text:
Talk:Cosmic microwave background

"Predictions prior to the Big Bang interpretation"
The section "Predictions prior to the Big Bang interpretation" was re-added by @David Highfield. It has numerous problems.

 * 1) The section title implies that the content relates to historic prediction, but in fact the topic is alternatives to Big Bang models.
 * 2) The first sentence is ambiguous. "There are challenges to the standard CMB intepretation within the big bang framework." I think it means "There are challenges to the standard Big Bang interpretation of CMB."
 * 3) The third sentence repeats content in the timeline and does not cite a secondary source for a claim on history.  "Earliest known" is a fact that needs to be supported by published historical analysis.
 * 4) The second paragraph reads "This [paper] documents the history of predictions." That's not encyclopedic.
 * 5) The third paragraph is a long quote from "Assis, Andre KT, and Marcos CD Neves. "History of the 2.7 K temperature prior to Penzias and Wilson." Apeiron 2.3 (1995): 79-84." The quoted passage and the article itself is about the background radiation temperature. I will return to this point.
 * 6) The last two paragraphs describe a fringe theory.  See WP:FRINGE. The only way to include this work would be to have reliable secondary references per WP:PSTS or build WP:CONSENSUS.
 * 7) Overall it's a jumble.

The Assis paper is discussed in
 * Narlikar, Jayant V., and Thanu Padmanabhan. "Standard cosmology and alternatives: A critical appraisal." Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 39.1 (2001): 211-248. The Assis paper ia minor point in the overall picture of alternative cosmology.

I think we could have a section on alternative theories for CMB. It should be based on a broad review similar to the Narlikar/Thanu work. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:26, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

 * I moved the above named section into Theories section and rewrote it based on the review paper. The Assis paper is included, but Lerner and that theory is not included (it is not mention in the review).
 * Lerner's work is cited in
 * López-Corredoira, Martín. "Tests and problems of the standard model in Cosmology." Foundations of Physics 47.6 (2017): 711-768.
 * (with both negative and positive comments) but that review also concludes:
 * We must also admit that alternative theories are not at present as competitive as the standard model in cosmology in terms of giving better explanations.
 * Johnjbarton (talk) 02:27, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

 * The article non-standard cosmology covers alternatives to the Big Bang theory. If there is a section added on alternatives, I would think it belongs on the Big Bang article, rather than here. Praemonitus (talk) 05:33, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I added a main wikilink to non-standard cosmology, thanks. I think a CMB-focuses summary section fits here. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:13, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * In response to points 1-7 above. Science proceeds by a process of conjecture and refutation. It is not set in stone. As the paper I linked clearly outlines, there were a number of predictions relating to the background temperature of space prior to the measurement that was commandeered by Big Bang advocates. These earlier predictions were more accurate, and this fact is well documented. Point by point.
 * These are historic predictions. They are historical fact. They may also be used to support alternatives to the Big Bang, but they stand alone regardless. The paper makes no claims about alternative cosmologies. To suggest as much is disingenuous.
 * My original sentence is just fine, typo aside.
 * See the paper. See 5.
 * It's a peer reviewed paper.
 * See point 2, hence the wording of my original sentence. Alternative views do not necessarily interpret the CMB as a remnant heat signature, but radiation, possibly from plasmas.
 * 'Fringe' is a matter of opinion. Eric Lerner and Anthony Peratt are respected, credentialled scientists. What is your expertise in this field, may I ask?
 * Overall, your response has an air of superior cynicism about it. Furthermore, it represents historical revisionism. Little wonder that so many people utter the words "Yes, I know," after they mention Wikipedia.
 * David Highfield (talk) 09:48, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The principles behind scientific publication differ from those on Wikipedia.
 * 1. History needs secondary references. Content in Wikipedia must be verifiable.
 * 3. The paper is still cited in the article.
 * 4. Peer review is not sufficient to ensure inclusion.
 * 5. Your reply on this point is much clearer than the long quote. I'm not against the concept being discussed, but the quote is not effective.
 * 6. For the purposes of wikipedia, fringe is defined in Fringe_theories. There is an element of opinion which we can discuss on this Talk pages in the case of Lerner and Peratt.
 * We could add more on alternative models and on history, but I will argue against any content that claims there is some kind of Big Bang conspiracy, that's just silly. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:06, 14 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Please stop dodging the issue. The fact of the matter is that the background temperature of space was predicted with more accuracy before the discovery of Penzias and Wilson was adopted (commandeered?) by the Big Bang. While these earlier predictions may be used to support alternative cosmologies, from the steady-state to quasi steady-state or plasma cosmology, they stand alone regardless. It is historical revisionism to suggest otherwise, and primary references take precedence over secondary in all legitimate science. To suggest Peer review is less important than arbitrary Wikipedia policy is a nonsense. This is a scientific matter, not political. David Highfield (talk) 12:37, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @David Highfield I have removed your additions again.
 * The process on Wikipedia requires those who add content to build consensus when it is challenged. See WP:BURDEN and WP:BRD.
 * I know you are passionate for this point of view but simply re-adding the content will not work. I will revert it each time and eventually Wikipedia admin will block your account. Instead you can open a topic on this page with your proposed additions and ask other editors to overrule my removals. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:36, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Your behaviour is unacceptable and represents historical revisionism. If you wish to learn more (and I strongly recommend that you do), this recent YouTube video also explains the real history of the CMB.
 * Matt Finn: Big Banging the CMB Drum | Thunderbolts (youtube.com) David Highfield (talk) 09:20, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The pop-sci youtube videos can be informative and entertaining but they are not considered reliable sources.
 * I have been learning more, including:
 * These sources do not support a claim that early speculations about the background temperature of the universe are important. Predicting a number from a model is insignificant if the model is implausible for other reasons. Conversely, a plausible model that predicts a temperature that is off was probably based on incorrect inputs (as was the case in some of Gamow's work). The other critical aspect of a model is the ability to make other kinds of predictions that then spur experimental work. In this regard the Big Bang model has clearly succeeded where others have not. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:56, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * How do I open a topic on this page? Of course, I know full well that Wiki admins will back revisionist pop science consensus as always... David Highfield (talk) 09:24, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * In my view of this page the very top has an "Add topic" button. However that feature may depend on your Preferences > Editing > Discussion pages options. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * How do I open a topic on this page? Of course, I know full well that Wiki admins will back revisionist pop science consensus as always... David Highfield (talk) 09:24, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * In my view of this page the very top has an "Add topic" button. However that feature may depend on your Preferences > Editing > Discussion pages options. Johnjbarton (talk) 15:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Importance of precise measurement
The section "Importance of precise measurement" does not have a single reference to back the section-title claim. It's basically a random section.

The article needs to start with an overview. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:02, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

 * I distributed the sourced content of this section into other parts of the article. Now we start with "Features" which can focus on what the CMB is, not what it means for cosmology theories. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:55, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Table of contents issues
I have reorganized much of the article. The remaining glaring problem occurs at the end of the History. The next section "Microwave background observations" is post-COBE history but has only one ref. I put that section under History as "Observations after COBE" but the content is just a mess.

The Multipole analysis section is perhaps too long and it appears to be just dumped in.

The Timeline section would make more sense following the History. (or not at all for that matter). Johnjbarton (talk) 23:14, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

so it can't be distinguished from another 2.725 K blackbody spectrum.
@Em3rgent0rdr Thanks for your edits on the page. But I don't understand the change you made to the figure caption. The original text was Now it reads But there is only one 2.725 blackbody spectrum, it's unique. There is no "another". I believe the original text is correct and summarizes the references. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:19, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * and it is impossible to distinguish the observed data from the blackbody spectrum for 2.725K.
 * so it can't be distinguished from another 2.725 K blackbody spectrum.

 * Understood. I've reverted that back to the original wording. Em3rgent0rdr (talk) 02:29, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ✅ Johnjbarton (talk) 02:37, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Cosmic microwave background


text:
Comparative law

Comparative law is the study of differences and similarities between the law (legal systems) of different countries. More specifically, it involves the study of the different legal "systems" (or "families") in existence in the world, including the common law, the civil law, socialist law, Canon law, Jewish Law, Islamic law, Hindu law, and Chinese law. It includes the description and analysis of foreign legal systems, even where no explicit comparison is undertaken. The importance of comparative law has increased enormously in the present age of internationalism, economic globalization, and democratization.

