilations of articles, handouts, graphics, and other information called readers are often required texts for college classes. Either the instructor or the copy center is responsible for clearing copyright for every article in the reader, and attribution information must be clearly included in the reader.
Counterfeiting
To counter the risk of people using color copiers to create counterfeit copies of paper currency, some countries have incorporated anti-counterfeiting technologies into their currency. These include watermarks, microprinting, holograms, tiny security strips made of plastic (or other material), and ink that appears to change color as the currency is viewed at an angle. Some photocopying machines contain special software that can prevent copying currency that contains a special pattern.
Color copying also raises concerns regarding the copying and/or forging of other documents as well, such as driver's licenses and university degrees and transcripts. Some driver's licenses are made with embedded holograms so that a police officer can detect a fake copy. Some university and college transcripts have special anti-copying watermarks in the background. If a copy is made, the watermarks will become highly visible, which allows the recipient to determine that they have a copy rather than a genuine original transcript.
Health issues
Exposure to ultraviolet light is a concern. In the early days of photocopiers, the sensitizing light source was filtered green to match the optimal sensitivity of the photoconductive surface. This filtering conveniently removed all ultraviolet. Currently, a variety of light sources are used. As glass transmits ultraviolet rays between 325 and 400 nanometers, copiers with ultraviolet-producing lights such as fluorescent, tungsten halogen, or xenon flash, expose documents to some ultraviolet.
Concerns about emissions from photocopy machines have been expressed by some in connection with the use of selenium and emissions of ozone and fumes from heated toner. However, these concerns may be due to misunderstanding or exaggeration.
Forensic identification
Similar to forensic identification of typewriters, computer printers and copiers can be traced by imperfections in their output. The mechanical tolerances of the toner and paper feed mechanisms cause banding, which can reveal information about the individual device's mechanical properties. It is often possible to identify the manufacturer and brand, and, in some cases, the individual printer can be identified from a set of known printers by comparing their outputs.
Some high-quality color printers and copiers steganographically embed their identification code into the printed pages, as fine and almost invisible patterns of yellow dots. Some sources identify Xerox and Canon as companies doing this. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has investigated this issue and documented how the Xerox DocuColor printer's serial number, as well as the date and time of the printout, are encoded in a repeating 8×15 dot pattern in the yellow channel. EFF is working to reverse engineer additional printers. The EFF also reports that the US government has asked these companies to implement such a tracking scheme, so that counterfeiting can be traced. The EFF has filed a Freedom of Information Act request in order to look into privacy implications of this tracking.
==================================================
Xerography or electrophotography is a dry photocopying technique. Its fundamental principle was invented by Hungarian physicist Pál Selényi and based on Selényi's publications Chester Carlson applied for and was awarded on October 6, 1942. The technique was originally called electrophotography. It was later renamed xerography—from the Greek roots ξηρός xeros, "dry" and -γραφία -graphia, "writing"—to emphasize that, unlike reproduction techniques then in use such as cyanotype, this process used no liquid chemicals.
Carlson's innovation combined electrostatic printing with photography, unlike the dry electrostatic printing process invented by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg in 1778. Carlson's original process was cumbersome, requiring several manual processing steps with flat plates. It was almost 18 years before a fully automated process was developed, the key breakthrough being use of a cylindrical drum coated with selenium instead of a flat plate. This resulted in the first commercial automatic copier, the Xerox 914, being released by Haloid/Xerox in 1960. Before that year, Carlson had proposed his idea to more than a dozen companies, but none were interested. Xerography is now used in most photocopying machines and in laser and LED printers.
Xerographic process
The first commercial use was hand processing of a flat photosensor (an electronic component that detects the presence of visible light) with a copy camera and a separate processing unit to produce offset lithographic plates. Today this technology is used in photocopy machines, laser printers, and digital presses which are slowly replacing many traditional offset presses in the printing industry for shorter runs.
By using a cylinder to carry the photosensor, automatic processing was enabled. In 1960, the automatic photocopier was created and many millions have been built since. The same process is used in microform printers and computer output laser or LED printers. A metal cylinder called the drum is mounted to rotate about a horizontal axis. The drum rotates at the speed of paper output. One revolution passes the drum surface through the steps described below.
