title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: The Yucatán Peninsula, in particular the capital city Mérida, is in a prime location which allows for economic growth. Mérida has been a popular location for investment. This, in turn, has allowed the Yucatán economy to grow at three times the rate of the national average.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: In addition, the World Bank Group's Ease of Doing Business Index ranked Mérida fourth nationally in the category of ease of starting a business.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: The city is home to important national and local research institutes, like the Yucatan Scientific Research Center ("Centro de Investigación Científica de Yucatán", CICY) of the National Council of Science and Technology ("Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología", Conacyt), a unit of the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute ("Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados", CINVESTAV Unidad Mérida), the Dr. Hideyo Noguchi Regional Research Center ("Centro de Investigaciones Regionales Dr. Hideyo Noguchi") of the Autonomous University of Yucatan (CIR-UADY), the Yucatán Science and Technology Park ("Parque Científico Tecnológico de Yucatán", PCYTY) and the Peninsular Center for Humanities and Social Sciences ("Centro Peninsular en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales", CEPHCIS) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Mérida has been nicknamed "The White City" ("La Ciudad Blanca"), though the exact origin of this moniker is not clear. Some explanations include the common color of its old buildings painted and decorated with "cal" or the fact that the residents keep the city particularly clean. Mérida was named after the Spanish town of the same name, originally (in Latin) "Augústa Emérita" (see Mérida, Spain). Mérida has served as the American Capital of Culture in the years 2000 and 2017.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: As the state and regional capital, Mérida is a cultural center, featuring multiple museums, art galleries, restaurants, movie theatres, and shops. Mérida retains an abundance of colonial buildings and is a cultural center with music and dancing playing an important part in day-to-day life. At the same time it is a modern city with a range of shopping malls, auto dealerships, hotels, restaurants, and leisure facilities. The famous avenue Paseo de Montejo is lined with original sculpture. Each year, the MACAY Museum in Mérida mounts a new sculpture installation, featuring works from Mexico and one other chosen country. Each exhibit remains for ten months of the year. In 2007, sculptures on Paseo de Montejo featured works by artists from Mexico and Japan.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Mérida and the state of Yucatán have traditionally been isolated from the rest of the country by geography, creating a unique culture. The conquistadors found the Mayan culture to be incredibly resilient, and their attempts to eradicate Mayan tradition, religion, and culture had only moderate success. The surviving remnants of the Mayan culture can be seen every day, in speech, dress, and in both written and oral histories. It is especially apparent in holidays like Hanal Pixan, a Mayan/Catholic Day of the Dead celebration. It falls on November 1 and 2 (one day for adults, and one for children) and is commemorated by elaborate altars dedicated to dead relatives. It is a compromise between the two religions with crucifixes mingled with skull decorations and food sacrifices/offerings. "Múkbil pollo" (pronounced/'mykβil pʰoʎoˀ/) is the Mayan tamal pie offered to the dead on All Saints' Day, traditionally accompanied by a cup of hot chocolate. Many Yucatecans enjoy eating this on and around the Day of the Dead. And, while complicated to make, they can be purchased and even shipped via air. ("Muk-bil" literally means "to put in the ground" or to cook in a "pib", an underground oven).


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: For English speakers or would-be speakers, Mérida has the Mérida English Library, a lending library with an extensive collection of English books, videos, tapes, and children's books. The library is also the site for expatriate meetings, children's storytelling hours, and other cultural events.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Mérida is also home to the Yucatán Symphony Orchestra, which plays regular seasons at the José Peón Contreras Theatre on Calle 60 and features classical music, jazz, and opera.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Yucatán food is its own unique style and is very different from what most people consider "Mexican" food. It includes influences from the local Mayan cuisine, as well as Caribbean, Mexican, European and Middle Eastern foods. Tropical fruit, such as coconut, pineapple, plum, tamarind and mamey are often used in Yucatán cuisine.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Achiote is a popular spice in the area. It is derived from the hard annatto seed found in the region. The whole seed is ground together with other spices and formed into a reddish seasoning paste, called "recado rojo". The other ingredients in the paste include cinnamon, allspice berries, cloves, Mexican oregano, cumin seed, sea salt, mild black peppercorns, apple cider vinegar, and garlic.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Hot sauce in Mérida is usually made from the indigenous chiles in the area which include: Chile Xcatik, Chile Seco de Yucatán, and Chile Habanero.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: The Spanish language spoken in the Yucatán is readily identifiable as different in comparison to the Spanish spoken all over the country, and even to non-native ears. It is heavily influenced by the Yucatec Maya language, which is spoken by a third of the population of the State of Yucatán. The Mayan language is melodic, filled with ejective consonants (p', k', and t') and "sh" sounds (represented by the letter "x" in the Mayan language). Even though many people speak Mayan, there is much stigma associated with it. It can be seen that elders were associated with higher status with knowledge of the language, but the younger generation saw more negative attitudes with knowledge of the language This was also in direct correlation with the socioeconomic status and their overall placement in society. There is also the idea that one is not speaking in the "correct" manner of legitimate Mayan dialect, which also causes for more differences in the accent and overall language of the area.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Due to being enclosed by the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and being somewhat isolated from the rest of Mexico, Yucatecan Spanish has also preserved many words that are no longer used in many other Spanish-speaking areas of the world. However, over the years with the improvement of transportation and technology with the presence of radio, internet, and TV, many elements of the culture and language of the rest of Mexico are now slowly but consistently permeating the culture.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Apart from the Mayan language, which is the mother-tongue of many Yucatecans, students now choose to learn a foreign language such as English, which is taught in most schools.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: City service is mostly provided by four local transportation companies: Unión de Camioneros de Yucatán (UCY), Alianza de Camioneros de Yucatán (ACY), Rápidos de Mérida, and Minis 2000. Bus transportation is at the same level or better than that of bigger cities like Guadalajara or Mexico City. Climate-controlled buses and micro-buses (smaller in size) are not uncommon.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: The main bus terminal (CAME) offers first-class (ADO) and luxury services (ADO PLATINO, ADO GL) to most southern Mexico cities outside Yucatán with a fleet consisting of Mercedes Benz and Volvo buses. Shorter intrastate routes are serviced by many smaller terminals around the city, mainly in downtown.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Several groups and unions offer taxi transportation: Frente Único de los Trabajadores del Volante (FUTV) (white taxis), Unión de Taxistas Independientes (UTI), and Radiotaxímetros de Yucatán, among others. Some of them offer metered service, but most work based on a flat rate depending on destination. Competition has made it of more common use than it was years ago.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Taxis can be either found at one of many predefined places around the city (Taxi de Sitio), waved down along the road, or called in by radio. Unlike the sophisticated RF counterparts in the US, a Civil Band radio is used and is equally effective. Usually a taxi will respond and arrive within 5 minutes.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Another type of taxi service is called "Colectivo". Colectivo taxis work like small buses on a predefined route and for a small fare. Usually accommodating 8 to 10 people.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Mérida is serviced by Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport with daily non-stop services to major cities in Mexico including Mexico City, Monterrey, Villahermosa, Cancún, Guadalajara, Tuxtla Gutierrez, and Toluca. The airport has international flights to Miami, Houston, La Havana and Toronto. more than 1 million passengers were using this airport every year, (1.3 in 2007). The airport is under ASUR administration.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: There is no longer passenger train service to the city. For a century Mérida was the hub an extensive narrow gauge railway network which was phased out in the late 20th century. The Yucatán and Campeche railway network was only connected to the rest of Mexico in 1950. Formerly the "Meridano" train ran from Mexico City to Mérida.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: The Tren Maya, under construction , would connect Cancún to Palenque, Chiapas with intermediate stops on the Yucatán peninsula including one near Mérida.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Mérida has many regional hospitals and medical centers. All of them offer full services for the city and in case of the Regional Hospitals for the whole Yucatán peninsula and neighboring states.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: The city has one of the most prestigious medical faculties in Mexico (UADY). Proximity to American cities like Houston allow local Doctors to crosstrain and practice in both countries making Mérida one of the best cities in Mexico in terms of health services availability.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: In 2000 the Mérida municipality had 244 preschool institutions, 395 elementary, 136 Jr. high school (2 years middle school, 1 high), 97 High Schools and 16 Universities/Higher Education schools. Mérida has consistently held the status of having the best performing public schools in Mexico since 1996. The public school system is regulated by the Secretariat of Public Instruction. Attendance is required for all students in the educational system from age 6 up to age 15. Once students reach high school, they are given the option of continuing their education or not; if they chose to do so they are given two tracks in which they can graduate.


