Description.

"Acer palmatum" is a deciduous shrub or small tree reaching heights of, rarely, often growing as an understory plant in shady woodlands. It may have multiple trunks joining close to the ground. In habit, its canopy often takes on a dome-like form, especially when mature. The leaves are long and wide, palmately lobed with five, seven, or nine acutely pointed lobes. The flowers are produced in small cymes, the individual flowers with five red or purple sepals and five whitish petals. The fruit is a pair of winged samaras, each samara long with a seed. The seeds of "Acer palmatum" and similar species require stratification in order to germinate.  Even in nature, "Acer palmatum" displays considerable genetic variation, with seedlings from the same parent tree typically showing differences in such traits as leaf size, shape, and color. Overall form of the tree can vary from upright to weeping.  Three subspecies are recognised:

Cultivation and uses.

"Acer palmatum" has been cultivated in Japan for centuries and in temperate areas around the world since the 1800s. The first specimen of the tree reached Britain in 1820.  When Swedish doctor-botanist Carl Peter Thunberg traveled in Japan late in the eighteenth century, he secreted out drawings of a small tree that would eventually become synonymous with the high art of oriental gardens. He gave it the species name "palmatum" after the hand-like shape of its leaves, similar to the centuries-old Japanese names "kaede" and "momiji", references to the 'hands' of frogs and babies, respectively.  Japanese horticulturalists have long developed cultivars from maples found in Japan and nearby Korea and China. They are a popular choice for bonsai enthusiasts and have long been a subject in art.  Numerous cultivars are popular in Europe and North America, with red-leafed favored, followed by cascading green shrubs with deeply dissected leaves.  Preparations from the branches and leaves are used as a treatment in traditional Chinese medicine.

Growing conditions.

"Acer palmatum" includes hundreds of named cultivars with a variety forms, colors, leaf types, sizes, and preferred growing conditions. Heights of mature specimens range from, depending on type. Some tolerate sun, but most prefer part shade, especially in hotter climates. Almost all are adaptable and blend well with companion plants. The trees are particularly suitable for borders and ornamental paths because the root systems are compact and not invasive. Many varieties of "Acer palmatum" are successfully grown in containers. Trees are prone to die during periods of drought and prefer consistent water conditions; more established trees are less prone to drought. Trees should be mulched with a thick layer of bark. Well-drained soil is essential as they will not survive in soggy waterlogged soil. Trees do not require or appreciate heavy fertilization and should only be lightly fertilized, preferably using slow-release fertilizer with a 3 to 1 ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus respectively. Nitrogen lawn fertilizer should be avoided in the immediate vicinity of these trees as excessive nitrogen can cause overly vigorous growth that is prone to pathogens.

Pruning.

If space is not a constraint, no pruning is necessary except to remove any dead branches. Trees naturally self-prune foliage that doesn't receive enough light, such as internal branches which are overly shaded by its own canopy. Some growers prefer to shape their trees artistically or to thin out interior branches to better expose the graceful main branches. The form of the tree, especially without leaves in winter, can be of great interest and can be pruned to highlight this feature. Trees heal readily after pruning without needing aftercare. This species should not be pruned like a hedge, but instead methodically shaped by carefully choosing individual branches to remove. They can also be pruned just to maintain a smaller size to suit a particular location. "Acer palmatum" can also be used as espalier.

Cultivars.

Over 1,000 cultivars have been chosen for particular characteristics, which are propagated by asexual reproduction most often by grafting, but some cultivars can also be propagated by budding, cuttings, tissue culture, or layering. Some cultivars are not in cultivation in the Western world or have been lost over the generations, but many new cultivars are developed each decade. Cultivars are chosen for phenotypical aspects such as leaf shape and size (shallowly to deeply lobed, some also palmately compound), leaf color (ranging from chartreuse through dark green or from red to dark purple, others variegated with various patterns of white and pink), bark texture and color, and growth pattern. Most cultivars are less vigorous and smaller than is typical for the species, but are more interesting than the relatively mundane species. Cultivars come in a large variety of forms including upright, broom, weeping, cascading, dwarf, and shrub. Most cultivars are artificially selected from seedlings of open-pollinated plants, purposeful breeding is not common, and less often from grafts of witch's brooms. In Japan, "iromomiji" is used as an accent tree in Japanese gardens, providing gentle shade next to the house in the summer and beautiful colors in autumn. Many cultivars have characteristics that come into prominence during different seasons, including the color of new or mature leaves, extraordinary autumn color, color and shape of samaras, or even bark that becomes more brightly colored during the winter. Some cultivars can scarcely be distinguished from others unless labeled. In some cases, identical cultivars go by different names, while in other cases, different cultivars may be given the same name.

Popular cultivars.

A selection of notable or popular cultivars, with brief notes about characteristics that apply during at least one season, includes the following.  In addition to the cultivars described above, a number of cultivar groups have been naturally selected over time to such an extent that seedlings often resemble the parent. Many of these are sold under the same name as the cultivars, or even propagated by grafting, so there is often much ambiguity in distinguishing them. In particular, a number of dark-red "Acer palmatum" are sold with the names ‘Atropurpureum’ and ‘Bloodgood’. Many different cultivars with delicate lace-like foliage are sold under names such as ‘Dissectum’, ‘Filigree’ and ‘Laceleaf’.

Similar species.

The term "Japanese maple" is also sometimes used to describe other species, usually within the series "Palmata", that are similar to "A. palmatum" and native to China, Korea or Japan, including:  Given that these maples are phenotypically variable within each species, and may hybridise with one another, distinguishing between them may be a matter of gradient speciation. In commercial propagation, "A. palmatum" is often used as rootstock for many of these other species.

Acer palmatum, commonly known as red emperor maple, palmate maple, Japanese maple or smooth Japanese-maple (Japanese: "irohamomiji",, or "momiji", ), is a species of woody plant native to Japan, Korea, China, eastern Mongolia, and southeast Russia. Many different cultivars of this maple have been selected and they are grown worldwide for their large variety of attractive forms, leaf shapes, and spectacular colors.


Ecology.

In the dry season of the Northern Territory in Australia, Magpie geese eat the bulbs of water chestnuts, allowing them to put on fat for the wet season and ensuring they are ready for breeding. In the wet season, water chestnut leaves are used to build their floating nests.

Nutrition.

Raw water chestnuts are 74% water, 24% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contain very little fat. In a 100-gram reference amount, raw water chestnuts supply of food energy, are rich (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) in vitamin B6 (25% DV), and contain moderate amounts of other B vitamins, manganese, and potassium (10% to 17% DV, table).

Taste.

Raw water chestnuts are slightly sweet and crunchy. Boiled water chestnuts have a firm and slightly crunchy texture, with a mild and slightly nutty flavor that may easily be overpowered by seasonings or sauces with which the water chestnut is served or cooked. They may be combined with bamboo shoots, coriander, ginger, sesame oil, and snow peas. Steamed or sauteed vegetable dishes may contain water chestnuts, such as noodle or rice recipes. They may also be added to minced-meat fillings and dishes, such as Cantonese dim sum-style steamed meatballs, to add a crunchy texture. The Thai dessert "thapthim krop", with water chestnuts as its main ingredient, was named one of the world's best 50 desserts in 2019 by "CNN Travel".

Agronomic properties.

Cultivation.

The crop can be cultivated in paddies (2-7.5 m wide by up to 100 m long to allow for mechanization) or in a hydroponic culture. As it is an aquatic plant, it should always be submerged in approximately 10 cm of water. The crop needs continuously high soil temperatures, ideally 14-15.5 °C. At 13.6 °C, the corms begin to sprout. Soil is ideally a sandy loam with pH 6.5 to 7.2. The plant produces two types of subterranean rhizomes. Under long-daylength conditions, rhizomes grow horizontally and then turn upwards forming daughter plants. Under short-daylength conditions, the rhizomes grow downward and produce a corm at the tip. The photoperiod also significantly influences how fast the corms grow. Corms begin to develop much more slowly if the photoperiod exceeds 12 hours. The corms are also the propagating material. Alternatively, transplants can be used. Machinery such as tractor-mounted vegetable planters can be used for plantation.

Plant nutrition.

Nitrogen addition is beneficial for corm production, applying a dose before planting and another dose when corms begin to enlarge. To further improve nutrient levels, potassium and phosphorus mineral fertilizers can be used before planting, where the N:P:K uptake ratio is 1.00:0.50:1.75. Also organic mulch, especially mushroom compost, shows good results.

Harvest.

Once the corms turn dark brown, they should be harvested. If left in the soil after this point in time, corms will get sweeter, however shelf life will decline. The corms can be harvested using a modified gladioli corm harvester once the paddy is drained. Alternatively, a "water-suction harvester" can be used without the need to drain the paddy. The corms have to be washed after harvest and brushed once they are dry.

Yield.

The per plant yield was described at 2.3 kg/season (fresh matter). In China, yields are reported between 20-40t/ha, while in the United States a range between 47-85 t/ha has been mentioned.

Storage.

The harvested corms are best stored at 4 °C. At this temperature, transpiration and thus weight loss are minimized. This will also delay sprouting and minimize deterioration resulting from small injuries. Corms should not be stored at temperatures above 13.6 °C as otherwise the corms will begin to sprout. If the corms need to be stored longer term, they can also be kept in a solution of 1000 ppm sodium hypochlorite.

Pests.

Chinese water chestnut is usually not very prone to pests; nevertheless, some animals and fungi may attack the plant: Water fowl may damage the stems and corms, especially when plants are young. Similarly, rodents and grazing animals pose a threat to the Chinese water chestnut, which may be discouraged by keeping the paddy inundated. Fly larvae (Trichoptera sp.) and other leaf-eating caterpillars also feed on the stems. However, unless complete defoliation below the waterline occurs, the plants can normally tolerate this damage. Plant hoppers (Fulgoridae) and scale insects feed on plant sap and may cause subsequent death. Other pests represent nematodes Ditylenchus spp. and Dolichodorus heterocephalus. Fungal species can also attack the Chinese water chestnut. In warmer climates, a rust is caused by Uromyces and Cylindrosporium eleocharidis is causing stem blight.

