title: Extreme sport

text: Some of the sports have existed for decades and their proponents span generations, some going on to become well known personalities. Rock climbing and ice climbing have spawned publicly recognizable names such as Edmund Hillary, Chris Bonington, Wolfgang Güllich and more recently Joe Simpson. Another example is surfing, invented centuries ago by the inhabitants of Polynesia, it will become national sport of Hawaii.


title: Extreme sport

text: Disabled people participate in extreme sports. Nonprofit organizations such as Adaptive Action Sports seek to increase awareness of the participation in action sports by members of the disabled community, as well as increase access to the adaptive technologies that make participation possible and to competitions such as The X Games.


title: Extreme sport

text: Extreme sports may be perceived as extremely dangerous, conducive to fatalities, near-fatalities and other serious injuries. The perceived risk in an extreme sport has been considered a somewhat necessary part of its appeal, which is partially a result of pressure for athletes to make more money and provide maximum entertainment.


title: Extreme sport

text: Extreme sports is a sub-category of sports that are described as any kind of sport "of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average". These kinds of sports often carry out the potential risk of serious and permanent physical injury and even death. However, these sports also have the potential to produce drastic benefits on mental and physical health and provide opportunity for individuals to engage fully with life.


title: Extreme sport

text: Extreme sports trigger the release of the hormone adrenaline, which can facilitate performance of stunts. It is believed that the implementation of extreme sports on mental health patients improves their perspective and recognition of aspects of life.


title: Extreme sport

text: In outdoor adventure sports, participants get to experience the emotion of intense thrill, usually associated with the extreme sports. Even though some extreme sports present a higher level of risk, people still choose to embark in the experience of extreme sports for the sake of the adrenaline. According to Sigmund Freud, we have an instinctual 'death wish', which is a subconscious inbuilt desire to destroy ourselves, proving that in the seek for the thrill, danger is considered pleasurable.


title: Extreme sport

text: Disability scholarship can help challenge what the word "extreme" in "extreme sports" means. Scholar Sarah Jaquette Ray describes how risk in adventure sports is dependent upon the threat of disability, which provides meaning to “extreme” endeavors, while adventure culture’s focus on physical fitness often makes people with disabilities invisible within the extreme sports community. In these ways, extreme sport culture is actually defined by ableism.


title: Extreme sport

text: Jaquette Ray also writes about the contradiction presented by technology in outdoor risk culture: disability is often understood as reliance on non-natural equipment, yet extreme sports rely deeply on gear and are still seen as a form of "natural" human performance. The technologies that make the outdoors accessible to people with disabilities are qualitatively different from the technologies used in extreme sports, and yet only the former are seen as unnatural. This contradiction reveals adventure culture’s fear of disability because disability is fundamentally about dependence on other people and technology. Writer and scholar Eli Clare has written extensively about his experience with disability in the outdoors, stating “Part of claiming disability is choosing this messy, imperfect work-in-progress called interdependence.”


title: Chip Taylor

text: Chip Taylor (born James Wesley Voight; March 21, 1940) is an American songwriter and singer noted for writing "Angel of the Morning" and "Wild Thing".


title: Chip Taylor

text: Taylor was born on March 21, 1940, in Yonkers, New York. He is the brother of actor Jon Voight and geologist Barry Voight and the uncle of actress Angelina Jolie and actor James Haven. Taylor and his brothers attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York. In 1961, Taylor attended the University of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut, for one year.


title: Chip Taylor

text: After an unsuccessful attempt to become a professional golfer like his father Elmer Voight, Taylor entered the music business.


title: Chip Taylor

text: Taylor wrote many pop and rock songs, both alone and with other songwriters, including Al Gorgoni (with whom he also performed, as the duo Just Us), Billy Vera, Ted Daryll, and Jerry Ragovoy, first freelancing and then as an employee of a New York City music publisher.


title: Chip Taylor

text: Taylor's first big hit was "Wild Thing", which, though originally recorded in 1965 by Jordan Christopher & the Wild Ones, became famous as both a 1966 hit single for the Troggs and a 1967 live performance by Jimi Hendrix, and was later covered by the Runaways, the Muppets, and X. His second most recognizable song, "Angel of the Morning", was originally recorded by Evie Sands in 1967, before becoming a hit for Merrilee Rush and also P. P. Arnold in 1968, then a million-selling single in 1981 for country-pop singer Juice Newton; later a rendition from Chrissie Hynde was released. Other notable pop and country songs written by Taylor include "He Sits at Your Table" (Willie Nelson), "I Can't Let Go" (Evie Sands, the Hollies, Linda Ronstadt), "The Baby" (the Hollies), "Worry" (Johnny Tillotson), "Make Me Belong to You" (Barbara Lewis), "I Can Make It With You" (the Pozo Seco Singers, Jackie DeShannon), "Any Way That You Want Me" (the Troggs, Evie Sands, Melanie, American Breed, Juice Newton, Lita Ford, Liverpool Five) "Step Out of Your Mind" (American Breed), "Country Girl City Man" (Billy Vera and Judy Clay), "I'll Hold Out My Hand", "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" (Lorraine Ellison, Janis Joplin), "Julie" (Bobby Fuller Four, Marshall Crenshaw), "Lonely Is As Lonely Does" (the Fleetwoods), "Sweet Dream Woman" (Waylon Jennings), "A Little Bit Later On Down the Line" (Bobby Bare), "Rock Soldiers" (Ace Frehley), and "Son of a Rotten Gambler" (Emmylou Harris, the Hollies, Anne Murray).


title: Chip Taylor

text: In 2009, Ace Records released a compilation CD of some of Taylor's compositions as recorded by other artists ("Wild Thing: The Songs of Chip Taylor").


title: Chip Taylor

text: Taylor's first releases were on the King label and their subsidiary DeLuxe. In 1958, he and the Town Three released two 45s on DeLuxe, numbers 6176 "Midnight Blues" and 6180 "I Want a Lover". In 1959, he recorded for King as Wes Voight on 5211 "I'm Loving It", and his final recording as Wes Voight on King 5231 "I'm Ready to Go Steady" and "The Wind and the Cold Black Night". The two King 45s were released in both mono and stereo, making them some of the first stereo singles available. Taylor has released recordings on Warner Bros., Columbia, and Capitol. His first chart single was his recording (as Chip Taylor) of "Here I Am" in 1962 on Warner Bros. Records. He also had a top 40 hit in Australia in 1963 with "Sandy Sandy" with the Town and Country Brothers, a later iteration of Wes Voight and the Town Three, with Ted Daryll (who wrote the song) and Greg Richards, writers of "She Cried" by Jay and the Americans.


title: Chip Taylor

text: At the 2001 South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, Taylor met singer and violinist Carrie Rodriguez, with whom he performed and recorded Americana music for several years. The duo recorded "Let's Leave This Town" in 2002. They released "The Trouble With Humans" the following year and the critically acclaimed "Red Dog Tracks" in 2005. Each has since released successful solo albums. Taylor's double-CD "Unglorious Hallelujah/Red Red Rose", his first solo album in five years, was quickly hailed as "a future classic" by Sonic Magazine, whose reviewer declared: "This is the best we've heard from Chip Taylor so far." Rodriguez's solo album, "Seven Angels on a Bicycle", was released in August 2006. In late 2006 and early 2007, Rodriguez toured on her own but continued to perform with Taylor from time to time. Taylor has done a series of shows with guitarist John Platania and the young singer/fiddler Kendel Carson, and he produced both their 2007 albums.


title: Chip Taylor

text: Taylor has performed with alt-country singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks, playing bass for Fulks's January 2004 date at the Double Door in Chicago.


title: Chip Taylor

text: During the 21st century through 2020, Taylor has continued to perform with his band The New Ukrainians ([John Platania on electric guitar, Björn Petterson on bass, and a revolving cast of other musicians). Each concert almost always includes both "Wild Thing" and "Angel in the Morning".


title: Chip Taylor

text: Taylor's album "Yonkers, NY" was a 2011 nominee for a Grammy Award for best recording package, but lost to "Brothers" by the Black Keys.


title: Chip Taylor

text: By Taylor's own accounts, from 1980 through 1995 he was very successful at, but unhappily addicted to, gambling professionally on blackjack in New Jersey casinos and on horse races. He then returned to music, starting by singing to his dying mother, Barbara Voight. Taylor has said that the gambling addiction was hard on both himself and his family. He has written that, after having an epiphany, he changed his attitude and created the "Church of the Train Wreck" self-help program for himself and others.


title: Chip Taylor

text: As of 2019, Taylor continues to live in New York City. He has been married to Joan Carole Frey since 1964, and they have children and grandchildren. (Joan and Chip were temporarily divorced for several years, starting in the 1990s.)


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the archenemy of Iron Man. The character was created by Stan Lee and designed by Don Heck, first appearing in "Tales of Suspense" #50 (Feb. 1964). The character is described as being born in China before the Communist revolution to a wealthy Chinese father and an English aristocratic mother, both of whom died when he was very young. He is characterized as a megalomaniac, attempting to conquer the world on several occasions, yet also possessing a strong sense of honor. The Mandarin is portrayed as a genius scientist and a skilled martial artist. However, his primary sources of power are 10 rings that he adapted from the alien technology of a crashed space ship. Each ring has a different power and is worn on a specific finger. Though his primary obsession is Iron Man, given his high status as a supervillain, he has also come into conflict with Thor, Hulk, Shang-Chi and other superheroes in the Marvel Universe.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin has appeared in several forms of media. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley portrayed an imposter and actor of the character in "Iron Man 3" (2013) respectively, and Tony Leung portrayed the "real" character Xu Wenwu in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021). In 2009, The Mandarin was ranked as IGN's 81st-greatest comic book villain of all time.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin first appeared in "Tales of Suspense" #50 (Feb. 1964), written by Stan Lee and illustrated by Don Heck.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: When discussing the character's creation, Heck stated "That was Stan Lee'’s character, really. He wanted him because he was thinking of, oh, one of those old stories that they had years ago Fu Manchu and that's what he said to me. He said, 'I want a character like Fu Manchu.'"


