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Mike Rounds

Marion Michael Rounds (born October 24, 1954) is an American businessman and politician serving as the junior United States senator from South Dakota since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 31st governor of South Dakota from 2003 to 2011.

Rounds was raised in Pierre, South Dakota. He attended South Dakota State University, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. He was elected to the South Dakota Senate in 1990, representing the 24th district until 2001. Rounds ran for governor of South Dakota in 2002, and after an upset victory in the Republican primary, defeated Democratic nominee Jim Abbott. He was reelected in 2006, but was term limited from running for a third term in 2010.

In 2014, Rounds was elected to the United States Senate, succeeding retiring Democrat Tim Johnson. He was reelected in 2020 over Democratic nominee Dan Ahlers.

Early life, education, and business career
The eldest of 11 children, Rounds was born in Huron, South Dakota, the son of Joyce (née Reinartz) and Don Rounds. He has German, Belgian, Swedish and English ancestry. Rounds has lived in the state capital of Pierre since he was three years old. He was named for an uncle, Marion Rounds, who was killed in the Pacific theater during World War II. Several members of the Rounds family have been involved in state government. His father worked at various times as state director of highway safety, a staffer for the Rural Electrification Administration, and executive director of the South Dakota Petroleum Council. His brother Tim Rounds was a member of the South Dakota House of Representatives, representing District 24, which includes Pierre, from 2003 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2021.

Rounds attended South Dakota State University in Brookings, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in political science.

Rounds is a former partner in Fischer Rounds & Associates, an insurance and real estate firm with offices in Pierre, Rapid City, Mitchell, Watertown and Sioux Falls.

Elections
Rounds represented District 24, which was based in Pierre. In 1990, he defeated incumbent state Senator Jacqueline Kelley, 53%–47%. He was reelected in 1992 (60%), 1994 (77%), 1996 (66%), and 1998 (75%). Rounds had to leave the Senate in 2001 because of legislative term limits South Dakota voters had passed in 1992.

Tenure
Rounds represented Hughes, Lyman, Stanley, and Sully counties. In 1993, he became Senate Minority Whip. In 1995, his peers selected him to be Senate Majority Leader.

Committee assignments

 * Commerce
 * Education
 * Legislative Procedure
 * Local Government
 * Retirement Laws
 * State Affairs
 * Taxation

2002
As the 2002 race for governor took shape, media and political observers largely dismissed Rounds as an extreme long shot. Until late 2001, then-Congressman John Thune was the front-runner for the nomination. When Thune passed on the race to challenge Senator Tim Johnson, state Attorney General Mark Barnett and former Lieutenant Governor Steve T. Kirby became candidates.

Rounds benefited from the heated competition between Kirby and Barnett, much of which centered on ethical concerns about Kirby's personal business investments and damaged both candidates' reputations, with Barnett's campaign advertisements involving claims "so outlandish that people thought for sure that they were exaggerated or completely fabricated". By staying above the fray, Rounds won the primary by 15 points.

After winning the Republican nomination, Rounds chose State Senator Dennis Daugaard of Dell Rapids as his running mate. Their Democratic opponents were University of South Dakota President Jim Abbott of Vermillion and his running mate, former State Representative Mike Wilson of Rapid City.

Rounds was elected governor on November 5, 2002. The results were as follows:
 * Republicans: Rounds and Daugaard, 56.8%
 * Democrats: Abbott and Wilson, 41.9%
 * Independent: Jim Carlson and Ron Bosch, 0.7%
 * Libertarians: Nathan Barton and Eric Risty, 0.6%

2006
Two Democratic candidates emerged to challenge Rounds: Jack Billion, a retired surgeon and former state legislator from Sioux Falls, and Dennis Wiese, the former president of the South Dakota Farmers Union. Billion easily won the nomination and selected Rapid City school board member Eric Abrahamson as his running mate.

The Rounds/Daugaard ticket was reelected on November 7, 2006. The results were as follows:
 * Republicans: Rounds and Daugaard, 61.7%
 * Democrats: Billion and Abrahamson, 36.1%
 * Constitution: Steven J. Willis and Larry Johnsen, 1.2%
 * Libertarians: Tom Gerber and Betty Rose Ryan, 1.0%

Tenure
Rounds served as a member of the Governors' Council at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He was the 2008 Chair of the Midwestern Governors Association.

Research centers
Rounds's 2010 Initiative established ten research centers at state-supported universities. In the program's first four years, the state's first five research centers generated an estimated $59 million in federal and private funding, with an estimated $110 million economic impact.

Abortion
On February 22, 2006, the state legislature of South Dakota passed an act banning all medical abortions except those necessary to save the mother's life. Rounds signed the act on March 6 and the ban was to have taken effect on July 1, 2006, but did not, because of a court challenge. A referendum on repealing H.B. 1215 was placed on the ballot for the November 2006 statewide election due to a petition. On May 30, over 38,000 signatures were filed, more than twice the 17,000 required to qualify. Voters repealed the law on November 7, 2006, the day of Rounds's reelection.

EB-5 Visa inquiry
During Rounds's administration, South Dakota offered green cards to foreign investors in exchange for investments in a new South Dakota beef packing plant and other economic investments through the EB-5 visa program the federal government established in 1990. After the beef packing plant went bankrupt, questions emerged about the nature of the investments and the foreign investors. Some investors received neither their EB-5 visas nor the money back from their failed investments, with no indication as to where their money went.

State officials misused funds to pay for their salaries, did not disclose that they owned companies which they gave contracts to, directed money to companies that went bankrupt and arranged for loans from unknown sources from shell companies located in tax havens. In October 2014, Rounds admitted that he had approved a $1 million state loan to beef packing plant Northern Beef shortly after learning that Secretary of Tourism and State Development Richard Benda had agreed to join the company, with Benda then getting another $600,000 in state loans that was ultimately used to pay his own salary. Benda committed suicide in October 2013, days before a possible indictment over embezzlement and grand theft charges.

3D-printed weapons
Of 3D-printed weapons, Rounds has said, "This is a new technology which you're not going to put back into the bottle. It is there." He has suggested creating and using new technologies, such as metal detectors that can also recognize plastic, in schools, airports and other public places.

2014
Speculation persisted that in 2014 Rounds would seek the United States Senate seat held by Tim Johnson, a Democrat who had served since 1997. Johnson opted not to run for reelection.

On November 29, 2012, Rounds launched a campaign for the seat being vacated by Johnson's retirement. He won the June 2014 Republican primary, defeating four other candidates. Early polls showed Rounds leading by a 2–1 margin against Democratic opponent Rick Weiland. October 2014 polls showed a closer three-way race between Rounds, Weiland, and independent former Senator Larry Pressler. Independent conservative former state legislator Gordon Howie was also in the race.

In November Rounds was elected with a majority of the vote. The results were:

 * Republican: Rounds, 50.37%
 * Democrat: Weiland, 29.51%
 * Independent: Pressler, 17.09%
 * Independent: Howie, 3.03%

2020
In the 2020 election, Rounds defeated Scyller Borglum to win the Republican nomination. He won the general election over Democrat Dan Ahlers with nearly 66% of the vote.

Education
In February 2019, Rounds was one of 20 senators to sponsor the Employer Participation in Repayment Act, enabling employers to contribute up to $5,250 to their employees' student loans as a means of granting them relief and incentivizing people to apply for jobs with employers who implement the policy.

Environment
In 2017, Rounds was one of 22 senators to sign a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. According to OpenSecrets, Rounds has received over $200,000 from oil, gas and coal interests since 2012. Rounds supported embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who had come under scrutiny because of extraordinary expenditures for personal security and luxury travel, and the appearances of ethical conflicts, defending him on Meet the Press. Calling the criticism "nitpicking", he said, "I don't know how much of it is overblown and how much of it is accurate, to be honest."

Criminal justice
Rounds opposed the FIRST STEP Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that Trump signed into law. The bill passed 87–12 on December 18, 2018.

Israel Anti-Boycott Act
In March 2018, Rounds co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which would make it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government.

Health care
Rounds opposes the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and has voted to repeal it. In 2019, he said he supported lawsuits seeking to overturn it.

2020 presidential election
On January 9, 2022, Rounds said that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen from Donald Trump: "[We] looked at over 60 different accusations made in multiple states. While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state". Rounds said the election was fair, and added that Republicans should stop making arguments to the contrary: "If we simply look back and tell our people, 'Don't vote because there's cheating going on,' then we're going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage. So, moving forward, let's focus on what it takes to win those elections. We can do that." Trump responded by calling Rounds a "jerk", "crazy" and "stupid" and accused him of being "woke" for acknowledging the election results.

2021 United States Capitol attack
On May 28, 2021, Rounds abstained from voting on the creation of the January 6 commission.

2024 presidential election
Rounds endorsed Senator Tim Scott for the Republican nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election. In an interview on Meet the Press, Rounds refused to commit to supporting the eventual Republican nominee if Scott was not nominated. Scott suspended his campaign on November 12, 2023.

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Armed Services
 * Subcommittee on Airland
 * Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support
 * Subcommittee on Seapower
 * Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
 * Subcommittee on Economic Policy
 * Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development (Ranking Member)
 * Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection
 * Committee on Environment and Public Works
 * Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife
 * Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Personal life
While attending South Dakota State University, Rounds met Jean Vedvei, formerly of Lake Preston, South Dakota. They married in 1978 and had four children. Rounds is the older brother of Tim Rounds.

