the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
September 16  Independence Day (Mexico)
September 16  Independence Day (Papua New Guinea)
September 16  Malaysia Day
September 17  Constitution Day (United States)
September 18  Independence Day (Chile)
September 19  Armed Forces Day (Chile)
September 19  Independence Day (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
September 19  International Talk Like a Pirate Day
September 21  Independence Day (Malta)
September 21  Independence Day (Belize)
September 21  World Freedom Day/International Peace Day
September 21  World Alzheimer's Day, raising awareness of Alzheimer's disease.
September 22  Independence Day (Bulgaria)
September 22  Independence Day (Mali)
September 23  Equinox, Autumn (Fall) in the North, Spring in the South, can occur on September 22.
September 23  National Day of Saudi Arabia
September 24  National Day of Guinea-Bissau
September 24  Heritage Day (South Africa)
September 25  Revolution Day (Mozambique)
September 26  European Day of Languages
September 27  End of Independence War Day (Mexico)
September 27  Holiday for the French-speaking community in Belgium
September 28  World Heart Day
September 28  World Rabies Day
September 28  Ask a Stupid Question Day (United States)
September 29  Inventors' Day (Argentina), honouring Laszlo Biro
September 29  Christian feast day of Michaelmas, honouring St. Michael the Archangel
September 29  Christian feast day of the three Archangels, honouring St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.
September 29  International Coffee Day
September 29  Victory of Boquerón Day (Paraguay)
September 30  Independence Day (Botswana)
The Summer Olympics sometimes occur in September, though mostly in July or August
The Summer Paralympics are often held in September
Yom Kippur, in the Jewish calendar, occurs in September or October.
Labor Day (US and Canada), first Monday in September
Prinsjesdag (Netherlands), third Tuesday in September
Munich Oktoberfest runs in late September and the beginning of October.
Start of school in most Northern Hemisphere countries
German American Heritage Month and Hispanic Heritage Month (United States), run from September 15 to October 15.
Marathons in September:
Mexico City, Mexico
Oslo, Norway
Tallinn, Estonia
September 1  1715: The reign of Louis XIV of France ends with his death after 72 years on the throne.
September 1  1914: Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, dies, making her species extinct.
September 1  1939: Nazi Germany invades Poland, starting World War II.
September 1  1969: Muammar al-Gaddafi takes power in Libya, in a coup.
September 1  1983: Korean Air Flight KAL-007 is shot down by a Soviet jet fighter, near Sakhalin Island, killing all 269 on board.
September 1  1991: Uzbekistan becomes independent from the Soviet Union.
September 2  1838: Liliuokalani, the last Hawaiian monarch, is born.
September 2  1945: Japan signs the final surrender at the end of World War II.
September 2  1945: Vietnam becomes independent, with Ho Chi Minh as leader.
September 3  301: San Marino is founded.
September 3  1939: The United Kingdom and France declare war on Germany, following its invasion of Poland.
September 3  1950: Giuseppe Farina becomes the first Formula One racing champion.
September 3  1967: Road traffic in Sweden is moved from the left to the right.
September 3  1971: Qatar becomes independent.
September 5  1972: Several members of the Israeli Olympic team are kidnapped at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
They are killed the next day.
September 6  1901: US President William McKinley is shot by Leon Czolgosz, dying over a week later.
September 6  1968: Swaziland becomes independent.
September 6  1997: The funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London.
September 7  1533: Queen Elizabeth I of England is born.
September 7  1822: Brazil declares independence from Portugal
September 7  1940: The World War II Battle of Britain begins.
September 7  2011: All members of the Russian ice hockey team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl are killed in a plane crash.
September 8  1943: US General Dwight D. Eisenhower announces the allied armistice with Italy during World War II.
September 8  1991: The Republic of Macedonia declares independence from Yugoslavia.
September 9  1850: California becomes the 31st State of the US.
September 9  1991: Tajikistan becomes independent from the Soviet Union.
September 10  1898: Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress of Austria is stabbed to death by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni at Lake Geneva, Switzerland.
September 10  1974: Guinea-Bissau officially becomes independent.
September 10  2008: Scientists at CERN switch the Large Hadron Collider on for the first time.
September 11  1973: Augusto Pinochet takes power in a military coup in Chile.
President Salvador Allende dies during the coup.
September 11  1997: Voters in Scotland approve the creation of a new Scottish Parliament.
September 11  2001: The September 11 attacks occur, as Islamist terrorists crash airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon.
September 12  1977: Anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody.
September 13  1759: Battle of the Plains of Abraham: British forces defeat French forces near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War.
September 14  1752: Great Britain switches from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
September 14  1982: Grace Kelly dies after a car crash the previous day.
September 15  1821: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua declare independence from Spain.
September 16  1810: Mexico declares independence from Spain.
September 16  1975: Papua New Guinea becomes independent from Australia.
