A computer algebra system (CAS) is a large computer program that helps people with mathematics and algebra.  It changes and moves around (manipulates) mathematical equations and expressions containing numbers and symbols called variables. Variables can stand for known or unknown values that can be solved for, or can be replaced with any value. It always keeps the formula exactly the same mathematically as the original equation or expression, unless it is being transformed, by a transformation algorithm.

A CAS might be used for integration or differentiation (and other calculus transformations), simplification of an expression (making it smaller and/or simpler), optimizing and finding the minimum and maximum values of results or variables, etc.  Most have the ability to plot functions and expressions for visualization, which can be helpful and educational too.

Symbolic capabilities
Computer algebra systems can be special purpose, focusing on only a few types of symbolic math, to very large, general purpose programs that do almost everything (for example, the free CAS Maxima, which is the oldest CAS that is still under development).  The results output by a good computer algebra system are often exact, simple, and generalized to work in all possible cases.  Computer programs do have bugs, so important results should always be verified for correctness.

Numeric capabilities
Modern computer algebra systems often include extensive numeric capabilities for convenience and which fit together with its symbolic abilities.
Numeric domains supported often include real, complex, interval, rational, and algebraic numbers.

Usually floating point arithmetic is available to use if desired, because the arithmetic is done by most computer hardware very quickly.  The down-side of floating point arithmetic is that it is not always exact, and is mostly useless for rocket science, because of only 14 decimal digits of accuracy (with double precision floats), and because of a growing round-off error with each calculation, sometimes even less digits are accurate.  Rational number arithmetic is exact if all numbers are rational.  Interval arithmetic can be used to easily calculate the total possible error of an inexact arithmetic system.  Complex number arithmetic is generally supported by allowing the imaginary unit () in expressions and following all of its algebraic rules.

Related pages
Graphing calculator

References

Algebra
Software

Computer Algebra System


Baroque music is a set of styles of European classical music which were in use between about 1600 and 1750 during the Baroque period.

The word "Baroque" is used in other art forms besides music: we talk about Baroque architecture, painting, sculpture, dance and literature. The Baroque period comes between the Renaissance and the period of Classicism.

History
Musicians think of the Baroque period as starting around 1600. The famous Renaissance composers Palestrina and Lassus had died a few years earlier. Claudio Monteverdi wrote some music in Renaissance style, and other music in Baroque style. Opera was being invented. It was a time of musical change.

The change from writing music in the Baroque style to the Classical style was much more gradual. 1750 is the year that Bach died, so it is an easy date to choose for the end of the Baroque period.

The Baroque was a time when people liked large spaces and a lot of ornamentation. This can be seen in the architecture of famous buildings such as St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, or St. Paul's Cathedral, London. They were built at this time. In Venice there were churches with galleries on either side of the church. Composers liked to write music for two groups of musicians placed in opposite galleries. Giovanni Gabrieli wrote a lot of music like this.

Styles and instruments
The idea of two contrasting groups was used a lot in Baroque music. Composers wrote concertos. These were pieces for orchestra and a solo instrument. Sometimes a concerto contrasted a group of soloists with the rest of the orchestra. These are called by the Italian name "Concerti Grossi. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are good examples.

Organs, and some harpsichords, had at least two manuals (keyboards). The player could change from one manual to the other, contrasting two different sounds.

Baroque music was often a melody with a bass line at the bottom. This could be, for example, a singer and a cello. There was also a harpsichord or organ that played the bass line as well, and made up chords in between. Often the composer did not bother to write out all the chords (harmonies) but just showed some of the chords by figures, leaving it to the performer to decide exactly which notes to play. This is called "figured bass" or "basso continuo". The soloist, who played or sang the melody on top, often put in lots of ornamental notes. Again: the composer did not write this all down but left it to the performer to improvise something nice around the notes he had written.

Because composers were now writing opera it was important for the audience to hear the words clearly. In the Renaissance the groups of a choir were often singing several different words using different melodies all at once. This was called "polyphony". Polyphony was widely used in instrumental music, but was not used in opera, which needed to tell a story without being confusing.

When a soloist in an opera sings a song (an aria) the aria is in a particular mood. They called this "affection". There were several "affections" or moods: there were arias about revenge, jealousy, anger, love, despair, peaceful happiness etc. Each movement in a concerto also had one particular mood. Music from later periods is different. For example: Haydn in the Classical Period would often change its mood during a piece.

Suite
The Baroque suite is a collection of dance movements written in the style of Baroque music. There is an accepted standard order in which the dances are performed. The five primary dances are the Overture, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue. Many times a composer would add a Prelude before all the dances. Sometimes a composer would add another piece in between the Sarabande and the Gigue.

There are many exceptions to the standard order, but the order of Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Other, and Gigue is most common. This can be easily remembered by the acronym PACSOG.

Composers
Here are a few of the most important composers of the Baroque period:

Italy
Giovanni Gabrieli (about 1553/6-1612)
Jacopo Peri (1561-1633)
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

Germany
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

England
Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) (German born)

France
François Couperin (1668-1733)
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

Bibliography

 Music in the Baroque Era, Manfred Bukofzer; J.M.Dent 1948

Periods in music history

Baroque music


Harmonics in music are notes which are produced in a special way. They are notes which are produced as part of the "harmonic series".

In physics, a harmonic is a wave which is added to the basic fundamental wave. This article talks about sound waves, which can be understood clearly by looking at the strings of a musical instrument.

When a violinist plays a note on a violin string, the string starts to vibrate very fast. This vibration makes the air vibrate and the sound waves travel to our ear so that we can hear it. If the note were absolutely pure the string would move in a perfect sinusoidal shape and produce only one frequency, but instead there are multiple frequencies being produced at the same time along with the main one. The note played on the violin string makes the string vibrate in a very complicated way. There is the basic note (the fundamental), but added to that are lots of other little notes that all add up to a sound in a special way that tells us that it is a violin playing and not a clarinet or a human voice.

The higher the note, the faster the string vibrates. An A above middle C (the violinist's A string) vibrates at 440Hz (440 times per second). This is the "fundamental" or "first harmonic". The second harmonic vibrates twice as fast (ratio 2:1): 880Hz. This gives an A an octave higher. The third harmonic will give a ratio 3:2. This will be an E (an octave and a fifth above the fundamental). The higher the harmonic the quieter it is, but the ratio is always a whole number (not a fraction).

Every note that is played on an instrument is really a combination of several notes or "harmonics", even though we may not realize that we are hearing more than one note at a time. Play the lowest C on the piano. Now find the next C which is an octave higher. Press this key very slowly so that it does not sound and hold it down. While holding it down play the bottom C again making it loud and very short. The C that is being held silently will now sound. This is because the strings of that C are vibrating a little because it is a harmonic of the low C (they can vibrate because the damper is off the string while the note is being held down). The same can be done holding the next G down, then the next C, then the E. The higher the note the fainter (quieter) the harmonics become. The musical example below shows the notes of a harmonic series in musical notation.

To hear the notes of a harmonic series click here:
clicking here.

Playing harmonics on instruments
Musicians sometimes need to play harmonics on their instruments. In musical notation this is shown by placing a small circle above the note.

A violinist can place their finger very lightly on a string so that it divides the string into half. They will hear a harmonic (the note an octave higher than the open string). By placing their fingers in other places they can get more harmonics, e.g. by touching the string a quarter of the way down they gets the next harmonic. "Artificial harmonics" can be played by stopping a string with the finger in the usual way (so that the string is now shorter) and placing the little finger farther up the string to get a harmonic of the stopped note. Artificial harmonics are written with diamond-shaped note heads. They are very hard to play well.

Harpists can play harmonics with their left hand by stopping the string with the side of the hand (near the little finger) and plucking with the thumb or finger. Up to 3 notes can be played by the left hand. They can play harmonics with the right hand by stopping the string with the upper knuckle of the second finger and plucking with the thumb. Only one harmonic note can be played by the right hand. Harmonics on the harp sound very beautiful.

Players of woodwind and brass instruments play many of their notes by blowing slightly stronger (overblowing) to get a higher series of notes. Instruments such as the recorder can play chords by making several harmonics sound together, but this is extremely difficult to do well and only found in modern music for virtuoso players.

Music theory
Sound

Harmonic series (music)


Joseph Justus Scaliger (; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a Franco-Italian Calvinist religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian history. He spent the last sixteen years of his life in the Netherlands.

Early life
In 1540, Scaliger was born in Agen, France, to Italian scholar and physician Julius Caesar Scaliger and his wife, Andiette de Roques Lobejac. His only formal education was three years of study at the College of Guienne in Bordeaux, which ended in 1555 due to an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Until his death in 1558, Julius Scaliger taught his son Latin and poetry; he was made to write at least 80 lines of Latin a day.

University and travels

After his father's death, Scaliger spent four years at the University of Paris, where he studied Greek under Adrianus Turnebus. After two months he found he was not in a position to profit from the lectures of the greatest Greek scholar of the time. He read Homer in twenty-one days, and afterwards read other classical Greek poets, orators, and historians, forming a grammar for himself as he went along. At the suggestion of Guillaume Postel, after learning Greek he learned Hebrew, and then Arabic, becoming proficient in both.