History
The origins of modern Comparative Law can be traced back to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1667 in his Latin-language book Nova Methodus Discendae Docendaeque Iurisprudentiae (New Methods of Studying and Teaching Jurisprudence). Chapter 7 (Presentation of Law as the Project for all Nations, Lands and Times) introduces the idea of classifying Legal Systems into several families. A few years later, Leibniz introduced an idea of Language families.

Although every Legal System is unique, Comparative Law through studies of their similarities and differences allows for classification of Legal Systems, wherein Law Families is the basic level of the classification. The main differences between Law Families are found in the source(s) of Law, the role of court precedents, the origin and development of the Legal System. Montesquieu is generally regarded as an early founding figure of comparative law. His comparative approach is obvious in the following excerpt from Chapter III of Book I of his masterpiece, De l'esprit des lois (1748; first translated by Thomas Nugent, 1750): "[T]he political and civil laws of each nation ... should be adapted in such a manner to the people for whom they are framed that it should be a great chance if those of one nation suit another.

They should be in relation to the nature and principle of each government: whether they form it, as may be said of politic laws; or whether they support it, as in the case of civil institutions.

They should be in relation to the climate of each country, to the quality of its soil, to its situation and extent, to the principal occupation of the natives, whether husbandmen, huntsmen, or shepherds: they should have relation to the degree of liberty which the constitution will bear; to the religion of the inhabitants, to their inclinations, riches, numbers, commerce, manners, and customs."

Also, in Chapter XI (entitled 'How to compare two different Systems of Laws') of Book XXIX, discussing the French and English systems for punishment of false witnesses, he advises that "to determine which of those systems is most agreeable to reason, we must take them each as a whole and compare them in their entirety." Yet another place where Montesquieu's comparative approach is evident is the following, from Chapter XIII of Book XXIX:

"As the civil laws depend on the political institutions, because they are made for the same society, whenever there is a design of adopting the civil law of another nation, it would be proper to examine beforehand whether they have both the same institutions and the same political law."

The modern founding figure of comparative and anthropological jurisprudence was Sir Henry Maine, a British jurist and legal historian. In his 1861 work Ancient Law: Its Connection with the Early History of Society, and Its Relation to Modern Ideas, he set out his views on the development of legal institutions in primitive societies and engaged in a comparative discussion of Eastern and Western legal traditions. This work placed comparative law in its historical context and was widely read and influential.

The first university course on the subject was established at the University of Oxford in 1869, with Maine taking up the position of professor.

Comparative law in the US was brought by a legal scholar fleeing persecution in Germany, Rudolf Schlesinger. Schlesinger eventually became professor of comparative law at Cornell Law School helping to spread the discipline throughout the US.

Purpose
Comparative law is an academic discipline that involves the study of legal systems, including their constitutive elements and how they differ, and how their elements combine into a system.

Several disciplines have developed as separate branches of comparative law, including comparative constitutional law, comparative administrative law, comparative civil law (in the sense of the law of torts, contracts, property and obligations), comparative commercial law (in the sense of business organisations and trade), and comparative criminal law. Studies of these specific areas may be viewed as micro- or macro-comparative legal analysis, i.e. detailed comparisons of two countries, or broad-ranging studies of several countries. Comparative civil law studies, for instance, show how the law of private relations is organised, interpreted and used in different systems or countries. The purposes of comparative law are:
 * To attain a deeper knowledge of the legal systems in effect
 * To perfect the legal systems in effect
 * Possibly, to contribute to a unification of legal systems, of a smaller or larger scale (cf. for instance, the UNIDROIT initiative)

Relationship with other legal subjects
Comparative law is different from general jurisprudence (i.e. legal theory) and from public and private international law. However, it helps inform all of these areas of normativity.

For example, comparative law can help international legal institutions, such as those of the United Nations System, in analyzing the laws of different countries regarding their treaty obligations. Comparative law would be applicable to private international law when developing an approach to interpretation in a conflicts analysis. Comparative law may contribute to legal theory by creating categories and concepts of general application. Comparative law may also provide insights into the question of legal transplants, i.e. the transplanting of law and legal institutions from one system to another. The notion of legal transplants was coined by Alan Watson, one of the world's renowned legal scholars specializing in comparative law. Gunther Teubner expanded the notion of legal transplantation to include legal irritation: Rather than smoothly integrating into domestic legal systems, a foreign rule disrupts established norms and societal arrangements. This disruption sparks an evolution where the external rule's meaning is redefined and where significant transformations within the internal context are triggered. Lasse Schuldt added that irritation is not spontaneous, but requires institutional drivers.

Also, the usefulness of comparative law for sociology of law and law and economics (and vice versa) is very large. The comparative study of the various legal systems may show how different legal regulations for the same problem function in practice. Conversely, sociology of law and law & economics may help comparative law answer questions, such as:
 * How do regulations in different legal systems really function in the respective societies?
 * Are legal rules comparable?
 * How do the similarities and differences between legal systems get explained?

David
René David proposed the classification of legal systems, according to the different ideology inspiring each one, into five groups or families:
 * Western laws, a group subdivided into the:
 * Civil law subgroup (whose jurisprudence is based on post-classical Roman Law)
 * Common law subgroup (originating in English law)
 * Soviet Law
 * Muslim Law
 * Hindu Law
 * Chinese Law
 * Jewish Law

Especially with respect to the aggregating by David of the Civil and Common laws into a single family, David argued that the antithesis between the Common law and Civil law systems, is of a technical rather than of an ideological nature. Of a different kind is, for instance, the antithesis between, say, Italian and American laws, and of a different kind than between the Soviet, Muslim, Hindu, or Chinese laws. According to David, the Civil law legal systems included those countries where legal science was formulated according to Roman law, whereas Common law countries are those dominated by judge-made law. The characteristics that he believed uniquely differentiate the Western legal family from the other four are:
 * liberal democracy
 * capitalist economy
 * Christian religion

Arminjon, Nolde, and Wolff
Arminjon, Nolde, and Wolff believed that, for purposes of classifying the (then) contemporary legal systems of the world, it was required that those systems per se get studied, irrespective of external factors, such as geographical ones. They proposed the classification of legal system into seven groups, or so-called 'families', in particular the:
 * French group, under which they also included the countries that codified their law either in 19th or in the first half of the 20th century, using the Napoleonic code civil of year 1804 as a model; this includes countries and jurisdictions such as Italy, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Louisiana, various South American states such as Brazil, Quebec, Saint Lucia, the Ionian Islands, Egypt, and Lebanon
 * German group
 * Scandinavian group, comprising the laws of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland
 * English group, including, inter alia, England, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
 * Russian group
 * Islamic group (used in the Muslim world)
 * Hindu group

Zweigert and Kötz
Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kötz propose a different, multidimensional methodology for categorizing laws, i.e. for ordering families of laws. They maintain that, to determine such families, five criteria should be taken into account, in particular: the historical background, the characteristic way of thought, the different institutions, the recognized sources of law, and the dominant ideology. Using the aforementioned criteria, they classify the legal systems of the world into six families:
 * Roman family
 * German family
 * Common law family
 * Nordic family
 * Family of the laws of the Far East (China and Japan)
 * Religious family (Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu law)

Up to the second German edition of their introduction to comparative law, Zweigert and Kötz also used to mention Soviet or socialist law as another family of laws.

Glenn
H. Patrick Glenn proposed the classification of legal systems places national laws in the broader context of major legal tradition:
 * Chthonic (or indigenous) law
 * Talmudic law
 * Islamic law
 * Hindu law
 * Confucianism law
 * Civil law
 * Common law

Professional associations

 * American Association of Law Libraries
 * American Society of Comparative Law
 * International Association of Judicial Independence and World Peace
 * International Association of Procedural Law
 * International Law Association

Comparative law periodicals

 * American Journal of Comparative Law
 * German Law Journal
 * Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law
 * The Journal of Comparative Law

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

title: Comparative law


text:
CD (disambiguation)

A CD or compact disc is a thin plastic silvery disc for audio recordings.

