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Han Feizi

The Han Feizi is an ancient Chinese text attributed to the Legalist political philosopher Han Fei. It comprises a selection of essays in the Legalist tradition, elucidating theories of state power, and synthesizing the methodologies of his predecessors. Its 55 chapters, most of which date to the Warring States period, are the only such text to survive fully intact. The Han Feizi is believed to contain the first commentaries on the Dao De Jing. Temporarily coming to overt power as an ideology with the ascension of the Qin dynasty, the First Emperor of Qin and succeeding emperors often followed the template set by Han Fei.

Often considered the "culminating" or "greatest" Legalist texts, Han Fei was dubbed by A. C. Graham amongst as the "great synthesizer" of 'Legalism'".  Sun Tzu's The Art of War incorporates both a Daoist philosophy of inaction and impartiality, and a 'Legalist' system of punishment and rewards, recalling Han Fei's use of the concepts of power and technique.

Among the most important philosophical classics in ancient China, it touches on administration, diplomacy, war and economics, and is also valuable for its abundance of anecdotes about pre-Qin China. Though differing considerably in style, the coherency of the essays lend themselves to the possibility that much was written by Han Fei himself, and are generally considered more philosophically engaging than the Book of Lord Shang. Zhuge Liang is said to have attached great importance to the Han Feizi, as well as to Han Fei's predecessor Shen Buhai.

Introduction
Han Fei describes an interest-driven human nature together with the political methodologies to work with it in the interest of the state and Sovereign, namely, engaging in passive observation, and the systematic use of fa to maintain leadership and manage human resources, its use to increase welfare, and its relation with justice.

Rather than rely too much on worthies, who might not be trustworthy, Han Fei binds their programs (to which he makes no judgement, apart from observances of the facts) to systematic reward and penalty (the 'two handles'), fishing the subjects of the state by feeding them with interests. That being done, the ruler minimizes his own input. Like Shang Yang and other fa philosophers, he admonishes the ruler not to abandon fa for any other means, considering it a more practical means for the administration of both a large territory and personnel near at hand.

Han Fei's s philosophy proceeds from the regicide of his era. Sinologist Goldin writes: "Most of what appears in the Han Feizi deals with the ruler's relations with his ministers, [who] were regarded as the party most likely, in practice, to cause him harm." Han Fei quotes the Springs and Autumns of Tao Zuo: "'Less than half of all rulers die of illness.' If the ruler of men is unaware of this, disorders will be manifold and unrestrained. Thus it is said: If those who benefit from a lord's death are many, the ruler will be imperiled.".

Ch 40 Objections to positional power
To quote the Han Feizi in brief on shi, or situational authority directly, its discussion is a dialectic of critics. "The philosopher (Shen Dao) considered position sufficiently reliable for governing officials and people. (His Confucian) critic said that you had to depend on (moral) worthies for political order. As a matter of truth, neither side is reasonable enough. Shi's species cover innumerable varieties. The shih on which I am talking is the shih created by man. Though I do not deny the success of Yao and Shun, I do assert that shi is not what one man alone can create.

As a matter of fact, most rulers in the world form a continuous line of average men. It is for the average rulers that I speak about shi. Yao and Shun as well as Chieh and Chow appear once in a thousand generations. The average rulers neither come up to the worthiness of Yao and Shun nor reach down to the wickedness of Chieh and Chow. If they uphold the law and make use of their august position, order obtains; if they discard the law and desert their august position, chaos prevails... But that shi is worth employing, is evident. If you discard position and act contrary to law, waiting for Yao and Shun to appear, then order will obtain in one out of one thousand generations of continuous chaos"

Discussed often enough, the Han Feizi's essentially relegated chapter on shi can be taken as one key to the subject. Utilizing other components, at least in that regard other interpretations are possible as comparable to their broader works. Waley's work discusses law, but takes Han Fei's ruler as requiring no morals, ruling by "acquired power", rather than and methods, taking them as realist "amoralists".

With fa ideology relying on "perfectly designed political institutions that would accommodate mediocrities on the throne", Sinologist Yuri Pines of Standford Encyclopedia's fa Tradition modernly presents chapter 40, Objections to positional power, as explaining that a system will "attain good results precisely because it does not expect of the ruler any extraordinary qualities." Reducing the relevance of the ruler's abilities, it should cater to "average or mediocre rulers".

The morality of Han Fei
Although Han Fei predominantly advocates a rule by impersonal standards, Eric Hutton suggests him, in chapter 40, as seeming to admit the persuasive power of Confucian of Yao and Shun, even in his own time. However, in part as dependent on institutions, and although strictly speaking taken as Daoistic and applied to statecraft, insomuch as Han Fei can said to give regard to virtue, it has otherwise prior been argued that he considers wu-wei, or nonaction, it's essence, as an otherwise predominant focus for him.

In the Confucian Analects, as quoted by Han Fei's predecessor in prime minister Shen Buhai, wu wei at basic simply means to leave ministerial affairs to ministers. Although the ruler's separation enhances his charisma, ordinary people cannot normally enhance their power through wu wei. Rather, the period expects mediocre rulers to delegate. Han Fei, Goldin says, does not appear to anticipate objection that his program effectively allows ministers to set the agenda. As a Pinesean narrative, Han Fei's mediocre ruler may be allured by his advocacy that, reducing his activity, he can attempt to manipulate the ministers to claim their accomplishments as glory and fame for himself. At any rate, he will be less of a burden.

Recalled by Pines, as opposed to Han Fei's mediocre ruler, for Xun Kuang as the purported teacher of Han Fei and Li Si, the period expects that a true or sage monarch will ensure perfect universal order and compliance, considering an unrivaled, all-powerful, universal ruler as necessary for peace. Regardless, virtue itself is insufficient. Limiting his intervention in affairs, Han Fei's ruler supposedly amasses power through fa (laws), which at least create order and stability.

In practical terms, for the ruler, authority means that he ought to hold the power to reward and punish. However, Han Fei says:

"If the sovereign personally inspects his hundred officials, the whole day will not be enough; his power will not suffice. Moreover, when the superior uses his eyesight, the underlings embellish what he sees; when he uses his hearing, the underlings embellish what he hears; when he uses his contemplation, the underlings multiply their words. The former kings considered these three [methods] as insufficient: hence they cast away personal abilities and relied on laws and [administrative] methods examining rewards and punishments."

Winston takes Han Fei as concerned with order, Tao Jiang justice, minimizing the amoral ruler.

Included in Winston, Han Fei recalls the laws of Gongsun Yang and the administrative method of Shen Buhai in Chapter 43. Proceeding from the collapse of the Jin to the aristocrats and ministers, although establishing the administrative method Han Fei would inherit, Shen Buhai caused confusion with an issuing of laws without repealing the older ones. Han Fei uncompromisingly opposes subversion of the law to the detriment of the people and state. Although Han Fei expects the ruler will be average, he elsewhere frequently addresses himself to the enlightened, benevolent or sage ruler. Han Fei says "If the ruler is stupid and upholds no rule, ministers will act at random", enhancing their wealth and power, and eventually breeding chaos. Han Fei's enlightened ruler will investigate order and chaos, promoting clear laws and severe penalties, even rescuing "all living beings from chaos".

Tao Jiang posits Han Fei's values for the ruler as humility and self-constraint. Goldin takes Han Fei as concerned with his own hide, Pines the subjugation of the ruler to laws and methods.

More broadly, Han Fei's enlightened ruler busies himself with checking reports and investigating job performances, strictly adhering to fa method to reward, promote and punish. Only rewarding those who perform their jobs properly, the ruler will supposedly dominate his properly rewarded ministers, enhancing his power. Or, he will play an effective institutional role without getting in the way, exposing himself to manipulation and criticism. Han Fei does not suggest much chaos as resulting from his replacement either way. One man does not create order. Han Fei also has a chapter advising ministers to speak to the king disingenously. The enlightened ruler will avoid their traps by dispensing with his own personal abilities. Adhering to fa method, he will delegate to Han Fei and his fellow impartial institutionalists, who perform their jobs properly.

Wu wei
Devoting the entirety of Chapter 14, "How to Love the Ministers", to "persuading the ruler to be ruthless to his ministers", Han Fei's enlightened ruler strikes terror into his ministers by doing nothing (wu wei). The qualities of a ruler, his "mental power, moral excellence and physical prowess" are irrelevant. He discards his private reason and morality, and shows no personal feelings. What is important is his method of government. Fa require no perfection on the part of the ruler.

