text:
Orientalism

In art history, literature and cultural studies, orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle East, was one of the many specialties of 19th-century academic art, and Western literature was influenced by a similar interest in Oriental themes.

Since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978, much academic discourse has begun to use the term 'Orientalism' to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African societies. In Said's analysis, 'the West' essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced in the service of imperial power. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the idea that Western society is developed, rational, flexible, and superior. This allows 'Western imagination' to see 'Eastern' cultures and people as both alluring and a threat to Western civilization.

Etymology
Orientalism refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident; the East and the West, respectively. The word Orient entered the English language as the Middle French orient. The root word oriēns, from the Latin Oriēns, has synonymous denotations: The eastern part of the world; the sky whence comes the sun; the east; the rising sun, etc.; yet the denotation changed as a term of geography.

In the "Monk's Tale" (1375), Geoffrey Chaucer wrote: "That they conquered many regnes grete / In the orient, with many a fair citee." The term orient refers to countries east of the Mediterranean Sea and Southern Europe. In In Place of Fear (1952), Aneurin Bevan used an expanded denotation of the Orient that comprehended East Asia: "the awakening of the Orient under the impact of Western ideas." Edward Said said that Orientalism "enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present."

Art
In art history, the term Orientalism refers to the works of mostly 19th-century Western artists who specialized in Oriental subjects, produced from their travels in Western Asia, during the 19th century. At that time, artists and scholars were described as Orientalists, especially in France, where the dismissive use of the term "Orientalist" was made popular by the art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary. Despite such social disdain for a style of representational art, the French Society of Orientalist Painters was founded in 1893, with Jean-Léon Gérôme as the honorary president; whereas in Britain, the term Orientalist identified "an artist".

The formation of the French Orientalist Painters Society changed the consciousness of practitioners towards the end of the 19th century, since artists could now see themselves as part of a distinct art movement. As an art movement, Orientalist painting is generally treated as one of the many branches of 19th-century academic art; however, many different styles of Orientalist art were in evidence. Art historians tend to identify two broad types of Orientalist artist: the realists who carefully painted what they observed such as Gustav Bauernfeint; and those who imagined Orientalist scenes without ever leaving the studio. French painters such as Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) and Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) are widely regarded as the leading luminaries of the Orientalist movement.

Oriental studies
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the term Orientalist identified a scholar who specialized in the languages and literatures of the Eastern world. Among such scholars were officials of the East India Company, who said that the Arab culture, the Indian culture, and the Islamic cultures should be studied as equal to the cultures of Europe. Among such scholars is the philologist William Jones, whose studies of Indo-European languages established modern philology. Company rule in India favored Orientalism as a technique for developing and maintaining positive relations with the Indians—until the 1820s, when the influence of "anglicists" such as Thomas Babington Macaulay and John Stuart Mill led to the promotion of a Western-style education.

Additionally, Hebraism and Jewish studies gained popularity among British and German scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries. The academic field of Oriental studies, which comprehended the cultures of the Near East and the Far East, became the fields of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies.

Edward Said
In his book Orientalism (1978), cultural critic Edward Said redefines the term Orientalism to describe a pervasive Western tradition—academic and artistic—of prejudiced outsider-interpretations of the Eastern world, which was shaped by the cultural attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. The thesis of Orientalism develops Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony, and Michel Foucault's theorisation of discourse (the knowledge-power relation) to criticise the scholarly tradition of Oriental studies. Said criticised contemporary scholars who perpetuated the tradition of outsider-interpretation of Arabo-Islamic cultures, especially Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami. Furthermore, Said said that "The idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined", and that the subject of learned Orientalists "is not so much the East itself as the East made known, and therefore less fearsome, to the Western reading public".

In the academy, the book Orientalism (1978) became a foundational text of post-colonial cultural studies. The analyses in Said's works are of Orientalism in European literature, especially French literature, and do not analyse visual art and Orientalist painting. In that vein, the art historian Linda Nochlin applied Said's methods of critical analysis to art, "with uneven results". Other scholars see Orientalist paintings as depicting a myth and a fantasy that did not often correlate with reality.

There is also a critical trend within the Islamic world. In 2002, it was estimated that in Saudi Arabia alone some 200 books and 2,000 articles discussing Orientalism had been penned by local or foreign scholars.

In European architecture and design

The Moresque style of Renaissance ornament is a European adaptation of the Islamic arabesque that began in the late 15th century and was to be used in some types of work, such as bookbinding, until almost the present day. Early architectural use of motifs lifted from the Indian subcontinent is known as Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture. One of the earliest examples is the façade of Guildhall, London (1788–1789). The style gained momentum in the west with the publication of views of India by William Hodges, and William and Thomas Daniell from about 1795. Examples of "Hindoo" architecture are Sezincote House (c. 1805) in Gloucestershire, built for a nabob returned from Bengal, and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.

Turquerie, which began as early as the late 15th century, continued until at least the 18th century, and included both the use of "Turkish" styles in the decorative arts, the adoption of Turkish costume at times, and interest in art depicting the Ottoman Empire itself. Venice, the traditional trading partner of the Ottomans, was the earliest centre, with France becoming more prominent in the 18th century.

Chinoiserie is the catch-all term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie, c. 1740–1770. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success. Early hints of Chinoiserie appeared in the 17th century in nations with active East India companies: England (the East India Company), Denmark (the Danish East India Company), the Netherlands (the Dutch East India Company) and France (the French East India Company). Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine Ming-era blue and white porcelain from the early 17th century. Early ceramic wares made at Meissen and other centers of true porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares (see Chinese export porcelain).

Pleasure pavilions in "Chinese taste" appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, and in tile panels at Aranjuez near Madrid. Thomas Chippendale's mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, c. 1753–1770. Sober homages to early Xing scholars' furnishings were also naturalized, as the tang evolved into a mid-Georgian side table and squared slat-back armchairs that suited English gentlemen as well as Chinese scholars. Not every adaptation of Chinese design principles falls within mainstream "chinoiserie". Chinoiserie media included imitations of lacquer and painted tin (tôle) ware that imitated japanning, early painted wallpapers in sheets, and ceramic figurines and table ornaments. Small pagodas appeared on chimneypieces and full-sized ones in gardens. Kew has a magnificent Great Pagoda designed by William Chambers. The Wilhelma (1846) in Stuttgart is an example of Moorish Revival architecture. Leighton House, built for the artist Frederic Leighton, has a conventional facade but elaborate Arab-style interiors, including original Islamic tiles and other elements as well as Victorian Orientalizing work.

After 1860, Japonism, sparked by the importing of ukiyo-e, became an important influence in the western arts. In particular, many modern French artists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas were influenced by the Japanese style. Mary Cassatt, an American artist who worked in France, used elements of combined patterns, flat planes and shifting perspective of Japanese prints in her own images. The paintings of James Abbott McNeill Whistler's The Peacock Room demonstrated how he used aspects of Japanese tradition and are some of the finest works of the genre. California architects Greene and Greene were inspired by Japanese elements in their design of the Gamble House and other buildings.

Egyptian Revival architecture became popular in the early and mid-19th century and continued as a minor style into the early 20th century. Moorish Revival architecture began in the early 19th century in the German states and was particularly popular for building synagogues. Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture was a genre that arose in the late 19th century in the British Raj.

Orientalist art
Orientalist tendencies in Western art have a long history. Oriental scenes may be found in medieval and Renaissance art, and Islamic art has itself had a profound and formative influence on Western artistic output. Oriental subject matter further proliferated in the 19th century, in step with Western colonialism in Africa and Asia.

Pre-19th century
Depictions of Islamic "Moors" and "Turks" (imprecisely named Muslim groups of southern Europe, North Africa and West Asia) can be found in Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque art. In Biblical scenes in Early Netherlandish painting, secondary figures, especially Romans, were given exotic costumes that distantly reflected the clothes of the Near East. The Three Magi in Nativity scenes were an especial focus for this. In general art with Biblical settings would not be considered as Orientalist except where contemporary or historicist Middle Eastern detail or settings is a feature of works, as with some paintings by Gentile Bellini and others, and a number of 19th-century works. Renaissance Venice had a phase of particular interest in depictions of the Ottoman Empire in painting and prints. Gentile Bellini, who travelled to Constantinople and painted the Sultan, and Vittore Carpaccio were the leading painters. By then the depictions were more accurate, with men typically dressed all in white. The depiction of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting sometimes draws from Orientalist interest, but more often just reflects the prestige these expensive objects had in the period.

Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702–1789) visited Istanbul and painted numerous pastels of Turkish domestic scenes; he also continued to wear Turkish attire for much of the time when he was back in Europe. The ambitious Scottish 18th-century artist Gavin Hamilton found a solution to the problem of using modern dress, considered unheroic and inelegant, in history painting by using Middle Eastern settings with Europeans wearing local costume, as travelers were advised to do. His huge James Dawkins and Robert Wood Discovering the Ruins of Palmyra (1758, now Edinburgh) elevates tourism to the heroic, with the two travelers wearing what look very like togas. Many travelers had themselves painted in exotic Eastern dress on their return, including Lord Byron, as did many who had never left Europe, including Madame de Pompadour. The growing French interest in exotic Oriental luxury and lack of liberty in the 18th century to some extent reflected a pointed analogy with France's own absolute monarchy. Byron's poetry was highly influential in introducing Europe to the heady cocktail of Romanticism in exotic Oriental settings which was to dominate 19th century Oriental art.

French Orientalism
French Orientalist painting was transformed by Napoleon's ultimately unsuccessful invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798–1801, which stimulated great public interest in Egyptology, and was also recorded in subsequent years by Napoleon's court painters, especially Antoine-Jean Gros, although the Middle Eastern campaign was not one on which he accompanied the army. Two of his most successful paintings, Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa (1804) and Battle of Abukir (1806) focus on the Emperor, as he was by then, but include many Egyptian figures, as does the less effective Napoleon at the Battle of the Pyramids (1810). Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson's La Révolte du Caire (1810) was another large and prominent example. A well-illustrated Description de l'Égypte was published by the French Government in twenty volumes between 1809 and 1828, concentrating on antiquities.

Eugène Delacroix's first great success, The Massacre at Chios (1824) was painted before he visited Greece or the East, and followed his friend Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa in showing a recent incident in distant parts that had aroused public opinion. Greece was still fighting for independence from the Ottomans, and was effectively as exotic as the more Near Eastern parts of the empire. Delacroix followed up with Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (1827), commemorating a siege of the previous year, and The Death of Sardanapalus, inspired by Lord Byron, which although set in antiquity has been credited with beginning the mixture of sex, violence, lassitude and exoticism which runs through much French Orientalist painting. In 1832, Delacroix finally visited what is now Algeria, recently conquered by the French, and Morocco, as part of a diplomatic mission to the Sultan of Morocco. He was greatly struck by what he saw, comparing the North African way of life to that of the Ancient Romans, and continued to paint subjects from his trip on his return to France. Like many later Orientalist painters, he was frustrated by the difficulty of sketching women, and many of his scenes featured Jews or warriors on horses. However, he was apparently able to get into the women's quarters or harem of a house to sketch what became Women of Algiers; few later harem scenes had this claim to authenticity.

When Ingres, the director of the French Académie de peinture, painted a highly colored vision of a hammam, he made his eroticized Orient publicly acceptable by his diffuse generalizing of the female forms (who might all have been the same model). More open sensuality was seen as acceptable in the exotic Orient. This imagery persisted in art into the early 20th century, as evidenced in Henri Matisse's orientalist semi-nudes from his Nice period, and his use of Oriental costumes and patterns. Ingres' pupil Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856) had already achieved success with his nude The Toilette of Esther (1841, Louvre) and equestrian portrait of Ali-Ben-Hamet, Caliph of Constantine and Chief of the Haractas, Followed by his Escort (1846) before he first visited the East, but in later decades the steamship made travel much easier and increasing numbers of artists traveled to the Middle East and beyond, painting a wide range of Oriental scenes.

In many of these works, artists portrayed the Orient as exotic, colorful and sensual, not to say stereotyped. Such works typically concentrated on Arab, Jewish, and other Semitic cultures, as those were the ones visited by artists as France became more engaged in North Africa. French artists such as Eugène Delacroix, Jean-Léon Gérôme and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres painted many works depicting Islamic culture, often including lounging odalisques. They stressed both lassitude and visual spectacle. Other scenes, especially in genre painting, have been seen as either closely comparable to their equivalents set in modern-day or historical Europe, or as also reflecting an Orientalist mind-set in the Saidian sense of the term. Gérôme was the precursor, and often the master, of a number of French painters in the later part of the century whose works were often frankly salacious, frequently featuring scenes in harems, public baths and slave auctions (the last two also available with classical decor), and responsible, with others, for "the equation of Orientalism with the nude in pornographic mode"; (Gallery, below)

Orientalist sculptors include Charles Cordier.

British Orientalism
Though British political interest in the territories of the unravelling Ottoman Empire was as intense as in France, it was mostly more discreetly exercised. The origins of British Orientalist 19th-century painting owe more to religion than military conquest or the search for plausible locations for nude women. The leading British genre painter, Sir David Wilkie was 55 when he travelled to Istanbul and Jerusalem in 1840, dying off Gibraltar during the return voyage. Though not noted as a religious painter, Wilkie made the trip with a Protestant agenda to reform religious painting, as he believed that: "a Martin Luther in painting is as much called for as in theology, to sweep away the abuses by which our divine pursuit is encumbered", by which he meant traditional Christian iconography. He hoped to find more authentic settings and decor for Biblical subjects at their original location, though his death prevented more than studies being made. Other artists including the Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt and David Roberts (in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia) had similar motivations, giving an emphasis on realism in British Orientalist art from the start. The French artist James Tissot also used contemporary Middle Eastern landscape and decor for Biblical subjects, with little regard for historical costumes or other fittings.

William Holman Hunt produced a number of major paintings of Biblical subjects drawing on his Middle Eastern travels, improvising variants of contemporary Arab costume and furnishings to avoid specifically Islamic styles, and also some landscapes and genre subjects. The biblical subjects included The Scapegoat (1856), The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (1860), and The Shadow of Death (1871). The Miracle of the Holy Fire (1899) was intended as a picturesque satire on the local Eastern Christians, of whom, like most European visitors, Hunt took a very dim view. His A Street Scene in Cairo; The Lantern-Maker's Courtship (1854–61) is a rare contemporary narrative scene, as the young man feels his fiancé's face, which he is not allowed to see, through her veil, as a Westerner in the background beats his way up the street with his stick. This a rare intrusion of a clearly contemporary figure into an Orientalist scene; mostly they claim the picturesqueness of the historical painting so popular at the time, without the trouble of researching authentic costumes and settings.

When Gérôme exhibited For Sale; Slaves at Cairo at the Royal Academy in London in 1871, it was "widely found offensive", partly because the British involvement in successfully suppressed the slave trade in Egypt, but also for cruelty and "representing fleshiness for its own sake". But Rana Kabbani believes that "French Orientalist painting, as exemplified by the works of Gérôme, may appear more sensual, gaudy, gory and sexually explicit than its British counterpart, but this is a difference of style not substance ... Similar strains of fascination and repulsion convulsed their artists" Nonetheless, nudity and violence are more evident in British paintings set in the ancient world, and "the iconography of the odalisque ... the Oriental sex slave whose image is offered up to the viewer as freely as she herself supposedly was to her master – is almost entirely French in origin", though taken up with enthusiasm by Italian and other European painters.

John Frederick Lewis, who lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, painted highly detailed works showing both realistic genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper class Egyptian interiors with no traces of Western cultural influence yet apparent. His careful and seemingly affectionate representation of Islamic architecture, furnishings, screens, and costumes set new standards of realism, which influenced other artists, including Gérôme in his later works. He "never painted a nude", and his wife modelled for several of his harem scenes, which, with the rare examples by the classicist painter Lord Leighton, imagine "the harem as a place of almost English domesticity, ... [where]... women's fully clothed respectability suggests a moral healthiness to go with their natural good looks".

Other artists concentrated on landscape painting, often of desert scenes, including Richard Dadd and Edward Lear. David Roberts (1796–1864) produced architectural and landscape views, many of antiquities, and published very successful books of lithographs from them.

Russian Orientalism
Russian Orientalist art was largely concerned with the areas of Central Asia that Russia was conquering during the century, and also in historical painting with the Mongols who had dominated Russia for much of the Middle Ages, who were rarely shown in a good light. The explorer Nikolai Przhevalsky played a major role in popularising an exotic view of "the Orient" and advocating imperial expansion.

"The Five" Russian composers were prominent 19th-century Russian composers who worked together to create a distinct national style of classical music. One hallmark of "The Five" composers was their reliance on orientalism. Many quintessentially "Russian" works were composed in orientalist style, such as Balakirev's Islamey, Borodin's Prince Igor and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. As leader of "The Five", Balakirev encouraged the use of eastern themes and harmonies to set their "Russian" music apart from the German symphonism of Anton Rubinstein and other Western-oriented composers.

German Orientalism
Edward Said originally wrote that Germany did not have a politically motivated Orientalism because its colonial empire did not expand in the same areas as France and Britain. Said later stated that Germany "had in common with Anglo-French and later American Orientalism [...] a kind of intellectual authority over the Orient". However, Said also wrote that "there was nothing in Germany to correspond to the Anglo-French presence in India, the Levant, North Africa. Moreover, the German Orient was almost exclusively a scholarly, or at least a classical, Orient: it was made the subject of lyrics, fantasies, and even novels, but it was never actual." According to Suzanne L. Marchand, German scholars were the "pace-setters" in oriental studies. Robert Irwin wrote that "until the outbreak of the Second World War, German dominance of Orientalism was practically unchallenged."

