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User:Ed Poor/Learning

This is where I put lessons I've learned about how to contribute to Wikipedia.

12/4/01 My contribution style is still undergoing overhaul. Today, fewer of my changes were instantly erased, as compared with the first 2 or 3 days I contributed. I wonder what I'm doing right?

Say, I hope people don't mind the fact that I "save" often. When editing an article, I will typically hit the save button a half dozen times or more. If you want to get my final word on a subject, you might try waiting an hour.

 * I find it extremely annoying, actually, to try to fix one of your articles and have continuing collisions. It's bad enough when you do it, worse when I'm colliding because you're making lame statements like "gone forever are the days when people can suppress ideas"... GregLindahl

 * I strongly feel that there's nothing wrong with saving frequently. All regular Wikipedia contributors encounter annoying edit conflicts. This is just part of the game. No one is entitled to a Wikipedia experience free from this.

 * Sorry, Greg. I will try to cut down my edit frequency while maintaining productivity. The habit comes from software development on machines which crash a lot. I will also try the preview and minor edit option Dmerrill and GWO suggested.

 * I don't find it remotely annoying. In fact, I do it too.  I usually use the "minor edit" option for most of them though.  As to discussions about wikipedia, (such as Controversy, these are best voiced on http://meta.wikipedia.com) -- User:GWO

 * Sounds good. How do I move it?
 * Try this link... http://meta.wikipedia.com/wiki.phtml?action=edit&title=Controversy_on_Wikipedia
 * Try using the Preview button. --User:Dmerrill
 * Does that catch edit clashes? -- User:GWO
 * I'm not really sure. I didn't think so, but I saw a couple of clashes today. Maybe the software has been updated to catch clashes on preview? --User:Dmerrill

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Another way to ask questions is to put them right on this page, then put a summary in the Summary field. Within minutes usually someone will respond.

You can add a Talk page if you have a question on an article, and ask your question there. Someone will answer. You can ask on your own page (this one) if it's not related to a specific article. You can also add a Talk page to your own personal page when conversations here get too long or annoying, or if you just don't like others adding stuff like this statement for instance. :-) --User:Dmerrill

It's been good working with you today, Ed. While we apparently disagree on a lot, we both want to see accurate and npov representations of all beliefs, not just our own. So we actually clashed rather little, and wound up educating each other instead of arguing. That's in the best of the Wikipedia spirit!

 * Thanks. I hope that unlike on Usenet, where I would feel a compulsion to "win", I will be content to get a word in edgewise and leave it at that. Inconveniently, people like you are making me think instead of leaving me to wallow comfortably in my biases or my ignorance. You consistently refuse to let the dialogue deteriorate into an "Is too! Is Not!" stalemate, satisfying as those kinds of exchanges can be.

However, I still think you do not understand natural selection. It means exactly what it says -- it attempts to explain the process of selection of survivors in nature. That's all. It has nothing to do with what causes the variations in organisms.

 * I got confused because some language here and elsewhere implies that Natural Selection causes the variations to come into being. Now I feel empowered to expunge such language boldly and mercilessly.

It does accept as a premise that those variations happen, but only as a premise upon which the theory is built. The cause of the variations is not a part of the theory. You are reading into it things that are not part of it, but part of a separate phenomenon usually called individuation. What ID proposes is a different cause, and a different characterization, of individuation.

Natural selection does not explain the appearance of new forms, only the mechanism by which one survives and another does not.

The two, taken together (individuation + natural selection) are called evolution. By interpreting "natural selection" to mean "individuation + selection", you are making "natural selection" == "evolution" which is wrong.

I believe this is only a misunderstanding. It is quite common to not really understand views with which you do not agree, as part of not taking them seriously. I do that myself. But if you're going to write an encyclopedia article it is important that you reflect other people's views accurately, and I don't think you're doing that. --User:Dmerrill

 * Okay, evolution = I + NS, and NS <> I. I'm ready to roll.

By the way, I'm waiting to see what you write about Pizza. :-)

 * I had two slices for lunch today...

Well all, it was a fun two days. I contributed a bit to the Creationism/Evolution debate, mostly constructive -- although I couldn't resist twitting Greg over falsifiability. No doubt all traces of my tampering will be removed over the weekend. We are probably all too close to the subject, to attain NPOV. Maybe an expert on 15th Century French Lyric Poetry should do the editing. Anyway, it was fun. Gnight. -- Ed

 * Well, I'm glad you think wasting other people's time is fun, but you shouldn't expect your victims to be as happy about it as you are.

I'd like to thank Ed for making what I believe is a sincere attempt to remain npov. If these articles on controversial topics have any chance of a truly sympathetic portrayal, while remaining npov, we need people like Ed who can explain their belief without attempting to state it as fact. It's possible I missed something Ed did, but all my interactions with him on Friday were as smooth as you could expect when two diametrically opposing worldviews are working together. We had a few clashes, but worked them out. I certainly don't feel my time was wasted. --User:Dmerrill

 * See also : User:Ed Poor

title: User:Ed Poor/Learning


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User:Ed Poor/Feminism

Wikipedia is not a place to discuss views. It is an encyclopedia, with pages where we discuss how to create good encyclopedia articles. If this page doesn't serve that purpose, delete it, please. --LDC

 * Let it persist for an hour or so, maybe we'll get a convert from "vandalism" to cooperation. My own style of participation has changed somewhat, hasn't it? --User:Ed Poor

Anything which is the "best conceivable example" should be kept around, much as drunks were paraded on stage during old-time temperance meetings. An example of what not to do, like an article on grammar mistakes stating the broken rules ungrammatically:
 * You ain't supposed to use slang in formal prose.
 * It's best to rarely if ever split infinitives.
 * Ending a sentence with a preposition leaves readers unsure what you're referring to.
 * How many times have I told you to avoid rhetorical questions?
 * You get on my nerves when you depart from the third person.

Let me suggest that we decide on the basis of (a) what is more likely to discourage vandalism rather than (b) evaluation of the viewpoint itself. But it's up to y'all. --User:Ed Poor

Deleted version a la tripe. --User:Dmerrill

I believe women have equal value, but I don't think they should be treated equally in all respects. This may either inform my article's NPOV or sabotage it beyond repair with bias. Thus, I hesitate to begin. But, I'll venture a few points:

 * no objection to women getting maternity leave, but men not (or getting less time). I want women to have superior rights in this respect, because I'm prejudiced (?) in favor of motherhood.

 * women should not be drafted into the infantry (not sure I have a reason for this, it just feels right).

Much debate has surrounded feminism in its history. Some critics called feminism anarchic, claming that it struck at the foundations of society.

Others fear that feminists will not be content to assume equal rights but will claim superior rights. I guess Mr. xxx's rant went along these lines. -- User:Ed Poor

 * I'll vote for "sabotage it beyond repair with bias". BTW, the US federal family leave law has equal leave for men and women. I can't wait to hear all about your views of homosexuals, blacks, transgendered people, atheists, and so forth. GregLindahl

Okay, here goes:

 * On homosexuality I lean toward Richard Cohen's views at . He calls homosexuality a Same-Sex Attachment Disorder (SSAD) and says transitioning to heterosexuality is possible for those want to change.
 * I think blacks are just fine and dandy. My church, being founded by a Korean, sees racial reconciliation as a crucial part of world peace.
 * Transgendered people. That sounds weird to me, like the 50 boys raised as girls (which I read about right here on wikipedia, I think).
 * Atheists are okay, just a little close-minded. Atheism is not falsifible, so it's not "scientific".

I'll try to keep these views from "infecting" my contributions. When in doubt, I will propose a change on a Talk page first. --User:Ed Poor

 * What's your opinion on sarcasm? Do you think you could detect it if you were hit in the head with a baseball bat? A 1MT nuclear weapon? GregLindahl

LOL, not sure that would get my attention, but your choice of metaphors is stunning, if not devestating. I respond better to praise, reason and pizza (not necessarily in that order). --User:Ed Poor

 * I guess this means you still don't understand that I wasn't really asking you to expound your views on homosexuality, etc. GregLindahl

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

title: User:Ed Poor/Feminism


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Exothermic process

In thermodynamics, an exothermic process is a thermodynamic process or reaction that releases energy from the system to its surroundings, usually in the form of heat, but also in a form of light (e.g. a spark, flame, or flash), electricity (e.g. a battery), or sound (e.g. explosion heard when burning hydrogen). The term exothermic was first coined by 19th-century French chemist Marcellin Berthelot.

The opposite of an exothermic process is an endothermic process, one that absorbs energy, usually in the form of heat. The concept is frequently applied in the physical sciences to chemical reactions where chemical bond energy is converted to thermal energy (heat).

Two types of chemical reactions
Exothermic and endothermic describe two types of chemical reactions or systems found in nature, as follows:

Exothermic
An exothermic reaction occurs when heat is released to the surroundings. According to the IUPAC, an exothermic reaction is "a reaction for which the overall standard enthalpy change ΔH⚬ is negative". Some examples of exothermic process are fuel combustion, condensation and nuclear fission, which is used in nuclear power plants to release large amounts of energy.

Endothermic
In an endothermic reaction or system, energy is taken from the surroundings in the course of the reaction, usually driven by a favorable entropy increase in the system. An example of an endothermic reaction is a first aid cold pack, in which the reaction of two chemicals, or dissolving of one in another, requires calories from the surroundings, and the reaction cools the pouch and surroundings by absorbing heat from them.

Photosynthesis, the process that allows plants to convert carbon dioxide and water to sugar and oxygen, is an endothermic process: plants absorb radiant energy from the sun and use it in an endothermic, otherwise non-spontaneous process. The chemical energy stored can be freed by the inverse (spontaneous) process: combustion of sugar, which gives carbon dioxide, water and heat (radiant energy).

