text:
Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin (born Jeff Raskin; March 9, 1943 – February 26, 2005) was an American human–computer interface expert who conceived and began leading the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s.

Early life and education
Jef Raskin was born in New York City to a secular Jewish family, whose surname is a matronymic from "Raske", Yiddish nickname for Rachel. He received a BA in mathematics and a BS in physics with minors in philosophy and music from Stony Brook University. In 1967, he received a master's degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State University, after having switched from mathematical logic due to differences of opinion with his advisor. Even though he had completed work typical for a PhD, the university was not accredited for a PhD in computer science. The first original computer application he wrote was a music application as part of his master's thesis.

Raskin later enrolled in a graduate music program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), but quit to teach art, photography, and computer science there. He worked as an assistant professor in the Visual Arts department from 1968 until 1974. There, he presented shows about toys as works of art. Raskin announced his resignation from the assistant professorship by flying over the Chancellor's house in a hot air balloon. He was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to establish a Computer and Humanities center which used several 16-bit Data General Nova computers and CRTs rather than the teletypes which were more common.

Along with his undergraduate student Jonathan (Jon) Collins, Raskin developed the FLOW programming language for use in teaching programming to the art and humanities students. The language was first used at the Humanities Summer Training Institute held in 1970 at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. The language has only seven statements (COMMENT,,  ,  ,  ,  , and  ) and can not manipulate numbers. The language was first implemented in Fortran by Collins in under a week. Later versions of the language utilized "typing amplification" in which only the first letter is typed and the computer provides the balance of the instruction eliminating typing errors. It was also the basis for programming classes taught by Raskin and Collins in the UCSD Visual Arts Department.

Raskin curated several art shows including one featuring his collection of unusual toys, and presenting toys as works of art. During this period, he changed the spelling of his name from "Jeff" to "Jef" after having met Jon Collins and liking the lack of extraneous letters.

Raskin occasionally wrote for computer publications, such as Dr. Dobb's Journal. He formed a company named Bannister and Crun, which was named for two characters playing in the BBC radio comedy The Goon Show.

Contractor writer
Raskin first met Apple Computer co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their garage workshop following the debut of their Apple II personal computer at the first West Coast Computer Faire. Jobs hired Raskin's company Bannister and Crun to write the Apple II BASIC Programming Manual. Raskin said "I was talking fifty dollars a page. They talked fifty dollars for the whole manual." Upon the Apple II unit with the serial number of "2", he reportedly wrote "a literate manual that became a standard for the young industry".

Management
In January 1978, Raskin joined Apple as Manager of Publications, the company's 31st employee. For some time he continued as Director of Publications and New Product Review, and also worked on packaging and other issues. He had concealed his degree in computer science, out of concern for cultural bias against academia among the hobby-driven personal computer industry. He explained, "If they had known ... they might not have let me in the company, because there was such an antiacademic bias in the early Apple days."

From his responsibility for documentation and testing, Raskin had great influence on early engineering projects. Because the Apple II only displayed uppercase characters on a 40-column screen, his department used the PolyMorphic Systems 8813 (an Intel-8080-based machine running a proprietary operating system called Exec) to write documentation; this spurred the development of an 80-column display card and a suitable text editor for the Apple II. His experiences testing Applesoft BASIC inspired him to design a competing product, called Notzo BASIC, which was never implemented. When Wozniak developed the first disk drives for the Apple II, Raskin went back to his contacts at UCSD and encouraged them to port the UCSD P-System operating system (incorporating a version of the Pascal programming language) to it, which Apple later licensed and shipped as Apple Pascal.

Through this time, Raskin continually wrote memos about how the personal computer could become a true consumer appliance. While the Apple III was under development in 1978 and '79, Raskin was lobbying for Apple to create a radically different kind of computer that was designed from the start to be easy to use. In Computers by the Millions, he stated that expandable computers like the Apple II were too complex, and development was difficult due to the unknown nature of the machine the program ran on. The machine he envisioned was very different from the Macintosh that was eventually released and had much more in common with PDAs than modern desktop-based machines.

Macintosh
Raskin started the Macintosh project in 1979 to implement some of these ideas. He later hired his former student Bill Atkinson from UCSD to Apple, along with Andy Hertzfeld and Burrell Smith from the Apple Service Department, which was located in the same building as the Publications Department. Secretly bypassing Jobs's ego and authority by continually securing permission and funding directly at the executive level, Raskin created and solely supervised the Macintosh project for approximately its first year. This included selecting the name of his favorite apple, writing the mission document The Book of Macintosh, securing office space, and recruiting and managing the original staff. Author Steven Levy said, "It was Raskin who provided the powerful vision of a computer whose legacy would be low cost, high utility, and a groundbreaking friendliness."

The prototype was similar in power to the Apple II and included a small 9 in black-and-white character display and floppy drive, in a small case. It was text only, as Raskin disliked the computer mouse or anything else that could take his hands from the keyboard. Several basic applications were built into the machine, selectable by pressing function keys. The machine included logic to understand user intentions and switch programs dynamically. For instance, if the user simply started typing text it switched into editor mode, and if numbers are typed it switched to calculator mode. In many cases these switches were largely invisible to the user.

In 1981, after the Lisa team had "kicked him out", Steve Jobs's attention drew toward Raskin's Macintosh project, intending to combine the Xerox PARC-inspired GUI-based Lisa design to Raskin's appliance-computing, "computers-by-the-millions" concept. Steve Wozniak, who around then had been co-leading the Macintosh team with Raskin, was on hiatus from the company following a traumatic airplane accident, allowing Jobs to take managerial lead over the project.

Raskin is credited as one of the first to introduce Jobs and the Lisa engineers to the PARC concepts, though he ultimately dismissed PARC's technology and opposed the use of the mouse. Raskin claimed to have had continued direct input into the eventual Mac design, including the decision to use a one-button mouse as part of the Apple interface, instead of PARC's 3-button mouse. Others, including Larry Tesler, acknowledge his advocacy for a one-button mouse but say that it was a decision reached simultaneously by others at Apple who had stronger authority on the issue. Raskin later stated that were he to redesign the mouse, it would have three clearly labeled buttons—two buttons on top marked "Select" and "Activate", and a "Grab" button on the side that could be used by squeezing the mouse. It has the three described buttons (two invisible), but they are assigned to different functions than Raskin specified for his own interface and can be customized.

In 2005, Macintosh project member Andy Hertzfeld remembered Raskin's reputation for often inaccurately claiming to have invented various technologies. Raskin's resume from 2002 lends credence by stating he was "Creator of Macintosh computer at Apple Computer, Inc." Raskin conceived and solely supervised the Macintosh project for approximately its first year; however, Hertzfeld describes Raskin's relationship to the drastically different finished Mac product more like that of an "eccentric great uncle" than its father. In Jobs's "Lost Interview" from 1996, he refers to the Macintosh as a product of team effort while acknowledging Raskin's early role. Jobs reportedly co-opted some of Raskin's leadership philosophies, such as when he wrote the slogan on the Macintosh group's easel, "It's better to be a pirate than to join the Navy."

Apple acknowledged Raskin's role after he had left the company by gifting him the millionth Macintosh computer, with an engraved brass plaque on the front.