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Nevertheless, education in Merida has a variety of quality throughout the city. This mainly has to do with the different social strata and where they reside. Mayan indigenous population are at the bottom of the spectrum and this can be represented in the type of education that the children are receiving. Upper class is usually located in the north, as it is less populated and has higher living costs. For the most part, private schools are located in the northern part of the city. The only students who attend these schools are those of high class and of non-Maya descent. A distressing statistic of how this affects the indigenous communities can be noted, "In Yucatan only 8.9 % of the Mayans have achieved junior high and solely the 6.6% have studied beyond that point. The 83.4% of the Mayans 15 years old and older dropped out of school before finishing junior high."


title: Mérida, Yucatán

text: Many laws have been set in place to avoid discrimination between the Spanish speakers and the Mayan speakers as the "Law says that it is a duty of the Mexican State to guarantee —guarantee, not just try, not just attempt— that the indigenous population has access to the obligatory education, bilingual and intercultural in their methods and contents." Despite this having been set into law, there is no bilingual or cultural accepting program after elementary school. The system for indigenous education only serves about one third of the Mayan speaking population of the area. Many Mayan children are forced to learn Spanish and cease using their native tongue, which may be challenging for them to do. This in turn causes many of the students to feel that learning at school is not their strong suit and may even end up dropping out early in their education.


title: Interest rate

text: An interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited, or borrowed (called the principal sum). The total interest on an amount lent or borrowed depends on the principal sum, the interest rate, the compounding frequency, and the length of time over which it is lent, deposited, or borrowed.


title: Interest rate

text: The annual interest rate is the rate over a period of one year. Other interest rates apply over different periods, such as a month or a day, but they are usually annualized.


title: Interest rate

text: The interest rate has been characterized as "an index of the preference . . . for a dollar of present [income] over a dollar of future income." The borrower wants, or needs, to have money sooner rather than later, and is willing to pay a fee—the interest rate—for that privilege.


title: Interest rate

text: A company borrows capital from a bank to buy assets for its business. In return, the bank charges the company interest. (The lender might also require rights over the new assets as collateral.)


title: Interest rate

text: A bank will use the capital deposited by individuals to make loans to their clients. In return, the bank should pay individuals who have deposited their capital interest. The amount of interest payment depends on the interest rate and the amount of capital they deposited.


title: Interest rate

text: "Base rate" usually refers to the annualized effective interest rate offered on overnight deposits by the central bank or other monetary authority.


title: Interest rate

text: The "annual percentage rate" (APR) may refer either to a nominal APR or an effective APR (EAPR). The difference between the two is that the EAPR accounts for fees and compounding, while the nominal APR does not.


title: Interest rate

text: The "annual equivalent rate" (AER), also called the effective annual rate, is used to help consumers compare products with different compounding frequencies on a common basis, but does not account for fees.


title: Interest rate

text: For an interest-bearing security, "coupon rate" is the ratio of the annual coupon amount (the coupon paid per year) per unit of par value, whereas "current yield" is the ratio of the annual coupon divided by its current market price. "Yield to maturity" is a bond's expected internal rate of return, assuming it will be held to maturity, that is, the discount rate which equates all remaining cash flows to the investor (all remaining coupons and repayment of the par value at maturity) with the current market price.


title: Interest rate

text: Based on the relationship between supply and demand of market interest rate, there are fixed interest rate and floating interest rate.


title: Interest rate

text: "Interest rate targets" are a vital tool of monetary policy and are taken into account when dealing with variables like investment, inflation, and unemployment. The central banks of countries generally tend to reduce interest rates when they wish to increase investment and consumption in the country's economy. However, a low interest rate as a macro-economic policy can be risky and may lead to the creation of an economic bubble, in which large amounts of investments are poured into the real-estate market and stock market. In developed economies, interest-rate adjustments are thus made to keep inflation within a target range for the health of economic activities or cap the interest rate concurrently with economic growth to safeguard economic momentum.


title: Interest rate

text: In the past two centuries, interest rates have been variously set either by national governments or central banks. For example, the Federal Reserve federal funds rate in the United States has varied between about 0.25% and 19% from 1954 to 2008, while the Bank of England base rate varied between 0.5% and 15% from 1989 to 2009, and Germany experienced rates close to 90% in the 1920s down to about 2% in the 2000s. During an attempt to tackle spiraling hyperinflation in 2007, the Central Bank of Zimbabwe increased interest rates for borrowing to 800%.


title: Interest rate

text: The interest rates on prime credits in the late 1970s and early 1980s were far higher than had been recorded – higher than previous US peaks since 1800, than British peaks since 1700, or than Dutch peaks since 1600; "since modern capital markets came into existence, there have never been such high long-term rates" as in this period.


title: Interest rate

text: Possibly before modern capital markets, there have been some accounts that savings deposits could achieve an annual return of at least 25% and up to as high as 50%. (William Ellis and Richard Dawes, "Lessons on the Phenomenon of Industrial Life... ", 1857, p III–IV)


title: Interest rate

text: For example, suppose someone deposits $100 with a bank for one year, and they receive interest of $10 (before tax), so at the end of the year, their balance is $110 (before tax). In this case, regardless of the rate of inflation, the nominal interest rate is 10% "per annum" (before tax).


title: Interest rate

text: The real interest rate measures the growth in real value of the loan plus interest, taking inflation into account. The repayment of principal plus interest is measured in real terms compared against the buying power of the amount at the time it was borrowed, lent, deposited or invested.


title: Interest rate

text: If inflation is 10%, then the $110 in the account at the end of the year has the same purchasing power (that is, buys the same amount) as the $100 had a year ago. The real interest rate is zero in this case.


title: Interest rate

text: The Fisher equation applies both "ex ante" and "ex post". "Ex ante", the rates are projected rates, whereas "ex post", the rates are historical.


title: Interest rate

text: There is a market for investments, including the money market, bond market, stock market, and currency market as well as retail banking.


title: Interest rate

text: According to the theory of rational expectations, borrowers and lenders form an expectation of inflation in the future. The acceptable nominal interest rate at which they are willing and able to borrow or lend includes the real interest rate they require to receive, or are willing and able to pay, plus the rate of inflation they expect.


title: Interest rate

text: The level of risk in investments is taken into consideration. Riskier investments such as shares and junk bonds are normally expected to deliver higher returns than safer ones like government bonds.


title: Interest rate

text: The additional return above the risk-free nominal interest rate which is expected from a risky investment is the risk premium. The risk premium an investor requires on an investment depends on the risk preferences of the investor. Evidence suggests that most lenders are risk-averse.


title: Interest rate

text: A maturity risk premium applied to a longer-term investment reflects a higher perceived risk of default.


title: Interest rate

text: Most investors prefer their money to be in cash rather than in less fungible investments. Cash is on hand to be spent immediately if the need arises, but some investments require time or effort to transfer into spendable form. The preference for cash is known as liquidity preference. A 1-year loan, for instance, is very liquid compared to a 10-year loan. A 10-year US Treasury bond, however, is still relatively liquid because it can easily be sold on the market.


title: Interest rate

text: Assuming perfect information, "p" is the same for all participants in the market, and the interest rate model simplifies to


title: Interest rate

text: The "spread" of interest rates is the lending rate minus the deposit rate. This spread covers operating costs for banks providing loans and deposits. A "negative spread" is where a deposit rate is higher than the lending rate.


title: Interest rate

text: Higher interest rates increase the cost of borrowing which can reduce physical investment and output and increase unemployment. Higher rates encourage more saving and reduce inflation.


title: Interest rate

text: The Federal Reserve (often referred to as 'the Fed') implements monetary policy largely by targeting the federal funds rate. This is the rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans of federal funds, which are the reserves held by banks at the Fed.


title: Interest rate

text: Open market operations are one tool within monetary policy implemented by the Federal Reserve to steer short-term interest rates using the power to buy and sell treasury securities.


title: Interest rate

text: Loans, bonds, and shares have some of the characteristics of money and are included in the broad money supply.


title: Interest rate

text: By setting i*, the government institution can affect the markets to alter the total of loans, bonds and shares issued. Generally speaking, a higher real interest rate reduces the broad money supply.


title: Interest rate

text: Financial economists such as researchers have argued that durably low interest rates in most G20 countries will have an adverse impact on the funding positions of pension funds as "without returns that outstrip inflation, pension investors face the real value of their savings declining rather than ratcheting up over the next few years". Current interest rates in savings accounts often fail to keep up with the pace of inflation.


title: Interest rate

text: From 1982 until 2012, most Western economies experienced a period of low inflation combined with relatively high returns on investments across all asset classes including government bonds. This brought a certain sense of complacency amongst some pension actuarial consultants and regulators, making it seem reasonable to use optimistic economic assumptions to calculate the present value of future pension liabilities.


title: Interest rate

text: Because interest and inflation are generally given as percentage increases, the formulae above are (linear) approximations.


title: Interest rate

text: The formulae in this article are exact if logarithmic units are used for relative changes, or equivalently if logarithms of indices are used in place of rates, and hold even for large relative changes.


title: Interest rate

text: A so-called "zero interest-rate policy" (ZIRP) is a very low—near-zero—central bank target interest rate. At this zero lower bound the central bank faces difficulties with conventional monetary policy, because it is generally believed that market interest rates cannot realistically be pushed down into negative territory.


title: Interest rate

text: "Nominal" interest rates are normally positive, but not always. In contrast, "real" interest rates can be negative, when nominal interest rates are below inflation. When this is done via government policy (for example, via reserve requirements), this is deemed financial repression, and was practiced by countries such as the United States and United Kingdom following World War II (from 1945) until the late 1970s or early 1980s (during and following the Post–World War II economic expansion). In the late 1970s, United States Treasury securities with negative real interest rates were deemed "certificates of confiscation".


title: Interest rate

text: A so-called "negative interest rate policy" (NIRP) is a negative (below zero) central bank target interest rate.


title: Interest rate

text: Given the alternative of holding cash, and thus earning 0%, rather than lending it out, profit-seeking lenders will not lend below 0%, as that will guarantee a loss, and a bank offering a negative deposit rate will find few takers, as savers will instead hold cash.


title: Interest rate

text: Negative interest rates have been proposed in the past, notably in the late 19th century by Silvio Gesell. A negative interest rate can be described (as by Gesell) as a "tax on holding money"; he proposed it as the "Freigeld" (free money) component of his "Freiwirtschaft" (free economy) system. To prevent people from holding cash (and thus earning 0%), Gesell suggested issuing money for a limited duration, after which it must be exchanged for new bills; attempts to hold money thus result in it expiring and becoming worthless. Along similar lines, John Maynard Keynes approvingly cited the idea of a carrying tax on money, (1936, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money") but dismissed it due to administrative difficulties. More recently, a carry tax on currency was proposed by a Federal Reserve employee (Marvin Goodfriend) in 1999, to be implemented via magnetic strips on bills, deducting the carry tax upon deposit, the tax being based on how long the bill had been held.


