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Talk:Hydrogen cyanide

Fruit pits
How much hydrogen cyanide is in the pit of cherries and such? Less than 300 parts per million? Like, if you ate like 10 pits of cherries, would you become cyanide poisoned? Or is it a different, non-poisonous, say, ion? ugen64 23:56, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * 100g of pits (as I wrote) will yield ~10mg of HCN. 19:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Douglas Bradford Oliver (talk • contribs) 19:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Preparation
I don't believe that Prussic acid can be synthesized from ammonia and carbon monoxide, but I'm a first year chem student so I'm not exactly an expert in the field. Someone should check on that (and by "check on" I don't mean try at home!) —Calmofthestorm 17:59, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * A google search seems to agree with the article, and I believe that it is correct.

 * P.S. Since you're a first year chem student, try to start using the IUPAC names for chemicals. You'll still be served well by knowing what Aqua fortis, Oil of Vitriol, Muriatic acid, slaked lime etc. are, but try to avoid using archaic names for chemicals.

 * You should also sign your posts with " ~ "

 * Darrien 18:36, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The article cites the Andrussov process as a production method of HCN, but gives the chemical formula:

CH4 + NH3 + 1.5 O2 → HCN + 3 H2O

This is not the empirical formula. It would work on a molar basis, but I'm pretty sure that the correct formula for the balanced reaction should be:

2 CH4 + 2 NH3 + 3 O2 → 2 HCN + 6 H2O

I'm an engineering student who's only had the prerequisite freshman chemistry courses, but I'm pretty sure that you can't have half of an O2 molecule in a reaction because O- is an entirely different beast. Am I wrong on this one?

ianrox 17:01, 1 Jun 2006 (UTC)

Either equation is fine but expert chemists like to minimize the multiplyiers preceding the formulas. When a chemist writes 1.5 O2, we are not considering subdividing molecules (!) but subdividing moles (ca. 6 x 10exp23 molecules!). Your question is excellent, I wish that more folks tried as hard to decipher the language of chemistry.--Smokefoot 17:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Empirical formulas are the easy part. I definitely understood what the reaction meant, it was all just a technical foible in my eyes. Chemical equilibria are the parts that got me. ianrox 14:47, 1 Jun 2006 (UTC)

It has been some years since I studied chemistry, so perhaps there have been new discoveries or new terminology of which I'm unaware. The words about the "process used at BASF" say that the reaction yields hydrogen cyanide and ammonia. Can that be right? The equation shows HCN and H2O, which back in my time always used to be water. Snezzy 18:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hasn't changed in the last couple of years, I changed the wording. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 18:58, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

History
Hi. I added a section about the use of cyanide by the Nazis. I think it's appropriate, but if anyone doesn't like it, let me know and we can discuss. Perhaps some additional facts about who first isolated the chemical or what-not could tone it down if desired. LMK --DanielCD 20:31, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Of course it's appropriate, it would be inappropriate not to mention it in an encyclopedia. E=MC^2 T@lk 00:45, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

 * i don't think it is appropriate, especially since you did not provide references or sources for your information. Keep to the technical facts of science and leave the politics. propaganda, and controversial aspects to another forum.Kenny56 05:24, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * The fact that the Nazis used HCN to kill is not politics, propaganda, or controversial. It is factual history. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  10:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Then it shouldn't be any problem for you to cite the sources of these "facts", right? Please provide references to back up your claims.  The link that you provided does not seem to exist. Kenny56 16:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Any history book on the Holocaust provides this info. Use of HCN at Auschwitz is beyond doubt. It is too widely known to need a ref on the page. The link I added was about the Iraq-Iran war. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  16:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * This is true. It was in the form of an insecticide marketed under the trade name Zyklon B. – ClockworkSoul 19:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

 * "It is too widely known to need a ref" - what the heck humor me with the ref anyway, seeing as it is so well known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If its you don't believe the Nazi's used HCN, go find your own ref! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.191.120.105 (talk) 03:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually Zyklon B was used in National Socialist concentration camps as a delousing agent to save human life. So calm down. 197.228.44.217 (talk) 15:30, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Weapons claims and reports
Reports that lack sources or citations are considered dubious at best, and approach propaganda in their worst form. Please do not make claims without providing references for verification.Kenny56 05:36, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Of what do you refer, specifically? – ClockworkSoul 15:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The three sentences under a section about use as a chemical weapon. Please provide verifiable citations for statements and claims of facts, otherwise the information is dubious  and has no  place in an encylopedia.Kenny56 16:33, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Iraq's alleged use of cyanide

 * I believe you have Iraq as using cyanide - according to the US Army War College it was the Iranians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.173.176.23 (talk • contribs) 19:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

On the above point - why is the article left incorrect? Pellitiere ( Army War College in PA ) researched this many years ago and reported that it appeared the Iranians accidentally killed civilians with their cyanide based gas - Iraq used mustard gas at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) 14:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Hydrogen cyanide + tobacco smoke = foul taste in mouth?
quote: “Hydrogen cyanide forms a foul-tasting compound when it combines with tobacco smoke. For this reason, some chemists choose to have a lit cigarette in their mouth while they are working with it, as they receive an early warning against possible cyanide poisoning."

Can you give a source? Or is it a personal observation of the author or a habit of a chemist the author knows? I’ve never heard that but it sounds interesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.42.236 (talk • contribs) 23:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Corrosivity
Can anyone tell me if HCN gas is corrosive to mild steel? It doesn't appear to be, but I know that CN- behaves much like a halogen ion, and HCl and HF are very corrosive to steel, right? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.76.76  (talk • contribs)

 * Both HCN and HF are molecules in the pure form, and then not corrosive (you can pump HF through a steel pipe without reaction). If there is water available, they become corrosive, and then the corrosivity is depending on a) the pKa of the acid and b) the stability of the salts formed (a.o determined by lattice energy), some combinations of metal-cations and certain anions are particularly stable, thereby driving the reaction; some metals do not dissolve in strong acids like sulfuric acid or nitric acid, or even aqua regia, but do dissolve in dilute HCN)  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 18:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Still propaganda in a Wikipedia science article
This afternoon I used this Wikipedia article on hydrogen cyanide in an internet post because HCN's spectral signature was found in observations of the unusual Kuiper Belt object 2003 EL61. I was annoyed to see unfounded accusations included in this chemistry article. It has not been proven that "Iraq gassed the Kurds". Iraq denied this claim. Plausible evidence has been provided that another party did this, specifically Iran.

This information is in no way appropriate to an article about chemistry. I consider it politically motivated vandalism. If one wishes to make such accusations, then that person or group needs to create an article about it. I believe in this case that such articles must surely already exist on Wikipedia, it might be appropriate to link to such an article, but injecting propaganda into a science article is abhorrent. It gives the propaganda unwarranted credibility by masquerading as "Science".

What definitely identifies this as propaganda is that only two actors are accused, German Nazis and Iraqi Ba'athists. Many tonnes of poison gas were used in World War I and I would be surprised if there weren't others involved in the use of hydrogen cyanide as a chemical weapon in history.

Mike Emmert 20:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)Michael C. Emmert

 * I think the text is quite correct, it does say 'may have been employed' for the attack on the Kurds, it does not state 'proof', and there is a reference (in wrong format, but I will help that in a moment). A counterargument may be added with a ref.  The second part is also a referenced statement, so I see no problem there.  I don't think this is propaganda.  It may indeed be that there are not many examples, but you are free to add more.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:53, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

"Still propaganda in wiki" - wow I may faint.I thought wiki was a propaganda ocean - ref Pellitiere et al - Army War College - as a counter claim - the Iranians used cyanide not the Iraqis. Counterclaim refs on the Zyklon B would be any text book on chemistry or go to the experts on any Holocaust Denial site. The Zyklon B story lacks any technical feasability, much less evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) 14:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Heh heh. "Go to the experts on any Holocaust Denial site". That's a good one. You sly devil. Gzuckier 18:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Terrorism
I added the attempted attack by Aum Shinrikyo in the Tokyo subway with HCN. raptor 14:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Adding to element and compound tables
You should add critical points and triple points to every element and compound table every articles. Also adding molar volume, and others to every compound table. Chris Dybala 23:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * These are values which are rarely used in practical chemistry, which is why they are relegated to the data pages which for compound X, can be found at X (data page). Physchim62 (talk) 15:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I disagree, critical temperatures, pressures and volumes are used daily in Thermodynamics to determine equations of state. Acentric factor should also be included, —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.209.181.185 (talk) 19:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

Electron on nitrogen
In the picture of the formula, isnt there should be 2 more unpaired electrons on Nitrogen..cause its not balanced...like- ( H-C:::N: ) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.42.214.222 (talk) 02:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

 * Yes, there is a lone pair on nitrogen, but it is often omitted.

 * Ben (talk) 04:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

No data on synthesis
It seems, that someone have removed data on how to obtain hydrogen cyanide. -Yyy 09:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Absorption through the skin?
I heard from my chemistry teacher that hydrocyanic acid can pass through the skin -- he told me about a university lecturer who was lecturing in a practicals lab, and had put his fingers in some nondescript liquid on the desk. After about half an hour he felt ill, and asked the students what they had been doing before he came in. They had been studying the various cyanide complexes - and the liquid was HCN. He went to hospital and survived (luckily).

Should/could the absorption property be mentioned?

