1.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
Ancient Greek philosophy
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Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was used to sense out of the world in a non-religious way. It dealt with a variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric. Many philosophers around the world agree that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception, alfred North Whitehead once noted, The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. Clear, unbroken lines of lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy, the European Renaissance. Some claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced by the wisdom literature. But they taught themselves to reason, Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation. Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates as presented by Plato that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this, up to and after the wars of Alexander the Great, are those of classical Greek, the pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were distinguished from non-philosophers insofar as they rejected mythological explanations in favor of reasoned discourse, Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, held that all things arise from water. It is not because he gave a cosmogony that John Burnet calls him the first man of science, according to tradition, Thales was able to predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids. He began from the observation that the world seems to consist of opposites, therefore, they cannot truly be opposites but rather must both be manifestations of some underlying unity that is neither. This underlying unity could not be any of the classical elements, for example, water is wet, the opposite of dry, while fire is dry, the opposite of wet. Anaximenes in turn held that the arche was air, although John Burnet argues that by this he meant that it was a transparent mist, the aether. Xenophanes was born in Ionia, where the Milesian school was at its most powerful, Burnet says that Xenophanes was not, however, a scientific man, with many of his naturalistic explanations having no further support than that they render the Homeric gods superfluous or foolish. He has been claimed as an influence on Eleatic philosophy, although that is disputed, and a precursor to Epicurus, a representative of a total break between science and religion. Pythagoras lived at roughly the time that Xenophanes did and, in contrast to the latter. Parmenides of Elea cast his philosophy against those who held it is and is not the same, and all travel in opposite directions, —presumably referring to Heraclitus
3.
Amateur sports
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Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are financially remunerated for the time they spend competing and training, the majority of worldwide sporting participants are amateurs. Modern organized sports developed in the 19th century, with the United Kingdom, sporting culture was especially strong in private schools and universities, and the upper and middle class men who attended these institutions played as amateurs. Opportunities for working classes to participate in sport were restricted by their long six-day work weeks, in the UK, the Factory Act of 1844 gave working men half a day off, making the opportunity to take part in sport more widely available. Working class sportsmen found it hard to top level sport due to the need to turn up to work. On occasion, cash prizes, particularly in competitions, could make up the difference. Proponents of the amateur ideal deplored the influence of money and the effect it has on sports, working class sportsmen didnt see why they shouldnt be paid to play. Hence there were competing interests between those who wished sport to be open to all and those who feared that professionalism would destroy the Corinthian spirit and this conflict played out over the course of more than one hundred years. Corinthian has come to describe the most virtuous of amateur athletes—those for whom fairness, to that end, club rules ensured that crews consisted of amateurs, while no professional or paid hand is allowed to touch the tiller or in any way assist in steering. The earlier origins of the term are somewhat murky, though it must certainly be linked to the Isthmian games of ancient Corinth, it more proximately originates from common slang usage in early 19th century England. The Seawhanaka Yacht Club—founded in 1874—added Corinthian to its name in 1881, the Corinthian Football Club was founded in 1882. The Corinthian Yacht Club was founded in 1886 in Tiburon, California in the United States, the Yale Yacht Club was renamed the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club in 1893. By the early 21st century the Olympic Games and all the team sports accepted professional competitors. However, there are some sports which maintain a distinction between amateur and professional status with separate competitive leagues. The most prominent of these are golf and boxing, in particular, only amateur boxers could compete at the Olympics up to 2016. This may jeopardise their status as amateurs, and if allowed to let slide, where professionals are permitted, it is hard for amateurs to compete against them. Whether this is a triumph of capitalism or an example of corruption depends on the viewers perspective, to some an amateur means an incompetent or also-ran, and to others it means an idealist. To say that the athlete should not be paid can prevent performances only possible for an athlete who is free to pursue the sport full-time without other sources of income, the term shamateurism is used to describe state-sponsored athletes
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Olympic Games
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The Olympic Games are considered the worlds foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. The Olympic Games are held four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure. The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in changes to the Olympic Games. The IOC has had to adapt to a variety of economic, political, as a result, the Olympics has shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes. The growing importance of mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship, World wars led to the cancellation of the 1916,1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games, the Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations, National Olympic Committees, and organising committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, the IOC also determines the Olympic programme, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games. There are several Olympic rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, over 13,000 athletes compete at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in 33 different sports and nearly 400 events. The first, second, and third-place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals, gold, silver, the Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is now represented. This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide unknown athletes with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games also constitute an opportunity for the host city and country to themselves to the world. The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, competition was among representatives of several city-states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured mainly athletic but also combat such as wrestling. It has been written that during the Games, all conflicts among the participating city-states were postponed until the Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities was known as the Olympic peace or truce and this idea is a modern myth because the Greeks never suspended their wars. The truce did allow those religious pilgrims who were travelling to Olympia to pass through warring territories unmolested because they were protected by Zeus
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Gentry
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Gentry are well-born, genteel and well-bred people of high social class, especially in the past. In the United Kingdom, the term refers to the social class of the landed aristocracy or to the minor aristocracy whose income derives from their large landholdings. The idea of gentry in the sense of noblesse is extinct in common parlance in modern day Britain. Though the untitled nobility in modern day Britain are normally termed gentry, the older sense of nobility is that of a quality identical to gentry. The fundamental social division in most parts of Europe in the Middle Ages was between the nobiles, i. e. the tenants in chivalry, and the ignobles, i. e. the villeins, citizens and burgesses. The division into nobles and ignobles in smaller regions of Europe in the Middle Ages was less due to a more rudimentary feudal order. After the Reformation, intermingling between the class and the often hereditary clerical upper class became a distinctive feature in several Nordic countries. Besides the gentry there have been other analogous traditional elites, the Indo-Europeans who settled Europe, Western Asia and the Indian subcontinent conceived their societies to be ordered in a tripartite fashion, the three parts being castes. Castes came to be divided, perhaps as a result of greater specialisation. The classic formulation of the system as largely described by Georges Dumézil was that of a priestly or religiously occupied caste, a warrior caste. Dumézil divided the Proto-Indo-Europeans into three categories, sovereignty, military, and productivity and he further subdivided sovereignty into two distinct and complementary sub-parts. One part was formal, juridical, and priestly, but rooted in this world, the other was powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly, but rooted in the other, the supernatural and spiritual world. The second main division was connected with the use of force, the military, finally, there was a third group, ruled by the other two, whose role was productivity, herding, farming, and crafts. This system of roles can be seen in the castes which flourished on the Indian subcontinent. Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West, the classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and Latin West. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores, bellatores, the last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Platos guardians, were placed in authority, in the latter half of the period in which they ruled, the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire
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Great Britain
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Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
7.
