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ree two two two stars observed between one seven five zero and one seven six two by james bradley apart from the fundamental function of providing astronomers with a reference frame to report their observations in astrometry is also fundamental for fields like celestial mechanics stellar dynamics and galactic astronomy in observational astronomy astrometric techniques help identify stellar objects by their unique motions it is instrumental for keeping time in that utc is basically the atomic time synchronized to earth s rotation by means of exact observations astrometry is also involved in creating the cosmic distance ladder because it is used to establish parallax distance estimates for stars in the milky way advances in astrometry sundials were effective at measuring time astrolabes were invented for measuring celestial angles astrometric applications led to the development of spherical geometry careful measurement of planetary motions by tycho brahe followed by analysis by johannes kepler proved the copern |
ican principle that earth revolves about the sun the sextant dramatically improved measurement of celestial angles james bradley measured stellar aberration with a precise transit telescope the development of charge coupled devices ccds and their adoption by astronomers in the one nine eight zero s improved the precision of professional astrometric work the development of inexpensive ccds software and telescopes allowed for large scale amateur astrometric observation of minor planets from one nine eight nine to one nine nine three the european space agency s hipparcos satellite performed astrometric measurements resulting in a catalogue of positions accurate to two zero three zero milliarcsec for over a million stars astronomers use astrometric techniques for the tracking of near earth objects it has been also been used to detect extrasolar planets by measuring the displacement they cause in their parent star s apparent position on the sky due to their mutual orbit around the center of mass of the system nasa |
s planned space interferometry mission sim planetquest will utilize astrometric techniques to detect terrestrial planets orbiting two zero zero or so of the nearest solar type stars astrometric measurements are used by astrophysicists to constrain certain models in celestial mechanics by measuring the velocities of pulsars it is possible to put a limit on the asymmetry of supernova explosions also astrometric results are used to determine the distribution of dark matter in the galaxy astrometrics astrometrics is the science of stellar measurements and motion astrometrics was used during the one nine nine zero s to detect extrasolar gas giants orbiting various solar systems this was done by observing the stellar wobble of a star and calculating what kinds of gravitational forces would cause such motion it was then determined that planetary forces must be affecting the stars in question other references in the fictional star trek voyager the astrometrics lab is the set for various scenes see also astrometric b |
inary ephemeris gaia probe esa planned for two zero zero nine one four hipparcos space astrometry mission esa one nine eight nine nine three spherical astronomy astrometry astronomy this article is about the goddess athena for other uses see athena disambiguation drawing from a sculpture of athena at the louvre athena greek ath n or ath n doric as na the greek goddess of wisdom strategy crafts and war associated by the etruscans with their goddess menrva and later by the romans as minerva is attended by an owl wore a goatskin breastplate called the aegis given to her by her father and is accompanied by the goddess of victory nike athena is also a goddess associated with mentoring heroes athena is an armed warrior goddess never a child always a virgin parthenos she is said to have found the advances of men to be childish the parthenon at athens greece is her most famous shrine she never had a consort or lover although once hephaestus tried and failed herodotus and plato incorrectly identified athena with the l |
ibyan modern berbers goddess neith according to plato athena was derived from a a theo noa or h e theo noa meaning the mind of god crat four zero seven b history athena from the east pediment of the afea temple in aegina athena was probably a goddess in the aegean in the prehistoric times although her name is not attested in eteocretan she has been compared to anatolian mother goddesses like cybele her name possibly of lydian origin g neumann kadmos six one nine six seven and her byname pallas has been compared to hittite palahh a divine raiment in mycenaean greek a ta na po ti ni ja athana potniya mistress athena is referred to in the knossos linear b text v two and a ta no dju wa ja athana diwya the final part being the linear b spelling of what we know from ancient greek as diwia mycenaean di u ja or di wi ja divine see dyeus there is evidence that in early times athena was an owl herself or a bird goddess in general in book three of the odyssey she takes the form of a sea eagle her tassled aegis may be th |
e remnants of wings athena is associated with athens a plural name because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood the athenai in earliest times in the olympian pantheon athena was remade as the favorite daughter of zeus born from his forehead the story of her birth comes in several versions in the one most commonly cited zeus lay with metis the goddess of crafty thought but immediately feared the consequences it had been prophesied that metis would bear children more powerful than zeus himself in order to forestall these dire consequences zeus transformed metis into a fly and swallowed her immediately after lying with her he was too late metis had already conceived a child metis immediately began making a helmet and robe for her fetal daughter the hammering as she made the helmet caused zeus great pain and prometheus hephaestus hermes or palaemon depending on the sources examined cleaved zeus s head with the double headed minoan axe labrys athena leaped from zeus s head fully grown and armed |
and zeus was none the worse for the experience athena was patron of the art of weaving and other crafts wisdom and battle unlike ares who was hot headed and undependable in battle athena s domain was strategy and tactics having taken the side of the greeks in the war against troy athena assisted the wily odysseus on his journey home athena in art athena was depicted on the obverse side of the coin of attalus i depicting the head of attalus great uncle philetaerus athena is classically portrayed wearing full armor carrying a lance and a shield with the head of the gorgon medusa mounted on it it is in this posture that she was depicted in phidias s famous gold and ivory statue of her the athena parthenos now lost to history in the parthenon on the athenian acropolis athena is also often depicted with an owl a symbol of wisdom sitting on one of her shoulders the mourning athena is a relief sculpture that dates around four six zero bc and portrays a tired emotional athena in earlier archaic portraits of athena in |
vase paintings the goddess retains some of her minoan character such as great birdwings appellations homer s most common epithet for athena glaukopis is usually translated bright eyed and is a combination of glaukos which can be translated as gleaming silvery and later as bluish green or gray and ps eye or sometimes face it is interesting to note that glaux owl is from the same root presumably because of its own distinctive eyes the bird which sees in the night is closely associated with the goddess of wisdom in archaic images she is frequently depicted with an owl perched on her head in earlier times athena may well have been a bird goddess similar to lilitu and or the goddess depicted with owls wings and bird talons on the burney relief in her role as judge at orestes trial on the murder of his mother clytemnestra which he won athena won the epithet athena areia athena was often associated with the local aeginian goddess aphaea she had the epithet athena ergane as the patron of craftsmen and artisans she w |
as often referred to with the epithet pallas athena pallas was an ambiguous figure sometimes male sometimes female never imagined apart from athena she killed pallas in a mistake and ever after wore her his goatskin fringed with chthonic serpents as the protective aegis with the epithet athena parthenos virgin athena was worshipped at the parthenon with the epithet athena promachos she led in battle with the epithet athena polias of the city athena was the protectress of athens and the acropolis in the homeric hymns and in hesiod s theogony she is described with the curious epithet tritogeneia the exact meaning of this term is unclear it seems to mean triton born perhaps indicating that the sea god was her father according to some early myths or that she was born near lake triton in africa another possible meaning is triple born or third born which may refer to her status as the third daughter of zeus episodes erichthonius according to apollodorus hephaestus attempted to rape athena but was unsuccessful his s |
emen fell on the ground and erichthonius was born from the earth athena then raised the baby as a foster mother alternatively the semen landed on athena s leg and she wiped it off with a piece of wool which she tossed on the ground erichthonius arose from the ground and the wool another version says that hephaestus wanted athena to marry him but she disappeared on his bridal bed he ejaculated onto the ground instead athena gave three sisters herse pandrosus and aglaulus the baby in a small box and warned them to never open it aglaulus and herse opened the box which contained the infant and future king erichthonius the sight caused herse and aglaulus to go insane and they threw themselves off the acropolis an alternative version of the same story is that while athena was gone to bring a mountain to use in the acropolis the two willful sisters opened the box a crow witnessed the opening and flew away to tell athena who fell into a rage and dropped the mountain now mt lykabettos once again herse and aglaulus wen |
t insane and threw themselves to their deaths off a cliff erichthonius later became king of athens and implemented many beneficial changes to athenian culture during this time athena frequently protected him athens athena competed with poseidon to be the patron deity of athens they agreed that each would give the athenians one gift and the athenians would choose whichever gift they preferred poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a spring sprung up the water was salty and not very useful whereas athena offered them the first domesticated olive tree the athenians or their king cecrops accepted the olive tree and along with it athena as their patron for the olive tree brought wood oil and food this is thought to remember a clash between the inhabitants during mycenaean times and newer immigrants it is interesting to note that athens at its height was a significant sea power defeating the persian fleet at the battle of salamis near salamis island in four eight zero bc athena was also the patron goddess |
of several other cities notably sparta in an alternate version poseidon invents the first horse athena s gift is still chosen arachne a woman named arachne once boasted that she was a superior weaver to athena the goddess of weaving athena appeared to her disguised as an old woman and told arachne to repent for her hubris but arachne instead challenged athena to a contest the old woman threw off her disguise and the contest began athena wove a depiction of the conflict with poseidon over athens while arachne wove a depiction of zeus many romantic exploits athena was furious at her skill the contest was never decided and her choice of subject enraged she destroyed arachne s work and struck the girl s head with the shuttle as she could not bear to endure the pain arachne unsuccessfully tried to hang herself but was transformed by athena into the first spider which forever weaves its silk for food perseus and medusa athena guided perseus in eliminating medusa a dangerous unreformed relic of the old pre olympian |
