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Cogito, ergo sum

The Latin cogito, ergo sum, usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French as je pense, donc je suis in his 1637 Discourse on the Method, so as to reach a wider audience than Latin would have allowed. It later appeared in Latin in his Principles of Philosophy, and a similar phrase also featured prominently in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The dictum is also sometimes referred to as the cogito. As Descartes explained in a margin note, "we cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt." In the posthumously published The Search for Truth by Natural Light, he expressed this insight as dubito, ergo sum, vel, quod idem est, cogito, ergo sum ("I doubt, therefore I am — or what is the same — I think, therefore I am"). Antoine Léonard Thomas, in a 1765 essay in honor of Descartes presented it as dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am").

Descartes's statement became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it purported to provide a certain foundation for knowledge in the face of radical doubt. While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception, or mistake, Descartes asserted that the very act of doubting one's own existence served—at minimum—as proof of the reality of one's own mind; there must be a thinking entity—in this case the self—for there to be a thought.

One critique of the dictum, first suggested by Pierre Gassendi, is that it presupposes that there is an "I" which must be doing the thinking. According to this line of criticism, the most that Descartes was entitled to say was that "thinking is occurring", not that "I am thinking".

In Descartes's writings
Descartes first wrote the phrase in French in his 1637 Discourse on the Method. He referred to it in Latin without explicitly stating the familiar form of the phrase in his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy. The earliest written record of the phrase in Latin is in his 1644 Principles of Philosophy, where, in a margin note (see below), he provides a clear explanation of his intent: "[W]e cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt". Fuller forms of the phrase are attributable to other authors.

Discourse on the Method
The phrase first appeared (in French) in Descartes's 1637 Discourse on the Method in the first paragraph of its fourth part:

Meditations on First Philosophy
In 1641, Descartes published (in Latin) Meditations on first philosophy in which he referred to the proposition, though not explicitly as "cogito, ergo sum" in Meditation II:

Principles of Philosophy
In 1644, Descartes published (in Latin) his Principles of Philosophy where the phrase "ego cogito, ergo sum" appears in Part 1, article 7:

Descartes's margin note for the above paragraph is:

The Search for Truth by Natural Light
Descartes, in a lesser-known posthumously published work dated as written ca. 1647 and titled La Recherche de la Vérité par La Lumiere Naturale (The Search for Truth by Natural Light), provides his only known phrasing of the cogito as cogito, ergo sum and admits that his insight is also expressible as dubito, ergo sum:

Other forms
The proposition is sometimes given as dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum. This form was penned by the French literary critic, Antoine Léonard Thomas, in an award-winning 1765 essay in praise of Descartes, where it appeared as "Puisque je doute, je pense; puisque je pense, j'existe" ('Since I doubt, I think; since I think, I exist'). With rearrangement and compaction, the passage translates to "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am," or in Latin, "dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum." This aptly captures Descartes's intent as expressed in his posthumously published La Recherche de la Vérité par La Lumiere Naturale as noted above: I doubt, therefore I am — or what is the same — I think, therefore I am.

A further expansion, dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum—res cogitans ("…—a thinking thing") extends the cogito with Descartes's statement in the subsequent Meditation, "Ego sum res cogitans, id est dubitans, affirmans, negans, pauca intelligens, multa ignorans, volens, nolens, imaginans etiam et sentiens…" ("I am a thinking [conscious] thing, that is, a being who doubts, affirms, denies, knows a few objects, and is ignorant of many,-- who loves, hates, wills, refuses, who imagines likewise, and perceives"). This has been referred to as "the expanded cogito."

"I am thinking" vs. "I think"
While the Latin cōgitō may be translated rather easily as "I think/ponder/visualize", je pense does not indicate whether the verb form corresponds to the English simple present or progressive aspect. Technically speaking, the French lemma pense by itself is actually the result of numerous different conjugations of the verb penser (to think) – it could mean "I think... (something)"/"He thinks... (something)", "I think."/"He thinks.", or even "You (must) think... (something).", thereby necessitating the use of the wider context, or a pronoun, to understand the meaning. In the case of je pense, a pronoun is already included, je or "I", but this still leaves the question of whether "I think..." or "I think." is intended. Therefore, translation needs a larger context to determine aspect.

Following John Lyons (1982), Vladimir Žegarac notes, "The temptation to use the simple present is said to arise from the lack of progressive forms in Latin and French, and from a misinterpretation of the meaning of cogito as habitual or generic" (cf. gnomic aspect). Also following Lyons, Ann Banfield writes, "In order for the statement on which Descartes's argument depends to represent certain knowledge,… its tense must be a true present—in English, a progressive,… not as 'I think' but as 'I am thinking, in conformity with the general translation of the Latin or French present tense in such nongeneric, nonstative contexts." Or in the words of Simon Blackburn, "Descartes's premise is not 'I think' in the sense of 'I ski', which can be true even if you are not at the moment skiing. It is supposed to be parallel to 'I am skiing'."

The similar translation "I am thinking, therefore I exist" of Descartes's correspondence in French ("je pense, donc je suis") appears in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes by Cottingham et al. (1988).

The earliest known translation as "I am thinking, therefore I am" is from 1872 by Charles Porterfield Krauth.

Fumitaka Suzuki writes "Taking consideration of Cartesian theory of continuous creation, which theory was developed especially in the Meditations and in the Principles, we would assure that 'I am thinking, therefore I am/exist' is the most appropriate English translation of 'ego cogito, ergo sum'."

"I exist" vs. "I am"
Alexis Deodato S. Itao notes that cogito, ergo sum is "literally 'I think, therefore I am'." Others differ: 1) "[A] precise English translation will read as 'I am thinking, therefore I exist'.; and 2) "[S]ince Descartes ... emphasized that existence is such an important 'notion,' a better translation is 'I am thinking, therefore I exist.'"

Punctuation
Descartes wrote this phrase as such only once, in the posthumously published lesser-known work noted above, The Search for Truth by Natural Light. It appeared there mid-sentence, uncapitalized, and with a comma. (Commas were not used in Classical Latin but were a regular feature of scholastic Latin, the Latin Descartes "had learned in a Jesuit college at La Flèche." ) Most modern reference works show it with a comma, but it is often presented without a comma in academic work and in popular usage. In Descartes's Principia Philosophiae, the proposition appears as ego cogito, ergo sum.

Interpretation
As put succinctly by Krauth (1872), "That cannot doubt which does not think, and that cannot think which does not exist. I doubt, I think, I exist."

The phrase cogito, ergo sum is not used in Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy but the term "the cogito" is used to refer to an argument from it. In the Meditations, Descartes phrases the conclusion of the argument as "that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind" (Meditation II). George Henry Lewes says Descartes "has told us that [his objective] was to find a starting point from which to reason—to find an irreversible certainty. And where did he find this? In his own consciousness. Doubt as I may, I cannot doubt of my own existence, because my very doubts reveal to me a something which doubts. You may call this an assumption, if you will; I point out the fact as one above and beyond all logic; which logic can neither prove nor disprove; but which must always remain an irreversible certainty, and as such a fitting basis of philosophy."

At the beginning of the second meditation, having reached what he considers to be the ultimate level of doubt—his argument from the existence of a deceiving god—Descartes examines his beliefs to see if any have survived the doubt. In his belief in his own existence, he finds that it is impossible to doubt that he exists. Even if there were a deceiving god (or an evil demon), one's belief in their own existence would be secure, for there is no way one could be deceived unless one existed in order to be deceived.

