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Ancient History/Human Evolution/Neolithic Age

The Neolithic "technological" revolution made the majority of people become more sedentary, dependent on farmed crops, farm animals, especially for labor at first. This in place promoted the emergency of sizable urban areas. Agriculture provided a safer way to guarantee abundant food, this lead to population growth, increase in trade and time for complex cultural advances. Why bother being a hunter gatherer when you could become a settler. Of course this step had advantages but also disadvantages, disadvantages go from increase in large scale armed conflict, to despotic rulers that could better control the population due to control of the food supply and land rights, those and other societal pests that even today plague human society arose from this cessation of personal independence to a greater and continual reliance of human systems and institutions.

This evolution also had large impact on the environment not only on an ecological level, but on the fragility of crops, especially in early time to insect pests, weather and water supply. The adoption of an agrarian culture was not immediate or complete, systems could be said to be in a competition, a energy competition, how efficiently they operated, how much one needed to put in and could take out of these processes and the outcome was determined primarily in population growth, population that permitted not only the assurance of a cultural but territorial dominance in the period and long after. A guarantee that continued up to our present day by legal social constructs, linked to land property rights. From inheritance to the rise of city states and finally into today's nation states, where population numbers, beyond a high enough threshold, becomes a moot point for protection of acquired rights.

The Last Ice Age
Perhaps it would be better to call it the most recent Ice Age, because in fact, the Earth has had quite a few Ice Ages. A British scientist first uncovered evidence of an ice age in the 1800s. At first he was ridiculed, because some people did not believe the Earth was more than 9,500 years old. Yet since then climatologists (people who study long-term weather conditions) have found at least indications of at least four earlier ice ages, and an older age for the Earth has become generally accepted. Ice Ages tend to be similar every time they occur. The whole planet becomes significantly cooler, and a vast majority of the planet's water becomes locked in ice at high altitudes and at the North and South Poles. Sea levels drop precipitously, and a sheet of ice extends outwards from the poles and from high mountains like the Alps in Europe and the Rockies in North America to cover huge swaths of the planet's land area. The ice sheet can be more than a mile thick in places, and the ice is so heavy, and moves so forcefully in places, that the underlying soil is ripped up, and the bedrock below the soil is pummeled, cracked and ground into huge boulders and tiny pebbles. Everywhere else, sea levels drop about fifty feet—shorelines in some places stretch outwards more than a mile beyond the present shores, and numerous small islands and shoals appear even beyond that.

The last Ice Age, which geologists call the Würm III Ice Age, lasted from about 20,000 years ago until about 15,000 years ago. All of Canada and much of the United States were swaddled in ice sheets as far south as Oregon, Wyoming, Illinois and Pennsylvania. Europe north of the Alps was almost totally covered, as was much of central Russia. Tibet, western China and northern India vanished under the ice buildup on the Himalayas. World temperatures dropped an average of 12 °F, enough to make even Florida or India unpleasantly cool.

Hunting and Gathering
Anthropologists think that at the start of the last Ice Age, the human population of Earth was less than a million people. Their existence revolved around a style of living which still exists today, although it is gradually disappearing everywhere, by a combination of acculturation, economic, political and social pressures.

One should note that hunter-gatherers are so limited, in their way of life, by several factors. It may be only lack of know how or freedom and safety in settling or a need to maintain environmental sustainability. People who practice this way of life are defined as hunter-gatherers and it is often a transitory state in a society evolution due the its precarity.

Hunter-gatherers do not grow plants or raise animals for food. Instead, they practice a lifestyle in which the men go out to hunt wild animals every few days, while the women gather wild but edible plants and useful medicinal plants every few days. In any case animal domestication should not be excluded from the definition of a hunter-gatherer societies, but not as a very complex methodology in animals husbandry, even if they could also see those animals as a food resource. Dogs for instance seem to have been domesticated more than 18,000 years ago. Note that we are defining a frame of Neolithic Age societies (10,200 BC to 4,500 or 2,000 BC) not those that we may still define as hunter-gatherers today. By the end of the Neolithic, larger human societies had emerged.

In hunter-gatherer cultures; There is usually a very strong division of labor between the sexes though men may gather some plants, and women may do some hunting, the expectation is usually strong that women will stay close to a family's camp while the men go far afield in search of food.

Every few months, as these resources become scarce in one region, the people pack up their few belongings and move to a new location within their territory. Each family may have a territory of hundreds of square miles over which they may range quite broadly in the course of a year, living off of what the land produces. A hunter-gatherer family might have a dozen favorite campsites, with one on the seashore, one by a lake, one in the hills and one in the woods. Fish and shellfish form their seashore diet while they make baskets from marsh reeds; by the lake they may eat deer and make arrows and spears from nearby trees; in the hills they eat mountain goats and make stone tools from a deposit of obsidian; in the forest they eat birds and fill their baskets with nuts and fruits for the winter.

Hunter-gathering is a remarkably simple life, and it is the way of life practiced by humans and hominids since back into the Paleolithic age's earliest years, as near as modern scientists can agree. People tend to have very few possessions, because they are very mobile, and they have no animals to help them carry their gear from one place to another. A tent may be the most elaborate piece of equipment the whole family owns. Modern hunter-gatherer clans tend to have fairly long life expectancies, usually around 70 years of age; some modern developing societies do not have such long life spans as hunter-gatherers do.

Today we can only guess at the lifestyles of ancient hunter-gatherers, based on modern examples. Most hunter-gatherers live and travel in extended families of at least three generations—grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, as well as children. Older children take care of the youngest and the oldest. The family has to take care of all the needs of all its members, because there is no larger society to take on the work of caring for the elderly or educating the littlest ones. Aunts help mothers watch the youngest children, and collect the necessary plants to keep the family fed and healthy; uncles help train young boys to hunt smaller animals, and to help on the hunts for larger game. The same was probably true of ancient hunter-gatherers, as well.

Additionally, anthropologists and historians speculate that hunter-gatherer families 20,000 years ago belonged to larger groups called tribes. Tribes are clusters of families bound together by common taboos and beliefs for social advantage. While families lived on their own most of the time, such an existence in an otherwise empty landscape would have been difficult, especially if every other family was potentially an enemy. Thus, some families that spoke the same or similar languages would form alliances with one another, by marrying their children into one another's bloodlines, and by trading luxury goods, and feasting together. As families became too large to live together, they would bud off into new extended families that remained attached to the old relationships with other families. Strangers who proved their usefulness and loyalty could also marry into these arrangements, giving them both protection and responsibility.

In this way, different families and peoples experimented with the most useful prohibitions, prescriptions and modalities for living in a complex world. The tribes formed a social network which made it possible for individuals to travel great distances in relative safety. However, tribes may have also led to conflict, as different tribes began competing for water, food and other resources. Tribes may have also become so large that they subdivided, with clans existing as groups of families within the larger tribes.

Clans and tribes also offered opportunities for leadership.It is believed that leadership of these tribes was reserved for men, especially due to inter-tribal violence for the preservation of territory. Within an extended family, the oldest adult usually has tremendous influence and receives the respect of his or her descendants, for living so long and the experience he has. Keeping in mind that in the Neolithic the medium life expectancy is 20 years. The eldest man ruled until his death. However, within a tribe issues other than age may be a factor in choosing a leader. Some tribes may have chosen the biggest and bravest as their leaders, while others may have chosen the wisest or the most clever. Many modern hunter-gatherer tribes, and presumably ancient tribes as well, gradually developed four types of leader: the big man, who was usually the most important hunter; the chief, who was usually an older man or woman who was respected because of years of experience; the medicine man or woman, or shaman, who worked with plants and minerals to cure the illnesses and injuries of the tribe; and the artisan, who was particularly skilled at manufacturing goods necessary to the tribe's survival such as spears, baskets or clothing.

The beginning of the Ice Age must have startled and surprised these leaders and their dependents and followers a great deal. Colder temperatures and ice probably killed some tribes completely. Others moved toward the equator, seeking warmer temperatures and easier living conditions. Some must have stayed near the ice and weathered the cold, changing their habits and patterns of living to accommodate the change in environment.

However, the end of the most recent Ice Age around 12,000 years ago, put even greater pressures on the tribes that survived than the beginning had. As temperatures and sea levels rose, the Earth experienced a substantial die-off of plant and animal types. Some historians blame this pattern of extinction on our earliest ancestors; others attribute it to rapid climate change unrelated to human activity. Neither side has a total lock on the truth at this point. There is no solid evidence to prove the debate either way.

What is true is that many tribes, particularly in areas that received little rainfall or where few animals lived to begin with, needed to find new food and medicine sources. Part of the reason for the search for new foods may have been not simply that old foods were running out, but that our post-Ice Age ancestors had developed a taste for new things, and had invented a custom called feasting.

Feasting
Imagine that it is a major festival at your house. All your relatives and some of your family's friends are coming over for dinner. Your parents have gone shopping for food several times over the last few days, and everyone is bringing a favorite dish to eat. Some of the foods that will be served are traditional; you have the same things every year at this time. Other foods are novelties—no one except the person who brought it has ever tried it before, and you are all either eager, or nervous (or both!) to try it. If the new food is good, everyone wants to have seconds, there is none left over, and all the guests want the recipe. The guest who served the dish can be sure of a repeat invitation. A disgusting dish will still be there at the end of the night, and no one wants to keep the leftovers.

Prehistoric feasting was probably quite similar. Within a small family, the question of who was the leader was probably not disputed often: the kids were kids, the adults were adults, and the adults tended to listen to one person's opinion of what everyone should do. However, tribes were more capable of being influenced by outside factors. A good meal, with decorations and entertainment, was likely to sway an important decision one way or the other. The hosts of a good meal could show that their way of thinking was superior, because it allowed them to have access to extra food that fed and brought happiness to more people.

