title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: The host was announced on 13 June 2018 at the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow, Russia. The United Bid from Canada, Mexico and the United States was selected over the Morocco bid by 134 votes to 65 with 1 selecting neither and 3 abstentions. This will be the first World Cup to be hosted by more than two countries. Mexico becomes the first country to host three men's World Cups and its Estadio Azteca, should selected, will become the first stadium to stage three World Cup tournaments. On the other hand, Canada becomes the fifth country to host both the men's and women's World Cups, after Sweden (Men's: 1958/Women's: 1995), United States (Men's: 1994/Women's: 1999, 2003), Germany (Men's: 1974, 2006/Women's: 2011), and France (Men's: 1938, 1998/Women's: 2019). The United States becomes the first country to host both men's and women's World Cup twice each.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: The bidding process for this World Cup has yet to start. Some early bids for the 2030 FIFA World Cup – the Centennial World Cup – have however been proposed. The first proposed bid has been a collective bid by the members of the Argentine Football Association and Uruguayan Football Association into a proposed joint bid from Uruguay and Argentina. The second bid has been a proposed bid by The Football Association of England. Under FIFA rules as of 2017 that prohibit the previous two confederations hosting the next world Cup, the 2030 World Cup cannot be held in Asia (AFC) because the Asian Football Confederation is excluded from the bidding following the selection of Qatar in 2022, nor in North America because the CONCACAF countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico will host the 2026 World Cup. Also in June 2017, UEFA's president Aleksander Čeferin stated that Europe (UEFA) will definitely fight for its right to host the 2030 World Cup.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: The Uruguay–Argentina proposed bid would not coincide with the centennial anniversary of the first FIFA World Cup final, and the bicentennial of the first Constitution of Uruguay, but if selected the tournament dates would coincide. The Uruguay-Argentina bid was officially confirmed on 29 July 2017. A joint bid was announced by the Argentine Football Association and the Uruguayan Football Association on 29 July 2017. Before Uruguay and Argentina played out a goalless draw in Montevideo, FC Barcelona players Luis Suárez and Lionel Messi promoted the bid with commemorative shirts. On 31 August 2017, it was suggested Paraguay would join as a third host. CONMEBOL, the South American confederation, confirmed the joint three-way bid in September 2017.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: English FA vice chairman David Gill has proposed that his country could bid for 2030, provided the bidding process is made more transparent. "England is one of few countries that could stage even a 48-nation event in its entirety, while Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn made it clear earlier this year bidding for 2030 was an option." In June 2017, UEFA stated that "it would support a pan-British bid for 2030 or even a single bid from England." On 15 July 2018, Deputy Leader of the UK Labour Party, Tom Watson, said in an interview that he and his party backed a 2030 World Cup bid for the UK saying that "I hope it's one of the first things a Labour government does, which is work with our FA to try and put a World Cup bid together." On 16 July 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her support of the bid and her openness about discussions with football authorities. Although there had been no prior discussion with the Football Association, the Scottish FA also expressed its interest about joining a Home Nations bid. Former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish has called the Scottish government and the Scottish Football Association to bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup with the other British nations.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: On 17 June 2018, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation announced its co-bidding for the 2030 World Cup. There is a possibility for a joint bid with Tunisia and Algeria.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: On 17 June 2018, the English Football Association announced that they are in talks with home nations over a UK-wide bid to host the 2030 World Cup. On 1 August 2018, it was reported that the FA was preparing a bid for England to host the World Cup in 2030. A decision is expected to be made in 2019, after the FA has conducted feasibility work on a potential bid. The Scottish Football Association considered the potential British bid as a great opportunity to get funds to renovate and redevelop Hampden Park in Glasgow, the Scotland national football team's home stadium. On 4 September 2018, it was announced that the Republic of Ireland was in talks exploring the possibility to join 2030 World Cup bid.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: Cameroonian presidential candidate Joshua Oish's political program includes nominating his country along with two sub-Saharan African countries to host the 2030 World Cup, according to Cameroonian channel CRTV.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: On 12 September 2018, Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez discussed the possibility for Spain to bid with FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Royal Spanish Football Federation President Luis Rubiales. On 8 June 2019, Spain and Portugal expressed interest in co-hosting the 2030 FIFA World Cup.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: On 2 November 2018, Prime Minister of Bulgaria Boyko Borisov stated that his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras had proposed a joint bid by Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Greece during the Balkan Four meeting in Varna. At the meeting of the Ministers of Youth and Sports of Serbia, Vanja Udovičić, Bulgaria's Krasen Kralev, Romania's Constantin Bogdan Matei and Deputy Minister of Culture and Sports of Greece, Giorgos Vasileiadis, it was officially confirmed that these four countries would submit a joint candidacy for the organization of the 2028 UEFA European Football Championship and the 2030 World Cup.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: On 15 January 2019 FIFA president Gianni Infantino supported the Morocco, Portugal and Spain bid to host the 2030 World Cup, dealing a blow for England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales' hope, though it was still "very early" to speak of it.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: Chile confirmed their bid to host with the group on 14 February 2019 as a joint communique from the confirmed nations joining Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: The bidding process for this World Cup has yet to start. Some early bids for the 2034 FIFA World Cup have however been proposed. The first bid for the 2034 FIFA World Cup has been proposed as a collective bid by the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: The idea of a combined ASEAN bid had been mooted as early as January 2011, when the former Football Association of Singapore President, Zainudin Nordin, said in a statement that the proposal had been made at an ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting, despite the fact that countries cannot bid directly - this is up to national associations. In 2013, Nordin and Special Olympics Malaysia President, Datuk Mohamed Feisol Hassan, recalled the idea for ASEAN to jointly host a World Cup.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: Under FIFA rules as of 2017, the 2030 World Cup cannot be held in Asia (AFC) as Asian Football Confederation members are excluded from the bidding following the selection of Qatar in 2022. Therefore, the earliest bid by an AFC member could be made for 2034.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: Later, Malaysia withdrew from involvement, but Singapore and other ASEAN countries continued the campaign to submit a joint bid for the World Cup in 2034. In February 2017, ASEAN held talks on launching a joint bid during a visit by FIFA President Gianni Infantino to Yangon, Myanmar. On 1 July 2017, Vice General Chairman of the Football Association of Indonesia Joko Driyono said that Indonesia and Thailand were set to lead a consortium of Southeast Asian nations in the bid. Driyono added that due to geographical and infrastructure considerations and the expanded format (48 teams), at least two or three ASEAN countries combined would be in a position necessary to host matches.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: In September 2017, the Thai League 1 Deputy CEO Benjamin Tan, at the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Council meeting, confirmed that his Association has "put in their interest to bid and co-host" the 2034 World Cup with Indonesia. On the same occasion, the General Secretary of the AFF, Dato Sri Azzuddin Ahmad, confirmed that Indonesia and Thailand will submit a joint bid. Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian country to have participated in the World Cup, when the territory was known as the Dutch East Indies.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: However, in June 2018, FIFA executive committee member and crown prince and regent of Pahang, Tengku Abdullah who is also the former President of the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) expressed interest in joining the three countries in hosting the World Cup together. The four countries have jointly hosted a football event before during the 2007 AFC Asian Cup: if the FAM agrees to rejoin the project, they would be the first to submit a four-country joint bid in the FIFA World Cup history.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: The second bid is from Egypt. Its Sports and Youth Minister Ashraf Sobhy said that Egypt has considered a bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup. Such a bid should be prepared by the national football association rather than the country.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: After its failed bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Australia has considered a joint bid with neighbouring New Zealand, an OFC member.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: World Cup-winning bids are bolded. Withdrawn bids are "italicized". Rejected bids, as well as planned but not-yet-official bids for 2030 and beyond, are not included.


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: Except in 1934, when Italy had to qualify for the main tournament, host nations have always been granted automatic spots in the World Cup (it is yet to be confirmed as to whether this will be the case in 2026).


title: FIFA World Cup hosts

text: It is widely considered that home advantage is a benefit in the World Cup, with the host team usually performing above average. In 13 of the 22 tournaments a host country has reached the last 4. Of the 8 teams that have won the tournament, all except Brazil and Spain have been champions while hosting, with England winning its only title as hosts. Further, Sweden got to its only final on home soil. Chile and South Korea had their only semi-final finishes at home, and Mexico (twice) and an independent Russia achieved their only finishes in the top eight while hosting. South Africa and Qatar are the only hosts to not go past the first round.


title: Railgun

text: A railgun or rail gun is a linear motor device, typically designed as a weapon, that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles. The projectile normally does not contain explosives, instead relying on the projectile's high speed, mass, and kinetic energy to inflict damage. The railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors (rails), along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature and then back along the other rail. It is based on principles similar to those of the homopolar motor.


title: Railgun

text: As of 2020, railguns have been researched as weapons utilizing electromagnetic forces to impart a very high kinetic energy to a projectile (e.g. APFSDS) rather than using conventional propellants. While explosive-powered military guns cannot readily achieve a muzzle velocity of more than ≈, railguns can readily exceed . For a similar projectile, the range of railguns may exceed that of conventional guns. The destructive force of a projectile depends upon its kinetic energy (the projectile's mass multiplied by its velocity squared, divided by 2) at the point of impact. Because of the potentially higher velocity of a railgun-launched projectile, its force may be much greater than conventionally launched projectiles of the same mass. The absence of explosive propellants or warheads to store and handle, as well as the low cost of projectiles compared to conventional weaponry, are also advantageous.


title: Railgun

text: Railguns are still very much at the research stage after decades of R&D, and it remains to be seen whether they will be deployed as practical military weapons in the foreseeable future. Any trade-off analysis between electromagnetic (EM) propulsion systems and chemical propellants for weapons applications must also factor in its durability, availability and economics, as well as the novelty, bulkiness, high energy demand and complexity of the pulsed power supplies that are needed for electromagnetic launcher systems.