The end-to-end dimension is the width of print to be produced plus a generous tolerance. The drums in the copiers originally developed by Xerox Corporation were manufactured with a surface coating of amorphous selenium (more recently ceramic or organic photoconductor or OPC), applied by vacuum deposition. Amorphous selenium will hold an electrostatic charge in darkness and will conduct away such a charge under light. In the 1970s, IBM Corporation sought to avoid Xerox's patents for selenium drums by developing organic photoconductors as an alternative to the selenium drum. In the original system, photocopiers that rely on silicon or selenium (and its alloys) are charged positively in use (hence work with negatively-charged "toner" powder). Photoconductors using organic compounds (like zinc oxide or cadmium sulfide) are electrochemically charged vice-versa to the preceding system in order to exploit their native properties in printing. Organic photoconductors are now preferred because they can be deposited on a flexible, oval or triangular, belt instead of a round drum, facilitating significantly smaller device build size.
Laser printer photo drums are made with a doped silicon diode sandwich structure with a hydrogen-doped silicon light-chargeable layer, a boron nitride rectifying (diode-causing) layer that minimizes current leakage, and a surface layer of silicon doped with oxygen or nitrogen; silicon nitride is a scuff-resistant material.
The steps of the process are described below as applied on a cylinder, as in a photocopier. Some variants are described within the text. Every step of the process has design variants. The physics of the xerographic process are discussed at length in a book.
; Step 1. Charging
An electrostatic charge of −600 volts is uniformly distributed over the surface of the drum by a corona discharge from a corona unit (Corotron), with output limited by a control grid or screen. This effect can also be achieved with the use of a contact roller with a charge applied to it. Essentially, a corona discharge is generated by a narrow wire to inch (6.35 to 12.7 mm) apart from the photoconductor. A negative charge is placed on the wire, which will ionize the space between the wire and conductor, so electrons will be repelled and pushed away onto the conductor. The conductor is set on top of a conducting surface, kept at ground potential.
The polarity is chosen to suit the positive or negative process. Positive process is used for producing black on white copies. Negative process is used for producing black on white from negative originals (mainly microfilm) and all digital printing and copying. This is to economize on the use of laser light by the "blackwriting" or "write to black" exposure method.
; Step 2. Exposure
The document or microform to be copied is illuminated by flash lamps on the platen and either passed over a lens or is scanned by a moving light and lens, such that its image is projected onto and synchronized with the moving drum surface. Alternatively, the image may be exposed using a xenon strobe, onto the surface of the moving drum or belt, fast enough to render a perfect latent image. Where there is text or image on the document, the corresponding area of the drum will remain unlit. Where there is no image the drum will be illuminated and the charge will be dissipated. The charge that remains on the drum after this exposure is a 'latent' image and is a negative of the original document.
Whether in a scanning or a stationary optical system, combinations of lenses and mirrors are used to project the original image on the platen (scanning surface) onto the photoconductor. Additional lenses, with different focal lengths or zooming lenses are utilized to enlarge or reduce the image. The scanning system, though, must change its scanner speed to adapt to elements or reductions.
A drum is inferior to a belt in the sense that although it is simpler than a belt, it must be buffered gradually in parts rolling on the drum. As a result, the belt is more efficient to use one exposure to make a direct passage.
In a laser or LED printer, modulated light is projected onto the drum surface to create the latent image. The modulated light is used only to create the positive image, hence the term "blackwriting".
; Step 3. Development
In high-volume copiers, the drum is presented with a slowly turbulent mixture of toner particles and larger, iron, reusable carrier particles. Toner is a powder; its early form was carbon powder, then melt-mixed with a polymer. The carrier particles have a coating which, during agitation, generates a triboelectric charge (a form of static electricity), which attracts a coating of toner particles. In addition, the mix is manipulated with a magnetic roller to present to the surface of the drum or belt a brush of toner. By contact with the carrier each neutral toner particle has an electric charge of polarity opposite to the charge of the latent image on the drum. The charge attracts toner to form a visible image on the drum. To control the amount of toner transferred, a bias voltage is applied to the developer roller to counteract the attraction between toner and latent image.
Where a negative image is required, as when printing from a microform negative, then the toner has the same polarity as the corona in step 1. Electrostatic lines of force drive the toner particles away from the latent image towards the uncharged area, which is the area exposed from the negative.
Early color copiers and printers used multiple copy cycles for each page output, using colored filters and toners. Modern units use only a single scan to four separate, miniature process units, operating simultaneously, each with its own coronas, drum and developer unit.
