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Spa, Belgium

Spa (Spå) is a city and municipality of Wallonia in the province of Liège, Belgium, whose name became an eponym for mineral baths with supposed curative properties. It is in a valley in the Ardennes mountains 35 km south-east of Liège and 45 km south-west of Aachen. In 2006, Spa had a population of 10,543 and an area of 39.85 km², giving a population density of 265 PD/km2.

Spa is one of Belgium's most popular tourist destinations, being renowned for its natural mineral springs, and production of "Spa" mineral water, which is exported worldwide. The motor-racing Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, just south of the nearby village of Francorchamps, also hosts the annual Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and various endurance races such as the 24 Hours of Spa. The world's first beauty pageant, the Concours de Beauté, was held in Spa on 19 September 1888. The town also hosted the Tour de France on 5 July 2010, when stage 2 of the race ended there.

In 2021, Spa became part of the transnational UNESCO World Heritage Site the Great Spa Towns of Europe, for its famous mineral springs and architectural testimony to the rise of European bathing culture in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Toponymy
Among the various hypotheses put forward as to the etymological origin of the name Spa is that of "gushing spring", from the Latin sparsa meaning "scattered" and "gushing", past participle of spargere ("scatter", "sprinkle" or "moisten"). Another connects the word to the meaning of "free space", from the Walloon spâ and from the Latin spatia, plural of spatium.

The place has been known since Roman times, when the location was called Aquae Spadanae. For this reason, the city's name is sometimes presented as the acronym of various Latin phrases, such as salus per aquam or sanitas per aquam, meaning "health through water"; it is in reality a backronym, an a posteriori fabrication of a fictitious acronym.

The term Spa has since become eponymous with any place having a natural water source that is believed to possess special health-giving properties, known as a spa.

Pre-20th century

As the site of cold springs with alleged healing properties, Spa has been frequented as a "water-taking" place since classical antiquity. Pliny the Elder (died 79 CE) noted, "There is a famous spring in Tungri, a state of Gaul, whose water, sparkling with bubbles, has a ferruginous taste that is only noticeable when the drink is finished. This water purges the body, cures third-grade fevers and dispels calculous affections. The same water, put on the fire, becomes cloudy and eventually turns red." (C lib. XXXI VIII)

The spa town grew in the Middle Ages, in the oldest iron and steel centre of Liège Province. The ban Spa was created around 1335 and included two urban concentrations: vilhe of Creppe and vilhe Spas, 2 km away. Prior to the exploitation of mineral water, the steel industry developed communication lines, which made it possible to develop the spa town.

As early as 1547, Agustino, physician to the King of England, Henry VIII, stayed in Spa and helped give knowledge to the world of the value of the Spa water. In 1559, Gilbert Lymborh wrote of "acid fountains of the Ardennes forest and primarily those located in Spa". It was translated into Latin, Italian and Spanish. In July 1565, the gentry of the provinces met in Spa under the pretext of taking the waters. At the hotel "Aux Armes d’Angleterre", those present agreed to oppose the edicts of Philip II as austere and intolerant; this led to the historic 1566 "Compromise of Nobles". In 1654, the stay of the exiled pretender to the English throne, Prince Charles, brought even greater fame to Spa. From 1699, a postal system was set up between Spa and the outside world.

Since the 18th century, casinos have been located in Spa. The town continued to grow as a fashionable resort in the 19th century, and was extended during the reign of King Leopold II. Buildings such as the Thermal Baths (1868), the Pouhon Peter the Great (1880), and the Leopold II Gallery (1880) date from this period.

20th century

During World War I, Spa operated as an important German convalescent hospital town between 1914 and 1917. In 1918, the German Army established its principal headquarters in Spa, and from there the delegates set out for the French lines to meet Marshal Foch and to sue for peace in the consultations leading up to the Armistice that ended the First World War. The general headquarters of Kaiser Wilhelm II were, in 1918, the last place where he resided before his abdication due to the German surrender. In July 1920, the town hosted the Spa Conference, a meeting of the Supreme Council, which dealt with the war reparations owed by the defeated Reich to the Allies.

The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps was established in 1921, in the vicinity of Spa. Despite its name, the racetrack has never been located within Spa: it is instead in the nearby town of Stavelot.

World War II saw Spa reoccupied by the Germans, but the town escaped the Battle of the Bulge in 1945 that stopped, luckily for Spa, right at its gates. The Marshall Plan helped Belgium to recover quickly. In the 1950s and 1960s, mass tourism gradually developed, diminishing Spa's reliance on the elite as customers. These were decades of social tourism as well, with an increasingly large number of Flemish and Dutch customers, while the Walloons went en masse to the Belgian coast in Flanders. Relaxation tourism replaced the thermal aspect of Spa.

The 1980s and 1990s heralded the start of a renewal of the infrastructure and influence of Spa. On 17 May 1983, to mark the 400th anniversary of the export of Spa waters, HM King Baudouin visited the new facilities of the Spa Monopole SA, the Henrijean Hydrology Institute and the Thermal Establishment. In 1994, a new French song festival started: Les Francofolies de Spa. In 1997, the area of Spa-Bérinzenne opened the Regional Center for Initiation to the Environment, one of whose specialties is water.

21st century

The old Thermal Baths were closed in 2004. In 2005, a new thermal center, Thermoludism, opened on the Annette and Lubin hill with panoramic views of the city. It is directly linked by funicular to the heart of the city and a new luxury hotel.

In 2007, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit completely renewed its infrastructure to comply with the best international standards, allowing it to continue to host the annual Belgian Formula One Grand Prix 1, in addition to many other annual sporting events.

Geography and geology

Spa is located on the borders of the Ardennes massif, at the gateway to the High Fens in the Wayai valley. The city center is surrounded by three wooded hills including Annette and Lubin to the north. The town borders the rural municipalities of Theux, Jalhay, Stavelot and Stoumont in the district of Verviers in the province of Liège. The municipal area is 39.89 km; including 7.9 km of built and related land, 5.6 km of agricultural land and 23.6 km of forests and wooded land.

Many of the famous mineral springs in Spa are located on a hillside south of the town. In total, there are more than 300 cold mineral springs in Spa and its surroundings, classified into two types: light mineral waters and natural sparkling waters (called 'pouhons' locally). The light mineral waters come from recent rainfall on the Malchamps Moor, roughly 4 km south-west of the town and are filtered through layers of peat, quartz, and phyllite. In contrast, the pouhon waters come from rainfall that may be decades old, having percolated through calcareous rocks hundreds of meters underground.

Climate
Spa has an oceanic climate that is made more continental by its higher elevation and inland position compared to other Belgian climates at lower level or closer to the sea. Spa has a relatively high precipitation year-round, with tricky weather something that the Spa-Francorchamps race track is known for. The elevation also results in cooler summers and frequent winter frost along with snowfall. Spa is quite gloomy, although averaging both a drier and sunnier climate than nearby locations Stavelot and Malmedy that are also surrounding the race track.

Transport
Spa has two railway stations: Spa and Spa-Géronstère, where local trains of SNCB/NMBS link the city with Theux, Verviers and Aachen. The railway line used to extend further south towards Trois-Ponts, Vielsalm and Luxembourg. Local and regional bus services in Spa are provided by the Walloon transport company TEC. Spa is located on the crosspoint of national roads N62, N629 and N686. The nearest motorway is the A27 (E42), where a junction for Spa is located in the commune of Jalhay.

Heraldry

The coat of arms for Spa is a stylized pouhon housed in a neoclassical monument to the covering surrounded by a protective wall opened its facade. The monument is topped by a blue banner bearing the "Spa-Pouhon" inscriptions. "Argent masonry money pouhon of sand topped with gold-SPA Pouhon inscriptions on a blue background." The city colours are yellow and blue. The stylized pouhon is inspired by the monument that housed the Pouhon Peter the Great until 1820.

Under the Ancien Régime, the shield was commonly used in spa towns. It was customary for the spa guests to leave their arms at the hotel where he had stayed in recognition of the benefits of the waters. At Spa, many hotels have inscriptions like "In the Arms of England", "the Duke of Orleans," "To the King of Poland", etc.

Notable residents

 * Georges Krins, a violinist on the RMS Titanic.
 * Giacomo Meyerbeer, composer, completed his opera here Robert le diable in 1830.

References in popular culture
The 1975 film Barry Lyndon is partly set in Spa during the eighteenth century.

The 1975 film Belle is wholly set in contemporary Spa and its environs.

Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot was born in Spa.

Twin towns – sister cities
Spa is twinned with:

 * 🇫🇷 La Garde, Var, France
 * 🇫🇷 Cabourg, France
 * 🇫🇷 Eguisheim, France
 * 🇮🇹 Gabicce Mare, Italy
 * 🇩🇪 Bad Homburg, Germany
 * 🇱🇺 Bad Mondorf, Luxembourg
 * Jūrmala, Latvia
 * 🇩🇪 Hinterzarten, Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Bad Tölz, Germany
 * 🇮🇹 Terracina, Italy
 * Chur, Switzerland

title: Spa, Belgium


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Stavelot

Stavelot (Stablo ; Ståvleu) is a town and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Francorchamps and Stavelot.

It is best known as the home of Spa-Francorchamps Circuit and the Laetare de Stavelot carnival.

Population
In 2006, Stavelot had a population of 6,671 and an area of 85.07 sqkm, giving a population density of 78 PD/sqkm.