title: Railgun

text: The railgun in its simplest form differs from a traditional electric motor in that no use is made of additional field windings (or permanent magnets). This basic configuration is formed by a single loop of current and thus requires high currents (e.g., of order one million amperes) to produce sufficient accelerations (and muzzle velocities). A relatively common variant of this configuration is the "augmented railgun" in which the driving current is channeled through additional pairs of parallel conductors, arranged to increase ('augment') the magnetic field experienced by the moving armature. These arrangements reduce the current required for a given acceleration. In electric motor terminology, augmented railguns are usually series-wound configurations. Some railguns also use strong neodymium magnets with the field perpendicular to the current flow to increase the force on the projectile.


title: Railgun

text: The armature may be an integral part of the projectile, but it may also be configured to accelerate a separate, electrically isolated or non-conducting projectile. Solid, metallic sliding conductors are often the preferred form of railgun armature but plasma or 'hybrid' armatures can also be used. A plasma armature is formed by an arc of ionised gas that is used to push a solid, non-conducting payload in a similar manner to the propellant gas pressure in a conventional gun. A hybrid armature uses a pair of plasma contacts to interface a metallic armature to the gun rails. Solid armatures may also 'transition' into hybrid armatures, typically after a particular velocity threshold is exceeded. The high current required to power a railgun can be provided by various power supply technologies, such as capacitors, pulse generators and disc generators.


title: Railgun

text: For potential military applications, railguns are usually of interest because they can achieve much greater muzzle velocities than guns powered by conventional chemical propellants. Increased muzzle velocities with better aerodynamically streamlined projectiles can convey the benefits of increased firing ranges while, in terms of target effects, increased terminal velocities can allow the use of kinetic energy rounds incorporating hit-to-kill guidance, as replacements for explosive shells. Therefore, typical military railgun designs aim for muzzle velocities in the range of with muzzle energies of 5–50 megajoules


title: Railgun

text: (MJ). For comparison, 50MJ is equivalent to the kinetic energy of a school bus weighing 5 metric tons, traveling at . For single loop railguns, these mission requirements require launch currents of a few million amperes, so a typical railgun power supply might be designed to deliver a launch current of 5 MA for a few milliseconds. As the magnetic field strengths required for such launches will typically be approximately 10 tesla (100 kilogauss), most contemporary railgun designs are effectively air-cored, i.e., they do not use ferromagnetic materials such as iron to enhance the magnetic flux. However, if the barrel is made of a magnetically permeable material, the magnetic field strength increases because the increase in permeability ("μ" = "μ"*"μ", where "μ" is the effective permeability, "μ" is the permeability constant and "μ" is the relative permeability of the barrel). This increases the force on the projectile.


title: Railgun

text: Railgun velocities generally fall within the range of those achievable by two-stage light-gas guns; however, the latter are generally only considered to be suitable for laboratory use, while railguns are judged to offer some potential prospects for development as military weapons. A light gas gun, the Combustion Light Gas Gun in a 155 mm prototype form was projected to achieve 2500 m/s with a 70 caliber barrel. In some hypervelocity research projects, projectiles are 'pre-injected' into railguns, to avoid the need for a standing start, and both two-stage light-gas guns and conventional powder guns have been used for this role. In principle, if railgun power supply technology can be developed to provide safe, compact, reliable, combat survivable, and lightweight units, then the total system volume and mass needed to accommodate such a power supply and its primary fuel can become less than the required total volume and mass for a mission equivalent quantity of conventional propellants and explosive ammunition. Arguably such technology has been matured with the introduction of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) (albeit that railguns require much higher system powers, because roughly similar energies must be delivered in a few milliseconds, as opposed to a few seconds). Such a development would then convey a further military advantage in that the elimination of explosives from any military weapons platform will decrease its vulnerability to enemy fire.


title: Railgun

text: The concept of the railgun was first introduced by French inventor André Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplée, who created a small working model in 1917 with the help of the "Société anonyme des accumulateurs Tudor" (now Tudor Batteries). During World War I, the French Director of Inventions at the Ministry of Armaments, Jules-Louis Brenton, commissioned Fauchon-Villeplee to develop a 30-mm to 50-mm electric cannon on 25 July 1918, after delegates from the Commission des Inventions witnessed test trials of the working model in 1917. However, the project was abandoned once World War I ended later that year on 11 November 1918. Fauchon-Villeplee filed for a US patent on 1 April 1919, which was issued in July 1922 as patent no. 1,421,435 "Electric Apparatus for Propelling Projectiles". In his device, two parallel busbars are connected by the wings of a projectile, and the whole apparatus surrounded by a magnetic field. By passing current through busbars and projectile, a force is induced which propels the projectile along the bus-bars and into flight.


title: Railgun

text: In 1923, Russian scientist A. L. Korol’kov detailed his criticisms of Fauchon-Villeplee's design, arguing against some of the claims that Fauchon-Villeplee made about the advantages of his invention. Korol’kov eventually concluded that while the construction of a long-range electric gun was within the realm of possibility, the practical application of Fauchon-Villeplee's railgun was hindered by its enormous electric energy consumption and its need for a special electric generator of considerable capacity to power it.


title: Railgun

text: In 1944, during World War II, Joachim Hänsler of Germany's Ordnance Office proposed the first theoretically viable railgun. By late 1944, the theory behind his electric anti-aircraft gun had been worked out sufficiently to allow the Luftwaffe's Flak Command to issue a specification, which demanded a muzzle velocity of and a projectile containing of explosive. The guns were to be mounted in batteries of six firing twelve rounds per minute, and it was to fit existing 12.8 cm FlaK 40 mounts. It was never built. When details were discovered after the war it aroused much interest and a more detailed study was done, culminating with a 1947 report which concluded that it was theoretically feasible, but that each gun would need enough power to illuminate half of Chicago.


title: Railgun

text: During 1950, Sir Mark Oliphant, an Australian physicist and first director of the Research School of Physical Sciences at the new Australian National University, initiated the design and construction of the world's largest (500 megajoule) homopolar generator. This machine was operational from 1962 and was later used to power a large-scale railgun that was used as a scientific experiment.


title: Railgun

text: In 1980, the Ballistic Research Laboratory (later consolidated to form the U.S. Army Research Laboratory) began a long-term program of theoretical and experimental research on railguns. The work was conducted predominantly at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and much of the early research drew inspiration from the railgun experiments performed by the Australian National University. Topics of research included plasma dynamics, electromagnetic fields, telemetry, and current and heat transport. While military research into railgun technology in the United States ensued continuously in the following decades, the direction and focus that it took shifted dramatically with major changes in funding levels and the needs of different government agencies. In 1984, the formation of the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization caused research goals to shift toward establishing a constellation of satellites to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles. As a result, the U.S. military focused on developing small guided projectiles that could withstand the high-G launch from ultra-high velocity plasma armature railguns. But after the publication of an important Defense Science Board study in 1985, the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and DARPA were assigned to develop anti-armor, electromagnetic launch technologies for mobile ground combat vehicles. In 1990, the U.S. Army collaborated with the University of Texas at Austin to establish the Institute for Advanced Technology (IAT), which focused on research involving solid and hybrid armatures, rail-armature interactions, and electromagnetic launcher materials. The facility became the Army's first Federally Funded Research and Development Center and housed a few of the Army's electromagnetic launchers, such as the Medium Caliber Launcher.


title: Railgun

text: Since 1993 the British and American governments have collaborated on a railgun project at the Dundrennan Weapons Testing Centre that culminated in the 2010 test where BAE Systems fired a 3.2 kg (7 pound) projectile at 18.4-megajoules []. In 1994, India's DRDO's Armament Research and Development Establishment developed a railgun with a 240 kJ, low inductance capacitor bank operating at 5 kV power able to launch projectiles of 3–3.5 g weight to a velocity of more than . In 1995, the Center for Electromagnetics at the University of Texas at Austin designed and developed a rapid-fire railgun launcher called the Cannon-Caliber Electromagnetic Gun. The launcher prototype was later tested at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, where it demonstrated a breech efficiency over 50 percent.


title: Railgun

text: In 2010, the United States Navy tested a BAE Systems-designed compact-sized railgun for ship emplacement that accelerated a 3.2 kg (7 pound) projectile to hypersonic velocities of approximately , or about , with 18.4MJ of kinetic energy. It was the first time in history that such levels of performance were reached. They gave the project the motto "Velocitas Eradico", Latin for "I, [who am] speed, eradicate"—or in the vernacular, "Speed Kills".


title: Railgun

text: An earlier railgun of the same design (32-megajoules) resides at the Dundrennan Weapons Testing Centre in the United Kingdom.


title: Railgun

text: Low power, small scale railguns have also made popular college and amateur projects. Several amateurs actively carry out research on railguns.


title: Railgun

text: A railgun consists of two parallel metal rails (hence the name). At one end, these rails are connected to an electrical power supply, to form the breech end of the gun. Then, if a conductive projectile is inserted between the rails (e.g. by insertion into the breech), it completes the circuit. Electrons flow from the negative terminal of the power supply up the negative rail, across the projectile, and down the positive rail, back to the power supply.


title: Railgun

text: This current makes the railgun behave as an electromagnet, creating a magnetic field inside the loop formed by the length of the rails up to the position of the armature. In accordance with the right-hand rule, the magnetic field circulates around each conductor. Since the current is in the opposite direction along each rail, the net magnetic field between the rails (B) is directed at right angles to the plane formed by the central axes of the rails and the armature. In combination to all with the current (I) in the armature, this produces a Lorentz force which accelerates the projectile along the rails, always out of the loop (regardless of supply polarity) and away from the power supply, toward the muzzle end of the rails. There are also Lorentz forces acting on the rails and attempting to push them apart, but since the rails are mounted firmly, they cannot move.