September 17  1787: The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
September 17  2011: The Occupy Wall Street movement begins in New York City.
September 18  1810: Chile declares independence.
September 18  1970: Musician Jimi Hendrix dies in London, aged 27.
September 19  1983: Saint Kitts and Nevis becomes independent.
September 19  1985: Southern and Central Mexico are struck by a strong earthquake.
Mexico City is among the places affected.
September 21  1964: Malta gains independence from the UK.
September 21  1981: Belize gains independence from the UK.
September 21  1989: Hurricane Hugo slams South Carolina.
September 21  1991: Armenia regains its independence from the Soviet Union.
September 22  1908: Bulgarian independence is recognised.
September 22  1960: Mali becomes independent.
September 23  63 BC: Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar is born.
September 23  1932: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is formed.
September 23  2009: A major dust storm affects southeastern Australia, including Sydney.
September 24  1853: France takes control of New Caledonia.
September 24  1973: Guinea-Bissau declares independence from Portugal.
September 26  1907: New Zealand and Newfoundland are given Dominion status within the British Empire.
September 27  1821: Mexico gains independence from Spain.
September 27  1905: The equation E=mc squared is introduced.
September 28  1978: Pope John Paul I dies just 33 days after being elected.
September 28  1994: The car and passenger ferry Estonia sinks during stormy weather in the Baltic Sea.
September 29  1829: London's Metropolitan Police Force is founded.
September 29  1990: Washington National Cathedral is completed.
September 29  2009: An earthquake and tsunamis off Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga kill 189 people.
September 30  1938: The Munich Pact is signed.
September 30  1955: American film star James Dean dies aged 24 in a car crash.
September 30  1966: Bechuanaland becomes independent from the UK and changes its name to Botswana.
September 30  2009: A strong earthquake off western Sumatra kills over 1,000 people.
Symbols and Trivia
September is one of the two months that never ends on the same day of the week as any other months within any calendar year. (
The birth stone for September is the sapphire, symbolising clear thinking.
The birth flowers for the month are the forget-me-not, morning glory and aster.
The Zodiac signs for September are Virgo (August 22  September 21) and Libra (September 22  October 21).
If the months of the year were arranged in alphabetical order in the English language, September would come last.
Also in the English language, September has the longest name of all the months of the year, with nine letters.
Coincidentally, it is also the ninth month.
September is the only month of the year in the English language to have as many letters in its name as its numeric calendar position.
September is the first of four months in-a-row to have a name ending in "ber". (
October, November and December are the other three)
September 1 is the only day in September during a common year to start within the middle third of the calendar year.
It is the least common month for birthdays among US Presidents, with one, William Howard Taft (September 15).
Among Prime Ministers of Australia, September is the most common month for birthdays, with seven.
Sound can also mean a body of water, like a bay or channel.
Sound is caused by sound waves.
It can be heard when goes through a medium to the ear.
All sounds are made by vibrations of molecules.
For example, when a person hits a drum or a cymbal the object vibrates.
These vibrations make air molecules move.
Sound waves move away from where they came from.
When the vibrating air molecules reach our ears, the eardrum vibrates, too.
The bones of the ear vibrate in  way the object that started the sound wave vibrated.
There are three different mediums.
They are solids, liquids and gas.
Sound travels the fastest through solids because the particles in a solid are closer together than they are in gas and liquid.
These vibrations let you hear different things.
Even music is vibrations.
Irregular vibrations are noise.
People can make very complex sounds.
We use them for speech.
Sound waves are longitudinal waves with two parts: compression and rarefaction.
Compression is the part of the sound waves where the molecules of air are pushed (compressed) together.
Rarefaction is the part of the waves where the molecules are far away from each other.
Sound waves are a sequence of compression and rarefaction.
Since sound is a vibration of a medium, it cannot go through a vacuum.
A vacuum is a place where there is no medium, for example in outer space.
The word comes from the Latin adjective vacuus for "vacant" or "void".
Sound waves can travel through solids, liquids, and gases.
The thicker the medium, the faster it goes, but they cannot travel through a vacuum (a place with nothing in it).
This is why astronauts cannot talk to each other in space: they need a radio to hear each other.
Sound can travel through water faster than through air; and even faster in solids like stone, iron, and steel.
At room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure, sound travels at 344 m/s (1134 ft/s), 761 miles per hour).
Because the temperature and pressure change with altitude in the atmosphere, speed will vary as well.
Pitch and Intensity
Pitch is the highness or lowness of sound.
Pitch is how humans hear different frequencies.
Frequency is determined by the number of vibrations per second.
The highest key on a piano, for instance, vibrates 4,000 times per second.
It has a frequency of 4000 hertz (Hz), or 4 kilohertz (kHz).
Lower keys have lower frequencies.
A note an octave higher than another note has twice the frequency of that note.
The intensity of a sound is how much sound energy goes through a square meter in one second.
Sound waves with higher amplitude (bigger vibration) have higher intensity.
