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Proteidae

The family Proteidae is a group of aquatic salamanders found today in the Balkan Peninsula and North America. The range of the genus Necturus (commonly known as waterdogs or mudpuppies) runs from southern central Canada, through the midwestern United States, east to North Carolina and south to Georgia and Mississippi. The range of the olm, the only extant member of the genus Proteus, is limited to the Western Balkans. The fossil record of the family extends into the end of the Late Cretaceous, with Paranecturus being known from the Maastrichtian of North America.

Taxonomy
Proteidae, is divided into two extant genera, Necturus with five North American species, and Proteus with one extant European species, the olm. A number of extinct genera are known extending back to the end of the Late Cretaceous.

Family Proteidae
 * Genus Necturus
 * Alabama waterdog (N. alabamensis)
 * Western waterdog (N. beyeri)
 * Neuse River waterdog (N. lewisi)
 * Common mudpuppy (N. maculosus)
 * Red River mudpuppy (N. m. louisianensis), sometimes considered a full species, N. louisianensis
 * Apalachicola waterdog (N. moleri)
 * Escambia waterdog (N. mounti)
 * Dwarf waterdog (N. punctatus)
 * Genus Proteus
 * Olm (P. anguinus)
 * †P. bavaricus (became extinct during the Pleistocene)
 * Genus †Euronecturus
 * †E. grogu (Miocene, Germany)
 * Genus †Orthophyia
 * †O. longa (Miocene species)
 * Genus †Paranecturus
 * †P. garbanii (Miocene species)
 * Genus †Mioproteus
 * †Mioproteus caucasicus (Middle Miocene)
 * †M. wezei (Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene)

Life history
In contrast to many salamanders, proteids never lose their gills during maturation from larvae. This aspect of their physiology is known as pedomorphosis. Despite having lungs, which appear to provide little use in respiration, mudpuppies spend their entire lives underwater. The adult gills resemble fish gills in many ways, but differ from fish gills in that they are external and lack any form of operculum, or covering. The bright red exposed gills are often found closed against the body in cool, highly oxygenated water. In warmer, poorly oxygenated water, the gills expand to increase water circulation and provide greater surface area for oxygen intake. Necturus salamanders such as "mudpuppies" also absorb oxygen through their skin and by occasionally breathing air at the surface.

Other distinguishing features of proteid salamanders, as compared with other salamanders, are the absence of eyelids and a lack of maxillary bones in the upper jaw. They show a degree of parental care, tending to the eggs after attaching them to submerged stones and logs. Proteid salamanders range in size from 28 cm to 40 cm in length.

Members of the genus Necturus, commonly called "mudpuppies" or "waterdogs", prefer shallow lakes and streams that have slow moving water and rocks to hide under, but have been found in up to 90 feet of water. Their name originates from the misconception that they make a dog-like barking sound. Diet consists of small fish and many invertebrates, including crayfish, snails, and worms. Mudpuppies mature at four to six years and can live to be more than twenty years old. Progenesis is common for mudpuppies, enabling them to reach sexual maturity in their larval stage.

Even though they eat fish eggs, negative effects on fish populations have not been documented. Fishermen have been known to catch mudpuppies, sometimes in large numbers, but most often when ice fishing. Necturus salamanders also commonly feed on mollusks, worms, insects and small fish.

To distinguish between a larval mudpuppy and other larval salamanders, note that larval mudpuppies have distinct longitudinal banding and four toes on their hind legs, the combination of which is not found in most larval salamanders within the same range. The main difference between a mudpuppy and a siren is that, whereas mudpuppies have both front and hind legs, a siren will only have one pair of very small, atrophied front legs.

title: Proteidae


text:
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, commonly known as the McCain–Feingold Act or BCRA , is a United States federal law that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which regulates the financing of political campaigns. Its chief sponsors were senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ). The law became effective on 6 November 2002, and the new legal limits became effective on January 1, 2003.

As noted in McConnell v. FEC, a United States Supreme Court ruling on BCRA, the Act was designed to address two issues:
 * The increased role of soft money in campaign financing, by prohibiting national political party committees from raising or spending any funds not subject to federal limits, even for state and local races or issue discussion;
 * The proliferation of issue advocacy ads, by defining broadcast ads that name a federal candidate within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election as "electioneering communications", and prohibiting any such ad paid for by a corporation (including non-profit issue organizations such as Right to Life or the Environmental Defense Fund) or paid for by an unincorporated entity using any corporate or union general treasury funds. The decision in Citizens United v. FEC overturns this provision, but not the ban on foreign corporations or foreign nationals in decisions regarding political spending.

Although the legislation is known as "McCain–Feingold", the Senate version is not the bill that became law. Instead, the companion legislation, H.R. 2356—introduced by Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), is the version that became law. Shays–Meehan was originally introduced as H.R. 380.

History of the bill
In the aftermath of Watergate, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, which put new limits on contributions to campaigns. Four years later, the FEC ruled that donors could donate unlimited money to political parties (but not the candidates themselves) if the party used that money for "party building activities" such as voter registration drives, but not to directly support candidates. Both the Republican and Democratic parties nonetheless used this money to support their candidates, and money donated to parties became known as soft money. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush vetoed a bill passed by the Democratic Congress that would have, among other things, restricted the use of soft money. President Clinton pushed for a similar bill, but was unable to get both houses to agree on one bill.

In 1995, senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) jointly published an op-ed calling for campaign finance reform, and began working on their own bill. In 1998, the Senate voted on the bill, but the bill failed to meet the 60 vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. All 45 Senate Democrats and 6 Senate Republicans voted to invoke cloture, but the remaining 49 Republicans voted against invoking cloture. This effectively killed the bill for the remainder of the 105th Congress.

McCain's 2000 campaign for president and a series of scandals (including the Enron scandal) brought the issue of campaign finance to the fore of public consciousness in 2001. McCain and Feingold pushed the bill in the Senate, while Chris Shays (R-CT) and Marty Meehan (D-MA) led the effort to pass the bill in the House. In just the second successful use of the discharge petition since the 1980s, a mixture of Democrats and Republicans defied Speaker Dennis Hastert and passed a campaign finance reform bill. The House approved the bill with a 240–189 vote, sending the bill to the Senate. The bill passed the Senate in a 60–40 vote, the bare minimum required to overcome the filibuster. Throughout the congressional battle on the bill, President Bush declined to take a strong position, but nonethless signed the bill into law in March 2002 after it cleared both houses of Congress.

Legal disputes
Provisions of the legislation were challenged as unconstitutional by a group of plaintiffs led by then–Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, a long-time opponent of the bill. President Bush signed the law despite "reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising." He appeared to expect that the Supreme Court would overturn some of its key provisions. But, in December 2003, the Supreme Court upheld most of the legislation in McConnell v. FEC.

Subsequently, political parties and "watchdog" organizations have filed complaints with the FEC concerning the raising and spending of soft money by so-called "527 organizations"—organizations claiming tax-exemption as "political organizations" under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, but not registering as "political committees" under the Federal Election Campaign Act, which uses a different legal definition. These organizations have been established on both sides of the political aisle, and have included high-profile organizations such as the Media Fund and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. 527s are financed in large part by wealthy individuals, labor unions, and businesses. 527s pre-dated McCain–Feingold but grew in popularity after the law took effect. In May 2004, the FEC voted to not write new rules on the application of federal campaign finance laws to 527 organizations. Although the FEC did promulgate a new rule in the fall of 2004 requiring some 527s participating in federal campaigns to use at least 50% "hard money" (contributions regulated by the Federal Election Campaign Act) to pay their expenses, the FEC did not change its regulations on when a 527 organization must register as a federal "political committee"-prompting Representatives Shays and Meehan to file a federal court lawsuit against the FEC for the Commission's failure to adopt a 527 rule. In September, 2007, a Federal District Court ruled in favor of the FEC, against congressmen Shays and Meehan.

In December 2006 the FEC entered settlements with three 527 groups the commission found to have violated federal law by failing to register as "political committees" and abide by contribution limits, source prohibitions and disclosure requirements during the 2004 election cycle. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was fined $299,500; the League of Conservation Voters was fined $180,000; MoveOn.org was fined $150,000. In February 2007, the 527 organization Progress for America Voter Fund was likewise fined $750,000 for its failure to abide by federal campaign finance laws during the 2004 election cycle.

In June 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court held, in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., that BCRA's limitations on corporate and labor union funding of broadcast ads mentioning a candidate within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election are unconstitutional as applied to ads susceptible of a reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate. Some election law experts believed that the new exception would render BCRA's "electioneering communication" provisions meaningless, while others believed the new exception to be quite narrow.

In June 2008, the section of the act known as the "millionaire's amendment" was overturned by the Supreme Court in Davis v. Federal Election Commission. This provision had attempted to "equalize" campaigns by providing that the legal limit on contributions would increase for a candidate who was substantially outspent by an opposing candidate using personal wealth. In 2008 one of the cosponsors of the legislation, Senator John McCain of Arizona, touted this piece of legislation and others that he sponsored in his bid for the presidency. Senator McCain consistently voiced concern over campaign practices and their funding. "'Questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics, and because they incite public distrust, they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption,' McCain wrote in his 2002 memoir Worth the Fighting For. 'By the time I became a leading advocate of campaign finance reform, I had come to appreciate that the public's suspicions were not always mistaken. Money does buy access in Washington, and access increases influence that often results in benefiting the few at the expense of the many.'"