129.67.18.164 01:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

 * It could be mentioned, but better with a reliable source other than hearsay. --Itub 18:05, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Did Hitler commit suicide with HCN?
The article claims Hitler committed suicide with HCN; but most writings about this topic state that he used a cyanide capsule, which would be either KCN or NaCN, not HCN. -- Rising Sun Wiki  23:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * According to U.K. government information, Hitler used cyanide in capsule form, which would have been a cyanide salt (KCN or NaCN). Based on this information, the article should be modified. -- Rising Sun Wiki  17:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Amount of cyanide to cause death
Should the amount of cyanide needed to be ingested orally for absolute death necessary for the article? I just figure it could be an interesting fact, seeing as how 100 apple seeds come out to about 10 mg of HCN (I don't want anyone to kill themselves with apple seeds, if you must know). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.206.179 (talk) 03:01, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments on history
As a matter of interest, how did they find out it was so poisonous, and how did the discoverer survive?Engineman (talk) 16:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC) There is a problem in the history section, it says "iron oxide plus an a volatile...". I'm not sure if it should be iron oxide plus and a... or iron oxide plus a... or iron oxide and a.... But it should be corrected by someone who does know.

The history section is developing steadily and is interesting, but here are some drive-by critiques:
 * "Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from a blue dye (Prussian blue)"
 * probably not really accurate and possibly misleading (implying that Prussian Blue readily gives off HCN easily), the blue dye was probably treated somehow.

 * "which had been accidentally discovered in 1704 in Berlin and widely used as Prussian uniform dye (hence the name), but had a structure which was unknown. It is now known to be a cyanide salt (ferric ferrocyanide). In 1752 the French chemist Pierre Macquer made the important step of showing the Prussian blue could be reduced to a salt of iron, and a new acid which could be used to reconstitute the dye."
 * that material seems tangential (only vaguely related to HCN, but good maybe for Prussian Blue) and confusing: 'reduced to a salt of iron' means what exactly, are you talking about making ferrocyanide? If the old guys didnt know, there is no utility in propagating their murky notions.

 * Here is the non-tangential and pertinent part of the history section (with minor edits):
 * " The new acid, Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from Prussian blue in pure form and characterized about 1783 by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. It was eventually given the German name Blausäure (literally "Blue acid") because of its derivation from Prussian blue, and in English became known popularly as Prussic acid.  In 1787 the French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet showed that Prussic acid did not contain oxygen, an important contribution to acid theory.[2] In 1815 Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac deduced Prussic acid's chemical formula."

At least that is my take on this section. I didnt want to make changes since I am less expert in the history.--Smokefoot (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Well, I don't agree that saying that something was "isolated" from X means that it happens easily without much treatment. Fluorine was first isolated from fluorospar, and potassium from molten potassium salts by electrolysis, and both of them were considerable undertakings, and use of the word implies nothing about how arduous they were. Since cyanide is locked up in Prussian blue considerably less tightly than the average element is from the compound is was first isolated from, I think the language is perfectly appropriate. The Macquer work is mentioned in most cyanide histories, because Macquer is the guy who showed that Prussian blue is the combination of a familiar and then well-known iron salt (iron oxide as it turns out) plus a quite unfamiliar acid containing a new radical. That's really the key insight, since before that, nobody knew what Prussian blue was, and even the recipies for making it weren't very good. After Macquer, they were (you just need rust plus this new acid). Compare the various people who worked with lithium minerals-- the key insight was that some of them could be reduced to a previously unknown alkaline earth much like sodium hydroxide, but much lighter. That told them there was a new alkaline element there, ready for isolation, though at the time, nobody had any more ability to do that, than they did to make metallic sodium. But once it was discovered how to make alkali metals by electrolysis, isolating lithium was straightforward work. However, the breakthrough was not that step, at least in my mind, but the realization that you had a new element like sodium, but lighter. Once you know you have a new element, and what salt you have of it is, and what kind of beast it is, getting the stuff is usually straightforward. Macquer didn't isolate the new acid (and it's probably lucky for him that he didn't try; I'm amazed Scheele survived this and others of his adventures). But Berthollet and Gay-Lussac's work, once they knew what they were after, was fairly straightforward. I think Macquer deserves probably the major credit of the four men in this discovery series, and I didn't want to leave him out for that reason. Macquer's work isn't just vaguely related to HCN-- on the contrary, Macquer is the guy who discovered HCN, if any person can be said to. He just didn't purify it, or figure out its structure. But he DID recognize what he had-- a new acid, and that was the acid this Wiki is about. S  B Harris 22:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. You can take or ignore my comments as discardable remarks from an inorganic chemist:
 * "Hydrogen cyanide was first isolated from a blue dye (Prussian blue) which had been accidentally discovered in 1704 in Berlin and widely used as Prussian uniform dye (hence the name), but had a structure which was unknown ." the strikeout contains pure digression. Surely you can see this "tangentialness."
 * "...plus an acid then unknown to science,..."
 * at that time, the very concept of an acid was news and I dont think that there were any compounds for comparison, so this poetic bit is possibly over-dramatic.

 * "...and these could be used to reconstitute the dye. The new acid was hydrogen cyanide."
 * Now that comment goes to the heart of the history. I will make some small edits but leave the rest to you.  Cheers,--Smokefoot (talk) 23:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Acids have been known from antiquity, but only the classic strong ones and those you could taste as sour. HCN doesn't qualify and I doubt that Macquer knew he had an acid, though he did know he had something new, and that something is what we now know as HCN. I've tightened up the prose as you suggest. See what you think. S  B Harris 23:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Pierre Joseph Macquer did not produce hydrogen cyanide from Prussian Blue. He treated Prussian Blue with an aqueous solution of potassium hydroxide. This resulted in solid iron oxide or hydroxide and ferrocyanide (or hexacyanoferrate (II)) dissolved in water. The first chemist who produced hydrogen cyanide was Scheele, who treated Prussian Blue with sulfuric acid at enhanced temperature.Saalebaer (talk) 09:05, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Edibility of foods with HCN
This links in with the post at the top about HCN and foods. Specifically, I'd like to see a note about how HCN isn't exactly fatal in small doses. This site mentions the HCN content of Chokecherry or Prunus virginiana and says that there are claims at health benefits. It doesn't give a source for this, unfortunately, but I think it would be a great thing to add to the page if any sources can be found. Khono (talk) 20:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

LD50 value of HCN?
Why there is no the important LD50 value of HCN which is higly toxic? --89.106.42.17 (talk) 17:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Gas chambers
its interesting that the gas chambers were right next to the ovens. epecially seeing that the gas is highly flammable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.226.95.18 (talk) 14:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Explosivity
It is misleading to state (in section 5) that HCN gas in air is explosive "at concentrations over 5.6%.". This implies that HCN gas is explosive in air at all concentrations over 5.6%, which is incorrect. The Upper Explosive Limit of HCN gas in air is 40%.

Is it normal (or a bug) that my link (above) doesn't work when I "Show preview"? Clicking on the link in the preview redirects to this talk page, instead of to the intended external site...

Note that I have just created my wiki account and this is my first post/edit. Sorry if I'm not up with all the rules and etiquette yet. What's the story with using colons? Thanks.

--Carl Barlev (talk) 21:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

History of discovery
as a matter of interest, how is it that no one was apparently killed whilst discovering cyanide? IS there a history of dead scientists / alchemists?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Engineman (talk • contribs) 11:03, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

 * They apparently didn't write a paper on the subject.JSR (talk) 11:51, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Names
I thought you were done with the citation needed in the name business. These are good names, with the exception of methanenitrile, which is acetonitrile. Zyklon B was a trade name, but, has significant historic interest, as it was the material that contained HCN which was utilized in concentration camp showers in WWII.JSR (talk) 09:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Solubility in water
The main page lists HCN as miscible in water, yet there's also a wiki answers page (and my chemistry homework) which says that HCN is not soluble in water. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.140.149.70 (talk) 20:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Your homework and the wiki answer is wrong. HCN is fully miscible in water (as well as alcohols, ethers, esters, aromatic hydrocarbons, CCl4 and most other organic solvents.). see here. S  B Harris 21:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, I think I've got this sorted out. Feel free to delete unless this may be useful for someone else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.140.149.70 (talk) 02:57, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Smell (Almonds? Unlikely.)
The page says "HCN has a faint, bitter, almond-like odor". The smell people associate with almonds is Benzaldehyde, which is released from the glycoside amygdalin in sweet almonds, and along with HCN in bitter almonds. Most people will never have smelled bitter almonds, beause they are not grown commercially (on account of the HCN). It seems extremely unlikely that two chemicals that are utterly different, released from a reaction, should smell the same. It is much more likely that the strong smell of one has led to the impression that the other smells the same. This is especially likely when one is an extremely toxic gas, the smell of which would often indicate that death is imminent.

So, does anyone have any actual evidence (i.e. good researched links) of the true smell of HCN? Fig (talk) 14:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

 * As a chemist I have regularly smelled low concentrations of HCN, since cyanide salts such as NaCN and KCN react with moist air to give off HCN. (KCN + H2O = KOH + HCN).  I would describe the odour as almond-like; similar to benzaldehyde, but distinct.  Also, I thought amygdalin was a cyanogenic glycoside, which when hydrolysed forms the sugar, plus benzaldehyde cyanohydrin.  This latter compound then dissociates into benzaldehyde and HCN. Hence, the almond small from amygdalin would be formed from both compounds. PJJ  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.186.224.227 (talk) 17:59, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

 * HCN is relatively concentrated in almonds, if anything, it would be more reminiscent of almonds than anything else. Unless you know of a me concentrated natural source. Plasmic Physics (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly, Benzonitrile is also listed as smelling of almonds. Fig (talk) 09:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Some text here of the reaction: "Benzaldehyde: in simple words: oil of bitter almonds, C6H5CHO, the simplest representative of the aromatic aldehyde. It was first isolated in 1803 and was the subject of an important investigation by v.Liebig in 1837. It occurs naturally in the form of the glucoside amygdalin (C20H27N011), which is present in bitter almonds, cherries, peaches and the leaves of the cherry laurel; and is obtained from this substance by hydrolysis with dilute acids: C20H27N011 + 2H20 = HCN + 2C6H1206 + C6H5CHO. It occurs free in bitter almonds, being formed by an enzyme decomposition of amygdalin." Fig (talk) 15:52, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

https://foodlorists.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-almonds-dont-taste-like-almond.html Fig (talk) 15:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

 * This is an actual experiment of smelling HCN to check if it smells of bitter almonds.
 * The answer is no.
 * Does cyanide actually smell like almonds? - YouTube 82.59.237.161 (talk) 13:55, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Antidote / Treatment for cyanide poisoning
How, if at all, can a victim of cyanide poisoning be helped? I feel this question deserves to be discussed in the article, even if the answer is "They can't be".