"But I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I, too, do not exist? No. If I convinced myself of something [or thought anything at all], then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who deliberately and constantly deceives me. In that case, I, too, undoubtedly exist, if he deceives me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I think that I am something.  So, after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind. (AT VII 25; CSM II 16–17)"

There are three important notes to keep in mind here. First, he claims only the certainty of his own existence from the first-person point of view — he has not proved the existence of other minds at this point. This is something that has to be thought through by each of us for ourselves, as we follow the course of the meditations. Second, he does not say that his existence is necessary; he says that if he thinks, then necessarily he exists (see the instantiation principle). Third, this proposition "I am, I exist" is held true not based on a deduction (as mentioned above) or on empirical induction but on the clarity and self-evidence of the proposition. Descartes does not use this first certainty, the cogito, as a foundation upon which to build further knowledge; rather, it is the firm ground upon which he can stand as he works to discover further truths. As he puts it:

"Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable. (AT VII 24; CSM II 16)"

According to many Descartes specialists, including Étienne Gilson, the goal of Descartes in establishing this first truth is to demonstrate the capacity of his criterion — the immediate clarity and distinctiveness of self-evident propositions — to establish true and justified propositions despite having adopted a method of generalized doubt. As a consequence of this demonstration, Descartes considers science and mathematics to be justified to the extent that their proposals are established on a similarly immediate clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence that presents itself to the mind. The originality of Descartes's thinking, therefore, is not so much in expressing the cogito—a feat accomplished by other predecessors, as we shall see—but on using the cogito as demonstrating the most fundamental epistemological principle, that science and mathematics are justified by relying on clarity, distinctiveness, and self-evidence. Baruch Spinoza in "Principia philosophiae cartesianae" at its Prolegomenon identified "cogito ergo sum" the "ego sum cogitans" (I am a thinking being) as the thinking substance with his ontological interpretation.

Predecessors
Although the idea expressed in cogito, ergo sum is widely attributed to Descartes, he was not the first to mention it. Plato spoke about the "knowledge of knowledge" (Greek: νόησις νοήσεως, nóesis noéseos) and Aristotle explains the idea in full length: "But if life itself is good and pleasant…and if one who sees is conscious that he sees, one who hears that he hears, one who walks that he walks and similarly for all the other human activities there is a faculty that is conscious of their exercise, so that whenever we perceive, we are conscious that we perceive, and whenever we think, we are conscious that we think, and to be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious that we exist... (Nicomachean Ethics, 1170a 25 ff.)" The Cartesian statement was interpreted to be an Aristotelian syllogism where the premise that all thinkers are also beings is not made explicit.

In the late sixth or early fifth century BC, Parmenides is quoted as saying "For to be aware and to be are the same". (Fragment B3)

In the early fifth century AD, Augustine of Hippo in De Civitate Dei (book XI, 26) affirmed his certain knowledge of his own existence, and added: "So far as these truths are concerned, I do not at all fear the arguments of the Academics when they say, What if you are mistaken? For if I am mistaken, I exist." This formulation (si fallor, sum) is sometimes called the Augustinian cogito. In 1640, Descartes wrote to thank Andreas Colvius (a friend of Descartes's mentor, Isaac Beeckman) for drawing his attention to Augustine:

"I am obliged to you for drawing my attention to the passage of St Augustine relevant to my I am thinking, therefore I exist. I went today to the library of this town to read it, and I do indeed find that he does use it to prove the certainty of our existence. He goes on to show that there is a certain likeness of the Trinity in us, in that we exist, we know that we exist, and we love the existence and the knowledge we have. I, on the other hand, use the argument to show that this I which is thinking is an immaterial substance with no bodily element. These are two very different things. In itself it is such a simple and natural thing to infer that one exists from the fact that one is doubting that it could have occurred to any writer. But I am very glad to find myself in agreement with St Augustine, if only to hush the little minds who have tried to find fault with the principle."

Another predecessor was Avicenna's "Floating Man" thought experiment on human self-awareness and self-consciousness.

The 8th century Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara wrote, in a similar fashion, that no one thinks 'I am not', arguing that one's existence cannot be doubted, as there must be someone there to doubt.

Spanish philosopher Gómez Pereira in his 1554 work De Inmortalitate Animae, wrote "nosco me aliquid noscere, & quidquid noscit, est, ergo ego sum" ('I know that I know something, anyone who knows is, therefore I am').

Use of "I"
In Descartes, The Project of Pure Enquiry, Bernard Williams provides a history and full evaluation of this issue. The first to raise the "I" problem was Pierre Gassendi, who in his Disquisitio Metaphysica, as noted by Saul Fisher "points out that recognition that one has a set of thoughts does not imply that one is a particular thinker or another. …[T]he only claim that is indubitable here is the agent-independent claim that there is cognitive activity present."

The objection, as presented by Georg Lichtenberg, is that rather than supposing an entity that is thinking, Descartes should have said: "thinking is occurring." That is, whatever the force of the cogito, Descartes draws too much from it; the existence of a thinking thing, the reference of the "I," is more than the cogito can justify. Friedrich Nietzsche criticized the phrase in that it presupposes that there is an "I", that there is such an activity as "thinking", and that "I" know what "thinking" is. He suggested a more appropriate phrase would be "it thinks" wherein the "it" could be an impersonal subject as in the sentence "It is raining."

Kierkegaard
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard calls the phrase a tautology in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript. He argues that the cogito already presupposes the existence of "I", and therefore concluding with existence is logically trivial. Kierkegaard's argument can be made clearer if one extracts the premise "I think" into the premises "'x' thinks" and "I am that 'x'", where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing.

Here, the cogito has already assumed the "I"'s existence as that which thinks. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks. As Kierkegaard argues, the proper logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or presupposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking.

Williams
Bernard Williams claims that what we are dealing with when we talk of thought, or when we say "I am thinking," is something conceivable from a third-person perspective—namely objective "thought-events" in the former case, and an objective thinker in the latter. He argues, first, that it is impossible to make sense of "there is thinking" without relativizing it to something. However, this something cannot be Cartesian egos, because it is impossible to differentiate objectively between things just on the basis of the pure content of consciousness. The obvious problem is that, through introspection, or our experience of consciousness, we have no way of moving to conclude the existence of any third-personal fact, to conceive of which would require something above and beyond just the purely subjective contents of the mind.

Heidegger
As a critic of Cartesian subjectivity, Heidegger sought to ground human subjectivity in death as that certainty which individualizes and authenticates our being. As he wrote in 1925 in History of the Concept of Time: "This certainty, that 'I myself am in that I will die,' is the basic certainty of Dasein itself. It is a genuine statement of Dasein, while cogito sum is only the semblance of such a statement. If such pointed formulations mean anything at all, then the appropriate statement pertaining to Dasein in its being would have to be sum moribundus [I am in dying], moribundus not as someone gravely ill or wounded, but insofar as I am, I am moribundus. The MORIBUNDUS first gives the SUM its sense."

John Macmurray
The Scottish philosopher John Macmurray rejects the cogito outright in order to place action at the center of a philosophical system he entitles the Form of the Personal. "We must reject this, both as standpoint and as method. If this be philosophy, then philosophy is a bubble floating in an atmosphere of unreality." The reliance on thought creates an irreconcilable dualism between thought and action in which the unity of experience is lost, thus dissolving the integrity of our selves, and destroying any connection with reality. In order to formulate a more adequate cogito, Macmurray proposes the substitution of "I do" for "I think," ultimately leading to a belief in God as an agent to whom all persons stand in relation.

In popular culture
In the short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison, Gorrister, a former Nazi scientist, when asked what 'AM' means, says "At first it meant Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed sentience and linked itself up and they called it an Aggressive Menace, but by then it was too late, and finally called itself AM, emerging intelligence, and what it meant was I am ... cogito ergo sum ... I think, therefore I am."

In the Japanese animated television series, Ergo Proxy, a computer virus that effects the autoreivs, the series' version of robots, known as the Cogito virus begins infecting the autoreiv's, which is named such due to the fact that it makes the infected conscious, and experience emotions as a human would.

In Monty Python's Bruces' Philosophers Song, one of the lyrics jokingly quotes Descarte's axiom as "I drink therefore I am."