His most important teacher was Jean Dorat, who was able not only to impart knowledge but also to kindle enthusiasm in Scaliger. It was to Dorat that Scaliger owed his home for the next thirty years of his life, for in 1563 the professor recommended him to Louis de Chasteigner, the young lord of La Roche-Posay, as a companion in his travels. The two young men formed a close friendship which remained unbroken until Louis's death in 1595. The travellers first went to Rome. Here they found Marc Antoine Muret, who, when at Bordeaux and Toulouse, had been a great favourite and occasional visitor of Julius Caesar Scaliger at Agen. Muret soon recognized the young Scaliger's merits and introduced him to many contacts well worth knowing.

After visiting a large part of Italy, the travellers moved on to England and Scotland, passing through the town of La Roche-Posay on their way. During his time in the British Isles, Scaliger formed an unfavourable opinion of the English. Their inhuman disposition and inhospitable treatment of foreigners especially made a negative impression on him. He was also disappointed at finding only a few Greek manuscripts and, in his opinion, few learned men. It was not until a much later period that he became intimate with Richard Thomson and other Englishmen. Over the course of his travels, he became a Protestant.

France, Geneva, and back to France

On his return to France, he spent three years with the Chastaigners, accompanying them to their different châteaux in Poitou, as the calls of the civil war required. In 1570 he accepted the invitation of Jacques Cujas and proceeded to Valence to study jurisprudence under the greatest living jurist. Here he remained three years, profiting not only by the lectures but even more by the library of Cujas, which filled no fewer than seven or eight rooms and included five hundred manuscripts.

The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre – which occurred just before he was to accompany the bishop of Valence on an embassy to Poland – caused Scaliger to flee, alongside other Huguenots, to Geneva, where he was appointed a professor at the Academy of Geneva. While there, he lectured on Aristotle's Organon and Cicero's De Finibus to much satisfaction for the students, but not appreciating it himself. He hated lecturing and was bored with the persistence of the fanatical preachers, accordingly in 1574 he returned to France and made his home for the next twenty years with Chastaigner.

Of his life during this period we have interesting details and notices in the Lettres françaises inédites de Joseph Scaliger, edited by Tamizey de Larroque (Agen, 1881). Constantly moving through Poitou and the Limousin, as the exigencies of the civil war required, occasionally taking his turn as a guard, at least on one occasion trailing a pike on an expedition against the Leaguers, with no access to libraries, and frequently separated even from his own books, his life during this period seems most unsuited to study. He had, however, what so few contemporary scholars possessed – leisure and freedom from financial cares.

Academic output
It was during this period of his life that he composed and published his books of historical criticism. His editions of the Catalecta (1575), of Festus (1575), of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius (1577), are the work of a man determined to discover the real meaning and force of his author. He was the first to lay down and apply sound rules of criticism and revision, and to change textual criticism from a series of haphazard guesses into a "rational procedure subject to fixed laws" (Mark Pattison).

These works, despite proving Scaliger's skill among his contemporaries as a Latin scholar and critic, did not go beyond simple scholarship. It was reserved for his edition of Manilius (1579), and his De emendatione temporum (1583), to revolutionize perceived ideas of ancient chronology—to show that ancient history was not confined to that of the Greeks and Romans, but also comprises that of the Persians, the Babylonians and the Egyptians, hitherto neglected, and that of the Jews, hitherto treated as a thing apart; and that the historical narratives and fragments of each of these, and their several systems of chronology, must be critically compared. It was this innovation that distinguished Scaliger from contemporary scholars. Neither they nor those who immediately followed seem to have appreciated his innovation. Instead, they valued his emendatory criticism and his skill in Greek. His commentary on Manilius is a treatise on ancient astronomy, and it forms an introduction to De emendatione temporum; in this work, Scaliger investigates ancient systems of determining epochs, calendars and computations of time. Applying the work of  Nicolaus Copernicus and other modern scientists, he reveals the principles behind these systems.

In the remaining twenty-four years of his life, he expanded on his work in the De emendatione. He succeeded in reconstructing the lost Chronicle of Eusebius—one of the most valuable ancient documents, especially valuable for ancient chronology. This he printed in 1606 in his Thesaurus temporum, in which he collected, restored, and arranged every chronological relic extant in Greek or Latin.

The Netherlands

When Justus Lipsius retired from the University of Leiden in 1590, the university and its protectors, the States-General of the Netherlands and the Prince of Orange, resolved to appoint Scaliger as his successor. He declined; he hated lecturing, and there were those among his friends who erroneously believed that with the success of Henry IV learning would flourish, and Protestantism would be no barrier to his advancement. The invitation was renewed in the most flattering manner a year later; the invitation stated Scaliger would not be required to lecture, and that the university wished only for his presence, while he would be able to dispose of his own time in all respects. This offer Scaliger accepted provisionally. Midway through 1593, he set out for the Netherlands, where he would pass the remaining sixteen years of his life, never returning to France. His reception at Leiden was all that he could have wished for. He received a handsome income; he was treated with the highest consideration. His supposed rank as a prince of Verona, a sensitive issue for the Scaligeri, was recognized. Leiden lying between The Hague and Amsterdam, Scaliger was able to enjoy, besides the learned circle of Leiden, the advantages of the best society of both these capitals. For Scaliger was no hermit buried among his books; he was fond of social intercourse and was himself a good talker.

During the first seven years of his residence at Leiden, his reputation was at its highest point. His literary judgment was unquestioned. From his throne at Leiden he ruled the learned world; a word from him could make or mar a rising reputation, and he was surrounded by young men eager to listen to and profit from his conversation. He encouraged Grotius when only a youth of sixteen to edit Martianus Capella. At the early death of the younger Douza, he wept as at that of a beloved son. Daniel Heinsius, at first his favourite pupil, became his most intimate friend.

At the same time, Scaliger had made numerous enemies. He hated ignorance, but he hated still more half-learning, and most of all dishonesty in argument or quotation. He had no toleration for the disingenuous argument and the misstatements of facts of those who wrote to support a theory or to defend an unsound cause. His pungent sarcasm soon reached the ears of the persons who were its object, and his pen was not less bitter than his tongue. He was conscious of his power, and not always sufficiently cautious or sufficiently gentle in its exercise. Nor was he always right. He trusted much to his memory, which was occasionally treacherous. His emendations, if often valuable, were sometimes absurd. In laying the foundations of a science of ancient chronology he relied sometimes on groundless or even absurd hypotheses, often based on an imperfect induction of facts. Sometimes he misunderstood the astronomical science of the ancients, sometimes that of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. And he was no mathematician.

Disagreements with the Jesuits
But his enemies were not merely those whose errors he had exposed and whose hostility he had excited by the violence of his language. The results of his method of historical criticism threatened the Catholic controversialists and the authenticity of many of the documents on which they relied. The Jesuits, who aspired to be the source of all scholarship and criticism, saw the writings and authority of Scaliger as a formidable barrier to their claims. Muret in the latter part of his life professed the strictest orthodoxy, Lipsius had been reconciled to the Church of Rome, Isaac Casaubon was supposed to be wavering, but Scaliger was known to be an irreconcilable Protestant. As long as his intellectual supremacy was unquestioned, the Protestants had the advantage in learning and scholarship. His enemies therefore aimed, if not to answer his criticisms or to disprove his statements, yet to attack him as a man and destroy his reputation. This was no easy task, for his moral character was absolutely spotless.

Veronese descent

After several attacks purportedly by the Jesuits, in 1607 a new attempt was made. In 1594 Scaliger had published his Epistola de vetustate et splendore gentis Scaligerae et JC Scaligeri vita. In 1601 Gaspar Scioppius, then in the service of the Jesuits published his Scaliger Hypobolimaeus ("The Supposititious Scaliger"), a quarto volume of more than four hundred pages. The author purports to point out five hundred lies in the Epistola de vetustate of Scaliger, but the main argument of the book is to show the falsity of his pretensions to be of the family of La Scala, and the narrative of his father's early life. "No stronger proof," says Pattison, "can be given of the impressions produced by this powerful philippic, dedicated to the defamation of an individual, than that it had been the source from which the biography of Scaliger, as it now stands in our biographical collections, has mainly flowed."

To Scaliger, the publication of Scaliger Hypobolimaeus was crushing. Whatever his father Julius had believed, Joseph had never doubted himself to be a prince of Verona, and in his Epistola had put forth all that he had heard from his father. He wrote a reply to Scioppius, entitled Confutatio fabulae Burdonum. In the opinion of Pattison, "as a refutation of Scioppius it is most complete"; but there are certainly grounds for dissenting from this judgment. Scaliger purported that Scioppius committed more blunders than he corrected, claiming that the book made untruthful allegations, but he did not succeed in adducing any proof either of his father's descent from the La Scala family, or of any of the events narrated by Julius before he arrived at Agen. Nor does Scaliger attempt a refutation of the crucial point, namely, that William, the last prince of Verona, had no son Nicholas, who would have been the alleged grandfather of Julius.

