후기관련 렉쳐 배경지식

[SupremeToefl]

 

Source 1. Compare Emily Dickinson with Walt

Source 2. About White tailed deer

Source 3. About Aurora

Source 4. The ancestor of Crocodile

Source 5. Dadaism and Cubism

Source 6. The Discovery Of Radioactivity

Source 7. Pony Express

Source 7-1. About Ants

Source 7-2 Leaf-cutter ants (Umbrella ants)

Source 9. About Jupiter

Source 10. New York's first subway

Source 11. About Socrates

Source 12. History of Alchemy

기타 후기와 관련된 자료....

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Source 1. Compare Emily Dickinson with Walt Whitman

<Emily Dickinson>

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. In the years that followed, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an intense impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and his departure gave rise to a heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson, who deeply admired him. By the 1860s, she lived in almost total physical isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely.

Her poetry reflects her loneliness and the speakers of her poems generally live in a state of want; but her poems are also marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are decidedly life-giving and suggest the possibility of future happiness. Her work was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as by her Puritan upbringing and the Book of Revelation. She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and John Keats. Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman by rumor of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice. Dickinson was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, but she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.

<Walt Whitman>

Born on May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was the second son of Walter Whitman, a housebuilder, and Louisa Van Velsor. The family, which consisted of nine children, lived in Brooklyn and Long Island in the 1820s and 1830s. At the age of twelve Whitman began to learn the printer's trade, and fell in love with the written word. Largely self-taught, he read voraciously, becoming acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Whitman worked as a printer in New York City until a devastating fire in the printing district demolished the industry. In 1836, at the age of 17, he began his career as teacher in the one-room school houses of Long Island. He continued to teach until 1841, when he turned to journalism as a full-time career. He founded a weekly newspaper, Long-Islander, and later edited a number of Brooklyn and New York papers. In 1848, Whitman left the Brooklyn Daily Eagle to become editor of the New Orleans Crescent. It was in New Orleans that he experienced at first hand the viciousness of slavery in the slave markets of that city.

 On his return to Brooklyn in the fall of 1848, he founded a 'free soil' newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to develop the unique style of poetry that later so astonished Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1855, Whitman took out a copyright on the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which consisted of twelve untitled poems and a preface. He published the volume himself, and sent a copy to Emerson in July of 1855. Whitman released a second edition of the book in 1856, containing thirty-three poems, a letter from Emerson praising the first edition, and a long open letter by Whitman in response. During his subsequent career, Whitman continued to refine the volume, publishing several more editions of the book.

 At the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman vowed to live a 'purged' and 'cleansed' life. He wrote freelance journalism and visited the wounded at New York-area hospitals. He then traveled to Washington, D.C. in December 1862 to care for his brother who had been wounded in the war. Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals. Whitman stayed in the city for eleven years. He took a job as a clerk for the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass, which Harlan found offensive. Harlan fired the poet.

 Whitman struggled to support himself through most of his life. In Washington he lived on a clerk's salary and modest royalties, and spent any excess money, including gifts from friends, to buy supplies for the patients he nursed. He had also been sending money to his widowed mother and an invalid brother. From time to time writers both in the states and in England sent him 'purses' of money so that he could get by.

 In the early 1870s, Whitman settled in Camden, where he had come to visit his dying mother at his brother's house. However, after suffering a stroke, Whitman found it impossible to return to Washington. He stayed with his brother until the 1882 publication of Leaves of Grass gave Whitman enough money to buy a home in Camden. In the simple two-story clapboard house, Whitman spent his declining years working on additions and revisions to a new edition of the book and preparing his final volume of poems and prose, Good-Bye, My Fancy (1891). After his death on March 26, 1892, Whitman was buried in a tomb he designed and had built on a lot in Harleigh Cemetery.

 Source 2. About White tailed deer

<Description>

The white-tailed deer is named for its most distinctive feature, the large white tail or 'flag' that is often all you see as the animal bounds away through tall grass. The color of the deer's upper body and sides changes with the

season, from a generally reddish-brown in summer to buff in winter. Its belly and the underside of its tail are completely white, and it has a white patch on the throat. The deer sheds its hair twice a year, its heavy winter coat giving way to a lighter one in spring which is replaced again in early fall. A fawn's coat is similar to the adult's but has several hundred white spots which gradually disappear when the deer is three to four months old.

Fawns are born in late spring and summer and by early November a male fawn weighs about 85 pounds and a female about 80 pounds. Yearling bucks average 150 pounds, while does of the same age average about 20 percent less, or about 120 pounds. Some older bucks weigh 200 pounds or more when field dressed (about 250 pounds live weight) and the heaviest Nebraska whitetail on record was 287 pounds field dressed (about 355 pounds live weight).

A buck fawn has bumps on his skull where antlers will grow when he is older. Yearling bucks may have one to six points on each antler, and, based on over 2,000 deer checked in 1990, average a total of almost six points on both antlers. Studies show that 20 percent of the yearling bucks have four points on each antler; 19 percent have three points on each antler; while about six percent have only spikes instead of fully-developed antlers. Antler development is dependant on nutrition, and when nutrition is poor, 50 percent or more of the

Large 'typical' bucks can have seven or more points on a side, and the largest Nebraska 'non-typical' whitetail, taken by a hunter near Shelton in 1962, had a total of 39 points one inch or more in length. The typical white-tailed buck's antler has a main beam that sweeps forward and each of the points rise from it. Most buck fawns develop 'buttons' by the fall of their first year, which are generally not visible above the hairline. These are hardened antlers which are shed. Subsequent antlers are also shed each year. Antler growth begins normally in April to early May. The new antlers are tender and velvet covered, with the velvet shed in early September on almost all bucks. An occasional male, possible one-half of one percent, does not shed the velvet at all.

The time of antler shedding varies among individual deer and somewhat by area. Most bucks drop their racks in January and February, but rarely may carry them into early May. Contrary to some opinions, numbers of points are no indication of age, but are of some value in judging the animal's condition.

<Distribution and abundance>

The white-tailed deer is the most abundant and most widely distributed big game animal in North America. It is the most common species in the Eastern half of Nebraska and is more abundant than mule deer even on some of the westernmost stream courses .

Whitetails were probably eliminated from Nebraska by about 1900 due to lack of protection and the frontier ethic I might as well kill it or someone else will. Return of the whitetails was due to change in attitudes and protection. The recovery has been natural, with only a few deer transplanted to southeast Nebraska in the late 1950s, though some were already present there at the time.

Records are limited primarily to hunting seasons - two whitetails were taken near Halsey during the first season in 1945. The entire state was first open for firearm hunting in 1961, when 1,400 whitetails were taken. Harvest gradually increased and since 1987 has been nearly stable at about 28,000 taken annually. In recent years Nebraska's whitetail population each fall has been estimated at between 150,000 to 180,000 animals. Densities on a year-round basis range from less than five deer per 100 square miles in a few counties to 100 per square mile in a few local areas such as Gifford Point near Bellevue and DeSoto Refuge near Blair.

<Habitat and Home>

Over most of Nebraska, the best deer habitat is along stream courses and their associated breaks. This prime deer habitat consists of deciduous trees, primarily cottonwood, ash, willow, elm and box elder. Oak and red cedar occur along some drainages, while basswood, walnut and hackbery are found only occasionally. Associated shrubby vegetation includes plum, sumac, chokecherry, buck brush (snowberry or coralberry) wild rose and several other species. River breaks are often characterized by deep gullies and ridges with generally sparse woody growth.

Throughout the state, but especially in the east, are thousands of miles of shelterbelts. A combination of hardwood trees, red cedar and shrubs is usually found in these plantings. They are often used by deer for cover, though perhaps only on a seasonal basis if they are located considerable distances from more extensive cover.

Woody cover provides the best whitetail habitat, though it is not essential for their survival. Grasslands are suitable where the topography provides concealment, especially when it is associated with marsh vegetation. Dense areas formerly used as crop producing lands, such as those under long-term retirement programs, have increased whitetail distribution in recent years.

Croplands are a reliable year-round food source, and provide a sea of cover from July through October or November. Deer may use croplands for extended periods, but they must retreat to permanent cover for protection from weather and predators after harvest is completed.

<Habits>

In some areas where cover is extensive and other requirements are met, a deer may live its entire life and die within one or a few square miles. With the linear habitat of stream courses movements may be extensive. Recoveries of 23 whitetails tagged in the Sandhills showed an average movement of 38 miles from the point of tagging, with two extremes of 125 and 137 miles.

Deer move most often and for the greatest distances during spring and fall. In late spring, does may travel in search of fawning sites, although adult females move less than other deer. Greater travels are made by yearlings, on their own for the first time. Travel increases in fall after the harvest, as deer leave croplands and begin mating activities.

Whitetails have developed keen senses to help them avoid predation. They depend on scent, particularly in thick cover, but also have excellent hearing and sight.

Because of their behavior and the habitat they prefer, whitetails are less vulnerable to hunting than are mule deer. Tagging studies in the Sandhills indicated that whitetail bucks were only one-third as likely to be bagged as mule deer in the same general area.

<Foods>

Agricultural crops constitute from 40 to more than 50 percent of the whitetail's year-round diet in some areas. In northeast Kansas, corn is the single most-used plant in all seasons except summer, with 29 percent overall use, while in Iowa corn comprised 40 percent of the deer's diet. Although whitetails are commonly observed in alfalfa fields, alfalfa is a relatively minor food source. Native foods that make up part of the deer's diet include woody vegetation, particularly buckbrush and rose, with lesser amounts of dogwood, chokecherry, plum, red cedar, pine, and a host of other species. Forbs, particularly sunflowers, are important, while grasses and sedges are used only briefly in spring and fall. Although whitetails can obviously subsist entirely on native foods, they apparently have a preference for farm crops, which constitute the biggest management problem in agricultural states - balancing deer numbers so as to satisfy both hunter demand and landowner tolerance.

<Reproduction>

With good health and good nutrition, whitetailed deer are prolific breeders. Examination of ova 600 does in Nebraska has shown about 60 percent breed as fawns (when they are about six months old) and virtually all of the older deer produce young. At least a portion of the buck fawns are capable of reproduction. Breeding commences in mid October and peaks in mid-to-late November for adults, and about one month later for fawns. A buck may mate with several does - up to 20 has been noted under pen conditions. Fawns are born after a gestation period of about 201 days, from early May through late September, with about 60 percent of the total born in June.

Does bred when less than a year of age normally produce a single fawn, with 10 percent of them earing twins. Older does average almost two fawns - 67 percent have twins, 21 percent have single fawns and 12 percent have triplets. This means that about 140 fawns are born for every 100 does in the population.

The whitetail's reproductive rate is quite high when compared to the mule deer's, which is about 94 fawns per 100 does per year. Only about seven percent of mule deer does breed as fawns. A year later, 94 percent of whitetails and only 68 percent of mule deer become pregnant as yearlings. About 79 percent of pregnant whitetail does carry twins or triplets, while only 52 percent of pregnant mule deer does have multiple births.

At birth, a female fawn weighs about 5 1/2 pounds, and a male about 7 1/2 pounds. A fawn is capable of walking shortly after birth, but its movement is limited during the first few days. When the fawn is two or three weeks old, it begins eating vegetation in addition to nursing. A fawn is normally weaned when it is about four months old, but is capable of surviving without milk at three months or less. About 30 percent of the fawns do not survive until fall.

<Importance>

As is indicated by its distribution and abundance, the white-tailed deer is the most important big game animal in North America. Annual harvest exceeds 300,000 in several states and in Nebraska has been about 28,000 since 1987. A more important measure is the amount of recreation provided, and in Nebraska hunters spend about 400,000 days hunting for deer each year, and about 300,000 for whitetails alone.

The monetary impact is also substantial. Deer hunters spent about $1.5 million for permits alone in 1990, and about $1.2 million of this was attributable to whitetails. The total amount spent on whitetail hunting and associated activities in Nebraska is probably near $7 to $8 million annually. The enjoyment provided by looking for and watching deer and the time spent in photographing them is of inestimable value.

On the negative side are the nearly 3,000 deer/car collisions which occur annually. Landowner losses of growing or stored agricultural crops can be substantial, although protective measures such as haystack location, fencing and deer repellents often reduce these to tolerable levels. However, the most effective control is through harvest by hunters.

<Hunting>

To be successful the hunter must know the deer's habits and be able to recognize sign that signals a buck is in the area. One sure sign that a buck is in the vicinity is a rub ' a branch or sapling that has been stripped of its bark by a buck knocking the velvet from its antlers. Later in the fall, as the rut approaches, fresh sign of this antlerwork may appear on larger, harder trees, as restless bucks shape up their fighting skills.

An even better sign that a buck is around is an active scrape. This is where a buck has pawed the leaves and grass away, exposing a patch of bare earth from one to three feet in diameter. He generously applies his scent and tracks in the scrape, which serves as a signal to does that he is in the area and available, and warns other bucks that this is his territory and they'd better stay out, or risk a fight. A buck fully caught up in the fever of the rut may have several scrapes which he checks frequently, or he may post just one and stay nearby. Whichever is the case, the scrape that is being renewed and maintained is a sure sign that a buck will be along sooner or later, and that it merits careful consideration on the part of the hunter.

Of all the sign a hunter is likely to come across, deer tracks are the most obvious and are also the most misused and misunderstood by the novice hunter. A lot of greenhorn deer hunters are likely to latch onto the first set of tracks they find and spend the rest of the day following them, almost invariably without seeing the deer.

