Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or intentional trauma resulting in terminal injury.
The nature of death has been for millennia a central concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical enquiry, and belief in some kind of afterlife or rebirth has been a central aspect of religious faith.
Contents
[hide]
1 Etymology
2 Senescence
3 Symptoms of death
4 Diagnosis
4.1 Problems of definition
4.2 Legal
4.3 Misdiagnosed
5 Causes
5.1 Autopsy
6 Life extension
7 Location
8 Society and culture
9 In biology
9.1 Natural selection
9.2 Extinction
9.3 Evolution of aging
10 See also
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
Etymology
The word death comes from Old English deað, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauþaz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the 'Process, act, condition of dying'.
Dauþaz was reconstructed through the use of the daughter tongues of Proto-Germanic, such as doth from Old Saxon, dath from Old Frisian, dood from Dutch, tod from Old High German, dauði from Old Norse and modern-day Icelandic, död from Swedish, and dauþas from Gothic.[1]
Senescence
Almost all animals fortunate enough to survive hazards to their existence eventually die from senescence. The only known exception is the jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula, thought to be, in effect, immortal.[2] Causes of death in humans as a result of intentional activity include suicide and homicide. From all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day.[3]
Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible.[4] Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. Precise medical definition of death, in other words, becomes more problematic, paradoxically, as scientific knowledge and medicine advance.[5]
Symptoms of death
Signs of death or strong indications that a person is no longer alive are:
Cessation of breathing
Cardiac arrest (No pulse)
Pallor mortis, paleness which happens in the 15–120 minutes after death
Livor mortis, a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body
Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature following death. This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature
Rigor mortis, the limbs of the corpse become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate
Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor.
Diagnosis
Problems of definition
A flower, a skull and an hourglass stand in for Life, Death and Time in this 17th-century painting by Philippe de Champaigne
The concept of death is a key to human understanding of the phenomenon.[6] There are many scientific approaches to the concept. For example, brain death, as practiced in medical science, defines death as a point in time at which brain activity ceases.[7][8][9][10] One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment at which life ends. However, determining when death has occurred requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is problematic because there is little consensus over how to define life. It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, a living organism can be said to have died. One of the notable flaws in this approach, however, is that there are many organisms which are alive but probably not conscious (for example, single-celled organisms). Another problem with this approach is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers. This general problem of defining death applies to the particular challenge of defining death in the context of medicine.
Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of something.[11] In this context "death" describes merely the state where something has ceased, for example, life. Thus, the definition of "life" simultaneously defines death.
Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been problematic. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. Events which were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants and artificial pacemakers.
Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being clinically dead; people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases. It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference.
However, the category of "brain death" is seen by some scholars to be problematic. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s, however, the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)."[12]
Those people maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death. Eventually it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology. However, at present, in most places the more conservative definition of death – irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex – has been adopted (for example the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the Terri Schiavo case brought the question of brain death and artificial sustenance to the front of American politics.
Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity on a temporary basis. Because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.
Legal
See also: Legal death
A dead Confederate soldier sprawled out in Petersburg, Virginia, 1865, during the American Civil War
In the United States, a person is dead by law if a Statement of Death or Death certificate is approved by a licensed medical practitioner. Various legal consequences follow death, including the removal from the person of what in legal terminology is called personhood.
The possession of brain activities, or capability to resume brain activity, is a necessary condition to legal personhood in the United States. "It appears that once brain death has been determined ... no criminal or civil liability will result from disconnecting the life-support devices." (Dority v. Superior Court of San Bernardino County, 193 Cal.Rptr. 288, 291 (1983))
Misdiagnosed
See also: Premature burial
There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life", sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive,[13] and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.[14] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although others estimated the figure to be closer to 800.[15]
In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room.[16] This "diving response", in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.[16]
As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information theoretical death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside of the field of cryonics.
There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success.[17] In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death.
Causes
See also: List of causes of death by rate and List of preventable causes of death
The leading cause of death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes of death in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. These conditions cause loss of homeostasis, leading to cardiac arrest, causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply, causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues. Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes.[3] In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, reaching 90%.[3] With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed. Home deaths, once commonplace, are now rare in the developed world.
The body of Pope John Paul II lying in state in St. Peter's Basilica, 2005
In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology makes death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease which killed 1.7 million people in 2004.[18] Malaria causes about 400–900 million cases of fever and 1–3 million deaths annually.[19] AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100 million by 2025.[20][21]
According to Jean Ziegler, who was the United Nations Special reporter on the Right to Food from 2000 to March 2008; mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide approximately 62 million people died from all causes and of those deaths more than 36 million died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients.[22]
Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people around the world in the 21st century, a WHO Report warned.[23][24]
Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only just beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death.[25]
Autopsy
An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist.
Rembrandt turns an autopsy into a masterpiece: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp
Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes. A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes. Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted. Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together. Autopsy is important in a medical environment and may shed light on mistakes and help improve practices.
A "necropsy" is an older term for a postmortem examination, unregulated, and not always a medical procedure. In modern times the term is more often used in the postmortem examination of the corpses of animals.
