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C. V. Raman

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970) was an Indian physicist known for his work in the field of light scattering. Using a spectrograph that he developed, he and his student K. S. Krishnan discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, the deflected light changes its wavelength. This phenomenon, a hitherto unknown type of scattering of light, which they called "modified scattering" was subsequently termed the Raman effect or Raman scattering. Raman received the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery and was the first Asian and the first non-White to receive a Nobel Prize in any branch of science.

Born to Tamil Brahmin parents, Raman was a precocious child, completing his secondary and higher secondary education from St Aloysius' Anglo-Indian High School at the age of 11 and 13, respectively. He topped the bachelor's degree examination of the University of Madras with honours in physics from Presidency College at age 16. His first research paper, on diffraction of light, was published in 1906 while he was still a graduate student. The next year he obtained a master's degree. He joined the Indian Finance Service in Calcutta as Assistant Accountant General at age 19. There he became acquainted with the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), the first research institute in India, which allowed him to carry out independent research and where he made his major contributions in acoustics and optics.

In 1917, he was appointed the first Palit Professor of Physics by Ashutosh Mukherjee at the Rajabazar Science College under the University of Calcutta. On his first trip to Europe, seeing the Mediterranean Sea motivated him to identify the prevailing explanation for the blue colour of the sea at the time, namely the reflected Rayleigh-scattered light from the sky, as being incorrect. He founded the Indian Journal of Physics in 1926. He moved to Bangalore in 1933 to become the first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science. He founded the Indian Academy of Sciences the same year. He established the Raman Research Institute in 1948 where he worked to his last days.

The Raman effect was discovered on 28 February 1928. The day is celebrated annually by the Government of India as the National Science Day.

Early life and education
C. V. Raman was born in Tiruchirappalli in the Madras Presidency of British India (now Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, India) to Tamil Iyer Brahmin parents, Chandrasekhar Ramanathan Iyer and Parvathi Ammal. He was the second of eight siblings. His father was a teacher at a local high school, and earned a modest income. He recalled: "I was born with a copper spoon in my mouth. At my birth my father was earning the magnificent salary of ten rupees per month!" In 1892, his family moved to Visakhapatnam (then Vizagapatam or Vizag) in Andhra Pradesh as his father was appointed to the faculty of physics at Mrs A.V. Narasimha Rao College.

Raman was educated at the St Aloysius' Anglo-Indian High School, Visakhapatnam. He passed matriculation at age 11 and the First Examination in Arts examination (equivalent to today's intermediate examination, pre-university course) with a scholarship at age 13, securing first position in both under the Andhra Pradesh school board (now Andhra Pradesh Board of Secondary Education) examination.

In 1902, Raman joined Presidency College in Madras (now Chennai) where his father had been transferred to teach mathematics and physics. In 1904, he obtained a B.A. degree from the University of Madras, where he stood first and won the gold medals in physics and English. At age 18, while still a graduate student, he published his first scientific paper on "Unsymmetrical diffraction bands due to a rectangular aperture" in the British journal Philosophical Magazine in 1906. He earned an M.A. degree from the same university with highest distinction in 1907. His second paper published in the same journal that year was on surface tension of liquids. It was alongside Lord Rayleigh's paper on the sensitivity of ear to sound, and from which Lord Rayleigh started to communicate with Raman, courteously addressing him as Professor.

Aware of Raman's capacity, his physics teacher Rhishard Llewellyn Jones insisted he continue research in England. Jones arranged for Raman's physical inspection with Colonel (Sir Gerald) Giffard. Raman often had poor health and was considered as a "weakling." The inspection revealed that he would not withstand the harsh weathers of England, the incident of which he later recalled, and said, "[Giffard] examined me and certified that I was going to die of tuberculosis… if I were to go to England."

Career
Raman's elder brother Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar had joined the Indian Finance Service (now Indian Audit and Accounts Service), the most prestigious government service in India. In no condition to study abroad, Raman followed suit and qualified for the Indian Finance Service achieving first position in the entrance examination in February 1907. He was posted in Calcutta (now Kolkata) as Assistant Accountant General in June 1907. It was there that he became highly impressed with the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), the first research institute founded in India in 1876. He immediately befriended Asutosh Dey, who would eventually become his lifelong collaborator, Amrita Lal Sircar, founder and secretary of IACS, and Ashutosh Mukherjee, executive member of the institute and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta. With their support, he obtained permission to conduct research at IACS in his own time even "at very unusual hours," as Raman later reminisced. Up to that time the institute had not yet recruited regular researchers, or produced any research paper. Raman's article "Newton's rings in polarised light" published in Nature in 1907 became the first from the institute. The work inspired IACS to publish a journal, Bulletin of Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, in 1909 in which Raman was the major contributor.

In 1909, Raman was transferred to Rangoon, British Burma (now Myanmar), to take up the position of currency officer. After only a few months, he had to return to Madras as his father died from an illness. The subsequent death of his father and funeral rituals compelled him to remain there for the rest of the year. Soon after he resumed office at Rangoon, he was transferred back to India at Nagpur, Maharashtra, in 1910. Even before he served a year in Nagpur, he was promoted to Accountant General in 1911 and again posted to Calcutta.

From 1915, the University of Calcutta started assigning research scholars under Raman at IACS. Sudhangsu Kumar Banerji (who later become Director General of Observatories of India Meteorological Department), a PhD scholar under Ganesh Prasad, was his first student. From the next year, other universities followed suit including University of Allahabad, Rangoon University, Queen's College Indore, Institute of Science, Nagpur, Krisnath College, and University of Madras. By 1919, Raman had guided more than a dozen students. Following Sircar's death in 1919, Raman received two honorary positions at IACS, Honorary Professor and Honorary Secretary. He referred to this period as the "golden era" of his life.

Raman was chosen by the University of Calcutta to become the Palit Professor of Physics, a position established after the benefactor Sir Taraknath Palit, in 1913. The university senate made the appointment on 30 January 1914, as recorded in the meeting minutes:"The following appointments to the Palit Professorships were made at the meeting of the Senate on 30 January 1914: Dr P C Ray and Mr C.V. Raman, MA... The appointment of each Professor shall be permanent. A Professor shall vacate his office upon completion of sixtieth year of his age."Prior to 1914, Ashutosh Mukherjee had invited Jagadish Chandra Bose to take up the position, but Bose declined. As a second choice, Raman became the first Palit Professor of Physics but was delayed for taking up the position as World War I broke out. It was only in 1917 when he joined Rajabazar Science College, a campus created by the University of Calcutta in 1914, that he became a full-fledged professor. He reluctantly resigned as a civil servant after a decade of service, which was described as "supreme sacrifice" since his salary as a professor would be roughly half of his salary at the time. But to his advantage, the terms and conditions as a professor were explicitly indicated in the report of his joining the university, which stated:"Mr C.V. Raman's acceptance of the Sir T N Palit Professorship on condition that he will not be required to go out of India... Reported that Mr C. V. Raman joined his appointment as Palit Professor of Physics from 2.7.17... Mr Raman informed that he will not be required to take any teaching work in MA and MSc classes, to the detriment of his own research or assisting advanced students in their researches."Raman's appointment as the Palit Professor was strongly objected to by some members of the Senate of the University of Calcutta, especially foreign members, as he had no PhD and had never studied abroad. As a kind of rebuttal, Mukherjee arranged for an honorary DSc which the University of Calcutta conferred Raman in 1921. The same year he visited Oxford to deliver a lecture at the Congress of Universities of the British Empire. He had earned quite a reputation by then, and his hosts were Nobel laureates J. J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford. Upon his election as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1924, Mukherjee asked him of his future plans, which he replied, saying, "The Nobel Prize of course." In 1926, he established the Indian Journal of Physics and acted as the first editor. The second volume of the journal published his famous article "A new radiation", reporting the discovery of the Raman effect.

Raman was succeeded by Debendra Mohan Bose as the Palit Professor in 1932. Following his appointment as Director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, he left Calcutta in 1933. Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, the King of Mysore, Jamsetji Tata and Nawab Sir Mir Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, had contributed the lands and funds for the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The Viceroy of India, Lord Minto approved the establishment in 1909, and the British government appointed its first director, Morris Travers. Raman became the fourth director and the first Indian director. During his tenure at IISc, he recruited G. N. Ramachandran, who later went on to become a distinguished X-ray crystallographer. He founded the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934 and started publishing the academy's journal Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences (later split up into Proceedings - Mathematical Sciences, Journal of Chemical Sciences, and Journal of Earth System Science). Around that time the Calcutta Physical Society was established, the concept of which he had initiated early in 1917.

With his former student Panchapakesa Krishnamurti, Raman started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in 1943. The company, renamed as TCM Limited in 1996, was one of the first organic and inorganic chemical manufacturers in India. In 1947, Raman was appointed the first National Professor by the new government of independent India.

Raman retired from IISC in 1948 and established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore a year later. He served as its director and remained active there until his death in 1970.