Eleocharis dulcis, the Chinese water chestnut or water chestnut, is a grass-like sedge native to Asia (China, Japan, India, Philippines, etc.), Australia, tropical Africa, and various islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It is grown in many countries for its edible corms.


Design and development.

During the 1920s, German daredevils had experimented with using solid-fuel rockets to propel cars, motorcycles, railway carriages, snow sleds, and, by 1929, aircraft such as Alexander Lippisch's "Ente" and Fritz von Opel's RAK.1. Solid-fuel rockets, however, have major disadvantages when used for aircraft propulsion, as their thrust cannot be throttled, and the engines cannot be shut down until fuel is exhausted.  In the late 1930s, Wernher von Braun's rocketry team working at Peenemünde investigated installing liquid-fuelled rockets in aircraft. Heinkel enthusiastically supported their efforts, supplying a He 72 and later two He 112s for the experiments. In early 1937, one of these latter aircraft was flown with its piston engine shut down during flight, at which time it was propelled by rocket power alone. At the same time, Hellmuth Walter's experiments into Hydrogen peroxide monopropellant-based rockets were leading towards light and simple rockets that appeared well-suited for aircraft installation, although at the price of considerable danger and limited duration.  The He 176 was built to utilise one of the new Walter engines. It was a tiny, simple aircraft, built almost entirely out of wood, but did possess an advanced, totally enclosed cockpit, with a frameless single-piece clear nose, through which the pilot's rudder pedal mounts were visible, and a The landing gear was a combination of conventional and tricycle gear designs, with the main gear's struts intended to retract rearwards into the fuselage, with a fixed, aerodynamically faired nose wheel and strut, a clumsy plexiglas bubble installed after the pilot entered the plane as described by Warsitz and shown, barely, in the one take off photograph, which cockpit was built around Warsitz's frame, and a retractable tail wheel. The drawing here shows a flush glazing. There is no evidence this was actually used. A unique feature of the He 176 was its jettisonable nose escape system. Compressed air was used to separate the nose from the aircraft. A drogue chute was used to reduce the opening force required. After the drogue was deployed, the flush-fitting cockpit canopy was released and a conventional pilot/parachute bailout occurred.  Heinkel demonstrated the aircraft to the RLM, but official lack of interest led to the abandonment of the company's rocket propulsion programme. Testing of the He 176 ended with only one aircraft being built. It was put on display at the Berlin Air Museum and was destroyed by an Allied bombing raid in 1943.  Prior to the cancellation of the programme, plans had been drawn up for a more sophisticated rocket-plane, the hypothetical He 176 V2. This was never constructed, but because it bore the same designation as the aircraft that was actually flown, many books and websites mistakenly publish pictures of it to illustrate its earlier namesake. This is primarily the post war Gerd Heumann airbrush job and the basis for this is unknown.  Germany did eventually fly an operational rocket-propelled fighter, the Alexander Lippisch-designed Me 163 "Komet", but this was made by the competing Messerschmitt firm, using an engine that was a further development of the one that powered the He 176.

The Heinkel He 176 was a German rocket-powered aircraft. It was the world's first aircraft to be propelled solely by a liquid-fueled rocket, making its first powered flight on 20 June 1939 with Erich Warsitz at the controls. It was a private venture by the Heinkel company in accordance with director Ernst Heinkel's emphasis on developing technology for high-speed flight. The performance of the He 176 was not spectacular, but it did provide "proof of concept" for rocket propulsion.


Description.

The genus "Muscari" originated in the Old World, including the Mediterranean basin, central and southern Europe, northern Africa, western, central and south-western Asia. It has become naturalized elsewhere, including northern Europe and the United States.  Brian Mathew says that many species of grape hyacinths, including not only "Muscari" but also the related "Leopoldia" and "Pseudomuscari", are difficult to distinguish. They usually have one or more narrow leaves which arise from a bulb. The flowers appear in the spring and form a spike or raceme, being held in a close or loose spiral around a central stalk. The flowers often become less tightly spaced as the flower matures. The flower colour varies from pale blue to a very dark blue, almost black in some cases (albino forms are also known). In some species the upper flowers may be of a different colour and shape to the lower flowers. Individual flowers are composed of six fused tepals forming a spherical to obovoid shape, constricted at the end to form a mouth around which the ends of the tepals show as small lobes or "teeth", which may be of a different colour to the rest of the tepal.

Taxonomy.

The use of "muscari" as part of the name of at least some of the species included in the modern genus can be traced back to Carolus Clusius in 1601, long before the modern rules of botanical nomenclature were established. In 1753, Carl Linnaeus used the name "Hyacinthus muscari" for the plant now called "Muscari racemosum". In 1754, Philip Miller formally established the genus "Muscari" according to modern rules of nomenclature. The name "muscari" comes from the Greek "muschos", musk, referring to the scent.  Classified in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, the genus was formerly placed in the Liliaceae as a member of the tribe Hyacintheae. There are about forty species. The genus was at one time divided into four groups or subgenera: Botryanthus, Pseudomuscari, Leopoldia and Muscarimia. "Pseudomuscari" and "Leopoldia" are now treated as separate genera. The genus "Muscari" is now more or less equivalent to the Botryanthus group.  A complication in splitting up the broad genus is that Miller's original "Muscari" included representatives of at least three of the new genera. Which one should retain the name "Muscari" would normally be decided by where the type species was placed; however Miller did not designate a type species, although the etymology of the genus name points to the species Linnaeus called "Hyacinthus muscari" (now "Muscari racemosum").  The Muscarimia group are retained in "Muscari" by the Kew "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families". Two species have been placed in this group: "M. macrocarpum" and "M. racemosum" (under the name "M. muscarimi").

Species.

, the "World Checklist of Selected Plant Families" accepts 42 species: The names of some of the species are somewhat confused, especially in the horticultural literature. Thus the name "M. racemosum" is commonly found as an incorrect synonym for "M. neglectum", with "M. muscarimi" or "M. moschatum" being used for the true "M. racemosum". "Muscari fatmacereniae" was recently described from Turkey.

Cultivation.

Some species are among the earliest garden flowers to bloom in the spring. They are planted as bulbs and tend to multiply quickly (naturalise) when planted in good soils. They prefer well drained sandy soil, that is acid to neutral and not too rich. Naturally found in woodlands or meadows, they are commonly cultivated in lawns, borders, rock gardens and containers. They require little feeding or watering in the summer, and sun or light shade. In ancient civilizations along the Levant, where they are called "būlbūsīn", the bulbs of grape hyacinth ("Muscari commutatum") were harvested and eaten either pickled or fresh.

Muscari is a genus of perennial bulbous plants native to Eurasia that produce spikes of dense, most commonly blue, urn-shaped flowers resembling bunches of grapes in the spring. The common name for the genus is grape hyacinth (a name which is also used for the related genera "Leopoldia" and "Pseudomuscari", which were formerly included in "Muscari"), but they should not be confused with hyacinths. In the United States, they are also commonly referred to as bluebells, though certain regions reserve this name for bluebonnets instead. In Russia this plant is known also as «гадючий лук» (literally: adder onion) or «мышиный гиацинт» (literally: mouse hyacinth). A number of species of "Muscari" are used as ornamental garden plants.


Early life.

Kruspe was born in Wittenberge (then part of East Germany). He was named Sven at birth, but later changed his name to Richard, as he believes that everyone should be able to change their name if they so choose. He has two older sisters and an older brother. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother remarried; Kruspe did not get along with his stepfather. The family moved to the village of Weisen when Kruspe was young. Because of his poor relationship with his stepfather, Kruspe often ran away from home in his early teens, sleeping on park benches. He later got into wrestling as a way to channel his anger.  At the age of sixteen, Kruspe and some friends visited Czechoslovakia, where he bought a guitar. He had originally planned to sell it, as it was very expensive and he thought he could make a nice profit from it. However, once he returned to East Germany, a girl he met at a campground asked him to play it for her. He told her that he couldn't play; however, she kept insisting, so Kruspe got mad and started strumming. He recalled, "the harder I played, the more excited she got. Something clicked in my head, and I realized girls like guys who play guitars." This got him interested in playing the guitar; as a result, he began playing every day and night for the next two years.

Career.

In 1985, bored with the apathetic music scene in his hometown, Kruspe moved to East Berlin and lived on Lychener Straße, where he "made music all day". For two years, he lived in an apartment with a drum kit and a guitar, and made music by himself because he did not know anybody there. "It was a lonely time", according to Kruspe, but he used it to explore music.  On 10 October 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kruspe was riding on the subway. After coming back above ground, he found himself in the middle of a political demonstration. He was hit on the head and arrested just for being there, and thrown in jail for six days. Once out of jail, he decided to leave East Germany. Because of the Eastern Bloc, he entered West Germany through Hungary. When the Berlin Wall came down, he moved back east of Berlin.  Kruspe's first band, Das Elegante Chaos, was formed in the late 1980s. The band played live with other bands such as First Arsch (in which Till Lindemann was a drummer). In 1989, when Kruspe was 22, some songs were recorded by the band; these songs were later released in 2011 on the album "Lyrik" by Dachboden-Records. Seeking a more independent experience, Kruspe formed Orgasm Death Gimmick, which operated between 1991 and 1993; Orgasm Death Gimmick released three demo tapes, and a promotional tape through their label, Wydoks, before disbanding.  During his early career, Kruspe also featured in releases by other bands such as First Arsch. Finally, Rammstein was formed in 1994, when Kruspe, who lived with Oliver Riedel and Christoph Schneider at the time, was looking for a new band in which to create a new style of music.

Personal life.

Kruspe married South African actress Caron Bernstein on 29 October 1999. The ceremony was Jewish, and Kruspe composed the music for it. He took the name Richard Kruspe-Bernstein during their marriage. Sometime in 2001, he moved from Berlin to New York to live closer to Bernstein. They separated in 2004. His last name is now back to its original form, as the divorce was finalized. In 2011, he left New York, because "it is not the right environment for the next part of my life", and moved back to Berlin. Kruspe was in a relationship with Margaux Bossieux, bassist of the all-girl New York punk band Dirty Mary. Bossieux was also involved in the recording of Emigrate's debut album.

