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Transit of German troops through Finland and Sweden

The matter of German troop transfer through Finland and Sweden during World War II was one of the more controversial aspects of modern Nordic history beside Finland's co-belligerence with Nazi Germany in the Continuation War, and the export of Swedish iron ore during World War II.

The Swedish concession to German demands during and after the German invasion of Norway in April–June 1940 is often viewed as a significant breach with prior neutrality policies that were held in high regard in many smaller European nations. After they were publicly acknowledged, the Soviet Union immediately requested a similar but more far-reaching concession from Finland, which invited the Third Reich to trade similar transit rights through Finland in return for weaponry lacked by the Finns. This was the first significant proof of a changed, more favorable, German policy vis-à-vis Finland, that ultimately would put Finland in a position of co-belligerence with Nazi Germany in the Continuation War against the Soviet Union (25 June 1941 – 4 September 1944).

German troops through Sweden
After Denmark and Norway were invaded on 9 April 1940, Sweden and the other remaining Baltic Sea countries became enclosed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, then on friendly terms with each other as formalized in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The lengthy fighting in Norway resulted in increased German requests for indirect assistance from Sweden, demands that Swedish diplomats were able to fend off by reminding the Germans of the Swedes' feeling of closeness to their Norwegian brethren. With the conclusion of hostilities in Norway this argument became untenable, forcing the Cabinet to give in to German pressure and allow continuous (unarmed) troop transports, via Swedish railroads, between Germany and Norway.

The extent of these transports was kept secret, although spreading rumors soon forced prime minister Per Albin Hansson to admit their existence. Officially the trains transported wounded soldiers and soldiers on leave (permittent-tåg), which would still have been in violation of Sweden's proclaimed neutrality.

In all, close to 100,000 railroad cars had transported 1,004,158 military personnel on leave to Germany and 1,037,158 to Norway through Sweden by the time the transit agreement was disbanded on 15 August 1943.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in early summer of 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the Germans on 22 June 1941 asked Sweden for some military concessions. The Swedish government granted these requests for logistical support. The most controversial concession was the decision to allow the railway-transfer of the fully armed and combat-ready 163rd Infantry Division from Norway to Finland.

In Sweden the political deliberations surrounding this decision have been called the "midsummer crisis". Research by Carl-Gustaf Scott argues however that there never was a "crisis", and that "the crisis was created in historical hindsight in order to protect the political legacy of the Social Democratic Party and its leader Per Albin Hansson."

Soviet troop transfers through Finland
The Moscow Peace Treaty that ended the Winter War in March 1940 required Finland to allow the Soviet Navy to establish a naval base on the Hanko Peninsula, at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland. The treaty didn't contain any provisions for troop and material transfer rights, and Finland's leadership was left with the impression that the Soviet Union would supply the base by sea.

On 9 July, two days after Sweden had officially admitted to having granted transfer rights to Germany, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov demanded free transfer rights through Finland, using Finnish Railways. In the ensuing negotiations the Finns were able to limit the number of Soviet trains simultaneously in Finland to three. An agreement was signed on 6 September.

German troop transfers through Finland
In the summer of 1940, Nazi Germany's occupation of Norway brought to the fore the need to transfer troops and munitions not only by sea, but also through the neutral countries of Sweden and Finland. The most convenient route to northernmost Norway was a rough truck road that passed through Finland. Diplomatic relations between Finland and the Third Reich improved after the Winter War, when Germany had sided with the Soviet Union, and on 18 August an agreement was reached that allowed Germany to set up supporting bases along the long Arctic truck road. The negotiations were carried out between the Finnish military leadership and Hermann Göring's personal emissary Josef Veltjens. The agreement was kept secret until the first German troops arrived in the port of Vaasa on 21 September.

The German transfer rights were in breach of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Russo-Finnish Moscow Peace Treaty, as well as the Russo-German Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, but the Finns greeted the agreement as a balance against the increasing pressure from the Soviet Union. The transit road through northern Finland had a significant symbolic value, but in transit volume it was of lesser significance until the run up to Operation Barbarossa, when the route was used to deploy five Wehrmacht divisions in northern Finland.

Timeline

 * 9 April 1940
 * Germany invades Denmark and Norway
 * Sweden accepts German demands for import and export of products to/from Norway as before—i.e., no war material.
 * 16 April 1940
 * Food and oil supplies permitted transport to northern Norway to "save the population from starvation" after the war had emptied the reserves.
 * Troops, including 40 "red-cross soldiers" were denied transit.
 * 18 April 1940
 * The 40 "red-cross soldiers" were accepted for transit together with a train loaded with sanitary material. However, when this turned out to contain 90% food, according to the Swedish customs, further requests for transit of "sanitary material" were rejected.
 * April to June 1940
 * Norway protests that Sweden is taking the neutrality too seriously, expecting more support for Norway.
 * German civil sailors were given individual transit visas.
 * Wounded soldiers were transported through Sweden, and 20 further "red-cross soldiers" and a physician were allowed to pass together with five wagons with food.
 * 18 June 1940
 * As the war in Norway concluded, German demands for transit were repeated with greater emphasis. The Swedish parliament did formally modify the neutrality policy according to the German demands. (The United Kingdom and France were informed before the parliament debate.)
 * 7 July 1940
 * Sweden's Prime Minister admits the transit in a public speech in Ludvika.
 * 8 July 1940
 * Swedish agreement with Nazi Germany formalized:
 * 1 daily train (500 man) back and forth Trelleborg–Kornsjø.
 * 1 weekly train (500 man) back and forth Trelleborg–Narvik.
 * The agreement with Germany was later expanded.
 * 9 July 1940
 * The Soviet Union demands troop transfer rights through Finland.
 * 15 July 1940
 * Protests from Norway's exile Cabinet, and from the United Kingdom's government, against Swedish concessions for German demands.
 * August 1940
 * After the Soviet occupation of the Baltic Republics, they are annexed to the Soviet Union, making the Soviet Union a dominant power at the Baltic Sea beside the Third Reich.
 * 18 August 1940
 * A German envoy agree on troop transfer rights with Finland's leadership:
 * The Wehrmacht is granted rights to use
 * the ports of Vaasa, Oulu, Kemi, and Tornio.
 * rail lines from the ports to Ylitornio and Rovaniemi.
 * roads from Ylitornio and Rovaniemi to northern Norway, and to establish depots along the roads.
 * The agreement was later expanded to include the port of Turku.
 * 6 September 1940
 * The troop transfer treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union is signed:
 * The Soviet Union can use rail lines from the Soviet border to Hanko.
 * Only three trains are allowed to be simultaneously in Finland.
 * April 1941
 * As the German plans for an attack on Russia were taken seriously by the Swedish government, it was discussed between the Cabinet and the Commander-in-chief how Sweden could react in case of a war between Germany, Finland and Russia.
 * The Commander-in-chief warned of the danger of a continued policy of neutrality, which could provoke German anger and occupation. Plans for cooperation with Germany and Finland were made.
 * Individual Cabinet members considered cooperation with the Soviet Union, however this was fiercely rejected by a large cabinet majority.
 * Midsummer 1941
 * In connection with Germany's attack on Russia on Midsummer's Day 1941, Sweden had its most serious cabinet crisis:
 * 22 June 1941, with Operation Barbarossa the German invasion of the Soviet Union starts.
 * Germany demanded to transit the fully armed Division Engelbrecht (163. Inf. Div) from Norway to Finland.
 * 23 June 1941
 * The Cabinet discuss the requested transit of one armed division (Division Engelbrecht) from northern Norway to northern Finland. Agrarians, Liberals and the Right supported acceding to the combined Finnish-German request. Some Social Democrats opposed it.
 * The king declared "he would not be a party of giving a negative answer to Finland's and Germany's request", which was tactically cited by the prime minister in terms of a threat of abdication. It has not been decisively shown whether the prime minister's interpretation was purely tactical, or if he in fact had perceived an honest intention to consider abdication on the part of the king, but the prime minister's record and personality speak for the tactical-theory.
 * 24 June 1941
 * The Social Democratic parliament group decides, with the votes 72-59, to try to convince the other parties for a rejection, but to agree in case they insisted.
 * The other parties seemed prepared to split the Cabinet.
 * 25 June 1941
 * The Swedish government accepts the transit of Division Engelbrecht.
 * 25 June 1941
 * Soviet Union stages a major air assault with 460 planes against Finnish targets.
 * Finnish government issues a statement that Finland is at war, later called the Continuation War.
 * 9 July 1941
 * The German troop transports GERMAN MINELAYER Tannenberg, Preussen, and GERMAN MINELAYER Hansestadt Danzig are sunk by Swedish mines in Swedish waters outside southern Öland. 200 Germans drowned.
 * 11 July 1941
 * Finland's official ambitions for a Greater Finland become known abroad with the publication of Mannerheim's Order of the Day of 10 July, the so-called Sword Scabbard Declaration.
 * New demands on transit of an armed division from Trelleborg to Tornio.
 * following weeks of July 1941
 * Public attitudes in Sweden to Finland's and Germany's demands grew less and less favorable.
 * Troop transit is proposed in Swedish waters along the Swedish coast with Swedish escort.
 * autumn of 1941
 * Several requests for neutrality-violating exports and transits are rejected during the following autumn.

In 1943, as Germany's prospects began to wane, Swedish public opinion turned against the agreement, and pressure from Britain and the USA mounted, the Swedish Cabinet declared on 29 June 1943 that the transits had to stop before October 1943. On 5 August it was officially announced that the transits were to cease.

