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Buddenbrooks

Buddenbrooks is a 1901 novel by Thomas Mann, chronicling the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the years from 1835 to 1877. Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the Mann family of Lübeck, and their milieu.

It was Mann's first novel, published when he was twenty-six years old. With the publication of the second edition in 1903, Buddenbrooks became a major literary success. Its English translation by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter was published in 1924. The work led to a Nobel Prize in Literature for Mann in 1929; although the Nobel award generally recognises an author's body of work, the Swedish Academy's citation for Mann identified "his great novel Buddenbrooks" as the principal reason for his prize. In 1993, a new English translation by John E. Woods was published. In 2023, Damion Searls published a translation of "A Day in the Life of Hanno Buddenbrook", which he explained "was originally part 11, chapters 2 and 3, of Mann's first novel, Buddenbrooks, but he considered it something of an independent work.... The title is provided by me".

Mann began writing the novel in October 1897, when he was twenty-two years old, and completed it three years later, in July 1900. It was published in 1901. His objective was to write a novel on the conflicts between the worlds of the businessman and the artist, presented as a family saga, continuing in the realist tradition of such 19th-century works as Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir (1830; The Red and the Black). Buddenbrooks is his most enduringly popular novel, especially in Germany, where it has been cherished for its intimate portrait of 19th-century German bourgeois life.

Before Buddenbrooks Mann had written only short stories, which had been collected under the title Der kleine Herr Friedemann (1898, Little Herr Friedemann). They portrayed spiritually challenged figures who struggle to find happiness in (or at the margins of) bourgeois society. Similar themes appear in the Buddenbrooks, but in a fully developed style that already reflects the mastery of narrative, subtle irony of tone, and rich character descriptions of Mann's mature fiction.

The exploration of decadence in the novel reflects the influence of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation (1818, 1844) on the young Mann. The Buddenbrooks of successive generations experience a gradual decline of their finances and family ideals, finding happiness increasingly elusive as values change and old hierarchies are challenged by Germany's rapid industrialisation. The characters who subordinate their personal happiness to the welfare of the family firm encounter reverses, as do those who do not.

The city where the Buddenbrooks live shares so many street names and other details with Mann's native town of Lübeck that the identification is unmistakable, although the novel makes no mention of the name. The young author was condemned for writing a scandalous, defamatory roman à clef about (supposedly) recognisable personages. Mann defended the right of a writer to use material from his own experience.

The years covered in the novel were marked by major political and military developments that reshaped Germany, such as the Revolutions of 1848, the Austro-Prussian War, and the establishment of the German Empire. Historic events nevertheless generally remain in the background, having no direct bearing on the lives of the characters.

Plot summary
In 1835, the wealthy and respected Buddenbrooks, a family of grain merchants, invite their friends and relatives to dinner in their new home in Lübeck. The family consists of patriarch Johann Buddenbrook Jr. and his wife Antoinette; their son Johann III ("Jean") and his wife Elizabeth, and the latter's three school-age children, sons Thomas and Christian, and daughter Antonie ("Tony"). They have several servants, most notably Ida Jungmann, whose job is to care for the children. During the evening, a letter arrives from Gotthold, estranged son of the elder Johann and half-brother of the younger. The elder Johann disapproves of Gotthold's life choices, and ignores the letter. Johann III and Elizabeth later have another daughter, Klara.

As the older children grow up, their personalities begin to show. Diligent and industrious Thomas seems likely to inherit the business some day. By contrast, Christian is more interested in entertainment and leisure. Tony has grown quite conceited and spurns an advance from the son of another up-and-coming family, Herman Hagenström. Herman takes it in stride, but Tony bears a grudge against him for the rest of her life. The elder Johann and Antoinette die, and the younger Johann takes over the business, and gives Gotthold his fair share of the inheritance. The half-brothers will never be close, though, and Gotthold's three spinster daughters continue to resent Johann's side of the family, and delight in their misfortune over the coming years. Thomas goes to Amsterdam to study, while Tony goes to boarding school. After finishing school, Tony remains lifelong friends with her former teacher, Therese "Sesemi" Weichbrodt.

An obsequious businessman, Bendix Grünlich, of Hamburg, introduces himself to the family, and Tony dislikes him on sight. To avoid him, she takes a vacation in Travemünde, a Baltic resort northeast of Lübeck, where she meets Morten Schwarzkopf, a medical student in whom she is interested romantically. In the end, though, she yields to pressure from her father, and marries Grünlich, against her better judgment, in 1846. She gives birth to a daughter, Erika. Later, though, it is revealed that Grünlich had been cooking his books to hide unpayable debt, and had married Tony solely on the hopes that Johann would bail him out. Johann refuses, and takes Tony and Erika home with him instead. Grünlich goes bankrupt, and Tony divorces him in 1850.

Christian begins traveling, going as far as Valparaíso, Chile. At the same time, Thomas comes home, and Johann puts him to work at the business. During the unrest in 1848, Johann is able to calm an angry mob with a speech. He and Elizabeth become increasingly religious in their twilight years. Johann dies in 1855, and Thomas takes over the business. Christian comes home and initially goes to work for his brother, but he has neither the interest nor the aptitude for commerce. He complains of bizarre illnesses and gains a reputation as a fool, a drunk, a womanizer, and a teller of tall tales. Thomas, coming to despise his brother, sends him away, to protect his own and his business's reputation. Later, Thomas marries Gerda Arnoldsen, daughter of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, violin virtuoso and Tony's former schoolmate.

Klara marries Sievert Tiburtius, a pastor from Riga, but she dies of tuberculosis without any issue. Tony marries her second husband, Alois Permaneder, a provincial but honest hops merchant from Munich. However, once he has her dowry in hand, he invests the money and retires, intending to live off his interest and dividends, while spending his days in his local bar. Tony is unhappy in Munich, where her family name impresses no one, where her favorite seafoods are unavailable at any price in the days before refrigeration, where even the dialect is noticeably different from her own. She gives birth to another baby, but it dies on the same day it is born, leaving her heartbroken. Tony later leaves Permaneder after she discovers him drunkenly trying to grope the maid. She and Erika return to Lübeck. Somewhat surprisingly, Permaneder writes her a letter apologizing for his behavior, agreeing not to challenge the divorce, and returning the dowry.

In the early 1860s, Thomas becomes a father and a senator. He builds an ostentatious mansion and soon regrets it, as maintaining the new house proves to be a considerable drain on his time and money. The old house, now too big for the number of people living in it, falls into disrepair. Thomas suffers many setbacks and losses in his business. His hard work keeps the business afloat, but it is clearly taking its toll on him. Thomas throws a party to celebrate the business's centennial in 1868, during which he receives news that one of his risky business deals has resulted in yet another loss.

Erika, now grown up, marries Hugo Weinschenk, a manager at a fire insurance company, and delivers a daughter, Elizabeth. Weinschenk is arrested for insurance fraud and is sent to prison. Thomas's son, Johann IV ("Hanno"), is born a weak, sickly runt and remains one as he grows. He is withdrawn, melancholic, easily upset and frequently bullied by other children. His only friend, Kai Mölln, is a dishevelled young count, a remnant of the medieval aristocracy, who lives with his eccentric father outside Lübeck. Johann does poorly in school, but he discovers an aptitude for music, clearly inherited from his mother. This helps him bond with his uncle Christian, but Thomas is disappointed by his son.