Where did all the extra food come from? Remember that, unlike your family, there is no market or grocery store for finding the ingredients of these celebrations. Every other day or so, the men and women of the tribe have to go out into wild countryside to find food, water, and medicines. How did they find enough time to find enough food to feed all those people, when they were already working hard to find enough food for the immediate family?

What did they eat?

Domestication
Through a process called domestication, early humans began controlling the development of a number of plant and animal species. They probably began by planting the seeds of their favorite foods in gardens, in order to harvest luxury or high-status foods like fruit, berries, nuts or grains. By cultivating small plots of land, human families would gain substantial riches, both in terms of surplus food and status. The plants that produced the most food would be bred with each other, in order to produce a more reliable crop with greater substance useful to humans. A similar process developed fiber plants like cotton, flax and hemp. In like manner, other human tribes took the effort to capture live samples of their favorite food animals, from cattle and camels to reindeer and sheep. By killing off the most aggressive males in a herd, and breeding animals according to traits which humans found desirable, these early pastoralists created modern farm animals.

Domestication of Animals
Domestication of animals began earlier, at least as far as modern historians know. Because bones fossilize over time, and because they can remain intact in dry and pH-neutral soil longer, they appear in the fossil record much earlier than any sign of domesticated plants. Dogs appear to be the oldest domesticated species, and they may have been domesticated by the late Paleolithic age, around 20,000 years ago. Dogs made the crossing to the Americas with Siberian Ice Age hunter-gatherers, but no other domestic species made the transition. However, dogs did not cross into Australia with the people who became the Australian Aboriginals 40,000 years ago. The date of canine domestication is thus a little confusing.

However, the real appearance of domesticated animals begins much later. Sheep and Goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) appearing in 8000 BCE. The domestic cat (Felis domesticus), thought to descent from a few as five self-domesticating African Wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BCE, in the Near East, was found in the form in a kitten that was buried alongside a human in Cyprus, dating 7500 BCE. The Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) in 6000 BCE. The Dromedary Camel (Camelus dromedarius) appear to have been domesticated by about 4000 BCE and the Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) around 2500 BCE. The Horse (Equus ferus caballus) also join them around 4000 BCE, as well as Cattle (Bos primigenius taurus) and the Duck (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus).

The example of horned goats is instructive. At sites dated between 7000 and 6000 BCE, goat horns appear in the middens of ancient peoples living in the Near East. All of these goat horns have a slightly curved profile, like a scimitar or other curving sword blade, suitable for ramming and goring another goat, or a predator, or a human who got too close. At sites dated between 6000 and 5000 BCE, a new type of goat horn appears, representing maybe 10% of the total. These horns, instead of being wicked tools for battle, have become curled and twisted. Between 5000 and 3000 BCE, the number of twisted goat horns remains fairly steady. However, by 2500 BCE, twisted and curled goat horns have become the norm, and represent 80% of the finds. By 1500 BCE, they represent 100% of the finds; the wild goat with its sharp and vicious horns had been replaced by a domesticated goat with twisted horns. Where the wild goat's horns could kill a man with a single strike, the twisted horns might batter someone but leave him alive.

From this, modern historians deduced that horn shape was not the only characteristic which early human breeding programs sought to preserve and pass on to future generations. Early humans must have also been concerned with things like meat, milk, and wool — all useful products derived from both goats and sheep, as well as other animals. Additionally, for most of the period covered by this book, most parts of the Near East were not typically well-settled, and the goat-herders must have preferred that their animals had some ability to defend themselves against predators such as wolves and lions. Historians call people who herd animals for their living, and who derive only minimal benefit from farming, pastoralists. All types of animal-rearing, taking into account both pastoralism and farming, is called animal husbandry.  Animal husbandry lends itself well to a variation on the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, in which nomads, or people who travel widely seeking food for their herds or flocks, roam between several areas which provide food and water for both themselves and the animals they tend.

Domestication of Plants
Domestication of plants followed a similar but later process to the domestication of animals. Historians term all sorts of deliberate human growth of plants, cultivation. Cultivation is a process by which humans plant seeds, care for the seedlings, harvest the mature plants and store some seeds for future use even while eating the majority of the harvest.

Most wild plants do not produce many seeds. They do not flood the ground around them with seeds, because any such seeds will quite naturally compete with the mother plant that created the seeds in the first place. Birds and animals may carry a number of seeds away in their feces, but the majority of new plants wind up competing for the same ground in the same ecological niche. Humans changed the balance of nature by first identifying plants that were good to eat, and then establishing seeds from those plants under favorable growing conditions.

The first type of cultivation, then, was probably horticulture.  Horticulture is the care and tending of gardens — small plots of land yielding a variety of plant products for the use of an extended family or tribe. Many tribal peoples, including nomads, found horticulture to be a highly successful strategy for feeding themselves. In many areas, horticulturalists employed a technique called the slash-and-burn technique to prepare their garden areas. The largest and least useful trees in a proposed garden were de-barked in a broad ring at the base of the tree; the gardeners cut down smaller trees and shrubs with knives and axes. The whole area was then burned, creating a bed of ashes from the dead plant material. The garden would thrive for several years in the ashes, before the soil nutrients became exhausted; then the gardeners would move on.

A second, later type of cultivation is called agriculture. Where horticulturalists establish small gardens supporting a variety of useful plants, agriculture involves converting large stretches of territory to a single plant, in essence creating fields. Evidence of agriculture, as opposed to horticulture, does not appear in the archaeological record until about 4500 BCE, when it made rapid inroads in five areas world-wide. These five areas are sometimes called cultural hearths, for their role in helping establish both culture and civilization in their regions of the world. Each area developed a particular group of food and fiber plants for cultivation in fields, and these plants remain the core of the modern world's diet today.

Four of these areas came into existence in the Old World: Africa, Asia, and Europe. Because these areas were located in river valleys, the archaeological record is somewhat confused about which area arose first, and which has the best claim to be the origin place of agriculture. The best guess is that they each invented agriculture independently of one another. The first area is Egypt, whose Nile River became a garden country quite early, involved in the production of domesticated cotton, wheat and barley. The Tigris and Euphrates river valley, commonly called Mesopotamia, was the second region, and it was involved in the cultivation of barley, wheat, and hemp. The Indus River valley in India was the third region, involved in cultivating rice, barley, beans and other crops. The fourth region of the Old World was China, which produced rice, wheat and lentils.

(Paragraph on Egypt)

(Paragraph on Mesopotamia)

(Paragraph on India)

(Paragraph on China)

The fifth region followed a substantially different pattern. Mesoamerica, or southern Mexico and the nations of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador, had no vast river systems in which to build elaborate agricultural systems. Here, agriculture grew out of horticulture, as the gardens needed to sustain the local populations became larger and larger. In about 5200 BCE, a local grain called teosinte became the focus of an intense breeding program. By 2500 BCE, its seed stalks had doubled in size, and the seeds themselves had also doubled. By 1 CE, these seed stalks had increased in size by another third. This plant is today known as maize or corn, and it formed the basis of the diet of the Americas from around 2000 BCE even to the present day. Mesoamerica also domesticated a whole host of other plants, including cotton, chili peppers, gourds, squash, melons and potatoes. All of these modern-day agricultural crops originally came from Mesoamerican gardens.

Early Settlements
Early humans may have seeded gardens at one campsite, and then gone on to visit other campsites for several months before returning to check on their plants. They would have found at least some of their efforts trampled or eaten by wild animals, stripped of their leaves by ravenous insects, or eaten by other hunter-gatherer family groups. Although the earliest tribes to practice horticulturalism may not have had strong senses of ownership over their gardens, later generations might have felt seriously inconvenienced, or perhaps even robbed. They would make plans to stay at campsites with gardens over longer periods of time, and harvested the results of their efforts. If they had planned on using the produce from their gardens for the purposes of holding a celebratory feast, they may have been even more irritated than usual with the thieves.

These humans usually developed their gardening campsites a little more thoroughly than they might at hunting or gathering grounds. Occasionally buildings of rough stones and roofed with branches and straw replaced tents. People dug wells or cisterns to provide local water sources for animals and people; they also dug irrigation ditches to provide water to their gardens in dry seasons. As people invested more time and energy into their camps and gardens, packing up and moving to a new campsite became less and less desirable. Eventually, people may have just decided to stick by their gardens year by year. The hunter-gatherers, once nomadic, now became sedentary.

Modern Homo sapiens sapiens
By the start of the Neolithic Age around 10,000 years ago, modern humans or Homo sapiens sapiens had become the dominant primate species on the planet. Except for a few islands in the Pacific, humans had spread to every land in the world, from the highlands of the Himalayas to the Amazon basin. Hawaii would not be colonized until about 500 CE, while New Zealand would remain empty of human settlement until about 900 CE. Otherwise, humans were everywhere.

It is difficult to say just how culturally diverse humanity was, just at the end of the last Ice Age. The stone tools and small figurines called Venuses found at many early Neolithic sites suggest a remarkable uniformity of culture. However, humans tended to make stone cutting tools out of only four basic types of rock: chert, flint, obsidian and quartzite. The flaking properties of these stones lend themselves to particular shapes and forms quite well, but these prevent substantial differentiation in types. Some forms are sufficiently widespread and unique to be identified with specific cultures: the Clovis People of New Mexico, for example left behind spearpoints with a distinctive ogival shape and a thumb-shaped groove for binding the point onto a wooden spear half. A great many stone and bone tools, though, are anonymously uniform, carrying over their shapes from one generation to the next over thousands of years.