title: Railgun

text: By definition, if a current of one ampere flows in a pair of ideal infinitely long parallel conductors that are separated by a distance of one meter, then the magnitude of the force on each meter of those conductors will be exactly 0.2 micro-newtons. Furthermore, in general, the force will be proportional to the square of the magnitude of the current and inversely proportional to the distance between the conductors. It also follows that, for railguns with projectile masses of a few kg and barrel lengths of a few m, very large currents will be required to accelerate projectiles to velocities of the order of 1000 m/s.


title: Railgun

text: A very large power supply, providing on the order of one million amperes of current, will create a tremendous force on the projectile, accelerating it to a speed of many kilometers per second (km/s). Although these speeds are possible, the heat generated from the propulsion of the object is enough to erode the rails rapidly. Under high-use conditions, current railguns would require frequent replacement of the rails, or to use a heat-resistant material that would be conductive enough to produce the same effect. At this time it is generally acknowledged that it will take major breakthroughs in materials science and related disciplines to produce high-powered railguns capable of firing more than a few shots from a single set of rails. The barrel must withstand these conditions for up to several rounds per minute for thousands of shots without failure or significant degradation. These parameters are well beyond the state of the art in materials science.


title: Railgun

text: This section presents some elementary analysis of the fundamental theoretical electromagnetic principles that govern the mechanics of railguns.


title: Railgun

text: If a railgun were to provide a uniform magnetic field of strength formula_1, oriented at right angles to both the armature and the bore axis, then, with an armature current formula_2 and an armature length formula_3, the force formula_4 accelerating the projectile would be given by the formula:


title: Railgun

text: Here the force, current and field are all treated as vectors, so the above vector cross product gives a force directed along the bore axis, acting on the current in the armature, as a consequence of the magnetic field.


title: Railgun

text: In most simple railguns, the magnetic field formula_1 is only provided by the current flowing in the rails, i.e. behind the armature. It follows that the magnetic field will neither be constant nor spatially uniform. Hence, in practice, the force must be calculated after making due allowances for the spatial variation of the magnetic field over the volume of the armature.


title: Railgun

text: To illustrate the principles involved, it can be useful to consider the rails and the armature as thin wires or "filaments". With this approximation, the magnitude of the force vector can be determined from a form of the Biot–Savart law and a result of the Lorentz force. The force can be derived mathematically in terms of the permeability constant (formula_7), the radius of the rails (which are assumed to be circular in cross section) (formula_8), the distance between the central axes of the rails (formula_9) and the current (formula_2) as described below.


title: Railgun

text: First, it can be shown from the Biot–Savart law that at one end of a semi-infinite current-carrying wire, the magnetic field at a given perpendicular distance (formula_11) from the end of the wire is given by


title: Railgun

text: Note this is if the wire runs from the location of the armature e.g. from x = 0 back to formula_13 and formula_11 is measured relative to the axis of the wire.


title: Railgun

text: So, if the armature connects the ends of two such semi-infinite wires separated by a distance, formula_9, a fairly good approximation assuming the length of the wires is much larger than formula_9, the total field from both wires at any point on the armature is:


title: Railgun

text: where formula_11 is the perpendicular distance from the point on the armature to the axis of one of the wires.


title: Railgun

text: Note that formula_19 between the rails is formula_20 assuming the rails are lying in the xy plane and run from x = 0 back to formula_21 as suggested above.


title: Railgun

text: Next, to evaluate the force on the armature, the above expression for the magnetic field on the armature can be used in conjunction with the Lorentz Force Law,


title: Railgun

text: This shows that the force will be proportional to the product of formula_7 and the square of the current, formula_2. Because the value of "μ" is small () it follows that powerful railguns need large driving currents.


title: Railgun

text: The above formula is based on the assumption that the distance (formula_26) between the point where the force (formula_4) is measured and the beginning of the rails is greater than the separation of the rails (formula_9) by a factor of about 3 or 4 (formula_29). Some other simplifying assumptions have also been made; to describe the force more accurately, the geometry of the rails and the projectile must be considered.


title: Railgun

text: With most practical railgun geometries, it is not easy to produce an electromagnetic expression for the railgun force that is both simple and reasonably accurate. For a more workable simple model, a useful alternative is to use a lumped circuit model, to describe the relationship between the driving current and the railgun force.


title: Railgun

text: In these models the railgun is modeled on an electrical circuit and the driving force can be determined from the energy flow in the circuit. The voltage across the railgun breech is given by


title: Railgun

text: So the total power flowing into the railgun is then simply the product formula_31. This power represents an energy flow into three main forms: kinetic energy in the projectile and armature, energy stored in the magnetic field, formula_1 and energy lost via electrical resistance heating of the rails (and armature).


title: Railgun

text: As the projectile travels along the barrel, the distance from the breech to the armature increases. Hence the resistance and inductance of the barrel also increase. For a simple model, the barrel resistance and inductance can be assumed to vary as linear functions of the projectile position, formula_33, so these quantities are modeled as


title: Railgun

text: where formula_35 is the resistance per unit length and formula_36 is the inductance per unit length, or the inductance gradient. It follows that


title: Railgun

text: Now, if the driving current is held constant, the formula_41 term will be zero. Resistive losses now correspond to a power flow formula_42, while the power flow formula_43 represents the electromagnetic work done.


title: Railgun

text: This simple model predicts that exactly half of the electromagnetic work will be used to store energy in the magnetic field along the barrel, formula_44, as the length of the current loop increases.


title: Railgun

text: The other half of the electromagnetic work represents the more useful power flow - into the kinetic energy of the projectile. Since power can be expressed as force times speed, this shows the force on the railgun armature is given by


title: Railgun

text: This equation also shows that high accelerations will require very high currents. For an ideal square bore single-turn railgun, the value of formula_36 would be about 0.6 microHenries per meter (μH/m) but most practical railgun barrels exhibit lower values of formula_36 than this. Maximizing the inductance gradient is but one of the challenges faced by the designers of railgun barrels.


title: Railgun

text: Since the lumped circuit model describes the railgun force in terms of fairly normal circuit equations, it becomes possible to specify a simple time domain model of a railgun. Ignoring friction and air drag, the projectile acceleration is given by


title: Railgun

text: and the above voltage and current terms can be placed into appropriate circuit equations to determine the time variation of current and voltage.


title: Railgun

text: It can also be noted that the textbook formula for the high frequency inductance per unit length of a pair of parallel round wires, of radius r and axial separation d is:


title: Railgun

text: With practical railgun geometries, much more accurate two or three dimensional models of the rail and armature current distributions (and the associated forces) can be computed, e.g., by using finite element methods to solve formulations based on either the scalar magnetic potential or the magnetic vector potential.


title: Railgun

text: The power supply must be able to deliver large currents, sustained and controlled over a useful amount of time. The most important gauge of power supply effectiveness is the energy it can deliver. As of December 2010, the greatest known energy used to propel a projectile from a railgun was 33 megajoules. The most common forms of power supplies used in railguns are capacitors and compulsators which are slowly charged from other continuous energy sources.


title: Railgun

text: The rails need to withstand enormous repulsive forces during shooting, and these forces will tend to push them apart and away from the projectile. As rail/projectile clearances increase, arcing develops, which causes rapid vaporization and extensive damage to the rail surfaces and the insulator surfaces. This limited some early research railguns to one shot per service interval.


title: Railgun

text: The inductance and resistance of the rails and power supply limit the efficiency of a railgun design. Currently different rail shapes and railgun configurations are being tested, most notably by the U.S. Navy (Naval Research Laboratory), the Institute for Advanced Technology at the University of Texas at Austin, and BAE Systems.


title: Railgun

text: The rails and projectiles must be built from strong conductive materials; the rails need to survive the violence of an accelerating projectile, and heating because of the large currents and friction involved. Some erroneous work has suggested that the recoil force in railguns can be redirected or eliminated; careful theoretical and experimental analysis reveals that the recoil force acts on the breech closure just as in a chemical firearm. The rails also repel themselves via a sideways force caused by the rails being pushed by the magnetic field, just as the projectile is. The rails need to survive this without bending and must be very securely mounted. Currently published material suggests that major advances in material science must be made before rails can be developed that allow railguns to fire more than a few full-power shots before replacement of the rails is required.


title: Railgun

text: In current designs massive amounts of heat are created by the electricity flowing through the rails, as well as by the friction of the projectile leaving the device. This causes three main problems: melting of equipment, decreased safety of personnel, and detection by enemy forces owing to increased infrared signature.


title: Railgun

text: As briefly discussed above, the stresses involved in firing this sort of device require an extremely heat-resistant material. Otherwise the rails, barrel, and all equipment attached would melt or be irreparably damaged.


title: Railgun

text: In practice, the rails used with most railgun designs are subject to erosion from each launch. Additionally, projectiles can be subject to some degree of ablation, and this can limit railgun life, in some cases severely.


title: Railgun

text: Railguns have a number of potential practical applications, primarily for the military. However, there are other theoretical applications currently being researched.


title: Railgun

text: Electrodynamic assistance to launch rockets has been studied. Space applications of this technology would likely involve specially formed electromagnetic coils and superconducting magnets. Composite materials would likely be used for this application.


title: Railgun

text: For space launches from Earth, relatively short acceleration distances (less than a few km) would require very strong acceleration forces, higher than humans can tolerate. Other designs include a longer helical (spiral) track, or a large ring design whereby a space vehicle would circle the ring numerous times, gradually gaining speed, before being released into a launch corridor leading skyward. Nevertheless, if technically feasible and cost effective to build, imparting hyper-velocity escape velocity to a projectile launching at sea level, where the atmosphere is the most dense, may result in much of the launch velocity being lost to aerodynamic drag. In addition, the projectile might still require some form of on-board guidance and control to realize a useful orbital insertion angle that may not be achievable based simply on the launcher's upward elevation angle relative to the surface of the earth, (see practical considerations of escape velocity).