Tracks are a valuable sign to a hunter, chiefly as an indication of the frequency and the deer's direction of travel. They might also give an indication of the size of the deer using an area Generally, they provide a lot of the same information as do droppings.

Some hunters claim they can distinguish tracks of bucks from those of does, but other experienced hunters discount this. Generally, the tracks of bucks and does look identical, although a hunter tracking a deer might surmise he's on the trail of a buck if it is traveling alone and sticking to more secluded or secretive haunts.

Following a set of tracks in hopes of getting a shot at the deer making the tracks is an iffy game, and is a tactic mastered by only a few specialists. Most hunters follow a trail too slowly or make too much noise to be successful. And, a lot of hunters cannot distinguish a really fresh track, and thus may take up on a trail half a day old or more.

Most hunters following deer tracks pay way too much attention to the impressions themselves and almost forget to look for the deer standing in the tracks. Experienced trackers look for the most distant visible sign, giving it just a glance while keeping their eyes on cover ahead, while being ready for a shot. They also look behind, because deer often double back on their trail to see if they are being pursued.

About the only time most hunters will need to track a deer is after they have taken a shot at one. If the deer doesn't go down, the hunter should check where the deer was standing when the shot was fired, looking for blood, hair, or other signs of a hit. If none is apparent, he should take up the track for a few hundred yards, looking for blood on the ground, bushes and trees the deer may have brushed against, or for signs of staggering, limping or other evidence of a hit.

The deer should be field dressed as quickly as possible so that the meat cools rapidly. This insures flavorful, high quality meat for the table.

Source 3. About Aurora

 Auroras occur around Earth's north and south geomagnetic poles in regions known as auroral ovals. Southern auroras are called aurora australis; northern ones, aurora borealis.

The aurora is higher in the atmosphere than the highest jet plane flies. The lowest fringes are at least 40 miles above the Earth, while the uppermost reaches of the aurora extend 600 miles above the Earth. The space shuttle flies near 190 miles altitude.

Although there are stories about the aurora seeming to reach down into the clouds or to the tops of mountains, these are either illusions or some phenomenon other than the aurora. Only astronauts can fly through the aurora!

Some people believe that the aurora makes sound that accompanies the ripples and flow of the light. If the aurora does make sound, the sound would have to be generated here on Earth by some electromagnetic effect. Any noise generated by the aurora would take a long, long time to travel all the way to Earth, and the air up by the aurora is much too thin to carry sound. So does the aurora make noises? Nobody knows for sure!

Auroras occur because Earth's magnetic field interacts with the solar wind, a tenuous mix of charged particles blowing away from the sun. This wind from the sun sweeps by Earth in the interplanetary magnetic field which is produced by the sun. We are protected from the solar wind's direct effects by Earth's comet-shaped magnetosphere, where the Earth's magnetic field is distorted by the interplanetary magnetic field and the solar wind. The electrical energy generated by the charged particles blowing across the Earth's magnetic field send charged particles down into the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Auroral light is similar to light from color television. In the picture tube, a beam of electrons controlled by electric and magnetic fields strikes the screen, making it glow in different colors, according to the type of chemicals (phosphors) that coat the screen. Auroral light is the from the air glowing as charged particles, particularly electrons, rain down along the Earth's magnetic field lines. The color of the aurora depends on the type of atom or molecule struck by the charged particles.

Each atmospheric gas glows with a particular color, depending on its electrical state (ionized or neutral) and on the energy of the particle that hits the atmospheric gas. High-altitude oxygen, about 200 miles up, is the source of the rare, all-red auroras. Oxygen at lower altitudes, about 60 miles up, produces a brilliant yellow-green, the brightest and most common auroral color. Ionized nitrogen molecules produce blue light; neutral nitrogen glows red. The nitrogens create the purplish-red lower borders and ripple edges of the aurora.

Auroral displays vary from night to night and during a single night. Usually, if sun-earth conditions produce an auroral substorm, a diffuse patch of glowing sky will be seen first, followed by a discrete arc that brightens, perhaps a thousand-fold in a minute. As an arc moves toward the equator, new ones may form on its poleward side. Appearing within arcs are upward-reaching striations aligned with the magnetic field, giving the impression of curtains of light. Ripples and curls dance along the arc curtains and pulsating patches of light may appear in the morning hours.

If you have never seen the aurora yourself, videos are available that will give you some idea of what it is like, but you will have to come to Alaska in the wintertime to really appreciate the beauty of the aurora.

Source 4. The ancestor of Crocodile

<Scientists Finds Skull of Ancient Reptile; Crocodile-like, It Ran on Long Legs>

  - By Faye S. Yates -

 A Columbia scientist announced Nov. 9 the unexpected discovery in Connecticut of an ancient crocodile-like reptile--the first ever found in North America--that lived millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Paul Olsen of Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory said he had found the skull of the 212-million-year-old unnamed carnivore exposed in the cut of a roadside in the town of Cheshire.

The paleontologist said that the three-inch skull belonged to a delicately boned, 20-inch-long reptile that resembled a small crocodile but ran on long, slender legs. Only one other similar skull is known to scientists: an animal called Erpetosuchus, discovered in 1894 in Elgin, Scotland.

The reptile lived during the Triassic Era, between 202 million and 252 million years ago, more than 80 million years before Velociraptor roamed the Earth and more than 125 million years before Tyrannosaurus rex reigned. At the time, Earth's climate was warmer and all of the Earth's land was a single mass called Pangea, which later broke apart into today's familiar continents. The animals found in Scotland and Connecticut, now on different and widely separated continents, may be the same genus but certainly had a common ancestor, Olsen believes.

The find is particularly important, he said, because so little is known of life during the Triassic. He announced the finding at a scientific conference at Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Conn., not far from where he found the skull.

'The fossil was just lying out there waiting to be seen,' Olsen said. 'The bone is white and the rock is reddish-brown, but there were a lot of white flecks here and there in the rock that are not bone. I walked away from it several times, thinking about it. It took about an hour to convince myself that it was a bone. It looked not too different from fossilized roots, which are also white. But then I noticed a tiny tooth, and roots don't have teeth. I knew then that it was bone, but I didn't realize at first that it was a nearly complete skull.'

The fossil adds to the scarce collection of clues to the still-unexplained mass extinction about 200 million years ago that wiped out nearly half the species on Earth. The extinctions reshuffled the evolutionary deck and set the stage for dinosaurs to become the planet's dominant life form, said Olsen, who is the Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor at Columbia and a senior research scientist at Lamont-Doherty, Columbia's earth sciences research center in Palisades, N.Y. The find is being studied jointly by Olsen, Hans-Dieter Sues, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and Mark Norrell, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where the skull is being prepared. Early dinosaurs existed during the Triassic, but they were small and lived in a largely non-dinosaur world of fish, amphibians, small mammals and other non-dinosaur reptiles, Olsen said.

The skull comes from a non-dinosaur reptile that competed with early dinosaurs for food; possibly it hunted and was hunted by dinosaurs, too. It was an active predator with a large head and a long, toothed snout to subdue prey, Sues said. It ran on all four legs and was cold-blooded, unlike early dinosaurs, which were warm-blooded and ran on two legs.

'These little creatures are virtually unknown,' Sues said. 'Life in the Triassic Era in general is a great blank, particularly in the Northeast. This is an absolute first for North America and absolutely unexpected. There is a myth that the East Coast is poor in fossils, but Paul is one of the few people who has believed that this region has its paleontological treasures. It just take more patience and energy to find fossils on the East Coast, but they are there.'

Animals like the one Olsen found thrived before 202 million years ago, but they did not survive afterward into the Jurassic Era. Dinosaurs did, however, perhaps taking advantage of the absence of competition. In just 25,000 years--a flash in evolutionary time--dinosaurs grew rapidly, their footprints doubling in size. They diversified and became the dominant life on Earth until 65 million years ago, when another catastrophic event--most likely an asteroid collision--caused their extinction and set the stage for the rise of mammals.

New fossils from the Triassic provide rare new information that will help scientists figure out the evolutionary adaptations that allowed dinosaurs to prevail while the others died out, Olsen said. It will also help scientists discover what happened on Earth to cause past--and perhaps future--mass extinctions, he said.

Olsen found the skull, encased in sediments that had preserved it, in part of the Hartford Basin, the geological name for a 15-mile-wide depression in the Earth's crust that extended along what is now the Connecticut River Valley from the northern Massachusetts border to New Haven.

Source 5. Dadaism and Cubism

<What is dadaism?> 

A western European artistic and literary movement (1916-23) that sought the discovery of authentic reality through the abolition of traditional culture and aesthetic forms.

Dada was an art movement that was ostrasized from the world of art as it swept through the world like war sweeping thoughout nations. Dadaism brought about everything new: new ideas, new materials, new directions, and new people. Dada had no uniform characteristics as many other movements in the arts have. Dadaist art can be interpreted by each person how they want to see or read it. Dadaism brings out feelings and emotions in each person dependent upon what he or she is going through at the time.

Art historians who are professionally trained to analyze the styles of art movements and periods have been continually baffled by the contradictions and complexities Dadaism poses twoards itself. All those who attempt to analyze the Dadaist movement, to figure out it's breadth and depth all seem to come up short. The meaning and

content go far beyond tha which can be analyzed by a trained professional.

Dadaism is often mistaken as a myth due to the outrageous and ridiculous ideas put into the art, however it was very real. Dadaism was never epected to last forever, the Dadaists lived int he moment and for the moment, and so did the spirit of Dada. This beautiful form of art is no longer widely practised throughout the world, yet it is still greatly apreciated by many.

<What is Cubism?>

  Cubism is a highly influential visual arts style of the 20th century that was created principally by the painters Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque  in Paris between 1907 and 1914. The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro and refuting time-honoured theories of art as the imitation of nature. Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space; instead, they presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects, whose several sides were seen simultaneously.

    Cubism derived its name from remarks that were made by the painter Henri Matisse and the critic Louis Vauxcelles, who derisively described Braque's 1908 work House at L'Ebstaque  as composed of cubes. In Braque's work, the volumes of the houses, the cylindrical forms of the trees, and the tan-and-green colour scheme are reminiscent of Paul Cezanne's landscapes, which deeply inspired the Cubists in their first stage of development, until 1909. It was, however,  Les Demoiselles d'Avignon a work painted by Picasso in 1907, that forecast the new style; in this work, the forms of five female nudes became fractured, angular shapes. As in Cezanne's art, perspective was rendered by means of colour, the warm reddish browns advancing and the cool blues receding.

    The period from 1910 to 1912 often is referred to as that of Analytical Cubism.  In an analytical cubist painting, the object was 'taken apart' and reshaped with the use of flat intersecting planes. Paintings frequently combine representational motifs with letters, the latter emphasizing the painter's concern with abstraction; favourite motifs are musical instruments, bottles, pitchers, glasses, newspapers, still lifes, and the human face and figure.

  < Ma Jolie  (1911) by Pablo Picasso >

  The second phase of Cubism, which began after 1912, is called Synthetic Cubim.  Works of this phase emphasize the combination, or synthesis, of forms in the picture. Colour assumes a strong role in the work; shapes, while remaining fragmented and flat, are larger and more decorative. Newspaper, tobacco wrappers were often used as main subjecy motifs.  They are pasted on the canvas in combination with painted areas. This technique, collage, was the main style of the second phase of Cubism. Musical instrument, especially guitar and violin, are often found in this period's works.

The influences that Cubism gave on the other forms of art and other artists are significant.  During the years when Picasso and Braque were developing cubism, the other artists were influenced by the movement.  Many of architecture, sculptures, clothes, and even literature were inspired by the movement.

Source 6. The Discovery Of Radioactivity

<The Dawn of the Nuclear Age>

One hundred years ago, a group of scientists unknowingly ushered in the Atomic Age. Driven by curiosity, these men and women explored the nature and functioning of atoms. Their work initiated paths of research which changed our understanding of the building blocks of matter; their discoveries prepared the way for development of new methods and tools used to explore our origins, the functioning of our bodies both in sickness and in health, and much more. How did our conceptions of atomic properties change? How has that change affected our lives and our knowledge of the world?

1. Atoms and Elements: A Beginning

Elements are the building blocks of matter. The smallest particle of an element that still retains the identity of that element is the atom. All atoms of a given element are identical to one another, but differ from the atoms of other elements. Ancient Greeks first predicted the existence of the atom around 500 BC. They named the predicted particle 'atomos,' meaning 'indivisible.'

In 1803, John Dalton (1766-1844) proposed a systematic set of postulates to describe the atom. Dalton's work paved the way for modern day acceptance of the atom. But scientists of his day considered the atom to be merely a subordinate player in chemical reactions, an uninteresting, homogeneous, positively charged 'glob' that contained scattered electrons. That premise remained unchallenged until the end of the nineteenth century, when a series of brilliant discoveries opened the door on the atomic science of the twentieth century. Working concurrently and often collaboratively, three pioneering scientists helped release the genie of the atom.

2. Antoine Henri Becquerel

Becquerel, a French physicist, was the son and grandson of physicists. Becquerel was familiar with the work of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen on December 22 1895, 'photographed' his wife's hand, revealing the unmistakable image of her skeleton, complete with wedding ring. Roentgen's wife had placed her hand in the path of X-rays which Roentgen created by beaming an electron ray energy source onto a cathode tube. Roentgen's discovery of these 'mysterious' rays capable of producing an image on a photographic plate excited scientists of his day, including Becquerel. Becquerel chose to study the related phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence. In March of 1896, quite by accident, he made a remarkable discovery.

