title: Julie Graham

text: In 2014–19, Graham appeared in the recurring role of Rhona Kelly, the procurator fiscal, in the Scottish television crime drama, "Shetland" made by ITV Studios for the BBC.


title: Julie Graham

text: In 2020, Graham portrayed Ravio in the "Doctor Who" episodes "Ascension of the Cybermen" and "The Timeless Children".


title: Julie Graham

text: Graham was married to actor Joseph A. Bennett from 2002 until he took his own life on 13 April 2015. On 5 February 2004 she gave birth to a daughter, Edie May, six weeks prematurely. On 3 March 2006, she gave birth to a second daughter at home named Cyd Betty.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: "America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)" is an American patriotic song, the lyrics of which were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The song served as one of the "de facto" national anthems of the United States (along with songs like "Hail, Columbia") before the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the official U.S. national anthem in 1931. The melody used is the same as that of the national anthem of the United Kingdom, "God Save the King".


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to "America" in 1831 while a student at the Andover Theological Seminary in Andover, Massachusetts. The use of the same melody as the British royal anthem can be described as a contrafactum which reworks this symbol of British monarchy to make a statement about American democracy.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Well-known composer Lowell Mason had requested that Smith translate or provide new lyrics for a collection of German songs, among them one written to this melody. Smith gave Mason the lyrics he had written, and the song was first performed in public on July 4, 1831, at a children's Independence Day celebration at Park Street Church in Boston. The first publication of "America" was in 1832.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: In the original film version of the musical "West Side Story" (1961), when the Puerto Rican gang is forced to leave a "war council" by a policeman, they whistle the anthem.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Martin Luther King Jr. recited the first verse of the song toward the end of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Cary Grant and Jim Hutton sang the first verse in the 1966 film "Walk, Don't Run", while simultaneously Grant and Samantha Eggar sang "God Save the Queen".


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Neil Diamond included the opening lines in his song "America" in the musical film "The Jazz Singer" (1980).


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Crosby, Stills & Nash performed the song on the first episode of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that aired after the September 11 attacks in 2001.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: On January 21, 2013, Kelly Clarkson sang the song at the public inauguration ceremony of the second inauguration of Barack Obama.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: The song was played at Senator John McCain's funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral on September 1, 2018.


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: The Doors used a guitar riff of the song at the beginning of their song "L.A. Woman" on the 40th anniversary editions of "L.A. Woman" in 2001 and on the re-release album "The Very Best of The Doors" (2007).


title: America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)

text: Dan Berggren updated the song's lyrics in 2004 in a version slanted towards the environment and freedom. It appears as "From Every Mountain Side" on the 2006 Sleeping Giant Records album "Fresh Territory".


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Savannah Rose Marshall (born 19 May 1991) is a British professional boxer who held the WBO female middleweight title between 2020 and 2022. As an amateur, she became the first British female world champion after securing gold at the 2012 World Championships. She has been nicknamed as the 'Silent Assassin' due to her shyness and her multiple knockout wins. As of October 2022, she is ranked as the world's second best active female middleweight by BoxRec and by "The Ring".


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Marshall is from Hartlepool in the North East of England. She attended the English Martyrs School, where she achieved 12 GCSEs before gaining a Distinction in a BTEC National Diploma in Sport at Hartlepool College.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: She began boxing aged 12, when she joined a local Hartlepool Headland club after seeing a boy showing off his trophy on the street and decided she wanted one. She went to her local boxing club with two of her girl friends however her friends only went once and decided not to go back. The club had no girls training at this time and had constantly tried to discourage Marshall. She stated that she thinks the trainer looked at her as 'an annoying little girl who kept on coming back' but she was determined, having fallen in love with the sport. They learned to accept her and began to support her.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: She sparred with the boys at her club. However, when going to other gyms to get sparring partners, it was a struggle. A head trainer of one gym pointed at Savannah and said "what's that? She is not sparring here" and Savannah had to sit and watch the session. Savannah describes herself as very competitive and wants to win at everything and is constantly in competition with training partner Hughie Fury.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Following her win in China at the 2012 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Qinhuangdao, China, Marshall was a favourite to win gold at the 2012 London Olympics. However, she was defeated 16–12 by Marina Volnova of Kazakhstan in her opening, quarter-final bout with many feeling the occasion and expectation was too much for her to handle at the time.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Marshall remains the only boxer ever to have defeated Claressa Shields, the middleweight women's gold medallist in the 2012 Olympics; the bout took place in the second round of the 2012 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Qinhuangdao.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: At the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Marshall beat Ariane Fortin of Canada to take the gold medal in the women's middleweight division.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: In May 2016, Marshall qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics, after reaching the semi-finals of the 2016 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Marshall has stated she went through “a dark time in 2016” when she lost after a controversial decision at the Rio Olympics. But Floyd Mayweather had spotted her obvious talent and was quick to sign her as a professional.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: On 18 May 2017, during a press conference to promote the IBF junior-lightweight title defence of Mayweather promoted Gervonta Davis against former British champion Liam Walsh, Floyd Mayweather Jr. announced to the press that he had signed Marshall to a professional promotional contract. Marshall made her professional boxing debut at super-middleweight on the undercard of The Money Fight, in the professional boxing super-fight between undefeated five-division champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the former UFC Lightweight Champion and Featherweight Champion Conor McGregor. It took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada on 26 August 2017. She defeated Sydney LeBlanc by unanimous decision 40–36 in a four-round bout.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Marshall lifted the vacant WBA super-middleweight Inter-continental title in Sofia, Bulgaria, after winning all 10 rounds to claim a comfortable points victory over Yanina Orozco (Argentina).


title: Savannah Marshall

text: A couple of weeks after her pro debut in Las Vegas, Marshall decided to split from Mayweather Promotions, however said she had left on good terms. On her return to the UK Marshall linked up with Hennessey Sport and went back to training with Peter Fury, uncle of Tyson Fury, who had previously trained her leading up to her first professional fight in Las Vegas.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: On 31 October 2020 in her 9th professional fight Marshall became the WBO female middleweight champion with a TKO victory over opponent Hannah Rankin at Wembley Arena. "There were times when I thought, 'When will my chance come?' But tonight it did and I grabbed it with both hands", she told Sky Sports.


title: Savannah Marshall

text: Marshall was initially scheduled to face Claressa Shields in a title unification bout on September 10, 2022. However, due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II the bout was postponed to take place on October 15, 2022. Marshall lost the fight via unanimous decision with two judges scoring the fight 97–93 and one scoring it 96–94, all in favour of Shields to become the undisputed middleweight world champion. This fight occurred at the O2 Arena and was the first time two female boxers headlined at a major venue in the United Kingdom. As well, the fight headlined the first all-female boxing card in the United Kingdom.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of science fiction. He has published twenty-two novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his "Mars" trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. Robinson's work has been labeled by "The Atlantic" as "the gold-standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in "The New Yorker", Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: In 1974, he earned a B.A. in literature from the University of California, San Diego. In 1975, he earned an M.A. in English from Boston University. In 1978 Robinson moved to Davis, California, to take a break from his graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego). During this time, he worked as a bookseller for Orpheus Books. He also taught freshman composition and other courses at University of California, Davis.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: In 1982, Robinson earned a PhD in English from UC San Diego. His initial PhD advisor was literary critic and Marxist scholar Fredric Jameson, who told Robinson to read works by Philip K. Dick. Jameson described Dick to Robinson as "the greatest living American writer". Robinson's doctoral thesis, "The Novels of Philip K. Dick", was published in 1984 and a hardcover version was published by UMI Research Press.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: In 2009, Robinson was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop. In 2010, he was the guest of honor at the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Melbourne. In April 2011, Robinson presented at the second annual Rethinking Capitalism conference, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Among other points made, his talk addressed the cyclical nature of capitalism.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Sheldon Brown described Robinson's novels as ways to explore how nature and culture continuously reformulate one another; "Three Californias Trilogy" as California in the future; Washington DC undergoing the impact of climate change in the "Science in the Capital" series; or Mars as a stand-in for Earth in the "Mars" trilogy to think about re-engineering on a global scale, both social and natural conditions.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Virtually all of Robinson's novels have an ecological component; sustainability is one of his primary themes (a strong contender for the primary theme would be the nature of a plausible utopia). The "Orange County" trilogy is about the way in which the technological intersects with the natural, highlighting the importance of keeping the two in balance. In the "Mars" trilogy, one of the principal divisions among the population of Mars is based on dissenting views on terraforming. Colonists debate whether or not the barren Martian landscape has a similar ecological or spiritual value when compared with a living ecosphere like Earth's. "Forty Signs of Rain" has an entirely ecological thrust, taking global warming as its principal subject.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson's work often explores alternatives to modern capitalism. In the "Mars" trilogy, it is argued that capitalism is an outgrowth of feudalism, which could be replaced in the future by a more democratic economic system. Worker ownership and cooperatives figure prominently in "Green Mars" and "Blue Mars" as replacements for traditional corporations. The "Orange County" trilogy explores similar arrangements; "Pacific Edge" includes the idea of attacking the legal framework behind corporate domination to promote social egalitarianism. Tim Kreider writes in the "New Yorker" that Robinson may be our greatest political novelist and describes how Robinson uses the "Mars" trilogy as a template for a credible utopia. His works have made reference to real-world examples of economic organization that have been cited as examples of alternatives to conventional capitalist structures, such as the Mondragon Corporation and the Kerala model.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson's writing also reflects an interest in economic models that reject the growth-oriented basis of capitalism: Robert Markley has identified the work of Murray Bookchin as an influence on his thinking, as well as steady-state economics.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson's work often portrays characters struggling to preserve and enhance the world around them in an environment characterized by individualism and entrepreneurialism, often facing the political and economic authoritarianism of corporate power acting in this environment. Robinson has been described as anti-capitalist, and his work often portrays a form of frontier capitalism that promotes egalitarian ideals that closely resemble socialist systems, but faced with a capitalism that is maintained by entrenched hegemonic corporations. In particular, his Martian Constitution draws upon social democratic ideals explicitly emphasizing a community-participation element in political and economic life.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson's works often portray the worlds of tomorrow in a manner similar to the mythologized American Western frontier, showing a sentimental affection for the freedom and wildness of the frontier. This aesthetic includes a preoccupation with competing models of political and economic organization.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: The environmental, economic, and social themes in Robinson's oeuvre stand in marked contrast to the right-libertarian science fiction prevalent in much of the genre (Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle being prominent examples). He has been described as "one of America's best-selling […] left-wing novelists" and his work has been called "probably the most successful attempt to reach a mass audience with an anti-capitalist utopian vision since Ursula K. Le Guin's 1974 novel, "The Dispossessed"".