In popular culture
Attentatet i Pålsjö skog is a 1996 alternate history novel by Hans Alfredson. In the book a group of Swedish communists blow up a German train passing through Sweden, killing Eva Braun who is on board. Hitler is infuriated and invades Sweden, which surrenders on 12 May 1941.

"Konjak & nazister" ("Cognac and Nazis"), a song by Euskefeurat, tells the story of a sabotage on a German train in Abisko where they drill a hole in the bottom of a freight car to get to the large barrel of cognac there.

Karl Gerhard performed the revue song "Den ökända hästen från Troja" (The Infamous Trojan Horse) in 1940 and it was later banned. The song used the tune by Isaak Dunajevskij with new words in Swedish by Lille Bror Söderlundh. When the song was performed, a large Dalecarlian horse was brought onto the stage, but instead of legs it had columns. It also had a fifth column that opened and Karl Gerhard stepped out.


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Gender of connectors and fasteners

In electrical and mechanical trades and manufacturing, each half of a pair of mating connectors or fasteners is conventionally assigned the designation male or female. The female connector is generally a receptacle that receives and holds the male connector. Alternative terminology such as plug and socket or jack are sometimes used, particularly for electrical connectors.

The assignment is a direct analogy with male and female genitalia, the part bearing one or more protrusions or which fits inside the other being designated male, in contrast to the part containing the corresponding indentations, or fitting outside the other, being designated female. Extension of the analogy results in the verb to mate being used to describe the process of connecting two corresponding parts together.

In some cases (notably electrical power connectors), the gender of connectors is selected according to rigid rules, to enforce a sense of one-way directionality (e.g. a flow of power from one device to another). This gender distinction is implemented to enhance safety or ensure proper functionality by preventing unsafe or non-functional configurations from being set up.

In terms of mathematical graph theory, an electrical power distribution network made up of plugs and sockets is a directed tree, with the directionality arrows corresponding to the female-to-male transfer of electrical power through each mated connection. This is an example where male and female connectors have been deliberately designed and assigned to physically enforce a safe network topology.

In other contexts, such as plumbing, one-way flow is not enforced through connector gender assignment. Flows through piping networks can be bidirectional, as in underground water distribution networks which have designed-in redundancy. In plumbing situations where one-way flow is desired, it is implemented through other means (e.g. air gaps or one-way check valves), and not through male-female gender schemes.

Early mentions of the metaphor

 * The Talmud describes arrow heads and mating shafts as potentially being either male or female, depending on their construction, i.e. a prong on a male arrow head fits into a hollowed out shaft and vice versa. This is owing to a prohibition on a female shaft, from its susceptibility as a receptacle for impurity, for use as s'chach
 * 18th-century dictionaries and encyclopedias mention male and female screws or cochleae. A 1736 builder's manual mentions screw genders as metaphors for convex and concave shapes:"If the furrowed surface be convex, 'tis called a Male Screw; if concave, a Female; and where Motion is to be generated, the Male and Female are always join'd."

Mechanical fasteners
In mechanical design, the prototypical "male" component is a threaded bolt, but an alignment post, a mounting boss, or a sheet metal tab connector can also be considered as male. Correspondingly, a threaded nut, an alignment hole, a mounting recess, or sheet metal slot connector is considered to be female.

While some mechanical designs are "one-off" custom setups not intended to be repeated, there is an entire fastener industry devoted to manufacturing mass-produced or semi-custom components. To avoid unnecessary confusion, conventional definitions of fastener gender have been defined and agreed upon.

Modular construction toys
Several common construction toys embody gendered (and in some cases, genderless) mechanical interconnections. For example, the canonical LEGO plastic blocks have "female" indentations on the lower surface, and "male" bosses or protrusions on the upper surfaces. Meccano and Erector have many gendered connections, starting with the nut-and-bolt fasteners they use frequently.

Stickle bricks, using interlocking plastic protrusions, are effectively genderless. Lincoln logs use a very simple form of genderless connections. Kapla or KEVA planks are extremely simple genderless systems interconnected only by gravity.

Mathematicians have begun to classify well-known construction sets using group theory to study the combinatoric possibilities of structures that can be built.

Plumbing

In plumbing fittings, the "M" or "F" usually comes at the beginning rather than the end of the abbreviated designation. For example:
 * MIPT denotes male iron pipe thread;
 * FIPT denotes female iron pipe thread.

A short length of pipe having an MIP thread at both ends is sometimes called a nipple. A short pipe fitting having an FIP thread at both ends is sometimes called a coupling.

Hermaphroditic connections, which may include both male and female elements in a single unit, are used for some specialized tubing fittings, such as Storz fire hose connectors. A picture of such fittings appears in, below. Interchangeable garden hose fittings made by GEKA are also hermaphroditic, relying on a rubber gasket to make the final connection.

Downspout
Downspouts (also called downpipes, rain conductors, or leaders) are used to convey rainwater from roof gutters to the ground through hollow pipes or tubes. These tubes usually come in sections, joined by inserting the male end (often crimped with a special tool to slightly reduce its size) into the female end of the next section. These connections are usually not sealed or caulked, instead relying on gravity to move the rainwater from the male end and into the receiving female connection located directly below.

Ductwork
Sheet metal ductwork for conveying air in HVAC systems typically uses gendered connections. Typically, the airflow through a ductwork connection is from male to female. However, since one-way flow is implemented by forced-air fans or blowers, "backwards" gendered connections can be seen frequently in some systems, since all connections are typically sealed with duct sealing mastic or tape to prevent leakage anyway. The flow convention is usually loosely adhered to for simplicity of design, and to reduce the number of gender changer fittings required, but exceptions are made whenever expedient.

Electrical and electronic
Although the gender of tubing and plumbing fittings is usually obvious, this may not be true of electrical connectors because of their more complex and varying constructions. Instead, connector gender is conventionalized and thus can be somewhat obscure to the uninitiated. For example, the female D-subminiature connector body projects outward from the mounting plane of the chassis, and this protrusion could be erroneously construed as male. Instead, the "maleness" of the D-subminiature connectors is defined by specific presence of male pins, rather than by the protrusion of the connector (this is also true for many other pin-based connectors like XLR). The male/female distinction is more obvious with ring crimp lug connectors which are placed around a screw post, but again with spade or split ring crimp lug connectors the end alone is not obviously female.

Further confusion can be caused by the term "jack", which is used for both female and male connectors and typically refers to the fixed (panel) side of a connector pair. IEEE STD 100, IEEE-315-1975 and IEEE 200-1975 (replaced by ASME Y14.44-2008) define "plug" and "jack" by location or mobility, rather than gender.

A connector in a fixed location is a "jack", and a moveable connector is a "plug". The distinction is relative, so a portable radio is considered stationary compared to the cable from the headphones; the radio has a jack, and the headphone cable has a plug. Where the relationship is equal, such as when two flexible cables are connected (an "inline" connection), each is considered a plug. Jacks use the reference designator prefix of J and plugs use the reference designator prefix of P.

It is common practice to use female connectors for jacks, so the informal gender-based usage often happens to agree with the functional description of the technical standards. However, this is not always the case; often-seen exceptions include a computer's AC Power Inlet and EIA232 DE9 Serial Port, or the male coaxial power jacks for connecting external power adapters to portable equipment.

To summarize, it is considered best practice to use "male" and "female" for connector gender, and "plug" and "jack" for connector function or mobility.

Variant usages
In the United Kingdom, many Commonwealth countries, and some non-English-speaking countries, the word "jack" may refer to the plug on the end of a removable cable. These connectors were originally referred to as "jack plugs", or plugs intended to be mated with fixed receptacles, or sockets (which North Americans would call "jacks"), but the second word was dropped. This variant usage is in direct contradiction to common usage and official standards in North America.

For example, in the UK, the connector on the end of a headphone lead is known as a "jack", that plugs into a socket on the main unit. The same usage also generally occurs in Italy, where the English word "jack" is commonly used to indicate the connector on the end of a headphone lead.

In Romania, female connectors are known as mamă ("mother") and male connectors are tată ("father").

Abbreviations and alternate terminology
The standard letters "M" and "F" are commonly used in part numbers to designate connector gender. For example, in Switchcraft XLR microphone or hydrophone connectors, the part numbers are denoted as follows:
 * A3F = Audio 3-pin Female connector;
 * A3M = Audio 3-pin Male connector.

The terms plug, pin, and prong are also often used for "male" connectors, and receptacle, socket, and slot are used for "female" connectors. In many cases these terms are more common than male and female, especially in documentation intended for the non-specialist. These nearly synonymous terms can cause a fair amount of confusion when the designations are shortened in labels.

For example, a female high-density D-subminiature connector with a size 1 shell can be named DE15F or DE15S (see accompanying pictures). Both terms mean the same thing but could be construed to be completely different items. Similarly, a male standard-density D-sub with a size 1 shell can be named DE9M or DE9P; a female standard-density D-sub with a size 2 shell can be named DA15F or DA15S; a male high-density D-sub with a size 3 shell can be named DB44M or DB44P; and so forth.

Gender selection in electronic design
Electronic designers often select female jack connectors for fixed mounting on electronic equipment they design. This is usually done because female connectors are more resistant to damage or contamination, by virtue of their concealed or recessed electrical contacts. A damaged motherboard connector can result in the scrapping of an expensive piece of electronic equipment. The risk of damage is reduced by relegating the more exposed male contacts to connecting cables, which can be repaired or replaced at lower cost.

