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Anxiety
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Panic disorder
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Panic disorder
Panic disorder may share symptoms of stress and anxiety, but it is actually very different. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder that occurs without any triggers. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this disorder can be distinguished by unexpected and repeated episodes of intense fear. Someone with panic disorder will eventually develop constant fear of another attack and as this progresses it will begin to affect daily functioning and an individual's general quality of life. It is reported by the Cleveland Clinic that panic disorder affects 2 to 3 percent of adult Americans and can begin around the time of the teenage and early adult years. Some symptoms include: difficulty breathing, chest pain, dizziness, trembling or shaking, feeling faint, nausea, fear that you are losing control or are about to die. Even though they have these symptoms during an attack, the main symptom is the persistent fear of having future panic attacks.
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Anxiety
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Anxiety disorders
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Anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by exaggerated feelings of anxiety and fear responses. Anxiety is a worry about future events and fear is a reaction to current events. These feelings may cause physical symptoms, such as a fast heart rate and shakiness. There are a number of anxiety disorders: including generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobia, social anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder, and selective mutism. The disorder differs by what results in the symptoms. People often have more than one anxiety disorder.
Anxiety disorders are caused by a complex combination of genetic and environmental factors. To be diagnosed, symptoms typically need to be present for at least six months, be more than would be expected for the situation, and decrease a person's ability to function in their daily lives. Other problems that may result in similar symptoms include hyperthyroidism, heart disease, caffeine, alcohol, or cannabis use, and withdrawal from certain drugs, among others.
Without treatment, anxiety disorders tend to remain. Treatment may include lifestyle changes, counselling, and medications. Counselling is typically with a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. Medications, such as antidepressants or beta blockers, may improve symptoms. A 2023 review found that regular physical activity is effective for reducing anxiety.
About 12% of people are affected by an anxiety disorder in a given year and between 12% and 30% are affected at some point in their life. They occur about twice as often in women than they do in men, and generally begin before the age of 25. The most common anxiety disorders are specific phobias, which affect nearly 12% of people, and social anxiety disorder, which affects 10% of people at some point in their life. They affect those between the ages of 15 and 35 the most and become less common after the age of 55. Rates appear to be higher in the United States and Europe.
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Anxiety
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Short- and long-term anxiety
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Short- and long-term anxiety
Anxiety can be either a short-term "state" or a long-term "trait". Whereas trait anxiety represents worrying about future events, anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by feelings of anxiety and fears.
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Anxiety
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Four ways to be anxious
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Four ways to be anxious
In his book Anxious: The Modern Mind in the Age of Anxiety Joseph LeDoux examines four experiences of anxiety through a brain-based lens:
In the presence of an existing or imminent external threat, you worry about the event and its implications for your physical and/or psychological well-being. When a threat signal occurs, it signifies either that danger is present or near in space and time or that it might be coming in the future. Nonconscious threats processing by the brain activates defensive survival circuits, resulting in changes in information processing in the brain, controlled in part by increases in arousal and behavioral and physiological responses in the body that then produce signals that feed back to the brain and complement the physiological changes there, intensifying them and extending their duration.
When you notice body sensations, you worry about what they might mean for your physical and/or psychological well-being. The trigger stimulus does not have to be an external stimulus but can be an internal one, as some people are particularly sensitive to body signals.
Thoughts and memories may lead to you to worry about your physical and/or psychological well-being. We do not need to be in the presence of an external or internal stimulus to be anxious. An episodic memory of a past trauma or of a panic attack in the past is sufficient to activate the defence circuits.
Thoughts and memories may result in existential dread, such as worry about leading a meaningful life or the eventuality of death. Examples are contemplations of whether one's life has been meaningful, the inevitability of death, or the difficulty of making decisions that have a moral value. These do not necessarily activate defensive systems; they are more or less pure forms of cognitive anxiety.
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Anxiety
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Co-morbidity
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Co-morbidity
Anxiety disorders often occur with other mental health disorders, particularly major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, or certain personality disorders. It also commonly occurs with personality traits such as neuroticism. This observed co-occurrence is partly due to genetic and environmental influences shared between these traits and anxiety.
It is common for those with obsessive–compulsive disorder to experience anxiety. Anxiety is also commonly found in those who experience panic disorders, phobic anxiety disorders, severe stress, dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, and some neurotic disorders.
Anxiety has also been linked to the experience of intrusive thoughts. Studies have revealed that individuals who experience high levels of anxiety (also known as clinical anxiety) are highly vulnerable to the experience of intense intrusive thoughts or psychological disorders that are characterised by intrusive thoughts.
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Anxiety
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Risk factors
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Risk factors
thumb|A marble bust of the Roman Emperor Decius from the Capitoline Museum, conveying "an impression of anxiety and weariness, as of a man shouldering heavy [state] responsibilities"
Anxiety disorders are partly genetic, with twin studies suggesting 30-40% genetic influence on individual differences in anxiety. Environmental factors are also important. Twin studies show that individual-specific environments have a large influence on anxiety, whereas shared environmental influences (environments that affect twins in the same way) operate during childhood but decline through adolescence. Specific measured 'environments' that have been associated with anxiety include child abuse, family history of mental health disorders, and poverty. Anxiety is also associated with drug use, including alcohol and caffeine, as well as benzodiazepines, which are often prescribed to treat anxiety.
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Anxiety
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Genetics
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Genetics
Genetics and family history (e.g. parental anxiety) may put an individual at increased risk of an anxiety disorder, but generally external stimuli will trigger its onset or exacerbation. Estimates of genetic influence on anxiety, based on studies of twins, range from 25 to 40% depending on the specific type and age-group under study. For example, genetic differences account for about 43% of variance in panic disorder and 28% in generalized anxiety disorder. Longitudinal twin studies have shown the moderate stability of anxiety from childhood through to adulthood is mainly influenced by stability in genetic influence. When investigating how anxiety is passed on from parents to children, it is important to account for sharing of genes as well as environments, for example using the intergenerational children-of-twins design.
Many studies in the past used a candidate gene approach to test whether single genes were associated with anxiety. These investigations were based on hypotheses about how certain known genes influence neurotransmitters (such as serotonin and norepinephrine) and hormones (such as cortisol) that are implicated in anxiety. None of these findings are well replicated, with the possible exception of TMEM132D, COMT and MAO-A. The epigenetic signature of BDNF, a gene that codes for a protein called brain derived neurotrophic factor that is found in the brain, has also been associated with anxiety and specific patterns of neural activity. and a receptor gene for BDNF called NTRK2 was associated with anxiety in a large genome-wide investigation. The reason that most candidate gene findings have not replicated is that anxiety is a complex trait that is influenced by many genomic variants, each of which has a small effect on its own. Increasingly, studies of anxiety are using a hypothesis-free approach to look for parts of the genome that are implicated in anxiety using big enough samples to find associations with variants that have small effects. The largest explorations of the common genetic architecture of anxiety have been facilitated by the UK Biobank, the ANGST consortium and the CRC Fear, Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders.
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Anxiety
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Epigenetics
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Epigenetics
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Anxiety
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Medical conditions
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Medical conditions
Many medical conditions can cause anxiety. This includes conditions that affect the ability to breathe, like COPD and asthma, and the difficulty in breathing that often occurs near death. Conditions that cause abdominal pain or chest pain can cause anxiety and may in some cases be a somatization of anxiety; the same is true for some sexual dysfunctions. Conditions that affect the face or the skin can cause social anxiety especially among adolescents, and developmental disabilities often lead to social anxiety for children as well. Life-threatening conditions like cancer also cause anxiety.
Furthermore, certain organic diseases may present with anxiety or symptoms that mimic anxiety. These disorders include certain endocrine diseases (hypo- and hyperthyroidism, hyperprolactinemia), metabolic disorders (diabetes), deficiency states (low levels of vitamin D, B2, B12, folic acid), gastrointestinal diseases (celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity, inflammatory bowel disease), heart diseases, blood diseases (anemia), cerebral vascular accidents (transient ischemic attack, stroke), and brain degenerative diseases (Parkinson's disease, dementia, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease), among others.
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Anxiety
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Substance-induced
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Substance-induced
Several drugs can cause or worsen anxiety, whether in intoxication, withdrawal or as side effect. These include alcohol, tobacco, sedatives (including prescription benzodiazepines), opioids (including prescription pain killers and illicit drugs like heroin), stimulants (such as caffeine, cocaine and amphetamines), hallucinogens, and inhalants.
While many often report self-medicating anxiety with these substances, improvements in anxiety from drugs are usually short-lived (with worsening of anxiety in the long term, sometimes with acute anxiety as soon as the drug effects wear off) and tend to be exaggerated. Acute exposure to toxic levels of benzene may cause euphoria, anxiety, and irritability lasting up to 2 weeks after the exposure.
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Anxiety
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Psychological
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Psychological
Poor coping skills (e.g., rigidity/inflexible problem solving, denial, avoidance, impulsivity, extreme self-expectation, negative thoughts, affective instability, and inability to focus on problems) are associated with anxiety. Anxiety is also linked and perpetuated by the person's own pessimistic outcome expectancy and how they cope with feedback negativity. Temperament (e.g., neuroticism) and attitudes (e.g. pessimism) have been found to be risk factors for anxiety.
Cognitive distortions such as overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, mind reading, emotional reasoning, binocular trick, and mental filter can result in anxiety. For example, an overgeneralized belief that something bad "always" happens may lead someone to have excessive fears of even minimally risky situations and to avoid benign social situations due to anticipatory anxiety of embarrassment. In addition, those who have high anxiety can also create future stressful life events. Together, these findings suggest that anxious thoughts can lead to anticipatory anxiety as well as stressful events, which in turn cause more anxiety. Such unhealthy thoughts can be targets for successful treatment with cognitive therapy.
