What Would a Stoic Do? Response to Jean-Paul Sartre
In 1946 Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre gave a lecture entitled “Existentialism is a Humanism,” in which he presented an argument that neither Christian ethics nor Kantian deontology are very helpful with actual, real-life ethical dilemmas. He sketched one such dilemma for his audience, about a young man who has to decide whether to join the anti-Nazi resistance or stay at home with his frail mother, concluding that the answer to ethical questions always depends on the details of every particular case, and that therefore we need to go the Existentialist route and “trust in our instincts.” The question I wish to explore here is that of what a Stoic would do in the scenario imagined by Sartre.
Here is an excerpt from the essay to give you the full picture Sartre is presenting, as well as his reasoning for why Existentialism is the answer:
“As an example by which you may the better understand this state of abandonment, I will refer to the case of a pupil of mine, who sought me out in the following circumstances. His father was quarrelling with his mother and was also inclined to be a “collaborator”; his elder brother had been killed in the German offensive of 1940 and this young man, with a sentiment somewhat primitive but generous, burned to avenge him. His mother was living alone with him, deeply afflicted by the semi-treason of his father and by the death of her eldest son, and her one consolation was in this young man. But he, at this moment, had the choice between going to England to join the Free French Forces or of staying near his mother and helping her to live. He fully realised that this woman lived only for him and that his disappearance – or perhaps his death – would plunge her into despair. He also realised that, concretely and in fact, every action he performed on his mother’s behalf would be sure of effect in the sense of aiding her to live, whereas anything he did in order to go and fight would be an ambiguous action which might vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose. For instance, to set out for England he would have to wait indefinitely in a Spanish camp on the way through Spain; or, on arriving in England or in Algiers he might be put into an office to fill up forms. Consequently, he found himself confronted by two very different modes of action; the one concrete, immediate, but directed towards only one individual; and the other an action addressed to an end infinitely greater, a national collectivity, but for that very reason ambiguous – and it might be frustrated on the way. At the same time, he was hesitating between two kinds of morality; on the one side the morality of sympathy, of personal devotion and, on the other side, a morality of wider scope but of more debatable validity. He had to choose between those two. What could help him to choose? Could the Christian doctrine? No. Christian doctrine says: Act with charity, love your neighbour, deny yourself for others, choose the way which is hardest, and so forth. But which is the harder road? To whom does one owe the more brotherly love, the patriot or the mother? Which is the more useful aim, the general one of fighting in and for the whole community, or the precise aim of helping one particular person to live? Who can give an answer to that a priori? No one. Nor is it given in any ethical scripture. The Kantian ethic says, Never regard another as a means, but always as an end. Very well; if I remain with my mother, I shall be regarding her as the end and not as a means: but by the same token I am in danger of treating as means those who are fighting on my behalf; and the converse is also true, that if I go to the aid of the combatants I shall be treating them as the end at the risk of treating my mother as a means. If values are uncertain, if they are still too abstract to determine the particular, concrete case under consideration, nothing remains but to trust in our instincts.”
Now, I actually think that Stoicism is a better model for Secular Humanists (as well as for many religious people, actually) than Existentialism, a topic I explore in this video, and that I have recently discussed with my friend Skye Cleary (who defended the Existentialist position, video to be published soon).
Before getting to Stoicism, though, let me complete Sartre’s analysis and add that yet a third major approach to ethics isn’t going to be very useful here either: utilitarianism. While it would seem obvious that from a utilitarian perspective the young man ought to leave his mother and help the greater cause, because of the high degree of uncertainty about what he will actually be able to do, and how effective he will be, it may turn out that overall happiness will be increased (and pain reduced) if he stays with his mother. There just is no way to tell. (Other utilitarian scenarios, in different situations, are much more clear, so this in itself isn’t a critique of the whole utilitarian approach.)
Back to Stoicism. To begin with, since Stoicism is a type of virtue ethics, it too does not provide universal answers, but needs to weigh the details of individual situations. While many consider this a weakness of virtue ethics when compared to “view from nowhere” systems such as Kantian deontology and Mill-style utilitarianism, I think it is a strength and agree with Sartre that ethics is often, if not nearly always, situational.
The second thing to notice is that Stoics recognize that we all play multiple ethical roles during our lives, in this specific case that of a dutiful son and of a concerned citizen. As Epictetus says:
“Reflect on the other social roles you play. If you are a council member, consider what a council member should do. If you are young, what does being young mean, if you are old, what does age imply, if you are a father, what does fatherhood entail? Each of our titles, when reflected upon, suggests the acts appropriate to it.” (Discourses II, 10.10)
But as Larry Becker also points out in his A New Stoicism, we need to arrive at decisions guiding our actions “all things considered,” i.e., taking into account that these different roles will often pull us into different directions, and that we need to chart the best possible course through many competing demands. What shall our guiding light be? Virtue, of course, the very point of a Stoic existence. As Seneca nicely puts it:
“The reward for all the virtues lies in the virtues themselves. For they are not practised with a view to recompense; the wages of a good deed is to have done it.” (Letters to Lucilius, LXXXI. On Benefits, 19)
Now, it seems to me that in the scenario posed by Sartre the greater virtue lies in defending liberty from tyranny, even at the cost of causing distress to one’s own mother. I cannot imagine a Cato, for instance, setting aside plans of taking on Julius Caesar on the ground that Cato’s mother will inevitably suffer as a result of the possibility of her son’s death. Or consider whether Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor, could have possibly decided not to go on the Roman frontier to fight the Marcomanni on account of the very real anguish that his decision would cause to his family and friends.
(There is a caveat here, going back to Sartre’s story: it isn’t exactly clear what the young man’s motivation in joining the Resistance would be. If it is vengeance, as it is stated at one point, then that’s hardly a positive reason, and not likely one that a Stoic would defend; if, instead, he is moved by a sense of justice, then the Stoic account has given here holds true. Virtue ethics puts a premium on the character and intentions of the agent, more than on his specific actions.)
This example also shows, I think, where Stoicism most sharply differs from one of its main ancient rivals, Epicureanism. Epicurus very clearly advised his followers to stay away from social and political action and to focus instead on family and friendships, because doing the former will decrease their happiness and especially augment their pain.
Contrast, for instance, Marcus:
“Human beings exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.” (Meditations, VIII.59)
With Epicurus (admittedly, though, cited by Epictetus, Discourses II.20.6):
“Don’t be deceived, men, or misled or mistaken: there is no natural fellowship of rational beings with each other. Believe me: those who say otherwise are deceiving you and reasoning falsely.”
The important thing to realize is that a Stoic would join the Resistance not because of some sort of utilitarian calculus of costs and benefits — since there Sartre is right that any such calculus is next to impossible. Nor is the Kantian “ends not just means” imperative going to be useful here, for precisely the reasons Sartre outlines. The Stoic would, painfully, leave his mother and fight for a broader cause because it is the virtuous thing to do, regardless of outcome.
It is virtuous because it exercises the virtue of justice, which guides Epictetus’ discipline of action, and because the Stoics were cosmopolitan, caring for all of humankind.
It is to be done regardless of outcome because the outcome is not up to us, only our judgments and actions are, the crucial distinction at the root of Epictetus’ famous dichotomy of control.
But the Stoic decision wouldn’t be reached via Sartre’s rather nebulous (and likely unreliable) “instinct,” but rather by reason, the very thing that according to the Stoics distinguishes us from every other species on the planet:
“Bring the mind to bear upon your problems.” (Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi X.4)
This entry was posted in Other philosophies, What Would a Stoic Do? on April 4, 2017 by Massimo.
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23 thoughts on “What Would a Stoic Do? Response to Jean-Paul Sartre”
Mark Wallace April 4, 2017 at 8:53 am
The convenience of that particular example for your analysis is also its trouble: everyone agrees that Nazis are evil, so that war was more clear cut than many other conflicts, where the liberty v. tyranny element is not so clear cut and choosing virtue is complicated somewhat.
Massimo Post author April 4, 2017 at 8:59 am
Not sure how the specific example (which I didn’t choose, it was Sartre’s) makes it particularly easy for me. Sartre himself didn’t think that was an easy decision to make. In cases were the tyranny vs liberty contrast is less clear one would need even more practical wisdom to tell the difference, but the basic idea stands.
Paul Braterman April 4, 2017 at 9:30 am
If compassion cannot be derived from the Stoic virtues, that strikes me as a major weakness of Stoicism. If it can, then we have here a conflict between two different ways of manifesting virtue.
Massimo Post author April 4, 2017 at 10:26 am
The Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis is their version of compassion. The Stoics were clear in saying that we should do our best to understand other people’s predicament and not be quick to judge.
I’m not sure what conflict you refer to. There are four virtues in Stoicism, which are often considered four facets of the same underlying one, wisdom.