title: Railgun

text: In 2003, Ian McNab outlined a plan to turn this idea into a realized technology. Because of strong acceleration, this system would launch only sturdy materials, such as food, water, and—most importantly—fuel. Under ideal circumstances (equator, mountain, heading east) the system would cost $528/kg, compared with $5,000/kg on the conventional rocket. The McNab railgun could make approximately 2000 launches per year, for a total of maximum 500 tons launched per year. Because the launch track would be 1.6 km long, power will be supplied by a distributed network of 100 rotating machines (compulsator) spread along the track. Each machine would have a 3.3-ton carbon fibre rotor spinning at high speeds. A machine can recharge in a matter of hours using 10 MW power. This machine could be supplied by a dedicated generator. The total launch package would weigh almost 1.4 tons. Payload per launch in these conditions is over 400 kg. There would be a peak operating magnetic field of 5 T—half of this coming from the rails, and the other half from augmenting magnets. This halves the required current through the rails, which reduces the power fourfold.


title: Railgun

text: NASA has proposed to use a railgun to launch "wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets" to high altitude at Mach 10, where it would then launch a small payload into orbit using conventional rocket propulsion. The extreme g-forces involved with direct railgun ground-launch to space may restrict the usage to only the sturdiest of payloads. Alternatively, very long rail systems may be used to reduce the required launch acceleration.


title: Railgun

text: Railguns are being researched as weapons with projectiles that do not contain explosives or propellants, but are given extremely high velocities: (approximately Mach 7 at sea level) or more. For comparison, the M16 rifle has a muzzle speed of , and the 16-inch/50-caliber Mark 7 gun that armed World War II American battleships has a muzzle speed of , which because of its much greater projectile mass (up to 2,700 pounds) generated a muzzle energy of 360 MJ and a downrange kinetic impact of energy of over 160 MJ (see also Project HARP). By firing smaller projectiles at extremely high velocities, railguns may yield kinetic energy impacts equal or superior to the destructive energy of 5"/54 caliber Mark 45 Naval guns, (which achieve up to 10MJ at the muzzle), but with greater range. This decreases ammunition size and weight, allowing more ammunition to be carried and eliminating the hazards of carrying explosives or propellants in a tank or naval weapons platform. Also, by firing more aerodynamically streamlined projectiles at greater velocities, railguns may achieve greater range, less time to target, and at shorter ranges less wind drift, bypassing the physical limitations of conventional firearms: "the limits of gas expansion prohibit launching an unassisted projectile to velocities greater than about 1.5 km/s and ranges of more than from a practical conventional gun system."


title: Railgun

text: Current railgun technologies necessitate a long and heavy barrel, but a railgun's ballistics far outperform conventional cannons of equal barrel lengths. Railguns can also deliver area of effect damage by detonating a bursting charge in the projectile which unleashes a swarm of smaller projectiles over a large area.


title: Railgun

text: Assuming that the many technical challenges facing fieldable railguns are overcome, including issues like railgun projectile guidance, rail endurance, and combat survivability and reliability of the electrical power supply, the increased launch velocities of railguns may provide advantages over more conventional guns for a variety of offensive and defensive scenarios. Railguns have limited potential to be used against both surface and airborne targets.


title: Railgun

text: The first weaponized railgun planned for production, the General Atomics Blitzer system, began full system testing in September 2010. The weapon launches a streamlined discarding sabot round designed by Boeing's Phantom Works at (approximately Mach 5) with accelerations exceeding 60,000 g. During one of the tests, the projectile was able to travel an additional downrange after penetrating a thick steel plate. The company hopes to have an integrated demo of the system by 2016 followed by production by 2019, pending funding. Thus far, the project is self-funded.


title: Railgun

text: In October 2013, General Atomics unveiled a land based version of the Blitzer railgun. A company official claimed the gun could be ready for production in "two to three years".


title: Railgun

text: Railguns are being examined for use as anti-aircraft weapons to intercept air threats, particularly anti-ship cruise missiles, in addition to land bombardment. A supersonic sea-skimming anti-ship missile can appear over the horizon 20 miles from a warship, leaving a very short reaction time for a ship to intercept it. Even if conventional defense systems react fast enough, they are expensive and only a limited number of large interceptors can be carried. A railgun projectile can reach several times the speed of sound faster than a missile; because of this, it can hit a target, such as a cruise missile, much faster and farther away from the ship. Projectiles are also typically much cheaper and smaller, allowing for many more to be carried (they have no guidance systems, and rely on the railgun to supply their kinetic energy, rather than providing it themselves). The speed, cost, and numerical advantages of railgun systems may allow them to replace several different systems in the current layered defense approach. A railgun projectile without the ability to change course can hit fast-moving missiles at a maximum range of . As is the case with the Phalanx CIWS, unguided railgun rounds will require multiple/many shots to bring down maneuvering supersonic anti-ship missiles, with the odds of hitting the missile improving dramatically the closer it gets. The Navy plans for railguns to be able to intercept endoatmospheric ballistic missiles, stealthy air threats, supersonic missiles, and swarming surface threats; a prototype system for supporting interception tasks is to be ready by 2018, and operational by 2025. This timeframe suggests the weapons are planned to be installed on the Navy's next-generation surface combatants, expected to start construction by 2028.


title: Railgun

text: India has successfully tested their own railgun. Russia, China, Turkey's ASELSAN and Yeteknoloji are also developing railguns.


title: Railgun

text: Helical railguns are multi-turn railguns that reduce rail and brush current by a factor equal to the number of turns. Two rails are surrounded by a helical barrel and the projectile or re-usable carrier is also helical. The projectile is energized continuously by two brushes sliding along the rails, and two or more additional brushes on the projectile serve to energize and commute several windings of the helical barrel direction in front of and/or behind the projectile. The helical railgun is a cross between a railgun and a coilgun. They do not currently exist in a practical, usable form.


title: Railgun

text: A helical railgun was built at MIT in 1980 and was powered by several banks of, for the time, large capacitors (approximately 4 farads). It was about 3 meters long, consisting of 2 meters of accelerating coil and 1 meter of decelerating coil. It was able to launch a glider or projectile about 500 meters.


title: Railgun

text: A plasma railgun is a linear accelerator and a plasma energy weapon which, like a projectile railgun, uses two long parallel electrodes to accelerate a "sliding short" armature. However, in a plasma railgun, the armature and ejected projectile consists of plasma, or hot, ionized, gas-like particles, instead of a solid slug of material. MARAUDER ("Magnetically Accelerated Ring to Achieve Ultra-high Directed Energy and Radiation") is, or was, a United States Air Force Research Laboratory project concerning the development of a coaxial plasma railgun. It is one of several United States Government efforts to develop plasma-based projectiles. The first computer simulations occurred in 1990, and its first published experiment appeared on 1 August 1993. As of 1993 the project appeared to be in the early experimental stages. The weapon was able to produce doughnut-shaped rings of plasma and balls of lightning that exploded with devastating effects when hitting their target. The project's initial success led to it becoming classified, and only a few references to MARAUDER appeared after 1993.


title: Railgun

text: Full-scale models have been built and fired, including a bore, 9 megajoule kinetic energy gun developed by the US DARPA. Rail and insulator wear problems still need to be solved before railguns can start to replace conventional weapons. Probably the oldest consistently successful system was built by the UK's Defence Research Agency at Dundrennan Range in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. This system was established in 1993 and has been operated for over 10 years.


title: Railgun

text: The Yugoslavian Military Technology Institute developed, within a project named EDO-0, a railgun with 7 kJ kinetic energy, in 1985. In 1987 a successor was created, project EDO-1, that used projectile with a mass of and achieved speeds of , and with a mass of reached speeds of . It used a track length of . According to those working on it, with other modifications it was able to achieve a speed of . The aim was to achieve projectile speed of .


title: Railgun

text: China is now one of the major players in electromagnetic launchers; in 2012 it hosted the 16th International Symposium on Electromagnetic Launch Technology (EML 2012) at Beijing. Satellite imagery in late 2010 suggested that tests were being conducted at an armor and artillery range near Baotou, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.


title: Railgun

text: The United States military have expressed interest in pursuing research in electric gun technology throughout the late 20th century, since electromagnetic guns don't require propellants to fire a shot as conventional gun systems do, significantly increasing crew safety and reducing logistics costs, as well as provide a greater range. In addition, railgun systems have shown to potentially provide higher velocity of projectiles, which would increase accuracy for anti-tank, artillery, and air defense by decreasing the time it takes for the projectile to reach its target destination. During the early 1990s, the U.S. Army dedicated more than $150 million into electric gun research. At the University of Texas at Austin Center for Electromechanics, military railguns capable of delivering tungsten armor-piercing bullets with kinetic energies of nine megajoules (9 MJ) have been developed. Nine megajoules is enough energy to deliver of projectile at —at that velocity, a sufficiently long rod of tungsten or another dense metal could easily penetrate a tank, and potentially pass through it, (see APFSDS).


title: Railgun

text: The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division demonstrated an 8 MJ railgun firing projectiles in October 2006 as a prototype of a 64 MJ weapon to be deployed aboard Navy warships. The main problem the U.S. Navy has had with implementing a railgun cannon system is that the guns wear out because of the immense pressures, stresses and heat that are generated by the millions of amperes of current necessary to fire projectiles with megajoules of energy. While not nearly as powerful as a cruise missile like a BGM-109 Tomahawk, that will deliver 3,000 MJ of energy to a target, such weapons would, in theory, allow the Navy to deliver more granular firepower at a fraction of the cost of a missile, and will be much harder to shoot down versus future defensive systems. For context, another relevant comparison is the Rheinmetall 120mm gun used on main battle tanks, which generates 9 MJ of muzzle energy.


