History.

The special shuttlecock and the idea of the game were invented in 2001 in Berlin by Bill Brandes. The game was refined to the final game of crossminton by the Speedminton company. The inventor first named his new sport "shuttleball", but soon the game was renamed "speed badminton". Starting from January 2016 the name was changed again, to crossminton. Originally, the idea of the inventor was to create an outdoor variant of badminton, so he changed the ball to be smaller and heavier (today called speeder). The analogy of badminton now exists only in a technical way: there is no net and the game tempo is faster. In 2003, there were already 6,000 active players in Germany. The sport is growing steadily and there are numerous international tournaments across Europe.

Game.

Court.

The court consists of two squares of 5.50 m (18 ft) length. They are fixed opposite to each other at a distance of 12.8 m (42 ft).

Equipment.

Both of the players need a racket. The rackets are similar to the ones used in squash but are specially produced for Crossminton. They are 58–60 cm long, and the material and the strings are different. The ball is called speeder and is heavier than a conventional badminton shuttlecock, meaning it can be used up to wind force 4.

Rules.

The field consists of two squares measuring 5.5 meters (18 ft) on each side. The distance between the squares is 12.8 meters (42 ft). Crossminton can be played on half of a tennis court which can easily be modified with elastic lines. Match Speeders are used for normal games. Children and adolescents (U12) play with fun speeders on a smaller court (4x4 m) over a smaller distance (9 meters).  The aim of the game is to reach the square of the opposite player with the speeder. If the speeder falls outside the opposite square, the other side gains a point. Both players are allowed to step out of, or any where inside their square during play.  The game ends when one player has at least 16 points and has at least 2 points advantage over their opponent. Every time a set/round finishes, the players switch sides.

Set.

A set is played until 16 points. At a score of 15:15 there is overtime where two points head start are needed to win the set. A game usually lasts three winning sets. At tournaments, it is possible to play only two winning sets until the semi-finals.

Service.

The right to serve first is drawn by throwing a coin or a speeder. Every player has three serves. Every rally scores. At a score of 15:15 the serve switches after every point. The serve must be done out of the designated zone which is 3 m behind the front offensive line. This line must not be crossed and the serve is played bottom-up. The first serve of the next set is done by the loser of the previous set.

Points.

Every rally scores if there is no necessity to repeat it. Points can be gained if:  If a player returns a speeder from outside the court, it is considered to still be in play.

Change of ends.

After every set, there is a change of ends to guarantee equal opportunities concerning wind and lighting conditions. If a fifth game (tiebreak) becomes necessary, players change sides after every 6 points.  At the double division, both players are standing in the same court. The coin or speeder decides the side who serves first. The serving player stands at the backline, and his partner stands in front. The serves rotate between the four players. The first serve in the following set goes to the loser of the previous one.  Crossminton can be played outside and inside, the court can be painted or pegged off. There is even the possibility to use a portable court. Crossminton played in the dark is called Blackminton. With black lights, fluorescent paints, rackets and special speeders (night speeders) with glow sticks (speedlights) it is possible to play even at night.

World & European Championships.

The first Crossminton (former Speed Badminton) World Championships took place on 26 and 27 August 2011. It was officially named ‘ISBO Azimut Hotels Speedminton® World Championships’. Over 380 participants from 29 countries played in Berlin, in 10 categories. Players from Canada, the US and Australia also attended. Per Hjalmarson from Sweden won the men’s title, Janet Köhler from Germany won the women’s title and Rene Lewicki & Daniel Gossen from Germany won the doubles title in the final games. Since then the World and European Championships alternate every year.

International tournaments.

There are many international crossminton tournaments taking place all around the world under the supervision of the International Crossminton Organization. Every member country can host every year up to one 1000/500 points tournament and four 250 points tournaments. There are only five 1000 points tournaments every year, chosen by the ICO based on the applications sent by member federations. The series of 1000 and 500 points tournaments is called World Series.  By participating in international ICO tournaments the players receive ranking points based on their results. Ranking points are used to determine seeding for upcoming tournaments.  "* 1000 points tournaments are denoted in bold characters"

Nations Cup.

Since 2013 the ICO organizes a national team competition called ICO Nations Cup. The concept is derived from tennis competitions like David Cup or Fed Cup, but in crossminton mixed teams consisting of both male and female players are competing. First, Regional tournaments are played in group- or elimination system and then the winners of Regional tournaments – Regional Champions – battle it out for the title of ICO Nations Cup Champion at the Final tournament.  A national team consists of at least three players – 2 male players (open category, but not as a rule) and 1 female player (women’s category, but not as a rule) – and not more than five players (3 players + 2 reserves that can step in for either singles or doubles matches). A clash between two national teams constists of 6 matches – 4 singles and 2 doubles matches.

Crossminton (previously known as Speed Badminton) is a racket game that combines elements from different sports like badminton, squash and tennis. It is played without any net and has no prescribed playground, so it can be executed on tennis courts, streets, beaches, fields or gyms.


Biography.

Birth, education, and capture (1788–1814).

Poncelet was born in Metz, France, on 1 July 1788, the illegitimate then legitimated son of Claude Poncelet, a lawyer of the Parliament of Metz and wealthy landowner. At a young age, he was sent to live with the Olier family at Saint-Avold. He returned to Metz for his secondary education, at Lycée Fabert. "Lycée" is the French name for high school. After this, he attended the École Polytechnique, a prestigious school in Paris, from 1808 to 1810, though he fell behind in his studies in his third year due to poor health. After graduation, he joined the Corps of Military Engineers. He attended the École d'application in his hometown during this time, and achieved the rank of lieutenant in the French Army the same year he graduated.  Poncelet took part in Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. His biographer writes that he was part of the group which was cut from Marshal Michel Ney's army at the Battle of Krasnoi and was forced to capitulate to the Russians, though other sources say that he was left for dead. Upon capture, he was interrogated by General Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich, but he did not disclose any information. The Russians held him as a prisoner of war and confined him at Saratov. During his imprisonment, in the years 1812–1814, he wrote his most notable work, "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures", which outlined the foundations of projective geometry, as well as some new results. Poncelet, however, could not publish it until after his release in 1814.

Release and later employment (1822–1848).

In 1815, the year after his release, Poncelet was employed a military engineer at his hometown of Metz. In 1822, while at this position, he published "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures". This was the first major work to discuss projective geometry since Desargues', though Gaspard Monge had written a few minor works about it previously. It is considered the founding work of modern projective geometry. Joseph Diaz Gergonne also wrote about this branch of geometry at approximately the same time, beginning in 1810. Poncelet published several papers about the subject in Annales de Gergonne (officially known as "Annales de mathématiques pures et appliquées"). However, Poncelet and Gergonne ultimately engaged in a bitter priority dispute over the Principle of Duality.  In 1825, he became the professor of mechanics at the École d'Application in Metz, a position he held until 1835. During his tenure at this school, he improved the design of turbines and water wheels, deriving his work from the mechanics of the Provençal mill from southern France. Although the turbine of his design was not constructed until 1838, he envisioned such a design twelve years previous to that. In 1835, he left École d'Application, and in December 1837 became a tenured professor at Sorbonne (the University of Paris), where a 'Chaire de mécanique physique et expérimentale' was specially created for him with the support of François Arago.

Commanding General at École Polytechnique (1848–1867).

In 1848, Poncelet became the Commanding General of his "alma mater", the École Polytechnique. He held the position until 1850, when he retired.  During this time, he wrote "Applications d'analyse et de géométrie", which served as an introduction to his earlier work "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures". It was published in two volumes in 1862 and 1864. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1865.

Contributions.

Poncelet–Steiner theorem.

Poncelet discovered the following theorem in 1822: Euclidean compass and straightedge constructions can be carried out using only a straightedge if a single circle and its center is given. Swiss mathematician Jakob Steiner proved this theorem in 1833, leading to the name of the theorem. The constructions that this theorem states are possible are known as Steiner constructions.

Poncelet's porism.

In geometry, Poncelet's porism (sometimes referred to as Poncelet's closure theorem) states that whenever a polygon is inscribed in one conic section and circumscribes another one, the polygon must be part of an infinite family of polygons that are all inscribed in and circumscribe the same two conics.

Jean-Victor Poncelet (1 July 1788 – 22 December 1867) was a French engineer and mathematician who served most notably as the Commanding General of the École Polytechnique. He is considered a reviver of projective geometry, and his work "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures" is considered the first definitive text on the subject since Gérard Desargues' work on it in the 17th century. He later wrote an introduction to it: "Applications d'analyse et de géométrie".


Biography.