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson's work often features scientists as heroes. They are portrayed in a mundane way compared to most work featuring scientists: rather than being adventurers or action heroes, Robinson's scientists become critically important because of research discoveries, networking and collaboration with other scientists, political lobbying, or becoming public figures. Robinson captures the joy of scientists as they work at something they care about. Robert Markley has argued that Robinson "views science as the model for a utopian politics... Even in Robinson’s novels that don’t seem to be sci-fi, like "Shaman", the inductive method, the collective search for greater knowledge about the world that can be put to use for the good for all, is front and center". The "Mars" trilogy and "The Years of Rice and Salt" rely heavily on the idea that scientists must take responsibility for ensuring public understanding and responsible use of their discoveries. Robinson's scientists often emerge as the best people to direct public policy on important environmental and technological questions, of which politicians are often ignorant.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Related to Robinson's focus on the environment are his themes of the imminent catastrophe of global warming and the need to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the present day. His 2012 novel "2312" explores the detrimental, long-term effects of climate change, which include food shortages, global instability, mass extinction, and sea level rise that has drowned many major coastal cities. The novel condemns the people of the period it calls "the Dithering", from 2005 to 2060, for failing to address climate change and thereby causing mass suffering and death in the future. Robinson and his work accuse global capitalism for the failure to address climate change. In his 2017 novel "New York 2140" Robinson explores the themes of climate change and global warming, setting the novel in the year 2140 when the New York City he imagines is beset by a sea level rise that submerges half of the city. Climate change is also the focus of his "Science in the Capital" series and his 2020 novel "The Ministry for the Future".


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Asteroid 72432 Kimrobinson discovered by astronomer Donald P. Pray in 2001, was named in his honor. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on April 22, 2016 ().


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: In 2008, "Time" magazine named Robinson a "Hero of the Environment" for his optimistic focus on the future.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson and his wife have two sons. Robinson has lived in Washington, D.C., California, and during some of the 1980s, in Switzerland. At times, Robinson was a stay-at-home dad. He later moved to Davis, California, in a cohousing community.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Robinson has described himself as an avid backpacker with the Sierra Nevada serving as his home range and a big influence on how he sees the world.


title: Kim Stanley Robinson

text: Politically, Robinson identifies as a democratic socialist, and in a February 2019 interview mentioned he is a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America. He has also remarked that libertarianism has never "[made] any sense to me, nor sounds attractive as a principle."


title: Mukesh Khanna

text: Mukesh Khanna (born 23 June 1958) is an Indian actor, talk show host and producer who works in Hindi language films and television shows. He is best known for his portrayal of Shaktimaan, the superhero character in "Shaktimaan" (1997–2005) and Bhishma in "Mahabharat" (1988–1990), and also for his appearances in "Pyaar Ka Dard Hai Meetha Meetha Pyaara Pyaara" (2012–2013).


title: Mukesh Khanna

text: Khanna was also the chairman of Children's Film Society India, from which he resigned in February 2018. He is also the founder and director of entertainment company Bheeshm International. He is currently running The Mukesh Khanna Show on his own YouTube channel named Bheeshm International.


title: Hot Fuss

text: Hot Fuss is the debut studio album by American rock band the Killers, released on June 7, 2004, in the United Kingdom and on June 15, 2004, in the United States by Island Records. The album is mostly influenced by new wave music and post-punk. "Hot Fuss" spawned four commercially and critically successful singles: "Mr. Brightside", "Somebody Told Me", "All These Things That I've Done" and "Smile Like You Mean It".


title: Hot Fuss

text: The album reached number seven on the "Billboard" 200 and number one on the UK Albums Chart. , "Hot Fuss" had sold more than seven million copies worldwide, including more than three million in the United States and more than two million in the United Kingdom. It has also been certified platinum or multi-platinum in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. The album and its first three singles went on to garner five Grammy Award nominations.


title: Hot Fuss

text: The album was recorded at various points throughout 2003 with Jeff Saltzman in Berkeley, California, with the exception of "Everything Will Be Alright", which was recorded by Corlene Byrd in guitarist Dave Keuning's apartment. Many of the tracks were originally recorded as demos, which the band decided to keep for their spontaneity. The album was mixed by Mark Needham at Cornerstone Studios in Los Angeles and Alan Moulder at Eden Studios in London. In 2012, Brandon Flowers told "NME" that he felt "depressed" after hearing the Strokes' album "Is This It". "That record just sounded so perfect", he said. "We threw away everything [we were working on] and the only song that made the cut and remained was 'Mr. Brightside.'"


title: Hot Fuss

text: The songs "Midnight Show" and "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" are two parts of the so-called "Murder Trilogy", detailing the fictional story of a woman who is murdered by her jealous boyfriend. The first part, "Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf", appears on the band's B-sides and rarities compilation, "Sawdust".


title: Hot Fuss

text: The album heavily features a vocal effect called Echo Farm on Flowers' voice. In 2014, Needham recounted, "There were three of us involved in the production company on that record: Braden Merrick, Jeff Saltzman and myself. Jeff and I had been partners for a few years. He was an entertainment attorney and was shopping stuff, but he actually really wanted to be a producer as well. We set Jeff up with a studio, got him started in recording and since he’s a smart guy, he picked it up really quick. At that time, Echo Farm had just come out, and that was really the only vocal effect he had. If you open up Echo Farm, the first setting that comes up is the default setting, which overdrives the vocal a bit and sets an 84 ms delay. That was basically what he put on everything and it sort of became the default vocal tone on the whole record, plus it worked really great, so we kept it. It changes a little bit on certain things, but it was a fairly consistent effect through the whole record."


title: Hot Fuss

text: The album cover was photographed by Matthias Clamer in 2000, in the southern region of the suburbs of Beijing, China. The characters on top of each building ("建", "材", "开", and "发") translate to "construction material development".


title: Hot Fuss

text: "Hot Fuss" received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, the album has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Hot Fuss

text: "Hot Fuss" was released on June 7, 2004, in the United Kingdom and on June 15, 2004, in the United States. In 2005, it was reissued as a box of eleven seven-inch vinyl discs, with an album track on each A-side and non-album tracks on the B-sides. The album reached number seven on the US "Billboard" 200. It was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on December 1, 2005, and as of January 2017, it had sold 3.75 million copies in the United States.


title: Hot Fuss

text: "Hot Fuss" topped the UK Albums Chart for two consecutive weeks in January 2005. It was the 26th best-selling album of the 2000s decade in the United Kingdom, and is listed among the top 40 longest-charting albums in the history of the UK Albums Chart, with 254 weeks. On July 22, 2013, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified the album seven-times platinum; by August 2020, it had sold 2,335,495 copies in the UK. In 2022 the album was named as the 20th most successful debut album in UK chart history. The album has also been certified platinum or multi-platinum in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. "Hot Fuss" had sold over than seven million copies worldwide as of December 2012.


title: Hot Fuss

text: "Rolling Stone" ranked "Hot Fuss" 43rd on its list of the "100 Best Albums of the Decade", and it was, at one point, listed among the "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Gigwise readers voted it the number-one "Best Debut Album of All Time" in 2013. "Rolling Stone" ranked "Hot Fuss" the 33rd of its list of "The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time".


title: Hot Fuss

text: The album has inspired numerous cover recordings, including Meg Washington's 2022 cover album of the same name.


title: Hot Fuss

text: All tracks are produced by Jeff Saltzman and the Killers, except "Everything Will Be Alright", produced by Brandon Flowers.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: An anti-radiation missile (ARM) is a missile designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. Typically, these are designed for use against an enemy radar, although jammers and even radios used for communications can also be targeted in this manner.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: Most ARM designs to date have been intended for use against ground-based radars. Commonly carried by specialist aircraft in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) role (known to United States Air Force as "Wild Weasels"), the primary purpose of this type of missile is to degrade enemy air defenses in the first period of a conflict in order to increase the chance of survival for the following waves of strike aircraft. They can also be used to quickly shut down unexpected surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites during an air raid. Often, SEAD escort aircraft also carry cluster bombs, which can be used to ensure that, after the HARM disables the SAM system's radar, the command post, missile launchers, and other components or equipment are also destroyed to guarantee that the SAM site stays down.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: Early ARMs, such as the AGM-45 Shrike, were not particularly intelligent; they would simply home in on the source of radiation and explode when they got near it. SAM operators learned to turn their radar off when an ARM was fired at them, then turn it back on later, greatly reducing the missile's effectiveness. This led to the development of more advanced ARMs such as the AGM-78 Standard ARM, AGM-122 Sidearm, and AGM-88 HARM missiles, which have inertial guidance systems (INS) built-in. This allows them to remember the radar's direction if it is turned off and continue to fly towards it. ARMs are less likely to hit the radar if the radar is turned off shortly after the missile is launched, as the longer the radar is off (and assuming it never turns back on), the more error is introduced into the missile's course. The ALARM even has an added loiter mode, with a built-in parachute, enabling it to descend slowly until the radar activates, whereupon the rocket motor will re-ignite. Even a temporary shut down of the enemy's missile guidance radar can be of a great advantage to friendly aircraft during battle.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: Defence Research and Development Organisation is working on the Rudram series of anti-radiation missiles for Indian Air Force. SIATT with Department of Aerospace Science and Technology of Brazilian Air Force are jointly developing MAR-1.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: Several surface-to-surface missiles, like the P-700 Granit, P-500 Bazalt, MM40 Exocet, B611MR, and Otomat, include a home-on-jam capability wherein the receiver component of their active radar homing is used to home in on enemy radar, ECM or communications. This makes these missiles significantly harder to defeat with ECM and distraction countermeasures, and makes the use of semi-active missiles against them dangerous.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: Due to experiences with jamming by US-built aircraft in Vietnam and during Middle Eastern wars in the late 1960s, the Soviet Union designed an alternative tracking mode for their S-75 (SA-2) missiles, which allowed them to track a jamming target without needing to actively send out any radar signals. This was achieved by the SAM site's radar receiver locking on to radio noise emissions generated by an aircraft's jamming pod. In cases of heavy jamming, missiles were often launched exclusively in this mode; this passive tracking meant that SAM sites could track targets without needing to emit any radar signals, and so American anti-radiation missiles could not be fired back in retaliation. Recently, the People's Republic of China developed the FT-2000 system to counter AEW and AWACS targets. This system is based on the HQ-9, which is in turn based on the S-300PMU. These anti-radiation missile systems have been marketed to Pakistan and various other countries.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: More recently, air-to-air ARM designs have begun to appear, notably the Russian Vympel R-27EP. Such missiles have several advantages over other missile guidance techniques: they do not trigger radar warning receivers (conferring a measure of surprise) and they can have a longer range.


