title: John Green

text: Hank Green released his debut novel "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing" in September 2018. To promote his brother's book, John Green started a surprise campaign to promote Hank's novel, including renting several billboards near their hometown of Orlando, sponsoring four FIRST robotics teams and a college rugby club in Montana, and making "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing" the official training kit sponsor of AFC Wimbledon, among other advertisements. John also joined Hank for six of his book tour stops.


title: John Green

text: At the end of 2018, John Green chose to leave social media for a year, including Twitter, where he had more than 5 million followers. In January 2019, Green wrote an op-ed for "The Washington Post" on his decision, saying "I had noticed over the past couple of years that my attention had become more fractured. I found it harder to lose myself in a book, for instance, without feeling the urge to check my phone or open my laptop." In December 2022, Green exited the platform in response to the policy changes made after Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.


title: John Green

text: In March 2019, Green moderated a discussion with former First Lady Michelle Obama on her memoir "Becoming" as part of a YouTube-sponsored event titled "BookTube".


title: John Green

text: In April 2019, Green recorded a live version of the podcast "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" at the Indianapolis Central Public Library.


title: John Green

text: Green gave a virtual commencement address to all graduates in May 2020 during the beginning months of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: John Green

text: In September 2021, Green continued his advocacy for refugees, writing an op-ed in "The Independent" on the need for education for refugee children.


title: John Green

text: In October 2022, Green gave the opening lecture at Harvard University's 2022 William Belden Noble Lecture series, titled "How the World Ends".


title: John Green

text: Green's books have been translated into 55 languages with more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including "The Fault in Our Stars", which is one of the best-selling books of all time. Green's idiosyncratic voice and rapid rise to fame in 2014 are credited with creating a major shift in the young adult fiction market. While reviewing the Andrew Smith young-adult novel, "Winger", A. J. Jacobs of "The New York Times" used the term "GreenLit" to describe young adult books that contain "sharp dialogue, defective authority figures, occasional boozing, unrequited crushes, and one or more heartbreaking twists." According to "The Wall Street Journal", "[s]ome credit him with ushering in a new golden era for contemporary, realistic, literary teen fiction, following more than a decade of dominance by books about young wizards, sparkly vampires, and dystopia. A blurb or Twitter endorsement from Mr. Green can ricochet around the Internet and boost sales, an effect book bloggers call 'the John Green effect'." Zareen Jaffery, executive editor of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers said: "What I really like about what people are calling 'the John Green effect' is that there's more of an interest in authentic, genuine, relatable characters." Some readers and authors have been critical of the terms. Green himself voiced his disagreement with the idea that he is single-handedly responsible for launching or promoting any one individual's career.


title: John Green

text: All of Green's book have received positive critical reception, beginning with his first two novels "Looking for Alaska" and "An Abundance of Katherines", which received the Printz Award and was named a Printz Honor book respectively. All of his books have also appeared on the "New York Times" Best Seller list, albeit his first two novels debuting on the list years after their initial release. "The Fault in Our Stars" in particular received widespread critical acclaim upon its release. Critics mostly praised the book for its humor, strong characters, language, themes and new perspective on cancer and romance. "The New York Times" review of the book called it "a blend of melancholy, sweet, philosophical and funny" and said that it "stays the course of tragic realism", while noting that the book's unpleasant plot details "do nothing to diminish the romance; in Green's hands, they only make it more moving". "Time" called "The Fault in Our Stars" "damn near genius" and named it as the number one fiction book of 2012. "USA Today" described it as an "elegiac comedy" and gave the book a rating of four out of four stars.


title: John Green

text: Critics have also noted Green's evolution as an author. With the release of the "Turtles All the Way Down" in 2017, several reviewers referenced a dismissive perception of Green's now very popular "œuvre" as "sad teen books", which had emerged since the success of "The Fault in Our Stars". Despite this, they praised "Turtles All the Way Down" as truthful and authentic enough to transcend these imagined drawbacks. Matt Haig of "The Guardian" wrote, "["Turtles All the Way Down"] often dwells in cliché, but only as pop songs and epic poems do, mining the universal to create something that speaks to the familiar rhythms of the heart. It might just be a new modern classic." Likewise, with the release of "The Anthropocene Reviewed" book in 2021, Scott Neumyer of Shondaland wrote that, "Green may have made his name by writing fiction (and for good reason), but this first foray into nonfiction is his most mature, compelling, and beautifully written book yet."


title: John Green

text: Green has received criticism for his perceived writing of "Manic Pixie Dream Girls", a term coined by Nathan Rabin to describe a female character that, "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures". "Paper Towns" and the character of Margo Roth Spiegelman have often been cited as a deconstruction of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope, and Green has stated he specifically wrote her as such. In October 2022, Green tweeted, "I think basically all criticisms of my work are correct and justifiable other than the most popular one, 'he writes manic pixie dream girls,' which is just so stupid. [...] THE WHOLE POINT OF THE NOVELS is the danger of such misimagining, hence the eventual revelation: 'Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.' It's not like I made it subtle." Despite this, some critics have questioned whether the story adequately deconstructed the trope, or merely perpetuated it. Green has readily discussed what he believes to be flaws in his novels when he looked at them in retrospect. Additionally, in response to a fan's tweet, Green apologized for using the word "retarded" in "Paper Towns", stating, "Yeah, I regret it. At the time, I thought an author's responsibility was to reflect language as I found it. Still, now... eight years later, I don't feel like a book about humanizing the other benefited from dehumanizing language."


title: John Green

text: Several of Green's books have been the subject of book banning attempts. "Looking for Alaska" was named the most challenged book of 2015 by the American Library Association, with some people complaining about the book's "offensive language" and "sexually explicit descriptions". In September 2022, a group of parents attempted to ban the novel from all Orange County, Florida school libraries, a district Green had attended as a child.


title: John Green

text: As John and Hank Green began uploading YouTube videos regularly in 2007, they became part of the early culture of YouTube as the modern content creator industry was born from the YouTube Partner Program. "The New York Times" noted John as having, "[an] uncanny knack for channeling the voice of marginalized but smart, self-identifying nerds, a gift he has turned into a YouTube empire." Many others have come to regard the brothers and their YouTube empire as pioneering in the online video space. In 2011, "The Daily Dot" named the Green brothers as the most important people on YouTube.


title: John Green

text: The Vlogbrothers' content has received positive reception from commentators and fans alike, especially for the shared values expounded by their videos. Amelia Thomson-Deveaux writing for "The American Prospect" commented that, "what makes Nerdfighteria so potent does seem to be the moral imperative that the Brothers Green throw at their bajillion viewers' feet: to take their weirdness and anxiety and turn it into empathy. It's become kind of a culture." The "Crash Course" project has also been successful in its reach, with the John Green-hosted "World History" series alone having attracted millions of viewers.


title: John Green

text: Green is married to Sarah Urist Green, with whom he has two children: Henry (born 2010) and Alice (born 2013). John and Sarah met when they both attended the same preparatory school in Indian Springs, Alabama. They became reacquainted eight years later in Chicago, when Green began dating Sarah's boxing partner; after they broke up, John became friends with Sarah. The two became engaged in April 2005 and married in May 2006. In early videos on the VlogBrothers channel, Sarah is referred to as "the Yeti" due to her not appearing visibly on camera, though she no longer is referred to as such.


title: John Green

text: Green was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and has lived there since 2007. The city has served as the setting for several of his novels, and he wrote a review of it in his podcast and book of essays "The Anthropocene Reviewed". Green often speaks of his love for the city. On July 14, 2015, Greg Ballard, the mayor of Indianapolis, proclaimed that that day would be "John Green Day" in his city. That month, Teresa Jacobs, the mayor of Orange County, Florida, declared that July 17 would also be John Green Day.


title: John Green

text: Green is an avid sports fan. Green drove the pace car at the 2016 Indianapolis 500, and was honorary co-chairman of the 500 Festival Host Committee that year. He is also a supporter of the English football club Liverpool F.C. of the Premier League and an official sponsor of the English League Two club AFC Wimbledon. Starting in 2011, Green had a gaming series on YouTube where he played "FIFA", first as the "Swoodilypoopers", a fictionalized version of Swindon Town F.C., and then, starting in 2013, as the "Wimbly Womblys," a fictionalized version of AFC Wimbledon. Advertising revenue from the series was donated to the team.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Jesse Gordon Spencer (born 12 February 1979) is an Australian actor and musician. He is best known for his roles as Billy Kennedy on the Australian soap opera "Neighbours" (1994–2000, 2005, 2022), Robert Chase on the American medical drama "House" (2004–2012) and Captain Matthew Casey on the American drama "Chicago Fire" (2012–2021).


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Spencer was born in Melbourne on 12 February 1979 to Rodney Spencer, a radiologist, and Robyn Spencer, who were founders of the Australians Against Further Immigration political party. Robyn Spencer also worked with the One Nation party and ran unsuccessfully for the Australian Senate.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: He is one of four siblings. Spencer has two older brothers: Tarney Spencer, an oculoplastic surgeon, and Luke Spencer, an orthopaedic surgeon. His younger sister, Polly Spencer, is an anaesthetist. Growing up, he attended Canterbury Primary School, Malvern Central School, and the private Scotch College. While there, he auditioned for the long-running soap opera "Neighbours". He completed his VCE and had gained a place at Monash University but deferred to pursue acting.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Spencer starred as Billy Kennedy in the Australian soap opera "Neighbours" from 1994 to 2000. He later reprised his role in 2005, in an episode celebrating the show's 20th anniversary. His character was the son of long-term iconic Ramsay Street residents Dr. Karl Kennedy and Susan Kennedy. Spencer provided the voiceover for the Code Read Network public interest adverts on dyslexia airing in 2022 on Australian television, trading on the fact that his character, Billy, in Neighbours was dyslexic.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: After his time on "Neighbours" he co-starred in films such as "Winning London" with the Olsen Twins, "Uptown Girls" and "Swimming Upstream".