For example, in an RS-232 serial port, the male connector is more mechanically fragile than the female connector. Cost and reliability considerations probably drove the design decision to use female jack connectors on many computer terminals (and some personal computers) for the serial port, despite being in direct violation of the connector gender convention explicitly specified in the RS-232 standard for "DTE" (data terminal equipment) connections. This confusing reversal of the RS-232 connector gender convention has caused many hours of frustration for ill-informed end users, as they tried to troubleshoot non-functional serial port equipment connections.

Safety
In electrical connections where voltage or current is sufficient to cause injury, the part permanently connected to the power source is invariably female, with concealed contacts, to prevent inadvertent touching of live conductors by people or animals, or by conductive items that may cause a short circuit. A male plug, with fully exposed protruding contacts, is installed on the cord of (or directly onto) the device receiving the power. Devices that need to be robust against mechanical damage may use a special male IEC 60320 C14 connector (see above), which is recessed below the surface of a mounting panel, providing the desired physical protection while conforming to safety regulations.

In the case of consumer-level AC power, connector gender is used to implicitly enforce safe use of power connectors. Because of this consideration, it is illegal under electrical code to make or use any gender changers to connect AC line power to consumer-level equipment.

A double-ended male connector for utility-supplied ("mains") electrical power is extremely dangerous, and sometimes is called a suicide cable or widowmaker cord. Some hardware shops explicitly refuse to make or sell them when asked by customers who have mistakenly hung a string of Christmas lights backwards and wish to connect the socket end to a wall socket, or who intend to connect a generator or inverter to their home's electrical circuit in the event of a utility power outage. The exposed prongs on the live end of the cable pose serious electrical shock and fire hazards, and when improperly used in a generator setup may cause the equipment to burn out when utility power is restored. It can also backfeed power into the grid, potentially damaging utility equipment or even electrocuting linemen attempting to restore power.

Similarly, an exposed connection on a jumper cable for a 12V automotive battery can be hazardous, because of the potentially high current and energy involved. Accidental shorting of the wire to vehicle ground can cause sparks, rapid heating, or even a battery explosion.

In low-voltage use such as for data communications, electrical shock hazard is not an issue, and male or female connectors are used based on other engineering factors such as convenience of use, cost, or ease of manufacturing. For example, the common "patch cables" used for Ethernet (and the similar cords used for telephones) typically have male modular plugs on both ends, to connect to jacks on equipment or mounted in walls.

An example of a design tradeoff in power connector selection is a coaxial power connector, which is usually set up so that power is fed from the female plug into the male jack (which is typically a part of the electronic device accepting the power). Although the plug is female, with a partially recessed center contact, it is still possible for casual accidental contact with a metallic object to short-circuit the power source. Depending on the design of the power adapter, it may react to a short circuit by shutting down temporarily, or instead by blowing out an internal safety fuse.

In this example, the marginal reliability of the connector choice was deemed to be acceptable by the equipment designer, since the power adapter supplies low voltage that does not pose an electric shock hazard. The potential fire hazard from accidental short-circuiting is addressed by the internal safety fuse, although this requires that a failed power adapter be completely replaced. In a different design, if the power adapter were intended to supply a voltage sufficient to cause electrical shock, the semi-exposed center contact of the female plug would be considered unacceptably hazardous, requiring a different choice of connector.

Ambiguous gender
Some electrical connectors are hermaphroditic because they include both male and female elements in a single unit intended to interconnect freely, without regard for gender. See the discussion of genderless connectors in this article for more detailed information.

As an additional complication, certain electronic connector designs may incorporate combinations of male and female pins in a single connector body, for mating with a complementary connector with opposite gender pins in corresponding positions. In these unusual cases, gender is often defined by the shape of the connector body, rather than the mixed-gender connector pins and sockets. These types of connectors are not strictly speaking hermaphroditic, since mating connectors are not freely interchangeable. An informal term that has been used for these connectors is "bisexual", in addition to the more official terminology, mixed-gender. Thus, for example, one can have a mixed-gender female plug that connects to a mixed-gender male jack (though a reversed gender assignment of connectors would be a more typical design choice in this example).

Male connector pins are often protected by a shell (also called a shroud, surround, or shield), which may envelop the entire female connector when mated. RF connectors often have multiple layers of interlocking shells to properly connect the shields of coaxial and triaxial cable. In such cases, the gender is assigned based on the innermost connecting point. With the exception of reverse polarity BNC or TNC, where the outer shell determines the gender and the innermost connecting points are opposite to a standard connector, for example a female RP-TNC connector has a solid innermost pin.

Another ambiguous situation arises with the connectors used for USB, FireWire (IEEE-1394), HDMI, and Thunderbolt serial data bus connections. Close examination of these connectors reveals that the contact "pins" are not actually pins, but instead are conductive surfaces that slide past each other when they mate. Therefore, the traditional pin and socket nomenclature is not applicable. Instead, most computer hardware people fall back to referring to the wrap-around metal shield on the plug connector as if it were a connector pin. By this convention, the connectors on serial bus cables are "male plugs", and the corresponding connectors on equipment are "female jacks". A casual glance at a USB "Type A" plug connector may give the false impression that it is hermaphroditic. However, a physical attempt to mate two USB "Type A" cables with each other reveals the fact that the connectors will not interconnect. Classifying according to mathematical graph theory, USB buses are directed trees, whereas FireWire buses have a true bus network topology. This difference is reflected in the bus connectors used, in that USB cables are asymmetrical (one end Type A, other end Type B) while FireWire cables may have identical connectors at both ends. The more-recent USB-C cables may also have identical connectors on both ends (in which case the logical A and B ends are negotiated between the attached devices rather than being directly indicated by the plugs).

An example of a connector where the contacts themselves are hermaphroditic is the ELCO Varicon, wherein the contacts are bifurcated in recessed cross-shaped wells, and mate with one another axially at a 90 degree rotation. In this example, the plugs have the contacts oriented transversely and the sockets are arranged longitudinally.

Genderless (hermaphroditic)
By definition, a hermaphroditic connector includes mating surfaces having simultaneous male and female aspects, involving complementary paired identical parts each containing both protrusions and indentations. These mating surfaces are mounted into identical fittings which can freely mate with any other, without regard for gender (provided that the size and type are already matched). Alternative names include hermaphrodite, androgynous, genderless, sexless, combination (or combo), two-in-one, two-way, and other descriptive terms. Several of these latter alternate names are ambiguous in meaning, and should not be used unless carefully defined in context. True hermaphroditic connectors should not be confused with mixed gender connectors, which are described elsewhere in this article.

Another closely related type is the stackable connector for electronics, which typically has male pins on one surface and complementary female sockets on the opposite surface, allowing multiple units to be stacked up like plastic milk crates. Examples of this include stackable banana plugs, and interconnect cables specified for the IEEE-488 instrumentation bus. Stackable mezzanine bus connectors are used on some modular microcomputer accessory boards for systems such as the Arduino add-on daughterboards called "shields". The older PC/104 embedded PC modules use a similar stackable format for interconnection. Stackable connectors are not classified as hermaphroditic in the strictest sense, but are often described as such in looser usage.

The hermaphroditic design is useful when multiple complex or lengthy components must be arbitrarily connected in various combinations. For example, if hoses have hermaphroditic fittings, they can be connected without having to pull a lengthy hose and reverse it because it has the wrong gender to connect to another hose. Some military fiber optical cables also have hermaphroditic connectors to prevent "wrong gender" connector problems in field deployments. In a similar fashion, railcars are usually equipped with hermaphroditic railway coupling mechanisms that allow either end of the vehicle to be connected to a train without having to turn the railcar around first. For the same reason, several spacecraft docking mechanisms are designed to be "androgynous", including the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System, the NASA Docking System, and Chinese Docking Mechanism.

In the absence of genderless connectors, gender changer fittings might be used to enable certain connections. The designer of a connection system may use one or both schemes to allow arbitrary connectivity, or even combine both schemes into a single system.

When an enforced sense of unidirectionality or "one-way flow" is required for safety or other reasons (for example, AC electrical power connections), a strict assignment of connector genders is implemented to prevent undesired configurations, and gender changers are banned.

Some commonly seen examples of hermaphroditic connectors include the SAE connector for 12 V DC power, jackhammer air hose connectors, and the Anderson Powerpole series of modular high-current power connectors. The now-obsolete IBM Token Ring connector was another widespread example. The General Radio Corporation developed a hermaphroditic coaxial radio frequency connector often called the "GR connector".

Some audio multicore cables are fitted with hermaphroditic multipin quick-disconnect connectors for ease of use in the field. One style of this audio signal cable is fitted on both ends with connectors that are each populated half with pins and half with sockets. The advantage to the user is that it does not matter which end connects to the stage and which to the audio mixer, facilitating faster set up. Another style of connector uses hybrid male/female pins with a receiving slot fitted in the center of each two-tine pin, and relies on 90-degree rotation of the pin axes to mate. The connector housings themselves are sexed male and female.

Gender changers
Devices used for mating two connectors of the same gender have a wide variety of terms, including for example: "gender changer", "gender mender", "gender bender", and "gender blender". A specific gender changer can be referred to by either the gender of its connectors, or the gender which it is designed to connect to, resulting in a thoroughly ambiguous terminology. Thus a "male gender changer" might have female connectors to mate two male ends, or male connectors to mate two female ends.

