text:
Talk:Mass

Mass is NOT the quantity of matter of a body
I have edited the first paragraph of the article, providing a more scientifically accepted definition of mass.

The previous definition of mass as "the quantity of matter of a body" is a wrong and misleading pseudo-scientific conception. It also lacked references: the provided dictionary definitions https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mass, do not corroborate the definition of mass as "quantity of matter". It should be noted, still, that the proper definition should come from a standard, serious, widely accepted university-level physics textbook and not from a dictionary.

I foresee that someone might be able to provide a textbook reference supporting the "mass as a quantity of matter" claim. This is because centuries ago it was indeed believed by some mainstream physicists (such as Newton) that mass was "quantity of matter". Likewise with phlogiston, this once somewhat mainstream belief was discarded experimentally with the advent of particle physics. Because of that, some school textbooks still present the erroneous notion of mass as "quantity of matter", which is wrong and misleading for children. But no university-level, serious physics textbook, written in the past century by a high caliber physicist would use that definition, since it has been ruled out as a scientific hypothesis over 100 years ago.

Elementary particles, which all have the same "quantity of matter" (i.e., 1), have widely different masses. More than that: systems composed of massless particles have positive mass, when the massless particles interact and form bounded states. If you bring together two particles, the mass of the system is greater than the sum of the mass of the particles. Two bodies orbiting one another have more mass than the sum of the masses of the individual bodies. The same body, if it heated and increases it's temperature, also increases it's mass.

So it is as misleading to say that mass is "quantity of matter" as it is to say that electric charge is "quantity of electrons". Or even more, since, while massive macroscopic bodies in everyday live are composed of only one particle which causes electric displacement (the electron), they are composed of three different particles (protons, electrons and neutrons) which cause measurable mass, and the difference between the mass of the proton and the neutron is easily measurable: matter formed by atoms which differ only in that one proton is replaced by a neutron (thus conserving the "amount of matter") in each atom have noticeable difference in mass.

Probably the most proper experimental definition of mass is via inertia, and relativistically then mass is the internal energy of a system (meaning the total energy of that system in a frame of reference where the system has 0 total momentum), apart from the unit of measurement. The experimental and the relativistic definition are equivalent as long as relativity holds. So, as far as science goes, the relativistic is the correct explanation for mass, and it is also corroborated experimentally. For example, this definition correctly explains the mass of a proton (which is greater than the masses of the composing quarks) or the mass of a nucleus (which is greater than the sum of the masses of the protons and neutrons composing it). It is the definition every working physicist uses in order to calculate the mass of a body. Not "quantity of matter".

The sources for that definition are the same that you find in the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invariant_mass. I think it is interesting that all the proper definitions and sources are listed on that page, while here you have kind of a completely different physics.

To be clear, it is incorrect to state that the relativistic explanation would be the "concept of mass in special relativity", as implied by this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_in_special_relativity. This would be like saying that the concept of heat as caused by microscopic movement (instead of phlogiston) is just the "thermodynamic concept of heat", while the main wikipedia article for "heat" still accepted the old phlogiston explanation. The relativity theory was the first (and only) theory to explain mass, just as the thermodynamic theory was the first to correctly explain heat. The other theories (such as the "quantity of matter" theory) have been experimentally discarded, while the relativistic theory is the only one that correctly calculates the masses of physical systems.

Notice also that this is NOT a situation where the old theory is an approximation of the modern one, like Newton's theory is an approximation of relativity which is still valid for practical purposes. This is not the case. Macroscopic bodies which have the same amount of atoms have widely different masses, depending on the mass of the atoms. Now someone might say: "but these atoms have more mass because they have more particles in it", and, as explained before, that would be wrong: atoms with the same amount of particles often have measurably different masses.

This is NOT original research as it is the standard understanding among physicists. I hope people can help me with sources that might discuss this more directly.

complaint
I made a change to the story about mass. it said for anyone who couldn't really get how you first put mass : "to put it simply, mass is how much stuff something has." after a little while, it said that my " violation " was unnecessary and I got blocked from making further edits. All i'm saying is that maybe people should check if the person or robot is doing it's job correctly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.114.188.53 (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Minor mistake
The image of a 2kg weight is labeled incorectly. The weight has a MASS of 2kg and a weight of about 19.62 N - this is important as mass and weight are two different concepts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikeymat (talk • contribs) 17:31, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Redefinition of 1 kg
Hey guys, the redefinition of 1 kilogram has been done and Wikipedia has an article for this. Kindly update the page as it says that the redefinition is expected on may 20, 2019. Thanks. clickheretogototheuserpageofAggarwala2727 (talk) 07:16, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

IPK is listed as cast iron.
In the units section. It's made of a Pt alloy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by InviteToQuiet (talk • contribs) 14:10, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Mass as an extensive property describing quantity of matter
My edit was reverted, again... 1) Mass is a property which measures the quantity of matter [of a physical body]. I cannot understand why the introduction should just say "Mass is both a property of a physical body [and]". "[p]roperty of a physical body" is too vague, isn't it? Which kind of property? I think it should be said that this specific "property" is the quantity of matter of a physical body. 2) Furthermore, the extensive and intensive categorizations of all units of measure is explained by the IUPAC and there's an article of Wikipedia which can tell newbies what Intensive and extensive properties are. Many college textbooks use those two English words; if I'm requested to I can provide citations of these widely used terms in textbooks. I'm interested to hearing what other editors have to say about it. Thanks for your time Fabio Maria De Francesco (talk) 10:49, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

 * I have undone the addition, as the categorizations extensive and intensive are nowhere mentioned in the article, so they do not belong in the wp:LEAD, let alone in the wp:FIRSTSENTENCE. - DVdm (talk) 11:02, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I understand that. But mass can be measured, therefore it needs a unit of measure and all UM's have "extensive" or "intensive" properties. This article is not about UM's. Any explanation of the categorization of all the UM's, the kilogram in this specific context, would be out of the scope of the article itself. That's why there's no need to mention it again elsewhere within the article.
 * For what regards the "measure of the amount of matter", please check the section of the article where it is stated that "Although inertial mass, passive gravitational mass and active gravitational mass are conceptually distinct, no experiment has ever unambiguously demonstrated any difference between them". Therefore the mass as a measure of the amount of matter (rest mass, inertial's, gravitational's, and so on) holds in every case. Fabio Maria De Francesco (talk) 11:40, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Please have a look at wp:no original research and specifically at wp:SYNTHESIS. - DVdm (talk) 12:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Please have a look at the IUPAC document cited above and in the edit you undid. The following sentence is pasted from page 6: "A quantity that is additive for independent, non interacting subsystems, is called extensive; examples are mass m, volume V, Gibbs energy G". Where's the original research? Please remind that the source was cited in my edit.
 * 2) In your first reply in this thread you said you undid my edit only because of the term "extensive ". If so, I mean if you didn't notice other issues, why did you remove the words "quantity of matter [of a physical body]"?
 * I'm pretty sure we're misunderstanding each other due to the fact that English is not my native language. Please reconsider that revert. Now it's up to you, because I'd like to not go further in discussions about this issue. Thanks again for your time Fabio Maria De Francesco (talk) 15:13, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that, unless I would repeat myself, I have not much to add to my previous replies. - DVdm (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

In energy-mass equivalence definition suggest adding example of proton's mass being mostly gluon energy
New to this semi-protected articles so I hope I'm doing this correctly

I was hoping to add an illustrative example to the definitions section on energy-mass equivalence.

Original paragraph:

''Energy also has mass according to the principle of mass–energy equivalence. This equivalence is exemplified in a large number of physical processes including pair production, nuclear fusion, and the gravitational bending of light. Pair production and nuclear fusion are processes in which measurable amounts of mass are converted to energy, or vice versa. In the gravitational bending of light, photons of pure energy are shown to exhibit a behavior similar to passive gravitational mass.''

Suggested change in context:

''Energy also has mass according to the principle of mass–energy equivalence. This equivalence is exemplified in a large number of physical processes including pair production, nuclear fusion, and the gravitational bending of light. Pair production and nuclear fusion are processes in which measurable amounts of mass are converted to energy, or vice versa. In the gravitational bending of light, photons of pure energy are shown to exhibit a behavior similar to passive gravitational mass.'' The majority of the mass of a proton is from constituent quark, not simply the mass of its quarks.