Life extension
Main article: Life extension
Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging. Average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to accidents and age or lifestyle-related afflictions such as cancer, or cardiovascular disease. Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet, exercise and avoidance of hazards such as smoking. Maximum lifespan is determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its genes. Currently, the only widely recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction. Theoretically, extension of maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues.
Researchers of life extension are a subclass of biogerontologists known as "biomedical gerontologists". They try to understand the nature of aging and they develop treatments to reverse aging processes or to at least slow them down, for the improvement of health and the maintenance of youthful vigor at every stage of life. Those who take advantage of life extension findings and seek to apply them upon themselves are called "life extensionists" or "longevists". The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply available anti-aging methods in the hope of living long enough to benefit from a complete cure to aging once it is developed, which given the rapidly advancing state of biogenetic and general medical technology, could conceivably occur within the lifetimes of people living today.
Location
Before about 1930, most people died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls.[26] By the mid-20th century, half of all Americans died in a hospital.[27] By the start of the 21st century, only about 20 to 25% of people in developed countries died in the community.[27][28][29] The shift away from dying at home, towards dying in a professionalized medical environment, has been termed the "Invisible Death".[27]
Society and culture
Main article: Death and culture
The regent duke Charles (later king Charles IX of Sweden) insulting the corpse of Klaus Fleming. Albert Edelfelt, 1878.
Dead bodies can be mummified either naturally, as this one from Guanajuato, or by intention, as those in ancient Egypt.
Death is the center of many traditions and organizations; customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world. Much of this revolves around the care of the dead, as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death. The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation. This is not a unified practice, however, as in Tibet for instance the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top. Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet.[30] Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures, to retard the rate of decay.
Legal aspects of death are also part of many cultures, particularly the settlement of the deceased estate and the issues of inheritance and in some countries, inheritance taxation.
Gravestones in Kyoto, Japan
Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death. In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many retentionist countries, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.[31]
Death in warfare and in suicide attack also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, mutiny punishable by death, grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures. Recently in the western world, with the supposed increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks, but also further back in time with suicide bombings, kamikaze missions in World War II and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history, death for a cause by way of suicide attack, and martyrdom have had significant cultural impacts.
Suicide in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures. In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death, whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin. Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael and Father Time.
In biology
After death the remains of an organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle. Animals may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger. Organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores, organisms which recycle detritus, returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain. Examples of detritivores include earthworms, woodlice and dung beetles.
Microorganisms also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules. Not all materials need to be decomposed fully, however. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example.
Natural selection
Main articles: competition (biology), natural selection, and extinction
Contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection. It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die having produced fewer offspring, thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool. Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population, leading at worst to extinction and, more positively, making the process possible, referred to as speciation. Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival: an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays, according to Darwinian criteria, much greater fitness than a long-lived organism leaving only one.
Extinction
Main article: Extinction
A dodo, the bird that became a byword in English for species extinction[32]
Extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. New species arise through the process of speciation, an aspect of evolution. New varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche – and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition.
Evolution of aging
Main article: Evolution of ageing
Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age (a notable exception being hydra, which may be biologically immortal). The evolutionary origin of senescence remains one of the fundamental puzzles of biology. Gerontology specializes in the science of human aging processes.
Monday, September 19, 2011
ARTS
The arts are a vast subdivision of culture, composed of many creative endeavors and disciplines. It is a broader term than "art", which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts.[1] The arts encompass visual arts, literary arts and the performing arts – music, theatre, dance and film, among others.[2] This list is by no means comprehensive, but only meant to introduce the concept of the arts.A good definition of the arts is given by the Free Dictionary as "imaginative, creative, and nonscientific branches of knowledge considered collectively, esp. as studied academically".[3] The singular term art is defined by the Irish Art Encyclopedia as follows: "Art is created when an artist creates a beautiful object, or produces a stimulating experience that is considered by his audience to have artistic merit."[4] So, one could conclude that art is the process that leads to a product (the artwork or piece of art), which is then examined and analyzed by experts in the field of the arts or simply enjoyed by those who appreciate the arts. The same source states:
Art is a global activity which encompasses a host of disciplines, as evidenced by the range of words and phrases which have been invented to describe its various forms. Examples of such phraseology include: Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Visual Arts, Decorative Arts, Applied Arts, Design, Crafts, Performing Arts, and so on.
The term art commonly refers to the "Visual Arts", as an abbreviation of creative art or fine art. For example, the history of art is described as "the history of the visual arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. It is the history of one of the fine arts, others of which are the performing arts and literature. It is also one of the humanities. The term sometimes encompasses theory of the visual arts, including aesthetics." In the article for fine art, we read:
Confusion often occurs when people mistakenly refer to the Fine Arts but mean the Performing Arts (Music, Dance, Drama, etc.). However, there is some disagreement here: e.g., at York University (Toronto, Canada) Fine Arts is a faculty that includes the [visual arts], design and the "Performing Arts".[5] Furthermore, creative writing is frequently considered a fine art as well.