Elsewhere
Nationalist historical painting in Central Europe and the Balkans dwelt on oppression during the Ottoman Empire period, battles between Ottoman and Christian armies, as well as themes like the Ottoman Imperial Harem, although the latter was a less common theme than in French depictions.

The Saidian analysis has not prevented a strong revival of interest in, and collecting of, 19th century Orientalist works since the 1970s, the latter was in large part led by Middle Eastern buyers.

Pop culture

Authors and composers are not commonly referred to as "Orientalist" in the way that artists are, and relatively few specialized in Oriental topics or styles, or are even best known for their works including them. But many major figures, from Mozart to Flaubert, have produced significant works with Oriental subjects or treatments. Lord Byron with his four long "Turkish tales" in poetry, is one of the most important writers to make exotic fantasy Oriental settings a significant theme in the literature of Romanticism. Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida (1871) is set in Egypt as portrayed through the content and the visual spectacle. "Aida" depicts a militaristic Egypt's tyranny over Ethiopia.

Irish Orientalism had a particular character, drawing on various beliefs about early historical links between Ireland and the East, few of which are now regarded as historically correct. The mythical Milesians are one example of this. The Irish were also conscious of the views of other nations seeing them as comparably backward to the East, and Europe's "backyard Orient."

In music

In music, Orientalism may be applied to styles occurring in different periods, such as the alla Turca, used by multiple composers including Mozart and Beethoven. The musicologist Richard Taruskin identified in 19th-century Russian music a strain of Orientalism: "the East as a sign or metaphor, as imaginary geography, as historical fiction, as the reduced and totalized other against which we construct our (not less reduced and totalized) sense of ourselves." Taruskin conceded Russian composers, unlike those in France and Germany, felt an "ambivalence" to the theme since "Russia was a contiguous empire in which Europeans, living side by side with 'orientals', identified (and intermarried) with them far more than in the case of other colonial powers".

Nonetheless, Taruskin characterized Orientalism in Romantic Russian music as having melodies "full of close little ornaments and melismas", chromatic accompanying lines, drone bass —characteristics which were used by Glinka, Balakirev, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Lyapunov, and Rachmaninov. These musical characteristics evoke: "not just the East, but the seductive East that emasculates, enslaves, renders passive. In a word, it signifies the promise of the experience of nega, a prime attribute of the orient as imagined by the Russians.... In opera and song, nega often simply denotes S-E-X a la russe, desired or achieved."Orientalism is also traceable in music that is considered to have effects of exoticism, including the influence of Javanese gamelan in Claude Debussy's piano music all the way to the sitar being used in recordings by the Beatles.

In the United Kingdom, Gustav Holst composed Beni Mora evoking a languid, heady Arabian atmosphere.

Orientalism, in a more camp fashion also found its way into exotica music in the late 1950s, especially the works of Les Baxter, for example, his composition "City of Veils".

In literature
The Romantic movement in literature began in 1785 and ended around 1830. The term Romantic references the ideas and culture that writers of the time reflected in their work. During this time, the culture and objects of the East began to have a profound effect on Europe. Extensive traveling by artists and members of the European elite brought travelogues and sensational tales back to the West creating a great interest in all things "foreign". Romantic Orientalism incorporates African and Asian geographic locations, well-known colonial and "native" personalities, folklore, and philosophies to create a literary environment of colonial exploration from a distinctly European worldview. The current trend in analysis of this movement references a belief in this literature as a mode to justify European colonial endeavors with the expansion of territory.

In his novel Salammbô, Gustave Flaubert used ancient Carthage in North Africa as a foil to ancient Rome. He portrayed its culture as morally corrupting and suffused with dangerously alluring eroticism. This novel proved hugely influential on later portrayals of ancient Semitic cultures.

In film
Said argues that the continuity of Orientalism into the present can be found in influential images, particularly through the Cinema of the United States, as the West has now grown to include the United States. Many blockbuster feature films, such as the Indiana Jones series, The Mummy films, and Disney's Aladdin film series demonstrate the imagined geographies of the East. The films usually portray the lead heroic characters as being from the Western world, while the villains often come from the East. The representation of the Orient has continued in film, although this representation does not necessarily have any truth to it. In The Tea House of the August Moon (1956), as argued by Pedro Iacobelli, there are tropes of orientalism. He notes, that the film "tells us more about the Americans and the American's image of Okinawa rather than about the Okinawan people." The film characterizes the Okinawans as "merry but backward" and "de-politicized", which ignored the real-life Okinawan political protests over forceful land acquisition by the American military at the time.

Kimiko Akita, in Orientalism and the Binary of Fact and Fiction in 'Memoirs of a Geisha', argues that Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) contains orientalist tropes and deep "cultural misrepresentations". She states that Memoirs of a Geisha "reinforces the idea of Japanese culture and geisha as exotic, backward, irrational, dirty, profane, promiscuous, bizarre, and enigmatic."

In dance
During the Romantic period of the 19th century, ballet developed a preoccupation with the exotic. This exoticism ranged from ballets set in Scotland to those based on ethereal creatures. By the later part of the century, ballets were capturing the presumed essence of the mysterious East. These ballets often included sexual themes and tended to be based on assumptions of people rather than on concrete facts. Orientalism is apparent in numerous ballets.

The Orient motivated several major ballets, which have survived since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Le Corsaire premiered in 1856 at the Paris Opera, with choreography by Joseph Mazilier. Marius Petipa re-choreographed the ballet for the Maryinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1899. Its complex storyline, loosely based on Lord Byron's poem, takes place in Turkey and focuses on a love story between a pirate and a beautiful slave girl. Scenes include a bazaar where women are sold to men as slaves, and the Pasha's Palace, which features his harem of wives. In 1877, Marius Petipa choreographed La Bayadère, the love story of an Indian temple dancer and Indian warrior. This ballet was based on Kalidasa's play Sakuntala. La Bayadere used vaguely Indian costuming, and incorporated Indian inspired hand gestures into classical ballet. In addition, it included a 'Hindu Dance,' motivated by Kathak, an Indian dance form. Another ballet, Sheherazade, choreographed by Michel Fokine in 1910 to music by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, is a story involving a shah's wife and her illicit relations with a Golden Slave, originally played by Vaslav Nijinsky. The ballet's controversial fixation on sex includes an orgy in an oriental harem. When the shah discovers the actions of his numerous wives and their lovers, he orders the deaths of those involved. Sheherazade was loosely based on folktales of questionable authenticity.

Several lesser-known ballets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century also show their Orientalism. For instance, in Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862), an Englishman imagines himself, in an opium-induced dream, as an Egyptian boy who wins the love of the Pharaoh's daughter, Aspicia. Aspicia's costume consisted of 'Egyptian' décor on a tutu. Another ballet, Hippolyte Monplaisir's Brahma, which premiered in 1868 in La Scala, Italy, is a story that involves romantic relations between a slave girl and Brahma, the Hindu god, when he visits earth. In addition, in 1909, Serge Diagilev included Cléopâtre in the Ballets Russes' repertory. With its theme of sex, this revision of Fokine's Une Nuit d'Egypte combined the "exoticism and grandeur" that audiences of this time craved.

As one of the pioneers of modern dance in America, Ruth St Denis also explored Orientalism in her dancing. Her dances were not authentic; she drew inspiration from photographs, books, and later from museums in Europe. Yet, the exoticism of her dances catered to the interests of society women in America. She included Radha and The Cobras in her 'Indian' program in 1906. In addition, she found success in Europe with another Indian-themed ballet, The Nautch in 1908. In 1909, upon her return to America, St Denis created her first 'Egyptian' work, Egypta. Her preference for Orientalism continued, culminating with Ishtar of the Seven Gates in 1923, about a Babylonian goddess.

While Orientalism in dance climaxed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is still present in modern times. For instance, major ballet companies regularly perform Le Corsaire, La Bayadere, and Sheherazade. Furthermore, Orientalism is also found within newer versions of ballets. In versions of The Nutcracker, such as the 2010 American Ballet Theatre production, the Chinese dance uses an arm position with the arms bent at a ninety-degree angle and the index fingers pointed upwards, while the Arabian dance uses two dimensional bent arm movements. Inspired by ballets of the past, stereotypical 'Oriental' movements and arm positions have developed and remain.

Religion
An exchange of Western and Eastern ideas about spirituality developed as the West traded with and established colonies in Asia. The first Western translation of a Sanskrit text appeared in 1785, marking the growing interest in Indian culture and languages. Translations of the Upanishads, which Arthur Schopenhauer called "the consolation of my life", first appeared in 1801 and 1802. Early translations also appeared in other European languages. 19th-century transcendentalism was influenced by Asian spirituality, prompting Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) to pioneer the idea of spirituality as a distinct field.