However, modern culture is not written in tools so much as in materials and gear that rot and decay. A young man in Europe and a young man in India and a young man in South America dressed very differently from one another in 5000 BCE, largely as a result of where they lived. Each spoke a different language from the others; each may have used similar tool sets, but one used that toolkit to hunt elk and moose, another to hunt cassowary, and another to hunt water buffalo. Each heard different stories from their elders, and wanted different things in life from one another. Each even had different standards of beauty when considering potential mates and marriage partners. In the same way, a Chinese woman, an Egyptian woman and a Mesoamerican woman learned to cook with different foods, and worked with different materials to clothe their families. They told their children different bedtime stories, played different games, and had different standards of beauty and ability when considering potential mates and marriage partners.

It is difficult to assess today what these ancient cultures looked like. However, by 4500 BCE the world was a patchwork of cultures. Some were gardeners, some were farmers, some were pastoralists, and some were hunter-gatherers. Some were straddling the dividing lines between methods of food production, and some people were actively traveling back and forth between different groups, carrying luxury food items, beads, precious stones and other goods between cultures, peoples and individuals. There were thousands of languages and millions of people world-wide. There may have been nations and kingdoms, but we know almost nothing about them, not even whether they existed. Writing was still more than a thousand years in the future.

Yet for archaeologists, things were about to get very interesting indeed.


text: User:Aragan Jarosalam~enwikibooks

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Aragan Jarosalam~enwikibooks


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User talk:Aragan Jarosalam~enwikibooks

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally. Andrew Watt 15:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

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Hello,

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title: User talk:Aragan Jarosalam~enwikibooks


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User talk:Jaerune

Come introduce yourself at the new users page. If you have any questions, you can ask there or contact me personally.

title: User talk:Jaerune


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Ada Programming/Libraries/Standard/ObjectAda

The ObjectAda package is described in the documentation that comes with the compiler, as required by.

The predefined integer types:

 * Integer: with a range of 231 231 1
 * Short_Integer: with a range of 215 215 1
 * Short_Short_Integer: with a range of 27 27 1
 * Long_Integer: with a range of 231 231 1

The predefined floating point types:

Float         6  34E38   34E38 Long_Float   15  18E308  18E308

And:

Duration 2014    1310720  1310720  2014

Wikibook

 * Ada Programming
 * Ada Programming/Libraries/Standard

|Standard


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Ancient History/Glossary

C
Carbon Dating noun—a chemical process which can determine the approximate age of any organic material with an age between 500 years and 150,000 years.

D
Dictator noun—title of the emergency leader of Rome during the Republic.

Dictator perpetuus noun—title of the dictators when the office was awarded for life.

Domesticated noun/adj—a species tamed and bred to benefit human life and culture.

F
French Indochina noun—Western name for the colonial holdings of France on mainland Southeast Asia - present-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

G
Grave Goods noun—objects of at least nominal value buried with a dead person.

H
Harappa noun—Site of one of the great cities of the Indus valley civilization of the third millennium B.C.E. It was located on the northwest frontier of the zone of cultivation (in modern Pakistan), and may have been a center for the acquisition of raw materials, such as metals and precious stones, from Afghanistan and Iran.

I
Indigenous adjective—original or native to a country or region.

Inundation noun: The annual recurrence of the flooding of the Nile, beginning in July and ending in November.

L
Latifundia noun: a large estate farm in Italy run by slave labor, common in the late Roman Republic and Imperial eras.

Liliuokalani noun—Hawaiian queen from 1891-1895.

M
Meiji Restoration -- noun—In Japan, the reign of emperor Meiji from 1868 to 1912 which was marked by rapid modernization and industrialization.

Mestizo -- noun, adj—A person of mixed Native-European blood in many Latin American cultures.

Mohenjo-Daro noun—Largest of the cities of the Indus Valley civilization. It was centrally located in the extensive floodplain of the Indus River in contemporary Pakistan. Little is known about the political institutions of Indus Valley communities, but the large-scale of construction at Mohenjo-Daro, the orderly grid of streets, and the standardization of building materials are evidence of central planning.

Mongkut -- noun—King of Siam who ruled from 1851 to 1868.

Mummy -- noun—A body preserved by chemical processes or special natural circumstances, often in the belief that the deceased will need it again in the afterlife. In ancient Egypt the bodies of people who could afford mummification underwent a complex process of removing organs, filling body cavities, dehydrating the corpse with natron, and then wrapping the body with linen bandages and enclosing it in a wooden sarcophagus.

P
Papyrus noun—A reed that grows along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. From it was produced a coarse, paper-like writing medium used by the Egyptians and many other peoples in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East.

Prehistory noun—the period of human activity on Earth before the invention of writing.

S
Shaman noun—A spiritual leader in some tribal cultures, part-magician, part-doctor, part-lorekeeper.

Spanish-American War -- noun—conflict between the United States and Spain in 1898 over Cuban independence.

Z
Zaibatsu noun—Since the late 1800s, powerful banking and industrial families in Japan.

title: Ancient History/Glossary


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Talk:SAT Study Guide/Part 3 - The Critical Reading Section/Sentence Completion

The critical reading questions have five choices!


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Optics/Fermat's Principle

The Principle
Fermat's Principle, also known as "The Principle of Least Time" states that:

 * "Light travels through the path in which it can reach the destination in least time".

It is a fundamental law of optics from which the other laws of geometrical optics can be derived.

Derivation for Law of Reflection
The derivation of Law of Reflection using Fermat's principle is straightforward. The Law of Reflection can be derived using elementary calculus and trigonometry. The generalization of the Law of Reflection is Snell's law, which is derived below using the same principle.

The medium that light travels through doesn't change. In order to minimize the time for light travel between two points, we should minimize the path taken.

1. Total path length of the light is given by

 * $$L=d_1+d_2\,$$

2. Using Pythagorean theorem from Euclidean Geometry we see that

 * $$d_1=\sqrt{x^2 + a^2}\,$$ and $$d_2=\sqrt{(l-x)^2 + b^2}\,$$

3. When we substitute both values of d1 and d2 for above, we get

 * $$L=\sqrt{x^2 + a^2} + \sqrt{(l-x)^2 + b^2}$$

4. In order to minimize the path traveled by light, we take the first derivative of L with respect to x.

 * $$\frac{dL}{dx}=\frac{x}{\sqrt{x^2 + a^2}} + \frac{-(l-x)}{\sqrt{(l-x)^2 + b^2}}=0$$

5. Set both sides equal to each other.

 * $$\frac{x}{\sqrt{x^2 + a^2}} = \frac{(l-x)}{\sqrt{(l-x)^2 + b^2}}$$

6. We can now tell that the left side is nothing but $$\sin\theta_i$$ and the right side $$\sin\theta_r$$ means

 * $$\sin\theta_i=\sin\theta_r \!\ $$

7. Taking the inverse sine of both sides we see that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection

 * $$\theta_i=\theta_r \!\ $$

Derivation for Snell's Law
The derivation of Snell's Law using Fermat's Principle is straightforward. Snell's Law can be derived using elementary calculus and trigonometry. Snell's Law is the generalization of the above in that it does not require the medium to be the same everywhere.

To mark the speed of light in different media refractive indices named n1 and n2 are used.
 * $$v_1=\frac{c}{n_1} \!\ $$
 * $$v_2=\frac{c}{n_2}$$

Here $$c$$ is the speed of light in a vacuum and $$n_1,n_2 \ge 1 \,$$ because all materials slow down light as it travels through them.

1. Time for the trip equals distance traveled divided by the speed.

 * $$T=\frac{d_1}{v_1}+\frac{d_2}{v_2}$$

2. Using the Pythagorean theorem from Euclidean Geometry we see that

 * $$\frac{d_1}{v_1}=\frac{\sqrt{x^2 + a^2}}{v_1}\,$$ and $$\frac{d_2}{v_2}=\frac{\sqrt{b^2 + (l-x)^2}}{v_2}\,$$

3. Substituting this result into equation (1) we get

 * $$T=\frac{\sqrt{x^2 + a^2}}{v_1} + \frac{\sqrt{b^2 + (l-x)^2}}{v_2}$$

4. To minimize the transit time, we take the derivative with respect to the variable $$x$$ and set it equal to zero:

 * $$\frac{dT}{dx}=\frac{x}{v_1\sqrt{x^2 + a^2}} + \frac{-(l-x)}{v_2\sqrt{(l-x)^2 + b^2}}=0$$

5. After careful examination the above equation we see that it is nothing but

 * $$\frac{dT}{dx}=\frac{\sin\theta_1}{v_1} - \frac{\sin\theta_2}{v_2}=0$$

6. This leads to

 * $$\frac{\sin\theta_1}{v_1}=\frac{\sin\theta_2}{v_2}$$

7. Substituting $$\frac{n_1}{c}$$ for $$\frac{1}{v_1}$$ and $$\frac{n_2}{c}$$ for $$\frac{1}{v_2}$$ we get

 * $$\frac{n_1}{c}\sin\theta_1=\frac{n_2}{c}\sin\theta_2$$

8. Multiplying through by $$c$$ gives us our result

 * $$n_1\sin\theta_1=n_2\sin\theta_2 \!\ $$

title: Optics/Fermat's Principle


text:
Template:The Universe Made Simple/Contents Data

'''This page holds a  that defines the chapters of this book. This page is metatextual. It is not part of the book.'''

