title: Force

text: The origin of electric and magnetic fields would not be fully explained until 1864 when James Clerk Maxwell unified a number of earlier theories into a set of 20 scalar equations, which were later reformulated into 4 vector equations by Oliver Heaviside and Josiah Willard Gibbs. These "Maxwell Equations" fully described the sources of the fields as being stationary and moving charges, and the interactions of the fields themselves. This led Maxwell to discover that electric and magnetic fields could be "self-generating" through a wave that traveled at a speed that he calculated to be the speed of light. This insight united the nascent fields of electromagnetic theory with optics and led directly to a complete description of the electromagnetic spectrum.


title: Force

text: However, attempting to reconcile electromagnetic theory with two observations, the photoelectric effect, and the nonexistence of the ultraviolet catastrophe, proved troublesome. Through the work of leading theoretical physicists, a new theory of electromagnetism was developed using quantum mechanics. This final modification to electromagnetic theory ultimately led to quantum electrodynamics (or QED), which fully describes all electromagnetic phenomena as being mediated by wave–particles known as photons. In QED, photons are the fundamental exchange particle, which described all interactions relating to electromagnetism including the electromagnetic force.


title: Force

text: There are two "nuclear forces", which today are usually described as interactions that take place in quantum theories of particle physics. The strong nuclear force is the force responsible for the structural integrity of atomic nuclei while the weak nuclear force is responsible for the decay of certain nucleons into leptons and other types of hadrons.


title: Force

text: The strong force is today understood to represent the interactions between quarks and gluons as detailed by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The strong force is the fundamental force mediated by gluons, acting upon quarks, antiquarks, and the gluons themselves. The (aptly named) strong interaction is the "strongest" of the four fundamental forces.


title: Force

text: The strong force only acts "directly" upon elementary particles. However, a residual of the force is observed between hadrons (the best known example being the force that acts between nucleons in atomic nuclei) as the nuclear force. Here the strong force acts indirectly, transmitted as gluons, which form part of the virtual pi and rho mesons, which classically transmit the nuclear force (see this topic for more). The failure of many searches for free quarks has shown that the elementary particles affected are not directly observable. This phenomenon is called color confinement.


title: Force

text: The weak force is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons. Since the weak force is mediated by two types of bosons, it can be divided into two types of interaction or "vertices" — charged current, involving the electrically charged W and W bosons, and neutral current, involving electrically neutral Z bosons. The most familiar effect of weak interaction is beta decay (of neutrons in atomic nuclei) and the associated radioactivity. This is a type of charged-current interaction. The word "weak" derives from the fact that the field strength is some 10 times less than that of the strong force. Still, it is stronger than gravity over short distances. A consistent electroweak theory has also been developed, which shows that electromagnetic forces and the weak force are indistinguishable at a temperatures in excess of approximately 10 kelvins. Such temperatures have been probed in modern particle accelerators and show the conditions of the universe in the early moments of the Big Bang.


title: Force

text: Some forces are consequences of the fundamental ones. In such situations, idealized models can be used to gain physical insight.


title: Force

text: The normal force is due to repulsive forces of interaction between atoms at close contact. When their electron clouds overlap, Pauli repulsion (due to fermionic nature of electrons) follows resulting in the force that acts in a direction normal to the surface interface between two objects. The normal force, for example, is responsible for the structural integrity of tables and floors as well as being the force that responds whenever an external force pushes on a solid object. An example of the normal force in action is the impact force on an object crashing into an immobile surface.


title: Force

text: Friction is a surface force that opposes relative motion. The frictional force is directly related to the normal force that acts to keep two solid objects separated at the point of contact. There are two broad classifications of frictional forces: static friction and kinetic friction.


title: Force

text: The static friction force (formula_56) will exactly oppose forces applied to an object parallel to a surface contact up to the limit specified by the coefficient of static friction (formula_57) multiplied by the normal force (formula_58). In other words, the magnitude of the static friction force satisfies the inequality:


title: Force

text: The kinetic friction force (formula_60) is independent of both the forces applied and the movement of the object. Thus, the magnitude of the force equals:


title: Force

text: where formula_62 is the coefficient of kinetic friction. For most surface interfaces, the coefficient of kinetic friction is less than the coefficient of static friction.


title: Force

text: Tension forces can be modeled using ideal strings that are massless, frictionless, unbreakable, and unstretchable. They can be combined with ideal pulleys, which allow ideal strings to switch physical direction. Ideal strings transmit tension forces instantaneously in action-reaction pairs so that if two objects are connected by an ideal string, any force directed along the string by the first object is accompanied by a force directed along the string in the opposite direction by the second object. By connecting the same string multiple times to the same object through the use of a set-up that uses movable pulleys, the tension force on a load can be multiplied. For every string that acts on a load, another factor of the tension force in the string acts on the load. However, even though such machines allow for an increase in force, there is a corresponding increase in the length of string that must be displaced in order to move the load. These tandem effects result ultimately in the conservation of mechanical energy since the work done on the load is the same no matter how complicated the machine.


title: Force

text: An elastic force acts to return a spring to its natural length. An ideal spring is taken to be massless, frictionless, unbreakable, and infinitely stretchable. Such springs exert forces that push when contracted, or pull when extended, in proportion to the displacement of the spring from its equilibrium position. This linear relationship was described by Robert Hooke in 1676, for whom Hooke's law is named. If formula_63 is the displacement, the force exerted by an ideal spring equals:


title: Force

text: where formula_65 is the spring constant (or force constant), which is particular to the spring. The minus sign accounts for the tendency of the force to act in opposition to the applied load.


title: Force

text: Newton's laws and Newtonian mechanics in general were first developed to describe how forces affect idealized point particles rather than three-dimensional objects. However, in real life, matter has extended structure and forces that act on one part of an object might affect other parts of an object. For situations where lattice holding together the atoms in an object is able to flow, contract, expand, or otherwise change shape, the theories of continuum mechanics describe the way forces affect the material. For example, in extended fluids, differences in pressure result in forces being directed along the pressure gradients as follows:


title: Force

text: where formula_67 is the volume of the object in the fluid and formula_68 is the scalar function that describes the pressure at all locations in space. Pressure gradients and differentials result in the buoyant force for fluids suspended in gravitational fields, winds in atmospheric science, and the lift associated with aerodynamics and flight.


title: Force

text: A specific instance of such a force that is associated with dynamic pressure is fluid resistance: a body force that resists the motion of an object through a fluid due to viscosity. For so-called "Stokes' drag" the force is approximately proportional to the velocity, but opposite in direction:


title: Force

text: More formally, forces in continuum mechanics are fully described by a stress–tensor with terms that are roughly defined as


title: Force

text: where formula_73 is the relevant cross-sectional area for the volume for which the stress-tensor is being calculated. This formalism includes pressure terms associated with forces that act normal to the cross-sectional area (the matrix diagonals of the tensor) as well as shear terms associated with forces that act parallel to the cross-sectional area (the off-diagonal elements). The stress tensor accounts for forces that cause all strains (deformations) including also tensile stresses and compressions.


title: Force

text: There are forces that are frame dependent, meaning that they appear due to the adoption of non-Newtonian (that is, non-inertial) reference frames. Such forces include the centrifugal force and the Coriolis force. These forces are considered fictitious because they do not exist in frames of reference that are not accelerating. Because these forces are not genuine they are also referred to as "pseudo forces".


title: Force

text: In general relativity, gravity becomes a fictitious force that arises in situations where spacetime deviates from a flat geometry. As an extension, Kaluza–Klein theory and string theory ascribe electromagnetism and the other fundamental forces respectively to the curvature of differently scaled dimensions, which would ultimately imply that all forces are fictitious.


title: Force

text: Forces that cause extended objects to rotate are associated with torques. Mathematically, the torque of a force formula_3 is defined relative to an arbitrary reference point as the cross-product:


title: Force

text: where formula_76 is the position vector of the force application point relative to the reference point.


title: Force

text: Torque is the rotation equivalent of force in the same way that angle is the rotational equivalent for position, angular velocity for velocity, and angular momentum for momentum. As a consequence of Newton's First Law of Motion, there exists rotational inertia that ensures that all bodies maintain their angular momentum unless acted upon by an unbalanced torque. Likewise, Newton's Second Law of Motion can be used to derive an analogous equation for the instantaneous angular acceleration of the rigid body:


title: Force

text: This provides a definition for the moment of inertia, which is the rotational equivalent for mass. In more advanced treatments of mechanics, where the rotation over a time interval is described, the moment of inertia must be substituted by the tensor that, when properly analyzed, fully determines the characteristics of rotations including precession and nutation.


title: Force

text: Equivalently, the differential form of Newton's Second Law provides an alternative definition of torque:


title: Force

text: Newton's Third Law of Motion requires that all objects exerting torques themselves experience equal and opposite torques, and therefore also directly implies the conservation of angular momentum for closed systems that experience rotations and revolutions through the action of internal torques.


title: Force

text: where formula_21 is the mass of the object, formula_28 is the velocity of the object and formula_43 is the distance to the center of the circular path and formula_86 is the unit vector pointing in the radial direction outwards from the center. This means that the unbalanced centripetal force felt by any object is always directed toward the center of the curving path. Such forces act perpendicular to the velocity vector associated with the motion of an object, and therefore do not change the speed of the object (magnitude of the velocity), but only the direction of the velocity vector. The unbalanced force that accelerates an object can be resolved into a component that is perpendicular to the path, and one that is tangential to the path. This yields both the tangential force, which accelerates the object by either slowing it down or speeding it up, and the radial (centripetal) force, which changes its direction.