Relevant Wikipedia article about nucleon masses being mostly gluons

Another link explaining this principal

Thanks! TerranIV (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Appears to be potential WP:CIRCULAR. Please provide an actual reliable source. Melmann 11:29, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Definitions :: number of 'physical notions'
The first sentence in this section states: "In physical science, one may distinguish conceptually between at least seven different aspects of mass, or seven physical notions that involve the concept of mass.", which brings the expectation of 7 physical notations, while the following bullet points ("number of ways mass can be measured or operationally defined") are only 6 (six). Either these two topics of "physical notions" and "ways of measurement / operational definition" are different from each other, or there is an unintentional distraction caused. If they are different, shouldn't those 7 physical notions be listed as well to avoid confusion? Can someone clarify it? --Mojtaba Mohammadi (talk) 11:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Please undo totally incorrect edit
Please undo this edit:

 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mass&diff=prev&oldid=1164494690

The user who made it has severe language competence issues and, it seems, physics competence issues as well. 62.121.132.130 (talk) 08:44, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

 * Undone; thanks for spotting this. Certes (talk) 12:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi. The IP is a long-term abuser referred as by WP:BKFIP. Please, refer to admins. Thanks.  AXO NOV  (talk) ⚑ 11:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello,
 * I mentioned this value of 1.346x 1027kg/m for the first time in my article. Please specify the source. Mandresaazx (talk) 20:35, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Mass is an intrinsic property of a body in three-dimensional space
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body in three-dimensional space Antypearl (talk) 11:05, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mass


text:
Talk:Lists of television channels

Al Jazeera needs to go in here somewhere. But it doesn't fit in well to the nation-based lists. How about a list of worldwide TV channels for Al-Jazeera, CNN (which is also not on the lists), MTV, etc.? -- Hotlorp

Untitled
What's the difference between this page and Television station? It appears they might be candidates for merging, no? -- Wfeidt

Massive problems
OMG. Seems the current state of the various "television channels" / "television stations" pages is pretty dismal. Someone needs to create a WikiProject to whip these pages into shape. Needed work includes the following. I really have no desire to take a leading role in this project myself; I just got sucked into trying to improve some of the pages and then discovered the true dimensions of the problem. I'm getting out now, while I still can...
 * Standardize page titles:
 * "Station" or "channel" (or both, depending)? (called <whatever> below)
 * Pick one naming convention (adjective and noun refer to place names):
 * "List of African television <whatever>s"
 * "List of Africa television <whatever>s"
 * "List of television <whatever>s in Africa" (I recommend this one)
 * Name pages that only point to other list pages, "Lists of..." (i.e., plural, not singular).
 * Move pages and #REDIRECT, as appropriate.
 * Use bulleted lists when possible; use pipe syntax for tables.
 * Decide what kind of "see also" links should be on each type of page (country, state, city...) and standardize that.
 * Place appropriate Category designations on each page. (In fact, categories should be used as much as possible to reduce the need for direct linking in "See also" sections.)

- dcljr 02:34, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

BTW, to see some indication of the problems I'm talking about, poke around the various "list" pages at Category:Lists of television channels. - dcljr 02:48, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Add to the list: What is a "television channel"? Is it a frequency? A contract (if so with whom)? Where do "channel number"s (as in the US) fit in?

i am not sure the page follows wikipedia standards
there is a piece at the bottom of the page about a kashmiri chnnel,,,about azad kashmir(pakistani side of kasmir) which looks like more of a propaganda or advertisement than genuine info...

can anybody plz look into it and take care of it..

join us in http://zello.com/channels/k/dvn7I — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4C28:4000:721:185:26:182:38 (talk) 11:07, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Bangladesh
I reverted additions by an anon of Bangladeshi tv. I did not label it vandalism, I reverted mainly because of poor format. I will NOT added with good format because I know nothing about Bangladeshi tv, so if the info is false, I do not want to be part of it. I will inform the editor so that she can add properly. Brusegadi 18:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

YetAnotherFoulUp
Yeah, the Lists of television channels by language section contains a link to List of Israeli television channels, which contains stations in Hebrew, English, Russian, Georgian, and probably Arabic, as well as mixtures of the above. Gzuckier (talk) 19:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

My tv have problem i now just watch just green screen what did i do
give me answer 149.54.25.180 (talk) 14:43, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

 * answer 149.54.25.180 (talk) 14:44, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Lists of television channels


text:
Talk:Ants of medical importance

Copyright
The photos used in this article are copyrighted, and are used by permission (see below) from the author, Bart Drees, Director, Texas Imported Fire Ant Project, Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University. The particular photos I used were taken by Dr. Drees.

Many more images like these can be seen at their Fire Ant Web site (Home Page, Photos).

Correspondence

 B. M. Drees, Hi.

Those photographs are wonderful! You can see the first version of my article at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_ants.

I would like to add (reduced size) versions of the following photos:

5. RIFA 24. RIFA mound 48. RIFA stinging 98. Red harvester ants 99. Pharaoh ant 100. Yellow crazy ant 110. Cow killer ant

Also, if you have photos of the following (especially Army ants and Driver ants), I would love to include them:

 * Red velvet ants (Dasymusilla magnifica)

 * Argentine ants (Linepithema humile)

 * Bulldog ants (Soldier ants, Genus Myrmecia)

 * Bullet ants (Paraponera clavata)

 * Honeypot ants (genus Myrmecocystus)

 * Amazon ants (Polyergus breviceps)

 * New World Army ants (Eciton burchelli)

 * Driver ants (Subfamily Dorylinae, Subgenus Anomma)

Thanks, David

Dear David Spector

You have my permission to use those images. Note that I did not take all of them. Please cite the photographer and source (either Texas A&M Univ. or our web site address) with each slide.

B. M. Drees

''Killer ants is a term to describe any of several species of ants that are predatory, attack en masse when their mounds are disturbed, and can kill animals many times their size (even deer). They have been called the fiercest predators on Earth. Predator ants kill more individuals than all the big predators combined.''

Certainly most ants, killers or not, can't kill healthy deer. Most sources say things like driver ants will kill animals as large as rabbits if that can't get out of the way, but that is not quite the same thing. Where is this documented? It doesn't seem to come from the Fire Ant website linked to above.

The main colony of Argentine Ants is described as Italy, Atlantic coast of Spain. Should it be main colonies? If not, which is the main one?

jimfbleak 12:15 26 May 2003 (UTC)

I forget the reference for killer ants killing deer, but this happens when livestock are tied up, so they can't escape. An example was shown in the recent Public TV documentary on killer ants. They also described a case in which a baby was attacked (although its cries brought immediate rescue). By the way, Fire Ants are not usually considered to be killer ants, I believe.

No, it should be 'colony'. This particular one, although very large, is considered to be a single compound organism, much as is a coral reef or a grove of connected trees. (The oldest living organism is considered to be a certain grove of connected trees.)

David 16:26 20 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Killing animals which are tied down is much easier than killing those which are free, and to avoid sensationalism I think it's important to note the difference. Since big predators don't kill many people, I wonder how valuable it is to note ants kill more - so do livestock, which aren't especially fierce.

Anonymous

Killer ants have been called the greatest predators on Earth. Obviously they are not the greatest predators of large mammals. David 16:24 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Honeypot Ants
Aren't these harmless ants that you can eat the enlarged portion of? --MSTCrow July 2, 2005 00:58 (UTC)
 * I'm going to try and fix this. This is nonsense. 66.146.62.30 04:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Azoicity?
Is there a definition somewhere for "azoicity"? I was intrigued but a Google search only returns pages which quote this Wikipedia article. Seems odd even for such a highly technical term.

Re: (Sir Francis Bacon) Yeah, I tried to fix that, as well as the "dingbaticus", but then the next day the same person that originally added "dingbaticus" added azoicity and thoraxicascoucity as well.

Clean up?
It seems to me that the article is in heavy need of clean up, and confirmation that many of these species are, in fact, "killer ants". The Jade Knight 02:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Death can come from anaphalactic shock via the toxins, and if you have a allergy to stings, these ants can kill you. Martial Law 00:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Add to the list....
Add the Saifu Ant to the list. It was featured on the Discovery Channel's show Killer Ants. It will kill and eat people as if they are other prey. Martial Law 00:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

These were featured killing farm animals and had allegedly killed a human who was either ill or drunk. The film showed them killing and eating livestock down to the bone. Martial Law 00:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And the Jack jumper ant. The Siafu incidentally (not Saifu, which is just a little bit different [[Image:Teeth.png]]), is already included...it is the Driver ant.  Tom e rtalk  21:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Myrmecocystus genus
I'm intrigued by the bizarre conclusions drawn about the famous 'honeypot' ants - the two species I have here in my yard, Myrmecocystus mimicus and Myrmecocystus mexicanus, are respectively dark- and light-coloured and, contradicting the article, are diurnal and nocturnal. I'm going to delete Honeypot ants from the table until somebody can cite something in support of their inclusion. 66.146.62.30 04:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move
This article seems to deal with "ants of medical importance" and would suggest that the title should be more appropriate than "killer ant" (killing what, many ants do kill their prey)? There seems to be no recognized usage of the phrase "killer ant" in the style of say killer bee. Shyamal (talk) 17:15, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ants of medical importance


text:
Talk:Chinese civilization/Archive 1

See Talk:China, Talk: China (Archive 1) and Talk: China (Archive 2) for recent discussions.