A major force in the mutual influence of Eastern and Western spirituality and religiosity was the Theosophical Society, a group searching for ancient wisdom from the East and spreading Eastern religious ideas in the West. One of its salient features was the belief in "Masters of Wisdom", "beings, human or once human, who have transcended the normal frontiers of knowledge, and who make their wisdom available to others". The Theosophical Society also spread Western ideas in the East, contributing to its modernisation and a growing nationalism in the Asian colonies.

The Theosophical Society had a major influence on Buddhist modernism and Hindu reform movements. Between 1878 and 1882, the Society and the Arya Samaj were united as the Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj. Helena Blavatsky, along with H. S. Olcott and Anagarika Dharmapala, was instrumental in the Western transmission and revival of Theravada Buddhism.

Another major influence was Vivekananda, who popularised his modernised interpretation of Advaita Vedanta during the later 19th and early 20th century in both India and the West, emphasising anubhava ("personal experience") over scriptural authority.

Islam
With the spread of Eastern religious and cultural ideals towards the West, came in with studies and certain illustrations that depicts certain regions and religions under the Western perspective. Many the aspects or views are often turned into the ideas that the West have adopted onto those cultural and religious ideals. One of the more adopted views can be depicted through Western context on Islam and the Middle East. Under the adopted view of Islam under the Western context, Orientalism falls under the category of the Western perspective of thinking that shifts through social constructs that refers towards representations of the religion or culture in a subjective view point. The concept of Orientalism dates back to precolonial eras, as the main European powers acquired and perceived of territory, resources, knowledge, and control of the regions in the East. The term Orientalism, depicts further into the historical context of antagonism and misrepresentation into the tendencies of a growing layer of Western inclusion and influence on foreign culture and ideals.

In the religious perspective under Islam, the term Orientalism applies in similar meaning as the outlook from the Western perspective, mainly in the eyes of the Christian majority. The main contributor of the depiction of Oriental perspectives or illustrations on Islam and other Middle Eastern cultures derives from the imperial and colonial influences and powers that attribute to formation of multiple fields of geographical, political, educational, and scientific elements. The combination of these different genres reveal significant division among people of those cultures and reinforces the ideals set from the Western perspective. With Islam, historically scientific discoveries, research, inventions, or ideas that were presented before and contributed to many other European breakthroughs are not affiliated with the previous Islamic scientists. From the exclusion of past contributions and initial works further lead to narrative of the concept of Orientalism with the passing of time generated a history and directive of presence within region and religion that historically influences the image of the East.

Through the recent years, Orientalism has been influenced and shifted to altering representations of various forms that all derive from the same meaning. From the nineteenth century, among the Western perspectives on Orientalism, differed as the split of American and European Orientalism viewed different illustrations. With mainstream media and popular production reveal many depictions of Oriental cultures and Islamic references to the current event of radicalization for Non-western cultures. With references and mainstream media often utilized to contribute to an extended agenda under the construct judgement of alternate motives. The approach with the generalization of the term Orientalism was embedded with under beginning of colonialism as the root of the main complexity of within modern societies perspectives of foreign cultures. As mainstream media depicts illustrations to utilize many instances of discourse and on certain regions mainly among the conflict within regions in the Middle East and Africa. With agenda of influencing views on non-western societies to be deemed non-compatible with differing ideologies and cultures, the elements that present diversion among Eastern societies and aspects.

Eastern views of the West and Western views of the East
The concept of Orientalism has been adopted by scholars in East-Central and Eastern Europe, among them Maria Todorova, Attila Melegh, Tomasz Zarycki, and Dariusz Skórczewski as an analytical tool for exploring the images of East-Central and Eastern European societies in cultural discourses of the West in the 19th century and during the Soviet domination.

The term "re-orientalism" was used by Lisa Lau and Ana Cristina Mendes to refer to how Eastern self-representation is based on western referential points: "Re-Orientalism differs from Orientalism in its manner of and reasons for referencing the West: while challenging the metanarratives of Orientalism, re-Orientalism sets up alternative metanarratives of its own in order to articulate eastern identities, simultaneously deconstructing and reinforcing Orientalism."

Occidentalism
The term occidentalism is often used to refer to negative views of the Western world found in Eastern societies, and is founded on the sense of nationalism that spread in reaction to colonialism (see Pan-Asianism). Edward Said has been accused of Occidentalizing the west in his critique of Orientalism; of falsely characterizing the West in the same way that he states that Western scholars have falsely characterized the East. According to this viewpoint, Said essentialized the West by creating a homogenous image of the area. Currently, the West consists not only of Europe, but also the United States and Canada, which have become more influential over the years.

Eighteenth century Qing emperors in China had a material fascination with Occidenterie, or objects inspired by Western art and architecture (an analogue to Europe's chinoiserie or material imitation of Chinese artistic traditions). Although the phenomenon was strongly associated with the emperor's court and the architecture project of Xiyang Lou, nonetheless, a wide spectrum of China's social classes had some access to Occidenterie objects as they were domestically produced.

Othering
The action of othering cultures occurs when groups are labeled as different due to characteristics that distinguish them from the perceived norm. Edward Said, author of the book Orientalism, argued that western powers and influential individuals such as social scientists and artists othered "the Orient". The evolution of ideologies is often initially embedded in the language, and continues to ripple through the fabric of society by taking over the culture, economy and political sphere. Much of Said's criticism of Western Orientalism is based on what he describes as articularizing trends. These ideologies are present in Asian works by Indian, Chinese, and Japanese writers and artists, in their views of Western culture and tradition. A particularly significant development is the manner in which Orientalism has taken shape in non-Western cinema, as for instance in Hindi-language cinema.

Said's Orientalism has been instrumental to the critical turn in the humanities and the social sciences concerning the appreciation of the political weight of "representing" as a form of powering over Others. However, as recent anthropological enquiries suggest, Orientalism has also been at times simplistically applied to merely equate Othering with the attribution of negative qualities. A study of the sphere of Othering in contexts, seemingly removed from Said's original focus, such as the relationship between Greece and Germany during the sovereign debt crisis years may point to volatile ingredients in the Othering process, including fascination mixed with condescension, aversion, admiration and hopes for an escape from an oppressive northern European lifestyle. Similarly, tourism and intra-national relations between urban centers and rural peripheries are spheres where Orientalist dynamics (Othering) are at a play, even if, as noted above, these dynamics may well involve the ambivalence of the spectators, and also the involvement of those represented in reproducing, and at times contesting the stereotypes of those who represent others.

Art

 * Alazard, Jean. L'Orient et la peinture française.
 * Behdad, Ali. 2013. Photography's Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation. Getty Publications. 224 pages.
 * Benjamin, Roger. 2003. Orientalist Aesthetics, Art, Colonialism and French North Africa: 1880–1930. University of California Press.
 * Peltre, Christine. 1998. Orientalism in Art. New York: Abbeville Publishing Group. ISBN 0-7892-0459-2.
 * Rosenthal, Donald A. 1982. Orientalism: The Near East in French Painting, 1800–1880. Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester.
 * Stevens, Mary Anne, ed. 1984. The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse: European Painters in North Africa and the Near East (exhibition catalogue). London: Royal Academy of Arts.

Literature

 * Balagangadhara, S. N. 2012. Reconceptualizing India studies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
 * Bessis, Sophie (2003). Western Supremacy: The Triumph of an Idea?. Zed Books.  ISBN 9781842772195 ISBN 1842772198
 * Clarke, J. J. 1997. "Oriental Enlightenment". London: Routledge.
 * Chatterjee, Indrani. 1999. "Gender, Slavery and Law in Colonial India". Oxford University Press.
 * Frank, Andre Gunder. 1998. "ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age". University of California Press.
 * Halliday, Fred. 1993. "'Orientalism' and its critics". British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20(2):145–63..
 * Inden, Ronald. 2000. "Imagining India". Indiana University Press.
 * Irwin, Robert. 2006. For lust of knowing: The Orientalists and their enemies. London: Penguin/Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9415-0.
 * Isin, Engin, ed. 2015. Citizenship After Orientalism: Transforming Political Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
 * Kabbani, Rana. 1994. Imperial Fictions: Europe's Myths of Orient. London: Pandora Press. ISBN 0-04-440911-7.
 * Van der Pijl, Kees (2014). The Discipline of Western Supremacy: Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy, Volume III, Pluto Press, ISBN 9780745323183
 * King, Richard. 1999. "Orientalism and Religion". Routledge.
 * Kontje, Todd. 2004. German Orientalisms. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-11392-5.
 * Lach, Donald, and Edwin Van Kley. 1993. "Asia in the Making of Europe. Volume III". University of Chicago Press.
 * Lindqvist, Sven (1996). Exterminate all the brutes. New Press, New York.  ISBN 9781565843592.
 * Little, Douglas. 2002. American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945. (2nd ed.) ISBN 1-86064-889-4.
 * Lowe, Lisa. 1992. Critical Terrains: French and British Orientalisms. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8195-6.
 * Macfie, Alexander Lyon. 2002. Orientalism. White Plains, NY: Longman. ISBN 0-582-42386-4.
 * MacKenzie, John. 1995. Orientalism: History, theory and the arts. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 0-7190-4578-9.
 * McEvilley, Thomas. 2002. "The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies". New York: Allworth Press.
 * Murti, Kamakshi P. 2001. India: The Seductive and Seduced "Other" of German Orientalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-30857-8.
 * Oueijan, Naji. 1996. The Progress of an Image: The East in English Literature. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
 * Skórczewski, Dariusz. 2020. Polish Literature and National Identity: A Postcolonial Perspective. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. ISBN 9781580469784.
 * Steiner, Evgeny, ed. 2012. Orientalism/Occidentalism: Languages of Cultures vs. Languages of Description. Moscow: Sovpadenie. [English & Russian]. ISBN 978-5-903060-75-7.
 * [Saeed, Abu Hayyan, Orientalism., Murder of History.. Facts behind the Gossips and Realities. (October 20, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4608350 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4608350]
 * [Saeed, Abu Hayyan, Orientalism., Murder of History.. Facts behind the Gossips and Realities. (October 20, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4608350 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4608350]