To illustrate the previous statements, the College of Fine Arts at Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, TX) consists of the Schools of "Art, Music and Theatre",[6] while one of the Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees at the University of British Columbia is attached to the Creative Writing Program.[7]
More work would be required to standardize the use of the terms "art" and "fine art", but for the purpose of this article the definition of "the arts" is not problematic, because it includes all the arts. One artist has even suggested that "[it] would really simplify matters if we could all just stick with visual, auditory, performance or literary – when we speak of The Arts – and eliminate “Fine” altogether".[8]
[edit] History
For all intents and purposes, the history of the arts begins with the history of art, as dealt with elsewhere. Furthermore, the history of the Performing Arts and Literature have been described in other articles --(Please see: Outline of performing arts; History of literature). Some examples of creative art through the ages can be summarized here, as excerpted from the history of art.
Ancient Greek art saw the veneration of the animal form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty and anatomically correct proportions. Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans, shown with characteristic distinguishing features (i.e. Zeus' thunderbolt).
In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the church insisted on the expression of biblical and not material truths.
Eastern art has generally worked in a style akin to Western medieval art, namely a concentration on surface patterning and local colour (meaning the plain colour of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that colour brought about by light, shade and reflection). A characteristic of this style is that the local colour is often defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is the cartoon). This is evident in, for example, the art of India, Tibet and Japan.
An artist's palette
Religious Islamic art forbids iconography, and expresses religious ideas through geometry instead.
The physical and rational certainties depicted by the 19th-century Enlightenment were shattered not only by new discoveries of relativity by Einstein [1] and of unseen psychology by Freud,[2] but also by unprecedented technological development. Paradoxically the expressions of new technologies were greatly influenced by the ancient tribal arts of Africa and Oceania, through the works of Paul Gauguin and the Post-Impressionists, Pablo Picasso and the Cubists, as well as the Futurists and others.By Arun
[edit] The various arts
In the Middle Ages, Artes Liberales (liberal arts) taught in medieval universities as part of the Trivium: (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), and the Artes Mechanicae (mechanical arts) such as metalworking, farming, cooking, business and the making of clothes or cloth. The modern distinctions between "artistic" and non-artistic skills did not develop until the Renaissance.
In modern academia, the arts are usually grouped with or a subset of the Humanities. Some subjects in the Humanities are history, linguistics, literature, and philosophy. Newspapers typically include a section on the arts.
Traditionally, the arts are classified as seven although the list has been expanded to nine. These being Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry, Dance, Theater/Cinema, with the modern non-traditional additions of Photography[9] and Comics[10].
[edit] Visual arts
WPVA-khamsa.png Visual arts portal
Main article: Fine art
Further information: Plastic arts, Work of art
[edit] Drawing
Main article: Drawing
Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface. Common tools are graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers. Digital tools which simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftswoman or draughtsman.
[edit] Gastronomy
Main article: Gastronomy
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture and food. It is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking (see Culinary art), but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook is also a gourmet. Gastronomy studies various cultural components with food as its central axis. Thus it is related to the Fine Arts and Social Sciences, and even to the Natural Sciences in terms of the digestive system of the human body.
[edit] Architecture
Main article: Architecture
The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece
Architecture (from Latin, architectura and ultimately from Greek, αρχιτεκτων, "a master builder", from αρχι- "chief, leader" and τεκτων, "builder, carpenter")[3] is the art and science of designing buildings and structures.
A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of creating furniture. Architectural design usually must address both feasibility and cost for the builder, as well as function and aesthetics for the user.
Table of architecture, Cyclopaedia, 1728
In modern usage, architecture is the art and discipline of creating an actual, or inferring an implied or apparent plan of any complex object or system. The term can be used to connote the implied architecture of abstract things such as music or mathematics, the apparent architecture of natural things, such as geological formations or the structure of biological cells, or explicitly planned architectures of human-made things such as software, computers, enterprises, and databases, in addition to buildings. In every usage, an architecture may be seen as a subjective mapping from a human perspective (that of the user in the case of abstract or physical artifacts) to the elements or components of some kind of structure or system, which preserves the relationships among the elements or components.
Planned architecture manipulates space, volume, texture, light, shadow, or abstract elements in order to achieve pleasing aesthetics. This distinguishes it from applied science or engineering, which usually concentrate more on the functional and feasibility aspects of the design of constructions or structures.
In the field of building architecture, the skills demanded of an architect range from the more complex, such as for a hospital or a stadium, to the apparently simpler, such as planning residential houses. Many architectural works may be seen also as cultural and political symbols, and/or works of art. The role of the architect, though changing, has been central to the successful (and sometimes less than successful) design and implementation of pleasingly built environments in which people live.
[edit] Painting
Main article: Painting
The Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable artistic paintings in the Western world.
Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a vehicle (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood panel or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the human body itself.
Colour is the essence of painting as sound is of music. Colour is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but elsewhere white may be. Some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, Newton, have written their own colour theory. Moreover the use of language is only a generalization for a colour equivalent. The word "red", for example, can cover a wide range of variations on the pure red of the spectrum. There is not a formalized register of different colours in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music, such as C or C#, although the Pantone system is widely used in the printing and design industry for this purpose.
Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, for example, collage. This began with Cubism and is not painting in strict sense. Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet or Anselm Kiefer.