Paul Braterman April 4, 2017 at 11:54 am
The conflict is the one facing the young man in the example. His concern for his mother is oikeiosis, the more so perhaps if we remember that oikos means home (yes, I know that such linguistic arguments are weak, but the are still suggestive). Yet he will be exercising other aspects of virtue if he goes off to fight. And he must chose which to practice. I cannot think of any argument that might help him.
Massimo Post author April 4, 2017 at 1:54 pm
I gave an argument in the post. Oikeiosis means home, but in the cosmopolitan sense, for the Stoics. The priority is clearly for social over family duty, as far as the Stoics are concerned. As I said, this is one of the things that distinguishes them from the Epicureans, for instance.
Paul Braterman April 4, 2017 at 3:05 pm
Thanks. This confirms my own feeling that I am not a Stoic, though I hope I can learn from Stoics
Brxi (@Brxi) April 4, 2017 at 3:51 pm
Massimo,
I am either missing your point or I really cannot agree with you on this. Do you want to say that priority is for social over family duty, no matter what? Is your role as son always less important than role as citizen who can try to defend the country, even in the case that your ‘action might vanish like water into sand and serve no purpose’? This would mean that in a situation of war everybody should just leave their families and take up arms, come what may – that certainly doesn’t sound right, for Stoics or anyone else. You should not compare with Cato or Marcus Aurelius here, who had a very important role as commanders and therefore a public duty that was probably more important (i.e. virtuous) then their family duty. But the guy in the Sartre story is just a young man…
bayonico April 4, 2017 at 4:47 pm
The caveat you expose is quite interesting. If the motivation leading to the young’s man will to join the resistance is vengeance, then the Stoic thing to do would be to exert the virtue of temperance and stay taking care of his mother? Can we then say that the Stoic way to take decisions is first to do an introspection about her motivations, and then decide according to the virtues and the dichotomy of control?
Brxi,
Sorry, I probably wasn’t clear. No, I did not mean to say that social duties always override duties to family and friends. Virtue ethics is situational, so the answer is always going to be “it depends.”
But in the specific scenario brought up by Sartre, it seems to me that a mother’s distress is just not enough of a reason (say, as opposed to a clear and distinct danger to her life) for her son to forgo his duties to society.
True, he doesn’t know how effective he will be, but that’s true in general, and that sort of consideration could become too easy an excuse not to get involved.
As for Cato and Marcus, those are role models, and even though their specific situation doesn’t apply to most of us, the general principle, I think, does. Indeed, the common excuse for morally lazy people in Republican Rome was “I’m not a Cato,” meaning that not everyone has Cato’s moral rectitude. But is that a reason not to try?
Bayonico,
I don’t think a Stoic would look at his motivations first, but his motivations would enter into his decision. It’s sort of a combination between utilitarianism (where the motivations don’t count) and deontology (where their are first and foremost).
viennahavana April 4, 2017 at 7:54 pm
Massimo, I’m interested in the “social duties override duties to family and friends” — what if the war is an unjust war (ie. Vietnam)? In that case would the duty of a Stoic be to go underground and resist the war effort? Or what if, in reverse, the father had been a resistance fighter and the son wanted to support the State (in this case Nazi party) because he believed it was his social duty to “fight for a broader cause”? My point is this: what seems right (the virtuous, wise choice) might be unclear. It’s often not possible to know the real truth about why people fight wars: for land, money, trade routes, natural resources, etc. Wars are often morally complex situations, with less than clear political and social motives. In that case, if the son doubted what the just social action in supporting/resisting a war effort might be, couldn’t he be making the clearest virtuous choice by staying home to care for family?
Vienna,
As I stated before, I’m not arguing that social duties always override duties to friends and family. Virtue ethics is situational. In the case of fighting the Nazi vs the distress to the mother I think the social side outweighs the personal. As I mentioned in a previous comment, had the mother been in direct danger to her life, probably not.
Right, the Vietnam War was not a just war (and pretty clearly so), and there are in fact precedents of Stoics taking up arms against their country (Cato).
The Stoic doesn’t have ready made solutions to these issues, and a good thing it is. As Becker says, decisions need to be made “all things considered,” and the guide to those decisions is our prudence, or practical wisdom.
Brxi (@Brxi) April 5, 2017 at 12:03 am
OK, I see now what you wanted to say.
It is just that I thought that the point of what Sartre was saying in that excerpt was that there will always be some situations where two or more of our roles ask for different actions to be made and neither clearly outweighs the other (e.g. what if the boy knew the mother would most probably die if he left). Considering the uncertainty of the outcomes of our actions, in these situations “nothing remains but to trust in our instincts.” Surely a Stoic will face these hard choices too. But a Stoic will probably have a better way of accepting the consequences of her choice, whether it turns up to be good or bad.
synred April 5, 2017 at 12:41 am
I’d stike with ma. I wouldn’t over think it.
I think there is more than that to it. Sartre basically says we should go with our gut feelings. Stoicism isn’t about gut feelings, of course, but about reason, exercising our “ruling faculty.” And it does provide a framework for establishing priorities. So it offers tools to the thinking person for reasoning her way through this sort of difficult situations to arrive at the best decision, all things considered.
nonscholaesedvitaedoscimus April 5, 2017 at 9:58 am
Hello Massimo,
Along the same lines as Paul, I don’t think the choice of the social over the family one is as obvious as you make it seem. For one, it seems like a false dichotomy. My understanding Oikeoisis is that is it the collapsing of distinctions between you and successively larger concentric circle of social relations (family, neighbors, fellow citizens, etc). So if this rough definition is correct, family members are on equal standing with anyone else in terms of my necessity to do justice. and further, i don’t see justice as a utilitarian virtue in the sense that the more people I could do justice to, the better. In this sense, the young man could choose to do justice by his mother (who is obviously psychologically unstable and in need of family support, her son being the only member left) or by the country. It would be the right thing to do to take care of your mother that has taken care of you your whole life and lost everything, and it would also be right to fight against a cause you know to be wrong.
nonscholaesedvitaedoscimus,
That’s a reasonable interpretation, but I don’t think it fits quite as well with overall Stoic philosophy.
First, again, I never said that the social always overrides family duties.
Second, right, oikeiosis means “contracting” the circles of concern, meaning that — ideally — the rest of humanity ought to be as important to you as your mother.
This sounds like a utilitarian calculus, but if we are talking about the freedom and lives of many vs the distress of one, then the choice seems clear to me, on virtue ethical grounds.
A common misconception is that virtue ethics is not about consequences. Of course it is, but not in the simplistic fashion a utilitarian would use.
More broadly, again, the young man has to make a decision between competing demands, all things considered. In this specific case (but not necessarily others) we have the Nazi threat on one side and his mother’s distress on the other. I think a rational decision would weigh the former more than the latter.
David White April 5, 2017 at 10:30 am
I read a critique of Socrates (perhaps here somewhere) which criticised him for not taking the escape route he was offered although his family dearly wanted him to do so. According to the critique, he put his pride before his family. Also the familiar Stoics don’t have a great history of family involvement or the judgement of other people in general – Seneca and Nero; Marcus and his son etc. Even Musonius and his insistence on ‘manly beards’ etc discords with me (I have a stubbly beard!)
Responsibility, particularly for those whose existence I am responsible for, comes higher up the indifference scale (I hate ‘indifference’) than an idealistic notion – at any rate for me. Stoicism is about ‘setting ones own house in order’ first.
So, whilst I do not disagree with your analysis, it is a situation which I find challenging.
You are right, it is a challenging problem.
But I find that critique of Socrates entirely missing the point, which is well spelled out by Plato. Socrates explicitly explains that he has to abide by the laws, even if that particular instance of their application is unjust, because he has benefited from them his entire life.
Indeed, it is precisely thinking of that example that I wager the Stoics would tend to give precedence to social duties over family ones. Not exclusively, and always depending on circumstances, of course.
Indeed, as I said in the OP, this is one of the things that separates us from the Epicureans, who would have no doubt whatsoever about staying with the mother.
I don’t think it is fair of accusing Seneca of bad judgment concerning Nero. He arguably tried to manage an impossible situation. I have an essay concerning this coming out tomorrow.
As for Marcus, there too the story is more complicated, as argued by Don Robertson in a recent discussion thread at the Facebook Stoic group.
I’m with you on Musonius and beards, though!
Shane Sullivan April 5, 2017 at 11:52 am
I see there’s already a lively discussion going on here, but I’d like to add a little more food for thought: There was plenty of very important resistance work to be done in France during World War II, so it may not have been as simple and binary as “stay home and do nothing” or “move to North Africa to be an ineffectual desk jockey”. On the other hand, I would consider leaving home a much more viable option if there was someone nearby who I knew and trusted to at least keep an eye on my mother.