CD or cd may also refer to:

Astronomy and cosmology

 * Cordoba Durchmusterung, a star catalog of the southern sky
 * Cosmological decade or CÐ, a unit of time
 * Type-cD galaxy, a galaxy morphology classification

Biology, ecology, and medicine

 * Coeliac disease, long term autoimmune disorder causing intolerance to gluten
 * Conduct disorder, a psychological disorder
 * Conservation Dependent or LR/cd, an IUCN category
 * Cluster of differentiation, a protocol used for the identification of cell surface molecules on white blood cells
 * Crohn's disease
 * Chlordane
 * Communicable disease

Computing

 * CD-ROM, compact disc technology applied for use in computer data
 * cd (command), a command line command to change the current working directory in operating systems
 * continuous delivery, a software development design practice
 * continuous deployment, a software development design practice
 * collision detection, CSMA/CD

Mathematics

 * cd (elliptic function), one of Jacobi's elliptic functions

Other uses in science and technology

 * Cadmium, symbol Cd, a chemical element
 * Candela or cd, a unit of light intensity
 * -CD, the North American call sign suffix for Class A low-power television stations operating with digital signals
 * Circular dichroism, a form of spectroscopy
 * Critical Dimension, the minimum feature size that a projection system can print in photolithography
 * Drag coefficient or cd, a dimensionless quantity used to quantify the drag of an object in a fluid
 * Cluster decay, a rare mode of nuclear decay

Government, military, and political

 * Canadian Forces' Decoration, by post-nominal letters
 * Centre Democrats (Denmark), a Danish former political party
 * Centre Democrats (Netherlands), a former political party of the Netherlands
 * Centro Democratico, a political party in Italy
 * Christian democracy, a political ideology
 * Civil defense, an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack and natural disasters
 * Community of Democracies, an intergovernmental organization of democracies and democratizing countries
 * Conference on Disarmament, an international forum that negotiates multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements
 * Corps Diplomatique, the collective body of foreign diplomats accredited to a particular country or body
 * FBI Counterintelligence Division, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation's division responsible for investigating espionage

Other business and organizations

 * Certificate of deposit, a bank account in the United States with a fixed maturity date
 * České dráhy or ČD, a railway operator of the Czech Republic
 * Commander of the Order of Distinction, a rank in the Jamaican Orders of Societies of Honour

Places

 * Central District, Seattle, a district in Seattle
 * Democratic Republic of the Congo, by ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code
 * .cd, the Internet domain of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
 * cd., abbreviation for caddesi, street, in Turkish

Other uses

 * 400 (number), written CD in Roman numerals
 * 205 (number), written CD in hexadecimal
 * AD 400 (CD), a year of the Common Era
 * "CD", a song by T2 (band)
 * cd, for cord (unit) of volume of wood
 * Geely CD, a coupe automobile made by Geely Automobile
 * Cairo Damascus or Damascus Document, a text found among the Dead Sea Scrolls
 * Committee Draft, a status in the International Organization for Standardization
 * Companion dog (title), a title offered to dogs by the American Kennel Club for dog obedience
 * Cross-dressing, the act of wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex
 * Corendon Dutch Airlines (IATA code)
 * Sega Mega-CD
 * Sonic CD

title: CD (disambiguation)


text:
Cyberspace

Cyberspace is an interconnected digital environment. It is a type of virtual world popularized with the rise of the Internet. The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security professionals, governments, military and industry leaders and entrepreneurs to describe the domain of the global technology environment, commonly defined as standing for the global network of interdependent information technology infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems. Others consider cyberspace to be just a notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs. The word became popular in the 1990s when the use of the Internet, networking, and digital communication were all growing dramatically; the term cyberspace was able to represent the many new ideas and phenomena that were emerging. As a social experience, individuals can interact, exchange ideas, share information, provide social support, conduct business, direct actions, create artistic media, play games, engage in political discussion, and so on, using this global network. Cyberspace users are sometimes referred to as cybernauts.

The term cyberspace has become a conventional means to describe anything associated with general computing, the Internet and the diverse Internet culture. The United States government recognizes the interconnected information technology and the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures operating across this medium as part of the US national critical infrastructure. Amongst individuals on cyberspace, there is believed to be a code of shared rules and ethics mutually beneficial for all to follow, referred to as cyberethics. Many view the right to privacy as most important to a functional code of cyberethics. Such moral responsibilities go hand in hand when working online with global networks, specifically when opinions are involved with online social experiences.

According to Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, cyberspace is defined more by the social interactions involved rather than its technical implementation. In their view, the computational medium in cyberspace is an augmentation of the communication channel between real people; the core characteristic of cyberspace is that it offers an environment that consists of many participants with the ability to affect and influence each other. They derive this concept from the observation that people seek richness, complexity, and depth within a virtual world.

Etymology
The term "cyberspace" first appeared in the visual arts in the late 1960s, when Danish artist Susanne Ussing (1940–1998) and her partner architect Carsten Hoff (b. 1934) constituted themselves as Atelier Cyberspace. Under this name the two made a series of installations and images entitled "sensory spaces" that were based on the principle of open systems adaptable to various influences, such as human movement and the behaviour of new materials.

Atelier Cyberspace worked at a time when the Internet did not exist and computers were more or less off-limit to artists and creative engagement. In a 2015 interview with Scandinavian art magazine Kunstkritikk, Carsten Hoff recollects that although Atelier Cyberspace did try to implement computers, they had no interest in the virtual space as such:

"To us, 'cyberspace' was simply about managing spaces. There was nothing esoteric about it. Nothing digital, either. It was just a tool. The space was concrete, physical."

In the same interview, Hoff continues:

"Our shared point of departure was that we were working with physical settings, and we were both frustrated and displeased with the architecture from the period, particularly when it came to spaces for living. We felt that there was a need to loosen up the rigid confines of urban planning, giving back the gift of creativity to individual human beings and allowing them to shape and design their houses or dwellings themselves – instead of having some clever architect pop up, telling you how you should live. We were thinking in terms of open-ended systems where things could grow and evolve as required.

For instance, we imagined a kind of mobile production unit, but unfortunately the drawings have been lost. It was a kind of truck with a nozzle at the back. Like a bee building its hive. The nozzle would emit and apply material that grew to form amorphous mushrooms or whatever you might imagine. It was supposed to be computer-controlled, allowing you to create interesting shapes and sequences of spaces. It was a merging of organic and technological systems, a new way of structuring the world. And a response that counteracted industrial uniformity. We had this idea that sophisticated software might enable us to mimic the way in which nature creates products – where things that belong to the same family can take different forms. All oak trees are oak trees, but no two oak trees are exactly alike. And then a whole new material – polystyrene foam – arrived on the scene. It behaved like nature in the sense that it grew when its two component parts were mixed. Almost like a fungal growth. This made it an obvious choice for our work in Atelier Cyberspace."

The works of Atelier Cyberspace were originally shown at a number of Copenhagen venues and have later been exhibited at The National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen as part of the exhibition "What's Happening?"

The term "cyberspace" first appeared in fiction in the 1980s in the work of cyberpunk science fiction author William Gibson, first in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome" and later in his 1984 novel Neuromancer. In the next few years, the word became prominently identified with online computer networks. The portion of Neuromancer cited in this respect is usually the following:

"Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding."

Now widely used, the term has since been criticized by Gibson, who commented on the origin of the term in the 2000 documentary No Maps for These Territories:

"All I knew about the word 'cyberspace' when I coined it, was that it seemed like an effective buzzword. It seemed evocative and essentially meaningless. It was suggestive of something, but had no real semantic meaning, even for me, as I saw it emerge on the page."

Metaphorical
Don Slater uses a metaphor to define cyberspace, describing the "sense of a social setting that exists purely within a space of representation and communication ... it exists entirely within a computer space, distributed across increasingly complex and fluid networks." The term "Cyberspace" started to become a de facto synonym for the Internet, and later the World Wide Web, during the 1990s, especially in academic circles and activist communities. Author Bruce Sterling, who popularized this meaning, credits John Perry Barlow as the first to use it to refer to "the present-day nexus of computer and telecommunications networks". Barlow describes it thus in his essay to announce the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (note the spatial metaphor) in June 1990:

"In this silent world, all conversation is typed. To enter it, one forsakes both body and place and becomes a thing of words alone. You can see what your neighbors are saying (or recently said), but not what either they or their physical surroundings look like. Town meetings are continuous and discussions rage on everything from sexual kinks to depreciation schedules.