In the episode "Work Experience" of The Office, David Brent says, "We are the most efficient branch, cogito ergo sum, we'll be fine."

In the video game Honkai: Star Rail, Dr. Ratio (real name Veritas Ratio), a playable character and, according to in-game lore, a philosopher, has a skill, named "Cogito, Ergo Sum".

title: Cogito, ergo sum


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Carl Barks

Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck. He worked anonymously until late in his career; fans dubbed him The Duck Man and The Good Duck Artist. In 1987, Barks was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Barks worked for the Disney Studio and Western Publishing where he created Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), The Junior Woodchucks (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), Cornelius Coot (1952), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), John D. Rockerduck (1961) and Magica De Spell (1961).

He has been named by animation historian Leonard Maltin as "the most popular and widely read artist-writer in the world". Will Eisner called him "the Hans Christian Andersen of comic books." Beginning especially in the 1980s, Barks' artistic contributions would be a primary source for animated adaptations such as DuckTales and its 2017 remake.

Biography
Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon, to William Barks and his wife, Arminta Johnson. He had an older brother named Clyde. His paternal grandparents were David Barks and his wife Ruth Shrum. Barks' maternal grandparents were Carl Johnson and his wife, Suzanna Massey, but little else is known about his ancestors. Barks was the descendant of Jacob Barks, who came to Missouri from North Carolina c. 1800. They lived in Marble Hill in Bollinger County. Jacob Barks' son Isaac was the father of the David Barks noted above.

Childhood
According to Barks's description of his childhood, he was a rather lonely child. His parents owned 1 mi2 of land that served as their farm. The nearest neighbor lived 1/2 mi away, but he was more an acquaintance to Barks's parents than a friend. The closest school was about 2 mi away and Barks had to walk that distance every day. The rural area had few children, though, and Barks later remembered that his school had only about eight or ten students including him. He had high praise for the quality of the education he received in that small school. "Schools were good in those days", he used to say. The lessons lasted from nine o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon and then he had to return to the farm. There he remembered not having anybody to talk to, as his parents were busy and he had little in common with his brother.

In 1908, William Barks (in an attempt to increase the family income) moved with his family to Midland, Oregon, some miles north of Merrill, to be closer to the new railway lines. He established a new stock-breeding farm and sold his produce to the local slaughterhouses.

Nine-year-old Clyde and seven-year-old Carl worked long hours there. But Carl later remembered that the crowd which gathered at Midland's market place made a strong impression on him. This was expected, as he was not used to crowds up until then. According to Barks, his attention was mostly drawn to the cowboys that frequented the market with their revolvers, strange nicknames for each other and sense of humor.

By 1911, they had been successful enough to move to Santa Rosa, California. There they started cultivating vegetables and set up some orchards. Unfortunately, the profits were not as high as William expected and they started having financial difficulties. William's anxiety over them was probably what caused his first nervous breakdown.

As soon as William recovered, he made the decision to move back to Merrill. The year was 1913, and Barks was already 12 years old; but, due to the constant moving, he had not yet managed to complete grade school. He resumed his education at this point and finally managed to graduate in 1916.

1916 served as a turning point in Barks's life for various reasons. First, Arminta, his mother, died in this year. Second, his hearing problems, which had already appeared earlier, had at the time become severe enough for him to have difficulties listening to his teachers talking. His hearing would continue to get worse later, but at that point he had not yet acquired a hearing aid. Later in life, he couldn't do without one. Third, the closest high school to their farm was 5 mi away and even if he did enroll in it, his bad hearing was likely to contribute to his learning problems. He had to decide to stop his school education, much to his disappointment.

From job to job
Barks started taking various jobs but had little success in such occupations as a farmer, woodcutter, turner, mule driver, cowboy and printer. From his jobs he learned, he later averred, how eccentric, stubborn and unpredictable men, animals and machines can be. At the same time he interacted with colleagues, fellow breadwinners who had satirical disposition towards even their worst troubles. Barks later declared that he was sure that if not for a little humor in their troubled lives, they would certainly go insane. It was an attitude towards life that Barks would adopt. Later he would say it was natural for him to satirize the secret yearnings and desires, the pompous style and the disappointments of his characters. According to Barks, this period of his life would later influence his best known fictional characters: Walt Disney's Donald Duck and his own Scrooge McDuck.

Donald's drifting from job to job was reportedly inspired by Barks's own experiences. So was his usual lack of success. And even in those that he was successful this would be temporary, just until a mistake or chance event caused another failure, another disappointment for the frustrated duck. Barks also reported that this was another thing he was familiar with.

Scrooge's main difference to Donald, according to Barks, was that he too had faced the same difficulties in his past but through intelligence, determination and hard work, he was able to overcome them. Or, as Scrooge himself would say to Huey, Dewey, and Louie: by being "tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties." In Barks's stories Scrooge would work to solve his many problems, even though the stories would often point out that his constant efforts seemed futile at the end.

Through both characters Barks would often exhibit his rather sarcastic sense of humor. It seems that this difficult period for the artist helped shape many of his later views in life that were expressed through his characters.

Professional artist
At the same time Barks had started thinking about turning a hobby that he always enjoyed into a profession: that of drawing. Since his early childhood he spent his free time by drawing on any material he could find. He had attempted to improve his style by copying the drawings of his favorite comic strip artists from the newspapers where he could find them. As he later said, he wanted to create his own facial expressions, figures and comical situations in his drawings but wanted to study the master comic artists' use of the pen and their use of color and shading.

Among his early favorites were Winsor McCay (mostly known for Little Nemo) and Frederick Burr Opper (mostly known for Happy Hooligan) but he would later study any style that managed to draw his attention.

At age 16, he was mostly self-taught but at this point he decided to take some lessons through correspondence. He only followed the first four lessons and then had to stop because his working left him with little free time. But as he later said, the lessons proved very useful in improving his style.

By December 1918, he left his father's home to attempt to find a job in San Francisco, California. He worked for a while in a small publishing house while attempting to sell his drawings to newspapers and other printed material with little success.

First and second marriages
While he continued drifting through various jobs, he met Pearl Turner (1904–1987). In 1921 they married and had two daughters:
 * Peggy Barks (1923–1963)
 * Dorothy Barks (1924–2014)

In 1923 he returned to his paternal farm in Merrill in an attempt to return to the life of a farmer, but that ended soon. He continued searching for a job while attempting to sell his drawings. He soon managed to sell some of them to Judge magazine and then started having success submitting to the Minneapolis-based Calgary Eye-Opener, a racy men's cartoon magazine of the era. He was eventually hired as editor and scripted and drew most of the contents while continuing to sell occasional work to other magazines. His salary of $90 per month was considered respectable enough for the time. A facsimile of one of the racy magazines he did cartoons for in this period, Coo Coo #1, was published by Hamilton Comics in 1997.

Meanwhile, he had his first divorce. He and Pearl were separated in 1929 and divorced in 1930. After he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Calgary-Eye-Opener had its offices he met Clara Balken, who in 1938 became his second wife.

Disney
In November 1935, when he learned that Walt Disney was seeking more artists for his studio, Barks decided to apply. He was approved for a try-out which entailed a move to Los Angeles, California. He was one of two in his class of trainees who was hired. His starting salary was 20 dollars a week. He started at Disney Studios in 1935, more than a year after the debut of Donald Duck on June 9, 1934, in the short animated film The Wise Little Hen.

Barks initially worked as an inbetweener. This involved being teamed and supervised by one of the head animators who did the key poses of character action (often known as extremes) for which the inbetweeners did the drawings between the extremes to create the illusion of movement. While an inbetweener, Barks submitted gag ideas for cartoon story lines being developed and showed such a knack for creating comical situations that by 1937 he was transferred to the story department. His first story sale was the climax of Modern Inventions, for a sequence where a robot barber chair gives Donald Duck a haircut on his bottom.