Richard Kruspe (born Sven Kruspe; 24 June 1967) is a German musician and guitarist of the German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein, as well as the lead vocalist of the New York-based band Emigrate.


Geography.

The town is situated on a small island at the southern entrance to the Lagoon of Venice about south of Venice ( by road); causeways connect it to the mainland and to its "frazione", nowadays a quarter, of Sottomarina. The population of the "comune" is around 50,000, with the town proper accounting for about half of that and Sottomarina for most of the rest.  The municipality, located in south of the province, close to the provinces of Padua and Rovigo, borders with Campagna Lupia, Cavarzere, Codevigo, Cona, Correzzola, Loreo, Rosolina and Venice.

History.

Chioggia and Sottomarina were not prominent in antiquity, although they are first mentioned in Pliny as the "fossa Clodia". Local legend attributes this name to its founding by a "Clodius", but the origin of this belief is not known.  The name of the town has changed often, being Clodia, Cluza, Clugia, Chiozza and Chioggia. The most ancient documents naming Chioggia date from the 6th century AD, when it was part of the Byzantine Empire. Chioggia was destroyed by King Pippin of Italy in the 9th century, but rebuilt around a new industry based on salt pans. In the Middle Ages, Chioggia proper was known as "Clugia major", whereas "Clugia minor" was a sand bar about 600 m further into the Adriatic. A free commune and an episcopal see from 1110, it had later an important role in the so-called War of Chioggia between Genoa and Venice, being conquered by Genoa in 1378 and finally by Venice in June 1380. Although the town remained largely autonomous, it was always thereafter subordinate to Venice. On 14 March 1381, Chioggia concluded an alliance with Zadar and Trogir against Venice, and finally Chioggia became better protected by Venice in 1412, because Šibenik became in 1412 the seat of the main customs office and the seat of the salt consumers office with a monopoly on the salt trade in Chioggia and on the whole Adriatic Sea.

Culture.

Until the 19th century, women in Chioggia wore an outfit based on an apron which could be raised to serve as a veil. Chioggia is also known for lace-making; like Pellestrina, but unlike Burano, this lace is made using bobbins.  Chioggia served Carlo Goldoni as the setting of his play "Le baruffe chiozzotte", one of the classics of Italian literature: a "baruffa" was a loud brawl, and "chiozzotto" (today more frequently "chioggiotto" in Italian, or "cioxoto" in Venetian) is the demonym for Chioggia. Goldoni took his setting seriously: the play is replete with lacemaking, fishermen, and other local color.

Main sights.

Chioggia is a miniature version of Venice, and is often called ""Little Venice"", with a few canals, chief among them the Canale Vena, and the characteristic narrow streets known as "calli". Chioggia has several medieval churches, much reworked in the period of its greatest prosperity in the 16th and 17th centuries.  The church dedicated to St. Mary of the Assumption, founded in the eleventh century, became a cathedral in 1110, then was rebuilt as Chioggia Cathedral from 1623 by Baldassarre Longhena.  The church of St. Andrew (18th century) has a bell tower from the 11th-12th centuries, the most ancient tower watch in the world. The interior has a "Crucifixion" by Palma the Elder.

Economy.

Fishing is historically the livelihood of the port, and remains a significant economic sector. Other important modern industries include textiles, brick-making and steel; and Sottomarina, with 60 hotels and 17 campgrounds, is almost entirely given over to seafront tourism.

International relations.

Twin towns — Sister cities.

Chioggia is twinned with:

Trivia.

Chioggia gives its name to a variety of Beetroot, Radicchio (Italian chicory), and Pumpkin (Marina di Chioggia).

Chioggia (;, ; ) is a coastal town and "comune" of the Metropolitan City of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy.


The AdS/CFT correspondence.

The anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) which are used in theories of quantum gravity, formulated in terms of string theory or M-theory. On the other side of the correspondence are conformal field theories (CFT) which are quantum field theories, including theories similar to the Yang–Mills theories that describe elementary particles.  The duality represents a major advance in our understanding of string theory and quantum gravity. This is because it provides a non-perturbative formulation of string theory with certain boundary conditions and because it is the most successful realization of the holographic principle.  It also provides a powerful toolkit for studying strongly coupled quantum field theories. Much of the usefulness of the duality results from the fact that it is a strong-weak duality: when the fields of the quantum field theory are strongly interacting, the ones in the gravitational theory are weakly interacting and thus more mathematically tractable. This fact has been used to study many aspects of nuclear and condensed matter physics by translating problems in those subjects into more mathematically tractable problems in string theory.  The AdS/CFT correspondence was first proposed by Juan Maldacena in late 1997. Important aspects of the correspondence were elaborated in articles by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov, and Alexander Markovich Polyakov, and by Edward Witten. By 2015, Maldacena's article had over 10,000 citations, becoming the most highly cited article in the field of high energy physics.

Black hole entropy.

An object with relatively high entropy is microscopically random, like a hot gas. A known configuration of classical fields has zero entropy: there is nothing random about electric and magnetic fields, or gravitational waves. Since black holes are exact solutions of Einstein's equations, they were thought not to have any entropy either.  But Jacob Bekenstein noted that this leads to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If one throws a hot gas with entropy into a black hole, once it crosses the event horizon, the entropy would disappear. The random properties of the gas would no longer be seen once the black hole had absorbed the gas and settled down. One way of salvaging the second law is if black holes are in fact random objects with an entropy that increases by an amount greater than the entropy of the consumed gas.  Bekenstein assumed that black holes are maximum entropy objects—that they have more entropy than anything else in the same volume. In a sphere of radius "R", the entropy in a relativistic gas increases as the energy increases. The only known limit is gravitational; when there is too much energy the gas collapses into a black hole. Bekenstein used this to put an upper bound on the entropy in a region of space, and the bound was proportional to the area of the region. He concluded that the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the area of the event horizon. Gravitational time dilation causes time, from the perspective of a remote observer, to stop at the event horizon. Due to the natural limit on maximum speed of motion, this prevents falling objects from crossing the event horizon no matter how close they get to it. Since any change in quantum state requires time to flow, so all objects and their quantum information state stays imprinted on the event horizon. Bekenstein concluded that from the perspective of any remote observer, the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the area of the event horizon.  Stephen Hawking had shown earlier that the total horizon area of a collection of black holes always increases with time. The horizon is a boundary defined by light-like geodesics; it is those light rays that are just barely unable to escape. If neighboring geodesics start moving toward each other they eventually collide, at which point their extension is inside the black hole. So the geodesics are always moving apart, and the number of geodesics which generate the boundary, the area of the horizon, always increases. Hawking's result was called the second law of black hole thermodynamics, by analogy with the law of entropy increase, but at first, he did not take the analogy too seriously.  Hawking knew that if the horizon area were an actual entropy, black holes would have to radiate. When heat is added to a thermal system, the change in entropy is the increase in mass-energy divided by temperature:

The holographic principle is a tenet of string theories and a supposed property of quantum gravity that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a lower-dimensional boundary to the region—such as a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string-theory interpretation by Leonard Susskind who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn. As pointed out by Raphael Bousso, Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. The prime example of holography is the AdS/CFT correspondence.


Discovery.

In 1744 a Jesuit priest named Father Roman, while ascending the Orinoco River, met some Portuguese slave-traders from the settlements on the Rio Negro. He accompanied them on their return, by way of the Casiquiare canal, and afterwards retraced his route to the Orinoco. Charles Marie de La Condamine, seven months later, was able to give to the "Académie française" an account of Father Roman's voyage, and thus confirm the existence of this waterway, first reported by Father Acuña in 1639.  Little credence was given to Father Roman's statement until it was verified, in 1756, by the Spanish Boundary-line Commission of José Yturriaga and Solano. In 1800 German scientist Alexander von Humboldt and French botanist Aimé Bonpland explored the river. During a 1924–25 expedition, Alexander H. Rice, Jr. of Harvard University traveled up the Orinoco, traversed the Casiquiare canal, and descended the Rio Negro to the Amazon at Manaus. It was the first expedition to use aerial photography and shortwave radio for mapping of the region. In 1968 the Casiquiare was navigated by an SRN6 hovercraft during a National Geographic expedition.

Geography.

The origin of the Casiquiare, at the River Orinoco, is below the mission of La Esmeralda at, and about above sea level. Its mouth at the Rio Negro, an affluent of the Amazon River, is near the town of San Carlos and is above sea level.  The general course is south-west, and its length, including windings, is about. Its width, at its bifurcation with the Orinoco, is approximately, with a current towards the Rio Negro of. However, as it gains in volume from the very numerous tributary streams, large and small, that it receives en route, its velocity increases, and in the wet season reaches, even in certain stretches. It broadens considerably as it approaches its mouth, where it is about wide. The volume of water the Casiquiare captures from the Orinoco is small in comparison to what it accumulates in its course. Nevertheless, the geological processes are ongoing, and evidence points to a slow and gradual increase in the size of Casiquiare. It is likely that stream capture is in progress, i.e. what currently is the uppermost Orinoco basin, including Cunucunuma River, eventually will be entirely diverted by the Casiquiare into the Amazon basin.  In flood time, it is said to have a second connection with the Rio Negro by a branch, which it throws off to the westward, called the Itinivini, which leaves it at a point about above its mouth. In the dry season, it has shallows, and is obstructed by sandbanks, a few rapids and granite rocks. Its shores are densely wooded, and the soil more fertile than that along the Rio Negro. The general slope of the plains through which the canal runs is south-west, but those of the Rio Negro slope south-east.  The Casiquiare is not a sluggish canal on a flat tableland, but a great, rapid river which, if its upper waters had not found contact with the Orinoco, perhaps by cutting back, would belong entirely to the Negro branch of the Amazon.  To the west of the Casiquiare, there is a much shorter and easier portage between the Orinoco and Amazon basins, called the isthmus of Pimichin, which is reached by ascending the Temi branch of the Atabapo River, an affluent of the Orinoco. Although the Temi is somewhat obstructed, it is believed that it could easily be made navigable for small craft. The isthmus is across, with undulating ground, nowhere over high, with swamps and marshes. It is much used for the transit of large canoes, which are hauled across it from the Temi river, and which reach the Rio Negro by the little stream called the Pimichin.