Energy release
Exothermic refers to a transformation in which a closed system releases energy (heat) to the surroundings, expressed by

 * $$Q > 0.$$

When the transformation occurs at constant pressure and without exchange of electrical energy, heat $Q$ is equal to the enthalpy change, i.e.

 * $$\Delta H < 0,$$

while at constant volume, according to the first law of thermodynamics it equals internal energy ($U$) change, i.e.

 * $$\Delta U = Q + 0 > 0.$$

In an adiabatic system (i.e. a system that does not exchange heat with the surroundings), an otherwise exothermic process results in an increase in temperature of the system.

In exothermic chemical reactions, the heat that is released by the reaction takes the form of electromagnetic energy or kinetic energy of molecules. The transition of electrons from one quantum energy level to another causes light to be released. This light is equivalent in energy to some of the stabilization energy of the energy for the chemical reaction, i.e. the bond energy. This light that is released can be absorbed by other molecules in solution to give rise to molecular translations and rotations, which gives rise to the classical understanding of heat. In an exothermic reaction, the activation energy (energy needed to start the reaction) is less than the energy that is subsequently released, so there is a net release of energy.

Examples
Some examples of exothermic processes are:
 * Combustion of fuels such as wood, coal and oil/petroleum
 * The thermite reaction
 * The reaction of alkali metals and other highly electropositive metals with water
 * Condensation of rain from water vapor
 * Mixing water and strong acids or strong bases
 * The reaction of acids and bases
 * Dehydration of carbohydrates by sulfuric acid
 * The setting of cement and concrete
 * Some polymerization reactions such as the setting of epoxy resin
 * The reaction of most metals with halogens or oxygen
 * Nuclear fusion in hydrogen bombs and in stellar cores (to iron)
 * Nuclear fission of heavy elements
 * The reaction between zinc and hydrochloric acid
 * Respiration (breaking down of glucose to release energy in cells)

Implications for chemical reactions
Chemical exothermic reactions are generally more spontaneous than their counterparts, endothermic reactions.

In a thermochemical reaction that is exothermic, the heat may be listed among the products of the reaction.

title: Exothermic process


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Talk:Ergative case

Call me stupid but this article and sadly many articles about linguistic subjects are complete nonsense. They are obvuiously written for people who already know what the meaning is and therefore have no need to look it up. Anybody else, who will probably come here lnked from another artuicle and tries to understand what 'ergative' means will be dumbfounded: within the first sentence he will already come upon 2-3 other words that he needs to look uo, each as incomprehensive as the ergative article. A simpler explanation and perhaps an example could make things so much clearer. 28 feb 2016  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.159.139.10 (talk) 15:41, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Is this a clearer explanation: The ergative case is the grammatical case that marks the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages in order to identify it as the subject.? I think so personally, if you agree then maybe someone with some authority on the subject can add it to the page.Bigbossmatt (talk) 05:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Present and ongoing controversy
Far more people have heard of nominative than ergative, and it is misleading to assume that synthetic languages can be confined to, and defined by, a simple pairing of two cases (e.g., nominative and accusative) when, in fact, those families of languages tend to have many more grammatical cases than two. If you can distinguish nominative from ergative in a meaningful way, you should do so. You haven't done so yet.

Since the main article fails to cite works prior to 1980 (when the popular computer revolution basically began), I'm going to assume that the use of "ergative" and "absolutive" as terms, is, essentially, neologistic, and therefore the result of ongoing research dreamed up by the proponents of the terms, and bandied about here, in an opportunistic effort to lend it some kind of legitimacy. I'm going to add the controversial template to the main article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.177.27.3 (talk • contribs) 03:32, 22 September 2006.

 * I don't know what that was, but anyway the user who posted above first added and then removed the "controversial" tag. It is of course not the case that "ergative" and "absolutive" are neological. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 10:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Ee suffix
Doesn't the -ee ending (escapee, divorcee) come from French? If so, how widely spread would this grammatical construction have to have become in English before it is considered an "English" construction rather than a "French" one?

 * Here's the entry in the American Heritage Dictionary for -ee, which includes a brief history: http://www.bartleby.com/61/61/E0046100.html  I would certainly consider it to be an "English" construction, since it's commonly used (including the coining of new words using the construction) by native English speakers who don't know a word of French. Brion VIBBER

I don't like how the article defines the ergative-absolutive case system in terms of the nominative-accusative case system. Although the comparison is good, the article needs to describe the principle behind ergative-absolutive.

Would it be correct to say the following?

 * In the nominative-accusative system, the agent is always in the nominative case, and the patient (if there is one, separate from the agent) is in the accusative case. On the other hand, in the ergative-absolutive system, the patient is always in the ergative case, with the agent (if there is one separate from the patient) being in the absolutive case.

--hb - Similar to the case cited with "open" is this an example of ergativity? "John flunked the class" "The class flunked"  In both cases the class is the subject of the verb, but in the second case the agent is missing. do I have that right? --turnip

I've removed that example of 'open', because it's misleading. It's an example of syncretism in transitivity marking of some kind, but not ergative marking. The example used was:

 * Another example of ergativity is the verb "open":

 * John opens the door.
 * The door opens.

Here, the verb 'open' has two different values, one transitive and one intransitive. We have a few pairs of stems that differ, like lay/lie and set/sit, bit mainly we use the same verbs in English: as in John burns the paper and The paper burns. The relationship of the verb to its nouns is different. Contrast the case where the same verb can be used with the same relationship, but transitively or intransitively: John eats the egg vs John eats. Here, eat hasn't swapped its orientation, it's just changed the number of participants. But open or burn has a different meaning.

So there are two distinct ways a transitive sentence can be related to an intransitive one:

 * John breaks the plate.
 * John slips.
 * The plate breaks.

Ergative marking, as usually understood in the languages that clearly have it, mark these as

 * John-ERG breaks the plate-ABS.
 * John-ABS slips.

But the third one is clearly not in the same situation as the second. Some languages (pure ergative) might mark it as 'The plate-ABS breaks', because it's subject of an intransitive. In English the verb is active voice, but other languages might use a different verb form, like middle voice (perhaps formally identical to reflexive, as in French) to detransitivize it. Some languages distinguish between unergative and unaccusative... the former is actively intransitive ('John jumps'), the latter passively intransitive ('John slips'). In an active marking language you'd say 'John-ERG jumps' but 'John-ABS slips'. So, all in all, bringing the English 'open' into this is a can of worms and it's not really the same as the straightforward marking that characterizes ergative. I think it's misleading to suggest English has ergativity in normal verb forms.

(I'm not sure what 'John flunks the class' means. Is John a teacher or a student?) Gritchka 14:12 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Flunk means "fail to manage" or something like that, afaik. So in the sentence "the class flunked", it means all the students in the class failed to complete the course (Class referring to a mass of people), while in "John flunked the class", "class" has the different meaning "course". (Hmmmm, late answer.)惑乱 分からん 16:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

ELI5
Sorry but I don’t understand a word. Can someone add a simple example for mere mortals? 17:40, 20 February 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:9E8:4626:BF00:CF4:507D:7D13:3EBB (talk)

title: Talk:Ergative case


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Elihu Yale

Elihu Yale (5 April 1649 – 8 July 1721) was a British-American colonial administrator and philanthropist.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Yale only lived in America as a child, and spent the rest of his life in England, Wales, and India.

He became a clerk for the East India Company at Fort St. George, later Madras, and eventually rose to the Presidency of the settlement. He was later removed from the post under charges of corruption for self-dealing, and required to pay a fine.

In 1699, he returned to Britain with a considerable fortune, around £200,000, mostly made by selling diamonds, and spent his time and wealth in philanthropy and art collecting.

He was the primary benefactor of Yale College, now Yale University, which was named in his honor, following a donation of books, portraits, and textiles at the request of Rev. Cotton Mather, a Harvard University graduate. He had no male heir, and no descendants of his have survived past his grandchildren.

In the 21st century, Yale's connections to slavery in India began to be more closely explored, a process assisted by the digitalisation and online publication of the East India Company's records. In 2020, Peter Salovey, president of Yale University, launched the Yale and Slavery Research Project to explore the university's historical links with slavery and colonialism, including Elihu Yale's role.

Early life
Yale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to David Yale (1613–1690), a wealthy Boston merchant and attorney to Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, and Ursula Knight; he was the grandson of Ann Yale (born Lloyd), daughter of Bishop George Lloyd. After the death of her first husband, Thomas Yale Sr. (1587–1619), son of Chancellor David Yale, Anne Yale married Theophilus Eaton, ambassador to Denmark. Eaton was the co-founder of two of the Thirteen British Colonies, which are represented on the Flag of the United States, mainly through the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the New Haven Colony, and was the brother of Nathaniel Eaton, Harvard's first Headmaster and President designate, at the founding of Harvard in 1636.

His son, Samuel Eaton, the uncle of Elihu, was also involved in the foundation of Harvard, being one of the seven founder members of the Harvard Corporation, the governing board and charter that incorporated the college in 1650. It was they, along with Elihu's uncle and aunt, Thomas Yale Jr., and Anne Yale, Jr., who brought the reconstituted Eaton/Yale family to America, while other members of the family stayed in England. Their estates in Wales were Plas-yn-Yale and Plas Grono, and Elihu's brother was London merchant Thomas Yale, later ambassador to the King of Siam for the East India Company.

Elihu's father, David Yale, would later come from London to New Haven Colony with his stepfather, Theophilus Eaton, in 1639. He moved to Boston in 1641 and met and married Elihu Yale's mother, Ursula, in 1643. In 1652, at the age of three, Elihu Yale left New England, as David Yale took his family back to London. While documentation of this period is sparse, a letter suggests that David Yale remained a successful merchant and settled his family in the Hanseatic merchant district "Steelyard Court". In 1662, at the age of thirteen, Elihu Yale entered the private school of William Dugard, but Dugard died a few months after Elihu Yale enrolled. Yale likely lived through the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London.