History
The town grew up around the Abbey of Stavelot, founded ca 650, out of what had been a villa, by Saint Remaclus (Saint Remacle). The villa's lands occupied the borderland between the bishoprics of Cologne and Tongeren. The Abbey of Stavelot was secularized and demolished at the time of the French Revolution: of the church just the west end doorway remains, as a free-standing tower. Two cloisters — one secular, one for the monks — survive as the courtyards of the brick-and-stone 17th-century domestic ranges, now housing the Museum of the Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy, and museums devoted to the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who was a long-term resident, and to the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The foundations of the abbey church are presented as a footprint, with walls and column bases that enable the visitor to visualize the scale of the Romanesque abbey.

Abbot Wibald (ruled 1130–58) was one of the greatest patrons of the arts in the 12th century; the Stavelot Triptych of gilded copper and enamels, which contained two fragments of the True Cross, was produced for the Abbey during his rule (about 1156). The binding of the Stavelot Bible, and the remaining fragments from the retable (altar screen) at Stavelot are also high points of medieval art.

In the 16th century, the monk Jean Delvaux claimed to have seen witches and demonic rituals, as he accused several other church officials of engaging in these rituals.

Stavelot was the seat of the Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy, a small independent region of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the abbots of Stavelot. The principality was dissolved in 1795 during the French Revolution. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Stavelot was added to the Kingdom of the Netherlands while Malmedy was added to the Prussian Rhineland. In 1830 it became part of Belgium. (Malmedy would also become a part of Belgium, but not until 1919.)

The town's coat of arms, granted in 1819, is parted fesswise between Stavelot's founding bishop, and the wolf which in Stavelot's founding legend carried bricks for the building of the Abbey.

During the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, the city was the scene of severe fighting. From December 18–20, 1944, soldiers belonging to Sixth Panzer Army's Kampfgruppe Peiper armored battle group murdered more than 100 civilians, including women and children, as well as American prisoners of war, in Stavelot and the surrounding area. Peiper and some of his officers were after the war tried and convicted for this war crime along with others perpetrated during the same period.

Attractions
Stavelot is home to the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, the famous venue of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and the Spa 24 Hours endurance race.

Stavelot also has a traditional carnival, the Laetare des Blancs-Moussis. On Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent, some 200 local men clad in white and masked with long red noses — the Blancs-Moussis — parade through town throwing confetti and beating bystanders with dried pig bladders.

Climate
Stavelot has an oceanic climate influenced by its high elevation and inland position towards a more continental type by Belgian standards. Being located at a lower elevation than neighbouring village Malmedy at the other end of the original layout of the Spa-Francorchamps race track, Stavelot is slightly milder, drier and sunnier than Malmedy year round.

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

title: Stavelot


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Stoumont

Stoumont is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Stoumont had a total population of 3,006. The total area is 108.45 km2 which gives a population density of 28 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Chevron, La Gleize, Lorcé, Rahier, and Stoumont.

title: Stoumont


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Theux

Theux (Teu) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 11,571 inhabitants. The total area is 83.36 km2, giving a population density of 139 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: La Reid, Polleur, and Theux (including the hamlet of Tancrémont).

History
In World War II, the 75th Division of the U.S. Army, 575th Signal Co., maintained its command post in the town from January 10–12, 1945, as it counterattacked against the German army in the Battle of the Bulge.

Notable buildings

 * Franchimont Castle is located in Theux municipality.
 * A Perron, symbol of the town's status.
 * Shrine of Tancrémont, in the hamlet of Tancrémont.

title: Theux


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Thimister-Clermont

Thimister-Clermont (Timister-Clairmont) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Thimister-Clermont had a total population of 5,296. The total area is 28.69 km2 which gives a population density of 185 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Clermont-sur-Berwinne, and Thimister. Clermont-sur-Berwinne is a member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de Wallonie ("The Most Beautiful Villages of Wallonia") association.

title: Thimister-Clermont


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Trois-Ponts

Trois-Ponts (Treûs-Ponts; both literally "Three Bridges") is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Trois-Ponts had a total population of 2,445. The total area is 68.90 km² which gives a population density of 35 inhabitants per km². It is situated at the confluence of the rivers Amblève and Salm.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Basse-Bodeux, Fosse, and Wanne.

A railway junction at Trois-Ponts connected the Vennbahn with the Liège-Troisvierges, Luxembourg line.

title: Trois-Ponts


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Verviers

Verviers (Vervî) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Ensival, Heusy, Lambermont, Petit-Rechain, Stembert, and Verviers. It is also the center of an agglomeration that includes Dison and Pepinster, making it the second biggest in the province and an important regional center, located roughly halfway between Liège and the German border.

Water has played an important role in the town's economy, notably in the development first of its textile and later its tourist industries. As a result, many fountains have been built in Verviers, leading it to be named Wallonia's "Water Capital". The seats of the two Walloon public institutions for water distribution and water treatment are located in the town.

Early history
Various flint and bone fragments, as well as Roman coins, were found in this area, attesting to the early settlements in the region. In the 4th century, the Romans had to deal with a constant push of Germanic tribes coming from the east. Successful at first at containing them, they finally had to concede defeat, allowing Clovis's Salian Franks to occupy the region at the end of the 5th century. The Verviers area was covered with forests and became a hunting ground for the Merovingian kings, who maintained a vicus in neighbouring Theux. It was also slowly Christianized by the monks of the nearby Abbey of Stavelot.

Late in the 10th century, Charles the Simple ceded the Marquisate of Franchimont to Notker of Liège, one of Notker's final steps in consolidating the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Liège took direct control of the marquisate in 1014, an act which was confirmed by emperor Frederick Barbarossa and by Pope Adrian IV in 1155.

15th century to the present

The first mention of a textile industry in this area dates from the 15th century. One century later, the cloth industry took the place of the older metallurgical works, thanks in part to the Eighty Years War raging in the neighbouring Netherlands. The size of the town, however, remained relatively modest. It was only in 1651 that the expansion of the fulleries led to Verviers being recognized as one of the prince-bishopric's bonnes villes (main cities).

The end of the 18th century was troubled by the French Revolution. The annexation of Liège to France in 1795 caused a steep economic decline and unprecedented poverty. The city's fortunes rose again after the Battle of Waterloo (1815). Verviers was at the eastern end of the sillon industriel, the industrial backbone of Wallonia. Industrialist William Cockerill used British know-how to start a new era in Verviers' textile industry. Roads were paved, gas lighting was installed, and the city doubled in size thanks to the Industrial Revolution. After World War I, Verviers could share with Bradford the title of "Wool Capital of the World".

2021 Floods
On the night of 14-15 July, the Vesdre burst its banks and caused massive water damage. There was an exceptionally extreme rainfall that night and the dam of the reservoir at Eupen was opened. The human and material damage was incalculable. People spoke of greater damage than during World War II.

Economy
Verviers was home to a thriving wool and textile industry that was renowned for its quality and contributed greatly to the growth of the town. However, as of the 1950s, the local factories could not face international competition and started closing one after the other which prompted the economic decline of the town. The economy has been slowly recovering since the mid-1990s but remains fragile. Several commercial complexes have opened in recent years in an attempt to revitalize the most affected areas.

Sights

 * Verviers counts several museums, including the Wool and Fashion Tourist Centre, housed in a former factory with a Neoclassical-style façade.
 * The Grand Theatre, also known as La Bonbonnière, was built in the same style at the end of the 19th century, while the Grand Poste was built in the Neogothic style.
 * The city has a number of interesting fountains and thematic strolling paths.

Notable people

 * Jean-Jacques Andrien, film maker (1944)
 * Bertrand Baguette, racing driver (born 1986)
 * Christian Beck, writer and poet (1879–1916)
 * André Blavier, poet and critic (1922–2001)
 * William Cockerill, industrialist, settled in Verviers in 1799
 * Mathieu Crickboom, violinist (1871–1947)
 * Pierre David, twice mayor of Verviers (1771-1839)
 * Brandon Deville, football player (born 1993)
 * Jacques Drèze, economist (born 1929)
 * Marc Duez, racing driver (born 1957)
 * Albert Dupuis, composer (1877–1967)
 * Emile Fabry (1865–1966), artist and painter.
 * Philippe Gilbert, road racing cyclist (born 1982)
 * Green Montana, rapper (born 1993)
 * René Hausman, comic strip scenarist (1936-2016)
 * Jean Haust, linguist and philologist (1868–1946)
 * Max Houben, athlete (1898–1949)
 * Steve Houben, jazz saxophonist and flutist (born 1950)
 * Karima, writer (born 1976)
 * Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, linguist (born 1944)
 * Marc Lacroix, breast cancer researcher (born 1963)
 * Guillaume Lekeu, composer (1870–1894)
 * Roger Leloup, comic strip scenarist (born 1933)
 * Raymond Macherot, cartoonist (1924–2008)
 * Maurane, singer (1960–2018)
 * Philippe Maystadt, politician (1948-2017)
 * Dominique Monami, tennis player (born 1973)
 * David Murgia, actor (born 1988)
 * Nornagest, musician and writer (born 1977)
 * Henri Pirenne, historian (1862–1935)
 * Maurice Henri Léonard Pirenne, vision scientist (1912-1978)
 * Pierre Rapsat, singer (1948–2002)
 * Eliane Reyes, pianist (born 1977)
 * Georges Ruggiu, radio presenter during the 1994 Rwandan genocide (born 1957)
 * Albert Sambi Lokonga, footballer (born 1999)
 * Lucy Sante, writer and critic (born 1954)
 * Céline Scheen, classical soprano (born 1976)
 * Jacques Stotzem, fingerstyle guitarist (born 1959)
 * Jean Vallée, singer (1941–2013)
 * Eric van de Poele, Formula One driver (born 1961)
 * Henri Vieuxtemps, composer and virtuoso violinist (1820–1881)
 * Violetta Villas, singer (1938–2011)
 * Charles Weerts, racing driver (born 2001)
 * Yvan Ylieff, politician (born 1941)

Tertiary education
Tertiary educational institutions include:
 * Haute Ecole de la Province de Liège (Construction)
 * Haute Ecole de la Province de Liège - Bachelier en soins infirmiers
 * Haute Ecole CHarlemagne Verviers
 * HELMO Verviers

Primary and secondary schools
Secondary schools include:
 * Athénée royal Thil Lorrain Verviers 1
 * Athénée royal Verdi
 * Centre scolaire Saint-François-Xavier
 * Ecole Polytechnique - Enseignement de la Province de Liège
 * Institut Notre Dame
 * Institut Provincial d'Enseignement Secondaire (IPES)
 * Institut Provincial d'Enseignement Secondaire Paramédical de Liège - Huy - Verviers
 * Institut Sainte-Claire
 * Institut Saint-François-Xavier 2
 * Institut Saint-Michel
 * Institut Technique Don Bosco

Demographics
Verviers has a significant Muslim population, with the proportion estimated to be approximately 25% as of 2020. Much of Verviers' Muslim community is impoverished, suffers from resentment, causing those disillusioned to become attracted to Islamic extremism as seen notably during the 2015 Verviers police raid on Islamists.