Some of this would have depended on circumstance, such as where he lived in France, whether he knew the right people, and when specifically this story took place (all we know for sure is that it took place after the German offensive of 1940), but since all we have to go by is a single and rather unwieldy paragraph, I’m going to go ahead and quote Isaac Asimov: Insufficient Data for Meaningful Answer.
Walter Braun April 5, 2017 at 12:14 pm
Oh my, this time you got it all wrong, Massimo.
No Confucian or Taoists would ever think or argue this way. It is natural to protect one’s family, while it is rather unnatural to think in abstract terms like ‘nation’. Your stance is as abstract as the extremes of Christendom or Kant or these irrational neo-utilitarians (who seem to hate human nature). Perhaps your left-leaning attitude misled you here. Conservatives would be much more sensible by preferring the near to the far, the known to the unknown, the calculable to the incalculable.
The strength of virtue ethics is that it deals with concrete situations, not abstracts – you do not owe allegiance to a ‘battle field’.
The examples you bring are meagre and misleading: What Cato’s or Aurelius’ duties might be have nothing whatsoever to do with the duties of a common man to his mother.
The strength of a real Stoic is that they are concrete in their actions and attitude, not otherworldly. Your conclusion – “The Stoic would, painfully, leave his mother and fight for a broader cause because it is the virtuous thing to do, regardless of outcome” – completely hangs in the air because it would only be true under very specific circumstances (e.g. it is a soldier’s duty to fight, not a civilian’s!).
It is most definitely the virtuous thing to support the next of kin instead of nebulous actions (or hot-headed and pointless suicide missions of amateurs). As both Confucius and the Stoics maintained: Social obligations grow in concentric circles, and the starting point is always the natural love one has for the own family; an airy-fairly ‘love’ for the whole humankind comes last (at least in sane minds)…
Well, obviously, I disagree. What a Confucian or Taoist would do is, of course, entirely irrelevant. This is about Stoicism.
The Stoics most definitely incorporated a lot of “abstract” concepts into their philosophy, for instance the idea of cosmopolitanism itself.
My “left leaning attitude” would arguably be at odds with my conclusion here, since leftists tend to be skeptical of wars. And it is entirely not the case that conservatives would take the “much more sensible” position to stay at home, since many of the conservatives I know (like the last three conservative administrations in the US) are war mongering.
You simply declare that my examples of Cato and Marcus are irrelevant, but it isn’t clear why. Marcus very explicitly says that our duty is to improve the human condition, not just our family’s.
And of course you entirely ignore my argument that the young man would base his decision on the virtue of justice.
The Stoics did not think of social obligations as growing circles, but as contracting ones. The difference is relevant: in the metaphor of growing circles family is first, humanity is last. But if you are attempting to contract the circles you are trying to remind yourself that strangers are just as worthy of attention and protection as your family is.
pascojc April 10, 2017 at 11:54 am
just to note that sartre never hashed out his ethics well – that took simone de beauvoir in ‘ethics of ambiguity’. maximizing freedom for each and every consciousness becomes the north star for choosing one’s projects. she does not say this is easy, as the title suggests.


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(-) 106th Congress (1999-2000) (2)
(-) 050 - National Defense (2)
(-) House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (2)
H.R. 4567, Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2000
Cost estimate for the bill as introduced on May 25, 2000
H.R. 3573, Keep Our Promise to America's Military Retirees Act
Cost estimate for the bill as introduced on February 2, 2000


Defense Minister Ya'alon Meets With Jordan's King Abdullah II, First Official Encounter in Over a Year
Ya'alon speaks with the king of Jordan at the Munich Security Conference about Middle East developments and possibilities of advancing the peace process.
Barak Ravid
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Jordan's King Abdullah speaks at the Munich Security Conference, February 12, 2016.Reuters
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has met Jordan’s King Abdullah II at a security conference in Munich. This was the first open meeting between the king and a senior Israeli official in over a year.
Israel and Jordan have cause for concern as Assad's troops make gains in Syria
Israel and Jordan at impasse over Temple Mount cameras
WATCH: The King of Jordan on Trump's Muslim ban, Saudi tensions and Putin's Syria strategy
Ya’alon’s bureau stated that the two dealt with bilateral relations between Jordan and Israel, with recent developments in the Middle East and with possibilities for advancing the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
“One cannot talk about justice in the world without solving the Palestinian question and striving for a state for them," said King Abdullah in his speech at the conference. "If this isn’t resolved, the entire region will slide into a religious conflict and ISIS is exploiting this.”
The meeting was the first the king had with an Israeli senior official in the last 15 months. The last time was at a three-way meeting in Amman with Prime Minister Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in November 2014, in which attempts were made to defuse tensions surrounding the Temple Mount.
Moshe Ya'alon


The Physics of CDs and DVDs
Everywhere you look now days, you see or interact with CDs or DVDs; whether it is in the car, at work, or at home for pleasure, you deal with these modern marvels. Whatever the use, CD has become a reliable medium in which to distribute information, in a reliable way. The cost of a CD is very inexpensive, making it a popular choice by companies trying to advertise, or teach you about something. American On Line (AOL) is one example of companies who have chose this reliable source for communication. CD is the abbreviation for compact disk; DVD is the abbreviation for digital video disk or digital versatile disk. The difference between the two is the CD is audio, and the DVD is audio and visual. The objective of this paper is to help you to understand the physics surrounding the CD and DVD. The main focus of this paper is to inform the reader of all the things that take place when you watch a movie on a DVD player, starting with the CD itself. The laser reads the CD and converts it to the final product of what we see and hear.
Most CDs are made from polycarbonate plastic. This polycarbonate is a tough material that helps to prevent scratching. Scratching of a CD causes the laser, which reads the spiral data, to jump off track, allowing the CD to skip around and to distort whatever you are watching or listening to. According to How Things Work,
A CD is a fairly simple piece of plastic, about four one-hundredths (4/100) of an inch (1.2 mm) thick. Most of a CD consists of an injection-molded piece of clear polycarbonate plastic. During manufacturing, this plastic is impressed with microscopic bumps arranged as a single, continuous, extremely long spiral track of data. Once the clear piece of polycarbonate is formed, a thin, reflective aluminum layer is sputtered onto the disc, covering the bumps. Then a thin acrylic layer is sprayed over the aluminum to protect it. (Brian 1)
After that, you have a final product called a CD.
Often, you will hear about bumps on a CD. These bumps are what the laser reads. They are also sometimes referred to as pits. Bumps and pits are the same thing; it just depends on what side of the CD you are looking at.
