title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Dot pitch defines the maximum resolution of the display, assuming delta-gun CRTs. In these, as the scanned resolution approaches the dot pitch resolution, moiré appears, as the detail being displayed is finer than what the shadow mask can render. Aperture grille monitors do not suffer from vertical moiré, however, because their phosphor stripes have no vertical detail. In smaller CRTs, these strips maintain position by themselves, but larger aperture-grille CRTs require one or two crosswise (horizontal) support strips; one for smaller CRTs, and two for larger ones. The support wires block electrons, causing the wires to be visible. In aperture grille CRTs, dot pitch is replaced by stripe pitch. Hitachi developed the Enhanced Dot Pitch (EDP) shadow mask, which uses oval holes instead of circular ones, with respective oval phosphor dots. Moiré is reduced in shadow mask CRTs by arranging the holes in the shadow mask in a honeycomb-like pattern.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Projection CRTs were used in CRT projectors and CRT rear-projection televisions, and are usually small (being 7 to 9 inches across); have a phosphor that generates either red, green or blue light, thus making them monochrome CRTs; and are similar in construction to other monochrome CRTs. Larger projection CRTs in general lasted longer, and were able to provide higher brightness levels and resolution, but were also more expensive. Projection CRTs have an unusually high anode voltage for their size (such as 27 or 25 kV for a 5 or 7-inch projection CRT respectively), and a specially made tungsten/barium cathode (instead of the pure barium oxide normally used) that consists of barium atoms embedded in 20% porous tungsten or barium and calcium aluminates or of barium, calcium and aluminum oxides coated on porous tungsten; the barium diffuses through the tungsten to emit electrons. The special cathode can deliver 2mA of current instead of the 0.3mA of normal cathodes, which makes them bright enough to be used as light sources for projection. The high anode voltage and the specially made cathode increase the voltage and current, respectively, of the electron beam, which increases the light emitted by the phosphors, and also the amount of heat generated during operation; this means that projector CRTs need cooling. The screen is usually cooled using a container (the screen forms part of the container) with glycol; the glycol may itself be dyed, or colorless glycol may be used inside a container which may be colored (forming a lens known as a c-element). Colored lenses or glycol are used for improving color reproduction at the cost of brightness, and are only used on red and green CRTs. Each CRT has its own glycol, which has access to an air bubble to allow the glycol to shrink and expand as it cools and warms. Projector CRTs may have adjustment rings just like color CRTs to adjust astigmatism, which is flaring of the electron beam (stray light similar to shadows). They have three adjustment rings; one with two poles, one with four poles, and another with 6 poles. When correctly adjusted, the projector can display perfectly round dots without flaring. The screens used in projection CRTs were more transparent than usual, with 90% transmittance. The first projection CRTs were made in 1933.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Projector CRTs were available with electrostatic and electromagnetic focusing, the latter being more expensive. Electrostatic focusing used electronics to focus the electron beam, together with focusing magnets around the neck of the CRT for fine focusing adjustments. This type of focusing degraded over time. Electromagnetic focusing was introduced in the early 1990s and included an electromagnetic focusing coil in addition to the already existing focusing magnets. Electromagnetic focusing was much more stable over the lifetime of the CRT, retaining 95% of its sharpness by the end of life of the CRT.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Beam-index tubes, also known as Uniray, Apple CRT or Indextron, was an attempt in the 1950s by Philco to create a color CRT without a shadow mask, eliminating convergence and purity problems, and allowing for shallower CRTs with higher deflection angles. It also required a lower voltage power supply for the final anode since it didn't use a shadow mask, which normally blocks around 80% of the electrons generated by the electron gun. The lack of a shadow mask also made it immune to the earth's magnetic field while also making degaussing unnecessary and increasing image brightness. It was constructed similarly to a monochrome CRT, with an aquadag outer coating, an aluminum inner coating, and a single electron gun but with a screen with an alternating pattern of red, green, blue and UV (index) phosphor stripes (similarly to a Trinitron) with a side mounted photomultiplier tube or photodiode pointed towards the rear of the screen and mounted on the funnel of CRT, to track the electron beam to activate the phosphors separately from one another using the same electron beam. Only the index phosphor stripe was used for tracking, and it was the only phosphor that wasn't covered by an aluminum layer. It was shelved because of the precision required to produce it. It was revived by Sony in the 1980s as the Indextron but its adoption was limited, at least in part due to the development of LCD displays. Beam-index CRTs also suffered from poor contrast ratios of only around 50:1 since some light emission by the phosphors was required at all times by the photodiodes to track the electron beam. It allowed for single CRT color CRT projectors due to a lack of shadow mask; normally CRT projectors use three CRTs, one for each color, since a lot of heat is generated due to the high anode voltage and beam current, making a shadow mask impractical and inefficient since it would warp under the heat produced (shadow masks absorb most of the electron beam, and, hence, most of the energy carried by the relativistic electrons); the three CRTs meant that an involved calibration and adjustment procedure had to be carried out during installation of the projector, and moving the projector would require it to be recalibrated. A single CRT meant the need for calibration was eliminated, but brightness was decreased since the CRT screen had to be used for three colors instead of each color having its own CRT screen. A stripe pattern also imposes a horizontal resolution limit; in contrast, three-screen CRT projectors have no theoretical resolution limit, due to them having single, uniform phosphor coatings.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Flat CRTs are those with a flat screen. Despite having a flat screen, they may not be completely flat, especially on the inside, instead having a greatly increased curvature. A notable exception is the LG Flatron (made by LG.Philips Displays, later LP Displays) which is truly flat on the outside and inside, but has a bonded glass pane on the screen with a tensioned rim band to provide implosion protection. Such completely flat CRTs were first introduced by Zenith in 1986, and used


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: flat tensioned shadow masks, where the shadow mask is held under tension, providing increased resistance to blooming.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Flat CRTs have a number of challenges, like deflection. Vertical deflection boosters are required to increase the amount of current that is sent to the vertical deflection coils to compensate for the reduced curvature. The CRTs used in the Sinclair TV80, and in many Sony Watchmans were flat in that they were not deep and their front screens were flat, but their electron guns were put to a side of the screen. The TV80 used electrostatic deflection while the Watchman used magnetic deflection with a phosphor screen that was curved inwards. Similar CRTs were used in video door bells.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Radar CRTs such as the 7JP4 had a circular screen and scanned the beam from the center outwards. The screen often had two colors, often a bright short persistence color that only appeared as the beam scanned the display and a long persistence phosphor afterglow. When the beam strikes the phosphor, the phosphor brightly illuminates, and when the beam leaves, the dimmer long persistence afterglow would remain lit where the beam struck the phosphor, alongside the radar targets that were "written" by the beam, until the beam re-struck the phosphor. The deflection yoke rotated, causing the beam to rotate in a circular fashion.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: In oscilloscope CRTs, electrostatic deflection is used, rather than the magnetic deflection commonly used with television and other large CRTs. The beam is deflected horizontally by applying an electric field between a pair of plates to its left and right, and vertically by applying an electric field to plates above and below. Televisions use magnetic rather than electrostatic deflection because the deflection plates obstruct the beam when the deflection angle is as large as is required for tubes that are relatively short for their size. Some Oscilloscope CRTs incorporate post deflection anodes (PDAs) that are spiral-shaped to ensure even anode potential across the CRT and operate at up to 15,000 volts. In PDA CRTs the electron beam is deflected before it is accelerated, improving sensitivity and legibility, specially when analyzing voltage pulses with short duty cycles.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: When displaying fast one-shot events, the electron beam must deflect very quickly, with few electrons impinging on the screen, leading to a faint or invisible image on the display. Oscilloscope CRTs designed for very fast signals can give a brighter display by passing the electron beam through a micro-channel plate just before it reaches the screen. Through the phenomenon of secondary emission, this plate multiplies the number of electrons reaching the phosphor screen, giving a significant improvement in writing rate (brightness) and improved sensitivity and spot size as well.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Most oscilloscopes have a graticule as part of the visual display, to facilitate measurements. The graticule may be permanently marked inside the face of the CRT, or it may be a transparent external plate made of glass or acrylic plastic. An internal graticule eliminates parallax error, but cannot be changed to accommodate different types of measurements. Oscilloscopes commonly provide a means for the graticule to be illuminated from the side, which improves its visibility.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: These are found in "analog phosphor storage oscilloscopes". These are distinct from "digital storage oscilloscopes" which rely on solid state digital memory to store the image.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Where a single brief event is monitored by an oscilloscope, such an event will be displayed by a conventional tube only while it actually occurs. The use of a long persistence phosphor may allow the image to be observed after the event, but only for a few seconds at best. This limitation can be overcome by the use of a direct view storage cathode-ray tube (storage tube). A storage tube will continue to display the event after it has occurred until such time as it is erased. A storage tube is similar to a conventional tube except that it is equipped with a metal grid coated with a dielectric layer located immediately behind the phosphor screen. An externally applied voltage to the mesh initially ensures that the whole mesh is at a constant potential. This mesh is constantly exposed to a low velocity electron beam from a 'flood gun' which operates independently of the main gun. This flood gun is not deflected like the main gun but constantly 'illuminates' the whole of the storage mesh. The initial charge on the storage mesh is such as to repel the electrons from the flood gun which are prevented from striking the phosphor screen.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: When the main electron gun writes an image to the screen, the energy in the main beam is sufficient to create a 'potential relief' on the storage mesh. The areas where this relief is created no longer repel the electrons from the flood gun which now pass through the mesh and illuminate the phosphor screen. Consequently, the image that was briefly traced out by the main gun continues to be displayed after it has occurred. The image can be 'erased' by resupplying the external voltage to the mesh restoring its constant potential. The time for which the image can be displayed was limited because, in practice, the flood gun slowly neutralises the charge on the storage mesh. One way of allowing the image to be retained for longer is temporarily to turn off the flood gun. It is then possible for the image to be retained for several days. The majority of storage tubes allow for a lower voltage to be applied to the storage mesh which slowly restores the initial charge state. By varying this voltage a variable persistence is obtained. Turning off the flood gun and the voltage supply to the storage mesh allows such a tube to operate as a conventional oscilloscope tube.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Vector monitors were used in early computer aided design systems and are in some late-1970s to mid-1980s arcade games such as "Asteroids".


