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Hypocenter

A hypocenter or hypocentre, also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its point of origin below ground; a synonym is the focus of an earthquake.

Generally, the terms ground zero and surface zero are also used in relation to epidemics, and other disasters to mark the point of the most severe damage or destruction. The term is distinguished from the term zero point in that the latter can also be located in the air, underground, or underwater.

Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The term "ground zero" originally referred to the hypocenter of the Trinity test in Jornada del Muerto desert near Socorro, New Mexico, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey of the atomic attacks, released in June 1946, used the term liberally, defining it as:

"For convenience, the term 'ground zero' will be used to designate the point on the ground directly beneath the point of detonation, or 'air zero.'"

William Laurence, an embedded reporter with the Manhattan Project, reported that "Zero" was "the code name given to the spot chosen for the [Trinity] test" in 1945.

The Oxford English Dictionary, citing the use of the term in a 1946 New York Times report on the destroyed city of Hiroshima, defines ground zero as "that part of the ground situated immediately under an exploding bomb, especially an atomic one." The term was military slang, used at the Trinity site where the weapon tower for the first nuclear weapon was at "point zero", and moved into general use very shortly after the end of World War II. At Hiroshima, the hypocenter of the attack was Shima Hospital, approximately 800 ft away from the intended aiming point at Aioi Bridge.

The Pentagon
During the Cold War, the Pentagon (headquarters of United States Department of Defense in Arlington County, Virginia) was an assured target in the event of nuclear war. The open space in the center of the Pentagon became known informally as ground zero. A snack bar that used to be located at the center of this open space was nicknamed "Cafe Ground Zero".

World Trade Center
During the September 11 attacks in 2001, two aircraft were hijacked by 10 al-Qaeda terrorists and were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing massive damage and starting fires that caused the weakened 110-story skyscrapers to collapse. The destroyed World Trade Center site soon became known as "ground zero". Rescue workers also used the term "The Big Momma!", referring to the pile of rubble that was left after the buildings collapsed.

Even after the site was cleaned up and construction on the new One World Trade Center and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum were well under way, the term was still frequently used to refer to the site, as when opponents of the Park51 project that was to be located two blocks away from the site labeled it the "Ground Zero mosque".

In advance of the 10th anniversary of the attacks, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg urged that the "ground zero" moniker be retired, saying, "…the time has come to call those 16 acre what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum."

Meteor air bursts
The hypocenter of a meteor air burst, an asteroid or comet that explodes in the atmosphere rather than strike the surface, is the closest point on the surface to the explosion. The Tunguska event occurred in Siberia in 1908 and flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2150 km2 of forest. The trees at the hypocenter of the blast were left standing, but all their limbs had been blown off by the shockwave. The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor's hypocenter in Russia was more populated than that of Tunguska, resulting in civil damage and injury, mostly from flying glass shards from broken windows.

Earthquakes
An earthquake's hypocenter or focus is the position where the strain energy stored in the rock is first released, marking the point where the fault begins to rupture. This occurs directly beneath the epicenter, at a distance known as the hypocentral depth or focal depth.

The focal depth can be calculated from measurements based on seismic wave phenomena. As with all wave phenomena in physics, there is uncertainty in such measurements that grows with the wavelength so the focal depth of the source of these long-wavelength (low frequency) waves is difficult to determine exactly. Very strong earthquakes radiate a large fraction of their released energy in seismic waves with very long wavelengths and therefore a stronger earthquake involves the release of energy from a larger mass of rock.

Computing the hypocenters of foreshocks, main shock, and aftershocks of earthquakes allows the three-dimensional plotting of the fault along which movement is occurring. The expanding wavefront from the earthquake's rupture propagates at a speed of several kilometers per second; this seismic wave is what is measured at various surface points in order to geometrically determine an initial guess as to the hypocenter. The wave reaches each station based upon how far away it was from the hypocenter. A number of things need to be taken into account, most importantly variations in the waves speed based upon the materials that it is passing through. With adjustments for velocity changes, the initial estimate of the hypocenter is made, then a series of linear equations is set up, one for each station. The equations express the difference between the observed arrival times and those calculated from the initial estimated hypocenter. These equations are solved by the method of least squares which minimizes the sum of the squares of the differences between the observed and calculated arrival times, and a new estimated hypocenter is computed. The system iterates until the location is pinpointed within the margin of error for the velocity computations.

title: Hypocenter


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Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (né Gaudier; 4 October 1891 – 5 June 1915) was a French artist and sculptor who developed a rough-hewn, primitive style of direct carving.

Biography
Henri Gaudier was born in Saint-Jean-de-Braye near Orléans. In 1910, he moved to London to become an artist, even though he had no formal training. With him came Sophie Brzeska, a Polish writer over twice his age whom he had met at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, and with whom he began an intense relationship, annexing her surname although they never married. (According to Jim Ede the linking of their names was never more than a personal arrangement.) During this time his conflicting attitudes towards art are exemplified in what he wrote to Dr. Uhlmayr, with whom he had lived the previous year:

"'When I face the beauty of nature, I am no longer sensitive to art, but in the town I appreciate its myriad benefits—the more I go into the woods and the fields the more distrustful I become of art and wish all civilization to the devil; the more I wander about amidst filth and sweat the better I understand art and love it; the desire for it becomes my crying need.'"

He resolved these reservations by taking up sculpture, having been inspired by his carpenter father. Once in England Gaudier-Brzeska fell in with the Vorticism movement of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis, becoming a founding member of the London Group. After coming under the influence of Jacob Epstein in 1912, he began to believe that sculpture should leave behind the highly finished, polished style of ancient Greece and embrace a more earthy direct carving, in which the tool marks are left visible on the final work as a fingerprint of the artist. Abandoning his early fascination for Auguste Rodin, he began to study instead extra-European artworks located in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. As he was unable to afford the raw materials necessary to attempt projects on the scale of Epstein's Indian and Assyrian influenced pieces, he concentrated initially on miniaturist sculpture genres such as Japanese netsuke before developing an interest in work from West Africa and the Pacific Islands.

In 1913, he assisted with the illustrations of Haldane MacFall's book The Splendid Wayfaring along with Claud Lovat Fraser and Edward Gordon Craig. In 1913 Henri Gaudier-Brzeska met Alfred Wolmark, the Jewish artist and modelled a bronze bust of the young artist, and the two remained close friends.

Gaudier-Brzeska's drawing style was influenced by the Chinese calligraphy and poetry which he discovered at the "Ezuversity", Ezra Pound's unofficial locus of teaching. Pound's interaction with Ernest Fenollosa's work on the Chinese brought the young sculptor to the galleries of Eastern art, where he studied the ideogram and applied it to his art. Gaudier-Brzeska had the ability to imply, with a few deft strokes, the being of a subject. His drawings also show the influence of Cubism.

At the start of the First World War, Gaudier-Brzeska enlisted with the French army. He appears to have fought with little regard for his own safety, receiving a decoration for bravery before being killed in the trenches at Neuville-St.-Vaast. During his time in the army, he sculpted a figure out of the butt of a rifle taken from a German soldier, "to express a gentler order of feeling"

Relationship with Sophie Brzeska
Gaudier met Sophie Brzeska, a Polish ex-governess twice his age, when he was only 18. Gaudier was an artist and Brzeska a novelist. Several books about Gaudier's work have been produced, but only the 1931 book Savage Messiah by H. S. Ede (Jim Ede) focuses on the relationship. A 1985 play by Una Flett, entitled Zosienka, explored their relationship and age differences. In Ede's work, Brzeska was presented as more of a companion and her relationship with Gaudier resembled a co-dependency, since both suffered from clear mental health issues. Henri was devoted to Sophie, even taking her last name as his, but Sophie was often dismissive and cold towards Henri's romantic overtures (indeed, according to Ede they either never had sex, only did once or twice, or rarely did). They were often apart and Sophie would buy Henri prostitutes for his enjoyment instead of having relations with him.

Brzeska is often left out of accounts of Gaudier's life. Even Savage Messiah itself focuses on the artist and Brzeska is regarded with very little interest. Ken Russell's 1972 film of the book, however, changes the focus to Sophie and Henri Gaudier's relationship.

Following his death Sophie Brzeska became distraught, eventually dying in an asylum in 1925.

Legacy
Jim Ede bought a sizeable portion of Gaudier-Brzeska's work from Sophie Brzeska's estate after she died intestate. Her estate included numerous letters sent between Henri and Sophie. Ede used these as the basis for his book Savage Messiah on the life and work of Gaudier-Brzeska, which in turn became the basis of Ken Russell's film of the same name. The conclusion of the film peruses many of his sculptures and fully demonstrates what great art he produced in his short lifetime.

