title: UPS Airlines Flight 6

text: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed responsibility for the crash in addition to the 2010 transatlantic aircraft bomb plot. However, U.S. and United Arab Emirates investigators had said they had not found any evidence of an explosion or terrorist involvement in that incident, and were skeptical about the claim. They suggested it was probably an attempt by AQAP to bolster its image. On September 10, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the AQAP was not involved in the crash.


title: UPS Airlines Flight 6

text: The crash was featured in the 15th season of "Mayday" (or "Air Crash Investigation") on 11 January 2016. The episode aired on the National Geographic Channel in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world and is entitled "Fatal Delivery".


title: Northeast Regional

text: The Northeast Regional is an intercity rail service operated by Amtrak in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. In the past it has been known as the "NortheastDirect", "Acela Regional", or "Regional". It is Amtrak's busiest route, carrying 8,686,930 passengers in fiscal year (FY) 2018, a 1.4% increase over the 8.57 million passengers in FY 2017. The "Northeast Regional" service earned over $613.9 million in gross ticket revenue in FY 2016, a 0.4% increase over the $611.7 million earned during FY 2015.


title: Northeast Regional

text: The "Northeast Regional" offers daily all-reserved service, usually at least every hour. Trains generally run along the Northeast Corridor between Boston, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., via New York City. Extensions and branches provide service to Newport News, Norfolk, and Roanoke, Virginia, and Springfield, Massachusetts, with intermediate stops.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Trains cover the most popular stretch between Pennsylvania Station (New York City) and Washington Union Station in approximately 3.5 hours. The section between New York and Philadelphia takes 1.5 hours, while the part between Philadelphia and Washington takes 2 hours. North of New York, the travel time to Boston is 4 hours, while trips to Springfield take 3.5 hours. South of Washington, trains take 4.5 hours to reach Newport News, 4.5 hours to reach Norfolk, or 5 hours to reach Roanoke.


title: Northeast Regional

text: The services along the line, as inherited from Penn Central, once had their own names, such as the ""Yankee Clipper"" and the ""Federal""; typically a name applied to at most one train and its "twin" in the opposite direction. Electrification ended at New Haven, Connecticut, requiring an engine change. On October 28, 1995, Amtrak introduced the ""NortheastDirect"" brand for all trains on the Northeast Corridor (and its extension to Newport News, Virginia) except for the express and hourly services. The November 10, 1996, timetable restored the old names in addition to the "NortheastDirect" brand. The names (except the ) were dropped with the May 16, 1999, schedule.


title: Northeast Regional

text: In 2000, Amtrak completed electrifying the route from New Haven to Boston in preparation for the introduction of the "Acela Express", thereby eliminating the engine change at New Haven. The first two all-electric round-trips to and from Boston were branded "Acela Regional" and equipped with refurbished Amfleet cars painted in the Acela-like "Phase V" livery. All-electric service began on January 31, 2000. The "NortheastDirect" branding continued to be used for trains which changed from electric to diesel traction in New Haven.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Due to customer confusion with the "Acela Express", the name was changed again on March 17, 2003, to simply ""Regional"." As part of rebranding and service improvements, the name was changed to ""Northeast Regional"" on June 23, 2008 (though it also appeared on schedules several months beforehand).


title: Northeast Regional

text: On May 12, 2015, "Northeast Regional" Train 188, traveling from Washington, D.C., to New York City, derailed in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia, killing eight people and injuring more than 200 people. The train derailed along a curve and was determined to have been traveling at a speed of about 100 mph, exceeding the limit of 50 mph on that curve. This speed limit was not posted; engineers on that route are expected to rely on memory to control the speed of the train. Additionally, the train was suspected to have been hit by a projectile, as was a commuter train in the area shortly before the derailment.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Private sleeping rooms on overnight trains 65/66/67, last available in 2004 on the "Federal", were made available effective April 5, 2021.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Some "Northeast Regional" trains continue into Virginia, serving three branches to Norfolk, Newport News, and Roanoke, serving points in between. These tracks are not electrified and are partially owned by both freight railroads and the State of Virginia.


title: Northeast Regional

text: After Amtrak took over intercity passenger service on May 1, 1971, rail service in Virginia was limited to a small number of long-distance trains, where they were often not suited to regional travel. Regional service south to Newport News began on June 14, 1976, when Amtrak ended the Newport News section of the and the was added in its place with two daily round trips from Boston to Newport News via Alexandria, Richmond and Williamsburg.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Virginia and Amtrak partnered in 2009 under the brand "Amtrak Virginia" to expand passenger rail service within the Commonwealth, making Virginia the 15th state to fund state services in addition to federally funded routes. One daily "Northeast Regional" round trip was extended to from Washington to Lynchburg via Manassas and Charlottesville on October 1, 2009, supplementing the existing "Crescent" service. In the first month, ridership doubled expectations. On July 20, 2010, Amtrak added an additional "Northeast Regional" frequency from Washington to Richmond Staples Mill Road station, increasing the Washington-Richmond corridor to eight daily round trips with hourly northbound morning service.


title: Northeast Regional

text: A further extension south from Richmond to Norfolk along Norfolk Southern tracks was planned by the Department of Rail & Public Transportation (DRPT), and the Commonwealth of Virginia in cooperation with Amtrak. Certain track upgrades (e.g., passing sidings, replacing track to increase operating speeds) between Richmond and Norfolk that were necessary to enable this extension were funded jointly by Norfolk Southern and DRPT. Service started on December 12, 2012. A second daily Norfolk round trip on weekdays was added on March 4, 2019. Schedules for the Newport News trains are also being modified to improve service to the Hampton Roads region.


title: Northeast Regional

text: On August 9, 2013, it was announced that Amtrak hoped to complete track and infrastructure upgrades in order to bring train service to Roanoke by 2016. The project encountered delays, and by late 2016 service was planned to begin in late 2017 with a single train extended from Lynchburg serving the city daily after construction of the Roanoke station platform, which was to begin in early 2017 and take most of the year. Amtrak began service to Roanoke on October 31, 2017.


title: Northeast Regional

text: On December 19, 2019, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced a $3.7 billion program to expand rail service in Virginia, which includes doubling the frequency of Amtrak service between Richmond and Washington. As part of the program, the commonwealth paid CSX Transportation $525 million to purchase 223 miles of track and 386 miles of right-of-way, a deal which was finalized on March 31, 2021. One round trip was extended from Staples Mill to Main Street in September 2021 as the first service expansion under the program. Service changes on July 11, 2022, added a second daily Roanoke round trip and an additional Norfolk weekday round trip (making three round trips on weekdays and two on weekends). That change resulted in July 2022 ridership on the state-supported Virginia routes being 20% higher than June 2022 and 29% higher than July 2019.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Extension of the route south of Roanoke to Christiansburg, Virginia, near Virginia Tech, is proposed, with further extension to Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee as a long-range possibility. Plans by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) depend on difficult negotiations with Norfolk Southern, and funding improvements for both freight and passenger service, as in previous agreements with private carriers. The town of Christiansburg acquired land for a new station in 2016. Meanwhile, the DRPT has started a statewide bus service, operated by Megabus, called the Virginia Breeze, for areas not served by rail. The three daily bus routes terminate at Washington Union Station, with stops at a few other "Northeast Regional" stations, and bypassing others for stops closer to highways. Closed in 1979, Bedford station in Bedford, Virginia, was not reopened as part of the extension to Roanoke. In 2021, the DRPT estimated that an infill station in Bedford would draw 10,050 new riders per year, cost $10.9 million, and could be completed by 2025.


title: Northeast Regional

text: As of 2018, most "Northeast Regional" trains consist of 7 to 9 passenger cars hauled by a locomotive.


title: Northeast Regional

text: The passenger cars are the Amfleet I series passenger cars built by the Budd Company in the mid-to-late 1970s. Most trains include a Business Class car, a Café car (food service/lounge), and up to seven Coach Class cars, one of which is designated the quiet car, where passengers are asked to refrain from loud talking and mobile phone conversations.


title: Northeast Regional

text: The overnight "Northeast Regional" service (trains 65, 66, and 67) have a different configuration with fewer Coach Class cars, a combination Business Class/Café car, a baggage car for checked baggage service, and a Viewliner sleeping car which travels the full route to and from Newport News, VA but is only open to passengers between Boston and Washington.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Between Boston and Washington, the service has overhead electric wires and is pulled by Siemens ACS-64 electric locomotives built from 2012 to 2015 at speeds up to . "Northeast Regional" trains operating south of Washington, D.C. into Virginia and on the New Haven–Springfield Line use GE Genesis P42DC diesel locomotives which have a slightly lower top speed of .


title: Northeast Regional

text: All classes of service include complimentary WiFi, an electric outlet (120 V, 60 Hz AC) at each seat, reading lamps, fold-out tray tables. Reservations are required on all trains, tickets may also be purchased at a station ticket window through a ticketing machine, or, at a higher cost, from the conductor on the train.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Most "Northeast Regional" trains operate over the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington (via New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore). The corridor is owned, in part, by Amtrak, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), Metro-North Railroad (MNRR), and the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT).


title: Northeast Regional

text: Some trips diverge at New Haven and turn north to serve Springfield, Massachusetts, operating over Amtrak’s New Haven–Springfield Line. For trains that don’t, Amtrak’s trains provide connecting service along the line, with timed transfers to and from many "Northeast Regional" trips.


title: Northeast Regional

text: Several trips continue south of Washington D.C. to Virginia, running to either Roanoke, Richmond, Newport News, or Norfolk. All Virginia services use the northernmost portion of the ex-Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad (now owned by CSX Transportation) between Washington and Alexandria, Virginia. South of Alexandria, trains to Roanoke use the Norfolk Southern Railway (ex-Southern Railway, ex-Virginia Midland Railway). Trains to Richmond, Norfolk and Newport News use the CSX RF&P, Richmond Terminal, and Bellwood subdivisions between Alexandria and Richmond.


