The Structure of
the Chinese Calendar
by Peter Meyer
There are two Chinese calendars, a solar calendar and a lunar calendar (the latter is also a 'lunisolar' calendar, since it more or less stays in sync with the solar year). Both calendars depend on the times of certain astronomical events, such as dark moons and winter solstices. For at least several centuries (according to some scholars, since the 5th C. BCE) the times of these events have been ascertained not by observation but rather by calculation, so these calendars can be classified as rule-based.
The Chinese solar calendar consists of a sequence of solar years which are not divided into months but rather into 24 periods which begin at the "solar terms" (see below). The Chinese lunar calendar consists of a sequence of lunar years which are divided into 12 or 13 lunar months. A solar year begins at the (northern) winter solstice, which is on or around December 22 in the Common Era Calendar. A lunar month begins on the day of a dark moon. The beginning of a lunar year (i.e, lunar new year's day) is more difficult to define (but see below); it always begins from about January 20th to about February 20th, i.e., about a month or so after the start of the Chinese solar year.
The Chinese Calendar assumes a prime meridian of 120 degrees East (120°E). This means that a day (or rather, a nychthemeron, a day and a night) is taken to run from midnight Beijing standard time (BST = CCT = GMT+8) to the next midnight BST. This is in contrast to the Common Era Calendar, where a nychthemeron runs from midnight Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) to the next midnight GMT. The time difference between Beijing and London is eight hours, so nychthemerons (or nychthemera) in the Chinese Calendar begin eight hours earlier than nychthemerons in the Common Era Calendar.
Before proceeding further we define some terms:
A dark moon occurs when the Sun and the Moon are astronomically conjunct (or more exactly, when either the Moon's center lies on the line joining the centers of the Earth and the Sun or the plane defined by the Sun, Earth and Moon is perpendicular to the Earth's orbital plane).
The term "new moon" is not used here, since it is ambiguous. It can mean either a dark moon or the phase of the Moon when a crescent is first visible (in which sense a month in the Muslim calendar begins at new moon).
A lunation is a passage of the Moon from one dark moon to the next. A lunation begins at the dark moon (astronomical conjunction of Sun and Moon), and the next dark moon marks the beginning of the next lunation.
An equinox occurs when the angle formed at the Earth's center between its axis of rotation and the line joining the Earth to the Sun is a right angle. At such a point in the Earth's orbit the length of day and night is almost equal (but not exactly equal, due to atmospheric refraction of the Sun's rays near the horizon and the practice of measuring the start and end of the day from the first or last appearance of the Sun). The northern vernal equinox occurs around March 20th of each year, and the northern autumnal equinox occurs around September 21st.
A solstice occurs when this angle reaches a maximum or a minimum. At such a point the duration of the day and the night is either longest or shortest. The northern winter solstice occurs around December 21st of each year, and the northern summer solstice occurs around June 21st.
2. Chinese and Western Years
The Chinese Calendar uses cycles of sixty years. A year within a cycle is designated by a combination of an element name (e.g., "Water") and an animal name (e.g. "Rabbit"):
For the order in which the various element-animal-designated years occur within a cycle of sixty years (Wood-Rat, Wood-Ox, Fire-Tiger, ...) see Interconverting Chinese and Western Years.
Wood Fire Earth Metal Water
Rat Ox Tiger Rabbit Dragon Snake Horse Sheep Monkey Chicken Dog Pig
A Chinese year is uniquely determined by an element name, an animal name and a cycle number, e.g., the Water-Dragon year in the 21st cycle.
Since the years of the Chinese Calendar run concurrently with the years of the Common Era Calendar (although they do not overlap exactly) each year at a certain position in a certain cycle in the Chinese Calendar can be uniquely associated with a year in the Common Era Calendar provided that one such correlation is known. Actually two such correlations are used by different scholars: The first year in the first cycle is correlated either with -2696 CE (i.e., 2697 BC) or with -2636 CE (i.e., 2637 BC). 2004 is a Wood-Monkey year in Cycle 79 (according to the first correlation) or in Cycle 78 (according to the second).
3. The Chinese Solar Calendar
As noted above, a Chinese solar year always begins at the winter solstice. It may be thought of either (i) as running from the exact moment of a winter solstice to the exact moment of the next winter solstice or (ii) as running from midnight (Beijing time) at the start of the day during which the winter solstice occurs to the midnight (Beijing time) of the start of the day during which the next winter solstice occurs. We could call these "astronomical" and "calendrical" solar years.
The astronomical solar year is divided into 24 periods. The times of the start and end of these are called "solar terms". These are denoted by the symbols J1, Z1, J2, Z2, ..., J12, Z12. The two (northern) solstices and the two equinoxes coincide with four of these solar terms, as follows:
vernal equinox (VE) Z2 summer solstice (SS) Z5 autumnal equinox (AE) Z8 winter solstice (WS) Z11
The other eight Z's (the "major solar terms", also known as "zhong qi")) occur at equal (or nearly equal) intervals between these four Z's. The major solar terms thus are like the hour numbers on a clock face, with the vernal equinox at 2 o'clock, etc. (and the minor solar terms, the J's, marking the half-hours).
There are two variations on the Chinese solar calendar. It used to be defined so that the period from each solar term to the next was exactly 1/24th of an astronomical solar year, i.e., approximately 15.22 days. This is called the "Mean Sun" variation.
In the 17th Century Chinese calendricists adopted calculations based on the true motions of the Earth and Sun, and in this variation of the solar calendar each solar term consists of the time required for the Earth to move exactly fifteen (= 360/24) degrees in its orbit (starting from a solstice or an equinox). This is called the "True Sun" variation. Since the Earth moves at slightly different speeds at different places in its orbit (it moves slightly faster when it is closer to the Sun) this implies that in the True Sun variation the period from one solar term to the next is not always the same.
Strictly speaking, solar terms are points in time, namely, the times at which the Sun (as seen from the Earth to be travelling along the ecliptic) reaches 0°, 15°, 45°, ..., measured from a solstice or an equinox. A solar term may also be understood as a period of time, namely, the period between two such solar terms. We can thus say that (in this sense) the solar year is divided into 24 solar terms.
Although there are 12 pairs of adjacent solar terms, a pair of solar terms cannot be regarded as a 'month'. The solar year is divisible into solar terms, but not into months. An attempt to do so (as is done in Wikipedia) flounders on the astronomical facts underlying why the lunar year sometimes has 12 months and sometimes has 13 months.
Just as "solar year" has two meanings, an astronomical and a calendrical, so a "solar term" may be thought of either (i) as running from the exact moment of a solar term as defined above to the exact moment of the next solar term (an "astronomical solar term") or (ii) as running from midnight (Beijing time) at the start of the day during which the solar term (in the first sense occurs) to the midnight (Beijing time) of the start of the day during which the next solar term occurs (a "calendrical solar term").
The day on which a calendrical solar term begins in the Chinese solar calendar is the day in which the astronomical solar term occurs. E.g., if a winter solstice occurs at 23:03 then the calendrical solar term Z2 begins at midnight (Beijing time) at the start of that day.
The 24 calendrical solar terms in a calendrical solar year are numbered 1 - 24 (1 = Z11, 2 = J12, 3 = Z12, 4 = J1, 5 = Z1, and so on). Within a calendrical solar term the days are numbered 1, 2, ... Thus a date in the solar calendar may be represented by a quadruple of the form cycle-position-solarterm-day, where c-p-s-d denotes day d (1-16) of solar term s (1-24) of the year at position p (1-60) in cycle c. Thus a sequence of dates in the Chinese solar calendar looks like this:
1-59-24-14, 1-59-24-15, 1-60-01-01, ..., 1-60-24-16, 2-01-01-01, ...
As noted in the preceding section each position-in-cycle is associated with a unique element-animal combination, so, e.g., "1-59-24-14" can also be expressed as "The 14th day of the last solar term of the Water-Dog year in the 1st cycle."
Dates in the Chinese solar calendar may be marked by CHS, as in "2-01-01-01 CHS".
4. The Chinese Lunar Calendar
The definition of the lunar calendar depends on the definition of the solar calendar, but not vice-versa.
The first day of a lunar month begins at midnight (Beijing time) on the day in which the dark moon occurs. Thus a lunar month always runs from the day of the dark moon up to but not including the day of the next dark moon. It is thus tautologous (and hence true) to say that the dark moon always occurs on the first day of the lunar month.
This series of lunar months is partitioned into lunar years, which consist of either twelve or thirteen lunar months. Months are labelled with a numeral from "1" through "12" or (when a year contains a thirteenth month) with a numeral-plus-asterisk, e.g., "9*".
The way the series of lunar months is partitioned into lunar years is as follows:
A nian is the period of a whole number of lunar months making up a lunar year, beginning with month "1". A nian consists of 12 or 13 months. A related concept is a sui, which is a period of a whole number of lunar months such that the first month of the period contains the winter solstice. A sui also consists either of 12 or 13 lunar months. A sui largely overlaps the solar year, but can begin up to nearly a month before the solar year begins (when the winter solstice occurs close to the end of the first month of the sui).
Consider the series of lunar months partitioned into suis. Consider a particular sui. If it has twelve months then the months are to be numbered "11", "12", "1", "2", ..., "10". The third month will thus be the first month of the nian which largely overlaps this sui.
Suppose, on the other hand, that there are thirteen months in the sui. A sui can contain only twelve major solar terms (the Z's, or zhong qi's, described above), so at least one of the months does not contain a major solar term. The first month which does not contain a major solar term is distinguished as a "leap" month (a.k.a. an "intercalary" month). The first month in the sui cannot be a leap month because it contains the solar term Z11. The twelve non-leap months are numbered "11", "12", "1", ..., "10". The leap month has the same number as its preceding month. Leap months are distinguished by an asterisk or a plus sign, so that, e.g., month "4" may be followed by leap month "4*" (or "+4" or "4+"), which is followed by month "5".