In 1937, when Donald Duck became the star of his own series of cartoons instead of co-starring with Mickey Mouse and Goofy as previously, a new unit of storymen and animators was created devoted solely to this series. Though he originally just contributed gag ideas to some duck cartoons by 1937 Barks was (principally with partner Jack Hannah) originating story ideas that were storyboarded and (if approved by Walt) put into production. He collaborated on such cartoons as Donald's Nephews (1938), Donald's Cousin Gus (1939), Mr. Duck Steps Out (1940), Timber (1941), The Vanishing Private (1942) and The Plastics Inventor (1944).

The Good Duck Artist
Unhappy at the emerging wartime working conditions at Disney, and bothered by ongoing sinus problems caused by the studio's air conditioning, Barks quit in 1942. Shortly before quitting, he moonlighted as a comic book artist, contributing half the artwork for a one-shot comic book (the other half of the art being done by story partner Jack Hannah) titled Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. This 64-page story was adapted by Donald Duck comic strip writer Bob Karp from an unproduced feature, and published in October 1942 in Dell Comics Four Color Comics #9. It was the first Donald Duck story originally produced for an American comic book and also the first involving Donald and his nephews in a treasure hunting expedition, in this case for the treasure of Henry Morgan. Barks would later use the treasure hunting theme in many of his stories. This actually was not his first work in comics, as earlier the same year Barks along with Hannah and fellow storyman Nick George scripted Pluto Saves the Ship, which was among the first original Disney comic book stories published in the United States.

After quitting the Disney Studio, Barks relocated to the Hemet/San Jacinto area in the semi-desert Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles where he hoped to start a chicken farm.

When asked which of his stories was a favorite in several interviews Barks cited the ten-pager in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #146 (Nov. 1952) in which Donald tells the story of the chain of unfortunate events that took place when he owned a chicken farm in a town which subsequently was renamed Omelet. Likely one reason it was a favorite is that it was inspired by Barks' own experiences in the poultry business.

But to earn a living in the meantime he inquired whether Western Publishing, which had published Pirate Gold, had any need for artists for Donald Duck comic book stories. He was immediately assigned to illustrate the script for a ten-page Donald Duck story for the monthly Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. At the publisher's invitation he revised the storyline and the improvements impressed the editor sufficiently to invite Barks to try his hand at contributing both the script and the artwork of his follow-up story. This set the pattern for Barks' career in that (with rare exceptions) he provided art (pencil, inking, solid blacks and lettering) and scripting for his stories.

The Victory Garden, that initial ten-page story published in April, 1943 was the first of about 500 stories featuring the Disney ducks Barks would produce for Western Publishing over the next three decades, well into his purported retirement. These can be mostly divided into three categories:
 * One-page gag stories like "Coffee for Two" and "Sorry to be Safe". These one-pagers were usually printed in black and white (or black and white and red) on the inside front, inside back, and outside back covers. These stories focused on one joke.
 * Ten-pagers, comedic Donald Duck stories that were the lead for the monthly flagship title Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, whose circulation peaked in the mid-1950s at 3 million copies sold a month.
 * Humorous adventure stories, usually 24-32 pages in length. In the 1940s these were one-shots in the Four Color series (issued 4–6 times a year) that starred Donald and his nephews. Starting in the early 1950s (and through his retirement) Barks' longer stories were almost exclusively published in Uncle Scrooge's own quarterly title.

Barks' artistic growth during his first decade in comics saw a transformation from rather rudimentary storytelling derived from his years as an animation artist and storyman into a virtuoso creator of complex narratives, notably in his longer adventure tales. According to critic Geoffrey Blum, the process that saw its beginnings in 1942's Pirate Gold first bore its full fruit in 1950's "Vacation Time", which he describes as "a visual primer for reading comics and understanding ... the form".

He surrounded Donald Duck and nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie with a cast of eccentric and colorful characters, such as the aforementioned Scrooge McDuck, the wealthiest duck in the world; Gladstone Gander, Donald's obscenely lucky cousin; inventor Gyro Gearloose; the persistent Beagle Boys; the sorceress Magica De Spell; Scrooge's rivals Flintheart Glomgold and John D. Rockerduck; Daisy's nieces April, May and June; Donald's neighbor Jones, and The Junior Woodchucks organization.

Barks's stories (whether humorous adventures or domestic comedies) often exhibited a wry, dark irony born of hard experience. The ten-pagers showcased Donald as everyman, struggling against the cruel bumps and bruises of everyday life with the nephews often acting as a Greek chorus commenting on the unfolding disasters Donald wrought upon himself. Yet while seemingly defeatist in tone, the humanity of the characters shines through in their persistence despite the obstacles. These stories found popularity not only among young children but adults as well. Despite the fact that Barks had done little traveling his adventure stories often had the duck clan globe-trotting to the most remote or spectacular of places. This allowed Barks to indulge his penchant for elaborate backgrounds that hinted at his thwarted ambitions of doing realistic stories in the vein of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant.

Third marriage
As Barks blossomed creatively, his marriage to Clara deteriorated. This is the period referred to in Barks' famed quip that he could feel his creative juices flowing while the whiskey bottles hurled at him by a tipsy Clara flew by his head. They were divorced in 1951, his second and last divorce. In this period Barks dabbled in fine art, exhibiting paintings at local art shows. It was at one of these in 1952 he became acquainted with fellow exhibitor Margaret Wynnfred Williams (1917 – March 10, 1993), nicknamed Garé. She was an accomplished landscape artist, some of whose paintings are in the collection of the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art. During her lifetime, and to this day, note cards of her paintings are available from Leanin' Tree. Her nickname appears as a store name in the story "Christmas in Duckburg", featured on page 1 of Walt Disney's Christmas Parade #9, published in 1958. Soon after they met, she started assisting Barks, handling the solid blacks and lettering, both of which he had found onerous. They married in 1954 and the union lasted until her death.

No longer anonymous
People who worked for Disney (and its comic book licensees) generally did so in relative anonymity; stories would only carry Walt Disney's name and (sometimes) a short identification number. Prior to 1960 Barks' identity remained a mystery to his readers. However, many readers recognized Barks' work and drawing style and began to call him the Good Duck Artist, a label that stuck even after his true identity was discovered by fans in the late 1950s. Malcolm Willits was the first person to learn Barks's name and address, but two brothers named John and Bill Spicer became the first fans to contact Barks after independently discovering the same information. After Barks received a 1960 visit from the Spicer brothers and Ron Leonard, he was no longer anonymous, as word of his identity spread through the emerging network of comic book fandom fanzines and conventions.

Later life

Carl Barks retired in 1966, but was persuaded by editor Chase Craig to continue to script stories for Western. The last new comic book story drawn by Carl Barks was a Daisy Duck tale ("The Dainty Daredevil") published in Walt Disney Comics Digest issue 5 (Nov. 1968). When bibliographer Michael Barrier asked Barks why he drew it, Barks' vague recollection was no one was available and he was asked to do it as a favor by Craig.

He wrote one Uncle Scrooge story, and three Donald Duck stories. From 1970 to 1974, Barks was the main writer for the Junior Woodchucks comic book (issues 6 through 25). The latter included environmental themes that Barks first explored in 1957 ["Land of the Pygmy Indians", Uncle Scrooge #18]. Barks also sold a few sketches to Western that were redrawn as covers. For a time the Barkses lived in Goleta, California, before returning to the Inland Empire by moving to Temecula.

To make a little extra money beyond what his pension and scripting earnings brought in, Barks started doing oil paintings to sell at the local art shows where he and Garé exhibited. Subjects included humorous depictions of life on the farm and portraits of Native American princesses. These skillfully rendered paintings encouraged fan Glenn Bray to ask Barks if he could commission a painting of the ducks ("A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By", taken from the cover of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #108 by Barks). This prompted Barks to contact George Sherman at Disney's Publications Department to request permission to produce and sell oil paintings of scenes from his stories. In July 1971 Barks was granted a royalty-free license by Disney. When word spread that Barks was taking commissions from those interested in purchasing an oil of the ducks, much to his astonishment the response quickly outstripped what he reasonably could produce in the next few years.