Psychodynamic theory posits that anxiety is often the result of opposing unconscious wishes or fears that manifest via maladaptive defense mechanisms (such as suppression, repression, anticipation, regression, somatization, passive aggression, dissociation) that develop to adapt to problems with early objects (e.g., caregivers) and empathic failures in childhood. For example, persistent parental discouragement of anger may result in repression/suppression of angry feelings which manifests as gastrointestinal distress (somatization) when provoked by another while the anger remains unconscious and outside the individual's awareness. Such conflicts can be targets for successful treatment with psychodynamic therapy. While psychodynamic therapy tends to explore the underlying roots of anxiety, cognitive behavioral therapy has also been shown to be a successful treatment for anxiety by altering irrational thoughts and unwanted behaviors.
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Anxiety
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Evolutionary psychology
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Evolutionary psychology
An evolutionary psychology explanation is that increased anxiety serves the purpose of increased vigilance regarding potential threats in the environment as well as increased tendency to take proactive actions regarding such possible threats. This may cause false positive reactions but an individual with anxiety may also avoid real threats. This may explain why anxious people are less likely to die due to accidents. There is ample empirical evidence that anxiety can have adaptive value. Within a school, timid fish are more likely than bold fish to survive a predator.
When people are confronted with unpleasant and potentially harmful stimuli such as foul odors or tastes, PET-scans show increased blood flow in the amygdala. In these studies, the participants also reported moderate anxiety. This might indicate that anxiety is a protective mechanism designed to prevent the organism from engaging in potentially harmful behaviors.
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Anxiety
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Social
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Social
Social risk factors for anxiety include a history of trauma (e.g., physical, sexual or emotional abuse or assault), bullying, early life experiences and parenting factors (e.g., rejection, lack of warmth, high hostility, harsh discipline, high parental negative affect, anxious childrearing, modelling of dysfunctional and drug-abusing behaviour, discouragement of emotions, poor socialization, poor attachment, and child abuse and neglect), cultural factors (e.g., stoic families/cultures, persecuted minorities including those with disabilities), and socioeconomics (e.g., uneducated, unemployed, impoverished although developed countries have higher rates of anxiety disorders than developing countries).
A 2019 comprehensive systematic review of over 50 studies showed that food insecurity in the United States is strongly associated with depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Food-insecure individuals had an almost 3 fold risk increase of testing positive for anxiety when compared to food-secure individuals.
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Anxiety
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Gender socialization
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Gender socialization
Contextual factors that are thought to contribute to anxiety include gender socialization and learning experiences. In particular, learning mastery (the degree to which people perceive their lives to be under their own control) and instrumentality, which includes such traits as self-confidence, self-efficacy, independence, and competitiveness fully mediate the relation between gender and anxiety. That is, though gender differences in anxiety exist, with higher levels of anxiety in women compared to men, gender socialization and learning mastery explain these gender differences.
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Anxiety
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Treatment
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Treatment
The first step in the management of a person with anxiety symptoms involves evaluating the possible presence of an underlying medical cause, the recognition of which is essential in order to decide the correct treatment. Anxiety symptoms may mask an organic disease, or appear associated with or as a result of a medical disorder.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective for anxiety disorders and is a first line treatment. CBT appears to be equally effective when carried out via the internet. While evidence for mental health apps is promising, it is preliminary.
Anxiety often affects relationships, and interpersonal psychotherapy addresses these issues by improving communication and relationship skills.
Psychopharmacological treatment can be used in parallel to CBT or can be used alone. As a general rule, most anxiety disorders respond well to first-line agents. Such drugs, also used as anti-depressants, are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, that work by blocking the reuptake of specific neurotransmitters and resulting in the increase in availability of these neurotransmitters. Additionally, benzodiazepines are often prescribed to individuals with anxiety disorder. Benzodiazepines produce an anxiolytic response by modulating GABA and increasing its receptor binding. A third common treatment involves a category of drug known as serotonin agonists. This category of drug works by initiating a physiological response at 5-HT1A receptor by increasing the action of serotonin at this receptor. Other treatment options include pregabalin, tricyclic antidepressants, and moclobemide, among others.
Anxiety is considered to be a serious psychiatric illness that has an unknown true pervasiveness due to affected individuals not asking for proper treatment or aid, and due to professionals missing the diagnosis.
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Anxiety
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Prevention
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Prevention
The above risk factors give natural avenues for prevention. Psychological or educational interventions have a small yet statistically significant benefit for the prevention of anxiety in varied population types. Improvement in dietary intake and habits may also help lower the risk of anxiety.
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Anxiety
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See also
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See also
List of people with an anxiety disorder
Mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia
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Anxiety
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References
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References
Category:Emotions
Category:Symptoms or signs involving mood or affect
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Anxiety
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Table of Content
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Short description, Anxiety vs. fear, Symptoms, Types, Existential, Test, performance, and competitive, Test, Performance and competitive, Stranger, social, and intergroup anxiety, Trait, Choice or decision, Panic disorder, Anxiety disorders, Short- and long-term anxiety, Four ways to be anxious, Co-morbidity, Risk factors, Genetics, Epigenetics, Medical conditions, Substance-induced, Psychological, Evolutionary psychology, Social, Gender socialization, Treatment, Prevention, See also, References
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A. A. Milne
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Short description
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Alan Alexander Milne (; 18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956) was an English writer best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, as well as children's poetry. Milne was primarily a playwright before the huge success of Winnie-the-Pooh overshadowed his previous work. He served as a lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in the First World War and as a captain in the Home Guard in the Second World War.
Milne was the father of bookseller Christopher Robin Milne, upon whom the character Christopher Robin is based. It was during a visit to London Zoo, where Christopher became enamoured with the tame and amiable bear Winnipeg, that Milne was inspired to write the story of Winnie-the-Pooh for his son. Milne bequeathed the original manuscripts of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories to the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, his alma mater.
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A. A. Milne
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Early life and military career
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Early life and military career
thumb|right|230px|Plaque commemorating Milne's birthplace in Kilburn, London
Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London, to John Vine Milne, who was born in Jamaica,Thwaite, Ann. A.A. Milne: His Life. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. ISBN 0571138888 p. 8 and Sarah Marie Milne (née Heginbotham), on 18 January 1882. He grew up at Henley House School, 6/7 Mortimer Road (now Crescent), Kilburn, a small independent school run by his father. He taught himself to read at the age of two. One of his teachers was H. G. Wells, who taught there in 1889–90. Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship, graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1903, though he was always interested in writing. He edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humour magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor. Considered a talented cricket fielder, Milne played for two amateur teams that were largely composed of British writers: the Allahakbarries and the Authors XI. His teammates included fellow writers J. M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and P. G. Wodehouse."What is the connection between Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes, Winnie the Pooh and the noble sport of cricket?. BBC. Retrieved 25 November 2014
Milne joined the British Army during World War I and served as an officer in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was commissioned into the 4th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, on 1 February 1915 as a second lieutenant (on probation). His commission was confirmed on 20 December 1915.London Gazette. issue 29408 17 December 1915. Retrieved 26 February 2015 He served on the Somme as a signals officer from July–November 1916, but caught trench fever and was invalided back to England. Having recuperated, he worked as a signals instructor, before being recruited into military intelligence to write propaganda articles for MI7 (b) between 1917 and 1918.Thwaite, Ann. A.A. Milne: His Life. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. ISBN 0571138888 pp. 172–185 He was discharged on 14 February 1919, and settled in Mallord Street, Chelsea. He relinquished his commission on 19 February 1920, retaining the rank of lieutenant.
thumb|upright|In 1921, Milne bought the 18-inch Alpha Farnell teddy bear for his son (who would name it Edward, then Winnie) from Harrods department store (pictured) in London.
After the war, he wrote a denunciation of war titled Peace with Honour (1934), which he retracted somewhat with 1940's War with Honour.Capitalization as in the British Library Catalogue During World War II, Milne was one of the most prominent critics of fellow English writer (and Authors XI cricket teammate) P. G. Wodehouse, who was captured at his country home in France by the Nazis and imprisoned for a year. Wodehouse made radio broadcasts about his internment, which were broadcast from Berlin. Although the light-hearted broadcasts made fun of the Germans, Milne accused Wodehouse of committing an act of near treason by cooperating with his country's enemy. Wodehouse got some revenge on his former friend (e.g. in The Mating Season) by creating fatuous parodies of the Christopher Robin poems in some of his later stories, and claiming that Milne "was probably jealous of all other writers.... But I loved his stuff."
Milne married Dorothy "Daphne" de Sélincourt (1890–1971) in 1913 and their son Christopher Robin Milne was born in 1920. In 1925, Milne bought a country home, Cotchford Farm, in Hartfield, East Sussex.
During World War II, Milne was a captain in the British Home Guard in Hartfield & Forest Row, insisting on being plain "Mr. Milne" to the members of his platoon. He retired to the farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid; and by August 1953, "he seemed very old and disenchanted." Milne died in January 1956, aged 74.Jill C. Wheeler (2010). "A. A. Milne." p. 21. ABDO Publishing Company,
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A. A. Milne
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Literary career
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Literary career
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A. A. Milne
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1903 to 1925
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1903 to 1925
thumb|upright|Milne in 1922
After graduating from Cambridge University in 1903, A. A. Milne contributed humorous verse and whimsical essays to Punch, joining the staff in 1906 and becoming an assistant editor.
During this period he published 18 plays and three novels, including the murder mystery The Red House Mystery (1922). His son was born in August 1920 and in 1924 Milne produced a collection of children's poems, When We Were Very Young, which were illustrated by Punch staff cartoonist E. H. Shepard. A collection of short stories for children A Gallery of Children, and other stories that became part of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, were first published in 1925.