order and she was awarded the grisly trophy that turned men to stone for her shield heracles athena instructed heracles how to remove the skin from the nemean lion by using the lion s own claws to cut through its thick hide the lion s hide became heracles signature garment along with the olive wood club he used in the battle athena also assisted heracles on a few other labors she also helped heracles defeat the stymphalian birds along with hephaestus tiresias and chariclo athena blinded tiresias after he stumbled onto her bathing naked his mother chariclo begged her to undo her curse but athena couldn t she gave him prophecy instead miscellaneous athena minerva is the subject of the five zero one nine one five s panama pacific commemorative coin at two five troy oz seven eight g gold this is the largest by weight coin ever produced by the u s mint this was the first five zero coin issued by the u s mint and no higher was produced until the production of the one zero zero platinum coins in one nine nine seven |
of course in terms of face value in adjusted dollars the one nine one five is the highest denomination ever issued by the u s mint a full scale replica of the parthenon has stood in nashville tennessee which is known as the athens of the south for over a century in one nine nine zero a great replica of phidias statue of the goddess was added over four one feet one two five m tall and gilded athena had a childhood friend named pallas during one of their outings athena accidentally shot pallas with an arrow fatally wounding her athena then decided to put pallas s name before hers so that pallas would always be remembered athena is also featured prominently in various modern pop culture creations including a japanese animation called saint seiya saint seiya was originally created by japanese manga artist masami kurumada athena had been given birth by zeus the father of gods and metis zeus had been told that any children he had by metis would be very powerful and someday dethrone him external links nashville s at |
hena statue the nashville parthenon minoan origins of athena by virginia hicks greek goddesses smithing goddesses war goddesses wisdom goddesses characters in the iliad the amber diceless roleplaying game is a role playing game created and written by erick wujcik set in the fictional universe created by author roger zelazny for his chronicles of amber the game is unusual in that no dice are used in resolving conflicts or player actions instead a simple system of comparative ability and narrative description of the action by the players and game referee is used to determine how situations are resolved amber drpg was created in the one nine eight zero s and is much more focused on relationships and roleplaying than most of the roleplaying games of that era most amber characters are members of the two ruling classes in the amber multiverse and are much more advanced in matters of strength endurance psyche warfare and sorcery than ordinary beings this means that the only individuals who are capable of opposing a |
character are from his or her family a fact that leads to much suspicion and intrigue history the original two five six page game book was published in one nine nine one by phage press covering material from the first five novels the corwin cycle and some details sorcery and the logrus from the remaining five novels the merlin cycle in order to allow players to roleplay characters from the courts of chaos some details were changed slightly to allow more player choice for example players can be full trump artists without having walked the pattern or the logrus which merlin says is impossible and players psychic abilities are far greater than those shown in the books cover of shadow knight a two five six page companion volume shadow knight was published in one nine nine three book includes the remaining elements from the merlin novels such as broken patterns and allows players to create constructs such as merlin s ghostwheel the book presents the second series of novels not as additions to the series continuity |
but as an example of a roleplaying campaign with merlin luke julia jurt and coral as the pcs the remainder of the book is a colection of essays on the game statistics for the new characters and an update of the older ones in light of their appearance in the second series and perhaps most usefully for gms plot summaries of each of the ten books the book includes some material from the short story the salesman s tale and some unpublished material from prince of chaos notably coral s pregnancy by merlin a third book rebma was promised and pre orders were taken but it never arrived leading to accusations that it was vaporware wujcik also expressed a desire to create a book giving greater detail to the courts of chaos however the publishing rights to the amber drpg games were acquired in two zero zero four by guardians of order who took over sales of the game and announced their intention to release a new edition of the game but since their restructuring no further news of the new edition has been forthcoming the |
two existing books have been made available as pdf downloads see external links setting the game is set in the multiverse described in zelazny s chronicles of amber the first book assumes that gamemasters will set their campaigns after the patternfall war that is after the end of the fifth book in the series the courts of chaos but uses material from the following books to describe those parts of zelazny s cosmology that were featured there in more detail briefly the amber multiverse consists of amber a city at one pole of the universe wherein is found the pattern the symbol of order the courts of chaos an assembly of worlds at the other pole where can be found the logrus the manifestation of chaos and the abyss the source of all reality and shadow the collection of all possible universes shadows between and around them inhabitants of either pole can use one or both of the pattern and the logrus to travel through shadow it is assumed that players will portray the children of the main characters from the book |
s the ruling family of amber known as the elder amberites or a resident of the courts however since some feel that being the children of the main characters is too limiting it is fairly common to either start with king oberon s death before the book begins and roleplay the elder amberites as they vie for the throne or to populate amber from scratch with a different set of elder amberites the former option is one presented in the book the latter is known in the amber community as an amethyst game a third option is to have the players portray corwin s children in an amber like city built around corwin s pattern this is sometimes called an argent game since one of corwin s heraldic colours is silver system attributes characters in amber drpg are represented by four attributes psyche strength endurance and warfare psyche is used for feats of willpower or magic strength is used for feats of strength or unarmed combat endurance is used for feats of endurance warfare is used for armed combat from duelling to command |
ing armies the attributes run from two five normal human level through one zero normal level for a denizen of the courts of chaos and zero normal level for an inhabitant of amber upwards without limit scores above zero are ranked with the highest score being ranked one st the next highest two nd and so on the character with one st rank in each attribute is considered superior in that attribute being considered to be substantially better than the character with two nd rank even if the difference in scores is small the attribute auction a character s ability scores are purchased during character generation in an auction players get one zero zero character points and bid on each attribute in turn unlike conventional auctions bids are non refundable if one player bids six five for psyche and another wins with a bid of six six then the character with six six is superior to the character with six five even though there is only one bid difference after the auction players can secretly pay extra points to raise their |
ranks but they can only pay to raise their scores to an existing rank further a character with a bid for rank is considered to have a slight advantage over character with a bought up rank psyche in amber drpg compared to the chronicles characters with high psyche are presented as having strong telepathic abilities being able to hypnotise and even mind rape any character with lesser psyche with whom they can make eye contact this is likely due to two scenes in the chronicles first when corwin faces the demon strygwalldir it is able to wrestle mentally with him when their gazes meet and second when fiona is able to keep brand immobile in the final battle at the courts of chaos however in general the books only feature mental battles when there is some reason for mind to mind contact for example trump contact and magic is involved in both the above conflicts so it is not clear whether zelazny intended his characters to have such a power when it would have almost certainly assured brand of victory powers charact |
ers in amber drpg have access to the powers seen in the chronicles of amber pattern logrus shape shifting trump artistry and magic a character who has walked the pattern can walk in shadow to any possible universe and while there can manipulate probability a character who has mastered the logrus can send out logrus tendrils and pull themself or objects through shadow shape shifters can alter their physical form and trump artists can create trumps a sort of tarot card which allows mental communication and travel three types of magic are detailed power words with a quick small effect sorcery with pre prepared spells as in many other game systems and conjuration the creation of small objects each of the first three powers is available in an advanced form artifacts personal shadows and constructs while a character with pattern logrus or conjuration can acquire virtually any object players can choose to spend character points to obtain objects with particular virtues unbreakability or a mind of their own since the |
y have paid points for the items they are a part of the character and cannot lightly be destroyed similarly a character can find any possible universe but they can spend character points to know of or inhabit shadows which are in some sense real and therefore useful the expansion shadow knight adds constructs artifacts with connections to shadows stuff unspent character points become good stuff a good luck for the character players are also allowed to overspend in moderation with the points becoming bad stuff bad luck which the gamemaster should inflict on the character as well as representing luck stuff can be seen as representing a character s outlook on the universe characters with good stuff seeing the multiverse as a cheerful place while characters with bad stuff see it as hostile conflict resolution in any given fair conflict between two characters the character with the higher score in the relevant attribute will eventually win the key word here is fair if characters ranks are close and the weaker char |
acter has obtained some advantage then the weaker character can prevail this concept has been developed further in john wick s advantage system alternatively if characters attribute ranks are close the weaker character can try to change the relevant attribute by changing the nature of the conflict for example if two characters are wrestling the relevant attribute is strength a character could reveal a weapon changing it to warfare they could try to overcome the other character s mind using a power changing it to psyche or they could concentrate their strength on defense changing it to endurance this concept is similar to the concept of escalation in dogs in the vineyard if there is a substantial difference between characters ranks the conflict is generally over before the weaker character can react the golden rule amber drpg advises gamemasters to change rules as they see fit even to the point of adding or removing powers or attributes trivia the book features trump portrait of each of the elder amberites the |
trump picture of corwin is executed in a subtly different style and has features very similar to roger zelazny s references erick wujcik amber diceless roleplaying game phage press one nine nine one isbn one eight eight zero four nine four zero zero zero erick wujcik shadow knight phage press one nine nine three isbn one eight eight zero four nine four zero one nine roger zelazny the great book of amber eos press one nine nine nine isbn zero three eight zero eight zero nine zero six zero external links phage press s homepage for the game guardians of order s amber drpg forum and store amber drpg and shadow knight as pdf downloads westray an amber drpg fansite the golden circle and amber webring with many amber drpg sites the chronicles of amber fantasy role playing games universal role playing games alloy is a combination either in solution or compound of two or more elements which has a combination of at least one metal and where the resultant material has metallic properties an alloy with two components is |