A date in the Chinese lunar calendar may be represented by a quadruple of the form cycle-position-month[*]-day, where c-p-m[*]-d denotes day d (1-30) of month s (1-12) — a leap month if this is s* — of the year at position p (1-60) in cycle c. Thus a sequence of dates in the Chinese lunar calendar looks like this:
1-59-11-29, 1-59-11-30, 1-59-11*-01, ..., 1-59-11*-29, 1-59-12-01, ..., 1-59-12-30, 1-60-01-01, ...
As with solar dates the position-in-cycle number can be replaced by an element-animal combination.
Dates in the Chinese lunar calendar may be marked by CHL, as in "1-60-01-01 CHL".
Overseas Chinese number years sequentially, as in the Gregorian Calendar, with Chinese year 4709 corresponding to Gregorian year 2011. Thus the Overseas Chinese date "4709-07-13 CHL" denotes the same day as the cycle-position date "79-28-07-13 CHL".
5. Comparison with the Gregorian Calendar
New Year's Day in the Chinese Lunar Calendar can occur on any date in the Gregorian Calendar from January 21 to February 21 (though not all dates are equally likely).
New Year's Day in the Gregorian Calendar always occurs about a week after the northern winter solstice, whereas on average New Year's Day in the Chinese Calendar occurs approximately midway between that solstice and the northern vernal equinox.
A year in the Gregorian Calendar always has 12 months, whereas a year in the Chinese Calendar usually has 12 but in about one year in three it has 13 months.
A month in the Gregorian Calendar may have any number of days from 28 through 31. A month in the Chinese Calendar always has either 29 or 30 days.
A month in the Chinese Calendar always begins at the dark moon, and the full moon always occurs in mid-month. In the Gregorian Calendar the dark moon and full moon can occur at any time during a month.
Traditionally associated with (although not formally a part of) the Gregorian Calendar is a cycle of 7 days ("the week"). There is no such cycle in the Chinese Calendar; instead there are cycles of 60 days, 60 months and 60 years.
Each day, month and year in the Chinese Calendar is traditionally associated with one of twelve animals and one of five elements. There is no such association in the Gregorian Calendar, although months are loosely connected with astrological signs of the zodiac (whose periods are offset from the months by about nine days).
The Gregorian Calendar is rule-based (although only a small proportion of people can state its leap year rule correctly), whereas the Chinese Calendar depends on exact calculation of the times of dark moons and solar terms (which must be done by calendrical experts using astronomical methods and data).
Reliable conversion between dates in the Gregorian Calendar and dates in the Chinese Lunar Calendar is thus possible only by means of such calculation, which is performed by computer software such as Chinese Calendrics.
Links to other articles on the web about the Chinese Calendar
Interconverting Chinese and Western Years Messages to CALNDR-L re the Archetypes Calendar
and the Chinese Calendar
Calendar Software Hermetic Systems Home Page


Application layer access to networking is mediated via a series of socket-related hooks, socket_security_ops. When an application attempts to create a socket with the socket(2) system call, the create() hook allows for mediation prior to the actual creation of the socket. Following successful creation, the post_create() hook may be used to update the security state of the inode associated with the socket.
Since active user sockets have an associated inode structure, a separate security field was not added to the socket structure or to the lower-level sock structure. However, it is possible for sockets to temporarily exist in a state where they have no socket or inode structure. Hence, the networking hook functions must take care in extracting the security information for sockets.
Mediation hooks are also provided for all of the socket system calls:
bind(2) connect(2) listen(2) accept(2) sendmsg(2) recvmsg(2) getsockname(2) getpeername(2) getsockopt(2) setsockopt(2) shutdown(2)
Protocol-specific information is available via the socket structure passed as a parameter to all of these hooks (except for create(), as the socket does not yet exist at this hook). This facilitates mediation based on transport layer attributes such as TCP connection state, and seems to obviate the need for explicit transport layer hooks.
The sock_rcv_skb() hook is called when an incoming packet is first associated with a socket. This allows for mediation based upon the security state of receiving application and security state propagated from lower layers of the network stack via the sk_buff security field (see section 3.7.2).
Additional socket hooks are provided for UNIX domain communication within the abstract namespace, as binding and connecting to UNIX domain sockets in the abstract namespace is not mediated by filesystem permissions. The unix_stream_connect() hook allows mediation of stream connections, while datagram based communications may be mediated on a per-message basis via the unix_may_send() hook.


Source: (2003) Paper presented at Building a Global Alliance for Restorative Practices and Family Empowerment, Fourth International Conference on Conferencing, Circles and other Restorative Practices, set for 28-30 August, 2003. Downloaded 11 September 2003.
From Lode Walgraveâ€™s perspective, restorative justice is characterized by its aim of restoration of the harm caused by crime and not by the process which typically favors restorative outcomes. Restorative justice in this definition is goal-oriented not process-oriented. Thus Walgraveâ€™s perspective differs from many other restorative justice proponents who see voluntary deliberative processes in an informal context as the key to restorative justice. Walgraveâ€™s point is that the processes do not have intrinsic legitimacy but derive their value from the outcomes they aim for and help to produce. Thus the aim or goal is the key to restorative justice; processes have value insofar as they pursue and enable a restorative aim or goal. That being said, Walgrave sees deliberative processes as crucial tools for restorative justice. This leads to his examination of a conferencing experiment in Belgium to deal with serious juvenile offenders.
Your donation helps Prison Fellowship International repair the harm caused by crime by emphasizing accountability, forgiveness, and making amends for prisoners and those affected by their actions. When victims, offenders, and community members meet to decide how to do that, the results are transformational.Donate Now


Image 18. Photograph of fountain taken shortly before it was dismantled.
The Pacific Basin Fountain
A History and Description
By Anne Schnoebelen
Pacific House, Golden Gate International Exposition, 1939-1940
Created in 1938 at Gladding McBean, Lincoln, California
Glazed terra cotta, 950 square feet, 361 sections
Width at equator: 43’2”
Center meridian; 27’2’
Perimeter wall: 114 linear feet
Weight: 30 tons (estimated)
Colors: Shades of blue, brown, yellow, green, white, aqua
The relief map of the Pacific Basin was designed by San Francisco artist Antonio Sotomayor and architect Philip Newell Youtz, and executed in 1938 and 1939 by Sotomayor and assistants at Gladding McBean and Company (GMcB) in Lincoln, California. It is oval in shape and approximately the size of a backyard swimming pool. When installed in Pacific House at the Golden Gate International Exposition, it was filled with water and served as a fountain. [Image 1]
The relief map represents the islands, continents and waters of the Pacific, hand modeled in great detail. The highest mountain peak is approximately 16 inches higher than the lowest ocean trench. Lines of latitude and longitude are represented by the joints between the map’s 361 individual sections. Four three-dimensional ceramic whales, approximately 25 inches in length and covered with a teal glaze, spouted at the center of the fountain just north of Hawaii. The map itself is surrounded by a perimeter wall, approximately two feet in height and eight inches wide, finished with an aqua glaze. Compass points are marked with a compass rose and the letters N, S, E and W on the top surface of the wall. On the vertical exterior surface of the wall at each compass point is an animal figure in low relief.
A Fountain of the Pacific for the Pageant of the Pacific
The map was displayed in Pacific House, the “theme building” of the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1939 and 1940—“The Pageant of the Pacific.” The man-made island itself was initially conceived as the site of an airport which would serve Pan American Airways trans-Pacific “Clipper” flying boats, the first commercial, regularly-scheduled air transport between the United States and Asia. The fair’s theme, “Pacific Unity,” celebrated peaceful interdependence among the countries of the area that we now call the Pacific Rim. Pacific House, designed by architect William Merchant, was the central building of the fair’s “Pacific Area” where most of the Pacific countries participating in the fair had their pavilions. The inauguration of air travel to Asia helped spark the fair’s theme.
But it was the influence of the local chapter of a non-governmental organization that provided the deeper stimulus for the Pacific theme. The Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) was established in 1925 to provide a forum for discussion of problems and relations between nations of the Pacific Rim. Headquartered in Honolulu, the IPR had chapters throughout the Pacific, and its San Francisco members included many influential citizens, including former Secretary of the Interior and Stanford President Ray Lyman Wilbur, who was the president of Pacific House. Other IPR members headed some of the powerful boards that governed the GGIE during its planning years. As president of Pacific House, Wilbur was the leader of a distinguished board which included scholars and professors from universities around the Bay Area, explorers, anthropologists, and business leaders. Pacific House offered daily, ongoing programming designed to educate the public about Pacific affairs, including lectures, readings, exhibits, and concerts. Its library housed a fine collection of printed materials on Pacific themes, and Pacific House published a series of bibliographies and educational guides.
The Pacific House board of directors chose the map of the Pacific as the symbolic theme of Pacific House as a matter of policy. In its publicity materials, Pacific House claimed that all world map projections prior to 1939 had presented the Pacific broken up at the perimeters of the map. While this is something of an exaggeration, it is true that world maps, then and now, usually feature the Atlantic Ocean at the center, with the Pacific at the margins. The goal of Pacific House was to present the possibilities of a united Pacific, and maps were a graphically dramatic illustration of this. [The map shown on the right, which uses the Aitoff projection, is a more typical representation with the Pacific literally “marginalized.” Sorry–map not included here yet.] The Pacific Basin fountain used the same projection, but rotated horizontally so that the Atlantic appears on the margins.