Becquerel found that, while the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence had many similarities to each other and to X-rays, they also had important differences. While fluorescence and X-rays stopped when the initiating energy source was halted, phosphorescence continued to emit rays some time after the initiating energy source was removed. However, in all three cases, the energy was derived initially from an outside source.

In March of 1896, during a time of overcast weather, Becquerel found he couldn't use the sun as an initiating energy source for his experiments. He put his wrapped photographic plates away in a darkened drawer, along with some crystals containing uranium. Much to his Becquerel's surprise, the plates were exposed during storage by invisible emanations from the uranium. The emanations did not require the presence of an initiating energy source--the crystals emitted rays on their own! Although Becquerel did not pursue his discovery of radioactivity, others did and, in so doing, changed the face of both modern medicine and modern science.

3. The Curies: Lives Devoted to Research

Working in the Becquerel lab, Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, began what became a life long study of radioactivity. It took fresh and open minds, along with much dedicated work, for these scientists to establish the properties of radioactive matter. Marie Curie wrote, 'The subject seemed to us very attractive and all the more so because the question was entirely new and nothing yet had been written upon it.'

Becquerel had already noted that uranium emanations could turn air into a conductor of electricity. Using sensitive instruments invented by Pierre Curie and his brother, Pierre and Marie Curie measured the ability of emanations from various elements to induce conductivity. On February 17, 1898, the Curies tested an ore of uranium, pitchblende, for its ability to turn air into a conductor of electricity. The Curies found that the pitchblende produced a current 300 times stronger than that produced by pure uranium. They tested and recalibrated their instruments, and yet they still found the same puzzling results. The Curies reasoned that a very active unknown substance in addition to the uranium must exist within the pitchblende. In the title of a paper describing this hypothesized element (which they named polonium after Marie's native Poland), they introduced the new term: 'radio-active.'

After much grueling work, the Curies were able to extract enough polonium and another radioactive element, radium, to establish the chemical properties of these elements. Marie Curie, with her husband and continuing after his death, established the first quantitative standards by which the rate of radioactive emission of charged particles from elements could be measured and compared. In addition, she found that there was a decrease in the rate of radioactive emissions over time and that this decrease could be calculated and predicted. But perhaps Marie Curie's greatest and most unique achievement was her realization that radiation is an atomic property of matter rather than a separate independent emanation.

Despite the giant step forward which science had now taken in it's understanding of radioactivity, scientists still understood little of the structure of the atom. This understanding awaited the work of Ernest Rutherford.

4. Ernest Rutherford and the Atom

In 1911, Rutherford conducted a series of experiments in which he bombarded a piece of gold foil with positively charged (alpha) particles emitted by radioactive material. Most of the particles passed through the foil undisturbed, suggesting that the foil was made up mostly of empty space rather than of a sheet of solid atoms. Some alpha particles, however, 'bounced back,' indicating the presence of solid matter. Atomic particles, Rutherford's work showed, consisted primarily of empty space surrounding a well-defined central core called a nucleus.

In a long and distinguished career, Rutherford laid the groundwork for the determination of atomic structure. In addition to defining the planetary model of the atom, he showed that radioactive elements undergo a process of decay over time. And, in experiments which involved what newspapers of his day called 'splitting the atom,' Rutherford was the first to artificially transmute one element into another--unleashing the incredible power of the atom which would eventually be harnessed for both beneficial and destructive purposes.

Taken together, the work of Becquerel, the Curies, Rutherford and others, made modern medical and scientific research more than a dream. They made it a reality with many applications. A look at the use of isotopes reveals just some of the ways in which the pioneering work of these scientists has been utilized.

5. Applications: Isotopes in Research and Medicine

Scientists can now create radioactive forms of common elements, called isotopes. Each isotope has a fixed rate of decay which can be characterized by its half-life, or the length of time that it takes half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay. Because each isotope decays at a unique and predictable rate, different isotopes can be used for a variety of purposes. For example, isotopes play an important role in modern medicine. They can be ingested and traced in their path through the body, revealing biochemical and metabolic processes with precision. These isotropic 'tracers' are currently used for practical diagnosis of disease as well as in research.

The dating of radioactive carbon has helped to define the history of life on this planet. Any living organism takes in both radioactive and non-radioactive carbon, either through the process of photosynthesis or by eating plants or eating animals that have eaten plants. When the animal dies, however, uptake of carbon stops. As a result, radioactive carbon atoms are not replaced as they decay, and the amount of this material decreases over time. The rate of decrease is predictable and can be described with accuracy, vastly increasing our ability to date the biological events of our planet.

6. Conclusion: The Contradictions of Radioactivity

Radiation is a two edged sword: its usefulness in both medicine and anthropological and archaeological studies is undisputed, yet the same materials can be used for destruction. Human curiosity drove inquiring scientists to harness the power of the atom. Now humankind must accept the responsibility for the appropriate and beneficial uses of this very powerful tool.

Source 7. Pony Express

During the winter of 1859-1860, W. H. Russell, of the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell, completed plans for the two- thousand-mile Pony Express Route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California.

Because of its effort to speedily deliver mail over great distances, the Pony Express has gained a glamorous and romantic history, though it operated less than a year and a half (April 1860 - October 1861).

Pony Express riders carried mail in relays. Each rider rode about thirty-three miles, changing horses twice, about every eleven (10 to 15) miles, after leaving his home station. The entire one-way trip required ten days.

More than 125 miles of the eastern end of the Pony Express Route was in Kansas. The twice-a-week deliveries each way found the riders on this section carrying the mail at an average speed of ten miles an hour. The Kansas section of the route had 11 stations.

Source 7-1. About Ants

There are thousands of species of ants found all over the world and in just about every type of land environment. Many species are found in rain forests. The science of studying ants is called myrmecology.

These common social insects live in colonies (groups of related ants). Each colony consists of:

A queen - She has already mated with a male ant, and spends her life laying eggs. She begins           her life with wings, which she uses only once, while mating.

Workers - Many sterile (non-reproducing), wingless female worker ants who are the daughters of          the queen. These workers collect food and feed members of the colony, defend the colony,          and enlarge the nest. Most of the ants in a colony are workers.

Soldiers - large workers (sterile females) who defend the colony and often raid other colonies,             capturing slaves.

Males - They have wings, and fly from the colony to mate with a queen. They die soon                 afterwards.

Ants exhibit complex behavior; some ants build intricate nests, some are fierce warriors, some collect and store seeds (harvester ants), some capture slaves, and some farm fungi (leaf-cutter ants).

Anatomy: Ants, like all insects, have jointed legs, three body parts (the head, thorax and abdomen), a pair of antennae, and a hard exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is made up of a material that is very similar to our fingernails. Ants range in color from yellow to brown to red to black.

Some ants have a stinger and some can even inject poisonous acid from the stinger (the stinger is at the tip of the abdomen, the rear body segment). Ants can also bite using their jaws (mandibles), but they can only swallow liquids. Ants range in size from about 0.08 inch (2 mm) to up to about 1 inch (25 mm) long.

Life Cycle: The life cycle of the ant has four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Fertilized eggs produce female ants (queens, workers, or soldiers); unfertilized eggs produce male ants. The worm-like larvae have no eyes and no legs, but can eat solid food. The larvae molt (shed their skin) many times as they grows. After reaching a certain size, they spin a silk-like cocoon and pupate (in which their body changes into its adult form). It later emerges as an adult. The entire life cycle usually lasts from 6 to 10 weeks, but some queens can live up to 15 years, and some workers can live for 7 years.

Classification: Class Insects (insects), Order Hymenoptera (ants and wasps - insects with a waist), Family Formicidae (over 8,000 species of ants).

Source 7-2 Leaf-cutter ants (Umbrella ants)

With their scissor-like jaws, leaf-cutter ants carve out crescent-shaped pieces of leaves, which they then carry back to their underground nests. The leaf bits are carried above their heads like green umbrellas, giving them the nickname parasol ants.?There are fourteen different species of leaf-cutter ants in the Amazon.

The ants will select only certain trees, or cut only young leaves or old leaves, or green fruits; sometimes they cut only flowers. Their choice may be related to the presence of toxic chemicals in the leaves. Many tropical plants have evolved such poisonous or distasteful chemicals as an adaptation to protect themselves from leaf-eating organisms.

 The ants do not feed on the leaves directly; instead, the crushed leaves are used to grow a special fungus in certain of the underground chambers, which is then eaten by the ants. Some biologists believe that leaf-cutting ants are the Amazon's major herbivores, damaging more leaves than any other leaf-eater. Ants and termites as a collective group make up about 30% of the animal biomass in a tropical rain forest.

Ants are social insects, and leaf-cutter ants have one of the most complex social organizations. They are organized by a division of labor. The queen lays the eggs, so the growth of the colony is dependent on her. The workers are the labor force, with specific tasks according to size and age. The very small ants take care of the fungus. The bigger ones that are strong enough cut the leaves. And then there are the soldiers. They cut only the very tough leaves, but mostly they're involved in mass defense. If an enemy invades their nest, thousands of soldiers go outside the nest to defend the colony. Many of them die, but the nest is saved.

Source 9. About Jupiter

   Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest. Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined (318 times Earth).

        orbit:    778,330,000 km (5.20 AU) from Sun

        diameter: 142,984 km (equatorial)

        mass:     1.900e27 kg

   Jupiter (a.k.a. Jove; Greek Zeus) was the King of the Gods, the ruler of Olympus and the patron of the Roman state. Zeus was the son of Cronus (Saturn).

   Jupiter is the fourth brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon and Venus; at some times Mars is also brighter). It has been known since prehistoric times. Galileo's discovery, in 1610, of Jupiter's four large moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto (now known as the Galilean moons) was the first discovery of a center of motion not apparently centered on the Earth. It was a major point in favor of Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the motions of the planets; Galileo's outspoken support of the Copernican theory got him in trouble with the Inquisition.

   Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973 and later by Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Ulysses. The spacecraft Galileo is currently in orbit around Jupiter and will be sending back data for at least the next two years.

   The gas planets do not have solid surfaces, their gaseous material simply gets denser with depth (the radii and diameters quoted for the planets are for levels corresponding to a pressure of 1 atmosphere). What we see when looking at these planets is the tops of clouds high in their atmospheres (slightly above the 1 atmosphere level).

   Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium (by numbers of atoms, 75/25% by mass) with traces of methane, water, ammonia and 'rock'. This is very close to the composition of the primordial Solar Nebula from which the entire solar system was formed. Saturn has a similar composition, but Uranus and Neptune have much less hydrogen and helium.

   Our knowledge of the interior of Jupiter (and the other gas planets) is highly indirect and likely to remain so for some time. (The data from Galileo's atmospheric probe goes down only about 150 km below the cloud tops.)

   Jupiter probably has a core of rocky material amounting to something like 10 to 15 Earth-masses.

   Above the core lies the main bulk of the planet in the form of liquid metallic hydrogen. This exotic form of the most common of elements is possible only at pressures exceeding 4 million bars, as is the case in the interior of Jupiter (and Saturn). Liquid metallic hydrogen consists of ionized protons and electrons (like the interior of the Sun but at a far lower temperature). At the temperature and pressure of Jupiter's interior hydrogen is a liquid, not a gas. It is an electrical conductor and the source of Jupiter's magnetic field. This layer probably also contains some helium and traces of various 'ices'.

   The outermost layer is composed primarily of ordinary molecular hydrogen and helium which is liquid in the interior and gaseous further out. The atmosphere we see is just the very top of this deep layer. Water, carbon dioxide, methane and other simple molecules are also present in tiny amounts.

   Recent experiments have shown that hydrogen does not change phase suddenly. Therefore the interiors of the jovian planets probably have indistinct boundaries between their various interior layers.

    Three distinct layers of clouds are believed to exist consisting of ammonia ice, ammonium hydrosulfide and a mixture of ice and water. However, the preliminary results from the Galileo probe show only faint indications of clouds (one instrument seems to have detected the topmost layer while another may have seen the second). But the probe's entry point (left) was unusual -- Earth-based telescopic observations and more recent observations by the Galileo orbiter suggest that the probe entry site may well have been one of the warmest and least cloudy areas on Jupiter at that time.

   Data from the Galileo atmospheric probe also indicate that there is much less water than expected. The expectation was that Jupiter's atmosphere would contain about twice the amount of oxygen (combined with the abundant hydrogen to make water) as the Sun. But it now appears that the actual concentration much less than the Sun's. Also surprising was the high temperature and density of the uppermost parts of the atmosphere.

    Jupiter and the other gas planets have high velocity winds which are confined in wide bands of latitude. The winds blow in opposite directions in adjacent bands. Slight chemical and temperature differences between these bands are responsible for the colored bands that dominate the planet's appearance. The light colored bands are called zones; the dark ones belts. The bands have been known for some time on Jupiter, but the complex vortices in the boundary regions between the bands were first seen by Voyager. The data from the Galileo probe indicate that the winds are even faster than expected (more than 400 mph) and extend down into as far as the probe was able to observe; they may extend down thousands of kilometers into the interior. Jupiter's atmosphere was also found to be quite turbulent. This indicates that Jupiter's winds are driven in large part by its internal heat rather than from solar input as on Earth.

