The highest point of a wave is the crest. The lowest point is the trough. The vertical distance between a crest and a trough is the height of the wave. Wave height is also called amplitude. The horizontal distance between two crests is the wavelength. Both amplitude and wavelength are measures of wave size. The size of an ocean wave depends on how fast, over how great a distance, and how long the wind blows. The greater each of these factors is, the bigger a wave will be. Some of the biggest waves occur with hurricanes. A hurricane is a storm that forms over the ocean. Its winds may blow more than 150 miles per hour! The winds also travel over long distances and may last for many days.
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QUESTION: How are the lowest and highest points of a wave related to its amplitude?

Here the omnibus came up, and I rode back to Manchester. The whole conversation took up very little more time than it will take to read it; but I thought it worth recording, as characteristic of the people now suffering in Lancashire from no fault of their own. I know the people well. The greatest number of them would starve themselves to that degree that they would not be of much more physical use in this world, before they would condescend to beg. But starving to death is hard work. What will winter bring to them when severe weather begins to tell upon constitutions lowered in tone by a starvation diet--a diet so different to what they have been used to when in work? What will the 1s. 6d. a-head weekly do for them in that hard time? If something more than this is not done for them, when more food, clothing, and fire are necessary to everybody, calamities may arise which will cost England a hundred times more than a sufficient relief--a relief worthy of those who are suffering, and of the nation they belong to--would have cost. In the meantime the cold wings of winter already begin to overshadow the land; and every day lost involves the lives, or the future usefulness, of thousands of our best population.
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QUESTION: In what town would the majority starve before condescending to beg?

You may wonder if there are other examples of static discharge. The answer is yes. Lightning is a form of static discharge. It is much more dramatic than what happens between you and the door knocker, but it is the same principle. You can see how it occurs in the following diagram and animation. You have no doubt seen lightning in a rainstorm. What does lighting have to do with static electricity? As it turns out, everything! During a rainstorm, clouds develop regions of different charges. This happens due to the movement of air molecules, water drops, and ice particles. The negative charges are concentrated at the base of the clouds. The positive charges are concentrated at the top. The negative charges repel electrons on the ground below. The ground then becomes positively charged. Over time the differences increase. Eventually the electrons are discharged. This is what we see as lightning. You can watch an awesome slow-motion lightning strike below.
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QUESTION: How can different regions of clouds have different charges?

Enter the Shoguns: Japan's austere, ruthless, but statesmanlike new ruler, Yoritomo Minamoto, set up his government in Kamakura (just south of modern Tokyo), well away from the "softening" influence of court life that had been the undoing of his predecessor, Kiyomori. First of the national rulers to take the title of sei-i tai-shogun ("barbarian-subduing great general"), Minamoto expanded and consolidated his power by confiscating lands from some of the defeated Taira and redistributing them to his samurai vassals. Minamoto died in 1199, and the feudal structure passed intact to the tutelage of his widow's family, the Hojo, who were content to play regent to a figurehead shogun, in much the same way as the Fujiwara had done with the emperor. The fiction of Japanese imperial power had become infinitely extendable. The emperor at Kyotostill seconded by a Fujiwara regent at courtlegitimized a Minamoto who was himself a military dictator controlled by a Hojo regent. In a country where form and substance were inextricably interrelated, two things counted in politics: symbolic authority and real power. Neither could exist without the other. A thwarted Mongol invasion in 1274 weakened the Kamakura regime. The fighting brought none of the usual spoils of war that provincial warlords and samurai had come to expect as payment. And the treasury was empty after earthquake, famine, and plague had crippled the economy. Buddhist monasteries were using their private armies to support imperial ambitions to bring power back to Kyoto. Worst of all, the Kamakura warriors, resenting the way the Kyoto court referred to them as "Eastern barbarians," sought refinement in a ruinous taste for luxury: extravagant feasts, rich costumes, and opulent homes. Kamakura was falling apart.
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QUESTION:
How did Minamoto expand his power?