text:
Deer Hunter

Deer Hunter or variants can refer to:

 * Deer hunting, the hunting of deer
 * The Deer Hunter, a 1978 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture
 * The Deer Hunter (novel), a 1979 novelization of the screenplay of the film
 * Deer Hunter (series), a series of hunting video games
 * The Dear Hunter, a band from Boston, Massachusetts
 * "The Deer Hunter" (The Blacklist), a 2015 episode of the TV series The Blacklist
 * Deerhunter (band), an indie rock band from Atlanta

title: Deer Hunter


text:
The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel. It was first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and was the best-selling work of fiction that year.

Premise
The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die.

Part One: Perhaps an Accident
The first few pages of the first chapter explain the book's basic premise: the story centers on a fictional event that happened in Peru on the road between Lima and Cuzco, at noon on Friday, July 20, 1714. A rope bridge woven by the Inca a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment, while five people were crossing it, sending them falling from a great height to their deaths in the river below. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar who was on his way to cross the bridge himself. A deeply pious man who seeks to provide some sort of empirical evidence that might prove to the world God's Divine Providence, he sets out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years, he compiles a huge book of all of the evidence he gathers to show that the beginning and end of a person is all part of God's plan for that person. Part One foretells the burning of the book that occurs at the end of the novel, but it also says that one copy of Brother Juniper's book survives and is at the library of the University of San Marcos, where it now sits neglected.

Part Two: the Marquesa de Montemayor; Pepita
Part Two focuses on one of the victims of the collapse: Doña María, the Marquesa de Montemayor. The daughter of a wealthy cloth merchant, the Marquesa was an ugly child who eventually entered into an arranged marriage and bore a daughter, Clara, whom she loved dearly. Clara was indifferent to her mother, though, and became engaged to a Spanish man and moved across the ocean to Spain where she married. Doña María visits her daughter in Spain, but when they cannot get along, she returns to Lima. The only way that they can communicate comfortably is by letter, and Doña María pours her heart into her writing, which becomes so polished that her letters will be read in schools in the centuries after her lifetime.

Doña María takes as her companion Pepita, a girl raised at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas. When she learns that her daughter is pregnant in Spain, Doña María decides to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Santa María de Cluxambuqua to pray that the baby will be healthy and loved. Pepita goes along as company and to supervise the staff. When Doña María is out at the shrine, Pepita stays at the inn and writes a letter to her patron, the Abbess María del Pilar, complaining about her misery and loneliness. Doña María sees the letter on the table when she gets back and reads it. Later, she asks Pepita about the letter, and Pepita says she tore it up because the letter was not brave. Doña María has new insight into the ways in which her own life and love for her daughter have lacked bravery. She writes her "first letter" (actually Letter LVI) of courageous love to her daughter, but two days later, returning to Lima, she and Pepita are on the bridge of San Luis Rey when it collapses.

Part Three: Esteban
Esteban and Manuel are twins who were left at the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas as infants. The Abbess of the convent, Madre María del Pilar, developed a fondness for them as they grew up. When they became older, they decided to be scribes. They are so close that they have developed a secret language that only they understand. Their closeness becomes strained when Manuel falls in love with Camila Perichole, a famous actress.

Perichole flirts with Manuel and swears him to secrecy when she retains him to write letters to her lover, the Viceroy. Esteban has no idea of their relationship until she turns up at the twins' room one night in a hurry and has Manuel write to a matador with whom she is having an affair. Esteban encourages his brother to follow her, but instead Manuel swears that he will never see her again. Later, Manuel cuts his knee on a piece of metal and it becomes infected. The surgeon instructs Esteban to put cold compresses on the injury: the compresses are so painful that Manuel curses Esteban, though he later remembers nothing of his curses. Esteban offers to send for Perichole, but Manuel refuses. Soon after, Manuel dies.

When the Abbess comes to prepare the body, she asks Esteban his name, and he says he is Manuel. Gossip about his ensuing strange behavior spreads all over town. He goes to the theater but runs away before the Perichole can talk to him; the Abbess also tries to talk to him, but he runs away, so she sends for Captain Alvarado.

Captain Alvarado, a well-known sailor and explorer, goes to see Esteban in Cuzco and hires him to sail the world with him, far from Peru. Esteban agrees, then refuses, then acquiesces if he can get all his pay in advance to buy a present for the Abbess before he departs. That night Esteban attempts suicide but is saved by Captain Alvarado. The Captain offers to take him back to Lima to buy the present, and at the ravine spanned by the bridge of San Luis Rey, the Captain goes down to a boat that is ferrying some materials across the water. Esteban goes to the bridge and is on it when it collapses.

Part Four: Uncle Pio; Don Jaime
Uncle Pio acts as Camila Perichole's valet, and, in addition, "her singing-master, her coiffeur, her masseur, her reader, her errand-boy, her banker; rumor added: her father." He was born the bastard son of a Madrid aristocrat and later traveled the world engaged in a wide variety of dubious, though legal, businesses, most related to being a go-between or agent of the powerful, including (briefly) conducting interrogations for the Inquisition. His life "became too complicated" and he fled to Peru. He came to realize that he had just three interests in the world: independence; the constant presence of beautiful women; and the masterpieces of Spanish literature, particularly those of the theater.

He finds work as the confidential agent of the Viceroy of Peru. One day, he discovers a twelve-year-old café singer, Micaela Villegas, and takes her under his protection. Over the course of years, as they travel from tavern to tavern throughout Latin America, she grows into a beautiful and talented young woman. Uncle Pio instructs her in the etiquette of high society and goads her to greatness by expressing perpetual disappointment with her performances. She develops into Camila Perichole, the most honored actress in Lima.

After many years of success, Perichole becomes bored with the stage. The elderly Viceroy, Don Andrés, takes her as his mistress; she and Uncle Pio and the Archbishop of Peru and, eventually, Captain Alvarado meet frequently at midnight for dinner at the Viceroy's mansion. Through it all, Uncle Pio remains faithfully devoted to her, but as Camila ages and bears three children by the Viceroy she focuses on becoming a lady rather than an actress. She avoids Uncle Pio, and when he talks to her she tells him to not use her stage name.

When a smallpox epidemic sweeps through Lima, Camila is disfigured by it. She takes her young son Don Jaime, who suffers from convulsions, to the country. Uncle Pio sees her one night trying hopelessly to cover her pockmarked face with powder; ashamed, she refuses to ever see him again. He begs her to allow him to take her son to Lima and teach the boy as he taught her. Despairing at the turn her life has taken, she reluctantly agrees. Uncle Pio and Jaime leave the next morning, and are the fourth and fifth people on the bridge of San Luis Rey when it collapses.