Rounds is a member of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church of Pierre. He is also a member of numerous service clubs and community organizations, including Elks, Exchange Club, Knights of Columbus and Ducks Unlimited.

In May 2011, Rounds's alma mater, South Dakota State University, gave him an honorary doctorate for public service.

On November 2, 2021, Jean Rounds died at age 65, two years after she was diagnosed with cancer.

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

title: Mike Rounds


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Bill Richardson

William Blaine Richardson III (November 15, 1947 – September 1, 2023) was an American politician, author, and diplomat who served as the 30th governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011. He was also the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and energy secretary in the Clinton administration, a U.S. congressman, chair of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and chair of the Democratic Governors Association.

In December 2008, Richardson was nominated for the cabinet-level position of Secretary of Commerce in the first Obama administration but withdrew a month later, as he was being investigated for possible improper business dealings. Although the investigation was later dropped, it damaged Richardson's popularity and diminished his influence as his second and final term as New Mexico governor concluded.

Richardson occasionally provided advice on diplomatic issues pertaining to North Korea and visited the nation on several occasions, including efforts to release American detainees. He completed a number of private humanitarian missions, one of which secured the release of U.S. journalist Danny Fenster from a Myanmar prison in November 2021.

Early life and education
William Blaine Richardson III was born in Pasadena, California, on November 15, 1947. He grew up in the borough of Coyoacán in Mexico City. His father, William Blaine Richardson Jr. (1891–1972), who was of Anglo-American and Mexican descent, was an American bank executive from Boston who worked in Mexico for what is now Citibank. Richardson's father was born on a ship heading towards Nicaragua.

His mother, María Luisa López-Collada Márquez (1914–2011), had been his father's secretary—she was the Mexican-born daughter of a Mexican mother and a Spanish father from Villaviciosa, Asturias. Just before Bill Richardson was born, his father sent his mother to California to give birth because, as Richardson explained, "My father had a complex about not having been born in the United States."

Richardson, a United States citizen by birth, spent his childhood in a lavish hacienda in Coyoacán's barrio of San Francisco where he was raised as a Roman Catholic. When Richardson was 13, his parents sent him to the U.S. to attend Middlesex School, a preparatory school in Concord, Massachusetts, where he played baseball as a pitcher. He entered Tufts University in 1966, where he continued to play baseball.

In 1967, he played collegiate summer baseball in the Cape Cod Baseball League, pitching for the Cotuit Kettleers; he returned to the league in 1968 with the Harwich Mariners. A Kettleers program included the words "Drafted by K.C." Richardson said:

"When I saw that program in 1967, I was convinced I was drafted.... And it stayed with me all these years." Richardson's original biographies stated he had been drafted by the Kansas City Athletics and the Chicago Cubs to play professional baseball, but a 2005 Albuquerque Journal investigation discovered he never was on any official draft. Richardson acknowledged the error, which he maintained was unintentional, saying he had been scouted by several teams and told that he "would or could" be drafted, but he was mistaken in saying that he actually had been drafted.

Richardson earned a Bachelor's degree at Tufts University in 1970, majoring in French and political science, and was a member and president of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He earned a master's degree in international affairs from the Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1971. He had met his future wife Barbara (née Flavin) when they were in high school in Concord, Massachusetts, and they married in 1972 following her graduation from Wheaton College.

Richardson was a descendant of William Brewster, a passenger on the Mayflower.

Early political career
After college, Richardson worked for Republican Congressman F. Bradford Morse from Massachusetts from 1971 to 1973. In 1974, he left to work on congressional relations for the Kissinger State Department during the Nixon administration. Between 1976 and 1978 he was a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

U.S. Representative

In 1978, Richardson moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1980 he ran for the House of Representatives in the state's 3rd congressional district, but lost narrowly to longtime Republican incumbent and future United States Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan. Two years later, Richardson was elected to New Mexico's newly created third district, which took in most of the northern part of the state. Richardson spent 14 years in Congress, representing the country's most diverse district and holding 2,000 town meetings.

Richardson served as Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the 98th Congress (1984–1985) and as Chair of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Native American Affairs in the 103rd Congress (1993–1994). Richardson sponsored a number of bills, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments of 1994, the Indian Dams Safety Act, the Tribal Self-Governance Act, and the Jicarilla Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act.

He became a member of the Democratic leadership as a deputy majority whip, where he became friends with Bill Clinton after they worked closely on several issues, including when he served as the ranking House Democrat in favor of NAFTA's passage in 1993. For his work as a back channel to Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Mexico's president at the time of the negotiations, he was awarded the Aztec Eagle Award, Mexico's highest award for a foreigner. Clinton in turn sent Richardson on various foreign policy missions, including a trip in 1995 in which Richardson traveled to Baghdad with Peter Bourne and engaged in lengthy one-on-one negotiations with Saddam Hussein to secure the release of two American aerospace workers who had been captured by the Iraqis after wandering over the Kuwaiti border. Richardson also visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests and met with Slobodan Milošević.

In 1996, he played a major role in securing the release of American Evan Hunziker from North Korean custody and for securing a pardon for Eliadah McCord, an American convicted and imprisoned in Bangladesh. Due to these missions, Richardson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

Ambassador to the United Nations
Richardson served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from February 1997 to August 1998. In 1997, working alongside Nelson Mandela, he helped negotiate the transfer of power between Mobutu Sese Seko and Laurent-Désiré Kabila at the conclusion of the First Congo War. In 1998 he flew to Afghanistan to meet with the Taliban and Abdul Rachid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord. The ceasefire he believed he had negotiated with the help of Bruce Riedel of the National Security Council failed to hold; neither was he successful in convincing the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden.

U.S. Secretary of Energy
The Senate confirmed Richardson to be Clinton's Secretary of Energy on July 31, 1998. His tenure at the Department of Energy was marred by the Wen Ho Lee nuclear controversy. As told by The New York Times in a special report, a scientist later named as Lee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory was reported as a suspect who might have given nuclear secrets to the People's Republic of China government. The article mentioned Richardson several times, although he denied in sworn testimony that he was the source or that he made improper disclosures. After being fired and spending nine months in solitary confinement as an alleged security risk, Lee was later cleared of espionage charges and released with an apology from the judge. Eventually, Lee won a $1.6 million settlement against the federal government and several news outlets, including the Times and The Washington Post, for the accusation. Richardson was also criticized by the United States Senate for his handling of the espionage inquiry, which involved missing computer hard drives containing sensitive data, and for not testifying in front of Congress sooner. Richardson justified his response by saying that he was waiting to uncover more information before speaking to Congress. Republican Senators called for Richardson's resignation, while both parties criticized his role in the incident, and the scandal ended Richardson's hope of being named as Al Gore's running mate for the 2000 presidential election.

Richardson tightened security following the scandal, leading to the creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA, not to be confused with the NSA and the NSC). This foreshadowed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. He created the Director for Native American Affairs position in the department in 1998, and in January 2000, oversaw the largest return of federal lands, 84,000 acres (340 km2), to a Native American Tribe (the Northern Ute Tribe of Utah) in more than 100 years. Richardson also directed the overhaul of the department's consultation policy with Native American tribes and established the Tribal Energy Program.

Educational and corporate positions
With the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001, Richardson took on a number of different positions. He was an adjunct professor at Harvard Kennedy School and a lecturer at the United World College of the American West (UWC-USA), and also taught at the University of New Mexico, and New Mexico State University. In 2000, Richardson was awarded a United States Institute of Peace Senior Fellowship. He spent the next year researching and writing on the negotiations with North Korea and the energy dimensions of U.S. relations. In 2011, Richardson was named a senior fellow at the Baker Institute of Rice University.

Richardson joined Kissinger McLarty Associates, a "strategic advisory firm" headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty, as Senior Managing Director.

From February 2001 to June 2002, he served on the board of directors of Peregrine Systems. He also served on the corporate boards of several energy companies, including Valero Energy Corporation and Diamond Offshore Drilling. He withdrew from these boards after being nominated by the Democratic Party for governor of New Mexico, but retained considerable stock holdings in Valero and Diamond Offshore. He would later sell these stocks during his campaign for president in 2007, saying he was "getting questions" about the propriety of these holdings, especially given his past as energy secretary, and that it had become a distraction.

Richardson was on the board of directors of the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD), which was created after the 2011 Tucson shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

First term
Richardson was elected governor of New Mexico in November 2002, having defeated the Republican nominee, John Sanchez, 56–39%. During the campaign, he set a Guinness World Record for most handshakes in eight hours by a politician, breaking Theodore Roosevelt's record. He succeeded a two-term Republican governor, Gary Johnson. He took office in January 2003 as the only Hispanic Governor in the United States. In his first year, Richardson proposed "tax cuts to promote growth and investment" and passed a broad personal income tax cut and won a statewide special election to transfer money from the state's Permanent Fund to meet current expenses and projects. In early 2005, Richardson helped make New Mexico the first state in the nation to provide $400,000 in life insurance coverage for New Mexico National Guard members who serve on active duty. Thirty-five states have since followed suit.