Hydrographic divide.

The Casiquiare canal – Orinoco River hydrographic divide is a representation of the hydrographic water divide that delineates the separation between the Orinoco Basin and the Amazon Basin. (The Orinoco Basin flows west–north–northeast into the Caribbean; the Amazon Basin flows east into the western Atlantic in the extreme northeast of Brazil.)  Essentially the river divide is a west-flowing, upriver section of Venezuela's Orinoco River with an outflow to the south into the Amazon Basin. This named outflow is the Casiquiare canal, which, as it heads downstream (southerly), picks up speed and also accumulates water volume.  The greatest manifestation of the divide is during floods. During flood stage, the Casiquiare's main outflow point into the Rio Negro is supplemented by an overflow that is a second, and more minor, entry river bifurcation into the Rio Negro and upstream from its major, common low-water entry confluence with the Rio Negro. At flood, the river becomes an area flow source, far more than a narrow confined river.  The Casiquiare canal connects the upper Orinoco, below the mission of Esmeraldas, with the Rio Negro affluent of the Amazon River near the town of San Carlos.  The simplest description (besides the entire area-floodplain) of the water divide is a "south-bank Orinoco River strip" at the exit point of the Orinoco, also the origin of the Casiquiare canal. However, during the Orinoco's flood stage, that single, simply defined "origin of the canal" is turned into a region, and an entire strip along the southern bank of the Orinoco River.

The Casiquiare river () is a distributary of the upper Orinoco flowing southward into the Rio Negro, in Venezuela, South America. As such, it forms a unique natural canal between the Orinoco and Amazon river systems. It is the world's largest river of the kind that links two major river systems, a so-called bifurcation. The area forms a water divide, more dramatically at regional flood stage.


Production and properties.

Given the scale of production, many methods have been developed starting from diverse two- to four-carbon precursors. Two principal routes appear to be commonly practiced.

Cyanohydrin route.

The compound is manufactured by several methods, the principal one being the acetone cyanohydrin (ACH) route. ACH is produced by condensation of acetone and hydrogen cyanide. The cyanohydrin is hydrolyzed in the presence of sulfuric acid to a sulfate ester of the methacrylamide, Methanolysis of this ester gives ammonium bisulfate and MMA. Although widely used, the ACH route coproduces substantial amounts of ammonium sulfate. In fact the sulfate ester of the amide is initially produced as an adduct with sulfuric acid ((CH)C(OSOH)C(O)NH HSO), which is removed in a cracking step. The sulfate ester is then methanolyzed (reacted with methanol):  As indicated in the last reaction, each kilogram of methyl methacrylate produced yields roughly 1.1 kg of ammonium hydrogen sulfate. Disposal of this salt is energy intensive. This technology affords more than 3 billion kilograms per year.  The economics of the ACH route have been heavily optimized.

Methyl propionate routes.

The first stage involves carboalkoxylation of ethylene to produce methyl propionate (MeP): The MeP synthesis is conducted in a continuous-stirred tank reactor at moderate temperature and pressure using proprietary agitation and gas-liquid mixing arrangement.  In a second set of reactions, MeP is condensed with formaldehyde in a single heterogeneous reaction step to form MMA:  The reaction of MeP and formaldehyde takes place over a fixed bed of catalyst. This catalyst, caesium oxide on silica, achieves good selectivity to MMA from MeP. The formation of a small amount of heavy, relatively involatile compounds poisons the catalyst. The coke is easily removed and catalyst activity and selectivity restored by controlled, in-situ regeneration. The reactor product stream is separated in a primary distillation so that a crude MMA product stream, free from water, MeP and formaldehyde, is produced. Unreacted MeP and water are recycled via the formaldehyde dehydration process. MMA (>99.9%) is purified by vacuum distillations. The separated streams are returned to the process; there being only a small heavy ester purge stream, which is disposed of in a thermal oxidizer with heat recovered for use in the process.  In 2008, Lucite International commissioned an Alpha MMA plant on Jurong Island in Singapore. This process plant was cheaper to build and run than conventional systems, produces virtually no waste and the feedstocks can even be made from biomass.

Other routes to MMA.

Via propionaldehyde.

Ethylene is first hydroformylated to give propanal, which is then condensed with formaldehyde to produce methacrolein, The condensation is catalyzed by a secondary amine. Air oxidation of methacrolein to methacrylic acid completes the synthesis of the acid:

From isobutyric acid.

As developed by Atochem and Röhm, isobutyric acid is produced by hydrocarboxylation of propene, using HF as a catalyst: Oxidative dehydrogenation of the isobutyric acid yields methacrylic acid. Metal oxides catalyse this process:

Methyl acetylene (propyne) process.

Using Reppe chemistry, methyl acetylene is converted to MMA. As developed by Shell, this process produces MMA in one step reaction with 99% yield with a catalyst derived from palladium acetate, phosphine ligands, and Bronsted acids as catalyst:

Isobutylene routes.

The reactions by the direct oxidation method consist of two-step oxidation of isobutylene or TBA with air to produce methacrylic acid and esterification by methanol to produce MMA.  A process using isobutylene as a raw material has been commercialized by Escambia Co. Isobutylene is oxidized to provide α-hydroxy isobutyric acid. The conversion uses NO and nitric acid at 5–10 °C in the liquid phase. After esterification and dehydration MMA is obtained. Challenges with this route, aside from yield, involve the handling of large amounts of nitric acid and NO. This method was discontinued in 1965 after an explosion at an operation plant.

Methacrylonitrile (MAN) process.

MAN can be produced by ammoxidation from isobutylene: This step is analogous to the industrial route to acrylonitrile, a related commodity chemical. MAN can be hydrated by sulfuric acid to methacrylamide:  Mitsubishi Gas Chemicals proposed that MAN can be hydrated to methacrylamide without using sulfuric acid and is then esterified to obtain MMA by methylformate.

Esterification of methacrolein.

Asahi Chemical developed a process based on direct oxidative esterification of methacrolein, which does not produce by-products such as ammonium bisulfate. The raw material is "tert"-butanol, as in the direct oxidation method. In the first step, methacrolein is produced in the same way as in the direct oxidation process by gas phase catalytic oxidation, is simultaneously oxidized and is esterified in liquid methanol to get MMA directly.

Uses.

The principal application, consuming approximately 75% of the MMA, is the manufacture of polymethyl methacrylate acrylic plastics (PMMA). Methyl methacrylate is also used for the production of the co-polymer methyl methacrylate-butadiene-styrene (MBS), used as a modifier for PVC. Another application is as cement used in total hip replacements as well as total knee replacements. Used as the "grout" by orthopedic surgeons to make the bone inserts fix into bone, it greatly reduces post-operative pain from the insertions but has a finite lifespan. Typically the lifespan of methylmethacrylate as bone cement is 20 years before revision surgery is required. Cemented implants are usually only done in elderly populations that require more immediate short term replacements. In younger populations, cementless implants are used because their lifespan is considerably longer. Also used in fracture repair in small exotic animal species using internal fixation.  MMA is a raw material for the manufacture of other methacrylates. These derivatives include ethyl methacrylate (EMA), butyl methacrylate (BMA) and 2-ethyl hexyl methacrylate (2-EHMA). Methacrylic acid (MAA) is used as a chemical intermediate as well as in the manufacture of coating polymers, construction chemicals and textile applications.  Wood can be impregnated with MMA and polymerized in situ to produce a stabilized product.

Environmental issues and health hazards.

In terms of the acute toxicity of methyl methacrylate, the LD50 is 7-10 g/kg (oral, rat). It is an irritant to the eyes and can cause redness and pain. Irritation of the skin, eye, and nasal cavity has been observed in rodents and rabbits exposed to relatively high concentrations of methyl methacrylate. Methyl methacrylate is a mild skin irritant in humans and has the potential to induce skin sensitization in susceptible individuals.

Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is an organic compound with the formula CH=C(CH)COOCH. This colorless liquid, the methyl ester of methacrylic acid (MAA), is a monomer produced on a large scale for the production of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA).


History.

In the early-to-mid 1990s, most Web sites were based on complete HTML pages. Each user action required that a complete new page be loaded from the server. This process was inefficient, as reflected by the user experience: all page content disappeared, then the new page appeared. Each time the browser reloaded a page because of a partial change, all of the content had to be re-sent, even though only some of the information had changed. This placed additional load on the server and made bandwidth a limiting factor on performance.  In 1996, the iframe tag was introduced by Internet Explorer; like the object element, it can load or fetch content asynchronously. In 1998, the Microsoft Outlook Web Access team developed the concept behind the XMLHttpRequest scripting object. It appeared as XMLHTTP in the second version of the MSXML library, which shipped with Internet Explorer 5.0 in March 1999.  The functionality of the Windows XMLHTTP ActiveX control in IE 5 was later implemented by Mozilla, Safari, Opera and other browsers as the XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object. Microsoft adopted the native XMLHttpRequest model as of Internet Explorer 7. The ActiveX version is still supported in Internet Explorer, but not in Microsoft Edge. The utility of these background HTTP requests and asynchronous Web technologies remained fairly obscure until it started appearing in large scale online applications such as Outlook Web Access (2000) and Oddpost (2002).  Google made a wide deployment of standards-compliant, cross browser Ajax with Gmail (2004) and Google Maps (2005). In October 2004 Kayak.com's public beta release was among the first large-scale e-commerce uses of what their developers at that time called "the xml http thing". This increased interest in AJAX among web program developers.  The term "AJAX" was publicly used on 18 February 2005 by Jesse James Garrett in an article titled "Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications", based on techniques used on Google pages.  On 5 April 2006, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first draft specification for the XMLHttpRequest object in an attempt to create an official Web standard. The latest draft of the XMLHttpRequest object was published on 6 October 2016, and the XMLHttpRequest specification is now a living standard.

Technologies.