Part Five: Perhaps an Intention
Brother Juniper labors for six years on his book about the bridge collapse, talking to everyone he can find who knew the victims, trying various mathematical formulas to measure spiritual traits, with no results beyond conventionally pious generalizations. He compiles his huge book of interviews with complete faith in God's goodness and justice, but a council pronounces his work heretical, and the book and Brother Juniper are publicly burned for their heresy.

The story then shifts back in time to the day of a funeral service for those who died in the bridge collapse. The Archbishop, the Viceroy, and Captain Alvarado are at the ceremony. At the Convent of Santa María Rosa de las Rosas, the Abbess feels, having lost Pepita and the twin brothers, that her work to help the poor and infirm will die with her. A year after the accident, Camila Perichole seeks out the Abbess to ask how she can go on, having lost her son and Uncle Pio. Camila gains comfort and insight from the Abbess and, it is later revealed, becomes a helper at the Convent. Later, Doña Clara arrives from Spain, also seeking out the Abbess to speak with her about her mother, the Marquesa de Montemayor. She is greatly moved by the work of the Abbess in caring for the deaf, the insane, and the dying. The novel ends with the Abbess' observation: "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

Themes and sources
Thornton Wilder said that the book poses the question: "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond the individual's own will?" Describing the sources of his novel, Wilder explained that the plot was inspired in its external action by a one-act play [Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement] by [the French playwright] Prosper Mérimée, which takes place in Latin America and one of whose characters is a courtesan. However, the central idea of the work, the justification for a number of human lives that comes up as a result of the sudden collapse of a bridge, stems from friendly arguments with my father, a strict Calvinist. Strict Puritans imagine God all too easily as a petty schoolmaster who minutely weights guilt against merit, and they overlook God's 'Caritas' which is more all-encompassing and powerful. God's love has to transcend his just retribution. But in my novel I have left this question unanswered. As I said earlier, we can only pose the question correctly and clearly, and have faith one will ask the question in the right way.

When asked if his characters were historical or imagined, Wilder replied, "The Perichole and the Viceroy are real people, under the names they had in history [a street singer named Micaela Villegas and her lover Manuel de Amat y Junyent, who was Viceroy of Peru at the time]. Most of the events were invented by me, including the fall of the bridge." He based the Marquesa's habit of writing letters to her daughter on his knowledge of the great French letter-writer Madame de Sévigné.

The bridge itself (in both Wilder's story and Mérimée's play) is based on the great Inca road suspension bridge across the Apurímac River, erected around 1350, still in use in 1864, and dilapidated but still hanging in 1890. When asked by the explorer Victor Wolfgang von Hagen whether he had ever seen a reproduction of E. G. Squier's woodcut illustration of the bridge as it was in 1864, Wilder replied: "It is best, von Hagen, that I make no comment or point of it." In fact, in a letter to Yale professor Chauncey Tinker, Wilder wrote that he had invented the bridge altogether. The name of the bridge is drawn from the Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in San Diego County, California.

Recognition and influence
The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and remains widely acclaimed as Wilder's most famous novel. In 1998, the book was rated number 37 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library on the list of the 100 best 20th-century novels. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

Influences

 * In the 1941 novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator, V, finds the book in his brother Sebastian's library.
 * The book is mentioned in Elizabeth Goudge's war-time novel The Castle on the Hill (1942, Chapter I, Part II), where a major character explains that, "... in this case death came to those five just at the most fitting moment of their lives, and that this so-called tragedy, as it affected the lives of others, brought alterations in the pattern [of life] that spelled in the long run only blessing and peace": this character, an elderly historian, is attempting to offer consolation to a woman he has just met whose life has been full of personal tragedy and war-time disaster.
 * Qui non riposano, a 1945 novel by Indro Montanelli, takes inspiration from the book.
 * The book was cited by American writer John Hersey as a direct inspiration for his nonfiction work Hiroshima (1946).
 * Ayn Rand references the theme in Atlas Shrugged (1957), her epic of a fictional decline of the United States into an impoverished kleptocracy. In the aftermath of a disastrous collision in a railroad tunnel, she highlights train passengers who, in one way or another, promoted the moral climate that made the accident likely.
 * The book is mentioned in passing by a character in The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands (1991), the third book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
 * David Mitchell's novels Ghostwritten (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2004) echo the story in many ways, most explicitly through the character Luisa Rey.
 * The book is mentioned in the American television series Monk, season one (2002–03) episode 11, "Mr Monk and the Earthquake".
 * A line from the book is paraphrased on the cover of Sea Power's 2003 album The Decline of British Sea Power. Appearing on the album cover as "There is a land for the living and there is a land for the dead...", it was written by Wilder as "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead...."
 * The Australian television series Glitch references the book in an episode from its second season (2007), and quotes the passage "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
 * The book is referred to in the novel Numero Zero (2015), by Umberto Eco.
 * The book is mentioned in passing by a character in Joe Hill's 2016 novel The Fireman.

Inspirational

 * The book was quoted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the memorial service for victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001.
 * The book was cited during the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse by Brian Williams of NBC News as well as Charlie Gibson of ABC News.

Adaptations
Three U.S. theatrical films and a television adaptation (1958) have been based on the novel:
 * Film
 * The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929)
 * The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944)
 * The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1958)
 * The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)

A play for puppets and actors was based on the novel, adapted by Greg Carter and directed by Sheila Daniels:
 * Theater
 * The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2006)

A play adapted by Cynthia Meier has been performed in Arizona and Connecticut.

An opera by German composer Hermann Reutter was based on the novel:
 * Opera
 * Die Brücke von San Luis Rey: Szenen nach der Novelle von Thornton Wilder (1954)

An illustrated and abridged homage to this timeless classic, making it appealing to a new generation of readers, adapted by Orchestrate Books:
 * Illustrated and Abridged
 * The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2023)

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

title: The Bridge of San Luis Rey


text:
Brownian motor

Brownian motors are nanoscale or molecular machines that use chemical reactions to generate directed motion in space. The theory behind Brownian motors relies on the phenomenon of Brownian motion, random motion of particles suspended in a fluid (a liquid or a gas) resulting from their collision with the fast-moving molecules in the fluid.

On the nanoscale (1-100 nm), viscosity dominates inertia, and the extremely high degree of thermal noise in the environment makes conventional directed motion all but impossible, because the forces impelling these motors in the desired direction are minuscule when compared to the random forces exerted by the environment. Brownian motors operate specifically to utilise this high level of random noise to achieve directed motion, and as such are only viable on the nanoscale.