Despite the fact that he had only four years to develop his art, Gaudier-Brzeska has had a surprisingly strong influence on 20th-century modernist sculpture in England and France. His work is in the permanent collections at the Tate Gallery, Kettle's Yard, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Huntington Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans, among others.

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University held an exhibition entitled The Vorticists: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914–18 from 30 September 2010 through 2 January 2011, which included his work.

The relationship between Henri Gaudier and Sophie Brzeska was fictionalised in the stage play The Laughing Woman.

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

title: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska


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Eastern Hemisphere

The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole to pole). It is also used to refer to Afro-Eurasia (Africa and Eurasia) and Australia, in contrast with the Western Hemisphere, which includes mainly North and South America. The Eastern Hemisphere may also called the "Oriental Hemisphere", and may in addition be used in a cultural or geopolitical sense as a synonym for "Old World."

Geography
The almost perfect circle (the earth is an oblate spheroid that is wider around the equator), drawn with a line, demarcating the Eastern and Western Hemispheres must be an arbitrarily decided and published convention, unlike the Equator (an imaginary line encircling Earth, equidistant from its poles), which divides the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The prime meridian at 0° longitude and the antimeridian, at 180° longitude, are the conventionally accepted boundaries, since they divide eastern longitudes from western longitudes. This convention was established in 1884 at the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, D.C. where the standard time concepts of Canadian railroad engineer Sir Sandford Fleming were adopted. The Hemispheres agreed do not correspond with exact continents. Portions of Western Europe, West Africa, Oceania, and extreme northeastern Russia are in the Western Hemisphere, divorcing it from the continents which form the touchstone for most geopolitical constructs of "the East" and "the West".

Consequently, meridians of 20°W and the diametrically opposed 160°E are often used outside of matters of physics and navigation, which includes all of the European and African mainlands, but also includes a small portion of northeast Greenland (typically reckoned as part of North America) and excludes more of eastern Russia and Oceania (e.g., New Zealand). Prior to the global adoption of standard time, numerous prime meridians were decreed by various countries where time was defined by local noon (thereby, local).

The centre of the Eastern Hemisphere is located in the Indian Ocean at the intersection of the equator and the 90th meridian east, 910 km west of Indonesia in the Ninety East Ridge. The nearest land is Simeulue Island at 2.58333°N, 96.08333°W.

The land mass of the Eastern Hemisphere is larger than that of the Western Hemisphere and has a wide variety of habitats.

Sovereign states in both hemispheres
Below is a list of the sovereign states in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres on the IERS Reference Meridian, in order from north to south:

 * 🇩🇰 Denmark, due to the entirety of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Denmark proper lies entirely within the Eastern Hemisphere.
 * 🇳🇴 Norway, due only to Jan Mayen. Mainland Norway, Svalbard and Bouvet Island lie entirely within the Eastern Hemisphere.
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom, passing through Greenwich, London. Most of the country lies within the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇳🇱 The Netherlands has overseas islands that lie entirely within the Western Hemisphere, while mainland Netherlands lies entirely within the Eastern Hemisphere.

 * 🇫🇷 France, passing through Puynormand (Gironde). About 1/3 of the country, including cities like Nantes or Bordeaux, as well as the overseas regions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana lie within the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇪🇸 Spain, passing through Castellón de la Plana (Valencian Community). Most of Spain, including the capital Madrid, the Canary Islands and the southern half of its Mediterranean territorial waters, lies within the Western Hemisphere. Spanish, Moroccan and Algerian Mediterranean waters are the only part of the Mediterranean Sea located in the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇩🇿 Algeria, passing through Stidia. About 1/4 of the country, including Oran, Algeria's second-largest city, lies within the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇲🇱 Mali, passing through the municipal area of Gao. Most of Mali, including the capital Bamako, lies within the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso, passing through Lalgaye. Most of the country, including the capital Ouagadougou, lies within the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇬🇭 Ghana, passing through Tema. Most of Ghana, including the capital Accra, lies within the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇹🇬 Togo, passing near Tami (Tône Prefecture in Savanes Region).

Below is a list of additional sovereign states which are in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres along the 180th meridian, in order from north to south. (France is not listed below due to its inclusion above, though the meridian does pass Wallis and Futuna.) With the exception of the United States (due to Wake Island, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), all of them are located on just one side of the International Date Line, which curves around them.

 * 🇷🇺 Russia, passing through Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Its portion lying east of the 180th meridian is the only part of the country lying in the Western Hemisphere.
 * 🇺🇸 United States, passing through the Aleutian Islands (Alaska). Except for the portion of Aleutian Islands and waters lying west of the 180th meridian, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Wake Island, most of the country lies east of the 180th meridian.
 * 🇰🇮 Kiribati, passing close to Arorae. The country has both the Equator and the 180th meridian (antimeridian) crossing through its territory. It is the only country located in four hemispheres.
 * 🇹🇻 Tuvalu, passing close to its capital, Funafuti.
 * 🇫🇯 Fiji, passing close to its dependency Rotuma and passing through Taveuni.
 * 🇳🇿 Most of New Zealand proper lies within the Eastern Hemisphere; but Chatham Islands and Kermadec Islands, as well as the self-governing states of the Cook Islands and Niue and the dependent territory of Tokelau, lie east of the 180th meridian.

Demographics
82% of humans live in the Eastern Hemisphere, and 18% in the Western Hemisphere.

title: Eastern Hemisphere


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Rex Williams

Desmond Rex Williams (born 20 July 1933) is an English retired professional billiards and snooker player. He was the second player to make an official maximum break in snooker, achieving this in an exhibition match in December 1965. Williams won the World Professional Billiards Championship from Clark McConachy in 1968, the first time that the title had been contested since 1951. Williams retained the title in several challenge matches in the 1970s and, after losing it to Fred Davis in 1980, regained it from 1982 to 1983.

He played a leading role in the re-establishment of the World Snooker Championship on a challenge basis in 1964, and lost twice to John Pulman, once in a single match and once in a series of matches played in South Africa. When the Championship reverted to being a knockout from 1969, he reached the semi-finals three times. In 1968 he initiated the revival of the Professional Billiards Players Association (known as the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association from 1970). He chaired the association, barring a few weeks in 1983, until 1987, and again from 1997 to 1999.

Williams was a successful junior player in both snooker and billiards, and became a professional in 1951 at the age of 18. At the 1986 Grand Prix, aged 53, he became the oldest player to reach a ranking tournament final. He lost the match 6–10 to Jimmy White after leading 6–4. He retired from competitive snooker in 1995, having achieved his highest ranking, 6th, in 1976/77.

Junior career
Williams was born in Halesowen on 20 July 1933. He started playing on a full-size billiard table at the age of 13 on a table installed at his father's printing works, and was coached by Kingsley Kennerley. He won the Midlands Boys Titles in both billiards and snooker. In 1948 he won the British Boys' (under-16) Championships at both snooker and billiards, and in 1950 he was the National Under-19 Billiards champion. He played an exhibition match against Joe Davis in 1949, winning the one 85–51 after receiving 21 start. In 1951, at 17 years old, he became the youngest winner of the English Amateur Snooker Championship (until Jimmy White in 1979), beating the 1939 champion Percy Bendon 6–1 in the final. He also won the 1951 National Under-19 Championships at both snooker and billiards.

Early professional career
Williams turned professional in 1951 at the age of 18, and entered the 1952 World Professional Match-play Championship. He met Alec Brown in the first round in a match over 61 frames played from 17 to 22 December 1951 at Darlaston, Staffordshire. Brown won comfortably, taking a winning 33–17 lead after the fifth day and eventually winning 39–22. Williams made his debut at Leicester Square Hall in early 1952, playing John Pulman in an exhibition match on level terms. Pulman won the six-day match 42–31. Williams then beat John Barrie 40–33 in another exhibition match, receiving 10 points each frame in the handicapped match.

In May and early June 1952, Williams played in the qualifying competition for the 1952/1953 News of the World Snooker Tournament. In his first match he played 66-year-old Willie Smith and won 22–15. The qualifying was won by Jackie Rea who advanced to the main event. Williams met Kingsley Kennerley in the first qualifying round for the World Championship. Kennerley had already beaten him 23–14 in the News of the World qualifying and beat him again, this time 25–12. Albert Brown was ill for two of his matches in the News of the World Tournament and Williams played Fred Davis in a three-day exhibition match, in place of the planned second contest. Williams received a 14-point start but Fred Davis won the match 23–14. In March 1953, Williams played Joe Davis in an exhibition match. Williams received a 21-point handicap but Joe Davis won 43–30, scoring 4 centuries on the final day.