There are   chapters in the book.


text:
User talk:Adam78

Deletion against community consensus
Hello Jon,

I'd like to ask you to revert your deletion of Transwiki:List_of_tongue-twisters (done at 18:29, 29 May 2006) because the result of the debate was Transwiki (see ). I'm afraid it would be somewhat unfair to act against community consensus. On the discussion page, nobody at all proposed, supported or agreed on deletion.

This list was a considerable collection made by several people during years, something that is certainly of interest by illustrating the differences of languages in terms of phonology, morphonology and morphophonemic, and I doubt how it could be "not suitable for wikibooks".

Thank you! Adam78 14:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I have sent you an email containing the deleted text and noting why it is unsuitable for wikibooks and should not have been sent here by wikipedia in the first instance. I am willing to extend this courtesy to others (provided they are not too many), but really an admin on wikipedia should undelete the content from there to allow the page to be transwikied to a suitable location. If the email does not arrive (it was somewhat large), please let me know, Jguk 17:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Adam78


text:
Template:The Universe Made Simple/Navigation

'''This page is metatextual. It is not, on its own, part of the book.'''


text:
User talk:Jguk/Archive 1

Hi Jon. I am new to the wiki books system. So any help would be appreciated. I need to learn how to make new pages within my book. I tried openning a new empty link, would it be connected to my book automatically ? Also, I don't mind to find someone reviewing my english, since it not my native language. 10x, Oz.

Hello. Could you indicate the place where you annouce the requested change "AASF" → "America's Army: Special Forces/"? I cannot run the bot unless I know all interested editors agree to the change. Thanks, tsca ✉ 19:12, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

ALL FROM PETETURTLE
Jguk Please check up on Romeo and Juliet. Is the started plot synopsis what might fit Wikibooks? Peteturtle. June 2

Jguk, I AM going to annote each play in detail. However, reasearch takes time, and in the near future, I hope to have an act-by-act synopsis of each play to go along in the ABOUT THIS PLAY section. Peteturtle. P.S. Thanks for merging INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE.

June 2 Jguk, Thank you for teaching me about table of contents. Checking the SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS history, it seems you've added some things to the wikibook. Was it you that added the INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE section? Peteturtle

Jguk, Do you know how to add tables of contents? Please tell me how. Peteturtle

Jguk, I'll take your advice on having others collaborate on the Shakespeare wikibook. I'll try to nominate it for Collaboration of the Month. Peteturtle P.S. Are you a Wikibooks administrator?

Jguk, Check the AUTHORS page in the Shakespeare wikibook. Feel free to put your real name in. Peteturtle

Jguk, YAY!!!! Thank you SO much for bringing it up again! Thank you! Peteturtle

Jguk, I received your third message. Thanks for trying to bring it up again. Peteturtle. :)

Jguk, I received your second message. I wasn't going to do only three plays! I was going to try to include ALL of his work. That way, I could have something useful to do during my summer vacation. If you read my user page, I'm only in high school! Peteturtle.

Jguk, Never mind what I just said! I can't believe you deleted my Shakespeare's Works wikibook! I was going to use your critism to make it better, but you deleted it! I worked for one hour on trying to get just right (that includes "A Midsummer Night's Dream") Next time, please confer with the author before deleting their book! -Peteturtle P.S. Please answer back P.S.S. Please try to replace the Wikibook. I worked for a long time on that.

Jguk, You recently noticed my Shakespeare plays Wikibook. I thank your criticism. Your idea is good: I should make a section only on information on the play. Check back on Comedies---Midsummer Night's Dream later to see what I mean. Thank you for your help, Peteturtle.

Hello,

I just wanted to drop by to tell you that the is actualy. We administators are very carefull about deletions and we need a reason before we delete.

--Krischik T 17:48, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Where I haven't given a reason, the reason is "useless redirect". Maybe I'll develop a new template that inserts that reason automatically, ~

OrthopAEdic vs OrthopEdic
I have already talked about this in length elsewhere. Though you have already gone ahead and changed Orthopedic Surgery to Orthopaedic Surgery I would like to have your views on the topic.

BDB 17:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity:School of Fire and Emergency Management
OK, I've moved the pages. However, the redirects must not be deleted, because of outside linking and personal bookmarks. tsca ✉ 12:21, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

What do we do about converting some this stuff back? I lost all my links to "Additional Training Materials". This could really take awhile trying to find them all.--Mfinney 04:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I have lost A LOT of stuff. SOMEBODY CONVERT THIS STUFF BACK. There is no way I can search for it all... it took too much time to do this.--Mfinney 05:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Began doing the clean ups... let me see what I can find first....--Mfinney 05:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt reply. Ok... I freaked out for a moment. Please accept my apologies. Here's apparently what the bot does. It did pick up most of the links. However, those links to the .pdf's and some of the images did not. If I am understanding what the bot did, it did great as far as anything on Wikibooks, but doesn't like anything that has been linked into Commons. That's my guess because the pages that had links to Commons was not picked up... those that were to Wikibooks locations were. If that could be fixed, whoever developed the bot will have created an avenue to save all of us a lot of work. He can go in and look to see what linked and what didnt. Areas where it didnt link I just reset the pages to the old links so its easy to see. Hope that helps and let me know if that gets fixed as it is a really great resource.--Mfinney 18:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Deleting redirects
Be careful deleting redirects to main book page. They might be used to link to the book from Wikipedia. I reccomend that you don't delete them, except obvious cases (misspelling). --Derbeth talk 00:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * OK. I admit I was a bit in two minds about it myself. I'll leave the redirects to the main book pages, Jguk 07:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for Support
I just wanted to drop by and thank you for supporting me on my RFA. I really do appreciate your encouragement.--Mfinney 06:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations on becoming an admin
I see that you have been granted admin status. The first clue was that the total number of modules as listed on the front page has actually gone down by a couple hundred from yesterday, so I took a look at the deletion log to see what you were up to.

I have no complaint, and thank you for helping out Wikibooks, doing the service that you have been performing. I also want to thank you for your efforts over the past month or so here, and they are very much appreciated as well. If you get a chance, please review MediaWiki Administrator's Handbook and add some input about what kinds of things you are not quite sure about or would like some more information regarding administrator duties. This is just an ordinary Wikibook, so nothing is sacred there or is official policy. It is just a casual guide to perhaps let you know what kinds of things may be useful to a new administrator and what "tricks" have been useful to others.

I need to do this more myself, so don't take this personally and treat this advise with a grain of salt as well (this is just my opinion on the matter): don't hesitate to still add the   tag to content that you think needs to be deleted. This way you can get a second opinion on removing the content and it can act as a check on yourself so you don't accidentally delete something that perhaps should have been kept. I've steped on enough toes already as an administrator that there are some serious arrows in my back due to mistakes in this area.

Again, thanks for being involved with Wikibooks, and let's make this an awesome project! --Rob Horning 10:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Bar Ilan Troll 1
Hi,

looks like we where both out for him as almost the same time - which resulted in me blocking him/her as well. Sorry about that.

--Krischik T 16:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Jon, Thank you for catching the vandalism this subject caused. much appreciated...:) --Kajolus 04:59, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Blocking conflict
If you block an IP, click "Block log" link to check if it wasn't blocked before. If there are two blocks on the same IP or user, only shorter one is valid. --Derbeth talk 22:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I had realised that. I noticed Cspurrier managed to block our main page vandal literally seconds before me yesterday, but we'd both gone for infinite. When Krischik reblocked infinitely a vandal I'd just blocked for a year, again I wasn't concerned:) Jguk 05:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

vfd
I'm new to Wikibooks, so i'm curious, how long will that take? That book/pamphlet of mine has some potential real world significance and time is of the essence. Karmafist 14:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

thanks
thanks for the work on ThinkStarship... as far as the naming convention thing goes, I did ask the question....

Prometheuspan 02:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

General Biology
Would you like some help moving pages in General Biology to correctly formatted namespaces? I started a lot of those pages a long time ago before we had the namespaces standardized, and if you want to work together on it, I can help you (and that will help me be motivated to do it, among three million other things that need to be done). --Karl Wick 21:43, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Sincere thanks for the rename of America's Army: Special Forces
I wanted to say that I sincerely thank-you for the rename of America%27s_Army:_Special_Forces and the removal of the link back to the contents. It makes things much more sensible.

I do have one concern, which is that originally the 'book' was mostly aimed at the tactics related to the game, rather than the game as a whole, so I'm not positive that the new name is specific enough. No worries though. I'm sure it can be changed in the future.