title: Anti-radiation missile

text: In the 1970s, Hughes Aerospace had a project called BRAZO (Spanish for ARM). Based on a Raytheon AIM-7 Sparrow, it was meant to offer an air-to-air capability against proposed Soviet AWACS types and also some other types with extremely powerful radar sets, such as the MiG-25. The project did not proceed.


title: Pulley

text: A pulley is a wheel on an axle or shaft that is designed to support movement and change of direction of a taut cable or belt, or transfer of power between the shaft and cable or belt. In the case of a pulley supported by a frame or shell that does not transfer power to a shaft, but is used to guide the cable or exert a force, the supporting shell is called a block, and the pulley may be called a sheave.


title: Pulley

text: A pulley may have a groove or grooves between flanges around its circumference to locate the cable or belt. The drive element of a pulley system can be a rope, cable, belt, or chain.


title: Pulley

text: The earliest evidence of pulleys dates back to Ancient Egypt in the Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1802 BCE) and Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BCE. In Roman Egypt, Hero of Alexandria (c. 10-70 CE) identified the pulley as one of six simple machines used to lift weights. Pulleys are assembled to form a block and tackle in order to provide mechanical advantage to apply large forces. Pulleys are also assembled as part of belt and chain drives in order to transmit power from one rotating shaft to another. Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" recounts a scene where Archimedes proved the effectiveness of compound pulleys and the block-and-tackle system by using one to pull a fully laden ship towards him as if it was gliding through water.


title: Pulley

text: A block is a set of pulleys (wheels) assembled so that each pulley rotates independently from every other pulley. Two blocks with a rope attached to one of the blocks and threaded through the two sets of pulleys form a block and tackle.


title: Pulley

text: A block and tackle is assembled so one block is attached to fixed mounting point and the other is attached to the moving load. The ideal mechanical advantage of the block and tackle is equal to the number of sections of the rope that support the moving block.


title: Pulley

text: In the diagram on the right the ideal mechanical advantage of each of the block and tackle assemblies shown is as follows:


title: Pulley

text: A rope and pulley system—that is, a block and tackle—is characterised by the use of a single continuous rope to transmit a tension force around one or more pulleys to lift or move a load—the rope may be a light line or a strong cable. This system is included in the list of simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists.


title: Pulley

text: If the rope and pulley system does not dissipate or store energy, then its mechanical advantage is the number of parts of the rope that act on the load. This can be shown as follows.


title: Pulley

text: Consider the set of pulleys that form the moving block and the parts of the rope that support this block. If there are "p" of these parts of the rope supporting the load "W," then a force balance on the moving block shows that the tension in each of the parts of the rope must be "W/p." This means the input force on the rope is "T"="W/p." Thus, the block and tackle reduces the input force by the factor "p."


title: Pulley

text: The simplest theory of operation for a pulley system assumes that the pulleys and lines are weightless. And that there is no energy loss due to friction. It is also assumed that the lines do not stretch.


title: Pulley

text: In equilibrium, the forces on the moving block must sum to zero. In addition the tension in the rope must be the same for each of its parts. This means that the two parts of the rope supporting the moving block must each support half the load.


title: Pulley

text: The mechanical advantage of the gun tackle can be increased by interchanging the fixed and moving blocks so the rope is attached to the moving block and the rope is pulled in the direction of the lifted load. In this case the block and tackle is said to be "rove to advantage." Diagram 3 shows that now three rope parts support the load "W" which means the tension in the rope is "W/3". Thus, the mechanical advantage is three.


title: Pulley

text: By adding a pulley to the fixed block of a gun tackle the direction of the pulling force is reversed though the mechanical advantage remains the same, Diagram 3a. This is an example of the Luff tackle.


title: Pulley

text: The mechanical advantage of a pulley system can be analysed using free body diagrams which balance the tension force in the rope with the force of gravity on the load. In an ideal system, the massless and frictionless pulleys do not dissipate energy and allow for a change of direction of a rope that does not stretch or wear. In this case, a force balance on a free body that includes the load, "W", and "n" supporting sections of a rope with tension "T", yields:


title: Pulley

text: The ratio of the load to the input tension force is the mechanical advantage "MA" of the pulley system,


title: Pulley

text: Thus, the mechanical advantage of the system is equal to the number of sections of rope supporting the load.


title: Pulley

text: A belt and pulley system is characterized by two or more pulleys in common to a belt. This allows for mechanical power, torque, and speed to be transmitted across axles. If the pulleys are of differing diameters, a mechanical advantage is realized.


title: Pulley

text: A belt drive is analogous to that of a chain drive; however, a belt sheave may be smooth (devoid of discrete interlocking members as would be found on a chain sprocket, spur gear, or timing belt) so that the mechanical advantage is approximately given by the ratio of the pitch diameter of the sheaves only, not fixed exactly by the ratio of teeth as with gears and sprockets.


title: Pulley

text: In the case of a drum-style pulley, without a groove or flanges, the pulley often is slightly convex to keep the flat belt centered. It is sometimes referred to as a crowned pulley. Though once widely used on factory line shafts, this type of pulley is still found driving the rotating brush in upright vacuum cleaners, in belt sanders and bandsaws. Agricultural tractors built up to the early 1950s generally had a belt pulley for a flat belt (which is what "Belt Pulley" magazine was named after). It has been replaced by other mechanisms with more flexibility in methods of use, such as power take-off and hydraulics.


title: Pulley

text: Just as the diameters of gears (and, correspondingly, their number of teeth) determine a gear ratio and thus the speed increases or reductions and the mechanical advantage that they can deliver, the diameters of pulleys determine those same factors. and step pulleys (which operate on the same principle, although the names tend to be applied to flat belt versions and V-belt versions, respectively) are a way to provide multiple drive ratios in a belt-and-pulley system that can be shifted as needed, just as a transmission provides this function with a gear train that can be shifted. V-belt step pulleys are the most common way that drill presses deliver a range of spindle speeds.


title: Pulley

text: With belts and pulleys, friction is one of the most important forces. Some uses for belts and pulleys involve peculiar angles (leading to bad belt tracking and possibly slipping the belt off the pulley) or low belt-tension environments, causing unnecessary slippage of the belt and hence extra wear to the belt. To solve this, pulleys are sometimes lagged. Lagging is the term used to describe the application of a coating, cover or wearing surface with various textured patterns which is sometimes applied to pulley shells. Lagging is often applied in order to extend the life of the shell by providing a replaceable wearing surface or to improve the friction between the belt and the pulley. Notably drive pulleys are often rubber lagged (coated with a rubber friction layer) for exactly this reason.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Śūnyatā (; ; ), translated most often as "emptiness", "vacuity", and sometimes "voidness", is an Indian philosophical concept. Within Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and other philosophical strands, the concept has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. It is either an ontological feature of reality, a meditative state, or a phenomenological analysis of experience.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In Theravāda Buddhism, "Suññatā" often refers to the non-self (Pāli: "anattā", Sanskrit: "anātman") nature of the five aggregates of experience and the six sense spheres. "Suññatā" is also often used to refer to a meditative state or experience.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In Mahāyāna Buddhism, "śūnyatā" refers to the tenet that "all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature ("svabhava")", but may also refer to the Buddha-nature teachings and primordial or empty awareness, as in Dzogchen, Shentong, or Chan.


title: Śūnyatā

text: ""Śūnyatā"" (Sanskrit) is usually translated as "devoidness", "emptiness", "hollow", "hollowness", "voidness". It is the noun form of the adjective "śūnya", plus "-tā":


title: Śūnyatā

text: The concept of "śūnyatā" as "emptiness" is related to the concept of "anatta" in early Buddhism. Over time, many different philosophical schools or tenet-systems (Sanskrit: "siddhānta") have developed within Buddhism in an effort to explain the exact philosophical meaning of emptiness.


title: Śūnyatā

text: After the Buddha, emptiness was further developed by the Abhidharma schools, Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamaka school, an early Mahāyāna school. Emptiness ("positively" interpreted) is also an important element of the Buddha-nature literature, which played a formative role in the evolution of subsequent Mahāyāna doctrine and practice.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Pāli Canon uses the term "śūnyatā" ("emptiness") in three ways: "(1) as a meditative dwelling, (2) as an attribute of objects, and (3) as a type of awareness-release."


