An oath (from Anglo-Saxon āð) is a promise. An oath is spoken out loud in front of other people who can see and hear what is done and said. They are witnesses to the oath. A person who cannot speak can make a sign that they are "taking an oath".  Another way of saying that a person is "taking an oath" is to say that they are "swearing an oath".

A person can say "I promise that I will do this..." or "I swear that I will do this..."

When a person swears an oath they often show that the oath is very important to them by calling God to see and remember the promise, and to show that the promise is true, and cannot be taken back later. When a person takes an oath they sometimes raise their right hand, or put their hand on their heart, on the Bible or on another holy book.

Oaths are used in many situations when a person needs to be true to what they say:
A person often swears an oath when they get married that they will love, care for and be true to their partner.
A person is often asked to take an "oath" that they will tell the truth in court.
A person who has an important position like mayor or governor swears an oath that they will serve their people and country.
When a person becomes a citizen of a country where they were not born, they take an "oath of allegiance" and promise that they will be a good and true citizen of their new country.

Other meanings
The word "oath" is often used to mean any angry expression which includes religious or other strong language and promises that the person will do something horrible.

Related pages
 Confirmation
 Society
 Institution
 Contract
 Law
 Government

Other websites

 Courtroom oaths  from the North Dakota Supreme Court adding social workers to oath for their state it's there responsibility website (jury oath, witness oath and so on)
Australasian Police Multicultural Advisory Bureau  has several publications for Australia dealing with multi-faith issues and A Practical Reference to Religious Diversity for Operational Police and Emergency Services  covers oaths as well as many other topics (in review as of 12/2/2006) but the 2nd Edition is available.
North Carolina faith leaders supporting Quran oath
for comments about John Quincy Adams' Oath of Office.

Society

Oath


The Golden Raspberry Awards or Razzies, first awarded in 1981, were made by John J. B. Wilson in 1980, with the goal of being the opposite of the Academy Awards by dishonoring the worst movies. It is usually a plastic raspberry spray-painted gold and mounted on a plastic base, however Bill Cosby accepted a custom-made one made out of 24 carat (99.99%) gold and Italian marble.

Today, awards are voted by the membership of the "Golden Raspberry Award Foundation" (GRAF), and anyone can become a member of the foundation, something that does not happen with the Academy Awards. Usually, nominations are made public one day before the Motion Picture Academy says its Oscar nominations, and the awards are presented one day before the Oscar ceremony.

The term "raspberry" is used as a joke, as in "blowing a raspberry."

Movie awards

Golden Raspberry Awards


Forensic science (or forensics) is when science works to answer questions a lawyer might ask.

Most often, forensics is about proving that someone was present at a place where a crime was committed. Specialists take samples which are later analyzed in a laboratory. Most forensic tests can take from 1 hour to one year, and investigators need to double (and triple) check the answer, so they know that the answer is the right answer. If a forensics team made a mistake the wrong person could be jailed, or they could get into trouble themselves.

Samples commonly taken include fingerprints. People also look for other things that could be used, for example a few hairs (or pieces of skin) and autopsy if dead. Samples like hair or skin can be use for DNA testing, which allows to tell the gender of the person the hair is from, amongst others.

When someone is accused of committing the crime, these pieces of evidence can then be matched up. Then, if they are correct, the person is charged.

Subdivisions
 Forensic accounting is the study and interpretation of accounting evidence
 Forensic anthropology is the application of physical anthropology in a legal setting, usually for the recovery and identification of skeletonized human remains.
 Forensic archaeology is the application of a combination of archaeological techniques and forensic science, typically in law enforcement.
 Computational forensics concerns the development of algorithms and software to assist forensic examination.
 Criminalistics applies various sciences to answer questions relating to examination and comparison of biological evidence, trace evidence, impression evidence (such as fingerprints, footwear impressions, and tire tracks), controlled substances, ballistics, firearm and toolmark examination, and other evidence in criminal investigations. In typical circumstances evidence is processed in a crime lab.
 Forensic dactyloscopy is the study of fingerprints.
 Digital forensics is the application of proven scientific methods and techniques in order to recover data from electronic / digital media.  Digital Forensic specialists work in the field as well as in the lab.
 Forensic document examination or questioned document examination answers questions about a disputed document using a variety of scientific processes and methods. Many examinations involve a comparison of the questioned document, or components of the document, with a set of known standards. The most common type of examination involves handwriting, whereby the examiner tries to address concerns about potential authorship.
 Forensic DNA analysis takes advantage of the uniqueness of an individual's DNA to answer forensic questions such as paternity/maternity testing and placing a suspect at a crime scene, e.g. in a rape investigation.
 Forensic engineering is the scientific examination and analysis of structures and products relating to their failure or cause of damage.
 Forensic linguistics deals with issues in the legal system that requires linguistic expertise.
 Forensic pathology applies the medical methods and principles of pathology, including autopsy, to determine a cause of death or injury in the context of a legal inquiry.
 Forensic psychology is the study of the mind of an individual, using forensic methods. Usually it determines the circumstances behind a criminal's behavior.
 Forensic toxicology is the study of the effect of drugs and poisons on/in the human body.
 Forensic Podiatry is an application of the study of feet footprint or footwear and their traces to analyze scene of crime and to establish personal identity in forensic examinations.

Forensic science


A micro-organism or microbe is an organism which is microscopic, which means so small that people cannot see them with the naked eye. The study of microorganisms is called microbiology.

Micro-organisms include bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists and viruses, and are among the earliest known life forms. The first of these four types of micro-organisms may either be free-living or parasitic. Viruses can only be parasitic, since they always reproduce inside other living things.

Most micro-organisms are unicellular organisms with only one cell, but there are unicellular protists that are visible to the human eye, and some multicellular species are microscopic.

Micro-organisms live almost everywhere on earth where there is liquid water, including hot springs on the ocean floor and deep inside rocks within the earth's crust. Such habitats are lived in by extremophiles.

Micro-organisms are critical to nutrient recycling in ecosystems, because they act as decomposers.  Because some micro-organisms can also take nitrogen out of the air, they are an important part of the nitrogen cycle. Pathogenic, or harmful, microbes can invade other organisms and cause disease.

Free-living micro-organisms
Free-living microbes get their energy in many different ways. Some use photosynthesis, like plants do. Some break down natural chemicals in their environment. Others feed on things that were once living, such as fallen leaves and dead animals, causing them to breakdown or decay. Some fungi and bacteria cause food to decay. Moldy bread or fruit, sour milk, and rotten meat are examples of decayed food. In nature, decayed materials mix with soil, providing essential nutrients for plants to use. Without this process, the nutrients in the soil would run out. These types of organisms are called decomposers. They are the natural recyclers of living things on our planet.

Microbes also help us make some of our foods, such as bread, cheese, yogurt, beer, and wine. They feed on the sugar in grain, fruit, or milk, giving these foods a special texture and taste.

Parasitic microbes
Some microbes, often called germs, cause illness or disease. They are parasites which live by invading living things. Chickenpox, mumps, and measles are all caused by viruses. Some bacteria are also germs. They cause many infectious diseases including tuberculosis and tetanus. Certain bacteria cause tooth decay. It is possible to protect humans against some harmful microbes by storing and preparing food properly, cleaning the teeth, washing hands, and by avoiding close contact with ill people.

Comensalism
All animals seem to have bacteria and protozoa living in or on them without doing much harm. Sometimes, as with herbivores, the microorganisms are vital to the digestion of food. The human gut has more organisms living inside it than there are cells in the human body.

References

Other websites
 Microbe News from Genome News Network
 BBC News, 28 September, 2001: The microbes that 'rule the world' Citat: "... The Earth's climate may be dependent upon microbes that eat rock beneath the sea floor, according to new research....The number of the worm-like tracks in the rocks diminishes with depth; at 300 metres (985 feet) below the sea floor, they become much rarer..."
 BBCNews: 16 January, 2002, Tough bugs point to life on Mars Citat: "...This research demonstrates that certain microbes can thrive in the absence of sunlight by using hydrogen gas..."
 BBCNews: 17 January, 2002, Alien life could be like Antarctic bugs
 Microbiology
  Microbe fixes nitrogen at a blistering 92 C

Microbiology

Microorganism


The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a wall that separated the city of Berlin in Germany from 1961 to 1989. It separated the eastern half from the western half. Many people believed it was a symbol of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was taken down on November 9, 1989. The Berlin Wall was about  long. It was built to prevent people from escaping from the eastern half of Berlin.

Division of Germany

After World War II ended, Germany was divided into four zones, one zone for each of the main Allied countries: France, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. Its capital Berlin was also divided into four zones, so that it was an enclave, like an island inside the Soviet zone. On May 8, 1949, the French, United Kingdom and US zones were made into West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD) and West Berlin. The Soviet zones were made into East Germany and East Berlin. East Germany (German Democratic Republic, Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR) was founded on October 7, 1949. Europe, Germany and Berlin were divided by an iron curtain.

What led to the building of the wall

After Germany split into West and East Germany on May 8, 1949, 2.6 million East Germans left to go to West Germany. In Berlin alone, 3.6 million people fled to the west. To stop this, on August 13, 1961, the Communist government of East Germany built a wall separating East and West Berlin.

The wall was built to keep the country's people in. But the Soviets and East German government said it was to keep capitalism out. They said that West Germany refused to recognize East Germany as an independent country because they wanted to take over North-East Germany just like Hitler took over Poland.

People still tried to escape even though the Berlin Wall was there. They used many methods to get around the guards and barbed wire on the Berlin Wall.

In the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev said that the Soviet Union would not use the Red Army to stop the people of Eastern and Middle Europe from changing their government. After he said that, several countries began to change the way they governed their people. Hungary opened its border and people from East Germany began moving to the west through Hungary. In October 1989 mass demonstrations against the government in East Germany began. The long-time leader, Erich Honecker, resigned and was replaced by Egon Krenz a few days later. Honecker had predicted in January 1989 that the wall would stand for a "hundred more years" if the conditions which had caused its construction did not change. This did not turn out to be true.

In November, 1989, the Central Committee of East Germany decided to make it easier for East Germans to pass through the wall. A mistake by the press officer meant the border was opened several hours before it should have been. Millions of East German citizens celebrated the opening of the wall. Many collected souvenirs with chisels and some television stations filmed people hitting the wall with sledge hammers.

This image of people in West Berlin hitting the wall is often said to be East Berliners breaking out. This is not true. The eastern side of the wall had no graffiti on it. All pictures of people chipping away at the wall show people hitting graffiti covered walls. Less than one year after the Berlin Wall was broken down, Germany again became one country.

Death toll
In the 28 years of its existence, between 125 and 206 people were killed when trying to cross the Berlin Wall. At least 800 more people were killed outside Berlin, trying to cross from East Germany to the west.

The East Germans did not record all of the deaths, so the real number of how many people died may never be known.

Those people who were caught alive in an attempt to flee, had to go to jail for at least five years. The first victim of the Wall was Ida Siekmann. She was fatally injured after jumping out of the window of her apartment. She fell onto the pavement on the west side. The first victim of the Wall to be shot at was Günter Litfin. He was 24 years old and was shot by police, near the railway station of Berlin Friedrichstrasse, when he tried to get into the West. This was on 24 August, 1961, only eleven days after the border had been closed.

Peter Fechter bled to death in the death strip, on 17 August, 1962. This led to a public outcry. American troops watched him, but could not help him. The East-German border policemen, who had wounded him, did not help him either.

In 1966, two children, aged ten and thirteen years, were killed in the border strip. This is unusual because the East German border police had orders to not shoot on pregnant women, children or mentally ill people.

On 6 February, 1989, border guards shot and killed Chris Gueffroy as he tried to cross the wall. He was the last person to be killed by border guards. On 8 March, 1989, Winfried Freudenberg died after falling from a gas balloon. He was the last person to die trying to cross the Berlin Wall and escape into West Berlin.

The Riots of Berlin

The Berlin wall eventually started to fall once people rioted. Many jumped on top of the wall, and even crowded against it. This caused the wall to collapse in some areas, and more people could get through to the refugee camps that were set up on the other side.  "Tear down this wall!" was a speech made by United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the wall. The speech was made at the Brandenburg Gate near the Berlin Wall on June 12, 1987. It was made to honor the 750th anniversary of Berlin. His speech and its fallout might have aided in the wall's demolition.

Fall of the Wall
By late 1989 the GDR was suffering from many problems such as a struggling economy, and large-scale protests. The Hungarian regime had collapsed and  was dismantling its border fences with Austria by August 1989. Since the Warsaw Pact allowed citizens to travel within the Soviet bloc, many East German tourists fled to the west via Hungary. When the Hungarian government refused the GDR's demand to stop defectors, East Germany banned all travel to Hungary; prompting demonstrations and protest. This began the GDR's isolation within the bloc.

Erich Honecker, leader of the GDR since 1971, was forced to resign on October 18, 1989.   He was replaced by Egon Krenz after a unanimous vote by the politburo. Under Krenz's regime, East Germans could still escape to Hungary via Czechoslovakia.

The number of defectors grew and caused tensions between East Germany and Czechoslovakia. The Krenz regime decided to allow people to leave directly to the west through border checkpoints in East Berlin. This prompted many East Germans, who learned about it through broadcasts originating from West German media, to go to the border crossings and demand to be let through immediately.

Border guards at each checkpoint told the people to go back home as they had no orders that the wall would open that night. As time passed, the number of people arriving at the checkpoint was increasing and the guards were becoming alarmed. They began taking the more aggressive people aside and stamped their passports with a special stamp that allowed them access to West Berlin however, the people were not aware that they were effectively revoking their East German citizenship and were shocked to be refused entry back into the GDR. The Chief Guard of the checkpoint frantically telephoned his superiors hoping to get answers as to why so many people thought that the wall was to open. By 22:45, it was clear that the outnumbered and overwhelmed border guards would not use their weapons to suppress the crowds. The Chief Guard surrendered and ordered the gates to West Berlin to be opened. The crowds of East Berliners were met with crowds of West Berliners in a happy scene as the Berlin wall had just fallen.

Many people even climbed up onto the wall by the Brandenburg Gate in protest and began to chisel away at the wall. The GDR authorities responded to this initially by blasting the people with water cannons; this proved to be ineffective. The East German army later climbed up onto the wall to prevent others from standing on the wall. The government began demolishing the wall the next day. The fall of the wall destroyed the SED, the ruling party of the GDR, and caused many of its officials to resign. The German Democratic Republic would cease to exist less than a year later; reuniting with the Federal Republic of Germany on October 3, 1990.

What the wall was made of

The wall was changed and added to several times. It was not really a wall, but a collection of walls and fences and other devices. This is what the border fence was made of, starting from the east, going west

 Concrete wall or wire fence, 2–3 meters high
 Signalling system in the floor, which would cause an alarm to be sounded when touched
 Contact wire fence with barbed wire fence. Taller than a man.
 (Not in all places) Kennels for dogs. With German Shepherd Dogs or other trained dogs.
 (Not in all places) Equipment and trenches to stop vehicles and tanks. These systems would be removed (if the West paid for the removal). Most were replaced later.
 Streets to get replacements and reinforcements in.
 Watchtowers (in 1989 there were 302 of them). Including searchlights
 death strip. This was an area in which all of the buildings were torn down, with nowhere to hide. Sometimes there were strips of sand where footprints could be detected.
 Metallic fence, then the border itself:
 Concrete wall, 3.75 metres in height. Very hard to climb.

The whole was done in an a zone of between 30 and 500 m wide. The official (civil border) began before the first fence. Entering the installation required a special permit. The real border was about one or two metres in front of the concrete wall, so that the whole of the wall complex was inside East Germany (only the East Berlin part of the wall was inside East Berlin).

The border between East Germany and West Germany was also heavily defended with fences and mines. East Germans needed a special permit to live close to the border.

What is left today

After the Reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990, the Berlin Wall was demolished and taken away. A few sections of the wall remain; some of the sections became a museum.
 Of the total of 302 watchtowers, 5 are left.
 The so-called Todesstreifen (death zone) can still be seen in many places. Some of them are large areas of brown, uncultivated land. Some are now parks.
 There is a private museum at Checkpoint Charlie.
 There is a cemetery near Checkpoint Charlie, remembering the victims of the Wall.

Controversies
The East Berlin special police who guarded the wall had the order to shoot if this was necessary to stop people fleeing. East German leaders such as Egon Krenz were arrested after German reunification because guards were ordered to shoot to kill.

However, after the Wall was built, many people were no longer able to leave East Berlin using normal border posts. The only way they could do so was to race through the Wall or try to dig a tunnel underneath.

After the unification of Germany, border guards who had shot people were convicted by West German Courts. The judges said, that some of the laws of the border police (about shooting) were against human rights. They therefore should have refused to shoot.

The same was of course applied to those people who had shot border police on their flight.

Border guards who did shoot, and stop someone from fleeing could get a reward of up to 500 Marks. Some of those guards were sentenced after the unification.

The other choice was to not shoot, or to miss badly. Such guards risked losing their well-paid jobs.

Curiosities
 In 1988, there was a swapping of territory between East and West Berlin. Some territory, called the Lenné triangle (near Potsdamer Platz), was now part of the West. A few days after the swap, a group of ecology protestors fled from the western police into East Berlin, over the Wall. They were given a meal and sent back by the border guards.

Another strip of land was given to West Berlin. This strip was only the width of a road which joined West Berlin with a tiny exclave.

Related pages
 Iron Curtain
 Ich bin ein Berliner
 Tear down this wall!
 Wende

References

Other websites

 www.wall-berlin.org
 Berlin Wall Fotos an More (In German)
 Retracing the Berlin Wall
 Bernauer Straße Memorial website
 Allied Forces in Berlin (FR, UK & US Berlin Brigade)
 Photographs of time of the Fall as well as updates on the current situation in Germany
 Reports on reinforcements to Berlin Brigade
 "Berlin 1969" includes sections on Helmstedt-Berlin rail operations.
 Includes articles on rail transport for Berlin during the Cold War. (large files)
 Berlin 1983: Berlin and the Wall in the early 1980s
 Berlin Life: A concise but thorough history of the wall

Images and personal accounts
 Berlin Wall - Pictures Photographs
 Photos of the Berlin Wall 1989 to 1999
 Images of the Berlin wall

1961 establishments in Europe
1990 disestablishments in Germany

1960s establishments in Germany

Berlin Wall


A square mile (sometimes written mi² ) is a British and American unit of measurement of area. It is the area inside a square that has each side equal to one statute mile (5,280 feet or 1,760 yards). This way of talking about area is often used to say how much land there is on a farm, or in a city or country, for example.

One square mile is just less than 2.6 square kilometres.
Imperial units
Units of area

Square mile


Reality television is a genre of television programming which presents unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, document actual events, and have ordinary people instead of professional actors. Although reality television has existed in some form or another since the early years of television, the term "reality television" is most commonly used to describe shows since 2000. Documentaries, news and sports shows are not called reality shows.

There are many different kinds of reality television shows, from game or quiz shows to surveillance-type shows, such as Big Brother.

Critics say that the term "reality television" is not accurate. Many shows portray a changed and highly influenced form of reality, with participants put in exotic locations or abnormal situations, sometimes told to act certain ways, and with events on screen sometimes changed by editing.

Types of reality television
 Documentary-style—watching people do their daily personal and professional activities
 Special living environment—People who did not know each other before the show must live together. They are often given tasks to complete together. Examples: The Real World, Road Rules
 Celebrity reality—A celebrity living his or her normal everyday life. Examples: The Anna Nicole Show, The Osbournes. Sometimes the celebrities are given a task. Examples: The Surreal Life, The Simple Life
 Professional activities—Professionals doing their day-to-day business at their jobs. Examples: COPS, Miami Ink, American Chopper
 Elimination/Game shows—Participants compete to win a prize, sometimes while living together. Example: The Amazing Race
 Dating-based competition—A person chooses one person to date out of a group of suitors. Examples: The Bachelor, Temptation Island
 Job search—Contestants compete to see who is the best at a certain skill. Examples: America's Next Top Model (for modeling), The Apprentice (for business skills), Hell's Kitchen"(for cooking)
 Game shows are most numerous, and can be made quickly and cheaply in a television studio.
 Self-improvement/make-over—A person or group of people try to improve themselves or their lives. Examples: Extreme Makeover, The Biggest Loser, Supernanny, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Home renovation—Improving homes. Examples: Changing Rooms, Trading Spaces, Extreme Makeover:Home Edition Dating shows—People go on a date. Unlike dating competition shows which have the same contestants all season, dating shows have new people each episode. Example: Blind Date Talk shows—A host interviews people, often about strange or outrageous topics that will cause conflict on-screen. Examples: The Jerry Springer Show, Maury Hidden cameras—A hidden camera records random people in a staged situation. The situations are often meant to confuse, amuse or scare the person. Examples: Candid Camera, Punk'd, Scare Tactics Hoaxes—The show is a prank or trick on one or more cast members. They know that they are on a TV show, they just do not know the true nature of the show. Examples: The Joe Schmo Show, Invasion Iowa''

References

Television genres

Reality television


A word is something spoken by the mouth, that can be pronounced. Also, words are using in writing. In alphabetic writing, a word is a collection of letters. The word then communicates a meaning. These can also usually be pronounced. A logogram is also a word.

Some words have more than one meaning, for example 'spring' can refer to the season, the device, or a conjugation of the verb. These are homonyms. Some words have different pronunciation, for example, 'wind' (the noun) and 'wind' (the verb) are pronounced differently.

Some words have different spelling - for example 'color' and 'colour', which are both correct. 'Color' is used in American English and 'colour' is used in British English. Some words can be only one letter, for example "a" and "I" in English. Besides English, all other languages have their own words. When written with an alphabet, words are usually separated by a space. When written with ideograms, each word is usually a separate symbol.

Words can be invented. This is called neologism. For example, radar was originally an acronym but became an actual word. Two words may be joined to make a compound word.

Fuller definition
A word is the smallest thing which can be said with meaning. For example, hello is a word.

This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but may not stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just given, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed).

The meaning of a word can be found in a dictionary.

Related pages
 Lexeme
 Parts of speech
 Heteronym — when two different words have the same spelling

More reading

Basic English 850 words

Word


Karma is a word meaning the result of a person's actions as well as the actions themselves. It is a term about the cycle of cause and effect. According to the theory of Karma, what happens to a person, happens because they caused it with their actions. It is an important part of many religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. In Shinto (a religion often syncretised with Buddhism), Karma is interpreted as Musubi (むすび), a view of karma is recognized in Shinto as a means of enriching, empowering and life affirming.

In terms of spiritual development, Karma is about all that a person has done, is doing and will do. Karma is logically about punishment or reward. It makes a person responsible for their own life, and how they treat other people.

The "Theory of Karma" is a major belief in Hinduism, Ayyavazhi, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. All living creatures are responsible for their karma - their actions and the effects of their actions.

Definition
 Karma is often misconstrued as the universal principle of cause and effect. Our actions, both good and bad, come back to us in the future, helping us to learn from life's lessons and become better people. In religions that include reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.

Karma is basically energy. One person throws out energy through thoughts, words and actions, and it comes back, in time, through other people. Karma is the best teacher, forcing people to face the consequences of their own actions and thus improve and refine their behavior, or suffer if they do not. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest spark for spiritual growth. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and unemotional response.

Supporting any action, with the claim, "I am doing it," is karma. Claiming doership of any action, binds karma. To support the action with the belief 'I am the doer' is called binding the karma. It is this support of the belief of 'doership' that binds karma. If you know that you are not the doer and are aware of who the true doer is, 'I am not the doer' and 'who is the doer' then the action will not have any support and the karma will be shed.

Examples of karma
The process of action and reaction on all levels—physical, mental and spiritual—is karma. One must pay attention to thoughts, because thought can make karmas—good, bad and mixed.

"I say kind words to you, and you feel peaceful and happy. I say harsh words to you, and you become ruffled and upset. The kindness and the harshness will return to me, through others, at a later time. Finally, what I give is what I get back."

"An architect thinks creative, productive thoughts while drawing plans for a new building. But were he to think destructive, unproductive thoughts, he would soon not be able to accomplish any kind of positive task even if he desired to do so."

Karma in Hinduism

Hindus look at time as a circle, as things cycle around again. Karma is a very just law which, like gravity, treats everyone the same. The law of karma puts man at the center of responsibility for everything he does and everything that is done to him. Understanding the way karma works, Hindus try to live a virtuous life. This is called dharma.

There are three types of karma in Hinduism:
 sanchita karma, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved;
 prarabdha karma, that portion of sanchita karma that is to be experienced in this life; and
 kriyamana karma, the karma that humans are currently creating, which will bear fruit in future.

The role of divine forces
Karma is considered one of the natural laws of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter. Just as God created gravity to bring order to the physical world, He created karma as a divine system of justice that is self-governing and infinitely fair. It automatically creates the appropriate future experience in response to the current action.

Several different views exist in Hinduism regarding the role of divine beings. In Hinduism, many see the deities or devas as playing some kind of role. Other Hindus, such as the Mimamsakas, reject such notions and see karma as acting independently, considering the natural laws of causation sufficient to explain the effects of karma.

Some interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita suggest an intermediate view, that karma is a law of cause and effect yet God can mitigate karma for His devotees. It is said in Bhagavad Gita that only the karma that is done with a sense of doership and with attachment to the karma could cause good or bad reactions. Karma that is done with an attitude of duty and without attachment to the results will not create any effect and will move one closer to God.

Another view holds that a Satguru, acting on God's behalf, can mitigate or work out some of the karma of the disciple.

Related pages
 Just-World phenomenon is like Karma

References

Other websites
 Karma as explained in the Buddhist Encyclopedia  (buddhism.2be.net)
 The Law of Karma  (Heart of Hinduism)
What is Karma ? The Cause and Effect of Karma
Karma by American Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Hinduism
Philosophy
Religious ethics

Karma


The Star-Spangled Banner (engleski: Barjak iskićen zvijezdama) himna je Sjedinjenih Američkih Država. Stihove je 1814. napisao Francis Scott Key, na glazbu britanskog skladatelja Johna Stafforda Smitha iz 1780. godine. Smithova se skladba izvorno zvala "Anacreontic Song".

Skladba je postala američkom himnom 1931. godine. Izvodi se, između ostalog, prije profesionalnih sportskih priredbi u SAD-u. Možda i najpoznatija izvedba himne ona je Jimija Hendrixa na festivalu u Woodstocku.

Riječi na engleskom
Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:

'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Vanjske poveznice

Star-spangled
Američka Samoa
Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner


In botany, a fruit is a plant structure that contains the plant's seeds.

To a botanist, the word fruit is used only if it comes from the part of the flower which was an ovary. It is an extra layer round the seeds, which may or may not be fleshy. However, even in the field of botany, there is no general agreement on how fruits should be classified. Many do have extra layers from other parts of the flower.

In general speech, and especially in cooking, fruits are a sweet product, and many botanical fruits are known as vegetables. This is how ordinary people use the words. On this page, we describe what botanists call a fruit.

The fleshy part of a fruit is called the mesocarp. It is between the fruit's skin (exocarp) and the seeds. The white part of an apple, for example, is the "fleshy" part of the apple. Usually, when we eat a fruit, we eat the "fleshy" part.

Types of fruits

Berry
If the entire fruit is fleshy, except for maybe a thin skin, the fruit is called a berry. A berry might contain one seed or many. Grapes, avocados, and blueberries are berries. They all have a thin skin, but most of the fruit is fleshy. Don't get confused by the name of fruits like strawberries, because actually they are not berries. The seeds are on the outside: on a real berry, the seed or seeds are inside the fruit.

Pepo
A pepo (pronounced pee' po) is a modified berry. Its skin is hard and thick and is usually called a "rind". Pumpkins and watermelons, for instance, are pepos.

Hesperidium
A hesperidium is another modified berry. It has a leathery skin that is not as hard as the skin of a pepo. All citrus fruit like oranges and lemon are hesperidiums.

Pome

A pome (pohm) is a fruit that has a core surrounded by fleshy tissue that one can eat. The core is usually not eaten. Berries are different - the seeds are inside the fleshy part, not separated from it by a core. apples and pears are pomes.

Drupe

Drupes are also called stone fruit. A drupe is a fleshy fruit with a hard stone around the seed. We usually call this 'stone' the 'pit' of the fruit. Peaches and olives are drupes. Actually, the almond fruit is a drupe, too, though we eat the seed that is inside the 'pit' of the almond fruit.

Botanical fruits
Since fruits are produced from fertilised ovaries in flowers, only flowering plants produce fruits. Fruits are an evolutionary 'invention' which help seeds get dispersed by animals.

The botanical term includes many that are not 'fruits' in the common sense of the term. such as the vegetables squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomato, peas, beans, corn, eggplant, and bell pepper and some spices, such as allspice and chili

.

Accessory fruits

An accessory fruit or false fruit (pseudocarp) is a fruit in which some of the flesh is derived not from the ovary but from some adjacent tissue.

A fig is a type of accessory fruit called a syconium. Pomes, such as apples and pears, are also accessory fruits: the core is the true fruit.

Non-botanical fruits
Strictly speaking, these are not botanical fruits:
 any produced by non-flowering plants, like juniper berries, which are the seed-containing female cones of conifers.
 fleshy fruit-like growths that develop from other plant tissues (like rhubarb).

Area of agreement
These are fruits which you can buy in shops, and which are also acceptable as botanical fruits:
 berry fruits: redcurrant, gooseberry, cranberry, blueberry Also, but not commonly known as berry fruits, are tomato, avocado, banana.
 false berries: raspberry, strawberry, blackberry: they are aggregate fruits (see below). The yew berry is not a fruit at all because the yew is a conifer.
 stone fruits or drupes: plum, cherry, peach, apricot, olive.
 citrus fruits, like oranges, grapefruits, and tangerines.
 aggregate fruits: raspberries, blackberries.
 multiple fruits: pineapples, figs.

Many fruits come from trees or bushes. For plants, fruits are a means of dispersal, usually by animals. When the fruit is eaten, the seed(s) are not digested, and get excreted. Where fruits have big stones, just the soft parts are eaten.

Most fruits we eat contain a lot of water and natural sugars, and many are high in Vitamin C. They have a large amount of dietary fibre. Fruits are usually low in protein and fat content, but avocados and some nuts are exceptions to this. Not only humans, but our closest living relatives (primates) are keen fruit-eaters. So are many other groups of herbivorous mammals and many birds.

Seedless fruits
Seedlessness is an important feature of some fruits of commerce. Commercial bananas, pineapple, and watermelons are examples of seedless fruits. Some citrus fruits, especially oranges, satsumas, mandarin oranges, and grapefruit are valued for their seedlessness.

Seedless bananas and grapes are triploids, and seedlessness results from the abortion of the embryonic plant which is produced by fertilisation. The method requires normal pollination and fertilisation.

Related pages
 List of fruit

References

Basic English 850 words

Plant anatomy

Fruit


Cellular differentiation is how a less specialized cell becomes a more specialized cell type. It is part of developmental biology. Different tissues have different kinds of organelles inside the cells.

Differentiation occurs many times during the development of a multicellular organism. The organism changes from a single zygote to a complex system of tissues and cell types. Differentiation is also a common process in adults: adult stem cells divide to make fully-differentiated daughter cells during tissue repair and during normal cell turnover.

Differentiation dramatically changes a cell's size, shape, metabolic activity, and responsiveness to signals. These changes are largely due to changes in gene expression. With a few exceptions, cellular differentiation almost never involves a change in the DNA sequence itself. It does involve switching off many genes not needed in a particular tissue. Thus, cells in different tissues may have very different physical characteristics despite having the same genome.

Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. A cell that is able to differentiate into many cell types is known as pluripotent. Such cells are called stem cells in animals and meristematic cells in higher plants.  A cell that is able to differentiate into all cell types is known as totipotent. In mammals, only the zygote and early embryonic cells are totipotent, while in plants many differentiated cells can become totipotent with simple laboratory techniques.

References

Genetics
Cell biology
Developmental biology

Cell differentiation


A Digital Object Identifier (or DOI) is a permanent way to identify an online document.  This identification is not related to its current location.

A typical use of a DOI is to give a scientific paper or article a unique number that can be used by anyone find the location of the paper. It may also make it possible to find an electronic copy, for example, on the Internet. The DOI system has a DOI resolution system which is used to locate where the document is. When the document is moved, the DOI resolution system is updated with the new location of the document.

For example, doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2008.03.001 links to "Web 2.0 authorship: Issues of Referencing and citation for academic integrity" by Kathleen Gray et al.  The work was published in The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 11, Issue 2, 2008.

References

Other websites
 Welcome to the DOI System
 Factsheet: DOI System and Internet Identifier Specifications

Documents
Identifiers

Digital Object Identifier


The Elapidae, or elapids, are a family of venomous snakes. These snakes can be found in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. They can also be found in  the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. They are characterized by a set of hollow, fixed fangs through which they inject venom.  There are snakes of different sizes,  from only 18 cm (Drysdalia) up to 6 m in length (King Cobra). Currently, 61 genera with 231 species are known.

Description

On land
Those elapids that live on land look a lot like the colubrids: almost all have long and slender bodies with smooth scales, a head that is covered with large shields and not always distinct from the neck, and eyes with round pupils. In addition, their behavior is usually quite active and most are oviparous. There are exceptions to all these generalizations: For example, the death adders (Acanthophis) include short and fat, rough-scaled, very broad-headed, cat-eyed, live-bearing, sluggish ambush predators with partly fragmented head shields.

Some species spend most of their lives in trees or bushes; this is called arboreal (African Pseudohaje and Dendroaspis, Australian Hoplocephalus). Many others are  specialised burrowers (e.g. Ogmodon, Parapistocalamus, Simoselaps, Toxicocalamus, Vermicella). Some species have very generalised diets. Others  have specialised on a certain kind of prey. They have also adapted themselves, to better be able to feed on other snakes, certain lizards, squamate eggs, mammals, birds, frogs, fish, etc.

In the water
Sea snakes, which are also elapids, have adapted to a marine way of life in different ways. All have evolved their tails so they can be used for swimming. They can also excrete salt. Most also have changed bodies, better suited for swimming. Ventral scales are much smaller, the nostrils of the snakes are located dorsally and without scales between them. They give birth to live young (ovoviviparous). In general they have the ability to breathe through their skin; experiments with the yellow-bellied sea snake, Pelamis platurus, have shown that this species can satisfy about 20% of its oxygen requirements in this manner. This makes it possible to stay underwater longer. The sea kraits (Laticauda sp. ), are the least well-adapted to an aquatic life. They spend much of their time on land where they also lay their eggs (oviparous). They have wide ventral scales, the tail is not as well-developed for swimming, and their nostrils are separated by scales.

Venom for hunting and self-defense
All elapids have a pair of proteroglyphous fangs that are used to inject venom from glands located towards the rear of the upper jaws. The fangs are the first two teeth on each maxillary bone, which are enlarged and hollow, and usually only one is in place on each side at any time. The maxilla is intermediate in length and mobility between typical colubrids (long, less mobile) and viperids (very short, highly mobile). When the mouth is closed, the fangs fit into grooved slots in the buccal floor; in the longest-fanged elapids (e.g. Acanthophis, Oxyuranus) it is common for the fangs to pierce right through the intermandibular skin, which does not seem to endanger the snake. The fangs are usually below the front edge of the eye and are angled backwards; due to this construction, most elapids must actually bite in order to envenomate. This action is therefore not as quick as with the viperids, that can envenomate with only a quick, stabbing motion. Some elapids (Acanthophis, Oxyuranus, and especially Dendroaspis) have long fangs on quite mobile maxillae (the prefrontal and ectopterygoid contacts are nearly as close together as in viperids), and can therefore make very fast stabbing strikes like viperids. A few species are capable of spraying their venom from forward facing holes at the tips of their fangs as a means of defense. Elapids use their venom both to immobilize their prey and in self-defense.

Venom
All elapids are venomous and many are potentially deadly. The venoms are mostly neurotoxic and are considered more dangerous than the mainly proteolytic viper venoms. Members include the black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis), a species many regard as the world's most dangerous snake, the fierce snake (Oxyuranus microlepidotus), which is the most venomous land snake to mice, and Hydrophis belcheri, a sea snake and the most toxic venom of all snakes.

References

Elapid


A raspberry is an aggregate fruit, meaning it has many parts joined together. It is similar to a blackberry, but the fruit is hollow on the inside. There are many different species of raspberry plants, but only a few of them have fruit that are sold in stores. Leaves of the raspberry plant are also used fresh or dried in herbal teas. The raspberry is red when ripe, and is also a source of nectar for juices. Raspberries are a popular fruit in some parts of the world.

Plants
A raspberry plant typically grows in fields or in forest clearings where fire or wood-cutting has produced open space. As a cultivated plant in moist temperate regions, it is easy to grow. It has a tendency to spread unless cut back.

Two types of raspberry plants can be bought in stores: the older summer-bearing type and double- or "ever"-bearing plants. Raspberry plants make stalks each year. The fruit grows on these stalks. These stalks last for 2 years. Both the summer and everbearing plants create the fruit in the summer of the second year of the stalk. The stalks of the everbearing plant also creates fruit in the fall of the first year.

Species
The raspberry fruit that are sold in stores come from plants that are hybrids between two species, Rubus idaeus, European red raspberry, and Rubus strigosus, American red raspberry. Fruit from Rubus occidentalis, black raspberry, are sometimes available, and hybrids with red fruit exist. These three species are in the same subgenus, Rubus subgenus Idaeobatus.

Other raspberry species in Rubus subgenus Idaeobatus include:
 Rubus crataegifolius (Korean raspberry)
 Rubus gunnianus (Tasmanian alpine raspberry)
 Rubus leucodermis (Whitebark or Western raspberry, Blue raspberry, Black raspberry)
 Rubus parvifolius (Australian native raspberry)
 Rubus phoenicolasius (Wine raspberry or Wineberry)
 Rubus rosifolius (West Indian raspberry)
 Rubus ellipticus (Yellow Himalayan Raspberry)
 Rubus strigosus (American raspberry)

Other raspberry species that are not in Rubus subgenus Idaeobatus include:
 Rubus arcticus (Arctic raspberry)
 Rubus deliciosus (Boulder raspberry)
 Rubus nivalis (Snow raspberry)
 Rubus odoratus (Native Flowering raspberry)
 Rubus sieboldii (Molucca raspberry)

Rubus

Raspberry


A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead () or Mass of the dead (), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is usually celebrated in the context of a funeral (where in some countries it is often called a Funeral Mass).

Musical settings of the propers of the Requiem Mass are also called Requiems, and the term has subsequently been applied to other musical compositions associated with death, dying, and mourning, even when they lack religious or liturgical relevance.

The term is also used for similar ceremonies outside the Roman Catholic Church, especially in Western Rite Orthodox Christianity, the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, and in certain Lutheran churches. A comparable service, with a wholly different ritual form and texts, exists in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches as well as some Methodist churches.

The Mass and its settings draw their name from the introit of the liturgy, which begins with the words  (Latin for "Eternal rest grant them, O Lord"), which is cited from 2 Esdras—requiem is the accusative singular form of the Latin noun , "rest, repose". The Roman Missal as revised in 1970 employs this phrase as the first entrance antiphon among the formulas for Masses for the dead, and it remains in use to this day.

Liturgical rite

In earlier forms of the Roman Rite, some of which are still in use, a Requiem Mass differs in several ways from the usual Mass. Some parts that were of relatively recent origin, including some that have been excluded in the 1970 revision of the regular Mass, are omitted. Examples are the psalm Iudica at the start of Mass, the prayer said by the priest before reading the Gospel (or the blessing of the deacon, if a deacon reads it), and the first of the two prayers of the priest for himself before receiving Communion. Other omissions include the use of incense at the Introit and the Gospel, the kiss of peace, lit candles held by acolytes when a deacon chants the Gospel, and blessings. There is no Gloria in excelsis Deo and no recitation of the Creed; the Alleluia chant before the Gospel is replaced by a Tract, as in Lent; and the  is altered.  is replaced with  (May they rest in peace); the  response is replaced with . Black was the obligatory liturgical colour of the vestments in the earlier forms (including the Missal of 1962),  while in the renewed liturgy "the colour black may be used, where it is the practice, in Masses for the Dead". The sequence Dies irae, recited or sung between the Tract and the Gospel, was an obligatory part of the Requiem Mass before the changes as a result of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. As its opening words  ("Day of wrath") indicate, this poetic composition speaks of the Day of Judgment in fearsome terms; it then appeals to Jesus for mercy. In the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, commemorations (i.e. collect, secret, and postcommunion of either lower-ranking liturgical feasts that occur on the same day or votive/seasonal commemorations) are absent from the liturgy; as a result, it is standard practice for a separate, smaller Requiem Missal containing only the rubrics and various Mass formularies for Masses for the dead to be used, rather than the full Missal containing texts that will never be used at Requiems.

Roman Rite

In the liturgical reforms of the mid-20th century in the Roman Catholic Church, there was a significant shift in the funeral rites used by the Church. The theme of sorrow and grief was also made to emphasize the whole community's worship of God in which the deceased is entrusted to God's mercy, based on trust in the salvific value of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the Requiem Mass was sometimes termed a "Mass of the Resurrection" or Mass of Christian Burial, although the former was never official terminology. In the official English ritual, Order of Christian Funerals, published by the Roman Catholic Bishops of England and Wales in 1990, the title is given as "Funeral Mass". "Requiem Mass" remains a suitable title for other Masses for the dead and for the Funeral Mass itself (as the proper antiphons remain in force: Introit, "Eternal rest grant ... " / ""; Offertory, "Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed ... " / ""; Communion, "Let perpetual light shine ..." / ""). In keeping with those trends of the latter 21st century, the use of white vestments was made an allowable option by the Missal, though only by an indult; black remains the normal color of all Requiem Masses, including Funeral Masses. Violet, a color of penance, was also allowed by indult, since penance and reparation for the soul, presumably in Purgatory, is encouraged by the Church. The texts used for the liturgy underwent a similar change, and some of the new options for the readings reinforce an overall theme of Jesus'  promise of eternal life.

Requiem in other rites and churches
Requiem is also used to describe any sacred composition that sets to music religious texts which would be appropriate at a funeral, or to describe such compositions for liturgies other than the Roman Catholic Mass. Among the earliest examples of this type are the German settings composed in the 17th century by Heinrich Schütz and Michael Praetorius, whose works are Lutheran adaptations of the Roman Catholic requiem, and which provided inspiration for the German Requiem by Brahms.

Such works include:
 Greek Orthodox Church—Parastas
 Russian Orthodox Church—Panikhida
 Anglican (English) Requiem

Eastern Christian rites

In the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches, the requiem is the fullest form of memorial service (, Slavonic: ). The normal memorial service is a greatly abbreviated form of Matins, but the Requiem contains all of the psalms, readings, and hymns normally found in the All-Night Vigil (which combines the Canonical Hours of Vespers, Matins and First Hour), providing a complete set of propers for the departed. The full requiem will last around three-and-a-half hours. In this format it more clearly represents the original concept of parastas, which means literally, "standing throughout (the night)." Often, there will be a Divine Liturgy celebrated the next morning with further propers for the departed.

Because of their great length, a full Requiem is rarely served. However, at least in the Russian liturgical tradition, a Requiem will often be served on the eve before the Glorification (canonization) of a saint, in a special service known as the "Last Panikhida".

Anglicanism

The Book of Common Prayer contained no Requiem Mass, but instead a service named "The Order for the Burial of the Dead". Since the liturgical reform movement, provision has been made for a Eucharist to be celebrated at a funeral in various BCPs used in the various Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Prior to these additions, Anglo-Catholics or High Church Anglicans often incorporated parts of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass as part of a funeral service — typically passages from the Ordinary of the Mass. Within this service are several texts with rubrics stating that they should be said or sung by the priest or clerks. The first few of these texts are found at the beginning of the service, while the rest are prescribed for the burial itself.  These texts are typically divided into seven, and collectively known as "funeral sentences". Composers who have set the Anglican burial service to music include William Croft, Thomas Morley, Thomas Tomkins, Orlando Gibbons and Henry Purcell. The text of these seven sentences, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, is as follows:
 I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. (John 11:25-26)
 I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. (Job 19:25-27)
 We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord. (1 Timothy 6:7 and Job 1:21)
 Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. (Job 14:1-2)
 In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. (Media vita in morte sumus)
 Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.
 I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours. (Revelation 14:13)

Music

The Requiem Mass is notable for the large number of musical compositions that it has inspired, including settings by Mozart (though uncompleted), Verdi, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Brahms (from the vernacular German Lutheran Bible), Dvořák, Fauré, Duruflé, and others. Originally, such compositions were meant to be performed in liturgical service, with monophonic chant. Eventually, the dramatic character of the text began to appeal to composers to an extent that they made the requiem a genre of its own, and the compositions of composers such as Verdi are essentially concert pieces rather than liturgical works.

Many of the texts in the Requiem Mass have been set to music, including:

 Introit
 Kyrie eleison
 Gradual
 Tract
 Sequence (the Dies Irae)
 Offertory
 Sanctus
 Agnus Dei
 Communion
 Pie Jesu
 Libera Me
 In paradisum

History of musical compositions

For many centuries the texts of the requiem were sung to Gregorian melodies. The Requiem by Johannes Ockeghem, written sometime in the latter half of the 15th century, is the earliest surviving polyphonic setting. There was a setting by the elder composer Dufay, possibly earlier, which is now lost: Ockeghem's may have been modelled on it. Many early compositions reflect the varied texts that were in use in different liturgies around Europe before the Council of Trent standardised texts used in liturgies. The requiem of Brumel, circa 1500, is the first to include the Dies Iræ. In the early polyphonic settings of the Requiem, there is considerable textural contrast within the compositions themselves: simple chordal or fauxbourdon-like passages are contrasted with other sections of contrapuntal complexity, such as in the Offertory of Ockeghem's Requiem.

In the 16th century, more and more composers set the Requiem Mass. In contrast to practice in setting the Mass Ordinary, many of these settings used a cantus-firmus technique, something which had become quite archaic by mid-century. In addition, these settings used less textural contrast than the early settings by Ockeghem and Brumel, although the vocal scoring was often richer, for example in the six-voice Requiem by Jean Richafort which he wrote for the death of Josquin des Prez. Other composers before 1550 include Pedro de Escobar, Antoine de Févin, Cristóbal Morales, and Pierre de La Rue; that by La Rue is probably the second oldest, after Ockeghem's.

Over 2,000 Requiem compositions have been composed to the present day. Typically the Renaissance settings, especially those not written on the Iberian Peninsula, may be performed a cappella (i.e. without necessary accompanying instrumental parts), whereas beginning around 1600 composers more often preferred to use instruments to accompany a choir, and also include vocal soloists. There is great variation between compositions in how much of liturgical text is set to music.

Most composers omit sections of the liturgical prescription, most frequently the Gradual and the Tract. Fauré omits the Dies iræ, while the very same text had often been set by French composers in previous centuries as a stand-alone work.

Sometimes composers divide an item of the liturgical text into two or more movements; because of the length of its text, the Dies iræ is the most frequently divided section of the text (as with Mozart, for instance). The Introit and Kyrie, being immediately adjacent in the actual Roman Catholic liturgy, are often composed as one movement.

Musico-thematic relationships among movements within a Requiem can be found as well.

Requiem in concert
Beginning in the 18th century and continuing through the 19th, many composers wrote what are effectively concert works, which by virtue of employing forces too large, or lasting such a considerable duration, prevent them being readily used in an ordinary funeral service; the requiems of Gossec, Berlioz, Verdi, and Dvořák are essentially dramatic concert oratorios. A counter-reaction to this tendency came from the Cecilian movement, which recommended restrained accompaniment for liturgical music, and frowned upon the use of operatic vocal soloists.

Notable compositions
Many composers have composed Requiems. Some of the most notable include the following (in chronological order):

 Johannes Ockeghem: Requiem (1461?)
 Antoine Brumel: Requiem
 Tomás Luis de Victoria: Officium Defunctorum (1603)
 Eustache du Caurroy: Missa pro defunctis quinque vocum (1610)
 Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Messe pour les trépassée à 8, H.2, Dies irae H.12, Motet pour les trépassés à 8, H.311, Messe des morts à 4 voix H.7 & Messe des morts à 4 voix et symphonie H.10 (1670–1690)
 Jean Gilles: Requiem
 André Campra: Requiem
 Antonio Caldara: Requiem in e minor
 Francesco Durante: Requiem in g minor
 François-Joseph Gossec: Requiem (1760)
 Johann Adolph Hasse: Requiem in C major (1763), Requiem in E-flat major (1764)
 Michael Haydn: Missa pro Defunctis, Klafsky I:8, MH 155 (1771)
 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem, K. 626 (1791)
 Antonio Salieri: Requiem in C minor (1804)
 Luigi Cherubini: Requiem in C minor (1816), Requiem in D minor (1836)
 Hector Berlioz: Requiem, Op. 5 (1837)
 Anton Bruckner: Requiem, WAB 39 (1849)
 Robert Schumann: Requiem, Op. 148 (1852)
 Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem, Op. 45 (1865–68)
 Théodore Gouvy: Requiem in E-flat minor (1874)
 Giuseppe Verdi: Messa da Requiem (1874)
 Camille Saint-Saëns: Requiem, Op. 54 (1878)
 Antonín Dvořák: Requiem, Op. 89, B. 165 (1890)
 Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48 (1887–90)
 Charles Villiers Stanford: Requiem, Op. 63 (1896)
 Frederick Delius: Requiem (1913–16)
 Herbert Howells: Requiem (1932)
 Bruno Maderna: Requiem (1946)
 Maurice Duruflé: Requiem, Op. 9 (1947)
 Benjamin Britten: War Requiem, Op. 66 (1961–62)
 György Ligeti: Requiem (1963–65)
 Igor Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles (1966)
 Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (1967–69)
 Krzysztof Penderecki: Polish Requiem (1980–2005)
 Andrew Lloyd Webber: Requiem (1985)
 John Rutter: Requiem (1985)
 Serban Nichifor: Requiem (1990)
 Hans Werner Henze: Requiem (1991–93)
 Olivier Greif: Requiem (1999)
 Christopher Rouse: Requiem (2002)
 Karl Jenkins: Requiem (2005)
 Dan Forrest: Requiem for the Living (2013)

Modern treatments
In the 20th century the requiem evolved in several new directions. The genre of War Requiem is perhaps the most notable, which comprise compositions dedicated to the memory of people killed in wartime. These often include extra-liturgical poems of a pacifist or non-liturgical nature; for example, the War Requiem of Benjamin Britten juxtaposes the Latin text with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Krzysztof Penderecki's Polish Requiem includes a traditional Polish hymn within the sequence, and Robert Steadman's Mass in Black intersperses environmental poetry and prophecies of Nostradamus. Holocaust Requiem may be regarded as a specific subset of this type. The Requiem Ebraico (Hebrew Requiem) (1945) by Austrian-American composer Eric Zeisl, a setting of Psalm 92 dedicated to the memory of the composer's father "and the other countless victims of the Jewish tragedy in Europe", is considered the first major work of Holocaust commemoration. John Foulds's A World Requiem was written in the aftermath of the First World War and initiated the Royal British Legion's annual festival of remembrance. Recent requiem works by Taiwanese composers Tyzen Hsiao and Ko Fan-long follow in this tradition, honouring victims of the February 28 Incident and subsequent White Terror.

The 20th century saw the development of the secular Requiem, written for public performance without specific religious observance, such as Max Reger's Requiem (1915), the setting of a German poem titled Requiem and dedicated to victims of World War I, and Frederick Delius's Requiem, completed in 1916 and dedicated to "the memory of all young Artists fallen in the war"; Paul Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd: A Requiem for Those We Love, commissioned in 1945 (premiered 1946) after the passing of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and based on Walt Whitman's elegy written after the passing of Abraham Lincoln; and Dmitry Kabalevsky's Requiem (Op. 72; 1962), a setting of a poem written by Robert Rozhdestvensky especially for the composition.

Herbert Howells's unaccompanied Requiem uses Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd"), Psalm 121 ("I will lift up mine eyes"), "Salvator mundi" ("O Saviour of the world" in English), "Requiem aeternam" (two different settings), and "I heard a voice from heaven". John Rutter combines in his Requiem (1985) some of the parts of the Latin Requiem with two complete psalms, Psalm 130 "Out of the deep" and his earlier composition The Lord is my Shepherd, and juxtaposes more biblical verses within the Latin movements.

Some composers have written purely instrumental works bearing the title of Requiem, as famously exemplified by Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem. Hans Werner Henze's Das Floß der Medusa, written in 1968 as a requiem for Che Guevara, is properly speaking an oratorio; Henze's Requiem is instrumental but retains the traditional Latin titles for the movements. Igor Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles mixes instrumental movements with segments of the "Introit", "Dies irae", "Pie Jesu" and "Libera me".

See also
 Memorial
 Month's mind

Notes

External links

 Alphabetical Requiems Survey
 Online Guide to Requiem
 Writing – The Requiem Mass : A Literal Translation

 British Pathé News clips of the Catholic Police Guild Annual Solemn Requiem
  Fauré's "Requiem" - Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Petri Sakari, conductor. Live concert.

Christian prayer
Christian terminology
Death customs
Death music
Mass (liturgy)
Latin religious words and phrases
Liturgy of the Hours

Requiem


A license (in American English) or licence (in British English) allows someone to do something that they otherwise are not allowed to do. A person usually has to pay some money, and maybe pass a test to get a license. A license is usually written but it does not have to be. Most kinds of licenses can only be used by the person they were given to. Licenses may be temporary or permanent. Some licenses can not be taken away once they are given. A person with a license is called a licensee.

In many countries, if a person tries to do something without the correct license to do it, they might have to pay a fine or go to prison.

Examples of licenses
There are many different types of licenses.

Driver's license
The laws of most countries say that people are only allowed to drive cars if they have a driver's license.  If a person does not have a license, they may have to pay a fine if they are caught by the police.  In many countries, a person must take a test and pay money to get a license. The test would check that they know the road rules, and have the skill to drive a car.

Hunting license
Other licenses give permission to shoot animals (often called a hunting license). The hunting license usually says when a person may hunt. A hunter may have to pass a test to show that they understand the rules about hunting.

Television licence
In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, if someone has a television set, they must buy a "television licence" every year.

Copyright licenses
Copyright is a law that gives the owner of a creative work the right to decide what other people can do with it. A person or a company can give a license to a copyright that they own. So in order for another person to use an owner's copyright they need permission from the owner. For example, when someone buys computer software, they also need a license from the creator of the software (a copyright owner) allowing the buyer to use the software.

Difference between license and licence
"License" is a verb and "licence" is a noun. "Licensing sessions" were the meetings of magistrates which decided about giving licences to sell alcohol.

In American English there is no difference in spelling between the verb "to license"  meaning to give permission, and the noun "a license" meaning the permission to do something.

Distinction between a licence and a qualification
A degree in medicine is a qualification showing a person has successfully studied medicine. It is awarded for life. A licence to practice medicine is a legal permission to do so within the territory covered by the licensing authority. The licence may be taken away ('revoked') in certain situations.

Related pages
 Copyright
 Patent
 Trademark

References

Law

License


The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany is the name of Germany's constitution. It was written in 1949 when Germany was split into the countries of East Germany and West Germany. Many parts of the constitution are very different from the constitution of the Weimar Republic.

The writers decided not to call it the constitution because they hoped it would only be a temporary law for West Germany and that the two Germanys would soon be made into one.

It was more than 40 years before East Germany and West Germany became one country again, but the old name of Basic Law has been kept.

Protecting the Constitution
The Federal Constiutional Court (German: Bundesverfassungsgericht) protects the constitution by banning laws which break the constitution. There are "eternal clauses" in the constitution which the court will protect even by banning constitutional amendments (laws to change them). Article 1, about human life and dignity, and article 20's basic principles are protected from change. This is to make sure nothing like the Nazi period happens again. The Nazis were able to pass an Enabling Act which allowed Hitler to rule by decree.

The Five Constitutional Bodies
Germany is a federal parliamentary democracy. To show this there are five "constitutional institutions".

Presidency

The Federal President () is the head of state. It is largely ceremonial position with only a small role in daily politics. The president does not have the massive power of the president of the Weimar Republic, or the President of the United States.  He is the formal head of state, and signs laws before they can enter into force and appoints federal officials, he cannot decide when to dissolve the Bundestag or name a new chancellor until a majority of the members of the parliament () vote in favour.

Executive branch

The Chancellor is chosen by the Bundestag.  He or she is head of the executive branch, and  heads the federal Cabinet.

Judicial branch

The Judicial branch is made up of the Federal Constitutional Court and five other Supreme Courts.  There are also local and regional courts which make the first decision about cases.  Their decisions can be overturnned by the courts of appeal or Supreme Courts.

Federal Constitutional Court

The Federal Constitutional Court is the most important court in Germany.  Its job is to protect the Basic Law. Its decisions are like laws. The court can cancel laws if they break the Basic Law.

Federal Social Court

The Federal Social Court is the Supreme Court of Appeal for cases about social security, pensions and health insurance

Federal Labour Court

The Federal Labour Court is the Supreme Court of Appeal for cases about labour law.  This includes contracts of employment, strikes and trade union agreements

Federal Tax Court

The Federal Tax Court is the Supreme Court of Appeal for cases about tax and customs law

Federal Administrative Court

The Federal Social Court is the Supreme Court of Appeal for cases involving a government body.  These may be because a person might feel they have been treated unfairly by government or because there is a dispute between two government bodies about which of them is allowed to do something.

Federal Supreme Court

This court is the Supreme Court of Appeal for cases all civil and criminal cases which are not heard by one of the other supreme courts

Legislative branch
The legislative branch has two of the constitutional bodies.

Bundesrat

Germany's upper chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat, represents the Länder. It also shows that Germany is a federal state. Federalism is one of the "eternal clauses" of the constitution, that can never be changed..

Bundestag

The Bundestag is the part of the legislature chosen by election.  The Chancellor must be a member of the Bundestag.

Other stipulations

The military
The Weimar Constitution had the Reichswehr outside of the control of the parliament or the public. The army directly reported to the president, and the president did not have to report to the parliament.

Under the Basic Law, the Defence Forces Bundeswehr are responsible to parliament, because
 during times of peace the Bundeswehr reports to the minister of defence
 during time of war it reports to the chancellor.

The chancellor is directly responsible to the parliament, the minister is indirectly responsible to the parliament because it can remove the government by electing a new chancellor.

The Basic Law also created a soldiers' ombudsman or Wehrbeauftragter, reporting to parliament not to the government. Soldiers can write directly to the Wehrbeauftragter if they feel they have been treated unfairly or unlawfully, or if they think their commanders are acting illegally.  Soldiers cannot be punished for writing to the Wehrbeauftragter.

A number of Constitutional Court cases in the 1990s said that the Bundeswehr cannot be used by the government outside NATO territory unless the Bundestag first gives permission in a resolution.  The resultion must describe where the Bundeswehr is to go, and for who long the mission will last.

Referendums and plebiscites
The Basic Law only allows referendums about changing borders of the Länder. There have been two referundums:

 Baden-Württemberg was created in 1952 after a referendum approved joining together three separate states (Württemberg-Baden, Württemberg-Hohenzollern and Baden).

In 1996 the people who live in Berlin and Brandenburg decided not to join the two states.

Development of the Basic Law since 1949
Important changes to the Basic Law were the re-introduction of conscription and the establishment of the Bundeswehr in 1956.

During reunification East Germany and West Germany decided not to write a new constitution, but to keep the old one, which had worked so well in West Germany. The constitution was amended to allow East Germany to join, and then changed again to strengthen the claim that Germany wanted no more territory. This was a promise made in the Final Settlement.

Related pages

Former constitutions
 Constitution of the German Empire (1871-1919)
 Weimar Constitution (1919-1933)
 Constitution of the German Democratic Republic (German Democratic Republic; GDR, 1949-1990)

Others
 Bremen clause
 Bundesrechnungshof
 German Emergency Acts
 History of Germany
 Politics of Germany
 Constitution
 Constitutionalism
 Constitutional economics

Footnotes

Other websites

 Full text:
 Official English translation (status: December 2000)
 Original text: HTML, PDF, non-official table of contents (status: August 2006)
 Former Constitutions:
 Constitution of the German Empire (1871-1919). In English. Full text from Wikisource.
 Constitution of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). In English, as HTML file.
 Excerpts from the 1968 Constitution of the GDR . In English, as HTML file.
 Other links:
 Introduction to the basic and the constitutional law  (on JurisPedia).

Law of Germany
Germany
Politics of Germany
1949 in Europe
1940s in Germany

Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany


Beer is also the name of a place in Devon, England - Beer (Devon)

Beer is a type of alcoholic drink. It is made with water, hops, barley (types of cereal grains), and types of yeast (a fungus that produces alcohol). A process called fermentation turns sugar into alcohol, using yeast. Another product of the fermentation is carbon dioxide.

Classification from the type of fermentation
In general, all alcoholic drinks where yeast turns sugar into alcohol are called beer. In these cases, distillation is not used. The difference to wine is that with wine, sugars from plants, such as fruit sugar, or that made by animals is used. As an example, mead is a wine made from honey. Japanese sake is made from rice, and uses yeast for fermentation; so even if some people call it rice wine, sake is really a kind of beer.

Making beer
The act of making beer is called "brewing". Beer is made by adding warm water to malted barley and other grains. The enzymes in the barley change the malted barley and other grains into simple sugars. This is called the mash. The water is then sparged (drained) from the grain. The water is now called wort. The wort is boiled and hops are added. Hops provide flavour and preserve the beer. After boiling the wort is cooled and yeast is added. The yeast turns the sugars into alcohol and the wort into beer.

Different beers can have different natures, depending on the ingredients used; for example, an ale uses top fermenting yeast. Top fermenting yeasts eat more sugar and produce more alcohol. A lager uses bottom fermenting yeast. Bottom fermenting yeasts eat less sugar and produce a crisper, cleaner taste. Adding hops makes the beer more bitter and aromatic. Specialty malts (different types of cooked barley) produce different flavours and colours. These flavours and colours are most notable in dark beers like Porter and Stout.

Different countries have different ways to make beer. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, beer is usually made from just hops, malt, water, and yeast. This is because of the Reinheitsgebot. The Reinheitsgebot was a law that said says that beer can only be made from hops, malt, and water. Yeast was discovered after the Reinheitsgebot. The law was overturned by the European Union in 1992. In Belgium, however, beers have always been made with wheat, sugar, fruit, and other ingredients.

Different ways to make beer
The type of yeast used determines the kind of beer made:
 Some kinds of yeast ferment at a higher temperature, usually at 15-20 °C. The fermentation process is quicker.
 Other kinds ferment at a lower temperature, usually 4-8 °C. Beers made with this kind usually have a longer shelf-life.
 Some beers ferment sponaneously from yeast that can be found in the environment.

The history of beer

The earliest records of beer were written around 7000 years ago by the Sumerians. It is said that the Sumerians discovered the fermentation process by accident. It is not known exactly how this happened, but it could be that a piece of bread or grain became wet, and a short time later, it began to ferment and made a pulp that caused people to become drunk. A seal around 4,000 years old is a Sumerian "Hymn to Ninkasi", the goddess of brewing. This "hymn" is also a recipe for making beer. A description of the making of beer on this ancient engraving in the Sumerian language is the earliest account of what is easily recognised as barley, followed by a pictograph of bread being baked, crumbled into water to form a mash, and then made into a drink, that is recorded as having made people feel "...wonderful and blissful". It could even be possible that bread was first baked to be a way to make beer that is easy to carry around. The Sumerians were probably the first people to brew beer. They had found a "divine drink" -- they felt it was a gift from the gods.

Amount of alcohol in beer
Normal beers have around 3-5 % alcohol (for the volume, i.e. in 100ml beer there is 3-5ml alcohol). In brewing beer, the amount of alcohol can be made more or less quite easily. The Belgian types of beer are made by adding more sugar. Through the fermentation, this will then turn to alcohol. Today, there are beers with between 2% and about 16% of alcohol (about the same alcohol content as wine). Spirits can have up to 80% alcohol. Some beer labels say there is no alcohol in them because it was taken out later. This is not completely true, though. Beers "without alcohol" usually do have less than 1% of alcohol.

Beer


The constitution of a country (or a state) is a special type of law document that tells how its government is supposed to work. It tells how the country's leaders are to be chosen and how long they get to stay in office, how new laws are made and old laws are to be changed or removed based on law, what kind of people are allowed to vote and what other rights they are guaranteed, and how the constitution can be changed.

Limits are put on the Government in how much power they have within the Constitution (see Rule of Law ). On the other hand, countries with repressive or corrupt governments frequently do not stick to their constitutions, or have bad constitutions without giving freedom to citizens and others. This can be known as dictatorship or simply "bending the rules". A Constitution is often a way of uniting within a Federation.

The UK's constitution is not written in one single document like many other countries' are. In fact, the UK's constitution is not completely written down at all. Some of it can be found in writing, starting with the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Bill of Rights Act 1689 and including more modern Acts of Parliament. Other parts of it are considered common law and are made up of the decisions of judges over many hundreds of years in a system called legal or judicial precedence. Because of this, some people say that the United Kingdom has a de facto or "unwritten" constitution.

The United States in 1787 began a trend in the writing of constitutions. The United States Constitution is also the shortest that people are still using, and it has been changed (amended) many times over the years. It was made after the colonists won their independence from Britain. At first they had the Articles of Confederation but the Articles were replaced with today's Constitution.

The Indian constitution of 1950 is the longest ever written constitution in the world. It originally consisted of 395 Articles arranged under 22 Parts and 8 Schedules. As of 2021, it has 470 Articles, 12 schedules, and 25 Parts with 5 appendices and 98 amendments.

Related pages
 Constitutional law
 Constitutionalism
 Constitutional economics
 Democracy
 International law
 Jurisprudence
 Rule of law
 Social contract
 US Constitution

References

Constitution


The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and museum complex. Most of the institution is in Washington, D.C., but its 19 museums, zoo, and eight research centers include sites in New York City, Virginia, Panama, and elsewhere. It has over 137 million items in its collections.

A monthly magazine published by the Smithsonian Institution is also named the Smithsonian.

History
The Smithsonian Institution was founded for the "increase and diffusion" of knowledge by a bequest to the United States by the British scientist James Smithson (1765–1829), who had never visited the United States himself. In Smithson's will, he stated that should his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, die without heirs, the Smithson estate would go to the United States of America for creating an "Establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men". After the nephew died without heirs in 1835, President Andrew Jackson informed Congress of the bequest, which amounted to 104,960 gold sovereigns, or USD 500,000 ($9,235,277 in 2005 U.S. dollars after inflation).

Eight years later, Congress passed an act establishing the Smithsonian Institution. It is administered and funded by the U.S. government, and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and magazine.

The Smithsonian Institution Building on the National Mall is known as "The Castle", because its design looks similar to a European castle.

Though the Smithsonian's first leader (called "Secretary"), Joseph Henry, wanted the Institution to be a center for scientific research, before long it became the depository for various Washington and U.S. government collections.

The voyage of the U.S. Navy went around the world between 1838 and 1842. The United States Exploring Expedition collected thousands of animal specimens, herbs, shells, minerals, tropical birds, jars of seawater and ethnographic specimens from the South Pacific. These specimens and artefacts became part of the Smithsonian collections. So did those collected by the military and civilian surveys in the American West.

Smithsonian museums

Washington, DC
 Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture
 Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
 Arts and Industries Building
 Freer Gallery of Art
 Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
 National Air and Space Museum (Mall museum)
 National Museum of African American History and Culture
 National Museum of African Art
 National Museum of American History
 National Museum of the American Indian (Mall museum)
 National Museum of Natural History
 National Portrait Gallery
 National Postal Museum
 S. Dillon Ripley Center
 Smithsonian American Art Museum
 Smithsonian Institution Building
 Smithsonian National Zoological Park (National Zoo)
 The National Gallery of Art is affiliated with the Smithsonian, but it is run by a separate charter.

New York City, NY
 Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
 National Museum of the American Indian's George Gustav Heye Center

Chantilly, VA
 National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

In addition, there are many museums that are Smithsonian affiliates.

Other websites

 Smithsonian Institution webpage
 Smithsonian Education webpage
 Map of the museums from the Smithsonian Institution
 Smithsonian Networks webpage
 Smithsonian Student Travel, an educational travel partnership .

1843 establishments in the United States
19th-century establishments in Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian Institution


A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of building a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, biology, earth science, meteorology) and engineering disciplines (e.g. computer science, artificial intelligence). They are also used in the social sciences (such as economics, psychology, sociology and political science). Physicists, engineers, statisticians, operations research analysts and economists use mathematical models a lot.

Mathematical models can take many forms.  The types of models include:
dynamical systems - for systems that change,
statistical models - for finding patterns in large groups of measurements or data,
differential equations - to study how variables change over time, or
game theoretic models - for studying how many independent decision makers can interact.
These and other types of models can overlap, with a given model involving a variety of abstract structures. Mathematical models can include logical models.  In many cases, the quality of a scientific field depends on how well the mathematical models built on theory agree with results of repeatable experiments.  When theoretical mathematical models do not match experimental measurements, scientists try to correct the model.  Such corrections lead the way to better theories to explain the facts.

More reading
Books
 Bender, E.A. [ 1978 ] ( 2000 ). An Introduction to Mathematical Modeling, New York : Dover.
 Gershenfeld, N., The Nature of Mathematical Modeling, Cambridge University Press, (1998).
 Yang, X.-S., Mathematical Modelling for Earth Sciences, Dudedin Academic, (2008).

Specific applications
 Peierls, Rudolf. Model-making in physics, Contemporary Physics, Volume 21 (1), January 1980, 3-17
 Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. ( 2006 ). Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth. Moscow : Editorial URSS.

Other websites
General reference material
 McLaughlin, Michael P. ( 1999 )
 Plus teacher and student package: Mathematical Modelling. Brings together all articles on mathematical modeling from Plus, the online mathematics magazine produced by the Millennium Mathematics Project at the University of Cambridge.

Philosophical background
 Frigg, R. and S. Hartmann, Models in Science, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (Spring 2006 Edition)
 Griffiths, E. C. (2010) What is a model?

References

Mathematics

Mathematical model