called a binary alloy one with three is a ternary alloy one with four is a quaternary alloy the result is a metallic substance with properties different from those of its components alloys are usually designed to have properties that are more desirable than those of their components for instance steel is stronger than iron one of its main elements and brass is more durable than copper but more attractive than zinc unlike pure metals many alloys do not have a single melting point instead they have a melting range in which the material is a mixture of solid and liquid phases the temperature at which melting begins is called the solidus and that at which melting is complete is called the liquidus special alloys can be designed with a single melting point however and these are called eutectic mixtures sometimes an alloy is just named for the base metal as one four karat five eight gold is an alloy of gold with other elements the same holds for silver used in jewellery and aluminium used structurally the term all |
oy is frequently used in everyday speech as an alternative to aluminium alloy many engineers find this convention offensive since all steels and most other metals in practical use are also alloys a typical example of such usage is alloy wheels fitted to an automobile see also list of alloys intermetallics alloys articles of faith are formal creeds or lists of beliefs sometimes numbered and often beginning with we believe which attempt to more or less define the fundamental theology of a given religion and or church articles of faith are common in both christianity and islam catholicism the nicene creed and the shorter apostles creed are articles or professions of faith said by members of the roman catholic church the nicene is predominantly recited during the catholic mass while the apostle s is typically used for other occasions mormonism the articles of faith of mormonism are a creed composed by joseph smith jr as part of a one eight four two letter sent to long john wentworth editor of the chicago democrat |
it is a concise listing of thirteen fundamental doctrines of mormonism most latter day saint denominations view the articles as an authoritative statement of basic theology some denominations such as the church of jesus christ of latter day saints have adopted the articles as scripture see pearl of great price mormonism protestantism in protestantism several denominations have articles of faith the anglican articles of faith are the thirty nine articles which were issued by the convocation of clergy of the church of england in one five seven one these articles were adapted by john wesley as the articles of religion which are the defining articles of methodism islam traditionally there are six basic beliefs of muslims of which include a belief in oneness of god angels prophets scriptures the day of judgment and the akhirah or afterlife predestination in sahih al muslim and al bukhari muhammad explains it al iman faith is to affirm your faith in allah his angels his books his messengers and the last day and to |
believe in the divine destiny whether it be good or bad retrieved from aqidah christianity christian texts latter day saint texts for the speculative fiction subgenre see alternate history fiction alternative history or alternate history develops out of historiography to identify historical points of view that have been ignored overlooked or unseeable it usually denotes a history told from an alternative viewpoint rather than from the view actual or ascribed obvious or inferred of imperialists conquerors or explorers for example a people s history of the united states offers a view sympathetic to people indigenous to the americas while the term herstory was coined to denote history presented from a feminist perspective this falls into two major categories historical revisionism is the reexamination of the accepted facts and interpretations of history with an eye towards updating it with newly discovered more accurate less biased or differently biased information when revisionism takes on a partisan tone it i |
s usually called political historical revisionism i e a construction of past events which is refuted by well documented verifiable and very broadly accepted sources such histories may tend to blame their lack of scholarship or documentation on a conspiracy to erase such evidence other alternative histories include the genre of speculative fiction includes the subgenre of fictitious alternative history set in worlds in which history has diverged from history as it actually happened the term uchronia refers to a hypothetical time period in such a divergent world failed history covers events that have been predicted and had items created in the expectation that they would occur but then in fact did not occur virtual history also known as counterfactual history is a form of history which attempts to answer what if questions it is an academic extrapolation of alternate outcomes of historical events alternate history throughout history forms of art have gone through periodic abrupt changes called artistic revolutio |
ns movements have come to an end to be replaced by a new movement markedly different in striking ways see also cultural movements artistic revolution and cultural political revolutions the role of fine art has been to simultaneously express values of the current culture while also offering criticism balance or alternatives to any such values that are proving no longer useful so as times change art changes if changes were abrupt they were deemed revolutions the best artists have predated society s changes due not to any prescenience but because sensitive perceptivity is part of their talent of seeing artists have had to see issues clearly in order to satisfy their current clients yet not offend potential patrons for example paintings glorified aristocracy in the early one six zero zero s when leadership was needed to nationalize small political groupings but later as leadership became oppressive satirization increased and subjects were less concerned with leaders and more with more common plights of mankind ex |
amples of revoutionary art in conjunction with cultural political movements trotskyist impressionism vitalized brush strokes and color degas monet renoir burst onto the french culture effecting a revolution with a style that has become commonplace today an artistic revolution can be begun by a single artist but unless that artist gains some understanding he becomes an iconoclast the first abstract expressionists were considered madmen to give up their brushes and rely on the sheer force of energy to leave an image but then the import of atomic bombs all atomic energy became realized and art found no better way of expressing its power jackson pollack is the artist best known for starting that revolution art history agrarianism is a social and political philosophy in his introduction to his one nine six nine book agrarianism in american literature m thomas inge defines agrarianism by the following basic tenets cultivation of the soil provides direct contact with nature through the contact with nature the agrari |
an is blessed with a closer relationship to god farming has within it a positive spiritual good the farmer acquires the virtues of honor manliness self reliance courage moral integrity and hospitality and follows the example of god when creating order out of chaos the farmer has a sense of identity a sense of historical and religious tradition a feeling of belonging to a concrete family place and region which are psychologically and culturally beneficial the harmony of this life checks the encroachments of a fragmented alienated modern society which has grown to inhuman scale in contrast farming offers total independence and self sufficiency it has a solid stable position in the world order but urban life capitalism and technology destroy our independence and dignity while fostering vice and weakness within us the agricultural community can provide checks and balances against the imbalances of modern society by its fellowship of labor and cooperation with other agrarians while obeying the rhythms of nature th |
e agrarian community is the model society for mankind agrarianism is not identical with the back to the earth movement but it can be helpful to think of it in those terms the agrarian philosophy is not to get people to reject progress but rather to concentrate on the fundamental goods of the earth communities of more limited economic and political scale than in modern society and on simple living even when this shift involves questioning the progressive character of some recent social and economic developments thus agrarianism is not industrial farming with its specialization on products and industrial scale the name agrarian is properly applied to figures from horace and virgil through thomas jefferson transcendentals like emerson and thoreau the southern agrarians movement of the one nine two zero s and one nine three zero s also known as the vanderbilt agrarians and present day authors wendell berry alan carlson victor davis hanson and michael bunker in the one nine one zero s and one nine two zero s agrar |
ianism garnered significant popular attention but was eclipsed in the postwar period it revived somewhat in conjunction with the one nine six zero s environmentalist movement and has been drawing an increasing number of adherents recent agrarian thinkers are sometimes referred to as neo agrarian see also junkers german landed aristocracy the amish and mennonites agrarian society alberta progressive conservatives back to the land external links agrarianism in american conservatism an encyclopedia christian agrarianism biblical agrarianism the new agrarian the agrarian foundation political theories this article is about angles in geometry for other articles see angle disambiguation an angle from the lat angulus a corner a diminutive of which the primitive form angus does not occur in latin cognate are the lat angere to compress into a bend or to strangle and the greek angul s crooked curved both connected with the aryan or indo european root ank to bend is the figure formed by two rays sharing a common endpoint |
called the vertex of the angle angles provide a means of expressing the difference in slope between two rays meeting at a vertex without the need to explicitly define the slopes of the two rays angles are studied in geometry and trigonometry euclid defines a plane angle as the inclination to each other in a plane of two lines which meet each other and do not lie straight with respect to each other according to proclus an angle must be either a quality or a quantity or a relationship the first concept was used by eudemus who regarded an angle as a deviation from a straight line the second by carpus of antioch who regarded it as the interval or space between the intersecting lines euclid adopted the third concept although his definitions of right acute and obtuse angles are certainly quantitative units of measure for angles in order to measure an angle a circle centered at the vertex is drawn since the circumference of a circle is always directly proportional to the length of its radius the measure of the angl |
e is independent of the size of the circle note that angles are dimensionless since they are defined as the ratio of lengths the radian measure of the angle is the length of the arc cut out by the angle divided by the circle s radius the si system of units uses radians as the derived unit for angles this is also roughly subdivided into the mil which has several definitions in practice because of the relationship to arc length radians are a special unit sines and cosines whose argument is in radians have particular analytic properties just as do exponential functions in the base e as we ve discovered this is no coincidence the degree measure of the angle is the length of the arc divided by the circumference of the circle and multiplied by three six zero the symbol for degrees is a small superscript circle as in three six zero two radians is equal to three six zero a full circle so one radian is about five seven and one degree is one eight zero radians degrees are further broken down into minutes of arc and sec |