title: Śūnyatā

text: According to Bhikkhu Analayo, in the Pāli Canon "the adjective suñña occurs with a much higher frequency than the corresponding noun suññatā" and emphasizes seeing phenomena as 'being empty' instead of an abstract idea of "emptiness."


title: Śūnyatā

text: One example of this usage is in the "Pheṇapiṇḍūpama Sutta" (SN 22:95), which states that on close inspection, each of the five aggregates are seen as being void ("rittaka"), hollow ("tucchaka"), coreless ("asāraka"). In the text a series of contemplations is given for each aggregate: form is like "a lump of foam" ("pheṇapiṇḍa"); sensation like "a water bubble" ("bubbuḷa"); perception like "a mirage" ("marici"); formations like "a plantain tree" ("kadalik-khandha"); and cognition is like "a magical illusion" ("māyā").


title: Śūnyatā

text: According to Shi Huifeng, the terms "void" ("rittaka"), "hollow" ("tucchaka"), and "coreless" ("asāraka") are also used in the early texts to refer to words and things which are deceptive, false, vain, and worthless. This sense of worthlessness and vacuousness is also found in other uses of the term "māyā", such as the following:"Monks, sensual pleasures are impermanent, hollow, false, deceptive; they are illusory ("māyākatame"), the prattle of fools."The "Suñña Sutta", part of the Pāli Canon, relates that the monk Ānanda, Buddha's attendant asked,It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?" The Buddha replied, "Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty.According to the American monastic Thanissaro Bhikku:


title: Śūnyatā

text: Emptiness as a meditative state is said to be reached when "not attending to any themes, he [the bhikkhu] enters & remains in internal emptiness" (MN 122). This meditative dwelling is developed through the "four formless states" of meditation or Arūpajhānas and then through "themeless concentration of awareness."


title: Śūnyatā

text: The "Cūlasuññata-sutta" (MN III 104) and the "Mahāsuññata-sutta" (MN III 109) outline how a monk can "dwell in emptiness" through a gradual step-by-step mental cultivation process, they both stress the importance of the impermanence of mental states and the absence of a self.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In the "Kāmabhu Sutta" S IV.293, it is explained that a bhikkhu can experience a trancelike contemplation in which perception and feeling cease. When he emerges from this state, he recounts three types of "contact" ("phasso"):


title: Śūnyatā

text: The meaning of emptiness as contemplated here is explained at M I.297 and S IV.296-97 as the "emancipation of the mind by emptiness" ("suññatā cetovimutti") being consequent upon the realization that "this world is empty of self or anything pertaining to self" ("suññam ida attena vā attaniyena vā").


title: Śūnyatā

text: The term "emptiness" ("suññatā") is also used in two suttas in the "Majjhima Nikāya", in the context of a progression of mental states. The texts refer to each state's emptiness of the one below.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Chinese Āgamas contain various parallels to the "Pheṇapiṇḍūpama Sutta". One partial parallel from the Ekottara Āgama describes the body with different metaphors: "a ball of snow", "a heap of dirt", "a mirage", "an illusion" ("māyā"), or "an empty fist used to fool a child". In a similar vein, the Mūla-Sarvāstivādin "Māyājāla Sūtra", gives two sets of metaphors for each of the sensory consciousnesses to illustrate their vain, illusory character.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Other Sarvāstivādin Āgama sutras (extant in Chinese) which have emptiness as a theme include Samyukta Āgama 335 - "Paramārtha-śunyatā-sūtra" ("Sutra on ultimate emptiness") and Samyukta Āgama 297 - "Mahā-śunyatā-dharma-paryāya" ("Greater discourse on emptiness"). These sutras have no parallel Pāli suttas. These sutras associate emptiness with dependent origination, which shows that this relation of the two terms was already established in pre-Nagarjuna sources. The sutra on great emptiness states:


title: Śūnyatā

text: The phrase "when this exists..." is a common gloss on dependent origination. Sarvāstivādin Āgamas also speak of a certain "emptiness samadhi" ("śūnyatāsamādhi") as well as stating that all dharmas are "classified as conventional".


title: Śūnyatā

text: Mun-Keat Choong and Yin Shun have both published studies on the various uses of emptiness in the Early Buddhist texts (Pāli Canon and Chinese Āgamas). Choong has also published a collection of translations of Āgama sutras from the Chinese on the topic of emptiness.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Sarvastivadin school's Abhidharma texts like the "Dharmaskandhapāda Śāstra", and the later "Mahāvibhāṣa", also take up the theme of emptiness vis-a-vis dependent origination as found in the Agamas.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Schools such as the Mahāsāṃghika Prajñaptivādins as well as many of the Sthavira schools (except the Pudgalavada) held that all dharmas were empty ("dharma śūnyatā"). This can be seen in the early Theravada Abhidhamma texts such as the "Patisambhidamagga", which also speak of the emptiness of the five aggregates and of svabhava as being "empty of essential nature". The Theravada "Kathavatthu" also argues against the idea that emptiness is unconditioned. The "Mahāvastu", an influential Mahāsāṃghika work, states that the Buddha"has shown that the aggregates are like a lightning flash, as a bubble, or as the white foam on a wave."One of the main themes of Harivarman's Tattvasiddhi-Śāstra (3rd-4th century) is "dharma-śūnyatā", the emptiness of phenomena.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Theravāda Buddhists generally take the view that emptiness is merely the not-self nature of the five aggregates. Emptiness is an important door to liberation in the Theravāda tradition just as it is in Mahayana, according to Insight meditation teacher Gil Fronsdal. The classic Theravāda text known as the "Patisambhidamagga" (c. 3rd century BCE) describes the five aggregates as being empty ("suññam") of essence or intrinsic nature ("sabhava"). The "Patisambhidamagga" also equates not-self with the emptiness liberation in a passage also cited by Buddhaghosa in the "Visuddhimagga" (Vism XXI 70):"When one who has great wisdom brings [volitional formations] to mind as not-self, he acquires the emptiness liberation" -Patis. II 58.The "Visuddhimagga" (c. 5th century CE)"," the most influential classical Theravāda treatise, states that not-self does not become apparent because it is concealed by "compactness" when one does not give attention to the various elements which make up the person. The "Paramatthamañjusa Visuddhimaggatika" of Acariya Dhammapala, a 5th-century Theravāda commentary on the "Visuddhimagga", comments on this passage by referring to the fact that we often assume unity and compactness regarding phenomena or functions which are instead made up of various elements, but when one sees that these are merely empty dhammas, one can understand the not-self characteristic:"when they are seen after resolving them by means of knowledge into these elements, they disintegrate like froth subjected to compression by the hand. They are mere states ("dhamma") occurring due to conditions and void. In this way the characteristic of not-self becomes more evident."The modern Thai teacher Buddhadasa referred to emptiness as the "innermost heart" of the Buddhist teachings and the cure for the disease of suffering. He stated that emptiness, as it relates to the practice of Dhamma, can be seen both "as the absence of Dukkha and the defilements that are the cause of Dukkha and as the absence of the feeling that there is a self or that there are things which are the possessions of a self." He also equated nibbana with emptiness, writing that "Nibbana, the remainderless extinction of Dukkha, means the same as supreme emptiness." Emptiness is also seen as a mode of perception which lacks all the usual conceptual elaborations we usually add on top of our experiences, such as the sense of "I" and "Mine". According to Thanissaro Bhikku, emptiness is not so much a metaphysical view, as it is a strategic mode of acting and of seeing the world which leads to liberation:Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.


title: Śūnyatā

text: This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Some Theravādins, such as David Kalupahana, see Nagarjuna's view of emptiness as compatible with the Pali Canon. In his analysis of the "Mulamadhyamikakarika", Kalupahana sees Nagarjuna's argument as rooted in the Kaccānagotta Sutta (which Nagarjuna cites by name). Kalupahana states that Nagarjuna's major goal was to discredit heterodox views of Svabhava (own-nature) held by the Sarvastivadins and establish the non-substantiality of all dharmas. According to Peter Harvey, the Theravāda view of dhammas and sabhava is not one of essences, but merely descriptive characteristics and hence is not the subject of Madhyamaka critique developed by Nagarjuna (see below).


title: Śūnyatā

text: In Theravāda, emptiness as an approach to meditation is also seen as a state in which one is "empty of disturbance." This form of meditation is one in which meditators become concentrated and focus on the absence or presence of disturbances in their minds; if they find a disturbance they notice it and allow it to drop away; this leads to deeper states of calmness. Emptiness is also seen as a way to look at sense-experience that does not identify with the "I-making" and "my-making" process of the mind. As a form of meditation, this is developed by perceiving the six sense-spheres and their objects as empty of any self, this leads to a formless jhana of nothingness and a state of equanimity.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Mathew Kosuta sees the Abhidhamma teachings of the modern Thai teacher Ajaan Sujin Boriharnwanaket as being very similar to the Mahayana emptiness view.