Milne was an early screenwriter for the nascent British film industry, writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films (founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel). These were The Bump, starring Aubrey Smith; Twice Two; Five Pound Reward; and Bookworms. Some of these films survive in the archives of the British Film Institute. Milne had met Howard when the actor starred in Milne's play Mr Pim Passes By in London.
Looking back on this period (in 1926), Milne observed that when he told his agent that he was going to write a detective story, he was told that what the country wanted from a "Punch humorist" was a humorous story; when two years later he said he was writing nursery rhymes, his agent and publisher were convinced he should write another detective story; and after another two years, he was being told that writing a detective story would be in the worst of taste given the demand for children's books. He concluded that "the only excuse which I have yet discovered for writing anything is that I want to write it; and I should be as proud to be delivered of a Telephone Directory con amore as I should be ashamed to create a Blank Verse Tragedy at the bidding of others."
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A. A. Milne
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1926 to 1928
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1926 to 1928
thumb|left|Milne with his son Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear, at Cotchford Farm, their home in Sussex. Photo by Howard Coster, 1926.
Milne is most famous for his two Pooh books about a boy named Christopher Robin after his son, Christopher Robin Milne (1920–1996), and various characters inspired by his son's stuffed animals, most notably the bear named Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed bear, originally named Edward, was renamed Winnie after a Canadian black bear named Winnie (after Winnipeg), which was used as a military mascot in World War I, and left to London Zoo during the war. "The Pooh" comes from a swan the young Milne named "Pooh". E. H. Shepard illustrated the original Pooh books, using his own son's teddy Growler ("a magnificent bear") as the model. The rest of Christopher Robin Milne's toys, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger, were incorporated into A. A. Milne's stories, and two more characters – Rabbit and Owl – were created by Milne's imagination. Christopher Robin Milne's own toys are now on display in New York where 750,000 people visit them every year.
The fictional Hundred Acre Wood of the Pooh stories derives from Five Hundred Acre Wood in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, South East England, where the Pooh stories were set. Milne lived on the northern edge of the forest at Cotchford Farm, , and took his son on walking trips there. E. H. Shepard drew on the landscapes of Ashdown Forest as inspiration for many of the illustrations he provided for the Pooh books. The adult Christopher Robin commented: "Pooh's Forest and Ashdown Forest are identical." Popular tourist locations at Ashdown Forest include: Galleon's Lap, The Enchanted Place, the Heffalump Trap and Lone Pine, Eeyore's Sad and Gloomy Place, and the wooden Pooh Bridge where Pooh and Piglet invented Poohsticks.Plans to improve access to Pooh Bridge unveiled. BBC. Retrieved 15 October 2011
Not yet known as Pooh, he made his first appearance in a poem, "Teddy Bear", published in Punch magazine in February 1924 and republished that year in When We Were Very Young. Pooh first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve, 1925, in a story called "The Wrong Sort of Bees"."Pooh celebrates his 80th birthday". BBC. Retrieved 11 November 2012 Winnie-the-Pooh was published in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner in 1928. A second collection of nursery rhymes, Now We Are Six, was published in 1927. All four books were illustrated by E. H. Shepard. Milne also published four plays in this period. He also "gallantly stepped forward" to contribute a quarter of the costs of dramatising P. G. Wodehouse's A Damsel in Distress. The World of Pooh won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958.Award List. "Lewis Carroll Shelf Award Winners," Lewis Carroll Shelf Award Collection, Living Arts Corporation, Loveland, Colorado.
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A. A. Milne
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1929 onward
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1929 onward
The success of his children's books was to become a source of considerable annoyance to Milne, whose self-avowed aim was to write whatever he pleased and who had, until then, found a ready audience for each change of direction: he had freed pre-war Punch from its ponderous facetiousness; he had made a considerable reputation as a playwright (like his idol J. M. Barrie) on both sides of the Atlantic; he had produced a witty piece of detective writing in The Red House Mystery (although this was severely criticised by Raymond Chandler for the implausibility of its plot in his essay The Simple Art of Murder in the eponymous collection that appeared in 1950). But once Milne had, in his own words, "said goodbye to all that in 70,000 words" (the approximate length of his four principal children's books), he had no intention of producing any reworkings lacking in originality, given that one of the sources of inspiration, his son, was growing older.
Another reason Milne stopped writing children's books, and especially about Winnie-the-Pooh, was that he felt "amazement and disgust" over the immense fame his son was exposed to, and said that "I feel that the legal Christopher Robin has already had more publicity than I want for him. I do not want CR Milne to ever wish that his name were Charles Robert."
In his literary home, Punch, where the When We Were Very Young verses had first appeared, Methuen continued to publish whatever Milne wrote, including the long poem "The Norman Church" and an assembly of articles entitled Year In, Year Out (which Milne likened to a benefit night for the author).Alan Hedblad (1998). "Something about the Author, Volume 100." p. 177. Gale,
In 1929, Milne adapted Kenneth Grahame's novel The Wind in the Willows for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall.Jill C. Wheeler (2010). "A. A. Milne." p. 19. ABDO Publishing Company, The title was an implicit admission that such chapters as Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," could not survive translation to the theatre. A special introduction written by Milne is included in some editions of Grahame's novel."Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series: 1940–1943, Part 1." p. 449. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, 1940 It was first performed at the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool, on 21 December 1929 before it made its West End debut the following year at the Lyric Theatre on 17 December 1930."Provincial Productions", The Stage, 26 December 1929, p. 18; "Toad of Toad Hall", The Era, 24 December 1920, p. 1; and Milne (1932), p. iii The play was revived in the West End from 1931 to 1935, and since the 1960s there have been West End revivals during the Christmas season; actors who have performed in the play include Judi Dench and Ian McKellen.Herbert, pp. 521, 545, 1199 and 27; and "Toad of Toad Hall", Ian McKellen. Retrieved 10 February 2024
Milne and his wife became estranged from their son, who came to resent what he saw as his father's exploitation of his childhood and came to hate the books that had thrust him into the public eye. Christopher's marriage to his first cousin, Lesley de Sélincourt, distanced him still further from his parents – Lesley's father and Christopher's mother had not spoken to each other for 30 years.
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A. A. Milne
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Death and legacy
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Death and legacy
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A. A. Milne
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Commemoration
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Commemoration
A. A. Milne died at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, on 31 January 1956, aged 74. A memorial service took place on 10 February at All Hallows-by-the-Tower church in London.
The rights to A. A. Milne's Pooh books were left to four beneficiaries: his family, the Royal Literary Fund, Westminster School and the Garrick Club. After Milne's death in 1956, his widow sold her rights to the Pooh characters to Stephen Slesinger, whose widow sold the rights after Slesinger's death to Walt Disney Productions, which has made many Pooh cartoon movies, a Disney Channel television show, as well as Pooh-related merchandise. In 2001, the other beneficiaries sold their interest in the estate to the Disney Corporation for $350m. Previously Disney had been paying twice-yearly royalties to these beneficiaries. The estate of E. H. Shepard also received a sum in the deal. The UK copyright on the text of the original Winnie the Pooh books expires on 1 January 2027; at the beginning of the year after the 70th anniversary of the author's death (PMA-70), and has already expired in those countries with a PMA-50 rule. This applies to all of Milne's works except those first published posthumously. The illustrations in the Pooh books will remain under copyright until the same amount of time after the illustrator's death has passed; in the UK, this will be 1 January 2047.
In the US, copyright on the four children's books (including the illustrations) expired 95 years after publication of each of the books. Specifically: copyright on the book When We Were Very Young expired in 2020; copyright on the book Winnie-the-Pooh expired in 2022; copyright on the book Now We Are Six expired in 2023; and copyright on the book The House at Pooh Corner expired in 2024.
In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2 million at auction at Sotheby's, London."Pooh pictures sell for £1.2m at auction". Metro (London). 18 December 2008. Retrieved 11 November 2012 Forbes magazine ranked Winnie the Pooh the most valuable fictional character in 2002; Winnie the Pooh merchandising products alone had annual sales of more than $5.9 billion."Top-Earning Fictional Characters". Forbes (New York). 25 September 2003. Retrieved 11 November 2012. In 2005, Winnie the Pooh generated $6 billion, a figure surpassed only by Mickey Mouse.
thumb|right|A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard memorial plaque at Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, south east England. It overlooks Five Hundred Acre Wood, the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh.
thumb|This sculpture at London Zoo marks where Milne took his son Christopher Robin to see the amiable bear that inspired Milne to write the story.
A memorial plaque in Ashdown Forest, unveiled by Christopher Robin in 1979, commemorates the work of A. A. Milne and Shepard in creating the world of Pooh. The inscription states they "captured the magic of Ashdown Forest, and gave it to the world". Milne once wrote of Ashdown Forest: "In that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."Ford, Rebecca (28 February 2007) "Happy Birthday Pooh", Daily Express. Retrieved 15 October 2011
In 2003, Winnie-the-Pooh was ranked number 7 on the BBC's The Big Read poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels"."The Big Read", BBC, April 2003. Retrieved 18 October 2012. In 2006, Winnie-the-Pooh received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, marking the 80th birthday of Milne's creation."Pooh joins Hollywood Walk of Fame". BBC. Retrieved 24 November 2014
Marking the 90th anniversary of Milne's creation of the character, and the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, Winnie-the-Pooh Meets the Queen (2016) sees Pooh meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace. The illustrated and audio adventure is narrated by the actor Jim Broadbent. Also in 2016, a new character, a Penguin, was unveiled in The Best Bear in All the World, which was inspired by a long-lost photograph of Milne and his son Christopher with a toy penguin.
An exhibition entitled Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic appeared at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 9 December 2017 to 8 April 2018.