The concept of Brownian motors is a recent one, having only been coined in 1995 by Peter Hänggi, but the existence of such motors in nature may have existed for a very long time and help to explain crucial cellular processes that require movement at the nanoscale, such as protein synthesis and muscular contraction. If this is the case, Brownian motors may have implications for the foundations of life itself.

In more recent times, humans have attempted to apply this knowledge of natural Brownian motors to solve human problems. The applications of Brownian motors are most obvious in nanorobotics due to its inherent reliance on directed motion.

20th century
The term “Brownian motor” was originally invented by Swiss theoretical physicist Peter Hänggi in 1995. The Brownian motor, like the phenomenon of Brownian motion that underpinned its underlying theory, was also named after 19th century Scottish botanist Robert Brown, who, while looking through a microscope at pollen of the plant Clarkia pulchella immersed in water, famously described the random motion of pollen particles in water in 1827. In 1905, almost eighty years later, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein published a paper where he modeled the motion of the pollen as being moved by individual water molecules, and this was verified experimentally by Jean Perrin in 1908, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1926 "for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter". These developments helped to create the fundamentals of the present theories of the nanoscale world.

Nanoscience has traditionally long remained at the intersection of the physical sciences of physics and chemistry, but more recent developments in research increasingly position it beyond the scope of either of these two traditional fields.

21st century
In 2002, a seminal paper on Brownian motors published in the American Institute of Physics magazine Physics Today, "Brownian motors", by Dean Astumian and Peter Hänggi. There, they proposed the then novel concept of Brownian motors and posited that "thermal motion combined with input energy gives rise to a channeling of chance that can be used to exercise control over microscopic systems". Astumian and Hänggi provide in their paper a copy of Wallace Stevens' 1919 poem, The Place of the Solitaries to elegantly illustrate, from an abstract perspective, the ceaseless nature of noise."Inspired by the fascinating mechanism by which proteins move in the face of thermal noise, many physicists are working to understand molecular motors at a mesoscopic scale. An important insight from this work is that, in some cases, thermal noise can assist directed motion by providing a mechanism for overcoming energy barriers. In those cases, one speaks of “Brownian motors.” In this article, we focus on several examples that bring out some prominent underlying physical concepts that have emerged. But first we note that poets, too, have been fascinated by noise; see box 1. ... In the microscopic world, “There must be no cessation / Of motion, or of the noise of motion” (box 1). Rather than fighting it, Brownian motors take advantage of the ceaseless noise to move particles efficiently and reliably."

- Dean Astumian and Peter Hänggi

A year after the Astumian-Hänggi paper, David Leigh's organic chemistry group reported the first artificial molecular Brownian motors. In 2007 the same team reported a Maxwell's Demon-inspired molecular information ratchet.

Another important demonstration of nanoengineering and nanotechnology was the building of a practical artificial Brownian motor by IBM in 2018. Specifically, an energy landscape was created by accurately shaping a nanofluidic slit, and alternate potentials and an oscillating electric field were then used to “rock” nanoparticles to produce directed motion. The experiment successfully made the nanoparticles move along a track in the shape of the outline of the IBM logo, and serves as an important milestone in the practical use of Brownian motors and other elements at the nanoscale.Additionally, various institutions around the world, such as the University of Sydney Nano Institute, headquartered at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub (SNH), and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI) at the University of Basel, are examples of the research activity emerging in the field of nanoscience. Brownian motors remain a central concept in both the understanding of natural molecular motors and the construction of useful nanoscale machines that involve directed motion.

"Nanoscience research within the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI) is focused on areas of potential benefit to the life sciences, sustainability, and information and communications technologies. The aim is to explore phenomena at a nanoscale and to identify and apply new pioneering principles. This involves researchers immersing themselves in the world of individual atoms and molecules. At this level, the classical disciplines of physics, biology and chemistry merge into one. Interdisciplinary collaboration between different branches of science and institutions is thus a key element of the SNI’s day-to-day work."

- Swiss Nanoscience Institute

Theory
The thermal noise on the nanoscale is so great that moving in a particular direction is as difficult as “walking in a hurricane” or “swimming in molasses”. The theoretical operation of the Brownian motor can be explained by ratchet theory, wherein strong random thermal fluctuations are allowed to move the particle in the desired direction, while energy is expended to counteract forces that would produce motion in the opposite direction. This motion can be both linear and rotational. In the biological sense and in the extent to which this phenomenon appears in nature, this exists as chemical energy is sourced from the molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

The Brownian ratchet is an apparent perpetual motion machine that appears to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but was later debunked upon more detailed analysis by Richard Feynman and other physicists. The difference between real Brownian motors and fictional Brownian ratchets is that only in Brownian motors is there an input of energy in order to provide the necessary force to hold the motor in place to counteract the thermal noise that try to move the motor in the opposite direction.

Because Brownian motors rely on the random nature of thermal noise to achieve directed motion, they are stochastic in nature, in that they can be analysed statistically but not predicted precisely.

Examples in nature
In biology, much of what we understand to be protein-based molecular motors may also in fact be Brownian motors. These molecular motors facilitate critical cellular processes in living organisms and, indeed, are fundamental to life itself.

Researchers have made significant advances in terms of examining these organic processes to gain insight into their inner workings. For example, molecular Brownian motors in the form of several different types of protein exist within humans. Two common biomolecular Brownian motors are ATP synthase, a rotary motor, and myosin II, a linear motor. The motor protein ATP synthase produces rotational torque that facilitates the synthesis of ATP from Adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate (Pi) through the following overall reaction:

ADP + Pi + 3H+out ⇌ ATP + H2O + 3H+in

In contrast, the torque produced by myosin II is linear and is a basis for the process of muscle contraction. Similar motor proteins include kinesin and dynein, which all convert chemical energy into mechanical work by the hydrolysis of ATP. Many motor proteins within human cells act as Brownian motors by producing directed motion on the nanoscale, and some common proteins of this type are illustrated by the following computer-generated images.

Nanorobotics
The relevance of Brownian motors to the requirement of directed motion in nanorobotics has become increasingly apparent to researchers from both academia and industry.

Artificial replication of Brownian motors are informed by and differ from nature, and one specific type is the photomotor, wherein the motor switches states due to pulses of light and generates directed motion. These photomotors, in contrast to their natural counterpartsˇ, are inorganic and possess greater efficiency and average velocity, and are thus better suited to human use than existing alternatives, such as organic protein motors.