Williams met Harry Stokes in the 31-frame qualifying round of the World Championship in early October 1953 and led 3–2 after the first session. Williams was then ill and the match was rearranged for a later date. The match was, however, later cancelled and Stokes advanced to the next round.

1960s revival of snooker
In 1964, the Conayes £200 Professional Tournament was staged at the Rex Williams Snooker Centre in Blackheath, being the first commercially sponsored professional snooker event since 1960. Williams was one of the four competitors, along with Fred Davis, John Pulman and Jackie Rea. Pulman won the event. Williams was instrumental in the revival of the World Snooker Championship in 1964, obtaining sanction for the competition after taking the Billiards Association and Control Council (BA&CC) chairman Harold Phillips out to lunch. The championship was staged on a challenge basis, with the first match being scheduled between Pulman, the winner of the 1957 World Professional Match-play Championship, and Fred Davis. Pulman beat Davis 19–16.

Later in 1964, Williams challenged Pulman for the title. The match was over 73 frames, played over 6 days from 12 to 17 October at Burroughes Hall. Williams led 8–4 at the end of the first day but Pulman won 11 of the 12 frames on the second day to lead 15–9. Pulman extended his lead to 31–17 after four days and won the match on the fifth day, taking a 37–23 winning lead. Pulman made a break of 109 in frame 57. The remaining 13 "dead" frames were played on the final day with Pulman finishing 40–33 ahead. Williams and Pulman met again in late 1965 in a series of short matches in South Africa, but Williams was unsuccessful again, losing 25 matches to 22. In one of these matches in East London in the Eastern Cape, Williams made a break of 142, breaking the World Championship record of 136 set by Joe Davis in 1946. This stood as the world championship record break until 1981, when Doug Mountjoy compiled a 145. In December 1965, during an exhibition match in Cape Town against Mannie Francisco, Williams followed Joe Davis as the second man to make a recognised 147 break.

In 1967, Williams and Fred Davis played a 51 match series that was billed as the World Open Matchplay Snooker Challenge, even though no other entries were solicited. The following year, Williams convened a meeting of players at his house that led to the revival of the Professional Billiard Players Association (PBPA), with Williams as chairman.

World professional billiards championship and the WPBSA
Williams won the World Professional Billiards Championship seven times from 1968 to 1983, including a reign as champion from 1968 to 1980. In 1968, Williams was on a trip to Australia, and decided to travel to Auckland in New Zealand to play the reigning champion Clark McConachy for the billiards title, which had not been contested since McConachy's 1951 win. By this time, McConachy was 73, and his play was affected by his Parkinson's disease. Williams won the title 5,499–5,234, and made the match's highest break, 293.

Leslie Driffield was nominated as the BA&CC challenger to Williams for the professional Billiards Championship. Williams declined to play Driffield within the five months time limit that the BA&CC had set, which expired on 7 July 1970, and forfeited the title, which was then contested between Driffield and Jack Karnehm in June 1971. On 1 October 1970, the PBPA disaffiliated from the BA&CC. The PBPA changed its name to the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association on 12 December 1970, and declared itself the governing body for the professional game, recognising Williams as champion. Driffield and Karnehm were, at first, the only two professionals to recognise the BA&CC as continuing to have authority over the game. During the 1970s, Williams made four successful defences of his title, against Bernard Bennett in 1971, Karnehm in 1973, and Eddie Charlton in 1974 and 1976. He also won the 1979 UK Championship, which was the first time the event had been held since Fred Davis won in 1951. Williams beat Karnehm in the semi-final and John Barrie 2,952–2,116 in the final. He reached the 1980 and 1981 UK finals, both against Karnehm, losing 2,423–2,518 in 1980 and winning 1,592–1,112 in 1981.

Williams lost the world title to Fred Davis in May 1980. Davis made a break of 583, the highest in the world championship for 46 years, in beating Williams 5,978–4,452. The championship then reverted to a knockout format, and was held in November 1980, with Williams losing to Mark Wildman in the semi-final. At the next staging, in 1982, Williams regained the title by beating Wildman 3,000–1,785 in the final; he retained it in 1983 with a 1,500–605 victory over Davis in the final. Unhappy at not being allowed to use a practice table near another match at the 1983 tournament, Williams had left the venue and returned late for his semi-final against Ray Edmonds, causing the match to start 48 minutes late. There were no rules in place for penalties for late arrivals, but following complaints to the WPBSA, Williams was fined £500 by the association, and resigned as chairman, but remained on the board. Three weeks later, he accepted the board's invitation to become chairman again. He continued as chairman until 1987, and took the role again from 1997 to 1999. In 2001, he was expelled from the Association following alleged fiduciary irregularities and asked to repay legal costs of £28,268, but was reinstated as a full member the following year. The Association apologised for its actions "unequivocally".

Later professional career
Williams reached the semi-final of the World Snooker Championship three times, losing to John Spencer in 1969, in 1972 to Alex Higgins 30–31 (having been four frames ahead with five left to play) and, in 1974, 7–15 to Graham Miles. He never won a World Championship match at the Crucible Theatre after it became the World Snooker Championship's venue in 1977, despite playing at the venue on eight occasions (a record he shares with Cliff Wilson). He recovered from 8–2 down to win 9–8 against Terry Griffiths in the first round of the 1978 UK Championship, in the future World Champion Griffiths' first match as a professional. Williams was the 1973 Pot Black runner-up, losing 33–99 to Charlton in the one-frame final.

In the 1985–86 snooker season, Williams reached the semi-finals of the 1986 Classic and the last sixteen of two other ranking events, and after some years outside the elite top 16 ranked players, was ranked 16th for 1986/1987. This meant that he earnt a place in the Masters for the first time since 1977. He was beaten 1–5 by Cliff Thorburn in the first round of the 1987 event. During the 1986–87 snooker season, Williams became the oldest player to reach a world-ranking final when, aged 53, he lost 6–10 to Jimmy White at the 1986 Grand Prix, after having led 6–4. His run to the Grand Prix final included 5–1 wins over both Higgins and Steve Davis, and a 9–8 semi-final defeat of Neal Foulds. He finished the season ranked 12th.

His last tournament as a professional snooker player was the 1995 World Championship, where he beat Steve Day and Chris O'Sullivan, before losing in the fourth qualifying round 3–10 to Nick Walker. His highest world ranking was 6th, in 1976/1977.

He founded a cue-making company, Power Glide Cues, and in 1975 established Rex Williams Leisure, a snooker and pool table manufacturing and hire business. Stephen Hendry bought a Rex Williams signature cue for £40 when he was aged 13, and used it until it was broken in 2003, including during his seven world snooker championship wins. Williams was a commentator for snooker television broadcasts for the BBC from 1978 to 1984, and after that for ITV. His book Snooker : How to become a Champion was published in 1975, and republished with some amendments as How to play Snooker in 1982 and 1988, and as Snooker in 1984.

Williams was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to snooker and billiards.

Performance and rankings timeline
Post-war

Modern era

title: Rex Williams


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Eric Wolf

Eric Robert Wolf (February 1, 1923 – March 6, 1999) was an anthropologist, best known for his studies of peasants, Latin America, and his advocacy of Marxist perspectives within anthropology.

Life in Vienna
Wolf was born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family. Wolf has described his family as nonreligious, and said that he had little experience of a Jewish community while growing up. His father worked for a corporation and was also a Freemason. Wolf described his mother, who had studied medicine in Russia, as a feminist—"not in terms of declarations, but in terms of her stand on human possibilities." In 1933, his father's work moved the family to Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, where Wolf attended German Gymnasium. He describes his life in the 1920s and 30s in segregated Vienna and then in proletarianizing Czechoslovakia as attuning him early on to questions surrounding class, ethnicity, and political power. The social divisions in Vienna and conflicts in the region in the 1930s influenced Wolf's later scholarly work.