Whether by one telephonic tendril or millions, they are all connected to one another. Collectively, they form what their inhabitants call the Net. It extends across that immense region of electron states, microwaves, magnetic fields, light pulses and thought which sci-fi writer William Gibson named Cyberspace."

As Barlow, and the EFF continued public education efforts to promote the idea of "digital rights", the term was increasingly used during the Internet boom of the late 1990s.

Virtual environments
Although the present-day, loose use of the term "cyberspace" no longer implies or suggests immersion in a virtual reality, current technology allows the integration of a number of capabilities (sensors, signals, connections, transmissions, processors, and controllers) sufficient to generate a virtual interactive experience that is accessible regardless of a geographic location. It is for these reasons cyberspace has been described as the ultimate tax haven.

In 1989, Autodesk, an American multinational corporation that focuses on 2D and 3D design software, developed a virtual design system called Cyberspace.

Recent definitions of Cyberspace
Although several definitions of cyberspace can be found both in scientific literature and in official governmental sources, there is no fully agreed official definition yet. According to F. D. Kramer there are 28 different definitions of the term cyberspace.

The most recent draft definition is the following:

"Cyberspace is a global and dynamic domain (subject to constant change) characterized by the combined use of electrons and the electromagnetic spectrum, whose purpose is to create, store, modify, exchange, share, and extract, use, eliminate information and disrupt physical resources. Cyberspace includes: a) physical infrastructures and telecommunications devices that allow for the connection of technological and communication system networks, understood in the broadest sense (SCADA devices, smartphones/tablets, computers, servers, etc.); b) computer systems (see point a) and the related (sometimes embedded) software that guarantee the domain's basic operational functioning and connectivity; c) networks between computer systems; d) networks of networks that connect computer systems (the distinction between networks and networks of networks is mainly organizational); e) the access nodes of users and intermediaries routing nodes; f) constituent data (or resident data). Often, in common parlance (and sometimes in commercial language), networks of networks are called the Internet (with a lowercase i), while networks between computers are called intranet. Internet (with a capital I, in journalistic language sometimes called the Net) can be considered a part of the system a). A distinctive and constitutive feature of cyberspace is that no central entity exercises control over all the networks that make up this new domain. Just as in the real world there is no world government, cyberspace lacks an institutionally predefined hierarchical center.  To cyberspace, a domain without a hierarchical ordering principle, we can, therefore, extend the definition of international politics coined by Kenneth Waltz: as being 'with no system of law enforceable.'  This does not mean that the dimension of power in cyberspace is absent, nor that power is dispersed and scattered into a thousand invisible streams, nor that it is evenly spread across myriad people and organizations, as some scholars had predicted.  On the contrary, cyberspace is characterized by a precise structuring of hierarchies of power."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States Department of Defense define cyberspace as one of five interdependent domains, the remaining four being land, air, maritime, and space. See United States Cyber Command

Cyberspace as an Internet metaphor
While cyberspace should not be confused with the Internet, the term is often used to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a website, for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace". According to this interpretation, events taking place on the Internet are not happening in the locations where participants or servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace". The philosopher Michel Foucault used the term heterotopias, to describe such spaces which are simultaneously physical and mental.

Firstly, cyberspace describes the flow of digital data through the network of interconnected computers: it is at once not "real", since one could not spatially locate it as a tangible object, and clearly "real" in its effects. There have been several attempts to create a concise model about how cyberspace works since it is not a physical thing that can be looked at. Secondly, cyberspace is the site of computer-mediated communication (CMC), in which online relationships and alternative forms of online identity were enacted, raising important questions about the social psychology of Internet use, the relationship between "online" and "offline" forms of life and interaction, and the relationship between the "real" and the virtual. Cyberspace draws attention to remediation of culture through new media technologies: it is not just a communication tool but a social destination and is culturally significant in its own right. Finally, cyberspace can be seen as providing new opportunities to reshape society and culture through "hidden" identities, or it can be seen as borderless communication and culture.

"Cyberspace is the 'place' where a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other person's phone, in some other city. The place between the phones. [...] in the past twenty years, this electrical 'space,' which was once thin and dark and one-dimensional—little more than a narrow speaking-tube, stretching from phone to phone—has flung itself open like a gigantic jack-in-the-box. Light has flooded upon it, the eerie light of the glowing computer screen. This dark electric netherworld has become a vast flowering electronic landscape. Since the 1960s, the world of the telephone has cross-bred itself with computers and television, and though there is still no substance to cyberspace, nothing you can handle, it has a strange kind of physicality now. It makes good sense today to talk of cyberspace as a place all its own."

The "space" in cyberspace has more in common with the abstract, mathematical meanings of the term (see space) than physical space. It does not have the duality of positive and negative volume (while in physical space, for example, a room has the negative volume of usable space delineated by positive volume of walls, Internet users cannot enter the screen and explore the unknown part of the Internet as an extension of the space they are in), but spatial meaning can be attributed to the relationship between different pages (of books as well as web servers), considering the unturned pages to be somewhere "out there." The concept of cyberspace, therefore, refers not to the content being presented to the surfer, but rather to the possibility of surfing among different sites, with feedback loops between the user and the rest of the system creating the potential to always encounter something unknown or unexpected.

Video games differ from text-based communication in that on-screen images are meant to be figures that actually occupy a space and the animation shows the movement of those figures. Images are supposed to form the positive volume that delineates the empty space. A game adopts the cyberspace metaphor by engaging more players in the game, and then figuratively representing them on the screen as avatars. Games do not have to stop at the avatar-player level, but current implementations aiming for more immersive playing space (i.e. Laser tag) take the form of augmented reality rather than cyberspace, fully immersive virtual realities remaining impractical.

Although the more radical consequences of the global communication network predicted by some cyberspace proponents (i.e. the diminishing of state influence envisioned by John Perry Barlow ) failed to materialize and the word lost some of its novelty appeal, it remains current.

Some virtual communities explicitly refer to the concept of cyberspace, for example Linden Lab calling their customers "Residents" of Second Life, while all such communities can be positioned "in cyberspace" for explanatory and comparative purposes (as did Sterling in The Hacker Crackdown, followed by many journalists), integrating the metaphor into a wider cyber-culture.

The metaphor has been useful in helping a new generation of thought leaders to reason through new military strategies around the world, led largely by the US Department of Defense (DoD). The use of cyberspace as a metaphor has had its limits, however, especially in areas where the metaphor becomes confused with physical infrastructure. It has also been critiqued as being unhelpful for falsely employing a spatial metaphor to describe what is inherently a network.

Predating computers
A forerunner of the modern ideas of cyberspace is the Cartesian notion that people might be deceived by an evil demon that feeds them a false reality. This argument is the direct predecessor of modern ideas of a brain in a vat and many popular conceptions of cyberspace take Descartes's ideas as their starting point.

Visual arts have a tradition, stretching back to antiquity, of artifacts meant to fool the eye and be mistaken for reality. This questioning of reality occasionally led some philosophers and especially theologians to distrust art as deceiving people into entering a world which was not real (see Aniconism). The artistic challenge was resurrected with increasing ambition as art became more and more realistic with the invention of photography, film (see Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat), and immersive computer simulations.

Philosophy
American counterculture exponents like William S. Burroughs (whose literary influence on Gibson and cyberpunk in general is widely acknowledged ) and Timothy Leary were among the first to extol the potential of computers and computer networks for individual empowerment.

Some contemporary philosophers and scientists (e.g. David Deutsch in The Fabric of Reality) employ virtual reality in various thought experiments. For example, Philip Zhai in Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality connects cyberspace to the Platonic tradition:

"Let us imagine a nation in which everyone is hooked up to a network of VR infrastructure. They have been so hooked up since they left their mother's wombs. Immersed in cyberspace and maintaining their life by teleoperation, they have never imagined that life could be any different from that. The first person that thinks of the possibility of an alternative world like ours would be ridiculed by the majority of these citizens, just like the few enlightened ones in Plato's allegory of the cave."

Note that this brain-in-a-vat argument conflates cyberspace with reality, while the more common descriptions of cyberspace contrast it with the "real world".

Cyber-Geography
The “Geography of Notopia” (Papadimitriou, 2006) theorizes about the complex interplay of cyber-cultures and the geographical space. This interplay has several philosophical and psychological facets (Papadimitriou, 2009).