   The vivid colors seen in Jupiter's clouds are probably the result of subtle chemical reactions of the trace elements in Jupiter's atmosphere, perhaps involving sulfur whose compounds take on a wide variety of colors, but the details are unknown.

   The colors correlate with the cloud's altitude: blue lowest, followed by browns and whites, with reds highest. Sometimes we see the lower layers through holes in the upper ones.

    The Great Red Spot (GRS) has been seen by Earthly observers for more than 300 years (its discovery is usually attributed to Cassini, or Robert Hooke in the 17th century). The GRS is an oval about 12,000 by 25,000 km, big enough to hold two Earths. Other smaller but similar spots have been known for decades. Infrared observations and the direction of its rotation indicate that the GRS is a high-pressure region whose cloud tops are significantly higher and colder than the surrounding regions. Similar structures have been seen on Saturn and Neptune. It is not known how such structures can persist for so long.

   Jupiter radiates more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. The interior of Jupiter is hot: the core is probably about 20,000 K. The heat is generated by the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism, the slow gravitational compression of the planet. (Jupiter does NOT produce energy by nuclear fusion as in the Sun; it is much too small and hence its interior is too cool to ignite nuclear reactions.) This interior heat probably causes convection deep within Jupiter's liquid layers and is probably responsible for the complex motions we see in the cloud tops. Saturn and Neptune are similar to Jupiter in this respect, but oddly, Uranus is not.

   Jupiter is just about as large in diameter as a gas planet can be. If more material were to be added, it would be compressed by gravity such that the overall radius would increase only slightly. A star can be larger only because of its internal (nuclear) heat source. (But Jupiter would have to be at least 80 times more massive to become a star.)

   Jupiter has a huge magnetic field, much stronger than Earth's. Its magnetosphere extends more than 650 million km (past the orbit of Saturn!). (Note that Jupiter's magnetosphere is far from spherical -- it extends 'only' a few million kilometers in the direction toward the Sun.) Jupiter's moons therefore lie within its magnetosphere, a fact which may partially explain some of the activity on Io. Unfortunately for future space travelers and of real concern to the designers of the Voyager and Galileo spacecraft, the environment near Jupiter contains high levels of energetic particles trapped by Jupiter's magnetic field. This 'radiation' is similar to, but much more intense than, that found within Earth's Van Allen belts. It would be immediately fatal to an unprotected human being.

    The Galileo atmospheric probe discovered a new intense radiation belt between Jupiter's ring and the uppermost atmospheric layers. This new belt is approximately 10 times as strong as Earth's Van Allen radiation belts. Surprisingly, this new belt was also found to contain high energy helium ions of unknown origin.

    Jupiter has rings like Saturn's, but much fainter and smaller (right). They were totally unexpected and were only discovered when two of the Voyager 1 scientists insisted that after traveling 1 billion km it was at least worth a quick look to see if any rings might be present. Everyone else thought that the chance of finding anything was nil, but there they were. It was a major coup. They have since been imaged in the infra-red from ground-based telescopes and by Galileo.

   Unlike Saturn's, Jupiter's rings are dark (albedo about .05). They're probably composed of very small grains of rocky material. Unlike Saturn's rings, they seem to contain no ice.

   Particles in Jupiter's rings probably don't stay there for long (due to atmospheric and magnetic drag). The Galileo spacecraft found clear evidence that the rings are continuously resupplied by dust formed by micrometeor impacts on the four inner moons, which are very energetic because of Jupiter's large gravitational field. The inner halo ring is broadened by interactions with Jupiter's magnetic field.

    In July 1994, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter with spectacular results (left). The effects were clearly visible even with amateur telescopes. The debris from the collision was visible for nearly a year afterward with HST.

    When it is in the nighttime sky, Jupiter is often the brightest 'star' in the sky (it is second only to Venus, which is seldom visible in a dark sky). The four Galilean moons are easily visible with binoculars; a few bands and the Great Red Spot can be seen with a small astronomical telescope. There are several Web sites that show the current position of Jupiter (and the other planets) in the sky. More detailed and customized charts can be created with a planetarium program such as Starry Night.

<Jupiter's Satellites>

 Jupiter has 16 known satellites, the four large Galilean moons and 12 small ones plus one more small one discovered recently but not yet confirmed.

Jupiter is very gradually slowing down due to the tidal drag produced by the Galilean satellites. Also, the same tidal forces are changing the orbits of the moons, very slowly forcing them farther from Jupiter.

Io, Europa and Ganymede are locked together by tidal forces into a 1:2:4 orbital resonance and their orbits evolve together. Callisto is almost part of this as well. In a few hundred million years, Callisto will be locked in too, orbiting at exactly twice the period of Ganymede and eight times the period of Io.

Jupiter's satellites are named for other figures in the life of Zeus (mostly his lovers).

Many more small moons have been discovered recently but have not as yet been officially confirmed or named.

Source 10.  New York's first subway

 Most major cities around the world have been faced at some time in history with the question of what to do with all of the traffic in the streets.  Mass transportation, including those smelly busses and graffiti-covered trains, has been a somewhat viable twentieth century solution. 

But what happened when cities were faced with this problem during the last century? 

Imagine what it must have been like in a city in the mid-1800's.  Millions of people with no practical means of mass transportation.  Remember, engine powered vehicles practical for city use had not been invented yet.  Just tons of horse drawn carriages creating one stinky mess in the city streets.  Hold your nose! 

Such a big transportation problem existed in New York City and, to no one's surprise, there was no practical solution. 

Enter one Alfred Ely Beach.  Don't worry if you don't know who this guy is - most people don't. 

What you do need to know is that in 1846 Alfred purchased a newly launched publication called The Scientific American with a friend named Orsun D. Munn. He quickly became its editor and turned it into the great magazine that we know today (although they seem to have dropped the 'The' from their name). 

You're probably wondering where he got the cash from to purchase this great magazine.  Since you just had to know, I will tell you. 

Beach got his start working for the New York Sun, this city's first penny daily newspaper.  It would be nice to say that he had to work his way up through the ranks, but he didn't.  You see, his father owned the paper.  By 1848, management was turned over to Alfred and his brother Moses. 

So here we have young Alfred in charge of both a great scientific magazine and a leading newspaper.  Day after day he glances out the window of his lofty Sun office to the congested city streets below.  Just horse-and-buggy gridlock (better watch where you step!).  Surely, he wonders, there must be a solution to this bad problem.  He actually had two solutions. 

The first was to build elevated roads and place the extra traffic above.  Very costly and not very practical. 

The second possibility was to go underground.  In 1849 he proposed to tunnel the entire length of Broadway and put down a double track.  But this was not a track for trains - it was for horses.  One track for each direction.  Horses pulling cars behind them would stop at every corner for ten seconds and then move on down the track.  But such a far fetched scheme was not to happen.  At least not yet. 

Beach moved on to bigger and better things. 

You see, Beach and Munn had also opened a patent agency in 1846 called Munn & Co. (Al was one busy guy).  This was no small time operation.  Many important inventions walked through their doors.  Some guy named Thomas Edison demonstrated his new-fangled contraption called a phonograph for the first time ever to Beach.  Other important inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and Samuel Morse sought out the company's assistance.  Between 1850 and 1860, Beach commuted from New York to Washington every two weeks to look over his clients' affairs. 

Oh, yeah.  As if Beach wasn't busy enough, he invented some of his own things, also.  In 1856 he won First Prize and a gold medal at New York's Crystal Palace Exhibition.  Beach had invented a typewriter for the blind that moved the paper carriage along with every keystroke.  Yes, he invented the mechanism for the standard typewriter. 

During the same period, Beach turned total control of The Sun over to his brother and in 1853 started a new publication called the People's Journal. 

Busy guy. 

But Beach never lost sight of the traffic problem that faced the city.  The population of New York City was growing and growing.  More people meant crowded streets, unsanitary conditions, and more horses racing up and down the city's streets (actually they spent most of their time standing still in traffic). 

In March of 1864 a man named Hugh B. Wilson offered a solution to the traffic problem.  Wilson was a Michigan railroad man and financier and had attended the opening of the London subway in January of 1863.  What was good for London must be good for New York.    Unfortunately, the proposed bill was defeated.  Why? Very simple - the city's mayor, Boss Tweed,  received a kickback on every fare in the city.  Allowing a subway to be built would cause a loss of revenue.  Tweed controlled the governor and this bill was dead in the water before it was ever proposed. 

Even if the bill had passed, the idea would never have been a success. The London steam locomotives burned coke and stored the exhaust in special tanks mounted below the boilers.  Unfortunately, they didn't work properly.  The passengers were forced to store the smoke in their lungs, if you know what I mean.  More than one person died from this exhaust. 

In other words, locomotives were out.  Electric motors had not been perfected yet and subways seemed to be an impossibility. 

But wait!  We forgot about Alfred Beach! 

Beach still had his mind set on doing something about that awful traffic congestion. 

Through his various contacts, Beach had learned of a pneumatic mail tube that had been successfully built in London in 1866.  You've probably seen small versions of these devices at your bank's drive-thru teller.  You put your transaction into a little container, close the hatch, and air pressure sends it on its way into the bank building. 

The British tube was four and a half feet high and two miles in length.  Its sole purpose was to quickly move mail and packages from one place to another.  Humans, however, tend to do idiotic things.  Scrunching down and going for a ride on one of the mail carriers happened to be one of them. 

Beach quickly realized that if the concept was enlarged to carry packages of humans, all of the city's transit problems would be gone.  He was convinced that pneumatic transit was the solution and decided to give it a shot. 

In 1867, Beach unveiled his idea to the world at the American Institute Fair being held at the Fourteenth Street Armory in New York.  His model consisted of a tube six feet in diameter.  The walls of the tube were one and one-half inches thick, made of fifteen layers of wood laminated together.  The tube was suspended from the roof of the building and ran 107 feet from Fourteenth to Fifteenth Street.  The car, which ran on wheels and was confined to a track, was moved back and forth by a ten foot diameter fan.  The ten passenger car was kept in constant motion and was a smash hit.  More than 170,000 people took a ride on this model before the close of the exhibition.  To no one's surprise, Beach took home the Gold Medal for his invention. 

Translating this successful prototype into a successful model would not be easy.  Tunnel drilling equipment just didn't exist at the time and Boss Tweed still controlled the political scene. 

Beach knew that in order to build his proposed subway he would need to obtain a franchise.  But to do so would probably mean funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into Tweed's pockets. 

Building the subway in secret was the only solution.  Beach formed a company called the Pneumatic Dispatch Company and proposed to tunnel two tubes, each four and one-half feet in diameter and approximately one-half mile in length.  These tubes were intended to carry packages under Broadway between Warren and Cedar Streets.  Since the tubes would only carry mail, Tweed did not object and the project was easily approved.  In fact, Tweed had expected Beach to propose a pneumatic elevated train and was very happy to see Beach's focus diverted. The charter was issued to Beach. 

Then Beach pulled a fast one over the political machine's eyes.  Beach went back to the legislature and requested an amendment to the legislation.  Beach wanted one large tube built to simplify the the construction and save money.  This very minor change easily passed. 

I bet you can now see where this story is going. 

Beach wasted no time and did everything possible to keep his project a secret.  His first move was to rent the basement of Devlin's Clothing Store which was located at the corner of Broadway and Warren Street. 

To cut the tunnel, Beach invented a hydraulic shield that could gouge out sixteen inches of earth with each advance.  Six people operated the machine: two to work the hydraulic rams, two to carry out the earth, and two to put in the tunnel's brickwork. 

All work on the tunnel was done at night. 

Why nights? 

Very simple.  Trying to build a secret tunnel in the middle of a major city was virtually impossible during the day.  All the work on the tunnel was done at night in an effort to minimize public attention.  Bags of soil were also smuggled out and taken away on covered wagons with muffled wheels. 

The tunnel was drilled at approximately twenty one feet below street level.  The entire 312 foot tube was dug out in just fifty-eight nights.  The soil proved to be fairly soft.  The only obstacle encountered was the foundation of an old fort, but the shield was able to go through it without any problem. 

Then, when the subway was nearly complete, a reporter disguised as a workman gained access to the tunnel.  As a result, The New York Herald revealed Beach's secret to the world.  The newspaper's description was fairly accurate and critically attacked the feasibility of such a project. 

Beach counteracted.  He opened his tunnel for all to see on February 28, 1870.  He charged twenty five cents admission and people were shocked to see what was hidden in the ground below. 

Upon entering the rented store at street level, visitors descended down a flight of stairs to Beach's masterpiece.  He spared no expense (Beach knew that he had to use this tunnel to impress even the harshest of critics). 

The subway waiting room was 120 feet long and 14 feet wide. It was brightly lit with zircon lamps.  There was a cascading fountain filled with goldfish that helped to muffle the sound of the street traffic above.  Frescoes, fancy chandeliers, and blind windows (with damask curtains) lined the walls.  Lets not forget the grandfather clock and the grand piano. 

This was clearly not your typical subway (Today everything would be stolen or vandalized within the first twenty-four hours). 

One then would further descend six steps down to the train platform where the tunnel came into view.  There it was, engraved in the tunnel's header, 'PNEUMATIC (1870) SUBWAY'.  On either side of the tunnel entrance were two bronze statues of Mercury holding a cluster of red, green, and blue gaslights. Mercury was an appropriate choice, as he was the messenger of the gods, the symbol of the great speed of the winds. 