The intensity of a sound is higher closer to the sound source.
Farther away, it's less intense.
The inverse-square law shows how sound intensity becomes smaller, farther from the source. "
Inverse square" says that when distance gets multiplied by a number, sound intensity gets divided by that number squared (the number times itself).
Thus, twice the distance means a quarter the intensity.
Sound intensities can be very different.
They can range from 0.000000000001, which are barely heard, to 1 W/m2  (painfully loud).
The decibel scale makes sound intensity numbers easier to work with.
A 0.000000000001 W/m2 intensity is 0 dB (decibels).
It is an exponential scale, so when the decibel number increases by 10, the intensity is ten times as much.
So, a 1 W/m2 intensity is 120 dB.
Loudness is how people sense the intensity of sound.
Loudness depends on sound intensity, sound frequency, and the person's hearing.
Heard and not seen
Audible sound has frequencies between 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
Human beings can hear audible sound.
Sound waves with frequency above 20 kHz are called ultrasound waves.
Sound waves with frequency below 20 Hz are called infrasound waves.
Human beings cannot hear ultrasound waves and infrasound waves, but some animals, like bats and dolphins, use them.
Older people have an even smaller hearing range.
People are best at hearing sounds between 1000 Hz and 6000 Hz.
The Doppler Effect
When a sound source is moving towards someone, the frequency seems to increase.
The same thing happens when someone moves toward the sound source.
Frequency seems to decrease when someone moves away from a sound source.
It also seems to decrease when the sound source moves away from someone.
This is called the Doppler effect.
Halpern, Alvin, Erich Erlbach (1998).
Beginning Physics II: Waves, Electromagnetism, Optics, and Modern Physics, pg.
50-56
Conversion of sound units and levels
Sound calculations
Society is the term to describe human beings together (collective, the sum of their social networks and social interactions).
The term comes from the Latin idea of societas, or the connection between friends or allies (friend or ally being socius).
It can also mean a specific group of people who interact, as well as a wider society of which they are members.
People form societies in order to gain greater benefits as a group than would be possible separately.
Many animals beside humans also do this, such as wolves or eusocial insects.
Sociology is the name for the study of society.
A society is often considered in terms of citizenship, rights, and ethics.
The strength and unity of any society's members' willingness to help each other is to be measured can be called social capital.
A social contract sets out the rules and roles for this kind of cooperation.
One kind of social contract is a constitution – which outlines to some extent what society in a given state is intended to look like.
A suggestion is an idea that one suggests, or says is good for another (or others) to follow.
Some people may agree to it, and some may disagree.
If they disagree or have a different suggestion, the person who first suggested the idea will usually discuss with the other people and find a good conclusion that satisfies both and is good.
The method compares words in a text to a list of words which are familiar in everyday writing.
The words that are not on the list are called unfamiliar.
The number of words per sentence are counted.
This number and the percentage of unfamiliar words is put into a formula.
The result is a reading age.
Someone of this age should be able to read the text.
GL = (.121 * ASL) + (.082 *UW) + .659
GL = U.S. grade level
ASL = Average sentence length
UW = Number of unique unfamiliar words
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level
Sport is commonly defined as an athletic activity that involves a degree of competition, such as netball or basketball.
Some games and many kinds of racing are called sports.
A professional at a sport is called an athlete.
Many people play sports with their friends.
They need coaches to teach or train teams or individuals how to do better.
Sports can be played indoors or outdoors and by individuals or team.
Different types of sports help our body in different ways.
For children, sports play an extremely important part in their lives by providing all round development of the child, physically, mentally and emotionally.
Some people like to watch other people play sports.
Those who watch others playing sports are called fans.
While some fans watch sports on television, others actually go to stadiums or other places where people pay to watch them in person.
These fans are called spectators.
Field athletics.
Track athletics
Walking race
Steeplechase (sport)
Bobsled
Badminton-game
Cricket-game
Australian Football
Rugby league football
Rugby union football
Esports
Science is what we do to find out about the natural world.
Natural sciences include, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, and physics.
Science uses mathematics and logic, which are sometimes called "formal sciences".
Natural science makes observations and experiments.
Science produces accurate facts, scientific laws and theories. '
Science' also refers to the large amount of knowledge that has been found using this process.
Research uses the scientific method.
Scientific research uses hypotheses based on ideas or earlier knowledge, which can be categorized through different topics.
Then those hypotheses are tested by experiments.
People who study and research science and try to find out everything about it are called scientists.
Scientists study things by looking at them very carefully, by measuring them, and by doing experiments and tests.
Scientists try to explain why things act the way they do, and predict what will happen.
Today, "science" usually refers to a way of pursuing knowledge, not just the knowledge itself.
It is mainly about the phenomena of the material world.
The Greek works into Western Europe from the 6th to 7th century B.C. revived "Philosophy".
In the 17th and 18th centuries scientists increasingly sought to formulate knowledge in terms of laws of nature such as Newton's laws of motion.