Franz Defregger was born on 30 April 1835 at the Ederhof in Stronach, Tyrol in the Austrian Empire. He was the second son of Maria (née Fercher) and Michael Defregger, a farmer, who also had five daughters. His mother and two of his sisters died in 1841 during a typhoid epidemic. Franz himself nearly died from the fever. During his early years, Franz developed a strong love of music, and learned to play the flugelhorn. He soon became a member of a local band in Dölsach, playing at weddings, assemblies, and balls. Franz also displayed an early talent for drawing and woodcarving, which he developed autodidactically while working on his father's farm.  After his father died in 1858, Franz took over the farm at the age of twenty-three. Within two years, however, he sold the farm and shared the money with his sisters who wanted to emigrate to America. Defregger moved to Innsbruck and studied woodcarving with the sculptor Michael Stolz, a professor at the Innsbrucker Trade School. Stoltz soon recognized Defregger's greater talent as a painter, and in the autumn of 1860, he arranged a meeting with Karl von Piloty at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. At Piloty's suggestion, Defregger attended a preparatory class at the Academy with Hermann Dyck. On 19 July 1861, Defregger passed the entrance examination and was accepted into the Academy. In the autumn of that year, he enrolled in a painting class given by Hermann Anschutz.  In the summer of 1863, with the encouragement of architect Dominik Stadler, Defregger travelled to Paris to enhance his studies at the academy. He enrolled at the École des beaux-arts on the recommendation of Alexander Laemlein. In 1864, he took part in the Salon des Refusés; the Salon catalog from 1864 listed him as "élève de l'École des Beaux-Arts". During his time in Paris, Defregger's work was influenced by his experiences in the city and through autodidactic study at museums, art collections, and studios. After spending two years in Paris, Defregger returned to Munich in July 1865 and began studying under Piloty at the academy.  During the next few years, Defregger also spent time in East Tyrol, painting portraits of his relatives and friends. Between 1867 and 1870, he worked with Hans Makart and Gabriel of Max in the studio of the Munich history painter Piloty. His paintings were popular, and he soon became successful as an artist. He was professor of history painting from 1878 to 1910 at the Munich Art Academy. He preferred portraits, rustic motifs from the everyday life, and dramatic scenes from the Tyrolean national uprising of 1809.  In 1883, Defregger was given the Order of Merit of the Bavarian crown, and was made a Knight of the collected personal nobility. He received numerous prizes and awards, including the Prussian Order of Merit for Science and the Arts. In 1906, his work was displayed at the Century of German Art exhibition in Berlin. His students included the Gröden artists Josef Moroder Lusenberg and Hans Perathoner, Lovis Corinth, Walter Thor, Hugo Engl, Emma von Müller and many others. Defregger also worked alongside other artists in the studio, especially Rudolf Epp, developing a style consistent with the Munich school.  Franz Defregger died in Munich in 1921 at the age of 85. He was buried at Nordfriedhof in Munich.

Legacy.

Defregger's private home in Munich, called the Defregger House, was built by architect Georg von Hauberrisser. Defregger's residence in Bolzano, the Villa Defregger, was built in 1879 according to the plans of the Bolzano city architect Sebastian Altmann. In 1922 in Vienna, a street was named "Defreggerstraße" to honor the artist. Similar street dedications occurred in Bolzano and Gries am Brenner—both have since been renamed. Built in 1887, the Defreggerhaus refuge at the foot of the Großvenediger mountain was also named in his honor.

Franz Defregger (after 1883 Franz von Defregger) (30 April 1835 – 2 January 1921) was an Austrian artist known for producing genre art and history paintings set in his native county of Tyrol.


Etymology.

Soma is a Vedic Sanskrit word that literally means "distill, extract, sprinkle", often connected in the context of rituals.  Soma, and its cognate the Avestan "haoma". The word is derived from an Indo-Iranian root "*sav-" (Sanskrit "sav-/su") "to press", i.e. "*sau-ma-" is the drink prepared by pressing the stalks of a plant.

Vedic soma.

In the Vedas, the same word (soma) is used for the drink, the plant, and its deity. Drinking "soma" produces immortality ("Amrita", Rigveda 8.48.3). Indra and Agni are portrayed as consuming soma in copious quantities. In the vedic mythology, Indra drank large amounts of soma while fighting the serpent demon Vritra. The consumption of soma by human beings is well attested in Vedic ritual.  The "Rigveda" (8.48.3) says: Ralph T.H. Griffith translates this as: Swami Dayanand Saraswati explains this as: The references to immortality and light are characteristics of an entheogenic experience. (Michael Wood (historian))(The Story of India)  Also, consider Rigveda (8.79.2-6) regarding the power of Soma: "...He covers the naked and heals all who are sick. The blind man sees; the lame man steps forth...Let those who seek find what they seek: let them receive the treasure...Let him find what was lost before; let him push forward the man of truth..." Such is indicative of an experience with an entheogen of some source...(Michael Wood (historian)).("The Story of India")

Avestan haoma.

The finishing of "haoma" in Zoroastrianism may be glimpsed from the Avesta (particularly in the "Hōm Yast", Yasna 9), and Avestan language "*hauma" also survived as Middle Persian "hōm". The plant "haoma" yielded the essential ingredient for the ritual drink, "parahaoma".  In Yasna 9.22, haoma grants "speed and strength to warriors, excellent and righteous sons to those giving birth, spiritual power and knowledge to those who apply themselves to the study of the nasks". As the religion's chief cult divinity he came to be perceived as its divine priest. In Yasna 9.26, Ahura Mazda is said to have invested him with the sacred girdle, and in Yasna 10.89, to have installed haoma as the "swiftly sacrificing "zaotar"" (Sanskrit "hotar") for himself and the Amesha Spenta.

Candidates for the plant.

There has been much speculation as to the original "Sauma" plant. Candidates that have been suggested include honey, mushrooms, psychoactive and other herbal plants.  When the ritual of somayajna is held today in South India, the plant used is the "somalatha" (Sanskrit: soma creeper, "Sarcostemma acidum") which is procured as a leafless vine.  Since the late 18th century, when Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron and others made portions of the Avesta available to western scholars, several scholars have sought a representative botanical equivalent of the "haoma" as described in the texts and as used in living Zoroastrian practice. In the late 19th century, the highly conservative Zoroastrians of Yazd (Iran) were found to use ephedra, which was locally known as "hum" or "homa" and which they exported to the Indian Zoroastrians.  During the colonial British era scholarship, cannabis was proposed as the soma candidate by Joseph Chandra Ray, "The Soma Plant" (1939) and by B. L. Mukherjee (1921).  In the late 1960s, several studies attempted to establish "soma" as a psychoactive substance. A number of proposals were made, including one in 1968 by the American banker R. Gordon Wasson, an amateur ethnomycologist, who asserted that "soma" was an inebriant but not cannabis, and suggested fly-agaric mushroom, "Amanita muscaria", as the likely candidate. Since its introduction in 1968, this theory has gained both detractors and followers in the anthropological literature. Wasson and his co-author, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, drew parallels between Vedic descriptions and reports of Siberian uses of the fly-agaric in shamanic ritual.  In 1989 Harry Falk noted that, in the texts, both "haoma" and "soma" were said to enhance alertness and awareness, did not coincide with the consciousness altering effects of an entheogen, and that "there is nothing shamanistic or visionary either in early Vedic or in Old Iranian texts", (Falk, 1989) Falk also asserted that the three varieties of ephedra that yield ephedrine ("Ephedra gerardiana", "E. major procera" and "E. intermedia") also have the properties attributed to "haoma" by the texts of the Avesta. (Falk, 1989) At the conclusion of the 1999 Haoma-Soma workshop in Leiden, Jan E. M. Houben writes: "despite strong attempts to do away with ephedra by those who are eager to see sauma[sic] as a hallucinogen, its status as a serious candidate for the Rigvedic Soma and Avestan Haoma still stands" (Houben, 2003).  The Soviet archeologist Viktor Sarianidi wrote that he had discovered vessels and mortars used to prepare soma in Zoroastrian temples in Bactria. He said that the vessels have revealed residues and seed impressions left behind during the preparation of soma. This has not been sustained by subsequent investigations. Alternatively Mark Merlin, who revisited the subject of the identity of soma more than thirty years after originally writing about it stated that there is a need of further study on links between soma and "Papaver somniferum". (Merlin, 2008)  In his book "Food of the Gods", ethnobotanist Terence McKenna postulates that the most likely candidate for soma is the mushroom Psilocybe cubensis, a hallucinogenic mushroom that grows in cow dung in certain climates. McKenna cites both Wasson's and his own unsuccessful attempts using "Amanita muscaria" to reach a psychedelic state as evidence that it could not have inspired the worship and praise of soma. McKenna further points out that the 9th mandala of the Rig Veda makes extensive references to the cow as the embodiment of soma.

Transcendental Meditation movement.

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation-Sidhi Program involves a notion of "soma", said to be based on the Rigveda.

In Vedic tradition, soma () is a ritual drink of importance among the early vedic Indians. The Rigveda mentions it, particularly in the Soma Mandala.


History.

Since Carolingian times, cereals have been grown in Gonesse. In the period of the 12th through to the 16th centuries, the cultivation of grain was supplemented by drapery, in particular the production of the coarse woollen material of the "gaunace". The commune was an important producer of wheat for the Parisian market in modern times, until the decline of its bakery trade at the end of the 18th century helped feed a strong migration to the capital. The world's first hydrogen filled balloon — the unmanned balloon launched by Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers from the Champ de Mars in Paris on 27 August 1783 — flew for 45 minutes and landed in Gonesse, where the reportedly terrified local peasants destroyed it with pitchforks. This caused the government to issue a statement on the harmlessness and the scientific value of such experiments.  In 1815, Marshal Grouchy arrived in Gonesse in the course of the War of the Sixth Coalition, with 40,000 troops and 120 artillery pieces. On 2 July, the Duke of Wellington made his headquarters at the commune.  Since June 1939, the property Frapart (the "Castle") is used as the main establishment of the urban administration.  Jean Camus, Louis Furmanek, Pierre Lorgnet, and Albert Drouhot from Gonesse belonged to the French Resistance movement during the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944.  On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590 — a Concorde supersonic transport — crashed onto a hotel in the town after a tyre blew out, caused by running over a strip of metal that had fallen off a DC-10 at nearby Charles de Gaulle International Airport. The crash led to the deaths of all 109 people on board and four more on the ground. The Concorde crash occurred fewer than 6 km from Goussainville, the site of the crash of the supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 during the 1973 Paris Air Show.

Twinning with Leonessa.

Gonesse is twinned with the town of Leonessa in Rieti / Italy, since 1981.

Sights.

Among the places worthwhile to visit in the town are the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the old Hotel-Dieu, the Hotel-Dieu, the lofts Garlande and Orgemont, and the estates of Malmaison and of Coulanges.

Transport.

Gonesse is served neither by the Paris Métro, RER, nor the suburban rail network. The closest station is the Villiers-le-Bel – Gonesse – Arnouville station on the Paris RER line D. This station is located in the neighbouring commune of Arnouville-lès-Gonesse, from Gonesse town centre.

Education.

