The impact had some important consequences for the young Earth. It released an enormous amount of energy, causing both the Earth and Moon to be completely molten. Immediately after the impact, the Earth's mantle was vigorously convecting, the surface was a large magma ocean. The planet's first atmosphere must have been completely blown away by the enormous amount of energy released. The impact is also thought to have changed Earth’s axis to produce the large 23.5° axial tilt that is responsible for Earth’s seasons (a simple, ideal model of the planets’ origins would have axial tilts of 0° with no recognizable seasons). It may also have sped up Earth’s rotation.
Analysis of lunar rock brought back by Apollo astronauts appears to show traces of Theia. The researchers claim this confirms the theory that the Moon was created by a cataclysmic collision. Some scientists are surprised that the difference between the Theian material found in the Moon rock and the Earth is so small.
COBOL
COBOL is a programming language that was developed in the year 1959. It was one of the first computer programming languages. The name COBOL stands for "COmmon Business-Oriented Language".
COBOL was created because people wanted a language they could use to describe the problems in a way that is independent of the hardware used. Like SQL COBOL uses a syntax that is close to that of natural languages. As an example, "ADD YEARS TO AGE" is a valid expression.
There are several different versions of COBOL. The newest is from 2002. In general, versions of the language before 1985 are not compatible with the newer versions, from 1985 and later.
In his letter to an editor in 1975 titled "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", computer scientist and Turing Award recipient Edsger Dijkstra remarked that "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." In this letter, Dijkstra also criticised several other languages which were used at the time.
In recent years, COBOL has been extended to allow object-oriented programming, user-defined functions, and user-defined data types.
The computer scientist Howard E. Tompkins disagreed, and defended structured COBOL: "COBOL programs with convoluted control flow indeed tend to 'cripple the mind'", but this was because "there are too many such business application programs written by programmers that have never had the benefit of structured COBOL taught well...".
Edsger W. Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (May 11, 1930 – August 6, 2002; ) was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000.
Shortly before his death in 2002, he received the ACM PODC Influential Paper Award in distributed computing for his work on self-stabilization of program computation. This annual award was renamed the Dijkstra Prize the following year, in his honor.
3 Doors Down
3 Doors Down is an American Alternative rock band. They formed in 1994 in Escatawpa, Mississippi. The members of the group are Brad Arnold, the singer, Matt Roberts, who plays the lead guitar and backing vocals, Chris Henderson, who plays the rhythm guitar, Todd Harrell who plays the bass guitar and Greg Upchurch, who plays the drums.
Third Treaty of San Ildefonso
The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso (short for the Preliminary and Secret Treaty between the French Republic and His Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, Concerning the Aggrandizement of His Royal Highness the Infant Duke of Parma in Italy and the Retrocession of Louisiana) was a treaty between France and Spain. In it, Spain gave the territory of Louisiana to France.
Viglen
Viglen is an IT company based in the United Kingdom. Viglen is operated by UK businessman Lord Sugar and most schools in the UK own Viglen computers. Some of the products that Viglen have made are the Incepta II and the Genrie Pro.
Lotus Cars
Lotus Cars is a British builder of sports and racing cars. It is based at the old site of RAF Hethel, a World War II airfield in Norfolk. The company designs and builds race and production cars. The cars are built to have a low weight. The cars handle well (they can turn, start and stop quickly.)
Lotus Cars was founded and owned for many years by Colin Chapman. After his death and a period of financial instability, it was bought by General Motors, then by businessman Romano Artioli and DRB-HICOM through its subsidiary Proton. It is currently owned by Chinese multinational Geely.
The company was started as Lotus Engineering Ltd. by engineer Colin Chapman in 1952 but had roots in 1948 when Chapman first started building racing cars in a garage. The first factory was in old stables in Hornsey, North London. Team Lotus was started in 1954. It was split off from the Lotus Engineering company. Team Lotus was active and competitive in Formula One racing from 1958 to 1994.
The Lotus Group of Companies was formed in 1959. One company was Lotus Cars Limited which made road cars. The other company was Lotus Components Limited which worked on customer race cars. Lotus Components Limited became Lotus Racing Limited in 1971 but stopped building cars in the same year.
In 1959, the company moved to Cheshunt, Hertfordshire into a factory built to make cars. Since 1966 the company has been in a modern factory and road test facility at Hethel, near Wymondham. This site is the former RAF Hethel base. The test track uses parts of the old runway.
In its early days, Lotus sold cars aimed at privateer racers and trialists. Its early road cars could be bought as kits, in order to save on purchase tax. The kit car era ended in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the introduction of the Elan, the first car manufactured by the company.
In early 1982, Chapman came to an agreement with Toyota to exchange intellectual property and applied expertise. This resulted in Lotus collaborating in the design and development of Toyota sports cars and Toyota supplying parts to Lotus, making development and production of their new models, such as the Excel, cost effective.
Chapman died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 54. The car maker built tens of thousands of successful racing and road cars. They won the Formula One World Championship seven times. At the time of his death he was linked with the DeLorean scandal over the use of government subsidies for the production of DeLorean DMC-12 for which Lotus had designed the chassis.
In 1986, the company was bought by General Motors. On 27 August 1993, GM sold the company to Bugatti Automobili SpA owned by businessman Romano Artioli. In 1996, a majority share in Lotus was sold to Proton, a Malaysian car company. On 24 May 2017, Chinese multinational Geely announced that was taking a 51% controlling stake in Lotus. The remaining 49% was acquired by Etika Automotive.
The company is organized as Group Lotus. Group Lotus is divided into Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering. Lotus Engineering builds suspension for other car builders. They also worked with General Motors to develop the 4-cylinder Ecotec engine.
The four letters in the middle of the logo stand for the initials of Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman.
The Lotus Cars helped its customers to race its cars. They entered Formula One through its sister company Team Lotus in 1958. In 1960, Lotus got its first win in F1. A Lotus 18 driven by Stirling Moss won at Monaco. The car was entered by privateer Rob Walker.
They had big success in 1963 with the Lotus 25. With Jim Clark driving, Lotus its first F1 World Constructors Championship. Clark was killed in a crash in a Formula Two Lotus 48 in April 1968. It was a severe blow to the team and to Formula One. Clark was the dominant driver with the best car at the time. He is an important part of Lotus' early years. The 1963 championship was won by Clark's teammate, Graham Hill.