title: Northeast Regional

text: South of Richmond, trains to Newport News use the CSX Peninsula Subdivision. Trains to Norfolk use the CSX North End Subdivision and Norfolk Southern's Norfolk District (ex-Norfolk and Western Railway).


title: Northeast Regional

text: Amtrak receives federal funding for its operations between Boston and Washington, D.C. "Northeast Regional" operations south of Washington are funded in part by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Operations along the New Haven–Springfield Line are funded by the State of Connecticut and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less is a book written by American psychologist Barry Schwartz and first published in 2004 by Harper Perennial. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers. The book analyses the behavior of different types of people (in particular, maximizers and satisficers) facing the rich choice. This book argues that the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution and how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: "Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically". This quote from his book summarises Schwartz's point of view with regards to having too many choices.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: "The Paradox of Choice" was published by Harper Perennial and was released in 2004, while the paperback version was released on 18th January 2005.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: Schwartz assembles his argument from a variety of fields of modern psychology that study how happiness is affected by success or failure of goal achievement.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: Schwartz compares the various choices that Americans face in their daily lives by comparing the selection of choices at a supermarket to the variety of classes at an Ivy League college:There are now several books and magazines devoted to what is called the "voluntary simplicity" movement. Its core idea is that we have too many choices, too many decisions, too little time to do what is really important. ... Taking care of our own "wants" and focusing on what we "want" to do does not strike me as a solution to the problem of too much choice.Schwartz maintains that it is precisely so that we can focus on our own wants that all of these choices emerged in the first place.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: Schwartz relates the ideas of psychologist Herbert A. Simon from the 1950s to the psychological stress that most consumers face today. He notes some important distinctions between, what Simon termed, "maximizers" and "satisficers". A "maximizer" is similar to a perfectionist, someone who needs to be assured that their every purchase or decision was the best that could be made. The way a maximizer knows for certain is to consider all the alternatives they can imagine. This creates a psychologically daunting task, which can become even more daunting as the number of options increases. The alternative to maximizing is to be a "satisficer". A satisficer has criteria and standards, but a satisficer is not worried about the possibility that there might be something better. Ultimately, Schwartz agrees with Simon's conclusion, that "satisficing" is, in fact, the "maximizing" strategy.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: Schwartz integrates various psychological models for happiness showing how the problem of choice can be addressed by different strategies. What is important to note is that each of these strategies comes with its own bundle of psychological complication.“Freedom of choice” leads people to feel powerless and frustrated, because choosing ‘one’ among many other options means giving up the rest of the opportunities. At the same time, since people can easily change and replace the choice, the absolute value of making a choice no longer exists.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: Attempts to duplicate the paradox of choice in other studies have had mixed success. A meta-analysis incorporating research from 50 independent studies found no meaningful connection between choice and anxiety, but speculated that the variance in the studies left open the possibility that choice overload could be tied to certain highly specific and as yet poorly understood pre-conditions.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: A new meta-analysis, conducted in 2015 and incorporating 99 studies, was able to isolate when reducing choices for your customers is most likely to boost sales. The study identified four key factors—choice set complexity, decision task difficulty, preference uncertainty, and decision goal—that moderate the impact of assortment size on choice overload. It also documented that when moderating variables are taken into account the overall effect of assortment size on choice overload is significant—a finding counter to the data reported by prior meta-analytic research.


title: The Paradox of Choice

text: Research presented in an article by Alexander Chernev demonstrates that, contrary to the common wisdom that more choice is always better, selections made from large assortments can lead to weaker preferences. Building on the extant literature, this research identifies ideal point availability as a key factor that determines when large assortments will strengthen consumer preferences and when large assortments will weaken preferences. It also states that the ideal point availability is also a key factor in consumer choices.


title: Weather vane

text: A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word "vane" comes from the Old English word , meaning "flag".


title: Weather vane

text: Although partly functional, wind vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass. Other common motifs include ships, arrows, and horses. Not all wind vanes have pointers. In a sufficiently strong wind, the head of the arrow or cockerel (or equivalent) will indicate the direction from which the wind is blowing.


title: Weather vane

text: The oldest textual reference in China to a weather vane comes from the "Huainanzi" dating from around 139 BC, which mentions a thread or streamer that another commentator interprets as "wind-observing fan" (, ). The Tower of the Winds on the ancient Greek "agora" in Athens once bore on its roof a weather vane in the form of a bronze Triton holding a rod in his outstretched hand, rotating as the wind changed direction. Below this was a frieze adorned with the eight Greek wind deities. The eight-metre-high structure also featured sundials, and a water clock inside. It dates from around 50 BC.


title: Weather vane

text: Military documents from the Three Kingdoms period of China (220–280) refer to the weather vane as "five ounces" (, ), named after the weight of its materials. By the third century, Chinese weather vanes were shaped like birds and took the name of "wind-indicating bird" (, ). The (), a third-century book written by Miao Changyan about the palaces at Chang'an, describes a bird-shaped weather vane situated on a tower roof.


title: Weather vane

text: The oldest surviving weather vane with the shape of a rooster is the "Gallo di Ramperto", made in 820 and now preserved in the Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia, Lombardy.


title: Weather vane

text: Pope Gregory I said that the cock "was the most suitable emblem of Christianity", being the emblem of St Peter, a reference to in which Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows.


title: Weather vane

text: As a result of this, the rooster gradually began to be used as a weather vane on church steeples, and in the ninth century Pope Nicholas I ordered the figure to be placed on every church steeple.


title: Weather vane

text: One alternative theory about the origin of weathercocks on church steeples is that it was an emblem of the vigilance of the clergy calling the people to prayer.


title: Weather vane

text: Another theory says that the cock was not a Christian symbol but an emblem of the sun derived from the Goths.


title: Weather vane

text: A few churches used weather vanes in the shape of the emblems of their patron saints. The City of London has two surviving examples. The weather vane of St Peter upon Cornhill is not in the shape of a rooster, but a key; while St Lawrence Jewry's weather vane is in the form of a gridiron.


title: Weather vane

text: Early weather vanes had very ornamental pointers, but modern weather vanes are usually simple arrows that dispense with the directionals because the instrument is connected to a remote reading station. An early example of this was installed in the Royal Navy's Admiralty building in London – the vane on the roof was mechanically linked to a large dial in the boardroom so senior officers were always aware of the wind direction when they met.


title: Weather vane

text: Modern "aerovanes" combine the directional vane with an anemometer (a device for measuring wind speed). Co-locating both instruments allows them to use the same axis (a vertical rod) and provides a coordinated readout.


title: Weather vane

text: According to the Guinness World Records, the world's largest weather vane is a Tío Pepe sherry advertisement located in Jerez, Spain. The city of Montague, Michigan also claims to have the largest standard-design weather vane, being a ship and arrow which measures tall, with an arrow long.


title: Weather vane

text: A challenger for the title of world's largest weather vane is located in Whitehorse, Yukon. The weather vane is a retired Douglas DC-3 CF-CPY a top a swiveling support. Located at the Yukon Transportation Museum beside Whitehorse International Airport, the weather vane is used by pilots to determine wind direction, used as a landmark by tourists and enjoyed by locals. The weather vane only requires a 5 knot wind to rotate.


title: Weather vane

text: A challenger for the world's tallest weather vane is located in Westlock, Alberta. The classic weather vane that reaches to is topped by a 1942 Case Model D Tractor. This landmark is located at the Canadian Tractor Museum.


title: Weather vane

text: The term "weathervane" is also a slang word for a politician who has frequent changes of opinion. The National Assembly of Quebec has banned the use of this slang term as an insult after its use by members of the legislature.


title: Spinor

text: In geometry and physics, spinors are elements of a complex vector space that can be associated with Euclidean space. Like geometric vectors and more general tensors, spinors transform linearly when the Euclidean space is subjected to a slight (infinitesimal) rotation. Unlike vectors and tensors, a spinor transforms to its negative when the space is continuously rotated through a complete turn from 0° to 360° (see picture). This property characterizes spinors: spinors can be viewed as the "square roots" of vectors (although this is inaccurate and may be misleading; they are better viewed as "square roots" of sections of vector bundles – in the case of the exterior algebra bundle of the cotangent bundle, they thus become "square roots" of differential forms).


title: Spinor

text: It is also possible to associate a substantially similar notion of spinor to Minkowski space, in which case the Lorentz transformations of special relativity play the role of rotations. Spinors were introduced in geometry by Élie Cartan in 1913. In the 1920s physicists discovered that spinors are essential to describe the intrinsic angular momentum, or "spin", of the electron and other subatomic particles.


title: Spinor

text: Spinors are characterized by the specific way in which they behave under rotations. They change in different ways depending not just on the overall final rotation, but the details of how that rotation was achieved (by a continuous path in the rotation group). There are two topologically distinguishable classes (homotopy classes) of paths through rotations that result in the same overall rotation, as illustrated by the belt trick puzzle. These two inequivalent classes yield spinor transformations of opposite sign. The spin group is the group of all rotations keeping track of the class. It doubly covers the rotation group, since each rotation can be obtained in two inequivalent ways as the endpoint of a path. The space of spinors by definition is equipped with a (complex) linear representation of the spin group, meaning that elements of the spin group act as linear transformations on the space of spinors, in a way that genuinely depends on the homotopy class. In mathematical terms, spinors are described by a double-valued projective representation of the rotation group SO(3).