The composer Harold Fraser-Simson, a near neighbour, produced six books of Milne songs between 1924 and 1932.'Enchanted Places – Complete Settings of Songs by A.A. Milne', reviewed at MusicWeb International, 7 November 2023 The poems have been parodied many times, including in the books When We Were Rather Older and Now We Are Sixty. The 1963 film The King's Breakfast was based on Milne's poem of the same name."The King's Breakfast (1963)". BFI. Retrieved 4 January 2020
Milne has been portrayed in television and film. Domhnall Gleeson plays him in Goodbye Christopher Robin, a 2017 biographical drama film. In the 2018 fantasy film Christopher Robin, an extension of the Disney Winnie the Pooh franchise, Tristan Sturrock plays Milne, and filming took place at Ashdown Forest.
An elementary school in Houston, Texas, operated by the Houston Independent School District (HISD), is named after Milne. The school, A. A. Milne Elementary School in Brays Oaks, opened in 1991.
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A. A. Milne
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Archive
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Archive
thumb|right|Milne bequeathed his Winnie-the-Pooh manuscripts to the Wren Library (pictured) at Trinity College, Cambridge
The original manuscripts for Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner are archived at Trinity College Library, Cambridge.
The bulk of A. A. Milne's papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection, established at the centre in 1964, consists of manuscript drafts and fragments for over 150 of Milne's works, as well as correspondence, legal documents, genealogical records, and some personal effects. The library division holds several books formerly belonging to Milne and his wife Dorothy. The center also has small collections of correspondence from Christopher Robin Milne and Milne's frequent illustrator E. H. Shepard.
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A. A. Milne
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Religious views
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Religious views
Milne did not speak out much on the subject of religion, although he used religious terms to explain his decision, while remaining a pacifist, to join the British Home Guard. He wrote: "In fighting Hitler we are truly fighting the Devil, the Anti-Christ ... Hitler was a crusader against God."
His best known comment on the subject was recalled on his death:
He wrote in the poem "Explained":
He also wrote in the poem "Vespers":
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A. A. Milne
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Works
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Works
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A. A. Milne
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Novels
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Novels
Lovers in London (1905. Some consider this more of a short story collection; Milne did not like it and considered The Day's Play as his first book.)
Once on a Time (1917)
Mr. Pim (1921) (A novelisation of his 1919 play Mr. Pim Passes By)
The Red House Mystery (1922). Serialised: London (Daily News), serialised daily from 3 to 28 August 1921
Two People (1931) (Inside jacket claims this is Milne's first attempt at a novel.)
Four Days' Wonder (1933)
Chloe Marr (1946)
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A. A. Milne
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Non-fiction
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Non-fiction
Peace With Honour (1934)
It's Too Late Now: The Autobiography of a Writer (1939)
War With Honour (1940)
War Aims Unlimited (1941)
Year In, Year Out (1952) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
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A. A. Milne
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''Punch'' articles
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Punch articles
The Day's Play (1910)
The Holiday Round (1912)
Once a Week (1914)
The Sunny Side (1921)
Those Were the Days (1929) [The four volumes above, compiled]
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A. A. Milne
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Newspaper articles and book introductions
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Newspaper articles and book introductions
The Chronicles of Clovis by "Saki" (1911) [Introduction to]
Not That It Matters (1919)
If I May (1920)
By Way of Introduction (1929)
Women and Children First!. John Bull, 10 November 1934
It Depends on the Book (1943, in September issue of Red Cross Newspaper The Prisoner of War)
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A. A. Milne
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Story collections for children
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Story collections for children
A Gallery of Children (1925)
Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) (illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard)
The House at Pooh Corner (1928) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
Short Stories
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A. A. Milne
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Poetry collections for children
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Poetry collections for children
When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
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A. A. Milne
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Story collections
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Story collections
The Secret and other stories (1929)
The Birthday Party (1948)
A Table Near the Band (1950)
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A. A. Milne
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Poetry
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Poetry
When We Were Very Young (1924) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
For the Luncheon Interval (1925) [poems from Punch]
Now We Are Six (1927) (illustrated by E. H. Shepard)
Behind the Lines (1940)
The Norman Church (1948)
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A. A. Milne
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Screenplays and plays
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Screenplays and plays
Wurzel-Flummery (1917)
Belinda (1918)
The Boy Comes Home (1918)
Make-Believe (1918) (children's play)
The Camberley Triangle (1919)
Mr. Pim Passes By (1919)
The Red Feathers (1920)
The Romantic Age (1920)
The Stepmother (1920)
The Truth About Blayds (1920)
The Bump (1920, Minerva Films), starring C. Aubrey Smith and Faith Celli
Twice Two (1920, Minerva Films)
Five Pound Reward (1920, Minerva Films)
Bookworms (1920, Minerva Films)
The Great Broxopp (1921)
The Dover Road (1921)
The Lucky One (1922)
The Truth About Blayds (1922)
The Artist: A Duologue (1923)
Give Me Yesterday (1923) (a.k.a. Success in the UK)
Ariadne (1924)
The Man in the Bowler Hat: A Terribly Exciting Affair (1924)
To Have the Honour (1924)
Portrait of a Gentleman in Slippers (1926)
Success (1926)
Miss Marlow at Play (1927)
Winnie the Pooh. Written specially by Milne for a 'Winnie the Pooh Party' in aid of the National Mother-Saving Campaign, and performed once at Seaford House on 17 March 1928(London) Daily News, 9 March 1928
The Fourth Wall or The Perfect Alibi (1928) (later adapted for the film Birds of Prey (1930), directed by Basil Dean)
The Ivory Door (1929)
Toad of Toad Hall (1929) (adaptation of The Wind in the Willows)
Michael and Mary (1930)
Other People's Lives (1933) (a.k.a. They Don't Mean Any Harm)
Miss Elizabeth Bennet (1936) [based on Pride and Prejudice]
Sarah Simple (1937)
Gentleman Unknown (1938)
The General Takes Off His Helmet (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross
The Ugly Duckling (1941)
Before the Flood (1951).
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A. A. Milne
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References
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References
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A. A. Milne
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Further reading
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Further reading
Last, Kevin J. Remembering Christopher Robin: Escaping Winnie-the-Pooh. Lewes (UK), Unicorn. 2023.
Thwaite, Ann. A.A. Milne: His Life. London: Faber and Faber, 1990.
Toby, Marlene. A.A. Milne, Author of Winnie-the-Pooh. Chicago: Children's Press, 1995.
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A. A. Milne
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External links
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External links
A. A. Milne Collection at the Harry Ransom Center
Ann Thwaite Collection of A. A. Milne at the Harry Ransom Center
includes the complete text of the four Pooh books
Portraits of A. A. Milne in the National Portrait Gallery
Essays by Milne at Quotidiana.org
Milne extract in The Guardian
Profile at Just-Pooh.com
A. A. Milne at poeticous.com
AA Milne Books The Guardian
Finding aid to the A.A. Milne letters at Columbia University Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Category:1882 births
Category:1956 deaths
Category:English people of Scottish descent
Category:People from Hampstead
Category:Writers from the London Borough of Brent
Category:Writers from the London Borough of Camden
Category:People from Kilburn, London
Category:20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
Category:20th-century English short story writers
Category:20th-century English novelists
Category:20th-century English poets
Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Category:British Army personnel of World War I
Category:British Home Guard officers
Category:Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers officers
Category:English children's writers
Category:Members of the Detection Club
Category:People educated at Westminster School, London
Category:Punch (magazine) people
Category:English male poets
Category:Winnie-the-Pooh
Category:English male novelists
Category:British children's poets
Category:Military personnel from the London Borough of Brent
Category:Military personnel from the London Borough of Camden
Category:English autobiographers
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A. A. Milne
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Table of Content
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Short description, Early life and military career, Literary career, 1903 to 1925, 1926 to 1928, 1929 onward, Death and legacy, Commemoration, Archive, Religious views, Works, Novels, Non-fiction, ''Punch'' articles, Newspaper articles and book introductions, Story collections for children, Poetry collections for children, Story collections, Poetry, Screenplays and plays, References, Further reading, External links
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Asociación Alumni
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About
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Asociación Alumni, usually just Alumni, is an Argentine rugby union club located in Tortuguitas, Greater Buenos Aires. The senior squad currently competes at Top 12, the first division of the Unión de Rugby de Buenos Aires league system.
The club has ties with former football club Alumni because both were established by Buenos Aires English High School students.La historia de Alumni: un club que respira rugby y está unido a la primera leyenda del fútbol argentino by Walter Raiño on Clarín, 26 Nov 2018
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Asociación Alumni
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History
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History
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Asociación Alumni
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Background
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Background
The first club with the name "Alumni" played association football, having been found in 1898 by students of Buenos Aires English High School (BAEHS) along with director Alexander Watson Hutton. Originally under the name "English High School A.C.", the team would be later obliged by the Association to change its name, therefore "Alumni" was chosen, following a proposal by Carlos Bowers, a former student of the school.
Alumni was the most successful team during the first years of Argentine football, winning 10 of 14 league championships contested. Alumni is still considered the first great football team in the country."En el nombre del fútbol", Clarín newspaper, 2003-04-24 Alumni was reorganised in 1908, "in order to encourage people to practise all kinds of sports, specially football". This was the last try to develop itself as a sports club rather than just as a football team, as Lomas, Belgrano and Quilmes had successfully done in the past, but the efforts were not enough. Alumni played its last game in 1911 and was definitely dissolved on April 24, 1913.
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Asociación Alumni
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Rebirth through rugby
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Rebirth through rugby
In 1951, two guards of the BAEHS, Daniel Ginhson (also a former player of Buenos Aires F.C.) and Guillermo Cubelli, supported by the school's alumni and fathers of the students, decided to establish a club focused on rugby union exclusively. Former players of Alumni football club and descendants of other players already dead gave their permission to use the name "Alumni".
thumb|Youth team of Alumni in 1952
On December 13, in a meeting presided by Carlos Bowers himself (who had proposed the name "Alumni" to the original football team 50 years before),"Los comienzos de Alumni" - club's official website (Archive, 8 Nov 2012) the club was officially established under the name "Asociación Juvenil Alumni", also adopting the same colors as its predecessor.
