History.

1999–2001: Formation and "200 Po Vstrechnoy".

Before production of t.A.T.u. began, the pair were in a group named Neposedi. Both Lena Katina and Julia Volkova were part of the band, along with members Sergey Lazarev and Vlad Topalov. Katina was also in a band named "Avenue" between 1994 and 1997. It was reported that Volkova was banned from being in Neposedi, amid claims she was misbehaving and disrupting other members in the group, along with being accused of smoking, swearing and drinking. However, Neposedi denied the claims and said that Volkova aged out of the group.  t.A.T.u. were formed in 1999 by Ivan Shapovalov and his friend/business partner Alexander Voitinskiy, who developed plans to create a musical project in

2002–2003: "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane" and Eurovision Song Contest.

The English version of the album was released in December 2002 entitled "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane". The first single from the album was "All the Things She Said" which was released in October 2002. The song peaked at the top spot in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The music video caused controversy worldwide, due to the members, who were both 14 at the time of the video's production, kissing behind a fence. Some believed the video promoted lesbianism and pedophilia. Many musical journalists, publications and music critics had branded the group's music as

2004–2006: New management, "Dangerous and Moving", and "Lyudi Invalidy".

On 26 September 2003, the group released a remix compilation, titled "Remixes". In November 2003, the CD was released in Russia, with two new tracks and videos. The two new tracks were "Prostiye Dvizheniya" and "Ne Ver, Ne Boisya." Both of the tracks were released as singles, however "Prostye Dvizheniya" did not broadcast well in Russia, due to the promotion for "Ne Ver, Ne Boisya" in the Eurovision Song Contest. The DVD compilation "Screaming for More" was released on 24 November 2003, featuring music videos and behind-the-scenes. "Anatomy of t. A. T. u." aired on Russian television on 12 December 2003. The documentary revealed that the girls were not lesbians, and chronicled the group as they took part in Eurovision earlier in the year.  In early

2007–2010: "Vesyolye Ulybki" and "Waste Management".

On 17 May 2007, t.A.T.u. issued a statement directed to their gay fans: "When t.A.T.u.'s second album came out, many of our fans of alternative sexual orientation thought that we lied and betrayed them. This is not true! We’ve never done that and we’ve always advocated love without boundaries." On 26 May, they flew out to Moscow to take part in the Moscow Gay Pride demonstration.  On 12 September 2007 the group released the concert DVD "". It was the group's first release since leaving Universal. In late 2007, "Белый Плащик", "Beliy Plaschik", the lead single from their upcoming Russian-language album, was released. The project was then known as "Управление Отбросами", "Upravleniye Otbrosami", which translates to "Waste Management". The second single, "220" ("Двести Двадцать", Dvesti Dvadtsat'), made its radio premiere in May 2008 and the music video was released on their official YouTube channel on 5 June 2008. "Beliy Plaschik" and "220" were the main attractions on a special release known as "Hyperion-Plate", the first-ever EP from the duo. The EP was released on 8 May 2008 and featured multimedia content including music, video, ringtones and wallpapers. At the time of the

2011: Disbandment.

At the end of March 2011, t.A.T.u. management released a press release on their official website declaring t.A.T.u. over. Due to conflicts between the girls, and them both wanting to pursue solo careers, the duo was officially announced as disbanded. They finalised the duo's discography with a double remix album for "Waste Management". The management thanked fans for their loyalty over the past twelve years of the

Aftermath.

On 2 October 2012, Cherrytree Records/Universal Russia announced that they would be issuing a special re-release of t.A.T.u's "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane." The "10th Year Anniversary Gold Edition" featured all new artwork, a never-before-released song from the 2002 sessions, "A Simple Motion", a brand new remix of "All the Things She Said" from producer Fernando Garibay, in addition to newly mastered songs. On 24 October 2012, Cherrytree Records released the official track listing for the album; it was a note addressed to fans handwritten and signed by Julia and Lena themselves. The album was released on 12 November 2012.  On 11 December 2012, Lena and Julia reunited to appear as musical guests on "The Voice of Romania". It was their first performance together in three years. The duo t.A.T.u performed "All About Us" and "All the Things She Said" during the show. They also appeared in radio and on another television show before.  After the re-release, the group

Artistry and controversies.

Public image.

Throughout their career the group has received criticism, particularly since the release of "All the Things She Said". The AllMusic review for "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane" labelled the band as an exceptionally tawdry gimmick. In 2003, after the release of their video of "All the Things She Said", some UK presenters campaigned to ban the video worldwide. Despite subsequent reports that the BBC had banned the video from their pre-watershed programme "Top of the Pops", the BBC quickly denied the ban, stating only that they had better footage to show. Not only have t.A.T.u. received criticism

Cancellations of concerts controversy.

Between the years of 2002 and 2004, t.A.T.u. caused controversy for cancelling several concerts and tours around the world. In March 2003, the group announced dates for their "Show Me Love Promo Tour" in the United Kingdom. However the next month, just days before they were due to perform, the group dropped the dates and did not perform at the concert, due to poor ticket sales. BBC News stated that only a fraction of the tickets were sold for the concert and said the stadiums (held in London and Manchester) had capacities of around 10,000. A spokesman from their label, Interscope, did not understand why the cancellation took place.  In May 2003, t.A.T.u.'s management were sued by the promoters EEM Group for the cancellations of the concerts. EEM sued

Legacy.

"All the Things She Said" was ranked at number 452 in "Blender" magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born". The song was listed at number 8 on the "AOL"'s Top 100 Pop Songs of the Decade. Rebecca Bary from "The New Zealand Herald" listed the song at number five on their Top Ten Best Singles of 2003. Bill Lamb from "About.com" listed the song on his Top 100 Pop Songs of 2003

Productions and T.A. Music.

When t.A.T.u. was first formed by Shapovalov, "Neformat" was created as the group's production company, with Shapovalov and Renski at the head. In 2004, the company was dissolved when t.A.T.u. left Shapovalov.  Since 2005, T.A. Music has been the Moscow-based production company of t.A.T.u. The liner notes that accompanied the release

Members.

Backing band members

t.A.T.u. (, ) was a Russian music duo that consisted of Lena Katina and Julia Volkova. The singers were part of children's music group Neposedy before being managed by producer and director Ivan Shapovalov and signing with Russian record label Neformat. t.A.T.u.'s debut album "200 Po Vstrechnoy" (2001) was a commercial success in Eastern Europe that made the duo sign with Interscope Records to release its English-language counterpart, "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane" (2002). The album was certified platinum by the IFPI for one million copies sold in Europe and became the first album by a foreign group to reach number one in Japan. It was also certified gold in the United States and included the international hits "All the Things She Said" and "Not Gonna Get Us". The duo represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 with the song "Ne Ver', Ne Boysia", finishing third.


Life and works.

Details of Waldseemüller's life are scarce. He was born around 1470 in the German town of Wolfenweiler. His father was a butcher and moved to Freiburg im Breisgau in about 1480. Records show that Waldseemüller was enrolled in 1490 at the University of Freiburg where Gregor Reisch, a noted humanist scholar, was one of his influential teachers. After finishing at the university, he lived in Basel where he was ordained a priest and, apparently, gained experience in printing and engraving while working with the printer community in Basel.  Around 1500, an association of humanist scholars formed in Saint-Dié under the patronage of René II, Duke of Lorraine. They called themselves the "Gymnasium Vosagense" and their leader was Walter Lud. Their initial intention was to publish a new edition of Ptolemy's "Geography". Waldseemüller was invited to join the group and contribute his skills as a cartographer. It is not clear how he came to the groups's attention, but Lud later described him as a master cartographer. Matthias Ringmann was also brought into the group because of his previous work with the "Geography" and his knowledge of Greek and Latin. Ringmann and Waldseemüller soon became friends and collaborators.

1507 world map.

In 1506, the "Gymnasium" obtained a French translation of the Soderini Letter, a booklet attributed to Amerigo Vespucci that provided a sensational account of four alleged Vespucci voyages to explore the coast of lands recently discovered in the western Atlantic. The "Gymnasium" surmised that this was the "new world" or the "antipodes" hypothesized by classical writers. The Soderini Letter gave Vespucci credit for discovery of this new continent and implied that newly obtained Portuguese maps were based on his explorations. They decided to put aside the "Geography" for the moment and publish a brief "Introduction to Cosmography" with an accompanying world map. The "Introduction" was written by Ringmann and included a Latin translation of the "Soderini Letter". In a preface to the "Letter", Ringmann wrote "I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women's names."  While Ringmann was writing the "Introduction", Waldseemüller focused on the creation of a world map using an aggregation of sources including maps based on the works of Ptolemy, Henricus Martellus, Alberto Cantino and Nicolò de Caverio. In addition to a large 12-panel wall map, Waldseemüller created a smaller, simplified globe. The wall map was decorated with prominent portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci. The map and globe were notable for showing the New World as a continent separate from Asia and for naming the southern landmass America. By April 1507, the map, globe and accompanying book, "Introduction to Cosmography", were published. A thousand copies were printed and sold throughout Europe.  The "Introduction" and map were a great success and four editions were printed in the first year alone. The map was widely used in universities and was influential among cartographers who admired the craftsmanship that went into its creation. In the following years other maps were printed that often incorporated the name America. Although Waldseemüller had intended the name to apply only to a specific part of Brazil, other maps applied it to the entire continent. In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both the North and South continents on his influential map and by this point the name was securely fixed on the New World

Ptolemy's "Geography" (1513).