title: Railgun

text: In 2007 BAE Systems delivered a 32 MJ prototype (muzzle energy) to the U.S. Navy. The same amount of energy is released by the detonation of of C4.


title: Railgun

text: On 31 January 2008, the U.S. Navy tested a railgun that fired a projectile at 10.64 MJ with a muzzle velocity of . The power was provided by a new 9-megajoule prototype capacitor bank using solid-state switches and high-energy-density capacitors delivered in 2007 and an older 32-MJ pulse power system from the US Army's Green Farm Electric Gun Research and Development Facility developed in the late 1980s that was previously refurbished by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (EMS) Division. It is expected to be ready between 2020 and 2025.


title: Railgun

text: A test of a railgun took place on 10 December 2010, by the U.S. Navy at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. During the test, the Office of Naval Research set a world record by conducting a 33 MJ shot from the railgun, which was built by BAE Systems.


title: Railgun

text: Another test took place in February 2012, at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. While similar in energy to the aforementioned test, the railgun used was considerably more compact, with a more conventional looking barrel. A General Atomics-built prototype was delivered for testing in October 2012.


title: Railgun

text: In 2014 the U.S. Navy had plans to integrate a railgun that has a range of over onto a ship by 2016. This weapon, while having a form factor more typical of a naval gun, was to utilize components largely in common with those developed and demonstrated at Dahlgren. The hyper-velocity rounds weigh , are , and are fired at Mach 7.


title: Railgun

text: A future goal was to develop projectiles that were self-guided – a necessary requirement to hit distant targets or intercept missiles. When the guided rounds are developed, the Navy is projecting each round to cost about $25,000, though developing guided projectiles for guns has a history of doubling or tripling initial cost estimates. Some high velocity projectiles developed by the Navy have command guidance, but the accuracy of the command guidance is not known, nor even if it can survive a full power shot.


title: Railgun

text: The only U.S. Navy ships that can produce enough electrical power to get the desired performance are the three s (DDG-1000 series); they can generate 78 megawatts of power, more than is necessary to power a railgun. However, the Zumwalt has been canceled and no further units will be built. Engineers are working to derive technologies developed for the DDG-1000 series ships into a battery system so other warships can operate a railgun. As of 2014 most destroyers can spare only nine megawatts of additional electricity, while it would require 25 megawatts to propel a projectile to the desired maximum range (i.e., to launch 32MJ projectiles at a rate of 10 shots per minute). Even if ships, such as the, can be upgraded with enough electrical power to operate a railgun, the space taken up on the ships by the integration of an additional weapon system may force the removal of existing weapon systems to make room available. The first shipboard tests was to be from a railgun installed on an (EPF), but this was later changed to land based testing.


title: Railgun

text: Though the 23 lb projectiles have no explosives, their Mach 7 velocity gives them 32 megajoules of energy, but impact kinetic energy downrange will typically be 50 percent or less of the muzzle energy. The Navy looked into other uses for railguns, besides land bombardment, such as air defense; with the right targeting systems, projectiles could intercept aircraft, cruise missiles, and even ballistic missiles. The Navy is also developing directed-energy weapons for air defense use, but it will be years or decades before they will be effective.


title: Railgun

text: The railgun would be part of a Navy fleet that envisions future offensive and defensive capabilities being provided in layers: lasers to provide close range defense, railguns to provide medium range attack and defense, and cruise missiles to provide long-range attack; though railguns will cover targets up to 100 miles away that previously needed a missile. The Navy may eventually enhance railgun technology to enable it to fire at a range of and impact with 64 megajoules of energy. One shot would require 6 million amps of current, so it will take a long time to develop capacitors that can generate enough energy and strong enough gun materials.


title: Railgun

text: The most promising near-term application for weapons-rated railguns and electromagnetic guns, in general, is probably aboard naval ships with sufficient spare electrical generating capacity and battery storage space. In exchange, ship survivability may be enhanced through a comparable reduction in the quantities of potentially dangerous chemical propellants and explosives employed. Ground combat forces, however, may find that co-locating an additional electrical power supply on the battlefield for every gun system may not be as weight and space efficient, survivable, or convenient a source of immediate projectile-launching energy as conventional propellants, which are manufactured safely behind the lines and delivered to the weapon, pre-packaged, through a robust and dispersed logistics system.


title: Railgun

text: In July, 2017, Defensetech reported that the Navy wished to push the Office of Naval Research's prototype railgun from a science experiment into useful weapon territory. The goal, according to Tom Beutner, head of Naval Air Warfare and Weapons for the ONR, was ten shots per minute at 32 megajoules. A 32 megajoule railgun shot is equivalent to about 23,600,000 foot-pounds, so a single 32 MJ shot has the same muzzle energy as about 200,000 .22 rounds being fired simultaneously. In more conventional power units, a 32 MJ shot every 6 s is a net power of 5.3 MW (or 5300 kW). If the railgun is assumed to be 20% efficient at turning electrical energy into kinetic energy, the ship's electrical supplies will need to provide about 25 MW for as long as firing continues.


title: Railgun

text: As of 2020 the Navy had spent $500m on rail gun development over 17 years. The Navy was focusing on firing hypersonic projectiles from existing conventional guns already available in numbers. On 1 June 2021 "The Drive" reported that the US navy's proposed 2022 fiscal year budget had no funding for railgun research and development. Technical challenges could not be overcome, such as the massive forces of firing wearing out the barrel after only one or two dozen shots, and a rate of fire too low to be useful for missile defense. Priorities had also changed since railgun development started, with the Navy putting more focus on longer range hypersonic missiles compared to comparatively shorter range railgun projectiles.


title: Railgun

text: Research on railgun technology served as a major area of focus at the Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) throughout the 1980s. In addition to analyzing the performance and electrodynamic and thermodynamic properties of railguns at other institutions (like Maxwell Laboratories' CHECMATE railgun), BRL procured their own railguns for study such as their one-meter railgun and their four-meter rail gun. In 1984, BRL researchers devised a technique to analyze the residue left behind on the bore surface after a shot was fired in order to investigate the cause of the bore's progressive degradation. In 1991, they determined the properties required for developing an effective launch package as well as the design criteria necessary for a railgun to incorporate finned, long rod projectiles.


title: Railgun

text: Research into railguns continued after the Ballistic Research Laboratory was consolidated with six other independent Army laboratories to form the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in 1992. One of the major projects in railgun research that ARL was involved in was the Cannon-Caliber Electromagnetic Gun (CCEMG) program, which took place at the Center for Electromechanics at the University of Texas (UT-CEM) and was sponsored by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center. As part of the CCEMG program, UT-CEM designed and developed the Cannon-Caliber Electromagnetic Launcher, a rapid-fire railgun launcher, in 1995. Featuring a 30-mm roundbore, the launcher was capable of firing three, five-round salvos of 185-g launch packages at a muzzle velocity of 1850 m/s and a firing rate of 5 Hz. Rapid-fire operation was achieved by driving the launcher with multiple 83544 peak pulses provided by the CCEMG compulsator. The CCEMG railgun included several features: ceramic sidewalls, directional preloading, and liquid cooling. ARL was responsible for assessing the performance of the launcher, which was tested at the ARL Transonic Experimental Facility in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.


title: Railgun

text: The U.S. Army Research Laboratory also monitored electromagnetic and electrothermal gun technology development at the Institute for Advanced Technology (IAT) at the University of Texas at Austin, one of five university and industry laboratories that ARL federated to procure technical support. It housed the two electromagnetic launchers, the Leander OAT and the AugOAT, as well as the Medium Caliber Launcher. The facility also provided a power system that included thirteen 1- MJ capacitor banks, an assortment of electromagnetic launcher devices and diagnostic apparatuses. The focus of the research activity was on designs, interactions and materials required for electromagnetic launchers.


title: Railgun

text: In 1999, a collaboration between ARL and IAT led to the development of a radiometric method of measuring the temperature distribution of railgun armatures during a pulsed electrical discharge without disturbing the magnetic field. In 2001, ARL became the first to obtain a set of accuracy data on electromagnetic gun-launched projectiles using jump tests. In 2004, ARL researchers published papers examining the interaction of high temperature plasmas for the purpose of developing efficient railgun igniters. Early papers describe the plasma-propellant interaction group at ARL and their attempts to understand and distinguish between the chemical, thermal, and radiation effect of plasmas on conventional solid propellants. Using scanning electron microscopy and other diagnostic techniques, they evaluated in detail the influence of plasmas on specific propellant materials.


title: Railgun

text: China is developing its own railgun system. According to a CNBC report from U.S. intelligence, China's railgun system was first revealed in 2011, and ground testing began in 2014. In 2015 when the weapon system gained the ability to strike over extended ranges with increased lethality. The weapon system was successfully mounted on a Chinese Navy ship in December 2017, with sea trials happening later.


title: Railgun

text: In early February 2018, pictures of what is claimed to be a Chinese railgun were published online. In the pictures the gun is mounted on the bow of a Type 072III-class landing ship "Haiyangshan". Media suggests that the system is or soon will be ready for testing. In March 2018, it was reported that China confirmed it had begun testing its electromagnetic rail gun at sea.


title: Railgun

text: In November 2017, India's Defence Research and Development Organisation carried out a successful test of a 12 mm square bore electromagnetic railgun. Tests of a 30 mm version are planned to be conducted. India aims to fire a one kilogram projectile at a velocity of more than 2,000 meters per second using a capacitor bank of 10 megajoules. Electromagnetic guns and directed energy weapons are among the systems which Indian Navy aims to acquire in its modernisation plan up to 2030.