East India Company

In 1670, Yale joined the British East India Company, starting as a clerk at East India House in London. Among the board was the Earl of Berkeley, Sir Samuel Barnardiston, Vice-Admiral John Robinson, and Chairman Sir Andrew Riccard. Yale's uncle, Connecticut Gov. Edward Hopkins, was also one of the shareholders. It is possible that Yale had business training in his father's merchant counting house beforehand. He then sailed to India in December 1671 on one of the East Indiamen, on a voyage that would take six months, with the eminent dangers of pirates, storms and diseases.

He landed in Madras on June 23, 1672, at Fort St. George, where Portuguese, English and Hindu lived. He then learned the rules of Gov. William Langhorne, some of which being the interdiction to start a duel, to desert the fort, or to blaspheme, and met with Father Ephrem de Nevers. At the time, the East India Company was already exporting to Europe spices, pepper, precious stones, Chinese porcelains, Japanese screens, and cotton cloth. In 1674, Yale was sent to negotiate the potential establishment of a new factory, and by February, was allowed to deal in private trade, which included pearls, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, neckcloths, cloves and nutmegs. By 1677, Gov. Langhorne was accused of corruption by competitors within the Company. The directors were always suspicious, and with huge fortune being made six months away from London, they easily mistrust their employees.

He was then replaced by Gov. Streynsham Master, the son-in-law of Richard Legh of Lyme Hall. On April 1678, Yale was promoted to the rank of Factor, doubling his salary. In June arrived the Welsh chaplain John Evans, future Bishop of Meath, who would become a lifelong friend. In 1679, Yale's duties now involved receiving and invoicing textiles worth about 100,000 pagodas, consisting of neckcloths, chintz, and longcloth of various grades. With the death of Joseph Hynmers, second-in-command, Yale was made Assistant to the Warehouse Keeper, and started courting his widow. They married at St. Mary's Church, the oldest Anglican Church in India, on November 4, 1680, with Sir Henry Oxenden, Governor of Bombay, as brideman. With his wife's capital, Yale learned the trade and became a specialist in diamonds and precious stones.

Madras Council

On January 1681, he was promoted to the office of Provisional Customer. In the same year, Gov. Streynsham Master was replaced by William Gyfford, and Yale was sent as a diplomat to meet the VOC Governor of Pulicat. Despite Master's loyalty, the directors once again believed the charges of bad management, fueled by enemies, who brought complaints after complaints to the board in London. According to Madras historian Arthur Pringle, the official records are full of invented circumstantial charges of injustice and fraud. Yale was then promoted to the office of Mintmaster, and was given a seat on the Council, occupying the fifth position on a board of six, as the directors were "pleased with Elihu's behavior and ability". In 1682, he was sent to Porto Novo on the Coromandel Coast to find investment opportunities for the sale of longcloth. During his mission, a great storm struck the coast, and 14,000 persons died. He made assessments of harbor facilities and fortifications, and was welcomed with coconuts as gifts of diplomacy.

Yale then negotiated with Sikandar Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, and obtained permission for the gold trade in his territory. In 1683, as a member of Gov. Gyfford's council, he became a cofounder of the Madras Bank, the oldest in India. On February 12, the second-in-command was dismissed for his "language that was too independent and not sufficiently subservient in his letters". The Councilmen rose in rank, with Yale becoming Warehouse Keeper. When Gov. Gyfford was sent to inspect factories in the Bay of Bengal, Yale became acting governor for a few months, and procured three elephants from King Narai of Siam, to be sent to the Sultan of Gingee as war elephants. In peace time, they were used with a Howdah as status symbols, while at war, they were the prototypes of the modern tank. Yale then obtained a house and garden at St. Thomas Mount for the sickly and their convalesce. Thereafter, he received 3 princes from Sumatra, Indonesia, bringing a letter from Sultanah Inayat Syah, Queen of Acheen, resulting in a trade agreement. About this time, King Charles II of England died, with James II ascending to the throne. The change was well welcomed by the Company, as the chairman, Sir Josiah Child, had spent a fortune on James's ascension. Yale then organized the official ceremony at Fort St. George, with Gov. Gyfford resuming his office, and received the ambassadors of Persia and Siam.

Presidency of Madras

In July 1687, Yale was appointed President of Madras and Governor of Fort St. George, replacing William Gyfford. A difficulty of the office was to deal with the native rulers through firmans, as Madras was surrounded by the Mughal Empire, with rulers always asking for bribes. When their demands were refused, they would seized the food supplies, half starving the Company's servants with a blockade. In terms of size, Madras consisted of about 300,000 people, or around 6% of England's population at the time. Yale had previously been popular with both the Europeans and native Indians, and reverted to the former practice of living and dining in the Fort House with merchants, writers and factors.

With Yale's nomination, Sir Josiah Child hoped that Madras would be less critical of London. As the East India Company's headquarters were thousands of miles away, the board implemented policies that were not well adapted to the conditions in Madras. Letters took 6 months to be received, sometimes over a year, making communications difficult. One of these policies was the creation of a new tax upon Madras inhabitants that Yale had now to carry out, which caused a local rebellion. During this time, they accused him of not cutting expenses down, such as keeping a Bengal tiger at the fort, among other things. Those who were taxed the most were the owners of the 128 houses within the fort, which half belonged to the Portuguese merchants. The Company's chairman sent a letter to Yale, writing that "your elaborate arguments to persuade us not to impose a moderate duty upon the Portuguese and other inhabitants of our city of Madras, whom we do protect and exceedingly encourage in their several vocations, have no weight at all with us".

Yale had received similar letters during the Great Famine under Gov. Gyfford, where they had refused to collect taxes, with the directors replying that "you are still fencing against our creating revenue at the Fort, with slight, insignificant arguments, wherein the worst is that you should have so mean an opinion of us, as to think such sophistical reasons will make any impressions on our judgment". The directors also gave the order to close the Garden House, which was used for those who were resting outside the city, having a place to eat. Yale didn't follow this order and kept Gov. Gyfford there as his health was fragile. During August 1687, Yale is then recorded corresponding with the Ambassador of Shah Suleiman of Persia, regarding his arrival with a Koran to try to convert the Siamese king to Mohammedanism, which the latter refused. Being bankrupt after his failed mission, Yale loaned him money, which was never repaid.

Anglo-Siamese War

For many years, merchants of Madras and Siam were trading partners in the Andaman Sea, trading in rhinoceros horns, elephant tusks, copper and other commodities. Yale's brother, Thomas Yale, became ambassador to King Narai of Siam, and during this time, Elihu would entertain at his house the French ambassador and musketeer, Count Claude de Forbin, drinking to the health of the royal families of England and France. But around August 1687, disputes regarding Siam's strategic importance emerged among European powers, and Gov. Yale was charged by King Narai's agents regarding the sale of jewels, which they estimated having overpaid by 25%. The man behind the charges was a Greek named Constantine Phaulkon, who wanted to lower English's influence over King Narai, and get him closer to Louis XIV of France through Chevalier de Chaumont.

This trading dispute started the Anglo-Siamese War, with Yale acting on behalf of King James II of England, which resulted in number of casualties for the Company, as cities were now being robbed by Siameses. Some English merchants at Siam sided with the enemy, and became involved in acts of piracy, which had Yale send warships in retaliation against Englishmen who changed sides. No peace treaty was ever signed, but the war against the Company will eventually stop around 1688. In London, the directors investigated the accusations of the Siameses on Yale and cleared his name, declaring that "you can not be ignorant that Phaulkon himself in the King of Siam's name, began the war... upon a pretense that Mr. Yale injured the King of Siam in a bargain". Phaulkon's alliance with France would later cost him his life, being assassinated by the Siameses nobles during the Siamese revolution of 1688. On August 11, 1687, Yale approved the recall of several Englishmen to Madras detained by Prussian Wolf Henrik von Kalnein, governor of Tranquebar under the Danish East India Co..

Siege of Golconda

About a month later, on September 22, 1687, Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb conquered the nearby Kingdom of Golconda, defeating Sultan Abul Shah at the Siege of Golconda, ending the Qutb Shahi dynasty. Aurangzeb was a member of Tamerlane's dynasty, and his parents, founders of the Taj Mahal, were direct descendants of Genghis Khan. As Yale expected the Mughal's revenge for the Anglo-Mughal War started by the directors in Bengal, he prepared for war and raised a Portuguese militia, but as the Mughal had thousands of war elephants, he and the Council had no choice but to pay him 50,000 pagodas to keep the Company's activities in Madras. Gov. Yale was now under the overlordship of the Islamic Mughal Empire. He sent diplomats to pay Emperor Aurangzeb, one of which was his friend Daniel Chardin, diamond merchant and brother of Sir Jean Chardin, Yale's partner in England. He also sent letters to Mughal general Mahabat Khan, and complied with the ceremonies of prince Muhammad Bakhs and prime minister Asad Khan. The situation was delicate as the Dutch and Louis XIV at Versailles were also trying to get the Mughal in their favor, and the directors would hold Yale responsible if anything went wrong, including failing to keep the Golconda diamonds trade from the Kollur Mines.