If you are interested in editing/creating articles related to China, the List of China related topics might help. olivier 07:06 Nov 22, 2002 (UTC)

Probably, most people that want to refer to the country People's Republic of China will link to this page, as China is the name by which it is commonly known. The "PR of" part is usually only added in formal use. As far as I can judge, most of the articles linking to China also intend to link to the PR (or perhaps the "old China") but few or none intend to link to the ROC, which is better known as Taiwan - that article is also located at Taiwan.

I propose to:

 * put the PR of China's article at China
 * put a redirect at People's Republic of China to China
 * put a redirect at Republic of China to Taiwan (it probably already exists)

Jheijmans 07:12 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

My thought would be that there should be China article which would cover pre-revolutionary China, at the end (and at the beginning too) a short note about the division of the country with links to Taiwan and to Peoples Republic of China. My thinking is not at all based on politics but on the obvious fact that one can write lengthy articles on each of the 3 topics and an additional 3 on the history of each. Although one might make a new topic Pre-revolutionary China] but that seems awkward. [[User:Fredbauder

 * I think that is what the article is right now, or at least is supposed to be. However, I think it is rather fair to say that the history of the old China is included with the PR; it can be seen as it's successor. Taiwan will share a part of that history, but not all of it. Splitting up the history (and the rest) of one country because a (small) part of it has become independent (well, that's actually disputed) doesn't seem the way to go to me. Jheijmans

Thought a bit more about this. I think a general china article; then an article on each of the dynasties (and countries included within China such as Manchuria, Tibet, major provinces etc.). And of course a main article on the Peoples Republic of China with sections on such things as the long march, the cultural revolution, etc. The thing I'm thinking about is the size. We simply don't want another 300kb article which is what happens if you jam it all into one place. It won't load in lots of browsers and is hard to edit. I doubt wikipedia has been really discovered on the mainland, but if my experience on the New York Times China Forum is any guide there is a whole bunch of them and they can write volumes, expecially about China. I'm afraid wikipedia can expect a full bouquet of all 100 flowers once they get going. To address the split up of history, like in the case of European colonization of the Americas there is one general article then 4 major articles on British, French and Spanish colonization of the Americas then aricles on each historical region expored or colonized by the Spanish, like Spanish Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Yucatan etc. But there are also modern topics from each of those regions. Given that Chinese opinions diverge widely and also given the custom of making some contemporary point about the modern situation by refering to some obscure historical event a lot of fuss can be expected, its the size not "one China" that is a issue. User:Fredbauder

I propose a disambiguation page linking to: Each of the latter two (goverment) articles should mention the claims and counter-claims of legitimacy made by the rival regimes. Ed Poor
 * China, the country with a history of thousands of years
 * People's Republic of China, recent government
 * Taiwan (or Republic of China), recent government

I'm not saying everything on China should be jammed in one page. Not even the history has to be jammed in one page. For example, the article on the Netherlands has a very brief history of the country. History of the Netherlands expands on that, mentioned more details, such as the First Anglo-Dutch War. This article in turn describes that war in much more detail, and mentions a number of battles, and a treaty signed in the end. Future articles on those topics can go into the details of that battle or treaty, etc., etc. (just as you pointed out about the colonisation thing).

Getting back to China, the point here is that I and ,I think, most other people would expect to find an article about China at China. And for me that means what is formally called the People's Republic of China. Like I don't expect to find the article on the Netherlands at Kingdom of the Netherlands, with the Netherlands article saying that it is a region in north-west europe, consisting of the current Kingdom of the Netherlands and Belgium, linking to those articles. Jheijmans 10:15 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)

Perhaps the issue is that the name of a country makes a political statement about the legitimacy of the regime that currently rules it. Think about an article called Germany. I would expect something about the current borders and current government, of course, but mostly I'd like to know about the people who live there. Or maybe divided countries are a special case. Anyway, I'm sure you'll make the right decision. Ed Poor

The current organization of these China articles is rubbish! The PR of China should be at the conventional short form for that nation; China. This is how every other nation in wikipedia is, why is this one so different (well, the USofA does need to be moved to its short form too)? Hardly anybody in the world considers Taiwan to be the China except for Taiwanese and a handful of other nations. Therefore there is no reasonable ambiguity here. I wholeheartedly support Jheijmans' proposal and will do the work myself if needed. All we are doing by having this equal split is indicating that Taiwan has an equal claim to the mainland or that there is some significant ambiguity with the use of the word "China" - which there ain't. Sorry folks, even though I despise the government of the PR of China, possession is still nine tenths of the law. --mav

 * I don't think it's rubbish in the least. I think we should realize (as we did realize once upon a time) that it's often a very bad idea to have hard-and-fast rules that everyone must in every case adhere to.  There are convenient exceptions that just make a lot more sense than blindly applying rules in every case.

 * In this case, the whole point is that "China," just like "Ireland" and a number of other place names, does not merely refer to a single political entity. You are assuming that the "nations," including their history, culture, language, etc.--which are certainly highly important as subjects for long encyclopedia articles--enjoy a one-to-one mapping to current political entities.  Of course, that is simply not the case.  Political divisions often do lead to very important national differences, but not always.  Before 1990 I imagine you would have argued that "Germany" should refer only to what was then called West Germany.  You'll notice that Korea, appropriately, does contain a history of Korea, though it should also contain information about the Korean language (right now it just has a link) as well as a history of the conflict between north and south, and a short history of north and south since the Korean War.  Why is China treated differently?  Not just because the PRC is by far the larger of the states, surely? --Larry Sanger

One issue I've forgotten about is the porcelain. I don't think we want a disambiguation page pointing to China (country) and china (porcelain). A page about china porcelain (is that a good term?) could however be linked from the bottom of the China article. Any other suggestions? Jheijmans 00:01 Jul 25, 2002 (PDT)
 * No, not at the bottom but at the top in disamgibuation block format. I would suggest China (porcelain) or fine China which I think mean the same thing. --mav

Please please put China the country on the China page, and leave disambiguation for the very bottom. The term is not even close to being ambiguous. Possession is 9/10 of the law, indeed, and "fine China" owns less than 1/10 the usage of that word. --KQ

Possession is indeed 9/10 of the law BUT in wikipedia, we try to be as NPOV as possible. I'm pretty sure there are a diminishing number of hardliners who still think Taiwan is the Republic of China and we sure don't want to incite anger in them. My proposal is a combination of disambiguition-like paragragh followed by the article of the country. The whole page would look like this:

(starting with redirects)
 * People's Republic of China and
 * Taiwan
 * china -- the porcelain

The article accounting the country should be covering both governments.

China the country and china the porcelian don't need a disambiguation. China with the capital "C" is the country and porcelian has the lowercase "c". Nobody would write the country as china and doing so may be considered an insult to Chinese. Similar case in Turkey the country and turkey the bird. A link to the porcelian is good enough. Shame on folks who don't even bother typing the uppercase "C" while writing articles about the country. Ktsquare
 * A fair point, except that links are case-insensitive to the first letter. That is, china and China lead to the same page, so that won't help distinguish.  My point was simply that I'd really rather not see the country (either country) and the porcelain disambiguated as if those two senses were equally common.  --KQ

I now think we should do the following (accumulating my earlier thoughts and some responses):

 * Make China the article about the PR
 * Put in a notice at the top (disambiguation block format) with "see Taiwan or "Republic of China" (whichever you want) and the porcelain

In this way, almost all of the people linking (or following a link) to China still get what they expect; the rest can easily go the topics of Taiwan or porcelain. Jeronimo 03:45 Jul 26, 2002 (PDT)
 * This seems reasonable to me. --mav

Redid the first paragraph modeling it after the Soviet Union page. User:Fredbauder

--

Added information about Taiwan. Not including that information makes causes extreme NPOV. While it is true that there are probably too few people who think that the Republic of China is the sole government of China, there are a *lot* of people who think that

Taiwan is part of China, and not including information on Taiwan is like linking Korea to only South Korea.

-- User:Roadrunner

OK, I'm going in to make the changes I proposed (there were no further objections). There have been some changes to the pages, I'll try to keep them as I shuffle. Jeronimo 23:26 Jul 31, 2002 (PDT)

Whoa......

By identifying the PRC with China and moving the Taiwan information off, you are running into serious NPOV issues here. Basically anyone from the PRC is going to object to Taiwan not being included in the China heading, and about 40% of the people on Taiwan are also going to object for different reasons.

The notion that the ROC is the sole government of China is can be viewed as a fringe notion, but the notion that Taiwan is part of either a cultural unit known as China or part of the People's Republic of China has enough people supporting it that it shouldn't be excluded.