After 1507, Waldseemüller and Ringmann continued to collaborate on a new edition of Ptolemy's "Geography". In 1508 Ringmann traveled to Italy and obtained a Greek manuscript of "Geography" ("Codex Vaticanum Graecorum 191"). With this key reference they continued to make progress and Waldseemüller was able to finish his maps. However, completion was forestalled when their patron, Duke René II, died in 1508. The new edition was finally printed in 1513 by Johannes Schott in Strasbourg. By then, Waldseemüller had pulled out of the project and was not credited for his cartographic work. Nevertheless his maps were recognized as important contributions to the science of cartography and was considered a standard reference work for many decades.  Approximately twenty of Waldseemüller's "tabulae modernae" (modern maps) were included in the new "Geography" as a separate appendix, "Claudii Ptolemaei Supplementem". This supplement constitutes the first modern atlas. Maps of Lorraine and the upper Rhine region were the first printed maps of those regions and were probably based on survey work done by Waldseemüller himself.  The world map published in the 1513 "Geography" seems to indicate that Waldseemüller had second thoughts about the name and the nature of the lands discovered in the western Atlantic. The New World was no longer clearly shown as a continent separate from Asia and the name America had been replaced with "Terra Incognita" (Unknown Land). What caused him to make these changes is not clear but perhaps he was influenced by contemporary criticism that Vespucci had usurped Columbus's primacy of discovery.

Other works.

Waldseemüller was also interested in surveying and surveying instruments. In 1508 he contributed a treatise on surveying and perspective to the fourth edition of Gregor Reisch’s "Margarita Philosophica". He included an illustration of a forerunner to the theodolite, a surveying instrument he called the polimetrum. In 1511 he published the "Carta Itineraria Europae", a road map of Europe that showed important trade routes as well as pilgrim routes from central Europe to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It was the first printed wall map of Europe.  In 1516 he produced another large-scale wall map of the world, the "Carta Marina Navigatoria", printed in Strasbourg. It was designed in the style of portolan charts and consisted of twelve printed sheets.  The Paris Green Globe (or "Globe vert"), has been attributed to Waldseemüller by experts at the Bibliotheque Nationale. However, the attribution is not universally accepted.  Waldseemüller died without a will on 16 March 1520 in Saint-Dié, where he had served as a canon in the collegiate Church of Saint-Dié since 1514.

1507 map rediscovered.

The 1507 wall map was lost for a long time, but a copy was found in Schloss Wolfegg in southern Germany by Joseph Fischer in 1901. It is the only known copy and was purchased by the United States Library of Congress in May 2003 Five copies of Waldseemüller's globular map survive in the form of "gores": printed maps that were intended to be cut out and pasted onto a wooden globe.

Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 16 March 1520) was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Latinized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. He and his collaborator, Matthias Ringmann, are credited with the first recorded usage of the word "America" to name a portion of the New World in honour of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Waldseemüller was also the first to map South America as a continent separate from Asia; the first to produce a printed globe and the first to create a printed wall map of Europe. A set of his maps printed as an appendix to the 1513 edition of Ptolemy's "Geography" is considered to be the first example of a modern atlas.


History.

In larger Victorian houses it was common to have accessible from the bedroom a boudoir for the lady of the house and a dressing room for the gentleman. Attic bedrooms exist in some houses; since they are only separated from the outside air by the roof they are typically cold in winter and may be too hot in summer. The slope of the rafters supporting a pitched roof also makes them inconvenient. In houses where servants were living in they often used attic bedrooms.  In the 14th century the lower class slept on mattresses that were stuffed with hay and broom straws. During the 16th century mattresses stuffed with feathers started to gain popularity, with those who could afford them. The common person was doing well if he could buy a mattress after seven years of marriage. In the 18th century cotton and wool started to become more common. The first coil spring mattress was not invented until 1871. The most common and most purchased mattress is the innerspring mattress, though a wide variety of alternative materials are available including foam, latex, wool, and even silk. The variety of firmness choices range from relatively soft to a rather firm mattress. A bedroom may have bunk beds if two or more people share a room. A chamber pot kept under the bed or in a nightstand was usual in the period before modern domestic plumbing and bathrooms in dwellings.

Furnishings.

Furniture and other items in bedrooms vary greatly, depending on taste, local traditions and the socioeconomic status of an individual. For instance, a master bedroom may include a bed of a specific size (double, king or queen-sized); one or more dressers (or perhaps, a wardrobe armoire); a nightstand; one or more closets; and carpeting. Built-in closets are less common in Europe than in North America; thus there is greater use of freestanding wardrobes or armoires in Europe.  An individual's bedroom is a reflection of their personality, as well as social class and socioeconomic status, and is unique to each person. However, there are certain items that are common in most bedrooms. Mattresses usually have a bed set to raise the mattress off the floor and the bed often provides some decoration. There are many different types of mattresses.  Night stands are also popular. They are used to put various items on, such as an alarm clock or a small lamp. In the times before bathrooms existed in dwellings bedrooms often contained a washstand for tasks of personal hygiene. In the 2010s, having a television set in a bedroom is fairly common as well. 43% of American children from ages 3 to 4 have a television in their bedrooms. Along with television sets many bedrooms also have computers, video game consoles, and a desk to do work. In the late 20th century and early 21st century the bedroom became a more social environment and people started to spend a lot more time in their bedrooms than in the past.  Bedding used in northern Europe (especially in Scandinavia) is significantly different from that used in North America and other parts of Europe. In Japan futons are common.  In addition to a bed (or, if shared by two or more children, a bunk bed), a child's bedroom may include a small closet or dressers, a toy box or computer game console, bookcase or other items.

Modern bedrooms.

Many houses in North America have at least two bedrooms—usually a master bedroom and one or more bedrooms for either the children or guests.  In some jurisdictions there are basic features (such as a closet and a "means of egress") that a room must have in order to legally qualify as a bedroom. In many states, such as Alaska, bedrooms are not required to have closets and must instead meet minimum size requirements.  A closet by definition is a small space used to store things. In a bedroom, a closet is most commonly used for clothes and other small personal items that one may have. Walk in closets are more popular today and vary in size. However, in the past wardrobes have been the most prominent. A wardrobe is a tall rectangular shaped cabinet that clothes can be stored or hung in. Clothes are also kept in a dresser. Typically nicer clothes are kept in the closet because they can be hung up while leisure clothing and undergarments are stored in the dresser.  In buildings with multiple self-contained housing units (e.g., apartments), the number of bedrooms varies widely. While many such units have at least one bedroom—frequently, these units have at least two—some of these units may not have a specific room dedicated for use as a bedroom. (These units may be known by various names, including "studio, efficiency, bedsit", and others.)  Sometimes, a master bedroom is connected to a dedicated bathroom, often called an ensuite.

Culture.

Bedrooms typically have a door for privacy (in some cases lockable from inside) and a window for ventilation. In larger bedrooms, a small desk and chair or an upholstered chair and a chest of drawers may also be used. In Western countries, some large bedrooms, called master bedrooms, may also contain a bathroom. Where space allows bedrooms may also have televisions and / or video players, and in some cases a personal computer.

Around the world.

Japan.

In Japan, the notion of having a bedroom is much less important than it is in the west, especially as it pertains to having a private space for personal use. Indeed, having a unified house corresponds to having a unified family, a concept so important that areas are seldom personalized, even those pertaining to relationships. Everything is subject to the concept of primitive cohesion. This makes for flexibility in terms of the way various spaces are utilized: Each evening, the Japanese unroll their futon directly on their tatami mats, typically close to one another. They then put them away come morning in the oshiire. The unity of the household is also reinforced by the use of sliding partitions (shoji) lined with rice paper and insulating in every way.  Materially, the Japanese tatami room, as opposed to its western counterpart (deemed The Western Room), has no door, bed, or even wall, making it barely detectable in space.  This room is typically situated towards the back of the home, close to the place dedicated to the family ancestors and opposite of the southern facade, the gardens, and the general exterior.  The second half of the twentieth century saw a considerable change in the bedroom style. Almost non-existent before World War Two, The Western Room continued to gain traction in new constructions to the point where there is a clear relationship between age of a building and presence of western-style bedrooms. Cultural habits, however, have not shifted as rapidly.  In the most densely-populated cities, there exists a type of hotel essentially consisting of stacks of individual "rooms" so cramped they hardly allow one to do more than lie down and sleep.

A bedroom is a room of a house, mansion, castle, palace, hotel, dormitory, apartment, condominium, duplex or townhouse where people sleep. A typical western bedroom contains as bedroom furniture one or two beds (ranging from a crib for an infant, a single or twin bed for a toddler, child, teenager, or single adult to bigger sizes like a full, double, queen, king or California king (eastern or waterbed size for a couple)), a clothes closet, and bedside table and dressing table, both of which usually contain drawers. Except in bungalows, ranch style homes, or one-storey motels, bedrooms are usually on one of the floors of a dwelling that is above ground level.


Real analysis.