The migrant communities also suffer from significant unemployment, and is of mainly Turkish and Moroccan origin. Verviers also has Kurdish, Congolese, Chechen, Somali and Sub-Saharan African communities. Like its sister city of Roubaix in France, and Bradford in Britain, with similarly high Muslim populations, migrants from Africa and Asia moved in the 1960s to Verviers to work in industrial mills, and has suffered from subsequent poverty after its manufacturing was outsourced overseas. Many migrants live in the Hodimont section of the town, where there are several Turkish restaurants, African shops, halal butcheries, and mosques.

Twin cities

 * 🇫🇷: Arles
 * 🇩🇪: Mönchengladbach
 * 🇫🇷: Roubaix
 * Bradford
 * 🇫🇷: La Motte-Chalancon

title: Verviers


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Waimes

Waimes (Weismes, ; Waime) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Waimes had a total population of 6,728. The total area is 96.93 km2 which gives a population density of 69 inhabitants per km2.

Waimes is one of two mostly French-speaking municipalities in the East Cantons, the other being Malmedy. German as a minority language is also still widely spoken in Waimes to this day. The other surrounding municipalities in the area are part of the main German-speaking Community of Belgium.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Faymonville, Robertville (including the village of Ovifat), and Waimes.

title: Waimes


text:
Welkenraedt

Welkenraedt (Ripuarian: Wälekete; Welkenrote) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2018, Welkenraedt had a total population of 9,920. The total area is 24.47 km2 which gives a population density of 405 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Henri-Chapelle and Welkenraedt.

American Cemetery and Memorial
The town and former municipality of Henri-Chapelle is home to the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial which contains the graves of 7,992 members of the American military who died in World War II.

Twin towns

 * 🇮🇹 Nove, Italy
 * 🇫🇷 Epfig, France

title: Welkenraedt


text:
Thomas Friedman

Thomas Loren Friedman (born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues.

Friedman began his career as a reporter and won two Pulitzer Prizes in the 1980s for his coverage on conflict in Lebanon and politics in Israel, followed by a further prize in 2002 for commentary on the war on terror.

Early life and education
Friedman was born on July 20, 1953, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Margaret Blanche (née Phillips) and Harold Abe Friedman. Harold, who was vice president of a ball bearing company, United Bearing, died of a heart attack in 1973 when Tom was nineteen years old. Margaret, who served in the United States Navy during World War II and studied Home Economics at the University of Wisconsin, was a homemaker and a part-time bookkeeper. Margaret was also a Senior Life Master duplicate bridge player, and died in 2008. Friedman has two older sisters, Shelly and Jane.

From an early age, Friedman, whose father often took him to the golf course for a round after work, wanted to be a professional golfer. He played a lot of sports, and became serious about tennis and golf. He caddied at a local country club and in 1970 caddied for professional golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez when the US Open came to town.

Friedman is Jewish. He attended Hebrew school five days a week until his Bar Mitzvah, then St. Louis Park High School, where he wrote articles for his school's newspaper. He became enamored with Israel after a visit there in December 1968, and he spent all three of his high school summers living on Kibbutz HaHotrim, near Haifa. He has characterized his high school years as "one big celebration of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War."

Friedman studied at the University of Minnesota for two years, but later transferred to Brandeis University and graduated summa cum laude in 1975 with a degree in Mediterranean studies. Friedman also pursued Arabic studies at The American University in Cairo, where he graduated in 1974 from its Arabic language unit (ALU). Friedman later taught a class in economics at Brandeis in 2006, and was a commencement speaker there in 2007.

After graduating from Brandeis, he attended St Antony's College at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, earning an M.Phil. in Middle Eastern studies.

Journalism career
Friedman joined the London bureau of United Press International after completing his master's degree. He was dispatched a year later to Beirut, where he lived from June 1979 to May 1981 while covering the Lebanon Civil War. He was hired by The New York Times as a reporter in 1981 and re-dispatched to Beirut at the start of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. His coverage of the war, particularly the Sabra and Shatila massacre, won him the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (shared with Loren Jenkins of The Washington Post). Alongside David K. Shipler he also won the George Polk Award for foreign reporting.

In June 1984, Friedman was transferred to Jerusalem, where he served as the New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief until February 1988. That year he received a second Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, which cited his coverage of the First Palestinian Intifada. He wrote a book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, describing his experiences in the Middle East, which won the 1989 U.S. National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Friedman covered Secretary of State James Baker during the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, Friedman became the White House correspondent for the New York Times. In 1994, he began to write more about foreign policy and economics, and moved to the op-ed page of The New York Times the following year as a foreign affairs columnist. In 2002, Friedman won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his "clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat."

In February 2002, Friedman met Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah and encouraged him to make a comprehensive attempt to end the Arab–Israeli conflict by normalizing Arab relations with Israel in exchange for the return of refugees alongside an end to the Israel territorial occupations. Abdullah proposed the Arab Peace Initiative at the Beirut Summit that March, which Friedman has since strongly supported.

Friedman received the 2004 Overseas Press Club Award for lifetime achievement and the same year was named to the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

In May 2011, The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama "has sounded out" Friedman concerning Middle East issues.

Views
Friedman has been criticized for his staunch advocacy of the Iraq War and unregulated trade and his early support of Saudi Royal Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Aadhaar
Friedman has publicly expressed his support for the biometrics based Unique Identification program of India. When asked about the privacy concerns raised by the UID program in India he said:

"I am a huge enthusiast of the UID platform. I feel that is going to be a platform for innovation. Societies require these platforms where people are integrated with a trusted ID. I think concerns about privacy are bogus. The platform doesn't store anything about you except your biometrics. It's not tracking you. Facebook is tracking you much more today. If you are worried about privacy, then you shouldn't be using Google, Facebook, Twitter, any of these things. They are tracking you so much more than the Indian government is tracking you. What's worse is that they are selling it [information about you] for profit. So, I think the privacy concern [around Aadhaar] is bogus."

Globalization
Friedman first discussed his views on globalization in the book The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999). In 2004, visits to Bangalore, India, and Dalian, China, led Friedman to write a follow-up analysis, The World Is Flat (2005).

Friedman believes that individual countries must sacrifice some degree of economic sovereignty to global institutions (such as capital markets and multinational corporations), a situation he has termed the "golden straitjacket".

In 2000, Friedman championed Free Trade with The People's Republic of China, claiming that Free Trade would make China more democratic.

He has also expressed concern about the United States' lack of energy independence. He has stated, "First rule of oil—addicts never tell the truth to their pushers. We are the addicts, the oil producers are the pushers—we've never had an honest conversation with the Saudis."

In 2007, Friedman viewed American immigration laws as too restrictive and damaging to U.S. economic output: "It is pure idiocy that Congress will not open our borders—as wide as possible—to attract and keep the world's first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent."

After visiting the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, California in early April 2019, Friedman wrote, "The whole day left me more certain than ever that we have a real immigration crisis and that the solution is a high wall with a big gate — but a smart gate."

Terrorism
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Friedman's writing focused more on the threat of terrorism and the Middle East. He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat". These columns were collected and published in the book Longitudes and Attitudes. For a while, his reporting on post-9/11 topics led him to diverge from his prior interests in technological advances and globalization, until he began to research The World Is Flat.

After the 7/7 London bombings, Friedman called for the U.S. State Department to "shine a spotlight on hate speech wherever it appears", and to create a quarterly "War of Ideas Report, which would focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others". Friedman said the governmental speech-monitoring should go beyond those who actually advocate violence, and include also those whom former State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin calls "excuse makers". In his July 22 column, Friedman wrote against the "excuses" made by terrorists or apologists who blame their actions on third-party influences or pressures. "After every major terrorist incident, the excuse makers come out to tell us ... why the terrorists acted. These excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists and also deserve to be exposed. When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow "understandable" is outrageous. "It erases the distinction between legitimate dissent and terrorism" Mr. Rubin said, "and an open society needs to maintain a clear wall between them." As part of their response to this column, the editors at FAIR encouraged their readers to contact Friedman and inform him that "opponents of the Iraq War do not deserve to be on a government blacklist-even if they oppose the war because they believe it encourages terrorism".

Kosovo War
During the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Friedman wrote the following in The New York Times on April 23, 1999: "Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too." Friedman urged the US to destroy "in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge [and] road", annex Albania and Macedonia as "U.S. protectorates", "occupy the Balkans for years," and "[g]ive war a chance."

