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Quinoa

Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa;,  from Quechua kinwa or kinuwa) is a flowering plant in the amaranth family. It is a herbaceous annual plant grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds; the seeds are rich in protein, dietary fiber, B vitamins and dietary minerals in amounts greater than in many grains. Quinoa is not a grass but rather a pseudocereal botanically related to spinach and amaranth (Amaranthus spp.), and originated in the Andean region of northwestern South America. It was first used to feed livestock 5,200–7,000 years ago, and for human consumption 3,000–4,000 years ago in the Lake Titicaca basin of Peru and Bolivia.

The plant thrives at high elevations and produces seeds that are rich in protein. Almost all production in the Andean region is done by small farms and associations. Its cultivation has spread to more than 70 countries, including Kenya, India, the United States and European countries. As a result of increased popularity and consumption in North America, Europe, and Australasia, quinoa crop prices tripled between 2006 and 2014.

Etymology and nomenclature
The species Chenopodium quinoa was first described by Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765–1812), a German botanist who studied plants from South America, brought back by explorers Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland.

The genus name Chenopodium is composed of two words coming from the Greek χήν,-νός, goose and πόδῖον, podion "little foot", or "goose foot", because of the resemblance of the leaves with the trace of a goose's foot.

The specific epithet quinoa is a borrowing from the Spanish quinua or quinoa, itself derived from Quechua kinuwa.

The Incas nicknamed quinoa chisiya mama, which in Quechua means "mother of all grains".

Description
Chenopodium quinoa is a dicotyledonous annual plant, usually about 1 – high. It has broad, generally powdery, hairy, lobed leaves, normally arranged alternately. The woody central stem is branched or unbranched depending on the variety and may be green, red or purple. The flowering panicles arise from the top of the plant or from leaf axils along the stem. Each panicle has a central axis from which a secondary axis emerges either with flowers (amaranthiform) or bearing a tertiary axis carrying the flowers (glomeruliform). These are small, incomplete, sessile flowers of the same colour as the sepals, and both pistillate and perfect forms occur. Pistillate flowers are generally located at the proximal end of the glomeruli and the perfect ones at the distal end of it. A perfect flower has five sepals, five anthers and a superior ovary, from which two to three stigmatic branches emerge.

The green hypogynous flowers have a simple perianth and are generally self-fertilizing, though cross-pollination occurs. In the natural environment, betalains serve to attract animals to generate a greater rate of pollination and ensure, or improve, seed dissemination. The fruits (seeds) are about 2 mm in diameter and of various colors — from white to red or black, depending on the cultivar.

In regards to the "newly" developed salinity resistance of C.quinoa, some studies have concluded that accumulation of organic osmolytes plays a dual role for the species. They provide osmotic adjustment, in addition to protection against oxidative stress of the photosynthetic structures in developing leaves. Studies also suggested that reduction in stomatal density in reaction to salinity levels represents an essential instrument of defence to optimize water use efficiency under the given conditions to which it may be exposed.

Natural distribution
Chenopodium quinoa is believed to have been domesticated in the Peruvian Andes from wild or weed populations of the same species. There are non-cultivated quinoa plants (Chenopodium quinoa var. melanospermum) that grow in the area it is cultivated; these may either be related to wild predecessors, or they could be descendants of cultivated plants.

Nutrition
Raw, uncooked quinoa is 13% water, 64% carbohydrates, 14% protein, and 6% fat. Nutritional evaluations indicate that a 100 g serving of raw quinoa seeds has a food energy of 1,539 kJ and is a rich source (20% or higher of the Daily Value, DV) of protein, dietary fiber, several B vitamins, including 46%DV for folate, and for several dietary minerals such as magnesium (55%DV), manganese (95%DV), phosphorus (65%DV), and zinc (33%DV) (table).

After boiling, which is the typical preparation for eating the seeds, many nutritional evaluations change. Although a 100 g serving of cooked quinoa increases to 72% water, most nutritional evaluations are reduced, such as, 21% carbohydrates, 4% protein, and 2% fat, and the food energy of cooked quinoa is reduced to 503 kJ. Although similarly reduced, cooked quinoa remains a rich source of the dietary minerals manganese (30%DV) and phosphorus (22%DV). However, cooked quinoa is reduced to being just a moderate source (10–19%DV) of dietary fiber and folate (11%), as well as of the dietary minerals iron (11%), magnesium (18%), and zinc (11%). (table).

Quinoa is gluten-free. Because quinoa has a high concentration of protein and is a good source of many micronutrients, has versatility in preparation, and a potential for increased yields in controlled environments, it has been selected as an experimental crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration human occupied space flights.

Besides its food properties, quinoa has several medical uses, among which antimicrobial and anticancer properties are promising.

Saponins and oxalic acid
In their natural state, the seeds have a coating that contains bitter-tasting saponins, making them unpalatable. Most of the grain sold commercially has been processed to remove this coating. This bitterness has beneficial effects during cultivation, as it deters birds and, therefore, the plant requires minimal protection. The genetic control of bitterness involves quantitative inheritance. Although lowering the saponin content through selective breeding to produce sweeter, more palatable varieties is complicated by ≈10% cross-pollination, it is a major goal of quinoa breeding programs, which may include genetic engineering.

The toxicity category rating of the saponins in quinoa treats them as mild eye and respiratory irritants and as a low gastrointestinal irritant. In South America, these saponins have many uses, including as a detergent for clothing and washing, and as a folk medicine antiseptic for skin injuries.

Additionally, the leaves and stems of all species of the genus Chenopodium and related genera of the family Amaranthaceae, including quinoa, contain high levels of oxalic acid.

Climate requirements
The plant's growth is highly variable due to the number of different subspecies, varieties and landraces (domesticated plants or animals adapted to the environment in which they originated). However, it is generally undemanding and altitude-hardy; it is grown from coastal regions to over 4000 m in the Andes near the equator, with most of the cultivars being grown between 2500 m and 4000 m. Depending on the variety, optimal growing conditions are in cool climates with temperatures that vary between -4 C during the night to near 35 C during the day. Some cultivars can withstand lower temperatures without damage. Light frosts normally do not affect the plants at any stage of development, except during flowering. Midsummer frosts during flowering, a frequent occurrence in the Andes, lead to sterilization of the pollen. Rainfall requirements are highly variable between the different cultivars, ranging from 300 to 1000 mm during the growing season. Growth is optimal with well-distributed rainfall during early growth and no rain during seed maturation and harvesting.

United States
Quinoa has been cultivated in the United States, primarily in the high elevation San Luis Valley of Colorado where it was introduced in 1983. In this high-altitude desert valley, maximum summer temperatures rarely exceed 30 °C and night temperatures are about 7 °C. In the 2010s, experimental production was attempted in the Palouse region of Eastern Washington, and farmers in Western Washington began producing the crop. The Washington State University Skagit River Valley research facility near Mount Vernon grew thousands of its own experimental varieties. The Puget Sound region's climate is similar to that of coastal Chile where the crop has been grown for centuries. Due to the short growing season, North American cultivation requires short-maturity varieties, typically of Bolivian origin. Quinoa is planted in Idaho where a variety developed and bred specifically for the high-altitude Snake River Plain is the largest planted variety in North America.

Europe
Several countries within Europe have successfully grown quinoa on a commercial scale.

Sowing
Quinoa plants do best in sandy, well-drained soils with a low nutrient content, moderate salinity, and a soil pH of 6 to8.5. The seedbed must be well prepared and drained to avoid waterlogging.

Soil
Quinoa has gained attention for its adaptability to contrasting environments such as saline soils, nutrient-poor soils and drought stressed marginal agroecosystems. Yields are maximised when 170 - 200 kg/ha of nitrogen is available. The addition of phosphorus does not improve yield.

Pests
In eastern North America, it is susceptible to a leaf miner that may reduce crop success. (The miner also affects the common weed and close relative Chenopodium album, but C.album is much more resistant.)

Rotation is used in its Andean native range. Rotation is common with potato, cereals and legumes including Lupinus mutabilis.

Genetics
The genome of quinoa was sequenced in 2017. Through traditional selective breeding and, potentially, genetic engineering, the plant is being modified to have higher crop yield, improved tolerance to heat and biotic stress, and greater sweetness through saponin inhibition.

Harvesting
Traditionally, quinoa grain is harvested by hand, and only rarely by machine, because the extreme variability of the maturity period of most quinoa cultivars complicates mechanization. Harvest needs to be precisely timed to avoid high seed losses from shattering, and different panicles on the same plant mature at different times. The crop yield in the Andean region (often around 3 t/ha up to 5 t/ha) is comparable to wheat yields. In the United States, varieties have been selected for uniformity of maturity and are mechanically harvested using conventional small grain combines.