And during the 19th century, the word "science" became more and more associated with the scientific method itself.
It was seen as a way to study the natural world, including physics, chemistry, geology and biology.
It was also in the 19th century that the term scientist was created by William Whewell.
He meant it tell the difference between those who looked for knowledge on nature from those who looked for other types of knowledge.
The scientific method is the name given to the methods used by scientists to find knowledge.
The main features of the scientific method are:
Scientists identify a question or a problem about nature.
Some problems are simple, such as "how many legs do flies have?"
and some are very deep, such as "why do objects fall to the ground?"
Next, scientists investigate the problem.
They work at it, and collect facts.
Sometimes all it takes is to look carefully.
Some questions cannot be answered directly.
Then scientists suggest ideas, and test them out.
They do experiments and collect data.
Eventually, they find what they think is a good answer to the problem.
Then they tell people about it.
Later, other scientists may agree or not agree.
They may suggest another answer.
They may do more experiments.
Anything in science might be revised if we find out the previous solution was not good enough.
A famous example of science in action was the expedition led by Arthur Eddington to Principe Island in Africa in 1919.
He went there to record where the stars were around the Sun during a solar eclipse.
The observation of where the stars were shown that the apparent star positions close to the Sun were changed.
In effect, the light passing the Sun was pulled towards the Sun by gravitation.
This confirmed predictions of gravitational lensing made by Albert Einstein in the general theory of relativity, published in 1915.
Eddington's observations were considered to be the first solid proof in favour of Einstein's theory.
Practical impacts of scientific research
Discoveries in fundamental science can be world-changing.
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%"
Research !!
| Static electricity and magnetism (1600)Electric current (18th century) || All electric appliances, dynamo's, electric power stations, modern electronics, including electric lighting, television, electric heating, magnetic tape, loudspeaker, plus the compass and lightning rod.
| Diffraction (1665) || Optics, hence fiber optic cable (1840s), cable TV and internet
| Germ theory (1700) || Hygiene, leading to decreased transmission of infectious diseases; antibodies, leading to techniques for disease diagnosis and targeted anticancer therapies.
| Vaccination (1798) || Leading to the elimination of most infectious diseases from developed countries and the worldwide eradication of smallpox.
| Photovoltaics (1839) || Solar cells (1883), hence solar power, solar powered watches, calculators and other devices.
| leading to special (1905) and general relativity (1916) || Satellite-based technology such as GPS (1973), satnav and communications satellites.
| Radio waves (1887) || Used in broadcast: radio (1906) and television (1927) entertainment.
It is used in telephony, emergency services, radar (navigation and weather forecasting), medicine, astronomy, wireless communications, and networking.
Radio research led to microwave cooking.
| Radioactivity (1896) and antimatter (1932) || Cancer treatment (1896), Radiometric dating (1905), nuclear reactors (1942) and weapons (1945), PET scans (1961), and medical research (with isotopic labelling)
|X-rays (1896)|| Medical imaging, including computer tomography
| Crystallography and quantum mechanics (1900) || Semiconductor devices (1906), hence modern computing and telecommunications including the integration with wireless devices: the mobile phone
|Plastics (1907)||Starting with bakelite, many types of artificial polymers for numerous applications in industry and daily life
|Antibiotics (1880's, 1928) || Salvarsan, Penicillin, doxycycline.
In 2018 Amoxicillin and amoxicillin/clavulanic acid were the most frequently used.
|Nuclear magnetic resonance (1930's) || Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1946), magnetic resonance imaging (1971), functional magnetic resonance imaging (1990's).
|Genomics (1990s)||Genomics = genetics + medicine.
It is the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes.
A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA (or RNA).
This makes up its genes.
Vaccines for viruses are built by genomics.
Other features of science
Not everyone completely agrees about how theories should be used or updated.
Some philosophers and scientists say that scientific theories are only accepted for the time being.
They last as long as they are the best explanation.
When theories no longer explain the data, they are removed and replaced.
Or, sometimes scientists will make a theory better rather than remove it, or they will keep on using the theory hoping that it will be made better eventually.
Science is a way to get knowledge by getting rid of what is not true.
Scientists must be very careful to make explanations that fit well with what they observe and measure.
They compete to provide better explanations.
An explanation might be interesting or pleasing, but if it does not agree with what other scientists really see and measure, they will try to find a better explanation.
Before a scientific article is published, other scientists read the article.
They decide whether the explanations make sense from the data.
This is called peer review.
After articles are published, other scientists will also check to see if the same experiments, observations or tests produce the same data again.
Peer review and repeating experiments are the only way to be sure the knowledge is correct.
Science makes models of nature, models of our universe, and medicine.
There are many different sciences with their own names.
However it is not right to say "science says" any one thing.
Science is a process, not just the facts and rules believed at one time.