Adding to this potential for confusion, some gender changers also combine additional functions such as cross-over pin-outs. Active cables may incorporate embedded systems for communications protocol or logic level changes, which technically makes them "adapters", but this distinction is sometimes neglected in marketing materials or common usage.

Examples

 * Coaxial power connector, for low-voltage DC connections
 * A power cord on an appliance terminates in a (male) plug; it connects to a (female) socket in a wall or on an extension cord.
 * Coaxial cables used for video or other high-frequency signals are normally terminated, at both ends, in a connector comprising an inner pin and an outer fixed or rotating shell; these are conventionally reckoned as male.
 * A threaded nut is female and a bolt is male.
 * Connectors for air brake hoses on heavy trucks and railroad equipment use genderless "gladhand connectors". In railroad air brake use, this makes the orientation of rolling stock irrelevant, and is used with the standard North American railroad coupler that connects cars together, also genderless.

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

title: Gender of connectors and fasteners


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Tour DuPont

The Tour DuPont was a cycling stage race in the United States held annually between 1989 and 1996, initially called the Tour de Trump in the first two years. It was intended to become a North American cycling event similar in format and prestige to the Tour de France. The tour's names came from its sponsors, first the businessman (and future U.S. President) Donald Trump and then later DuPont.

The race was held in the mid-Atlantic states, including areas near DuPont's Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters. DuPont withdrew their sponsorship of the race after the 1996 edition, and the event has not been run since. During the eight-year history of the race as both the Tour de Trump and the Tour DuPont, it was won twice by Mexican rider Raúl Alcalá and twice by American Lance Armstrong. The race was cited as evidence of Richmond, Virginia's ability to host international cycle racing when the city successfully bid for the 2015 UCI Road World Championships.

Origins as the Tour de Trump
The race was originally sponsored by Donald Trump and known as the "Tour de Trump" in 1989 and 1990. The idea for the race was conceived by CBS Sports reporter John Tesh, who had covered the 1987 Tour de France and on his return suggested holding a race in the United States to the basketball commentator and entrepreneur Billy Packer. Packer originally planned to call the race the Tour de Jersey. He approached representatives of casinos in Atlantic City for sponsorship, and Trump offered to be the race's primary sponsor and Packer's business partner in the venture. It was Packer who suggested the Tour de Trump name. Speaking at the time of the start of the first Tour de Trump in May 1989, Trump himself stated that "When [the name] was initially stated, I practically fell out of my seat. I said, 'Are you kidding? I will get killed in the media if I use that name. You absolutely have to be kidding'". However, Trump reportedly changed his mind within 20 seconds, and was convinced by the commercial value of the name.

Trump's lawyers subsequently sent a "cease and desist" letter to the organizers of a bike race held in Aspen, Colorado called the Tour de Rump. The letter stated: "You are using the name and mark Tour de Rump in connection with an 'inaugural' cycling event. Your use of that name and mark is likely to cause confusion and constitutes trademark infringement, unfair competition and false designation of origin, all in violation of applicable federal and state laws". The organizer Ron Krajian's lawyer responded by arguing that his race was a local and non-commercial event, and predated the Tour de Trump. No response was received from Trump's lawyers, and the Tour de Rump went ahead.

The total prize money on offer for the first event in 1989 was US$250,000, including $50,000 for the winner of the general classification. This, together with the race's place in the international calendar between the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, made it attractive to high-profile riders and teams, but the event did not attract large crowds. Interviewed on NBC prior to the start of the 1989 race, Trump stated that "I would like to make this the equivalent of the Tour de France". The race filled a gap left by the demise of the Coors International Bicycle Classic, which had been North America's major stage race but which folded following its 1988 edition. Some European teams reportedly missed the Vuelta a España in order to race the Tour de Trump.

The inaugural Tour de Trump started in Albany, New York, and consisted of 10 stages, totalling 837 mi, taking in five Eastern states. The route took the race south from Albany to Richmond, Virginia, and then across to Atlantic City, where it finished in front of Trump's casino. Some 114 riders from eight professional and 11 amateur teams competed. Riders competing included Greg LeMond, and Andrew Hampsten, and the teams represented included Lotto, Panasonic, PDM, and the Soviet national squad.

The race was met by anti-Trump protests in the first-stage finishing town of New Paltz, New York, where demonstrators held placards reading "Fight Trumpism", "Die Yuppie $cum", "The Art of the Deal = The Rich Get Richer" and "Trump = Lord of the Flies". The 1989 race was won by the Norwegian rider Dag Otto Lauritzen of the American team 7-Eleven, although there was some controversy about the result as Belgian rider Eric Vanderaerden, who had won four stages and was expected to take the lead in the general classification in the final stage time trial in Atlantic City but took a wrong turn following a race motorbike. The Soviet rider Viatcheslav Ekimov, who took part as an amateur, won the first stage of the race (following a prologue time trial). Articles published the following year reported that Ekimov "had had the nerve to win a stage as an amateur ... and some pros reportedly rewarded him by jamming a feed bag into his wheel", and that he "threatened to win the Tour de Trump last year as an amateur before the pros banded together to eliminate any chance he had of winning". Nonetheless, the first edition of the race was described as "a smashing success" in Sports Illustrated, which noted: "If you could get past the name, the Tour de Trump, without losing your lunch, and if you could somehow divorce the sporting event from the excess baggage that went with it ... what you had was a pretty nice bicycle race".

Following the first event, Packer wanted to expand the race to take in more states. The 1990 race started on May 4 in Wilmington in Delaware, a state which Trump considered important for his three casinos in Atlantic City, and also visited Baltimore, after Trump agreed to local racecourse owner Joe De Francis's condition that he moor his yacht the Trump Princess in Baltimore Harbor during the race. It finished in Boston on May 13. Entrants in 1990 included 1989 winner Dag Otto Lauritzen, Greg LeMond, Steve Bauer, who had finished second in Paris–Roubaix that year, Andrew Hampsten, Davis Phinney, Ekimov, in his first year as a professional, and East German rider Olaf Ludwig. The race was won by Mexican rider Raúl Alcalá of the PDM–Concorde team.

After two editions, Trump withdrew his sponsorship of the race due to his business's financial problems. According to Packer, reflecting on the event in 2016, he and Trump "parted as good business friends", although he also explained that Trump's personality and celebrity, as well as the scandals surrounding Trump's marriage and business affairs, distracted from the event and annoyed European riders in the race.

DuPont sponsorship era
After Trump withdrew from sponsoring the event, DuPont became the primary sponsor. Between 1991 and 1995, national amateur teams took part alongside professional teams. The event attracted well-known competitors, including Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond, and was attended by high-profile European-based professional cycling teams. In 1996, the Union Cycliste Internationale upgraded it to a 2.1 ranked race, meaning that amateurs could no longer compete. This made the race the highest ranked outside of Europe and the first North American stage race to be ranked 2.1. The 1996 race was the subject of a number of legal issues, including a dispute over rights to its profits between the race owners, Billy Packer and president of the United States Cycling Federation Mike Plant, which resulted in them suing each other. DuPont itself was involved in a dispute about the anti-homosexual employment policies of the local government in Greenville, South Carolina, with the company insisting that the race organizers exclude the city from the route. After 1996, DuPont dropped its sponsorship and the race has not been run since.

During its six years as the Tour DuPont, the race was won by Dutch rider Erik Breukink, Greg LeMond, Raúl Alcalá, Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov, and twice by Lance Armstrong. Over this time, a prologue time trial held in Wilmington, Delaware, became the traditional start to the race. Between 1992 and 1994, the race included a stage from Port Deposit and Hagerstown in Maryland, but in 1995, South Carolina was included on the route for the first time in its place. Every edition of the Tour DuPont visited Richmond, Virginia.

Breukink won in 1991 by overcoming a 50-second deficit going into the final stage, a 16.1 mi individual time trial, despite puncturing 15 minutes into the stage, to win by 12 seconds from Norwegian Atle Kvålsvoll. In 1992, American Greg LeMond won the overall classification. It was the last major win of his career, although he competed in the race again in 1994. Alcalá's victory in the race in 1993 was his second, having won the Tour de Trump in 1990. In 1993, he beat Lance Armstrong, who had held the leader's jersey going into the final stage. Armstrong's first participation in the race had been in 1991, when he finished midway down the overall classification. According to The Guardian in 2008, his performance in the 1991 Tour DuPont "marked the arrival of a promising newcomer to the sport". In 1994, Alcalá and Armstrong returned to the race as teammates, both riding for Motorola. The race took place over 11 stages, covering 1050 mi. That year, Ekimov won the overall title, with Armstrong finishing second again. Armstrong finally won the overall classification of the Tour DuPont in 1995, when the race was held over 1130 mi, despite losing more than two minutes to Ekimov on the final-stage time trial. The final edition of the race, held in 1996, was also won by Armstrong, who became the first and only rider to win two editions of the event back-to-back. The French rider Pascal Hervé, of the Festina cycling team, was second. The total prize money for the 1996 race was in excess of US$260,000.