The term "Ajax" has come to represent a broad group of Web technologies that can be used to implement a Web application that communicates with a server in the background, without interfering with the current state of the page. In the article that coined the term Ajax, Jesse James Garrett explained that the following technologies are incorporated:  Since then, however, there have been a number of developments in the technologies used in an Ajax application, and in the definition of the term Ajax itself. XML is no longer required for data interchange and, therefore, XSLT is no longer required for the manipulation of data. JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is often used as an alternative format for data interchange, although other formats such as preformatted HTML or plain text can also be used. A variety of popular JavaScript libraries, including JQuery, include abstractions to assist in executing Ajax requests.

Examples.

JavaScript example.

An example of a simple Ajax request using the GET method, written in JavaScript.  get-ajax-data.js: // This is the client-side script.  // Initialize the HTTP request. var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.open('GET','send-ajax-data.php');  // Track the state changes of the request. xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {  // Send the request to send-ajax-data.php xhr.send(null); send-ajax-data.php: <?php // This is the server-side script.  // Set the content type. header('Content-Type: text/plain');  // Send the data back. echo "This is the output."; Many developers dislike the syntax used in the XMLHttpRequest object, so some of the following workarounds have been created.

jQuery example.

The popular JavaScript library jQuery has implemented abstractions which enable developers to use Ajax more conveniently. Although it still uses XMLHttpRequest behind the scenes, the following is a client-side implementation of the same example as above using the 'ajax' method. $.ajax({ }); jQuery also implements a 'get' method which allows the same code to be written more concisely. $.get('send-ajax-data.php').done(function(data) { }).fail(function(data) {

Fetch example.

Fetch is a new native JavaScript API. According to Google Developers Documentation, "Fetch makes it easier to make web requests and handle responses than with the older XMLHttpRequest." fetch('send-ajax-data.php')  ES7 async/await example:  async function doAjax() {  doAjax();  As seen above, fetch relies on JavaScript promises.

Ajax (also AJAX ; short for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML") is a set of web development techniques using many web technologies on the client side to create asynchronous web applications. With Ajax, web applications can send and retrieve data from a server asynchronously (in the background) without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. By decoupling the data interchange layer from the presentation layer, Ajax allows web pages and, by extension, web applications, to change content dynamically without the need to reload the entire page. In practice, modern implementations commonly utilize JSON instead of XML.


Biography.

Patton was born in Hinds County, Mississippi, near the town of Edwards, and lived most of his life in Sunflower County, in the Mississippi Delta. Most sources say he was born in April 1891, but the years 1881, 1885 and 1887 have also been suggested. Patton's parentage and race also are uncertain. His parents were Bill and Annie Patton, but locally he was regarded as having been fathered by former slave Henderson Chatmon, several of whose children became popular Delta musicians, as solo performers and as members of groups such as the Mississippi Sheiks. Biographer John Fahey described Patton as having "light skin and Caucasian features."  Patton was considered African-American, but because of his light complexion there has been much speculation about his ancestry over the years. One theory endorsed by blues musician Howlin' Wolf was that Patton was Mexican or Cherokee. It is now generally agreed that Patton was of mixed heritage, with white, black, and Native ancestors. Some believe he had a Cherokee grandmother; however, it is also widely asserted by historians that he was between one-quarter and one-half Choctaw. In "Down the Dirt Road Blues", Patton sang of having gone to "the Nation" and "the Territo'", referring to the Cherokee Nation's portion of the Indian Territory (which became part of the state of Oklahoma in 1907), where a number of Black Indians tried unsuccessfully to claim a place on the tribal rolls and thereby obtain land.  In 1897, his family moved north to the Dockery Plantation, a cotton farm and sawmill near Ruleville, Mississippi. There, Patton developed his musical style, influenced by Henry Sloan, who had a new, unusual style of playing music, which is now considered an early form of the blues. Patton performed at Dockery and nearby plantations and began an association with Willie Brown. Tommy Johnson, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Robert Johnson, and Chester Burnett (who went on to gain fame in Chicago as Howlin' Wolf) also lived and performed in the area, and Patton served as a mentor to these younger performers. Robert Palmer described Patton as a "jack-of all-trades bluesman", who played "deep blues, white hillbilly songs, nineteenth-century ballads, and other varieties of black and white country dance music with equal facility". He was popular across the southern United States and performed annually in Chicago; in 1934, he performed in New York City. Unlike most blues musicians of his time, who were often itinerant performers, Patton played scheduled engagements at plantations and taverns. He gained popularity for his showmanship, sometimes playing with the guitar down on his knees, behind his head, or behind his back. Patton was a small man, about 5 feet 5 inches tall, but his gravelly voice was reputed to have been loud enough to carry 500 yards without amplification; a singing style which particularly influenced Howlin' Wolf (even though Jimmie Rodgers, the "singing brakeman", has to be cited there primarily).  Patton settled in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, with his common-law wife and recording partner, Bertha Lee, in 1933. His relationship with Bertha Lee was a turbulent one. In early 1934, both of them were incarcerated in a Belzoni, Mississippi jailhouse after a particularly harsh fight. W. R. Calaway from Vocalion Records bailed the pair out of jail, and escorted them to New York City, for what would be Patton's final recording sessions (on January 30 and February 1). They later returned to Holly Ridge and Lee saw Patton out in his final days.  He died on the Heathman-Dedham plantation, near Indianola, on April 28, 1934, and is buried in Holly Ridge (both towns are located in Sunflower County). His death certificate states that he died of a mitral valve disorder. The death certificate does not mention Bertha Lee; the only informant listed is one Willie Calvin. Patton's death was not reported in the newspapers.  A memorial headstone was erected on Patton's grave (the location of which was identified by the cemetery caretaker, C. Howard, who claimed to have been present at the burial), paid for by musician John Fogerty through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund in July 1990. The spelling of Patton's name was dictated by Jim O'Neal, who also composed the epitaph.

Recognitions.

"", a boxed set collecting Patton's recorded works, was released in 2001. It also features recordings by many of his friends and associates. The set won three Grammy Awards in 2003, for Best Historical Album, Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, and Best Album Notes. Another collection of Patton recordings, "The Definitive Charley Patton", was released by Catfish Records in 2001.  Patton's song "Pony Blues" (1929) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2006. The board annually selects recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."  In 2017, Patton’s story was told in the award-winning documentary series "American Epic." The film featured unseen film footage of Patton’s contemporaries and radically improved restorations of his 1920s and 1930s recordings. Director Bernard MacMahon observed that "we had a strong feeling that the music of Patton and his peers reflected the local geography, and I was struck by the extent to which that belief was already shared by people who were living in the Delta back then, when it was a center of musical innovation. Listening to interviews with H. C. Speir, who owned a furniture store in Jackson in the 1920s and was responsible for virtually all the recordings of early Delta blues, he clearly linked the music to its surroundings." Patton's story was profiled in the accompanying book, "".

Historical marker.

The Mississippi Blues Trail placed its first historical marker on Patton's grave in Holly Ridge, Mississippi, in recognition of his legendary status as a bluesman and his importance in the development of the blues in Mississippi. It placed another historic marker at the site where the Peavine Railroad intersects Highway 446 in Boyle, Mississippi, designating it as a second site related to Patton on the Mississippi Blues Trail. The marker commemorates the lyrics of Patton's "Peavine Blues", which refer to the branch of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad which ran south from Dockery Plantation to Boyle. The marker notes that riding on the railroad was a common theme of blues songs and was seen as a metaphor for travel and escape.

Discography.

Paramount recordings.

≠ Vocals and guitar by Patton, with Henry "Son" Sims on fiddle.

Vocalion recordings.

‡ Vocal duet with Bertha Lee

Charley Patton (died April 28, 1934), also known as Charlie Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.


Playing career.

Recchi played his junior hockey for the Kamloops Blazers of the Western Hockey League (WHL). His number 8 was retired by the team shortly after he left for the NHL. He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins, first playing in the NHL in 1988, and was a key player on their Stanley Cup-winning team in 1991.  The following season, Recchi was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers as part of a deal that brought Rick Tocchet and Kjell Samuelsson to Pittsburgh. He played for Philadelphia from 1992 to 1995 as part of the "Crazy Eights" line with Eric Lindros and Brent Fedyk, including a 53-goal, 70-assist and 123-point season in 1992–93, still the Flyers' single-season point-scoring record. In 1995, he was traded to the Montreal Canadiens in a deal for Éric Desjardins, Gilbert Dionne and John LeClair, but was reacquired by the Flyers for the 1998–99 season and was consistently among their top scorers.  During the 1999–2000 season, Recchi was a finalist for the Lester B. Pearson Award as the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) MVP, and he finished third in scoring, only five points behind winner Jaromír Jágr and runner-up Pavel Bure. Recchi also finished third in voting for the NHL All-Star Team Right Wing position behind Jágr and Bure. In 2000 and 2004, the Flyers would make the Eastern Conference Finals, but they would bow out of each series in seven games.  In 2000, Recchi was named "Kamloops Male Athlete of the 20th Century", and had a street named "Mark Recchi Way" in his honour.  In August 2004, Recchi rejoined the Pittsburgh Penguins as a free agent, signing a two-year contract with a two-way option for a third year. The first year was eventually nullified by the NHL lock-out; in the second year, with the Penguins languishing at the bottom of the NHL standings, Recchi waived his no-trade clause to be sent to the Stanley Cup-contending Carolina Hurricanes at the deadline for minor-league forward Krys Kolanos, left wing Niklas Nordgren and a 2007 second-round pick. Recchi won his second Stanley Cup with the Hurricanes that season, then re-signed with the Penguins during the summer of 2006 off-season. On January 20, 2007, he scored his seventh career hat-trick (against the Toronto Maple Leafs), and just under a week later, Recchi scored his 500th career goal on January 26, 2007, on the power play against the Dallas Stars.  During the summer of 2007, Recchi re-signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins on a one-year, $2 million contract, but on December 4, he was placed on waivers and assigned to their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, on December 6. The Penguins then placed Recchi on re-entry waivers the next day, where Recchi was claimed by the Atlanta Thrashers. In his first game against his former team, he scored the game-winning goal in a shootout.  On July 7, 2008, Recchi signed a one-year deal as a free agent with the Tampa Bay Lightning. After scoring 45 points in 62 games with the Lightning in the 2008–09 season, and with the Lightning out of playoff contention, on March 4, 2009, Recchi was traded at the trade deadline (along with a second-round pick in 2010) to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Mārtiņš Karsums and Matt Lashoff. Recchi scored his first two goals for the Bruins three days later on March 7, as the first and third Bruins goals in a 5–3 home ice defeat of the visiting Chicago Blackhawks. On July 2, 2009, Recchi re-signed with the Bruins on a one-year contract. At the time, Recchi had stated that the 2009–10 season would be his final year. With the retirement of Joe Sakic in the summer of 2009, Recchi became the leader in points and assists among active players. Recchi would serve as an alternate captain during the season while Marc Savard was injured and out of the line-up, playing 81 of 82 games in the 2009–10 season.  During the 2010 playoffs, Recchi became the third-oldest player to score a playoff goal, behind Chris Chelios and Gordie Howe, and also became the oldest player to have a multi-goal game in the playoffs when he scored two goals in a 5–4 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 4 of the second round. After suffering defeat in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Flyers, instead of retiring, Recchi re-signed with the Bruins for a one more year.  In the 2010–11 season on November 24, 2010, Recchi scored twice against the Florida Panthers to earn his 1,500th career point.  In Game 2 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, Recchi became the oldest ever player to score a goal in a Stanley Cup Final, doing so at age 43.  Having previously announced he would "sail off into the sunset" if Boston were victorious in the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, he announced his retirement in an interview with Ron MacLean of "Hockey Night in Canada" during the post-game Stanley Cup celebration. Recchi was the last player active in professional hockey who had played in the NHL in the 1980s, finishing his career fourth all-time in games played and 12th all-time in points.