onds of arc which are one six zero th and one three six zero zero th of a degree respectively minutes of arc are commonly encountered in discussions of external ballistics as a minute of arc covers almost exactly one inch at one zero zero yards one m at one two zero zero m a rifle capable of shooting one moa one minute of arc can place all shots within one inch at one zero zero yards two inches at two zero zero yards etc minutes of arc were also used in navigation and a nautical mile is roughly defined as one minute of arc of the earth s surface the grad also called grade gradian or gon is an angular measure where the arc is divided by the circumference and multiplied by four zero zero it is used mostly in triangulation the point is used in navigation and is defined as one three two of a circle or exactly one one two five the full circle or full turns represents the number or fraction of complete full turns for example two radians nine zero one four full circle conventions on measurement a convention universa |
lly adopted in mathematical writing is that angles given a sign are positive angles if measured counterclockwise and negative angles if measured clockwise from a given line if no line is specified it can be assumed to be the x axis in the cartesian plane in navigation bearings are measured from north increasing clockwise so a bearing of four five is north east negative bearings are not used in navigation so north west is three one five in mathematics radians are assumed unless specified otherwise because this removes the arbitrariness of the number three six zero in the degree system and because the trigonometric functions can be developed into particularly simple taylor series if their arguments are specified in radians types of angles an angle of two radians or nine zero one quarter of the full circle is called a right angle two line segments rays or lines or any combination which form a right angle are said to be either perpendicular or orthogonal angles smaller than a right angle are called acute angles l |
ess than nine zero degrees angles larger than a right angle are called obtuse angles more than nine zero degrees less that one eight zero angles equal to two right angles are called straight angles equal to one eight zero degrees angles large than two right angles are called relex angles more than one eight zero degrees the difference between an acute angle and a right angle is termed the complement of the angle the difference between an angle and two right angles is termed the supplement of the angle some facts in euclidean geometry the inner angles of a triangle add up to radians or one eight zero the inner angles of a quadrilateral add up to two radians or three six zero in general the inner angles of a simple polygon with n sides add up to n two radians or n two one eight zero if two straight lines intersect four angles are formed each one has an equal measure to the angle across from it these congruent angles are called vertical angles if a straight transversal line intersects two parallel lines correspo |
nding alternate angles at the two points of intersection are equal adjacent angles are supplementary that is they add to radians or one eight zero a formal definition a euclidean angle is completely determined by the corresponding right triangle in particular if theta is a euclidean angle it is true that cos theta frac and sin theta frac for two numbers x and y so an angle can be legitimately given by two numbers x and y to the ratio frac there correspond two angles in the geometric range zero since frac frac frac frac frac angles in different contexts in the euclidean plane the angle between two vectors u and v is related to their dot product and their lengths by the formula mathbf cdot mathbf cos theta mathbf mathbf this allows one to define angles in any real inner product space replacing the euclidean dot product by the hilbert space inner product the angle between a line and a curve mixed angle or between two intersecting curves curvilinear angle is defined to be the angle between the tangents at the poi |
nt of intersection various names now rarely if ever used have been given to particular cases amphicyrtic gr on both sides convex or cissoidal gr ivy biconvex xystroidal or sistroidal gr a tool for scraping concavo convex amphicoelic gr a hollow or angulus lunularis biconcave two intersecting planes form an angle called their dihedral angle it is defined as the angle between two lines normal to the planes also a plane and an intersecting line form an angle this angle is equal to two radians minus the angle between the intersecting line and the line that goes through the point of intersection and is perpendicular to the plane angles in riemannian geometry in riemannian geometry the metric tensor is used to define the angle between two tangents where u and v are tangent vectors and g ij are the components of the metric tensor g cos theta fracu iv j u iu j right left g v iv j right angles in astronomy in astronomy one can measure the angular separation of two stars by imagining two lines through the earth each on |
e intersecting one of the stars then the angle between those lines can be measured this is the angular separation between the two stars astronomers also measure the apparent size of objects for example the full moon has an angular measurement of approximately zero five when viewed from earth one could say the moon subtends an angle of half a degree the small angle formula can be used to convert such an angular measurement into a distance size ratio angles in maritime navigation the modern format of angle used to indicate longitude or latitude is hemisphere degree minute decimal where there are six zero minutes in a degree for instance n five one two three four three eight or e zero nine zero five eight nine two eight the obsolete but still commonly used format of angle used to indicate longitude or latitude is hemisphere degree minute second where there are six zero minutes in a degree and six zero seconds in a minute for instance n five one two three two six or e zero nine zero five eight five seven see also |
central angle complementary angles inscribed angle supplementary angles solid angle for a concept of angle in three dimensions astrological aspect external links angle bisectors at cut the knot angle bisectors and perpendiculars in a quadrilateral at cut the knot angle bisectors in a quadrilateral at cut the knot constructing a triangle from its angle bisectors at cut the knot elementary geometry trigonometry angle asa may be any of the following asa of judah king of judah the son of abijam and grandson of rehoboam asa god of the akamba people of kenya asa dotzler the founder and coordinator of mozilla s quality assurance and testing program sa the genitive of sir the predominant group among the norse gods united states army security agency united states adult soccer association american speed association was a second tier stock car racing circuit in the united states see also asa acoustics is a branch of physics and is the study of sound mechanical waves in gases liquids and solids a scientist who works in |
the field of acoustics is an acoustician the application of acoustics in technology is called acoustical engineering there is often much overlap and interaction between the interests of acousticians and acoustical engineers acoustics is characterized by its reliance on combinations of physical principles drawn from other sources and that the primary task of modern physical acoustics is to effect a fusion of the principles normally adhering to other sciences into a coherent basis for understanding measuring controlling and using the whole gamut of vibrational phenomena in any material phillip origins in acoustics f v hunt yale university press one nine seven eight the main sub disciplines of acoustics are aeroacoustics is the study of aerodynamic sound generated when a fluid flow interacts with a solid surface or with another flow it has particular application to aeronautics examples being the study of sound made by jets and the physics of shock waves sonic booms architectural acoustics is the study of how sou |
nd and buildings interact including the behavior of sound in concert halls and auditoriums but also in office buildings factories and homes bioacoustics is the study of the use of sound by animals such as whales dolphins and bats biomedical acoustics is the study of the use of sound in medicine for example the use of ultrasound for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes loudspeaker acoustics is an engineering discipline behind the design of the loudspeaker psychoacoustics is the study of how people react to sound hearing perception and localization psychological acoustics is the study of the mechanical electrical and biochemical function of hearing in living organisms physical acoustics is the study of the detailed interaction of sound with materials and fluids and includes for example sonoluminescence the emission of light by bubbles in a liquid excited by sound and thermoacoustics the interaction of sound and heat speech communication is the study of how speech is produced the analysis of speech signals and th |
e properties of speech transmission storage recognition and enhancement vibration acoustics structural acoustics and vibration is the study of how sound and mechanical structures interact for example the transmission of sound through walls and the radiation of sound from vehicle panels ultrasonics is the study of high frequency sound beyond the range of human hearing wolffian acousitics is the study of salient features of pediatric ultrasound insofar as it reviews technologic factors technique and the normal anatomy used to evaluate the pediatric tract for abnormality musical acoustics is the study of the physics of musical instruments underwater acoustics is the study of the propagation of sound in the oceans closely associated with sonar research and development acoustic engineering is the study of how sound is generated and measured by loudspeakers microphones sonar projectors hydrophones ultrasonic transducers sensors electro acoustics and all other topics on this list see external links a sound wave is c |
haracterized by its speed its wavelength and its amplitude the speed of sound depends on the medium through which the sound travels and also depends on temperature and not on the air pressure the speed of sound is about three four zero m s in air and one five zero zero m s in water the wavelength is the distance from one wave peak to the next the wavelength lambda of a sound wave is related to the speed of sound c and its frequency f by lambda frac sound pressure level spl the amplitude of a sound wave is usually characterized by its sound pressure in a normal working environment a very wide range of pressures can occur and it is therefore a convention that sound pressure is measured on a logarithmic scale using the decibel if p is the rms sound pressure amplitude then the sound pressure level spl is defined as two zero times the logarithm of the ratio of the pressure to some reference pressure sound pressure level spl is calculated in decibels as l p two zero log left frac right one zero log left frac right |
mbox spl the reference sound pressure in air is by convention the threshold of hearing p zero two cdot one zero mbox two zero pa in air and one pa in water pa pascal n m n newton when speaking of sound levels one must be sure to differentiate between sound pressure levels and sound power levels sound pressure levels are recorded by microphones and other devices this is a measurement of the amount of pressure in the air being sensed at a given location it follows that its value can be determined through direct experimentation in comparison sound power levels are a measurement of the actual energy being put into use by a given device to create noise because of environmental factors and other influences the amount of energy a device devotes to creating sound may not be equal to the actual level of the sound as it s perceived it can be useful to express sound pressure in this way when dealing with hearing as the perceived loudness of a sound correlates roughly logarithmically to its sound pressure both microphone |
s and eardrums respond to the sound pressure level they cannot convert the sound intensity sound power measurements cannot be directly measured and must be inferred through other data measurement methods there are two popular ways for scientists to perform sound power level measurements they include a direct method and a comparison method the direct method computes sound power levels by computing an equation of environmental factors such as room temperature humidity reverberation time etc and sound pressure levels a more precise implementation of this method can be found in the iso three seven four five acoustics standard the comparison method however is conducted by measuring sound pressure levels from a reference sound source which emits a known constant sound power level and then comparing that level with the sound pressure level of the object being recorded each way is equally valid and accurate reverberation and anechoic rooms experiments such as the two methods mentioned above are sometimes performed in |
