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List Of University Of Southern California People

List of University of Southern California people

This is a list of notable alumni, faculty, and students, from the University of Southern California.

Alumni and students

Academia

- Leo Buscaglia - Educator, best-selling author
- George V. Chilingar - World-renowned mining engineer
- Howard P. House - Ear specialist and founder of the House Ear Institute
- Ellis O. Knox - Educator, first African-American to be awarded a Ph.D. on the West Coast
- Bart Kosko - Intelligent systems expert and science fiction writer
- Vijay Kumar - Pioneer of quaternary error-correction codes
- Max More - Philosopher and futurist, founder of Extropy Institute
- Surya Prakash - Superacid specialist and one of the inventors of the Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC)
- Rangaswamy Srinivasan - Discoverer of Ablative Photodecomposition (APD) and inventor of the LASIK procedure
- Andrew Viterbi - Inventor of the Viterbi algorithm, CDMA, co-founder of Qualcomm and benefactor of the Viterbi School of Engineering

Arts and Media

- Herb Alpert - Musician, co-founder of A&M Records
- Peter Arbogast - Los Angeles-based sportscaster and currently the school's football play-by-play announcer
- Hugh Beaumont - Actor, television director, and Methodist minister
- John Beradino - Baseball player and actor (General Hospital)
- Richard Biggs - Actor
- Harry Blackstone Jr. - Actor and magician
- Art Buchwald - Author and columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner
- Harold Budd - Ambient/avant-garde composer
- LeVar Burton - Actor
- John Carpenter - Film director
- Harry Wayne Casey - Founder of KC and the Sunshine Band
- Julie Chen - Host of the CBS television show Big Brother and anchorwoman on the CBS television show The Early Show
- Annabel Chong - porn actress; famous for having sex with 80 men on camera in The World's Biggest Gang Bang
- Nadine Connor - Opera star
- Samantha Cowles-Eagan - Actress
- Sam Donaldson - Journalist
- Anthony Edwards - Film and television actor
- Dorothy Fay - Actress
- Will Ferrell - Actor and comedian
- Joe Francis - Adult film producer
- Frank Gehry - Architect, Pritzker Prize winner
- Jerry Goldsmith - Film score composer
- Brian Grazer - Film and television producer
- Kevin Hagen - Actor
- Conrad Hall - Cinematographer
- D.J. Hall - Artist/painter
- Lionel Hampton - Jazz musican
- Dexter Holland - Singer and guitarist for The Offspring
- Mark S. Holmes - Award-winning architect LPA, Inc., Irvine, CA
- James Hong - Actor
- Marilyn Horne - Opera singer
- James Horner - Composer
- Ron Howard - Film director
- James Ivory - Film director
- Jon Jerde - Architect
- Raj Kamal Jha - author
- Cliff Johnson - Author of award-winning computer puzzle games
- Howard G. Kazanjian - Film producer
- Irvin Kershner - Film director
- Gary Kurtz - Film producer
- Swoosie Kurtz - Tony Award-winning actor
- Michael Landon - Actor
- Morten Lauridsen - Composer
- Lisa Ling - Former co-host of The View
- George Lucas - Film director
- Albert C. Martin - Architect
- Thom Mayne - Architect, principal of Morphosis, and Pritzker Prize laureate
- Kerry McCluggage - Film / TV Executive and Producer
- Mark McGrath - Musican, the lead singer of Sugar Ray
- John Milius - Film director and screenwriter
- Herman Miller (writer) - Writer and Producer
- Miles Millar - Screenwriter and producer
- Walter Murch - Film editor
- Joan Lowery Nixon - Journalist and author
- Petros Papadakis - former USC RB, now a sportscaster on Fox TV and KMPC radio in L.A.
- Christopher Parkening - Classical guitarist, best known for his interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach
- Fess Parker - Screen and television actor
- Sam Peckinpah - Film director
- Kelly Preston - Actress
- Ke Huy Quan - Actor and stuntman
- John Ritter - Actor
- Robert Rodat - Screenwriter
- Jay Roach - Film director and producer
- Josh Schwartz - Producer and creator of The O.C.
- Tom Selleck - Actor
- Ally Sheedy - Actress
- Cybill Shepherd - Actress
- Bryan Singer - Film director
- John Singleton - Film director
- Stephen Sommers - Film director
- Robert Stack - Actor
- Sharon Stello - Reporter Davis Enterprise
- Eric Stolz - Actor
- Tim Story - Film director
- Irving Stone - Writer, known for biographical novels of famous historical personalities
- Kathleen Sullivan - Broadcast journalist
- Salli Terri - Singer and songwriter
- Marlo Thomas - Actor and writer
- Michael Tilson Thomas - Conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
- Ron Underwood - Film director
- Jack Warner - Movie maker and founder of Warner Brothers Studios
- John Wayne - Actor
- Forest Whitaker - Actor, director, and producer
- Paul R. Williams - Architect, first African American member of the American Institute of Architects
- David Wolper - Film and television producer
- Marvin Young (more popularly known as Young MC) - Rapper, producer, and writer
- Robert Zemeckis - Film director

New Media

- Arash Markazi - contributor to SI.com and other online new media ventures; former Daily Trojan reporter
- Brendan Loy - IrishTrojan.com blogger, was most cited non-news source on Hurricane Katrina; former Daily Trojan reporter

Astronauts

- Neil Armstrong - First human on the Moon
- Karol J. Bobko
- Charles F. Bolden, Jr.
- Gerald P. Carr
- Nancy J. Currie
- William H. Dana
- Brian Duffy
- Henry C. Gordon
- Jerry M. Linenger
- Carlos I. Noriega
- Kenneth S. Reightler, Jr.

Business

- Dan Bane - CEO of Trader Joe's
- Marc Benioff - Founder and CEO of Salesforce.com
- David Bohnett - Founder and former CEO of Geocities.com
- Stephen Bridge - CEO of Frontier Technology Inc.
- Jerry Buss - Owner of Los Angeles Lakers
- Simon Cao - Founder of Avanex
- Scott Cook - Co-founder and chairman of Intuit, Inc.
- Henry Caruso - Founder of Dollar Rent-A-Car
- Kenneth C. Dahlberg - President and CEO of Science Applications International Corporation
- Feng Deng - Co-founder of NetScreen Technologies, Inc.
- Daniel Epstein - Chairman and CEO of ConArm Group
- Yang Ho Cho - President and CEO of Korean Airlines
- Bradley Wayne Hughes - Founder of Public Storage
- James G. Hunt - Associate General Counsel of MetLife
- James Jannard - Founder of Oakley Sunglasses
- Bruce Karatz - Charmain and CEO of KB Home
- Ken Klein - Chairman, president and CEO of Wind River
- Terrence Lanni - Chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage
- Jack Lindquist - Former president of Disneyland
- General William Lyon - Chairman and CEO of William Lyon Homes
- Michelle Manning - President of Production Paramount Pictures
- Mike Markkula - Co-founder and former CEO of Apple Computer, Inc.
- Frank McCourt Jr - Owner of Los Angeles Dodgers
- Bob McKnight - Chairman and CEO of Quiksilver
- Brian Mulligan - Former chairman of Fox Television
- Paul Orfalea - Founder of Kinko's
- Andrall Pearson - Founder of Yum! Brands, Inc.
- Sol Price - Founder of Price Club (now Costco)
- Charles Prince - Chairman and CEO of Citigroup
- Linda Johnson Rice - President and CEO of Johnson Publishing
- D. Kenneth Richardson - President emeritus, Hughes Electronics
- Edward P. Roski - Chairman and CEO of Majestic Realty Co., part owner of the Los Angeles Kings and Los Angeles Lakers
- Frank Rothman - Former chairman and CEO of MGM studios and nationally known trial attorney
- Steve Saleen - CEO and Founder of Saleen Performance, Inc.
- Mark Stevens - Partner of Sequoia Capital

Athletics

- Marcus Allen - Heisman Trophy winner and Pro Football Hall of Famer running back
- John Allred - NFL tight end
- Morris (Red) Badgro - Pro Football Hall of Famer
- Aaron Boone - Professional baseball player 1997-present
- Bret Boone - Professional baseball player 1992-2005
- Edward Carfagno – Olympic Fencer
- Chris Claiborne - Butkus-Award-Winning linebacker and NFL linebacker
- Keary Colbert - NFL wide receiver
- Curtis Conway - NFL wide receiver
- Cynthia Cooper - Professional basketball player
- Buster Crabbe - Olympic champion, swimming, and actor
- Charles Dumas - Olympic champion, high jump
- Morgan Ensberg - Professional baseball player, 2000-present, 2005 all-star
- Justin Fargas - NFL running back
- Mike Garrett - Heisman Trophy winner and NFL running back, current USC Athletic Director
- Frank Gifford - Pro Football Hall of Famer and TV analyst
- Pat Haden - All-American QB, Rhodes Scholar, NFL Pro-Bowler, TV analyst
- Geoff Jenkins - Professional baseball player 1998-present
- Keyshawn Johnson - NFL wide receiver
- Randy Johnson - Professional baseball player, the "Big Unit" 1988-present
- Rob Johnson - NFL quarterback
- Jacque Jones - professional baseball player 1999-present
- Kareem Kelly - NFL wide receiver
- Steve Kemp - Professional baseball player 1977-1988
- Dave Kingman - professional baseball player 1971-1986
- Lenny Krayzelburg - Olympic champion, swimming
- Jason Lane - professional baseball player 2002-present
- Matt Leinart - Heisman Trophy winner
- Lisa Leslie - Professional basketball player with the Los Angeles Sparks
- Ronnie Lott - Pro Football Hall of Famer
- Fred Lynn - Professional baseball player 1974-1990
- Hellen Mayer – Olympic Fencer
- Mark McGwire - Professional baseball player 1986-2001
- Cheryl Miller - Basketball Hall of Fame, former USC women's coach
- Ron Mix - Pro Football Hall of Famer
- Zeke Moreno - NFL linebacker
- Chad Morton - NFL running back, kick and punt return specialist
- Johnnie Morton - NFL wide receiver
- Anthony Munoz - Pro Football Hall of Famer
- John Naber - Olympic champion, swimming
- Charlie Paddock - Olympic champion, track & field
- Carson Palmer - Heisman Trophy winner and NFL quarterback
- Mel Patton - Olympic champion, track & field
- Rodney Peete - NFL quarterback
- Troy Polamalu - All-American and Pro Bowl NFL strong safety,
- Mark Prior - Professional baseball pitcher 2002-present
- Janice Romary – Olympic Foilist, Fencing (1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968)
- Murray Rose - Olympic champion, swimming
- Sean Salisbury - NFL quarterback, ESPN football analyst
- Kaitlin Sandeno - Olympic champion, swimming
- Bob Seagren - Olympic champion, pole vaulter
- Junior Seau - Pro Bowl NFL linebacker
- Tom Seaver - Professional baseball Hall of Fame pitcher 1967-1986
- Bill Sharman - Basketball Hall of Famer
- O.J. Simpson - Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Fame running back and actor
- Antuan Simmons - NFL defensive back
- R. Jay Soward - NFL wide receiver and former first-round draft pick
- Roy Smalley - Professional baseball player 1975-1987
- Craig Stadler - Pro golfer
- Lynn Swann - Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver and TV analyst
- Lofa Tatupu - NFL linebacker
- Steve Timmons - Olympic champion, volleyball
- Quincy Watts - Olympic champion, track & field
- Paul Westphal - Professional basketball player, current Head Coach of Pepperdine Basketball
- Charles White - Heisman Trophy winner and former professional football player
- Mike Williams - NFL wide receiver and first round draft pick
- Willie Wood - Pro Football Hall of Famer
- Ron Yary - Pro Football Hall of Fame lineman
- Barry Zito - Professional baseball pitcher 2000-present

Politics and Government

Other

- Ethel Percy Andrus - Founder of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
- Daniel Brandt - Left-wing activist and founder of Google-watch.
- Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator
- Patricia Nixon - Former First Lady
- Eugene Sekiguchi - First minority member to serve as president of the American Dental Association (ADA)
- Joseph Wapner - Judge of The People's Court, former Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge.

Faculty

- Leonard M. Adleman - Co-Inventor of RSA, Turing Award laureate
- William French Anderson - Genetics professor, dubbed "father of gene therapy"
- Tim Asch - Professor at the Center for Visual Anthropology
- Lois W. Banner - Former president of the American Studies Association, author
- Warren Bennis - University Professor, Distinguished Professor of Business Administration; named the "dean of leadership gurus" by Forbes magazine
- Shelley Berman - Comedian/actor/author - Teaches Writing Humor, Literary and Dramatic
- Terence Blanchard - Jazz trumpeter
- Barry Boehm - Software economics expert, inventor of COCOMO
- T.C. Boyle - Novelist
- Drew Casper - Film Historian
- Manuel Castells - Sociologist, played a key role in the development of a Marxist urban sociology
- John Choma - Renowned analog and mixed signal circuit designer
- Antonio Damasio - Physician and neurologist
- Paul Debevec - Renowned graphics researcher
- Richard Dekmejian - World-renowned expert on international relations
- Mar Elepano - Artist, animator, filmmaker
- Caleb E. Finch - World-renowned Alzheimer's disease researcher
- Scott Fisher - Pioneering virtual reality researcher
- Eric Fossum - Inventor of CMOS image sensor
- Barry Glassner - Renowned sociologist, made an appearance in Bowling for Columbine
- David Griffith - Film director, contributed Mise en Scene and various film editing techniques to film grammar
- Solomon W. Golomb - Mathematician, invented the Golomb coding and Golomb ruler
- Jane Goodall - Distinguished adjunct professor of anthropology
- Midori Goto - Violinist and the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Music
- Judith Halberstam - Gender Theorist
- Jascha Heifetz - Violinist, one of the most famous of the 20th century
- Tomlinson Holman - Inventor of Lucasfilm's THX sound system
- John Hospers - Philosopher, first presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party
- Mark Humayun - Opthalmologist, invented the Bionic Eye
- Mizuko Ito - noted cybercultural theorist
- Mark Kac - Eminent mathematician, pioneered the modern development of probability
- Timur Kuran -- economist, specializing in the study of Islamic finance and its consequences
- Jerome Lawrence - Playwright
- Richard Leahy - Renowned medical-imaging engineer, chief creator of BrainStorm
- Raymond Loewy - Noted industrial designer
- Leonard Maltin - Famous film critic
- Barbara Myerhoff - Professor at the Center for Visual Anthropology
- Richard Neutra - Modernism architect
- George Olah - Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
- Ishu Patel - Noted artist, director, animator, photographer
- Gregor Piatigorsky - Cellist
- Jon Postel - Internet pioneer, former director of Information Sciences Institute's Computer Networks Division
- Arnold Schoenberg - Composer
- Irving S. Reed - Inventor of Reed-Solomon codes
- Everett Rogers - Professor of communications
- Craig Stanford - Professor of biological anthropology
- Shirley Thomas (USC professor) - Professor of technical writing
- Michael S. Waterman - Founding editor of Journal of Computational Biology
- Paul Wehrle - Physician who helped in the development of methods for the prevention and treatment of polio and smallpox
- Darryl F. Zanuck - One of the major figures in the Hollywood studio system Southern California Category:University of Southern California

Leo Buscaglia

Dr. Felice Leonardo Buscaglia Ph.D. (31 March 1924 - 11 June 1998) was a professor of Italian descent at the University of Southern California, who authored a number of New York Times bestselling inspirational books on of love and human reticences on the subject, including The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, Bus 9 to Paradise, Living Loving and Learning, and Love. In lectures he often protested, in outrage at the comparative absence of writings on the subject, "I got the copyright for love!!!" While teaching at the USC, Buscaglia was moved by a student's suicide to contemplate human disconnectedness and the meaning of life, and began a non-credit class he called Love 1A. His book and numerous recorded and televised lectures, some of which became available through PBS, and which became extremely well received. He argued that social bonds are essential at transcending the stresses of everyday life and enriching it above the limitations of poverty as well as crossing communication gaps between generations. Buscaglia worked actively to overcome social and mental barriers that inhibited the expression of love between people, from family to acquaintances to the disabled, institutionalized, and elderly, to complete strangers, often making his own forwardness on the subject a topic of self-deprecating humor. The profundity of his subject, however, almost invariably struck a responsive chord regarding an area many regarded as deficient in their lives, and by 1998 his books had reached eighteen million copies in print in seventeen languages. Leo Buscaglia died of a heart attack on June 11, 1998 at his home in Glenbrook, Nevada, near Lake Tahoe. He was 74.