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: They draw graphics point-to-point, rather than scanning a raster. Either monochrome or color CRTs can be used in vector displays, and the essential principles of CRT design and operation are the same for either type of display; the main difference is in the beam deflection patterns and circuits.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: The Williams tube or Williams-Kilburn tube was a cathode-ray tube used to electronically store binary data. It was used in computers of the 1940s as a random-access digital storage device. In contrast to other CRTs in this article, the Williams tube was not a display device, and in fact could not be viewed since a metal plate covered its screen.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: In some vacuum tube radio sets, a "Magic Eye" or "Tuning Eye" tube was provided to assist in tuning the receiver. Tuning would be adjusted until the width of a radial shadow was minimized. This was used instead of a more expensive electromechanical meter, which later came to be used on higher-end tuners when transistor sets lacked the high voltage required to drive the device. The same type of device was used with tape recorders as a recording level meter, and for various other applications including electrical test equipment.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Some displays for early computers (those that needed to display more text than was practical using vectors, or that required high speed for photographic output) used Charactron CRTs. These incorporate a perforated metal character mask (stencil), which shapes a wide electron beam to form a character on the screen. The system selects a character on the mask using one set of deflection circuits, but that causes the extruded beam to be aimed off-axis, so a second set of deflection plates has to re-aim the beam so it is headed toward the center of the screen. A third set of plates places the character wherever required. The beam is unblanked (turned on) briefly to draw the character at that position. Graphics could be drawn by selecting the position on the mask corresponding to the code for a space (in practice, they were simply not drawn), which had a small round hole in the center; this effectively disabled the character mask, and the system reverted to regular vector behavior. Charactrons had exceptionally long necks, because of the need for three deflection systems.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Nimo was the trademark of a family of small specialised CRTs manufactured by Industrial Electronic Engineers. These had 10 electron guns which produced electron beams in the form of digits in a manner similar to that of the charactron. The tubes were either simple single-digit displays or more complex 4- or 6- digit displays produced by means of a suitable magnetic deflection system. Having little of the complexities of a standard CRT, the tube required a relatively simple driving circuit, and as the image was projected on the glass face, it provided a much wider viewing angle than competitive types (e.g., nixie tubes). However, their requirement for several voltages and their high voltage made them uncommon.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Flood-beam CRTs are small tubes that are arranged as pixels for large video walls like Jumbotrons. The first screen using this technology (called Diamond Vision by Mitsubishi Electric) was introduced by Mitsubishi Electric for the 1980 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. It differs from a normal CRT in that the electron gun within does not produce a focused controllable beam. Instead, electrons are sprayed in a wide cone across the entire front of the phosphor screen, basically making each unit act as a single light bulb. Each one is coated with a red, green or blue phosphor, to make up the color sub-pixels. This technology has largely been replaced with light-emitting diode displays. Unfocused and undeflected CRTs were used as grid-controlled stroboscope lamps since 1958. Electron-stimulated luminescence (ESL) lamps, which use the same operating principle, were released in 2011.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: CRTs with an unphosphored front glass but with fine wires embedded in it were used as electrostatic print heads in the 1960s. The wires would pass the electron beam current through the glass onto a sheet of paper where the desired content was therefore deposited as an electrical charge pattern. The paper was then passed near a pool of liquid ink with the opposite charge. The charged areas of the paper attract the ink and thus form the image.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: In the late 1990s and early 2000s Philips Research Laboratories experimented with a type of thin CRT known as the "Zeus" display, which contained CRT-like functionality in a flat-panel display. The devices were demonstrated but never marketed.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Some CRT manufacturers, both LG.Philips Displays (later LP Displays) and Samsung SDI, innovated CRT technology by creating a slimmer tube. Slimmer CRT had the trade names Superslim, Ultraslim, Vixlim (by Samsung) and Cybertube and Cybertube+ (both by LG Philips displays). A flat CRT has a depth. The depth of Superslim was and Ultraslim was .


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: CRTs can emit a small amount of X-ray radiation; this is a result of the electron beam's bombardment of the shadow mask/aperture grille and phosphors, which produces bremsstrahlung (braking radiation) as the high-energy electrons are decelerated. The amount of radiation escaping the front of the monitor is widely considered not to be harmful. The Food and Drug Administration regulations in are used to strictly limit, for instance, television receivers to 0.5 milliroentgens per hour at a distance of from any external surface; since 2007, most CRTs have emissions that fall well below this limit. Note that the roentgen is an outdated unit and does not account for dose absorption. The conversion rate is about .877 roentgen per rem. Assuming that the viewer absorbed the entire dose (which is unlikely), and that they watched TV for 2 hours a day, a .5 milliroentgen hourly dose would increase the viewers yearly dose by 320 millirem. For comparison, the average background radiation in the United States is 310 millirem a year. Negative effects of chronic radiation are not generally noticeable until doses over 20,000 millirem.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: The density of the x-rays that would be generated by a CRT is low because the raster scan of a typical CRT distributes the energy of the electron beam across the entire screen. Voltages above 15,000 volts are enough to generate "soft" x-rays. However, since CRTs may stay on for several hours at a time, the amount of x-rays generated by the CRT may become significant, hence the importance of using materials to shield against x-rays, such as the thick leaded glass and barium-strontium glass used in CRTs.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Concerns about x-rays emitted by CRTs began in 1967 when it was found that TV sets made by General Electric were emitting "X-radiation in excess of desirable levels". It was later found that TV sets from all manufacturers were also emitting radiation. This caused television industry representatives to be brought before a U.S. congressional committee, which later proposed a federal radiation regulation bill, which became the 1968 Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act. It was recommended to TV set owners to always be at a distance of at least 6 feet from the screen of the TV set, and to avoid "prolonged exposure" at the sides, rear or underneath a TV set. It was discovered that most of the radiation was directed downwards. Owners were also told to not modify their set's internals to avoid exposure to radiation. Headlines about "radioactive" TV sets continued until the end of the 1960s. There once was a proposal by two New York congressmen that would have forced TV set manufacturers to "go into homes to test all of the nation's 15 million color sets and to install radiation devices in them". The FDA eventually began regulating radiation emissions from all electronic products in the US.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Older color and monochrome CRTs may have been manufactured with toxic substances, such as cadmium, in the phosphors. The rear glass tube of modern CRTs may be made from leaded glass, which represent an environmental hazard if disposed of improperly. Since 1970, glass in the front panel (the viewable portion of the CRT) used strontium oxide rather than lead, though the rear of the CRT was still produced from leaded glass. Monochrome CRTs typically do not contain enough leaded glass to fail EPA TCLP tests. While the TCLP process grinds the glass into fine particles in order to expose them to weak acids to test for leachate, intact CRT glass does not leach (The lead is vitrified, contained inside the glass itself, similar to leaded glass crystalware).


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: At low refresh rates (60 Hz and below), the periodic scanning of the display may produce a flicker that some people perceive more easily than others, especially when viewed with peripheral vision. Flicker is commonly associated with CRT as most televisions run at 50 Hz (PAL) or 60 Hz (NTSC), although there are some 100 Hz PAL televisions that are flicker-free. Typically only low-end monitors run at such low frequencies, with most computer monitors supporting at least 75 Hz and high-end monitors capable of 100 Hz or more to eliminate any perception of flicker. Though the 100 Hz PAL was often achieved using interleaved scanning, dividing the circuit and scan into two beams of 50 Hz. Non-computer CRTs or CRT for sonar or radar may have long persistence phosphor and are thus flicker free. If the persistence is too long on a video display, moving images will be blurred.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: 50 Hz/60 Hz CRTs used for television operate with horizontal scanning frequencies of 15,750 and 15,734.25 Hz (for NTSC systems) or 15,625 Hz (for PAL systems). These frequencies are at the upper range of human hearing and are inaudible to many people; however, some people (especially children) will perceive a high-pitched tone near an operating CRT television. The sound is due to magnetostriction in the magnetic core and periodic movement of windings of the flyback transformer but the sound can also be created by movement of the deflection coils, yoke or ferrite beads.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: This problem does not occur on 100/120 Hz TVs and on non-CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) computer displays, because they use much higher horizontal scanning frequencies that produce sound which is inaudible to humans (22 kHz to over 100 kHz).