"The Physics of CDs and DVDs." 123HelpMe.com. 17 Jan 2020
Essay on Physics of the Turntable
- Have you ever wondered how a record player works. Probably not. After all, who still listens to records. Surprisingly enough, turntables are making a come back. With the recent surge of interest in hip hop music, popular attention has been turned towards the turntable, used by DJs to provide beats, loops and scratching for virtually all of today's hip hop groups. The inner workings of the turntable may seem complex at first but after reading this paper it should become clear that, like all things, the record player works on basic principals of physics.... [tags: physics sound music]
Physics Of Physics : Quantum Theory Essay examples
- Quantum theory explains the world of physics that attempts to understand the nature and behavior of matter and energy at a subatomic level (Rouse, Margaret). Its applications can be found in objects used in everyday life, such as lasers, CDs, DVDs, digital cameras, photocopiers, and more. An atom is an object containing positive and negative charged particles with more than 99.9% of its mass, produced from the protons and neutrons, packed into a small nucleus. This nucleus, located in the center of the atom, is orbited by electrons, point particles that are even smaller in size.... [tags: Quantum mechanics, Electron, Photon, Light]
The Physics of the Arc Essay
- ABSTRACT Several researchers have devoted efforts on studying physics of arc and descriptive models are used to explain many arc welding related phenomena. However, due to the subject complexity, doubts still emerge about the mechanisms of some phenomena related to the arc. For instance, the description about electromagnetic interactions with the arc, which governs the arc trajectory and lead to plasma jet and arc blow formation, seems to be yet controversial. Thus, the present study aimed a better understanding of these phenomena.... [tags: Physics ]
The Physics of Fishing Essay
- The Physics of Fishing The use of a boat while fishing and some of the physics applicable to boating will be included in exploring the various ways physics applies to the sport of fishing. Other topics will include the fishing rod, fishing lure, casting, and the fish itself. The boat floats on the water according to Archimedes Principle which states an immersed object is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. The force applied downwards by earth’s gravity coupled with the upward force of buoyancy allows the boat to float.... [tags: Physics ]
Essay on The Physics of Roller Coaster
- i: Introduction You apprehensively walk up the iron steps and onto the platform. You’re reluctant to go any further, but your friend eggs you on, saying, “It’s not that fast.” You step into the seat and pull the harness down over you. No, this isn’t the latest, greatest technological frontier. It’s a roller coaster. Since 1804 when the first wheeled roller coaster- called “Les Montagnes Russes”- was constructed in Paris, France, roller coasters have been a staple of adventure and fantasy among children and children-at-heart.... [tags: Physics]
Essay about The Physics of Roller Coasters
- A roller coaster is a thrill ride found in amusement and theme parks. Their history dates back to the 16th century. It all started in Russia, with long, steep wooden slides covered in ice. The idea then traveled to France. Since the warmer climate melted the ice, waxed slides were created instead, eventually adding wheels to the system. The first roller coaster in which the train was attached to the track was in France in 1817, the Russess a Belleville. The first attempt at a loop-the loop was also made in France in the 1850s.... [tags: Physics]
Applications of Physics For Different Industries Essay example
- INTRODUCTION Physics attempts to describe the fundamental nature of the universe and how it works, always striving for the simplest explanations common to the most diverse behaviour. For example, physics explains why rainbows have colours, what keeps a satellite in orbit, and what atoms and nuclei are made of. The goal of physics is to explain as many things as possible using as few laws as possible, revealing nature's underlying simplicity and beauty. Physics has been applied in many industrial fields, which include the air industry, construction industry, automobile industry, manufacturing industry and many others.... [tags: Physics]
The Physics of Car Collisions Essay
- Basic Concepts Issac Newton was the first to state the concepts that are necessary to understanding the physics of collisions. His three laws are used again and again in all the fields of physics: Newton's 1st Law In the absence of external forces, an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion with a constant velocity. This law can be best observed in space, far from the gravity of a star or planet, where there is no friction or air resistance. If, in the middle of deep space, you give a rock a little push, it will continue with the direction and velocity you gave it forever.... [tags: Physics]
The Physics Behind Remote Sensing Essay
- Remote Sensing is the science of acquiring, processing and interpreting images that record the interaction between the electromagnetic energy and matter (Sabins, 1997). Remote sensing offers extensive applications in almost every area of science from monitoring forest fires to geologic mapping . Although many aspects of remote sensing are complex and difficult to understand the basic theory behind remote sensing is simple physics. There are four major stages of remote sensing. The first stage is the source of energy, usually the sun, which sends energy to a target.... [tags: Physics]
Physics of Aristotle Essay examples
- The great Greek thinker Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. in Stagirus, a city in ancient Macedonia in northern Greece. At the age of eighteen Aristotle went to Athens to begin his studies at Plato's Academy. He stayed and studied at the Academy for nineteen years and in that time became both a teacher and an independent researcher. After Plato's death in 347 B.C. Aristotle spent twelve years traveling and living in various places around the Aegean Sea. It was during this time that Aristotle was asked by Philip of Macedon to be a private tutor to his son, Alexander.... [tags: physics aristotle]
Physics Dvd Player Audio Disk Spiral Injection Compact Aluminum Laser Thin
Crew Personalities on the Mission to Mars
Influences and Reality
Defining Myself through Writing
Style in Writing
On the aluminum side, they appear as pits, but they appear as bumps on the side the laser reads. All of these bumps are little pieces of data from the music or video. Data storage is different on a CD vs. a DVD. CDs require a longer track pitch than a DVD. A DVD requires about half of that of a CD. This allows for a DVD to hold more data. Not only do DVDs have shorter track pitches, they have multi-layer levels that store even more data.
I Specification	I CD I DVD 1600 740 Track Pitch nanometers nanometers Minimum Pit Length
(single-layer DVD) 830 nanometers 400 nanometers Minimum Pit Length (double-layer
DVD)	830 nanometers	440 nanometers
Single-sided, single-layer DVDs can store about seven times more data than CDs. A large part of this increase comes from the pits and tracks being smaller on DVDs. To increase the storage capacity even more, a DVD can have up to four layers, two on each side. The laser that reads the disc can actually focus on the second layer through the first layer. (Nice 1)
This technology allows DVDs to hold up to 8 hours of data.
Now that we know a little bit more about how a CD is made and how much information it can hold. It is time to learn about the player. The player is the ting that does all the work. All we have to do is to throw in a CD or a DVD, and sit back and enjoy. CD and DVD players are made up of basically three main things: a drive motor, a laser, and a lens. Each part of the player has an important role. The drive motor’s job is to spin the CD. It can spin the CD anywhere from 200 to 500 RPM’s, depending on which track is being read. The laser’s job in the player is to read the bumps on a CD. The laser reads these bumps and produces what is needed to hear what is on a CD or to see what is on the DVD. Our book says a laser is an acronym for, “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (Kirkpatrick 599).” The lens is part of a tracking system that reads the spiral of data. It keeps the laser on track, so that everything is played in the order in which it is suppose to be played. Once this all comes together, the player works like this:A CD player uses a laser beam to determine the lengths of a series of ridges inside a compact disc. Infrared light from a solid-state laser is sent through several lenses, a polarizing beam splitter, and a special polarizing device called a quarter-wave plate. It's then focused through the clear plastic surface of the compact disc and onto the shiny aluminum layer inside the disc. Some of this light is reflected back through the player's optical system so that it passes through the quarter-wave plate a second time before encountering the polarizing beam splitter. The two trips through the quarter-wave plate switches the light's polarization from horizontal to vertical (or vice versa) so that instead of returning all the way to the laser, the light turns 90° at the polarizing beam splitter and is directed onto an array of photodiodes. These photodiodes measure the amount and spatial distribution of the reflected light. From this reflected light, the CD player can determine whether the laser beam is hitting a ridge or a valley on the disc's aluminum layer. It can also determine how well focused or aligned the laser beam is with the aluminum layer and its ridges. (Bloomfield 3)
The information gathered from the bumps are measured and then sent to produce the music. This is where the computer portion of the player comes into play. The computer takes the information gathered from the CD and turns it into what we hear.
In closing, I would like to talk about what we have learned. The CD is a magnificent thing that is very much a vital part of our society. We use this great technology everyday. Weither it is watching a movie, playing a video game, or even typing a paper on the computer, we use this technology. A CD can hold a lot of data, and, as technology advances, the boundaries will keep growing and growing.
Bloomfield, Louis A. “Compact Disc Players.” How Things Work. 24 Apr. 2003. <http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/compact_disc_players.html>.
Brian, Marshall. “Understanding the CD.” How CDs Work. 24 Apr. 2003. <http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd1.htm>.
Kirkpatrick, Larry D., and Gerald F. Wheeler. “Physics, A World View.” Chapter 23, “Lasers.” 2001 by Harcourt College Publishers.
Nice, Karim. “Data Storage: DVD vs. CD.” How DVDs and DVD Players Work. 27 Apr. 2003. <http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dvd3.htm>.


ArtLessonsOnline-Website
Drawing Trees
Learn to draw various types of trees in graphite
Drawing trees can be a challenging subject for beginners. Mostly it is due to our preconceptions from childhood about how trees should be drawn. This course will break those preconceptions and show you what to look for and how to draw the shapes, detail and texture of trees.
We'll explore the various shapes of different types of trees as well as illustrate how "not" to draw them. I'll show you the most common mistakes that people make and how to correct them.
Then we'll explore different ways to create a range of trunk textures to really give your trees a sense of realism and life.
After this course you'll have the confidence to tackle drawing of any tree and be ready to create your own forest.
This course contains 7 lessons with almost 4 hours of tuition.
Paid Course Coupon Discount
Tree Basics
Drawing Trees Part 1 (25:32)
Drawing trees (Branches) (32:59)
Textures and tree types
Tree shapes (19:42)
Tree trunk texture (37:59)
Snow Covered Fir Trees (28:04)
eucalyptus tree (43:55)
complex line direction - Fan Palm (28:39)
Murray Charteris
Australian artist Murray Charteris was born in Brisbane, 1972. Predominantly working in acrylic but also with extensive experience in digital art and animation, Murray is best known for his vibrant, illustrative paintings. He has had solo exhibitions in Queensland and administered his own gallery in Hervey Bay between 2007 and 2011. Murray has had gallery representation in Brisbane and Darling Harbour, Sydney.
Murray Charteris is quickly gaining a reputation for his dynamic, energy filled fine art. His bold colours and powerful compositions come together to produce stunning artwork that is increasingly sought after.
Murray started painting at a very early age and during his childhood he has been tutored by several artists throughout Brisbane. After studying animation for 3 years at Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Australia, Murray has made a successful career from his animation skills, creating 3D computer animation and special effects for television commercials and programs both in Australia and overseas.
On his return to Australia in 1995, Murray started work with Australia’s leading television network Channel Nine, where he quickly gained a reputation for his design. Murray was placed in charge of the Videographics department in Brisbane in 1997 and led a very strong videographics team for nearly 12 years. During this time, Murray has won a Gold World Medal in the New York Festivals and has twice been a finalist in the Australian Effects and Animation Festival.