External links

- [http://www.buscaglia.com Leo Buscaglia and Felice Foundation official site].
- [http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1969buscaglia.html Selected Moments of the 20th Century: 1969 Leo Buscaglia teaches Love 1A at the University of Southern California]
- [http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=l_buscaglia Buscaglia] at The "My Hero" Project
- [http://www.intouchmag.com/interview.html Interview & "Love Quiz"]
- [http://www.journeyofhearts.org/jofh/kirstimd/buscagl2.htm "Learn the Joy of the Moment"] by Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.
- [http://www.journeyofhearts.org/jofh/kirstimd/buscagl3.htm "Loving Through Death"] by Leo Buscaglia, Ph.D.
- [http://www.newvisionsmagazine.com/november2003/vissell1103.html More Lessons from Leo Buscaglia] at New Visions Magazine
- [http://208.244.159.127/ezine/feb01/essential.htm "What Is Essential Is Invisible To The Eye"]; "Leo's Lessons On Love" by Chrissa Snyder
- [http://www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family/autumn98/alumninews/IM_Buscaglia.html Obituary] at USC Alumni News
- [http://www.vibrantuniverse.com/archives/leo_buscaglia.html Profoundly inspirational] by Annie Zalezsak Buscaglia, Leo Buscaglia, Leo

Mining engineering

Mining Engineering is a field that involves many of the other engineering disciplines as applied to extracting and processing minerals from a naturally occurring environment. The need for mineral extraction and production is an essential activity of any technically proficient society. As minerals are produced from within a naturally occurring environment, disturbance of the environment as a result of mineral production is a given. Modern mining engineers must therefore be concerned not only with the production and processing of mineral commodities, but also with the mitigation of damage or changes to an environment as a result of that production and processing. The two primary types of mine are underground mines and open-pit mines. Minerals that exist mostly underground (eg. coal, gold etc.) are generally recovered using the underground mining process. Minerals like iron ore, limestone, manganese ore, etc. are mostly recovered from the surface downwards in opencast mining. Engineering disciplines that are closely related to mining engineering are:
- Civil engineering;
- Environmental engineering;
- Geotechnical engineering;
- Hydraulic engineering; and
- Electrical engineering.
- Structural Engineering. Specialized areas of mining engineering involve extraction of minerals from underwater mines, seawater, in-situ retorting of rock, and underground gasification.

Blasting

Using explosives to break up a rock formation and aid in the collection of ore is called blasting. There are two types of blasting: high velocity and low velocity. High velocity blasting uses explosives that have high rates of reactions and produce high pressures (i.e. high explosives). Low velocity blasting is done with explosives which have a low rate of reaction and thus low pressures (i.e. low explosives). Blasting is done in selected regions where the ore is available. The size of the ore after blasting varies.

Mineral prospecting

Mining operations start only after geological survey. A geological survey will develop a projection of the size and purity of an ore deposit. Based on these projections, more detailed studies may be ordered. This is known as detailed prospecting. One of the methods of prospecting is to extract drill cores from the area of the potential mine. The cross sections of these cores can be used to develop a three-dimensional projection of the mineral deposit.

External links

- Definitions and references [http://www.midcoast.com/~gibbs/art3.htm]
- SME - Society for Mining Metallurgy and Exploration [http://www.smenet.org/]
- Website at the U.S. Department of Labor [http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos035.htm] Category:Engineering Category:Mining Category:Resource extraction th:วิศวกรรมเหมืองแร่

Howard P. House

Howard P. House, M.D. founded the House Ear Institute in 1946 in Los Angeles, CA. He is often considered to be the father of modern otology. The House Ear Institute developed the Cochlear Implant and the Auditory Brain Stem Implant. Dr. House treated Ronald Reagon, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, and many other notable figures.

Ellis O. Knox

In 1931, Dr. Ellis O'neal Knox was the first African-American to be awarded a Ph.D. on the West Coast. He was granted his Doctorate of Philosophy in the field of Education (the history and philosophy of) from the University of Southern California. In 1928, the Los Angeles public school teacher earned his Master of Arts from the same institution. His Bachelor of Arts degree was received in 1922 from the University of California at Berkeley. Ellis O. Knox was born in Northern California on July 6, 1900. The son of a Latin teacher, Prince Albert Knox, and homemaker, Addie Knox, Ellis found a love of education in his early years. As a young boy in the public schools of Lake County, California at the turn of the century, Ellis, the only black student in his classroom, excelled. In 1923, shortly after graduation from UC Berkeley, Knox accepted a position on the staff of Phoenix Union High School. Soon after, he met his wife Lois Wynne. The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1926, where Knox began his studies at USC. With doctorate in hand, Knox moved to the District of Columbia to accept a position on the staff of Howard University in 1931. (In the 1940s and 50s, Dr. Knox served as an adjunct professor at the American University, an adjunct lecturer at Yale University, and as a member of the Evaluation Committee of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, while retaining full professor status at Howard.) Knox was also a leader in the campaign that led to the desegregation of the schools in the District of Columbia and was the Chairman of Education for the NAACP from 1945 to 1962. In the late 1960s, Knox and his wife retired to Los Angeles, where he served as Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California and the University of California Los Angeles until his death in 1975. . During his lifetime, Knox published several studies on the philosophy of education. His Ph.D. disseration dealt with the trend of philosophical doctrines in their relation to African-American youth in the United States. . Dr. Ellis O. Knox's contemporaries, colleagues, and close friends included nobel prize winner, Ralph Bunche, Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, as well as famed California architect, Paul Williams, and civil rights leader, H. Claude Hudson.

African American

An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black), is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. Many African Americans have European and/or Native American ancestry as well. The term refers specifically to black African ancestry; not, for example, to white or Arab African ancestry, such as Moroccan or white South African ancestry. Blacks from non-African countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Great Britain, or Australia are theoretically referred to by their nation of origin and not African American, but in general the assumption is that if you are black, you are "African American".

Nomenclature

The term "African American" has been in common usage in the United States since the late 1980s, when greater numbers of African Americans began to adopt the term self-referentially. Malcolm X favored the term "African American" over "Negro" and used the term at an OAAU (Organization of Afro American Unity) meeting in the early 1960s, saying, "Twenty-two million African-Americans - that's what we are - Africans who are in America." Former NBA player/coach Lenny Wilkens is another who used the term as a teenager when filling a job application. Many Blacks began to abandon the term "Afro-American", which had become popular in the 1960s and '70s, for "African-American," because they desired an unabbreviated expression of their African heritage that could not be mistaken or derided as an allusion to the afro hairstyle. The term became increasingly popular, and by the 1980s, Jesse Jackson and others pressed for its adoption and acceptance. Users of the term argued that "African-American" was more in keeping with the nation's immigrant tradition of so-called "hyphenated Americans", who were known by terms like "Irish-American", or "Chinese-American", "Polish-American"), which link people with their, or their ancestors', geographic points of origin. Terms used at various points in American history include Negroes, colored, Blacks and Afro-Americans. Negro and colored were common until the late 1960s, but are now less commonly used and considered derogatory. African American, Black and, to a lesser extent, Afro-American are used interchangeably today, but their precise meanings and connotations are in dispute. The term African American is sometimes problematic because of its imprecise cultural and geographic meaning. The term as originally applied refers to only those descended from a small number of colonial indentured servants and the estimated 500,000 Africans taken to British North America or the U.S. as slaves (of approximately 11 million Africans taken to the western hemisphere in general). In slightly broader usage, the term can include West Indian and Afro-Latino immigrants whose African ancestors also survived the Middle Passage or recent African immigrants/children of immigrants with American citizenship, but these groups tend to use the ethnic terms Latino or Hispanic, or identify themselves by their countries of origin (i.e., as Dominican or Jamaican instead of African American). The term does not include white, Indian or Arab immigrants from the African continent, as they are not generally considered 'Africans' by English-speaking people. The common interpretation of the term 'African American' is frequently, and controversially, challenged; including an infamous incident at a [http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/22/king.controversy.ap/ Nebraska High School] where a white South African student campaigned for a "Distinguished African American Student Award."

Current Demographics

Jamaican According to 2003 U.S. Census figures, some 37.1 million African Americans live in the United States, comprising 12.9 percent of the total population. At the time of the 2000 Census, 54.8 percent of African Americans lived in the South. In that year, 17.6 percent of African Americans lived in the Northeast and 18.7 percent in the Midwest, while only 8.9 percent lived in the western states. Almost 88 percent of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas in 2000. With over 2 million black residents, New York City had the largest black urban population in the United States in 2000. Among cities of 100,000 or more, Gary, Indiana, had the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. city in 2000, with 85 percent, followed closely by Detroit, Michigan, with 83 percent. Atlanta, Georgia, has a large African-American population of about 65 percent. The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., had a 60 percent Black population.

African American history

Main article: African American history Blacks in America, like their White counterparts, are composed of many diverse ethnic groups. Over 40 identifiable ethnic groups from 25 different kingdoms were sold to the United States during the Atlantic Slave trade. These people came from an area spanning from present day Senegal all the way to Democratic Republic of Congo. Over time, Africans in America formed a new and common identity focused on their mutual condition in America as opposed to cultural and historic ties to Africa. Africans were sold and traded into bondage and shipped to the American South from 1619. In 1662 Virginia, the following law mentioned hereditary slavery and tied it to being born of a slave mother; its wording suggests that "negroes" but not "Englishmen" could be enslaved, and it was apparently clarifying an existing legal status, rather than establishing a new one.

Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, be it therefore enacted and declared by the present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother.

The 1662 law brought Virginia into line with Iberian laws that had been in effect since 1265. Over the next few decades, identical laws would be adopted throughout the British colonies. They would remain in effect until U.S. slavery ended over two centuries later. The new partus sequitur ventrem law had three long-term consequences. First, it set a psychological basis for popular culture's seeing slaves as less than fully human. Prior British common law had held that social status passed through the father; only livestock ownership had been matrilineal. Second, since biracial children of free mothers were free, it enabled the emergence of a population of legitimately freeborn Americans of mixed Afro-European ancestry who had no connection to slavery within living memory. Third, it meant that tens of thousands of future slaves would be genetically European, due to European alleles from free fathers gradually replacing African alleles from slave mothers, through random DNA mixing (meiosis) at each generation. Within two centuries, this would lead to such runaway slave advertisements as, "A beautiful girl, about twenty years of age, perfectly white, with straight light hair and blue eyes. — 1847 Hannibal MO," creating the never-to-be-resolved conflict in U.S. society between a dichotomous color line and the obvious fact of mixed heritage. In 1807, the importation of slaves by U.S. citizens became illegal, yet the practice continued. By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved Africans in the Southern United States, and another 500,000 Africans lived free across the country. Slavery was a controversial issue in American society and politics. The growth of abolitionism, which opposed the institution of slavery, culminated in the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, and was one reason for the secession of the Confederate States of America, which lead to the American Civil War (1861 - 1865). The Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 declared all slaves in the Confederacy free under U.S. law. It included exceptions for those held in all territories that had not seceded, however, and thus did not immediately free a single slave, since U.S. law held no sway over the Confederacy at the time. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, freed all slaves, including those in states that had not seceded. During Reconstruction, African Americans in the South obtained the right to vote and to hold public office, as well as a number of other civil rights they previously had been denied. However, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, southern, white landowners reinstituted a regime of disenfranchisement and racial segregation, and with it a wave of terrorism and repression, including lynchings and other vigilante violence. The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the Great Migration of the early 20th century, combined with a growing African American intellectual and cultural elite in the Northern United States, led to a movement to fight violence and discrimination against African Americans that, like abolitionism before it, crossed racial lines. One of the most prominent of these groups, the NAACP, galvanized by outspoken journalist and activist Ida B. Wells Barnett, led an anti-lynching crusade. In the 1950s, the organization mounted a series of calculated legal challenges to overturn Jim Crow segregation, culminating in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision. The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board was one of defining moments of the modern-day Civil Rights Movement. It was part of a long-term strategy to strike down Jim Crow segregation in public education, the hospitality industry, public transportation, employment and housing, granting equal access to African Americans and ensuring their right to vote. The movement reached its peak in the 1960s under leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young, and Roy Wilkins, Sr. At the same time, Nation of Islam spokesman Malcolm X and, later, Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panther Party, and the Republic of New Africa called for African Americans to embrace black nationalism and black self-empowerment, propounding ideas of African (black) unity and solidarity and pan-Africanism.

Contemporary issues

Main article: African American contemporary issues Many African Americans significantly have improved their social and economic standing since the Civil Rights Movement, and recent decades have witnessed the expansion of a robust, African American middle class across the United States. However, due in part to a legacy of racism and discrimination, African Americans as a group remain at a pronounced economic, educational and social disadvantage relative to whites. Economically, the median income of African Americans is roughly 55 percent of that of European Americans. Persistent social, economic and political issues for many African Americans include inadequate health care access and delivery; institutional racism and discrimination in housing, education, policing, criminal justice and employment; crime; poverty; and substance abuse. African Americans are frequently the targets of racial profiling. They are also more likely to be incarcerated. African Americans also have higher prevalence of some chronic health conditions and out-of-wedlock births relative to the general population. These problems and potential remedies have been the subject of intense public policy debate in the United States in general, and within the African American community in particular.

Culture

Main article: African American culture African American culture is an amalgam of influences, including African, Caribbean, European, and Latino cultures. From its music and dance, to speech, demeanor, and foodways, African American culture bears the strong imprint of West Africa, particularly in rural portions of the Deep South and Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. African American music is one of the most pervasive African American cultural influences in the United States today. Hip hop, rock, R&B, funk, and other contemporary American musical forms evolved from blues, jazz, and gospel music. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a dialect of English spoken by many African Americans to varying degrees. African American authors have written many stories, poems, and essays influenced by their experiences as African Americans, and African American literature is a major genre in American literature. Famous examples include Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou.