, the commune had 20 municipal primary schools with a total of 3,526 ;pupils, including 11 pre-schools ("écoles maternelles") with a total of 1,389 pupils (in addition to 20 children in "toute petite" programmes) and nine elementary schools with 2,137 total pupils.  Junior high schools:  There is one senior high school, Lycée René Cassin-Gonesse.

The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a dog breed bred in the Southern Africa region. Its forebears can be traced to the semi-domesticated, ridged hunting dogs of the Khoikhoi, which were crossed with European dogs by the early colonists of the Cape Colony of southern Africa. The original breed standard was drafted by F. R. Barnes, in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in 1922, who named the breed the Rhodesian Ridgeback. The standard was approved by the South African Kennel Union in 1927.


Career.

Arantxa Sánchez Vicario started playing tennis at the age of four, when she followed her older brothers Emilio Sánchez and Javier Sánchez (both of whom became professional players) to the court and hit balls against the wall with her first racquet. As a 17-year-old, she became the youngest winner of the women's singles title at the 1989 French Open, defeating World No. 1 Steffi Graf in the final. (Monica Seles broke the record the following year when she won the title at age 16.)  Sánchez Vicario quickly developed a reputation on the tour for her tenacity and refusal to concede a point. Commentator Bud Collins described her as "unceasing in determined pursuit of tennis balls, none seeming too distant to be retrieved in some manner and returned again and again to demoralize opponents" and nicknamed her the "Barcelona Bumblebee".  She won six women's doubles Grand Slam titles, including the US Open in 1993 (with Helena Suková) and Wimbledon in 1995 (with Jana Novotná). She also won four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. In 1991, she helped Spain win its first-ever Fed Cup title, and helped Spain win the Fed Cup in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998. Sanchez Vicario holds the records for the most matches won by a player in Fed Cup competition (72) and for most ties played (58). She was ITF world champion in 1994 in singles.  Sánchez Vicario was also a member of the Spanish teams that won the Hopman Cup in 1990 and 2002.  Over the course of her career, Sánchez Vicario won 29 singles titles and 69 doubles titles before retiring in November 2002. She came out of retirement in 2004 to play doubles in a few select tournaments as well as the 2004 Summer Olympics, where she became the only tennis player to play in five Olympics in the Games history. Sanchez Vicario is the most decorated Olympian in Spanish history with four medals – two silver and two bronze.  In 2005, "TENNIS "Magazine put her in 27th place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the "TENNIS" era and in 2007, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She was only the third Spanish player (and the first Spanish woman) to be inducted.  In 2009, Sánchez Vicario was present at the opening ceremony of Madrid's Caja Mágica, the new venue for the Madrid Masters. The second show court is named Court Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in her honour.  In 2015 Sanchez Vicario went into professional coaching. She got involved in training Danish player Caroline Wozniacki.

Personal life.

She has been married twice: her first marriage to the sports writer Juan Vehils on 21 July 2000 ended in 2001. She married the businessman Josep Santacana in September 2008. Their first child, a girl also named Arantxa, was born on 27 February 2009. Sánchez Vicario gave birth to their second child, a boy named Leo, on 28 October 2011.  In 2012 it was reported that, despite Sánchez Vicario having earned $60 million over the course of her career, her parents had lost all of her money, she became very poor and that she was in debt to Spanish tax authorities.

Major finals.

Olympics.

Singles: 2 medals (1 silver medal, 1 bronze medal).

Arantxa Sánchez Vicario lost in the semi-finals to Jennifer Capriati 3–6, 6–3, 1–6. In 1992, there was no bronze medal play-off match, both beaten semi-final players received bronze medals

Grand Slam performance timelines.

Doubles.

NH = tournament not held A = did not participate in the tournament SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played.

Aránzazu Isabel María "Arantxa" Sánchez Vicario (; born 18 December 1971) is a Spanish former world No. 1 retired tennis player. She won 14 Grand Slam titles: four in singles, six in women's doubles, and four in mixed doubles. In 1994, she was crowned the ITF World Champion for the year.


Life.

Max Bense spent his early childhood in his birthplace Strasbourg and in 1918 his family was deported from Alsace-Lorraine as a consequence of World War I. Starting in 1920, he attended grammar school in Cologne and after 1930 he studied physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, and philosophy at the University of Bonn. During his studies, his interest in literature is revealed by several contributions to newspapers, journals, and broadcast, for which he wrote several radio dramas. In 1937 he received his doctor's degree (Dr. phil. nat.) with his dissertation "Quantenmechanik und Daseinsrelativität" (Quantum Mechanics and Relativity of "Dasein"). He used the term "Relativity of Dasein", which he adopted from Max Scheler, for explaining that novel theories do not have to contradict classical science. Bense – declared opponent of national socialism – knowingly opposed the Deutsche Physik of the Nazi regime (cf. Johannes Juilfs), which rejected the theory of relativity due to Einstein's Jewish origin. Therefore, he did not receive his postdoctoral qualification.  In 1938, Bense initially worked as a physicist at the Bayer AG in Leverkusen. After the outbreak of World War II he was a soldier, firstly as a meteorologist, then as a medical technician in Berlin and Georgenthal, where he was mayor for a short time after the end of the war. In 1945 the University of Jena appointed him to curator (Chancellor of the University) and offered him the possibility of postdoctoral work (habilitation), which was likely to be cumulative, at the Social-Pedagogic Faculty, which was followed by an appointment to Professor extraordinarius of philosophical and scientific propaedeutics.  In 1948, Bense fled from the political development of the Soviet occupation zone to Boppard; and he was appointed as a guest professor in philosophy and theory of science by the University of Stuttgart in 1949, and as senior lecturer (associate professor) there in 1950. In 1955, Bense raised a controversy concerning mythologizing tendencies of German postwar culture. Thereupon he became the target of public polemics, resulting in a postponement of his appointment to full professor until 1963.  In addition, he worked at the adult education center in Ulm and at the Ulm School of Design from 1953 to 1958.  He was also guest professor at the Hamburg College for Visual Arts from 1958 to 1960 and in 1966/67.  Max Bense became professor emeritus on February 7, 1978 and died in 1990 as an internationally accredited scientist.

Philosophy.

Mathematics in art and language.

Already in his first publication, "Raum und Ich" ("Space and Ego"; 1934), Bense combined theoretical philosophy with mathematics, semiotics, and aesthetics; this remained his thematic emphasis. For the first time, he phrased a rational aesthetics, which defines the components of language – words, syllables, phonemes – as a statistical language repertoire, and which opposes literature that is based upon meaning. Conversely, Bense studied the concept of style, which he applied to mathematics – following Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz' "Mathesis Universalis" –, designing a universal markup language. "Die Mathematik in der Kunst" ("Mathematics in Art"; 1949) was his starting point for investigating mathematical principles of form in the history of art. From this, Bense developed a perspective to see the mathematical spirit in works of literary art, especially in metrics and rhythm. Bense's thoughts assumed the correlation of a mathematical and linguistic consciousness, which have a common origin and have grown into complementary modes of thought. He considered the atomistic structures of the linguistic modes to be equivalent. By using non-interpretable basic elements (characters) and rules or operators, these forms give meaning, impart information and make stylistically formed language possible. He considered the aesthetic and the semantic information to be generally separated and not to be defined until they are used. This was the first German integration of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work into the field of aesthetics.  Some of Bense's knowledge is based on the investigations of the American mathematician George David Birkhoff. Thus some termini like "redundancy" and "entropy" have to be equated with "Ordnungsmaß" and "Materialverbrauch" (consumption of material) from Birkhoff's aesthetics research.

Technology and ethics.

Bense considered the destruction of the social and intellectual middle-class world since the beginning of the 20th century a parallel to the destruction of the concept of being in philosophy. He saw the natural world replaced by an artificial one. As a forerunner of the computer age, Bense thought about the technical counterparts of human existence; unlike many of his contemporaries he considered machines as pure products of human intelligence, having algorithms as a basis, but soon he posed ethical questions, which were not discussed in ethics of technology until decades later. His pragmatic views of technology, influenced by Walter Benjamin, which lacked either belief in progress or its rejection, brought him the criticism of Theodor W. Adorno – and again put him in the role of the opposition.

Structural analysis of language.

Inspired by neuroscience, informatics, and the occupation with electronic calculating machines, but also by Wittgenstein's concept of the language-game, Bense tried to put into perspective or to extend the traditional view of literature. In that, he was one of the first philosophers of culture who integrated the technical possibilities of the computer into their thoughts and investigated them across disciplinary boundaries. He statistically and topologically analysed linguistic phenomena, subjected them to questions of semiotic, information theory, and communication theory using structuralistic approaches. Thus Bense became the first theoretician of concrete poetry, which was started by Eugen Gomringer in 1953, and encouraged e.g. Helmut Heißenbüttel, Claus Bremer, Reinhard Döhl, Ludwig Haring, and Franz Mon to perform further experiments, and also had influence on Ernst Jandl's language deconstruction (see also Stuttgarter Gruppe/Schule).

Discussion with writers.

In his work with literature and literary language, Bense was not content with only theoretical considerations; he had close contact to authors like Alfred Andersch and Arno Schmidt. His constructions of analogy to visual arts made major contributions to the understanding of cubism and dadaism.

Understanding of science.

As a theoretician of science, Bense represented the "synthetic intellectual concept," where classical humanism and modern technology constructively complement one another. From this concept of science, he hoped for progressive knowledge, which must always be ethically scrutinized, and at the same time, for the prevention of regression. Because of that, Bense argued for enlightenment and put himself into that tradition.  After 1984 Max Bense applied his theories of visual art to screen media. Because of that, early thoughts of media studies concerning the internet, especially the concept of digital poetry, may be traced back to Bense.

Publications.

"All publications are in German."

Secondary literature.

"All references are in German."