24.255.155.226 (talk) 01:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Details about treatment are given at cyanide poisoning. Maybe some of that info can be summarized and added here.  -- Ed (Edgar181) 12:56, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

used to kill Jews?
were the Jews the only ones killed in the gas chambers? Or is this just more anti-German propaganda? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.226.95.18 (talk) 12:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I removed the comment that implied that Jews were the only victims of hydrogen cyanide. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:05, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

good call. I am personally sick of how the Jews are painted as the only victims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.137.23.68 (talk) 02:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

As you can read in the article on Zyklon B, 80% of the victims were jews. Mentioning that jews were the main victims and targets is not anti-German propaganda, it's the only correct deduction from the murderous results of antisemitism. --!nnovativ (talk) 08:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Zyklon B
Please note that Zyklon B is the name of a pesticide, namely a substrate with HCN as the active species, not just HCN. So, Zyklon B should be removed from the box as "other name". --!nnovativ (talk) 08:35, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Inorganic vs. Organic
The statement that HCN is an inorganic compound seems to contradict wikipedia's own definition (and indeed the common definition) of organic molecules, which is that any compound containing carbon and hydrogen are considered organic. I think it would be good to correct this to avoid confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MatthewL16 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

That is funny. I think HCN should be an inorganic compound (If wikipedia's definition was held as absolute truth, then CO2 and HCO3- should clearly be organic) Nissim 14 (talk) 14:42, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Cyanide poisoning also from plastics on fire, bitter almonds & the antihypertensive medicine nitroprusside! Antidotes do exist!
Cyanide poisoning may be deadly in minutes. Many people die on fires when they breath cyanide from smoke, especially from plastic materials. Cyanide poisoning may also occur from consumption of bitter almonds and from overdose of the drug nitroprussade! Antidotes for cyanide poisoning do exist and include hydroxocobalamin (a form of vitamin B12!) and also amyl nitrite(administered by inhalation), sodium nitrite, and sodium thiosulfate. 688dim (talk) 23:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Holocaust reminder
I have added a brief note about the nazi mass murders using the gas, which somehow seem more important than the use of the gas for judicial killing in the USA. Over a million victims I think speaks for itself. I have also added a picture of the Zyklon B canisters from Auschwitz. 217.43.231.132 (talk) 08:46, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Please stop spamming that image into articles and deleting other images. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

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Seasickness
It seems that at one point 'prussic acid' was used as a treatment for seasickness. Is this worth mentioning somewhere?

See: https://web.archive.org/web/20071227134724/http://www.history.rochester.edu/ehp-book/shb/hb20.htm https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673602948518
 * Well if nothing else, you have registered these curious reports for posterity. HCN is used on such a massive amounts that the centuries-old anecdotes might not be considered notable in the article on hydrogen cyanide.  On the other hand Motion sickness seems like a good place to mention that "even hydrogen cyanide was once considered as a paliative for seasickness...".  Just an idea.  --Smokefoot (talk) 13:27, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism
Some unregistered user just edited the page some 4 times claiming removal of vandalism. It absolutely messed up the page and I dont know how to turn it back to how it was and if possible punish the ip. Dilbas (talk) 15:59, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for undoing the damage! Next time, you can safe yourself some work by reverting the edit: go to View history of the article (top right), then next to their edit, there is a "undo" option. Cheers!--!nnovativ (talk) 06:42, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I think we shouldn't punish the IP user. It will only provoke them to do more vandalism. Exe csrss (talk) 04:42, 21 May 2020 (UTC)Exe csrss
 * Sorry I mistakenly reverted one of my edits to the vandalised article. It has now been fixed. Exe csrss (talk) 06:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Organic or Inorganic
Hydrogen Cyanide are actually organic in nature. It belongs to Nitriles group of Organic Compounds. 37.111.128.131 (talk) 13:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Image handling glass ampule of HCN
Seems like an extremely unsafe way to handle the substance, should the image be replaced? 2A02:A46D:6A58:1:44A3:75BF:B6E5:8900 (talk) 09:57, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

 * Do you have an alternative image? To my knowledge, glass ampoules are safe as long they are not broken and don't contain substances that are corrosive to glass. Necatorina (talk) 07:16, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hydrogen cyanide


text:
Talk:List of national parks of France

Names
I think these park names should be translated into English. For example, Pyrenees National Park come up on the official website along with parc National des Pyrénées (not Les Pyrenees parc national). What are the others in English? Rmhermen 23:57, Nov 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * I think it is rather a bad idea to translate these names, because one of the interest of making an article on them is precisely for a visitor in France to come and visit them, and it is a better idea that he recognise the name, if only from an alphabetical perspective in a book

 * in any cases, the names currently given are NOT the french names. So whatever the choice (respect of local names or not), the name should "exist" somewhere Anthère 05:19, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

for example Les Cévenne Parc National is in reality le Parc National des Cévennes.
 * I have added the English names from the official webpages as links. This is the English Wiki after all - and beside the official park webpages sometimes have as many 4 different French versions of each name. I think I have added the official French name for each. Rmhermen 14:56, Nov 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * nod. Good that way. The web site is neat ihmo btw. Anthère

Map
Pyrenees National Park (Parc National des Pyrénées) does not appear to be on the map. Funnyhat 20:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:List of national parks of France


text:
Helen Hunt Jackson

Helen Hunt Jackson (pen name, H.H.; born Helen Maria Fiske; October 15, 1830 – August 12, 1885) was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the United States government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her popular novel Ramona (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Commercially successful, it was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times, with readers liking its romantic and picturesque qualities more than its political content. The novel was so popular that it attracted many tourists to Southern California who wanted to see places from the book.

Early life and education
Helen Maria Fiske was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, the daughter of Nathan Welby Fiske and Deborah Waterman Vinal Fiske. Her father was a minister, author, and professor of Latin, Greek, and philosophy at Amherst College. Two brothers, Humphrey Washburn Fiske (?–1833) and David Vinal Fiske (1829–1829), died soon after birth. There was also a sister, Anne. The children were raised as Unitarians. Anne became the wife of E. C. Banfield, a federal government official who served as Solicitor of the United States Treasury.

The mother died from consumption in 1844, when Fiske was fourteen. Three years later, the father died. He had provided financially for Fiske's education and arranged for an uncle to care for her. Fiske attended Ipswich Female Seminary and the Abbott Institute, a boarding school in New York City run by Reverend John Stevens Cabot Abbott. She was a classmate of Emily Dickinson, also from Amherst; the two corresponded for the rest of their lives, but few of their letters survived.

Marriage, family, and early writing career
In 1852, she married U.S. Army Captain Edward Bissell Hunt. They had two sons, one of whom, Murray Hunt (1853–1854), died as an infant in 1854 of a brain disease. Her husband died in October 1863, in an accident that occurred while he was experimenting with one of his marine inventions. Her second son, Warren "Rennie" Horsford Hunt (born 1855) died of diphtheria in 1865 at the age nine.

Most of Hunt's early elegiac verse grew out of this heavy experience of loss and sorrow. Up to this time, her life had been absorbed in domestic and social duties. Her real literary career began when she removed herself to Newport, in the winter of 1866. Her first successful poem, "Coronation", appeared in The Atlantic three years later. It was the commencement of a long and fruitful connection with that magazine, with The Century later, and with The Nation and Independent. The years 1868–1870 were spent in Europe, in travel and literary work. In 1872, she visited California for the first time.

In the winter of 1873–1874, she was in Colorado Springs, Colorado at the resort of Seven Falls, seeking rest in hopes of a cure for tuberculosis, which was often fatal before the invention of antibiotics.. While in Colorado Springs, Hunt met William Sharpless Jackson, a wealthy banker and railroad executive. They married in 1875 and she took the name Jackson, under which she was best known for her later writings.

She published her early work anonymously, usually under the name "H.H." Ralph Waldo Emerson admired her poetry and used several of her poems in his public readings. He included five of them in his Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry (1880).

Over the next two years, she published three novels in the anonymous No Name Series, including Mercy Philbrick's Choice and Hetty's Strange History. She also encouraged a contribution from Emily Dickinson to A Masque of Poets as part of the same series.

Activist for Native Americans
In 1879, Jackson's interests turned to Native Americans after she heard a lecture in Boston by Chief Standing Bear, of the Ponca Tribe. Standing Bear described the forcible removal of the Ponca from their Nebraska reservation and transfer to the Quapaw Reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), where they suffered from disease, harsh climate, and poor supplies. Upset about the mistreatment of Native Americans by government agents, Jackson became an activist on their behalf. She started investigating and publicizing government misconduct, circulating petitions, raising money, and writing letters to The New York Times on behalf of the Ponca.