title: Orientalism


text: Talk:Deng Xiaoping

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

title: Talk:Deng Xiaoping


text:
Talk:Mohs scale

Linear scale

 * Question: if the scale isn't linear is there a linear scale that geologists prefer to use? And what exactly is 'absolute hardness'? How is hardness defined (we know what it is intuitively, but what is its physical definition?) Are there SI units for hardness? -- SJK

 * There is no absolute hardness scale. No units for hardness either.  As for what "hardness" really is, I think that is an open question.  It would certainly be related to fracture toughness, but that defies analysis as well, relying on laboratory testing and depending on the geometry of the specimen.
 * A simple search on Google shows there is an 'absolute hardness' scale; in fact, there appear to be at least two: the Rosiwal absolute hardness scale; and the Knoop absolute hardness scale. Also, how can a non-existent scale yield real numbers like the ones in this article (although I've more commonly seen 140000 for Diamond, not the 1500 given above; I suppose this might be the Rosiwal vs. Knoop scales.) -- SJK
 * What defines hardness depends on the scale you use. The Rosiwal scale measures resistance to abrasion and uses an arbitrary value of 1000 as the hardness of corundum as its basis (diamond comes out to 140,000).  The Knoop scale measures how deep a standard diamond pointed tool can cut into a material given a standard amount of pressure pressure (diamond comes out to 7000 in this scale).

 * Isn't part of the definition of hardness the scratch test (if you can scratch something with something else, that something else is the harder of the two)?

 * Thats the point of the Mohs scale. Frankly, the most useful materials for hardness testing in the field are fingernails (hardness 2-3) and pocket knives (hardness 5-6).  Used in conjunction with luster, crystal habit and color, fingernails and pocket knives do a pretty good job.

The real answer to all this discussion (just above is part of it, too), is that the Mohs scale is a field test, really. All of the things on the scale are minerals - "pure". In the field, one picks up a rock and scratches it. Granite is a great example because it contains quartz, orthoclase feldspar, and a small percentage of a mafic mineral (generally biotite or hornblende) all in one. Even if there were an "absolute hardness", it would be no better, because rocks are not "absolute". There are many variables in rocks, grain structure, grain orientation, inclusions, mixtures - all sorts of stuff. If you have a "Jade Sculpture" and you can scratch it with a knife, it's not jade, it's something else. That's it's use - just one clue as to identifying a rock or mineral. That doesn't make Mohs scale trivial - probably 100% of amateur and pro geologists and minerologists in the world know and use it. Jjdon (talk) 21:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Absolute hardness of moissanite?
Question: What is the absolute hardness of moissanite? Answer: Moissanite is crystalline silicon carbide, also known as Carborundum, which is on the scale below. The absolute hardness I for one don't know. Jjdon (talk) 20:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is "liquid" listed on the second/extended table?
Question: why is "liquid" listed on the second/extended table? It's been there since the table was created, and I cannot see why it isn't "Talc" there. 194.106.59.2 15:27, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nationality of Friedrich Mohs?
MANY SOURCES say that Mohs was Austrian, Many say he was German - The article does not make this clear. I know that he worked and lived mostly in Austria, but this neither makes him Austrian or German by default. His nationality should be clarified.
 * Looking at HIS article, it would appear he was Saxon. Which makes him German.

Absolute hardness?
Maybe someone could link to the appropriate article, or write it if it doesn't exist.--345Kai 09:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree - what is the 'Absolute Hardness' scale. Eh?

kind of related: "Moh's Hardness Scale Mnemonic:

Talc Gypsum Calcite Fluorite Apatite Platinum? Quartz Topaz Corundum Diamond

Plagioclase ? (covers a fair range of compositions and hardnesses I know, but mnemonicists don't normally care too much about the details. My DH&Z gives plagioclases as 6-6½.) A Karley (talk) 05:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

It is 2010 now and the 'Absolute Hardness' sticks out as incomplete. It is worse than mentioning a temperature of 620° (Celsius or Fahrenheit your guess). Where Kelvin has something absolute for temperatures, Mohs scale is as much absolute as any other hardness scale. Elegast (talk) 15:01, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

2024 now and this is silly. There's a table comparing Mohs to Vickers, where the Vickers hardness table appears to use Kg/mm2? So why isn't the Mohs scale also classified formally by some SI unit? Blitterbug 09:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Window glass
I think window glass is somewhere near quartz, since the two are very similar in composition. Thus I have changed it to 6.5 unsigned
 * Very scientific.68.145.207.92 03:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Must be right. I think graphite and diamond must be pretty similar as well. I mean, it's basically the same thing. Dept of Alchemy 21:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Window glass's main component is silicon since it's made from sand. The snare (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Mohs Scale
Diamond is 10 on Mohs scale. For some reason diamond showed up as 15 on the table, so I changed that. Dept of Alchemy 21:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

 * He must have confused it with the Ridgeway scale, which modified by Moh's by putting diamond at 15 J1812 (talk) 11:52, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Carbonado
with the mohs scale table, can we add carbonado about it has the same strength as diamond and is a fairly notable example of a mohs 10 that few people have heard of. : D please add. Tincanmansiimon (talk) 19:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Diamond not readily available?
I removed the paranthetical diamonds exception from "All readily available (except diamonds)" Diamonds are certainly readily available--you can get them at hardware stores all over the world! And they are by no means a rare mineral. (the reasons why they are so high-priced isn't because they are rare.) As a matter of fact, if you were challenged to find flourite or diamond in a limited amount of time, for prize money, unless you happen to live near a university with a geology department you'd probably be better off choosing to search for a diamond. Brentt 22:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I take your point, but fluorite isn't exactly hard to find either. It's moderately popular in jewellery. Look for "Blue John". A Karley (talk) 05:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Natural occurring materials harder than diamond affecting Mohr's Scale
Newly occurring materials harder than diamonds have been recently discovered. It is unclear how this will affect Mohr's scale. At the very least some wording will need to be changed on this page to incorporate this; ie: "As the hardest known naturally occurring substance, diamond is at the top of the scale." I am not sure how mentioning the new materials should be handled and I can't find anything on how it might affect Mohr's scale (I would guess the materials would be assigned a number above 10 rather than renormalization).

Link to story: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16610-diamond-no-longer-natures-hardest-material.html

User:Nicf 08:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.124.22 (talk)

 * For further reading, you may also find the following page of use: http://www.itvnews.tv/Sci-Tech/Science/diamond-is-no-longer-natures-hardest-material.html

79.71.190.207 (talk) 00:12, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hardness of boron
Delete reference to the article of Zarechnaya et al. These people were not the first ones to measure the hardness of boron. Weintraub was the first one to give qualitative (9.5 by Mohs scale) measurement, Solozhenko et al. were the first to give quantitative measure (50 GPa).