Pioneering the information appliance
Raskin left Apple in 1982 and formed Information Appliance, Inc. to implement the concepts of his original Macintosh concept. The first product is the SwyftCard, a firmware card for the Apple II containing an integrated application suite, also released on a disk as SwyftWare. Information Appliance later developed the Swyft as a stand-alone laptop computer. Raskin licensed this design to Canon, which shipped a similar desktop product as the Canon Cat. Released in 1987, the unit had an innovative interface that attracted much interest but it did not become a commercial success. Raskin claimed that its failure was due in some part to Steve Jobs, who successfully pitched Canon on the NeXT Computer at about the same time. It has also been suggested that Canon canceled the Cat due to internal rivalries within its divisions. After running a cryptic full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that the "Canon Cat is coming" months before it was available, Canon failed to follow through, never airing the completed TV advertisement at launch, only allowed the Cat to be sold by its typewriter sales people, and prevented Raskin from selling the Cat directly with a TV demonstration of how easy it was to use. Shortly thereafter, the stock market crash of 1987 so panicked Information Appliance's venture capitalists that they drained millions of dollars from the company, depriving it of the capital needed to be able to manufacture and sell the Swyft.

Raskin wrote a book, The Humane Interface (2000), in which he developed his ideas about human-computer interfaces.

Raskin was a long-time member of BAYCHI, the Bay-Area Computer-Human Interface group, a professional organization for human-interface designers. He presented papers on his own work, reviewed the human interfaces of various consumer products (such as a BMW car he'd been asked to review), and discussed the work of his colleagues in various companies and universities.

At the start of the new millennium, Raskin undertook the building of a new computer interface based on his 30 years of work and research, called The Humane Environment, THE. On January 1, 2005, he renamed it Archy. It is a system incarnating his concepts of the humane interface, by using open source elements within his rendition of a ZUI or Zooming User Interface. In the same period, Raskin accepted an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago's Computer Science Department and, with Leo Irakliotis, started designing a new curriculum on humane interfaces and computer enterprises.

His work is being extended and carried on by his son Aza Raskin at Humanized, a company that was started shortly after Raskin's death to continue his legacy. Humanized released Enso, a linguistic command-line interface, which is based on Jef's work and dedicated in his memory. In early 2008, Humanized became part of Mozilla.

The Archy project never included a functional ZUI, but a third party developed a commercial application called Raskin inspired by the same Zoomworld ZUI idea.

Cognetics
Raskin expanded the meaning of the term "cognetics" in his book The Humane Interface to mean "the ergonomics of the mind". According to Raskin Center, "Cognetics brings interface design out of the mystic realm of guruism, transforming it into an engineering discipline with a rigorous theoretical framework."

The term cognetics had earlier been coined and trademarked by Charles Kreitzberg in 1982 when he started Cognetics Corporation, one of the first user experience design companies. It is also used to describe educational programs intended to foster thinking skills in grades 3-12 (US) and for Cognetics, Inc., an economic research firm founded by David L. Birch, a Professor at MIT.

Raskin discouraged using the informal term "intuitive" in user interface design, claiming that easy to use interfaces are often due to exposure to previous, similar systems, thus the term "familiar" should be preferred. Aiming for "intuitive" interfaces (based on reusing existing skills with interaction systems) could lead designers to discard a better design solution only because it would require a novel approach.

Outside interests
Best known as a computer scientist, Raskin had other interests. He conducted the San Francisco Chamber Opera Society and played various instruments, including the organ and the recorder. His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art as part of its permanent collection, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the University of California, San Diego. He received a patent for airplane wing construction, and designed and marketed radio controlled model gliders.

He was said to be an accomplished archer, target shooter, bicycle racer and an occasional model race car driver. He was a passionate musician and composer, publishing a series of collected recorder studies using the pseudonym of Aabel Aabius. In his later years he also wrote freelance articles for Macintosh magazines, such as Mac Home Journal, and many modeling magazines, Forbes, Wired, and computing journals. One of his most favorite pastimes was to play music with his children. He accompanied them on the piano while they played or sang while going through old fake-books passed down from his father. They routinely improvised together.

Raskin owned Jef's Friends, a small company which made model airplane kits, which were sold through hobby shops.

He was a toy designer. He designed Space Expander, a hanging cloth maze for a person to walk through. He designed Bloxes, a set of interlocking wood blocks.

One of Raskin's instruments was the organ. In 1978 he published an article in BYTE on using computers with the instrument.

Raskin published a paper highly critical of pseudoscience in nursing, such as therapeutic touch and Rogerian science, wherein he said: "Unlike science, nursing theory has no built-in mechanisms for rejecting falsehoods, tautologies, and irrelevancies."

Personal life
Jef Raskin married Linda S. Blum in 1982. They had three children together—Aza, Aviva, and Aenea, with honorary surrogate siblings R. Fureigh and Jenna Mandis. In 1985, Raskin described his house as "practically one large playground", with secret doors and passageways, an auditorium that seats 185, and a model airplane room. He said, "I decided when I grew up I was not going to give up the things I liked doing, and I've not."

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2004 and died in Pacifica, California, on February 26, 2005, at age 61.

title: Jef Raskin


text:
Talk:Martial

Reads like poor prose
The whole article needs a major cleanup. There's a lot of opinions in there, and someone (nay, somebody) has written large parts of it in a snobby high-school kid language. The fact it has a sentence starting with "nay,.." says a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.219.25.190 (talk) 21:50, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree; it's too pompous and needs editing. Kanjuzi (talk) 07:10, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Untitled
"One of his epigrams was about a one-eyed woman." -- And??

Untitled

 * Here we go: http://www.tylatin.org/keys/Key25.html

-- 'Quintus loves Thais.’ 'Which Thais?' 'One-eyed Thais.' Thais doesn't have one eye, he [doesn't have] two. (Martial, III, 8) (ii) You refuse no-one, Thais, but if you are not ashamed of that, you should at least be ashamed of this, Thais, [viz] to refuse nothing. -- I think I can take the line out of the article.

What about some structure ?

This badly needs some cleanup and restructuring. Since I like Martial, I'd do it, but I don't really know his history, etc. that well. Maybe I'll give it a try anyway. --GenkiNeko 13:51, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The stuff about Martial's "faults" (particularly "grossness") is totally POV and should go. I've made a start at re-working the article into clearer English, and moved his work, the most important thing about him, up to the top, but there's a lot of forest to hack through. --Nicknack009 17:59, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

There needs to be introductory information (structure as mentioned above).

''His sexual outlook is consistent with that of his place and time, thus same-sex love is a recurrent topic. Many of his epigrams are of a pederastic nature, which coupled with his often misogynistic tone has given more than one reader the impression that he looked with favor upon relations with boys.''

I didn't edit this right away because I was a little unsure, but if my memory serves me, this isn't entirely true. I thought that the taditions of same-sex relations and "apprenticeship" were attributed to the Greeks, and that the Romans actually frowned upon it. Then again, I wasn't so sure, so someone who knows should make the final call as to whether that line should be altered a little.TheTomato 02:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Romans didn't actually frown upon homosexuality, allthough it was indeed more normal with the Greeks (and a few centuries earlier?). Krastain 10:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

 * You can't generalize anything, least of all the Romans' view of erotic experience. For pederastic epigrams, look at I31, I88, III65, IV7, IV42, V48, VI34, VII15, VII50, VIII46, VIII55, etc, etc. Haiduc 03:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Catullus
In this article, Martial is credited as the creator of the modern epigram and is also called the first insult comic, because of the witty attacks common in his works. Despite this, I, and many classicists with whom I study, would argue that both of those distinctions belong to Catullus (who lived at the time of Cicero), as he also wrote epigrams, similar in style, length, and content, and as he wrote many poems which lampooned his friends, acquaintences, and personal enemies in any number of witty and/or crude ways. Thoughts?

Yeah, I agree. To be fair, Martial sucks, and isn't very funny. "You have the face of someone swimming underwater." What the fuck? Catullus, on the other hand, is hella witty. Original insult comic my ass.

