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Bayreuth

Bayreuth (, ; Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of Upper Franconia and has a population of 72,148 (2015). It hosts the annual Bayreuth Festival, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented.

Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
The town is believed to have been founded by the counts of Andechs probably around the mid-12th century, but was first mentioned in 1194 as Baierrute in a document by Bishop Otto II of Bamberg. The syllable -rute may mean Rodung or "clearing", whilst Baier- indicates immigrants from the Bavarian region.

Already documented earlier, were villages later merged into Bayreuth: Seulbitz (in 1035 as the royal Salian estate of Silewize in a document by Emperor Conrad II) and St. Johannis (possibly 1149 as Altentrebgast). Even the district of Altstadt (formerly Altenstadt) west of the town centre must be older than the town of Bayreuth itself. Even older traces of human presence were found in the hamlets of Meyernberg: pieces of pottery and wooden crockery were dated to the 9th century based on their decoration.

While Bayreuth was previously (1199) referred to as a villa ("village"), the term civitas ("town") appeared for the first time in a document published in 1231. One can therefore assume that Bayreuth was awarded its town charter between 1200 and 1230. The town was ruled until 1248 by the counts of Andechs-Merania. After they died out in 1260 the burgraves of Nuremberg from the House of Hohenzollern took over the inheritance.

As early as 1361 Emperor Charles IV conferred on Burgrave Frederick V the right to mint coins for the towns of Bayreuth and Kulmbach.

In 1398 Bayreuth was partitioned from Nuremberg, becoming the Principality of Bayreuth (Fürstentum Bayreuth). Until 1604, however, the princely residence and the centre of the territory was the castle of Plassenburg in Kulmbach and as such the territory was officially known as the Principality of Kulmbach. The town of Bayreuth developed slowly and was affected time and again by disasters.

Bayreuth was first published on a map in 1421.

In February 1430, the Hussites devastated Bayreuth and the town hall and churches were razed. Matthäus Merian described this event in 1642 as follows: "In 1430 the Hussites from Bohemia attacked / Culmbach and Barreut / and committed great acts of cruelty / like wild animals / against the common people / and certain individuals. / The priests / monks and nuns they either burnt at the stake / or took them onto the ice of lakes and rivers / (in Franconia and Bavaria) and doused them with cold water / and killed them in a deplorable way / as Boreck reported in the Bohemian Chronicle, page 450".

By 1528, less than ten years after the start of the Reformation, the lords of the Frankish margrave territories switched to the Lutheran faith.

In 1605 a great fire, caused by negligence, destroyed 137 of the town's 251 houses. In 1620 plague broke out and, in 1621, there was another big fire in the town. The town also suffered during the Thirty Years War.

A turning point in the town's history came in 1603 when Margrave Christian, the son of the elector, John George of Brandenburg, moved the aristocratic residence from the castle of Plassenburg above Kulmbach to Bayreuth. The first Hohenzollern palace was built in 1440–1457 under Margrave John the Alchemist. It was the forerunner of today's Old Palace (Altes Schloss) and was expanded and renovated many times. The development of the new capital stagnated due to the Thirty Years' War, but afterwards many baroque buildings were added to the town. After Christian's death in 1655 his grandson, Christian Ernest, followed him, ruling from 1661 until 1712. He was an educated and well-travelled man, whose tutor had been the statesman Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He founded the Christian-Ernestinum Grammar School and, in 1683, participated in the liberation of Vienna which had been besieged by the Turks. To commemorate this feat, he had the Margrave Fountain built as a monument on which he is depicted as the victor of the Turks; it now stands outside the New Palace (Neues Schloss). During this time, the outer ring of the town wall and the castle chapel (Schlosskirche) were built.

18th century

Christian Ernest's successor, the Crown Prince and later Margrave, George William, began in 1701 to establish the then independent town of St Georgen am See (today, the district of St Georgen) with its castle, the so-called Ordensschloss, a town hall, a prison and a small barracks. In 1705 he founded the Order of Sincerity (Ordre de la Sincérité), which was renamed in 1734 to the Order of the Red Eagle and had the monastery church built, which was completed in 1711. In 1716 a princely porcelain factory was established in St. Georgen.

The first 'castle' in the park of the Hermitage was built at this time by Margrave George William (1715–1719).

In 1721, the town council acquired the palace of Baroness Sponheim (today's Old Town Hall or Altes Rathaus) as a replacement for the town hall built in 1440 in the middle of the market place and destroyed by fire.

In 1735, a nursing home, the so-called Gravenreuth Stift, was founded by a private foundation in St. Georgen. The cost of the building exceeded the funds of the foundation, but Margrave Frederick came to their aid.

Bayreuth experienced its Golden Age during the reign (1735–1763) of Margrave Frederick and Margravine Wilhelmina of Bayreuth, the favourite sister of Frederick the Great. During this time, under the direction of court architects, Joseph Saint-Pierre and Carl von Gontard, numerous courtly buildings and attractions were created: the Margravial Opera House with its richly furnished baroque theatre (1744–1748), the New 'Castle' and Sun Temple (1749–1753) at the Hermitage, the New Palace with its courtyard garden (1754 ff) to replace the Old Palace which had burned down through the carelessness of the margrave, and the magnificent row of buildings in today's Friedrichstraße. There was even a unique version of the rococo architectural style, the so-called Bayreuth Rococo which characterised the aforementioned buildings, especially their interior design.

The old, sombre gatehouses were demolished because they impeded transport and were an outmoded form of defence. The walls were built over in places. Margrave Frederick successfully kept his principality out of the wars being waged by his brother-in-law, Frederick the Great, at this time, and, as a result, brought a time of peace to the Frankish kingdom.

1742 saw the founding of the Frederick Academy, which became a university in 1743, but was moved that same year to Erlangen after serious riots because of the adverse reaction of the population. The university has remained there to the present today. From 1756 to 1763 there was also an Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Roman Catholics were given the right to set up a prayer room and Jewish families settled here again. In 1760 the synagogue was opened and in 1787 the Jewish cemetery was dedicated.

Countess Wilhelmina died in 1758, and although Margrave Frederick married again, the marriage was short-lived and without issue. After his death in 1763, many artists and craftsmen migrated to Berlin and Potsdam, to work for King Frederick the Great, because Frederick's successor, Margrave Frederick Christian had little understanding of art. He also lacked the means due to the elaborate lifestyle of his predecessor, because the buildings and the salaries of the mainly foreign artists had swallowed up a lot of money. For example, the court – which under George Frederick Charles had comprised around 140 people – had grown to about 600 employees by the end of the reign of Margrave Frederick. By 1769 the principality was close to bankruptcy.

In 1769, Margrave Charles Alexander, from the Ansbach line of Frankish Hohenzollerns, followed the childless Frederick Christian, and Bayreuth was reduced to a secondary residence. Charles Alexander continued to live in Ansbach and rarely came to Bayreuth.

In 1775, the Brandenburg Pond (Brandenburger Weiher) in St.Georgen was drained.

Following the abdication of the last Margrave, Charles Alexander, from the principalities of Ansbach and Bayreuth on 2 December 1791 its territories became part of a Prussian province. The Prussian Minister Karl August von Hardenberg took over its administration at the beginning of 1792.

The town centre still possesses the typical structure of a Bavarian street market: the settlement is grouped around a road widening into a square; the Town Hall was located in the middle. The church stood apart from it and on a small hill stood the castle. Some sixty years later the town (at that time a tiny village) became subordinate to the Hohenzollern state, and when this state was divided, Bayreuth ended up in the County of Kulmbach.

19th century
In 1804, the author Jean Paul Richter moved from Coburg to Bayreuth, where he lived until his death in 1825.

The rule of the Hohenzollerns over the Principality of Kulmbach-Bayreuth ended in 1806 after the defeat of Prussia by Napoleonic France. During the French occupation from 1806 to 1810 Bayreuth was treated as a province of the French Empire and had to pay high war contributions. It was placed under the administration of Comte Camille de Tournon, who wrote a detailed inventory of the former Principality of Bayreuth. On 30 June 1810 the French army handed over the former principality to what was now the Kingdom of Bavaria, which it had bought from Napoleon for 15 million francs. Bayreuth became the capital of the Bavarian district of Mainkreis, which later transferred into Obermainkreis and was finally renamed as the province of Upper Franconia.

As Bavaria was opened up by the railways, the main line from Nuremberg to Hof went past Bayreuth, running via Lichtenfels, Kulmbach and Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg to Hof. Bayreuth was first given a railway connexion in 1853, when the Bayreuth–Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg railway was built at the town's expense. It was followed in 1863 by the line to Weiden, in 1877 by the railway to Schnabelwaid, in 1896 by the branch line to Warmensteinach, in 1904 by the branch to Hollfeld and in 1909 by the branch via Thurnau to Kulmbach, known as the Thurnauer Bockala (which means something like "Thurnau Goat").

On 17 April 1870 Richard Wagner visited Bayreuth, because he had read about the Margrave Opera House, whose great stage seemed fitting for his works. However, the orchestra pit could not accommodate the large number of musicians required, for example, for the Ring of the Nibelung and the ambience of the auditorium seemed inappropriate for his piece. So, he toyed with the idea of building his own festival hall (the Festspielhaus) in Bayreuth. The town supported him in this project and made a piece of land available to him, an undeveloped area outside the town between the railway station and Hohe Warte, the Grüner Hügel ("Green Hill"). At the same time Wagner acquired a property at Hofgarten to build his own house, Wahnfried. On 22 May 1872 the cornerstone for the Festival Hall was laid and, on 13 August 1876, it was officially opened (see Bayreuth Festival). Planning and construction were in the hands of the Leipzig architect, Otto Brückwald, who had already made a name for himself in the building of theatres in Leipzig and Altenburg.

In 1886, the composer Franz Liszt died in Bayreuth while visiting his daughter Cosima Liszt, Wagner's widow. Both Liszt and Wagner are buried in Bayreuth; however, Wagner did not die there. Rather, he died in Venice in 1883, but his family had his body brought to Bayreuth for burial.

To the end of the Weimar Republic (1900–1933)
The new century also brought several innovations of modern technology: in 1892, the first electric street lights; in 1908 a municipal electricity station, and, in the same year, the first cinema.

In 1914–15, one section of the northern arm of the Red Main was straightened and widened after areas along the river had been flooded during a period of high water in 1909.

After the First World War had ended in 1918, the Workers' and Soldiers' Council took power briefly in Bayreuth. On 17 February 1919, there was a three-day coup, the so-called Speckputsch, a brief interlude of excitement in the otherwise rather staid town.