The term African American

Political overtones

The term African American carries important political overtones. Previous terms used to identify Americans of African ancestry were conferred upon the group by whites and were included in the wording of various laws and legal decisions which became tools of white supremacy and oppression. There developed among blacks in America a growing desire for a term of their own choosing. With the political consciousness that emerged from the political and social ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Negro fell into disfavor among many African Americans. It had taken on a moderate, accommodationist, even Uncle Tomish, connotation. In this period, a growing number of blacks in the U.S., particularly African American youth, celebrated their blackness and their historical and cultural ties with the African continent. The Black Power movement defiantly embraced black as a group identifier—a term they themselves had repudiated only two decades earlier—a term often associated in English with things negative and undesirable, proclaiming, "Black is beautiful." In this same period, others favored the term Afro-American; this particular term never gained much traction, but by the 1990s, the term African American had emerged as the leading choice of self-referential term. Just as other ethnic groups in American society historically had adopted names descriptive of their families' geographical points of origin (such as Italian-American, Irish-American, Polish-American), many blacks in America expressed a preference for a similar term. Because of the historical circumstances surrounding the capture, enslavement and systematic attempts to de-Africanize blacks in the U.S. under chattel slavery, most African Americans are unable to trace their ancestry to a specific African nation; hence, the entire continent serves as a geographic marker. For many, African American is more than a name expressive of cultural and historical roots. The term expresses African pride and a sense of kinship and solidarity with others of the African diaspora—an embracing of the notion of pan-Africanism earlier enunciated by prominent African thinkers such as Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. Dubois and, later, George Padmore. A discussion of the term African American and related terms can be found in the journal article "The Politicization of Changing Terms of Self Reference Among American Slave Descendants" in American Speech v 66 is 2 Summer 1991 p. 133-46.

Who is African American?

To be considered African American in the United States of America nowadays, not even half of one's ancestry need be black African. Since the early 20th century, the nation's answer to the question "Who is black?" has been that a "black" is any person with any known African ancestry. This definition reflects the experience with racism, white supremacy, slavery, and, later, with Jim Crow laws. But this definition was not always the case.

Antebellum Social Customs¹

Before 1690 or so, colonial social divisions reflected class (planters, craftsmen, forced laborers) and religion (Christians, "heathens") but did not emphasize ethnic origin. Afro-European intermarriage was common. The endogamous color line was invented in 1691 Virginia, when intermarriage was legislated to be a crime. Over the next 30 years, Afro-European intermarriage was outlawed throughout 12 of the 13 colonies (SC being the exception) and the terms Black and White took on today's meaning. For the next century and a half, as reflected in U.S. literature, popular culture, and court cases, Americans defined which side of the color line you were on by three rules: appearance, association, and blood fraction. Appearance meant that you would not be accepted as White if you looked African. Association meant that if your all friends were Black, then you would not be accepted as White even if you looked European. Blood fraction meant that if you had more than a statutory fraction of Black ancestry, then you could not become legally White even if you looked European and associated only with Whites. Although the three rules were formally documented and enforced by the courts, each rule’s details varied from state to state. For example, the same biracial person of mostly European ancestry might be seen as a light-skinned Black in Virginia, but White-looking in Spanish Florida and the French Gulf Coast. In Barbadian South Carolina, the rule of association was heavily influenced by wealth; money whitened as in today's Brazil. And the legal blood fraction limit ranged from 1/8 (as in North Carolina) to 1/2 (Ohio). During this period, hundreds of individuals, including famous ones like Jefferson's son Eston Hemmings, painter John James Audubon, and Florida's first U.S. senator David Levy Yulee, were socially accepted as White despite acknowledging slight Black ancestry (rather like Carol Channing today).

The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule²

The one-drop rule of invisible Blackness arose in the mid-1830s in the Ohio Valley and spread to the south after the Civil War. Those who advocated the notion that you could look completely European and self-identify as White, but still be involuntarily Black due to an undetectable trace of Black ancestry, were a minority at first, and the idea was rejected both by popular culture and the law. But as 19th century was ending, the one-drop rule became increasingly accepted in the South. By 1900 it had become the law of the land in court cases. In the 1910-1930 period its acceptance spread throughout the nation, and it was made statutory and enforced in most states. Incidentally, not everyone uses the term one-drop rule thus. To some, the term is synonymous with Marvin Harris’s “hypodescent,” meaning that Americans who look slightly African are considered Black, even if their African admixture is less than 50 percent. This differs from the Caribbean, where you are White if you look preponderantly European. To others, one-drop rule refers to the U.S. folkloric belief that anyone who has even one drop of African blood in his veins is marked by some subtle physical trait, a clue that reveals the African ancestry. Some say that it is revealed in the color of the half-moons at the base of the thumbnails, or in the shape of the heels, or in blue or purple marks at specific locations on the body. To them, one-drop rule is the belief that no matter how diluted African blood may be, a residue of visible evidence will always remain, generation after generation. This is nonsense, of course, since about one-third of White Americans have detectable recent African genetic admixture in their DNA from ancestors who passed through the color line. The one-drop rule, on the other hand, is the idea that you can look completely European and self-identify as White, but still be involuntarily Black due to an undetectable trace of Black ancestry. Why were Americans the only society to adopt such a strange rule of group membership (undetectable and intangible by definition)? The question has interested anthropologists and historians. The four most popular theories are: that it maintained and expanded the agricultural labor force, that it was embraced by Black leadership to enhance ethnic solidarity, that it was used by White supremacists to support the notion of White racial purity, and that it was wielded as a threat to keep compassionate White families in line by exiling them to Blackness if they defended or befriended Blacks during the Jim Crow period of White-on-Black terror and oppression. Of course, these explanations are not mutually exclusive, and may have operated in combination. The first theory is that the one-drop rule maintained or expanded the labor force by subjecting those of mixed ancestry to forced labor. Its strength lies in explaining why the one-drop rule triumphed in the early 20th century. This was the very period when much of the South's Black agricultural labor force fled to the North in the Great Migration. The one-drop rule shifted the color line pale-wards, trapping many who had been previously seen as White. The theory's weakness is that it is sometimes erroneously applied to slavery. This is an error because no court case ever ruled that someone was a slave merely because of his or her "race." Slavery was matrilineal. Hundreds of people of sub-Saharan phenotype were routinely freed following case law set by Higgins v. Allen, 1796 Maryland by proving that a matrilineal ancestor was free. Indeed, having mixed ancestry was useful because, ever since Gobu v. Gobu, 1802 North Carolina; Hudgins v. Wrights, 1806 Virginia; and Adelle v. Beauregard, 1810 Louisiana, the law of the land (subsequently followed in hundreds of cases) was that biracial individuals were presumed to be free unless proven otherwise. But most importantly, the one-drop rule was not adopted—indeed, it was virtually unknown—in the South until long after slavery was dead. (See Race.) The explanation that the one-drop rule was embraced by Black leadership in order to enhance ethnic solidarity matches the timing and direction of the rule's spread. The rule was advocated by both Martin R. Delany (1812-1885) and Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) before the Civil War. It was carried south after the war by the Black Yankees who built the schools, printed the newspapers, and opened the businesses that taught the newly freed to flourish as Americans. It was defended and supported by Black political leadership throughout the Jim Crow terror. The one-drop system of racial designation was a significant factor in African-American ethnic solidarity since antebellum times. African Americans generally shared a common lot in society and, therefore, common cause—regardless of their ethnic admixture and social and economic stratification. This theory's weakness is that it cannot stand alone. It seems unlikely that a minority population (Black) could somehow cause mainstream society (White) to adopt and impose a law that helped only Blacks. After all, one-drop rule was enforced by White elites through the judicial system. The theory that the one-drop rule was used by White supremacists in order to support the notion of White racial purity has the advantage that it reflects the excuses given by the very legislators who wrote the laws and the judges who enforced them. They claimed that they wanted to preserve the "purity of the white race" from being "polluted" by Black blood. White supremacists, whose motivation was racist, considered anyone with African ancestry tainted, inherently inferior morally and intellectually and, thus, subordinate. The theory's drawback is that articulate public figures, such as lawmakers and judges, do not always tell the truth, even to themselves. The theory that the one-drop rule was used to keep compassionate White families in line is psychologically compelling and matches court evidence of how the rule was enforced. Between 1900 and 1920, over a hundred court cases were held to decide whether an accused family was truly White or unknowingly Black. About forty of those cases were then appealed to state supreme courts. In not one of those forty cases was any genealogical evidence produced. In no case did an accuser reveal an ancient birth certificate, marriage license, school record, or the like. Instead, the testimony was that: An aunt was seen laughing at a joke told by a Black maid. An uncle was seen shaking hands with a Black carpenter who had been hired to build a chicken-coop. A 15-year-old niece was seen flirting with a Black boy of the same age. The testimony that banished families to Blackness was always about establishing one-on-one family-to-family relationships across the color line. The theory is compelling because it is a well-known law of group psychology that when a powerful group bullies a weak group, any member of the bullying group who befriends and tries to defend a victim will be expelled to the bullied group and become a victim himself. During the Jim Crow wave of terror, the White community bullied the Black community. And so, any White family that befriended a Black family was expelled from Whiteness and made legally Black.

U.S. Social Customs Today³

In 1896, the United States Supreme Court missed an opportunity to stifle the one-drop rule before it became the law of the land two decades later. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court affirmed the legality of racial segregation and upheld the State of Louisiana's ruling that, despite being 7/8 white, Homer Plessy's one black great-grandparent rendered him legally non-white and, therefore, subject to being barred from whites-only railway carriages. Ironically, the Justices wanted to consider the issue of Plessy's "race" and encouraged Plessy's lawyers to argue the point. But Plessy's legal strategy was to stipulate that he was Black in order to focus on refuting the public benefit of segregation. Like Walter White a generation later, his goal was not to redefine himself as White (he could easily have done that without court permission); it was to kill segregation. With the advent of Affirmative Action and other entitlement programs, some have seen it advantageous to be accepted as African-American. The claims to Blackness by individuals who look White and were raised as White, have been rejected by some courts but upheld by others. It apparently depends upon community acceptance. The firefighter Malone brothers of 1985 Boston were convicted of "racial fraud" for acquiring Affirmative Action points added to test scores by claiming that a great-grandmother was Black—a claim that was violently opposed by the local Black community. On the other hand, the employers of Mary Walker of 1988 Denver, a schoolteacher of fair complexion, green eyes, light brown hair, and no documented Black ancestry, were court-ordered to accept her as Black because she was supported by the local Black community. Conversely, Mostafa Hefny of 1997 Detroit, a Black-looking immigrant from Africa (Egypt), was denied benefits because he was not "ethnically" African-American. And yet Mark Stebbins, an Afro-sporting Stockton California councilman who claimed to be of African heritage and raised in the African-American ethnicity lost his seat due to a recall vote paid for by an equally African-American (but Black separatist) opponent on the grounds that Stebbins's integrationist political agenda had made him no longer African-American enough. Again, whether you can benefit from entitlement programs meant for African Americans seems to depend on the support of the local African-American community. Some recent evidence suggests that the one-drop rule may be waning in America's popular culture. One way of measuring the tenacity of the one-drop-rule is by examining how Black/White interracial parents identify their children on the census “race” question. Such couples are not typical of most Americans. Nevertheless, if interracial parents accept the legitimacy of African-American ethnic self-identity while simultaneously rejecting the one-drop rule, you would expect half of their children to be identified as White and half as Black. That the children of Black/White interracial parents have been more often identified as Black than as White since 1880 demonstrates that the one-drop rule has been accepted for many decades. In fact, the fraction of such children labeled as unmixed White has fallen steadily from 50 percent in 1940 to 13 percent in 2000. This suggests that the one-drop rule continues to grow stronger among Black/White interracial parents. On the other hand, the fraction of such children labeled as unmixed Black dropped abruptly from 62 percent in 1990 to 31 percent in 2000. This suggests that it has recently become unfashionable to make first-generation biracial children deny their European ancestry. Whether this portends a crack in the one-drop rule remains to be seen. On the other hand, other recent evidence suggests that the one-drop rule is still invoked by Americans whenever it seems useful. As recently as 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the one-drop rule by refusing to hear a case against Louisiana’s “racial” classification criteria as applied to Susie Phipps (479 U.S. 1002). And authors have found it very profitable to "out" as Black famous historical Americans who looked White, were accepted as White in their society, and self-identified as White, merely because they acknowledged having slight African ancestry (Patrick Francis Healy, Michael Morris Healy, Jr., Calvin Clark Davis, John James Audubon, Mother Henriette Delille—a biracial Louisiana Creole). In the 1980s, parents of mixed-race children began to organize and lobby for the addition of a more inclusive term of racial designation that would reflect the heritage of their offspring. As a result, the term biracial has become more widely used and accepted to classify people of mixed race. In sum, how Americans have determined whether a person is African American (that is, a member of the U.S. Black endogamous community) or White (that is, a suitable marriage partner for Whites) has changed dramatically over the centuries and may be changing still.

Terms no longer in common use

The term Negro, which was widely used until the 1960s, today increasingly is considered passé and inappropriate or derogatory. It is still fairly commonly used by older individuals and in the Deep South. Once widely considered acceptable, Negro fell into disfavor for reasons already herein stated. The self-referential term of preference for Negro became black. Negroid is a term used by European anthropologists first in the 18th century to describe indigenous Africans and their descendants throughout the African diaspora. As with most descriptors of race based on inconsistent, unscientific phenotypical standards, the term is controversial and imprecise. Because of its similarity to Negro, growing numbers of blacks have substituted the term Africoid which, unlike Negroid, encompasses the phenotypes of all indigenous African peoples. Other largely defunct, seldom used terms to refer to African Americans are mulatto and colored. Even so, the use of the word "colored" can still be found today in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. The American use of the term mulatto originally was used to mean the offspring of a "pure African black" and a "pure European white". The Latin root of the word is mulo, as in "mule", implying incorrectly that, like mules, which are horse-donkey hybrids, mulattoes are sterile crosses of two different species. For example, in the early 20th century, African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass, who had slaves as mothers and white fathers, were referred to as mulattoes. While not as common as "mixed" or "biracial," or even "multiracial," mulatto is still sometimes used to refer to people of mixed parentage and, despite its origin, is not considered inherently derogatory. The term quadroon referred to a person of one-fourth African descent, for example, someone born to a Caucasian father and a mulatto mother. Someone of one-eighth African descent technically was an octoroon, although the term often was used to refer to any white person with even a hint of black ancestry. Mulatto and terms with the -roon suffix persisted in a social context for a number of decades, but by the mid twentieth century, they no longer were in common use. With the end of slavery, there was no longer a strong commercial incentive to classify blacks by their African-European ancestral admixture. The occasional use of these terms, however, does still persist in electronic media, literature and in some social settings.

Black American population

The following gives the black population in the U.S. over time, based on U.S. Census figures. (Numbers from years 1920 to 2000 are based on U.S. Census figures as given on page 377 of the Time Almanac of 2005. note: The CIA World Factbook gives the current 2005 figure as 12.9% [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/us.html]

External links

- [http://www.saxakali.com/caribbean/shamil.htm African Americans in the Caribbean and Latin America]
- [http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmcensus1.html African Americans by the numbers]
- [http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhm1.html Black History Month]
- [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Slavery_Pictures_.htm Slavery Pictures], Original 1860s
- [http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=38705 Definition of African American] from MedicineNet
- [http://www.radioblack.com/ African American Music] Black American Radio Stations

Footnotes

#This section was adapted from chapters 6-13 of the book, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0939479230, which contains the detailed citations and references. Summaries of these chapters, with endnotes, are also available online at [http://backintyme.com/Essay040811.htm How the Law Decided if You Were Black or White: The Early 1800s]. #This section was adapted from chapters 20-21 of the book, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0939479230, which contains the detailed citations and references. Summaries of these chapters, with endnotes, are also available online at [http://backintyme.com/Essay050501.htm Jim Crow Triumph of the One-Drop Rule]. #This section was adapted from chapter 14 of the book, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule by Frank W. Sweet, ISBN 0939479230, which contains the detailed citations and references. A summary of this chapters, with endnotes, is also available online at [http://backintyme.com/Essay050301.htm Features of Today’s One-Drop Rule]. Category:African Americans Category:Ethnic groups ja:アフリカン・アメリカン

Bart Kosko

Bart Kosko is professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). He is famous as the leading proponent and popularizer of fuzzy logic, and is author of several books. He is an expert on mind and machine intelligence including military applications and smart weapons. Bart Kosko received bachelor's degrees in economics and philosophy from the University of Southern California, the master's degree in applied mathematics from the University of California, San Diego, and the doctorate degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Irvine. Recently, he obtained a law degree and spent this last summer working with the Los Angeles District Attorney's office. He currently teaches probability and statistics (among other things) at the Electrical Engineering department of the University of Southern California

External links

- [http://sipi.usc.edu/~kosko/ University of Southern California - Signal and Imaging Processing Institute]

Error correction

In computer science and information theory, the issue of error correction and detection has great practical importance. Given some data, error detection methods enable one to check whether the data has been corrupted by the introduction of errors, but the method does not tell us where the errors have been introduced. Error correction schemes permit error localization but also give the possibility of correcting errors that have been introduced. Error correction and detection schemes find use in implementations of reliable data transfer over noisy transmission links, data storage media (including dynamic RAM, compact discs), and other applications where the integrity of data is important.
- In digital telecommunications, channel coding is a pre-transmission mapping applied to a digital signal or data file, usually with an error-detection or an error-correction code.
- File formats that have internal error correction: ER AAC, ICER (used by the Mars rovers)

Terminology

While the use of error correction and detection schemes are not limited only to sender-receiver systems, in discussing a particular scheme, it will be advantageous for us to use the terminology of a "sender" and a "receiver" for simplicity. The sender will always have the correct data, without errors, and thus for a situation of data storage media for example, the "sent" data can be likened to the original, correct data as intended, and the "received" data can be likened to the data that is read from the media. Error correction and detection schemes work by adding extra information to the original sent information. We will call this extra information redundant data, and we will call the original information the payload.

Error detection

Given the goal of error correction, the idea of error detection may seem to be insufficient. However, error-correction schemes may be computationally intensive, or require excessive redundant data which may be inhibitive for a certain application. Error correction in some applications, such as a sender-receiver system, can be achieved with only a detection system in tandem with a automatic repeat request scheme to notify the sender that a portion of the data sent was received incorrectly and will need to be retransmitted, however where efficiency is important, it is possible to detect and correct errors with far less redundant data.

Typical schemes

Several schemes exist to achieve error detection, and are generally quite simple.

Repetition schemes

Variations on this theme exist. Given a stream of data that is to be sent, the data is broken up into blocks of bits, and in sending, each block is sent some predetermined number of times. For example, if we want to send "1011", we may repeat this block three times each. Suppose we send "1011 1011 1011", and this is received as "1010 1011 1011". As one group is not the same as the other two, we can determine that an error has occurred. This scheme is not very efficient, and can be susceptible to problems if the error occurs in exactly the same place for each group (e.g. "1010 1010 1010" in the example above will be detected as correct in this scheme). The scheme however is extremely simple, and is in fact used in some transmissions of numbers stations.

Parity schemes

:Main article: Parity bit Given a stream of data that is to be sent, the data is broken up into blocks of bits, and the number of 1 bits is counted. Based on this number, we use one bit of redundant data specified as follows: if the number of 1 bits is even, this bit is 0, otherwise, if the number of 1 bits is odd, this bit is 1. So, for the payload byte 00101101, there are four 1 bits, so the redundant data bit is 0. For the payload byte 11101111, there are seven 1 bits, so the redundant data bit is 1. Suppose the payload and redundant data is sent consecutively, and we are sending the two payloads as above. So, we send "001011010" and "111011111". Say now an error occurs in the first byte, that "001011010" is received as "101011010". Error detection is achieved by recalculating the redundant data bit at the receiver side, using the first eight bits. From the receiver's point of view, there are five 1 bits, so the redundant data bit should be 1, but it is received as 0, so the receiver can conclude that an error has occurred. It can be seen that even if the redundant data bit is corrupted, error detection still occurs. There is a limitation to the parity scheme. Suppose that two errors occur in the second byte, that "111011111" is received as "011001111". On recalculation of the redundant data bit, the receiver finds that there are five one bits -- which is still odd, and finds that this byte is received correctly! We say then that the parity scheme detects single-bit errors.

Cyclic redundancy checks

: Main article: Cyclic redundancy check Many more complex error detection (and correction) methods make use of the properties of finite fields and polynomials over such fields. The cyclic redundancy check considers a block of data as the coefficients to a polynomial and then divides by a fixed, predetermined polynomial. The coefficients of the result of the division is taken as the redundant data bits, the CRC.
- Checking the received data can be achieved by multiplying the predetermined polynomial by the CRC.
- If this is the same as the payload data, then the data has been received without error.
- Alternatively, one can recompute the CRC from the payload bits and compare the CRC with the CRC that has been received.

Error correction

The above methods are sufficient to determine whether some data has been received in error. But often, this is not enough. Consider an application such as simplex teletype over radio (SITOR). If a message needs to be received quickly and needs to be complete without error, merely knowing where the errors occurred may not be enough, the second condition is not satisfied as the message will be incomplete. Suppose then the receiver waits for a message to be repeated (since the situation is simplex), the first condition is not satisfied since the receiver will have to wait (possibly a long time) for the message to be repeated to fill the gaps left by the errors. It would be advantageous if the receiver could somehow determine what the error was and thus correct it. Is this even possible? Yes, consider the NATO phonetic alphabet -- if a sender were to be sending the word "WIKI" with the alphabet by sending "WHISKEY INDIA KILO INDIA" and this was received (with
- signifying letters received in error) as "W
- KEY I
- I
-
- LO
- DI
- ", it would be possible to correct all the errors here since there is only one word in the NATO phonetic alphabet which starts with "W" and ends in "KEY", and similarly for the other words. This idea is also present in some error correcting codes (ECC). Error-correcting schemes also have their limitations. Some can correct a certain number of bit errors and only detect further numbers of bit errors. Codes which can correct one error are termed single error correcting (SEC), and those which detect two are termed double error detecting (DED). There are codes which can correct and detect more errors than these.

Applications

The Internet

In a typical TCP/IP stack, error detection is performed at multiple levels:
- Each Ethernet frame carries a CRC-32 checksum. The receiver discards frames if their checksums don't match.
- The IPv4 header contains a header checksum of the contents of the header (excluding the checksum field). Packets with checksums that don't match are discarded.
- The checksum was omitted from the IPv6 header, because most current link layer protocols have error detection.
- UDP has an optional checksum. Packets with wrong checksums are discarded.
- TCP has a checksum of the payload, TCP header (excluding the checksum field) and source- and destination addresses of the IP header. Packets found to have incorrect checksums are discarded and eventually get retransmitted when the sender receives a triple-ack or a time-out occurs.

Deep Space Telecommunications (Voyager)

NASA has used many different error correcting codes. For missions between 1969 and 1977 the Mariner spacecraft used a Reed-Muller code. The noise these spacecraft were subject to was well approximated by a "bell-curve" (normal distribution), so the Reed-Muller codes were well suited to the situation. The Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft transmitted color pictures of Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980.
- Color image transmission required 3 times the amount of data, so the Golay (24,12,8) code was used.
- This Golay code is only 3-error correcting, but it could be transmitted at a much higher data rate.
- Voyager 2 went on to Uranus and Neptune and the code was switched to a concatenated Reed-Solomon code-Convolutional code for its substantially more powerful error correcting capabilities.
Convolutional code
The different kinds of deep space and orbital missions that are conducted suggest that trying to find a "one size fits all" error correction system will be an ongoing problem for some time to come.
- For missions close to the earth the nature of the "noise" is different from that on a spacecraft headed towards the outer planets
- In particular, if a transmitter on a spacecraft far from earth is operating at a low power, the problem of correcting for noise gets larger with distance from the earth

Satellite Broadcasting (DVB)

The demand for satellite transponder bandwidth continues to grow, fueled by the desire to deliver television (including new channels and High Definition TV) and IP data. Transponder availability and bandwidth constraints have limited this growth, because transponder capacity is determined by the selected modulation scheme and Forward Error Correction (FEC) rate. Scientific-Atlanta has been evaluating developing products based on Turbo Codes concatenated with minimal complexity Reed-Solomon Codes in its laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia and Toronto, Canada. While QPSK has been in use for many years, higher orders of modulation such as 8PSK and 16QAM have recently enabled the satellite industry to increase transponder efficiency. This increase in the information rate in a transponder comes at the expense of an increase in the carrier power to meet the threshold requirement into existing antennas. Tests conducted using the latest silicon demonstrate that the performance achieved is as predicted, and that the implementation margin may be even lower than the 0.8 dB figure used in the initial design parameters.
dB

Information theory and error correction and detection

Information theory tells us that whatever be the probability of error in transmission or storage, it is possible to construct error-correcting codes in which the likelihood of failure is arbitrarily low, although this requires adding increasing amounts of redundant data to the original, which might not be practical when the error probability is very high. Shannon's theorem sets an upper bound to the error correction rate that can be achieved (and thus the level of noise that can be tolerated) using a fixed amount of redundancy, but does not tell us how to construct such an optimal encoder. Error-correcting codes can be divided into block codes and convolutional codes. Other block error-correcting codes, such as Reed-Solomon codes transform a chunk of bits into a (longer) chunk of bits in such a way that errors up to some threshold in each block can be detected and corrected. However, in practice errors often occur in bursts rather than at random. This is often compensated for by shuffling (interleaving) the bits in the message after coding. Then any burst of bit-errors is broken up into a set of scattered single-bit errors when the bits of the message are unshuffled (de-interleaved) before being decoded.

List of error-detection methods

- Longitudinal redundancy check

List of error-correction methods

- Alamouti coding, otherwise called Space-Time codes.
- Check bit
- Check digit
- Convolutional codes are usually decoded with Iterative Viterbi Decoding techniques
- Digital fountain code
- Differential space-time code, related to Alamouti Code family of Space-Time codes.
- Erasure code
- Forward error correction
- Group code
- Golay code, the Binary Golay codes are the most commonly used Golay codes
- Hagelbarger code
- Hamming code
- Low-density parity-check code
- Parity bit
- Reed-Solomon error correction
- Reed-Muller code
- Sparse graph code
- Space-time trellis code
- Turbo code
- Viterbi algorithm
- Walsh code used in cellular telephony for its low noise immunity, not just its ECC capabilities

External links

- [http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/ The on-line textbook: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms], by David MacKay, contains chapters on elementary error-correcting codes; on the theoretical limits of error-correction; and on the latest state-of-the-art error-correcting codes, including low-density parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes.
- ko:오류정정부호 ja:誤り検出

Max More

Max More (born January 1964, Bristol, England formerly known as Max T. O'Connor) is a philosopher and futurist who writes, speaks, and consults on advanced decision making and foresight methods for handling the impact of emerging technologies. More has a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from St Anne’s College, Oxford University (1987). His 1995 University of Southern California doctoral dissertation "The Diachronic Self: Identity, Continuity, and Transformation" examined several issues that concern transhumanists, including the nature of death, and what it is about each individual that continues despite great change over time. Founder of Extropy Institute, More has written many articles espousing his philosophy of extropianism, most importantly his Principles of Extropy (currently version 3.11). In a 1990 essay "Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy", he introduced the term transhumanism in its modern sense, connecting its high-tech means to its humanist roots. More is also noted for his writings about the impact of new and emerging technologies on businesses and other organizations. Published critics have often positioned More as a utopian, but a survey of his work suggests a critical, practical approach to the future. Most recently, More wrote "The Proactionary Principle", intended as a balanced guide to the risks and benefits of technological innovation. According to his personal website, “Max is concerned that our burgeoning technological capabilities are racing far ahead of our standard ways of thinking about future possibilities. His work aims to improve our ability to anticipate, adapt to, and shape the future for the better.” Until 1989, Max More published under his former name, Max T. O'Connor.

External links

- [http://www.maxmore.com Personal website]
- [http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.asp?coid=CO950224303384 Business futurist Thought Leader bio]
- [http://www.maxmore.com/transhum.htm "Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy"]
- [http://www.maxmore.com/disscont.htm The Diachronic Self, Ph.D. dissertation]
- [http://www.extropy.org/proactionaryprinciple.htm Proactionary Principle]
- [http://www.transhumanist.biz/laweekly.htm The Transhumanists. Meet Max and Natasha. They hope to live forever. Seriously, by Brendan Bernhard ] More, Max More, Max More, Max

Futurist

This article is about the art movement, futurism. Futurism is also another word for Future studies. Futurism was a 20th century art movement. Although a nascent Futurism can been seen surfacing throughout the very early years of that century, the 1907 essay Entwurf einer neuen Ästhetik der Tonkunst (Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music) by the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni is sometimes claimed as its true jumping-off point. Futurism was a largely Italian movement, although it also had adherents in other countries, most notably Russia. The Futurists explored every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre, music and even gastronomy. The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the first among them to produce a manifesto of their artistic philosophy in his Manifesto of Futurism (1909), first released in Milan and published in the French paper Le Figaro (February 20). Marinetti summed up the major principles of the Futurists, including a passionate loathing of ideas from the past, especially political and artistic traditions. He and others also espoused a love of speed, technology and violence. The car, the plane, the industrial town were all legendary for the Futurists, because they represented the technological triumph of man over nature. Marinetti's impassioned polemic immediately attracted the support of the young Milanese painters - Boccioni, Carrà, and Russolo - who wanted to extend Marinetti's ideas to the visual arts (Russolo was also a composer, and introduced Futurist ideas into his compositions). The painters Balla and Severini met Marinetti in 1910 and together these artists represented Futurism's first phase. The painter and sculptor Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) wrote the Manifesto of Futurist Painters in 1910 in which he vowed: :We will fight with all our might the fanatical, senseless and snobbish religion of the past, a religion encouraged by the vicious existence of museums. We rebel against that spineless worshipping of old canvases, old statues and old bric-a-brac, against everything which is filthy and worm-ridden and corroded by time. We consider the habitual contempt for everything which is young, new and burning with life to be unjust and even criminal. Futurists dubbed the love of the past "pastism", and its proponents "pastists" (cf. Stuckism). They would sometimes even physically attack alleged pastists, in other words, those who were apparently not enjoying Futurist exhibitions or performances. The Futurists' glorification of modern warfare as the ultimate artistic expression and their intense nationalism allowed those of them who survived World War I to embrace Italian fascism. Futurism influenced many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism and Surrealism. Futurism as a coherent artistic movement is now regarded as extinct, having died out in the 1920s; many of the Futurists were killed in two world wars, and Futurism was, like science fiction, in part overtaken by 'the future'. Nonetheless the ideals of futurism remain as significant components of modern Western culture; the emphasis on youth, speed, power and technology finding expression in much of modern commercial cinema and culture. Ridley Scott consciously evoked the designs of Sant'Elia in Blade Runner. Echoes of Marinetti's thought, especially his "dreamt-of metallization of the human body", also remain in Japanese culture, and surface in manga/anime and the works of artists such as Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the "Tetsuo" (lit. "Ironman") films. Futurism has produced several reactions, including the literary genre of cyberpunk - in which technology was often treated with ambivalence - whilst artists who came to prominence during the first flush of the Internet, such as Stelarc, Natasha Vita-More and Mariko Mori, produce work which comments on futurist ideals. Natasha Vita-More also designed Primo Posthuman as the artistic futurists' body design.

Futurist visual artists

- Giacomo Balla
- Umberto Boccioni
- Carlo Carrà
- Primo Conti
- Fortunato Depero
- Luigi Russolo
- Antonio Sant'Elia
- Gino Severini

External links

- http://www.unknown.nu/futurism
- [http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Art_History/Periods_and_Movements/Futurism/ Yahoo index of Futurism Websites]
- [http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=59tp01 The Futurist Moment: Howlers, Exploders, Crumplers, Hissers, and Scrapers] by Kenneth Goldsmith
- http://www.futurism.org.uk/ Category:Art movements Category:Modern art Category:Futurism Category:Dieselpunk ja:未来派

Extropy Institute

Extropianism, also referred to as extropy, is the original philosophy of transhumanism, and is characterized by the set of principles defined by Dr. Max More in The Principles of Extropy. Extropy stems from the transhumanist world view as defined by Dr. More and places strong emphasis on rational thinking and practical optimism. According to More, these principles "do not specify particular beliefs, technologies, or policies". Extropy shares the beliefs of its parent philosophy, transhumanism, which was also developed and defined by Dr. More. The transhumanist philosophy of Extropy supports an optimistic view of the future, expecting considerable advances in computational power, life expectancy, nanotechnology and the like. Many extropians believe in the eventual realization of unlimited maximum life spans, and recovery of those preserved by means of cryonics, by technological means. Extropy, coined by Tom Bell (T. O. Morrow) in January 1988, is defined as the extent of a living or organizational system's intelligence, functional order, vitality, energy, life, experience, and capacity and drive for improvement and growth. Extropy expresses a metaphor, rather than serving as a technical term, and so is not simply the opposite of entropy.

The Extropy Institute

In 1987, Max More moved to Los Angeles from Oxford University in England, where he established the first European cryonics organization, known as Mizar Limited (later Alcor UK), to work on his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Southern California. In 1988, "Extropy: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought" was published, which brought together thinkers to write about artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, life extension, uploading, Idea Futures, robotics, space exploration, memetics and the politics and economics of transhumanism. Soon alternative media began reviewing the magazine and the magazine attracted interest from likeminded thinkers. Later, More and Bell co-founded Extropy Institute, a non-profit 501(c)3 educational organization. "ExI" was formed as a transhumanist networking and information center to use current scientific understanding along with critical and creative thinking to define a small set of principles or values that could help make sense of new capabilities opening up to humanity. Extropy Institute's email list was launched in 1991 and in 1992 the institute began producing the first conferences on transhumanism, and affiliate members throughout the world who began organizing their own transhumanist groups. Extro Conferences, meetings, parties, on-line debates, and documentaries continue to spread transhumanism to the public. The Internet soon became the most fertile breeding ground for people interested in exploring new tools with websites such as Extropy Institute, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Foresight Institute, Transhumanist Arts & Culture, World Transhumanist Association, Immortality Institute and BetterHumans. Today there are other organizations that have joined Extropy Institute to further transhumanist ideas such as Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Foresight Institute, Transhumanist Arts & Culture, Immortality Institute, Aleph in Sweden, TransVision in Europe, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and numerous other organizations currently being developed.

External links

- [http://www.extropy.org/ Extropy Institute] Category:Transhumanism

Direct-methanol fuel cell

Direct-methanol fuel cells or DMFCs are a subcategory of Proton-exchange fuel cells where, the fuel, methanol, is not reformed, but fed directly to the fuel cell.

Advantages

Because methanol is fed directly into the fuel cell, complicated catalytic reforming is unneeded, and storage of methanol is much easier than that of hydrogen because it does not need to be done at high pressures, as methanol is a liquid. The energy density of methanol (the amount of hydrogen in a given volume) is orders of magnitude greater than even highly compressed hydrogen.

Issues

However, efficiency is low, due to the high permeation of methanol through the membrane, and the dynamic behaviour is sluggish. Methanol is also poisonous. As a result of these strengths and problems, DMFCs are limited in the power they can produce, but can still store much energy in a small space. This means they can produce a small amount of power over a long period of time which makes them well suited to power consumer electronics such as cell phones and laptops but rules them out of automotive applications.

Reaction

The DMFC relies upon the oxidation of methanol on a catalyst layer to form carbon dioxide. Water is consumed at the anode and is produced at the cathode. Protons (H⁺) are transported across the proton exchange membrane to the cathode where they react with dioxygen to produce water. Electrons are transported via an external circuit from anode to cathode providing power to external devices. The half reactions are: Anode: CH₃OH + H₂O → CO₂ + 6H⁺ + 6e^- Cathode: 1.5O₂ + 6H⁺ + 6e^- → 3H₂O Net reaction: CH₃OH + 1.5O₂ → CO₂ + 2H₂O Because water is consumed at the anode in the reaction, pure methanol cannot be used without provision of water via either passive transport such as back diffusion (osmosis), or active transport such as pumping. The need for water limits the energy density of the fuel.

Achievements

As of 2005, the record for the smallest commercially available fuel cell is held by Toshiba, at 22 x 56 x 4.5 millimeters. This device outputs 100 milliwatts at 10 hours per milliliter of fuel, and takes advantage of new technology allowing the use of undiluted (99.5%) methanol. Reference: [http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/news_article.jsp?service=UK&ID=0000005758 Toshiba press release] Category:Fuel cells

Andrew Viterbi

Andrew Viterbi (March 9, 1935) is an American electrical engineer and businessman. Andrew Viterbi was born in Bergamo, Italy to Jewish parents and emigrated with his parents in 1939 to the United States as a refugee. Viterbi entered MIT in 1952, studying electrical engineering. Distinguished faculty members contemporary to his education included Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, Roberto Fano and Bruno Rossi. After receiving his Masters degree from MIT, Viterbi received his Ph.D. in digital communications from the University of Southern California (USC). He was later a professor of electrical engineering at UCLA and UCSD. He is the inventor of the Viterbi algorithm, an algorithm he used for decoding convolutionally encoded data. It is still used widely in error correcting codes present in cellular phones. Viterbi was the cofounder of Linkabit Corporation, with Irwin Jacobs in 1968, a small military contractor. He was also the founder of Qualcomm Inc. in 1985. As of 2003, he is the president of the venture capitalist The Viterbi Group. In 2000, Viterbi ranked 386th on the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, with an estimated worth of $640 million. On March 2, 2004, the University of Southern California School of Engineering was renamed to the Viterbi School of Engineering in his honor following his $52 million donation to the school. He is married to Erna Finci. Viterbi Viterbi Viterbi, Andrew Viterbi Viterbi Viterbi Viterbi Viterbi, Andrew Viterbi

CDMA

Code division multiple access (CDMA) is (not a modulation scheme, but a form of multiplexing) a method of multiple access that does not divide up the channel by time (as in TDMA), or frequency (as in FDMA), but instead encodes data with a certain code associated with a channel and uses the constructive interference properties of the signal medium to perform the multiplexing. CDMA also refers to digital cellular telephony systems that makes use of this multiple access scheme, such as those pioneered by Qualcomm, or W-CDMA.

History of CDMA

see: direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)

Usage in mobile telephony

A number of different terms are used to refer to CDMA implementations. The original standard spearheaded by QUALCOMM was known as IS-95, the IS referring to an Interim Standard of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). IS-95 is often referred to as 2G or second generation cellular. The QUALCOMM brand name cdmaOne may also be used to refer to the 2G CDMA standard. After several revisions, IS-95 was superseded by the IS-2000 standard. This standard was introduced to meet some of the criteria laid out in the IMT-2000 specification for 3G, or third generation, cellular. It is also sometimes referred to as 1xRTT which simply means "1 times radio transmission technology" and indicates that IS-2000 uses the same 1.25 MHz shared channel as the original IS-95 standard. More recently, QUALCOMM has led the creation of a new CDMA-based technology called 1xEVDO which provides the higher packet data transmission rates required by IMT-2000 and desired by wireless network operators. The QUALCOMM CDMA system includes highly accurate time signals (usually referenced to a GPS receiver in the cell base station), so cellphone CDMA-based clocks are an increasingly popular type of Radio clock for use in computer networks. The main advantage of using CDMA cell-phone signals for reference clock purposes is that they work better inside buildings, thus often eliminating the need to mount the GPS antenna on the outside of a building. Also frequently confused with CDMA is W-CDMA. The CDMA technique is used as the principle of the W-CDMA air interface, and the W-CDMA air interface is used in the global 3G standard, UMTS, and Japanese 3G standards, FOMA by NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone, however, the CDMA family of standards (including cdmaOne and CDMA2000) are not compatible with the W-CDMA family of standards. Another important application of CDMA — predating and entirely distinct from CDMA cellular — is the Global Positioning System, GPS.

Technical details

Mathematical foundation

CDMA exploits at its core mathematical properties of orthogonality. Suppose we represent data signals as vectors. For example, the binary string "1011" would be represented by the vector (1, 0, 1, 1). We may wish to give a vector a name, we may do so by using boldface letters, eg a. We also use an operation on vectors, known as the dot product, to "multiply" vectors, by summing the product of the components. For example, the dot product of (1, 0, 1, 1) and (1, -1, -1, 0) would be (1)(1)+(0)(-1)+(1)(-1)+(1)(0)=1+-1=0. Where the dot product of vectors a and b is 0, we say that the two vectors are orthogonal. The dot product has a number of properties, and one will aid us in understanding why CDMA works. For vectors a, b, c: :

\mathbf\cdot(\mathbf+\mathbf)=\mathbf\cdot\mathbf+\mathbf\cdot\mathbf,\quad\mathrm

\mathbf\cdot k\mathbf=k(\mathbf\cdot\mathbf).

The square root of a.a is a real number, and is important. We write :

||\mathbf||=\sqrt.

Suppose vectors a and b are orthogonal. Then: :

\mathbf\cdot(\mathbf+\mathbf)=||\mathbf||^2\quad\mathrm\quad\mathbf\cdot\mathbf+\mathbf\cdot\mathbf= ||a||^2+0,

\mathbf\cdot(-\mathbf+\mathbf)=-||\mathbf||^2\quad\mathrm\quad-\mathbf\cdot\mathbf+\mathbf\cdot\mathbf= -||a||^2+0,

\mathbf\cdot(\mathbf+\mathbf)=||\mathbf||^2\quad\mathrm\quad\mathbf\cdot\mathbf+\mathbf\cdot\mathbf= 0+||b||^2,

\mathbf\cdot(\mathbf-\mathbf)=-||\mathbf||^2\quad\mathrm\quad\mathbf\cdot\mathbf-\mathbf\cdot\mathbf=0 -||b||^2.

Implementation

dot product Suppose now we have a set of vectors that are mutually orthogonal to each other. Usually these vectors are specially constructed for ease of decoding -- they are columns or rows from Walsh matrices that are constructed from Walsh functions -- but strictly mathematically the only restriction on these vectors is that they are orthogonal. An example of orthogonal functions is shown in the picture on the right. Now, associate with one sender a vector from this set, say v, which is called the chip code. Associate a zero digit with the vector -v, and a one digit with the vector v. For example, if v=(1,-1), then the binary vector (1, 0, 1, 1) would correspond to (1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1). For the purposes of this article, we call this constructed vector the transmitted vector. Each sender has a different, unique vector chosen from that set, but the construction of the transmitted vector is identical. Now, the physical properties of interference say that if two signals at a point are in phase, they will "add up" to give twice the amplitude of each signal, but if they are out of phase, they will "subtract" and give a signal that is the difference of the amplitudes. Digitally, this behaviour can be modelled simply by the addition of the transmission vectors, componentwise. So, if we have two senders, both sending simultaneously, one with the chip code (1, -1) and data vector (1, 0, 1, 1), and another with the chip code (1, 1), and data vector (0,0,1,1), the raw signal received would be the sum of the transmission vectors (1,-1,-1,1,1,-1,1,-1)+(-1,-1,-1,-1,1,1,1,1)=(0,-2,-2,0,2,0,2,0). Suppose a receiver gets such a signal, and wants to detect what the transmitter with chip code (1, -1) is sending. The receiver will make use of the property described in the above foundation section, and take the dot product to the received vector in parts. Take the first two components of the received vector, that is, (0, -2). Now, (0, -2).(1, -1) = (0)(1)+(-2)(-1) = 2. Since this is positive, we can deduce that a one digit was sent. Taking the next two components, (-2, 0), (-2, 0).(1,-1)=(-2)(1)+(0)(-1)=-2. Since this is negative, we can deduce that a zero digit was sent. Continuing in this fashion, we can successfully decode what the transmitter with chip code (1, -1) was sending: (1, 0, 1, 1). Likewise, applying the same process with chip code (1, 1): (1, 1).(0,-2) = -2 gives digit 0, (1, 1).(-2,0)=(1)(-2)+(1)(0)=-2 gives digit 0, and so on, to give us the data vector sent by the transmitter with chip code (1, 1): (0, 0, 1, 1). Now, there are certain issues where this mathematical process can be disrupted. Suppose that one sender transmits at a higher signal strength than another. Then the critical orthogonality property can be disrupted, and thus the system can fail. Thus controlling power strength is an important issue with CDMA transmitters. A TDMA or FDMA receiver can in theory completely reject arbitrarily strong signals on other time slots or frequency channels. This is not true for CDMA; rejection of unwanted signals is only partial. If any or all of the unwanted signals are much stronger than the desired signal, they will overwhelm it. This leads to a general requirement in any CDMA system to approximately match the various signal power levels as seen at the receiver. In CDMA cellular, the base station uses a fast closed-loop power control scheme to tightly control each mobile's transmit power. Suppose that noise present in a channel takes a zero bit to some other value. Then this will also disrupt the orthogonality property, and thus adding an extra level of forward error correction (FEC) coding is also vital. So far, we have assumed that CDMA timing is absolutely exact, that is, transmitters exactly transmit at points in multiples of the length of the chip sequence. Of course, in reality, this is impractical to achieve, so all forms of CDMA use spread spectrum process gain to allow receivers to partially discriminate against unwanted signals. Signals with the desired chip code and timing are received, while signals with different chip codes (or the same spreading code but a different timing offset) appear as wideband noise reduced by the process gain. CDMA's main advantage over TDMA and FDMA is that the number of available CDMA codes is essentially infinite. This makes CDMA ideally suited to large numbers of transmitters each generating a relatively small amount of traffic at irregular intervals, as it avoids the overhead of continually allocating and deallocating a limited number of orthogonal time slots or frequency channels to individual transmitters. CDMA transmitters simply send when they have something to say, and go off the air when they don't.

Soft Handoff

Soft handoff (or soft handover) is an innovation in mobility which was only possible with CDMA technology. It refers to the technique of moving from one cell to another without dropping the radio link at any time. In TDMA and analog systems, each cell transmits on its own frequency, different from those of its neighbouring cells. If a mobile device reaches the edge of the cell currently serving its call, it is told to break its radio link and quickly tune to the frequency of one of the neighbouring cells where the call has been moved by the network due to the mobile's movement. If the mobile is unable to tune to the new frequency in time the call is dropped. In CDMA, a set of neighbouring cells all use the same frequency for transmission and distinguish cells (or base stations) by means of a number called the "PN offset", a time offset from the beginning of the well-known pseudo-random noise sequence that is used to spread the signal from the base station. Because all of the cells are on the same frequency, listening to different base stations is now an exercise in digital signal processing based on offsets from the PN sequence, not RF transmission and reception based on separate frequencies. As the CDMA phone roams through the network, it detects the PN offsets of the neighbouring cells and reports the strength of each signal back to the reference cell of the call (usually the strongest cell). If the signal from a neighbouring cell is strong enough, the mobile will be directed to "add a leg" to its call and start transmitting and receiving to and from the new cell in addition to the cell (or cells) already hosting the call. Likewise, if a cell's signal becomes too weak the mobile is directed to drop that leg. In this way, the mobile can move from cell to cell and add and drop legs as necessary in order to keep the call up without ever dropping the link. In practice there are frequency boundaries, often between different carriers or sub-networks. In this situation, the CDMA phone behaves in the same way as TDMA or analog and performs a hard handoff in which it breaks the existing connection and tries to pick up on the new frequency where it left off.