 * You obviously haven't read enough Martial if you don't think he is funny, or else you have been too fixated on finding "hella witty". RedRabbit1983 15:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

 * The "creator of the modern epigram" (which I presume to be the emphasis, since the claim is otherwise nonsensical) needs to be sourced. The rest of the article does a very poor job of placing Martial in the epigram tradition. This isn't about whether Martial or Catullus was "better" (they're very different poets — hard to imagine Martial writing the Peleus and Thetis 'epyllion') or "funnier"; it's about how to place them respectively in the literary tradition, based on standard literary histories. No history of ancient Greek or Latin literature would go so wrong as to call him the inventor of epigram; however, it may well be that perfectly acceptable English literary histories consider Martial the most direct antecedent of modern epigram (to offer an comparable example: the introduction to a Penguin history of horror literature called Lucan the father of the genre; strikingly odd observation, but not inept). I'm inclined to think of Ovid as, say, Oscar Wilde's Latin antecedent in epigrammatic turn of phrase. But the point is that this assertion about Martial is unsupported as it stands — two years later. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

General
This page is really quite out of date...no reference to the fact it's satire and the idea of persona, no reference to Martial's HUGE debt to Greek Skoptic Epigram (cf. J. P. Sullivan (1991) Martial: The Unexpected Classic, G. Nisbet (2003) Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's Forgotten Rivals, also important is the work of D. Fowler), and really given the huge amount of scholarship, quite basic.

130.209.6.40 10:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Brittanica 1911
Can we tone down the language of the original Brittanica article? The 1911 version of Brittanica is often dreary to read. RedRabbit1983 15:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Translations
I reworked some of the translations in order to reflect Martial's original choice of language; I can't understand why the author of the earlier translations in this article decided to "tone down" his poems. Just read the original Latin; he often uses curse-words and dirty language in his verses. Plus I removed that whole "Dr. Fell" nonsense, which had absolutely nothing to do with Martial. Rsazevedo 01:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Lindsey Davis
This is almost certainly too vague and silly to go in the article, but I found it amusing. In chapter XXXVIII of Lindsey Davis's Marcus Didius Falco novel Ode to a Banker (set in AD74) we get a scene in which a soldier (Passus) is going through a deceased publisher's heap of his authors' draft scrolls:

 * "Yes." Passus consulted a note-tablet. "I found some rejections among them. Poems by someone called Martialis had had scrawled on them, "Who is this? No — crap!" in red ink.

Loganberry (Talk) 02:27, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Birth date
'''Knowledge of his life is derived almost entirely from his works, which can be more or less dated according to the well-known events to which they refer. In Book X of his Epigrams, composed between 95 and 98, he mentions celebrating his fifty-seventh birthday; hence he was born on 1 March 40 (x. 24), under Caligula or Claudius.'''

 * This sentence contains a blatant nonsense. In fact, we only know, that Martialis was born at March, the 1st, but we do not know the year date, and this is what is really said here: if the writer was celebrating his 57th birthday in 95, 96, 97 or 98 AD, then he must have been born in 38, 39, 40 or 41 AD, and NOT in 40 AD. Mamurra (talk) 13:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting "Occupation"
Is "Master of Rippage" an actually recognized term for writing epigrams? 76.117.247.55 (talk) 03:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Nope. That was vandalism, and it's been removed.  Graymornings (talk) 01:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Need to explain, clean up and harmonize notation
Some of the classicists who maintain this article need to clean up the notations and explain what they mean to non-classicists who are in the majority among Wikipedia readers. I'm somewhere in between those groups, so I can guess that "x. 24" probably means something like "epigram number 24 in Volume 10" (or Book 10, or whatever; but do we really have to use Roman numerals just because Martial did? He was a Roman, after all, so "x" meant "ten" to him, but for WP readers ten is 10), although it is certainly possible that I've guessed wrong. Readers shouldn't have to guess.

Also, we need notational harmony within the article. I guess (again) that "x. 24" (lower-case "x"), "I. 113" (upper-case "I"), "2:14" and "Book III, No. 52" (all copied from the article) all provide the same type of information, but a single format should be adopted and clearly explained to the reader.

I can see that the almost self-explanatory format "Book III, No. 52" (if it said "Book III, Epigram No. 52" instead, it would need no explanation at all) may be more appropriate in the attribution of a block quote than as an in-line reference, so it seems reasonable to include short and long formats—but the short form in particular must be explained for non-expert readers. Also if, as seems likely, "Ep. iii. 21" refers to a work not by Martial but by Pliny the Younger, since it appears after a quotation from him, then that should be more clearly stated (likewise "Juv. i. 117", which I assume refers to something by Juvenal instead of by Martial).

The purpose of this article is to provide information about Martial to English-speaking readers who are (with very few exceptions) not classics scholars and are entirely unaware of shorthand and notational conventions that are very familiar to editors who are. We should help those readers, not lay traps for them, even though we may not be aware that we are laying traps.

The format for referring to books also needs to be standardized. The article includes examples both with and without a strange-looking dot after the book number ("In Book X of his Epigrams ..." and "... the first edition of Book X. appeared at the end ...", for example—and even "A revised edition of book X., that which we now possess ...", with a comma after that odd dot and a lower-case "b" in "book"). If that strange mid-sentence dot after the book number (which occurs several times, so it can't be an isolated typo) is the normal notation, then that fact should be stated (in a footnote is fine) and the examples without the dot should be corrected. (It's fine with me if all the notational explanation is done in footnotes rather than in the body of the article, as long as when the reader comes across "x. 24" he's given some way to decipher what it means.)

I'll state again my view that Arabic numerals are more appropriate than Roman numerals in an English language Wikipedia article, even when the subject himself would have used Roman numerals. Wikipedia is a work for the masses of English speakers, not a textbook for classics scholars. I can see that using different numeral styles to differentiate book number from epigram number (as in "x. 24") can have some value, but "10:24" would provide the same differentiation using Arabic numerals alone. But I know how precious arcane conventions can be to fans in any field, so I won't press that issue any further.--Jim10701 (talk) 19:25, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Transmission
After reading Latin obscenity, I wonder how the Epigrams were transmitted until the Renaissance. In my uncultured opinion, they would not be liked by Medieval monks. Were they appreciated and copied in Byzantium? --Error (talk) 20:52, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
 * From http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012-07-32.html
 * The suitability of Martial’s epigrams as a school text is not a recent discovery: as is well known, the Jesuits found them particularly useful, so they undertook the task of expurgating them and provided generations of students with an abridged and bowdlerized Martial.
 * So Catholic transcribers could appreciate his non-obscene work. Did they also copy the rest of the work for private use? --Error (talk) 21:10, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Portico of Agrippa
_"He lived at first up three flights of stairs, and his "garret" overlooked the laurels in front of the portico of Agrippa."_

I've read two versions of this - that this refers to his house on the Quirinal and that he could see _as far as_ the Portico of Agrippa (also known as the Porticus_Argonautarum. Or, the house indeed was located next to it (what would now be the east side of the Pantheon). If anyone can figure this out would be grateful.

Paul Moloney (talk) 14:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Truly a VICMAEL work
This photo is by VICMAEL Victor Emanuel

Yea, truly a Work of Art, including the Artist's signature. Perhaps it could be made larger? Never mind if Martial actually looked like this or not. 2A02:AA1:1007:7AF:B412:BB3C:6497:2BAB (talk) 17:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Martial


text:
Inverter (logic gate)

In digital logic, an inverter or NOT gate is a logic gate which implements logical negation. It outputs a bit opposite of the bit that is put into it. The bits are typically implemented as two differing voltage levels.

Description
The NOT gate outputs a zero when given a one, and a one when given a zero. Hence, it inverts its inputs. Colloquially, this inversion of bits is called "flipping" bits. As with all binary logic gates, other pairs of symbols — such as true and false, or high and low — may be used in lieu of one and zero.