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) labeled Friedman's remarks "war-mongering" and "crude race-hatred and war-crime agitation". Steve Chapman, critical of the response taken by NATO, referred to Friedman as "the most fervent supporter of the air war" and ironically asked in the Chicago Tribune: "Why stop at 1389? Why not revive the idea, proposed but never adopted in Vietnam, of bombing the enemy all the way back to the Stone Age?" Norman Solomon asserted in 2007 that "a tone of sadism could be discerned" in Friedman's article.

Iraq
Friedman supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the establishment of a democratic state in the Middle East would force other countries in the region to liberalize and modernize. In his February 9, 2003, column for The Wall Street Journal, Friedman also pointed to the lack of compliance with the United Nations Security Council Resolution regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: "The French position is utterly incoherent. The inspections have not worked yet, says Mr. de Villepin, because Saddam has not fully cooperated, and, therefore, we should triple the number of inspectors. But the inspections have failed not because of a shortage of inspectors. They have failed because of a shortage of compliance on Saddam's part, as the French know. The way you get that compliance out of a thug like Saddam is not by tripling the inspectors, but by tripling the threat that if he does not comply he will be faced with a U.N.-approved war."

Nevertheless, he found the incoherence of the American position to be an asset, arguing that "the axis-of-evil idea isn't thought through -- but that's what I like about it. (...) There is a lot about the Bush team's foreign policy I don't like, but their willingness to restore our deterrence, and to be as crazy as some of our enemies, is one thing they have right. It is the only way we're going to get our turkey back.

After the invasion, Friedman expressed alarm over the post-invasion conduct of the war by the George W. Bush administration. Nevertheless, until his piece dated August 4, 2006 (see below), his columns remained hopeful to the possibility of a positive conclusion to the Iraq conflict (although his optimism appeared to steadily diminish as the conflict continued). Friedman chided George W. Bush and Tony Blair for "hyping" the evidence, and stated plainly that converting Iraq to democracy "would be a huge undertaking, though, and maybe impossible, given Iraq's fractious history". In January 2004, he participated in a forum on Slate called "Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War", in which he dismisses the justification for war based on Iraq's lack of compliance with the U.N. Resolutions: "The right reason for this war … was to oust Saddam's regime and partner with the Iraqi people to try to implement the Arab Human Development report's prescriptions in the heart of the Arab world. That report said the Arab world is falling off the globe because of a lack of freedom, women's empowerment, and modern education. The right reason for this war was to partner with Arab moderates in a long-term strategy of dehumiliation and redignification."

In his September 29, 2005, column in The New York Times, Friedman entertained the idea of supporting the Kurds and Shias in a civil war against the Sunnis: "If they [the Sunnis] won't come around, we should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind."

Critics of Friedman's position on the Iraq War have noted his recurrent assertion that "the next six months" will prove critical in determining the outcome of the conflict. A May 2006 study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting cited 14 examples of Friedman's declaring the next "few months" or "six months" as a decisive or critical period, dating from in November 2003, describing it as "a long series of similar do-or-die dates that never seem to get any closer".

The blogger Atrios coined the neologism "Friedman Unit" to refer to this unit of time in relation to Iraq, noting its use as a supposedly critical window of opportunity.

In a live television interview aired June 11, 2006, on CNN, Howard Kurtz asked Friedman about the concept: "Now, I want to understand how a columnist's mind works when you take positions, because you were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions 'the next six months are crucial in Iraq.'" Friedman responded: "The fact is that the outcome there is unclear, and I reflected that in my column. And I will continue to reflect." Responding to prodding from Stephen Colbert, Friedman said in 2007: "We've run out of six months. It's really time to set a deadline."

Environment
Iran's Great Weakness May Be Its Oil, by Thomas Friedman, challenges and debates conflicts about oil. Friedman states,"The best tool we have for curbing Iran's influence is not containment or engagement, but getting the price of oil down in the long term with conservation and an alternative-energy strategy. Let's exploit Iran's oil addiction by ending ours".

In Hot, Flat, and Crowded, he says that "any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability, so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol".

In a Fresh Dialogues interview, Friedman described his motivations for writing the book: "My concern is about America.... Demand for clean energy, clean fuel and energy efficiency is clearly going to explode; it's going to be the next great global industry. I know that as sure as I know that I'm sitting here at De Anza College talking to you. By being big in the next big thing, we'll be seen by the rest of the world as working on the most important problem in the world."

Some of Friedman's environmental critics question his support of still-undeveloped coal pollution mitigation technology ("clean coal") and coal mining as emblematic of Friedman's less than "green" commitment to renewable energy.

Israel
Friedman has been criticized by organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting for defending Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon as a form of "educating" Israel's opponents; according to FAIR, Friedman was explicitly endorsing terrorism by Israel against Lebanese and Palestinians. Journalist Glenn Greenwald and professor Noam Chomsky also accused Friedman of endorsing and encouraging terrorism by Israeli forces.

Political reporter Belen Fernandez heavily critiques Friedman's commentary regarding Israel. Among other criticisms, Fernandez singles out Friedman's suggestion that Israeli forces were unaware that their allied Lebanese militias carried out the Sabra and Shatila massacre while under their guard, contradicting the assessments of other journalists and observers; his encouragement of strong-armed force by the Israeli army against Palestinians; and his opposition to settlements only on the grounds that they are counter-productive, rather than because they violate international law or cause suffering for Palestinians. Fernandez suggests that Friedman is most worried about successfully maintaining Israel's Jewish ethnocracy and actively opposing a "one-man, one-vote" system of democracy.

Friedman has also come under criticism from supporters of Israel. In an op-ed, Yitzhak Benhorin criticized Friedman's alleged suggestion that Israel relinquish territory it had occupied in the 1967 Middle Eastern War.

Friedman sparked criticism for writing that congressional ovations for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby." A letter from the American Jewish Committee objected that "Public opinion polls consistently show a high level of American ... support for and identification with Israel. This indicates that the people's elected representatives are fully reflecting the will of the voters." Friedman responded to criticism by writing: "In retrospect I probably should have used a more precise term like 'engineered' by the Israel lobby – a term that does not suggest grand conspiracy theories that I don't subscribe to."

Friedman hailed the Trump-brokered peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as "exactly what Trump said it was in his tweet: a 'HUGE breakthrough.

In July 2023, as the Netanyahu’s government proposed new laws leading to judicial reform intended to limit the powers of Israel’s Supreme Court, Friedman wrote an opinion piece supporting the Biden government’s changing diplomatic approach toward Israel.

Following the outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Friedman urged Israel against military over-reach and further settlement expansions, saying to do so otherwise would risk destabilizing the region and the US-Israel alliance.

China
In September 2009, Friedman wrote an article praising China's one-party autocracy, saying that China's leaders are "boosting gasoline prices" and "overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power." The article was in turn subject to critical analysis: Matt Lewis who wrote, "Friedman's apparent wish for a 'benign' dictator is utopian, inasmuch as it ignores Lord Acton's warning that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.'" and William Easterly who quotes Friedman's one-party autocracy assertions as part of his academic paper in which he concluded that, "Formal theory and evidence provides little or no basis on which to believe the benevolent autocrat story" and that, "economists should retain their traditional skepticism for stories that have little good theory or empirics to support them." However, in a July 2012 article in the NYT, he also wrote that the current Chinese leadership has not used its surging economic growth to also introduce gradual political reform and that, "Corruption is as bad as ever, institutionalized transparency and rule of law remain weak and consensual politics nonexistent." When asked if he had "China envy" during a Fresh Dialogues interview, Friedman replied, "You detect the envy of someone who wants his own government to act democratically with the same effectiveness that China can do autocratically." Likewise, in a 2011 interview with the BBC Friedman says that he wants his children to live in a world where "there's a strong America counterbalancing a strong and thriving China, and not one where you have a strong and rising China and an America that is uncertain, weak and unable to project power economically and militarily it historically did."

Friedman's work is popular in China. His book The World is Flat was a bestseller in the country, although criticism of China in the book was removed when it was published in the country. A translated version of his article from The New York Times, "China Needs Its Own Dream", has been credited with popularizing the phrase "Chinese Dream" in China, a term that was later adopted as a slogan by Xi Jinping. Friedman, in the magazine Foreign Policy, has attributed the phrase to Peggy Liu and her environmental NGO JUCCCE.

In September 2020, Friedman told CNBC that "Trump is not the American president America deserves, in my opinion. But he definitely is the American president China deserved. We needed to have a president who was going to call the game with China. And Trump has done it, with I would say more grit and toughness than any of his predecessors. I give him credit for that." In November the same year, Friedman observed that Xi Jinping had brought about "an end to four decades of steady integration of China’s economy with the West".

Iran
As the Iran nuclear deal agreement reached between Iran and a group of world powers (the P5+1). In Friedman's interview, he mentioned that "Our view of the Middle East is deeply colored by Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey and they all have their own interest. 15 of the 19 hijackers on 911 were from Saudi Arabia, none from Iran! Iranians had a spontaneous demonstration to support Americans on 911." He added, "What strikes you most about Iran (vs. Saudi Arabia) is that Iran has real politics... A country of 85 million people, a great civilization, many educated men and women, if they want to get a bomb they will get it. They have demonstrated they could do it under the most severe sanctions... Show me where Iranians have acted reckless [like Saddam Hussein]. These are survivors."

On February 2, 2024, Friedman penned a allegorical op-ed entitled, "Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom," in which he posited Iran as a metaphorical "parasitoid wasp" with proxies in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, as caterpillars. Friedman claimed "We [America] have no counterstrategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle," suggesting that America militarily destroy the entire Middle East to annihilate Iran and its allies. He concluded that he could "contemplate" the Middle East by watching Animal Planet. The New Arab reported that it has been criticized for racism and orientalism.