title: Interest rate

text: It has been proposed that a negative interest rate can in principle be levied on existing paper currency via a serial number lottery, such as randomly choosing a number 0 through 9 and declaring that notes whose serial number end in that digit are worthless, yielding an average 10% loss of paper cash holdings to hoarders; a drawn two-digit number could match the last two digits on the note for a 1% loss. This was proposed by an anonymous student of Greg Mankiw, though more as a thought experiment than a genuine proposal.


title: Interest rate

text: Both the European Central Bank starting in 2014 and the Bank of Japan starting in early 2016 pursued the policy on top of their earlier and continuing quantitative easing policies. The latter's policy was said at its inception to be trying to 'change Japan's “deflationary mindset.”' In 2016 Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland—not directly participants in the Euro currency zone—also had NIRPs in place.


title: Interest rate

text: Countries such as Sweden and Denmark have set negative interest on reserves—that is to say, they have charged interest on reserves.


title: Interest rate

text: In July 2009, Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, set its policy repo rate, the interest rate on its one-week deposit facility, at 0.25%, at the same time as setting its overnight deposit rate at −0.25%. The existence of the negative overnight deposit rate was a technical consequence of the fact that overnight deposit rates are generally set at 0.5% below or 0.75% below the policy rate. The Riksbank studied the impact of these changes and stated in a commentary report that they led to no disruptions in Swedish financial markets.


title: Interest rate

text: During the European debt crisis, government bonds of some countries (Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Austria) have been sold at negative yields. Suggested explanations include desire for safety and protection against the eurozone breaking up (in which case some eurozone countries might redenominate their debt into a stronger currency).


title: Interest rate

text: For practical purposes, investors and academics typically view the yields on government or quasi-government bonds guaranteed by a small number of the most creditworthy governments (UK, USA, Switzerland, EU, Japan) to effectively have negligible default risk. As financial theory would predict, investors and academics typically do not view non-government guaranteed corporate bonds in the same way. Most credit analysts value them at a spread to similar government bonds with similar duration, geographic exposure, and currency exposure. Through 2018 there have only been a few of these corporate bonds that have traded at negative nominal interest rates.


title: Interest rate

text: The most notable example of this was Nestle, some of whose AAA-rated bonds traded at negative nominal interest rate in 2015. However, some academics and investors believe this may have been influenced by volatility in the currency market during this period.


title: Deee-Lite

text: Deee-Lite was an American house and dance music group formed in New York City. The group's best-known single is "Groove Is in the Heart", which was released in 1990 from their debut studio album "World Clique" (1990), and was a top-ten hit in multiple countries. In December 2016, "Billboard" ranked them as the 55th most successful dance artists of all time.


title: Deee-Lite

text: In 2018, the Netflix series "Big Mouth" released a Planned Parenthood- and Deee-Lite-themed episode—it is noteworthy Kier has been a longtime abortion rights advocate.


title: Deee-Lite

text: The band began in 1986 as a duo in New York City with Lady Miss Kier (born Kierin Magenta Kirby) primarily on vocals and Supa DJ Dmitry (born in Ukraine as Dmitry Brill) as the DJ, and then became a trio when Korean-Japanese Jungle DJ Towa Tei joined the group in 1988.


title: Deee-Lite

text: Initially, Kier and Dmitry performed their songs monthly in numerous downtown NYC nightclubs from 1986 onwards. In 1987, Kier bought the Akai sampler, which influenced their sound tremendously, and the Casio FZ-series sampler was used almost exclusively on their first album. Indeed, sampling played such an important role that they named their production company "Sampladelic". From the band's inception, Kier designed the posters and club invites and was also the graphic designer for all three albums and 12" singles. The band played in both hip-hop and house clubs, and both gay and straight clubs, including Wigstock and opening for Native Tongue Movement's De La Soul and Jungle Brothers. As described in "Rolling Stone", "they were drawing vivid, multiracial, pan-sexual crowds...". Part of the band's appeal was its inclusiveness, as noted by "Mademoiselle" magazine "as a group, they're a festival of individuality; as a band, they're a party anyone can attend". In these early years, their live shows garnered a steady following and attracted Towa Tei as a fan.


title: Deee-Lite

text: Thereafter, Towa sent Kier and Dmitry a bedroom DJ tape he had made and they realised he, like them, also enjoyed a fusion of funk and techno. Towa and Dmitry began jointly programming the band's computer. Although Towa did not play any instruments, he was a record collector and added samples. They invited him to join the group in 1988 and together the three produced their first album. Kier wrote all the lyrics and melodies, and also asked Bootsy Collins to join in sessions. Dmitry played guitar, keyboard, and bass, and Towa gathered samples for fill-ins and grooves. Bootsy Collins introduced them to The Horny Horns, Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker, Mudbone Cooper, and Bernie Worrell. Collins also helped assemble their touring band. Together the trio produced the first and second Deee-Lite albums under their production company Sampladelic.


title: Deee-Lite

text: In 1990, their first album, "World Clique", shot to the top of the dance charts, and the song "Groove Is in the Heart" became their first number-one hit. The song features vocals from Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest as well as the famous bass guitar loop, sampled from the Herbie Hancock song "Bring Down The Birds" and additional vocals by funk musician Bootsy Collins, a fan of the group. A politically-charged second album was released following their success, entitled "Infinity Within" in 1992. The album failed to chart as high as their debut, but they still scored two Top 40 dance hits with "Runaway" and "Pussycat Meow".


title: Deee-Lite

text: Towa ultimately did not join the other two on their world tours, for which they had a nine-piece band, as he preferred to start working on the second Deee-Lite album ("Infinity Within"), from the comfort of his own home where his records and samples were located. As told to MTV News, "...a reason I left Deee-Lite was that I hated the touring—playing the same songs over and over again every night," Towa said. "I'm not that type of person. I don't like being in front of the people". After extensive touring, Kier and Dmitry were not given tour funding for the second album, "Infinity Within", as promised by the Warner contract. After the release of their second album, Kier and Dmitry wondered if their sound was losing touch with the dancefloor and began writing the dancefloor classic album "Dewdrops in the Garden". At the time, the creative differences were strong between Towa and the other two members of Deee-Lite. As told to MTV News by Towa, "When I made a big decision to take a break," Towa said, "I started to listen to different types of music again—bossa nova, soundtracks. I started getting materials that went beyond the Deee-Lite concept. For me it fit, but for them it didn't really fit". Prior to the release of the group's third album, "Dewdrops in the Garden", Towa abruptly left the band (appearing only on the track "Call Me") and was replaced by DJ Ani. Kier was determined to keep the band together and offered Towa to remix a song of his choice so he'd have a presence on the third Deee-Lite album. Even with a roster change and minimal record label support, Deee-Lite still managed to tour for one year after the release of the album, even selling more copies than their second release. In 1994, Kier and Dmitry's turbulent relationship came to an end and so did the group.


title: Deee-Lite

text: In total, the group scored six number-one hits on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Play chart over the five years they were together. In the years after the band's break-up, financial problems due to bad management impacted both Kier and Dmitry—however, they survived and are still in business as writers, producers and DJs. Kier is still primarily a singer, songwriter, and DJ, having traveled all over the world and performed on numerous albums with internationally acclaimed artists. She is often regarded as a style "icon" by publications such as "Vogue" for her distinctive style of dress and continual influence on the international fashion scene. Dmitry continued working as a DJ, from Hong Kong to Jerusalem, and from Berlin's Love Parade to Brazil's Rock In Rio. He was given a DJ of the year award in Ibiza, and has remixed for many artists including Arthur Russell, Jungle Brothers, Sinead O'Connor, Ziggy Marley, Nina Hagen, Ultra Naté, and others. He collaborated with Julee Cruise (of "Twin Peaks"/David Lynch fame) to release the album "My Secret Life". Dmitry is currently based in Berlin where he continues to DJ, compose, produce, and re-mix. Towa Tei has recorded several albums as a solo artist, and is currently featured in Japanese supergroup METAFIVE. In a 2011 interview, Towa Tei dismissed the chances of Deee-Lite reforming, citing the creative and personal differences that prompted him to depart.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: A Wheatstone bridge is an electrical circuit used to measure an unknown electrical resistance by balancing two legs of a bridge circuit, one leg of which includes the unknown component. The primary benefit of the circuit is its ability to provide extremely accurate measurements (in contrast with something like a simple voltage divider). Its operation is similar to the original potentiometer.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: The Wheatstone bridge was invented by Samuel Hunter Christie (sometimes spelled "Christy") in 1833 and improved and popularized by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1843. One of the Wheatstone bridge's initial uses was for soil analysis and comparison.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: Detecting zero current with a galvanometer can be done to extremely high precision. Therefore, if and are known to high precision, then can be measured to high precision. Very small changes in disrupt the balance and are readily detected.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: Alternatively, if and are known, but is not adjustable, the voltage difference across or current flow through the meter can be used to calculate the value of using Kirchhoff's circuit laws. This setup is frequently used in strain gauge and resistance thermometer measurements, as it is usually faster to read a voltage level off a meter than to adjust a resistance to zero the voltage.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: At the point of balance, both the voltage and the current between the two midpoints (B and D) are zero. Therefore, formula_2, formula_3, formula_4, and:


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: Due to and being proportional from Kirchhoff's First Law, cancels out of the above equation. The desired value of is now known to be given as:


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: On the other hand, if the resistance of the galvanometer is high enough that is negligible, it is possible to compute from the three other resistor values and the supply voltage (), or the supply voltage from all four resistor values. To do so, one has to work out the voltage from each potential divider and subtract one from the other. The equations for this are:


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: The Wheatstone bridge illustrates the concept of a difference measurement, which can be extremely accurate. Variations on the Wheatstone bridge can be used to measure capacitance, inductance, impedance and other quantities, such as the amount of combustible gases in a sample, with an explosimeter. The Kelvin bridge was specially adapted from the Wheatstone bridge for measuring very low resistances. In many cases, the significance of measuring the unknown resistance is related to measuring the impact of some physical phenomenon (such as force, temperature, pressure, etc.) which thereby allows the use of Wheatstone bridge in measuring those elements indirectly.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: The concept was extended to alternating current measurements by James Clerk Maxwell in 1865 and further improved as by Alan Blumlein in British Patent no. 323,037, 1928.


title: Wheatstone bridge

text: The Wheatstone bridge is the fundamental bridge, but there are other modifications that can be made to measure various kinds of resistances when the fundamental Wheatstone bridge is not suitable. Some of the modifications are:


title: Ravi Raghavendra

text: Raghavendra has appeared on television and in films since the 1980s, often playing supporting roles. He has also worked in theatre. Some of his recent film credits include "Neethaane En Ponvasantham" (2012), "54321" (2016) and "Zero" (2016), and he is currently working on Oke Oka Jeevitham with Sharwanand, Amala Akkineni and Ritu Varma, directed by debutant Shree Karthick.


title: Ravi Raghavendra

text: Raghavendra is married to Lakshmi, a dancer by profession. and the couple blessed with a son named Anirudh Ravichander, who is a famous music director. In 2014, Raghavendra met with police following a complaint about a controversial music video which Ravichander had uploaded to YouTube, and assured investigators that the video had been taken down.


title: Timurid dynasty

text: The Timurid dynasty (, ), self-designated as Gurkani (, ), was a Sunni Muslim dynasty or clan of Turco-Mongol origin descended from the warlord Timur (also known as Tamerlane). The word "Gurkani" derives from "Gurkan", a Persianized form of the Mongolian word "Kuragan" meaning "son-in-law". This was an honorific title used by the dynasty as the Timurids were in-laws of the line of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire, as Timur had married Saray Mulk Khanum, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Members of the Timurid dynasty signaled the Timurid Renaissance, and they were strongly influenced by Persian culture and established two significant empires in history, the Timurid Empire (1370–1507) based in Persia and Central Asia, and the Mughal Empire (1526–1857) based in the Indian subcontinent.


title: Timurid dynasty

text: The origin of the Timurid dynasty goes back to the Mongol tribe known as Barlas, who were remnants of the original Mongol army of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire. After the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, the Barlas settled in what is today southern Kazakhstan, from Shymkent to Taraz and Almaty, which then came to be known for a time as "Moghulistan" – "Land of Mongols" in Persian – and intermingled to a considerable degree with the local Turkic and Turkic-speaking population, so that at the time of Timur's reign the Barlas had become thoroughly Turkicized in terms of language and habits.


title: Timurid dynasty

text: Additionally, by adopting Islam, the Central Asian Turks and Mongols adopted the Persian literary and high culture which had dominated Central Asia since the early days of Islamic influence. Persian literature was instrumental in the assimilation of the Timurid elite into the Perso-Islamic courtly culture.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: Oke Oka Jeevitham () is a 2022 Indian science fiction melodrama film written and directed by debutant Shree Karthick and produced by Dream Warrior Pictures. The film is simultaneously shot in Telugu and Tamil languages, the latter titled Kanam (). It stars Sharwanand, Amala Akkineni and Ritu Varma. Vennela Kishore, Priyadarshi and Nassar play supporting roles in the Telugu version while Sathish and Ramesh Thilak replace the former two in the Tamil version.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The film began its production in August 2019 with filming primarily taking place in Hyderabad and Chennai. Following an 8-month delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film completed its shoot in November 2020.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The film was released theatrically on 9 September 2022 and opened to positive reviews from critics and performed well at the box office.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: On 28 March 1998, scientists Paul and Michael carry out an experiment on their time machine, however, the machine fails and Michael dies in the process.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: In 2019, Adhi, Chaitu (Telugu)/Kathir (Tamil) and Seenu (Telugu)/Paandi (Tamil) are friends who are struggling in their lives. Adhi is an aspiring musician who is yet to get a break due to stage fear, Chaitu/Kathir is unable to find a suitable bride while Seenu/Paandi regrets not studying properly during his school days.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: One day, Paul calls Seenu/Paandi, who is a real estate agent, to find him in a house on the outskirts. Seenu/Paandi takes Adhi and Chaitu/Kathir along to show Paul the house. However, Adhi is surprised to see the boxes dated 28-03-1998 which was a day before his mother died. Paul overhears this and convinces Adhi that he can save his mother using the time machine, in return, Adhi must save Michael from death by stopping the experiment. Chaitu/Kathir and Seenu/Paandi tag along to change their own fate. They place the time machine in the abandoned house of Seenu's/Paandi's grandfather. Paul explains to them the rules of time travel. The date is set to 1 March 1998 and the three travel back in time. They see their younger selves in their school and disguise themselves to get close to them. Adhi befriends his mother and joins as the guitar teacher to his younger self, nicknamed Kutlu. Adhi tries to make sure that his mother is safe who is set to die in a car accident. Chaitu/Kathir becomes an auto driver to bring his younger self close to Sita who grows up to be a beautiful woman while Seenu/Paandi joins as a peon to personally oversee his younger self's education.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: Kutlu prepares to participate in his school's cultural competition on 26 March 1998. Adhi's mother drops Kutlu at his school that morning. She gives him her ring to be confident during his performance. However, young Chaitu/Kathir and Seenu/Paandi suspect and follow their older selves, and find the time machine. They inform Kutlu about this and the three leave the school without any intimation. The time machine turns on upon scanning Kutlu's iris (which is the same as Adhi's). The machine brings the kids to the future in 2019. The older three realize their younger selves are missing along with the time machine which also contains the details of Paul of 1998. They realize that the only way to set things right is to find Paul and use his old time machine to travel to 2019.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: Meanwhile, the police file a kidnapping case to find the missing kids and treat older Chaitu/Kathir and Seenu/Paandi as suspects. Adhi's mother goes into a depression, therefore, Adhi promises her to bring back her son. The older three try to find Paul, only in vain. Upon realizing that they arrived in future, the younger three aimlessly roam the city to seek help until Adhi's girlfriend Vaishnavi finds them. She is shocked to realize they are younger Adhi, Chaitu/Kathir and Seenu/Paandi. Paul explains everything to Vaishnavi and says that he needs a day to reset the time machine to send the kids back. Kutlu overhears that his mother is going to die. The three escape and learn the truth.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: On 28 March 1998, the older three accidentally come across Michael but are chased by the police. They find the old time machine and plead with Paul to turn it off. Michael goes ahead anyway and dies in the accident. The police take everyone into custody but Adhi escapes the following day to save his mother. Adhi finds his mother on the road as her car broke down. He tries to convince her to get back to safety but as she refuses, Adhi confesses that he is her son. However, Adhi's mother dies after she is hit by a truck.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The older three contemplate that it is pointless to try changing the past. Adhi is content that he is able to spend time with his mother again. Meanwhile, Paul sends the kids back in time. The older three advise the younger three to be themselves and enjoy every moment in life. The older three restart their lives in present with new vigour.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: In 2017, short filmmaker Shree Karthick signed up an untitled film which would mark his directorial debut with S. R. Prabhu's Dream Warrior Pictures. Karthik initially pitched a budget of 4–5 crore, however, Prabhu felt that the film deserved a bigger scale and asked Karthik to make it as a Tamil–Telugu bilingual as he knew both the languages. Karthick stated that the film echoed his relationship with his mother.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The film's Telugu title was unveiled as "Oke Oka Jeevitham" in June 2021. The simultaneously shot Tamil version was titled as "Kanam" in September of that year. The film marks Amala Akkineni's return to Tamil cinema after 31 years and to Telugu cinema after 8 years, and also marks Sharwanand’s comeback to Tamil cinema after "JK Enum Nanbanin Vaazhkai".


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: In August 2019, Sharwanand and Ritu Varma were paired opposite each other while Nassar was cast in a crucial role. In November 2019, veteran actress Amala Akkineni was signed to play the protagonist's mother. Tharun Bhascker was then signed to write the Telugu dialogues, while Jakes Bejoy was signed to compose the film's music. The cinematography was to be handled by Sujith Sarang and the editing was assigned to Sreejith Sarang.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: Filming took place in Hyderabad and Chennai. The filming was halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The shoot resumed after 8 months with the final schedule taking place in Chennai and wrapped up in November 2020.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The music for the film has been composed by Jakes Bejoy. The film's first single, "Amma Song" was released in January 2022. The lyrics to the song were written by Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry for the Telugu version and is believed to be one of his last songs, before his demise. The second single from the bilingual, "Okate Kadhaa" (Telugu) and "Thaalam Thattum" (Tamil)"," was released in August 2022. Later that month, the third single "Maaripoye" (Telugu) and "Maaripocho" (Tamil) released. The song featured the vocals of Karthi, marking his Telugu singing debut.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The film was released on 9 September 2022, after a long delay due to the Covid pandemic. Earlier in November 2021, the film was announced to be released in February 2022. However, it was reportedly delayed due to the upsurge in the Omicron cases. This film has received a ‘U’ certificate with no cuts.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: The digital streaming rights of the film were sold to SonyLIV. The film began streaming on 20 October 2022 on SonyLIV.