A New Communication Model
The technological convergence of the mass media is the result of a long adaptation process of their communicative resources to the evolutionary changes of each historical moment. Thus, the new media became (plurally) an extension of the traditional media in cyberspace, allowing to the public access information in a wide range of digital devices. In other words, it is a cultural virtualization of human reality as a result of the migration from physical to virtual space (mediated by the ICTs), ruled by codes, signs and particular social relationships. Forwards, arise instant ways of communication, interaction and possible quick access to information, in which we are no longer mere senders, but also producers, reproducers, co-workers and providers. New technologies also help to "connect" people from different cultures outside the virtual space, which was unthinkable fifty years ago. In this giant relationships web, we mutually absorb each other's beliefs, customs, values, laws and habits, cultural legacies perpetuated by a physical-virtual dynamics in constant metamorphosis (ibidem). In this sense, Professor Doctor Marcelo Mendonça Teixeira created, in 2013, a new model of communication to the virtual universe, based in Claude Elwood Shannon (1948) article "A Mathematical Theory of Communication".

Art
Having originated among writers, the concept of cyberspace remains most popular in literature and film. Although artists working with other media have expressed interest in the concept, such as Roy Ascott, "cyberspace" in digital art is mostly used as a synonym for immersive virtual reality and remains more discussed than enacted.

Computer crime
Cyberspace also brings together every service and facility imaginable to expedite money laundering. One can purchase anonymous credit cards, bank accounts, encrypted global mobile telephones, and false passports. From there one can pay professional advisors to set up IBCs (International Business Corporations, or corporations with anonymous ownership) or similar structures in OFCs (Offshore Financial Centers). Such advisors are loath to ask any penetrating questions about the wealth and activities of their clients, since the average fees criminals pay them to launder their money can be as much as 20 percent.

5-level model
In 2010, a five-level model was designed in France. According to this model, cyberspace is composed of five layers based on information discoveries: 1) language, 2) writing, 3) printing, 4) Internet, 5) Etc., i.e. the rest, e.g. noosphere, artificial life, artificial intelligence, etc., etc. This original model links the world of information to telecommunication technologies.

title: Cyberspace


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The Maritimes

The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Canada's population. Together with Canada's easternmost province, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Maritime provinces make up the region of Atlantic Canada.

Located along the Atlantic coast, various aquatic sub-basins are located in the Maritimes, such as the Gulf of Maine and Gulf of St. Lawrence. The region is located northeast of New England in the United States, south and southeast of Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, and southwest of the island of Newfoundland. The notion of a Maritime Union has been proposed at various times in Canada's history; the first discussions in 1864 at the Charlottetown Conference contributed to Canadian Confederation. This movement formed the larger Dominion of Canada. The Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy people are indigenous to the Maritimes, while Acadian and British settlements date to the 17th century.

Name

The word maritime is an adjective that means of the sea; from Latin maritimus "of the sea, near the sea," from mare "sea". Thus any land adjacent to the sea can be considered maritime. But the term Maritimes has historically been collectively applied to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, all of which border the Atlantic Ocean.

History
The pre-history of the Canadian Maritimes begins after the northerly retreat of glaciers at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation over 10,000 years ago; human settlement by First Nations began in the Maritimes with Paleo-Indians during the Early Period, ending around 6,000 years ago.

The Middle Period, starting 6,000 years ago, and ending 3,000 years ago, was dominated by rising sea levels from the melting glaciers in polar regions. This is when what is called the Laurentian tradition started among Archaic Indians, the term used for First Nations peoples of the time. Evidence of Archaic Indian burial mounds and other ceremonial sites existing in the Saint John River valley has been uncovered.

The Late Period extended from 3,000 years ago until first contact with European settlers. This period was dominated by the organization of First Nations peoples into the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki Nation, which occupied territory largely in present-day interior Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and the Mi'kmaq Nation, which inhabited all of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, eastern New Brunswick and the southern Gaspé. The primarily agrarian Maliseet Nation settled throughout the Saint John River and Allagash River valleys of present-day New Brunswick and Maine. The Passamaquoddy Nation inhabited the northwestern coastal regions of the present-day Bay of Fundy. The Mi'kmaq Nation is also believed to have crossed the present-day Cabot Strait at around this time to settle on the south coast of Newfoundland, but they were a minority compared to the Beothuk Nation.

European contact
After Newfoundland, the Maritimes were the second area in Canada to be settled by Europeans. There is evidence that Viking explorers discovered and settled in the Vinland region around 1000 AD, which is when the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement in Newfoundland and Labrador has been dated. They may have made further exploration into the present-day Maritimes and northeastern United States.

Both Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) and Giovanni da Verrazzano are reported to have sailed in or near Maritime waters during their voyages of discovery for England and France, respectively. Several Portuguese explorers / cartographers have also documented various parts of the Maritimes, namely Diogo Homem. However, it was French explorer Jacques Cartier who made the first detailed reconnaissance of the region for a European power and, in so doing, claimed the region for the King of France. Cartier was followed by nobleman Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, who was accompanied by explorer / cartographer Samuel de Champlain in a 1604 expedition. During this they established the second permanent European settlement in what is now the United States and Canada, following Spain's settlement at St. Augustine in present-day Florida in the American South. Champlain's settlement at Saint Croix Island, later moved to Port Royal (Annapolis Royal), survived. By contrast, the ill-fated English settlement at Roanoke Colony off the southern American coast did not. The French settlement pre-dated the more successful English settlement at Jamestown in present-day Virginia by three years. Champlain was considered the founder of New France's province of Canada, which comprises much of the present-day lower St. Lawrence River valley in the province of Quebec.

Acadia
Champlain's success in the region, which came to be called Acadie, led to the fertile tidal marshes surrounding the southeastern and northeastern reaches of the Bay of Fundy being populated by French immigrants who called themselves Acadien. The Acadians eventually built small settlements throughout what is today mainland Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as well as Île-Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island), Île-Royale (Cape Breton Island), and other shorelines of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in present-day Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec. Acadian settlements had primarily agrarian economies. Early examples of Acadian fishing settlements developed in southwestern Nova Scotia and in Île-Royale, as well as along the south and west coasts of Newfoundland, the Gaspé Peninsula, and the present-day Côte-Nord region of Quebec. Most Acadian fishing activities were overshadowed by the much larger seasonal European fishing fleets that were based out of Newfoundland and took advantage of proximity to the Grand Banks.

The growing English colonies along the American seaboard to the south and various European wars between England and France during the 17th and 18th centuries brought Acadia to the centre of world-scale geopolitical forces. In 1613, Virginian raiders captured Port-Royal, and in 1621 France ceded Acadia to Scotland's Sir William Alexander, who renamed it Nova Scotia.

By 1632, Acadia was returned from Scotland to France under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The Port Royale settlement was moved to the site of nearby present-day Annapolis Royal. More French immigrant settlers, primarily from the Brittany, Normandie, and Vienne regions of France, continued to populate the colony of Acadia during the latter part of the 17th and early part of the 18th centuries. Important settlements also began in the Beaubassin region of the present-day Isthmus of Chignecto, and in the Saint John River valley, as well as smaller communities on Île-Saint-Jean and Île-Royale.

In 1654, raiders from New England attacked Acadian settlements on the Annapolis Basin. Acadians lived with uncertainty throughout the English constitutional crises under Oliver Cromwell, and it was not until the Treaty of Breda in 1667 that France's claim to the region was reaffirmed. Colonial administration by France throughout the history of Acadia was of low priority. France's priorities were in settling and strengthening its claim on the larger territory of New France and the exploration and settlement of interior North America and the Mississippi River valley.

Colonial wars
Over 74 years (1689–1763) there were six colonial wars, which involved continuous warfare between New England and Acadia (see the French and Indian Wars reflecting English and French tensions in Europe, as well as Father Rale's War (Dummer's War) and Father Le Loutre's War). Throughout these wars, New England was allied with the Iroquois Confederacy based around the southern Great Lakes and west of the Hudson River. Acadian settlers were allied with the Wabanaki Confederacy. In the first war, King William's War (the North American theatre of the Nine Years' War), natives from the Maritime region participated in numerous attacks with the French on the Acadia / New England border in southern Maine (e.g., Raid on Salmon Falls). New England retaliatory raids on Acadia, such as the Raid on Chignecto, were conducted by Benjamin Church. In the second war, Queen Anne's War (the North American theatre of the War of the Spanish Succession), the British conducted the Conquest of Acadia, while the region remained primarily in control of Maliseet militia, Acadia militia and Mi'kmaw militia.