Pacific House director Philip Youtz was an architect and the former director of the Brooklyn Museum. San Francisco artist Antonio Sotomayor, a native of Bolivia, was known locally as an author, illustrator, caricaturist and painter of murals at the Palace Hotel and Grace Cathedral. He was chosen for the Pacific Basin Fountain project through his affiliation with Pacific House board member Carl Sauer, an eminent geographer and anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley, who provided the map projection. [Images 4 and 5]
The fountain was located on the floor of the airy, three-story atrium of Pacific House. Natural light poured in from floor to ceiling windows on four sides, and the room was filled with tropical foliage. Guests could view the fountain from the main floor as well as from a second-story balcony. Six large, colorful mural maps by Sotomayor’s friend, Miguel Covarrubias, representing themes from Pacific cultures, covered the adjacent walls. A large backlit stained glass map of Pacific trade routes by artist Edgar Dorsey Taylor was featured high on the back wall of Pacific House’s main display area, and two decorative maps of Pacific countries by artist Hilaire Hiler were displayed on the balcony. [Images 2, 3, 6]
Making the Fountain
Information and stories about the fountain are hidden away in a vault at GMcB, where the company has been storing its records for more than a century. The records for Job 2873, “The Relief Map of the Pacific,” reveal a complex and difficult project, plagued with delays and errors, but managed with diplomacy and good humor.
According to a GMcB memo, Youtz and Sotomayor had great difficulties with the first stage of the project—a full-scale clay model of the map. Originally, the plan was to do as much work as possible in San Francisco. This proved so difficult that GMcB offered to send professional modelers to San Francisco to help. Sotomayor and Youtz estimated that they would need his services for two months. A GMcB supervisor wrote back, “Sixty days? Good heavens, what are you going to do with him for that long? Only thought you would need him for a week or so, he has a family.” Eventually the entire project was transported to GMcB, and Sotomayor lived in Lincoln for almost six months.
Fashioning the enormous relief map took nearly twice as long as anyone had originally projected. There were innumerable delays because, “As you know, artists are apt to underestimate the time it will take them to do the work.” (Everyone who knew Sotomayor agreed that he was not very practical.) And there were errors. On February 9, 1939, less than ten days from the scheduled opening of the fair, the tile setter installing the fountain in Pacific House noticed a glaring design error. “Has there been anything said about letter “S” on south side in center when you stand in front of it. It is turned upside down. Mr. Youtz and Mr. Newhall know about it, but I think they will let it go.” But a GMcB memo dated February 13 reads: “We are re-making the piece with the letter “S”.” Mr. Sotomayor must have modeled this letter upside down.”
Sotomayor designed an animal mascot to represent each region located at the fountain’s compass points. For the South Pole, he fashioned a penguin and for the North Pole, a polar bear; in the west, near the Indian subcontinent at the equator, was a water buffalo and in the east, near the equator in Brazil, a llama. Sotomayor also designed the four whales that spouted at the center of the fountain. His wife, Grace, described them: “Everyone knows that whales are mammals and they have horizontal flippers. But Soto’s whales have fins, like fish!” Sotomayor’s whales look like flukes, but they are oriented vertically. “He never looked at models of the things he drew—he just made what he saw in his imagination,” according to Grace. The whales, with their fierce grins and disoriented tails, were “the real Soto.”
As the project neared completion, Philip Youtz wrote in a letter to Atholl McBean, president of GMcB, “I feel confident that this terra cotta fountain will be one of the most beautiful and educational features of the entire exposition. As far as I know, this is the first time that terra cotta has been used for such a piece of sculpture, and the successful completion of this project will therefore make art history.”
After the Fair is Over
The Pacific Basin Fountain, made of terra cotta and weighing thirty tons, was not a piece of world’s fair ephemera; it was made to last for a very long time with reasonable care. It was also designed in individual sections that could be transported from Lincoln to Treasure Island in relatively manageable loads. This modular design would also make it possible to move the fountain after the fair ended for display elsewhere. It couldn’t stay in Pacific House forever, since Pacific House was a temporary building (as were most of the fair’s buildings).
During the fair, a number of potential permanent locations were considered. Those who ran Pacific House fully intended for the organization to continue with a new facility in San Francisco, perhaps to be joined with a new Museum of Pacific Cultures. The Pacific House maps, especially the fountain and the Covarrubias murals, would be the centerpieces of a Pacific cultural and educational center.
The fair closed in September of 1940 and the Navy began moving onto the island almost immediately. Within another fourteen months, the United States was at war with Japan. The Pacific House Board of Directors continued to meet and arranged to loan the six Covarrubias murals to the Natural History Museum in New York, where they remained on display for more than a decade.
In 1942, the Navy demolished Pacific House and moved the Pacific Basin Fountain to another former GGIE location dedicated to the Pacific theme: “The Court of Pacifica,” site of the colossal goddess Pacifica and the twenty Pacific Unity Sculptures. [Image 7] The goddess came down in 1942, but the sculptures remained. This site, at the current intersection of 9th Street and the central corridor through Treasure Island’s Job Corps campus, remained intact from 1942 until 1994. The Navy left the fountain and sculptures in the middle of 9th Street [see map], diverting east and westbound traffic around the site. Fifty years later, this detail would become important [sorry–the map referred to will be added later].
After the demolition of Pacific House, Edgar Dorsey Taylor’s illuminated stained glass map and Hilaire Hiler’s maps disappeared.
The area around the fountain and sculptures on 9th Street was made into an attractively landscaped garden, with a lawn and flowering gum trees. A wooden plaque explained the origin of the fountain and sculptures. This ad hoc world’s fair sculpture garden was used as a setting for many official and unofficial Navy photographs and was a source of pride on the base, but rarely seen by the public. [Images 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]
World War II came and went. Pacific House never did get a new site in San Francisco—its temporary headquarters in the Palace Hotel closed in 1945—although, curiously, the corporation it formed still exists in California corporate records. Five of the six Covarrubias murals came back to California and were exhibited in the remodeled Ferry Building from 1959 until 2001, when the Ferry Building was again remodeled and the murals removed. The fate of the missing mural, “Art Forms of the Pacific,” has plagued art detectives for more than five decades. The remaining five murals underwent restoration in Mexico and have been exhibited occasionally over the last decade. One of the murals, “Flora and Fauna of the Pacific,” has been on display at San Francisco’s De Young Museum since 2008.
Fate of the Fountain
According to witnesses who lived on Treasure Island, the world’s fair sculpture garden remained in good condition and well tended for almost three decades. Maintenance began to falter during the Vietnam War when the fountain and statues became targets for vandalism. Rocks, bottles, and automobile parts were hurled at the fountain, the area’s identifying plaque faded and was not repaired, dirt accumulated and weeds grew in the cracks between the sections of the fountain. By the late 1970s, all of the whales had disappeared*. The tiles featuring the decorative compass points had been stolen and only one of the compass point animals, the polar bear, remained. Dozens of retaining wall tiles disappeared, and virtually every tile sustained some degree of damage. [Images 13, 14, 16]
“Save the Fountain!”
Concurrent with the founding of the Treasure Island Museum in 1976, a campaign to “Save the Fountain” came to life through the efforts of Walter Morris and Bob Giesar, naval personnel stationed on the island. Their efforts evolved into a master plan to move the fountain and the sculptures to the front of the former Administration Building on Treasure Island (now Building One), the home of the Treasure Island Museum. The fountain and sculptures would become the focal points of a new garden commemorating the history of Treasure Island and the Golden Gate International Exposition. [Image 17]
In his ROHO interview in 1981, Antonio Sotomayor referred to the fountain as the most difficult, challenging project of his career. He was aware of the restoration plans and expressed the belief that the fountain was under restoration. When Sotomayor died in 1985, the San Francisco Chronicle named him “San Francisco’s Artist Laureate.”
The restoration project ultimately foundered for many reasons, including lack of funding, the difficulty of moving the fountain, and fears that the area in front of Building one was not strong enough to hold the thirty ton fountain. The “fountain problem” was magnified by the fact that it was now one massive object, not moveable in sections. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, when the fountain was originally installed in Pacific House, the sections of the map were not attached to each other, or to their retaining wall; they were simply placed, one at a time, in a waterproof basin. But in its new outdoor location on 9th Street, the sections of the fountain were cemented together, meaning that the thirty-ton mass would have to be moved all in one piece unless a method of separating the sections could be devised.
The plan to create a sculpture garden at the front of Building One was abandoned. But a new campaign, entitled “The 50th Anniversary Art Treasures Restoration Project,” spearheaded by the Treasure Island Museum and the Art Deco Society of California, was begun in 1989 and focused on restoration of the Pacific Unity Sculptures. Enough money was raised to move six of the sculptures to the front entry area of Building One and hire a professional restoration team. This was accomplished in 1991, and the sculptures can still be seen there today. The remaining ten sculptures were moved into storage on the island.
The fountain, meanwhile, continued to languish in the Court of Pacifica. After fifty years of diverting traffic around the fountain, the Navy decided that it was time to straighten out 9th street and build a parking lot in its place. But what to do with the fountain? The fountain posed such a problem that, according to Treasure Island Museum staff, the Navy had even proposed filling in the below-grade section of the court, thereby “preserving” the fountain under tons of sand. [Image 15–note stairs leading down to fountain]
One last photograph of the intact fountain was taken by award-winning Art Deco architecture photographer Randy Juster. (He wrote an amusing blog post about the experience here: http://www.decopix.com/treasure-island-map/ Also please note, this photo was shot with a lens which distorts the shape; the fountain was an oval). [Image 18] The fountain was then cut up into its component parts so that it could be moved into storage. The intention was to cut precisely along the joints where cement bonded the terra cotta sections. A professional team using hydraulic jets and circular masonry saws performed the task, but the cuts were not made precisely and many of the cuts sliced through the terra cotta. [Image 19] Once the cuts were made, the fountain pieces were moved into storage with the sculptures.