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: High vacuum inside glass-walled cathode-ray tubes permits electron beams to fly freely—without colliding into molecules of air or other gas. If the glass is damaged, atmospheric pressure can collapse the vacuum tube into dangerous fragments which accelerate inward and then spray at high speed in all directions. Although modern cathode-ray tubes used in televisions and computer displays have epoxy-bonded face-plates or other measures to prevent shattering of the envelope, CRTs must be handled carefully to avoid personal injury.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Early CRTs had a glass plate over the screen that was bonded to it using glue, creating a laminated glass screen: initially the glue was polyvinyl acetate (PVA), while later versions such as the LG Flatron used a resin, perhaps a UV-curable resin. The PVA degrades over time creating a "cataract", a ring of degraded glue around the edges of the CRT that does not allow light from the screen to pass through. Later CRTs instead use a tensioned metal rim band mounted around the perimeter that also provides mounting points for the CRT to be mounted to a housing. In a 19-inch CRT, the tensile stress in the rim band is 70 kg/cm2. Older CRTs were mounted to the TV set using a frame. The band is tensioned by heating it, then mounting it on the CRT, the band cools afterwards, shrinking in size which puts the glass under compression, strengthening the glass reducing the necessary thickness (and hence weight) of the glass. This makes the band an integral component that should never be removed from an intact CRT that still has a vacuum; attempting to remove it may cause the CRT to implode. The rim band prevents the CRT from imploding should the screen be broken. The rim band may be glued to the perimeter of the CRT using epoxy, preventing cracks from spreading beyond the screen and into the funnel.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: To accelerate the electrons from the cathode to the screen with enough energy to achieve sufficient image brightness, a very high voltage (EHT or extra-high tension) is required, from a few thousand volts for a small oscilloscope CRT to tens of thousands for a larger screen color TV. This is many times greater than household power supply voltage. Even after the power supply is turned off, some associated capacitors and the CRT itself may retain a charge for some time and therefore dissipate that charge suddenly through a ground such as an inattentive human grounding a capacitor discharge lead. An average monochrome CRT may use 1 to 1.5 kV of anode voltage per inch.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Under some circumstances, the signal radiated from the electron guns, scanning circuitry, and associated wiring of a CRT can be captured remotely and used to reconstruct what is shown on the CRT using a process called Van Eck phreaking. Special TEMPEST shielding can mitigate this effect. Such radiation of a potentially exploitable signal, however, occurs also with other display technologies and with electronics in general.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Due to the toxins contained in CRT monitors the United States Environmental Protection Agency created rules (in October 2001) stating that CRTs must be brought to special e-waste recycling facilities. In November 2002, the EPA began fining companies that disposed of CRTs through landfills or incineration. Regulatory agencies, local and statewide, monitor the disposal of CRTs and other computer equipment.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: As electronic waste, CRTs are considered one of the hardest types to recycle. CRTs have relatively high concentration of lead and , both of which are necessary for the display. There are several companies in the United States that charge a small fee to collect CRTs, then subsidize their labor by selling the harvested copper, wire, and printed circuit boards. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) includes discarded CRT monitors in its category of "hazardous household waste" but considers CRTs that have been set aside for testing to be commodities if they are not discarded, speculatively accumulated, or left unprotected from weather and other damage.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Various states participate in the recycling of CRTs, each with their reporting requirements for collectors and recycling facilities. For example, in California the recycling of CRTs is governed by CALRecycle, the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery through their Payment System. Recycling facilities that accept CRT devices from business and residential sector must obtain contact information such as address and phone number to ensure the CRTs come from a California source in order to participate in the CRT Recycling Payment System.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Multiple methods have been proposed for the recycling of CRT glass. The methods involve thermal, mechanical and chemical processes. All proposed methods remove the lead oxide content from the glass. Some companies operated furnaces to separate the lead from the glass. A coalition called the Recytube project was once formed by several European companies to devise a method to recycle CRTs. The phosphors used in CRTs often contain rare earth metals. A CRT contains about 7g of phosphor.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: The funnel can be separated from the screen of the CRT using laser cutting, diamond saws or wires or using a resistively heated nichrome wire.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: Leaded CRT glass was sold to be remelted into other CRTs, or even broken down and used in road construction or used in tiles, concrete, concrete and cement bricks, fiberglass insulation or used as flux in metals smelting.


title: Cathode-ray tube

text: A considerable portion of CRT glass is landfilled, where it can pollute the surrounding environment. It is more common for CRT glass to be disposed of than being recycled.


title: Wasabi

text: Wasabi (Japanese: , , or , ; "Eutrema japonicum" or "Wasabia japonica") or Japanese horseradish is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which also includes horseradish and mustard in other genera. The plant is native to Japan and the Russian Far East including Sakhalin, also the Korean Peninsula. It grows naturally along stream beds in mountain river valleys in Japan.


title: Wasabi

text: It is grown for its rhizomes which are ground into a paste as a pungent condiment for "sushi" and other foods. It is similar in taste to hot mustard or horseradish rather than chili peppers in that it stimulates the nose more than the tongue, but freshly grated wasabi has a subtly distinct flavour. However, most common wasabi flavorings are ersatz, and are made of horseradish and food coloring. The two main cultivars in the marketplace are "E. japonicum" 'Daruma' and 'Mazuma', but there are many others.


title: Wasabi

text: The oldest record of wasabi as a food dates to the 8th century AD. The popularity of wasabi in English-speaking countries has coincided with that of "sushi", growing steadily starting in about 1980. Due to issues that limit the Japanese wasabi plant's mass cultivation and thus increase its price and decreased availability outside Japan, the western horseradish plant is generally used in place of the Japanese horseradish. This version is commonly referred to as "western wasabi" () in Japan.


title: Wasabi

text: Siebold named "Cochlearia (?) wasabi" in 1830, noting its use "pro condimento" or "as a condiment"; however, this is a "nomen nudum", and the synonym "Eutrema wasabi", published by Maximovich in 1873, is thus an illegitimate name. The wasabi plant was first described by Miquel in 1866, as "Lunaria (?) japonica", from the type collected by Siebold in Japan, though the precise type locality was not recorded.


title: Wasabi

text: In 1899, Matsumura erected the genus "Wasabia", recognizing within it the species "Wasabia pungens" and "Wasabia hederaefolia"; these are now regarded as synonyms of "Eutrema japonicum". In 1912, Matsumura recognized the species "Wasabia japonica", treating his earlier "Wasabia pungens" as a synonym. In 1930, Koidzumi transferred the wasabi plant to the genus "Eutrema", the correct name and author citation being "Eutrema japonicum" (Miq.) Koidz.


title: Wasabi

text: It has large leaves produced from long, thin stalks. They are simple and large, long and wide with palmate veins.


title: Wasabi

text: Wasabi is generally sold either as a rhizome or stem, which must be very finely grated before use, as dried powder, or as a ready-to-use paste in tubes similar to toothpaste tubes.


title: Wasabi

text: The part used for wasabi paste is variously characterised as a rhizome, a stem, or the "rhizome plus the base part of the stem".


title: Wasabi

text: In some high-end restaurants, the paste is prepared when the customer orders, and is made using a grater to grate the stem; once the paste is prepared, it loses flavor in 15 minutes if left uncovered. In "sushi" preparation, chefs usually put the wasabi between the fish and the rice because covering wasabi until served preserves its flavor.


title: Wasabi

text: Fresh wasabi leaves can be eaten raw, having the spicy flavor of wasabi stems, but a common side effect is diarrhea.


title: Wasabi

text: Legumes (peanuts, soybeans, or peas) may be roasted or fried, and then coated with wasabi powder mixed with sugar, salt, or oil and eaten as a crunchy snack. In Japan, it is called .


title: Wasabi

text: Wasabi favours growing conditions that restrict its wide cultivation – among other things, it is quite intolerant of direct sunlight, requires an air temperature between , and prefers high humidity in summer. This makes fully satisfying commercial demand impossible for growers, which makes wasabi quite expensive. Therefore, outside Japan,


title: Wasabi

text: A common substitute is a mixture of horseradish, mustard, starch, and green food coloring or spinach powder. Often packages are labeled as wasabi while the ingredients do not actually include any part of the wasabi plant. The primary difference between the two is color, with wasabi being naturally green. Fresh horseradish root is described as having a similar (albeit simpler) flavor and texture to that of fresh wasabi.


title: Wasabi

text: In Japan, horseradish is referred to as . In the United States, true wasabi is generally found only at specialty grocers and high-end restaurants.


title: Wasabi

text: The chemical in wasabi that provides for its initial pungency is the volatile compound allyl isothiocyanate, which is produced by hydrolysis of natural thioglucosides (conjugates of the sugar glucose, and sulfur-containing organic compounds); the hydrolysis reaction is catalyzed by myrosinase and occurs when the enzyme is released on cell rupture caused by maceration – e.g., grating – of the plant. The same compound is responsible for the pungency of horseradish and mustard. Allyl isothiocyanate can also be released when the wasabi plants have been damaged, because it is being used as a defense mechanism. The sensory neural target of mustard oil is the chemosensory receptor, TRPA1, also known as the wasabi receptor.