Radical centrism
In the 2010s, Friedman wrote several columns supporting the politics of radical centrism. In one he stated that, if the "radical center wants to be empowered, it can't just whine. It needs its own grass-roots movement". In another column Friedman promoted Americans Elect, an organization trying to field a radical-centrist candidate for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. That column decried "the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life". Friedman's radical-centrist columns received a considerable amount of criticism, particularly from liberals.

Criticism
American journalist Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon on July 25, 2012, commented: "His status among American elites is the single most potent fact for understanding the nation's imperial decline."

John Esposito criticized him in 2014 for writing twice that Muslims do not speak up against terrorism, and yet "his own newspaper has had these denunciations [by Muslims]."

Some critics have derided Friedman's idiosyncratic prose style, with its tendency to use mixed metaphors and analogies. Walter Russell Mead described his prose as being "an occasionally flat Midwestern demotic punctuated by gee-whiz exclamations about just how doggone irresistible globalization is – lacks the steely elegance of a Lippmann, the unobtrusive serviceability of a Scotty Reston or the restless fireworks of a Maureen Dowd and is best taken in small doses." Similarly, journalist Matt Taibbi has said of Friedman's writing that, "Friedman came up with lines so hilarious you couldn't make them up even if you were trying – and when you tried to actually picture the 'illustrative' figures of speech he offered to explain himself, what you often ended up with was pure physical comedy of the Buster Keaton/Three Stooges school, with whole nations and peoples slipping and falling on the misplaced banana peels of his literary endeavors."

In a column for the New York Press, Alexander Cockburn wrote: "Friedman exhibits on a weekly basis one of the severest cases known to science of Lippmann's condition, named for the legendary journalistic hot-air salesman, Walter Lippmann, and alluding to the inherent tendency of all pundits to swell in self-importance to zeppelin-like dimensions". Cockburn said Friedman's hubris allowed him to pass off another war correspondent's experience in Beirut as his own. In December 2017, Hamid Dabashi wrote about Friedman: "Thomas Friedman is an ignorant fool - and I do not mean that as an insult. I mean it as a clinical diagnosis of an almost-illiterate man who has been cheated out of a proper undergraduate education, sold as a liberal Zionist to the highest bidder, and thus has managed to ramble and blabber his way up as a top-notch New York Times columnist."

In November 2017 Mehdi Hasan criticized "Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at Last", a column written by Friedman, in which the latter characterized Mohammed bin Salman as a modernizing reformer and a champion of a moderate form of Islam. Hasan described Friedman's article as "nauseating", and suggested that "if the Saudi Arabian government were to set up a Ministry of Truth and Propaganda, they could offer the job of minister to Tom Friedman", critiquing the piece for only mentioning the Yemeni Civil War in passing despite Saudi Arabia and bin Salman's significant involvement in the conflict, and arguing that Friedman's claim that bin Salman was returning Saudi Islam to a state of moderation that existed before the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca ignored the long history of ties between the Salafi movement and the House of Saud.

In April 2018, Barrett Brown criticized Friedman for "his serial habit of giving the benefit of the doubt to whoever happens to hold power", such as Friedman's column supporting Vladimir Putin as a modernizing reformer, in which he urged Americans to "keep rootin' for Putin". Brown also used this phrase in the title of his 2014 book "Keep Rootin' for Putin: Establishment Pundits and the Twilight of American Competence".

Personal life
Friedman's wife, Ann (née Bucksbaum) is a teacher and a native of Marshalltown, Iowa. A graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics, she is the daughter of real estate developer Matthew Bucksbaum, whom Friedman describes as his "best friend". They were married in London on Thanksgiving Day 1978 and live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland. They have two daughters, Orly (born 1985) and Natalie (born 1988).

Friedman supported Hillary Clinton for President of the United States in the 2016 election, and supported Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 primaries. He supported Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election.

Friedman is on the board of directors for Planet Word, a Washington, D.C. based private museum dedicated to language.

Awards
Friedman has won three Pulitzer Prizes:
 * 1983: for his coverage of the war in Lebanon. A distinguished example of international reporting
 * 1988: for coverage of Israel: a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs
 * 2002: for his commentary illuminating the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat

Published works

 * From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989; expanded edition 1990) – winner of the National Book Award in its first edition
 * The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999; revised edition 2000)
 * Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002; reprinted 2003 as Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism)
 * The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (2005; expanded edition 2006; revised edition 2007)
 * Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America (2008)
 * That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (Co-written with Michael Mandelbaum 2011)
 * Thank You for Being Late: Finding a Job, Running a Country, and Keeping Your Head in an Age of Accelerations (November 2016)

title: Thomas Friedman


text:
Polymer physics

Polymer physics is the field of physics that studies polymers, their fluctuations, mechanical properties, as well as the kinetics of reactions involving degradation and polymerisation of polymers and monomers respectively.

While it focuses on the perspective of condensed matter physics, polymer physics is originally a branch of statistical physics. Polymer physics and polymer chemistry are also related with the field of polymer science, where this is considered the applicative part of polymers.

Polymers are large molecules and thus are very complicated for solving using a deterministic method. Yet, statistical approaches can yield results and are often pertinent, since large polymers (i.e., polymers with many monomers) are describable efficiently in the thermodynamic limit of infinitely many monomers (although the actual size is clearly finite).

Thermal fluctuations continuously affect the shape of polymers in liquid solutions, and modeling their effect requires using principles from statistical mechanics and dynamics. As a corollary, temperature strongly affects the physical behavior of polymers in solution, causing phase transitions, melts, and so on.

The statistical approach for polymer physics is based on an analogy between a polymer and either a Brownian motion, or other type of a random walk, the self-avoiding walk. The simplest possible polymer model is presented by the ideal chain, corresponding to a simple random walk. Experimental approaches for characterizing polymers are also common, using polymer characterization methods, such as size exclusion chromatography, viscometry, dynamic light scattering, and Automatic Continuous Online Monitoring of Polymerization Reactions (ACOMP) for determining the chemical, physical, and material properties of polymers. These experimental methods also helped the mathematical modeling of polymers and even for a better understanding of the properties of polymers.

 * Flory is considered the first scientist establishing the field of polymer physics.
 * French scientists contributed a lot since the 70s (e.g. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, J. des Cloizeaux).
 * Doi and Edwards wrote a very famous book in polymer physics.
 * Soviet/Russian school of physics (I. M. Lifshitz, A. Yu. Grosberg, A.R. Khokhlov, V.N. Pokrovskii) have been very active in the development of polymer physics.

Models
Models of polymer chains are split into two types: "ideal" models, and "real" models. Ideal chain models assume that there are no interactions between chain monomers. This assumption is valid for certain polymeric systems, where the positive and negative interactions between the monomer effectively cancel out. Ideal chain models provide a good starting point for the investigation of more complex systems and are better suited for equations with more parameters.

Ideal chains

 * The freely-jointed chain is the simplest model of a polymer. In this model, fixed length polymer segments are linearly connected, and all bond and torsion angles are equiprobable. The polymer can therefore be described by a simple random walk and ideal chain. The model can be extended to include extensible segments in order to represent bond stretching.
 * The freely-rotating chain improves the freely-jointed chain model by taking into account that polymer segments make a fixed bond angle to neighbouring units because of specific chemical bonding. Under this fixed angle, the segments are still free to rotate and all torsion angles are equally likely.
 * The hindered rotation model assumes that the torsion angle is hindered by a potential energy. This makes the probability of each torsion angle proportional to a Boltzmann factor:

 * $$P(\theta)\propto{}\exp\left(-U(\theta)/kT\right)$$, where $$U(\theta)$$ is the potential determining the probability of each value of $$\theta$$.

 * In the rotational isomeric state model, the allowed torsion angles are determined by the positions of the minima in the rotational potential energy. Bond lengths and bond angles are constant.
 * The Worm-like chain is a more complex model. It takes the persistence length into account.  Polymers are not completely flexible; bending them requires energy.  At the length scale below persistence length, the polymer behaves more or less like a rigid rod.

Real chains
Interactions between chain monomers can be modelled as excluded volume. This causes a reduction in the conformational possibilities of the chain, and leads to a self-avoiding random walk. Self-avoiding random walks have different statistics to simple random walks.

Solvent and temperature effect
The statistics of a single polymer chain depends upon the solubility of the polymer in the solvent. For a solvent in which the polymer is very soluble (a "good" solvent), the chain is more expanded, while for a solvent in which the polymer is insoluble or barely soluble (a "bad" solvent), the chain segments stay close to each other. In the limit of a very bad solvent the polymer chain merely collapses to form a hard sphere, while in a good solvent the chain swells in order to maximize the number of polymer-fluid contacts. For this case the radius of gyration is approximated using Flory's mean field approach which yields a scaling for the radius of gyration of:
 * $$R_g \sim N^\nu$$,

where $$R_g$$ is the radius of gyration of the polymer, $$N$$ is the number of bond segments (equal to the degree of polymerization) of the chain and $$\nu$$ is the Flory exponent.

For good solvent, $$\nu\approx3/5$$; for poor solvent, $$\nu=1/3$$. Therefore, polymer in good solvent has larger size and behaves like a fractal object. In bad solvent it behaves like a solid sphere.

In the so-called $$\theta$$ solvent, $$\nu=1/2$$, which is the result of simple random walk. The chain behaves as if it were an ideal chain.

The quality of solvent depends also on temperature. For a flexible polymer, low temperature may correspond to poor quality and high temperature makes the same solvent good. At a particular temperature called theta (θ) temperature, the solvent behaves as an ideal chain.