The subway car was equally lavish.  It was very brightly lit by gaslights and furnished with cushioned seats that could accommodate twenty-two passengers at a time. 

When the doors to the car closed, the giant fan (called the western Tornado) kicked into action.  With just the sound of the wind, the car would move out of the station at six miles per hour, although it was capable of going much faster. 

Oh, I almost forgot.  So that Beach would not break his charter, there was a 1,000 foot 8 inch diameter mail dispatch tube incorporated into the tunnel.  It carried packages at about 60 miles per hour from a drop box hidden in a hollow lamppost on the street above. 

The cost of the tunnel project was about $350,000, including approximately $70,000 of Beach's own money. 

The pneumatic subway was an instant smash.  Very quickly, the New York Herald changed its opinion and now called for the building of a pneumatic subway that went to every corner of the city. 

Obviously, this never happened. 

Why? 

Very simple.  Boss Tweed stood in the way.  A bill to extend Beach's subway five miles to Central Park passed both houses of the legislature by a wide margin.  But good old Boss Tweed ordered then Governor Hoffman to veto the proposal. 

Beach tried again in 1873 when Tweed and his chronies were toppled from power.  This time there was a new governor, John A. Dix, and the bill was signed into law. 

But luck was not on Beach's side.  Just a few weeks after the bill was passed, the financial panic of 1873 set in.  People had bigger concerns than worrying about building a subway. 

Yes, the pneumatic subway was dead and buried. 

Beach allowed the subway tunnel to be used as a shooting gallery and later as a wine cellar, but he never was able to clear a profit.  Giving up, the tunnel was sealed and forgotten. 

Beach died in 1896 without ever seeing a subway built in New York City. 

Of course, one was eventually built.  In February of 1912, when the Degnon Contracting Company was constructing part of the new Broadway subway tunnel, they cut right into Beach's old pneumatic tube.  The construction workers actually knew that the subway was there, so it was no great surprise when they found it. 

However, they were shocked to see how intact the entire pneumatic subway was.  The tunnel and its accompanying station were in great shape.  The car still sat on the tracks, although most of its wood components had rotted away.  The hydraulic shield still sat there waiting to complete Beach's dream. 

Today, a discovery of this type would be preserved.  Unfortunately, this did not happen in 1912.  The old subway tunnel was excavated and made part of the new BMT City Hall subway station.  No one knows for sure, but it is believed that the subway station itself is still intact and buried somewhere under the city's streets. 

In 1940 a bronze plaque to commemorate Beach and his creation was erected in the subway station.  Don't try to find it today - it disappeared from the walls of the station years ago (and probably has been replaced by graffiti). 

Beach is another one of those great thinkers that history has forgotten.  This seems to be the typical honor of those that are ahead of their time. 

<Now I, as Mayor, in the name of the people, declare the subway open!>

   New York Mayor George B. McClellan

With these words, New York Mayor George B. McClellan closed a morning of oratory at City Hall in honor of the opening of the New York City Subway System. At precisely 2:35P.M on Thursday, October 27, 1904, the first subway train emerged from City Hall station with Mayor McClellan at the controls.

      <interior NY subway>

Twenty-six minutes later, the inaugural express arrived at its destination at 145th Street. The system opened to the general public at 7 P.M Before the evening was out, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company had tunneled some 150,000 passengers around the city.

An underground transportation system for New York City had been proposed as early as 1868. Even then, navigating city streets clogged with pedestrians, horses, wagons and carriages proved dangerous and frustrating. Between 1870 and 1900 many private companies attempted to take on the project, but each time, legal, political, and financial obstacles proved insurmountable. While completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 and the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 eased traffic moving into Manhattan, congestion within the city remained a problem.

In the fall of 1894, New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly for municipal ownership of the subway system, clearing some of the legal and political hurdles. However, funding and organizing such a tremendous construction project continued to pose a challenge. Finally, financier August Belmont organized the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Company, and, in March 1900, ground-breaking ceremonies were held at Borough Hall in Manhattan.

Source 11. About Socrates

   History. The growing power of Athens had frightened other Greek states for years before the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431. During the war, Pericles died in the plague of Athens (429); fortunes of war varied until a truce was made in 421, but this was never very stable and in 415 Athens was persuaded by Alcibiades, a pupil of the Athenian teacher, Socrates, to send a huge force to Sicily in an attempt to take over some of the cities there. This expedition was destroyed in 413. Nevertheless Athens continued the war. In 411 an oligarchy ('rule by a few') was instituted in Athens in an attempt to secure financial support from Persia, but this did not work out and the democracy was soon restored. In 405 the last Athenian fleet was destroyed in the battle of Aegospotami by a Spartan commander, and the city was besieged and forced to surrender in 404. Sparta set up an oligarchy of Athenian nobles (among them Critias, a former associate of Socrates and a relative of Plato), which because of its brutality became known as the Thirty Tyrants. By 403 democracy was once again restored. Socrates was brought to trial and executed in 399. 

    Socrates (469-399), despite his foundational place in the history of ideas, actually wrote nothing. Most of our knowledge of him comes from the works of Plato (427-347), and since Plato had other concerns in mind than simple historical accuracy it is usually impossible to determine how much of his thinking actually derives from Socrates.

   The most accurate of Plato's writings on Socrates is probably the The Apology. It is Plato's account of Socrates's defense at his trial in 399 BC (the word 'apology' comes from the Greek word for 'defense-speech' and does not mean what we would think of as an apology). It is clear, however, that Plato dressed up Socrates's speech to turn it into a justification for Socrates's life and his death. In it, Plato outlines some of Socrates's most famous philosophical ideas: the necessity of doing what one thinks is right even in the            face of universal  opposition, and the need to pursue knowledge even when opposed. 

   Socrates wrote nothing because he felt that knowledge was a living, interactive thing. Socrates' method of philosophical inquiry consisted in questioning people on the positions they asserted and working them through questions into a contradiction, thus proving to them that their original assertion was wrong. Socrates himself never takes a position; in The Apology he radically and skeptically claims to know nothing at all except that he knows nothing. Socrates and Plato refer to this method of questioning as elenchus , which means something like 'cross-examination' The Socratic elenchus eventually gave rise to dialectic, the idea that truth needs to be pursued by modifying one's position through questioning and conflict with opposing ideas. It is this idea of the truth being pursued, rather than discovered, that characterizes Socratic thought and much of our world view today. The Western notion of dialectic is somewhat Socratic in nature in that it is conceived of as an ongoing process. Although Socrates in The Apology claims to have discovered no other truth than that he knows no truth, the Socrates of Plato's other earlier dialogues is of the opinion that truth is somehow attainable through this process of elenchus .

    The Athenians, with the exception of Plato, thought of Socrates as a Sophist, a designation he seems to have bitterly resented. He was, however, very similar in thought to the Sophists. Like the Sophists, he was unconcerned with physical or metaphysical questions; the issue of primary importance was ethics, living a good life. He appeared to be a sophist because he seems to tear down every ethical position he's confronted with; he never offers alternatives after he's torn down other people's ideas. 

   He doesn't seem to be a radical skeptic, though. Scholars generally believe that the Socratic p aradox is actually Socratic rather than an invention of Plato. The one positive statement that Socrates seems to have made is a definition of virtue (arete): 'virtue is knowledge.' If one knows the good, one will always do the good. It follows, then, that anyone who does anything wrong doesn't really know what the good is. This, for Socrates, justifies tearing down people's moral positions, for if they have the wrong ideas about virtue, morality, love, or any other ethical idea, they can't be trusted to do the right thing. 

Source 12. History of Alchemy

 <The Alchemists>

To most of us, the word 'alchemy' calls up the picture of a medieval and slightly sinister laboratory in which an aged, black-robed wizard broods over the crucibles and alembics that are to bring within his reach the Philosopher's Stone, and with that discovery, the formula for the Elixir of life and the transmutation of metals. But one can scarcely dismiss so lightly the science -- or art, if you will --that won to its service the lifelong devotion of men of culture and attainment from every race and clime over a period of thousands of years, for the beginnings of alchemy are hidden in the mists of time. Such a science is something far more than an outlet for a few eccentric old men in their dotage.

What was the motive behind their constant strivings, their never-failing patience in the unravelling of the mysteries, the tenacity of purpose in the face of persecution and ridicule through the countless ages that led the alchemists to pursue undaunted their appointed way? Something far greater, surely, than a mere vainglorious desire to transmute the base metals into gold, or to brew a potion to prolong a little longer this earthly span, for the devotees of alchemy in the main cared little for such things.

The accounts of their lives almost without exception lead us to believe that they were concerned with things spiritual rather than with things temporal. They were men inspired by a vision, a vision of man made perfect, of man freed from disease and the limitations of warring faculties both mental and physical, standing godlike in the realization of a power that even at this very moment of time lies hidden in the deeper strata of consciousness, a vision of man made truly in the image and likeness of the One Divine Mind in its Perfection, Beauty, and Harmony.

To appreciate and understand the adepts' visions, it is necessary to trace the history of their philosophy. So let us for step back into the past to catch a glimpse of these men, of their work and ideals, and more important still, of the possibilities that their life-work might bring to those who today are seeking for fuller knowledge and wider horizons.

<Chinese Alchemy>

References about alchemy are to be found in the myths and legends of ancient China. From a book written by Edward Chalmers Werner, a late member of the Chinese Government's Historiological Bureau in Peking comes this quotation from old Chinese records: 'Chang Tao-Ling, the first Taoist pope, was born in A.D. 35 in the reign of the Emperor Kuang Wu Ti of the Hari dynasty. His birthplace is variously given as T'ien-mu Shan, Lin-an-Hsien in Chekiang, Feng-yang Fu in Anhui, and even in the 'Eye of Heaven Mountain.' He devoted himself wholly to study and meditation, declining all offers to enter the service of the state. He preferred to take up his abode in the mountains of Western China where he persevered in the study of alchemy and in cultivating the virtues of purity and mental abstraction. From the hands of the alchemist Lao Tzu, he received supernaturally a mystical treatise, by following the instructions in which he was successful in his match for the Elixir of Life.' This reference demonstrates that alchemy was studied in China before the commencement of the Christian era and its origin must lie even further back in Chinese history.

<Egyptian Alchemy>

From China we now travel to Egypt, from where alchemy as it is known in the West seems to have sprung. The great Egyptian adept king, named by the Greeks 'Hermes Trismegistus' is thought to have been the founder of the art. Reputed to have lived about 1900 B.C., he was highly celebrated for his wisdom and skill in the operation of nature, but of the works attributed to him only a few fragments escaped the destroying hand of the Emperor Diocletian in the third century A.D. The main surviving documents attributed to him are the Emerald Tablet, the Asclepian Dialogues, and the Divine Pymander. If we may judge from these fragments (both preserved in the Latin by Fianus and translated into other languages in the sixteenth century), it would seem to be of inestimable loss to the world that none of these works have survived in their entirety.

The famous Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina) of Hermes is the primary document of alchemy. There have been various stories of the origin of the tract, one being that the original emerald slab upon which the precepts were said to be inscribed in Phoenician characters was discovered in the tomb of Hermes by Alexander the Great. In the Berne edition (1545) of the Summa Perfectionis, the Latin version is printed under the heading: 'The Emerald Tables of Hermes the Thrice Great Concerning Chymistry, Translator unknown. The words of the secrets of Hermes, which were written on the Tablet of Emerald found between his hands in a dark cave wherein his body was discovered buried.'

<Arabian Alchemy>

An Arabic version of the text was discovered in a work ascribed to Jabir (Geber), which was probably made about the ninth century. In any case, it must be one of the oldest alchemical fragments known, and that it is a piece of Hermetic teaching I have no doubt, as it corresponds to teachings of the Thrice-Greatest Hermes as they have been passed down to us in esoteric circles. The tablet teaches the unity of matter and the basic truth that all form is a manifestation from one root, the One Thing or Ether. This tablet, in conjunction with the works of the Corpus Hermeticum are well worth reading, particularly in the light of the general alchemical symbolism. Unhappily, the Emerald Tablet is all that remains to us of the genuine Egyptian sacred art of alchemy.

The third century A.D. seems to have been a period when alchemy was widely practiced, but it was also during this century, in the year 296, that Diocletian sought out and burnt all the Egyptian books on alchemy and the other Hermetic sciences, and in so doing destroyed all evidence of any progress made up to that date. In the fourth century, Zosimus the Panopolite wrote his treatise on The Divine Art of Making Gold and Silver, and in the fifth Morienus, a hermit of Rome, left his native city and set out to seek the sage Adfar, a solitary adept whose fame had reached him from Alexandria. Morienus found him, and after gaining his confidence became his disciple. After the death of his patron, Morienus came into touch with King Calid, and a very attractive work purporting to be a dialogue between himself and the king is still extant under the name of Morienus. In this century, Cedrennus also appeared, a magician who professed alchemy.