In March 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, regarding whether or not a political documentary about Hillary Clinton could be considered a political ad that must be paid for with funds regulated under the Federal Election Campaign Act. In January 2010, the Supreme Court struck down sections of McCain–Feingold which limited activity of corporations, saying, "If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech." Specifically, Citizens United struck down campaign financing laws related to corporations and unions; law previously banned the broadcast, cable or satellite transmission of "electioneering communications" paid for by corporations in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general election. The minority argued that the court erred in allowing unlimited corporate spending, arguing that corporate spending posed a particular threat to democratic self-government.

President Barack Obama expressed his concern over the Supreme Court's decision during his 2010 State of the Union Address, delivered January 27, saying, "With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems." President Obama also called the decision, "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

Impact
BCRA decreased the role of soft money in political campaigns as the law places limits on the contributions by interest groups and national political parties. BCRA had a "Stand by Your Ad" Provision, which requires candidates in the United States for federal political office, as well as interest groups and political parties supporting or opposing a candidate, to include in political advertisements on television and radio "a statement by the candidate that identifies the candidate and states that the candidate has approved the communication."

The impact of BCRA first started being felt nationally with the 2004 elections. One immediately recognizable result was that, as a result of the so-called stand by your ad provision, all campaign advertisements included a verbal statement to the effect of "I'm [candidate's name] and I approve this message."

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

title: Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act


text:
J. Hans D. Jensen

Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen (25 June 1907 – 11 February 1973) was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, known as the Uranium Club, where he contributed to the separation of uranium isotopes. After the war, Jensen was a professor at the University of Heidelberg. He was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Institute for Advanced Study, University of California, Berkeley, Indiana University, and the California Institute of Technology.

Jensen shared half of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer for their proposal of the nuclear shell model.

Education
Jensen studied physics, mathematics, physical chemistry and philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and University of Hamburg from 1926 to 1931, and received his doctorate at the latter in 1932 under Wilhelm Lenz. He completed his habilitation in 1936 at the University of Hamburg.

Career
In 1937 Jensen was Privatdozent (unpaid lecturer) at the University of Hamburg and began working with Paul Harteck, director of the university's physical chemistry department and advisor to the Heereswaffenamt (HWA, Army Ordnance Office) on explosives. Harteck and his teaching assistant Wilhelm Groth made contact with the Reichskriegsministerium (RKM, Reich Ministry of War) on 24 April 1939 to tell them of potential military applications of nuclear chain reactions. Military control of the German nuclear energy project, also known as the Uranverein (Uranium Club), began on 1 September 1939, the day that Nazi Germany initiated World War II by invading Poland. Harteck, one of the principals in the Uranverein, brought Jensen into the project. Jensen's main thrust was on double centrifuges for separation of uranium isotopes (see the section below citing internal reports of the Uranverein). Harteck and Jensen developed a double centrifuge based on a rocking process (Schaukelverfahren) to facilitate the separation effect.

In 1941 Jensen was named extraordinarius professor of theoretical physics at the Technische Hochschule Hannover (today, the Leibniz University Hannover), and in 1946 became an ordinarius professor there. In 1949 he was appointed ordinarius professor at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg; and, from 1969 on, was emeritus praecox. He was a guest professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1951), the Institute for Advanced Study (1952), University of California, Berkeley (1952), Indiana University (1953), California Institute of Technology (1953), University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (1956), and University of California, San Diego (1961).

In 1963 Jensen shared half of the Nobel Prize in Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer for their proposal of the nuclear shell model; the other half of the prize was awarded to Eugene Wigner for unrelated work in nuclear and particle physics.

Jensen died on 11 February, 1973 at Heidelberg aged 65.

Party memberships
Adolf Hitler took power on 30 January 1933. On 7 April of that year the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service was enacted; this law, and its subsequent related ordinances, politicized the education system in Germany. Other factors enforcing the politicization of education were Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, National Socialist German Workers Party) organizations in academia and the rise of the Deutsche Physik movement, which was anti-Semitic and had a bias against theoretical physics, especially including quantum mechanics. The Party organizations were the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (NSDStB, National Socialist German Student League) founded in 1926, the Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund (NSLB, National Socialist Teachers League) founded in 1927, and the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Dozentenbund (NSDDB, National Socialist German University Lecturers League) founded in 1933. While membership in the NSDDB was not mandatory, it was tactically advantageous, if not unavoidable, as the district leaders had a decisive role in the acceptance of an Habilitationsschrift, which was a prerequisite to attaining the rank of Privatdozent necessary to becoming a university lecturer.

While all German universities were politicized, not all were as strict in carrying out this end as was the University of Hamburg, where Jensen received his doctorate and Habilitationsschrift. Upon his 1936 habilitation he had been a member of NSDDB for three years, the NSLB for two years, and a candidate for membership in NSDAP, which he received the next year. The university leader of NSLB had made it clear that active participation was expected from Jensen, and that is what they got.

After World War II the denazification process began. When Jensen faced the proceedings, he turned to Werner Heisenberg, a prominent member of the Uranverein, for a testament to his character – a document known as a Persilschein (whitewash certificate). Heisenberg was a particularly powerful writer of these documents; as he had never been a member of NSDAP, he had publicly clashed with NSDAP and the Schutzstaffel (SS), and was appointed by the British occupation authorities to the chair for theoretical physics and the directorship of the Max-Planck Institut für Physik then in Göttingen. Heisenberg wrote the document and convinced the authorities that Jensen had joined the Party organizations only to avoid unnecessary difficulties in academia.

Honors
Honors conferred upon Jensen include:
 * 1947 – Honorary professor at the University of Hamburg
 * 1963 – Nobel Prize in Physics
 * 1964 – Honorary doctorate from the Technische Universität Hannover (today, the Leibniz University Hannover)
 * 1969 – Honorary citizen of Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Internal reports
The following reports were published in Kernphysikalische Forschungsberichte (Research Reports in Nuclear Physics), an internal publication of the German Uranverein. The reports were classified Top Secret, they had very limited distribution, and the authors were not allowed to keep copies. The reports were confiscated under the Allied Operation Alsos and sent to the United States Atomic Energy Commission for evaluation. In 1971 the reports were declassified and returned to Germany. The reports are available at the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and the American Institute of Physics.
 * Paul Harteck, Johannes Jensen, Friedrich Knauer, and Hans Suess Über die Bremsung, die Diffusion und den Einfang von Neutronen in fester Kohlensäure und über ihren Einfang in Uran G-36 (19 August 1940)
 * Paul Harteck and Johannes Jesnsen Der Thermodiffusionseffekt im Zusammenspiel mit der Konvektion durch mechanisch bewegte Wände und Vergleich mit der Thermosiphonwirkung G-89 (18 February 1941)
 * Johannes Jensen Über die Ultrazentrifugenmethode zur Trennung der Uranisotope G-95 (December 1941)
 * Paul Harteck and Johannes Jensen Gerechnung des Trenneffektes und der Ausbeute verschiedner Zentrifugenanordnungen zur Erhöhung des Wirkungsgrades einer einselnen Zentrifuge G-158 (February 1943)
 * Paul Harteck, Johannes Jensen, and Albert Suhr Über den Zusammenhang zwischen Ausbeute und Trennschärfe bei der Niederdruckkolonne G-159

Books

 * Konrad Beyerle, Wilhelm Groth, Paul Harteck, and Johannes Jensen Über Gaszentrifugen: Anreicherung der Xenon-, Krypton- und der Selen-Isotope nach dem Zentrifugenverfahren (Chemie, 1950); cited in Walker, 1993, p. 278

Articles

 * Otto Haxel, J. Hans D. Jensen, and Hans E. Suess On the "Magic Numbers" in Nuclear Structure, Phys. Rev. Volume 75, 1766 - 1766 (1949). Institutional affiliations: Haxel: Max-Planck Institut für Physik, Göttingen; Jensen: Institut für theoretische Physik, Heidelberg; and Suess: Inst. für physikalische Chemie, Hamburg. Received 18 April 1949.
 * Helmut Steinwedel, J. Hans D. Jensen, and Peter Jensen Nuclear Dipole Vibrations, Phys. Rev. Volume 79, Issue 6, 1019 - 1019 (1950). Institutional affiliations: Steinwedel and J. H. D. Jensen - Institut für theoretische Physik, Universität Heidelberg and Peter Jensen - Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg. Received 10 July 1950.

title: J. Hans D. Jensen


text:
Charles H. Townes

Charles Hard Townes (July 28, 1915 – January 27, 2015) was an American physicist. Townes worked on the theory and application of the maser, for which he obtained the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics associated with both maser and laser devices. He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. Townes was an adviser to the United States Government, meeting every US president from Harry S. Truman (1945) to Bill Clinton (1999).

He directed the US government's Science and Technology Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program. After becoming a professor of the University of California, Berkeley in 1967, he began an astrophysical program that produced several important discoveries, for example, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Townes was religious and believed that science and religion are converging to provide a greater understanding of the nature and purpose of the universe.