Studying and living in other countries
Wolf and his family moved to England and then to the United States to escape Nazism. Wolf went to the Forest School, in Walthamstow, Essex, for two years, where he learned English and became interested in science, in part because of the strong emphasis on science of the school's Canadian headmaster. Despite learning English only when he arrived at the school as a teenager, he won the school's English essay prize. Moving to England also made him aware of cultural difference in a new way. In 1940, Wolf was interned in an alien detention camp in Huyton, near Liverpool, England. The detention camp was a high stress environment. It was there that Wolf became exposed to the organizational possibilities of socialism and communism. Through seminars organized by intellectuals in the camp, he was also exposed to the social sciences. Wolf was especially influenced by the German Jewish sociologist Norbert Elias who was also interned there.

Later in 1940, Wolf emigrated to the United States—the same period that 300,000 Jews emigrated to the U.S. from Germany. He enrolled in Queens College in New York City and also spent a summer at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee in 1941. Spending time in the South allowed Wolf to see a different side of the United States than he was familiar with from New York. Wolf was in the army and fought overseas in World War II, serving in Italy with the 10th Mountain Division. After returning from Europe, Wolf finished college at Queens College. There, Wolf became interested in anthropology, and later went on to study anthropology at Columbia University.

Career
Columbia had been the home of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict for many years, and was the central location for the spread of anthropology in America. By the time Wolf had arrived Boas had died and his anthropological style, which was suspicious of generalization and preferred detailed studies of particular subjects, was also out of fashion. The new chair of the anthropology department was Julian Steward, a student of Robert Lowie and Alfred Kroeber. Steward was interested in creating a scientific anthropology which explained how societies evolved and adapted to their physical environment.

Wolf was one of the coterie of students who developed around Steward. Older students' leftist beliefs, Marxist in orientation, worked well with Steward's less politicized evolutionism. Many anthropologists prominent in the 1980s such as Sidney Mintz, Morton Fried, Elman Service, Stanley Diamond, and Robert F. Murphy were among this group.

Wolf's dissertation research was carried out as part of Steward's 'People of Puerto Rico' project. Soon after, in 1961, Wolf began teaching at the University of Michigan, holding a position as a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Lehman College, CUNY before moving in 1971 to the CUNY Graduate Center, where he spent the remainder of his career. In addition to his Latin American work, Wolf also did fieldwork in Europe. With his student, John W. Cole, he conducted fieldwork on the culture, history, and settlement pattern of the Tyrol region, which was later published in their book The Hidden Frontier.

Wolf's key contributions to anthropology are related to his focus on issues of power, politics, and colonialism during the 1970s and 1980s when these topics were moving to the center of disciplinary concerns. His most well-known book, Europe and the People Without History, is famous for critiquing popular European history for largely ignoring historical actors outside the ruling classes. He also demonstrates that non-Europeans were active participants in global processes like the fur and slave trades and so were not 'frozen in time' or 'isolated' but had always been deeply implicated in world history.

In his Distinguished Lecture for the 1989 American Anthropological Association annual meeting, he warned that anthropologists are involved in 'continuously slaying paradigms, only to see them return to life, as if discovered for the first time.' This results in anthropology 'resembling a project in intellectual deforestation.' He argued that anthropology can be cumulative rather than continuous re-invention. Anthropologists, rather than focusing on high-flown theory, should aim for explanatory anthropology focused on the realities of life and fieldwork. Wolf struggled with colon cancer later in life. He died in 1999 in Irvington, New York.

Disciplinary imperialism
As a social scientist, already fighting from a less than ideal position in the wider academy, Eric Wolf criticized what he called disciplinary imperialism within social sciences, and between social sciences on one hand, and the natural sciences on another, banishing certain topics, such as history, as not enough academic. An example within social sciences is cultural anthropology winning over social anthropology (established in British academia), over sociology, and over history in the American and Americanized global academic community, since sociology was left with studying social mobility and social class, categories which neoliberals argue to be irrelevant, cultural anthropologists on the other hand proved useful for colonialist rule over "peoples without history", studying their myths, values, etc. This can be seen in mobilization of anthropologists for work with the U.S. military and Pentagon worldwide. His 1982 Europe and the People Without History reflected a turn away from, or fight against the disciplinary imperialism by dismantling ideas such as historical vs. non-historical people and societies, focusing on the relationship between European expansion and historical processes in the rest of the world—charting a global history, beginning in the 15th century. As reflected in the title of the book, he is interested in demonstrating ways in which societies written out of European histories were and are deeply involved in global historical systems and changes

Power
Much of Wolf's work deals with issues of power. In his book Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis (1999), Wolf deals with the relationship between power and ideas. He distinguishes between four modalities of power: 1. Power inherent in an individual; 2. Power as capacity of ego to impose one's will on alter; 3. Power as control over the contexts in which people interact; 4. Structural power: "By this I mean the power manifest in relationships that not only operates within settings and domains but also organizes and orchestrates the settings themselves, and that specifies the direction and distribution of energy flows". Based on Wolf's previous experience and later studies, he rejects the concept of culture that emerged from the counter-Enlightenment. Instead, he proposes a redefinition of culture that emphasizes power, diversity, ambiguity, contradiction and imperfectly shared meaning and knowledge.

Marxism
Wolf, known for his interest in and contributions to Marxist thought in anthropology, says that Marxism must be understood in the context of kinship and local culture. Culture and power are integrated, and mediated by ideology and property relations. There are two branches of Marxism, as defined by Wolf: Systems Marxism and Promethean Marxism. Systems Marxism is the discipline of postulates that could be used to frame general laws or patterns of social development. Promethean Marxism symbolized optimism for freedom from economic and political mistreatment and renowned reforming as the fashion to a more desirable future.

Activism
Wolf was involved in the protests against the Vietnam War. During his time at the University of Michigan he organized one of the first teach-ins against the war. He also was critical of the close relationship between some anthropologists of Southeast Asia and the US government, and led an ultimately successful attempt to re-write the code of ethics of the American Anthropological Association to prevent anthropological data from knowingly being used in military campaigns.

Personal
Wolf had two children from his first marriage, David and Daniel. Wolf later married the anthropologist Sydel Silverman. in the 1960s his best friend was the anthropologist Robert Burns Jr., father of the documentarian Ken Burns. While Ken Burns's mother was dying, he was cared for by Wolf's family.

Published works

 * The Mexican Bajío in the 18th Century (Tulane University, Middle American Research Institute, 1955)
 * Sons of the Shaking Earth (University of Chicago Press, 1959)
 * Anthropology (Prentice-Hall, 1964)
 * Peasants (Prentice-Hall, 1966)
 * Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (Harper & Row, 1969)
 * Wrote Introduction and contributing essay in National Liberation: revolution in the third world / Edited by Norman Miller and Roderick Aya (The Free Press, 1971)
 * The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Valley (with John W. Cole) (Academic Press, 1974)
 * Europe and the People Without History (University of California Press, 1982)
 * "Distinguished Lecture: Facing Power--Old Insights, New Questions", American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 586–596.
 * Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis (University of California Press, 1999)
 * Pathways of Power: Building an Anthropology of the Modern World (with Sydel Silverman) (University of California Press, 2001)

title: Eric Wolf


text:
Ardrishaig

Ardrishaig (Àird Driseig) is a coastal village on Loch Gilp, at the southern (eastern) entrance to the Crinan Canal in Argyll and Bute in the west of Scotland. It lies immediately to the south of Lochgilphead, with the nearest larger town being Oban.

History
Àird Driseig or Rubha Àird Driseig, the Scottish Gaelic versions of the name, mean "height of the small bramble" or "promontory of the small bramble".

Ardrishaig harbour's first pier was built in 1873.

In the 1970s, the village was significantly altered when a row of old houses and shops on the lochside of the main street was demolished to make way for a car park. Most trading now takes place in the neighbouring town Lochgilphead.

The village was a filming location for the television series A Mug's Game.

Governance
Ardrishaig historically fell within the South Knapdale parish, and is now served by Ardrishaig Community Council. It has been administered since 1996 by Argyll and Bute Council, falling within the Mid Argyll ward, which is represented by three councillors. The Scottish Parliament constituency is Argyll and Bute, which is represented by Michael Russell. The UK Parliament constituency is Argyll and Bute, which is represented by Brendan O'Hara.

Geography
Ardrishaig lies on the side of a hill (the Cruach nam Bonnach face of Cruach Breacain) bordering the west side of Loch Gilp, just north of where it joins Loch Fyne. The linear settlement stretches southwards along the A83 (Chalmers Street) from around 0.6 km south of the junction with the A816, on the southwest side of Lochgilphead. The Crinan Canal runs north–south through Ardrishaig, with locks and a basin at its southern terminus.

Ardrishaig Community Council is part-owner of the wind farm at Allt Dearg on the hill above Inverneill to the south of the town.