-- User:Roadrunner

Made some modifications. Basically if you make any simplifications you will upset someone so in true Wikipedia spirit, I think the best thing to do is to describe the controversy. The thing to keep in mind about the status of Taiwan is that it is *deliberately* kept unclear and confusing because any clarity will result in people shooting each other. -- User:Roadrunner

 * Roadrunner, could you give your objections next time before I make a move? I think this is not against NPOV issues, as discussed above. I agree that the disambiguation header was maybe a little short. Please read the above discussion as well...

 * I think Roadrunner was 100% correct to make the change. --Larry Sanger

- My objections are as follows:

1) The problem is that while almost no one still seriously believes that the ROC is the legitimate government of all of China, the position that China refers to the PRC and excludes Taiwan is objectionable (for different reasons) to about 90% of the people in the PRC and about 30 to 70% (depending on how you phrase the question) of people on Taiwan.

2) The Republic of China existed before the move to Taiwan and even though it might be synonymous with Taiwan in 2002, it didn't include Taiwan at all in 1920.

I wouldn't object if the article doesn't make the equation PRC=China and included discussion on the status of Taiwan and then a link.

-- User:Roadrunner

Yes, but we're making an English-language encyclopedia. For them (and for most other language I speak (Dutch, French, German, Swedish) or know of) China refers to the PRC in the first place. Second is the porcelain, and only third is Taiwan (if at all). Given Naming conventions, this means we should put the article about the PRC here. For those that come here and expect any of the other meanings of China (a minority), we place a link to the other articles. This should mention something more than it did some minutes ago, but it should be there. If all those Chinese people you mention are reasonable, they will see that the situation is confusing and that there's no way to solve it with encyclopedia articles if it cannot be solved in real life.

As for the Republic of China, two solutions are possible there. I didn't know the RoC was also used in the post-imperial time, but it was, as you mention. Since both uses seem to be equally valid, we might consider making a disambiguation page out of that page or maybe, because Taiwan already has it's own article, mention at the top or bottom that RoC is used as the official name for Taiwan. Jeronimo

 * It is simply and straightforwardly wrong to say that, in English, "China" means the PRC. No, it doesn't.  In English, the word is highly ambiguous.  Sometimes, people mean the PRC plus Taiwan (and their unified history, culture, language(s), etc.).  Sometimes, people admittedly do mean the PRC, but that's only when the context is clear.  Insofar as the decision to make the China article about the PRC was based on this false assumption, I think it was a mistake. --Larry Sanger

--- The problem here is that most English speakers don't know that much about Chinese politics or the China/Taiwan issue which is why they come to an encyclopedia in the first place. I really think that there are serious NPOV problems if you arrange the article China in a way that most Chinese find objectionable even if they are not English speakers.

 * OK, Roadrunner, what about this: My proposal remains the same, but in the header of the article we add a link to a page where the China naming issues is addressed.

The main problem is not pointing China to Taiwan and there isn't really a necesscity to put a disambiguation link to Taiwan from China. The problem is arranging the article so that it takes no position on whether Taiwan is or is not part of China and whether China is or is not synomous with the PRC.

--- User:Roadrunner

What about this.......

 * Point PRC to China
 * Point ROC to its own article which points to Taiwan
 * Include a intro paragraph which reads like it does now and include a explanation of the status of Taiwan with a link to Taiwan.
 * Change the map to indicate Taiwan's disputed status
 * Include the flag of both PRC and Republic of China (which was the flag of all of China before 1949).

--- User:Roadrunner

What about now?

--- User:Roadrunner

Several of us have already gone over this and decided to do exactly what Jeronimo and Fred did. The status issue is important the both nations so a short lead-in paragraph should be in both China and Taiwan and the full text should be in a separate article that is linked from both of the lead-ins. --mav

 * I concur. Jeronimo

 * I don't concur. Roadrunner had one possible solution, but arguably a better solution would be to make China about the civilization of China and all that entails, and then put the articles about the modern political states under their proper names.  Isn't this the obvious solution? --Larry Sanger

 * With the exception of the map and the flag, I'm happy with the way the

article is. The important things here are....

1) The link go from PRC -> China (main article) and not China -> PRC 2) The sublinks be labelled as information about Mainland China and not China.

I think that if I argue at this point, I'll just make things more confusing.

OK, to stop the confusion indeed, I propose the following to solve that: I will make a page at China/Temp (or anybody can do that in fact), where we work out the exact text - we can also apply the WikiProject Countries template at the same time. In that way, there's no trouble with the article while we work this out together. Jeronimo

That sounds fine. One thing to keep in mind here is that there enough landmines here that seemingly subtle things can set people off while things that seem like they would cause screaming fights actually don't.

Fortunately enough formulas and clever wording can be found to keep people from shooting each other or worse yet throwing nukes at each other so wording a wikipedia article should be simple. (You can just imagine the amount of screaming there is in writing history textbooks in Taiwan.)

User:Roadrunner '

To finish my "summary" of the China/Temp edit: attempt at writing of a disclaimer (I think it's too long, but I can't see what to leave out, if anything), apply WikiProject Countries format first step. Jeronimo 23:41 Aug 1, 2002 (PDT)

First, the table you have does not display well in Netscape. Getting the sidebar to the right beging over written on the table. Netscape 4.7 under windows 95.

Second, this paragraph:

The name China is claimed by two countries, the 'People's Republic of China and the Republic of China', better known as Taiwan. The People's Republic claims Taiwan is a separatist province, while Taiwan claims independence and the use of the name China. Since the name "China" in English language almost always refers to the People's Republic, that is the topic of this page. See Taiwan and china (porcelain)? for more information on those topics and One China policy for more information on the issue surrounding the name China.

I don't like it, but hard to say just why. I guess one thing is that China exists seperate from the claims of the governments. The other is that Taiwan does not claim independence. This, in fact, is part of the delicate dance the two governments. engage in; the PRC does not invade Taiwan so long as Taiwan does not declare independence. In the past the Republic of China claimed to be the government of all China. They seem to have dropped that so not sure they could be said to claim the name China.

 * About the displaying of the table - please submit a bug report, although I think it is a bug of Netscape 4.7 (it looks good in NS 6.1).

 * As for the paragraph text: feel free to edit it, or propose new wording, especially if the factual information is incorrect! Jeronimo

 * I've changed the stuff in China/Temp we should discuss it there.

I thought it was agreed that the article would be about the PRC, with a clear header explaining the situation. Although the text I put down may have been wrong, that concept has totally vanished right now. Why? Jeronimo

 * I don't recall agreeing to that. User:Roadrunner

The article on China should be about well .... China.

Exactly! And in English language, that means the PRC. All English language encyclopedias and dictionaries will confirm that. And Wikipedia is also an English language encyclopedia. People that look up China expect the article to be about that country that is officially called PRC. Like I said before, the article about the Netherlands doesn't tell you it is a "historic region" in which the present countries the "Kingdom of the Netherlands" and the "Kingdom of Belgium" are located. Jeronimo

It's a matter of logic, not language. "China" does not necessarily mean PRC, for the obvious reason that when we say things like, "In 7th century A.D., the Tang Dynasty ruled China."

It is absolutely priceless (for non-English speakers, this means "uproariously funny") that the current article bills itself as being about "People's Republic of China" and then in the very next paragraph begins "China was one of the earliest centers of human civilization"--which makes it sound as if the PRC has been around for as long as civilization itself. No, China has been around as long as civilization itself perhaps. If we really wanted to make this article about the PRC, we would begin the history of the PRC at the beginning of the history of the PRC.

I hope it's clear that I'm not at all denying that when we speak about modern China, we mean the PRC. Of course that's right. But this is an encyclopedia. People are coming here for information not just about the modern political divisions of the world.

China has been around for a lot longer than the PRC; the PRC is just one chapter in the history of China, just as the division between Northern Ireland and the Republic is just one chapter in the long history of Ireland. That's why we should make Ireland about Ireland, the whole kit and kaboodle (that means, everything), not just the modern state. --Larry Sanger

Most English speakers have these sorts of expectation not because they know anything about Chinese politics, but because of the way the rest of the world works. Most countries are nice neat pigeon-holed one country is ruled by one government with a short name and a long name.

The problem is that China is a special case because if you try to apply that to the Chinese situation, atom bombs go off and people die. So the way people have prevented a war is to *intentionally* make the situation ambigious. It's maddening for mapmakers and encyclopedia article writers but that's really a small price to pay for preventing world war III.

Because China is a special case where the diplomats have played with the concept of the nation state to prevent a major war, the encyclopedia article should also be a special case.

--- User:Roadrunner

What about an article on Korea? Or a pre-1991 article on Germany? Or a pre-1975 on Vietnam?