title: Spinor

text: Although spinors can be defined purely as elements of a representation space of the spin group (or its Lie algebra of infinitesimal rotations), they are typically defined as elements of a vector space that carries a linear representation of the Clifford algebra. The Clifford algebra is an associative algebra that can be constructed from Euclidean space and its inner product in a basis-independent way. Both the spin group and its Lie algebra are embedded inside the Clifford algebra in a natural way, and in applications the Clifford algebra is often the easiest to work with. A Clifford space operates on a spinor space, and the elements of a spinor space are spinors. After choosing an orthonormal basis of Euclidean space, a representation of the Clifford algebra is generated by gamma matrices, matrices that satisfy a set of canonical anti-commutation relations. The spinors are the column vectors on which these matrices act. In three Euclidean dimensions, for instance, the Pauli spin matrices are a set of gamma matrices, and the two-component complex column vectors on which these matrices act are spinors. However, the particular matrix representation of the Clifford algebra, hence what precisely constitutes a "column vector" (or spinor), involves the choice of basis and gamma matrices in an essential way. As a representation of the spin group, this realization of spinors as (complex) column vectors will either be irreducible if the dimension is odd, or it will decompose into a pair of so-called "half-spin" or Weyl representations if the dimension is even.


title: Spinor

text: What characterizes spinors and distinguishes them from geometric vectors and other tensors is subtle. Consider applying a rotation to the coordinates of a system. No object in the system itself has moved, only the coordinates have, so there will always be a compensating change in those coordinate values when applied to any object of the system. Geometrical vectors, for example, have components that will undergo "the same" rotation as the coordinates. More broadly, any tensor associated with the system (for instance, the stress of some medium) also has coordinate descriptions that adjust to compensate for changes to the coordinate system itself.


title: Spinor

text: Spinors do not appear at this level of the description of a physical system, when one is concerned only with the properties of a single isolated rotation of the coordinates. Rather, spinors appear when we imagine that instead of a single rotation, the coordinate system is gradually (continuously) rotated between some initial and final configuration. For any of the familiar and intuitive ("tensorial") quantities associated with the system, the transformation law does not depend on the precise details of how the coordinates arrived at their final configuration. Spinors, on the other hand, are constructed in such a way that makes them "sensitive" to how the gradual rotation of the coordinates arrived there: They exhibit path-dependence. It turns out that, for any final configuration of the coordinates, there are actually two ("topologically") inequivalent "gradual" (continuous) rotations of the coordinate system that result in this same configuration. This ambiguity is called the homotopy class of the gradual rotation. The belt trick puzzle (shown) demonstrates two different rotations, one through an angle of 2 and the other through an angle of 4, having the same final configurations but different classes. Spinors actually exhibit a sign-reversal that genuinely depends on this homotopy class. This distinguishes them from vectors and other tensors, none of which can feel the class.


title: Spinor

text: Spinors can be exhibited as concrete objects using a choice of Cartesian coordinates. In three Euclidean dimensions, for instance, spinors can be constructed by making a choice of Pauli spin matrices corresponding to (angular momenta about) the three coordinate axes. These are 2×2 matrices with complex entries, and the two-component complex column vectors on which these matrices act by matrix multiplication are the spinors. In this case, the spin group is isomorphic to the group of 2×2 unitary matrices with determinant one, which naturally sits inside the matrix algebra. This group acts by conjugation on the real vector space spanned by the Pauli matrices themselves, realizing it as a group of rotations among them, but it also acts on the column vectors (that is, the spinors).


title: Spinor

text: More generally, a Clifford algebra can be constructed from any vector space "V" equipped with a (nondegenerate) quadratic form, such as Euclidean space with its standard dot product or Minkowski space with its standard Lorentz metric. The space of spinors is the space of column vectors with formula_1 components. The orthogonal Lie algebra (i.e., the infinitesimal "rotations") and the spin group associated to the quadratic form are both (canonically) contained in the Clifford algebra, so every Clifford algebra representation also defines a representation of the Lie algebra and the spin group. Depending on the dimension and metric signature, this realization of spinors as column vectors may be irreducible or it may decompose into a pair of so-called "half-spin" or Weyl representations. When the vector space "V" is four-dimensional, the algebra is described by the gamma matrices.


title: Spinor

text: The space of spinors is formally defined as the fundamental representation of the Clifford algebra. (This may or may not decompose into irreducible representations.) The space of spinors may also be defined as a spin representation of the orthogonal Lie algebra. These spin representations are also characterized as the finite-dimensional projective representations of the special orthogonal group that do not factor through linear representations. Equivalently, a spinor is an element of a finite-dimensional group representation of the spin group on which the center acts non-trivially.


title: Spinor

text: From a representation theoretic point of view, one knows beforehand that there are some representations of the Lie algebra of the orthogonal group that cannot be formed by the usual tensor constructions. These missing representations are then labeled the spin representations, and their constituents "spinors". From this view, a spinor must belong to a representation of the double cover of the rotation group , or more generally of a double cover of the generalized special orthogonal group on spaces with a metric signature of . These double covers are Lie groups, called the spin groups or . All the properties of spinors, and their applications and derived objects, are manifested first in the spin group. Representations of the double covers of these groups yield double-valued projective representations of the groups themselves. (This means that the action of a particular rotation on vectors in the quantum Hilbert space is only defined up to a sign.)


title: Spinor

text: In summary, given a representation specified by the data formula_2 where formula_3 is a vector space over formula_4 or formula_5 and formula_6 is a homomorphism formula_7, a spinor is an element of the vector space formula_3.


title: Spinor

text: From a geometrical point of view, one can explicitly construct the spinors and then examine how they behave under the action of the relevant Lie groups. This latter approach has the advantage of providing a concrete and elementary description of what a spinor is. However, such a description becomes unwieldy when complicated properties of the spinors, such as Fierz identities, are needed.


title: Spinor

text: The language of Clifford algebras (sometimes called geometric algebras) provides a complete picture of the spin representations of all the spin groups, and the various relationships between those representations, via the classification of Clifford algebras. It largely removes the need for "ad hoc" constructions.


title: Spinor

text: In detail, let "V" be a finite-dimensional complex vector space with nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form "g". The Clifford algebra is the algebra generated by "V" along with the anticommutation relation . It is an abstract version of the algebra generated by the gamma or Pauli matrices. If "V" = formula_9, with the standard form we denote the Clifford algebra by Cℓ(formula_10). Since by the choice of an orthonormal basis every complex vectorspace with non-degenerate form is isomorphic to this standard example, this notation is abused more generally if . If is even, is isomorphic as an algebra (in a non-unique way) to the algebra of complex matrices (by the Artin–Wedderburn theorem and the easy to prove fact that the Clifford algebra is central simple). If is odd, is isomorphic to the algebra of two copies of the complex matrices. Therefore, in either case has a unique (up to isomorphism) irreducible representation (also called simple Clifford module), commonly denoted by Δ, of dimension 2. Since the Lie algebra is embedded as a Lie subalgebra in equipped with the Clifford algebra commutator as Lie bracket, the space Δ is also a Lie algebra representation of called a spin representation. If "n" is odd, this Lie algebra representation is irreducible. If "n" is even, it splits further into two irreducible representations called the Weyl or "half-spin representations".


title: Spinor

text: Irreducible representations over the reals in the case when "V" is a real vector space are much more intricate, and the reader is referred to the Clifford algebra article for more details.


title: Spinor

text: Spinors form a vector space, usually over the complex numbers, equipped with a linear group representation of the spin group that does not factor through a representation of the group of rotations (see diagram). The spin group is the group of rotations keeping track of the homotopy class. Spinors are needed to encode basic information about the topology of the group of rotations because that group is not simply connected, but the simply connected spin group is its double cover. So for every rotation there are two elements of the spin group that represent it. Geometric vectors and other tensors cannot feel the difference between these two elements, but they produce "opposite" signs when they affect any spinor under the representation. Thinking of the elements of the spin group as homotopy classes of one-parameter families of rotations, each rotation is represented by two distinct homotopy classes of paths to the identity. If a one-parameter family of rotations is visualized as a ribbon in space, with the arc length parameter of that ribbon being the parameter (its tangent, normal, binormal frame actually gives the rotation), then these two distinct homotopy classes are visualized in the two states of the belt trick puzzle (above). The space of spinors is an auxiliary vector space that can be constructed explicitly in coordinates, but ultimately only exists up to isomorphism in that there is no "natural" construction of them that does not rely on arbitrary choices such as coordinate systems. A notion of spinors can be associated, as such an auxiliary mathematical object, with any vector space equipped with a quadratic form such as Euclidean space with its standard dot product, or Minkowski space with its Lorentz metric. In the latter case, the "rotations" include the Lorentz boosts, but otherwise the theory is substantially similar.


title: Spinor

text: The constructions given above, in terms of Clifford algebra or representation theory, can be thought of as defining spinors as geometric objects in zero-dimensional space-time. To obtain the spinors of physics, such as the Dirac spinor, one extends the construction to obtain a spin structure on 4-dimensional space-time (Minkowski space). Effectively, one starts with the tangent manifold of space-time, each point of which is a 4-dimensional vector space with SO(3,1) symmetry, and then builds the spin group at each point. The neighborhoods of points are endowed with concepts of smoothness and differentiability: the standard construction is one of a fibre bundle, the fibers of which are affine spaces transforming under the spin group. After constructing the fiber bundle, one may then consider differential equations, such as the Dirac equation, or the Weyl equation on the fiber bundle. These equations (Dirac or Weyl) have solutions that are plane waves, having symmetries characteristic of the fibers, "i.e." having the symmetries of spinors, as obtained from the (zero-dimensional) Clifford algebra/spin representation theory described above. Such plane-wave solutions (or other solutions) of the differential equations can then properly be called fermions; fermions have the algebraic qualities of spinors. By general convention, the terms "fermion" and "spinor" are often used interchangeably in physics, as synonyms of one-another.