Murray’s real passion has always been drawing and painting. In 2007, Murray re-located to Hervey Bay and devoted his time to his art, working as a full-time artist. “Painting is what I really love to do, I love to create new worlds that could only have once existed in my imagination. I like to create a feeling of energy and motion into my art and tell stories through imaginative works”.
Murray is currently working in his studio in Brisbane.
© ArtLessonsOnline 2020
Murray's Gallery


NATO–Russia Relations: The Return of the Enemy
Written on 04/04/2019
Even after a political rapprochement between Russia and NATO, Moscow saw the Alliance in terms of a hostile institution and expressed marginal interest in promoting greater cooperation within its structures. Endeavors to bring Russia and NATO closer, while deepening their mutual ties, were aimed at boosting the Kremlin’s influence on the Alliance’s activities.
For most of the post-Cold War period, Russia did not avoid cooperating with the North Atlantic Alliance, seeking instead to make NATO change its hitherto character from a military bloc to a typically political alliance.
For over two decades, NATO had been committed to holding a dialogue with Russia while establishing partnership relations with its authorities. This dramatically changed in 2014 when NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Russia yet keeping political and military channels of communication open. The Alliance is presently ready to enter a dialogue with Russia, however expanding its containment and deterrence potential.
Over the past five years, tensions have mounted between Russia and NATO, bringing a risk of the most serious direct armed conflict for the first time in decades. Still, such a scenario is unlikely to materialize in the short run.
Photo source: NATO.INT
All texts (except images) published by the Warsaw Institute Foundation may be disseminated on condition that their origin is stated.


How Your Ethnic Background Affects Your Health
Your ethnicity can be key in diagnosing certain diseases
By Andrea AtkinsFrom Grandparents.com April 27, 2016
By Andrea Atkins
(This article previously appeared on Grandparents.)
Watching what you eat, exercising to stay fit and getting enough sleep are all important factors in staying healthy. But there are other factors beyond your control that determine if you’ll get sick, and your ethnic background is a big one.
While ethnicity won’t definitively determine whether you get a disease or illness, there are some conditions that pop up with more frequency among certain ethnic groups.
We do know that there are single genes that can cause certain conditions, and we know that people of certain ethnicities carry those genes at a higher rate.
— Rachel Ratner, genetic counselor with the Westmed Medical Group
Who’s at Risk?
If for example, you are of Ashkenazic Jewish descent, you are more likely to have the BRCA I or BRCA II gene which increases the chance that you’ll develop breast or ovarian cancer in your lifetime. The BRCA gene is present in 1/500 people overall. But in Ashkenazic Jews, the rate is 1/40. If you have the BRCA gene, your risk of developing the disease is 87 percent higher than if you don’t have it.
Similarly, people who are African-American have a higher risk of developing sickle cell anemia and cardiovascular disease.
People who are Asian and Hispanic are more likely to develop thalassemia — a disorder in which the blood makes an abnormal amount of hemoglobin.
And Caucasians develop cystic fibrosis at higher rates than other groups.
Other conditions associated with certain ethnic groups:
Hispanics are more likely to develop diabetes (Native Americans, too.) In fact, Mexican Americans have an 87 percent higher risk and Puerto Ricans a 94 percent higher risk of developing this disease than Caucasians, and Latinos are twice as likely to die from it, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Asian-American women develop osteoporosis in greater numbers than other members of the population, and since 90 percent of Asian- Americans are lactose intolerant, many do not get enough bone-protecting calcium.
African-American men have a gene that makes them more likely to get prostate cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control, while African-American women seem to have a higher risk for aggressive forms of breast cancer. They also die from that disease more frequently than white women.
Some of these disparities are not related to ethnicity itself but are the result of less vigilant screening among certain populations. Either because of a lack of health care or a fear of the medical system, some people don’t get regular medical checkups.
Still, there may be genes present in your ethnic group that make you more susceptible to certain diseases. And that’s why it’s important to discuss your background with your physician.
“We do know that there are single genes that can cause certain conditions, and we know that people of certain ethnicities carry those genes at a higher rate.” says Rachel Ratner, genetic counselor with the Westmed Medical Group in Rye, N.Y.
Can’t My Doctor Tell By Looking at Me?
It may not be obvious to your doctor what you ethnic background is. After all, we live in a melting pot of mixing cultures. But be sure to share details of your heritage with your physician, because knowing your background can be key in diagnosing diseases, avoiding certain medications and assessing the likelihood that you’ll develop serious health issues.
“Now that we have testing available for genetic syndromes that tend to cluster in ethnic populations, it’s important to know the patient’s background to establish whether a particular person is at risk,” says Dr. Carl Olden, a family physician in Yakima, Wash., and a member of the board of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Sharing this information with your doctor is not difficult, continues Olden, who views it as a way for patients and doctors to get to know one another better. He suggests using a family photo album as a starting point to talk about your relatives but to also list the diseases and health issues they had. Tuck a list into the back of the book for reference.
Family History and Ethnic Background
Your ethnic background coupled with your family health history provides important clues about your likelihood to develop a particular disease, says Ratner.
“If you tell me that your mother had breast cancer, your grandmother had ovarian cancer and your aunt has breast cancer, then you may want to consider genetic testing for the gene,” Ratner says.
If testing determines you have the gene, you may consider more frequent mammograms or, as some women have done, opting to have your breasts surgically removed to prevent cancer. But you will discuss these options with your doctor and a genetic counselor.
As with many medical facts, this type of information is complicated. Just because you belong to an ethnic group with a genetic predisposition to a disease does not mean you are doomed to have a life with that disease. But it does mean that you might want to be screened more regularly or earlier in your life than other people if you and your doctor are concerned.
Genetic testing is expensive, and not always advised. For example, scientists have identified the gene that causes early onset Alzheimer’s disease, but there is no treatment to prevent it — and it doesn’t seem to be particular to any one population. So knowing that you have it won’t help you combat it—it will probably only worry you.
Medications Matter
Your doctor may also be aware that certain ethnic groups should avoid certain medications because they cause side effects in select populations. Carbamazepine, for example, an anticonvulsant drug, is usually not prescribed for people who are Asian because there is a history of severe reactions. Differing doses of Warfarin, an anti-coagulant, must be considered if the patient is African-American, Asian or Caucasian.
“Some populations may not metabolize medications as well,” says Olden. “We are beginning to understand more and more about genes and how they affect the response to medication. We are looking at how we respond to medications and how our body detoxifies them or makes them ineffective.”
Not everyone in a particular ethnic group would react badly to a medication, but knowing your ethnic background would signal your doctor to monitor you closely on a particular drug—or to consider an alternative.
Choices Factor In, Too
“Every condition is a combination of genes and environment,” says Ratner. “There’s the environment inside your body and the one outside your body. You can see two people who have the same gene mutations but have different outcomes. There’s a lot we still don’t know. But one of the reasons I like genetics is that it’s an effort to say that you can change a family history of illness with information that generations before didn’t have. Maybe they could have changed the outcome if they’d had the information that someone today has.”
This article is reprinted with permission. © 2016 Grandparents.com. All Rights Reserved.


Airbnb for cars - why you need to know there's a better way in Australia
If you're one of the people who has thought "I wonder if there's a way to rent my car to earn some extra cash?", or you're looking to borrow a neighbours car and save on car rental, now there's an "Airbnb for cars" here in Australia.
There are over 18 million registered vehicles in Australia, and only 17 million people of driving age, so that’s over a 1:1 ratio of cars to people, crazy right?
Not only that, according to data on how Australians actually use their cars, most cars sit idle over 90% of the time. It’s hard to argue with that when you walk down the street of a weekday and see how many cars are sitting there catching leaves and gathering dust.
You need a car for those couple of times when public transport and human powered travel doesn’t always quite work out. But what you don’t need is a car sitting there all the time costing you money in insurance, servicing, registration, and the biggest cost of all, depreciation; just for the couple of times you use it each week.
How to join a community of owners and borrowers sharing cars
Now there’s a reliable way for car owners and borrowers to share the cost of owning a car, just like Airbnb, it’s called Car Next Door. Over 1,800 cars are already on the platform being used by over 100,000 borrowers in Australia, and it’s growing every day!
Car owners make their cars available for comprehensively insured borrowers when they are not using them, and borrowers pay car owners for the time borrowed and distanced travelled, which is tracked by a small GPS tracker installed in the car.
If you have a car, you can find out about renting out your car here. If you don’t have a car and need one to get around, you can apply to join as a borrower and find a car here.
If you want to see how it all works, take a look at the below infographic.