There would be lots of people terribly offended if you point an article on Korea only to South Korea.

--- User:Roadrunner

 * Oh come on, are you seriously claiming that encyclopedia articles will set of a World War? Well then, we'd better warn the for a nuclear attack then, since there are 100s of encyclopedias, dictionaries, reference books and maps in dozens of languages that say China = PRC.

The nice thing about Korea is that nobody automatically identifies Korea with North or South, or (formerly) Germany with East or West. However, that IS the case for China. Jeronimo

---

No matter what the situation is in English, if you structure the article in a way that most Chinese find offensive then you have serious NPOV problems.

If you make the identification PRC=China and exclude Taiwan from the PRC, you pretty much everyone in the PRC and about 40% of the people on Taiwan. You make about 40% of the people on Taiwan really happy.

If you make the identification PRC=China and include Taiwan, then you make most people in the PRC happy but you offend pretty much everyone in Taiwan.

The best course of action is what the diplomats do and take no position on whether PRC=China and explain why.

User:Roadrunner

NPOV is not about not offending anybody.

The fact is that most people in the (English speaking) world think that Paris is in France may upset the few inhabitants of Paris, Texas - but that does not mean the article should be about the both. The China situation is - from Wikipedia's name giving point - no different.

If the people of China or Taiwan are offended by one encyclopedia article, well they should be really p*ssed off about those 5,000,000,000 that associate China with the PRC. Jeronimo -- But there is something seriously wrong if an article on China offends most Chinese.

Also, people in Mainland China and Taiwan *ARE* that emotionally attached to this issue, and this issue is a *major* irritant in PRC-United States relations. If the United States Department of State published an official document which identified China with PRC and excluded Taiwan, then we'd be looking at a diplomatic crisis possibly leading to a major nuclear war. That's why the Taiwan entry in the CIA fact book is in a special appendix and not between Syria and Tanzania, and the United States government is very very careful to not officially refer to Taiwan as a nation.

User:Roadrunner

 * If the CIA were so careful about this issue, then WHY is there an entry called "China" which is about the PRC? Taiwan IS separately mentioned in the article as claiming the Spratley Islands, so it is certainly not part of the PRC there... Do I call George, or will you? Jeronimo

 * Because the way the CIA fact book words it, you can

interpret it as PRC=China, Taiwan is part of PRC which makes the PRC happy. You can also interpret it so that it isn't.

That trick probably wouldn't work in Wikipedia because the US is basically ignoring Taiwan in this situation. You PRC very happy, but would tick off everyone in Taiwan, and it wouldn't reflect the fact that the PRC doesn't have administrative control over Taiwan.
 * can* write the article that way which would make the

User:Roadrunner

By the way, I don't have an objection to most of the article on China being about the PRC. What I'm asking for is to phrase the introduction to make it clear that the identification between PRC=China isn't universially accepted. China is a nation and the PRC is a particular government of that nation.

Also, keep in mind that the PRC didn't exist in 1750 while China did.

User:Roadrunner
 * So then, why not accept the previously proposed format, with a short introductory paragraph and the rest about the PRC? There may have been incorrect information in that paragraph I wrote, but you can simply correct that. Jeronimo

 * The main problem was that the paragraph was factually

incorrect and didn't get to the heart of the controversy. See the talk:China/Temp for more details. Once you figure out the heart of the controversy (which is about Taiwan and not really about the PRC), the article can be made much simpler.

What I was proposing was an intro paragraph saying

(China) is (blah, blah, blah). Mainland China is administered by the People's Republic of China. Taiwan is a special case described in a separate article.

(most of the sublinks *aren't* affected by the controversy the only ones that are are those on politics and military. military should point to PLA anyway).

The map and the flag might be problems but they can be dealt with after the text is set.

-- User:Roadrunner

 * Go ahead and rewrite the paragraph, but I'd propose to make it bold or italic, so that the reader can easily separate it from the main article about the PRC, which should normally include the flag and map, since they're maps of the PRC. The map should be replace, btw, but only because this one is partly in Polish language... Jeronimo

The problem I had with the paragraph is that it seems to be overkill. At this point pretty much no one in Taiwan (or anywhere else) challenges the authority of the government of the PRC to rule the Mainland and so that any article on China is going to be about 95% about the PRC. Given that situation it seems to be the simplest thing to make the article 95% about the PRC and then add the 5% controversy over Taiwan in the article rather than having a special paragraph at the beginning.

I don't think that anyone would object if an article about China is 95% about the PRC. The objection is making the article 100% about the PRC and excluding Taiwan.

I'm curious why you find the format

China is a country in East Asia. (blah, blah, blah) The government of Mainland China is currently the People's Republic of China. Taiwan is a special case with its own article.

(and then the rest of the article is going to be 95% about the PRC or pre-PRC China)

to be objectionable. If nothing else it complies with the wikipedia convention of putting the title word in bold. Also on historical grounds it doesn't make sense to make the article focus on the PRC, and then talk about the Tang dynasty.

Part of the problem here is to be clear about what the controversy is. It isn't what it was 15 years ago.

-- User:Roadrunner

I think this quote is right on, "So the way people have prevented a war is to *intentionally* make the situation ambigious." We are not responsible to follow exactly Chinese etiquette but an introduction which leave somethings unsaid (as in the article china is better than one that clarifies and makes manifest the contradictions. Fred Bauder

Like I said before, I prefer the format I entered earlier this day, because that is according to the Wikipedia standards. And I would really press to see that format again. Jeronimo

title: Talk:Chinese civilization/Archive 1


text:
Hidden message

A hidden message is information that is not immediately noticeable, and that must be discovered or uncovered and interpreted before it can be known. Hidden messages include backwards audio messages, hidden visual messages and symbolic or cryptic codes such as a crossword or cipher. Although there are many legitimate examples of hidden messages created with techniques such as backmasking and steganography, many so-called hidden messages are merely fanciful imaginings or apophany.

Description
The information in hidden messages is not immediately noticeable; it must be discovered or uncovered, and interpreted before it can be known. Hidden messages include backwards audio messages, hidden visual messages, and symbolic or cryptic codes such as a crossword or cipher. There are many legitimate examples of hidden messages, though many are imaginings.

Backward audio messages
A backward message in an audio recording is only fully apparent when the recording is played reversed. Some backward messages are produced by deliberate backmasking, while others are simply phonetic reversals resulting from random combinations of words. Backward messages may occur in various mediums, including music, video games, music videos, movies, and television shows.

Backmasking
Backmasking is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backwards onto a track that is meant to be played forwards. It was popularized by The Beatles, who used backward vocals and instrumentation on their 1966 album Revolver. The technique has also been used to censor words or phrases for "clean" releases of songs.

Backmasking has been a controversial topic in the United States since the 1980s, when allegations of its use for Satanic purposes were made against prominent rock musicians, leading to record-burnings and proposed anti-backmasking legislation by state and federal governments. In debate are both the existence of backmasked Satanic messages and their purported ability to subliminally affect listeners.

Phonetic reversal
Certain phrases produce a different phrase when their phonemes are reversed—a process known as phonetic reversal. For example, "Kiss" backwards sounds like "sick", and so the title of Yoko Ono's "Kiss Kiss Kiss" sounds like "Sick Sick Sick" or "Six Six Six" backwards. Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" backwards was claimed that the chorus, when played in reverse, can be heard as "It's fun to smoke marijuana" or "start to smoke marijuana". The Paul is dead phenomenon was started in part because a phonetic reversal of "Number nine" (the words were constantly repeated in Revolution 9) was interpreted as "Turn me on, dead man".

According to proponents of reverse speech, phonetic reversal occurs unknowingly during normal speech.

Visual messages
Hidden messages can be created in visual mediums with techniques such as hidden computer text and steganography.

In the 1980s, Coca-Cola released in South Australia an advertising poster featuring the reintroduced contour bottle, with a speech bubble, "Feel the Curves!!" An image hidden inside one of the ice cubes depicted an oral sex act. Thousands of posters were distributed to hotels and bottle shops in Australia before the mistake was discovered by Coca-Cola management. The artist of the poster was fired and all the posters were recalled. Rival PepsiCo had a similar accusation in 1990 when their promotional Pepsi Cool Cans was accused of having the word "sex" hidden in their design if two of their cans were placed atop each other.

Various other messages have been claimed to exist in Disney movies, some of them risque, such as the well-known allegation of an erection showing on a priest in The Little Mermaid. According to the Snopes website, one image "is clearly true [and] undeniably purposely inserted into the movie": a topless woman in two frames of The Rescuers.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) had an antipathy towards PETCO, a pet food retailer in San Diego, regarding the purported mistreatment of live animals at their stores. When the San Diego Padres baseball team announced that the retailer had purchased naming rights to Petco Park stadium, PETA was unable to persuade the sports team to terminate the agreement. Later, PETA successfully purchased a commemorative display brick with what appears to be a complimentary message: "Break Open Your Cold Ones! Toast The Padres! Enjoy This Championship Organization!" However, if one takes the first letters of each word, the resulting acrostic reads "BOYCOTT PETCO". Neither PETCO nor the Padres have taken any action to remove the brick, stating that if someone walked by, they would not know it had anything to do with the PETA/PETCO feud.