title: Spinor

text: It appears that all fundamental particles in nature that are spin-1/2 are described by the Dirac equation, with the possible exception of the neutrino. There does not seem to be any "a priori" reason why this would be the case. A perfectly valid choice for spinors would be the non-complexified version of , the Majorana spinor. There also does not seem to be any particular prohibition to having Weyl spinors appear in nature as fundamental particles.


title: Spinor

text: The Dirac, Weyl, and Majorana spinors are interrelated, and their relation can be elucidated on the basis of real geometric algebra. Dirac and Weyl spinors are complex representations while Majorana spinors are real representations.


title: Spinor

text: Weyl spinors are insufficient to describe massive particles, such as electrons, since the Weyl plane-wave solutions necessarily travel at the speed of light; for massive particles, the Dirac equation is needed. The initial construction of the Standard Model of particle physics starts with both the electron and the neutrino as massless Weyl spinors; the Higgs mechanism gives electrons a mass; the classical neutrino remained massless, and was thus an example of a Weyl spinor. However, because of observed neutrino oscillation, it is now believed that they are not Weyl spinors, but perhaps instead Majorana spinors. It is not known whether Weyl spinor fundamental particles exist in nature.


title: Spinor

text: The situation for condensed matter physics is different: one can construct two and three-dimensional "spacetimes" in a large variety of different physical materials, ranging from semiconductors to far more exotic materials. In 2015, an international team led by Princeton University scientists announced that they had found a quasiparticle that behaves as a Weyl fermion.


title: Spinor

text: One major mathematical application of the construction of spinors is to make possible the explicit construction of linear representations of the Lie algebras of the special orthogonal groups, and consequently spinor representations of the groups themselves. At a more profound level, spinors have been found to be at the heart of approaches to the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, and to provide constructions in particular for discrete series representations of semisimple groups.


title: Spinor

text: The spin representations of the special orthogonal Lie algebras are distinguished from the tensor representations given by Weyl's construction by the weights. Whereas the weights of the tensor representations are integer linear combinations of the roots of the Lie algebra, those of the spin representations are half-integer linear combinations thereof. Explicit details can be found in the spin representation article.


title: Spinor

text: The spinor can be described, in simple terms, as "vectors of a space the transformations of which are related in a particular way to rotations in physical space". Stated differently:


title: Spinor

text: Several ways of illustrating everyday analogies have been formulated in terms of the plate trick, tangloids and other examples of orientation entanglement.


title: Spinor

text: Nonetheless, the concept is generally considered notoriously difficult to understand, as illustrated by Michael Atiyah's statement that is recounted by Dirac's biographer Graham Farmelo:


title: Spinor

text: The most general mathematical form of spinors was discovered by Élie Cartan in 1913. The word "spinor" was coined by Paul Ehrenfest in his work on quantum physics.


title: Spinor

text: Spinors were first applied to mathematical physics by Wolfgang Pauli in 1927, when he introduced his spin matrices. The following year, Paul Dirac discovered the fully relativistic theory of electron spin by showing the connection between spinors and the Lorentz group. By the 1930s, Dirac, Piet Hein and others at the Niels Bohr Institute (then known as the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Copenhagen) created toys such as Tangloids to teach and model the calculus of spinors.


title: Spinor

text: Spinor spaces were represented as left ideals of a matrix algebra in 1930, by G. Juvet and by Fritz Sauter. More specifically, instead of representing spinors as complex-valued 2D column vectors as Pauli had done, they represented them as complex-valued 2 × 2 matrices in which only the elements of the left column are non-zero. In this manner the spinor space became a minimal left ideal in .


title: Spinor

text: In 1947 Marcel Riesz constructed spinor spaces as elements of a minimal left ideal of Clifford algebras. In 1966/1967, David Hestenes replaced spinor spaces by the even subalgebra Cℓ(formula_11) of the spacetime algebra Cℓ(formula_11). As of the 1980s, the theoretical physics group at Birkbeck College around David Bohm and Basil Hiley has been developing algebraic approaches to quantum theory that build on Sauter and Riesz' identification of spinors with minimal left ideals.


title: Spinor

text: Some simple examples of spinors in low dimensions arise from considering the even-graded subalgebras of the Clifford algebra . This is an algebra built up from an orthonormal basis of mutually orthogonal vectors under addition and multiplication, "p" of which have norm +1 and "q" of which have norm −1, with the product rule for the basis vectors


title: Spinor

text: The Clifford algebra Cℓ(formula_11) is built up from a basis of one unit scalar, 1, two orthogonal unit vectors, "σ" and "σ", and one unit pseudoscalar . From the definitions above, it is evident that , and .


title: Spinor

text: The even subalgebra Cℓ(formula_11), spanned by "even-graded" basis elements of Cℓ(formula_11), determines the space of spinors via its representations. It is made up of real linear combinations of 1 and "σ""σ". As a real algebra, Cℓ(formula_11) is isomorphic to the field of complex numbers . As a result, it admits a conjugation operation (analogous to complex conjugation), sometimes called the "reverse" of a Clifford element, defined by


title: Spinor

text: The action of an even Clifford element on vectors, regarded as 1-graded elements of Cℓ(formula_11), is determined by mapping a general vector to the vector


title: Spinor

text: where formula_22 is the conjugate of formula_23, and the product is Clifford multiplication. In this situation, a spinor is an ordinary complex number. The action of formula_23 on a spinor formula_25 is given by ordinary complex multiplication:


title: Spinor

text: An important feature of this definition is the distinction between ordinary vectors and spinors, manifested in how the even-graded elements act on each of them in different ways. In general, a quick check of the Clifford relations reveals that even-graded elements conjugate-commute with ordinary vectors:


title: Spinor

text: On the other hand, in comparison with its action on spinors formula_28, the action of formula_23 on ordinary vectors appears as the "square" of its action on spinors.


title: Spinor

text: Consider, for example, the implication this has for plane rotations. Rotating a vector through an angle of "θ" corresponds to , so that the corresponding action on spinors is via . In general, because of logarithmic branching, it is impossible to choose a sign in a consistent way. Thus the representation of plane rotations on spinors is two-valued.


title: Spinor

text: In applications of spinors in two dimensions, it is common to exploit the fact that the algebra of even-graded elements (that is just the ring of complex numbers) is identical to the space of spinors. So, by abuse of language, the two are often conflated. One may then talk about "the action of a spinor on a vector". In a general setting, such statements are meaningless. But in dimensions 2 and 3 (as applied, for example, to computer graphics) they make sense.


title: Spinor

text: The Clifford algebra Cℓ(formula_11) is built up from a basis of one unit scalar, 1, three orthogonal unit vectors, "σ", "σ" and "σ", the three unit bivectors "σ""σ", "σ""σ", "σ""σ" and the pseudoscalar . It is straightforward to show that , and .


title: Spinor

text: As a special case, it is easy to see that, if , this reproduces the "σ""σ" rotation considered in the previous section; and that such rotation leaves the coefficients of vectors in the "σ" direction invariant, since


title: Spinor

text: The bivectors "σ""σ", "σ""σ" and "σ""σ" are in fact Hamilton's quaternions i, j, and k, discovered in 1843:


title: Spinor

text: With the identification of the even-graded elements with the algebra formula_41 of quaternions, as in the case of two dimensions the only representation of the algebra of even-graded elements is on itself. Thus the (real) spinors in three-dimensions are quaternions, and the action of an even-graded element on a spinor is given by ordinary quaternionic multiplication.


title: Spinor

text: Note that the expression (1) for a vector rotation through an angle , "the angle appearing in γ was halved". Thus the spinor rotation (ordinary quaternionic multiplication) will rotate the spinor through an angle one-half the measure of the angle of the corresponding vector rotation. Once again, the problem of lifting a vector rotation to a spinor rotation is two-valued: the expression (1) with in place of "θ"/2 will produce the same vector rotation, but the negative of the spinor rotation.


title: Spinor

text: The spinor/quaternion representation of rotations in 3D is becoming increasingly prevalent in computer geometry and other applications, because of the notable brevity of the corresponding spin matrix, and the simplicity with which they can be multiplied together to calculate the combined effect of successive rotations about different axes.


title: Spinor

text: equivalence of these constructions is a consequence of the uniqueness of the spinor representation of the complex Clifford algebra. For a complete example in dimension 3, see spinors in three dimensions.


title: Spinor

text: Given a vector space "V" and a quadratic form "g" an explicit matrix representation of the Clifford algebra can be defined as follows. Choose an orthonormal basis for "V" i.e. where and for . Let . Fix a set of matrices such that (i.e. fix a convention for the gamma matrices). Then the assignment extends uniquely to an algebra homomorphism by sending the monomial in the Clifford algebra to the product of matrices and extending linearly. The space formula_42 on which the gamma matrices act is now a space of spinors. One needs to construct such matrices explicitly, however. In dimension 3, defining the gamma matrices to be the Pauli sigma matrices gives rise to the familiar two component spinors used in non relativistic quantum mechanics. Likewise using the Dirac gamma matrices gives rise to the 4 component Dirac spinors used in 3+1 dimensional relativistic quantum field theory. In general, in order to define gamma matrices of the required kind, one can use the Weyl–Brauer matrices.


title: Spinor

text: In this construction the representation of the Clifford algebra , the Lie algebra , and the Spin group , all depend on the choice of the orthonormal basis and the choice of the gamma matrices. This can cause confusion over conventions, but invariants like traces are independent of choices. In particular, all physically observable quantities must be independent of such choices. In this construction a spinor can be represented as a vector of 2 complex numbers and is denoted with spinor indices (usually "α", "β", "γ"). In the physics literature, such indices are often used to denote spinors even when an abstract spinor construction is used.