In real analysis, singularities are either discontinuities, or discontinuities of the derivative (sometimes also discontinuities of higher order derivatives). There are four kinds of discontinuities: type I, which has two subtypes, and type II, which can also be divided into two subtypes (though usually is not).  To describe the way these two types of limits are being used, suppose that formula_8 is a function of a real argument formula_9, and for any value of its argument, say formula_10, then the left-handed limit, formula_11, and the right-handed limit, formula_12, are defined by:  The value formula_11 is the value that the function formula_8 tends towards as the value formula_9 approaches formula_10 from "below", and the value formula_12 is the value that the function formula_8 tends towards as the value formula_9 approaches formula_10 from "above", regardless of the actual value the function has at the point where formula_25.  There are some functions for which these limits do not exist at all. For example, the function does not tend towards anything as formula_9 approaches formula_28. The limits in this case are not infinite, but rather undefined: there is no value that formula_29 settles in on. Borrowing from complex analysis, this is sometimes called an "essential singularity".  The possible cases at a given value formula_10 for the argument are as follows.  In real analysis, a singularity or discontinuity is a property of a function alone. Any singularities that may exist in the derivative of a function are considered as belonging to the derivative, not to the original function.

Coordinate singularities.

A coordinate singularity occurs when an apparent singularity or discontinuity occurs in one coordinate frame, which can be removed by choosing a different frame. An example of this is the apparent singularity at the 90 degree latitude in spherical coordinates. An object moving due north (for example, along the line 0 degrees longitude) on the surface of a sphere will suddenly experience an instantaneous change in longitude at the pole (in the case of the example, jumping from longitude 0 to longitude 180 degrees). This discontinuity, however, is only apparent; it is an artifact of the coordinate system chosen, which is singular at the poles. A different coordinate system would eliminate the apparent discontinuity (e.g., by replacing the latitude/longitude representation with an -vector representation).

Complex analysis.

In complex analysis, there are several classes of singularities. These include the isolated singularities, the nonisolated singularities and the branch points.

Isolated singularities.

Suppose that "U" is an open subset of the complex numbers C, with the point "a" being an element of "U", and that "f" is a complex differentiable function defined on some neighborhood around "a", excluding "a": "U" \ {"a"}, then:

Nonisolated singularities.

Other than isolated singularities, complex functions of one variable may exhibit other singular behaviour. These are termed nonisolated singularities, of which there are two types:

Branch points.

Branch points are generally the result of a multi-valued function, such as formula_50 or formula_51, which are defined within a certain limited domain so that the function can be made single-valued within the domain. The cut is a line or curve excluded from the domain to introduce a technical separation between discontinuous values of the function. When the cut is genuinely required, the function will have distinctly different values on each side of the branch cut. The shape of the branch cut is a matter of choice, even though it must connect two different branch points (such as formula_52 and formula_53 for formula_51) which are fixed in place.

Finite-time singularity.

A finite-time singularity occurs when one input variable is time, and an output variable increases towards infinity at a finite time. These are important in kinematics and PDEs (Partial Differential Equations) – infinites do not occur physically, but the behavior near the singularity is often of interest. Mathematically, the simplest finite-time singularities are power laws for various exponents of the form formula_55 of which the simplest is hyperbolic growth, where the exponent is (negative) 1: formula_56 More precisely, in order to get a singularity at positive time as time advances (so the output grows to infinity), one instead uses formula_57 (using "t" for time, reversing direction to formula_58 so that time increases to infinity, and shifting the singularity forward from 0 to a fixed time formula_59).  An example would be the bouncing motion of an inelastic ball on a plane. If idealized motion is considered, in which the same fraction of kinetic energy is lost on each bounce, the frequency of bounces becomes infinite, as the ball comes to rest in a finite time. Other examples of finite-time singularities include the various forms of the Painlevé paradox (for example, the tendency of a chalk to skip when dragged across a blackboard), and how the precession rate of a coin spun on a flat surface accelerates towards infinite—before abruptly stopping (as studied using the Euler's Disk toy).  Hypothetical examples include Heinz von Foerster's facetious "Doomsday's equation" (simplistic models yield infinite human population in finite time).

Algebraic geometry and commutative algebra.

In algebraic geometry, a singularity of an algebraic variety is a point of the variety where the tangent space may not be regularly defined. The simplest example of singularities are curves that cross themselves. But there are other types of singularities, like cusps. For example, the equation defines a curve that has a cusp at the origin. One could define the -axis as a tangent at this point, but this definition can not be the same as the definition at other points. In fact, in this case, the -axis is a "double tangent."  For affine and projective varieties, the singularities are the points where the Jacobian matrix has a rank which is lower than at other points of the variety.  An equivalent definition in terms of commutative algebra may be given, which extends to abstract varieties and schemes: A point is "singular" if the local ring at this point is not a regular local ring.

In mathematics, a singularity is in general a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined, or a point where the mathematical object ceases to be well-behaved in some particular way, such as the lack of differentiability or analyticity.


Naming conventions.

The R/S system is an important nomenclature system used to denote distinct enantiomers. Another system is based on prefix notation for optical activity: (+)- and (−)- or d- and l-. The Latin words for "left" are "laevus" and "sinister", and the word for "right" is "dexter" (or "rectus" in the sense of correct or virtuous). The English word "right" is a cognate of "rectus". This is the origin of the L/D and S/R notations, and the employment of prefixes "levo-" and "dextro-" in common names.

Criterion of enantiomerism.

An asymmetric carbon atom is one which has bonds with four "different" atoms or groups, so that these bonds can be arranged in two different ways which are not superposable. Most compounds that contain one or more asymmetric carbon (or other element with a tetrahedral geometry) atoms show enantiomerism, but this is not always true. Compounds that contain two or more asymmetric carbon atoms but have a plane of symmetry with respect to the whole molecule are known as "meso" compounds. A "meso" compound does not have a mirror image stereoisomer because it is its own mirror image (i.e., it and its mirror image are the same molecule). For instance, "meso" tartaric acid (shown on the right) has two asymmetric carbon atoms, but it does not exhibit enantiomerism because each of the two halves of the molecule is equal and opposite to the other and thus is superposable on its geometric mirror image. Conversely, there exist forms of chirality that do not require individual asymmetric atoms. In fact, there are four distinct types of chirality: central, axial, planar, and helical chirality. Having an enantiomer by virtue of an asymmetric carbon atom represents the most common type of central chirality. The other three types of chirality do not involve asymmetric carbon atoms, and even central chirality does not require the center of chirality to be located at a carbon or any other atom. Consequently, while the presence of an asymmetric carbon atom is a convenient characteristic to look for when determining whether a molecule will have an enantiomer, it is neither sufficient nor necessary as a criterion.  As a rigorous criterion, a molecule is chiral, and will therefore possess an enantiomer, if and only if it belongs to one of the chiral point groups: "C", "D", "T", "O", and "I". However, as a caveat, enantiomers are not necessarily isolable if there is an accessible pathway for racemization at a given temperature and timescale. For example, amines with three distinct substituents are chiral, but with the exception of only a few atypical cases (e.g. substituted "N"-chloroaziridines), they rapidly planarize and invert ("umbrella inversion") at room temperature, leading to racemization. If the racemization is fast enough, the molecule can often be treated as an achiral, averaged structure.

Examples.

An example of such an enantiomer is the sedative thalidomide, which was sold in a number of countries around the world from 1957 until 1961. It was withdrawn from the market when it was found to cause birth defects. One enantiomer caused the desirable sedative effects, while the other, unavoidably present in equal quantities, caused birth defects.  The herbicide mecoprop is a racemic mixture, with the ("R")-(+)-enantiomer ("Mecoprop-P", "Duplosan KV") possessing the herbicidal activity.  Another example is the antidepressant drugs escitalopram and citalopram. Citalopram is a racemate [1:1 mixture of ("S")-citalopram and ("R")-citalopram]; escitalopram [("S")-citalopram] is a pure enantiomer. The dosages for escitalopram are typically 1/2 of those for citalopram.

Enantioselective preparations.

There are two main strategies for the preparation of enantiopure compounds. The first is known as chiral resolution. This method involves preparing the compound in racemic form, and separating it into its isomers. In his pioneering work, Louis Pasteur was able to isolate the isomers of tartaric acid because they crystallize from solution as crystals each with a different symmetry. A less common method is by enantiomer self-disproportionation.  The second strategy is asymmetric synthesis: the use of various techniques to prepare the desired compound in high enantiomeric excess. Techniques encompassed include the use of chiral starting materials (chiral pool synthesis), the use of chiral auxiliaries and chiral catalysts, and the application of asymmetric induction. The use of enzymes (biocatalysis) may also produce the desired compound.  Enantioconvergent synthesis is the synthesis of one enantiomer from a racemic precursor molecule utilizing both enantiomers. Thus, the two enantiomers of the reactant produce a single enantiomer of product.

Enantiopure medications.

Advances in industrial chemical processes have made it economic for pharmaceutical manufacturers to take drugs that were originally marketed as a racemic mixture and market the individual enantiomers. In some cases, the enantiomers have genuinely different effects. In other cases, there may be no clinical benefit to the patient. In some jurisdictions, single-enantiomer drugs are separately patentable from the racemic mixture. It is possible that only one of the enantiomers is active. Or, it may be that both are active, in which case separating the mixture has no objective benefits, but extends the drug's patentability.

"Quasi"-enantiomers.

"Quasi"-enantiomers are molecular species that are not strictly enantiomers, but behave as if they are. "Quasi"-enantiomers have applications in parallel kinetic resolution.