The next name of note, that of Geber, occurs in or about 750 A.D. Geber's real name was Abou Moussah Djfar-Al Sell, or simply 'The Wise One.' Born at Houran in Mesopotamia, he is generally esteemed by adepts as the greatest of them all after Hermes. Of the five hundred treatises said to have been composed by him, only three remain to posterity: The Sum of the Perfect Magistery, The Investigation of Perfection, and his Testament. It is to him, too, that we are indebted for the first mention of such important compounds as corrosive sublimate, red oxide of mercury, and nitrate of silver. Skillfully indeed did Geber veil his discoveries, for from his mysterious style of writing we derive the word 'gibberish,' but those who have really understood Geber, his adept peers, declare with one accord that he has declared the truth, albeit disguised, with great acuteness and precision.

About the same time, Rhasis, another Arabian alchemist, became famous for his practical displays in the art of transmutation of base metals into gold. In the tenth century, Alfarabi enjoyed the reputation of being the most learned man of his age, and still another great alchemist of that century was Avicenna, whose real name was Ebu Cinna. Born at Bokara in 980 A.D., he was the last of the Egyptian alchemical philosophers of note.

<European Alchemy>

About the period of the first Crusades, alchemy shifted its center to Spain, where it had been introduced by the Arabian Moors. In the twelfth Century Artephius wrote The Art of Prolonging Human Life and is reported to have lived throughout a period of one thousand years. He himself affirmed this:

'I, Artephius, having learnt all the art in the book of Hermes, was once as others, envious, but having now lived one thousand years or thereabouts (which thousand years have already passed over me since my nativity, by the grace of God alone and the use of this admirable Quintessence), as I have seen, through this long space of time, that men have been unable to perfect the same magistry on account of the obscurity of the words of the philosophers, moved by pity and good conscience, I have resolved, in these my last days, to publish in all sincerity and truly, so that men may have nothing more to desire concerning this work. I except one thing only, which is not lawful that I should write, because it can be revealed truly only by God or by a master. Nevertheless, this likewise may be learned from this book, provided one be not stiff-necked and have a little experience.'

Of the thirteenth-century literature, a work called Tesero was attributed to Alphonso, the King of Castile, in 1272. William de Loris wrote Le Roman de Rose in 1282, assisted by Jean de Meung, who also wrote The Remonstrance of Nature to the Wandering Alchemist and The Reply of the Alchemist to Nature. Peter d'Apona, born near Padua in 1250, wrote several books on Hermetic sciences and was accused by the Inquisition of possessing seven spirits (each enclosed in a crystal vessel) who taught him the seven liberal arts and sciences. He died upon the rack.

Among other famous names appearing about this period is that of Arnold de Villeneuve or Villanova, whose most famous work is found in the Theatrum Chemicum. He studied medicine in Paris but was also a theologian and an alchemist. Like his friend, Peter d'Apona, he was accused of obtaining his knowledge from the devil and was charged by many different people with magical practices. Although he did not himself fall into the hands of the Inquisition, his books were condemned to be burnt in Tarragona by that body on account of their heretical content. Villanova's crime was that he maintained that works of faith and charity are more acceptable in the eyes of God than the Sacrificial Mass of the Church!

The authority of Albertus Magnus (1234-1314) is undoubtedly to be respected, since he renounced all material advantages to devote the greater part of a long life to the study of alchemical philosophy in the seclusion of a cloister. When Albertus died, his fame descended to his 'sainted pupil' Aquinas, who in his Thesaurus Alchimae, speaks openly of the successes of Albertus and himself in the art of transmutation.

Raymond Lully is one of the medieval alchemists about whose life there is so much conflicting evidence that it is practically certain that his name was used as a cover by at least one other adept either at the same or a later period. The enormous output of writings attributed to Lully (they total about 486 treatises on a variety of subjects ranging from grammar and rhetoric to medicine and theology) also seems to suggest that his name became a popular pseudonym. Lully was born in Majorca about the year 1235, and after a somewhat dissolute youth, he was induced, apparently by the tragic termination of an unsuccessful love affair, to turn his thoughts to religion. He became imbued with a burning desire to spread the Hermetic teachings among the followers of Mohammed, and to this end devoted years to the study of Mohammedan writings, the better to refute the Moslem teachings. He traveled widely, not only in Europe, but in Asia and Africa, where his religious zeal nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion. Lully is said to have become acquainted with Arnold de Villanova and the Universal Science somewhat late in life, when his study of alchemy and the discovery of the Philosophers' Stone increased his former fame as a zealous Christian.

According to one story, his reputation eventually reached John Cremer, Abbot of Westminster at the time. After working at alchemy for thirty years, Cremer had still failed to achieve his aim, the Philosopher's Stone. Cremer therefore sought out Lully in Italy, and having gained his confidence, persuaded him to come to England, where he introduced him to King Edward II. Lully, being a great champion of Christendom, agreed to transmute base metals into gold on the condition that Edward carry on the Crusades with the money. He was given a room in the Tower of London for his work, and it is estimated that he transmuted 50,000 pounds worth of gold. After a time, however, Edward became avaricious, and to compel Lully to carry on the work of transmutation, made him prisoner. However, with Cremer's aid, Lully was able to escape from the Tower and return to the Continent. Records state that he lived to be one hundred and fifty years of age and was eventually killed by the Saracens in Asia. At that age he is reputed to have been able to run and jump like a young man.

During the fourteenth century, the science of alchemy fell into grave disrepute, for the alchemists claim to transmute metals offered great possibilities to any rogue with sufficient plausibility and lack of scruple to exploit the credulity or greed of his fellowmen. In fact, there proved to be no lack either of charlatans or victims. Rich merchants and others greedy for gain were induced to entrust to the alleged alchemists gold, silver, and precious stones in the hope of getting them multiplied, and Acts of Parliament were passed in England and Pope's Bulls issued over Christendom to forbid the practice of alchemy on pain of death. (Although Pope John XXII is said to have practiced the art himself and to have enriched the Vatican treasury by this means.) Before long, even the most earnest alchemists were disbelieved. For example, there lived about this time the two Isaacs Hollandus (a father and son), who were Dutch adepts and wrote De Triplici Ordinari Exiliris et Lapidis Theoria and Mineralia Opera Sue de Lapide Philosophico. The details of their operations on metals are the most explicit that had ever been given, yet because of their very lucidity, their work was widely discounted.

⇒The roots of alchemy date back to ancient Egypt and a mysterious document called the Emerald Tablet

⇒Alchemy arrived in Spain during the Arabian occupation by the Moors and then spread into the rest of Europe.

⇒Coin minted from alchemical gold showing the symbol for lead raised to the heavens.

1. The Pythagoreans

The Basic Beliefs Of The Pythagoreans

The Pythagoreans attached themselves to certain mysteries. Obedience and silence, abstinence from food, simplicity in dress and possessions, and the habit of frequent self-examination were assigned. The Pythagoreans believed in immortality and in the mass movement of souls. Pythagoras himself was said to have claimed that he had been Euphorbus, a warrior in the Trojan War, and that he had been permitted to bring into his earthly life the memory of all his previous existences.

The Pythagoreans’ Theory of Numbers

Among the extensive mathematical investigations carried on by the Pythagoreans were their studies of odd and even numbers and of prime and square numbers. From where they stood in their arithmetical conclusions they cultivated the concept of number, which became for them the ultimate standard of all proportion, order, and harmony in the universe. Through these studies they established a scientific foundation for mathematics.

Pythagoras of Samos, c.560-c.480 BC, was a Greek philosopher and religious leader who was responsible for important developments in the history of mathematics, astronomy, and the theory of music. He migrated to Croton and founded a philosophical and religious school there that attracted many followers. Because no reliable contemporary records survive, and because the school practiced both secrecy and communalism, the contributions of Pythagoras himself and those of his followers cannot be distinguished. Pythagoreans believed that all relations could be reduced to number relations ('all things are numbers'). This generalization stemmed from certain observations in music, mathematics, and astronomy.

The Pythagoreans noticed that vibrating strings produce harmonious tones when the ratios of the lengths of the strings are whole numbers, and that these ratios could be extended to other instruments. They knew, as did the Egyptians before them, that any triangle whose sides were in the ratio 3:4:5 was a right-angled triangle. The so-called Pythagorean theorem, that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, may have been known in Babylonia, where Pythagoras traveled in his youth; the Pythagoreans, however, are usually credited with the first proof of this theorem.

In astronomy, the Pythagoreans were well aware of the periodic numerical relations of heavenly bodies. The CELESTIAL SPHERES of the planets were thought to produce a harmony called the music of the spheres. Pythagoreans believed that the earth itself was in motion. The most important discovery of this school--which upset Greek mathematics, as well as the Pythagoreans' own belief that whole numbers and their ratios could account for geometrical properties--was the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with its side. This result showed the existence of IRRATIONAL NUMBERS.

Whereas much of the Pythagorean doctrine that has survived consists of numerology and number mysticism, the influence of the idea that the world can be understood through mathematics was extremely important to the development of science and mathematics.

2. The Paleozoic

 The Paleozoic is bracketed by two of the most important events in the history of animal life. At its beginning, multicelled animals underwent a dramatic 'explosion' in diversity, and almost all living animal phyla appeared within a few millions of years. At the other end of the Paleozoic, the largest mass extinction in history wiped out approximately 90% of all marine animal species. The causes of both these events are still not fully understood and the subject of much research and controversy. Roughly halfway in between, animals, fungi, and plants alike colonized the land, the insects took to the air, and the limestone shown in this picture was deposited near Burlington, Missouri.

  The Paleozoic took up over half of the Phanerozoic, approximately 300 million years. During the Paleozoic there were six major continental land masses; each of these consisted of different parts of the modern continents. For instance, at the beginning of the Paleozoic, today's western coast of North America ran east-west along the equator, while Africa was at the South Pole. These Paleozoic continents experienced tremendous mountain building along their margins, and numerous incursions and retreats of shallow seas across their interiors. Large limestone outcrops, like the one shown above, are evidence of these periodic incursions of continental seas.

Many Paleozoic rocks are economically important. For example, much of the limestone quarried for building and industrial purposes, as well as the coal deposits of western Europe and the eastern United States, were formed during the Paleozoic.

3. chinese garden

  Traditional Chinese gardens go back almost 2000 years to the Han Dynasty though most Scholar's Gardens date back to the more recent Ming and Qing dynasties.

A Scholar's Garden would have been built by a scholar or an administrator retiring from the emperor's court to commune with nature, write poetry or entertain guests in his later years. It would have been an enclosed private garden always associated with a house, which without it's garden would not have been considered whole.

This garden is enclosed by walls, a series of pavilions (eight in all), and covered walkways. These are all organized in an irregular manner to create in addition to the two major courtyards a series of six others of varying sizes.

The art of the Chinese garden is closely related to Chinese landscape painting - it is not a literal imitation of a natural landscape, but the capturing of it's essence and spirit.

The parallel could be drawn to a Chinese hand scroll painting which as it unrolls, reveals a journey full of surprises and meditative pauses.

The enjoyment of the garden is both contemplative and sensual. It comes from making the most out of the experiences of everyday life, and as such, architectural elements are always a part of a Scholar's Garden

The painter's eye must be used to lay out the many architectural elements - the wall becomes the paper the rockery and plant are painted on. The structures playfully rise and fall, twist and turn and even leave the garden to take advantage of and even create a great variety of beautiful scenes.

To paraphrase the 15th century garden designer Ji Ching; the garden is created by the human hand, but should appear as if created by heaven.

우리는 이제껏 미국정원에 대한 얘기를 해왔다..예를 들면 미국 western의 루이지애나(?)의 정원등을 말이다.. 이것은 landscape를 담으려고 했고, 이제는 동서양의 정원을 비교해보도록 하겠다. 중국의 traditional정원 (scholar garden)을 보면 너희는 놀라게 될 것이다. 이것은 자연전체의 경관을 담으려고 했다. 우선, 건물  밖에서 행인이 그 안에 뭣이 있나 전혀 알지 못하게 만들어 졌답니다. 즉, sight 뿐만 아니라 다른 sence까지도 발휘하도록 했다(요거 문제) 한번에 정원이 다 안 보인다, 부분, 부분, 걸어가다 보면서 이 부분 저부문 즐길 수 있게 만들어 졌다.

한눈에 다 들어오게끔 한 것이 아니라 그 정원을 지나가면서 보면 자연경관처름 꾸며놓았다는 것을 알게될 것이다. 이것은 굉장히 넓고 각각의 식물이나 나무, 물, 돌등의 위치가 그자체로 어떤 의미를 가진다. 예를 들면 바나나 나무를 보면 일렬로 죽 심었는데 이것이 빽빽하게 심어지지 않고 비교적 드문드문 심어졌다. 그이유는 그 바나나가 건물의 벽에 비치는 그림자도 하나의 장식으로 삼았기 때문이다. 그리고 계절마다 그 정원에서 강조하는 모습이 다르다. 예를 들면 #에는 물이 떨어지는 모습등과 겨울에는 ###꽃을 강조하였다. 특히 물이 떨어지는 모습과 ***rk 정원에서 중요하다..그런데 scholar정원을 보면 이 전통정원과 많이 다르다는 것을 알수있다. 이것은 비교적 좁은 장소에서 몇몇의 식물들을 재배하였다.

문> mainly discuss?

문> scholar garden이 traditional garden과 비교했을 때의 차이점은?  (click2)

문> 중국정원에서 강조한 요소는?  (click2)

문> 중국 정원 내 바나나 나무의 역할은?

문> 중국의 가드닝에 대한 특징

문> 중국 정원과 다른 점 ? 내용 잘 기억하고 보기에서 없는 것을 골라야 함.