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin's late father was one of the wealthiest men in pre-revolutionary mainland China (and a descendant of Genghis Khan), while his late mother was an English noblewoman. Their son was born in an unnamed village in mainland China before the Communist revolution. The boy's parents died soon after his birth, and he was raised by his (paternal) aunt, who was embittered against the world and raised him with much the same attitude. Every last bit of the family fortune was spent obsessively training the Mandarin in science and combat, with the result that he was penniless by adulthood. Without the wealth to pay the taxes on his ancestral home, the Mandarin was evicted by the government.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Hoping to find a means of avenging himself upon the civilization that had taxed him and rendered him homeless, the Mandarin explores the forbidden Valley of Spirits, where no one has dared to set foot for centuries. There he finds the starship and skeleton of Axonn-Karr, an intelligent dragon-like alien from the planet Maklu IV, who had come to Earth centuries ago and died. Over the following years, the Mandarin studies Makluan science until he masters it. He also learns how to use the 10 rings that he found within the starship, which are apparently its propulsion source, among other things. The Mandarin then becomes a conqueror, and subjugates the villages around the Valley, and through his advanced science, rapidly becomes a power that not even the Chinese army can successfully challenge. He then embarks on a long series of attempts to achieve world domination. The Chinese, though fearing him, ask for his help, but he will not become subservient to them.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin sees technology as the surest means to achieve his goals. Over the years, he frequently attempts to turn the weapons and computers of various nations against them. Among the Mandarin's earliest schemes is the sabotage and theft of American missiles and spy planes built by Tony Stark. To restore public confidence in his workmanship, Stark dons his Iron Man armor and flies to China to investigate. Iron Man soon became the Mandarin's principal obstacle against his plans for world domination. He often attempts to pit Iron Man against the Chinese government to defeat both.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: During three of their early confrontations, the Mandarin manages to take Iron Man (or his alter ego Tony Stark) captive, but fails to kill him. Similarly, Iron Man thwarts the Mandarin's various schemes, but is unable to bring him to justice. Some of the Mandarin's early technological achievements are the launching of a small orbiting satellite whose "death-ray" he aims at Stark Industries, and the building (later retconned as "the reprogramming, the refitting, and the recharging") of Ultimo, a humanoid android possessing vast destructive power. The Mandarin would employ Ultimo four times over the years, but it was always defeated by Iron Man.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin's teleportation technology, derived from Makluan science, enables him to kidnap people at will or teleport himself out of threatening situations. He teleports the Swordsman to his castle just before the Avengers capture him, plotting to use him to destroy the Avengers and adding the technology to his sword to aid him, though the Swordsman betrays him and throws the bomb away. During his fifth encounter with Iron Man, the Mandarin teleports Harold J. "Happy" Hogan, a friend and confidant of Iron Man, to his castle in China half a world away. Hogan is wearing the Iron Man armor at the time to help protect his employer's secret identity, and the Mandarin mistakes him for his foe. In rescuing Hogan, Iron Man physically bests the Mandarin in personal combat for the first time. Iron Man redirected the missiles that the Mandarin had launched so that they hit the Mandarin's castle, destroying it. The Mandarin escaped by means of his teleportation machinery and he materialized aboard his orbiting satellite. There, he constructs a gemlike device capable of broadcasting "hate-rays" toward Earth. The Mandarin, using his teleportation technology, assembles several former enemies of the Avengers to perform missions for him: the Living Laser, who attacks Asia with Ultimo, but is beaten by Thor and Hawkeye; the original Power Man and the Swordsman, who, with an army of mercenaries, attacked a South American country, but are beaten by Goliath, the Wasp, and Iron Man; Amora the Enchantress; and Skurge the Executioner, who lead an army of trolls in Africa, but are beaten by Hercules and the Scarlet Witch. The Avengers manage to thwart the Mandarin's scheme after getting to the satellite, despite being hit by his hate-rays that make each of them attack the person nearest to themselves. However, the Wasp is nearest to the Mandarin and her attack on him shuts off the rays. The Mandarin is sucked into space and the Avengers are able to destroy his satellite.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin then establishes a base in China's Gobi Desert, and turns his attention to the Hulk for a time, hoping to make the dull-witted brute into an accomplice. Two attempts at controlling the Hulk proved futile. First he places a device on the Hulk's neck, hoping to use him to start a war which will allow the Mandarin to take over the world. However, Nick Fury foils this scheme. Next, the Mandarin allies himself with the American criminal the Sandman, who had just been beaten by the Hulk earlier. The Hulk destroys the Mandarin's desert base and the Mandarin sends the Sandman into a hot vat, turning him to glass. The glass later shatters, and the Sandman has to recover slowly in the Mandarin's satellite den. When the Mandarin next attacks Iron Man, he employs an android in the Hulk's likeness rather than the real Hulk. The Mandarin sets up a makeshift base of operations in the United States, and attempts to discredit Tony Stark publicly. Holding Iron Man captive for the fourth time, the Mandarin tries to learn if Iron Man is actually Stark, but Stark fools him with a rubber mask over his own features. His plans thwarted, the Mandarin tries to kill Stark's then-girlfriend, Janice Cord, but the Mandarin's betrothed Mei Ling saves her at the cost of her own life.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin's Avengers (or the Avatars of the Mandarin) is a fictional group of villains appearing in Marvel Comics. The characters work for their leader, the Mandarin, and are most famous for their role in the "Iron Man" and "War Machine" comic book series. This group was first glimpsed in "Iron Man" #309 (Oct. 1994) and was seen in full in "Force Works" #6 (Dec. 1994). The characters were created by Len Kaminski (writer), Tom Morgan (artist), and Nel Yomtov (editor).