Demography
Ardrishaig had 1,283 inhabitants in 2001.

Crinan Canal and harbour
There are two piers, a lighthouse, slipway and breakwater along the seafront. Scottish Canals has an office by the canal basin. To the north side of the old pier is the Crinan Canal sea lock and to the south are pontoons and anchorage for boats. About 30,000 tonnes of timber pass through the harbour annually but it has the capacity for 150,000 tonnes.

Other landmarks
Facilities in the village include a hotel, public houses, a church, school, post office and antiques shops. There are two public telephone boxes and a public lavatory.

Education
Ardrishaig Primary School is located in the village, and serves the area between Erins and Millers Bridge. The present building dates from 1986. For secondary education, the village falls within the catchment area of Lochgilphead Joint Campus.

Notable people
John Smith, former Labour MP and Leader of the Opposition, was born in Ardrishaig.

James Chalmers, pioneering missionary, was born and lived in Ardrishaig until he was seven years old

Sir St Clair Thomson, Surgeon educated at the village school at Ardrishaig until he was ten years old.

title: Ardrishaig


text:
The Gothic Archies

The Gothic Archies are an American indie rock/gothic rock band established by Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields. In 1997, Merritt released The New Despair. The EP featured the song "Your Long White Fingers", which appeared frequently in the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

The band later became more prominent when Merritt wrote, performed and recorded songs for the audiobook versions of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. A collection of thirteen songs based on each book and two additional tracks was released as The Tragic Treasury on October 10, 2006, to coincide with the release of the final book in the series. The Gothic Archies briefly toured to promote the album featuring Merritt on ukulele and Daniel Handler on accordion. In 2002, The Gothic Archies composed original music for the audiobook version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

Discography

 * Looming in the Gloom (1996)
 * The New Despair (1997)
 * The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events (2006)

title: The Gothic Archies


text:
USS Whipple (DD-15)

The first USS Whipple (DD-15) was a Truxtun-class destroyer in the United States Navy, named for Abraham Whipple.

Built in Sparrows Point, Maryland
She was laid down on 13 November 1899, at Sparrows Point, Maryland, by the Maryland Steel Company; launched on 15 August 1901; sponsored by Miss Elsie Pope; and commissioned on 17 February 1903, Lieutenant Jehu V. Chase in command.

Pre-World War I
After training in Chesapeake Bay, Whipple was assigned to the 2nd Torpedo Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, and was based at Norfolk. The destroyer periodically served as flagship of the flotilla and operated off the east coast and in the Caribbean until she was placed in reserve at Norfolk on 5 September 1905.

Returning to active service on 16 July 1906, the ship conducted tactical exercises and routine training operations through November 1907, apart from taking part in relief operations after the 1907 Kingston earthquake in Jamaica. On 2 December, Whipple stood out of Hampton Roads and headed south toward the Caribbean for goodwill visits — "showing the flag."

Subsequently, following in the wake of the 16 battleships of the "Great White Fleet", Whipple and her flotilla-mates called at Rio de Janeiro; rounded Cape Horn for ports on the Chilean and Peruvian coasts; and conducted target practice at Magdalena Bay, Mexico. After participating in a fleet review at San Francisco on 8 May 1908, Whipple remained on the west coast, based at San Diego, as a unit of the Pacific Torpedo Flotilla.

Departing San Francisco at the end of a towline on 24 August, the destroyer subsequently took part in fleet battle problems in Hawaiian waters. Upon completion of the exercises, she steamed back to the west coast via Samoa and Magdalena Bay, Baja California, before arriving at San Diego on 1 December.

For the next six years, the destroyer operated off the west coast between San Diego and Magdalena Bay and made one cruise to Alaskan waters for maneuvers. The ship received the Mexican Service Medal for service off the Mexican coast in 1914 and 1916. While that country suffered in the throes of revolution and civil strife, the destroyer conducted patrols and stood ready to protect American lives and property.

World War I
On 6 April 1917, America entered World War I on the side of Britain, France, and Italy. Whipple soon commenced patrols off the approaches to the vital Panama Canal before departing the Panama Canal Zone on 5 July.

Refitted for "distant service", the destroyer put to sea on 28 August, bound for the Atlantic war zone, and put into the Azores on 17 September. Whipple operated on escort duties, convoying ships to and from the strategic islands for the next three months.

She then received orders to report at Brest, France. Anti-submarine patrols and convoy escort duties occupied Whipple through the early spring of 1918. On 17 April, munition ship Florence H. blew up off Quiberon Bay. Braving flying debris from the exploding ship, Whipple joined USS Stewart (DD-13) and USS Truxtun (DD-14) in rescuing 32 men of the 77-man crew of that doomed vessel.

Whipple carried out her routine wartime patrol duties through the end of hostilities. On 9 December, the destroyer departed the French coast and headed homeward, touching at the Azores and Bermuda before making port at Philadelphia on 3 January 1919.

The destroyer was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 7 July, and her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 September. On 3 January 1920, Henry A. Hitner's Sons Company, of Philadelphia, purchased the ship for scrapping.

Noteworthy commanding officers

 * Lieutenant Jehu V. Chase (17 February 1903 – 3 June 1905) (Later Rear admiral)
 * Lieutenant Frank H. Brumby (8 August 1906 – 25 August 1906) (Later Admiral)
 * Lieutenant Hutchinson Ingham Cone (13 February 1903 – 27 April 1904) (Later Rear admiral)

title: USS Whipple (DD-15)


text:
Continuous wavelet transform

In mathematics, the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is a formal (i.e., non-numerical) tool that provides an overcomplete representation of a signal by letting the translation and scale parameter of the wavelets vary continuously.

Definition
The continuous wavelet transform of a function $$x(t)$$ at a scale $$a\in\mathbb{R^{+*}}$$ and translational value $$b\in\mathbb{R}$$ is expressed by the following integral

 * $$X_w(a,b)=\frac{1}{|a|^{1/2}} \int_{-\infty}^\infty x(t)\overline\psi\left(\frac{t-b}{a}\right)\,\mathrm{d}t$$

where $$\psi(t)$$ is a continuous function in both the time domain and the frequency domain called the mother wavelet and the overline represents operation of complex conjugate. The main purpose of the mother wavelet is to provide a source function to generate the daughter wavelets which are simply the translated and scaled versions of the mother wavelet. To recover the original signal $$x(t)$$, the first inverse continuous wavelet transform can be exploited.

 * $$x(t)=C_\psi^{-1}\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} X_w(a,b)\frac{1}{|a|^{1/2}}\tilde\psi\left(\frac{t-b}{a}\right)\, \mathrm{d}b\ \frac{\mathrm{d}a}{a^2}$$

$$\tilde\psi(t)$$ is the dual function of $$\psi(t)$$ and
 * $$C_\psi=\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\frac{\overline\hat{\psi}(\omega)\hat{\tilde\psi}(\omega)}{|\omega|}\, \mathrm{d}\omega$$

is admissible constant, where hat means Fourier transform operator. Sometimes, $$\tilde\psi(t)=\psi(t)$$, then the admissible constant becomes
 * $$C_\psi = \int_{-\infty}^{+\infty}

\frac{\left| \hat{\psi}(\omega) \right|^2}{\left| \omega \right|} \, \mathrm{d}\omega $$ Traditionally, this constant is called wavelet admissible constant. A wavelet whose admissible constant satisfies
 * $$0<C_\psi <\infty$$

is called an admissible wavelet. To recover the original signal $$x(t)$$, the second inverse continuous wavelet transform can be exploited.
 * $$x(t)=\frac{1}{2\pi\overline\hat{\psi}(1)}\int_{0}^{\infty}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} \frac{1}{a^2}X_w(a,b)\exp\left(i\frac{t-b}{a}\right)\,\mathrm{d}b\ \mathrm{d}a$$

This inverse transform suggests that a wavelet should be defined as
 * $$\psi(t)=w(t)\exp(it) $$

where $$w(t)$$ is a window. Such defined wavelet can be called as an analyzing wavelet, because it admits to time-frequency analysis. An analyzing wavelet is unnecessary to be admissible.

Scale factor
The scale factor $$a$$ either dilates or compresses a signal. When the scale factor is relatively low, the signal is more contracted which in turn results in a more detailed resulting graph. However, the drawback is that low scale factor does not last for the entire duration of the signal. On the other hand, when the scale factor is high, the signal is stretched out which means that the resulting graph will be presented in less detail. Nevertheless, it usually lasts the entire duration of the signal.