title: Spinor

text: There are at least two different, but essentially equivalent, ways to define spinors abstractly. One approach seeks to identify the minimal ideals for the left action of on itself. These are subspaces of the Clifford algebra of the form , admitting the evident action of by left-multiplication: . There are two variations on this theme: one can either find a primitive element that is a nilpotent element of the Clifford algebra, or one that is an idempotent. The construction via nilpotent elements is more fundamental in the sense that an idempotent may then be produced from it. In this way, the spinor representations are identified with certain subspaces of the Clifford algebra itself. The second approach is to construct a vector space using a distinguished subspace of , and then specify the action of the Clifford algebra "externally" to that vector space.


title: Spinor

text: In either approach, the fundamental notion is that of an isotropic subspace . Each construction depends on an initial freedom in choosing this subspace. In physical terms, this corresponds to the fact that there is no measurement protocol that can specify a basis of the spin space, even if a preferred basis of is given.


title: Spinor

text: As above, we let be an -dimensional complex vector space equipped with a nondegenerate bilinear form. If is a real vector space, then we replace by its complexification formula_43 and let denote the induced bilinear form on formula_43. Let be a maximal isotropic subspace, i.e. a maximal subspace of such that . If is even, then let be an isotropic subspace complementary to . If is odd, let be a maximal isotropic subspace with , and let be the orthogonal complement of . In both the even- and odd-dimensional cases and have dimension . In the odd-dimensional case, is one-dimensional, spanned by a unit vector .


title: Spinor

text: Since "W" is isotropic, multiplication of elements of "W" inside is skew. Hence vectors in "W" anti-commute, and is just the exterior algebra Λ"W". Consequently, the "k"-fold product of "W" with itself, "W", is one-dimensional. Let "ω" be a generator of "W". In terms of a basis of in "W", one possibility is to set


title: Spinor

text: Note that (i.e., "ω" is nilpotent of order 2), and moreover, for all . The following facts can be proven easily:


title: Spinor

text: In detail, suppose for instance that "n" is even. Suppose that "I" is a non-zero left ideal contained in . We shall show that "I" must be equal to by proving that it contains a nonzero scalar multiple of "ω".


title: Spinor

text: Note that any element of "I" must have the form "αω", by virtue of our assumption that . Let be any such element. Using the chosen basis, we may write


title: Spinor

text: where the "a" are scalars, and the "B" are auxiliary elements of the Clifford algebra. Observe now that the product


title: Spinor

text: Pick any nonzero monomial "a" in the expansion of "α" with maximal homogeneous degree in the elements "w":


title: Spinor

text: as a vector space. In the last equality we again used that "W" is isotropic. In physics terms, this shows that Δ is built up like a Fock space by creating spinors using anti-commuting creation operators in "W" acting on a vacuum "ω".


title: Spinor

text: Let denote the exterior algebra of "W" considered as vector space only. This will be the spin representation, and its elements will be referred to as spinors.


title: Spinor

text: The action of the Clifford algebra on Δ is defined first by giving the action of an element of "V" on Δ, and then showing that this action respects the Clifford relation and so extends to a homomorphism of the full Clifford algebra into the endomorphism ring End(Δ) by the universal property of Clifford algebras. The details differ slightly according to whether the dimension of "V" is even or odd.


title: Spinor

text: When dim() is even, where "W" is the chosen isotropic complement. Hence any decomposes uniquely as with and . The action of on a spinor is given by


title: Spinor

text: where "i"("w") is interior product with "w" using the nondegenerate quadratic form to identify "V" with "V", and "ε"("w") denotes the exterior product. This action is sometimes called the Clifford product. It may be verified that


title: Spinor

text: and so respects the Clifford relations and extends to a homomorphism from the Clifford algebra to End(Δ).


title: Spinor

text: The spin representation Δ further decomposes into a pair of irreducible complex representations of the Spin group (the half-spin representations, or Weyl spinors) via


title: Spinor

text: When dim("V") is odd, , where "U" is spanned by a unit vector "u" orthogonal to "W". The Clifford action "c" is defined as before on , while the Clifford action of (multiples of) "u" is defined by


title: Spinor

text: If the vector space "V" has extra structure that provides a decomposition of its complexification into two maximal isotropic subspaces, then the definition of spinors (by either method) becomes natural.


title: Spinor

text: The main example is the case that the real vector space "V" is a hermitian vector space , i.e., "V" is equipped with a complex structure "J" that is an orthogonal transformation with respect to the inner product "g" on "V". Then formula_43 splits in the eigenspaces of "J". These eigenspaces are isotropic for the complexification of "g" and can be identified with the complex vector space and its complex conjugate . Therefore, for a hermitian vector space the vector space formula_56 (as well as its complex conjugate formula_57 is a spinor space for the underlying real euclidean vector space.


title: Spinor

text: With the Clifford action as above but with contraction using the hermitian form, this construction gives a spinor space at every point of an almost Hermitian manifold and is the reason why every almost complex manifold (in particular every symplectic manifold) has a Spin structure. Likewise, every complex vector bundle on a manifold carries a Spin structure.


title: Spinor

text: A number of Clebsch–Gordan decompositions are possible on the tensor product of one spin representation with another. These decompositions express the tensor product in terms of the alternating representations of the orthogonal group.


title: Spinor

text: In addition, for the real orthogonal groups, there are three characters (one-dimensional representations)


title: Spinor

text: which can be seen explicitly by considering (in the Explicit construction) the action of the Clifford algebra on decomposable elements . The rightmost formulation follows from the transformation properties of the Hodge star operator. Note that on restriction to the even Clifford algebra, the paired summands are isomorphic, but under the full Clifford algebra they are not.


title: Spinor

text: There is a natural identification of Δ with its contragredient representation via the conjugation in the Clifford algebra:


title: Spinor

text: So also decomposes in the above manner. Furthermore, under the even Clifford algebra, the half-spin representations decompose


title: Spinor

text: For the complex representations of the real Clifford algebras, the associated reality structure on the complex Clifford algebra descends to the space of spinors (via the explicit construction in terms of minimal ideals, for instance). In this way, we obtain the complex conjugate of the representation Δ, and the following isomorphism is seen to hold:


title: Spinor

text: In particular, note that the representation Δ of the orthochronous spin group is a unitary representation. In general, there are Clebsch–Gordan decompositions


title: Spinor

text: Using these isomorphisms, one can deduce analogous decompositions for the tensor products of the half-spin representations .


title: Spinor

text: There are many far-reaching consequences of the Clebsch–Gordan decompositions of the spinor spaces. The most fundamental of these pertain to Dirac's theory of the electron, among whose basic requirements are


title: Raja Chari

text: Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari (born June 24, 1977) is an American test pilot and NASA astronaut. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and has over 2,000 flying hours. He is a colonel in the United States Air Force.


title: Raja Chari

text: He was raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and attended Columbus High School, graduating in 1995. He attended the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in astronautical engineering and engineering science, with a minor in mathematics. Following his graduation, Chari attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge as a Draper Fellow, earning a Master of Science in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 2001.


title: Raja Chari

text: Following completion of his graduate studies, Chari attended Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma. He attended F-15E Strike Eagle training at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina and was subsequently stationed at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska and RAF Lakenheath, England, deploying in support of the Iraq War. In 2007, Chari attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland as an Air Force Exchange Officer, and was a developmental test pilot at Eglin AFB, Florida, where he served as the project pilot for the APG-63 and APG-82 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar programs. Chari also attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and served as a CENTCOM time sensitive targeting officer. At the time of his selection as an Astronaut in June 2017, Chari was serving as the commanding officer of the 461st Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB, California.


title: Raja Chari

text: In June 2017, Chari was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 22, and reported for duty in August to begin two years of training as an astronaut.


title: Raja Chari

text: In December 2020, Chari was selected to be a part of the Artemis Team, a group of astronauts "to help pave the way for the next lunar missions including sending the first woman and next man to walk on the lunar surface in 2024." The same month, he became the first astronaut from Group 22 to be selected for a space mission, SpaceX Crew-3, which he commanded. Chari is the first NASA rookie to command a spaceflight since Joe Engle, who commanded the STS-2 mission in 1981.


title: Raja Chari

text: On March 23, 2022, Chari and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer exited the "Quest" Joint Airlock on the ISS to perform an EVA. However, Maurer's helmet camera became loose, delaying the start of the activities by an hour. Chari ultimately secured it using wire, and the spacewalk was completed successfully.


title: Raja Chari

text: Chari is married to Holly Schaffter Chari, also a Cedar Falls native, and the couple has three children.


title: Raja Chari

text: During his Air Force career, Chari was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Korean Defense Service Medal, and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal. Chari is an Eagle Scout, and was a distinguished graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy and Undergraduate Pilot Training.


title: Raja Chari

text: 11. Srivastava, Namrata (May 30, 2021). "NASA’s space mission Commander has Telangana roots" . Telangana Today. Retrieved January 15, 2022.


title: Rockets Redglare

text: Rockets Redglare (born Michael Morra; May 8, 1949 – May 28, 2001) was an American character actor and stand-up comedian. He appeared in over 30 films in the 1980s and 1990s, including a number of independent films and mainstream films, such as "After Hours" (1985) and "Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985).


title: Rockets Redglare

text: He was born Michael Morra in New York City to a heroin-addicted 15-year-old mother named Agnes Tarulli Morra. While still in utero, he became addicted to heroin, so doctors added an opiate derivative into his baby formula so that he could withdraw from the drug. Morra's father and uncle were career criminals in the Italian-American underworld in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. After his father was deported to his native Italy, Agnes began a relationship with a drug-addicted former boxer who assaulted both young Morra and the mother. Morra also spent time being raised by his aunt in Lindenhurst, New York. After his mother was killed by her boyfriend, Morra took up the stage name Rockets Redglare, from the fifth line of the U.S. national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner".


title: Rockets Redglare

text: From 1970 to 1974, Morra spent time at Kinsman Hall, a drug rehab first located in Hauppauge, New York (early 1968), which then moved to Hillsdale, New York (late 1968) and eventually went to its new facility located in Jackman, Maine (mid 1970). He entered the program as a resident and became employed as a staff member, reaching the position of assistant residential director and then leaving to return home to New York. In the early 1970s, Rockets lived with the actress Baybi Day before moving into a second floor apartment on Third Avenue, off 14th Street. In the late 1970s, Morra spent most of his time in the East Village, where he "became a permanent fixture in the punk and porno film scenes." Morra worked as bouncer at the Red Bar in the East Village as a roadie for a band called The Hassles (with a young Billy Joel), and acted as a bodyguard and drug supplier to punk rock bassist Sid Vicious and artist-musician Jean-Michel Basquiat. The night Sid Vicious is alleged to have killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, Morra had delivered 40 capsules of Dilaudid to the couple's room at the Chelsea Hotel. In his book, "Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk," Phil Strongman states that he believes Redglare murdered Nancy Spungen. Redglare always denied involvement in Spungen's murder to the press, but often "confessed" to the murder within his circle of friends, to mixed reaction. Friends like Zoe Hansen took Redglare at his word, but others like Howie Pyro have cast doubt on Rockets' alleged claims, insisting he enjoyed telling exaggerated stories for attention.


title: Rockets Redglare

text: Morra began performing stand-up comedy routines at East Village/Lower East Side bars such as Pyramid and Club 57 in his own show titled "Taxi Cabaret", and he also did performance art. He made his acting debut in the 1985 Eric Mitchell film "The Way It Is", also known as "Euridice on the Avenues", a film whose cast also included Steve Buscemi and Vincent Gallo (who composed the soundtrack). Later that year, he appeared in the Jim Jarmusch film "Down by Law." He often was cast as a rough or seedy character, which echoed his real-life upbringing and drug addiction.


title: Rockets Redglare

text: Morra died in 2001 from a combination of kidney failure, liver failure, cirrhosis and hepatitis C. Morra's death was hastened by his multiple addictions: He admitted that "Anything I ever liked ... I always did to excess," including heroin, cocaine, food, and alcohol. At the time of his death, Morra was morbidly obese and hospitalized. In 2003, director Luis Fernandez de la Reguera released a documentary about Morra titled "Rockets Redglare!" a "portrait of the New York personality from his early days around '50s hustlers to the East Village crowd of the '80s to his tragic death in 2001."


title: Rockets Redglare

text: After Morra's death, obituary-writers tried to sum up Morra's life and involvement in New York's creative scenes. The "Chicago Reader" called Morra a "compulsive hustler who became obese once he decided to substitute beer for drugs," and acknowledges that "he was also a gifted raconteur", especially in informal, relaxed settings. Seattle newspaper "The Stranger" wrote that Morra became a New York City "alternative celebrity" in the city's East Village bars and clubs where he drank and told stories.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Robert Owen Edwards (born 25 December 1982) is a professional football manager and former player who played as a centre-back and is currently the manager of Championship club Luton Town.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards began his career with Aston Villa, making his senior debut in the Premier League. He then moved to Midlands neighbours Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2004, where he spent four seasons at Championship level. He helped both Blackpool and Norwich to promotions to the Premier League and featured for Barnsley in the Championship before retiring due to injury in 2013.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards managed Wolves' academy and had an interim spell at the first team, before leading AFC Telford United and the England under-16 team. He guided Forest Green Rovers to promotion as League Two champions in the 2021–22 season. From May to September 2022, he managed Watford.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards was born in Telford, Shropshire. He started his career as an apprentice at Aston Villa, and worked his way up to his first-team debut on 28 December 2002, in a 1–0 home win over Middlesbrough. In January 2003, after playing in three consecutive matches at right-back he signed a new two-and-a-half-year contract with the club. Edwards went on to make nine appearances in total for the "Villans", all during 2002–03. He was sent on loan to First Division club Crystal Palace in November 2003, where he spent one month, playing six games and scoring one goal in a 1–1 draw with Coventry City.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards then joined fellow First Division club Derby County on loan in January 2004, where he stayed until the end of the season. He played ten games for the club, scoring a goal in a 2–1 home win over Gillingham on 17 January.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards made the short journey across the West Midlands and joined Championship Wolverhampton Wanderers in July 2004 in a three-year deal for £150,000. After five games in August, he suffered an ankle injury and did not return until February 2005.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards gained more playing time in the 2005–06 campaign and he played the majority of the following season under new manager Mick McCarthy but suffered knee ligament damage in April 2007. that kept him out of the season's end as the team made the play-offs.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 5 September 2007, in a reserve team match against Walsall, he again suffered knee ligament injury. He scored his only goal for Wolves on 9 February 2008 in a 4–2 home defeat to Stoke City. He was placed on the transfer list in May.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 6 August 2008, Edwards left Wolves to join Blackpool, signing a two-year contract with an option for a further year for an undisclosed fee. He made his debut for the Seasiders on 9 August 2008 in a 1–0 home defeat to Bristol City. Edwards was captain of the side for the 1–1 draw at Norwich City on 16 August as Keith Southern who had captained the side up to then in the 2008–09 season, was suspended.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 29 August, Blackpool manager Simon Grayson confirmed that Edwards would be team captain for the season. His first goal for "the Seasiders" came on 29 December 2008 when he scored Blackpool's second equaliser in a 2–2 draw against his former club Wolverhampton Wanderers at Bloomfield Road.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards urged all the players to do their utmost to impress new manager Ian Holloway in June 2009. On 19 July 2010, he agreed a new contract with Blackpool, a one-year deal with an option for a further 12 months. Edwards explained playing in the Premier League was the reason behind him signing a new contract at the club. On 10 November 2010, Edwards made his first Premier League appearance since 2003 in a 3–2 loss at his former club Aston Villa.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 21 February 2011, Edwards signed for Championship team Norwich City on loan until the end of the season. He made his debut as a second-half substitute for Zak Whitbread in the 1–1 draw against Preston North End on 5 March, and made two more appearances as the club won promotion to the Premier League.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: After his release from Blackpool, Edwards was signed for Barnsley on a free transfer, becoming Keith Hill's seventh signing of the summer. Edwards made his debut for the club in a 0–0 draw against Nottingham Forest on 21 February 2012.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Unused by Barnsley, Edwards was loaned to League Two club Fleetwood Town in 2012. The following 31 January, he returned to his home county and joined League One team Shrewsbury Town on loan for a month. Days after the deal was expanded for the rest of the season, he was ruled out with a thigh muscle injury in training.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards represented England at youth level, but not in a UEFA-recognised game, so qualified for Wales as his parents are both Welsh. He made his debut for Wales before he left Aston Villa, on 29 March 2003, in a 4–0 European Championship qualifying victory over Azerbaijan.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 11 October 2013, Edwards announced that he had retired from professional football at the age of 30. He became Under-18s coach at Wolves, and his first season in charge (2014–15) was considered very successful by local newspaper "Express & Star". He was promoted to help Head Coach Kenny Jackett for the final two months of the season, and then to the role of full-time First Team Coach during the summer of 2015.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 25 October 2016 Edwards was appointed interim head coach at Wolves following the sacking of Walter Zenga. He took charge of two games – a 1–1 draw at Blackburn Rovers, followed by a 2–3 defeat to Derby – before Paul Lambert took charge. Edwards remained at a club in the role of first team coach until the conclusion of the season when he departed alongside Lambert.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 28 June 2017, Edwards was named as the new manager of his hometown club AFC Telford United. The Bucks finished in 14th place in the National League North, 10 points outside the play-offs. Edwards left by mutual consent at the end of the season.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards was appointed as the head coach of Wolverhampton Wanderers U23 on 20 July 2018. In his first season in charge, he led them to promotion to Premier League 2 Division 1, the highest level of youth football, for the first time in their history.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: In October 2019, Edwards left Wolves to take up a 'prestigious role' with The Football Association working as a coach with the England U20s. On 24 September 2020, he was appointed as head coach for the England under-16 team.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 27 May 2021, Edwards was appointed Head Coach of League Two side Forest Green Rovers, joining the role on 4 June in order to be able to finish the season with his England sides. After picking up four wins from his first five matches, Edwards was awarded the EFL League Two Manager of the Month award for August 2021 with his star striker Matty Stevens winning the Player of the Month award. He won the award for a second time for November following three wins from three.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: Edwards then won the manager of the month award for a third time for January 2022 after picking up 14 points from six matches, including a 4–0 win away at second-placed Tranmere Rovers, moving ten points clear at the top of the league. On 23 April, Forest Green drew 0–0 away at Bristol Rovers to secure promotion to League One for the first time in the club's history. The following day, Edwards was named the 2021–22 EFL League Two Manager of the Season at the league's annual awards ceremony. On 11 May, he departed the club following negotiations with Watford.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 11 May 2022, Edwards was announced as the new head coach of Watford, taking over from Roy Hodgson at the conclusion of the 2021–22 season. His first game on 1 August was a 1–0 home win over Sheffield United with a goal by João Pedro.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 26 September 2022, Edwards was sacked as head coach after winning three out of ten league games and with Watford in 10th place.


title: Rob Edwards (footballer, born 1982)

text: On 17 November 2022, Edwards was appointed manager of Championship club Luton Town, rivals of Edwards' previous club Watford.


title: John McCrea (actor)

text: John McCrea (born 10 October 1992) is a British actor and singer. He was nominated for a Olivier Award for the role Jamie New in the coming-of-age stage musical "Everybody's Talking About Jamie", and portrayed Artie in the 2021 Disney crime comedy-drama "Cruella".