In a series of völkisch and nationalist "Deutscher Tag" (German Days), the NSDAP organised the event in Bayreuth on 30 September 1923. More than 3,300 military and civilian people gathered (equivalent to 15% of the inhabitants), although Minister of Defence Otto Gessler had forbidden the participation of Reichswehr units. Among the guests were mayor Albert Preu as well as Siegfried and Winifred Wagner, who invited keynote speaker Adolf Hitler to Wahnfried house. There he met writer Houston Stewart Chamberlain, son-in-law of Richard Wagner and anti-semitic race theorist. Also on that day, Hans Schemm met Hitler for the first time.

In 1932, the provinces of Upper and Middle Franconia were merged and Ansbach was chosen as the seat of government. As a small compensation, Bayreuth was given the merged state insurance agency for Upper and Middle Franconia. Unlike the provincial merger, the merger of those institutions was never reversed.

Nazi era (1933–1945)
A stronghold of right-wing parties since the 1920s, Bayreuth became a center of Nazi ideology. In 1933, it was made capital of the Nazi Gau Bavarian Eastern March (Bayerische Ostmark, in 1942 Gau Bayreuth). Nazi leaders often visited the Wagner festival and tried to turn Bayreuth into a Nazi model town. It was one of several places in which town planning was administered directly from Berlin, due to Hitler's special interest in the town and in the festival. Hitler loved the music of Richard Wagner, and he became a close friend of Winifred Wagner after she took over the festival. Hitler frequently attended Wagner performances in the Bayreuth Festival Hall.

Bayreuth was to have received a so-called Gauforum, a combined government building and marching square built to symbolise the centre of power in the town. Bayreuth's first Gauleiter was Hans Schemm, who was also the head (Reichswalter) of the National Socialist Teachers League, NSLB, which was located in Bayreuth. In 1937 the town was connected to the new Reichsautobahn.

Under Nazi dictatorship the synagogue of the Jewish Community in Münzgasse was desecrated and looted on Kristallnacht but, due to its proximity to the Opera House it was not razed. Inside the building, which is once again used by a Jewish community as a synagogue, a plaque next to the Torah Shrine recalls the persecution and murder of Jews in the Shoah, which took the lives of at least 145 Jews in Bayreuth.

During the Second World War, a subcamp of the Flossenbürg concentration camp was based in the town, in which prisoners had to participate in physical experiments for the V-2. Wieland Wagner, the grandson of the composer, Richard Wagner, was the deputy civilian director there in late 1944 and early April 1945. Shortly before the war's end branches of the People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) were to have been set up in Bayreuth.

On 5, 8 and 11 April 1945 about one third of the town, including many public buildings and industrial installations were destroyed by heavy air strikes, along with 4,500 houses. 741 people were also killed. On 14 April, the U.S. Army occupied the town.

Post-war era (1945–2000)
After the war Bayreuth tried to part with its ill-fated past. It became part of the American Zone. The American military government set up a DP camp to accommodate displaced persons (DP), many of whom were Ukrainian. The camp was supervised by the UNRRA.

The housing situation was very difficult at first: there were about 53,300 inhabitants in the town, many more than before the war began. This increase was primarily due to the high number of refugees and expellees. Even in 1948 more than 11,000 refugees were counted. In addition, because many homes had been destroyed due to the war, thousands of people were living in temporary shelters, even the festival restaurant next to the Festival Hall housed some 500 people.

In 1945, 1,400 men were conscripted by the town council for "essential work" (clean-up work on damaged buildings and the clearing of roads). A significant number of historic buildings were demolished post-war but cultural life was soon back on track: in 1947 Mozart festival weeks were held in the Opera House, from which the Franconian Festival Weeks developed. In 1949 the Festival Hall was used for the first time again and there was a gala concert with the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Knappertsbusch. In 1951, the first post-war Richard Wagner Festival took place under the leadership of Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner. Wieland Wagner's fresh and non-traditional stagings "restored credibility to a theater that had been totally ruined by Nazi ideology."

In 1949, Bayreuth became the seat of the government of Upper Franconia again.

In 1971, the Bavarian State Parliament decided to establish the University of Bayreuth and, on 3 November 1975, it opened for lectures and research. There are now about 10,000 students in the town.

In May 1972, a serious accident occurred at the folk festival in the town, when an overcrowded carriage derailed and several people were thrown out. Four died and five were injured, some seriously. At that time, it was the worst disaster on a roller coaster since the Second World War.

In 1979, US Army serviceman Roy Chung disappeared from the area and allegedly defected to North Korea via East Germany.

In 1999, the world gliding championship took place at Bayreuth municipal airport.

21st century
In 2006, Bayreuth chose its first CSU member and mayor, the lawyer, Michael Hohl, and, in 2007, a Youth Parliament, consisting of 12 young people, aged 14–17 years, was elected for the first time. The end of October saw the opening of the long-planned bus station and its associated office building on the newly created Hohenzollernplatz.

Richard Wagner and Bayreuth
The town is best known for its association with the composer Richard Wagner, who lived in Bayreuth from 1872 until his death in 1883. Wagner's villa, "Wahnfried", was constructed in Bayreuth under the sponsorship of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and was converted after World War II into a Wagner Museum. In the northern part of Bayreuth is the Festival Hall, an opera house specially constructed for and exclusively devoted to the performance of Wagner's operas. The premieres of the final two works of Wagner's Ring Cycle ("Siegfried" and "Götterdämmerung"); the cycle as a whole; and of Parsifal took place here.

Every summer, Wagner's operas are performed at the Festspielhaus during the month-long Richard Wagner Festival, commonly known as the Bayreuth Festival. The Festival draws thousands each year and has persistently been sold out since its inauguration in 1876. Currently, waiting lists for tickets can stretch for 10 years or more.

Owing to Wagner's relationship with the then unknown philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the first Bayreuth festival is cited as a key turning point in Nietzsche's philosophical development. Though at first an enthusiastic champion of Wagner's music, Nietzsche ultimately became hostile, viewing the festival and its revellers as symptom of cultural decay and bourgeois decadence – an event which led him to turn his eye upon the moral values esteemed by society as a whole – "Nietzsche clearly preferred to see Bayreuth fail than succeed by mirroring a society gone wrong."

Location
Bayreuth lies on the Red Main river, the southern of the two headstreams of the river Main, between the Fichtelgebirge Mountains and Franconian Switzerland. The town is also part of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region.

Town divisions
The borough of Bayreuth is divided into 39 districts:

 * 1: Westliche Innenstadt (Western town centre)
 * 2: Östliche Innenstadt/Obere Röth (Eastern town centre)
 * 3: Cosima-Wagner-Straße/ Nürnberger Straße/Universitätsstraße
 * 4: Südöstliche Innenstadt (Southeastern town centre)
 * 5: Südwestliche Innenstadt (Southwestern town centre)
 * 6: Birken
 * 7: Justus-Liebig-Straße/Quellhöfe/Rückertweg
 * 8: Leuschnerstraße/Ludwig-Thoma-Straße
 * 9: Saas, originated from the parish village Saas, which was mentioned as early as 1528 in connection with the Baptists
 * 10: Bismarckstraße/Friedrichstraße/Moritzhöfen
 * 11: Freiheitsplatz/Malerviertel
 * 12. Erlanger Straße/Wolfsgasse
 * 13: Jakobshof
 * 14: Hetzennest/Braunhof/Fantaisiestraße
 * 15: Meyernberg
 * 16: Nördlicher Roter Hügel
 * 17: Grüner Hügel/Wendelhöfen
 * 18: Kreuz
 * 19: Herzoghöhe/Am Bauhof
 * 20: Nördliche Innenstadt
 * 21: Carl-Schüller-Straße/Bürgerreuther Straße/Gutenbergstraße
 * 22: Gartenstadt
 * 23: Bürgerreuth/Gravenreutherstraße
 * 24: Sankt Georgen (Bayreuth)/Grüner Baum/Burg
 * 25: Östliche Hammerstatt
 * 26: Westliche Hammerstatt
 * 27: Bernecker Straße/Insel/Riedelsberg
 * 28: Industriegebiete St. Georgen
 * 29: St. Johannis
 * 30: Neue Heimat
 * 31: Oberkonnersreuth
 * 32: Laineck
 * 33: Westlicher Roter Hügel
 * 34: Eubener Straße/Furtwänglerstraße/Schupfenschlag/Hohe Warte
 * 35: Seulbitz
 * 36: Aichig/Grunau
 * 37: Thiergarten/Destuben
 * 38: Oberpreuschwitz
 * 39: Wolfsbach

Climate
Climate in this area has mild differences between highs and lows, and there is adequate rainfall year-round. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Dfb" (Humid continental climate) using the 0 °C isotherm and "Cfb" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate) using the −3 °C isotherm.

Politics
The current Member of the German Bundestag for Bayreuth is Silke Launert from the Christian Social Union in Bavaria.

Town council
The results of the 2020 local elections in Bavaria were as follows (in brackets the change from the 2014 elections):
 * CSU: 24.1% (−5.8), 10 seats (−3)
 * Alliance 90/The Greens: 18.0% (+6.3), 8 seats (+3)
 * SPD: 17.7% (−3.5), 8 seats (−1)
 * BG – FW: 15,3% (−1.9), 7 seats (−1)
 * Young Bayreuth: 6.5% (−0,4), 3 seats (=)
 * FDP: 5.3% (−0.5), 2 seats (−1)
 * The Independents: 5.0% (+0.2), 2 seats (=)
 * AfD: 3.9% (+3.9), 2 seats (+2)
 * Women's Party: 2.4% (+2.4), 1 seat (+1)
 * The Left: 1.7% (+1.7), 1 seat (+1)

(Lord) Mayors of Bayreuth since 1818

 * 1818–1848: Erhard Christian Hagen von Hagenfels (First legally trained mayor)
 * 1851–1863: Friedrich Karl Dilchert (civic mayor)
 * 1863–1900: Theodor von Muncker (legally trained mayor)
 * 1900–1918: Leopold von Casselmann (legally trained mayor, lord mayor from 1907)
 * 1919–30 April 1933: Albert Preu (lord mayor)
 * 1 May 1933 – June 1937: Karl Schlumprecht (lord mayor; NSDAP)
 * 21 July 1937 – April 1938: Otto Schmidt (lord mayor; NSDAP)
 * 3 May 1938 – 30 June 1938: Fritz Wächtler (Gauleiter, self-proclaimed commissarial lord mayor; NSDAP)
 * 1 July 1938 – April 1945: Fritz Kempfler (lord mayor; NSDAP)
 * 24 April 1945 – November 1945: Joseph Kauper (lord mayor)
 * November 1945–30 June 1948: Oscar Meyer (lord mayor)
 * 1 July 1948 – 30 April 1958: Hans Rollwagen (lord mayor; SPD)
 * 1 May 1958 – 30 April 1988: Hans Walter Wild (lord mayor; SPD)
 * 1 May 1988 – 30 April 2006: Dieter Mronz (lord mayor; SPD)
 * 1 May 2006 – 30 April 2012: Michael Hohl (lord mayor; CSU)
 * 1 May 2012 – 30 April 2020: Brigitte Merk-Erbe (lord mayor; BG)
 * since 1 May 2020: Thomas Ebersberger (lord mayor; CSU)

Sponsorship
In 1955 Bayreuth took on sponsorship for displaced Sudeten Germans from the town of Franzensbad in Okres Cheb.