One degree of recuperation
June 2014 (Vol. 25 Issue 3) in Drugs, Environment, Hyperthermia, Hypothyroidism, Impetigo, Infections
What's your body temperature got to do with food allergy? Everything, says Alan Hunter, and his discovery has won him several awards and a doctorateAlan Hunter was the very picture of health
What's your body temperature got to do with food allergy? Everything, says Alan Hunter, and his discovery has won him several awards and a doctorate
Alan Hunter was the very picture of health. A young man in his early 20s, he was the British Under-21 Welterweight Judo Champion and a European bronze medallist. Then, almost overnight, he started feeling tired. It was an all-encompassing fatigue that never lifted and made any physical activity difficult, if not impossible. This chronic fatigue was often accompanied by depression, which took all the joy out of his life.
For several years Alan lived with the problem. Doctors had been unable to pinpoint any cause; all they could see in front of them was a perfectly fit young man. Then Alan happened to read about food allergies, and the description of possible symptoms seemed to match his own.
This was in the 1960s, long before anyone recognized just how prevalent the problem was. From then on, Alan described his problem not as fatigue, but as a food allergy.
Over the next 20 years, he went on 50 water-only fasts, a month-long diet of eating nothing but grapes and seven months of the Gerson diet, originally intended for cancer patients. But the moment he started eating normally again, the allergy would return. "Everything I ate made me ill," he said.
He noticed one strange thing about his allergy. Whenever he had a fever, all of his symptoms disappeared. Over those 20 years, he had three bouts of fever and, each time, he was symptom-free while he had a high temperature, whereas all the allergic reactions returned once the fever subsided.
There were a few other things too. For one, it was clear that the problem had to do with the person, not the food. After all, most people can eat a tomato without reacting. And he suspected it was somehow linked to the allergic person's blood flow, which he thought became restricted whenever an allergen was eaten.
He went along to the hospital in his home city of Edinburgh and found a vascular surgeon and radiologist prepared to test his theory. He had his blood flow tested before he ate a food to which he was allergic, and again afterwards. As expected, there was a drop in blood flow (hypoperfusion) after eating the allergen. That would explain the vast array of possible reactions to food, which seemed to happen anywhere in the body, Alan surmised.
But why was blood flow affected by food? There were three possibilities, Alan thought: something had been added to his body's processes; something had been taken away; or something had been damaged, and he included inflammation in this.
He immediately assumed it must be the last possibility, but dismissed it because his body would have repaired any damage, or inflammation, during his months-long fasts, and most of his allergic reactions lasted only an hour or so, which also suggested no long-term damage.
For similar reasons, he had to reject the idea that something-such as a nutrient-was missing. How could something go missing during the hour he was suffering an allergic reaction only to come back later?
Alan was left with the idea that something had been added. Initially he thought that the something might be pharmaceutical drugs or toxins from the environment, but again, why would they be a problem for only an hour after eating, and disappear completely when he had a fever? It had all the hallmarks of a living organism, something that responded to heat and blood circulation-in fact, a parasite. Parasites could even be responsible for the change in blood flow, as they tend to live in arteries and so could become an obstruction.
He flew out to a specialist clinic in California, which confirmed several parasitic infestations. And it was easy to see how he got them-in fact, how all of us must have them. They are on the fruit and vegetables we eat, in the milk we drink, on our toothbrushes, on paper we pick up, and so on. Yet, despite that, most people don't get ill or suffer allergic reactions to food.
So why had they affected Alan and the many thousands of others with food allergies? Alan did something that most of the many thousands of other sufferers wouldn't: he obtained 50 million nematodes, or parasitic worms, and studied them. He noticed how they reacted when his microscope's illuminator was switched on, but otherwise, his observations weren't telling him anything.
Then one day he read that amoebas move to the warm side of a microscope slide when they are being studied. "I had read something that appeared insignificant at first, but suddenly hit me like a sledgehammer. If the parasitic amoebas on the microscope slide responded to temperature change, here was a vital clue to their behaviour: parasites are temperature-sensitive."
This explained why he became free of symptoms when he had a high temperature, and he also had a chronically low body temperature of around 97 degrees F (the accepted norm is around 98.6 degrees). Looking back, he thinks a boyhood of eating processed foods and 'white stuff' was responsible for his body temperature falling slightly.
If he could raise his body temperature to closer to the healthy norm, he might be able produce an environment hostile to parasites. Again, another book came to his aid. This time he read about a woman who was able to reverse her hypothyroidism, which would also lead to a subnormal body temperature, by eating a raw-food diet for a year or so. This made sense: when he himself was on a raw-food diet, he monitored his temperature and noted a slight, but steady, increase over the months.
And a slight increase-even of just one degree-was enough to make all the difference, as Alan discovered.
Alan has been recognized for his insights and research over the years. He won a best research award at a complementary medicine expo in 2003, and received a special award for research and a doctorate from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine in Kolkata.
He worked as a telegraphist before becoming Scotland's first food-allergy practitioner in 1975, after studying nutritional medicine. He still practises as a therapist today, although along the way he also owned a care home for the elderly.
Today, Alan remains free from all his allergies and is an ardent raw-food advocate, although he now eats a more balanced diet. "It can be hard to keep to at the beginning, but it's something you can get used to. The rawer your diet, the quicker are the results," he says.
Symptoms that could mean a food allergy
The following symptoms and illnesses have all been associated with food allergies in scientific studies. See if yours are among them.
Hyperactivity/ADD
Vascular disorders
Burning pain in penis on urination
Irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia)
Myalgia (muscle pain)
Perishing parasites
There's no avoiding parasites. One baby cereal alone contains more than 20,000 mites per kilo, while around half of all vegetables have parasite eggs nestling in them.
Nematodes, a human parasite, are pretty abundant too. One spadeful of garden soil will contain around a million of them.
Your normal temperature
Medicine considers that the normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C). This was based on the observations of German physicist Dr Carl Wunderlich in the 19th century. But not everyone agrees: in 1992, a US study found that a more normal reading was slightly less, at 98.2 degrees F (36.8 degrees C).
A reading can also be slightly lower if you place the thermometer under the armpit; the temperature may then be 33 degrees F (0.5 degrees C) lower than the actual body temperature. Temperature can also vary throughout the day and according to your age, with the elderly tending to have lower body temperatures.
Overall, a normal body temperature can vary from 97 degrees F (36 degrees C) to 99 degrees F (37 degrees C).
Some don't like it hot
It isn't just parasites that wilt in a higher body temperature. Hyperthermia, or heat therapy, has gone in and out of fashion over the years, and raising body temperature has been used to treat a wide range of health conditions.
In Japan, FIR (far infrared) saunas have been used to treat chronic heart failure. The heat can improve function of the lining of the blood vessels and their ability to dilate.1 The special saunas have also been used to successfully treat chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS),2 arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), peripheral heart disease, chronic pain and fibromyalgia.
It's even been used to treat cancer-one of the more famous patients was former US president Ronald Reagan. Researchers at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Center in New Hampshire have tested the therapy on colon and melanoma cancer cell lines in the laboratory. After exposing cancer cells to a constant heat of 109.4 degrees F (43 degrees C), it either slowed their growth or made them disappear altogether. More interesting still, the heat caused a cascade effect between tumours, such that even those not directly targeted by the nanoparticles and magnetic field used in the tests also died off.
This suggests, say the researchers, that hyperthermia might be an effective treatment even in cancers that have spread (metastatic).3
J Am Coll Cardiol, 2002; 39: 754-9
J Psychosom Res, 2005; 58: 383-7
Nanomed Nanotech Biol Med, 2014; doi: 10.1016/j.nano.2014.02.003
Anti-cancer diet
Chaos in the heart
BGC vaccine - can it be a cause of ME?
The four month preconception plan
Otitis media and canker sores
Reading tongues


Chef Joshua Hebert – Meet the Chef | Cooking With Gas
by Tina | Mar 20, 2018 | Meet the Chef | 0 comments
Getting started at the age of only 16 years old in a professional environment, Josh Hebert knew from a very early age that being a chef was the only career he would ever need to consider. Starting in an Italian restaurant, he always knew that what he really wanted to do was work in the kitchen making food that was good enough for fine dining.
Moving, Learning, and Building
Living in Phoenix, he had plenty of avenues in which to use his skills in the kitchen. After Tarbell’s, he went to San Francisco where he worked for Zuni Café and Café Kati, and he spent his free time studying wine. From there, he moved to Japan to help open Café California, which was to be an offshoot of Café Kati. He returned to the US and took on several different high level positions before he decided to open a place of his own. In 2008, he started POSH Restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona.
A Reminder of Why Gas Is Better
Hebert and his staff had an opportunity to do something incredibly memorable when they were hired to cook for 150 people, including the Japanese Ambassador. The problem was that they were required to cook with appliances that were electric only. Trying to make traditional Japanese dishes is difficult enough, but with electric appliances, they spent the day fighting metaphoric fires as the electric appliances blew fuses and interrupted power.