CDMA features

- Narrowband message signal multiplied by wideband spreading signal or codeword
- Each user has its own pseudo-codeword
- Soft capacity limit: system performance degrades for all users as number of users increases
- Cell frequency reuse one: no frequency planning
- Soft handover increases capacity
- Near-far problem
- Interference limit: power control is required
- Wide bandwidth induces diversity: RAKE receiver is used

External links

- [http://www.3gpp2.org/ The Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2)]
- [http://www.3gpp.org/ The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) ]
- [http://www.cdg.org/ CDMA Development Group (CDG)]
- [http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/ Radio-Electronics.Com]
- [http://www.cdmatech.com/ Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT)]
- [http://www.mobileafrica.net/cdma.php CDMA in Africa ]
- PN Sequences

Herb Alpert

Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935 in Los Angeles, California) is a Jewish-American musician most associated with the Tijuana Brass, a now-defunct brass band of which he was leader. He is also famous as a recording industry executive — he is the "A" of A&M Records. A&M Records]

Early life and career

He began trumpet lessons at about the age of 8 and played at dances as a teenager. After graduating from Fairfax High School in 1955, he joined the U.S. Army and frequently performed at military ceremonies. After his service to the Army, he tried his hand at acting, but decided to pursue a career in music. While attending the University of Southern California in the 1950s, he was a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band for 2 years. At the dawn of his music career, Alpert co-wrote (along with Lou Adler) early rock and roll hits such as "Wonderful World" and "Only Sixteen". His recording career began at RCA under the name of Dore Alpert. He also produced Dante & the Evergreens hit "Alley Oop" and Jan & Dean. In 1962, Alpert and his business partner Jerry Moss founded their record label, A&M Records.

The Tijuana Brass Years

Shortly after A&M's founding, Alpert formed a new group, one with a Latin flavor: the Tijuana Brass. In 1962, Alpert and the Brass released their debut album, The Lonely Bull (the title cut became a Top Ten hit). This was literally A&M's first album (the original number was 101), and was recorded in a converted garage. It was Alpert's groundbreaking musical flavor created by this album that catapulted Latino-style pop into the public eye. The Tijuana Brass's success helped spawn other Latin acts, notably Julius Wechter (initially a session player in The Lonely Bull) and his Baja Marimba Band. Ironically, no one in Alpert's band (or Wechter's either) was actually Hispanic. Alpert used to tell his audiences that his group (as of the late 60s) consisted of "Three pastramis, two bagels, and an American cheese": John Pisano (electric guitar); Lou Pagani (piano); Nick Ceroli (drums); Pat Senatore (bass guitar); Tonni Kalash (trumpet); Herb Alpert (trumpet and vocal); Bob Edmondson (trombone). Subsequent albums followed the tradition of the first, Whipped Cream and Other Delights, for example. The album cover of Whipped Cream featured a seductive-looking young woman (Dolores Erickson) wearing a generous quantity of whipped cream... and apparently nothing else. In concerts, when about to play the song, Alpert would tell the audience, "Sorry, we can't play the cover for you!" The famous cover was eventually parodied by the alternative group Soul Asylum. left Other albums followed, such as S.R.O., and even a brassy interpretation of classical music, Herb Alpert's Ninth. But it was 1965's Going Places that really propelled Alpert and the Brass to stardom. The seminal album, what music critics have called his greatest work, yielded the hit singles "Tijuana Taxi", "Spanish Flea", "Third Man Theme", and "Zorba the Greek". Much of the music from Whipped Cream and Going Places received a great deal of airplay, and still do at least on the Game Show Network due to their frequent use as incidental music in The Dating Game, notably Whipped Cream, Spanish Flea and Lollipops and Roses. With the Tijuana Brass, Alpert won six Grammy awards, and of their albums fifteen have gone gold and fourteen platinum. At one point his music outsold that of The Beatles by two to one. That statistic is compelling, because it is a nearly-forgotten fact that The Brass were, in modern parlance, "huge" in the 1960s, kind of a middle-of-the-road parallel to the Beatles; they even formed and broke up initially around the same time that the Fab Four did. In 1966, Alpert was recognized (with the Brass) in the Guinness Book of World Records for having five albums in the Top 20 of the Billboard album charts simultaneously, an unprecedented feat. In April of that year, four of those albums were in the Top 10 simultaneously. His only Number One song with the Brass was "This Guy's in Love With You", featuring a rare vocal turn by Alpert himself. Alpert's vocal skills were limited, but this song also had a limited range, and it worked for him. The song debuted in June 1968, and topped the charts for four weeks. Other artists soon covered it, a sure sign of its viability as a song.

Life after the Brass

Alpert disbanded the Brass in 1969, but released another album by the group in 1971. In 1973, with some of the original Tijuana Brass members, he added new members and called it the T.J.B. This new version of the Brass released two albums in 1974 and 1975 and toured. Alpert would reconvene the Brass in 1984 for the Bullish album and tour. Throughout, Alpert (through his A&M label) signed artists and produced records. Among the artists he worked with personally are Chris Montez, The Carpenters, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Bill Medley, Lani Hall and Janet Jackson (featured vocalist on his 1987 hit single "Diamonds"). In the 1970s, Alpert enjoyed a successful solo career, which resulted in his biggest instrumental hit, "Rise" (from the album of the same name), which went number one in October of 1979 and won a Grammy Award. Alpert and A&M Records partner Jerry Moss received a Grammy Trustees Award in 1997 for their lifetime achievements in the recording industry as executives. For his contribution to the recording industry, Herb Alpert has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6929 Hollywood Blvd. Moss also has a star on the Walk of Fame. Alpert and Jerry Moss are going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006 as nonperformer lifetime achievers for their work at A&M.

Today

Currently, his creative energies are focused on abstract expressionist painting, and Broadway theater. His production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America won a Tony award. In the 1980s he created The Herb Alpert Foundation and The Alpert Awards in the Artists with Cal State. The Foundation supports youth and arts education as well as environmental issues. Although he has not released an album of new material since 1999's "Colours", he is very much involved in the reissue of his past albums. In 2000, Alpert bought back the rights to his music from Universal Music (current owners of A&M Records), and began remixing and remastering his albums for CD reissue. In 2005, Shout! Factory began distributing digitally remastered versions of Alpert's A&M output, including a new album consisting of unreleased material from Alpert's Tijuana Brass. He continues to be a guest artist for friends like Gato Barbieri, Rita Coolidge, Jim Brickman, Brian Culbertson and David Lanz.

External links

- [http://www.herbalpert.com Official site]
- [http://herb-alpert.tripod.com herb alpert - fansite]
- [http://www.onamrecords.com/Alpert_Special_Feature.html Herb Alpert: Artist & Musician]
- [http://movietome.com/movietome/servlet/MovieMain/movieid-124093/Herb_Alpert_Music_for_Your_Eyes/ Herb Alpert: Music for Your Eyes]
- [http://www.spotlightpr.freeservers.com/custom4.html Press Release: Herb Alpert: Music for Your Eyes] Alpert, Herb Alpert, Herb Alpert, Herb Alpert, Herb Alpert, Herb Alpert, Herb

A&M Records

A&M Records is a record label formed in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. Their first choice for a name was Carnival Records and they released two singles under that name before they learned another label had taken the Carnival name first. Alpert and Moss changed the name to "A&M." Over the years, A&M added specialty imprints, Omen Records (1964-1966) for soul, Horizon Records for jazz (1974-1978) and Vendetta Records (1988-1990) as a dance record imprint. A&M releases were issued in the United Kingdom by Pye Records until 1967. A&M Records, Ltd. was established in 1970 and distribution was still handled by other labels with a presence in Europe. In 1970 A&M Records of Canada, Ltd. was formed and A&M Records of Europe in 1977. A&M has a long history of distributing records for other labels, including Dark Horse Records (1974-1976), IRS Records (1979-1985), Windham Hill Records (and their subsidiary labels) (1982-1985), Gold Mountain Records (1983-1985), Word Records (and their subsidiary labels) (1985-1990), Cypress Records (1988-1990 and Perspective Records (1990-1996). A&M also distributed Ode Records internationally from 1970-1975 and Shelter Records in Great Britain. A&M was sold to PolyGram in 1989 for about half a billion dollars. In 1998, PolyGram merged with Universal and A&M was made part of the Interscope Records Division, which also includes Geffen Records. Universal Music Group is owned by the French water company Vivendi. From 1966 to 1999, A&M Records was located on the grounds of the historic Charlie Chaplin Studio near the corner of Sunset and La Brea Blvds. in Hollywood, California (the A&M office is now the location of Jim Henson Productions and the recording studio is now Henson Recording Studios).

Artists signed to A&M Records

- 16 Horsepower
- .38 Special
- Bryan Adams
- Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass
- Joan Armatrading
- Atlantic Starr
- Hoyt Axton
- Burt Bacharach
- Bad Boys Inc
- Joan Baez
- Julius Wechter & The Baja Marimba Band
- Arthur Baker
- Gato Barbieri
- George Benson
- Big Pig
- Big Sugar
- Black
- Black Eyed Peas
- The Blue Nile
- Blues Traveler
- The Bluetones
- Boy Meets Girl
- Elkie Brooks
- Brothers Johnson
- Dennis Brown
- Sam Brown
- Chris de Burgh
- Burlap To Cashmere
- Butterfly Boucher
- John Cale
- The Captain & Tennille
- Captain Sensible
- Carpenters
- Kim Carnes
- A Certain Ratio
- Don Cherry
- Jimmy Cliff
- China Crisis
- Bruce Cockburn
- Joe Cocker
- Cold
- Concrete Blonde
- Rita Coolidge
- Chris Cornell
- David Crosby
- Sheryl Crow
- E.G. Daily
- Michael Damian
- Del Amitri
- Dennis DeYoung
- Jim Diamond
- Dishwalla
- Dodgy
- The Dream Syndicate
- Judith Durham
- Extreme
- Face to Face
- Fairport Convention
- Falco
- Flying Burrito Brothers
- For Real
- Free
- Gallagher & Lyle
- Giant
- Gin Blossoms
- The Go-Go's
- Lesley Gore
- Amy Grant
- Al Green
- Henry Gross
- Gun
- Murray Head
- John Hiatt
- Hudson-Ford
- The Human League
- Humble Pie
- Janet Jackson
- Joe Jackson
- Chas Jankel
- Antonio Carlos Jobim
- Howard Johnson
- Booker T. Jones
- Kitchens of Distinction
- Jerry Knight
- Annabel Lamb
- Jonny Lang
- Denis Leary
- Claudine Longet
- Ashley MacIsaac
- Chuck Mangione
- Hugh Masekela
- Glenn Medeiros
- Sergio Mendes
- Mental As Anything
- Lee Michaels
- Monster Magnet
- Chris Montez
- The Move
- Gerry Mulligan
- Michael Murphey
- MxPx
- Mya (singer)
- Milton Nascimento
- Hazel O'Connor
- Phil Ochs
- One 2 Many
- Jeffrey Osborne
- CeCe Peniston
- Fred Penner
- The Police
- Iggy Pop
- Billy Preston
- Pussycat Dolls
- Raffi
- Bonnie Raitt
- Jimmie Rodgers
- The Ronettes
- Feargal Sharkey
- Ben Sidran
- Soundgarden
- Stealers Wheel
- Cat Stevens
- Sting
- The Stranglers
- The Strawbs
- Styx
- Andy Summers
- Andy Summers and Robert Fripp
- Supertramp
- Therapy?
- Ike & Tina Turner
- Barry White
- Bill Withers
- Gary Wright
- Bill Wyman ---- The Sex Pistols were singed very briefly to the label from March 10, 1977, to March 16, 1977. The contract was terminated because the Sex Pistols apparently threw a wild party in the A&M offices and caused damage.

External links

- [http://www.onamrecords.com/ On A&M Records] - search every artist and release from A&M Records and its affiliates
- [http://www.amcorner.com/ A&M Corner] - The internet's original A&M Records collector/listener resource Category:Vivendi Universal subsidiaries Category:Record labels

Hugh Beaumont

Eugene Hugh Beaumont (February 16, 1909 - May 14, 1982) was an American actor, television director, and Methodist minister. He is best known for his portrayal of the character Ward Cleaver on the popular TV series Leave It to Beaver from 1957 to 1963. Eugene Hugh Beaumont was born in Lawrence, Kansas and after graduating from high school he attended the University of Chattanooga where he played football. He later studied at the University of Southern California, and graduated with a Master of Theology degree in 1946. He married Kathryn Adams in 1942 and they had 3 children. He was an ordained Methodist Church minister. Beaumont began his career in show business by performing in theaters, nightclubs, and on the radio in 1931. He began acting in motion pictures in 1940, and had appeared in over 3 dozen films before taking his best-known role as philosophy-dispensing suburban dad Ward Cleaver on the popular sitcom television series Leave It to Beaver, which premiered on October 4, 1957, and ran until September, 1963 for a total of 234 half hour performances on network television. The first season the show was on CBS, and the next five on ABC. Not only did Beaumont act in Leave It to Beaver, but he also wrote and directed several episodes. His portrayal as Ward Cleaver ranked #28 in TV Guides list of the "50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time" in the June 20, 2004 issue. After Leave It to Beaver went off the air in the fall of 1963, Beaumont appeared in many community theater productions and did a few guest roles on TV shows like Mannix, The Virginian, Wagon Train and Petticoat Junction. Hugh Beaumont retired from show business in the late 1960s, launching a second career as a successful Christmas tree farmer. He was forced to slow down after suffering a stroke in 1972. Ten years later, Beaumont died suddenly of a heart attack on May 14, 1982, while visiting his son, a psychology professor, in Munich, Germany. He was 73 years old.
External links

- Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh Beaumont, Hugh

John Beradino

John Beradino, born John Berardino (May 1, 1917 - May 19, 1996), was an American infielder in Major League Baseball and an actor. He was born in Los Angeles, California. Beradino is often mentioned as having appeared in the silent Our Gang comedies produced by Hal Roach as a child actor, but has not been identified as having appeared in any of the existing films. After attending the University of Southern California, where he played baseball under coach Sam Barry, he was a major league player from 1939 to 1953, save for three years of military service during World War II (1942-1945). He played second base and shortstop for the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Pittsburgh Pirates. The 1948 Indians won the World Series. After injuring his leg in 1953, he retired from baseball and returned to acting, having appeared in his first film in 1948. After appearing in more than a dozen B-movies, as well a supporting role as FBI agent Steve Daniels in the espionage series I Led Three Lives, he was offered the role of Dr. Steve Hardy on the soap opera General Hospital. He played the role from the show's inception in 1963 until his death in 1996. For his contribution to the television industry, Beradino has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.

Note

Known as Johnny Berardino during his baseball career, he was also credited during his acting career as John Baradino, John Barardino or John Barradino.