reverberation rooms or in some cases anechoic rooms the design of a reverberation room is to create long lasting reflections or echoes of sound waves this helps create a highly averaged and omnidirectional sound level throughout the entire chamber a typical example of rooms with characteristics similar to reverberation rooms are concrete tunnels caves etc anechoic rooms such as hemi anechoic rooms or fully anechoic rooms are created to simulate what is called a free field a free field is the representation of a theoretical infinite space in which no sound wave reflections or echoes take place in rooms such as these the only sounds which exist are being emitted directly from the source and are not reflected from another part of the chamber anechoic rooms have the characteristic of being muted and muffled helmholtz resonator a helmholtz resonator is a container with an open hole or neck it is sometimes used as a passive noise control device it behaves essentially as a mass spring damper system and its resonant |
frequency can be calculated as follows f resonant frequency s speed of sound in air r radius of neck a area of neck l length of neck l effective length of neck l l one seven r outer end flanged l l one four r outer end unflanged v volume f s two pi sqrt a container with a hole rather than a neck behaves as being flanged with a neck length of zero the helmholtz resonator is an example of the lumped component model of acoustic systems which is useful when the wavelength of interest is significantly larger than the physical dimensions of the system familiar examples of helmholtz resonators include blowing across the top of a bottle whistling and the ocarina rectangular boxes f frequency of standing wave of a rectangular box s speed of sound in air x y z dimensions of box n x n y n z any integers f s two sqrt see also more specialized areas of acoustics include but are not limited to tonal analysis sound quality assessments and noise control subfields and related fields of acoustics acoustic theory structural ac |
oustics noise control outdoor sound propagation room acoustics concert hall acoustics musical instruments underwater acoustics audio signal processing audio storage sound synthesis speech processing psychoacoustics important publications in acoustics external links acoustics educational site with great animations helmholtz resonator helmholtz resonance helmholtz resonator with oscilloscope acoustic engineering at universidad austral de chile sounds amazing a learning resource for sound and waves church acoustics acoustics building engineering atomic physics or atom physics is the field of physics that studies the electron hull of atoms lay people often associate the term atomic physics with nuclear power and nuclear bombs obviously due to the synonymous use of atomic and nuclear in standard english however physicists distinguish between atomic physics dealing with the effects of the electron hull and the nucleus s overall spin and electric charge and nuclear physics dealing with the forces within atomic nucle |
i and reactions that alter fuse or split them the beginning of atomic physics is marked by the discovery and scrutinious study of spectral lines these are sharply defined lines in the spectrum of illuminated or hot hence ionized see flame and hence light emitting free atoms free meaning that they are a gas or vapour and therefore not close to or interacting with other atoms the study of these lines led to the bohr atom model and on to our present understanding of the electron hull of the atom as described by the atomic orbital model which is the basis of all understanding of chemistry these conclusions are however not at all straightforward but rather were required by more than a century of research which has succeeded in putting chemistry on a sound fundament but also gave rise to many other applications see also atomic clock a typical application of atom physics energy level a list of quantum mechanical effects important in atom physics quantum optics a field that has lot of overlap with atom physics extern |
al links atomic physics on the internet atomic physics atomic molecular and optical physics american sign language asl also amslan obs ameslan obs is the dominant sign language in the united states english speaking canada and parts of mexico used particularly in the deaf community although the united kingdom and the united states share english as a spoken language british sign language bsl is quite different from asl and not mutually intelligible asl is also used sometimes alongside indigenous sign languages in the philippines singapore hong kong dominican republic haiti puerto rico c te d ivoire burkina faso ghana togo benin nigeria chad gabon democratic republic of the congo central african republic mauritania kenya madagascar and zimbabwe like other sign languages its grammar and syntax are distinct from any spoken language in its area of influence while there has been no reliable survey of the number of people who use asl as their primary language estimates range from five zero zero zero zero zero to two |
million in the u s a alone american sign language has been said by trudy suggs in her book to be the third most used language in america after english and spanish history of asl in the united states as in most of the world hearing families with deaf children often employ ad hoc home sign for simple communications today though asl classes are offered in many secondary and postsecondary schools asl is a language distinct from spoken english replete with its own syntax and grammar and supporting its own culture the origin of modern asl is ultimately tied to the confluence of many events and circumstances including historical attempts at deaf education possibly the sign used by the indigenous nations of north america the unique situation present on a small island in massachusetts the attempts of a father to enlist a local minister to help educate his deaf daughter and in no small part the ingenuity and genius of people in this case deaf people for language itself standardized sign languages have been used in ital |
y since the one seven th century and in france since the one eight th century for the instruction of the deaf old french sign language was developed and used in paris by the abb de l p e in his school for the deaf these languages were always modeled after the natural sign languages already in use by the deaf cultures in their area of origin often with additions to show aspects of the grammar of the local spoken languages american plains indians used plains indian sign language as an interlanguage for communication between people tribes not sharing a common spoken language its influence on asl if any is unknown off the coast of massachusetts on the island of martha s vineyard in the one eight th century the population had a much higher rate of deafness than the general population of the continental united states because of the founder effect and the island s isolation martha s vineyard sign language was well known by almost all islanders since so many families had deaf members it afforded almost everyone the o |
pportunity to have frequent contact with asl while at an age most conducive to effortlessly learning a language congregationalist minister and deaf educator thomas hopkins gallaudet is credited with popularizing the signing technique in north america at the behest of a father who was interested in educating his deaf daughter alice cogswell he was enlisted to investigate methods of teaching the deaf in the early one eight zero zero s he visited the abb de l p e s school in paris and convinced one of the teachers laurent clerc to return with him to america in one eight one seven they founded the american asylum for the deaf and dumb now the american school for the deaf in hartford connecticut to teach sign language to american deaf students it was at this school that all these influences would intermingle interact and what would become asl was born many of the school s students were from martha s vineyard and they mixed their native sign language with clerc s ofsl other students probably brought their own highl |
y localized sign language or home sign systems to the mix undoubtedly spontaneous lexicon developed at the school as well if there was any influence from sign language of indigenous people it may have been here that it was absorbed into the language interestingly because of the early influence of the sign language of france upon the school the vocabularies of asl and modern french sign language are approximately six zero shared whereas asl and british sign language for example are almost completely dissimilar from its synthesis at this first public school for the deaf in north america the language went on to grow many of the graduates of this school went on to found schools of their own in many other states thus spreading the methods of gallaudet and clerc and serving to expand and standardize the language as with most languages though there are regional variations after being strongly established in this country there was a bitter fight between those who supported oralism over manualism in the late one eight |
zero zero s many notable individuals of high standing contributed to this row such as alexander graham bell the oralists won many battles and for a long time the use of sign was suppressed socially and pedagogically many considered sign to not even be a language at all this situation was changed by william stokoe a professor of english hired at gallaudet university in one nine five five he immediately became fascinated by asl and began serious study of it eventually through publication in linguistics journals of articles containing detailed linguistic analysis of asl he was able to convince the scientific mainstream that asl was indeed a natural language on a par with any other the language continues to grow and change like any living language in particular asl constantly adds new signs in an attempt to keep up with constantly changing technology linguistics asl is a natural language as proved to the satisfaction of the linguistic community by william stokoe and contains phonology morphology semantics syntax |
and pragmatics just like spoken languages it is a manual language meaning that the information is expressed not with combinations of sounds but with combinations of handshapes palm orientations movements of the hands arms and body and facial expressions it is used natively and predominantly by the deaf and hard of hearing of the united states and canada iconicity although it often seems as though the signs are meaningful of themselves in fact they can be as arbitrary as words in spoken language for example hearing children often make the mistake of using you to refer to themselves since others refer to them as you children who acquire the sign you pointing at one s interlocutor make similar mistakes they will point at others to mean themselves indicating that even something as seemingly explicit as pointing is an arbitrary sign in asl like words in a spoken language however edward klima and ursula bellugi have modified the common theory that signs can be self explanatory by grouping signs into three categori |
es transparent non signers can usually correctly guess the meaning translucent meaning makes sense to non signers once it is explained opaque meaning cannot be guessed by non signers klima and bellugi used american sign language in formulating that classification the theory that signs are self explanatory can be conclusively disproved by the fact that non signers cannot understand fluent continuous sign language the majority of signs are opaque generally signs that are transparent are signs of objects or words that became popular after the basics of asl were established there are of course exceptions to this grammar the grammar of asl uses spatial locations motion and context to indicate syntax for example the primary sentence structure in asl is topic comment and object subject verb for example in the sentence i want the book i is the subject book is the object and want is the verb the sentence therefore would be signed as book me want to add a time element such as i want the book tomorrow the time component |
is placed at the beginning of the sentence making it look like this tomorrow book me want in addition prosody can alter sentence structure asl also relies heavily on time sequenced ordering since asl is a visual language when signing a sentence or a story one signs it in the order in which events occurred for example in the case of the sentence i m going to be late tonight because my boss handed me a huge stack of work after lunch one would sign lunch finish boss give me big stack work will arrive late in the case of stories however time sequenced ordering can be a little more malleable since one could choose to sign information either in the order in which events occurred or in the order in which one found out about events if a signer signs a noun and then points to a certain spot he or she can refer back to that noun by pointing again to the same spot this is also known as setting up something for instance if you point to a spot over your right shoulder in talking about your grandmother in another city the |