Working with the legislature, he formed Richardson's Investment Partnership (GRIP) in 2003. The partnership has been used to fund large-scale public infrastructure projects throughout New Mexico, including the use of highway funds to construct a brand new commuter rail line (the Rail Runner) that runs between Belen, Albuquerque, and Bernalillo. He supported a variety of LGBT rights in his career as governor; he added sexual orientation and gender identity to New Mexico's list of civil rights categories. However, he was opposed to same-sex marriage, and he faced criticism for his use of the anti-gay slur maricón on Don Imus's morning radio show in March 2006.

During the summer of 2003, he met with a delegation from North Korea at its request to discuss concerns over that country's nuclear weapons. At the request of the White House, he also flew to North Korea in 2005 and met with another North Korean delegation in 2006. On December 7, 2006, Secretary General of the Organization of American States José Miguel Insulza named Richardson his Special Envoy for Hemispheric Affairs with the mandate to "promote dialogue on issues of importance to the region, such as immigration and free trade".

In 2003, Richardson backed and signed legislation creating a permit system for New Mexicans to carry concealed handguns. He applied for and received a concealed weapons permit, though by his own admission he seldom carries a gun.

As Richardson discussed frequently during his 2008 run for president, he supported a controversial New Mexico law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses for reasons of public safety. He said that because of the program, traffic fatalities had gone down, and the percentage of uninsured drivers decreased from 33% to 11%.

Richardson was named Chair of the Democratic Governors Association in 2004 and announced a desire to increase the role of Democratic governors in deciding the future of the party.

In December 2005, Richardson announced the intention of New Mexico to collaborate with billionaire Richard Branson to bring space tourism to the proposed Spaceport America located near Las Cruces. In 2006, Forbes credited Richardson's reforms in naming Albuquerque the best city in the United States for business and careers. The Cato Institute, meanwhile, consistently rated Richardson as one of the most fiscally responsible Democratic governors in the nation.

In March 2006, Richardson vetoed legislation that would ban the use of eminent domain to transfer property to private developers, as allowed by the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London. He promised to work with the legislature to draft new legislation addressing the issue in the 2007 legislative session.

On September 7, 2006, Richardson flew to Sudan to meet President Omar Al-Bashir and successfully negotiated the release of imprisoned journalist Paul Salopek. The Sudanese had charged Salopek with espionage on August 26, 2006, while on a National Geographic assignment. In January 2007, at the request of the Save Darfur Coalition, he brokered a 60-day cease-fire between al-Bashir and leaders of several rebel factions in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. The cease-fire never became effective, however, with allegations of breaches on all sides.

Second term

Richardson won his second term as Governor of New Mexico on November 7, 2006, 68–32% against former New Mexico Republican Party Chairman John Dendahl. Richardson received the highest percentage of votes in any gubernatorial election in the state's history.

In December 2006, Richardson announced that he would support a ban on cockfighting in New Mexico which became law on March 12, 2007. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are now the only parts of the United States where cockfighting is legal.

During New Mexico's 2007 legislative session, Richardson signed a bill into law that made New Mexico the 12th state to legalize cannabis for medical reasons. When asked if this would hurt him in a presidential election, he stated that it did not matter, as it was "the right thing to do".

During 2008 and 2009, Richardson faced "possible legal issues" while a federal grand jury investigated pay-to-play allegations in the awarding of a lucrative state contract to a company that gave campaign contributions to Richardson's political action committee, Moving America Forward. The company in question, CDR, was alleged to have funneled more than $100,000 in donations to Richardson's PAC in exchange for state construction projects. Richardson said when he withdrew his Commerce Secretary nomination that he was innocent; his popularity then slipped below 50% in his home state. In August 2009, federal prosecutors dropped the pending investigation against the governor, and there was speculation in the media about Richardson's career after his second term as New Mexico governor concluded.

On March 18, 2009, he signed a bill repealing the death penalty, making New Mexico the second U.S. state, after New Jersey, to repeal the death penalty by legislative means since the 1960s. Richardson was subsequently honored with the 2009 Human Rights Award by Death Penalty Focus.

In its April 2010 report, ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Richardson one of the 11 worst governors in the United States because of various ethics issues throughout Richardson's term as governor. The group accused Richardson of allowing political allies to benefit from firms connected to state investments, rewarding close associates with state positions or benefits (including providing a longtime friend and political supporter with a costly state contract), and allowing pay-to-play activity in his administration. They also opined that he fell short on efforts to make state government more transparent.

In December 2010, while still serving as governor, Richardson returned to North Korea in an unofficial capacity at the invitation of the North's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan. Upon arriving in Pyongyang on December 16, Richardson told reporters that his "objective is to see if we can reduce the tension on the Korean peninsula, that is my objective. I am going to have a whole series of talks with North Korean officials here and I look forward to my discussions", he said. On December 19, Richardson said his talks with North Korean officials made "some progress" in trying to resolve what he calls a "very tense" situation. Speaking from Pyongyang, Richardson told U.S. television network CNN that a North Korean general he met was receptive to his proposal for setting up a hotline between North and South Korean forces, and also was open to his idea for a military commission to monitor disputes in and around the Yellow Sea.

After his return from North Korea, Richardson dealt with the issue of a pardon for William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, for killing Sheriff William J. Brady of Lincoln County, New Mexico, some 130 years before. Following up on the promise of a pardon at the time by then-territorial governor Lew Wallace, Richardson said he could not pardon Bonney posthumously because he did not want to second-guess his predecessor's decision. "It was a very close call", Richardson said. "The romanticism appealed to me to issue a pardon, but the facts and the evidence did not support it."

Richardson's second term in office ended in 2011 and he was term-limited from further terms as governor.

2008 presidential campaign
Richardson was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election but dropped out on January 10, 2008, after lackluster showings in the first primary and caucus contests. Despite his long history and friendship with the Clinton family, Richardson endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination on March 21, 2008, over Hillary Clinton. Commentator and Clinton ally James Carville compared Richardson to Judas Iscariot for the move. Richardson responded in a Washington Post article, feeling "compelled to defend [himself] against character assassination and baseless allegations."

Richardson was a rumored vice presidential candidate for Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama, and was fully vetted by the Obama campaign, before Obama chose Joe Biden on August 23, 2008.

Secretary of Commerce nomination
Following Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election, Richardson's name was frequently mentioned as a possible Cabinet appointment in the incoming Obama administration. Most of this speculation surrounded the position of Secretary of State, given Richardson's background as a diplomat. Richardson did not publicly comment on the speculation. Ultimately, Hillary Clinton was Obama's nominee for Secretary of State.

Richardson was also considered for the position of Commerce Secretary. On December 3, 2008, Obama tapped Richardson for the post. On January 4, 2009, Richardson withdrew his name as Commerce Secretary nominee because of the federal grand jury investigation into pay-to-play allegations. The New York Times had reported in late December that the grand jury investigation issue would be raised at Richardson's confirmation hearings. Later, in August 2009, Justice Department officials decided not to seek indictments.

Allegations of corruption
According to his autobiography, while serving as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson was asked by the White House in 1997 to interview Monica Lewinsky for a job on his staff. Richardson did so, and later offered her a position which she declined. The American Spectator alleged that Richardson knew more about the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal than he declared to the grand jury.

In 2011, Richardson was under investigation for his role in alleged campaign finance violations. A former member of Richardson's campaign claimed that during Richardson's 2008 presidential campaign, Richardson and members of his campaign paid an unknown woman $250,000 to keep her from exposing an alleged affair they had in 2004.

During the 2012 trial United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, the former CDR employee Doug Goldberg testified that he was involved in giving Bill Richardson campaign contributions amounting to $100,000 in exchange for his company CDR being hired to handle a $400 million swap deal for the New Mexico state government. During his testimony, Doug Goldberg stated that he had been given an envelope containing a check for $25,000 payable to Moving America Forward, Bill Richardson's political action committee, by his boss Stewart Wolmark and told to deliver it to Bill Richardson at a fund raiser. When Goldberg handed the envelope to Richardson, he allegedly told Goldberg to "Tell the big guy [Stewart Wolmark] I'm going to hire you guys". Goldberg went on to testify that CDR was hired but that he later learned that another firm was hired by Richardson to perform the actual work required and that Stewart Wolmark had given Richardson a further $75,000 in contributions.

In 2019 it was revealed that Richardson was among those named in court documents from a civil suit between Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The documents were unsealed on August 9, 2019, a day before Epstein's death. Giuffre alleges that she was sexually trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to several high-profile individuals, including Richardson, while she was underage in the early 2000s. Court documents from 2015 that were unsealed in 2019 alleged Richardson's possible involvement with the Jeffrey Epstein child trafficking ring, which allegations he denied. A spokesperson for Richardson also denied the claims, stating that he did not know Giuffre and had never seen Epstein in the presence of young or underage girls. Richardson released a statement in August 2019, saying he had offered his assistance in the investigation of Epstein to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Richardson's attorney, Jeff Brown of Dechert LLP, later said that he was informed by the assistant US attorney that Richardson is neither a target, subject, nor witness in the case and that there is no allegation against Richardson that the government is actively investigating.

Private diplomacy
Richardson visited North Korea a number of times, and was involved in negotiations with the leadership there since the early 1990s. In 1996, he accompanied U.S. State Department officials and successfully negotiated the release of Evan Hunziker, the first American civilian to be arrested by North Korea on espionage charges since the end of the Korean War.

In 2011, he was again appointed as a special envoy of the Organization of American States. Richardson formed a foundation, the Richardson Center, to help negotiate the release of political prisoners globally.