title: Śūnyatā

text: There are two main sources of Indian Buddhist discussions of emptiness: the Mahayana sutra literature, which is traditionally believed to be the word of the Buddha in Mahayana Buddhism, and the shastra literature, which was composed by Buddhist scholars and philosophers.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) Sutras taught that all entities, including "dharmas", are empty of self, essential core, or intrinsic nature ("svabhava"), being only conceptual existents or constructs. The notion of prajña (wisdom, knowledge) presented in these sutras is a deep non-conceptual understanding of emptiness. The Prajñāpāramitā sutras also use various metaphors to explain the nature of things as emptiness, stating that things are like "illusions" ("māyā") and "dreams" ("svapna"). The "Astasahasrika Prajñaparamita," possibly the earliest of these sutras"," states:If he knows the five aggregates as like an illusion, But makes not illusion one thing, and the aggregates another; If, freed from the notion of multiple things, he courses in peace— Then that is his practice of wisdom, the highest perfection.Perceiving dharmas and beings like an illusion ("māyādharmatām") is termed the "great armor" ("mahāsaṃnaha") of the Bodhisattva, who is also termed the 'illusory man' ("māyāpuruṣa"). The "Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra" adds the following similes to describe how all conditioned things are to be contemplated: like a bubble, a shadow, like dew or a flash of lightning. In the worldview of these sutras, though we perceive a world of concrete and discrete objects, these objects are "empty" of the identity imputed by their designated labels. In that sense, they are deceptive and like an illusion. The Perfection of Wisdom texts constantly repeat that nothing can be found to ultimately exist in some fundamental way. This applies even to the highest Buddhist concepts (bodhisattvas, bodhicitta, and even prajña itself). Even nirvana itself is said to be empty and like a dream or magical illusion.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In a famous passage, the Heart sutra, a later but influential Prajñāpāramitā text, directly states that the five skandhas (along with the five senses, the mind, and the four noble truths) are said to be "empty" ("sunya"):In the Prajñāpāramitā sutras the knowledge of emptiness, i.e. prajñāpāramitā is said to be the fundamental virtue of the bodhisattva, who is said to stand on emptiness by not standing (-stha) on any other dharma (phenomena). Bodhisattvas who practice this perfection of wisdom are said to have several qualities such as the "not taking up" ("aparigṛhīta") and non-apprehension ("anupalabdhi") of anything, non-attainment ("aprapti"), not-settling down ("anabhinivesa") and not relying on any signs ("nimitta," mental impressions). Bodhisattvas are also said to be free of fear in the face of the ontological groundlessness of the emptiness doctrine which can easily shock others.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Mādhyamaka is a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of philosophy which focuses on the analysis of emptiness, and was thus also known as "śūnyatavāda". The school is traditionally seen as being founded by the Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Nāgārjuna's goal was to refute the essentialism of certain Abhidharma schools and the Hindu Nyaya school. His best-known work is the "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā" (MMK), in which he used "reductio" arguments (Skt: "prasanga") to show the non-substantiality of everything. Nāgārjuna equated the emptiness of dharmas with their dependent origination, and thus with their being devoid any permanent substance or primary, substantial existence ("svabhava"). Nāgārjuna writes in the MMK:We state that conditioned origination is emptiness. It is mere designation depending on something, and it is the middle path. (24.18) Since nothing has arisen without depending on something, there is nothing that is not empty. (24.19) Nāgārjuna's Mādhyamaka states that since things have the nature of lacking true existence or own being ("niḥsvabhāva"), all things are mere conceptual constructs ("prajñaptimatra") because they are just impermanent collections of causes and conditions. Because of this, Mādhyamaka is also known as "Niḥsvabhāvavāda". This also applies to the principle of causality itself, since "everything" is dependently originated. If one is unaware of this, things may seem to arise as existents, remain for a time and then subsequently perish. In reality, dependently originated phenomena do not arise or remain as inherently existent phenomena and yet they still appear as a flow of conceptual constructs. Thus both existence and nihilism are ruled out. Any enduring essential nature would prevent the process of dependent origination, or any kind of origination at all. For things would simply always have been, and will always continue to be, without any change. For Nāgārjuna, the realization of emptiness is a key understanding which allows one to reach liberation because it is nothing but the elimination of ignorance.


title: Śūnyatā

text: There has been significant debate, both in ancient India and in modern scholarship, as to how to interpret Mādhyamaka and whether it is nihilistic (a claim that Mādhyamaka thinkers vehemently denied). Some scholars like F. Shcherbatskoy have also interpreted emptiness as described by Nāgārjuna as a Buddhist transcendental absolute, while other scholars such as David Kalupahana consider this interpretation to be a mistake. According to Paul Williams, Nāgārjuna associates emptiness with the ultimate truth but his conception of emptiness is not some kind of Absolute, but rather it is the very absence of true existence with regards to the conventional reality of things and events in the world.


title: Śūnyatā

text: For Nāgārjuna the phenomenal world is the limited truth ("samvrtisatya") and does not really exist in the highest reality ("paramarthasatya") and yet it has a kind of conventional reality which has its uses for reaching liberation. This limited truth includes everything, including the Buddha himself, the teachings (Dharma), liberation and even Nāgārjuna's own arguments. This two-truth schema which did not deny the importance of convention allowed him to defend himself against charges of nihilism. Because of his philosophical work, Nāgārjuna is seen by some modern interpreters as restoring the Middle Way of the Buddha, which had become influenced by absolutist metaphysical tendencies of schools like the Vaibhasika.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Nāgārjuna is also famous for arguing that his philosophy of emptiness was not a view, and that he in fact did not take any position or thesis whatsoever since this would just be another form of clinging. In his "Vigrahavyavartani" Nāgārjuna outright states that he has no thesis ("pratijña") to prove. This idea would become a central point of debate for later Mādhyamaka philosophers. After Nāgārjuna, his pupil Āryadeva (3rd century CE) commented on and expanded Nāgārjuna's system. An influential commentator on Nāgārjuna was Buddhapālita (470–550) who has been interpreted as developing the 'prāsaṅgika' approach to Nāgārjuna's works, which argues that Madhyamaka critiques of essentialism are done only through reductio ad absurdum arguments. Like Nāgārjuna, instead of putting forth any positive position of his own, Buddhapālita merely seeks to show how all philosophical positions are untenable and self contradictory without putting forth a positive thesis.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Buddhapālita is often contrasted with the works of Bhāvaviveka (c. 500 – c. 578), who argued for the use of logical arguments using the pramana-based epistemology of Indian logicians like Dignāga. Bhāvaviveka argued that Madhyamika's could put forth positive arguments of one's own, instead of just criticizing others' arguments, a tactic called "vitaṇḍā" (attacking) which was seen in bad form in Indian philosophical circles. He argued that the position of a Mādhyamaka was simply that phenomena are devoid of inherent nature. This approach has been labeled the svātantrika style of Madhyamaka by Tibetan philosophers and commentators. Another influential commentator, Candrakīrti (c. 600–650), critiqued Bhāvaviveka's adoption of the pramana tradition on the grounds that it contained a subtle essentialism and argued that Mādhyamikas must make no positive assertions and need not construct formal arguments.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The central text of the Yogācāra school, the "Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra", explains emptiness in terms of the three natures theory, stating that its purpose is to "establish the doctrine of the three-own-beings ("trisvabhāva") in terms of their lack of own-nature ("niḥsvabhāvatā")." According to Andrew Skilton, in Yogācāra, emptiness is the "absence of duality between perceiving subject (lit. "grasper", Skt: "grāhaka," Tib: "'dzin-pa") and the perceived object ("grasped", Skt: "grāhya," Tib: "bzhung-ba")." This is seen in the following quote from the "Madhyāntavibhāga:" There exists the imagination of the unreal, there is no duality, but there is emptiness, even in this there is that.In his commentary, the Indian Yogācāra philosopher Vasubandhu explains that imagination of the unreal ("abhūta-parikalpa") is the "discrimination between the duality of grasped and grasper." Emptiness is said to be "the imagination of the unreal that is lacking in the form of being graspable or grasper." Thus in Yogacara, it can be said that emptiness is mainly that subject and object and all experiences which are seen in the subject–object modality are empty.


title: Śūnyatā

text: According to Yogācāra thought, everything we conceive of is the result of the working of the Eight Consciousnesses. The "things" we are conscious of are "mere concepts" ("vijñapti"), not 'the thing in itself'. In this sense, our experiences are empty and false, they do not reveal the true nature of things as an enlightened person would see them, which would be non-dual, without the imputed subject object distinction.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Yogācāra school philosophers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu criticized those in the Madhymamika school who "adhere to non-existence" ("nāstikas, vaināśkas") and sought to move away from their negative interpretation of emptiness because they feared any philosophy of 'universal denial' ("sarva-vaināśika") would stray into 'nihilism' ("ucchedavāda"), an extreme which was not the middle way. Yogacarins differed from Madhyamikas in positing that there really was something which could be said to 'exist' in experience, namely some kind of nonobjective and empty perception. This Yogacara conception of emptiness, which states that there is "something" that exists (mainly, "vijñapti", mental construction), and that it is empty, can be seen in the following statement of Vasubandhu:Thus, when something is absent [in a receptacle], then one, seeing that [receptacle] as devoid of that thing, perceives that [receptacle] as it is, and recognises that [receptacle], which is left over, as it is, namely as something truly existing there.This tendency can also be seen in Asaṅga, who argues in his "Bodhisattvabhūmi" that there must be something that exists which is described as empty:Emptiness is logical when one thing is devoid of another because of that [other's] absence and because of the presence of the empty thing itself.Asaṅga also states:The nonexistence of duality is indeed the existence of nonexistence; this is the definition of emptiness. It is neither existence, nor nonexistence, neither different nor identical.This "existence of nonexistence" definition of emptiness can also be seen in Asaṅga's "Abhidharmasamuccaya" where he states that emptiness is "the non-existence of the self, and the existence of the no-self."


title: Śūnyatā

text: In the sixth century, scholarly debates between Yogacarins and Madhyamikas centered on the status and reality of the "paratantra-svabhāva" (the "dependent nature"), with Madhyamika's like Bhāvaviveka criticizing the views of Yogacarins like Dharmapāla of Nalanda as reifying dependent origination.


title: Śūnyatā

text: An influential division of 1st-millennium CE Buddhist texts develop the notion of "Tathāgatagarbha" or Buddha-nature. The "Tathāgatagarbha" doctrine, at its earliest, probably appeared about the later part of the 3rd century CE, and is verifiable in Chinese translations of 1st millennium CE.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The "Tathāgatagarbha" is the topic of the "Tathāgatagarbha sūtras", where the title itself means a "garbha" (womb, matrix, seed) containing "Tathāgata" (Buddha). In the "Tathāgatagarbha sūtras" the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self. The ultimate goal of the path is characterized using a range of positive language that had been used in Indian philosophy previously by essentialist philosophers, but which was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary to describe a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.


