title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The Fukiage Garden has carried the name since the Edo period and is used as the residential area for the Imperial Family.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The , achieved in 1993, was used as the primary residence of Akihito from December 8, 1993, to March 2020. After a period of refurbishment, Naruhito, Masako and Aiko moved in in September 2021.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The in the northern section was originally the residence of Emperor Showa and Empress Kōjun and was called the "Fukiage Palace". After the Emperor's death in 1989, the palace was renamed the "Fukiage Ōmiya Palace" and was the residence of the Empress Dowager until her death in 2000. It is currently not in use.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The palace precincts include the . Parts of the Imperial Regalia of Japan are kept here and the sanctuary plays a religious role in imperial enthronements and weddings.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The East Gardens is where most of the administrative buildings for the palace are located and encompasses the former Honmaru and Ninomaru areas of Edo Castle, a total of . Located on the grounds of the East Gardens is the Imperial "Tokagakudo" Music Hall, the Music Department of the Board of Ceremonies of the Imperial Household, the Archives and Mausolea Department Imperial Household Agency, structures for the guards such as the "Saineikan" dojo, and the Museum of the Imperial Collections.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: Several structures that were added since the Meiji period were removed over time to allow construction of the East Garden. In 1932, the "kuretake-ryō" was built as a dormitory for imperial princesses, however this building was removed prior to the construction of the present gardens. Other buildings such as stables and housing were removed to create the East Garden in its present configuration.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: Construction work began in 1961 with a new pond in the Ninomaru, as well as the repair and restoration of various keeps and structures from the Edo period. On 30 May 1963, the area was declared by the Japanese government a "Special Historic Relic" under the Cultural Properties Protection Law.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The is located to the east of the former main donjon of Edo Castle in the Honmaru. This music hall was built in commemoration of the 60th birthday of Empress Kōjun on 6 March 1963. The ferro-concrete building covers a total area of . The hall is octagon-shaped and each of its eight outer walls is decorated with differently designed mosaic tiles. Construction began in August 1964 and was completed in February 1966.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: Symbolic trees representing each prefecture in Japan are planted in the northwestern corner of Ninomaru enceinte. Such trees have been donated from each prefecture and there are total of 260, covering 30 varieties.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The small Ninomaru Garden at the foot of the castle hill was originally planted in 1636 by Kobori Enshu, a famed landscape artist and garden designer, but it was destroyed by fire in 1867. The current layout was created in 1968, based on a plan drawn up during the reign of ninth shogun, Tokugawa Ieshige.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The is a teahouse that was located in the Fukiage Garden during the Edo period. It moved to the Akasaka Palace after the Meiji restoration, but was reconstructed in its original location in 1912.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: The Kitanomaru Park is located to the north and is the former northern enceinte of Edo Castle. It is a public park and is the site of Nippon Budokan Hall.


title: Tokyo Imperial Palace

text: To the south-east are the large outer gardens of the Imperial Palace, which are also a public park and contain bronze monuments to and to .


title: Newton's cradle

text: The Newton's cradle is a device that demonstrates the conservation of momentum and the conservation of energy with swinging spheres. When one sphere at the end is lifted and released, it strikes the stationary spheres, transmitting a force through the stationary spheres that pushes the last sphere upward. The last sphere swings back and strikes the nearly stationary spheres, repeating the effect in the opposite direction. The device is named after 17th-century English scientist Sir Isaac Newton and designed by French scientist Edme Mariotte. It is also known as Newton's pendulum, Newton's balls, Newton's rocker or executive ball clicker (since the device makes a click each time the balls collide, which they do repeatedly in a steady rhythm).


title: Newton's cradle

text: When one of the end balls ("the first") is pulled sideways, the attached string makes it follow an upward arc. When it is let go, it strikes the second ball and comes to nearly a dead stop. The ball on the opposite side acquires most of the velocity of the first ball and swings in an arc almost as high as the release height of the first ball. This shows that the last ball receives most of the energy and momentum of the first ball. The impact produces a compression wave that propagates through the intermediate balls. Any efficiently elastic material such as steel does this, as long as the kinetic energy is temporarily stored as potential energy in the compression of the material rather than being lost as heat. There are slight movements in all the balls after the initial strike but the last ball receives most of the initial energy from the impact of the first ball. When two (or three) balls are dropped, the two (or three) balls on the opposite side swing out. Some say that this behavior demonstrates the conservation of momentum and kinetic energy in elastic collisions. However, if the colliding balls behave as described above with the same mass possessing the same velocity before and after the collisions, then any function of mass and velocity is conserved in such an event.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Newton's cradle can be modeled fairly accurately with simple mathematical equations with the assumption that the balls always collide in pairs. If one ball strikes four stationary balls that are already touching, these simple equations can not explain the resulting movements in all five balls, which are not due to friction losses. For example, in a real Newton's cradle the fourth has some movement and the first ball has a slight reverse movement. All the animations in this article show idealized action (simple solution) that only occurs if the balls are "not" touching initially and only collide in pairs.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The conservation of momentum and kinetic energy can be used to find the resulting velocities for two colliding perfectly elastic objects. These two equations are used to determine the resulting velocities of the two objects. For the case of two balls constrained to a straight path by the strings in the cradle, the velocities are a single number instead of a 3D vector for 3D space, so the math requires only two equations to solve for two unknowns. When the two objects have the same mass, the solution is simple: the moving object stops relative to the stationary one and the stationary one picks up all the other's initial velocity. This assumes perfectly elastic objects, so there is no need to account for heat and sound energy losses.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Steel does not compress much, but its elasticity is very efficient, so it does not cause much waste heat. The simple effect from two same-mass efficiently elastic colliding objects constrained to a straight path is the basis of the effect seen in the cradle and gives an approximate solution to all its activities.