If the Han Fei's use of wu wei was derivative of a proto-Daoism, its Dao nonetheless emphasizes autocracy ("Tao does not identify with anything but itself, the ruler does not identify with the ministers"). Accepting that Han Fei applies wu wei specifically to statecraft, professor Xing Lu argues that Han Fei still considered wu wei a virtue. As Han Fei says, "by virtue [de] of resting empty and reposed, he waits for the course of nature to enforce itself." As one of the work's earliest chapters, Han Fei begins by advising the ruler to remain "empty and still".

"Tao is the beginning of the myriad things, the standard of right and wrong. That being so, the intelligent ruler, by holding to the beginning, knows the source of everything, and, by keeping to the standard, knows the origin of good and evil. Therefore, by virtue of resting empty and reposed, he waits for the course of nature to enforce itself so that all names will be defined of themselves and all affairs will be settled of themselves. Empty, he knows the essence of fullness: reposed, he becomes the corrector of motion. Who utters a word creates himself a name; who has an affair creates himself a form. Compare forms and names and see if they are identical. Then the ruler will find nothing to worry about as everything is reduced to its reality.

Tao exists in invisibility; its function, in unintelligibility. Be empty and reposed and have nothing to do-Then from the dark see defects in the light. See but never be seen. Hear but never be heard. Know but never be known. If you hear any word uttered, do not change it nor move it but compare it with the deed and see if word and deed coincide with each other. Place every official with a censor. Do not let them speak to each other. Then everything will be exerted to the utmost. Cover tracks and conceal sources. Then the ministers cannot trace origins. Leave your wisdom and cease your ability. Then your subordinates cannot guess at your limitations.

The bright ruler is undifferentiated and quiescent in waiting, causing names (roles) to define themselves and affairs to fix themselves. If he is undifferentiated then he can understand when actuality is pure, and if he is quiescent then he can understand when movement is correct."

The Han Feizi's commentary on the Daodejing asserts that perspective-less knowledge – an absolute point of view – is possible. But scholarship has not generally believed that Han Fei wrote it, given differences with the rest of the text.

Performance and title (Xing-Ming)
[[Image:First Emperor.jpg|right|thumb|A modern statue of the First Emperor and his attendants on horseback

The two August Lords of high antiquity grasped the handles of the Way and so were established in the center. Their spirits mysteriously roamed together with all transformations and thereby pacified the four directions. Huainanzi]] Han Fei was notoriously focused on what he termed xing-ming, which Sima Qian and Liu Xiang define as "holding actual outcome accountable to ming (speech)." In line with both the Confucian and Mohist rectification of names, it is relatable to the Confucian tradition in which a promise or undertaking, especially in relation to a government aim, entails punishment or reward, though the tight, centralized control emphasized by both his and his predecessor Shen Buhai's philosophy conflicts with the Confucian idea of the autonomous minister.

Possibly referring to the drafting and imposition of laws and standardized legal terms, xing-ming may originally have meant "punishments and names", but with the emphasis on the latter. It functions through binding declarations (ming), like a legal contract. Verbally committing oneself, a candidate is allotted a job, indebting him to the ruler. "Naming" people to (objectively determined) positions, it rewards or punishes according to the proposed job description and whether the results fit the task entrusted by their word, which a real minister fulfils.

Han Fei insists on the perfect congruence between words and deeds. Fitting the name is more important than results. The completion, achievement, or result of a job is its assumption of a fixed form (xing), which can then be used as a standard against the original claim (ming). A large claim but a small achievement is inappropriate to the original verbal undertaking, while a larger achievement takes credit by overstepping the bounds of office.

Han Fei's 'brilliant ruler' "orders names to name themselves and affairs to settle themselves."

"'If the ruler wishes to bring an end to treachery then he examines into the congruence of the congruence of xing (form) and claim (ming). This means to ascertain if words differ from the job. A minister sets forth his words and on the basis of his words the ruler assigns him a job. Then the ruler holds the minister accountable for the achievement which is based solely on his job. If the achievement fits his job, and the job fits his words, then he is rewarded. If the achievement does not fit his jobs and the job does not fit his words, then he will be punished."

Assessing the accountability of his words to his deeds, the ruler attempts to "determine rewards and punishments in accordance with a subject's true merit" (using Fa). It is said that using names (ming) to demand realities (shi) exalts superiors and curbs inferiors, provides a check on the discharge of duties, and naturally results in emphasizing the high position of superiors, compelling subordinates to act in the manner of the latter.

Han Fei considers xing-ming an essential element of autocracy, saying that "In the way of assuming Oneness names are of first importance. When names are put in order, things become settled down; when they go awry, things become unfixed." He emphasizes that through this system, earlier developed by Shen Buhai, uniformity of language could be developed, functions could be strictly defined to prevent conflict and corruption, and objective rules (fa) impervious to divergent interpretation could be established, judged solely by their effectiveness. By narrowing down the options to exactly one, discussions on the "right way of government" could be eliminated. Whatever the situation (shi) brings is the correct Dao.

Though recommending use of Shen Buhai's techniques, Han Fei's xing-ming is both considerably narrower and more specific. The functional dichotomy implied in Han Fei's mechanistic accountability is not readily implied in Shen's, and might be said to be more in line with the later thought of the Han dynasty linguist Xu Gan than that of either Shen Buhai or his supposed teacher Xun Kuang.

The "Two Handles"
[[File:백호 조선고적도보.jpg|alt=|thumb|Mythical White Tiger. Qin Shi Huang was called the "Tiger of Qin"

Supposing the tiger cast aside its claws and fangs and let the dog use them, the tiger would, in turn, be subjected by the dog. Han Fei Zi]] Though not entirely accurately, most Han works identify Shang Yang with penal law. Its discussion of bureaucratic control is simplistic, chiefly advocating punishment and reward. Shang Yang was largely unconcerned with the organization of the bureaucracy apart from this. The use of these "two handles" (punishment and reward) nonetheless forms a primary premise of Han Fei's administrative theory. However, he includes it under his theory of shu (administrative techniques) in connection with xing-ming.

As a matter of illustration, if the "keeper of the hat" lays a robe on the sleeping Emperor, he has to be put to death for overstepping his office, while the "keeper of the robe" has to be put to death for failing to do his duty. The philosophy of the "Two Handles" likens the ruler to the tiger or leopard, which "overpowers other animals by its sharp teeth and claws" (rewards and punishments). Without them he is like any other man; his existence depends upon them. To "avoid any possibility of usurpation by his ministers", power and the "handles of the law" must "not be shared or divided", concentrating them in the ruler exclusively.

In practice, this means that the ruler must be isolated from his ministers. The elevation of ministers endangers the ruler, from whom he must be kept strictly apart. Punishment confirms his sovereignty; law eliminates anyone who oversteps his boundary, regardless of intention. Law "aims at abolishing the selfish element in man and the maintenance of public order", making the people responsible for their actions.

Han Fei's rare appeal, among Legalists, to the use of scholars (law and method specialists) makes him comparable to the Confucians, in that sense. The ruler cannot inspect all officials himself, and must rely on the decentralized (but faithful) application of fa. Contrary to Shen Buhai and his own rhetoric, Han Fei insists that loyal ministers (like Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, and Wu Qi) exist, and upon their elevation with maximum authority. Though Fa-Jia sought to enhance the power of the ruler, this scheme effectively neutralizes him, reducing his role to the maintenance of the system of reward and punishments, determined according to impartial methods and enacted by specialists expected to protect him through their usage thereof. Combining Shen Buhai's methods with Shang Yang's insurance mechanisms, Han Fei's ruler simply employs anyone offering their services.

Anti-Confucianism
While Shen Buhai and Shen Dao's current may not have been hostile to Confucius, Shang Yang and Han Fei emphasize their rejection of past models as unverifiable if not useless ("what was appropriate for the early kings is not appropriate for modern rulers"). Han Fei argued that the age of Li had given way to the age of Fa, with natural order giving way to social order and finally political order. Together with that of Xun Kuang, their sense of human progress and reason guided the Qin dynasty.