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: "Oke Oka Jeevitham" and "Kanam" received positive reviews from critics. Reviewing the Telugu version, a critic for "The Times of India" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The film’s narrative could be categorised as a slow burn. While the first half was entertaining and engaging with a brilliant interval twist, the second half initially could have been crispier with the mother and son sentiment". Reviewing the Tamil version, M. Suganth of "The Times of India" gave the film the same rating and wrote that "But the filmmaker never gets distracted from what he's truly after - the emotional bond between a mother and her son - and it is this angle that drives the plot". Writing for "Firstpost", Priyanka Sundar too gave a rating of 3.5 out of 5 and stated: "Sharwanand, Amala Akkineni-starrer is a beautiful tale about healing from grief".


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: Janani K of "India Today" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "Kanam evokes nostalgia as it takes us back to the 90s. Watch Kanam for its simplicity". Arvind V of "Pinkvilla" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "While the film doesn't offer magical surrealism, its themes make up for the shortcoming". "Sakshi Post" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and termed it as a "bumpy ride". A critic for "India Herald" wrote "Shree Karthick’s narrative is unique, and the conflicts he selects for each of the buddies appear to be well-chosen". Balakrishna Ganeshan of "The News Minute" rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ""Oke Oka Jeevitham" is a time-travel film, it steers clear of the science – it does not focus on the theories of time-travel or quantum physics or the concepts of time and space. Rather, it is a film about human emotions". Bhuvanesh Chandar of "The Hindu" stated "A delightful debut for director Shree Karthick, who gives us a compelling film that is also an endearing tribute to his late mother". A critic for "Behindwoods" gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "Solid performances and simple writing makes Kanam a film to be cherished."


title: Oke Oka Jeevitham

text: In its first weekend, the film has collected a total gross of $330K at the United States box-office. As of 19 September 2022, the film has collected a total gross of $511K at the United States box-office, thus making it the third highest-grossing film for Sharwanand in the region, after "Sathamanam Bhavati" (2017) and "Mahanubhavudu" (2017).


title: Paul Sinha

text: Supriya Kumar "Paul" Sinha (born 28 May 1970) is a British quizzer, comedian, doctor and broadcaster. He has written and performed extensively on Radio 4, and is one of the six Chasers on the ITV game show "The Chase".


title: Paul Sinha

text: Sinha was born on 28 May 1970. He was educated at Dulwich College and St George's Hospital Medical School. Sinha is a former general practitioner, qualifying in the 1990s. While at medical school he developed a taste for the stage in St George's annual revue and refined his comedy as co-editor of the medical school newsletter, popularly known as the "Slag Mag".


title: Paul Sinha

text: Sinha began performing stand-up while working as a junior doctor in hospitals in London and King's Lynn. His early material drew on his sexuality and ethnicity, with heavy use of puns. In 1999, he came third in the final of the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year.


title: Paul Sinha

text: After several years of combining touring with his nascent medical career, Sinha's breakthrough came with his second solo Edinburgh show, "Saint or Sinha?", which earned him an if.comeddie nomination in 2006.


title: Paul Sinha

text: Sinha has performed many times on BBC Radio 4, on shows including "The News Quiz", "The Now Show", "Loose Ends", "28 Acts in 28 Minutes", "Shappi Talk" and "Just a Minute". His interest in football (he is a Liverpool F.C. fan) and cricket has led to appearances on Radio 5 Live, most notably on "Fighting Talk", where he has won the Champion of Champions finale twice. He has also appeared on Talksport.


title: Paul Sinha

text: He has appeared as a guest on "Midweek", "Woman's Hour", "Broadcasting House" and as a political pundit on "PM".


title: Paul Sinha

text: In March 2011, Sinha presented his own Radio 4 programme, "Paul Sinha's Quiz Culture", in which he explored the world of competitive quizzing. His second documentary, "The Sinha Test", aired on 14 July 2011 and examined patriotism and sporting allegiance. In July 2012, he wrote and presented a programme called "The Sinha Games" on BBC Radio 4 about the Olympic Games and his experience as a Londoner.


title: Paul Sinha

text: In December 2014, Sinha wrote and performed his first series on Radio 4, "Paul Sinha's History Revision". A second series followed in May 2016, winning the Rose d'Or for Radio Comedy. The follow-up, "Paul Sinha's General Knowledge", has completed its third series.


title: Paul Sinha

text: Sinha is a regular panellist on Round Britain Quiz, representing the South of England with Marcus Berkmann.


title: Paul Sinha

text: After an appearance on "The Weakest Link" (where he was voted off 4th), Sinha made appearances on "" (lost), "Are You an Egghead?" (lost in first round), "Mastermind" (4th) and "Brain of Britain" (3rd). Sinha is currently ranked 7th in the National Quiz Rankings (as of 30 May 2017), and placed 11th in the 2018 World Quizzing Championships.


title: Paul Sinha

text: Sinha also plays in the Quiz League of London for the Gray Monks and in the Online Quiz League for Quiz Machine Kills Fascists.


title: Paul Sinha

text: In 2011, Sinha joined the ITV quiz series "The Chase" as the fourth "Chaser", with the nicknames "The Sinnerman", "The Smiling Assassin" and "Sarcasm in a Suit". His first episode was broadcast in the fourth series on 8 September 2011. He also appears in celebrity and family editions of the show.


title: Paul Sinha

text: He has said he is more famous overseas (particularly in New Zealand) than in Britain, where "The Chase" is screened at 5pm before people are home from work.


title: Paul Sinha

text: In January 2021, Sinha began hosting his own quiz show for ITV, called "Paul Sinha's TV Showdown", featuring celebrities who go head to head together in a bid to answer as many questions as they can on TV knowledge. The show commenced on 9 January 2021, and concluded on 13 February 2021. A second series was commissioned and premiered 19 February 2022, releasing weekly until 2 April 2022.


title: Tolkien family

text: The Tolkien family is an English family of German descent whose best-known member is J. R. R. Tolkien, Oxford academic and author of the fantasy books "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Silmarillion".


title: Tolkien family

text: According to Ryszard Derdziński the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk", with Tolk meaning interpreter or negotiator and originating as a nickname. A number of other theories on the meaning of the name have been proposed, including that it is derived from the village of Tolkynen in East Prussia. J. R. R. Tolkien suggested the name was derived from the German adjective "tollkühn", meaning foolhardy. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of recent refugees from East Prussia who fled the Red Army invasion (1945). J. R. R. Tolkien's own knowledge of the family history was limited to its 18th-century German origin, according to Derdziński in part because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father."


title: Tolkien family

text: The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town Kreuzburg near Königsberg, where the Tolkien name is attested since the 16th century. The verified paternal line of J. R. R. Tolkien starts with Michel Tolkien, born around 1620 in Kreuzburg. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s, and became the ancestors of the English family. The family first appears in English records in 1777. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Their German nephew Daniel Gottlieb Bergmann also joined them in London. Johann (John) Benjamin Tolkien, who died in London in 1819, was the 2nd great-grandfather of J. R. R. Tolkien.


title: Tolkien family

text: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English philologist, writer and professor at the University of Oxford.


title: Tolkien family

text: Much of Tolkien's published fiction is a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth (derived from the Old English word "middangeard", the lands inhabitable by humans) in particular, loosely identified as an "alternative" remote past of our own world. Tolkien applied the word "legendarium" to the totality of these writings. Most of the "legendarium" was edited and posthumously published by his son Christopher.


title: Tolkien family

text: While Tolkien was preceded by other fantasy authors, his enduringly popular and successful works have had a remarkable influence on the genre. Thus he has been popularly identified as the "father of modern fantasy literature", or to be precise, high fantasy. L. Sprague de Camp and others consider him the father of modern fantasy together with sword and sorcery author Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian).


title: Tolkien family

text: Arthur Reuel Tolkien (c. 18 February 1857 – 15 February 1896), the father of author J. R. R. Tolkien, was born in Handsworth, Staffordshire, England (now a suburb of Birmingham). He was the eldest child of John Benjamin Tolkien and Mary Jane Stow, who had married on 16 February 1856 in All Saints Parish Church, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England.


title: Tolkien family

text: Arthur's father had previously been married to Jane Holmwood, with whom he had four children: Emily (b. 1838), Louisa (b. 1840), John Benjamin (b. 1845), and Jane (b. 1846). His father had been a piano teacher and tuner, as well as a music seller, but he had gone bankrupt in 1877, when he was described as "John Benjamin Tolkien, of High-street, Birmingham, in the county of Warwick, Pianoforte and Music Seller".


title: Tolkien family

text: Arthur did not follow his father into the traditional Tolkien trade in pianos, which many of his London cousins also followed; instead he became a bank clerk and ended up moving to Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now part of South Africa), where he became manager of the Bloemfontein branch of the Bank of Africa. A furniture shop now occupies the Bradlow's Building on the site where the bank once stood, on the corner of West Burger and Maitland Streets.


title: Tolkien family

text: Arthur was later joined by his fiancée, Mabel Suffield. They were married on 16 April 1891 at the St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, Cape Colony (later Cape Province, South Africa). Two children: John Ronald Reuel (b. 1892) and Hilary Arthur Reuel (b. 1894) followed, and the family lived next door to the bank.