Max Bense (February 7, 1910 in Strasbourg – April 29, 1990 in Stuttgart) was a German philosopher, writer, and publicist, known for his work in philosophy of science, logic, aesthetics, and semiotics. His thoughts combine natural sciences, art, and philosophy under a collective perspective and follow a definition of reality, which – under the term "existential rationalism" – is able to remove the separation between humanities and natural sciences.


Description.

The adult common frog has a body length of its back and flanks varying in colour from olive green to grey-brown, brown, olive brown, grey, yellowish and rufous. However, it can lighten and darken its skin to match its surroundings. Some individuals have more unusual colouration—both black and red individuals have been found in Scotland, and albino frogs have been found with yellow skin and red eyes. During the mating season the male common frog tends to turn greyish-blue (see video below). The average mass is ; the female is usually slightly larger than the male.  The flanks, limbs and backs are covered with irregular dark blotches and they usually sport a chevron-shaped spot on the back of their neck and a dark spot behind the eye. Unlike other amphibians, common frogs generally lack a mid-dorsal band but, when they have one, it is comparatively faint. In many countries moor frogs have a light dorsal band which easily distinguishes them from common frogs. The underbelly is white or yellow (occasionally more orange in females) and can be speckled with brown or orange. The eyes are brown with transparent horizontal pupils, and they have transparent inner eyelids to protect the eyes while underwater, as well as a'mask' which covers the eyes and eardrums. Although the common frog has long hind legs compared to the common toad, they are shorter than those of the agile frog with which it shares some of its range. The longer hind legs and fainter colouration of the agile frog are the main features that distinguish the two species.  Males are distinguishable from females as they are smaller and have hard swellings, known as nuptial pads, on the first digits of the forelegs, used for gripping females during mating. During the mating season males' throats often turn white, and their overall colour is generally light and greyish, whereas the female is browner, or even red.

Distribution.

The common frog is found throughout much of Europe as far north as northern Scandinavia inside the Arctic Circle and as far east as the Urals, except for most of Iberia, southern Italy, and the southern Balkans. Other areas where the common frog has been introduced include the Isle of Lewis, Shetland, Orkney and the Faroe Islands. It is also found in Asia, and eastward to Japan.  The common frog has long been thought to be an entirely introduced species in Ireland, however, genetic analyses suggest that particular populations in the south west of Ireland are indeed indigenous to the country. The authors propose that the Irish frog population is a mixed group that includes native frogs that survived the last glacial period in ice free refugia, natural post-glacial colonisers and recent artificial introductions from Western Europe.

Habitat.

Outside the breeding season, common frogs live a solitary life in damp places near ponds or marshes or in long grass. They are normally active for much of the year, only hibernating in the coldest months. In the most northern extremities of their range they may be trapped under ice for up to nine months of the year, but recent studies have shown that in these conditions they may be relatively active at temperatures close to freezing. In the British Isles, common frogs typically hibernate from late October to January. They will re-emerge as early as February if conditions are favourable, and migrate to bodies of water such as garden ponds to spawn. Where conditions are harsher, such as in the Alps, they emerge as late as early June. Common frogs hibernate in running waters, muddy burrows, or in layers of decaying leaves and mud at the bottom of ponds or lakes primarily with a current. The oxygen uptake through the skin suffices to sustain the needs of the cold and motionless frogs during hibernation.

Reproduction.

During the spring the frog's pituitary gland is stimulated by changes in external factors, such as rainfall, day length and temperature, to produce hormones which, in turn, stimulate the production of sex cells - eggs in the females and sperm in the male. The male's nuptial pad also swells and becomes more heavily pigmented. Common frogs breed in shallow, still, fresh water such as ponds, with spawning commencing sometime between March and late June, but generally in April over the main part of their range. The adults congregate in the ponds, where the males compete for females. The courtship ritual involves noisy vocalisations (croaking) by large "choirs" of males. The females are attracted to the males that produce the loudest and longest calls and enter the water, where the males mill around and try to grasp them with their front legs — although they may grasp anything of a similar size, such as a piece of wood. The successful male climbs on the back of the female and grasps her under the forelegs with his nuptial pads, in a position known as amplexus, and kicks away any other males that try to grasp her. He then stays attached in this position until she lays her eggs, which he fertilises by spraying sperm over them as they are released from the female's cloaca. The courtship rituals are performed throughout the day and night but spawning typically takes place at night. The females lay between 1,000 and 2,000 eggs which float in large clusters near the surface of the water. After mating the pairs separate, the females will leave the water and the males will try to find another mate. Within three or four days all the females will have laid their eggs and left the water and the males disperse.

Development.

In common with other amphibians the rate of development of the larvae is influenced by temperature, with eggs and tadpoles in ponds at higher temperatures developing faster than those at lower temperatures. Newly hatched tadpoles are mainly herbivorous, feeding on algae, detritus, plants and some small invertebrates, but they become fully carnivorous once their back legs develop, feeding on small water animals or even other tadpoles when food is scarce. Juvenile frogs feed on invertebrates both on land and in water but their feeding habits change significantly throughout their lives and older frogs will eat only on land. Adult common frogs will feed on any invertebrate of a suitable size, catching their prey on their long, sticky tongues, although they do not feed at all during the short breeding season. Preferred foods include insects (especially flies), snails, slugs and worms.

Conservation status.

Common frogs are susceptible to a number of diseases, including "Ranavirus" and the parasitic fungus "Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis" which has been implicated in extinctions of amphibian species around the world. Loss of habitat and the effect of these diseases has caused the decline of populations across Europe in recent years. The common frog is listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Predators.

Tadpoles are eaten by fish, beetles, dragonfly larvae and birds. Adult frogs have many predators including storks, birds of prey, crows, gulls, ducks, terns, herons, pine martens, stoats, weasels, polecats, badgers, otters and snakes. Some frogs are killed, but rarely eaten, by domestic cats, and large numbers are killed on the roads by motor vehicles.

The common frog ("Rana temporaria"), also known as the European common frog, European common brown frog, or European grass frog, is a semi-aquatic amphibian of the family Ranidae, found throughout much of Europe as far north as Scandinavia and as far east as the Urals, except for most of Iberia, southern Italy, and the southern Balkans. The farthest west it can be found is Ireland. It is also found in Asia, and eastward to Japan.


Uses.

Chlorhexidine is used in disinfectants (disinfection of the skin and hands), cosmetics (additive to creams, toothpaste, deodorants, and antiperspirants), and pharmaceutical products (preservative in eye drops, active substance in wound dressings and antiseptic mouthwashes). A 2019 Cochrane review concluded that based on very low certainty evidence in those who are critical ill "it is not clear whether bathing with chlorhexidine reduces hospital‐acquired infections, mortality, or length of stay in the ICU, or whether the use of chlorhexidine results in more skin reactions."  In endodontics, chlorhexidine is used for root canal irrigation and as an intracanal dressing, but has been replaced by the use of sodium hypochlorite bleach in much of the developed world.

Antiseptic.

There is tentative evidence that it is more effective than povidone-iodine.  CHG is active against Gram-positive and Gram-negative organisms, facultative anaerobes, aerobes, and yeasts. It is particularly effective against Gram-positive bacteria (in concentrations ≥ 1 μg/l). Significantly higher concentrations (10 to more than 73 μg/ml) are required for Gram-negative bacteria and fungi. Chlorhexidine is ineffective against polioviruses and adenoviruses. The effectiveness against herpes viruses has not yet been established unequivocally.  Chlorhexidine, like other cation-active compounds, remains on the skin. It is frequently combined with alcohols (ethanol and isopropyl alcohol).

Dental use.

Use of a CHG-based mouthwash in combination with normal tooth care can help reduce the build-up of plaque and improve mild gingivitis. There is not enough evidence to determine the effect in moderate to severe gingivitis. About 20 mL twice a day of concentrations of 0.1% to 0.2% is recommended for mouth-rinse solutions with a duration of at least 30 seconds. Such mouthwash also has a number of adverse effects including damage to the mouth lining, tooth discoloration, tartar build-up, and impaired taste. Extrinsic tooth staining occurs when chlorhexidine rinse has been used for 4 weeks or longer.  Mouthwashes containing chlorhexidine which stain teeth less than the classic solution have been developed, many of which contain chelated zinc.  Using chlorhexidine as a supplement to everyday mechanical oral hygiene procedures for 4 to 6 weeks and 6 months leads to a moderate reduction in gingivitis compared to placebo, control or mechanical oral hygiene alone.  Chlorhexidine is a cation which interacts with anionic components of toothpaste, such as sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium monofluorophosphate, and forms salts of low solubility and antibacterial activity. Hence, to enhance the antiplaque effect of chlorhexidine, "it seems best that the interval between toothbrushing and rinsing with CHX [chlorhexidine] be more than 30 minutes, cautiously close to 2 hours after brushing.".

Topical.

Nepal was the first country in the world to use chlorhexidine to treat the umbilical cord of newborn babies, and received a USAID Pioneers Prize for reducing the neonatal death rate. Chlorhexidine is very effective for poor countries like Nepal and its use is growing in the world for treating the umbilical cord. A 2015 Cochrane review has yielded high-quality evidence that within the community setting, chlorhexidine skin or cord care can reduce the incidence of omphalitis (inflammation of the umbilical cord) by 50% and also neonatal mortality by 12%. Chlorhexidine gluconate is used as a skin cleanser for surgical scrubs, a cleanser for skin wounds, for preoperative skin preparation and germicidal hand rinses. Chlorhexidine eye drops have been used as a treatment for eyes affected by "Acanthamoeba" keratitis.

Side effects.

CHG is ototoxic; if put into an ear canal which has a ruptured eardrum, it can lead to deafness.  CHG does not meet current European specifications for a hand disinfectant. Under the test conditions of the European Standard EN 1499, no significant difference in the efficacy was found between a 4% solution of chlorhexidine digluconate and soap. In the U.S., between 2007 and 2009, Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Administration Medical Center conducted a cluster-randomized trial and concluded that daily bathing of patients in intensive care units with washcloths saturated with chlorhexidine gluconate reduced the risk of hospital-acquired infections.  Whether prolonged exposure over many years may have carcinogenic potential is still not clear. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA recommendation is to limit the use of a chlorhexidine gluconate mouthwash to a maximum of six months.  Once digested CHG is poorly absorbed into gastrointestinal tract. If aspirated into the lungs at high enough concentration, as reported in one case, it can be fatal due to the high risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Mechanism of action.