Intending his Dao (way of government) to be both objective and publicly projectable, Han Fei argued that disastrous results would occur if the ruler acted on arbitrary, ad-hoc decision making, such as that based on relationships or morality which, as a product of reason, are "particular and fallible". Li, or Confucian customs, and rule by example are also simply too ineffective. The ruler cannot act on a case-by-case basis, and so must establish an overarching system, acting through Fa (administrative methods or standards). Fa is not partial to the noble, does not exclude ministers, and does not discriminate against the common people.

Linking the "public" sphere with justice and objective standards, for Han Fei, the private and public had always opposed each other. Taking after Shang Yang he lists the Confucians among his "five vermin", and calls the Confucian teaching on love and compassion for the people the "stupid teaching" and "muddle-headed chatter", the emphasis on benevolence an "aristocratic and elitist ideal" demanding that "all ordinary people of the time be like Confucius' disciples". Moreover, he dismisses it as impracticable, saying that "In their settled knowledge, the literati are removed from the affairs of the state ... What can the ruler gain from their settled knowledge?", and points out that "Confucianism" is not a unified body of thought.

In opposition to Confucian family sentiment, Tao Jiang (2021) takes Han Fei's analysis of family dynamics as based entirely on the position of the ruler, requiring structural solutions rather than Confucian education or moral cultivation. According to the Liji, an "important early Confucian canon", penal laws should not be applied to high officials. As a major source of political corruption, ministers shielded family members from penal measures in the name of Humaneness and others moral justifications. Only those without connections are subject to the law. Although noting an opposition between politic and morality, Tao Jiang takes Han Fei's opposition in this as clearly pointing to a moral dimension in his vision of political order. In what Tao Jiang takes as one of Han Fei's "most powerful condemnation of the gross injustice suffered by the commoners", Han Fei says:

"Judging from the tales handed down from high antiquity and the incidents recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals, those men who violated the laws, committed treason, and carried out major acts of evil always worked throughsome eminent and highly placed minister. And yet the laws and regulations are customarily designed to prevent evil among the humble and lowly people, and it is upon them alone that penalties and punishments fall. Hence the common people lose hope and are left with no place to air their grievances. Meanwhile the high ministers band together and work as one man to cloud the vision of the ruler. (Watson trans. 2003, 89)"

Comparisons and views
Apart from the influence of Confucianist Xun Zi, who was his and Li Si's teacher, because of the Han Feizis commentary on the Daodejing, interpreted as a political text, the Han Feizi has sometimes been included as part of the syncretist Huang-Lao tradition, seeing the Tao as a natural law that everyone and everything was forced to follow, like a force of nature.

Being older than more recent scholarship, translator W. K. Liao (1960) described the world view of the Han Feizi as "purely Taoistic", advocating a "doctrine of inaction" nonetheless followed by an "insistence on the active application of the two handles to government", this being the "difference between Han Fei Tzŭ's ideas and the teachings of the orthodox Taoists (who advocated non-action from start to finish)." Liao compares Han Fei's thought to Shang Yang, "directing his main attention... to the issues between ruler and minister... teaching the ruler how to maintain supremacy and why to weaken the minister."

Phan Ngọc in his foreword to the Han Feizi praised Han Fei as a knowledgeable man with sharp, logical and firm arguments, supported by large amount of practical and realistic evidence. Han Fei's strict methods were appropriate in a context of social decadence. Phan Ngọc claimed that Han Fei's writings has three drawbacks, however: first, his idea of Legalism was unsuited to autocracy because a ruling dynasty will sooner or later deteriorate. Second, due to the inherent limitation of autocratic monarchy system, Han Fei did not manage to provide the solutions for all the issues that he pointed out. Third, Han Fei was wrong to think that human is inherently evil and only seeks fame and profit: there are humans who sacrificed their own profit for the greater good, including Han Fei himself. Trần Ngọc Vương considered the Han Feizi to be superior to Machiavelli's Prince, and claimed that Han Fei's ideology was highly refined for its era. Although considering the Han Feizi rich and erudite, Sinologist Chad Hansen does not consider Han Fei particularly original, philosophical or ethical" and "more polemical than reasoned", with unjustified assumptions and cynicism recognizable "from all self-described realists", resting on the familiar sneering tone of superior realistic insight."

Translations

 * Liao, W. K. (1939). The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu. London: Arthur Probsthain.
 * ——— (1959). The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu, Volume II. London: Arthur Probsthain.
 * Watson, Burton (1964). Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press.

title: Han Feizi


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Philippe de Rothschild

Philippe, Baron de Rothschild (13 April 1902 – 20 January 1988) was a member of the Rothschild banking family who became a Grand Prix motor racing driver, a screenwriter and playwright, a theatrical producer, a film producer, a poet, and one of the most successful wine growers in the world.

Early life
Born in Paris, Georges Philippe de Rothschild was the younger son of Baron Henri de Rothschild (1872–1947) (who was a noted playwright under the name André Pascal) and Mathilde Sophie Henriette von Weissweiller (1872–1926). At the outbreak of World War I, 12-year-old Philippe was sent to the safety of the family's vineyard in the village of Pauillac in the Médoc. There, he developed a love of the country and the wine business, an enterprise in his family since 1853, but one his father and grandfather had shown little interest in. As a young man, in sharp contrast to the Rothschild family's staid aristocratic traditions, Philippe de Rothschild became a larger-than-life figure.

Car racing
During the 1920s, Philippe lived the life of a wealthy playboy, often found in the company of a beautiful woman, usually an actress, at one of the popular night spots in Paris. Philippe's older brother had made friends with Robert Benoist when they served together in the Armée de l'Air during World War I and through this connection, for a short time Philippe took up Grand Prix motor racing. From his father, he inherited the love of fast cars, but wishing to maintain a low profile Philippe used the pseudonym "Georges Philippe" in order to race anonymously.

Rothschild raced his own Bugatti T35C with moderate success, including coming fourth in the 1929 Monaco Grand Prix. He also made a brief appearance for the elite Bugatti works team, but at the end of 1929 he abruptly withdrew from motorsport, to concentrate on the family wine-growing business.

Rothschild made his first competition appearance in the Paris–Nice auto race of 1928, competing in a borrowed Hispano-Suiza. After purchasing a supercharged Bugatti, the ex Targa Florio factory type 37A (37317) T37, he adopted the pseudonym to protect his family. 'Georges Philippe' made his first appearance at the 1928 Bugatti Grand Prix at Le Mans, a race solely for private Bugatti owners where he became second immediately after the winner André Dubonnet.

For 1929, Rothschild decided to upgrade to a full Grand Prix-specification Type 35C. In fact, he was so enamoured with the vehicles, he ordered three. Using one of the new cars, Georges Philippe was entered into the Grand Prix d'Antibes. In a field that included René Dreyfus and Philippe Étancelin, both race winners many times over, Rothschild led the race until he crashed out on the 36th lap. A mere two weeks later, with the car rebuilt, Georges Philippe finished a highly creditable fourth at the inaugural Grand Prix Automobile de Monaco, behind winner William Grover-Williams.

Continued improvement was finally rewarded when Georges Philippe won the Burgundy Grand Prix three weeks later, finishing ahead of Guy Bouriat in a second Rothschild T35C. However, he was unfortunate to retire from the following race while running sixth. The third of Rothschild's T35Cs was regularly campaigned by a rather curious acquaintance for a future Baron. A model and exotic dancer at the Casino de Paris, Helene Delangle regularly took to the track under her professional pseudonym Hellé Nice.

Nevertheless, Georges Philippe had attracted sufficient attention to be offered a factory drive alongside Monegasque star Louis Chiron. In his two races for the crack squad, Rothschild ran at the front of the field, before dropping back later in the race due to vehicle troubles. At the 1929 German Grand Prix, around the notorious Nürburgring Nordschleife, Georges Philippe was comfortably ahead of Chiron before contact with a wall caused damage to his Bugatti's axle, slowing the car and allowing Chiron to pass and take the victory.

Unfortunately, increasing fame was wearing Georges Philippe's anonymity rather thin. His final appearance was in the 1930 24 Hours of Le Mans where, driving an American Stutz, he failed to finish. After this Rothschild quietly laid 'Georges Philippe' to rest, and returned to running Château Mouton Rothschild.

In 1935, Rothschild and his friend, Jean Rheims, who were sponsoring a bobsled team, refused to participate in the 1936 Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, protesting what they called the "persecution of Germans of Jewish religion."

