Orthez is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of south-western France. It lies 40 km NW of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne; the town encompasses the small village of Sainte-Suzanne. The population figures from 1999 give the population of the commune at 10,121 and of the canton at 16,168. In 1906, the town had 4,159 and the commune had 6,254. Orthez has a judicial court but not an appeals court, it was the seat of a subprefecture from 1800 until 1926. Orthez straddles the westward-flowing Gave de Pau, with most of the town proper having developed on the right bank. Several residential developments and an industrial park are located on the left bank, in addition to Sainte-Suzanne, an associated village entity within the town. A artificial lake called'Lac de l'y grec' has a pleasant, scenic walking trail; the Gave de Pau is crossed in Orthez by a 14th-century bridge, which has four arches and is surmounted at its centre by a tower. Several old houses, a church of the 12th, 14th and 15th centuries are of some interest.

The most notable building is the Tour Moncade, a pentagonal tower of the 13th century, once the keep of a castle of the viscounts of Béarn, now used as a meteorological observatory. A building of the 17th century is all; the town hall is a modern building containing the library. The spinning and weaving of hemp and flax of the fabric called toile de Béarn. There are quarries of stone and marble in the neighborhood, the town has a thriving trade in leather and lime. During the 12th century, Orthez was the capital of Béarn, after Morlaàs and before Pau, still the prefectural administrative capital. At the end of the 12th century, Orthez passed from the possession of the viscounts of Dax to that of the viscounts of Bearn, whose chief place of residence it became in the 13th century. Froissart records the splendour of the court of Orthez under Gaston Phoebus in the latter half of the 14th century. Jeanne d'Albret founded a Calvinist university in the town and Theodore Beza taught there for some time.

An envoy sent in 1569 by Charles IX to revive the Catholic faith had to stand a siege in the battle of Orthez. In 1684 Nicholas Foucault, intendant under Louis XIV, was more successful, as the inhabitants, ostensibly at least, renounced Protestantism, it is still a strong tradition in the town. Another battle of Orthez occurred during the Napoleonic Wars on February 27, 1814, in which the British Duke of Wellington defeated Marshal Soult on the hills to the north of Orthez. Gaston Planté, the French physicist, was born here on the 22 April 1834. Orthez is known in sport for basketball with Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez team, one of the most successful French basketball clubs. Orthez is the smallest town of the continent to have won a Euro Cup in all sports. Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez moved to Pau in 1991. Orthez was the site for the start of Stage 16 in the 2007 Tour de France; the main sports clubs of the city are: Rugby: US Orthez Soccer: Elan Béarnais OrthezBasketball: US Orthez Élan Béarnais Orthez Gaston III Febus, viscount of Bearn Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre and mother of French King Henry IV Pierre-Adolphe Lafargue, newspaper publisher and educator in Marksville, born in Orthez Gaston Planté, inventor of lead-acid battery in 1859 Francis Planté, French pianist famed as one of the first recording artists.

Armand Reclus, theorized the Panama Canal Onésime Reclus, born here, geographer Francis Jammes, poet Jean-Louis Curtis, novelist Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, soldier Alain Ducasse, chef. Joël Suhubiette, choral conductor Communes of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department INSEE commune file This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Orthez". Encyclopædia Britannica. 20. Cambridge University Press. P. 332

Algol, designated Beta Persei, known colloquially as the Demon Star, is a bright multiple star in the constellation of Perseus and one of the first non-nova variable stars to be discovered. Algol is a three-star system, consisting of Beta Persei Aa1, Aa2, Ab – in which the hot luminous primary β Persei Aa1 and the larger, but cooler and fainter, β Persei Aa2 pass in front of each other, causing eclipses, thus Algol's magnitude is near-constant at 2.1, but dips to 3.4 every 2.86 days during the 10-hour-long partial eclipses. The secondary eclipse when the brighter primary star occults the fainter secondary is shallow and can only be detected photoelectrically. Algol gives its name to its class of eclipsing variable, known as Algol variables. An Ancient Egyptian Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days composed some 3,200 years ago is claimed to be the oldest historical document of the discovery of Algol; the association of Algol with a demon-like creature suggests that its variability was known long before the 17th century, but there is still no indisputable evidence for this.

The Arabic astronomer al-Sufi said nothing about any variability of the star in his Book of Fixed Stars published c.964. The variability of Algol was noted in 1667 by Italian astronomer Geminiano Montanari, but the periodic nature of its variations in brightness was not recognized until more than a century when the British amateur astronomer John Goodricke proposed a mechanism for the star's variability. In May 1783, he presented his findings to the Royal Society, suggesting that the periodic variability was caused by a dark body passing in front of the star. For his report he was awarded the Copley Medal. In 1881, the Harvard astronomer Edward Charles Pickering presented evidence that Algol was an eclipsing binary; this was confirmed a few years in 1889, when the Potsdam astronomer Hermann Carl Vogel found periodic doppler shifts in the spectrum of Algol, inferring variations in the radial velocity of this binary system. Thus Algol became one of the first known spectroscopic binaries. Joel Stebbins at the University of Illinois Observatory used an early selenium cell photometer to produce the first-ever photoelectric study of a variable star.