At physiologic pH, chlorhexidine salts dissociate and release the positively charged chlorhexidine cation. The bactericidal effect is a result of the binding of this cationic molecule to negatively charged bacterial cell walls. At low concentrations of chlorhexidine, this results in a bacteriostatic effect; at high concentrations, membrane disruption results in cell death.

Chemistry.

It is a cationic polybiguanide (bisbiguanide). It is used primarily as its salts (e.g., the dihydrochloride, diacetate, and digluconate).

Deactivation.

Chlorhexidine is deactivated by forming insoluble salts with anionic compounds, including the anionic surfactants commonly used as detergents in toothpastes and mouthwashes, anionic thickeners such as carbomer, and anionic emulsifiers such as acrylates/C10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, among many others. For this reason, chlorhexidine mouth rinses should be used at least 30 minutes after other dental products. For best effectiveness, food, drink, smoking, and mouth rinses should be avoided for at least one hour after use. Many topical skin products, cleansers, and hand sanitizers should also be avoided to prevent deactivation when chlorhexidine (as a topical by itself or as a residue from a cleanser) is meant to remain on the skin.

Synthesis.

The structure is based on two molecules of proguanil, linked with a hexamethylenediamine spacer.

Brands.

Chlorhexidine topical is sold as Betasept, Biopatch, Calgon Vesta, ChloraPrep One-Step, Dyna-Hex, Hibiclens, Hibistat Towelette, Scrub Care Exidine, Spectrum-4 among others.  Chlorhexidine gluconate mouth rinse is sold as Paroex, Peridex, PerioChip, Periogard among others.  Hexoralettene N contains benzocaine, menthol and chlorhexidine hydrochloride. It is used as oral antiseptic candies.

Terminology.

The name "Chlorhexidine" breaks down as chlor(o) + hex(ane) + id(e) + (am)ine), is a cationic polybiguanide. It is used primarily as its gluconate salt.

Veterinary medicine.

In animals, chlorhexidine is used for topical disinfection of wounds, and to manage skin infections. Chlorhexidine-based disinfectant products are used within the dairy farming industry.  Post-surgical respiratory problems have been associated with the use of chlorhexidine products in cats.

Chlorhexidine (commonly known by the salt forms chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) or chlorhexidine acetate), is a disinfectant and antiseptic that is used for skin disinfection before surgery and to sterilize surgical instruments. It may be used both to disinfect the skin of the patient and the hands of the healthcare providers. It is also used for cleaning wounds, preventing dental plaque, treating yeast infections of the mouth, and to keep urinary catheters from blocking. It is used as a liquid or powder. Side effects may include skin irritation, teeth discoloration, and allergic reactions. It may cause eye problems if direct contact occurs. Use in pregnancy appears to be safe. Chlorhexidine may come mixed in alcohol, water, or surfactant solution. It is effective against a range of microorganisms, but does not inactivate spores. Chlorhexidine came into medical use in the 1950s. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. Chlorhexidine is available over the counter. The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$2.20–4.10 per liter of 5% solution. In the United Kingdom this amount costs the NHS about £4.80. In 2017, it was the 286th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than one million prescriptions.


Biography.

He was born at Arezzo, and studied with various local musicians. In 1637 he joined the Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Roman Catholic religious group founded by Francis of Assisi. While he was in Volterra he turned more toward secular music, perhaps due to the patronage and influence of the powerful Medici family. Here he also came in contact with Salvator Rosa, who wrote libretti for a number of Cesti's cantatas. By 1650 Cesti's calling as a Franciscan friar and his success as a singer and composer for operas was coming into conflict, and he was officially reprimanded. In 1652 he became a member of the court at Innsbruck of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria. After holding a post somewhere in Florence as "maestro di cappella", he entered the papal chapel in 1660. In 1666 he became "Vice-Kapellmeister" at Vienna, and died at Venice in 1669.

Music.

Cesti is known principally as a composer of operas. The most celebrated of these were "La Dori" (Venice, 1663), "Il pomo d'oro" (Vienna, 1668) and "Orontea" (1656). "Il pomo d'oro" ("The Golden Apple") was written for the wedding in Vienna of Emperor Leopold I in 1666, and first performed in 1668, in a famously lavish production. It was far more elaborate than contemporary Venetian operas, including a large orchestra, numerous choruses, and various mechanical devices used to stage things like gods descending from heaven ("deus ex machina"), naval battles, and storms.  "Orontea" was revived seventeen times in the next thirty years, making it one of the most frequently performed operas on the continent in the mid-17th century. Even Samuel Pepys owned a copy of the score. It includes a well-known soprano aria ""Intorno all'idol mio"" (English: ""Around my idol"").  Cesti was also a composer of chamber cantatas, and his operas are notable for the pure and delicate style of their airs, more suited to the chamber than to the stage. He wrote in the "bel canto" style of the 17th century, and his compositions were heavily influenced by his career as a professional singer. His musical writing owes much to the emerging tonality of the time.

Pietro Marc'Antonio Cesti () (baptism 5 August 162314 October 1669), known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, was also a singer (tenor), and organist. He was "the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation".


Names.

"Calophyllum inophyllum" is also known as Alexandrian laurel balltree, beach touriga, Borneo-mahogany, Indian doomba oiltree, Indian-laurel, laurelwood, red poon, satin touriga, and tacamahac-tree. In Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, they are also commonly known as bintangur, bitaog, tamanu, or kamani.

Description.

"Calophyllum inophyllum" is a low-branching and slow-growing tree with a broad and irregular crown. It usually reaches in height. The flower is wide and occurs in racemose or paniculate inflorescences consisting of four to 15 flowers. Flowering can occur perennially, but usually two distinct flowering periods are observed, in late spring and in late autumn. The fruit (the ballnut) is a round, green drupe measuring in diameter and having a single large seed. When ripe, the fruit is wrinkled and its color varies from yellow to brownish-red.

Distribution and habitat.

"Calophyllum inophyllum" is native to Africa in: Comoros; Kenya; Madagascar; Mauritius; Mozambique; Seychelles; Tanzania (including Pemba Island of the Zanzibar Archipelago); south, southeast and east Asia in: Bangladesh; Cambodia; China (on Hainan); southern India; Andaman and Nicobar Islands Indonesia; Japan (Ryukyu Islands); Malaysia; Myanmar; Papua New Guinea; the Philippines; Sri Lanka; Taiwan; Thailand; Vietnam; the northwestern, southwestern and south central Pacific Region in: the Cook Islands; Fiji; French Polynesia (Marquesas and Society Islands); Guam; the Marshall Islands; Micronesia; the Northern Mariana Islands; Palau; and Samoa; and in Australia in: Northern Territory and Queensland.  Now, it is widely cultivated in all tropical regions of the world. Because of its decorative leaves, fragrant flowers, and spreading crown, it is best known as an ornamental plant.  This tree often grows in coastal regions, as well as nearby lowland forests. However, it has also been cultivated successfully in inland areas at moderate altitudes. It tolerates varied kinds of soil, coastal sand, clay, or even degraded soil.

Uses.

Shipbuilding.

Mastwood is notable for its ability to grow to massive sizes in sandy or rocky beaches of island and coastal habitats, as well as its habit of sending out arching large trunks over the water where its seeds are dispersed via the currents. Due to these characters, mastwood are of particular importance to traditional shipbuilding of the larger Austronesian outrigger ships and were carried with them as they migrated to Oceania and Madagascar. Other species of the genus "Calophyllum" were also used similarly, like "Calophyllum soulattri", "Calophyllum peekelii", and "Calophyllum goniocarpum". They were comparable in importance to how oaks were in European shipbuilding and timber industries.  Various parts of the mastwood were integral to the manufacture of outrigger canoes among various Austronesian peoples. The large curving limbs were commonly carved into the dugout canoe that formed the keel of the Austronesian outriggers ships. The strakes, which are attached to the keel by the uniquely Austronesian technique of "sewing" them with a combination of dowels and lashed lugs instead of nails, can also be made from mastwood, but it is more commonly made from other "softer" timber species like "Artocarpus". Other pieces became masts, outrigger floats, and outrigger spars. Smaller curving limbs can also be carved into the ribs of the boat.  In many parts of Polynesia, mastwood groves planted in "marae" were considered sacred and abodes of spirits. Mastwood were also carved into religious objects like "tiki". They are also commonly mentioned in the chants and folklore of Polynesia.  In Australia, the 1889 book "The Useful Native Plants of Australia" records "During a debate on the Pearl Fisheries Bill in the Queensland Assembly, a clause was specially inserted to protect trees of this species at Thursday Island. A fine of £10 is inflicted on any person who cuts down or injures this or a cocoa-nut tree, or any other tree bearing edible fruit. This clause is, of course, in the interest of the aboriginals.".

Other uses.

Aside from shipbuilding, tamanu oil extracted from the fruit kernels were important in Polynesian culture. The oils, as well as poultices made from leaves and flowers, are also commonly used for traditional medicine. The leaves contain compounds that are poisonous to fish and can be used as fish poison. The sap of the tree is poisonous and is used to make poison arrows in Samoa. The mature fruit is poisonous enough to use as rat bait.  The seeds yield a thick, dark green tamanu oil for medicinal use or hair grease. The nuts are dried before cracking, after which the oil-laden kernel is removed and further dried. The first neoflavone isolated from natural sources (1951) was calophyllolide from "C. inophyllum" seeds.  The Mavilan, a Tulu-speaking tribe in north Kerala in India, use the bark to make a powder that they mix with water and apply it to plants affected by a type of plant disease caused by water that they call "neeru vembu".  The fatty acid methyl esters derived from "C. inophyllum" seed oil meets the major biodiesel requirements in the United States (ASTM D 6751), and European Union (EN 14214). The average oil yield is 11.7 kg-oil/tree or 4680 kg-oil/hectare. In the northwest coastal areas of Luzon island in Philippines, the oil was used for night lamps. This widespread use started to decline when kerosene became available, and later on electricity. It was also used as fuel to generate electricity to provide power for radios during World War II.