Age of Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes of the widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church, a variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution, earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence, others like James Madison incorporated them into the Constitution in 1787. The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie, the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by an intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking and his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by John Lockes 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his dualism was challenged by Spinozas uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines, the political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Francis Hutcheson, a philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words. Much of what is incorporated in the method and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the sphere through private
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Science in the Age of Enlightenment
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Generally, the period spans from the final days of the 16th and 17th-century Scientific revolution until roughly the 19th century, after the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. The scientific revolution saw the creation of the first scientific societies, the rise of Copernicanism, by the 18th century, scientific authority began to displace religious authority, and the disciplines of alchemy and astrology lost scientific credibility. While the Enlightenment cannot be pigeonholed into a doctrine or set of dogmas, science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse. Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought, Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession, another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. The number of universities in Paris remained relatively constant throughout the 18th century, Europe had about 105 universities and colleges by 1700. North America had 44, including the newly founded Harvard and Yale, the number of university students remained roughly the same throughout the Enlightenment in most Western nations, excluding Britain, where the number of institutions and students increased. University students were generally males from affluent families, seeking a career in medicine, law. The universities themselves existed primarily to educate future physicians, lawyers and members of the clergy, most European universities taught a Cartesian form of mechanical philosophy in the early 18th century, and only slowly adopted Newtonianism in the mid-18th century. Another exception occurred in the universities of Germany and Scandinavia, where University of Halle professor Christian Wolff taught a form of Cartesianism modified by Leibnizian physics, before the 18th century, science courses were taught almost exclusively through formal lectures. The structure of courses began to change in the first decades of the 18th century, pierre Polinière and Jacques Rohault were among the first individuals to provide demonstrations of physical principles in the classroom. One particularly dramatic air-pump demonstration involved placing an apple inside the receiver of the air-pump. Polinière’s demonstrations were so impressive that he was granted an invitation to present his course to Louis XV in 1722, some attempts at reforming the structure of the science curriculum were made during the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century. Beginning around 1745, the Hats party in Sweden made propositions to reform the university system by separating natural philosophy into two faculties of physics and mathematics. The propositions were never put into action, but they represent the growing calls for reform in the later part of the 18th century. In 1777, the study of arts at Cracow and Vilna in Poland was divided into the two new faculties of philosophy and physics. However, the reform did not survive beyond 1795 and the Third Partition, during the French Revolution, all colleges and universities in France were abolished and reformed in 1808 under the single institution of the Université imperiale. The Université divided the arts and sciences into separate faculties, something that had never before been done before in Europe, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands employed the same system in 1815
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Cabinet of curiosities
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Cabinets of curiosities were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern terminology would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, the Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patrons control of the world through its indoor, the term cabinet originally described a room rather than a piece of furniture. The classic cabinet of curiosities emerged in the century, although more rudimentary collections had existed earlier. The earliest pictorial record of a natural history cabinet is the engraving in Ferrante Imperatos DellHistoria Naturale, some of the volumes doubtless represent his herbarium. Every surface of the ceiling is occupied with preserved fishes, stuffed mammals and curious shells. Examples of corals stand on the bookcases, above them, stuffed birds stand against panels inlaid with square polished stone samples, doubtless marbles and jaspers or fitted with pigeonhole compartments for specimens. Below them, a range of cupboards contain specimen boxes and covered jars, two of the most famously described seventeenth-century cabinets were those of Ole Worm, known as Olaus Wormius, and Athanasius Kircher. Often they would contain a mix of fact and fiction, including apparently mythical creatures, Worms collection contained, for example, what he thought was a Scythian Lamb, a woolly fern thought to be a plant/sheep fabulous creature. However he was responsible for identifying the narwhals tusk as coming from a whale rather than a unicorn. The specimens displayed were often collected during exploring expeditions and trading voyages, Cabinets of curiosities would often serve scientific advancement when images of their contents were published. The catalog of Worms collection, published as the Museum Wormianum, used the collection of artifacts as a point for Worms speculations on philosophy, science, natural history. Cabinets of curiosities were limited to those who could afford to create, many monarchs, in particular, developed large collections. A rather under-used example, stronger in art than other areas, was the Studiolo of Francesco I, frederick III of Denmark, who added Worms collection to his own after Worms death, was another such monarch. A third example is the Kunstkamera founded by Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg in 1714, many items were bought in Amsterdam from Albertus Seba and Frederik Ruysch. The fabulous Habsburg Imperial collection included important Aztec artifacts, including the feather head-dress or crown of Montezuma now in the Museum of Ethnology, similar collections on a smaller scale were the complex Kunstschränke produced in the early seventeenth century by the Augsburg merchant, diplomat and collector Philipp Hainhofer. The best preserved example is the one given by the city of Augsburg to King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1632, the curio cabinet, as a modern single piece of furniture, is a version of the grander historical examples. In 1714, Michael Bernhard Valentini published an early work, Museum Museorum
10.
The Christian Virtuoso
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The Christian Virtuoso was one of the last books published by Robert Boyle, who was a champion of his Anglican faith. This book summarised his religious views including his idea of a universe created by God. Boyle was a devout Anglican, and with the rise of science and this spurred him to write about his belief of science and religion supporting each other. On this books title page Boyle states that, being addicted to experimental philosophy a man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good Christian, and this principle is what he sets out to show. The Christian Virtuoso summarized Boyles views that the study of Gods handiwork was a religious duty, some see The Christian Virtuoso as a manifesto of Boyles life as the ideal Christian scientist. John Locke read and reviewed a manuscript of the book in 1681, in the early 17th century the word virtuoso first referred to a gentleman interested in precious stones and antiquities. In the title Boyle equates a natural philosopher with a virtuoso and this book was in part the basis for Cotton Mathers 1721 book The Christian Philosopher. Boyle saw scientific inquiry as a form of worship, a view shared by other 17th century scientific figures such as John Ray. Explicit in Boyles writings are the images of nature as temple, besides The Christian Virtuoso, Boyle also wrote at least three other works championing his Christian faith. An 1835 book by Henry Rogers is a collection of these works, Boyle Lectures Robert Boyle and the Limits of Reason Jan W
11.
Royal Society
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Founded in November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II as The Royal Society. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Societys President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the President are elected from and by its Fellows, the members of the society. As of 2016, there are about 1,600 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS, there are also royal fellows, honorary fellows and foreign members, the last of which are allowed to use the postnominal title ForMemRS. The Royal Society President is Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who took up the post on 30 November 2015, since 1967, the society has been based at 6–9 Carlton House Terrace, a Grade I listed building in central London which was previously used by the Embassy of Germany, London. The Royal Society started from groups of physicians and natural philosophers, meeting at variety of locations and they were influenced by the new science, as promoted by Francis Bacon in his New Atlantis, from approximately 1645 onwards. A group known as The Philosophical Society of Oxford was run under a set of rules still retained by the Bodleian Library, after the English Restoration, there were regular meetings at Gresham College. It is widely held that these groups were the inspiration for the foundation of the Royal Society, I will not say, that Mr Oldenburg did rather inspire the French to follow the English, or, at least, did help them, and hinder us. But tis well known who were the men that began and promoted that design. This initial royal favour has continued and, since then, every monarch has been the patron of the society, the societys early meetings included experiments performed first by Hooke and then by Denis Papin, who was appointed in 1684. These experiments varied in their area, and were both important in some cases and trivial in others. The Society returned to Gresham in 1673, there had been an attempt in 1667 to establish a permanent college for the society. Michael Hunter argues that this was influenced by Solomons House in Bacons New Atlantis and, to a lesser extent, by J. V. The first proposal was given by John Evelyn to Robert Boyle in a letter dated 3 September 1659, he suggested a scheme, with apartments for members. The societys ideas were simpler and only included residences for a handful of staff and these plans were progressing by November 1667, but never came to anything, given the lack of contributions from members and the unrealised—perhaps unrealistic—aspirations of the society. During the 18th century, the gusto that had characterised the early years of the society faded, with a number of scientific greats compared to other periods. The pointed lightning conductor had been invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, during the same time period, it became customary to appoint society fellows to serve on government committees where science was concerned, something that still continues. The 18th century featured remedies to many of the early problems
12.
Francis Bacon
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Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban, PC KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, and author. He served both as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England, after his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Bacon has been called the father of empiricism and his works argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. Most importantly, he argued this could be achieved by use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. This marked a new turn in the rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, Bacon was generally neglected at court by Queen Elizabeth, but after the accession of King James I in 1603, Bacon was knighted. He was later created Baron Verulam in 1618 and Viscount St. Alban in 1621, because he had no heirs, both titles became extinct upon his death in 1626, at 65 years of age. Bacon died of pneumonia, with one account by John Aubrey stating that he had contracted the condition while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat. Francis Bacon was born on 22 January 1561 at York House near the Strand in London, the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon by his wife, Anne Bacon. His mothers sister was married to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, biographers believe that Bacon was educated at home in his early years owing to poor health, which would plague him throughout his life. He received tuition from John Walsall, a graduate of Oxford with a leaning toward Puritanism. Bacons education was conducted largely in Latin and followed the medieval curriculum and he was also educated at the University of Poitiers. It was at Cambridge that he first met Queen Elizabeth, who was impressed by his precocious intellect and his studies brought him to the belief that the methods and results of science as then practised were erroneous. His reverence for Aristotle conflicted with his rejection of Aristotelian philosophy, on 27 June 1576, he and Anthony entered de societate magistrorum at Grays Inn. A few months later, Francis went abroad with Sir Amias Paulet, the state of government and society in France under Henry III afforded him valuable political instruction. For the next three years he visited Blois, Poitiers, Tours, Italy, and Spain, during his travels, Bacon studied language, statecraft, and civil law while performing routine diplomatic tasks. On at least one occasion he delivered diplomatic letters to England for Walsingham, Burghley, the sudden death of his father in February 1579 prompted Bacon to return to England. Sir Nicholas had laid up a sum of money to purchase an estate for his youngest son, but he died before doing so. Having borrowed money, Bacon got into debt, Bacon stated that he had three goals, to uncover truth, to serve his country, and to serve his church
13.