The fountain is now stored on pallets in an empty building on Treasure Island, along with the sculptures. Stored for close to twenty years in the former “Art Palace” of the exposition (Building Three), the sculptures and pieces of the fountain were recently moved to another building on the island, which happens to be the site where Pacific House once stood.
Can the fountain be restored? Yes, it can. However, the damage to the fountain is significant, and restoration will be expensive. Those who know and love the fountain, however, are hopeful that efforts will be made to ensure that the fountain will not be forgotten when public art is chosen for the redeveloped Treasure Island.
*At the time of the production of the fountain, enough copies of the whales were made to provide one to individuals involved in the project. Mrs. Sotomayor thinks eight were made in addition to the four displayed on the fountain. Mrs. Sotomayor kindly gave hers to me.
References and sources:
Mrs. Antonio Sotomayor
Lamar Schuler, Chief Draftsman, Gladding McBean
Bill Wyatt, Company Historian, Gladding McBean
Visit to Gladding McBean in May of 1990 by Anne Schnoebelen, Michael Gray and Mrs. Antonio Sotomayor
Archives of American Art, Papers of Philip Youtz
Regional Oral History Office, Interview with Antonio Sotomayor
Bancroft Library, Papers of Pacific House Participants
Green Library, Stanford University, Papers of Pacific House Participants
UCLA Library, Special Collections
The Masthead, Publication of Naval Station Treasure Island
San Francisco Art Institute, Archives
San Francisco Examiner, Photo Archives
The Treasure Island Museum, Archives


Mood swings are a common experience many of us encounter at some point in our lives. They can range from minor fluctuations in emotions to more extreme mood swings. But any form can impact our well-being.
This article will explore coping techniques to help you through a mood swing. Incorporating these strategies into your daily routine can cultivate a healthier mindset.
Whatever the cause of your mood swings, the coping techniques discussed here will help. Let’s dive in and discover practical ways to cope with mood swings. Let’s regain a sense of stability and control together.
Self-awareness allows you to recognize and acknowledge your emotions. This includes recognizing mood swings symptoms. This will help you create a space for understanding and compassion towards yourself.
Being self-aware also allows you to make better decisions during a mood swing. A high level of self-awareness lets you recognize that your emotions are temporary. They are not reflective of the reality. This helps you make choices that align with your long-term goals and values.
Being self-aware and mindful fosters self-compassion. When experiencing a mood swing, you can respond with kindness towards yourself. Self-compassion allows you to embrace your emotions without self-criticism. This will help reduce the impact of mood swings on your well-being.
Stress can trigger or worsen mood swings. Engaging in relaxation techniques can help ease stress and promote a sense of calm.
By reducing stress levels, you create a more favorable emotional environment. This will make it easier to navigate through mood swings.
Regular practice of relaxation techniques has a cumulative effect on your well-being. These techniques can do a lot when you incorporate them into your daily routine.
It will help you manage stress levels, promote relaxation, and create a foundation of emotional balance. This approach reduces the frequency and intensity of mood swings.
Physical activity stimulates the release of endorphins. These are the natural mood-boosting chemicals in the brain.
Endorphins promote feelings of happiness and reduce stress. Thus they ease symptoms of depression and anxiety. Letting you experience a natural mood elevation can help counteract mood swings’ adverse effects.
Mood swings can sometimes leave you feeling tired or lethargic. Engaging in physical activity can boost energy and combat feelings of low energy associated with mood swings.
Exercising will increase blood flow and oxygen circulation to the brain. This enhances your alertness and sense of vitality.
Physical activity also serves as a healthy distraction from negative thoughts and emotions. When you immerse yourself in any physical activity, your attention shifts toward the present. This redirection of focus allows you to break free from the cycle of negative emotions.
Plenty of professionals can help you with mood swings. They can conduct thorough assessments to find what causes mood swings. They can even find mood disorders in children through diagnostic evaluation.
This assessment helps tailor treatment approaches and interventions to your specific needs. Professionals can teach you specific skills and techniques to cope with mood swings better. They help you develop different skills and healthy coping mechanisms.
These tools empower you to navigate mood swings. It lets you do this greater resilience which will improve your emotional well-being.
In some cases, professionals may prescribe medications to help manage your feelings and perspectives. This is the case if they are associated with underlying mental health conditions.
Psychiatrists or other medical professionals can check your symptoms and prescribe appropriate medications. Medication management can be a valuable tool in stabilizing mood swings when combined with therapy.
A well-balanced diet supports optimal brain function and promotes emotional well-being. Adequate intake of nutrients from whole foods can help mood stability and resilience. Eat fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats.
Getting enough sleep is also crucial for emotional well-being and mood regulation. Sleep deprivation or irregular sleep patterns can disrupt mood and increase the risk of mood swings.
Establish a consistent sleep routine. You can do this by creating a relaxing sleep environment and practicing good sleep hygiene. This will help ensure quality sleep and promote emotional stability.
A support system provides a space for emotional validation. Here you can express your feelings and experiences without judgment.
Sharing your feelings with trusted people makes you feel understood and accepted. This validation reinforces that your emotions are valid and eases the sense of isolation that mood swings can bring.
Supportive individuals in your network can also offer a different perspective on mood swings. They may have experienced similar challenges or have insights that can shed light on your situation.
Their viewpoint can help you gain a fresh perspective. This new perspective will help you consider alternative coping strategies. They can also provide suggestions that you may not have considered on your own.
Having a support system means having people who believe in you. They provide encouragement and motivation during difficult times. Help you boost your confidence and resilience.
Their unwavering support can inspire you to keep pushing forward. Their presence can also help you maintain a positive mindset even when facing mood swings.
Journaling provides a safe and private space to express your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It serves as an emotional outlet, allowing you to release pent-up emotions associated with mood swings. Writing down your experiences can provide relief, catharsis, and release of emotional tension.
Keeping a journal allows you to track your progress over time. This lets you observe patterns of improvement or identify recurring challenges. This is why documenting your mood swings are helpful.
Journaling also lets you record your wins. You will see what your strengths are and celebrate milestones.
Seeing this positive progress will do wonders for your mental health. But if you don’t know any mood changes, it may be time to seek professional help.
Mood swings can be challenging to deal with. But understanding coping techniques can help lessen a mood swing’s severity and frequency.
If you’re still struggling, you are speaking with a licensed mental health professional. They can help you identify the best techniques based on your particular needs.
If you’re struggling to get your kid to think more positively, consider enrolling them in my online program Tweak A Week. This course is designed to make it fun and easy to add in new small tweaks to your habits each week.


Aerial view of lava fountains along a 250-m-long fissure during the
September 1977 eruption of Kilauea Volcano. Lava fountains from the steep
spatter cone in lower left reached 100 m high, but no significant flow came
from this vent. The middle vent would soon build a large rampart and feed the
main flows of the eruption. During the next four days, continued fountaining
resulted in coalescence of all the vent deposits to form a large spatter
cone, Pu`u Kia`i (Hawaiian for Guardian Hill).
The 1977 eruption began on September 13 when a discontinuous, en-echelon fissure broke out in the middle east rift zone between Kalalua and Pu`u Kauka. The initial fissure was 5.5 km long. The eruption lasted only 18 days.


Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci
|Leonardo Da Vinci|
|Born||Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
April 15, 1452 Vinci, Italy
|Died||May 2, 1519
Amboise, Indre-et-Loire, France
|Known for||Polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer|
|Notable work||Paintings including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Many scientific drawings including The Vitruvian Man.|
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an Italian polymath, regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in numerous diverse areas of study. Whilst most famous for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, Leonardo is also renowned in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology.
While the full extent of his scientific studies has only become recognized in the last 150 years, he was, during his lifetime, employed for his engineering and skill of invention. Many of his designs, such as the movable dikes to protect Venice from invasion, proved too costly or impractical. Some of his smaller inventions entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. As an engineer, Leonardo conceived ideas vastly ahead of his own time, conceptually inventing an improved verson of the helicopter based on earlier preexisting ancient Chinese helicopter toy technology, an armoured fighting vehicle, the use of concentrated solar power, a calculator, a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics and the double hull. In practice, he greatly advanced the state of knowledge in the fields of anatomy, astronomy, civil engineering, optics, and the study of water (hydrodynamics).
- 1 Condensed biography
- 2 Approach to scientific investigation
- 3 Leonardo's notes and journals
- 4 Publication
- 5 Natural science
- 6 Mathematical studies
- 7 Engineering and invention
- 8 Leonardo's inventions made reality
- 9 Leonardo's projects
- 10 Models based on Leonardo's drawings
- 11 See also
- 12 Notes
- 13 References
- 14 Further reading
- 15 External links
- NOTE: This is a brief summary of Leonardo's early life and journals with particular emphasis on his introduction to science.
Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was born the illegitimate son of Messer Piero, a notary, and Caterina, a peasant woman. His early life was spent in the region of Vinci, in the valley of the Arno River near Florence, firstly with his mother and in later childhood in the household of his father, grandfather and uncle Francesco.
His curiosity and interest in scientific observation were stimulated by his uncle Francesco, while his grandfather's keeping of journals set an example which he was to follow for most of his life, diligently recording in his own journals both the events of the day, his visual observations, his plans and his projects. The journals of Leonardo contain matters as mundane as grocery lists and as remarkable as diagrams for the construction of a flying machine.
In 1466, Leonardo was sent to Florence to the workshop of the artist Verrocchio, in order to learn the skills of an artist. At the workshop, as well as painting and drawing, he learnt the study of topographical anatomy. He was also exposed to a very wide range of technical skills such as drafting, set construction, plasterworking, paint chemistry, and metallurgy.