title: Tolkien family

text: Mabel Tolkien felt the English climate would be better for the boys' health and returned to England with them in 1895. Arthur remained in South Africa, where he died of severe haemorrhage following rheumatic fever, on 15 February 1896, before he had the opportunity to join his family in England. He is buried in President Brand Cemetery, on the corner of Church and Rhodes Avenues, Bloemfontein.


title: Tolkien family

text: Her parents, John Suffield and Emily Jane Sparrow, lived in Stirling Road, Birmingham and owned a shop in the city centre. The Suffield family had a business in a building called Lamb House since 1812. From 1812 William Suffield ran a book and stationery shop there; Tolkien's great-grandfather, also John Suffield, was there from 1826 with a drapery and hosiery business.


title: Tolkien family

text: Her husband Arthur Tolkien's death in South Africa in 1896 left her and their two young sons without a source of income. At first, they lived with her parents in Birmingham, then moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham.


title: Tolkien family

text: Mabel tutored her two sons, and J. R. R. (Ronald, as he was known in the family) was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany, and she awakened in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. But his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early. She also taught him how to write, and her ornate script influenced her son's handwriting in his later life.


title: Tolkien family

text: Mabel Tolkien converted to Catholicism in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family who then stopped all financial assistance to her. She died of acute complications of diabetes in 1904 (at about 34 years of age, about as long as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could live with no treatment – insulin was not discovered until two decades later), when Tolkien was twelve, at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which they were then renting. For the rest of his life Tolkien felt that she had become a martyr for her faith, which had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs.


title: Tolkien family

text: Edith Mary Tolkien, born Bratt (21 January 1889 – 29 November 1971) was the wife of J. R. R. Tolkien. She served as the inspiration for his fictional character Lúthien Tinúviel, an Elven princess and the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar (the name of God in Tolkien's fiction).


title: Tolkien family

text: Bratt first met Tolkien in 1908, when they lived in the same boarding house. Both were orphans. The two fell in love, despite Bratt being Tolkien's senior by three years. Before the end of 1909 the relationship became known to Tolkien's guardian, Father Francis Xavier Morgan, who forbade Tolkien to see Bratt until he was 21. With one exception, Tolkien obeyed this instruction to the letter while Father Morgan's guardianship lasted. They were married in 1916.


title: Tolkien family

text: The couple are buried side by side in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford; below the names on their grave are the names Beren and Lúthien: in Tolkien's legendarium, Lúthien and the Man Beren were lovers separated for a time by Lúthien's father King Thingol.


title: Tolkien family

text: Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien (17 February 1894 – 1976), the younger brother of J. R. R. Tolkien, was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The climate did not suit the young J. R. R. Tolkien and his mother took both her sons to visit her parents in Kings Heath in Birmingham. When her husband died in 1896 she decided to stay back in England with her sons. They moved to Sarehole, a village then outside Birmingham, in 1896. As a child, J. R. R. Tolkien used to tell stories to his younger brother Hilary, making ogres out of the adult people in the village. Ronald nicknamed the flour-coated miller's son in the nearby Sarehole Mill "The White Ogre". A farmer who used to terrorise children intruding on his land was nicknamed as the "Black Ogre". He once chased Ronald for plucking mushrooms from his farm. Hilary wrote the stories, letters and reminiscences of past times in a notebook during his twilight years. The contents of the notebook were published as a book titled "Black & White Ogre Country: The Lost Tales of Hilary Tolkien" in 2009. In 1902, the family moved to 26 Oliver Road in Edgbaston, Birmingham and later they both joined St. Philip's School in Birmingham. However, they soon left the school and their mother started teaching them at home. In 1904, both brothers contracted measles and whooping cough. Owing to the poor condition of their house on Oliver Road, Hilary also contracted pneumonia.


title: Tolkien family

text: When their mother became ill with diabetes, Ronald was sent to live with his aunt Jane's fiancé and future husband Edwin Neave. Hilary was sent to stay with his maternal grandparents, the Suffields. After the death of their mother they were raised by Fr Francis Morgan. Hilary later passed an entrance examination and joined King Edward's School in 1905, where his elder brother also studied. Hilary left school in 1910 and later helped his aunt Jane Neave run Phoenix Farm in the village of Gedling in Nottinghamshire. Hilary, his brother, aunt Jane and members of the Brookes-Smith family made a trip to Switzerland in the summer of 1911. In late September 1914, J. R. R. Tolkien stayed with his aunt and brother at the farm for a few days. In 1914 during World War I, Hilary enlisted in the British Army with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a bugler and was wounded in 1916. After his military service, Hilary returned to Gedling and, in 1922, bought an orchard and market garden near Evesham, ancestral town of his mother's family. In 1923, J. R. R. Tolkien, along with his wife and children, went to stay with Hilary for a while. A few months before his death, he visited Hilary in Evesham. Hilary married Magdalen Matthews in 1928. They had three sons. The first, Gabriel, was born in 1931, the second, Julian, in 1935, and the third, Paul, in 1938.


title: Tolkien family

text: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (16 November 1917 – 22 January 2003) was the eldest son of J. R. R. Tolkien. He was born in Cheltenham. He was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and The Oratory School in Caversham, Berkshire, where in his final year he decided to become a priest. On the advice of the archbishop he decided to go to college to study English and joined Exeter College, Oxford, from where he received his B.A. degree in 1939. In November 1939, he went to the English College, Rome, to train as a priest. Due to the outbreak of World War II, the college was moved to Stonyhurst in Lancashire, where John trained as a priest during the war. He was ordained as a priest at St Gregory & St Augustine Church in North Oxford. His first position was as a curate from 1946 to 1950 at the St Mary and St Benedict Church in Coventry, where he taught weekly classes to 60 children and organized the building of church schools. From 1950 to 1957, he was a curate at the English Martyrs Church in Sparkhill, Birmingham. Thereafter he moved to North Staffordshire, where he was the chaplain of University College of North Staffordshire, now Keele University, and at two grammar schools, St Joseph's College, Trent Vale and St Dominic's High School, Hartshill. He was parish priest at Knutton Roman Catholic Church from 1957 to 1966. In 1966, he became the parish priest at Our Lady of the Angels and St Peter in Chains Church, Stoke-on-Trent. He held the position until 1987 and there oversaw the building of a new school. He was chairman of governors at Bishop Bright School, chaplain to the North Staffordshire Catholic Teachers Association and area chaplain to the Young Christian Students. He moved back to Oxford in 1987, settling in Eynsham, where he was the parish priest at St. Peter's Catholic Church until his retirement in 1994. Father Tolkien also served in parishes in Oxford, Birmingham, and Warwickshire.


title: Tolkien family

text: In 1987, he and his sister Priscilla began identifying the large collection of family photographs. In 1992, they released a book titled "The Tolkien Family Album" containing photographs and memories of the Tolkien family and giving an account of their father's life to celebrate the centenary birth anniversary of J. R. R. Tolkien.


title: Tolkien family

text: Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984) was a British teacher. He was J. R. R. Tolkien's second son and was named after J. R. R. Tolkien's brother Hilary. When young Michael lost his toy dog and became sad about this, his father began to write the story of "Roverandom" to comfort him. Michael's fear of spiders was J. R. R. Tolkien's inspiration for the encounter of Bilbo Baggins and the spiders of Mirkwood in "The Hobbit". Michael also used to own a Dutch doll which became an inspiration for Tom Bombadil. In 1939, Michael volunteered for the British Army but he was told to continue his university studies. He studied history at Trinity College, Oxford. In 1941, Michael Hilary Tolkien served in an anti-aircraft role during the Battle of Britain for which he was awarded the George Medal. He met a nurse named Joan Audrey Griffith (1916–1982) whom he married the same year. Later in World War II, he served as an anti-aircraft gunner in France and Germany. In 1944, he returned to Trinity College and finished his studies. He graduated in Modern History in 1945.


title: Tolkien family

text: From 1947 until the 1970s, he worked as a teacher at various Catholic schools in Britain. In 1973, Michael Tolkien published an article about his father in "The Sunday Telegraph": "J. R. R. Tolkien – The Wizard Father".


title: Tolkien family

text: Michael and his wife Joan had three children: Michael George Reuel (b. 1943), Joan Anne (b. 1945) and Judith (b. 1951). Royd Tolkien is the son of Michael's daughter Joan. Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien died in 1984 from leukaemia.


title: Tolkien family

text: Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was the youngest son of J. R. R. and Edith Tolkien. He is best known as his father's literary executor; he is the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work.


title: Tolkien family

text: During the Second World War he served in the RAF as a pilot. After the war, he followed in his father's footsteps, becoming a lecturer and tutor in English Language at New College, Oxford, from 1964 to 1975.


title: Tolkien family

text: In 2001, he received some attention for his stance on New Line Cinema's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, directed by Peter Jackson. It was reported that he had had a falling out with his son Simon over the appropriateness of a film adaptation. Responding to these reports, he said he felt "The Lord of the Rings" was "peculiarly unsuitable for transformation into visual dramatic form". He said he did not disapprove of the movies, definitely not "to the point of thinking ill" of those with whom he might disagree.


title: Tolkien family

text: Faith Lucy Tilly Faulconbridge (1928 – 24 October 2017) was the first wife of Christopher Tolkien, whom she married on 2 April 1951. Their son Simon was born in 1959. She produced a bust of J. R. R. Tolkien that is displayed in the English Faculty Library at Oxford University. She was born to F. T. Faulconbridge, whom J. R. R. Tolkien knew as a fellow student from King Edward's School, Birmingham. She received her B.A. degree from St Anne's College, Oxford, in 1950 and later studied sculpture-making from Oxford Art School. She was initially known for portrait heads in bronze, some of which she presented in the Royal Academy in 1958. She made a bust of her father-in-law which the English faculty at Oxford presented to him on his retirement in 1959. He had it cast in bronze and in 1966 it was placed at the English Faculty Library. Her other subjects included Iris Murdoch and C. S. Lewis. She separated from Christopher in 1964 and divorced from him in 1967.