Some types of science
Formal and applied sciences
"How Do We Know What Is True?" (
animated video; 2:52)
The Saint Lawrence River (; Tuscarora: Kahnawáʼkye; Mohawk: Kaniatarowanenneh, meaning "big waterway") is a big river in eastern North America.
It flows between the Canadian province of Quebec & Ontario and the American state of New York, and through the major canadian city of Montreal.
It is the third largest river in Canada.
The river drains water from the Great Lakes into the Atlantic Ocean.
It is more than three thousand kilometres long.
The river meets the Atlantic Ocean in a big "estuary" or bay, the biggest in the world; this is called the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
The Canadian cities of Kingston, Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City are on this river.
The Saint Lawrence Seaway allows ships to go up the river and through the Great Lakes right into the middle of North America.
Regional Geography of the St. Lawrence River
Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System
Safe Passage: Aids to Navigation on the St. Lawrence – Historical essay, illustrated with drawings and photographs
Annotated Bibliography on St. Lawrence County and Northern New York region.
International Saint Lawrence River Board of Control
Saint Lawrence River from The Canadian Encyclopedia
Watch the Jacques Cousteau documentary, St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea
The Steamboats "Sir James Kemp" and "Lord Dalhousie" on the River St. Lawrence, Upper Canada in 1833 by D.J. Kennedy, Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Lawrence, Saint
Seville () is a city in the southern parts of Spain.
A river called the Guadalquivir River goes through Seville.
The city of Seville is the capital of the Spanish autonomous community Andalusia and of the province of Sevilla.
People from Seville are called Sevillanos.
A very old story says that the city was started by the famous hero of Greece, named Hercules.
The Romans when they came to Spain gave it the Latin name of Hispalis.
Over time this changed to be spelled in English as Seville.
The Arab Moors took the city when they invaded the country, and you can still see a lot of the buildings they built during their 800-year stay in Spain (711-1492).
In 1992 Seville was the place for the Expo 92.
There is a beautiful bridge across the Guadalquivir River called Puente del Alamillo.
It was thought up by Santiago Calatrava a famous building expert.
University of Seville.
This is the oldest university in Sevilla.
It is located near the Centro, or center of the city, across the street from Plaza de España and Parque Maria Luisa.
Pablo de Olavide University.
This website is located outside the main city of Sevilla, but is very easy to access using the subway system.
It take about 30 minutes to get from the center of town to Pablo de Olavide on the subway.
Menéndez Pelayo International University-Sevilla .
This school is not your typical university.
Only students who are studying abroad with International Studies Abroad attend classes at this school.
It is lcoated near the Centro and Alfalfa Barrio.
Sevilla Guide
Salami is a sausage that first came from Italy.
The name comes from the Italian salare meaning to make something salty.
The original salami was made from a mix of chopped pork and salt which was dried using air in a casing.
Now there are many types of salamis made in some countries.
Nearly all are seasoned with a combination of herbs and spices in addition to salt.
Salamis are now sometimes smoked or cooked before air drying.
Some kinds are made of beef while others mix beef and pork.
Most, if not all Italian salamis have garlic in them, but few German kinds do, for example.
Some, like a few salamis from Spain, include paprika or chili.
The difference between some types is in how coarse or fine the meat is chopped.
Some "light" salami might add turkey or chicken to reduce both fat and calories.
Many salamis are named after the city or region where they come from.
Some examples are Arles, Genoese, Hungarian, and Milano salamis.
Special English is a simple form of the English language.
It is used by a public radio station called Voice of America, run by the United States government in Special English programs every day.
Its news and feature programs are read more slowly than usual, using fewer English words and simple grammar.
The contents of Special English programs are much easier to understand.
Special English is clearer and simpler, and it uses shorter sentences.
It can also help someone whose English is weak to improve his or her English.
In some countries, for example China, Special English is popular among people learning English.
Special English was first used on October 19, 1959.
Special English started in that year as one of radio programs by the Voice of America.
This broadcasts adopt slow pace and simple English in order to increase understanding for millions of listeners.
It is now also known as "Learning English".
Special English started in 1959.
It was developed as an experimental radio program to spread information on news and culture to people outside the United States.
Programs on VOA use a simpler English within about 1,500 words.
And reports are paced 1/3 slower than regular English in order to allow listeners to increase a better understanding.
This means broadcasters speak at about two-thirds the speed of conversational English.
But far from sounding like a record played at the wrong speed.
It now deals with various topics to keep interest of listeners, such as news, business, science, and culture.
Stories are written in clear.
To be a Special English broadcaster, he or she needs a complicated skill that takes months of training.
The training includes a professional voice trainer who teaches how to breathe properly and pronounce clearly.
A chief of Special English at VOA said, "People in this country have likely never heard of Special English," and also said, "and, if they have, they often don't understand the significance of it to people in other countries."
One VOA staff explains that the main goal of Special English is for the listener to understand the content of what is being broadcast, and to make steady progress in English.