Complete or not, the Confutatio had little success; the attack attributed to the Jesuits was successful. Scioppius was wont to boast that his book had killed Scaliger. The Confutatio was Scaliger's last work. Five months after it appeared, on 21 January 1609, at four in the morning, he died at Leiden in the arms of his pupil and friend Heinsius. In his will Scaliger bequeathed his renowned collection of manuscripts and books (tous mes livres de langues étrangères, Hebraiques, Syriens, Arabiques, Ethiopiens) to Leiden University Library.

Sources
One notable biography of Joseph Scaliger is that of Jakob Bernays (Berlin, 1855). It was reviewed by Pattison in the Quarterly Review, vol. cviii (1860), since reprinted in the Essays, i (1889), 132–195. Pattison had made many manuscript collections for the life of Joseph Scaliger on a much more extensive scale, which he left unfinished. In writing the above article, Richard Copley Christie had access to and made much use of these manuscripts, which include the life of Julius Caesar Scaliger. The fragments of the life of Joseph Scaliger have been printed in the Essays, i. 196–245. For the life of Joseph, besides the letters published by Tamizis de Larroque (Agen, 1881), the two old collections of Latin and French letters and the two Scaligerana are the most important sources of information. The complete correspondence of Scaliger is now available in eight volumes.

For the life of his father Julius Caesar Scaliger, the letters edited by his son, those subsequently published in 1620 by the President de Maussac, the Scaligerana, and his own writings are full of autobiographical matter, are the chief authorities. Jules de Bourousse de Laffore's Etude sur Jules César de Lescale (Agen, 1860) and Adolphe Magen's Documents sur Julius Caesar Scaliger et sa famille (Agen, 1873) add important details to the lives of both father and son. The lives by Charles Nisard – that of Julius et Les Gladiateurs de la république des lettres, and that of Joseph Le Triumvirat littéraire au seizième siècle – are equally unworthy of their author and their subjects. Julius is simply held up to ridicule, while the life of Joseph is almost wholly based on the book of Scioppius and the Scaligerana.A complete list of the works of Joseph will be found in his life by Jakob Bernays. See also J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, ii. (1908), 199–204. A technical biography is Anthony T. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vol. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983, 1993).

Works

See also
History of scholarship
Julian Period – a tricyclic system of years proposed by Scaliger
New Chronology (Fomenko)

References

External links

 Correspondents of Scaliger: Joseph Justus Scaliger maintained a vast correspondence with European humanists and scholars, whose names are listed here
 The Correspondence of Joseph Justus Scaliger in EMLO

People from Agen
1540 births
1609 deaths
16th-century French historians
16th-century writers in Latin
17th-century writers in Latin
16th-century French writers
16th-century male writers
17th-century French writers
17th-century French male writers
Chronologists
French classical scholars
French book and manuscript collectors
Academic staff of Leiden University
College of Guienne alumni
University of Paris alumni
Academic staff of the University of Geneva
17th-century Dutch people
French Protestants
Converts to Protestantism
French male non-fiction writers
French people of Italian descent
Burials at Pieterskerk, Leiden

Joseph Justus Scaliger


The Church of Scotland is the national church of Scotland, established by law.  It is Presbyterian. The Presbyterian Church of Scotland is  distinguished from the Anglican Church in a number of ways. It does not have bishops or archbishops; nor is the British monarch its head. The leading minister is called the Moderator, who is the chair of the General Assembly for one year. Ministers of the Kirk, as it is called, may be called Rectors.

The established kirk has suffered schism (breaks), and this has given rise to the "Wee Frees": the Free Church of Scotland, and (a further schism) the Free Church of Scotland (continuing) (the Wee Wee Frees); and the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland (also, confusingly, called the Wee Wee Frees).

The Scottish Presbyterian church was formed when it broke away from Rome in 1560. Its theology (beliefs) were based on the ideas of John Knox, a disciple of John Calvin. The free kirks tend to take the Bible more literally.

About 10% of the people in Scotland are members of this church, but when asked in a census, 47% of people said this was their religion.

In 2023 there were around 4500 churches in Scotland, but fewer people going to services, so there were plans to save money by closing many of them.

God's Invitation
In 1992, the Kirk's ruling body (the General Assembly) approved the following simple summary of its beliefs.

God's Invitation

God made the world
	and all its creatures
	with men and women made in His image.

By breaking His laws people have broken contact with God,
	and damaged His good world.
	This we see and sense in the world and in ourselves.

The Bible tells us the Good News that God still loves us
	and has shown His love uniquely in His Son, Jesus Christ.
	He lived among us
	and died on the cross to save us from our sin.
	But God raised Him from the dead!

In His love, this living Jesus invites us
	to turn from our sins
	and enter by faith into a restored relationship with God
	Who gives true life before and beyond death.

Then, with the power of the Holy Spirit remaking us like Jesus,
	we – with all Christians –
	worship God,
	enjoy His friendship
	and are available for Him to use
	in sharing and showing
	His love, justice, and peace
	locally and globally
	until Jesus returns!

In Jesus' name
	we gladly share with you God's message for all people –
	You matter to God!

References

Presbyterianism
Establishments in Scotland
1560s establishments in Europe
1560 establishments
16th century in Scotland

Church of Scotland


The Gospel o Mark is the seicont beuk in The New Testament an is jaloused bi mony scholars tae be the auldest o The Gospels.

(Aw Biblical quotes in this airticle haes been taen frae W.L Lorimer's translate.)

Componin

Scriever
Tho the Gospel is anonymous it haes been associate wi a chiel cried Mark syne the seicont century. Juist wha this Mark wis haes been a soorce o muckle debate amang scholars for a gey lang while - some scholars haes sugeestit that he coud be the John Mark o Jerusalem that kythes in Acts an vaiges wi Paul an Barnabus the lenth o Perga, tho ithers says there's nae raison tae jalouse that he maun be a chiel frae The New Testament syne Mark (an variations o it sic as Marcus) wis gey ordinar in the Greco-Roman warld at thon time. Forby, shots haes been haed at identifeein Mark wi a callant that kythes in the Gospel itsel, at the time o Jesus' reestin:

Syne the hail o his disciples forhoued him an scoured awà. The' war ae callan, tho, at ey huid efter Jesus. He wis cled in nocht but a linnen hap, an they claucht hauds o him. But he wan lowse o their grips, an awà he ran scuddie-bare, laein his hap i their haunds. (Mark 14:51-52)

This, houmsome'er is conjectur, juist, an maist scholars daesna gree that the callant abuin an the scriever is the ae body.

Influence o Peter
Mark haes lang been associate wi Saunt Peter, an mony early Kirk scholars jaloused he haed a pairt in its componin. In his History o the Kirk, Eusebius attreebutes the follaein tae Papais, a Kirk Faither o the early seicont century:

Mark, haein become the interpreter o Peter, scrieved doun accurate aw that he minded - tho no raicordin in reddin whit wes said an duin bi Christ. Fer neither did he hear the Laird, nor did he follou Him; bot efter, as I said, [attended] Peter, wha adaptit his commaunds tae the needs [o his hearers] bot haed nae ettle tae gie a redded upcast o the Laird's oracles. Sae than Mark didnae mak a mistak whan he syne scrieved doun sum things as he minded thaim; fer he made it his ettle no tae miss out oniething that he heard , or tae set doun onie fauss statement. (History o the Kirk: III, 39)

He later gangs on tae scrieve:

Efter they [the apostles ] wes deid Mark, the disciple an interpreter o Peter - he set furth tae us in scrievin thae things whilk Peter haed taucht ... (History o the Kirk: V, 8)

The feck o scholars taks the first survivin lines o the Muratorian Fragment (? c. 170) tae refer tae Mark:

...bot at sum he [? Mark] wes tae haund, an sae he set them doun. (Fragmentum Muratorianum)

Maist scholars hauds that thir lines refers tae Mark bein "tae haund" whan Peter wis teachin.

The lang associe o the Gospel wi Peter leads mony scholars tae jalouse that Mark wus at the very least makkin uiss o some soorces that gaes back sae faur as Petrine tradeetions - i.e tradeetions anent the life an darg o Jesus that cam til the Kirk throu Peter or his follaers. Certaint in pairts o Mark Peter is ane o the few that wad hae kent whit we happenin (as ane o three witnesses tae the Transfeeguration in chaipter nine, for exemplar).

Date an steid o componin
Maist scholars hauds that The Gospel o Mark is the auldest o the fower Gospels, an that the scrievers o baith Matthew an Luke teuk muckle o their material frae it.

Tho minorities argie fer baith earlier an later dates, the feck pits the componin o Mark at atween the late 60s an the early 70s AD. Maist jalouse it isna likely tae be later gin, as is aften hauden, aither Matthew or Luke wis scrieved aboot 80; that gie it a date efter aboot 75.

Some scholars threaps that the auldest fragment o the Gospel comes frae some time afore 68, tho the fragment that they pynt tae (kent as 7Q5) is anerly the size o a postage staump, an canna be positively identifee'd as bein frae Mark.