In 1871, the elder Elizabeth dies of pneumonia. Tony, Erika, and little Elizabeth sadly move out of their old house, which is then sold, at a disappointing price, to Herman Hagenström, who is now a successful businessman himself. Christian expresses his desire to marry Aline, a woman of questionable morals with three illegitimate children, one of whom may or may not be Christian's. Thomas, who controls their mother's inheritance, forbids him. Thomas sends Johann to Travemünde to improve his health. Johann loves the peace and solitude of the resort, but returns home no stronger than before. Weinschenk is released from prison, a disgraced and broken man. He soon abandons his wife and daughter and leaves Germany, never to return.

Thomas, becoming increasingly depressed and exhausted by the demands of keeping up his faltering business, devotes ever more time and attention to his appearance, and begins to suspect his wife may be cheating on him. In 1874, he takes a vacation with Christian and a few of his old friends to Travemünde during the off season, where they discuss life, religion, business and the unification of Germany. In 1875, he collapses and dies after a visit to his dentist. His complete despair and lack of confidence in his son and sole heir are obvious in his will, in which he directed that his business be liquidated. All the assets, including the mansion, are sold at distress prices, and faithful servant Ida is dismissed.

Christian gains control of his own share of his father's inheritance and then marries Aline, but his illnesses and bizarre behavior get him admitted to an insane asylum, leaving Aline free to dissipate Christian's money. Johann still hates school, and he passes his classes only by cheating. His health and constitution are still weak, and it is hinted that he might be homosexual. Except for his friend Count Kai, he is held in contempt by everyone outside his immediate family, even his pastor. In 1877, he takes ill with typhoid fever and soon dies. His mother, Gerda, returns home to Amsterdam, leaving an embittered Tony, her daughter Erika and granddaughter Elizabeth as the only remnants of the once proud Buddenbrook family, with only the elderly and increasingly infirm Therese Weichbrodt to offer any friendship or moral support. Facing destitution, they cling to their wavering belief that they may be reunited with their family in the afterlife.

Major themes
One of the more famous aspects of Thomas Mann's prose style can be seen in the use of leitmotifs. Derived from his admiration for the operas of Richard Wagner, in the case of Buddenbrooks an example can be found in the description of the color – blue and yellow, respectively – of the skin and the teeth of the characters. Each such description alludes to different states of health, personality and even the destiny of the characters. Rotting teeth are also a symbol of decay and decadence because it implies indulging in too many cavity-causing foods. An example of this would be Hanno's cup of hot chocolate at breakfast.

Aspects of Thomas Mann's own personality are manifest in the two main male representatives of the third and the fourth generations of the fictional family: Thomas Buddenbrook and his son Hanno Buddenbrook. It should not be considered a coincidence that Mann shared the same first name with one of them. Thomas Buddenbrook reads a chapter of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Idea, and the character of Hanno Buddenbrook escapes from real-life worries into the realm of music, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in particular. (Wagner himself was of bourgeois descent and decided to dedicate himself to art.) In this sense both Buddenbrooks reflect a conflict lived by the author: departure from a conventional bourgeois life to pursue an artistic one, although without rejecting bourgeois ethics.

In any case, a central theme of Thomas Mann's novels, the conflict between art and business, is already a dominant force in this work. Music also plays a major role: Hanno Buddenbrook, like his mother, tends to be an artist and musician, and not a person of commerce like his father.

Literary significance and criticism
Thomas Mann did not intend to write an epic against contemporary aristocratic society and its conventions. On the contrary, Mann often sympathizes with its Protestant ethics and criticizes with irony and detachment. When Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1905, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) by Max Weber was published, Mann recognised its affinities with his novel.

Before writing the novel, Mann conducted extensive research in order to depict with precise detail the conditions of the times and even the mundane aspects of the lives of his characters. In particular, his cousin Marty provided him with substantial information on the economics of Lübeck, including grain prices and the city's economic decline. Mann carried out financial analyses to present the economic information provided in the book accurately. Accurate information through extensive research was a feature of Mann's other novels as well. Some characters in Buddenbrooks speak in the Low German of northern Germany.

In the conversations appearing in the early parts of the book, many of the characters switch back and forth between German and French. The French appears in the original within Mann's German text, similar to the practice of Tolstoy in War and Peace. The bilingual characters are of the older generation, who were already adults during the Napoleonic Wars; in later parts of the book, with the focus shifting to the family's younger generation against the background of Germany moving towards unification and assertion of its new role as a major European power, the use of French by the characters diminishes.

All occurrences in the lives of the characters are seen by the narrator and the family members in relation to the family trade business: the sense of duty and destiny accompanying it as well as the economic consequences that events bring. Through births, marriages, and deaths, the business becomes almost a fetish or a religion, especially for some characters, notably Thomas and his sister Tony. The treatment of the female main character Tony Buddenbrook in the novel resembles the 19th-century realists (Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina), but from a more ironic and less tragic point of view.

Mann's emotional description of the Frau Consul's death has been noted as a significant literary treatment of death and the subject's self-awareness of the death process.

William Faulkner considered it to be the greatest novel of the 20th century.

Thomas Buddenbrook and Schopenhauer
In part 10, chapter 5, Thomas Mann described Thomas Buddenbrook's encounter with Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy. When he read the second volume of Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, Thomas Buddenbrook was strongly affected by chapter 41, entitled "On Death and Its Relation to the Indestructibility of Our Inner Nature". From this chapter's influence, he had such thoughts as "Where shall I be when I am dead? ...I shall be in all those who have ever, do ever, or ever shall say 'I' " ..."Who, what, how could I be if I were not—if this my external self, my consciousness, did not cut me off from those who are not I?"..."soon will that in me which loves you be free and be in and with you – in and with you all." "I shall live...Blind, thoughtless, pitiful eruption of the urging will!" Schopenhauer had written that "Egoism really consists in man's restricting all reality to his own person, in that he imagines he lives in this alone, and not in others. Death teaches him something better, since it abolishes this person, so that man's true nature, that is his will, will henceforth live only in other individuals." According to this teaching, there really is no self to lose when death occurs. What is usually considered to be the self is really the same in all people and animals, at all times and everywhere. Irvin D. Yalom had a character in his novel describe it as follows: "...essentially it described a dying patriarch having an epiphany in which the boundaries dissolved between himself and others. As a result he was comforted by the unity of all life and the idea that after death he would return to the life force whence he came and hence retain his connectedness with all living things."

However, a few days after reading Schopenhauer, "his middle-class instincts" brought Thomas Buddenbrook back to his former belief in a personal Father God and in Heaven, the home of departed individual souls. There could be no consolation if conscious personal identity is lost at death. The novel ends with the surviving characters' firm consoling belief that there will be a large family reunion, in the afterlife, of all the individual Buddenbrook personalities.