In chemistry, an enantiomer ( ; ) (archaically termed optical isomer, antipode, or optical antipode) is one of two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other that are non-superposable (not identical), much as one's left and right hands are mirror images of each other that cannot appear identical simply by reorientation. A single chiral atom or similar structural feature in a compound causes that compound to have two possible structures which are non-superposable, each a mirror image of the other. Each member of the pair is termed an enantiomorph ("enantio" = opposite; "morph" = form); the structural property is termed enantiomerism. The presence of multiple chiral features in a given compound increases the number of geometric forms possible, though there may still be some perfect-mirror-image pairs.


Geography.

Špindlerův Mlýn is in the north of the historic Bohemia region near the border with Poland. Situated on the southern slopes of the Kozí hřbety, part of the Krkonoše Bohemian Ridge, at an altitude of to a.s.l., it is protected on all sides by the mountain peaks of Kozí hřbety, Pláň and Mt. Medvědín. In the east rises Luční hora at, the second highest mountain of the Czech Republic.  Špindlerův Mlýn lies on the confluence of the river Labe (Elbe) and the Dolský potok (Dolský creek). The Elbe source is located northwest of the town, near the Polish border and Mt. Vysoké Kolo at an altitude of. About 1 km downstream are the Labe Falls ("Labský vodopád") which cascade about in depth. A large dam was built in 1911–16 near Labská ("Krausebauden").  The municipal area comprises the villages of Přední Labská, Labská, Bedřichov and Svatý Petr. Nowadays it has about 1,300 permanent inhabitants.

History.

The settlement was first documented in the early 16th century under the rule of King Louis II Jagiello. It received its name (which can be literally translated as Špindler's Mill) after a mill belonging to a Spindler family, where neighbours would meet.  In the 18th century, large parts of the surrounding forests were a possession of the Habsburg minister Friedrich August von Harrach-Rohrau (1696–1749), after whom the village of Bedřichov ("Friedrichsthal") is named. In 1793 the local miners and lumbermen were given permission by Emperor Francis II to build the parish church of Svatý Petr (St Peter). After World War II the remaining German-speaking population was expelled according to the Beneš decrees.

Tourism.

Špindlerův Mlýn developed as a resort town from the mid 19th century onwards. Franz Kafka stayed here for recreation in January/February 1922 and began writing of one of his most famous works, "The Castle" ("Das Schloss").  With year-round use and with accommodation capacity of 10,000 beds, Špindlerův Mlýn is one of the most visited ski resorts in the Czech Republic, and has 20 runs, the most of all resorts in the country. During the winter season the area hosts the Europacup in freestyle skiing and SnowJam, a professional snowboarding event. Some years, e.g. 2019, the Alpine Ski World Cup has been held here. In the surroundings there are many marked hiking, mountain biking and cross-country skiing trails. Wildwater canoeing is also common on the Labe river.

Twin towns.

Špindlerův Mlýn is twinned with:

Špindlerův Mlýn (;, formerly also "Spindelmühle") is a town in the Krkonoše mountains in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It is one of the most frequented ski resorts in the country.


Early years.

Johann Tserclaes was born in February 1559 in Castle Tilly, Walloon Brabant, now in Belgium, then the Spanish Netherlands. Johann Tserclaes was born into a devoutly Roman Catholic Brabantine family; and, after having received a Jesuit education in Cologne, he joined the Spanish army at age fifteen and fought under Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza in his campaign against the Dutch forces rebelling in the Eighty Years' War and participated in the successful Siege of Antwerp in 1585. After this he joined in the Holy Roman Empire's campaign against the Ottoman Turks in Hungary and Transylvania as a mercenary in 1600 and through rapid promotion became a field marshal in only five years. When the Turkish Wars ended in 1606, he remained in the service of Rudolf II in Prague until he was appointed commander of the Catholic League forces by Bavaria under Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria in 1610.

Campaign in Bohemia.

As commander of the forces of the Catholic League he fought against the Bohemian rebels following the Defenestration of Prague, by which time he had trained his soldiers in the Spanish "Tercio" system, which featured musketeers supported by deep ranks of pikemen. A force of 25,000 soldiers, including troops of both the Catholic League and the Emperor scored an important victory against Christian of Anhalt and Count Thurn at the decisive Battle of White Mountain west of Prague on 8 November 1620. Half of the enemy forces were killed or captured, while the Catholic League lost only 700 men. This victory was vital in crushing resistance to the Emperor in Bohemia, as it allowed Prague to be captured several days later.

Campaign in Germany.

Next he turned west and marched through Germany, but was defeated at the Battle of Mingolsheim on 27 April 1622. He then joined with the Spanish general Duke Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba – not to be confused with the famous Spanish general of the same name from the Italian Wars in Italy at the end of the 15th century – and was victorious at the Battle of Wimpfen against George Fredrick, Margrave of Baden-Durlach on 6 May; this victory occurred after the enemies’ ammunition tumbril was hit by cannon fire and exploded.  He was successful again at the Battle of Höchst on 20 June and was made a count ("Graf" in German) for this victory. These three battles in two months allowed him to capture the city of Heidelberg following an eleven-week siege on 19 September. Christian the Younger of Brunswick, whom he had already defeated at Höchst, raised another army, but again lost to him at the Battle of Stadtlohn, where 13,000 out of his army of 15,000 were lost, including fifty of his high-ranking officers. Together with the complete surrender of Bohemia in 1623, this ended virtually all resistance in Germany.  This caused King Christian IV of Denmark to enter the Thirty Years' War in 1625 to protect Protestantism, and also in a bid to make himself the primary leader of Northern Europe. Count Tilly besieged and captured Münden on 30 May 1626, whereupon local and refugee Protestant ministers were thrown into the river Werra, but could not lay a siege to Kassel.  Tilly fought the Danes at the Battle of Lutter on 26–27 August 1626, in which his highly disciplined infantry charged the enemy lines four times, breaking through. This led him to win decisively, destroying more than half the fleeing Danish army, which was uncharacteristic of the warfare of the time. Denmark was forced to sue for peace at the Treaty of Lübeck. This disrupted the balance of power in Europe resulting in Swedish involvement in 1630 under their redoubtable leader, the brilliant King and field general Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who had been trying to dominate the Baltic for the previous ten years in wars with Poland, then a continental power of note.

Sack of Magdeburg.

While Gustavus Adolphus landed his army in Mecklenburg and was in Berlin, trying to make alliances with the leaders of Northern Germany, Tilly laid siege to the city of Magdeburg on the Elbe, which promised to support Sweden. The siege began on 20 March 1631 and Tilly put his subordinate Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim in command while he campaigned elsewhere. After two months of laying siege, and after the fall of Frankfurt an der Oder to the Swedes, Pappenheim finally convinced Tilly, who had brought reinforcements, to storm the city on 20 May with 40,000 men under the personal command of Pappenheim. The assault was successful and the walls were breached, but the commanders supposedly lost control of their soldiers. A massacre of the populace ensued in which roughly 20,000 of the 25,000 inhabitants of the city perished by sword and the fire which destroyed most of the city, then one of the largest cities in Germany and about the size of Cologne or Hamburg.  Many historians consider it unlikely that he ordered the city torched. Magdeburg was a strategically vital city of the Elbe and was needed as a resupply center for the looming fight against the Swedes. Although extremely opposed to the Reformation movement, Tilly was an experienced commander and would have recognized the strategic importance of the city. Additionally, he sent a proposal of surrender to Magdeburg days before the final assault, after the capture of the Toll redoubt. However, the city's mayor rejected the offer, expecting a Swedish relief force to arrive soon. When the slaughter began, and no escape was possible, the children of the city were formed in procession and marched across the marketplace singing Luther's hymn: "Lord keep us steadfast in thy Word, Curb Pope and Turk who by the sword, would wrest the kingdom from thy Son, and set at naught all he hath done." The children were slain without mercy, but whether by order from Tilly or not remains debated in some quarters. Tilly afterwards reportedly wrote to the Emperor,

Campaign against the Swedes and death.

Following Magdeburg, Tilly engaged the army of Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Breitenfeld on 17 September 1631, near the city of Leipzig, which he had reached after laying waste to Saxony. In the battle he was outmaneuvered by King Gustavus Adolphus and suffered 27,000 casualties. The Swedes’ maneuvering and accurate, rapid artillery fire caused his troops to break and flee. He withdrew, and political rivalries prevented Wallenstein from coming to his aid, so he turned to defence.  While attempting to prevent the Swedes from crossing into Bavaria over the Lech near Rain am Lech, he was wounded early in the Battle of Rain by a 90-gram arquebus bullet (not as erroneously reported, by a culverin cannon ball) which shattered his right thigh, and died of osteomyelitis (bone infection) fifteen days later in Ingolstadt at the age of 73 on 30 April 1632. His tomb is in Altötting, Upper Bavaria.

Descendants.

A grandson of one of his brothers, Antonio Octavio Tserclaes de Tilly (1646–1715) was a Spanish general and nobleman. A sister or daughter, Albertina, of this Prince Antonio Octavio, would be the first root for the Spanish ducal title, Dukes of Tserclaes, bestowed in July 1856 by Queen Isabella II of Spain to members of the Pérez de Guzmán, family, living in Jerez and Seville, Spain.

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (; ; ; February 1559 – 30 April 1632) was a field marshal who commanded the Catholic League's forces in the Thirty Years' War. From 1620–31, he had an unmatched and demoralizing string of important victories against the Protestants, including White Mountain, Wimpfen, Höchst, Stadtlohn and the Conquest of the Palatinate. He destroyed a Danish army at Lutter and sacked the Protestant city of Magdeburg, which caused the death of some 20,000 of the city's inhabitants, both defenders and non-combatants, out of a total population of 25,000.