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Spencer starred as intensive care specialist and surgeon Dr. Robert Chase on the Fox medical drama "House" from 2004 to 2012. He played Chase for the show's entire run, becoming the second longest-serving member of the title character's team.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Spencer began his musical career with the Australian Boys Choir, performing with them from 1986 to 1992. He plays the violin in Band from TV, a group that includes his former "House" co-star Hugh Laurie. They play at various events, giving the money they earn to charity. The band played on "Idol Gives Back" in April 2008.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: For "Neighbours", Spencer was nominated for "Most Popular Actor" at the 1998 and 1999 Logie Awards. For "House", he was nominated for "Choice TV Breakout Performance – Male" at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards and "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series" at the 2008 Screen Actors Guild Awards. He received a "Golden Boomerang" at the 2006 Australians in Film Breakthrough Awards for his work on "House". In 2007, he was included in "People Magazine" 100 Most Beautiful People issue.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Spencer met his "House" co-star, American actress Jennifer Morrison, in March 2004 at Vancouver International Airport when they were on their way to film the pilot episode of "House". They began dating in July 2004 and became engaged while vacationing in Paris at the Eiffel Tower during Christmas 2006, but in August 2007, Spencer and Morrison announced they had called off their engagement. Their characters were also involved on the show, marrying and divorcing in the sixth season.


title: Jesse Spencer

text: Spencer dated the British actress and singer Louise Griffiths from 2008 to 2010. Spencer dated Brazilian big wave surfer Maya Gabeira from 2010 to 2013. He began dating Kali Woodruff Carr in 2014, getting engaged in 2019. The couple married on 27 June 2020.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and carbon act as fuels while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines and road building.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate (i.e., burn at subsonic speeds), whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellant but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. Nonetheless, it was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use.


title: Gunpowder

text: Its use in weapons has declined due to smokeless powder replacing it, and it is no longer used for industrial purposes due to its relative inefficiency compared to newer alternatives such as dynamite and ammonium nitrate/fuel oil.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder is a low explosive: it does not detonate, but rather deflagrates (burns quickly). This is an advantage in a propellant device, where one does not desire a shock that would shatter the gun and potentially harm the operator; however, it is a drawback when an explosion is desired. In that case, the propellant (and most importantly, gases produced by its burning) must be confined. Since it contains its own oxidizer and additionally burns faster under pressure, its combustion is capable of bursting containers such as a shell, grenade, or improvised "pipe bomb" or "pressure cooker" casings to form shrapnel.


title: Gunpowder

text: In quarrying, high explosives are generally preferred for shattering rock. However, because of its low brisance, gunpowder causes fewer fractures and results in more usable stone compared to other explosives, making it useful for blasting slate, which is fragile, or monumental stone such as granite and marble. Gunpowder is well suited for blank rounds, signal flares, burst charges, and rescue-line launches. It is also used in fireworks for lifting shells, in rockets as fuel, and in certain special effects.


title: Gunpowder

text: Combustion converts less than half the mass of gunpowder to gas; most of it turns into particulate matter. Some of it is ejected, wasting propelling power, fouling the air, and generally being a nuisance (giving away a soldier's position, generating fog that hinders vision, etc.). Some of it ends up as a thick layer of soot inside the barrel, where it also is a nuisance for subsequent shots, and a cause of jamming an automatic weapon. Moreover, this residue is hygroscopic, and with the addition of moisture absorbed from the air forms a corrosive substance. The soot contains potassium oxide or sodium oxide that turns into potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydroxide, which corrodes wrought iron or steel gun barrels. Gunpowder arms therefore require thorough and regular cleaning to remove the residue.


title: Gunpowder

text: The first confirmed reference to what can be considered gunpowder in China occurred in the 9th century AD during the Tang dynasty, first in a formula contained in the "Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue" (太上聖祖金丹秘訣) in 808, and then about 50 years later in a Taoist text known as the "Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe" (真元妙道要略). The "Taishang Shengzu Jindan Mijue" mentions a formula composed of six parts sulfur to six parts saltpeter to one part birthwort herb. According to the "Zhenyuan miaodao yaolüe", "Some have heated together sulfur, realgar and saltpeter with honey; smoke and flames result, so that their hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down." Based on these Taoist texts, the invention of gunpowder by Chinese alchemists was likely an accidental byproduct from experiments seeking to create the elixir of life. This experimental medicine origin is reflected in its Chinese name "huoyao" ( ), which means "fire medicine". Saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and was primarily produced in the provinces of Sichuan, Shanxi, and Shandong. There is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various medicinal combinations. A Chinese alchemical text dated 492 noted saltpeter burnt with a purple flame, providing a practical and reliable means of distinguishing it from other inorganic salts, thus enabling alchemists to evaluate and compare purification techniques; the earliest Latin accounts of saltpeter purification are dated after 1200.


title: Gunpowder

text: The earliest chemical formula for gunpowder appeared in the 11th century Song dynasty text, "Wujing Zongyao" ("Complete Essentials from the Military Classics"), written by Zeng Gongliang between 1040 and 1044. The "Wujing Zongyao" provides encyclopedia references to a variety of mixtures that included petrochemicals—as well as garlic and honey. A slow match for flame-throwing mechanisms using the siphon principle and for fireworks and rockets is mentioned. The mixture formulas in this book contain at most 50 % saltpeter; not enough to create an explosion, they produce an incendiary instead. The "Essentials" was written by a Song dynasty court bureaucrat and there is little evidence that it had any immediate impact on warfare; there is no mention of its use in the chronicles of the wars against the Tanguts in the 11th century, and China was otherwise mostly at peace during this century. However, it had already been used for fire arrows since at least the 10th century. Its first recorded military application dates its use to the year 904 in the form of incendiary projectiles. In the following centuries various gunpowder weapons such as bombs, fire lances, and the gun appeared in China. Explosive weapons such as bombs have been discovered in a shipwreck off the shore of Japan dated from 1281, during the Mongol invasions of Japan.


title: Gunpowder

text: By 1083 the Song court was producing hundreds of thousands of fire arrows for their garrisons. Bombs and the first proto-guns, known as "fire lances", became prominent during the 12th century and were used by the Song during the Jin-Song Wars. Fire lances were first recorded to have been used at the Siege of De'an in 1132 by Song forces against the Jin. In the early 13th century the Jin used iron-casing bombs. Projectiles were added to fire lances, and re-usable fire lance barrels were developed, first out of hardened paper, and then metal. By 1257 some fire lances were firing wads of bullets. In the late 13th-century metal fire lances became 'eruptors', proto-cannons firing co-viative projectiles (mixed with the propellant, rather than seated over it with a wad), and by 1287 at the latest, had become true guns, the hand cannon.


title: Gunpowder

text: According to Iqtidar Alam Khan, it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world. The Muslims acquired knowledge of gunpowder some time between 1240 and 1280, by which point the Syrian Hasan al-Rammah had written recipes, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. It is implied by al-Rammah's usage of "terms that suggested he derived his knowledge from Chinese sources" and his references to saltpeter as "Chinese snow" ( '), fireworks as "Chinese flowers", and rockets as "Chinese arrows" that knowledge of gunpowder arrived from China. However, because al-Rammah attributes his material to "his father and forefathers", al-Hassan argues that gunpowder became prevalent in Syria and Egypt by "the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth". In Persia saltpeter was known as "Chinese salt" () "namak-i chīnī") or "salt from Chinese salt marshes" ( ').


title: Gunpowder

text: Hasan al-Rammah included 107 gunpowder recipes in his text "al-Furusiyyah wa al-Manasib al-Harbiyya" ("The Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices"), 22 of which are for rockets. If one takes the median of 17 of these 22 compositions for rockets (75% nitrates, 9.06% sulfur, and 15.94% charcoal), it is nearly identical to the modern reported ideal recipe of 75% potassium nitrate, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal. The text also mentions fuses, incendiary bombs, naphtha pots, fire lances, and an illustration and description of the earliest torpedo. The torpedo was called the "egg which moves itself and burns". Two iron sheets were fastened together and tightened using felt. The flattened pear shaped vessel was filled with gunpowder, metal filings, "good mixtures", two rods, and a large rocket for propulsion. Judging by the illustration, it was evidently supposed to glide across the water. Fire lances were used in battles between the Muslims and Mongols in 1299 and 1303.


title: Gunpowder

text: Al-Hassan claims that in the Battle of Ain Jalut of 1260, the Mamluks used against the Mongols, in "the first cannon in history", formula with near-identical ideal composition ratios for explosive gunpowder. Other historians urge caution regarding claims of Islamic firearms use in the 1204–1324 period as late medieval Arabic texts used the same word for gunpowder, "naft", that they used for an earlier incendiary, naphtha.