The team achieved good results and in 1960 the club presented a team that won the third division of the Buenos Aires league, reaching the second division. Since then, Alumni has played at the highest level of Argentine rugby and its rivalry with Belgrano Athletic Club is one of the fiercest local derbies in Buenos Aires. Alumni would later climb up to the first division winning 5 titles: 4 consecutive between 1989 and 1992, and the other in 2001.
In 2002, Alumni won its first Nacional de Clubes title, defeating Jockey Club de Rosario 23–21 in the final.
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Asociación Alumni
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Players
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Players
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Asociación Alumni
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Current roster
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Current roster
As of January 2018:
Federico Lucca
Gaspar Baldunciel
Guido Cambareri
Iñaki Etchegaray
Bernardo Quaranta
Tobias Moyano
Mariano Romanini
Santiago Montagner
Tomas Passerotti
Lucas Frana
Luca Sabato
Franco Batezzatti
Franco Sabato
Rafael Desanto
Nito Provenzano
Tomas Bivort
Juan.P Ceraso
Santiago Alduncin
Juan.P Anderson
Lucas Magnasco
Joaquin Diaz Luzzi
Felipe Martignone
Tomas Corneille
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Asociación Alumni
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Honours
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Honours
Nacional de Clubes (1): 2002
Torneo de la URBA (7): 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2018, 2024
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Asociación Alumni
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References
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References
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Asociación Alumni
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External links
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External links
Category:Rugby clubs established in 1951
A
Category:1951 establishments in Argentina
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Asociación Alumni
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Table of Content
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About, History, Background, Rebirth through rugby, Players, Current roster, Honours, References, External links
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Axiom
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short description
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An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'.Cf. axiom, n., etymology. Oxford English Dictionary, accessed 2012-04-28.
The precise definition varies across fields of study. In classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement that is so evident or well-established, that it is accepted without controversy or question."A proposition that commends itself to general acceptance; a well-established or universally conceded principle; a maxim, rule, law" axiom, n., definition 1a. Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 2012-04-28. Cf. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I.2.72a18-b4. In modern logic, an axiom is a premise or starting point for reasoning."A proposition (whether true or false)" axiom, n., definition 2. Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed 2012-04-28.
In mathematics, an axiom may be a "logical axiom" or a "non-logical axiom". Logical axioms are taken to be true within the system of logic they define and are often shown in symbolic form (e.g., (A and B) implies A), while non-logical axioms are substantive assertions about the elements of the domain of a specific mathematical theory, for example a + 0 = a in integer arithmetic.
Non-logical axioms may also be called "postulates", "assumptions" or "proper axioms". In most cases, a non-logical axiom is simply a formal logical expression used in deduction to build a mathematical theory, and might or might not be self-evident in nature (e.g., the parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry). To axiomatize a system of knowledge is to show that its claims can be derived from a small, well-understood set of sentences (the axioms), and there are typically many ways to axiomatize a given mathematical domain.
Any axiom is a statement that serves as a starting point from which other statements are logically derived. Whether it is meaningful (and, if so, what it means) for an axiom to be "true" is a subject of debate in the philosophy of mathematics.See for example for a realist view.
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Axiom
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Etymology
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Etymology
The word axiom comes from the Greek word (axíōma), a verbal noun from the verb (axioein), meaning "to deem worthy", but also "to require", which in turn comes from (áxios), meaning "being in balance", and hence "having (the same) value (as)", "worthy", "proper". Among the ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians, axioms were taken to be immediately evident propositions, foundational and common to many fields of investigation, and self-evidently true without any further argument or proof.
The root meaning of the word postulate is to "demand"; for instance, Euclid demands that one agree that some things can be done (e.g., any two points can be joined by a straight line).Wolff, P. Breakthroughs in Mathematics, 1963, New York: New American Library, pp 47–48
Ancient geometers maintained some distinction between axioms and postulates. While commenting on Euclid's books, Proclus remarks that "Geminus held that this [4th] Postulate should not be classed as a postulate but as an axiom, since it does not, like the first three Postulates, assert the possibility of some construction but expresses an essential property." Boethius translated 'postulate' as petitio and called the axioms notiones communes but in later manuscripts this usage was not always strictly kept.
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Axiom
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Historical development
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Historical development
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Axiom
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Early Greeks
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Early Greeks
The logico-deductive method whereby conclusions (new knowledge) follow from premises (old knowledge) through the application of sound arguments (syllogisms, rules of inference) was developed by the ancient Greeks, and has become the core principle of modern mathematics. Tautologies excluded, nothing can be deduced if nothing is assumed. Axioms and postulates are thus the basic assumptions underlying a given body of deductive knowledge. They are accepted without demonstration. All other assertions (theorems, in the case of mathematics) must be proven with the aid of these basic assumptions. However, the interpretation of mathematical knowledge has changed from ancient times to the modern, and consequently the terms axiom and postulate hold a slightly different meaning for the present day mathematician, than they did for Aristotle and Euclid.
The ancient Greeks considered geometry as just one of several sciences, and held the theorems of geometry on par with scientific facts. As such, they developed and used the logico-deductive method as a means of avoiding error, and for structuring and communicating knowledge. Aristotle's posterior analytics is a definitive exposition of the classical view.
An "axiom", in classical terminology, referred to a self-evident assumption common to many branches of science. A good example would be the assertion that:
When an equal amount is taken from equals, an equal amount results.
At the foundation of the various sciences lay certain additional hypotheses that were accepted without proof. Such a hypothesis was termed a postulate. While the axioms were common to many sciences, the postulates of each particular science were different. Their validity had to be established by means of real-world experience. Aristotle warns that the content of a science cannot be successfully communicated if the learner is in doubt about the truth of the postulates.Aristotle, Metaphysics Bk IV, Chapter 3, 1005b "Physics also is a kind of Wisdom, but it is not the first kind. – And the attempts of some of those who discuss the terms on which truth should be accepted, are due to want of training in logic; for they should know these things already when they come to a special study, and not be inquiring into them while they are listening to lectures on it." W.D. Ross translation, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, (Random House, New York, 1941)
The classical approach is well-illustrated by Euclid's Elements, where a list of postulates is given (common-sensical geometric facts drawn from our experience), followed by a list of "common notions" (very basic, self-evident assertions).
Postulates
It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any other point.
It is possible to extend a line segment continuously in both directions.
It is possible to describe a circle with any center and any radius.
It is true that all right angles are equal to one another.
("Parallel postulate") It is true that, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, intersect on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.
Common notions
Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.
If equals are added to equals, the wholes are equal.
If equals are subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.
Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another.
The whole is greater than the part.
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Axiom
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Modern development
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Modern development
A lesson learned by mathematics in the last 150 years is that it is useful to strip the meaning away from the mathematical assertions (axioms, postulates, propositions, theorems) and definitions. One must concede the need for primitive notions, or undefined terms or concepts, in any study. Such abstraction or formalization makes mathematical knowledge more general, capable of multiple different meanings, and therefore useful in multiple contexts. Alessandro Padoa, Mario Pieri, and Giuseppe Peano were pioneers in this movement.
Structuralist mathematics goes further, and develops theories and axioms (e.g. field theory, group theory, topology, vector spaces) without any particular application in mind. The distinction between an "axiom" and a "postulate" disappears. The postulates of Euclid are profitably motivated by saying that they lead to a great wealth of geometric facts. The truth of these complicated facts rests on the acceptance of the basic hypotheses. However, by throwing out Euclid's fifth postulate, one can get theories that have meaning in wider contexts (e.g., hyperbolic geometry). As such, one must simply be prepared to use labels such as "line" and "parallel" with greater flexibility. The development of hyperbolic geometry taught mathematicians that it is useful to regard postulates as purely formal statements, and not as facts based on experience.
When mathematicians employ the field axioms, the intentions are even more abstract. The propositions of field theory do not concern any one particular application; the mathematician now works in complete abstraction. There are many examples of fields; field theory gives correct knowledge about them all.
It is not correct to say that the axioms of field theory are "propositions that are regarded as true without proof." Rather, the field axioms are a set of constraints. If any given system of addition and multiplication satisfies these constraints, then one is in a position to instantly know a great deal of extra information about this system.
Modern mathematics formalizes its foundations to such an extent that mathematical theories can be regarded as mathematical objects, and mathematics itself can be regarded as a branch of logic. Frege, Russell, Poincaré, Hilbert, and Gödel are some of the key figures in this development.
Another lesson learned in modern mathematics is to examine purported proofs carefully for hidden assumptions.
In the modern understanding, a set of axioms is any collection of formally stated assertions from which other formally stated assertions follow – by the application of certain well-defined rules. In this view, logic becomes just another formal system. A set of axioms should be consistent; it should be impossible to derive a contradiction from the axioms. A set of axioms should also be non-redundant; an assertion that can be deduced from other axioms need not be regarded as an axiom.
It was the early hope of modern logicians that various branches of mathematics, perhaps all of mathematics, could be derived from a consistent collection of basic axioms. An early success of the formalist program was Hilbert's formalization of Euclidean geometry,For more, see Hilbert's axioms. and the related demonstration of the consistency of those axioms.
In a wider context, there was an attempt to base all of mathematics on Cantor's set theory. Here, the emergence of Russell's paradox and similar antinomies of naïve set theory raised the possibility that any such system could turn out to be inconsistent.
The formalist project suffered a setback a century ago, when Gödel showed that it is possible, for any sufficiently large set of axioms (Peano's axioms, for example) to construct a statement whose truth is independent of that set of axioms. As a corollary, Gödel proved that the consistency of a theory like Peano arithmetic is an unprovable assertion within the scope of that theory.