At the time, India was the world producer of diamonds, with Golconda producing 60% of its total ouput. Most of Yale's private fortune will be obtained from this trade with the Moghul, who received royalties, while Yale used his expertise and capital to hold on these stones until they were faceted and polished in Amsterdam, on their way to London. The process took on average 3 years before getting a return on investment, and Yale had 50 trained men to protect the goods from robbers during transportation. By 1688, Sir Josiah Child, the Company's largest shareholder, retired with a fortune of about £200,000, and married his daughter to the son of the 1st Duke of Beaufort at Badminton House. During the same year, Yale welcomed the Armenian merchants to establish themselves at Fort St. George following their persecution in Europe. In July, he sent diplomats for the arrival of Dutch Gov. Johannes Camphuys, and on September 29, 1688, he inaugurated the Madras Corporation, where Nathaniel Higginson was elected its first mayor, with Amsterdam merchant Jacques de Paiva and others, elected on its board. Initially founded to restrain Yale's powers as governor, it became the oldest corporation in India, and the second oldest municipal body in the world after the City of London. Paiva's widow, Hieronima, would become Yale's mistress and bear him a son named Charles.

Anglo-Dutch relations

Following the English Revolution of 1688, William of Orange, a Dutch, ascended to the throne of England, replacing James II, which was a fatal blow for Sir Josiah Child who had bet on the wrong side. The past wars between the Dutch and English merchants in Madras were now settled, and both started to form alliances through marriage. From then on, the directors' letters to Yale changed in tone. Sir Langhorne started complimenting him on his private trade in diamonds, as they now saw it as a way to expand the company to new markets without having to bear the risks themselves. Yale tried to build routes at Mindanao, the second largest island of the Philippines, getting from them Clove and Ironwood. He was then put on a secret committee with Sir John Child, governor of Bombay, and Nathaniel Higginson, mayor of Madras, to plan the establishment of a new fort near the South Seas, to engage in trade with China. On March 17, 1689, Yale received the arrival of Commander Job Charnock, with his staff and four companies of soldiers. He arrived from a failed mission that consisted of blocking and seizing the ships of Mughal Aurangzeb, who had attacked the Company's ships in the Bay of Bengal, and taken control of Chittagong during the Anglo-Mughal War.

Charnock stayed in Madras for a few months under Gov. Yale's protection, which caused dissensions in the Council for fear of the Mughal's revenge. The Council eventually outvoted Yale, and Charnock was forced to leave, where he would found the city of Calcutta. In July, 1690, news of the war between William of Orange and Louis XIV of France arrived in Madras, and Yale prepared Fort St. George once more for war. On August 15, the French sent seven warships to attack the Madras roads, along with one fireship. The fort was protected by a garrison of 700 soldiers under Gov. Yale, with the help of a Dutch fleet. Combat lasted a few hours, and the French were repulsed by the fort's guns, after which they didn't return. Yale then negotiated the release of Englishmen, dealing with Moghul general Shaista Khan, along with Daniel Chardin, who was sent to the King of Kandy. In 1690, Yale's brother negotiated with Rama Raja, the Chhatrapati of the Marathas, for the acquisition of a fort at Devanampatnam on behalf of the Company, which was sold for 40,000 pagodas. They renamed the place Fort St. David in honor of a Welsh saint. On December 28, they supplied ammunition to general Zulfiqar Khan, son of Grand Vizier Asad Khan, from which they obtained the firman for the territories of Vizagapatam, Gingee and Golconda. During this year, Yale was also instrumental to the development of the Government General Hospital for Madras soldiers.

Slavery
Records of the period indicate a flourishing slave trade in Madras. After English merchants began to kidnap young children and deport them to distant parts of the world, the administration of Fort St George stepped in and introduced laws to curb the practice. On 2 February 1688, Elihu Yale decreed that slaves should be examined by the judges of the choultry before being transported. Transportation of young children, in particular, was made unlawful. During his tenure as President of Madras, Yale ordered a minimum of 10 slaves sent on every ship going to Europe, and on a month in 1687, Fort St George exported at least 665 slaves. In his judicial capacity he also on several occasions sentenced so-called "black criminals" to whipping and enslavement. Evidence as to whether Yale personally owned slaves, or participated directly in their sale is inconclusive; the historian Steven Pincus suggests that he did not, while, in a 2016 article in the Journal of Global History, Elizabeth Kuebler-Wolf stated that he enslaved one or two people as household servants, citing explorer Hiram Bingham's 1939 book Elihu Yale. Historian Joseph Yannielli writes that although Yale "probably did not own any of these people – the majority were held as the property of the East India Company – he certainly profited both directly and indirectly from their sale", while the Sterling Professor David W. Blight suggests that Yale's personal ownership is "not a key question [...] some portion of [his] considerable fortune derived from his myriad entanglements with the purchase and sale of human beings" through his "key leadership role in the business of human trafficking".

The Groom
Gov. Yale's story of having hanged his groom for taking his favorite horse on a day is a false story that was propagated by privateer Alexander Hamilton. The events were as follow: In August 1689, two soldiers of Fort St. George stole guns, horses, and other items, and left Madras as fugitives with a group of five confederates to join the enemy's army during war time. One was named George Isaac, and the other was named Charles Cross, the latter being not only a soldier but also one of the grooms of the fort's stables. They were captured by the Polligars on their way to the Mughal and surrendered to Madras on condition of showing them mercy, which was initially agreed, but once arrived, Gov. Yale and the Council decided to have them sentenced for treason and desertion. One was executed before the stables, the other was shot in front of the fort's gate. Thirty-eight years later, Capt. Hamilton wrote about the event in his memoirs, from a "weal and treacherous memory". As a past employee who became a Privateer, he never forgave the taxes the Company forced upon him during his private travels, and his depiction of the time, always critical of his past employer, are not considered faithful about the period.

Elihu Yale v. East India Co.

The later years of Yale's governance was marked by serious conflicts between his Presidency and the Council, coming from Thomas Gray, Sir Josiah Child's servant, and lawyer William Fraser, a man known for his violent temper. They accused Yale of trying to get military power into his own hands. In 1691, Yale then received several Indian merchants and citizens who came to complain about Fraser's behaviour as new Mayor of Madras. Fraser had imprisoned four of their friends for refusing to sign an arbitration proceeding, and were stuck without food adapted to their religion. Yale ordered the marshal to temporarily release them to their private homes, and reversed other sentences made by the Mayor's Court. Yale wrote in his letter that "he would have been unfaithful to his trust had he permitted an innocent man to starve to death in prison". On October 1, 1692, letters arrived from London with accusations against Yale, making Nathaniel Higginson the new President of Madras. According to Madras historian Fanny Penny, the accusations were the same as with past governors, being the "old story of private trade, jealousy on the part of his fellow-merchants, and suspicion and distrust at home as his wealth accumulated".

By then, Yale's fortune was at £205,000, which was the same as the Company's former chairman and largest shareholder, Sir Josiah Child. On November 23, Sir John Goldsborough and judge John Dolben arrived in Madras for Yale's investigation. The Councillors took the law into their own hands, and had the Yale brothers imprisoned, and fearing of being poisoned, Yale wrote a letter to be delivered to the King of England by his brother, who will leave Madras on February 20, 1694. The investigators then inspected the fortifications around Black Town, the Indian natives's neighborhood. Yale had built the walls with the Company's fund to protect the town against invasions of the Mughal Emperor, but having not followed the directors's order to tax the natives for it, he was fined 3484 pagodas with interest by the Company. Goldsborough then sent a group of musketeers to Mrs. Nicks's house, Yale's friend, to investigate fraud charges regarding cloths, where she would be fined for her husband's mistakes. Not having enough money to pay the taxes to bring her children home to England, she would be forced to sail without them. For Yale's trial, William Fraser was first put on the court, but Yale had him temporarily displaced after Fraser had imprisoned a Portuguese merchant for four years upon suspicion alone. By July, Sir John Goldsborough concluded his investigation, and left the countercharges to Fraser, not finding any evidence that Yale had defrauded the East India Company. His fines were based for the most part on technicalities, where he had not followed orders or made errors of judgment.

The case reach London

Ten months later, while still in prison, Yale's brother arrived in London in 1695, and reached directly to the King's Privy Council on February 14 at Kensington Palace, contesting the accusations. The Privy Council ordered a reply from the East India Company but were not impressed by their statements against Yale's activities, therefore they ordered, on behalf of the king, to stop all the Company's ships that were ready to sail for Fort St. George in India. Yale's case was given to Sir Thomas Rawlinson, and was attended by the King of England, William of Orange, Prince George of Denmark, Archbishop Thomas Tenison and the principal ministers. They ordered that the Attorney General examine the charter granted to the whole Company, and to examine their powers in matters of judicature. Their investigation was brought to Parliament, where they discovered briberies made by Sir Josiah Child and Sir Thomas Cook to Tory members. Thereafter, the King of England, William of Orange, ordered on March 15, 1695, the liberation of Elihu Yale, so that he could come back to England whenever he chose, with the additional order of giving him the Great Cabin in the Company ship of his choosing when he would be ready to sail home. When the letter reached Madras ten months later on January 8, 1696, Yale was immediately offered a ship for Britain, but having already served the company for over 20 years, he decided to stay as Fraser was still on his case.

Fraser then suggested to Sir Josiah Child that Yale had poisoned four members of the Council over the years. Fraser's case relied on statements made by two Indian natives that were not sworn, where they said that they had heard someone, who is now dead, say that somebody else, who has now left Madras, that two of Yale's enemies were still alive, and that they would be dead soon. Based on native gossips, the directors dismissed the case. Thereafter, president Higginson was told by his servant of seven years that Fraser had threatened him twice, to which he replied that he had beaten him because he didn't like his Salams. Fraser was then charged and banned from the Council. With Fraser removed, Yale stayed at Fort St. George for some years, and over time, cleared his name of all scandal and developped his diamond business. Gov. Thomas Pitt, who would find the Pitt Diamond, became Yale's partner, as the Company had now removed all restrictions on private trade. In 1699, after a 30 years career in India, Yale decided to sail home, and was granted the usual privilege of past governors to bring back five tons of goods, which he filled with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, Chinawares, Persian carpets, nutmegs, and other items. He decided to have Gov Pitt's ship as his vessel, and brought back with him the children of Mrs. Nicks. Over time, the old accusations against the company's officers enriching themselves at their expense appeared less frequently, as the directors learned that their employees could grow wealthy while advancing their commercial interests.