Secretive design language is widely used on web sites as Easter eggs within products as hidden features, such as In-N-Out Burger's secret menu or the new Norwegian passport design for security.

title: Hidden message


text:
The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus

The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is a painting by the Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, begun in 1958 and finished in 1959. It is over 14 feet tall and over 9 feet wide (410 x 284 cm; 161.4 x 111.8 in), one in a series of large paintings Dalí did during this era.

Description
This work is an ambitious homage to Dalí's Spain. It combines Spanish history, religion, art, and myth into a unified whole. It was commissioned for Huntington Hartford for the opening of his Museum Gallery of Modern Art in New York's 2 Columbus Circle. At this time, some Catalan historians were claiming that Columbus was actually from Catalonia, not Italy, making the discovery all the more relevant for Dalí, who was also from this region of Spain.

The eponymous painting deals with Christopher Columbus's first landing in the New World. It depicts the event metaphorically rather than aiming for historical accuracy. Columbus is depicted not as a middle-aged mariner, but as an adolescent boy in a classical robe to symbolize America as a young continent with its best years ahead of it.

Dalí, in a period of intense interest in Roman Catholic mysticism at the time, symbolically portrayed Columbus bringing Christianity and the true church to a new world as a great and holy accomplishment.

Gala Dalí, the painter's wife, whom he often depicted as the Virgin Mary, poses for the role of The Blessed Virgin (or according to some commentators Saint Helena) on the banner in the right hand of Columbus. She appears as a Saint, suggesting that she is Dalí's muse and that she is responsible for his own, "Discovery of America".

Dalí painted himself in the background as a kneeling monk holding a crucifix. Dalí's belief that Columbus was Catalan is represented by the incorporation of the old Catalan flag.

The painting contains numerous references to the works of Diego Velázquez (specifically The Surrender of Breda), a Spanish painter who had died 300 years earlier, and who influenced both Dalí's painting and his moustache. Dalí borrows the spears from that painting and places them on the right hand side of his work. Within these spears, Dalí has painted the image of a crucified Christ, which was based on a drawing by the Spanish mystic, St. John.

In the bottom center of the painting, on the beach a few steps in front of Columbus, is the bumpy and pockmarked brown sphere of a sea urchin with a curious halo-like ring around it.

Current status
The painting now hangs in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida which provides a permanent home for the collection of A. Reynolds Morse & Eleanor R. Morse.


text:
Tick

Ticks are parasitic arachnids of the order Ixodida. They are part of the mite superorder Parasitiformes. Adult ticks are approximately 3 to 5 mm in length depending on age, sex, species, and "fullness". Ticks are external parasites, living by feeding on the blood of mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians. The timing of the origin of ticks is uncertain, though the oldest known tick fossils are from the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years old. Ticks are widely distributed around the world, especially in warm, humid climates.

Ticks belong to two major families, the Ixodidae or hard ticks, and the Argasidae, or soft ticks. Nuttalliella, a genus of tick from southern Africa, is the only member of the family Nuttalliellidae, and represents the most primitive living lineage of ticks. Adults have ovoid/pear-shaped bodies (idiosomas) which become engorged with blood when they feed, and eight legs. Their cephalothorax and abdomen are completely fused. In addition to having a hard shield on their dorsal surfaces, known as the scutum, hard ticks have a beak-like structure at the front containing the mouthparts, whereas soft ticks have their mouthparts on the underside of their bodies. Ticks locate potential hosts by sensing odor, body heat, moisture, and/or vibrations in the environment.

Ticks have four stages to their life cycle, namely egg, larva, nymph, and adult. Ticks belonging to the Ixodidae family undergo either a one-host, two-host, or three-host life cycle. Argasid ticks have up to seven nymphal stages (instars), each one requiring blood ingestion, and as such, Argasid ticks undergo a multihost life cycle. Because of their hematophagous (blood-ingesting) diets, ticks act as vectors of many serious diseases that affect humans and other animals.

Taxonomy and phylogeny

Ticks belong to the Parasitiformes, a distinctive group of mites that are separate from the main group of mites, the Acariformes. Whether the two groups are more closely related to each other than to other arachnids is uncertain, and studies often recover them as not closely related. Within the Parasitiformes, ticks are most closely related to the Holothyrida, a small group of free living scavengers with 32 described species confined to the landmasses that formed the supercontinent Gondwana.

Relationships among members of the Parasitiformes, after Klompen, 2010:

Fossilized ticks have been discovered from the end of the Early Cretaceous onwards, most commonly in amber. The oldest discovered tick fossils are an argasid bird tick from Late Cretaceous (Turonian ~94-90 million years ago) aged New Jersey amber, and various ticks found in Burmese amber, including Khimaira and Deinocroton, which do not belong to any living family of tick, and members of the living ixodid genera Amblyomma, Ixodes, Haemaphysalis, Bothriocroton and Archaeocroton dating the earliest Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, around. An undescribed juvenile tick is known from late Albian amber, dating to 105 million years ago. The younger Baltic and Dominican ambers have also yielded examples that can be placed in living genera. A phylogenetic analysis suggests that the last common ancestor of all living ticks likely lived around 195 million years ago in the Southern Hemisphere, in what was then Gondwana.

Ticks belong to three different families. The majority of tick species belong to the two families: Ixodidae (hard ticks) and Argasidae (soft ticks). The third living family is Nuttalliellidae, named for the bacteriologist George Nuttall. It comprises a single species, Nuttalliella namaqua, and as such is a monotypic taxon. Nuttalliella namaqua is found in southern Africa ranging from Tanzania to Namibia and South Africa.

Relationships of living and extinct tick families, after Chitimia-Dobler et al. 2022: The Ixodidae contain over 700 species of hard ticks with a scutum or hard shield, which the Argasidae lack. The Argasidae contain about 200 species; the genera accepted are Antricola, Argas, Nothoaspis, Ornithodoros, and Otobius. They have no scutum, and the capitulum (mouth and feeding parts) is concealed beneath the body. The phylogeny of the Ixodida within the Acari is shown in the cladogram, based on a 2014 maximum parsimony study of amino acid sequences of 12 mitochondrial proteins. The Argasidae appear monophyletic in this study.

Anatomy and physiology

Ticks, like mites, belong to the subclass Acari that lack their primary somatic segmentation of the abdomen (or opisthosoma), rather these parasitic arachnids present a subsequent fusion of the abdomen with the cephalothorax (or prosoma). The tagmata typical of other Chelicerata have developed into the gnathosoma (head), which is retractable and contains the mouthparts, and idiosoma (body), which contains the legs, digestive tract, and reproductive organs. The gnathosoma is a feeding structure with mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood; it is the front of the head and contains neither the brain nor the eyes. Features of the gnathosoma include two palps, two chelicerae, and hypostome. The hypostome acts as stabilizer and helps to anchor the tick's mouthparts to the host. The chelicerae are specialized appendages used for cutting and piercing into the host's skin while palps are leglike appendages that are sensory in function.

The ventral side of the idiosoma bears sclerites, and the gonopore is located between the fourth pair of legs. In the absence of segmentation, the positioning of the eyes, limbs, and gonopore on the idiosoma provide the only locational guidance.

Larval ticks hatch with six legs, acquiring the other two after a blood meal and molting into the nymph stage. In the nymphal and adult stages, ticks have eight legs, each of which has seven segments and is tipped with a pair of claws. The legs are sometimes ornamented and usually bear sensory or tactile hairs. In addition to being used for locomotion, the tarsus of leg I contains a unique sensory structure, Haller's organ, which can detect odors and chemicals emanating from the host, as well as sensing changes in temperature and air currents. Ticks can also use Haller's organs to perceive infrared light emanating from a host. When stationary, their legs remain tightly folded against the body.

Ticks are extremely resilient animals. They can survive in a near vacuum for as long as half an hour. Their slow metabolism during their dormant periods enables them to go prolonged durations between meals. Even after 18 weeks of starvation, they can endure repeated two-day bouts of dehydration followed by rehydration, but their survivability against dehydration drops rapidly after 36 weeks of starvation. To keep from dehydrating, ticks hide in humid spots on the forest floor or absorb water from subsaturated air by secreting hygroscopic fluid produced by the salivary glands onto the external mouthparts and then reingesting the water-enriched fluid.