4. Meerkat

Meerkats (also called suricates) are small, burrowing mammals that live on the plains of southern Africa. They are a type of mongoose. In captivity, they have a life span of roughly 10 years.

Behavior: Meerkats live in groups of up to 25 animals (called a 'mob' or 'gang'). They are fiercely territorial and usually stay very close to their underground burrows, where they live. One meerkat will stand watch in order to warn the group with a shrill cry when a dangerous predator approaches. Hawks, eagles and jackals hunt meerkats. Meerkats frequently sit or stand on their hind legs in an upright position, using their tail as a third leg.

Anatomy: The meerkat is a sleek, furry animal the size of a squirrel. It is about 10-14 inches (25-36 cm) tall and weighs about 2 pounds (1 kg). It has sharp claws which it uses to dig burrows, to scratch the ground for insects to eat, and to catch prey. Meerkats have closable ears.

Diet: Meerkats are primarily insectivores (insect-eaters). They scratch into the ground for insects and insect larvae to eat. They also eat other small animals (like lizards and mice) and some plants.

Classification: Class Mammalia (mamals), Order Carnivora.

5. Bolivian altiplano

We found another very interesting theory about the former existence of Atlantis in the Geographical Magazine from March 1997. Here, Jim Allen describes his research on Atlantis and some results of it:

In July 1995 Jim Allen travelled to the Bolivian altiplano, a plateau that sits between two ranges of the Andes. There, he drove out into the desert to look for possible remains of an ancient canal which might confirm‎ the location as being the site of Plato’s Atlantis. He found remains of an enormous channel which reminded him of Plato’s description of an irrigation channel that he said existed at the site of Atlantis. According to Plato the width of the channel was 184 metres, the exact width of the altiplano channel.

A few years before, Jim Allan had made a study of the origins of ancient systems of measurement. Plato’s description of Atlantis’ extent, of its rectangular-shaped plain enclosed by mountains and of its fall took his attention. He was not keen on believing that an island as large as Libya and Asia combined should have sunk into the sea in just one night and day. According to him that was definitely impossible.

So he wondered if Atlantis might have been America and if the rectangular plain Plato was talking about lay somewhere in that continent. The shape of the altiplano almost fits the description if one takes South America to be an island which it almost is. He constructed a topographical model of the region, building up the levels. The 4000 metres contour encloses the whole rectangular-shaped altiplano, the largest level plain in the world. The altiplano corresponds to Plato’s description of a plain that borders on the sea and extends through the centre of the whole island. It is enclosed by mountains so that, according to Plato, the region rose sheerly out of the sea and only the part about the city was a smooth plain. Jim Allan imagines that it was not the whole island Atlantis that sank into the sea but only its city. 'What if it was not the island continent of Atlantis that sank into the sea as Plato believed, but only the island city of Atlantis, built around the lava rings of an extinct or dormant volcano, which sank beneath an island sea, or what is now Lake Poopo?' (Geographical Magazine, March 1997, Vol. 69 Issue 3, page 44, 2 pages)

All the metals which the people of Atlantis needed for their buildings, according to Plato, are found around Lake Poopo. Numerous gold and copper mines still exist there. There is the possibility that orichalcum, a metal unknown to the modern world, may have occurred in the Andes. From December to March is the wet season when the altiplano gets flooded. Drought conditions for the rest of the year are in the south of the plain. To construct a perimeter canal, like the one Plato described, would have been feasible. The perimeter canal Plato thought about would drain water away during the wet season and store it for irrigation for the dry periods.

The altiplano is described to be an enclosed basin and therefore a period of torrential rain could produce within it an inland sea. If you re-examine Plato’s statement about the end of Atlantis, a period of torrential rain is described as a result of earthquakes and floods, in a single day and night of rain. And the altiplano is an area prone to earthquakes.

The suggested end of Atlantis, in Plato’s view, was around 9600 B. C. At that time, the altiplano was indeed flooded. But it may also be that the end took place at a time when the confederation of Atlantis was engaged in a war against Egypt. It is possible that the story of Atlantis came from one of these people who were taken prisoners after the war, and was handed on by temple priests to the visiting Greek statesman Solon.

6. The possibility of life elsewhere in our solar system(Europa,..)

Scientists are discovering new life -- here on planet Earth. They're finding microbes -- organisms too small to be perceived with the unaided eye -- in some surprising places around the globe.

In the total darkness at the bottom of the ocean, scientists have found microbes thriving in an environment thought far too toxic for life -- the boiling hot water spewed out by undersea volcanic hot springs. As a nutrient source, some of these microbes use chemicals -- particularly sulfur and carbon -- from within the hot springs.

In the Arctic, researchers discovered microbes that live at subzero temperatures. These microbes survive in pockets in the ice, in water that's so salty that it doesn't freeze. And in eastern Washington state, scientists are studying microbes that inhabit the pores of basalt rock and appear to somehow eat the basalt itself.

If these tiny organisms can thrive in places of extreme heat, cold and complete darkness -- here on Earth -- what about elsewhere in our solar system? One place to look is Jupiter's moon, Europa-- its icy crust may cover a vast liquid ocean. Or maybe we'll find microbes on Mars(수업시간에는 Titan이였죠) -- in ice pockets in its canyons or at its polar ice cap.

7. 목성의 위성 IO, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9

Io

Photographs of Jupiter were taken by the Voyager and Galileo spacecrafts. Thousands of high resolution multi-color pictures show rapid variations of features both large and small. The Great Red Spot exhibits internal counter-clockwise rotation. The moon Amalthea, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto were photographed, some in great detail. Each is individual and unique, with no similarities to other known planets or satellites. Io has active volcanoes that probably have ejected material into a doughnut-shaped ring enveloping its orbit about Jupiter. This is not to be confused with the thin, flat disk-like ring closer to Jupiter's surface. Now that such a ring has been seen by Voyger, older uncertain onservations from Earth can be reinterpreted as early sightings of this structure.  

Shoemaker-Levy 9

In July of 1949 an astounding series of events took place. The world anxiously watched as, every few minutes, a hurtling chunk of comet plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter. All of the twenty-odd fragments, collectively called comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 after its discoverers, were once part of the same object, now dismembered and strung out along the same orbit. This cometary train, glistening like a string of perals, had been first glimpsed only a few months before its fateful impact with Jupiter, and rather quickly scientistshad predicted that the fragments were on a collision course with the giant plantet. The impact caused an explosion clearly visible from Earth, a bright flaming fire that quickly expanded as each icy mass incinerated itself. When each fragment slammed at 60 kilometers per second into the dense atmosphere, its immense kinetic energy was transformed into heat, producing a superheated fireball that was ejected back through the tunnel the fragment had made a few seconds eariler. The radius from these explosions left huge black marks on the face of Jupiter, some of which have stretched out to form dark ribbons.

8. The planet Mercury

 The planet Mercury is very difficult to study from the Earth because it is always so close to the Sun. Even at elongation, it is never more than 28 degrees from the Sun in our sky. It is the second smallest planet (it was believed to be the smallest until the discovery that Pluto is actually much smaller than originally thought), and also the fastest in its orbit since it is the innermost planet. In fact, the name Mercury derives from its speed in moving around its orbit.

We began to learn more about Mercury with radar imaging from the Earth in the 1960s, and obtained most of what we know about the planet from the Mariner 10 space probe was placed into a complicated orbit involving Venus and Mercury and which passed close to Mercury and sent back information three times in the period 1974-1976.

9. Doppler Effect

Moving sources reinforce positional information. As a source changes position, the ear receives a set of changing audio cues whose continuity confirm‎s the source's position and clears up ambiguity. When a source moves quickly, an additional audio cue is generated - the Doppler effect.

The Doppler effect is a change in perceived frequency associated with motion of a sound source. It occurs whenever a source rapidly approaches or leaves the listener. As the source approaches, the pitch of its sound rises; as it departs, the pitch drops. A shortening of sound wavelengths causes the Doppler effect as the source approaches (because it's moving toward the sound waves that it produces). Sound sources moving at slower speeds may have a less pronounced Doppler effect, but even mild pitch fluctuations can serve as an audio cue for velocity.

Remember when you last heard a rapidly approaching truck? Recall how the pitch became higher as it approached you, then lower when it went away. The phenomenon is a result of the Doppler effect.

10.  Fungus Gardens(ants)

Long processions of ants carrying bits of green leaves on their heads are a common sight in tropical forests. These ants use the leaves as compost to cultivate gardens of fungus.

DB: This is Earth and Sky. Leaf-cutting ants began growing fungus for food millions of years before humans began farming . . .

JB: These ants cut sections out of leaves and carry them back to their colonies on their heads. Then they chew the leaves into a mush, which they use as compost to grow spongy masses of fungus. The ants grow their fungus gardens in underground chambers about the size of footballs. They carve out shafts that open and close to regulate temperature and air flow.

DB: These attentive gardeners also work constantly to weed and prune the tangled threads that make up the fungus. And this labor has fruits. The ants' pruning stimulates the fungus to sprout pinhead-sized growths known as 'staphyla' that the ants use for food.

JB: Leaf-cutter colonies can contain several million worker ants. And, once a year, the colonies produce new queens and males. When the time is right, these winged ants swarm out of the nest and fly off to mate. The male ants die soon after mating, but the young queens drop their wings and dig into the ground. Each queen then regurgitates the precious cargo she's been carrying in her throat -- an heirloom passed down from mother to daughter for millions of generations. It's a tiny piece of fungus from her mother's garden. The young queen will use this to start a fungus garden of her own.

DB: That's today's show. With thanks to the National Science Foundation, we're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

11.  Cat's Eyes

Nearly all of us have seen a cat's eyes shining in the dark. It happens when even a tiny amount of light strikes a reflective area of iridescent green or yellow crystalline needles in the lining of the cat's eye.

JB: This is Earth and Sky. Jim Timmerman of Cincinnati, Ohio asks, 'Are cats color blind?'

DB: And the answer is no, Jim. Cats aren't color blind -- but their color vision isn't as discriminating as ours. Cats probably see the world in shades of blue and yellow -- much like people who are red-green color blind. Color vision lets you detect objects -- mostly stationary -- against a background. Bees, for example, have great color vision, so they can detect flowers from a distance.

JB: On the other hand, a cat's vision has evolved to detect movement. Cats are ambush predators -- they sit still and target a moving prey. That's why your cat will pounce when its toy moves, but may not if the toy remains still. The position of the cat's eyes -- both on the front of the head -- means that cats come close to having binocular vision -- similar to that of humans. This binocular vision makes the cat good at judging distance.

DB: Cats are nocturnal hunters and color vision isn't much help at night. A cat can't see in total darkness, but it can see better in dim light than can most other animals. In bright light a cat's pupils contract to narrow vertical slits. But in the dark these slits enlarge to round openings that admit a maximum amount of light.

JB: That's our show for today. Special thanks to worldofscience.com -- entertaining science and nature products to explore -- 190 World of Science stores nationwide. We're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

12.  Blue Sky

A listener's question on why the sky looks blue.

JB: This is Earth and Sky with a listener's question. 'I know the joke that the sky is blue so you'll know where to stop mowing the lawn. But really . . . what is it that makes the sky appear blue?'

DB: If you saw Earth from outer space you'd see a world with blue oceans -- surrounded by black outer space. It'd only be when you came close enough to Earth to be inside the atmosphere that the sky would begin to look blue. So space is black, but Earth's sky looks blue. But, it wouldn't be blue if the Earth didn't have an atmosphere -- or, if the light in ordinary sunshine didn't have some blue color in it.

JB: Molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere happen to be just the right size to send sunlight flying in all directions, as the light strikes the air. This is called 'scattering.' It happens that the blue part of sunlight is scattered more strongly than the red part. The red light takes a straighter path through the atmosphere. That's why, when you're looking through a lot of atmosphere -- say, at sunset or sunrise -- the sun itself looks red. But, at most times of the day -- because blue light scatters most -- the sky looks blue.

DB: If you go more than about a dozen kilometers above Earth's surface, the sky begins turning dark. Up that high, there are fewer molecules of air to scatter sunlight. That's our show for today. With thanks to the National Science Foundation, we're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

13.  Why the sky is blue?

We talk about why the sky is blue -- why the sun seen low on the horizon appears red -- about why the most spectacular sunsets often come in the fall -- and why we might be singing happy birthday.

JB: I'm Joel Block.

DB: And I'm Deborah Byrd for Earth and Sky -- Saturday, September 30, with more most-asked questions by our listeners. One is, 'Why is the sky blue?' And here's another -- 'Why does the sun look so much redder at the horizon than overhead?'

JB: These two questions are related. Both answers have to do with the fact that white light, like sunlight, is composed of all the colors of the rainbow. The blue sky question first -- normally the sky looks blue because sunlight traveling through Earth's atmosphere is scattered by tiny molecules of air. Blue light scatters more than red -- and that scattered blue light gives us a blue sky.

DB: Now think about what happens as the sun sinks lower in the sky. Its light has to travel farther and farther through the atmosphere before reaching your eyes. Sunlight encounters more air molecules when the sun is low in the sky than when the sun is overhead. Even more blue light is scattered away -- leaving the red light to travel the straighter path to your eyes. So the setting sun looks red.