title: Railgun

text: On 22 June 2015, General Atomics' Electromagnetic Systems announced that projectiles with on-board electronics survived the whole railgun launch environment and performed their intended functions in four consecutive tests on 9 and 10 June June at the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The on-board electronics successfully measured in-bore accelerations and projectile dynamics, for several kilometers downrange, with the integral data link continuing to operate after the projectiles impacted the desert floor, which is essential for precision guidance.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Rivers Cuomo ( ; born June 13, 1970) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and songwriter of the rock band Weezer.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo was raised in a number of Buddhist communities in the Northeast U.S. until the age of 10, when his family settled in Central Connecticut. He attended a number of public schools before moving to Los Angeles at age 18. Cuomo played in several bands in Connecticut and California before forming Weezer in 1992. Following the success of Weezer's self-titled debut album and the following tour, Cuomo spent time away from music. Convalescing after leg surgery, he enrolled at Harvard University, but dropped out to record Weezer's second album, "Pinkerton" (1996); he would later graduate from Harvard in 2006. Though "Pinkerton" was initially a commercial and critical failure and forced Cuomo to write more pop-based material, it is now frequently cited among the best albums of the 1990s and has been certified platinum.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo has released several compilations of demos, including "" (2007), "" (2008) and "" (2011). He has collaborated with artists including B.o.B and Todd Rundgren; with Scott Murphy, he has released two Japanese-language albums under the name Scott & Rivers.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Rivers Cuomo was born on June 13, 1970, in New York City to a Frank Cuomo, of Italian descent, and Beverly Shoenberger, of German-English descent. Accounts differ as to the origin of his name. According to one account, Cuomo's mother named him Rivers either because he was born between the East and Hudson rivers in Manhattan or because she could hear a river outside her hospital window. However, his father, Frank Cuomo, a musician who played drums on the 1971 album "Odyssey of Iska" by jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, says Cuomo was named after three prominent soccer players: Rivellino, Luigi Riva, and Gianni Rivera, all of whom were playing in the 1970 World Cup.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Rivers was raised in Rochester, New York, at the Rochester Zen Center, until his father left the family in 1975. His mother relocated the family to Yogaville, an ashram in Pomfret, Connecticut. Cuomo attended the Pomfret Community School, and his mother married Stephen Kitts. In 1980, Yogaville relocated to Virginia. The Kitts family opted to stay in Connecticut and moved to the Storrs/Mansfield area. During this time, Cuomo attended Mansfield Middle School and E.O. Smith High School. Rivers was a member of the high school choir and he performed in a school production of "Grease" as Johnny Casino. He also changed his name to Peter Kitts; after graduating, Cuomo reverted to his original name.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: One of Cuomo's earliest music projects was the glam metal band Avant Garde. In 1989, after playing several shows in Connecticut, Avant Garde moved to Los Angeles and changed their name to Zoom, but broke up in 1990. During this time, Cuomo attended Santa Monica College. In 1990 and 1991, while Cuomo was writing material for what became Weezer's debut album, he was a roadie for the band King Size and worked at Tower Records, where he listened to "basically everything that was released at that time ... I was exposed to a ton of music I otherwise never would have heard."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo formed Weezer in 1992 with drummer Patrick Wilson, bassist Matt Sharp and guitarist Jason Cropper. "Weezer" was the nickname given to Cuomo by his father when he was a toddler. Weezer signed with DGC, a subsidiary of Geffen Records, on June 25, 1993, and released their self-titled debut album, commonly known as the "Blue Album", in May 1994. Cropper was asked to leave the band by Cuomo during the album's recording, and was replaced by Brian Bell. The album was certified platinum on January 1, 1995, with sales of over one million. Despite his success, Cuomo tired of the monotony and loneliness of touring and developed a "huge inferiority complex" about rock music, saying: "I thought my songs were really simplistic and silly, and I wanted to write complex, intense, beautiful music."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In March 1995, Cuomo had extensive surgery to extend his left leg, which was 44mm shorter than the right. This involved the surgical breaking of the leg bone, followed by months of wearing a steel brace and painful physiotherapy sessions. The procedure affected his songwriting, as he would spend long periods hospitalized under the influence of painkillers.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In the fall of 1995, Cuomo enrolled in Harvard University to study classical composition. He told "The New York Times": "The only time I could write songs was when my frozen dinner was in the microwave. The rest of the time I was doing homework." He auditioned for the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum chorus, but was not selected. He became introverted and grew a beard, and wrote in his diaries how students wearing Weezer T-shirts did not recognize him.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo had planned Weezer's second album to be a rock opera, "Songs from the Black Hole", but he abandoned the project as his songwriting became "darker, more visceral and exposed, less playful". Realizing he did not enjoy contemporary classical music, and missing Weezer, Cuomo dropped out of Harvard two semesters before graduation. He expressed the isolation and sexual frustration he had felt at Harvard in Weezer's second album, "Pinkerton", released in September 1996. With a darker, more abrasive sound than Weezer's debut, "Pinkerton" was a commercial and critical failure, but attained critical acclaim later.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Following "Pinkerton", Weezer went on a three-year hiatus. Cuomo enrolled at Harvard twice more and completed semesters in 1997 and 2004. During the 1997 semester, he played with a new band, Homie, in Boston. In February 1998, Cuomo disbanded Homie and moved to Los Angeles to work on new Weezer demos with Bell and Wilson, but the sessions were unproductive. In 1998 and 1999, he lived in an apartment under a freeway in Culver City, California. In an essay for Harvard, he wrote: "I became more and more isolated. I unplugged my phone. I painted the walls and ceiling of my bedroom black and covered the windows with fiberglass insulation."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Disappointed by "Pinkerton"'s reception, Cuomo intended to return to simpler songwriting with less personal lyrics. He stated that Weezer's subsequent albums, the "Green Album" (2001) and "Maladroit" (2002), were "very intentionally not about me. Not about what was going on in my life, at least in a conscious way." He also developed a greater appreciation for pop music, feeling that its multiple disciplines — including lyrics, improvisation, and image — produce a multifaceted art "that moves people and is important, and relevant to our culture in a way that serious classical music isn't right now". In June 2006, he graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Harvard and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: On December 6, 2009, Cuomo was in his tour bus driving to Boston from Toronto with his family and assistant when the bus hit an icy road in Glen, New York and crashed. He suffered cracked ribs and internal bleeding. Weezer canceled the rest of the 2009 tour dates, planning to reschedule them the following year. They made their return to the stage on January 20, 2010, performing at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: During Weezer's hiatus after the release of "Pinkerton", Cuomo formed Homie, and performed what he called "goofball songs" for his "country band". An album was planned, but only one studio recording, a song titled "American Girls", was released. Cuomo has contributed to recordings by various other musicians (Crazy Town, Cold, Mark Ronson). Cuomo managed the band AM Radio in 2002 and 2003; he and the band's frontman, Kevin Ridel, went to school together.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In early 2004, Cuomo joined ex-Weezer bassist Matt Sharp onstage at California State University, Fullerton. They worked on a record together in February that year, but the material remains unreleased. In March 2008, Cuomo began a YouTube video series in which he wrote a song in collaboration with YouTube viewers. The finished song, "Turning Up the Radio", was released in 2010 on the Weezer compilation album "Death to False Metal".


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In December 2007, Cuomo released "", a compilation of his demos recorded from 1992 to 2007. It was followed by "" in November 2008 and "" in November 2010; the latter album was sold exclusively with a book, "The Pinkerton Diaries", which collects Cuomo's writings from the preceding the release of "Pinkerton".


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo has made cameos in a number of music videos, including The Crystal Method's "Murder" and the video for The Warlocks' "Cocaine Blues." Cuomo also makes a guest appearance on Sugar Ray's "Boardwalk", the first single on the group's latest album, "Music for Cougars". Cuomo featured on the song "Magic", on B.o.B's debut album "" which was released in April 2010. In a May interview with HitQuarters, producer-songwriter Lucas Secon confirmed that he had recently worked with Cuomo on both a Steve Aoki single and "some Weezer stuff."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In 2011, Cuomo collaborated with Japanese singer Hitomi for her first independent album "Spirit", in the duet "Rollin' with da Homies", co-written by him. He was also featured on the Simple Plan song "Can't Keep My Hands Off You" and Miranda Cosgrove's song, "High Maintenance". In 2013, Cuomo released a self-titled Japanese-language album with Scott Murphy under the name Scott & Rivers. The album debuted at #1 on the iTunes Japan alternative charts. The album was released physically in Japan and digitally worldwide through iTunes. In 2015, Cuomo appeared on the song "Snowed In" on Big Data's album "2.0". In the same year, Cuomo produced a Fox pilot for a sitcom based on his life, "DeTour", starring Ben Aldridge as Cuomo. The pilot was not picked up.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In 2017, Cuomo featured in RAC's "I Still Wanna Know", as well as Vic Mensa's "Homewrecker", which sampled Weezer's "The Good Life". The same year, he co-wrote and appeared on AJR's "Sober Up". "Sober Up" reached number one on the "Billboard" Alternative Charts, becoming Cuomo's first song as a solo artist to reach number one on Billboard's Alternative chart outside of Weezer. Cuomo also co-wrote the song "Why Won't You Love Me" on 5 Seconds of Summer's 2018 album Youngblood. In 2018, he helped write two songs, "Clock Work" and "Dancing Girl" for Asian Kung-Fu Generation's 2018 album, Hometown. Cuomo also performed a live cover of Toto's "Africa" during the homecoming halftime show at Santa Monica College. In 2019, he wrote and performed "Backflip," the theme song for the Netflix series "Green Eggs and Ham". In 2020, Cuomo released more than two thousand demos and home recordings on his website.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: In 2022, Cuomo release Indonesian-language song "Anak Sekolah", originally by Indonesian singer Chrisye, before Weezer performing in Indonesia.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Appearing on the Song Exploder podcast in 2016, Cuomo explained the process he used to write albums such as Weezer's "White Album" (2016). He maintains Spotify playlists of music with "cool" chord progressions that he uses for inspiration. He sometimes uses piano to write vocal melodies his vocal muscles would be "too lazy" to create. Conversely, he improvises vocal melodies to write guitar solos, to avoid guitar habits and create solos "you can sing along to" with "space in [them] because I have to breathe". He has a tenor vocal range.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo's process of writing lyrics involves writing stream-of-consciousness thoughts in his journal, highlighting interesting lines, and adding them to a spreadsheet organized by the number of syllables they contain and strong-weak emphasis. When he comes to write a song, he finds lines that fit the melody and assembles them in a way that suggests a story. He rarely uses profanity in his lyrics, as "Weezer came up at a time when Jane's Addiction released "Nothing's Shocking" — everyone was trying to be controversial. We looked back to rock and roll's pre-drug days — to the clean images of the Beach Boys — that felt, ironically, rebellious." He has experimented with various methods of "concentration", such as fasting, to aid his songwriting.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: On tour with Weezer following the "Blue Album", Cuomo listened extensively to the operas "Aida" (1871) and "Madama Butterfly" (1904), the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1970), and the musical "Les Misérables" (1980), which influenced the composition of "Pinkerton" and the unreleased "Songs from the Black Hole."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo's other influences include the Beatles, Kiss, Nirvana, Giacomo Puccini, Green Day, Jane's Addiction, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, Cat Stevens, Lou Barlow, the Who, Pixies, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mike Smith, and Sonic Youth. In the late 90s, Cuomo created an "Encyclopedia of Pop" for himself, a three-ring binder in which he examined pop and rock songs by artists including Nirvana, Green Day, and Oasis. In 2008, he said his biggest recent inspiration was rapper Eminem, praising his "creativity, passion, inventiveness, and playfulness".