title: Gunpowder

text: The earliest surviving documentary evidence for cannons in the Islamic world is from an Arabic manuscript dated to the early 14th century. The author's name is uncertain but may have been Shams al-Din Muhammad, who died in 1350. Dating from around 1320-1350, the illustrations show gunpowder weapons such as gunpowder arrows, bombs, fire tubes, and fire lances or proto-guns. The manuscript describes a type of gunpowder weapon called a "midfa" which uses gunpowder to shoot projectiles out of a tube at the end of a stock. Some consider this to be a cannon while others do not. The problem with identifying cannons in early 14th century Arabic texts is the term "midfa", which appears from 1342 to 1352 but cannot be proven to be true hand-guns or bombards. Contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365. Needham believes that in its original form the term "midfa" refers to the tube or cylinder of a naphtha projector (flamethrower), then after the invention of gunpowder it meant the tube of fire lances, and eventually it applied to the cylinder of hand-gun and cannon.


title: Gunpowder

text: According to Paul E. J. Hammer, the Mamluks certainly used cannons by 1342. According to J. Lavin, cannons were used by Moors at the siege of Algeciras in 1343. A metal cannon firing an iron ball was described by Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas al-Qalqashandi between 1365 and 1376.


title: Gunpowder

text: The musket appeared in the Ottoman Empire by 1465. In 1598, Chinese writer Zhao Shizhen described Turkish muskets as being superior to European muskets. The Chinese military book "Wu Pei Chih" (1621) later described Turkish muskets that used a rack-and-pinion mechanism, which was not known to have been used in European or Chinese firearms at the time.


title: Gunpowder

text: The state-controlled manufacture of gunpowder by the Ottoman Empire through early supply chains to obtain nitre, sulfur and high-quality charcoal from oaks in Anatolia contributed significantly to its expansion between the 15th and 18th century. It was not until later in the 19th century when the syndicalist production of Turkish gunpowder was greatly reduced, which coincided with the decline of its military might.


title: Gunpowder

text: The earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appears in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in 1267 called "Opus Majus" and "Opus Tertium". The oldest written recipes in continental Europe were recorded under the name Marcus Graecus or Mark the Greek between 1280 and 1300 in the "Liber Ignium", or "Book of Fires".


title: Gunpowder

text: Some sources mention possible gunpowder weapons being deployed by the Mongols against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in 1241. Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing into Europe gunpowder and its associated weaponry. However, there is no clear route of transmission, and while the Mongols are often pointed to as the likeliest vector, Timothy May points out that "there is no concrete evidence that the Mongols used gunpowder weapons on a regular basis outside of China." However, Timothy May also points out "However... the Mongols used the gunpowder weapon in their wars against the Jin, the Song and in their invasions of Japan."


title: Gunpowder

text: Records show that, in England, gunpowder was being made in 1346 at the Tower of London; a powder house existed at the Tower in 1461; and in 1515 three King's gunpowder makers worked there. Gunpowder was also being made or stored at other royal castles, such as Portchester. The English Civil War (1642–1645) led to an expansion of the gunpowder industry, with the repeal of the Royal Patent in August 1641.


title: Gunpowder

text: In late 14th century Europe, gunpowder was improved by "corning", the practice of drying it into small clumps to improve combustion and consistency. During this time, European manufacturers also began regularly purifying saltpeter, using wood ashes containing potassium carbonate to precipitate calcium from their dung liquor, and using ox blood, alum, and slices of turnip to clarify the solution.


title: Gunpowder

text: During the Renaissance, two European schools of pyrotechnic thought emerged, one in Italy and the other at Nuremberg, Germany. In Italy, Vannoccio Biringuccio, born in 1480, was a member of the guild "Fraternita di Santa Barbara" but broke with the tradition of secrecy by setting down everything he knew in a book titled "De la pirotechnia", written in vernacular. It was published posthumously in 1540, with 9 editions over 138 years, and also reprinted by MIT Press in 1966.


title: Gunpowder

text: By the mid-17th century fireworks were used for entertainment on an unprecedented scale in Europe, being popular even at resorts and public gardens. With the publication of "Deutliche Anweisung zur Feuerwerkerey" (1748), methods for creating fireworks were sufficiently well-known and well-described that "Firework making has become an exact science." In 1774 Louis XVI ascended to the throne of France at age 20. After he discovered that France was not self-sufficient in gunpowder, a Gunpowder Administration was established; to head it, the lawyer Antoine Lavoisier was appointed. Although from a bourgeois family, after his degree in law Lavoisier became wealthy from a company set up to collect taxes for the Crown; this allowed him to pursue experimental natural science as a hobby.


title: Gunpowder

text: Without access to cheap saltpeter (controlled by the British), for hundreds of years France had relied on saltpetremen with royal warrants, the "droit de fouille" or "right to dig", to seize nitrous-containing soil and demolish walls of barnyards, without compensation to the owners. This caused farmers, the wealthy, or entire villages to bribe the petermen and the associated bureaucracy to leave their buildings alone and the saltpeter uncollected. Lavoisier instituted a crash program to increase saltpeter production, revised (and later eliminated) the "droit de fouille", researched best refining and powder manufacturing methods, instituted management and record-keeping, and established pricing that encouraged private investment in works. Although saltpeter from new Prussian-style putrefaction works had not been produced yet (the process taking about 18 months), in only a year France had gunpowder to export. A chief beneficiary of this surplus was the American Revolution. By careful testing and adjusting the proportions and grinding time, powder from mills such as at Essonne outside Paris became the best in the world by 1788, and inexpensive.


title: Gunpowder

text: Two British physicists, Andrew Noble and Frederick Abel, worked to improve the properties of gunpowder during the late 19th century. This formed the basis for the Noble-Abel gas equation for internal ballistics.


title: Gunpowder

text: The introduction of smokeless powder in the late 19th century led to a contraction of the gunpowder industry. After the end of World War I, the majority of the British gunpowder manufacturers merged into a single company, "Explosives Trades limited"; and a number of sites were closed down, including those in Ireland. This company became Nobel Industries Limited; and in 1926 became a founding member of Imperial Chemical Industries. The Home Office removed gunpowder from its list of "Permitted Explosives"; and shortly afterwards, on 31 December 1931, the former Curtis & Harvey's Glynneath gunpowder factory at Pontneddfechan, in Wales, closed down, and it was demolished by fire in 1932. The last remaining gunpowder mill at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey was damaged by a German parachute mine in 1941 and it never reopened. This was followed by the closure of the gunpowder section at the Royal Ordnance Factory, ROF Chorley, the section was closed and demolished at the end of World War II; and ICI Nobel's Roslin gunpowder factory, which closed in 1954. This left ICI Nobel's Ardeer site in Scotland, which included a gunpowder factory, as the only factory in Great Britain producing gunpowder. The gunpowder area of the Ardeer site closed in October 1976.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder and gunpowder weapons were transmitted to India through the Mongol invasions of India. The Mongols were defeated by Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate, and some of the Mongol soldiers remained in northern India after their conversion to Islam. It was written in the "Tarikh-i Firishta" (1606–1607) that Nasiruddin Mahmud the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate presented the envoy of the Mongol ruler Hulegu Khan with a dazzling pyrotechnics display upon his arrival in Delhi in 1258. Nasiruddin Mahmud tried to express his strength as a ruler and tried to ward off any Mongol attempt similar to the Siege of Baghdad (1258). Firearms known as "top-o-tufak" also existed in many Muslim kingdoms in India by as early as 1366. From then on the employment of gunpowder warfare in India was prevalent, with events such as the "Siege of Belgaum" in 1473 by Sultan Muhammad Shah Bahmani.


title: Gunpowder

text: The shipwrecked Ottoman Admiral Seydi Ali Reis is known to have introduced the earliest type of matchlock weapons, which the Ottomans used against the Portuguese during the Siege of Diu (1531). After that, a diverse variety of firearms, large guns in particular, became visible in Tanjore, Dacca, Bijapur, and Murshidabad. Guns made of bronze were recovered from Calicut (1504)- the former capital of the Zamorins


title: Gunpowder

text: The Mughal emperor Akbar mass-produced matchlocks for the Mughal Army. Akbar is personally known to have shot a leading Rajput commander during the Siege of Chittorgarh. The Mughals began to use bamboo rockets (mainly for signalling) and employ sappers: special units that undermined heavy stone fortifications to plant gunpowder charges.


title: Gunpowder

text: The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan is known to have introduced much more advanced matchlocks, their designs were a combination of Ottoman and Mughal designs. Shah Jahan also countered the British and other Europeans in his province of Gujarāt, which supplied Europe saltpeter for use in gunpowder warfare during the 17th century. Bengal and Mālwa participated in saltpeter production. The Dutch, French, Portuguese, and English used Chhapra as a center of saltpeter refining.


title: Gunpowder

text: Ever since the founding of the Sultanate of Mysore by Hyder Ali, French military officers were employed to train the Mysore Army. Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan were the first to introduce modern cannons and muskets, their army was also the first in India to have official uniforms. During the Second Anglo-Mysore War Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan unleashed the Mysorean rockets at their British opponents effectively defeating them on various occasions. The Mysorean rockets inspired the development of the Congreve rocket, which the British widely used during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.


title: Gunpowder

text: Cannons were introduced to Majapahit when Kublai Khan's Chinese army under the leadership of Ike Mese sought to invade Java in 1293. History of Yuan mentioned that the Mongol used cannons (Chinese: 炮—"Pào") against Daha forces. Cannons were used by the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1352 during its invasion of the Khmer Empire. Within a decade large quantities of gunpowder could be found in the Khmer Empire. By the end of the century firearms were also used by the Trần dynasty.