Post-retirement.

Recchi is a co-owner of the Kamloops Blazers, along with Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi and Jarome Iginla, Shane Doan and Darryl Sydor.  In 2013, Recchi joined the Dallas Stars as a consultant along with former Stars Mike Modano and Marty Turco.  On July 18, 2014, Recchi was hired as the Pittsburgh Penguins' player development coach. He was a part of the 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cup champion teams. He was subsequently promoted to director of player development on June 15, 2017. He was named the assistant coach on July 11, 2017, following the departure of Rick Tocchet, who was named the head coach of the Arizona Coyotes.

Personal life.

Mark Recchi was born on February 1, 1968, to Mel and Ruth Recchi in Kamloops, British Columbia. Mark has three brothers: Marty, Mike and Matt.  Recchi married Kim Lazur on August 20, 2016, and they have two children together. Recchi has six children in total, four from a previous marriage. The children's names are: Christina, Bella, Samantha, Brendan, Cameron and Austin.

Mark Louis Recchi (born February 1, 1968) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and a current assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League (NHL). Recchi played 22 years in the NHL, winning three Stanley Cups: in 1991 with the Pittsburgh Penguins, in 2006 with the Carolina Hurricanes and in 2011 with the Boston Bruins. In Game 2 of the 2011 Finals, at the age of 43, Recchi became the oldest player ever to score in a Stanley Cup Finals series.


Life.

She was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, Republic of Genoa, the daughter of "Nobile" Giovanni Geronimo Ramolino (13 April 1723 – 1755), Captain of Corsican Regiments of Chivalry and Infantry in the Army of the Republic of Genoa, and his wife "Nobile" Angela Maria Pietrasanta (circa 1725–1790). The distant cousins of the Ramolinos were a low rank of nobility in the Republic of Genoa.  Like most such girls in the 18th century, Letizia was educated at home. After the death of her father, her mother remarried the Swiss-born naval officer Franz Fesch, a captain in the service of the Republic of Genoa stationed on Corsica, and gave birth to two children, among them her half-brother Joseph Fesch.

Marriage.

On 2/7 June 1764, when she was thirteen, Letizia married the trainee attorney Carlo Buonaparte, himself only seventeen, at Ajaccio. First pregnant a few months later, she went on to give birth to thirteen children, eight of whom survived infancy, and most of whom were created monarchs by Napoleon.  Letizia and her husband Carlo befriended the island's governor, Charles Louis de Marbeuf, and the intendant, Bertrand de Boucheporn, whose wife was the godmother of their son Louis (1778), the future king of Holland. These friendships might have helped to have Napoleon admitted to the Brienne cadet school (1779).  She was described as a harsh mother, and had a very down-to-earth view of most things. When most European mothers bathed children perhaps once a month, she had her children bathed every other day. Letizia spoke Italian and Corsican, and never learned French.  In 1785, when she was 35, her husband died of cancer. In 1793, she left Corsica and resettled with her children in Marseilles in France, where her son Napoleon had a successful military career and eventually took power.  Described as frugal and with simple tastes, she did not approve of her son's marriage to the extravagant Joséphine de Beauharnais in 1796.

Reign of Napoleon.

In 1804, her son Napoleon declared himself Emperor. Despite being depicted in the famous painting of the coronation of Napoleon by David, she did not attend her son's coronation. By decree, she was decreed "Madam, the Mother of His Imperial Majesty The Emperor" ("Madame Mère de l'Empereur"), Imperial Highness, on 18 May 1804 or 23 March 1805. When she was congratulated on her son's ascension to the throne, she replied, "Let's hope that it lasts." Napoleon paid her 25,000 francs a month.  She did not attend the Imperial court and normally lived at the Chateau de Pont-sur-Seine, residing at the Hotel de Brienne on the rare occasions when she did visit Paris.  In 1814, she shared Napoleon's exile in Elba, where he treated her fondly.

Later life.

After 1815 she moved to Rome, in Palazzo D'Aste-Bonaparte in piazza Venezia, where she lived out her days with her younger brother Joseph Fesch. During her years in Rome, she rarely saw any other family members than her brother, who rarely left her. For a time the painter Anna Barbara Bansi served as her companion.  She died of old age in 1836, aged 85, three weeks before the 51st anniversary of her husband's death. By then she was nearly blind and had outlived her most famous son Napoleon by 15 years.

Nob. Maria Letizia Buonaparte, "née" Ramolino (Marie-Lætitia Ramolino, Madame Mère de l'Empereur; 24 August 1750 – 2 February 1836), was an Italian noblewoman, mother of Napoleon I of France.


History.

Name.

The building was originally known as the Joseph Stalin's Palace of Culture and Science ("Pałac Kultury i Nauki imienia Józefa Stalina"), but in the wake of destalinization the dedication to Stalin was revoked. Stalin's name was removed from the colonnade, interior lobby and one of the building's sculptures.  Some Varsovians still commonly use nicknames to refer to the palace, notably "Peking", because of its abbreviated name "PKiN"), and "Pajac" ("clown", a word that sounds close to "Pałac"). Other less common names include "Stalin's syringe", the "Elephant in Lacy Underwear", "Russian Wedding Cake", or even "Chuj Stalina" ("Stalin's Dick"). A popular saying among some of the locals has surfaced in the past few decades which insinuates that the Palace's observation deck has the city's "best view because it’s the only place in Warsaw with no view of the building".

Construction.

Construction started in 1952 and lasted until 1955. A gift from the Soviet Union to the people of Poland, the tower was constructed, using Soviet plans, by 3,500 to 5,000 Soviet workers and 4,000 Polish workers. Sixteen workers died in accidents during the construction. The builders were housed at a new suburban complex built at Poland's expense, with its own cinema, food court, community centre and swimming pool, called Osiedle "Przyjaźni" (Neighborhood of Friendship). The architecture of the building is closely related to several similar skyscrapers built in the Soviet Union of the same era, most notably the Main building of Moscow State University. However, the main architect Lev Rudnev incorporated some Polish architectural details into the project after traveling around Poland and seeing the architecture. The monumental walls are headed with pieces of masonry copied from Renaissance houses and palaces of Kraków and Zamość.  Shortly after opening, the building hosted the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students. Many visiting dignitaries toured the Palace, and it also hosted performances by notable international artists, such as a 1967 concert by The Rolling Stones, the first by a major western rock group behind the Iron Curtain. In 1985, it hosted the historic Leonard Cohen concert, surrounded by many political expectations, which were avoided by Cohen in his prolonged introductions during the three-hour show.  Four clock faces were added to the top of the building ahead of the millennium celebrations in 2000.

Present day.

The building currently serves as an exhibition centre and office complex. The Palace contains a multiplex cinema with eight screens, four theatres (Studio, Dramatyczny, Lalka and 6. piętro), two museums (Museum of Evolution and Museum of Technology), offices, bookshops, a large swimming pool, an auditorium hall for 3,000 people called Congress Hall, and an accredited university, Collegium Civitas, on the 11th and 12th floors of the building. The terrace on the 30th floor, at, is a well-known tourist attraction with a panoramic view of the city.  The Congress Hall held the finals of Miss World 2006.  In 2010, the illumination of the building was modernized and high-power LED lights were installed, allowing the Palace to take various colours at night. The first use of the new lighting was during Christmas in 2010, when the Palace was illuminated in green and white to resemble a Christmas tree. In December 2013, during the Euromaidan protests, it was illuminated in yellow and blue, the colours of the Ukrainian national flag as a sign of solidarity with the protesters.

Controversy.

The Palace of Culture and Science is a highly controversial building for some, and is often viewed as a reminder of Soviet influence over the Polish People's Republic, especially due to its construction during mass violations of human rights under Joseph Stalin. A coalition of veteran and nationalist groups in Poland as well as numerous right-wing political parties have called for its demolition. In 2009, then Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski supported the demolition of the Palace noting the expense involved in its maintenance. Other prominent government leaders have continued to endorse demolition plans, including current Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. However, others reject the idea noting that the Palace itself had become one of the symbolic icons of Warsaw and a building representing the city's rebirth from post-war rubble.

Palace of Culture and Science (; abbreviated PKiN), is a notable high-rise building in central Warsaw, Poland. With a total height of it is the tallest building in Poland, the 5th-tallest building in the European Union (including spire) and one of the tallest on the European continent. Constructed in 1955, it houses various public and cultural institutions such as cinemas, theatres, libraries, sports clubs, university faculties and authorities of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 2007 it has been enlisted in the Registry of Objects of Cultural Heritage.


Description.

Individual "Lithops" plants consist of one or more pairs of bulbous, almost fused leaves opposite to each other and hardly any stem. The slit between the leaves contains the meristem and produces flowers and new leaves. The leaves of "Lithops" are mostly buried below the surface of the soil, with a partially or completely translucent top surface known as a leaf window which allows light to enter the interior of the leaves for photosynthesis.  During winter a new leaf pair, or occasionally more than one, grows inside the existing fused leaf pair. In spring the old leaf pair parts to reveal the new leaves and the old leaves will then dry up. "Lithops" leaves may shrink and disappear below ground level during drought. Lithops in habitat almost never have more than one leaf pair per head, presumably as an adaptation to the arid environment. Yellow or white flowers emerge from the fissure between the leaves after the new leaf pair has fully matured, one per leaf pair. This is usually in autumn, but can be before the summer solstice in "L. pseudotruncatella" and after the winter solstice in "L. optica". The flowers are often sweetly scented.  The most startling adaptation of "Lithops" is the colouring of the leaves. The leaves are fenestrated, and the epidermal windows are patterned in various shades of cream, grey, and brown, with darker windowed areas, dots, and red lines, according to species and local conditions. The markings function as remarkable camouflage for the plant in its typical stone-like environment. As is typical of a window plant, the green tissue lines the inside of the leaves and is covered with translucent tissue beneath the epidermal windows.  "Lithops" are obligate outcrossers and require pollination from a separate plant. Like most mesembs, Lithops fruit is a dry capsule that opens when it becomes wet; some seeds may be ejected by falling raindrops, and the capsule re-closes when it dries out. Capsules may also sometimes detach and be distributed intact, or may disintegrate after several years.

Distribution.

"Lithops" occur naturally across wide areas of Namibia and South Africa, as well as small bordering areas in Botswana and possibly Angola, from sea level to high mountains. Nearly a thousand individual populations are documented, each covering just a small area of dry grassland, veld, or bare rocky ground. Different "Lithops" species are preferentially found in particular environments, usually restricted to a particular type of rock. "Lithops" have not naturalised outside this region.  Rainfall in "Lithops" habitats ranges from approximately 700 mm/year to near zero. Rainfall patterns range from exclusively summer rain to exclusively winter rain, with a few species relying almost entirely on dew formation for moisture. Temperatures are usually hot in summer and cool to cold in winter, but one species is found right at the coast with very moderate temperatures year round.

Cultivation.

"Lithops" are popular house plants and many specialist succulent growers maintain collections. Seeds and plants are widely available in shops and over the Internet. They are relatively easy to grow if given sufficient sun and a suitable well-drained soil.  Normal treatment in mild temperate climates is to keep them completely dry during winter, watering only when the old leaves have dried up and been replaced by a new leaf pair. Watering continues through autumn when the plants flower and then stopped for winter. The best results are obtained with additional heat such as a greenhouse. In hotter climates "Lithops" will have a summer dormancy when they should be kept mostly dry, and they may require some water in winter. In tropical climates, "Lithops" can be grown primarily in winter with a long summer dormancy. In all conditions, "Lithops" will be most active and need most water during autumn and each species will flower at approximately the same time.  "Lithops" thrive best in a coarse, well-drained substrate. Any soil that retains too much water will cause the plants to burst their skins as they over-expand. Plants grown in strong light will develop hard strongly coloured skins which are resistant to damage and rot, although persistent overwatering will still be fatal. Excessive heat will kill potted plants as they cannot cool themselves by transpiration and rely on staying buried in cool soil below the surface. Commercial growers mix a mild fungicide or weak strength horticultural sulfur into the plant's water to prevent rotting. Lithops are sensitive to watering during hot weather, which can cause the plants to rot; in habitat the plants are often dormant when the temperatures are high, doing most of their growing during the cool months of the year. Low light levels will make the plants highly susceptible to rotting and fungal infection.  In the United Kingdom the following species have gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit:-

Propagation.

Propagation of "Lithops" is by seed or cuttings. Cuttings can only be used to produce new plants after a plant has naturally divided to form multiple heads, so most propagation is by seed. "Lithops" can readily be pollinated by hand if two separate clones of a species flower at the same time, and seed will be ripe about 9 months later. Seed is easy to germinate, but the seedlings are small and vulnerable for the first year or two, and will not flower until at least two or three years old.

History.

The first scientific description of a "Lithops" was made by botanist and artist William John Burchell, explorer of South Africa, although he called it "Mesembryanthemum turbiniforme". In 1811 he accidentally found a specimen when picking up from the ground a "curiously shaped pebble". Unfortunately his description is not detailed enough to be sure which "Lithops" he had discovered and the name "Lithops turbiniformis" is no longer used, although for many years it was applied to what is now known as "Lithops hookeri".  Several more "Lithops" were published as "Mesembryanthemum" species until in 1922 N E Brown started to split up the overly large genus on the basis of the capsules. The genus "Lithops" was created and dozens more species were published in the following decades. Brown, Gustav Schwantes, Kurt Dinter, Gert Nel, and Louisa Bolus continued to document "Lithops" from across southern Africa, but there was little consensus on the relationships between them, or even which populations should be grouped as species. As recently as the 1950s, the genus was little known in cultivation and not well understood taxonomically.  In the 1950s, Desmond and Naureen Cole began to study "Lithops". They eventually visited nearly all habitat populations and collected samples from approximately 400, identifying them with the Cole numbers which have been used ever since and distributing Cole numbered seed around the world. They studied and revised the genus, in 1988 publishing a definitive book (Lithops: Flowering Stones) describing the species, subspecies, and varieties which have been accepted ever since.  Because their camouflage is so effective, new species continue to be discovered, sometimes in remote regions of Namibia and South Africa, and sometimes in well-populated areas where they simply had been overlooked for generations. Recent discoveries include "L. coleorum" in 1994, "L. hermetica" in 2000, and "L. amicorum" in 2006.

Taxonomy.

Many of the species listed have named subspecies or varieties and some have many regional forms identified by old names or habitat locations. Identification of species is primarily by flower colour and leaf patterns.

Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. Members of the genus are native to southern Africa. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek words λίθος ("lithos"), meaning "stone," and ὄψ ("ops"), meaning "face," referring to the stone-like appearance of the plants. They avoid being eaten by blending in with surrounding rocks and are often known as pebble plants or living stones. The formation of the name from the Greek "-ops" means that even a single plant is called a Lithops.


Use.

Ascenders are usually used in pairs, and offer similar functionality to friction knots, but are faster, safer and easier to use, albeit still with consequences in weight and in security (as ascenders can, even with a locking carabiner, come off the rope, and fail by shredding the rope at high loads, rather than slipping and fusing as with friction knots). A mechanical ascender employs a cam which allows the device to slide freely in the intended direction of movement, but provide a firm grip on the rope when pulled in the opposite direction. To prevent an ascender from accidentally coming off the rope, a locking mechanism or trigger is deployed. The ascender is first attached to the climber's harness by a piece of webbing or sling, and then is clipped onto the rope and locked on.  Ascenders are usually used in pairs, so that one is free to be slid up the rope whilst the other bears the weight of the climber. The ascender which has just been slid upwards is then made to take the climbers load, so locking him to the rope, and freeing the other one so it, too, can then be slid upwards too. The process is then repeated to ascend the rope.  For climbing on with a fixed rope attached for security (for example, to snow anchors on a steep slope) only one ascender is used, keeping the other hand free for holding an ice axe.  Ascenders are not typically used on free climbing routes, where a climber uses his or her hands and feet on the rock, climbing the features, edges, cracks, and pockets that the route provides without artificial aids. Instead, they are more likely to be used in aid climbing.

Jumar.

One such ascender device is a jumar, named for its manufacturer Jümar Pangit, a company in turn named after jumar inventors Adolph Jüsi and Walter Marti. The first iteration of the tool was sold in 1958. The device's name also engendered the verb "to jumar" for the process of using such a device. In jumaring, the second climber (the one who belays the lead climber on the route) uses ascenders to climb the rope instead of climbing directly on the rock. Other terms for this process include ascending and jugging. This process is similar to prusiking, except using an ascender device instead of friction knots.

Non-mechanical devices.

In place of mechanical ascenders, one or more thin rope slings (or prusik loops) may be used which can be slid along the thicker climbing rope when not under tension. These friction knots will lock under load to enable the climber to use the strength of their leg to step up and ascend the rope. Prusik knots are much lighter, but are not capable of taking a dynamic load, such as arresting a falling climber, because they are prone to melting or fusing under such extreme forces.

Single-rope technique.

In caving, ascending a rope by means of mechanical devices is often necessary and is the main alternative to ladder use. This is termed Single-rope technique. The rock which forms the cave is often wet, slippery, relatively featureless and often unreachable from the necessary rope locations. So climbing the rope may well be preferable to climbing the rock or a ladder, provided that a belay location that provides an ascent has already been found. Although climbers may regard a climb as a challenge to be tackled with minimal aids, cavers are likely to consider it as an obstacle to their progress to be overcome as conveniently as possible, and are more inclined to make use of mechanical ascenders.

History.

The first mechanical rope ascending devices were created by Henri Brenot, and were used in France both for mountaineering and caving as early as 1934.  Jümar Pangit, a Swiss manufacturer located then in Reichenbach (Switzerland), was founded by Adolph Jüsi and Walter Marti. Jüsi was studying eagles for the Swiss government and needed to ascend on ropes in order to perform his work, so Marti developed the ascender for him. In 1958, the first jumar was introduced to the climbing market. This page (archived) gives an overview on the older jumar models. A current model is still in production.  French caver Fernand Petzl developed a mechanical rope ascender in 1968, and his company Petzl continues to produce both handled and handleless models that are popular with mountaineers and cavers today.  Other countries, notably the United States, have also produced rope ascenders. Other names for different styles of ascenders include 'ropeman' and 'tibloc'.

An ascender is a device (usually mechanical) used for directly ascending a rope, or for facilitating protection with a fixed rope when climbing on very steep mountain terrain.


Early life.