Modern and contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft in favour of concept; this has led some to say that painting, as a serious art form, is dead, although this has not deterred the majority of artists from continuing to practise it either as whole or part of their work.
[edit] Conceptual art
Main article: Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. The inception of the term in the 1960s referred to a strict and focused practice of idea-based art that often defied traditional visual criteria associated with the visual arts in its presentation as text. However, through its association with the Young British Artists and the Turner Prize during the 1990s, its popular usage, particularly in the UK, developed as a synonym for all contemporary art that does not practise the traditional skills of painting and sculpture.[11]
[edit] Video games
Main article: Video game
A debate exists in the fine arts and video game cultures over whether video games can be counted as an art form.[12] Some cite games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Myst as prime examples of video games as an art form. [13] Others, such as game designer Hideo Kojima, profess that video games are a type of service, not an art form. [14]
In May of 2011, the National Endowment of the Arts included video games in its redefinition of what is considered a work of art.[15]
[edit] Literary arts
Main articles: Language and Literature
Shakespeare wrote some of the best known works in English literature.
Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning "an individual written character (letter)"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of writings, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. In much, if not all of the world, texts can be oral as well, and include such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, other forms of oral poetry, and as folktale.
[edit] Performing arts
Main article: Performing arts
The performing arts differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some art object.
Performing arts include acrobatics, busking, comedy, dance, magic, music, opera, operetta, film, juggling, martial arts, marching arts such as brass bands and theatre.
Artists who participate in these arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, comedians, dancers, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting and stagecraft.
Performers often adapt their appearance, such as with costumes and stage makeup, etc.
There is also a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is called Performance art. Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the Modern dance era.
[edit] Music
Main article: Music
A musical score by Mozart.
Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided into genres and subgenres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial. Within "the arts", music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art, and auditory art.
[edit] Theatre
Main article: Theatre
Theatre or theater (Greek "theatron", θέατρον) is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera and mummers' plays.
[edit] Dance
A Ballroom dance exhibition
Main article: Dance
Dance (from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.
Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain musical forms or genres.
Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer. People danced to relieve stress.
Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as Folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are dance disciplines while Martial arts 'kata' are often compared to dances.
[edit] Arts criticism
Architecture criticism
Visual art criticism
Dance criticism
Film criticism
Literary criticism
Music journalism
Television criticism
Theatre criticism
[edit] See also
Nuvola apps package graphics.png Arts portal
Culinary art
Fine art
Martial arts
Performing arts
For other uses, see The arts (disambiguation).
Art in odd places
[edit] Notes
^ For example here is the Art (singular) History department of Chicago which explicitly refers to "visual arts" on its welcome page.
^ For example here is the UNC School of the Arts (plural) which offers dance, design, drama and so on.
^ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/arts Entry on The Free Dictionary provided by Collins English Dictionary
^ http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/art-definition.htm#definition A Working Definition of Art (2009)
^ Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
^ College of Fine Arts (Stephen F. Austin State University)
^ The Creative Writing Program at UBC
^ An About.com article by artist and educator, Shelley Esaak, answering the question: What Is Visual Art? in relation to the other arts.
^ Keppler, Victor (in English). A life of color photography: The eighth art. W. Morrow & Co. ASIN B00085HDEI.
^ Dierick, Charles (in Dutch). Het Belgisch Centrum van het Beeldverhaal. Brussels: Dexia Bank / La Renaissance du Livre. p. 11. ISBN 2-8046-0449-7.
^ Turner prize history: Conceptual art Tate gallery tate.org.uk. Accessed August 8, 2006
^ "From the Archives: Going Through Game Informer's Past". Game Informer (200): 83. December 2009.
^ Ebert, Roger. "Okay, kids, play on my lawn". Chicago Sun-Times.
^ "Kojima Says "Games Are Not Art"". Retrieved 2011-01-06. Kotaku (2006)
^ "US Government Declares 'Video Games Are Art'". International Business Times. 13 May 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
[edit] References
Does time fly?—Peter Galison's Empires of Time, a historical survey of Einstein and Poincare, intrigues Jon Turney. Jon Turney. The Guardian, Saturday 6 September 2003
Contradictions of the Enlightenment: Darwin, Freud, Einstein
[edit] External links
Art is a global activity which encompasses a host of disciplines, as evidenced by the range of words and phrases which have been invented to describe its various forms. Examples of such phraseology include: Fine Arts, Liberal Arts, Visual Arts, Decorative Arts, Applied Arts, Design, Crafts, Performing Arts, and so on.
The term art commonly refers to the "Visual Arts", as an abbreviation of creative art or fine art. For example, the history of art is described as "the history of the visual arts of painting, sculpture and architecture. It is the history of one of the fine arts, others of which are the performing arts and literature. It is also one of the humanities. The term sometimes encompasses theory of the visual arts, including aesthetics." In the article for fine art, we read:
Confusion often occurs when people mistakenly refer to the Fine Arts but mean the Performing Arts (Music, Dance, Drama, etc.). However, there is some disagreement here: e.g., at York University (Toronto, Canada) Fine Arts is a faculty that includes the [visual arts], design and the "Performing Arts".[5] Furthermore, creative writing is frequently considered a fine art as well.