Among the older artists whose work stimulated Leonardo's scientific interest was Piero della Francesca, then a man in his 60s, who was one of the earliest artists to systematically employ linear perspective in his paintings, and who had a greater understanding of the science of light than any other artist of his date. While Leonardo's teacher, Verrocchio, largely ignored Piero's scientifically disciplined approach to painting, Leonardo and Domenico Ghirlandaio, who also worked at Verrocchio's workshop, did not. Two of Leonardo's earliest paintings, both scenes of the Annunciation show his competent understanding of the linear perspective.
Leonardo Da Vinci was profoundly observant of nature, his curiosity having been stimulated in early childhood by his discovery of a deep cave in the mountains and his intense desire to know what lay inside. His earliest dated drawing, 1473, is of the valley of the Arno River, where he lived. It displays some of the many scientific interests that were to obsess him all his life, in particular geology and hydrology.
Approach to scientific investigation
During the Renaissance, the study of art and science was not perceived as mutually exclusive; on the contrary, the one was seen as informing upon the other. Although Leonardo's training was primarily as an artist, it was largely through his scientific approach to the art of painting, and his development of a style that coupled his scientific knowledge with his unique ability to render what he saw that created the outstanding masterpieces of art for which he is famous.
As a scientist, Leonardo had no formal education in Latin and mathematics and did not attend a university. Because of these factors, his scientific studies were largely ignored by other scholars. Leonardo's approach to science was one of intense observation and detailed recording, his tools of investigation being almost exclusively his eyes. His journals give insight into his investigative processes.
A recent and exhaustive analysis of Leonardo as a scientist by Fritjof Capra argues that Leonardo was a fundamentally different kind of scientist from Galileo, Newton, and other scientists who followed him, his theorizing and hypothesizing integrating the arts and particularly painting. Capra sees Leonardo's unique integrated, holistic views of science as making him a forerunner of modern systems theory and complexity schools of thought.
Leonardo's notes and journals
Leonardo kept a series of journals in which he wrote almost daily, as well as separate notes and sheets of observations, comments and plans. He wrote and drew with his left hand, and most of his writing is in mirror script, which makes it difficult to read. Much has survived to illustrate Leonardo's studies, discoveries and inventions.
On his death, his writings were left mainly to his pupil Melzi with the apparent intention that his scientific work should be published. This did not take place in Melzi's lifetime, and the writings were eventually bound in different forms and dispersed. Some of his works were published as a Treatise on Painting 165 years after his death.
Leonardo illustrated a book on mathematical proportion in art written by his friend Luca Pacioli and called De divina proportione, published in 1509. He was also preparing a major treatise on his scientific observations and mechanical inventions. It was to be divided into a number of sections or "Books", Leonardo leaving some instructions as to how they were to be ordered. Many sections for it appear in his notebooks.
These pages deal with scientific subjects generally but also specifically as they touch upon the creation of artworks. In relating to art, this is not science that is dependent upon experimentation or the testing of theories. It deals with detailed observation, particularly the observation of the natural world, and includes a great deal about the visual effects of light on different natural substances such as foliage.
Begun at Florence, in the house of Piero di Braccio Martelli, on the 22nd day of March 1508. And this is to be a collection without order, taken from many papers which I have copied here, hoping to arrange them later each in its place, according to the subjects of which they may treat. But I believe that before I am at the end of this [task] I shall have to repeat the same things several times; for which, O reader! do not blame me, for the subjects are many and memory cannot retain them [all] and say: ‘I will not write this because I wrote it before.’ And if I wished to avoid falling into this fault, it would be necessary in every case when I wanted to copy [a passage] that, not to repeat myself, I should read over all that had gone before; and all the more since the intervals are long between one time of writing and the next.
The lights which may illuminate opaque bodies are of 4 kinds. These are: diffused light as that of the atmosphere... And Direct, as that of the sun... The third is Reflected light; and there is a 4th which is that which passes through [translucent] bodies, as linen or paper or the like.
For an artist working in the 15th century, some study of the nature of light was essential. It was by the effective painting of light falling on a surface that modelling, or a three-dimensional appearance was to be achieved in a two-dimensional medium. It was also well understood by artists like Leonardo's teacher, Verrocchio, that an appearance of space and distance could be achieved in a background landscape by painting in tones that were less in contrast and colours that were less bright than in the foreground of the painting. The effects of light on solids were achieved by trial and error, since few artists except Piero della Francesca actually had accurate scientific knowledge of the subject.
At the time when Leonardo commenced painting, it was unusual for figures to be painted with extreme contrast of light and shade. Faces, in particular, were shadowed in a manner that was bland and maintained all the features and contours clearly visible. Leonardo broke with this. In the painting generally titled The Lady with an Ermine (about 1483) he sets the figure diagonally to the picture space and turns her head so that her face is almost parallel to her nearer shoulder. The back of her head and the further shoulder are deeply shadowed. Around the ovoid solid of her head and across her breast and hand the light is diffused in such a way that the distance and position of the light in relation to the figure can be calculated.
Leonardo's treatment of light in paintings such as The Virgin of the Rocks and the Mona Lisa was to change forever the way in which artists perceived light and used it in their paintings. Of all Leonardo's scientific legacies, this is probably the one that had the most immediate and noticeable effect.
...to obtain a true and perfect knowledge [of the vascular system]... I have dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all the other members, and removing the very minutest particles of the flesh by which these veins are surrounded, ... and as one single body would not last so long, since it was necessary to proceed with several bodies by degrees, until I came to an end and had a complete knowledge; this I repeated twice, to learn the differences...
Leonardo began the formal study of the topographical anatomy of the human body when apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio. As a student he would have been taught to draw the human body from life, to memorize the muscles, tendons and visible subcutaneous structure and to familiarise himself with the mechanics of the various parts of the skeletal and muscular structure. It was common workshop practice to have plaster casts of parts of the human anatomy available for students to study and draw.
If, as is thought to be the case, Leonardo painted the torso and arms of Christ in The Baptism of Christ on which he famously collaborated with his master Verrocchio, then his understanding of topographical anatomy had surpassed that of his master at an early age as can be seen by a comparison of the arms of Christ with those of John the Baptist in the same painting.
In the 1490s he wrote about demonstrating muscles and sinews to students:
Remember that to be certain of the point of origin of any muscle, you must pull the sinew from which the muscle springs in such a way as to see that muscle move, and where it is attached to the ligaments of the bones.
His continued investigations in this field occupied many pages of notes, each dealing systematically with a particular aspect of anatomy. It appears that the notes were intended for publication, a task entrusted on his death to his pupil Melzi.
In conjunction with studies of aspects of the body are drawings of faces displaying different emotions and many drawings of people suffering facial deformity, either congenital or through illness. Some of these drawings, generally referred to as "caricatures", on analysis of the skeletal proportions, appear to be based on anatomical studies.
As Leonardo became successful as an artist, he was given permission to dissect human corpses at the hospital Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. Later he dissected in Milan at the hospital Maggiore and in Rome at the hospital Santo Spirito (the first mainland Italian hospital). From 1510 to 1511 he collaborated in his studies with the doctor Marcantonio della Torre.
I have removed the skin from a man who was so shrunk by illness that the muscles were worn down and remained in a state like thin membrane, in such a way that the sinews instead of merging in muscles ended in wide membrane; and where the bones were covered by the skin they had very little over their natural size.
In 30 years, Leonardo dissected 30 male and female corpses of different ages. Together with Marcantonio, he prepared to publish a theoretical work on anatomy and made more than 200 drawings. However, his book was published only in 1680 (161 years after his death) under the heading Treatise on painting.
Among the detailed images that Leonardo drew are many studies of the human skeleton. He was the first to describe the double S form of the backbone. He also studied the inclination of pelvis and sacrum and stressed that sacrum was not uniform, but composed of five fused vertebrae. He also studied the anatomy of the human foot and its connection to the leg, and from these studies, he was able to further his studies in biomechanics.
Leonardo was a physiologist as well as an anatomist, studying the function of the human body as well as examining and recording its structure. He dissected and drew the human skull and cross-sections of the brain, transversal, sagittal, and frontal. These drawings may be linked to a search for the sensus communis, the locus of the human senses, which, by Medieval tradition, was located at the exact physical center of the skull.
Leonardo studied internal organs, being the first to draw the human appendix and the lungs, mesentery, urinary tract, reproductive organs, the muscles of the cervix and a detailed cross-section of coitus. He was one of the first to draw a scientific representation of the fetus in the intrautero.
Leonardo studied the vascular system and drew a dissected heart in detail. He correctly worked out how heart valves ebb the flow of blood yet he did not fully understand circulation as he believed that blood was pumped to the muscles where it was consumed. In 2005 a UK heart surgeon, Francis Wells, from Papworth Hospital Cambridge, pioneered repair to damaged hearts, using Leonardo's depiction of the opening phase of the mitral valve to operate without changing its diameter allowing an individual to recover more quickly. Wells said "Leonardo had a depth of appreciation of the anatomy and physiology of the body - its structure and function - that perhaps has been overlooked by some."
Leonardo's observational acumen, drawing skill, and the clarity of depiction of bone structures reveal him at his finest as an anatomist. However, his depiction of the internal soft tissues of the body are incorrect in many ways, showing that he maintained concepts of anatomy and functioning that were in some cases millennia old, and that his investigations were probably hampered by the lack of preservation techniques available at the time. Leonardo's detailed drawing of the internal organs of a woman (See left) reveal many traditional misconceptions.
Leonardo not only studied human anatomy, but the anatomy of many other animals as well. He dissected cows, birds, monkeys and frogs, comparing in his drawings their anatomical structure with that of humans. On one page of his journal Leonardo drew five profile studies of a horse with its teeth bared in anger and, for comparison, a snarling lion and a snarling man.