Excluded volume interaction
The ideal chain model assumes that polymer segments can overlap with each other as if the chain were a phantom chain. In reality, two segments cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This interaction between segments is called the excluded volume interaction.

The simplest formulation of excluded volume is the self-avoiding random walk, a random walk that cannot repeat its previous path. A path of this walk of N steps in three dimensions represents a conformation of a polymer with excluded volume interaction. Because of the self-avoiding nature of this model, the number of possible conformations is significantly reduced. The radius of gyration is generally larger than that of the ideal chain.

Flexibility and reptation
Whether a polymer is flexible or not depends on the scale of interest. For example, the persistence length of double-stranded DNA is about 50 nm. Looking at length scale smaller than 50 nm, it behaves more or less like a rigid rod. At length scale much larger than 50 nm, it behaves like a flexible chain.

Reptation is the thermal motion of very long linear, entangled basically macromolecules in polymer melts or concentrated polymer solutions. Derived from the word reptile, reptation suggests the movement of entangled polymer chains as being analogous to snakes slithering through one another. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes introduced (and named) the concept of reptation into polymer physics in 1971 to explain the dependence of the mobility of a macromolecule on its length. Reptation is used as a mechanism to explain viscous flow in an amorphous polymer. Sir Sam Edwards and Masao Doi later refined reptation theory. The consistent theory of thermal motion of polymers was given by Vladimir Pokrovskii .  Similar phenomena also occur in proteins.

Example model (simple random-walk, freely jointed)
The study of long chain polymers has been a source of problems within the realms of statistical mechanics since about the 1950s. One of the reasons however that scientists were interested in their study is that the equations governing the behavior of a polymer chain were independent of the chain chemistry. What is more, the governing equation turns out to be a random walk, or diffusive walk, in space. Indeed, the Schrödinger equation is itself a diffusion equation in imaginary time, t' = it.

Random walks in time
The first example of a random walk is one in space, whereby a particle undergoes a random motion due to external forces in its surrounding medium. A typical example would be a pollen grain in a beaker of water. If one could somehow "dye" the path the pollen grain has taken, the path observed is defined as a random walk.

Consider a toy problem, of a train moving along a 1D track in the x-direction. Suppose that the train moves either a distance of +b or −b (b is the same for each step), depending on whether a coin lands heads or tails when flipped. Lets start by considering the statistics of the steps the toy train takes (where Si is the ith step taken):

 * $$\langle S_{i} \rangle = 0$$ ; due to a priori equal probabilities
 * $$\langle S_{i} S_{j} \rangle = b^2 \delta_{ij}.$$

The second quantity is known as the correlation function. The delta is the kronecker delta which tells us that if the indices i and j are different, then the result is 0, but if i = j then the kronecker delta is 1, so the correlation function returns a value of b2. This makes sense, because if i = j then we are considering the same step. Rather trivially then it can be shown that the average displacement of the train on the x-axis is 0;

 * $$x = \sum_{i=1}^{N} S_i$$
 * $$\langle x \rangle = \left\langle \sum_{i=1}^N S_i \right\rangle$$
 * $$\langle x \rangle = \sum_{i=1}^N \langle S_i \rangle.$$

As stated $$\langle S_i \rangle = 0$$, so the sum is still 0. It can also be shown, using the same method demonstrated above, to calculate the root mean square value of problem. The result of this calculation is given below

 * $$x_\mathrm{rms} = \sqrt {\langle x^2 \rangle} = b \sqrt N. $$

From the diffusion equation it can be shown that the distance a diffusing particle moves in a medium is proportional to the root of the time the system has been diffusing for, where the proportionality constant is the root of the diffusion constant. The above relation, although cosmetically different reveals similar physics, where N is simply the number of steps moved (is loosely connected with time) and b is the characteristic step length. As a consequence we can consider diffusion as a random walk process.

Random walks in space
Random walks in space can be thought of as snapshots of the path taken by a random walker in time. One such example is the spatial configuration of long chain polymers.

There are two types of random walk in space: self-avoiding random walks, where the links of the polymer chain interact and do not overlap in space, and pure random walks, where the links of the polymer chain are non-interacting and links are free to lie on top of one another. The former type is most applicable to physical systems, but their solutions are harder to get at from first principles.

By considering a freely jointed, non-interacting polymer chain, the end-to-end vector is
 * $$\mathbf{R} = \sum_{i=1}^{N} \mathbf r_i$$

where ri is the vector position of the i-th link in the chain. As a result of the central limit theorem, if N ≫ 1 then we expect a Gaussian distribution for the end-to-end vector. We can also make statements of the statistics of the links themselves;

 * $$\langle \mathbf{r}_{i} \rangle = 0$$ ; by the isotropy of space
 * $$\langle \mathbf{r}_{i} \cdot \mathbf{r}_{j} \rangle = 3 b^2 \delta_{ij}$$ ; all the links in the chain are uncorrelated with one another

Using the statistics of the individual links, it is easily shown that
 * $$\langle \mathbf R \rangle = 0$$
 * $$\langle \mathbf R \cdot \mathbf R \rangle = 3Nb^2$$.

Notice this last result is the same as that found for random walks in time.

Assuming, as stated, that that distribution of end-to-end vectors for a very large number of identical polymer chains is gaussian, the probability distribution has the following form

 * $$P = \frac{1}{\left (\frac{2 \pi N b^2}{3} \right )^{3/2}} \exp \left(\frac {- 3\mathbf R \cdot \mathbf R}{2Nb^2}\right).$$

What use is this to us? Recall that according to the principle of equally likely a priori probabilities, the number of microstates, Ω, at some physical value is directly proportional to the probability distribution at that physical value, viz;

 * $$\Omega \left ( \mathbf{R} \right ) = c P\left ( \mathbf{R} \right )$$

where c is an arbitrary proportionality constant. Given our distribution function, there is a maxima corresponding to R = 0. Physically this amounts to there being more microstates which have an end-to-end vector of 0 than any other microstate. Now by considering

 * $$S \left ( \mathbf {R} \right ) = k_B \ln \Omega {\left ( \mathbf R \right) } $$
 * $$\Delta S \left( \mathbf {R} \right ) = S \left( \mathbf {R} \right ) - S \left (0 \right )$$
 * $$\Delta F = - T \Delta S \left ( \mathbf {R} \right )$$

where F is the Helmholtz free energy, and it can be shown that

 * $$\Delta F = k_B T \frac {3R^2}{2Nb^2} = \frac {1}{2} K R^2 \quad ; K = \frac {3 k_B T}{Nb^2}.$$

which has the same form as the potential energy of a spring, obeying Hooke's law.

This result is known as the entropic spring result and amounts to saying that upon stretching a polymer chain you are doing work on the system to drag it away from its (preferred) equilibrium state. An example of this is a common elastic band, composed of long chain (rubber) polymers. By stretching the elastic band you are doing work on the system and the band behaves like a conventional spring, except that unlike the case with a metal spring, all of the work done appears immediately as thermal energy, much as in the thermodynamically similar case of compressing an ideal gas in a piston.

It might at first be astonishing that the work done in stretching the polymer chain can be related entirely to the change in entropy of the system as a result of the stretching. However, this is typical of systems that do not store any energy as potential energy, such as ideal gases. That such systems are entirely driven by entropy changes at a given temperature, can be seen whenever it is the case that are allowed to do work on the surroundings (such as when an elastic band does work on the environment by contracting, or an ideal gas does work on the environment by expanding). Because the free energy change in such cases derives entirely from entropy change rather than internal (potential) energy conversion, in both cases the work done can be drawn entirely from thermal energy in the polymer, with 100% efficiency of conversion of thermal energy to work. In both the ideal gas and the polymer, this is made possible by a material entropy increase from contraction that makes up for the loss of entropy from absorption of the thermal energy, and cooling of the material.

title: Polymer physics


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Bram Moolenaar

Bram Moolenaar (1961 – 3 August 2023) was a Dutch software engineer and activist who was the creator, maintainer, and benevolent dictator for life of Vim, a vi-derivative text editor. He advocated for ICCF Holland, a non-governmental organization supporting AIDS victims in Uganda, and used the popularity of Vim to encourage donations.

From July 2006 until September 2021, Moolenaar was employed by Google, working in the Zürich office on Google Calendar. He spent part of his time maintaining Vim.

Early life and education
Moolenaar was born in Lisse, Netherlands, in 1961. In 1985, he graduated from the Delft University of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering.

Vim
In 1988, Moolenaar purchased an Amiga computer. Familiar with vi, which had not been ported to the Amiga at the time, he tested several clones of vi, including Stevie. Moolenaar took the source code of Stevie and improved upon it. Seeking to match vi, Moolenaar eventually added in additional features, such as undoing multiple levels. The first version of "Vi IMitation" was released in 1988 on a public domain disk set made by Fred Fish. Several users ported Vim onto other platforms, such as MS-DOS and Unix. In version 1.22 in 1992, Vi IMitation was renamed to "Vi IMproved".

Vim is open-source and charityware; users are encouraged to donate to ICCF Holland. A number of other applications have been licensed this way since Vim's inception. Vim has won several awards and has been referred to as one of the most popular text editors.

Other ventures
Other software tools that Moolenaar developed include a software build tool written in Python, called A-A-P, which is similar to make, and a programming language called Zimbu which puts an emphasis on readability of programs.

Moolenaar was a member of the Dutch Unix user group, NLUUG, which presented him with an award during its 25th anniversary, for his creation of Vim and his contributions to open-source software in general.