title: Gunpowder

text: Even though the knowledge of making gunpowder-based weapon has been known after the failed Mongol invasion of Java, and the predecessor of firearms, the pole gun (bedil tombak), was recorded as being used by Java in 1413, the knowledge of making "true" firearms came much later, after the middle of the 15th century. It was brought by the Islamic nations of West Asia, most probably the Arabs. The precise year of introduction is unknown, but it may be safely concluded to be no earlier than 1460. Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia, the natives already possessed primitive firearms, the Java arquebus. Portuguese influence to local weaponry after the capture of Malacca (1511) resulted in a new type of hybrid tradition matchlock firearm, the istinggar.


title: Gunpowder

text: Portuguese and Spanish invaders were unpleasantly surprised and even outgunned on occasion. Circa 1540, the Javanese, always alert for new weapons found the newly arrived Portuguese weaponry superior to that of the locally made variants. Majapahit-era cetbang cannons were further improved and used in the Demak Sultanate period during the Demak invasion of Portuguese Malacca. During this period, the iron for manufacturing Javanese cannons was imported from Khorasan in northern Persia. The material was known by Javanese as "wesi kurasani" (Khorasan iron). When the Portuguese came to the archipelago, they referred to it as "berço", which was also used to refer to any breech-loading swivel gun, while the Spaniards call it "verso". By the early 16th century, the Javanese already locally-producing large guns, some of them still survived until the present day and dubbed as "sacred cannon" or "holy cannon". These cannons varied between 180- to 260-pounders, weighing anywhere between 3–8 tons, length of them between 3–6 m.


title: Gunpowder

text: Saltpeter harvesting was recorded by Dutch and German travelers as being common in even the smallest villages and was collected from the decomposition process of large dung hills specifically piled for the purpose. The Dutch punishment for possession of non-permitted gunpowder appears to have been amputation. Ownership and manufacture of gunpowder was later prohibited by the colonial Dutch occupiers. According to colonel McKenzie quoted in Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles', "The History of Java" (1817), the purest sulfur was supplied from a crater from a mountain near the straits of Bali.


title: Gunpowder

text: On the origins of gunpowder technology, historian Tonio Andrade remarked, "Scholars today overwhelmingly concur that the gun was invented in China." Gunpowder and the gun are widely believed by historians to have originated from China due to the large body of evidence that documents the evolution of gunpowder from a medicine to an incendiary and explosive, and the evolution of the gun from the fire lance to a metal gun, whereas similar records do not exist elsewhere. As Andrade explains, the large amount of variation in gunpowder recipes in China relative to Europe is "evidence of experimentation in China, where gunpowder was at first used as an incendiary and only later became an explosive and a propellant... in contrast, formulas in Europe diverged only very slightly from the ideal proportions for use as an explosive and a propellant, suggesting that gunpowder was introduced as a mature technology."


title: Gunpowder

text: However, the history of gunpowder is not without controversy. A major problem confronting the study of early gunpowder history is ready access to sources close to the events described. Often the first records potentially describing use of gunpowder in warfare were written several centuries after the fact, and may well have been colored by the contemporary experiences of the chronicler. Translation difficulties have led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence. Ambiguous language can make it difficult to distinguish gunpowder weapons from similar technologies that do not rely on gunpowder. A commonly cited example is a report of the Battle of Mohi in Eastern Europe that mentions a "long lance" sending forth "evil-smelling vapors and smoke", which has been variously interpreted by different historians as the "first-gas attack upon European soil" using gunpowder, "the first use of cannon in Europe", or merely a "toxic gas" with no evidence of gunpowder. It is difficult to accurately translate original Chinese alchemical texts, which tend to explain phenomena through metaphor, into modern scientific language with rigidly defined terminology in English. Early texts potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where semantic change occurred. For instance, the Arabic word "naft" transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, and the Chinese word "pào" changed in meaning from trebuchet to a cannon. This has led to arguments on the exact origins of gunpowder based on etymological foundations. Science and technology historian Bert S. Hall makes the observation that, "It goes without saying, however, that historians bent on special pleading, or simply with axes of their own to grind, can find rich material in these terminological thickets."


title: Gunpowder

text: Another major area of contention in modern studies of the history of gunpowder is regarding the transmission of gunpowder. While the literary and archaeological evidence supports a Chinese origin for gunpowder and guns, the manner in which gunpowder technology was transferred from China to the West is still under debate. It is unknown why the rapid spread of gunpowder technology across Eurasia took place over several decades whereas other technologies such as paper, the compass, and printing did not reach Europe until centuries after they were invented in China.


title: Gunpowder

text: Potassium nitrate is the most important ingredient in terms of both bulk and function because the combustion process releases oxygen from the potassium nitrate, promoting the rapid burning of the other ingredients. To reduce the likelihood of accidental ignition by static electricity, the granules of modern gunpowder are typically coated with graphite, which prevents the build-up of electrostatic charge.


title: Gunpowder

text: Charcoal does not consist of pure carbon; rather, it consists of partially pyrolyzed cellulose, in which the wood is not completely decomposed. Carbon differs from ordinary charcoal. Whereas charcoal's autoignition temperature is relatively low, carbon's is much greater. Thus, a gunpowder composition containing pure carbon would burn similarly to a match head, at best.


title: Gunpowder

text: The current standard composition for the gunpowder manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur. These ratios have varied over the centuries and by country, and can be altered somewhat depending on the purpose of the powder. For instance, power grades of black powder, unsuitable for use in firearms but adequate for blasting rock in quarrying operations, are called blasting powder rather than gunpowder with standard proportions of 70% nitrate, 14% charcoal, and 16% sulfur; blasting powder may be made with the cheaper sodium nitrate substituted for potassium nitrate and proportions may be as low as 40% nitrate, 30% charcoal, and 30% sulfur. In 1857, Lammot du Pont solved the main problem of using cheaper sodium nitrate formulations when he patented DuPont "B" blasting powder. After manufacturing grains from press-cake in the usual way, his process tumbled the powder with graphite dust for 12 hours. This formed a graphite coating on each grain that reduced its ability to absorb moisture.


title: Gunpowder

text: Neither the use of graphite nor sodium nitrate was new. Glossing gunpowder corns with graphite was already an accepted technique in 1839, and sodium nitrate-based blasting powder had been made in Peru for many years using the sodium nitrate mined at Tarapacá (now in Chile). Also, in 1846, two plants were built in south-west England to make blasting powder using this sodium nitrate. The idea may well have been brought from Peru by Cornish miners returning home after completing their contracts. Another suggestion is that it was William Lobb, the plant collector, who recognised the possibilities of sodium nitrate during his travels in South America. Lammot du Pont would have known about the use of graphite and probably also knew about the plants in south-west England. In his patent he was careful to state that his claim was for the combination of graphite with sodium nitrate-based powder, rather than for either of the two individual technologies.


title: Gunpowder

text: French war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 12.5% charcoal, 12.5% sulfur. English war powder in 1879 used the ratio 75% saltpeter, 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur. The British Congreve rockets used 62.4% saltpeter, 23.2% charcoal and 14.4% sulfur, but the British Mark VII gunpowder was changed to 65% saltpeter, 20% charcoal and 15% sulfur. The explanation for the wide variety in formulation relates to usage. Powder used for rocketry can use a slower burn rate since it accelerates the projectile for a much longer time—whereas powders for weapons such as flintlocks, cap-locks, or matchlocks need a higher burn rate to accelerate the projectile in a much shorter distance. Cannons usually used lower burn-rate powders, because most would burst with higher burn-rate powders.


title: Gunpowder

text: Besides black powder, there are other historically important types of gunpowder. "Brown gunpowder" is cited as composed of 79% nitre, 3% sulfur, and 18% charcoal per 100 of dry powder, with about 2% moisture. Prismatic Brown Powder is a large-grained product the Rottweil Company introduced in 1884 in Germany, which was adopted by the British Royal Navy shortly thereafter. The French navy adopted a fine, 3.1 millimeter, not prismatic grained product called "Slow Burning Cocoa" (SBC) or "cocoa powder". These brown powders reduced burning rate even further by using as little as 2 percent sulfur and using charcoal made from rye straw that had not been completely charred, hence the brown color.


title: Gunpowder

text: Lesmok powder was a product developed by DuPont in 1911, one of several semi-smokeless products in the industry containing a mixture of black and nitrocellulose powder. It was sold to Winchester and others primarily for .22 and .32 small calibers. Its advantage was that it was believed at the time to be less corrosive than smokeless powders then in use. It was not understood in the U.S. until the 1920s that the actual source of corrosion was the potassium chloride residue from potassium chlorate sensitized primers. The bulkier black powder fouling better disperses primer residue. Failure to mitigate primer corrosion by dispersion caused the false impression that nitrocellulose-based powder caused corrosion. Lesmok had some of the bulk of black powder for dispersing primer residue, but somewhat less total bulk than straight black powder, thus requiring less frequent bore cleaning. It was last sold by Winchester in 1947.


title: Gunpowder

text: The development of smokeless powders, such as cordite, in the late 19th century created the need for a spark-sensitive priming charge, such as gunpowder. However, the sulfur content of traditional gunpowders caused corrosion problems with Cordite Mk I and this led to the introduction of a range of sulfur-free gunpowders, of varying grain sizes. They typically contain 70.5 parts of saltpeter and 29.5 parts of charcoal. Like black powder, they were produced in different grain sizes. In the United Kingdom, the finest grain was known as "sulfur-free mealed powder" ("SMP"). Coarser grains were numbered as sulfur-free gunpowder (SFG n): 'SFG 12', 'SFG 20', 'SFG 40' and 'SFG 90', for example; where the number represents the smallest BSS sieve mesh size, which retained no grains.