Currently, one of the six current "Grand Challenges" of the University of Sydney Nano Institute is to develop nanorobotics for health, a key aspect of which is a “nanoscale parts foundry” that can produce nanoscale Brownian motors for “active transport around the body”. The Institute predicts that among the implications of this research is a "paradigm shift" in healthcare "away from the "break-fix" model to a focus on prevention and early intervention," such as in the case with heart disease:

"The molecular-level changes in early heart disease occur on the nanoscale. To detect these changes, we are building nanoscale robots, smaller than cells, that will navigate the body. This will enable us to see inside even the narrowest blood vessels, to detect the fatty deposits (atherosclerotic plaque) that signal the start of arterial blockage and allow treatment before the disease progresses. ... The impact of this project will be extensive. It will improve health outcomes for all Australians with heart disease and reduce healthcare costs. It has potential to benefit other health challenges, including cancer, dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. It will provide a world-class collaborative environment to train the next generation of Australian researchers, driving innovation and development of new industries and jobs in Australia."

Professor Paul Bannon, an adult cardiothoracic surgeon of international standing and leading medical researcher, summarises the benefits of nanorobotics in health.

"If I could miniaturise myself inside the body... I could detect early, treatable damage in your coronary arteries when you are 25 years old and thus avoid your premature death."

- Professor Paul Bannon, MBBS, PhD, FRACS

title: Brownian motor


text:
Jake Gyllenhaal

Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal (, ; born December 19, 1980) is an American actor who has worked prolifically on screen and stage in a career spanning over thirty years. Born into the Gyllenhaal family, he is the son of film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner, and the younger brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. He began acting as a child, making his acting debut in City Slickers (1991), followed by roles in his father's films A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998). His breakthrough roles were as Homer Hickam in the biographical drama film October Sky (1999) and as a psychologically troubled teenager in the thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal expanded to big-budget films with a starring role in the 2004 disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.

Gyllenhaal played Jack Twist in Ang Lee's 2005 romantic drama Brokeback Mountain, for which he won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. His career progressed with starring roles in the thriller Zodiac (2007), the romantic comedy Love & Other Drugs (2010), and the science fiction film Source Code (2011). Further acclaim came with his roles in Denis Villeneuve's thrillers Prisoners (2013) and Enemy (2013), and he received nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performances as a manipulative journalist in Nightcrawler (2014) and a troubled writer in Nocturnal Animals (2016). His highest-grossing release came with the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), in which he portrayed Mysterio. After playing a supporting role in the drama Wildlife (2018), Gyllenhaal starred in action or thriller projects, including the films The Guilty (2021), Ambulance (2022) and Road House (2024), as well as the series Presumed Innocent (2024).

Gyllenhaal has performed on stage, starring in a West End production of the play This Is Our Youth and Broadway productions of the musical Sunday in the Park with George as well as the plays Constellations and Sea Wall/A Life, the lattermost of which earned him a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Aside from acting, he is vocal about political and social issues.

1980–2000: Early life and career beginnings

Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California, United States, to screenwriter Naomi Foner (Achs) and film director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, his older sister, appeared with him in the science fiction psychological thriller film Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal's father, who was raised as a Swedenborgian, is of Swedish and English descent and is a descendant of the Swedish noble Gyllenhaal family. His last ancestor to be born in Sweden was his great-great-grandfather, Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal's mother is Jewish,   and was born in New York City into an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Russia and Poland. Gyllenhaal has said that he considers himself Jewish. On his 13th birthday, Gyllenhaal performed a "Bar Mitzvah-like act, without the typical trappings", volunteering at a homeless shelter because his parents wanted to give him a sense of gratitude for his privileged lifestyle.

As a child, Gyllenhaal was regularly exposed to filmmaking due to his family's ties to the industry. He made his acting debut as Billy Crystal's son in the 1991 comedy City Slickers. His parents did not allow him to appear in The Mighty Ducks (1992) because it would have required him to leave home for two months. In subsequent years, his parents allowed him to audition for roles but regularly forbade him to take them if he were chosen. He was allowed to appear in his father's films several times. Gyllenhaal appeared in the 1993's A Dangerous Woman (along with sister Maggie), in "Bop Gun", a 1994 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street; and in the 1998 comedy Homegrown. Along with their mother, Jake and Maggie appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. Prior to his senior year in high school, the only other film not directed by his father in which Gyllenhaal was allowed to perform was the 1993 film Josh and S.A.M., a little-known children's adventure.

His parents insisted that he have summer jobs to support himself, and he thus worked as a lifeguard and as a busboy at a restaurant operated by a family friend. Gyllenhaal said his parents encouraged artistic expression: "I do have parents who constantly supported me in certain ways. In other ways, they were lacking. Definitely, it's in expression and creativity where my family has always been best at." Gyllenhaal graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles in 1998, then attended Columbia University, where his sister was a senior and from which his mother had graduated, to study Eastern religions and philosophy. At Columbia, he was a resident of John Jay Hall. Gyllenhaal dropped out after two years to concentrate on acting but has expressed intentions to eventually finish his degree. Gyllenhaal's first lead role was in October Sky, Joe Johnston's 1999 adaptation of the Homer Hickam autobiography Rocket Boys, in which he portrayed a young man from West Virginia striving to win a science scholarship to avoid becoming a coal miner. The film was positively received and earned $32 million; it was described in the Sacramento News and Review as Gyllenhaal's "breakout performance".

2001–2004: Donnie Darko to the London stage
Donnie Darko, in which Gyllenhaal played his second lead role on film, was not a box office success on its initial 2001 release; eventually, the film became a cult favorite. Directed by Richard Kelly, the film is set in 1988 and stars Gyllenhaal as a troubled teenager who experiences visions of a 6 ft tall rabbit named Frank who tells him that the world is coming to an end. Gyllenhaal's performance was well received by critics; Gary Mairs of Culture Vulture wrote that he "manages the difficult trick of seeming both blandly normal and profoundly disturbed, often within the same scene."

Gyllenhaal's next role was as Pilot Kelston in 2002's Highway alongside Jared Leto. His performance was described by one critic as "silly, clichéd and straight to video". Gyllenhaal had more success starring opposite Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival; he also starred in Lovely and Amazing with Catherine Keener. In both films he plays an unstable character who begins a reckless affair with an older woman. Gyllenhaal later described these as "teenager in transition" roles. Gyllenhaal later starred in the Touchstone Pictures romantic comedy Bubble Boy, which was loosely based on the story of David Vetter. The film portrays the title character's adventures as he pursues the love of his life before she marries the wrong man. The film was panned by critics, with one calling it "stupid and devoid of any redeeming features".

Following Bubble Boy, Gyllenhaal starred opposite Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon and Ellen Pompeo in Moonlight Mile (2002), as a young man coping with the death of his fiancée and the grief of her parents. The story, which received mixed reviews, is loosely based on writer-director Brad Silberling's personal experiences following the murder of his girlfriend, Rebecca Schaeffer. In his theatrical debut, Gyllenhaal starred on the London stage in Kenneth Lonergan's revival of This Is Our Youth at the Garrick Theatre in 2002. Gyllenhaal said, "Every actor I look up to has done theatre work, so I knew I had to give it a try." The play ran for eight weeks in London's West End; Gyllenhaal received favorable reviews and an Evening Standard Theatre Award in the Outstanding Newcomer category.