Scientific contributions

Musical sound
One of Raman's interests was on the scientific basis of musical sounds. He was inspired by Hermann von Helmholtz's The Sensations of Tone, the book he came across when he joined IACS. He published his findings prolifically between 1916 and 1921. He worked out the theory of transverse vibration of bowed string instruments based on superposition of velocities. One of his earliest studies was on the wolf tone in violins and cellos. He studied the acoustics of various violin and related instruments, including Indian stringed instruments, and water splashes. He even performed what he called "Experiments with mechanically-played violins."

Raman also studied the uniqueness of Indian drums. His analyses of the harmonic nature of the sounds of tabla and mridangam were the first scientific studies on Indian percussions. He wrote a critical research on vibrations of the pianoforte string that was known as Kaufmann's theory. During his brief visit of England in 1921, he managed to study how sound travels in the Whispring Gallery of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in London that produces unusual sound effects. His work on acoustics was an important prelude, both experimentally and conceptually, to his later works on optics and quantum mechanics.

Blue color of the sea
Raman, in his broadening venture on optics, started to investigate scattering of light starting in 1919. His first phenomenal discovery of the physics of light was the blue color of seawater. During a voyage home from England on board the S.S. Narkunda in September 1921, he contemplated the blue color of the Mediterranean Sea. Using simple optical equipment, a pocket-sized spectroscope and a Nicol prism in hand, he studied the sea water. Of several hypotheses on the colour of the sea propounded at the time, the best explanation had been that of Lord Rayleigh's in 1910, according to which, "The much admired dark blue of the deep sea has nothing to do with the color of water, but is simply the blue of the sky seen by reflection". Rayleigh had correctly described the nature of the blue sky by a phenomenon now known as Rayleigh scattering, the scattering of light and refraction by particles in the atmosphere. His explanation of the blue colour of water was instinctively accepted as correct. Raman could view the water using a Nicol prism to avoid the influence of sunlight reflected by the surface. He described how the sea appears even more blue than usual, contradicting Rayleigh.

As soon as the S.S. Narkunda docked in Bombay Harbour (now Mumbai Harbour), Raman finished an article "The colour of the sea" that was published in the November 1921 issue of Nature. He noted that Rayleigh's explanation is "questionable by a simple mode of observation" (using Nicol prism). As he thought:"Looking down into the water with a Nicol in front of the eye to cut off surface reflections, the track of the sun's rays could be seen entering the water and appearing by virtue of perspective to converge to a point at a considerable depth inside it. The question is: What is it that diffracts the light and makes its passage visible? An interesting possibility that should be considered in this connection is that the diffracting particles may, at least in part, be the molecules of the water themselves."

When he reached Calcutta, he asked his student K. R. Ramanathan, who was from the University of Rangoon, to conduct further research at IACS. By early 1922, Raman came to a conclusion, as he reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London:"It is proposed in this paper to urge an entirely different view, that in this phenomenon, as in the parallel case of the colour of the sky, molecular diffraction determines the observed luminosity and in great measure also its colour. As a necessary preliminary to the discussion, a theoretical calculation and experimental observations of the intensity of molecular scattering in water will be presented."True to his words, Ramanathan published an elaborate experimental finding in 1923. His subsequent study of the Bay of Bengal in 1924 provided the full evidence. It is now known that the intrinsic color of water is mainly attributed to the selective absorption of longer wavelengths of light in the red and orange regions of the spectrum, owing to overtones of the infrared absorbing O-H (oxygen and hydrogen combined) stretching modes of water molecules.

Background
Raman's second important discovery on the scattering of light was a new type of radiation, an eponymous phenomenon called the Raman effect. After discovering the nature of light scattering that caused blue colour of water, he focused on the principle behind the phenomenon. His experiments in 1923 showed the possibility of other light rays formed in addition to the incident ray when sunlight was filtered through a violet glass in certain liquids and solids. Ramanathan believed that this was a case of a "trace of fluorescence." In 1925, K. S. Krishnan, a new Research Associate, noted the theoretical background for the existence of an additional scattering line beside the usual polarised elastic scattering when light scatters through liquid. He referred to the phenomenon as "feeble fluorescence." But the theoretical attempts to justify the phenomenon were quite futile for the next two years.

The major impetus was the discovery of Compton effect. Arthur Compton at Washington University in St. Louis had found evidence in 1923 that electromagnetic waves can also be described as particles. By 1927, the phenomenon was widely accepted by scientists, including Raman. As the news of Compton's Nobel Prize in Physics was announced in December 1927, Raman ecstatically told Krishnan, saying:"'Excellent news... very nice indeed. But look here Krishnan. If this is true of X-Rays, it must be true of Light too. I have always thought so. There must be an Optical analogue to Compton Effect. We must pursue it and we are on the right lines. It must and shall be found. The Nobel Prize must be won.'"But the origin of the inspiration went further. As Compton later recollected "that it was probably the Toronto debate that led him to discover the Raman effect two years later." The Toronto debate was about the discussion on the existence of light quantum at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held at Toronto in 1924. There Compton presented his experimental findings, which William Duane of Harvard University argued with his own with evidence that light was a wave. Raman took Duane's side and said, "Compton, you're a very good debater, but the truth isn't in you."

The scattering experiments

Krishnan started the experiment in the beginning of January 1928. On 7 January, he discovered that no matter what kind of pure liquid he used, it always produced polarised fluorescence within the visible spectrum of light. As Raman saw the result, he was astonished why he never observed such phenomenon all those years. That night he and Krishnan named the new phenomenon as "modified scattering" with reference to the Compton effect as an unmodified scattering. On 16 February, they sent a manuscript to Nature titled "A new type of secondary radiation", which was published on 31 March.

On 28 February 1928, they obtained spectra of the modified scattering separate from the incident light. Due to difficulty in measuring the wavelengths of light, they had been relying on visual observation of the colour produced from sunlight through prism. Raman had invented a type of spectrograph for detecting and measuring electromagnetic waves. Referring to the invention, Raman later remarked, "When I got my Nobel Prize, I had spent hardly 200 rupees on my equipment," although it was obvious that his total expenditure for the entire experiment was much more than that. From that moment they could employ the instrument using monochromatic light from a mercury arc lamp which penetrated transparent material and was allowed to fall on a spectrograph to record its spectrum. The lines of scattering could now be measured and photographed.

Announcement
The same day, Raman made the announcement before the press. The Associated Press of India reported it the next day, on 29 February, as "New theory of radiation: Prof. Raman's Discovery." It ran the story as:"Prof. C. V. Raman, F.R.S., of the Calcutta University, has made a discovery which promises to be of fundamental significance to physics... The new phenomenon exhibits features even more startling than those discovered by Prof. Compton with X-rays. The principal feature observed is that when matter is excited by light of one colour, the atoms contained in it emit light of two colours, one of which is different from the exciting colour and is lower down the spectrum. The astonishing thing is that the altered colour is quite independent of the nature of the substance used."The news was reproduced by The Statesman on 1 March under the headline "Scattering of Light by Atoms – New Phenomenon – Calcutta Professor's Discovery." Raman submitted a three-paragraph report of the discovery on 8 March to Nature and was published on 21 April. The actual data was sent to the same journal on 22 March and was published on 5 May. Raman presented the formal and detailed description as "A new radiation" at the meeting of the South Indian Science Association in Bangalore on 16 March. His lecture was published in the Indian Journal of Physics on 31 March. A thousand copies of the paper reprint were sent to scientists in different countries on that day.

Reception and outcome
Some physicists, particularly French and German physicists were initially sceptical of the authenticity of the discovery. Georg Joos at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena asked Arnold Sommerfeld at the University of Munich, "Do you think that Raman's work on the optical Compton effect in liquids is reliable?... The sharpness of the scattered lines in liquids seems doubtful to me". Sommerfeld then tried to reproduce the experiment, but failed. On 20 June 1928, Peter Pringsheim at the University of Berlin was able to reproduce Raman's results successfully. He was the first to coin the terms Ramaneffekt and Linien des Ramaneffekts in his articles published the following months. Use of the English versions, "Raman effect" and "Raman lines" immediately followed.

In addition to being a new phenomenon itself, the Raman effect was one of the earliest proofs of the quantum nature of light. Robert W. Wood at the Johns Hopkins University was the first American to confirm the Raman effect in the early 1929. He made a series of experimental verification, after which he commented, saying, "It appears to me that this very beautiful discovery which resulted from Raman's long and patient study of the phenomenon of light scattering is one of the most convincing proofs of the quantum theory". The field of Raman spectroscopy came to be based on this phenomenon, and Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Society, referred to it in his presentation of the Hughes Medal to Raman in 1930 as "among the best three or four discoveries in experimental physics in the last decade".

Raman was confident that he would win the Nobel Prize in Physics as well but was disappointed when the Nobel Prize went to Owen Richardson in 1928 and to Louis de Broglie in 1929. He was so confident of winning the prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even though the awards were to be announced in November. He would scan each day's newspaper for announcement of the prize, tossing it away if it did not carry the news. He did eventually win that year.