title: Force

text: Forces can be used to define a number of physical concepts by integrating with respect to kinematic variables. For example, integrating with respect to time gives the definition of impulse:


title: Force

text: which by Newton's Second Law must be equivalent to the change in momentum (yielding the Impulse momentum theorem).


title: Force

text: Power "P" is the rate of change d"W"/d"t" of the work "W", as the trajectory is extended by a position change formula_89 in a time interval d"t":


title: Force

text: Instead of a force, often the mathematically related concept of a potential energy field can be used for convenience. For instance, the gravitational force acting upon an object can be seen as the action of the gravitational field that is present at the object's location. Restating mathematically the definition of energy (via the definition of work), a potential scalar field formula_93 is defined as that field whose gradient is equal and opposite to the force produced at every point:


title: Force

text: Forces can be classified as conservative or nonconservative. Conservative forces are equivalent to the gradient of a potential while nonconservative forces are not.


title: Force

text: A conservative force that acts on a closed system has an associated mechanical work that allows energy to convert only between kinetic or potential forms. This means that for a closed system, the net mechanical energy is conserved whenever a conservative force acts on the system. The force, therefore, is related directly to the difference in potential energy between two different locations in space, and can be considered to be an artifact of the potential field in the same way that the direction and amount of a flow of water can be considered to be an artifact of the contour map of the elevation of an area.


title: Force

text: Conservative forces include gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the spring force. Each of these forces has models that are dependent on a position often given as a radial vector formula_76 emanating from spherically symmetric potentials. Examples of this follow:


title: Force

text: where formula_100 is electric permittivity of free space, and formula_101 is the electric charge of object "n".


title: Force

text: For certain physical scenarios, it is impossible to model forces as being due to gradient of potentials. This is often due to macrophysical considerations that yield forces as arising from a macroscopic statistical average of microstates. For example, friction is caused by the gradients of numerous electrostatic potentials between the atoms, but manifests as a force model that is independent of any macroscale position vector. Nonconservative forces other than friction include other contact forces, tension, compression, and drag. However, for any sufficiently detailed description, all these forces are the results of conservative ones since each of these macroscopic forces are the net results of the gradients of microscopic potentials.


title: Force

text: The connection between macroscopic nonconservative forces and microscopic conservative forces is described by detailed treatment with statistical mechanics. In macroscopic closed systems, nonconservative forces act to change the internal energies of the system, and are often associated with the transfer of heat. According to the Second law of thermodynamics, nonconservative forces necessarily result in energy transformations within closed systems from ordered to more random conditions as entropy increases.


title: Force

text: The SI unit of force is the newton (symbol N), which is the force required to accelerate a one kilogram mass at a rate of one meter per second squared, or . The corresponding CGS unit is the dyne, the force required to accelerate a one gram mass by one centimeter per second squared, or . A newton is thus equal to 100,000 dynes.


title: Force

text: The gravitational foot-pound-second English unit of force is the pound-force (lbf), defined as the force exerted by gravity on a pound-mass in the standard gravitational field of . The pound-force provides an alternative unit of mass: one slug is the mass that will accelerate by one foot per second squared when acted on by one pound-force.


title: Force

text: An alternative unit of force in a different foot-pound-second system, the absolute fps system, is the poundal, defined as the force required to accelerate a one-pound mass at a rate of one foot per second squared. The units of slug and poundal are designed to avoid a constant of proportionality in Newton's Second Law.


title: Force

text: The pound-force has a metric counterpart, less commonly used than the newton: the kilogram-force (kgf) (sometimes kilopond), is the force exerted by standard gravity on one kilogram of mass. The kilogram-force leads to an alternate, but rarely used unit of mass: the metric slug (sometimes mug or hyl) is that mass that accelerates at when subjected to a force of 1 kgf. The kilogram-force is not a part of the modern SI system, and is generally deprecated; however it still sees use for some purposes as expressing aircraft weight, jet thrust, bicycle spoke tension, torque wrench settings and engine output torque. Other arcane units of force include the sthène, which is equivalent to 1000 N, and the kip, which is equivalent to 1000 lbf.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Cameron Bruce Crowe (born July 13, 1957) is an American journalist, author, writer, producer, director, actor, lyricist, and playwright. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at "Rolling Stone" magazine, for which he still frequently writes.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe's debut screenwriting effort, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982), grew out of a book he wrote while posing for one year undercover as a student at Clairemont High School in San Diego. Later, he wrote and directed another high school film, "Say Anything..." (1989), followed by "Singles" (1992), a story of twentysomethings that was woven together by a soundtrack centering on Seattle's burgeoning grunge music scene. Crowe landed his biggest hit with "Jerry Maguire" (1996). After this, he was given a green-light to go ahead with a pet project, the autobiographical film "Almost Famous" (2000). Centering on a teenage music journalist on tour with an up-and-coming band, it gave insight to his life as a 15-year-old writer for "Rolling Stone". For his screenplay, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In late 1999, Crowe's second book was published, a question and answer session with filmmaker Billy Wilder entitled "Conversations with Wilder".


title: Cameron Crowe

text: After the success of "Almost Famous", further films followed including the psychological thriller "Vanilla Sky" (2001), the romantic comedy "Elizabethtown" (2005), the family-friendly film "We Bought a Zoo" (2011), and the romantic comedy "Aloha" (2015). He also directed three musical documentaries, "Pearl Jam Twenty" (2011), "The Union" (2011), and "" (2019), and created the television series "Roadies", which ran for one season in 2016 on Showtime.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Cameron Crowe was born in Palm Springs, California. His father, James A. Crowe, originally from Kentucky, was a real estate agent. His mother, Alice Marie (née George), "was a teacher, activist, and all-around live wire who did skits around the house and would wear a clown suit to school on special occasions." She worked as a psychology professor and in family therapy and often participated in peace demonstrations and causes relating to the rights of farm workers. Crowe's grandfather was Greek. Crowe was the youngest of three children with two sisters; one died when he was young. The family moved around often but spent a lot of time in the desert town of Indio, California. Crowe commented that Indio was where "people owned tortoises, not dogs". His family finally settled in San Diego.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe skipped kindergarten and two grades in elementary school, and by the time he attended Catholic high school, he was quite a bit younger than the other students. To add to his alienation, he was often ill because he had nephritis.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe began writing for the school newspaper and by the age of 13 was contributing music reviews for an underground publication, "The San Diego Door". He began corresponding with music journalist Lester Bangs, who had left the "Door" to become editor at the national rock magazine "Creem", and soon he was also submitting articles to "Creem" as well as "Circus". Crowe graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1972 at the age of 15. On a trip to Los Angeles, he met Ben Fong-Torres, the editor of "Rolling Stone", who hired him to write for the magazine. He also joined the "Rolling Stone" staff as a contributing editor and became an associate editor. During this time, Crowe interviewed Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, the Eagles, Poco, Steely Dan, members of Led Zeppelin and more. Crowe was "Rolling Stone"s youngest-ever contributor.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe's first cover story was on the Allman Brothers Band. He went on the road with them for three weeks at the age of 16 and interviewed the band and the road crew.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Because Crowe was a fan of the 1970s hard rock bands that the older writers disliked, he landed a lot of major interviews. He wrote predominantly about Yes, and also about Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, the Eagles, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Linda Ronstadt, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Fleetwood Mac, and others. Former colleague Sarah Lazin described of the youthful Crowe: "He was a pleasure to work with, a total professional. He was easygoing and eager to learn. Obviously, the bands loved him." Then-senior editor Ben Fong-Torres also said of Crowe: "He was the guy we sent out after some difficult customers. He covered the bands that hated "Rolling Stone"."


title: Cameron Crowe

text: When "Rolling Stone" moved its offices from California to New York in 1977, Crowe decided to stay behind. He also felt the excitement of his career was beginning to wane. He appeared in the 1978 film "American Hot Wax", but returned to his writing. Though he would continue to freelance for "Rolling Stone" on and off over the years, he turned his attention to a book.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: At the age of 22, he came up with the idea to pose undercover as a high school student and write about his experiences. Simon & Schuster gave him a contract, and he moved back in with his parents and enrolled as Dave Cameron at Clairemont High School in San Diego. Reliving the senior year he never had, he made friends and began to fit in. Though he initially planned to include himself in the book, he realized that it would jeopardize his ability to capture the essence of the high school experience.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: His book, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story", came out in 1981. Crowe focused on six main characters: a tough guy, a nerd, a surfer dude, a sexual sophisticate, and a middle-class brother and sister. He chronicled their activities in typical teenage settings—at school, at the beach, and at the mall, where many of them held afterschool jobs—and concentrated on details of their lives that probed into the heart of adolescence. This included scenes about homecoming and graduation as well as social cliques and sexual encounters.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Before the book was released, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" was optioned for a film. Released in 1982, the movie version lacked a specific plot and featured no major name stars. The studio did not devote any marketing effort toward it. It became a sleeper hit due to word of mouth.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: The reviews of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" were positive, and the film ended up launching the careers of some previously unknown actors, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Eric Stoltz, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Anthony Edwards, Nicolas Cage, Forest Whitaker, and Sean Penn.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Following this success, Crowe wrote the screenplay for 1984's "The Wild Life", the pseudo-sequel to "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". Whereas its predecessor followed teenagers' lives in high school, "The Wild Life" traced the lives of several teenagers after high school living in an apartment complex.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Filmmaker James L. Brooks noticed Crowe's original voice and wanted to work with him. Brooks executive produced Crowe's first directing effort, 1989's "Say Anything...", about a young man pining away for the affections of the seemingly perfect girl. "Say Anything..." was positively received by critics.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: By this point, Crowe was ready to leave teen angst behind and focus on his peers. His next project, 1992's "Singles", described the romantic tangles among a group of six friends in their twenties in Seattle. The film starred Bridget Fonda and Matt Dillon, where Fonda played a coffee-bar waitress fawning over an aspiring musician, played by Dillon. Kyra Sedgwick and Campbell Scott co-starred as a couple wavering on whether to commit to each other. Music forms an integral backbone for the script, and the soundtrack became a best seller three months before the release of the film. Much of this was due to repeated delays while studio executives debated how to market it.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: "Singles" successfully rode on the heels of Seattle's grunge music boom. During production, bands like Nirvana were not yet national stars, but by the time the soundtrack was released, their song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" had to be cut from the film because it was too costly to buy the rights. Crowe had signed members of Pearl Jam, shortly before their burgeoning, nationwide success, to portray Dillon's fictional band 'Citizen Dick'. He also appeared in this project, as a rock journalist at a club. Tim Appelo wrote in "Entertainment Weekly", "With ... an ambling, naturalistic style, Crowe captures the eccentric appeal of a town where espresso carts sprout on every corner and kids in ratty flannel shirts can cut records that make them millionaires."