“There is a fine line between being simplified and simplistic,” he says. “
We never want to cross that line.”
So when necessary, more “advanced” English words are used and the meanings made clear, so the stories never suffer from incomplete information.
About programs
Health & Lifestyle
U.S.History
Science & Technology
Words & Their Stories
Learning English Broadcast
Wikipedia:VOA Special English Word Book
The VOA Special English Web Page
VOA Special English Word Book - 1,500 words used on VOA Special English broadcasts
Voice of America Special English Study - Online quizzes, listen and read along, crossword puzzles and more. (
By Charles Kelly)
English learning lessons using Voice of America Special English
Sausage is a food made of ground-up or chopped-up meat.
It often has spices in it and is covered in a casing.
Traditionally, a sausage casing is made of animal intestine, but can sometimes be made of plastic.
There are many forms of sausages, including hot dog, pepperoni, bologna, and salami.
Sausages often have meat from the animal's head, lips, cheeks, ears and other parts.
Some have blood in them.
German and British sausages normally have a lot of "rusk," or bread crumbs, and they are less meaty than sausages from other countries.
Vegetarian or vegan sausages are often made of products other than animal products, such as tofu.
Sausages may be used as a meal, in a sandwich, or in other foods like stews.
Sausages can be eaten as whole pieces, or they can be chopped up as already cooked pieces.
Germany has regions that have special kinds of sausage.
Sausages are some of the oldest German foods.
The word "sausage" was first used in English in the mid-15th century.
During the mid-15th century, the word "sausage" was spelled as "sawsyge".
The word "sawsyge" came from Old North French saussiche (Modern French saucisse)".
The French word came from Vulgar Latin salsica (sausage), from salsicus (seasoned with salt).
Types of sausage
Blood sausage, a type of sausage made of animal blood
Bratwurst (a German/Austrian variety)
Mortadella
Slang are words that are  informal.
Usually each generation or social group has its own slang - for example, older people can have trouble understanding the slang of younger people.
On the other hand, younger people often understand, but find silly or old-fashioned, the slang of older people.
Over time, language tends to get more complex, since new words enter much faster than old words leave.
Over time, slang almost always becomes part of the language, and approved for use by all.
It has also happened that some words used in Anglo-Saxon for bodily functions became thought of as profanity or rude after they were replaced by Latinate words like "urinate", "defecate" and "copulate" - which polite people were supposed to use after the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
This was in part a way of making poor people (who spoke Anglo-Saxon) all appear to be rude, while more powerful people (who spoke Norman) appeared to be polite - one way that etiquette can develop, and reinforce power structure.
This is only one example from history of how racism can be a reason for defining one group's language as 'slang' and another as 'correct'.
Two examples of slang are 'wassup' and 'dunnow'. '
Wassup' usually means 'What is up?' (
as in, 'How are you?'),
and 'dunnow' usually means 'I don't know'.
A social contract or political contract is a perceived agreement among the people of a state about the rules that will define their government.
These rules are usually called laws.
Laws help to make sure people have rights and that their rights are protected.
One kind of social contract is a constitution.
A constitution says how decisions are made, and sets limits on the powers of leaders and other people who have authority.
In the Age of Enlightenment, philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote books about social contracts.
They saw good government as coming from social contracts.
Rousseau wrote a book called The Social Contract.
Both the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution use the theory of social contracts.
Society works best when there is plenty of social capital.
The less social capital there is, the more social problems there usually are.
If there is no social capital, war and revolution often results.
People who have no money and cannot get help from society may have to agree to do things they do not want to do, or force others to do things they do not want to.
Organized crime grows in this way, and so do forced labour and slavery.
Most ways of measuring social capital have to do with trust - people who trust that favours and help will be available when they need it will favour and help others more.
Those who are seen as trying to get a free ride will get much less help.
A social climber tries to earn social capital by making friends with those who have it but without actually helping.
Some call this kind of person a social parasite.
They are very hard to detect, unlike people who cheat or commit fraud.
When there are too many of these kinds of people, especially when they are politicians, people begin to mistrust their government.
Rather than work with a political party to change law, they may start to look for direct revenge for things.
Social capital is a lot like real capital.
The more money a person or a society has, the easier it is to do things and the better off people are.
The less money, the more difficult things become and the worse people feel.
Uses in buildings
Uses in gravesites
Uses in work
The words onsite and offsite refer to work that must take place on the site, or which can take place somewhere else.
For instance, a prefabricated building can be "built offsite" and then "moved onsite".
Use on the internet
Site is also a common abbreviation in net jargon for "website".
In this case no real physical location exists other than the place where the computers are, and one "goes to the site" simply by using a web browser to "go to" that URL.
Someone who uses it is also likely using other jargon.
Subtraction is the arithmetic operation for finding the difference between two numbers, though it can also be generalized to other mathematical objects such as vectors and matrices.