When Barks expressed dismay at coping with the backlog of orders he faced, fan/dealers Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran suggested Barks instead auction his paintings at conventions and via Cochran's catalog Graphic Gallery. By September 1974 Barks had discontinued taking commissions.

At Boston's NewCon convention, in October 1975, the first Carl Barks oil painting auctioned at a comic book convention ("She Was Spangled and Flashy") sold for $2,500. Subsequent offerings saw an escalation in the prices realized.

In 1976, Barks and Garé went to Boston for the NewCon show, their first comic convention appearance. Among the other attendees was famed Little Lulu comic book scripter John Stanley; despite both having worked for Western Publishing this was the first time they met. The highlight of the convention was the auctioning of what was to that time the largest duck oil painting Barks had done, "July Fourth in Duckburg", which included depictions of several prominent Barks fans and collectors. It sold for a then record high amount: $6,400.

Soon thereafter a fan sold unauthorized prints of some of the Scrooge McDuck paintings, leading Disney to withdraw permission for further paintings. To meet demand for new work Barks embarked on a series of paintings of non-Disney ducks and fantasy subjects such as Beowulf and Xerxes. These were eventually collected in the limited-edition book Animal Quackers.

As the result of efforts by Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz and screenwriter Edward Summer, Disney relented and, in 1981, allowed Barks to produce an oil painting called Wanderers of Wonderlands for a limited edition book entitled Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times. The book collected 11 classic Barks stories of Uncle Scrooge colored by artist Peter Ledger along with a new Scrooge story by Barks done storybook style with watercolor illustrations, "Go Slowly, Sands of Time". After being turned down by every major publisher in New York City, Kurtz and Summer published the book through Celestial Arts, which Kurtz acquired partly for this purpose. The book went on to become the model for virtually every important collection of comic book stories. It was the first book of its kind ever reviewed in Time magazine and subsequently in Newsweek, and the first book review in Time with large color illustrations.

In 1977 and 1982, Barks attended the San Diego Comic-Con. As with his appearance in Boston, the response to his presence was overwhelming, with long lines of fans waiting to meet Barks and get his autograph.

In 1981, Bruce Hamilton and Russ Cochran, two long-time Disney comics fans, decided to combine forces to bring greater recognition to the works of Carl Barks. Their first efforts went into establishing Another Rainbow Publishing, the banner under which they produced and issued the award-winning book The Fine Art of Walt Disney's Donald Duck by Carl Barks, a comprehensive collection of the Disney duck paintings of this artist and storyteller. Not long after, the company began producing fine art lithographs of many of these paintings, in strictly limited editions, all signed by Barks, who eventually produced many original works for the series.

In 1983, Barks relocated one last time to Grants Pass, Oregon, near where he grew up, partly at the urging of friend and Broom Hilda artist Russell Myers, who lived in the area. The move also was motivated, Barks stated in another famous quip, by Temecula being too close to Disneyland and thus facilitating a growing torrent of drop-in visits by vacationing fans. In this period Barks made only one public appearance, at a comic book shop near Grants Pass.

In 1983, Another Rainbow took up the daunting task of collecting the entire Disney comic book oeuvre of Barks—over 500 stories in all—in the ten-set, thirty-volume Carl Barks Library. These oversized hardbound volumes reproduced Barks' pages in pristine black and white line art, as close as possible to the way he would originally draw them, and included mountains of special features, articles, reminiscences, interviews, storyboards, critiques, and more than a few surprises. This monumental project was finally completed in mid-1990.

In 1985, a new division was founded, Gladstone Publishing, which took up the then-dormant Disney comic book license. Gladstone introduced a new generation of Disney comic book readers to the storytelling of Barks, Paul Murry, and Floyd Gottfredson, as well as presenting the first works of modern Disney comics artists Don Rosa and William Van Horn. Seven years after Gladstone's founding, the Carl Barks Library was revived as the Carl Barks Library in Color, as full-color, high-quality squarebound comic albums (including the first-ever Carl Barks trading cards).

From 1993 to 1998, Barks' career was managed by the "Carl Barks Studio" (Bill Grandey and Kathy Morby—they had sold Barks original art since 1979). This involved numerous art projects and activities, including a tour of 11 European countries in 1994, Iceland being the first foreign country he ever visited. Barks appeared at the first of many Disneyana conventions in 1993. Silk screen prints of paintings along with high-end art objects (such as original water colors, bronze figurines and ceramic tiles) were produced based on designs by Barks.

During the summer of 1994 and until his death, Barks and his studio personally assigned Peter Reichelt, a museum exhibition producer from Mannheim, Germany, as his agent for Europe. Publisher "Edition 313" put out numerous lithographs. In 1997, tensions between Barks and the Studio eventually resulted in a lawsuit that was settled with an agreement that included the disbanding of the Studio. Barks never traveled to make another Disney appearance. He was represented by Ed Bergen, as he completed a final project. Gerry Tank and Jim Mitchell were to assist Barks in his final years.

During his Carl Barks Studio years, Barks created two more stories: the script for the final Uncle Scrooge story "Horsing Around with History", which was first published in Denmark in 1994 with Bill Van Horn art. The outlines for Barks' final Donald Duck story "Somewhere in Nowhere", were first published in 1997, in Italy, with art by Pat Block.

Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein curated and organized the first solo museum-exhibition of Barks. Between 1994 and 1998 the retrospective was shown in ten European museums and seen by more than 400,000 visitors.

At the same time in spring 1994, Reichelt and Ina Brockmann designed a special museum exhibition tour about Barks' life and work. Also represented for the first time at this exhibition were Disney artists Al Taliaferro and Floyd Gottfredson. Since 1995, more than 500,000 visitors have attended the shows in Europe.

Reichelt also translated Michael Barrier's biography of Barks into German and published it in 1994.

Final days and death
Barks spent his final years in a new home in Grants Pass, Oregon, which he and Garé, who died in 1993, had built next door to their original home. In July 1999, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a form of cancer arising from the white blood cells in the bone marrow, for which he received oral chemotherapy. However, as the disease progressed, causing him great discomfort, the ailing Barks decided to stop receiving treatment in June 2000. In spite of his terminal condition, Barks remained, according to caregiver Serene Hunicke, "funny up to the end".

The year before, Barks had told the university professor Donald Ault:

"I have no apprehension, no fear of death. I do not believe in an afterlife. ... I think of death as total peace. You're beyond the clutches of all those who would crush you."

On August 25, 2000, shortly after midnight, Carl Barks died quietly in his sleep at the age of 99. He was interred in Hillcrest Memorial Cemetery in Grants Pass, beside Garé's grave.

Influence
"(A)n asteroid was named after the Duck Man in 1983 --- 2730 Barks, a carbonaceous C-type asteroid with a diameter of between 10 and 16 kilometers, an ordital period of six years and four months, and a rotation period of just over six hours." In a 1983 interview, Barks says that "," a story about the Ducks traveling to the asteroid belt to find a place Uncle Scrooge can store his money, was his favorite story.

Barks' Donald Duck stories were rated #7 on The Comics Journal list of 100 top comics; his Uncle Scrooge stories were rated #20.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have acknowledged that the rolling-boulder booby trap in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark was inspired by the 1954 Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge adventure "The Seven Cities of Cibola" (Uncle Scrooge #7). Lucas and Spielberg have also said that some of Barks' stories about space travel and the depiction of aliens had an influence on them. Lucas wrote the foreword to the 1982 Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life and Times. In it he calls Barks' stories "cinematic" and "a priceless part of our literary heritage".

The Walt Disney Treasures DVD set Chronological Donald, Volume 2 includes a salute to Barks.

In Almere, Netherlands, a street was named after him: Carl Barksweg. The same neighborhood also includes a Donald Ducklaan and a Goofystraat.