A fiery and prolific writer, Jackson engaged in heated exchanges with federal officials over the injustices committed against the Ponca and other American Indian tribes. Among her special targets was U.S. Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz, whom she once called "the most adroit liar I ever knew." She exposed the government's violation of treaties with American Indian tribes. She documented the corruption of US Indian agents, military officers, and settlers who encroached on and stole reserved Indian lands.

Jackson won the support of several newspaper editors who published her reports. Among her correspondents were editor William Hayes Ward of the New York Independent, Richard Watson Gilder of The Century Magazine, and publisher Whitelaw Reid of the New York Daily Tribune.

A Century of Dishonor

In 1879, Jackson attended a lecture by Standing Bear about the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation in 1868. In response, Jackson wrote a book, the first published under her own name, in which she condemned state and federal Indian policies. She recounted a history of broken treaties. A Century of Dishonor (1881) called for significant reform in government policy toward Native Americans. Jackson sent a copy to every member of Congress with a quote from Benjamin Franklin printed in red on the cover: "Look upon your hands: they are stained with the blood of your relations." The New York Times, however, suggested the following in Jackson's obituary:

"...[She] soon made enemies at Washington by her often unmeasured attacks, and while on general lines she did some good, her case was weakened by her inability, in some cases, to substantiate the charges she had made; hence many who were at first sympathetic fell away."

Mission Indian crusade

Jackson went to southern California for respite. Having been interested in the area's missions and the Mission Indians on an earlier visit, she began an in-depth study. While in Los Angeles, she met Don Antonio Coronel, former mayor of the city and a well-known authority on early Californio life in the area. He had served as inspector of missions for the Mexican government. Coronel told her about the plight of the Mission Indians after 1833. They were buffeted by the secularization policies of the Mexican government, as well as later U.S. policies, both of which led to their removal from mission lands. Under its original land grants, the Mexican government provided for resident Indians to continue to occupy such lands. After taking control of the territory in 1848, the U.S. generally disregarded such Mission Indian occupancy claims. In 1852, an estimated 15,000 Mission Indians lived in Southern California. By the time of Jackson's visit, they numbered fewer than 4,000.

Coronel's account inspired Jackson to action. The U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Hiram Price, recommended her appointment as an Interior Department agent. Jackson's assignment was to visit the Mission Indians, ascertain the location and condition of various bands, and determine what lands, if any, should be purchased for their use. With the help of the US Indian agent Abbot Kinney, Jackson traveled throughout Southern California and documented conditions. At one point, she hired a law firm to protect the rights of a family of Saboba Indians facing dispossession from their land at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains.

In 1883, Jackson completed her 56-page report. It recommended extensive government relief for the Mission Indians, including the purchase of new lands for reservations and the establishment of more Indian schools. A bill embodying her recommendations passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House of Representatives.

Jackson decided to write a novel to reach a wider audience. When she wrote Coronel asking for details about early California and any romantic incidents he could remember, she explained her purpose:

"'I am going to write a novel, in which will be set forth some Indian experiences in a way to move people's hearts. People will read a novel when they will not read serious books.' She was inspired by her friend Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). 'If I could write a story that would do for the Indian one-hundredth part what Uncle Tom's Cabin did for the Negro, I would be thankful the rest of my life,' she wrote."

Later writing career
Although Jackson started an outline in California, she began writing the novel in December 1883 in her New York hotel room, and completed it in about three months. Originally titled In The Name of the Law, it was published as Ramona (1884), the name of the main character. It featured Ramona, an orphan girl who was half Indian and half Scots, raised in Spanish Californio society, her Indian husband Alessandro, and their struggles for land of their own. The characters were based on people known by Jackson and incidents which she had encountered. The book achieved rapid success among a broad swath of the public. Its romantic story contributed to the growth of tourism to Southern California, as people wanted to see places described in the novel.

After she married William Sharpless Jackson in Colorado Springs in 1875, she took his name and is known in her writing as Helen Hunt Jackson. One of her most popular poems is Cheyenne Mountain, about the mountain in Colorado Springs. She was friends with fellow writer Flora Haines Loughead who cared for her during her final illness.

Encouraged by the popularity of her book, Jackson planned to write a children's story about Indian issues, but did not live to complete it. Her last letter was written to President Grover Cleveland and she said:

"From my death bed I send you message of heartfelt thanks for what you have already done for the Indians. I ask you to read my Century of Dishonor. I am dying happier for the belief I have that it is your hand that is destined to strike the first steady blow toward lifting this burden of infamy from our country and righting the wrongs of the Indian race."

Death and burial
Jackson died of stomach cancer in 1885 in San Francisco. Her husband arranged for her burial on a one-acre plot near Seven Falls at Inspiration Point overlooking Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her remains were later moved to Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. At the time of her death, her estate was valued at $12,642.

Critical response and legacy
Jackson's A Century of Dishonor remains in print, as does a collection of her poetry.

A New York Times reviewer said of Ramona that "by one estimate, the book has been reprinted 300 times." One year after Jackson's death the North American Review described Ramona as "unquestionably the best novel yet produced by an American woman" and named it, along with Uncle Tom's Cabin, as the two most ethical novels of the 19th century. Sixty years after its publication, 600,000 copies had been sold. There have been over 300 reissues to date and the book has never been out of print.

The novel has been adapted for other genres, including four films (the last in Spanish), stage, and television productions. Valery Sherer Mathes assessed the writer and her work:

"Ramona may not have been another Uncle Tom's Cabin, but it served, along with Jackson's writings on the Mission Indians of California, as a catalyst for other reformers ...Helen Hunt Jackson cared deeply for the Indians of California. She cared enough to undermine her health while devoting the last few years of her life to bettering their lives. Her enduring writings, therefore, provided a legacy to other reformers, who cherished her work enough to carry on her struggle and at least try to improve the lives of America's first inhabitants."

Her friend Emily Dickinson once described Jackson's literary limitations: "she has the facts but not the phosphorescence."

In a review of a film version, a journalist wrote about the novel, describing it as "the long and lugubrious romance by Helen Hunt Jackson, over which America wept unnumbered gallons in the eighties and nineties," and complained of "the long, uneventful stretches of the novel." In reviewing the history of her publisher, Houghton Mifflin, a 1970 reviewer noted that Jackson typified the house's success: "Middle aged, middle class, middlebrow."

Jackson wrote of her late works: "My Century of Dishonor and Ramona are the only things I have done of which I am glad... They will live, and... bear fruit."

Legacy and honors

 * The largest collection of the papers of Helen Hunt Jackson is held at Colorado College.
 * The Helen Hunt Jackson Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library is a Mission/Spanish Revival style-building built in 1925. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
 * A portion of Jackson's Colorado home has been reconstructed in the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum and furnished with her possessions.
 * Hemet, California's official outdoor play, the annual Ramona Pageant, takes place at the Ramona Bowl outdoor amphitheatre each year in late spring.
 * A high school in Hemet, California, and an elementary school in Temecula, California were named after her.
 * Ramona High School in Riverside, California and Ramona Elementary in Hemet, California are both named for her central character.
 * Helen Hunt Falls, in North Cheyenne Cañon Park in Colorado Springs, was named in her memory.
 * An elementary school in Colorado Springs is named in her memory.
 * She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.

Selected works

 * Bits of Travel (1873)
 * Bits about Home Matters (1873)
 * Saxe Holm's Stories (1874)
 * The Story of Boon (1874)
 * Mercy Philbrick's Choice (1876)
 * Hetty's Strange History (1877)
 * Bits of Talk in Verse and Prose for Young Folks (1876)
 * Bits of Travel at Home (1878)
 * Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life (1878)
 * Letters from a Cat (1879)
 * A Century of Dishonor (1881)
 * Ramona (1884)
 * Zeph: A Posthumous Story (1885)
 * Glimpses of Three Coasts (1886)
 * Between Whiles (1888)
 * A Calendar of Sonnets (1891)
 * Ryan Thomas (1892)
 * The Hunter Cats of Connorloa (1894)
 * Poems by Helen Jackson Roberts Bros, Boston (1893)
 * Pansy Billings and Popsy: Two Stories of Girl Life (1898)
 * Glimpses of California (1914)

title: Helen Hunt Jackson


text:
Pathological (mathematics)

In mathematics, when a mathematical phenomenon runs counter to some intuition, then the phenomenon is sometimes called pathological. On the other hand, if a phenomenon does not run counter to intuition, it is sometimes called well-behaved or nice. These terms are sometimes useful in mathematical research and teaching, but there is no strict mathematical definition of pathological or well-behaved.

In analysis
A classic example of a pathology is the Weierstrass function, a function that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere. The sum of a differentiable function and the Weierstrass function is again continuous but nowhere differentiable; so there are at least as many such functions as differentiable functions. In fact, using the Baire category theorem, one can show that continuous functions are generically nowhere differentiable.

Such examples were deemed pathological when they were first discovered. To quote Henri Poincaré:

"Logic sometimes breeds monsters. For half a century there has been springing up a host of weird functions, which seem to strive to have as little resemblance as possible to honest functions that are of some use. No more continuity, or else continuity but no derivatives, etc. More than this, from the point of view of logic, it is these strange functions that are the most general; those that are met without being looked for no longer appear as more than a particular case, and they have only quite a little corner left them.

Formerly, when a new function was invented, it was in view of some practical end. To-day they are invented on purpose to show our ancestors' reasonings at fault, and we shall never get anything more than that out of them.

If logic were the teacher's only guide, he would have to begin with the most general, that is to say, with the most weird, functions. He would have to set the beginner to wrestle with this collection of monstrosities. If you don't do so, the logicians might say, you will only reach exactness by stages."