External links

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- [http://www.vintagecardtraders.com/virtual/52topps/52topps-253.jpg The Virtual Card Collection - Johnny Berardino, 1952 Topps Card # 252] Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John Beradino, John

Richard Biggs

]] Richard "Rick" Biggs (born March 18, 1960; died May 22, 2004) was an American television and stage actor, best known for his roles on the television series Days of Our Lives and Babylon 5. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Biggs attended the University of Southern California on scholarship, studying theatre. He briefly taught at a Los Angeles high school before landing his first major television role, that of Dr. Marcus Hunter on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Biggs played Hunter from 1987 to 1992. Biggs then landed the role of Dr. Stephen Franklin on the hit science fiction series Babylon 5 (1994-1998). After Babylon 5, he played roles on Any Day Now and Strong Medicine, as well as the recurring role of Clayton Boudreaux on the soap opera Guiding Light. Biggs' stage credits include The Tempest, Cymbeline and The Taming of the Shrew. Biggs was diagnosed with hearing problems when he was 13, and was partially deaf in one ear, completely deaf in the other. He frequently used his celebrity status off-camera to raise money for the Aliso Academy, a private school in Rancho Santa Margarita, California that serves both deaf and hearing childen. Biggs died suddenly in his home in Los Angeles of a tear in his aorta on May 22, 2004. He is survived by a wife and two sons. At the time, he was a regular on the television series Strong Medicine; following his death, his character was killed in an unseen traffic accident. Biggs' final film appearance was in We Interrupt This Program, a short film released as a companion piece to the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

External links

- [http://www.richardbiggs.com/ Official web site]
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- [http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-17099 Death Announcement by J. Michael Straczynski]
- [http://www.zteamproductions.com/b5stuff/RickBiggs.html Richard Biggs Memorial Video by John E. Hudgens] Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard Biggs, Richard

Harry Blackstone Jr.

Harry Blackstone, Jr. (June 30, 1934 - May 14, 1997) was an author, stage magician, and television performer. He received the Magician of the Year Award in 1979 and 1985. He appeared as a guest on the Johnny Carson Show, Donahue, and the Today Show. His performances were also a regular feature in the Square One Television PBS series. He was born in Three Rivers, Michigan on June 30 1934, the son of noted stage magician Harry Blackstone, also known as "The Great Blackstone". As an infant, he was used in his father's act. Rather than utilize the routines his father developed, Blackstone developed his own and modernized his performance. Blackstone lived in Redlands, California for many years. He died May 14 1997 in Loma Linda, California due to complications arising from pancreatic cancer. The Performing Arts Theater at Redlands East Valley High School is now named in his honor. Blackstone, Harry Jr. Blackstone, Harry Jr. Blackstone, Harry Jr. Blackstone, Harry Jr.

Art Buchwald

Arthur "Art" Buchwald (born October 20, 1925) is an American humorist best known for his long-running column in The Washington Post newspaper, which concentrates on political satire and commentary. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding Commentary in 1982 and in 1986 was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Buchwald is also known for the Buchwald v. Paramount lawsuit, which he and partner Alain Bernheim filed against Paramount Pictures in 1988 in a controversy over the Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America. Buchwald claimed Paramount had stolen his script idea. He won, was awarded damages, and then accepted a settlement from Paramount. The case was the subject of a 1992 book, Fatal Subtraction: The Inside Story of Buchwald V. Paramount by Pierce O'Donnell and Dennis McDougal.

Biography

Art Buchwald is the son of Joseph Buchwald, a curtain manufacturer, and has three sisters Alice, Edith and Doris. He grew up in a residential community in the Queens Borough of New York City. He did not graduate high school, and left home to join the Marines when he was 17. From October 1942 to October 1945, he served with the U.S. Marine Corps, attached to the Fourth Marine Air Wing. He spent two years in the Pacific Theater and was discharged from the service as a sergeant. On his return, Buchwald enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on the G.I. Bill. At USC he was managing editor of the campus magazine Wampus; he also wrote a column for the college newspaper, the Daily Trojan. In 1948 he left USC, without earning a degree, and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. Eventually, Buchwald got a job as a correspondent for Variety Magazine in Paris. In January 1949, he took a sample column, on which he had been working, to the offices of the European edition of The New York Herald Tribune. Titled Paris After Dark, it was filled with scraps of offbeat information about Parisian nightlife. Buchwald was hired and joined the editorial staff. His column caught on quickly, and Buchwald followed it in 1951 with another column, Mostly About People. They were fused into one under the title Europe’s Lighter Side. Buchwald’s columns soon began to recruit readers on both sides of the Atlantic. On August 24, 1959, TIME magazine, in reviewing the history of the European edition of The Herald Tribune, reported that Buchwald’s column had achieved an "institutional quality." The column in which Buchwald explains Thanksgiving Day to the French people in 1953 is reprinted every November with ceremonial regularity. Buchwald returned to the United States in 1962 and is at present syndicated by Tribune Media Services. His column appears in some 300 newspapers. Buchwald has written some 30 books, including Leaving Home (Putnam, 1994); I’ll Always Have Paris (Putnam, 1995); I think I Don’t Remember (Putnam, 1987); and Stella in Heaven: Almost a Novel (Putnam, 2000). Buchwald has three children and currently lives in Washington, D.C. In 2000, at age 74, Buchwald suffered a stroke that left him in the hospital for over 2 months. With much therapy, he has since largely recovered.

External links

- [http://wiredforbooks.org/artbuchwald/ 1983 audio interview of Art Buchwald, RealAudio]
- [http://wnyc.vo.llnwd.net/o1/lopate/lopate100505d.mp3 Leonard Lopate interviews Art Buchwald (5 October 2005), MP3] Buchwald, Art Buchwald, Art Buchwald, Art Buchwald, Art Buchwald, Art Buchwald, Art

Harold Budd

Harold Budd (born May 24, 1936) is an American ambient/avant-garde composer. Born in Los Angeles, California, he was raised in the Mojave Desert, and was inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blown across telephone wires. His career as a composer began in 1962. In the following years he gained a notable reputation in the local avant-garde community. In 1966 he graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in musical composition. As his career progressed, his compositions became increasingly minimal. Among his more experimental works were two drone pieces, "Coeur d'Orr" and "Oak of the Golden Dream". "Oak of the Golden Dream" was based on the Balinese "Slendro" scale. After composing a long-form gong solo titled "Lirio", he felt he had reached the limits of his experiments in minimalism and the avant-garde. He retired temporally from composition in 1970 and began a teaching career at the California Institute of the Arts. Two years later, while still retaining his teaching career, he resurfaced as a composer. Spanning from 1972-1975 he created four individual works under the collective title The Pavilion of Dreams. The style of these works was an unusual blend of popular jazz and the avant-garde. In 1976 he resigned from the institute and began recording his new compositions, produced by British ambient pioneer Brian Eno. Two years later Harold Budd's debut album The Pavilion of Dreams was released. Since then he has developed a unique and powerful style of ambient music. His two collaborations with Brian Eno, The Plateaux of Mirror and The Pearl, established his trademark atmospheric piano style. In Lovely Thunder he introduced subtle electronic textures. His thematic 2000 release The Room saw a return to a more minimalist approach.

Discography

- 1978 The Pavilion of Dreams
- 1980 The Plateaux of Mirror (with Brian Eno)
- 1981 The Serpent (in Quicksilver)(EP)
- 1982 Abandoned Cities
- 1984 The Pearl (with Brian Eno)
- 1986 Lovely Thunder
- 1986 The Moon and The Melodies (with Cocteau Twins)
- 1987 Myths 3: La Nouvelle Serenite (with Gavin Bryars & Jon Hassell)
- 1988 The White Arcades
- 1991 By the Dawns Early Light (with Bill Nelson)
- 1992 Music for 3 Pianos (with Daniel Lentz & Ruben Garcia)
- 1994 She is a Phantom
- 1994 Through the Hill (with Andy Partridge)
- 1995 Agua (compilation)
- 1995 Glyph (with Hector Zazou)
- 1996 Walk Into My Voice: American Beat Poetry (with Daniel Lentz & Jessica Karraker)
- 1996 Luxa
- 2000 The Room
- 2003 La Bella Vista
- 2003 Translucence/Drift Music (with John Foxx)
- 2004 Avalon Sutra/As Long As I Can Hold My Breath
- 2005 Music For "Fragments From The Inside" (with Eraldo Bernocchi)
- 2005 Mysterious Skin (original Soundtrack) (with Robin Guthrie)

External links

- http://www.newalbion.com/artists/buddh
- http://www.atlantic-records.com/haroldbudd/
- http://www.samadhisound.com Budd, Harold Budd, Harold ja:ハロルド・バッド

Avant-garde

]] Avant-garde in French means front guard, advance guard, or vanguard. People often use the term to refer to people or works that are novel or experimental, particularly with respect to art, culture and politics. Basically, Avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm within definitions of Art/Culture/Reality. It is the sharp edge, where things arise. The vanguard, a small troop of highly skilled soldiers, explores the terrain ahead of a large advancing army and plots a course for the army to follow. This concept is applied to the work done by small bands of intellectuals and artists as they open pathways through new cultural or political terrain, for society to follow. Because of the implication of specialization of the avant-garde in military terms, some people feel the expression implies elitism when used to describe cultural movements. The term also refers to the promotion of social progress and reform, the aims of its various movements presented in public declarations called manifestos. Over time, avant-garde became associated with movements concerned with art for art's sake, focusing primarily on expanding the frontiers of aesthetic experience, rather than with wider social reform. The origin of the application of this French term to Art can be fixed at May 17, 1863, the opening of the Salon des Refusés in Paris, organised by painters whose work was rejected for the annual Paris Salon of officially sanctioned academic art. Salons des Refusés was held in 1874, 1875, and 1886. By some assessments, avant-garde art includes street art, for example graffiti and any other movement which pushes forward the accepted boundaries; defining art in the future. It should be noted that avant garde is not only a style of art, such as surrealism or cubism, rather this term is generally applied toward the present moment. For instance: Where Marcel Duchamp's urinal may have been avant garde at the time, today if someone created it again it would not be avant garde beause it has already been done. Avant garde is therefore temporal and relating to the process of Art's unfolding in time. It can be applied to the forerunners of any new movements. However, Duchamp and his work, remain avant garde because he pushed Art forward, creating a new dialogue and definition with itself.

Relevance

Avant garde is relevant to Art because without these movements Art itself would stagnate and become dormant and merely craft, repeating the same style over and over. The term is most commonly applied to the visual arts, fashion, film, and literature but also to intellectual and new approaches to politics or culture.

Avant-garde art movements

- Abstract expressionism
- COBRA
- Constructivism
- Cubism
- Dada
- Futurism
- Fluxus
- Impressionism
- Lettrisme
- Mail art
- Modernism
- Neoism
- Pop art
- Situationist
- Social realism

Other examples of avant-garde

- Experimental film
- Experimental music
- Experimental theatre
- Zeitgeist

Avant-garde artists

- Arcturus (band) (Avant-garde metal band from Norway)
- John Cage (American composer)
- Marcel Duchamp (French artist)
- John Zorn (American artist)
- Mike Patton (American musician)
- Buckethead (American musician)
- David Lynch (American director)

- Intelligentsia

External link

- [http://www.jonwilks.com/avantgarde.html The Japanese avant garde scene]
- [http://www.exprmntl.net cinema avant garde] (en, fr, es, de)
- [http://www.kolahstudio.com Iranian Avant Garde Media] Iranian Underground Art Community Category:French phrases Category:Social philosophy Category:Cultural movements Category:Modern art Category:Modernism ja:アバンギャルド

الكيمياء

كيمياء هى فى الأصل كلمة إغريقية تعنى العلم الذى يدرس المادة وتفاعلاتها وعلاقاتها بالطاقة. ونظرا لتعدد وإختلاف حالات المادة, والتى عادة ما تكون فى شكل ذرات, فإن الكيميائين غالبا ما يقوموا بدراسة كيفية تفاعل الذرات لتكوين الجزيئات وكيفية تفاعل الجزيئات مع بعضها البعض. والكيمياء هو علم يدرس العناصر الكيميائية والمواد الكيميائية (التركيب والخواص والبناء) والتحولات المتبادلة فيما بينها (التفاعلات الكيميائية). تقسم الكيمياء إلى عدة فروع رتيسية: تنقسم الكيمياء بصفة عامة إلى عدة فروع رئيسية. كما يوجد أيضا تفرعات لهذه الفروع, وموضوعات ذات تخصص أكبر داخل هذه الفروع. ; الكيمياء التحليلية: هى تحليل عينات من المادة لمعرفة التركيب الكيميائى لها وكيفية بنائها. ; الكيمياء الحيوية:هى دراسة المواد الكيميائية, والتفاعلات الكيميائية التى تحدث فى الكائنات الحية. ;الكيمياء غير العضوية: هى دراسة خواص وتفاعلات المركبات الغير عضوية. ولا يوجد هناك حد واضح للتفريق بين الكيمياء العضوية والغير عضوية, كما أن هناك تداخل كبير بينهما, ويكون أهمه فى فرع أخر يسمى كيمياء الفلزات العضوية. ;كيمياء عضوية: هى دراسة تركيب, وخواص, وتفاعلات المركبات العضوية. ;الكيمياء الفيزيائية: هى دراسة الأصل الفيزيائى للتفاعلات والأنظمة الكيميائية. ولمزيد من التحديد فإنها تدرس تغييريات حالات الطاقة فى التفاعلات الكيميائية. ومن الفروع التى تهم الكيميائيين المتخصصين فى الكيمياء الحرارية, الكيمياء الحركية, كيمياء الكم, الميكانيكا الإحصائية, علم الأطياف.

مفاهيم أساسية

نظام التسمية فى الكيمياء

الفرع الرئيسى تسمية التسمية ترجع إلى النظام المتبع لتسمية المركبات الكيميائية. يوجد نظام معين لتسمية المواد الكيميائية. المركبات العضوية يتم تسميتها طبقا لنظام تسمية المركبات الكيميائية. المركبات الغير عضوية يتم تسميتها طبقا لنظام تسمية المركبات الغير عضوية. ويسمى ذلك IUPAC.
الذرة
الفرع الرئيسى : الذرة الذرة هى مجموعة من الأجسام المتناهية الدقة. هذه الأجسام تتكون من نواة موجبة الشحنة وغالبا ما تحتوى على البروتونات والنيترونات, كما يوجد أيضا عدد من الإلكترونات التى تعادل الشحنة الموجبة فى النواة. وتدور الالكترونات في مستويات مختلفة تعرف بمستويات الطاقة، حيث يحمل المستوى الأول الكترونين فقط ويحمل المستوى الثاني ثماني الكترونات. أما المستوى الثالث فهو يحمل 18 إلكترونا. ولكل مستوى طاقة مستويات فرعية يرمز لها بالرموز s ,p, d, f . وغالباُ ما تكون الذرات متعادلة كهربياً لأن عدد الإلكترونات السالبة يساوي عدد البروتونات الموجبة، ويمكن للذرة أن تتحول إلى أيون موجب عندما تفقد الكترونا أو أكثر عن التفاعل الكيميائي كما يمكن أن تتحول إلى أيون سالب عندما تكتسب ألكترونا أو أكثر وذلك بحسب قيمة الشحنة التى تفقدها أو تكتسبها. العنصر هو فئة من الذرات التى لها نفس عدد البروتونات فى النواة. ويسمى هذا العدد بالعدد الذرى للعنصر. فمثلا, كل الذرات التى لها 6 بروتونات فى النواة هى ذرات لعنصر كيميائي يسمى الكربون, كما أن كل الذرات التى لها 92 بروتون فى النواة هى ذرات عنصر اليورانيوم. أفضل توزيع وشكل للعناصر بصفة عامة فى الجدول الدوري, والذى يتم وضه العناصر ذات الصفات الكيميائية المتشابهه فى نفس المجموعة. كما يتم وصف العنصر بإسمه, ورمزه, وعدده الذري. ونظرا لأن عدد البوتونات فى النواة يحدد عدد الإلكترونات المحيطة بالنواة وكذلك خواصها, ونظرا لأن الإلكترونات هى التى تكون ظاهرة من العنصر للعالم الخارجى حيث أنها تقع خارج النواة فإنها تتحكم فى التفاعلات, والتحولات الكيميائية التى يمكن حدوثها للعنصر. كما أن عدد النيوترونات الموجودة فى النواة قد تغير من حالة العنصر كما لو أنه عنصر أخر.