title: Wasabi

text: The unique flavor of wasabi is a result of complex chemical mixtures from the broken cells of the plant, including those resulting from the hydrolysis of thioglucosides from sinigrin into glucose and methylthioalkyl isothiocyanates:


title: Wasabi

text: Such isothiocyanates inhibit microbial growth, perhaps with implications for preserving food against spoilage and suppressing oral bacterial growth.


title: Wasabi

text: Because the burning sensations of wasabi are not oil-based, they are short-lived compared to the effects of capsaicin in chili peppers, and are washed away with more food or liquid. The sensation is felt primarily in the nasal passage and can be quite painful depending on the amount consumed. Inhaling or sniffing wasabi vapor has an effect like smelling salts, a property exploited by researchers attempting to create a smoke alarm for the deaf. One deaf subject participating in a test of the prototype awoke within 10 seconds of wasabi vapor sprayed into his sleeping chamber. The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the researchers for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi to wake people in the event of an emergency.


title: Wasabi

text: Wasabi is normally consumed in such small quantities that its nutritional value is negligible. The major constituents of raw wasabi root are carbohydrates (23.5%), water (69.1%), fat (0.63%), and protein (4.8%).


title: Wasabi

text: Few places are suitable for large-scale wasabi cultivation, which is difficult even in ideal conditions. In Japan, wasabi is cultivated mainly in these regions:


title: Wasabi

text: Numerous artificial cultivation facilities also exist as far north as Hokkaido and as far south as Kyushu. As the demand for real wasabi is higher than that which can be produced within Japan, Japan imports copious amounts of wasabi from the United States, Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Thailand and New Zealand. In North America, "Wasabia japonica" is cultivated by a handful of small farmers and companies in the rain forests on the coast of Western Canada, the Oregon Coast, and in areas of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. In Europe, wasabi is grown commercially in Iceland, the Netherlands, Hungary, and the UK.


title: Wasabi

text: Wasabi is often grated with a metal "oroshigane", but some prefer to use a more traditional tool made of dried sharkskin (fine skin on one side; coarse skin on the other). A hand-made grater with irregular shark teeth can also be used. If a shark-skin grater is unavailable, a ceramic cheese grater can be an acceptable substitute.


title: BitChute

text: BitChute (a portmanteau of "bit", a unit of information in computing, and "parachute") is an alt-tech video hosting service launched by Ray Vahey in January 2017. It describes itself as offering freedom of expression, while the service is known for hosting far-right individuals, conspiracy theorists, and hate speech. Some creators who use BitChute have been banned from YouTube; some others crosspost content to both platforms or post more extreme content only to BitChute. Before its deprecation, BitChute claimed to use peer-to-peer WebTorrent technology for video distribution, though this was disputed.


title: BitChute

text: Bit Chute Limited, BitChute's corporate identity, was registered by Ray Vahey in January 2017 in Newbury, England. At the time of the site's launch, Vahey described BitChute as an alternative to mainstream platforms; he believed these platforms had demonstrated "increased levels of censorship" over the previous few years by banning and demonetising users (barring them from receiving advertising revenue), and "tweaking algorithms to send certain content into obscurity". In 2018, the creators of BitChute described themselves as a "small team making a stand against Internet censorship because we believe it is the right thing to do."


title: BitChute

text: In November 2018, BitChute was banned from PayPal. PayPal also banned Alex Jones, the Proud Boys, Tommy Robinson, and several anti-fascist groups and users at the same time. In 2019, crowdfunding website IndieGogo also banned BitChute. BitChute has also been banned from using Patreon and Stripe.


title: BitChute

text: In January 2019, BitChute announced in a post on Gab that they would move their domains over to Epik, a small domain registrar known for accepting the registration of websites that host far-right content.


title: BitChute

text: In March 2020, a new provision to Germany's Network Enforcement Act required social media companies to report instances of hate speech on their platforms to authorities. However, online news platform "Coda" reported that while the law applies to platforms including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, BitChute is one of the platforms not affected by the provision. In early August 2020, Twitter began blocking posts linking to the site, later showing a warning to users who clicked on the links.


title: BitChute

text: As of January 2021, BitChute was in the process of being reported to Ofcom by the Community Security Trust after discovering Holocaust denial and Holocaust glorification content on the website, among other content considered harmful by the charity such as conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. The trust's blog stated this will be an important test case for Ofcom's new role regarding regulation of social media in the United Kingdom, especially concerning extremism and hateful content. Also in January, BitChute added "incitement to hatred" to its list of prohibited content, using the definition from the United Kingdom's Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2020, though "Bellingcat" wrote the following month that "racist slurs, Nazi imagery and calls for violence against Jews remained common in video comment sections."


title: BitChute

text: Since launching, BitChute has accommodated far-right groups and individuals. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote in 2019 that the site hosts "hate-fueled material", the Anti-Defamation League wrote in 2020 that "BitChute has become a hotbed for violent, conspiratorial and hate-filled video propaganda, and a recruiting ground for extremists", and "Bellingcat" wrote in 2021 that the platform was "rife with racism and hate speech". According to a 2020 report from anti-extremism group Hope not Hate, BitChute "actively promotes" content which was removed from other platforms as hate speech. Hope not Hate also documented videos hosted on BitChute supporting or produced by terrorist groups, including ISIS and the neo-Nazi groups National Action and Atomwaffen Division. A June 2020 report from British Jewish group Community Security Trust said that some terrorist videos had been on the site for over a year, and that BitChute only removes this content when forced to. An academic analysis published in July 2020 using a data set gathered in 2019 over five months found that BitChute had more hate speech than Gab, but less than 4chan. It found that only a small group of channels on the network had any meaningful engagement, almost all of which pushed conspiracy- and hate-laden content. Like the research from Hope not Hate, this analysis found content promoting the Atomwaffen Division posted to BitChute, including a recruitment video.


title: BitChute

text: BitChute's founder Ray Vahey has described BitChute as "politically neutral". Hope Not Hate wrote in their 2020 report that "in actuality, the company chooses to almost exclusively promote content and producers that engage in hate speech and harmful misinformation" and that the "vile and dangerous content that abounds on BitChute is a result of deliberate decisions on the part of their founder and team". "Bellingcat" reported in 2021 that Vahey used the platform's Twitter account to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories, COVID-19 misinformation, and QAnon content.


title: BitChute

text: BitChute is part of a group of "alt-tech" websites that position themselves as less strictly-moderated alternatives to mainstream social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Deen Freelon and colleagues writing in "Science" characterised BitChute as among the alt-tech sites that are "dedicated to right-wing communities", and listed the site along with 4chan, 8chan, Parler, and Gab. They noted there are also more ideologically neutral alt-tech platforms, such as Discord and Telegram. Joe Mulhall of the UK anti-racism group Hope Not Hate has categorised BitChute among the "bespoke platforms" for the far-right, which he defines as platforms which were created by people who themselves have "far-right leanings". He distinguishes these from "co-opted platforms" such as DLive and Telegram, which were adopted by the far-right due to minimal moderation but not specifically created for their use.


title: BitChute

text: Some creators who have been banned from YouTube or had their channels demonetised subsequently migrated to BitChute. The far-right conspiracy theory channel "InfoWars" migrated to BitChute after being banned by YouTube in 2018. Other creators maintain a presence on YouTube and on BitChute, and some post more extreme content on BitChute while using YouTube for less extreme material. Prominent far-right and alt-right video creators who have cross-posted to both YouTube and BitChute include Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux, Millennial Woes, and Paul Joseph Watson.


title: BitChute

text: The platform also hosts misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The conspiracy theory video "Plandemic" has been viewed on BitChute millions of times after having been removed from other platforms for spreading medically harmful misinformation.


title: BitChute

text: BitChute does not rely on advertising, and users can send payments to video creators directly. Since its launch, the site has promoted its use of the peer-to-peer technology WebTorrent as a means to decentralise hosting and reduce costs. BitChute allows creators to monetise the videos they publish on the platform by linking to fundraising websites including SubscribeStar, PayPal, and cryptocurrency processors. Although PayPal banned BitChute themselves from using their service, BitChute still links to PayPal pages for creators who choose to use them.


title: BitChute

text: At launch, the site claimed it was using peer-to-peer WebTorrent technology. However, a November 2019 report by Fredrick Brennan, published in "The Daily Dot", failed to find any evidence of peer-to-peer data transfer in BitChute's videos. All videos Brennan downloaded came directly from BitChute's servers, with no part of the videos received from peers. According to Brennan, magnet links on the site do not work. Brennan challenged BitChute's use of the word "delist" to describe deplatforming users, saying that the wording is misleading in that it makes BitChute seem falsely similar to BitTorrent (where a site maintains one "list" of content, but independent trackers may be created as well), when in reality BitChute is just deleting a user's videos from the BitChute site. According to "Ars Technica" in April 2021, the option to host videos using WebTorrent on BitChute "appears to have been deprecated".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Nadine Vanessa Dorries ("née" Bargery, 21 May 1957) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2021 to 2022 under Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid Bedfordshire since 2005.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Born in Liverpool to a working-class family, Dorries was raised in the city's Anfield district and the nearby towns of Halewood and Runcorn. She began work as a trainee nurse in Warrington and subsequently became a medical representative. During her early career, she spent a year in Zambia as the head of a community school. After returning to England, she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. She sold the company in 1998. She was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election for the Conservative safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: As a backbencher, Dorries introduced several unsuccessful private member's bills, including attempts to reduce the time limit for abortions in the UK and changes to the rules regarding counselling for the women involved, and the advocacy of sexual abstinence for girls in sex education. An opponent of John Bercow, she attempted to have him removed as Speaker of the House of Commons. She also clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne, describing them as "two arrogant posh boys". In 2012, she lost the Conservative whip after she took part in the reality TV programme "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" without informing the chief whip. It was returned in 2013 and she was re-admitted to the parliamentary party.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In July 2019, Boris Johnson appointed Dorries as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health. In May 2020, she was promoted to Minister of State. In Johnson's cabinet reshuffle in September 2021, he promoted her to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Despite being made an offer to stay on, she resigned from her role as Secretary of State ahead of the formation of the Truss ministry, after Liz Truss took over from Johnson on 6 September 2022.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries was born Nadine Vanessa Bargery in Liverpool on 21 May 1957. Her father, a Catholic of Irish descent, was a bus driver who became a lift operator and suffered from Raynaud's disease. Her mother was an Anglican, and Dorries was raised as such. She was brought up in the Anfield district of Liverpool, where she attended Rose Heath Primary School. She then attended Halewood Grange Comprehensive School in Halewood before moving with her family to Runcorn. She grew up on a council estate and entered nursing in 1975 as a trainee at Warrington General Hospital. According to an interview with "The Times" in 2014, Dorries' parents divorced during her adolescence. While training to be a nurse at 21, she shared a flat with her father. He died at the age of 42.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: From 1978 to 1981, Dorries was a nurse in Warrington and Liverpool according to a 2009 report. Her CV when she was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 stated Liverpool and London as places where she worked as a nurse. She left the Liverpool area after she married mining engineer Paul Dorries.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In 1982, Dorries became a medical representative to Ethicla Ltd for a year, before spending a year in Zambia (1983–84) as the head of a community school, where her husband ran a copper mine. In 1987 she founded Company Kids Ltd, which provided child day-care services for working parents. The company was sold in 1998 to BUPA; Dorries was subsequently a director of the health provider during the following year.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: As Nadine Bargery, she was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) for Hazel Grove, near Manchester in spring 2000. Her candidacy split the constituency party, and she was briefly deselected in August before being imposed by Conservative Central Office. Standing for the seat at the 2001 general election, she was unsuccessful in her attempt to succeed the Liberal Democrat candidate Andrew Stunell, who retained the seat with a majority of 8,435 votes. Dorries worked for three years as a special adviser to Oliver Letwin, when Shadow Chancellor, to sort out his relations with the media amongst other things.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries won the Conservative candidacy for the safe seat of Mid Bedfordshire in 2005 on the retirement through ill health after a series of scandals of Jonathan Sayeed. In 2009, she gave this account of her selection:


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Three weeks before the 2005 general election I, a council estate Scouser, was selected as the Conservative candidate to represent a southern rural constituency. Because the vacancy occurred so quickly and so close to D-day, the party provided my association with a shortlist of seventeen candidates, of which about five were women. Following a long day of interviews in hot sunny rooms, the list was whittled down to a shortlist of three ... I was informed that I had been selected outright on the first ballot ... That pride, that sense of achievement, the knowledge that I was selected on the basis of my performance and merit above all other candidates on that day is what enables me to hold my head up high in this place.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries' account of her own selection appears to contradict a news report which "The Times" ran at the time, reporting that Conservative Campaign Headquarters placed a majority of women on the shortlist and pressed for the selection of a female candidate:


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Mrs Dorries, who has three teenage children, easily beat her 11 rivals and won the plum safe seat on the first ballot at the selection this weekend. Party officials were thrilled that the seat has gone to a woman. Previously, only two women had been selected in the 17 safe seats where sitting MPs have retired. Senior party figures had made clear to local dignitaries that they would like the seat to go to a woman and presented the constituency with a shortlist of seven women and five men to underline the point.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries was elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election with a majority of 11,355, and made her maiden speech on 25 May 2005.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries initially supported David Davis to become Conservative leader in 2005, later withdrawing her endorsement. David Cameron, the successful candidate, though "represent[s] everything that through my life . . . [I have] been suspicious of." In May 2007, she criticised Cameron for ignoring the recommendations of the Conservative public policy working group in favour of grammar schools. However, she did defend the selection of Liz Truss in 2009, whose Conservative candidature was called into question after an extra-marital affair was revealed.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries served as a member of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, although by November 2008 she had attended only 2% of sessions. The committee then reformed as the Science and Technology Select Committee; she did not attend a single session. In 2010, she was elected to the Health Select Committee.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In May 2008, Dorries featured in the Channel 4 "Dispatches" documentary "In God's Name". The programme examined the growing influence of Christian evangelical movements in the UK and highlighted the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship's involvement in lobbying the British Government on issues such as abortion, gay rights and the enforcing of laws relating to blasphemy. The programme included footage of an LCF representative meeting with Dorries to influence policy on matters where they had a common agenda.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In February 2010 Dorries took part in the Channel 4 documentary series "Tower Block of Commons", in which MPs stay with welfare claimants.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries was re-elected in the 2010 general election with an increased majority and a swing of 2.3% from the Liberal Democrats.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In 2013, Dorries' daughter was reportedly among the highest-earning family members employed by MPs with a salary of £40,000–45,000 as an office manager, even though her daughter lived 96 miles away from the office. Subsequently, Dorries' sister was taken on as "senior secretary" with a salary of £30,000–35,000. In reply to an enquiry by Ben Glaze, deputy political editor of the "Daily Mirror", about the employment of her daughter, Dorries tweeted: "Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor… using your own front teeth. Do you get that?"


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In October 2013, Dorries described a fellow Conservative MP, Kris Hopkins, as "one of parliament's slimiest, nastiest MPs" on her Twitter account, and criticised Prime Minister Cameron's decision to promote Hopkins to a junior ministerial post within the Department for Communities and Local Government as "a really awful decision".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 29 May 2015, the independent candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Tim Ireland, lodged an appeal against the result accusing Dorries of breaches of Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by making false statements about his character. The development first emerged in early-June after the three-week petition for such an action had expired. The petition was rejected by the High Court of Justice because it was served at Dorries' constituency office and not her home address.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In April 2009, Dorries stated that she had commenced legal action following the leaked publication of emails sent by Damian McBride, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's head of strategy and planning, which suggested spreading a rumour that Dorries had a one-night stand with a fellow MP, in an email to Derek Draper, a Labour-supporting blogger. McBride resigned and Dorries denounced the accusation as libellous: "[t]he allegations regarding myself are 100 per cent untrue", and demanded an apology intent on exposing the Number 10 "cesspit".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Brown subsequently said he was "sorry" and that he took "full responsibility for what happened". Dorries threatened libel proceedings against McBride, Draper and Downing Street but did not carry out that threat. McBride paid Dorries an undisclosed sum, estimated at £1,000 plus £2,500 towards her costs.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In May 2009, "The Daily Telegraph", as part of its exposure of MPs' expenses claims, questioned whether the property in Dorries' constituency, on which she claimed £24,222 additional costs allowance (for "secondary" housing costs), had been in fact her main or only home from 2007 onwards. The newspaper also queried hotel bills, including one for 'Mr N Dorries': these had been disallowed by the Fees Office and Dorries said they were submitted by mistake. On 22 May 2009, she spoke on BBC Radio 4 and drew parallels between the McCarthy 'Witch-Hunts' and the press's 'drip-drip' revelation of MP's expenses, eliciting Cameron's public criticism. She said everyone was fearing a 'suicide', and colleagues were constantly checking up on each other. Later in the day her blog was taken down. It transpired that Withers, lawyers acting for the Barclay Brothers, the owners of the "Daily Telegraph", had required the removal of the blog, on threat of libel action against the service provider.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In January 2010, it was reported that Dorries was still being investigated by John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, regarding her claim for second home expenses. There was some debate as to the location of her main home. It was also reported that Dorries had claimed £20,000 in office expenses for work undertaken by a media relations and public affairs company.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 9 May 2010, two days after being returned at the general election for Mid Bedfordshire, "The Sunday Times" reported that Dorries was facing the first complaint about an MP's expenses claim of the new parliament. The newspaper reported that she had claimed around £10,000 for an annual report in 2007 on her performance as an MP, but that her former Commons researcher had never seen the report or worked on it. Dorries insisted that she had indeed published the report, placing a photograph of it on her blog. She subsequently told the "Biggleswade Advertiser" that the report was never printed and a credit note issued with refund on 13 September 2008.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 13 January 2011, it was reported by the "Daily Mirror" that police were investigating Dorries concerning her expenses. Three days later, "The Sunday Times" reported that police had since handed a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration. In February 2013, it was reported that Dorries was being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over her expenses, although no specific details were given at this time.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 27 June 2013, Dorries announced she would no longer claim her personal expenses as an MP, but would draw on her salary for such costs. She argued that she would be in a better position to campaign for the abolition of the present expenses arrangements by doing so. Dorries herself stood for election as a deputy speaker after one of the three posts became vacant. In the Commons vote during October 2013, she gained the support of 13 MPs, and was the first of the six candidates to be eliminated in the voting process.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: A complaint from the Liberal Conspiracy website, regarding Dorries' use of the House of Commons' Portcullis emblem on her blog, had been upheld in March 2008, on the basis that Dorries "gave the impression it had some kind of parliamentary endorsement or authority".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 21 October 2010, the MP's standards watchdog criticised Dorries for maintaining a blog which would "mislead constituents" as to how much actual time she was spending in her constituency. Dorries announced: "my blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact! It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire. I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another." Referring to her main home being in Gloucestershire, she said: "I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: She gave an explanation of the statement to her local newspaper, in which she said that her whereabouts on her blog had been disguised, on police advice, because of unwanted attention. She also said that she made the statement in order to protect her staff and family.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 27 October 2010, Dorries partially retracted her 70% fiction claim, posting a blog entry which stated that "It also only takes any individual with a smattering of intelligence to see that everything on the blog is accurate, because it is largely a record of real time events. It was only ever the perception of where I was on any particular day which was disguised."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: The conservative journalist Peter Oborne suggested, in his "Daily Telegraph" blog a fortnight later, that Cameron should have "ordered Mrs Dorries to apologise personally to her constituents, and stripped her of the party whip there and then".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In August 2011, Dorries led the first delegation of Members of Parliament to Equatorial Guinea. It is a small African country, but the third-biggest oil producer on the continent, ruled since 1979 by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. It has one of the worst human rights records on the continent. She met the Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, Ignacio Milam Tang. She has been quoted as saying to him: "We are here to dispel some of the myths about Equatorial Guinea and also with humility to offer you help to avoid the mistakes we have made." According to the official website of Equatorial Guinea, Dorries was one of nine MPs on the trip.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Early in November 2012, it was announced that Dorries had agreed to appear in "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here". Other Conservatives objected to her decision and her constituents were "overwhelmingly negative" on local radio. Neither the Conservative chief whip, Sir George Young, nor the chairman of the Mid Bedfordshire Conservative Association were informed of her absence from Parliament. The Conservative Party suspended Dorries from the party whip on 6 November, after her confirmation that she was planning to be absent from Parliament. John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, received a complaint about her behaviour.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: The series began on 11 November 2012, but on 21 November, Dorries became the first contestant to be voted off the show. On 27 November Dorries met Sir George Young, who asked her to rebuild her relationship with the party. She then sat as an independent MP, but continued to deny the whip had been withdrawn, stating it had merely been suspended.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 8 May 2013, Dorries regained the Conservative whip without any conditions having been applied. George Osborne reportedly objected to her regaining the parliamentary whip, while commentators speculated that, should she not be readmitted, Dorries might join UKIP, which had made gains from the Conservatives in the previous week's local elections. Peter Oborne observed at this point that Dorries had still not declared the amount she was paid for her appearance on "I'm a Celebrity..." in the register of members interests, last published on 22 April, despite her promise to do so.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Shortly after regaining the whip, Dorries floated the idea of joint Conservative-UKIP candidates at the next general election in 2015, with herself as such a candidate. "This is not party policy and it's not going to happen", a Conservative Party spokesman told the Press Association.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Following the publication of a report by the Standards Committee on 11 November 2013, Dorries apologised in the House of Commons to her fellow MPs for two errors of judgement. Her confidentiality agreement with ITV over her fee for appearing on "I'm A Celebrity..." had led to her refusing to disclose the information to Kathryn Hudson, the parliamentary commissioner for standards. In so doing, she had broken the MP's code of conduct. The all-party standards committee said that she should never have agreed to such a clause in her contract. In addition, Dorries had falsely claimed that payment for eight pieces of work in the media did not need to be declared as they were made to Averbrook, her company, rather than to herself directly. Andy McSmith, writing in "The Independent" at the beginning of December 2013, said that Dorries had finally disclosed her income (amounting to £20,228 in total) from appearing on "I'm a Celebrity..." in the register of members' interests.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In the June 2016 EU referendum, Dorries supported the Leave campaign and was critical of Cameron, who backed Remain. Dorries called for Cameron to resign during the campaign in May 2016, and submitted a letter of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: "Buzzfeed" reported that in October 2017 Dorries had become confused about her party's position on Brexit after talking with a politics teacher about a key element of her party's position, Britain's proposed exit from the European Union Customs Union. The EU Customs Union is an agreement between EU members not to impose tariffs (i.e. import taxes) on goods passing across their mutual borders. From a semi-private discussion that "Buzzfeed" made public, it was suggested that Dorries believed the UK could leave the EU but stay within the Customs Union whilst at the same time negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Later in December 2017 she tweeted: "If we stay in the Single Market and the Customs Union, we haven't left."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In November 2018, Dorries, who was strongly in favour of Brexit, said of the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27: "This is a very sad place to be, but unfortunately, the future of the country and of our relationship with Europe is at stake. This deal gives us no voice, no votes, no MEPs, no commissioner".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: When Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Dorries was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health at the Department of Health and Social Care. She was promoted in May 2020 to the ministerial rank of Minister of State for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 10 March 2020, Dorries became the first MP to be diagnosed with COVID-19. It is not known exactly when she contracted the disease, but it was reported that she had attended Parliament and visited 10 Downing Street before being required to self-isolate.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 14 May 2020, Dorries was criticised after she retweeted a doctored video from a far-right Twitter account which falsely claimed that Labour leader Keir Starmer obstructed the prosecution of grooming gangs while he served as Director of Public Prosecutions.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In November 2020, Dorries attracted media criticism after rejecting an offer of cross-party talks to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and care staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2021, she defended the government's 1% NHS pay-offer on the grounds that it would protect the financial support of those on furlough, stating that the "unprecedented" pressure on the UK's finances was behind the pay offer.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 15 September 2021, Dorries was promoted as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport following Oliver Dowden's appointment as Conservative Party Co-chairman. She is a critic of what she believes to be elitism in the BBC and wants to push for "BBC reform".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries was criticised in the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee by John Nicolson due to her previous tweets towards LBC journalist James O'Brien.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In February 2022, amidst a controversy over a joke about Romani genocide, made by Jimmy Carr on a Netflix special, Dorries said that the government would bring in legislation to "hold to account" streaming companies for offensive content. She said there was no disconnect between this view and her previous opinions that "left-wing snowflakes are killing comedy".