Processing
The plants are allowed to stand until the stalks and seeds have dried out and the grain has reached a moisture content below 10%. Handling involves threshing the seedheads from the chaff and winnowing the seed to remove the husk. Before storage, the seeds need to be dried in order to avoid germination. Dry seeds can be stored raw, until being washed or mechanically processed to remove the pericarp to eliminate the bitter layer containing saponins. This was traditionally done manually, which is labour-intensive. The seeds must be dried again before being stored and sold in stores.

Production
In 2020, world production of quinoa was 175,188 tonnes, led by Peru and Bolivia with 97% of the total when combined (table).

Price
Since the early 21st century when quinoa became more commonly consumed in North America, Europe, and Australasia where it was not typically grown, the crop value increased. Between 2006 and 2013, quinoa crop prices tripled. In 2011, the average price was US$3,115 per tonne with some varieties selling as high as $8,000 per tonne. This compares with wheat prices of about US$340 per tonne, making wheat about 10% of the value of quinoa. The resulting effect on traditional production regions in Peru and Bolivia also influenced new commercial quinoa production elsewhere in the world, such as the United States. By 2013, quinoa was being cultivated in some 70 countries. As a result of expanding production outside the Andean highlands native for quinoa, the price plummeted starting in early 2015 and remained low for years. From 2018 to 2019, quinoa production in Peru declined by 22%. Some refer to this as the "quinoa bust" because of the devastation the price fall caused for farmers and industry.

Effects of rising demand on growers

Rising quinoa prices over the period of 2006 to 2017 may have reduced the affordability of quinoa to traditional consumers. However, a 2016 study using Peru's Encuesta Nacional de Hogares found that rising quinoa prices during 2004–2013 led to net economic benefits for producers, and other commentary indicated similar conclusions, including for women specifically. Impacts of the price surge on quinoa consumption in the Andes mainly affected urban poor rather than farmers themselves, and these impacts were reduced when the price fell in 2015. It has also been suggested that as quinoa producers rise above subsistence-level income, they switch their own consumption to Western processed foods which are often less healthy than a traditional, quinoa-based diet, whether because quinoa is held to be worth too much to keep for oneself and one's family, or because processed foods have higher status despite their poorer nutritional value. Efforts are being made in some areas to distribute quinoa more widely and ensure that farming and poorer populations have access to it and have an understanding of its nutritional importance, including use in free school breakfasts and government provisions distributed to pregnant and nursing women in need.

In terms of wider social consequences, research on traditional producers in Bolivia has emphasised a complex picture. The degree to which individual producers benefit from the global quinoa boom depends on its mode of production, for example through producer associations and co-operatives such as the Asociación Nacional de Productores de Quinua (founded in the 1970s), contracting through vertically integrated private firms, or wage labor. State regulation and enforcement may promote a shift to cash-cropping among some farmers and a shift toward subsistence production among others, while enabling many urban refugees to return to working the land, outcomes with complex and varied social effects.

The growth of quinoa consumption outside of its indigenous region has raised concerns over food security of the original consumers, unsustainably intensive farming of the crop, expansion of farming into otherwise marginal agricultural lands with concurrent loss of the natural environment, threatening both the sustainability of producer agriculture and the biodiversity of quinoa.

World demand for quinoa is sometimes presented in the media particularly as being caused by rising veganism, but one academic has commented that despite the drawbacks of quinoa, meat production in most cases is still less sustainable than quinoa.

United Nations recognition
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2013 as the "", in recognition of the ancestral practices of the Andean people, who have preserved it as a food for present and future generations, through knowledge and practices of living in harmony with nature. The objective was to draw the world's attention to the role that quinoa could play in providing food security, nutrition and poverty eradication in support of achieving Millennium Development Goals. Some academic commentary emphasized that quinoa production could have ecological and social drawbacks in its native regions, and that these problems needed to be tackled.

Kosher certification
Quinoa is used in the Jewish community as a substitute for the leavened grains that are forbidden during the Passover holiday. Several kosher certification organizations refuse to certify it as being kosher for Passover, citing reasons including its resemblance to prohibited grains or fear of cross-contamination of the product from nearby fields of prohibited grain or during packaging. However, in December 2013 the Orthodox Union, the world's largest kosher certification agency, announced it would begin certifying quinoa as kosher for Passover.

History
Quinoa is an allotetraploid plant, containing two full sets of chromosomes from two different species which hybridised with each other at one time. According to a 1979 study, its presumed ancestor is either Chenopodium berlandieri, from North America, or the Andean species ''Ch. hircinum'', although more recent studies, in 2011, even suggest Old World relatives. On the other hand, morphological features relate Ch.quinoa of the Andes and Ch. nuttalliae of Mexico. Some studies have suggested that both species may have been derived from the same wild type. A weedy quinoa, Ch.quinoa var. melanospermum, is known from South America, but no equivalent closely related to Ch.nutalliae has been reported from Mexico so far.

Studies regarding the genetic diversity of quinoa suggest that it may have passed through at least three bottleneck genetic events, with a possible fourth expected:
 * The first occurred when the species was created, as its two diploid ancestors underwent a hybridization followed by chromosome doubling, this new species was genetically isolated from its parent species, and thus lost a great deal of genetic diversity. These ancestors are still not known, but are not the higher altitude crop species Chenopodium pallidicaule (cañahua), a diploid.
 * A second bottleneck may have occurred when quinoa was domesticated from its unknown but possible wild tetraploid form. It might have been domesticated twice: once in the high Andes and a second time in the Chilean and Argentinean lowlands.
 * A third bottleneck can be considered "political", and has lasted more than 400 years, from the Spanish conquest of the new continent until the present time. During this phase quinoa has been replaced with maize, marginalized from production processes possibly due to its important medicinal, social and religious roles for the indigenous populations of South America, but also because it is very difficult to process (dehusk) compared with maize.
 * In the 21st century, a fourth bottleneck event may occur, as traditional farmers migrate from rural zones to urban centers, which exposes quinoa to the risk of further genetic erosion. Better breeding may also result in loss of genetic diversity, as breeders would be expected to reduce unwanted alleles to produce uniform cultivars, but cross-breeding between local landraces has and will likely produce high-diversity cultivars.

Over the last 5,000years the biogeography of ''Ch. quinoa'' has changed greatly, mainly by human influence, convenience and preference. It has changed not only in the area of distribution, but also in regards to the climate this plant was originally adapted to, in contrast to the climates on which it is able to successfully grow in now. In a process started by a number of pre-Inca South American indigenous cultures, people in Chile have been adapting quinoa to salinity and other forms of stress over the last 3,000years. Quinoa is also cultivated, since an early date, near the coast of northern Chile, where it was grown by the Chinchorro culture. ''Ch. quinoa'' was brought to the lowlands of south-central Chile at an early date from the Andean highlands. Varieties in the lowlands of south-central Chile derive directly from ancestral cultivars which then evolved in parallel to those of the highlands. It has been suggested that the introduction of ''Ch. quinoa'' occurred before highland varieties with floury perisperm emerged. There are wide discrepancies in the suggested dates of introduction, one study suggests c. 1000 BC as the introduction date while another suggests 600–1100 AD. In colonial times the plant is known to have been cultivated as far south as Chiloé Archipelago and the shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake. The cuisine of Chiloé included bread made of Quinoa until at least the mid-19th century.

In Chile it had almost disappeared by the early 1940s; as of 2015 the crop is mostly grown in three areas by only some 300 smallholder farmers. Each of these areas is different: indigenous small-scale growers near the border with Bolivia who grow many types of Bolivian forms, a few farmers in the central region who exclusively grow a white-seeded variety and generally market their crops through a well-known cooperative, and in the south by women in home gardens in Mapuche reserves.

When Amaranthaceae became abundant in Lake Pacucha, Peru, the lake was fresh, and the lack of Amaranthaceae taxa strongly indicates droughts which turned the lake into a saltmarsh. Based on the pollen associated with soil manipulation, this is an area of the Andes where domestication of C.quinoa became popular, although it was not the only one. It was domesticated in various geographical zones. With this, morphological adaptations began to happen until having five ecotypes today. Quinoa's genetic diversity illustrates that it was and is a vital crop.

Andean agronomists and nutrition scientists began researching quinoa in the early twentieth century, and it became the subject of much interest among researchers involved in neglected and underutilized crop studies in the 1970s. The grain, however, has received much less attention than crops like maize or wheat.