Later work
Raman had association with the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. He attended the foundation ceremony of BHU and delivered lectures on mathematics and "Some new paths in physics" during the lecture series organised at the university from 5 to 8 February 1916. He also held the position of permanent visiting professor.

With Suri Bhagavantam, he determined the spin of photons in 1932, which further confirmed the quantum nature of light. With another student, Nagendra Nath, he provided the correct theoretical explanation for the acousto-optic effect (light scattering by sound waves) in a series of articles resulting in the celebrated Raman–Nath theory. Modulators, and switching systems based on this effect have enabled optical communication components based on laser systems.

Other investigations he carried out included experimental and theoretical studies on the diffraction of light by acoustic waves of ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies, and those on the effects produced by X-rays on infrared vibrations in crystals exposed to ordinary light which were published between 1935 and 1942.

In 1948, through studying the spectroscopic behaviour of crystals, he approached the fundamental problems of crystal dynamics in a new manner. He dealt with the structure and properties of diamond from 1944 to 1968, the structure and optical behaviour of numerous iridescent substances including labradorite, pearly feldspar, agate, quartz, opal, and pearl in the early 1950s. Among his other interests were the optics of colloids, and electrical and magnetic anisotropy. His last interests in the 1960s were on biological properties such as the colours of flowers and the physiology of human vision.

Personal life
Raman married Lokasundari Ammal, daughter of S. Krishnaswami Iyer who was the Superintendent of Sea Customs at Madras, in 1907. The wedding day is popularly recorded as on 6 May, but Raman's great-niece and biographer, Uma Parameswaran, revealed a factual date of 2 June 1907. It was a self-arranged marriage and his wife was 13 years old. (Sources are contradicting on her age as her birth year is specified as 1892,  which would make her about 15 years of age; but Parameswaran affirmed the 13-year, corroborated by her obituary in Current Science that mentioned her age as 86 on her death on 22 May 1980. ) His wife later jokingly recounted that their marriage was not so much about her musical prowess (she was playing veena when they first met) as "the extra allowance which the Finance Department gave to its married officers." The extra allowance refers to an additional INR 150 for married officers at the time. Soon after they moved to Calcutta in 1907, the couple were accused of converting to Christianity. It was because they frequently visited St. John's Church, Kolkata as Lokasundari was fascinated with the church music and Raman with the acoustics.

They had two sons, Chandrasekhar Raman and Venkatraman Radhakrishnan, a radio astronomer. Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, recipient of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Throughout his life, Raman developed an extensive personal collection of stones, minerals, and materials with interesting light-scattering properties, which he obtained from his world travels and as gifts. He often carried a small, handheld spectroscope to study specimens. These, along with his spectrograph, are on display at IISc.

Lord Rutherford was instrumental in some of Raman's most pivotal moments in life. He nominated Raman for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930, presented him the Hughes Medal as President of the Royal Society in 1930, and recommended him for the position of Director at IISc in 1932.

Raman had a sense of obsession with the Nobel Prize. In a speech at the University of Calcutta, he said, "I'm not flattered by the honour [Fellowship to the Royal Society in 1924] done to me. This is a small achievement. If there is anything that I aspire for, it is the Nobel Prize. You will find that I get that in five years." He knew that if he were to receive the Nobel Prize, he could not wait for the announcement of the Nobel Committee normally made towards the end of the year considering the time required to reach Sweden by sea route. With confidence, he booked two tickets, one for his wife, for a steamship to Stockholm in July 1930. Soon after he received the Nobel Prize, he was asked in an interview the possible consequences if he had discovered the Raman effect earlier, which he replied, "Then I should have shared the Nobel Prize with Compton and I should not have liked that; I would rather receive the whole of it."

Religious views
Although Raman hardly talked about religion, he was openly an agnostic, but objected to being labelled atheist. His agnosticism was largely influenced by that of his father who adhered to the philosophies of Herbert Spencer, Charles Bradlaugh, and Robert G. Ingersoll. He resented Hindu traditional rituals but did not give them up in family circles. He was also influenced by the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta. Traditional pagri (Indian turban) with a tuft underneath and a upanayana (Hindu sacred thread) were his signature attire. Though it was not customary to wear turbans in South Indian culture, he explained his habit as, "Oh, if I did not wear one, my head will swell. You all praise me so much and I need a turban to contain my ego." He even attributed his turban for the recognition he received on his first visit to England, particular from J. J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford. In a public speech, he once said,"There is no Heaven, no Swarga, no Hell, no rebirth, no reincarnation and no immortality. The only thing that is true is that a man is born, he lives and he dies. Therefore, he should live his life properly."In a friendly meeting with Mahatma Gandhi and Gilbert Rahm, a German zoologist, the conversation turned to religion. Raman spoke,"I shall answer your [Rahm's] question. If there is a God we must look for him in the Universe. If he is not there, he is not worth looking for... The growing discoveries in the science of astronomy and physics seem to be further and further revelations of God."On his deathbed, he said to his wife, "I believe only in the Spirit of Man," and asked for his funeral, "Just a clean and simple cremation for me, no mumbo-jumbo please."

Death
At the end of October 1970, Raman had a cardiac arrest and collapsed in his laboratory. He was moved to the hospital where doctors diagnosed his condition and declared that he would not survive for another four hours. He however survived a few days and requested to stay in the gardens of his institute surrounded by his followers.

Two days before Raman died, he told one of his former students, "Do not allow the journals of the Academy to die, for they are the sensitive indicators of the quality of science being done in the country and whether science is taking root in it or not." That evening, Raman met with the Board of Management of his institute in his bedroom and discussed with them the fate of the institute's management. He also willed his wife to perform a simple cremation without any rituals upon his death. He died from natural causes early the next morning on 21 November 1970 at the age of 82.

On the news of Raman's death, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi publicly announced, saying,"The country, the House [of Parliament], and everyone of us will mourn the death of Dr. C. V. Raman. He was the greatest scientist of modern India and one of the greatest intellects our country has produced in its long history. His mind was like the diamond, which he studied and explained. His life's work consisted in throwing light upon the nature of lights, and the world honoured him in many ways for the new knowledge which he won for science."

Independent discovery
In 1928, Grigory Landsberg and Leonid Mandelstam at the Moscow State University independently discovered the Raman effect. They published their findings in July issue of Naturwissenschaften, and presented their findings at the Sixth Congress of the Russian Association of Physicists held at Saratov between 5 and 16 August. In 1930, they were nominated for the Nobel Prize alongside Raman. According to the Nobel Committee, however: (1) the Russians did not come to an independent interpretation of their discovery as they cited Raman's article; (2) they observed the effect only in crystals, whereas Raman and Krishnan observed it in solids, liquids and gases, and therefore proved the universal nature of the effect; (3) the problems concerning the intensity of Raman and infrared lines in the spectra had been explained during the previous year; (4) the Raman method had been applied with great success in different fields of molecular physics; and (5) the Raman effect had effectively helped to check the symmetry properties of molecules, and thus the problems concerning nuclear spin in atomic physics.

The Nobel Committee proposed only Raman's name to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for the Nobel Prize. Evidence later appeared that the Russians had discovered the phenomenon earlier, a week before Raman and Krishnan's discovery. According to Mandelstam's letter (to Orest Khvolson), the Russian had observed the spectral line on 21 February 1928.

Role of Krishnan
Krishnan was not nominated for the Nobel Prize even though he was the main researcher in the discovery of Raman effect. It was he alone who first noted the new scattering. Krishnan co-authored all the scientific papers on the discovery in 1928 except two. He alone wrote all the follow-up studies. Krishnan himself never claimed himself worthy of the prize. But Raman admitted later that Krishnan was the co-discoverer. He however remained openly antagonistic towards Krishnan, which the latter described as "the greatest tragedy of my life." After Krishnan's death, Raman said to a correspondent from The Times of India, "Krishnan was the greatest charlatan I have known, and all his life he masqueraded in the cloak of another man's discovery."

The Raman–Born controversy
During October 1933 to March 1934, Max Born was employed by IISc as Reader in Theoretical Physics following the invitation by Raman early in 1933. Born at the time was a refugee from Nazi Germany and temporarily employed at St John's College, Cambridge. Since the beginning of the 20th century Born had developed a theory on lattice dynamics based on thermal properties. He presented his theory in one of his lectures at IISc. By then Raman had developed a different theory and claimed that Born's theory contradicted the experimental data. Their debate lasted for decades.

In this dispute, Born received support from most physicists, as his view was proven to be a better explanation. Raman's theory was generally regarded as having a partial relevance. Beyond the intellectual debate, their rivalry extended to personal and social levels. Born later said that Raman probably thought of him as an "enemy." In spite of the mounting evidence for Born's theory, Raman refused to concede. As the editor of Current Science he rejected articles which supported Born's theory. Born was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize specifically for his contributions to lattice theory, and eventually won it for his statistical works on quantum mechanics in 1954. The account was written as a "belated Nobel Prize."