Wine grower
Despite the time spent racing automobiles and producing the 1932 film Lac aux dames, the first French "talkie" to gain international recognition (adapted from a novel by Vicki Baum and directed by Marc Allégret, it had a script by Colette and starred Jean-Pierre Aumont and Simone Simon), the energetic Philippe de Rothschild still devoted his energies and innovation to Château Mouton Rothschild in Pauillac.

He was only twenty years old when he took over the operations of the Château Mouton Rothschild vineyards and two years later, in 1924, came up with the unheard of idea of bottling the entire vintage at the Château, an idea that other producers of Premier Cru wines soon copied. Previously, vineyards sold their wines in bulk, leaving the maturing, bottling, labeling and marketing to be handled by the wine merchants. Philippe de Rothschild's idea was to maintain control over the quality of his product and allow marketing of the brand name. Two years later, he developed a de facto price-fixing arrangement among other top Bordeaux producers.

Upon harvesting a crop he considered not up to the high standards of his vineyard, he chose not to sell that year's vintage under the Château label. In 1932 Philippe de Rothschild began to sell this second-string vintage as a good low-cost Bordeaux under the name "Mouton Cadet". The product became so successful that he eventually had to purchase grapes from vineyards throughout the Bordeaux region just to meet the demand. Today, Mouton Cadet is the number-one-selling red wine in the world.

In 1933 Philippe expanded the Mouton-Rothschild estates with the acquisition of the neighboring Château d'Armailhac. By the late 1930s, the wines of Mouton Rothschild were recognized as among the world's best. Nonetheless, the Mouton vineyard was still rated as a "Second Growth" as a result of the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 (reputedly due to the vintner's Anglo-Jewish heritage) and Philippe de Rothschild began a lifelong mission to change this judgment.

Personal life
In 1934, Philippe de Rothschild married Élisabeth Pelletier de Chambure (1902–1945), the former wife of Jonkheer, a Belgian nobleman. They had two children: Philippine Mathilde Camille de Rothschild (born 22 November 1933, died 23 August 2014) and Charles Henri de Rothschild (born and died 1938).

Rothschild's late-in-life memoirs (Milady Vine, written in collaboration with his companion, the British theatre director Joan Littlewood) describe a partnership of great passion but also enormous tempestuousness and despair. The couple's difficulties increased when their only son was born tragically deformed and died soon after birth. They eventually separated, and the baron's wife reverted to her maiden name.

World War II
The outbreak of World War II had serious consequences for the entire Rothschild family, who were Jewish. Following the German occupation of France, Philippe de Rothschild's parents fled to the safety of Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Paris mansion where they had lived became the headquarters for the German Naval Command.

Although he was called up to serve in the French Air Force, the quick fall of France resulted in de Rothschild being arrested in Algeria by the Vichy government and the vineyard property seized. His French citizenship was revoked on 6 September 1940 for what The New York Times described as "having left France without official permission or a valid reason." Released from Vichy custody on 20 April 1941, Philippe de Rothschild made his way to England, where he joined the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle, earning a Croix de Guerre.

On his return to France following the Allies' liberation, Philippe de Rothschild learned that, although his daughter was safe, the Gestapo had, on charges of attempting to cross a line of demarcation with a forged permit, deported his estranged wife in 1941 to Ravensbrück concentration camp where she died – the cause of her death remains unresolved – on 23 March 1945. Élisabeth Pelletier de Chambure was the only member of the Rothschilds to be murdered in The Holocaust.

Postwar
Devastated, Rothschild had to deal with problems at his vineyard as well. The departing German army had done considerable damage to Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Together with dedicated employees, he put his energy into restoring the vineyard and by the early 1950s was once again producing wine.

At the same time, the multi-talented Rothschild returned to participation in the theatrical world, teaming up with Gaston Bonheur to write in both English and French the play Lady Chatterley's Lover. Based on the D. H. Lawrence novel, their play was later made into a motion picture starring Danielle Darrieux. In 1952 Rothschild and Bonheur wrote the script for the film La Demoiselle et son revenant. Philippe de Rothschild was an accomplished poet and in 1952 his poem Vendange inspired Darius Milhaud to write a three-act ballet for the Paris Opera. He also translated Elizabethan poetry and the plays of Christopher Fry.

In 1954, Rothschild married a longtime mistress, Pauline Fairfax Potter (1908–1976), a Paris-born American who had been the head fashion designer at Hattie Carnegie. After their marriage, she used her aesthetic talents to help restore an old storage building on the estate, converting it into an opulent home, and became known as a tastemaker in the worlds of fashion and interior design.

In 1973, Château Mouton Rothschild became the only French vineyard to ever achieve reclassification to First Growth, thanks to decades of relentless lobbying. Subsequently, the owner of Château d'Yquem sued unsuccessfully to have the reclassification reversed as illegitimate. After his Mouton Rothschild lost to a California wine in the Judgment of Paris, he "phoned one of the judges and asked haughtily, 'What are you doing to my wines? It took me forty years to become classified as First Growth!'"

Rothschild purchased Château Clerc Milon, a fifth-growth classified vineyard strategically located next to his own property. After achieving his lifelong goal with the 1973 upgrading of Chateau Mouton Rothschild to Premier Cru status, and after the historic results of the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, he began looking beyond France for wine-growing opportunities and in 1980 announced a joint venture with the respected American wine grower, Robert Mondavi, to form the Opus One Winery in Oakville, California.

In 1997, under the direction of Rothschild's daughter Philippine, Château Mouton-Rothschild teamed up with Concha y Toro of Chile to produce a Cabernet Sauvignon based, Bordeaux-style red wine in a new winery built in Chile's Maipo Valley, the Almaviva.

Baron Philippe de Rothschild remained active in the wine business until he died in 1988 at the age of 85, whereupon his daughter assumed control of the company. She has also had a successful career as a theatre actress under the stage name "Philippine Pascal".

Arts
As an offshoot of self-bottling, Philippe also came up with the idea of having his labels designed by famous artists. In 1946, this became a prominent and traditional part of the vineyard's image, with labels created by great painters and sculptors such as Jean Cocteau, Leonor Fini, Henry Moore, Marie Laurencin, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Jacques Villon, Pierre Alechinsky, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, César, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Andy Warhol, and other notables.

In 1962 at Mouton the Rothschilds created the Museum of Wine in Art; here a collection of art works covering three millennia of wine is on display, including original art by Pablo Picasso and rare glassware.

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

title: Philippe de Rothschild


text:
Free probability

Free probability is a mathematical theory that studies non-commutative random variables. The "freeness" or free independence property is the analogue of the classical notion of independence, and it is connected with free products. This theory was initiated by Dan Voiculescu around 1986 in order to attack the free group factors isomorphism problem, an important unsolved problem in the theory of operator algebras. Given a free group on some number of generators, we can consider the von Neumann algebra generated by the group algebra, which is a type II1 factor. The isomorphism problem asks whether these are isomorphic for different numbers of generators. It is not even known if any two free group factors are isomorphic. This is similar to Tarski's free group problem, which asks whether two different non-abelian finitely generated free groups have the same elementary theory.

Later connections to random matrix theory, combinatorics, representations of symmetric groups, large deviations, quantum information theory and other theories were established. Free probability is currently undergoing active research.

Typically the random variables lie in a unital algebra A such as a C*-algebra or a von Neumann algebra. The algebra comes equipped with a noncommutative expectation, a linear functional φ: A → C such that φ(1) = 1. Unital subalgebras A1, ..., Am are then said to be freely independent if the expectation of the product a1...an is zero whenever each aj has zero expectation, lies in an Ak, no adjacent aj's come from the same subalgebra Ak, and n is nonzero. Random variables are freely independent if they generate freely independent unital subalgebras.

One of the goals of free probability (still unaccomplished) was to construct new invariants of von Neumann algebras and free dimension is regarded as a reasonable candidate for such an invariant. The main tool used for the construction of free dimension is free entropy.

The relation of free probability with random matrices is a key reason for the wide use of free probability in other subjects. Voiculescu introduced the concept of freeness around 1983 in an operator algebraic context; at the beginning there was no relation at all with random matrices. This connection was only revealed later in 1991 by Voiculescu; he was motivated by the fact that the limit distribution which he found in his free central limit theorem had appeared before in Wigner's semi-circle law in the random matrix context.