title: Gunpowder

text: Sulfur's main role in gunpowder is to decrease the ignition temperature. A sample reaction for sulfur-free gunpowder would be:


title: Gunpowder

text: The term "black powder" was coined in the late 19th century, primarily in the United States, to distinguish prior gunpowder formulations from the new smokeless powders and semi-smokeless powders. Semi-smokeless powders featured bulk volume properties that approximated black powder, but had significantly reduced amounts of smoke and combustion products. Smokeless powder has different burning properties (pressure vs. time) and can generate higher pressures and work per gram. This can rupture older weapons designed for black powder. Smokeless powders ranged in color from brownish tan to yellow to white. Most of the bulk semi-smokeless powders ceased to be manufactured in the 1920s.


title: Gunpowder

text: The original dry-compounded powder used in 15th-century Europe was known as "Serpentine", either a reference to Satan or to a common artillery piece that used it. The ingredients were ground


title: Gunpowder

text: together with a mortar and pestle, perhaps for 24 hours, resulting in a fine flour. Vibration during transportation could cause the components to separate again, requiring remixing in the field. Also if the quality of the saltpeter was low (for instance if it was contaminated with highly hygroscopic calcium nitrate), or if the powder was simply old (due to the mildly hygroscopic nature of potassium nitrate), in humid weather it would need to be re-dried. The dust from "repairing" powder in the field was a major hazard.


title: Gunpowder

text: Loading cannons or bombards before the powder-making advances of the Renaissance was a skilled art. Fine powder loaded haphazardly or too tightly would burn incompletely or too slowly. Typically, the breech-loading powder chamber in the rear of the piece was filled only about half full, the serpentine powder neither too compressed nor too loose, a wooden bung pounded in to seal the chamber from the barrel when assembled, and the projectile placed on. A carefully determined empty space was necessary for the charge to burn effectively. When the cannon was fired through the touchhole, turbulence from the initial surface combustion caused the rest of the powder to be rapidly exposed to the flame.


title: Gunpowder

text: The advent of much more powerful and easy to use "corned" powder changed this procedure, but serpentine was used with older guns into the 17th century.


title: Gunpowder

text: For propellants to oxidize and burn rapidly and effectively, the combustible ingredients must be reduced to the smallest possible particle sizes, and be as thoroughly mixed as possible. Once mixed, however, for better results in a gun, makers discovered that the final product should be in the form of individual dense grains that spread the fire quickly from grain to grain, much as straw or twigs catch fire more quickly than a pile of sawdust.


title: Gunpowder

text: In late 14th century Europe and China, gunpowder was improved by wet grinding; liquid, such as distilled spirits was added during the grinding-together of the ingredients and the moist paste dried afterwards. The principle of wet mixing to prevent the separation of dry ingredients, invented for gunpowder, is used today in the pharmaceutical industry. It was discovered that if the paste was rolled into balls before drying the resulting gunpowder absorbed less water from the air during storage and traveled better. The balls were then crushed in a mortar by the gunner immediately before use, with the old problem of uneven particle size and packing causing unpredictable results. If the right size particles were chosen, however, the result was a great improvement in power. Forming the damp paste into "corn"-sized clumps by hand or with the use of a sieve instead of larger balls produced a product after drying that loaded much better, as each tiny piece provided its own surrounding air space that allowed much more rapid combustion than a fine powder. This "corned" gunpowder was from 30% to 300% more powerful. An example is cited where of serpentine was needed to shoot a ball, but only of corned powder.


title: Gunpowder

text: Because the dry powdered ingredients must be mixed and bonded together for extrusion and cut into grains to maintain the blend, size reduction and mixing is done while the ingredients are damp, usually with water. After 1800, instead of forming grains by hand or with sieves, the damp "mill-cake" was pressed in molds to increase its density and extract the liquid, forming "press-cake". The pressing took varying amounts of time, depending on conditions such as atmospheric humidity. The hard, dense product was broken again into tiny pieces, which were separated with sieves to produce a uniform product for each purpose: coarse powders for cannons, finer grained powders for muskets, and the finest for small hand guns and priming. Inappropriately fine-grained powder often caused cannons to burst before the projectile could move down the barrel, due to the high initial spike in pressure. "Mammoth" powder with large grains, made for Rodman's 15-inch cannon, reduced the pressure to only 20 percent as high as ordinary cannon powder would have produced.


title: Gunpowder

text: In the mid-19th century, measurements were made determining that the burning rate within a grain of black powder (or a tightly packed mass) is about 6 cm/s (0.20 feet/s), while the rate of ignition propagation from grain to grain is around 9 m/s (30 feet/s), over two orders of magnitude faster.


title: Gunpowder

text: Modern corning first compresses the fine black powder meal into blocks with a fixed density (1.7 g/cm). In the United States, gunpowder grains were designated F (for fine) or C (for coarse). Grain diameter decreased with a larger number of Fs and increased with a larger number of Cs, ranging from about for 7F to for 7C. Even larger grains were produced for artillery bore diameters greater than about . The standard DuPont "Mammoth" powder developed by Thomas Rodman and Lammot du Pont for use during the American Civil War had grains averaging in diameter with edges rounded in a glazing barrel. Other versions had grains the size of golf and tennis balls for use in Rodman guns. In 1875 DuPont introduced "Hexagonal" powder for large artillery, which was pressed using shaped plates with a small center core—about diameter, like a wagon wheel nut, the center hole widened as the grain burned. By 1882 German makers also produced hexagonal grained powders of a similar size for artillery.


title: Gunpowder

text: By the late 19th century manufacturing focused on standard grades of black powder from Fg used in large bore rifles and shotguns, through FFg (medium and small-bore arms such as muskets and fusils), FFFg (small-bore rifles and pistols), and FFFFg (extreme small bore, short pistols and most commonly for priming flintlocks). A coarser grade for use in military artillery blanks was designated A-1. These grades were sorted on a system of screens with oversize retained on a mesh of 6 wires per inch, A-1 retained on 10 wires per inch, Fg retained on 14, FFg on 24, FFFg on 46, and FFFFg on 60. Fines designated FFFFFg were usually reprocessed to minimize explosive dust hazards. In the United Kingdom, the main service gunpowders were classified RFG (rifle grained fine) with diameter of one or two millimeters and RLG (rifle grained large) for grain diameters between two and six millimeters. Gunpowder grains can alternatively be categorized by mesh size: the BSS sieve mesh size, being the smallest mesh size, which retains no grains. Recognized grain sizes are Gunpowder G 7, G 20, G 40, and G 90.


title: Gunpowder

text: Owing to the large market of antique and replica black-powder firearms in the US, modern black powder substitutes like Pyrodex, Triple Seven and Black Mag3 pellets have been developed since the 1970s. These products, which should not be confused with smokeless powders, aim to produce less fouling (solid residue), while maintaining the traditional volumetric measurement system for charges. Claims of less corrosiveness of these products have been controversial however. New cleaning products for black-powder guns have also been developed for this market.


title: Gunpowder

text: The exact percentages of ingredients varied greatly through the medieval period as the recipes were developed by trial and error, and needed to be updated for changing military technology.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder does not burn as a single reaction, so the byproducts are not easily predicted. One study showed that it produced (in order of descending quantities) 55.91% solid products: potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, potassium sulfide, sulfur, potassium nitrate, potassium thiocyanate, carbon, ammonium carbonate and 42.98% gaseous products: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane, 1.11% water.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder made with less-expensive and more plentiful sodium nitrate instead of potassium nitrate (in appropriate proportions) works just as well. However, it is more hygroscopic than powders made from potassium nitrate. Muzzleloaders have been known to fire after hanging on a wall for decades in a loaded state, provided they remained dry. By contrast, gunpowder made with sodium nitrate must be kept sealed to remain stable.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder releases 3 megajoules per kilogram and contains its own oxidant. This is less than TNT (4.7 megajoules per kilogram), or gasoline (47.2 megajoules per kilogram in combustion, but gasoline requires an oxidant; for instance, an optimized gasoline and O mixture releases 10.4 megajoules per kilogram, taking into account the mass of the oxygen).