Film and television adaptations
A silent film version directed by Gerhard Lamprecht was filmed in Lübeck and released in 1923.

Alfred Weidenmann directed the two-part television film The Buddenbrooks (1959), starring Liselotte Pulver, Nadja Tiller, Hansjörg Felmy, Hanns Lothar, Lil Dagover and Werner Hinz.

Franz Peter Wirth directed an 11 episode television series (1979). It was filmed in Gdańsk, which had been less damaged by war than Lübeck was.

Another film version, starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, was released in 2008.

title: Buddenbrooks


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Coca eradication

Coca eradication is a strategy promoted by the United States government starting in 1961 as part of its "war on drugs" to eliminate the cultivation of coca, a plant whose leaves are not only traditionally used by indigenous cultures but also, in modern society, in the manufacture of cocaine. The strategy was adopted in place of running educational campaigns against drug usage. The prohibitionist strategy is being pursued in the coca-growing regions of Colombia (Plan Colombia), Peru, and formerly Bolivia, where it is highly controversial because of its environmental, health and socioeconomic impact. Furthermore, indigenous cultures living in the Altiplano, such as the Aymaras, use the coca leaf (which they dub the "millenary leaf") in many of their cultural traditions, notably for its medicinal qualities in alleviating the feeling of hunger, fatigue and headaches symptomatic of altitude sicknesses. The growers of coca are named Cocaleros and part of the coca production for traditional use is legal in Peru, Bolivia and Chile.

Environmental impact
Plots denuded of coca plants by mechanical means (burning or cutting) or chemical herbicides, such as glyphosate, are abandoned and cause serious problems with erosion in seasonal rains. Because of the continuous high demand for coca, once a plot is destroyed the planters simply move further into the forest, clearing new lands for coca production. It is this vicious cycle of unsustainable cultivation-eradication that has caused the environment in coca producing zones to suffer substantial decline.

Aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide, one of the most controversial methods of coca eradication, has taken place in Colombia exclusively because of that government's willingness to cooperate with the United States in the militarized eradication of coca after signing Plan Colombia in 2000. In many cases the spraying is carried out by American contractors, such as DynCorp, using planes and helicopters to spray glyphosate on coca plantations. Aerial spraying has been repeatedly condemned by human rights and environmental activists because of its effect on human populations and local soil and water systems. In December 2000, Dutch journalist Marjon van Royen found that "because the chemical is sprayed in Colombia from planes on inhabited areas, there have been consistent health complaints [in humans]. Burning eyes, dizziness and respiratory problems being most frequently reported." In some areas, 80 percent of the children of the indigenous community fell sick with skin rashes, fever, diarrhoea and eye infections. Because the glyphosate is sprayed from the air, there is a much higher chance of human error when spraying suspected illegal coca plantations. In many cases the wrong fields are sprayed, resulting in not only a total loss of the farmer's crop- but the loss of that field altogether as nothing will grow where the herbicide has been sprayed. Though official documentation of the health effects of glyphosate spraying in Colombia are virtually non-existent, neighbouring Ecuador has conducted studies to determine the cause of mysterious illnesses amongst people living along the border of Colombia and has since demanded that no aerial sprayings occur within 10 km of the border because of the damages caused to the people, animals and environment in that area. In 2015, Colombia announced a ban on using glyphosate in these programs due to concerns about human toxicity of the chemical.

In addition, the U.S. has also been involved in the development of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to wipe out coca. In 2000, the Congress of the United States approved use of Fusarium as a biological control agent to kill coca crops in Colombia (and another fungus to kill opium poppies in Afghanistan), but these plans were canceled by then-President Clinton, who was concerned that the unilateral use of a biological agent would be perceived by the rest of the world as biological warfare. The Andean nations have since banned its use throughout the region. (The use of biological agents to kill crops may be illegal under the Biological Weapons Convention of 1975.)

On June 25, 2003, the Superior Administrative Court of the Colombian department of Cundinamarca ordered a stop to the spraying of glyphosate herbicides until the government complies with the environmental management plan for the eradication program. It also mandated a series of studies to protect public health and the environment. The Colombian State Council, the country's maximum administrative authority, later overruled the court's decision to stop fumigations.

Recently, Boliviana negra, a glyphosate-resistant type of coca plant has been found.

Socioeconomic impact
In the sierra of Peru, Bolivia, and northern Argentina, coca has been consumed (by chewing and brewing in infusion) for thousands of years as a stimulant and cure for altitude sickness; it also has symbolic value. The sale and consumption of coca (but not pure cocaine) is legal and legitimate in these countries.

With the growth of the Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s, coca leaf became a valuable agricultural commodity, particularly in Peru and Bolivia, where the quality of coca is higher than in Colombia. To supply the foreign markets, the cartels expanded the cultivation to areas where coca was not a traditional crop. Many poor campesinos, driven from the central highlands by lack of land or loss of jobs, migrated to the lowlands and valleys of the eastern Andes, where they turned to the cultivation of coca.

To counter this development, the U.S. government, through its foreign aid agency USAID, has promoted a policy of crop substitution, whereby coca cultivation is replaced by coffee, banana, pineapple, palm heart, and other crops suitable for a tropical climate. However; many remote coca-growing areas lack the infrastructure to get such perishable products to market on time. Coca on the other hand stores well and is easily transportable. The price of coca has remained high and in many cases remains a more attractive crop to farmers than these alternatives.

Despite these obstacles, many farmers have embraced alternative crops. In 2006, Bolivia, as a result of alternative development programs, exported US$28 million of banana, US$1.9 million of pineapple, and US$7.0 million of palm heart. These industries now employ more than 20,000 people in the Chapare region.

Geopolitical issues
Given the above-mentioned considerations, many critics of coca eradication believe the fundamental goal of the U.S. government is to constrict the flow of income to the Colombian Marxist rebel movement, FARC, which is heavily funded by the illegal drug trade, rather than combating drugs per se. Few if any such critics have anything favorable to say about the illicit drug trade, but they point out that under the current coca eradication policies, poor campesinos bear the brunt of efforts to combat it, while North American and European chemical companies (which supply chemicals needed in the manufacture of cocaine) and banks (which annually launder hundreds of billions of dollars in illegal revenues) continue to profit from the trade. (Although it is illegal in the United States for banks to hold funds from drug cartels—such as FARC—that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations.)

Article 26 of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, a treaty promulgated with U.S. backing in 1961, states that "The Parties shall so far as possible enforce the uprooting of all coca bushes which grow wild. They shall destroy the coca bushes if illegally cultivated."

The US-based Drug Enforcement Administration, along with local governments, has frequently clashed with cocaleros in attempts to eradicate coca across the Andes. This map shows the Chapare region in Bolivia, which has historically been heavily targeted for coca eradication. Human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch have accused the US of human rights abuses in the "coca war".

Meanwhile, the US-based Stepan Company is authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use.