It is reasonable to believe in the consistency of Peano arithmetic because it is satisfied by the system of natural numbers, an infinite but intuitively accessible formal system. However, at present, there is no known way of demonstrating the consistency of the modern Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms for set theory. Furthermore, using techniques of forcing (Cohen) one can show that the continuum hypothesis (Cantor) is independent of the Zermelo–Fraenkel axioms. Thus, even this very general set of axioms cannot be regarded as the definitive foundation for mathematics.
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Axiom
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Other sciences
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Other sciences
Experimental sciences - as opposed to mathematics and logic - also have general founding assertions from which a deductive reasoning can be built so as to express propositions that predict properties - either still general or much more specialized to a specific experimental context. For instance, Newton's laws in classical mechanics, Maxwell's equations in classical electromagnetism, Einstein's equation in general relativity, Mendel's laws of genetics, Darwin's Natural selection law, etc. These founding assertions are usually called principles or postulates so as to distinguish from mathematical axioms.
As a matter of facts, the role of axioms in mathematics and postulates in experimental sciences is different. In mathematics one neither "proves" nor "disproves" an axiom. A set of mathematical axioms gives a set of rules that fix a conceptual realm, in which the theorems logically follow. In contrast, in experimental sciences, a set of postulates shall allow deducing results that match or do not match experimental results. If postulates do not allow deducing experimental predictions, they do not set a scientific conceptual framework and have to be completed or made more accurate. If the postulates allow deducing predictions of experimental results, the comparison with experiments allows falsifying (falsified) the theory that the postulates install. A theory is considered valid as long as it has not been falsified.
Now, the transition between the mathematical axioms and scientific postulates is always slightly blurred, especially in physics. This is due to the heavy use of mathematical tools to support the physical theories. For instance, the introduction of Newton's laws rarely establishes as a prerequisite neither Euclidean geometry or differential calculus that they imply. It became more apparent when Albert Einstein first introduced special relativity where the invariant quantity is no more the Euclidean length (defined as ) > but the Minkowski spacetime interval (defined as ), and then general relativity where flat Minkowskian geometry is replaced with pseudo-Riemannian geometry on curved manifolds.
In quantum physics, two sets of postulates have coexisted for some time, which provide a very nice example of falsification. The 'Copenhagen school' (Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born) developed an operational approach with a complete mathematical formalism that involves the description of quantum system by vectors ('states') in a separable Hilbert space, and physical quantities as linear operators that act in this Hilbert space. This approach is fully falsifiable and has so far produced the most accurate predictions in physics. But it has the unsatisfactory aspect of not allowing answers to questions one would naturally ask. For this reason, another 'hidden variables' approach was developed for some time by Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, David Bohm. It was created so as to try to give deterministic explanation to phenomena such as entanglement. This approach assumed that the Copenhagen school description was not complete, and postulated that some yet unknown variable was to be added to the theory so as to allow answering some of the questions it does not answer (the founding elements of which were discussed as the EPR paradox in 1935). Taking this idea seriously, John Bell derived in 1964 a prediction that would lead to different experimental results (Bell's inequalities) in the Copenhagen and the Hidden variable case. The experiment was conducted first by Alain Aspect in the early 1980s, and the result excluded the simple hidden variable approach (sophisticated hidden variables could still exist but their properties would still be more disturbing than the problems they try to solve). This does not mean that the conceptual framework of quantum physics can be considered as complete now, since some open questions still exist (the limit between the quantum and classical realms, what happens during a quantum measurement, what happens in a completely closed quantum system such as the universe itself, etc.).
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Axiom
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Mathematical logic
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Mathematical logic
In the field of mathematical logic, a clear distinction is made between two notions of axioms: logical and non-logical (somewhat similar to the ancient distinction between "axioms" and "postulates" respectively).
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Axiom
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Logical axioms
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Logical axioms
These are certain formulas in a formal language that are universally valid, that is, formulas that are satisfied by every assignment of values. Usually one takes as logical axioms at least some minimal set of tautologies that is sufficient for proving all tautologies in the language; in the case of predicate logic more logical axioms than that are required, in order to prove logical truths that are not tautologies in the strict sense.
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Axiom
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Examples
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Examples
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Axiom
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Propositional logic
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Propositional logic
In propositional logic, it is common to take as logical axioms all formulae of the following forms, where , , and can be any formulae of the language and where the included primitive connectives are only "" for negation of the immediately following proposition and "" for implication from antecedent to consequent propositions:
Each of these patterns is an axiom schema, a rule for generating an infinite number of axioms. For example, if , , and are propositional variables, then and are both instances of axiom schema 1, and hence are axioms. It can be shown that with only these three axiom schemata and modus ponens, one can prove all tautologies of the propositional calculus. It can also be shown that no pair of these schemata is sufficient for proving all tautologies with modus ponens.
Other axiom schemata involving the same or different sets of primitive connectives can be alternatively constructed.Mendelson, "6. Other Axiomatizations" of Ch. 1
These axiom schemata are also used in the predicate calculus, but additional logical axioms are needed to include a quantifier in the calculus.Mendelson, "3. First-Order Theories" of Ch. 2
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Axiom
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First-order logic
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First-order logic
Axiom of Equality.Let be a first-order language. For each variable , the below formula is universally valid.
This means that, for any variable symbol , the formula can be regarded as an axiom. Additionally, in this example, for this not to fall into vagueness and a never-ending series of "primitive notions", either a precise notion of what we mean by (or, for that matter, "to be equal") has to be well established first, or a purely formal and syntactical usage of the symbol has to be enforced, only regarding it as a string and only a string of symbols, and mathematical logic does indeed do that.
Another, more interesting example axiom scheme, is that which provides us with what is known as Universal Instantiation:
Axiom scheme for Universal Instantiation.Given a formula in a first-order language , a variable and a term that is substitutable for in , the below formula is universally valid.
Where the symbol stands for the formula with the term substituted for . (See Substitution of variables.) In informal terms, this example allows us to state that, if we know that a certain property holds for every and that stands for a particular object in our structure, then we should be able to claim . Again, we are claiming that the formula is valid, that is, we must be able to give a "proof" of this fact, or more properly speaking, a metaproof. These examples are metatheorems of our theory of mathematical logic since we are dealing with the very concept of proof itself. Aside from this, we can also have Existential Generalization:
Axiom scheme for Existential Generalization. Given a formula in a first-order language , a variable and a term that is substitutable for in , the below formula is universally valid.
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Axiom
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Non-logical axioms
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Non-logical axioms
Non-logical axioms are formulas that play the role of theory-specific assumptions. Reasoning about two different structures, for example, the natural numbers and the integers, may involve the same logical axioms; the non-logical axioms aim to capture what is special about a particular structure (or set of structures, such as groups). Thus non-logical axioms, unlike logical axioms, are not tautologies. Another name for a non-logical axiom is postulate.Mendelson, "3. First-Order Theories: Proper Axioms" of Ch. 2
Almost every modern mathematical theory starts from a given set of non-logical axioms, and it was thought that, in principle, every theory could be axiomatized in this way and formalized down to the bare language of logical formulas.
Non-logical axioms are often simply referred to as axioms in mathematical discourse. This does not mean that it is claimed that they are true in some absolute sense. For instance, in some groups, the group operation is commutative, and this can be asserted with the introduction of an additional axiom, but without this axiom, we can do quite well developing (the more general) group theory, and we can even take its negation as an axiom for the study of non-commutative groups.
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Axiom
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Examples
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Examples
This section gives examples of mathematical theories that are developed entirely from a set of non-logical axioms (axioms, henceforth). A rigorous treatment of any of these topics begins with a specification of these axioms.
Basic theories, such as arithmetic, real analysis and complex analysis are often introduced non-axiomatically, but implicitly or explicitly there is generally an assumption that the axioms being used are the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with choice, abbreviated ZFC, or some very similar system of axiomatic set theory like Von Neumann–Bernays–Gödel set theory, a conservative extension of ZFC. Sometimes slightly stronger theories such as Morse–Kelley set theory or set theory with a strongly inaccessible cardinal allowing the use of a Grothendieck universe is used, but in fact, most mathematicians can actually prove all they need in systems weaker than ZFC, such as second-order arithmetic.
The study of topology in mathematics extends all over through point set topology, algebraic topology, differential topology, and all the related paraphernalia, such as homology theory, homotopy theory. The development of abstract algebra brought with itself group theory, rings, fields, and Galois theory.
This list could be expanded to include most fields of mathematics, including measure theory, ergodic theory, probability, representation theory, and differential geometry.
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Axiom
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Arithmetic
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Arithmetic
The Peano axioms are the most widely used axiomatization of first-order arithmetic. They are a set of axioms strong enough to prove many important facts about number theory and they allowed Gödel to establish his famous second incompleteness theorem.Mendelson, "5. The Fixed Point Theorem. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem" of Ch. 2
We have a language where is a constant symbol and is a unary function and the following axioms:
for any formula with one free variable.
The standard structure is where is the set of natural numbers, is the successor function and is naturally interpreted as the number 0.
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Axiom
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Euclidean geometry
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Euclidean geometry
Probably the oldest, and most famous, list of axioms are the 4 + 1 Euclid's postulates of plane geometry. The axioms are referred to as "4 + 1" because for nearly two millennia the fifth (parallel) postulate ("through a point outside a line there is exactly one parallel") was suspected of being derivable from the first four. Ultimately, the fifth postulate was found to be independent of the first four. One can assume that exactly one parallel through a point outside a line exists, or that infinitely many exist. This choice gives us two alternative forms of geometry in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to exactly 180 degrees or less, respectively, and are known as Euclidean and hyperbolic geometries. If one also removes the second postulate ("a line can be extended indefinitely") then elliptic geometry arises, where there is no parallel through a point outside a line, and in which the interior angles of a triangle add up to more than 180 degrees.