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder also has a low energy density compared to modern "smokeless" powders, and thus to achieve high energy loadings, large amounts are needed with heavy projectiles.


title: Gunpowder

text: For the most powerful black powder, meal powder, a wood charcoal, is used. The best wood for the purpose is Pacific willow, but others such as alder or buckthorn can be used. In Great Britain between the 15th and 19th centuries charcoal from alder buckthorn was greatly prized for gunpowder manufacture; cottonwood was used by the American Confederate States. The ingredients are reduced in particle size and mixed as intimately as possible. Originally, this was with a mortar-and-pestle or a similarly operating stamping-mill, using copper, bronze or other non-sparking materials, until supplanted by the rotating ball mill principle with non-sparking bronze or lead. Historically, a marble or limestone edge runner mill, running on a limestone bed, was used in Great Britain; however, by the mid 19th century this had changed to either an iron-shod stone wheel or a cast iron wheel running on an iron bed. The mix was dampened with alcohol or water during grinding to prevent accidental ignition. This also helps the extremely soluble saltpeter to mix into the microscopic pores of the very high surface-area charcoal.


title: Gunpowder

text: Around the late 14th century, European powdermakers first began adding liquid during grinding to improve mixing, reduce dust, and with it the risk of explosion. The powder-makers would then shape the resulting paste of dampened gunpowder, known as mill cake, into corns, or grains, to dry. Not only did corned powder keep better because of its reduced surface area, gunners also found that it was more powerful and easier to load into guns. Before long, powder-makers standardized the process by forcing mill cake through sieves instead of corning powder by hand.


title: Gunpowder

text: The improvement was based on reducing the surface area of a higher density composition. At the beginning of the 19th century, makers increased density further by static pressing. They shoveled damp mill cake into a two-foot square box, placed this beneath a screw press and reduced it to half its volume. "Press cake" had the hardness of slate. They broke the dried slabs with hammers or rollers, and sorted the granules with sieves into different grades. In the United States, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, who had learned the trade from Lavoisier, tumbled the dried grains in rotating barrels to round the edges and increase durability during shipping and handling. (Sharp grains rounded off in transport, producing fine "meal dust" that changed the burning properties.)


title: Gunpowder

text: Another advance was the manufacture of kiln charcoal by distilling wood in heated iron retorts instead of burning it in earthen pits. Controlling the temperature influenced the power and consistency of the finished gunpowder. In 1863, in response to high prices for Indian saltpeter, DuPont chemists developed a process using potash or mined potassium chloride to convert plentiful Chilean sodium nitrate to potassium nitrate.


title: Gunpowder

text: The following year (1864) the Gatebeck Low Gunpowder Works in Cumbria (Great Britain) started a plant to manufacture potassium nitrate by essentially the same chemical process. This is nowadays called the 'Wakefield Process', after the owners of the company. It would have used potassium chloride from the Staßfurt mines, near Magdeburg, Germany, which had recently become available in industrial quantities.


title: Gunpowder

text: During the 18th century, gunpowder factories became increasingly dependent on mechanical energy. Despite mechanization, production difficulties related to humidity control, especially during the pressing, were still present in the late 19th century. A paper from 1885 laments that "Gunpowder is such a nervous and sensitive spirit, that in almost every process of manufacture it changes under our hands as the weather changes." Pressing times to the desired density could vary by a factor of three depending on the atmospheric humidity.


title: Gunpowder

text: The United Nations Model Regulations on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods and national transportation authorities, such as United States Department of Transportation, have classified gunpowder (black powder) as a "Group A: Primary explosive substance" for shipment because it ignites so easily. Complete manufactured devices containing black powder are usually classified as "Group D: Secondary detonating substance, or black powder, or article containing secondary detonating substance", such as firework, class D model rocket engine, etc., for shipment because they are harder to ignite than loose powder. As explosives, they all fall into the category of Class 1 .


title: Gunpowder

text: Besides its use as a propellant in firearms and artillery, black powder's other main use has been as a blasting powder in quarrying, mining, and road construction (including railroad construction). During the 19th century, outside of war emergencies such as the Crimean War or the American Civil War, more black powder was used in these industrial uses than in firearms and artillery. Dynamite gradually replaced it for those uses. Today, industrial explosives for such uses are still a huge market, but most of the market is in newer explosives rather than black powder.


title: Gunpowder

text: Beginning in the 1930s, gunpowder or smokeless powder was used in rivet guns, stun guns for animals, cable splicers and other industrial construction tools. The "stud gun", a powder-actuated tool, drove nails or screws into solid concrete, a function not possible with hydraulic tools, and today is still an important part of various industries, but the cartridges usually use smokeless powders. Industrial shotguns have been used to eliminate persistent material rings in operating rotary kilns (such as those for cement, lime, phosphate, etc.) and clinker in operating furnaces, and commercial tools make the method more reliable.


title: Gunpowder

text: Gunpowder has occasionally been employed for other purposes besides weapons, mining, fireworks and construction:


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the "Earthsea" fantasy series. She was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, to author Theodora Kroeber and anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber. Having earned a master's degree in French, Le Guin began doctoral studies but abandoned these after her marriage in 1953 to historian Charles Le Guin. She began writing full-time in the late 1950s and achieved major critical and commercial success with "A Wizard of Earthsea" (1968) and "The Left Hand of Darkness" (1969), which have been described by Harold Bloom as her masterpieces. For the latter volume, Le Guin won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, becoming the first woman to do so. Several more works set in Earthsea or the Hainish universe followed; others included books set in the fictional country of Orsinia, several works for children, and many anthologies.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Cultural anthropology, Taoism, feminism, and the writings of Carl Jung all had a strong influence on Le Guin's work. Many of her stories used anthropologists or cultural observers as protagonists, and Taoist ideas about balance and equilibrium have been identified in several writings. Le Guin often subverted typical speculative fiction tropes, such as through her use of dark-skinned protagonists in Earthsea, and also used unusual stylistic or structural devices in books such as the experimental work "Always Coming Home" (1985). Social and political themes, including race, gender, sexuality, and coming of age were prominent in her writing. She explored alternative political structures in many stories, such as in the philosophical short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973) and the anarchist utopian novel "The Dispossessed" (1974).


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin's writing was enormously influential in the field of speculative fiction, and has been the subject of intense critical attention. She received numerous accolades, including eight Hugos, six Nebulas, and twenty-two Locus Awards, and in 2003 became the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The U.S. Library of Congress named her a Living Legend in 2000, and in 2014, she won the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin influenced many other authors, including Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, Neil Gaiman, and Iain Banks. After her death in 2018, critic John Clute wrote that Le Guin had "presided over American science fiction for nearly half a century", while author Michael Chabon referred to her as the "greatest American writer of her generation".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California, on October 21, 1929. Her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber, was an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Le Guin's mother, Theodora Kroeber (born Theodora Covel Kracaw), had a graduate degree in psychology, but turned to writing in her sixties, developing a successful career as an author. Among her works was "Ishi in Two Worlds" (1961), a biographical volume about Ishi, an Indigenous American who became the last known member of the Yahi tribe after the rest of its members were killed by white colonizers.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin had three older brothers: Karl, who became a literary scholar, Theodore, and Clifton. The family had a large book collection, and the siblings all became interested in reading while they were young. The Kroeber family had a number of visitors, including well-known academics such as Robert Oppenheimer; Le Guin would later use Oppenheimer as the model for Shevek, the physicist protagonist of "The Dispossessed". The family divided its time between a summer home in the Napa Valley, and a house in Berkeley during the academic year.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin's reading included science fiction and fantasy: she and her siblings frequently read issues of "Thrilling Wonder Stories" and "Astounding Science Fiction". She was fond of myths and legends, particularly Norse mythology, and of Native American legends that her father would narrate. Other authors she enjoyed were Lord Dunsany and Lewis Padgett. Le Guin also developed an early interest in writing; she wrote a short story when she was nine, and submitted her first short story to "Astounding Science Fiction" when she was eleven. The piece was rejected, and she did not submit anything else for another ten years.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin attended Berkeley High School. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1951, and graduated as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. As a child she had been interested in biology and poetry, but had been limited in her choice of career by her difficulties with mathematics. Le Guin undertook graduate studies at Columbia University, and earned a Master of Arts degree in French in 1952. Soon after, she began working towards a PhD, and won a Fulbright grant to continue her studies in France from 1953 to 1954.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: In 1953, while traveling to France aboard the "Queen Mary", Ursula met historian Charles Le Guin. They married in Paris in December 1953. According to Le Guin, the marriage signaled the "end of the doctorate" for her. While her husband finished his doctorate at Emory University in Georgia, and later at the University of Idaho, Le Guin taught French and worked as a secretary until the birth of her daughter Elisabeth in 1957. A second daughter, Caroline, was born in 1959. Also in that year, Charles became an instructor in history at Portland State University, and the couple moved to Portland, Oregon, where their son Theodore was born in 1964. They would live in Portland for the rest of their lives, although Le Guin received further Fulbright grants to travel to London in 1968 and 1975.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin's writing career began in the late 1950s, but the time she spent caring for her children constrained her writing schedule. She would continue writing and publishing for nearly 60 years. She also worked as an editor, and taught undergraduate classes. She served on the editorial boards of the journals "Paradoxa" and "Science Fiction Studies", in addition to writing literary criticism herself. She taught courses at Tulane University, Bennington College, and Stanford University, among others. In May 1983 she delivered a commencement speech entitled "A Left-handed Commencement Address" at Mills College in Oakland, California. It is listed as in "American Rhetoric"s Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century, and was included in her nonfiction collection "Dancing at the Edge of the World".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin died on January 22, 2018, at her home in Portland, at the age of 88. Her son said that she had been in poor health for several months, and stated that it was likely she had had a heart attack. Private memorial services for her were held in Portland. A public memorial service, which included speeches by the writers Margaret Atwood, Molly Gloss, and Walidah Imarisha, was held in Portland on June 13, 2018.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin refused a Nebula Award for her story "The Diary of the Rose" in 1977, in protest at the Science Fiction Writers of America's revocation of Stanisław Lem's membership. Le Guin attributed the revocation to Lem's criticism of American science fiction and willingness to live in the Eastern Bloc, and said she felt reluctant to receive an award "for a story about political intolerance from a group that had just displayed political intolerance".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin once said she was "raised as irreligious as a jackrabbit". She expressed a deep interest in Taoism and Buddhism, saying that Taoism gave her a "handle on how to look at life" during her adolescent years. In 1997, she published a translation of the "Tao Te Ching."