n when you mention her again instead of signing grandmother you can just point back to the same spot within asl there is a class of directional verbs these include the signs for pay give show invite send and several others depending on which way the hand moves either away from the body or towards distinguishes between the subject and object of the sentence which are both included within the one sign for example to sign i give you the hand in the shape of a flattened o moves away from the signer s body in signing you give me the same handshape is drawn toward the body to intensify the meaning of a verb or adjective e g to say very calm instead of calm the signer modulates the way it is expressed certain short words such as sad or mad might be fingerspelled rather than signed other words can be repeated or slowed down emphasizing their importance or degree some signs may be enlarged so that they take up more body space this can also involve a back and forth scissoring motion of the arms to indicate that the sig |
n ought to be larger but one is physically incapable of stretching the arms any farther than they already are moving the whole body and adding facial expressions are also useful modifiers raised eyebrows can indicate a yes or no question while lowered eyebrows indicate a wh question or one that requests more information such as those that would use the question words who what when where or why to ask a rhetorical question the eyebrows are raised to give the cue not to reply such as i don t like what raised eyebrows garlic like some spoken languages asl does not use the linking verb to be either as a copula or a helping verb an example of a copula is the english phrase my hair is wet which when translated into asl would be transliterated as my hair wet the comma indicates a short pause and raised eyebrow to topicalize my hair an example of a helping verb is translating the english phrase we are going to the store tomorrow some possible asl sentences literally translated could be tomorrow store we go topicaliza |
tion tomorrow is the focus store we go tomorrow topicalization store is the focus in asl a signer might not use the word because but instead break down the sentence into a rhetorical question this is often used for clarity or emphasis for instance i love to eat pasta because i am italian would be translated into i love eat pasta why i italian rhetorical questions do not replace the word because rather they are used only when the speaker deems it necessary some signs can be executed in different locations for contextual reasons the sign for pain two pointed index fingers aimed at each other moved towards then away from each other can be signed over one s leg to show that there is pain in the leg or over the belly to indicate abdominal pain facial expression is also key in asl in signing angry a facial expression of anger should be put on without expressions like this the effect would be similar to listening to someone who was speaking in extremely monotone spoken english or it would be taken as an indication o |
f sarcasm or some other departure from the usual meaning of the sign asl also makes use of mouth morphemes certain sounds or mouth configurations that add meaning to a sign for example one could sign he tall and communicate that a man is reasonably tall but by adding the mouth morpheme cha the sentence would then be understood as he s enormous writing systems asl is often glossed with english words written in all capital letters this is however a method used simply to teach the structure of the language asl is a visual language not a written language there is no one to one correspondence between words in asl and english and much of the inflectional modulation of asl signs is lost there are two true writing systems in use for asl a phonemic stokoe notation which has a separate symbol or diacritic mark for every phonemic hand shape motion and position though it leaves something to be desired in the representation of facial expression and a more popular iconic system called signwriting which represents each sign |
with a rather abstract illustration of its salient features signwriting is commonly used for student newsletters and similar purposes baby sign in recent years it has been shown that exposure to sign language has a positive impact on the socialization of hearing children when infants are taught to sign parents are able to converse with them at a developmental stage when they are not yet capable of producing verbal speech which requires fine control of both breathing and the vocal tract the ability of a child to actively communicate earlier than would otherwise be possible appears to accelerate language development and to decrease the frustrations of communication many parents use a collection of simplified or ad hoc signs called baby sign as infants do not have the dexterity required for true asl however parents can learn to recognize their baby s approximations of adult asl signs just as later on they will learn to recognize their approximations of verbal language so teaching an infant asl is also possible |
typically young children will make an asl sign in the correct location and use the correct hand motion but may be able only to approximate the handshape for example using one finger instead of three in signing water primate usage asl has allegedly been taught to both species of chimpanzee the bonobo and common chimpanzee as well as to gorillas several of the animals have been said to have mastered more than one hundred signs though not all agree with the ability of the primates to sign for example when the washoe research team asked the handlers of the chimp to write signs down whenever they witnessed them being produced by washoe the hearing people on the team turned in long lists of signs while the only deaf native speaker of asl on the team turned in blank lists explaining that what she saw were not signs at all but simply gestures further fomenting the controversy the researchers in the studies of koko and washoe refused to share their raw data with the scientific community the theory that non human prima |
tes have learned asl or that they are even capable of learning asl or any other natural language is not currently accepted by linguists including linguists who accept similar but better documented claims of rudimentary human language acquisition by birds despite this however research on the ability of primates to learn symbol systems continues and receives occasional publicity in the media see also american sign language alphabet british sign language signing exact english gallaudet university registry of interpreters for the deaf external links silent eloquence the sophistication of american sign language going to read this sign languages and that rise in the voice the american sign language linguistics research project publications of the asllrp the syntactic organization of american sign language a synopsis pdf asl resource site free online lessons asl dictionary and resources for teachers students and parents handspeak a leading online website on asl international sign gestures baby sign and more about as |
l article at deaflibrary org ethnologue entry on asl videos dictionary of asl chimpanzees humphries tom one nine eight eight deaf in america voices from a culture cambridge ma harvard university press isbn zero six seven four one nine four two three three sacks oliver w one nine eight nine seeing voices a journey into the land of the deaf berkeley university of california press isbn zero five two zero zero six zero eight three zero stokoe william c one nine six zero sign language structure an outline of the visual communication systems of the american deaf studies in linguistics occasional papers no eight buffalo dept of anthropology and linguistics university of buffalo sign languages deaf culture languages of the united states languages of canada languages of mexico an applet is a software component that runs in the context of another program for example a web browser an applet usually performs a very narrow function that has no independent use hence it is an app lication let the term was introduced in appl |
escript in one nine nine three an applet is distinguished from subroutine by several features first it executes only on the client platform environment of a system as contrasted from servlet as such an applet provides functionality or performance beyond the default capabilities of its container the browser also in contrast with a subroutine certain capabilities are restricted by the container an applet is written in a language that is different from the scripting or html language which invokes it the applet is written in a compiled language while the scripting language of the container is an interpreted language hence the greater performance or functionality of the applet unlike a subroutine a complete web component can be implemented as an applet attributes unlike a program an applet cannot run independently an applet usually features display and graphics and often interacts with the human user however they are usually stateless and have restricted security privileges the applet must run in a container which |
is provided by a host program through a plugin or a variety of other applications including mobile devices that support the applet programming model interfaces applets usually have some form of user interface or perform a particular piece of the overall user interface in a web page this distinguishes them from a program written in a scripting programming language such as javascript that also runs in the context of a larger client program but which would not be considered an applet applets generally have the capability of interacting with and or influencing their host program through the restricted security privileges although they are generally not required to do so examples common examples of applets are java applets and flash movies another example is the windows media player applet that is used to display embeded video files in internet explorer and other browsers that support the plugin some plugins also allow for displaying various three d model formats in a web browser via an applet that allow the view |
of the model to be rotated and zoomed many browser games are applet based though some may develop into fully functional applications that require installation see also java applet some mathematics applets at mit programming paradigms technology neologisms alternate history or alternative history is a subgenre of speculative fiction or some would say of science fiction that is set in a world in which history has diverged from history as it is generally known more simply put alternate history asks the question what if history had developed differently most works that employ this rubric are set in factful historical contexts yet feature several social geopolitical or industrial circumstances that developed differently or at a different pace from our own sometimes as a result of progress in technological or social paradigms that were accomplished via the understanding already present in the given zeitgeist while to some extent all fiction can be described as alternate history the subgenre proper comprises fictio |
n in which a change happens that causes history to diverge from our own since the one nine five zero s this type of fiction has to a large extent merged with science fictional framings involving a cross time or paratime travel between alternate histories universes or some kind of psychic awareness of the existence of our universe by the people in the other as in nabokov and dick see below or b ordinary voyaging uptime or downtime that results in a world splitting into two or more new timelines so close have the cross time time splitting and alternate history themes been interwoven that it is impossible to discuss them fully apart from one another thus cross time and time splitting stories will be an important part of this article insofar as they portray one or more alternate histories that diverged from a common past in french alternate history novels are called uchronie this neologism is based on the word utopia a place that doesn t exist and the greek for time chronos an uchronie then is defined as a time t |