Indian authorities
Raman had an aversion to the then Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and Nehru's policies on science. In one instance he smashed the bust of Nehru on the floor. In another he shattered his Bharat Ratna medallion to pieces with a hammer, as it was given to him by the Nehru government. He publicly ridiculed Nehru when the latter visited the Raman Research Institute in 1948. There they displayed a piece of gold and copper against an ultraviolet light. Nehru was tricked into believing that copper which glowed more brilliantly than any other metal was gold. Raman was quick to remark, "Mr Prime Minister, everything that glitters is not gold."

On the same occasion Nehru, offered Raman financial assistance to his institute which Raman flatly refused by replying, "I certainly don't want this to become another government laboratory." Raman was particularly against the control of research programmes by the government such as in the establishment of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He remained hostile to people associated with these establishments including Homi J. Bhabha, S.S. Bhatnagar, and his once favourite student, Krishnan. He even called such programmes as the "Nehru–Bhatnagar effect." In 1959, Raman proposed to establish another research institute in Madras. The Government of Madras advised him to apply for funds from the central government. But Raman clearly foresaw, as he replied to C. Subramaniam, then the Minister for Finance Education in Madras, that his proposal to Nehru's government "would be met with a refusal." So ended the plan.

Raman described AICC authorities as "a big tamasha" (drama or spectacle) that just kept on discussing issues without action. As to problems of food resources in India, his advice to the government was, "We must stop breeding like pigs and the matter will solve itself."

Indian Academy of Sciences
The Indian Academy of Sciences was born out of conflicts during the procedures of proposal for a national scientific organisation in line with the Royal Society. In 1933, the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA), at the time the largest scientific organisation, planned to establish a national science body, which would be authorised to advise the government on scientific matters. Sir Richard Gregory, then editor of Nature, on his visit to India had suggested Raman, as editor of Current Science, to establish an Indian Academy of Sciences. Raman was of the opinion that it should be an exclusively Indian membership as opposed to the general consensus that British members should be included. He resolved that "How can India Science prosper under the tutelage of an academy which has its own council of 30, 15 of who are Britishers of whom only two or three are fit enough to be its Fellows." On 1 April 1933, he convened a separate meeting of the south Indian scientists. He and Subba Rao officially resigned from ISCA.

Raman registered the new organisation as Indian Academy of Sciences on 24 April to the Registrar of Societies. It was a provisional name to be changed to the Royal Society of India after approval from the Royal Charter. The Government of India did not recognise it as an official national scientific body, as such the ICSA created a separate organisation named the National Institute of Sciences of India on 7 January 1935 (but again changed to the Indian National Science Academy in 1970). INSA had been led by the foremost rivals of Raman including Meghnad Saha, Bhabha, Bhatnagar, and Krishnan.

Indian Institute of Science
Raman had a great fallout with the authorities at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He was accused of biased development in physics, while ignoring other fields. He lacked diplomatic personality on other colleagues, which S. Ramaseshan, his nephew and later Director of IISc, reminisced, saying, "Raman went in there like a bull in a china shop." He wanted research in physics at the level of those of western institutes, but at the expense of other fields of science. Max Born observed, "Raman found a sleepy place where very little work was being done by a number of extremely well paid people." At the Council meeting, Kenneth Aston, professor in the Electrical Technology Department, harshly criticised Raman and Raman's recruitment of Born. Raman had every intention of giving full position of professor to Born. Aston even made personal attack on Born by referring to him as someone "who was rejected by his own country, a renegade and therefore a second-rate scientist unfit to be part of the faculty, much less to be the head of the department of physics."

The Council of IISc constituted a review committee to oversee Raman's conduct in January 1936. The committee, chaired by James Irvine, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews, reported in March that Raman had misused the funds and entirely shifted the "centre of gravity" towards research in physics, and also that the proposal of Born as Professor of Mathematical Physics (which was already approved by the Council in November 1935) was not financially feasible. The Council offered Raman two choices, either to resign from the institute with effect from 1 April or resign as the Director and continue as Professor of physics; if he did not make the choice, he was to be fired. Raman was inclined to take up the second choice.

The Royal Society
Raman never seemed to have thought highly of the Fellowship of the Royal Society. He tendered his resignation as a Fellow on 9 March 1968, which the Council of the Royal Society accepted on 4 April. However, the exact reason was not documented. One reason could be Raman's objection to the designation "British subjects" as one of the categories of the Fellows. Particularly after the Independence of India, the Royal Society had its own disputes on this matter.

According to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, The London Times had once made a list of the Fellows, in which Raman was omitted. Raman wrote to and demanded explanation from Patrick Blackett, the then President of the society. He was dejected by Blackett's response that the society had no role in the newspaper. According to Krishnan, another cause was a disapproving review Raman received on a manuscript he had submitted to the Proceedings of the Royal Society. It could have been these cumulative factors as Raman wrote in his resignation letter, and said, "I have taken this decision after careful consideration of all the circumstances of the case. I would request that my resignation be accepted and my name removed from the list of the Fellows of the Society."

Honours and awards

Raman was honoured with many honorary doctorates and memberships of scientific societies. Within India, apart from being the founder and President of the Indian Academy of Sciences (FASc), he was a Fellow of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (FASB), and from 1943, a Foundation Fellow of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (FIAS). In 1935, he was appointed a Foundation Fellow of the National Institute of Sciences of India (FNI, now the Indian National Science Academy. He was a member of the Deutsche Akademie of Munich, the Swiss Physical Society of Zürich, the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow, the Royal Irish Academy, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Optical Society of America, the Mineralogical Society of America, the Romanian Academy of Sciences, the Catgut Acoustical Society of America and the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

In 1924, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. However, he resigned from the fellowship in 1968 for unrecorded reasons, the only Indian FRS ever to do so.

He was the President of the 16th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1929. He was the founder President of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 1933 until his death. He was member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1961.

Awards

 * In 1912, Raman received the Curzon Research Award, while still working in the Indian Finance Service.
 * In 1913, he received the Woodburn Research Medal, while still working in the Indian Finance Service.
 * In 1928, he received the Matteucci Medal from the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze in Rome.
 * In 1930, he was knighted. An approval for his inclusion in the 1929 Birthday Honours was delayed, and Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of India, conferred him a Knight Bachelor in a special ceremony at the Viceroy's House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) in New Delhi.
 * In 1930, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him." He was the first Asian and first non-white to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences. Before him, Rabindranath Tagore (also Indian) had received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
 * In 1930, he received the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society.
 * In 1941, he was awarded the Franklin Medal by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
 * In 1954, he was awarded the Bharat Ratna (along with politician and former Governor-General of India C. Rajagopalachari and philosopher Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan).
 * In 1957, he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

Posthumous recognition and contemporary references

 * India celebrates National Science Day on 28 February of every year to commemorate the discovery of the Raman effect in 1928.
 * Postal stamps featuring Raman were issued in 1971 and 2009.
 * A road in India's capital, New Delhi, is named C. V. Raman Marg.
 * An area in eastern Bangalore is called CV Raman Nagar.
 * The road running north of the national seminar complex in Bangalore is named C. V. Raman Road.
 * A building at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore is named the Raman Building.
 * A hospital in eastern Bangalore on 80 Ft. Rd. is named the Sir C. V. Raman Hospital.
 * There is also CV Raman Nagar in Trichy, his birthplace.
 * Raman, a lunar crater is named after C. V. Raman.
 * C. V. Raman Global University was established in 1997.
 * In 1998, the American Chemical Society and Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science recognised Raman's discovery as an International Historic Chemical Landmark at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Jadavpur, Calcutta, India. The inscription on the commemoration plaque reads:"At this institute, Sir C. V. Raman discovered in 1928 that when a beam of coloured light entered a liquid, a fraction of the light scattered by that liquid was of a different color. Raman showed that the nature of this scattered light was dependent on the type of sample present. Other scientists quickly understood the significance of this phenomenon as an analytical and research tool and called it the Raman Effect. This method became even more valuable with the advent of modern computers and lasers. Its current uses range from the non-destructive identification of minerals to the early detection of life-threatening diseases. For his discovery Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930."
 * Dr. C.V. Raman University was established in Chhattisgarh in 2006.
 * On 7 November 2013, a Google Doodle honoured Raman on the 125th anniversary of his birthday.
 * Raman Science Centre in Nagpur is named after Sir C. V. Raman.
 * Dr. C.V. Raman University, Bihar was established in 2018.
 * Dr. C.V. Raman University, Khandwa was established in 2018.

In popular culture

 * C. V. Raman: The Scientist and His Legacy, a biopic about Raman directed by Nandan Kudhyadi released in 1989. It won the National Film Award for Best Biographical Film.
 * Beyond Rainbows: The Quest & Achievement of Dr. C.V. Raman, a documentary film on the physicist directed by Ananya Banerjee aired on Doordarshan, the Indian national public broadcaster, in 2004.
 * Rocket Boys , an Indian Hindi-language Biographical streaming television series on SonyLIV. The character of C.V. Raman was played by T.M. Karthik.

title: C. V. Raman


text:
Deus ex machina

Deus ex machina (, ; plural: dei ex machina; English "god from the machine") is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly or abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function is generally to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending or act as a comedic device.