Isaac Newton
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His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics. Newton also made contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing the infinitesimal calculus. Newtons Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists view of the universe for the next three centuries. Newtons work on light was collected in his influential book Opticks. He also formulated a law of cooling, made the first theoretical calculation of the speed of sound. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, politically and personally tied to the Whig party, Newton served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, in 1689–90 and 1701–02. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705 and he spent the last three decades of his life in London, serving as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint and his father, also named Isaac Newton, had died three months before. Born prematurely, he was a child, his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug. When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabas Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Newtons mother had three children from her second marriage. From the age of twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The Kings School, Grantham which taught Latin and Greek. He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, Henry Stokes, master at the Kings School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a bully, he became the top-ranked student. In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge and he started as a subsizar—paying his way by performing valets duties—until he was awarded a scholarship in 1664, which guaranteed him four more years until he would get his M. A. He set down in his notebook a series of Quaestiones about mechanical philosophy as he found it, in 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his B. A. degree in August 1665, in April 1667, he returned to Cambridge and in October was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, although this was not enforced in the restoration years, however, by 1675 the issue could not be avoided and by then his unconventional views stood in the way. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II. A and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1672. Newtons work has been said to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied and his work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newtons mathematical papers
14.
Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington
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Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, 1st Baronet of Conington Hall in the parish of Conington in Huntingdonshire, England, was a Member of Parliament and an antiquarian who founded the Cotton library. The Cotton family originated at the manor of Cotton in Cheshire, Cotton was educated at Westminster School where he was a pupil of the antiquarian William Camden, under whose influence he began to study antiquarian topics. He began collecting notes on the history of Huntingdonshire when he was seventeen and he proceeded to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1585 and in 1589 entered the Middle Temple to study law. He began to amass a library in which the documents rivalled, then surpassed, Cotton was elected a Member of Parliament for Newtown, Isle of Wight in 1601 and as Knight of the Shire for Huntingdonshire in 1604. From the Court partys point of view, this was anti-royalist in nature, thus it was confiscated in 1630 and returned only after his death to his heirs. He was subsequently elected to Parliament for Old Sarum, Thetford, Cotton was elected to parliament for Huntingdonshire in 1604, a constituency previously represented by his grandfather. Cotton worked on the Committee on Grievances and in 1605–06 received the Bill pertaining to the Gunpowder Plot through his work on the Committee of Privileges, in 1607 he was reappointed to the Committee of Privileges. Cotton was appointed to the joint conference with the Lords during his work on the bill pertaining to the union between Scotland and England in 1606–07. In 1610 Cotton was nominated in first place to the Committee of Privileges, in 1610/11 the royal revenues were low, and Cotton wrote Means for raising the king’s estate. In this work he suggested the formation of the baronetcy a new order of social rank, higher than the knight. Cotton was not elected to the 1614 Parliament, in 1621 Cotton advised James I on the impeachment of Sir Francis Bacon concerning the respective roles of king and Parliament. In 1624 Cotton was elected to represent Old Sarum after the member, Sir Arthur Ingram. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Cotton reunited with his former school-master William Camden in the late 1580s as a member of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Camden was one of the greatest early antiquarians whose 1586 work Britannia was a History of early Britain, Cotton exerted little influence in the society until after his fathers death in 1592. In 1593 he was resident at the seat of Conington Castle. The plan did not receive royal approval, the trip appears to have initiated Cottons interest in Roman artefacts. The antiquarianns Reginald Bainbridge and Lord William Howard offered Cotton Roman stones while the Essex antiquarian John Barkham arranged to send him Roman relics, Cottons antiquarian studies influenced many people of his time and he was often looked to by other antiquarians for ideas. I have beene att Cattericke wher I was informed of 2Romaine monuments weh were found in a 1620 and are now in my Io, of Arundells keeping
15.
Basketball
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Basketball is a non-contact team sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of five players each. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high that is mounted to a backboard at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket being defended by the opposition team during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line. A team can also score via free throws, which are worth one point, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time is mandated when the score is tied at the end of regulation. The ball can be advanced on the court by passing it to a teammate and it is a violation to lift, or drag, ones pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling. The game has many techniques for displaying skill—ball-handling, shooting, passing, dribbling, dunking, shot-blocking. The point guard directs the on court action of the team, implementing the coachs game plan, Basketball is one of the worlds most popular and widely viewed sports. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague, the FIBA Basketball World Cup attracts the top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for teams, like EuroBasket. The FIBA Womens Basketball World Cup features the top womens basketball teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA, whereas the EuroLeague Women has been dominated by teams from the Russian Womens Basketball Premier League, in early December 1891, Canadian Dr. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball and these laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith, dribbling was not part of the original game except for the bounce pass to teammates. Passing the ball was the means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a part of the game around the 1950s
16.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and this game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series, the top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision, a French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It, A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England, recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David Block discovered that the first recorded game of Bass-Ball took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants
17.
Football
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Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. Unqualified, the football is understood to refer to whichever form of football is the most popular in the regional context in which the word appears. Sports commonly called football in certain places include, association football, gridiron football, Australian rules football, rugby football and these different variations of football are known as football codes. Various forms of football can be identified in history, often as popular peasant games, contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the nineteenth century. The expanse of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside of the directly controlled Empire, in 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football competitions. During the twentieth century, several of the kinds of football grew to become some of the most popular team sports in the world. They tend to use throwing and running as the ways of moving the ball. Body tackling is a skill, and games typically involve short passages of play of 5–90 seconds. Association football, Australian rules football and Gaelic football tend to use kicking to move the ball around the pitch, body tackles are less central to the game, and players are freer to move around the field. Common rules among the sports include, Two teams of usually between 11 and 18 players, some variations that have fewer players are also popular, a clearly defined area in which to play the game. Scoring goals or points by moving the ball to an opposing teams end of the field and either into a goal area, goals or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts. The goal or line being defended by the opposing team, players being required to move the ball—depending on the code—by kicking, carrying, or hand-passing the ball. Players using only their body to move the ball, in all codes, common skills include passing, tackling, evasion of tackles, catching and kicking. In most codes, there are rules restricting the movement of players offside, there are conflicting explanations of the origin of the word football. It is widely assumed that the word refers to the action of the foot kicking a ball. There is an explanation, which is that football originally referred to a variety of games in medieval Europe. There is no evidence for either explanation. The Ancient Greeks and Romans are known to have played ball games
18.
Jim Thorpe
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James Francis Thorpe was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe became the first Native American to win a medal for his home country. Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports, he won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, and played American football, professional baseball, in 1983,30 years after his death, the International Olympic Committee restored his Olympic medals. Thorpe grew up in the Sac and Fox Nation in Oklahoma, and attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School, after his Olympic success in 1912, which included a record score in the decathlon, he added a victory in the All-Around Championship of the Amateur Athletic Union. In 1913, Thorpe signed with the New York Giants, Thorpe joined the Canton Bulldogs American football team in 1915, helping them win three professional championships, he later played for six teams in the National Football League. He played as part of several all-American Indian teams throughout his career, from 1920 to 1921, Thorpe was nominally the first president of the American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL in 1922. He played professional sports until age 41, the end of his sports career coinciding with the start of the Great Depression and he struggled to earn a living after that, working several odd jobs. He suffered from alcoholism, and lived his last years in failing health and he was married three times and had eight children, before suffering from heart failure and dying in 1953. Thorpe has received accolades for his athletic accomplishments. The Associated Press named him the greatest athlete from the first 50 years of the 20th century, a Pennsylvania town was named in his honor and a monument site there is the site of his remains, which were the subject of legal action. Thorpe was portrayed in the 1951 film Jim Thorpe – All-American, information about Thorpes birth, name and ethnic background varies widely. He was baptized Jacobus Franciscus Thorpe in the Catholic Church, Thorpe was born in Indian Territory, but no birth certificate has been found. He was generally considered to have born on May 22,1887, near the town of Prague. Hope this will clear up the inquiries as to my birthplace, however, most biographers believe that he was born on May 22,1887, as that is what is listed on his baptismal certificate. Bellemont was a community, now disappeared, on the line between Pottawatomie and Lincoln Counties. While the town of Prague, Lincoln County, now claims to be the birthplace of Thorpe, All his personal references were either Shawnee or Pott County. The Sac and Fox agency is in Stroud, Lincoln County, Thorpes parents were both of mixed-race ancestry. His father, Hiram Thorpe, had an Irish father and a Sac and his mother, Charlotte Vieux, had a French father and a Potawatomi mother, a descendant of Chief Louis Vieux
19.