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Returning to China, the Mandarin seeks a means to increase his rings' power, and learns of the legendary Eye of Yin, a talisman of power created by an ancient group of Chinese sorcerers. The Mandarin manipulates the Royal Family of the Inhumans who, at the time, live in the nearby Himalayan Mountains of Tibet, into locating the idol for him. Yet before he can fully incorporate the Eye's power in his rings, Black Bolt, the ruler of the Inhumans, overpowers him, strips him of his 10 rings, and hides them. Unable to find the rings, the Mandarin journeys back to the Valley of Spirits and the ruins of the Makluan starship, where he first acquired the rings. There he found a headband containing technology which enabled him to recover the rings. The Mandarin uses his newfound power to restore his castle to its original state. The Unicorn, another frequent opponent of Iron Man, seeks the Mandarin's aid in curing him of a progressive disease. The Mandarin and the Unicorn travel to the United States to attack their common enemy, Iron Man, but in the heat of battle, the Mandarin finds that the headband has somehow exchanged his consciousness with that of the Unicorn. The Mandarin is forced to flee, desperate to separate himself from the Unicorn's dying body.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: When the Mandarin arrives at his castle in China, he finds that it has been taken over by the Yellow Claw, another master criminal and warlord of Chinese origin. The Mandarin is forced to flee to another laboratory to try to restore his mind to its rightful body, which he manages with the unwilling aid of the Japanese mutant Sunfire. In a subsequent battle with Iron Man, the Mandarin's interim headquarters is destroyed. The Mandarin then launches an attack on the Yellow Claw in an attempt to regain his own castle, but is fatally injured when the Yellow Claw robot he is battling explodes. In a battle between Iron Man and the Yellow Claw that follows, the Mandarin's castle is also destroyed for the second time. However, unknown to the Yellow Claw, as the Mandarin is dying, he uses the headband's mind-transferring capacities to transfer his consciousness into his 10 rings. When the rings are confiscated by the Yellow Claw's power-hungry servant Loc Do and activated by him, the Mandarin's consciousness enters his body, permanently driving out Loc Do's consciousness. Using his matter-rearranger ring, the Mandarin transforms Loc Do's body into a younger duplicate of his own original one.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin returns to his castle, discovering that it has again been destroyed. After rebuilding it, the Mandarin attempts to capture Iron Man with his teleportation devices, but once again catches someone else clad in his armor. This time it is Michael O'Brien, later to become a friend of Stark's and the second man to wear the Guardsman's armor. Iron Man flies to O'Brien's rescue, clad in an older armor, saves O'Brien, thwarts the Mandarin's attempt to bomb the United States, and for a second time bests him in personal combat and then destroys his castle again. Perhaps due to the effect of the Mandarin's mental domination ring on him, Iron Man does not take the Mandarin into custody, but allows him to remain free.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin later schemes to turn the Great Vibranium Mound of Wakanda into Type II Vibranium, which destroys the molecular cohesion of metals. He also tries to destroy China's entire rice crop with radiation in an attempt to force a starving nation into war. In the second of these plots, the Mandarin encounters James Rhodes during Rhodes' custodianship of the Iron Man armor.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: When Stark tries to set up a branch of Stark Enterprises in Hong Kong, Iron Man and the Mandarin once again come into conflict. The Mandarin has taken the name of Zhang Tong, and had become a financial leader in Hong Kong. As Tong, he controls a number of government officials and industry leaders of Hong Kong. The Mandarin thwarts all of Stark's attempts to set up a business branch, even resorting to murder. The Mandarin now employs a group called the Hand to do his dirty work. When on a mission, a Hand member is allowed to take one of the Mandarin's rings and use its powers. As a precaution, if the Hand member is to be captured, he will fanatically try to kill himself. If the Hand member is to be killed or knocked out, the ring will automatically teleport back to the Mandarin. The Mandarin's agents kidnap James Rhodes and several of Stark's other employees, forcing Iron Man into single combat in exchange for their lives. Iron Man defeats the Mandarin once again, and helps Stark's employees escape the Hand. The Mandarin's minions are left without their weapons when their master is knocked unconscious, causing his rings to teleport back to him automatically and leaving them unarmed and unable to stop Stark's employees from fleeing.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: At one point, during a period in which the then thought-dead X-Men had disbanded, the mutant heroine Psylocke passes through the mystic portal known as the Siege Perilous. The portal relocates her to an Asian shore, leaving her an amnesiac. The man known as Matsu'o Tsurayaba finds her and believes he could save his brain-dead lover Kwannon by switching her mind with Psylocke. He makes an arrangement with the Mandarin to help him with the switch, since his rings will be able to facilitate it. Working with the otherdimensional sorceress known as Spiral, they are able to do this successfully. The Mandarin conditions Psylocke (now in Kwannon's body) to believe herself to be Lady Mandarin, the Mandarin's assassin. During this time, the Mandarin teams up with several other villains during the "Acts of Vengeance" storyline. He also confronted the Avengers. After completing several assignments for him, Psylocke is eventually rescued by her X-Men teammates Wolverine and Jubilee. The three then defeat the Mandarin, causing events which lead to the severing of the Mandarin's relationship with the Hand.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Sometime later, the Mandarin discovered that one of his rings is an elaborate counterfeit. One of his underlings had betrayed him, surrendering the ring to Chen Hsu, an ancient wizard who lived in San Francisco. Hsu, elfin in appearance but puissant in power, gives up the ring to the Mandarin, who collapses as soon as he put it on. Chen Hsu tends to him, removing the veil of confusion from his mind; soon, the Mandarin realizes that his memories had been fragmented because of the theft of the ring since the rings were still linked to his consciousness.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Next, Chen Hsu makes the Mandarin an offer that involves them traveling to the Valley of the Dragons. There, Chen Hsu uses a magic herb to awaken Fin Fang Foom, an ancient and powerful dragon. Under the control of Hsu, the dragon obeys the Mandarin, laying waste to an army sent by the Chinese government to stop him. Soon the Mandarin claims a third of China's territory, and the authorities sent out a call for help to Iron Man.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: When Iron Man confronts the Mandarin and Fin Fang Foom, eight other dragons appear. It is revealed that many thousands of years ago, a number of aliens from the planet Kakaranathara, the fourth planet of the star Maklu, traveled to Earth to look for the conflict which was unknown in their culture and which they craved. The ship crashed, stranding them on Earth for thousands of years, after which the Mandarin found the ship and claimed their rings. Now, they demand them back, but he refuses them. Iron Man forcibly combines his power with the rings, and manages to destroy the Makluan dragons. The blast vaporizes the Mandarin's hands and renders him comatose.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: For months, he lies in a state between life and death, in the care of a peasant woman who does not know who he is. Over time, his hands grow back, though they do so as reptilian claws, and the rings call to him again to reclaim them.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin discovers the Heart of Darkness, an orb of apparently mystic energy; the alien Century believes it is an ancient artifact which acts as a "lens" to attract and focus all manner of dark power. The Mandarin uses its power to turn back time in China, and literally transforms it into a feudal nation again, one in which electronic equipment cannot not operate. Iron Man, with his team Force Works and ally War Machine defeat him, but not before the Mandarin discovers that Tony Stark is the man inside the Iron Man armor.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Iron Man infects the Mandarin with a techno-organic virus, and the Heart, seeing him infected with technology, rejects the Mandarin and implodes. Iron Man believes him dead, though in reality the Mandarin has been transported away and transformed by the last flare of the orb's magic into a janitor in the Hong Kong branch of Stark Enterprises.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Eventually, the Mandarin's memories return to him. The Mandarin believes that the feudalism of yesterday has merely been transformed into the capitalism of today, leading him to set into motion plans to create a giant flying fortress called the Dragon of Heaven, through which he can conquer Russia and eventually the world. During this time, Iron Man reappears after being believed dead in a battle against the psychic menace Onslaught. The Mandarin initiates a series of attacks on Iron Man, culminating in a battle with the Dragon of Heaven. Eventually it is revealed that the Mandarin's primary purpose is not to conquer Russia, but instead to test Iron Man himself, prove him worthy as a foe, and to justify the Mandarin's own thoughts on the feudal nature of capitalism. The Mandarin appears to die as the Dragon of Heaven explodes, but Iron Man is not convinced that his foe has truly met his end.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Despite the uncertainty of his fate, it would be nearly 10 years before the Mandarin returned to the pages of "Iron Man". In the interim, Iron Man faces the Mandarin's son, Temugin. Temugin has precious few memories of his father, and most of them involve his father taking him to the monastery where he was raised and trained by monks. Temugin is sensitive, spiritual, and extremely powerful because of his control of chi, the living force in all things.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: One day, Temugin receives a package containing the severed hands of the Mandarin, bearing all 10 rings of power. Temugin knows that he is honor-bound to fulfill his father's wishes for him. He challenges Iron Man in order to avenge his father's death, and he proves a deadly adversary even without the rings.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: After Tony Stark reveals a conspiracy for mass murder in his own ranks, Temugin appears to have forgiven Iron Man for the death of his father and to have turned to more lofty pursuits, but events indicate that the evil power of the rings has corrupted his soul.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Temugin had been named after his, and the Mandarin's, claimed ancestor Genghis Khan, whose birth name was Temujin (also spelled Temuchin, Temudjin, u also variates to ü).


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Temugin is later contacted by the double-crossing Spot, who gives him a super-weapon that MODOK had been planning to steal. In this appearance, Temugin speaks of the Mandarin as "my late father", and bears the rings, one of which he uses to imprison the Spot in another dimension with nothing but money. In the following issue, the Puma tears off at least one of Temugin's hands, but despite this, he retained at least half of the rings—and possibly all of them, as Nightshade, who used the rings on his lost hand, is not seen with them at the end of the story.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Nevertheless, he later reappeared without the rings, and with a cybernetic arm, as a member of the Atlas Foundation, having been selected as a secondary candidate for the position of its ruler by the ancient dragon Mr. Lao. In this capacity he is a constant irritant to Jimmy Woo, the head of Atlas.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin is revived in a subsequent "Iron Man" story arc, in which he is revealed to have been in a prison in central China for some time. It is revealed that he has lost his hands (most likely the hands that were sent to Temugin were, in fact, actually the Mandarin's), and that he has been living with no food or water for years, an ability that is likely due to his mastery of chi. Despite being handless and starved, he is able to kill several men armed with guns via his mastery of the martial arts. His rings have been returned to him and have been re-assimilated into his body by heating them and burning them into his spine.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: After attacking Iron Man, via S.H.I.E.L.D.—with dozens of unwitting proxies in the form of extremist splinter groups, equipped by him with hyper-advanced biological weapons—he eventually resurfaces as Tem Borjigin (yet another name of Genghis Khan), now employing artificial hands.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin infiltrates the U.S. government via his role as CEO of Prometheus, a corporation specializing in bio-engineered weaponry. He appears to be using Tony Stark's former love interest Maya Hansen to produce an army of soldiers enhanced with Extremis, an artificial biotech virus created by Hansen that when introduced into a subject with a specific gene receptive to it (which only 2.5% of the population possess), grants that subject a super-boosted immune system and a greatly enhanced healing ability that can spontaneously generate new, improved organs, but which increases aggression and kills anyone injected with it who lacks the gene for it. The Mandarin is also financing and arming terrorists around the globe, and plans to unleash the Extremis virus on the public, expecting the 97.5% fatality ratio to cause a mass catastrophe of deaths. The Mandarin admits to Hansen that even he will die in the outbreak, but she and those with the gene to survive will become free from disease and effectively immortal. Though he has his Extremis virus disabled, Iron Man defeats the Mandarin while wearing the Silver Centurion armor by tearing five of the rings out of the Mandarin's spine, blasting him with those rings, his unibeam, and his repulsor rays at the same time and then freezing him as he is engulfed in a deadly concentrated Extremis virus. Iron Man then prevents the Extremis outbreak.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: When the Mandarin's apparently frozen body is autopsied, all that is found is a blackened husk, not unlike an Extremis chrysalis.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In 2007, the Mandarin appeared in "Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin", an expanded and modified retelling of his earliest appearances in "Tales of Suspense". The series was written by Joe Casey and drawn by Eric Canete.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In "The Invincible Iron Man" vol. 4 Annual #1 by Matt Fraction, a new updated origin of the Mandarin is offered. Here, the Mandarin kidnaps a young up-and-coming film producer to tell his life's story. He relates the same story that he once told Iron Man in "Tales of Suspense" of his English noblewoman mother and his schooling at the finest boarding schools in the land. The director learns that much of what the Mandarin says is contradictory and false, and it is hinted that the Mandarin has used one of his own rings to make himself believe this tapestry of half-truths. The director discovers that the Mandarin was the son of an opium den prostitute who went on to become a powerful underworld figure before discovering the Ten Rings of Power in an alien craft, the pilot of which he brutally slew to obtain them. The Mandarin slaughtered the Red Chinese army officials for daring to cross him, while financing his operations with drug and gun smuggling, aided by the mercenary Raza. In this retelling, he is also said to have been at the camp in which Tony Stark constructed his Iron Man armor, though Stark is unaware of this fact.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Angered at the Mandarin holding his wife hostage, the director shoots the film as "he" wishes, "not" as the Mandarin dictates. The Mandarin denounces this telling of his past as lies and angrily destroys the theater in which it was being shown before having the director killed. Later, he regrets murdering the director, noting that he really "did" love his films.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: At the conclusion of the 2010–2011 "Stark Resilient" storyline, it is revealed that the Mandarin is the father of Sasha Hammer, as she introduces her boyfriend Zeke Stane to her parents.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: With help from Zeke Stane, Mandarin recruits Blizzard, Chemistro, the Crimson Dynamo, Firebrand, Firepower, the Living Laser, the Melter, the Mauler, a Titanium Man, Vibro, and Whirlwind, as well as building some new Dreadnought robots in a plot to take out Iron Man.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the 2012 storyline "The Long Way Down", it is revealed that the Mandarin has gained some measure of mental control over Tony Stark, apparently established around the time of the "World's Most Wanted" and "Stark Disassembled" story arcs, wherein Stark effectively wiped his own mind to safeguard critical S.H.I.E.L.D. data from Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R. How the Mandarin gained this control is as yet unrevealed, but it has been stated that he is "in [Stark's] head" and had been observing and influencing his actions since Stark's return to public life. Among these actions were implanted design ideas for "Titanomechs", huge squid-like war machines apparently capable of taking over the world (as seen in an alternate future in "The Invincible Iron Man" #500).