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Branching into a new direction, Crowe wrote and directed "Jerry Maguire". The film is about a highly paid pro sports agent, inspired by sports agent Leigh Steinberg. Maguire is fired after having a moral revelation, writing and distributing a mission statement calling for sincere service to the athletes and less money for the agency. He strikes out to form his own agency. Tom Cruise played the title role of Jerry and Cuba Gooding, Jr. played Rod Tidwell, an aging wide receiver. His catchphrase, "Show me the money!", became ubiquitous for a time. Renée Zellweger appeared as an accountant who sets aside her job security to follow Maguire's charismatic moral aspiration in both work and love. Gooding won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role. The film was nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Actor (for Cruise). Cruise won his second Golden Globe for his role as Jerry.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: In 2000, Crowe used his music journalism experience roots to write and direct "Almost Famous", about the experiences of a teenage music journalist who goes on the road with an emerging band in the early 1970s. The film starred newcomer Patrick Fugit as William Miller, the baby-faced writer who finds himself immersed in the world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and Kate Hudson co-starred as Penny Lane, a prominent groupie, or, as the film refers to her, a "Band-Aid". Digging into his most personal memories, Crowe used a composite of the bands he had known to come up with Stillwater, the emerging act that welcomes the young journalist into its sphere, then becomes wary of his intentions. Seventies rocker Peter Frampton served as a technical consultant on the film.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: William Miller's mother figured prominently in the film as well (often admonishing, "Don't take drugs!"). The character was based on Crowe's own mother, who even showed up at the film sets to keep an eye on him while he worked. Though he asked her not to bother Frances McDormand, who played her character, the two ended up getting along well. He also showed his sister, portrayed by Zooey Deschanel, rebelling and leaving home, and in real life, his mother and sister Cindy did not talk for a decade and were still estranged to a degree when he finished the film. The family reconciled when the project was complete.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: In addition, Crowe took a copy of the film to London for a special screening with Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. After the screening, Led Zeppelin granted Crowe the right to use one of their songs on the soundtrack—the first time they had ever consented to this since allowing Crowe to use "Kashmir" in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"—and also gave him rights to four of their other songs in the movie itself, although they did not grant him the rights to "Stairway to Heaven" for an intended scene (on the special "Bootleg" edition DVD, the scene is included as an extra without the song where the viewer is instructed by a watermark to begin playing it). Crowe and his then-wife, musician Nancy Wilson of Heart, co-wrote three of the five Stillwater songs in the film, and Frampton wrote the other two, with Mike McCready from Pearl Jam playing lead guitar on all of the Stillwater songs. Reviews were almost universally positive, and it was nominated for and won a host of film awards, including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Crowe. Crowe and co-producer Danny Bramson also won the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media Grammy Award for the soundtrack. Despite these accolades, box office returns for the film were disappointing.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe followed "Almost Famous" with the psychological thriller "Vanilla Sky" in 2001. The film, starring Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz and Cameron Diaz, received mixed reviews, yet managed to gross $100.6 million at the US box office, making it his second highest grossing directorial effort behind "Jerry Maguire" (1996). "Vanilla Sky" is a remake of Alejandro Amenabar's 1997 Spanish film "Abre Los Ojos" ("Open Your Eyes"). Sofia is played by Penélope Cruz in both Amenabar's original movie and Crowe's remake.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: In 2005, Crowe directed the romantic tragicomedy "Elizabethtown", starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst, which opened to mixed reviews, scoring 45 on Metacritic, the same as his previous effort, "Vanilla Sky".


title: Cameron Crowe

text: In November 2009, he began filming a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the album "The Union", a collaboration between musicians Elton John and Leon Russell produced by award-winning producer T-Bone Burnett. The documentary features musicians Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Booker T. Jones, steel guitarist Robert Randolph, Don Was and a 10-piece gospel choir who all appear on the album with John and Russell. Musician Stevie Nicks and John's longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin also appear. On March 2, 2011, the documentary was announced to open the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: With production on "Aloha" delayed, Crowe set his next feature, the family comedy-drama "We Bought a Zoo", based on Benjamin Mee's memoir of the same name. He collaborated with "The Devil Wears Prada" writer Aline Brosh McKenna on the screenplay. The book's story follows Mee, who buys and moves into a dilapidated zoo (now Dartmoor Zoological Park) in the English countryside. Looking for a fresh start along with his seven-year-old daughter and his troubled fourteen-year-old son, he hopes to refurbish the zoo and run it and to give his children what he calls an "adventure". Crowe changed the location to the United States. The film received a wide release on December 23, 2011, by 20th Century Fox, and starred Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson. It received mixed reviews. The film music was composed by Jonsi.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: In an interview with Pearl Jam on March 9, 2009, bassist Jeff Ament said "... our manager Kelly has had the idea to do a 20-year anniversary retrospective movie so he's been on board with [film director] Cameron Crowe for the last few years." The band's guitarist Mike McCready also stated in March, "We are just in the very early stages of that, . . . starting to go through all the footage we have, and Cameron's writing the treatment." Preliminary footage was being shot . A trailer for the movie, which featured Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder choosing between three permanent markers in a shop before turning to the camera and saying "Three's good... Twenty is better", was shown before select movies at the 2011 BFI London Film Festival. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and also had an accompanying book and soundtrack.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: It was announced in early June 2008 that Crowe would return to write and direct his seventh feature film, initially titled "Deep Tiki" and "Volcano Romance", set to star Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon, and to be released by Columbia Pictures. Filming was expected to begin in January 2009, but this was then postponed.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: The project resurfaced in 2013. Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Alec Baldwin, Bill Murray, John Krasinski and Danny McBride joined the cast of the film; filming began in Hawaii in September 2013. The film's final title was "Aloha" and it was released on May 29, 2015, by Sony Pictures to negative critical reviews.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: On June 26, 2016, Crowe's comedy-drama series "Roadies" premiered on the Showtime television channel. The show, starring Luke Wilson, Carla Gugino and Imogen Poots, tells the story of a colorful road crew who work behind the scenes for a fictional rock band, The Staton-House Band. The pilot episode was written and directed by Crowe, as well as the series finale.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: In 1997, it was reported that Crowe was in talks to direct a biopic about Phil Spector, with Tom Cruise in talks to portray him. The film was to have been distributed by Universal Pictures. Crowe stated in 2005 that the film was unlikely to be made due to the murder of Lana Clarkson, which Spector was convicted of. It has also been said that the film was never made due to the failure of finding a third act to the story.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe also attempted to make a biopic about Marvin Gaye titled "My Name is Marvin". That project fell apart in 2010 due to casting and budget issues.