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: In December 2009, Le Guin resigned from the Authors Guild in protest over its endorsement of Google's book digitization project. "You decided to deal with the devil", she wrote in her resignation letter. "There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle." In a speech at the 2014 National Book Awards, Le Guin criticized Amazon and the control it exerted over the publishing industry, specifically referencing Amazon's treatment of the Hachette Book Group during a dispute over ebook publication. Her speech received widespread media attention within and outside the US, and was broadcast twice by National Public Radio.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin's first published work was the poem "Folksong from the Montayna Province" in 1959, while her first published short story was "An die Musik", in 1961; both were set in her fictional country of Orsinia. Between 1951 and 1961 she also wrote five novels, all set in Orsinia, which were rejected by publishers on the grounds that they were inaccessible. Some of her poetry from this period was published in 1975 in the volume "Wild Angels". Le Guin turned her attention to science fiction after a lengthy period of receiving rejections from publishers, knowing that there was a market for writing that could be readily classified as such. Her first professional publication was the short story "April in Paris" in 1962 in "Fantastic Science Fiction", and seven other stories followed in the next few years, in "Fantastic" or "Amazing Stories". Among them were "The Dowry of Angyar", which introduced the fictional Hainish universe, and "The Rule of Names" and "The Word of Unbinding", which introduced the world of Earthsea. These stories were largely ignored by critics.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Ace Books released "Rocannon's World", Le Guin's first published novel, in 1966. Two more Hainish novels, "Planet of Exile" and "City of Illusions" were published in 1966 and 1967, respectively, and the three books together would come to be known as the Hainish trilogy. The first two were each published as half of an "Ace Double": two novels bound into a paperback and sold as a single low-cost volume. "City of Illusions" was published as a standalone volume, indicating Le Guin's growing name recognition. These books received more critical attention than Le Guin's short stories, with reviews being published in several science fiction magazines, but the critical response was still muted. The books contained many themes and ideas also present in Le Guin's better known later works, including the "archetypal journey" of a protagonist who undertakes both a physical journey and one of self-discovery, cultural contact and communication, the search for identity, and the reconciliation of opposing forces.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: When publishing her story "Nine Lives" in 1968, "Playboy" magazine asked Le Guin whether they could run the story without her full first name, to which Le Guin agreed: the story was published under the name "U. K. Le Guin". She later wrote that it was the first and only time she had experienced prejudice against her as a woman writer from an editor or publisher, and reflected that "it seemed so silly, so grotesque, that I failed to see that it was also important." In subsequent printings, the story was published under her full name.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin's next two books brought her sudden and widespread critical acclaim. "A Wizard of Earthsea", published in 1968, was a fantasy novel written initially for teenagers. Le Guin had not planned to write for young adults, but was asked to write a novel targeted at this group by the editor of Parnassus Press, who saw it as a market with great potential. A coming of age story set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea, the book received a positive reception in both the U.S. and Britain.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Her next novel, "The Left Hand of Darkness", was a Hainish universe story exploring themes of gender and sexuality on a fictional planet where humans have no fixed sex. The book was Le Guin's first to address feminist issues, and according to scholar Donna White, it "stunned the science fiction critics"; it won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best novel, making Le Guin the first woman to win these awards, and a number of other accolades. "A Wizard of Earthsea" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" have been described by critic Harold Bloom as Le Guin's masterpieces. She won the Hugo Award again in 1973 for "The Word for World is Forest". The book was influenced by Le Guin's anger over the Vietnam War, and explored themes of colonialism and militarism: Le Guin later described it as the "most overt political statement" she had made in a fictional work.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin continued to develop themes of equilibrium and coming-of-age in the next two installments of the "Earthsea" series, "The Tombs of Atuan" and "The Farthest Shore", published in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Both books were praised for their writing, while the exploration of death as a theme in "The Farthest Shore" also drew praise. Her 1974 novel "The Dispossessed" again won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best novel, making her the first person to win both awards for each of two books. Also set in the Hainish universe, the story explored anarchism and utopianism. Scholar Charlotte Spivack described it as representing a shift in Le Guin's science fiction towards discussing political ideas. Several of her speculative fiction short stories from the period, including her first published story, were later anthologized in the 1975 collection "The Wind's Twelve Quarters". The fiction of the period 1966 to 1974, which also included "The Lathe of Heaven", the Hugo Award-winning "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" and the Nebula Award-winning "The Day Before the Revolution", constitutes Le Guin's best-known body of work.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin published a variety of work in the second half of the 1970s. This included speculative fiction in the form of the novel "The Eye of the Heron", which, according to Le Guin, may be a part of the Hainish universe. She also published "Very Far Away from Anywhere Else", a realistic novel for adolescents, as well as the collection "Orsinian Tales" and the novel "Malafrena" in 1976 and 1979, respectively. Though the latter two were set in the fictional country of Orsinia, the stories were realistic fiction rather than fantasy or science fiction. "The Language of the Night", a collection of essays, was released in 1979, and Le Guin also published "Wild Angels", a volume of poetry, in 1975.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Between 1979, when she published "Malafrena", and 1994, when the collection "A Fisherman of the Inland Sea" was released, Le Guin wrote primarily for a younger audience. In 1985 she published the experimental work "Always Coming Home". She wrote 11 children's picture books, including the "Catwings" series, between 1979 and 1994, along with "The Beginning Place", an adolescent fantasy novel, released in 1980. Four more poetry collections were also published in this period, all of which were positively received. She also revisited Earthsea, publishing "Tehanu" in 1990: coming eighteen years after "The Farthest Shore", during which Le Guin's views had developed considerably, the book was grimmer in tone than the earlier works in the series, and challenged some ideas presented therein. It received critical praise, won Le Guin a third Nebula Award for Best Novel, and led to the series being recognized among adult literature.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin returned to the Hainish Cycle in the 1990s after a lengthy hiatus with the publication of a series of short stories, beginning with "The Shobies' Story" in 1990. These stories included "Coming of Age in Karhide" (1995), which explored growing into adulthood and was set on the same planet as "The Left Hand of Darkness". It was described by scholar Sandra Lindow as "so transgressively sexual and so morally courageous" that Le Guin "could not have written it in the '60s". In the same year she published the story suite "Four Ways to Forgiveness", and followed it up with "Old Music and the Slave Women", a fifth, connected, story in 1999. All five of the stories explored freedom and rebellion within a slave society. In 2000 she published "The Telling", which would be her final Hainish novel, and the next year released "Tales from Earthsea" and "The Other Wind", the last two "Earthsea" books. The latter won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2002.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: From 2002 onwards several collections and anthologies of Le Guin's work were published. A series of her stories from the period 1994–2002 was released in 2002 in the collection "The Birthday of the World and Other Stories", along with the novella "Paradises Lost". The volume examined unconventional ideas about gender, as well as anarchist themes. Other collections included "Changing Planes", also released in 2002, while the anthologies included "The Unreal and the Real" (2012), and "The Hainish Novels and Stories", a two-volume set of works from the Hainish universe released by the Library of America.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Other works from this period included "Lavinia" (2008), based on a character from Virgil's "Aeneid", and the "Annals of the Western Shore" trilogy, consisting of "Gifts" (2004), "Voices" (2006), and "Powers" (2007). Although "Annals of the Western Shore" was written for an adolescent audience, the third volume, "Powers", received the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2009. In her final years, Le Guin largely turned away from fiction, and produced a number of essays, poems, and some translation. Her final publications included the non-fiction collections "Dreams Must Explain Themselves" and "Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing", and the poetry volume "So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014–2018", all of which were released after her death.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin read both classic and speculative fiction widely in her youth. She later said that science fiction did not have much impact on her until she read the works of Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith, and that she had sneered at the genre as a child. Authors Le Guin describes as influential include Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Boris Pasternak, and Philip K. Dick. Le Guin and Dick attended the same high-school, but did not know each other; Le Guin later described her novel "The Lathe of Heaven" as an homage to him. She also considered J. R. R. Tolkien and Leo Tolstoy to be stylistic influences, and preferred reading Virginia Woolf and Jorge Luis Borges to well-known science-fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein, whose writing she described as being of the "white man conquers the universe" tradition. Several scholars state that the influence of mythology, which Le Guin enjoyed reading as a child, is also visible in much of her work: for example, the short story "The Dowry of Angyar" is described as a retelling of a Norse myth.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: The discipline of cultural anthropology had a powerful influence on Le Guin's writing. Her father Alfred Kroeber is considered a pioneer in the field, and was a director of the University of California Museum of Anthropology: as a consequence of his research, Le Guin was exposed to anthropology and cultural exploration as a child. In addition to myths and legends, she read such volumes as "The Leaves of the Golden Bough" by Lady Frazer, a children's book adapted from "The Golden Bough", a study of myth and religion by her husband James George Frazer. She described living with her father's friends and acquaintances as giving her the experience of the other. The experiences of Ishi, in particular, were influential on Le Guin, and elements of his story have been identified in works such as "Planet of Exile", "City of Illusions", and "The Word for World Is Forest" and "The Dispossessed".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Several scholars have commented that Le Guin's writing was influenced by Carl Jung, and specifically by the idea of Jungian archetypes. In particular, the shadow in "A Wizard of Earthsea" is seen as the Shadow archetype from Jungian psychology, representing Ged's pride, fear, and desire for power. Le Guin discussed her interpretation of this archetype, and her interest in the dark and repressed parts of the psyche, in a 1974 lecture. She stated elsewhere that she had never read Jung before writing the first "Earthsea" books. Other archetypes, including the Mother, Animus, and Anima, have also been identified in Le Guin's writing.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Philosophical Taoism had a large role in Le Guin's world view, and the influence of Taoist thought can be seen in many of her stories. Many of Le Guin's protagonists, including in "The Lathe of Heaven", embody the Taoist ideal of leaving things alone. The anthropologists of the Hainish universe try not to meddle with the cultures they encounter, while one of the earliest lessons Ged learns in "A Wizard of Earthsea" is not to use magic unless it is absolutely necessary. Taoist influence is evident in Le Guin's depiction of equilibrium in the world of Earthsea: the archipelago is depicted as being based on a delicate balance, which is disrupted by somebody in each of the first three novels. This includes an equilibrium between land and sea, implicit in the name "Earthsea", between people and their natural environment, and a larger cosmic equilibrium, which wizards are tasked with maintaining. Another prominent Taoist idea is the reconciliation of opposites such as light and dark, or good and evil. A number of Hainish novels, "The Dispossessed" prominent among them, explored such a process of reconciliation. In the Earthsea universe, it is not the dark powers, but the characters' misunderstanding of the balance of life, that is depicted as evil, in contrast to conventional Western stories in which good and evil are in constant conflict.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Although Le Guin is primarily known for her works of speculative fiction, she also wrote realistic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and several other literary forms, and as a result her work is difficult to classify. Her writings received critical attention from mainstream critics, critics of children's literature, and critics of speculative fiction. Le Guin herself said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin's transgression of conventional boundaries of genre led to literary criticism of Le Guin becoming "Balkanized", particularly between scholars of children's literature and speculative fiction. Commentators have noted that the "Earthsea" novels specifically received less critical attention because they were considered children's books. Le Guin herself took exception to this treatment of children's literature, describing it as "adult chauvinist piggery". In 1976, literature scholar George Slusser criticized the "silly publication classification designating the original series as 'children's literature, while in Barbara Bucknall's opinion Le Guin "can be read, like Tolkien, by ten-year-olds and by adults. These stories are ageless because they deal with problems that confront us at any age."