Early life and education
Townes had German, Scottish, English, Welsh, Huguenot French, and Scotch Irish ancestry, Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Henry Keith Townes (1876–1958), an attorney, and Ellen Sumter Townes (Hard; 1881–1980). His brother, Henry Keith Townes Jr., (January 20, 1913 – May 2, 1990), was a renowned entomologist who was a world authority on Ichneumon wasps. Charles earned his B.S. in Physics and B.A. in Modern Languages at Furman University, where he graduated in 1935. Townes completed work for the Master of Arts degree in physics at Duke University in 1937, and then began graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, from which he received a Ph.D. degree in 1939. During World War II, he worked on radar bombing systems at Bell Labs.

Career and research
In 1950, Townes was appointed professor at Columbia University. He served as executive director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory from 1950 to 1952. He was Chairman of the Physics Department from 1952 to 1955.

In 1951, Townes conceived a new way to create intense, precise beams of coherent radiation, for which he invented the acronym maser (for Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). When the same principle was applied to higher frequencies, the term laser was used (the word "light" substituting for the word "microwave").

During 1953, Townes, James P. Gordon, and Herbert J. Zeiger built the first ammonia maser at Columbia University. This device used stimulated emission in a stream of energized ammonia molecules to produce amplification of microwaves at a frequency of about 24.0 gigahertz.

From 1959 to 1961, he was on leave of absence from Columbia University to serve as vice president and director of research of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit organization, which advised the U.S. government and was operated by eleven universities. Between 1961 and 1967, Townes served as both provost and professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then, during 1967, he was appointed as a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, where he remained for almost 50 years; his status was as professor emeritus by the time of his death during 2015. Between 1966 and 1970, he was chairman of the NASA Science Advisory Committee for the Apollo lunar landing program.

For his creation of the maser, Townes along with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics. Townes also developed the use of masers and lasers for astronomy, was part of a team that first discovered complex molecules in space, and determined the mass of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy.

During 2002–2003, Townes served as a Karl Schwarzschild Lecturer in Germany and the Birla Lecturer and Schroedinger Lecturer in India.

Townes is one of the 20 American recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics to sign a letter addressed to President George W. Bush in May 2008, urging him to "reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill" by requesting additional emergency funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Galactic Center
The Galactic Center of the Milky Way had long puzzled astronomers, and thick dust obscures the view of it in visible light. During the mid to late 1970s, Townes together with Eric Wollman, John Lacy, Thomas Geballe and Fred Baas studied Sagittarius A, the H II region at the Galactic Center, at infrared wavelengths. They observed ionized neon gas swirling around the center at such velocities that the mass at the very center must be approximately equal to that of 3 million suns. Such a large mass in such a small space implied that the central object (the radio source Sagittarius A*) contains a supermassive black hole. Sagittarius A* was one of the first black holes detected; subsequently its mass has been more accurately determined to be 4.3 million solar masses.

Shapes and sizes of stars
Townes's last major technological creation was the Infrared Spatial Interferometer with Walt Fitelson, Ed Wishnow and others. The project combined three mobile infrared detectors aligned by lasers that study the same star. If each telescope is 10 meters from the other, it creates an impression of a 30-meter lens. Observations of Betelgeuse, a red giant in the shoulder of the constellation Orion, found that it is increasing and decreasing in size at the rate of 1% per year, 15% over 15 years. ISI produces extremely high angular and spatial resolution. The technology is also playing an important role in the search for extraterrestrial life in collaborations with Dan Werthimer of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Personal life and legacy
Townes married Frances H. Brown, an activist for the homeless, during 1941. They lived in Berkeley, California and had four daughters, Linda Rosenwein, Ellen Anderson, Carla Kessler, and Holly Townes.

A religious man and a member of the United Church of Christ, Townes believed that "science and religion [are] quite parallel, much more similar than most people think and that in the long run, they must converge". He wrote in a statement after winning the Templeton Prize during 2005: "Science tries to understand what our universe is like and how it works, including us humans. Religion is aimed at understanding the purpose and meaning of our universe, including our own lives. If the universe has a purpose or meaning, this must be reflected in its structure and functioning, and hence in science."

Science and religion
Townes's opinions concerning science and religion were expounded in his essays "The Convergence of Science and Religion", "Logic and Uncertainties in Science and Religion", and his book Making Waves. Townes felt that the beauty of nature is "obviously God-made" and that God created the universe for humans to emerge and flourish. He prayed every day and ultimately felt that religion is more important than science because it addresses the most important long-range question: the meaning and purpose of our lives. Townes's belief in the convergence of science and religion is based on claimed similarities:
 * 1) Faith. Townes argued that the scientist has faith much like a religious person does, allowing him/her to work for years for an uncertain result.
 * 2) Revelation. Townes claimed that many important scientific discoveries, like his invention of the maser/laser, occurred as a "flash" much more akin to religious revelation than interpreting data.
 * 3) Proof. During this century the mathematician Godel discovered there can be no absolute proof in a scientific sense. Every proof requires a set of assumptions, and there is no way to check if those assumptions are self-consistent because other assumptions would be required.
 * 4) Uncertainty. Townes believed that we should be open-minded to a better understanding of science and religion in the future. This will require us to modify our theories, but not abandon them. For example, at the start of the 20th century physics was largely deterministic. But when scientists began studying the quantum mechanics they realized that indeterminism and chance play a role in our universe. Both classical physics and quantum mechanics are correct and work well within their own bailiwick, and continue to be taught to students. Similarly, Townes believes growth of religious understanding will modify, but not make us abandon, our classic religious beliefs.

Death
Townes had steadily been active at the UCB campus, visiting and working regularly in the physics department or at the Space Sciences Laboratory past his 99th birthday and only a few months before his death. Townes' health began to decline, and he died on route to the hospital in Oakland, California, on January 27, 2015, at the age of 99. "He was one of the most important experimental physicists of the last century," Reinhard Genzel, a professor of physics at Berkeley, said of Townes. "His strength was his curiosity and his unshakable optimism, based on his deep Christian spirituality."

Selected publications
Townes work was published widely in books and peer-reviewed journal articles, including:

Awards and honors
Townes was widely recognized for his scientific work and leadership.

.
 * 1956 — elected Full Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
 * 1957 — elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
 * 1958 — awarded the Comstock Prize in Physics from the National Academy of Science.
 * 1959 — awarded the Richtmyer Memorial Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers.
 * 1960 — elected Member of the American Philosophical Society.
 * 1961 — awarded the David Sarnoff Electronics Award given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Rumford Prize awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
 * 1962 — The John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science given by the National Academy of Science.
 * 1962 — Stuart Ballantine Medal given by The Franklin Institute.
 * 1963 — Young Medal and Prize, for distinguished research in the field of optics presented by the Institute of Physics.
 * 1964 — Nobel Prize in Physics with Nikolay Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov for contributions to fundamental work in quantum electronics leading to the development of the maser and laser.
 * 1969 - Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
 * 1970 — Wilhelm Exner Medal.
 * 1976 — Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS)
 * 1979 — He was awarded the Niels Bohr international medal, for contributions to the peaceful use of atomic energy.
 * 1980 — Townes was inducted by his home state into the South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology, and has also been awarded a South Carolina Hall of Science and Technology Citation.
 * 1982 — He received the National Medal of Science, presented by President Ronald Reagan.
 * 1983 — appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
 * 1994 — elected Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
 * 1996 — awarded the Frederic Ives Medal by the Optical Society of America
 * 1997 — Jansky Lectureship before the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
 * 1998 — awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society.
 * 2000 — awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal by the Russian Academy of Sciences.
 * 2003 — awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado.
 * 2004 — awarded the Italian Society of Optics and Photonics (SIOF) "Galileo" medal.
 * 2005 — awarded the Templeton Prize for "Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities."
 * He has also been awarded the LeConte Medallion.
 * 2006 — Along with associate Raj Reddy, Townes was awarded the Vannevar Bush Award for Lifetime Contributions and Statesmanship to Science
 * 2008 — On May 24 Townes received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Redlands.
 * 2010 — SPIE Gold Medal
 * 2011 —On May 14 Townes received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Texas A&M University.
 * 2012 — awarded the Golden Goose Award for government-funded research with unexpected applications.
 * 2012 — awarded the Nancy DeLoye Fitzroy and Roland V. Fitzroy Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers

title: Charles H. Townes


text:
Television pilot

A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie) in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distributor. A pilot is created to be a testing ground to gauge whether a series will be successful. It is, therefore, a test episode for the intended television series, an early step in the series development, much like pilot studies serve as precursors to the start of larger activity.

A successful pilot may be used as the series premiere, the first aired episode of a new show, but sometimes a series' pilot may be aired as a later episode or never aired at all. Some series are commissioned straight-to-series without a pilot (although an increasing number of such series have their first episodes titled "Pilot"). On some occasions, pilots that were not ordered to series may also be broadcast as a standalone television film or special.

A "backdoor pilot" is an episode of an existing series that heavily features supporting characters or guest stars in previously unseen roles. Its purpose is to introduce the characters to an audience before the creators decide on whether or not they intend to pursue a spin-off series with those characters.

Television networks use pilots to determine whether an entertaining concept can be successfully realized and whether the expense of additional episodes is justified. A pilot is best thought of as a prototype of the show that is to follow, because elements often change from pilot to series. Variety estimates that only a little over a quarter of all pilots made for American television proceed to the series stage.

Pilot season
Each summer, the major American broadcast television networks – including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, Univision, and Telemundo – receive about 500 brief elevator pitches each for new shows from writers and producers. That fall, each network requests scripts for about 70 pitches and, the following January, orders about 20 pilot episodes. Actors come to Los Angeles from within the area or elsewhere in the United States and around the world to audition for them. By spring, actors are cast and production crews assembled to produce the pilots.