Boxing
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Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds, in the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw - the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout. While people have fought in combat since before the dawn of history. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete, in Ancient Greece boxing was a well developed sport and enjoyed consistent popularity. In Olympic terms, it was first introduced in the 23rd Olympiad,688 B. C, the boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands in order to protect them. There were no rounds and boxers fought until one of them acknowledged defeat or could not continue, weight categories were not used, which meant heavyweights had a tendency to dominate. It was the head of the opponent which was primarily targeted, Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists, eventually harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon. The Romans even introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus which then led to a more sinister weapon called the myrmex, Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres. The Roman form of boxing was often a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events, however, especially in later times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, and their lives were not given up without due consideration. Often slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor and this is where the term ring came from. In AD393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality and it was not until the late 17th century that boxing re-surfaced in London. Records of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again, however, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was also a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or Fist Fighting, as the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would later resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting. The first documented account of a fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury
20.
Wrestling
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Wrestling is a combat sport involving grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. The sport can either be theatrical for entertainment, or genuinely competitive, a wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position. There are a range of styles with varying rules with both traditional historic and modern styles. Wrestling techniques have incorporated into other martial arts as well as military hand-to-hand combat systems. The term wrestling is attested in late Old English, as wræstlunge, Wrestling represents one of the oldest forms of combat. The origins of wrestling go back 15,000 years through cave drawings in France, babylonian and Egyptian reliefs show wrestlers using most of the holds known in the present-day sport. Literary references to it occur as early as in the ancient Indian Vedas, the Iliad contains references, in which Homer recounts the Trojan War of the 13th or 12th century BC. Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata contain references to martial arts including wrestling, in ancient Greece wrestling occupied a prominent place in legend and literature, wrestling competition, brutal in many aspects, served as the focal sport of the ancient Olympic Games. The ancient Romans borrowed heavily from Greek wrestling, but eliminated much of its brutality, during the Middle Ages wrestling remained popular and enjoyed the patronage of many royal families, including those of France, Japan and England. Early European settlers in America brought a strong wrestling tradition with them if they came from England, the settlers also found wrestling to be popular among Native Americans. Amateur wrestling flourished throughout the years of the North American colonies and served as a popular activity at country fairs, holiday celebrations. The first organized national wrestling tournament took place in New York City in 1888, the international governing body for the sport, United World Wrestling, was established in 1912 in Antwerp, Belgium as the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles. The 1st NCAA Wrestling Championships were also held in 1912, in Ames, USA Wrestling, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, became the national governing body of amateur wrestling in 1983. It conducts competitions for all age-levels, some of the earliest references to wrestling, can be found in wrestling mythology. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh established his credibility as a leader, after wrestling Enkidu, Greek mythology celebrates the rise of Zeus as ruler of the earth after a wrestling match with his father, Cronus. Both Heracles and Theseus were famous for their wrestling against man, the Mahabharata describes a malla-dwandwa between the accomplished wrestlers Bhima and Jarasandha. Rustam of the Shahnameh is regarded by Iranian pahlevans as the greatest wrestler, in Pharaonic Egypt, wrestling has been evidenced by documentation on tombs and Egyptian artwork. Greek wrestling was a form of martial art, at least in Ancient Greece
21.
Computer programming
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Computer programming is a process that leads from an original formulation of a computing problem to executable computer programs. Source code is written in one or more programming languages, the purpose of programming is to find a sequence of instructions that will automate performing a specific task or solving a given problem. The process of programming thus often requires expertise in many different subjects, including knowledge of the domain, specialized algorithms. Related tasks include testing, debugging, and maintaining the code, implementation of the build system. Software engineering combines engineering techniques with software development practices, within software engineering, programming is regarded as one phase in a software development process. There is a debate on the extent to which the writing of programs is an art form. In general, good programming is considered to be the application of all three, with the goal of producing an efficient and evolvable software solution. Because the discipline covers many areas, which may or may not include critical applications, in most cases, the discipline is self-governed by the entities which require the programming, and sometimes very strict environments are defined. Another ongoing debate is the extent to which the language used in writing computer programs affects the form that the final program takes. Different language patterns yield different patterns of thought and this idea challenges the possibility of representing the world perfectly with language because it acknowledges that the mechanisms of any language condition the thoughts of its speaker community. In the 1880s Herman Hollerith invented the concept of storing data in machine-readable form, however, with the concept of the stored-program computers introduced in 1949, both programs and data were stored and manipulated in the same way in computer memory. Machine code was the language of early programs, written in the set of the particular machine. Assembly languages were developed that let the programmer specify instruction in a text format, with abbreviations for each operation code. However, because a language is little more than a different notation for a machine language. High-level languages allow the programmer to write programs in terms that are more abstract and they harness the power of computers to make programming easier by allowing programmers to specify calculations by entering a formula directly. Programs were mostly still entered using punched cards or paper tape, see computer programming in the punch card era. By the late 1960s, data storage devices and computer terminals became inexpensive enough that programs could be created by typing directly into the computers, text editors were developed that allowed changes and corrections to be made much more easily than with punched cards. Whatever the approach to development may be, the program must satisfy some fundamental properties
22.
Open-source model
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Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner. According to scientists who studied it, open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration, a 2008 report by the Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. In the early days of computing, programmers and developers shared software in order to learn from each other, eventually the open source notion moved to the way side of commercialization of software in the years 1970-1980. In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar and this source code subsequently became the basis behind SeaMonkey, Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and KompoZer. Netscapes act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the Free Software Foundations free software ideas, the new term they chose was open source, which was soon adopted by Bruce Perens, publisher Tim OReilly, Linus Torvalds, and others. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage use of the new term, a Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that open source is an intellectual property destroyer. I cant imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business, IBM, Oracle, Google and State Farm are just a few of the companies with a serious public stake in todays competitive open-source market. There has been a significant shift in the corporate philosophy concerning the development of FOSS, the free software movement was launched in 1983. In 1998, a group of individuals advocated that the free software should be replaced by open-source software as an expression which is less ambiguous. Software developers may want to publish their software with an open-source license, the Open Source Definition, notably, presents an open-source philosophy, and further defines the terms of usage, modification and redistribution of open-source software. Software licenses grant rights to users which would otherwise be reserved by law to the copyright holder. Several open-source software licenses have qualified within the boundaries of the Open Source Definition, the open source label came out of a strategy session held on April 7,1998 in Palo Alto in reaction to Netscapes January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator. They used the opportunity before the release of Navigators source code to clarify a potential confusion caused by the ambiguity of the free in English. Many people claimed that the birth of the Internet, since 1969, started the open source movement, the Free Software Foundation, started in 1985, intended the word free to mean freedom to distribute and not freedom from cost. Since a great deal of free software already was free of charge, such software became associated with zero cost. The Open Source Initiative was formed in February 1998 by Eric Raymond and they sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and they wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Perens attempted to open source as a service mark for the OSI. The Open Source Initiatives definition is recognized by governments internationally as the standard or de facto definition, OSI uses The Open Source Definition to determine whether it considers a software license open source
23.