Gyllenhaal was almost cast as Spider-Man for 2004's Spider-Man 2, due to director Sam Raimi's concerns about original Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire's health. Maguire recovered, however, and the sequel was shot without Gyllenhaal. The actors later starred together in Brothers (2009), and resemble each other enough that Gyllenhaal has jokingly complained about cab drivers often calling him "Spider-Man." In 2003, he also auditioned for the role of Batman in the superhero film Batman Begins and came close being offered the part, but it was given to Christian Bale. Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in the science fiction blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, co-starring Dennis Quaid as his father.

2005–2011: Brokeback Mountain and leading roles

In 2005, Gyllenhaal was cast in the drama Proof, with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins, where he played a graduate student in mathematics who tries to convince Paltrow's character to publish a revolutionary proof to a problem puzzling the mathematicians' community. The film received a generally positive response. He also starred in Sam Mendes's Jarhead, where Gyllenhaal played a U.S. Marine during the first Gulf War. The film garnered a favorable response; Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post praises Gyllenhaal's performance, writing, "He makes us see his character's intelligence", adding "he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others".

In Brokeback Mountain (2005), Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger play young men who meet as sheep herders and embark upon a sexual relationship that begins in the summer of 1963 and lasts for 20 years. The film was often referred to in the media with the shorthand phrase "the gay cowboy movie", although there was differing opinion on the sexual orientation of the characters. The film won numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival. The film won three Academy Awards, and earned Gyllenhaal a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but he lost to George Clooney for Syriana. The film also won four Golden Globes, and four British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), in which Gyllenhaal won for Best Supporting Actor. He and Ledger won an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss in 2006. Shortly after the 2006 Academy Awards, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy in recognition of his acting career.

Gyllenhaal expressed mixed feelings about the experience of being directed by Ang Lee in Brokeback Mountain but generally had more praise than criticism for his directorial style. While critical of the way Lee tended to disconnect from his actors once filming began, Gyllenhaal praised his encouraging direction of the actors and sensitive approach to the material. At the Directors Guild of America Awards on January 28, 2006, Gyllenhaal also praised Lee for "his humbleness and his respect for everyone around him". When asked about his kissing scenes with Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhaal said, "As an actor, I think we need to embrace the times we feel most uncomfortable." When asked about the more intimate scenes with Ledger, Gyllenhaal likened them to "doing a sex scene with a woman I'm not particularly attracted to". Following the release of Brokeback Mountain, rumors circulated regarding the actor's sexual orientation. When asked about such gossip during an interview, Gyllenhaal said: "You know it's flattering when there's a rumor that says I'm bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened."

Gyllenhaal narrated the 2005 short animated film The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, based on Mordicai Gerstein's book of the same name about Philippe Petit's famous stunt. In January 2007, as host of Saturday Night Live, he put on a sparkly evening dress and sang "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical Dreamgirls for his opening monologue, dedicating the song to his "unique fan base... the fans of Brokeback". Later, Gyllenhaal starred in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac (2007), based on the Zodiac Killer. He played Robert Graysmith, a San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist. In preparation for his role, Gyllenhaal met Graysmith, and videotaped him to study his mannerisms and behavior. The film received a positive response; writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Byrnes opined that it was "poignant, provocative and haunting", and called Gyllenhaal "terrific". He next starred opposite Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Reese Witherspoon in 2007's Rendition, a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the U.S. policy of extraordinary rendition. Although it garnered a mixed response, New York magazine's David Edelstein called Gyllenhaal "compelling ... he's a reticent actor. But he builds that limitation into the character". Two years later, he co-starred with Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman in Jim Sheridan's Brothers, a 2009 remake of Susanne Bier's Danish film of the same name. It was met with mixed reviews and moderate box office returns, but Anthony Quinn of The Independent thought Gyllenhaal and Maguire gave "honest performances". Gyllenhaal has also claimed that Maguire's performance in the film influenced his acting throughout his career.

The following year, Gyllenhaal played the lead role in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an adaptation of the video game of the same name, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and released by Disney. He starred opposite Anne Hathaway in the romantic-comedy Love & Other Drugs, released on November 24, 2010, which gained him a Golden Globe Award nomination. The Guardian Philip French welcomed Gyllenhaal's choice of a comic role, in contrast to his previous film roles, but thought the film "stumbles badly". For his sole project in 2011, he portrayed Colter Stevens, a U.S. Army Aviation captain, in the 2011 time-travel thriller Source Code. Despite noting the film's unrealistic plot, Peter Howell of the Toronto Star praised the prime performances of the cast.

2012–2018: Critical acclaim and Broadway debut
Gyllenhaal starred alongside Michael Peña in David Ayer's action thriller End of Watch, about two Los Angeles street cops. The film, for which Gyllenhaal was also an executive producer, was released in September 2012 and received positive reviews, with Roger Ebert deeming it "one of the best police movies in recent years, a virtuoso fusion of performances and often startling action" and Salon's Andrew O'Hehir stating that the film was "at least the best cop movie since James Gray's We Own the Night, and very likely since Antoine Fuqua's memorable Training Day (which, not coincidentally, was written by Ayer)". To prepare for the role, Gyllenhaal took tactical training and participated in actual police ride-alongs with co-star Peña to help establish the language of the characters.

He served as a jury member for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival that was held in February 2012. Also in 2012, Gyllenhaal made his Off-Broadway debut in Nick Payne's play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels Theatre. 2013 saw Gyllenhaal appear in two films directed by Denis Villeneuve, whom Gyllenhaal describes as "an older brother". The first, the thriller Prisoners, starred Gyllenhaal as a detective named Loki in search of the abductor of two young girls. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers praised Gyllenhaal's "exceptional" performance in the film. In their second collaboration, Gyllenhaal portrayed the dual role of a history teacher and his doppelgänger in the thriller Enemy. The following year, he produced and starred in the crime thriller Nightcrawler, earning Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance. Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader called Gyllenhaal's performance "attention-grabbing" and said that he "creates a memorable screen presence".