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo recorded the "Blue Album" with a Gibson Les Paul Special and a Fender Jaguar borrowed from producer Ric Ocasek. His amp was a vintage Mesa Boogie Mark I. For touring, he initially used a sonic blue Warmoth Fender Stratocaster copy with Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups alongside Marshall amps. However, the guitar was destroyed in late 1997. In recent years, he has used additional Warmoth Strat copies (in blue, seafoam green, black and blonde), as well as a Gibson SG painted in white with a Seymour Duncan bridge pickup. During the Hella Mega Tour in 2021, Cuomo has been seen playing a Jackson Rhoads, which seems a tip of the hat to Randy Rhoads, likely having a connection to the recent use of Rhoads' solo on "Crazy Train". The guitars are plugged into a Kemper Profiler amp.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo took a vow of sexual abstinence from 2004 until his marriage in 2006. On June 18, 2006, Cuomo married Kyoko Ito, whom he met in March 1997 at one of his solo concerts at the Middle East club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He proposed to her in Tokyo shortly before Christmas 2005. The wedding was held at a beach on Paradise Cove in Malibu and was attended by all past and present members of Weezer (except for Mikey Welsh), as well as Kevin Ridel and Rick Rubin. The couple have two children: daughter Mia, born in 2007, and son Leo, born in 2011.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo was born with equal length legs, but as he grew to his full height, his left leg grew nearly two inches shorter than his right. After the success of "The Blue Album", Cuomo underwent the Ilizarov procedure to correct the condition. This involved the surgical breaking of the bone in his leg, followed by several months of wearing a steel brace that required self-administered "stretching" of the leg four times daily; Cuomo likened the ordeal to "crucifying [his] leg."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo has been vegetarian since childhood. However, in 2002, he told an interviewer that he might like to start eating meat regularly and stated he had done so in the past, eating "some kind of barbecued beef in Tokyo."


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo practices Vipassanā meditation and was a student of S. N. Goenka. As of mid-2009, he also teaches children's meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka. Cuomo helped acquire music rights and provided financial support to a 2007 documentary titled "The Dhamma Brothers" about Vipassanā meditation being instituted in an Alabama state prison.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo was a fan of soccer at an early age. He wrote a song, "My Day Is Coming", in tribute to the U.S. men's soccer team in 2006, and in 2010, wrote "Represent", an "unofficial anthem" for the U.S. team, which was released as a Weezer single on June 11, the day before Team USA's World Cup opener against England. In early 2008, Cuomo played in the Mia and Nomar Celebrity Soccer Challenge and scored a goal in the game. The video for "Lover in the Snow", from the "Alone" album, deals with this game and his love of soccer growing up. In August 2009, Cuomo participated in the Athletes for Africa 5v5 Charity Soccer Tournament in Toronto, Canada alongside actor Michael Cera.


title: Rivers Cuomo

text: Cuomo performed at a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang in Iowa on November 1, 2019, though Cuomo did not explicitly endorse Yang.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: Madagascar is a 2005 American computer-animated slapstick survival comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. The film was directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath (in his feature directorial debut) and written by Darnell, McGrath, Mark Burton, and Billy Frolick. The film stars the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy Richter. It centers around a group of animals from the Central Park Zoo who find themselves stranded on the island of Madagascar.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: Released on May 27, 2005, "Madagascar" received mixed reviews from critics but was a success at the box office, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 2005. "Madagascar" is the first entry in what would launched the franchise of the same name which includes the sequels "" (2008) and "" (2012); the spin-off film "Penguins of Madagascar" (2014); several short films, television series, and specials; and a number of video games, theme park attractions, and live stage shows.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: In New York City, Alex the lion is the star attraction of the Central Park Zoo, and spends time with his friends, Melman the giraffe, Gloria the hippopotamus and his best friend Marty the zebra, who has grown bored with his daily routine and longs to experience the wild. On Marty's tenth birthday, Alex, Melman and Gloria attempt to cheer him up, but Marty, still unsatisfied, learns that the zoo's penguins—Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Private—are trying to escape to Antarctica, and follows them out. Alex, Melman and Gloria pursue Marty and attempt to convince him to return. The four, along with the penguins and two chimpanzees named Mason and Phil, converge at Grand Central Station where the New York City police sedate them using tranquillizer guns. Under pressure from anti-captivity activists, the zoo is forced to ship the escaped animals by sea to a wildlife preserve in Kenya. During their travels, the penguins escape and take over the ship, intent on taking it to Antarctica. Their antics on the bridge cause the crates containing Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria to fall overboard and wash ashore on Madagascar.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: The animals come across a pack of lemurs led by King Julien XIII. The predatory fossa attack the lemurs, but are scared off by Alex's fearsome appearance. Alex blames Marty for the group's predicament and attempts to signal for help to get back to civilization. Marty finds the wild to be exactly what he was looking for, and Gloria and Melman soon join him in enjoying the island. Alex eventually comes around, but without the raw steaks he was provided at the zoo, hunger sets in and his prey drive begins to show. King Julien has the lemurs befriend the zoo animals in the hope that Alex's presence will keep the fossa at bay, despite his adviser Maurice's warnings about Alex's predatory nature. When Alex loses control and attacks Marty, King Julien realizes that he is a threat and banishes him to the predator side of the island, where the fossa live. Seeing what Alex has become, and how dangerous the wild can be, Marty begins to regret his decision to leave the zoo.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: The penguins, having found Antarctica to be inhospitable, land the ship at Madagascar. Seeing the chance to return Alex to New York, Marty crosses over to the predator side and attempts to convince the scared, starving Alex to return, but Alex refuses out of fear that he will attack Marty again. The fossa attack Marty, and though Gloria, Melman, and the penguins come to the rescue, they are outnumbered. Alex overcomes his predatory instincts, rescues his friends, and scares the fossa away from the lemur territory forever. The lemurs regain their respect for Alex, and the penguins satisfy his hunger by feeding him sushi, which he finds better than steak. As the lemurs throw a farewell celebration for the foursome, the penguins decide not to break the news that the ship has run out of fuel, thus leaving them stranded on the island.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: According to co-director Tom McGrath, the idea for "Madagascar" began as a one-sentence prompt, and it took two years of development for the idea to be refined to the point where the four main characters were finalized. In 1998, DreamWorks and PDI had started development on an animated film titled "Rockumentary", which featured a Beatles-esque penguin rock band. The idea was scrapped, but after production on "Madagascar" started, director Eric Darnell decided to revive the penguins, but make them a commando unit instead of a rock band. In the original script Gloria was going to be pregnant due to being part of the zoo's breeding program and the baby was going to be born on the island and Melman, who is revealed to have a crush on Gloria would help raise the child like it was his own son. The idea was cut from the final version because the test audiences felt like the pregnancy plotline was too risky and mature for a family film especially young children who felt uncomfortable with the pairing of Melman and Gloria and may have gotten the film a PG-13 rating. However, the idea of Melman having a crush on Gloria was reused for the sequels. One of the lead characters was formerly to be an okapi. As a result, the character, Melman, was changed and played by a giraffe which is a more familiar animal. Originally, Julien was intended to be a minor character with only two lines. However, when Sacha Baron Cohen auditioned for the role, he improvised not only an Indian accent, but eight minutes of dialogue for his recording. The filmmakers found Cohen's performance so funny that they rewrote the script and made Julien a much more prominent character in the story as "King of the Lemurs". Dana Carvey was originally offered a role but he turned it down as he was busy raising kids at the time.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: "Madagascar" was released on DVD and VHS on November 15, 2005, by DreamWorks Home Entertainment. The DVD included a short animated film "The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper", and a music video "I Like to Move It," featuring characters from the film dancing to the song. A Blu-ray version of the film was released on September 23, 2008.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: The "Madagascar - Movie Storybook" was written by Billy Frolick and illustrated by Michael Koelsch, and was published by Scholastic in 2005. Koelsch also illustrated the in 2008.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: The film was a commercial success. On its opening weekend, the film grossed $47,224,594 with a $11,431 average from 4,131 theaters making it the number 3 movie of that weekend behind "" and "The Longest Yard". However, the film managed to claim the top position in the U.S. box office the following week with a gross of $28,110,235. In the United States, the film eventually grossed $193,595,521, and in foreign areas grossed $362,964,045 with a summative worldwide gross of $556,559,566.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received approval rating based on reviews, with an average rating of . The consensus reads: "Though its story is problematic in spots and its humor is hit-or-miss for the adult crowd, "Madagascar" boasts impressive visuals and enough spunky charm to keep children entertained." On Metacritic, the film has a 57% approval rating based on 36 reviews falling under the "Mixed or Average" category. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: Paul Arendt of BBC gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "It's also a pleasure to see a cartoon so determinedly devoid of sentiment, a stance confirmed by the hilarious demise of an angelic little duckling. Highly recommended for kids and adults." Jeff Strickler of the "Star Tribune" gave the film 3/4 stars, describing it as a "good-natured kid flick" and writing: "This computer-animated comedy makes enough kowtows to adult humor that parents won't be bored, but it is clearly aimed at the peewee set." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" described the film as "wildly fun" and wrote: "along with such recent classics as "Shrek", "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles", "Madagascar" will surely go on to take a deserved place on millions of families' video shelves as a reliable Saturday night staple." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "a good-humored, pleasant confection that has all kinds of relaxed fun bringing computer-animated savvy to the old-fashioned world of Looney Tunes cartoons." Paul Clinton of CNN wrote that the film was "a delight", and added: "Co-writers and -directors McGrath and Eric Darnell, along with their entire team, have done a terrific job with their sweet and whimsical story."