Origin of the expression
Deus ex machina is a Latin calque. The term was coined from the conventions of ancient Greek theater, where actors who were playing gods were brought on stage using a machine. The machine could be either a crane (mechane) used to lower actors from above or a riser that brought them up through a trapdoor. Aeschylus introduced the idea and it was used often to resolve the conflict and conclude the drama. The device is associated mostly with Greek tragedy, although it also appeared in comedies.

Ancient examples
Aeschylus used the device in his Eumenides but it became an established stage machine with Euripides. More than half of Euripides' extant tragedies employ a deus ex machina in their resolution and some critics claim that Euripides invented it, not Aeschylus. A frequently cited example is Euripides' Medea in which the deus ex machina is a dragon-drawn chariot sent by the sun god Helios, used to convey his granddaughter Medea away from her husband Jason to the safety of Athens. In Alcestis, the heroine agrees to give up her own life to spare the life of her husband Admetus. At the end, Heracles appears and seizes Alcestis from Death, restoring her to life and to Admetus.

Aristophanes' play Thesmophoriazusae parodies Euripides' frequent use of the crane by making Euripides himself a character in the play and bringing him on stage by way of the mechane.

The device produced an immediate emotional response in Greek audiences. They would have a feeling of wonder and astonishment at the appearance of the gods, which would often add to the moral effect of the drama.

Modern theatrical examples
Shakespeare uses the device in As You Like It, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and Cymbeline. John Gay uses it in The Beggar's Opera where a character breaks the action and rewrites the ending as a reprieve from hanging for MacHeath. During the politically turbulent 17th and 18th centuries, the deus ex machina was sometimes used to make a controversial thesis more palatable to the powers of the day. For example, in the final scene of Molière's Tartuffe, the heroes are saved from a terrible fate by an agent of the compassionate, all-seeing King Louis XIV — the same king who held Molière's career and livelihood in his hands.

Plot device
Aristotle (in the Poetics 15 1454b1) was the first to use a Greek term equivalent to the Latin phrase deus ex machina to describe the technique as a device to resolve the plot of tragedies. It is said by one person to be undesirable in writing and often implies a lack of creativity on the part of the author. The reasons for this are that it damages the story's internal logic and is often so unlikely that it challenges the reader's suspension of disbelief.

Examples

 * Avengers: Endgame writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely admitted the time travel plot device in the 2019 film was the result of having written themselves into a corner in the previous movie. Also, the sudden arrival of Captain Marvel in the climax of the film has been criticized as bordering on a deus ex machina because "her late arrival to the final battle ... feels like a function of her powers being too strong".
 * The Great Eagles in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings carrying Frodo and Samwise out of Mordor have been critiqued as a deus ex machina.
 * Lord of the Flies: A passing navy officer rescues the stranded children. William Golding called that a "gimmick"; other critics view it as a deus ex machina. The abrupt ending conveys the terrible fate that would have afflicted the children if the officer had not arrived at that moment.
 * Oliver Twist: Charles Dickens used the device when Rose Maylie turns out to be the long-lost sister of Agnes, and therefore Oliver's aunt; she marries her long-time sweetheart Harry, allowing Oliver to live happily with his savior Mr. Brownlow.
 * The War of the Worlds: The Martians in H. G. Wells's novel have destroyed everything in their path and apparently triumphed over humanity, but they are suddenly killed by bacteria.

In medicine
In medicine, the phrase is often used for supposedly "magical remedies" which are not likely to work in practice. For instance, in the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, when double lung transplantation for terminal COVID-19 patients was suggested, it was immediately denounced as a deus ex machina. In 2006, when electronic fetal heart monitoring was being touted as a preventive measure for cerebral palsy, The New England Journal of Medicine denounced it as deus ex machina.

Criticism
The deus ex machina device is often criticized as inartistic, too convenient, and overly simplistic. However, champions of the device say that it opens up ideological and artistic possibilities.

Ancient criticism
Antiphanes was one of the device's earliest critics. He believed that the use of the deus ex machina was a sign that the playwright was unable to properly manage the complications of his plot. "when they don't know what to say

and have completely given up on the play

just like a finger they lift the machine

and the spectators are satisfied."

Another critical reference to the device can be found in Plato's dialogue Cratylus, 425d, though it is made in the context of an argument unrelated to drama.

Aristotle criticized the device in his Poetics, where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play: "In the characters, too, exactly as in the structure of the incidents, [the poet] ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this [incident] happen after that one. It is obvious that the solutions of plots, too, should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama — either previous events, which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g., that in Sophocles' Oedipus."

Aristotle praised Euripides, however, for generally ending his plays with bad fortune, which he viewed as correct in tragedy, and somewhat excused the intervention of a deity by suggesting that "astonishment" should be sought in tragic drama: "Irrationalities should be referred to what people say: That is one solution, and also sometimes that it is not irrational, since it is probable that improbable things will happen."

Such a device was referred to by Horace in his Ars Poetica (lines 191–2), where he instructs poets that they should never resort to a "god from the machine" to resolve their plots "unless a difficulty worthy of a god's unraveling should happen" [nec deus intersit, nisi dignus uindice nodus inciderit; nec quarta loqui persona laboret].

Modern criticism
Following Aristotle, Renaissance critics continued to view the deus ex machina as an inept plot device, although it continued to be employed by Renaissance dramatists.

Toward the end of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche criticized Euripides for making tragedy an optimistic genre by use of the device, and was highly skeptical of the "Greek cheerfulness", prompting what he viewed as the plays' "blissful delight in life". The deus ex machina as Nietzsche saw it was symptomatic of Socratic culture, which valued knowledge over Dionysiac music and ultimately caused the death of tragedy: "But the new non-Dionysiac spirit is most clearly apparent in the endings of the new dramas. At the end of the old tragedies there was a sense of metaphysical conciliation without which it is impossible to imagine our taking delight in tragedy; perhaps the conciliatory tones from another world echo most purely in Oedipus at Colonus. Now, once tragedy had lost the genius of music, tragedy in the strictest sense was dead: for where was that metaphysical consolation now to be found? Hence an earthly resolution for tragic dissonance was sought; the hero, having been adequately tormented by fate, won his well-earned reward in a stately marriage and tokens of divine honour. The hero had become a gladiator, granted freedom once he had been satisfactorily flayed and scarred. Metaphysical consolation had been ousted by the deus ex machina." Nietzsche argued that the deus ex machina creates a false sense of consolation that ought not to be sought in phenomena. His denigration of the plot device has prevailed in critical opinion. In Euripides the Rationalist (1895), Arthur Woollgar Verrall surveyed and recorded other late 19th-century responses to the device. He recorded that some of the critical responses to the term referred to it as 'burlesque', 'coup de théâtre', and 'catastrophe'. Verrall notes that critics have a dismissive response to authors who deploy the device in their writings. He comes to the conclusion that critics feel that the deus ex machina is evidence of the author's attempt to ruin the whole of his work and to prevent anyone from putting any importance on his work.

However, other scholars have looked at Euripides' use of deus ex machina and described its use as an integral part of the plot, designed for a specific purpose. Often, Euripides' plays would begin with gods, so it is argued that it would be natural for the gods to finish the action. The conflict throughout Euripides' plays would be caused by the meddling of the gods, so it would make sense both to the playwright and to the audience of the time that the gods would resolve all conflict that they began. Half of Euripides' eighteen extant plays end with the use of deus ex machina, therefore it was not simply a device to relieve the playwright of the embarrassment of a confusing plot-ending. This device enabled him to bring about a natural and more dignified dramatic and tragic ending.

Other champions of the device believe that it can be a spectacular agent of subversion. It can be used to undercut generic conventions and challenge cultural assumptions and the privileged role of tragedy as a literary/theatrical model.

Some 20th-century revisionist criticism suggests that deus ex machina cannot be viewed in these simplified terms, and contends that the device allows mortals to "probe" their relationship with the divine. Rush Rehm in particular cites examples of Greek tragedy in which the deus ex machina complicates the lives and attitudes of characters confronted by the deity, while simultaneously bringing the drama home to its audience. Sometimes, the unlikeliness of the deus ex machina plot device is employed deliberately. Note for example the comic effect generated in a scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when Brian, who lives in Judea at the time of Christ, is saved from a high fall by a passing alien space-ship.

Associated concepts
Thought experiments and speculations in theology, computer science, robotics and AI technology have considered the possibilities and consequences of a machina ex machina - a  self-reproducing automaton.

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

title: Deus ex machina


text:
Frank Murkowski

Frank Hughes Murkowski (born March 28, 1933) is an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator representing Alaska from 1981 to 2002 and as the eighth governor of Alaska from 2002 to 2006.