Play (theatre)
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A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Plays are performed at a variety of levels, from Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theater, to Community theatre, there are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference as to whether their plays were performed or read. The term play can refer to both the works of playwrights and to their complete theatrical performance. Comedies are plays which are designed to be humorous, comedies are often filled with witty remarks, unusual characters, and strange circumstances. Certain comedies are geared toward different age groups, comedies were one of the two original play types of Ancient Greece, along with tragedies. An example of a comedy would be William Shakespeares play A Midsummer Nights Dream, a generally nonsensical genre of play, farces are often overacted and often involve slapstick humor. An example of a farce includes William Shakespeares play The Comedy of Errors, a satire play takes a comic look at current events people while at the same time attempting to make a political or social statement, for example pointing out corruption. An example of a satire would be Nikolai Gogols The Government Inspector, satire plays are generally one of the most popular forms of comedy, and often considered to be their own genre entirely. This is a genre that explored relationships between men and women, and was considered risqué in its time, however, since restoration comedy dealt with unspoken aspects of relationships, it created a type of connection between audience and performance that was more informal and private. It is commonly agreed that restoration comedy has origins in Molière’s theories of comedy, the inconsistency between restoration comedy’s morals and the morals of the era is something that often arises during the study of this genre. This may give clues as to why, despite its original success, however, in recent years, it has become a topic of interest for theatre theorists, who have been looking into theatre styles that have their own conventions of performance. These plays contain darker themes such as death and disaster, often the protagonist of the play has a tragic flaw, a trait which leads to their downfall. Tragic plays convey all emotions and have extremely dramatic conflicts, tragedy was one of the two original play types of Ancient Greece. Some examples of tragedies include William Shakespeares Hamlet, and also John Websters play The Duchess of Malfi and these plays focus on actual historical events. They can be tragedies or comedies, but are neither of these. History as a genre was popularized by William Shakespeare. Examples of historical plays include Friedrich Schillers Demetrius and William Shakespeares King John, ballad opera, a popular theatre style at the time, was the first style of musical to be performed in the American colonies. The first musical of American origin was premiered in Philadelphia in 1767, and was called “The Disappointment”, however, around the 1920s, theatre styles were beginning to be defined more clearly
24.
Musical theatre
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Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement, since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan. Musicals are performed around the world and they may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions, musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the three main components of a book musical are its music, lyrics and book. The interpretation of a musical is the responsibility of its team, which includes a director. A musicals production is also characterized by technical aspects, such as set design, costumes, stage properties, lighting. The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from the production, for example. There is no fixed length for a musical, while it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length, most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one intermission, and the first act is frequently longer than the second. A book musical is usually built four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in the show. Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in the West End have been presented in one act in recent decades, moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing, typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters, the material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels, plays, classic legends, historical events or films. On the other hand, many musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver
25.
West End theatre
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West End theatre is a common term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of Theatreland in and near the West End of London. Along with New York Citys Broadway theatre, West End theatre is considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London, in 2013, ticket sales reached a record 14.4 million, making West End the largest English speaking audience in the world. Famous screen actors frequently appear on the London stage, helen Mirren received an award for her performance as the Queen on the West End stage, and then stated, theatre is such an important part of British history and British culture. Theatre in London flourished after the English Reformation, the first permanent public playhouse, known simply as The Theatre, was constructed in 1576 in Shoreditch by James Burbage. It was soon joined by The Curtain, both are known to have been used by William Shakespeares company. In 1599, the timber from The Theatre was moved to Southwark and these theatres were closed in 1642 due to the Puritans who would later influence the interregnum of 1649. After the Restoration, two companies were licensed to perform, the Dukes Company and the Kings Company, performances were held in converted buildings, such as Lisles Tennis Court. The first West End theatre, known as Theatre Royal in Bridges Street, was designed by Thomas Killigrew and built on the site of the present Theatre Royal and it opened on 7 May 1663 and was destroyed by a fire nine years later. It was replaced by a new designed by Christopher Wren and renamed the Theatre Royal. Outside the West End, Sadlers Wells Theatre opened in Islington on 3 June 1683. Taking its name from founder Richard Sadler and monastic springs that were discovered on the property, it operated as a Musick House, with performances of opera, as it was not licensed for plays. In the West End, the Theatre Royal Haymarket opened on 29 December 1720 on a site north of its current location. The Patent theatre companies retained their duopoly on drama well into the 19th century, by the early 19th century, however, music hall entertainments became popular, and presenters found a loophole in the restrictions on non-patent theatres in the genre of melodrama. Melodrama did not break the Patent Acts, as it was accompanied by music, initially, these entertainments were presented in large halls, attached to public houses, but purpose-built theatres began to appear in the East End at Shoreditch and Whitechapel. The West End theatre district became established with the opening of small theatres and halls. South of the River Thames, the Old Vic, Waterloo Road, the next few decades saw the opening of many new theatres in the West End. It abbreviated its name three years later, the theatre building boom continued until about World War I
26.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
27.
Astronomy
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Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, however, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than also astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, Moon, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
28.
Charles Darwin
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Charles Robert Darwin, FRS FRGS FLS FZS was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, by the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. In modified form, Darwins scientific discovery is the theory of the life sciences. Darwins early interest in nature led him to neglect his education at the University of Edinburgh, instead. Studies at the University of Cambridge encouraged his passion for natural science, puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and he was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories. Darwins work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature, in 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. His research on plants was published in a series of books, Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey. Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his familys home and he was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin. He was the grandson of two prominent abolitionists, Erasmus Darwin on his fathers side, and Josiah Wedgwood on his mothers side, both families were largely Unitarian, though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism. The eight-year-old Charles already had a taste for history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder and he found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone, one day, Grant praised Lamarcks evolutionary ideas. Darwin was astonished by Grants audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus journals, Darwin was rather bored by Robert Jamesons natural-history course, which covered geology - including the debate between Neptunism and Plutonism. He learned the classification of plants, and assisted with work on the collections of the University Museum, as Darwin was unqualified for the Tripos, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828. He preferred riding and shooting to studying, when his own exams drew near, Darwin focused on his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paleys Evidences of Christianity. In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming out of 178 candidates for the ordinary degree. Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June 1831, inspired with a burning zeal to contribute, Darwin planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics
29.
Gregor Mendel
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Gregor Johann Mendel was a scientist, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas Abbey in Brno, Margraviate of Moravia. Mendel was born in a German-speaking family in Silesian part of Austrian Empire, Mendel worked with seven characteristics of pea plants, plant height, pod shape and color, seed shape and color, and flower position and color. With seed color, he showed that when a yellow pea, however, in the next generation of plants, the green peas reappeared at a ratio of 1,3. To explain this phenomenon, Mendel coined the terms “recessive” and “dominant” in reference to certain traits and he published his work in 1866, demonstrating the actions of invisible “factors”—now called genes—in providing for visible traits in predictable ways. The profound significance of Mendels work was not recognized until the turn of the 20th century with the independent rediscovery of these laws. Erich von Tschermak, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and William Jasper Spillman independently verified several of Mendels experimental findings, Mendel was born into a German-speaking family in Hynčice, at the Moravian-Silesian border, Austrian Empire. He was the son of Anton and Rosine Mendel, and had one sister, Veronika. They lived and worked on a farm which had been owned by the Mendel family for at least 130 years, during his childhood, Mendel worked as a gardener and studied beekeeping. Later, as a man, he attended gymnasium in Opava. He had to take four months off during his studies due to illness. From 1840 to 1843, he studied practical and theoretical philosophy and physics at the Philosophical Institute of the University of Olomouc and he also struggled financially to pay for his studies, and Theresia gave him her dowry. Later he helped support her three sons, two of whom became doctors and he became a friar because it enabled him to obtain an education without having to pay for it himself. He was given the name Gregor when he joined the Augustinian friars, upon recommendation of his physics teacher Friedrich Franz, Mendel entered the Augustinian St Thomass Abbey in Brno and began his training as a priest. Born Johann Mendel, he took the name Gregor upon entering religious life, Mendel worked as a substitute high school teacher. In 1850, he failed the oral part, the last of three parts, of his exams to become a high school teacher. In 1851, he was sent to the University of Vienna to study under the sponsorship of Abbot C. F. Napp so that he could get more formal education, at Vienna, his professor of physics was Christian Doppler. Mendel returned to his abbey in 1853 as a teacher, principally of physics, in 1856, he took the exam to become a certified teacher and again failed the oral part. In 1867, he replaced Napp as abbot of the monastery, Mendel died on 6 January 1884, at the age of 61, in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary, from chronic nephritis
30.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
31.