Results
At the start of 2003, there were 1,740 km2 of coca in worldwide cultivation, and Colombia represented more than 60% of that total. Critics of the Colombian eradication program had predicted that it would lead to higher coca production in Peru and Bolivia. However, in November 2003, the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) claimed the area planted with coca in Peru and Bolivia combined fell by 35 km2 in the year up to June, which would suggest that the crop eradication program in neighboring Colombia had not driven production over the borders. According to ONDCP estimates, the area cultivated with coca in Bolivia rose from 244 km2 in 2002 to 284.5 km2 in June 2003, but this increase was more than offset in Peru, where the area fell from 366 km2 to 311.5 km2.

The U.S. figures were very different from preliminary estimates in September 2003 by the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia, which indicated that output in Peru and Bolivia may have risen by as much 21%, or 150 km2 that year. The White House office said its estimate was based on sampling from high resolution satellite imagery. The United Nations used a different technique and had not yet put out any formal estimate for 2003.

A March 2005 report by the ONDCP indicated that despite record aerial spraying of over 1,300 km2 of coca in Colombia in 2004, the total area under coca cultivation remained "statistically unchanged" at 1,140 km2. In response to the report, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), an NGO that monitors the impact of US foreign policy in Latin America, observed that the aerial spraying strategy appeared to have hit its limits. According to WOLA, the new ONDCP data suggested a continued "balloon effect" as aggressive spraying in some areas has not deterred new cultivation elsewhere. The WOLA Senior Associate for Drug Policy commented, "The stable cultivation in 2004 throws into doubt US officials’ predictions of a major impact on US drug prices and purity." Regardless, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe vowed to press ahead with the U.S.-financed fumigation of coca crops.

Official estimates of coca cultivation in Peru for 2005 have yet to be released, but the State Department's own reporting suggests that cultivation in Peru has increased.

In Bolivia, there has been a decrease in clashes since 2004, when Evo Morales and former President Carlos Mesa struck a deal allowing the Chapare region to legally grow a limited amount of coca, in addition to the already legal Yungas region.

In 2006 the Colombian government destroyed around 730 square kilometres, reaching new records in coca plant destruction. The Colombian government planned to destroy around 500 km2 of coca plants in 2007, which would leave only around 200 km2 left. The Colombian government planned to destroy the remaining coca gradually over the following years.

Quotes
"The U.S. has supplied tens of thousands of gallons of Roundup to the Colombian government for use in aerial fumigation of coca crops. We have been using a fleet of crop dusters to dump unprecedented amounts of high-potency glyphosate over hundreds of thousands of acres in one of the most delicate and bio-diverse ecosystems in the world. This futile effort has done little to reduce the availability of cocaine on our streets, but now we are learning that a possible side-effect of this campaign could be the unleashing of a Fusarium epidemic in the Amazon basin. The drug war has tried in vain to keep cocaine out of people's noses, but could result instead in scorching the lungs of the earth."

- Sanho Tree, the director of the Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy Project.

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

title: Coca eradication


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Talk:Carbon nanotube

This technology will greatly reduce the risk of an in-flight failure caused by structural degradation of aircraft.
The current text states that "The Boeing Company has patented the use of carbon nanotubes for structural health monitoring[86] of composites used in aircraft structures. This technology will greatly reduce the risk of an in-flight failure caused by structural degradation of aircraft." The latter claim has no source and seems at least ambiguous if not even implausible given the already low rates of in-flight failure. 140.112.177.67 (talk) 09:58, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Electronic properties
The current text states that "Single-walled nanotubes are an important variety of carbon nanotube because they exhibit electric properties that are not shared by the multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) variants". However, this statement is not expanded upon or referenced. The Physics World article http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/606 suggests that the electric properties such as conductance are in fact very similar between SWNTs and MWNTs. C3lticmatt (talk) 18:36, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The article is very far from complete, but the electronic properties are very different for MWNT and SWNT - the former are (almost) always metallic, because of high probability of having (at least one) a metallic shell, whereas SWNTs can be semiconducting, which is crucial for electronic applications. Even if not metallic, MWNTs have an almost zero bandgap because of large diameter whereas it is of the order of 1 eV in many SWNTs. Materialscientist (talk) 01:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Drug Delivery Section is WRONG
The section on filling carbon nanotubes with a drug to turn them into a drug delivery device is wrong. The referenced paper is actually talking about nanosized carbon test tubes. They are not carbon nanotubes, but just little tubes made from carbon material. Carbon nanotubes have a single-crystalline structure of their shells and are made with very specific growth processes. Their surfaces are also very hydrophobic and they could never be filled up with a drug. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.164.220 (talk) 23:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Never say never :-) CNTs are very easy to fill with water and organic molecules (can provide experimental refs on that). The issue is inner diameter (not the walls) which is usually too small for drugs, but this can be tricked by proper CNT growth. That said, the section was indeed poorly referenced and I just deleted it outright. There is much work going on with CNTs for drug delivery, and it should be easier just to rewrite the section. Materialscientist (talk) 00:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Weight of Carbon Nanotube
Is there any information of Carbon Nanotube?

If I want to make a cable of 100km for my project, what will be the weight?

The diameter of the cable must be sufficient to withstand high tension.

See more at: Constructing a Counterweight in Thermosphere

Shivan Raptor (talk) 03:03, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I have modified space elevator article which might help your project. I don't know how to make a long cable out of nanotubes without sacrificing their strength - about 20 cm seems a current limit. Maybe quartz is a more feasible material. Materialscientist (talk) 04:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Source for "parchment model"?
Does anyone here have a verifiable source for the "parchment model"? Some googling led me only to material that seems to originate from Wikipedia, and there are no obvious hits on Web of Science... Akhuettel (talk) 18:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, found it. doi:10.1080/10587250008025562 and doi:10.1016/S0008-6223(02)00342-1 for whoever is interested... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akhuettel (talk • contribs) 18:23, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

electronic properties
while fact that nanotubes can carry much larger current density is interesting, it would be also interesting to know about such basic property as conductivity. 83.18.229.190 (talk) 18:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 * True. Does anyone know if a four-wire ("Kelvin Connection") electrical resistance measurement has been made on a 'metallic' carbon nanotube?  Jamesdbell8 (talk) 21:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

 * See the new text in Carbon_nanotube. It's not possible to do a traditional 4-wire measurement on a nanotube because the leads are a significant perturbation on the nanotube. Tls60 (talk) 15:26, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

First reference?
I don't see how it's ~100million : 1 aspect ratio. i see 18 centimeter long and 1 nanometer diameter at one point — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.126.177.160 (talk) 19:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * which is 18/(1) = 180,000,000; the article says 132,... because the tube is thicker than 1 nm. Materialscientist (talk) 03:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the article's claim that the length/diameter ratio of carbon nanotubes is greater than 'any other material' isn't necessarily correct. Silica optical fibers often have a diameter of 125 microns (0.125 millimeters) and can be drawn to lengths of 1000 kilometers (1,000,000 meters)from a single large preform, which amounts to an L/D ratio of 8,000,000,000. Someone in the fiber-optic manufacturing industry should be able to confirm this. Jamesdbell8 (talk) 21:35, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Molten Salt Synthesis
Is missing. 131.111.129.252 (talk) 14:53, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Source needed
Under excessive tensile strain, the tubes will undergo plastic deformation, which means the deformation is permanent. This deformation begins at strains of approximately 5% and can increase the maximum strain the tubes undergo before fracture by releasing strain energy.

Can someone please post a source for this sentence? StainlessSteelScorpion (talk) 12:51, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Longest carbon nanotube?
Do we have any information on what the longest carbon nanotube is that has been created?--Wyn.junior (talk) 14:35, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

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Removed text about metal or semiconductors
This article is about carbon nanotubes. You can form nanotubes from other materials, but carbon nanotubes cannot contain shells of metal or semiconductor. They're just graphene. Hermanoere (talk) 16:35, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Merge paragraphs
In 2014, this edit duplicated text from this section into this section. Edits have accumulated since 2014, but for the most part, the former section still duplicates the last half of the latter section. They should be merged. Art LaPella (talk) 03:57, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

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potential use - resistivity or conductivity?
The section on potential used states: "At 300 K, CNT fibers have a resistivity one order of magnitude higher than the best electrical conductors.[91]"

Shouldn't this read either ".. resistivity on order of magnitude lower" or "conductivity one order of magnitude higher..." ? Sven Jense (talk) 10:19, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In the source, it does in fact say
 * "At high temperature the results obtained on the raw CNT fibers show a typical metallic behavior and the resistivity levels without postdoping process were found to be only one order of magnitude higher than the best electrical conductors, with the specific conductivity (conductivity per unit weight) comparable to that of pure copper"
 * - that's at high temperatures. But I agree that including this fact here, without context may be a bit confusing.  In the article, the point seems to be that the observed resistivity-temperature dependence implies a 2D mechanism for conduction. CyreJ (talk) 09:12, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

"will permit the use of multi-walled nanotubes as main movable arms in coming nanomechanical devices" -- clear example of crystal-balling
The telescopic motion ability of inner shells and their unique mechanical properties will permit the use of multi-walled nanotubes as main movable arms in coming nanomechanical devices. Retraction force that occurs to telescopic motion caused by the Lennard-Jones interaction between shells and its value is about 1.5 nN.

This paragraph is formed around an explicitly prognosticatory assertion. (See "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball".) Perhaps someone can find some way of relating the findings of the cited references in a non-speculative context? Otherwise I'd suggest just deleting the paragraph. I've put in a Speculation-inline template for now. —Undomelin (talk) 18:12, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Possible error in lede
The lede states, in part:  "Owing to the material's exceptional strength and stiffness, nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1,[1] significantly larger than for any other material." I believe that most common quartz optical fibers (optical waveguides) have a diameter of about 125 micrometers. It's been a few years, but I am under the impression that they can be drawn directly to lengths of at least 1000 kilometers, and possibly substantially longer. 1000 km is about 8 billion times longer than 0.000125 meters. In addition, such quartz fibers can be welded together, using lasers, for even larger lengths. This is a bit difficult to research, because if you do a google search for 'longest optical fiber length', the usual result refers to the maximum data link distance, which might involve many fibers attached with mechanical connectors. 2601:1C2:4E02:3020:75FC:EE91:77A2:647A (talk) 20:44, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Top image in Android Wikipedia app is not a carbon nanotube
Just to say I'm currently using the Android Wikipedia app and the top image behind the title for some reason is showing a buckyball instead of a CNT... CharlesC (talk) 10:58, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Symmetry section/article
I started writing the following section about the symmetries of carbon nanotubes. Naturally I assumed infinite length (that is, assumed that the ends are so faraway that their influence on the part of interest is negligible), and a regular graphene-like geometry with all atoms on a cylindrical surface. This seems to be a standard assumption in studies of this kind. However, I now wonder whether real nanotubes may not be that nice. Given that the bonds are strained compared to graphene, perhaps the atoms find a way to relieve some of the strain by puckering in and out of that ideal cylinder? In that case, the theoretical analysis of the symmetries, below, would not hold. The actual symmetry group could be just as subgroup of the ideal one below. Or there may not even be any symmetry. Are there emprical or quantum-theoretical papers that have looked into this question? Anyway, even if this analysis is sound and relevant, maybe it should be a separate article?

 * Symmetry

 * Ideal (infinitely long) carbon nanotubes are highly symmetrical, and that symmetry influences the physical properties of the tubes, even of actual (finite) ones.

 * A (three-dimensional) isometry is a mapping from three-space to itself that preserves distances between points (and therefore also angles). They comprise rotations, translations, and reflections, and arbitrary sequences of those. A symmetry of a shape is an isometry that leaves the shape unchanged -- like rotation of an n-sided pyramid about its axis by 1/n of a turn, or mirroring a box across one of its bissecting planes.

 * The symmetries of a chiral nanotube must preserve its handedness, and therefore can be described as combinations of rotations and translations, with no reflections. For any two atoms A and B of the tube, there is exactly one isometry that takes A to the position of B.  if A and B belong to the same class (that is, their bonds point in the same directions in the unrolled diagram) then the isometry is either a rotation of the tube around its axis M, a translation along the direction of M, or a combination of the two (a screw motion). If the atoms belong to opposite classes, the isometry is a rotation by 180 degrees around an axis L that is perpendicular M and to the line segment AB, and goes through the midpoint of the latter.

 * These isometries imply that all atom positions are equivalent, with respect to the tube's structure. On the other hand, the bonds are not equivalent. They can be divided into three classes, depending on the angle that they make with respect to the direction of M.  For any two bonds of the same class, there is an isometry that takes one to the other, in each of the two possible senses; but no isometry can take a bond to another bond of a different class.

 * The isometries that move the atoms by the smallest amounts are the six screw motions that take any atom to one of the six nearest atoms of the same class. In the unrolled diagram, they correspond to translations by the six vectors u, v, v−u, −u, −v, and u−v.

 * Let g be the greatest common divisor of the type indices n and m of the tube. If g is greater than 1, then the isometries of the tube include pure rotations of the tube about the axis by multiples of 1/g of a turn.  (These symmetries also exist for finite tubes of that type, if properly terminated.) Moreover, for any n and m, there are isometries that are pure translations by multiples of |r| along the direction of M, where r  = ((2m + n)u - (2n + m)v)/g.  That is, the tube's structure is periodic along the tube's axis, even without rotation.

 * Zigzag and armchair nanotubes have all these rotational and translational isometries, but, being achiral, have also many symmetries that involve reflections.

 * On a zigzag nanotube, for any atom A, there is an "axial" plane of symmetry that contains A and the axis M of the tube. There is also a "transversal" plane of symmetry, perpendicular to M, halfway between any two successive zigzag rings. On an armchair nanotube, for each bond that is directed perpendicularly to M there is a "transversal" plane of symmetry that includes that bond and is perpendicular to M; and an "axial" plane that contains M and bisects that bond.

 * Thus, a zizgzag tube of type (n,0) and an armchair tube of type (n,n) have n axial planes of symmetry. Their symmetries include pure rotations around the axis M by 1/n of a turn, and pure translations in the direction of M, by the distance |2v −  u| for the zigzag types, and |u| for the armchair types.