Gyllenhaal debuted on Broadway in Payne's Constellations at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre opposite Ruth Wilson, also in her Broadway debut. The production opened in January 2015 and closed in March of the same year. That same year, he starred in the comedy Accidental Love, which was filmed in South Carolina with Jessica Biel, as well as Antoine Fuqua's sports drama Southpaw. Writing for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab called his portrayal of a boxer in Southpaw "plausible" and complimented his "emotional vulnerability", despite an unoriginal plot. He then portrayed Scott Fischer in Baltasar Kormákur's Everest, based on the 1996 Mount Everest disaster; the film was a commercial success, grossing $203 million worldwide. Finally, he appeared in Jean-Marc Vallée's comedy-drama Demolition, playing an investment banker Davis Mitchell, who rebuilds his life after losing his wife. The Village Voice's Bilge Ebiri praised his performance, writing, "He nails Davis's boyish curiosity, the quiet, wide-eyed uncertainty of someone discovering the world for the first time." He also served as a jury member for the main competition of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2016, he starred in Tom Ford's neo-noir thriller Nocturnal Animals, based on the 1993 novel Tony and Susan by Austin Wright. The film received positive reviews. The Sydney Morning Herald's Sandra Hall praised Gyllenhaal's brilliant portrayal of his two roles, while Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote that his performance contained "rich emotional shadings" and escalating intensity that becomes overwhelming. In October 2016, he appeared in four benefit concert performances of the Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George at the New York City Center as the titular character. Alexis Soloski of The Guardian gave the performance a perfect five-star review and hailed Gyllenhaal's superb singing. Starting in February 2017, Gyllenhaal reprised the role at the reopened Hudson Theatre on Broadway. Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised his "searing theatrical presence, in which his eyes are his center of gravity." He was scheduled to appear in Lanford Wilson's Burn This on Broadway under the direction of Michael Mayer in 2017. However, a new production of Burn This took place in 2019 with Adam Driver appearing, with Gyllenhaal's production having reportedly been abandoned.

In 2017, Gyllenhaal starred as astronaut David Jordan in the science fiction horror film Life; Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson stated that Gyllenhaal was "dead behind the eyes from his first scene". He also had a supporting role in the action-adventure film Okja and starred in the drama Stronger, based on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman. In his review of the latter, The Independent's Geoffrey Macnab complimented Gyllenhaal's versatility and "outstanding" portrayal of Bauman. The following year, he co-starred in the drama Wildlife opposite Carey Mulligan, in which he plays a father who temporarily abandons his family to take a dangerous job. It is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Richard Ford. Ella Kemp, writing for Sight & Sound magazine, praised the chemistry of the lead actors which "fizzes with an effortless dynamism". He also had a role in the Western drama The Sisters Brothers (2018).

2019–present: Action and thriller films
Gyllenhaal reunited with Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy in the thriller film Velvet Buzzsaw, in which he plays art critic Mort Vandewalt. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Netflix. Variety's Peter Debrudge opined that Gyllenhaal was "relishing another of those cartoonishly camp performances". That same year, Gyllenhaal played comic book villain Mysterio / Quentin Beck in the superhero film Spider-Man: Far From Home, a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. He appeared alongside Tom Sturridge in Sea Wall/A Life, a double bill of monologues by Nick Payne and Simon Stephens, at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway in 2019. He garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance. Gyllenhaal also lent his voice for the animation Spirit Untamed (2021). That same year, he played detective Joe Baylor in the crime thriller The Guilty, a remake of the Danish film of the same name.

In 2022, he starred as a criminal in Michael Bay's action thriller Ambulance; the film received mixed reviews from critics. Gyllenhaal also voiced a farmer in the Disney animation Strange World. He appeared in Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (2023) and Doug Liman's action film Road House (2024). Following the success of Road House, his production company, Nine Stories, signed a first-look deal with Amazon MGM Studios. <!-- He is attached to portray film producer Robert Evans in Francis and the Godfather, a film that chronicles the creation of 1972's The Godfather, and military airman John A. Chapman in the film Combat Control. Gyllenhaal is slated to executive produce and star in The Son, a television miniseries based on Jo Nesbø's novel of the same name. He is attached to produce and star in the heist thriller Cut and Run, and a film adaptation of the musical Fun Home. He is slated to appear in Prophet, a Sam Hargrave-directed film based on the Image Comics character. Gyllenhaal stars in a remake of Road House as a former UFC fighter-turned-bouncer. He will star alongside UFC champion Conor McGregor, and the film will be released on Amazon Prime. -->In 2024 it was announced that Gyllenhaal would return to Broadway playing Iago in the 2025 revival of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello starring opposite Denzel Washington.

Public image
Gyllenhaal was named one of People "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. He was also listed in People's "Hottest Bachelors of 2006". In April 2012, Shalom Life ranked him number six on its list of "the 50 most talented, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous Jewish men in the world". He was ranked number 35 in Empire poll of The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2013. In another poll conducted by Glamour, Gyllenhaal was selected as one of the Sexiest Men of The Year 2018.

Family and relationships
Gyllenhaal's sister Maggie is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal's co-star in Jarhead and Rendition. In December 2006, Gyllenhaal and his sister escaped a fire that destroyed Manka's Inverness Lodge, a famed lodge and restaurant in Inverness, California, at which they were vacationing. The two were among a dozen or so guests who fled after the fire, sparked by a falling tree, broke out at about 3 a.m. Co-owner and celebrity chef Daniel DeLong said the pair were supportive despite having to brave the wind and cold. "Jake was helping me pull things out of the fire," DeLong said.

Gyllenhaal has both godparents and what he describes as "celebrity godparents". Actor and director Paul Newman was his godfather, and actress Jamie Lee Curtis is his godmother. Other godparents of unknown status include a gay couple and cinematographer Robert Elswit. Gyllenhaal is the godfather of Matilda Rose Ledger (born October 28, 2005), daughter of his Brokeback Mountain co-stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams.

Gyllenhaal began dating actress Kirsten Dunst in 2002 after his sister Maggie, who starred with Dunst in Mona Lisa Smile, introduced them; they eventually broke up in 2004 on friendly terms. He dated his Rendition co-star Reese Witherspoon from 2007 until 2009. He dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from October 2010 to January 2011, and model Alyssa Miller from July to December 2013.

Gyllenhaal has been in a relationship with French model Jeanne Cadieu since late 2018.

Political views and other interests
Gyllenhaal once filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and, along with his sister, visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. He also campaigned for Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry. He has said that "it frustrates me when actors talk politics; I'm political and I make choices in my movies that I think are political. I try and say things with what I do. Rightly or wrongly, young actors have all the power." In an interview, he remarked that "it's a sad time when actors are politicians and politicians are actors". In the 2018 midterm elections, Gyllenhaal endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke. His endorsement came in the form of a Facebook post that included a picture of him in a "BETO" shirt and a caption that also endorsed Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jacky Rosen in their respective Senate or gubernatorial elections.