Particularly for the high variety of Chilean landraces, in addition to how the plant has adapted to different latitudes, this crop is now potentially cultivable almost anywhere in the world.

title: Quinoa


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Count noun

In linguistics, a count noun (also countable noun) is a noun that can be modified by a quantity and that occurs in both singular and plural forms, and that can co-occur with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties: It cannot be modified by a number, cannot occur in plural, and cannot co-occur with quantificational determiners.

Examples
Below are examples of all the properties of count nouns holding for the count noun chair, but not for the mass noun furniture.
 * Occurrence in plural.
 * There is a chair in the room. (correct)
 * There are chairs in the room. (correct)
 * There is chair in the room. (incorrect)
 * There is a furniture in the room. (incorrect)
 * There are furnitures in the room. (incorrect)
 * There is furniture in the room. (correct)

 * Co-occurrence with count determiners
 * Every chair is man-made. (correct)
 * There are several chairs in the room. (correct)
 * Every furniture is man-made. (incorrect)
 * There are several furnitures in the room. (incorrect)

Some determiners can be used with both mass and count nouns, including "some", "a lot (of)", "no". Others cannot: "few" and "many" are used with count items, "little" and "much" with mass nouns. On the other hand, "fewer" is reserved for count and "less" for mass (see Fewer vs. less), but "more" is the proper comparative for both "many" and "much".

Grammatical distinction
The concept of a "mass noun" is a grammatical concept and is not based on the innate nature of the object to which that noun refers. For example, "seven chairs" and "some furniture" could refer to exactly the same objects, with "seven chairs" referring to them as a collection of individual objects but with "some furniture" referring to them as a single undifferentiated unit. However, some abstract phenomena like "fun" and "hope" have properties which make it difficult to refer to them with a count noun.

Classifiers are sometimes used as count nouns preceding mass nouns, in order to redirect the speaker's focus away from the mass nature. For example, "There's some furniture in the room" can be restated, with a change of focus, to "There are some pieces of furniture in the room"; and "let's have some fun" can be refocused as "Let's have a bit of fun".

In English, some nouns are used most frequently as mass nouns, with or without a classifier (as in "Waiter, I'll have some coffee" or "Waiter, I'll have a cup of coffee"), but also, less frequently, as count nouns (as in "Waiter, we'll have three coffees.")

Theory
Following the work of logicians like Godehard Link and linguists like Manfred Krifka, we know that the mass/count distinction can be given a precise mathematical definition in terms of notions like cumulativity and quantization. Discussed by Barry Schein in 1993, a new logical framework, called plural logic, has also been used for characterizing the semantics of count nouns and mass nouns.

Linguistic differences
Some languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, treat all nouns as mass nouns, and need to make use of a noun classifier (see Chinese classifier) to add numerals and other quantifiers. The following examples are of nouns which, while seemingly innately countable, are still treated as mass nouns:

 * 那个人吃完了/那個人吃完了 (nà gè rén chī wán le) – "That unit (of) person has eaten", "That person has eaten"
 * 那三个人吃完了/那三個人吃完了 (nà sān gè rén chī wán le) – "Those three unit (of) person have eaten", "Those three people have eaten"
 * 她有七本书/她有七本書 (tā yǒu qī běn shū) – "She has seven volume (of) book", "She has seven books."

A classifier, therefore, implies that the object(s) referred to are countable in the sense that the speaker intends them to be enumerated, rather than considered as a unit (regardless of quantity). Notice that the classifier changes as the unit being counted changes.

Words such as "milk" or "rice" are not so obviously countable entities, but they can be counted with an appropriate unit of measure in both English and Mandarin (e.g., "glasses of milk" or "spoonfuls of rice").

The use of a classifier is similar to, but not identical with, the use of units of measurement to count groups of objects in English. For example, in "three shelves of books", where "shelves" is used as a unit of measurement.

On the other hand, some languages, like Turkish, treat all the nouns (even things which are not obviously countable) as countable nouns.

 * Pirinçler daha tam pişmemiş. – "The rice (lit. rices) hasn't been cooked well yet"
 * Sütler hep yerlere döküldü. – "The milk (lit. milks) has been spilled all over the floor (lit. floors)"
 * Nehirlerin suları çok güzel akıyor. – "The rivers'  water (lit. waters) flows very nicely"
 * Parasız kişiler için kitaplar dağıtıyorlar. – "They are distributing books for the people without money"

Even then, it is possible to use units of measures with numbers in Turkish, even with the very obviously countable nouns. The Turkish nouns can not take a plural suffix after the numbers and the units of measure.

 * Beş bardak süt – "five glasses of milk"
 * İki kaşık dolusu pirinç – "two spoonfuls of rice"
 * Üç tane kişi – "three units of person"
 * Dört metrekare yer – "Four square meters of floor"
 * Yedi raf kitap – "seven shelves of book"

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

title: Count noun


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Inayat Khan

Inayat Khan Rehmat Khan (5 July 1882 – 5 February 1927) was an Indian professor of musicology, singer, exponent of the saraswati vina, poet, philosopher, and pioneer of the transmission of Sufism to the West. At the urging of his students, and on the basis of his ancestral Sufi tradition and four-fold training and authorization at the hands of Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani (d. 1907) of Hyderabad, he established an order of Sufism (the Sufi Order) in London in 1914. By the time of his death in 1927, centers had been established throughout Europe and North America, and multiple volumes of his teachings had been published.

Early life
Inayat Khan was born in Baroda to a noble Mughal family. His paternal ancestors, comprising yüzkhans (Central Asian lords) and bakshys (shamans), were Turkmen from the Chagatai Khanate who settled in Sialkot, Punjab during the reign of Amir Timur. Inayat Khan's maternal grandfather, Sangit Ratna Maulabakhsh Sholay Khan, was a Hindustani classical musician and educator known as “the Beethoven of India.” His maternal grandmother, Qasim Bibi, was from the royal house of Tipu Sultan of Mysore.

Sufism
Inayat Khan's Sufi sources included both the traditions of his paternal ancestors (remembered as the Mahashaikhan) and the tutelage he received from Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani. From the latter he inherited four transmissions, constituting succession in the Chishti, Suhrawardi, Qadiri, and Naqshbandi orders of Sufism. Of these, the Chishti lineage, traced through the Delhi-based legacy of Shah Kalim Allah Jahanabadi, was primary.

Travels
Inayat Khan toured the United States with his brother Maheboob Khan and cousin Mohammed Ali Khan between the years 1910 and 1912. Further travels took him to England, France, and Russia. During the First World War, living in London, he oversaw the founding of an order of Sufism under his guidance. Following the war he traveled widely, and numerous Sufi centers sprang up in his wake in Europe and the U.S. He ultimately settled in Suresnes, France, at the house and khanqah (Sufi lodge) known as Fazal Manzil.

Teaching
Inayat Khan's teaching emphasized the oneness of God (tawhid) and the underlying harmony of the revelations communicated by the prophets of all the world's great religions. His discourses treated such varied subjects as religion, art, music, ethics, philosophy, psychology, and health and healing. The primary concern of Inayat Khan's teaching was the mystical pursuit of God-realization. To this end he established an Inner School comprising four stages of contemplative study based on the traditional Sufi disciplines of mujahada, muraqaba, mushahada, and mu‘ayyana, which he rendered in English as concentration, contemplation, meditation, and realization.

Foundational principles
Ten principles, known as the Ten Sufi Thoughts, enunciate the universal spiritual values that are foundational to Inayat Khan's mystical philosophy.

 * 1) There is One God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none exists save God.
 * 2) There is One Master, the Guiding Spirit of all Souls, Who constantly leads followers towards the light.
 * 3) There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader.
 * 4) There is One Religion, the unswerving progress in the right direction towards the ideal, which fulfills the life's purpose of every soul.
 * 5) There is One Law, the law of reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience together with a sense of awakened justice.
 * 6) There is One Brotherhood and Sisterhood, the human brotherhood and sisterhood, which unites the children of earth indiscriminately in the Parenthood of God.
 * 7) There is One Moral, the love which springs forth from self-denial, and blooms in deeds of beneficence.
 * 8) There is One Object of Praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart of its worshippers through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.
 * 9) There is One Truth, the true knowledge of our being, within and without, which is the essence of all wisdom.
 * 10) There is One Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real, which raises the mortal to immortality, and in which resides all perfection.

Family and personal life
In New York, he met the woman who would become his wife, Ora Ray Ameena Begum née Baker. They had four children: Vilayat Inayat Khan, Hidayat Inayat Khan, Noor Inayat Khan, and Khair-un-Nisa Inayat Khan.