In January 2013, he led a delegation to North Korea of business leaders, including Google chairman Eric Schmidt, shortly after the state launched an orbital rocket. Richardson called the trip a "private, humanitarian" mission by U.S. citizens. He tried unsuccessfully to speak to North Korean officials about the detention of Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen accused of committing "hostile" acts against the state, and sought to visit him, but was only able to deliver to authorities a letter from Bae's son. (Bae was released in November 2014.)

In March 2016, at the request of Ohio Governor John Kasich, Richardson unsuccessfully negotiated for the release of Cincinnati college student Otto Warmbier, who had been detained on a visit to North Korea. Warmbier was eventually released in a vegetative state in June 2017, and died in Cincinnati later that same month.

In November 2021, Richardson undertook a mission to Myanmar, where he negotiated with military junta head Min Aung Hlaing, and secured the release of U.S. journalist Danny Fenster from an 11-year prison sentence.

Shortly before his death, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by four Democratic senators for his role in hostage diplomacy seeking the release of 15 political prisoners, including professional basketball player Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed.

Post-gubernatorial career
In 2011, Richardson joined the boards of APCO Worldwide company Global Political Strategies as chairman, the World Resources Institute, the National Council for Science and the Environment, and Abengoa (international advisory board).

In 2012, Richardson joined the advisory board of Grow Energy and Refugees International. He was a member of Washington, D.C.-based Western Hemisphere think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue.

In December 2012, Richardson became chairman of the Board of Directors of Car Charging Group, the largest independent owner and operator of public electric vehicle charging stations in the United States. In 2013 Richardson joined the Board of Advisors for the Fuel Freedom Foundation.

Death
Richardson died at his summer house in Chatham, Massachusetts, on September 1, 2023, at age 75.

Publications

 * Bill Richardson with Michael Ruby. 2005. Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life – An Autobiography. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0399153241.
 * Bill Richardson. 2008. Leading by Example: How We Can Inspire an Energy and Security Revolution. Wiley. ISBN 9780470186374
 * Bill Richardson, Charles Streeper, and Margarita Sevcik. Fall 2011. Sweeping Up Dirty Bombs: A Shift From Normative to Pro-Active Measures. Federation of American Scientists.
 * Bill Richardson, with Gay Dillingham, Charles Streeper, and Arjun Makhijani. January 2011. "Universal Transparency: A Goal for the U.S. at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit". Arms Control Today. Arms Control Association.
 * Bill Richardson with Kevin Bleyer. 2013. How to Sweet-Talk a Shark: Strategies and Stories from a Master Negotiator. Rodale Books. ISBN 9781623360580.

title: Bill Richardson


text:
Bob Riley

Robert Renfroe Riley (born October 3, 1944) is an American retired politician and businessman who served as the 52nd governor of Alabama from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. representative for Alabama's 3rd congressional district from 1997 to 2003.

Early life, education and early career
Riley was born in Ashland, Alabama, a small town in Clay County where his family ranched and farmed for six generations. Riley attended the University of Alabama, where he was a brother of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and graduated with a degree in business administration. Prior to being elected to the U.S. House in 1996, Riley had led a number of businesses. He owned a car dealership and trucking company, and had also been a cattleman and commercial and residential realtor.

U.S. House of Representatives
Riley was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, defeating his Democratic opponent, State Senator T.D. "Ted" Little (Auburn) and Libertarian John Sophocleus. It was his first run for elected office. He won by just over 6,000 votes to become only the second Republican to represent Alabama's 3rd district since Reconstruction. The first was Glenn Andrews, who held it from 1965 to 1967, when it was numbered as the 4th District.

Riley was reelected in 1998 with somewhat less difficulty, taking 58% of the vote over Democrat Joe Turnham. In 2000, he only faced a Libertarian candidate.

2002 election
Riley did not run for re-election to the House in November 2002 (as a supporter of term limits, he imposed a three-term limit on himself), instead running for governor of Alabama and defeating the Democratic incumbent Don Siegelman by approximately 3,000 votes - the narrowest margin in the state's history for a gubernatorial race. The result was controversial, as the initial election night count showed a 2,000-plus vote victory for Siegelman.

Approval ratings
On May 10, 2005, Riley's approval ratings were 36% approving and 52% disapproving of his job as governor. By September 20, 2005, Riley's approval ratings had increased substantially to 58% approving and 38% disapproving. Analysis of this increase seems to indicate that it may be attributed to the public's perception of Riley's response to Hurricane Katrina. By February 14, 2006, Riley's approval ratings had slightly decreased, with 52% approving and 43% disapproving of his job as governor. By August 2006, his approval rating was at 62% with a disapproval rating of 35%.

Supreme Court
In 2003, Alabama state politics gained national attention when the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore, refused to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the court building. Riley reportedly supported Moore, but ultimately did not play a large role in the dispute. Riley stated there was nothing he could do to prevent Moore from being removed from office by a judicial ethics panel. Moore challenged Riley in the June 6, 2006, GOP primary.

Property taxes
Property tax appraisals became a major campaign issue with Riley's opponents claiming that Riley, acting through his revenue commissioner, ordered that property tax appraisals be made annually, rather than the quadrennial reappraisals that were established practice. Because property values tend to increase over time, making appraisals more frequent has the indirect effect of increasing the taxes paid by property owners. Riley's opponents claimed that by doing so, he raised taxes without a vote of either the Legislature or the people. Riley claims he is merely following the language of the law, and the advice of his attorneys.

Amendment One
In the first year of his administration, Riley proposed "Amendment One", which would have made swift changes to the state's tax system. The plan essentially consisted of income tax breaks for lower brackets, offset by various tax hikes on consumption, property and income from higher brackets. Part of the problem that this plan sought to address was the strong dependence the Alabama tax system placed upon sales tax, which makes the state budget dependent upon the economy in the state. The plan was estimated to yield an overall state revenue increase of $1.2 billion per year. The plan also included accountability reforms, including changes to teacher tenure policies, accountability for school systems, and bans on pass-through pork. This plan also included provisions for a scholarship program for Alabama students to attend college and funding of other education initiatives.

Both support and opposition to this plan came from traditionally opposing forces in Alabama, crossing party lines. This included support from pro-business organizations, including the Business Council of Alabama and many Chambers of Commerce, as well as prominent education organizations, including the Alabama Education Association. Other progressively-minded non-profit groups supported this plan, including many organizations that had sought changes in the Alabama tax system for many years. These organizations saw this as an opportunity for Alabama to invest in the future of the state through investments in education and governmental reforms. Riley also presented this plan using Christian terms, building upon language already present in the state to argue that the Alabama tax system placed the heaviest burden upon the poorest citizens of the state. Opponents to the plan included the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition (splitting with the national Christian Coalition who endorsed the plan), and the Alabama Farmers Federation (ALFA). A number of those who opposed this plan, including both organizations mentioned, had strongly supported Riley for governor in 2002. These opponents based a campaign upon a criticism of the state legislature and used the complexity of the plans to claim that taxes would go up on people in the state. While proponents had pointed to studies of the plan showing the majority of Alabamians seeing a lower overall tax burden, polls indicated that most citizens - likely influenced by the proposed property tax increase - believed their personal taxes would be higher under the plan.

Amendment One was rejected by voters on September 9, 2003, with 68% opposed. While Riley's Amendment One was soundly rejected by Alabama voters, it did gain him national recognition. For his leadership in addressing the state's fiscal crisis, Governor Riley was named the "Public Official of the Year" by Governing magazine in 2003, and Time magazine hailed him for being one of the nation's "most courageous politicians".

The overwhelming rejection of this plan forced Riley to mend fences within his own base and seek to do some reforms without the broad tax increases that Amendment One sought. Some parts of the proposal have been enacted, such as efforts to raise the minimum tax threshold in Alabama.

Industrial development
Riley has claimed credit for helping to spur economic development in Alabama. Riley points to the opening of an aeronautics engineering facility in Mobile by EADS, the parent company of Airbus, which may ripen into an aircraft assembly plant if EADS secures future contracts. Riley's critics have pointed out that Riley has failed to emulate the success of predecessors, such as Siegelman – during whose administration the Hyundai plant was successfully recruited  – and Jim Folsom, Jr., in securing automotive manufacturing plants. Specifically, when Kia announced in March 2006 it would build a maunfucturing plant in Georgia, Riley was criticized by Siegelman, for Alabama's failure to mount a serious bid for the plant.

Under Riley's administration, unemployment in Alabama fell from 5.3% in January 2003 when Riley took office to 3.3% in March 2006. This rate was the lowest ever recorded since statistics began being tracked in 1976 and was among the nations lowest.

Hurricanes
In 2005, Governor Riley was criticized by some Mobile County residents after issuing that area of the state a "mandatory" evacuation order in advance of Hurricane Dennis' landfall. Residents felt the issue was better addressed during Hurricane Katrina using a layered approach with sections of the county evacuated instead of the entire county.

On August 28, 2005, Governor Riley declared a state of emergency for the approaching Hurricane Katrina. On the same day, he requested president George W. Bush to declare "expedited major disaster declaration" for six counties of south Alabama, which was approved by the evening of August 29. 350 national guardsmen were called on duty as of August 30.