Continuous wavelet transform properties
In definition, the continuous wavelet transform is a convolution of the input data sequence with a set of functions generated by the mother wavelet. The convolution can be computed by using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. Normally, the output $$X_w(a,b)$$ is a real valued function except when the mother wavelet is complex. A complex mother wavelet will convert the continuous wavelet transform to a complex valued function. The power spectrum of the continuous wavelet transform can be represented by $$\frac{1}{a}\cdot|X_w(a,b)|^2$$.

Applications of the wavelet transform
One of the most popular applications of wavelet transform is image compression. The advantage of using wavelet-based coding in image compression is that it provides significant improvements in picture quality at higher compression ratios over conventional techniques. Since wavelet transform has the ability to decompose complex information and patterns into elementary forms, it is commonly used in acoustics processing and pattern recognition, but it has been also proposed as an instantaneous frequency estimator. Moreover, wavelet transforms can be applied to the following scientific research areas: edge and corner detection, partial differential equation solving, transient detection, filter design, electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis, texture analysis, business information analysis and gait analysis. Wavelet transforms can also be used in Electroencephalography (EEG) data analysis to identify epileptic spikes resulting from epilepsy. Wavelet transform has been also successfully used for the interpretation of time series of landslides and land subsidence, and for calculating the changing periodicities of epidemics.

Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) is very efficient in determining the damping ratio of oscillating signals (e.g. identification of damping in dynamic systems). CWT is also very resistant to the noise in the signal.

title: Continuous wavelet transform


text:
Vajont Dam

The Vajont Dam or Vaiont Dam is a disused hydro-electric dam in northern Italy. It is one of the tallest dams in the world, with a height of 262 m. It is in the valley of the Vajont (river) under Monte Toc, in the municipality of Erto e Casso, 100 km north of Venice.

The dam was conceived in the 1920s and eventually built between 1957 and 1960 by Società Adriatica di Elettricità, at the time the electricity supply and distribution monopoly in northeastern Italy. The engineer was Carlo Semenza (1893–1961). In 1962, the dam was nationalized and came under the control of ENEL as part of the Italian Ministry for Public Works.

On 9 October 1963, during initial filling of the lake, a landslide caused a megatsunami in which 50,000,000 m3 of water overtopped the dam in a wave of 250 m, bringing massive flooding and destruction to the Piave Valley below, destroying several villages and towns, causing an estimated 1,900 to 2,500 deaths. The dam itself remained almost intact and two-thirds of the water was retained behind it.

This event occurred after ENEL and the Italian government concealed reports and dismissed evidence that Monte Toc, on the southern side of the lake, was geologically unstable. They had disregarded numerous warnings, danger signals, and negative appraisals. Underestimating the size of the landslide, ENEL's attempt to safely mitigate any landslide by lowering the level of the lake came too late, when disaster was almost imminent.

Construction
The dam was built by Società Adriatica di Elettricità (SADE), the electricity supply and distribution monopoly in northeastern Italy. The owner, Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, had been Mussolini's minister of finances for several years. The "tallest dam in the world", across the Vajont Gorge, was conceived in the 1920s to harness the Piave, Mae, and Boite Rivers, to meet the growing demand for power generation and industrialization. The project was not authorized until 15 October 1943, after the confusion following Mussolini's fall during World War II was resolved.

The dam wall had a volume of 360,000 m³ and held up to 168.7 e6m³ of water. The dam and basin were intended to be at the centre of a complex water-management system in which water would have been channeled from nearby valleys and artificial basins at higher levels. Tens of kilometres of concrete pipes and pipe bridges across valleys were planned.

In the 1950s, SADE's monopoly was confirmed by post-fascist governments, and it bought the land despite opposition by the communities of Erto and Casso in the valley, which was overcome with government and police support. SADE stated that the geology of the gorge had been studied, including analysis of previous landslides, and that the mountain was held to be sufficiently stable.

Construction work on the dam started in 1957. By 1959, shifts and fractures in the ground were noticed while building a new road on the side of Monte Toc. This led to further studies in which three experts separately told SADE that the entire side of Monte Toc was unstable and was likely to collapse into the basin if the filling were completed, due to the raised water level increasing the instability. SADE took no notice and construction was completed in October 1959. In February 1960, SADE was authorised to start filling the lake. In 1962, the dam was nationalized and came under the control of ENEL as part of the Italian Ministry for Public Works.

Early signs of disaster
On 22 March 1959, during construction of the Vajont Dam, a landslide at the nearby Pontesei Dam created a 20 m wave that killed one person. Throughout the summer of 1960, minor landslides and earth movements were noticed. Instead of heeding these warning signs, the Italian government chose to sue the handful of journalists reporting the problems for "undermining the social order".

On 4 November 1960, with the water level in the reservoir at about 190 m of the planned 262 m, a landslide of about 800000 m3 collapsed into the lake. SADE stopped the filling, lowered the water level by about 50 m, and started to build an artificial gallery in the basin in front of Monte Toc to keep the basin usable even if additional landslides (which were expected) divided it into two parts.

In October 1961, after the completion of the gallery, SADE resumed filling the reservoir under controlled monitoring. In April and May 1962, with the basin water level at 215 m, the people of Erto and Casso reported five "grade five" Mercalli intensity scale earthquakes. SADE downplayed the importance of these quakes, and was then authorized to fill the reservoir to the maximum level.

In July 1962, SADE's own engineers reported the results of model-based experiments on the effects of further landslides from Monte Toc into the lake. The tests indicated that a wave generated by a landslide could overtop the crest of the dam if the water level was 20 m or less from the dam crest. SADE therefore decided that a reduced level 25 m below the crest would prevent any displacement wave from over-topping the dam.

In March 1963, the dam was transferred to the newly constituted government service for electricity, ENEL. During the following summer, with the reservoir almost completely filled, landslips, shakes, and movements of the ground were repeatedly reported by the alarmed population. On 15 September 1963, the entire side of the mountain slid by 22 cm. On 26 September 1963, ENEL decided to slowly empty the basin to 240 m. By early October 1963, the collapse of the mountain's south side looked unavoidable; in one day, it moved almost 1 m.

Tests of the hydraulic model of the Vajont tank
After the discovery of the landslide on the northern slopes of Monte Toc, it was decided to deepen the studies on these effects:
 * Dynamic actions on the dam
 * Wave effects in the reservoir and possible dangers for nearby locations, with particular attention to the town of Erto
 * Hypothesis of a partial breakage of the dam and consequent examination of the rout wave and its propagation along the last stretch of the Vajont and along the Piave, up to Soverzene and beyond

The study of point 1 was performed at the Experimental Institute for Models and Structures (ISMES) of Bergamo, while for the others, the SADE decided to build a physical-hydraulic model of the basin, in which to perform some experiments on the effects of a landslide fall in a reservoir.

The 1: 200 scale model of the basin, which can still be visited today, was set up at the SADE hydroelectric plant in Nove (Borgo Botteon di Vittorio Veneto), and became the Hydraulic Models Centre. The experiments were entrusted to professors Ghetti and Marzolo, university professors of the Institute of Hydraulics and Hydraulic Constructions of the University of Padua, and were carried out with funding of SADE, under the control of the study office of the company itself.

The study aimed to verify the hydraulic effects on the dam and on the banks of the landslide reservoir, so was directed in this sense rather than reproducing the natural phenomenon of the landslide. The experiments were carried out in two different series (August–September 1961 and January–April 1962), of which the first served substantially to refine the model.

First set of experiments
The first series of five experiments began on 30 August 1961, with a sliding surface of the flat landslide inclined by 30°, consisting of a wooden plank covered with a sheet. The sliding mass was simulated with gravel, held in place by flexible metal nets, which were initially held in position by ropes that were then suddenly released. At the beginning of September, another four tests were carried out intended for orientation purposes. The first always with a 30° inclined plane, the following three with a 42° inclined plane. Having found it impossible to reproduce the natural geological phenomenon of the landslide in the model, the model was elaborated by modifying the movement surface of the landslide, which was replaced with a masonry one (the relative profiles were elaborated by Semenza, who also used the surveys that had already been carried out and that had provided sufficient elements of judgment in this sense), to make it possible to vary the speed of the landslide fall into the reservoir (made difficult by the new "back" shape of the movement surface). To simulate the compactness of the moving material (which in the model remained the gravel), rigid sectors were inserted that were towed by ropes pulled by a tractor.