JB: People sometimes comment that autumn sunsets are more spectacular than any other. That could be because this time of year typically brings clear weather -- so you have a good chance of seeing a beautiful sunset. That's our show -- and by the way, today's our birthday -- and the start of our 10th year on the air. With thanks to the National Science Foundation, we're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

14. dead zone

We apply tons of nitrate fertilizers to our Midwestern farmland, and as those chemicals are washed to sea, algae some coastal waters goes wild. What results is a dead zone -- and you can find out more on today's Earth and Sky.

The 'Dead Zone,' in yellow, over a period of five years. Image from US Global Change Research Program.

JB: This is Earth and Sky. Every summer -- from spring until about November -- the Gulf of Mexico experiences a growing 'hypoxic zone' -- an area of seafloor pretty much devoid of life.

DB: This season, scientists reported that the dead zone is the size of Massachusetts. They say that this hypoxic zone happens not because of too few nutrients, but too many. Nitrates and phosphates from agricultural fertilizers run off into rivers and are washed out to sea. These rich nutrients spur the growth of enormous algae blooms at the surface. The algae dies, then settles to the bottom to decompose. This process uses up the dissolved oxygen in the lower depths -- and that leaves too little oxygen for most aquatic species to survive.

JB: One solution, some researchers say, is wetlands -- bogs, marshes, swamps and streamside forests. Wetlands filter out the chemicals that wash into waterways. Most of the nitrates turn into harmless nitrogen gas that floats away into the atmosphere. But to save the Gulf, we'd need millions more acres of wetlands in the Midwest and the lower Mississippi River basin. Two centuries ago, much of this area was swampy. Eighty percent of those natural wetlands are now gone.

DB: Today's program was made possible by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service. We're Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.

15. Gothic Revival

The most popular style of architecture prior to the Victorian era was the Greek Revival. This style was used almost exclusively for public buildings where simplicity and dignity were considered the most important attributes. By the 1840s the Greek style was no longer fashionable for a private residence. Its popularity had waned about the time Victoria became Queen. Many early cottages were built as summer residences only, with no insulation, yet the underlying surfaces were of solid construction. Architects and builders often submitted alternate designs for a house where the floor plans were identical, and only the facades varied. But when frame construction came along, houses were built quickly and ornate details were added later. Many early homes had neither kitchens or bathrooms. As is typical of these early homes, additions often house the kitchens and baths.

Most of the early homes, especially those built in England, were built of stone, and enhanced with decorative 'stone tracery'. The number of full-blown Gothic stone mansions was never large. Only the wealthy could afford such homes which required the labors of highly skilled stone carvers. The costly Gothic style was eventually translated into wood, and thousands of 'Carpenter Gothic' houses still stand.

The Charastic American Carpenter Gothic style is characterized by steep gables and pointed windows. Often the construction was vertical 'Board and Batton' which was considered particularly fitting for a Gothic cottage because of its upward tendency. In a wider sense we now apply the term 'American Gothic' to all homes of typically Victorian design. These homes mark the real beginning of modern architecture. The homes are planned from the inside out - the layout of the rooms and the traffic pattern determines the outward look. Inside they have a happy hide-and-seek quality of surprise.

When Gothic came to America and was translated to 'Carpenter Gothic', the stone tracery was replaced by wooden Gingerbread. The ornate wooden detail is considered a folk art. Each carpenter had his own ideas and employed his own fanciful designs.

16. Attribution

o Why do people behave in certain ways? Is it something about the person or something about the situation?

o Why do certain things happen?

o What explanations do people give for their behavior?

o Attribution – the process by which people use information to make inferences about the causes of behavior or events

KEY POINT: Attribution Theory is not concerned with the actual causes, but with perceived causes

Internal Factors (person/ dispositional attribution) versus External Factors (situation attribution)

Attribution

I. Definitions. Attribution is the process through which we link behavior to its causes - to the intentions, dispositions and events that explain why people act the way they do.

II. Dispositional vs. situational attributions (or internal vs. external).

A. Must decide whether behavior should be attributed to characteristics of the person who performed it (dispositional) or to the surrounding situation. Put another way, are the causes of an action internal to the actor or external?

EX: Suppose neighbor is unemployed. You might judge that he is lazy, irresponsible or unable (dispositional attribution). Alternatively, you might attribute unemployment to racial discrimination, evils of capitalism, poor state of the economy (situational).

B. Social consequences

1. Dispositional attributions define suffering due to personal problems - solutions involve treating the individual

2. Situational defines suffering as a social problem - prescribes changes in the social structure.

EX: Status of women may be attributed to personal dispositions (fear of success, poorer skills). Solution is psychotherapy, assertiveness training, etc. Or, it could be due to sexual prejudice and discrimination - solution may be the ERA, adequate daycare, etc.

C. Individual consequences

1. Depressives have a different attributional style than non-depressives. They are often more realistic in their attributions, which may be why they are depressed! (See below for more detail.)

2. Successes are more likely to endure if we attribute the success to our own internal characteristics, rather than external causes.

EX: Suppose you lose weight. If you attribute your success to a diet program, once you are off the program you may regain the weight. If you think you 'did it yourself,' then you'll be less likely to need outside help to maintain the weight loss.

EX: So-called crummy teachers may be more effective than 'good' teachers in some ways. Why did you learn the material? 'Because I had a great teacher.' But when that teacher is gone, how will you learn? A crummy teacher can force you to learn the material by yourself, so you know you don't need him in order to learn. Much of teaching should be teaching people to learn how to learn.

III. Making attributions - what determines whether attributions are internal or external?

A. Kelley argues that when we make causal attributions we analyze information essentially the same way that a scientist would. In other words, we assess whether the behavior occurs in the presence or absence of various potential causes. In doing so, we use the Principle of Covariation: we attribute the behavior to the potential cause that is present when the behavior occurs and absent when the behavior fails to occur - the cause that covaries with the behavior. For example, if you know that a political candidate's position shifts from pro to anti-nuclear freeze depending on the views of his audience, you are likely to attribute his behavior to the audience context (i.e. circumstances).

Kelley says we use three types of information. (NOTE: The Kelley theory is not just limited to the persuasiveness of spoken communication - it applies to attributions for any behavior.)

1. Consensus - Do all or only a few people respond to the stimulus in the same way as the target person. Consensus asks about generalization across actors.

2. Distinctiveness - does the target person respond in the same way to other stimuli as well? This asks about generalization across situations.

3. Consistency - does the target person always respond in the same way to this stimulus? This asks about generalization across time.

EXAMPLE. Mr. Brown has trouble starting his car. Why?

1. LLH - attribute to actor (internal). Mr. Brown has trouble starting most cars. (Low Distinctiveness). Few people have trouble starting this car. (Low consensus.) Conclusion: Something about Mr. Brown is keeping him from starting the car. (NOTE: The English language would probably lead us to infer consistency is high - that is, the sentence 'Mr. Brown has trouble starting most cars' would be interpreted by most of us as 'Mr. Brown has trouble starting most cars most of the time.')

2. HHH - Attribute to object (external). Most people have trouble starting this car. (High consensus). Mr. Brown has no trouble starting most other cars (High distinctiveness). Conclusion: Something is wrong with the car. (NOTE: High consistency is implied.)

3. LHL - Attribute to circumstances (internal/external interaction). Few people have trouble starting this car today. (Low consensus). Mr. Brown has little trouble starting other cars today (high distinctiveness). Mr. Brown rarely has trouble starting this car (low consistency). Conclusion: Something about the circumstances is keeping Mr. Brown from driving this car. Personal characteristics are affecting him in this particular situation. Perhaps he drove a different kind of car yesterday, and are doing things unsuited to his car (shifting gears improperly).

B. Attributional style can also determine the types of attributions that are made. That is, your personality may determine whether you attribute things to internal or external characteristics.

1. The theory of attributional style was developed by Seligman based on his work on depression. He said bad events can be attributed to either internal/external and stable/unstable causes.

EX: Suppose a student believes he did poorly on the math portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. This is a bad event. What might have caused it?

a) Lack of mathematical ability. This is an internal-stable attribution. Seligman says that depressives are disposed to this kind of attribution.

b) I was bored with the math problems. This is internal but unstable (i.e. I won't always be bored with math problems). Or, I was tired on the day of the exam.

c) Educational Testing Service gives unfair math exams. External-Stable.

d) The test was given on Friday the 13th, an unlucky day. External-Unstable.

2. Implications of each: External-Unstable is the best - the bad event isn't your fault, and there is hope for better things in the future. External-Stable leaves you with no hope for the future, but at least it isn't your fault. Internal-Unstable says it is your fault, but fortunately, you can prevent the bad thing from happening again. Internal-Stable is the worst - it is your fault, and the problem is likely to persist.

3. The Attributional Style Questionnaire asks questions like the following:

'You have been looking for a job unsuccessfully for some time.

Q. Is the cause of your unsuccessful job search due to something about you or something about other people or circumstances?

Q. In the future when looking for a job, will this cause again be present?'

The first Q measures internal/external, the second measures stable/unstable.

4. Seligman said depressed persons are characterized by a particular attributional style - specifically, they tend to make internal-stable attributions for bad events (e.g. I am bad at math). These are the most punishing of all possible attributions, the worst for self-esteem, and the one making the worst predictions for future performance.

5. Depressives may have an unrealistically dark view. On the other hand, it may be that normal people take an unrealistically bright view. There is a lot of evidence that normal people are subject to self-serving biases.

6. Sidelight: Self-serving biases are not necessarily maladaptive. For example, self-serving biases can help you to deal with adversity. A study of cancer patients showed that every woman interviewed thought she was doing as well as, or better than, other women in coping with breast cancer, and that belief seemed to sustain them in their struggle. Women tended to compare themselves to people worse off than themselves.

C. Correspondent Inferences Theory analyzes the conditions under which observers will conclude that dispositions of actors are sufficient explanations for the actor's behavior. According to the theory, factors that affect whether or not a dispositional attribution is made include:

1. The strength of environmental forces on behavior. If perceived environmental forces are strong, people are not likely to make dispositional attributions.

EX: Student always comes late to my class. If I know they have a class on the other side of campus right before this one, I'll be less likely to make a dispositional attribution.

2. Normativeness - To what extent could the behavior have been expected on the basis of roles and social norms? The greater the degree to which an action conforms to social norms, the less information it yields about the intentions and dispositions of actors. Actions which violate norms are more likely to be attributed to dispositions than to environmental forces.

EX: I don't infer much about the dispositions of those who are always on time, since I expect that. Coming late is counter-normative, though, so I am more likely to make a dispositional attribution for the latecomer.

3. Hedonic Relevance - Degree to which the action proves rewarding or punishing to the observer. The more the act affects the observer, the more likely he is to make dispositional attributions. If I feel harmed by the actor's actions, I will be more likely to make a dispositional attribution.

EX: Late student disrupts the class, which annoys me.

4. Personalism - extent to which the actor's behavior is perceived as intended to affect or influence the observer in some way. If the observer sees behavior as directed specifically toward him, he will be even more likely to make dispositional attributions.

EX: I think the student is out to get me, so I make a dispositional attribution.

IV. Choosing among possible dispositions. When we have determined whether an action is to be attributed internally or externally, we have only determined the locus of causality, not the specific cause or causes. When we make an internal attribution, how do we go about deciding what dispositions led to the action.

MODEL: Dispositions --> Intentions --> Actions --> Effects. We observe actions (and we know about possible effects) and we work backwards to figure out intentions and dispositions.

A. Try to figure out intentions - what did they intend to achieve? From their intentions, try to infer what personal dispositions would cause a person to have such intentions. For example, if we conclude that an act was intended to help, we might infer the disposition 'helpful.'

B. To figure out intentions, we consider what effects the person was likely to have anticipated from their actions.

EX: Suppose a student complained in class about exam grades. What effects could she have anticipated? The professor may raise her grade - or raise everyone's grade - or ignore her - or criticize her - she might impress her classmates. If we infer that her intention was to improve everyone's grade, we might conclude that she has the disposition 'concerned for others.' If we thought she wanted to impress others, we might infer the disposition 'show-off.'

C. Problem is that most acts have multiple effects - and a different disposition may correspond to each effect. Have to decide what effects the person is pursuing and which effects are merely incidental.

D. This decision is influenced by

1. Commonality - what effects are unique to the action chosen? Jones and Davis theorize that observers who are interested in attributing specific dispositions to an actor will try to identify effects that are unique to the action chosen.

EX: 'Improving everyone's grade' could be accomplished by either protesting publicly or circulating a petition. 'Impressing classmates with courage' is unique to protesting publicly.

2. Normativeness = extent to which we expect a person to perform a particular behavior in a particular setting. A person who seeks an effect that is socially desirable tells us only that he is 'normal.' It reveals nothing about his distinctive attributes. The more counter-normative actions are, the more confidence we have in attributing a disposition from the action. Nonnormative, unexpected behavior produces more confident inferences about the actor's dispositions.

EX: Few students would want to be criticized by a professor. Hence, a student who provokes criticism may be seen as 'fearless but foolish.'

EX: Imagine a business executive preaching capitalism at a stock holders meeting. We cannot be entirely confident whether this view represents his true personal dispositions or a role-required performance. We would be more confident in our attribution regarding his attitudes if he preached the opposite view - 'share the wealth.' (NOTE: this relates to earlier discussion about credibility - a businessman who argues for socialism may be more credible than one who supports capitalism.)

EX: We expect storeclerks to be polite. Hence when they are polite, we don't necessarily think they are a polite person. A storeclerk who acts rude is likely to be seen as an inherently rude person.