On November 9, 2005, Riley called for a citizens' boycott of Aruba, alleging that the local government was engaged in a cover-up of the disappearance of Alabama native Natalee Holloway.
 * Aruba local government

Abramoff scandal
In November 2005, Riley was linked to the Jack Abramoff scandal when his former Congressional press secretary, Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the matter. It further emerged that, as a Congressman, Riley signed a letter on behalf of the U.S. Family Network, opposing expansion of casino gambling in Alabama. The U.S. Family Network was revealed to be an Abramoff front, funded by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, which operated competing casinos. Riley has denied knowing the source of this funding.

2006 election
Riley defeated Democratic Lieutenant Governor Lucy Baxley easily as his approval ratings made a comeback.

Economy
In April 2007, the unemployment rate once again reached 3.3%. However, recent labor statistics provided by the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations indicate that under Governor Riley, Alabama's unemployment nearly tripled to a seasonally adjusted rate of 8.4% in February 2009. The rates for seasonally adjusted and unadjusted range from 7.8–8.9% for January and February 2009.

Under Governor Riley, Alabama's unemployment has continued to climb, and Alabama Department of Industrial Relations Director Tom Surtees issued a press release dated June 19, 2009, which indicated that Alabama's unemployment rate for May rose to 9.8%, an increase from April's rate of 9.0%, and is Alabama's highest unemployment rate in 25 years.

Critics have claimed that recent developments are a consequence of national economic recovery and pointed to the loss of thousands of Alabama's historic textile jobs under Riley. Nevertheless, the state under Riley's administration was recognized as "State of the Year" by Southern Business and Development magazine four years in a row and received other awards for competitiveness, job creation and economic development.

Among other honors, Worldwide Interactive Network named the Alabama Office of Workforce Development the No. 1 U.S. employee development agency and Expansion Management magazine has ranked Alabama Industrial Development Training No. 1 among workforce training programs. Riley's Alabama Bureau of Tourism & Travel received the National Council of State Tourism Directors' annual Mercury Award recognizing its "Year of Alabama Food" as the nation's top tourism campaign.

In May 2007, Riley announced that ThyssenKrupp would build a $4.2 billion state-of-the-art steel mill north of Mobile, Alabama, the largest economic announcement in Alabama's history, and largest corporate project in U.S. history. The mill, now in operation, employs 2,700 workers

Transparency
As part of his plan to provide open government, Riley has posted on the Governor's website the monthly expenditures from the Governor's Contingency Fund and the quarterly flight logs from all state airplanes.

Death penalty
As governor, Riley oversaw 25 executions in Alabama, more than any of his predecessors since 1983 (see Capital punishment in Alabama).

Apology for slavery
In 2007, Riley signed a resolution passed by the legislature apologizing for slavery in the state.

2012 presidential speculation
An editorial by The Washington Times and separate piece in the paper on August 13, 2009, in what was deemed to be an open endorsement of Bob Riley as a potential 2012 presidential candidate instantly threw the governor's name into the political field of possible nominees as state and national media jumped on the story. Governor Riley during an interview the same day denied he was considering a future presidential run. On February 2, 2011, both the Birmingham News and the Decatur Daily also ran stories speculating that Riley was considering running for president. In the end, Riley did not run.

Personal life
Riley is married to the former Patsy Adams, also from Clay County. The Rileys have four children, Rob, Jenice, Minda and Krisalyn. Jenice, the Rileys' first daughter and the campaign's fundraiser, died in August 2001. The Rileys have three granddaughters and three grandsons. He is an alumni brother of Phi Kappa Sigma.

On June 26, 2011, Riley was on a cross-country trip on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle when he crashed on the Dalton Highway in Alaska and sustained serious injuries.

title: Bob Riley


text:
Mereology

Mereology ( (root: μερε-, mere-, 'part') and the suffix -logy, 'study, discussion, science') is the philosophical study of part-whole relationships, also called parthood relationships. As a branch of metaphysics, mereology examines the connections between parts and their wholes, exploring how components interact within a system. This theory has roots in ancient philosophy, with significant contributions from Plato, Aristotle, and later, medieval and Renaissance thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Mereology gained formal recognition in the 20th century through the pioneering works of Polish logician Stanisław Leśniewski, who introduced it as part of a comprehensive framework for logic and mathematics, and coined the word "mereology". The field has since evolved to encompass a variety of applications in ontology, natural language semantics, and the cognitive sciences, influencing our understanding of structures ranging from linguistic constructs to biological systems.

Mereology challenges traditional set theory by offering an alternative that focuses on the least inclusive whole comprising its parts, proposing that individuals or objects are mereological sums of their parts. Despite some controversies and counterexamples, particularly concerning organic wholes, the theoretical framework continues to be influential. Notably, mereology is used in discussions of entities as varied as musical groups, geographical regions, and abstract concepts, demonstrating its broad applicability and ongoing relevance in philosophical and scientific discourses.

Mereology has been explored in various ways as applications of predicate logic to formal ontology, in each of which mereology is an important part. Each of these fields provides its own axiomatic definition of mereology. A common element of such axiomatizations is the assumption, shared with inclusion, that the part-whole relation orders its universe, meaning that everything is a part of itself (reflexivity), that a part of a part of a whole is itself a part of that whole (transitivity), and that two distinct entities cannot each be a part of the other (antisymmetry), thus forming a poset. A variant of this axiomatization denies that anything is ever part of itself (irreflexivity) while accepting transitivity, from which antisymmetry follows automatically.

Although mereology is an application of mathematical logic, what could be argued to be a sort of "proto-geometry", it has been wholly developed by logicians, ontologists, linguists, engineers, and computer scientists, especially those working in artificial intelligence. In particular, mereology is also on the basis for a point-free foundation of geometry (see for example the quoted pioneering paper of Alfred Tarski and the review paper by Gerla 1995).

In general systems theory, mereology refers to formal work on system decomposition and parts, wholes and boundaries (by, e.g., Mihajlo D. Mesarovic (1970), Gabriel Kron (1963), or Maurice Jessel (see Bowden (1989, 1998)). A hierarchical version of Gabriel Kron's Network Tearing was published by Keith Bowden (1991), reflecting David Lewis's ideas on gunk. Such ideas appear in theoretical computer science and physics, often in combination with sheaf theory, topos, or category theory. See also the work of Steve Vickers on (parts of) specifications in computer science, Joseph Goguen on physical systems, and Tom Etter (1996, 1998) on link theory and quantum mechanics.

History
Informal part-whole reasoning was consciously invoked in metaphysics and ontology from Plato (in particular, in the second half of the Parmenides) and Aristotle onwards, and more or less unwittingly in 19th-century mathematics until the triumph of set theory around 1910. Metaphysical ideas of this era that discuss the concepts of parts and wholes include divine simplicity and the classical conception of beauty.

Ivor Grattan-Guinness (2001) sheds much light on part-whole reasoning during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and reviews how Cantor and Peano devised set theory. It appears that the first to reason consciously and at length about parts and wholes was Edmund Husserl, in 1901, in the second volume of Logical Investigations – Third Investigation: "On the Theory of Wholes and Parts" (Husserl 1970 is the English translation). However, the word "mereology" is absent from his writings, and he employed no symbolism even though his doctorate was in mathematics.

Stanisław Leśniewski coined "mereology" in 1927, from the Greek word μέρος (méros, "part"), to refer to a formal theory of part-whole he devised in a series of highly technical papers published between 1916 and 1931, and translated in Leśniewski (1992). Leśniewski's student Alfred Tarski, in his Appendix E to Woodger (1937) and the paper translated as Tarski (1984), greatly simplified Leśniewski's formalism. Other students (and students of students) of Lesniewski elaborated this "Polish mereology" over the course of the 20th century. For a good selection of the literature on Polish mereology, see Srzednicki and Rickey (1984). For a survey of Polish mereology, see Simons (1987). Since 1980 or so, however, research on Polish mereology has been almost entirely historical in nature.

A. N. Whitehead planned a fourth volume of Principia Mathematica, on geometry, but never wrote it. His 1914 correspondence with Bertrand Russell reveals that his intended approach to geometry can be seen, with the benefit of hindsight, as mereological in essence. This work culminated in Whitehead (1916) and the mereological systems of Whitehead (1919, 1920).

In 1930, Henry S. Leonard completed a Harvard PhD dissertation in philosophy, setting out a formal theory of the part-whole relation. This evolved into the "calculus of individuals" of Goodman and Leonard (1940). Goodman revised and elaborated this calculus in the three editions of Goodman (1951). The calculus of individuals is the starting point for the post-1970 revival of mereology among logicians, ontologists, and computer scientists, a revival well-surveyed in Simons (1987), Casati and Varzi (1999), and Cotnoir and Varzi (2021).

Axioms and primitive notions
Reflexivity: A basic choice in defining a mereological system, is whether to consider things to be parts of themselves. In naive set theory a similar question arises: whether a set is to be considered a "member" of itself. In both cases, "yes" gives rise to paradoxes analogous to Russell's paradox: Let there be an object O such that every object that is not a proper part of itself is a proper part of O. Is O a proper part of itself? No, because no object is a proper part of itself; and yes, because it meets the specified requirement for inclusion as a proper part of O. In set theory, a set is often termed an improper subset of itself. Given such paradoxes, mereology requires an axiomatic formulation.

A mereological "system" is a first-order theory (with identity) whose universe of discourse consists of wholes and their respective parts, collectively called objects. Mereology is a collection of nested and non-nested axiomatic systems, not unlike the case with modal logic.