In 1719, to further protect strategic interests in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence River, France began the 20-year construction of a large fortress at Louisbourg on Île-Royale. Massachusetts was increasingly concerned over reports of the capabilities of this fortress, and of privateers staging out of its harbour to raid New England fishermen on the Grand Banks. In the fourth war, King George's War (the North American theatre of the War of the Austrian Succession), the British engaged successfully in the Siege of Louisbourg. The British returned control of Île-Royale to France with the fortress virtually intact three years later under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and the French reestablished their forces there.

In 1749, to counter the rising threat of Louisbourg, Halifax was founded and the Royal Navy established a major naval base and citadel. The founding of Halifax sparked Father Le Loutre's War.

During the sixth and final colonial war, the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War), the military conflicts in Nova Scotia continued. The British Conquest of Acadia happened in 1710. Over the next forty-five years, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During this time period Acadians participated in various militia operations against the British and maintained vital supply lines to the French Fortress of Louisbourg and Fort Beausejour. The British sought to neutralize any military threat Acadians posed and to interrupt the vital supply lines Acadians provided to Louisbourg by deporting Acadians from Acadia.

The British began the Expulsion of the Acadians with the Bay of Fundy campaign in 1775. Over the next nine years over 12,000 Acadians of 15,000 were removed from Nova Scotia.

In 1758, the fortress of Louisbourg was laid siege for a second time within 15 years, this time by more than 27,000 British soldiers and sailors with over 150 warships. After the French surrender, Louisbourg was thoroughly destroyed by British engineers to ensure it would never be reclaimed. With the fall of Louisbourg, French and Mi'kmaw resistance in the region crumbled. British forces seized remaining French control over Acadia in the coming months, with Île-Saint-Jean falling in 1759 to British forces on their way to Quebec City for the first siege of Quebec and the ensuing Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

The war ended and Britain had gained control over the entire Maritime region and the Indigenous people signed the Halifax Treaties.

American Revolution
Following the Seven Years' War, empty Acadian lands were settled first by 8,000 New England Planters and then by immigrants brought from Yorkshire. Île-Royale was renamed Cape Breton Island and incorporated into the Colony of Nova Scotia. Some of the Acadians who had been deported came back but went to the eastern coasts of New Brunswick.

Both the colonies of Nova Scotia (present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) and St. John's Island (Prince Edward Island) were affected by the American Revolutionary War, largely by privateering against American shipping, but several coastal communities were also the targets of American raiders. Charlottetown, the capital of the new colony of St. John's Island, was ransacked in 1775 with the provincial secretary kidnapped and the Great Seal stolen. The largest military action in the Maritimes during the revolutionary war was the attack on Fort Cumberland (the renamed Fort Beauséjour) in 1776 by a force of American sympathizers led by Jonathan Eddy. The fort was partially overrun after a month-long siege, but the attackers were ultimately repelled after the arrival of British reinforcements from Halifax.

The most significant impact from this war was the settling of large numbers of Loyalist refugees in the region (34,000 to the 17,000 settlers already there), especially in Shelburne and Parrtown (Saint John). Following the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Loyalist settlers in what would become New Brunswick persuaded British administrators to split the Colony of Nova Scotia to create the new colony of New Brunswick in 1784. At the same time, another part of the Colony of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, was split off to become the Colony of Cape Breton Island. The Colony of St. John's Island was renamed Prince Edward Island on November 29, 1798.

The War of 1812 had some effect on the shipping industry in the Maritime colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton Island; however, the significant Royal Navy presence in Halifax and other ports in the region prevented any serious attempts by American raiders. Maritime and American privateers targeted unprotected shipping of both the United States and Britain respectively, further reducing trade. New Brunswick's section of the Canada–US border did not have any significant action during this conflict, although British forces did occupy a portion of coastal Maine at one point. The most significant incident from this war which occurred in the Maritimes was the British capture and detention of USS Chesapeake, an American frigate in Halifax.

19th century
In 1820, the Colony of Cape Breton Island was merged back into the Colony of Nova Scotia for the second time by the British government.

British settlement of the Maritimes, as the colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island came to be known, accelerated throughout the late 18th century and into the 19th century with significant immigration to the region as a result of Scottish migrants displaced by the Highland Clearances and Irish escaping the Great Irish Famine (1845–1849). As a result, significant portions of the three provinces are influenced by Celtic heritages, with Scottish Gaelic (and to a lesser degree, Irish Gaelic) having been widely spoken, particularly in Cape Breton, although it is less prevalent today.

During the American Civil War, a significant number of Maritimers volunteered to fight for the armies of the Union, while a small handful joined the Confederate Army. However, the majority of the conflict's impact was felt in the shipping industry. Maritime shipping boomed during the war due to large-scale Northern imports of war supplies which were often carried by Maritime ships as Union ships were vulnerable to Confederate naval raiders. Diplomatic tensions between Britain and the Unionist North had deteriorated after some interests in Britain expressed support for the secessionist Confederate South. The Union Navy, although much smaller than the British Royal Navy and no threat to the Maritimes, did posture off Maritime coasts at times chasing Confederate naval ships which sought repairs and reprovisioning in Maritime ports, especially Halifax.

The immense size of the Union Army (the largest on the planet toward the end of the Civil War), however, was viewed with increasing concern by Maritimers throughout the early 1860s. Another concern was the rising threat of Fenian raids on border communities in New Brunswick by the Fenian Brotherhood seeking to end British rule in Ireland. This combination of events, coupled with an ongoing decline in British military and economic support to the region as the Home Office favoured newer colonial endeavours in Africa and elsewhere, led to a call among Maritime politicians for a conference on Maritime Union, to be held in early September 1864 in Charlottetown – chosen in part because of Prince Edward Island's reluctance to give up its jurisdictional sovereignty in favour of uniting with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia into a single colony. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia felt that if the union conference were held in Charlottetown, they might be able to convince Island politicians to support the proposal.

The Charlottetown Conference, as it came to be called, was also attended by a slew of visiting delegates from the neighbouring Crown colony, the Province of Canada, who had largely arrived at their own invitation with their own agenda. This agenda saw the conference dominated by discussions of creating an even larger union of the entire territory of British North America into a united colony. The Charlottetown Conference ended with an agreement to meet the following month in Quebec City, where more formal discussions ensued, culminating with meetings in London and the signing of the British North America Act, 1867 (BNA Act). Of the Maritime provinces, only Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were initially party to the BNA Act: Prince Edward Island's reluctance, combined with a booming agricultural and fishing export economy having led to that colony opting not to sign on.

Major population centres
The major communities of the region include Halifax and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton in New Brunswick, and Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island.

Climate

In spite of its name, The Maritimes has a humid continental climate of the warm-summer subtype. Especially in coastal Nova Scotia, differences between summers and winters are narrow compared to the rest of Canada. The inland climate of New Brunswick is in stark contrast during winter, resembling more continental areas. Summers are somewhat tempered by the marine influence throughout the provinces, but due to the southerly parallels still remain similar to more continental areas further west. Yarmouth in Nova Scotia has significant marine influence to have a borderline oceanic microclimate, but winter nights are still cold even in all coastal areas. The northernmost areas of New Brunswick are only just above subarctic with very cold continental winters.

Demographics

The Maritimes were predominantly rural until recent decades, having resource-based economies of fishing, agriculture, forestry, and coal mining.

Maritimers are predominantly of west European origin: Scottish Canadians, Irish Canadians, English Canadians, and Acadians. New Brunswick, in general, differs from the other two Maritime provinces in that it has a much higher Francophone population. There was once a significant Canadian Gaelic speaking population. Helen Creighton recorded Celtic traditions of rural Nova Scotia in the mid-1900s.

There are Black Canadians who are mostly descendants of Black Loyalists or black refugees from the War of 1812. This Maritime population is mainly among Black Nova Scotians.

There are Mi'kmaq reserves in all three provinces, and a smaller population of the Maliseet in western New Brunswick.