Life.

Lotka was born in Lwów, Austria-Hungary (now in Ukraine) to Polish-American parents. His parents, Jacques and Marie (Doebely) Lotka, were US nationals. He gained his B.Sc. in 1901 at the University of Birmingham, England, he did graduate work in 1901–02 at Leipzig University, received an M.A. in 1909 at Cornell University and a D. Sc. at Birmingham University in 1912.  In 1935, he married Romola Beattie. They had no children.  He died in New York.

Work.

Although he is today known mainly for the Lotka–Volterra equations used in ecology, Lotka was a bio-mathematician and a bio-statistician, who sought to apply the principles of the physical sciences to biological sciences as well. His main interest was demography, which possibly influenced his professional choice as a statistician at Metropolitan Life Insurance.  One of Lotka's earliest publications, in 1912, proposed a solution to Ronald Ross's second malaria model. In 1923, he published a thorough five-part analysis and extension of both Ross's malaria models. The fourth part in the series, co-authored by F. R. Sharpe, modeled the time lag for pathogen incubation. Lotka published "Elements of Physical Biology" in 1925, one of the first books on mathematical biology after D'Arcy Thompson's "On Growth and Form". He is also known for his energetics perspective on evolution. Lotka proposed that natural selection was, at its root, a struggle among organisms for available energy; Lotka's principle states that organisms that survive and prosper are those that capture and use energy more efficiently than its competitors. Lotka extended his energetics framework to human society. In particular, he suggested that the shift in reliance from solar energy to nonrenewable energy would pose unique and fundamental challenges to society. These theories made Lotka an important forerunner to the development of biophysical economics and ecological economics, advanced by Frederick Soddy, Howard Odum and others.

Elements of physical biology.

While at Johns Hopkins, Lotka completed his book "Elements of Physical Biology" (1925), in which he extended the work of Pierre François Verhulst. His first book summarizes his previous work and organizes his ideas of unity and universality of physical laws, making his works accessible to other scientists. Although the book covered a large amount of topics, from energetics of evolution (see below) to the physical nature of consciousness, the author is primarily known today for the Lotka–Volterra equation of population dynamics.

Energetics of evolution.

His earlier work was centered on energetics and applications of thermodynamics in life sciences.  Lotka proposed the theory that the Darwinian concept of natural selection could be quantified as a physical law. The law that he proposed was that the selective principle of evolution was one which favoured the maximum useful energy flow transformation. The general systems ecologist Howard T. Odum later applied Lotka's proposal as a central guiding feature of his work in ecosystem ecology. Odum called Lotka's law the maximum power principle.

Demography and public health.

Lotka's work in mathematical demography began in 1907 with the publication of articles in the journal "Science" and "American Journal of Science". He published several dozen articles on the subject over more than two decades, culminating with "Théorie Analytique des Associations Biologiques" (Analytical Theory of Biological Associations). The 45-page Part 1, titled "Principes", was published in 1934; the 149-page Part 2, titled "Analyse demographique avec application particuliere a l'espece humaine", was published in 1939; both by Hermann & Cie, Paris.

Bibliometrics.

Within the field of bibliometrics, particularly that part devoted to studying scientific publications, Lotka is noted for contributing "Lotka's law". The law, which Lotka discovered, relates to the productivity of scientists. As noted by W. G. Poitier in 1981: "The Lotka distribution is based on an inverse square law where the number of authors writing "n" papers is 1/"n" of the number of authors writing one paper. Each subject area can have associated with it an exponent representing its specific rate of author productivity." Lotka's work sparked additional inquiries, eventually seminally contributing to the field of scientometrics—the scientific study of scientific publications.  He teamed up with Louis Israel Dublin, another statistician at Metropolitan Life, to write three books on demography and public health: "The Money Value of a Man" (1930), "Length of Life" (1936), and "Twenty-five Years of Health Progress" (1937).

Alfred James Lotka (March 2, 1880 – December 5, 1949) was a US mathematician, physical chemist, and statistician, famous for his work in population dynamics and energetics. An American biophysicist, Lotka is best known for his proposal of the predator–prey model, developed simultaneously but independently of Vito Volterra. The Lotka–Volterra model is still the basis of many models used in the analysis of population dynamics in ecology.


Typical associates.

Clauses.

In non-functional linguistics, a "simple complete sentence" consists of a single clause. In functional linguistics, a sentence is typically associated with a clause and a clause can be either a "clause simplex" or a "clause complex". A clause is a clause simplex if it represents a single process going on through time and it is a clause complex if it represents a logical relation between two or more processes and is thus composed of two or more clause simplexes.  A clause (simplex) typically contains a predication structure with a subject noun phrase and a finite verb. Although the subject is usually a noun phrase, other kinds of phrases (such as gerund phrases) work as well, and some languages allow subjects to be omitted. In the examples below, the subject of the outmost clause simplex is in italics and the subject of "boiling" is in square brackets. Notice that there is clause embedding in the second and third examples.  There are two types of clauses: "independent" and "non-independent"/"interdependent". An independent clause realises a speech act such as a statement, a question, a command or an offer. A non-independent clause does not realise any act. A non-independent clause (simplex or complex) is usually logically related to other non-independent clauses. Together they usually constitute a single independent clause (complex). For that reason, non-independent clauses are also called "interdependent". For instance, the non-independent clause "because I have no friends" is related to the non-independent clause "I don't go out" in "I don't go out, because I have no friends". The whole clause complex is independent because it realises a statement. What is stated is the causal nexus between having no friend and not going out. When such a statement is acted out, the fact that the speaker doesn't go out is already established, therefore it cannot be stated. What is still open and under negotiation is the reason for that fact. The causal nexus is represented by the independent clause complex and not by the two interdependent clause simplexes.  See also copula for the consequences of the verb "to be" on the theory of sentence structure.

Classification.

By structure.

One traditional scheme for classifying English sentences is by clause structure, the number and types of clauses in the sentence with finite verbs.

By purpose.

Sentences can also be classified based on their purpose:

Major and minor sentences.

A major sentence is a "regular" sentence; it has a subject and a predicate, e.g. "I have a ball.". In this sentence, one can change the persons, e.g. "We have a ball.". However, a minor sentence is an irregular type of sentence that does not contain a main clause, e.g. "Mary!", "Precisely so.", "Next Tuesday evening after it gets dark.". Other examples of minor sentences are headings (e.g. the heading of this entry), stereotyped expressions ("Hello!"), emotional expressions ("Wow!"), proverbs, etc. These can also include nominal sentences like "The more, the merrier". These mostly omit a main verb for the sake of conciseness, but may also do so in order to intensify the meaning around the nouns.  Sentences that comprise a single word are called word sentences, and the words themselves sentence words.

Length.

The 1980s saw a renewed surge in interest in sentence length, primarily in relation to "other syntactic phenomena".  One definition of the average sentence length of a prose passage is the ratio of the number of words to the number of sentences. The textbook "Mathematical linguistics", by András Kornai, suggests that in "journalistic prose the median sentence length is above 15 words." The average length of a sentence generally serves as a measure of sentence difficulty or complexity. In general, as the average sentence length increases, the complexity of the sentences also increases.  Another definition of "sentence length" is the number of clauses in the sentence, whereas the "clause length" is the number of phones in the clause.  Research by Erik Schils and Pieter de Haan by sampling five texts showed that two adjacent sentences are more likely to have similar lengths than two non-adjacent sentences, and almost certainly have a similar length when in a work of fiction. This countered the theory that "authors may aim at an alternation of long and short sentences." Sentence length, as well as word difficulty, are both factors in the readability of a sentence; however, other factors, such as the presence of conjunctions, have been said to "facilitate comprehension considerably".

In non-functional linguistics, a sentence is a textual unit consisting of one or more words that are grammatically linked. In functional linguistics, a sentence is a unit of written texts delimited by graphological features such as upper case letters and markers such as periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. This notion contrasts with a curve, which is delimited by phonologic features such as pitch and loudness and markers such as pauses; and with a clause, which is a sequence of words that represents some process going on throughout time. This entry is mainly about "sentence" in its non-functional sense, though much work in functional linguistics is indirectly cited or considered such as the categories of speech act theory.


Education and early life.

Born in Middletown, Connecticut, the son of mathematician Edward Burr Van Vleck and grandson of astronomer John Monroe Van Vleck, he grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and received an A.B. degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1920. Then he went to Harvard for graduate studies and earned a Ph.D degree in 1922 under the supervision of Edwin C. Kemble.

Career and research.