Casting is a lengthy and very competitive process. For the 1994 pilot of Friends, casting director Ellie Kanner reviewed more than 1,000 actors' head shots for each of the six main roles. She summoned 75 actors for each role to audition, and she then chose some to audition again for the show's creators. Of this group, the creators chose some to audition again for Warner Bros. Television executives, who chose the final group of a few actors to audition for NBC executives; as they decide whether to purchase a pilot, network executives generally have ultimate authority over casting. Since the networks work on the same shared schedule, directors, actors and others must choose the best pilot to work for with the hopes that the network will choose it. If it is not chosen, they have wasted their time and money and may have missed out on better career opportunities.

Once they have been produced, the pilots are presented to studio and network executives, and in some cases to test audiences; at this point, each pilot receives various degrees of feedback and is gauged on its potential to advance from one pilot to a full-fledged series. Using this feedback, and factoring in the current status and future potential of their existing series, each network chooses about four to eight pilots for series status. The new series are then presented at the networks' annual upfronts in May, where they are added to network schedules for the following season (either for a fall or "mid-season" winter debut), and at the upfront presentation, the shows are shown to potential advertisers and the networks sell the majority of the advertising for their new pilots. The survival odds for these new series are low, as typically only one or two of them survive for more than one season.

Premise pilot
A premise pilot introduces the characters and their world to the viewer; it is structured so that it can be run as the first episode of the series if substantial changes are not made between the pilot and greenlighting. In the event the changes being made are so substantial that they would cause confusion to viewers, the pilot (or portions of it) is often re-shot, recast, or rewritten to fit the rest of the series.

The pilot for Gilligan's Island, for instance, showed the castaways when they had just become stranded on the island. However, three roles were recast before going to series, with the characters either modified or completely altered to the point where the pilot could no longer be used as a regular episode. As a result, CBS aired Gilligan's second produced episode, which opened with the same scene of the characters just stranded on the island (showing only those not re-cast), first; the story from the pilot from that point onward was largely reworked into a flashback episode which aired later (with several key scenes re-shot). Even Gilligan's theme song, which was originally done as a calypso number, was rewritten and recomposed to be completely different.

Another example is Star Trek, where footage from the unaired original pilot, "The Cage", was incorporated into the two-part episode, "The Menagerie", with the story justification that it depicts events that happened several years earlier. Conversely, the second pilot for Star Trek, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", aired as the third episode of the show's first season, even though it included some casting and costuming differences that set it apart from the preceding episodes.

If a network orders a two-hour pilot, it will usually broadcast it as a television film to recoup some of its costs even if the network chooses to not order the show. Sometimes, a made-for-TV-movie is filmed as a pilot, but because of actors not being available, the series intro is reshot for the first aired episode. The original Cagney & Lacey movie co-starred Loretta Swit (of M*A*S*H fame) as Chris Cagney, but when she could not get out of her contract, they reshot it with Meg Foster, who after the first season was replaced with Sharon Gless; therefore, the original movie is not considered part of the television series, and is not included in the series collections on DVD. In some cases, this does not hamper broadcast, such as Jackie Cooper playing the role of Walter Carlson in the TV movie pilot of the 1975 series The Invisible Man, but being replaced by Craig Stevens for the remainder of the series; the pilot is still considered part of the series and released to DVD as such. Likewise, The Homecoming: A Christmas Story had an almost entirely different cast from the series it was intended to pilot (The Waltons), but both have been rerun for many years.

Proof of concept
A proof of concept pilot usually takes place chronologically further into a series run than a premise pilot, to give network executives a better feel for how a typical episode would appear (since a premise pilot may have to deviate from a typical episode in order to properly introduce characters). Remington Steele used both a proof of concept and a premise pilot. Proofs of concept were particularly common for game shows; in such cases, the pilot may be entirely or partially scripted (and thus, due to regulations passed after the 1950s quiz show scandals, illegal to broadcast in many jurisdictions) and use fake contestants and "returning champions" to demonstrate those concepts. The adventure series Lassie had both a premise pilot, "The Inheritance", designed specifically to air as the series' first episode, showing how Lassie's series owner, Jeff Miller, came to acquire her; and a proof of concept pilot, "The Well", showcased situations typical to the series, which aired well on into the first season of the series.

Backdoor pilot
A backdoor pilot is a film or miniseries that serves as a proof of concept for a full series, but may be broadcast on its own even if the full series is not picked up. The term may also be used for an episode of an existing television show that serves to introduce a spin-off. Such backdoor pilots commonly focus on an existing character or characters from the parent series who are to be given their own show.

For example, to introduce A Different World, built around The Cosby Show character Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet), the Cosby Show episode "Hillman" was devoted to the Huxtable family visiting Denise during her freshman year at Hillman College though no characters from the upcoming series were introduced. A 2018 episode of ABC's 1980s-set sitcom The Goldbergs, titled "1990-Something", heavily featured teachers who were recurring characters on the series and served as the backdoor pilot to Schooled, which debuted in early 2019.

In other cases, an episode of the parent show may focus on one or more guest characters who have not previously appeared in the show. For example, the JAG season eight episodes "Ice Queen" and "Meltdown" introduced the characters for what would become NCIS, while the NCIS season six two-part episode "Legend" introduced the characters for what would become the NCIS spin-off series NCIS: Los Angeles, and the NCIS season 11 two-part episode "Crescent City" introduced the characters for what would become NCIS: New Orleans. NCIS: Los Angeles itself also included a backdoor pilot for a potential further spin-off – NCIS: Red – but the series was not picked up.

Similarly, the backdoor pilot for the television sitcom Empty Nest was an episode of The Golden Girls, which relegated that show's regular stars to supporting characters in an episode devoted to new characters who were introduced as their neighbors. Feedback on the episode resulted in Empty Nest being extensively reworked before its debut; while the concept and the "living next to the Golden Girls" setting was retained, the series ended up featuring different characters from those in the original Golden Girls episode.

A 2011 episode of the TV Land original sitcom Hot in Cleveland focused on the wedding of the character Elka (played by Betty White). Boyce Ballentine (Cedric the Entertainer), an R&B singer-turned-preacher, was introduced as the pastor for the wedding, with the intention of Boyce eventually having his own series on the network. That came to fruition in 2012, when TV Land introduced The Soul Man.

A historically important venue for backdoor pilots has been the anthology series. They have variously been used as a place to show work still being actively considered for pickup, and as a venue for completed work already rejected by the network. With the decline of anthology series, backdoor pilots have increasingly been seen as episodes of existing series, one-off television films, and miniseries. As backdoor pilots have either failed to sell or are awaiting audience reception from its one-time broadcast, networks will not advertise them as pilots, only promoting them as a "special" or "movie". It is thus often unclear to initial viewers of backdoor pilots that they are seeing a pilot of any kind, unless they have been privy to knowledgeable media coverage of the piece.

Not all backdoor pilots lead to a series. The Star Trek episode "Assignment: Earth" was a backdoor pilot for a spin-off of the same name, featuring a human named Gary Seven (played by Robert Lansing), taken from Earth's far past and raised by aliens to be sent to watch over Earth in the 1960s; while the series was not picked up, its characters have appeared in numerous non-canon Trek productions set in the 20th century. The third season two-part episode "Terra Firma" of Star Trek: Discovery is generally regarded as a backdoor pilot for a series featuring the character Philippa Georgiou. The final two episodes of the CBS sitcom Green Acres (1965–71) were both backdoor pilots. With CBS being pressured by advertisers to develop more urban-themed shows (ultimately at the expense of the network's rural-themed programs), Green Acres creator Jay Sommers was given an opportunity to develop two series ideas, both of which were rejected.

ABC attempted to create a spin-off of Charlie's Angels in 1980 called Toni's Boys. The backdoor pilot that aired near the end of season four was simply titled "Toni's Boys" and guest starred Barbara Stanwyck as Antonia "Toni" Blake, a wealthy widow and friend of Charlie Townsend's who ran a detective agency she inherited from her late husband. The agency was staffed by three handsome male detectives: Cotton Harper (Stephen Shortridge), Bob Sorensen (Bob Seagren), and Matt Parrish (Bruce Bauer). The three took direction from Toni and solved crimes in a manner similar to the Angels. The show was not picked up as a regular series for the following season.

The series finale of One Day at a Time in May 1984 served as a backdoor pilot to a spin-off featuring Pat Harrington, Jr.'s character Dwayne Schneider in a new setting, but CBS ultimately passed on the potential series. Similarly, the 1988 two-part series finale of The Facts of Life ("The Beginning of the End" and "The Beginning of the Beginning") also served as a backdoor pilot that focused on the decision Blair Warner (Lisa Whelchel) made in using her trust fund to purchase the financially troubled Eastland Academy. Blair became headmistress and opened enrollment to male students for the first time in Eastland history. Up-and-coming actors Juliette Lewis, Mayim Bialik, Seth Green, and Meredith Scott Lynn were featured as some of Eastland's new students. NBC did not pick up the new series.

The Dukes of Hazzard aired two episodes, named "Jude Emery" and "Mason Dixon's Girls", which served as a backdoor pilot complete with the Dukes cast interacting with the new characters. Ultimately, CBS passed on the two series in favor of a series starring Hazzard County deputy Enos Strate.