Japanese animator and cartoonist Osamu Tezuka, who created manga such as Astro Boy and Black Jack, was a fan of Barks' work. New Treasure Island, one of Tezuka's first works, was partly influenced by "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold".

A 1949 Donald Duck ten-pager features Donald raising a yacht from the ocean floor by filling it with ping pong balls. In December 1965 Karl Krøyer, a Dane, lifted the sunken freight vessel Al Kuwait in the Kuwait Harbor by filling the hull with 27 million tiny inflatable balls of polystyrene. Krøyer denies having been inspired by this Barks story. Some sources claim Krøyer was denied a Dutch patent registration (application number NL 6514306) for his invention on the grounds that the Barks story was a prior publication of the invention. Krøyer later successfully raised another ship off Greenland using the same method, and several other sunken vessels worldwide have since been raised by modified versions of this concept. The television show MythBusters also tested this method and was able to raise a small boat.

Don Rosa, one of the most popular living Disney artists, and possibly the one who has been most keen on connecting the various stories into a coherent universe and chronology, considers (with few exceptions) all Barks' duck stories as canon, and all others as apocryphal. Rosa has said that a number of novelists and movie-makers cite Carl Barks as their 'major influence and inspiration'.

When the news of Barks' passing was hardly covered by the press in America, "in Europe the sad news was flashed instantly across the airwaves and every newspaper — they realized the world had lost one of the most beloved, influential and well-known creators in international culture."

In 2010 Oregon Cartoon Institute produced a video about the influence of Carl Barks and Basil Wolverton on Robert Crumb.

The video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers is dedicated to the memory of Carl Barks.

Carl Barks drew an early Andy Panda comic book story published in New Funnies #76, 1943. It is one of his few stories to feature humans interacting with talking animal characters (another is Dangerous Disguise, Four Color #308, 1951 ). See List of Fictional Pandas.

The life story of Carl Barks, largely drawing upon his relationship with Disney and the phonetic similarity of his name to Karl Marx, serves as a loose inspiration to one of the subplots in The Last Song of Manuel Sendero by Ariel Dorfman.

The first image ever to be displayed on an Apple Macintosh was a scan of Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck.

Filmography
Films where Barks served as storyman or story director include:
 * Modern Inventions (May 29, 1937). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Donald's Ostrich (December 10, 1937).
 * Self Control (February 11, 1938). Barks served as the story director.
 * Donald's Better Self (March 11, 1938). Barks served as the story director.
 * Donald's Nephews (April 15, 1938).
 * Good Scouts (July 8, 1938). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Donald's Golf Game (November 4, 1938). Barks served as the story director.
 * Donald's Lucky Day (January 13, 1939). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * The Hockey Champ (April 28, 1939). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Donald's Cousin Gus (May 19, 1939). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Sea Scouts (June 30, 1939). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Donald's Penguin (August 11, 1939). Barks served as the story director.
 * The Autograph Hound (September 1, 1939).
 * Mr. Duck Steps Out (June 7, 1940). Barks served as the story director.
 * Put-Put Troubles (June 19, 1940).
 * Bone Trouble (June 28, 1940).
 * Donald's Vacation (August 9, 1940).
 * Window Cleaners (September 20, 1940). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Fire Chief (December 13, 1940). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Timber (January 10, 1941). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Golden Eggs (March 7, 1941).
 * Early to Bed (July 11, 1941). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Truant Officer Donald (August 1, 1941). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Old MacDonald Duck (September 12, 1941). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Chef Donald (December 5, 1941). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * The Village Smithy (January 16, 1942).
 * Donald's Snow Fight (April 10, 1942). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Donald Gets Drafted (May 1, 1942). Barks served as the story director.
 * The Army Mascot (May 22, 1942).
 * The Vanishing Private (September 25, 1942). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Sky Trooper (November 6, 1942).
 * Bellboy Donald (December 18, 1942). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * The Spirit of '43 (January 7, 1943).
 * The Old Army Game (November 5, 1943). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Home Defense (November 26, 1943). Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * Trombone Trouble (February 18, 1944). Barks served as the story director. Barks also drew many of the storyboards for the film.
 * The Plastics Inventor (September 1, 1944).

Notable stories

 * "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold", Four Color #9, October 1942
 * "Donald Duck and the Mummy's Ring", Four Color #29, September 1943
 * "Christmas on Bear Mountain", Four Color #178, December 1947, first appearance of Scrooge McDuck.
 * "The Old Castle's Secret", Four Color #189 June 1948
 * "Sheriff of Bullet Valley", Four Color #199, October 1948
 * "Lost in the Andes!", Four Color #223, April 1949
 * "Vacation Time", Vacation Parade #1, July 1950
 * "A Financial Fable", Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #126, March 1951
 * "Donald Duck in Old California!", Four Color #328, May 1951
 * "A Christmas for Shacktown", Four Color #367, January 1952
 * "Only a Poor Old Man", Four Color #386 (Uncle Scrooge #1), March 1952
 * "Flip Decision", Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #149, June 1952
 * "The Golden Helmet", Four Color #408, July 1952
 * "Back to the Klondike", Four Color #456 (Uncle Scrooge #2), March 1953
 * "Tralla La", Uncle Scrooge #6, June 1954
 * "The Fabulous Philosopher's Stone", Uncle Scrooge #10, June 1955
 * "The Golden Fleecing", Uncle Scrooge #12, December 1955
 * "Land Beneath the Ground!", Uncle Scrooge #13, March 1956
 * "The Money Well", Uncle Scrooge #21, March 1958
 * "The Golden River", Uncle Scrooge #22, 1958
 * "Island in the Sky", Uncle Scrooge #29, March 1960
 * "North of the Yukon", Uncle Scrooge #59, September 1965

Awards

 * The Shazam Award for Best Writer (Humor Division) in 1970
 * The Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame Award in 1973
 * The Inkpot in 1977 from the San Diego Comic Con
 * Inducted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame in 1987
 * Inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1987
 * Inducted into the William Randolph Hearst Cartoon Hall of Fame.
 * The Walt Disney Company bestowed a Duckster award in 1971 and their Disney Legends award in 1991
 * The Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Writer in 1996.
 * The series Carl Barks Library received the Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Award for Favorite Reprint Graphic Novel/Album for 1996.

Art materials
Barks was an enthusiastic user of Esterbrook pens, and used a Nº 356 model to ink and letter his Donald Duck comic-book pages.

"I used a #356 Esterbrook art and drafting pen which could do everything from thin 'fadeaways' to broad accented curve sweeps on foreground circles such as the ducks' forms. The trick of breaking in a new pen, I discovered, is to soak it for several minutes in the ink bottle. Then wipe off the ink and the pen's varnish. For some weird reason most new pens then start out flexible and free-flowing"

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

title: Carl Barks


text:
Centimetre–gram–second system of units

The centimetre–gram–second system of units (CGS or cgs) is a variant of the metric system based on the centimetre as the unit of length, the gram as the unit of mass, and the second as the unit of time. All CGS mechanical units are unambiguously derived from these three base units, but there are several different ways in which the CGS system was extended to cover electromagnetism.

The CGS system has been largely supplanted by the MKS system based on the metre, kilogram, and second, which was in turn extended and replaced by the International System of Units (SI). In many fields of science and engineering, SI is the only system of units in use, but CGS is still prevalent in certain subfields.

In measurements of purely mechanical systems (involving units of length, mass, force, energy, pressure, and so on), the differences between CGS and SI are straightforward: the unit-conversion factors are all powers of 10 as 100 cm = 1 m and 1000 g = 1 kg. For example, the CGS unit of force is the dyne, which is defined as $1 g⋅cm/s^{2}$, so the SI unit of force, the newton ($1 kg⋅m/s^{2}$), is equal to $100,000 dynes$.