Gyllenhaal recycles regularly, and said in an interview that he spends $400 a year to have trees planted in a Mozambique forest, partly to promote the Future Forests program. After filming The Day After Tomorrow, he flew to the Arctic to promote awareness of climate change. He has described climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiring figure.

In 2003, Gyllenhaal participated in an advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union. Gyllenhaal is the Honorary Chair of the New Eyes for the Needy Advisory Board, and has signed on to help the TV fundraiser Stand Up to Cancer. Gyllenhaal is on the board of directors for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and volunteered in California juvenile detention centers with Scott Budnick. In 2014, Gyllenhaal attended an event that benefited the Headstrong Project, an organization that provides treatment to military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, during which he read a poem by a veteran, and in 2017 he participated in a fundraiser to help survivors who lost limbs during the September 11 attacks in 2001. Gyllenhaal has studied Buddhism and has said, "I am not a card-carrying Buddhist, but I do try to practice mindfulness" and that it is his goal to meditate every day.

Acting credits and awards
Gyllenhaal's most acclaimed films, according to the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include October Sky (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), Lovely & Amazing (2002), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Zodiac (2007), Source Code (2011), End of Watch (2012), Nightcrawler (2014), and Stronger (2017). He has received numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Film Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and nominations for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and three Tony Awards.

title: Jake Gyllenhaal


text:
Antoine-Marin Lemierre

Antoine-Marin Lemierre (12 January 1733 – 4 July 1793) was a French dramatist and poet.

Life
He was born in Paris, into a poor family, but found a patron in the collector-general of taxes, Dupin, whose secretary he became. Lemierre gained his first success on the stage with Hypermnestre (1758); Titre (1761) and Idomne (1764) failed on account of the subjects. Artaxerce, modelled on Metastasio, and Guillaume Tell were produced in 1766; other successful tragedies were La Veuve de Malabar (1770) and Barnavelt (1784). He was admitted to the Académie française in 1780.

Lemierre revived Guillaume Tell in 1786 with enormous success. After the French Revolution he professed great remorse for the production of a play inculcating revolutionary principles, and there is no doubt that the horror of the excesses he witnessed hastened his death. Lemierre published La Peinture (1769), based on a Latin poem by the abbé de Marsy, and a poem in six cantos. Les Fastes, ou les usages de lannie (1779), an unsatisfactory imitation of Ovid's Fasti.

His Œuvres (1810) contain a notice of Lemierre by R. Perrin. and his Œuvres choisies (1811) contain one by F. Fayolle.

title: Antoine-Marin Lemierre


text:
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title: Template:Wikipedia FAQ


text:
Apache Groovy

Apache Groovy is a Java-syntax-compatible object-oriented programming language for the Java platform. It is both a static and dynamic language with features similar to those of Python, Ruby, and Smalltalk. It can be used as both a programming language and a scripting language for the Java Platform, is compiled to Java virtual machine (JVM) bytecode, and interoperates seamlessly with other Java code and libraries. Groovy uses a curly-bracket syntax similar to Java's. Groovy supports closures, multiline strings, and expressions embedded in strings. Much of Groovy's power lies in its AST transformations, triggered through annotations.

Groovy 1.0 was released on January 2, 2007, and Groovy 2.0 in July, 2012. Since version 2, Groovy can be compiled statically, offering type inference and performance near that of Java. Groovy 2.4 was the last major release under Pivotal Software's sponsorship which ended in March 2015. Groovy has since changed its governance structure to a Project Management Committee in the Apache Software Foundation.

History
James Strachan first talked about the development of Groovy on his blog in August 2003. In March 2004, Groovy was submitted to the JCP as JSR 241 and accepted by ballot. Several versions were released between 2004 and 2006. After the Java Community Process (JCP) standardization effort began, the version numbering changed, and a version called "1.0" was released on January 2, 2007. After various betas and release candidates numbered 1.1, on December 7, 2007, Groovy 1.1 Final was released and immediately renumbered as Groovy 1.5 to reflect the many changes made.

In 2007, Groovy won the first prize at JAX 2007 innovation award. In 2008, Grails, a Groovy web framework, won the second prize at JAX 2008 innovation award.

In November 2008, SpringSource acquired the Groovy and Grails company (G2One). In August 2009 VMware acquired SpringSource.

In April 2012, after eight years of inactivity, the Spec Lead changed the status of JSR 241 to dormant.

Strachan had left the project silently a year before the Groovy 1.0 release in 2007. In Oct 2016, Strachan stated "I still love groovy (jenkins pipelines are so groovy!), java, go, typescript and kotlin".

On July 2, 2012, Groovy 2.0 was released, which, among other new features, added static compiling and static type checking.

When the Pivotal Software joint venture was spun-off by EMC Corporation (EMC) and VMware in April 2013, Groovy and Grails formed part of its product portfolio. Pivotal ceased sponsoring Groovy and Grails from April 2015. That same month, Groovy changed its governance structure from a Codehaus repository to a Project Management Committee (PMC) in the Apache Software Foundation via its incubator. Groovy graduated from Apache's incubator and became a top-level project in November 2015.

On February 7, 2020, Groovy 3.0 was released. Version 4.0 was released on January 25, 2022.

Features
Most valid Java files are also valid Groovy files. Although the two languages are similar, Groovy code can be more compact, because it does not need all the elements that Java needs. This makes it possible for Java programmers to learn Groovy gradually by starting with familiar Java syntax before acquiring more Groovy programming idioms.

Groovy features not available in Java include both static and dynamic typing (with the keyword ), operator overloading, native syntax for lists and associative arrays (maps), native support for regular expressions, polymorphic iteration, string interpolation, added helper methods, and the safe navigation operator   to check automatically for null pointers (for example, , or  ).

Since version 2 Groovy also supports modularity (being able to ship only the needed jars according to the project needs, thus reducing the size of Groovy's library), type checking, static compiling, Project Coin syntax enhancements, multicatch blocks and ongoing performance enhancements using the  instruction introduced in Java 7.

Groovy provides native support for various markup languages such as XML and HTML, accomplished via an inline Document Object Model (DOM) syntax. This feature enables the definition and manipulation of many types of heterogeneous data assets with a uniform and concise syntax and programming methodology.

Unlike Java, a Groovy source code file can be executed as an (uncompiled) script, if it contains code outside any class definition, if it is a class with a main method, or if it is a Runnable or GroovyTestCase. A Groovy script is fully parsed, compiled, and generated before executing (similar to Python and Ruby). This occurs under the hood, and the compiled version is not saved as an artifact of the process.

GroovyBeans, properties
GroovyBeans are Groovy's version of JavaBeans. Groovy implicitly generates getters and setters. In the following code,  and   are implicitly generated. The last two lines, which appear to access color directly, are actually calling the implicitly generated methods.