Leonardo da Vinci
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He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the Universal Genius or Renaissance Man, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. Much of his working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France, Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait, Leonardos drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated power, an adding machine. Some of his inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder. A number of Leonardos most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 at the hour of the night in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense – da Vinci simply meaning of Vinci, his birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning Leonardo. The inclusion of the title ser indicated that Leonardos father was a gentleman, little is known about Leonardos early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother and his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was sixteen, his father married again to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, pieros legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani. Leonardo received an education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents, one, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face
32.
Grote Reber
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Grote Reber was a pioneer of radio astronomy, which combined his interests in amateur radio and amateur astronomy. He was instrumental in investigating and extending Karl Janskys pioneering work and his 1937 radio antenna was the second ever to be used for astronomical purposes and the first parabolic reflecting antenna to be used as a radio telescope. For nearly a decade he was the only radio astronomer. Reber was born and raised in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago and he was an amateur radio operator, and worked for various radio manufacturers in Chicago from 1933 to 1947. When he learned of Karl Janskys work in 1933, he decided this was the field he wanted to work in, and applied to Bell Labs, however this was during the height of the Great Depression and there were no jobs available. In the summer of 1937, Reber decided to build his own radio telescope in his yard in Wheaton. Rebers radio telescope was more advanced than Janskys, and consisted of a parabolic sheet metal dish 9 meters in diameter. The entire assembly was mounted on a stand, allowing it to be pointed in various directions. The telescope was completed in September 1937, Rebers first receiver operated at 3300 MHz and failed to detect signals from outer space, as did his second, operating at 900 MHz. Finally, his attempt, at 160 MHz, was successful in 1938. In 1940, he achieved his first professional publication, in the Astrophysical Journal and he turned his attention to making a radiofrequency sky map, which he completed in 1941 and extended in 1943. He published a body of work during this era, and was the initiator of the explosion of radio astronomy in the immediate post-Second World War era. His data, published as contour maps showing the brightness of the sky in radio wavelengths, revealed the existence of sources such as Cygnus A. During this time he uncovered a mystery that was not explained until the 1950s, the standard theory of radio emissions from space was that they were due to black-body radiation, light that is given off by all hot bodies. Using this theory one would expect that there would be considerably more high-energy light than low-energy, due to the presence of stars, however Reber demonstrated that the reverse was true, and that there was a considerable amount of low-energy radio signal. It was not until the 1950s that synchrotron radiation was offered as an explanation for these measurements, Reber sold his telescope to the National Bureau of Standards, and it was erected on a turntable at their field station in Sterling, Virginia. Eventually the telescope made its way to NRAO in Green Bank, West Virginia, Reber also helped with a reconstruction of Janskys original telescope. Starting in 1951, he received support from the Research Corporation in New York
33.
Amateur radio operator
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As a component of their license, amateur radio operators are assigned a call sign that they use to identify themselves during communication. There are about three million amateur radio operators worldwide, amateur radio operators are also known as radio amateurs or hams. The term ham as a nickname for radio operators originated in a pejorative usage by operators in commercial and professional radio communities. The word was adopted by amateur radio operators. Few governments maintain detailed demographic statistics of their radio operator populations. The majority of radio operators worldwide reside in Japan, the United States, Thailand, South Korea. The top five countries by percentage of the population are Japan, Slovenia, Taiwan, South Korea, only the governments of Yemen and North Korea currently prohibit their citizens from becoming amateur radio operators. In some countries, acquiring an amateur license is difficult because of the bureaucratic processes or fees that place access to a license out of reach for most citizens. Most nations permit foreign nationals to earn an amateur radio license, in the vast majority of countries, the population of amateur radio operators is predominantly male. In China 12% of amateur operators are women, whilst in the United States is it approximately 15%. The Young Ladies Radio League is an organization of female amateur radio operators. A male amateur radio operator can be referred to as an OM, a female amateur radio operator can be referred to as a YL, from the abbreviation used for young lady, regardless of the operators age. Sometimes the wife of a ham operator is called a YF, although these codes are derived from English language abbreviations, their use is common among amateur radio operators worldwide. Incidentally, the most common language heard in the HF amateur bands is English, in most countries there is no minimum age requirement to earn an amateur radio license and become an amateur radio operator. Although the number of radio operators in many countries increases from year to year. In some countries, the age is over 80 years old. The World Wide Young Contesters organization promotes youth involvement, particularly amongst Europeans, a strong tie also exists between the amateur radio community and the Scouting movement to introduce radio technology to youth. WOSMs annual Jamboree On The Air is Scoutings largest activity, with a half million Scouts, when referring to a person, the phrase Silent Key and its abbreviation SK indicates an amateur radio operator who is deceased
34.
Guglielmo Marconi
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He is often credited as the inventor of radio, and he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy. Marconi was an entrepreneur, businessman, and founder of The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in the United Kingdom in 1897 and he succeeded in making a commercial success of radio by innovating and building on the work of previous experimenters and physicists. In 1929, the King of Italy ennobled Marconi as a Marchese, Marconi was born into the Italian nobility as Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi in Bologna on 25 April 1874, the second son of Giuseppe Marconi and his Irish/Scots wife Annie Jameson. Between the ages of two and six, Marconi and his elder brother Alfonso were brought up by his mother in the English town of Bedford, Marconi received further education in Florence at the Istituto Cavallero and, later, in Livorno. Marconi did not do well in school, according to Robert McHenry and he was baptized as a Catholic but had been brought up as a member of the Anglican Church, being married into it. Marconi was confirmed in the Catholic faith and became a member of the Church before his marriage to Maria Christina in 1927. During his early years, Marconi had an interest in science and electricity, the transmission of telegraph messages without connecting wires as used by the electric telegraph. There was a deal of interest in radio waves in the physics community. Righis article renewed Marconis interest in developing a wireless telegraphy based on radio waves. In the summer of 1894, he built a storm alarm made up of a battery, a coherer, and an electric bell, soon after he was able to make a bell ring on the other side of the room by pushing a telegraphic button on a bench. One night in December 1894, Guglielmo woke his mother and invited her into his secret workshop and showed her the experiment that he had created. The next day, he showed his work to his father. In the summer of 1895, Marconi moved his experimentation outdoors, with these improvements the system was capable of transmitting signals up to 2 miles and over hills. The monopole antenna reduced the frequency of the waves compared to the dipole antennas used by Hertz, by this point, he concluded that a device could become capable of spanning greater distances, with additional funding and research, and would prove valuable both commercially and militarily. Marconis experimental apparatus proved to be the first engineering-complete, commercially successful radio transmission system, Marconi wrote to the Ministry of Post and Telegraphs, then under the direction of the honorable Pietro Lacava, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding. He never received a response to his letter which was dismissed by the Minister who wrote to the Longara on the document. In 1896, Marconi spoke with his family friend Carlo Gardini, Honorary Consul at the United States Consulate in Bologna, Gardini wrote a letter of introduction to the Ambassador of Italy in London, Annibale Ferrero, explaining who Marconi was and about these extraordinary discoveries. In his response, Ambassador Ferrero advised them not to reveal the results until after they had obtained the copyrights
35.