title: Cameron Crowe

text: Crowe married Nancy Wilson of the rock band Heart in July 1986. Their twin sons were born in January 2000. Crowe and Wilson separated in June 2008 and Wilson filed for divorce on September 23, 2010, citing "irreconcilable differences". The divorce was finalized on December 8, 2010.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: United Airlines Flight 175 was a domestic passenger flight that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The flight's scheduled plan was from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California. The Boeing 767-200 aircraft was deliberately crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 65 aboard and causing the deaths of around 600 people at or above the building's impact zone.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: 28 minutes into the flight, the hijackers forcibly breached the cockpit, murdered Captain Victor Saracini and First Officer Michael Horrocks, and forced the remaining passengers and crew to the rear of the aircraft. Lead hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi, who had trained as a pilot in preparation for the attacks, took control of the plane. Unlike Flight11, whose transponder was turned off, Flight175's transponder was visible on New York Center's radar, which depicted the aircraft's deviation from its assigned flight path for four minutes before air traffic controllers took notice at 08:51 EDT. Thereafter, they made several unsuccessful attempts to contact the cockpit. Several passengers and crew members aboard made phone calls to family members and relayed information regarding the hijackers and casualties suffered by passengers and crew.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The aircraft crashed into Tower Two (the South Tower) at 09:03. The Flight175 hijacking was coordinated with that of American Airlines Flight 11, which struck the upper floors of Tower One (the North Tower) 17 minutes earlier. The crash of Flight175 into the South Tower was the only impact televised live around the world. The crash and subsequent fire caused the South Tower to collapse around 56 minutes later at 09:58, resulting in hundreds of additional casualties. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers uncovered and identified remains from some Flight175 victims, but many victims have not been identified.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The flight was hijacked as part of the September 11 attacks. The team was assembled by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who also provided the financial and logistical support, and was led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who devised the plot. Bin Laden and Mohammed, along with the hijackers, were motivated by anti-US sentiment. The attacks were given the go ahead by bin Laden in late 1998 or early 1999. The World Trade Center was chosen as one of the targets due to it being a prominent American symbol that represented economic prowess.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The team of hijackers on United Airlines Flight175 was led by Marwan al-Shehhi, originally from the United Arab Emirates with a stint in Hamburg, Germany as a student. By January 2001, the pilot hijackers had completed their training; Shehhi obtained a commercial pilot licence while training in South Florida, along with American Airlines Flight 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Flight93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. The hijackers on Flight175 included Fayez Banihammad, also from the UAE, and three Saudis: brothers Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi, as well as Mohand al-Shehri.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The hijackers were trained at an al-Qaeda camp called "Mes Aynak" in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they learned about weapons and explosives, followed by training in Karachi, Pakistan, where they learned about "Western culture and travel". Afterwards, they went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for exercises in airport security and surveillance. Part of the training in Malaysia included boarding flights operated by US carriers so they could observe pre-boarding security screenings, flight crew movements around the cabin, and the timing of cabin services.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: A month before the attacks, Marwan al-Shehhi purchased two pocket knives from a Sports Authority store in Boynton Beach, Florida, while Banihammad bought a two-piece "snap" utility knife set at a Wal-Mart, and Hamza al-Ghamdi bought a Leatherman Wave multi-tool. The hijackers arrived in Boston from Florida between September 7 and 9.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The flight was operated by a Boeing 767-200, registration number N612UA, built and delivered to United Airlines in February 1983, with capacity of 168 passengers (10 in first class, 32 in business class, and 126 in economy class). On the day of the attacks, the flight carried only 56 passengers and 9crew, which represented a 33 percent load factorwell below the average load factor of 49 percent in the three months preceding September11. The youngest person on Flight175 was Christine Hanson, aged two and a half, and the oldest was 82-year-old Dorothy DeAraujo of Long Beach, California. Among the other passengers were hockey scout Garnett Bailey, and former athlete Mark Bavis.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The nine crew members included Captain Victor Saracini (51), First Officer Michael Horrocks (38), purser Kathryn Laborie, and flight attendants Robert Fangman, Amy Jarret, Amy King, Alfred Marchand, Michael Tarrou, and Alicia Titus.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi checked out of their hotel and called a taxi to take them to Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. They arrived at the United Airlines counter in Terminal C at 06:20 Eastern Time and Ahmed al-Ghamdi checked two bags. Both hijackers indicated they wanted to purchase tickets, even though they already had paper tickets, which were purchased approximately 2 weeks before the attacks. They had trouble answering the standard security questions, so the counter agent repeated the questions very slowly until satisfied with their responses. Hijacker pilot Marwan al-Shehhi checked a single bag at 06:45, and the other remaining hijackers, Fayez Banihammad and Mohand al-Shehri, checked in at 06:53; Banihammad checked two bags. None of the Flight 175 hijackers were selected for extra scrutiny by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS).


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Shehhi and the other hijackers boarded Flight175 between 07:23 and 07:28. Banihammad boarded first and sat in first class seat 2A, while Mohand al-Shehri was in seat 2B. At 07:27, Shehhi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi boarded and sat in business class seats 6C and 9D, respectively. One minute later, Hamza al-Ghamdi boarded and sat in 9C.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The flight was scheduled to depart at 08:00 for Los Angeles. Fifty-one passengers and the five hijackers boarded the 767 through Terminal C's Gate 19. The plane pushed back at 07:58 and took off at 08:14 from Runway 9, about the same time Flight11 was hijacked. By 08:33, the aircraft reached cruising altitude of , which is the point when cabin service would normally begin. At 08:37, air traffic controllers asked the pilots of Flight175 whether they could see American Airlines Flight 11. The crew first responded saying they could not locate the hijacked plane but would continue looking. They then responded that Flight11 was at , and controllers instructed Flight175 to turn and avoid the aircraft. The pilots declared that they had heard a suspicious transmission from Flight11 upon takeoff. "Sounds like someone keyed the mic and said 'Everyone, stay in your seats'," the flight crew reported. This was the last transmission from Flight175.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Flight 175 was hijacked between 08:42 and 08:46, while Flight11 was just minutes away from hitting the North Tower. It is believed that hijackers Banihammad and al-Shehri forcibly entered the cockpit and attacked the pilots while the al-Ghamdis commanded passengers and crew to the aft of the cabin and al-Shehhi took over the controls. Knives were used to stab the flight crew and kill both pilots. One passenger also reported, during a phone call, the use of mace and bomb threats. The first operational evidence that something was abnormal on Flight175 came at 08:47, when the plane's transponder signal changed twice within the span of one minute, and the aircraft began deviating from its assigned course. However, the air traffic controller in charge of the flight did not notice until minutes later at 08:51. Unlike Flight11, which had turned its transponder off, Flight175's flight data could still be properly monitored. Also, at 08:51, Flight175 changed altitude. Over the next three minutes, the controller made five unsuccessful attempts to contact Flight175 and worked to move other aircraft in the vicinity away from Flight175. At 08:55 a supervisor at the New York Air Traffic Control Center notified the center's operations manager of the Flight175 hijacking. Dave Bottigliathe controller who was handling both Flight11 and Flight175remarked, "We might have a hijack over here, two of them."


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Around this time, the flight had a near midair collision with Delta Air Lines Flight2315 flying from Hartford to Tampa, reportedly missing the plane by only . Bottiglia yelled at the Delta pilot to make collision avoidance maneuvers, adding, "I think [Flight 175] has been hijacked. I don’t know his intentions. Take any evasive action necessary." Moments before Flight175 crashed, it narrowly avoided colliding with Midwest Express Flight7, which was flying from Milwaukee to New York.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Flight attendant Robert Fangman and passengers Peter Hanson and Brian David Sweeney made phone calls from GTE airphones in the rear of the aircraft. Airphone records also indicate that passenger Garnet Bailey made four phone call attempts to his wife.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: At 08:52, Robert Fangman called a United Airlines maintenance office in San Francisco and spoke with Marc Policastro. Fangman reported the hijacking and said the hijackers were likely flying the plane. He mentioned that both pilots were dead and that a flight attendant had been stabbed. After a minute and 15 seconds, the call was disconnected. Policastro subsequently made attempts to contact the aircraft's cockpit using the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) message system. He wrote, "I heard of a reported incident aboard your acft [aircraft]. Plz verify all is normal." He received no reply.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Brian David Sweeney tried calling his wife, Julie, at 08:59, but ended up leaving a message letting her know the plane had been hijacked. He then called his parents at 09:00 and spoke with his mother, Louise. Sweeney told his mother about the hijacking and mentioned that passengers were considering storming the cockpit and taking control of the aircraft. Concerned that the hijackers would return, he informed her that he might have to hang up quickly. After saying their goodbyes, he hung up.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: At 08:52, Peter Hanson called his father, Lee Hanson, in Easton, Connecticut. Hanson was traveling with his wife, Sue, and their two-year-old daughter, Christine, the youngest victim of the September 11 attacks. The family was originally seated in Row 19, in seats C, D, and E; however, Peter placed the call to his father from seat 30E. Speaking softly, Hanson said the hijackers had commandeered the cockpit, a flight attendant had been stabbed, and that possibly someone else in the front of the aircraft had been killed. He also said the plane was flying erratically. Hanson asked his father to contact United Airlines, but Lee could not get through and instead called the police.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: It's getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It's getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don't think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast... Oh, my God... oh, my God, oh, my God.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: As the call abruptly ended, Hanson's father heard a woman screaming. He then switched on the television and witnessed as the plane struck the South Tower.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: At 08:58, Flight175 was over New Jersey at 28,500 feet, heading toward New York City. In the five minutes from approximately 08:58 when Shehhi completed the final turn toward New York City until the moment of impact, the plane was in a sustained power dive, descending more than 24,000 feet in 5minutes 4seconds, at an average rate of over 5,000 feet per minute. Bottiglia reported he and his colleagues "were counting down the altitudes, and they were descending, right at the end, at 10,000 feet per minute. That is absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet."