title: Mandarin (character)

text: This led into the next storyline "The Future", in which the Mandarin kidnaps Stark and brings him to Mandarin City to develop 10 Titanomechs, which Mandarin plans to use as host bodies for each of his 10 rings, which he reveals are actually vessels for the souls of 10 alien beings. In truth, the Mandarin serves these beings and has planned all along to "resurrect" them in this fashion.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Tony forms an alliance with others that the Mandarin has imprisoned, including Ezekiel Stane, Whirlwind, Blizzard, and the Living Laser. In a rebellion against the Mandarin, Stark manages to alert his staff at Stark Resilient to find him and manages to destroy the Titanomechs. In the ensuing battle, the Mandarin is apparently killed by Stane, much to the dismay of Iron Man.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the Marvel NOW! relaunch of "Iron Man" by writer Kieron Gillen, the Mandarin's rings managed to escape from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Weapon Vault Omega, the Mento-Intensifier Ring staying behind to create the illusion that the rings were still there. Each of the rings later started finding new hosts with the purpose of "saving Earth from Tony Stark", using persuasive language and mind control to bend them towards their cause against Iron Man. Each one of them has been codenamed, from Mandarin-One to Mandarin-Ten:


title: Mandarin (character)

text: However, after the Dark Elf Malekith the Accursed beheaded Mandarin-One and Mandarin-Nine, as well as cutting off the hands of Mandarin-Six, the remaining six Mandarins joined forces just in time to attack Malekith while Iron Man was also mounting an assault on the Dark Elves. With Malekith defeated, the Mandarins initially contemplated continuing to work together due to Kumar's influence, but after Tony and Arno were able to use the four rings they had recovered already to form a 'Master Ring' that could control the others, as well as convincing the former Mandarin-Six to help them, most of the remaining Mandarins were defeated in a final assault; the only one to escape was the Mole Man, who concluded that the rings had been more trouble than they were worth, as he was content with the status quo.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: With all 10 rings now in custody, Iron Man realized the recovered Recorder 451's corpse from deep space was transmitting an alien frequency that had upgraded the rings to become sentient.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The final Mandarin turned up in his Tem Borjigen alias when Baron Zemo selected him as the public face of the HYDRA-occupied Bagalia in his shared plot with Dario Agger and the Roxxon Energy Corporation to have the United Nations recognize Bagalia as an independent nation. As part of his revenge on HYDRA for manipulating him during the "Secret Empire" storyline, the Punisher finds the Mandarin making a speech at the United Nations and fires a special bullet. After using his rings to slow down the bullet while trying to deflect it, the Mandarin is struck in the head and killed with the bullet, which is witnessed by Baron Zemo and everyone watching his speech.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin is a superb athlete with tremendous skill in the various martial arts. Through repeated practice, he has toughened all the striking surfaces of his body, especially his hands, which are covered with thick calluses. He can even split Iron Man's magnetic-beam reinforced alloy armor with repeated blows. So great is the Mandarin's martial arts ability, that he can even survive years without food and water, apparently sustaining himself purely via his mastery of chi; the precise degree of the Mandarin's martial arts powers has been the subject of multiple implied retcons by Marvel Comics.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin is one of Marvel Earth's greatest scientific geniuses, and highly skilled in various sciences. Not only has he made himself into an expert authority on alien Makluan science, but he has also built upon this knowledge by making further discoveries based upon it.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The principal personal weapons of the Mandarin are the 10 rings which he wears on the fingers of both hands. The rings' operations cannot be explained by contemporary Earth science, but it is known that they served as near-limitless power sources for the warp-drive engines of the Makluan starship of Axonn-Karr. The Mandarin learned how to convert the rings to his personal uses and to make them respond to his mental commands. The fingers on which he wears each ring, and the known functions for which he uses each ring, are given below.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: As of writer Kieron Gillen's tenure on Iron Man, new names have been revealed for some rings which the rings—apparently sentient—use to identify one another. Capable of speech and inter-communication via telepathy, the rings demonstrate personality traits and are even capable of mocking and humiliating the Nightbringer ring for failing to find a host at the same time as its fellows. The sentience was later revealed to be a temporary power-up caused by contact with the Recorder 451.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Over the years through mental discipline achieved through meditation and long practice in use of the rings, the Mandarin has established a strong psionic link with his 10 rings, which was made many times stronger during the period in which his mind/spirit actually inhabited them. One result is that no one who wears the rings other than the Mandarin himself can command them without his permission. The Mandarin can now command the rings even when they are separated from him by vast distances. He can mentally monitor events taking place near a ring that has been separated from him. Continued exposure to the alien rings made his hands green and scaly. He can voluntarily give temporary control over a ring to his servants. If the servant dies or falls unconscious, the ring teleports back to the Mandarin. Conversely, if the Mandarin himself is knocked out, all the rings automatically return to him. On one occasion, this left the Mandarin's servants powerless to stop some of Tony Stark's employees that the Mandarin had kidnapped from escaping.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: He has also used a headband enabling him to transfer his mind into his rings or into another's body and a teleportation device hidden on his person, both examples of Makluan technology.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: The Mandarin is a brilliant and brutal tactician and a gifted strategist. He also abides by a very strict code of honor. When he attempted to stop Stark Enterprises from establishing itself in Hong Kong, the Mandarin challenged Iron Man to a duel, stating that if he won, he would take control of Stark Enterprises' Hong Kong operations, and that he would cease hindering Stark's activities if he lost. When Iron Man defeated him in fair combat, he lived up to his end of the agreement. On another occasion, he killed one of his minions for attempting to drug him during a practice session, angry that one of his students would use such dishonorable tactics.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the "Spider-Ham" universe, there is a version of the Mandarin who is a ring-tailed lemur named Mandaringtail.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the "Heroes Reborn" reality created by Franklin Richards, a version of the Mandarin exists, but is revealed to be a robot created by Doctor Doom as a puppet to control HYDRA.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the Marvel Mangaverse, the Mandarin was an enemy of Iron Man and Iron Girl. The Mandarin is killed by the Hand, who steal his rings and sever his hands.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the "House of M" reality, the Mandarin was a long-dead Chinese warlord famous for his supernatural rings. The rings (still bonded to the Mandarin's mummified hands) were apparently uncovered by Shang-Chi and his gang, but this was revealed to be a trap set by the Kingpin.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, the Mandarin appears in a flashback in "", with Tony Stark in an earlier armor prototype attacking Mandarin holding James Rhodes captive. This is actually not in continuity with the Ultimate Universe, as this is an "Iron Man" animated series which Nick Fury is watching; the Mandarin is a fictional character invented for the self-promoting cartoon.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: Although the initial incarnation does not actually exist, a version of the Mandarin appears in "" as an organization rather than a lone supervillain. Mandarin International is a company that helped Howard Stark build Stark International into a successful company. Years later, they reclaim what was "theirs": Tony Stark and his legacy. Stark located them in Hong Kong, and came into conflict with their "caretakers" Taku and Jane stealing DNA from Stark and access to their defense satellites. With help from War Machine and S.H.I.E.L.D., they were stopped and their facility was destroyed, although it sent a message to caretaker Li from an unknown individual.


title: Mandarin (character)

text: In "Secret Wars", the Mandarin is the ruthless emperor of the "wuxia"-inspired K'un-Lun region of Battleworld. Here he is named Zheng Zu, Master of the Ten Rings, a martial arts school that uses mystical powers and techniques based on the powers of his 10 rings from the mainstream continuity. Like his namesake, he is the father of Shang-Chi, who is wanted for the murder of Lord Tuan, the master of the Iron Fist school, the main rival of the Ten Rings school. It is later revealed Zu sent his assassin, Red Sai of the Red Hand school, to assassinate Tuan, but she ultimately failed. To spare his lover and her students from the Emperor's wrath, Shang-Chi killed Tuan; Zu had his son implicated and exiled for the murder to cover his own involvement. Representing the Ten Rings, Emperor Zu hosts a tournament held every 13 years to decide who the next ruler of K'un-Lun should be, a position he has held for 100 years. When Shang-Chi returns from his exile to represent his own school, the Lowest Caste, Zu allows him to participate, but alters the rules so that Shang-Chi would have to defeat every representative before facing him in the Thirteen Chambers. During their fight, Zu attempts to kill his son with the Spectral Touch technique, only for the move to pass through him due to Shang-Chi having learned how to become intangible. Shang-Chi proceeds to use nine of the 10 techniques against his father and ultimately defeats him with the Gorgon's Eye, which turns him into stone. With Zu's defeat, Shang-Chi becomes the new emperor of K'un-Lun.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: Tetrahydrofuran (THF), or oxolane, is an organic compound with the formula (CH)O. The compound is classified as heterocyclic compound, specifically a cyclic ether. It is a colorless, water-miscible organic liquid with low viscosity. It is mainly used as a precursor to polymers. Being polar and having a wide liquid range, THF is a versatile solvent.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: About 200,000 tonnes of tetrahydrofuran are produced annually. The most widely used industrial process involves the acid-catalyzed dehydration of 1,4-butanediol. Ashland/ISP is one of the biggest producers of this chemical route. The method is similar to the production of diethyl ether from ethanol. The butanediol is derived from condensation of acetylene with formaldehyde followed by hydrogenation. DuPont developed a process for producing THF by oxidizing "n"-butane to crude maleic anhydride, followed by catalytic hydrogenation. A third major industrial route entails hydroformylation of allyl alcohol followed by hydrogenation to 1,4-butanediol.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF can also be synthesized by catalytic hydrogenation of furan. This allows certain sugars to be converted to THF via acid-catalyzed digestion to furfural and decarbonylation to furan, although this method is not widely practiced. THF is thus derivable from renewable resources.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: In the presence of strong acids, THF converts to a linear polymer called poly(tetramethylene ether) glycol (PTMEG), also known as polytetramethylene oxide (PTMO):