Coat of arms
Margrave Albert Achilles, who was also Elector of Brandenburg, presented the town of Bayreuth in December 1457 with the coat of arms that it still bears today. Two fields show the black and white coat of arms of the Hohenzollerns. The black lion on gold with a red and white border was the municipal coat of arms of the burgraves of Nuremberg. Along the two diagonals are two Reuten, small triangular shovels with a slightly bent shaft. They represent the ending -reuth in the town's name."

Theatre
The Margravial Opera House was opened in 1748 and is one of the finest Baroque theatres in Europe. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is both a museum and the oldest working tableau in Bayreuth.

The Festival Hall dates to the 19th century and is now used solely for the Bayreuth Festival. Only works by Richard Wagner are performed.

The former Stadthalle (lit.: city hall) did not have its own ensemble but was regularly used by the Theater Hof as well as various travelling theatres. It has been under reconstruction since 2017 and is supposed to be re-opened under the new name Friedrichsforum in 2023.

The only two theatres with their own ensemble are the Studiobühne Bayreuth and amateur dramatic society, Brandenburg Kulturstadt. The venues of the Studiobühne are the domicile of the theatre in the Röntgenstraße, the artificial ruins of the Hermitage and the courtyard of piano manufacturer Steingraeber & Söhne.

Museums

 * The Richard Wagner Museum at Wahnfried House was the residence of Richard Wagner and his family's home until 1966. Since 1976 it has been a museum with attached national archives and a research centre for the Richard Wagner Foundation in Bayreuth.
 * The Jean Paul Museum in the former residence of Richard Wagner's daughter, Eva Chamberlain, with autographs, first editions of works, portraits and other pictorial material.
 * The Franz Liszt Museum in the house where Franz Liszt died, with about 300 photographs, scripts and printed papers from the collection of the Munich pianist, Ernst Burger, which were bought by the town of Bayreuth. In addition there is a Stummklavier, made by the Ibach company of Haus Wahnfried, letters and first editions of Franz Liszt. Biographic information boards, a mould of the font from Liszt's birthplace Raiding, Austria and Liszt busts by Antonio Galli enhance the collection. Visits are accompanied by the music of Franz Liszt.
 * The Historical Museum in the Old Latin School on Kirchplatz. On the ground floor it portrays the history and development of Bayreuth from the late Middle Ages to the 20th century with a model of the town in the year 1763. On the first floor are divisions covering the art and cultural history of Bayreuth's margravial period (17th and 18th centuries). Another division portrays arts and crafts in Bayreuth and the surrounding area with examples of faience pottery, glass products from the Fichtelgebirge and stone pottery from Creußen. Painting, crafts, and early industrial artefacts from the Biedermeier period and the late 19th century round off a visit to the museum.
 * The Museum of Art in the Old Town Hall which contains the Helmut and Constanze Meyer Art Foundation, the Georg Tappert collection and the archives and collection of Caspar Walter Rauh. The collections contain key works from the 20th century. They also include the Little Poster Museum (formerly a museum on its own, the collection was integrated into the Museum of Art in 2012 ) and the British American Tobacco's Historical Collection.
 * The German Typewriter Museum with a collection of over 400 historic typewriters from the Research and Training Centre for Shorthand and Word Processing in Bayreuth.
 * A branch of the Bavarian State Painting Collection was opened in the New Palace in August 2007. 80 works from Dutch and German painters of the late 17th century and 18th century are displayed.
 * The Archaeological Museum in the Italian Building of the New Palace was founded in 1827 by the Historic Society. Its eight exhibition rooms include artefacts such as New Stone Age stone axes, 80 pottery jars from the Hallstatt era and Celtic bronze jewellery. The discoveries on display, which all come from eastern Upper Franconia, especially Franconian Switzerland and the region around Bayreuth, date from the Old Stone Age to the Middle Ages. In the experimental field there is a reconstructed loom, a rock drill and an original Schiebemühle.
 * Maisel's Brewery and Cooper's Museum teaches everything about the production of Weizen beer on a 2400 m2 layout, making it the largest brewery in the world, not least due to its collection of over 5,500 beer glasses and mugs.
 * The Upper Franconia Prehistory Museum portrays the history of life in Upper Franconia since the beginning of the world. Exhibitions are constantly changing; currently the life-size dinosaurs attract especial interest.
 * Bayreuth Football Museum (Altstadt-Kult-Museum of SpVgg Bayreuth)
 * The Bayreuth of Wilhelmina Museum in the New Castle
 * Fire Brigade Museum
 * Iwalewa House, the Africa Centre of the University of Bayreuth
 * Johann Baptist Graser School Museum
 * Catacombs of the Bayreuth Aktien Brewery
 * Margravial state rooms and collection of Bayreuth faiences in the New Castle
 * Museum of Agricultural Tools and Equipment
 * Lindenhof Natural History Museum
 * Richard Wagner Gymnasium School Museum
 * Wilhelm Leuschner Memorial
 * Wo Sarazen Art

Buildings

 * The Hermitage (Eremitage)
 * Thiergarten Hunting Lodge (Jagdschloss Thiergarten)
 * New Palace (Neues Schloss) and court garden, seat of the margraves from 1753
 * St. Georgen Castle (Ordensschloss St. Georgen)
 * St. Georgen Church (Ordenskirche St. Georgen)
 * St. John's Parish Church (St. Johannis)
 * Colmdorf Castle
 * Rollwenzelei with Jean Paul's study (Dichterstube)
 * Old Palace and castle chapel of Our Dear Lady (Altes Schloss)
 * Victory Tower (Siegesturm)
 * Spital Church (Spitalkirche)
 * Church of the Holy Spirit (Stadtkirche Heilig Dreifaltigkeit)
 * Stift church (Stiftskirche)

 * Birken Castle
 * The Goldener Anker hotel
 * Baroque parks:
 * Hermitage Park, former seat of the margraves, outside the inner town
 * Castle and park of Fantaisie, in Eckersdorf (vicinity of Bayreuth. 7 km west)
 * Sanspareil Park, about 30 km west of Bayreuth
 * University Botanical Gardens
 * Old building of the Klinikum Bayreuth, now used as the "load-balancing" branch of the Bundesarchiv („Lastenausgleichsarchiv Bayreuth“) mainly dealing with post-World War II Lastenausgleich compensation records

Public parks and cemeteries
In the town centre is the Court Garden (Hofgarten) of the New Palace. Near the Festival Hall is the Festival Park. On the southern edge of the town lie the Ecological-Botanical Garden of the University of Bayreuth. On the Königsallee, east of the town centre, is the relatively small Miedel Garden.

The best known park in Bayreuth is that of the Eremitage (Hermitage) in the district of St. Johannis. With a total area of almost 50 hectares, it is the largest park in Bayreuth.

Bayreuth has been chosen to host the Bavarian Country Garden Show in 2016. For this reason another park called Wilhelminenaue was built on the Main water meadows between the Volksfestplatz and the A9 motorway.

The oldest surviving cemetery is the Town Cemetery (Stadtfriedhof) with a large number of gravestones of famous people. On the southern edge of the town is the Southern Cemetery (Südfriedhof) and crematorium. The districts of St. Johannis and St. Georgen have their own cemeteries. On Nürnberger Straße, in the east of the town, is a Jewish cemetery.

Sport
Over 60 clubs offer just under one hundred sports. The most successful club in the town presently is the Bayreuth Air Sports Community with its gliding team: in 2002 and 2015 the pilots won the Federal Gliding League, and they also won the IGC-World League in 2015. The street hockey team of the Hurricans Bayreuth have been German runners-up three times (1998/2004/2006) and champions five times (1996/1997/2001/2005/2007). The basketball team of Medi Bayreuth plays in the Basketball Bundesliga (division 1), the HaSpo Bayreuth handball team, the footballers of SpVgg Bayreuth and the volleyball players of BSV Bayreuth each play in their respective Bavarian League. The ice hockey team, EHC Bayreuth, plays in the DEL2, the second highest ice hockey league in Germany.

Bayreuth had its sporting heyday in the late 1980s and early 90s. The basketball team, Steiner Bayreuth, were twice German Cup winners (1987/1988 and 1988/1989) and in the 1988/1989 season they also won the German championship. The hockey team of Bayreuth's swimming club (SCC) was twice champions of Second Division South and also played for a year in the Hockey League. At the time that the table tennis team of Steiner Bayreuth was also first class (since 1983 2nd Division, in 1984/85, 1986/87 and 1987/88 1st Division, 1988 relegated and the team has played for many years in the 2nd Football Division. The table tennis players of the 1. Bayreuth FC played in the 1st Division from 1994 to 1997.

In 1999 the World Glider Championships took place in Bayreuth.

Regular events

 * In January, May, June, July, November and December: Young master pianists (concert series for young pianists from various music academies in the rooms of piano makers, Steingraeber & Söhne)
 * April: Bayreuth Easter Festival (charity concerts for children with cancer)
 * May: Musica Bayreuth
 * June: Uniopenair
 * June: Time for New Music
 * June: Bayreuth Folk Festival
 * July: Bayreuth Town Festival (on the first weekend in July)
 * July: Bayreuth Piano Festival
 * July–August: Bayreuth Festival, Midsummer Night Festival
 * September: Rock in Bayreuth
 * September: Bayreuth Baroque (opera performances in the Margravial Opera House)
 * October: Bayreuth Kneipen Festival
 * October: Bayreuth Museum Night (the day before the clocks go back)
 * October: Since 2008 the town had awarded annually the Margravine Wilhelmina Prize of the Town of Bayreuth as part of the Bayreuth Future Forum symposium of the University of Bayreuth

Long-distance roads
Motorways (Autobahnen):
 * A 9: Berlin–Leipzig–Bayreuth–Nuremberg–Ingolstadt–Munich
 * A 70: Schweinfurt–Bamberg–Bayreuth

Federal roads (Bundesstraßen):
 * B 2: Rosow–Berlin–Lutherstadt Wittenberg–Leipzig–Gera–Hof–Bayreuth–Nuremberg–Donauwörth–Augsburg–Munich–Mittenwald
 * B 22: Würzburg–Bamberg–Hollfeld–Bayreuth–Weiden–Cham
 * B 85: Berga–Weimar–Ludwigsstadt–Kulmbach–Bayreuth–Amberg–Schwandorf–Cham–Neukirchen vorm Wald–Passau

Railways
From Bayreuth Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) railway lines run north to Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg, and from there to Bamberg and over the Schiefe Ebene to Hof, east to Weidenberg, southeast to Weiden and south to Schnabelwaid with connections to Nuremberg on the Pegnitz Valley Railway. The lines around Bayreuth are all single-tracked and non-electrified.