I have found that in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser... I have seen in the Lion tribe that the sense of smell is connected with part of the substance of the brain which comes down the nostrils, which form a spacious receptacle for the sense of smell, which enters by a great number of cartilaginous vesicles with several passages leading up to where the brain, as before said, comes down.
In the early 1490s Leonardo was commissioned to create a monument in honour of Francesco Sforza. In his notebooks are a series of plans for an equestrian monument. There are also a large number of related anatomical studies of horses. They include several diagrams of a standing horse with the angles and proportions annotated, anatomical studies of horses' heads, a dozen detailed drawings of hooves and numerous studies and sketches of horses rearing.
He studied the topographical anatomy of a bear in detail, making many drawings of its paws. There is also a drawing of the muscles and tendons of the bear's hind feet. Other drawings of particular interest include the uterus of a pregnant cow, the hindquarters of a decrepit mule and studies of the musculature of a little dog.
All the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk [below them].
The science of botany was long established by Leonardo's time, a treatise on the subject having been written as early as 300 BCE. Leonardo's study of plants, resulting in many beautiful drawings in his notebooks, was not to record in diagramatic form the parts of the plant, but rather, as an artist and observer to record the precise appearance of plants, the manner of growth and the way that individual plants and flowers of a single variety differed from one another.
One such study shows a page with several species of flower of which ten drawings are of wild violets. Along with a drawing of the growing plant and a detail of a leaf, Leonardo has repeatedly drawn single flowers from different angles, with their heads set differently on the stem.
Apart from flowers the notebooks contain many drawings of crop plants including several types of grain and a variety of berries including a detailed study of bramble. There are also water plants such as irises and sedge. His notebooks also direct the artist to observe how light reflects from foliage at different distances and under different atmospheric conditions.
A number of the drawings have their equivalents in Leonardo's paintings. An elegant study of a stem of lilies may have been for one of Leonardo's early Annunciation paintings, carried in the hand of the Archangel Gabriel. In both the Annunciation pictures the grass is dotted with blossoming plants.
The plants which appear in both the versions of The Virgin of the Rocks demonstrate the results of Leonardo's studies in a meticulous realism that makes each plant readily identifiable to the botanist.
As an adult, Leonardo had only two childhood memories, one of which was the finding of a cave in the Apennines. Although fearing that he might be attacked by a wild beast, he ventured in driven "by the burning desire to see whether there might be any marvelous thing within."
Leonardo's earliest dated drawing is a study of the Arno Valley, strongly emphasizing its geological features. His notebooks contain landscapes with a wealth of geological observation from the regions of both Florence and Milan, often including atmospheric effects such as a heavy rainstorm pouring down on a town at the foot of a mountain range.
It had been observed for many years that strata in mountains often contained bands of sea shells. Conservative science said that these could be explained by the Great Flood described in the Bible. Leonardo's observations convinced him that this could not possibly be the case.
And a little beyond the sandstone conglomerate, a tufa has been formed, where it turned towards Castel Florentino; farther on, the mud was deposited in which the shells lived, and which rose in layers according to the levels at which the turbid Arno flowed into that sea. And from time to time the bottom of the sea was raised, depositing these shells in layers, as may be seen in the cutting at Colle Gonzoli, laid open by the Arno which is wearing away the base of it; in which cutting the said layers of shells are very plainly to be seen in clay of a bluish colour, and various marine objects are found there.
This quotation makes clear the breadth of Leonardo's understanding of geology, including the action of water in creating sedimentary rock, the tectonic action of the Earth in raising the sea bed and the action of erosion in the creation of geographical features.
In Leonardo's earliest paintings we see the remarkable attention given to the small landscapes of the background, with lakes and water, swathed in a misty light. In the larger of the Annunciation paintings is a town on the edge of a lake. Although distant, the mountains can be seen to be scored by vertical strata. This characteristic can be observed in other paintings by Leonardo, and closely resembles the mountains around Lago di Garda and Lago d'Iseo in Northern Italy. It is a particular feature of both the paintings of The Virgin of the Rocks, which also include caverns of fractured, tumbled, and water-eroded limestone.
In the early 16th century maps were rare and often inaccurate. Leonardo produced several extremely accurate maps such as the town plan of Imola created in 1502 in order to win the patronage of Cesare Borgia. Borgia was so impressed that he hired him as a military engineer and architect. Leonardo also produced a map of Chiana Valley in Tuscany, which he surveyed, without the benefit of modern equipment, by pacing the distances. In 1515, Leonardo produced a map of the Roman Southern Coast which is linked to his work for the Vatican and relates to his plans to drain the marshland.
Recent research by Donato Pezzutto suggests that the background landscapes in Leonardo’s paintings depict specific locations as aerial views with enhanced depth, employing a technique called cartographic perspective. Pezzutto identifies the location of the Mona Lisa to the Val di Chiana, the Annunciation to the Arno Valley, the Madonna of the Yarnwinder to the Adda Valley and The Virgin and Child with St Anne to the Sessia Valley.
All the branches of a water [course] at every stage of its course, if they are of equal rapidity, are equal to the body of the main stream.
Among Leonardo's drawings are many that are studies of the motion of water, in particular the forms taken by fast-flowing water on striking different surfaces.
Many of these drawings depict the spiralling nature of water. The spiral form had been studied in the art of the Classical era and strict mathematical proportion had been applied to its use in art and architecture. An awareness of these rules of proportion had been revived in the early Renaissance. In Leonardo's drawings can be seen the investigation of the spiral as it occurs in water.
There are several elaborate drawings of water curling over an object placed at a diagonal to its course. There are several drawings of water dropping from a height and curling upwards in spiral forms. One such drawing, as well as curling waves, shows splashes and details of spray and bubbles.
Leonardo's interest manifested itself in the drawing of streams and rivers, the action of water in eroding rocks, and the cataclysmic action of water in floods and tidal waves. The knowledge that he gained from his studies was employed in devising a range of projects, particularly in relation to the Arno River. None of the major works was brought to completion.
The earth is not in the centre of the Sun’s orbit nor at the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements, and united with them. And any one standing on the moon, when it and the sun are both beneath us, would see this our earth and the element of water upon it just as we see the moon, and the earth would light it as it lights us.
Claims are sometimes made that Leonardo da Vinci was an alchemist. He was trained in the workshop of Verrocchio, who according to Vasari, was an able alchemist. Leonardo was a chemist in so much as that he experimented with different media for suspending paint pigment. In the painting of murals, his experiments resulted in notorious failures with the Last Supper deteriorating within a century, and the Battle of Anghiari running off the wall. In Leonardo's many pages of notes about artistic processes, there are some that pertain to the use of silver and gold in artworks, information he would have learned as a student.
Leonardo's scientific process was based mainly upon observation. His practical experiments are also founded in observation rather than belief. Leonardo, who questioned the order of the solar system and the deposit of fossils by the Great Flood, had little time for the alchemical quests to turn lead into gold or create a potion that gave eternal life.
Leonardo said about alchemists:
The false interpreters of nature declare that quicksilver is the common seed of every metal, not remembering that nature varies the seed according to the variety of the things she desires to produce in the world.
Old alchemists... have never either by chance or by experiment succeeded in creating the smallest element that can be created by nature; however [they] deserve unmeasured praise for the usefulness of things invented for the use of men, and would deserve it even more if they had not been the inventors of noxious things like poisons and other similar things which destroy life or mind."
And many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitude.
The art of perspective is of such a nature as to make what is flat appear in relief and what is in relief flat.
During the early 15th century, both Brunelleschi and Alberti made studies of linear perspective. In 1436 Alberti published "della Pittura" ("On Painting"), which includes his findings on linear perspective. Piero della Francesca carried his work forward and by the 1470s a number of artists were able to produce works of art that demonstrated a full understanding of the principles of linear perspective.
Leonardo studied linear perspective and employed it in his earlier paintings. His use of perspective in the two Annunciations is daring, as he uses various features such as the corner of a building, a walled garden and a path to contrast enclosure and spaciousness.
The unfinished Adoration of the Magi was intended to be a masterpiece revealing much of Leonardo's knowledge of figure drawing and perspective. There exists a number of studies that he made, including a detailed study of the perspective, showing the complex background of ruined Classical buildings that he planned for the left of the picture. In addition, Leonardo is credited with the first use of anamorphosis, the use of a "perspective" to produce an image that is intelligible only with a curved mirror or from a specific vantage point.
Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.
While in Milan in 1496 Leonardo met a traveling monk and academic, Luca Pacioli. Under him, Leonardo studied mathematics. Pacioli, who first codified and recorded the double entry system of bookkeeping, had already published a major treatise on mathematical knowledge, collaborated with Leonardo in the production of a book called "De divina proportione" about mathematical and artistic proportion. Leonardo prepared a series of drawings of regular solids in a skeletal form to be engraved as plates. "De divina proportione" was published in 1509.
All the problems of perspective are made clear by the five terms of mathematicians, which are:—the point, the line, the angle, the superficies and the solid. The point is unique of its kind. And the point has neither height, breadth, length, nor depth, whence it is to be regarded as indivisible and as having no dimensions in space.
Engineering and invention
He made designs for mills, fulling machines and engines that could be driven by water-power... In addition he used to make models and plans showing how to excavate and tunnel through mountains without difficulty, so as to pass from one level to another; and he demonstrated how to lift and draw great weights by means of levers, hoists and winches, and ways of cleansing harbours and using pumps to suck up water from great depths.