He joined the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in 1923, then moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison before settling at Harvard. He also earned "Honorary D. Sc.", or "D. Honoris Causa", degree from Wesleyan University in 1936.  J. H. Van Vleck established the fundamentals of the quantum mechanical theory of magnetism, crystal field theory and ligand field theory (chemical bonding in metal complexes). He is regarded as the "Father of Modern Magnetism".  During World War II, J. H. Van Vleck worked on radar at the MIT Radiation Lab. He was half time at the Radiation Lab and half time on the staff at Harvard. He showed that at about 1.25-centimeter wavelength water molecules in the atmosphere would lead to troublesome absorption and that at 0.5-centimeter wavelength there would be a similar absorption by oxygen molecules. This was to have important consequences not just for military (and civil) radar systems but later for the new science of radioastronomy. J. H. Van Vleck participated in the Manhattan Project. In June 1942, J. Robert Oppenheimer held a summer study for confirming the concept and feasibility of a nuclear weapon at the University of California, Berkeley. Eight theoretical scientists, including J. H. Van Vleck, attended it. From July to September, the theoretical study group examined and developed the principles of atomic bomb design.  J. H. Van Vleck's theoretical work led to the establishment of the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory. He also served on the Los Alamos Review committee in 1943. The committee, established by General Leslie Groves, also consisted of W. K. Lewis of MIT, Chairman; E. L. Rose, of Jones & Lamson; E. B. Wilson of Harvard; and Richard C. Tolman, Vice Chairman of NDRC. The committee's important contribution (originating with Rose) was a reduction in the size of the firing gun for the Little Boy atomic bomb, a concept that eliminated additional design weight and sped up production of the bomb for its eventual release over Hiroshima. However, it was not employed for the Fat Man bomb at Nagasaki, which relied on implosion of a plutonium shell to reach critical mass.  The philosopher and historian of science Thomas Kuhn completed a Ph.D. in physics under van Vleck's supervision at Harvard.  In 1961/62 he was George Eastman Visiting Professor at University of Oxford and held a professorship at Balliol College.  In 1950 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1966 and the Lorentz Medal in 1974. For his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electrons in magnetic solids, Van Vleck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1977, along with Philip W. Anderson and Sir Nevill Mott. Van Vleck transformations, Van Vleck paramagnetism and Van Vleck formula are named after him.  Van Vleck died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, aged 81.

Awards and honors.

He was awarded the Irving Langmuir Award in 1965, the National Medal of Science in 1966 and elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1967. He was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal in 1971, the Lorentz Medal in 1974 and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977.

Personal life.

J. H. Van Vleck and his wife Abigail were also important art collectors, particularly in the medium of Japanese woodblock prints (principally "Ukiyo-e"), known as "Van Vleck Collection". It was inherited from his father Edward Burr Van Vleck. They donated it to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin in 1980s.

John Hasbrouck Van Vleck (March 13, 1899 – October 27, 1980) was an American physicist and mathematician. He was co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977, for his contributions to the understanding of the behavior of electrons in magnetic solids.


Biography.

Kapitsa was born in Kronstadt, Russian Empire, to Bessarabian-Volhynian-born parents Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa (Romanian "Leonid Petrovici Capiţa"), a military engineer who constructed fortifications, and Olga Ieronimovna Kapitsa from a noble Polish Stebnicki family. Besides Russian, the Kapitsa family also spoke Romanian.  Kapitsa's studies were interrupted by the First World War, in which he served as an ambulance driver for two years on the Polish front. He graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. His wife and two children died in the flu epidemic of 1918-19. He subsequently studied in Britain, working for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and founding the influential Kapitza club. He was the first director (1930–34) of the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge.  In the 1920s he originated techniques for creating ultrastrong magnetic fields by injecting high current for brief periods into specially constructed air-core electromagnets. In 1928 he discovered the linear dependence of resistivity on magnetic field strength in various metals for very strong magnetic fields.  In 1934 Kapitsa returned to Russia to visit his parents but the Soviet Union prevented him from travelling back to Great Britain.  As his equipment for high-magnetic field research remained in Cambridge (although later Ernest Rutherford negotiated with the British government the possibility of shipping it to the USSR), he changed the direction of his research to the study of low temperature phenomena, beginning with a critical analysis of the existing methods for achieving low temperatures. In 1934 he developed new and original apparatus (based on the adiabatic principle) for making significant quantities of liquid helium.  Kapitsa formed the Institute for Physical Problems, in part using equipment which the Soviet government bought from the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge (with the assistance of Rutherford, once it was clear that Kapitsa would not be permitted to return).  In Russia, Kapitsa began a series of experiments to study liquid helium, leading to the discovery in 1937 of its superfluidity (not to be confused with superconductivity). He reported the properties of this new state of matter in a series of papers, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics".  In 1939 he developed a new method for liquefaction of air with a low-pressure cycle using a special high-efficiency expansion turbine. Consequently, during World War II he was assigned to head the Department of Oxygen Industry attached to the USSR Council of Ministers, where he developed his low-pressure expansion techniques for industrial purposes. He invented high power microwave generators (1950–1955) and discovered a new kind of continuous high pressure plasma discharge with electron temperatures over 1,000,000 K.  In November 1945, Kapitsa quarreled with Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD and in charge of the Soviet atomic bomb project, writing to Joseph Stalin about Beria's ignorance of physics and his arrogance. Stalin backed Kapitsa, telling Beria he had to cooperate with the scientists. Kapitsa refused to meet Beria: "If you want to speak to me, then come to the Institute." Stalin offered to meet Kapitsa, but this never happened.  Immediately after the war, a group of prominent Soviet scientists (including Kapitsa in particular) lobbied the government to create a new technical university, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Kapitsa taught there for many years. From 1957, he was also a member of the presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and at his death in 1984 was the only presidium member who was not also a member of the Communist Party.  In 1966, Kapitsa was allowed to visit Cambridge to receive the Rutherford Medal and Prize. While dining at his old college, Trinity, he found he did not have the required gown. He asked to borrow one, but a college servant asked him when be last dined at high table, "Thirty-two years" replied Kapitza. Within moments the servant-returned, not with any gown, but Kapitsa's own. In 1978, Kapitsa won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics" and was also cited for his long term role as a leader in the development of this area. He shared the prize with Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, who won for discovering the cosmic microwave background.  "Kapitsa resistance" is the thermal resistance (which causes a temperature discontinuity) at the interface between liquid helium and a solid. The "Kapitsa–Dirac effect" is a quantum mechanical effect consisting of the diffraction of electrons by a standing wave of light. In fluid dynamics, the "Kapitza number" is a dimensionless number characterizing the flow of thin films of fluid down an incline.

Personal life.

Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseevna Krylova (1903-1996), daughter of applied mathematician A.N. Krylov. They had two sons, Sergey and Andrey. Sergey Kapitsa (1928–2012) was a physicist and demographer. He was also the host of the popular and long-running Russian scientific TV show "Evident, but Incredible". Andrey Kapitsa (1931–2011) was a geographer. He was credited with the discovery and naming of Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica, which lies 4,000 meters below the continent's ice cap.

Honors and awards.

A minor planet, 3437 Kapitsa, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after him. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1929. In 1958 he was elected a Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa or Peter Kapitza (Russian: Пётр Леонидович Капица, Romanian: Petre Capiţa ( – 8 April 1984) was a leading Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate, best known for his work in low-temperature physics.


Biography.

Schawlow was born in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother, Helen (Mason), was from Canada, and his father, Arthur Schawlow, was a Jewish immigrant from Riga (then in the Russian Empire, now in Latvia). Schawlow was raised in his mother's Protestant religion. When Arthur was three years old, they moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  At the age of 16, he completed high school at Vaughan Road Academy (then Vaughan Collegiate Institute), and received a scholarship in science at the University of Toronto (Victoria College). After earning his undergraduate degree, Schawlow continued in graduate school at the University of Toronto which was interrupted due to World War II. At the end of the war, he began work on his Ph.D at the university with Professor Malcolm Crawford. He then took a postdoctoral position with Charles H. Townes at the physics department of Columbia University in the fall of 1949.  He went on to accept a position at Bell Labs in late 1951. He left in 1961 to join the faculty at Stanford University as a professor. He remained at Stanford until he retired to emeritus status in 1996.  Although his research focused on optics, in particular, lasers and their use in spectroscopy, he also pursued investigations in the areas of superconductivity and nuclear resonance. Schawlow shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for their contributions to the development of laser spectroscopy.  Schawlow coauthored the widely used text "Microwave Spectroscopy" (1955) with Charles Townes. Schawlow and Townes were the first to publish the theory of laser design and operation in their seminal 1958 paper on "optical masers", although Gordon Gould is often credited with the "invention" of the laser, due to his unpublished work that predated Schawlow and Townes by a few months. The first working laser was made in 1960 by Theodore Maiman.  In 1991, the NEC Corporation and the American Physical Society established a prize: the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science. The prize is awarded annually to "candidates who have made outstanding contributions to basic research using lasers."

Science and religion.

He participated in science and religion discussions. Regarding God, he stated, "I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life."

Personal life.

In 1951, he married Aurelia Townes, younger sister of his postdoctoral advisor, Charles Townes. They had three children: Arthur Jr., Helen, and Edith. Arthur Jr. was autistic, with very little speech ability.  Schawlow and Professor Robert Hofstadter at Stanford, who also had an autistic child, teamed up to help each other find solutions to the condition. Arthur Jr. was put in a special center for autistic individuals, and later, Schawlow put together an institution to care for people with autism in Paradise, California. It was later named the Arthur Schawlow Center in 1999, shortly before his death on the 29th of April 1999. Schawlow was a promoter of the controversial method of facilitated communication with patients of autism.  He considered himself to be an orthodox Protestant Christian, and attended a Methodist church. Arthur Schawlow was an intense fan and collector of traditional American jazz recordings, as well as a supporter of instrumental groups performing this type of music.  Schawlow died of leukemia in Palo Alto, California.

Arthur Leonard Schawlow (May 5, 1921 – April 28, 1999) was an American physicist and co-inventor of the laser with Charles Townes. His central insight, which Townes overlooked, was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take maser action from microwaves to visible wavelengths. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for his work using lasers to determine atomic energy levels with great precision.


Etymology.