Since 23 May 1992 tilting Class 610 diesel multiple units have worked the Pegnitz Valley route. These were bought by the former Deutsche Bundesbahn specifically for the winding track.

Since a 2006/2007 timetable change, Bayreuth has no longer been connected to the DB's long-distance network. However, the Franken-Sachsen-Express still provides a direct connection to Dresden (since December 2007, every two hours). This service is worked by Class 612 diesel multiple units. There are also Regional-Express links via Lichtenfels to Bamberg and Würzburg, and via Lichtenfels and Kronach to Saalfeld.

Local public transport
The town bus routes are operated by Bayreuth Transport and Public Baths (BVB) (Bayreuther Verkehrs- und Bäder GmbH). Sometimes private bus operators run services on behalf of the transport companies. The 15 routes (lines 301–315) operate from Monday to Friday at 20 or 30-minute intervals; on Saturday and Sunday the interval is extended to 30 minutes. Late evening services (from about 20 to 12 pm during the week and to 1 am at weekends), on Sunday mornings a simplified network of six lines (lines 321–326) runs buses at 30-minute intervals. Some lines then operate like an on-call taxi service. The network is star-shaped. Originally, the central station was at the market square in Maximilianstrasse. Since 27 October 2007 the Central Bus Station (ZOH) has been at Hohenzollernplatz at the junction of Kanalstraße on the Hohenzollernring. At this stop there are also bus stops for local buses to facilitate transfers.

Regional rail is operated by the Omnibusverkehr Franken. From 1 January 2010 public transport from the town and district of Bayreuth was integrated into the Nuremberg Regional Transport Network (Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg).

Cycling
In most places there is a signed cycle path network. In the centre of Bayreuth itself, cycling is fairly straightforward due to the relatively flat topography, something which encourages the use bicycles as an everyday means of transport. Because of the proximity of the 600 kilometre long Main Cycleway, Bayreuth is also a destination for many tourist cycle routes. Because of the long service intervals of the Bayreuth town bus system and its long overnight pause, students use bicycles as their everyday mode of transport. Bicycles may be carried for a fee on DB Regio trains leaving Bayreuth and in the VGN's buses.

Air transport
The local airport supports Bayreuth's commercial aviation traffic, individual business travel, general aviation and air sports. There is no commercial service any more: In 2001, the service which used to operate three times a day from Frankfurt via Bayreuth to Hof, stopped service.

The airfield at Bindlacher Berg is also one of the most important bases for gliding in Germany. For example, the World Championships took place here in 1999. For the air sports community in Bayreuth, the airport is a departure point for glider flights taking part in the national Bundesliga competition league. The local gliding club also provides instruction in flying gliders and light aircraft.

Important firms

 * Basell Bayreuth Chemie (Producer of polyolefins)
 * Brauerei Gebrüder Maisel (wheat beer specialist)
 * British American Tobacco (Germany) GmbH (cigarette production)
 * Cherry (Data entry devices, switches and sensors, car motifs)
 * Cybex
 * Grundig Business Systems (world market leader for professional dictaphone systems)
 * W. Markgraf (construction)
 * medi (medical aids)
 * Stäubli (textile machines, technical couplings and robot arms)
 * Steingraeber & Söhne piano manufacturers
 * TenneT TSO system operator
 * Zapf (manufacturer of ready-made garages and houses)
 * Trans Space Travels (Private space plane development firm)

Former important firms

 * F. C. Bayerlein 1809–1979 (textile company: weaving, spinning, cotton-spinning and dying)

Media

 * Nordbayerischer Kurier (daily paper)
 * Fränkische Zeitung (FZ); formerly the Bayreuther Anzeiger, renamed in October 2008 (advertising paper)
 * Bayreuther Sonntag (advertising paper)
 * Bayreuth4U (town magazine)
 * Bayerischer Rundfunk (North Upper Franconia correspondent office). In the 1950s/1960s Bayerische Rundfunk operated a radio station in Bayreuth on medium wave with a frequency of 520 kHz and a transmitter power of 200 watts using a 60-metre high transmission mast.
 * Campus TV (University of Bayreuth media project in media science)
 * Der Tip (University of Bayreuth student paper)
 * Oberfränkische Wirtschaft, (trade magazine for Upper Franconia)
 * Radio Galaxy (local radio station for the Bavaria-wide youth radio)
 * Radio Mainwelle (local radio)
 * Schalltwerk (University of Bayreuth internet radio)

Garrison
For centuries Bayreuth was also a garrison town for the Prussian Army, Royal Bavarian Army, Reichswehr, Wehrmacht, US Army, German Army (Bundeswehr) and the German Border Police (Bundesgrenzschutz). In the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War the garrison tradition of the town came to an end when the Bundeswehr's Margrave Barracks (Markgrafenkaserne) and the Röhrensee Barracks (Röhrenseekaserne), used by the US Army and the BGS (Grenzschutzabteilung Süd 3), were closed.

Twin towns – sister cities

Bayreuth is twinned with:
 * 🇫🇷 Annecy, France (1966)
 * 🇩🇪 Rudolstadt, Germany (1990)
 * 🇮🇹 La Spezia, Italy (1999)
 * 🇨🇿 Prague 6, Czech Republic (2008)
 * 🇹🇷 Tekirdağ, Turkey (2012)

Since 1990, there is also a cultural partnership with the state of Burgenland, Austria, and a university partnership between the University of Bayreuth and the Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

1600–1700

 * Anna Maria von Eggenberg, née Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1609–1680), Princess of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
 * Erdmann August of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1615–1651), Prince of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
 * Georg Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth-Kulmbach (1619–1666), founder of the Kulmbach subline
 * Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1644–1712), Margrave of the Frankish Principality of Bayreuth
 * Christian Heinrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth-Kulmbach, (1661–1708), nobleman
 * Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1671–1727), Electress of Saxony
 * George William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (1678–1726), Margrave of the Frankish Principality of Bayreuth

1701–1800

 * Princess Wilhelmine of Bayreuth (1709–1758), monarch
 * Casimir Christoph Schmidel (1718–1791), physician and botanist
 * Johann David Schoepf (1752–1800), surgeon, botanist, zoologist and naturalist
 * Anna Heinel (1753–1808), dancer
 * Johann Christian Ritter (1755–1810), first printer in South Africa
 * Johann Georg Wunderlich (1755–1819), flutist, university teacher and composer
 * Ludwig Abeille (1761–1838), pianist and composer
 * Jean Paul (1763–1825), German romantic writer
 * Ludwig Förster (1797–1863), Austrian-German architect
 * Heinrich von Gagern (1799–1880), politician, first president of the Frankfurt National Assembly on 19 May 1848
 * August Riedel (1799–1883), painter

1801–1900

 * Karl Burger (1805–1884), Lutheran theologian
 * Rudolf Wagner (1805–1864), anatomist and physiologist
 * Max Stirner (1806–1856), philosopher and journalist
 * Franz Liszt (1811–1886), Hungarian composer
 * Eduard Riedel (1813–1885), architect
 * Moritz Wagner (1813–1887), traveler, geographer and naturalist
 * Richard Wagner (1813–1883), composer
 * Wilhelm von Diez (1839–1907), painter and illustrator
 * Oskar Panizza (1853–1921), psychiatrist, dissident author
 * Franz Muncker (1855–1926), literary historian
 * Max Schroeder (1862–1922), architect
 * Richard Engelmann (1868–1966), sculptor
 * Theodor von der Pfordten (1873–1923), High Court Judge at the Bavarian Supreme Court and participant killed in the Beer Hall Putsch
 * Fritz Neuland (1889–1969), lawyer
 * Wilhelm Leuschner (1890–1944), trade unionist and politician (SPD)
 * Fritz Rasp (1891–1976), film and stage actor
 * Hans Schemm (1891–1935), teacher, politician and Gauleiter (NSDAP)
 * Robert Ritter von Greim (1892–1945), Army and Air Force officer, 1945 Field Marshal

1901–1950

 * Ludwig Kirschner (1904–1945), German officer, Major-General last in World War II
 * Ludwig Ruckdeschel (1907–1968), politician (NSDAP) and Gauleiter
 * Eberhard Wagner (born 1938), German linguist and author
 * Wieland Wagner (1917–1966), opera director and designer
 * Friedelind Wagner (1918–1991), eldest daughter of Siegfried Wagner
 * Wolfgang Wagner (1919–2010), opera director and designer
 * Max von der Grün (1926–2005), writer
 * Wolfgang Wild (born 1930), nuclear physicist and politician
 * Walter Demel (1935–2023), cross country skier
 * Peter Schmidt (born 1937), designer
 * Udo Steiner (born 1939), Judge of the Constitutional Court
 * Gottfried Wagner (born 1947), opera director, multimedia director and publicist

From 1951

 * Horst Knörrer (born 1953), mathematician
 * Klaus Schilling (born 1956), Professor of Robotics and Telematics
 * Gudrun Brendel-Fischer (born 1959), politician (CSU)
 * Stefan Rauh (born 1963), musician, composer and music publisher
 * Michael Schober (born 1966), illustrator and author
 * Klay Shroedel (born 1966), music producer, film producer, Oscar winner 1998 Best Music Titanic (in the team of James Horner)
 * Saskia Marka (born 1975), German film title designer
 * Katharina Wagner (born 1978), opera director
 * Maya Karin (born 1979), Malaysian actress, television personality, and singer
 * Thomas Reiser (born 1979), philologist and translator
 * Anne Haug (born 1983), triathlete
 * Florian Mayer (born 1983), tennis player
 * Philipp Petzschner (born 1984), tennis player

title: Bayreuth


text:
Jula

Jula may refer to:

Places

 * Jula, the German name of Gyula, a town in Hungary
 * Bareh Jula, a village in Iran
 * Jula Deh, a village in Iran
 * Jula Kamar, a village in Iran

Other

 * Jula (name)
 * Dioula language spoken in western Africa
 * Jula or Dyula people, western Africa

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

title: Jula


text:
Scale (ratio)

The scale ratio of a model represents the proportional ratio of a linear dimension of the model to the same feature of the original. Examples include a 3-dimensional scale model of a building or the scale drawings of the elevations or plans of a building. In such cases the scale is dimensionless and exact throughout the model or drawing.