title: Śūnyatā

text: These Sutras suggest, states Paul Williams, that 'all sentient beings contain a "Tathāgata" as their 'essence, core or essential inner nature'. They also present a further developed understanding of emptiness, wherein the Buddha-nature, the Buddha and Liberation are seen as transcending the realm of emptiness, i.e. of the conditioned and dependently originated phenomena.


title: Śūnyatā

text: One of these texts, the "Angulimaliya Sutra," contrasts between empty phenomena such as the moral and emotional afflictions ("kleshas"), which are like ephemeral hailstones, and the enduring, eternal Buddha, which is like a precious gem:


title: Śūnyatā

text: The "Śrīmālā Sūtra" is one of the earliest texts on "Tathāgatagarbha" thought, composed in the 3rd century in south India, according to Brian Brown. It asserted that everyone can potentially attain Buddhahood, and warns against the doctrine of "Śūnyatā". The "Śrīmālā Sūtra" posits that the Buddha-nature is ultimately identifiable as the supramundane nature of the Buddha, the "garbha" is the ground for Buddha-nature, this nature is unborn and undying, has ultimate existence, has no beginning nor end, is nondual, and permanent. The text also adds that the "garbha" has "no self, soul or personality" and "incomprehensible to anyone distracted by sunyata (voidness)"; rather it is the support for phenomenal existence.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The notion of Buddha-nature and its interpretation was and continues to be widely debated in all schools of Mahayana Buddhism. Some traditions interpret the doctrine to be equivalent to emptiness (like the Tibetan Gelug school); the positive language of the texts "Tathāgatagarbha sutras" are then interpreted as being of provisional meaning, and not ultimately true. Other schools, however (mainly the Jonang school), see "Tathāgatagarbha" as being an ultimate teaching and see it as an eternal, true self, while "Śūnyatā" is seen as a provisional, lower teaching.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Likewise, western scholars have been divided in their interpretation of the "Tathāgatagarbha," since the doctrine of an 'essential nature' in every living being appears to be confusing, since it seems to be equivalent to a 'Self', which seems to contradict the doctrines in a vast majority of Buddhist texts. Some scholars, however, view such teachings as metaphorical, not to be taken literally.


title: Śūnyatā

text: According to some scholars, the Buddha-nature which these sutras discuss does not represent a substantial self ("ātman"). Rather, it is a positive expression of emptiness, and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. In this view, the intention of the teaching of Buddha-nature is soteriological rather than theoretical. According to others, the potential of salvation depends on the ontological reality of a salvific, abiding core reality – the Buddha-nature, empty of all mutability and error, fully present within all beings. Japanese scholars of the "Critical Buddhism" movement meanwhile see Buddha-nature as an essentialist and thus an un-Buddhist idea.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In Tibetan Buddhism, emptiness (Wylie: "stong-pa nyid") is mainly interpreted through the lens of Mādhyamaka philosophy, though the Yogacara- and Tathāgatagarbha-influenced interpretations are also influential. The interpretations of the Indian Mādhyamaka philosopher Candrakīrti are the dominant views on emptiness in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In Tibet, a distinction also began to be made between the autonomist ("svātantrika, rang rgyud pa") and consequentialist ("prāsaṅgika, thal 'gyur pa") approaches to Mādhyamaka reasoning about emptiness. The distinction was invented by Tibetan scholarship, and not one made by classical Indian Madhyamikas.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Further Tibetan philosophical developments began in response to the works of the influential scholar Dolpopa (1292–1361) and led to two distinctly opposed Tibetan Mādhyamaka views on the nature of emptiness and ultimate reality.


title: Śūnyatā

text: One of these is the view termed "shentong" (Wylie: "gzhan stong," 'other empty'), which is a further development of Indian Yogacara-Madhyamaka and the Buddha-nature teachings by Dolpopa, and is primarily promoted in the Jonang, Nyingma, and modern Kagyu schools. This view states that ultimate reality is empty of the conventional, but it is itself "not" empty of being ultimate Buddhahood and the luminous nature of mind. Dolpopa considered his view a form of Mādhyamaka, and called his system "Great Mādhyamaka". In Jonang, this ultimate reality is a "ground or substratum" which is "uncreated and indestructible, noncomposite and beyond the chain of dependent origination."


title: Śūnyatā

text: Dolpopa was roundly critiqued for his claims about emptiness and his view that they were a kind of Mādhyamaka. His critics include Tibetan philosophers such as the founder of the Gelug school Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) and Mikyö Dorje, the 8th Karmapa of the Karma Kagyu (1507–1554).


title: Śūnyatā

text: "Rangtong" (Wylie: "rang stong"; 'self-empty') refers to views which oppose "shentong" and state that ultimate reality is that which is empty of self-nature in a relative and absolute sense; that is to say ultimate reality is empty of everything, including itself. It is thus not a transcendental ground or metaphysical absolute, but just the absence of true existence ("svabhava"). This view has sometimes been applied to the Gelug school because they tend to hold that emptiness is "an absolute negation" ("med dgag").


title: Śūnyatā

text: However, many Tibetan philosophers reject these terms as descriptions of their views on emptiness. The Sakya thinker Gorampa Sonam Senge (1429-1489), for example, called his version of Mādhyamaka, "freedom from extremes" or "freedom from proliferations" ("spros bral") and claimed that the ultimate truth was ineffable, beyond predication or concept. For Gorampa, emptiness is not just the absence of inherent existence, but it is the absence of the four extremes in all phenomena i.e. existence, nonexistence, both and neither (see: "catuskoti").


title: Śūnyatā

text: When Buddhism was introduced in China it was initially understood in terms of indigenous Chinese philosophical culture. Because of this, emptiness (Ch., "kong", 空;) was at first understood as pointing to a kind of transcendental reality similar to the Tao. It took several centuries to realize that "śūnyatā" does not refer to an essential transcendental reality underneath or behind the world of appearances.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Chinese Mādhyamaka (known as "Sānlùn," or the "three treatise school") began with the work of Kumārajīva (344–413 CE) who translated the works of Nāgārjuna into Chinese. "Sānlùn" figures like Kumārajīva's pupil Sengzhao (384–414), and the later Jizang (549–623) were influential in introducing a more orthodox and non-essentialist interpretation of emptiness to Chinese Buddhism. Sengzhao argues, for example, that the nature of phenomena could not be said to be either existent or non-existent and that it was necessary to go beyond conceptual proliferation to realize emptiness. Jizang (549–623) was another central figure in Chinese Madhyamaka who wrote numerous commentaries on Nāgārjuna and Aryadeva and is considered to be the leading representative of the school. Jizang called his method "deconstructing what is misleading and revealing what is corrective". He insisted that one must never settle on any particular viewpoint or perspective but constantly reexamine one's formulations to avoid reifications of thought and behavior.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In the modern era, one major Chinese figure who has written on Mādhyamaka is the scholar monk Yin Shun (1906–2005)"."


title: Śūnyatā

text: Later Chinese philosophers developed their own unique interpretations of emptiness. One of these was Zhiyi, the intellectual founder of the Tiantai school, who was strongly influenced by the Lotus sutra. The Tiantai view of emptiness and dependent origination is inseparable from their view of the "interfusion of phenomena" and the idea that the ultimate reality is an absolute totality of all particular things which are "Neither-Same-Nor-Different" from each other.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In Tiantai metaphysics, every event, function, or characteristic is the product of the interfusion of all others, the whole is in the particular and every particular event/function is also in every other particular. This also leads to the conclusion that all phenomena are "findable" in each and every other phenomena, even seemingly conflicting phenomena such as good and evil or delusion and enlightenment are interfused with each other.


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Huayan school understood emptiness and ultimate reality through the similar idea of interpenetration or "coalescence" (Wylie: "zung-'jug"; Sanskrit: "yuganaddha"), using the concept of Indra's net to illustrate this.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Chan Buddhism was influenced by all the previous Chinese Buddhist currents. The Mādhyamaka of Sengzhao, for example, influenced the views of the Chan patriarch Shen Hui (670-762), a critical figure in the development of Chan, as can be seen by his "Illuminating the Essential Doctrine" ("Hsie Tsung Chi"). This text emphasizes that true emptiness or Suchness cannot be known through thought since it is free from thought ("wu-nien"). Shen Hui also states that true emptiness is not nothing, but it is a "Subtle Existence" ("miao-yu"), which is just "Great Prajña."