Coherer
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The coherer is a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the first radio receivers during the wireless telegraphy era at the beginning of the 20th century. Its use in radio was based on the 1890 findings of French physicist Edouard Branly and adapted by other physicists, the device consists of a tube or capsule containing two electrodes spaced a small distance apart with loose metal filings in the space between. In a receiver, the current would activate a bell, or a Morse paper tape recorder to make a record of the received signal, Coherers remained in widespread use until about 1907, when they were replaced by more sensitive electrolytic and crystal detectors. In 1835 Swedish scientist Peter Samuel Munk noticed a change of resistance in a mixture of metal filings in the presence of spark discharge from a Leyden jar. In 1850 Pierre Guitard found that when dusty air was electrified, the space was filled with powdered carbon that would not allow the low voltage telegraph signals to pass through but it would conduct and ground a high voltage lightning strike. Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti in Italy began studying the anomalous change in the resistance of thin metallic films and he found that copper filings between two brass plates would cling together, becoming conductive, when he applied a voltage to them. He also found other types of metal filings would have the same reaction to electric sparks occurring at a distance. Calzecchi-Onestis papers were published in il Nuovo Cimento in 1884,1885 and 1886, in one type of circuit, filings were placed in a tube of glass or ebonite, held between two metal plates. When an electric discharge was produced in the neighbourhood of the circuit and he noted the filings in the tube would react to the electric discharge even when the tube was placed in another room 20 yards away. Branly went on to many types of these devices based on imperfect metal contacts. Branlys filings tube came to light in 1892 in Great Britain when it was described by Dr. Dawson Turner at a meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, in 1893 physicist W. B. Croft exhibited Branlys experiments at a meeting of the Physical Society in London. It was unclear to Croft and others whether the filings in the Branly tube were reacting to sparks or the light from the sparks and these papers were read by English physicist Oliver Lodge who saw this as a way to build a much improved Hertzian wave detector. In May 1895, after reading about Lodges demonstrations, the Russian physicist Alexander Popov built a Hertzian wave based lightning detector using a coherer and that same year Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated a wireless telegraphy system using Hertzian waves, based on a coherer. The coherer was replaced in receivers by the simpler and more sensitive electrolytic and crystal detectors around 1907, several different types using the same RC system were commercially sold, including a Radicon Boat, Radicon Oldsmobile Car and a Radicon Bus. As a result, early radio receiving apparatus merely had to detect the presence or absence of the radio signal, the device that did this was called a detector. The coherer was the most successful of many devices that were tried in the early days of radio. The basis for the operation of the coherer is that metal particles cohere, the radio signal from the antenna was applied directly across the coherers electrodes. When the radio signal from a dot or dash came in, the coherers electrodes were also attached to a DC circuit powered by a battery that created a click sound in earphones or a telegraph sounder, or a mark on a paper tape, to record the signal
36.
Ignition coil
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Some coils have an internal resistor, while others rely on a resistor wire or an external resistor to limit the current flowing into the coil from the cars 12-volt supply. The wire that goes from the coil to the distributor. Originally, every ignition coil system required mechanical contact breaker points, more recent electronic ignition systems use a power transistor to provide pulses to the ignition coil. A modern passenger automobile may use one ignition coil for each cylinder, eliminating fault-prone spark plug cables. Ignition systems are not required for engines which rely on compression to ignite the fuel/air mixture. An ignition coil consists of an iron core surrounded by two coils of copper wire. Unlike a power transformer, a coil has an open magnetic circuit — the iron core does not form a closed loop around the windings. The energy that is stored in the field of the core is the energy that is transferred to the spark plug. The primary winding has relatively few turns of heavy wire, the secondary winding consists of thousands of turns of smaller wire, insulated from the high voltage by enamel on the wires and layers of oiled paper insulation. The coil is inserted into a metal can or plastic case with insulated terminals for the high voltage. When the contact breaker closes, it allows current from the battery to flow through the winding of the ignition coil. The current does not flow instantly because of the inductance of the coil, current flowing in the coil produces a magnetic field in the core and in the air surrounding the core. The current must flow long enough to store energy in the field for the spark. Once the current has built up to its level, the contact breaker opens. More modern electronic ignition systems operate on exactly the same principle and this is usually several degrees before the piston reaches top dead center. The contacts are driven off a shaft that is driven by the crankshaft, or, if electronic ignition is used. The amount of energy in the required to ignite the air-fuel mixture varies depending on the pressure and composition of the mixture. When gas velocity is high in the gap, the arc between the terminals is blown away from the terminals, making the arc longer and requiring more energy in each spark
37.
Pierre de Fermat
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He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for his Fermats principle for light propagation and his Fermats Last Theorem in number theory, Fermat was born in the first decade of the 17th century in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France—the late 15th-century mansion where Fermat was born is now a museum. He was from Gascony, where his father, Dominique Fermat, was a leather merchant. Pierre had one brother and two sisters and was almost certainly brought up in the town of his birth, there is little evidence concerning his school education, but it was probably at the Collège de Navarre in Montauban. He attended the University of Orléans from 1623 and received a bachelor in law in 1626. In Bordeaux he began his first serious mathematical researches, and in 1629 he gave a copy of his restoration of Apolloniuss De Locis Planis to one of the mathematicians there, there he became much influenced by the work of François Viète. In 1630, he bought the office of a councillor at the Parlement de Toulouse, one of the High Courts of Judicature in France and he held this office for the rest of his life. Fermat thereby became entitled to change his name from Pierre Fermat to Pierre de Fermat, fluent in six languages, Fermat was praised for his written verse in several languages and his advice was eagerly sought regarding the emendation of Greek texts. He communicated most of his work in letters to friends, often little or no proof of his theorems. In some of these letters to his friends he explored many of the ideas of calculus before Newton or Leibniz. Fermat was a trained lawyer making mathematics more of a hobby than a profession, nevertheless, he made important contributions to analytical geometry, probability, number theory and calculus. Secrecy was common in European mathematical circles at the time and this naturally led to priority disputes with contemporaries such as Descartes and Wallis. Anders Hald writes that, The basis of Fermats mathematics was the classical Greek treatises combined with Vietas new algebraic methods, Fermats pioneering work in analytic geometry was circulated in manuscript form in 1636, predating the publication of Descartes famous La géométrie. This manuscript was published posthumously in 1679 in Varia opera mathematica, in these works, Fermat obtained a technique for finding the centers of gravity of various plane and solid figures, which led to his further work in quadrature. Fermat was the first person known to have evaluated the integral of power functions. With his method, he was able to reduce this evaluation to the sum of geometric series, the resulting formula was helpful to Newton, and then Leibniz, when they independently developed the fundamental theorem of calculus. In number theory, Fermat studied Pells equation, perfect numbers, amicable numbers and it was while researching perfect numbers that he discovered Fermats little theorem. Fermat developed the two-square theorem, and the polygonal number theorem, although Fermat claimed to have proved all his arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived
38.
Amateur astronomy
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Amateur astronomy is a hobby whose participants enjoy watching the sky, and the abundance of objects found in it with the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Many amateurs are beginners or hobbyists, while others have a degree of experience in astronomy and often assist. Amateur astronomers often look at the sky using nothing more than their eyes, people have studied the sky throughout history in an amateur framework, without any formal method of funding. It is only within about the past century, however, that amateur astronomy has become an activity clearly distinguished from professional astronomy, collectively, amateur astronomers observe a variety of celestial objects and phenomena. Common targets of amateur astronomers include the Moon, planets, stars, comets, meteor showers, and a variety of deep sky objects such as clusters, galaxies. Many amateurs like to specialise in observing particular objects, types of objects, one branch of amateur astronomy, amateur astrophotography, involves the taking of photos of the night sky. Most amateur astronomers work at visible wavelengths, but a small minority experiment with wavelengths outside the visible spectrum, non-visual amateur astronomy includes the use of infrared filters on conventional telescopes, and also the use of radio telescopes. Some amateur astronomers use home-made radio telescopes, while others use radio telescopes that were built for astronomy research but have since been made available for use by amateurs. The One-Mile Telescope is one such example, Amateur astronomers use a range of instruments to study the sky, depending on a combination of their interests and resources. Commercial telescopes are available, new and used, but it is common for amateur astronomers to build their own custom telescopes. Some people even focus on amateur telescope making as their primary interest within the hobby of amateur astronomy, although specialized and experienced amateur astronomers tend to acquire more specialized and more powerful equipment over time, relatively simple equipment is often preferred for certain tasks. Amateur astronomers also use star charts that, depending on experience and intentions, Amateur astronomers often like to keep records of their observations, which usually takes the form of an observing log. Observing logs typically record details about which objects were observed and when, sketching is sometimes used within logs, and photographic records of observations have also been used in recent times. The information gathered is used to help studies and interactions between amateur astronomers in yearly gatherings, although not professional information or credible, it is a way for the hobby lovers to share their new sightings and experiences. The Internet is a tool of amateur astronomers. The popularity of CCD imaging among amateurs has led to large numbers of web sites being written by individuals about their images, much of the social interaction of amateur astronomy occurs on mailing lists or discussion groups. Discussion group servers host numerous astronomy lists, a great deal of the commerce of amateur astronomy, the buying and selling of equipment, occurs online. Many amateurs use online tools to plan their observing sessions using tools such as the Clear Sky Chart
39.