It is equivalent to the logical negation operator (¬) in mathematical logic. Because it has only one input, it is a unary operation and has the simplest type of truth table. It is also called the complement gate because it produces the ones' complement of a binary number, swapping 0s and 1s.

The NOT gate is one of three basic logic gates from which any Boolean circuit may be built up. Together with the AND gate and the OR gate, any function in binary mathematics may be implemented. All other logic gates may be made from these three.

The terms "programmable inverter" or "controlled inverter" do not refer to this gate; instead, these terms refer to the XOR gate because it can conditionally function like a NOT gate.

Symbols
The traditional symbol for an inverter circuit is a triangle touching a small circle or "bubble". Input and output lines are attached to the symbol; the bubble is typically attached to the output line. To symbolize active-low input, sometimes the bubble is instead placed on the input line. Sometimes only the circle portion of the symbol is used, and it is attached to the input or output of another gate; the symbols for NAND and NOR are formed in this way.

A bar or overline ( ‾ ) above a variable can denote negation (or inversion or complement) performed by a NOT gate. A slash (/) before the variable is also used.

Electronic implementation
An inverter circuit outputs a voltage representing the opposite logic-level to its input. Its main function is to invert the input signal applied. If the applied input is low then the output becomes high and vice versa. Inverters can be constructed using a single NMOS transistor or a single PMOS transistor coupled with a resistor. Since this "resistive-drain" approach uses only a single type of transistor, it can be fabricated at a low cost. However, because current flows through the resistor in one of the two states, the resistive-drain configuration is disadvantaged for power consumption and processing speed. Alternatively, inverters can be constructed using two complementary transistors in a CMOS configuration. This configuration greatly reduces power consumption since one of the transistors is always off in both logic states. Processing speed can also be improved due to the relatively low resistance compared to the NMOS-only or PMOS-only type devices. Inverters can also be constructed with bipolar junction transistors (BJT) in either a resistor–transistor logic (RTL) or a transistor–transistor logic (TTL) configuration.

Digital electronics circuits operate at fixed voltage levels corresponding to a logical 0 or 1 (see binary). An inverter circuit serves as the basic logic gate to swap between those two voltage levels. Implementation determines the actual voltage, but common levels include (0, +5V) for TTL circuits.

Digital building block

The inverter is a basic building block in digital electronics. Multiplexers, decoders, state machines, and other sophisticated digital devices may use inverters.

The hex inverter is an integrated circuit that contains six (hexa-) inverters. For example, the 7404 TTL chip which has 14 pins and the 4049 CMOS chip which has 16 pins, 2 of which are used for power/referencing, and 12 of which are used by the inputs and outputs of the six inverters (the 4049 has 2 pins with no connection).

Analytical representation
$$f(a)=1-a$$ is the analytical representation of NOT gate:
 * $$f(0)=1-0=1$$
 * $$f(1)=1-1=0$$

Alternatives
If no specific NOT gates are available, one can be made from the universal NAND or NOR gates, or an XOR gate by setting one input to high.

Performance measurement

Digital inverter quality is often measured using the voltage transfer curve (VTC), which is a plot of output vs. input voltage. From such a graph, device parameters including noise tolerance, gain, and operating logic levels can be obtained.

Ideally, the VTC appears as an inverted step function – this would indicate precise switching between on and off – but in real devices, a gradual transition region exists. The VTC indicates that for low input voltage, the circuit outputs high voltage; for high input, the output tapers off towards the low level. The slope of this transition region is a measure of quality – steep (close to vertical) slopes yield precise switching.

The tolerance to noise can be measured by comparing the minimum input to the maximum output for each region of operation (on / off).

Linear region as analog amplifier
Since the transition region is steep and approximately linear, a properly-biased CMOS inverter digital logic gate may be used as a high-gain analog linear amplifier    or even combined to form an opamp. Maximum gain is achieved when the input and output operating points are the same voltage, which can be biased by connecting a resistor between the output and input.

title: Inverter (logic gate)


text:
Bene Gesserit

The Bene Gesserit are a group in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. A powerful social, religious, and political force, the Bene Gesserit is described as an exclusive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers and abilities that seem magical to outsiders. The group seeks to acquire power and influence to direct humanity on an enlightened path, a concerted effort planned and executed over millennia.

Members who have acquired the breadth of Bene Gesserit abilities are called Reverend Mothers; some outsiders call them "witches" for their secretive nature and misunderstood powers. As the skills of a Bene Gesserit are as desirable as an alliance with the Sisterhood itself, they are able to charge a fee to teach women from Great Houses, and install some of their initiates as wives and concubines to their advantage. Loyal only to themselves and their collective goals, Bene Gesserit sometimes feign other loyalties to attain their goals and avoid outside interference.

The Bene Gesserit are primary characters in all of Frank Herbert's Dune novels, as well as the prequels and sequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. They also feature prominently in the multiple adaptations of the Dune series: the 1984 film Dune; the 2000 TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune;  and its 2003 sequel, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune;  as well as the 2021 feature film Dune, and its 2024 sequel, Dune: Part Two. A television series based on the Bene Gesserit, called Dune: Prophecy, will debut in late 2024 on Max. Some of their fictional powers are analyzed and deconstructed from a real-world scientific perspective in the book The Science of Dune (2008).

Original Dune series
In Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, the Bene Gesserit are a secretive matriarchal order who have achieved superhuman abilities through physical and mental conditioning and the use of the drug melange. Under the guise of humbly "serving" the Empire, the Sisterhood is in fact a major power in the universe, using its many areas of influence to subtly guide humanity along the path of its own plan for humanity's future. Herbert notes that over 10,000 years before the events of Dune, in the chaotic time after the Butlerian Jihad and before the unveiling of the Orange Catholic Bible, the Bene Gesserit "consolidated their hold upon the sorceresses, explored the subtle narcotics, developed prana-bindu training and conceived the Missionaria Protectiva, that black arm of superstition. But it is also the period that saw the composing of the litany against fear and the assembly of the Azhar Book, that bibliographic marvel that preserves the great secrets of the most ancient faiths."

Millennia later in Dune, the Bene Gesserit base of power is the Mother School on the planet Wallach IX, whose graduates are fit mates for Emperors, and whose specially trained Truthsayers can detect falsehood. But beyond the outer virtues of poise, self-control, and diplomacy, Bene Gesserit training includes superior combat skills and precise physiological control that grants them total control over their bodies, including direct control over conception and embryotic sex determination, ageing, and even the ability to render poisons harmless within their bodies. The Bene Gesserit power of Voice allows them to control others by merely modulating their vocal tones. Sisters who survive a ritualized poisoning known as the spice agony achieve increased awareness and abilities through access to Other Memory, and are subsequently known as Reverend Mothers. Every member of the Bene Gesserit is conditioned into singular loyalty to the order and its goals with allegiances to even family being secondary, and no goal is more paramount than the Sisterhood's large-scale breeding program. It aims to create a superbeing that can tap into abilities even the Bene Gesserit cannot, a being whom they can use in order to gain more direct control over the universe. To this end, the Bene Gesserit have subtly manipulated bloodlines for generations, using breeding sisters to "collect" the genes they require.

The Bene Gesserit super-being – whom they call the Kwisatz Haderach – arrives a generation earlier than expected in the form of Paul Atreides, who is free from their direct control though his mother is the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica. In Dune, Paul seizes control of the harsh desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the all-important spice melange; by threatening to destroy all spice production, he maneuvers himself onto the Imperial throne. With Paul holding a tight monopoly on melange, a decade later the Bene Gesserit participate in a conspiracy to topple his rule in Dune Messiah (1969). Even after a blinded Paul walks into the desert to die, his sister Alia rules his empire and keeps the Bene Gesserit at bay until Paul's young son Leto II takes control himself in Children of Dune (1976). Over 3,500 years later, Leto – now a hybrid of human and sandworm – still dominates the universe as the tyrant God Emperor in God Emperor of Dune (1981). Through prescience, he foresees humanity's possible destruction, and has forced humanity into what he calls the Golden Path, a plan which he believes will assure their survival. Having halted all spice production and thus making his own stockpile the only source of melange left in the universe, Leto is able to maintain firm control over the various factions and effects a "forced tranquility". He takes the Bene Gesserit breeding program from them and uses it for his own mysterious purposes, and their limited spice supply is conditional on their obedience to him and his prescient vision. Recognizing that his work is finally done, Leto allows himself to be assassinated.