The French word "liqueur" is derived from the Latin "liquifacere", which means "to dissolve".  In some parts of the United States and Canada, liqueurs may be referred to as cordials, or schnapps. This can cause confusion as in the United Kingdom a cordial would refer to a non-alcoholic concentrated fruit syrup, typically diluted to taste and consumed as a non-carbonated soft drink. Schnapps, on the other hand, can refer to any distilled beverage in Germany and aquavit in Scandinavian countries.

Legal definitions.

In the United States and Canada, where spirits are often called "liquor" (), there is often confusion discerning between liqueurs and liquors, due to the many different types of flavored spirits that are available today (e.g., flavored vodka). Liqueurs generally contain a lower alcohol content (15–30% ABV) than spirits and it has sweetener mixed, while some can have an ABV as high as 55%.

Canadian regulations.

Under the Food and Drug Regulations (C.R.C., c. 870), liqueurs are produced from mixing alcohol with plant materials. These materials include juices or extracts from fruits, flowers, leaves or other plant materials. The extracts are obtained by soaking, filtering or softening the plant substances. A sweetening agent should be added in an amount that is at least 2.5 percent of the finished liqueur. The alcohol percentage shall be at least 23%. It may also contain natural or artificial flavouring and color.

United States.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau regulates liqueurs similarly to Canada, requiring that alcohol be mixed with plant products and sweeteners be added to at least 2.5% by weight.

Preparation.

Some liqueurs are prepared by infusing certain woods, fruits, or flowers in either water or alcohol and adding sugar or other items. Others are distilled from aromatic or flavoring agents.  Anise and Rakı liqueurs have the property of turning from transparent to cloudy when added to water: the oil of anise remains in solution in the presence of a high concentration of alcohol, but crystallizes when the alcohol concentration is reduced; this is known as the ouzo effect.

Use.

Cocktails.

Liqueurs are sometimes mixed into cocktails to provide flavor.

Layered drinks.

Layered drinks are made by floating different-colored liqueurs in separate layers. Each liqueur is poured slowly into a glass over the back of a spoon or down a glass rod, so that the liquids of different densities remain unmixed, creating a striped effect.

A liqueur (; ; ) is an alcoholic drink composed of distilled spirits and additional flavorings such as sugar, fruits, herbs, and spices. Often served with or after dessert, they are typically heavily sweetened and un-aged beyond a resting period during production, when necessary, for their flavors to mingle.


Origins.

The term "equity" describes this type of ownership in English because it was regulated through the system of equity law that developed in England during the Late Middle Ages to meet the growing demands of commercial activity. While the older common law courts dealt with questions of property title, equity courts dealt with contractual interests in property. The same asset could have an owner in equity, who held the contractual interest, and a separate owner at law, who held the title indefinitely or until the contract was fulfilled. Contract disputes were examined with consideration of whether the terms and administration of the contract were fair — that is, equitable.

Single assets.

Any asset that is purchased through a secured loan is said to have equity. While the loan remains unpaid, the buyer does not fully own the asset. The lender has the right to repossess it if the buyer defaults, but only to recover the unpaid loan balance. The equity balance — the asset's market value reduced by the loan balance — measures the buyer's partial ownership. This may be different from the total amount that the buyer has paid on the loan, which includes interest expense and does not consider any change in the asset's value. When an asset has a deficit instead of equity, the terms of the loan determine whether the lender can recover it from the borrower. Houses are normally financed with non-recourse loans, in which the lender assumes a risk that the owner will default with a deficit, while other assets are financed with full-recourse loans that make the borrower responsible for any deficit.  The equity of an asset can be used to secure additional liabilities. Common examples include home equity loans and home equity lines of credit. These increase the total liabilities attached to the asset and decrease the owner's equity.

Business entities.

A business entity has a more complicated debt structure than a single asset. While some liabilities may be secured by specific assets of the business, others may be guaranteed by the assets of the entire business. If the business becomes bankrupt, it can be required to raise money by selling assets. Yet the equity of the business, like the equity of an asset, approximately measures the amount of the assets that belongs to the owners of the business.

Accounting.

Financial accounting defines the equity of a business as the net balance of its assets reduced by its liabilities. The fundamental accounting equation requires that the total of liabilities and equity is equal to the total of all assets at the close of each accounting period. To satisfy this requirement, all events that affect total assets and total liabilities unequally must eventually be reported as changes in equity. Businesses summarize their equity in a financial statement known as the balance sheet (or statement of net position) which shows the total assets, the specific equity balances, and the total liabilities and equity (or deficit).  Various types of equity can appear on a balance sheet, depending on the form and purpose of the business entity. Preferred stock, share capital (or capital stock) and capital surplus (or additional paid-in capital) reflect original contributions to the business from its investors or organizers. Treasury stock appears as a contra-equity balance (an offset to equity) that reflects the amount that the business has paid to repurchase stock from shareholders. Retained earnings (or accumulated deficit) is the running total of the business's net income and losses, excluding any dividends. In the United Kingdom and other countries that use its accounting methods, equity includes various reserve accounts that are used for particular reconciliations of the balance sheet.  Another financial statement, the statement of changes in equity, details the changes in these equity accounts from one accounting period to the next. Several events can produce changes in a firm's equity.

Investing.

Equity investing is the business of purchasing stock in companies, either directly or from another investor, on the expectation that the stock will earn dividends or can be resold with a capital gain. Equity holders typically receive voting rights, meaning that they can vote on candidates for the board of directors and, if their holding is large enough, influence management decisions.

Legal foundations.

Investors in a newly established firm must contribute an initial amount of capital to it so that it can begin to transact business. This contributed amount represents the investors' equity interest in the firm. In return, they receive shares of the company's stock. Under the model of a private limited company, the firm may keep contributed capital as long as it remains in business. If it liquidates, whether through a decision of the owners or through a bankruptcy process, the owners have a residual claim on the firm's eventual equity. If the equity is negative (a deficit) then the unpaid creditors take a loss and the owners' claim is void. Under limited liability, owners are not required to pay the firm's debts themselves so long as the firm's books are in order and it has not involved the owners in fraud.  When the owners of a firm are shareholders, their interest is called shareholders' equity. If all shareholders are in one class, they share equally in ownership equity from all perspectives. It is not uncommon for companies to issue more than one class of stock, with each class having its own liquidation priority or voting rights. This complicates analysis for both stock valuation and accounting.

Valuation.

A company's shareholder equity balance does not determine the price at which investors can sell its stock. Other relevant factors include the prospects and risks of its business, its access to necessary credit, and the difficulty of locating a buyer. According to the theory of intrinsic value, it is profitable to buy stock in a company when it is priced below the present value of the portion of its equity and future earnings that are payable to stockholders. Advocates of this method have included Benjamin Graham, Philip Fisher and Warren Buffett. An equity investment will never have a negative market value (i.e. become a liability) even if the firm has a shareholder deficit, because the deficit is not the owners' responsibility.  According to the "Merton model", the value of stock equity is modeled as a call option on the value of the whole company (including the liabilities), struck at the nominal value of the liabilities. This is the first example of a "structural model", where bankruptcy is modeled using a microeconomic model of the firm's capital structure. It treats bankruptcy as a continuous probability of default, where, on the random occurrence of default, the stock price of the defaulting company is assumed to go to zero.

In finance, equity is ownership of assets that may have debts or other liabilities attached to them. Equity is measured for accounting purposes by subtracting liabilities from the value of an asset. For example, if someone owns a car worth $9,000 and owes $3,000 on the loan used to buy the car, then the difference of $6,000 is equity. Equity can apply to a single asset, such as a car or house, or to an entire business. A business that needs to start up or expand its operations can sell its equity in order to raise cash that does not have to be repaid on a set schedule.


List.

Shorter notes can be created theoretically "ad infinitum" by adding further flags, but are very rare.

Variations.

The breve appears in several different versions, as shown at right. The first two are commonly used; the third is a stylistic alternative.  Sometimes the longa or breve is used to indicate a very long note of indefinite duration, as at the end of a piece (e.g. at the end of Mozart's Mass KV 192).  A single eighth note, or any faster note, is always stemmed with flags, while two or more are usually beamed in groups. When a stem is present, it can go either up (from the right side of the note head) or down (from the left side), except in the cases of the "longa" or "maxima" which are nearly always written with downward stems. In most cases, the stem goes down if the notehead is on the center line or above, and up otherwise. Any flags always go to the right of the stem.

Modifiers.

A note value may be augmented by adding a dot after it. This dot adds the next briefer note value, making it one and a half times its original duration. A number of dots ("n") lengthen the note value by its value, so two dots add two lower note values, making a total of one and three quarters times its original duration. The rare three dots make it one and seven eighths the duration, and so on.  The double dot was first used in 1752 by J.J. Quantz; in music of the 18th century and earlier the amount by which the dot augmented the note varied: it could be more or less than the modern interpretation, to fit into the context.  To divide a note value to three equal parts, or some other value than two, tuplets may be used. However, see swung note and notes inégales.

History.

Gregorian chant.

Although note heads of various shapes, and notes with and without stems appear in early Gregorian chant manuscripts, many scholars agree that these symbols do not indicate different durations, although the dot is used for augmentation. See neume.  In the 13th century, chant was sometimes performed according to rhythmic modes, roughly equivalent to meters; however, the note shapes still did not indicate duration in the same way as modern note values.

Mensural notation.