The free cumulant functional (introduced by Roland Speicher) plays a major role in the theory. It is related to the lattice of noncrossing partitions of the set { 1, ..., n } in the same way in which the classic cumulant functional is related to the lattice of all partitions of that set.

title: Free probability


text:
Talk:Nannerl's Music Book

Might it be better to describe all of these Mozart works in this article rather than giving them each an article of their own? They're all quite short (as far as I know) and uninteresting (well, them being the first things WAM wrote gives them some interest, I guess, but musically they're nothing), and having an article on each would mean quite a lot of duplication.
 * I don't think there is anything per se wrong with small articles, and it makes it easier to refer to the pieces in other articles. — Stumps 13:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, isn't it more usually known as "Nannerl's Notebook" than "Nannerl's Music Book"? Could be wrong about that, though, Mozart isn't my strong point. --Camembert
 * I've moved it to Nannerl Notenbuch which is the name used in many sources, such as the Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia and Grove's. — Stumps 13:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Nannerl's Music Book


text:
Omnibus Press

Omnibus Press is a publisher of music-related books. It publishes around 30 new titles a year to add to a backlist of over 300 titles currently in print.

History
Omnibus Press was launched in 1972 as a general non-fiction publisher to complement the sheet music published and distributed by its parent company Music Sales Group. Music Sales had launched a separate company called Book Sales Ltd and the earliest Book Sales catalogue, issued in the early 70s, included compilations of underground comic strips, art and photography titles and one of the earliest books on the then newly discovered art of video.

After former Melody Maker music journalist Chris Charlesworth joined as Omnibus editor in 1983, it was decided to concentrate exclusively on music books, and among its earliest acquisitions was Rock Family Trees by music archivist Pete Frame which remains in print and have been the basis of two BBC TV series. Over the succeeding decades Omnibus has published many biographies on most of rock musicians. These include Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance by Johnny Rogan, Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon by Tony Fletcher, Uptight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris and Catch A Fire: The Life of Bob Marley by Timothy White.

Among the rock and pop writers whose work has been published by Omnibus over the years are Richard Williams, Chris Welch, Peter Dogget, Patrick Humphries, David Sinclair and Everett True (UK) and Dave Marsh, Paul Williams, Nelson George, Jerry Hopkins, David Ritz and Danny Sugerman (US).

Wise Music Group has published The Beatles' printed sheet music since the company's inception, and this association is reflected in the many Beatles-related books that Omnibus has published. These include The Beatles: A Diary by Barry Miles, a Beatles insider from the early days, With The Beatles: The Historic Photos of Dezo Hoffman, and The Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles by Dominic Pedlar, an analytical study of their music. In 2007, Omnibus published Colin Larkin's Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Concise Edition). At 1,600 pages, this is the abridged version of Larkin's 10-volume encyclopedia, a biographical listing of rock, pop and jazz artists.

In 2006, Music Sales acquired Sanctuary Books which added a significant number of additional music books to the Omnibus list, as well as a number of sports, travel and novelty & gift books.

In February 2020, parent company Wise Music Group changed its name from The Music Sales Group.

title: Omnibus Press


text:
Briton Ferry

Briton Ferry (Llansawel) is a town and community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales. The Welsh name may indicate that the church, llan, is protected from the wind, awel. Alternatively, Sawel may be a derivative of Saul, St Paul's earlier name. He once landed at Briton Ferry. An alternative Welsh name unused today is Rhyd y Brython, a direct translation of Briton Ferry. The Normans referred to the River crossing as La Brittonne and  Leland in 1540 as Britanne Fery.

Background

Briton Ferry is on the mouth of the River Neath, where it enters Swansea Bay, and is the first river crossing along the Roman road that follows the coastline along that part of South Wales. A milestone dedicated to Victorinus, a former Roman Governor in Gaul and Britain, was found at nearby Baglan. The ferry boat crossing was some 2 mi from the bridge across the River Neath at Neath. At certain low tides, it was possible to walk across the river via a ford close to the ferry route using stepping stones.

Briton Ferry lies on the heavily fractured ground near the mouth of the River Neath on a line between the upper and middle coal measures. The original course of the River Neath may have been through the Jersey Marine gap between the isolated hills, which formed a rocky ridge between Briton Ferry and Jersey Marine. Beyond the ridge, the sands of Baglan Bay extended into Briton Ferry until the mid-nineteenth century when the estuary’s saltings were developed for industry. Today, the river crossing comprises two bridge crossings which carry the M4 motorway and A483 road across the river.

There are remains of ancient Iron Age hill forts on the hills around Briton Ferry, they are named Buarth-y-Gaer and Gaer Fawr, and situated on Mynydd-y-Gaer alongside the boundary with Baglan. A Neolithic stone is in place within the grounds of Cwrt Sart school. A plaque alongside the stone is inscribed, "When removed, it will speak but once to reveal its secret, and then remain silent forever." One explanation for the name of the nearby Giant's Grave is the presence of a cromlech. At Crymlyn Burrows, an unlooped Bronze Age axe (c.1400 BC) was discovered.

The town was part of the Briton Ferry Estate, whose lands belonged to Margam Abbey before they passed on, in turn, to the Mansel, Villiers, and Vernon families (Earls of Jersey). It had been owned by the Price family of Briton Ferry in the early 17th century until the Mansels inherited it. There it remained until Louisa Barbara Mansell married George Venables Vernon in 1757. There was no male issue, so she left the estate to her godson George, Earl of Jersey. He modernised and reduced the size of the estate to ensure its viability.

Early industrialisation
As early as the 1660s, primitive forges existed at Briton Ferry, later using local coal from small pits such as Price's Drift, but Briton Ferry's marine location stimulated its industrial development. In 1840, an area of about 750 acre of land in Cwmafan was leased for 99 years to John Vigurs and subsequently passed to Wright, Butler & Co. Ltd, then to Baldwins Ltd. The terraces of houses built on this land were sublet in 1897 and 1898 for the remainder of the term of this lease, but many were declared unfit for habitation in the 1930s and demolished. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, coastal shipping at Giant's Grave's wharves loaded coal for export from pits in the Neath Valley via Neath Canal and unloaded iron ore and limestone. The canal was completed in 1797, becoming the second in Glamorgan, running 14 miles (22.53 km) from Abernant to Briton Ferry. 1841 Neath Abbey Iron Co laid plans for an ironwork on the east bank of the river at Warren Hill. With the development of railways in the second half of the 19th century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed Briton Ferry Dock to handle coal and other goods for the Vale of Neath Railway. It opened in 1861 following the town's ironworks in 1846 and the Red Jacket and Briton Ferry Copperworks on the West Bank of the river in 1849 and 1853. The 1860s saw the start of tinplate manufacturing from puddled iron until steel-making started in the town at the end of the 19th century.

Later industrialisation
Further industrialisation brought factories such as the Vernon, Gwalia, Wern, Baglan Bay Tinplate, and Whitford Sheet Works, receiving their raw material from the Albion and Briton Ferry Steelworks. Taylor's Foundry, Baglan Engineering and Thos. W. Ward serviced these industries. They were built on land close to the River Neath and the South Wales Railway built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The industrial development attracted other railways, including the Neath and Brecon Railway, the Rhondda and Swansea Bay Railway, and the South Wales Mineral Railway with its cable-powered incline.

Briton Ferry floating dock
In the 1850s, the Briton Ferry Floating Dock Company was incorporated and bought land from the Earl of Jersey to build the Briton Ferry Docks. When it opened in 1861, the dock consisted of an outer tidal basin which had round-ended jetties at its mouth and quays along its sides and an inner floating dock of 5.3 hectares, enclosed by masonry walls and sandstone. The water level was maintained by a single gate, which included a buoyancy chamber. It covered an area of 23.7 acre. The gate was 56 ft wide, and the unique structure with its floating caisson was designed by Brunel's father, Sir Marc Brunel. Following Brunel's death in 1859, Robert Brereton took over as engineer and also acted as engineer for improvements made in 1872 and 1873.

The company went bankrupt and the Great Western Railway took over the docks until they were closed in 1959. The inner basin has been largely built upon.

In 2000, the dock walls and lock gate were Grade 2 listed for their industrial and archaeological interest as the major surviving built component of Brunel's docks. The dock is a scheduled Ancient Monument.