Murkowski was the Republican nominee for Alaska's sole congressional district in 1970, but lost to his Democratic opponent Nick Begich. In 1980, he was elected to the United States Senate, and was reelected in 1986, 1992, and 1998.

Murkowski ran for governor of Alaska in 2002 to replace Democratic incumbent Tony Knowles. He defeated Lieutenant Governor Fran Ulmer in the general election and took office on December 2, 2002. Murkowski resigned his U.S. Senate seat before taking office and appointed his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, to replace him. In his 2006 re-election bid, he finished in third place in the Republican primary behind Sarah Palin and John Binkley.

Early life and education
Murkowski was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Helen (née Hughes) and Frank M. Murkowski. His paternal grandfather was of Polish descent. Murkowski attended Ketchikan High School in Alaska, graduating in 1951. He studied at Santa Clara University from 1951 to 1953, and earned a BS in economics from Seattle University in 1955. He joined the United States Coast Guard in the summer of 1955 and served until 1957 – the year his daughter Lisa was born. He was stationed in Sitka and Ketchikan, Alaska, and aboard the cutters Sorrel and Thistle.

Career
After a stint at Pacific National Bank and further study at Pacific Coast Banking School, Murkowski became Alaska's youngest commissioner at the time when he was appointed Commissioner of Economic Development, aged 33, and was elevated to the presidency of the Alaska National Bank of the North in 1971. He has also headed the Alaska Bankers Association and – in 1977 - the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce.

He ran for Alaska's sole U.S. House seat in 1970, but was defeated in a landslide by Democratic state Senator Nick Begich.

U.S. Senate
He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980, defeating Democratic candidate Clark Gruening, with the help of Ronald Reagan's popularity. He won with 54% of the vote. He was re-elected in 1986, 1992, and 1998. During his time in the Senate, he was most notable as Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 1995 to 2001. As chair, he argued and attempted unsuccessfully to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Murkowski had an anti-abortion record in the Senate. He also opposed gun control and affirmative action.

In a floor statement in the Senate, regarding the ban of homosexuals serving in the military, Murkowski stated that homosexuals have a right to choose their lifestyle, but there exists no right to serve. In his opposition to lifting the ban, his speech focused on the cost effect on the Veterans Administration in treating service members infected with HIV. His daughter and successor in the Senate, Lisa Murkowski, voted to repeal the ban on homosexuals in the armed services, and later became the third Republican Senator to endorse the legalization of same-sex marriage while in office.

Governor
Murkowski was elected governor on November 5, 2002, receiving nearly 56% of the vote, the highest percentage for any Republican gubernatorial nominee in Alaska history up until that point. He succeeded Democrat Tony Knowles and took office on December 2, 2002.

Upon his inauguration, he resigned his Senate seat and appointed his daughter, Lisa Murkowski, the Majority Leader-designate of the Alaska House of Representatives, in his place. The appointment was widely criticized as an act of nepotism.

Toward the end of his administration he brokered a deal for a gas pipeline that was never considered, in final form, by the legislature. Murkowski threatened to sign the deal without legislative approval, but the legislature successfully brought a lawsuit to enjoin him from doing so.

Governor Murkowski ran for re-election in 2006, but came in third behind former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and businessman John Binkley in the Republican primary election on August 22, 2006 (Palin winning with 51% and Binkley taking second with 30% to Murkowski's 19%). Murkowski's margin of defeat was the largest in any Republican primary by an incumbent governor in United States history. Murkowski left office with one of the nation's worst approval ratings of 19%.

On March 4, 2008, Murkowski's former chief-of-staff, Jim Clark admitted that he was aware that Veco Corp had paid $10,000 for a political poll to gauge the popularity of then-incumbent Governor Murkowski. Clark was charged with "honest services fraud". Before he was sentenced, the US Supreme Court ruled that the statute was drafted with unconstitutional vagueness and henceforth will only cover "fraudulent schemes to deprive another of honest services through bribes or kickbacks supplied by a third party who ha[s] not been deceived." Since Clark was guilty of neither bribes nor kickbacks, all charges were voided.

In all 27 years of public service, Murkowski spent two years in the armed services, 21 years as Alaska's junior senator in D.C. and four years as governor.

Murkowski considered attempting a return to the governorship in the 2018 election, but ultimately decided against it.

Jet plane scandal
In 2005, despite opposition from the Alaska Legislature, Murkowski purchased a Westwind II jet with state money for $2.7 million. This purchase became the symbol of his unpopular legacy in state politics, so much so that his successor, Sarah Palin, promised to sell the jet once she became governor.

Electoral history

 * United States House of Representatives election in Alaska, 1970
 * Nick Begich (D), 55%
 * Frank Murkowski (R), 45%
 * United States Senate election in Alaska, 1980
 * Frank Murkowski (R), 54%
 * Clark Gruening (D), 46%
 * United States Senate election in Alaska, 1986
 * Frank Murkowski (R) (inc.), 54%
 * Glenn Olds (D), 44%
 * United States Senate election in Alaska, 1992
 * Frank Murkowski (R) (inc.), 53%
 * Tony Smith (D), 38%
 * Mary Jordan (Grn.), 8%
 * United States Senate election in Alaska, 1998
 * Frank Murkowski (R) (inc.), 75%
 * Joe Sonneman (D), 20%
 * 2002 Alaska gubernatorial election
 * Frank Murkowski (R), 56%
 * Fran Ulmer (D), 41%
 * 2006 Alaska gubernatorial election (Republican primary)
 * Sarah Palin (R), 51%
 * John Binkley (R), 30%
 * Frank Murkowski (R) (incumbent), 19%

title: Frank Murkowski


text:
Minimal surface

In mathematics, a minimal surface is a surface that locally minimizes its area. This is equivalent to having zero mean curvature (see definitions below).

The term "minimal surface" is used because these surfaces originally arose as surfaces that minimized total surface area subject to some constraint. Physical models of area-minimizing minimal surfaces can be made by dipping a wire frame into a soap solution, forming a soap film, which is a minimal surface whose boundary is the wire frame. However, the term is used for more general surfaces that may self-intersect or do not have constraints. For a given constraint there may also exist several minimal surfaces with different areas (for example, see minimal surface of revolution): the standard definitions only relate to a local optimum, not a global optimum.

Definitions

Minimal surfaces can be defined in several equivalent ways in $$\R^3$$. The fact that they are equivalent serves to demonstrate how minimal surface theory lies at the crossroads of several mathematical disciplines, especially differential geometry, calculus of variations, potential theory, complex analysis and mathematical physics.

 * Local least area definition: A surface $$M \subset \R^3$$ is minimal if and only if every point p ∈ M has a neighbourhood, bounded by a simple closed curve, which has the least area among all surfaces having the same boundary.

This property is local: there might exist regions in a minimal surface, together with other surfaces of smaller area which have the same boundary. This property establishes a connection with soap films; a soap film deformed to have a wire frame as boundary will minimize area.

 * Variational definition: A surface $$M \subset \R^3$$ is minimal if and only if it is a critical point of the area functional for all compactly supported variations.

This definition makes minimal surfaces a 2-dimensional analogue to geodesics, which are analogously defined as critical points of the length functional.

 * Mean curvature definition: A surface $$M \subset \R^3$$ is minimal if and only if its mean curvature is equal to zero at all points.

A direct implication of this definition is that every point on the surface is a saddle point with equal and opposite principal curvatures. Additionally, this makes minimal surfaces into the static solutions of mean curvature flow. By the Young–Laplace equation, the mean curvature of a soap film is proportional to the difference in pressure between the sides. If the soap film does not enclose a region, then this will make its mean curvature zero. By contrast, a spherical soap bubble encloses a region which has a different pressure from the exterior region, and as such does not have zero mean curvature.

 * Differential equation definition: A surface $$M \subset \R^3$$ is minimal if and only if it can be locally expressed as the graph of a solution of

 * $$(1+u_x^2)u_{yy} - 2u_xu_yu_{xy} + (1+u_y^2)u_{xx}=0$$

The partial differential equation in this definition was originally found in 1762 by Lagrange, and Jean Baptiste Meusnier discovered in 1776 that it implied a vanishing mean curvature.

 * Energy definition: A conformal immersion $$X: M \rightarrow \R^3$$ is minimal if and only if it is a critical point of the Dirichlet energy for all compactly supported variations, or equivalently if any point $$p \in M$$ has a neighbourhood with least energy relative to its boundary.

This definition ties minimal surfaces to harmonic functions and potential theory.

 * Harmonic definition: If $$X = (x_1, x_2, x_3) : M \rightarrow \R^3$$ is an isometric immersion of a Riemann surface into 3-space, then $$X$$ is said to be minimal whenever $$x_i$$ is a harmonic function on $$M$$ for each $$i$$.

A direct implication of this definition and the maximum principle for harmonic functions is that there are no compact complete minimal surfaces in $$\R^3$$.