Calophyllum inophyllum is a large evergreen plant, commonly called tamanu, mastwood, beach calophyllum, beautyleaf or. It is native to tropical Asia and Wallacea. Due to its importance as a source of timber for the traditional shipbuilding of large outrigger ships, it has been spread in prehistoric times by the migrations of the Austronesian peoples to the islands of Oceania and Madagascar, along with other members of the genus "Calophyllum". It has since been naturalized in regions in the East African coast. It is also a source of the culturally important tamanu oil.


Ussher's methods.

The chronologies of Ussher and other biblical scholars corresponded so closely because they used much the same method to calculate key events recorded in the Bible. Establishing the chronologies is complicated by the fact that the Bible was compiled by different authors over several centuries with lengthy chronological gaps, making it difficult to do a simple totaling of Biblical ages and dates. In his article on Ussher's calendar, James Barr has identified three distinct periods that Ussher and others had to tackle:  After reckoning the years from creation to the last kings of Judah, Ussher used to establish the length of time from the creation to the accession of Babylonian king Amel-Marduk (also known as Evil-Merodach). He then used information from Babylonian, Greek, and Roman sources to fix the date of Amel-Marduk's enthronement at 562 BC (after Nebuchadnezzar's death), from which he was able to deduce a creation in 4004 BC.  In fixing the date of Jesus' birth, Ussher took account of an error perpetrated by Dionysius Exiguus, the founder of the Anno Domini numbering system. Ussher chose 5 BC as Christ's birth year because Josephus indicated that the death of Herod the Great occurred in 4 BC. Thus, for the Gospel of Matthew to be correct, Jesus could not have been born after that date.  The season in which Creation occurred was the subject of considerable theological debate in Ussher's time. Many scholars proposed it had taken place in the spring, the start of the Babylonian, Chaldean and other cultures' chronologies. Others, including Ussher, thought it more likely that it had occurred in the autumn, largely because that season marked the beginning of the Jewish year.  Ussher further narrowed down the date by using the Jewish calendar to establish the "first day" of creation as falling on a Sunday near the autumnal equinox. The day of the week was a backward calculation from the six days of creation with God resting on the seventh, which in the Jewish calendar is Saturday—hence, Creation began on a Sunday. The astronomical tables that Ussher probably used were Kepler's "Tabulae Rudolphinae" ("Rudolphine Tables", 1627). Using them, he would have concluded that the equinox occurred on Tuesday, October 25, only one day earlier than the traditional day of its creation, on the fourth day of Creation week, Wednesday, along with the Sun, Moon, and stars. Modern equations place the autumnal equinox of 4004 BC on Sunday, October 23 (by the Julian calendar).  Ussher's understanding of creation placed the "first day" referred to in on October 23, but with a "pre-creation" event, which he identified as the "beginning of time" occurring the previous night. Ussher referred to his dating of creation on the first page of "Annales" in Latin and on the first page of its English translation "Annals of the World" (1658). In the following extract from the English translation, the phrase "in the year of the Julian Calendar" refers to the Julian Period, of which year 1 is 4713 BC, and therefore year 710 is 4004 BC. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Ge. 1:1 This beginning of time, according to our chronology, happened at the start of the evening preceding the 23rd day of October in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710. Ussher provides a slightly different time in his "Epistle to the Reader" in his Latin and English works: "I deduce that the time from the creation until midnight, January 1, 1 AD was 4003 years, seventy days and six hours." Six hours before midnight would be 6 pm.

Ussher's chronology today.

By the middle of the 19th century, Ussher's chronology came under increasing attack from supporters of uniformitarianism, who argued that Ussher's "young Earth" was incompatible with the increasingly accepted view of an Earth much more ancient than Ussher's. It became generally accepted that the Earth was tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of years old. Ussher fell into disrepute among theologians as well; in 1890, Princeton professor William Henry Green wrote a highly influential article in "Bibliotheca Sacra" entitled "Primeval Chronology" in which he strongly criticised Ussher. He concluded: We conclude that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation of the world. The similarly conservative theologian B. B. Warfield reached the same conclusion in "On The Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race", commenting that "it is precarious in the highest degree to draw chronological inferences from genealogical tables".  Archbishop Ussher's chronology has in recent years been subject to artistic criticism, including in the play "Inherit the Wind" (based on the Scopes Monkey Trial) and the fantasy novel "Good Omens" which alleges that "he is off by a quarter of an hour". A different viewpoint comes from Stephen Jay Gould, who, while totally disagreeing with Ussher's chronology, nevertheless wrote: I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records a lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past  Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology...

The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from a literal reading of the Old Testament by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. The chronology is sometimes associated with young Earth creationism, which holds that the Universe was created only a few millennia ago by God as described in the first two chapters of the biblical book of Genesis. Ussher fell into disrepute in the 19th century.


Definition.

A Gantt chart, or harmonogram, is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. This chart lists the tasks to be performed on the vertical axis, and time intervals on the horizontal axis. The width of the horizontal bars in the graph shows the duration of each activity. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project. Terminal elements and summary elements constitute the work breakdown structure of the project. Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency (i.e., precedence network) relationships between activities. Gantt charts can be used to show current schedule status using percent-complete shadings and a vertical "TODAY" line as shown here.  Gantt charts are sometimes equated with bar charts.  Gantt charts are usually created initially using an "early start time approach", where each task is scheduled to start immediately when its prerequisites are complete. This method maximizes the float time available for all tasks.

Historical development.

Although now regarded as a common charting technique, Gantt charts were considered revolutionary when first introduced. The first known tool of this type was developed in 1896 by Karol Adamiecki, who called it a "harmonogram". Adamiecki did not publish his chart until 1931, however, and only in Polish, which limited both its adoption and recognition of his authorship.  In 1912, published what would be considered Gantt charts while discussing a construction project. It appears that Schürch's charts were not notable but rather routine in Germany at the time they were published. The prior development leading to Schürch's work is unknown. Unlike later Gantt charts, Schürch's charts did not display interdependencies, leaving them to be inferred by the reader. These were also static representations of a planned schedule.  The chart is named after Henry Gantt (1861–1919), who designed his chart around the years 1910–1915.  One of the first major applications of Gantt charts was by the United States during World War I, at the instigation of General William Crozier.  The earliest Gantt charts were drawn on paper and therefore had to be redrawn entirely in order to adjust to schedule changes. For many years, project managers used pieces of paper or blocks for Gantt chart bars so they could be adjusted as needed. Gantt's collaborator Walter Polakov introduced Gantt charts to the Soviet Union in 1929 when he was working for the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy. They were used in developing the First Five Year Plan, supplying Russian translations to explain their use..  In the 1980s, personal computers allowed widespread creation of complex and elaborate Gantt charts. The first desktop applications were intended mainly for project managers and project schedulers. With the advent of the Internet and increased collaboration over networks at the end of the 1990s, Gantt charts became a common feature of web-based applications, including collaborative groupware. By 2012, almost all Gantt charts were made by software which can easily adjust to schedule changes.  In 1999, Gantt charts were identified as "one of the most widely used management tools for project scheduling and control".

Example.

In the following tables there are seven tasks, labeled "a" through "g". Some tasks can be done concurrently ("a" and "b") while others cannot be done until their predecessor task is complete ("c" and "d" cannot begin until "a" is complete). Additionally, each task has three time estimates: the optimistic time estimate ("O"), the most likely or normal time estimate ("M"), and the pessimistic time estimate ("P"). The expected time ("T") is estimated using the for the time estimates, using the formula ("O" + 4"M" + "P") ÷ 6.  Once this step is complete, one can draw a Gantt chart or a network diagram.

Progress Gantt charts.

In a progress Gantt chart, tasks are shaded in proportion to the degree of their completion: a task that is 60% complete would be 60% shaded, starting from the left. A vertical line is drawn at the time index when the progress Gantt chart is created, and this line can then be compared with shaded tasks. If everything is on schedule, all task portions left of the line will be shaded, and all task portions right of the line will not be shaded. This provides a visual representation of how the project and its tasks are ahead or behind schedule..

Linked Gantt charts.

"Linked Gantt charts" contain lines indicating the dependencies between tasks. However, linked Gantt charts quickly become cluttered in all but the simplest cases. Critical path network diagrams are superior to visually communicate the relationships between tasks. Nevertheless, Gantt charts are often preferred over network diagrams because Gantt charts are easily interpreted without training, whereas critical path diagrams require training to interpret. Gantt chart software typically provides mechanisms to link task dependencies, although this data may or may not be visually represented. Gantt charts and network diagrams are often used for the same project, both being generated from the same data by a software application.

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, named after its inventor, Henry Gantt (1861–1919), who designed such a chart around the years 1910–1915. Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency relationships between activities and current schedule status.


Life.