Return to Britain

Yale arrived in Britain in 1699 with a fortune that amounted to £200,000, mostly made from his diamond business in the Golconda mines and Kollur mines in Southern India. In relation to GDP, his fortune amounted to 1/4 % of UK's GDP at the time, which translates to nearly 6 billion British pounds in 2021 money. Famous diamonds extracted from these mines over time have included the Orlov Diamond, belonging to Catherine the Great, the Hope Diamond, belonging to Louis XIV, the Wittelsbach-Graff Diamond, belonging to the Habsburgs, among others. Yale acquired rough stones from the Mughal Emperors of Golconda in exchange for a royalty, and were sent to Fort St. George, India, under the protection of 50 trained men. Thereafter, Yale would send the diamonds to Amsterdam to be faceted and polished, until ready to be shipped to London. The process took on average 3 years and needed large amounts of capital to endure setbacks, such as wars and political instability.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, shipments would get stolen by pirates on their way to Europe, and once there, the Europeans princes and nobility would lack the funds to acquire them, forcing some merchants into bankruptcy. Demand followed the Coronations of monarchs, royal court events, war victories and other ceremonies. It became the most important branch of private trade of East India employees between Madras and London. Along with Sir Jean Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Yale became one of the largest European diamond traders in the world, as nearly all diamonds came from India during that period. Chardin, the past jewel merchant of the Shah of Persia, was also one his partners. He kept doing business with his friends Gov. Thomas Pitt, grandfather of prime minister William Pitt, and Sir Charles Cotterell, during the era where London became the international trading centre of diamonds, dislodging Portugal and the Netherlands. This new class of merchants who made their fortune in the East Indies would become known as the Nabobs in Britain.

London life

During the Georgian era under King George I, Yale and other merchants would meet at London coffee houses as centres of social life. He kept his title of governor, and after the failures of his bankers, he opened a bank account in the newly created Bank of England, with deposits at C. Hoare & Co of Sir Richard Hoare, now the oldest bank in Britain. He lived most of his remaining years at the Plas Grono estate in Wales, next to Erddig Hall, inherited from the line of his great-grandfather, Chancellor David Yale, and at his London house in Queen Square. His neighbors included the Duke of Powis at Powis House, Lord Chancellor Bathurst, Queen Anne and her son Prince William, and artists Charles Burney and Jonathan Richardson. In London society, Yale was associated with Sir Charles Cotterell, Master of the Ceremonies. He was then elected in December 1717 a Fellow of the Royal Society under Sir Isaac Newton. His candidature was introduced by Sir Hans Sloan, founder of the British Museum and compeer of Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin. In the same year, Yale was asked by Newton to deal with the donations of Dr. Thomas Paget, and later received a new map of the Netherlands dedicated to him by John Senex, royal geographer of Queen Anne.

Thereafter, his American godson David Yale entered Pembroke College at Cambridge. Yale leased Latimer House from his son-in-law, Lord James Cavendish, son of the 1st Duke of Devonshire, to accommodate his daughter Ursula. He was elected High Sheriff of Denbighshire in Wales, gave money to Wrexham Church, and built a family gallery. He then became a member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and met there the Bishop of London, John Robinson, and the Lt. Gov. of New England, Francis Nicholson. From Nicholson's influence, and with Jeremiah Dummer as intermediary, Yale would answer a donation request for Connecticut College through Harvard graduate Cotton Mather. While his initial plan was to bestow a charity at Oxford, he sent them books, along with Sir Isaac Newton. He also sent a newly painted portrait of King George I by artist Sir Godfrey Kneller, principal painter of the king at the time, and the institution changed its name to Yale College. The total sum gifted was about the same as John Harvard's to Harvard College. The painting is now at Yale University Gallery, while about 214 of the books are at Yale Library. Yale's will included donations to the poor of Wrexham in Wales, to Christ's Hospital in London, St Bartholomew's Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital, various workhouse and poorhouses, and to Connecticut College, later known as Yale.

Marriage and children
In 1680 Yale married Catherine Elford, widow of Joseph Hynmers, second-in-command of Fort St George, India as Deputy Governor for the East India Company. Her father was wealthy Levant merchant Walter Elford, son of Turkey merchant Walter Sr., the step-nephew of Admiral Sir Francis Drake of Buckland Abbey, the explorer, and the half-brother of Sir Francis Drake, the MP.

Walter Elford Sr. was among the pioneers of the English Coffee Houses on Exchange Alley, next to the Royal Exchange, owning the Great Coffee House (Turk's Head) until the Great Fire of London, and was featured in Samuel Pepys's diaries. Catherine Elford's maternal grandfather was merchant Richard Chambers, Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London, family of Sir Amyas Bampfylde of Poltimore House and Barrington Court.

Their wedding took place at St Mary's Church, at Fort St George, where Yale was a vestryman and treasurer. The marriage was the first registered at the church. They had 4 children together. David Yale died young in 1687. Katherine Yale (died 1715), married to Dudley North of Glenham Hall, a cousin of Lord North, the prime minister who later lost the American War of Independence. Their daughter would marry Nicholas Herbert, son of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, and lived at Wilton House and Highclere Castle.

Anne Yale (died 1734) married to Lord James Cavendish of Chatsworth House, son of the 1st Duke of Devonshire of Hardwick Hall, and Lady Mary Butler, the Duke of Ormond's daughter at Kilkenny Castle. Lord Cavendish was also a nephew of Earl John Cecil of Burghley House, and a grandson of Countess Elizabeth Cecil of Hatfield House.

Ursula Yale, who never married, died in 1721 at Latimer House; a house rented by Yale from his son-in-law, and who is buried in the church on the estate. In 1687, after the death of Jacques de Paiva, a Portuguese Jewish diamond merchant and mines owner, Yale formed a relationship with his widow Hieronima de Paiva and brought her to live with him, causing a scandal within Madras's colonial society. They had a son who died, along with his mother, in South Africa.

Death

Yale died on 8 July 1721 in London. No descendants of his have survived past his grandchildren. His body was buried in the churchyard of the parish church of St Giles' Church, Wrexham, Wales. His tomb bears an inscription:

In Boston, Massachusetts, a tablet to Yale was erected in 1927 at Scollay Square, near the site of Yale's birth. Yale president Arthur Twining Hadley penned the inscription, which reads: "On Pemberton Hill, 255 Feet North of This Spot, Was Born on April Fifth 1649 Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras, Whose Permanent Memorial in His Native Land is the College That Bears His Name."

At his death, with no proper will, his heirs-at-law inherited the Plas Grono estate and sold it to Sir George Wynne.

Yale University
In 1718, Cotton Mather contacted Yale and asked for his help. Mather represented a small institution of learning that had been founded in 1701 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, as the Collegiate School of Connecticut, which needed money for a new building. In 1717, Isaac Newton gave the college a copy of his book Principia, on Newton's laws of motion and Newton's law of universal gravitation, and in 1718, Yale sent Mather 417 books, a portrait of King George I of Britain, and nine bales of goods. These last were sold by the school for £800. In gratitude, officials named the new building Yale; eventually the entire institution became Yale College.

Yale was also a vestryman and treasurer of St Mary's Church at Fort St George. On 6 October 1968, the 250th anniversary of the naming of Yale College for Yale, the classmates of Chester Bowles, then the American ambassador to India and a graduate of Yale (1924), donated money for lasting improvements to the church and erected a plaque to commemorate the occasion. In 1970, a portrait of him, later renamed Elihu Yale with Members of his Family and an Enslaved Child, was donated to the Yale Center for British Art from Chatsworth House. A portrait, painted during the 18th century, was also given to Yale University by U.S President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

On 5 April 1999, Yale University recognised the 350th anniversary of Yale's birthday. An article that year in American Heritage magazine by John Steele Gordon described Yale as the "most overrated philanthropist" in American history, arguing that the college that became Yale University was successful largely because of the generosity of a man named Jeremiah Dummer, but that the trustees of the school did not want it known by the name "Dummer College". Of Yale's donation to the college, totalling just under $1500, Gordon suggested that "never has so much immortality been purchased for so paltry a [...] sum."

In her article for The Atlantic about Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale University, Alexandra Robbins alleges that Yale's headstone was stolen years ago from its proper setting in Wrexham. She further alleges that the tombstone is now displayed in a glass case in a room with purple walls.

21st century re-appraisal
In the 21st century Yale University's historic associations with the slave trade have been re-evaluated. In 2017, the university determined to rename Calhoun College, which honoured the white supremacist and pro-slavery leader John C. Calhoun. In respect of Elihu Yale, the process was assisted by the availability online of the relevant East India Company records. In 2020 Yale's president, Peter Salovey, launched the Yale and Slavery Research Project to explore the university's links with slavery and colonialism, including Elihu Yale's central role. The project was led by David W. Blight, director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, and published its findings in 2024. Blight identified "Yale's key leadership role in the business of human trafficking" and confirmed that part of Yale's fortune unquestionably derived from "the purchase and sale of human beings [...] much of his growing wealth derived from the lucrative trade in cloth, silks, precious jewels, and other commodities, yet this commerce was inseparable from the slave trade". In his foreword to the report, Salovey wrote of the importance of the study as providing a "deeper, more honest understanding of who we are" and of helping in "coming to terms with injustices of the past and in confronting current wrongs".

A linked re-evaluation considered the artworks donated by, and related to, Elihu Yale, in particular, the painting Elihu Yale with Members of his Family and an Enslaved Child. The picture, which shows Yale and his relations being served by a collared African child, was donated to the Yale Center for British Art in 1970 and regularly displayed at the university. In 2020 the artist Titus Kaphar produced a version of the painting, entitled "Enough About You", in which the main sitters are distorted beyond recognition and the image of the uncollared boy is set within a gold frame.