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Several of her works have a premise drawn from sociology, psychology, or philosophy. As a result, Le Guin's writing is often described as "soft" science fiction, and she has been described as the "patron saint" of this sub-genre. A number of science fiction authors have objected to the term "soft science fiction", describing it as a potentially pejorative term used to dismiss stories not based on problems in physics, astronomy, or engineering, and also to target the writing of women or other groups under-represented in the genre. Le Guin suggested the term "social science fiction" for some of her writing, while pointing out that many of her stories were not science fiction at all. She argued that the term "soft science fiction" was divisive, and implied a narrow view of what constitutes valid science fiction.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: The influence of anthropology can be seen in the setting Le Guin chose for a number of her works. Several of her protagonists are anthropologists or ethnologists exploring a world alien to them. This is particularly true in the stories set in the Hainish universe, an alternative reality in which humans did not evolve on Earth, but on Hain. The Hainish subsequently colonized many planets, before losing contact with them, giving rise to varied but related biology and social structure. Examples include Rocannon in "Rocannon's World" and Genly Ai in "The Left Hand of Darkness". Other characters, such as Shevek in "The Dispossessed", become cultural observers in the course of their journeys on other planets. Le Guin's writing often examines alien cultures, and particularly the human cultures from planets other than Earth in the Hainish universe. In discovering these "alien" worlds, Le Guin's protagonists, and by extension the readers, also journey into themselves, and challenge the nature of what they consider "alien" and what they consider "native".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Several of Le Guin's works have featured stylistic or structural features that were unusual or subversive. The heterogeneous structure of "The Left Hand of Darkness", described as "distinctly post-modern", was unusual for the time of its publication. This was in marked contrast to the structure of (primarily male-authored) traditional science fiction, which was straightforward and linear. The novel was framed as part of a report sent to the Ekumen by the protagonist Genly Ai after his time on the planet Gethen, thus suggesting that Ai was selecting and ordering the material, consisting of personal narration, diary extracts, Gethenian myths, and ethnological reports. "Earthsea" also employed an unconventional narrative form described by scholar Mike Cadden as "free indirect discourse", in which the feelings of the protagonist are not directly separated from the narration, making the narrator seem sympathetic to the characters, and removing the skepticism towards a character's thoughts and emotions that are a feature of more direct narration. Cadden suggests that this method leads to younger readers sympathizing directly with the characters, making it an effective technique for young-adult literature.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: A number of Le Guin's writings, including the "Earthsea" series, challenged the conventions of epic fantasies and myths. Many of the protagonists in "Earthsea" were dark-skinned individuals, in comparison to the white-skinned heroes more traditionally used; some of the antagonists, in contrast, were white-skinned, a switching of race roles that has been remarked upon by multiple critics. In a 2001 interview, Le Guin attributed the frequent lack of character illustrations on her book covers to her choice of non-white protagonists. She explained this choice, saying: "most people in the world aren't white. Why in the future would we assume they are?" Her 1985 book "Always Coming Home", described as "her great experiment", included a story told from the perspective of a young protagonist, but also included poems, rough drawings of plants and animals, myths, and anthropological reports from the matriarchal society of the Kesh, a fictional people living in the Napa valley after a catastrophic global flood.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Gender and sexuality are prominent themes in a number of Le Guin's works. "The Left Hand of Darkness", published in 1969, was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction, and is the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, whose inhabitants are ambisexual humans with no fixed gender identity, who adopt female or male sexual characteristics for brief periods of their sexual cycle. Which sex they adopt can depend on context and relationships. Gethen was portrayed as a society without war, as a result of this absence of fixed gender characteristics, and also without sexuality as a continuous factor in social relationships. Gethenian culture was explored in the novel through the eyes of a Terran, whose masculinity proves a barrier to cross-cultural communication. Outside the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin's use of a female protagonist in "The Tombs of Atuan", published in 1971, was described as a "significant exploration of womanhood".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin's attitude towards gender and feminism evolved considerably over time. Although "The Left Hand of Darkness" was seen as a landmark exploration of gender, it also received criticism for not going far enough. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters, the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles, and the portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. Le Guin's portrayal of gender in "Earthsea" was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction", "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink". Le Guin initially defended her writing; in a 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she wrote that gender was secondary to the primary theme of loyalty in "The Left Hand of Darkness". Le Guin revisited this essay in 1988, and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her 1995 short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in a later reprinting of "Winter's King", which was first published in 1969. "Coming of Age in Karhide" was later anthologized in the 2002 collection "", which contained six other stories featuring unorthodox sexual relationships and marital arrangements. She also revisited gender relations in "Earthsea" in "Tehanu", published in 1990. This volume was described as a rewriting or reimagining of "The Tombs of Atuan", because the power and status of the female protagonist Tenar are the inverse of what they were in the earlier book, which was also focused on her and Ged. During this later period she commented that she considered "The Eye of the Heron", published in 1978, to be her first work genuinely centered on a woman.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Le Guin explores coming of age, and moral development more broadly, in many of her writings. This is particularly the case in those works written for a younger audience, such as "Earthsea" and "Annals of the Western Shore". Le Guin wrote in a 1973 essay that she chose to explore coming-of-age in "Earthsea" since she was writing for an adolescent audience: "Coming of age ... is a process that took me many years; I finished it, so far as I ever will, at about age thirty-one; and so I feel rather deeply about it. So do most adolescents. It's their main occupation, in fact." She also said that fantasy was best suited as a medium for describing coming of age, because exploring the subconscious was difficult using the language of "rational daily life".


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: The first three "Earthsea" novels together follow Ged from youth to old age, and each of them also follow the coming of age of a different character. "A Wizard of Earthsea" focuses on Ged's adolescence, while "The Tombs of Atuan" and "The Farthest Shore" explore that of Tenar and the prince Arren, respectively. "A Wizard of Earthsea" is frequently described as a "Bildungsroman", in which Ged's coming of age is intertwined with the physical journey he undertakes through the novel. To Mike Cadden the book was a convincing tale "to a reader as young and possibly as headstrong as Ged, and therefore sympathetic to him". Reviewers have described the ending of the novel, wherein Ged finally accepts the shadow as a part of himself, as a rite of passage. Scholar Jeanne Walker writes that the rite of passage at the end was an analogue for the entire plot of "A Wizard of Earthsea", and that the plot itself plays the role of a rite of passage for an adolescent reader.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Each volume of "Annals of the Western Shore" also describes the coming of age of its protagonists, and features explorations of being enslaved to one's own power. The process of growing up is depicted as seeing beyond narrow choices the protagonists are presented with by society. In "Gifts", Orrec and Gry realize that the powers their people possess can be used in two ways: for control and dominion, or for healing and nurturing. This recognition allows them to take a third choice, and leave. This wrestling with choice has been compared to the choices the characters are forced to make in Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". Similarly, Ged helps Tenar in "The Tombs of Atuan" to value herself and to find choices that she did not see, leading her to leave the Tombs with him.


title: Ursula K. Le Guin

text: Alternative social and political systems are a recurring theme in Le Guin's writing. Critics have paid particular attention to "The Dispossessed" and "Always Coming Home", although Le Guin explores related themes in a number of her works, such as in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". "The Dispossessed" is an anarchist utopian novel, which according to Le Guin drew from pacifist anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin, as well as from the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Le Guin has been credited with anarchism from the cultural ghetto to which it has been consigned", and helping to bring it into the intellectual mainstream. Fellow author Kathleen Ann Goonan wrote that Le Guin's work confronted the "paradigm of insularity toward the suffering of people, other living beings, and resources", and explored "life-respecting sustainable alternatives".