Fifteen hundred years later in Heretics of Dune (1984), the Bene Gesserit have regained their power and relocated to a hidden homeworld they call Chapterhouse, and the spice cycle has been renewed on Arrakis, now called Rakis. New opposition arrives in the form of a violent matriarchal order calling themselves the Honored Matres, a ruthless and brutal force who seek domination over the Old Empire and who do not use or rely on melange for their powers. As the Matres all but exterminate the Tleilaxu race and next target the Sisterhood, Bene Gesserit Mother Superior Taraza implements a bold plan to release humanity from the oracular hold of Leto II by goading the Honored Matres into destroying Rakis. Meanwhile, the Bene Gesserit have terraformed Chapterhouse into a desert planet like Rakis and bring a single sandworm there to begin a new spice cycle. In Chapterhouse: Dune (1985), the Honored Matres begin to destroy all of the Bene Gesserit-controlled planets and enslave the populace of the other planets they conquer. The Matres themselves are hunted by a far more powerful force from out in the Scattering. The new Mother Superior Darwi Odrade recognizes that the threat of this unknown enemy is greater than that of the Honored Matres, and forms another bold plan. The captive Honored Matre Murbella, who has been assimilated into the Bene Gesserit and gained the full powers of a Reverend Mother, defeats the leader of the Honored Matres in combat and thus becomes Great Honored Matre. She immediately succeeds Odrade as Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, joining the two forces under a single leader in an uneasy truce that, it is hoped, will be able to defeat the unknown enemy.

Sequels
In Hunters of Dune, the 2006 continuation of the series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Murbella adopts the new title of Mother Commander and struggles to bring the opposing factions of her New Sisterhood together. Among the Bene Gesserit, some are willing to accept the merger with the Honored Matres, while others oppose allying with their enemies; a group of dissenters led by Reverend Mother Sheeana having fled Chapterhouse aboard a no-ship upon Murbella's ascension to leadership. Within the Honored Matres, many admire Murbella's strength and abilities and desire Bene Gesserit training, but resist assimilation. Additionally, a number of Honored Matres refuse to acknowledge Murbella as their leader; the largest such rebel group is led by Matre Superior Hellica on Tleilax. As Murbella amasses weapons for the coming battle with the unknown enemy, she trains an elite force of commando troops with the combined battle talents of Bene Gesserit, Honored Matres, and even the Swordmasters of Ginaz. These "Valkyries" are able to effect Hellica's defeat, galvanizing many dissenters into finally joining Murbella's cause against the unknown enemy, now revealed to be the resurrected thinking machines thought destroyed 15,000 years before. In the 2007 sequel, Sandworms of Dune, the thinking machines have unleashed decimating viruses on planet after planet, while Face Dancers infiltrate human civilization in their own insidious plot to take over the universe. The New Sisterhood's fleet of warships succumbs to Face Dancer sabotage, but is saved from thinking machine attack by a host of Guild Navigators in heighliners, brought together by the Oracle of Time, Norma Cenva. Thinking machine leader Omnius is wiped out of existence by the Oracle, and the Face Dancer threat eliminated. As Murbella joins Duncan Idaho in his plan to rule a universe in which humanity and thinking machines co-exist, Sheeana introduces sandworms to the former thinking machine planet Synchrony, where she will found an orthodox Sisterhood.

Legends of Dune
In the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy (2002–2004) by Brian Herbert and Anderson it is revealed that the Sorceresses of Rossak, who possess destructive telekinetic powers existing only in women and have a breeding plan to create more powerful telepaths, had been the predecessors of the Bene Gesserit. As a Sorceress is always killed when she unleashes her full power, they sacrifice themselves to destroy some of the Titans and Neo-Cymeks during the Butlerian Jihad, over 10,000 years before the events in Dune. Later, they expand their genetic program to preserve human bloodlines when humanity is endangered by a widespread plague called the "Demon Scourge", genetically engineered and unleashed by the thinking machines. Raquella Berto-Anirul becomes their leader after surviving a poisoning attempt by being the first to internally render the toxin harmless. The ordeal also makes Raquella the first to access Other Memory and use the power of Voice; she later establishes the Bene Gesserit, instituting a similar ritualized poisoning to unlock the same abilities in others.

Great Schools of Dune
In Sisterhood of Dune (2012), 80 years have passed since the end of the Butlerian Jihad, and an aging Raquella remains the only Sister to have survived the Agony. Ambitious young Valya Harkonnen has hopes of using her Bene Gesserit training to complete her family's vendetta against Vorian Atreides and his entire bloodline. Valya is one of the Sisters trusted with the records of Raquella's breeding program, which are maintained by a secret cache of forbidden computers, concealed in a cave outside the Sisterhood School on Rossak. Raquella's granddaughter Dorotea undergoes the Agony and becomes a Reverend Mother, discovering the truth about her parentage and the existence of computers. As a devout anti-technology Butlerian, she assists Emperor Salvador Corrino in his raid on the Rossak school. Salvador has several dozen Sisters executed and disbands the Sisterhood, except for Dorotea's Orthodox followers, who return to the Imperial capital on Salusa Secundus to serve as court Truthsayers.

Raquella has reestablished her school on Wallach IX in Mentats of Dune (2014), thanks to the help of industrialist Josef Venport. Valya, now a Reverend Mother, retrieves the hidden computers from Rossak and hopes to succeed the declining Raquella as Mother Superior. Raquella believes that the only hope for the Sisterhood to survive is for the Wallach IX sisters to reconcile with Dorotea's faction on Salusa Secundus; her health failing, she summons Dorotea to the School and forces Dorotea and Valya to put their differences aside and agree to work together for the good of the Sisterhood. Naming them co-leaders, Raquella dies; Valya however, still bitter about Dorotea's betrayal, uses her newly discovered power of Voice to force Dorotea to commit suicide. Valya declares herself to be the sole Mother Superior, and ingratiates herself to the new Emperor, Roderick Corrino.

Breeding program
The ultimate goal of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, up to the end of the novel Dune, is the creation of a male Bene Gesserit they call the Kwisatz Haderach. They intend to achieve this superbeing through a massive human breeding program, which they have conducted for countless generations; using careful manipulations of relationships and breeding sisters to "collect" key genes, the Bene Gesserit have controlled and finessed bloodlines through the ages. Also called "the one who can be two places simultaneously" or "the one who can be many places at once", the Kwisatz Haderach (defined by Herbert as "The Shortening of the Way"), with mental powers that would bridge space and time and access to both male and female lines in Other Memory, will be an overt figure in the Bene Gesserit's manipulations and thrust upon the universe as a messiah.