title: Tolkien family

text: In 1958, she produced a seated Madonna and Child for the Catholic Chaplaincy at Birmingham University. In the early 1980s she returned to religious themes, including working for the Corpus Christi Church in Headington, Oxford and the Church of the Sacred Heart in Sutton Coldfield. She died on 24 October 2017.


title: Tolkien family

text: Baillie Tolkien ("née" Klass; born 10 December 1941) was the second wife of Christopher Tolkien. She was born in Winnipeg to Dr Alan Klass and his wife Helen. Alan Klass (1907–2000) was a surgeon and a distinguished member of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. Baillie attended McGill University and the University of Manitoba from which Baillie received her B.A. in 1962. She received her M.A. from St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1964. Her first husband was Brian Knapheis, a Rhodes Scholar from Winnipeg, to whom she was briefly married. While as Baillie Knapheis, she worked as a secretary, first to J. R. R. Tolkien and then to Isaiah Berlin. She married Christopher Tolkien on 18 September 1967. She has two children with Christopher. Their son Adam Reuel Tolkien was born in 1969, and their daughter Rachel Clare Reuel Tolkien was born in 1971. After the death of J. R. R. Tolkien, his letters written to his children were edited by Baillie for publication. The contents of the book were released in a 1976 book titled "The Father Christmas Letters", in which Baillie is credited as the editor. In the 1976–77 exhibition of paintings held at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and afterwards at the National Book League in London, Baillie contributed a short introduction to the catalogue.


title: Tolkien family

text: Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929, died 28 February 2022) was the fourth and youngest child of J. R. R. Tolkien, his only daughter. Priscilla had long been hoped for, and was born to Tolkien and his wife in their house at 22 Northmoor Road in Oxford shortly before the couple moved into their new one at 20 Northmoor Road in 1930. She took an active part in production of "The Lord of the Rings" by typing out some early chapters for her father at the age of fourteen. She completed her B.A. degree in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in 1951. The initial name of Frodo Baggins in the fourth draft of "The Lord of the Rings" was "Bingo Bolger-Baggins" which was named after a family of toy bears owned by Priscilla. She accompanied her father to a two-week holiday in Italy from late July to mid-August 1955. After that, she started living in the further side of the Oxford city from her parents' house but still saw them frequently and started working as a probation officer in the city. She was also a social worker. Tolkien wrote his last letter to Priscilla in August 1973. She was, until her death, the honorary vice-president of the Tolkien Society. She wrote an article titled "My Father the Artist" in December 1976 for "Amon Hen", the bulletin of the Tolkien Society. After her eldest brother John returned to Oxford in 1987, the siblings began identifying and cataloging the large collection of family photographs. In 1992, she and John published the book "The Tolkien Family Album" containing pictures of the Tolkien family to celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of their father. The same year she unveiled a plaque at the Anglican Cathedral of St. Andrew and St. Michael commemorating the centenary birth anniversary celebrations of her father at his birthplace of Bloemfontein, South Africa. She launched the special Tolkien edition Royal Mail stamps commemorating her father's works in February 2004. In 2012, she along with a coalition of British publishers sued Warner Brothers in her capacity of a trustee of The Tolkien Trust for US$80 million accusing them of exploiting Middle-earth characters to promote online gambling.


title: Tolkien family

text: Michael George Reuel Tolkien (born 1943) is a British poet. He is the grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien, being the eldest son of Michael H. R. Tolkien. Michael Tolkien was educated at The Oratory School in Oxford and then Ampleforth College. He studied English and Classics at St Andrews University and later a B.Phil. at Oxford. He taught as Head of English at Uppingham School until 1992. He has several volumes of published poetry including "Taking Cover", "Outstripping Gravity" and "Reaching for a Stranger". He is published by Redbeck Press. Michael Tolkien has two daughters, Catherine, born in 1969 and Ruth, born in 1982. He is married to the artist Rosemary Walters. He sits on the board of the Tolkien Company.


title: Tolkien family

text: Simon Mario Reuel Tolkien (born 1959) is a British barrister and novelist. He is the grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is the only son of Christopher Tolkien and his first wife, Faith Faulconbridge. Simon Tolkien was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and then Downside School. He studied modern history at Trinity College, Oxford. In 1984, he married Tracey Steinberg who was born in 1962. They have two children, a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Anna. Tracey Tolkien owned and operated a vintage clothing store in Chelsea, London, "Steinberg & Tolkien" which shut in September 2007. She has also published several books on vintage clothing and jewellery. Simon became a barrister in 1994, specializing in criminal defence and prosecution. Their son Nicholas is a playwright and director who debuted with his first play "Terezin", in June 2017.


title: Tolkien family

text: In January 2000, he began writing fiction. His first novel, which he has described as a "black comedy", was not accepted for publication. His second novel, a courtroom drama, was published in the United States as "The Final Witness" in 2002 and in United Kingdom as "The Stepmother" in 2003. His second published work, "The Inheritance" (the first of a trilogy featuring Inspector Trave of the Oxfordshire Criminal Investigation Department), was published in 2010. The second book of the Inspector Trave trilogy titled "The King of Diamonds" was released in 2011. The third and final book in the trilogy titled "Orders from Berlin" was released in 2012. In 2016, he authored a novel titled "No Man's Land" inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's experiences in the Battle of the Somme.


title: Tolkien family

text: Simon Tolkien notably disagreed with the policy of his grandfather's estate in regard to "The Lord of the Rings" films. When Christopher Tolkien issued a statement that the "Tolkien estate would be best advised to avoid any specific association with the films", Simon Tolkien broke ranks, offering to cooperate with the filmmakers, stating "It was my view that we take a much more positive line on the film and that was overruled by my father." Following up a 2001 interview with the "Independent", Simon in 2003 gave interviews to the "Daily Telegraph" and other media in which he discussed his strained relationship with his father, describing it as a permanent breach. However, they later reconciled.


title: Tolkien family

text: Royd Allan Reuel Tolkien is a great-grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien. He was born on 16 July 1969 to Joan Tolkien, Michael's daughter, and Hugh Baker. At the request of Peter Jackson, he portrayed a soldier of Gondor passing arms out to other soldiers as they prepare to defend Osgiliath in "", the final film in Jackson's film adaptation of his great-grandfather's works. Royd Tolkien also produced a film titled "Pimp", wherein he also plays himself. He established a film production company called R&R Films along with Robert Cavanah in 2010. He co-produced a mockumentary video film titled "Tontine" or possibly "Tontine Massacre".


title: Tolkien family

text: Royd has an older sister, Mandy Doyle, who was born in 1967. He also had a brother, Michael "Mike" Baker, who was born in 1975 and suffered from motor neurone disease. Mike died in 2015. In 2012, he along with his brother Mike and Peter Jackson made an appearance in an Air New Zealand safety video that was part of a major global promotion linked to the movie "". Royd also made a cameo appearance in the extended edition of the film "". He appears during a scene in which Beorn and Gandalf are discussing the catacombs where the Nazgûl were buried.


title: Tolkien family

text: Ruth Mary Reuel Tolkien is a great-granddaughter of J. R. R. Tolkien. She is the daughter of Michael George Reuel Tolkien.


title: Tolkien family

text: Ruth Tolkien is registered blind and is believed to be the only blind fencer competing against sighted opponents in British Fencing events. As of September 2015, she is ranked 186 in the UK by British Fencing. In October 2015 she was interviewed by Matthew Bannister on the BBC World Service about her fencing success.


title: Tolkien family

text: Timothy Tolkien (born October 1962) is the great-nephew of J. R. R. Tolkien and the grandson of Hilary Tolkien. His father is Julian Tolkien. He is a sculptor who has designed several monumental sculptures, including the award-winning "Sentinel". He has a public art and metal sculpture business at Cradley Heath, West Midlands. He is also a bass player and member of the band Klangstorm, founded in 1996.


title: Max Handelman

text: Max Handelman (born May 3, 1973) is an American sportswriter, producer, and blogger. He co-wrote the book "Why Fantasy Football Matters: (And Our Lives Do Not)" with Erik Barmack. Handelman is married to actress Elizabeth Banks. Handelman co-founded the production company Brownstone Productions, whose first film, "Surrogates", was released in 2009.


title: Max Handelman

text: Handelman was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, in a Jewish family. Handelman attended Catlin Gabel School, graduating in 1991. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, where he was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, and received an MBA degree from UCLA in 2003.


title: Max Handelman

text: Handelman co-founded the production company Brownstone Productions alongside wife Elizabeth Banks. Their first film, "Surrogates", was released in 2009. The company is best known for the "Pitch Perfect" films.


title: Max Handelman

text: Handelman is a fan of fantasy football. He wrote "Why Fantasy Football Matters: (And Our Lives Do Not)", with his friend Erik Barmack. They also collaborated on a weblog covering the Portland Trail Blazers entitled Beyond Bowie.


title: Max Handelman

text: Handelman is married to actress Elizabeth Banks, his college girlfriend, whom he wed in 2003. The couple live in Los Angeles. He and his wife had their first child, a boy named Felix, via surrogacy in March 2011.


title: Max Handelman

text: On November 14, 2012, they had a second boy, Magnus Mitchell Handelman, again via gestational surrogacy. He is a fan of the Portland Trail Blazers.