Canscorch 05:06, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for permissions
I saw that an official request for permissions hadn't been made yet, so I added one for our recent de-sysopping voting. Thought you'd like to know. -Matt 22:16, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I took a similar opinion regarding the "sure thing" de-adminships compared to the others. I listed them separately there. -Matt 22:24, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Structure by interest group
Jguk, your suggestion from the staff lounge makes a lot of sense to me and I like the way you broke down the groups. I wrote Jimmy an email about it to see if he thinks it makes sense to split things up. Thanks for doing some great thinking for me. We'll see how things turn out. --Karl Wick 06:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Main Page navigation template
Jguk, any chance you can you help clean up this navigation template? Part of my goal to move it to the top was to draw attention to it so it could be improved. --Karl Wick 21:22, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Bartending
Wooah steady there Jguk youve deleted quite a few pages without even leaving redirects or any edit history. I'm really not keen on lumping recipes together and using big unwieldly lists. I'd much rather keep recipes seperate and make use of categories it makes things a lot easier. Could you please restore the deleted pages and we'll start up some discussion on the format. Discordance 00:02, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

At first glance youve been copying what ive been doing in the ingredients section which is something i was trying out some ideas with but that structure simply doesnt work for cocktails, eg a black velvet is a cocktail with beer and youve put it on the cocktails with beer page, but its also a cocktail with champagne and youve duplicated the recipe there too. things are going to get real messy and confused doing things that way, the ingredients im not sure about but the cocktails absolutely need their own pages using categorys. Discordance 00:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Jguk, I don't think anyone (and especially a sysop) should completely alter book structure without discussion. I expect you will consult Discordance on how to correct current book shape. --Derbeth talk 22:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I was retaining (but simplifying) book structure. I am considering my response to Discordance and have laid off editing that wikibook for a few days. I think the issue to be resolved is whether there is a better structure than that already adopted - and will respond with my thoughts shortly, Jguk 22:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Thats cool I was still experimenting with the structure myself, I just felt that deleting the pages left me with no way back lacking admin tools, I dont like unecessary redirects but theres a fair bit of edit history gone. Having lots of short articles isnt the best of situations i agree, but theres so many ways to categorise cocktails and so many recipes to add I really feel the only way it can be done is with a seperate article for each recipe. Even if we come up with a different structure though i'd like to see the pages restored for the sake of edit histories. Discordance 19:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jguk, I seem to also be having trouble due to whatever changes have been made regarding the bartending/cocktails articles. We have broken links all over wikipedia now to these articles. I have fixed a bunch of them, but many of the articles seem to have vanished completely from wikibooks, from what I can tell. Are they somewhere unexpected, or planned to be returned, or have they simply been deleted? I understand that these bartending articles transwikied from wikipedia tend to be low quality, but still it would be good to know which ones were deleted (if possible) to aid in removing dead links. Or if you can just verify that there are no bartending articles left besides the ones in the main obviously visible categories, I'll just assume any others are gone for good. Thanks --Xyzzyplugh 14:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Added to Xyzzyplugh's talk page:

 * Thank you for your comment on my talk page.

 * I have (I hope temporarily) restored all the bartending pages (see here for a complete list of pages in the book. In each case the content of the pages beginning Bartending/Cocktails has already been merged into another article linked from Bartending/Cocktails, which is why I believe the old links to be unnecessary. However, I will discuss this with the main authors of the book.

 * Incidentally, when linking to Wikibooks, I strongly recommend always linking to the book's title. Other pages in any book are subject to significant change (such as the merging of articles here followed by deletion of the old location spaces). On Wikibooks, whilst we tend to have redirects for book titles and bookshelves, we don't for pages and chapters of books (if we did we'd have more redirects than articles!).

 * All the best, Jguk 08:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link to all the articles. I'm not sure what you mean by "always linking to the book's title", though.  The links I've been using within wikipedia end up like this: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bartending/Cocktails/Irish_Carbomb  is this correct?  The original links looked like this: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bartending:Boiler  and they all went dead, none of them work anymore, so I've been switching them to the new links.  --Xyzzyplugh 09:44, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, well i was hoping that if enough momentum built up for the book we'd be able to produce recipe pages of similar quality to that of the cookbook, thats what i was attempting with the B-52, there are a lot of ways to index the cocktails and with the vast number we will hopefully have its important to be able to find what your looking for, at the moment the B-52 has roughly the same sortof categories as a cookbook recipe, method and ingredients but theres the possibility of alcohol content and flavour (a little subjective but might be nice). For group pages you do run into the major problem of figuring out where to put the cocktail each time as repeating the recipe is not a good idea thats going to make it harder to keep things tidy, then once youve decided where things go the reader then has to figure out where its actually been put. I think good indexing is very important for this book. The ingredients and glassware etc do favour a hierarchal structure as on the whole theres only one way to classify and group them and theres a lot less that can be said about them in a cocktail context. Discordance 13:52, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I am sending this same message to both you and Discordance, you're the two who I know are paying attention to the bartending area of wikibooks. I've just transwikied about 90 articles on cocktails, I moved most of them to the Bartending/Cocktails/ area, and added the barwork tag to them all. Except for about the following, which had previously existing articles here. These will all need to be merged, or will need to replace the previously existing articles if they are better, perhaps. I'm not sure what the procedure is on this, how do I go about doing this properly while still maintaining the history and all? Here is the list: And http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bartending/Cocktails/Prarie_Fire I realized there is another article here with the spelling Prairie Fire. --Xyzzyplugh 15:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Transwiki:Black Velvet
 * Transwiki:Brandtea
 * Transwiki:Brandy Alexander
 * Transwiki:Cosmopolitan
 * Transwiki:French 75
 * Transwiki:Golden Cadillac
 * Transwiki:Margarita
 * Transwiki:Mojito
 * Transwiki:Prairie Oyster this is not strictly speaking an alcoholic beverage, not sure what to do with it
 * Transwiki:Rob Roy
 * Transwiki:Sidecar
 * Transwiki:Slippery Nipple
 * Transwiki:Sloe Gin Fizz

You havnt replied on the bartending page but have started moving cocktails can I assume that your ok with me then creating individual articles of high quality? Also have you done anything with the edit history?, I think you should probably have left redirects instead. But oh well. Discordance 19:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Thats great to hear I do intend to work on a lot of recipes. As for the AMF it should be written out in full as it is a name, however i have been thinking about modern cocktails and whether they should perhaps be seperated somewhat from 'classic' cocktails. For instance a Don Quixote is half guiness and half tequila, a drink i have tried once on a drunken evening but its clearly been designed for a digusting drinking game rather than an actual cocktail. I cant really decide at the moment whether to treat everything as a cocktail or to try to make some kind of separation. Discordance 23:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Rereading some of you comments on my talk page perhaps things like the AMF and other modern cocktails should just be left in the glossary and only 'classic' cocktails should get their own pages. The only fair way to decide what is a 'classic' cocktail would be whether or not the cocktail has made it into a printed cocktail book (but not novelty shots books). 88.144.26.238 15:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The problem with throwing everything into a glossary index is that drinks are not simply recipes. Qualified bartenders learn how to develop new cocktails, which requires a theoretical education, not just a list of names and constituents with no indication of what's important and what isn't, how the ingredients function in a cocktail, etc. In particular, families of cocktails need to be linked together. A glossary would be a good place to put things like long lists of shooters or punches, but there is no way that anyone is going to learn to bartend well if his only exposure to the martini is a single paragraph. --Dan131m

I'll try to prepare and photograph all of the cocktails I wrote up soon. Don't worry about merging the information from the glossary into the articles, because in most cases the glossary information on the more important cocktails is either unimportant to a working bartender or could be summarized and formatted in a much simpler manner. --Dan131m

Cheers for the welcome
Thanks for the welcome message, but I don't expect to be very active here at Wikibooks. I'd like to help, but I'm doing lots of categorisation work at Commons, which takes up pretty much all of my non-wikipedia wiki time. Thryduulf 23:46, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Concerns about some of your deletion
I want to start out that I appreciate that you have been very helpful about clearing out some of the deadwood here on Wikibooks, 99.9% of which really needed to go from even my perspective. This is something that has been long overdue and simply needed somebody to step in and get the job done. For that I am grateful and want to encourage your continued participation on Wikibooks.

I'm just a little worried that perhaps you are going a little bit too far on deleting some of the content that you have removed in the past couple of days. Noting especially the VfD discussions, try to make sure that the discussion has wound down before going and deleting the content listed there. Wikibooks moves at a much slower pace than projects like Wikipedia, and it simply takes time to get all of the interested parties to be able to participate in a discussion.

I'm especially concerned about Wikilanguages, as this really has been a new Wikimedia project proposal that perhaps should have been moved to Meta or at least the author given a chance to move it to Wikicities. In the past, project like this were openly encouraged by several individuals, mostly those who didn't really understand the role of Wikibooks. Indeed several pages on Meta at one point strongly suggested that Wikibooks was precisely the place to put content of this nature. I've revised those pages to make it clear that Wikibooks is not the place to put stuff like that, but there were many new projects that were started unfortunately like Wikijunior where the content is loosly book-like but really has nothing to do with textbooks at all. BTW, I'm not yet prepared to fight a VfD over Wikijunior, as it would get a bunch of very irate individuals involved in that process.

I know that you and I have some differing philosophies on this and other topics, although I'd also like to point out that there are very few instances I've reversed your decision to delete content. Please keep in mind that some real people have put quite a bit of effort into much of the content you are now removing. Once it is gone it is difficult to bring it back, which is one reason why adminship is something that is reserved to trusted users. --Rob Horning 14:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

The following response has been posted on Rob's talk page:

Rob

Thank you for your comment on my talk page. On the specific point on Wikilanguages, I have now restored the book - but please note that the vfd had gone on for 11 days with all the votes being to delete when I removed it. I appreciate you take a different view from me as to whether the vote should have been acted on this early, which is why I am happy to restore it following your comment, although I will note that you yourself have deleted something that's been on VFD for only four days where you have seen a clear consensus to delete. I suppose my point here is that it is clear that we are both here to improve wikibooks - whilst we may disagree on some points, I trust that this overriding aim will help us work together in maintaining wikibooks as a useful resource.

On the more general issue, when I came to wikibooks, it was clear that it had an identity crisis, which had seen a number of splits - the cookbook, wikijunior and wikiversity in particular had all been split off in some way. There was no standard naming convention, so each book looked separate rather being as part of a whole. There were many remnants of former days as a multilingual site, a lot of latent vandalism (eg a number of pages still needing ass pus or still having been damonized), and serious difficulties navigating to find what books are actually worth reading. This, through the efforts of a number of editors, is improving (although I'm sure not as fast as we'd all like).