; Step 4. Transfer
Paper is passed between the drum and the transfer corona, which has a polarity that is the opposite of the charge on the toner. The toner image is transferred from the drum to the paper by a combination of pressure and electrostatic attraction. On many color and high-speed machines, it is common to replace the transfer corona with one or more charged bias transfer rollers, which apply greater pressure and produce a higher quality image.
; Step 5. Separation or detack
Electric charges on the paper are partially neutralized by AC from a second corona, usually constructed in tandem with the transfer corona and immediately after it. As a result, the paper, complete with most (but not all) of the toner image, is separated from the drum or belt surface.
; Step 6. Fixing or fusing
The toner image is permanently fixed to the paper using either a heat and pressure mechanism (hot roll fuser) or a radiant fusing technology (oven fuser) to melt and bond the toner particles into the medium (usually paper) being printed. There also used to be available "offline" vapor fusers. These were trays covered in cotton gauze sprinkled with a volatile liquid, such as ether. When the transferred image was brought into proximity with the vapor from the evaporating liquid, the result was a perfectly fixed copy without any of the distortion or toner migration which can occur with the other methods. This method is no longer used due to emissions of fumes.
; Step 7. Cleaning
The drum, having already been partially discharged during detack, is further discharged by light. Any remaining toner, that did not transfer in step 6, is removed from the drum surface by a rotating brush under suction, or a squeegee known as the cleaning blade. This 'waste' toner usually is routed into a waste toner compartment for later disposal; however, in some systems, it is routed back into the developer unit for reuse. This process, known as toner reclaim, is much more economical, but can possibly lead to a reduced overall toner efficiency through a process known as 'toner polluting' whereby concentration levels of toner/developer having poor electrostatic properties are permitted to build up in the developer unit, reducing the overall efficiency of the toner in the system.
Some systems have abandoned the separate developer (carrier). These systems, known as monocomponent, operate as above, but use either a magnetic toner or fusible developer. There is no need to replace worn-out developer, as the user effectively replaces it along with the toner. An alternative developing system, developed by KIP from an abandoned line of research by Xerox, completely replaces magnetic toner manipulation and the cleaning system, with a series of computer-controlled, varying biases. The toner is printed directly onto the drum, by direct contact with a rubber developing roller which, by reversing the bias, removes all the unwanted toner and returns it to the developer unit for reuse.
The development of xerography has led to new technologies that has the potential to eventually eradicate traditional offset printing machines. These new machines that print in full CMYK color, such as Xeikon, use xerography but provide nearly the quality of traditional ink prints.
A mnemonic sentence that is helpful to remember the steps sequence in the xerographic process is: Can I Eric Do The Funky Chicken Dance? (Charging, Imaging, Exposing, Developing, Transferring, Fusing, Cleaning and Discharging)..
Durability
Xerographic documents (and the closely related laser printer printouts) can have excellent archival durability, depending on the quality of the paper used. If low-quality paper is used, it can yellow and degrade due to residual acid in the untreated pulp; in the worst case, old copies can literally crumble into small particles when handled. High-quality xerographic copies on acid-free paper can last as long as typewritten or handwritten documents on the same paper. However, xerographic copies are vulnerable to undesirable toner transfer if they are stored in direct contact or close proximity to plasticizers, which are present in looseleaf binders made with PVC. In extreme cases, the ink toner will stick directly to the binder cover, pulling away from the paper copy and rendering it illegible.
Uses in animation
Ub Iwerks adapted xerography to eliminate the hand-inking stage in the animation process by printing the animator's drawings directly to the cels. The first animated feature film to use this process was One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), although the technique was already tested in Sleeping Beauty, released two years earlier. At first, only black lines were possible, but in the 1980s, colored lines were introduced and used in animated features like The Secret of NIMH.
Examples of feature films using the xerography process
* One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
* The Sword in the Stone (1963)
* Mary Poppins (1964)
* The Jungle Book (1967)
* The Aristocats (1970)
* Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
* Robin Hood (1973)
* The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976)
* The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
* The Rescuers (1977)
* Pete's Dragon (1977)
* The Ballade of the Daltons (1978)
* The Fox and the Hound (1981)
* The Secret of NIMH (1982)
* The Black Cauldron (1985)
* The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
* An American Tail (1986)
* Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
* The Land Before Time (1988)
* Oliver & Company (1988)
* The Little Mermaid (1989)
* All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) | [
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