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: The other main application of THF is as an industrial solvent for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and in varnishes. It is an aprotic solvent with a dielectric constant of 7.6. It is a moderately polar solvent and can dissolve a wide range of nonpolar and polar chemical compounds. THF is water-miscible and can form solid clathrate hydrate structures with water at low temperatures.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF has been explored as a miscible co-solvent in aqueous solution to aid in the liquefaction and delignification of plant lignocellulosic biomass for production of renewable platform chemicals and sugars as potential precursors to biofuels. Aqueous THF augments the hydrolysis of glycans from biomass and dissolves the majority of biomass lignin making it a suitable solvent for biomass pretreatment.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF is often used in polymer science. For example, it can be used to dissolve polymers prior to determining their molecular mass using gel permeation chromatography. THF dissolves PVC as well, and thus it is the main ingredient in PVC adhesives. It can be used to liquefy old PVC cement and is often used industrially to degrease metal parts.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF is used as a component in mobile phases for reversed-phase liquid chromatography. It has a greater elution strength than methanol or acetonitrile, but is less commonly used than these solvents.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF is used as a solvent in 3D printing when using PLA plastics. It can be used to clean clogged 3D printer parts, as well as when finishing prints to remove extruder lines and add a shine to the finished product.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: Recently THF is used as co-solvent for lithium metal batteries, helping to stabilize the metal anode.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: In the laboratory, THF is a popular solvent when its water miscibility is not an issue. It is more basic than diethyl ether and forms stronger complexes with Li, Mg, and boranes. It is a popular solvent for hydroboration reactions and for organometallic compounds such as organolithium and Grignard reagents. Thus, while diethyl ether remains the solvent of choice for some reactions (e.g., Grignard reactions), THF fills that role in many others, where strong coordination is desirable and the precise properties of ethereal solvents such as these (alone and in mixtures and at various temperatures) allows fine-tuning modern chemical reactions.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: Commercial THF contains substantial water that must be removed for sensitive operations, e.g. those involving organometallic compounds. Although THF is traditionally dried by distillation from an aggressive desiccant, molecular sieves are superior.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: In the presence of a solid acid catalyst, THF reacts with hydrogen sulfide to give tetrahydrothiophene.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF is a Lewis base that bonds to a variety of Lewis acids such as I, phenols, triethylaluminum and bis(hexafluoroacetylacetonato)copper(II). THF has been classified in the ECW model and it has been shown that there is no one order of base strengths. Many complexes are of the stoichiometry MCl(THF).


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: THF is a relatively acutely nontoxic solvent, with the median lethal dose (LD) comparable to that for acetone. However, chronic exposure is suspected of causing cancer. Reflecting its remarkable solvent properties, it penetrates the skin, causing rapid dehydration. THF readily dissolves latex and thus should be handled with nitrile rubber gloves. It is highly flammable.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: One danger posed by THF is its tendency to form the explosive compound 2-hydroperoxytetrahydrofuran upon reaction with air:


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: To minimize this problem, commercial supplies of THF are often stabilized with butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Distillation of THF to dryness is unsafe because the explosive peroxides can concentrate in the residue.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: The tetrahydrofuran ring is found in diverse natural products including lignans, acetogenins, and polyketide natural products. Diverse methodology has been developed for the synthesis of substituted THFs.


title: Tetrahydrofuran

text: Tetrahydrofuran is one of the class of pentic cyclic ethers called "oxolanes". There are seven possible structures, namely,


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: "The Long and Winding Road" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1970 album "Let It Be". It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. When issued as a single in May 1970, a month after the Beatles' break-up, it became the group's 20th and last number-one hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart in the United States.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The main recording of the song took place in January 1969 and featured a sparse musical arrangement. When preparing the tapes from these sessions for release in April 1970, producer Phil Spector added orchestral and choral overdubs. Spector's modifications angered McCartney to the point that when he made his case in the English High Court for the Beatles' disbandment, McCartney cited the treatment of the song as one of six reasons justifying the split. New versions of the song with simpler instrumentation were subsequently released by McCartney and by the Beatles.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Paul McCartney said he came up with the title "The Long and Winding Road" during one of his first visits to his property High Park Farm, near Campbeltown in Scotland, which he purchased in June 1966. The phrase was inspired by the sight of a road "stretching up into the hills" in the remote Highlands surroundings of lochs and distant mountains. He wrote the song at his farm in 1968, inspired by the growing tension among the Beatles.<ref name="Merritt/SH"></ref> Based on other comments McCartney has made, author Howard Sounes writes, the lyrics can be seen as McCartney expressing his anguish at the direction of his personal life, as well as a nostalgic look back at the Beatles' history. McCartney recalled: "I just sat down at my piano in Scotland, started playing and came up with that song, imagining it was going to be done by someone like Ray Charles. I have always found inspiration in the calm beauty of Scotland and again it proved the place where I found inspiration."


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Once back in London, McCartney recorded a demo version of "The Long and Winding Road" during one of the recording sessions for "The Beatles". Later, he offered the song to Tom Jones on the condition that the singer release it as his next single. In Jones' recollection, he was forced to turn it down since his record company were about to issue "Without Love" as a single.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The composition takes the form of a piano-based ballad, with conventional chord changes. McCartney described the chords as "slightly jazzy" and in keeping with Charles' style.<ref name="Duca/HuffPost"></ref> The song's home key is E-flat major but it also uses the relative C minor.<ref name="Pollack/Notes"></ref> The opening theme is repeated throughout. The song lacks a traditional chorus, and the melody and lyrics are ambiguous about the opening stanza's position in the piece. In this way, according to musicologist Alan Pollack, it is unclear whether the song has just begun, is in the verse, or is in the bridge.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In an interview in 1994, McCartney said of "The Long and Winding Road": "It's rather a sad song. I like writing sad songs, it's a good bag to get into because you can actually acknowledge some deeper feelings of your own and put them in it. It's a good vehicle, it saves having to go to a psychiatrist." He also told his biographer Barry Miles in the 1990s that the song was "all about the unattainable; the door you never quite reach ... the road that you never get to the end of".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: McCartney premiered "The Long and Winding Road" on 7 January 1969 during the Beatles' filmed rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios. After they abandoned thoughts of returning to public performance, and instead decided to make a new album, the band recorded several takes of the song at their Apple Studio in central London on 26 January and again on 31 January. The line-up was McCartney on lead vocals and piano, John Lennon on six-string bass guitar, George Harrison on electric guitar played with a Leslie speaker effect, Ringo Starr on drums, and guest keyboardist Billy Preston on electric piano. Lennon, who rarely played bass, made several mistakes on the recording.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: As seen in the "" documentary, following the 26 January recording session, the band discussed the possibility of adding an orchestral accompaniment to the song. "The only way I've ever heard it in my head," McCartney said, "is like Ray Charles's band... We were planning to do it anyway for a couple of numbers, just to have a bit of brass and a bit of strings." George Harrison supported the idea of a brass accompaniment: "It would be nice with some brass just doing the sustaining chord thing, moving and just holding notes."


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In May 1969, Glyn Johns, who had been asked by the Beatles to compile and mix the "Get Back" album from the sessions, selected the 26 January recording. The 31 January take, which had slightly different lyrics and was recorded with Johns in an unofficial producer's role, was used in the film, subsequently titled "Let It Be".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In early 1970, Lennon and Harrison asked the Beatles' manager, Allen Klein, to turn over the January 1969 recordings to American producer Phil Spector, in the hope of salvaging an album to accompany the "Let It Be" documentary film. McCartney had become estranged from his bandmates at this time, due to his opposition to Klein's appointment as manager. Several weeks were lost before McCartney replied to messages requesting his approval for Spector to begin working on the recordings. Spector chose to return to the same 26 January recording of "The Long and Winding Road".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Spector made various changes to the songs. His most dramatic embellishments occurred on 1 April 1970, the last ever Beatles recording session, when he added orchestral overdubs to "The Long and Winding Road", "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" at EMI Studios. The only member of the Beatles present was Starr, who played drums with the session musicians to create Spector's characteristic Wall of Sound. Already known for his eccentric behaviour in the studio, Spector was in a peculiar mood that day, according to balance engineer Peter Bown: "He wanted tape echo on everything, he had to take a different pill every half-hour and had his bodyguard with him constantly. He was on the point of throwing a wobbly, saying 'I want to hear this, I want to hear that. I must have this, I must have that.'" The orchestra became so annoyed by Spector's behaviour that the musicians refused to play any further; at one point, Bown left for home, forcing Spector to telephone him and persuade him to return after Starr had told Spector to calm down.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Spector nonetheless succeeded in overdubbing "The Long and Winding Road", using eight violins, four violas, four cellos, three trumpets, three trombones, two guitars, and a choir of fourteen women. The orchestra was scored and conducted by Richard Hewson, a young London arranger who had worked with Apple artists Mary Hopkin and James Taylor. This lush orchestral treatment was in direct contrast to the Beatles' stated intentions for a "real" recording when they began work on "Get Back".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: On 2 April, Spector sent each of the Beatles an acetate of the completed album with a note saying: "If there is anything you'd like done to the album, let me know and I'll be glad to help ... If you wish, please call me about anything regarding the album tonight." All four of the band members sent him their approval by telegram.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: According to author Peter Doggett, McCartney had felt the need to accommodate his bandmates when accepting Spector's version of "Let It Be." However, following his announcement of the Beatles' break-up in a press release accompanying the release of his debut solo album, "McCartney", on 9 April, he came to resent Spector's additions, particularly on "The Long and Winding Road." On 14 April, with manufacturing underway for "Let It Be", he sent a terse letter to Klein, demanding that the harp be removed from the song and that the other added instrumentation and voices be reduced. McCartney concluded the letter with the words: "Don't ever do it again." Klein attempted to phone McCartney but he had changed his number without informing Apple; Klein then sent a telegram asking McCartney to contact him or Spector about his concerns. According to Klein, "The following day, a message was relayed to me [from McCartney] that the letter spoke for itself." With "Let It Be" scheduled for release in advance of the film, Klein allowed the production process to continue with Spector's version of "The Long and Winding Road" intact.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In an interview published by the "Evening Standard" in two parts on 21 and 22 April 1970, McCartney said:


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American record producer Phil Spector was called in by John Lennon to tidy up some of the tracks. But a few weeks ago, I was sent a re-mixed version of my song "The Long and Winding Road" with harps, horns, an orchestra and women's choir added. No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn't believe it. I would never have female voices on a Beatles record.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The band's usual producer, George Martin, called the remixes "so uncharacteristic" of the Beatles. Johns, who was denied a production credit by Lennon, later described Spector's embellishments as "revolting ... just puke".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: McCartney asked Klein to dissolve the Beatles' partnership, but was refused. Exasperated, he took the case to the High Court in London in early 1971, naming Klein and the other Beatles as defendants. Among the six reasons McCartney gave for dissolving the Beatles was that Klein's company, ABKCO, had imposed changes to "The Long and Winding Road" without consulting McCartney. In his written affidavit, Starr countered this statement by saying that when Spector had sent acetates of "Let It Be" to each of the Beatles for their approval, with a request also for feedback: "We all said yes. Even at the beginning Paul said yes. I spoke to him on the phone, and said, 'Did you like it?' and he said, 'Yeah, it's OK.' He didn't put it down." Starr added: "And then suddenly he didn't want it to go out. Two weeks after that, he wanted to cancel it." Author Nicholas Schaffner commented that, in light of McCartney's contention in the High Court, it was surprising that he personally accepted the band's Grammy Award for "Let It Be" in March 1971 – when the album won in the category Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special – and that he chose to feature his wife Linda's voice so prominently on his post-Beatles recordings.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Speaking to music journalist Richard Williams soon after the overdubbing sessions, Spector said that he had asked whether any of the Beatles would like to help him produce the album, but none of them had wanted to.<ref name="Irvin/Mojo"> Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required).</ref> He later said he was forced into orchestrating "The Long and Winding Road" to cover the poor quality of Lennon's bass playing; Spector also denied that McCartney was not consulted, saying that he had first contacted McCartney about the choice of musical arranger. In his book "Revolution in the Head", Beatles scholar Ian MacDonald wrote: "The song was designed as a standard to be taken up by mainstream balladeers … It features some atrocious bass-playing by Lennon, prodding clumsily around as if uncertain of the harmonies and making many comical mistakes. Lennon's crude bass playing on 'The Long and Winding Road', though largely accidental, amounts to sabotage when presented as finished work." In 2003, Spector called McCartney's criticism "hypocritical", alleging that "Paul had no problem picking up the Academy Award for the "Let It Be" movie soundtrack, nor did he have any problem in using my arrangement of the string and horn and choir parts when he performed it during 25 years of touring on his own. If Paul wants to get into a pissing contest about it, he's got me mixed up with someone who gives a shit."


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The song was released on the "Let It Be" album on 8 May 1970. On 11 May, seven days before the album's North American release, Apple issued "The Long and Winding Road" as a single in the United States with "For You Blue" on the B-side. The single was released in several European countries but not the United Kingdom. In the context of the recent news regarding the Beatles' split, the song captured the sadness that many listeners felt.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In the US, "For You Blue" gained sufficient radio airplay for "Billboard" to chart the two songs together, as a double-sided hit. The record was similarly listed as a double A-side when it topped Canada's singles chart.<ref name="Canada/BB"></ref> On 13 June 1970, it became the Beatles' twentieth and final number-one single on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and held the top position for a second week. The band thereby set the all-time record for number of chart-topping singles on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The Beatles achieved this feat in a period of less than six-and-a-half years, starting with "I Want to Hold Your Hand" on 1 February 1964, during which they topped the Hot 100 in one out of every six weeks. "The Long and Winding Road" also topped the US charts compiled by "Cash Box" and "Record World", giving the band their 22nd and 23rd number-one hits on those charts.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The single had a relatively brief run on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and its contemporary US sales were insufficient for gold accreditation by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In February 1999, "The Long and Winding Road" was certified platinum by the RIAA for sales of 1,000,000.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: "Let It Be" received largely unfavourable reviews from music critics, many of whom ridiculed Spector's use of orchestration, particularly on "The Long and Winding Road". In his album review for "Melody Maker", Richard Williams wrote that "Paul's songs seem to be getting looser and less concise, and Spector's orchestrations add to the Bacharach atmosphere. The strings add a pleasant fullness in places, but intrude badly near the end and the harps are too much." "Rolling Stone"s reviewer, John Mendelsohn, was especially critical of Spector's work, saying: "He's rendered 'The Long and Winding Road' ... virtually unlistenable with hideously cloying strings and a ridiculous choir that serve only to accentuate the listlessness of Paul's vocal and the song's potential for further mutilation at the hands of the countless schlock-mongers who will undoubtedly trip all over one another in their haste to cover it." Mendelsohn said that while the song was a "slightly lesser chapter in the ongoing story of McCartney as facile romanticist", "it might have eventually begun to grow on one as unassumingly charming" without Spector's "oppressive mush".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In 1973, musicologist and critic Wilfrid Mellers wrote: "The music has a tremendous expectancy … Whether or no Paul approved of the plush scoring of 'The Long and Winding Road', it works not because it guys the feeling but because the feeling has integrity." MacDonald said: "With its heart-breaking suspensions and yearning backward glances from the sad wisdom of the major key to the lost loves and illusions of the minor, 'The Long and Winding Road' is one of the most beautiful things McCartney ever wrote. Its words, too, are among his most poignant, particularly the reproachful lines of the brief four-bar middle section. A shame Lennon didn't listen more generously."


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: According to Williams, writing in his book "Phil Spector: Out of His Head", Spector's mistake was in "taking McCartney at his face value" and emphasising the sentimental qualities that George Martin's orchestral arrangements for the Beatles had successfully tempered. Williams added: "Some might say that this track, above all others, epitomises Paul McCartney, and that when Spector sent the saccharine strings sweeping in after the first line of vocal, he was merely highlighting the reality." In a 2003 review for "Mojo", shortly after the announcement that McCartney planned to issue "a string-less "Let It Be"", John Harris opined: "As someone who experiences a Proustian rush every time the orchestra crash-lands in 'The Long and Winding Road', I can only implore him to think again. Besides, underneath all the Wagnerian gloop, John's bass playing is "horribly" out of tune ..." Referring to the version subsequently released without the controversial overdubs, Adam Sweeting of "The Guardian" said the song was "indubitably improved by the removal of Spector's wall of schmaltz" but "still teeth-clenchingly mawkish".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In 2011, "Rolling Stone" placed "The Long and Winding Road" at number 90 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Beatles Songs". On a similar list compiled by "Mojo" in 2006, the song appeared at number 27. In his commentary for the magazine, Brian Wilson described it as his "all time favourite Beatles track", saying that while the Beatles were "genius songwriters", this song was distinguished by a ""heart-and-soul" melody". Wilson concluded: "When they broke up I was heartbroken. I think they should have kept going."


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Since the original release in 1970, there have been six additional recordings released by McCartney. After he had resisted playing any of his Beatles songs with his band Wings, he included "The Long and Winding Road" in the set list for Wings' 1975–76 world tour. A live version appeared on the 1976 album "Wings over America".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: McCartney re-recorded "The Long and Winding Road" for the soundtrack to his 1984 film "Give My Regards to Broad Street". George Martin produced the track, which includes saxophone accompaniment and what authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter describe as a Las Vegas-style musical arrangement. A second new studio recording of the song was made by McCartney in 1989 and used as a B-side of single releases from his "Flowers in the Dirt" album, starting with the "Postcard Pack" vinyl format of "This One".


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: On McCartney's 1989–90 world tour in support of "Flowers in the Dirt" – his first world tour since 1975–76 – the song was performed with a musical backing that, in Kenneth Womack's view, "clearly attempts to replicate" the strings added by Spector in 1970. The version released on the live album from the tour, "Tripping the Live Fantastic", was the only song taken from McCartney's two April 1990 shows at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The live single version was also included on "The 7" Singles Box" in 2022.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: The 1996 Beatles' outtakes compilation "Anthology 3" includes the original 26 January 1969 take, without Spector's overdubs. "The Long and Winding Road" provided the working title for Apple executive Neil Aspinall's early version of the documentary film that became the 1995 TV series "The Beatles Anthology". The title was changed in the 1990s after Harrison objected to the project being named after McCartney's song.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: In 2003, McCartney persuaded Starr and Ono (as Lennon's widow) to release "Let It Be... Naked". McCartney said that his long-standing dissatisfaction with the released version of "The Long and Winding Road" was partly the impetus for the new version. The album included a take of the song from 31 January 1969. With no strings or other added instrumentation, it was closer to the Beatles' original intention than the 1970 version. This take is also the one seen in the film "Let It Be" and on the Beatles' 2015 video compilation "1". Starr said of the "Let It Be... Naked" version: "There's nothing wrong with Phil's strings [on the 1970 release], this is just a different attitude to listening. But it's been 30-odd years since I've heard it without all that and it just blew me away."