Ticks can withstand temperatures just above 0 °F for more than two hours and can survive temperatures between 20 and 29 F for at least two weeks. Ticks have even been found in Antarctica, where they feed on penguins.

Most ticks are plain brown or reddish brown. However, the scuta of some species are decorated with white patterns.

Ixodidae
In nymphs and adults, the capitulum is prominent and projects forwards from the body. The eyes are close to the sides of the scutum and the large spiracles are located just behind the coxae of the fourth pair of legs. The hard protective scutellum, a characteristic of this family, covers nearly the whole dorsal surface in males, but is restricted to a small, shield-like structure behind the capitulum in females and nymphs. When an ixodid attaches to a host the bite is typically painless and generally goes unnoticed. They remain in place until they engorge and are ready to molt; this process may take days or weeks. Some species drop off the host to molt in a safe place, whereas others remain on the same host and only drop off once they are ready to lay their eggs.

Argasidae
The body of a soft tick is pear-shaped or oval with a rounded anterior portion. The mouthparts cannot be seen from above, as they are on the ventral surface. A centrally positioned dorsal plate with ridges projecting slightly above the surrounding surface, but with no decoration are often present. Soft ticks possess a leathery cuticle as well. A pattern of small, circular depressions expose where muscles are attached to the interior of the integument. The eyes are on the sides of the body, the spiracles open between legs 3 and 4, and males and females only differ in the structure of the genital pore.

Nuttalliellidae
Nuttalliellidae can be distinguished from both ixodid and argasid ticks by a combination of a projecting gnathosoma and a soft leathery skin. Other distinguishing characteristics include the position of the stigmata, the lack of setae, the strongly corrugated integument, and the form of the fenestrated plates.

Diet and feeding

Ticks are ectoparasites and consume blood to satisfy all of their nutritional requirements. They are obligate hematophages, and require blood to survive and move from one stage of life to another. Ticks can fast for long periods of time, but eventually die if unable to find a host. Hematophagy evolved independently at least six times in arthropods living during the late Cretaceous; in ticks it is thought to have evolved 120 million years ago through adaptation to blood-feeding. This behavior evolved independently within the separate tick families as well, with differing host-tick interactions driving the evolutionary change. Some ticks attach to their host rapidly, while others wander around searching for thinner skin, such as that in the ears of mammals. Depending on the species and life stage, preparing to feed can take from ten minutes to two hours. On locating a suitable feeding spot, the tick grasps the host's skin and cuts into the surface. It extracts blood by cutting a hole in the host's epidermis, into which it inserts its hypostome and prevents the blood from clotting by excreting an anticoagulant or platelet aggregation inhibitor.

Ticks find their hosts by detecting an animals' breath and body odors, sensing body heat, moisture, or vibrations. A common misconception about ticks is they jump onto their host; however, they are incapable of jumping, although static electricity from their hosts has been shown to be capable of pulling the tick over distances several times their own body length. Many tick species, particularly Ixodidae, lie in wait in a position known as "questing". While questing, ticks cling to leaves and grasses by their third and fourth pairs of legs. They hold the first pair of legs outstretched, waiting to grasp and climb on to any passing host. Tick questing heights tend to be correlated with the size of the desired host; nymphs and small species tend to quest close to the ground, where they may encounter small mammalian or bird hosts; adults climb higher into the vegetation, where larger hosts may be encountered. Some species are hunters and lurk near places where hosts may rest. Upon receiving an olfactory stimulus or other environmental indication, they crawl or run across the intervening surface.

Other ticks, mainly the Argasidae, are nidicolous, finding hosts in their nests, burrows, or caves. They use the same stimuli as non-nidicolous species to identify hosts, with body heat and odors often being the main factors. Many of them feed primarily on birds, though some Ornithodoros species, for example, feed on small mammals. Both groups of soft tick feed rapidly, typically biting painfully and drinking their fill within minutes. Unlike the Ixodidae that have no fixed dwelling place except on the host, they live in sand, in crevices near animal dens or nests, or in human dwellings, where they come out nightly to attack roosting birds or emerge when they detect carbon dioxide in the breath of their hosts.

Ixodidae remain in place until they are completely engorged. Their weight may increase by 200 to 600 times compared to their prefeeding weight. To accommodate this expansion, cell division takes place to facilitate enlargement of the cuticle. In the Argasidae, the tick's cuticle stretches to accommodate the fluid ingested, but does not grow new cells, with the weight of the tick increasing five- to tenfold over the unfed state. The tick then drops off the host and typically remains in the nest or burrow until its host returns to provide its next meal.

Tick saliva contains about 1,500 to 3,000 proteins, depending on the tick species. The proteins with anti-inflammatory properties, called evasins, allow ticks to feed for eight to ten days without being perceived by the host animal. Researchers are studying these evasins with the goal of developing drugs to neutralise the chemokines that cause myocarditis, heart attack, and stroke. Ticks do not use any other food source than vertebrate blood and therefore ingest high levels of protein, iron and salt, but few carbohydrates, lipids or vitamins. Ticks’ genomes have evolved large repertoires of genes related to this nutritional challenge, but they themselves cannot synthesize the essential vitamins that are lacking in blood meal. To overcome these nutritional deficiencies, ticks have evolved obligate interactions with nutritional endosymbionts. The first appearance of ticks and their later diversification were largely conditioned by this nutritional endosymbiosis lasting for millions of years. The most common of these nutritional endosymbionts belong to the Coxiella and Francisella bacterial genera. These intracellular symbiotic microorganisms are specifically associated with ticks and use transovarial transmission to ensure their persistence. Although Coxiella and Francisella endosymbionts are distantly related bacteria, they have converged towards an analogous B vitamin-based nutritional mutualism with ticks. Their experimental elimination typically results in decreased tick survival, molting, fecundity and egg viability, as well as in physical abnormalities, which all are fully restored with an oral supplement of B vitamins. The genome sequencing of Coxiella and Francisella endosymbionts confirmed that they consistently produce three B vitamin types, biotin (vitamin B7), riboflavin (B2) and folate (B9). As they are required for tick life cycle, these obligate endosymbionts are present in all individuals of the tick species they infect, at least at early stages of development since they may be secondarily lost in males during nymphal development. Since Coxiella and Francisella endosymbionts are closely related to pathogens, there is a substantial risk of misidentification between endosymbionts and pathogens, leading to an overestimation of infection risks associated with ticks.

Range and habitat
Tick species are widely distributed around the world. They tend to flourish more in warm, humid climates, because they require a certain amount of moisture in the air to undergo metamorphosis, and low temperatures inhibit their development of eggs to larvae. The occurrence of ticks and tick-borne illnesses in humans is increasing. Tick populations are spreading into new areas, due in part to the warming temperatures of climate change.

Tick parasitism is widely distributed among host taxa, including marsupial and placental mammals, birds, reptiles (snakes, iguanas, and lizards), and amphibians. Ticks of domestic animals cause considerable harm to livestock through pathogenic transmission, causing anemia through blood loss, and damaging wool and hides. The Tropical Bont tick wreaks havoc on livestock and wildlife in Africa, the Caribbean, and several other countries through the spread of disease, specifically heartwater disease. The spinose ear tick has a worldwide distribution, the young feed inside the ears of cattle and various wildlife.

A habitat preferred by ticks is the interface where a lawn meets the forest, or more generally, the ecotone, which is unmaintained transitional edge habitat between woodlands and open areas. Therefore, one tick management strategy is to remove leaf litter, brush, and weeds at the edge of the woods. Ticks like shady, moist leaf litter with an overstory of trees or shrubs and, in the spring, they deposit their eggs into such places allowing larvae to emerge in the fall and crawl into low-lying vegetation. The 3 meter boundary closest to the lawn's edge are a tick migration zone, where 82% of tick nymphs in lawns are found.

Ecology
In general, ticks are found wherever their host species occur. Migrating birds carry ticks with them on through their migrations; a study of migratory birds passing through Egypt discovered more than half the bird species examined were carrying ticks. It was also observed the tick species varied depending on the season of migration, in this study it is spring and autumn migrations, this is thought to occur due to the seasonal periodicities of the different species.

For an ecosystem to support ticks, it must satisfy two requirements; the population density of host species in the area must be great enough and it must be humid enough for ticks to remain hydrated. Due to their role in transmitting Lyme disease, Ixodid ticks, particularly the North American I. scapularis, have been studied using geographic information systems to develop predictive models for ideal tick habitats. According to these studies, certain features of a given microclimate – such as sandy soil, hardwood trees, rivers, and the presence of deer – were determined to be good predictors of dense tick populations.

Mites and nematodes feed on ticks, which are also a minor nutritional resource for birds. More importantly, ticks act as a disease vector and behave as the primary hosts of many different pathogens such as spirochaetes. Ticks carry various debilitating diseases therefore, ticks may assist in controlling animal populations and preventing overgrazing.