The scale can be expressed in four ways: in words (a lexical scale), as a ratio, as a fraction and as a graphical (bar) scale. Thus on an architect's drawing one might read 'one centimeter to one  meter', 1:100, 1/100, or $1⁄100$. A bar scale would also normally appear on the drawing. Colon may also be substituted with a specific, slightly raised ratio symbol, ie. "1∶100".

General representation
In general a representation may involve more than one scale at the same time. For example, a drawing showing a new road in elevation might use different horizontal and vertical scales. An elevation of a bridge might be annotated with arrows with a length proportional to a force loading, as in 1 cm to 1000 newtons: this is an example of a dimensional scale. A weather map at some scale may be annotated with wind arrows at a dimensional scale of 1 cm to 20 mph.

In maps
Map scales require careful discussion. A town plan may be constructed as an exact scale drawing, but for larger areas a map projection is necessary and no projection can represent the Earth's surface at a uniform scale. In general the scale of a projection depends on position and direction. The variation of scale may be considerable in small scale maps which may cover the globe. In large scale maps of small areas the variation of scale may be insignificant for most purposes but it is always present. The scale of a map projection must be interpreted as a nominal scale. (The usage large and small in relation to map scales relates to their expressions as fractions. The fraction 1/10,000 used for a local map is much larger than the 1/100,000,000 used for a global map. There is no fixed dividing line between small and large scales.)

"A scale model is a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object being represented. Very often the scale model is smaller than the original and used as a guide to making the object in full size."

Mathematics
In mathematics, the idea of geometric scaling can be generalized. The scale between two mathematical objects need not be a fixed ratio but may vary in some systematic way; this is part of mathematical projection, which generally defines a point by point relationship between two mathematical objects. (Generally, these may be mathematical sets and may not represent geometric objects.)

title: Scale (ratio)


text:
User:Babak~enwiki

My seed article: Link Topology

title: User:Babak~enwiki


text:
Baen Free Library

The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It was founded in late 1999 by science fiction writer Eric Flint and publisher Jim Baen to determine whether the availability of books free of charge on the Internet encourages or discourages the sale of their paper books.

The Baen Free Library represents an experiment in the field of intellectual property and copyright. It appears that sales of both the e-books made available free and other books by the same author, even from a different publisher, increase when the electronic version is made available free of charge.

Baen Ebooks also sells individual e-books and a subscription-based e-book program. The books in the Free Library are available via the website for Baen Ebooks in various formats including HTML, Rich Text Format, and EPUB as well as unencrypted .mobi for Kindle.

Baen CDs
In 2002, Baen also started adding CD-ROMs into some hardcovers of newest titles in successful series. They contain the complete series of novels preceding the printed book (for those books that were the latest in a series), other works by the same author, some works by other authors, and multimedia bonuses. The CD-ROMs have a prominent permissive copyright license which expressly encourages free-of-charge copying and sharing, including over the Internet.

Some of these CDs also contain MP3 audiobook versions. As of 2015 CD 24 Invasion published in 2010 was the last promotional Baen CD.

 * CD 01 Honorverse also contains The Shadow of the Lion and 1632 among others.
 * CD 06 Wind Rider's Oath and CD 06b Shadow of Saganami were published in 2004.
 * CD 13 1634: The Baltic War and CD 13 The Best of Jim Baen's Universe 2006 were published in 2006.
 * CD 22 Mission of Honor also contains Exodus and 1633 among others.
 * CD 23 1635: The Eastern Front features the 1632 and Heirs of Alexandria series among others.
 * CD 24 Cryoburn was replaced by CD 24 Invasion in the Secret World Chronicles.

title: Baen Free Library


text:
Talk:Boat

Merge
Can watercraft be merged with boat in order to simplify the articles (boat, boating, ship, watercraft) and provide a more clear article (with 1 meaning for each) ? Would allow to add more specific and better information for each rather than give a general view/modification of text for each individual article.

Also, boating can then be described as the activity of moving a watercraft over water (something which is hard if it were only to describe boats)

Definition should also be changed to A watercraft or boat is ... KVDP (talk) 09:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * "Watercraft" is a broader category of conveyances which enable passage across water, compared to "boat." Watercraft includes personal watercraft, which is the generic name for jet-skis and waverunners, as well as canoes and other gizmos such as this.  A boat is a type of watercraft, but not all watercraft are boats.  IMHO a merge of one into the other is not the best way to treat them here.  –Newportm (talk • contribs) 06:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose....whatever floats your boat.--Master of ideas for a floating boat (talk) 12:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the text "Being more capacious than carts and wagons, and suitable for both land and grass". A boat is not necessarily more capacious than a cart or wagon and I have no idea what "suitable for both land and grass" means.MikeEagling (talk) 04:22, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090102183359/https://lanzhou.china.com.cn:80/english/travel/50131.htm to http://lanzhou.china.com.cn/english/travel/50131.htm

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Why locked?
Tthis article should be returned to normal status not have it reviewed (censorship). There is a mechanism where vandals are punished (blocking). Boater100 (talk) 19:25, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The article is protected via pending changes protection due to persistent and ongoing vandalization by multiple anonymous users. Blocking is not always an option.-- ☾Loriendrew☽  ☏(ring-ring)  19:13, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Naval boats
This article is, well, eccentric in its treatment of naval boats. For example, the lead asserts boldly, with no citation, that
 * in modern naval terms, a boat is a vessel small enough to be carried aboard a ship

So what about missile boats, gunboats, torpedo boats, patrol boats, dispatch boats, and naval tugboats. Many of these can weigh thousands of tonnes and are not at all suitable for carrying on ships. Then there are submarines, which by naval tradition are always referred to as boats. The Typhoon-class weighs up to 48,000 tonnes.– Epipelagic (talk) 20:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

 * While the PT boats of WW II were capable of service on the High Seas, they didn't have storage capacity for fuel and rations for long journeys. Those used in the Western Pacific were taken there as cargo as were the smaller landing craft, possibly aboard the larger landing craft such as LSTs.  Tugs, like submarines are traditionally called boats, and the others are named after their job, with boat part of the common description.  JDZeff (talk) 19:01, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

WH Mullins unsourced info?
I noticed that under the Building materials sections, there was a bit of unsourced info added about 'WH Mullins' that apparently has gone unremoved since. Is there a reason for this, or was it just overlooked? - K u r o 06:14, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Ski boat
What is it? Lemma redirects here, but no explanation is given. --BjKa (talk) 13:37, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Scientific American article
Not sure if this fits in the historical section, other editors can decide. "A Boat Older Than The Ark" https://books.google.com/books?id=p4o9AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false ; 20 July 1878, p. 41 SloppyTots (talk) 19:50, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 June 2021
I want to add citations to where they are needed Benbeezy (talk) 12:38, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
 * : Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. ◎ | melecie |   t  14:09, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Boat
Boat is a Indian Headphones brand Md437Ad (talk) 18:37, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Doubtful claim about dugouts
At present, the article claims that the earliest boats are thought to be dugouts. In the grand scheme of human travel over water, dugouts are considered a more sophisticated development, after rafts, bark and reed canoes etc. The oldest remnants of boats are dugouts, probably because they are hardier and more likely to survive to the modern era than a reed or bark canoe. Ordinary Person (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2023
Change: Any one vessel may use more than one of these methods at different times on in combination. To: Any one vessel may use more than one of these methods at different times or in combination. 109.155.52.111 (talk) 12:58, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

 * ✅ HopsonRoad (talk) 14:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2024
The lead states that a ship "is distinguished [from a boat] by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats".

Larger size and cargo/passenger capacity are fair enough, but what is a "larger shape"? "Shape" is clearly part of the things described as "larger" on ships in this sentence. My minor suggestion is to change this sentence to something like:

"is distinguished by its larger size, cargo or passenger capacity, its shape or its ability to carry boats" or any variation that makes "shape" separate, clearing it up a little for dumb people like me

OR

The Wikipedia article for "ship" has it as: "Ships are generally distinguished from boats, based on size, shape, load capacity and purpose."

It could also be rephrased to be more similar to this.

Thank you for anybody who grants this nitpicking edit. English isn't my first language I hope I articulated it well 2A02:C7E:3188:4C00:C117:F1A:B51F:7B1E (talk) 00:19, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

 * ✅ Tollens (talk) 09:21, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Boat


text:
Battle of the Milvian Bridge

The Battle of the Milvian Bridge took place between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius on 28 October 312 AD. It takes its name from the Milvian Bridge, an important route over the Tiber. Constantine won the battle and started on the path that led him to end the Tetrarchy and become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Maxentius drowned in the Tiber during the battle; his body was later taken from the river and decapitated, and his head was paraded through the streets of Rome on the day following the battle before being taken to Africa.

According to Christian chroniclers Eusebius of Caesarea and Lactantius, the battle marked the beginning of Constantine's conversion to Christianity. Eusebius of Caesarea recounts that Constantine and his soldiers had a vision sent by the Christian God. This was interpreted as a promise of victory if the sign of the Chi Rho, the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek, was painted on the soldiers' shields. The Arch of Constantine, erected in celebration of the victory, certainly attributes Constantine's success to divine intervention; however, the monument does not display any overtly Christian symbolism.

Historical background
The underlying causes of the battle were the rivalries inherent in Diocletian's Tetrarchy. After Diocletian stepped down on 1 May 305, his successors began to struggle for control of the Roman Empire almost immediately. Although Constantine was the son of the Western Emperor Constantius, the Tetrarchic ideology did not necessarily provide for hereditary succession. When Constantius died on 25 July 306, his father's troops proclaimed Constantine as Augustus in Eboracum (York). In Rome, the favorite was Maxentius, the son of Constantius' imperial colleague Maximian, who seized the title of emperor on 28 October 306. But whereas Constantine's claim was recognized by Galerius, ruler of the Eastern provinces and the senior emperor in the Empire, Maxentius was treated as a usurper. Galerius, however, recognized Constantine as holding only the lesser imperial rank of Caesar. Galerius ordered his co-Augustus, Severus, to put Maxentius down in early 307. Once Severus arrived in Italy, however, his army defected to Maxentius. Severus was captured, imprisoned, and executed. Galerius himself marched on Rome in the autumn, but failed to take the city. Constantine avoided conflict with both Maxentius and the Eastern emperors for most of this period.