In July 1996, DuPont announced that it was ending its sponsorship of the race. According to a brand manager for the company, "Over the past six years, the Tour DuPont has been an excellent vehicle for promoting our products. However, we need to focus more on strategic markets in other parts of the world, where a sustained annual program versus a two-week event can better leverage the DuPont brand equity for profitable growth". Race organizer Mike Plant explained that "I talked to them a couple of months ago, and they had to make a hard decision. They don't have hundreds of millions of dollars to put into worldwide advertising. They put a ton of money into this event and they built up a valuable franchise, but, like Motorola, corporations change the way they do business". Plant reported that polling had showed that public recognition of the event had grown significantly, but also that awareness of who sponsored it had declined.

Historian Eric Reed notes that a DuPont marketing executive characterized the initial sponsorship as "a bargain", and that the company claimed that the American press clippings generated by the event weighed 29 lb. DuPont executives also reported that they valued the global media exposure as worth close to US$70 million. Reed quotes a DuPont marketing executive as stating: "In 40 years in [media relations], I have never seen such concentrated, sustained and positive media coverage". However, Reed argues that despite this initial enthusiasm, "the Tour DuPont's chronic weaknesses hamstrung the event's growth", citing its "pro-am" status, which prevented professional riders from being able to win world ranking points in the event. He also states that despite having an estimated worldwide television audience of 200 million, "American fan enthusiasm and roadside spectator interest in the event failed to spike significantly".

DuPont's withdrawal also came months after John DuPont, heir to the Du Pont family fortune, had been arrested for the murder of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz. At the time of the announcement of DuPont's discontinuation of sponsorship, Mike Plant reported that a 1997 event was tentatively scheduled for May 1–11, and that he had been in discussions with ten companies about potential title sponsorship of the race.

Legacy
Organizers Packer and Plant arranged another race, in China, though it was short-lived. Before their falling out, Packer reports that his "idea was to have a Triple Crown of cycling–one in Asia, one in America and have the Tour de France to be the third leg". When the Tour de Georgia was first run in 2003, Tim Maloney of Cyclingnews.com referred to it as "the prodigal son of Tour DuPont". In 2015, the UCI Road World Championships were held in Richmond, Virginia, which had previously hosted stages of the Tour de Trump and the Tour DuPont. In 1994, the Tour DuPont included a stage that concluded with several laps of a circuit incorporating the cobbled climb of Libby Hill Park. This hill was included in the circuit of the 2015 World Championship road races. Tour de Trump and Tour DuPont organizer Mike Plant was, according to USA Cycling, instrumental in Richmond's bid to hold the World Championships. As a member of the UCI Management Committee, when Richmond was announced as winning the bidding for the 2015 event, Plant commented that "Richmond stepped up and proved they could support world class cycling when we brought the Tour de Trump and Tour DuPont to the city in the late '80s and early '90s".

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Bohr–Einstein debates

The Bohr–Einstein debates were a series of public disputes about quantum mechanics between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Their debates are remembered because of their importance to the philosophy of science, insofar as the disagreements—and the outcome of Bohr's version of quantum mechanics becoming the prevalent view—form the root of the modern understanding of physics. Most of Bohr's version of the events held in the Solvay Conference in 1927 and other places was first written by Bohr decades later in an article titled, "Discussions with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics". Based on the article, the philosophical issue of the debate was whether Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which centered on his belief of complementarity, was valid in explaining nature. Despite their differences of opinion and the succeeding discoveries that helped solidify quantum mechanics, Bohr and Einstein maintained a mutual admiration that was to last the rest of their lives.

Although Bohr and Einstein disagreed, they were great friends all their lives and enjoyed using each other as a foil.

Pre-revolutionary debates
Einstein was the first physicist to say that Max Planck's discovery of the energy quanta would require a rewriting of the laws of physics. To support his point, in 1905 Einstein proposed that light sometimes acts as a particle which he called a light quantum (see photon and wave–particle duality). Bohr was one of the most vocal opponents of the photon idea and did not openly embrace it until 1925. The photon appealed to Einstein because he saw it as a physical reality (although a confusing one) behind the numbers presented by Planck mathematically in 1900. Bohr disliked it because it made the choice of mathematical solution arbitrary. Bohr did not like a scientist having to choose between equations. This disagreement was perhaps the first real Bohr-Einstein debate. Einstein had proposed the photon in 1905, and Arthur Compton provided experiment in 1922 with his Compton effect, but Bohr refused to believe the photon existed even then. Bohr fought back against the existence of the quantum of light (photon) by writing the BKS theory (in collaboration with Hans Kramers and John C. Slater) in 1924. However, after the 1925 Bothe–Geiger coincidence experiment, BKS was proved to be wrong and Einstein's hypothesis was proven to be correct.

The quantum revolution
The quantum revolution of the mid-1920s occurred under the direction of both Einstein and Bohr, and their post-revolutionary debates were about making sense of the change. Werner Heisenberg's Umdeutung paper in 1925 reinterpreted old quantum theory in terms of matrix-like operators, removing the Newtonian elements of space and time from any underlying reality. In parallel, Erwin Schrödinger redeveloped quantum theory in terms of a wave mechanics formulation, leading to the Schrödinger equation. However, when Schrödinger sent a preprint of his new equation to Einstein, Einstein wrote back hailing his equation as a decisive advance of “true genius.” Then in 1926 when Max Born, collaborating with Heisenberg, proposed that mechanics were to be understood as a probability without any causal explanation.

Both Einstein and Schrödinger rejected Born's interpretation with its renunciation of causality which had been a key feature of science previous to old quantum theory and was still a feature of general relativity. In a 1926 letter to Max Born, Einstein wrote:

At first, even Heisenberg had heated disputes with Bohr that his matrix mechanics was not compatible with the Schrödinger's wave mechanics. And Bohr was at first opposed to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. But by the Fifth Solvay Conference held in October 1927 Heisenberg and Born concluded that the revolution was over and nothing further was needed. It was at that last stage that Einstein's skepticism turned to dismay. He believed that much had been accomplished, but the reasons for the mechanics still needed to be understood.

Einstein's refusal to accept the revolution as complete reflected his desire to see developed a model for the underlying causes from which these apparent random statistical methods resulted. He did not reject the idea that positions in space-time could never be completely known but did not want to allow the uncertainty principle to necessitate a seemingly random, non-deterministic mechanism by which the laws of physics operated. Einstein himself was a statistical thinker but denied that no more needed to be discovered or clarified. Einstein worked the rest of his life to discover a new theory that would make sense of quantum mechanics and return causality to science, what many now call the theory of everything. Bohr, meanwhile, was dismayed by none of the elements that troubled Einstein. He made his own peace with the contradictions by proposing a principle of complementarity that assigns properties only as result of measurements.

Post-revolution: First stage
As mentioned above, Einstein's position underwent significant modifications over the course of the years. In the first stage, Einstein refused to accept quantum indeterminism and sought to demonstrate that the uncertainty principle could be violated, suggesting ingenious thought experiments which should permit the accurate determination of incompatible variables, such as position and velocity, or to explicitly reveal simultaneously the wave and the particle aspects of the same process. (The main source and substance for these thought experiments is solely from Bohr's account twenty years later.) Bohr admits: “As regards the account of the conversations I am of course aware that I am relying only on my own memory, just as I am prepared for the possibility that many features of the development of quantum theory, in which Einstein has played so large a part, may appear to himself in a different light.”

Einstein's argument
The first serious attack by Einstein on the "orthodox" conception took place during the Fifth Solvay International Conference on "Electrons and Photons" in 1927. Einstein pointed out how it was possible to take advantage of the (universally accepted) laws of conservation of energy and of impulse (momentum) in order to obtain information on the state of a particle in a process of interference which, according to the principle of indeterminacy or that of complementarity, should not be accessible.

In order to follow his argumentation and to evaluate Bohr's response, it is convenient to refer to the experimental apparatus illustrated in figure A. A beam of light perpendicular to the X axis (here aligned vertically) propagates in the direction z and encounters a screen S1 with a narrow (relative to the wavelength of the ray) slit. After having passed through the slit, the wave function diffracts with an angular opening that causes it to encounter a second screen S2 with two slits. The successive propagation of the wave results in the formation of the interference figure on the final screen F.

At the passage through the two slits of the second screen S2, the wave aspects of the process become essential. In fact, it is precisely the interference between the two terms of the quantum superposition corresponding to states in which the particle is localized in one of the two slits which produces zones of constructive and destructive interference (in which the wave function is nullified). It is also important to note that any experiment designed to evidence the "corpuscular" aspects of the process at the passage of the screen S2 (which, in this case, reduces to the determination of which slit the particle has passed through) inevitably destroys the wave aspects, implies the disappearance of the interference figure and the emergence of two concentrated spots of diffraction which confirm our knowledge of the trajectory followed by the particle.

At this point Einstein brings into play the first screen as well and argues as follows: since the incident particles have velocities (practically) perpendicular to the screen S1, and since it is only the interaction with this screen that can cause a deflection from the original direction of propagation, by the law of conservation of impulse which implies that the sum of the impulses of two systems which interact is conserved, if the incident particle is deviated toward the top, the screen will recoil toward the bottom and vice versa. In realistic conditions the mass of the screen is so large that it will remain stationary, but, in principle, it is possible to measure even an infinitesimal recoil. If we imagine taking the measurement of the impulse of the screen in the direction X after every single particle has passed, we can know, from the fact that the screen will be found recoiled toward the top (bottom), whether the particle in question has been deviated toward the bottom or top, and therefore through which slit in S2 the particle has passed. But since the determination of the direction of the recoil of the screen after the particle has passed cannot influence the successive development of the process, we will still have an interference figure on the screen F. The interference takes place precisely because the state of the system is the superposition of two states whose wave functions are non-zero only near one of the two slits. On the other hand, if every particle passes through only the slit b or the slit c, then the set of systems is the statistical mixture of the two states, which means that interference is not possible. If Einstein is correct, then there is a violation of the principle of indeterminacy.