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: As the plane approached New York City, Shehhi would have seen the fire and smoke pouring from the North Tower in the distance. The aircraft was in a banking left turn in its final moments, as it appeared the plane might have otherwise missed the building or merely scraped it with a wing. Therefore, those who were on the left side of the plane would also have had a clear view of the towers approaching, with one burning. At 09:01, two minutes before impact as Flight175 continued its descent into Lower Manhattan, the New York Center alerted another nearby Air Traffic Facility responsible for low-flying aircraft, which was able to monitor the aircraft's path over New Jersey, and then over Staten Island and Upper New York Bay in its final moments.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: At 09:03, Flight 175 crashed nose-first into the southern façade of the South Tower of the World Trade Center at over , striking through floors 77 and 85 with approximately of jet fuel on board.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: By the time Flight 175 struck the South Tower, multiple media organizations were already covering the crash of Flight11, which had hit the North Tower 17 minutes earlier. The image of Flight175's crash was thus caught on video from multiple vantage points on live television and amateur video, while approximately a hundred cameras captured Flight175 in photographs before it crashed. Video footage of the crash was replayed numerous times in news broadcasts on the day of the attacks and in the following days, before major news networks put restrictions on use of the footage. The initial assumption by many was that Flight 11's crash into the North Tower had been an accident, a mistaken belief that also hindered the process of immediately evacuating the South Tower after the castastrophic damage done to the North. The sight of Flight 175 deliberately crashing into the South Tower on live TV less than 20 minutes after the first impact confirmed to the entire world it was a terrorist attack.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: After the plane penetrated through the tower, part of the plane's landing gear and fuselage came out the north side of the tower and crashed through the roof and two of the floors of 45–47 Park Place, between West Broadway and Church Street, north of the former World Trade Center. Three floor beams of the top floor of the building were destroyed, causing major structural damage.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Unlike at the North Tower, one of the three stairwells (A) was still intact after Flight175 crashed into the South Tower. This was because the plane struck the tower offset from the center and not centrally as Flight11 in the North Tower had done. Only 18 people passed the impact zone through the available stairway and left the South Tower safely before it collapsed, although the 9/11 Commission speculated that there may have been others who were in the process of descending from above the point of impact, only to be caught in the collapse before they could escape. On the 81st floor, only one person survived: Stanley Praimnath, whose office was sliced by the wing of the plane. He witnessed Flight175 coming toward him. One of the wings sliced through his office and wound up wedged in a doorway about away from him. No one who was at, above or immediately below the impact zone in the North Tower was able to escape.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: With approximately 600 people at or above Floor 77, it is estimated that around half of them were killed instantly at the moment of impact. Although not necessarily trapped by the damage done by Flight 175’s impact, the roughly 300 survivors of the crash were either unaware of or unable to escape using the single intact stairwell and subsequently died from smoke inhalation, fires, or the eventual collapse. The smoke and flames also compelled at least three people to jump to their deaths from the upper floors of the South Tower, inadvertently causing the death of another man at street level. Some people above the impact zone made their way upward toward the roof in hopes of a helicopter rescue. However, access doors to the roof were locked; in any case, thick smoke and intense heat prevented rescue helicopters from landing.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Flight 175's crash into the South Tower was faster and lower down than that of the North Tower, compromising its structural integrity more. With 25 floors above the South Tower's impact zone compared to the North Tower's 11, there was far more structural weight pressing down on a damaged section of the building on fire. The South Tower collapsed at 09:58:59, after burning for approximately 56 minutes, being the first of the two skyscrapers to collapse despite being the second to be hit, and only burning for around half the amount of time as the North Tower did before it too fell.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The flight recorder for Flight175, as with Flight11's, was never found. Some debris from Flight175 was recovered nearby, including landing gear found on top of a building on the corner of West Broadway and Park Place, an engine found at Church and Murray Street, and a section of the fuselage which landed on top of 5 World Trade Center. In April 2013, a piece of the inboard wing flap mechanism from a Boeing 767 was discovered wedged between two buildings at Park Place.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: During the recovery process, small fragments were identified from some passengers on Flight175, including a piece of bone belonging to Peter Hanson, and small bone fragments of Lisa Frost. In 2008, the remains of Flight175 passenger Alona Abraham were identified using DNA samples. Remains of many others aboard Flight175 were never recovered.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: Shortly after September 11, the number for future flights on the same route was changed from 175 to 1525. Since then, United Airlines has renumbered and rescheduled all flights from Boston to Los Angeles. United Airlines Flight311 now operates the Boston to LAX route, leaving at 08:30 and is operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 9. It was reported in May 2011 that United was reactivating flight numbers 175 and 93 as a codeshare operated by Continental, sparking an outcry from some in the media and the labor union representing United pilots. However, United said the reactivation was a mistake and said the numbers were "inadvertently reinstated", and would not be reactivated.


title: United Airlines Flight 175

text: The federal government provided financial aida minimum of $500,000for the families of victims who died in the attack. Individuals who accepted funds from the government were required to forfeit their ability to sue any entity for damages. More than $7 billion has been paid out to victims by the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, although that figure includes damages to those who were injured or killed on the other hijacked flights or the towers. In total, lawsuits were filed on behalf of 96 people against the airline and associated companies. The vast majority were settled under terms that were not made public, but the total compensation is estimated to be around $500 million. Only one lawsuit progressed to a civil trial; a wrongful death filing by the family of Mark Bavis against the airline, Boeing, and the airport's security company. This was eventually settled in September 2011. US President George Bush, other top officials, and various government agencies were also sued by Ellen Mariani, widow of passenger Louis Neil Mariani. Her cases were deemed to be frivolous.


title: Whataboutism

text: Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument.


title: Whataboutism

text: The communication intent here is often to distract from the content of a topic (red herring). The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism, the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified. Common accusations include double standards, and hypocrisy.


title: Whataboutism

text: Whataboutism can also be used to relativize criticism of one's own viewpoints or behaviors. (A: "Long-term unemployment often means poverty in Germany." B: "And what about the starving in Africa and Asia?").


title: Whataboutism

text: Accusing an interlocutor of whataboutism can also in itself be manipulative and serve the motive of discrediting, as critical talking points can be used selectively and purposefully even as the starting point of the conversation. (cf. agenda setting, framing, framing effect, priming, cherry picking). The deviation from them can then be branded as whataboutism.


title: Whataboutism

text: Related manipulation and propaganda techniques in the sense of rhetorical evasion of the topic are the change of topic and false balance ("bothsidesism").


title: Whataboutism

text: Common phrases of whataboutism, besides the typical "And what about...?" are the proverbs "He who sits in glass houses should not throw stones", "When you point a finger at others, three fingers point back at yourself", "You see the mote in another's eye, you do not see the beam in your own", and "Sweep in front of your own door."


title: Whataboutism

text: The term "whataboutism" is a portmanteau of "what" and "about", is synonymous with "whataboutery", and means to twist criticism back on the initial critic.


title: Whataboutism

text: According to lexicographer Ben Zimmer, the term originated in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1970s. Zimmer cites a 1974 letter by history teacher Sean O'Conaill which was published in "The Irish Times" where he complained about "the Whatabouts," people who defended the IRA by pointing out supposed wrongdoings of their enemy:


title: Whataboutism

text: Three days later, an opinion column by John Healy in the same paper entitled "Enter the cultural British Army" picked up the theme by using the term "whataboutery": "As a correspondent noted in a recent letter to this paper, we are very big on Whatabout Morality, matching one historic injustice with another justified injustice. We have a bellyfull [sic] of Whataboutery in these killing days and the one clear fact to emerge is that people, Orange and Green, are dying as a result of it." Zimmer says the term gained wide currency in commentary about the conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Zimmer also notes that the variant "whataboutism" was used in the same context in a 1993 book by Tony Parker.


title: Whataboutism

text: In 1978, Australian journalist Michael Bernard wrote a column in "The Age" applying the term "whataboutism" to the Soviet Union. Bernard explains that he is lifting this term from "a letter writer in a leading British Daily." The piece comments on "the weaknesses of whataboutism — which dictates that no one must get away with an attack on the Kremlin's abuses without tossing a few bricks at South Africa, no one must indict the Cuban police State without castigating President Park, no one must mention Iraq, Libya or the PLO without having a bash at Israel". This is the first and only recorded instance of the term being applied to the Soviet Union during the Soviet era.


title: Whataboutism

text: Zimmer credits British journalist Edward Lucas for beginning regular common use of the word "whataboutism" in the modern era following its appearance in a blog post on 29 October 2007, reporting as part of a diary about Russia which was re-printed in the 2 November issue of "The Economist". On 31 January 2008 "The Economist" printed another article by Lucas titled "Whataboutism." Ivan Tsvetkov, associate professor of International Relations in St Petersburg also credits Lucas for modern uses of the term.


title: Whataboutism

text: Although the term whataboutism spread recently, Edward Lucas's 2008 "Economist" article states that "Soviet propagandists during the cold war were trained in a tactic that their western interlocutors nicknamed 'whataboutism. Any criticism of the Soviet Union (Afghanistan, martial law in Poland, imprisonment of dissidents, censorship) was met with a 'What about...' (apartheid South Africa, jailed trade-unionists, the Contras in Nicaragua, and so forth)." Lucas recommended two methods of properly countering whataboutism: to "use points made by Russian leaders themselves" so that they cannot be applied to the West, and for Western nations to engage in more self-criticism of their own media and government.


title: Whataboutism

text: Following the publication of Lucas's 2007 and 2008 articles and his 2008 book "The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West", which featured the same themes, opinion writers at prominent English language media outlets began using the term and echoing the themes laid out by Lucas, including the association with the Soviet Union and Russia. Journalist Luke Harding described Russian whataboutism as "practically a national ideology". Writing for "Bloomberg News",


title: Whataboutism

text: Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a "Russian tradition", while "The New Yorker" described the technique as "a strategy of false moral equivalences". Julia Ioffe called whataboutism a "sacred Russian tactic", and compared it to accusing the pot of calling the kettle black.


title: Whataboutism

text: Several articles connected whataboutism to the Soviet era by pointing to the "And you are lynching Negroes" example (as Lucas did), in which Soviets deflected criticism by referencing racism in the Jim Crow United States. Ioffe, who has written about whataboutism in at least three separate outlets, called it a "classic" example of the tactic. Some writers also identified more recent examples when Russian officials responded to critique by, for example, redirecting attention to the United Kingdom's anti-protest laws or Russians' difficulty obtaining a visa to the United Kingdom. In 2006, Putin replied to George W. Bush’s criticism of Russia that he "did not want to head a democracy like Iraq's." In 2017 Ben Zimmer noted that Putin also used the tactic in an interview with NBC News journalist Megyn Kelly.