Present status

Given the small population of the region (compared with the Central Canadian provinces or the New England states), the regional economy is a net exporter of natural resources, manufactured goods, and services. The regional economy has long been tied to natural resources such as fishing, logging, farming, and mining activities. Significant industrialization in the second half of the 19th century brought steel to Trenton, Nova Scotia, and subsequent creation of a widespread industrial base to take advantage of the region's large underground coal deposits. After Confederation, however, this industrial base withered with technological change, and trading links to Europe and the U.S. were reduced in favour of those with Ontario and Quebec. In recent years, however, the Maritime regional economy has begun increased contributions from manufacturing again and the steady transition to a service economy.

Important manufacturing centres in the region include Pictou County, Truro, the Annapolis Valley and the South Shore, and the Strait of Canso area in Nova Scotia, as well as Summerside in Prince Edward Island, and the Miramichi area, the North Shore and the upper Saint John River valley of New Brunswick.

Some predominantly coastal areas have become major tourist centres, such as parts of Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island, the South Shore of Nova Scotia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Bay of Fundy coasts of New Brunswick. Additional service-related industries in information technology, pharmaceuticals, insurance and financial sectors—as well as research-related spin-offs from the region's numerous universities and colleges—are significant economic contributors.

Another important contribution to Nova Scotia's provincial economy is through spin-offs and royalties relating to off-shore petroleum exploration and development. Mostly concentrated on the continental shelf of the province's Atlantic coast in the vicinity of Sable Island, exploration activities began in the 1960s and resulted in the first commercial production field for oil beginning in the 1980s. Natural gas was also discovered in the 1980s during exploration work, and this is being commercially recovered, beginning in the late 1990s. Initial optimism in Nova Scotia about the potential of off-shore resources appears to have diminished with the lack of new discoveries, although exploration work continues and is moving farther off-shore into waters on the continental margin.

Regional transportation networks have also changed significantly in recent decades with port modernizations, with new freeway and ongoing arterial highway construction, the abandonment of various low-capacity railway branch lines (including the entire railway system of Prince Edward Island and southwestern Nova Scotia), and the construction of the Canso Causeway and the Confederation Bridge. There have been airport improvements at various centres providing improved connections to markets and destinations in the rest of North America and overseas.

Improvements in infrastructure and the regional economy notwithstanding, the three provinces remain one of the poorer regions of Canada. While urban areas are growing and thriving, economic adjustments have been harsh in rural and resource-dependent communities, and emigration has been an ongoing phenomenon for some parts of the region. Another problem is seen in the lower average wages and family incomes within the region. Property values are depressed, resulting in a smaller tax base for these three provinces, particularly when compared with the national average which benefits from central and western Canadian economic growth.

This has been particularly problematic with the growth of the welfare state in Canada since the 1950s, resulting in the need to draw upon equalization payments to provide nationally mandated social services. Since the 1990s the region has experienced an exceptionally tumultuous period in its regional economy with the collapse of large portions of the ground fishery throughout Atlantic Canada, the closing of coal mines and a steel mill on Cape Breton Island, and the closure of military bases in all three provinces. That being said, New Brunswick has one of the largest military bases in the Commonwealth of Nations (CFB Gagetown), which plays a significant role in the cultural and economic spheres of Fredericton, the province's capital city.

Growth

While the economic underperformance of the Maritime economy has been long lasting, it has not always been present. The mid-19th century, especially the 1850s and 1860s, has long been seen as a "Golden Age" in the Maritimes. Growth was strong, and the region had one of British North America's most extensive manufacturing sectors as well as a large international shipping industry. The question of why the Maritimes fell from being a centre of Canadian manufacturing to being an economic hinterland is thus a central one to the study of the region's pecuniary difficulties. The period in which the decline occurred had a great many potential culprits. In 1867 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick merged with the Canadas in Confederation, with Prince Edward Island joining them six years later in 1873. Canada was formed only a year after free trade with the United States (in the form of the Reciprocity Treaty) had ended. In the 1870s John A. Macdonald's National Policy was implemented, creating a system of protective tariffs around the new nation. Throughout the period there was also significant technological change both in the production and transportation of goods.

Reputed Golden Age
Several scholars have explored the so-called "Golden Age" of the Maritimes in the years just before Confederation. In Nova Scotia, the population grew steadily from 277,000 in 1851 to 388,000 in 1871, mostly from natural increase since immigration was slight. The era has been called a Golden Age, but that was a myth created in the 1930s to lure tourists to a romantic era of tall ships and antiques. Recent historians using census data have shown that is a fallacy. In 1851–1871 there was an overall increase in per capita wealth holding. However most of the gains went to the urban elite class, especially businessmen and financiers living in Halifax. The wealth held by the top 10% rose considerably over the two decades, but there was little improvement in the wealth levels in rural areas, which comprised the great majority of the population. Likewise Gwyn reports that gentlemen, merchants, bankers, colliery owners, shipowners, shipbuilders, and master mariners flourished. However the great majority of families were headed by farmers, fishermen, craftsmen and labourer. Most of them—and many widows as well—lived in poverty. Out migration became an increasingly necessary option. Thus the era was indeed a golden age but only for a small but powerful and highly visible elite.

Economic decline
The cause of economic malaise in the Maritimes is an issue of great debate and controversy among historians, economists, and geographers. The differing opinions can approximately be divided into the "structuralists", who argue that poor policy decisions are to blame, and the others, who argue that unavoidable technological and geographical factors caused the decline.

The exact date that the Maritimes began to fall behind the rest of Canada is difficult to determine. Historian Kris Inwood places the date very early, at least in Nova Scotia, finding clear signs that the Maritimes "Golden Age" of the mid-19th century was over by 1870, before Confederation or the National Policy could have had any significant impact. Richard Caves places the date closer to 1885. T.W. Acheson takes a similar view and provides considerable evidence that the early 1880s were in fact a booming period in Nova Scotia and this growth was only undermined towards the end of that decade. David Alexander argues that any earlier declines were simply part of the global Long Depression, and that the Maritimes first fell behind the rest of Canada when the great boom period of the early 20th century had little effect on the region. E.R. Forbes, however, emphasizes that the precipitous decline did not occur until after the First World War during the 1920s when new railway policies were implemented. Forbes also contends that significant Canadian defence spending during the Second World War favoured powerful political interests in Central Canada such as C. D. Howe, when major Maritime shipyards and factories, as well as Canada's largest steel mill, located in Cape Breton Island, fared poorly.

One of the most important changes, and one that almost certainly had an effect, was the revolution in transportation that occurred at this time. The Maritimes were connected to central Canada by the Intercolonial Railway in the 1870s, removing a longstanding barrier to trade. For the first time this placed the Maritime manufacturers in direct competition with those of Central Canada. Maritime trading patterns shifted considerably from mainly trading with New England, Britain, and the Caribbean, to being focused on commerce with the Canadian interior, enforced by the federal government's tariff policies.

Coincident with the construction of railways in the region, the age of the wooden sailing ship began to come to an end, being replaced by larger and faster steel steamships. The Maritimes had long been a centre for shipbuilding, and this industry was hurt by the change. The larger ships were also less likely to call on the smaller population centres such as Saint John and Halifax, preferring to travel to cities like New York and Montreal. Even the Cunard Line, founded by Maritime-born Samuel Cunard, stopped making more than a single ceremonial voyage to Halifax each year.

More controversial than the role of technology is the argument over the role of politics in the origins of the region's decline. Confederation and the tariff and railway freight policies that followed have often been blamed for having a deleterious effect on the Maritime economies. Arguments have been made that the Maritimes' poverty was caused by control over policy by Central Canada which used the national structures for its own enrichment. This was the central view of the Maritime Rights Movement of the 1920s, which advocated greater local control over the region's finances. T.W. Acheson is one of the main proponents of this theory. He notes the growth that was occurring during the early years of the National Policy in Nova Scotia demonstrates how the effects of railway fares and the tariff structure helped undermine this growth. Capitalists from Central Canada purchased the factories and industries of the Maritimes from their bankrupt local owners and proceeded to close down many of them, consolidating the industry in Central Canada.

The policies in the early years of Confederation were designed by Central Canadian interests, and they reflected the needs of that region. The unified Canadian market and the introduction of railroads created a relative weakness in the Maritime economies. Central to this concept, according to Acheson, was the lack of metropolises in the Maritimes.