Around 1250, Franco of Cologne invented different symbols for different durations, although the relation between different note values could vary; three was the most common ratio. Philippe de Vitry's treatise Ars nova (1320) described a system in which the ratios of different note values could be 2:1 or 3:1, with a system of mensural time signatures to distinguish between them.  This black mensural notation gave way to "white mensural notation" around 1450, in which all note values were written with white (outline) noteheads. In white notation the use of triplets was indicated by "coloration", i.e. filling in the noteheads to make them black (or sometimes red). Both black and white notation periodically made use of ligatures, a holdover from the "clivis" and "porrectus" neumes used in chant.  Around 1600 the modern notational system was generally adopted, along with barlines and the practice of writing multipart music in scores rather than only individual parts. In the 17th century, however, old usages came up occasionally.

Origins of the names.

The British names go back at least to English renaissance music, and the terms of Latin origin had international currency at that time. Obviously, "longa" means 'long', and the rest rarely indicate relative shortness. "Breve" is from Latin "brevis",'short', "minim" is from "minimus",'very small', and "quaver" refers to the quavering effect of very fast notes. The elements "semi-", "demi-" and "hemi-" mean 'half' in Latin, French and Greek respectively. The chain semantic shift whereby notes which were originally perceived as short came progressively to be long notes is interesting both linguistically and musically. However, the "crotchet" is named after the shape of the note, from the Old French for a 'little hook', and it is possible to argue that the same is true of the "minim", since the word is also used in palaeography to mean a vertical stroke in mediaeval handwriting.

In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the "notehead", the presence or absence of a "stem", and the presence or absence of "flags/beams/hooks/tails". Unmodified note values are fractional powers of two, for example one, one-half, one fourth, etc.


Biography.

Moissan was born in Paris on 28 September 1852, the son of a minor officer of the eastern railway company, Francis Ferdinand Moissan, and a seamstress, Joséphine Améraldine (née Mitel). His mother was of Jewish descent, his father wasn't. In 1864 they moved to Meaux, where he attended the local school. In 1870 he left the school without the "grade universitaire" necessary to attend university. He began working for a chemist in Paris, where he was able to save a person poisoned with arsenic. He decided to study chemistry and began first at the laboratory of Edmond Frémy and later at that of Pierre Paul Dehérain. Dehérain persuaded him to pursue an academic career. He passed the baccalauréat, which was necessary to study at university, in 1874 after an earlier failed attempt. During his time in Paris he became a friend of the chemist Alexandre Léon Étard and the botanist Vasque.  He published his first scientific paper, about carbon dioxide and oxygen metabolism in plants, with Dehérain in 1874. He left plant physiology and then turned towards inorganic chemistry; subsequently his research on pyrophoric iron was well received by the two most prominent French inorganic chemists of that time, Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville and Jules Henri Debray. After Moissan received his Ph.D. on cyanogen and its reactions to form cyanures in 1880, his friend Landrine offered him a position at an analytic laboratory. His marriage, to Léonie Lugan, took place in 1882. They had a son in 1885. During the 1880s, Moissan focused on fluorine chemistry and especially the production of fluorine itself. He had no laboratory of his own, but used several laboratories, for example that of Charles Friedel. There he had access to a strong battery consisting of 90 Bunsen cells which made it possible to observe a gas produced by the electrolysis of molten arsenic trichloride; the gas was reabsorbed by the arsenic trichloride. The electrolysis of hydrogen fluoride yielded fluorine on 26 June 1886. The French academy of science sent three representatives, Marcellin Berthelot, Henri Debray, and Edmond Frémy, to verify the results, but Moissan was unable to reproduce them, owing to the absence from the hydrogen fluoride of traces of potassium fluoride present in the previous experiments. After resolving the problem and demonstrating the production of fluorine several times, he was awarded a prize of 10,000 francs. In subsequent years, until 1891, he focused on the study of fluorine chemistry. He discovered numerous fluorine compounds, such as (together with Paul Lebeau) SF in 1901. His research in the production of boron and artificial diamonds and the development of an electrically heated oven capable of reaching 3500 °C using 2200 amperes at 80 volts followed by 1900.  His newly developed arc furnace led to the production of borides and carbides of numerous elements (e.g. silicon boride), another of his research areas.

Research.

Preparation of elemental fluorine.

The existence of the element fluorine had been well known for many years, but all attempts to isolate it had failed, and some experimenters had died in the attempt.  Moissan eventually succeeded in preparing fluorine in 1886 by the electrolysis of a solution of potassium hydrogen difluoride (KHF) in liquid hydrogen fluoride (HF). The mixture was needed because hydrogen fluoride is a nonconductor. The device was built with platinum/iridium electrodes in a platinum holder and the apparatus was cooled to −50 °C. The result was the complete isolation of the hydrogen produced at the negative electrode from the fluorine produced at the positive one. This is essentially still the way fluorine is produced today. For this achievement, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906. Late in his life, the government of France named him a Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur.

Further studies.

Moissan went on to study fluorine chemistry in great detail, contributed to the development of the electric arc furnace and attempted to use pressure to synthesize diamonds from the more common form of carbon. In 1893, Moissan began studying fragments of a meteorite found in Meteor Crater near Diablo Canyon in Arizona. In these fragments he discovered minute quantities of a new mineral and, after extensive research, Moissan concluded that this mineral was made of silicon carbide. In 1905, this mineral was named moissanite, in his honor. In 1903 Moissan was elected member of the International Atomic Weights Committee where he served until his death.

Death.

He died suddenly in Paris in February 1907, shortly after his return from receiving the Nobel Prize in Stockholm. His death was attributed to an acute case of appendicitis.

Ferdinand Frédéric Henri Moissan (28 September 1852 – 20 February 1907) was a French chemist who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds. Moissan was one of the original members of the International Atomic Weights Committee.


History.

As a descriptive term, "kitsch" originated in the art markets of Munich in the 1860s and the 1870s, describing cheap, popular, and marketable pictures and sketches. In "Das Buch vom Kitsch" ("The Book of Kitsch"), Hans Reimann defines it as a professional expression "born in a painter's studio".  The study of kitsch was done almost exclusively in German until the 1970s, with Walter Benjamin being an important scholar in the field.  Kitsch is regarded as a modern phenomenon, coinciding with social changes in recent centuries such as the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, mass production, modern materials and media such as plastics, radio and television, the rise of the middle class and public educationall of which have factored into a perception of oversaturation of art produced for the popular taste.

Analysis.

Kitsch in art theory and aesthetics.

Modernist writer Hermann Broch argues that the essence of kitsch is imitation: kitsch mimics its immediate predecessor with no regard to ethics—it aims to copy the beautiful, not the good. According to Walter Benjamin, kitsch is, unlike art, a utilitarian object lacking all critical distance between object and observer; it "offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, without sublimation".  Kitsch is less about the thing observed than about the observer. According to Roger Scruton, "Kitsch is fake art, expressing fake emotions, whose purpose is to deceive the consumer into thinking he feels something deep and serious."  Tomáš Kulka, in "Kitsch and Art", starts from two basic facts that kitsch "has an undeniable mass-appeal" and "considered (by the art-educated elite) bad", and then proposes three essential conditions:

Kitsch in Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".

The concept of kitsch is a central motif in Milan Kundera's 1984 novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Towards the end of the novel, the book's narrator posits that the act of defecation (and specifically, the shame that surrounds it) poses a metaphysical challenge to the theory of divine creation: "Either/or: either shit is acceptable (in which case don't lock yourself in the bathroom!) or we are created in an unacceptable manner". Thus, in order for us to continue to believe in the essential propriety and rightness of the universe (what the narrator calls "the categorical agreement with being"), we live in a world "in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist". For Kundera's narrator, this is the definition of kitsch: an "aesthetic ideal" which "excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence".  The novel goes on to relate this definition of kitsch to politics, and specifically — given the novel's setting in Prague around the time of the 1968 invasion by the Soviet Union — to communism and totalitarianism. He gives the example of the Communist May Day ceremony, and of the sight of children running on the grass and the feeling this is supposed to provoke. This emphasis on feeling is fundamental to how kitsch operates:  Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.  According to the narrator, kitsch is "the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements"; however, where a society is dominated by a single political movement, the result is "totalitarian kitsch":  When I say "totalitarian," what I mean is that everything that infringes on kitsch must be banished for life: every display of individualism (because a deviation from the collective is a spit in the eye of the smiling brotherhood); every doubt (because anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself); all irony (because in the realm of kitsch everything must be taken quite seriously).  Kundera's concept of "totalitarian kitsch" has since been invoked in the study of the art and culture of regimes such as Stalin's Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Kundera's narrator ends up condemning kitsch for its "true function" as an ideological tool under such regimes, calling it "a folding screen set up to curtain off death".

Uses.

Art.

The Kitsch movement is an international movement of classical painters, founded in 1998 upon a philosophy proposed by Odd Nerdrum and later clarified in his book "On Kitsch" in cooperation with Jan-Ove Tuv and others, incorporating the techniques of the Old Masters with narrative, romanticism, and emotionally charged imagery.

Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is art or other objects that, generally speaking, appeal to popular rather than "high art" tastes. Such objects are sometimes appreciated in a knowingly ironic or humorous way. The word was first applied to artwork that was a response to certain divisions of 19th-century art with aesthetics that favored what later art critics would consider to be exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama. Hence, 'kitsch art' is closely associated with'sentimental art'. Kitsch is also related to the concept of camp, because of its humorous and ironic nature.