A pair of Married... with Children episodes aired as backdoor pilots that would not be picked up. The first, Radio Free Trumaine, featured Keri Russell as a college student who winds up working at the campus radio station, with David Garrison set to reprise his role as Steve Rhoades. The other was Enemies, which was intended as an antithesis to Friends in the same way the flagship Married... with Children was for The Cosby Show. The pilot featured a guest appearance by Alan Thicke.

In June 2010, Lifetime pursued a spinoff procedural drama of Army Wives featuring Brigid Brannagh's character, police officer Pamela Moran. The fourth-season episode "Murder in Charleston" was intended to serve as a backdoor pilot for the proposed spin-off. The episode sees Moran teaming up with an Atlanta-based detective on a murder that is related to a case she has been working on for the past three years. At the end of the episode, the detective encourages Moran to take a detective's exam, and to look for her if she is in Atlanta. In September 2010, however, Lifetime declined to pick up the project to series.

In 2013, The CW announced there was a spin-off of their genre hit Supernatural in the works. The 20th episode of season nine titled "Bloodlines", served as a back-door pilot, revealed in January 2014 to have been titled Supernatural: Bloodlines. The series was set to explore the "clashing hunter and monster cultures in Chicago". The show was not picked up by the CW for the 2014–2015 season due to dismal overall reception by viewers. The Gossip Girl episode "Valley Girls" was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a prequel spin-off series starring Brittany Snow as a young Lily van der Woodsen, however the show was not picked up. "The Farm" was an episode of NBC's The Office that was supposed to act as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series starring Rainn Wilson and focusing on his character, Dwight Schrute. Upon review, the spin-off was not picked up by NBC and the original version was never aired; instead it was reworked with additional material shot later, as the original version contained "certain aspects that were appropriate for a pilot of a new show".

The Arrow episode "The Scientist" served as a backdoor pilot for the spinoff series The Flash, introducing Barry Allen as a CSI searching for super-powered people in an attempt to find his mother's murderer. This episode also created the Arrowverse, a shared universe of interconnected DC Comics superhero TV series. The "Heroes Join Forces" crossover was a two-part backdoor pilot for another spinoff series set in the Arrowverse called Legends of Tomorrow, featuring a team of heroes and villains originally introduced in Arrow and The Flash. The penultimate episode of Arrow, "Green Arrow & The Canaries" served as an unsuccessful backdoor pilot for a series of the same name. The 100 episode "Anaconda" also served as an unsuccessful backdoor pilot for a prequel series.

Put pilot
A put pilot is a pilot that the network has agreed to broadcast either as a special or series; if it does not, it will have to pay substantial monetary penalties to the studio. This usually guarantees that the pilot will be picked up by the network.

Unsold pilot
An unsold pilot or "busted pilot" is a produced episode that is never broadcast or made into a television series. Variety estimates that only a little over a quarter of all pilots made for American television proceed to the series stage.

Test run
Instead of a single pilot episode, an alternative is a test run, a small number of episodes that air as a short-run series with the potential to go into full production if successful. This is particularly common among shows that are intended to be stripped (airing five days a week).

Talk shows occasionally use test runs. Metromedia and its successor Fox Corporation were particularly associated with using test runs for talk shows, with examples including The Wendy Williams Show, The Huckabee Show (a spin-off of Huckabee that aired for six weeks in summer 2010), the final version of The Jerry Lewis Show, and The Kilborn File, an unsuccessful comeback vehicle for Craig Kilborn.

In 2021, Fox Alternative Entertainment utilized a test market approach for its new reality talent competition format The Big Deal, producing a season of the series for Irish broadcaster Virgin Media One with the intent to use it as a pitch for Fox and other broadcasters.

10/90
In a 10/90 production model, a network broadcasts ten episodes of a new television program without ordering a pilot first. If the episodes achieve a predetermined ratings level, the network orders 90 more to bring the total to 100 episodes, immediately enough to rerun the show in syndication. Series that used the 10/90 model include Tyler Perry's House of Payne, Meet the Browns, For Better or Worse, Debmar-Mercury's Anger Management, and Are We There Yet?. Byron Allen's sitcoms followed a similar model, with Mr. Box Office and The First Family airing 26-episode first seasons with the intention of following them up with a full 104-episode order if successful; both series failed to reach the threshold Allen sought, though they remained in limited production (three to four new episodes a year, mixed in with the first season) for a few years afterward.

Other examples
An earlier variant was the 13-episode pilot run; in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Disney Channel notably gave a 13-episode pilot order to two series it never picked up, but would go on to longer runs on other networks: Good Morning, Miss Bliss (which also had a traditional pilot on NBC and would be revived by that network as Saved by the Bell) and the Canadian drama Hillside (which would move to Nickelodeon, Disney Channel's primary rival, and air as Fifteen).

As distinguished from the series premiere
A successful pilot is often used as the series premiere, the first aired episode of a new show, or it may be aired as a later episode or never aired at all. For the Canadian supernatural drama Lost Girl, the pilot that sold the series to Showcase, "Vexed", was used as the eighth episode of the first series. In the case of Firefly, the original pilot ("Serenity") which was intended to serve as the series premiere was rejected by the network, and a new first episode, "Train Job", was shot specifically for broadcast.

Sometimes, too, viewers will assign the word "pilot" to a work that represented the first appearances of characters and situations later employed by a series – even if the work was not initially intended as a pilot for the series. A good example of this is "Love and the Television Set" (later retitled "Love and the Happy Days" for syndication), an episode of Love, American Style that featured a version of the Cunningham family. It was in fact a failed pilot for the proposed 1972 series New Family in Town, but was recycled as a successful pilot for 1974's Happy Days. So firmly embedded is the notion of it as a Happy Days pilot, that even series actress Erin Moran (who did not appear in the episode) viewed it as such, as well as its creator, Garry Marshall, since Happy Days itself did not have a separate pilot of its own. In a similar situation, the 1962 pilot Howie was resurrected 13 years later to form the basis of The Paul Lynde Show.

The original Star Trek TV series had two pilots, neither of which became the premiere episode when the series was picked up. The first, titled The Cage, didn't sell, but Desilu head Lucille Ball convinced NBC executives to allow shooting of a second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, which was accepted by the network. The Cage was edited and expanded into a two-part story, shown as The Menagerie. This turned out to be an auspicious decision, because of various challenges which bogged down series production during the first season. The second pilot was also shown during that first season, as the third episode. The only major character to appear in both pilots was Spock.

On other occasions, the pilot is never broadcast on television at all. Viewers of Temple Houston, for example, would likely have considered "The Twisted Rope" its pilot because "The Man from Galveston" was only publicly exhibited in cinemas four months later. Even then, "The Man from Galveston" had an almost entirely different cast, and its main character was renamed to avoid confusion with the then-ongoing series.

Some television series are commissioned "straight-to-series" where a network orders a season without viewing any produced episodes, hence no episode is considered a pilot. For instance, "Invasion of the Bane", the first episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, is not a pilot because the BBC had committed to the first season before seeing any filmed content – yet it is routinely referred to as a pilot. The straight-to-series model is usually used when established talent is attached to a series, or it is based on an established property or franchise. Amazing Stories (1985) is credited as being one of the first series commissioned without a pilot. The model has seen a rise since Netflix popularized it.

Theatrical release
A number of unsold pilots have been reworked into theatrically-released feature films, including Lum and Abner Abroad (1956), which wove together three pilot episodes for a 1956 series that would have starred the comedy duo of Lum and Abner; Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966); and Mulholland Drive (2001), which was composed of an unsold pilot episode appended with an ending shot specifically for the film. The 1966 film release, Tarzan and the Trappers was edited from the unbroadcast pilot of a proposed 1958 Tarzan series.

In addition, a number of unsuccessful pilot episodes have been released as direct-to-video films, including Belle's Magical World (1998), Cruel Intentions 2 (2001) and Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003).

On a few occasions, pilots have been released as a theatrical films prior to the debuts of their respective series. Examples include Battlestar Galactica, whose pilot was theatrically released during the summer of 1978, prior to its broadcast as the opening episodes of the TV series that fall, and 1979's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, released in early 1979, with the series launching in the fall. In both cases there are substantial differences between theatrical and televised version: both BSG and Buck Rogers' theatrical pilots had recurring characters (Baltar and Tiger Man, respectively) killed off, the BSG pilot was extended for television, and the televised version of the Buck Rogers pilot utilized a different opening credits sequence and featured a newly added epilogue scene intended to lead into the weekly series.

Use in anthology series
By the mid-1950s, the practice of television executives of ordering dozens of pilots for proposed television series each year — far more than their networks could possibly broadcast as series — had created a sizable body of unsold pilots that had never aired. By 1954, the American television industry had begun to consider the idea of packaging these unsold pilots in anthology series and airing them during the summer, providing television networks with a way of both providing fresh programming during the summer rerun season and recouping at least some of the expense of producing them.

On June 8, 1956, the New York Times reported that the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) would begin airing a package of unsold pilots that summer under the title G.E. Summer Originals, adding that "the problem of what to do with 'pilot' or sample films of projected television series that previously have failed to sell has been solved." G.E. Summer Originals premiered on the evening of July 3, 1956, at exactly the same time as another anthology series of unsold pilots, Sneak Preview on NBC, and these thus became the first two series of unsold pilots to air in the United States.