title: Whataboutism

text: The term receives increased attention when controversies involving Russia are in the news. For example, writing for "Slate" in 2014, Joshua Keating noted the use of "whataboutism" in a statement on Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, where Putin "listed a litany of complaints about Western intervention."


title: Whataboutism

text: A synonymous Chinese-language metaphor is the "stinky bug argument" (), coined by Lu Xun, a leading figure in modern Chinese literature, in 1933 to describe his Chinese colleagues' common tendency to accuse Europeans of "having equally bad issues" whenever foreigners commented upon China's domestic problems. As a Chinese nationalist, Lu saw this mentality as one of the biggest obstructions to the modernization of China in the early 20th century, which Lu frequently mocked in his literary works. In response to tweets from Donald Trump's administration criticizing the Chinese government's mistreatment of ethnic minorities and the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials began using Twitter to point out racial inequalities and social unrest in the United States which led "Politico" to accuse China of engaging in whataboutism.


title: Whataboutism

text: In early 2017, amid coverage of interference in the 2016 election and the lead up to the Mueller Investigation into Donald Trump, several people, including Edward Lucas, wrote opinion pieces associating whataboutism with both Trump and Russia. "Instead of giving a reasoned defense [of his health care plan], he went for blunt offense, which is a hallmark of whataboutism", wrote Danielle Kurtzleben of NPR, adding that he "sounds an awful lot like Putin."


title: Whataboutism

text: When, in a widely viewed television interview that aired before the Super Bowl in 2017, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly called Putin a "killer," Trump responded by saying that the US government was also guilty of killing people. He responded, "There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think — our country’s so innocent?" This episode prompted commentators to accuse Trump of whataboutism, including Chuck Todd on the television show "Meet the Press" and political advisor Jake Sullivan.


title: Whataboutism

text: The term "whataboutery" has been used by Loyalists and Republicans since the period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The tactic was employed by Azerbaijan, which responded to criticism of its human rights record by holding parliamentary hearings on issues in the United States. Simultaneously, pro-Azerbaijan Internet trolls used whataboutism to draw attention away from criticism of the country. Similarly, the Turkish government engaged in whataboutism by publishing an official document listing criticisms of other governments that had criticized Turkey.


title: Whataboutism

text: According to "The Washington Post", "In what amounts to an official document of whataboutism, the Turkish statement listed a roster of supposed transgressions by various governments now scolding Turkey for its dramatic purge of state institutions and civil society in the wake of a failed coup attempt in July."


title: Whataboutism

text: The tactic was also employed by Saudi Arabia and Israel. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "the [Israeli] occupation is nonsense, there are plenty of big countries that occupied and replaced populations and no one talks about them." In July 2022, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman engaged in this tactic by raising the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers during the Iraq War, after US President Joe Biden raised the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government, during a conversation with Mohammed as part of Biden's state visit to Saudi Arabia.


title: Whataboutism

text: Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif used the tactic in the Zurich Security Conference on February 17, 2019. When pressed by BBC's Lyse Doucet about eight environmentalists imprisoned in his country, he mentioned the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Doucet picked up the fallacy and said "let’s leave that aside."


title: Whataboutism

text: The government of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has been accused of using whataboutism, especially in regard to the 2015 Indian writers protest and the nomination of former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi to parliament.


title: Whataboutism

text: Hesameddin Ashena, a top adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted about the George Floyd protests: "The brave American people have the right to protest against the ongoing terror inflicted on minorities, the poor, and the disenfranchised. You must bring an end to the racist and classist structures of governance in the U.S."


title: Whataboutism

text: The philosopher Merold Westphal said that only people who know themselves to be guilty of something "can find comfort in finding others to be just as bad or worse." Whataboutery, as practiced by both parties in The Troubles in Northern Ireland to highlight what the other side had done to them, was "one of the commonest forms of evasion of personal moral responsibility," according to Bishop (later Cardinal) Cahal Daly. After a political shooting at a baseball game in 2017, journalist Chuck Todd criticized the tenor of political debate, commenting, "What-about-ism is among the worst instincts of partisans on both sides."


title: Whataboutism

text: Whataboutism usually points the finger at a rival's offenses to discredit them, but, in a reversal of this usual direction, it can also be used to discredit oneself while one refuses to critique an ally. During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when "The New York Times" asked candidate Donald Trump about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's treatment of journalists, teachers, and dissidents, Trump replied with a criticism of U.S. history on civil liberties. Writing for "The Diplomat", Catherine Putz pointed out: "The core problem is that this rhetorical device precludes discussion of issues (ex: civil rights) by one country (ex: the United States) if that state lacks a perfect record." Masha Gessen wrote for "The New York Times" that usage of the tactic by Trump was shocking to Americans, commenting, "No American politician in living memory has advanced the idea that the entire world, including the United States, was rotten to the core."


title: Whataboutism

text: Joe Austin was critical of the practice of whataboutism in Northern Ireland in a 1994 piece, "The Obdurate and the Obstinate", writing: "And I'd no time at all for 'What aboutism' ... if you got into it you were defending the indefensible." In 2017, "The New Yorker" described the tactic as "a strategy of false moral equivalences", and Clarence Page called the technique "a form of logical jiu-jitsu". Writing for "National Review", commentator Ben Shapiro criticized the practice, whether it was used by those espousing right-wing or left-wing politics; Shapiro concluded: "It's all dumb. And it's making us all dumber." Michael J. Koplow of Israel Policy Forum wrote that the usage of whataboutism had become a crisis; concluding that the tactic did not yield any benefits, Koplow charged that "whataboutism from either the right or the left only leads to a black hole of angry recriminations from which nothing will escape".


title: Whataboutism

text: In his book "The New Cold War" (2008), Edward Lucas characterized whataboutism as "the favourite weapon of Soviet propagandists". Juhan Kivirähk and colleagues called it a "polittechnological" strategy. Writing in "The National Interest" in 2013, Samuel Charap was critical of the tactic, commenting, "Russian policy makers, meanwhile, gain little from petulant bouts of 'whataboutism. National security journalist Julia Ioffe commented in a 2014 article, "Anyone who has ever studied the Soviet Union knows about a phenomenon called 'whataboutism'." Ioffe cited the Soviet response to criticism, "And you are lynching negroes", as a "classic" form of whataboutism. She said that "Russia Today" was "an institution that is dedicated solely to the task of whataboutism", and concluded that whataboutism was a "sacred Russian tactic". Garry Kasparov discussed the Soviet tactic in his book "Winter Is Coming", calling it a form of "Soviet propaganda" and a way for Russian bureaucrats to "respond to criticism of Soviet massacres, forced deportations, and gulags". Mark Adomanis commented for "The Moscow Times" in 2015 that "Whataboutism was employed by the Communist Party with such frequency and shamelessness that a sort of pseudo mythology grew up around it." Adomanis observed, "Any student of Soviet history will recognize parts of the whataboutist canon."


title: Whataboutism

text: Writing in 2016 for "Bloomberg News", journalist Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a "Russian tradition", while "The National" called the tactic "an effective rhetorical weapon". In their book "The European Union and Russia" (2016), Forsberg and Haukkala characterized whataboutism as an "old Soviet practice", and they observed that the strategy "has been gaining in prominence in the Russian attempts at deflecting Western criticism". In her book, "Security Threats and Public Perception", author Elizaveta Gaufman called the whataboutism technique "A Soviet/Russian spin on liberal anti-Americanism", comparing it to the Soviet rejoinder, "And you are lynching negroes". "Foreign Policy" supported this assessment. In 2016, Canadian columnist Terry Glavin asserted in the "Ottawa Citizen" that Noam Chomsky used the tactic in an October 2001 speech, delivered after the September 11 attacks, that was critical of US foreign policy. Daphne Skillen discussed the tactic in her book, "Freedom of Speech in Russia", identifying it as a "Soviet propagandist's technique" and "a common Soviet-era defence". In a piece for CNN, Jill Dougherty compared the technique to "the pot calling the kettle black". Dougherty wrote: "There's another attitude ... that many Russians seem to share, what used to be called in the Soviet Union 'whataboutism', in other words, 'who are you to call the kettle black?


title: Whataboutism

text: Russian journalist told "GlobalPost" in 2017 that the tactic was "an old Soviet trick". Peter Conradi, author of "Who Lost Russia?", called whataboutism "a form of moral relativism that responds to criticism with the simple response: 'But you do it too. Conradi echoed Gaufman's comparison of the tactic to the Soviet response, "Over there they lynch Negroes". Writing for "Forbes" in 2017, journalist Melik Kaylan explained the term's increased pervasiveness in referring to Russian propaganda tactics: "Kremlinologists of recent years call this 'whataboutism' because the Kremlin's various mouthpieces deployed the technique so exhaustively against the U.S." Kaylan commented upon a "suspicious similarity between Kremlin propaganda and Trump propaganda". "Foreign Policy" wrote that Russian whataboutism was "part of the national psyche". "EurasiaNet" stated that "Moscow's geopolitical whataboutism skills are unmatched", while "Paste" correlated whataboutism's rise with the increasing societal consumption of fake news.


title: Whataboutism

text: Writing for "The Washington Post", former United States Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul wrote critically of Trump's use of the tactic and compared him to Putin. McFaul commented, "That's exactly the kind of argument that Russian propagandists have used for years to justify some of Putin's most brutal policies." "Los Angeles Times" contributor Matt Welch classed the tactic among "six categories of Trump apologetics". "Mother Jones" called the tactic "a traditional Russian propaganda strategy", and observed, "The whataboutism strategy has made a comeback and evolved in President Vladimir Putin's Russia."


