In 1932, New York Harbor, filmmaker Carl Denham, known for wildlife films in remote and exotic locations, charters Captain Englehorn's ship, the "Venture", for his new project. However, he cannot secure an actress for a role he has been reluctant to describe. Searching the streets of New York City, he meets Ann Darrow and promises her the adventure of a lifetime. As the "Venture" sets off, Ann meets the first mate, Jack Driscoll. Six weeks into the voyage, Denham reveals to Englehorn and Jack that their destination is, in fact, an uncharted island with a mountain that looks like a skull, of which he has come to knowledge from a Norwegian skipper who discovered a canoe blown off course with only one native left alive. Before the native died, the skipper was able to get a rough location of the island and some details on it, including its most distinctive feature - a huge ancient stone wall with an enormous wooden gate built by the ancestors of the natives back when they had high civilization. Denham alludes to a monstrous creature named "Kong", rumored to dwell on the island. Anchoring offshore at the island, the crew find a native village, where the natives prepare to sacrifice a young woman termed the "bride of Kong". The crew is spotted, and the native chief stops the ceremony. When he sees Ann, he offers to trade six of his tribal women for the "golden woman." Englehorn rebuffs him.
That night, Jack falls in love with Ann which she accepts. The natives kidnap Ann and take her through the gate and to an altar on the other side of the wall, where she is offered to Kong, an enormous gorilla-like creature. Kong carries a terrified Ann into the wilderness as Denham, Jack, and some volunteers enter the jungle in hopes of rescuing her. They encounter a giant dinosaur-like creature, a "Stegosaurus", which they manage to defeat. After facing an aggressive "Brontosaurus" and Kong himself, Jack and Denham are the only survivors. A "Tyrannosaurus rex" attempts to devour Ann, but Kong kills it to defend her. Jack continues to pursue Kong, while Denham returns to the village, where Englehorn and the remaining crewmen are waiting. Upon arriving in Kong's lair, Ann is menaced by a snake-like "Elasmosaurus", which Kong also kills. While Kong is distracted killing a "Pteranodon" that attempted to fly away with Ann, Jack rescues her, and the ape gives chase. Jack and Ann run through the jungle and back to the village. Pursuing Ann, Kong breaks open the gate despite the huge beam securing it and the combined efforts of the crew and natives to push it closed. Kong relentlessly rampages through the village until Denham, who has decided to switch his plan from producing a film to capturing Kong and sailing him to New York City, knocks him unconscious with a gas bomb.
Shackled in chains, Kong is taken to New York City and presented to a Broadway theatre audience as "King Kong, the Eighth Wonder of the World." Ann and Jack, now engaged, are brought on stage to join him, surrounded by a group of press photographers. Kong, enraged by the ensuing flash photography, breaks loose. The audience flees in terror and Ann has whisked away to a hotel room on a high floor, but Kong, scaling the building, finds her and abducts her again. Kong rampages through the city with Ann in his grip, wrecking a crowded elevated train, and then climbs the Empire State Building. Jack suggests to the police for army airplanes to shoot Kong off the building, without hitting Ann. Four planes take off to attack Kong. However, Jack becomes agitated for Ann's safety and rushes to the top of the building with Denham in following. The planes wait until Kong sets Ann down and then open fire on him. Kong tries to fight off the planes, destroying one, but is mortally wounded by their gunfire. He gazes at Ann one last time before he is hit twice more, and falls from the tower to his death. Jack reunites with Ann and Denham head backs down below to the street and pushes through a crowd to look at Kong's corpse. When a policeman remarks that the planes got him, Denham says, "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast".
"Variety" thought the movie was a powerful adventure. The "New York Times" thought the movie a fascinating adventure. The movie was not shown in Nazi Germany because it was thought a threat to Aryan womanhood. In 2002, Roger Ebert wrote that the special effects are not up to modern standards, but the movie remains one "that still somehow works." In 2009, "King Kong" held an average score of 100% "Certified Fresh" based on 46 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie made about $2 million when it was first shown. Its opening weekend total was estimated at $90,000. After the 1952 re-release, "Variety" estimated the film had made $4 million in cumulative domestic rentals for that year.
Recursion
Recursion is a word from mathematics and computer science. It is used to define a thing, such as a function or a set. A recursive definition uses the thing it is defining as part of the definition.
Usually, a recursive function refers to itself in some cases (or inputs), but not in every case. A function that referred to itself in every case would never terminate.
When a function refers to itself, it often uses a smaller input than the input it was given. In this way, it can solve a problem by first solving a simpler version of the problem.
An example of a recursive function formula_1 is:
This function computes the factorial of a natural number. It works because formula_6 and formula_7.
The definition has two cases: a recursive case for formula_8, and a case for formula_9 that is not recursive. The case that is not recursive is called a "base case".
Recursion can be used to write computer programs. A program that uses recursion may be easier to write and understand than a program that does the same thing without recursion.
Recursion is used in mathematics to prove theorems. This method is called induction.
The idea of recursion can be seen in art and language. For example:
Monte Carlo algorithm
A Monte Carlo algorithm is an algorithm for computers which is used to simulate the behaviour of other systems. It is not an exact method, but a heuristical one, typically using randomness and statistics to get a result. The algorithm terminates with an answer that is correct with probability formula_1.
It is a computation process that uses random numbers to produce an outcome(s). Instead of having fixed inputs, probability distributions are assigned to some or all of the inputs. This will generate a probability distribution for the output after the simulation is run.
For example, a Monte Carlo algorithm can be used to estimate the value of π. The amount of area within a quarter-circle of radius 1 depends on the value of π. The probability that a randomly-chosen point will lie in that quarter-circle depends on the area of the circle. If points are placed randomly in a square with sides of length 1, the percentage of points that fall within a quarter-circle of radius 1 will depend on the value of π. A Monte Carlo algorithm would randomly place points in the square and use the percentage of points falling inside of the circle to estimate the value of π.This is an effective way for making approximations.
In modern communication systems, the quality of information exchange is determined by the presence of noise in the channel. The major source of noise - Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) being random in nature can be characterized using the Monte Carlo algorithm in simulating a Communications System
The modern version of the Markov chain Monte Carlo method was invented in the late 1940s by Stanislaw Ulam, while he was working on nuclear weapons projects at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a radio station which is heard across the United Kingdom It started in 1967.