By 312, however, Constantine and Maxentius were engaged in open hostility with one another, although they were brothers-in‑law through Constantine's marriage to Fausta, sister of Maxentius. In the spring of 312, Constantine gathered an army of 40,000 soldiers and decided to oust Maxentius himself. He easily overran northern Italy, winning two major battles: the first near Turin, the second at Verona, where the praetorian prefect Ruricius Pompeianus, Maxentius' most senior general, was killed.

Vision of Constantine
It is commonly understood that on the evening of 27 October with the armies preparing for battle, Constantine had a vision which led him to fight under the protection of the Christian God. Some details of that vision, however, differ between the sources reporting it.

Lactantius states that, in the night before the battle, Constantine was commanded in a dream to "delineate the heavenly sign on the shields of his soldiers" (On the Deaths of the Persecutors 44.5). He followed the commands of his dream and marked the shields with a sign "denoting Christ". Lactantius describes that sign as a "staurogram", or a Latin cross with its upper end rounded in a P-like fashion. There is no certain evidence that Constantine ever used that sign, opposed to the better known Chi-Rho sign described by Eusebius.

From Eusebius, two accounts of the battle survive. The first, shorter one in the Ecclesiastical History promotes the belief that the Christian God helped Constantine but does not mention any vision. In his later Life of Constantine, Eusebius gives a detailed account of a vision and stresses that he had heard the story from the Emperor himself. According to this version, Constantine with his army was marching (Eusebius does not specify the actual location of the event, but it clearly is not in the camp at Rome), when he looked up to the sun and saw a cross of light above it, and with it the Greek words " Ἐν Τούτῳ Νίκα", En toutōi níka, usually translated into Latin as "in hoc signo vinces". The literal meaning of the phrase in Greek is "in this (sign), conquer" while in Latin it's "in this sign, you shall conquer"; a more free translation would be "Through this sign [you shall] conquer". At first he was unsure of the meaning of the apparition, but in the following night he had a dream in which Christ explained to him that he should use the sign against his enemies. Eusebius then continues to describe the labarum, the military standard used by Constantine in his later wars against Licinius, showing the Chi-Rho sign.

The accounts of the two contemporary authors, though not entirely consistent, have been merged into a popular notion of Constantine seeing the Chi-Rho sign on the evening before the battle. Both authors agree that the sign was not widely understandable to denote Christ (although among the Christians, it was already being used in the catacombs along with other special symbols to mark and/or decorate Christian tombs). Its first imperial appearance is on a Constantinian silver coin from c. 317, which proves that Constantine did use the sign at that time, though not very prominently. He made more extensive use of the Chi-Rho and the Labarum later, during the conflict with Licinius.

Some have considered the vision in a solar context (e.g. as a solar halo phenomenon called a sun dog), which may have preceded the Christian beliefs later expressed by Constantine. Coins of Constantine depicting him as the companion of a solar deity were minted as late as 313, the year following the battle. The solar deity Sol Invictus is often pictured with a nimbus or halo. Various emperors portrayed Sol Invictus on their official coinage, with a wide range of legends, only a few of which incorporated the epithet invictus, such as the legend SOLI INVICTO COMITI, claiming the Unconquered Sun as a companion to the emperor, used with particular frequency by Constantine. Constantine's official coinage continues to bear images of Sol until 325/6. A solidus of Constantine as well as a gold medallion from his reign depict the Emperor's bust in profile jugate with Sol Invictus, with the legend INVICTUS CONSTANTINUS. The official cults of Sol Invictus and Sol Invictus Mithras were popular amongst the soldiers of the Roman Army. Statuettes of Sol Invictus, carried by the standard-bearers, appear in three places in reliefs on the Arch of Constantine. Constantine's triumphal arch was carefully positioned to align with the colossal statue of Sol by the Colosseum, so that Sol formed the dominant backdrop when seen from the direction of the main approach towards the arch.

Events of the battle

Constantine reached Rome at the end of October 312 approaching along the Via Flaminia. He camped at the location of Malborghetto near Prima Porta, where remains of a Constantinian monument, the Arch of Malborghetto, in honour of the occasion are still extant.

It was expected that Maxentius would remain within Rome and endure a siege; he had successfully employed this strategy twice before, during the invasions of Severus and Galerius. Indeed, Maxentius had organised the stockpiling of large amounts of food in the city in preparation for such an event. Surprisingly, he decided otherwise, choosing to meet Constantine in open battle. Ancient sources commenting on these events attribute this decision either to divine intervention (e.g. Lactantius, Eusebius) or superstition (e.g. Zosimus). They also note that the day of the battle was the same as the day of his accession (28 October), which was generally thought to be a good omen. Additionally, Maxentius is reported to have consulted the oracular Sibylline Books, which stated that "on October 28 an enemy of the Romans would perish". Maxentius interpreted this prophecy as being favourable to himself. Lactantius also reports that the populace supported Constantine with acclamations during circus games. Maxentius chose to make his stand in front of the Milvian Bridge, a stone bridge that carries the Via Flaminia road across the Tiber River into Rome (the bridge stands today at the same site, somewhat remodelled, named in Italian Ponte Milvio or sometimes Ponte Molle, "soft bridge"). Holding it was essential if Maxentius was to keep his rival out of Rome, where the Senate would surely favour whoever held the city. As Maxentius had probably partially destroyed the bridge during his preparations for a siege, he had a wooden or pontoon bridge constructed to get his army across the river. The sources vary as to the nature of the bridge central to the events of the battle. Zosimus mentions it, vaguely, as being constructed in two parts connected by iron fastenings, while others indicate that it was a pontoon bridge; sources are also unclear as to whether the bridge was deliberately constructed as a collapsible trap for Constantine's forces or not.

The next day, the two armies clashed, and Constantine won a decisive victory. The dispositions of Maxentius may have been faulty as his troops seem to have been arrayed with the River Tiber too close to their rear, giving them little space to allow re-grouping in the event of their formations being forced to give ground. Already known as a skillful general, Constantine first launched his cavalry at the cavalry of Maxentius and broke them. Constantine's infantry then advanced; most of Maxentius's troops fought well but they began to be pushed back toward the Tiber. Maxentius then decided to order a retreat, intending to make another stand at Rome itself. However, there was only one escape route, via the bridge. Constantine's men inflicted heavy losses on the retreating army. Finally, the temporary bridge set up alongside the Milvian Bridge, over which many of the Maxentian troops were escaping, collapsed, and those stranded on the north bank of the Tiber were either taken prisoner or killed. Maxentius' Praetorian Guard, who had originally acclaimed him emperor, seem to have made a stubborn stand on the northern bank of the river; "in despair of pardon they covered with their bodies the place which they had chosen for combat."

Maxentius was among the dead, having drowned in the river while trying to swim across it in an attempt to escape or, alternatively, he is described as having been thrown by his horse into the river. Lactantius describes the death of Maxentius in the following manner: "The bridge in his rear was broken down. At sight of that the battle grew hotter. The hand of the Lord prevailed, and the forces of Maxentius were routed. He fled towards the broken bridge; but the multitude pressing on him, he was driven headlong into the Tiber."

Aftermath
Constantine entered Rome on 29 October. He staged a grand arrival ceremony in the city (adventus), and was met with popular jubilation. Maxentius' body was fished out of the Tiber and decapitated. His head was paraded through the streets for all to see. After the ceremonies, Maxentius' head was sent to Carthage as proof of his downfall; Africa then offered no further resistance. The battle gave Constantine undisputed control of the western half of the Roman Empire. The descriptions of Constantine's entry into Rome omit mention of him ending his procession at the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, where sacrifice was usually offered. Though often employed to show Constantine's Christian sensibilities, this silence cannot be taken as proof that Constantine was a Christian at this point. He chose to honour the Senatorial Curia with a visit, where he promised to restore its ancestral privileges and give it a secure role in his reformed government: there would be no revenge against Maxentius' supporters. Maxentius was condemned to damnatio memoriae; all his legislation was invalidated and Constantine usurped all of Maxentius' considerable building projects within Rome, including the Temple of Romulus and the Basilica of Maxentius. Maxentius' strongest supporters in the military were neutralized when the Praetorian Guard and Imperial Horse Guard (equites singulares) were disbanded. Constantine is thought to have replaced the former imperial guards with a number of cavalry units termed the Scholae Palatinae.

Significance
Paul K. Davis writes, "Constantine’s victory gave him total control of the Western Roman Empire paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion for the Roman Empire and ultimately for Europe." The following year, 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity an officially recognised and tolerated religion in the Roman Empire.

title: Battle of the Milvian Bridge


text:
Thought experiment

A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. The concept is also referred to using the German-language term Gedankenexperiment within the work of the physicist Ernst Mach and includes thoughts about what may have occurred if a different course of action were taken. The importance of this ability is that it allows the experimenter to imagine what may occur in the future, as well as the implications of alternate courses of action.

History
The ancient Greek δείκνυμι, "was the most ancient pattern of mathematical proof", and existed before Euclidean mathematics, where the emphasis was on the conceptual, rather than on the experimental part of a thought experiment.

Johann Witt-Hansen established that Hans Christian Ørsted was the first to use the term Gedankenexperiment (from German: 'thought experiment') circa 1812. Ørsted was also the first to use the equivalent term Gedankenversuch in 1820.

By 1883, Ernst Mach used the term Gedankenexperiment in a different way, to denote exclusively the conduct of a  experiment that would be subsequently performed as a  by his students. Physical and mental experimentation could then be contrasted: Mach asked his students to provide him with explanations whenever the results from their subsequent, real, physical experiment differed from those of their prior, imaginary experiment.

The English term thought experiment was coined (as a calque) from Mach's Gedankenexperiment, and it first appeared in the 1897 English translation of one of Mach's papers. Prior to its emergence, the activity of posing hypothetical questions that employed subjunctive reasoning had existed for a very long time (for both scientists and philosophers). The irrealis moods are ways to categorize it or to speak about it. This helps explain the extremely wide and diverse range of the application of the term "thought experiment" once it had been introduced into English.

Galileo's demonstration that falling objects must fall at the same rate regardless of their masses was a significant step forward in the history of modern science. This is widely thought to have been a straightforward physical demonstration, involving climbing up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropping two heavy weights off it, whereas in fact, it was a logical demonstration, using the 'thought experiment' technique. The 'experiment' is described by Galileo in Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche (1638) (from Italian: 'Mathematical Discourses and Demonstrations') thus:

"Salviati. If then we take two bodies whose natural speeds are different, it is clear that on uniting the two, the more rapid one will be partly retarded by the slower, and the slower will be somewhat hastened by the swifter. Do you not agree with me in this opinion?