title: Whataboutism

text: Some commentators have defended the usage of whataboutism and "tu quoque" in certain contexts. Whataboutism can provide necessary context into whether or not a particular line of critique is relevant or fair. In international relations, behavior that may be imperfect by international standards may be quite good for a given geopolitical neighborhood, and deserves to be recognized as such.


title: Whataboutism

text: Christian Christensen, Professor of Journalism in Stockholm, argues that the accusation of whataboutism is itself a form of the "tu quoque" fallacy, as it dismisses criticisms of one's own behavior to focus instead on the actions of another, thus creating a double standard. Those who use whataboutism are not necessarily engaging in an empty or cynical deflection of responsibility: whataboutism can be a useful tool to expose contradictions, double standards, and hypocrisy.


title: Whataboutism

text: A number of commentators, among them "Forbes" columnist Mark Adomanis, have criticized the usage of accusations of whataboutism by American news outlets, arguing that accusations of whataboutism have been used to simply deflect criticisms of human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States or its allies. Vincent Bevins and Alex Lo argue that the usage of the term almost exclusively by American outlets is a double standard, and that moral accusations made by powerful countries are merely a pretext to punish their geopolitical rivals in the face of their own wrongdoing.


title: Whataboutism

text: The scholars Kristen Ghodsee and Scott Sehon posit that mentioning the possible existence of victims of capitalism in popular discourse is often dismissed as "whataboutism", which they describe as "a term implying that only atrocities perpetrated by communists merit attention." They also argue that such accusations of "whataboutism" are invalid as the same arguments used against communism can also be used against capitalism.


title: Whataboutism

text: Scholars Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere noted the prevalence of whataboutist arguments as well as essentialist counterarguments in the context of political debates between China and the US. They argue that it is not whataboutism to document and denounce authoritarianism in different countries, and noted global parallels such as the role Islamophobia played in China's Xinjiang internment camps and the US's War on terror and travel bans targeting Muslim countries, as well as influence of corporations and other international actors in the documented abuses which is becoming more obscured. Franceschini and Loubere conclude that authoritarianism "must be opposed everywhere", and that "only by finding the critical parallels, linkages, and complicities can we develop immunity to the virus of whataboutism and avoid its essentialist hyperactive immune response, achieving the moral consistency and holistic perspective that we need in order to build up international solidarity and stop sleepwalking towards the abyss."


title: This Is 40

text: This Is 40 is a 2012 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Judd Apatow and starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. A "sort-of sequel" to Apatow's 2007 film "Knocked Up", the movie centers on married couple Pete (Rudd) and Debbie (Mann), characters introduced in the previous film, whose stressful relationship is compounded by each turning 40. John Lithgow, Megan Fox, and Albert Brooks appear in supporting roles.


title: This Is 40

text: Filming was conducted in mid-2011, and "This Is 40" was released in North America on December 21, 2012. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its cast, acting (particularly Mann, Rudd and Fox) and the film's comedic moments and perceptive scenes, but criticized its overlong running time and occasional aimlessness. In March 2022, Apatow was announced to be in early development of a third film, set 10 years later and titled "This Is 50".


title: This Is 40

text: In the five years since "Knocked Up", Debbie owns a boutique and Desi and Jodi work for her. Pete owns his own record label, and friends Ronnie and Cat work with him.


title: This Is 40

text: Pete's business is struggling financially as he promotes the reunion of Graham Parker & The Rumour. The couple also are having to deal with their daughters; Thirteen-year-old Sadie and eight-year-old Charlotte. For Debbie's 40th birthday, the couple goes on a romantic weekend to a resort. There they get high on marijuana cookies and fantasize out loud about ways they would kill each other.


title: This Is 40

text: After speaking with her friends Jason and Barb, Debbie decides to improve her marriage and family through exercise and becoming more connected with her father. She tells Pete he needs to stop lending his dad Larry money because it is hurting them financially. Pete visits him, but is unsuccessful at giving him the news, and still agrees to give him more. Meanwhile, Debbie visits her gynecologist, discovering she is pregnant but decides not to tell Pete. Later, she yells at a student, Joseph, who has been taunting Sadie on Facebook. So much so that his mother, Catherine, gets into an argument with Pete.


title: This Is 40

text: One night between the school taunting sequences, Debbie takes Desi out dancing at a club, planning to confront her with her suspicions that she has been stealing money from the store. Debbie and Desi meet several players from the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team there. Debbie awkwardly finds out that one of the players wants to hang out with her and possibly sleep with her. Though flattered that he wants to have sex with her, she reveals that she is married, has two kids, and is pregnant. Afterward, Debbie drops Desi off at her house, finally confronting her about the missing money. Desi reveals she is able to afford nice things because she is also an escort.


title: This Is 40

text: Later, Debbie meets up with Jodi, who confesses she stole the money to buy Oxycontin. She fires her and leaves. Meanwhile, Pete and Debbie are having to deal with Sadie and Charlotte fighting all the time, resulting in arguments among the family. They later have to meet with the principal, but the couple denies everything Catherine accuses them of doing. The couple is delighted when she starts using the same foul language they had used previously, and the principal dismisses them.


title: This Is 40

text: At Pete's 40th birthday party, they argue about the money his dad wants from them. Debbie argues with her dad about not spending enough time in her life, and how he is perfect. Oliver then explains that his life is not perfect, and how he has always cared about her and loved her. Later, Pete overhears Debbie talking about her pregnancy, and rides out of the house on his bicycle in anger. Debbie and Larry go, finding he has cycled into a car door. Pete gets into an argument with the driver of the car, who then punches him in the stomach.


title: This Is 40

text: Debbie and Larry take Pete to the hospital, where Larry and Debbie reconcile, with Larry recognizing that she is why the family is able to stay together, as she is the fighter. Pete and Debbie talk later; he is actually thrilled about having a third baby, he doesn't feel trapped, so they reconcile.


title: This Is 40

text: Sometime later, Pete and Debbie are watching a small concert with Ryan Adams performing. She suggests he sign him to his label and they plan to talk to him as they finish watching the show.


title: This Is 40

text: After the main credits roll, there's an extended alternate take of Catherine's ad-libbing insults during the meeting with Debbie, Pete, and the school principal.


title: This Is 40

text: "This Is 40" was originally scheduled to be released on June 1, 2012. In May 2011, Universal postponed the release to December 2012, allowing the studio to use that date for their release of "Snow White & the Huntsman"; the "Snow White" film was seen as better competition with a rival 2012 Snow White film project, "Mirror Mirror", by Relativity Media.


title: This Is 40

text: The premiere for "This Is 40" was held on December 12, 2012 at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in Los Angeles. The film was released on December 21, 2012, opening in 2,912 locations nationwide.


title: This Is 40

text: By the end of its theatrical run, "This Is 40" grossed approximately $67.5 million at the domestic box office, and approximately $20.5 million at the foreign box office, with a worldwide total of $88,058,786. While it had the lowest opening weekend for any of Apatow's films, it was a greater box-office success than his prior film, "Funny People".


title: This Is 40

text: Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 51% approval rating, based on reviews from 221 critics, with an average rating of 5.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Judd Apatow definitely delivers funny and perceptive scenes in "This Is 40", even if they are buried in aimless self-indulgence." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 59 out of 100, based on reviews from 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.


title: This Is 40

text: Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" gave the film two stars out of five, commending its premise but criticizing its execution. ""This Is 40" is a comedy film about the hell of getting older in a place where aging naturally is the last taboo, and I only wish it lived up to that utterly inspired concept...every scene feels like an airbrushed composite of dozens of rambling takes, and 133 minutes is drainingly long for a story this sitcom-slight," he wrote.


title: This Is 40

text: Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film three stars out of four, saying "There are big laughs here, and smaller ones that sting. Rudd and Mann are a joy to watch, especially when their comic darts draw blood, as when Debbie tells "charmboy" Pete that inside he's a dick. Cheers as well to a terrific supporting cast, including Melissa McCarthy as a mother from hell, John Lithgow as Debbie's withdrawn father, and the priceless Albert Brooks as Pete's dad, living off his son's dole to support his tow-headed triplets. "This Is 40" doesn't build to a catharsis. It sometimes dawdles as it circles the spectacle of a marriage in flux. Yet Pete and Debbie's sparring yields some of Apatow's most personal observations yet on the feelings for husbands, wives, parents, and children that we categorize as love."


title: This Is 40

text: Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" said "More like "This Is Whiny"", giving the film two and a half stars out of four. ""This Is 40" has its share of clever, zingy material, proving that writer-director Judd Apatow has lost none of his ability to land a punch line with the right, unexpected turn of phrase. 'My boobs are just ... gone,' bemoans Debbie, played by Leslie Mann, comparing hers with those of her employee, played by Megan Fox. Then comes the second line, building smartly on the setup: 'They didn't even say goodbye.' Mann is wonderful, a uniquely skillful comic and dramatic actor—wide-eyed yet merrily devastating when the venom's called for. Rudd can get away with murder on sheer charm. But it's easy, and sort of lazy, to establish jokes and entire scenes built upon mocking somebody's dialect, or the older daughter's obsession with "Lost"."


title: This Is 40

text: Richard Roeper gave the film a C- and called the film "a huge disappointment". His main complaint about the film was its running time and most of the unnecessary supporting characters.


title: This Is 40

text: "The New Yorker"s Richard Brody writes, "This Is 40" "is the stuff of life, and it flows like life, and, like life, it would be good for it to last longer".