hat doesn t exist history of alternate history fiction antiquity the earliest example of alternate history appears to be book ix sections one seven one nine of livy s history of rome from its foundation he contemplates the possibility of alexander the great expanding his father s empire westward instead of eastward and attacking rome in the four th century bc one nine th century the earliest alternate history published as a complete work rather than an aside or digression in a longer work is believed to be louis napol on geoffroy ch teau s french nationalist tale napol on et la conqu te du monde one eight one two one eight two three one eight three six in english napoleon and the conquest of the world in this book geoffroy ch teau postulates that napoleon turns away from moscow before the disastrous winter of one eight one two without the severe losses he suffered historically napoleon is able to conquer the world geoffroy ch teau s book must have been popular in france for the subsequent years saw many simil |
ar novels published in the english language the first known complete alternate history is nathaniel hawthorne s short story p s correspondence published in one eight four six and which recounts the tale of an apparent madman and his purported encounters with various literary and political figures of the one eight four zero s at novel length the first alternate history in english would seem to be castello holford s aristopia one eight nine five while not as nationalistic as napol on et la conqu te du monde one eight one two one eight two three aristopia is another attempt to portray a utopian society which never existed in aristopia the earliest settlers in virginia discover a reef made of solid gold and are able to build a utopian society in north america early two zero th century and the era of the pulps although a number of alternate history stories and novels appeared in the late one eight zero zero s and early one nine zero zero s the next major work is perhaps the strongest anthology of alternate history |
ever assembled in one nine three two british historian sir john squire collected a series of essays many of which could be considered stories in if it had happened otherwise from some of the leading historians of the period in this work scholars from major universities as well as important non university based authors turned their attention to such questions as if the moors in spain had won and if louis xvi had had an atom of firmness the essays range from serious scholarly efforts through henrik van loon s fanciful and satiric portrayal of an independent two zero th century dutch city state on the island of manhattan four of the fourteen pieces examined the two most popular themes in alternate history prior to the second world war napoleon s victory and the american civil war one of the entries in squire s volume was winston churchill s if lee had not won the battle of gettysburg written from the viewpoint of a historian in a world where the confederacy had won the american civil war considering what would |
have happened if the north had been victorious this kind of speculative work which posts from the point of view of an alternate history is variously known as a recursive alternate history a double blind what if or an alternate alternate history other authors appearing in squire s book included hilaire belloc and andr maurois another example of alternate history from this period and arguably the first to explicitly posit cross time travel from one universe to another as anything more than a visionary experience was h g wells men like gods one nine two three in which several british politicians are transferred via an accidental encounter with a cross time machine into an alternate universe in which britain had changed course in earlier centuries and developed into a seemingly pacifistic and utopian society when the politicians from our world try to seize power the utopians simply point a ray gun at them and send them on to someone else s universe wells works out the entire multiverse pancake framing complete wi |
th paratime travel machines that would become popular with u s pulp writers see below but since his hero experiences only a single alternate world this story is not very different from conventional alternate history the intruders from our world cause no significant change in the world they enter and are really just a device for examining the results of a past divergence between wells utopia and our own world the one nine three zero s would see alternate history move into a new arena the december one nine three three issue of astounding published nat schachner s ancestral voices this was quickly followed by murray leinster s sidewise in time while earlier alternate histories examined reasonably straight forward divergences leinster attempted something completely different in his world gone mad pieces of earth traded places with their analogs from different timelines the story follows robinson college professor minott as he wanders through these analogs each of which features remnants of worlds which followed a |
different history time travel as a means of creating historical divergences this period also saw the publication of the time travel novel lest darkness fall by l sprague de camp which was similar to mark twain s a connecticut yankee in king arthur s court but sent an american academic to the italy of the ostrogoths at the time of the byzantine invasion led by belisarius de camp s work is concerned with the historical changes wrought by his time traveler martin padway thereby making the work an alternate history padway is depicted as making permament changes and implicitly forming a new time branch in contrast to twain s hero who ultimately fails with the result that history reverts to its normal course time travel as the cause of a point of divergence creating two histories where before there was one or simply replacing the future that existed before the time traveling event has continued to be a popular theme over the decades in bring the jubilee by ward moore the hero who lives in a backward world in which |
the south won the civil war travels through time and brings about an alternate history in which the north won at gettysburg ray bradbury s a sound of thunder creates a scenario in which the time travelers inadvertently destroy all history as we know it when a story s assumptions about the nature of time necessitate as in the bradbury tale a replacement of the visited historical time s future rather than just the creation of a new time line the next step is obviously the founding of a time patrol a device that is not to be confused with the paratime police see below such an agency has the grim task of saving civilization every day every hour with patrol members depicted most notably in poul anderson s time patrol racing uptime and downtime to preserve the correct history of course not all time travel stories involve alternate histories the writer may ignore the possibility of change or have the cause and effect work out so that the time traveler s actions cause the future he remembers as in harry harrison s t |
echnicolor time machine the connecticut yankee wins at last a recent time travelling splitter variant involves entire communities and not just individuals like twain s connecticut yankee being shifted uptime to be the founding fathers of new time branches these communities are transported either from the present or the near future to the past via a natural disaster the action of technologically advanced aliens or a human experiment gone wrong s m stirling has written the island in the sea of time trilogy in which nantucket island and all its modern inhabitants are transported to bronze age times to become the world s first superpower in eric flint s one six three two series a small town in west virginia is transported to one seven th century europe and leads a revolution against the hapsburgs john birmingham s axis of time trilogy deals with the culture shock when a united nations naval task force from two zero two one finds itself back in one nine four two helping the allies against the japanese and the germ |
ans and doing almost as much harm as good in spite of its advanced weapons cross time stories h g wells cross time many universes variant see above was fully developed by de camp in his one nine four zero short story the wheels of if unknown fantasy fiction october one nine four zero in which the hero is repeatedly shifted from one alternate history to another each more remote from our own than the last this subgenre was used early on for purposes far removed from quasi academic examination of alternative outcomes to historical events fredric brown employed it to satirize the s f pulps and their adolescent readers and fears of foreign invasion in the classic what mad universe one nine four nine in clifford simak s ring around the sun one nine five three the hero ends up in an alternate earth of thick forests in which humanity never developed the ultimate divergence but where a band of mutants is establishing a colony the story line appears to frame the author s anxieties regarding mccarthyism and the cold war |
introducing the paratime patrol also in the late one nine four zero s and the one nine five zero s however writers such as h beam piper sam merwin jr and andre norton wrote thrillers set in a multiverse in which all alternate histories are co existent and travel between them occurs via a technology involving portals and or paratime capsules these authors established the convention of a secret paratime trading empire that exploits and or protects worlds lacking the paratime technology via a network of james bond style secret agents piper called them the paratime police this concept provided a convenient framing for packing a smorgasbord of historical alternatives and even of timeline branches into a single novel either via the hero chasing or being chased by the villain s through multiple worlds or less artfully via discussions between the paratime cops and their superiors or between paratime agents and new recruits regarding the histories of such worlds paratime thrillers published in recent decades often ci |
te the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics first formulated by hugh everett iii in one nine five seven to account for the differing worlds prior to everett science fiction writers drew on cruder fringe science and ouspenskian speculations to explain their characters cross time jauntings the popular theme was further developed in the one nine six zero s by keith laumer in the first two volumes of his imperium trilogy which would be completed in zone yellow one nine nine zero piper s politically more sophisticated variant was adopted and adapted by michael kurland and jack chalker in the one nine eight zero s chalker s god inc trilogy one nine eight seven eight nine featuring paratime detectives sam and brandy horowitz marks the first attempt at merging the paratime thriller with the police procedural kurland s perchance one nine eight eight the first volume of the never completed chronicles of elsewhen presents a multiverse of secretive empires that utilize a variety of means for cross time travel |
ranging from high tech capsules to mutant powers the concept of a cross time version of a world war involving rival paratime empires was developed in richard c meredith s timeliner trilogy in the one nine seven zero s michael mccollum s a greater infinity one nine eight two and john barnes timeline wars trilogy in the one nine nine zero s given the limitless fictional possibilities of paratime travel themes and the fact that both string theory and the many worlds theory of quantum physics provide a highly plausible hard science fiction foundation for such stories it is probable that this variant will continue to flourish in tandem with the more conventional alternate history stories described below development of more sophisticated framings most of the early cross time thrillers depicted the multiverse in euclidean terms pancake universes stretching to left and right of any given zero universe with the divergence point being earlier and earlier and the differences greater and greater the farther one moved in |
either direction from the zero point mccollum and some later writers however have posited a pseudo einsteinian paratime in which universes are constantly shifting around moving closer or farther from each other with time dilating or contracting from one universe to another in unpredicable ways this framing device expands the potential for using cross time fiction to compare different outcomes uptime downtime and crosstime all at once major u s writers explore alternate histories in one nine six two philip k dick published the man in the high castle an alternate history in which nazi germany and imperial japan won world war ii this book widely regarded as dick s masterpiece has enhanced the prestige of alternate history in mainstream literary circles although dick was not yet recognized beyond s f circles when it was first published dick s book also contained an example of alternate alternate history in that one of its characters is the author of a book in which the allies won the war it was followed by vladim |