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Axiom
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Real analysis
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Real analysis
The objectives of the study are within the domain of real numbers. The real numbers are uniquely picked out (up to isomorphism) by the properties of a Dedekind complete ordered field, meaning that any nonempty set of real numbers with an upper bound has a least upper bound. However, expressing these properties as axioms requires the use of second-order logic. The Löwenheim–Skolem theorems tell us that if we restrict ourselves to first-order logic, any axiom system for the reals admits other models, including both models that are smaller than the reals and models that are larger. Some of the latter are studied in non-standard analysis.
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Axiom
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<span id="role">Role in mathematical logic</span>
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Role in mathematical logic
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Axiom
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Deductive systems and completeness
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Deductive systems and completeness
A deductive system consists of a set of logical axioms, a set of non-logical axioms, and a set of rules of inference. A desirable property of a deductive system is that it be complete. A system is said to be complete if, for all formulas ,
that is, for any statement that is a logical consequence of there actually exists a deduction of the statement from . This is sometimes expressed as "everything that is true is provable", but it must be understood that "true" here means "made true by the set of axioms", and not, for example, "true in the intended interpretation". Gödel's completeness theorem establishes the completeness of a certain commonly used type of deductive system.
Note that "completeness" has a different meaning here than it does in the context of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, which states that no recursive, consistent set of non-logical axioms of the Theory of Arithmetic is complete, in the sense that there will always exist an arithmetic statement such that neither nor can be proved from the given set of axioms.
There is thus, on the one hand, the notion of completeness of a deductive system and on the other hand that of completeness of a set of non-logical axioms. The completeness theorem and the incompleteness theorem, despite their names, do not contradict one another.
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Axiom
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Further discussion
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Further discussion
Early mathematicians regarded axiomatic geometry as a model of physical space, implying, there could ultimately only be one such model. The idea that alternative mathematical systems might exist was very troubling to mathematicians of the 19th century and the developers of systems such as Boolean algebra made elaborate efforts to derive them from traditional arithmetic. Galois showed just before his untimely death that these efforts were largely wasted. Ultimately, the abstract parallels between algebraic systems were seen to be more important than the details, and modern algebra was born. In the modern view, axioms may be any set of formulas, as long as they are not known to be inconsistent.
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Axiom
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See also
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See also
Axiomatic system
Dogma
First principle, axiom in science and philosophy
List of axioms
Model theory
Regulæ Juris
Theorem
Presupposition
Principle
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Axiom
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Notes
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Notes
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Axiom
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References
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References
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Axiom
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Further reading
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Further reading
Mendelson, Elliot (1987). Introduction to mathematical logic. Belmont, California: Wadsworth & Brooks.
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Axiom
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External links
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External links
Metamath axioms page
Category:Concepts in logic
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Axiom
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Table of Content
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short description, Etymology, Historical development, Early Greeks, Modern development, Other sciences, Mathematical logic, Logical axioms, Examples, Propositional logic, First-order logic, Non-logical axioms, Examples, Arithmetic, Euclidean geometry, Real analysis, <span id="role">Role in mathematical logic</span>, Deductive systems and completeness, Further discussion, See also, Notes, References, Further reading, External links
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Alpha
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short description
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Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph 12px|aleph, which is the West Semitic word for "ox". Letters that arose from alpha include the Latin letter A and the Cyrillic letter А.
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Alpha
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Uses
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Uses
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Alpha
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Greek
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Greek
In Ancient Greek, alpha was pronounced and could be either phonemically long ([aː]) or short ([a]). Where there is ambiguity, long and short alpha are sometimes written with a macron and breve today: .
= "a time"
= "tongue"
In Modern Greek, vowel length has been lost, and all instances of alpha simply represent the open front unrounded vowel .
In the polytonic orthography of Greek, alpha, like other vowel letters, can occur with several diacritic marks: any of three accent symbols (), and either of two breathing marks (), as well as combinations of these. It can also combine with the iota subscript ().
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Alpha
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Greek grammar
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Greek grammar
In the Attic–Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, long alpha fronted to (eta). In Ionic, the shift took place in all positions. In Attic, the shift did not take place after epsilon, iota, and rho (; ). In Doric and Aeolic, long alpha is preserved in all positions.Herbert Weir Smyth. Greek grammar for colleges. paragraph 30 and note .
Doric, Aeolic, Attic – Ionic , "country"
Doric, Aeolic – Attic, Ionic , "report"
Privative a is the Ancient Greek prefix or , added to words to negate them. It originates from the Proto-Indo-European (syllabic nasal) and is cognate with English un-.
Copulative a is the Greek prefix or . It comes from Proto-Indo-European .
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Alpha
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Mathematics and science
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Mathematics and science
The letter alpha represents various concepts in physics and chemistry, including alpha radiation, angular acceleration, alpha particles, alpha carbon and strength of electromagnetic interaction (as fine-structure constant). Alpha also stands for thermal expansion coefficient of a compound in physical chemistry. In ethology, it is used to name the dominant individual in a group of animals. In aerodynamics, the letter is used as a symbol for the angle of attack of an aircraft and the word "alpha" is used as a synonym for this property.
In astronomy, α is often used to designate the brightest star in a constellation.
In mathematics, the letter alpha is used to denote the area underneath a normal curve in statistics to denote significance level when proving null and alternative hypotheses. It is also commonly used in algebraic solutions representing quantities such as angles. In mathematical logic, α is sometimes used as a placeholder for ordinal numbers. It is used for Stoneham numbers.
Most occurrences of alpha in science are the lowercase alpha. The uppercase letter alpha is not generally used as a symbol because it tends to be rendered identically to the uppercase Latin A.
The proportionality operator "∝" (in Unicode: U+221D) is sometimes mistaken for alpha.
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Alpha
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International Phonetic Alphabet
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International Phonetic Alphabet
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter ɑ, which looks similar to the lower-case alpha, represents the open back unrounded vowel.
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Alpha
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History and symbolism
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History and symbolism
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Alpha
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Origin
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Origin
The Phoenician alphabet was adopted for Greek in the early 8th century BC, perhaps in Euboea.The date of the earliest inscribed objects; A.W. Johnston, "The alphabet", in N. Stampolidis and V. Karageorghis, eds, Sea Routes from Sidon to Huelva: Interconnections in the Mediterranean 2003:263-76, summarizes the present scholarship on the dating.
The majority of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet were adopted into Greek with much the same sounds as they had had in Phoenician, but ʼāleph, the Phoenician letter representing the glottal stop ,
was adopted as representing the vowel ; similarly, hē and ʽayin are Phoenician consonants that became Greek vowels, epsilon and omicron , respectively.
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Alpha
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Plutarch
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Plutarch
Plutarch, in Moralia,Symposiacs, Book IX, questions II & III On-line text at Adelaide library presents a discussion on why the letter alpha stands first in the alphabet. Ammonius asks Plutarch what he, being a Boeotian, has to say for Cadmus, the Phoenician who reputedly settled in Thebes and introduced the alphabet to Greece, placing alpha first because it is the Phoenician name for ox—which, unlike Hesiod,Hesiod, in Works and Days (see on Perseus Project ), advises the early Greek farmers, "First of all, get a house, then a woman and third, an ox for the plough." the Phoenicians considered not the second or third, but the first of all necessities. "Nothing at all," Plutarch replied. He then added that he would rather be assisted by Lamprias, his own grandfather, than by Dionysus' grandfather, i.e. Cadmus. For Lamprias had said that the first articulate sound made is "alpha", because it is very plain and simple—the air coming off the mouth does not require any motion of the tongue—and therefore this is the first sound that children make.
According to Plutarch's natural order of attribution of the vowels to the planets, alpha was connected with the Moon.
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Alpha
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Alpha and Omega
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Alpha and Omega
right|thumb|Stained glass featuring Alpha and Omega in the
As the first letter of the alphabet, Alpha as a Greek numeral came to represent the number 1.
Therefore, Alpha, both as a symbol and term, is used to refer to the "first", or "primary", or "principal" (most significant) occurrence or status of a thing.
The New Testament has God declaring himself to be the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Revelation 22:13, KJV, and see also 1:8).
Consequently, the term "alpha" has also come to be used to denote "primary" position in social hierarchy, examples being the concept of dominant "alpha" members in groups of animals.
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Alpha
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Unicode
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Unicode
All code points with or but without (for accented Greek characters, see Greek diacritics: Computer encoding):
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Alpha
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Notes
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Notes
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Alpha
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References
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References
Category:Greek letters
Category:Vowel letters
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Alpha
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Table of Content
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short description, Uses, Greek, Greek grammar, Mathematics and science, International Phonetic Alphabet, History and symbolism, Origin, Plutarch, Alpha and Omega, Unicode, Notes, References
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Alvin Toffler
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short description
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Alvin Eugene Toffler (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016) was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world's outstanding futurists.
Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed "information overload". In 1970, his first major book about the future, Future Shock, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies.
He and his wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, The Third Wave, in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication. His later focus, via their other best-seller, Powershift, (1990), was on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.
He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, and a business consultant."Alvin Toffler Speaker Biography" , Milken Institute, 2003. Toffler's ideas and writings were a significant influence on the thinking of business and government leaders worldwide, including China's Zhao Ziyang, and AOL founder Steve Case.
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Alvin Toffler
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Early life
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Early life
Alvin Toffler was born on October 4, 1928, in New York City, and raised in Brooklyn. He was the son of Rose (Albaum) and Sam Toffler, a furrier, both Polish Jews who had migrated to America. He had one younger sister. He was inspired to become a writer at the age of 7 by his aunt and uncle, who lived with the Tofflers. "They were Depression-era literary intellectuals," Toffler said, "and they always talked about exciting ideas."