A number of summer anthology series consisting entirely or partly of unsold pilots were broadcast in the United States between 1956 and 1989. These series were:

 * G.E. Summer Originals (ABC, 1956)
 * Sneak Preview (NBC, 1956)
 * Colgate Theatre (NBC, 1958)
 * Decision (NBC, 1958)
 * New Comedy Showcase (CBS, 1960)
 * The Comedy Spot (CBS, 1960 and 1962)
 * Westinghouse Preview Theatre (CBS, 1961)
 * Vacation Playhouse (CBS, 1963–1967)
 * Summer Playhouse (CBS, 1964–1965)
 * Preview Tonight (ABC, 1966)
 * Summer Fun (ABC, 1966)
 * Premiere (CBS, 1968)
 * Comedy Playhouse (CBS, 1971)
 * Just for Laughs (ABC, 1974)
 * Comedy Theatre (NBC, 1976 and 1979)
 * Comedy Time (NBC, 1977)
 * Comedy Theater (NBC, 1981)
 * CBS Summer Playhouse (CBS, 1987–1989)

By the mid-1980s, the rise of cable television outlets had led to an increase of original programming during the summer months and ABC, CBS, and NBC began to experience a decline in summer viewership; the launch of Fox as a fourth major network in 1987 only exacerbated the problem for the former "Big Three" networks. Although CBS viewed CBS Summer Playouse — broadcast during the summers of 1987, 1988, and 1989 — as original programming that addressed this issue, it was the last anthology series of unsold pilots. Unsold pilots aired as one-offs occasionally during the 1990s, but then the practice of broadcasting them ended almost entirely.

title: Television pilot


text:
Fσ set

In mathematics, an Fσ set (said F-sigma set) is a countable union of closed sets. The notation originated in French with F for (French: closed) and σ for  (French: sum, union).

The complement of an Fσ set is a Gδ set.

Fσ is the same as $$\mathbf{\Sigma}^0_2$$ in the Borel hierarchy.

Examples
Each closed set is an Fσ set.

The set $$\mathbb{Q}$$ of rationals is an Fσ set in $$\mathbb{R}$$. More generally, any countable set in a T1 space is an Fσ set, because every singleton $$\{x\}$$ is closed.

The set $$\mathbb{R}\setminus\mathbb{Q}$$ of irrationals is not an Fσ set.

In metrizable spaces, every open set is an Fσ set.

The union of countably many Fσ sets is an Fσ set, and the intersection of finitely many Fσ sets is an Fσ set.

The set $$A$$ of all points $$(x,y)$$ in the Cartesian plane such that $$x/y$$ is rational is an Fσ set because it can be expressed as the union of all the lines passing through the origin with rational slope:

 * $$ A = \bigcup_{r \in \mathbb{Q}} \{(ry,y) \mid y \in \mathbb{R}\},$$

where $$\mathbb{Q}$$ is the set of rational numbers, which is a countable set.

title: Fσ set


text:
Handlebar moustache

A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy and upwardly curved extremities. These moustache styles are named for their resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a spaghetti moustache, because of its stereotypical association with Italian men. The Handlebar Club humorously describes the style as "a hirsute appendage of the upper lip and with graspable extremities".

History
Similar styles of moustache are quite ancient, appearing on statues and other depictions of Iron Age Celts. In the United States, handlebar moustaches were worn in the later part of the 19th century by Wild West figures like Wyatt Earp. In Europe, handlebar moustaches were often worn by soldiers during the 19th century until roughly the era of World War I.

English comedy actor Jimmy Edwards grew his trademark handlebar moustache in the late 1940s in order to disguise facial injuries sustained as a pilot in World War II.

In 1972, to win a $300 "best facial hair" prize offered by team owner Charlie O. Finley, Oakland A's pitcher Rollie Fingers grew a handlebar moustache which he sported throughout his career.

More recently, the contemporary hipster subculture has embraced the handlebar moustache by mocking conventional ideals of fashion, and by combining a highly manicured handlebar moustache with the portrayal of an unkempt appearance or a haphazardly selected clothing ensemble.

Company mascots

 * Julius Pringles
 * Mr. Monopoly
 * Mr. Boh
 * Air India's Maharaja mascot
 * Terrible Herbst

Styles
This style is usually achieved by the use of moustache wax, although hair gel, a curling iron, or natural curling can suffice. Generally, the greater the curl of the extremities, the more dramatic the appearance achieved. When worn without wax or grooming, the moustache style may more closely resemble a walrus moustache.

title: Handlebar moustache


text:
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan, PDI-P) is a centre to left-wing secular-nationalist political party in Indonesia. Since 2014, it has been the ruling and largest party in the House of Representatives (DPR), having secured 110 seats in the last election. The party is led by Megawati Sukarnoputri, who served as the President of Indonesia from 2001 to 2004. It is also the former party of the current president, Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

In 1996, Megawati was forced out from the leadership of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) by the New Order government under Suharto. After Suharto's resignation and the lifting of restrictions on political parties, she founded the party. PDI-P won the biggest share of votes in the 1999 legislative election, and Megawati assumed the presidency in July 2001, replacing Abdurrahman Wahid. Following the end of her term, PDI-P became the opposition during the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) administration. Megawati ran with Prabowo Subianto in 2009, but they were defeated by SBY. In 2014, PDI-P nominated Jokowi as its presidential candidate. The party returned to power following its victory in the legislative election, and Jokowi was elected president. PDI-P continued its success in 2019, and Jokowi was re-elected for his second term. In 2024, the party won the legislative election, but its presidential candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, lost to Prabowo. President Jokowi's alleged support for Prabowo strained his relationship with PDI-P, leading to his formal ousting after the Constitutional Court (MK) rejected all claims.

It is a member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, the Network of Social Democracy in Asia, and the Progressive Alliance.

Origins
At the 1993 National Congress, Megawati Sukarnoputri was elected Chairperson of the Indonesian Democratic Party, one of the three political parties recognised by President Suharto's "New Order" government. This result was not recognised by the government, which continued to push for Budi Harjono, its preferred candidate for the chairpersonship, to be elected. A Special Congress was held where the government expected to have Harjono elected, but Megawati once again emerged as elected leader. Her position was consolidated further when a PDI National Assembly ratified the results of the congress.

In June 1996, another National Congress was held in the city of Medan, to which Megawati was not invited; anti-Megawati members were in attendance. With the government's backing, Suryadi, a former chairperson was re-elected as PDI's Chairperson. Megawati refused to acknowledge the results of this congress and continued to see herself as the rightful leader of the PDI.

On the morning of 27 July 1996, Suryadi threatened to take back PDI's headquarters in Jakarta. Suryadi's supporters (reportedly with the Government's backing) attacked the PDI Headquarters and faced resistance from Megawati supporters who had been stationed there since the National Congress in Medan. In the ensuing clash, Megawati's supporters managed to hold on to the headquarters. A riot ensued – at that stage considered the worst that Jakarta had seen during the "New Order" – which was followed by a government crackdown. The government later blamed the riots on the Democratic People's Party (PRD). Despite being overthrown as chairperson by Suryadi and the government, the event lifted Megawati's profile immensely, providing both sympathy and national popularity.

The PDI was now divided into two factions, Megawati's and Suryadi's. The former had wanted to participate in the 1997 legislative elections, but the government only recognized the latter. In the elections, Megawati and her supporters threw their support behind the United Development Party and the PDI won only 3% of the vote. Following Suharto's resignation and the lifting of the "New Order" limitations on national political parties, Megawati declared the formation of the PDI-P, adding the suffix perjuangan ("struggle") to differentiate her faction of the party from the government-backed faction. She was elected chairperson of PDI-P and was nominated for the presidency in 1999. De facto, PDI-P became a transformation of PDI and not a split.

1999–2004: Election victory, the Wahid–Megawati administrations, and splits
PDI-P was by far the most popular political party coming into the 1999 legislative elections. With 33% of the votes, PDI-P emerged with the largest share. As the 1999 People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) General Session loomed closer, it was expected that PDI-P would once again play the dominant role. Despite winning the legislative elections, PDI-P did not have absolute majority. Despite this, however, PDI-P never formed a coalition with any of the other political parties in the lead-up to the 1999 MPR General Session. The closest PDI-P had to a coalition was a loose alliance with Abdurrahman Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB). The presidency looked set to be contested by Megawati and the then incumbent B. J. Habibie of Golkar who was looking for a second term. However, MPR Chairman Amien Rais had other ideas as he formed a coalition called the Central Axis which consisted of Muslim parties. Amien also announced that he would like to nominate Wahid as president. PKB, their alliance with PDI-P never cemented, now moved over to the Central Axis. Golkar then joined this coalition after Habibie's accountability speech was rejected and he withdrew from the race. It came down to Megawati and Wahid. Wahid, with a powerful coalition backing him, was elected as Indonesia's 4th president with 373 votes to Megawati's 313. The PDI-P supporters were outraged. As the winners of the legislative elections, they also expected to win the presidential elections. PDI-P masses began rioting in cities such as Jakarta, Solo and Medan. The normally peaceful Bali was also involved in pro-Megawati protests. Wahid then realized that there was a need to recognize PDI-P's status as the winners of the Legislative Elections. With that, he encouraged Megawati to run for the vice presidency. Megawati rejected this offer when she saw that she had to face opponents such as United Development Party's (PPP) Hamzah Haz and Golkar's Akbar Tanjung and Wiranto. After some politicking by Wahid, Akbar and Wiranto withdrew from the race. Wahid also ordered PKB to throw their weight behind Megawati. She was now confident and competed in the vice presidential elections, and was elected with 396 votes to Hamzah's 284.