To illustrate the previous statements, the College of Fine Arts at Stephen F. Austin State University (Nacogdoches, TX) consists of the Schools of "Art, Music and Theatre",[6] while one of the Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees at the University of British Columbia is attached to the Creative Writing Program.[7]
More work would be required to standardize the use of the terms "art" and "fine art", but for the purpose of this article the definition of "the arts" is not problematic, because it includes all the arts. One artist has even suggested that "[it] would really simplify matters if we could all just stick with visual, auditory, performance or literary – when we speak of The Arts – and eliminate “Fine” altogether".[8]
[edit] History
For all intents and purposes, the history of the arts begins with the history of art, as dealt with elsewhere. Furthermore, the history of the Performing Arts and Literature have been described in other articles --(Please see: Outline of performing arts; History of literature). Some examples of creative art through the ages can be summarized here, as excerpted from the history of art.
Ancient Greek art saw the veneration of the animal form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty and anatomically correct proportions. Ancient Roman art depicted gods as idealized humans, shown with characteristic distinguishing features (i.e. Zeus' thunderbolt).
In Byzantine and Gothic art of the Middle Ages, the dominance of the church insisted on the expression of biblical and not material truths.
Eastern art has generally worked in a style akin to Western medieval art, namely a concentration on surface patterning and local colour (meaning the plain colour of an object, such as basic red for a red robe, rather than the modulations of that colour brought about by light, shade and reflection). A characteristic of this style is that the local colour is often defined by an outline (a contemporary equivalent is the cartoon). This is evident in, for example, the art of India, Tibet and Japan.
An artist's palette
Religious Islamic art forbids iconography, and expresses religious ideas through geometry instead.
The physical and rational certainties depicted by the 19th-century Enlightenment were shattered not only by new discoveries of relativity by Einstein [1] and of unseen psychology by Freud,[2] but also by unprecedented technological development. Paradoxically the expressions of new technologies were greatly influenced by the ancient tribal arts of Africa and Oceania, through the works of Paul Gauguin and the Post-Impressionists, Pablo Picasso and the Cubists, as well as the Futurists and others.By Arun
[edit] The various arts
In the Middle Ages, Artes Liberales (liberal arts) taught in medieval universities as part of the Trivium: (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), and the Artes Mechanicae (mechanical arts) such as metalworking, farming, cooking, business and the making of clothes or cloth. The modern distinctions between "artistic" and non-artistic skills did not develop until the Renaissance.
In modern academia, the arts are usually grouped with or a subset of the Humanities. Some subjects in the Humanities are history, linguistics, literature, and philosophy. Newspapers typically include a section on the arts.
Traditionally, the arts are classified as seven although the list has been expanded to nine. These being Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry, Dance, Theater/Cinema, with the modern non-traditional additions of Photography[9] and Comics[10].
[edit] Visual arts
WPVA-khamsa.png Visual arts portal
Main article: Fine art
Further information: Plastic arts, Work of art
[edit] Drawing
Main article: Drawing
Drawing is a means of making an image, using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques. It generally involves making marks on a surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface. Common tools are graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoals, pastels, and markers. Digital tools which simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching, crosshatching, random hatching, scribbling, stippling, and blending. An artist who excels in drawing is referred to as a draftswoman or draughtsman.
[edit] Gastronomy
Main article: Gastronomy
Gastronomy is the study of the relationship between culture and food. It is often thought erroneously that the term gastronomy refers exclusively to the art of cooking (see Culinary art), but this is only a small part of this discipline; it cannot always be said that a cook is also a gourmet. Gastronomy studies various cultural components with food as its central axis. Thus it is related to the Fine Arts and Social Sciences, and even to the Natural Sciences in terms of the digestive system of the human body.
[edit] Architecture
Main article: Architecture
The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, Athens, Greece
Architecture (from Latin, architectura and ultimately from Greek, αρχιτεκτων, "a master builder", from αρχι- "chief, leader" and τεκτων, "builder, carpenter")[3] is the art and science of designing buildings and structures.
A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of creating furniture. Architectural design usually must address both feasibility and cost for the builder, as well as function and aesthetics for the user.
Table of architecture, Cyclopaedia, 1728
In modern usage, architecture is the art and discipline of creating an actual, or inferring an implied or apparent plan of any complex object or system. The term can be used to connote the implied architecture of abstract things such as music or mathematics, the apparent architecture of natural things, such as geological formations or the structure of biological cells, or explicitly planned architectures of human-made things such as software, computers, enterprises, and databases, in addition to buildings. In every usage, an architecture may be seen as a subjective mapping from a human perspective (that of the user in the case of abstract or physical artifacts) to the elements or components of some kind of structure or system, which preserves the relationships among the elements or components.
Planned architecture manipulates space, volume, texture, light, shadow, or abstract elements in order to achieve pleasing aesthetics. This distinguishes it from applied science or engineering, which usually concentrate more on the functional and feasibility aspects of the design of constructions or structures.