ir nabokov s ada one nine six nine full title ada or ardor a family chronicle a story of incest that takes place within an alternate north america settled in part by czarist russia and that borrows from dick s idea of alternate alternate history the world of nabokov s hero is wracked by rumors of a counter earth that apparently is ours some critics believe that the references to a counter earth suggest that the world portrayed in ada is a delusion in the mind of the hero another favorite theme of dick s novels but even if the ada world is regarded as a delusion it is still alternate history since nabokov describes it in detail and makes it come alive artistically since all ah works are imaginative fiction it really matters little if the ah is presented as the author s fiction alone or as the author s fiction mediated through a delusional character the plot against america two zero zero four by philip roth looks at an america where franklin delano roosevelt is defeated in one nine four zero in his bid for a th |
ird term as president of the united states and charles lindbergh is elected leading to increasing fascism in the u s contemporary alternate history in popular literature including the s f genre the late one nine eight zero s and the one nine nine zero s saw a boom in popular fiction versions of alternate history fueled by the emergence of harry turtledove the steampunk genre and two series of anthologies the what might have been series edited by gregory benford and the alternate series edited by mike resnick this period also saw alternate history works by s m stirling kim stanley robinson harry harrison and others since the late one nine nine zero s harry turtledove has been the most prolific practitioner of alternate history his books include a series in which the south won the american civil war and another in which aliens invade earth during the second world war other stories by this author include one with the premise that america had not been colonized from asia during the last ice age as a result the co |
ntinent still has living mammoths and a hominid species other than homo sapiens most recently two zero zero five he has begun a series in which the japanese not only bomb pearl harbor but also invade and occupy the hawaiian islands he has also launched an alternate history series for teenagers that utilizes a version of h beam piper s paratime trading empire framing perhaps the most incessantly explored theme in popular alternate history focusses on worlds in which the nazis won world war two in some versions the nazis conquer the entire world in others they conquer most of the world but a fortress america exists under siege fatherland one nine nine two by robert harris set in europe following the nazi victory has been widely praised for portraying a more believable society and series of events than most other novels set in a nazified world or nazified eurasia several writers have posited points of departure for such a world but then have injected time splitters from the future or paratime travel for instance |
james p hogan s the proteus operation one nine eight six and michael p kube mcdowell s alternities one nine eight eight alternate history in the contemporary fantasy genre many fantasies and science fantasies are set in a world that has a history somewhat similar to our own world but with magic added since the existence of magic implies different laws of nature it is difficult to imagine a credible point of divergence the effects of divergence would have existed throughout human history and indeed throughout all evolution of life unless one posits sudden changes in the laws of nature in medieval or modern times brought about by aliens a time space warp etc one example of a universe that is in part historically recognizable but also obeys different physical laws is poul anderson s three hearts and three lions in which the matter of france is history and the fairy folk are real and powerful a partly familiar european history for which the author attempts to provide a logic defying point of divergence is randal |
l garrett s lord darcy series whether a pod is hypothesized or not it is probably best to regard such stories as depicting a kind of pseudo alternity jonathan strange and mr norrell takes place in an alternate version of england where a separate kingdom ruled by the raven king and founded on magic existed for some time in northumbria in patricia wrede s regency fantasies great britain has a royal society of wizards and in poul anderson s a midsummer s tempest william shakespeare is remembered as the great historian with the novel itself taking place in the era of cromwell and charles i and a premature industrial revolution when the magical version of our world s history is set in contemporary times one must clearly differentiate between alternate history on the one hand and secret history as exemplified by roswell saucers in an air force hanger or the philadelphia experiment on the other in works such as robert a heinlein s magic incorporated where a construction company can use magic to rig up stands at a sp |
orting event and poul anderson s operation chaos and its sequel operation luna where djinns are serious weapons of war with atomic bombs the use of magic throughout the united states and other modern countries makes it clear that this is not secret history or the result of a mere pod indeed whenever the effects of the fantasical elements are so powerful and pervasive that they cannot plausibly be explained via secret machinations or a point of departure caused by human decisions then the history depicted should be regarded as a pseudo alternity this should apply not just to fantasy alternities but to satiric ones in which highly improbable events occur as in what mad universe philip pullman mined both pseudo alternate history and cross time themes in his dark materials one nine nine six two zero zero zero a science fantasy trilogy for young adults most notable is his variant version of elizabethan england in the first volume although given the different magical laws of nature there could be no credible point |
of departure nor does pullman attempt to provide one a fantasy version of the paratime police was developed by children s writer diana wynne jones in her chrestomanci quartet one nine seven seven one nine eight eight with wizards taking the place of high tech secret agents among the novels in this series witch week stands out for its vivid depiction of a history alternate to that of chrestomanci s own world rather than our own and yet with a specific pod that turned it away from the normal history of most worlds visited by the wizard although j k rowling does not deal explicitly with cross time or alternate history themes in her harry potter books outside of the time turner used in book three her world of wizards who coexist quasi invisibly with the muggles can be seen as an eccentric variant in which two subuniverses subhistories co exist as subsets of a larger universe history or one can regard hogwarts and other magical locales as merely being pocket universes within a primary muggles universe of course if |
rowling were to spell this out it would spoil much of the charm of her fictional world elements of alternate history there are certain elements which are common to all alternate histories whether they deal with history on the micro level personal alternate histories or the macro level world changing events these elements include a point of change from the history of our world prior to the time at which the author is writing a change which would alter history as it is known and an examination of the ramifications of that change alternate histories do not need to be set in the past need to spell out the point of divergence need to deal with world changing events or need to include famous people the boundaries of alternate history this leads to readers encountering stories which read as though they were alternate history but which are not an example would be robert a heinlein s the man who sold the moon written in the one nine four zero s it posits that the first moon launch is run by a private organization rat |
her than a government agency in the one nine six zero s new readers encountering the book may well presume that this is alternate history since it is clearly a counter factual depiction of the first moon launch now almost four zero years in the past however when written the first moon launch was nearly three zero years in the future thus the man who sold the moon is science fiction not alternate history the point of divergence happened after the time at which the author was writing also one should not confuse the ah subgenre with secret history which gives an account of history at odds with our general understanding presenting its own account as having been concealed or suppressed by an elite ah also should not be mistaken for mythical history a history which supposedly has been forgotten through the passage of time not through conspiratorial suppression the works of robert howard and j r r tolkien are excellent examples of fiction based on a lost history framing but they do not and cannot specify a point of |
departure from our own history since there is no historical archaeological or paleontological record on which such a pod could be based given the lack of any continuity with our world and the lack of any kind of multiverse framing such worlds are merely fantasy worlds and cannot be regarded as alternate history even in a borderline sense it is also possible to have novels that explore points of divergence the key concept in alternate history without actually being works of alternate history themselves one good example is marge piercy s critically acclaimed woman on the edge of time one nine seven six in which a patient in a mental hospital is able to travel into two alternate futures one an ecotopia run by reformed weather underground types and the other a fascist dystopia run by people hating robots decisions she must make to resist an insidious new type of brain operation will determine which future wins this is a time travel story a cross time story a christopher priest style delusional alternate reality s |
tory and a pod story all rolled into one but it is not alternate history because the pod occurs in the present or perhaps the near future not in the past less obvious is the difference between alternate history and what if stories the latter subgenre extrapolates from the present a concrete near future possibility that is often an expression of current public fears hence the alternate term cautionary tale used by sackville west see below for instance beginning in the one eight seven zero s the british reading public was treated to a number of what if books about a german or french invasion of an unready british isles during the great depression sinclair lewis wrote of a fascist takeover in the united state in his classic it can t happen here one nine three five during the early years of world war ii vita sackville west penned the science fantasy grand canyon one nine four two in which the germans invade a woefully unprepared united states one could define such tales as borderline alternate history since they |
are usually set in a time that is only shortly after the time of writing and the events described could not have occurred without a branching of history before if only slightly before the book was written the boundary like many in literature is a broad line with grey edges not unlike the fog around the alternate universe portals in science fiction stories of fifty years ago would a two zero zero five author writing a story set in one nine seven zero in heinlein s universe or jules verne s captain nemo universe be writing sf or ah opinions differ alternate history in other media several films have been made that exploit the concepts of alternate history most notably kevin brownlow s it happened here another such film is two zero zero nine lost memories a korean film supposing that hirobumi ito was not assassinated by an jung geun in harbin china in one nine zero nine a few movies about alternate pasts however focus on individuals rather than historical events and some students of ah would say these are not alt |
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