As for the steid o componin, it can be said for certaint that Mark's oreeginal readers wis frae the Hellenic warld (see the wey that he explains it in Jewish customs an Aramaic phrases), an maist scholars (baith auncient an modren) grees that he set futh his wark somewhaur in Italy, aiblins in Rome itsel. Mark maks twa-three mistaks in his descreeptions o the geography o Palestine, sugeestin that he himsel wisna fameeliar wi it, tho he wis awmaist certaint o Jewish extraction, he wis aiblins no a native o Palestine.

Mark's soorces
Tho is haes lang been thocht that Peter wis in some wey inrowed in the componin o the Gospel, the idea that he wis personally inrowed in helpin Mark isna hauden tae bi mony scholars the day. Mark wad hae haed access tae oral tradeetions in the kirk that relatit tae Jesus. Maist o thaim wad hae circulate independent o contex, an wis redd intil their contexs bi Mark tae suit theological pynts that he wis makkin (pittin an accoont o Jesus healin a blind man efter a section anent the speeritual blindness o the disciples, for exemplar).
The quaisten o hou faur back thir oral tradeetions gaes is aye a maiter o debate amang scholars, an is aften based on linguistic grunds, as weel as tryin tae wirk oot whit, gin ony, effect later kirk theology haed on the development (phaseological an theological) o thir tradeetions afore Mark eeditit thaim an pit thaim in their current contexs. It shoud be merkit that, tho Mark haes uised eeditorial skeel in placin an introducin the pieces o tradeetion, he aften seems tae be haundin on the aulder tradeetions athoot modifeein their content ower muckle.

Style
Mark's Greek is semple, but fluent. It haes mony Semitisms (that indicates Mark micht hae been a Jew) an aften explains Jewish customs an Aramaic wirds (indicatin a Gentile readership). He uises the phrase "an syne" gey aften , that aften gies his wark a quick, awmaist braithless atmosphere. The focus o Mark is aften tae be revealed in the actions an no the teachins o Jesus. Tho some sections o teachin is recordit, Mark's conception o Jesus is for ordinar seen throu wunners an the like.

Soorces
 The New Testament in Scots - pitten ower intae Scots bi W.L. Lorimer
 Saint Mark (commentary) - D.E. Nineham
 The History of the Church - Eusebius
 Selections from Early Christian Writers - ed. H.M. Gwatkin

See an aa
 Gospel o Matthew
 Gospel o Luke
 Gospel o John
 Acks o the Apostles

Fremmit airtins
 Bible Gateway 35 languages/50 versions at GospelCom.net
 Unbound Bible 100+ languages/versions at Biola Varsity
 Easton's Bible Dictionary, 1897 : mainstream Protestant scholarskip o the 19t yearhunner summed up for the average reader.
 Michael A. Turton's Historical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark A detailed commentary on The Gospel o Mark.

Mark
Warks o uncertaint authorship

Gospel o Mark


Jöns Jakob Berzelius (20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. He invented the modern chemical notation. Berzelius, John Dalton and Antoine Lavoisier are said to be the fathers of modern chemistry.

Berzelius was born in Linköping in Östergötland in Sweden. He graduated from Uppsala University as a physician. He became a professor in medicine and surgery at the Stockholm School of Surgery in 1807. In 1810, this became part of Medico-Chirurgiska Institutet (later the Karolinska Institute) and Berzelius became a professor of chemistry and pharmacy.

Not long after going to Stockholm, Berzelius wrote a chemistry textbook for his medical students. While doing experiments for the textbook, he found that inorganic compounds are made of different elements in proportion by weight. Based on this, in 1828, he created a table of relative atomic weights. On this table, oxygen was set to 100. The table had all of the elements known at the time. This work gave evidence of the atomic hypothesis that
chemical compounds are made of atoms combined in whole number amounts.

In order to help his experiments, Berzelius created a system of chemical notation. In this notation, the elements were given simple written labels, for example, O for oxygen, or Fe for iron. The proportions of the elements was shown by numbers. This is the same basic system used today. The only difference is that instead of the subscript number used today (for example, H2O), Berzelius used a superscript.

Berzelius found the chemical elements silicon, selenium, thorium, and cerium. Students working in Berzelius laboratory also found lithium and vanadium.

Berzelius was the first person to show the difference between organic compounds (those made with carbon), and inorganic compounds. He helped Gerhardus Johannes Mulder in his analysis of organic compounds such as coffee, tea and many proteins. The term "protein" itself was created by Berzelius, after Mulder noticed that all proteins seemed to have the same formula and might be made of a single type of a (very large) molecule.

Berzelius wrote a great deal. He helped many leading scientists (such as Mulder, Claude Louis Berthollet, Humphry Davy, Friedrich Wöhler and Eilhard Mitscherlich), and many less-notable scientists.

Summary of achievements
Law of definte proportions
Chemical formula
Discovered chemical elements
Recognised organic compounds; named proteins.

Sources
Crosland M.P. 1962. Historical studies in the language of chemistry.  Chapter 4: The symbols of Berzelius. London: Heinemann.
von Meyer, Ernst 1906. A history of chemistry from the earliest times to the present day. p212 et seq: Berzelius: a survey of his work. London: Macmillan.
Partington J.R. 1964 History of chemistry, vol 4. London: Macmillan; pp. 142–77.
Leicester, Henry 1970–80. Berzelius, Jöns Jacob. In Dictionary of scientific biography, vol 2, p90–97. New York: Scribners. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9

1779 births
1848 deaths
Swedish chemists

Jöns Jakob Berzelius


On the Origin of Species is the famous book by Charles Darwin. It gave evidence for evolution, and suggested what had caused evolution to happen.

Its full title was On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

It was published in London by John Murray in November 1859. It was translated into many languages, and has been in print ever since. The title since the 6th edition of 1872 has been The Origin of Species. This is the most important single book in the biological sciences, and its main ideas are well-supported by modern research.

What the book did
Darwin's book did two things. First, it provided a great deal of evidence that evolution has taken place. Second, it proposed a theory to explain how evolution works. That theory is natural selection. Evolution by natural selection is the key to understanding biology, and the diversity of life on Earth.

Summary

 Within any population, there is natural variation. Some individuals have more favourable variations than others.
 Even though all species produce a large number of offsprings, populations remain fairly constant naturally.
 This is due to the struggle between members of the same species and different species for food, space, and mate.
 The struggle for survival within populations eliminates the unfit individuals. The fit individuals possessing favourable variations survive and reproduce. This is called natural selection (or survival of the fittest).
 The individuals having favourable variations pass on these variations to their progeny from generation to generation.
 These variations when accumulated over a long period of time, lead to the origin of new species.

Areas of comparative weakness
Darwin's ideas on the connection between natural selection and inheritance were unclear, mainly because the process of genetic inheritance was unknown at that time. This was solved in the mid-20th century by the modern evolutionary synthesis, which showed that Gregor Mendel's genetics was compatible with evolution in small steps. Darwin made almost no mention of the evolution of the human race, though most of the controversy raged around this topic. Darwin eventually published The Descent of Man in 1871.

The book's effects
The Origin was a serious blow to all who interpreted the Bible literally. However, even in 1860, there were many Christians who thought some of the Old Testament could not be literally true. Even the early Church Fathers had not interpreted Genesis literally.p323 Today, both the Anglican and Catholic churches hold that evolution is not inconsistent with their beliefs.

The Origin marked a big step in the history of science. Before it, religious leaders often gave their opinions on science; after – though it took time – science increasingly became the business of professional scientists. Darwin's friend Thomas Henry Huxley devoted many years to supporting Darwin, and opposing any interference of religion in science.

All aspects of biology have been affected by evolution. Before Darwin, most biology was natural history, done by dedicated amateurs. After Darwin, most biology was done by professionals trained in modern techniques. The book helped this change by providing evolution as the explanation of how living things came to be as they are.

Nature of Darwin's argument
Darwin's aims were twofold: to show that species had not been separately created, and to show that natural selection had been the chief agent of change.

Many readers were already familiar with the idea of evolution from a book published anonymously in 1844, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (actually by Robert Chambers). In his introduction Darwin ridicules that work as failing to provide a mechanism (a way it could happen).

The first four chapters lay out his case that selection in nature, caused by the struggle for existence, is analogous to the selection of variations under domestication.

Darwin presents supporting facts drawn from many disciplines. The idea was to show that his theory could explain a myriad of observations from many fields of natural history that were inexplicable if species had been individually created.

Contents
Chapters 1 2: Variation under domestication and under nature. Discusses the variation found within a species.
Chapters 3&4: Struggle for existence, natural selection, and divergence.
Chapter 5: Variation and heredity.
Chapter 6: Difficulties with the theory.
Chapter 7: Deals with the inheritance of instincts.
Chapter 8: Discusses the viability or infertility of hybrids between species and varieties.
Chapters 9&10: The geological record and fossils.
Chapters 11&12: The geographical distribution of animals and plants (biogeography).
Chapter 13: Classification, morphology, embryology, rudimentary organs.
Final chapter: Summary and conclusions.