In the field of building architecture, the skills demanded of an architect range from the more complex, such as for a hospital or a stadium, to the apparently simpler, such as planning residential houses. Many architectural works may be seen also as cultural and political symbols, and/or works of art. The role of the architect, though changing, has been central to the successful (and sometimes less than successful) design and implementation of pleasingly built environments in which people live.
[edit] Painting
Main article: Painting
The Mona Lisa is one of the most recognizable artistic paintings in the Western world.
Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a vehicle (or medium) and a binding agent (a glue) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood panel or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel to the human body itself.
Colour is the essence of painting as sound is of music. Colour is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but elsewhere white may be. Some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, Newton, have written their own colour theory. Moreover the use of language is only a generalization for a colour equivalent. The word "red", for example, can cover a wide range of variations on the pure red of the spectrum. There is not a formalized register of different colours in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music, such as C or C#, although the Pantone system is widely used in the printing and design industry for this purpose.
Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, for example, collage. This began with Cubism and is not painting in strict sense. Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet or Anselm Kiefer.
Modern and contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft in favour of concept; this has led some to say that painting, as a serious art form, is dead, although this has not deterred the majority of artists from continuing to practise it either as whole or part of their work.
[edit] Conceptual art
Main article: Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. The inception of the term in the 1960s referred to a strict and focused practice of idea-based art that often defied traditional visual criteria associated with the visual arts in its presentation as text. However, through its association with the Young British Artists and the Turner Prize during the 1990s, its popular usage, particularly in the UK, developed as a synonym for all contemporary art that does not practise the traditional skills of painting and sculpture.[11]
[edit] Video games
Main article: Video game
A debate exists in the fine arts and video game cultures over whether video games can be counted as an art form.[12] Some cite games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Myst as prime examples of video games as an art form. [13] Others, such as game designer Hideo Kojima, profess that video games are a type of service, not an art form. [14]
In May of 2011, the National Endowment of the Arts included video games in its redefinition of what is considered a work of art.[15]
[edit] Literary arts
Main articles: Language and Literature
Shakespeare wrote some of the best known works in English literature.
Literature is literally "acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary (from the Latin littera meaning "an individual written character (letter)"). The term has generally come to identify a collection of writings, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. In much, if not all of the world, texts can be oral as well, and include such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, other forms of oral poetry, and as folktale.
[edit] Performing arts
Main article: Performing arts
The performing arts differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some art object.
Performing arts include acrobatics, busking, comedy, dance, magic, music, opera, operetta, film, juggling, martial arts, marching arts such as brass bands and theatre.
Artists who participate in these arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, comedians, dancers, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting and stagecraft.
Performers often adapt their appearance, such as with costumes and stage makeup, etc.
There is also a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is called Performance art. Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the Modern dance era.
[edit] Music
Main article: Music
A musical score by Mozart.
Music is an art form whose medium is sound. Common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Music ranges from strictly organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Music can be divided into genres and subgenres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial. Within "the arts", music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art, and auditory art.
[edit] Theatre
Main article: Theatre
Theatre or theater (Greek "theatron", θέατρον) is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle — indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style, theatre takes such forms as opera, ballet, mime, kabuki, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera and mummers' plays.
[edit] Dance
A Ballroom dance exhibition
Main article: Dance
Dance (from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.
Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain musical forms or genres.
Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer. People danced to relieve stress.
Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as Folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are dance disciplines while Martial arts 'kata' are often compared to dances.
[edit] Arts criticism
Architecture criticism
Visual art criticism
Dance criticism
Film criticism
Literary criticism
Music journalism
Television criticism
Theatre criticism
[edit] See also
Nuvola apps package graphics.png Arts portal
Culinary art
Fine art
Martial arts
Performing arts
For other uses, see The arts (disambiguation).
Art in odd places
[edit] Notes
^ For example here is the Art (singular) History department of Chicago which explicitly refers to "visual arts" on its welcome page.
^ For example here is the UNC School of the Arts (plural) which offers dance, design, drama and so on.
^ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/arts Entry on The Free Dictionary provided by Collins English Dictionary
^ http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/art-definition.htm#definition A Working Definition of Art (2009)
^ Faculty of Fine Arts, York University
^ College of Fine Arts (Stephen F. Austin State University)
^ The Creative Writing Program at UBC
^ An About.com article by artist and educator, Shelley Esaak, answering the question: What Is Visual Art? in relation to the other arts.
^ Keppler, Victor (in English). A life of color photography: The eighth art. W. Morrow & Co. ASIN B00085HDEI.
^ Dierick, Charles (in Dutch). Het Belgisch Centrum van het Beeldverhaal. Brussels: Dexia Bank / La Renaissance du Livre. p. 11. ISBN 2-8046-0449-7.
^ Turner prize history: Conceptual art Tate gallery tate.org.uk. Accessed August 8, 2006
^ "From the Archives: Going Through Game Informer's Past". Game Informer (200): 83. December 2009.
^ Ebert, Roger. "Okay, kids, play on my lawn". Chicago Sun-Times.