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: "The Long and Winding Road" has continued to be a staple of McCartney's post-Beatles concert repertoire. In July 2005, he performed the song to close the Live 8 concert in London. On his 2009 tours, McCartney played it as part of a nostalgia-filled set that included tributes to Linda, Lennon and Harrison. In the case of "The Long and Winding Road", the performance was accompanied by screen-projected photos taken by Linda of the family's Arizona ranch, including the horse trail she and McCartney rode shortly before her death.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: "The Long and Winding Road" was one of several McCartney compositions from the Beatles era that became widely covered by easy listening artists and persuaded adults that the younger generation's musical tastes had merit. A version by British singer Ray Morgan reached number 32 on the UK Singles Chart in 1970.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: As McCartney had originally envisaged, Ray Charles recorded a cover version in 1971, released on "Volcanic Action of My Soul". A "live" vocal of Ray, as described in the liner notes to "Ray Sings, Basie Swings", was later overdubbed with the Count Basie Orchestra and issued on that 2006 album. Aretha Franklin released a recording of the song on her 1972 album "Young, Gifted and Black", a version that "Rolling Stone" writer Rob Sheffield calls "the greatest of all Beatle covers". Cilla Black released a version on her 1973 Martin-produced album "Day by Day with Cilla"; McCartney described this recording as the definitive version of the song.


title: The Long and Winding Road

text: Other versions include a cover by Leo Sayer on the 1976 "All This and World War II" soundtrack, a 1978 recording by Peter Frampton for Robert Stigwood's film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", a 1999 performance by George Michael at the Royal Albert Hall memorial concert for Linda McCartney, and a 2010 performance at the White House by Faith Hill when Barack Obama gave McCartney the Gershwin Prize. In 1985, a recording by Billy Ocean peaked at number 24 on "Billboard"s Adult Contemporary chart. In 2002, British "Pop Idol" series one contestants Will Young and Gareth Gates recorded a version released as a double A-side with Gates' version of "Suspicious Minds"; the single topped the UK Singles Chart and the Scottish Singles Chart. The duet by itself also reached number 4 in Ireland.


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine (IUPAC name: phosphane) is a colorless, flammable, highly toxic compound with the chemical formula , classed as a pnictogen hydride. Pure phosphine is odorless, but technical grade samples have a highly unpleasant odor like rotting fish, due to the presence of substituted phosphine and diphosphane (). With traces of present, is spontaneously flammable in air (pyrophoric), burning with a luminous flame. Phosphine is a highly toxic respiratory poison, and is immediately dangerous to life or health at 50 ppm. Phosphine has a trigonal pyramidal structure.


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphines are compounds that include and the organophosphines, which are derived from by substituting one or more hydrogen atoms with organic groups. They have the general formula . Phosphanes are saturated phosphorus hydrides of the form , such as triphosphane. Phosphine, PH, is the smallest of the phosphines and the smallest of the phosphanes.


title: Phosphine

text: Philippe Gengembre (1764–1838), a student of Lavoisier, first obtained phosphine in 1783 by heating white phosphorus in an aqueous solution of potash (potassium carbonate).


title: Phosphine

text: Perhaps because of its strong association with elemental phosphorus, phosphine was once regarded as a gaseous form of the element, but Lavoisier (1789) recognised it as a combination of phosphorus with hydrogen and described it as "phosphure d'hydrogène" (phosphide of hydrogen).


title: Phosphine

text: In 1844, Paul Thénard, son of the French chemist Louis Jacques Thénard, used a cold trap to separate diphosphine from phosphine that had been generated from calcium phosphide, thereby demonstrating that is responsible for spontaneous flammability associated with , and also for the characteristic orange/brown color that can form on surfaces, which is a polymerisation product. He considered diphosphine's formula to be , and thus an intermediate between elemental phosphorus, the higher polymers, and phosphine. Calcium phosphide (nominally ) produces more than other phosphides because of the preponderance of P-P bonds in the starting material.


title: Phosphine

text: The name "phosphine" was first used for organophosphorus compounds in 1857, being analogous to organic amines (). The gas was named "phosphine" by 1865 (or earlier).


title: Phosphine

text: is a trigonal pyramidal molecule with "C" molecular symmetry. The length of the P−H bond is 1.42 Å, the H−P−H bond angles are 93.5°. The dipole moment is 0.58 D, which increases with substitution of methyl groups in the series: , 1.10 D; , 1.23 D; , 1.19 D. In contrast, the dipole moments of amines decrease with substitution, starting with ammonia, which has a dipole moment of 1.47 D. The low dipole moment and almost orthogonal bond angles lead to the conclusion that in the P−H bonds are almost entirely and phosphorus 3s orbital contributes little to the bonding between phosphorus and hydrogen in this molecule. For this reason, the lone pair on phosphorus may be regarded as predominantly formed by the 3s orbital of phosphorus. The upfield chemical shift of the phosphorus atom in the P NMR spectrum accords with the conclusion that the lone pair electrons occupy the 3s orbital (Fluck, 1973). This electronic structure leads to a lack of nucleophilicity in general and lack of basicity in particular (p"K" = –14), as well as an ability to form only weak hydrogen bonds.


title: Phosphine

text: The aqueous solubility of is slight; 0.22 cm of gas dissolves in 1 cm of water. Phosphine dissolves more readily in non-polar solvents than in water because of the non-polar P−H bonds. It is technically amphoteric in water, but acid and base activity is poor. Proton exchange proceeds via a phosphonium () ion in acidic solutions and via phosphanide () at high pH, with equilibrium constants "K" = and "K" = .


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine upon contact with water at high pressure and temperature produces phosphoric acid and hydrogen:


title: Phosphine

text: Burning phosphine in the air produced phosphorus pentoxide (PO) (which reacts with water to produce phosphoric acid):


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine may be prepared in a variety of ways. Industrially it can be made by the reaction of white phosphorus with sodium or potassium hydroxide, producing potassium or sodium hypophosphite as a by-product.


title: Phosphine

text: Alternatively, the acid-catalyzed disproportionation of white phosphorus yields phosphoric acid and phosphine. Both routes have industrial significance; the acid route is the preferred method if further reaction of the phosphine to substituted phosphines is needed. The acid route requires purification and pressurizing.


title: Phosphine

text: Alternative methods are the hydrolysis of tris(trimethylsilyl)phosphine, or of metal phosphides such as aluminium phosphide, or calcium phosphide:


title: Phosphine

text: Pure samples of phosphine, free from , may be prepared using the action of potassium hydroxide on phosphonium iodide :


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine is a worldwide constituent of the Earth's atmosphere at very low and highly variable concentrations. It may contribute significantly to the global phosphorus biochemical cycle. The most likely source is reduction of phosphate in decaying organic matter, possibly via partial reductions and disproportionations, since environmental systems do not have known reducing agents of sufficient strength to directly convert phosphate to phosphine.


title: Phosphine

text: In 2020 a spectroscopic analysis was reported to show signs of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus in quantities that could not be explained by known abiotic processes. Later re-analysis of this work showed interpolation errors had been made, re-analysis of data with the fixed algorithm either do not result in the detection of phosphine or detect it with a much lower concentration of 1 ppb.


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine is a precursor to many organophosphorus compounds. It reacts with formaldehyde in the presence of hydrogen chloride to give tetrakis(hydroxymethyl)phosphonium chloride, which is used in textiles. The hydrophosphination of alkenes is versatile route to a variety of phosphines. For example, in the presence of basic catalysts adds of Michael acceptors. Thus with acrylonitrile, it reacts to give tris(cyanoethyl)phosphine:


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine is used as a dopant in the semiconductor industry, and a precursor for the deposition of compound semiconductors. Commercially significant products include gallium phosphide and indium phosphide.


title: Phosphine

text: For farm use, pellets of aluminium phosphide (AlP), calcium phosphide (CaP), or zinc phosphide (ZnP) release phosphine upon contact with atmospheric water or rodents' stomach acid. These pellets also contain agents to reduce the potential for ignition or explosion of the released phosphine. A more recent alternative is the use of phosphine gas itself which requires dilution with either or or even air to bring it below the flammability point. Use of the gas avoids the issues related with the solid residues left by metal phosphide and results in faster, more efficient control of the target pests.


title: Phosphine

text: Because the previously popular fumigant methyl bromide has been phased out in some countries under the Montreal Protocol, phosphine is the only widely used, cost-effective, rapidly acting fumigant that does not leave residues on the stored product. Pests with high levels of resistance toward phosphine have become common in Asia, Australia and Brazil. High level resistance is also likely to occur in other regions, but has not been as closely monitored. Genetic variants that contribute to high level resistance to phosphine have been identified in the dihydrolipoamide dehydrogenase gene. Identification of this gene now allows rapid molecular identification of resistant insects.


title: Phosphine

text: Deaths have resulted from accidental exposure to fumigation materials containing aluminium phosphide or phosphine. It can be absorbed either by inhalation or transdermally. As a respiratory poison, it affects the transport of oxygen or interferes with the utilization of oxygen by various cells in the body. Exposure results in pulmonary edema (the lungs fill with fluid). Phosphine gas is heavier than air so it stays near the floor.


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine appears to be mainly a redox toxin, causing cell damage by inducing oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Resistance in insects is caused by a mutation in a mitochondrial metabolic gene.