Practical inventions and projects
Leonardo was a master of mechanical principles. He utilized leverage and cantilevering, pulleys, cranks, gears, including angle gears and rack and pinion gears; parallel linkage, lubrication systems and bearings. He understood the principles governing momentum, centripetal force, friction and the aerofoil and applied these to his inventions. His scientific studies remained unpublished with, for example, his manuscripts describing the processes governing friction predating the introduction of Amontons' Laws of Friction by 150 years.
It is impossible to say with any certainty how many or even which of his inventions passed into general and practical use, and thereby had impact over the lives of many people. Among those inventions that are credited with passing into general practical use are the strut bridge, the automated bobbin winder, the rolling mill, the machine for testing the tensile strength of wire and the lens-grinding machine pictured at right. In the lens-grinding machine, the hand rotation of the grinding wheel operates an angle-gear, which rotates a shaft, turning a geared dish in which sits the glass or crystal to be ground. A single action rotates both surfaces at a fixed speed ratio determined by the gear.
As an inventor, Leonardo was not prepared to tell all that he knew:
How by means of a certain machine many people may stay some time under water. How and why I do not describe my method of remaining under water, or how long I can stay without eating; and I do not publish nor divulge these by reason of the evil nature of men who would use them as means of destruction at the bottom of the sea, by sending ships to the bottom, and sinking them together with the men in them. And although I will impart others, there is no danger in them; because the mouth of the tube, by which you breathe, is above the water supported on bags of corks.
Bridges and hydraulics
Leonardo's study of the motion of water led him to design machinery that utilized its force. Much of his work on hydraulics was for Ludovico il Moro. Leonardo wrote to Ludovico describing his skills and what he could build:
…very light and strong bridges that can easily be carried, with which to pursue, and sometimes flee from, the enemy; and others safe and indestructible by fire or assault, easy and convenient to transport and place into position.
Among his projects in Florence was one to divert the course of the Arno, in order to flood Pisa. Fortunately, this was too costly to be carried out. He also surveyed Venice and came up with a plan to create a movable dyke for the city's protection against invaders.
In 1502, Leonardo produced a drawing of a single span 240 m (720 ft) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Ottoman Sultan Beyazid II of Istanbul. The bridge was intended to span an inlet at the mouth of the Bosphorus known as the Golden Horn. Beyazid did not pursue the project, because he believed that such a construction was impossible. Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway.
Leonardo's letter to Ludovico il Moro assured him:
When a place is besieged I know how to cut off water from the trenches and construct an infinite variety of bridges, mantlets and scaling ladders, and other instruments pertaining to sieges. I also have types of mortars that are very convenient and easy to transport.... when a place cannot be reduced by the method of bombardment either because of its height or its location, I have methods for destroying any fortress or other stronghold, even if it be founded upon rock. ....If the engagement be at sea, I have many engines of a kind most efficient for offence and defence, and ships that can resist cannons and powder.
In Leonardo's notebooks there is an array of war machines which includes a vehicle to be propelled by two men powering crank shafts. Although the drawing itself looks quite finished, the mechanics were apparently not fully developed because, if built as drawn, the vehicle would never progress in a forward direction. In a BBC documentary, a military team built the machine and changed the gears in order to make the machine work. It has been suggested that Leonardo deliberately left this error in the design, in order to prevent it from being put to practice by unauthorized people. Another machine, propelled by horses with a pillion rider, carries in front of it four scythes mounted on a revolving gear, turned by a shaft driven by the wheels of a cart behind the horses.
Leonardo's notebooks also show cannons which he claimed "to hurl small stones like a storm with the smoke of these causing great terror to the enemy, and great loss and confusion." He also designed an enormous crossbow. Following his detailed drawing, one was constructed by the British Army, but could not be made to fire successfully. In 1481 Leonardo designed a breech-loading, water cooled cannon with three racks of barrels allowed the re-loading of one rack while another was being fired and thus maintaining continuous fire power. The "fan type" gun with its array of horizontal barrels allowed for a wide scattering of shot.
Leonardo was the first to sketch the wheel-lock musket c. 1500 AD (the precedent of the flintlock musket which first appeared in Europe by 1547), although as early as the 14th century the Chinese had used a flintlock 'steel wheel' in order to detonate land mines.
While Leonardo was working in Venice, he drew a sketch for an early diving suit, to be used in the destruction of enemy ships entering Venetian waters. A suit was constructed for a BBC documentary using pigskin treated with fish oil to repel water. The head was covered by a helmet with two eyeglasses at the front. A breathing tube of bamboo with pigskin joints was attached to the back of the helmet and connected to a float of cork and wood. When the scuba divers tested the suit, they found it to be a workable precursor to a modern diving suit, the cork float acting as a compressed air chamber when submerged. His inventions were very futuristic which meant they were very expensive and proved not to be useful.
In Leonardo's infancy a hawk had once hovered over his cradle. Recalling this incident, Leonardo saw it as prophetic.
An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object. You may see that the beating of its wings against the air supports a heavy eagle in the highest and rarest atmosphere, close to the sphere of elemental fire. Again you may see the air in motion over the sea, fill the swelling sails and drive heavily laden ships. From these instances, and the reasons given, a man with wings large enough and duly connected might learn to overcome the resistance of the air, and by conquering it, succeed in subjugating it and rising above it.
The desire to fly is expressed in the many studies and drawings. His later journals contain a detailed study of the flight of birds and several different designs for wings based in structure upon those of bats which he described as being less heavy because of the impenetrable nature of the membrane. There is a legend that Leonardo tested the flying machine with one of his apprentices, and that the apprentice fell and broke his leg. Experts Martin Kemp and Liana Bortolon agree that there is no evidence of such a test, which is not mentioned in his journals.
One design that he produced shows a flying machine to be lifted by a man-powered rotor. It would not have worked since the body of the craft itself would have rotated in the opposite direction to the rotor.
Leonardo's original idea, as preserved in his notebooks of 1488–1489 and in the drawings in the Codex Atlanticus, was to use one or more wheels, continuously rotating, each of which pulled a looping bow, rather like a fanbelt in an automobile engine, and perpendicular to the instrument's strings.
Leonardo's inventions made reality
In the late 20th century, interest in Leonardo's inventions escalated. There have been many projects which have sought to turn diagrams on paper into working models. One of the factors is the awareness that, although in the 15th and 16th centuries Leonardo had available a limited range of materials, modern technological advancements have made available a number of robust materials of light-weight which might turn Leonardo's designs into reality. This is particularly the case with his designs for flying machines.
A difficulty encountered in the creation of models is that often Leonardo had not entirely thought through the mechanics of a machine before he drew it, or else he used a sort of graphic shorthand, simply not bothering to draw a gear or a lever at a point where one is essential in order to make a machine function. This lack of refinement of mechanical details can cause considerable confusion. Thus many models that are created, such as some of those on display at Clos Luce, Leonardo's home in France, do not work, but would work, with a little mechanical tweaking.
- Leonardo da Vinci Gallery at Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan; permanent exhibition, the biggest collection of Leonardo's projects and inventions.
- Models of Leonardo's designs are on permanent display at Clos Luce.
- The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, held an exhibition called "Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment and Design" in 2006
- Logitech Museum
- "The Da Vinci Machines Exhibition" was held in a pavilion in the Cultural Forecourt, at South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 2009. The exhibits shown were on loan from the Museum of Leonardo da Vinci, Florence, Italy.
- The U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), aired in October 2005, a television programme called Leonardo's Dream Machines, about the building and successful flight of a glider based upon Leonardo's design.
- The Discovery Channel began a series called Doing DaVinci in April 2009, in which a team of builders try to construct various da Vinci inventions based on his designs.
Models based on Leonardo's drawings
- Studies of the Fetus in the Womb—two colored annotated sketches by Leonardo da Vinci
- List of works by Leonardo da Vinci
- Leonardo da Vinci's personal life
- Topographical anatomy is the anatomy that is visible on the surface of the body.
- Liana Bortolon, The Life and Times of Leonardo, Paul Hamlyn, 1967
- Capra, Fritjof. The Science of Leonardo; Inside the Mind of the Genius of the Renaissance. (New York, Doubleday, 2007)
- Jean Paul Richter editor 1880, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci Dover, 1970, ISBN 0-486-22572-0. (accessed 2007-02-04)
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- "Da Vinci clue for heart surgeon". BBC News. 2005-09-28. Retrieved 2013-07-18.
- Martin Kemp, Leonardo, Oxford University Press, (2004) ISBN 0-19-280644-0
- E.g. Theophrastus, On the History of Plants.
- The London painting of the Virgin of the Rocks is denounced by the geologist Ann C. Pizzorusso,  of New York, as largely by the hand of someone other than Leonardo, because the rocks appear incongruous and the lake looks like a fjord. Pizzorusso says "Fjords do not exist in Italy and it is highly unlikely the glacial lakes of the Lombard region would have such steep relief surrounding them." In fact, the glacial lake, Garda, has just such steep geological formations. The sedimentary red limestone which appears in the picture is also typical of Italy.
- Pezzutto, Donato (2012-10-24). "Leonardo's Landscapes as Maps". OPUSeJ. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
- See Da Vinci's notebooks on astronomy.
- Bruce T. Moran, Distilling Knowledge, Chemistry, Alchemy and the Scientific Revolution, (2005) ISBN 0-674-01495-2
- "Quicksilver" is an old name for mercury.
- Irma Ann Richter and Teresa Wells, Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks, Oxford University Press (2008) ISBN 978-0-19-929902-7
- "Animations of anamorphosis of Leonardo and other artists". Illusionworks.com. Retrieved 2013-07-18.
- L. Murphy Smith, Luca Pacioli: The Father of Accounting
- "Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)". Nano-world.org. Retrieved 2013-07-24.
- "Da Vinci war machines "designed to fail"". The Age. Melbourne. December 14, 2002.
- Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 199.
- "Youtube Video of the BBC documentary".
- Liana Bortolon, Leonardo, Paul Hamlyn, (1967)
- "The Helicopter » Leonardo Da Vinci's Inventions". leonardodavincisinventions.com. Retrieved 2016-03-21.
- see Helicopter for detailed description of solutions and types of functional helicopter.
- U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Leonardo's Dream Machine, October 2005
- "Leonardo". Museoscienzaorg. Retrieved May 16, 2016.
- About Doing DaVinci : Doing DaVinci : Discovery Channel Archived April 19, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
- Bsmbach, Carmen (2003). Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 414. ISBN 0-300-09878-2.
- Moon, Francis C. (2007). The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux, Kinematics of Machines from the Renaissance to the 20th Century. Springer. ISBN 978-1-4020-5598-0.
- Capra, Fritjof (2007). The Science of Leonardo; Inside the Mind of the Genius of the Renaissance. New York: Doubleday.
- The Art of War: Leonardo da Vinci's War Machines
- Complete text & images of Richter's translation of the Notebooks
- Leonardo da Vinci: Experience, Experiment, Design (review)
- Some digitized notebook pages with explanations from the British Library (Non HTML5 Available)
- Digital and animated compendium of anatomy notebook pages
- BBC Leonardo homepage
- Leonardo da Vinci: The Leicester Codex
- Leonardo's Letter to Ludovico Sforza
- Animations of anamorphosis of Leonardo and other artists
- The Invention of the Parachute
- Da Vinci - The Genius: A comprehensive traveling exhibition about Leonardo da Vinci
- The technical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci - a high resolution gallery
- Leonardo da Vinci: anatomical drawings from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art


After receiving the diagnosis of heart disease, one of the first questions is always "Why did I get coronary heart disease?" We all know the traditional risk factors for heart disease: high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, poor diet, diabetes, family history, lack of exercise. Should we add stress and negative emotions to this list? Even after hundreds of scientific studies on this topic, the question still generates controversy and, in some cases, intense emotion.
While causality is unproven, there appears to be an association between coronary heart disease and anger, anxiety, and depression. Some suggest this could be due to the damaging behaviors that often accompany negative emotions (e.g., smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise), or the physiological effects that emotions can have on the heart and blood vessels (e.g., high blood pressure). Later, we will delve more deeply into how emotional stress affects the heart. For now, we will present the evidence suggesting an association between development of heart disease and two negative emotions, anger and anxiety.
The relationship between the heart and the constellation of emotional traits that includes anger, hostility, and cynicism has been examined extensively in observational studies. Although such studies are not considered the highest level of evidence, the findings are so consistent that they can't be ignored.
For some of us, anger and frustration begin early in the day. Cut off by the guy in the Pinto. Then stuck behind a slow truck -- what is wrong with that guy? Got around the truck, but still missed every single light. Almost there, but reached the final intersection just as road construction began -- why do they have to do this during rush hour, anyway? Spilled the coffee reaching for the parking pass. Why can't they have automatic parking gates? Arrived at work ten minutes late, frustrated and mad at the world. If this is your typical morning, you are not going to like what we have to say next.
Repeated bouts of anger are associated with thickening of the arteries and development of plaque, possible precursors to heart attacks. Over time, people who are frequently angry appear to have an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease. The stronger and more frequent the bouts of anger, the greater the risk of heart disease.
Some scientists argue that expressing anger, rather than holding it in, is better for the heart. This is unproven. Yelling might make you feel better for a moment, but it will probably endanger your job or your relationships -- leading to further stress and anger. A more effective strategy includes avoiding situations that trigger anger, and managing anger when it does occur. People who anger easily are frequently also pessimistic and cynical, and pessimism is bad for your heart. In an observational study of nearly 100,000 women, those with a pessimistic, cynical disposition developed more coronary heart disease, had more heart attacks, and died earlier than optimists. Cynical women were also more likely to develop cancer.
Like anger, anxiety may forecast the development of coronary heart disease. We all know the tight feeling that we get in the chest when we become very anxious, so we should not be surprised to learn that this emotion can affect heart health. The circumstantial evidence supporting anxiety as a marker of heart risk is strong. In an observational study of 50,000 18- to 20-year-old Swedish men, those with high levels of anxiety substantially increased their risk of developing coronary heart disease over the next 37 years. A recent meta-analysis incorporating twenty studies and nearly 250,000 individuals also found that anxiety is associated with development of coronary heart disease.
Once again, the more frequent and intense the anxiety and worry, the more likely the development of heart disease. Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is characterized by intense anxiety, tend to have more calcium (a marker of coronary blockages) in their hearts' arteries than do soldiers without the disorder. On the civilian front, people who suffer from panic disorders face an increased risk of developing heart problems.
Excerpted from Heart 411: The Only Guide to Heart Health You'll Ever Need (Three Rivers Press)


Video Message by António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, on the Launch of the Policy Brief on Education and COVID-19
4 August 2020
Education is the key to personal development and the future of societies.
It unlocks opportunities and narrows inequalities.
It is the bedrock of informed, tolerant societies, and a primary driver of sustainable development.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the largest disruption of education ever.
In mid-July, schools were closed in more than 160 countries, affecting over 1 billion students.
At least 40 million children worldwide have missed out on education in their critical pre-school year.
And parents, especially women, have been forced to assume heavy care burdens in the home.
Despite the delivery of lessons by radio, television and online, and the best efforts of teachers and parents, many students remain out of reach.
Learners with disabilities, those in minority or disadvantaged communities, displaced and refugee students and those in remote areas are at the highest risk of being left behind.
And even for those who can access distance learning, success depends on their living conditions, including the fair distribution of domestic duties.
We already faced a learning crisis before the pandemic.
More than 250 million school-age children were out of school.
And only a quarter of secondary school children in developing countries were leaving school with basic skills.
Now we face a generational catastrophe that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress, and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.
The knock-on effects on child nutrition, child marriage and gender equality, among others, are deeply concerning.
This is the backdrop to the Policy Brief I am launching today, together with a new campaign with education partners and United Nations agencies called ‘Save our Future’.
We are at a defining moment for the world’s children and young people.
The decisions that governments and partners take now will have lasting impact on hundreds of millions of young people, and on the development prospects of countries for decades to come.
This Policy Brief calls for action in four key areas:
First, reopening schools.
Once local transmission of COVID-19 is under control, getting students back into schools and learning institutions as safely as possible must be a top priority.
We have issued guidance to help governments in this complex endeavour.
It will be essential to balance health risks against the risks to children’s education and protection, and to factor in the impact on women’s labour force participation.
Consultation with parents, carers, teachers and young people is fundamental.
Second, prioritizing education in financing decisions.
Before the crisis hit, low- and middle-income countries already faced an education funding gap of $1.5 trillion dollars a year.
This gap has now grown.
Education budgets need to be protected and increased.
And it is critical that education is at the heart of international solidarity efforts, from debt management and stimulus packages to global humanitarian appeals and official development assistance.
Third, targeting the hardest to reach.
Education initiatives must seek to reach those at greatest risk of being left behind – people in emergencies and crises; minority groups of all kinds; displaced people and those with disabilities.
They should be sensitive to the specific challenges faced by girls, boys, women and men, and should urgently seek to bridge the digital divide.
Fourth, the future of education is here.
We have a generational opportunity to reimagine education.
We can take a leap towards forward-looking systems that deliver quality education for all as a springboard for the Sustainable Development Goals.
To achieve this, we need investment in digital literacy and infrastructure, an evolution towards learning how to learn, a rejuvenation of life-long learning and strengthened links between formal and non-formal education.
And we need to draw on flexible delivery models [methods], digital technologies and modernized curricula while ensuring sustained support for teachers and communities.
As the world faces unsustainable levels of inequality, we need education – the great equalizer – more than ever.
We must take bold steps now, to create inclusive, resilient, quality education systems fit for the future.


Colors and Color Guards
Flags are almost as old as civilization itself. Imperial Egypt and the armies of Babylon and Assyria followed the colors of their kings. Ancient texts mention banners and standards. The flag that identified nations usually were based on the personal or family heraldry of the reigning monarch. As autocracies faded or disappeared, dynastic colors were no longer suitable and national flags came into being. These national flags such as the Union Jack of Great Britain, the Tricolor of France and the Stars and Stripes are relatively new to history. When the struggle for independence united the colonies, there grew a desire for a single flag to represent the new Nation. The first flag borne by our Army representing the 13 colonies was the grand union flag. It was raised over the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 2 January 1776. The Stars and Stripes as we now know it was born on 14 June 1777.
The flags carried by Color-bearing units are called the national and organizational colors. The Colors may be carried in any formation in which two or more company honor guards or representative elements of a command participate. The Command Sergeant Major is responsible for the safeguarding, care and display of the organizational color. He is also responsible for the selection, training and performance of the Color bearers and Color guards.
The honorary position for the CSM is two steps to the rear and centered on the Color guard.
Because of the importance and visibility of the task, it is an honor to be a member of the Color guard. The detail may consist of three to eight soldiers, usually NCOs. The senior (Color) sergeant carries the National Color and commands the Color guard unless a person is designated as the Color sergeant. The Color sergeant gives the necessary commands for the movements and for rendering honors. The most important aspect of the selection, training and performance of the Color guard is the training. Training requires precision in drills, manual of arms, customs and courtesies and wear and appearance of uniforms and insignia.
A well trained color guard at the front of unit's formation signifies a sense of teamwork, confidence, pride, alertness, attention to detail, esprit de corps and discipline. The Color Guard detail should perform its functions as much as possible in accordance with ARs 600-25, 670-1 and 840-10 and FM 22-5.