In Dune, the Bene Gesserit breeding scheme is, in theory, to have come to full fruition from the union of an Atreides daughter (planned to be born of the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica and the Duke Leto Atreides) and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, nephew of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (himself secretly the natural father of Lady Jessica). This plan is disrupted when Jessica chooses to conceive an Atreides son rather than the daughter she had been ordered to produce. This son, Paul Atreides, later proves to be the Kwisatz Haderach, born a generation early. Political intrigue results in Paul's rise to power as Emperor of the Known Universe, secured by his stranglehold on the melange supply. A decade later, in Dune Messiah, the Bene Gesserit are frustrated to be at the mercy of their own creation, but a conspiracy to remove Paul from power fails. He realizes, however, that while prescience grants knowledge, absolute control of outcomes is not possible due to interference patterns caused by their own actions. Despising the religion that has risen up around him and seeing where it will lead, Paul walks into the desert seeking death in hopes that he can change the course of the future. Paul's son Leto II is also a Kwisatz Haderach; seeing the same future, Leto decides to do what his father could not. He takes control of both the empire and the Bene Gesserit breeding program in Children of Dune, and begins his own transformation into a human-sandworm hybrid to give himself the time he needs for his Golden Path to be fully realized. Thirty-five hundred years later, his breeding plan produces Siona Atreides, the first in a line of humans who are able to disappear from prescient sight, and Leto allows himself to be assassinated. After 1,500 more years (as chronicled in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune), the Bene Gesserit have restored their breeding program. However, they are too terrified of the consequences of producing another Kwisatz Haderach, so instead breed for special individuals of great talent and usefulness in order to amplify certain human characteristics and preserve them. Now aware of Leto's Golden Path, the Bene Gesserit widen their goals of advancing humanity and saving it from extinction.

The behind-the-scenes intrigues of the breeding program are illuminated in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy (1999–2001) as the program nears fruition in the time immediately prior to the novel Dune. The origins of the program are explored in the Legends of Dune prequel series. Over 10,000 years before the events of Dune, the Sorceresses of Rossak had started keeping detailed breeding records circa 400 B.G., trying to improve the potency and prevalence of their telekinetic powers. In 108 B.G., the Sorceresses begin collecting genetic samples of various human bloodlines, which were in jeopardy from a catastrophic virus genetically engineered and unleashed by the thinking machines.

In Sandworms of Dune (2007), written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Duncan Idaho is revealed to be the final Kwisatz Haderach destined to bring together humans and thinking machines. While he is not a product of a breeding program, his multiple rebirths and deaths as a ghola throughout the series had given him the opportunity to gain experience and develop himself as no other human could.

Avoiding direct power
The Bene Gesserit choose to use indirect methodologies to further their goals, rather than wield overt power themselves. They have noted the Taoist principle that whatever rises must fall; and so rather than taking direct control of the human race, they instead manipulate the social and political order with subtlety and insinuation, often using extraordinarily long-term stratagems spanning generations. The Bene Gesserit avoid appearing too rich or powerful, or revealing the extent of their powers, to prevent being seen as overtly responsible for the rise and fall of governments and empires, and to avoid any organized backlash. To this end, the Bene Gesserit provide some of their trained initiates as wives and concubines, and will train the daughters of noble families for a fee.

In Dune, Padishah Emperor of the known universe Shaddam IV keeps the wise but calculating Bene Gesserit Truthsayer Mohiam by his side at all times. The Emperor's deceased wife, Anirul, had been a "Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank", and Herbert notes that every one of their five daughters is Bene Gesserit-trained. In fact, Shaddam is kept without a male heir on specific orders from the Sisterhood, and is bound by an agreement that only a daughter will ascend his throne. The Bene Gesserit had also placed their acolyte Jessica (herself the product of a secret Bene Gesserit liaison with the Baron Harkonnen) as the concubine to Duke Leto Atreides, and married the Bene Gesserit Margot to Shaddam's close friend and minion Count Fenring. After Shaddam's eldest daughter Princess Irulan is forced into marriage to Paul to secure his claim to the Imperial throne, in Children of Dune Irulan's loyalty to the Sisterhood gives them false hope that she can help them topple Paul, or at least control his offspring. Later in God Emperor of Dune, Herbert establishes that despite Leto's many restrictions on them, the Bene Gesserit still train young noblewomen for a price. In fact, when Leto meets Hwi Noree, the Ixian ambassador obviously bred and trained to charm him, he realizes "that part of her education had been conducted by the Bene Gesserit. She had their way of controlling her responses, of sensing the undertones in a conversation. He could see, however, that the Bene Gesserit overlay had been a delicate thing, never penetrating the basic sweetness of her nature."

Missionaria Protectiva
"With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit system of sowing implant-legends through the Missionaria Protectiva came to its full fruition. The wisdom of seeding the known universe with a prophecy pattern for the protection of B.G. personnel has long been appreciated, but never have we seen a condition-ut-extremis with more ideal mating of person and preparation. The prophetic legends had taken on Arrakis even to the extent of adopted labels (including Reverend Mother, canto and respondu, and most of the Shari-a panoplia propheticus). And it is generally accepted now that the Lady Jessica's latent abilities were grossly underestimated."

The Bene Gesserit practice "religious engineering" through the Missionaria Protectiva, which spreads "infectious superstitions on primitive worlds, thus opening those regions to exploitation by the Bene Gesserit". Collectively known as Panoplia Prophetica, these myths, prophecies, and superstitions provide the opportunity for a Bene Gesserit to later cast herself as a guide, protector, or some other figure in fulfillment of a prophecy in order to manipulate the religious subjects for protection or other purposes. These myths also exploit religion as a powerful force in human society; by controlling the particulars of religion, the Bene Gesserit have a manipulative lever on society in general. The Bene Gesserit also employ the Missionaria Protectiva to prepare the Empire for its Kwisatz Haderach.

In Dune, Jessica and Paul take refuge among the Fremen after the attack on House Atreides. With his mother's guidance, Paul is able to make use of the planted myths by claiming to be the "mahdi", a messianic figure from legendary material planted among the Fremen by the Missionaria Protectiva. That the mahdi legend has been planted on Dune indicates to Jessica that conditions on Dune are truly awful, since this legend is reserved for only the harshest environments where a Bene Gesserit would need the maximum advantage over surrounding influences. Paul's meteoric rise to power is greatly facilitated by his association with the mahdi legend. Later, in Heretics of Dune, the Bene Gesserit plan to use Reverend Mother Sheeana's ability to control the great sandworms to build her into a religious figure around whom they can fashion a mass devoted following, uniting many factions in the universe under the Bene Gesserit and against the forces of the Scattering.

Spice agony
The spice agony is an ordeal in which an acolyte of the Bene Gesserit takes a poisonous "awareness spectrum" narcotic and, by internally changing the substance and neutralizing its toxicity, gains access to Other Memory, the combined ego and memories of all her female ancestors. In Dune, Lady Jessica notes that the ritual originated with the "discovery of the poison drug on Rossak". On Arrakis, the Fremen Reverend Mothers use a poison called Water of Life, which is the exhalation of a drowning "little maker" (small sandworm) in water. In the Fremen version of the rite, after the ordeal the Reverend Mother also provides the changed poison for the sietch orgy.

An acolyte unable to effect this change dies. Only women have ever survived the agony, but through their breeding program the Bene Gesserit seek the male Kwisatz Haderach who will be able to change an illuminating poison. The Bene Gesserit try over many generations through selective breeding to produce such a being. A Kwisatz Haderach is given abilities different from those of a Reverend Mother. During the spice agony, there are two areas of the soul that the acolyte may visit — the part that gives, and the part that takes; a Reverend Mother cannot access the memories of her male ancestors, and is terrified by the psychic space within her that the masculine memories inhabit. Until Paul Atreides, all men who had attempted the spice agony had died.

In Dune, Jessica endures the agony while pregnant with her daughter, Alia. This has a profound effect on the unborn Alia, who is consequently born a full Reverend Mother with the complete Other Memory of both her female and male ancestors. The Bene Gesserit refer to children born this way as "Abominations". Without the benefit of a fully formed adult ego of her own, Alia is susceptible to the influence of her ancestral memories. This ultimately leads to her downfall, as she is eventually possessed by the persona of her evil grandfather Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, whom she herself had murdered as a child in the events of Dune.