The special names of the numbers in a subtraction expression are, minuend - subtrahend = difference.
For example, the expression 7 - 4 = 3 can be read as "seven minus four equals three," "seven take away four leaves three," or "four from seven leaves three."
If the minuend is less than the subtrahend, the difference will be a negative number.
For example, 17 - 25 = -8 .
This can be read as "Seventeen minus twenty-five equals negative eight."
String theory tries to model the four known fundamental interactions—gravitation, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force—together in one theory.
This tries to resolve the alleged conflict between classical physics and quantum physics by elementary units—the one classical force: gravity, and a new quantum field theory of the other three fundamental forces.
Einstein had sought a unified field theory, a single model to explain the fundamental interactions or mechanics of the universe.
Today's search is for a unified field theory that is quantized and that explains matter's structure, too.
This is called the search for a theory of everything (TOE).
The most prominent contender as a TOE is string theory converted into superstring theory with its six higher dimensions in addition to the four common dimensions (3D + time).
Some superstring theories seem to come together on a shared range of geometry that, according to string theorists, is apparently the geometry of space.
The mathematical framework that unifies the multiple superstring theories upon that shared geometrical range is M-theory.
Many string theorists are optimistic that M-theory explains our universe's very structure and perhaps explains how other universes, if they exist, are structured as part of a greater "multiverse".
M theory/supergravity theory has 7 higher dimensions + 4D.
Introductions to string theory that are designed for the general public must first explain physics.
Some of the controversies over string theory result from misunderstandings about physics.
A common misunderstanding even for scientists is the presumption that a theory is proved true in its explanation of the natural world wherever its predictions are successful.
Another misunderstanding is that earlier physical scientists, including chemists, have already explained the world.
This leads to the misunderstanding that string theorists began making strange hypotheses after they became unaccountably "set free from truth".
Classical realm
Newtonian physics
Newton's law of universal gravitation (UG), added to the three Galilean laws of motion and some other presumptions, was published in 1687.
Newton's theory successfully modeled interactions among objects of a size we can see, a range of phenomena now called the classical realm.
Coulomb's law modeled electric attraction.
Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory unified electricity and magnetism, while optics emerged from this field.
Light's speed remained about the same when measured by an observer traveling in its field, however, although addition of velocities predicted the field to be slower or faster relative to the observer traveling with or against it.
So, versus the electromagnetic field, the observer kept losing speed.
Still, this did not violate Galileo’s Principle of relativity that says the laws of mechanics work the same for all objects showing inertia.
By law of inertia, when no force is applied to an object, the object holds its velocity, which is speed and direction.
An object either in uniform motion, which is constant speed in an unchanging direction, or staying at rest, which is zero velocity, experiences inertia.
This exhibits Galilean invariance—its mechanical interactions proceeding without variation—also called Galilean relativity since one cannot perceive whether one is at rest or in uniform motion.
Relativity theory
In 1905, Einstein's special theory of relativity explained the accuracy of both Maxwell's electromagnetic field and Galilean relativity by stating that the field's speed is absolute—a universal constant—whereas both space and time are local phenomena relative to the object's energy.
Thus, an object in relative motion shortens along the direction of its momentum (Lorentz contraction), and its unfolding of events slows (time dilation).
A passenger on the object cannot detect the change, as all measuring devices aboard that vehicle have experienced length contraction and time dilation.
Only an external observer experiencing relative rest measures the object in relative motion to be shortened along its travel pathway and its events slowed.
Special relativity left Newton's theory—which states space and time as absolute—unable to explain gravitation.
By the equivalence principle, Einstein inferred that being under either gravitation or constant acceleration are indistinguishable experiences that might share a physical mechanism.
The suggested mechanism was progressive length contraction and time dilation—a consequence of the local energy density within 3D space—establishing a progressive tension within a rigid object, relieving its tension by moving toward the location of greatest energy density.
Special relativity would be a limited case of a gravitational field.
Special relativity would apply when the energy density across 3D space is uniform, and so the gravitational field is scaled uniformly from location to location, why an object experiences no acceleration and thus no gravitation.
In 1915, Einstein's general theory of relativity newly explained gravitation with 4D spacetime modeled as a Lorentzian manifold.
Time is one dimension merged with the three space dimensions, as every event in 3D space—2D horizontally and 1D vertically—entails a point along a 1D time axis.
Even in everyday life, one states or implies both.
One says or at least means, "Meet me at building 123 Main Street intersecting Franklin Street in apartment 3D on 10 October 2012 at 9:00PM".
By omitting or missing the time coordinate, one arrives at the correct location in space when the sought event is absent—it is in the past or future at perhaps 6:00PM or 12:00AM.
By converging space and time and presuming both relative to the energy density in the vicinity, and by setting the only constant or absolute as not even mass but as light speed in a vacuum, general relativity revealed the natural world's previously unimagined balance and symmetry.