^ "Kojima Says "Games Are Not Art"". Retrieved 2011-01-06. Kotaku (2006)
^ "US Government Declares 'Video Games Are Art'". International Business Times. 13 May 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
[edit] References
Does time fly?—Peter Galison's Empires of Time, a historical survey of Einstein and Poincare, intrigues Jon Turney. Jon Turney. The Guardian, Saturday 6 September 2003
Contradictions of the Enlightenment: Darwin, Freud, Einstein
[edit] External links
ExtremeEngineering
Engineering the Impossible was a 2-hour special, created and written by Alan Lindgren and produced by Powderhouse Productions for the Discovery Channel. It focused on three incredible, yet physically possible, engineering projects: the nine mile (14 km)-long Gibraltar Bridge, the 170-story Millennium Tower and the 4000+-foot-long Freedom Ship. This program won the Beijing International Science Film Festival Silver Award, and earned Discovery's second-highest, weeknight rating for 2002. After the success of this program, Discovery commissioned Powderhouse to produce the first season of the 10-part series, Extreme Engineering, whose episodes were written by Alan Lindgren, Ed Fields and several other Powderhouse writer-producers. Like Engineering the Impossible, the first season of Extreme Engineering focused on extreme projects of the future. Season 2 (and all seasons since) featured projects already in construction around the world.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
BIGBANGTHEORY
The Big Bang Model is a broadly accepted theory for the origin and evolution of our universe. It postulates that 12 to 14 billion years ago, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across. It has since expanded from this hot dense state into the vast and much cooler cosmos we currently inhabit. We can see remnants of this hot dense matter as the now very cold cosmic microwave background radiation which still pervades the universe and is visible to microwave detectors as a uniform glow across the entire sky.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
civilengineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like bridges, roads, canals, dams, and buildings.[1][2][3] Civil engineering is the oldest engineering discipline after military engineering,[4] and it was defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering.[5] It is traditionally broken into several sub-disciplines including environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, municipal or urban engineering, water resources engineering, materials engineering, coastal engineering,[4] surveying, and construction engineering.[6] Civil engineering takes place on all levels: in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies.Engineering has been an aspect of life since the beginnings of human existence. The earliest practices of Civil engineering may have commenced between 4000 and 2000 BC in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq) when humans started to abandon a nomadic existence, thus causing a need for the construction of shelter. During this time, transportation became increasingly important leading to the development of the wheel and sailing.
Until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and architecture, and the term engineer and architect were mainly geographical variations referring to the same person, often used interchangeably.[7] The construction of Pyramids in Egypt (circa 2700-2500 BC) might be considered the first instances of large structure constructions. Other ancient historic civil engineering constructions include the Qanat water management system (the oldest older than 3000 years and longer than 71 km[8],) the Parthenon by Iktinos in Ancient Greece (447-438 BC), the Appian Way by Roman engineers (c. 312 BC), the Great Wall of China by General Meng T'ien under orders from Ch'in Emperor Shih Huang Ti (c. 220 BC)[6] and the stupas constructed in ancient Sri Lanka like the Jetavanaramaya and the extensive irrigation works in Anuradhapura. The Romans developed civil structures throughout their empire, including especially aqueducts, insulae, harbours, bridges, dams and roads.
The Archimedes screw was operated by hand and could raise water efficiently.
In the 18th century, the term civil engineering was coined to incorporate all things civilian as opposed to military engineering.[5] The first self-proclaimed civil engineer was John Smeaton who constructed the Eddystone Lighthouse.[4][6] In 1771 Smeaton and some of his colleagues formed the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers, a group of leaders of the profession who met informally over dinner. Though there was evidence of some technical meetings, it was little more than a social society.
In 1818 the Institution of Civil Engineers was founded in London, and in 1820 the eminent engineer Thomas Telford became its first president. The institution received a Royal Charter in 1828, formally recognising civil engineering as a profession. Its charter defined civil engineering as:
the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man, as the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks for internal intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbours, moles, breakwaters and lighthouses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of commerce, and in the construction and application of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns.[9]
The first private college to teach Civil Engineering in the United States was Norwich University founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge.[10] The first degree in Civil Engineering in the United States was awarded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1835.[11] The first such degree to be awarded to a woman was granted by Cornell University to Nora Stanton Blatch in 1905.[12]
Until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and architecture, and the term engineer and architect were mainly geographical variations referring to the same person, often used interchangeably.[7] The construction of Pyramids in Egypt (circa 2700-2500 BC) might be considered the first instances of large structure constructions. Other ancient historic civil engineering constructions include the Qanat water management system (the oldest older than 3000 years and longer than 71 km[8],) the Parthenon by Iktinos in Ancient Greece (447-438 BC), the Appian Way by Roman engineers (c. 312 BC), the Great Wall of China by General Meng T'ien under orders from Ch'in Emperor Shih Huang Ti (c. 220 BC)[6] and the stupas constructed in ancient Sri Lanka like the Jetavanaramaya and the extensive irrigation works in Anuradhapura. The Romans developed civil structures throughout their empire, including especially aqueducts, insulae, harbours, bridges, dams and roads.
The Archimedes screw was operated by hand and could raise water efficiently.
In the 18th century, the term civil engineering was coined to incorporate all things civilian as opposed to military engineering.[5] The first self-proclaimed civil engineer was John Smeaton who constructed the Eddystone Lighthouse.[4][6] In 1771 Smeaton and some of his colleagues formed the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers, a group of leaders of the profession who met informally over dinner. Though there was evidence of some technical meetings, it was little more than a social society.