The Yale collection

Yale arrived in England with Indian artworks, and used his new wealth to build a large European art collection of 10,000 items, including 7,000 paintings, which would become, after his death, the first art auction in Britain. During this era, the English country houses started to include goods from India and China, brought over the continent by the East India Company. As about 75% of all Indian exports were long-lasting and colorful textiles, it gave rise to the 1700–1750 Western fashion period, which included the use of tapestries. A new desire for collecting emerged among the English aristocracy under the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace, and the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth House. Yale followed their lead and became a famous collector in London, with artists visiting him at his Queen Square home to secure patronage, one of which would be Vanderbank, who worked at Kensington Palace and Castle Howard.

Many of Yale's paintings came from Dutch Golden Age's artists, the most famous being Rembrandt, Bruegel, Van Dyck, Rubens, Dürer, Van de Velde, Teniers, Lely, Kneller and Rosa. Yale's collection was stored in four London houses, in addition to several coach houses and stables. Through the influence of the Royal Society under Isaac Newton, he collected instruments built on new science from dealers like George Willdey. He obtained the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence and acquired books from Bernard de Montfaucon, one of the modern founders of archaeology at the time. With a rising middle class in search of status symbols, he acquired watches and clocks from Thomas Tompion, father of English clockmaking, along with works of engineer Henry Winstanley. When Queen Anne commissioned Nicolas Dorigny to produce large prints at Hampton Court, Yale and the Duke of Devonshire acquired several of them. He acquired one of the Jewels of Mary, Queen of Scots, along with works of Medici painter Adriaen van der Werff.

Other paintings included those of philosopher Thomas Hobbes, astronomer Pierre Gassendi, Sir John Wynn, and Jacques Courtois, previously patroned by Mattias de' Medici. At Yale's death, his collection launched the auction concept in Britain, spacing the sales at a few months' intervals to not overload the art market. His European paintings were the largest group ever sold in England. Catalogues were available at various coffee houses such as Garraways. Van der Werff's painting was acquired by the Earl of Derby, while a bidding war ensued for Queen Mary's ring between the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of Pembroke. Yale's granddaughter married the latter's son, Nicholas Herbert, who lived at Wilton House and Highclere Castle. Inigo Jones's designs were acquired by the 2nd Duke of Devonshire, and are still at Chatsworth House. It is thought that some of Yale's missing paintings are now at the Hermitage Museum in Russia, dating back from Catherine the Great's acquisition of the Walpole collection at Houghton Hall. Numerous works would later be acquired by Yale University, while others went to Madryn Castle, seat of Deputy William Corbet Yale of the Yales of Plas yn Yale.

Ancestry and coats of arms

Elihu's ancestry, as a member of the Yale family, originated from the Lordship of Yale in North Wales. The Yale name was adopted from the maternal line, while the coat of arms, later adopted by Yale College, came from the paternal line. The Yales derived from the 6th century prince of Powys, Brochwel Ysgithrog, and from the 4th century king Cunedda. Following the division of the Kingdom of Powys during the 12th century, a new principality will emerge named Northern Powys, which will be kept by Elihu's ancestors, the princes of Powys Fadog, Lords of Yale, with their seat at Castle Dinas Bran as members of the House of Mathrafal. They will submit to Edward Longshanks during the 13th century, with prince Gruffudd Fychan losing the lordship of Yale to the Earl of Surrey, William Wallace's rival at Sterling Bridge.

About a century later, his descendant Owain Glyndwr, a cousin of the Tudors, would lose the War of Independence against Henry V, becoming the last Welsh Prince of Wales in 1415. Known by Shakespeare as Owen Glendower, he became the granduncle of baron Elissau ap Gruffudd, founder of the House of Yale in 1480, which Elihu belonged to. Elissau's mother, Lowry ap Tudor, was Glyndwr's niece, while his father, Griffith ap Einion, was a member of the House of Fitzgerald. Elissau would become co-heir of Glyndwr's claims through his mother, including those of Mathrafal (Powys Fadog), which featured the Lordship of Bromfield and Yale. From his marriage to an heiress within the lordship, he received the estate of Allt Llwyn Dragon, which he renamed Plas yn Yale (Yale Manor). The name would then be adopted by his grandson, Chancellor Thomas Yale (b. 1525), and by Elihu's great-grandfather, Chancellor David Yale, Thomas's nephew.

While the Yale name was adopted from baron Elissau's maternal line, the Yale arms would be inherited from his father, a member of the Fitzgeralds of Corsygedol, from the line of Osborne Fitzgerald, initially a Desmond. This line was founded by the marriage of a Welsh princess named Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tudor, with Norman lord Gerald de Windsor, son of the first governor of Windsor Castle for William the Conqueror. Two branches will form over time, the Yales of Plas yn Yale, who stayed in Britain, and the Yales of Plas Grono, who went to America in 1637. As Elihu was heir of the Plas Gronos in 1689, his arms would be those later used for Yale College, as well as for the Yale schools of Public Health, Environment and Medicine.

Cultural references

 * Elihu later became the name of a "senior society" founded in 1903 at Yale.
 * Tom Wolfe, who earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale, named the African-American Atlanta police chief in A Man in Full Elihu Yale.
 * Yale College, a former college in Wrexham, Wales, which has since merged with Coleg Cambria, was also named after Elihu Yale.
 * Theodore Roosevelt's son Quentin kept a hyacinth macaw named Eli Yale.

title: Elihu Yale


text:
Talk:Electromagnetic spectrum

EMR acronym
Electromagnetic radiation is introduced at the intro to article. In the body of article EMR is used for the concept on several places. When a novice reader is focused on a part of the body text and only skims the surroundings, EMR acronym's meaning might not be obvious, and search within page would not quickly bring full text to her or his attention.

I propose the change at first use to ''electromagnetic radiation (EMR)' in intro; if nobody opposes I'll do it in a day or two. Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 14:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

 * Go ahead. In fact, if you can repeat the full name and acronym in the body in a few places, especially deep down in the article. Constant314 (talk) 16:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