Since Poincaré, nowhere differentiable functions have been shown to appear in basic physical and biological processes such as Brownian motion and in applications such as the Black-Scholes model in finance.

Counterexamples in Analysis is a whole book of such counterexamples.

Another example of pathological function is Du-Bois Reymond continuous function, that can't be represented as a Fourier series.

In voting
Elections where voting systems exhibit counterintuitive or undesirable behavior are often called "perverse" or "pathological". The spoiler effect is a well-known example of an electoral pathology. Ranked-choice voting (the single transferable vote) is commonly described as an unusually pathological social choice function, because of its tendency to eliminate majority-preferred candidates for winning too many votes.

In topology
One famous counterexample in topology is the Alexander horned sphere, showing that topologically embedding the sphere S2 in R3 may fail to separate the space cleanly. As a counterexample, it motivated mathematicians to define the tameness property, which suppresses the kind of wild behavior exhibited by the horned sphere, wild knot, and other similar examples.

Like many other pathologies, the horned sphere in a sense plays on infinitely fine, recursively generated structure, which in the limit violates ordinary intuition. In this case, the topology of an ever-descending chain of interlocking loops of continuous pieces of the sphere in the limit fully reflects that of the common sphere, and one would expect the outside of it, after an embedding, to work the same. Yet it does not: it fails to be simply connected.

For the underlying theory, see Jordan–Schönflies theorem.

Counterexamples in Topology is a whole book of such counterexamples.

Well-behaved
Mathematicians (and those in related sciences) very frequently speak of whether a mathematical object—a function, a set, a space of one sort or another—is "well-behaved". While the term has no fixed formal definition, it generally refers to the quality of satisfying a list of prevailing conditions, which might be dependent on context, mathematical interests, fashion, and taste. To ensure that an object is "well-behaved", mathematicians introduce further axioms to narrow down the domain of study. This has the benefit of making analysis easier, but produces a loss of generality of any conclusions reached.

In both pure and applied mathematics (e.g., optimization, numerical integration, mathematical physics), well-behaved also means not violating any assumptions needed to successfully apply whatever analysis is being discussed.

The opposite case is usually labeled "pathological". It is not unusual to have situations in which most cases (in terms of cardinality or measure) are pathological, but the pathological cases will not arise in practice—unless constructed deliberately.

The term "well-behaved" is generally applied in an absolute sense—either something is well-behaved or it is not. For example:

 * In algorithmic inference, a well-behaved statistic is monotonic, well-defined, and sufficient.
 * In Bézout's theorem, two polynomials are well-behaved, and thus the formula given by the theorem for the number of their intersections is valid, if their polynomial greatest common divisor is a constant.
 * A meromorphic function is a ratio of two well-behaved functions, in the sense of those two functions being holomorphic.
 * The Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions are first-order necessary conditions for a solution in a well-behaved nonlinear programming problem to be optimal; a problem is referred to as well-behaved if some regularity conditions are satisfied.
 * In probability, events contained in the probability space's corresponding sigma-algebra are well-behaved, as are measurable functions.

Unusually, the term could also be applied in a comparative sense:

 * In calculus:
 * Analytic functions are better-behaved than general smooth functions.
 * Smooth functions are better-behaved than general differentiable functions.
 * Continuous differentiable functions are better-behaved than general continuous functions. The larger the number of times the function can be differentiated, the more well-behaved it is.
 * Continuous functions are better-behaved than Riemann-integrable functions on compact sets.
 * Riemann-integrable functions are better-behaved than Lebesgue-integrable functions.
 * Lebesgue-integrable functions are better-behaved than general functions.
 * In topology, continuous functions are better-behaved than discontinuous ones.
 * Euclidean space is better-behaved than non-Euclidean geometry.
 * Attractive fixed points are better-behaved than repulsive fixed points.
 * Hausdorff topologies are better-behaved than those in arbitrary general topology.
 * Borel sets are better-behaved than arbitrary sets of real numbers.
 * Spaces with integer dimension are better-behaved than spaces with fractal dimension.
 * In abstract algebra:
 * Groups are better-behaved than magmas and semigroups.
 * Abelian groups are better-behaved than non-Abelian groups.
 * Finitely-generated Abelian groups are better-behaved than non-finitely-generated Abelian groups.
 * Finite-dimensional vector spaces are better-behaved than infinite-dimensional ones.
 * Fields are better-behaved than skew fields or general rings.
 * Separable field extensions are better-behaved than non-separable ones.
 * Normed division algebras are better-behaved than general composition algebras.

Pathological examples
Pathological examples often have some undesirable or unusual properties that make it difficult to contain or explain within a theory. Such pathological behaviors often prompt new investigation and research, which leads to new theory and more general results. Some important historical examples of this are:

e^{-1/(1-t^2)}, & -1<t<1, \\ 0, & \text{otherwise}. \end{cases}$$
 * Ranked-choice voting is commonly described as a pathological social choice function, because of its tendency to eliminate candidates for winning too many votes.
 * The discovery of irrational numbers by the school of Pythagoras in ancient Greece; for example, the length of the diagonal of a unit square, that is $$\sqrt{2}$$.
 * The discovery of complex numbers in the 16th century in order to find the roots of cubic and quartic polynomial functions.
 * Some number fields have rings of integers that do not form a unique factorization domain, for example the extended field $$\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-5})$$.
 * The discovery of fractals and other "rough" geometric objects (see Hausdorff dimension).
 * Weierstrass function, a real-valued function on the real line, that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere.
 * Test functions in real analysis and distribution theory, which are infinitely differentiable functions on the real line that are 0 everywhere outside of a given limited interval. An example of such a function is the test function, $$\varphi(t) = \begin{cases}
 * The Cantor set is a subset of the interval $$[0,1]$$ that has measure zero but is uncountable.
 * The fat Cantor set is nowhere dense but has positive measure.
 * The Fabius function is everywhere smooth but nowhere analytic.
 * Volterra's function is differentiable with bounded derivative everywhere, but the derivative is not Riemann-integrable.
 * The Peano space-filling curve is a continuous surjective function that maps the unit interval $$[0,1]$$ onto $$[0,1]\times[0,1]$$.
 * The Dirichlet function, which is the indicator function for rationals, is a bounded function that is not Riemann integrable.
 * The Cantor function is a monotonic continuous surjective function that maps $$[0,1]$$ onto $$[0,1]$$, but has zero derivative almost everywhere.
 * The Minkowski question-mark function is continuous and strictly increasing but has zero derivative almost everywhere.
 * Satisfaction classes containing "intuitively false" arithmetical statements can be constructed for countable, recursively saturated models of Peano arithmetic.
 * The Osgood curve is a Jordan curve (unlike most space-filling curves) of positive area.
 * An exotic sphere is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the standard Euclidean n-sphere.

At the time of their discovery, each of these was considered highly pathological; today, each has been assimilated into modern mathematical theory. These examples prompt their observers to correct their beliefs or intuitions, and in some cases necessitate a reassessment of foundational definitions and concepts. Over the course of history, they have led to more correct, more precise, and more powerful mathematics. For example, the Dirichlet function is Lebesgue integrable, and convolution with test functions is used to approximate any locally integrable function by smooth functions.

Whether a behavior is pathological is by definition subject to personal intuition. Pathologies depend on context, training, and experience, and what is pathological to one researcher may very well be standard behavior to another.

Pathological examples can show the importance of the assumptions in a theorem. For example, in statistics, the Cauchy distribution does not satisfy the central limit theorem, even though its symmetric bell-shape appears similar to many distributions which do; it fails the requirement to have a mean and standard deviation which exist and that are finite.

Some of the best-known paradoxes, such as Banach–Tarski paradox and Hausdorff paradox, are based on the existence of non-measurable sets. Mathematicians, unless they take the minority position of denying the axiom of choice, are in general resigned to living with such sets.

Computer science
In computer science, pathological has a slightly different sense with regard to the study of algorithms. Here, an input (or set of inputs) is said to be pathological if it causes atypical behavior from the algorithm, such as a violation of its average case complexity, or even its correctness. For example, hash tables generally have pathological inputs: sets of keys that collide on hash values. Quicksort normally has $$O(n \log{n})$$ time complexity, but deteriorates to $$O(n^2)$$ when it is given input that triggers suboptimal behavior.

The term is often used pejoratively, as a way of dismissing such inputs as being specially designed to break a routine that is otherwise sound in practice (compare with Byzantine). On the other hand, awareness of pathological inputs is important, as they can be exploited to mount a denial-of-service attack on a computer system. Also, the term in this sense is a matter of subjective judgment as with its other senses. Given enough run time, a sufficiently large and diverse user community (or other factors), an input which may be dismissed as pathological could in fact occur (as seen in the first test flight of the Ariane 5).

Exceptions
A similar but distinct phenomenon is that of exceptional objects (and exceptional isomorphisms), which occurs when there are a "small" number of exceptions to a general pattern (such as a finite set of exceptions to an otherwise infinite rule). By contrast, in cases of pathology, often most or almost all instances of a phenomenon are pathological (e.g., almost all real numbers are irrational).

Subjectively, exceptional objects (such as the icosahedron or sporadic simple groups) are generally considered "beautiful", unexpected examples of a theory, while pathological phenomena are often considered "ugly", as the name implies. Accordingly, theories are usually expanded to include exceptional objects. For example, the exceptional Lie algebras are included in the theory of semisimple Lie algebras: the axioms are seen as good, the exceptional objects as unexpected but valid.