title: John McCrea (actor)

text: In the 2021 film "Cruella", McCrea plays vintage fashion shop owner Artie, the first originally created openly gay character in a live-action Disney film. Additionally, he contributed to the film's soundtrack, recording a cover version of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" which he performs on-screen in the film.


title: Speculaas

text: Speculaas is usually flat in the shape of a picture and is especially popular around the feast of St. Nicholas and during the time of Advent. The oldest sources on speculaas also mention weddings and fairs. In recent decades, however, it has become normal to eat Speculaas all year round, especially with coffee or tea, or with ice cream.


title: Speculaas

text: Speculaas is mainly made and eaten in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as in the German Westphalia and Rhineland, Luxembourg and northern France. It can also be found in Indonesia where they are known as spekulaas or spekulaaskoekjes, and usually served at Christmas or on other special occasions.


title: Faygo

text: Faygo Beverages, Inc., is a soft drink company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. The beverages produced by the company, branded as Faygo or Faygo Pop, are distributed in the Midwestern, Mid-Atlantic, and Central Southern regions of the United States, as well as southern and western Canada. Faygo Beverages, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Beverage Corporation and started in Detroit, Michigan, in 1907 as Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works.


title: Faygo

text: Faygo was founded in Detroit, Michigan, in November 1907, as Feigenson Brothers Bottle Works by Russian baker immigrants Ben and Perry Feigenson. The original flavors of Faygo (fruit punch, strawberry, and grape) were based on cake frosting recipes used by the Feigensons in Russia. Initially, the brothers used a horse drawn wagon for deliveries and lived above the bottling plant.


title: Faygo

text: The business grew over the next 10 years. The Feigensons were able to purchase houses, hire their first employee and a second wagon and horse for deliveries. More flavors were added including Sassafras Soda and Lithiated Lemon. They built a new plant due to their success on Beaubien Street in Detroit.


title: Faygo

text: In 1921, as the company expanded, they decided the brand name "Feigenson Brothers" was too long and changed it to Faygo. The brothers bought their first delivery truck in 1922, and started home deliveries the following year. New flavors in the 1920s were a vanilla flavored soft drink, a seltzer water, "Ace Hi" (similar in flavor to Nehi), and Rock and Rye (named after a Prohibition Era drink). The company opened its currently operating bottling plant in 1935 on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit. The company briefly entered into beer production.


title: Faygo

text: The brothers ran the company until the mid-1940s, when they turned it over to their sons. In 1956, the company created a series of radio and television advertisements featuring a fictional cowboy called the Faygo Kid, who was portrayed in animation for television commercials for Faygo Old-Fashioned Root Beer. Jim Henson's Muppets, Inc. produced a small series of ads for Faygo strawberry soda starring the Muppet characters Wilkins and Wontkins (best known as the spokes-characters for the Washington, D.C.-based Wilkins Coffee). Three ads are known to exist.


title: Faygo

text: Because the drink had a limited shelf life, the company sold its products only in Michigan until the late 1950s. Company chemists later resolved this issue by installing a filtration system to remove impurities from the manufacturing plant's water system. In the 1960s, the soda's regional popularity expanded when the company began advertising during broadcasts of Detroit Tigers games. With the Tiger ads reaching beyond the Faygo market area at the time and the inability to cancel the ads, Faygo shipped products to the wholesalers' warehouses. This increased company sales from $6 million in 1966 to $20.4 million in 1971. Advertisements produced in the 1970s featured "everyday people" on a Boblo Boat singing the "Faygo Boat Song".


title: Faygo

text: The company introduced a low-calorie version in the 1960s called Ohana. Faygo introduced diet versions of its line in the 1960s, this sub-line soon became a majority of company sales. In 1961, the Royal Line was launched as a premium product line. The Royal Hawaiian Pineapple Orange initial run's extract was not sterilized and became rancid, causing a buildup of gases such that, after hitting store shelves, the bottles exploded. The soda was recalled and Dole gave Faygo enough sterilized juice to offset the company's losses. Six other flavors also entered into production in the 1960s. The original strawberry flavor from 1907 was renamed Redpop in the late 1960s.


title: Faygo

text: With Michigan's beverage container deposit law passed in 1978, Faygo thought people would prefer returnable cans instead of glass. With this choice being incorrect, the company had a hard time making the switch back to bottles, cutting into profits for several years.


title: Faygo

text: Assessing the industry and the second generation's pending retirement, the company was put up for sale. TreeSweet Products Corp. bought the company from the Feigenson family in early 1986 for $105 million. TreeSweet in turn sold the company to National Beverage Corp. a year later in 1987. In the 1980s, they introduced flavored carbonated water.


title: Faygo

text: Faygo expanded in 1996 with a non-carbonated drink line, Ohana, which included punches, iced tea and lemonade. In 2007, Faygo celebrated its 100th anniversary with a new flavor and contests for label design. Ten thousand entries were received and a fourth-grade Ohio teacher won with Centennial Soda. In March 2014, the company introduced its ginger ale, Faygo Gold, rivaling cross town company Vernors' flagship drink.


title: Faygo

text: Faygo was ranked the best-tasting American root beer in the September 2009 issue of "Bon Appétit", calling it "dry and crisp, with a frothy head, a good bite and a long finish".


title: Faygo

text: The Detroit hip hop group Insane Clown Posse references Faygo in several songs and sprays live audiences with "Faygo showers".


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Ederzito António Macedo Lopes (born 22 December 1987), commonly known as Eder (), is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: He signed with Académica in 2008 from the lower leagues, and joined Braga four years later. Over seven seasons, he appeared in 143 Primeira Liga matches and scored 38 goals. He also played in Wales, France, Russia and Saudi Arabia, notably winning the 2017–18 Premier League with Lokomotiv Moscow.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: A Portuguese international since 2012, Eder represented the country at the 2014 World Cup and Euro 2016, winning the latter and also scoring the sole goal in the final.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Born in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, Eder moved to Portugal as a child, and started playing football with Associação Desportiva e Cultural da Adémia in the Coimbra District at the age of 11. He made his senior debut with Oliveira do Hospital and G.D. Tourizense, the latter in the third division and the farm team of Académica de Coimbra.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder made his Primeira Liga debut for Académica on 24 August 2008, in a 0–1 away loss against C.F. Estrela da Amadora. He scored his first goal for the club at the end of the season, netting the "Students" equalising goal in an eventual 3–1 victory over Associação Naval 1º de Maio.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 2 May 2010, Eder scored what looked like a winning goal against C.D. Nacional, but the visitors equalised at 3–3 in the 90th minute. On 12 September of the following year, against the same opponent and also in Coimbra, he scored twice in a 4–0 rout. He finished the season with five goals in 16 appearances, and helped the club win its first Portuguese Cup since 1939 after defeating Sporting CP in the final, but he only featured in the earlier rounds of the cup as he was suspended for not reporting to training for several weeks, as interest from other clubs in signing him grew.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder signed with S.C. Braga in summer 2012, for four years. He made his official debut for his new team on 2 September in a 0–2 defeat at F.C. Paços de Ferreira but scored twice late into that month as the Minho Province side defeated Rio Ave F.C. 4–1 at home, contributing one in a 4–4 home draw with S.C. Olhanense.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 30 November 2012, in the fifth round of the Taça de Portugal, Eder netted the winning goal as Braga defeated FC Porto 2–1, booking a place in the quarter-finals. On 6 January 2013, in a league match against Moreirense FC, he scored the game's only goal shortly after the restart. On 23 February he scored in each half of the local derby against Vitória de Guimarães in a 3–2 win at the "Estádio Municipal de Braga", but missed the rest of the campaign after suffering a ligament tear in early March.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: In the domestic cup final on 31 May 2015, Eder opened the scoring against Sporting with a penalty after Cédric Soares had been sent off for fouling Djavan, but missed in the penalty shootout in an eventual loss following a 2–2 draw.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 28 June 2015, Premier League club Swansea City agreed a fee of around £5 million to sign Eder on a three-year deal. He made his debut on 8 August, playing the final 11 minutes of a 2–2 draw at title holders Chelsea in place of Bafétimbi Gomis.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Having not scored in 15 competitive games for the Swans – only four starts – Eder joined Lille OSC on loan for the remainder of the season. He made his French Ligue 1 debut on 3 February 2016 as a half-time replacement for Yassine Benzia in a 1–0 home win over Stade Malherbe Caen. He scored his first goal four days later, to open a 1–1 draw against Stade Rennais F.C. also at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder played the full 90 minutes in the final of the Coupe de la Ligue on 23 April 2016, which ended in a 2–1 loss against Paris Saint-Germain FC. On 24 May, after helping his team finish fifth and qualify to the UEFA Europa League, he signed a permanent four-year contract.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 2 March 2017, Eder scored the final goal (four minutes into injury time after 90 minutes of normal time had elapsed) in a 2–1 away defeat of Championnat de France Amateur side Bergerac Périgord FC in the round of 16.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 23 August 2017, Eder joined Russian Premier League club FC Lokomotiv Moscow in a season-long loan with a buyout option. On 5 May 2018, he scored the winning goal in the 87th minute from Vladislav Ignatyev's cross against FC Zenit Saint Petersburg in a 1–0 victory, which helped to grant his team their first league title since 2004.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder moved to the RZD Arena on 16 July 2018, on a permanent basis. He ended that season as a national cup winner, scoring a penalty to open a 4–1 home win over FC Yenisey Krasnoyarsk in the last 16 on 31 October. On 6 July, he was a substitute in the 3–2 defeat of FC Zenit Saint Petersburg in the 2019 Russian Super Cup.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder scored for the first time in the UEFA Champions League on 21 October 2020, in a 2–2 away draw against FC Red Bull Salzburg in the group stage. He won the cup again at the end of the season.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 23 September 2021, free agent Eder signed a contract of undisclosed length with Al Raed FC in the Saudi Professional League.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder chose to represent Portugal internationally. After impressive club performances for Braga, he was first called up by the national team in August 2012 for a match against Luxembourg for the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, but remained an unused substitute in the 2–1 away win on 7 September. He made his debut four days later in the same competition, replacing Hélder Postiga in the dying minutes of a 3–0 home victory over Azerbaijan.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: On 19 May 2014, Eder was named in the final 23-man squad for the tournament in Brazil. He made his debut in the competition on 16 June, replacing injured Hugo Almeida in the first half of a 0–4 group stage loss to Germany. In the second game, a 2–2 draw against the United States, he replaced another injured striker early on, this time Postiga.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder's first international goal came on his 18th cap, the only goal in a friendly defeat of Italy at the Stade de Genève on 16 June 2015. He was selected by Fernando Santos for his UEFA Euro 2016 squad, appearing in three matches as a substitute and scoring the only goal in the final to help defeat hosts France after extra time.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder was not picked for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup squad, being replaced by Porto's André Silva. He was included in a preliminary 35-man list for the 2018 World Cup, but did not make the final cut.