 * The mirror symmetries imply that the bonds in achiral tubes are of only two types, not three. In zigzag tubes, one bond out of every atom is parallel to the axis M, and two are directed at 60 degrees from it.  In armchair tubes, one bond is directed at 90 degrees to M, and two at 30 degrees from it. The skew bonds are all structurally equivalent, and distinct from the parallel or perpendicular bonds.

All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 07:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

They are not the strongest?
The article on linear acetylenic carbon (carbyne, [\sC\tC\s]_{n} or [\dC\dC\d]_{n}) claims that it is stronger and tougher that nanotubes. Can we organize a boxing match between them, to settle the question? (Unless the nanotubologists agree carbyne IS a degenerate nanotube, of type (1,0)...) --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 09:10, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Doubts about terminology
I am referring to the following sentences in the text, just before the box of the content, and reported here in italics: ''The unique strength of carbon nanotubes (or fullerenes in general) is due to orbital hybridization, which causes the bonds between adjacent carbon atoms to be of the sp2 type. These bonds, which are similar to those of graphene, are stronger than the sp3 bonds in alkanes and diamond.'' Now, to my knowledge, sp2 or sp3 are symbols referring to the kind of hybridization of an atom, and are not to be employed to designate a kind of bond. Therefore, the covalent homonuclear bonds of the topic should be designed as σ, obtained by overlappind of sp2 hybrid orbitals. This kind of overlapping produces bonds stronger than employing sp3 ones; of course, there is also the π-component to be taken into account. In addition, strictly, the hybridization of carbon atoms in nanotubes is somewhat intermediate between sp2 and sp3, the contribution of the former being however larger than the latter. But perhaps it is preferable not to mention this topic in an introductory article such as Wikipedia's one.Ekisbares (talk) 07:22, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

 * Good catch. I've removed the text.  John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 02:37, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, removing the whole passage is too much. Perhaps, it could remain, after modification, for instance as follows:

The unique strength of carbon nanotubes (or fullerenes in general) is due to the fact that the σ-bonds between adjacent carbon atoms come out of the overlap of sp2 orbitals. These bonds, which are similar to those of graphene, are stronger than the bonds in alkanes and diamond, which are produced by the overlap of sp3 orbitals. Moreover, the presence of a delocalized π-bond in addition to the σ-ones gives further strength to the bonds in nanotubes (as well as in fullerenes and graphene).

I would point out that also the article of Wikipedia about graphite contains similarly objectionable terminology. As I did for the article about nanotubes, I wrote some remarks in the “Talk” section. If there is agreement, that article could be modified as well.Ekisbares (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

 * I'd like to see a reference for that from a peer-reviewed source. My instinct is that it's simplistic to say that material strength is based solely on bond order.  There's also the difference between single-molecule and bulk strength, and also different kinds of mechanical stress.  You might want to take a look at Mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes, that article could certainly use some improvement. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 03:00, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with you. I erroneously gave as ascertained the statement about the "unique strength of carbon nanotubes" as depending only on the strength of the chemical bonds, and just wanted to give this statement a more correct form. But your observation has convinced me that it is preferable to remove the whole passage. I would like to know your opinion about my observations regarding the article concerning graphite.Ekisbares (talk) 20:36, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Article issues and classification

 * The article is tagged "citation needed" since December 2020 and November 2022. The criteria #1 states; The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited.

 * Unsourced content:
 * The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the "Basic details" section, and the last 3 sentences of the last paragraph,
 * The entire "Types" section as well as the 1st paragraph of the "Narrowest examples" subsection,
 * The "Variants" section,
 * The "Properties" section,
 * The 4th paragraph of the "Electrical" section,
 * The 1st paragraph in the "Optical" section,
 * The 2nd paragraph of the "Synthesis" section,
 * The 2nd paragraph of the "Functionalization" section,
 * The 1st paragraph of the "Current" section
 * The article is reasonably well-written. (#4) yet the lead has nine paragraphs. The article is tagged as having "predictions or speculation" and "needing clarification".

 * This article fails the B-class criteria. -- Otr500 (talk) 09:57, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Carbon nanotube


text:
Woodhenge

Woodhenge is a Neolithic Class II henge and timber circle monument within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire, England. It is 2 mi northeast of Stonehenge, in Durrington parish, just north of the town of Amesbury.

Discovery
Woodhenge was believed to be identified from an aerial photograph taken by squadron leader (later group captain) Gilbert Insall, VC, in 1926, during the same period that an aerial archaeology survey of Wessex by Alexander Keiller and O. G. S. Crawford (Archaeology Officer for the Ordnance Survey) was being undertaken. Although some sources attribute the identification of the henge to Crawford, he credits the discovery to Insall.

In fact, the site had been found in the early 19th century, when it was described as an earthwork and thought to be a disc barrow. It was originally called "Dough Cover." A professional excavation of the site was undertaken between 1926 and 1929 by Maud Cunnington and Ben Cunnington. They confirmed that it was a henge.

Date
Pottery from the excavation was identified as being consistent with the grooved ware style of the middle Neolithic, although later beaker sherds were also found. Thus, the structure was probably built during the period of cultural similarities commonly known as the Beaker. The Bell Beaker culture spans both the Late Neolithic and Britain's early Bronze Age and includes both the distinctive "bell beaker" type ceramic vessels for which the cultural grouping is known, and other local styles of pottery from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age.

While construction of the timber monument was probably earlier, the ditch has been dated to between 2470 and 2000 BC, which would be about the same time as, or slightly later than, construction of the stone circle at Stonehenge. Radiocarbon dating of artefacts shows that the site was still in use around 1800 BC.

Structure
The site consists of six concentric oval rings of postholes, the outermost being about 43 by wide. They are surrounded first by a single flat-bottomed ditch, 2.4 m deep and up to 12 m wide, and finally by an outer bank, about 10 m wide and 1 m high. With an overall diameter measuring 110 m (including bank and ditch), the site had a single entrance to the north-east.

At the centre of the rings was a crouched inhumation of a child which Cunnington interpreted as a dedicatory sacrifice, its skull having been split. Subsequent theories have indicated that the weight and pressure of the soil over the years could have caused the skull to fragment. After excavation, the remains were taken to London, where they were destroyed during The Blitz, making further examination impossible. Cunnington also found a crouched inhumation of a teenager within a grave dug in the eastern section of the ditch, opposite the entrance.

Most of the 168 post holes held wooden posts, although Cunnington found evidence that a pair of standing stones may have been placed between the second and third post hole rings. Excavations in 2006 indicated that there were at least five standing stones on the site, arranged in a "cove". The deepest post holes measured up to 2 m and are believed to have held posts which reached as high as 7.5 m above ground. Those posts would have weighed up to 5 tons, and their arrangement was similar to that of the bluestones at Stonehenge. The positions of the postholes are currently marked with modern concrete posts – a simple and informative method of displaying the site.

Further comparisons with Stonehenge were quickly noticed by Cunnington: both have entrances oriented approximately to the midsummer sunrise, and the diameters of the timber circles at Woodhenge and the stone circles at Stonehenge are similar.