Ticks can transmit an array of infectious diseases that affect humans and other animals. Ticks that carry zoonotic pathogens often tend to have a wide host range. The infective agents can be present not only in the adult tick, but also in the eggs produced plentifully by the females. Many tick species have extended their ranges as a result of the movements of people, domesticated pets, and livestock. With increasing participation in outdoor activities such as wilderness hikes, more people and their dogs may find themselves exposed to ticks.

Life cycle
All three tick families ticks have four life cycle stages: egg, larva, nymph, and adult.

Ixodidae
Ixodidae ticks have three different life cycles. Depending on the species, Ixodids can either possess a one-host life cycle, two-host life cycle, or three-host life cycle.

One-host ticks
In one-host ticks the tick remains on the host through the larval, nymphal, and adult stages, only to leave the host to lay eggs. Eggs laid in the environment hatch into larvae, which immediately seek out a host in which to attach and feed. Fed larvae molt into unfed nymphs that remain on the host. After engorging on the host's blood, the nymphs molt into sexually mature adults that remain on the host in order to feed and mate. Once a female is both fed and ready to lay eggs, only then does she leave the host in search of a suitable area to deposit her eggs. Ticks that follow this life cycle are called one-host ticks. The winter tick Dermacentor albipictus and the cattle tick Boophilus microplus are examples of one-host ticks.

Two-host ticks
The life cycle of a two-host tick often spans two years. During fall the pregnant female tick will drop off her second host and lay her eggs. The eggs hatch during winter, the following spring the larvae emerge and attach to their first host. Newly hatched larvae attach to a host in order to obtain a blood meal. They remain on the host then develop into nymphs. Once engorged, they drop off the host and find a safe area in the natural environment in which to molt into adults, this typically occurs during the winter. Both male and female adults seek out a host on which to attach, which may be the same body that served as host during their early development but is often a larger mammal. Once attached, they feed and mate. Gravid females drop from the host to oviposit in the environment. Ticks that complete their life cycle in this manner are called two-host ticks, like Hyalomma anatolicum excavatum.

Three-host ticks
Most ixodid ticks require three hosts, and their life cycles typically span three years. The female tick drops off its host, often in the fall, and lays thousands of eggs. The larvae hatch in the winter and emerge in the spring. When the larvae emerge, they attach and feed primarily on small mammals and birds. During the summer the larvae become engorged and drop off the first host to molt and become nymphs, this often occurs during the fall. The following spring the nymphs emerge and seek out another host, often a small rodent. The nymphs become engorged and drop off the host in the fall to molt and become adults. The following spring the adult ticks emerge and seek out a larger host, often a large mammal such as cattle or even humans. Females will mate on their third host. Female adults then engorge on blood and prepare to drop off to lay her eggs on the ground, while males feed very little and remain on the host in order to continue mating with other females.

Argasidae
Argasid ticks, unlike ixodid ticks, may go through up to seven nymphal stages (instars), requiring a meal of blood each time. Often, egg laying and mating occurs detached from the host in a safe environment. The eggs hatch and the larvae feed on a nearby host for anywhere from a few hours to several days, this depends on the species of tick. After they feed the larvae drop and molt into their first nymphal instars, then the nymph seeks out and feeds on its second host, often this is the same as the first host, within an hour. This process occurs repeatedly and until the last nymphal instar occurs, thus allowing the tick to molt into an adult. Once an adult these ticks feed rapidly and periodically their entire life cycle. In some species an adult female may lay eggs after each feeding. Their life cycles range from months to years. The adult female argasid tick can lay a few hundred to over a thousand eggs over the course of her lifetime. Both male and female adults feed on blood, and they mate off the host. During feeding, any excess fluid is excreted by the coxal glands, a process that is unique to argasid ticks.

Nuttalliellidae
Nuttalliellidae is an elusive monotypic family of tick, that is, possesses a single species, Nuttalliella namaqua. There is little to nothing known about the life cycle and feeding habits of N. namaqua but it is speculated this species of tick has multiple different hosts.

Tick-borne disease

Ticks can transmit many kinds of pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses, and protozoa, that infect ticks’ hosts. A tick can harbor more than one type of pathogen, making diagnosis more difficult. Species of the bacterial genus Rickettsia are responsible for typhus, rickettsialpox, boutonneuse fever, African tick bite fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Flinders Island spotted fever, and Queensland tick typhus (Australian tick typhus). Other tick-borne diseases include Lyme disease and Q fever, Colorado tick fever, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, tularemia, tick-borne relapsing fever, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Bourbon virus, and tick-borne meningoencephalitis, as well as bovine anaplasmosis and the Heartland virus. In the United States, Lyme disease is the most commonly reported vector-borne disease in the country.

Some species, notably the Australian paralysis tick, are also intrinsically venomous and can cause tick paralysis. Eggs can become infected with pathogens inside a female tick's ovaries, in which case the larval ticks are infectious immediately at hatching, before feeding on their first host. Tropical bont ticks transmit the heartwater, which can be particularly devastating in cattle. The ticks carried by migratory birds act as reservoirs and vectors of foreign infectious diseases. In the Egyptian migratory bird study, over 20 strains of pathogenic viruses were detected within the tick sample from autumn.

Not all ticks in an infective area are infected with transmittable pathogens, and both attachment of the tick and a long feeding session are necessary for diseases to be transmitted. Consequently, tick bites often do not lead to infection, especially if the ticks are removed within 36 hours. Adult ticks can be removed with fine-tipped tweezers or proprietary tick removal tools, before then disinfecting the wound. In Australia and New Zealand, where tick-borne infections are less common than tick reactions, the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy recommends seeking medical assistance or killing ticks in-situ by freezing and then leaving them to fall out to prevent allergic/anaphylactic reactions. Professor Sheryl van Nunen, whose research in 2007 identified tick-induced mammalian meat allergy, famously said "tweezers are tick squeezers", referring to the tick toxins squeezed into people attempting to remove ticks with tweezers. Ticks can be disposed of by flushing them down the toilet, placing them in a container of soapy water or alcohol, or sticking them to tape that can then be folded over and thrown away.

Bifenthrin and permethrin, both pyrethroids, are sometimes used as tick-control measures, although they have the disadvantage of being carcinogenic and able to attack the nervous systems of other species besides ticks. Those who walk through tick-infested areas can make it harder for ticks to latch onto them by tucking their trousers into boots made of smooth rubber, which ticks have trouble climbing.

Research since 2008 has documented red-meat allergies (mammalian meat allergy and Alpha-gal allergy) in the U.S. due to lone star tick bites. The range of the problem has been expanding with the range of the tick. Other species of ticks are known for being responsible for meat allergies in other countries, including Sweden, Germany, and Australia.

Many tick-transmitted viruses, such as Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Kyasanur Forest disease virus, Alkhumra hemorrhagic fever virus, and Omsk hemorrhagic fever virus, are classified as dangerous enough to require biosafety level 4 precautions in laboratory environments. This includes five levels of containment, viz., storage vials within humidified desiccators, within environmental chambers, within a tick suite, within a BSL4 laboratory. Precautions such as glove boxes, sticky pads, Vaseline barriers, safety suits, gloves, sticky tape, silicone vacuum grease, sticky trap paste, and micro mesh are used to safely contain ticks and prevent them from escaping.

Population control measures

With the possible exception of widespread DDT use in the Soviet Union, attempts to limit the population or distribution of disease-causing ticks have been quite unsuccessful. The parasitoid encyrtid wasp Ixodiphagus hookeri has been investigated for its potential to control tick populations. It lays its eggs into ticks; the hatching wasps kill their hosts.

Predators and competitors of tick hosts can indirectly reduce the density of infected nymphs, thereby lowering tick-borne disease risk by lowering the density and/or tick burden of reservoir-competent hosts. A study in the Netherlands found that the number of larval ticks on bank voles and wood mice was lower at sites with significant red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and stone marten (Martes foina) activity.

This supports the results of a study from the northeastern United States, in which the incidence of Lyme borreliosis was negatively correlated with the density of red fox, possibly because foxes decrease the density of white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), the most important reservoir-competent host for Borrelia burgdorferi.

Another natural form of control for ticks is the helmeted guineafowl, a bird species that consumes mass quantities of ticks. Opossums groom themselves, swallowing many ticks; they are net destroyers of ticks, killing around ninety percent of the ticks that attempt to feed on them. More generally, high animal diversity has a strongly protective effect against tick-borne disease.

Topical tick medicines may be toxic to animals and humans. The synthetic pyrethroid insecticide phenothrin in combination with the hormone analogue methoprene was a popular topical flea and tick therapy for felines. Phenothrin kills adult ticks, while methoprene kills eggs. Some products were withdrawn, and others are known to cause adverse reactions.

title: Tick