Later editions
There were six editions of the Origin during Darwin's life. The second, in 1860, was almost the same as the first. The sixth edition bore the title: The origin of species.

There were many changes in the text in later editions. In the fifth edition of 1869 Darwin used Herbert Spencer's phrase 'survival of the fittest' for the first time, in the heading of chapter 4.

In the sixth and last edition, Darwin uses the word 'evolution' for the first time in this book. There is a new chapter 7 inserted:
Miscellaneous objections to the theory of natural selection

The Origin was translated during Darwin's lifetime into Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish and Swedish, and into 18 more languages since. Translations into some languages, such as French and German, were done more than once.

Reference works
There are some reference works which help scholars to do research on the Origin.

Peckham, Morse (ed) 1959. The Origin of Species: a variorum text. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. A variorum contains all variants of a text; this records every change made by Darwin to the first edition up to 1890.

Horblit H.D. 1964. One hundred books famous in science. Grolier Club. Contains the first full bibliographic description of the first edition.

Barrett, Paul H., Weinshank D.J. and Gottleber T.T. 1961, reprint 1981. A concordance to Darwin's Origin of Species, first edition. Cornell, Ithaca & London. This takes every substantive word in the book in alphabetical order, and lists every occurrence with context and page number. Same idea as concordances to the Bible.

Stauffer R.C. (ed) 1975. Charles Darwin's Natural Selection being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited from manuscript. Cambridge.

Freeman, Richard Broke 1965, 2nd ed 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. Dawson, Folkestone. Includes all the editions and reprints of all Darwin's works, as far as could be ascertained. Also, an on-line version with a few later corrections:
The complete work of Charles Darwin online: Table of contents bibliography of On the Origin of Species: Both web pages provide links to text and images of all editions of The Origin of Species, including translations in German, Danish, and Russian.

Contemporary reviews of the Origin
. Published anonymously.
. Extract from Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 4 (1860): 411–415.

Gray, Asa (1861). A free examination of Darwin's treatise on the Origin of Species, and of its American reviewers. Reprinted from the Atlantic monthly for July, August, and October, 1860. London: Trübner & Co., Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
.
. Published anonymously.
. Published anonymously.
.
. Published anonymously.
. Published anonymously.

For further reviews, see

Related pages
Charles Darwin's books

References

Evolutionary biology
Biology books
1859 books
Books by Charles Darwin

On the Origin of Species


A wig is a head covering made from human or animal hair, or a synthetic imitation thereof. The word is short for "periwig". Wigs may be worn to disguise baldness, to alter the wearer's appearance, or as part of certain professional uniforms.

History

Ancient and medieval use
In Egyptian society men and women commonly had clean shaven or close cropped hair and often wore wigs. The ancient Egyptians created the wig to shield shaved, hairless heads from the sun. They also wore the wigs on top of their hair using beeswax and resin to keep the wigs in place. Wealthy Egyptians would wear elaborate wigs and scented head cones of animal fat on top of their wigs. Other ancient cultures, including the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Jews in ancient Israel, Greeks and Romans, also used wigs as an everyday fashion.

In China, the popularization of the wig started in the Spring and Autumn period.

In Japan, the upper classes started wearing wigs before the Nara period.

In Korea, gache were popular among women during the Goryeo dynasty until they were banned in the late 18th century.

16th and 17th centuries
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the use of wigs fell into disuse in the West for a thousand years until they were revived in the 16th century as a means of compensating for hair loss or improving one's personal appearance. They also served a practical purpose: the unhygienic conditions of the time meant that hair attracted head lice, a problem that could be much reduced if natural hair were shaved and replaced with a more easily de-loused artificial hairpiece. Fur hoods were also used in a similar preventive fashion.

Royal patronage was crucial to the revival of the wig. Queen Elizabeth I of England famously wore a red wig, tightly and elaborately curled in a "Roman" style, while among men King Louis XIII of France (1601–1643) started to pioneer wig-wearing in 1624 when he had prematurely begun to bald. This fashion was largely promoted by his son and successor Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), which contributed to its spread in Europe and European-influenced countries in the 1660s. Wig-wearing remained a dominant style among men for about 140 years until the change of dress, affected by the French Revolution, in the 1790s.

Perukes or periwigs for men were introduced into the English-speaking world with other French styles when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, following a lengthy exile in France. These wigs were shoulder-length or longer, imitating the long hair that had become fashionable among men since the 1620s.  Their use soon became popular in the English court. The London diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the day in 1665 that a barber had shaved his head and that he tried on his new periwig for the first time, but in a year of plague he was uneasy about wearing it:3rd September 1665: Up, and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since, but darst not wear it because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it. And it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any haire for fear of the infection? That it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.

Wigs were not without other drawbacks, as Pepys noted on March 27, 1663:I did go to the Swan; and there sent for Jervas my old periwig-maker and he did bring me a periwig; but it was full of nits, so as I was troubled to see it (it being his old fault) and did send him to make it clean.

With wigs virtually obligatory garb for men with social rank, wigmakers gained considerable prestige. A wigmakers' guild was established in France in 1665, a development soon copied elsewhere in Europe. Their job was a skilled one as 17th century wigs were extraordinarily elaborate, covering the back and shoulders and flowing down the chest; not surprisingly, they were also extremely heavy and often uncomfortable to wear. Such wigs were expensive to produce. The best examples were made from natural human hair. The hair of horses and goats was often used as a cheaper alternative.

Several contemporary writings which have survived noted that some viewed men who wore wigs as looking deformed and emasculated. It especially attracted disapproval from Puritans, and during times of plague, it was said that wigs were made of hair of plague victims.

Wigs required cleaning using fuller's earth, and the powder used to freshen it was made from low grade flour and scented with pomatum.

18th century

In the 18th century, men's wigs were powdered to give them their distinctive white or off-white color. Women in the 18th century did not wear wigs, but wore a coiffure supplemented by artificial hair or hair from other sources. Powdered wigs (men) and powdered natural hair with supplemental hairpieces (women) became essential for full dress occasions and continued in use until almost the end of the 18th century.

The elaborate form of wigs worn at the coronation of George III in 1761 was lampooned by William Hogarth in his engraving Five Orders of Periwigs. Powdering wigs and extensions was messy and inconvenient, and the development of the naturally white or off-white powderless wig (made of horsehair) for men made the retention of wigs in everyday court dress a practical possibility. By 1765, wig-wearing went out of fashion except for some occupational groups such as coachmen and lawyers. During this period, people tended to simply wear their natural hair, styled and powdered to resemble a wig. However, the trend revived extravagantly during the Macaroni period of the 1770s. Women mainly powdered their hair grey, or blue-ish grey, and from the 1770s onwards never bright white like men. Wig powder was made from finely ground starch that was scented with orange flower, lavender, or orris root. Wig powder was occasionally colored violet, blue, pink or yellow, but was most often off-white.

By the 1780s, young men were setting a fashion trend by lightly powdering their natural hair, as women had already done from the 1770s onwards. After 1790, both wigs and powder were reserved for older, more conservative men, and were in use by ladies being presented at court. After 1790, English women seldom powdered their hair.

In 1795, the British government levied a tax on hair powder of one guinea per year. This tax effectively caused the demise of both the fashion for wigs and powder. Granville Leveson-Gower, in Paris during the winter of 1796, at the height of the Thermidorian Directory, noted "The word citoyen seemed but very little in use, and hair powder being very common, the appearance of the people was less democratic than in England."

Among women in the French court of Versailles in the mid-to-late 18th century, large, elaborate and often themed wigs (such as the stereotypical "boat poufs") were in vogue. These combed-up hair extensions were often very heavy, weighted down with pomades, powders, and other ornamentation. In the late 18th century these coiffures (along with many other indulgences in court life) became symbolic of the decadence of the French nobility, and for that reason quickly became out of fashion from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789.

During the 18th century, men's wigs became smaller and more formal with several professions adopting them as part of their official costumes. This tradition survives in a few legal systems. They are routinely worn in various countries of the Commonwealth. Until 1823, bishops of the Church of England and Church of Ireland wore ceremonial wigs. The wigs worn by barristers are in the style favoured in the late eighteenth century. Judges' wigs, in everyday use as court dress, are short like barristers' wigs (although in a slightly different style), but for ceremonial occasions judges and also senior barristers (KCs) wear full-bottomed wigs.

19th and 20th centuries
Due to the association with ruling classes in European monarchies the wearing of wigs as a symbol of social status was largely abandoned in the newly created republics, the United States and France, by the start of the 19th century, though formal court dress of European monarchies still required a powdered wig or long powdered hair tied in a queue until the accession of Napoleon Bonaparte to the throne as emperor (1804–1814).

In the United States, only four presidents, from John Adams to James Monroe, wore curly powdered wigs tied in a queue according to the old-fashioned style of the 18th century, though Thomas Jefferson wore a powdered wig only rarely and stopped wearing a wig entirely shortly after becoming president in 1801. John Quincy Adams also wore a powdered wig in his youth, but he abandoned this fashion while serving as the U.S. Minister to Russia (1809–1814), long before his accession to the presidency in 1825. Unlike them, the first president, George Washington, never wore a wig; instead, he powdered, curled and tied in a queue his own long hair.