The First PDI-P Congress was held in Semarang, Central Java in April 2000, during which Megawati was re-elected as the chairperson of PDI-P for a second term. The congress was noted as one where she consolidated her position within PDI-P by taking harsh measures to remove potential rivals. During the election for the chairperson, two other candidates emerged, Eros Djarot and Dimyati Hartono. Both ran because they did not want Megawati to hold the PDI-P chairpersonship while concurrently being Vice President. For Eros, when finally received his nomination from the South Jakarta branch, membership problems arose and made his nomination void. He was then not allowed to go and participate in the congress. Disillusioned with what he perceived to be a cult of personality developing around Megawati, Eros left PDI-P and in July 2002, formed the Freedom Bull National Party. For Dimyati, although his candidacy was not opposed as harshly as Eros', he was removed from his position as Head of PDI-P's Central Branch. He kept his position as a People's Representative Council (DPR) member but retired in February 2002. In April 2002, Dimyati formed the Our Homeland of Indonesia Party (PITA).

Although it had not supported Wahid for presidency, PDI-P members received ministerial positions in his cabinet because of Megawati's position as vice president. As time went on, much like the Central Axis that had supported Wahid, PDI-P would grow disillusioned with him. In April 2000, Laksamana Sukardi, a PDI-P member who held position as Minister of Investments and State Owned Enterprises was sacked from his position. When PDI-P enquired as to why this was done, Wahid claimed it was because of corruption but never backed up his claim. The relationship improved somewhat when later in the year, when Wahid authorized Megawati to manage the day-to-day running of the government. However, she and PDI-P had slowly but surely started to distance themselves from Wahid and join forces with the Central Axis. Finally, in July 2001 at a Special Session of the MPR, Wahid was removed as president. Megawati was then elected as president to replace him with Hamzah as her vice president, becoming Indonesia's first female president. They party, however, faced further splits after Megawati became president with more disillusioned members leaving the party. Two of them were Megawati's own sisters. In May 2002, Sukmawati Sukarnoputri formed the Indonesian National Party Marhaenism (PNI-Marhaenisme). This was followed in November 2002, with Rachmawati Sukarnoputri declaring the formation of the Pioneers' Party (PP).

2004–2014: Opposition to the Yudhoyono administration
By 2004, the reformist sentiments that had led PDI-P to victory in the 1999 elections had died down. Many were disappointed with what the reform process had achieved thus far and were also disappointed with Megawati's presidency. This was reflected in the 2004 legislative election, PDI-P obtained 18.5% of the total vote, down from the 33.7% it obtained in 1999. PDI-P nominated Megawati as its presidential candidate for the 2004 presidential election. Several running mates were considered, including Hamzah Haz (to renew the partnership), Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), and Jusuf Kalla. Megawati eventually selected Nahdatul Ulama chairman Hasyim Muzadi as her running mate. It was expected that she would appeal to nationalist sentiments while Hasyim would appeal to Islamist voters. In the first round of elections, the pairing came second to SBY/Kalla. To improve their chances in the run-off, the PDI-P formed a coalition with the PPP, Golkar, the Reform Star Party (PBR) and the Prosperous Peace Party (PDS) in August 2004. However, they were defeated in the run-off against SBY/Kalla. The National Coalition then turned their eyes on being the opposition in the DPR for the SBY/Kalla government. With Kalla's election as chairman of Golkar, Golkar defected to the government's side, leaving the PDI-P as the only major opposition party in the DPR.

On 28 March 2005, the second PDI-P Congress was held in Sanur, Bali where Megawati was re-elected to the chairpersonship for a third term. Her brother, Guruh Sukarnoputra, was chosen as head of the party's Education and Culture department. This congress was noted for the formation of a faction called the Renewal of PDI-P Movement. It called for a renewal of the party leadership if it was to win the 2009 legislative elections. Although they attended the Congress, the members left once Megawati was re-elected. In December 2005, these same members would form the Democratic Renewal Party (PDP).

The party came third in the 2009 legislative election with 14% of the votes. It had 95 seats in the DPR. Megawati was chosen as the presidential candidate, this time with a coalition between the Great Indonesia Movement Party and PDI-P themselves, with Prabowo Subianto as her running mate. They lost to SBY, with Boediono as vice-president, who won 26.6% of the vote.

2014–2023: Return to power, the Jokowi administration, and factional rivalry
In March 2014, the party nominated Jakarta governor Joko Widodo as its presidential candidate, with Jusuf Kalla as his running mate. The pairing won with 53.15% of the vote, and PDI-P returned as the largest party in the DPR, winning nearly 19% of the vote.

In April 2019, incumbent president Joko Widodo was the party's presidential candidate running for a second term, with Ma'ruf Amin as his running mate. Widodo won a second term with 55.50% of the vote. PDI-P remained the largest party in the DPR, winning 19.33% of the vote.

In preparation for the 2024 Indonesian general election, the party split over the choice of a presidential candidate. Younger party members opposed Puan Maharani, the older generation's preference, in favor of Ganjar Pranowo. Despite his popularity, Pranowo declared he wouldn't run. On October 9, 2021, Bambang Wuryanto urged unity under the Banteng (Javanese for "bull") command for Maharani supporters, labeling dissenters as Celeng (Javanese for "wild boar"). In response, young members launched the Barisan Celeng Berjuang ("Fighting Boars Front") campaign on October 12, 2021, criticizing Wuryanto and the Central Board. They adopted a flag with an inverted color scheme as a symbol of defiance. On October 15, 2021, the PDI-P Central Board sanctioned members from both sides for attempting to bypass the leadership's decision-making process, emphasizing that only Megawati could decide the official presidential nominee and urging an end to the rivalry.

2023–present: Ganjar's nomination, worsening ties between PDI-P and Jokowi
On 21 April 2023, Ganjar was officially nominated by PDI-P as its presidential candidate. On 22 October, Gibran Rakabuming Raka–an active member of the party and the son of Jokowi–was officially nominated by the Advanced Indonesia Coalition as the vice-presidential candidate for Prabowo Subianto, after a controversial decision by the Constitutional Court allowed him to run. In November, Gibran was expelled from the party. In the following months, some members and politicians from PDI-P began to attack Jokowi. During the party's anniversary celebration held on 10 January 2024, Megawati indirectly criticized "power hungry" leaders. Observers believe that her statement is directed towards Jokowi, who was not invited to the event. She asserted that PDI-P had triumphed in the two preceding elections due to the people's backing, rather than owing to Jokowi's influence.

Jokowi's alleged preference towards Prabowo Subianto over the party's nominee Ganjar Pranowo had caused splits to occur within the party. Members such as Budiman Sudjatmiko, Bobby Nasution, Immanuel Ebenezer and Maruarar Sirait had left the party due to their support to Prabowo Subianto.

On 22 April 2024, in aftermath of Constitutional Court rejection over all claims and disputes related to the 2024 presidential election, PDI-P Central Board declared that both Jokowi and Gibran were no longer PDI-P member, thus confirming their separation from PDI-P. PDI-P on 7 May 2024 submitted a lawsuit against the General Elections Commission to the Jakarta Administrative Court in hopes to annul the election results and prevent Prabowo and Gibran to be sworn in as president and vice president by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR).

On 28 May 2024, PDI-P held their 5th national meeting in Ancol, North Jakarta. The meeting declared that the 2024 general elections is by far the worst in Indonesia's democratic history due to massive practice of money politics, lack of ethics, abuse of power from the government and alleged violation of neutrality from election officials. PDI-P invites constitutional law experts, civil society, press, academics, intellectuals and all pro-democracy elements to carry out an objective evaluation of the implementation of the 2024 elections and demand all sides of the political spectrum to maintaining and realizing the ideals of the Reformasi, especially the institutionalization of democracy with popular sovereignty; eradicating corruption, collusion and nepotism (KKN); strengthening the press and civil society; supremacy of law; institutionalization of political parties; fair election organizers, and placing the TNI and POLRI to be more professional; and have an equal position in accordance with the spirit and history of its formation; its duties, functions and authorities are in accordance with the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia. The meeting also recommended that Megawati Sukarnoputri to once again held chairpersonship from 2025 to 2030.

Ideology
The 2008 Law on Political Parties states that political parties are allowed to include specific characteristics that reflect their political aspirations, as long as they do not contradict Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. As per Article 5, Section 1 of its constitution and bylaws (AD/ART), PDI-P adheres to Pancasila. Megawati specifically clarified that the Pancasila referred to is the version of June 1, 1945. In September 2023, the party's Secretary-General, Hasto Kristiyanto, claimed that PDI-P is a progressive "leftist" party, not a communist nor socialist party. Outsider views on the party's political orientation vary. Academics and domestic observers classified PDI-P as a nationalist and secular party, while their international counterparts described it as a secular-nationalist,   liberal-secularist, or populist party. In the party's stronghold of Central Java, PDI-P has been described as a catch-all party. Its political leaning has been described as centrist,  centre-left,  left-wing, and even centre-right.

Political positions
PDI-P supports the separation of religion and the state. It rejects regional regulations (perda) based on religion (such as Sharia-based perda), except for the Aceh region. PDI-P endorses gender equality and women's rights. It rejects a three-term extension for President Jokowi. The party also proclaims itself as the party of the "ordinary people".