title: Eder (footballer, born 1987)

text: Eder is a strong, hard-working and well-rounded striker, with a solid first touch. Usually deployed as a centre forward, he excels in the air due to his height and powerful physique, although he is also capable of playing in other offensive positions due to his ability to hold up the ball with his back to goal and play-off his teammates.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: Matt King (born 31 January 1968) is an English actor, DJ and comedian currently residing in Brighton. He is best known for his role as Super Hans in the British sitcom "Peep Show".


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: King was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, England on 31 January 1968. He moved to Australia where he worked as a chef before meeting Jimeoin McKeown. McKeown suggested that King become a stand-up comedian. King worked in the Australian comedy circuit for 15 years before returning to the UK.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: As an actor he has played many characters, including Elton John and Terry Venables in the BAFTA-nominated comedy series "Star Stories", and also starring in his own self-penned sketch show "Dogface", both available on Channel 4.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: His role as Super Hans in "Peep Show" spanned nearly a decade. He has performed DJ sets in-character as Super Hans.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: He has appeared in cult comedy series "Look Around You" and in the third series of "Skins", playing Cook's father, a character very similar to Super Hans. He co-starred in the film "Inkheart", appeared in the Guy Ritchie film "Rocknrolla" and the British film "Bronson", and had a lead role in the fantasy thriller "Malice in Wonderland". He also appeared in the third series of "Doctor Who" as Peter Streete in "The Shakespeare Code", and was a regular character in the BBC production "Jekyll" playing computer expert Freeman. He played a ticket tout in the acclaimed independent short film "Brussels" by Misha Manson-Smith.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: As a stand-up comedian he has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: King played a mad scientist in a 2007 commercial promoting a newly customizable credit card by Capital One.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: In 2010 he played driver and bodyguard to Ray Winstone's character Rob Gant in "London Boulevard" alongside Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. In the same year he co-wrote the BBC2 series "Whites" starring Alan Davies.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: In 2011, King starred in the Australian drama series "Spirited", in which he plays the ghost of 1980s rock star Henry Mallet. He also stars in the Sky One generational family comedy drama, "Starlings", co-written with Steve Edge and produced by Steve Coogan.


title: Matt King (comedian)

text: In 2015 he narrated the audiobook "The Hunt for the Mayor of Smoochyville", written by writer and musician Chris Wade.


title: Tommy Haas

text: Thomas Mario Haas (; born 3 April 1978) is a German former professional tennis player. He competed on the ATP Tour from 1996 to 2017. After breaking into the world top 100 in 1997, and reaching a career-high singles ranking of world No. 2 in May 2002, his career was interrupted by injuries: Haas twice dropped out of the world rankings due to being unable to play for twelve months. His first period of injury saw him miss the whole of the 2003 season, and he did not return to the world's top 10 until 2007. He also missed over a year's tennis between February 2010 and June 2011, but afterwards returned to play on the tour. He returned to world No. 11 in 2013, after reaching the quarterfinals at the French Open for the first time in his career. Haas reached the semifinals of the Australian Open three times, and in Wimbledon once. He reached the quarterfinal stage of each of the Grand Slam events. He won 15 career titles in singles, including one Masters tournament (Stuttgart) in 2001, and has a silver medal from the 2000 Summer Olympics.


title: Tommy Haas

text: Born in Hamburg, Germany to Brigitte and Peter Haas, Tommy started playing his own version of tennis when he was four years old, using a wooden plank to hit balls against the wall or into his father's hands. When his father observed his talents, he started bringing Haas to work, as he was a tennis coach.


title: Tommy Haas

text: At five, Haas won his first youth tournament, in Hamburg. At eight, he won his second, in Munich. Between 11 and 13, Haas twice won the Austrian Championship, the German Championship, and the European Championship.


title: Tommy Haas

text: Haas's talents were noted by tennis guru Nick Bollettieri. He was so impressed by the young German's talent that he offered Haas the chance to stay and train at his Bollettieri Academy in Bradenton, Florida, for free, and Haas began attending at age 11. At 13, speaking little English, Haas moved full-time to Florida to train at the academy.


title: Tommy Haas

text: As a junior Haas reached as high as No. 11 in the junior world singles rankings in 1995 (and No. 5 in doubles).


title: Tommy Haas

text: In 1996, Haas became a professional tennis player. He played his first Grand Slam tournament at the US Open, losing in the first round to compatriot Michael Stich in four sets. He gained attention as a future star when he won his first ATP title in 1999, made it to the semifinals of the Australian Open, and was a finalist in the Grand Slam Cup. The following year, he won a silver medal at the Sydney Olympics defeating Wayne Ferreira, Andreas Vinciguerra, Àlex Corretja, Max Mirnyi and Roger Federer en route to the gold medal match where he lost to Yevgeny Kafelnikov. He also beat Andre Agassi at the 1998 Wimbledon Championships in the second round.


title: Tommy Haas

text: In 2001, he won four ATP titles, including his first Masters shield, finishing 2001 as world No. 8 and only missing out on playing in the season-ending Masters Cup because of Goran Ivanišević's Wimbledon victory, which meant Ivanišević took the eighth and final spot. In the 2002 Australian Open, he won in five sets against Todd Martin and Roger Federer, and in four against Marcelo Ríos to reach the semifinals. He led Marat Safin two sets to one but suffered from a stiff shoulder after a rain delay, and Safin won the match, taking the final two sets 6–0, 6–2. Haas was quickly rising to the top of the tennis ranks when his career was suddenly halted at No. 2 in the world by a severe accident that nearly claimed the lives of his parents, leaving his father in a coma. Haas spent much of 2002 taking care of his family. At the end of this lay-off, he injured his shoulder, requiring a major operation. He was plagued by further injuries and related complications afterwards and did not return to professional tennis fully until 2004. Before his parents' accident and his injuries, he had a winning record against several former and future No. 1 ranked players: 3–0 against Andy Roddick, 2–1 against Roger Federer, 2–1 against Marat Safin, and 2–0 against Jim Courier, as well as 5–5 against Pete Sampras. Haas won two more ATP titles in his return year of 2004, while trying to gain back his form.


title: Tommy Haas

text: In 2006, Haas won three ATP Tournaments and reached the quarterfinals at the US Open, where he was knocked out by Nikolay Davydenko after having been up two sets. Haas began having severe cramps in his legs in the third set. During the match he was visibly disturbed, repeatedly hitting his legs with his racquet, frustrated at the cramps.


title: Tommy Haas

text: At the end of the year, he had to win the Paris Masters to qualify for the Masters Cup, the ATP year-end final. He lost after a semifinal run to Dominik Hrbatý with health problems and did not play again for the rest of the year.


title: Tommy Haas

text: In 2007, Haas, with his long hair now cut short, had battled his way to his third Australian Open semifinal, which included matches against David Nalbandian and a five-set quarterfinal rematch against Nikolay Davydenko. He lost his semifinal match against first-time Grand Slam finalist Fernando González from Chile in straight sets. Despite this loss, Haas returned to the top 10 of the world rankings for the first time since 2002.


title: Tommy Haas

text: On 25 February, at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships in Memphis, Haas stopped Andy Roddick's quest for the final, winning in two sets. This was the first time Haas had won a title without facing a single break point in any of his matches, as well as the first time he had won titles in consecutive seasons. Haas also became only the second player to win three titles at Memphis, the other being Jimmy Connors, who won in 1979, 1983, and 1984.


title: Tommy Haas

text: Haas reached the quarterfinals of the Pacific Life Open, an ATP Masters Series tournament held in Indian Wells, California, where he lost to Andy Murray in a third-set tiebreaker. In the 2007 ATP Champion's Race, Haas, the 13th seed (10th-ranked), not known for being much of a grass court player, advanced to the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time, defeating Zack Fleishman, Tomáš Zíb, and No. 21 seed Dmitry Tursunov. His run came to an end after he suffered a torn abdominal muscle and had to withdraw a day before playing Roger Federer.


title: Tommy Haas

text: At the US Open, Haas equaled his best result in New York by reaching the quarterfinals with five-set wins over Sébastien Grosjean and James Blake. He beat Blake in a fifth-set tiebreak, saving match points. His run ended, however, with a three-set loss to Nikolay Davydenko.


title: Tommy Haas

text: In the first half of 2008, Haas was derailed by injuries, causing him to miss both the Australian Open and the French Open. This dropped him significantly in the rankings, as he was unable to back up his semifinal performance at the Australian Open the year before. He made it to the quarterfinals of the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, defeating Andy Murray in three sets. He was then forced to withdraw from his quarterfinal match against Roger Federer due to injury.