As part of a regeneration programme instigated by Briton Ferry Brunel Dock Trust in 2005 to preserve, restore and maintain the heritage of Brunel's historic site and its structures for public benefit, a tower, which formed part of the complex, was refurbished. It was an accumulator tower for the hydraulic system, which operated the dock gate and cranes. The system was designed by William Armstrong, and in 2010, the Institution of Civil Engineers unveiled a plaque at the site to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth. The outer basin has potential use by fishing boats and yachts. The ship-breaking of WW2 ships, such as HMS Bermuda, took place at Giant's Grave upstream of the floating dock, and north of the M4 and A48 crossings. Huw Pudner and Chris Hastings, two local songwriters, wrote "Giants Grave", a song about the ship-breaking industry in Briton Ferry which was featured in the film The History of Briton Ferry by Jason May.

The wharves at Briton Ferry are run by Neath Port Authority, the most important of which are Giant's Wharf, which handles steel, scrap, coke, coal and machine parts, and Ironworks Wharf, which handles minerals such as sand and cement. They offer tidal and river berths with a maximum depth of 7.1 m. Between them, 200 vessels a year are handled.

The Mouchel phenomenon
In 1875, the French-born engineer Louis Gustave Mouchel established himself in Briton Ferry and quickly became involved in several successful enterprises. His consultancy company was directly responsible for introducing ferroconcrete (also called reinforced concrete) to Britain. In neighbouring Swansea, a building constructed for Weaver and Co mills claimed to be the first entirely ferroconcrete building in the United Kingdom.

So important was Briton Ferry for trade with France that Mouchel was, from 1879 to his death, French Consular Agent to Briton Ferry, Talbot, Porthcawl and Neath Abbey.

Housing
Most housing in the 19th century was built by local private builders, sometimes for local industry or the railways. This can be seen at Giant’s Grave, Warren Hill, and near the dock. Municipal housing in Briton Ferry started as a result of the Housing of the Workers Act 1890 and continued as a result of 20th-century housing legislation just before and following World War II. High-rise housing was attempted in the 1950s due to a shortage of building land, but it was not a success. In the late 20th century the high-rise housing and much of the earliest housing near the docks was demolished and replaced by more municipal housing. As a participant in the Swansea Bay City Deal, Neath-Port Talbot Council aims for a share in the project to future-proof at least 10,300 properties over five years by making low carbon, energy-efficient homes, with 7,000 retro-fitted to existing houses and 3,300 newly built.

De-industrialisation
A consortium of steel and tinplate producers consolidated all tinplate mills to create the Steel Company of Wales in 1947. By 1953, only the Albion Steelworks remained in the town, all other tinplate production having ceased.

The Albion Steelworks, which had used oil to fuel its largest open-hearth furnace, closed in November 1978 and was demolished within a year. This was followed by the closure of the ship-breaker and steel supplier Thos. W. Ward in 1983. The firm at Giant's Grave, which operated from 1906 until 1979, broke up 197 merchant ships and 94 Admiralty.

The steel and tinplate industry's demise in the second half of the twentieth century was followed in the first two decades by closures of other local firms that had employed many from Briton Ferry. BP Chemicals opened its plant at nearby Baglan Bay in 1963, quickly expanding into one of the biggest petrochemical sites in Europe; by 1974 it was employing 2500 staff. The advent of North Sea oil proved injurious since its location meant it was on the "wrong" side of Britain to receive oil supplies from the North Sea. This situation, along with a further decline in demand for its products, gradually reduced the size of the plant, and in 2004 it closed entirely. BP's oil refinery at Llandarcy closed four years later. The Metal Box Company's closure was announced in 2015, and its premises were bought by Neath-Port Talbot Council in 2017.

The industrial revolution brought much expansion to Briton Ferry, including ironworks, steelworks, tinplate production and engineering. Production generally lasted until the 1970s. In 1951, as the industry began to dwindle, portions of the estate were sold to the Principality Property Co., Estateways Builders, John Oliver Watkins, the City & Provincial Housing Association, and Gwalia Land & Property Developments Ltd.

Modern development
The economic transformation of the area in the second half of the last century resulted in few original industries surviving in the town, though new industries have been created in Neath-Port Talbot's adjacent communities of Baglan, Jersey Marine and Melyncryddan. Intertissue, a paper converter new to Baglan Energy Park, employs a workforce of 447. The park has the potential to create and accommodate 7,000 jobs over the next 25 years. £15 million has been invested in a solar energy farm on the park. Baglan Energy Park's on-site power generation provides competitively priced electricity to businesses within the area using a combined-cycle gas turbine power plant. In Jersey Marine, Amazon opened its 74,000 m2 distribution warehouse in 2008.

Government and politics
Briton Ferry had its Urban District Council from 1895 to 1922, when it formed part of Aberavon Parliamentary Constituency. The growth of the town's metals industries at that time was accompanied by the growth of independent working-class representation and strong socialist, internationalist, and pacifist traditions. Prominent Independent Labour Party representatives were Councillor Joe Branch, Ivor O. Thomas and Ivor H. Thomas, the founder of the South Wales branch of the National Council for Civil Liberties. Branch was the first chair of the constituency Labour Party. Ramsay MacDonald was associated with the tradition and represented the town as MP within the Aberavon constituency. He became the leader of the opposition in 1922 and became Prime Minister in 1924. His constituency office was at Chequers in Briton Ferry. Many speakers visited the town at that time, including Bertrand Russell, Norman Angell, Keir Hardie, Ernest Bevin, Thomas Mann, E. D. Morel, Charlotte Despard, Emmeline, and Sylvia Pankhurst. For mainly political reasons, thirty-seven of the town's residents were imprisoned during World War I for opposing conscription. Along with seventy objectors from Aberavon and district, these communities provided the country's strongest opposition to the war, despite the town's loss of 120 soldiers' lives during World War I. The town had the distinction of providing Parliament with four MPs during 1955: Dai L. Mort, Ivor O. Thomas, Raymond Gower and Ronald Rees.

The town is currently in the parliamentary constituency of Aberavon, having been in Neath constituency from 1945 until 1983. The current MP is Stephen Kinnock, while the current Senedd Member is David Rees along with four regional members for South Wales West. The town encompasses the electoral wards of Briton Ferry East and Briton Ferry West. Today, the Town Council consists of twelve members and meets monthly in the Council Chamber at the Community Resource Centre, the community-managed library.

Trains
The railway was important in the town's industrial development town, and much of the core rail infrastructure remains. The town is served by the Briton Ferry railway station, which is now accessed from Shelone Road. It is near the Cwrt Sart junction, where the Swansea District Line meets the South Wales Main Line. For passenger services, Briton Ferry is served by two principal operators. The first, Transport for Wales, runs regional trains to Swansea and West Wales and also to Cardiff and Manchester via the Welsh Marches line. In contrast, First Great Western trains from Swansea to London do not stop here. The typical service pattern has been one train approximately every two hours in each direction, but Transport for Wales, which took over the Wales and Borders franchise in October 2018, intends to operate further services.

Buses
The town is served by twelve local services and three express services which pickup from various stops within the town. The local buses are operated by First Cymru and cater for local shoppers, colleges and hospitals in the Neath-Port Talbot area, while the express services are provided to reach Bridgend, Maesteg and Swansea.

Roads
The M4 and the A483 bypass the town to relieve the traffic on the A474, a former Roman road, which runs through the town parallel to the main railway line and connects Neath with Port Talbot.

First road crossing
Construction of the first river bridge crossing took place from 1949–1955 and was one of the first large-scale road bridges to be constructed in Britain after World War II as part of the A48 Neath bypass road scheme. It comprises two viaducts. The western viaduct crosses the River Neath, and the eastern viaduct crosses the former dock area of Briton Ferry and the South Wales main railway line.

Second road crossing
The second road crossing was completed in 1994 to carry the London to Wales M4 motorway across the River Neath to supersede the A48. Briton Ferry has junction J42, which is 184 mi from the motorway's eastern end and 15 mi from its western at Pont Abraham. It filled the final 10 km gap in the motorway between Newport and west Wales, Its completion presented formidable problems, with extensive industrial and commercial development, estuarine flood-lands and the navigable River Neath all lying in the path of possible routes.

Landmarks, attractions and recreation
John Mills's sculpture at the southern end of the town, The Crossing, symbolises the town's industrial and maritime history through the importance of its bridges and river crossing.