Toffler graduated from New York University in 1950 as an English major, though by his own account he was more focused on political activism than grades. He met his future wife, Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell (nicknamed "Heidi"), when she was starting a graduate course in linguistics. Being radical students, they decided against further graduate work and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where they married on April 29, 1950.
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Alvin Toffler
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Career
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Career
Seeking experiences to write about, Alvin and Heidi Toffler spent the next five years as blue collar workers on assembly lines while studying industrial mass production in their daily work. He compared his own desire for experience to other writers, such as Jack London, who in his quest for subjects to write about sailed the seas, and John Steinbeck, who went to pick grapes with migrant workers.video: Interview with Alvin Toffler In their first factory jobs, Heidi became a union shop steward in the aluminum foundry where she worked. Alvin became a millwright and welder. – Toffler Web site In the evenings Alvin would write poetry and fiction, but discovered he was proficient at neither.
His hands-on practical labor experience helped Alvin Toffler land a position at a union-backed newspaper, a transfer to its Washington bureau in 1957, then three years as a White House correspondent, covering Congress and the White House for a Pennsylvania daily newspaper."Alvin Toffler (1928–2016)", Legacy.com, June 30, 2016
They returned to New York City in 1959 when Fortune magazine invited Alvin to become its labor columnist, later having him write about business and management. After leaving Fortune magazine in 1962, Toffler began a freelance career, writing long form articles for scholarly journals and magazines. His 1964 Playboy interviews with Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand were considered among the magazine's best. His interview with Rand was the first time the magazine had given such a platform to a female intellectual, which as one commentator said, "the real bird of paradise Toffler captured for Playboy in 1964 was Ayn Rand.""The "Lost" Parts of Ayn Rand's Playboy Interview", The Atlas Society, March 1, 2004
Toffler was hired by IBM to conduct research and write a paper on the social and organizational impact of computers, leading to his contact with the earliest computer "gurus" and artificial intelligence researchers and proponents. Xerox invited him to write about its research laboratory and AT&T consulted him for strategic advice. This AT&T work led to a study of telecommunications, which advised the company's top management to break up the company more than a decade before the government forced AT&T to break up.Galambos, Louis, and Abrahamson, Eric. Anytime, Anywhere: Entrepreneurship and the Creation of a Wireless World, Cambridge Univ. Press (2002) p. 266
In the mid-1960s, the Tofflers began five years of research on what would become Future Shock, published in 1970. It has sold over 6 million copies worldwide, according to the New York Times, or over 15 million copies according to the Tofflers' Web site. Toffler coined the term "future shock" to refer to what happens to a society when change happens too fast, which results in social confusion and normal decision-making processes breaking down.Hindle, Tim. Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus, John Wiley & Sons (2008) p. 311 The book has never been out of print and has been translated into dozens of languages.
He continued the theme in The Third Wave in 1980. While he describes the first and second waves as the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the "third wave," a phrase he coined, represents the current information, computer-based revolution. He forecast the spread of the Internet and email, interactive media, cable television, cloning, and other digital advancements. He claimed that one of the side effects of the digital age has been "information overload," another term he coined."Alvin Toffler, author of 'Future Shock,' dead at 87", U.S. News & World Report, June 29, 2016 In 1990, he wrote Powershift, also with the help of his wife, Heidi.
In 1996, with American business consultant Tom Johnson, they co-founded Toffler Associates, an advisory firm designed to implement many of the ideas the Tofflers had written on. The firm worked with businesses, NGOs, and governments in the United States, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, and other countries. During this period in his career, Toffler lectured worldwide, taught at several schools and met world leaders, such as Mikhail Gorbachev, along with key executives and military officials.
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Alvin Toffler
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Ideas and opinions
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Ideas and opinions
Toffler stated many of his ideas during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1998. "Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest," he said. "Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skills that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone."
His opinions about the future of education, many of which were in Future Shock, have often been quoted. An often misattributed quote, however, is that of psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy: "Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn."
Early in his career, after traveling to other countries, he became aware of the new and myriad inputs that visitors received from these other cultures. He explained during an interview that some visitors would become "truly disoriented and upset" by the strange environment, which he described as a reaction to culture shock.video: Interview with Alvin Toffler From that issue, he foresaw another problem for the future, when a culturally "new environment comes to you ... and comes to you rapidly." That kind of sudden cultural change within one's own country, which he felt many would not understand, would lead to a similar reaction, one of "future shock", which he wrote about in his book by that title. Toffler writes:
In The Third Wave, Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of "waves"—each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside.video: Alvin and Heidi Toffler interview with Brian Lamb, 1996 He describes the "First Wave" as the society after agrarian revolution and replaced the first hunter-gatherer cultures. The "Second Wave," he labels society during the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 17th century through the mid-20th century). That period saw the increase of urban industrial populations which had undermined the traditional nuclear family, and initiated a factory-like education system, and the growth of the corporation. Toffler said:
The "Third Wave" was a term he coined to describe the post-industrial society, which began in the late 1950s. His description of this period dovetails with other futurist writers, who also wrote about the Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, terms which highlighted a scientific-technological revolution."Future Shock" author Alvin Toffler has died at age 87, Denver Post, June 29, 2016 The Tofflers claimed to have predicted a number of geopolitical events, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the future economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Alvin Toffler
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Influences and popular culture
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Influences and popular culture
Toffler often visited with dignitaries in Asia, including China's Zhao Ziyang, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and South Korea's Kim Dae Jung, all of whom were influenced by his views as Asia's emerging markets increased in global significance during the 1980s and 1990s. Although they had originally censored some of his books and ideas, China's government cited him along with Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Gates as being among the Westerners who had most influenced their country. The Third Wave along with a video documentary based on it became best-sellers in China and were widely distributed to schools. The video's success inspired the marketing of videos on related themes in the late 1990s by Infowars, whose name is derived from the term coined by Toffler in the book. Toffler's influence on Asian thinkers was summed up in an article in Daedalus, published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences:
U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich publicly lauded his ideas about the future, and urged members of Congress to read Toffler's book, Creating a New Civilization (1995). Others, such as AOL founder Steve Case, cited Toffler's The Third Wave as a formative influence on his thinking, which inspired him to write The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future in 2016. Case said that Toffler was a "real pioneer in helping people, companies and even countries lean into the future.""Alvin Toffler, Future Shock and Third Wave author, dead at 87", CBC News, June 29, 2016"Remembering AOL's 'Deal of the Century'", Multichannel, April 4, 2016
In 1980, Ted Turner founded CNN, which he said was inspired by Toffler's forecasting the end of the dominance of the three main television networks."Future Speak", Entrepreneur, March 1, 1999"'Future Shock' Author Alvin Toffler Dies at 87", NPR, June 30, 2016 Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting, published Toffler's Creating a New Civilization in 1995. Shortly after the book was released, the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev hosted the Global Governance Conference in San Francisco with the theme, Toward a New Civilization, which was attended by dozens of world figures, including the Tofflers, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Carl Sagan, Abba Eban and Turner with his then-wife, actress Jane Fonda.Abramson, Lee. Ezekial, iUniverse (2007) p. 14
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was influenced by his works, and became a friend of the writer. Global marketer J.D. Power also said he was inspired by Toffler's works."J.D. Power: Ten Things I've Learned In Business", Forbes, March 16, 2014
Since the 1960s, people had tried to make sense out of the effect of new technologies and social change, a problem which made Toffler's writings widely influential beyond the confines of scientific, economic, and public policy. His works and ideas have been subject to various criticisms, usually with the same argumentation used against futurology: that foreseeing the future is nigh impossible.
Techno music pioneer Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" in The Third Wave as inspiring him to use the word "techno" to describe the musical style he helped to create
alt="The great growling engine of change - technology"|thumb|A quote of Alvin Toffler at the entrance of the club named after him in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Musician Curtis Mayfield released a disco song called "Future Shock," later covered in an electro version by Herbie Hancock. Science fiction author John Brunner wrote "The Shockwave Rider," from the concept of "future shock."
The nightclub Toffler, in Rotterdam, is named after him.
In the song "Victoria" by The Exponents, the protagonist's daily routine and cultural interests are described: "She's up in time to watch the soap operas, reads Cosmopolitan and Alvin Toffler".
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Alvin Toffler
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Critical assessment
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Critical assessment
Accenture, the management consultancy firm, identified Toffler in 2002 as being among the most influential voices in business leaders, along with Bill Gates and Peter Drucker. Toffler has also been described in a Financial Times interview as the "world's most famous futurologist". In 2006, the People's Daily classed him among the 50 foreigners who shaped modern China, which one U.S. newspaper notes made him a "guru of sorts to world statesmen." Chinese Premier and General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was greatly influenced by Toffler. He convened conferences to discuss The Third Wave in the early 1980s, and in 1985 the book was the No. 2 best seller in China.
Author Mark Satin characterizes Toffler as an important early influence on radical centrist political thought.Satin, Mark (2004). Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now. Westview Press and Basic Books, p. 30. .
Newt Gingrich became close to the Tofflers in the 1970s and said The Third Wave had immensely influenced his own thinking and was "one of the great seminal works of our time."
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Alvin Toffler
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Selected awards
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Selected awards
Toffler has received several prestigious prizes and awards, including the McKinsey Foundation Book Award for Contributions to Management Literature, Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, and appointments, including Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In 2006, Alvin and Heidi Toffler were recipients of Brown University's Independent Award.
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Alvin Toffler
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Personal life
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Personal life
Toffler was married to Heidi Toffler (born Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell), also a writer and futurist. They lived in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California, and previously lived in Redding, Connecticut.
The couple's only child, Karen Toffler (1954–2000), died at age 46 after more than a decade suffering from Guillain–Barré syndrome.
Alvin Toffler died in his sleep on June 27, 2016, at his home in Los Angeles."Alvin Toffler, author of best-selling 'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave,' dies at 87, Washington Post, June 29, 2016 No cause of death was given. He is buried at Westwood Memorial Park.
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