Groovy offers simple, consistent syntax for handling lists and maps, reminiscent of Java's array syntax.

Prototype extension
Groovy offers support for prototype extension through, Extension Modules (only in Groovy 2), Objective-C-like Categories and.

offers a domain-specific language (DSL) to express the changes in the class easily, similar to Ruby's open class concept:

Groovy's changes in code through prototyping are not visible in Java, since each attribute/method invocation in Groovy goes through the metaclass registry. The changed code can only be accessed from Java by going to the metaclass registry.

Groovy also allows overriding methods as,   among others, enabling the developer to intercept calls to an object and specify an action for them, in a simplified aspect-oriented way. The following code enables the class  to respond to the   property:

The Grails framework uses metaprogramming extensively to enable GORM dynamic finders, like  and others.

Dot and parentheses
Groovy's syntax permits omitting parentheses and dots in some situations. The following groovy code

can be written as

enabling the development of domain-specific languages (DSLs) that look like plain English.

Functional programming
Although Groovy is mostly an object-oriented language, it also offers functional programming features.

Closures
According to Groovy's documentation: "Closures in Groovy work similar to a 'method pointer', enabling code to be written and run in a later point in time". Groovy's closures support free variables, i.e. variables that have not been explicitly passed as a parameter to it, but exist in its declaration context, partial application (that it terms 'currying' ), delegation, implicit, typed and untyped parameters.

When working on Collections of a determined type, the closure passed to an operation on the collection can be inferred:

A group of expressions can be written in a closure block without reference to an implementation and the responding object can be assigned at a later point using delegation:

Curry
Usually called partial application, this Groovy feature allows closures' parameters to be set to a default parameter in any of their arguments, creating a new closure with the bound value. Supplying one argument to the  method will fix argument one. Supplying N arguments will fix arguments 1 .. N.

Curry can also be used in the reverse direction (fixing the last N arguments) using.

Groovy also supports lazy evaluation, reduce/fold, infinite structures and immutability, among others.

JSON and XML processing
On JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and XML processing, Groovy employs the Builder pattern, making the production of the data structure less verbose. For example, the following XML:

can be generated via the following Groovy code:

and also can be processed in a streaming way through. To change the implementation to JSON, the  can be swapped to.

To parse it and search for a functional language, Groovy's  method can serve:

String interpolation
In Groovy, strings can be interpolated with variables and expressions by using GStrings:

GStrings containing variables and expressions must be declared using double quotes.

A complex expression must be enclosed in curly brackets. This prevents parts of it from being interpreted as belonging to the surrounding string instead of to the expression:

Expression evaluation can be deferred by employing arrow syntax:

Abstract syntax tree transformation
According to Groovy's own documentation, "When the Groovy compiler compiles Groovy scripts and classes, at some point in the process, the source code will end up being represented in memory in the form of a Concrete Syntax Tree, then transformed into an Abstract Syntax Tree. The purpose of AST Transformations is to let developers hook into the compilation process to be able to modify the AST before it is turned into bytecode that will be run by the JVM. AST Transformations provides Groovy with improved compile-time metaprogramming capabilities allowing powerful flexibility at the language level, without a runtime performance penalty."

Examples of ASTs in Groovy are:

 * Category and Mixin transformation
 * Immutable AST Macro
 * Newify transformation
 * Singleton transformation

among others.

The testing framework Spock uses AST transformations to allow the programmer to write tests in a syntax not supported by Groovy, but the relevant code is then manipulated in the AST to valid code. An example of such a test is:

Traits
According to Groovy's documentation, "Traits are a structural construct of the language that allows: composition of behaviors, runtime implementation of interfaces, behavior overriding, and compatibility with static type checking/compilation."

Traits can be seen as interfaces carrying both default implementations and state. A trait is defined using the trait keyword:

Then, it can be used like a normal interface using the keyword :

Traits allow a wide range of abilities, from simple composition to testing.

Adoption
Notable examples of Groovy adoption include:
 * Adaptavist ScriptRunner, embeds a Groovy implementation to automate and extend Atlassian tools, in use by more than 20000 organisations around the world.
 * Apache OFBiz, the open-source enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, uses Groovy.
 * Eucalyptus, a cloud management system, uses a significant amount of Groovy.
 * Gradle is a popular build automation tool using Groovy.
 * LinkedIn uses Groovy and Grails for some of their subsystems.
 * LogicMonitor, a cloud-based monitoring platform, uses Groovy in script-based data sources.
 * Jenkins, a platform for continuous integration. With version 2, Jenkins includes a Pipeline plugin that allows for build instructions to be written in Groovy.
 * Liferay, uses groovy in their kaleo workflow
 * Sky.com uses Groovy and Grails to serve massive online media content.
 * SmartThings, an open platform for smart homes and the consumer Internet of Things, uses a security-oriented subset of Groovy
 * SoapUI provides Groovy as a language for webservice tests development.
 * Survata, a market research startup, uses Groovy and Grails.
 * The European Patent Office (EPO) developed a dataflow programming language in Groovy "to leverage similarities in the processes for communicating with each individual country’s patent office, and transform them into a single, universal process."
 * Though Groovy can be integrated into any JVM environment, the JBoss Seam framework provides Groovy, besides Java, as a development language, out of the box.
 * vCalc.com uses Groovy for all of the user defined mathematics in its math crowd-sourcing engine.
 * Wired.com uses Groovy and Grails for the Product Reviews standalone section of the website.
 * XWiki SAS uses Groovy as scripting language in their collaborative open-source product.

IDE support
Many integrated development environments (IDEs) and text editors support Groovy:

 * Android Studio, IDE used for making Android apps
 * Atom editor
 * Eclipse, through Groovy-Eclipse
 * Emacs, using the groovy-emacs-mode project's groovy-mode.
 * IntelliJ IDEA, Community Edition, Grails/Griffon in the Ultimate Edition only
 * JDeveloper, for use with Oracle ADF
 * jEdit, an advanced text editor for the Java platform
 * Kate, an advanced text editor for KDE supports Groovy and over 200 other file formats
 * NetBeans, since version 6.5
 * Notepad++, an advanced text editor for Microsoft Windows
 * Sublime Text, a cross platform text editor
 * TextMate
 * Visual Studio Code
 * UltraEdit, general purpose program editor

Dialects
There is one alternative implementation of Groovy:

 * Grooscript converts Groovy code to JavaScript code. Although Grooscript has some limitations compared to Apache Groovy, it can use domain classes in both the server and the client. Plugin support for Grails version 3.0 is provided, as well as online code conversions.

title: Apache Groovy