Jersey Park has been an exceptionally well-preserved, urban public park since its opening in 1925, the land having been gifted originally by the Earl of Jersey in 1908. Its original layout of formal and informal areas remains complete and includes sports facilities. Planting in the park is diverse and interesting, with an emphasis on evergreen trees and shrubs. The park is designated Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

Rhoddfa Clarke is the name of the inclined part of the South Wales Mineral Railway, the lowest, level part of which now forms Jersey Park. Here rope-hauled coal wagons delivered coal from Glyncorrwg to Briton Ferry dock. Above the dense matrix of streets and busy roads of Briton Ferry, the park and incline give access to Craig y Darren Woods and offers some respite from the town's traffic. This ancient woodland is crisscrossed by a network of footpaths offering congenial walks with dramatic views of the town and Swansea Bay.

Sports clubs

 * Briton Ferry Llansawel A.F.C.
 * Briton Ferry RFC
 * Giants Grave F.C.
 * Briton Ferry Steel Cricket Club
 * Briton Ferry Town Cricket Club

Notable people

 * Kenneth Crosby (1904–1998), linguist and missionary to Sierra Leone, West Africa, was born in Briton Ferry
 * Sir Francis Avery Jones CBE FRCP MRCS (1910–1998), a Welsh physician and gastroenterologist, born in Briton Ferry
 * Harry Parr-Davies (1914–1955), musician, composer and songwriter, was born in Briton Ferry
 * Mavis Nicholson (née Mainwaring) (1930-2022), journalist and broadcaster, was born in Briton Ferry where she spent her childhood
 * David Pickering (born 1960), Welsh rugby personality, was born in Briton Ferry
 * Alf Shea (1898–1969), Welsh cricketer, was born in Briton Ferry

Nearby areas

 * Crymlyn Burrows
 * Llandarcy
 * Neath
 * Port Talbot
 * Baglan
 * Baglan Bay

Twin towns

 * Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

title: Briton Ferry


text:
List of geological features on 433 Eros

This is a list of named geological features on asteroid 433 Eros.

Regions
Regions (geologically distinct areas) on Eros are named after the co-discoverers of the asteroid.

Dorsa
Dorsa (ridges) on Eros are named after astronomers who studied the asteroid.

Craters
Craters on Eros are named after famous lovers.

title: List of geological features on 433 Eros


text:
Nonlinear programming

In mathematics, nonlinear programming (NLP) is the process of solving an optimization problem where some of the constraints are not linear equalities or the objective function is not a linear function. An optimization problem is one of calculation of the extrema (maxima, minima or stationary points) of an objective function over a set of unknown real variables and conditional to the satisfaction of a system of equalities and inequalities, collectively termed constraints. It is the sub-field of mathematical optimization that deals with problems that are not linear.

Definition and discussion
Let n, m, and p be positive integers. Let X be a subset of Rn (usually a box-constrained one), let f, gi, and hj be real-valued functions on X for each i in {1, ..., m} and each j in {1, ..., p}, with at least one of f, gi, and hj being nonlinear.

A nonlinear programming problem is an optimization problem of the form

\begin{align} \text{minimize }  & f(x) \\ \text{subject to } & g_i(x) \leq 0 \text{ for each } i \in \{1, \dotsc, m\} \\ & h_j(x) = 0 \text{ for each } j \in \{1, \dotsc, p\} \\ & x \in X. \end{align} $$

Depending on the constraint set, there are several possibilities:

 * feasible problem is one for which there exists at least one set of values for the choice variables satisfying all the constraints.
 * an infeasible problem is one for which no set of values for the choice variables satisfies all the constraints. That is, the constraints are mutually contradictory, and no solution exists; the feasible set is the empty set.
 * unbounded problem is a feasible problem for which the objective function can be made to be better than any given finite value. Thus there is no optimal solution, because there is always a feasible solution that gives a better objective function value than does any given proposed solution.

Most realistic applications feature feasible problems, with infeasible or unbounded problems seen as a failure of an underlying model. In some cases, infeasible problems are handled by minimizing a sum of feasibility violations.

Some special cases of nonlinear programming have specialized solution methods:

 * If the objective function is concave (maximization problem), or convex (minimization problem) and the constraint set is convex, then the program is called convex and general methods from convex optimization can be used in most cases.
 * If the objective function is quadratic and the constraints are linear, quadratic programming techniques are used.
 * If the objective function is a ratio of a concave and a convex function (in the maximization case) and the constraints are convex, then the problem can be transformed to a convex optimization problem using fractional programming techniques.

Applicability
A typical non-convex problem is that of optimizing transportation costs by selection from a set of transportation methods, one or more of which exhibit economies of scale, with various connectivities and capacity constraints. An example would be petroleum product transport given a selection or combination of pipeline, rail tanker, road tanker, river barge, or coastal tankship. Owing to economic batch size the cost functions may have discontinuities in addition to smooth changes.

In experimental science, some simple data analysis (such as fitting a spectrum with a sum of peaks of known location and shape but unknown magnitude) can be done with linear methods, but in general these problems are also nonlinear. Typically, one has a theoretical model of the system under study with variable parameters in it and a model the experiment or experiments, which may also have unknown parameters. One tries to find a best fit numerically. In this case one often wants a measure of the precision of the result, as well as the best fit itself.

Analytic methods
Under differentiability and constraint qualifications, the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions provide necessary conditions for a solution to be optimal. If some of the functions are non-differentiable, subdifferential versions of Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions are available.

Under convexity, the KKT conditions are sufficient for a global optimum. Without convexity, these conditions are sufficient only for a local optimum. In some cases, the number of local optima is small, and one can find all of them analytically and find the one for which the objective value is smallest.

Numeric methods
In most realistic cases, it is very hard to solve the KKT conditions analytically, and so the problems are solved using numerical methods. These methods are iterative: they start with an initial point, and then proceed to points that are supposed to be closer to the optimal point, using some update rule. There are three kinds of update rules:

 * Zero-order routines - use only the values of the objective function and constraint functions at the current point;
 * First-order routines - use also the values of the gradients of these functions;
 * Second-order routines - use also the values of the Hessians of these functions.

Third-order routines (and higher) are theoretically possible, but not used in practice, due to the higher computational load and little theoretical benefit.

Branch and bound
Another method involves the use of branch and bound techniques, where the program is divided into subclasses to be solved with convex (minimization problem) or linear approximations that form a lower bound on the overall cost within the subdivision. With subsequent divisions, at some point an actual solution will be obtained whose cost is equal to the best lower bound obtained for any of the approximate solutions. This solution is optimal, although possibly not unique. The algorithm may also be stopped early, with the assurance that the best possible solution is within a tolerance from the best point found; such points are called ε-optimal. Terminating to ε-optimal points is typically necessary to ensure finite termination. This is especially useful for large, difficult problems and problems with uncertain costs or values where the uncertainty can be estimated with an appropriate reliability estimation.

Implementations
There exist numerous nonlinear programming solvers, including open source:

 * ALGLIB (C++, C#, Java, Python API) implements several first-order and derivative-free nonlinear programming solvers
 * NLopt (C/C++ implementation, with numerous interfaces including Julia, Python, R, MATLAB/Octave), includes various nonlinear programming solvers
 * SciPy (de facto standard for scientific Python) has scipy.optimize solver, which includes several nonlinear programming algorithms (zero-order, first order and second order ones).
 * IPOPT (C++ implementation, with numerous interfaces including C, Fortran, Java, AMPL, R, Python, etc.) is an interior point method solver (zero-order, and optionally first order and second order derivatives).

2-dimensional example
A simple problem (shown in the diagram) can be defined by the constraints $$\begin{align} x_1 &\geq 0 \\ x_2 &\geq 0 \\ x_1^2 + x_2^2 &\geq 1 \\ x_1^2 + x_2^2 &\leq 2 \end{align}$$ with an objective function to be maximized $$f(\mathbf x) = x_1 + x_2$$ where $x = (x_{1}, x_{2})$.

3-dimensional example
Another simple problem (see diagram) can be defined by the constraints $$\begin{align} x_1^2 - x_2^2 + x_3^2 &\leq 2 \\ x_1^2 + x_2^2 + x_3^2 &\leq 10 \end{align}$$ with an objective function to be maximized $$f(\mathbf x) = x_1 x_2 + x_2 x_3$$ where $x = (x_{1}, x_{2}, x_{3})$.

title: Nonlinear programming


text:
Green Cargo

Green Cargo AB is a Swedish state-owned logistics company transporting various types of goods by train. It was created on 1 January 2001 out of the logistics division of Swedish State Railways (SJ). While organised as a public limited company, it is wholly owned by the Swedish government. As of 2019, it was responsible for almost 80% of Swedish rail freight transport.