Women's wigs developed in a somewhat different way. They were worn from the 18th century onwards, although at first only surreptitiously.  Full wigs in the 19th and early 20th century were not fashionable. They were often worn by old ladies who had lost their hair. In the film Mr. Skeffington (1944), Bette Davis's character has to wear a wig after a bout of diphtheria, which is a moment of pathos and a symbol of her frailty.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century hairdressers in England and France did a brisk business supplying postiches, or pre-made small wiglets, curls, and false buns to be incorporated into the hairstyle. The use of postiches did not diminish even as women's hair grew shorter in the decade between 1910 and 1920, but they seem to have gone out of fashion during the 1920s. In the 1960s a new type of synthetic wig was developed using a modacrylic fiber which made wigs more affordable. Reid-Meredith was a pioneer in the sales of these types of wigs.

21st century
The art of wigs became a billion dollar industry in the 21st century. Three main processes happen within the industry: the collection of material, manufacturing, and distribution. India is the main source of hair. It has been reported from time to time that for global human hair trade, women from the ASEAN region are being exploited. Hair from this region has a significant commercial value in the international market. Particularly in India, the women are forced by their husbands into selling their hair, and slum children were being tricked into "having their heads shaved in exchange for toys". Scrap pickers are another source of hair in India, these people find hair in miscellaneous places such as hair brushes, clothes, or in the trash. While manufacturing and processing mainly takes place in China, where the hair is sorted through and constructed into wigs, the final product exported abroad, with the top countries being the United States and the United Kingdom.

Official use
In Britain, most Commonwealth nations, and the Republic of Ireland special wigs are also worn by barristers, judges, and certain parliamentary and municipal or civic officials as a symbol of the office. Hong Kong barristers and judges continue to wear wigs as part of court dress as a legacy of the court system from the time of British rule. In July 2007, judges in New South Wales, Australia, voted to discontinue the wearing of wigs in the NSW Court of Appeal. New Zealand lawyers and judges have ceased to wear wigs except for ceremonial occasions, such as when newly-qualified lawyers are called to the bar. In Canada lawyers and judges do not wear wigs.

Entertainment
A number of celebrities, including Donna Summer, Dolly Parton, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Tina Turner and Raquel Welch, popularized wigs. Cher has worn all kinds of wigs in the last 40 years, from blonde to black, and curly to straight. They may also be worn for fun as part of fancy dress (costume wearing), when they can be of outlandish color or made from tinsel. They are quite common at Halloween, when "rubber wigs" (solid bald cap-like hats, shaped like hair), are sold at some stores.

Wigs are used in film, theater, and television. In the Japanese film and television genre Jidaigeki, wigs are used extensively to alter appearance to reflect the Edo period when most stories take place. Only a few actors starring in big-budgeted films and television series will grow their hair so that it may be cut to the appropriate hair style, and forgo using a wig.

In the theater, especially on Broadway, wigs are used to give a performer a fixed character. Nearly all women and many men do so not only for character design, but also to cover their microphone packs. Often the microphone pack goes on the actor's head, mainly to efficiently facilitate quick changes.

An actor not wearing a wig needs to change their look every time they go on stage. The wig helps solidify the character's design; natural hair is different day to day.

Convenience
Wigs are worn by some people on a daily or occasional basis in everyday life.  This is sometimes done for reasons of convenience, since wigs can be styled ahead of time. A common practice of wigs for convenience is called protective styling. Many use wigs to avoid damage to their natural tresses, or to create styles that may not be possible otherwise. They are also worn by individuals who are experiencing hair loss due to medical reasons (most commonly cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy, or those who are suffering from alopecia areata).

Some men who crossdress as women wear wigs in different styles to make their hair seem more feminine.

Merkin

A merkin is a pubic wig often worn as a decorative item or for theatrical and fashion purposes. They are sometimes viewed as erotic and some designs are meant for entertainment or as a form of comedy.

Image gallery

Military wigs
From the late 17th to early 19th centuries, European armies wore uniforms more or less imitating the civilian fashions of the time, but with militarized additions. As part of that uniform, officers wore wigs more suited to the drawing rooms of Europe than its battlefields. The late 17th century saw officers wearing full-bottomed natural-coloured wigs, but the civilian change to shorter, powdered styles with pigtails in the early 18th century saw officers adopting similar styles. The elaborate, oversized court-styles of the late 18th century were not followed by armies in the field however, as they were impractical to withstand the rigours of military life and simpler wigs were worn.

While officers normally wore their own hair short under a powdered wig, the rank and file of the infantry was not afforded such luxury. Instead of wigs, the men grew their hair long and according to the prevailing fashion in a nation's army, hair was either allowed to grow long with simple modeling, as in the French army of the 1740s, or else was elaborately coiffured as in Prussian and British armies. In the case of British soldiers of the 1740s, contemporary artwork suggests that they cut their hair short, which was not the case. Instead, the men used tallow or other fat to grease the hair, which was then fashioned into pigtails and tied back into the scalp hair to give the impression of short hair. It was then liberally dusted with powdered chalk to give the impression of a powdered wig. Later in the century, hair was likewise tied back, greased and powdered, but false hair pigtails were adopted, kept in a tubular queue and tied back with ribbons to the soldier's own hair. The overall effect was that of a wig with a long tail and bow.  The Prussian army took personal hairstyles to an extreme during the time of Frederick the Great, each soldier commonly having a long pigtail hanging down the back nearly to waist level.

By contrast, in the 1780s Russian General Potemkin abhorred the tight uniforms and uncomfortable wigs and powdered coiffures worn by his soldiers and instigated a complete revision of both. Along with comfortable, practical, well-fitting uniforms, his reforms introduced neat, natural hairstyles for all, with no wigs, powder and grease, or hair-tying evident.

Formal military hairstyles lasted until beyond the end of the 18th century and it was the French Revolution which spelled the end of wigs and powdered, greased hairstyles in modern, Western armies. Powdered hair and pigtails made a brief return during Napoleon's reign, being worn by infantry of his Foot Grenadiers and Foot Chasseurs of the Old Guard and the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard.

Religious

Judaism
Jewish law requires married women to cover their hair for reasons of tzniut (Hebrew: "modesty or privacy").  Some Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs, known as sheitels, for this purpose. Wigs of those who practice Haredi Judaism and Hasidic Judaism often are made from human hair. In Modern Orthodox Judaism, women will usually wear a scarf, kerchief, snood, hat or other covering, sometimes exposing the bottom of their hair.

One rabbi has declared that long wigs are inappropriate. Another said that it is preferable for a married Jewish woman to expose her hair than to don a wig, for the wig actually increases attraction in the public domain and encourages the notion that Halakha is both irrational and intellectually dishonest. Still another rabbi, who also spoke strongly against the wearing of wigs, said specifically, "You must go with a hat or kerchief on your head", but did not permit leaving hair "exposed".

Most Orthodox women cover their hair, whether with wigs, hats or scarves. The rejection by some rabbis of wigs is not recent, but began "in the 1600s, when French women began wearing wigs to cover their hair. Rabbis rejected this practice, both because it resembled the contemporary non-Jewish style and because it was immodest, in their eyes, for a woman to sport a beautiful head of hair, even if it was a wig."

Other options include:
 wearing a covered wig, called a shpitzel
 a covering, typically cloth, called a tichel
 another non-hair (and looser) head covering, called a snood
 a short wig mostly covered by a Tichel, but with (wig) "hair" showing on the forehead, sometimes also showing from the back, called a

Manufacture
In the 18th and 19th centuries, wigmakers were called perruquiers.

There are two methods of attaching hair to wigs. The first and oldest is to weave the root ends of the hair onto a stretch of three silk threads to form a sort of fringe called a "weft". The wefts are then sewn to a foundation made of net or other material. In modern times, the wefts can also be made (a warp is the vertical thread of a weave, the weft is the horizontal thread) with a specially adapted sewing machine, reducing the amount of hand labour involved. In the 19th century another method came into use.  A small hook called a "ventilating needle" or "knotting needle", similar to the tambour hooks used for decorating fabric with chain-stitch embroidery at that period, is used to knot a few strands of hair at a time directly to a suitable foundation material. This newer method produces a lighter and more natural looking wig. High quality custom wigs, and those used for film and theatrical productions are usually done this way. It is also possible to combine the two techniques, using weft for the main part of the wig and ventilating hair at the edges and partings to give a fine finish.

Measurement
Making custom wigs starts with measuring the subject's head. The natural hair is arranged in flat curls against the head as the various measurements are taken. It is often helpful to make a pattern from layers of transparent adhesive tape applied over a piece of plastic wrap, on which the natural hairline can be traced accurately. These measurements are then transferred to the "block", a wooden or cork-stuffed canvas form the same size and shape as the client's head.