This thought experiment was begun in a simpler form during the general discussion portion of the actual proceedings during the 1927 Solvay conference. In those official proceedings, Bohr's reply is recorded as: “I feel myself in a very difficult position because I don’t understand precisely the point that Einstein is trying to make.” Einstein had explained, “it could happen that the same elementary process produces an action in two or several places on the screen. But the interpretation, according to which psi squared expresses the probability that this particular particle is found at a given point, assumes an entirely peculiar mechanism of action at a distance.” It is clear from this that Einstein was referring to separability (in particular, and most importantly local causality, i.e. locality), not indeterminacy. In fact, Paul Ehrenfest wrote a letter to Bohr stating that the 1927 thought experiments of Einstein had nothing to do with the uncertainty principle, as Einstein had already accepted these “and for a long time never doubted.”

Bohr's response
Bohr evidently misunderstood Einstein's argument about the quantum mechanical violation of relativistic causality (locality) and instead focused on the consistency of quantum indeterminacy. Bohr's response was to illustrate Einstein's idea more clearly using the diagram in Figure C. (Figure C shows a fixed screen S1 that is bolted down. Then try to imagine one that can slide up or down along a rod instead of a fixed bolt.) Bohr observes that extremely precise knowledge of any (potential) vertical motion of the screen is an essential presupposition in Einstein's argument. In fact, if its velocity in the direction X before the passage of the particle is not known with a precision substantially greater than that induced by the recoil (that is, if it were already moving vertically with an unknown and greater velocity than that which it derives as a consequence of the contact with the particle), then the determination of its motion after the passage of the particle would not give the information we seek. However, Bohr continues, an extremely precise determination of the velocity of the screen, when one applies the principle of indeterminacy, implies an inevitable imprecision of its position in the direction X. Before the process even begins, the screen would therefore occupy an indeterminate position at least to a certain extent (defined by the formalism). Now consider, for example, the point d in figure A, where the interference is destructive. Any displacement of the first screen would make the lengths of the two paths, a–b–d and a–c–d, different from those indicated in the figure. If the difference between the two paths varies by half a wavelength, at point d there will be constructive rather than destructive interference. The ideal experiment must average over all the possible positions of the screen S1, and, for every position, there corresponds, for a certain fixed point F, a different type of interference, from the perfectly destructive to the perfectly constructive. The effect of this averaging is that the pattern of interference on the screen F will be uniformly grey. Once more, our attempt to evidence the corpuscular aspects in S2 has destroyed the possibility of interference in F, which depends crucially on the wave aspects.

As Bohr recognized, for the understanding of this phenomenon "it is decisive that, contrary to genuine instruments of measurement, these bodies along with the particles would constitute, in the case under examination, the system to which the quantum-mechanical formalism must apply. With respect to the precision of the conditions under which one can correctly apply the formalism, it is essential to include the entire experimental apparatus. In fact, the introduction of any new apparatus, such as a mirror, in the path of a particle could introduce new effects of interference which influence essentially the predictions about the results which will be registered at the end." Further along, Bohr attempts to resolve this ambiguity concerning which parts of the system should be considered macroscopic and which not:

 * In particular, it must be very clear that...the unambiguous use of spatiotemporal concepts in the description of atomic phenomena must be limited to the registration of observations which refer to images on a photographic lens or to analogous practically irreversible effects of amplification such as the formation of a drop of water around an ion in a dark room.

Bohr's argument about the impossibility of using the apparatus proposed by Einstein to violate the principle of indeterminacy depends crucially on the fact that a macroscopic system (the screen S1) obeys quantum laws. On the other hand, Bohr consistently held that, in order to illustrate the microscopic aspects of reality, it is necessary to set off a process of amplification, which involves macroscopic apparatuses, whose fundamental characteristic is that of obeying classical laws and which can be described in classical terms. This ambiguity would later come back in the form of what is still called today the measurement problem.

However, Bohr in his article refuting the EPR paper, states “there is no question of a mechanical disturbance of the system under investigation.” Heisenberg quotes Bohr as saying, “I find all such assertions as ‘observation introduces uncertainty into the phenomenon’ inaccurate and misleading.” Manjit Kumar's book on the Bohr–Einstein debates finds these assertions by Bohr contrary to his arguments. Others, such as the physicist Leon Rosenfeld, did find Bohr's argument convincing.

Uncertainty principle applied to time and energy
In many textbook examples and popular discussions of quantum mechanics, the principle of indeterminacy is explained by reference to the pair of variables position and velocity (or momentum). It is important to note that the wave nature of physical processes implies that there must exist another relation of indeterminacy: that between time and energy. In order to comprehend this relation, it is convenient to refer to the experiment illustrated in Figure D, which results in the propagation of a wave which is limited in spatial extension. Assume that, as illustrated in the figure, a ray which is extremely extended longitudinally is propagated toward a screen with a slit furnished with a shutter which remains open only for a very brief interval of time $$ \Delta t $$. Beyond the slit, there will be a wave of limited spatial extension which continues to propagate toward the right.

A perfectly monochromatic wave (such as a musical note which cannot be divided into harmonics) has infinite spatial extent. In order to have a wave which is limited in spatial extension (which is technically called a wave packet), several waves of different frequencies must be superimposed and distributed continuously within a certain interval of frequencies around an average value, such as $$ \nu_0 $$. It then happens that at a certain instant, there exists a spatial region (which moves over time) in which the contributions of the various fields of the superposition add up constructively. Nonetheless, according to a precise mathematical theorem, as we move far away from this region, the phases of the various fields, at any specified point, are distributed causally and destructive interference is produced. The region in which the wave has non-zero amplitude is therefore spatially limited. It is easy to demonstrate that, if the wave has a spatial extension equal to $$ \Delta x $$ (which means, in our example, that the shutter has remained open for a time $$ \Delta t = \Delta x/v $$ where v is the velocity of the wave), then the wave contains (or is a superposition of) various monochromatic waves whose frequencies cover an interval $$ \Delta \nu $$ which satisfies the relation:

 * $$ \Delta \nu \ge \frac{1}{\Delta t}. $$

Remembering that in the Planck relation, frequency and energy are proportional:

 * $$ E = h\nu \,$$

it follows immediately from the preceding inequality that the particle associated with the wave should possess an energy which is not perfectly defined (since different frequencies are involved in the superposition) and consequently there is indeterminacy in energy:

 * $$ \Delta E = h\,\Delta\nu \ge \frac{h}{\Delta t}. $$

From this it follows immediately that:

 * $$ \Delta E \, \Delta t \ge h $$

which is the relation of indeterminacy between time and energy.

Einstein's second criticism

At the sixth Congress of Solvay in 1930, the indeterminacy relation just discussed was Einstein's target of criticism. His idea contemplates the existence of an experimental apparatus which was subsequently designed by Bohr in such a way as to emphasize the essential elements and the key points which he would use in his response.

Einstein considers a box (called Einstein's box; see figure) containing electromagnetic radiation and a clock which controls the opening of a shutter which covers a hole made in one of the walls of the box. The shutter uncovers the hole for a time $$ \Delta t $$ which can be chosen arbitrarily. During the opening, we are to suppose that a photon, from among those inside the box, escapes through the hole. In this way a wave of limited spatial extension has been created, following the explanation given above. In order to challenge the indeterminacy relation between time and energy, it is necessary to find a way to determine with adequate precision the energy that the photon has brought with it. At this point, Einstein turns to mass–energy equivalence of special relativity: $$ E=mc^2 $$. From this it follows that knowledge of the mass of an object provides a precise indication about its energy. The argument is therefore very simple: if one weighs the box before and after the opening of the shutter and if a certain amount of energy has escaped from the box, the box will be lighter. The variation in mass multiplied by $$ c^2 $$ will provide precise knowledge of the energy emitted. Moreover, the clock will indicate the precise time at which the event of the particle's emission took place. Since, in principle, the mass of the box can be determined to an arbitrary degree of accuracy, the energy emitted can be determined with a precision $$ \Delta E $$ as accurate as one desires. Therefore, the product $$ \Delta E \Delta t $$ can be rendered less than what is implied by the principle of indeterminacy. The idea is particularly acute and the argument seemed unassailable. It's important to consider the impact of all of these exchanges on the people involved at the time. Leon Rosenfeld, who had participated in the Congress, described the event several years later:

 * It was a real shock for Bohr...who, at first, could not think of a solution. For the entire evening he was extremely agitated, and he continued passing from one scientist to another, seeking to persuade them that it could not be the case, that it would have been the end of physics if Einstein were right; but he couldn't come up with any way to resolve the paradox. I will never forget the image of the two antagonists as they left the club: Einstein, with his tall and commanding figure, who walked tranquilly, with a mildly ironic smile, and Bohr who trotted along beside him, full of excitement...The morning after saw the triumph of Bohr.