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: During the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, Dorries was reported as considering herself as a candidate, but ultimately didn't stand and instead endorsed Liz Truss.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In July 2022, Dorries personally granted Grade II-listed status to a plaque of Cecil Rhodes which she believed is of "special historic interest". This decision attracted controversy as Rhodes has been labelled the "Architect of Apartheid" because he passed laws in Cape Colony which expropriated land from black Africans and effectively banned them from political participation.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 5 September 2022, in anticipation of the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, Dorries tendered her resignation as Culture Secretary (effective 6 September) and returned to the backbenches. Truss had asked Dorries to stay on as Secretary of State in her new government, but Dorries instead decided to step down to concentrate on writing books.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: It became public knowledge in September 2013 that Dorries had signed a three-book deal for a six-figure advance; her first book was published the following April.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Her first novel, "The Four Streets", which draws on her Liverpool Catholic background, became a No.1 best-selling e-book with 100,000 copies sold in the format by July 2014, although print sales in hardback and paperback were significantly lower with, respectively, 2,735 and 637 sales by then. Dorries' work of fiction gained mostly negative reviews.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Sarah Ditum in the "New Statesman" complained that some of the sentences "read like clippings from Wikipedia" while Christopher Howse, writing for "The Daily Telegraph", described "The Four Streets" as "the worst novel I've read in 10 years". "You should read the next one. It's much better", Dorries told Ann Treneman of "The Times".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: By 2022, Dorries had published 16 books and announced a series of six more with publisher Head of Zeus.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries, described as "a right-wing, working-class Conservative", is a member of the socially conservative Cornerstone Group.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries says she witnessed "botched" abortions on two occasions, an experience that influenced her campaign to lower the point during a pregnancy at which an abortion can be performed.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 31 October 2006, Dorries introduced a Private Member's Bill in the House of Commons, which would have reduced the time limit for abortion in Great Britain from 24 to 21 weeks; introduced a ten-day 'cooling-off' period for women wishing to have an abortion, during which time the woman would be required to undergo counselling; and accelerate access to abortion at the end of the cooling-off period. Dorries said she had received death threats from activists and was given police protection. Parliament voted by 187 to 108 to reject the bill.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In May 2008, Dorries tabled an amendment to the proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill seeking to reduce the upper limit for abortions from the current 24 weeks of pregnancy to 20 weeks. Reportedly written by Andrea Williams, then of The Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, Dorries has denied that her campaigning on the abortion issue receives funding from Christian fundamentalist groups, although Dorries's website for the "20 Reasons for 20 Weeks" campaign in 2008 was registered by Christian Concern For Our Nation (CCFON), another organisation with which Williams is involved; one of the pressure group's interns set up the website without charge to Dorries. According to "Guardian" journalist Kira Cochrane, it was the greatest challenge to women's abortion rights in nearly 20 years. Andrea Williams (now director of Christian Concern and Christian Legal Centre) was a team member of the campaign. In the Channel 4 "Dispatches" documentary, "In God's Name", Dorries was asked how closely she worked with Williams and Dorries replied, ""Closely? We've been stuck to the hip. Very closely." In reference to her campaign, Dorries also said:What goes on in here would have no structure whatsover, no sense of achievement if it wasn't for people like Andrea on the outside. You know, the Lawyers Christian Fellowhsip, the Medical Christian Fellowship on this particular issue are absolutely vital because they give us the informationDorries' amendment was defeated by 332 votes to 190, with a separate 22-week limit opposed by 304 votes to 233. A majority of MPs continued to support the 24-week limit. She said of her tactics on this issue in 2007: "If I were to argue that all abortions should be banned, the ethical discussions would go round in circles ... My view is that the only way forward is to argue for a reduction in the time limit ... it's every baby's right to have a life."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries proposed amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill 2011 which would have blocked abortion services such as BPAS and Marie Stopes International from providing counselling services. She argued that these organisations had a vested financial interest in encouraging abortions, but according to Zoe Williams "independent" counselling services could be "faith-based groups" intent on discouraging women from having an abortion. Cameron's government at first supported the proposal, but later changed its mind, reportedly because then-Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was opposed to the change.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries' criticism of Cameron's policy shift was supported by some commentators such as Cristina Odone, who shares Dorries concerns. Clegg's apparent opposition was, for Dorries, a means of "blackmailing our Prime Minister", and a question regarding Liberal Democrats' influence was the source of Cameron's description of Dorries as "extremely frustrated" at Prime Minister's questions on 7 September. Cameron was criticised by feminists among others for the comment, and subsequently apologised.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: The issue of abortion counselling was debated in the Commons immediately following this incident. The motion was originally seconded by Labour MP Frank Field, but he withdrew his support after Health Minister Anne Milton intervened to suggest the Government would support the spirit of Dorries' amendment. The amendment was lost by 368 votes to 118, a majority of 250. Despite this, Dorries claimed a victory because of Milton's comments.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 4 May 2011, Dorries proposed a Bill to require that sex education in schools should include content promoting abstinence to girls aged 13–16, which was presented as teaching them "how to say no". While sex education already mentions the option of abstinence, the bill would have required active promotion of abstinence to girls, with no such requirement in the education provided to boys. Owing to Dorries' claims about practices used in teaching about sex, Sarah Ditum in "The Guardian" accused Dorries of making Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) "sound like a terrifying exercise in depravity".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: The Bill drew criticism from healthcare and sex education professionals, questioning claims made during the Bill's reading. Labour MP Chris Bryant described the Bill as being "the daftest piece of legislation I have seen".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: The Sexual Abstinence Bill was set for second reading on 20 January 2012 (Bill 185), after she was granted leave to introduce the Bill on a vote of 67 to 61 on 4 May 2011. The Bill, placed eighth on the order paper, was withdrawn shortly before its second reading.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries opposed the government's successful legislation to introduce same-sex marriage. In May 2012, on the Conservative Home website she wrote: "Gay marriage is a policy which has been pursued by the metro elite gay activists and needs to be put into the same bin [as reform of the House of Lords]". In an interview with Mehdi Hasan in October 2012, Dorries said she favoured gay marriage, but only after Britain has left the European Convention on Human Rights. In an exchange with Iain Dale around the same time, she speculated that the issue could cost her party four million votes at the next general election.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In February 2013, at the time of the Bill's second reading in the House of Commons, she argued that the Bill avoided the issue of consummation and thus contradicted the Marriages Act 1973, and therefore did not make gay marriage equal to heterosexual marriage. She also argued that there was no provision for adultery, or faithlessness, as it might apply to gay couples because the term applies to heterosexual couples only.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In August 2018, Boris Johnson was criticised for a column that he had written in the "Daily Telegraph". As part of an article discussing the introduction of a burka ban in Denmark, Johnson said that Muslim women who wore burkas "look like letter boxes" and the garment gave them the appearance of "bank robbers", although the point of the article was to condemn governments who tell "a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear, in a public place, when she is simply minding her own business". Dorries, however, said that Johnson "did not go far enough", saying the burka should have no place in Britain and it was "shameful that countries like France and Denmark are way ahead of us on this". On 7 August 2018, Dorries tweeted "No woman in a liberal, progressive society should be forced to cover up her beauty or her bruises."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Prior to John Bercow's election as Speaker of the House of Commons in June 2009, Dorries accused him of opportunism and disloyalty to the Conservative Party. She described his election as "a two-fingered salute to the British people from Labour MPs, and to the Conservative Party". After Bercow's wife, Sally, was approved as a Labour parliamentary candidate and gave an interview about her personal life, Dorries argued that the Bercows were damaging the historic respect accorded to the office of speaker.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries was reportedly part of a plot to oust Bercow from the speaker's chair in the run-up to the 2010 general election, and, after the election, sent an email to all new MPs advocating his removal.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: On 6 March 2012, Dorries criticised Cameron and Nick Clegg of the coalition government over their taxation policies. Referring to the proposed cuts in child benefit, she told the "Financial Times" "The problem is that policy is being run by two public schoolboys who don't know what it's like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can't afford it for their children's lunchboxes. What's worse, they don't care, either". She again criticised Cameron, and also George Osborne, in similar terms on 23 April, calling them "two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk – who show no remorse, no contrition and no passion to want to understand the lives of others".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Osborne said on "The Andrew Marr Show" on 6 May 2012: "Nadine Dorries, for the last seven years, I don't think has agreed with anything either myself, David Cameron, or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done." In the summer of 2012, Dorries criticised Osborne again for sending a badly briefed junior Treasury minister, Chloe Smith, to deputise for him on "Newsnight" in order to defend a government u-turn on fuel duty.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In a debate on "Woman's Hour", broadcast on 22 August 2001, Dorries (as Nadine Bargery) had advocated all-women shortlists if the behaviour of Conservative selection committees did not change. In 2009 though, Dorries was highly critical of Cameron's proposal to consider using all-women shortlists, arguing against a move which would create "two classes of MPs". She wrote that "Sometimes I feel sorry for some of the Labour women who were selected via all-women shortlists. Everyone knows who they are. They are constantly derided."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In late 2009, Dorries campaigned against what she called "a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office" which was to be debated at the 2009 Trades Union Congress (TUC). The motion, submitted to the TUC by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, pointed out that "around two million days a year are lost through sickness as a result of lower limb disorders" and that "many employers in the retail sector force women workers to wear high heels as part of their dress code". It did not call for a ban on high heels at work, but rather called on employers to consider the health impact of their dress codes and encourage the wearing of healthy, comfortable shoes.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: In October 2010, Dorries suggested that benefit claimants who made more than 35,000 postings on Twitter should be reported to the Department for Work and Pensions. On being told by the "Bedfordshire on Sunday" newspaper that one of her constituents was out of work because of ill health and had posted more than 37,000 tweets, Dorries told the newspaper that her constituent's tweeting gave housebound disabled people a bad name.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries married mining engineer Paul Dorries in 1984. They had three daughters before separating in 2007 and subsequently divorcing; he suffered from multiple sclerosis and she said they had reached "entirely different stages in [their] lives".