Foundation
Depending on the style of the wig, a foundation is made of net or other material, different sizes and textures of mesh being used for different parts of the wig. The edges and other places might be trimmed and reinforced with a narrow ribbon called "galloon". Sometimes flesh colored silk or synthetic material is applied where it will show through the hair at crown and partings, and small bones or elastic are inserted to make the wig fit securely. Theatrical, and some fine custom wigs, have a fine, flesh colored net called "hair lace" at the front which is very inconspicuous in wear and allows the hair to look as if it is coming directly from the skin underneath. These are usually referred to as "lace front wigs".

Hair preparation

Natural hair, either human or from an animal such as a goat or yak, must be carefully sorted so that the direction of growth is maintained, root to root, and point to point. Because of the scale-like structure of the cuticle of a hair shaft, if some hairs get turned the wrong way, they will ride backwards against their neighbors and cause tangles and matting. The highest quality of hair has never been bleached or colored, and has been carefully sorted to ensure the direction is correct. This process is called "turning". For less expensive wigs, this labour-intensive sorting process is substituted by "processing" the hair. It is treated with a strong base solution which partially dissolves the cuticle leaving the strands smooth. It is then bleached and dyed to the required shade and given a synthetic resin finish which partially restores the strength and luster of the now damaged hair. Synthetic fiber, of course, is simply manufactured in the required colors, and has no direction.

The wigmaker will choose the type, length and colors of hair required by the design of the wig and blend them by pulling the hair through the upright teeth of a brush-like tool called a "hackle" which also removes tangles and any short or broken strands. The hair is placed on one of a pair of short-bristled brushes called "drawing brushes" with the root ends extending over one edge; the edge facing the wigmaker (or properly called, boardworker), and the second brush is pressed down on top of it so that a few strands can be withdrawn at a time, leaving the rest undisturbed.

Adding the hair
Weft structured wigs can have the wefts sewn to the foundation by hand, while it is on the block or, as is common with mass-produced wigs, sewn to a ready-made base by skilled sewing machine operators. Ventilated (hand knotted) wigs have the hair knotted directly to the foundation, a few strands at a time while the foundation is fastened to the block. With the hair folded over the finger, the wigmaker pulls a loop of hair under the mesh, and then moves the hook forward to catch both sides of the loop. The ends are pulled through the loop and the knot is tightened for a "single knot", or a second loop is pulled through the first before finishing for a "double knot". Typically, the bulkier but more secure double knot is used over the majority of the wig and the less obvious single knot at the edges and parting areas. A skilled wigmaker will consider the number of strands of hair used and the direction of each knot to give the most natural effect possible.

It takes generally six heads of hair to make a full human hair wig.

Styling
At this point, the hair on the wig is all the same length. The wig must be styled into the desired form in much the same manner as a regular stylist.

Fitting
The subject's natural hair is again knotted tightly against the head and the wig is applied. Any remaining superfluous wiglace is trimmed away. Hairpins can be used to secure the lace to the hair and occasionally, skin-safe adhesives are used to adhere the wig against bald skin and to better hide any exposed lace. Finishing touches are done to the hair styling to achieve the desired effect.

Types of human hair wigs
There are two basic kinds of hair wigs: The traditional machine stitched weft wig and the hand tied lace wig. The machine stitched wigs are still the most widely worn wigs today. The hair is sewn on a stretch weft material and come with back straps for adjusting to various head sizes. These wigs are typically pre-styled and lack any kind of realistic expectations.

Lace wigs are quickly becoming one of the most sought-after wigs among wig wearers. The illusion of hair growing from the scalp is the feature that makes this wig the best of the best when it comes to wearing fake hair. These wigs are made with a French or Swiss lace material base. They are made as a full lace or partial lace front with a stretch weft back.  Each hair strand is individually stitched into a lace material which creates the natural look of hair at the base. This is where the term "hand tied" originates.

Hair type is the distinguishing factor in human hair wigs. Four main types of hair are used in manufacturing: Chinese or "Malaysian", Indian, Indonesian or "Brazilian", and Caucasian or "European". The majority of human hair wigs are made of Chinese or Indian hair, while European hair is considered the most expensive and rare, as most donors are from Russia or Northern Europe, where there is a smaller portion of hair donors to the market.

Remy human hair is considered to be the best quality of human hair because the cuticles are kept intact and not stripped away; "strands retain their scaled natural outer cuticle." The preserved cuticles are also aligned in a unidirectional manner, which decreases tangling and matting. Also, the hair is carefully separated after collecting from the donor to ensure all the cuticles are of the same length.

Notable wig designers
Willy Clarkson, who created wigs for London's West End theatre productions
Nina Lawson, who ran the Metropolitan Opera wig department from 1956 to 1987
Peter King, Bristol, United Kingdom
Peter Owen, Bristol, United Kingdom

See also

 Hair extensions
 Hair prosthesis
 Toupée

References

Further reading

Egyptian inventions
Fashion accessories
Hairdressing
History of clothing (Western fashion)
Hasidic clothing
Jewish religious clothing
Judicial clothing

Wig


Chromatography is a method for separating the parts of a mixture for chemical analysis and identification.  It works by using differences in the speed at which the mixed substances move through special media, or chemical substances.  It uses a stationary phase (a solid) and a mobile phase (a liquid or a gas).  The fluid mobile phase flows through the stationary phase.  Chromatography is much used in biochemistry and analytical chemistry.

Flat-plane chromatography
The stationary phase is a flat plane, such as paper, or a substance on glass.

Paper chromatography

Paper chromatography is an old technique for separating and identifying mixtures that are (or can be) coloured.  It has been largely replaced by thin layer chromatography, but is still a powerful teaching tool. Double-way paper chromatography, also called 'two-dimensional chromatography', uses two solvents and rotates the paper 90° in between.  It is useful for separating complex mixtures of compounds having similar polarity, for example, amino acids.  The compounds used initially ensures you to know whether the colour is pure, (one substance only) or mixtures (multiple substances.)

Thin layer chromatography

Thin layer chromatography (TLC) is a common laboratory technique similar to paper chromatography. Instead of a stationary phase of paper, it uses a  thin layer of adsorbent like silica gel, alumina, or cellulose on a flat substrate. Compared to paper, it has the advantage of faster runs, better separations, and the choice between different adsorbents. For even better resolution and to allow for quantification, high-performance TLC can be used.

Column chromatography
Column chromatography separates compounds using many chemical actions between the chemical being tested and the chromatography column (a rod with a blending of special chemicals). The column is run using either gravity or a pump.

The mixed substance to be tested is added in a small amount and is slowed by certain chemical or physical activity with the chemicals in the chromatography column. The amount of slowing depends on the type of chemicals in the substance being tested and the different phases. The time at which a certain chemical elutes (comes out of the end of the column) is called the "retention time" and there is thought to be only one for one chemical.

The most common stationary phase for column chromatography is silica gel, followed by alumina. Cellulose powder has been used in the past. The mobile phase is either a pure solvent or a mixture of solvents. It is chosen to
make the time and amount of solvent used as little as possible, while still clearly separating the chemicals being tested.

HPLC
High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is also sometimes referred to as high-pressure liquid chromatography. It is column chromatography run under pressure to raise the speed of the process.

Common solvents used in HPLC are mixes of water or various organic liquids (the most common are methanol, ethanol or acetonitrile).

Laboratory techniques
Analytical chemistry

Chromatography


UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (). It is an agency of the United Nations (UN).

UNESCO says its purpose, as defined just after the end of World War II, is "to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men and women". It does this by helping nations work together, through education for all, science, and culture. This is supposed to help other nations follow the rule of law and human rights. It also helps promote some freedoms in the UN Charter.

UNESCO has 195 Member countries.

UNESCO tries to achieve what it wants to do through six programs: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information. Some projects sponsored by UNESCO are literacy, technical, and teacher-training programmes. UNESCO also decides what will become World Heritage Sites. A World Heritage Site is an important, special, interesting or beautiful place. If a place is a World Heritage Site, the place can not be destroyed, as it can give useful information for the future. The Uluru, for example, gives a lot of information on the culture of Aborigines. UNESCO is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. and works for Millennium Development Goals.

References

Other websites

Official site of UNESCO on which you can find extra information

Cultural organizations
Scientific organizations
Educational organizations
1945 establishments

UNESCO


Raffaello Sanzio, usually known as Raphael (April 6, 1483 - April 6, 1520) was a Renaissance painter and architect. With Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he is one of the three greatest painters of the High Renaissance.

He is best known for his paintings of the Madonna and Christ Child and for his paintings in the Vatican in Rome, Italy.

Perugia
Raphael was born in Urbino, in the region of Umbria, Italy. He was the son of Giovanni Santi (d. 1494), who was also a painter, and Magia di Battista Ciarla (d. 1491). Giovanni Santi was Raphael's first teacher, but he died when Raphael was only eleven.

At the age of 15, Raphael became an apprentice at the workshop of the painter Pietro Perugino, called by that name because he was the most famous painter in the town of Perugia. Perugino was famous, not only in Umbria, but also in Rome and in Florence, the home of Leonardo and Michelangelo. He had been one of the artists given the important job of painting the Pope's large chapel in the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel.

Perugino was known to have expert ways of painting (technique), and was good at getting paintings finished on time which made him popular with his patrons. He painted some portraits of people alive in his day, but most of his pictures are of religious figures of the past. Some of his paintings are small pictures of the Madonna and Child that could be used in a family chapel for private worship. Because he was famous, Perugino also got lots of work from wealthy patrons and from churches, so he painted many very large pieces to go above the altars in churches. To do this, he needed the help of his apprentices.

Raphael was able to learn a great deal from Perugino - drawing, the anatomy of the human figure, paint chemistry, and the technique of putting the paint onto the picture in smooth layers. The figures in Perugino's paintings often have very sweet gentle faces. Many of Raphael's paintings are also sweet and gentle. Some painters, such as Leonardo, were quick to change their style and make their paintings show their own touch. But Raphael continued to paint in the style that Perugino taught him. He added new ideas that he learned by looking at the work of other artists. Unlike Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael did not give the world anything new in the Art of Painting. He is famous simply because he was so expert at what he did, and because people loved his paintings so much.

First Works

The painting that is thought to be his earliest known work is a small picture called The Vision of a Knight. In this painting a knight lies asleep. In his dream there are two beautiful women. One woman, dressed in soft flowing clothes, offers him flowers. The other woman, dressed in dark clothing, offers the knight a sword and a book. The path behind the pretty woman runs beside a river. The other path leads up a steep mountain. Raphael was thinking about choices. Should the knight take the easy road, or should he try to change things?

Other early pictures by Raphael are Three Graces, and Saint Michael.

Raphael's first major work was The Marriage of the Virgin which was painted in 1504. It was influenced by Perugino's painting for the Sistine Chapel of Jesus giving the Keys to Saint Peter. It is now in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy.

Florence

In about 1504 Raphael went with another painter, Pinturicchio, to Florence, Italy. Florence was famous for its artworks, its artist's workshops, its new Renaissance buildings and its huge cathedral. Raphael wanted to see the work of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other important painters and sculptors.

The Madonnas
Florence had a very strong tradition of making images of the Madonna and Child because the city was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. On almost every street corner there was a painting or a brightly coloured statue of the Madonna and Child.

While he was in Florence, Raphael painted many of his famous Madonna paintings. The most famous of these paintings are:
 The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1505), which is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
 the Madonna del Prato (c. 1505), which is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna, Austria.
 the Esterházy Madonna (c. 1505 – 07), which is in Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.
 La Belle Jardinière (The Madonna of the Beautiful Garden) (c. 1507), which is in the Louvre Museum, in Paris, France.

Rome
In 1508 Raphael was called to Rome by Pope Julius II. He became so popular whilst he was in Rome that he was known as the "Prince of Painters". He spent the last 12 years of his life in Rome and created many of his most famous paintings.

While he was in Rome he was commissioned (given a job), to paint a fresco of the Prophet Isaiah in the Church of Sant'Agostino. While he was working on the painting, he went to visit his friend, the architect, Donato Bramante. Bramante was at the Vatican while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Of course Raphael wanted to see what the famous master was doing. While Michelangelo was away, Bramante took Raphael into the chapel. When Raphael saw the way that Michelangelo had painted the prophets, he was so excited that he went back to Sant'Agostino's Church, scraped his painting off the wall and started all over again. It is easy to see that Raphael's painting is in the style of Michelangelo. Raphael was not ashamed of this. He did it to give honour to the great master.

The Stanze

Among Raphael's most famous paintings are the frescos that are painted on the walls of Julius II's own rooms in the Vatican Palace, known as the Stanze. The paintings in the Stanza della Segnatura and the Stanza d'Eliodoro were created by Raphael himself, whilst the Stanza dell'Incendio was designed by Raphael and painted by his assistants.

One of the frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura is of the greatest importance. This painting is called The School of Athens. It shows a group of learned people from Ancient Greece, philosophers, poets, dramatists, mathematicians and others. They are listening to the central figure, who is the philosopher, Plato. The painting is meant to show that at that time, the early 1500s, there was a new birth of ideas and learning among the people of Rome that was equal to the learning of Ancient Athens.

To make this message clear, Raphael used the faces of the people that he knew. Michelangelo, with his broken nose, is sitting with his chin on his hand. The tall figure of Plato with long hair and flowing beard is a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci.

One of the excellent things about this painting is the way that Raphael has painted the building in which the figures are standing. The architecture looks as if it is opening up from the real room.

Architecture
In the 1500s, painters were often asked to design architecture. Raphael's first work as an architect was the funeral chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo. Pope Leo X also chose Raphael to help design Saint Peter's Basilica alongside Donato Bramante. After Bramante died, Raphael took over the designing of the basilica and changed its groundplan from a Greek Cross to a Latin Cross. Michelangelo went back to Bramante's plan but made it simpler. Then another architect, Maderna, made the building longer, as Raphael had planned.

The Transfiguration
Raphael's last work of art was a painting of the Transfiguration. This was an altarpiece, but Raphael died before he could complete it. It was instead finished by Giulio Romano, who was one of Raphael's assistants.

Death
Raphael died on his 37th birthday. He was buried in the Pantheon in Rome. His funeral was at the Vatican. His Transfiguration altarpiece was put at the head of Raphael's funeral carriage.

Related pages
 List of Italian painters

References

1483 births
1529 deaths
16th-century Italian painters
Italian architects

Raphael


Renaissance music is European music written from about the year 1400 to 1600. This section of time is called the Renaissance, a word which means "rebirth". The Renaissance comes between the Middle Ages and the Baroque times.

Putting music into time sections does not mean that there were quick changes of type. Music changed slowly, and early Renaissance music was similar to Medieval music. Slowly music-writers started to try new ideas. A lot of medieval church music had become very hard with lots of rules about rhythms and clashes of notes to make dissonances. A lot of Renaissance composers wrote music which was smoother and more gentle. The music was still polyphonic with each voice having a share of melody. Music was starting to become less modal and more tonal. By the time the Baroque period started composers were using a system of major and minor keys like we do today.

Vocal music

Composers wrote many masses and motets. The 16th century also saw the birth of the madrigal: secular (not religious) songs which were often about love. The madrigal started in Italy and became very popular for a short while in England from the 1580s. There were lots of other secular songs such as the chanson, canzonetta and villanelle. Songs were often accompanied by a lute.
Music was an essential part of civic, religious, and courtly life in the Renaissance. The rich interchange of ideas in Europe, as well as political, economic, and religious events in the period 1400–1600 led to major changes in styles of composing, methods of disseminating music, new musical genres, and the development of musical instruments. The most important music of the early Renaissance was compose for use by the church—polyphonic (made up of several simultaneous melodies) masses and motets in Latin for important churches and court chapels. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, patronage was split among many areas: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches and courts, wealthy amateurs, and music printing—all were sources of income for composers.

Music notation
An important development during the Renaissance was music notation. Many musicians wrote books about music theory. They are useful for us because they tell us how music sounded in those days and what people thought about it. Music started to be written on a music staff with five lines. There were still no barlines in early Renaissance music. Notes were written with white note heads, e.g. the minim (half note) was at one time the shortest note that could be written (the "minimum" length). Only later did crochets (quarter notes) and quavers (eighth notes) come in. This does not mean that music was slow in those days, it was just the way it was written.

Key signatures had not yet been invented. Sharps and flats were sometimes shown by accidentals (written in front of the notes). Very often, however, the performers were expected to know or even decide for themselves the sharps and flats (see musica ficta).

Music printing
Another very important discovery at this time was music printing. Music printing started in Italy in the mid 16th century.

Composers of the Renaissance

In the early 15th century there was a group of composers known now as the Burgundian School (from Burgundy). Guillaume Dufay was the most famous. Their music sounded a little bit like medieval music.

Towards the end of the 15th century a style of polyphonic sacred music had been developed that can be heard in the masses of Johannes Ockeghem and Jacob Obrecht. Ockeghem even composed one piece in which all the parts develop from one idea which was used as a canon.

In the 16th century composers started to write music with a clear beat and regular pulse. These included Josquin des Prez and others from the Franco-Flemish School. The was a Roman school, to which the famous Italian Giovanni da Palestrina belonged. His way of writing polyphony has been a model for that style for many centuries. Music students still have to study "Palestrina technique" (how to compose in Palestrina's style). Although church music at this time is mainly polyphonic it also has homophonic passages where the voices sing the same words together. This helps to make important words really clear.

In Venice, from about 1534 until around 1600, a polychoral style developed. Choirs were separated, singing from different parts of the church, often from galleries. This grand music sounded beautiful in big churches such as the Basilica San Marco di Venezia. These composers are often called the "Venetian School". Andrea Gabrieli and later his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli wrote this kind of music, and later Claudio Monteverdi who started in the Renaissance and lived into the Baroque period.

The end of the Renaissance period

The change to the Baroque musical style happened around 1600. This was the time when opera was invented. This needed a new style of composing. The composer Monteverdi wrote in the Renaissance style until about 1600-1650, when he changed to the Baroque style.

Renaissance
Periods in music history

Renaissance music