Bohr's triumph
The triumph of Bohr consisted in his demonstrating, once again, that Einstein's subtle argument was not conclusive, but even more so in the way that he arrived at this conclusion by appealing precisely to one of the great ideas of Einstein: the principle of equivalence between gravitational mass and inertial mass, together with the time dilation of special relativity, and a consequence of these—the gravitational redshift. Bohr showed that, in order for Einstein's experiment to function, the box would have to be suspended on a spring in the middle of a gravitational field. In order to obtain a measurement of the weight of the box, a pointer would have to be attached to the box which corresponded with the index on a scale. After the release of a photon, a mass $$m$$ could be added to the box to restore it to its original position and this would allow us to determine the energy $$E = mc^2$$ that was lost when the photon left. The box is immersed in a gravitational field of strength $$g$$, and the gravitational redshift affects the speed of the clock, yielding uncertainty $$ \Delta t $$ in the time $$t$$ required for the pointer to return to its original position. Bohr gave the following calculation establishing the uncertainty relation $$ \Delta E \Delta t \ge h $$.

Let the uncertainty in the mass $$m$$ be denoted by $$\Delta m$$. Let the error in the position of the pointer be $$\Delta q$$. Adding the load $$m$$ to the box imparts a momentum $$p$$ that we can measure with an accuracy $$\Delta p$$, where $$\Delta p \Delta q$$ ≈ $$h$$. Clearly $$\Delta p \le tg\Delta m$$, and therefore $$tg\Delta m\Delta q \ge h$$. By the redshift formula (which follows from the principle of equivalence and the time dilation), the uncertainty in the time $$t$$ is $$\Delta t = c^{-2} gt\Delta q$$, and $$\Delta E = c^2\Delta m$$, and so $$\Delta E \Delta t = c^2\Delta m \Delta t \ge h$$. We have therefore proven the claimed $$\Delta E\Delta t \ge h$$.

More recent analyses of the photon box debate questions Bohr's understanding of Einstein's thought experiment, referring instead to a prelude to the EPR paper, focusing on inseparability rather than indeterminism being at issue.

Post-revolution: Second stage
The second phase of Einstein's "debate" with Bohr and the orthodox interpretation is characterized by an acceptance of the fact that it is, as a practical matter, impossible to simultaneously determine the values of certain incompatible quantities, but the rejection that this implies that these quantities do not actually have precise values. Einstein rejects the probabilistic interpretation of Born and insists that quantum probabilities are epistemic and not ontological in nature. As a consequence, the theory must be incomplete in some way. He recognizes the great value of the theory, but suggests that it "does not tell the whole story", and, while providing an appropriate description at a certain level, it gives no information on the more fundamental underlying level:

 * I have the greatest consideration for the goals which are pursued by the physicists of the latest generation which go under the name of quantum mechanics, and I believe that this theory represents a profound level of truth, but I also believe that the restriction to laws of a statistical nature will turn out to be transitory....Without doubt quantum mechanics has grasped an important fragment of the truth and will be a paragon for all future fundamental theories, for the fact that it must be deducible as a limiting case from such foundations, just as electrostatics is deducible from Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field or as thermodynamics is deducible from statistical mechanics.

These thoughts of Einstein would set off a line of research into hidden variable theories, such as the Bohm interpretation, in an attempt to complete the edifice of quantum theory. If quantum mechanics can be made complete in Einstein's sense, it cannot be done locally; this fact was demonstrated by John Stewart Bell with the formulation of Bell's inequality in 1964. Although, the Bell inequality ruled out local hidden variable theories, Bohm's theory was not ruled out. A 2007 experiment ruled out a large class of non-Bohmian non-local hidden variable theories, though not Bohmian mechanics itself.

The argument of EPR

In 1935 Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen developed an argument, published in the magazine Physical Review with the title Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?, based on an entangled state of two systems. Before coming to this argument, it is necessary to formulate another hypothesis that comes out of Einstein's work in relativity: the principle of locality. The elements of physical reality which are objectively possessed cannot be influenced instantaneously at a distance.

David Bohm picked up the EPR argument in 1951. In his textbook Quantum Theory, he reformulated it in terms of an entangled state of two particles, which can be summarized as follows:

1) Consider a system of two photons which at time t are located, respectively, in the spatially distant regions A and B and which are also in the entangled state of polarization $$ \left|\Psi\right\rang $$ described below:

 * $$ \left|\Psi,t\right\rang = \frac1{\sqrt{2}}\left|1,V\right\rang \left|2,V\right\rang + \frac1{\sqrt{2}}\left|1,H\right\rang \left|2,H\right\rang. $$

2) At time t the photon in region A is tested for vertical polarization. Suppose that the result of the measurement is that the photon passes through the filter. According to the reduction of the wave packet, the result is that, at time t + dt, the system becomes

 * $$\left|\Psi,t+dt\right\rang = \left|1,V\right\rang \left|2,V\right\rang. $$

3) At this point, the observer in A who carried out the first measurement on photon 1, without doing anything else that could disturb the system or the other photon ("assumption (R)", below), can predict with certainty that photon 2 will pass a test of vertical polarization. It follows that photon 2 possesses an element of physical reality: that of having a vertical polarization.

4) According to the assumption of locality, it cannot have been the action carried out in A which created this element of reality for photon 2. Therefore, we must conclude that the photon possessed the property of being able to pass the vertical polarization test before and independently of the measurement of photon 1.

5) At time t, the observer in A could have decided to carry out a test of polarization at 45°, obtaining a certain result, for example, that the photon passes the test. In that case, he could have concluded that photon 2 turned out to be polarized at 45°. Alternatively, if the photon did not pass the test, he could have concluded that photon 2 turned out to be polarized at 135°. Combining one of these alternatives with the conclusion reached in 4, it seems that photon 2, before the measurement took place, possessed both the property of being able to pass with certainty a test of vertical polarization and the property of being able to pass with certainty a test of polarization at either 45° or 135°. These properties are incompatible according to the formalism.

6) Since natural and obvious requirements have forced the conclusion that photon 2 simultaneously possesses incompatible properties, this means that, even if it is not possible to determine these properties simultaneously and with arbitrary precision, they are nevertheless possessed objectively by the system. But quantum mechanics denies this possibility and it is therefore an incomplete theory.

Bohr's response
Bohr's response to this argument was published, five months later than the original publication of EPR, in the same magazine Physical Review and with exactly the same title as the original. The crucial point of Bohr's answer is distilled in a passage which he later had republished in Paul Arthur Schilpp's book Albert Einstein, scientist-philosopher in honor of the seventieth birthday of Einstein. Bohr attacks assumption (R) of EPR by stating:

 * The statement of the criterion in question is ambiguous with regard to the expression "without disturbing the system in any way". Naturally, in this case no mechanical disturbance of the system under examination can take place in the crucial stage of the process of measurement. But even in this stage there arises the essential problem of an influence on the precise conditions which define the possible types of prediction which regard the subsequent behaviour of the system...their arguments do not justify their conclusion that the quantum description turns out to be essentially incomplete...This description can be characterized as a rational use of the possibilities of an unambiguous interpretation of the process of measurement compatible with the finite and uncontrollable interaction between the object and the instrument of measurement in the context of quantum theory.

Bohr's presentation of his argument was hard to follow for many of the scientists (although his views were generally accepted). Rosenfeld, who had worked closely with Bohr for many years, later explains Bohr's argument in a way that is perhaps more accessible:

 * In the case of the two particles, it is true that the measurement carried out on the first particle does not cause any direct physical disturbance of the second; but the measurement decisively affects the nature of verifiable predictions we will be able to make about this second particle. (...) [A]s long as we do not carry out any measurement (...) we have no control at all over this correlation [between the two particles]. If we really want the system to be subject to study and communication, we must carry out some measurement. If we now observe the position of the first particle, the correlation between the positions of the particles can be used to give us information about where the second particle is, but we have no way of making use of the correlation between the pulses of the particles (...). If we observe the momentum of the first particle, it is just the opposite. We retain control over the momentum correlation, but lose it over the position correlation. The two different measurements define two complementary phenomena that can never be reconciled into a single description of the given two-particle system.

Confirmatory experiments
Years after the exposition of Einstein via his EPR experiment, many physicists started performing experiments to show that Einstein's view of a spooky action in a distance is indeed consistent with the laws of physics. The first experiment to definitively prove that this was the case was in 1949, when physicists Chien-Shiung Wu and her colleague Irving Shaknov showcased this theory in real time using photons. Their work was published in the new year of the succeeding decade.

Later in 1975, Alain Aspect proposed in an article, an experiment meticulous enough to be irrefutable: Proposed experiment to test the non-separability of quantum mechanics. This led Aspect, together with his assistant Gérard Roger, and Jean Dalibard and Philippe Grangier (two young physics students at the time) to set up several increasingly complex experiments between 1980 and 1982 that further established quantum entanglement. Finally in 1998, the Geneva experiment tested the correlation between two detectors set 30 kilometres apart, virtually across the whole city, using the Swiss optical fibre telecommunication network. The distance gave the necessary time to commute the angles of the polarizers. It was therefore possible to have a completely random electrical shunting. Furthermore, the two distant polarizers were entirely independent. The measurements were recorded on each side, and compared after each experiment by dating each measurement using an atomic clock. The experiment once again verified entanglement under the strictest and most ideal conditions possible. If Aspect's experiment implied that a hypothetical coordination signal travel twice as fast as c, Geneva's reached 10 million times c.