 * Gauss map definition: A surface $$M \subset \R^3$$ is minimal if and only if its stereographically projected Gauss map $$g: M \rightarrow \C \cup {\infty}$$ is meromorphic with respect to the underlying Riemann surface structure, and $$M$$ is not a piece of a sphere.

This definition uses that the mean curvature is half of the trace of the shape operator, which is linked to the derivatives of the Gauss map. If the projected Gauss map obeys the Cauchy–Riemann equations then either the trace vanishes or every point of M is umbilic, in which case it is a piece of a sphere.

The local least area and variational definitions allow extending minimal surfaces to other Riemannian manifolds than $$\R^3$$.

History
Minimal surface theory originates with Lagrange who in 1762 considered the variational problem of finding the surface $$z=z(x,y)$$ of least area stretched across a given closed contour. He derived the Euler–Lagrange equation for the solution

 * $$\frac{d}{dx}\left(\frac{z_x}{\sqrt{1+z_x^2+z_y^2}}\right ) + \frac{d}{dy}\left(\frac{z_y}{\sqrt{1+z_x^2+z_y^2}}\right )=0$$

He did not succeed in finding any solution beyond the plane. In 1776 Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier discovered that the helicoid and catenoid satisfy the equation and that the differential expression corresponds to twice the mean curvature of the surface, concluding that surfaces with zero mean curvature are area-minimizing.

By expanding Lagrange's equation to

 * $$\left(1 + z_x^2\right)z_{yy} - 2z_xz_yz_{xy} + \left(1 + z_y^2\right)z_{xx} = 0$$

Gaspard Monge and Legendre in 1795 derived representation formulas for the solution surfaces. While these were successfully used by Heinrich Scherk in 1830 to derive his surfaces, they were generally regarded as practically unusable. Catalan proved in 1842/43 that the helicoid is the only ruled minimal surface.

Progress had been fairly slow until the middle of the century when the Björling problem was solved using complex methods. The "first golden age" of minimal surfaces began. Schwarz found the solution of the Plateau problem for a regular quadrilateral in 1865 and for a general quadrilateral in 1867 (allowing the construction of his periodic surface families) using complex methods. Weierstrass and Enneper developed more useful representation formulas, firmly linking minimal surfaces to complex analysis and harmonic functions. Other important contributions came from Beltrami, Bonnet, Darboux, Lie, Riemann, Serret and Weingarten.

Between 1925 and 1950 minimal surface theory revived, now mainly aimed at nonparametric minimal surfaces. The complete solution of the Plateau problem by Jesse Douglas and Tibor Radó was a major milestone. Bernstein's problem and Robert Osserman's work on complete minimal surfaces of finite total curvature were also important.

Another revival began in the 1980s. One cause was the discovery in 1982 by Celso Costa of a surface that disproved the conjecture that the plane, the catenoid, and the helicoid are the only complete embedded minimal surfaces in $$\R^3$$ of finite topological type. This not only stimulated new work on using the old parametric methods, but also demonstrated the importance of computer graphics to visualise the studied surfaces and numerical methods to solve the "period problem" (when using the conjugate surface method to determine surface patches that can be assembled into a larger symmetric surface, certain parameters need to be numerically matched to produce an embedded surface). Another cause was the verification by H. Karcher that the triply periodic minimal surfaces originally described empirically by Alan Schoen in 1970 actually exist. This has led to a rich menagerie of surface families and methods of deriving new surfaces from old, for example by adding handles or distorting them.

Currently the theory of minimal surfaces has diversified to minimal submanifolds in other ambient geometries, becoming relevant to mathematical physics (e.g. the positive mass conjecture, the Penrose conjecture) and three-manifold geometry (e.g. the Smith conjecture, the Poincaré conjecture, the Thurston Geometrization Conjecture).

Examples

Classical examples of minimal surfaces include:
 * the plane, which is a trivial case
 * catenoids: minimal surfaces made by rotating a catenary once around its directrix
 * helicoids: A surface swept out by a line rotating with uniform velocity around an axis perpendicular to the line and simultaneously moving along the axis with uniform velocity

Surfaces from the 19th century golden age include:
 * Schwarz minimal surfaces: triply periodic surfaces that fill $$\R^3$$
 * Riemann's minimal surface: A posthumously described periodic surface
 * the Enneper surface
 * the Henneberg surface: the first non-orientable minimal surface
 * Bour's minimal surface
 * the Neovius surface: a triply periodic surface

Modern surfaces include:
 * the Gyroid: One of Schoen's surfaces from 1970, a triply periodic surface of particular interest for liquid crystal structure
 * the Saddle tower family: generalisations of Scherk's second surface
 * Costa's minimal surface: Famous conjecture disproof. Described in 1982 by Celso Costa and later visualized by Jim Hoffman. Jim Hoffman, David Hoffman and William Meeks III then extended the definition to produce a family of surfaces with different rotational symmetries.
 * the Chen–Gackstatter surface family, adding handles to the Enneper surface.

Generalisations and links to other fields
Minimal surfaces can be defined in other manifolds than $$\R^3$$, such as hyperbolic space, higher-dimensional spaces or Riemannian manifolds.

The definition of minimal surfaces can be generalized/extended to cover constant-mean-curvature surfaces: surfaces with a constant mean curvature, which need not equal zero.

The curvature lines of an isothermal surface form an isothermal net.

In discrete differential geometry discrete minimal surfaces are studied: simplicial complexes of triangles that minimize their area under small perturbations of their vertex positions. Such discretizations are often used to approximate minimal surfaces numerically, even if no closed form expressions are known.

Brownian motion on a minimal surface leads to probabilistic proofs of several theorems on minimal surfaces.

Minimal surfaces have become an area of intense scientific study, especially in the areas of molecular engineering and materials science, due to their anticipated applications in self-assembly of complex materials. The endoplasmic reticulum, an important structure in cell biology, is proposed to be under evolutionary pressure to conform to a nontrivial minimal surface.

In the fields of general relativity and Lorentzian geometry, certain extensions and modifications of the notion of minimal surface, known as apparent horizons, are significant. In contrast to the event horizon, they represent a curvature-based approach to understanding black hole boundaries.

Structures with minimal surfaces can be used as tents.

Minimal surfaces are part of the generative design toolbox used by modern designers. In architecture there has been much interest in tensile structures, which are closely related to minimal surfaces. Notable examples can be seen in the work of Frei Otto, Shigeru Ban, and Zaha Hadid. The design of the Munich Olympic Stadium by Frei Otto was inspired by soap surfaces. Another notable example, also by Frei Otto, is the German Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Canada.

In the art world, minimal surfaces have been extensively explored in the sculpture of Robert Engman (1927–2018), Robert Longhurst (1949– ), and Charles O. Perry (1929–2011), among others.

title: Minimal surface


text:
Talk:Royal prerogative

Nature of the Prerogative
Needs a better definition, Dicey is a good start, but not the only interpretation of the Royal Prerogative. Look at Markensinis, Munro, etc. --89.21.227.114 (talk) 16:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

First PM to use royal prerogative
We know that in modern times the royal prerogative is exercised by the monarch on the PM's advice. But who was the first PM to advise the Sovereign on when to use them? Does this convention date back to Walpole, or is it a relatively recent convention? Lapafrax 22:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

 * My guess is that there is no answer to this question. There are of course still occasions when royal prerogative may still be exercised without advice, ie, when there is no-one to advise the Sovereign. I expect that kings such as Charles II and William III & II exercised their own judgment with advice from their ministers, and royal deference to ministerial advice increased over time. The Angel of Islington 08:31, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

 * The transfer of government powers from the Monarch to the Cabinet (Prime Ministers were still First Among Equals until the early twentieth century, not the quasi-presidential figures they have now become) was a long, slow process between 1688 and the 1830s. It probably really started under Queen Anne (Lords Treasurer like Godolphin, Harley etc) rather than Walpole as is sometimes supposed - Walpole just seemed more powerful as Parliaments had become septennial rather than triennial, the King spent a lot of time in Hanover and could barely understand English, and W was in for 21 years. As late as the early 1800s there was still no question of the King's right to veto legislation (Pitt the Younger resigned in 1800 as Catholic Emancipation was not going to get past George III) or to sack a government which had annoyed him too much (Grenville 1807). Thereafter Victoria, Edward VII and even George V exercised their reserve powers as Head of State (giving permission for premature elections to be held, getting involved in the formation of governments etc) rather more actively than Elizabeth II does nowadays.Paulturtle (talk) 04:45, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Minor Royals' Criminal Record
How is the Princess Royal's criminal record relevant to the Royal Prerogative?