In 1818 the Institution of Civil Engineers was founded in London, and in 1820 the eminent engineer Thomas Telford became its first president. The institution received a Royal Charter in 1828, formally recognising civil engineering as a profession. Its charter defined civil engineering as:
the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man, as the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks for internal intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbours, moles, breakwaters and lighthouses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of commerce, and in the construction and application of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns.[9]
The first private college to teach Civil Engineering in the United States was Norwich University founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge.[10] The first degree in Civil Engineering in the United States was awarded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1835.[11] The first such degree to be awarded to a woman was granted by Cornell University to Nora Stanton Blatch in 1905.[12]
ElectronicRobert
A robot is a mechanical intelligent agent which can perform tasks on its own, or with guidance. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine which is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous or semi-autonomous and come in those two basic types: those which are used for research into human-like systems, such as ASIMO and TOPIO, as well as those into more defined and specific roles, such as Nano robots and Swarm robots; and helper robots which are used to make or move things or perform menial or dangerous tasks, such as Industrial robots or mobile or servicing robots. Another common characteristic is that, by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.
When societies first began developing, nearly all production and effort was the result of human labour, as well as with the aid of semi- and fully domesticated animals. As mechanical means of performing functions were discovered, and mechanics and complex mechanisms were developed, the need for human labour was reduced. Machinery was initially used for repetitive functions, such as lifting water and grinding grain. With technological advances more complex machines were slowly developed, such as those invented by Hero of Alexandria (in Egypt) in the 1st century AD, and the first half of the second millennium AD, such as the Automata of Al-Jazari in the 12th century AD (in medieval Iraq). They were not widely adopted as human labour, particularly slave labour, was still inexpensive compared to the capital-intensive machines. Men such as Leonardo Da Vinci in 1495 through to Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739, as well as rediscovering the Greek engineering methods, have made plans for and built automata and robots leading to books of designs such as the Japanese Karakuri zui (Illustrated Machinery) in 1796. As mechanical techniques developed through the Industrial age we find more practical applications such as Nikola Tesla in 1898, who designed a radio-controlled torpedo, and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation creation of Televox in 1926. From here we also find a more android development as designers tried to mimic more human-like features including designs such as those of biologist Makoto Nishimura in 1929 and his creation Gakutensoku, which cried and changed its facial expressions, and the more crude Elektro from Westinghouse in 1938.
Electronics then became the driving force of development instead of mechanics, with the advent of the first electronic autonomous robots created by William Grey Walter in Bristol, England, in 1948. The first digital and programmable robot was invented by George Devol in 1954 and was ultimately called the Unimate. Devol sold the first Unimate to General Motors in 1960 where it was used to lift pieces of hot metal from die casting machines in a plant in Trenton, New Jersey. Since then we have seen robots finally reach a more true assimilation of all technologies to produce robots such as ASIMO which can walk and move like a human. Robots have replaced slaves in the assistance of performing those repetitive and dangerous tasks which humans prefer not to do, or are unable to do due to size limitations, or even those such as in outer space or at the bottom of the sea where humans could not survive the extreme environments.
Man has developed an awareness of the problems associated with autonomous robots and how they may act in society. Fear of robot behaviour, such as Shelley's Frankenstein and the EATR, drive current practice in establishing what autonomy a robot should and should not be capable of. Thinking has developed through discussion of robot control and artificial intelligence (AI) and how its application should benefit society, such as those based around Asimov's three laws. Practicality still drives development forwards and robots are used in an increasingly wide variety of tasks such as vacuuming floors, mowing lawns, cleaning drains, investigating other planets, building cars, in entertainment and in warfare.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Descovery of Electrons
J.J. Thomson became the third Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics in 1884. One of the phenomena he studied was the conduction of electricity through gases.
One subject which interested Thomson was cathode rays. These rays are emitted at the cathode, or negative terminal, in a discharge tube. In 1879 Crookes had proposed that the cathode rays were 'radiant matter', negatively charged particles that were repelled from the negatively charged cathode and attracted to the positively charged anode.
The nature of the cathode rays was controversial. Although Thomson thought the rays must be particles, many Europeans thought they were an 'etherial disturbance', like light. In Germany Hertz had observed the rays passing through thin sheets of gold. It seemed impossible that particles could pass through solid matter.
Hertz had also found (wrongly) that the rays were not deflected by electric fields. In 1897 Thomson repeated Hertz's experiment.J.J. Thomson had balanced the cathode rays between the electric and magnetic forces.
The force (F) on a charged object in an electric field depends on the strength of the electric field (E), multipled by the charge (q) on the object.
F = Eq
The force (F) on a charged object in a magnetic field depends on the strength of the magnetic field (B), multipled by both the charge (q) and velocity (v) of the object.
F = Bqv
Since the forces were balanced:
Eq = Bqv
v = E/B
The velocity was equal to the electric field strength divided by the magnetic field strength. Thomson could measure these field strengths and use them to calculate the velocity of the rays.
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