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Chinese Chan presentation of emptiness, influenced by Yogacara and the Tathāgatagarbha sutras, also used more positive language and poetic metaphors to describe the nature of emptiness. For example, Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157), a key figure in the Caodong lineage, wrote:"The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. [Those tendencies are the clouds in our eyes.] Then you can reside in a clear circle of brightness. Utter emptiness has no image. Upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly, we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. In this field birth and death do not appear. The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust [each object] without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. The whole affair functions without leaving traces and mirrors without obscurations. Very naturally, mind and Dharmas emerge and harmonize."


title: Śūnyatā

text: Various western Buddhists note that "Śūnyatā" refers to the emptiness of inherent existence, as in Madhyamaka; but also to the emptiness of mind or awareness, as open space and the "ground of being," as in meditation-orientated traditions and approaches such as Dzogchen and Shentong.


title: Śūnyatā

text: Taken together "anutpāda" means "having no origin", "not coming into existence", "not taking effect", "non-production".


title: Śūnyatā

text: According to Gaudapada, the Absolute is not subject to birth, change and death. The Absolute is "aja", the unborn eternal. The empirical world of appearances is considered Maya (unreal as it is transitory), and not absolutely existent. Thus, Gaudapada's concept of "ajativada" is similar to Buddhist term "anutpāda" for the absence of an origin or śūnyatā.


title: Śūnyatā

text: But Gaudapada's perspective is quite different from Nagarjuna. Gaudapada's perspective found in "Mandukya Karika" is based on the "Mandukya Upanishad". According to Gaudapada, the metaphysical absolute called Brahman never changes, while the phenomenal world changes continuously, so the phenomenal world cannot arise independently from Brahman. If the world cannot arise, yet is an empirical fact, then the perceived world has to be a transitory (unreal) appearance of Brahman. And if the phenomenal world is a transitory appearance, then there is no real origination or destruction, only apparent origination or destruction. From the level of ultimate truth ("paramārthatā") the phenomenal world is "māyā", "illusion", apparently existing but ultimately not metaphysically real.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In "Gaudapada-Karika", chapter III, verses 46–48, he states that Brahman never arises, is never born, is never unborn, it rests in itself:


title: Śūnyatā

text: In contrast to Renard's view, Karmarkar states the Ajativada of Gaudapada has nothing in common with the "Śūnyatā" concept in Buddhism. While the language of Gaudapada is undeniably similar to those found in Mahayana Buddhism, states Comans, their perspective is different because unlike Buddhism, Gaudapada is relying on the premise of "Brahman, Atman or Turiya" exist and are the nature of absolute reality.


title: Śūnyatā

text: "Sunya" and "sunyatisunya" are concepts which appear in some Shaiva texts, such as the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, which contains several verses mentioning voidness as a feature of ultimate reality - Shiva:


title: Śūnyatā

text: "The Absolute void is Bhairava who is beyond the senses and the mind, beyond all the categories of these instruments. From the point of view of the human mind, He is most void. from the point of view of Reality, He is most full, for He is the source of all manifestation."


title: Śūnyatā

text: "The yogi should concentrate intensely on the idea (and also feel) that this universe is totally void. In that void, his mind would become absorbed. Then he becomes highly qualified for absorption i.e. his mind is absorbed in the absolute void (sunyatisunya)."


title: Śūnyatā

text: In a series of Kannada language texts of Lingayatism, a Shaivism tradition, "shunya" is equated to the concept of the supreme. In particular, the "Shunya Sampadane" texts present the ideas of Allama Prabhu in a form of dialogue, where "shunya" is that void and distinctions which a spiritual journey seeks to fill and eliminate. It is the described as a state of union of one's soul with the infinite Shiva, the state of blissful moksha.


title: Śūnyatā

text: "Shunya Brahma" is a concept found in certain texts of Vaishnavism, particularly in Odiya, such as the poetic "Panchasakhas". It explains the "Nirguna Brahman" idea of Vedanta, that is the eternal unchanging metaphysical reality as "personified void". Alternative names for this concept of Hinduism, include "shunya purusha" and "Jagannatha" (Vishnu) in certain text. However, both in Lingayatism and various flavors of Vaishnavism such as "Mahima Dharma", the idea of "Shunya" is closer to the Hindu concept of metaphysical "Brahman", rather than to the "Śūnyatā" concept of Buddhism. However, there is some overlap, such as in the works of Bhima Bhoi.


title: Śūnyatā

text: In the Vaishnavism of Orissa, the idea of shunya brahman or shunya purusha is found in the poetry of the Orissan Panchasakhas (Five Friends), such as in the compositions of 16th-century Acyutananda. Acyutananda's "Shunya Samhita" extols the nature of shunya brahman:


title: Śūnyatā

text: The Panchasakhas practiced a form of Bhakti called Jnana-mishrita Bhakti-marga, which saw the necessity of knowledge (Jnana) and devotion - Bhakti.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori was born in Matsue in Shimane Prefecture, Japan. His father, Kiyoshi, is an engineer, and his mother, Eri, is a piano teacher. He has an older sister, Reina, who graduated from college and works in Tokyo. He began playing tennis at the age of five. He first won the All Japan Tennis Championships for Kids in 2001, and graduated from Aomori-Yamada High School. Nishikori moved to Bradenton, Florida to join the IMG Academy in 2004 at 14 years of age. Nishikori was previously coached by Brad Gilbert. Dante Bottini has been his current coach since December 2010. Former world No. 2 Michael Chang was added to his coaching team beginning in January 2014.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori married his long-term girlfriend Mai Yamauchi in December 2020. His pastimes include football, golf, reading, and listening to music.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In August 2020, having not played since the 2019 US Open due to injury and the coronavirus pandemic, Nishikori tested positive for COVID-19.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori played his first junior match in April 2002 at the age of 13 at a grade 1 tournament in Japan. He won the 2004 title at the Riad 21 Tournament in Rabat, Morocco, and was a boys' singles quarter-finalist at the 2006 Junior French Open; he partnering Emiliano Massa to win the boys' doubles title at that tournament. Nishikori won the 2007 Luxilon Cup held at the 2007 Sony Ericsson Open by defeating Michael McClune.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: As a junior, he compiled a 73–37 win–loss record in singles and 53–31 in doubles, achieving a combined ranking of No. 7 in the world in July 2006.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori began the year in March with a wildcard entry to the Kyoto Challenger tournament in Kyoto, Japan, where he lost to Australian Robert Smeets in the round of 32 and just failed to qualify for the doubles tournament. In May, Nishikori qualified for the ITF Futures event in Mazatlán, Mexico, where he was victorious in the men's singles.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: A finalist in two USTA Pro Circuit events, Nishikori lost to Donald Young in Little Rock, Arkansas and Alex Bogomolov Jr. in Carson, California. He partnered with Young to win the doubles title at Little Rock. At the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Nishikori paired with triple French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten, but the two were defeated in the first round. Nishikori served as a hitting partner for Roger Federer at Wimbledon.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: After his ATP main draw debut in Los Angeles, Nishikori qualified for the Indianapolis Tennis Championships in July. He beat Alejandro Falla in the first round to record his first ATP main-draw win. He followed that up with a three-set win over Michael Berrer, the eliminator of seventh seed Robby Ginepri, to advance to his first ATP quarterfinal. Although he lost to Dmitry Tursunov in two sets, Nishikori became the youngest player to reach the quarterfinals at Indianapolis since Boris Becker in 1985.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Later that month, Nishikori headed to Washington, D.C. for his third career ATP event. He defeated Teymuraz Gabashvili in the first round before falling to Julien Benneteau in the second. He qualified for the China Open in Beijing, losing in the first round to Ivan Ljubičić. In October, Nishikori received a wildcard entry to the AIG Japan Open Tennis Championships in Tokyo, where he lost in the first round to Zack Fleishman. He participated in the tournament's draw ceremony and was honored with an award from the Tokyo Sports Writers Club. Nishikori finished the year representing Japan at the Asian Hopman Cup competition in Bangkok, Thailand.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori started the year by reaching the semifinals of the Miami challenger tournament. He then entered the Delray Beach tournament as a qualifier ranked world No. 244. He gained entrance to the main draw by defeating Nicolás Todero and Alex Bogomolov Jr. In the first round, he defeated Florian Mayer due to a retirement in the second set. In the second round, Nishikori defeated Amer Delić, another qualifier. In the quarterfinals, he won against Bobby Reynolds. In the semifinals, he upset Sam Querrey. In the final, Nishikori upset top seed James Blake in three sets to become the first Japanese man in nearly 16 years to win an ATP event.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori lost in the first round of the Miami Masters to the Spanish player Albert Montañés. He faced James Blake again, this time at the River Oaks International tournament in Houston, Texas in the first round, but Kei lost in two sets. He went out in the third round of the 2008 Queen's Club Championships against Rafael Nadal in just over two hours. Facing the world No. 2, Nishikori played well in the match and showed promise. His first Grand Slam appearance at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships on 23 June 2008 ended in a first-round forfeiture to French player Marc Gicquel. Suffering from an abdominal muscle strain, Nishikori retired after the second set. In August, he entered the Beijing Olympics on a wildcard. There, he lost in the first round to Rainer Schüttler of Germany.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori made his debut at the US Open, defeating 29th seeded Juan Mónaco in the first round. He cruised to the third round, after downing Croatian Roko Karanušić. On 30 August 2008, he became the first Japanese player to reach the round of 16 at the US Open in 71 years, when he beat fourth seed David Ferrer in five sets in what was considered one of the tournament's major upsets. He lost his chance, however, to compete in the quarterfinals when he was beaten by 17th seed Juan Martín del Potro in straight sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In the Japan Open Tennis Championships, he made it to the round of 16, before losing to Frenchman Richard Gasquet.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori was given a wildcard for the Stockholm Open, where he made it to his second ATP level semifinal of the year, despite playing with a knee injury. He received a walkover in his quarterfinal match against Mario Ančić, who had to withdraw due to illness. In the semifinals, he was beaten by fourth seed Robin Söderling.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori made a disappointing start to the season, losing to Jürgen Melzer in the first round of the Australian Open. On 25 March, Nishikori was named 2008 ATP Newcomer of the Year and became the first Asian player to win the award. He withdrew from the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open because of an injured right elbow.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori made his comeback after his injury of the previous year. After receiving a wildcard at Delray Beach, he was beaten in the first round by Benjamin Becker. Kei returned to the Challenger tour later in April with great success, reaching quarterfinals at both Baton Rouge and Tallahassee events, followed by a victory at the Savannah Challenger over Ryan Sweeting in the final. On 15 May 2010, he won the Sarasota open by defeating Brian Dabul, in three sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori played in his first French Open. He rebounded from two sets down to defeat Santiago Giraldo of Colombia in the first round but he lost his second match against Novak Djokovic. He lost to Richard Gasquet in the first round of the 2010 Aegon Championships.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: At the US Open, the Japanese No. 1 met Marin Čilić in the second round. Nishikori ousted the 11th seed in five sets to advance to the third round, his best Grand Slam tournament showing in 2010.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori opened the season in Chennai, where he upset two-time defending champion Marin Čilić in the first round, before falling in the quarterfinals to Janko Tipsarević.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In the 2011 Australian Open, Nishikori reached the third round, defeating Fabio Fognini and Florian Mayer along the way. His run was ended in the third round by ninth seed Fernando Verdasco. After the third-round appearance in Melbourne, his ranking rose to No. 70.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: At the first two ATP Masters Series events of the year, Nishikori suffered a first-round loss at Indian Wells and a second-round loss in Miami. Nishikori then reached his second final at the 2011 U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships. He was defeated by American wildcard Ryan Sweeting.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: At Roland Garros, Nishikori lost in the second round to Sergiy Stakhovsky. He faced Lleyton Hewitt in the first round at Wimbledon, but lost in four sets. Nishikori then retired in his first-round match against Flavio Cipolla at the US Open.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: At the Shanghai Masters, Nishikori reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal. He defeated Robin Haase, fourth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and Santiago Giraldo, in the first three rounds. In the quarterfinals, Nishikori upset 12th-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov in straight sets. He lost to No. 2 Andy Murray in his first Masters 1000 semifinal. He reached a career-high of world No. 30, breaking the previous Japanese mark of No. 46, set by Shuzo Matsuoka in July 1992.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In the 2011 Swiss Indoors Basel tournament Nishikori defeated an ailing world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to reach the final, coming back from a 4–5, 0–30 deficit in the second set. The win was only Djokovic's fourth loss of the season, second loss in a completed match, and first loss of a completed match on a non-clay surface. Nishikori was defeated in the final by Roger Federer. On the heels of the victory, Nishikori was granted special exemption into the 2011 BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, and achieved a ranking of world No. 24.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori started the season at the Brisbane International, where he lost in the second round to Marcos Baghdatis. At the 2012 Australian Open, Nishikori came back from a set down to defeat sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, where he was then defeated by fourth seed Andy Murray. Nishikori was the first Japanese male player to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in 80 years.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori made it to the quarterfinals of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships after beating Belgian Olivier Rochus in three sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In the Summer Olympics, Nishikori lost to Argentina's Juan Martín del Potro in the quarterfinals. He and Go Soeda lost in the first round of the men's doubles.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In Toronto, he lost his first match (after a first-round bye) to Sam Querrey. He did better in Cincinnati, making it to the third round before being defeated by Stan Wawrinka, who ended up a semifinalist in the event. Nishikori had also lost to Wawrinka in the quarterfinals in Buenos Aires in February.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: On 7 October, eighth seed Nishikori won the Rakuten Japan Open in Tokyo against sixth seed Milos Raonic of Canada in three sets to win his first ATP 500 series title and second career ATP Tour title, lifting his world ranking from world No. 17 to a career-high of world No. 15. Nishikori's win was historic as he became the first Japanese man to win the Japan Open in its 41-year history.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori started the year by playing the Brisbane International and reached the semifinals before retiring to Andy Murray because of a knee injury. Nishikori then reached the fourth round of the Australian Open before falling to fourth-seeded David Ferrer. Nishikori was bothered by a nagging knee injury throughout the match. Nishikori then won his third career title in the U.S. National Indoor Championships by defeating Feliciano López in straight sets. Seeded fifth, Nishikori finished the tournament without dropping a set in taking the winner's check, and moved up six ranking spots from No. 22 in the ATP rankings to No. 16.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: On 9 May, Nishikori defeated defending champion Roger Federer at the Madrid Open in the third round, but lost to Pablo Andújar in the quarters.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In 2013 US Open first round, Nishikori lost to a lower-ranked opponent, this time to world No. 179 Dan Evans in straight sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori made it to the fourth round in the Australian Open, but was dismissed by Rafael Nadal in straight sets without much trouble. He defended his title at the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships in Memphis, defeating Ivo Karlović in the final. He then played at the Masters 1000 event in Miami, where he was seeded 20th. Nishikori saved four match points before defeating 4th seed David Ferrer and advanced to the semifinals with a three-set win against 5th seed Roger Federer. Because of a left groin injury, he gave 2nd seed Novak Djokovic a walkover in the semifinals. He withdrew from Japan's Davis Cup quarterfinal against the Czech Republic. Nishikori returned to action at the end of April, in Barcelona, winning the final against Santiago Giraldo of Colombia in two sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: On 10 May Nishikori made history by reaching the final of Madrid Open, his first Masters 1000 tournament final. Nishikori beat David Ferrer in three sets in the semifinal, and faced world No. 1 and defending champion Rafael Nadal in the final. Nishikori won the first set and led by a break in the second, but Nishikori sustained a back injury while leading 4–2 and was forced to retire at 3–0 in the 3rd set having lost 7 games in a row. The result saw him achieve a career-high #9 in ATP singles ranking. Nishikori lost in the first round of the French Open to Martin Kližan in three sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori bounced back from the French Open first round loss in the grass court season by reaching the semifinals of the 2014 Gerry Weber Open before losing to Roger Federer in straight sets. Nishikori participated in the Wimbledon Championships and made it to the fourth round after surviving a tight 5-setter against clay-court specialist Simone Bolelli, but eventually lost in the fourth round to Milos Raonic, despite winning the opening set. Nishikori opened his hard-court season by participating in the Citi Open. He reached the quarterfinals only to be beaten by Richard Gasquet for the fifth time in his career in straight sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori reached his first Grand Slam final at the 2014 US Open. He beat Wayne Odesnik, Pablo Andújar, Leonardo Mayer and then world No. 6 Milos Raonic in a marathon five-set match that lasted until 2:26 am, tying the record for late finishes at the US Open en route to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, he scored a rare upset over Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka, who had thus far dominated their meetings to ensure that he would regain a top ten ranking. He also became the first Japanese man in 81 years to reach the semifinals at a Major since Jiro Sato in 1933 French Championships (now French Open). Nishikori then defeated world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals to become the first Asian man ever to reach a Grand Slam tournament final. (As reference, an American male tennis player of Asian descent Michael Chang reached the final of Grand Slam to win French Open at the youngest age of Grand Slam history, and the finalist to be Runner up in both US Open and Australian Open.) In the final, Nishikori lost to Marin Čilić. Nishikori's run at the US Open saw his singles ranking improve to world No.8.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori began the Asian Swing by entering the Malaysian Open as first seed and won for a third season title, beating Julien Benneteau in two sets. Nishikori then went on to participate in the Rakuten Japan Open and won the title for the second time defeating Milos Raonic in the final. However, in the Shanghai Rolex Masters, he later suffered a first round loss to Jack Sock in straight sets. Nishikori then played in the BNP Paribas Masters and reached the semifinals, defeating Tommy Robredo, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and David Ferrer, each in three sets. However, he was ousted by Novak Djokovic in straight sets. This semifinal appearance guaranteed his berth for his ATP World Tour Finals debut.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: In his first Year-End ATP Finals, Nishikori defeated Andy Murray and David Ferrer, but was defeated by Roger Federer in straight sets. With this result, he progressed through to the semifinals and faced Novak Djokovic, losing in three sets, thus ending the year at a career high world No. 5.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori began the 2015 season by participating in the 2015 Brisbane International and reached the semifinals before being beaten by Milos Raonic in 3 tight-set tiebreaks. He reached the 2015 Brisbane International doubles finals with his partner Alexandr Dolgopolov but lost in straight sets. Nishikori equalled his best record yet in the Australian Open by reaching the quarterfinals for the second time in his career, dropping only 2 sets along the way, but he was beaten in straight sets by defending champion Stan Wawrinka. In February, Nishikori won his eighth singles title and became the first ever player to win the Memphis Open three times in a row, beating Kevin Anderson in straight sets in the final.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: He next participated in the 2015 Abierto Mexicano Telcel and reached the final, losing only a set to Kevin Anderson in the semifinals. By reaching the final, he earned enough ATP ranking points to move into a new career high world ranking of No. 4. However, he lost to David Ferrer in straight sets in the final. During the March Masters, he reached the fourth round of the 2015 BNP Paribas Open for the first time in seven appearances but was upset by Feliciano López in straight sets in the fourth round. In the 2015 Miami Open, he defeated Mikhail Youzhny, Viktor Troicki and David Goffin all in straight sets losing only a total of 10 games to reach the quarterfinals. However, he was upset by an in-form John Isner in straight sets.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori began his clay-court season at the 2015 Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell where he reached the final after beating Teymuraz Gabashvili, Santiago Giraldo, Roberto Bautista Agut and Martin Kližan. He successfully defended his title by beating Pablo Andújar in the final in two sets to win his ninth career title on the tour. At the 2015 Mutua Madrid Open, Nishikori was granted a first-round bye and proceeded by defeating David Goffin in three tough-sets in the second round. He reached the semifinals after beating Roberto Bautista Agut and David Ferrer in straight sets respectively. He then lost to Andy Murray in the semifinals, and his ranking dropped to 6th as a result of failing to defend his points from the final in 2014.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori was given a tough draw at the 2015 Italian Open but managed to reach the quarterfinal after beating Jiří Veselý and Viktor Troicki, both in straight sets. He faced world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the QF and lost in three sets. Nishikori opened his French Open campaign by defeating both Paul-Henri Mathieu and Thomaz Bellucci in straight sets to advance to the third round. He advanced to the 4R for the second time in his career after his third round opponent, Benjamin Becker, withdrew due to a right shoulder injury. Nishikori became the first Japanese man to reach the quarterfinals of the French Open in 82 years by beating Teymuraz Gabashvili. He then played home favorite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, but eventually lost in five set.


title: Kei Nishikori

text: Nishikori opened his grass-court season by participating in the Halle Open where he reached the semifinals, only to retire in his match against Andreas Seppi down 1–4 in the first set due to his calf injury which he attained in his quarterfinal match. Nishikori decided to play Wimbledon, and he reached the second round by beating Simone Bolelli in five sets for the second straight year but then withdrew from his second round match against Santiago Giraldo, due to his calf injury acting on him again during his first round match.