Post-revolution: Fourth stage
In his last writing on the topic, Einstein further refined his position, making it completely clear that what really disturbed him about the quantum theory was the problem of the total renunciation of all minimal standards of realism, even at the microscopic level, that the acceptance of the completeness of the theory implied. Since the early days of quantum theory the assumption of locality and Lorentz invariance guided his thoughts and led to his determination that if we demand strict locality then hidden variables are naturally implied apropos EPR. Bell, starting from this EPR logic (which is widely misunderstood or forgotten) showed that local hidden variables imply a conflict with experiment. Ultimately what was at stake for Einstein was the assumption that physical reality be universally local. Although the majority of experts in the field agree that Einstein was wrong, the current understanding is still not complete (see Interpretation of quantum mechanics).

title: Bohr–Einstein debates


text:
Regions of Germany (disambiguation)

Regions of Germany may refer to:

 * Natural regions of Germany
 * Government regions of Germany (German: Regierungsbezirke), a second-level administrative division
 * NUTS statistical regions of Germany

title: Regions of Germany (disambiguation)


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SkyPerfect

SkyPerfect

 * keep - may have potential for a full article. if not expanded in a reasonable time, recommend move to Wictionary.  Chris 18:25, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)


text:
Henri-Elzéar Taschereau

Sir Henri-Elzéar Taschereau, (October 7, 1836 – April 14, 1911) was a Canadian jurist and the fourth Chief Justice of Canada.

Career
Taschereau was born in his family's seigneurial manor house at Sainte-Marie-de-la-Beauce, Lower Canada to Pierre-Elzéar Taschereau and Catherine Hénédine Dionne. Tashereau attended the Université Laval and was called to the Bar of Quebec in 1857. That same year he married Marie-Antoinette de Lotbiniere Harwood (d. 1896), daughter of Robert Unwin Harwood, and they were the parents of seven children. He married his second wife, Marie-Louise Panet, in 1897 and fathered three more children.

He practiced law in Quebec City and entered politics in 1861 when he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of what was then the Province of Canada where he opposed Canadian Confederation. He was appointed a judge of the Quebec Superior Court in 1871 and to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1878 following the retirement of Jean-Thomas Taschereau (see below), and also taught law part-time at the University of Ottawa. He was made a knight bachelor on 14 August 1902, after the honour had been announced in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902. In November 1902 he became Chief Justice serving for four years until his retirement in 1906. He became a member of the British Privy Council in 1904, which entitled him to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Family
Taschereau was the great, great grandson of Thomas-Jacques Taschereau, the patriarch of the family in Canada. He was first-cousin once-removed to the brothers Elzéar Alexandre Cardinal Taschereau and Supreme Court Justice Jean-Thomas Taschereau. Jean-Thomas's son Louis-Alexandre would serve as Premier of Quebec. His grandson Robert Taschereau would also serve as Chief Justice of Canada.

Henri-Elzéar Taschereau married at Vaudreuil, Quebec May 27, 1857, to Marie Antoinette Harwood, daughter of the Hon. R. U. Harwood, Seigneur of Vaudreuil, and his wife, Marie Louise Josephte Chartier de Lotbiniere. The couple had seven children. She died at Ottawa, June 2, 1896. Her remains were interred in the parish church of Vaudreuil. Henri-Elzéar Taschereau married at Ottawa, March 22, 1897 his second wife Marie Louise Panet, daughter of Charles Panet, Clerk of Private Bills, House of Commons, Ottawa, and his wife, Euphemie Chateauvert. Marie Louise was born in Ottawa, February 29, 1868, and received her education at the Convent of the Sacred Heart (Grey Nuns) in Ottawa. The couple lived at 363 Theodore Street, Ottawa. The couple had two sons. Charles Elzear de Montarville Taschereau was born in Ottawa on October 5, 1898. Henri Edouard Panet Taschereau was born at Ottawa, August 9, 1902.

title: Henri-Elzéar Taschereau


text: User talk:81.157.66.49

title: User talk:81.157.66.49


text:
Wilhelm Fabry

Wilhelm Fabry (also William Fabry, Guilelmus Fabricius Hildanus, or Fabricius von Hilden) (25 June 1560 − 15 February 1634), often called the "Father of German surgery", was the first educated and scientific German surgeon. He is one of the most prominent scholars in the iatromechanics school and author of 20 medical books. His Observationum et Curationum Chirurgicarum Centuriae, published posthumously in 1641, is the best collection of case records of the century and gives clear insight into the variety and methods of his surgical practice. He developed novel surgical techniques and new surgical instruments. He also wrote a notable treatise on burns.

Fabry developed a device for operating eye tumours. His wife, Marie Colinet (or Fabry), was a Swiss midwife-surgeon who improved the techniques of cesarean section delivery. She helped her husband in his surgical practice and was the first (in 1624) to use a magnet to extract metal from a patient's eye (a technique still in use today). Fabry wrote a detailed description of the procedure in his Centuriae and, although he explicitly mentioned his wife as having invented it, was given credit for the discovery.

Fabry was born in Hilden. His birth town named the city museum (featuring surgical instruments and the like) after him, honoured him with a bronze bust in the market place, and named streets after himself and after his wife.

The city of Bern, where he died, named a street after him (Hildanusstrasse), using one of the Latin versions of his name.

 * In 1579 - Badergeselle (surgeon's mate) in Düsseldorf of the extraordinary court surgeon Cosmas Slot.
 * On 25 July 1587 - married Marie Colinet, the daughter of Eustache Colinet, a Genevese printer.
 * 1602 - 1615 Surgeon in Payerne (Switzerland) and Lausanne.
 * 1615 - 1634 City Surgeon in Bern by appointment of the city council

Works

 * De Dysenteria : Liber unus: In quo hujus Morbi Causae, Signa, Prognostica, & Praeservatio continentur: Item, quomodo Symptomata, quae huic Morbo supervenire solent, sint removenda . de Bry / Galler, Oppenheimii 1616 Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf

Resources

 * Georg Becker, Wilhelm Fabry von Hilden (Niederbergische Beiträge vol. 6, ed. Heinrich Strangmeier), Wuppertal 1957 (German)

title: Wilhelm Fabry


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dogs on Acid

Dogs on Acid
Very incomplete, and doesn't seem notable at all. Originally listed as a speedy candidate. — David Remahl 18:30, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Delete. David Remahl 18:30, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Chris 18:35, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wikipedia is not a web guide.   — Gwalla | Talk 19:10, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * SPEEDY delete. The goofballs who posted it get to gloat for the next five days if not. - Lucky 6.9 20:07, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete as quickly as possible. Wikipedia isn't a web guide. Fire Star 20:36, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Goofballs will be visited by Katerina Mavromatis during the next five days. Ianb 23:25, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not notable. --Improv 12:20, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Nothing says encyclopedic like an unexplained list of injokes. Delete. Spatch 14:38, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Regular delete, not speedy. Does not meet any of the narrow criteria for speedy deletion. • Benc • 15:48, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep & cleanup. 4150 Google hits, after purging the forum itself. In contrast, GNAA above are a subgroup of a forum, and receive less than 400 Google hits.  If that's notable, there's no way this isn't.  Google search Wolfman 16:09, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Wile E. Heresiarch 20:26, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - for comments stated above, aoart from the one about goofballs. Jongarrettuk 22:06, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - message board vanity. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:57, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)


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Himilco

Himilco was a Carthaginian navigator and explorer who lived during the late 6th or early 5th century BC, a period of time where Carthage held significant sway over its neighboring regions.

Himilco is the first known explorer from the Mediterranean Sea to reach the northwestern shores of Europe. His lost account of his adventures is quoted by Roman writers. The oldest reference to Himilco's voyage is a brief mention in Natural History (2.169a) by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. Himilco was quoted three times by Rufius Festus Avienius, who wrote Ora Maritima, a poetical account of the geography in the 4th century AD.

Little is known of Himilco himself. Himilco sailed north along the Atlantic coast from the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles. He traveled to northwestern France, as well as the territory of the Oestrimini tribe living in Portugal, likely in order to trade for tin (to be used for making bronze) and other precious metals. Records of the voyages of Himilco also mention the islands of Albion and Ierne. Avienius asserts that the outward journey to the Oestriminis took the Carthaginians four months. Himilco followed the northern Atlantic trade route used by the Tartessians of southern Iberia, according to Avienius.

Himilco described his journeys as quite harrowing, repeatedly reporting sea monsters and seaweed, likely in order to deter Greek rivals from competing on their new trade routes. Carthaginian accounts of monsters became one source of the myths discouraging sailing in the Atlantic.

title: Himilco


text:
User:Donarreiskoffer/butterflies

All these images are taken by myself and released under GFDL. High resolution pictures on request, by message on User_talk:Donarreiskoffer. The photographs were taken in the 'Garden of Butterflies' in Knokke (Belgium). I have no extra inforamtion on the species, but they may come from any continent.

title: User:Donarreiskoffer/butterflies


text:
Talk:Male (disambiguation)

I have reworked the "hardware and electronics" line so as to include a link to Gender of connectors and fasteners; I also removed the line "The word male also figuratively means external, based on this sense." because I think it's confusing...male connectors fit inside female connectors. Sharkford 18:35, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

I'm removing the part about linguistics. I have never heard "male" used to mean "masculine" in terms of grammatical gender. --Angr/comhrá 08:44, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Male (disambiguation)


text: Category:Twelve tone music

title: Category:Twelve tone music


text: Category:Atonal music

title: Category:Atonal music