There is still some way to go - personally I very much do see wikijunior and wikiversity as being part of the remit to host and develop textbooks, and I would love the rifts to disappear. The Cookbook namespace should disappear too. Hopefully making wikibooks look like something to be proud of will bring them into the fold. For me, we also need to resolve textbooks such as Knowing Knoppix and Gardening, which have already been published, but which are clearly textbooks that would not be out of place here had they originally been started here. To my mind wikibooks is the wikimedia project you look at for textbooks (and if it isn't, it bloody well should be). They are not appropriate for wikisource (which does not appear to cover things even remotely looking like textbooks), yet provide a welcome addition to wikibooks.

Other issues to resolve are to make things more user-friendly. I have already changed the Wikibooks portal (along the lines of what is done for other wikimedia projects), though this probably deserves more work as it is the first thing many first-time visitors see. I have started to redraft the Help namespace content using modified wikipedia content - this too needs to be completed. The main page, no doubt, can be improved further.

In summary, there is much to be done to make wikibooks look like a good place to develop new textbooks - but that is the noble aim. If we can succeed, we can help bring down the cost of textbooks generally, which will greatly help education throughout the English-speaking world. All the best, Jguk 07:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

All cocktails articles disappearing
Hi, I've noticed that the wikibooks cocktails links are all going dead again. It looks like you're combining all the cocktails into one enormous article. I have about a dozen articles still in Transwiki: which I listed in your talk page a bit above, do you want to handle these or should I? They are all for cocktails which had previously existing articles here, but they have substantially different content, and should be merged with or should replace the previously existing articles. --Xyzzyplugh 00:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

 * That's right. The Bartending book needs a bit of TLC at the moment - but I'm hoping that come June (or later) it will be a book of the month. This means some consolidation. As noted before, when linking to wikibooks, it's best to link through to the book title (ie to Bartending) rather than any of its subpages. That's because book structures change, sometimes dramatically, whereas book titles tend to be static, and then have redirects remain when they are moved. I'm happy clearing out anything in the Transwiki: pseudo-namespace if you want. Alternatively, feel free to add them direct to Bartending/Cocktails/Glossary and add the contributors to Bartending/Contributors. Kind regards, Jguk 06:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia e-mail confirmation
Please see w:Help:Email_confirmation - a new Wikipedia e-mail policy has recently been instituted: since your WP account was registered way before 2006-03-02, your existing e-mail address has not been officially confirmed, which means people can no longer e-mail you via Wikipedia. If you would like, you may go to your WP account to confirm your e-mail address so that people can e-mail you via WP again. --69.117.7.119 02:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Cabalism
It's ok, nothing was really in it, and my thoughts have not been on this wiki stuff lately. I might recreate it later, but if it's NPOV, deleted or not is irrelevant, i'll just keep on recreating it. I'll look forward to your assistance in making an accurate and objective accounting of the social structure of Wikipedia as a whole. I know i'm biased, but ultimately, all humans are. We just need to accept that and step outside of ourselves to see these views from another perspective.

I hope you can give this other perspective once or if I can feel comfortable with Wiki-ing again. Karmafist 15:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Hi from a new user that stumbled in from WikiP! I never got to my WikiWork today as I browsed through the staff lounge and saw a familiar theme from various wikipedia archives, this time, in time to make a timely contribution.
 * On a personal note, my wife's in your line of work which over here means 18 hour days seven days a week this time of year making me a single parent. If you need a cross-pond (sic) consult, www.cabrandt.com (email:cbrandt as in Cindy) will give you a contact. Or email me, and I can introduce you. Just wait until April 19th or so (this year) to jog her elbow!  Does your tax laws impose such bubbles of activity on you? Fabartus//[[<font color="green">User talk:Fabartus</font>]] 21:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC) (I wish I knew how to fix this sig!)

Scratch page
Hiya, it appears my scratch page was deleted by you, "per user's request", but I don't recall asking for it to be deleted (as there was in-progress work there). Could you please undelete it? Thanks Kellen T 11:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Apologies, I must have gotten the wrong end of some stick somewhere. Now restored, Jguk 11:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that perhaps a tag was included from some templates I was testing, so you probably did nothing out of order. Thanks for restoring it. Kellen T 13:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deleting Colonising Mars
Please don't! If you really feel compelled to delete this module, please VfD this book. Or at the very least nominate it for speedy deletion so a 2nd admin has the chance to review the idea. I've expressed some grave concern that perhaps you are deleting too much content here on Wikibooks, and I think this has gone too far.

I know that you are trying to help clean up some older content that has needed to be removed, but you are starting to move into areas that I really don't think should be touched, at least without community concensus and not just the opinion of one lone user. The weight of the world is not on your shoulders, and Wikibooks will do fine with even some of this cruft laying around for a little bit longer. The ability to remove content from Wikibooks is not something to be taken casually, and can be abused. --Rob Horning 16:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Hit counters
Is there any way that a Wikibooks hit counter can be used on a sampling basis? I know that hit counters were removed but what I had in mind was including Wikibooks counters on the first introduction page of a set of books (not the main page) for a week and then removing them so that we can gauge hit rates. This would not put excessive strain on the servers. RobinH 15:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I'm afraid that I'm no technician and therefore not in a position to answer this. Hopefully you can find someone else to tell you, Jguk 15:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Guide to cheating...
Actually, I think it makes sense to keep this, but convert it to a guide to prevent cheaters. Cheers! BD2412 T 03:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

No personal attacks policy
I have re-opened this at the staff lounge. There seems to have been some confusion about whether or not the elevation to "enforced" was justified - perhaps the discussion can be re-opened for another week or two. RobinH 12:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

please let me know if a discussion regarding the issue of contravention comes up. With a guillotine hanging over my head, I'm not spending any more time on it until the issue is resolved. If it goes up for deletion, or etc, I pretty much only ask that i be given fair notice and time to move it.

Other than that, I'm twiddling my thumbs over here. Prometheuspan 03:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Jg, I cannot get a grip on this issue. I am surprised that you overrode the vote. RobinH 12:46, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: game guide transwikiing
I really see no problem in deleting pages that have been transwikied - to my mind, Jimbo's amendment to policy allows them to be deleted anyway as being outside the scope of Wikibooks (point 7 on the proposed Deletion policy), although in practice they won't be deleted until they have been moved elsewhere. As far as the transwiki'ing point is concerned, point 4 on the proposed policy makes no references to the wiki being a WMF wiki.) I'd also be ok about allowing the book title page to contain a link through to the new location for a short while - a year, say.

Could I ask you, however, to expand on how the process of getting the games books over to StrategyWiki would work? I have a number of questions:
 * 1) When would it happen?
 * 2) How long would it take?
 * 3) How would we know what has been transwikied?
 * 4) How would we know what the entire contents of any one book has been transwikied? (at which point we can delete the book from wikibooks)
 * 5) How would we know what will be transwikied?
 * 6) What would happen if the authors of a book did not want it to go to StrategyWiki?
 * 7) Do you need help from Wikibookians, including Wikibooks admins, for the transwiki'ing to occur? If so, what?

All the best, Jguk 12:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Yeah I guess that's the best way to go about it, and since it's all official anyway no-one's likely to object. Anyway, here's the answers...
 * Pretty much any time. The only real concern is some books have had edits more recently than the last dump (April 21st I think). The more stagnant ones can be done straight away, but the rest will have to be done once the next dump surfaces (either that or merge the old dump with a current revision only dump, which may result in loss of some edits).
 * Not long. The tool does its thing (speed depending on both the dump's size and the computer) and then it's uploaded using Special:Upload over there. It doesn't take any more than a minute or two, but the larger books sometimes encounter errors during the transfer. However another thing to consider is fixing the book page naming. This is a lot easier to do via search-and-replace in the dump itself than with the move command. Same thing goes for the slash convention.
 * The books will be done on a per-book basis (although the biggest MMO books might require two or more parts, it will depend on WMDumper's speed/efficiency) so everything will be marked and/or deleted soon after.
 * I'll mark the book's main page appropriately, and either delete the rest of the pages myself or else leave a message on the main page about their deletion.
 * Check out this list for exceptions. I haven't been through all the pages yet so there may be more.
 * Well, that's what the GFDL is for. Either they can extract their chosen pages from a Wikibooks dump (or the pages themselves, while they still remain) or else fork them from the StrategyWiki equivalent.
 * I don't think so, apart from deleting pages and things like that. Of course if you want to download a dump and jump on in feel free to. :)
 * Anyway, I think that's it. Now that my broadband speed boost has finally kicked in I can get started on the unpopular guides... GarrettTalk 04:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've transwikied some now. See this list for the new links, and recent changes here for the devastation to the old ones. ;) GarrettTalk 11:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