What is the first sentence trying to say?
To this mathematician, the meaning of the phrase "the variation in the intensity of electromagnetic waves with respect to their frequency or wavelength of oscillation" (as well as the earlier versions "range of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation and their respective wavelengths and photon energies" and "ranging over a domain of frequencies and their respective wavelengths and photon energies") is close to incomprehensible. The version that I wrote made sense to me (well yes of course); the revert edit summary does not. (I also think "The electromagnetic spectrum is the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation" is so obviously tautological as to be pointless, but at least I understand what it says.) Would value input from other editors of this page. --JBL (talk) 17:43, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't like the current lead either, the term "variation in intensity" is misleading.  It is unsourced and doesn't appear to be supported by any sources I've seen. Agree that the phrase "the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation" is tautological and unnecessary.  I support your version or the first of the two you quote above (I don't like the word "domain" in the second).  Here are some other definitions:
 * "the entire distribution of electromagnetic radiation according to frequency or wavelength." Encyclopedia Britannica online.
 * "the entire range of wavelengths of all known electromagnetic radiations." European Commission glossary
 * "the range of all types of electromagnetic radiation."  NASA Introduction to Astronomy page  Too vague.
 * --ChetvornoTALK 20:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback, . If I understand correctly, the point is that the electromagnetic spectrum means the full range of electromagnetic radiation; and that this range may be expressed in various ways (in terms of frequencies, or wavelengths, or ...).  To be honest I actually like the NASA version, which sets the question of what language do you express the spectrum in (frequency, wavelength, ...) aside as a separate point (and this is also what I was trying to achieve in my edit).  Yet another possibility would be to write the lead paragraph without the structure "The [title of article] is".  For now, I'm going to restore my previous edit -- but of course if it's still disputed I would be happy to work on alternatives.  --JBL (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I kind of like the NASA version too. It's on the vague side, but the following sentences would provide the specifics. XOR'easter (talk) 20:23, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I feel pretty strongly that the terms frequency, wavelength or both need to be in the lead sentence. The word 'range' by itself is ambiguous. The introduction is for general readers, including kids, high school dropouts and ballet dancers, who may have never had any science education at all. Their reaction to The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all types of electromagnetic radiation is likely to be  "Range . . . oh, that means the distance it can go."  Then efforts in the following sentences to define the term as frequency or wavelength will confuse them. --ChetvornoTALK 23:42, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe. I'm not sure that holding off the details to the second sentence would be more confusing than including them in the first. If a reader is thinking that range means "how far it can go", surely they'd trip up when they hit "frequency" or "wavelength" whether those are included in the first sentence or deferred to the next. I'd be inclined to guess that a shorter first sentence makes for easier reading, but that's just a feeling. XOR'easter (talk) 17:37, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Electromagnetic spectrum is part of Spectrum (physics), which is defined as "plot of light intensity or power as a function of frequency or wavelength, also known as a spectral density plot." The spectrum is not just an interval (much less its two limiting values, inferior and superior, or the corresponding width or range) of frequency or wavelengths. After all, the full frequency band of EM waves is [0,∞], but that's just the domain of the spectrum, which is actually a function. The function's value or image is normally the EM wave's spectral power or intensity, somtimes its square-root ("root-power", magnitude, or amplitude). It can be understood as the result of Fourier analysis applied to sums of myriad monochromatic radiation waves; is has physical implementations, such as dispersive prisms. fgnievinski (talk) 05:12, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * which is defined as No I don't think so -- that is one definition, but it's not the only (and outside of specialist contexts at least not the primary) definition. I mean just look at the lead sections of Spectrum (physical sciences) and Spectrum.  --JBL (talk) 17:22, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The "electromagnetic spectrum" is the domain. A function on that domain would get a different, more specific name: "blackbody spectrum", an "absorption spectrum", etc. See, for example, the typical usage in a college astronomy textbook: Objects in the universe send out an enormous range of electromagnetic radiation. Scientists call this range the electromagnetic spectrum, which they have divided into a number of categories. Or a chemistry textbook: This figure also shows the electromagnetic spectrum, the range of all types of electromagnetic radiation. And a typical phrasing from later in the book: Compare the two types of emission spectra: continuous spectrum of white light (top) and the line spectra of the light from excited sodium, hydrogen, calcium, and mercury atoms. Or, if you want a straight-up physics reference, Table 9.1 in Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics is "The Electromagnetic Spectrum", and it lists frequencies, their corresponding wavelengths, and names where applicable: intervals, but not functions on those intervals. Problem 9.23 reads, If you take the model in Ex. 4.1 at face value, what natural frequency do you get? Put in the actual numbers. Where in the electromagnetic spectrum does this lie, assuming the radius of the atom is 0.5 Å? The term "electromagnetic spectrum" is being used to refer to the interval, not any function on it. The Feynman Lectures on Physics use the term as follows: The fact that we can see in a particular frequency range makes that part of the electromagnetic spectrum no more impressive than the other parts from a physicist’s standpoint, but from a human standpoint, of course, it is more interesting. And later: This is the first of a number of chapters on the subject of electromagnetic radiation. Light, with which we see, is only one small part of a vast spectrum of the same kind of thing, the various parts of this spectrum being distinguished by different values of a certain quantity which varies. XOR'easter (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * fgnievinski: agree with JBL and XOR'easter. The electromagnetic spectrum of some specific object, such as "the electromagnetic spectrum of the sun" would be the intensity plot vs freq or wavelength as you say, but "the electromagnetic spectrum" alone refers to the different types of radiation, or the frequency or wavelength limits. --ChetvornoTALK 22:42, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it's both. The two meanings are well captured in the Electropedia. (Context: that's an online glossary organized by the International Electrotechnical Commission, based on the International System of Quantities and other ISO standards and similar authoritative sources.) See:
 * "spectrum: representation of a real or complex quantity as a function of frequency."
 * "Note 1 to entry: Other quantities related to frequency are often used as variables, e.g. wavelength in vacuum or angular frequency."
 * "Note 2 to entry: The word 'spectrum' is also used to denote the frequency band where some phenomenon occurs, e.g. acoustic spectrum, visible spectrum."
 * Then are subclasses of spectrum (main connotation):
 * "power spectrum: the distribution as a function of frequency of the square of the amplitudes of the spectral components of a signal or noise."
 * "Note – The spectrum of an electromagnetic radiation, defined in chapter 845, can be considered as a power spectrum."
 * "amplitude spectrum: the distribution as a function of frequency of the amplitude of the spectral components of a signal or noise,"
 * "phase spectrum: the distribution as a function of frequency of the initial phases of the spectral components of a signal or noise." fgnievinski (talk) 04:22, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The "spectrum of an electromagnetic radiation" is not "the electromagnetic spectrum". It's the spectrum of a particular radiation source. The actually relevant part of the source you quote is that it agrees "spectrum" can mean "the frequency band where some phenomenon occurs" and uses "visible spectrum" as an example. The electromagnetic spectrum is a superset of the visible spectrum; i.e., it's a bigger frequency band. Not any function defined on that band. XOR'easter (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Physics articles should focus on the physical phenomenon, not on the mathematics we use to describe it. The electromagnetic spectrum is not a function—that is a mathematical concept, not a physical one. It's not the domain either. I would rephrase what JBL wrote above this way: "The electromagnetic spectrum is the full range of electromagnetic radiation, from the lowest-frequency radio waves to the highest-frequency gamma rays." That gets us in the mindset of physics from the start and focuses on the topic itself, leaving the distraction of frequency vs wavelength vs photon energy for a subsequent sentence.--Srleffler (talk) 04:51, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

 * My feeling is this lead sentence is not as good as the previously suggested ones. It uses the word 'frequency' without stating the relation of that to the subject; that the spectrum is a range of frequencies, and it uses 'radio waves' and 'gamma rays' as if the reader already knows what those are, that they are frequency bands in the electromagnetic spectrum.  For nontechnical readers we should just tell them these things: "The electromagnetic spectrum is the distribution of electromagnetic radiation according to frequency or wavelength" --ChetvornoTALK 07:42, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I like @Srleffler version, but I added "frequencies" per @Chetvorno's comment.
 * We can't introduce the entirety of electromagnetic theory in one sentence, so the non-technical reader will have to keep reading or decide they've had enough. Radio waves are commonly known; we could use "X-rays and gamma rays" for the high end since X-rays are also commonly known. Maybe "radio waves and microwaves" for the low end to be parallel. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The new version doesn't indicate that the list of types of electromagnetic waves is ordered by frequency, nor whether it proceeds from low to high or high to low frequency. Second, electromagnetic waves at the high energy end of the spectrum are usually not measured by frequency but by wavelength, so wavelength should be mentioned.  This is getting worse and worse.  Per BRD changed to my alternative lead which fixes these problems. --ChetvornoTALK 17:42, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The EM spectrum is not the full "range" or multitude of EM radiation. Actually, it's only the variation in a few key properties of EM radiation: frequency (or wavelength) and power (or amplitude), sometimes also phase offset. There are other properties of EM radiation which are not normally considered in the EM spectrum, such as polarization (or direction of oscillation), direction of arrival (or the corresponding angles), degree of coherence, etc. We should stick to the sources, especially secondary and tertiary sources, which give two clear meanings: EM spectral density and EM frequency domain. Admittedly, the latter is only useful when partitioned in frequency bands, otherwise the spectrum of any wave phenomena (EM, acoustic, water, etc.) is the trivial half-line. fgnievinski (talk) 03:50, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * fgnievinski: In case you didn't see it, I listed definitions above from 3 secondary or tertiary sources that say the electromagnetic spectrum is the range of frequencies or wavelengths. Here are some more:
 * "The electromagnetic spectrum categorizes electromagnetic waves according to frequency and wavelength." Tammaro, College Physics, p.677
 * "Electromagnetic spectrum: the range of wavelengths over which electromagnetic radiation extends." Jonathan Law, A Dictionary of Science
 * "Electromagnetic spectrum: the range of electromagnetic waves listed in order of increasing wavelength and named in segments according to their mode of generation" Chappie, Dictionary of Physics, p.74
 * "It is the frequency of an EM wave that determines its characteristics...The electromagnetic spectrum describes the types of electromagnetic waves observed at the specified frequencies and wavelengths" Fullerton, Guide to Regents Physics Essentials, p.219
 * --ChetvornoTALK 20:50, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Except for the second source, none of them imply EM spectrum equals a frequency or wavelength range (meaning interval, not width). Instead, they state frequency is the independent variable or domain over which EM radiation varies. EM spectrum is implied in the quoted sources as the variety of EM radiation or EM waves as a function of frequency or wavelength. That's still a qualitative notion of EM spectrum, because EM waves have many characteristics; whenever one needs to quantity the spectrum, a given property needs to be selected, most commonly the EM power and its variation with respect to frequency or wavelength. fgnievinski (talk) 03:39, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * "Spectrum" has multiple definitions. The topic of this article is or should be the physical but qualitative definition: it's the range of electromagnetic radiation, organized by wavelength or frequency. The topic is not simply EM power as a function of wavelength. That is a distinct definition of the term, covered at spectral power. The topic here is the EM radiation itself, not a single property of it. The definitions above by Tammaro, Chappie, and Fullerton agree with this. The definition by Law does not. The topic is not the range, it's not the power, it's the waves themselves.--Srleffler (talk) 08:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Exactly. That’s what I was trying to say. Agree 100%. Well put--ChetvornoTALK 17:56, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding We should stick to the sources, especially secondary and tertiary sources, which give two clear meanings: EM spectral density and EM frequency domain. Except that they don't. The sources give one clear meaning for "electromagnetic spectrum" in its own right, and other clear meanings for other uses of the word "spectrum". XOR'easter (talk) 15:44, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Reversed numbers?
Why didn't anyone notice the MIR and FIR values for Photon eV is reversed. Wrong numbers in the table. 65.36.54.181 (talk) 13:01, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * They do not look reversed to me.--Srleffler (talk) 06:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Use frequency in discussions of energy.
I just stumbled upon the UV section: lots of "short wavelength" discussion. I encourage editors to avoid using "wavelength" in any sentence here about energy. Energy is proportional to frequency. Using the inversely proportional wavelength is unnecessarily confusing and physically not helpful. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Electromagnetic spectrum


text:
Talk:Empire

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Knagayam.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Timeline?
A timeline is mentioned, specifically as a chart, but none is present. Before I delete the section about a non-existent timeline, I want to confirm that I'm not missing something here. Trumblej1986 (talk) 22:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

 * There is a section Empire. Perhaps the mention could be improved to link t this.  --A D Monroe III(talk)  23:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

 * Yes, there is a section, but there is no chart or actual timeline, at least that I can see. That's why I'm asking about removing the section. Trumblej1986 (talk) 23:13, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

 * The section begins with The chart below shows..., with a very large timeline chart following. Are you not seeing it?  --A D Monroe III(talk)  02:15, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Lead section needs rewriting
The lead section contains grammar errors, is poorly written, and the use of quotes is, in my opinion, unnecessary. 2407:7000:9F9D:5100:9DA6:9D49:B63F:77F8 (talk) 00:36, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:42, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

POV for United States
The section for the U.S. is a one-sided argument and not neutral. There's too much time devoted to arguing why the U.S. wasn't founded on imperialist principles, which isn't necessary, and there lacks any argument that says the U.S. isn't an empire — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kristorin (talk • contribs) 08:11, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