Charity
Moolenaar was an advocate of ICCF Holland, a non-governmental organization based in Kibaale, Uganda which he founded to support children whose parents have died of AIDS. In 1994, he volunteered as a water and sanitation engineer for the Kibaale Children's Centre; he made several return trips over the following twenty-five years. In 1995, he made Vim charityware. An estimated US$2000 was raised for ICCF Holland in 1997, followed by US$4000 a year later. In 1999, donation income totaled approximately US$7000. He last visited the Kibaale Community Centre in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Illness and death
Moolenaar reported health problems in October 2022.

On 5 August 2023, Moolenaar's family announced in the Vim Google Group that Moolenaar had died two days prior, at the age of 62, because of a rapidly developing medical condition. His funeral was held in Lisse, The Netherlands, on 16 August 2023. Vim will be continued by co-contributor Christian Brabandt.

title: Bram Moolenaar


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Berloz

Berloz (Bierlô) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Berloz had a total population of 2,781. The total area is 14.49 km² which gives a population density of 192 inhabitants per km².

The municipality consists of the following districts: Berloz, Corswarem, and Rosoux-Crenwick.

title: Berloz


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Braives

Braives (Braive) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Braives had a total population of 5,579. The total area is 44.00 km² which gives a population density of 127 inhabitants per km².

The municipality consists of the following districts: Avennes, Braives, Ciplet, Fallais, Fumal, Latinne, Tourinne, and Ville-en-Hesbaye.

There are also three hamlets: Hosdent in Latinne, Pitet in Fallais, and Foncourt in Fumal.

Fallais is famous for its medieval castle and other tourist attractions including a water mill, a former wheelmakershop, the river Méhaigne and the Ravel cycling path.

title: Braives


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Crisnée

Crisnée (Crusnêye) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

It covers an area of 16.83 km2 and on 1 January 2013 had a total population of 3,094, giving a population density on that date of 184 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Crisnée, Fize-le-Marsal, Kemexhe, Odeur, and Thys.

Crisnée is twinned with the commune of Sansais, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in western France.

title: Crisnée


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Donceel

Donceel (Doncél) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Donceel had a total population of 2,828. The total area is 23.31 km2 which gives a population density of 121 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Donceel, Haneffe, Jeneffe, and Limont.

title: Donceel


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Faimes

Faimes (Faime) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Faimes had a total population of 3,468. The total area is 28.48 km² which gives a population density of 122 inhabitants per km².

The municipality consists of the following districts: Aineffe, Borlez, Celles, Les Waleffes, and Viemme. The eponymous Faimes is a hamlet within Celles.

title: Faimes


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Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher

Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher (Fexhe-å-Hôt-Clokî) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher had a total population of 3,019. The total area is 19.25 km2 which gives a population density of 157 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher, Freloux, Noville, Roloux, and Voroux-Goreux.

title: Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher


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Geer

Geer (Djer) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Geer had a total population of 2,854. The total area is 23.62 km² which gives a population density of 121 inhabitants per km². Geer lies along the upper course of the river Jeker, which is called Geer in French.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Boëlhe, Darion, Geer, Hollogne-sur-Geer, Lens-Saint-Servais, Ligney, and Omal.

title: Geer


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Hannut

Hannut (Haneu; Hannuit, ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Hannut had a total population of 14,291. The total area is 86.53 km2 which gives a population density of 165 inhabitants per km².

The municipality consists of the following districts: Abolens, Avernas-le-Bauduin, Avin, Bertrée, Blehen, Cras-Avernas, Crehen, Grand-Hallet, Hannut, Lens-Saint-Remy, Merdorp, Moxhe, Petit-Hallet, Poucet, Thisnes, Trognée, Villers-le-Peuplier, and Wansin.

The Battle of Hannut, which began May 12, 1940, is credited with being the first battle between tanks of World War II, It has a Water Park and many famous chateau’s,And a few museums

The town center has Many restaurants

Transport
Within the city and its immediate surroundings, most distances can be covered on foot or with a bicycle. Within the city centre, road speed regulations prescribe 30 km/h as the maximum speed limit, making it a pedestrian and bicycle-friendly city. There are also a few car parking lots. There are several buses, primarily from the public transport company TEC, that connect the city with the region while providing travel options within the city centre. Bus 127 connects Hannut with Landen railway station and with the city of Huy. Landen railway station is located on the NMBS railway line 36 (Brussels - Liège). The European route E40 passes Hannut 3 km to the North, connecting Hannut with Brussels, Leuven, Liège and the city of Aachen.

title: Hannut


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Lincent

Lincent (Lijsem, ; Lîssin) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Lincent had a total population of 2,998. The total area is 14.75 km2 which gives a population density of 203 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Lincent, Pellaines, and Racour.

title: Lincent


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Oreye

Oreye (Oerle, ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2018, Oreye had a total population of 3,912. The total area is 19.64 km² which gives a population density of 199 inhabitants per km².

The municipality consists of the following districts: Bergilers, Grandville, Lens-sur-Geer, Oreye, and Otrange.

title: Oreye


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Remicourt, Belgium

Remicourt (Remicoû) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Remicourt had a total population of 5,012. The total area is 22.58 km2 which gives a population density of 222 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Hodeige, Lamine, Momalle, Pousset, and Remicourt.

title: Remicourt, Belgium


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Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse

Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse (, literally Saint-Georges on Meuse; Sint-Djôr-so-Mouze) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse had a total population of 6,613. The total area is 20.90 km2 which gives a population density of 316 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality also includes the following population centres: Dommartin, la Mallieue, Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse, Stockay, Sur-les-Bois, Tincelle, Warfée, Warfusée, and Yernawe.

title: Saint-Georges-sur-Meuse


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Waremme

Waremme (Borgworm, ; Wareme) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, in Belgium.

The city is located on the River Geer (Jeker), in the loessic Haspengouw region. The economy is based on the cultivation of cereals and sugar beet, and on the food industry.

The municipality includes the following districts: Bettincourt, Bleret, Bovenistier, Grand-Axhe, Lantremange, Oleye, and Waremme.

History
Several findings were unearthed near Waremme containing remnants of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements. The main Roman road linking Bavai to Cologne passed right through the territory. Tumuli and Roman villas were found nearby. Romans have also left a horse burial.

The medieval hamlet of Woromia was cited for the first time in 965. On February 5, 1078, Woromia was ceded to the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, together with its castle, five mills, and six breweries. By 1215, with its 815 inhabitants, it had grown to town size. Its frontier position near the Duchy of Brabant, however, attracted several raids from the duke, causing it to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt at least a couple of times. In the 14th century, the town built a market place and a hospital, slowly becoming an important regional center, where coins were issued and important meetings held.

During his conquest of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, Charles the Bold burnt the city once more in 1468. In the 16th century, the town became one of the 21 bonnes villes (main cities) of the prince-bishopric. In 1748, a quarter of the city was again destroyed by fire, this time accidentally. In 1792, the French Revolutionary troops entered the city and closed the convents. Three years later, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège was dissolved and the city became French.

The 19th century was prosperous, thanks to the advent of the railways linking Mechelen to Ans, and the construction of two sugar refineries and several schools. In 1904, Guillaume Moës established his engine and locomotive company Ateliers Moës-Freres in Waremme; they continued manufacturing in the town until October 2013. World War I did not bring any destruction to the city, except for that of the old surrounding walls. World War II, however, was a lot worse as half of the city was destroyed by air raids, only days before Liberation Day. The city then counted about 5,000 inhabitants.

Attractions

 * The City Hall dates from 1900.
 * The town's main church dates from 1881 and houses 14th-century baptismal fonts.
 * A natural reserve can also be found on the territory of Waremme.

People born in Waremme

 * Edmond Leburton, prime minister of Belgium in the 1970s (1915–1997)

Twin towns – sister cities
Waremme is twinned with:
 * 🇲🇰 Skopje, North Macedonia
 * 🇫🇷 Gérardmer, France
 * 🇮🇹 Gallinaro, Italy

title: Waremme


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Wasseiges

Wasseiges (Wazedje) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.

On January 1, 2006, Wasseiges had a total population of 2,517. The total area is 24.45 km² which gives a population density of 103 inhabitants per km².

The municipality consists of the following districts: Acosse, Ambresin, Meeffe, and Wasseiges.

title: Wasseiges


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L-Innu Malti

"L-Innu Malti" ("The Hymn of Malta") is the national anthem of Malta. It is written in the form of a prayer to God. Officially adopted in 1964 upon independence from the United Kingdom, it was composed by Robert Samut, and the lyrics were written by Dun Karm Psaila.

History
From the mid-19th century up to the early 1930s, Malta was passing through a national awakening. With the increased national awareness, it was felt by many thinkers that Malta should have its own national anthem. In 1850, Ġan Anton Vassallo composed "Innu Lil Malta", which used to be played during many Maltese political manifestations and meetings. In 1922, Robert Samut composed a short melody. A year later, A.V. Laferla, director of primary schools in Malta, obtained possession of this composition, as he wanted to have an anthem that could be sung by students in Malta's schools. Laferla asked Dun Karm to write lyrics that would fit with Samut's short melody. The poems of Dun Karm Psaila are well known for their religious and patriotic currents, and so are the verses written for Samut's anthem. The hymn was already being sung in December 1922, mostly in governmental schools. The first time it was heard in public was on 27 December 1922 and again on 6 January 1923, during two concerts at the Manoel Theatre. However, during its two first appearances, someone had changed some verses from the first stanza. This angered Dun Karm, who protested by writing an article in a local newspaper. Since then, the lyrics have remained unchanged. On 3 February 1923, another concert was held at the Manoel Theatre, performed by children from Sliema, with Dun Karm's original verses. The hymn was played by the Duke of Edinburgh's Band, of Vittoriosa.

The Maltese government declared the anthem as the official Maltese anthem on 22 February 1941. In 1942, it was printed for Piano e canto with an English translation by May Butcher. This publication helped spread its popularity. The 1964 Independence Constitution confirmed it as the National Anthem of Malta, which is today one of the symbols of Maltese identity.