By contrast, pathological examples are instead taken to point out a shortcoming in the axioms, requiring stronger axioms to rule them out. For example, requiring tameness of an embedding of a sphere in the Schönflies problem. In general, one may study the more general theory, including the pathologies, which may provide its own simplifications (the real numbers have properties very different from the rationals, and likewise continuous maps have very different properties from smooth ones), but also the narrower theory, from which the original examples were drawn.

title: Pathological (mathematics)


text:
American Civil War spies

Tactical or battlefield intelligence became vital to both sides in the field during the American Civil War. Units of spies and scouts reported directly to the commanders of armies in the field, providing details on troop movements and strengths. The distinction between spies and scouts was one that had life or death consequences: if a suspect was seized while in disguise and not in his army's uniform, he was often sentenced to be hanged. A spy named Will Talbot, a member of the 35th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, was left behind in Gettysburg after his battalion had passed through the borough on June 26–27, 1863. He was captured, taken to Emmitsburg, Maryland, and executed on orders of Brig. Gen. John Buford.

Confederate spying
Intelligence-gathering for the Confederates was focused on Alexandria, Virginia, and the surrounding area.

Thomas Jordan created a network of agents that included Rose O'Neal Greenhow. Greenhow delivered reports to Jordan via the “Secret Line,” the name for the system used to get letters, intelligence reports, and other documents across the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers to Confederate officials.

The Confederacy's Signal Corps was devoted primarily to communications and intercepts, but it also included a covert agency called the Confederate Secret Service Bureau, which ran espionage and counter-espionage operations in the North including two networks in Washington.

Confederate spies

 * Joseph Baden
 * Fannie Battle
 * John Yates Beall
 * Belle Boyd
 * William Bryant
 * James Dunwoody Bulloch
 * Confederate Secret Service
 * Sam Davis
 * David Owen Dodd
 * Nancy Hart Douglas
 * Zora Fair
 * Antonia Ford
 * Sarah Ewing Sims Carter Gaut
 * Mary Jane Green
 * Rose O'Neal Greenhow
 * Thomas Harbin
 * Henry Thomas Harrison
 * Elizabeth Carraway Howland
 * Annie Jones
 * Thomas A. Jones
 * Thomas Jordan
 * Alexander Keith Jr.
 * Joseph Clinton Millsap
 * Virginia Bethel Moon
 * Samuel Mudd
 * William Norris
 * Emeline Piggott
 * Sarah Slater
 * Richard Thomas (Zarvona)
 * William Orton Williams

Union spying

The Union's intelligence-gathering initiatives were decentralized. Allan Pinkerton worked for Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan and created the United States Secret Service. Lafayette C. Baker conducted intelligence and security work for Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Army. President Abraham Lincoln hired William Alvin Lloyd to spy in the South and report to Lincoln directly.

As a brigadier general in Missouri, Ulysses S. Grant was ordered by Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont to start an intelligence organization. Grant came to understand the power of intelligence and later made Brig. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge the head of his intelligence operations that covered an area from Mississippi to Georgia with as many as one hundred secret agents.

Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, who became commander of the Army of the Potomac in January 1863, ordered his deputy provost marshal, Col. George H. Sharpe, to create a unit to gather intelligence. Sharpe set up what he called the Bureau of Military Information and was aided by John C. Babcock, who had worked for Allan Pinkerton and had made maps for George B. McClellan. Sharpe's bureau produced reports based on information collected from agents, prisoners of war, refugees, Southern newspapers, documents retrieved from battlefield corpses, and other sources. When Grant began his siege of Petersburg in June 1864, Sharpe had become Grant's intelligence chief.

The most useful military intelligence of the American Civil War was probably provided to Union officers by slaves and smugglers. Intelligence provided by slaves and blacks was called black dispatches.

Union spies

 * Mary Elizabeth Bowser
 * Charles C. Carpenter
 * George Curtis
 * Pauline Cushman
 * Grenville Dodge
 * Sarah Emma Edmonds
 * Abraham Galloway
 * Philip Henson
 * William J. Lawton
 * Hattie Lawton
 * Pryce Lewis
 * Allan Pinkerton
 * Albert D. Richardson
 * John Scobell
 * Harriet Tubman
 * Elizabeth Van Lew
 * Kate Warne
 * Timothy Webster

title: American Civil War spies


text:
Talk:National Union (Israel)

Untitled
The "LIST" is mentioned a few times. what list? List of what? WHAT IS THE LIST? Kingturtle 00:16, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * In certain parliamentary democracies, parties present lists of candidates to the parliament. In the list, party members are ordered, so if the party gets (for example) 40 seats after an election, the first 40 names on the list become MPs. See Party_List. --Lidless Eye 03:32, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

What is the religious orientation of National Union when compared against the Orthodox Mafdal or secular Shinui? -LoveOfFate Mixed. - Elyachba

That the Arab States created the refugees is a debated point. It has also been argued that many Palestinian refugees were forced from their homes in the 1948 war. (JR)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:09, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * NatUnionMafdal.png

title: Talk:National Union (Israel)


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User:Jwrosenzweig/Dolphin intelligence

The magnitude of dolphin intelligence has long been under investigation by scientists, who hope to better understand cognition in general by understanding the workings of the dolphin brain. Answers to the question "how intelligent are dolphins" range widely, from those suggesting that dolphins are, in many ways, superior to humans in their mental abilities to those portraying dolphins as merely highly sophisticated animals whose cognitive abilities cannot truly be called "intelligence". The issues raised by the question of dolphin intelligence are many: the central areas of discussion are noted below.

Brain Size and Mass
Some attempts to resolve the issue of dolphin intelligence have focused on the size of the dolphin's brain (both its weight and its size relative to its body). The relationship between brain mass and intelligence is a shaky one, at best. Cognitive ability, according to most scientists, is dependent on the quantity and quality of connections between brain cells, and not on mere brain mass. If dolphins were equipped with brains notably smaller than those of humans, it would make a powerful case against their having intelligence that approached that of humans (a certain amount of mass is necessary, after all, to allow for sufficient neural connections to be made).

However, most dolphin species have brains that are roughly equal in weight to the average human brain: for example, the average human brain weighs 1300-1400 grams, while the average bottle-nosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) brain weighs 1500-1600 grams, according to A. Berta's book Marine Mammals, quoted at this site. Another positive indicator for dolphin intelligence is that they begin life with very large brains, proportionally: by the time a dolphin is eighteen months old, its brain mass is roughly 80% of that of an adult human. Human beings generally do not achieve this figure until the age of three or four.

Differences from other Mammalian Brains
Although dolphins are themselves mammals, their brains are constructed and act differently than those of most mammals. Unlike most mammalian brains, which have six neocortical layers, dolphins have five. While most sleeping mammals go through a stage known as REM sleep, no study done on the brain waves of sleeping dolphins records the brain wave pattern associated with REM sleep. Unlike terrestial mammals, dolphin brains contain a paralimbic lobe, which may possibly be used for sensory processing.

Dolphin brain stem transmission time is faster than that normally found in humans or cats, and is roughly equivalent to the speed found in rats. This is also a possible indicator of intelligence, but not a conclusive sign of it: rat intelligence, after all, is not thought to be equivalent to that of dolphins. As echo-location is the dolphin's primary means of sensing its environment -- analogous to eyes in primates -- and since sound travels four and a half times faster in water than in air, scientists speculate that the faster brain stem transmission time, and perhaps the paralimbic lobe as well, support speedy processing of sound. The dolphin's dependence on speedy sound processing is evident in the structure of its brain: its neural area devoted to visual imaging is only about one-tenth that of the human brain, while the area devoted to acoustical imaging is about 10 times that of the human brain.

Consciousness or Self-Awareness
One standard test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror recognition test. Some accounts claim that dolphins recognize themselves in mirrors (or mirror analogues, such as video screens); these studies are disputed by other scientists for a number of technical reasons (ability of dolphins to recognize stimuli via other sensory modalities, etc.).

The intelligence of dolphins is the subject of much speculation. In particular, some adherents of New Age beliefs believe them to be capable of perceiving higher dimensions of reality. There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to back these claims.

Speculative claims and unconfirmed information
According to Carol J. Howard, author of Dolphin Chronicles (1996), each of the two dolphin sub-brains has an independent blood supply. The two eyes of the dolphin are each connected to one of the two sub-brains.

It is possible that, if they have two brains, dolphins never sleep with both brains at once. One brain sleeps while the other brain stays awake (perhaps so that the dolphins can breathe while asleep): this may account for the lack of REM sleep brain waves among dolphins.

It has been long theorised that dolphins have a complex language, which may consist of visual symbols as interpretations of high frequency sound waves (see synaesthesia). Many scientists feel there is too little evidence for this claim, although some believe it is justified.

References and external links

 * 1) Brain facts and figures.
 * 2) The dolphin brain a scholarly page at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the source of much of the information posted above regarding dolphin brain mass and design.
 * 3) The Dolphin Brain Atlas A collection of stained brain sections and MRI images.
 * 4) Bottle-nose dolphin brain from the comparative mammalian brain collection.
 * 5) Dolphin brains, an AAAS Science Netlinks feature.

title: User:Jwrosenzweig/Dolphin intelligence


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Ussher chronology

The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from a literal reading of the Old Testament by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. The chronology is sometimes associated with young Earth creationism, which holds that the universe was created only a few millennia ago by God as described in the first two chapters of the biblical book of Genesis. Ussher's work fell into disrepute in the 19th century.

Published in 1650, the full title of Ussher's work in Latin is Annales Veteris Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti, una cum rerum Asiaticarum et Aegyptiacarum chronico, a temporis historici principio usque ad Maccabaicorum initia producto ('Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world, the chronicle of Asiatic and Egyptian matters together produced from the beginning of historical time up to the beginnings of Maccabees').