It is popularly supposed that Cecilia was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian, his brother Tiburtius, and a Roman soldier named Maximus, suffered martyrdom in about 230, under the Emperor Alexander Severus. Giovanni Battista de Rossi, however, argues that instead she perished in Sicily under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180, citing the report of Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers (d. 600).  According to the story, despite her vow of virginity, she was forced by her parents to marry a pagan nobleman named Valerian. During the wedding, Cecilia sat apart singing to God in her heart, and for that she was later declared the saint of musicians. When the time came for her marriage to be consummated, Cecilia told Valerian that watching over her was an angel of the Lord, who would punish him if he sexually violated her but would love him if he respected her virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia replied that he could if he would go to the third milestone on the Via Appia and be baptized by Pope Urban I. After following Cecilia's advice, he saw the angel standing beside her, crowning her with a chaplet of roses and lilies.  The martyrdom of Cecilia is said to have followed that of her husband Valerian and his brother at the hands of the prefect Turcius Almachius. The legend about Cecilia's death says that after being struck three times on the neck with a sword, she lived for three days, and asked the pope to convert her home into a church.  Cecilia was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus, and later transferred to the Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. In 1599, her body was found still incorrupt, seeming to be asleep.  Cecilia is one of the most famous of the Roman martyrs, although some elements of the stories recounted about her do not appear in the source material. According to Johann Peter Kirsch, the existence of the martyr is a historical fact, while some details bear the mark of a pious romance, like many other similar accounts compiled in the fifth and sixth century. The relation between Cecilia and Valerian, Tiburtius, and Maximus, mentioned in the Acts of the Martyrs, has some historical foundation. Her feast day has been celebrated since about the fourth century. There is no mention of Cecilia in the "Depositio Martyrum", but there is a record of an early Roman church founded by a lady of this name, Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.

The church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is reputedly built on the site of the house in which she lived. The original church was constructed in the fourth century; during the ninth century, Pope Paschal I had remains which were supposedly hers buried there. In 1599, while leading a renovation of the church, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati had the remains, which he reported to be incorrupt, excavated and reburied.

Meaning of the name 'Cecilia'.

The name "Cecilia" applied generally to Roman women who belonged to the plebeian clan of the Caecilii. Legends and hagiographies, mistaking it for a personal name, suggest fanciful etymologies. Among those cited by Chaucer in "The Second Nun's Tale" are: lily of heaven, the way for the blind, contemplation of heaven and the active life, as if lacking in blindness, and a heaven for people to gaze upon.

Patroness of musicians.

The first record of a music festival in her honor was held at Évreux in Normandy in 1570.  The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world. It was founded by the papal bull, Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western musical history: Gregory the Great, after whom Gregorian chant is named, and Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music.  Her feast day became an occasion for musical concerts and festivals that occasioned well-known poems by John Dryden and Alexander Pope and music by Henry Purcell ("Ode to St. Cecilia"); several oratorios by Marc-Antoine Charpentier ("In honorem Caeciliae, Valeriani et Tiburtij canticum"; and several versions of "Caecilia virgo et martyr" to libretti probably written by Philippe Goibaut); George Frideric Handel ("Ode for St. Cecilia's Day"; "Alexander's Feast"); Charles Gounod ("St. Cecilia Mass"); as well as Benjamin Britten, who was born on her feast day ("Hymn to St Cecilia", based on a poem by W. H. Auden). Herbert Howells' "A Hymn to Saint Cecilia" has words by Ursula Vaughan Williams; Gerald Finzi's "For Saint Cecilia", Op. 30, was set to verses written by Edmund Blunden; Michael Hurd's 1966 composition "A Hymn to Saint Cecilia" sets John Dryden's poem; and Frederik Magle's "Cantata to Saint Cecilia" is based on the history of Cecilia. "The Heavenly Life", a poem from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (which Gustav Mahler used in his "Symphony No. 4") mentions that "Cecilia and all her relations make excellent court musicians."  From the name of Cecilia comes "Cecyliada", the name of festival of sacred, choral and contemporary music, held from 1994 in Police, Poland.

Legacy.

Cecilia symbolizes the central role of music in the liturgy.  The Sisters of Saint Cecilia, religious sisters, shear the lambs' wool used to make the palliums of new metropolitan archbishops. The lambs are raised by the Cistercian Trappist Fathers of the Tre Fontane (Three Fountains) Abbey in Rome. The lambs are blessed by the Pope every January 21, the Feast of the martyr Saint Agnes. The pallia are given by the Pope to the new metropolitan archbishops on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29.  Located on the Isle of Wight, St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde was founded in 1882. The nuns live a traditional monastic life of prayer and work, and study in accordance with the ancient Rule of St. Benedict.  The famous luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume produces a line of violin and viola under the name St. Cécile with a decal stamped on the upper back.

Iconography.

Cecilia is frequently depicted playing a viola, a small organ, or other musical instrument, evidently to express what was often attributed to her, namely that while the musicians played at her nuptials, she sang in her heart to God, though the organ may be attributed to her erroneously, as the result of a mistranslation.  A miniature Saint Cecilia beneath Worcester Cathedral was featured on the reverse side of the Sir Edward Elgar £20 banknote, which was withdrawn by the Bank of England in 2010.

Gallery.

Domenichino's Fresco Cycle in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome (1614)  The apse mosaic in the Church of St. Cecilia in Trastevere

Saint Cecilia () is a saint venerated in the Latin Catholic, Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as some churches of the Anglican Communion. She is one of seven women, in addition to the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass in the Roman Catholic Church. She is regarded as the patron saint of musicians. It is written that as the musicians played at her wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord". Her feast day is on November 22.


Etymology.

The name of the city is probably of pre-Russian, probably Baltic, origin.

History.

Tula was first mentioned in the Nikon Chronicle related to the year 1146. As the chronicle was compiled in the 16th century, the date is disputed. The first confirmed mention of Tula dates to 1382.  In the Middle Ages, Tula was a minor fortress at the border of the Principality of Ryazan. As soon as it passed to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, a brick citadel, or kremlin, was constructed in 1514–1521. It was a key fortress of the Great Abatis Belt and successfully resisted a siege by the Tatars in 1552. In 1607, Ivan Bolotnikov and his supporters seized the citadel and withstood a four-months siege by the Tsar's army. In the 18th century, some parts of the kremlin walls were demolished. Despite its archaic appearance, the five-domed Assumption Cathedral in the kremlin was built as late as 1764.  In 1712, Tula was visited by Peter the Great, who commissioned the Demidov blacksmiths to build the first armament factory in Russia. Several decades later, Tula was turned by the Demidovs into the greatest ironworking center of Eastern Europe. The oldest museum in the city, showcasing the history of weapons, was inaugurated by the Demidovs in 1724, and Nicholas-Zaretsky Church in the city houses their family vault. The first factory to produce samovars industrially was also established there in the course of the 18th century. After the Demidovs moved the center of their manufacture to the Urals, Tula continued as a center of heavy industry, particularly in the manufacture of matériel.  In the 1890s, Ivan Savelyev, a medical orderly, became the founder of social democracy in Tula and set up a workers' study circle.  The city grew rapidly in the early 20th century as a result of arms production during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and World War I. Tula's factories also manufactured weapons for the Red Army during the Russian Civil War of 1918–1921.  During the World War II of 1941–1945, the city was important in the production of armaments. Tula became the target of a German offensive to break Soviet resistance in the Moscow area between Friday, October 24 and December 5, 1941. According to Erik Durschmied in "The Weather Factor: How Nature has Changed History", one German general reached the South Western Outskirts of Tula on 29th-30th October 1941. The heavily fortified city held out, however, and Guderian's Second Panzer Army was stopped near Tula. The city secured the southern flank during the Battle of Moscow and the subsequent counter-offensive. Tula was awarded the title Hero City in 1976. It is home to the Klokovo air base and the Tula Arms Plant.

Administrative and municipal status.

Tula serves as the administrative center of the oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as Tula City Under Oblast Jurisdiction—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the territories of Tula City Under Oblast Jurisdiction and of Leninsky District are incorporated as Tula Urban Okrug.

Economy.

For more than four centuries Tula has been known as a center of crafts and metalworking. Tula is a developed industrial center. Importance in the industrial structure of Tula are metallurgy, machinery and metal with a high share of the military-industrial complex and food manufacturing.

Culture.

A musical instrument, the Tula accordion, is named after the city, which is a center of manufacture for such instruments sold throughout Russia and the world. Tula is also renowned for traditional Russian pryanik, cookies made with honey and spices (see Tula pryanik). In the West, Tula is perhaps best known as the center of samovar production: the Russian equivalent of "coals to Newcastle" is "You don't take a samovar to Tula". (The saying is falsely ascribed to the writer and playwright Anton Chekhov, whose made a satirical portrait of one of his characters saying "Taking your wife to Paris is the same as taking your own samovar to Tula".)  The most popular tourist attraction in Tula Oblast is Yasnaya Polyana, the home and burial place of the writer Leo Tolstoy. It is situated south-west of the city. It was here that Tolstoy wrote his celebrated novels "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina". The largest public park in Tula is the P. Belousov Central Park of Culture and Recreation.

Education.

Tula is home to:

Transportation.

Since 1867, there has been a railway connection between Tula and Moscow. Tula is a major railway junction with trains to Moscow, Oryol, Kursk and Kaluga. The Moscow to Simferopol M2 motorway runs past the city. City transport is provided by trams, trolleybuses, buses, and marshrutkas. Tula trams, trolleybuses, and bus routes are operated by "Tulgorelectrotrans" (Tula city electrotransport company).

Religion.

Most of Tula's churches are Russian Orthodox churches. Next in number are Protestants and Catholics. Non-Christian organizations that are present include Muslims, Jews, Hare Krishna, Buddhists and Taoists.  All Orthodox organizations in Tula and the Tula Oblast are included in the Diocese of Tula and Yefremov. Among the Tula Orthodox churches should be mentioned Saints Cathedral (1776-1800), the oldest church in Tula - Annunciation (1692) and the Assumption Cathedral of the Tula Kremlin (1762-1764). There is also the Shcheglovsky Monastery of Holy Mother of God, built in mid 19th century and consecrated in 1860. In Tula also Old Believers' community services which are performed in the church of St. John Chrysostom.  In Tula there is the only Catholic church in the area, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Since the 1990s, Tula has several Protestant denominations, the largest church of which is a Baptist church with a prayer house in Tula. Representatives of other Protestant churches in Tula are Seventh-day Adventists, Presbyterians (Church of the Holy Trinity, The Glorious Jesus the Lord, the Good News), Pentecostals (Tula Christian Center, Church of the New Testament) and other evangelical churches (Word of Life, the Vine Gypsy Church).  Also the city has a synagogue and the Jewish Community House.