On the other hand, in measurements of electromagnetic phenomena (involving units of charge, electric and magnetic fields, voltage, and so on), converting between CGS and SI is less straightforward. Formulas for physical laws of electromagnetism (such as Maxwell's equations) take a form that depends on which system of units is being used, because the electromagnetic quantities are defined differently in SI and in CGS. Furthermore, within CGS, there are several plausible ways to define electromagnetic quantities, leading to different "sub-systems", including Gaussian units, "ESU", "EMU", and Heaviside–Lorentz units. Among these choices, Gaussian units are the most common today, and "CGS units" is often intended to refer to CGS-Gaussian units.

History
The CGS system goes back to a proposal in 1832 by the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss to base a system of absolute units on the three fundamental units of length, mass and time. Gauss chose the units of millimetre, milligram and second. In 1873, a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, including physicists James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson recommended the general adoption of centimetre, gram and second as fundamental units, and to express all derived electromagnetic units in these fundamental units, using the prefix "C.G.S. unit of ...".

The sizes of many CGS units turned out to be inconvenient for practical purposes. For example, many everyday objects are hundreds or thousands of centimetres long, such as humans, rooms and buildings. Thus the CGS system never gained wide use outside the field of science. Starting in the 1880s, and more significantly by the mid-20th century, CGS was gradually superseded internationally for scientific purposes by the MKS (metre–kilogram–second) system, which in turn developed into the modern SI standard.

Since the international adoption of the MKS standard in the 1940s and the SI standard in the 1960s, the technical use of CGS units has gradually declined worldwide. CGS units have been deprecated in favor of SI units by NIST, as well as organizations such as the American Physical Society and the International Astronomical Union. SI units are predominantly used in engineering applications and physics education, while Gaussian CGS units are still commonly used in theoretical physics, describing microscopic systems, relativistic electrodynamics, and astrophysics.

The units gram and centimetre remain useful as noncoherent units within the SI system, as with any other prefixed SI units.

Definition of CGS units in mechanics
In mechanics, the quantities in the CGS and SI systems are defined identically. The two systems differ only in the scale of the three base units (centimetre versus metre and gram versus kilogram, respectively), with the third unit (second) being the same in both systems.

There is a direct correspondence between the base units of mechanics in CGS and SI. Since the formulae expressing the laws of mechanics are the same in both systems and since both systems are coherent, the definitions of all coherent derived units in terms of the base units are the same in both systems, and there is an unambiguous relationship between derived units:
 * $$v = \frac{dx}{dt}$$ (definition of velocity)
 * $$F = m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2}$$ (Newton's second law of motion)
 * $$E = \int \vec{F}\cdot d\vec{x}$$ (energy defined in terms of work)
 * $$p = \frac{F}{L^2} $$ (pressure defined as force per unit area)
 * $$\eta = \tau/\frac{dv}{dx}$$ (dynamic viscosity defined as shear stress per unit velocity gradient).

Thus, for example, the CGS unit of pressure, barye, is related to the CGS base units of length, mass, and time in the same way as the SI unit of pressure, pascal, is related to the SI base units of length, mass, and time:
 * 1 unit of pressure = 1 unit of force / (1 unit of length)2 = 1 unit of mass / (1 unit of length × (1 unit of time)2)
 * 1 Ba = 1 g/(cm⋅s2)
 * 1 Pa = 1 kg/(m⋅s2).

Expressing a CGS derived unit in terms of the SI base units, or vice versa, requires combining the scale factors that relate the two systems:
 * 1 Ba = 1 g/(cm⋅s2) = 10−3 kg / (10−2m⋅s2) = 10−1 kg/(m⋅s2) = 10−1 Pa.

CGS approach to electromagnetic units
The conversion factors relating electromagnetic units in the CGS and SI systems are made more complex by the differences in the formulas expressing physical laws of electromagnetism as assumed by each system of units, specifically in the nature of the constants that appear in these formulas. This illustrates the fundamental difference in the ways the two systems are built:
 * In SI, the unit of electric current, the ampere (A), was historically defined such that the magnetic force exerted by two infinitely long, thin, parallel wires 1 metre apart and carrying a current of 1 ampere is exactly $2 N/m$. This definition results in all SI electromagnetic units being numerically consistent (subject to factors of some integer powers of 10) with those of the CGS-EMU system described in further sections. The ampere is a base unit of the SI system, with the same status as the metre, kilogram, and second. Thus the relationship in the definition of the ampere with the metre and newton is disregarded, and the ampere is not treated as dimensionally equivalent to any combination of other base units. As a result, electromagnetic laws in SI require an additional constant of proportionality (see Vacuum permeability) to relate electromagnetic units to kinematic units. (This constant of proportionality is derivable directly from the above definition of the ampere.) All other electric and magnetic units are derived from these four base units using the most basic common definitions: for example, electric charge q is defined as current I multiplied by time t, $$q = I \, t,$$ resulting in the unit of electric charge, the coulomb (C), being defined as 1 C = 1 A⋅s.
 * The CGS system variant avoids introducing new base quantities and units, and instead defines all electromagnetic quantities by expressing the physical laws that relate electromagnetic phenomena to mechanics with only dimensionless constants, and hence all units for these quantities are directly derived from the centimetre, gram, and second.

In each of these systems the quantities called "charge" etc. may be a different quantity; they are distinguished here by a superscript. The corresponding quantities of each system are related through a proportionality constant.

Maxwell's equations can be written in each of these systems as:

Electrostatic units (ESU)
In the electrostatic units variant of the CGS system, (CGS-ESU), charge is defined as the quantity that obeys a form of Coulomb's law without a multiplying constant (and current is then defined as charge per unit time):
 * $$F={q^\text{ESU}_1 q^\text{ESU}_2 \over r^2} .$$

The ESU unit of charge, franklin (Fr), also known as statcoulomb or esu charge, is therefore defined as follows: "two equal point charges spaced 1 centimetre apart are said to be of 1 franklin each if the electrostatic force between them is 1 dyne." Therefore, in CGS-ESU, a franklin is equal to a centimetre times square root of dyne:
 * $$\mathrm{1\,Fr = 1\,statcoulomb = 1\,esu\; charge = 1\,dyne^{1/2}{\cdot}cm=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot}cm^{3/2}{\cdot}s^{-1}} .$$

The unit of current is defined as:
 * $$\mathrm{1\,Fr/s = 1\,statampere = 1\,esu\; current = 1\,dyne^{1/2}{\cdot}cm{\cdot}s^{-1}=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot}cm^{3/2}{\cdot}s^{-2}} .$$

In the CGS-ESU system, charge q is therefore has the dimension to M1/2L3/2T−1.

Other units in the CGS-ESU system include the statampere (1 statC/s) and statvolt (1 erg/statC).

In CGS-ESU, all electric and magnetic quantities are dimensionally expressible in terms of length, mass, and time, and none has an independent dimension. Such a system of units of electromagnetism, in which the dimensions of all electric and magnetic quantities are expressible in terms of the mechanical dimensions of mass, length, and time, is traditionally called an 'absolute system'. :3

Unit symbols
All electromagnetic units in the CGS-ESU system that have not been given names of their own are named as the corresponding SI name with an attached prefix "stat" or with a separate abbreviation "esu", and similarly with the corresponding symbols.

Electromagnetic units (EMU)
In another variant of the CGS system, electromagnetic units (EMU), current is defined via the force existing between two thin, parallel, infinitely long wires carrying it, and charge is then defined as current multiplied by time. (This approach was eventually used to define the SI unit of ampere as well).