 * Agreed. Fritrum (talk) 03:59, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

 * , I actually found the current version biased in the other direction, solely arguing for the view that Americans have 'ideological blinders' on that their nation is an empire & don't know it. Regardless though, there are a few things that can certainly be cleaned up:

1) remove the 'according to whom?' note re: American Imperialism being controversial... the provided citations later in the same section from Ludden & Miller should be more than sufficient to satisfy proof of there being a controversy. Can people PLEASE stop begging for citations on a sentence by sentence basis? It's stupid & asinine. 2) I'm also removing the adjective 'false' from the phrase 'Even so, the false ideology that the US was founded on Anti-Imperialist...', not only is this CLEARLY indicative of bias against the cogent ideology, but it doesn't even make logical sense, an ideology can't be false, people either believe in it or they don't. An ideology based on mumbo jumbo is still an ideology, & Wiki policy clearly constrains that kind of flowery addition outside of direct quotes - which this is not. The section still needs a rewrite, more clearly attributing the 1st few sentences to Ludden as opposed to just-so facts, but baby steps. Changes to follow this talk post :p 74.134.30.21 (talk) 04:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

 * I didn't see anything in the Ludden source justifying the idea that the "American Empire" characterization is controversial, so I that bit.      —  Freoh 13:09, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Merge chapters
I would merge chapters "Transition from empire" and "Fall of empires" and also move passage on the US from "Modern history" to chapter "United States" in "Contemporary usage." --Maxaxa (talk) 04:43, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

 * Makes sense to me. Freoh (talk) 12:46, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Done.--Maxaxa (talk) 00:30, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Recent Edit
Hi all,

Recently added some cleanup tags and did some minor edits. The neutral point of view (in favor of the US being an empire) and tone (too flowery and scholarly) of the article are questionable. I tried to at least do some minor edits to make the article sound less scholarly, but wouldn't know where to start on making it more neutral.

JuxtaposedJacob (talk) 18:44, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Empire


text:
Émile Baudot

Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot (11 September 1845 – 28 March 1903), French telegraph engineer and inventor of the first means of digital communication Baudot code, was one of the pioneers of telecommunications. He invented a multiplexed printing telegraph system that used his code and allowed multiple transmissions over a single line. The baud unit was named after him.

Early life
Baudot was born in Magneux, Haute-Marne, France, the son of farmer Pierre Emile Baudot, who later became the mayor of Magneux. His only formal education was at his local primary school, after which he carried out agricultural work on his father's farm before joining the French Post & Telegraph Administration as an apprentice operator in 1869.

The telegraph service trained him in the Morse telegraph and also sent him on a four-month course of instruction on the Hughes printing telegraph system, which was later to inspire his own system.

After serving briefly during the Franco-Prussian War, he returned to civilian duties in Paris in 1872.

Telegraphy
The Telegraph Service encouraged Baudot to develop—on his own time—a system for time-multiplexing several telegraph messages using Hughes teleprinters. He realised that with most printing telegraphs of the period the line is idle for most of the time, apart from the brief intervals when a character is transmitted. Baudot devised one of the first applications of time-division multiplexing in telegraphy. Using synchronized clockwork-powered switches at the transmitting and receiving ends, he was able to transmit five messages simultaneously; the system was officially adopted by the French Post & Telegraph Administration five years later.

Baudot invented his telegraph code in 1870 and patented it in 1874. It was a 5-bit code, with equal on and off intervals, which allowed telegraph transmission of the Roman alphabet, punctuation and control signals. By 1874 or 1875 (various sources give both dates) he had also perfected the electromechanical hardware to transmit his code. His inventions were based on the printing mechanism from Hughes' instrument, a distributor invented by Bernard Meyer in 1871, and the five-unit code devised by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber. Baudot combined these, together with original ideas of his own, to produce a complete multiplex system.

Baudot system
On 17 June 1874 Baudot patented his first printing telegraph (Patent no. 103,898 "Système de télégraphie rapide"), in which the signals were translated automatically into typographic characters. Baudot's hardware had three main parts: the keyboard, the distributor, and a paper tape.

Each operator - there were as many as four - was allocated a single sector. The keyboard had just five piano type keys, operated with two fingers of the left hand and three fingers of the right hand. The five unit code was designed to be easy to remember. Once the keys had been pressed they were locked down until the contacts again passed over the sector connected to that particular keyboard, when the keyboard was unlocked ready for the next character to be entered, with an audible click (known as the "cadence signal") to warn the operator. Operators had to maintain a steady rhythm, and the usual speed of operation was 30 words per minute.

The receiver was also connected to the distributor. The signals from the telegraph line were temporarily stored on a set of five electromagnets, before being decoded to print the corresponding character on paper tape.

Accurate operation of this system depended on the distributor at the transmitting end keeping in synchronization with the one at the receiving end and operators only sending characters when the contacts passed over their allocated sector. This could be achieved at a speed of 30 wpm by strictly observing the "cadence" of rhythm of the system when the distributor gave the operator the use of the line.

First use
The Baudot system was accepted by the French Telegraph Administration in 1875, with the first online tests of his system occurring between Paris and Bordeaux on 12 November 1877. At the end of 1877, the Paris-Rome line, which was about 1700 km, began operating a duplex Baudot.

The Baudot apparatus was shown at the Paris Exposition Universelle (1878) and won him the Exposition's gold medal, as well as bringing his system to worldwide notice.

Later career
After the first success of his system, Baudot was promoted to Controller in 1880, and was named Inspector-Engineer in 1882.

In July 1887 he conducted successful tests on the Atlantic telegraph cable between Weston-super-Mare and Waterville, Nova Scotia operated by the Commercial Company, with a double Baudot installed in duplex, the Baudot transmitters and receivers substituted for the recorder.

On 8 August 1890 he established communications between Paris, Vannes, and Lorient over a single wire. On 3 January 1894 he installed a triplex apparatus on the telegraph between Paris and Bordeaux that had previously been operating with some difficulty on the Hughes telegraph system. On 27 April 1894 he established communications between the Paris stock exchange and the Milan stock exchange, again over a single wire, using his new invention, the retransmitter.

In 1897 the Baudot system was improved by switching to punched tape, which was prepared offline like the Morse tape used with the Wheatstone and Creed systems. A tape reader, controlled by the Baudot distributor, then replaced the manual keyboard. The tape had five rows of holes for the code, with a sixth row of smaller holes for transporting the tape through the reader mechanism. Baudot's code was later standardised as International Telegraph Alphabet Number One.

Baudot received little help from the French Telegraph Administration for his system, and often had to fund his own research, even having to sell the gold medal awarded by the 1878 Exposition Universelle in 1880.

The Baudot telegraph system was employed progressively in France, and then was adopted in other countries, Italy being the first to introduce it, in its inland service, in 1887. The Netherlands followed in 1895, Switzerland in 1896, and Austria and Brazil in 1897. The British Post Office adopted it for a simplex circuit between London and Paris during 1897, then used it for more general purposes from 1898. In 1900 it was adopted by Germany, by Russia in 1904, the British West Indies in 1905, Spain in 1906, Belgium in 1909, Argentina in 1912, and Romania in 1913.

Final years
Baudot married Marie Josephine Adelaide Langrognet on 15 January 1890. She died only three months later, on 9 April 1890.

Soon after starting work with the telegraph service, Baudot began to suffer physical discomfort and was frequently absent from work for this reason, for as long as a month on one occasion. His condition affected him for the rest of his life, until he died on 28 March 1903, at Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, at the age of 57.

Mimault patent suit
In 1874, French telegraph operator Louis Victor Mimault patented a telegraph system using five separate lines to transmit. After his patent was rejected by the Telegraph Administration, Mimault modified his device to incorporate features from the Meyer telegraph and obtained a new patent which was also rejected. In the meantime, Baudot had patented his prototype telegraph a few weeks earlier.

Mimault claimed priority of invention over Baudot and brought a patent suit against him in 1877. The Tribunal Civil de la Seine, which reviewed testimony from three experts unconnected with the Telegraph Administration, found in favor of Mimault and accorded him priority of invention of the Baudot code and ruled that Baudot's patents were simply improvements of Mimault's. Neither inventor was satisfied with this judgment, which was eventually rescinded with Mimault being ordered to pay all legal costs.

Mimault became unnerved because of the decision, and after an incident where he shot at and wounded two students of the École Polytechnique (charges for which were dropped), he demanded a special act to prolong the duration of his patents, 100,000 Francs, and election to the Légion d'honneur. A commission directed by Jules Raynaud (head of telegraph research) rejected his demands. Upon hearing the decision, Mimault shot and killed Raynaud, and was sentenced to 10 years of forced labour and 20 years of exile.

Honors

 * 1881 - Diploma of Honor from the International Electrical Exposition.
 * 1882 - Gold medal from the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale (SEIN)
 * 1889 - Ampere Medal from SEIN
 * 1878 - Knight's Cross of the Légion d'honneur
 * 1882 - Knight of the Order of Leopold
 * 1884 - Knight of the Order of Franz Joseph of Austria.
 * 1891 - Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy
 * 1898 - Promoted to Officier of the Légion d'honneur
 * 1900 - Knight of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Italy)
 * 1901 - Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy
 * A street in the 17th arrondissement of Paris was named after Baudot, but it no longer exists.
 * In 1926 the International Telegraph Communications Advisory Committee of the International Telecommunication Union met in Berlin and immortalized Baudot by designating the baud - shortened from his name - as the unit of telegraph transmission speed.
 * In 1949, the French Post Office issued a series of stamps with his portrait. By mistake, the year of his birth was given as 1848, not the correct 1845. The stamp was corrected and reprinted with a different color. However, the erroneous stamps still circulate among philatelists and have greater value than the corrected stamps.

title: Émile Baudot