Death and legacy
In 1926 Inayat Khan returned to India; he died in Delhi on 5 February 1927. He is buried in the Inayat Khan dargah in Nizamuddin, Delhi. The dargah is open to the public and hosts qawwali sessions.

Musicological works

 * Balasan Gitmala
 * Sayaji Garbawali
 * Inayat Git Ratnawali
 * Inayat Harmonium Shikshak
 * Inayat Fidal Shikshak
 * Minqar-i Musiqar

Sufi works

 * 1914	A Sufi Message of Spiritual Liberty
 * 1915	The Confessions of Inayat Khan
 * 1918	A Sufi Prayer of Invocation
 * Hindustani Lyrics
 * Songs of India
 * The Divan of Inayat Khan
 * Akibat
 * 1919	Love, Human and Divine
 * The Phenomenon of the Soul
 * Pearls from the Ocean Unseen
 * 1921	In an Eastern Rosegarden
 * 1922 	The Way of Illumination
 * The Message
 * 1923 	The Inner Life
 * The Mysticism of Sound
 * Notes from the Unstruck Music from the Gayan Manuscript
 * The Alchemy of Happiness
 * 1924 	The Soul—Whence and Whither
 * 1926 	The Divine Symphony, or Vadan

Posthumous Sufi works

 * 1927 	Nirtan, or The Dance of the Soul
 * The Purpose of Life
 * 1928 	The Unity of Religious Ideals
 * 1931 	Health
 * Character Building; The Art of Personality
 * 1934 	Education
 * 1935 	The Mind World
 * Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
 * 1936 The Bowl of Saki
 * The Solution of the Problem of the Day
 * 1937 	Cosmic Language
 * Moral Culture
 * 1938 	Rassa Shastra: The Science of Life's Creative Forces
 * 1939 	Three Plays
 * Metaphysics: The Experience of the Soul in Different Planes of Existence
 * 1980  Nature Meditations

Collected works

 * 1960–1967 The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, 12 volumes
 * 1988–	Complete Works of Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan: Original Texts, 12 volumes (to date)
 * 2016–	The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan: Centennial Edition, 4 volumes (to date)

title: Inayat Khan


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Statcoulomb

The franklin (Fr), statcoulomb (statC), or electrostatic unit of charge (esu) is the unit of measurement for electrical charge used in the centimetre–gram–second electrostatic units variant (CGS-ESU) and Gaussian systems of units. It is a derived unit given by

That is, it is defined so that the CGS-ESU quantity that corresponds to the Coulomb constant is a dimensionless quantity equal to 1.

It can be converted to the corresponding SI quantity using

In the International System of Units uses the coulomb (C) as its unit of electric charge. The conversion between the units coulomb and the statcoulomb depends on the context. The most common contexts are:
 * For electric charge:
 * For electric flux (ΦD):

The symbol "≘" ('corresponds to') is used instead of "=" because the two sides are not interchangeable, as discussed below. The number $3.336 C$ is exactly 10 times the numeric value of the speed of light when expressed in the unit metre/second. In the context of electric flux, the SI and CGS units for an electric displacement field (D) are related by:

due to the relation between the metre and the centimetre. The coulomb is an extremely large charge rarely encountered in electrostatics, while the statcoulomb is closer to everyday charges.

Definition and relation to CGS base units
The statcoulomb is defined such that if two stationary spherically symmetric objects each carry a charge of 1 statC and are $2.65 C$ apart, the force of mutual electrical repulsion will be 1 dyne. This repulsion is governed by Coulomb's law, which in the CGS-Gaussian system states: $$F = \frac{q_1^\text{G} q_2^\text{G}}{r^2} ,$$ where F is the force, q$2,997,924,580 statC$ and q$3 statC$ are the two charges, and r is the distance between the charges. Performing dimensional analysis on Coulomb's law, the dimension of electrical charge in CGS must be [mass]1/2 [length]3/2 [time]−1. (This statement is not true in the International System of Quantities upon which the SI is based; see below.) We can be more specific in light of the definition above: Substituting F = 1 dyn, q$3.336 C$ = q$2,997,924,580 statC$ = 1 statC, and r = 1 cm, we get:

as expected.

General incompatibility
Coulomb's law in the Gaussian unit system and the SI are respectively:

Since ε0, the vacuum permittivity, is not dimensionless, the coulomb is not dimensionally equivalent to [mass]1/2 [length]3/2 [time]−1, unlike the statcoulomb. In fact, it is impossible to express the coulomb in terms of mass, length, and time alone.

Consequently, a conversion equation like "1 C = n statC" is misleading: the units on the two sides are not consistent. One cannot freely switch between coulombs and statcoulombs within a formula or equation, as one would freely switch between centimetres and metres. One can, however, find a correspondence between coulombs and statcoulombs in different contexts. As described below, "1 C corresponds to $3.77 statC$" when describing the charge of objects. In other words, if a physical object has a charge of 1 C, it also has a charge of $2.65 C$. Likewise, "1 C corresponds to $2,997,924,580$" when describing an electric displacement field flux.

As a unit of charge
The statcoulomb is defined as follows: If two stationary objects each carry a charge of 1 statC and are 1 cm apart in vacuum, they will electrically repel each other with a force of 1 dyne. From this definition, it is straightforward to find an equivalent charge in coulombs. Using the SI equation

and setting $2,997,924,580 statC/cm^{2}$ = 1 dyn = 10−5 N and $3.77 statC/cm^{2}$ = 1 cm = 10−2 m, and then solving for $q = qSI _{1} = qSI _{2}$, the result is

Therefore, an object with a CGS charge of 1 statC has a charge of approximately $2.65 C/m^{2}$.

As a unit of electric displacement field or flux
An electric flux (specifically, a flux of the electric displacement field $D$) has units of charge: statC in CGS and coulombs in SI. The conversion factor can be derived from Gauss's law: $$\Phi_\mathbf{D}^\text{G} = 4\pi Q^\text{G}$$ $$\Phi_\mathbf{D}^\text{SI} = Q^\text{SI}$$ where $$\Phi_\mathbf{D} \equiv \int_S \mathbf{D}\cdot \mathrm{d}\mathbf{A}$$ Therefore, the conversion factor for flux and the conversion factor for charge differ by a ratio of 4π: $$\mathrm{1~C} ~\overset\frown=~ \mathrm{3.7673 \times 10^{10}~statC} \qquad \text{(as unit of }\Phi_\mathbf{D}\text{).}$$

$$\mathrm{1~C} \times {\sqrt{\frac{4 \pi \times 10^{9}}{\epsilon_0}}} = \mathrm{3.7673 \times 10^{10}~statC} \qquad \text{(as unit of }\Phi_\mathbf{D}\text{).}$$

title: Statcoulomb


text:
Esu

Esu or ESU may refer to:

Geography

 * Esu, Central Alaskan Yup'ik language

People

 * Esu Niemelä (1921–1999), Finnish politician
 * Ivara Esu (born 1951), Nigerian academic administrator
 * Ozak Esu (born 1991), Nigerian engineer

Characters
 * Eshu, a Yoruba divinity-

Places

 * Essaouira-Mogador Airport, in Morocco

Entertainment and fiction

 * S pronounced esu, Class S (genre), a Japanese genre of girl's fiction

Education

 * East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, USA
 * Educational Service Units of Nebraska, USA
 * Emporia State University in Kansas, USA

Groups and organizations

 * European Students' Union
 * Emergency Service Unit, a police tactical unit
 * Emergency Service Unit, a police tactical unit of the NYPD
 * Energy Services Union, an Irish trade union
 * Explorer Scout Unit, of the Explorer Scouts
 * English-Speaking Union, an international educational charity
 * Empire State University

Science and medicine

 * Electrostatic units, a system of units
 * Electrostatic unit, or statcoulomb, its unit of charge
 * Evolutionarily significant unit
 * Electrosurgical unit, used in electrosurgery

title: Esu


text:
Vilayat Inayat Khan

Vilayat Inayat Khan (19 June 1916 –  17 June 2004) was a teacher of meditation and of the traditions of the East Indian Chishti Sufi order of Sufism. His teaching derived from the tradition of his father, Inayat Khan, founder of The Sufi Order in the West (now named the Ināyati Order), in a form tailored to the needs of Western seekers. One of his sisters was Noor Inayat Khan GC MBE. He taught in the tradition of Universal Sufism. His parents met at the New York City ashram of American yogi, Pierre Bernard, half-brother of his mother Pirani Ameena Begum.

Prior to his teaching career he worked in London as an assistant to Ghulam Mohammed, the Finance Minister of Pakistan in 1949, and served as a personal assistant to Pakistan Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan during his visit to England.

In 1975 he founded the Abode of the Message, which serves as the central residential community of the Sufi Order International, a conference and retreat center, and a center of esoteric study.

Legacy
During his lifetime Vilayat Inayat Khan was instrumental in the founding of several organizations that continue to operate today.

The Abode of the Message

Hope Project

The Omega Institute

The Institute for Applied Meditation

Death
Vilayat Inayat Khan died on 17 June 2004, two days before his 88th birthday. His son is Zia Inayat Khan. His Dargah is located in Delhi, India.

title: Vilayat Inayat Khan


text:
Cinnabar

Cinnabar, or cinnabarite , also known as mercurblende is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the brilliant red or scarlet pigment termed vermilion and associated red mercury pigments.

Cinnabar generally occurs as a vein-filling mineral associated with volcanic activity and alkaline hot springs. The mineral resembles quartz in symmetry and it exhibits birefringence. Cinnabar has a mean refractive index near 3.2, a hardness between 2.0 and 2.5, and a specific gravity of approximately 8.1. The color and properties derive from a structure that is a hexagonal crystalline lattice belonging to the trigonal crystal system, crystals that sometimes exhibit twinning.

Cinnabar has been used for its color since antiquity in the Near East, including as a rouge-type cosmetic, in the New World since the Olmec culture, and in China since as early as the Yangshao culture, where it was used in coloring stoneware. In Roman times, cinnabar was highly valued as paint for walls, especially interiors, since it darkened when used outdoors due to exposure to sunlight.

Associated modern precautions for the use and handling of cinnabar arise from the toxicity of the mercury component, which was recognized as early as ancient Rome.

Etymology
The name comes from Greek κιννάβαρι (kinnabari), a Greek word most likely applied by Theophrastus to several distinct substances. In Latin, it was sometimes known as minium, meaning also "red cinnamon", though both of these terms now refer specifically to lead tetroxide.

Properties
Cinnabar is generally found in a massive, granular, or earthy form and is bright scarlet to brick-red in color, though it occasionally occurs in crystals with a nonmetallic adamantine luster. It resembles quartz in its symmetry. It exhibits birefringence, and it has the second-highest refractive index of any mineral. Its mean refractive index is 3.08 (sodium light wavelengths), versus the indices for diamond and the non-mineral gallium(III) arsenide (GaAs), which are 2.42 and 3.93, respectively. The hardness of cinnabar is 2.0–2.5 on the Mohs scale, and its specific gravity 8.1.

Structure
Structurally, cinnabar belongs to the trigonal crystal system. It occurs as thick tabular or slender prismatic crystals or as granular to massive incrustations. Crystal twinning occurs as simple contact twins.

Mercury(II) sulfide, HgS, adopts the cinnabar structure described, and one additional structure, i.e. it is dimorphous. Cinnabar is the more stable form, and is a structure akin to that of HgO: each Hg center has two short Hg−S bonds (each 2.36 Å), and four longer Hg···S contacts (with 3.10, 3.10, 3.30 and 3.30 Å separations). In addition, HgS is found in a black, non-cinnabar polymorph (metacinnabar) that has the zincblende structure.

Occurrence
Cinnabar generally occurs as a vein-filling mineral associated with volcanic activity and alkaline hot springs. Cinnabar is deposited by epithermal ascending aqueous solutions (those near the surface and not too hot) far removed from their igneous source. It is associated with native mercury, stibnite, realgar, pyrite, marcasite, opal, quartz, chalcedony, dolomite, calcite, and barite.

Cinnabar is essentially found in all mineral extraction localities that yield mercury, notably Almadén (Spain). This mine was exploited from Roman times until 1991, being for centuries the most important cinnabar deposit in the world. Good cinnabar crystals have also been found there. Cinnabar deposits appear in Giza (Egypt); Puerto Princesa (Philippines); Red Devil, Alaska; Murfreesboro, Arkansas; New Almaden Mine in San Jose, California; New Idria, California, the Hastings Mine and St. John's Mine both in Vallejo, California; Terlingua, Texas (United States); Idrija (Slovenia);  near Obermoschel in the Palatinate; the La Ripa and Levigliani mines at the foot of the Apuan Alps and in Mount Amiata (Tuscany, Italy); Avala (Serbia); Huancavelica (Peru); the province of Guizhou in China and Western ghats in India where fine crystals have been obtained. It has been found in Dominica near its sulfur springs at the southern end of the island along the west coast.

Cinnabar is still being deposited, such as from the hot waters of Sulphur Bank Mine in California and Steamboat Springs, Nevada (United States).

Mining and extraction of mercury
As the most common source of mercury in nature, cinnabar has been mined for thousands of years, even as far back as the Neolithic Age. During the Roman Empire it was mined both as a pigment, and for its mercury content.

To produce liquid mercury (quicksilver), crushed cinnabar ore is roasted in rotary furnaces. Pure mercury separates from sulfur in this process and easily evaporates. A condensing column is used to collect the liquid metal, which is most often shipped in iron flasks.

Toxicity
Associated modern precautions for use and handling of cinnabar arise from the toxicity of the mercury component, which was recognized as early as in ancient Rome. Because of its mercury content, cinnabar can be toxic to human beings. Overexposure to mercury, mercury poisoning (mercurialism), was seen as an occupational disease to the ancient Romans. Though people in ancient South America often used cinnabar for art, or processed it into refined mercury (as a means to gild silver and gold to objects), the toxic properties of mercury were well known. It was dangerous to those who mined and processed cinnabar; it caused shaking, loss of sense, and death. Data suggests that mercury was retorted from cinnabar and the workers were exposed to the toxic mercury fumes. "Mining in the Spanish cinnabar mines of Almadén, 225 km southwest of Madrid, was regarded as being akin to a death sentence due to the shortened life expectancy of the miners, who were slaves or convicts."

Decorative use
Cinnabar has been used for its color since antiquity in the Near East, including as a rouge-type cosmetic, in the New World since the Olmec culture, and in China for writing on oracle bones as early as the Zhou dynasty. Late in the Song dynasty it was used in coloring lacquerware.

Cinnabar's use as a color in the New World, since the Olmec culture, is exemplified by its use in royal burial chambers during the peak of Maya civilization, most dramatically in the 7th-century tomb of the Red Queen in Palenque, where the remains of a noble woman and objects belonging to her in her sarcophagus were completely covered with bright red powder made from cinnabar.

The most popularly known use of cinnabar is in Chinese carved lacquerware, a technique that apparently originated in the Song dynasty. The danger of mercury poisoning may be reduced in ancient lacquerware by entraining the powdered pigment in lacquer, but could still pose an environmental hazard if the pieces were accidentally destroyed. In the modern jewellery industry, the toxic pigment is replaced by a resin-based polymer that approximates the appearance of pigmented lacquer.

Two female mummies dated AD 1399 to 1475 found in Cerro Esmeralda in Chile in 1976 had clothes colored with cinnabar.

Other forms

 * Hepatic cinnabar, or paragite, is an impure brownish variety from the mines of Idrija in the Carniola region of Slovenia, in which the cinnabar is mixed with bituminous and earthy matter.
 * Hypercinnabar crystallizes at high temperature in the hexagonal crystal system.
 * Metacinnabar is a black-colored form of mercury(II) sulfide, which crystallizes in the cubic crystal system.
 * Synthetic cinnabar is produced by treatment of mercury(II) salts with hydrogen sulfide to precipitate black, synthetic metacinnabar, which is then heated in water. This conversion is promoted by the presence of sodium sulfide.

Related articles

 * Pompeian Red

title: Cinnabar


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Louis Gathmann

Louis Gathmann (August 11, 1843 – June 3, 1917) was a German American engineer and an inventor who is best remembered as the inventor of the Gathmann gun, a large howitzer.

Early life
Gathmann was born in 1843 in Hanover. His father was a school teacher, and instilled in his son a lifelong love of astronomy.

Career
He moved to the United States in 1864, and eventually moved to Chicago where he lived until the end of the 19th century, when he moved to Washington, D.C. He started his career designing equipment for mills and farms, and held numerous patents. By the 1880s, Gathmann's patents were in such demand that he had to form a company to help track and produce his designs. This company, known as the Garden City Mill Furnishing Company, made milling machines which were sold all over the globe.

By the 1880s, Gathmann had made enough money to have his family moved to the United States from Prussia. He also had four mansions built, two in Chicago, one in Washington D.C., and one in Baltimore, Maryland. Gathmann was very interested in astronomy and had three observatories built in the Chicago area during the 1880s, one of which was a domed observatory tower which he had installed on the side of his mansion on Lincoln Avenue.