The EMU unit of current, biot (Bi), also known as abampere or emu current, is therefore defined as follows: "The biot is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one centimetre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to two dynes per centimetre of length." Therefore, in electromagnetic CGS units, a biot is equal to a square root of dyne:
 * $$\mathrm{1\,Bi = 1\,abampere = 1\,emu\; current= 1\,dyne^{1/2}=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot}cm^{1/2}{\cdot}s^{-1}}.$$

The unit of charge in CGS EMU is:
 * $$\mathrm{1\,Bi{\cdot}s = 1\,abcoulomb = 1\,emu\, charge= 1\,dyne^{1/2}{\cdot}s=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot}cm^{1/2}}.$$

Dimensionally in the CGS-EMU system, charge q is therefore equivalent to M1/2L1/2. Hence, neither charge nor current is an independent physical quantity in the CGS-EMU system.

EMU notation
All electromagnetic units in the CGS-EMU system that do not have proper names are denoted by a corresponding SI name with an attached prefix "ab" or with a separate abbreviation "emu".

Practical CGS units
The practical CGS system is a hybrid system that uses the volt and the ampere as the units of voltage and current respectively. Doing this avoids the inconveniently large and small electrical units that arise in the esu and emu systems. This system was at one time widely used by electrical engineers because the volt and ampere had been adopted as international standard units by the International Electrical Congress of 1881. As well as the volt and ampere, the farad (capacitance), ohm (resistance), coulomb (electric charge), and henry (inductance) are consequently also used in the practical system and are the same as the SI units. The magnetic units are those of the emu system.

The electrical units, other than the volt and ampere, are determined by the requirement that any equation involving only electrical and kinematical quantities that is valid in SI should also be valid in the system. For example, since electric field strength is voltage per unit length, its unit is the volt per centimetre, which is one hundred times the SI unit.

The system is electrically rationalized and magnetically unrationalized; i.e., 𝜆 = 1 and 𝜆′ = 4$\pi$, but the above formula for 𝜆 is invalid. A closely related system is the International System of Electric and Magnetic Units, which has a different unit of mass so that the formula for 𝜆′ is invalid. The unit of mass was chosen to remove powers of ten from contexts in which they were considered to be objectionable (e.g., P = VI and F = qE). Inevitably, the powers of ten reappeared in other contexts, but the effect was to make the familiar joule and watt the units of work and power respectively.

The ampere-turn system is constructed in a similar way by considering magnetomotive force and magnetic field strength to be electrical quantities and rationalizing the system by dividing the units of magnetic pole strength and magnetization by 4π. The units of the first two quantities are the ampere and the ampere per centimetre respectively. The unit of magnetic permeability is that of the emu system, and the magnetic constitutive equations are B = (4π/10)μH and B = (4π/10)μ0H + μ0M. Magnetic reluctance is given a hybrid unit to ensure the validity of Ohm's law for magnetic circuits.

In all the practical systems ε0 = 8.8542 × 10−14 A⋅s/(V⋅cm), μ0 = 1 V⋅s/(A⋅cm), and c2 = 1/(4π × 10−9 ε0μ0).

Other variants
There were at various points in time about half a dozen systems of electromagnetic units in use, most based on the CGS system. These include the Gaussian units and the Heaviside–Lorentz units.

Electromagnetic units in various CGS systems
In this table, c = $ε$ is the numeric value of the speed of light in vacuum when expressed in units of centimetres per second. The symbol "≘" is used instead of "=" as a reminder that the units are corresponding but not equal. For example, according to the capacitance row of the table, if a capacitor has a capacitance of 1 F in SI, then it has a capacitance of (10−9 c2) cm in ESU; but it is incorrect to replace "1 F" with "(10−9 c2) cm" within an equation or formula. (This warning is a special aspect of electromagnetism units. By contrast it is always correct to replace, e.g., "1 m" with "100 cm" within an equation or formula.)

Advantages and disadvantages
Lack of unique unit names leads to potential confusion: "15 emu" may mean either 15 abvolts, or 15 emu units of electric dipole moment, or 15 emu units of magnetic susceptibility, sometimes (but not always) per gram, or per mole. With its system of uniquely named units, the SI removes any confusion in usage: 1 ampere is a fixed value of a specified quantity, and so are 1 henry, 1 ohm, and 1 volt.

In the CGS-Gaussian system, electric and magnetic fields have the same units, 4π$\epsilon$0 is replaced by 1, and the only dimensional constant appearing in the Maxwell equations is c, the speed of light. The Heaviside–Lorentz system has these properties as well (with ε0 equaling 1).

In SI, and other rationalized systems (for example, Heaviside–Lorentz), the unit of current was chosen such that electromagnetic equations concerning charged spheres contain 4π, those concerning coils of current and straight wires contain 2π and those dealing with charged surfaces lack π entirely, which was the most convenient choice for applications in electrical engineering and relates directly to the geometric symmetry of the system being described by the equation.

Specialized unit systems are used to simplify formulas further than either SI or CGS do, by eliminating constants through a convention of normalizing quantities with respect to some system of natural units. For example, in particle physics a system is in use where every quantity is expressed by only one unit of energy, the electronvolt, with lengths, times, and so on all converted into units of energy by inserting factors of speed of light c and the reduced Planck constant ħ. This unit system is convenient for calculations in particle physics, but is impractical in other contexts.

title: Centimetre–gram–second system of units


text:
Talk:Casimir II the Just

Question
so who is this? Casimir II or Casimir III? Any time kings have multiple numbers (James the Sixth the First springs to mind) those numbers should be explained immediately! AND this is linked off the Rulers of Poland entry as Casimir III!!!!! -- MichaelTinkler 15:15, December 5, 2001

He's refered in Polish almost only as 'Casmir the Great', without any numbers. --Taw 15:21, December 5, 2001

well, from the current list I can see that he's either #2 or #3, since the list has #1 and #4. --MichaelTinkler 15:24, December 5, 2001

Comment
Family trees are not useful entries. If Casimir (and please don't get me started on people not figuring out nomenclature BEFORE starting an entry) the whichever was great, then there should be something about why, shouldn't there? This is, like so many other entries, not contibutory to history, biography, or even prosopography...just a bunch of facts JHK 15:29, December 5, 2001

Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Where there are articles about this individual, here is how he is listed in English-language encyclopedias and dictionaries. If you have access to a reference work that is not listed here, please feel free to add to the data. --Elonka 02:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedias

 * Casimir II the Just (1979 Encyclopedia Britannica)
 * Casimir II (Online Britannica)

Dictionaries

 * Casimir II (Sokol's Polish Biographical Dictionary)

Requested move
It appears that there was never consensus to move this page to Kazimierz II the Just, and it should be moved back to its English name of Casimir II of Poland. Is there support for this move? --Elonka 02:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Not from me, but that should come as no suprise :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Correct, it is not a surprise. But haven't we adequately proven elsewhere, that there was never community consensus for moving this article to a Polish name? --Elonka 17:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What about a compriomise: Casimir II the Just? And no, we haven't... but let's not go off topic into that again, please.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Casimir II the Just for me; until we work out a general picture for the "of Poland" format. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 03:39, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I, too, will support a compromise of Casimir II the Just. --Elonka 18:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Concur with Elonka. Use English. --Irpen 20:28, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Casimir II of Poland could do though.  // Halibutt 04:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Casimir II of Poland. We should keep them systematical, and to follow the naming convention. Shilkanni 09:49, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Bubba ditto 22:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Either "Casimir II of Poland" or "Casimir II the Just" is an improvement. But a systematisation needs to be worked out for Polish monarchs in general and fragmentation-period monarchs in particular before we can know which one will work better. Srnec 17:14, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Appleseed (Talk) 17:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Casimir II of Poland. Charles 22:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Consensus seems clear, so I went ahead and took care of the move. Thanks!  --Elonka 23:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Name, revisited
Wouldn't 'Casimir II the Just of Poland' or just 'Casimir II the Just' be better?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * If there are no objections, standarizing the few strange names for Polish monarchs I'd like to move it to Casimir II the Just (consider: the preceeding monarch is at Mieszko III the Old and following, at Leszek I the White).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

B-class review
Failed for WPPOLAND due to insufficient density of inline citations. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Augustus II the Strong which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 14:00, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Casimir II the Just