On 25 March 1945, in the Gżira Stadium, a football match was held between a Malta XI and Hajduk Split, a team from Yugoslavia. At that time, Malta was still under British rule, and the British governor was present. Before the game, the band played the anthem of Yugoslavia, and then it played that of Great Britain, due to Malta's status as a colony. As the governor was about to sit, the attendees in the stadium stood up and sung the Maltese anthem. The governor, albeit embarrassed, stood up as well until the end of the anthem.

The anthem is played during all the official duties of the President of Malta, the Prime Minister of Malta and other important governmental personalities. It is played during all important national activities.

title: L-Innu Malti


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NLUUG

The NLUUG (formerly known as The Netherlands Local Unix User Group) is an association of professional UNIX and Linux users in the Netherlands. The group aims to increase and extend the awareness and use of Open Standards (including UNIX) and similar open systems and Open Source software.

The NLUUG also maintains one of the largest FTP mirrors in the world, and is the prime FTP site for several packages including VIM.

Activities
Typically, the NLUUG organises two large conferences every year. Topics over the last years include:
 * IP Communication
 * Languages and Tools
 * E-mail and Beyond
 * Visualization in Software Engineering
 * Open Source in Business
 * Security
 * Web Applications

History
The NLUUG was founded in 1983, but the initial members were active together a long time before that.

The NLUUG founded the first Internet provider in the Netherlands, NLnet. NLnet at the time only was serving businesses, which is why XS4All usually claims to be the first Internet provider (for consumers).

Other claims to fame are the founding of the SANE Conferences organization and the fact that the NLUUG was the first organisation to have Linus Torvalds be a speaker on a conference outside Finland.

NLUUG Awards
The NLUUG sometime gives awards to people who have been helping the cause of Open Systems and Open Standards. Over the years, awards have been given to amongst others Piet Beertema, Guido van Rossum, Wietse Venema, Bram Moolenaar, Andy Tanenbaum, Wytze van der Raay, Teus Hagen, Olaf Kolkman and Bert Hubert.

In het Nieuws

 * Bert Hubert geëerd door opensource-gemeenschap

title: NLUUG


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Arlon

Arlon (Arel ; Aarlen ; Arel ; Årlon) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in and capital of the province of Luxembourg in the Ardennes, Belgium. With a population of just over 28,000, it is the smallest provincial capital in Belgium. Arlon is also the capital of its cultural region: the Arelerland (Land of Arlon in Luxembourgish).

The municipality consists of the following sub-municipalities: Arlon proper, Autelbas, Bonnert, Guirsch, Heinsch, and Toernich. Other population centers include:

 * Autelhaut
 * Clairefontaine
 * Fouches
 * Frassem
 * Freylange
 * Hachy
 * Heckbous
 * Rosenberg
 * Sampont
 * Schoppach
 * Sesselich
 * Seymerich
 * Stehnen
 * Sterpenich
 * Stockem
 * Udange
 * Viville
 * Waltzing
 * Weyler
 * Wolberg

Roman and medieval times
Before the Roman conquests of Gaul, the territory of Arlon and a vast area to the southeast were settled by the Treveri, a Celtic tribe. The local population adapted relatively easily to Roman culture. The number and quality of sculpted stones and monuments that have been unearthed in the area demonstrate that the vicus of Orolaunum quickly became a commercial and administrative centre of Roman civilization. The Germanic invasions of the 3rd century destroyed most of these early advances, despite the defensive walls that had been built on the Knipchen hill to protect the vicus.

During most of the Middle Ages, the population still used the earlier buildings such as the thermae. In 1060, Waleran I of Limburg, Count of Arlon, built a castle on the Knipchen hill in the centre of the town.

A dynasty of counts of Arlon began with Waleran I, Duke of Limburg. On the death of Duke Waleran III in 1226, Arlon passed to his son from the second marriage, Henry V the Fair, Count of Luxembourg, and became part of the county of Luxembourg. Thus, in the Tournament of Chauvency, his son Henry the Lion bore the title of Marquis of Arlon.

In the 13th century, the only women's Cistercian abbey known to date was built in Clairefontaine.

15th century until the French Revolution
The Duchy of Luxembourg itself, of which Arlon was dependent, became part of the Burgundian Netherlands under Philip the Good in 1441. After Charles V's abdication of his empire to his son Philip II of Spain in 1556, a troubled period started for the whole region with continuous wars involving France, Spain and the Southern Netherlands. In 1558, nearly half of the city, including its castle, was destroyed by the French troops of Francis, Duke of Guise. In the 17th century, Capuchin friars built a convent on the ruins of the castle and the French strengthened the defensive walls according to Vauban's designs. An accidental fire destroyed a large part of the city again in 1785.

Modern times

On 9 June 1793 the French Revolutionary troops opposed the Austrians just outside Arlon. The French emerged victorious and took over the city from Austrian rule. They expelled the Capuchin friars and used their convent as a hospital.

In June 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo, Arlon went back to government of the Grand Duchy. By the Treaty of London in 1839, the grand duchy became fully sovereign and in turn geographically larger western part of the duchy, i.e. the province de Luxembourg including Arlon city was given to newly created Kingdom of Belgium.

Arlon was one of the first victims of the German invasion in 1914 as 121 inhabitants were executed on 26 August, on the orders of Colonel Richard Karl von Tessmar.

Its territory was again among the first to be invaded at the onset of World War II. Allies moved into Belgium on 10 May 1940 and Arlon was defended by French troops, but they were not able to stop the German invasion.

Arlon today
Being situated very close to the border with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Arlon has continued to expand with new residential areas and commercial development zones, and many people cross the border everyday to work in the Grand Duchy. All international express trains make a stop in Arlon, as it is the last station on the main Brussels—Luxembourg City railway line.

Sights

 * Arlon is best known for holding one of the richest archeological museums in Belgium. It houses numerous examples of Roman sculpture and Merovingian funerary art.
 * A fragment of the Gallo-Roman defensive wall that was built in the 3rd century still stands in Arlon.
 * The Gaspar Museum is dedicated to the art of Jean-Marie Gaspar and Charles Gaspar, and also holds a collection of regional art including the Fisenne altarpiece, an altarpiece from the 16th century originally located in the village Fisenne.
 * Saint Donat's church now stands on the Knipchen hill, where Waleran I of Limburg once built his castle and the Capuchin friars built their convent.
 * Arlon cemetery has the largest Jewish section of all Walloon cemeteries.

Local customs

 * The carnival of Arlon takes place at mid-Lent. It includes the traditional handing of the city keys to the carnival prince and a colourful parade composed of various folk dance groups.
 * The Maitrank (German for "drink of May") is the city's most popular refreshment. It is made of white wine in which a local flower, the Asperula odorata, has macerated.  Some recipes also add cognac or substitute woodruff for the Asperula.  The Maitrank festivities take place in the city every fourth Sunday of May.

Demography
The town of Arlon is the most populated of the municipalities in the province of Luxembourg, ahead of Marche-en-Famenne and Aubange. On the other hand, it is the least populated of the country's ten provinces. On 31 December 2019, the city of Arlon had a total population of 30,047 inhabitants.

Politics
List of mayors :

 * Pierre Hollenfeltz
 * 1880–1901 : Joseph Netzer
 * 1901–1921 : Numa Ensch-Tesch
 * 1921–1949 : Paul Reuter
 * 1949–1958 : Jules Massonnet
 * 1958–1976 : Charles Simon
 * 1977–1988 : Jean Goffinet
 * 1989–1992 : Guy Larcier
 * 1993–1994 : Jean Goffinet
 * 1995–2006 : Guy Larcier
 * 2007–2012 : Raymond Biren
 * 2013–... : Vincent Magnus

People born in Arlon

 * Johann Kaspar Basselet von La Rosée, Bavarian general (1710–1795)
 * Godefroid Kurth, historian (1847–1916)
 * Jean-Marie Gaspar, sculptor (1861–1931)
 * Benoît Lamy, film director (1945–2008)
 * Ingrid Lempereur, swimmer (1969)
 * Jeroen van Busleyden, humanist (1470–1517)
 * Anthony Moris, Luxembourgish footballer (1990)
 * Timothy Castagne, Belgian footballer (1995)

Twin towns — sister cities
Arlon is twinned with:

 * 🇫🇷 Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France since 1962
 * 🇱🇺 Diekirch, Luxemburg
 * 🇩🇪 Bitburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany since 1965
 * 🇺🇸 Sulphur, Louisiana, United States
 * 🇫🇷 Hayange, France
 * 🇮🇹 Alba, Italy since 1 March 2004
 * Market Drayton, England, UK

title: Arlon


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Attert

Attert (Atert; Ater) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Luxembourg, Belgium.

On 1 January 2007 the municipality, which covers 70.94 km2, had 4,802 inhabitants, giving a population density of 67.7 inhabitants per km2.

The municipality consists of the following districts: Attert, Nobressart, Nothomb, Thiaumont, and Tontelange.

Other population centers include: • Almeroth

• Grendel

• Heinstert

• Lischert

• Lottert

• Louchert

• Luxeroth

• Metzert

• Parette

• Post

• Rodenhoff

• Schadeck

• Schockville

The municipality falls within the Luxembourgish-speaking Arelerland and several street name signs are bilingual.

Sister cities
Attert is twinned with:

 * 🇭🇺 Taktaharkány (Hungary) since 2003
 * 🇧🇪 Kruishoutem (Belgium) since 2004
 * 🇵🇱 Bakałarzewo (Poland) since 2005
 * Bandundu, Democratic Republic of the Congo)

title: Attert