In the 1890s, Louis had invented a "Sectional Telescope Lens" (US Patent 531,994, and 591,466). The design called for using individual pre-ground disks of glass mounted in a black matrix. The entire assembly would then be ground as if it were a traditional single-piece telescope lens blank. This would allow for a faster and cheaper method of producing large diameter telescope lenses for institutional observatories. He had been in negotiations with Alfred Huntington Isham to produce a 100-ft diameter telescope for the Proctor Memorial Fund, with the plan calling for an international observatory on Mt. San Miguel and renaming the mountain as Mt. Gathmann.

Louis was also involved in 19th century weather modification projects, and in 1891 received a patent (US Patent 462,795) for a rain-making in which liquid carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere by explosion (either from an artillery shell or by being carried aloft by a balloon). He also wrote a book on the subject, Rain Produced At Will. The book included a chapter by the scientist Simon Newcomb, and another by Edwin J. Houston who would later go on to co-found General Electric. After World War II, when General Electric was experimenting with Rainmaking (now called Weather modification) Stanford Law Review stated: "In fact, if one Gathmann were alive today, and his patent had not long since expired, he might have an action for patent infringement."

From the 1890s on, Louis Gathmann focused on ordnance development. The largest gun designed by Gathmann was the 18-inch Gathmann Gun, which was a coastal defense gun manufactured by Bethlehem Steel under Emil Gathmann (head of Bethlehem Steel's Ordnance Section, and one of Gathmann's sons). The gun was tested at Sandy Hook, but the projectile performed far worse than traditional armor-piercing rounds. Louis was also involved with early aircraft development and had attempted to develop a helicopter, but his successes came in developing fuses for high-explosive ordnance. Newspapers reported in the spring of 1915 that Gathmann invented the German 42-cm Big Bertha howitzer, and that these plans were subsequently stolen from the U.S. Patent Office. But these rumors were false, as no such blueprints were ever filed.

During World War I, Louis conceived a multi-hull naval armor design which incorporated buffer zones, shocks and deflectors.

Personal life
Gathmann was married. He had three sons and two daughters, Otto, Emil, Paul, Mrs. Foley and Emma.

Gathmann died on June 3, 1917, at the home of his daughter in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Glenwood Cemetery.

title: Louis Gathmann


text:
Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfast cereals, snack foods, bagels, teas, hot chocolate and traditional foods. The aroma and flavour of cinnamon derive from its essential oil and principal component, cinnamaldehyde, as well as numerous other constituents including eugenol.

Cinnamon is the name for several species of trees and the commercial spice products that some of them produce. All are members of the genus Cinnamomum in the family Lauraceae. Only a few Cinnamomum species are grown commercially for spice. Cinnamomum verum (alternatively C. zeylanicum), known as "Ceylon cinnamon" after its origins in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), is considered to be "true cinnamon", but most cinnamon in international commerce is derived from four other species, usually and more correctly referred to as "cassia": C. burmanni (Indonesian cinnamon or Padang cassia), C. cassia (Chinese cinnamon or Chinese cassia), C. loureiroi (Saigon cinnamon or Vietnamese cassia), and the less common C. citriodorum (Malabar cinnamon).

In 2021, world production of cinnamon was 226,753 tonnes, led by China with 43% of the total.

Etymology
The English word "cinnamon", attested in English since the 15th century, deriving from the Ancient Greek κιννάμωμον (, later κίνναμον : ), via Latin and medieval French intermediate forms. The Greek was borrowed from a Phoenician word, which was similar to the related Hebrew word קנמון.

The name "cassia", first recorded in late Old English from Latin, ultimately derives from the Hebrew word קציעה, a form of the verb קצע , "to strip off bark".

Early Modern English also used the names canel and canella, similar to the current names of cinnamon in several other European languages, which are derived from the Latin word cannella, a diminutive of canna, "tube", from the way the bark curls up as it dries.

History
Cinnamon has been known from remote antiquity. It was imported to Egypt as early as 2000 BC, but those who reported that it had come from China had confused it with Cinnamomum cassia, a related species. Cinnamon was so highly prized among ancient nations that it was regarded as a gift fit for monarchs and even for a deity; an inscription records the gift of cinnamon and cassia to the temple of Apollo at Miletus. Its source was kept a trade secret in the Mediterranean world for centuries by those in the spice trade, in order to protect their monopoly as suppliers.

Cinnamomum verum, which translates from Latin as "true cinnamon", is native to India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Cinnamomum cassia (cassia) is native to China. Related species, all harvested and sold in the modern era as cinnamon, are native to Vietnam ("Saigon cinnamon"), Indonesia and other southeast Asian countries with warm climates.

In Ancient Egypt, cinnamon was used to embalm mummies. From the Ptolemaic Kingdom onward, Ancient Egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia. The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and cinnamon.

The first Greek reference to κασία is found in a poem by Sappho in the 7th century BC. According to Herodotus, both cinnamon and cassia grew in Arabia, together with incense, myrrh and labdanum, and were guarded by winged serpents. Herodotus, Aristotle and other authors named Arabia as the source of cinnamon; they recounted that giant "cinnamon birds" collected the cinnamon sticks from an unknown land where the cinnamon trees grew and used them to construct their nests.

Pliny the Elder wrote that cinnamon was brought around the Arabian peninsula on "rafts without rudders or sails or oars", taking advantage of the winter trade winds. He also mentioned cassia as a flavouring agent for wine, and that the tales of cinnamon being collected from the nests of cinnamon birds was a traders' fiction made up to charge more. However, the story remained current in Byzantium as late as 1310.

According to Pliny the Elder, a Roman pound (327 g) of cassia, cinnamon (serichatum), cost up to 1,500 denarii, the wage of fifty months' labour. Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices from 301 AD gives a price of 125 denarii for a pound of cassia, while an agricultural labourer earned 25 denarii per day. Cinnamon was too expensive to be commonly used on funeral pyres in Rome, but the Emperor Nero is said to have burned a year's worth of the city's supply at the funeral for his wife Poppaea Sabina in AD 65.

Middle Ages
Through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon remained a mystery to the Western world. From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans had learned that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the trading ports of Egypt, but where it came from was less than clear. When the Sieur de Joinville accompanied his king, Louis IX of France to Egypt on the Seventh Crusade in 1248, he reported—and believed—what he had been told: that cinnamon was fished up in nets at the source of the Nile out at the edge of the world (i.e., Ethiopia). Marco Polo avoided precision on the topic.

The first mention that the spice grew in the area of India was in Maimonides's Mishneh Torah, about 1180. The first mention that the spice grew specifically in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwini's ("Monument of Places and History of God's Bondsmen") about 1270. This was followed shortly thereafter by John of Montecorvino in a letter of about 1292.

Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon directly from the Moluccas to East Africa (see also Rhapta), where local traders then carried it north to Alexandria in Egypt. Venetian traders from Italy held a monopoly on the spice trade in Europe, distributing cinnamon from Alexandria. The disruption of this trade by the rise of other Mediterranean powers, such as the Mamluk sultans and the Ottoman Empire, was one of many factors that led Europeans to search more widely for other routes to Asia.

Early modern period
During the 1500s, Ferdinand Magellan was searching for spices on behalf of Spain; in the Philippines, he found Cinnamomum mindanaense, which was closely related to C. zeylanicum, the cinnamon found in Sri Lanka. This cinnamon eventually competed with Sri Lankan cinnamon, which was controlled by the Portuguese.

In 1638, Dutch traders established a trading post in Sri Lanka, took control of the manufactories by 1640, and expelled the remaining Portuguese by 1658. "The shores of the island are full of it," a Dutch captain reported, "and it is the best in all the Orient. When one is downwind of the island, one can still smell cinnamon eight leagues out to sea." The Dutch East India Company continued to overhaul the methods of harvesting in the wild and eventually began to cultivate its own trees.

In 1767, Lord Brown of the British East India Company established the Anjarakkandy Cinnamon Estate near Anjarakkandy in the Kannur district of Kerala, India. It later became Asia's largest cinnamon estate. The British took control of Ceylon from the Dutch in 1796.

Cultivation

Cinnamon is an evergreen tree characterized by oval-shaped leaves, thick bark and a berry fruit. When harvesting the spice, the bark and leaves are the primary parts of the plant used. However, in Japan, the more pungent roots are harvested in order to produce nikki (ニッキ) which is a product distinct from cinammon (シナモン shinamon). Cinnamon is cultivated by growing the tree for two years, then coppicing it, i.e., cutting the stems at ground level. The following year, about a dozen new shoots form from the roots, replacing those that were cut. A number of pests such as Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, Diplodia species and Phytophthora cinnamomi (stripe canker) can affect the growing plants.