Sports.

In Russian fist fighting, Tula was considered to have some of the most famous fighters.  The city association football club, FC Arsenal Tula, played in the Russian Premier League in 2014/2015 and 2016/2017 seasons.

Climate.

Tula has a humid continental climate. This is pronounced by warm summers and cold but not severe winters by Russian standards.

Twin towns – sister cities.

Tula is twinned with:

Tula () is the largest city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast in Russia, located south of Moscow. Tula is located in the north of the Central Russian Upland in European Russia, on the banks of the Upa River, a tributary of the Oka, 193 km south of Moscow. As of the 2010 Census, Tula had a population of 501,169, and increase from 481,216 in 2002, making it the 32nd largest city in Russia by population.


Life.

The historical Flamel lived in Paris in the 14th and 15th centuries, and his life is one of the best documented in the history of medieval alchemy. He ran two shops as a scribe and married Perenelle in 1368. She brought the wealth of two previous husbands to the marriage. The French Catholic couple owned several properties and contributed financially to churches, sometimes by commissioning sculptures. Later in life, they were noted for their wealth and philanthropy.  Flamel lived into his 70s, and in 1410 designed his own tombstone, which was carved with the images of Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul. The tombstone is preserved at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Records show that Flamel died in 1418. He was buried in Paris at the end of the nave of the former Church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. His will, dated 22 November 1416, indicates that he was generous but that he did not have the extraordinary wealth of later alchemical legend. There is no indication that the real Flamel of history was involved in alchemy, pharmacy or medicine.

House in Paris.

One of Flamel's houses still stands in Paris, at 51 rue de Montmorency. It is the oldest stone house in the city. There is an old inscription on the wall, which states, "We, plowmen and women living at the porch of this house, built in 1407, are requested to say every day an 'Our Father' and an 'Ave Maria' praying God that His grace forgive poor and dead sinners." The ground floor currently contains a restaurant. A Paris street near the Louvre Museum, the "rue Nicolas Flamel", has been named after him; it intersects with the "rue Pernelle", named after his wife.

Posthumous reputation as an alchemist.

Legendary accounts of Flamel's life are based on 17th-century works, primarily "Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques". The essence of his reputation are claims that he succeeded at the two goals of alchemy: that he made the philosopher's stone, which turns base metals into gold, and that he and his wife, Perenelle, achieved immortality through the "Elixir of Life".  An alchemical book, published in Paris in 1612 as "Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques" and in London in 1624 as "Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures" was attributed to Flamel. It is a collection of designs purportedly commissioned by Flamel for a tympanum at the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, long disappeared at the time the work was published. In the publisher's introduction, Flamel's search for the philosopher's stone was described. According to that introduction, Flamel had made it his life's work to understand the text of a mysterious 21-page book he had purchased. The introduction claims that, around 1378, he traveled to Spain for assistance with translation. On the way back, he reported that he met a sage, who identified Flamel's book as being a copy of the original "Book of Abramelin the Mage". With this knowledge, over the next few years, Flamel and his wife allegedly decoded enough of the book to successfully replicate its recipe for the philosopher's stone, producing first silver in 1382 and then gold. Also, Flamel is said to have studied some texts in Hebrew.  The validity of this story was first questioned in 1761 by Etienne Villain. He claimed that the source of the Flamel legend was P. Arnauld de la Chevalerie, publisher of "Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures", who wrote the book under the pseudonym Eiranaeus Orandus. Other writers have defended the legendary account of Flamel's life, which has been embellished by stories of sightings in the 17th and 18th centuries and expanded in fictitious works ever since.  Flamel had achieved legendary status within the circles of alchemy by the mid 17th century, with references in Isaac Newton's journals to "the Caduceus, the Dragons of Flammel". Interest in Flamel revived in the 19th century: Victor Hugo mentioned him in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", Erik Satie was intrigued by Flamel, and Albert Pike refers to Nicholas Flamel in his book "Morals and Dogma of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry". Flamel's reputation as an alchemist was further bolstered in the late 20th century by his depiction as the creator of the eponymous alchemical substance in the best-selling novel "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and its film adaptation. He also appears in the 2018 spinoff film "", where he is portrayed by Brontis Jodorowsky.

In popular culture.

Flamel has been portrayed in popular fiction as a legendary figure who holds the key to immortality or the philosopher's stone. For example, in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel "Notre Dame de Paris", the tragic main character Claude Frollo is a young priest and alchemist who spends much of his time studying the carvings in Les Innocents, trying to fathom Flamel's secrets. Into the twentieth and twenty-first century, works such as "Harry Potter" (1997 to the ), "Fullmetal Alchemist" (2001–2010), "The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel" (2007–2012), and "As Above, So Below" (2014) have propagated the legend of Nicolas Flamel.  The works of Nicolas Flamel are central to several missions found in the video game "".

Nicolas Flamel (; 1330 – 22 March 1418) was a French scribe and manuscript-seller. After his death, Flamel developed a reputation as an alchemist believed to have discovered the philosopher's stone and to have thereby achieved immortality. These legendary accounts first appeared in the 17th century.


Life and career.

Emin was born in Oppeln (in present day Poland), Silesia, into a middle-class German Jewish family, which moved to Neisse when he was two years old. After the death of his father in 1845, his mother married a Christian; she and her offspring were baptized Lutherans. He studied at the universities at Breslau, Königsberg, and Berlin, qualifying as a physician in 1864. However, he was disqualified from practice, and left Germany for Constantinople, with the intention of entering Ottoman service.  Travelling via Vienna and Trieste, he stopped at Antivari in Montenegro, found himself welcomed by the local community, and was soon in medical practice. He put his linguistic talent to good use, as well, adding Turkish, Albanian, and Greek to his repertoire of languages. He became the quarantine officer of the port, leaving only in 1870 to join the staff of Ismail Hakki Pasha, governor of northern Albania; in the service, he travelled throughout the Ottoman Empire, although the details are little-known.  When Hakki Pasha died in 1873, Emin went back to Neisse with the pasha's widow and children, where he passed them off as his own family, but left suddenly in September 1875, reappearing in Cairo and then departing for Khartoum, where he arrived in December. At this point he took the name "Mehemet Emin" (Arabic "Muhammad al-Amin"), started a medical practice, and began collecting plants, animals, and birds, many of which he sent to museums in Europe. Although some regarded him as a Muslim, it is not clear if he ever actually converted.  Charles George Gordon, then governor of Equatoria, heard of Emin's presence and invited him to be the chief medical officer of the province; Emin assented and arrived there in May 1876. Gordon immediately sent Emin on diplomatic missions to Buganda and Bunyoro to the south, where Emin's modest style and fluency in Luganda were quite popular.  After 1876, Emin made Lado his base for collecting expeditions throughout the region. In 1878, the Khedive of Egypt appointed Emin as Gordon's successor to govern the province, giving him the title of Bey. Despite the grand title, there was little for Emin to do; his military force consisted of a few thousand soldiers who controlled no more than a mile's radius around each of their outposts, and the government in Khartoum was indifferent to his proposals for development. He showed himself a bitter foe of slavery.  The revolt of Muhammad Ahmad that began in 1881 had cut Equatoria off from the outside world by 1883, and the following year, Karam Allah marched south to capture Equatoria and Emin. In 1885, Emin and most of his forces withdrew further south, to Wadelai near Lake Albert. Cut off from communications to the north, he was still able to exchange mail with Zanzibar through Buganda. Determined to remain in Equatoria, his communiques, carried by his friend Wilhelm Junker, aroused considerable sentiment in Europe in 1886, particularly acute after the death of Gordon the previous year.  The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, led by Henry Morton Stanley, undertook to rescue Emin by going up the Congo River and then through the Ituri Forest, an extraordinarily difficult route that resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the expedition. Precise details of this trek are recorded in the published diaries of the expedition's non-African "officers" (e.g., Major Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, Captain William Grant Stairs, Mr. Arthur Jephson, and Thomas Heazle Parke, surgeon of the expedition). Stanley met Emin in April 1888, and after a year spent in argument and indecision, during which Emin and Jephson were imprisoned at Dufile by troops who mutinied from August to November 1888, Emin was convinced to leave for the coast. The bulk of his forces remained near Lake Albert until 1890, when Frederick Lugard took them with him to Kampala Hill, where they participated in the Battle of Kampala Hill. Stanley and Emin arrived in Bagamoyo in 1890. During celebrations, Emin was injured when he stepped through a window he mistook for an opening to a balcony. Emin spent two months in a hospital recovering, while Stanley left without being able to bring him back in triumph.  The introduction of sleeping sickness in Uganda was attributed to the movement of Emin and his followers. Prior to the 1890s, sleeping sickness was unknown in Uganda, but the tsetse fly was probably brought by Emin from the Congo territory.  Emin then entered the service of the German East Africa Company and accompanied Dr. Stuhlmann on an expedition to the lakes in the interior, but was killed by two Arab slave traders at Kinena Station in the Congo Free State, near Nyangwe, on the 23rd or 24 October 1892.  He added greatly to the anthropological knowledge of central Africa and published valuable geographical papers. In 1890 he was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.  Emin Pasha is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of African snake, "Leptotyphlops emini", and an East African species of "Passer" sparrow, Chestnut sparrow "Passer eminibey".

Mehmed Emin Pasha (born Isaak Eduard Schnitzer, baptized Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor Schnitzer; March 28, 1840 – October 23, 1892) was an Ottoman physician of German Jewish origin, naturalist, and governor of the Egyptian province of Equatoria on the upper Nile. The Ottoman Empire conferred the title "Pasha" on him in 1886, and thereafter he was referred to as "Emin Pasha".