Activities
While Green Cargo has traditionally been orientated towards serving the Swedish market, via partnerships with other rail freight companies, international freight trains in the European market are also operated. During January 2022, Green Cargo announced that it was restructuring its international operations to simplify operations, reduce costs, and reduce transit times. Changes included the subcontracting of its Denmark Direct service to DB Cargo Scandinavia for increased capacity, while the Italy Direct and Austria Direct services were rerouted to run via Denmark instead of traditional train ferries. Various Swedish industries have made use of Green Cargo's services, such as the car manufacturer Volvo, which has routinely had goods trains ran from Sweden to its production plant at Gent, Belgium. During 2020, these services were adjusted by Green Cargo in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to instead focus on the transporting of food productions on behalf of the grocery chain ICA Gruppen.

The vast majority of Green Cargo's trains are hauled using electric locomotives; by 2023, the company was operating roughly 400 freight trains per days while 96 percent of tonne kilometrage was being achieved via electric traction, minimising its climate impact. Its definition of sustainable development is the long-term outcome of six target areas: finance, quality, security, employees, the environment and society. Since 2006, the company's sustainability reports have been reviewed by external auditors with similar scrutiny as to financial data.

Various efforts to improve the company's financial standing have been conducted since its creation; a restructuring programme launched in 2015 pursued a more effective production model that reportedly increased the average train's fill rate by 15 percent. New practices have included backloading, reducing empty return trips after delivering one customer's cargo by identifying and carrying goods from another on that return journey. Green Cargo has spoken out on the impact of track access charges on its business and the wider rail sector. Operations prior to the mid 2010s had typically been unprofitable, however, an operating profit of SEK 200m (€20.5m) was recorded between 2013 and 2016. Various other initiatives to incorporate new technologies and computer-based systems have also been undertaken by the operator, such as the development of a simplified and more stable computer platform for its operations and increasing the flexibility of its operations, particularly in terms of fleet and capacity management.

Rolling stock
Green Cargo operates 370 locomotives of various types along with 5,250 wagons. A traditional staple of the company's fleet has been the SJ Rc series of electric locomotives; during the late 2000s, 42 Class Rc2 locomotives underwent refurbishment by the multinational rolling stock manufacturer Bombardier Transportation, to reflect the upgrades applied, they were redesignated as Class Rd2 locomotives. In the 2010s, Green Cargo has operated at least 16 Bombardier Traxx locomotives, locally referred to as Re, some of which were leased from the European rolling stock hire company Alpha Trains. Another new locomotive class has been the Romanian-built Softronic Transmontana, designated Mb by Green Cargo; the first pair of MB electric locomotives were ordered July 2017 order; by 2022, Green Cargo had 16 such locomotives in its fleet.

Various modification programmes aimed at improving the performance of its rolling stock have been conducted. By the 2010s, locomotive engines were being continuous upgraded, such as the addition of start-stop systems to reduce unnecessary emissions and noise pollution. During 2018, Green Cargo started using XXXL containers on its trains, allowing for larger payloads to be carried. In the winter of 2020/2021, Green Cargo commenced a trial of digital automatic couplings on its rolling stock to automate several time-intensive and hazardous tasks in forming its trains; the company stated that the technology would improve capacity, safety margins, operational efficiency, punctuality, and profitability.

title: Green Cargo


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Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu

Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu is a music college in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was created in 1837 with the name Liceo Filo-dramático de Montesión.

In 1847 the institution inaugurated the opera house Gran Teatre del Liceu. In 1854, the Liceo Filarmónico and the Gran Teatre del Liceu separated administratively. Nevertheless, both entities have always remained closely linked. Among its students have been, among other, artists as: singers Francisco Viñas, Maria Barrientos, Josefina Huguet, Conchita Supervía, Mercedes Capsir, Elvira de Hidalgo, Miguel Fleta, Victoria de los Ángeles, Jaume Aragall, Montserrat Caballé, Manuel Ausensi, José Carreras, Eduard Giménez, Dalmacio González, Juan Pons, Nuria Rial, Josep Bros; guitarist Renata Tarragó; pianist Frank Marshall or composers Leonardo Balada, Lluís Benejam, Agusti Grau Joan Guinjoan, Joan Lamote de Grignon, Ricard Lamote de Grignon, Frederic Mompou, Carles Santos, Manuel Valls, and Joaquim Zamacois. Many of them also became professors there upon completion of their studies, including Renata Tarragó. Among the professors there were Catalan composers Enric Morera, Graciano Tarragó and German composer Engelbert Humperdinck. The Barcelona Guitar Orchestra is based there.

Since 1999 Maria Serrat i Martín has assumed the General Direction and in 2002 the Spanish composer and musicologist Benet Casablancas assumed the academic direction of the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu.


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Glynneath

Glynneath (Glyn-nedd "valley of the River Neath" ), also spelt Glyn-neath and Glyn Neath, is a town, community and electoral ward lying on the River Neath in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales. It was formerly in the historic county of Glamorgan. Glynneath ward covers only part of the community, with some 840 electors included in the neighbouring ward of Blaengwrach.

Industrialisation reached Glynneath when coal mining started in 1793, and rapidly expanded when the Neath Canal came to the town in 1775. Many features of the old canal still survive to the present time.

There are waterfalls to the north east at Pontneddfechan near the Brecon Beacons and large parts of the rural area are heavily forested.

Notable buildings and structures
Glynneath is home to the ruins of Aberpergwm House. Once owned by Rhys ap Siancyn, Aberpergwm House became the home of the Williams family, Welsh gentry with a strong tradition of using the Welsh language over English. Their descendants include the last of the Welsh household bards Dafydd Nicolas and folksong collector Maria Jane Williams. The Williams' family motto y ddioddefws y orfu (He who suffers, triumphs) was adopted by Glamorgan County Council. The mansion itself was remodelled in 1876 but is now derelict and little of note remains of the building.

St. Cadoc's Church, in the grounds of Aberpergwm House, was built as a chapel in the 17th century, rebuilt in 1808-1809 for the Aberpergwm Williams family and extended in 1836–41. It is a Grade II* listed building.

Rheola House, a Regency house designed c.1812 by the eminent architect John Nash, is also Grade II* listed.

Glynneath Town Hall is a regularly used civic building situated at Heathfield Avenue. It is owned and managed by Glynneath Town Council.

The Grade II* listed Bethania Community Centre on the High Street is an example of an early Calvinistic Methodist chapel with well detailed external frontage in contrasting stone and iron work railings. The interior has good examples of very finely detailed woodwork.

A bronze statue of the singer Max Boyce, who was born in the town, was erected in the High Street, in September 2023, in recognition of Boyce's 80th birthday.

Sports and leisure
Glynneath used to host one of motor sport's most important challenges, the British round of the World Rally Championship (formerly known as the Lombard RAC rally or Rally GB). Some of the biggest names in motor sport have taken part and have failed to complete the British round.

Glynneath also has an association with downhill mountain biking with the Welsh National Championships being held at Rheola.

Glynneath is home to Glynneath RFC, a rugby union club founded in 1889.

Glynneath also boasts an active group of football clubs and a well attended tennis club. Until recently, Glynneath Bowls Club, in particular the Ladies' Bowls Club was an active group.

Glynneath Leisure Centre, maintained through Celtic Leisure is situated just off of Chain Road.

Notable residents

 * The Anchoress, musician, was born in the town.
 * Max Boyce, comedian and singer, closely linked to Welsh rugby culture.
 * Julie Gardner, television producer, responsible for the successful relaunch of Doctor Who.
 * Leslie Hardman, British Army chaplain and rabbi, who was among the liberators of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, was born in the town.
 * Ruth Madoc, actress, best known for her role as Gladys Pugh in the television sitcom Hi-De-Hi!
 * Siwan Morris, actress, who has appeared in the television series Belonging, Caerdydd, and Skins.
 * Glyn Prosser; Glynneath RFC, Neath RFC, Wales rugby union & Huddersfield RLFC rugby league footballer.
 * January Rees, Wales women's rugby union player, comedian
 * Emlyn Walters, Bradford Northern and Wales rugby league footballer.

Twin Town
Glynneath is twinned with:

 * 🇫🇷 Pont-Évêque, France, since 1993

The town twinning supports football matches between the two towns, and a visit by Glynneath Male Voice Choir.

title: Glynneath