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5/4 stars, writing that it "is funny, especially at the beginning, and good-looking in a retro cartoon way", but added: "in a world where the stakes have been raised by "Finding Nemo", "Shrek" and "The Incredibles", it's a throwback to a more conventional kind of animated entertainment." Philippa Hawker of "The Sydney Morning Herald" also gave the film 2.5/4 stars, writing: ""Madagascar", despite some break-out moments of silliness, seems defined by a formula that can't fail to please, at a basic level, but never feels imaginatively inspired." Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" gave the film 2/4 stars, describing the film's script as "a wafer-thin yarn that might have done Sylvester and Tweety proud, but goes missing-in-action when stretched over 80-plus minutes." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" wrote that the film "arouses no sense of wonder, except insofar as you wonder, as you watch it, how so much talent, technical skill and money could add up to so little."


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: Madagascar is the soundtrack to the 2005 DreamWorks film of the same name. It was released by Geffen Records on May 24, 2005. Of particular critical note was the cover of "I Like to Move It" by Sacha Baron Cohen, which has since become a recurring theme song throughout the "Madagascar" franchise.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: The score was composed by frequent DreamWorks collaborator Hans Zimmer, with additional music by James Dooley, Heitor Pereira, James S. Levine, and Ryeland Allison. Zimmer also adapted John Barry's instrumental from "Born Free" into the score track of the same name; The Mormon Tabernacle Choir's cover of the song was used in the opening title sequence. Originally, Harry Gregson-Williams, another frequent DreamWorks collaborator, was supposed to compose the film's score. Louis Armstrong's song What a Wonderful World is used in the film.


title: Madagascar (2005 film)

text: A sequel, "", was released in 2008, followed by "" in 2012 and the spin-off film "Penguins of Madagascar" in 2014. The series has also spawned a number of television series, short films, video games, and other media, as well as theme park attractions and live stage shows.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a large dog breed bred in the Southern Africa region. Its forebears can be traced to the semi-domesticated ridged hunting and guardian dogs of the Khoikhoi. These were interbred with European dogs by the early colonists of the Cape Colony of southern Africa. The original breed standard was drafted by F. R. Barnes, in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in 1922, and approved by the South African Kennel Union in 1927. The Rhodesian Ridgeback at present is the only registered breed indigenous to Southern Africa.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: The Khoikhoi people who lived the Cape Peninsula when the Dutch began trading with the area during the mid 17th century, had a semi-wild hunting dog which was described by Europeans as absolutely fearless and ferocious when acting as a guard dog. This dog measured approximately at the withers, with a lean but muscular frame. The ears have been described both as erect but later described as hanging due to interbreeding with European dogs, but the most distinctive feature was the length of hair often growing in the reverse direction along its back. Within 53 years of the first Dutch settlements in Southern Africa, the Europeans were using these local dogs themselves.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: By the early 1800s, European colonists had also imported a variety of mainly European dog breeds to this area of Africa, including such dedicated hunting dogs as Greyhounds, Mastiffs, Great Danes, Irish Wolfhounds, Bloodhounds, Terriers and other breeds. The Dogo Cubano (Cuban Bloodhound), an extinct breed used for dogfighting and guarding, was highly emphasized in the composition of the early Rhodesian Ridgeback. Genetic analysis indicates that the Rhodesian Ridgeback and the Great Dane fall within the same genetic clade (group), which implies the Dane's major contribution. These breeds were bred with the indigenous African dogs, including the dog of the Khoikhoi people, which resulted in the Boer hunting dogs, generically called names such as "boerhond" (Boer hound) in Dutch; then its descendant language of Afrikaans, which are the chief forerunners to the modern Rhodesian Ridgeback. The sequencing of ancient dog genomes indicates that the southern African Rhodesian Ridgeback retains 4% pre-colonial ancestry.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: The Rev. Charles Helm (1844–1915), son of the Rev. Daniel Helm of the London Missionary Society, was born in the Cape Colony, joined the London Missionary Society himself, and moved from the Zuurbraak (now Suurbraak) mission station just east of Swellendam (modern Western Cape Province, South Africa) to the Hope Fountain Mission in Matabeleland, Southern Rhodesia, travelling from October 1874 to December 1875, then bringing two ridged dog bitches from somewhere between Kimberley (modern Northern Cape Province, South Africa) and Swellendam with him to Hope Fountain in 1879 en route to becoming, as it would turn out, a political advisor to King Lobengula, house-host to hunter-explorer Frederick Courteney Selous, postmaster of Bulawayo and well-appreciated tooth-extractor. At Hope Fountain, now part of the city of Bulawayo, fellow South African transplant Cornelis van Rooyen (b. 1860, Uitenhage, modern Eastern Cape Province, South Africa), a big–game hunter, was married to Maria Vermaak of Bloemhof by Charles Helm in 1879 the same year Helm brought his two rough-coated grey-black bitches to the Mission. Van Rooyen saw Helm's pair of bitches and decided to breed his own dogs with them to incorporate their guarding abilities.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: After initially greyer, rough-coated litters originating from Helm's dogs, van Rooyen's subsequently crossed offspring turned to redder coats, incorporating the Khoikhoi landrace dog's ridges already carried in Boer dogs within his genomes. They became the foundation stock of a kennel which developed dogs over the next 35 years with the ability to bay a lion, to not attack it outright but to harass it by darting in and out with quick snaps and confusing the animal until the hunter shot it. These dogs were used to hunt lions, bears, boars and other big game as well as to clear farmlands of wild pigs and baboons, and they can kill a baboon independently of a human hunter's collaboration.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: The original breed standard was drafted in 1922 by F. R. Barnes on founding the first Rhodesian Ridgeback Club at a Bulawayo Kennel Club show, then in Southern Rhodesia (now in Zimbabwe), and based on that of the Dalmatian. In 1927, Barnes' standard was approved by the South African Kennel Union. Outside the subcontinent and internationally, the first Rhodesian Ridgebacks in Britain were shown by Mrs. Edward Foljambe in 1928. In 1950, Mr. and Mrs. William H. O'Brien of Arizona brought six carefully selected Rhodesian Ridgebacks to the US from South Africa. He and his wife and Margaret Lowthian of California began the process of getting the breed accepted by the American Kennel Club. Similarly, in 1952, The Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of Great Britain was founded at Crufts to promote the breed around the United Kingdom to show judges, so a standard for the breed might be recognised. In 1954 the first Challenge Certificates were awarded to dogs shown as Rhodesian Ridgebacks at United Kingdom competitions, toward their subsequent recognition by The Kennel Club of Great Britain, and in 1955 the American Kennel Club recognised the Rhodesian Ridgeback breed as a member of the hound group.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: The Rhodesian Ridgeback is the mascot and the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: The appearance standard of the Rhodesian Ridgeback originated in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and goes back to the year 1922, and by 2019 this standard had remained virtually unchanged. The Rhodesian Ridgeback's distinguishing feature is the ridge of hair running along its back in the opposite direction from the rest of its coat. It consists of a fan-like area formed by two whorls of hair (called "crowns") and tapers from immediately behind the shoulders down to the level of the hips. The ridge is usually about in width at its widest point. It is believed to originate from the dog used by the original African dog population which had a similar ridge.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: Male Rhodesian Ridgebacks usually stand at the withers and weigh about (FCI standard); females are typically tall and about in weight. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are typically very muscular and have a light wheaten to red wheaten coat, which should be short, dense, sleek and glossy in appearance, and neither woolly nor silky.


title: Rhodesian Ridgeback

text: White is acceptable on the chest and toes. The presence of black guard hairs or ticking is not addressed in the AKC standard, although the elaboration of the AKC standard notes the amount of black or dark brown in the coat should not be excessive. The FCI standard states that excessive black hairs throughout the coat are highly undesirable. Rhodesian Ridgebacks sometimes have a dark mask. The dog's nose should be black or liver in keeping with the colour of the dog. No other coloured nose is permissible. The brown nose is a recessive gene. It is not as common as a black nose; some breeders believe the inclusion of brown noses in a breeding program is necessary for maintaining the vibrancy of the coat. The eyes should be round and should reflect the dog's colour: dark eyes with a black nose, amber eyes with a brown (liver) nose.