Simplicio. You are unquestionably right.

Salviati. But if this is true, and if a large stone moves with a speed of, say, eight while a smaller moves with a speed of four, then when they are united, the system will move with a speed less than eight; but the two stones when tied together make a stone larger than that which before moved with a speed of eight. Hence the heavier body moves with less speed than the lighter; an effect which is contrary to your supposition. Thus you see how, from your assumption that the heavier body moves more rapidly than the lighter one, I infer that the heavier body moves more slowly."

Uses
The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question:

"A thought experiment is a device with which one performs an intentional, structured process of intellectual deliberation in order to speculate, within a specifiable problem domain, about potential consequents (or antecedents) for a designated antecedent (or consequent)."

Given the structure of the experiment, it may not be possible to perform it, and even if it could be performed, there need not be an intention to perform it.

Examples of thought experiments include Schrödinger's cat, illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell's demon, which attempts to demonstrate the ability of a hypothetical finite being to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

It is a common element of science-fiction stories.

Thought experiments, which are well-structured, well-defined hypothetical questions that employ subjunctive reasoning (irrealis moods) – "What might happen (or, what might have happened) if . . . " – have been used to pose questions in philosophy at least since Greek antiquity, some pre-dating Socrates. In physics and other sciences many thought experiments date from the 19th and especially the 20th Century, but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo.

In thought experiments, we gain new information by rearranging or reorganizing already known empirical data in a new way and drawing new (a priori) inferences from them or by looking at these data from a different and unusual perspective. In Galileo's thought experiment, for example, the rearrangement of empirical experience consists of the original idea of combining bodies of different weights.

Thought experiments have been used in philosophy (especially ethics), physics, and other fields (such as cognitive psychology, history, political science, economics, social psychology, law, organizational studies, marketing, and epidemiology). In law, the synonym "hypothetical" is frequently used for such experiments.

Regardless of their intended goal, all thought experiments display a patterned way of thinking that is designed to allow us to explain, predict and control events in a better and more productive way.

Theoretical consequences
In terms of their theoretical consequences, thought experiments generally:

 * challenge (or even refute) a prevailing theory, often involving the device known as reductio ad absurdum, (as in Galileo's original argument, a proof by contradiction),
 * confirm a prevailing theory,
 * establish a new theory, or
 * simultaneously refute a prevailing theory and establish a new theory through a process of mutual exclusion

Practical applications
Thought experiments can produce some very important and different outlooks on previously unknown or unaccepted theories. However, they may make those theories themselves irrelevant, and could possibly create new problems that are just as difficult, or possibly more difficult to resolve.

In terms of their practical application, thought experiments are generally created to:

 * challenge the prevailing status quo (which includes activities such as correcting misinformation (or misapprehension), identify flaws in the argument(s) presented, to preserve (for the long-term) objectively established fact, and to refute specific assertions that some particular thing is permissible, forbidden, known, believed, possible, or necessary);
 * extrapolate beyond (or interpolate within) the boundaries of already established fact;
 * predict and forecast the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable future;
 * explain the past;
 * the retrodiction, postdiction and hindcasting of the (otherwise) indefinite and unknowable past;
 * facilitate decision making, choice, and strategy selection;
 * solve problems, and generate ideas;
 * move current (often insoluble) problems into another, more helpful, and more productive problem space (e.g.: functional fixedness);
 * attribute causation, preventability, blame, and responsibility for specific outcomes;
 * assess culpability and compensatory damages in social and legal contexts;
 * ensure the repeat of past success; or
 * examine the extent to which past events might have occurred differently.
 * ensure the (future) avoidance of past failures

Types
Generally speaking, there are seven types of thought experiments in which one reasons from causes to effects, or effects to causes:

Prefactual
Prefactual (before the fact) thought experiments – the term prefactual was coined by Lawrence J. Sanna in 1998 – speculate on possible future outcomes, given the present, and ask "What will be the outcome if event E occurs?".

Counterfactual
Counterfactual (contrary to established fact) thought experiments – the term counterfactual was coined by Nelson Goodman in 1947, extending Roderick Chisholm's (1946) notion of a "contrary-to-fact conditional" – speculate on the possible outcomes of a different past; and ask "What might have happened if A had happened instead of B?" (e.g., "If Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz had cooperated with each other, what would mathematics look like today?").

The study of counterfactual speculation has increasingly engaged the interest of scholars in a wide range of domains such as philosophy, psychology, cognitive psychology, history, political science, economics, social psychology, law, organizational theory, marketing, and epidemiology.

Semifactual
Semifactual thought experiments – the term semifactual was coined by Nelson Goodman in 1947 – speculate on the extent to which things might have remained the same, despite there being a different past; and asks the question Even though X happened instead of E, would Y have still occurred? (e.g., Even if the goalie had moved left, rather than right, could he have intercepted a ball that was traveling at such a speed?).

Semifactual speculations are an important part of clinical medicine.

Predictive
The activity of prediction attempts to project the circumstances of the present into the future. According to David Sarewitz and Roger Pielke (1999, p123), scientific prediction takes two forms:

 * 1) "The elucidation of invariant – and therefore predictive – principles of nature"; and
 * 2) "[Using] suites of observational data and sophisticated numerical models in an effort to foretell the behavior or evolution of complex phenomena".

Although they perform different social and scientific functions, the only difference between the qualitatively identical activities of predicting, forecasting, and nowcasting is the distance of the speculated future from the present moment occupied by the user. Whilst the activity of nowcasting, defined as "a detailed description of the current weather along with forecasts obtained by extrapolation up to 2 hours ahead", is essentially concerned with describing the current state of affairs, it is common practice to extend the term "to cover very-short-range forecasting up to 12 hours ahead" (Browning, 1982, p.ix). Murphy, and Brown – Murphy, A.H. & Brown, B.G., "Similarity and Analogical Reasoning: A Synthesis", pp. 3–15 in Browning, K.A. (ed.), Nowcasting, Academic Press, (London), 1982 – describe a large range of specific applications for meteorological nowcasting over a wide range of user demands:

(1) Agriculture: (a) wind and precipitation forecasts for effective seeding and spraying from aircraft; (b) precipitation forecasts to minimize damage to seedlings; (c) minimum temperature, dewpoint, cloud cover, and wind speed forecasts to protect crops from frost; (d) maximum temperature forecasts to reduce adverse effects of high temperatures on crops and livestock; (e) humidity and cloud cover forecasts to prevent fungal disease crop losses; (f) hail forecasts to minimize damage to livestock and greenhouses; (g) precipitation, temperature, and dewpoint forecasts to avoid during- and after-harvest losses due to crops rotting in the field; (h) precipitation forecasts to minimize losses in drying raisins; and (i) humidity forecasts to reduce costs and losses resulting from poor conditions for drying tobacco.

(2) Construction: (a) precipitation and wind speed forecasts to avoid damage to finished work (e.g. concrete) and minimize costs of protecting exposed surfaces, structures, and work sites; and (b) precipitation, wind speed, and high/low-temperature forecasts to schedule work in an efficient manner.

(3) Energy: (a) temperature, humidity, wind, cloud, etc. forecasts to optimize procedures related to generation and distribution of electricity and gas; (b) forecasts of thunderstorms, strong winds, low temperatures, and freezing precipitation minimize damage to lines and equipment and to schedule repairs.

(4) Transportation: (a) ceiling height and visibility, winds and turbulence, and surface ice and snow forecasts minimize risk, maximize efficiency in pre-flight and in-flight decisions and other adjustments to weather-related fluctuations in traffic; (b) forecasts of wind speed and direction, as well as severe weather and icing conditions along flight paths facilitate optimal airline route planning; (c) forecasts of snowfall, precipitation, and other storm-related events allow truckers, motorists, and public transportation systems to avoid damage to weather-sensitive goods, select optimum routes, prevent accidents, minimize delays, and maximize revenues under conditions of adverse weather.

(5) Public Safety & General Public: (a) rain, snow, wind, and temperature forecasts assist the general public in planning activities such as commuting, recreation, and shopping; (b) forecasts of temperature/humidity extremes (or significant changes) alert hospitals, clinics, and the public to weather conditions that may seriously aggravate certain health-related illnesses; (c) forecasts related to potentially dangerous or damaging natural events (e.g., tornados, severe thunderstorms, severe winds, storm surges, avalanches, precipitation, floods) minimize loss of life and property damage; and (d) forecasts of snowstorms, surface icing, visibility, and other events (e.g. floods) enable highway maintenance and traffic control organizations to take appropriate actions to reduce risks of traffic accidents and protect roads from damage.

Hindcasting
The activity of hindcasting involves running a forecast model after an event has happened in order to test whether the model's simulation is valid.

Retrodiction
The activity of retrodiction (or postdiction) involves moving backward in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the present into the speculated past to establish the ultimate cause of a specific event (e.g., reverse engineering and forensics).

Given that retrodiction is a process in which "past observations, events, add and data are used as evidence to infer the process(es) that produced them" and that diagnosis "involve[s] going from visible effects such as symptoms, signs and the like to their prior causes", the essential balance between prediction and retrodiction could be characterized as:

regardless of whether the prognosis is of the course of the disease in the absence of treatment, or of the application of a specific treatment regimen to a specific disorder in a particular patient.

Backcasting
The activity of backcasting – the term backcasting was coined by John Robinson in 1982 – involves establishing the description of a very definite and very specific future situation. It then involves an imaginary moving backward in time, step-by-step, in as many stages as are considered necessary, from the future to the present to reveal the mechanism through which that particular specified future could be attained from the present.

Backcasting is not concerned with predicting the future:

"The major distinguishing characteristic of backcasting analyses is the concern, not with likely energy futures, but with how desirable futures can be attained. It is thus explicitly normative, involving 'working backward' from a particular future end-point to the present to determine what policy measures would be required to reach that future."

According to Jansen (1994, p. 503:

"Within the framework of technological development, 'forecasting' concerns the extrapolation of developments towards the future and the exploration of achievements that can be realized through technology in the long term. Conversely, the reasoning behind 'backcasting' is: on the basis of an interconnecting picture of demands technology must meet in the future – 'sustainability criteria' – to direct and determine the process that technology development must take and possibly also the pace at which this development process must take effect.

Backcasting [is] both an important aid in determining the direction technology development must take and in specifying the targets to be set for this purpose. As such, backcasting is an ideal search toward determining the nature and scope of the technological challenge posed by sustainable development, and it can thus serve to direct the search process toward new – sustainable – technology."