explain comment
My comment to jguk is only stating that as long as there is a question as to whether or not my effort on THINKSTARSHIP is in contravention, it seems irrational for me to continue that effort, until the issue of whether or not i am in contravention is resolved. It is not a personal attack, only stating that i'd like to see the issue resolved, and explaining that it makes no sense for me to continue working until it is. Prometheuspan 17:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reasurances. Now i feel sort of stupid and lame and kind of petty for not working all week. It doesn't look like things are going to go off in the direction of deleting me, etc. I am sorry...I guess its back to work then... Prometheuspan 01:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Bartending
Hey just wanted to say nice work and sorry for dropping out this month right after we decided on a format for the book had uni work to concentrate on. Its great to see interest from some other users is starting to pick up too. Discordance 20:31, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey Jguk me and Dan131m have been discussing some things about the book, we'd like some more opinions on what to do about measurements in the book. I think we should use ratios for consistency and to keep things international but Dan131m feels we should keep the original measurements for accuracy and ease of contributing. Any thoughts? Discordance 15:14, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar
As I explained at the Staff lounge, I changed "search" to "books" in MediaWiki:Sidebar, which apparently solves the formatting problem. --Kernigh 08:05, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Image:Ac.thequeen.jpg
Jon, please note that we don't have most of templates Wikipedia is using and most of links in copied text become red. --Derbeth talk 21:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Be bold in updating pages
You deleted this page but just take a look what links there. What do you think we should do with it? --Derbeth talk 09:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Userboxes
My first day here and I'm in trouble already :\ Anyways, as I replied on my talk, the only userboxen I created (and the only ones I planned to create) were about instant messaging platforms. They look pretty innocent to me, after all, there's a MSN Messenger userbox already. So I figured nobody would care much if I added the rest. — nathanrdotcom (talk · contribs · en.wiki) 08:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Formula Dé deleted
You deleted the pages Formula Dé and Formula Dé/1999 League Schedule & Rules, and I can not find any discussion on said deletion. How is a rulebook on this game any different than a rulebook on Monopoly? Why was this done without some discussion? —MJBurrage 01:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * As you may well be aware, recently at wikibooks we have been looking at what books we have and assessing whether they really meet our inclusion criterion of them being textbooks. The pages you refer to fall foul of this (under pretty much any definition) and were therefore liable to be deleted summarily without further discussion. I am mindful, however, that authors may not have a personal copy of their work, and am willing to email (or if necessary temporarily delete) pages to them if they do not. If that is the case here, please let me know and I will email you the text (as I have already done for KingKogs (see below)). As far as the Monopoly pages are concerned, I believe they will go in the near future too - it's only because that book is longer and is about a very familiar game that it has not yet been removed, Jguk 07:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe I have a copy of the material at home. Related to the deletion, and Game Rules in general, which wiki would be the proper location for such material? —MJBurrage 16:23, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Games are taught at universities
A variety of games are taught at a number of universities. One example would be Computer Games and Simulations for Investigation and Education which is a class that uses a number of computer games and board games as teaching materials at MIT. Wouldn't this make the game content appropriate even under your interpretation/implementation of Jimbo’s comments on the matter? —MJBurrage 15:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Request
You recently deleted a page entitled "Character Attacks for One Piece" and said you'd e-mail the content to the authors if asked, I wrote almost everything on that page and I'd very much like you to e-mail me the contents at inuthrashya@yahoo.com as soon as possible. Thank you.KingKogs 00:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I have now done this. Please let me know if for any reason the email has not arrived, Jguk 07:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of "FAQ for alt.internet.wireless"
I'm stunned to find that all pages of this book have been summarily deleted as "not a textbook" without discussion or warning! They represented a great deal of work which hadn't been saved in any other place. Please at least send me the last content. I'd also like an explanation of the reasoning behind this kind of summary execution. --John Navas 05:38, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * As you may well be aware, recently at wikibooks we have been looking at what books we have and assessing whether they really meet our inclusion criterion of them being textbooks. The pages you refer to appear to me to fall foul of this and were therefore liable to be deleted summarily without further discussion. You do not indicate whether you disagree with my comment that this book is not a textbook or not.

 * I am quite happy to email you the content of the book (if you provide an email address) or alternatively to temporarily undelete the content to give you an opportunity to copy it. I would also note that, whilst I think the content is not suitable for wikibooks, I do wish you all the best in finding a suitable home elsewhere in wikiworld, Jguk 07:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * I've posted my detailed objections to your action and rebuttal to your contentions in Votes for undeletion, and ask that any further discussion take place there. Thank you. --John Navas 20:40, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Thank you for your response in Votes for undeletion . Unfortunately, like others that responded there, I still don't agree that your actions were justified -- I still think they were capricious, unwarranted, and unnecessarily harmful. You also failed to respond to all of my questions, including my request to undelete the book (as you had offered), much less submit the issue to Votes for deletion, which is what you should have done originally. You also failed to address the issue of other Wikibooks I've created. Please do so now. I'm seriously considering a formal complaint to Wikimedia. --John Navas 16:07, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 game guides
After my Illustrated Guide to the world of Spira (FFX and FFX-2) is on the line for deletion, and seeing that pretty much all game guides eventually will be deleted, I wonder when it's going to be their turn ? It is fine, we were expecting it after FFVII was transwikied. Both the Illustrated guide and the FFX / X2 stuff has been offered a home at Wikicities Final Fantasy Wiki and all 3 are being slowly moved there. Just give me and the others who work on the books some time OK ? Renmiri 06:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * PS: If you can e-mail the content of all 3 (as I've seen above) that will be a great help! My email is kila01 at yahoo.com Thanks! Renmiri 06:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Requests for Adminship
I protected the requests for adminship page because those people kept adding in those false entries for User:Speedline1. I hope this wasn't an over-reaction on my part, but the same vandalism had happened multiple times, and was coming from more then one puppet user. I will unprotect that page personally within a day or two, once things have cooled down. If you or any other admin wants do take down the protection sooner, feel free to do so. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 23:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

FAQ pages on VfD
I know this might be a little bit of a hot-button topic for you, but i figured i would say something anyway. The Wireless Internet book in it's new form looks promising, and (I feel) is suitable for wikibooks. Also, there are a number of stub books that can (and should) be merged into it, if we vote to keep it. If you feel like your original complaints have been satisfied, I would ask that you vote to keep those books. Looking through the VfD discussion, yours appears to be the only vote against. If you do decide to change your mind, we can move to end the vote early. If not, that is alright too: I can certainly relate to a person who wants to stand by his convictions. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 19:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Transwiki
I responded to your concern about my transwikification at my talk page. Could you please clarify what you meant there? Thanks. TheProject 21:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Re: Transwiki'ing
Great work so far. I hope the ones you have transferred to StrategyWiki are bedding down well. May I ask about the guides still listed at Books possibly in contravention with WIW? Are you intending to move the remaining ones? I saw you instituted a personal moratorium whilst Jimbo answered some questions, but I believe he has now dealt with those issues and that it is clear all game guides have to go. All the best, Jguk 07:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I just haven't got to those ones yet. The ones I'm not importing for various reasons are listed on this page. Naturally this list may grow as I continue through the other books. And yes I'm resuming work now. GarrettTalk 08:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

wikistudy and wikiprofessional
Jguk, why can't there just be a bookshelf for both of these? it seems kind of excessive to give them their own page, and put them on the sidebar. Is there a discussion about this somewhere? DettoAltrimenti 21:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Thank you for your interest in what I am doing. This was an example of being bold, rather than discussing first - although I have mooted the idea around without actually proposing it a number of times. I feel that these areas are part of the core areas Wikibooks should be addressing, along with Wikijunior and Wikiversity, which already have special "sidebar" status. Of course, Wikibooks should have textbooks that don't fit within any of those four descriptions too, and these can all be found through the bookshelves. I think the Wikistudy area - essentially a place for textbooks addressed at specific syllabuses on core school subjects - is a particularly important one. It is here that we have the most (as yet untapped) outside interest. I hope to assist in getting that interest turned into useful school textbooks both here at Wikibooks and through my work with Wikimedia UK. It is also the Wikistudy area that could make a real difference, especially given the high cost of purchasing copyrighted texts. I hope the future of Wikibooks has the Wikistudy concept as an excellent core which then spans out to cover textbooks on other areas, Jguk 21:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Email...
As an active admin, you should have a specified email address so people can email their concerns to you. If you wouldn't mind, please activate it. Thanks. -- LV (Dark Mark) 21:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I thought (erroneously) that I had activated it. Have now corrected matters. Kind regards, Jguk 22:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Hey, no problem. I just know how frustrating it can be to go and email someone, and find myself unable to do so. Also, since you seem to be a very active deleter, etc. people should have a way to talk to you off-wiki. But I'm sure you already know all this, so I'm basically wearing out my keyboard for no reason. ;-) Thanks! -- LV (Dark Mark) 02:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jguk/Archive 1


text:
Wikijunior:Ancient Civilizations/Minoans

Where did they live?

The Minoans lived on the island Crete, this was their main center. They also had control over Thera and Rhodes, two Greek islands, along with having had some control over the coast of Turkey.

What did their structures look like?

The Minoans built houses of stone and brick, but their most elaborate buildings were palaces and shrines of stone. Uniquely in the Mediterranean, the Minoans did not build defensive walls around their cities. Instead, their palaces had many open porches lined with red columns, and many windows to admit the Mediterranean sunlight. They adorned the edges of their roofs with curving ornaments that looked like bull's horns. Each of their palaces centered around a large open courtyard, where they held dances and athletic events. Many of the palace walls were covered with frescoes, or paintings in which the paint is mixed with the plaster on the wall. Some frescoes showed men and women, ships, farmers, fishermen, dancers, nobles, and all sorts of people living very elegant, happy lives. Others showed dolphins leaping in the sea, or imaginary animals like griffins, which are half-lion and half-eagle. Many frescoes show a sport commonly known as "bull-jumping", whereby the competitors would try to somersault over an angry bull as it charged around. Whether this practice was religious or a sport is unknown. Some people think it might be mythological and may have never happened at all.

What did they eat?
The island of Crete was rich in natural resources. They had access to wood, copper, farmland, stone and coastal areas. The Minoans were successful with farming and grew grain, herbs, olives and fruit. Much of the spare food was traded to make money for the island.

What did their writing look like?

The Minoans used a style of writing that scholars today call Linear A. Towards the end of Minoan Civilization a new style of writing began to appear in Crete and elsewhere on mainland Greece. This was named Linear B. Unfortunately there are not enough examples of Linear A to enable us to decipher the script at present. Linear B, however, was deciphered in the 1950s by Michael Ventris who discovered that it was in fact a very early form of Ancient Greek, used at that time by the Mycenaeans. The presence of clay tablets with the Linear B script in Crete suggests the presence of Mycenaeans on the island during that last part of Minoan civilization, though it cannot be said with any certainty in what capacity they were present on the island. It is possible that after the collapse of Minoan civilization the Mycenaeans invaded Crete and took over the island.