Hebert understands why people like electric appliances, particularly because they are easy to clean. The problem is that to make the best foods, he needs to be able to adjust and change the temperature quickly, which gas allows him to do. The test kitchens have been perfect for that. With training and giving start ups a place to really get familiar with their food, he has a real love for what he does, especially when given the power and tools he needs, including gas appliances.
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What I Didn’t Realize About Taking Medication For Anxiety And Depression
by Roshi Connor
Scary Mommy and fizkes/Getty
Trigger warning: suicide ideation, depression
I am one of those people who doesn’t like taking medication. If the problem is something I can fix in other ways, I’ll do that first. I typically don’t even take Tylenol or Advil for a headache. Medication is my last resort.
And I hit my last resort two months ago with my anxiety and depression. I made an appointment and went into my doctor’s office. For the first time ever I actually said out loud, “I think about killing myself constantly.” I had to say it. I had to tell someone. Because I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to make myself believe the excuses I had for not doing it. I was afraid that the sadness, hopelessness, emptiness, paralyzing and all-consuming anxiety I felt most of every day would finally consume me. That the just thinking about it would become making a plan to do it. And then that’d be it. I desperately didn’t want that to happen.
It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders because I was telling someone who could actually help me. I was finally doing something to help myself.
And the doctor didn’t make me feel stupid or ungrateful for the beautiful life I know I was given. She didn’t automatically call people to have me admitted to the nearest hospital, or have my kids taken from me. She made direct eye contact with me while I cried and said, “It’s okay. We all need a little help sometimes. You are not crazy for feeling this way.” I needed to hear that, because I was feeling crazy.
My life had a lot of good in it, and I couldn’t understand why I had felt this way for so long. As I’m sure you’ve heard before, people who are suicidal don’t actually want to kill themselves; they just want the pain to stop. They just want the depression and anxiety to stop taking over their lives, affecting their families, their children. Affecting every single thing in their lives. That’s how I was feeling.
Lots of people take medication for anxiety and depression. Lots of people have told me before that I should try it.
I have tried it. Twice before actually. The first time, about six years ago, I took it for about two weeks and it made me feel so much worse mentally than before that I stopped taking it and never went back for my follow up. I was not a medicine taker ever, and I decided it just wasn’t for me. Looking back, maybe all I needed was more time on it.
The second time, about three years ago, it made the anxiety disappear completely, very quickly. But it made every other feeling numb. Physically numb, and emotionally numb. At that point, the numbness was worse than the anxiety.
So this time I was a little apprehensive to start. I was told it may make me feel “funny” the first few days and it could take up to a month to work. I scheduled a follow up for four weeks and started taking it that day.
What I didn’t know is that I would not feel better in that first week. And that it wouldn’t just make me feel funny, I would actually make me feel worse, at least physically. I would spend the majority of the first five days trying not to cry because I felt so nauseous. My head hurt worse than it ever has. Worse than a hangover from two bottles of white wine. I was told this could be a side effect, but I didn’t think I would feel so bad. I was dizzy and couldn’t focus or even think straight. I would be driving and then think that I shouldn’t be, because I felt almost drunk.
I would spend most of those days sleeping and apologizing to my husband and my kids for feeling so terrible. I couldn’t eat, so I lost seven pounds in five days. I would consider not taking it anymore, but the desperation to feel better kept me taking it. The desperation for me to actually live and not just breathe kept me taking it. I have never taken a medication so religiously.
Once the first week passed, I felt much better. But I was exhausted. More tired than I was when I had newborn babies who wouldn’t sleep more than two hours at a time during the night. I couldn’t make it through the day without taking a nap. And even after the nap, I’d go to bed much earlier than I usually did. Almost six weeks later, and I still felt that way. I was simply exhausted, no matter how much sleep I got, no matter what I fueled my body with. Just plain old exhausted.
So naturally, spending most of my time sleeping put me behind in cooking, cleaning, doing work for my job which I do from home, and spending time with my kids and husband. Which actually just made me more stressed than before. I felt defeated, like nothing would ever help me. Like everything would be a give and a take. I’ll take away your anxiety and depression, but I will give you exhaustion and ten times more stress because of said exhaustion. But I knew which one was more important to me.
What I didn’t know is that making the decision to finally help myself would actually be the most difficult thing I would ever do. I think for a lot of people, they think they’ll take this magic pill, and boom — you’ll feel better. You’ll have tons of energy, motivation. The thoughts of killing yourself will subside completely. You won’t have heart-pounding, make-you-dizzy anxiety anymore. This is what I had thought, had hoped, would happen.
But the truth is, you may feel worse. Then you’ll feel better. But not fully better. You’ll see little changes. You’ll stop in the aisle at Target and realize you hadn’t been paying attention to those around you as closely as before. Your heart will still pound when you see someone walking around with no shopping cart and their hood up. But you’ll be able to continue your shopping instead of running straight out of there. You’ll be okay taking your kids to a busy event, when before you wouldn’t even mention it to them, knowing your fears would keep you from showing up.
You’ll make it to the end of the day and realize you did not once cry in the car because you envisioned a car hitting you, killing you, and then pictured the tears falling down your children’s faces when they learned you were gone.
And you’ll make it through a week and suddenly it will occur to you as you’re cooking dinner, a random moment, that you haven’t had any thoughts of suicide at all. That it’s the first time in a week that you’ve even thought to wonder whether you’ve had suicidal thoughts. A small step – but a big step.
So when you go into your follow up appointment and say you don’t think it’s working because you aren’t feeling completely good – you’ll realize how many small changes have started taking effect. And you’ll realize that the anxiety and depression is always going to be there. But that it will lessen. That it is lessening. That the exhaustion won’t last forever. That all those small changes will turn into a big change, and big change just takes time.
Once you realize that, you will feel better. Find a doctor who makes you feel heard. Figure out the best methods for you – counseling, medication, exercise – whatever it may be. Then do it, and here’s the important part – STICK TO IT. Even when it’s hard and it feels like it’s not helping. Give it time. Lean on those who care about and support you. Let your people help you through it. I know this is hard to do, but your life is worth it.
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Easter Ducks
We make a variety of Easter Ducks. These ducks are fun to place in your yard around Easter. These items include:
Duck and Eggs Set
Duck Carrying Egg
Duck Hatched Out
Duck Sitting On Egg
The Duck and Eggs Set is cut out in our workshop. The three ducks are all hand painted white. The first duck is carrying an Easter egg, the second duck hatched out of the easter egg, and the third one is sitting on top of the Easter egg.
The dimensions for the Duck Carrying Egg are approximately 20 inches tall by 13 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The sign has a 15 inch stake. The dimensions for the Duck Hatched Out are approximately 17 inches tall by 21 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The sign has a 14 inch stake. The dimensions for the Duck Sitting On Egg are approximately 23 inches tall by 12 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The sign has a 21 inch stake. The signs have a combined weight of approximately 12 pounds with packaging. For the continental U.S. shipping and handling is included in the listed price. For shipping outside the continental U.S. please contact us through our Contact Us page.
(Price Includes
Shipping)
The Duck Carrying Egg is cut out in our workshop. The duck is hand painted white. The duck is carrying a pink and blue egg.
The dimensions for the Duck Carrying Egg are approximately 20 inches tall by 13 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The sign has a 15 inch stake. The sign weighs approximately 7 pounds with packaging. For the continental U.S. shipping and handling is included in the listed price. For shipping outside the continental U.S. please contact us through our Contact Us page.
The Duck Hatched Out is cut out in our workshop. The duck is hand painted white. The duck just hatched out of a purple and yellow egg.
The dimensions for the Duck Hatched Out are approximately 17 inches tall by 21 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The sign has a 14 inch stake. The sign weighs approximately 7 pounds with packaging. For the continental U.S. shipping and handling is included in the listed price. For shipping outside the continental U.S. please contact us through our Contact Us page.
The Duck Sitting On Egg sign is cut out in our workshop. The duck is hand painted white. The duck is sitting on a blue, pink, and yellow egg.
The dimensions for the Duck Sitting On Egg are approximately 23 inches tall by 12 inches wide by 2 inches deep. The sign has a 21 inch stake. The sign weighs approximately 7 pounds with packaging. For the continental U.S. shipping and handling is included in the listed price. For shipping outside the continental U.S. please contact us through our Contact Us page.
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Richard Anderson: Stanley Kubrick and Paths of Glory
World War I: They called it the Great War--and it was: the dawn of an era of mechanized warfare in which men slaughtered each other with machine guns, tanks, and mustard gas that hung over the trenches in which the warring armies faced each other sometimes from only yards away.
The war's progress was measured by the movement of the trenches as the armies pushed each other back and forth over the scarred landscape of Western Europe. They fought in the frozen winter and the muddy spring, and the casualties were in the tens of millions dead and wounded.