Fields
Thought experiments have been used in a variety of fields, including philosophy, law, physics, and mathematics. In philosophy they have been used at least since classical antiquity, some pre-dating Socrates. In law, they were well known to Roman lawyers quoted in the Digest. In physics and other sciences, notable thought experiments date from the 19th and, especially, the 20th century; but examples can be found at least as early as Galileo.

Philosophy
In philosophy, a thought experiment typically presents an imagined scenario with the intention of eliciting an intuitive or reasoned response about the way things are in the thought experiment. (Philosophers might also supplement their thought experiments with theoretical reasoning designed to support the desired intuitive response.) The scenario will typically be designed to target a particular philosophical notion, such as morality, or the nature of the mind or linguistic reference. The response to the imagined scenario is supposed to tell us about the nature of that notion in any scenario, real or imagined.

For example, a thought experiment might present a situation in which an agent intentionally kills an innocent for the benefit of others. Here, the relevant question is not whether the action is moral or not, but more broadly whether a moral theory is correct that says morality is determined solely by an action's consequences (See Consequentialism). John Searle imagines a man in a locked room who receives written sentences in Chinese, and returns written sentences in Chinese, according to a sophisticated instruction manual. Here, the relevant question is not whether or not the man understands Chinese, but more broadly, whether a functionalist theory of mind is correct.

It is generally hoped that there is universal agreement about the intuitions that a thought experiment elicits. (Hence, in assessing their own thought experiments, philosophers may appeal to "what we should say," or some such locution.) A successful thought experiment will be one in which intuitions about it are widely shared. But often, philosophers differ in their intuitions about the scenario.

Other philosophical uses of imagined scenarios arguably are thought experiments also. In one use of scenarios, philosophers might imagine persons in a particular situation (maybe ourselves), and ask what they would do.

For example, in the veil of ignorance, John Rawls asks us to imagine a group of persons in a situation where they know nothing about themselves, and are charged with devising a social or political organization. The use of the state of nature to imagine the origins of government, as by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, may also be considered a thought experiment. Søren Kierkegaard explored the possible ethical and religious implications of Abraham's binding of Isaac in Fear and Trembling. Similarly, Friedrich Nietzsche, in On the Genealogy of Morals, speculated about the historical development of Judeo-Christian morality, with the intent of questioning its legitimacy.

An early written thought experiment was Plato's allegory of the cave. Another historic thought experiment was Avicenna's "Floating Man" thought experiment in the 11th century. He asked his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air isolated from all sensations in order to demonstrate human self-awareness and self-consciousness, and the substantiality of the soul.

Science
Scientists tend to use thought experiments as imaginary, "proxy" experiments prior to a real, "physical" experiment (Ernst Mach always argued that these gedankenexperiments were "a necessary precondition for physical experiment"). In these cases, the result of the "proxy" experiment will often be so clear that there will be no need to conduct a physical experiment at all.

Scientists also use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct (Carl Gustav Hempel labeled these sorts of experiment "theoretical experiments-in-imagination"), such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing a light beam, leading to special relativity. This is a unique use of a scientific thought experiment, in that it was never carried out, but led to a successful theory, proven by other empirical means.

Properties
Further categorization of thought experiments can be attributed to specific properties.

Possibility
In many thought experiments, the scenario would be nomologically possible, or possible according to the laws of nature. John Searle's Chinese room is nomologically possible.

Some thought experiments present scenarios that are not nomologically possible. In his Twin Earth thought experiment, Hilary Putnam asks us to imagine a scenario in which there is a substance with all of the observable properties of water (e.g., taste, color, boiling point), but is chemically different from water. It has been argued that this thought experiment is not nomologically possible, although it may be possible in some other sense, such as metaphysical possibility. It is debatable whether the nomological impossibility of a thought experiment renders intuitions about it moot.

In some cases, the hypothetical scenario might be considered metaphysically impossible, or impossible in any sense at all. David Chalmers says that we can imagine that there are zombies, or persons who are physically identical to us in every way but who lack consciousness. This is supposed to show that physicalism is false. However, some argue that zombies are inconceivable: we can no more imagine a zombie than we can imagine that 1+1=3. Others have claimed that the conceivability of a scenario may not entail its possibility.

Causal reasoning
The first characteristic pattern that thought experiments display is their orientation in time. They are either:

 * Antefactual speculations: experiments that speculate about what might have happened prior to a specific, designated event, or
 * Postfactual speculations: experiments that speculate about what may happen subsequent to (or consequent upon) a specific, designated event.

The second characteristic pattern is their movement in time in relation to "the present moment standpoint" of the individual performing the experiment; namely, in terms of:

 * Their temporal direction: are they past-oriented or future-oriented?
 * Their temporal sense:
 * (a) in the case of past-oriented thought experiments, are they examining the consequences of temporal "movement" from the present to the past, or from the past to the present? or,
 * (b) in the case of future-oriented thought experiments, are they examining the consequences of temporal "movement" from the present to the future, or from the future to the present?

Relation to real experiments
The relation to real experiments can be quite complex, as can be seen again from an example going back to Albert Einstein. In 1935, with two coworkers, he published a paper on a newly created subject called later the EPR effect (EPR paradox). In this paper, starting from certain philosophical assumptions, on the basis of a rigorous analysis of a certain, complicated, but in the meantime assertedly realizable model, he came to the conclusion that quantum mechanics should be described as "incomplete". Niels Bohr asserted a refutation of Einstein's analysis immediately, and his view prevailed. After some decades, it was asserted that feasible experiments could prove the error of the EPR paper. These experiments tested the Bell inequalities published in 1964 in a purely theoretical paper. The above-mentioned EPR philosophical starting assumptions were considered to be falsified by the empirical fact (e.g. by the optical real experiments of Alain Aspect).

Thus thought experiments belong to a theoretical discipline, usually to theoretical physics, but often to theoretical philosophy. In any case, it must be distinguished from a real experiment, which belongs naturally to the experimental discipline and has "the final decision on true or not true", at least in physics.

Interactivity
Thought experiments can also be interactive where the author invites people into his thought process through providing alternative paths with alternative outcomes within the narrative, or through interaction with a programmed machine, like a computer program.

Thanks to the advent of the Internet, the digital space has lent itself as a new medium for a new kind of thought experiments. The philosophical work of Stefano Gualeni, for example, focuses on the use of virtual worlds to materialize thought experiments and to playfully negotiate philosophical ideas. His arguments were originally presented in his book Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools.

Gualeni's argument is that the history of philosophy has, until recently, merely been the history of written thought, and digital media can complement and enrich the limited and almost exclusively linguistic approach to philosophical thought. He considers virtual worlds to be philosophically viable and advantageous in contexts like those of thought experiments, when the recipients of a certain philosophical notion or perspective are expected to objectively test and evaluate different possible courses of action, or in cases where they are confronted with interrogatives concerning non-actual or non-human phenomenologies.

Humanities

 * Doomsday argument (anthropic principle)
 * The Lady, or the Tiger? (human nature)
 * The beer question (U.S. politics)

Physics

 * Bell's spaceship paradox (special relativity)
 * Brownian ratchet (Richard Feynman's "perpetual motion" machine that does not violate the second law and does no work at thermal equilibrium)
 * Bucket argument – argues that space is absolute, not relational
 * Dyson sphere
 * Einstein's box
 * Elitzur–Vaidman bomb-tester (quantum mechanics)
 * EPR paradox (quantum mechanics) (forms of this have been performed)
 * Everett phone (quantum mechanics)
 * Feynman sprinkler (classical mechanics)
 * Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment (rebuttal of Aristotelian Gravity)
 * Galileo's ship (classical relativity principle) 1632
 * GHZ experiment (quantum mechanics)
 * Heisenberg's microscope (quantum mechanics)
 * Kepler's Dream (change of point of view as support for the Copernican hypothesis)
 * Ladder paradox (special relativity)
 * Laplace's demon
 * Maxwell's demon (thermodynamics) 1871
 * Mermin's device (quantum mechanics)
 * Moving magnet and conductor problem
 * Newton's cannonball (Newton's laws of motion)
 * Popper's experiment (quantum mechanics)
 * Quantum pseudo telepathy (quantum mechanics)
 * Quantum suicide and immortality (quantum mechanics)
 * Renninger negative-result experiment (quantum mechanics)
 * Schrödinger's cat (quantum mechanics)
 * Sticky bead argument (general relativity)
 * The Monkey and the Hunter (gravitation)
 * Twin paradox (special relativity)
 * Wheeler's delayed choice experiment (quantum mechanics)
 * Wigner's friend (quantum mechanics)

Philosophy

 * Artificial brain
 * Avicenna's Floating Man
 * Beetle in a box
 * Bellum omnium contra omnes
 * Big Book (ethics)
 * Brain-in-a-vat (epistemology, philosophy of mind)
 * Brainstorm machine
 * Buridan's ass
 * Changing places (reflexive monism, philosophy of mind)
 * China brain (physicalism, philosophy of mind)
 * Chinese room (philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, cognitive science)
 * Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy)
 * Condillac's Statue (epistemology)
 * Experience machine (ethics)
 * Gettier problem (epistemology)
 * Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān (epistemology)
 * Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind
 * If a tree falls in a forest
 * Inverted spectrum
 * Kavka's toxin puzzle
 * Mary's room (philosophy of mind)
 * Molyneux's Problem (admittedly, this oscillated between empirical and a-priori assessment)
 * Newcomb's paradox
 * Original position (politics)
 * Philosophical zombie (philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, cognitive science)
 * Plank of Carneades
 * Roko's basilisk
 * Ship of Theseus, The (concept of identity)
 * Shoemaker's "Time Without Change" (metaphysics)
 * Simulated reality (philosophy, computer science, cognitive science)
 * Social contract theories
 * Survival lottery (ethics)
 * Swamp man (personal identity, philosophy of mind)
 * Teleportation (metaphysics)
 * The transparent eyeball
 * The violinist (ethics)
 * Ticking time bomb scenario (ethics)
 * Trolley problem (ethics)
 * Utility monster (ethics)
 * Zeno's paradoxes (classical Greek problems of the infinite)

Mathematics

 * Balls and vase problem (infinity and cardinality)
 * Gabriel's Horn (infinity)
 * Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel (infinity)
 * Infinite monkey theorem (probability)
 * Lottery paradox (probability)
 * Sleeping beauty paradox (probability)

Biology

 * Levinthal paradox
 * Rotating locomotion in living systems

Computer science

 * Braitenberg vehicles (robotics, neural control and sensing systems) (some have been built)
 * Dining Philosophers (computer science)
 * Halting problem (limits of computability)
 * Turing machine (limits of computability)
 * Two Generals' Problem

Economics

 * Broken window fallacy (law of unintended consequences, opportunity cost)
 * Laffer Curve

title: Thought experiment