If it is not I will rephrase to clarify that the scope of immunity extends only to the monarch herself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.181.39.143 (talk • contribs) 14:01, 7 June 2007

 * Crown is bound by law only in official capacity = legibus solutus in personal capacity as the Monarch. Define Crown, Define Monarch, define official and personal capacity; define convention. --89.21.227.114 (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

 * I think the point of this section is that agents of the Crown are essentially proxies for the Crown and so ought not to be prosecutable in that role since they are exercising the Royal Prerogative on the Monarch's behalf, using powers delegated to them. On the other hand the Crown might sue or prosecute the individual for abusing her power or whatever, or for reasons unrelated to her role as an agent of the Crown, in which case the individual is clearly distinguishable from the Crown in terms of legal identity. The Princess Royal undertakes some official duties for the Queen and so is sometimes an agent of the Crown, theoretically immune from prosecution in such capacity; but in cases like controlling her own dogs she's merely a private individual who happens to be a member of the Royal Family, so the fact she has a criminal record is unremarkable in this context. Hairy Dude (talk) 14:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, IANAL, so don't take this at face value. I think this needs properly sourcing to establish in the article why the criminal record is noteworthy (it is, IMO, as it highlights the fact that agents of the Crown aren't always immune from prosecution). Hairy Dude (talk) 14:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Political terms
Since reserve power is in Category:Political terms, why wouldn't this article be in that category as well? --Ancheta Wis 11:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Royal prerogative v. Reserve powers
This article states: "Though some republican heads of state possess similar powers, they are not coterminous, containing a number of fundamental differences. See reserve powers." However, no explanation or elaboration is given as to why the terms are different. Neither does the article on reserve powers, which seems to be more than happy to include a summary of the Royal prerogative in its scope.

Can anyone please elaborate on what the fundemental differences are? Many thanks... Tuckmantom (talk) 12:04, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

In 2000, PM Blair use Royal Perogative to evict islanders from the islands near the Diego Garcia (Indian Ocean) so that it could be leased to the USA as a forward base for Middle East operations in the war zone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.55.156.212 (talk) 22:02, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

 * The reserve powers article does seem to be including a lot of Royal Prerogative powers which are nowadays (by convention) government powers exercised in the Queen's name - sometimes not really subject to Parliamentary approval. "Reserve powers" ought really to be used about the Queen's powers (as head of the armed forces, police and civil service) to take charge in a constitutional crisis, e.g. to sack a Prime Minister who had gone mad and refused to resign despite losing an election and then a confidence vote in the House of Commons - the same emergency powers which a figurehead president would have in a country like Ireland or Germany.Paulturtle (talk) 16:30, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Artical viewpoint
This artical is very Anglo-centric. There are Royal prerogatives in other nations, and in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 these preogatives are expressly codified. Should this aritcal be renamed "Royal prerogatives (United Kingdom)" and have other articals named "Royal prerogatives (Spain)" and ect? Or should this artical be rewritten for a wider world view. In lack there of, I have summerized Spanish royal prerogatives on the Monarchy of Spain page. What guidence to does anyone offer? ♦Drachenfyre♦ · Talk 23:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that the archive discussions suggest why this article has heretofore tended to focus on the UK/England: "Royal Prerogative" is not used in British history & politics as a synonym for "powers of the monarch" since most of the powers of the Crown are not considered part of the royal prerogative. Rather, "royal prerogative" seems to be used in English to mean something closer to "powers reserved by precedent or by custom to the Crown". The prerogative consists of powers that do not belong to the Crown by express grant in the constitution or law. There has been debate here on whether there survives a similar authority in other monarchies, and a suggestion was made that the term, at least, seems nowadays unique (in Western monarchies) to the UK and Commonwealth realms. Looking at Spain's current constitution, none of the powers conferred on the Sovereign in articles 62 or 63 qualify as "royal prerogative" by this definition. But Article 65(2) and parts of Articles 65(1) and 56(2) might be considered functions of the Spanish royal prerogative. And I suspect the British version is what has been written about here because that is what those writing were interested in or familiar with. If it can be documented that "royal prerogative" is the English version of an equivalent term in other languages (or if the same concept is represented by a different term that has been translated as "royal prerogative"), by all means this is the place where the royal prerogative of other monarachies should be explained, as verifiable in reliable sources. Lethiere (talk) 00:58, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

 * Hello! Thank you for responding!

 * It seems a slight nuance in definition to be sure, and I see your point. However, if not “Royal Prerogative”, what would a constitutionally codified authority of a monarch be called? Weather Spanish or UK or Netherlands, royal authority, the rights (prerogative) and authority of the monarch, did evolve along similar lines and often from similar points or legal concepts. If in the UK constitutional tradition the Royal Prerogative has been more narrowly defined as "the residue of discretionary power left at any moment in the hands of the Crown, whether such power be in fact exercised by the King himself or by his Ministers" does that then disqualify the use of the term for other monarchies when it is constitutionally codified and in active use? I have to admit some confusion. From my vantage point, "Royal Prerogative" is the "rights" of the monarch, especially if they are codified. Weather or not those rights, or how those rights are used, may be a different matter. But I admit Lethiere I may be wrong and am looking for clarity. ♦Drachenfyre♦ · Talk 04:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Forking UK Content
OK. I have taken the plunge and tried to split out UK content from World content. This was/is not an easy exercise and I would appreciate your patience and assistance. I have created a separate page for Royal Prerogative in the United Kingdom:

 * Royal Prerogative (United Kingdom)

I think that was the right thing to do as there are major differences between Royal Prerogative in the UK and in for example Spain. The existing article contained a lot of detail that only applied to the UK.

Please help by editing. If any of you know about the Royal Prerogative in Canada or other countries/territories then please consider starting a separate article about these.

John Cross (talk) 11:16, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Cleared blank space,duplicate of signature above that was here, (link removed) my fork. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 19:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Link removed. AGK   00:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 07:31, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Royal Prerogative → Royal prerogative –

We don't upcase royal assent; there seems no reason to do so here, either: she invoked royal prerogative. Per WP:MOSCAPS ("Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization") and WP:TITLE, this is a generic, common term, not a propriety or commercial term, so the article title should be downcased. Lowercase will match the formatting of related article titles. An exception is apparently made for the Queen, although this itself has been controversial (two queens in three centuries).

And here is an example of lower case. Not sure how authoritative this one is. The Guardian. This looks authoritative. Tony  (talk)  07:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

 * Support. This one is clear on Wikipedia style grounds alone; but here is Google ngrams evidence to show the overwhelming preference for lower case in books. The search is on "by royal prerogative,by Royal Prerogative", with "by" to minimise contamination from uses in capitalised titles. N oetica Tea? 09:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Support speedy close as non-controversial 75.37.195.231 (talk) 15:40, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak Support Outback the koala (talk) 20:54, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. 10 out of 13 more or less random Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Parliament of Northern Ireland that I looked at on Legislation.gov.uk (out of a possible 37 Acts and Instruments returned by the advanced search function) appeared not to capitalize the word "prerogative". Capitalised: . Not capitalised: . James500 (talk) 07:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC) For the avoidance of doubt, the search function doesn't seem to discriminate against capitalization, see here, which produces the same 37 results. James500 (talk) 07:17, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Needs more explanation
From the article, there is "Individual prerogatives can be abolished by Parliament, although in the United Kingdom special procedure applies". What does it mean by "although in the United Kingdom special procedure applies"? It sounds rather obscure and I think an example of this is needed. Komitsuki (talk) 08:22, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Common law?
"It is clear that the existence and extent of the power is a matter of common law, making the courts the final arbiter of whether a particular type of prerogative exists or not."

This usage of "common law" seems to be obscure. So, does the common law in this sentence refer to the English legal system or laws that are not codified? It is rather confusing. I hope someone reword this sentence. Komitsuki (talk) 06:47, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

 * It means English Law in general. Some Royal Prerogative has been limited by statute, e.g. the recent Fixed Term Parliament Act which means it is no longer up to the Monarch to dissolve Parliament (although it is fairly new law, so it is not yet clear how much power is now vested in the Speaker and whether or not the Queen still retains any emergency reserve powers in this area). It is established law that the Royal Prerogative can never be increased (unless, one supposes, Parliament specifically so legislates). Large chunks of the Royal Prerogative still legally exist but by convention are exercised by Ministers or by the Prime Minister (e.g. the right to appoint and sack other ministers) in the Queen's name, some of it not subject to Parliamentary approval. The recent Syria vote suggests that a convention is now evolving that ministers will not in future exercise the Queen's right to engage in military operations without Parliamentary approval. However, convention is generally not thought to be legally enforceable.Paulturtle (talk) 16:08, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Canada
"The issuance of passports also remains within the royal prerogative in Canada. The terms for the issuing of passports by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Crown are set out in the Canadian Passport Order,[12] issued by the Governor General-in-Council. The Canadian government has used the royal prerogative on two occasions to deny a passport to a Canadian citizen, Abdurahman Khadr and Fateh Kamel. Lawsuits filed at the Federal Court, Federal Court of Appeal, and ultimately the Supreme Court of Canada did not find in their favour." Whose favour? Khadr and Kamel, or the Governor General? Kiltpin (talk) 14:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking at the article for Fateh Kamel, it seems that the suits failed. --Pete (talk) 15:30, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Pete, I have made a minor edit to reflect that. Kiltpin (talk) 17:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

title: Talk:Royal prerogative