The treatment, terminology, and hierarchical organization below follow Casati and Varzi (1999: Ch. 3) closely. For a more recent treatment, correcting certain misconceptions, see Hovda (2008). Lower-case letters denote variables ranging over objects. Following each symbolic axiom or definition is the number of the corresponding formula in Casati and Varzi, written in bold.

A mereological system requires at least one primitive binary relation (dyadic predicate). The most conventional choice for such a relation is parthood (also called "inclusion"), "x is a part of y", written Pxy. Nearly all systems require that parthood partially order the universe. The following defined relations, required for the axioms below, follow immediately from parthood alone:
 * An immediate defined predicate is "x is a proper part of y", written PPxy, which holds (i.e., is satisfied, comes out true) if Pxy is true and Pyx is false. Compared to parthood (which is a partial order), ProperPart is a strict partial order.
 * $$PPxy \leftrightarrow (Pxy \land \lnot Pyx).$$ 3.3
 * An object lacking proper parts is an atom. The mereological universe consists of all objects we wish to think about, and all of their proper parts:

 * Overlap: x and y overlap, written Oxy, if there exists an object z such that Pzx and Pzy both hold.
 * $$Oxy \leftrightarrow \exists z[Pzx \land Pzy ].$$ 3.1
 * The parts of z, the "overlap" or "product" of x and y, are precisely those objects that are parts of both x and y.

 * Underlap: x and y underlap, written Uxy, if there exists an object z such that x and y are both parts of z.
 * $$Uxy \leftrightarrow \exists z[Pxz \land Pyz ].$$ 3.2

Overlap and Underlap are reflexive, symmetric, and intransitive.

Systems vary in what relations they take as primitive and as defined. For example, in extensional mereologies (defined below), parthood can be defined from Overlap as follows:
 * $$Pxy \leftrightarrow \forall z[Ozx \rightarrow Ozy].$$ 3.31

The axioms are:
 * Parthood partially orders the universe:
 * M1, Reflexive: An object is a part of itself.
 * $$\ Pxx.$$ P.1
 * M2, Antisymmetric: If Pxy and Pyx both hold, then x and y are the same object.
 * $$(Pxy \land Pyx) \rightarrow x = y.$$ P.2
 * M3, Transitive: If Pxy and Pyz, then Pxz.
 * $$(Pxy \land Pyz) \rightarrow Pxz.$$ P.3

 * M4, Weak Supplementation: If PPxy holds, there exists a z such that Pzy holds but Ozx does not.
 * $$PPxy \rightarrow \exists z[Pzy \land \lnot Ozx].$$ P.4

 * M5, Strong Supplementation: If Pyx does not hold, there exists a z such that Pzy holds but Ozx does not.
 * $$\lnot Pyx \rightarrow \exists z[Pzy \land \lnot Ozx].$$ P.5

 * M5', Atomistic Supplementation: If Pxy does not hold, then there exists an atom z such that Pzx holds but Ozy does not.
 * $$\lnot Pxy \rightarrow \exists z[Pzx \land \lnot Ozy \land \lnot \exists v [PPvz]].$$ P.5'

 * Top: There exists a "universal object", designated W, such that PxW holds for any x.
 * $$\exists W \forall x [PxW].$$ 3.20
 * Top is a theorem if M8 holds.

 * Bottom: There exists an atomic "null object", designated N, such that PNx holds for any x.
 * $$\exists N \forall x [PNx].$$ 3.22

 * M6, Sum: If Uxy holds, there exists a z, called the "sum" or "fusion" of x and y, such that the objects overlapping of z are just those objects that overlap either x or y.
 * $$Uxy \rightarrow \exists z \forall v [Ovz \leftrightarrow (Ovx \lor Ovy)].$$ P.6

 * M7, Product: If Oxy holds, there exists a z, called the "product" of x and y, such that the parts of z are just those objects that are parts of both x and y.
 * $$Oxy \rightarrow \exists z \forall v [Pvz \leftrightarrow (Pvx \land Pvy)].$$ P.7
 * If Oxy does not hold, x and y have no parts in common, and the product of x and y is undefined.

 * M8, Unrestricted Fusion: Let φ(x) be a first-order formula in which x is a free variable. Then the fusion of all objects satisfying φ exists.
 * $$\exists x [\phi(x)] \to \exists z \forall y [Oyz \leftrightarrow \exists x[\phi (x) \land Oyx]].$$ P.8
 * M8 is also called "General Sum Principle", "Unrestricted Mereological Composition", or "Universalism". M8 corresponds to the principle of unrestricted comprehension of naive set theory, which gives rise to Russell's paradox. There is no mereological counterpart to this paradox simply because parthood, unlike set membership, is reflexive.

 * M8', Unique Fusion: The fusions whose existence M8 asserts are also unique. P.8'
 * M9, Atomicity: All objects are either atoms or fusions of atoms.
 * $$ \exists y[Pyx \land \forall z[\lnot PPzy]].$$ P.10

Various systems
Simons (1987), Casati and Varzi (1999) and Hovda (2008) describe many mereological systems whose axioms are taken from the above list. We adopt the boldface nomenclature of Casati and Varzi. The best-known such system is the one called classical extensional mereology, hereinafter abbreviated CEM (other abbreviations are explained below). In CEM, P.1 through P.8'  hold as axioms or are theorems. M9, Top, and Bottom are optional.

The systems in the table below are partially ordered by inclusion, in the sense that, if all the theorems of system A are also theorems of system B, but the converse is not necessarily true, then B includes A. The resulting Hasse diagram is similar to Fig. 3.2 in Casati and Varzi (1999: 48).

There are two equivalent ways of asserting that the universe is partially ordered: Assume either M1-M3, or that Proper Parthood is transitive and asymmetric, hence a strict partial order. Either axiomatization results in the system M. M2 rules out closed loops formed using Parthood, so that the part relation is well-founded. Sets are well-founded if the axiom of regularity is assumed. The literature contains occasional philosophical and common-sense objections to the transitivity of Parthood.

M4 and M5 are two ways of asserting supplementation, the mereological analog of set complementation, with M5 being stronger because M4 is derivable from M5. M and M4 yield minimal mereology, MM. Reformulated in terms of Proper Part, MM is Simons's (1987) preferred minimal system.

In any system in which M5 or M5' are assumed or can be derived, then it can be proved that two objects having the same proper parts are identical. This property is known as Extensionality, a term borrowed from set theory, for which extensionality is the defining axiom. Mereological systems in which Extensionality holds are termed extensional, a fact denoted by including the letter E in their symbolic names.

M6 asserts that any two underlapping objects have a unique sum; M7 asserts that any two overlapping objects have a unique product. If the universe is finite or if Top is assumed, then the universe is closed under Sum. Universal closure of Product and of supplementation relative to W requires Bottom. W and N are, evidently, the mereological analog of the universal and empty sets, and Sum and Product are, likewise, the analogs of set-theoretical union and intersection. If M6 and M7 are either assumed or derivable, the result is a mereology with closure.

Because Sum and Product are binary operations, M6 and M7 admit the sum and product of only a finite number of objects. The Unrestricted Fusion axiom, M8, enables taking the sum of infinitely many objects. The same holds for Product, when defined. At this point, mereology often invokes set theory, but any recourse to set theory is eliminable by replacing a formula with a quantified variable ranging over a universe of sets by a schematic formula with one free variable. The formula comes out true (is satisfied) whenever the name of an object that would be a member of the set (if it existed) replaces the free variable. Hence any axiom with sets can be replaced by an axiom schema with monadic atomic subformulae. M8 and M8' are schemas of just this sort. The syntax of a first-order theory can describe only a denumerable number of sets; hence, only denumerably many sets may be eliminated in this fashion, but this limitation is not binding for the sort of mathematics contemplated here.

If M8 holds, then W exists for infinite universes. Hence, Top need be assumed only if the universe is infinite and M8 does not hold. Top (postulating W) is not controversial, but Bottom (postulating N) is. Leśniewski rejected Bottom, and most mereological systems follow his example (an exception is the work of Richard Milton Martin). Hence, while the universe is closed under sum, the product of objects that do not overlap is typically undefined. A system with W but not N is isomorphic to: Postulating N renders all possible products definable, but also transforms classical extensional mereology into a set-free model of Boolean algebra.
 * a Boolean algebra lacking a 0;
 * a join semilattice bounded from above by 1. Binary fusion and W interpret join and 1, respectively.

If sets are admitted, M8 asserts the existence of the fusion of all members of any nonempty set. Any mereological system in which M8 holds is called general, and its name includes G. In any general mereology, M6 and M7 are provable. Adding M8 to an extensional mereology results in general extensional mereology, abbreviated GEM; moreover, the extensionality renders the fusion unique. On the converse, however, if the fusion asserted by M8 is assumed unique, so that M8' replaces M8, then—as Tarski (1929) had shown—M3 and M8' suffice to axiomatize GEM, a remarkably economical result. Simons (1987: 38–41) lists a number of GEM theorems.

M2 and a finite universe necessarily imply Atomicity, namely that everything either is an atom or includes atoms among its proper parts. If the universe is infinite, Atomicity requires M9. Adding M9 to any mereological system, X results in the atomistic variant thereof, denoted AX. Atomicity permits economies, for instance, assuming that M5' implies Atomicity and extensionality, and yields an alternative axiomatization of AGEM.