Relationship with other monuments
Over 40 years after the discovery of Woodhenge, another timber circle of comparable size was discovered in 1966, 70 m to the north. Known as the Southern Circle, it lies inside what came to be known as the Durrington Walls henge enclosure.

There are various theories about possible timber structures that might have stood on and about the site, and their purpose, but it is likely that the timbers were free-standing, rather than part of a roofed structure. For many years, the study of Stonehenge had overshadowed work on the understanding of Woodhenge. Recent ongoing investigations as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project are now starting to cast new light on the site and on its relationship with neighbouring sites and Stonehenge.

Theories have emerged in which the sites may all be part of a layout in which the structures were linked by roads, and which incorporated the natural features of the River Avon. One of these paths, consisting of a series of wide parallel banks and ditches referred to as Stonehenge Avenue, crosses the ridge between the two sites that would otherwise make them both visible from one another, possibly connecting them physically as well as spiritually.

One suggestion is that the use of wood rather than stone may have held a special significance in the beliefs and practices involving the transformation between life and death, possibly separating the two sites into separate "domains". These theories have been supported by findings of bones of butchered pigs exclusively at Woodhenge, showing evidence of feasting, leaving Stonehenge as a site only inhabited by ancestral spirits, not living people. These same possible representations (wood vs. stone) have also been seen in ritualistic megalithic sites on the island of Madagascar, at least 4,000 years after the erection of Woodhenge.

title: Woodhenge


text:
Barry Domvile

Admiral Sir Barry Edward Domvile, (5 September 1878 – 13 August 1971) was a high-ranking Royal Navy officer who was interned during the Second World War for being a Nazi sympathiser. Throughout the 1930s, he had expressed support for Germany's Adolf Hitler as well as pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic sentiments.

Naval career
Domvile was the son of Admiral Sir Compton Domvile and followed his father into the Royal Navy in 1892. In 1912, he became Assistant Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, and during World War I he commanded the destroyer HMS Miranda, the destroyer HMS Tipperary, the cruiser HMS Centaur and then the cruiser HMS Curacoa. After the war, he became Director of Plans in 1920, and Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean in 1922 before becoming, in 1925, commanding officer of the battleship HMS Royal Sovereign.

He served as Director of Naval Intelligence from 1927 to 1930, then commanded the Third Cruiser Squadron from 1931 to 1932, and served as President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich from 1932 to 1934.

Far-right activism
Domvile visited Germany in 1935 and was impressed by many aspects of the Nazi government. He was invited to attend the Nuremberg Rally of September 1936 as a guest of German Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop. Domvile became a council member of the Anglo-German Fellowship and founded the Anglo-German organisation The Link.

Domvile supported St. John Philby, the anti-Semitic British People's Party candidate in the Hythe by-election of 1939, and visited Salzburg that summer, which attracted some criticism.

Domvile was prominent in British far-right circles as the prospect of war seemed imminent in the late 1930s. At one meeting of the Right Club, which had been set up in May 1939, he declared the need for "a bloody revolution" in Britain and added "I am ready to start one right away."

Domvile's pro-Nazi and anti-war sympathies were expressed in an endorsement to the 1939 book The Case For Germany. His endorsement consisted of the comment in the preface: It is a great pleasure to me to introduce the public to Dr. Laurie's valuable book on modern Germany.

He is best known to the world as a brilliant scientist, but he has found time in the intervals of his work to pursue with ardour the task upon which every sensible member of the British and German races should be engaged – namely the establishment of good relations and a better understanding between these two great nations.

Dr. Laurie knows full well that this friendship is the keystone to peace in Europe – nay, in the whole world. He is one of the small group who founded the Association known as "The Link", whose sole aim is to get Britons and Germans to know and understand one another better. He is one of the most zealous workers in this good cause in the country.

He writes of the National Socialist movement with knowledge and great sympathy. The particular value of this book lies in the fact that it is written by a foreigner, who cannot be accused of patriotic excess in his interpretation of the great work done by Herr Hitler and his associates. I recommend this volume with confidence to all people who are genuinely impressed with the desire to understand one of the greatest – and most bloodless – revolutions in history."

Admiral Sir Barry Domvile 8 May 1939

World War II
In June 1940, Domvile's mistress, Mrs Olive Baker, was arrested for distributing leaflets promoting Reichssender Hamburg. She tried to commit suicide in prison and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.

Domvile himself was interned during World War II under Defence Regulation 18B from 7 July 1940 to 29 July 1943.

During his wartime captivity, he wrote an autobiographical memoir, From Admiral to Cabin Boy. It was first published in 1947 and republished in 2008.

Later life
Domvile largely faded from public life in the postwar period. He was a supporter of the League of Empire Loyalists but was never more than a peripheral figure in that group. He was a member of the National Front's National Council from its formation in 1967 to his death in 1971.

Books

 * By and Large, pub Hutchinson, 1936 (His autobiography)
 * From Admiral to Cabin Boy (1947; the cabin referred to is his cell at Brixton prison during internment) ISBN 0-89562-099-5; online
 * Look to Your Moat (A history of British naval and merchant seamen)
 * The Great Taboo: Freemasonry
 * Straight from the Jew's Mouth
 * Truth about Anti-Semitism

title: Barry Domvile


text:
Michael Eavis

Sir Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis (born 17 October 1935) is an English dairy farmer and the co-creator of the Glastonbury Festival, which takes place at his farm in Pilton, Somerset.

Personal life
Eavis was born in Pilton, Somerset on 17 October 1935, and grew up at Worthy Farm in the village. His father was a Methodist local preacher, and his mother a school teacher. Eavis was educated at Wells Cathedral School, followed by the Thames Nautical Training College in Greenhithe, Kent, after which he joined the Union-Castle Line, part of the British Merchant Navy, as a trainee midshipman. His plan was to spend twenty years at sea, and return with a pension to help subsidise the income from the family farm.

After his father died when Eavis was 19, he inherited the family farm of 150 acre and 60 cows. He worked at Mendip Colliery at Nettlebridge or New Rock colliery at Stratton-on-the-Fosse on the Somerset Coalfield for a couple of years to help supplement the income from the farm.

Eavis and his first wife Ruth had three children, Juliet, Rebecca and Jane, but divorced in 1964. He next married Jean Hayball, with whom he had a son, Patrick, and a daughter, Emily. Jean died of cancer in 1999, and Eavis has since married his third wife, Liz. In common with his parents and second wife, Eavis remains a practising Methodist, although he has also stated that he is "not really bothered" about the existence of God. He is a teetotaler and does not smoke.

Glastonbury Festival
In 1969, Eavis and his second wife Jean visited the Bath Festival of Blues. Inspired by seeing the performance of Led Zeppelin, Eavis hosted the Pilton Pop Folk & Blues Festival in 1970. The following year a free festival, Glastonbury Fayre, was organised by Andrew Kerr and associates. It later developed into Glastonbury Festival.

In 2010, the festival's 40th year, he appeared on the main stage at the festival with headline artist Stevie Wonder, to sing the chorus of the latter's "Happy Birthday".