Ussher's work was his contribution to the long-running theological debate on the age of the Earth. This was a major concern of many Christian scholars over the centuries.

The chronology is sometimes called the UssherLightfoot chronology because John Lightfoot published a similar chronology in 1642–1644. This, however, is a misnomer, as the chronology is based on Ussher's work alone and not that of Lightfoot. Ussher deduced that the first day of creation was October 22, 4004 BC on the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox. Lightfoot similarly deduced that Creation began at nightfall near the autumnal equinox, but in the year 3929 BC.

Ussher's proposed date of 4004 BC differed little from other biblically based estimates, such as those of Jose ben Halafta (3761 BC), Bede (3952 BC), Ussher's near-contemporary Scaliger (3949 BC), Johannes Kepler (3992 BC), and Isaac Newton (c. 4000 BC). Ussher was influenced by the same account as the apocryphal Book of Jasher, dating the worldwide flood to 2349 BC and the birth of Terah in 2127 BC. The date of 4000 BC as the creation of Adam was at least partially influenced by the widely held belief that the Earth was approximately 5600 years old (2000 from Adam to Abraham, 2000 from Abraham to the birth of Christ, and 1600 years from Christ to Ussher), corresponding to the six days of Creation, on the grounds that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". This tradition was believed to indicate that Jesus would return in AD 2000, more than six thousand years after 4004 BC. Modern proponents of this interpretation hold that the creation date 4004 BC could be inaccurate.

Ussher's methods
The chronologies of Ussher and other biblical scholars corresponded so closely because they used much the same method to calculate key events recorded in the Bible. Establishing the chronologies is complicated by the fact that the Bible was compiled by different authors over several centuries with lengthy chronological gaps, making it difficult to do a simple totaling of Biblical ages and dates. In his article on Ussher's calendar, James Barr has identified three distinct periods that Ussher and others had to tackle:

 * 1) "Creation to Abraham's migration." This section is fairly easy to calculate, using the chronological data in Genesis 5 and 11, which gives an unbroken male lineage, with numbers of years, from the creation to Abraham being called out of Ur of the Chaldeans. Ussher used the chronology found in the Masoretic text instead of the alternative chronologies found in the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch. Ussher fixed this period as 2082 years, from 4004 to 1922 BC.
 * 2) "Abraham's migration to Solomon's temple." Ussher wrote that the time from Abraham leaving Haran to the Exodus was 430 years (based on Abraham's descendants suffering a period of 400 years of persecution, commencing 30 years after Abraham left Haran)  states that 480 years elapsed from the Exodus to the beginning of construction of Solomon's temple in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. Thus the temple foundations were laid 910 years after Abraham left Haran; these 910 years spanned from 1922 to 1012 BC.
 * 3) "Period of the temple laid to the Babylonian captivity." This period is the most difficult to calculate, due to repeated difficulties in correlating the regnal years of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The simple addition of the reigns of Judah's kings results in a total of 430 years, but by positing a few overlapping reigns, Ussher shortened this to 424 years: 1012 to 588 BC.

After reckoning the years from creation to the last kings of Judah, Ussher used to establish the length of time from the creation to the accession of Babylonian king Amel-Marduk (also known as Evil-Merodach). He then used information from Babylonian, Greek, and Roman sources to fix the date of Amel-Marduk's enthronement at 562 BC (after Nebuchadnezzar's death), from which he was able to deduce a creation in 4004 BC.

In fixing the date of Jesus' birth, Ussher took account of an error perpetrated by Dionysius Exiguus, the founder of the Anno Domini numbering system. Ussher chose 5 BC as Christ's birth year because Josephus indicated that the death of Herod the Great occurred in 4 BC. Thus, for the Gospel of Matthew to be correct, Jesus could not have been born after that date.

The season in which Creation occurred was the subject of considerable theological debate in Ussher's time. Many scholars proposed it had taken place in the spring, the start of the Babylonian, Chaldean and other cultures' chronologies. Others, including Ussher, thought it more likely that it had occurred in the autumn, largely because that season marked the beginning of the Jewish year.

Ussher further narrowed down the date by using the Jewish calendar to establish the "first day" of creation as falling on a Sunday near the autumnal equinox. The day of the week was a backward calculation from the six days of creation with God resting on the seventh, which in the Jewish calendar is Saturday—hence, Creation began on a Sunday. The astronomical tables that Ussher probably used were Kepler's Tabulae Rudolphinae (Rudolphine Tables, 1627). Using them, he would have concluded that the equinox occurred on Tuesday, October 25, only one day earlier than the traditional day of its creation, on the fourth day of Creation week, Wednesday, along with the Sun, Moon, and stars. Modern equations place the autumnal equinox of 4004 BC on Sunday, October 23 (by the Julian calendar).

Ussher's understanding of creation placed the "first day" referred to in on October 23, but with a "pre-creation" event, which he identified as the "beginning of time" occurring the previous night. Ussher referred to his dating of creation on the first page of Annales in Latin and on the first page of its posthumous English translation Annals of the World (1658). In the following extract from the English translation, the phrase "in the year of the Julian Calendar" refers to the Julian Period, of which year 1 is 4713 BC, and therefore year 710 is 4004 BC.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Ge. 1:1 This beginning of time, according to our chronology, happened at the start of the evening preceding the 23rd day of October in the year of the Julian Calendar, 710.

Ussher provides a slightly different time in his "Epistle to the Reader" in his Latin and English works: "I deduce that the time from the creation until midnight, January 1, 1 AD was 4003 years, seventy days and six hours." Six hours before midnight would be 6 pm.

Ussher's chronology today
By the middle of the 19th century, Ussher's chronology came under increasing attack from supporters of uniformitarianism, who argued that Ussher's "young Earth" was incompatible with the increasingly accepted view of an Earth much more ancient than Ussher's. It became generally accepted that the Earth was tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of years old. Ussher fell into disrepute among theologians as well; in 1890, Princeton professor William Henry Green wrote a highly influential article in Bibliotheca Sacra entitled "Primeval Chronology" in which he strongly criticised Ussher. He concluded:

We conclude that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation of the world.

The similarly conservative theologian B. B. Warfield reached the same conclusion in "On The Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race", commenting that "it is precarious in the highest degree to draw chronological inferences from genealogical tables".

Archbishop Ussher's chronology has in recent years been subject to artistic criticism, including in the play Inherit the Wind (based on the Scopes Monkey Trial) and the fantasy novel Good Omens which alleges that it is inaccurate "by almost a quarter of an hour".

A different viewpoint comes from Stephen Jay Gould, who, while totally disagreeing with Ussher's chronology, nevertheless wrote:

I shall be defending Ussher's chronology as an honorable effort for its time and arguing that our usual ridicule only records a lamentable small-mindedness based on mistaken use of present criteria to judge a distant and different past.

Ussher represented the best of scholarship in his time. He was part of a substantial research tradition, a large community of intellectuals working toward a common goal under an accepted methodology.

title: Ussher chronology


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Talk:American Civil War spies

Looking for input
I stumbled across this article and I think it is in need of a lot of work. The topic could almost justify turning the article into a simple list or even a category. I'm not sure how to proceed in turning it into an encyclopedia article without making it a story. Thoughts? -- Mufka (user) (talk) (contribs) 02:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I think a simple list would be cutting too much. The detailed history, if referenced properly, is valuable in itself...I do agree the article needs work - Note the third para under the "Confederate" topic: "During the early days of the Campaign, 24 alleged scouts and spies were arrested or detained in Texas, including a man caught sounding the depth of the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg..." This makes no sense. The Susquehanna River is not in Texas !! Engr105th 04:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm working on information related to Hattie Lawton, who was a Pinkerton agent during the Civil War. I will add some online references for the entire article and clean-up the other entries. I'm new to Wikipedia, but I look forward to helping out with this article.S. Frantz 19:43, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Changing Article
I think this article could use a significant change in the way it is presented. I've added some general information about intelligence during the war with additional sources, but there are already articles on many of the spies listed in the article. It seems these names could be listed and linked to the individual bios for each spy. Any suggestions or comments??S. Frantz 13:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Comments by 68.37.158.33 moved to talk page
The Confederates were crude, selfish people and I am utterly embarassed by those who have their flags attached to their cars or display them in their homes. That is cruel and horrible of you to do such things. You don't even realize.

Edward Bancroft was not a spy for the union, but a spy for the Revolutionary War. Please check your facts, it will save others from misleading information as it has led me. Thank you.

Please someone make a page for poor Pryce here. He is lacking where others florish. Thank you.

moved by Avocado (talk) 20:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:American Civil War spies


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Talk:November 20

Trofim Lysenko
Not sure where this goes -- I hope here's a good place. Does it really make sense to list Trofim Lysenko as a "biologist"? I mean, he proclaimed to be one, but mostly he seemsed to be a charlatan and politically expedient media-darling. Shouldn't terms like "biologist" (or "scientist" in general) be reserved for folks who actually study biology, allow data to refute ideas, perform controlled experiments etc? The closest term to Lysenko I can come up with is "mage", and I think for 20th-century characters we should have more stringent requirements before they can be called "(any kind of) scientist", no? I don't feel strongly enough about this to edit it myself, though; just some food for thought. Iron Condor 20:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster's November 19th birthday is mistakenly listed on the November 20th page. --Anon
 * She's removed now. :-) And next time, feel free to be bold and make the change yourself!  Happy editing, Jwrosenzweig 00:43, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Removed
Removed:
 * 1957 - United States Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy proposes ARPA.

Could not be confirmed. --mav 01:21, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Removed:
 * 1978 - A military coup, dubbed Operación Galaxia is foiled in Spain (The exact day is questionable).