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine can be absorbed into the body by inhalation. Direct contact with phosphine liquid – although unlikely to occur – may cause frostbite, like other cryogenic liquids. The main target organ of phosphine gas is the respiratory tract. According to the 2009 U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) pocket guide, and U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation, the 8 hour average respiratory exposure should not exceed 0.3 ppm. NIOSH recommends that the short term respiratory exposure to phosphine gas should not exceed 1 ppm. The Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health level is 50 ppm. Overexposure to phosphine gas causes nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, thirst, chest tightness, dyspnea (breathing difficulty), muscle pain, chills, stupor or syncope, and pulmonary edema. Phosphine has been reported to have the odor of decaying fish or garlic at concentrations below 0.3 ppm. The smell is normally restricted to laboratory areas or phosphine processing since the smell comes from the way the phosphine is extracted from the environment. However, it may occur elsewhere, such as in industrial waste landfills. Exposure to higher concentrations may cause olfactory fatigue.


title: Phosphine

text: Phosphine gas is denser than air and hence may collect in low-lying areas. It can form explosive mixtures with air, and may also self-ignite.


title: Difference engine

text: A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. It was designed in the 1820s, and was first created by Charles Babbage. The name, the difference engine, is derived from the method of divided differences, a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial co-efficients. Some of the most common mathematical functions used in engineering, science and navigation, were, and still are computable with the use of the difference engine's capability of computing logarithmic and trigonometric functions, which can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful tables of numbers.


title: Difference engine

text: The notion of a mechanical calculator for mathematical functions can be traced back to the Antikythera mechanism of the 2nd century BC, while early modern examples are attributed to Pascal and Leibniz in the 17th century.


title: Difference engine

text: In 1784 J. H. Müller, an engineer in the Hessian army, devised and built an adding machine and described the basic principles of a difference machine in a book published in 1786 (the first written reference to a difference machine is dated to 1784), but he was unable to obtain funding to progress with the idea.


title: Difference engine

text: Charles Babbage began to construct a small difference engine in c. 1819 and had completed it by 1822 (Difference Engine 0). He announced his invention on 14 June 1822, in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society, entitled "Note on the application of machinery to the computation of astronomical and mathematical tables". This machine used the decimal number system and was powered by cranking a handle. The British government was interested, since producing tables was time-consuming and expensive and they hoped the difference engine would make the task more economical.


title: Difference engine

text: In 1823, the British government gave Babbage £1700 to start work on the project. Although Babbage's design was feasible, the metalworking techniques of the era could not economically make parts in the precision and quantity required. Thus the implementation proved to be much more expensive and doubtful of success than the government's initial estimate. According to the 1830 design it would have about 25,000 parts and would have weighed an estimated 4 tons. In 1832, Babbage and Joseph Clement produced a small working model (one-seventh of the calculating section of Difference Engine No. 1, which was intended to operate on 20-digit numbers and sixth-order differences) which operated on 6-digit numbers and second-order differences. Lady Byron described seeing the working prototype in 1833: "We both went to see the thinking machine (or so it seems) last Monday. It raised several Nos. to the 2nd and 3rd powers, and extracted the root of a Quadratic equation." Work on the larger engine was suspended in 1833.


title: Difference engine

text: By the time the government abandoned the project in 1842, Babbage had received and spent over £17,000 on development, which still fell short of achieving a working engine. The government valued only the machine's output (economically produced tables), not the development (at unpredictable cost) of the machine itself. Babbage did not, or was unwilling to, recognize that predicament. Meanwhile, Babbage's attention had moved on to developing an analytical engine, further undermining the government's confidence in the eventual success of the difference engine. By improving the concept as an analytical engine, Babbage had made the difference engine concept obsolete, and the project to implement it an utter failure in the view of the government.


title: Difference engine

text: The incomplete Difference Engine No. 1 was put on display to the public at the 1862 International Exhibition in South Kensington, London.


title: Difference engine

text: Babbage went on to design his much more general analytical engine, but later produced an improved "Difference Engine No. 2" design (31-digit numbers and seventh-order differences), between 1846 and 1849. Babbage was able to take advantage of ideas developed for the analytical engine to make the new difference engine calculate more quickly while using fewer parts.


title: Difference engine

text: Inspired by Babbage's difference engine in 1834, Per Georg Scheutz built several experimental models. In 1837 his son Edward proposed to construct a working model in metal, and in 1840 finished the calculating part, capable of calculating series with 5-digit numbers and first-order differences, which was later extended to third-order (1842). In 1843, after adding the printing part, the model was completed.


title: Difference engine

text: In 1851, funded by the government, construction of the larger and improved (15-digit numbers and fourth-order differences) machine began, and finished in 1853. The machine was demonstrated at the World's Fair in Paris, 1855 and then sold in 1856 to the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York. Delivered in 1857, it was the first printing calculator sold. In 1857 the British government ordered the next Scheutz's difference machine, which was built in 1859. It had the same basic construction as the previous one, weighing about .


title: Difference engine

text: Martin Wiberg improved Scheutz's construction (c. 1859, his machine has the same capacity as Scheutz's - 15-digit and fourth-order) but used his device only for producing and publishing printed tables (interest tables in 1860, and logarithmic tables in 1875).


title: Difference engine

text: Alfred Deacon of London in c. 1862 produced a small difference engine (20-digit numbers and third-order differences).


title: Difference engine

text: American George B. Grant started working on his calculating machine in 1869, unaware of the works of Babbage and Scheutz (Schentz). One year later (1870) he learned about difference engines and proceeded to design one himself, describing his construction in 1871. In 1874 the Boston Thursday Club raised a subscription for the construction of a large-scale model, which was built in 1876. It could be expanded to enhance precision and weighed about .


title: Difference engine

text: Christel Hamann built one machine (16-digit numbers and second-order differences) in 1909 for the "Tables of Bauschinger and Peters" ("Logarithmic-Trigonometrical Tables with eight decimal places"), which was first published in Leipzig in 1910. It weighed about .


title: Difference engine

text: Burroughs Corporation in about 1912 built a machine for the Nautical Almanac Office which was used as a difference engine of second-order. It was later replaced in 1929 by a Burroughs Class 11 (13-digit numbers and second-order differences, or 11-digit numbers and <nowiki>[at least up to]</nowiki> fifth-order differences).


title: Difference engine

text: Alexander John Thompson about 1927 built "integrating and differencing machine" (13-digit numbers and fifth-order differences) for his table of logarithms "Logarithmetica britannica". This machine was composed of four modified Triumphator calculators.


title: Difference engine

text: Leslie Comrie in 1928 described how to use the Brunsviga-Dupla calculating machine as a difference engine of second-order (15-digit numbers). He also noted in 1931 that National Accounting Machine Class 3000 could be used as a difference engine of sixth-order.


title: Difference engine

text: During the 1980s, Allan G. Bromley, an associate professor at the University of Sydney, Australia, studied Babbage's original drawings for the Difference and Analytical Engines at the Science Museum library in London. This work led the Science Museum to construct a working calculating section of difference engine No. 2 from 1985 to 1991, under Doron Swade, the then Curator of Computing. This was to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Babbage's birth in 1991. In 2002, the printer which Babbage originally designed for the difference engine was also completed. The conversion of the original design drawings into drawings suitable for engineering manufacturers' use revealed some minor errors in Babbage's design (possibly introduced as a protection in case the plans were stolen), which had to be corrected. Once completed, both the engine and its printer worked flawlessly, and still do. The difference engine and printer were constructed to tolerances achievable with 19th-century technology, resolving a long-standing debate as to whether Babbage's design would have worked (one of the reasons formerly advanced for the non-completion of Babbage's engines had been that engineering methods were insufficiently developed in the late Georgian era). It consists of 8,000 parts and weighs about 5 tons.


title: Difference engine

text: The printer's primary purpose is to produce stereotype plates for use in printing presses, which it does by pressing type into soft plaster to create a flong. Babbage intended that the Engine's results be conveyed directly to mass printing, having recognized that many errors in previous tables were not the result of human calculating mistakes but from error in the manual typesetting process. The printer's paper output is mainly a means of checking the engine's performance.


title: Difference engine

text: In addition to funding the construction of the output mechanism for the Science Museum's difference engine, Nathan Myhrvold commissioned the construction of a second complete Difference Engine No. 2, which was on exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California from 10 May 2008 until 31 January 2016.


title: Difference engine

text: It has since been transferred to Intellectual Ventures in Seattle where it is on display just outside the main lobby.


title: Difference engine

text: The difference engine consists of a number of columns, numbered from 1 to N. The machine is able to store one decimal number in each column. The machine can only add the value of a column "n" + 1 to column "n" to produce the new value of "n". Column "N" can only store a constant, column 1 displays (and possibly prints) the value of the calculation on the current iteration.


title: Difference engine

text: The engine is programmed by setting initial values to the columns. Column 1 is set to the value of the polynomial at the start of computation. Column 2 is set to a value derived from the first and higher derivatives of the polynomial at the same value of X. Each of the columns from 3 to "N" is set to a value derived from the formula_1 first and higher derivatives of the polynomial.


title: Difference engine

text: In the Babbage design, one iteration (i.e., one full set of addition and carry operations) happens for each rotation of the main shaft. Odd and even columns alternately perform an addition in one cycle. The sequence of operations for column formula_2 is thus:


title: Difference engine

text: While Babbage's original design placed the crank directly on the main shaft, it was later realized that the force required to crank the machine would have been too great for a human to handle comfortably. Therefore, the two models that were built incorporate a 4:1 reduction gear at the crank, and four revolutions of the crank are required to perform one full cycle.


title: Difference engine

text: Each iteration creates a new result, and is accomplished in four steps corresponding to four complete turns of the handle shown at the far right in the picture below. The four steps are:


title: Difference engine

text: The engine represents negative numbers as ten's complements. Subtraction amounts to addition of a negative number. This works in the same manner that modern computers perform subtraction, known as two's complement.


title: Difference engine

text: The principle of a difference engine is Newton's method of divided differences. If the initial value of a polynomial (and of its finite differences) is calculated by some means for some value of X, the difference engine can calculate any number of nearby values, using the method generally known as the method of finite differences. For example, consider the quadratic polynomial


title: Difference engine

text: with the goal of tabulating the values "p"(0), "p"(1), "p"(2), "p"(3), "p"(4), and so forth. The table below is constructed as follows: the second column contains the values of the polynomial, the third column contains the differences of the two left neighbors in the second column, and the fourth column contains the differences of the two neighbors in the third column: