An economic bubble occurs due to the human psychology of an expectation of an unlimited demand for any particular commodity. The market moves up quickly as the investors see an increase in prices due to increase in demand. Prices may eventually fall when supply increases beyond the demand, resulting in the bursting of the bubble. Predicting when this will happen is difficult, hence it may surprise investors.
Population without double counting
Population sans doubles comptes is a phrase in French that means population without double counting in English.
In France, because of the census, the INSEE has allowed people who live in one place and study in a different place to be counted twice, so as to show how the population moves. Because of this, each commune in France has many numbers of how many people live in it. For example, students may be counted where they study and where they live but do not study (the place they were born in). It is just like allowing students in the United States to vote in the town election of the place they are studying in and the town election where they were born.
Glass transition
The glass transition is the transition of amorphous solids from a hard and brittle state into a molten or rubber-like state. An amorphous solid that goes through a glass transition is called a glass. Supercooling a viscous liquid into the glass state is called vitrification.
The glass transition temperature "T" is always lower than the melting temperature, "T", of the crystalline state of the material, if one exists. Above a glass transition temperature, a plastic is rubbery. Below the glass transition temperature, a plastic is solid. Thermosets, or thermo-setting plastics, burn up before they reach their melt temperature, but most thermosets also undergo glass transition.
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was published in 1852. It greatly influenced many people's thoughts about African Americans and slavery in the United States. It also strengthened the conflict between the Northern and Southern United States. This led to the American Civil War. The book's effect was so powerful that Lincoln said when he met Stowe at the beginning of the Civil War, "So this is the little lady who made this big war."
The main character of the novel is Uncle Tom, a patiente sentimental novel showed the effects of slavery. It also said that Christian love is stronger than slavery.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was the most popular novel of the 19th century, and the second best-selling book of the century (the first one was the Bible). It helped abolitionism spread in the 1850s.
In these days, it has been praised as a very important help to anti-slavery. However, it has also been criticized for making stereotypes about black people.
Harriet Beecher Stowe was born in Connecticut. She was an abolitionist. Stowe wrote her novel because of the 1850 passage of the second Fugitive Slave Act. This law punished people who helped slaves run away. It also made the North stop and return the South's black runaways. Mrs. Edward Beecher wrote to Harriet ("Hattie"), "If I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that will make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is." At that time, Stowe was a wife with six children who sometimes wrote for magazines. Her son, Charles Stowe, said that his mother read this letter out loud to her children. When she finished the letter, she stood up, and with "an expression on her face that stamped itself on the mind of her child", she said, "I "will" write something...I will if I live." That is how "Uncle Tom's Cabin" began.
According to Stowe, she began thinking about "Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly" as she was in a church in February 1851. She had a vision of a Christian black man being beaten and praying for the people who were beating him as he died. She was also partly inspired to write her novel by the autobiography of Josiah Henson. Henson was a black man who had run away and helped many black slaves. She was also helped by the book "American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses" by Theodore Dwight Weld and the Grimké sisters. Stowe also said that she got lots of ideas for Uncle Tom's Cabin by talking to runaway slaves when she was living in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In her book "A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1853), Stowe wrote about the stories that inspired her when she was writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin". However, later research showed that Stowe did not actually read many of the stories inside the book until after her novel was published.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" began in a series in an anti-slavery newspaper, "The National Era". "The National Era" had also printed other works Stowe had written. Because everybody liked the story so much, John P. Jewett of Boston asked Stowe to turn the serial into a book. Stowe was not sure if people would like to read the story as a book. However, she finally agreed. John Jewett, sure that the book would be popular, asked Hammatt Billings to engrave six pictures for the book. In March 20, 1852, the finished book came out. By June it was selling ten thousand copies a week. By October American sales alone were 150 thousand copies. In the first year it was published, 300,000 copies of the book were sold, and it was translated into many important languages.
A Kentucky farmer named Arthur Shelby is afraid of losing his farm because of debts. Even though he and his wife, Emily Shelby, are kind to their slaves, he decides to sell two of them: Uncle Tom, a middle-aged man with a wife and children, and Harry, the son of his wife's maid Eliza. Emily Shelby is shocked and unhappy because she promised Eliza that she would not sell her son. George Shelby, her son, is unhappy because he admires Uncle Tom as his friend and Christian.
When Eliza hears about Mr. Shelby's plans to sell her son, she decides to run away with her only son. She writes a letter saying sorry to Mrs. Shelby and runs away that night.
Meanwhile, Uncle Tom is sold and put into a boat, which sails down the Mississippi River. There, he makes friends with a girl called Evangeline ("Eva"). When Eva falls into the water and he saves her, Eva's father, Augustine St. Clare, buys Tom. Eva and Tom become good friends because they both love Jesus very deeply.
During Eliza's escape, she meets her husband, George Harris, who had run away before her. They decide to try to run away to Canada. However, they are hunted by a slave hunter named Tom Loker. Tom Loker finally traps Eliza and her family, so that George shoots Loker. Eliza is worried that Loker might die and go to hell. Because of this, she persuades her husband to take him to a Quaker town to get better. The gentle Quakers change Tom Loker greatly.
In St. Clare's house, St. Clare argues with his sister, Miss Ophelia. She thinks that slavery is wrong, but is prejudiced against blacks. St. Clare buys Topsy, a black child, and challenges Miss Ophelia to educate her. Miss Ophelia tries, but fails.
After Tom has lived with St. Clare for about two years, Eva becomes very sick. She has a vision of heaven before she dies. Because of her death, many people change. Miss Ophelia loses her prejudice of black people, Tospy decides to become "good", and St. Clare decides to free Tom.