The stems must be processed immediately after harvesting while the inner bark is still wet. The cut stems are processed by scraping off the outer bark, then beating the branch evenly with a hammer to loosen the inner bark, which is then pried off in long rolls. Only 0.5 mm of the inner bark is used; the outer, woody portion is discarded, leaving metre-long cinnamon strips that curl into rolls ("quills") on drying. The processed bark dries completely in four to six hours, provided it is in a well-ventilated and relatively warm environment. Once dry, the bark is cut into 5 to 10 cm lengths for sale.

A less than ideal drying environment encourages the proliferation of pests in the bark, which may then require treatment by fumigation with sulphur dioxide. In 2011, the European Union approved the use of sulphur dioxide at a concentration of up to 150 mg/kg for the treatment of C. verum bark harvested in Sri Lanka.

Species
A number of species are often sold as cinnamon:
 * Cinnamomum cassia (cassia or Chinese cinnamon, the most common commercial type in the USA)
 * C. burmanni (Korintje, Padang cassia, or Indonesian cinnamon)
 * C. loureiroi (Saigon cinnamon, Vietnamese cassia, or Vietnamese cinnamon)
 * C. verum (Sri Lanka cinnamon, Ceylon cinnamon or Cinnamomum zeylanicum)
 * C. citriodorum (Malabar cinnamon)

Cassia induces a strong, spicy flavour and is often used in baking, especially associated with cinnamon rolls, as it handles baking conditions well. Among cassia, Chinese cinnamon is generally medium to light reddish-brown in colour, hard and woody in texture, and thicker (2 - 3 mm thick), as all of the layers of bark are used. Ceylon cinnamon, using only the thin inner bark, has a lighter brown colour and a finer, less dense, and more crumbly texture. It is subtle and more aromatic in flavour than cassia and it loses much of its flavour during cooking.

The barks of the species are easily distinguished when whole, both in macroscopic and microscopic characteristics. Ceylon cinnamon sticks (quills) have many thin layers and can easily be made into powder using a coffee or spice grinder, whereas cassia sticks are much harder. Indonesian cinnamon is often sold in neat quills made up of one thick layer, capable of damaging a spice or coffee grinder. Saigon cinnamon (C. loureiroi) and Chinese cinnamon (C. cassia) are always sold as broken pieces of thick bark, as the bark is not supple enough to be rolled into quills.

The powdered bark is harder to distinguish, but if it is treated with tincture of iodine (a test for starch), little effect is visible with pure Ceylon cinnamon; however, when Chinese cinnamon is present, a deep-blue tint is produced.

Grading
The Sri Lankan grading system divides the cinnamon quills into four groups:
 * Alba, less than 6 mm in diameter
 * Continental, less than 16 mm in diameter
 * Mexican, less than 19 mm in diameter
 * Hamburg, less than 32 mm in diameter

These groups are further divided into specific grades. For example, Mexican is divided into M00000 special, M000000 and M0000, depending on quill diameter and number of quills per kilogram. Any pieces of bark less than 106 mm long are categorized as quillings. Featherings are the inner bark of twigs and twisted shoots. Chips are trimmings of quills, outer and inner bark that cannot be separated, or the bark of small twigs.

Production
In 2021, four countries accounted for 98% of the world's cinnamon production, a total of 226,753 tonnes: China, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.

Counterfeit
True cinnamon from C. verum bark can be mixed with cassia (C. cassia) as counterfeit and falsely marketed as authentic cinnamon. In one analysis, authentic Ceylon cinnamon bark contained 12-143 mg/kg of coumarin – a phenolic typically low in content in true cinnamon – but market samples contained coumarin with levels as high as 3462 mg/kg, indicating probable contamination with cassia in the counterfeit cinnamon. ConsumerLab.com found the same problem in a 2020 analysis; "a supplement that contained the highest amount of coumarin was labeled as Ceylon cinnamon".

Food uses

Cinnamon bark is used as a spice. It is principally employed in cookery as a condiment and flavouring material. It is used in the preparation of chocolate, especially in Mexico. Cinnamon is often used in savoury dishes of chicken and lamb. In the United States and Europe, cinnamon and sugar are often used to flavour cereals, bread-based dishes such as toast, and fruits, especially apples; a cinnamon and sugar mixture (cinnamon sugar) is sold separately for such purposes. It is also used in Portuguese and Turkish cuisine for both sweet and savoury dishes. Cinnamon can also be used in pickling, and in Christmas drinks such as eggnog. Cinnamon powder has long been an important spice in enhancing the flavour of Persian cuisine, used in a variety of thick soups, drinks and sweets. It is also one of "four sibling spices" (rempah empat beradik) essential in Malay cuisine aside from clove, star anise and cardamom.

Nutrient composition
Ground cinnamon is 11% water, 81% carbohydrates (including 53% dietary fiber), 4% protein and 1% fat.

Texture

Ceylon cinnamon may be crushed into small pieces by hand while Indonesian cinnamon requires a powerful blender.

Flavour, aroma and taste
The flavour of cinnamon is due to the aromatic essential oils that makes up 0.5 to 1% of its composition.

Cinnamon bark can be macerated, then extracted in 80% ethanol, to a tincture.

Cinnamon essential oil can be prepared by roughly pounding the bark, macerating it in sea water, and then quickly distilling the whole. It is of a golden-yellow colour, with the characteristic odour of cinnamon and a very hot aromatic taste.

Cinnamon oil nanoemulsion can be made with polysorbate 80, cinnamon essential oil, and water, by ultrasonic emulsification.

Cinnamon oil macroemulsion can be made with a dispersing emulsifying homogenizer.

The pungent taste and scent come from cinnamaldehyde, about 90% of the essential oil from cinnamon bark. Cinnamaldehyde decomposes, in high humidity and high temperatures, to styrene, and, by reaction with oxygen as it ages, it darkens in colour and forms resinous compounds.

Cinnamon constituents include some 80 aromatic compounds, including eugenol, found in the oil from leaves or bark of cinnamon trees.

Alcohol flavorant
Cinnamon is used as a flavoring in cinnamon liqueur, such as cinnamon-flavored whiskey in the United States, and, a cinnamon brandy in Greece.

Health-related research
Cinnamon has a long history of use in traditional medicine as a digestive aid. However, contemporary studies are unable to find evidence of any significant medicinal or therapeutic effect.

Reviews of clinical trials reported lowering of fasting plasma glucose and inconsistent effects on hemoglobin A1C (HbA1c, an indicator of chronically elevated plasma glucose). Four of the reviews reported a decrease in fasting plasma glucose,   only two reported lower HbA1c,  and one reported no change to either measure. The Cochrane review noted that trial durations were limited to 4 to 16 weeks, and that no trials reported on changes to quality of life, morbidity or mortality rate. The Cochrane authors' conclusion was: "There is insufficient evidence to support the use of cinnamon for type 1 or type 2 diabetes mellitus." Citing the Cochrane review, the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health stated: "Studies done in people don't support using cinnamon for any health condition." However, the results of the studies are difficult to interpret because it is often unclear what type of cinnamon and what part of the plant were used.

A meta-analysis of cinnamon supplementation trials with lipid measurements reported lower total cholesterol and triglycerides, but no significant changes in LDL-cholesterol or HDL-cholesterol. Another reported no change to body weight or insulin resistance.

Toxicity
A systematic review of adverse events as a result of cinnamon use reported gastrointestinal disorders and allergic reactions as the most frequently reported side effects.

In 2008, the European Food Safety Authority considered the toxicity of coumarin, a component of cinnamon, and confirmed a maximum recommended tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 0.1 mg of coumarin per kg of body weight. Coumarin is known to cause liver and kidney damage in high concentrations and metabolic effect in humans with CYP2A6 polymorphism. Based on this assessment, the European Union set a guideline for maximum coumarin content in foodstuffs of 50 mg per kg of dough in seasonal foods, and 15 mg per kg in everyday baked foods. The maximum recommended TDI of 0.1 mg of coumarin per kg of body weight equates to 5 mg of coumarin (or 5.6 g C. verum with 0.9 mg coumarin per gram) for a body weight of 50 kg. C as shown in the table below:

Due to the variable amount of coumarin in C. cassia, usually well over 1.0 mg of coumarin per g of cinnamon and sometimes up to 12 times that, C. cassia has a low safe-intake-level upper limit to adhere to the above TDI. In contrast, C. verum has only trace amounts of coumarin.