Amateur film
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Amateur film is the low-budget hobbyist art of film practiced for passion and enjoyment and not for business purposes. These organizations arrange annual festivals and conventions, there are several amateur film festivals held annually in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Amateur films were shot on 16 mm film or on 8 mm film until the advent of cheap video cameras or digital equipment. The advent of video and computer based editing programs greatly expanded the technical quality achievable by the amateur. Amateur video has become the choice for the filmmaker and has boomed into a very watched and even produced industry with the use of VHS. Amateur Film Clips and Streaming Amateur Film
40.
Amateur geology
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Amateur geology is the recreational study and hobby of collecting rocks and mineral specimens from their natural environment. The first amateur geologists were prospectors looking for minerals and gemstones for commercial purposes. Eventually, however, more and more people have drawn to amateur geology for recreational purposes, mainly for the beauty that rocks. One reason for the rise in popularity of amateur geology is that a collection can begin by picking up a rock. There are also clubs and groups that search for specimens. Information on where to find such groups can be found at libraries, bookstores, tourist information centers and small-town chambers of commerce can also supply valuable local information. The Internet can also be a search tool as it can help find other amateur geologists. The amateur geologists principal piece of equipment is the geologists hammer and this is a small tool with a pick-like point on one end, and a flat hammer on the other. The hammer end is for breaking rocks, and the end is mainly used for prying and digging into crevices. The pick end of most rock hammers can dull quickly if struck onto bare rock, rock collectors may also bring a sledgehammer to break hard rocks. Good places for a collector to look are quarries, road cuts, rocky hills and mountains, there are many different laws in place regarding the collection of rocks and minerals from public areas, so it is advisable to read up on local laws before prospecting. Rock and mineral collecting is prohibited in most if not all national parks in the United States, the hobby can lead naturally into lapidary projects, and also the cutting, polishing, and mounting of gemstones and minerals. The equipment needed to do this includes rock saws and polishers, many beautiful crystal varieties are typically found in very small samples which requires a good microscope for working with and photographing the specimen. The hobby can be as simple as finding pretty rocks for a windowsill or develop into a detailed, fossil collecting Lapidary List of fossil sites Mineral collecting Collectors Corner, The Mineralogical Society of America The American Federation of Mineral Societies
41.
Amateur radio
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The amateur radio service is established by the International Telecommunication Union through the International Telecommunication Regulations. National governments regulate technical and operational characteristics of transmissions and issue individual stations licenses with a call sign. Prospective amateur operators are tested for their understanding of key concepts in electronics, according to an estimate made in 2011 by the American Radio Relay League, two million people throughout the world are regularly involved with amateur radio. About 830,000 amateur radio stations are located in IARU Region 2 followed by IARU Region 3 with about 750,000 stations, a significantly smaller number, about 400,000, are located in IARU Region 1. The origins of amateur radio can be traced to the late 19th century, the First Annual Official Wireless Blue Book of the Wireless Association of America, produced in 1909, contains a list of amateur radio stations. This radio callbook lists wireless telegraph stations in Canada and the United States, as with radio in general, amateur radio was associated with various amateur experimenters and hobbyists. Amateur radio enthusiasts have significantly contributed to science, engineering, industry, research by amateur operators has founded new industries, built economies, empowered nations, and saved lives in times of emergency. Ham radio can also be used in the classroom to teach English, map skills, geography, math, science, the term ham radio was first a pejorative that mocked amateur radio operators with a 19th-century term for being bad at something, like ham-fisted or ham actor. It had already used for bad wired telegraph operators. Subsequently, the community adopted it as a moniker, much like the Know-Nothing Party, or other groups. Other, more entertaining explanations have grown up throughout the years, the many facets of amateur radio attract practitioners with a wide range of interests. Many amateurs begin with a fascination of radio communication and then combine other personal interests to make pursuit of the hobby rewarding, some of the focal areas amateurs pursue include radio contesting, radio propagation study, public service communication, technical experimentation, and computer networking. Amateur radio operators use various modes of transmission to communicate, the two most common modes for voice transmissions are frequency modulation and single sideband. FM offers high quality audio signals, while SSB is better at long distance communication when bandwidth is restricted. Radiotelegraphy using Morse code, also known as CW from continuous wave, is the extension of landline telegraphy developed by Samuel Morse. Morse, using internationally agreed message encodings such as the Q code, a similar legacy mode popular with home constructors is amplitude modulation, pursued by many vintage amateur radio enthusiasts and aficionados of vacuum tube technology. Demonstrating a proficiency in Morse code was for years a requirement to obtain an amateur license to transmit on frequencies below 30 MHz. Following changes in regulations in 2003, countries are no longer required to demand proficiency
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Amateur theatre
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Amateur theatre, also known as amateur dramatics, is theatre performed by amateur actors and singers. Amateur theatre groups may stage plays, revues, musicals, light opera, pantomime or variety shows, productions may take place in venues ranging from the open air, community centres or schools to independent or major professional theatres and can be simple light entertainment or demanding drama. Opinions vary on how to define amateur in relation to theatre, technically speaking, an amateur is anyone who does not accept, or is not offered, money for their services. One interpretation of this isOne lacking the skill of a professional, another is A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession. An amateur actor is unlikely to be a member of a union as most countries trades unions have strict policies in place. For example, in Britain Equity are pleased to welcome into Equity anyone who is currently working professionally in the field of entertainment, in the USA the Actors Equity Association serves a similar purpose, to protect the professional industry and its artists. Many amateur theatre groups reject the label and its negative association with amateurish, preferring to style themselves dramatic societies. François Cellier and Cunningham Bridgeman wrote, in 1914, that prior to the late 19th century, after the formation of amateur Gilbert and Sullivan companies licensed to perform the Savoy operas, professionals recognised that the amateur societies support the culture of music and the drama. They are now accepted as useful training schools for the legitimate stage, after 1988, in the UK, membership in the actors Equity union can no longer be made compulsory, and professional performers may perform with any amateur company. Some amateur companies engage professional directors and these changes are blurring the distinction between amateur and professional theatre. Amateur theatre is referred to in the UK as non-commercial theatre. In 2012 there were more than 2,500 amateur theatre groups putting on around 30,000 productions a year, there are regional bodies throughout the UK. Scotland The Scottish Community Drama Association, founded in 1926, works to all aspects of community drama in Scotland. SCDA received funding of £50,000 from the Scottish Arts Council in 2004-05, Wales The Drama Association of Wales, founded in 1934, exists to increase opportunities for people in the community to be creatively involved in drama. This is supported through the provision of training, new writing initiatives and access to an extensive specialist lending library containing plays, playsets and technical theatre books. Northern Ireland The Association of Ulster Drama Festivals and is made up of three representatives from each festival, as well as the Churches Drama League and Young Farmer Clubs. Nan Nuttall Memorial Award to stimulate new writing for Youth Groups, the Scottish Community Drama Association - Play on Words competition, Britain’s largest for new short plays, with three best entries winning support from professional writers. The Amateur Musical Theatre Challenge - to bring together amateur theatre groups from Scotland, Drama Association of Wales/Cymdeithas Ddrama Cymru - Playwriting competition for one-act plays in Welsh or English and with a running time of 20 to 50 minutes
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Handicraft
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One of the worlds oldest handicraft is Dhokra, this is a sort of metal casting has been used in India for over 4,000 years and is still used. Collective terms for handicrafts include artisanry, handicrafting, crafting, many handicrafters use natural, even entirely indigenous, materials while others may prefer modern, non-traditional materials, and even upcycle industrial materials. The individual artisanship of an item is the paramount criterion. Most crafts require the development of skill and the application of patience, like folk art, handicraft output often has cultural and/or religious significance, and increasingly may have a political message as well, as in craftivism. The Arts and Crafts movement originated as a late 19th-century design reform and social movement principally in Europe, North America and Australia and this was held up in contrast to what was perceived to be the alienating effects of industrial labor. These activities were called crafts because originally many of them were professions under the guild system, adolescents were apprenticed to a master craftsman, and refined their skills over a period of years in exchange for low wages. Simple arts and crafts projects are an elementary and middle school activity in both mainstream and alternative education systems around the world. e. The use of traditional handicrafting techniques by professional fine artists, many community centers and schools run evening or day classes and workshops, for adults and children, offering to teach basic craft skills in a short period of time. If sold, they are sold in Direct sales, Gift shops, Public markets, in developing countries, handicrafts are sold to locals and as Souvenirs to tourists. Sellers tend to speak at least a few words of common tourist languages