Second set of experiments
In the second set of 17 experiments, conducted from 3 January 1962, to 24 April 1962, the "collapsing" material was still gravel, this time held in place by hemp nets and cords. Starting from the Muller hypothesis relating to the different characteristics of the mass moving between the downstream part of the Massalezza stream (west) and the upstream part of the same (east), all the experiments were performed by making those two hypothetical parts of the landslide descend separately. In the model, however, the two landslides were initially made to descend at different times, so that their effects were totally separate, and subsequently, when the wave produced by the first came back, so as to obtain a total increase in the water of the even greater lake.

Final Ghetti report
The total increase of the water in the tank (measured by means of special instruments) was broken down into "static increase", which was the nontransient effect of increasing the level of the water left in the tank after the landslide due to the immersion of the landslide in the tank (once the state of rest is reached again), and in "dynamic boost", due to the temporary wave motion produced by the landslide. The static boost depended on the volume of the landslide that remained immersed in the tank, while the dynamic boost depended almost exclusively on the speed of the landslide fall (while it was negligibly linked to the volume of the same).

Based on this simulation (following the disaster object of criticism, as considered approximate by some), placing a reservoir limit at an altitude of 700 m predicted that no damage would occur above 730 m above mean sea level along the banks of the reservoir, while a minimum quantity of water would have exceeded the edge of the dam (722.5 m), causing negligible damage downstream of the same.

 * With the reported experiences, carried out on a 1:200 scale model of the Vajont lake-reservoir, we tried to provide an evaluation of the effects that will be caused by a landslide, which is possible to occur on the left bank upstream of the dam. .  Given that the extreme limit downstream of the landslide is more than 75 m from the embankment of the dam, and that the formation of this embankment is of compact and consistent rock and well distinct, even geologically, from the aforementioned mass, it is absolutely not to be fear of any static perturbation to the dam with the occurrence of the landslide, and therefore only the effects of the wave rise in the lake and in the overflow on the dam crest as a consequence of the fall are to be considered.

"INSTITUTE OF HYDRAULICS AND HYDRAULIC CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PADUA MODEL CENTER 'E. SCIMEMI'

 * EXAMINATION ON THE HYDRAULIC MODEL OF THE EFFECTS OF A POSSIBLE LANDSLIDE IN THE VAJONT LAKE TANK

 * ... The forecasts on the modalities of the landslide event are very uncertain from a geological point of view. Partial falls of limited extent occurred in the last months of 1960 in the lower part of the moving bank in conjunction with the initial, and still partial, filling of the reservoir. The landslide formation extends over a total front of 1.8 km, from an altitude of 600 m to an altitude of 1200 m asl (maximum height of the reservoir lake-reservoir 722.50 m a.s.l.).  The geological examination leads to the recognition of a presumable conchoidal flow surface, on which the landslide mass, consisting mainly of incoherent material and groundwater debris, reaches a thickness of 200 m in the central part (astride the shaft of the Massalezza stream). The slope of the slope is steeper in the lower part overlooking the lake;  a collapse of this part would probably have been followed by the steepening of the upper mass.  It is to be considered that any descent of the landslide is unlikely to occur simultaneously on the entire front;  on the other hand, the hypothesis that one or the other of the two areas located upstream or downstream of the Massalezza stream will descend first, and that this steep slope will be followed, at a more or less short interval, by that of the remaining area.  ...

 * ... These data seem sufficiently indicative of the extent that the wave phenomenon can present even in the most unfavorable forecasts of the fall of the landslide. It should be noted that the rise found near the dam is always higher than that which occurs in the more distant areas along the shores of the lake.  Moving on to consider the effects of the landslide that occurs in the lake that is not completely encased, we have from the evidence that already with the reservoir brought to an altitude of 700 m s.l.m.  the most unfavorable event, namely the fall of the valley area in 1 min.  following a previous fall in the upstream area, it barely causes, with a 27 m rise.  Near the dam (and a maximum of 31 m at 430 m from it) an overflow just over 2000 m³ / s.  Starting from the reservoir altitude 670 m a.s.l.  even with the fastest landslide, the rise is very limited and well below the overflow ridge.

 * Therefore, it seems to be possible to conclude that, starting from the reservoir to the maximum flooded, the descent of the expected landslide mass only in catastrophic conditions, i.e. occurring in the exceptionally short time of 1-1.30 minutes, could produce an overflow point of the order of 30,000 m³ / s, and a wave rise of 27.5 m. As soon as this time is doubled, the phenomenon is attenuated below 14000 m³ / s of overflow and 14 m of elevation.

 * By decreasing the altitude of the initial reservoir, these overflow and overflow effects are rapidly reduced, and already the altitude of 700 m a.s.l. can be considered absolutely certain with regard to even the most foreseeable catastrophic landslide event. ...

 * ... It will in any case be opportune, in the foreseen continuation of the research, to examine on the suitably prolonged model the effects in the Vajont bed and at the confluence in the Piave of the passage of flood waves of an entity equal to that indicated above for possible dam.  In this way there will be more certain indications on the possibility of allowing even greater reservoirs in the lake-reservoir, without danger of damage downstream of the dam in the event of a landslide ...

 * Padua 3 July 1962

 * THE RESEARCH DIRECTOR

 * (Prof. Ing. Augusto Ghetti)"

Landslide and wave
The alarming rate of movement of the landslide had not slowed as a result of lowering the water level, although the water had been lowered to what SADE believed was a safe level to contain the displacement wave should a catastrophic landslide occur. On 9 October 1963, engineers witnessed trees falling and rocks rolling down into the reservoir where the predicted landslide would take place. With a major landslide now seeming imminent, engineers gathered at the site that evening to witness the tsunami which, when it happened, killed 60 workers.

At 10:39 pm, a massive 2 km landslide, with around 260 e6m3 of trees, earth, and rock, collapsed from the northern flank of Monte Toc into the lake below at up to 110 km/h (another source gives 25 m/s ), generating a seismic shock. In 20 seconds it reached the water level; by 45 seconds the landslide (now at rest) had completely filled the Vajont reservoir. The impact displaced 115 e6m3 of water in about 25 seconds, 50 e6m³ of which overtopped the dam in a 1/4 km wave.

Impact of the landslip with the water generated three waves. One went upwards, reached the houses of Casso, fell back onto the landslide, and travelled onwards to dig the basin of the pond of Massalezza. Another wave headed toward the shores of the lake, and by washout action, destroyed some localities in the municipality of Erto e Casso. The third wave (containing about 50 e6m³ of water) rose over the edge of the dam, which remained intact except for the roadway that led to the left side of the Vajont, and fell into the narrow valley below the dam.

The roughly 50 e6m³ of water that climbed over the dam reached the stony shore of the Piave Valley and swept up substantial debris, which poured into the southern sector of Longarone and destroyed the town except for the town hall, the houses north of it, and other neighboring towns. The death toll was about 2,000 people (official data speak of 1,917 victims, but determining an accurate number with certainty is impossible).

Firefighters who set out from Belluno, after reports of the raising of the level of the Piave, could not reach the location, since from a certain point onwards, the road coming from the valley had been completely swept away. Longarone was reached by firefighters who departed Pieve di Cadore, who were the first to realize what had happened and were able to communicate it. At 5:30 am on 10 October 1963, the first soldiers of the Italian Army arrived to bring relief and recover the dead. The soldiers involved were mostly Alpini, some of whom belonged to the combat engineers, who dug by hand to seek the bodies of the missing. They also found safes of the banks of the country, no longer able to be opened with normal keys, as they were damaged. The firefighters from 46 Provincial Commands also participated in the rescue, with 850 men, including divers, land and helicopter teams, and many vehicles and equipment. The Nucleo Sommozzatori of Genoa, with eight personnel, were used in the basin in front of the Busche Dam, to dredge for bodies and drums of toxic substances (61 cyanide drums), with subsequent patrol by immersion and final removal of sludge when the basin was dry. Of the nearly 2,000 fatalities, only 1,500 bodies were recovered and recomposed, of which half were beyond identification.

In the Piave Valley the wave destroyed the villages of Longarone, Pirago, Rivalta, Villanova, and Faè, killing approximately 2,000 people and turning the land below the dam into a flat expanse of mud with an impact crater 60 m deep and 80 m wide. Many small villages near the landslide along the lakefront suffered damage from a giant displacement wave. Villages in the territory of Erto e Casso and the village of, near Castellavazzo, were largely destroyed.