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Proponents claim that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States.


title: Intelligent design

text: Although the phrase "intelligent design" had featured previously in theological discussions of the argument from design, its first publication in its present use as an alternative term for creationism was in "Of Pandas and People", a 1989 creationist textbook intended for high school biology classes. The term was substituted into drafts of the book, directly replacing references to "creation science" and "creationism", after the 1987 Supreme Court's "Edwards v. Aguillard" decision barred the teaching of creation science in public schools on constitutional grounds. From the mid-1990s, the intelligent design movement (IDM), supported by the Discovery Institute, advocated inclusion of intelligent design in public school biology curricula. This led to the 2005 "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District" trial, which found that intelligent design was not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and that the public school district's promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.


title: Intelligent design

text: ID presents two main arguments against evolutionary explanations: irreducible complexity and specified complexity, asserting that certain biological and informational features of living things are too complex to be the result of natural selection. Detailed scientific examination has rebutted several examples for which evolutionary explanations are claimed to be impossible.


title: Intelligent design

text: ID seeks to challenge the methodological naturalism inherent in modern science, though proponents concede that they have yet to produce a scientific theory. As a positive argument against evolution, ID proposes an analogy between natural systems and human artifacts, a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God. ID proponents then conclude by analogy that the complex features, as defined by ID, are evidence of design. Critics of ID find a false dichotomy in the premise that evidence against evolution constitutes evidence for design.


title: Intelligent design

text: In 1910, evolution was not a topic of major religious controversy in America, but in the 1920s, the fundamentalist–modernist controversy in theology resulted in fundamentalist Christian opposition to teaching evolution and resulted in the origins of modern creationism. As a result, teaching of evolution was effectively suspended in U.S. public schools until the 1960s, and when evolution was then reintroduced into the curriculum, there was a series of court cases in which attempts were made to get creationism taught alongside evolution in science classes. Young Earth creationists (YECs) promoted "creation science" as "an alternative scientific explanation of the world in which we live". This frequently invoked the argument from design to explain complexity in nature as supposedly demonstrating the existence of God.


title: Intelligent design

text: The argument from design, also known as the teleological argument or "argument from intelligent design", has been presented by theologists for centuries. A sufficiently succinct summary of the argument from design shows its unscientific, circular, and thereby illogical reasoning, for example as follows: "Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex and therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer." Thomas Aquinas presented it in his fifth proof of God's existence as a syllogism. In 1802, William Paley's "Natural Theology" presented examples of intricate purpose in organisms. His version of the watchmaker analogy argued that a watch has evidently been designed by a craftsman and that it is supposedly just as evident that the complexity and adaptation seen in nature must have been designed. He went on to argue that the perfection and diversity of these designs supposedly shows the designer to be omnipotent and that this can supposedly only be the Christian god. Like "creation science", intelligent design centers on Paley's religious argument from design, but while Paley's natural theology was open to deistic design through God-given laws, intelligent design seeks scientific confirmation of repeated supposedly miraculous interventions in the history of life. "Creation science" prefigured the intelligent design arguments of irreducible complexity, even featuring the bacterial flagellum. In the United States, attempts to introduce "creation science" into schools led to court rulings that it is religious in nature and thus cannot be taught in public school science classrooms. Intelligent design is also presented as science and shares other arguments with "creation science" but avoids literal Biblical references to such topics as the biblical flood story or using Bible verses to estimate the age of the Earth.


title: Intelligent design

text: Barbara Forrest writes that the intelligent design movement began in 1984 with the book "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories", co-written by the creationist and chemist Charles B. Thaxton and two other authors and published by Jon A. Buell's Foundation for Thought and Ethics.


title: Intelligent design

text: In March 1986, Stephen C. Meyer published a review of this book, discussing how information theory could suggest that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell show "specified complexity" and must have been created by an intelligent agent. He also argued that science is based upon "foundational assumptions" of naturalism that were as much a matter of faith as those of "creation theory". In November of that year, Thaxton described his reasoning as a more sophisticated form of Paley's argument from design. At a conference that Thaxton held in 1988 ("Sources of Information Content in DNA"), he said that his intelligent cause view was compatible with both metaphysical naturalism and supernaturalism.


title: Intelligent design

text: Intelligent design avoids identifying or naming the intelligent designer—it merely states that one (or more) must exist—but leaders of the movement have said the designer is the Christian God. Whether this lack of specificity about the designer's identity in public discussions is a genuine feature of the concept – or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science – has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held the latter to be the case.


title: Intelligent design

text: Since the Middle Ages, discussion of the religious "argument from design" or "teleological argument" in theology, with its concept of "intelligent design", has persistently referred to the theistic Creator God. Although ID proponents chose this provocative label for their proposed alternative to evolutionary explanations, they have de-emphasized their religious antecedents and denied that ID is natural theology, while still presenting ID as supporting the argument for the existence of God.


title: Intelligent design

text: While intelligent design proponents have pointed out past examples of the phrase "intelligent design" that they said were not creationist and faith-based, they have failed to show that these usages had any influence on those who introduced the label in the intelligent design movement.


title: Intelligent design

text: Variations on the phrase appeared in Young Earth creationist publications: a 1967 book co-written by Percival Davis referred to "design according to which basic organisms were created". In 1970, A. E. Wilder-Smith published "The Creation of Life: A Cybernetic Approach to Evolution". The book defended Paley's design argument with computer calculations of the improbability of genetic sequences, which he said could not be explained by evolution but required "the abhorred necessity of divine intelligent activity behind nature", and that "the same problem would be expected to beset the relationship between the designer behind nature and the intelligently designed part of nature known as man." In a 1984 article as well as in his affidavit to "Edwards v. Aguillard", Dean H. Kenyon defended creation science by stating that "biomolecular systems require intelligent design and engineering know-how", citing Wilder-Smith. Creationist Richard B. Bliss used the phrase "creative design" in "Origins: Two Models: Evolution, Creation" (1976), and in "Origins: Creation or Evolution" (1988) wrote that "while evolutionists are trying to find non-intelligent ways for life to occur, the creationist insists that an intelligent design must have been there in the first place." The first systematic use of the term, defined in a glossary and claimed to be other than creationism, was in "Of Pandas and People", co-authored by Davis and Kenyon.


title: Intelligent design

text: The most common modern use of the words "intelligent design" as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry began after the United States Supreme Court ruled in June 1987 in the case of "Edwards v. Aguillard" that it is unconstitutional for a state to require the teaching of creationism in public school science curricula.


title: Intelligent design

text: A Discovery Institute report says that Charles B. Thaxton, editor of "Pandas", had picked the phrase up from a NASA scientist, and thought, "That's just what I need, it's a good engineering term." In two successive 1987 drafts of the book, over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "Creation Science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design", while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, "cdesign proponentsists". In June 1988, Thaxton held a conference titled "Sources of Information Content in DNA" in Tacoma, Washington. Stephen C. Meyer was at the conference, and later recalled that "The term "intelligent design" came up..." In December 1988 Thaxton decided to use the label "intelligent design" for his new creationist movement.


title: Intelligent design

text: "Of Pandas and People" was published in 1989, and in addition to including all the current arguments for ID, was the first book to make systematic use of the terms "intelligent design" and "design proponents" as well as the phrase "design theory", defining the term "intelligent design" in a glossary and representing it as not being creationism. It thus represents the start of the modern intelligent design movement. "Intelligent design" was the most prominent of around fifteen new terms it introduced as a new lexicon of creationist terminology to oppose evolution without using religious language. It was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its primary present use, as stated both by its publisher Jon A. Buell, and by William A. Dembski in his expert witness report for "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District".


title: Intelligent design

text: The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) has criticized the book for presenting all of the basic arguments of intelligent design proponents and being actively promoted for use in public schools before any research had been done to support these arguments. Although presented as a scientific textbook, philosopher of science Michael Ruse considers the contents "worthless and dishonest". An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer described it as a political tool aimed at students who did not "know science or understand the controversy over evolution and creationism". One of the authors of the science framework used by California schools, Kevin Padian, condemned it for its "sub-text", "intolerance for honest science" and "incompetence".


title: Intelligent design

text: The term "irreducible complexity" was introduced by biochemist Michael Behe in his 1996 book "Darwin's Black Box", though he had already described the concept in his contributions to the 1993 revised edition of "Of Pandas and People". Behe defines it as "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning".


title: Intelligent design

text: Behe uses the analogy of a mousetrap to illustrate this concept. A mousetrap consists of several interacting pieces—the base, the catch, the spring and the hammer—all of which must be in place for the mousetrap to work. Removal of any one piece destroys the function of the mousetrap. Intelligent design advocates assert that natural selection could not create irreducibly complex systems, because the selectable function is present only when all parts are assembled. Behe argued that irreducibly complex biological mechanisms include the bacterial flagellum of "E. coli", the blood clotting cascade, cilia, and the adaptive immune system.


title: Intelligent design

text: Critics point out that the irreducible complexity argument assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary and therefore could not have been added sequentially. They argue that something that is at first merely advantageous can later become necessary as other components change. Furthermore, they argue, evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from a system, rather than by adding them. This is sometimes called the "scaffolding objection" by an analogy with scaffolding, which can support an "irreducibly complex" building until it is complete and able to stand on its own.


title: Intelligent design

text: Behe has acknowledged using "sloppy prose", and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof." Irreducible complexity has remained a popular argument among advocates of intelligent design; in the Dover trial, the court held that "Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large."


title: Intelligent design

text: In 1986, Charles B. Thaxton, a physical chemist and creationist, used the term "specified complexity" from information theory when claiming that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell were specified by intelligence, and must have originated with an intelligent agent.