The origin of the ritual is explained in the prequel novel Dune: The Battle of Corrin (2004) when Raquella Berto-Anirul is poisoned by Rossak Sorceress Ticia Cenva with the Rossak Drug. Raquella manages to internally convert the poison into a harmless substance and is thus the first to experience the awakening of Other Memory. Raquella later establishes the Bene Gesserit, presumably perfecting the technique and training others to survive the ordeal.

Other Memory
One of the 'powers' of a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother is her Other Memory: the combined ego and memories of all her female ancestors, passed on through genetic memory, and thus, up to the point where each following ancestor was born and the physical contact with the mother broken. The ego/memory combination remains a distinct identity within the Reverend Mother's mind, and is able to inject itself into her awareness at appropriate or emotional moments, though the Reverend Mother's ego is always dominant. The prequel novel Dune: The Battle of Corrin by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson establishes that the first Bene Gesserit to access Other Memory had been Raquella Berto-Anirul, the founder of the order.

A Reverend Mother has access only to her female lineage in Other Memory; her male line is unavailable to her, present as a dark void that terrifies her. Until the time of God Emperor of Dune, the purpose of the Bene Gesserit breeding scheme is to breed a Kwisatz Haderach, a male with Other Memory who can see both lines, male and female. Male memory will be complete until moment of conception, when physical contact with the father is lost.

Reverend Mothers may also pass their own ego/memory combination to other Reverend Mothers at will, merely by touching foreheads. When a Reverend Mother dies in the presence of another Reverend Mother, the second will accept the ego/memory of the first to prevent the loss of the dying Reverend Mother's experience and ancestral memories. Especially when the Mother Superior perishes, it is important to take her ego/memory so that her plans and strategies may continue uninterrupted. This is first explored in Dune, when Jessica accepts the life experience of the dying Fremen Reverend Mother Ramallo. In Chapterhouse Dune, Darwi Odrade is Mother Superior, a contentious choice ratified by the fact that she was present at the previous Mother Superior's death, and has her in Other Memory; she represents the most continuous line of leadership. Under extreme conditions, a large community of Bene Gesserit will practice Extremis Progressiva, a mass sharing of ego/memories with each other to spread all the ego/memories amongst everyone; thus, if one survives, they all survive. In Chapterhouse Dune, the Bene Gesserit school on Lampadas, under attack by the Honored Matres, undertakes Extremis Progressiva; Lucilla escapes with the "Lampadas Horde", hoping to return to the Bene Gesserit with them.

Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son and biographer, explains that the concept of Other Memory is "largely based upon the writings and teachings of Carl Gustav Jung, who spoke of a 'collective unconscious', that supposedly inborn set of 'contents and modes of behavior' possessed by all human beings". Frank Herbert was introduced to Jung's work by two Jungian psychologists, Ralph and Irene Slattery, and Jung's teachings ultimately had "a profound and continuing influence on [Herbert's] work".

The Voice
Bene Gesserit are trained in what they call "the Voice" – a means "to control others merely by selected tone shadings of the voice". By modulating the subtleties of her voice, a Bene Gesserit can issue commands on a subconscious level, compelling obedience in others that they cannot resist, whether they are consciously aware of the attempt or not. This control can be as subtle as influencing thoughts and motivations, or as strong as forcing physical actions and even temporary paralysis in the subject. The Voice may also be subtly employed in any manner of conversation, public speaking, or debate to help soothe, convince, persuade, influence, or otherwise enhance the effect of the words being spoken. To affect this, the Bene Gesserit must "register" the intended target by analyzing his or her personality and vocal patterns through observation or seemingly innocuous direct questions.

Training in the Voice is independent of the Reverend Mother ritual, so people outside the order may be instructed in its use. Before the events of Dune, Jessica has begun teaching it to Paul; after the Reverend Mother Mohiam tests him in the novel, she urges Jessica to "ignore the regular order of training. His own safety requires the Voice. He already has a good start in it, but we both know how much more he needs...and that desperately." Jessica herself later notes of Paul's novice attempt: "The tone, the timbre excellent – imperative, very sharp. A slightly lower pitch would have been better, but it could still fall within this man's spectrum."

The Voice is useless against targets who cannot hear the speaker; both Baron Harkonnen in Dune and House Corrino in Children of Dune employ deaf people to guard Jessica, knowing that she cannot control them via the Voice. Being a manipulation of the target's subconscious mind, the Voice is of limited utility against an extremely disciplined mind, such as a Reverend Mother or a strong Mentat; if the target understands what the Voice is and how it works, and is aware that it is being used, he may resist it. One trained in the use of the Voice may easily detect its use by others, even subtly. In Dune Messiah, Paul trains some guards to resist the Voice so that he may imprison Bene Gesserit. By the time of Children of Dune, Gurney Halleck has also been trained by Jessica to resist the Voice completely.

In Heretics of Dune, Reverend Mother Odrade explains to Sheeana that planetary populations exposed to long-term Voice control learn ways to adapt to it, and can no longer be manipulated. This is why the Honored Matres have been driven back into the Old Empire; over-controlling, they have built up both resistance and rebellion, and are now on the run from their former subjects.

The prequel Dune: The Battle of Corrin establishes that the first Bene Gesserit to use the Voice is Raquella Berto-Anirul, the founder of the order.

Acute observation and Truthsay
Bene Gesserit are trained in "the minutiae of observation", noticing details that the common person would miss in the people and environment around them. When combined with their analytical abilities, this "hyperawareness" enables the Bene Gesserit to divine secrets and arrive at conclusions that are invisible to everyone else. Slight differences in air currents or the design of a room might allow a Bene Gesserit to detect hidden portals and spyholes; minute variations in a person's vocal inflection and body language allow a Bene Gesserit to deeply understand a person's emotional state, and manipulate it. Knowing that any schooling impresses a particular pattern in its students, they are able to use these clues to predict and anticipate actions. The Bene Gesserit can easily determine a person's origins and root language by analyzing their speech patterns, cadence, and pacing, as Jessica does when she realizes that a visiting Spacing Guild banker is a Harkonnen agent.

Bene Gesserit specifically trained as Truthsayers are able to determine whether someone is lying by analyzing their speech, body language, and physical signs like pulse and heart rate. In principle, all humans have such perception, but extensive training is required to develop this latent talent to the point of great usefulness. Truthsayers are used widely in politics and trade; the Padishah Emperors are never without one. Combined with the Voice, Truthsay is also useful for interrogation and torture.

Simulflow
Bene Gesserit also practice simulflow, the flow of several threads of consciousness at once—mental multitasking, as it were. The combination of simulflow with their analytical abilities and Other Memory are responsible for the frightening intelligence of the average Bene Gesserit, though this ability is less powerful than the analytical abilities of a Mentat. This simulflow can also be held with Other Memory; Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade practiced both forms in Heretics of Dune.

Prana-bindu training and the "weirding way"
The Bene Gesserit develop their physical abilities as well as their mental abilities. A trained Sister has full control over each muscle in her body through training known as prana-bindu. This allows her to bend the last joint in her little toe while remaining otherwise motionless, bend and contort her body in ways that most would consider impossible, or put a remarkable amount of force behind a physical blow. The mental part of prana-bindu, or prana-nervature (prana stands for breath, bindu stands for musculature) is the precise control of the totality of nerves in the human body. In Dune, Reverend Mother Mohiam tests Paul with a nerve induction device ("the box") that causes the sensation of intense pain. Paul learns that he is not the only one to have tried it, but is perhaps specially resistant; this conversation points to a widespread use of it as a tool among the Bene Gesserit to measure self control, nerve control, and as Mohiam puts it, crisis and observation.