The light curve revealed the reflection effect between the two stars. Some difficulties in explaining the observed spectroscopic features led to the conjecture that a third star may be present in the system. Listed are the first eclipse times of each month. Β Persei Aa2 eclipses β Persei Aa1 every 2.867321 days. For example, the Jan 2, 20h, eclipse will yield consecutive eclipse times on Jan 5, 17h Jan 8, 16h Jan 11, 13h, etc.. Algol is a triple-star system. From the point of view of the Earth, Algol Aa1 and Algol Aa2 form an eclipsing binary because their orbital plane contains the line of sight to the Earth; the eclipsing binary pair is separated by only 0.062 astronomical units from each other, whereas the third star in the system is at an average distance of 2.69 au from the pair, the mutual orbital period of the trio is 681 Earth days. The total mass of the system is about 5.8 solar masses, the mass ratios of Aa1, Aa2, Ab are about 4.5 to 1 to 2. The three components of the bright triple star used to be, still sometimes are, referred to as β Per A, B, C.

The Washington Double Star Catalog lists them as Aa1, Aa2, Ab, with two faint stars B and C about one arcmin distant. A further five faint stars are listed as companions. Studies of Algol led to the Algol paradox in the theory of stellar evolution: although components of a binary star form at the same time, massive stars evolve much faster than the less massive stars, the more massive component Algol A is still in the main sequence, but the less massive Algol B is a subgiant star at a evolutionary stage; the paradox can be solved by mass transfer: when the more massive star became a subgiant, it filled its Roche lobe, most of the mass was transferred to the other star, still in the main sequence. In some binaries similar to Algol, a gas flow can be seen; the gas flow between the primary and secondary stars in Algol has been imaged using Doppler Tomography. This system exhibits x-ray and radio wave flares; the x-ray flares are thought to be caused by the magnetic fields of the A and B components interacting with the mass transfer.

The radio-wave flares might be created by magnetic cycles similar to those of sunspots, but because the magnetic fields of these stars are up to ten times stronger than the field of the Sun, these radio flares are more powerful and more persistent. The secondary component was identifed as the radio emitting source in Algol using Very-long-baseline interferometry by Lestrade and co-authors. Magnetic activity cycles in the chromospherically active secondary component induce changes in its radius of gyration that have been linked to recurrent orbital period variations on the order of ΔP/P ≈ 10−5 via the Applegate mechanism. Mass transfer between the components is small in the Algol system but could be a significant source of period change in other Algol-type binaries. Algol is about 92.8 light-years from the Sun, but about 7.3 million years ago it passed within 9.8 light-years of the Solar System and its apparent magnitude was about −2.5, brighter than the star Sirius is today. Because the t

The electric cello is a type of cello that relies on electronic amplification to produce sound. An acoustic cello can be fitted with a bridge or body mounted contact pickup providing an electric signal, or a built-in pickup can be installed. A few pickups work by other principles like magnetic coil guitar type needing steel strings to work, or by an unusual pickup system employing the string itself as a linear pickup element, thus avoiding any modification of tone-producing parts on an acoustic cello. Many electric cellos have bodies modeled after acoustic cellos, while others abandon the design opting for a new body shape, or having little or no body at all. Most electric cellos feature a traditional endpin and knee supports, but some are supported in other ways, such as by an elongated pin for playing in the standing position, a tripod stand, strap, or strap system that allows mobility while playing the instrument; the major differentiating factor between electric cellos and acoustic cellos is that while the latter rely on an acoustically resonant soundbox, the former are amplified electronically and have no resonant chamber at all.

Most electric cellos are driven by a piezo pickup system mounted in the bridge. Many contain an on-board preamp, which allows the musician localized control over the sound; the number of piezo elements in use range from one to eight. The electric cello has several advantages over acoustic cellos. One of these advantages is its capacity for sound effects, such as distortion and chorus, which allows for the creation of a huge variety of sounds and possibilities matching that of the electric guitar, electric bass and electric violin. Five-string and six-string models allow for an extended range. An electric cello with no body can be played in the high positions more than an acoustic. Lastly, electric cellos without a resonant body have less of a tendency for feedback than amplified acoustic cellos; the electric cello has not yet achieved the status of the ubiquitous electric guitar, or the widespread success of the electric violin. Cello rock