Estimates of the dead range from the official estimate of 1,917 to 2,500 people. About 350 families lost all family members. Most of the survivors had lost relatives and friends along with their homes and belongings. The dam itself was largely undamaged. The top 1 m or so of masonry was washed away, but the basic structure remained intact and is standing today.

Causes and responsibility
Immediately after the disaster, the government (which owned the dam), politicians, and public authorities insisted on attributing the tragedy to an unexpected and unavoidable natural event. The debate in the newspapers was heavily influenced by politics. The paper l'Unità, the mouthpiece of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), was the first to denounce the actions of the management and government, as it had previously carried a number of articles by addressing the behaviour of the SADE management in the Vajont project and elsewhere. Indro Montanelli, then the most influential Italian journalist and a vocal anticommunist, attacked l'Unità and denied any human responsibility; l'Unità and the PCI were dubbed "jackals, speculating on pain and on the dead" in many articles by La Domenica del Corriere and a national campaign poster paid for by the Christian Democracy, the party of Prime Minister Giovanni Leone. They attributed the catastrophe only to natural causes and God's will.

The campaign accused the PCI of sending agitprops into the refugee communities, as relief personnel; most of them were partisans from Emilia Romagna who fought on Mount Toc in the Second World War and often had friends in the stricken area. The Christian Democracy accused the Communist Party of "political profiteering" from the tragedy. Leone promised to bring justice to the people killed in the disaster. A few months after he lost the premiership, he became the head of SADE's team of lawyers, who significantly reduced the amount of compensation for the survivors and ruled out payment for at least 600 victims.

The DC's newspaper, La Discussione, called the disaster "a mysterious act of God's love", in an article that drew sharp criticism from l'Unità. Apart from journalistic attacks and the attempted cover-up from news sources aligned with the government, flaws in the geological assessments have been proven, with disregard of warnings about the likelihood of a disaster by SADE, ENEL, and the government. The trial was moved to L'Aquila, in Abruzzo, by the judges who heard the preliminary trial, thus preventing public participation, and resulted in lenient sentencing for a handful of the SADE and ENEL engineers. One SADE engineer (Mario Pancini) committed suicide in 1968. The government never sued SADE for damage compensation.

Subsequent engineering analysis has focused on the cause of the landslide, and debate continues about the contribution of rainfall, dam level changes, and earthquakes as triggers of the landslide, as well as differing views about whether it was an old landslide that slipped further or a completely new one. A number of problems existed with the choice of site for the dam and reservoir; the canyon was steep-sided, the river had undercut its banks, and the limestone and claystone rocks that made up the walls of the canyon were interbedded with the slippery, clay-like Lias and Dogger Jurassic-period horizons and the Cretaceous-period Malm horizon, all of which were inclined towards the axis of the canyon. In addition, the limestone layers contained many solution caverns that became only more saturated because of rains in September. Prior to the landslide that caused the overtopping flood, the downhill creep of the regolith had been 1.01 cm per week. In September, this creep reached 25.4 cm per day until finally, the day before the landslide, the creep was measured at 1 m.

Reconstruction
Most of the survivors were moved into a newly built village, Vajont, 50 km southeast on the Tagliamento River plain. Those who insisted on returning to their mountain life in Erto e Casso were strongly discouraged. Longarone and other villages in the Piave Valley were rebuilt with modern houses and farms. The government used the disaster to promote the industrialization of northeastern Italy. Survivors were entitled to "business start-up" loans, public subsidies, and 10 years of tax exemption, all of which they could "sell on" to major companies from the Venice region. These concessions were then converted into millions of lira for industrial plants elsewhere. Among the corporations were Zanussi (now owned by Electrolux), Ceramica Dolomite (now owned by American Standard), Confezioni SanRemo, and SAVIC (now owned by Italcementi).

Compensation measures did not clearly differentiate between victims and people who lived nearby; thus, much of the compensation went to people who had suffered little damage, creating a negative public image. A pumping station was installed in the dam basin to keep the lake at a constant level, and the bypass gallery was lengthened beyond the dam to let the water flow down to the Piave Valley. The dam wall is still in place and maintained, but no plans exist to exploit it for electric power. The reservoir behind the dam, now dry and filled with landslip, has been open to visitors since 2002.

The dam today and memorials
In recent years, revival of interest has occurred both by researchers with specialist interest and sightseers. The dam, now owned by ENEL, was partially opened to the public in 2002 with guided tours and access to the walkway along the top and other locations. In September 2006, an annual noncompetitive track event, called "Paths of Remembrance", was inaugurated, which allows participants to access some locations inside the mountain. On 12 February 2008, in launching the International Year of Planet Earth, UNESCO cited the Vajont Dam tragedy as one of five "cautionary tales" caused by "the failure of engineers and geologists".

For 2013, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the disaster, the region of Venice set aside one million euros for safety works and recovery of tunnels inside the mountain, which were part of the Colomber Road (the old national road 251). The memorial church in Longarone—constructed in spite the strong opposition of the surviving parish priest— was built by architect Giovanni Michelucci.

In the media
After the initial worldwide reporting, the tragedy became regarded as part of the price of economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s. Interest was rejuvenated by a 1997 television program by Marco Paolini and, Il racconto del Vajont. In 2001, a docudrama about the disaster was released. A joint production of Italian and French companies, it was titled Vajont—La diga del disonore ("Vajont—The Dam of Dishonour") in Italy, and La Folie des hommes (The Madness of Men) in France. It stars Michel Serrault and Daniel Auteuil. The tragedy was included in the 2008 documentary series Disasters of the Century.

The TV show Seconds from Disaster featured the event in episode two, "Mountain Tsunami", of its fifth season in 2012. In 2013, the 11th stage of the Giro d'Italia finished in Vajont to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the disaster. In March 2018, the dam and the disaster were also covered in season two, episode one ("Armageddon Highway") of Science Channel's Mysteries of the Abandoned.

Video
of 3D simulation of the wave generated by the Vajont rockslide.

title: Vajont Dam


text:
User:Matt Beard

General MXF know-it-all (or at least thinks he does :-))

Left BBC R&D in 2002 to run off to the wilds of Scotland with his new Wife

title: User:Matt Beard


text:
User:Dusik

I Changed My Name
I switched to a universal login and am now Specious.

Nickname
In Lithuania, my mother brought an abandoned female kitten into our house (she kept meowing ouside for hours, until my mother couldn't stand it any longer). We named her Dunya, a common female name in rural Russia. A variation of that name is Dusya, or Dunka or Duska for short. When we moved to America, we had to leave our cat with my aunt, and I invented Dusik (a male transformation of Duska) to use as my internet nickname.

On several occasions, people have pointed out that Dusik is also a Korean name (although probably pronounced differently). I have certainly seen evidence of Dusiks on the Internet from other countries. Also, Samohyl Jan pointed out that dusík is the Czech word for nitrogen.

title: User:Dusik


text:
Kulin nation

The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in south-up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. Which shares Culture and Language.

History
Before British colonisation, the tribes spoke five related languages. These languages are spoken by two groups: the eastern Kulin group of Woiwurrung–Taungurung, Boonwurrung and Ngurai-illam-wurrung; and the western language group of just Wadawurrung.

The central Victoria area has been inhabited for an estimated 42,000 years before European settlement. At the time of British settlement in the 1830s, the collective populations of the Woiwurrung, Boonwurrung and Wadawurrung tribes of the Kulin nation was estimated to be under 20,000. The Kulin lived by fishing, cultivating murnong (also called yam daisy; Microseris) as well as hunting and gathering, and made a sustainable living from the rich food sources of Port Phillip and the surrounding grasslands.

Due to the upheaval and disturbances from British settlement from the 1830s on, there is limited physical evidence of the Kulin peoples' collective past. However, there is a small number of registered sites of cultural and spiritual significance in the Melbourne area.

People

 * Woiwurrung (Woy-wur-rung) – the Wurundjeri people
 * Boonwurrung – the Boonwurrung people
 * Wathaurong (Wath-er-rung) – the Wathaurong people
 * Taungurung (Tung-ger-rung) – the Taungurung people
 * Dja Dja Wurrung (Jar-Jar-Wur-rung) – the Djadjawurrung or Djaara people

At certain times of the year, these nations would meet at Yarra Falls to settle disputes, to trade, and to hold corroborees.

Diplomacy
When foreign people passed through or were invited onto tribal lands, the ceremony of tanderrum – freedom of the bush – was performed. This was intended to allow for safe passage and temporary access and use of land and resources by foreign people. It was a diplomatic rite involving the landholder's hospitality and a ritual exchange of gifts.

title: Kulin nation