The Minoans wrote their language on long, thin tablets of clay with a stylus or stick. The writing has lots of different symbols, and scholars believe it is a type of writing called a syllabary, in which one symbol stands for a consonant-vowel combination. There are many Linear A symbols that may stand for whole words, though, because many of the tablets were found in storage rooms where the Minoans kept supplies of food, drink and equipment. The tablets which have come down to us exist because they were "fired" in the high temperatures created by the fires that destroyed the main palaces of Minoan Crete.

What did they believe?
Because no one knows how to read Linear A, no one knows exactly what the Minoans believed. Because there are so many women in the frescoes on the walls of Minoan palaces, some people think that women ruled the Minoans. It is possible that they worshipped a female god, because there are very few statues of male gods at Minoan archaeological sites, while there are a great many female goddess statues.

One of the most common types of Minoan goddess statue is of a woman, wearing traditional Minoan clothing -- the skirt and bodice. However, two snakes twine around her arms, and a bird of some sort perches on top of the crown on her head. Some of these statues are made of pottery; others are made of ivory and gold. They are found at a great many sites all around Crete and on some other Mediterranean islands.

Another god that the Minoans may have worshipped was a sea-god. Many Minoan palaces are adorned with curving shapes of stone that look like the horns of a bull. These horns may represent just the bull, but some scholars believe they mean more than that. The Greeks told stories about a king of Crete who had a very dangerous monster with a bull's head trapped under his palace, and that the monster, called the Minotaur, regularly ate both men and women. Scholars think this may have been a story about a Minoan god who accepted human sacrifices.

What is their history?
Small, basic tribes of people lived on the island from around 6000 BC. They lived this way for thousands of years, until in 2000 BC they rapidly advanced into the first civilization of Europe. The reason for this is not known, but some people think that Egyptians may have traveled to Crete and bought ideas and technology with them. The Minoans were successful because of their farming and fishing - they were not a military power. They also controlled the trade in the Aegean Sea and this made them very rich. Their navy was one of the strongest in the world and because of this they did not have to build walls or towers on their island. The Minoans suffered from natural disasters. The palace of Knossos was destroyed in 1700 BC and rebuilt. Around 1550 BC, the volcano Thera erupted and may have caused a tidal wave which devastated the coast of the Minoan kingdom. From then onwards, their control of trade weakened and they were not so successful. Many people believe that the Minoans were eventually invaded by barbarians who attacked mainland Greece first and then Crete itself. The civilization had died out by 1000 BC.

Are some Cretans famous even today?
There are two famous Minoans in mythology. The first is King Minos, from whom these people and their civilization are named by scholars today. King Minos was believed to be a just and honest ruler, and the ancient Greeks believed that when he died, the king of the underworld made him a judge over the dead. The second famous Minoan is Ariadne, king Minos's daughter, who helped Theseus, a Greek hero, defeat and kill the Minotaur, and later became the wife of the god Dionysus.

Other Cretans
Minoan civilization was destroyed, and all signs of its culture largely vanished. However, later centuries did produce some great minds.

Gortyn was a lawmaker from Crete. Though he lived after the destruction of Cretan civilization, he ordered his laws to be carved on a stone wall. These laws still exist today, and they are one of the oldest examples of Greek writing in the world.

Epimenides the Cretan was a philosopher from Crete. He was the first to express what math teachers call the Epimenides Paradox. His most significant achievement was this saying: "all Cretans are liars." Since he was a Cretan himself, he must have lied when he said that Cretans tell lies. But that would mean that Cretans tell the truth. However, if Cretans tell the truth, then Epamonides must have told the truth, which means that he (as well as all other Cretans) would be liars. Mathematicians call this a strange loop, because choosing one explanation of the statement means that you have to accept the opposite meaning immediately, circling around the question forever.

What is left of them today?

In around 1550 BC, a volcano on the island of Thera ninety miles north of Crete erupted, and blew two-thirds of a whole island into ash and flying rock and hot gas. The volcano caused an earthquake, which knocked down many buildings on Crete and killed many people. Afterwards, a tidal wave rolled out from Thera, and washed several miles inland on Crete. The palaces and other monuments of the Minoans were further damaged, many people died during the earthquake and the tidal wave, the Minoans themselves entered a period of decline.

Sometime around 1480 BC, another Civilization from mainland Greece crossed the sea, and invaded Crete. The Minoans were still recovering from the Earthquake and tidal wave, they didn't know that another Civilization was coming to destroy them, they tried to defend the town but the army was still weak they failed, the other civilization conquered the ruined towns and built their own palaces to replace those destroyed in the earthquake and tidal wave. They used the Minoan alphabet to write their own language, called Linear B, and took control of the Minoan towns, fields, and fishing grounds for themselves. Another theory is that the Minoans were not invaded until much later, and had continued to survive, despite not being as successful as before.

Although some of the people on Crete today might be descendants of the Minoans, the Minoan culture has vanished completely today. The legacy of Linear A, the writing system, has still not been translated and continues to be a mystery.


text:
Regular Expressions

This book helps you understand how to read, write, and use regular expressions.

Contents

 * 1) /Introduction/
 * 2) /Syntaxes/
 * 3) /Simple Regular Expressions/
 * 4) /Basic Regular Expressions/
 * 5) /Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions/
 * 6) /POSIX Basic Regular Expressions/
 * 7) /POSIX-Extended Regular Expressions/
 * 8) /Non-POSIX Basic Regular Expressions/
 * 9) /Emacs Regular Expressions/
 * 10) /Shell Regular Expressions/
 * 11) /Implementation/
 * 12) /Glossary/
 * 13) /Links/
 * 14) /Index/

正規表現 Expressões regulares

title: Regular Expressions


text:
Talk:Mythology/Egyptian Mythology/Deities

please merge Egyptian gods with this page. DettoAltrimenti 18:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


text:
Talk:History of Embrun

This Wikibook is written by: -FreshFruitsRule-WB

Where is this information coming from? I'd like to learn more.

title: Talk:History of Embrun


text:
History of Embrun/Introduction

< Return to Contents

Introduction
Embrun, Ontario, Canada: A town of thousands of people. Many of those people know little about their town. Some of them don't even know the street names of many roads in the town, let alone the official flag of their municipality. In particular, many people of Embrun don't know much about their history. Many of them seem to know that 2006 is Embrun's sesquecentennial. The purpose of this WikiBook is to educate Embrunians about their history. I myself have searched high and mighty for webpages about Embrun's History. I have found a few scattered parts here and there, and now I put these together into one single reference that can be found easily.

Continue to Saint Augustine-de-Catherine ›

title: History of Embrun/Introduction


text:
History of Embrun/Saint Augustine-de-Catherine

< Back to Introduction

A Brief Summary of Saint Augustine-de-Catherine
In 1845, a small community called Saint Augustine-de-Catherine was founded as a lumber outpost. This new community was isolated for the first few years of its existence with boats the only means of traveling to and from the town. But bit by bit, the new community grew and it slowly started to connect with the outside world when a road was built from the town to Ottawa. It very slowly started to become self-sufficient. In 1856, the small village decided to change her name to Embrun. Read on to discover more about Saint Augustine-de-Catherine and how it started...

Continue to The Start of the Settlement ›


text:
Template:AncHisStub

''This page or section of Ancient History is a stub. You can help Wikibooks by [ expanding it].''
 * This template adds page to /Stubs.

/Templates

title: Template:AncHisStub


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History of Embrun/Saint Augustine-de-Catherine/The Start of the Settlement

< Back to Saint Augustine-de-Catherine

The Vision
In May 1845, a group of 56 people in Montreal (although they were originally from the area of Joliette, Quebec) left the city by boat with hopes of establishing a new settlement somewhere in the Eastern portion of Canada West (now Ontario). Over the course of the next few decades, these people became known as the 'Founding 56'. They wanted to start a boomtown that would end up having thousands of people, with various neighborhoods and prosperous businesses.

Most of them were doubtful that their vision would ever come true. Little did they know that this vision was reality by the early 21st Century.

They had already planned out the settlement. They decided that lumbering could be the town's main industry. While a lumber town was not exactly what they wanted in the long run, they knew it would be the only industry they could set up right from the start.

They spent two months traveling on various rivers now part of Eastern Ontario, looking for suitable sites for settlement. They wanted a place that had so many trees that by the time the town ran out of trees, it could be strong enough to get another industry.

The Start of the Settlement
On August 24th, 1845, they found a good spot - along the north shore of the Castor River. This spot had numerous trees stretching as far as the eye could see, and already had a large clearing just a mile away from the river, just right for building a settlement in so they wouldn't have to worry about clearing an area in the dense forest.

There was also a clearing just by the shore. They decided to build a small dock in that clearing. This dock was completed in October. They made a rough dirt road from the dock to the inland clearing, where they started building about 15 log cabins. They also built a much larger log cabin that could be used for religious ceremonies and other community purposes. All of this was complete entirely by early December. By then, winter was on the way, so they moved into the cabins. They managed to find enough food to last the winter. In the spring, they started up the lumber industry. They decided to use the boat to export lumber to Hull. The town had began.

They named the town Saint Augustine-de-Catherine. The reason behind the name is not known, however.

Related Pages: Biographies - Louis Nèdère

Continue to Life in Saint Augustine-de-Catherine from 1845-1848 ›