Unarmed attacks are part of a specialized Bene Gesserit martial art which incorporates the prana-bindu methods of optimized muscle control. These enable one to deliver powerful blows and to move with extreme precision and speed. The basic principle behind it is that, as Farad'n of House Corrino says, "My mind affects my reality." A practitioner of the art has to know that the action he or she "wants" to perform has already been performed. For example, to imagine oneself behind an opponent at the current moment in time; when trained well, this knowledge will place you at the spot desired. To anyone witnessing, it almost appears as though the combatant has teleported.

The Fremen refer to this fighting ability as the "weirding way". In Dune, the Fremen use the word "weirding" instead of "Bene Gesserit", calling Jessica a "weirding woman" and noting "he has the weirding voice" when Paul wields this power.

Internal organic-chemical control
Just as the prana-bindu allows the Bene Gesserit to precisely control each muscle and nerve, they also have complete conscious control over the functions of their internal organs and body chemistry. A Sister can completely control her breathing and heart rate to the degree that she can appear dead to most tests even after intense physical exertion. They can control their need for food and water to the extremes of hunger and thirst, and even commit suicide at will by simply stopping their hearts or shutting down their brains. The Bene Gesserit are therefore immune to poisons, as they can simply change the chemical makeup of any harmful substance in their body and render it harmless. It is hinted that should a Bene Gesserit wish to, she could slow her aging process dramatically, controlling every aspect of her metabolism. It is suggested that a Sister would never attempt this, as it might call attention to the Sisterhood and reveal too much of their abilities. In Children of Dune, Jessica realizes that her daughter Alia has done this, which is her first sign that her daughter is sinking into Abomination.

One of the most significant biological abilities of the Bene Gesserit is their control of their own menstrual cycles, and their ability to control (at conception) their child's sex. Jessica was ordered to bear only daughters to the Atreides, but defied her Bene Gesserit sisters (out of her love for the Duke) and had a son, Paul Atreides. The Bene Gesserit conspired against the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV's desire to have a male heir and instructed his Bene Gesserit wife to give him only daughters, such as Princess Irulan.

Sexual talents
The Bene Gesserit are notable for their extensive skill in seduction, sex and sexual imprinting. The most talented and most highly trained are known as Imprinters. Men in a position of power or future power, or those with specific qualities that the order wishes to incorporate into their breeding program, are typical targets of a Bene Gesserit imprinter. Men seduced by an imprinter are permanently affected (imprinted) by the intense sexual experience and are thereafter consciously or subconsciously favorable to the Sisterhood. An imprinter can be successfully resisted if the subject has been psychologically pre-conditioned to do so, and the subject's automatic defensive response may even be entirely subconscious.

In Dune, Lady Fenring is instructed by the Bene Gesserit to seduce Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in order to "preserve the bloodline" by retrieving his genetic material through conception. She also intends to "plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-bindu phrases to bend him", which she later refers to as the "Hypno-ligation of that Feyd-Rautha's psyche". When Paul later fights Feyd to the death, Jessica advises her son to temporarily stun him using the word-sound Uroshnor, typically implanted in a dangerous person who has been prepared by the Bene Gesserit. Paul, however, refuses to use this advantage.

In Heretics of Dune, Reverend Mother and Imprinter Lucilla is charged with the seduction-imprinting of the Duncan Idaho ghola so that the Sisterhood may assert some control over him; he ultimately avoids her. Lucilla also mentions the hundreds of sexual positions and variations she knows. In Heretics, the Honored Matres have themselves refined this ability to such an intense level that the targeted male becomes completely enslaved. The captured Honored Matre Murbella attempts this on Duncan; his own imprinting ability, secretly conditioned into him by his Tleilaxu creators, suddenly manifests itself. Murbella and Duncan imprint each other, neither having complete control over the other. In Chapterhouse Dune the order has learned the Honored Matre method from Murbella and use it for their own purposes, specifically to awaken the memories within the Miles Teg ghola.

Addiction to melange
Reverend Mothers are dependent on melange to give them their abilities. Any person who consumes melange regularly becomes addicted to it and requires it for survival; however, one who has gone through the agony has a far greater need. Though the effects of melange are highly favorable, including vastly increased lifespan and mental powers, withdrawal results in death. Melange is expensive and thus is a continual drain on the Sisterhood's wealth; the most significant threat to the Bene Gesserit is the potential loss of their supply. Paul Atreides and then his son Leto II assert control over the Bene Gesserit and keep them in check by grasping control of the planet Arrakis and the spice supply in a show of hydraulic despotism.

Abomination
A Bene Gesserit who survives the ritual spice agony gains access to Other Memory, the combined ego and memories of all her female ancestors. An adult Reverend Mother can manage the presence of these subordinate inner voices because she has a full personality of her own and a solid sense of self. However, if a Bene Gesserit undergoes the agony while pregnant, the fetus will also experience it, acquiring full consciousness and access to Other Memory. Since the child has not yet developed a sufficiently strong ego before being exposed to her tide of ancestors, she is more susceptible to their influence, and there is a danger that she will ultimately be overcome and possessed by a strong ancestral ego. The Bene Gesserit call this "Abomination", and such children are killed immediately. They are also referred to as "pre-born" in Children of Dune.

In Dune, Lady Jessica is pregnant when she undergoes the spice agony while among the Fremen; her resulting daughter, Alia, is born a full Reverend Mother, the mind of an adult in a child's body. She pretends to be a child, but others notice that she is different. The Bene Gesserit are eventually outraged and horrified by Alia's existence, but she is out of their control. Mohiam says, "I've said too much, but the fact remains that this child who is not a child must be destroyed. Long were we warned against such a one and how to prevent such a birth, but one of our own has betrayed us." In Children of Dune, an adult Alia eventually succumbs to the ancestral ego of her grandfather, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who wants nothing more than the destruction of the Atreides, and is given another opportunity, from the inside, to realize it.

Paul Atreides and Chani's twins, Leto II and Ghanima, are also pre-born, but before they become possessed, they stumble across solutions: Leto, forced to undergo a radical spice agony, constructs an executive of benevolent ancestral egos (such as Paul and Paul's father Leto I) who protect him; Ghanima, as part of their plan to fake Leto's death, consciously blocks the memory of Leto and their plan, inadvertently developing a mental discipline capable of protecting her undeveloped ego. She also uses the ego of her mother, Chani, as a "door guard" of her alter egos, only "peeking behind the door" when she needs advice from Other Memory.

Litany against fear
The litany against fear is an incantation used by the Bene Gesserit throughout the series to focus their minds and calm themselves in times of peril. The litany is as follows: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.'' Lady Jessica teaches it to her son Paul, who uses it in Dune when faced with Mohiam's test of his ability to withstand excruciating pain. The litany is shortened in David Lynch's 1984 film.

Analysis
"Bene Gesserit" is derived from Latin.

Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son and biographer, said of his father's creation of the Bene Gesserit: "When he was a boy, eight of Dad's Irish Catholic aunts tried to force Catholicism on him, but he resisted. Instead, this became the genesis of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. This fictional organization would claim it did not believe in organized religion, but the sisters were spiritual nonetheless. Both my father and mother were like that as well."

In Mycelium Running, mycologist Paul Stamets argues that Herbert was influenced by tales of María Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico in creating the Bene Gesserit.

In Dreamer of Dune, Brian Herbert's 2003 biography of his father, the younger Herbert speculates that the name "Gesserit" is supposed to suggest to the reader the word "Jesuit" and thus evoke undertones of a religious order.

In adaptations
The Bene Gesserit appear in all of the Dune adaptations to date, including David Lynch's film Dune (1984), the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune, its 2003 sequel, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune, and Denis Villeneuve's films Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024). A prequel series called Dune: Prophecy, centered on the Bene Gesserit, is in production for HBO Max.

title: Bene Gesserit