Every object is always moving at light speed along a straight line—its equivalent, on a curved surface, called geodesic or worldline—the one pathway of least resistance like a free fall through 4D spacetime whose geometry "curves" in the vicinity of mass/energy.
An object at light speed in a vacuum is moving at maximal rate through 3D space but exhibits no evolution of events—it is frozen in time—whereas an object motionless in 3D space flows fully along 1D time, experiencing the maximal rate of events' unfolding.
The displayed universe is relative to a given location, yet once the mass/energy in that vicinity is stated, Einstein's equations predict what is occurring—or did occur or will occur—anywhere in the universe.
The popularized notion that relative in Einstein's theory suggests subjective or arbitrary was to some regret of Einstein, who later thought he ought have to named it general theory.
The electromagnetic field's messenger particles, photons, carry an image timelessly across the universe while observers within this field have enough flow through time to decode this image and react by moving within 3D space, yet can never outrun this timeless image.
The universe's state under 400 000 years after the presumed big bang that began our universe is thought to be displayed as the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
In 1915, the universe was thought to be entirely what we now call the Milky Way galaxy and to be static.
Einstein operated his recently published equations of the gravitational field, and discovered the consequence that the universe was expanding or shrinking. (
The theory is operable in either direction—time invariance.)
He revised the theory add a cosmological constant to arbitrarily balance the universe.
Nearing 1930, Edwin Hubble's telescopic data, interpreted through general relativity, revealed the universe was expanding.
In 1916 while on a World War I battlefield, Karl Schwarzschild operated Einstein's equations, and the Schwarzschild solution predicted black holes.
Decades later, astrophysicists identified a supermassive black hole in the center of perhaps every galaxy.
Black holes seem to lead galaxy formation and maintenance by regulating star formation and destruction.
In the 1930s, it was noticed that according to general relativity, galaxies would fall apart unless surrounded by invisible matter holding a galaxy together, and by the 1970s dark matter began to be accepted.
In 1998 it was inferred that the universe's expansion, not slowing, is accelerating, indicating a vast energy density—enough to accelerate both visible matter and dark matter—throughout the universe, a vast field of dark energy.
Apparently, under 5% of the universe's composition is known, while the other 95% is mysterious—dark matter and dark energy.
Quantum realm
Strange mechanics
By the 1920s, to probe the operating of the electromagnetic field at minuscule scales of space and time, quantum mechanics (QM) was developed.
Yet electrons—the matter particles that interact with the photons that are the electromagnetic field's force carriers—would appear to defy mechanical principles altogether.
None could predict a quantum particle's location from moment to moment.
In the slit experiment, an electron would travel through one hole placed in front of it.
Yet a single electron would travel simultaneously though multiple holes, however many were placed in front of it.
The single electron would leave on the detection board an interference pattern as if the single particle were a wave that had passed through all the holes simultaneously.
And yet this occurred only when unobserved.
If light were shone on the expected event, the photon's interaction with the field would set the electron to a single position.
By the uncertainty principle, any quantum particle's exact location and momentum cannot be determined with certainty, however.
The particle's interaction with the observation/measurement instrument deflects the particle such that greater determination of its position yields lower determination of its momentum, and vice versa.
Field theory quantized
By extending quantum mechanics across a field, a consistent pattern emerged.
From location to adjacent location, the probability of the particle existing there would rise and fall like a wave of probability—a rising and falling probability density.
When unobserved, any quantum particle enters superposition, such that even a single particle fills the entire field, however large.
Yet the particle is not definitely anywhere in the field, but there at a definite probability in relation to whether it was had been at the adjacent location.
The waveform of Maxwell's electromagnetic field was generated by an accumulation of probabilistic events.
Not the particles, but the mathematical form, was constant.
Setting the field to special relativity permitted prediction of the complete electromagnetic field.
Thus arose relativistic quantum field theory (QFT).
Of the electromagnetic field, it is relativistic quantum electrodynamics (QED).
Of the weak and electromagnetic fields together, it is relativistic electroweak theory (EWT).
Of the strong field, it is relativistic quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
Altogether, this became the Standard Model of particle physics.
Division in physics
When the Standard Model is set to general relativity in order to include mass, probability densities of infinity appear.
This is presumed incorrect, as probability ordinarily ranges from 0 to 1—0% to 100% probability.
Some theoretical physicists suspect that the problem is in the Standard Model, which represents each particle by a zero-dimensional point that in principle can be infinitely small.
Yet in quantum physics, the Planck's constant is the minimum energy unit that a field can be divided into, perhaps a clue to the smallest size a particle can be.
So there is a quest to quantize gravity—to develop a theory of quantum gravity.
String conjectures that on the microscopic scale, Einstein's 4D spacetime is a field of Calabi-Yau manifolds, each containing 6 space dimensions curled up, thus not extended into the 3 space dimensions presented to the classical realm.
In string theory, each quantum particle is replaced by a 1D string of vibrating energy whose length is the Planck length.