I see that user Materialscientist has persistently reverted deletion of the the reference to Zarechnaya et al. I also see that on WP this user has generally created a lot of references to these people (group of N.Dubrovinskaia). I am aware that Materialscientist is a collaborator of N.Dubrovinskaia, and this should make him ineligible to promote her worksNo more D (talk) 19:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * None of the instances talks about priority, thus your concerns do not apply, but your personal attacks are not appreciated. Materialscientist (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

If you agree that Zarechnaya et al. (2009) do not have priority over Weintraub (1911) and Solozhenko (2008), then I see no point in adding their reference. The journal where Dubrovinskaia's group (Zarechnaya et al.) published their work is not freely available, but actually quite expensive. These people were not the first and obtained results identical to previous works. What are the reasons to include their paper? Will you equally insist on adding the 5th, 25th, 101st determinations of boron's hardness? As to personal attacks - there are none. It is well known on WP that you, Materialscientist, are Dubrovinskaia's collaborator. This has been said many times in WP and you never denied that you are Dubrovinskaia's collaborator. This explains why you so eagerly put her name in so many articles. But WP should not suffer from this. Please do not reinstate this paper again, and refrain from adding Dubrovinskaia in this or other WP articles without truly good reasons, or I will have to complain about this. No more D (talk) 04:45, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The reference to Zarechnaya's paper really does not belong here. It is not the first or even the second paper on the topic, but third! Moreover, the paper is scientifically incorrect, see http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.2126 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4821. The persistent addition of this reference by Materialscientist only confirms the above made suggestion that he has a personal involvement with that paper or its authors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.164.109.129 (talk) 10:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

TO MATERIALSCIENTIST: Please stop adding irrelevant and scientifically incorrect reference to Zarechnaya. Please stop adding references to works of your friends, especially those references that were proven to be scientifically incorrect. Those references are not legitimate and if they are included, for objectivity they must be accompanied by their critique which their authors have not addressed. If Materialscientist wants to justify the addition of this reference, would he please run it through the Talk-pages first. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.164.109.129 (talk) 10:48, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That someone is someone's friend, and that something was proven incorrect are mere speculations. Your are banned user Aoganov, who came to wikipedia with a single purpose to promote your work, and discredit anyone who stands on your way, by any means possible. I got involved in this whole issue only because someone from Dubrovinskaia group contacted me on my talk. I was first skeptic to all parties for quite some time, and then you showed what you're up to. Cease and desist. Those references (yours and of Dubrovinskaia) stand here because of WP:NPOV, to present both sides of research. Materialscientist (talk) 11:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistencies
Under the table, the text says that a steel file has a hardness of 6.5 and a streak plate has a hardness of 7. Neither of the two footnoted links in that section give a hardness for a "steel file". One gives a "steel nail" as 5.5, and the other gives a "steel needle" as 6.5. They give different hardnesses for a streak plate, 6.5 vs. 7. The subsequent intermediate hardness table lists steel as 4 to 4.5, and hardened steel as 7.5 to 8.NoJoy (talk) 17:34, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:OR removed
I have removed a statement
 * Since the invention of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, there have been reports of materials harder than the highest mineral on the scale, diamond; so the Mohs scale may be changed in the future.

Per WP:OR - neither it is present in the cited reference nor there is any reliable experimental report of material harder than diamond. Materialscientist (talk) 01:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Look at the links in the comments above. You are wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.180.196.236 (talk) 09:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There are two types of reports on materials "harder than diamond". One is experimental work on ADNR, which is diamond, but in a nanocrystalline form. Another is theoretical, on lonsdaleite - needs to be confirmed by experiment, which showed that lonsdaleite produced so far is too defective and has a hardness significantly lower than diamond. Materialscientist (talk) 10:06, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Hardness of chromium
On the same wikipedia page, elemental chromium is stated as having a hardness of 8.5 on Moh's scale and then in the last chart it is written 9. Chromium is absolutely NOT as hard as corundum, since Moh's scale is not a proportional scale, and with around 1GPa Vickers hardness, chromium doesn't compare well with alumina, in other words, there is a substantial difference between 8.5 and 9 in Moh's scale. Mindat.org is NOT a reliable source, there are loads of inconsistencies and inaccuracies on that site, why is it referred to so often on wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.240.163.245 (talk) 22:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have lowered 9 to 8.5. There is an intrinsic problem with metals that their hardness can vary several times or more depending on the history (thermal and mechanical) of preprocessing. Materialscientist (talk) 02:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd very much like to know the hardness range of pure chromium for various states of annealing, as unfortunately I don't have access to hardness- testing equipment. However, from my own experiments, for coarsely crystalline, slowly cooled- from- melt cast metal of both 99.15 and 99.9% purity, quartz and high carbon steel will scratch it. Anyone else have reason to suspect that even 8.5 mohs hardness is too high? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elementperson (talk • contribs) 19:43, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Mnemonic
There is a mnemonic for remembering the Mohs scale. Can't remember it (oh, the irony..). Shouldn't that have a mention? VenomousConcept (talk) 13:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

 * Looked it up, the mnemonic is : Toronto Girls Can Flirt And Other Queer Things Can Do VenomousConcept (talk) 14:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Carbide
Error! stishovite is harder than tantalum carbide(<9.5), invert them in table! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.221.100.6 (talk) 13:57, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

 * References please --Chris.urs-o (talk) 14:23, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Gross mistake: like other metal carbides, hardness of tantalum carbide is clearly <9.5, while stishovite has vickers of ~30GPa (~9.5 Mohs). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.12.115.168 (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I updated the stishovite and this article. Mohs scale is very approximate, and there is much spread in stishovite hardness (anisotropy, sample dependence - stishovite samples are relatively rare), thus it is often uncertain which material is harder. Materialscientist (talk) 10:09, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Much more lower tantalum carbide at 9-9,5. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.220.110.78 (talk) 13:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 May 2012
Tantalum carbide must change position in table.

84.221.101.98 (talk) 11:53, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Why? Dru of Id (talk) 12:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Tantalum carbide is close to Cr in Vickers hardness, and thus should be something like 8.5, which is what I have changed in the article just now. Materialscientist (talk) 12:50, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
 * ► But it's better at 9-9.5.
 * Unreliable page. Also, look at Vickers hardness, not Mohs. Mohs scale is very non-linear around 9 - compare actual hardness values of metals (Cr) and oxides. Materialscientist (talk) 03:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * -->OK, consistent with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_carbide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.221.86.200 (talk) 01:28, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 24 May 2012
Titanium diboride and stishovite are at wrong position in table: with their ~30 GPa Vickers they should be lowered to 9-9.5, not 9.5-10 (at least ~40Gpa) wherein B6O and ReB2 could be placed.

78.12.118.38 (talk) 22:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Values vary from report to report, and 30 or 40 is quite the same for the Mohs scale. Some reshuffling might be needed, but better one. Materialscientist (talk) 22:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

How are intermediate values determined?
Early on, it explains that Mohs scale is an ordinal scale. In the table that follows, we see that the absolute hardness values are irregular with respect to the Mohs values. This seems to be saying that only the integer values from 1 to 10 inclusive are defined, and no substance can be said to have a particular Mohs value outside this set – it can just be said to be "between 5 and 6" or "below 1", for instance.

And yet immediately below the table, and in the section that follows, specific non-integer values are given for a number of materials. Does this mean that Mohs added these intermediate points to the scale since originally publishing it? Or that somebody has invented a formula (maybe a piecewise linear, or piecewise exponential, or cubic spline, or just a 9th degree polynomial) whereby the sclerometer output for a given material can be converted into a Mohs value? If the article is going to mention specific intermediate values at all, it should at least explain them. — Smjg (talk) 18:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

 * I'm also curious about this, and unfortunately it doesn't look like there have been any updates in the last 6 years. Some googling indicates that in some contexts, 5.5 just means "between 5 and 6", but I've also seen vague references to more specific extensions of the scale.  (Such as this google book result about lignites.)  Ideally someone with specific knowledge could add a note to the page about this?  --71.163.110.245 (talk) 18:16, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't mean a lower hardness scale material can't effect a higher one
Maybe there should be a note of this. For example, a steel axe is much harder than any wood, but this doesn't mean that your steel axe will never wear out chopping trees/wood. Nor does it mean if have a tongue ring that you can't scratch the enamel off your teeth with it with repeated rubbing. There's more to it than hardness, what about the amount of force used. A spinning steel blade circular saw could cut a tooth couldn't it- even if the tooth is a higher hardness. The snare (talk) 02:10, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2016
208.108.212.76 (talk) 13:21, 28 January 2016 (UTC) Mohs scale is a scale for minerals and their hardness, doing test like the scrach test, and hardness test.
 * ❌ - that is what the article states - Arjayay (talk) 14:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The Mohs Scale
Is there a reason why the article does not use the definite article, or is that an omission? I.e., is there a reason to say "Mohs scale of mineral hardness is…" instead of "The Mohs scale of mineral hardness is…" ? –Jérôme (talk) 11:23, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You're talking about the lead sentence? I agree, it sounds awkward. The rest of the article uses "the" in front of "Mohs". I'll go fix that sentence. — Gorthian (talk) 00:10, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Man made Lonsdaleite
Now that there are expectations that Lonsdaleite manufactured/fabricated in a lab will be harder than diamond, when will we be able to add it to the scale/list/table? 77.126.20.27 (talk) 23:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Specifying some formulae as 'OH-' and others as just 'OH'
In the table giving the chemical formulae of the minerals making up the scale, for talc we have "(OH)2", but for apatite "(OH-,Cl-,F-)", and topaz "(OH-,F-)2". In the Wikipedia entries for apatite and topaz, the article doesn't give the "-" indicating the ionic charge, as we don't for talc in this article. Is there any reason for the inconsistency? Peace Makes Plenty (talk) 16:28, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081017152845/http://www.inlandlapidary.com/user_area/hardness.asp to http://www.inlandlapidary.com/user_area/hardness.asp