title: Nadine Dorries

text: A Christian, she has said in an interview for a Salvation Army newspaper: "I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that got me here; it is what God did. There is nothing amazing or special about me, I am just a conduit for God to use."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries is a keen supporter of Liverpool F.C., but has said that her great-grandfather George Bargery was one of the founders of rival team Everton F.C. and was the team's first ever goalkeeper.


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries suffers from dyslexia. On 23 April 2022, after accidentally saying "downstream" instead of download and tennis "pitch" instead of tennis court in a TikTok video, she said it was sometimes "difficult" to say words correctly and said she "found it tough seeing commentators and media outlets mock me for something that is beyond my control."


title: Nadine Dorries

text: Dorries was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 20 September 2021 at Balmoral Castle. This gave her the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books "Astronomia nova", "Harmonice Mundi", and "Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae". These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He also taught mathematics in Linz, and was an adviser to General Wallenstein.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting (or Keplerian) telescope, and was mentioned in the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. He was a corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy (a branch of mathematics within the liberal arts) and physics (a branch of natural philosophy). Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason. Kepler described his new astronomy as "celestial physics", as "an excursion into Aristotle's "Metaphysics"", and as "a supplement to Aristotle's "On the Heavens"", transforming the ancient tradition of physical cosmology by treating astronomy as part of a universal mathematical physics.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Kepler was born on 27 December 1571, in the Free Imperial City of Weil der Stadt (now part of the Stuttgart Region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 30 km west of Stuttgart's center). His grandfather, Sebald Kepler, had been Lord Mayor of the city. By the time Johannes was born, he had two brothers and one sister and the Kepler family fortune was in decline. His father, Heinrich Kepler, earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and he left the family when Johannes was five years old. He was believed to have died in the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands. His mother, Katharina Guldenmann, an innkeeper's daughter, was a healer and herbalist. Born prematurely, Johannes claimed to have been weak and sickly as a child. Nevertheless, he often impressed travelers at his grandfather's inn with his phenomenal mathematical faculty.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: He was introduced to astronomy at an early age and developed a strong passion for it that would span his entire life. At age six, he observed the Great Comet of 1577, writing that he "was taken by [his] mother to a high place to look at it." In 1580, at age nine, he observed another astronomical event, a lunar eclipse, recording that he remembered being "called outdoors" to see it and that the Moon "appeared quite red". However, childhood smallpox left him with weak vision and crippled hands, limiting his ability in the observational aspects of astronomy.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: In 1589, after moving through grammar school, Latin school, and seminary at Maulbronn, Kepler attended Tübinger Stift at the University of Tübingen. There, he studied philosophy under Vitus Müller and theology under Jacob Heerbrand (a student of Philipp Melanchthon at Wittenberg), who also taught Michael Maestlin while he was a student, until he became Chancellor at Tübingen in 1590. He proved himself to be a superb mathematician and earned a reputation as a skilful astrologer, casting horoscopes for fellow students. Under the instruction of Michael Maestlin, Tübingen's professor of mathematics from 1583 to 1631, he learned both the Ptolemaic system and the Copernican system of planetary motion. He became a Copernican at that time. In a student disputation, he defended heliocentrism from both a theoretical and theological perspective, maintaining that the Sun was the principal source of motive power in the universe. Despite his desire to become a minister, near the end of his studies, Kepler was recommended for a position as teacher of mathematics and astronomy at the Protestant school in Graz. He accepted the position in April 1594, at the age of 22.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Before concluding his studies at Tübingen, Kepler accepted an offer to teach mathematics as a replacement to Georg Stadius at the Protestant school in Graz (now in Styria, Austria). During this period (1594–1600), he issued many official calendars and prognostications that enhanced his reputation as an astrologer. Although Kepler had mixed feelings about astrology and disparaged many customary practices of astrologers, he believed deeply in a connection between the cosmos and the individual. He eventually published some of the ideas he had entertained while a student in the "Mysterium Cosmographicum" (1596), published a little over a year after his arrival at Graz.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: In December 1595, Kepler was introduced to Barbara Müller, a 23-year-old widow (twice over) with a young daughter, Regina Lorenz, and he began courting her. Müller, an heiress to the estates of her late husbands, was also the daughter of a successful mill owner. Her father Jobst initially opposed a marriage. Even though Kepler had inherited his grandfather's nobility, Kepler's poverty made him an unacceptable match. Jobst relented after Kepler completed work on "Mysterium", but the engagement nearly fell apart while Kepler was away tending to the details of publication. However, Protestant officials—who had helped set up the match—pressured the Müllers to honor their agreement. Barbara and Johannes were married on 27 April 1597.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: In the first years of their marriage, the Keplers had two children (Heinrich and Susanna), both of whom died in infancy. In 1602, they had a daughter (Susanna); in 1604, a son (Friedrich); and in 1607, another son (Ludwig).


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Following the publication of "Mysterium" and with the blessing of the Graz school inspectors, Kepler began an ambitious program to extend and elaborate his work. He planned four additional books: one on the stationary aspects of the universe (the Sun and the fixed stars); one on the planets and their motions; one on the physical nature of planets and the formation of geographical features (focused especially on Earth); and one on the effects of the heavens on the Earth, to include atmospheric optics, meteorology, and astrology.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: He also sought the opinions of many of the astronomers to whom he had sent "Mysterium", among them Reimarus Ursus (Nicolaus Reimers Bär)—the imperial mathematician to Rudolf II and a bitter rival of Tycho Brahe. Ursus did not reply directly, but republished Kepler's flattering letter to pursue his priority dispute over (what is now called) the Tychonic system with Tycho. Despite this black mark, Tycho also began corresponding with Kepler, starting with a harsh but legitimate critique of Kepler's system; among a host of objections, Tycho took issue with the use of inaccurate numerical data taken from Copernicus. Through their letters, Tycho and Kepler discussed a broad range of astronomical problems, dwelling on lunar phenomena and Copernican theory (particularly its theological viability). But without the significantly more accurate data of Tycho's observatory, Kepler had no way to address many of these issues.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Instead, he turned his attention to chronology and "harmony," the numerological relationships among music, mathematics and the physical world, and their astrological consequences. By assuming the Earth to possess a soul (a property he would later invoke to explain how the Sun causes the motion of planets), he established a speculative system connecting astrological aspects and astronomical distances to weather and other earthly phenomena. By 1599, however, he again felt his work limited by the inaccuracy of available data—just as growing religious tension was also threatening his continued employment in Graz. In December of that year, Tycho invited Kepler to visit him in Prague; on 1 January 1600 (before he even received the invitation), Kepler set off in the hopes that Tycho's patronage could solve his philosophical problems as well as his social and financial ones.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: On 4 February 1600, Kepler met Tycho Brahe and his assistants Franz Tengnagel and Longomontanus at Benátky nad Jizerou (35 km from Prague), the site where Tycho's new observatory was being constructed. Over the next two months, he stayed as a guest, analyzing some of Tycho's observations of Mars; Tycho guarded his data closely, but was impressed by Kepler's theoretical ideas and soon allowed him more access. Kepler planned to test his theory from "Mysterium Cosmographicum" based on the Mars data, but he estimated that the work would take up to two years (since he was not allowed to simply copy the data for his own use). With the help of Johannes Jessenius, Kepler attempted to negotiate a more formal employment arrangement with Tycho, but negotiations broke down in an angry argument and Kepler left for Prague on 6 April. Kepler and Tycho soon reconciled and eventually reached an agreement on salary and living arrangements, and in June, Kepler returned home to Graz to collect his family.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Political and religious difficulties in Graz dashed his hopes of returning immediately to Brahe; in hopes of continuing his astronomical studies, Kepler sought an appointment as a mathematician to Archduke Ferdinand. To that end, Kepler composed an essay—dedicated to Ferdinand—in which he proposed a force-based theory of lunar motion: "In Terra inest virtus, quae Lunam ciet" ("There is a force in the earth which causes the moon to move"). Though the essay did not earn him a place in Ferdinand's court, it did detail a new method for measuring lunar eclipses, which he applied during the 10 July eclipse in Graz. These observations formed the basis of his explorations of the laws of optics that would culminate in "Astronomiae Pars Optica".


title: Johannes Kepler

text: On 2 August 1600, after refusing to convert to Catholicism, Kepler and his family were banished from Graz. Several months later, Kepler returned, now with the rest of his household, to Prague. Through most of 1601, he was supported directly by Tycho, who assigned him to analyzing planetary observations and writing a tract against Tycho's (by then deceased) rival, Ursus. In September, Tycho secured him a commission as a collaborator on the new project he had proposed to the emperor: the "Rudolphine Tables" that should replace the "Prutenic Tables" of Erasmus Reinhold. Two days after Tycho's unexpected death on 24 October 1601, Kepler was appointed his successor as the imperial mathematician with the responsibility to complete his unfinished work. The next 11 years as imperial mathematician would be the most productive of his life.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Kepler's primary obligation as imperial mathematician was to provide astrological advice to the emperor. Though Kepler took a dim view of the attempts of contemporary astrologers to precisely predict the future or divine specific events, he had been casting well-received detailed horoscopes for friends, family, and patrons since his time as a student in Tübingen. In addition to horoscopes for allies and foreign leaders, the emperor sought Kepler's advice in times of political trouble. Rudolf was actively interested in the work of many of his court scholars (including numerous alchemists) and kept up with Kepler's work in physical astronomy as well.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: Officially, the only acceptable religious doctrines in Prague were Catholic and Utraquist, but Kepler's position in the imperial court allowed him to practice his Lutheran faith unhindered. The emperor nominally provided an ample income for his family, but the difficulties of the over-extended imperial treasury meant that actually getting hold of enough money to meet financial obligations was a continual struggle. Partly because of financial troubles, his life at home with Barbara was unpleasant, marred with bickering and bouts of sickness. Court life, however, brought Kepler into contact with other prominent scholars (Johannes Matthäus Wackher von Wackhenfels, Jost Bürgi, David Fabricius, Martin Bachazek, and Johannes Brengger, among others) and astronomical work proceeded rapidly.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: In October 1604, a bright new evening star (SN 1604) appeared, but Kepler did not believe the rumors until he saw it himself. Kepler began systematically observing the supernova. Astrologically, the end of 1603 marked the beginning of a fiery trigon, the start of the about 800-year cycle of great conjunctions; astrologers associated the two previous such periods with the rise of Charlemagne (c. 800 years earlier) and the birth of Christ (c. 1600 years earlier), and thus expected events of great portent, especially regarding the emperor.


title: Johannes Kepler

text: It was in this context, as the imperial mathematician and astrologer to the emperor, that Kepler described the new star two years later in his "De Stella Nova". In it, Kepler addressed the star's astronomical properties while taking a skeptical approach to the many astrological interpretations then circulating. He noted its fading luminosity, speculated about its origin, and used the lack of observed parallax to argue that it was in the sphere of fixed stars, further undermining the doctrine of the immutability of the heavens (the idea accepted since Aristotle that the celestial spheres were perfect and unchanging). The birth of a new star implied the variability of the heavens. Kepler also attached an appendix where he discussed the recent chronology work of the Polish historian Laurentius Suslyga; he calculated that, if Suslyga was correct that accepted timelines were four years behind, then the Star of Bethlehem—analogous to the present new star—would have coincided with the first great conjunction of the earlier 800-year cycle.