The nations rained death on each other for four years-- 1914-1918--and then saw a flowering of pacifist literature that was unmatched by any war before or since.
Siegfried Sassoon, the English poet who had been decorated for bravery, wrote Does It Matter?, a bitter poetic commentary on how those maimed in battle were ignored by polite society. Erich Remarque's novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, chronicled the senseless slaughter from the German perspective.
This anti-war theme was echoed in another novel, Paths of Glory, by an English writer named Humphrey Cobb. The book was based on an actual event in which French soldiers mutinied, rather than face certain death when ordered to take a hill by their ambitious commanding officer (who remained safely behind). Several of the soldiers were tried and executed which led to a public outcry.
The 1935 novel was read by a precocious youth named Stanley Kubrick, the son of a Bronx doctor. Young Kubrick was interested in books and movies, and he vowed to someday film the Cobb novel.
After working as a photographer, and making several low budget films, Kubrick made The Killing in 1956, a film about a racetrack heist that was released by United Artists, a Hollywood studio that backed independent productions. The film which starred Sterling Hayden established Kubrick as a promising director while still in his twenties.
Kubrick purchased the screen rights to Cobb's novel from the author's widow and set about making his movie. The director turned out a screenplay with Jim Thompson, the pulp novelist who had also worked on The Killing. Calder Willingham was then called in for revisions.
Released through United Artists in 1957, Paths of Glory was a solid commercial and artistic success. The movie starred Kirk Douglas as a brave French officer who unsuccessfully defends his men at their court-martial.
Veteran actor Adolphe Menjou played General Broulard, a philosophical officer who seems to take the injustices of war in stride, and George Macready was the sinister general who ordered his troops to their death. Ralph Meeker played a doomed soldier, and Richard Anderson was Major Saint-Auban, the acerbic prosecutor. Anderson was present in Munich throughout the filming and doubled as dialogue coach.
Kubrick who died in 1999 went on to a long and successful career (Lolita, Dr. Strangelove), though he was dogged by a number of distinguished critics (the late Dwight Macdonald, John Simon) who believed the director had never fulfilled his early promise. In fact, Simon was dissatisfied with the ending of Paths of Glory in which a German waif enchants hardened French soldiers with a song. Simon believed that this all men are brothers motif marred the film's realism.
Here, in an exclusive interview with American Legends co-founder Martin Pitts, Richard Anderson recalls Stanley Kubrick and the making of Paths of Glory.
Maj. Saint-Auban
AL: In his biography of Stanley Kubrick, Vincent LoBrutto writes that Kubrick and his business partner, James Harris, worked on Paths of Glory while moonlighting at MGM. (Vincent LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick, New York, Da Capo Press ed., 1999)
RA: That's true. Dore Schary had seen The Killing and put Stanley and his small production unit under contract at Metro. They took the idea of Paths of Glory to Schary, but he said, "I just finished doing a picture called The Red Badge of Courage, and I am not really interested in a war movie." Schary and Louis B. Mayer had fought over the Civil War movie. Mayer hated the idea of an American soldier running from battle as shown in The Red Badge of Courage.
How did Kubrick work on Paths of Glory under the studio's nose?
Stanley managed to work at home, not at his office at the studio. He had a little place on Sunset. While trying to get Paths of Glory together, Stanley sat there for weeks: smoking, reading, getting ideas. That was Stanley. He was reading all the time. Kant. The history of ideas, what makes people think. Books. Books.
AL: How did you get cast in the movie as the military prosecutor?
RA: Stanley was a great movie goer. He had seen all my films at Metro where I had been under contract. One night around 11:00 p.m., I got a call from Jim Harris, Stanley's business partner. He said Stanley wanted to meet me, and they came over to my apartment and discussed the film. When the call came to go to work, I was ready since I had checked up on Kubrick and liked what I found out.
Kirk Douglas was signed for the lead of Colonel Dax, the French trial lawyer who becomes a front line officer.
They sent the script to everybody who turned it down, including Gregory Peck who had a schedule conflict. They gave it to Douglas who was the only one who wanted to make the picture. Douglas took it to United Artists. Max Youngstein said, "I don't want to make the picture. I don't even like it. We don't have time for a little picture like that. I see twenty or thirty movies like that coming around here a year." Finally, Douglas talked Youngstein into it. They gave Kubrick and Harris a $935,000 budget. After Douglas got $350,000, there wasn't much left to make the movie, and that's the miracle of it all.
The movie was shot at a studio in Munich, Germany and nearby locations.
The French felt the movie reflected badly on their country and wouldn't let the film be shot there. I remember when we were in Germany. It was the dead of winter. Stanley always had this old coat on. We went and inspected a location. He wanted to build that trench you saw in the opening scene. I call Stanley a movie scientist. He was always interested in technology. He had no interest in sentiment. The first thing he said to the German crew was, "I want a trench and I want it so I can put the cameras in there so we can roll up and down." And that's one of the most important things in that movie that people remember...those opening battle scenes...You've got to get that audience in the first three or four minutes...if you don't, you're not going anywhere, especially if it's an action movie, a war movie.
AL: How would you describe Stanley's technique as a director?
Unlike Elia Kazan, Stanley Kubrick was really not interested in actors. As soon as we started shooting, I knew immediately what Stanley was interested in: The shot. Always the shot. He worked with George Krause, the German cinematographer, to make sure that everything looked like a newsreel of World War I. Kubrick had studied many photographs of the war in the library. The film was low keyed and had a grainy look to it. That's what Stanley was interested in.
AL: There were stories that later when Douglas and Kubrick made Spartacus there was friction between them. How did they work together on Paths of Glory?
There was an office scene Kirk and I were in together, and I remember Kirk saying to me, "This guy is terrific." Kubrick liked that Douglas was always prepared. He knew his lines. So it started out great. He had great admiration for Stanley.
What did Kubrick think of Douglas's performance?
Douglas was not a favorite of mine. He was always selling himself. There was this brashness. But his best performance was in this picture because if you notice, he was listening, watching, waiting and when he finally has his big scene where he tells Menjou--"General, I'm not your boy--" he was effective because he wasn't pounding away all through the movie. I don't know what Stanley did there, but it was to his credit. One day Kirk's stand-in came over and said: "Kirk's doing something. He's come down. He's not over the top in this movie." And I started to look, and I said, My God that guy is right.
AL: In some Hollywood circles in the 1950s, Adolphe Menjou (1890-1963) was disliked because he had appeared as a friendly witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities when the committee was investigating communism in Hollywood. Did this matter come up with Kubrick?
Menjou was very anti-communist. He was against left wingers. He was with the company. Originally, Stanley had wanted Lee J. Cobb, but Cobb didn't want to do another heavy. Stanley liked what Menjou was doing. It was a brilliant piece of casting. Stanley was never involved with politics. Douglas, on the other hand, later disregarded the blacklist by hiring Dalton Trumbo on Spartacus and giving him screen credit. Kirk and Menjou never spoke to each other.
AL: Showing the execution of soldiers ran contrary to Hollywood's standard approach to filmmaking.
Max Youngstein insisted that the three soldiers not die at the end. He said, "If those guys die, who will go see the movie?" The studio wanted them reprieved at the last minute. In Munich, Stanley sent Youngstein the final script without making the changes Max wanted. He registered the script to show it had been sent--and held his breath. They prayed Max wouldn't call and say that the deal is off. No one at United Artists read the script. When Max was shown a cut of the picture, he turned to Stanley and said: "You were right."
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Heavy Montreal Festival Announces 2014 Lineup Including Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax
Emily Clark July 16th, 2014 - 7:10 PM
Canada’s premiere heavy metal and hard rock festival Heavy Montréal announced the August 2014 lineup for the event’s sixth installment. Presented by Molson Canadian, the festival has consistently expanded the variety of bands to appear at Parc Jean-Drapeau, this year featuring heavy metal legends Metallica, punk rockers The Offspring, Canadian rock band Three Days Grace, Celtic punk rock band Dropkick Murphys, thrash metal quartet Slayer and many more.
Metallica will play Heavy Montréal in their only North American show this summer. The performance will be an all-request show, with a setlist picked by the fans. Metal quintet Lamb of God will make up for canceling their set back at the 2012 festival. After crowd pleasing success last summer, Heavy Mania wrestlers will return this summer as well.
Since the first Heavy Montréal festival back in 2008, originally called Heavy MTL, Parc Jean-Drapeau has hosted over 200,000 fans to see groups such as Iron Maiden, Mötley Crüe, Slipknot, Megadeth, Marilyn Manson, KISS, Alice Cooper, and many more. With Metallica and Slayer co-headlining and a slew of veterans, cult-favorites, and local bands, this year will surely not disappoint.
Heavy Montréal 2014 Lineup:
Protest the Hero
Bat Sabbath
Nekrogoblikon
Beheading of a King
Nepentes
Heavy Mania