title: This Is 40

text: "This Is 40" was released for Blu-ray and DVD in the U.S. on March 22, 2013. It is available for digital download on iTunes, Google Play, and other websites. The Blu-ray version is being sold as a single disc, and also a combo pack, which includes a DVD copy, digital copy, and Ultraviolet. The disc features an unrated and also theatrical version of the film, as well as numerous bonus features.


title: This Is 40

text: Director Judd Apatow stated he is interested in a possible sequel, shifting the focus off married couple Pete and Debbie and moving it onto their budding teenage daughter Sadie. During an interview on March 30, 2013, Apatow was questioned about the prospect of a sequel to "This Is 40". He admitted to being intrigued by the idea.


title: This Is 40

text: In March 2022, it was reported Apatow was in early development of writing a script, with the film set 10 years after the previous, titled "This is 50".


title: Starch

text: Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diets, and is contained in large amounts in staple foods such as wheat, potatoes, maize (corn), rice, and cassava (manioc).


title: Starch

text: Pure starch is a white, tasteless and odorless powder that is insoluble in cold water or alcohol. It consists of two types of molecules: the linear and helical amylose and the branched amylopectin. Depending on the plant, starch generally contains 20 to 25% amylose and 75 to 80% amylopectin by weight. Glycogen, the energy reserve of animals, is a more highly branched version of amylopectin.


title: Starch

text: In industry, starch is often converted into sugars, for example by malting. These sugars may be fermented to produce ethanol in the manufacture of beer, whisky and biofuel. In addition, sugars produced from processed starch are used in many processed foods.


title: Starch

text: Mixing most starches in warm water produces a paste, such as wheatpaste, which can be used as a thickening, stiffening or gluing agent. The principle non-food, industrial use of starch is as an adhesive in the papermaking process. A similar paste, , can be applied to certain textile goods before ironing to stiffen them.


title: Starch

text: The word "starch" is from its Germanic root with the meanings "strong, stiff, strengthen, stiffen". Modern German "Stärke" (strength) is related and referring for centuries main application, the use in textile: sizing yarn for weaving and starching linen. The Greek term for starch, "amylon" (ἄμυλον), which means "not milled", is also related. It provides the root amyl, which is used as a prefix for several 5-carbon compounds related to or derived from starch (e.g. amyl alcohol).


title: Starch

text: Starch grains from the rhizomes of "Typha" (cattails, bullrushes) as flour have been identified from grinding stones in Europe dating back to 30,000 years ago. Starch grains from sorghum were found on grind stones in caves in Ngalue, Mozambique dating up to 100,000 years ago.


title: Starch

text: Pure extracted wheat starch paste was used in Ancient Egypt possibly to glue papyrus. The extraction of starch is first described in the "Natural History" of Pliny the Elder around AD 77–79. Romans used it also in cosmetic creams, to powder the hair and to thicken sauces. Persians and Indians used it to make dishes similar to gothumai wheat halva. Rice starch as surface treatment of paper has been used in paper production in China since 700 CE.


title: Starch

text: In addition to starchy plants consumed directly, by 2008 66 million tonnes of starch were being produced per year worldwide. In 2011, production was increased to 73 million ton.


title: Starch

text: In the EU the starch industry produced about 11 million tonnes in 2011, with around 40% being used for industrial applications and 60% for food uses, most of the latter as glucose syrups. In 2017 EU production was 11 million ton of which 9,4 million ton was consumed in the EU and of which 54% were starch sweeteners.


title: Starch

text: The US produced about 27.5 million tons of starch in 2017, of which about 8.2 million tons was high fructose syrup, 6.2 million tons was glucose syrups, and 2.5 million tons were starch products. The rest of the starch was used for producing ethanol (1.6 billion gallons).


title: Starch

text: Most green plants store energy as starch, which is packed into semicrystalline granules. The extra glucose is changed into starch which is more complex than the glucose produced by plants. Young plants live on this stored energy in their roots, seeds, and fruits until it can find suitable soil in which to grow. An exception is the family Asteraceae (asters, daisies and sunflowers), where starch is replaced by the fructan inulin. Inulin-like fructans are also present in grasses such as wheat, in onions and garlic, bananas, and asparagus.


title: Starch

text: In photosynthesis, plants use light energy to produce glucose from carbon dioxide. The glucose is used to generate the chemical energy required for general metabolism, to make organic compounds such as nucleic acids, lipids, proteins and structural polysaccharides such as cellulose, or is stored in the form of starch granules, in amyloplasts. Toward the end of the growing season, starch accumulates in twigs of trees near the buds. Fruit, seeds, rhizomes, and tubers store starch to prepare for the next growing season.


title: Starch

text: Green algae and land-plants store their starch in the plastids, while red algae, glaucophytes, cryptomonads, dinoflagellates and the parasitic apicomplexa store a similar type of polysaccharide called floridean starch in their cytosol or periplast.


title: Starch

text: Glucose is soluble in water, hydrophilic, binds with water and then takes up much space and is osmotically active; glucose in the form of starch, on the other hand, is not soluble, therefore osmotically inactive and can be stored much more compactly. The semicrystalline granules generally consist of concentric layers of amylose and amylopectin which can be made bioavailable upon cellular demand in the plant.


title: Starch

text: Glucose molecules are bound in starch by the easily hydrolyzed alpha bonds. The same type of bond is found in the animal reserve polysaccharide glycogen. This is in contrast to many structural polysaccharides such as chitin, cellulose and peptidoglycan, which are bound by beta bonds and are much more resistant to hydrolysis.


title: Starch

text: Plants produce starch by first converting glucose 1-phosphate to ADP-glucose using the enzyme glucose-1-phosphate adenylyltransferase. This step requires energy in the form of ATP. The enzyme starch synthase then adds the ADP-glucose via a 1,4-alpha glycosidic bond to a growing chain of glucose residues, liberating ADP and creating amylose. The ADP-glucose is almost certainly added to the non-reducing end of the amylose polymer, as the UDP-glucose is added to the non-reducing end of glycogen during glycogen synthesis.


title: Starch

text: Starch branching enzyme introduces 1,6-alpha glycosidic bonds between the amylose chains, creating the branched amylopectin. The starch debranching enzyme isoamylase removes some of these branches. Several isoforms of these enzymes exist, leading to a highly complex synthesis process.


title: Starch

text: Glycogen and amylopectin have similar structure, but the former has about one branch point per ten 1,4-alpha bonds, compared to about one branch point per thirty 1,4-alpha bonds in amylopectin. Amylopectin is synthesized from ADP-glucose while mammals and fungi synthesize glycogen from UDP-glucose; for most cases, bacteria synthesize glycogen from ADP-glucose (analogous to starch).


title: Starch

text: In addition to starch synthesis in plants, starch can be synthesized from non-food starch mediated by an enzyme cocktail. In this cell-free biosystem, beta-1,4-glycosidic bond-linked cellulose is partially hydrolyzed to cellobiose. Cellobiose phosphorylase cleaves to glucose 1-phosphate and glucose; the other enzyme—potato alpha-glucan phosphorylase can add a glucose unit from glucose 1-phosphorylase to the non-reducing ends of starch. In it, phosphate is internally recycled. The other product, glucose, can be assimilated by a yeast. This cell-free bioprocessing does not need any costly chemical and energy input, can be conducted in aqueous solution, and does not have sugar losses.


title: Starch

text: Starch is synthesized in plant leaves during the day and stored as granules; it serves as an energy source at night. The insoluble, highly branched starch chains have to be phosphorylated in order to be accessible for degrading enzymes. The enzyme glucan, water dikinase (GWD) phosphorylates at the C-6 position of a glucose molecule, close to the chains 1,6-alpha branching bonds. A second enzyme, phosphoglucan, water dikinase (PWD) phosphorylates the glucose molecule at the C-3 position. A loss of these enzymes, for example a loss of the GWD, leads to a starch excess (sex) phenotype, and because starch cannot be phosphorylated, it accumulates in the plastids.


title: Starch

text: After the phosphorylation, the first degrading enzyme, beta-amylase (BAM) can attack the glucose chain at its non-reducing end. Maltose is released as the main product of starch degradation. If the glucose chain consists of three or fewer molecules, BAM cannot release maltose. A second enzyme, disproportionating enzyme-1 (DPE1), combines two maltotriose molecules. From this chain, a glucose molecule is released. Now, BAM can release another maltose molecule from the remaining chain. This cycle repeats until starch is degraded completely. If BAM comes close to the phosphorylated branching point of the glucose chain, it can no longer release maltose. In order for the phosphorylated chain to be degraded, the enzyme isoamylase (ISA) is required.


title: Starch

text: The products of starch degradation are predominantly maltose and smaller amounts of glucose. These molecules are exported from the plastid to the cytosol, maltose via the maltose transporter, which if mutated (MEX1-mutant) results in maltose accumulation in the plastid. Glucose is exported via the plastidic glucose translocator (pGlcT). These two sugars act as a precursor for sucrose synthesis. Sucrose can then be used in the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway in the mitochondria, to generate ATP at night.


title: Starch

text: While amylose was thought to be completely unbranched, it is now known that some of its molecules contain a few branch points.


title: Starch

text: Amylose is a much smaller molecule than amylopectin. About one quarter of the mass of stored starch in plants consist of amylose, although there are about 150 times more amylose than amylopectin molecules.


title: Starch

text: Accumulated starch within plants is stored in semi-crystalline granules. Each plant species has a unique starch granular size: rice starch is relatively small (about 2 μm), potato starches have larger granules (up to 100 μm) and wheat and tapioca all in-between. Unlike other botanical sources of starch, wheat starch has a bimodal size distribution, with both smaller and larger granules ranging from 2 to 55 μm.