The date isn't the only problem; I couldn't confirm it even happened! --mav 01:21, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * It didn't happen. It was foiled! But real military people was arrested. I don't remember the dates. It is named after the Cafetería Galaxia near the Universidad Complutense. It is told that the coup planners met at that cafe. -- Error 02:14, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Removed:
 * 1984 - The 50-billionth McDonald's hamburger is made.

Could not be confirmed outside of 'this day in history'-type pages (very bad source). It is trivia anyway (1 billion and 100 billion would be OK, I guess). --mav 01:21, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC) Out of curiosity: did that include all varieties of hamburgers sold or just the simple, little, plain "hamburger"? Esaons (talk) 14:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say, that the New York Times is a "bad Source" ^^ -- Hartmann Schedel  cheers  00:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Added
Death of Ana Maria Perez at age 119. "State authorities applied about three years ago to have Perez declared the world's oldest woman by the Guinness Book of World Records, but the attempt foundered when officials could not raise enough money for a Guinness judge to visit and confirm the claim, Yanez said." Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34049277/ns/world_news-americas/ Esaons (talk) 14:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Without an article she should not be included. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 18:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Francisco Franco
What is the reason for including people? Francisco Franco is probably more (in)famous than 99 % of people in the "Deaths" section. 91.154.234.194 (talk) 17:05, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

holidays and observances
Is an "observance" included here if it is celebrated by only one state or province of a country? Is that significant enough? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 17:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Declaration of the Rights of the Child
OK … this page tells us the UN adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child on 20th November, 1959.

However? The Wikipedia entry on the Declaration, says it was adopted on the 10th December, 1959.

Can someone check this, and correct as needed? I can’t find anything, online, one way or the other.

13:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC) Cuddy2977 (talk) 13:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:November 20


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Horror punk

Horror punk is a music genre that mixes punk rock and 1950s-influenced doo-wop and rockabilly sounds with morbid and violent imagery and lyrics which are often influenced by horror films and science fiction B-movies. The genre was pioneered by the Misfits in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Subsequent bands formed in the Misfits' wake like Mourning Noise, the Undead and Samhain, solidifying horror punk's first wave. In the late 1990s and early 2000s the genre gained attention through the reunion of the Misfits and success of groups like AFI, Son of Sam and the Murderdolls. This popularity continued to the modern day with Blitzkid, Calabrese and Creeper.

Characteristics
Horror punk is defined by its fusion of punk rock music with the imagery and lyrical topics common in the horror film genre. Typically it references B movies, doing so in a way that emphasises cheesiness. However, some artists and songs in the genre also discuss events of real life horror. Due to this, horror punk generally eschews the political lyrics found in conventional punk rock. The genre also asserts the influence of 1950s–inspired doo-wop and rockabilly sounds.

During the earliest stages of the gothic rock genre, "horror punk" was one term often misapplied to the genre. While both horror punk and gothic rock pull from many of the same points of reference, and sometimes early horror punk groups, particularly the Misfits, are themselves cited as being "proto-gothic", the two genres are distinctly separate by modern definitions. However, the gothic rock genre death rock, with its emphasis on influence from punk rock, contains significant overlap with horror punk. Although, death rock lacks horror punk's rockabilly and doo-wop influences, instead paying a greater attention to musical atmospheres. Psychobilly is also a closely related style to horror punk, particularly during the 2000s when the genres became increasingly intertwined. In an article by Kerrang!, writer Chris Krovatin stated that "the two [genres] have become so accepting of one another, that to make the distinction feels like splitting hairs". Some psychobilly groups even take influence from horror punk imagery, notably Tiger Army.

Precursors
The meeting of horror imagery and rock music has existed since the genre's earliest years. 1950s rock and roll singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins and his single "I Put a Spell on You" is a prominent example of this, through its allusions to voodoo. Additionally, teenage tragedy songs such as "Teen Angel", "Endless Sleep" and "Moody River", were a popular style of songwriting which emphasised horror during the 1950s and 1960s. These elements continued into the 70s with the advent of glam rock and heavy metal. Pioneering groups such as Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath used horror themes extensively throughout their careers.

One of the most prominent influences on horror punk was the Cramps' merger of rockabilly and Shock Theater influenced imagery and lyrics. Furthermore, the Damned one of the earliest English punk rock bands made use of a horror influenced aesthetic. In particular, the band's vocalist David Vanian shaped his stage persona around the 1931 film Dracula and its leading actor Bela Lugosi.

Origins (1970s–1980s)
The Misfits formed in 1977 and began creating music influenced by the then-burgeoning punk rock scene. After recording the album Static Age in 1978, they began writing music inspired by science fiction and B-movie horrors. At the same time, they began using the titular character from the Crimson Ghost (1946) as their logo, wearing makeup, clothes with skeleton patterns during performances and employed a style of hair inspired by Eddie Munster that they came to term a "devilock". Through this stylistic shift, they laid the groundwork for all future horror punk bands. After Misfits guitarist Bobby Steele departed from the band, he formed New York horror punk band the Undead. Steve Zing who was a part of the band's local Lodi, New Jersey following was one of the earliest musicians influenced by the Misfits. Zing formed his own horror punk Mourning Noise in 1981. Following the 1983 breakup of the Misfits, vocalist Glenn Danzig formed Samhain, a similarly horror-themed punk band. The band released only two albums during their time as a band, with a third recorded at the time being released posthumously in 1990. By this time the band's members were instead pursuing the heavy metal band Danzig.

In the early 1980s the death rock genre was pioneered in Los Angeles by groups like 45 Grave, Christian Death, Super Heroines and Kommunity FK. Although death rock and horror punk are separate styles of punk, they bear a significant overlap through emphasis on horror themes and imagery. Death rock band 45 Grave, in particular, are massively influential on horror punk.

Subsequent developments (1990s–present)
The Misfits reformed in 1995, this time featuring Michale Graves on vocals, releasing two albums before his 1998 departure. Although a period of the band often demeaned by its fanbase, the Graves era of the Misfits played a significant role in increasing the notoriety of the band and horror punk in general. Prior to the reunion, they were a band influential amongst the punk and metal scenes however were obscure outside of that circle. It was only during the 1990s that "the majority of rock fans woke up to them".

A new wave of horror punk emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s. AFI, who had previously been established as hardcore band, transitioned into a horror punk sound following their 1998 recruitment of guitarist Jade Puget. A 2022 article published by Metal Hammer credited their 1999 album Black Sails in the Sunset as having "reinvented the horror punk of the Misfits for a new generation". In 2000, AFI vocalist Davey Havok formed Son of Sam alongside the 1999 reunion lineup of Samhain. This lineup released one album Songs from the Earth in 2001. Another key figure from this period was Wednesday 13, who Metal Hammer writer Rich Hobson termed a "horror-punk hero". In 2002 he formed the Murderdolls alongside Joey Jordison, which began writing by "cannibalising" the music of 13's prior band Frankenstein Drag Queens from Planet 13. Following the band's 2004 hiatus, he began a solo-career. At this same time, horror punk-influenced bands also gained notability, including My Chemical Romance, Alkaline Trio and Tiger Army.

During the 2000s, the distinction between psychobilly and horror punk became increasingly obscured. The Creepshow were one prominent band blurring these genre lines. During this same period, Blitzkid's merger of "goth's stretching shadow and pop-punk's teenage humanity" too gained notability alongside Calabrese.

Kerrang! writer Chris Krovatin credited Creeper as the band "keeping horror punk alive" in the late-2010s. Following the release of their debut album Eternity, in Your Arms (2017) the band changed their sound towards glam rock. However, after this shift the band's vocalist Will Gould began Salem, a band reviving Creeper's earlier sound. This led Punktastic writer Tom Walsh to describe Gould as "on a crusade to single handedly revive the horror punk genre".

title: Horror punk


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Ranchera

Ranchera or canción ranchera is a genre of traditional music of Mexico. It dates to before the years of the Mexican Revolution. Rancheras today are played in the vast majority of regional Mexican music styles. Drawing on rural traditional folk music, the ranchera developed as a symbol of a new national consciousness in reaction to the aristocratic tastes of the period.

Definitions

The word ranchera was derived from the word rancho because the songs originated on the ranches and in the countryside of rural Mexico.

Traditional themes in rancheras are about love, heartbreak, patriotism or nature.

Rhythms can have a meter in (in slow tempo:  ranchera lenta and faster tempo: ranchera marcha),  (ranchera vals), or  (bolero ranchero).

Songs are usually in a major key, and consist of an instrumental introduction, verse and refrain, instrumental section repeating the verse, and another verse and refrain, with a tag ending. Rancheras are also noted for the grito mexicano, a yell that is done at musical interludes within a song, either by the musicians and/or the listening audience.

The normal musical pattern of rancheras is a–b–a–b. Rancheras usually begin with an instrumental introduction (a). The first lyrical portion then begins (b), with instrumental adornments interrupting the lines in between. The instruments then repeat the theme again, and then the lyrics may either be repeated or begin a new set of words. One also finds the form a–b–a–b–c–b used, in which the intro (a) is played, followed by the verse (b). This form is repeated, and then a refrain (c) is added, ending with the verse.

The most popular ranchera composers include Lucha Reyes, Cuco Sánchez, Antonio Aguilar, Juan Gabriel and José Alfredo Jiménez, who composed many of the best-known rancheras, with compositions totaling more than 1,000 songs, making him one of the most prolific songwriters in the history of western music.

Another closely related style of music is the corrido, which is often played by the same ensembles that regularly play rancheras. The corrido, however, is apt to be an epic story about heroes and villains, or the narrator's lifestyle.

title: Ranchera