In March 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration recommended a vountary recall on 6 brands of cinnamon due to contamination with lead, after an investigation stemming from 500 reports of child lead poisoning across the US. The FDA determined that cinnamon was adulterated with lead chromate.

title: Cinnamon


text:
Talk:Louis Gathmann

Researcher
J. Gathmann is a researcher of Louis Gathmann, and is the Gath-Past website webmaster. He can be contacted at — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mav (talk • contribs)

The Baltimore Museum of Industry may be of interest to those interested in his son Emil Gathmann. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ShelbyDodgeImp (talk • contribs) }

"...his death was mentioned in papers all over the globe, from the Chicago Tribune, to the New York Times and the Washington Post." That's a strange definition of "all over the globe". -- User:Rst

Big Bertha and Japanese Naval Ordnance
I have edited the claims concerning Gathmann's invention of both the German Big Bertha howitzer and the Japanese naval guns used at Tsushima as neither claim has any basis in fact. Both were media inventions. McTodd (talk) 09:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Bias claim biased?
The claim that the gov't decided not to use his gun because of some ideological bias is also questionable. There's very little written about Gathmann after the 1900s, but contemporary press speaks of test failure. "The Gathmann wet gun cotton shell was a failure, as was also the Isham shell, as it provided only for an outside explosion." "The test of the Gathmann torpedo gun under the requirement of the fortifications act of March 1, 1901, resulted in an unfavorable report, in which the Board of Ordnance and Fortification has concurred." "Mr. Gathmann slated that the failure was due to the gun cotton not being in intimate contact witli the fuze; butt tie character of the fragmentation of the fuze chamber showed do detonation of the primer. " The only slightly more recent account is Teddy Rosevelt's memoirs which say "in the Gathmann Gun matter, because strong political pressure was brought to bear upon me to favor the Gathmann Gun. ... had been attacked in Congress for his failure, fifteen years before, to approve the Gathmann gun". Claims of Gathmann's awesome influence on artillery developments in several countries appear very WP:FRINGE. I can't even find one artillery book after the 1900s that even mentions him. This all appears to be promotion from his descendants on a couple of tripod.com web sites, and which have apparently edited Wikipedia as well. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 16:25, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

You can read a summary of the test results in Text-book of ordnance and gunnery by United States Naval Institute, 1905 "The most striking example of this result was in the test of the 12-inch Army rifle in comparison with the 18-inch Gathmann Torpedo Gun. This test marked such an important advance in the attack on armor that the result is given in full. [...] The comparative harmlessness of the Gathmann shell loaded with  500 pounds of gun-cotton when exploded against a similar plate  was due to the fact that the shell did not penetrate but simply exploded outside and in contact with the plate." Claims that Gathmann's gun influenced naval gunnery (except as a failed experiment from which lessons were drawn) or even the "concrete busting" German siege guns, which were also based on armor piercing principles, are therefore ridiculous. No artillery book makes them. Gathmann did however have some political clout in his time, which probably extended to some part of the contemporary US press; see quote from Teddy Rosevelt's memoirs above. A case of temporary fame. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 16:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:Louis Gathmann


text:
Talk:Sufi Order International

Looks like a dump of primary material -- not very encyclopedic. --maveric149

Uh oh -- does the person posting this entry have copyright or at least permission from the copyright holder? The original is here. --maveric149
 * I replaced it with a stub - all is well. --Anon

Please check the Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan and Hazrat Inayat Khan articles too - they look like Sufi literature. -phma

merged
Ernobe (talk) 17:22, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sufi Order International


text:
Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.

Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions (optical illusions) are the best-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words.

Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur due to biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside the body within one's physical environment.

The term illusion refers to a specific form of sensory distortion. Unlike a hallucination, which is a distortion in the absence of a stimulus, an illusion describes a misinterpretation of a true sensation. For example, hearing voices regardless of the environment would be a hallucination, whereas hearing voices in the sound of running water (or another auditory source) would be an illusion. So, it should not be wrong to consider that illusions are just "misinterpretations" on how our brain perceives something that exists (unlike a hallucination where a stimulus is absent).

Visual

A visual illusion or optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the visual sense is processed to create a percept that does not tally with information from other senses or physical measurements.

The visual system, which includes the eyes (namely the retinas) and the central nervous system (namely the brain's visual cortex), constructs reality through both perceptual and cognitive neural pathways. Visual illusions are (at least in part) thought to be caused by excessive competing stimuli. Each stimulus follows a dedicated neural path in the early stages of visual processing, and intense/repetitive activity or interaction with active adjoining channels (perceptual neural circuits, usually at the same level) causes a physiological imbalance that alters perception. During low-level visual processing, the retinal circuit arranges the information in the photoreceptors, by creating initial visual percepts from the patterns of light which fall on the retina. The Hermann grid illusion and Mach bands are two illusions that are widely considered to be caused by a biological phenomenon named lateral inhibition, where the receptor signal in the retina's receptive fields from light and dark areas compete with one another.

The assembly of visual elements into a collective percept, that distinguishes objects from backgrounds, takes part during intermediate-level visual processing. Many common visual illusions are a consequence of the percept constructed during this processing stage, as the elements first captured during low-level processing might easily be interpreted to form an image that differs from objective reality. An example is when two objects of the same size are placed on a certain background which conditions us to believe that one object might be larger than the other, and when the background is removed or replaced our perception immediately changes to the correct scenario (effectively concluding that both objects have equal dimensions).

High-level visual processing consolidates information gathered from various sources to apply cognitive influences that create a conscious visual experience. Thus, allowing us to recognize the complex identity of different elements, and the disparate relations between them through cognitive processes. Visual illusions are also often a product of this processing stage, and it is during this stage that we might ultimately become conscious of any optical illusion. There are two crucial properties of our visual system related mostly to high-level visual processing, referred to as selectivity and invariance (which we have consistently attempted to replicate in image recognition computer algorithms). Selectivity refers to the identification of particular features that are relevant to recognize a specific element or object, while abstracting from other features that are not fundamental to performing the same recognition (e.g. when we see the shape of a house, certain contours that are essential for us to recognize it while other contours or image properties are not, such as color). On the other hand, invariance refers to the ability to be indifferent to small variations of a given feature, effectively identifying all those variations as simply being different versions of the same feature (e.g. we can recognize a given handwritten letter of the alphabet, written by different people with distinct styles of calligraphy).

The whole process that constructs our visual experience is extremely complex (with multiple qualities that are unmatched by any computer or digital system). It is organized by many sequential and parallel sub-processes, each of which is essential in building our conscious image of the world. Our whole visual system seeks to simplify and categorize the unstructured low-level visual information, through both selectivity and invariance. Thus, while trying to organize an image by "filling in the gaps" through assumptions, we become vulnerable to misinterpretation.

Auditory
An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing, the auditory equivalent of a visual illusion: the listener hears either sound which are not present in the stimulus, or "impossible" sounds. In short, audio illusions highlight areas where the human ear and brain, as organic, makeshift tools, differ from perfect audio receptors (for better or for worse). One example of an auditory illusion is a Shepard tone.

Tactile
Examples of tactile illusions include phantom limb, the thermal grill illusion, the cutaneous rabbit illusion and a curious illusion that occurs when the crossed index and middle fingers are run along the bridge of the nose with one finger on each side, resulting in the perception of two separate noses. The brain areas activated during illusory tactile perception are similar to those activated during actual tactile stimulation. Tactile illusions can also be elicited through haptic technology. These "illusory" tactile objects can be used to create "virtual objects".

Temporal
A temporal illusion is a distortion in the perception of time, which occurs when the time interval between two or more events is very narrow (typically less than a second). In such cases, a person may momentarily perceive time as slowing down, stopping, speeding up, or running backward.

Intersensory
Illusions can occur with the other senses including those involved in food perception. Both sound and touch have been shown to modulate the perceived staleness and crispness of food products. It was also discovered that even if some portion of the taste receptor on the tongue became damaged that illusory taste could be produced by tactile stimulation. Evidence of olfactory (smell) illusions occurred when positive or negative verbal labels were given prior to olfactory stimulation. The McGurk effect shows that what we hear is influenced by what we see as we hear the person speaking; when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound.

Disorders
Some illusions occur as a result of an illness or a disorder. While these types of illusions are not shared with everyone, they are typical of each condition. For example, people with migraines often report fortification illusions.

Neuroscience
Perception is linked to specific brain activity and so can be elicited by brain stimulation. The (illusory) percepts that can be evoked range from simple phosphenes (detections of lights in the visual field) to high-level percepts. In a single-case study on a patient undergoing presurgical evaluation for epilepsy treatment, electrical stimulation at the left temporo-parietal junction evoked the percept of a nearby (illusory) person who "closely 'shadowed' changes in the patient's body position and posture".

title: Illusion