Set theory
The notion of "subset" in set theory is not entirely the same as the notion of "subpart" in mereology. Stanisław Leśniewski rejected set theory as related to but not the same as nominalism. For a long time, nearly all philosophers and mathematicians avoided mereology, seeing it as tantamount to a rejection of set theory. Goodman too was a nominalist, and his fellow nominalist Richard Milton Martin employed a version of the calculus of individuals throughout his career, starting in 1941.

Much early work on mereology was motivated by a suspicion that set theory was ontologically suspect, and that Occam's razor requires that one minimise the number of posits in one's theory of the world and of mathematics. Mereology replaces talk of "sets" of objects with talk of "sums" of objects, objects being no more than the various things that make up wholes.

Many logicians and philosophers reject these motivations, on such grounds as: For a survey of attempts to found mathematics without using set theory, see Burgess and Rosen (1997).
 * They deny that sets are in any way ontologically suspect
 * Occam's razor, when applied to abstract objects like sets, is either a dubious principle or simply false
 * Mereology itself is guilty of proliferating new and ontologically suspect entities such as fusions.

In the 1970s, thanks in part to Eberle (1970), it gradually came to be understood that one can employ mereology regardless of one's ontological stance regarding sets. This understanding is called the "ontological innocence" of mereology. This innocence stems from mereology being formalizable in either of two equivalent ways: Once it became clear that mereology is not tantamount to a denial of set theory, mereology became largely accepted as a useful tool for formal ontology and metaphysics.
 * Quantified variables ranging over a universe of sets
 * Schematic predicates with a single free variable.

In set theory, singletons are "atoms" that have no (non-empty) proper parts; many consider set theory useless or incoherent (not "well-founded") if sets cannot be built up from unit sets. The calculus of individuals was thought to require that an object either have no proper parts, in which case it is an "atom", or be the mereological sum of atoms. Eberle (1970), however, showed how to construct a calculus of individuals lacking "atoms", i.e., one where every object has a "proper part" (defined below) so that the universe is infinite.

There are analogies between the axioms of mereology and those of standard Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZF), if Parthood is taken as analogous to subset in set theory. On the relation of mereology and ZF, also see Bunt (1985). One of the very few contemporary set theorists to discuss mereology is Potter (2004).

Lewis (1991) went further, showing informally that mereology, augmented by a few ontological assumptions and plural quantification, and some novel reasoning about singletons, yields a system in which a given individual can be both a part and a subset of another individual. Various sorts of set theory can be interpreted in the resulting systems. For example, the axioms of ZFC can be proven given some additional mereological assumptions.

Forrest (2002) revises Lewis's analysis by first formulating a generalization of CEM, called "Heyting mereology", whose sole nonlogical primitive is Proper Part, assumed transitive and antireflexive. There exists a "fictitious" null individual that is a proper part of every individual. Two schemas assert that every lattice join exists (lattices are complete) and that meet distributes over join. On this Heyting mereology, Forrest erects a theory of pseudosets, adequate for all purposes to which sets have been put.

Mathematics
Husserl never claimed that mathematics could or should be grounded in part-whole rather than set theory. Lesniewski consciously derived his mereology as an alternative to set theory as a foundation of mathematics, but did not work out the details. Goodman and Quine (1947) tried to develop the natural and real numbers using the calculus of individuals, but were mostly unsuccessful; Quine did not reprint that article in his Selected Logic Papers. In a series of chapters in the books he published in the last decade of his life, Richard Milton Martin set out to do what Goodman and Quine had abandoned 30 years prior. A recurring problem with attempts to ground mathematics in mereology is how to build up the theory of relations while abstaining from set-theoretic definitions of the ordered pair. Martin argued that Eberle's (1970) theory of relational individuals solved this problem.

Topological notions of boundaries and connection can be married to mereology, resulting in mereotopology; see Casati and Varzi (1999: ch. 4,5). Whitehead's 1929 Process and Reality contains a good deal of informal mereotopology.

Natural language
Bunt (1985), a study of the semantics of natural language, shows how mereology can help understand such phenomena as the mass–count distinction and verb aspect. But Nicolas (2008) argues that a different logical framework, called plural logic, should be used for that purpose. Also, natural language often employs "part of" in ambiguous ways (Simons 1987 discusses this at length). Hence, it is unclear how, if at all, one can translate certain natural language expressions into mereological predicates. Steering clear of such difficulties may require limiting the interpretation of mereology to mathematics and natural science. Casati and Varzi (1999), for example, limit the scope of mereology to physical objects.

Metaphysics
In metaphysics there are many troubling questions pertaining to parts and wholes. One question addresses constitution and persistence, another asks about composition.

Mereological constitution
In metaphysics, there are several puzzles concerning cases of mereological constitution, that is, what makes up a whole. There is still a concern with parts and wholes, but instead of looking at what parts make up a whole, the emphasis is on what a thing is made of, such as its materials, e.g., the bronze in a bronze statue. Below are two of the main puzzles that philosophers use to discuss constitution.

Ship of Theseus: Briefly, the puzzle goes something like this. There is a ship called the Ship of Theseus. Over time, the boards start to rot, so we remove the boards and place them in a pile. First question, is the ship made of the new boards the same as the ship that had all the old boards? Second, if we reconstruct a ship using all of the old planks, etc. from the Ship of Theseus, and we also have a ship that was built out of new boards (each added one-by-one over time to replace old decaying boards), which ship is the real Ship of Theseus?

Statue and Lump of Clay: Roughly, a sculptor decides to mold a statue out of a lump of clay. At time t1 the sculptor has a lump of clay. After many manipulations at time t2 there is a statue. The question asked is, is the lump of clay and the statue (numerically) identical? If so, how and why?

Constitution typically has implications for views on persistence: how does an object persist over time if any of its parts (materials) change or are removed, as is the case with humans who lose cells, change height, hair color, memories, and yet we are said to be the same person today as we were when we were first born. For example, Ted Sider is the same today as he was when he was born—he just changed. But how can this be if many parts of Ted today did not exist when Ted was just born? Is it possible for things, such as organisms to persist? And if so, how? There are several views that attempt to answer this question. Some of the views are as follows (note, there are several other views):

(a) Constitution view. This view accepts cohabitation. That is, two objects share exactly the same matter. Here, it follows, that there are no temporal parts.

(b) Mereological essentialism, which states that the only objects that exist are quantities of matter, which are things defined by their parts. The object persists if matter is removed (or the form changes); but the object ceases to exist if any matter is destroyed.

(c) Dominant Sorts. This is the view that tracing is determined by which sort is dominant; they reject cohabitation. For example, lump does not equal statue because they're different "sorts".

(d) Nihilism—which makes the claim that no objects exist, except simples, so there is no persistence problem.

(e) 4-dimensionalism or temporal parts (may also go by the names perdurantism or exdurantism), which roughly states that aggregates of temporal parts are intimately related. For example, two roads merging, momentarily and spatially, are still one road, because they share a part.

(f) 3-dimensionalism (may also go by the name endurantism), where the object is wholly present. That is, the persisting object retains numerical identity.

Mereological composition
One question that is addressed by philosophers is which is more fundamental: parts, wholes, or neither? Another pressing question is called the special composition question (SCQ): For any Xs, when is it the case that there is a Y such that the Xs compose Y?    This question has caused philosophers to run in three different directions:  nihilism, universal composition (UC), or a moderate view (restricted composition). The first two views are considered extreme since the first denies composition, and the second allows any and all non-spatially overlapping objects to compose another object. The moderate view encompasses several theories that try to make sense of SCQ without saying 'no' to composition or 'yes' to unrestricted composition.

Fundamentality
There are philosophers who are concerned with the question of fundamentality. That is, which is more ontologically fundamental the parts or their wholes. There are several responses to this question, though one of the default assumptions is that the parts are more fundamental. That is, the whole is grounded in its parts. This is the mainstream view. Another view, explored by Schaffer (2010) is monism, where the parts are grounded in the whole. Schaffer does not just mean that, say, the parts that make up my body are grounded in my body. Rather, Schaffer argues that the whole cosmos is more fundamental and everything else is a part of the cosmos. Then, there is the identity theory which claims that there is no hierarchy or fundamentality to parts and wholes. Instead wholes are just (or equivalent to) their parts. There can also be a two-object view which says that the wholes are not equal to the parts—they are numerically distinct from one another. Each of these theories has benefits and costs associated with them.

Special composition question (SCQ)
Philosophers want to know when some Xs compose something Y. There are several kinds of response:

 * One response is nihilism. According to nihilism, there are no mereological complex objects (composite objects), only simples. Nihilists do not entirely reject composition because they think simples compose themselves, but this is a different point. More formally, nihilists would say: Necessarily, for any non-overlapping Xs, there is an object composed of the Xs if and only if there is only one of the Xs. This theory, though well explored, has its own problems: it seems to contradict experience and common sense, to be incompatible with atomless gunk, and to be unsupported by space-time physics.
 * Another prominent response is universal composition (UC). According to UC, as long as Xs do not spatially overlap, they can compose a complex object. Universal compositionalists also support unrestricted composition. More formally: Necessarily, for any non-overlapping Xs, there is a Y such that Y is composed of the Xs. For example, someone's left thumb, the top half of another person's right shoe, and a quark in the center of their galaxy can compose a complex object. This theory also has some drawbacks, most notably that it allows for far too many objects.
 * A third response (perhaps less explored than the other two) includes a range of restricted composition views. There are several views, but they all share an idea: that there is a restriction on what counts as a complex object: some (but not all) Xs come together to compose a complex Y. Some of these theories include:

(a) Contact—Xs compose a complex Y if and only if the Xs are in contact;

(b) Fastenation—Xs compose a complex Y if and only if the Xs are fastened;

(c) Cohesion—Xs compose a complex Y if and only if the Xs cohere (cannot be pulled apart or moved in relation to each other without breaking);

(d) Fusion—Xs compose a complex Y if and only if the Xs are fused (joined together such that there is no boundary);

(e) Organicism—Xs compose a complex Y if and only if either the activities of the Xs constitute a life or there is only one of the Xs; and

(f) Brutal Composition—"It's just the way things are." There is no true, nontrivial, and finitely long answer.