المركبات

الفرع الرئيسى : المركبات الكيميائية المركب الكيميائي هو مادة تتكون من نسبة معينة من العناصر والتى تحدد تركيب والمجموعة التى يقع فيها هذا المركب والتى تحدد بالتالى خواص هذا المركب. فمثلا, الماء هو مركب يحتوى على الهيدروجين والأكسجين بنسبة 2 إلى 1. تتكون المركبات وتتحول عن طريق التفاعلات الكيميائية.
الجزيئات
الفرع الرئيسي : الجزيء الجزيء هو أصغر جزء نقي من المركب والذى له خواص كيميائية محدده. ويتكون الجزيئ من ذرات أو أكثر متحدة مع بعض.

الشوارد (الأيونات)

الفرع الرئيسي : الشاردة الشاردة هو مركي مشحون, أو هو ذرة أو جزيئ إكتسب أو فقد إكترون أو أكثر. الأيونات الموجبة الشحنة تسمى شرجبة (كاتيونات) مثل كاتيون الصوديوم NaNa⁺ والأيونات السالبة الشحنة تسمى شرسبة (أنيون) مثل شرسبة (أنيون) الكلور Cl^-, واللذان عن إتحادهما يكونا الملح المتعادل كلوريد الصوديوم(NaCl). ومثل للأيونات ذات الذرات العديدة التى لا تتفكك خلال تفاعلات الحمض - القاعدة هو مجموعة الهيدروكسيد (OH^-), أو الفوسفات (PO₄^3-).
الروابط الكيميائية
الفرع الرئيسي : الرابطة الكيميائية الرابطة الكيميائية هى القوة التى تربط الذرات فى الجزيء أو فى البللورة. فى مركبات بسيطة عديدة, نظرية التكافؤ ومبدأ عدد التأكسد يمكن إستخدامهما للتنبؤ بالتركيب الجزيئي. وبالمثل, فإن النظريات الفيزياء الكلاسيكية يمكن إستخدامها للتنبؤ بتركيب مركبات أيونية عديدة . أما المركبات ذات التركيب المعقد , مثل السبائك المعدنية , فإن نظرية التكافؤ لا تستطيع تفسير تركيبها, وهنا تظهر أهمية إستخدام نظريات الميكانيكا الكمية مثل نظرية المدار الجزيئي. بعض أنواع الروابط الكيميائية: #رابطة أيونية #رابطة تساهمية #رابطة فلزية

حالات المادة

الفرع الرئيسي : حالات المادة الحالة هو مجموعة من الأنظمة الكيميائية التى لها تركيب عام متماثل, عند التعرض لمدى معين من تغير الظروف مثل الضغط أو الحرارة. الخواص الفيزيائية مثل الكثافة و معامل الأنكسار تميل أن تكون فى المدى المميز لهذه الحالة. الحالة تعرف على أنها الظام الذى إن تم أخذ أو إعطاء طاقة له فإن هذه الطاقة المفقودة او المكتسبة تستخدم فى إعادة ترتيب النظام. بدلا من تغيير شكل الحالة. وفى بعض الأحيان يعتبر التفريق بين الحالات صعب لوجود أكثر من حالة فى نفس الوقت , وفى هذه الحالة تعتبر المادة فى حالة حرجة. عند تواجد ثلاث حالات للمادة فى نفس الوقت تحت ظروف معينة فإن هذا يسمى النقطة الثلاثية ونظرا لأن هذه النقطة ثابتة , يعتبر ذلك جيد لتحديد الظروف الملائمة لهذه النقطة . وأكثر الأمثلة شيوعا لحالات المادة الصلب , السائل , الغاز , كما قد توجد حالات أخرى ليست شائعة . ويمكن ملاحظة أن الثلج كمادة له أكثر من حالة إعتمادا على الضغط و درجة الحرارة . وتتعامل معظم الحالات مع نظام الأبعاد الثلاثي , ولكن يمكن فى حالات معينة التعامل مع نظام البعدين وذلك لإرتباطه ببعض العلوم الأخرى مثل علم الأحياء . Emad
التفاعلات
الفرع الرئيسي : التفاعل الكيميائى التفاعل الكيميائى هو تحول فى التركيب الدقيق للجزيئات. ويمكن أن ينتج التفاعل الكيميائي من مهاجمة جزيئات لجزيئات أخرى لتكوين جزيئات أكبر, أو جزيئات تتفكك لتكوين جزيئين أو أكثر أقل حجما, أو إعادة ترتيب الذرات فى نفس الجزيء أو خلال جزيئات أخرى. وتتضمن التفاعلات الكيميائية غالبا تكوين أو تكسير روابط كيميائية.

نظرية الكوانتم

الفرع الرئيسي : نظرية الكم نظرية الكوانتم تقوم بوصف تصرف المادة فى مدى صغير للغاية. وعلى هذا فإنه طبقا لذلك وصف جميع الأنظمة الكيميائية بإستخدام هذه النظرية, و لكن هذا يعتبر فى غاية التعقيد من الناحية الحسابية. ولذا فإنه يتم إستخدام هذه النظرية بواقعية فى الأنظمة الكيميائية البسيطة, كما أنه يتم إستخدام التقريب للحصول على نتائج واقعية. ويعتبر فهم نظريات ميكانيكا كم غير هام لمعظم فروع الكيمياء, حيث أنه يمكن تطبيق نتائج هذه النظرية وفهم كيفية هذا التطبيق.
القوانين
أهم قانون فى الكيمياء هو قانون بقاء المادة, الذى ينص على أنه لا يوجد تغيير فى كمية المادة خلال التفاعل الكيميائى الطبيعي. وقد أظهرت الفيزياء الحديثة أن الطاقة هى التى لا تتغير, وأن الطاقة والكتلة متصلان ومتعلقان بعضهما ببعض, وهو المبدأ الهام فى الكيمياء النووية. قانون بقاء الطاقة هام جدا لنظريات الإتزان والديناميكا الحرارية والكاينيتيكس . وتوجد قوانين كثيرة تعتمد على قانون بقاء الطاقة. قانون جوزيف بروست للتركيب الثابت ينص على أن الموا�
تاريخ الكيمياء
اختلف مؤرخو العلم حول أصل كلمة كيمياء. فمنهم من ردها إلى الفعل اليوناني chio الذي يفيد السبك والصهر، ومنهم من أعادها إلى كلمتي chem , kmt المصريتين ومعناهما الارض السوداء، ومنهم من يرى أنها مشتقة من كلمة كمى العربية أي ستر وخفى. ويعرّف ابن خلدون الكيمياء بأنها (علم ينظر في المادة التي يتم بها كون الذهب والفضة بالصناعة)، ويشرح العمل الذي يوصل إلى ذلك. لقد تأثرت الكيمياء العربية بالخيمياء اليونانية والسريانية وخاصة بكتب دوسيوس و بلنياس الطولوني الذي وضع كتاب (سر الخليقة). غير أن علوم اليونان والسريان في هذا المجال لم تكن ذات قيمة لأنهم اكتفوا بالفرضيات والتحليلات الفكرية. وتلجأ الخيمياء إلى الرؤية الوجدانية في تعليل الظواهر، وتستخدم فكرة الخوارق في التفسير، وترتبط بالسحر وبما يسمى بعلم الصنعة، وتسعى إلى تحقيق هدفين هما: أ – تحويل المعادن الخسيسة كالحديد والنحاس والرصاص إلى معادن شريفة كالذهب والفضة عن طريق التوصل إلى حجر الفلاسفة. ب – تحضير أكسير الحياة، وهو دواء يراد منه علاج كل ما يصيب الإنسان من آفات وأمراض، ويعمل على إطالة الحياة والخلود. وهذان الهدفان سـنناقشـهم في هذا البحث من وجهة نظر وعمل أبي الكيمياء العالم العربي جابر بن حيان. تطور علم الكيمياء عند القدماء: إن تاريخ الكيمياء في العالم القديم أكثر غموضاً من تاريخ الفيزياء، ونحن لا نعلم من تاريخ الكيمياء إلا النتائج العملية، ولم يدوّن لنا القدماء من ذلك التاريخ شيئاً. يمكن اعتبار الكيمياء الصينية أقدم المعارف الكيميائية، لكن لايزال السؤال غامضاً عن صلة الوصل بين الكيمياء الصينية والكيمياء المصرية القديمة، وهذا ما حاول الباحث جونسون Jhonson أن يبرهن عليه، حيث ذكر عن كاتب صيني قديم يرجع عهده إلى سنة 330 ق. م أنه حرّر عن الفلسفة التاتوئية والسيمياء، والأخيرة تحتوي على كيفية تحويل المعادن إلى معادن ثمينة، وكيفية الحصول على إكسير الحياة، تلك المادة التي تطيل الحياة على زعمهم وتقضي على الموت. وقد قال ابن النديم أنه زعم أهل صناعة الكيمياء، وهي صناعة الذهب والفضة من غير معادنها، أن أول من تكلم عن علم الصنعة هو هرمس الحكيم البابلي المنتقل إلى مصر عند افتراق الناس عن بابل، وإن الصنعة صحّت له، وله في ذلك عدة كتب، وإنه نظر في خواص الأشياء وروحانيتها. وزعم الرازي أن جماعة من الفلاسفة عملوا في الكيمياء مثل: فيثاغورس، ديموقراط، أرسطاليس، جالينوس، وغيرهم، ولايجوز أن يسمى الإنسان فيلسوفاً إلا أن يصح له علم بالكيمياء. وقال آخرون أن علم الكيمياء (قديماً) كان بوحي من الله عز وجل إلى موسى بن عمران (قصة قارون). الكيمياء في القرون الوسطى: أشهر شخصية من شخصيات الكيمياء الغربية في القرون الوسطى وخاصة التي تناولت فكرة الحصول على الذهب هو العالم برنارد تريفيزان Bernard Trevisan حيث رافقت هذا المغامر في الكيمياء فكرة البحث عن الذهب في الصخور والأحجار والمعادن والاملاح وغير ذلك. سافر إلى بلاد الإغريق والتتار والقسطنطينية وزار مصر، لكنه لم يمس تبرها. خامرت العالم برنارد فكرة الحصول على الذهب من الإنسان لأنه تاج الخليقة، ويشكل الذهب ذروة الكمال المعدني، وأراد أن يحل مشكلته الكبرى في أشعة الشمس للاعتقاد السائد قديماً بأن هذه الأشعة هي التي تكون المعادن، وما الذهب إلا أشعة الشمس المتكاثفة التي استحالت إلى جسم أصفر براق. واعتقد بنمو المعادن، حتى أن أصحاب المناجم كانوا يغلقون مناجمهم برهة من الزمن ليعطوا المعادن فرصة التكون. وقد بدد ثروته الهائلة على تلك الافكار . علم الكيمياء عند العرب المسلمين: بدأت الكيمياء في الإسلام بالصنعة، ذلك لأن العرب اعتمدوا الكتب المنقولة عن اليونانية، وكتب الإسكندرانيين التي نقلت إلى العربية. ويعتبر خالد بن يزيد بن معاوية أول من اشتغل في علم الصنعة عند العرب، حيث استقدم بعض الرهبان الأقباط المتفحصين بالعربية، كمريانوس، شمعون، وغيرهم، وطلب إليهم نقل علوم الصنعة إلى اللغة العربية عله يتمكن من تحويل المعادن الخسيسة إلى ذهب. وهكذا وصلت الصنعة إلى العرب بواسطة الإسكندرانيين ممتزجة بالأوهام والأضاليل، تهدف إلى تحقيق غايات وهمية تتعلق بالصحة والخلود والثروة بعيدة عن الكيمياء التي ترتكز على قواعد وقوانين علمية. وقد انتقل هذا المفهوم إلى العلماء العرب فاعتقدوا كاليونان والسريان أن طبائع العناصر قابلة للتحويل، وأن جميع المعادن مؤلفة من عناصر واحدة هي الماء، الهواء، التراب، النار، وسبب اختلافها فيما بينها يعود إلى اختلاف نسب هذه العناصر في تركيبها، فلذلك لو توصلنا إلى حلّ أي معدن إلى عناصره الأساسية، وأعدنا تركيبه من جديد بنسب ملائمة لنسب أي معدن آخر كالذهب والفضة مثلاً، لاستطعنا الحصول على هذا المعدن. من أجل ذلك قام العلماء العرب بتجارب عديدة، أحاطوها بالسرية التامة، واستعملوا الرموز في الإشارة إلى المعادن فأشاروا إلى الذهب بالشمس، والى الفضة بالقمر، فاكتشفوا مواد جديدة، واختبروا أموراً مختلفة، وتوصلوا إلى قوانين عديدة، واستطاعوا أن ينقلوا الخيمياء إلى الكيمياء وذلك لعدة أسباب منها: 1- فشل محاولات الصنعة في تحقيق أهدافها، وتحولها إلى علم تجريبي على يد العالم جابر بن حيان ومن ثم الرازي. 2- تكثيف التجارب المادية والتماس منهج علمي صحيح قائم على التجربة والبرهان .
- تاريخ الكيمياء
- الكيمي
- إكتشاف العناصر الكيميائية
- التسلسل التاريخى لإكتشاف العناصر
- جائزة نوبل فى الكيمياء
أصل الكلمة
فى الفرنسية القديمة : الكيمي , فى العربية الكيمياء : وهى فن التحويلات . راجع الكيمي .
شاهد أيضا

- قائمة بموضوعات الكيمياء .
- كيميائي وقائمة بأشهر الكيميائيين .
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chemical_Society المجتمع الأمريكي للكيمياء]
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Union_of_Pure_and_Applied_Chemistry المجتمع الدولي للكيمياء التطبيقية]
- الهندسة الكيميائية .
- الجدول الدوري .
- [قائمة المركبات .
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_publications_in_chemistry قائمة بأهم الأعمال المنشورة فى الكيمياء]
وصلات خارجية

- [http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iupac/ صفحة التسمية الرئيسية, ويفضل قراءة الكتاب الذهبى الذى يحتوى على تعريفات التسميات الكيميائية الأساسية]
- [http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/ بيانات الأمن والسلامة لعديد من المواد الكيماوية]
- [http://www.flinnsci.com/search_MSDS.asp بيانات الصحة والسلامة]
- [http://chem.sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemidplus/ قاعدة بيانات الكيمياء وتتضمن بيانات أساسية ومعلومات عن السموم]
- [http://www.allchemicals.info/ قاموس الكيمياء]
- [http://www.cci.ethz.ch/index.html صور ومقاطع فيديو لبعض التكنيكات والتجارب] تصنيف:كيمياء als:Chemie ja:化学 ko:화학 ms:Kimia simple:Chemistry th:เคมี

wegetarianizm SYLWESTER Parkiet gospodarka pozycjonowanie

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