Muslim Magomayev represented one of the most respected artistic dynasties in Azerbaijan. His grandfather Muslim Magomayev (1885–1937), a friend and contemporary of the prominent Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov, was one of the founders of modern Azerbaijani classical music. Magomayev's father, Mahammad Magomayev, who died two days prior to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II while serving as a soldier in the Soviet Army, was a gifted scenic designer; and his mother, Aishet Kinzhalova, was an actress, who deserted him with his grandmother when he was less than a year old. Magomayev's father was of mixed origin whose parents moved to Azerbaijan from Chechnya and Georgia respectively, whereas his Adyghean-born mother was of mixed Turkish, Adyghe and Russian descent. However, when asked about his ethnicity, Magomayev considered himself Azerbaijani.  Abandoned by his mother after his father's death, Magomayev was raised by his paternal grandmother. He learned to play the piano as a child, and began to take voice lessons at the age of 14. As a teenager, he became interested in Italian songs, American jazz, and other styles of popular music. He majored in piano and composition at the Baku Conservatoire.

Musical career.

He was 19 when he first performed at an international youth music festival in Helsinki. His performance was noted by Yekaterina Furtseva, then Minister of Culture of the Soviet Union, who offered him to be a soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre. Magomayev declined the offer. In 1962, at the age of 20, Magomayev first appeared in Moscow where he performed during the Days of Azerbaijani Culture. He sang an aria from Gounod’s Faust, and the song "Do the Russians Want War?" in a gala concert at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and became a celebrity on the spot. A year later, he gave his first solo concert in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Concert Hall to a full house and became a soloist of the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre. Muslim earned fame in the USSR as an opera singer with his performance in Rossini's "Barber of Seville". He also became known for his arias from Puccini's "Tosca", Hajibeyov's "Koroghlu" and "Shah Ismayil", which was composed by his grandfather.  In 1964 and 1965, Muslim was a visiting artist at La Scala in Milan, but turned down the invitation to sing in the Moscow Bolshoi Theater upon his return. Instead, the singer turned to popular music, becoming a pop idol for several generations of music lovers in the Soviet Union. Muslim Magomayev's popularity in the USSR was overwhelming. He quickly became a cult figure and gave three concerts a day filling huge arenas all across the Soviet Union, while his albums sold millions.  In 1966 and 1969, Magomayev performed in Paris Olympia with great success. The director of Olympia Bruno Coquatrix offered him a contract, and Magomayev was seriously considering an opportunity to pursue an international career, but Yekaterina Furtseva refused to grant the Ministry of Culture's permission, claiming that it needed Magomayev to perform at government concerts. In 1969 he received the MIDEM Gold Disc Award in Cannes for album sales of over 4.5 million units. In 1973, at the age of 31, Muslim was awarded the Soviet Union's highest artistic title: People's Artist of the USSR.  Magomayev moved to Moscow in the early 1970s. He became the art director of the Azerbaijan State Bandstand-Symphonic Orchestra in 1975 and toured in Italy, France, Bulgaria, Finland, Canada, United States, Cuba and other countries.  Magomayev was also known as a composer, writing several film soundtracks and songs. In addition, Magomayev acted in films and hosted television and radio broadcasts devoted to prominent musicians of the 20th century.  Magomayev was an influence on many important Soviet musical figures including Alla Pugacheva, who often spoke fondly of him.

Personal life.

Magomayev married when he was 19, to Ofelia Veliyeva, but the union did not last a year. His daughter from that first marriage, Marina, lives in the United States. He eventually remarried, this time to the opera singer Tamara Sinyavskaya.  In later life, Magomayev struggled with a serious heart condition.

Later years.

In the early 2000s, Magomayev officially stopped his musical career and gave only a few performances, together with his wife. He died on 25 October 2008 in his flat in Moscow from a heart attack. He was buried in the Alley of Honor in his native city of Baku, next to his grandfather, on 29 October. The funeral ceremony was attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Magomayev's widow Tamara Sinyavskaya, his daughter Marina, as well as state officials and international delegations. Thousands of people came to pay a final tribute to the singer.  In 1997, a minor planet of the solar system, 4980 Magomaev, was named in his honor.

Muslim Magometovich Magomayev (Azerbaijani: "Müslüm Məhəmməd oğlu Maqomayev", 17 August 1942 – 25 October 2008), dubbed the "King of Songs" and the "Soviet Sinatra" was a Soviet Azerbajiani baritone operatic pop singer. He achieved iconic status in Russia and the post-Soviet countries for his vocal talent and charisma.


Different forms of the hypothesis.

Expansion with constant mass.

In 1834, during the second voyage of HMS "Beagle", Charles Darwin investigated stepped plains featuring raised beaches in Patagonia which indicated to him that a huge area of South America had been "uplifted to its present height by a succession of elevations which acted over the whole of this space with nearly an equal force." While his mentor Charles Lyell had suggested forces acting near the crust on smaller areas, Darwin hypothesized that uplift at this continental scale required "the gradual expansion of some central mass" [of the earth] "acting by intervals on the outer crust" with the "elevations being concentric with form of globe (or certainly nearly so)". In 1835 he extended this concept to include the Andes as part of a curved enlargement of the earth's crust due to "the action of one connected force". Not long afterwards, he moved on from this idea and proposed that as mountains rose, the ocean floor subsided, explaining the formation of coral reefs.  In 1889 and 1909 Roberto Mantovani published a hypothesis of Earth expansion and continental drift. He assumed that a closed continent covered the entire surface of a smaller Earth. Thermal expansion led to volcanic activity, which broke the land mass into smaller continents. These continents drifted away from each other because of further expansion at the rip-zones, where oceans currently lie. Although Alfred Wegener noticed some similarities to his own hypothesis of continental drift, he did not mention Earth expansion as the cause of drift in Mantovani's hypothesis.  A compromise between Earth-expansion and Earth-contraction is the "theory of thermal cycles" by Irish physicist John Joly. He assumed that heat flow from radioactive decay inside Earth surpasses the cooling of Earth's exterior. Together with British geologist Arthur Holmes, Joly proposed a hypothesis in which Earth loses its heat by cyclic periods of expansion. In their hypothesis, expansion led to cracks and joints in Earth's interior, that could fill with magma. This was followed by a cooling phase, where the magma would freeze and become solid rock again, causing Earth to shrink.

Mass addition.

In 1888 Ivan Osipovich Yarkovsky suggested that some sort of aether is absorbed within Earth and transformed into new chemical elements, forcing the celestial bodies to expand. This was connected with his mechanical explanation of gravitation. Also the theses of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg (1933, 1974) and Nikola Tesla (1935) were based on absorption and transformation of aether-energy into normal matter.  After initially supporting continental drift, the late Australian geologist S. Warren Carey advocated expansion from the 1950s (before the development of plate tectonics provided the generally accepted explanation of the movement of continents) to his death, demonstrating that subduction and other events could not balance the sea-floor spreading at oceanic ridges, and piling yet unresolved paradoxes that continue to plague plate tectonics. Starting in 1956, he proposed some sort of mass increase in the planets and said that a final solution to the problem is only possible in a cosmological perspective in connection with the expansion of the universe.  Bruce Heezen initially interpreted his work on the mid-Atlantic ridge as supporting S. Warren Carey's Expanding Earth Theory, but later withdrew his support, finally convinced by the data and analysis of his assistant, Marie Tharp. The remaining proponents after the 1970s, like the Australian geologist James Maxlow, are mainly inspired by Carey's ideas.  In the last few decades, no credible mechanism of action has been proposed for this addition of new mass, and there is no credible evidence for new mass having been added in the past. The increased gravity of Earth would have altered the orbits of the celestial objects in the Solar System, including Moon's orbit and Earth's own orbit; proponents have no adequate explanation to address this problem. This is a big obstacle for acceptance of the theory by other geologists.  It is a well known fact that the earth is constantly acquiring mass through accumulation of rocks and dust from space, as are all other planetary bodies in our system. According to NASA, "Every day about 100 tons of meteoroids -- fragments of dust and gravel and sometimes even big rocks – enter the Earth's atmosphere." The majority of this debris burns up in the atmosphere and lands as dust. Such accretion, however, is only a minuscule fraction of the mass increase required by the expanding Earth hypothesis.

Decrease of the gravitational constant.

Paul Dirac suggested in 1938 that the universal gravitational constant had "decreased" in the billions of years of its existence. This led German physicist Pascual Jordan to a modification of general relativity and to propose in 1964 that all planets slowly expand. Contrary to most of the other explanations this one was at least within the framework of physics considered as a viable hypothesis.  Measurements of a possible variation of the gravitational constant showed an upper limit for a relative change of per year, excluding Jordan's idea.

Formation from a gas giant.

According to the hypothesis of J. Marvin Herndon (2005, 2013) the Earth originated in its protoplanetary stage from a Jupiter-like gas giant. During development phases of the young Sun, which resembled to those of a T Tauri star, the dense atmosphere of the gas giant was stripped off by infrared eruptions from the sun. The remnant was a rocky planet. Due to the loss of pressure from its atmosphere would have begun a progressive decompression. Herndon regards the energy released due to the lack of compression as a primary energy source for geotectonic activity, to which some energy from radioactive decomposition processes was added. He calls the resulting changes in the course of Earth's history by the name of his theory "Whole-Earth Decompression Dynamics". He considered the seafloor spreading at divergent plate boundaries as an effect of it. In his opinion mantle convection used as concept in the theory of plate tectonics is physically impossible. His theory includes the effect of solar wind (geomagnetic storms) as cause for the reversals of the Earth magnetic field. The question of mass increase is not addressed.

Main arguments against Earth expansion.

The hypothesis had never developed a plausible and verifiable mechanism of action. During the 1960s, the theory of plate tectonics—initially based on the assumption that Earth's size remains constant, and relating the subduction zones to burying of lithosphere at a scale comparable to seafloor spreading—became the accepted explanation in the Earth Sciences.  The scientific community finds that significant evidence contradicts the Expanding Earth theory, and that evidence used in support of it is better explained by plate tectonics:

The expanding Earth or growing Earth hypothesis asserts that the position and relative movement of continents is at least partially due to the volume of Earth increasing. Conversely, geophysical global cooling was the hypothesis that various features could be explained by Earth contracting.