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 19:58, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

tantalum carbide
Why is this listed in two different places on the intermediate scale? Jokem (talk) 03:10, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Comparison with Vickers
Why is the Mohs scale being compared with the Vickers scale in the article? Aren't they measures of two different qualitiesrespectively, scratch hardness and indentation hardness? Largoplazo (talk) 22:32, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mohs scale


text:
Crack

Crack frequently refers to:

 * Crack, a fracture in a body
 * Crack, a fracture (geology) in a rock
 * Crack, short for crack cocaine

Crack(s) or The Crack may also refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * The Crack, first album by The Ruts
 * Crack (album), an album by Z-RO
 * Crack (band), a Spanish progressive rock group
 * The Crack (magazine), a free culture magazine covering the North East of England
 * Crack Magazine, a UK-based European music and culture monthly
 * Crack Movement, a Mexican literary movement
 * Cracks (album), an album by Nabiha
 * Cracks (film), a 2009 independent thriller

Software

 * Crack (password software), a UNIX/Linux password hacking program for systems administrators
 * Software cracking, a computer program that modifies other software to remove or disable features usually related to digital rights management
 * No-disc crack, software to circumvent Compact Disc and DVD copy protection
 * Password cracking, the process of recovering passwords from data stored in or transmitted by a computer system
 * Security hacker, cracking a system to gain unauthorized access (sometimes mislabeled as "hacking")

Other uses

 * CRACK, an acronym for 'Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity', now called Project Prevention
 * CRACK International Art Camp
 * Crack spread, the value difference between crude oil and oil products or between different oil products, usually expressed as a per-barrel value
 * Cracking (chemistry), the process whereby complex organic molecules are broken down into simpler molecules
 * Craic, or crack, an Irish term for discourse, news, etc.
 * Safe cracking, the process of opening a safe without the combination or the key

title: Crack


text:
Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia

Adrian of Nicomedia (also known as Hadrian) or Saint Adrian (Ἁδριανὸς Νικομηδείας, died 4 March 306) was a Herculian Guard of the Roman Emperor Galerius Maximian. After becoming a convert to Christianity with his wife Natalia (Ναταλία), Adrian was martyred at Nicomedia in Asia-Minor            (Turkey). Adrian was the chief military saint of Northern Europe for many ages, second only to Saint George, and is much revered in Flanders, Germany and the north of France.

Martyrdom
Adrian and Natalia lived in Nicomedia during the time of Emperor Maximian in the early fourth century. The twenty-eight-year-old Adrian was head of the praetorium.

It is said that while presiding over the torture of a band of Christians, he asked them what reward they expected to receive from God. They replied, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." He was so amazed at their courage that he publicly confessed his faith, though he had not yet been baptized. He was then immediately imprisoned. He was forbidden visitors, but accounts state that his wife Natalia came to visit him, dressed as a boy, to ask for his prayers when he entered Heaven.

After his execution, the executioners wanted to burn the bodies of the dead, but a storm arose and quenched the fire. Natalia recovered one of Adrian's hands.

Historicity
The accuracy of the recorded story has been questioned. A second Hadrian is said to have been a son of the Emperor Probus, and, having embraced Christianity, to have been put to death (A.D. 320), at Nicomedia in Asia Minor, by Emperor Licinius. But no reliable information concerning him is extant. He is commemorated on August 26.

Feast day and patronage
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Adrian shares a feast day with his wife on 26 August in the Church Calendar, which for the majority of Orthodox Christians remains on the Julian Calendar, is on 8 September in the Gregorian and global civil calendars; he also has feast days alone on 4 March. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is venerated alone, without his wife, on September 8. The Coptic Orthodox Church likewise venerates St. Adrian and his companions on the third day of the Coptic month known as Nesi (corresponding to September 8), mentioning his wife's role during the Synaxarion reading of that day.

Saint Hadrian was the chief military saint of Northern Europe for many ages, second only to Saint George, and is much revered in Flanders, Germany and the north of France. He is usually represented armed, with an anvil in his hands or at his feet.

Sant'Adriano al Foro, a church in the Roman Forum (founded AD 630), was named in his honour. The name was later transferred to Santa Maria della Mercede e Sant'Adriano a Villa Albani (1958) when the old church was demolished.

title: Adrian and Natalia of Nicomedia


text:
Talk:Pythagoras

Pythagoras and "smoke trapping"?
In the "Teachings" section, the article states: "Pythagoras and his followers reportedly had a spiritual practice known as 'smoke trapping'. This involved entering an enclosed space, typically a cave, and lighting a fire until noxious fumes filled the room. They would inhale the smoke and would experience vivid hallucinations due to oxygen deprivation and hypercapnia. They supposedly would see divine geometric shapes and patterns which they would copy onto the walls with charcoal to be analyzed at a later point."

This might be a hoax, though an amusing one. The source attached to the claim, Cornford, F. M. (1922). "Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition", states nothing of the sort. I haven't come across any descriptions of this "pythagorean" practice in the standard literature on Pythagoras or the Pythagoreans. It is fairly often mentioned that Pythagoras was an occasional cave dweller (Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, among others), but proof of this "smoke trapping" eludes me. Even somewhat tendentious texts on Pythagoras' hallucinations, e.g., Hillman (2008). The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western Civilization, do not mention smoke trapping. Herodotus has something of the sort in Histories (IV:74-75), but he is writing about Scythians, hemp seeds, and tents. If this claim is substantiated in respectable scholarship, an appropriate source ought to be added. As it is, following the source attached to this paragraphs leads nowhere. Lasseromer (talk) 14:13, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to the Cornford article, but if you've read it and it doesn't support the information in the paragraph, you're welcome to just delete the paragraph (with an edit summary explaining why). Alternatively, you can insert a Failed verification template after the reference. Deor (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

 * Inre the material removed at special:diff/1210767847, all I can find that seems vaguely related are two passage from Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras (a source which substantially consists of mythical nonsense anyway):
 * "After walking, they bathed, and then assembled in the place where they eat together, not more than ten eating together. Libations and sacrifices were performed with fumigations and frankincense. Then the supper was eaten and finished before sunset."
 * "He sacrificed to the Gods with millet, cakes and honeycombs and other fumigations. But neither he nor any one of the contemplative philosophers sacrificed animals."
 * According to Sumler (2017), there's also an ancient papyrus, "PGM 7.795–845", which contains:
 * a spell for a dream divination and boasts its lineage from the philosophers Pythagoras and Democritus. For three nights the user must burn frankincense and speak a formula. Before the expected divination, he must burn incense over a laurel branch and go to sleep with it on his head.
 * footnote: Pliny (24.102, 25.5) often cites the works of these two philosophers in his discussion of plants and their psychoactive properties.
 * There were certainly ancient Greek rituals, e.g. oracular visions, involving breathing psychoactive fumes. Maybe someone confused Pythia with Pythagoras. The "smoke trapping" thing, i.e. sitting in a cave next to a wood fire to cause delirium via asphyxia, sounds made up. –jacobolus (t) 18:19, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2023
Evidence has revealed Pythagoras's Journal in Rome with a body holding it. 204.8.62.75 (talk)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. HouseBlastertalk 22:19, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Wow...I can't even find any UNRELIABLE sources for this "journal in Rome", even among the usual suspects for propagating this kind of junk.--ElectroNautical (talk) 16:27, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Modern secondary sources
None of the sources listed in the section "Modern secondary sources" are cited in the article, so why does it exist? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:44, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You are wrong, and you broke a lot of references by adding ref=none to them. DuncanHill (talk) 11:37, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * According to User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors.js, many were not cited. You solved the problem a different way, by moving then out to a "Further reading" section. But my point still stands: why list sources that we don't use? (xref WP:ELNO).
 * I added "ref=none" to just three sources but I acknowledge that this was an error. I won't bore you with the detail of how I misled myself.
 * Many give a page url but use url=, which attaches the hyperlink to title of the whole book. It should use page=[https://etc.etc.etc.&pg=PAnnn nnn] . So you also reverted my (many) corrections of this error. (By the way, Google has become far more parsimonious with the amount of text it displays to a request for a specific page, so I suspect that many of these links are no longer effective.)
 * Many give a google books URL for no obvious reason, so why give this bookseller pride of place? You reverted my corrections of this error too.
 * I don't intend to pursue these points so it is for the usual editors to decide if they wish to follow up. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:39, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
 * When someone introduces reference errors it's not up to me to pick apart the good and bad parts of their edit. You claimed that none of the sources were used when in fact most are - only 8 were not. If you can come up with better links for the sources used then knock yourself out. Personally I never use Google books if I can avoid it, it gives different results for different people. DuncanHill (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Annotating the see also list?
Having crashed and burned with my last edit, best I invite comment on this proposal before doing anything in live space.