According to its website, the party aims to realize the aims contained in the preamble to the 1945 Constitution in the form of a just and prosperous society and to bring about an Indonesia that is socially just as well as politically sovereign and economically self-sufficient, and that is Indonesian in character and culture. At the party's fourth congress in 2015, PDIP issued a seven-point statement entitled "Realizing Great Indonesia, an Indonesia that is Truly Independent", in which it committed itself to oversee the program of the central government. They emphasize the Trisakti path as essential for political sovereignty, economic self-reliance, and cultural identity. It aims to revive national dignity, collaboration, and social justice while solidifying itself as a political force and underlining its support for the poor and battling structural poverty.

The PDI-P parliamentary group in the DPR have expressed their opinions on a few issues:

Electoral support
The 2008 survey by Lingkaran Survei Indonesia (LSI Denny JA) highlights non-Muslims, secular Muslims, and low-income voters as the primary constituents of the PDI-P. It is notably popular among "not at all religious" Muslim voters, with 33% support in the 2009 legislative elections. In the 2009 presidential polls, 41% of non-religious Muslim voters favored Megawati, surpassing her overall 27% support. Regionally, the party boasts a predominantly strong support base in Central Java, often referred to as the PDI-P's "stronghold" or kandang banteng (lit. bull pen), Pangi Chaniago of Voxpol Research Center described the party's electorates in the region as "ideological voters". Additionally, the party thrives in Bali, West and Central Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, as well as Bangka Belitung—areas marked by substantial religious minorities or syncretistic forms of Islam, while facing challenges in certain areas of Sumatra, particularly in Islam-leaning Aceh and West Sumatra. It has also been popular among Chinese Indonesians voters.

Leadership structure
The following is the composition of the PDI Perjuangan management for the 2019-2024 working period as a result of the V Congress at the Inna Grand Bali Beach Hotel, Bali, 10 August 2019:

 * Party Chairwoman: Megawati Soekarnoputri
 * Chairman of the Central Leadership Council:
 * Party Honorary Field: Komarudin Watubun
 * Government, Security and Defense Sector: Puan Maharani
 * Foreign Affairs: Ahmad Basarah
 * Election Winning: Bambang Wuryanto
 * Ideology and Cadre Generation: Djarot Saiful Hidayat
 * Membership and Organization Field: Sukur Nababan
 * Human Rights Law and Legislation: Yasonna Laoly
 * Economic Sector: Basuki Tjahaja Purnama
 * Government and Regional Autonomy: Ganjar Pranowo
 * Forestry and Environmental Sector: I Made Urip
 * Maritime Affairs: Rokhmin Dahuri
 * Social Sector and Disaster Management: Ribka Tjiptaning
 * Industry, Employment and Social Security Sector: Nusirwan Sujono
 * Health and Children: Sri Rahayu
 * Education and Culture: Tri Rismaharini
 * Cooperative Sector: Mindo Sianipar
 * Tourism: Sarwo Budi Wiryanti Sukamdani
 * Youth and Sports Sector: Eriko Sotarduga
 * Field of Religion and Belief: Hamka Haq
 * MSME, Creative and Digital Economy: Muhammad Prananda Prabowo
 * Secretary General: Hasto Kristiyanto
 * Deputy for Internal Affairs: Utut Adianto
 * Deputy for Community Programs: Sadarestuwati
 * Deputy for Government Programs: Arief Wibowo
 * Treasurer: Olly Dondokambey
 * Deputy for Internal Affairs: Rudianto Tjen
 * Deputy for Program: Juliari Batubara (inactive)

Wing organizations
PDI-P wing organizations include the following:

 * Baitul Muslimin Indonesia (BAMUSI, Indonesian Muslim Abode)
 * Banteng Muda Indonesia (BMI, Indonesian Young Bulls)
 * Taruna Merah Putih (TMP, Red and White Cadets)
 * Relawan Perjuangan Demokrasi (Repdem, Volunteers for Democratic Struggle)
 * Komunitas Indonesia Tionghoa Perjuangan (KITA Perjuangan, Chinese Indonesian Community of Struggle)
 * Gerakan Nelayan Tani Indonesia (GANTI, Indonesian Fishermen Farmers Movement)

Presidential election results
Note: Bold text indicates party member

title: Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle


text:
User:Ntropie

 * n¦tropie – Ghostwriter in the sky. Dormant. [German]
 * d-frag – Game culture. Alternative perspectives. Lifecycle has ended. [German]
 * MobyGames profile.

de:User:Ntropie

title: User:Ntropie


text:
Alfred Kastler

Alfred Kastler (3 May 1902 – 7 January 1984) was a French physicist, and Nobel Prize laureate. He is known for the development of optical pumping.

Biography
Kastler was born in Guebwiller (Alsace, German Empire) and later attended the Lycée Bartholdi in Colmar, Alsace, and École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1921. After his studies, in 1926 he began teaching physics at the Lycée of Mulhouse, and then taught at the University of Bordeaux, where he was a university professor until 1941. Georges Bruhat asked him to come back to the École Normale Supérieure, where he finally obtained a chair in 1952.

Collaborating with Jean Brossel, he researched quantum mechanics, the interaction between light and atoms, and spectroscopy. Kastler, working on combination of optical resonance and magnetic resonance, developed the technique of "optical pumping". Those works led to the completion of the theory of lasers and masers.

He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1966 "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms".

He was president of the board of the Institut d'optique théorique et appliquée and served as the first chairman of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Action Against Hunger.

Kastler also wrote poetry (in German). In 1971 he published Europe, ma patrie: Deutsche Lieder eines französischen Europäers (i.e. Europe, my fatherland: German songs of a French European).

In 1976, Kastler was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

In 1978 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1979, Kastler was awarded the Wilhelm Exner Medal.

Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel
Professor Kastler spent most of his research career at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris where he started after the war with his student, Jean Brossel a small research group on spectroscopy.

Over the forty years that followed, this group has trained many of young physicists and had a significant impact on the development of the science of atomic physics in France. The Laboratoire de Spectroscopie hertzienne has then been renamed Laboratoire Kastler-Brossel in 1994 and has got a part of its laboratory in Université Pierre et Marie Curie  mainly at the École Normale Supérieure.

Global policy
He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

Death
Professor Kastler died on 7 January 1984, in Bandol, France.

title: Alfred Kastler


text:
Moron

Moron or Morón may refer to:

 * Moron (psychology), disused term for a person with a mental age between 7 and 10

People

 * Edgar Moron (1941–2023), German politician
 * Morón (surname), various people so named

Places

 * Moron (ancient city), mentioned by the Greek geographer Strabo
 * Morón, Buenos Aires, a city in Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina
 * Roman Catholic Diocese of Morón, Argentina
 * Morón Partido, a district in Buenos Aires Province
 * Morón, Cuba, a city in Cuba
 * Moron, Grand'Anse, a commune of Haiti
 * Mörön, a town in Mongolia
 * Mörön, Khentii, a district of Khentii Province in eastern Mongolia
 * Morong, Bataan, a municipality in the Philippines formerly known as Moron
 * Morón, Venezuela, a town in northern Venezuela
 * Moron, later renamed Taft, California, a city
 * Moron (mountain), in the Jura Mountains
 * Morón de la Frontera, also known as Morón, a municipality in Spain.
 * Morón Air Base, in Morón de la Frontera, Spain
 * Moron Lake, a lake in Alaska
 * Lac de Moron, a lake on the border between France and Switzerland

Other uses

 * Moron (bacteriophage), an extra gene in prophage genomes that do not have a phage function in the lysogenic cycle
 * Moron (beetle), a genus of beetles in the family Cerambycidae
 * Moron (Book of Mormon), a name and a location in the Book of Mormon
 * Moron (food), a type of rice cake native in the Eastern Visayas, Philippines
 * "Moron" (Sum 41 song)
 * "Moron" (KMFDM song)
 * Morön BK, Swedish football team

title: Moron


text:
Imbecile

The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal. The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded. It originally referred to people of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, with a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50, above "idiot" (IQ below 25) and below "moron" (IQ of 51–70). In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49, as they are usually capable of some degree of communication, guarding themselves against danger and performing simple mechanical tasks under supervision.

The meaning was further refined into mental and moral imbecility. The concepts of "moral insanity", "moral idiocy", and "moral imbecility" led to the emerging field of eugenic criminology, which held that crime can be reduced by preventing "feeble-minded" people from reproducing.

"Imbecile" as a concrete classification was popularized by psychologist Henry H. Goddard and was used in 1927 by United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his ruling in the forced-sterilization case Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927).

The concept is closely associated with psychology, psychiatry, criminology, and eugenics. However, the term imbecile quickly passed into vernacular usage as a derogatory term. It fell out of professional use in the 20th century in favor of mental retardation.

Phrases such as "mental retardation", "mentally retarded", and "retarded" are also subject to the euphemism treadmill: initially used in a medical manner, they gradually took on derogatory connotation. This had occurred with the earlier synonyms (for example, moron, imbecile, cretin, and idiot, formerly used as scientific terms in the early 20th century). Professionals searched for connotatively neutral replacements. In the United States, "Rosa's Law" changed references in many federal statutes to "mental retardation" to refer instead to "intellectual disability".

title: Imbecile