Montreal and Toronto were well-suited to benefit from the development of large-scale manufacturing and extensive railway systems in Quebec and Ontario, these being the goals of the Macdonald and Laurier governments. In the Maritimes the situation was very different. Today New Brunswick has several mid-sized centres in Saint John, Moncton, and Fredericton but no significant population centre. Nova Scotia has a growing metropolitan area surrounding Halifax, but a contracting population in industrial Cape Breton County, and several smaller centres in Bridgewater, Kentville, Yarmouth, and Pictou County. Prince Edward Island's only significant population centres are in Charlottetown and Summerside. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, just the opposite was the case with little to no population concentration in major industrial centres as the predominantly rural resource-dependent Maritime economy continued on the same path as it had since European settlement on the region's shores.

Despite the region's absence of economic growth on the same scale as other parts of the nation, the Maritimes has changed markedly throughout the 20th century, partly as a result of global and national economic trends, and partly as a result of government intervention. Each sub-region within the Maritimes has developed over time to exploit different resources and expertise. Saint John became a centre of the timber trade and shipbuilding and is currently a centre for oil refining and some manufacturing. The northern New Brunswick communities of Edmundston, Campbellton, Dalhousie, Bathurst, and Miramichi are focused on the pulp and paper industry and some mining activity. Moncton was a centre for railways and has changed its focus to becoming a multi-modal transportation centre with associated manufacturing and retail interests. The Halifax metropolitan area has come to dominate peninsular Nova Scotia as a retail and service centre, but that province's industries were spread out from the coal and steel industries of industrial Cape Breton and Pictou counties, the mixed farming of the North Shore and Annapolis Valley, and the fishing industry was primarily focused on the South Shore and Eastern Shore. Prince Edward Island is largely dominated by farming, fishing, and tourism.

Given the geographic diversity of the various sub-regions within the Maritimes, policies to centralize the population and economy were not initially successful, thus Maritime factories closed while those in Ontario and Quebec prospered.

The traditional staples thesis, advocated by scholars such as S.A. Saunders, looks at the resource endowments of the Maritimes and argues that it was the decline of the traditional industries of shipbuilding and fishing that led to Maritime poverty, since these processes were rooted in geography, and thus all but inevitable. Kris Inwood has revived the staples approach and looks at a number of geographic weaknesses relative to Central Canada. He repeats Acheson's argument that the region lacks major urban centres, but adds that the Maritimes were also lacking the great rivers that led to the cheap and abundant hydro-electric power, key to Quebec and Ontario's urban and manufacturing development, that the extraction costs of Maritime resources were higher (particularly in the case of Cape Breton coal), and that the soils of the region were poorer and thus the agricultural sector weaker.

The Maritimes are the only provinces in Canada which entered Confederation in the 19th century and have kept their original colonial boundaries. All three provinces have the smallest land base in the country and have been forced to make do with resources within. By comparison, the former colony of the Province of Canada (divided into the District of Canada East, and the District of Canada West) and the western provinces were dozens of times larger and in some cases were expanded to take in territory formerly held in British Crown grants to companies such as the Hudson's Bay Company; in particular the November 19, 1869 sale of Rupert's Land to the Government of Canada under the Rupert's Land Act 1868 was facilitated in part by Maritime taxpayers. The economic riches of energy and natural resources held within this larger land base were only realized by other provinces during the 20th century.

Industries

The maritime provinces' main industry is fishing. Fishing can be found in any maritime province. This includes fishing for lobster, mackerel, tuna, salmon and many more kinds of fish. Oysters and salmonoid aquaculture is also increasingly important economically.

Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is very strong in agriculture, forestry and fishing.

Prince Edward Island
Tourism is important to the economy of PEI. Anne of Green Gables was written in PEI, and this attracts tourists to PEI. PEI is also known for its agriculture, mainly the potato, and fishing industries.

New Brunswick

Agriculture and forestry are two prominent industries found in New Brunswick. Despite having an extensive coastline, New Brunswick's industrial sector has never been entirely reliant on the success of the fisheries. Likewise, the strong shipbuilding heritage of the province directly relates to its forest resources. Because of this, New Brunswickers tend to attribute their cultural heritage less with the sea and more with their forests and rivers.

Politics
Maritime conservatism since the Second World War has been very much part of the Red Tory tradition, key influences being former Premier of Nova Scotia and federal Progressive Conservative Party leader Robert Stanfield and New Brunswick Tory strategist Dalton Camp.

In recent years, the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) has made significant inroads both federally and provincially in the region. The NDP has elected members of parliament (MPs) from New Brunswick, but most of the focus of the party at the federal and provincial levels is currently in the Halifax area of Nova Scotia. Industrial Cape Breton has historically been a region of labour activism, electing Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (and later NDP) MPs, and even produced many early members of the Communist Party of Canada in the pre-Second World War era. In the 2004 federal election, the NDP captured 28.45% of the vote in Nova Scotia, more than any other province. In the 2009 provincial election the NDP formed a majority government, the first in the region.

In the 2004 federal election, the Conservatives had one of the worst showings in the region for a right-wing party, going back to Confederation, with the exception of the 1993 election. The Conservative party improved its seat count in the 2008 and elected 13 MPs in the 2011 election. However, in the 2015 election the Liberal Party won every seat in the region, defeating all of the Conservative (and NDP) challengers.

The Liberal Party of Canada has done well in the Maritimes in the past because of its interventionist policies. The Acadian Peninsula region of New Brunswick tends to vote for the Liberals or NDP for social political reasons, as well as treatment of the French by various parties. In the 1997 federal election, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberals endured a bitter defeat to the PCs and NDP in many ridings as a result of unpopular cuts to unemployment benefits for seasonal workers, as well as closures of several Canadian Forces bases, the refusal to honour a promise to rescind the Goods and Services Tax, cutbacks to provincial equalization payments, health care, post-secondary education and regional transportation infrastructure such as airports, fishing harbours, seaports, and railways. The Liberals held onto seats in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, while being shut out of Nova Scotia entirely, the second time in history (the only other time being the Diefenbaker sweep). In 2015 the Liberals won every seat in The Maritimes, defeating Conservative and NDP incumbents.

The Maritimes is currently represented in the Canadian Parliament by 25 Members of the House of Commons (Nova Scotia – 11, New Brunswick – 10, Prince Edward Island – 4) and 24 Senators (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – 10 each, Prince Edward Island – 4). This level of representation was established at the time of Confederation when the Maritimes had a much larger proportion of the national population. The comparatively large population growth of western and central Canada during the immigration boom of the 20th century has reduced the Maritimes' proportion of the national population to less than 10%, resulting in an over-representation in Parliament, with some federal ridings having fewer than 35,000 people, compared to central and western Canada where ridings typically contain 100,000–120,000 people.

The Senate of Canada is structured along regional lines, giving an equal number of seats (24) to the Maritimes, Ontario, Quebec, and western Canada, in addition to the later entry of Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as the three territories. Enshrined in the Constitution, this model was developed to ensure that no area of the country is able to exert undue influence in the Senate. The Maritimes, with its much smaller proportion of the national population (compared to the time of Confederation) also have an over-representation in the Senate, particularly compared to the population growth of Ontario and the western provinces. This has led to calls to reform the Senate; however, such a move would entail constitutional changes.

Another factor related to the number of Senate seats is that a constitutional amendment in the early 20th century mandated that no province can have fewer Members of Parliament than it has senators. This court decision resulted from a complaint by the Government of Prince Edward Island after that province's number of MPs was proposed to change from 4 to 3, accounting for its declining proportion of the national population at that time. When PEI entered Confederation in 1873, it was accorded 6 MPs and 4 Senators; however this was reduced to 4 MPs by the early 20th century. Senators being appointed for life at this time, these coveted seats rarely went unfilled for a long period of time anywhere in Canada. As a result, PEI's challenge was accepted by the federal government, and its level of federal representation was secured. In the aftermath of the 1989 budget, which saw a filibuster by Liberal Senators in attempt to kill legislation creating the Goods and Services Tax, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney "stacked" the Senate by creating additional seats in several provinces across Canada, including New Brunswick; however, there was no attempt by these provinces to increase the number of MPs to reflect this change in Senate representation.

title: The Maritimes