Many more hypotheses continue to be explored. A common problem with these theories is that they are vague. It remains unclear what "fastened" or "life" mean, for example. And there are other problems with the restricted composition responses, many of them which depend on which theory is being discussed.

 * A fourth response is deflationism. According to deflationism, the way the term "exist" is used varies, and thus all the above answers to the SCQ can be correct when indexed to the appropriate meaning of "exist". Further, there is no privileged way in which the term "exist" must be used. There is therefore no privileged answer to the SCQ, since there are no privileged conditions for when Xs compose Y. Instead, the debate is reduced to a mere verbal dispute rather than a genuine ontological debate. In this way, the SCQ is part of a larger debate in general ontological realism and anti-realism. While deflationism successfully avoids the SCQ, it comes at the cost of ontological anti-realism, such that nature has no objective reality, for, if there is no privileged way to objectively affirm the existence of objects, nature itself must have no objectivity.

Important surveys
The books by Simons (1987) and Casati and Varzi (1999) differ in their strengths:
 * Simons (1987) sees mereology primarily as a way of formalizing ontology and metaphysics. His strengths include the connections between mereology and:
 * The work of Stanisław Leśniewski and his descendants
 * Various continental philosophers, especially Edmund Husserl
 * Contemporary English-speaking technical philosophers such as Kit Fine and Roderick Chisholm
 * Recent work on formal ontology and metaphysics, including continuants, occurrents, class nouns, mass nouns, and ontological dependence and integrity
 * Free logic as a background logic
 * Extending mereology with tense logic and modal logic
 * Boolean algebras and lattice theory.
 * Casati and Varzi (1999) see mereology primarily as a way of understanding the material world and how humans interact with it. Their strengths include the connections between mereology and:
 * A "proto-geometry" for physical objects
 * Topology and mereotopology, especially boundaries, regions, and holes
 * A formal theory of events
 * Theoretical computer science
 * The writings of Alfred North Whitehead, especially his Process and Reality and work descended therefrom.

Simons devotes considerable effort to elucidating historical notations. The notation of Casati and Varzi is often used. Both books include excellent bibliographies. To these works should be added Hovda (2008), which presents the latest state of the art on the axiomatization of mereology.

title: Mereology


text:
Donald A. Glaser

Donald Arthur Glaser (September 21, 1926 – February 28, 2013) was an American physicist, neurobiologist, and the winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the bubble chamber used in subatomic particle physics.

Education
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Glaser completed his Bachelor of Science degree in physics and mathematics from Case School of Applied Science in 1946. He completed his PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1949. Glaser accepted a position as an instructor at the University of Michigan in 1949, and was promoted to professor in 1957. He joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, in 1959, as a professor of physics. During this time his research concerned short-lived elementary particles. The bubble chamber enabled him to observe the paths and lifetimes of the particles.

Starting in 1962, Glaser changed his field of research to molecular biology, starting with a project on ultraviolet-induced cancer. In 1964, he was given the additional title of professor of molecular biology. Glaser's position (since 1989) was professor of physics and neurobiology in the graduate school.

Personal life
Donald Glaser was born on September 21, 1926, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Lena and William J. Glaser, a businessman. He enjoyed music and played the piano, violin, and viola. He went to Cleveland Heights High School, where he became interested in physics as a means to understand the physical world. He died in his sleep at the age of 86 on February 28, 2013, in Berkeley, California.

Education and early career
Glaser attended Case School of Applied Science (now Case Western Reserve University), where he completed his bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics in 1946. During the course of his education there, he became especially interested in particle physics. He played viola in the Cleveland Philharmonic while at Case, and taught mathematics classes at the college after graduation. He continued on to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he pursued his PhD in physics. His interest in particle physics led him to work with Nobel laureate Carl David Anderson, studying cosmic rays with cloud chambers. He preferred the accessibility of cosmic ray research over that of nuclear physics. While at Caltech he learned to design and build the equipment he needed for his experiments, and this skill would prove to be useful throughout his career. He also attended molecular genetics seminars led by Nobel laureate Max Delbrück; he would return to this field later. Glaser completed his doctoral thesis, The Momentum Distribution of Charged Cosmic Ray Particles Near Sea Level, after starting as an instructor at the University of Michigan in 1949. He received his PhD from Caltech in 1950, and he was promoted to professor at Michigan in 1957.

Bubble chamber
While teaching at Michigan, Glaser began to work on experiments that led to the creation of the bubble chamber. His experience with cloud chambers at Caltech had shown him that they were inadequate for studying elementary particles. In a cloud chamber, particles pass through gas and collide with metal plates that obscure the scientists' view of the event. The cloud chamber also needs time to reset between recording events and cannot keep up with accelerators' rate of particle production.

He experimented with using superheated liquid in a glass chamber. Charged particles would leave a track of bubbles as they passed through the liquid, and their tracks could be photographed. He created the first bubble chamber with ether. He experimented with hydrogen while visiting the University of Chicago, showing that hydrogen would also work in the chamber.

It has often been claimed that Glaser was inspired to his invention by the bubbles in a glass of beer; however, in a 2006 talk, he refuted this story, saying that although beer was not the inspiration for the bubble chamber, he did experiments using beer to fill early prototypes.

His new invention was ideal for use with high-energy accelerators, so Glaser traveled to Brookhaven National Laboratory with some students to study elementary particles using the accelerator there. The images that he created with his bubble chamber brought recognition of the importance of his device, and he was able to get funding to continue experimenting with larger chambers. Glaser was then recruited by Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez, who was working on a hydrogen bubble chamber at the University of California at Berkeley. Glaser accepted an offer to become a professor of physics there in 1959.

Nobel Prize
Glaser was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize for Physics for the invention of the bubble chamber. His invention allowed scientists to observe what happens to high-energy beams from an accelerator, thus paving the way for many important discoveries.

Other awards and honors

 * Elliott Cresson Medal (1961)
 * Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1962)
 * Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1989)
 * Elected to the American Philosophical Society (1997)
 * Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003)

Transition to molecular biology
After winning the Nobel Prize, Glaser began to think about switching from physics into a new field. He wanted to concentrate on science, and found that as the experiments and equipment grew larger in scale and cost, he was doing more administrative work. He also anticipated that the ever-more-complex equipment would cause consolidation into fewer sites and would require more travel for physicists working in high-energy physics. Recalling his interest in molecular genetics that began at Caltech, Glaser began to study biology. He spent a semester at MIT as a visiting professor and attended biology seminars there, and also spent a semester at Copenhagen with Ole Maaloe, the prominent Danish molecular biologist.

Glazer told his business colleagues at Cetus that after winning the Nobel prize he decided he had spent the first part of his life studying the physical world and that he now wanted to study the basis of life itself so he changed to studying biology and genetics. He made the comment “As a physicist and highly trained engineer my immediate thought upon entering my first biology lab was that Louis Pasteur would be comfortable working there.” He then went on to develop equipment to automate various biological processes. In fact, Cetus was originally formed to utilize his inventions and expertise with its first projects focused on producing higher yielding antibiotic strains as the company then evolved, pioneering the field of biotechnology.

He worked in UC Berkeley's Virus Lab (now the Biochemistry and Virus Laboratory), doing experiments with bacterial phages, bacteria, and mammalian cells. He studied the development of cancer cells, in particular the skin cancer xeroderma pigmentosum. As with the bubble chamber, he used his experience designing equipment to improve the experimental process. He automated the process of pouring out agar, spreading culture, and counting colonies of cells using a machine he called the dumbwaiter. It took photographs, administered chemicals, and had a mechanical hand to pick up colonies.

Commercial ventures
While continuing to work at UC Berkeley, Glaser started Berkeley Scientific Laboratory with Bill Wattenberg in 1968. The short-lived partnership worked on automating diagnostic procedures.

In 1971 he founded Cetus Corporation with Moshe Alafi, Ron Cape, and Peter Farley. Glaser's position was chairman of the science advisory board. The founders felt that the knowledge scientists had gained about DNA had not yet been applied to solve real problems. The company did microbial strain improvement, and then genetic engineering,  becoming the first biotechnology company. Cetus was purchased by Chiron Corporation in 1991.

Transition to neurobiology
As molecular biology became more dependent on biochemistry, Glaser again considered a career change. His experience automating visual tasks in physics and molecular biology led him to an interest in human vision and how the brain processes what is seen. He began to work on computational modeling of the visual system and visual psychophysics, and spent a sabbatical at the Rowland Institute for Science.

title: Donald A. Glaser