The See also list currently reads
 * Cosmos
 * Ex pede Herculem
 * Isopsephy (gematria)
 * List of things named after Pythagoras
 * Lute of Pythagoras
 * Pythagoras tree (fractal)
 * Pythagorean comma
 * Pythagorean cup
 * Pythagorean triple
 * Pythagoras (sculptor)
 * Sacred geometry
 * Baudhāyana sūtras

I would like to expose the wp:short descriptions of these articles, to give readers a clue as to their content, thus:

Any concerns? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

 * Don't worry about the previous issue JMF; you acted in good faith. As for your proposal, it is justified per MOS:SEEALSO; i thus support it. Furthermore, sacred geometry appears as a piped link in the article's body, while Pythagoras (sculptor) appears in a hatnote at the top of the page; they can be removed from the section. Demetrios1993 (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

 * I dramatically cut down the list, as most of the entries seemed inappropriate, and then made explicit inline annotations for the rest. –jacobolus (t) 20:20, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think the annotated links were inappropriate; they were in line with MOS:SEEALSO. Furthermore, in your edit summary you wrote that "most of this stuff [that was removed] is not relevant to this article, or else is already mentioned" (diff). Though many of these removals were links to tangentially related topics, and also in line with WP:SEEALSO, I suppose keeping just the list of things named after Pythagoras is probably better; in that case, the Pythagorean cup also needs to be removed. Also, one of the Baudhayana sutras is comparable to the Pythagorean theorem, and maybe not an ideal inclusion in this particular article. About Isopsephy and Sacred geometry, it is probably better to include such links along with relevant content in the article itself. For example, regarding isopsephy, we could add a summary of the following passage from the book Alphanumeric Cosmology From Greek into Arabic (2020) by Juan Acevedo :
 * pp. 42–44: As an adjective, ἰσόψηφος is applied to words in which the values of letters added together make up the same total, like ΝΟΜΟΣ (law) = ΑΡΙΘΜΟΣ (number) = 430, ΔΙΟΣ (of Zeus) = ΘΕΟΣ (deity) = 284; naturally anagrams will share the same value, like ΚΡΑΤΟΣ (strength) = ΑΡΚΤΟΣ (a bear) = 691. A famous example reported by Suetonius (Nero 39, 2) is an indictment of the matricidal emperor, Νέρων ἰδίαν μητέρα ἀπέκτεινε. NERO = he slew his own mother. where both sides of the equality total 1005. ... Such ἰσόψηφα, found in coins, sculptures, paintings and poems are at the basis of ὀνοματομαντεία, a divination through names, or rather a divination of names, whereby concepts are explained through numerical identity. The point, though, is not 'to find a coincidental equivalence between words. It means that there is a direct relationship between these words,' recalling 'the meaning of "symbol" in the ancient world – objects that participated in and made present the person or object they symbolized.' Hippolytus (Haer. 4.13) gives a detailed explanation of the procedure used, and he speaks of the practice as a 'Pythagorean reckoning' (Πυθαγορείος ψήφος) heeded by 'those who invent a serious philosophy' δι᾽ ἀριθμῶν καὶ στοιχείων, 'through numbers and letters', who believe they can 'prophesy by means of reckonings and numbers, letters and names' (διὰ ψήφων τε καὶ ἀριθμῶν, στοιχείων τε καὶ ὀνομάτων μαντεύεσθαι – 4.14), and also that they can 'discern life' (τὸ ζῆν διακρίνειν – 4.15). It is remarkable that from the earliest datable mention of this practice in Greek literature (Iamblichus, VP 18, 147) there is an association with Pythagoras.
 * Last, the section didn't repeat links that appear in the article's body; the links that were in fact being repeated in the past, were noted above, and were subsequently removed by JMF (diff). Demetrios1993 (talk) 17:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 'Short descriptions' are generally less appropriate as topical annotations on 'see also' lists than annotations written specifically for the page, because the short descriptions are only specifically intended to be used for disambiguation of links in on-site search results lists, which is a substantially different context that generally doesn't overlap super well with the context of a 'see also' list on a particular article.
 * I removed the items which were named after Pythagoras much later based on tenuous multi-step links – e.g. the Pythagoras tree fractal which is named that because it involves squares on the three sides of triangles, an idea related to the so-called Pythagorean theorem, but was invented in the 1940s and is not directly relevant to Pythagoras the person – but left the topics that come from antiquity and are attributed directly to Pythagoras, even though these attributions are apocryphal and probably made up – namely the Pythagorean cup and the Ex pede Herculem story/phrase. If there are other things directly attributed to Pythagoras that aren't previously mentioned/linked in the article I think those could also go in such a list, but it seems to me that throwing every entry in List of things named after Pythagoras onto this list would be unhelpful.
 * The see also list didn't make it clear why Isopsephy or Sacred geometry is directly relevant, and the connection is not immediately obvious to me. This would be a place where a descriptive article-specific annotation could make it clearer why someone thinks one of these list entries belongs. If you want to integrate those into the article that also sounds fine, assuming there are serious scholarly sources directly linking them to Pythagoras.
 * See also lists tend to accumulate lots of cruft as random passers-by throw things onto them based on their own mental associations. We should try to keep these lists trimmed to items where the relationship is pretty direct / that seem likely to directly benefit readers. (Though frankly no 'see also' section at all is also fine for many articles.) –jacobolus (t) 19:14, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Fast Tracking a Good Article reassessment?
Sorry folks, I KNOW I am supposed to add new topics at the bottom, but (a) there are very serious problems starting in the lead, (b) this article is too important to leave these kind of errors unaddressed and (c) I simply don't have time to prioritize improving the article before requesting reassessment.

I'm hoping to solicit help from previous editors or those with interest and experience making this article more encyclopedic.

Among the biggest problems I see in the lead, one un-sourced assertion that stands out is...

"..many of the accomplishments credited to him likely originated earlier or were made by his colleagues or successors. Some accounts mention that the philosophy associated with Pythagoras was related to mathematics and that numbers were important, but it is debated to what extent, if at all, he actually contributed to mathematics or natural philosophy."

This kind of 'bold statement' (opinionated summary of various opinions) in the lead needs extraordinary proof referenced immediately following with specific examples. Seemingly everyone agrees (including the experts themselves) that almost everything about his life is mere speculation based on apocryphal legends.

The lead should me MUCH shorter, focus on 'little is actually known' and make sure that controversial references to unproven and unprovable stuff like 'aspects of vegetarianism' ?!?!? are moved elsewhere. Writing style and dialectics are also big problems. Vegetarianism is by definition a binary thing -- either you eat ONLY from the plant kingdom or you don't. We are leading readers to the conclusion that not only was Pythagoras preaching about the ethics of eating animal protein, he was also a hypocrite in choosing the 'aspects' of vegetarianism he liked.

I'm going to take a stab at some more-than-minor edits I HOPE will be non-controversial, but well aware that multiple editors here must have shared the PoV's that led to acceptance of the lead as it is.

As I find it, this article gives WP:UNDUE weight to speculations about the silliest and most controversial of these apocryphal tales and could be summed up with a "He was a whack-job", which segues nicely to...'smoke trapping' ElectroNautical (talk) 15:56, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

 * Well...I just realized the article is protected. I hope someone can help.  If it cannot be unprotected, what are the options? I don't want to resort to requesting reassessment, but the recommendation to "prioritize improving" is not available to me.  Thoughts?  ElectroNautical (talk) 16:16, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * "needs extraordinary proof referenced immediately" – This is an entirely uncontroversial claim, widely accepted among scholars, with nothing particularly "bold" about it. Discussion of this point is well sourced in the relevant section of the article, and doesn't need a footnote parade redundantly pasted into the lead section. –jacobolus (t) 16:37, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * What jacobolus said. XOR'easter (talk) 15:02, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2024
Please add the following item to «MODERN SECONDARY SOURCES» : ● WISER, Jean-François (2024) Pythagoras' Archives - A Sum of Pythagoreanism / ISBN-13 : 978-2322525287 PYTHAGORE46 (talk) 20:55, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment: This is apparently a self-published book. It's not cited in the article, so it doesn't belong under "Modern secondary sources" in the "References" section. I doubt that it would be suitable even in the "Further reading" section. Deor (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This seems like a self-published book by an amateur without professional experience in the subject? –jacobolus (t) 21:44, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Not a reliable source per above.   [[User:CanonNi ]]  (talk • contribs) 00:26, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This is indeed a «self-published book» written by an «amateur». But «professionals» certainly don't have the privilege of knowledge. Wouldn't you read a bit of it (see AMAZON or GOOGLE BOOKS samples) before dismissing ? Thank you. J-F.WISER PYTHAGORE46 (talk) 11:58, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See WP:reliable source 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:31, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Very occasionally self-published books by amateurs can be used as sources in Wikipedia, but generally that only happens when the work is widely cited by experts in the field, which doesn't happen immediately after publication.
 * Absent strong countervailing evidence, self-published works are not considered to be "reliable sources" by Wikipedia. This policy is not intended to reflect on the merits of any particular work; it just simplifies the messy process of managing an encyclopedia written by pseudonymous volunteer editors. –jacobolus (t) 14:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Pythagoras