Political activity
Eavis has credited a number of influences for his political views, including traditions of nonconformity in his family, as well as his time as a miner, during which he was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers. During the early 1980s he was involved in establishing a local branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and subsequently agreed to make the Glastonbury Festival a fundraiser for CND, as it was from 1981 to 1987.

After recovering from stomach cancer, Eavis stood as a candidate for the Labour Party in the 1997 general election in Wells, polling 10,204 votes. In 2004, however, he suggested that disillusioned Labour voters should switch their vote to the Green Party in protest at the Iraq War, though he returned to supporting the Labour Party in 2010.

In 2005, Eavis was quoted in The Guardian as being a supporter of hunting. "I don't hunt myself, but I support the people who want to hunt. With all that's going on in the world, it was outrageous to ban it." In 2006, he was appointed as President of the Somerset Chamber of commerce and Industry.

In 2011, Eavis was quoted as lamenting the decline in political activity associated with the Glastonbury Festival. He was guest editor of the Western Daily Press newspaper on Glastonbury's 'fallow' weekend, 23 June 2012.

Eavis invited Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to appear at the 2017 festival, introducing the Run the Jewels' set. Eavis supported Corbyn's anti-nuclear and anti-austerity policies, saying "he's got something new and precious, and people are excited about it. He really is the hero of the hour."

Charitable work
Eavis has apportioned profits from his Glastonbury Festival to support charitable causes, including local projects such as the restoration of the Tithe Barn, Pilton. In November 2008, during an appearance on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, Eavis stated that the Festival could never lose its licence due to the contribution it makes to the local economy.

In 2009, Eavis starred in a short film to promote Somerset, commissioned by Inward Investment Agency Into Somerset.

Eavis served as vice-president (alongside Rebecca Pow MP) of Somerset Wildlife Trust until June 2018: he stepped down following an online petition criticising his support for badger culling. In response to the petition, Eavis claimed that signatories "probably live in Kensington" and had "never seen a badger".

Honours and tributes
Eavis holds honorary degrees from the University of Bath (Doctor of Arts honoris causa, 2004) and the University of Bristol (Master of Arts honoris causa, 2006). In the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to music. He was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to music and charity.

In 2009 Eavis was nominated by Time magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world. In 2012, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from the University for the Creative Arts.

In 2015 train operator First Great Western named High Speed Train powercar 43026 Michael Eavis. After this was withdrawn, 802013 was named after him in April 2019.

He was awarded the Freedom of the Town of Glastonbury on 3 May 2022.

In early 2024 Eavis was knighted at Windsor Castle, by the Princess Royal, for services to music and charity.

title: Michael Eavis


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Talk:Conventional Egyptian chronology

Necessity and Overcompletion
Shouldn't this page be conjoined with the list of pharaohs? Isn't this list including too many pharaohs whose existence is unlikely at best? What about the later dynasties? Did they fall off the face of the earth? User: 15lsoucy

(New heading on old discussion)
(...for page display said User:Rursus.  Said: Rursus   ☻   08:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC))

Much work still to do in creating links to existing articles on particular rulers! I have deliberately not just linked every name, two minds about this but I thought it wise to actually check the links as they are made. It will happen gradually, maybe one dynasty at a time. Andrewa 14:16 1 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hey, are the dates for the middle kingdom given here really "conventional"? The long-time used 1991-1786 dates for the 12th dynasty still seem to be in place in a lot of books. john 00:37, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * The dates in the article for the Middle Kingdom are the conventional dates, & hang from calculations made based on the Sothic Cycle. (I know, there's no article yet; I've been busy accumulating the material for one, so you can consider the following as an advance peak at what I've been working one.)

 * It is believed that the ancient Egyptian Calendar was not only 365 days long, but did not have any intercalary days added to keep it in alignment with the real year with was about 365.25 days long. (The Tropical year & Sidereal year vary from this figure by 0.01 days, so this is accurate enough for the following exposition.) As a result, the first day of the year slowly arrived earlier as the years progressed, until after 1461 years it finally fell at the same point in time, as measured by the seasons or the stars. This phenomena was first noticed by Eduard Meyer in 1904, who then carefully combed the known Egyptian inscriptions & written materials to find any mention of the calendar date when Sirius rose. He found six of them, on which the dates of much of the Conventional chronology is based, one of which is believed to date to the 7th year of Sesostris III.

 * Because Sesostris is listed in a section of the Turin Papyrus without any lacunae -- this papyrus being an early document that records all of Egyptian kings & the length of their reigns down to the New Kingdom -- this synchronicity with the Sothic Cycle allows us to give absolute dates to rulers over 955 years of Egyptian history. This is the source for these dates from 1991 BC to 1786 BC. However, a number of criticisms have been levelled against the reliablity of the Sothic Cycle. Some are vital enough to warrant attention (e.g., was the civil year unchanged through the thousands of years of Egyptian history?), & some aren't as serious (e.g., there is no contemporary mention of the Sothic Cycle in the Egyptian corpus).

 * To paraphrase Winston Churchill's famous remark about governments, dating by the Sothic Cycle is the worst possible system -- except for all of the others. While various scholars, eager to solve the problem & for fame have been attempting to find a better system -- counting all of the recorded years, radiocarbon dating, records of dates the Nile flooded -- none have proven as objective & invulnerable to repeated special explanations as calculating against the Sothic Cycle. -- llywrch 01:30, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Llywrch, doesn't that mean we should use the conventional Sothic dates, rather than the dates currently provided here (1937-1759)? john 02:07, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * John, I seem to have answered your question a little too quickly; I thought the dates in the main article matched the dates in my reference, but taking another look, I see that they don't match.

 * The problem lies in these words in the main article: "taking his low chronology." Due to uncertaincies about where the recorded observation was made (either Thebes or Memphis), there is a High & a Low Chronology for this period, whose dates vary by about 60 years. If a synchonism could be found with another dating system (say from Mesopotamia), we could then determine which is correct; but from about the Middle Kingdom earlier, Egyptian history exists in isolation. As a result, some historicans dispense with exact dates for the Old Kingdom.

 * Perhaps a note that would explain to readers how to adjust dates between the two systems is needed. -- llywrch 20:12, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We should certainly explaining all the dating problems more fully. But further than that, I think we should use the High Chronology dates for the Middle Kingdom, which are much more commonly found, while mentioning the existence of low chronology dates. john 20:32, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A group of us over at WikiProject Ancient Egypt have been discussing making radical changes to this & related pages. If you'd like to offer your opinion, join the conversatino on the Talk page. -- llywrch 20:10, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dates for Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV?
Why aren't any dates provided for Amenhotep II and Thutmose IV? john k 13:45, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Later Dynasties Needed
The 27th and later dynasties, including the Ptolemies, are needed still Klompje7 10:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Links to existing articles
I linkified as many names as I could find. Many of the spellings as listed here do not match the article titles, but it's beyond my expertise level to pick one or the other, so I just linked without changing either this list or the article. Igiffin 23:53, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Conventional Egyptian chronology