Collimated light is light whose rays are parallel. This light spreads slowly as it travels. The word "collimated" is related to "collinear", because all the rays in collimated light line up with each other.
Perfectly collimated light would not spread out with distance at all. No real light is perfectly collimated. Real light will spread a little as it travels. Diffraction prevents anyone from creating a perfectly collimated beam.
Light can be roughly collimated by using a "collimator" – a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves.
The word "collimate" comes from the Latin verb "collimare", which originated in a misreading of "collineare", "to direct in a straight line".
Laser light from crystal and some gas lasers is highly collimated because it is formed in an optical cavity between two parallel mirrors, in addition to being coherent. The divergence of high-quality laser beams is commonly less than 1 milliradian, and can be much less for large-diameter beams. Laser diodes emit less collimated light due to their short cavity, and therefore higher collimation requires a collimating lens.
Synchrotron light is very collimated. It is produced by bending relativistic electrons around a circular track.
The light from stars (other than the Sun) can be considered collimated for almost any purpose, because they are so far away they have almost no angular size.
A perfect parabolic mirror will bring parallel rays to a focus at a single point. Conversely, a point source at the focus of a parabolic mirror will produce a beam of collimated light. Since the source needs to be small, such an optical system cannot produce much optical power. Spherical mirrors are easier to make than parabolic mirrors and they are often used to produce approximately collimated light. Many types of lenses can also produce collimated light from point-like sources.
Hispanic
Hispanic (Spanish: "Hispano", "hispánico") is a word that originally meant a relationship to Hispania. This is the Iberian Peninsula and includes Portugal, Andorra, Gibraltar and Spain. Now the word is used with a more limited meaning. In the United States it is often used to mean a person of (usually) mixed race with a Spanish surname. In North America generally, the word Hispanic has lost its link to Spain and Portugal, and is mainly used to mean Latin America.
Hispanic has also been used to mean the culture and people of the former Spanish and Portuguese Empires in America. Known as Hispanic America, this region includes Mexico, most of the Central and South American countries, and the Spanish-speaking island-nations of the Caribbean.
Spanish names, the Spanish language, and Spanish customs can also be found in other areas that were part of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, such as in Equatorial Guinea in Africa, or in the Spanish East Indies (e.g. Philipines) and the Portuguese Brazil.
Muryeong of Baekje
Muryeong of Baekje (462–523, r. 501–23), also known as Sama, was a 6th-century Korean king. He was the 25th king of Baekje, which was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea in ancient times. The name Muryong means "military peace". It is a name he got after death.
During Muryeong’s reign, the southwestern kingdom of Baekje was allied with its eastern rival Silla against the northern kingdom of Goguryeo.
The king is known for expanding contacts with China and Japan.
Muryeong's tomb is located in Gongju in South Chungcheong Province. It has been studied by archeologists and historians. This the only ancient tomb that has been positively identified among those of this period.
In 2001, Japan's Emperor Akihito acknowledged a distant relationship with Muryeong. He explained, "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the "Chronicles of Japan" that the mother of Emperor Kammu was of the line of King Muryong of Baekje."
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (LLFPA) is an Act of Congress about pay discrimination that was signed into law by President Barack Obama on January 29, 2009.
The bill amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 stating that the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination resets with each new discriminatory paycheck. The law was a direct answer to the "Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.", , a U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the statute of limitations for presenting an equal-pay lawsuit begins on the date that the employer makes the initial discriminatory wage decision, not at the date of the most recent paycheck, as a lower court had ruled.
A first bill to amend the statutory limitations period and supersede the "Ledbetter" decision was introduced in the 110th United States Congress but was never enacted, as after having been passed by the House it failed to survive a cloture vote in the Senate due to the opposition of most of the Republican Senators.
During the campaign for the 2008 elections, the Democrats criticized Republicans for defeating the 2007 version of the bill, citing Republican presidential candidate John McCain's opposition. Then-candidate Barack Obama supported the bill.
After the 2008 election gave the Democratic Party control of both the House and Senate, a new version of the bill was introduced in the first session of the 111th United States Congress and quickly passed both bodies. It became the law signed by the new President Obama after he took office on January 20.
Lilly Ledbetter, a production supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, filed an equal-pay lawsuit seeking back pay for pay discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She worked for that company for many years without learning that she was paid much less than the men holding the same job. She filed the lawsuit six months before her early retirement in 1998. The District court said her lawsuit was filed on time, but the Court of Appeals said her lawsuit was too late. Ledbetter appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 by a 5-4 majority vote that Ledbetter's complaint was filed too late because the discriminatory decisions relating to pay had been made more than 180 days prior to the date she filed her charge, as explained by Justice Samuel Alito. The minority position explained by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg proposed an interpretation according to which the law runs from the date of any paycheck that contains an amount affected by a prior discriminatory pay decision.
The "Ledbetter" decision was cited by federal judges in 300 cases before the LLFPA was passed. These cases involved not only Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but also the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Fair Housing Act, Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act and Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
The case had never received much attention before going to the Supreme Court, but the Court's ruling ignited legal groups on the left and Democrats that took action to transform the "Ledbetter" case into a rallying issue for the left. Some activists saw Lilly Ledbetter as an ideal standard-bearer in their attempt to persuade the public that the Supreme Court was moving too far to the right.