title: Newton's cradle

text: For a sequence of same-mass elastic objects constrained to a straight path, the effect continues to each successive object. For example, when two balls are dropped to strike three stationary balls in a cradle, there is an unnoticed but crucial small distance between the two dropped balls, and the action is as follows: the first moving ball that strikes the first stationary ball (the second ball striking the third ball) transfers all of its momentum to the third ball and stops. The third ball then transfers the momentum to the fourth ball and stops, and then the fourth to the fifth ball. Right behind this sequence is the second moving ball transferring its momentum to the first moving ball that just stopped, and the sequence repeats immediately and imperceptibly behind the first sequence, ejecting the fourth ball right behind the fifth ball with the same small separation that was between the two initial striking balls. If they are simply touching when they strike the third ball, precision requires the more complete solution below.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The effect of the last ball ejecting with a velocity nearly equal to the first ball can be seen in sliding a coin on a table into a line of identical coins, as long as the striking coin and its twin targets are in a straight line. The effect can similarly be seen in billiard balls. The effect can also be seen when a sharp and strong pressure wave strikes a dense homogeneous material immersed in a less-dense medium. If the identical atoms, molecules, or larger-scale sub-volumes of the dense homogeneous material are at least partially elastically connected to each other by electrostatic forces, they can act as a sequence of colliding identical elastic balls. The surrounding atoms, molecules, or sub-volumes experiencing the pressure wave act to constrain each other similarly to how the string constrains the cradle's balls to a straight line. For example, lithotripsy shock waves can be sent through the skin and tissue without harm to burst kidney stones. The side of the stones opposite to the incoming pressure wave bursts, not the side receiving the initial strike.


title: Newton's cradle

text: For the simple solution to precisely predict the action, no pair in the midst of colliding may touch the third ball, because the presence of the third ball effectively makes the struck ball appear more massive. Applying the two conservation equations to solve the final velocities of three or more balls in a single collision results in many possible solutions, so these two principles are not enough to determine resulting action.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Even when there is a small initial separation, a third ball may become involved in the collision if the initial separation is not large enough. When this occurs, the complete solution method described below must be used.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Small steel balls work well because they remain efficiently elastic with little heat loss under strong strikes and do not compress much (up to about 30 μm in a small Newton's cradle). The small, stiff compressions mean they occur rapidly, less than 200 microseconds, so steel balls are more likely to complete a collision before touching a nearby third ball. Softer elastic balls require a larger separation to maximize the effect from pair-wise collisions.


title: Newton's cradle

text: A cradle that best follows the simple solution needs to have an initial separation between the balls that measures at least twice the amount that any one ball compresses, but most do not. This section describes the action when the initial separation is not enough and in subsequent collisions that involve more than two balls even when there is an initial separation. This solution simplifies to the simple solution when only two balls touch during a collision. It applies to all perfectly elastic identical balls that have no energy losses due to friction and can be approximated by materials such as steel, glass, plastic, and rubber.


title: Newton's cradle

text: For two balls colliding, only the two equations for conservation of momentum and energy are needed to solve the two unknown resulting velocities. For three or more simultaneously colliding elastic balls, the relative compressibilities of the colliding surfaces are the additional variables that determine the outcome. For example, five balls have four colliding points and scaling (dividing) three of them by the fourth gives the three extra variables needed to solve for all five post-collision velocities.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Newtonian, Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, and stationary action are the different ways of mathematically expressing classical mechanics. They describe the same physics but must be solved by different methods. All enforce the conservation of energy and momentum. Newton's law has been used in research papers. It is applied to each ball and the sum of forces is made equal to zero. So there are five equations, one for each ball—and five unknowns, one for each velocity. If the balls are identical, the absolute compressibility of the surfaces becomes irrelevant, because it can be divided out of both sides of all five equations, producing zero.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Determining the velocities for the case of one ball striking four initially-touching balls is found by modeling the balls as weights with non-traditional springs on their colliding surfaces. Most materials, like steel, that are efficiently elastic approximately follow Hooke's force law for springs, formula_1, but because the area of contact for a sphere increases as the force increases, colliding elastic balls follow Hertz's adjustment to Hooke's law, formula_2. This and Newton's law for motion (formula_3) are applied to each ball, giving five simple but interdependent differential equations that are solved numerically. When the fifth ball begins accelerating, it is receiving momentum and energy from the third and fourth balls through the spring action of their compressed surfaces. For identical elastic balls of any type with initially touching balls, the action is the same for the first strike, except the time to complete a collision increases in softer materials. 40% to 50% of the kinetic energy of the initial ball from a single-ball strike is stored in the ball surfaces as potential energy for most of the collision process. Thirteen percent of the initial velocity is imparted to the fourth ball (which can be seen as a 3.3-degree movement if the fifth ball moves out 25 degrees) and there is a slight reverse velocity in the first three balls, the first ball having the largest at −7% of the initial velocity. This separates the balls, but they come back together just before as the fifth ball returns. This is due to the pendulum phenomenon of different small angle disturbances having approximately the same time to return to the center. When balls are "touching"


title: Newton's cradle

text: The Hertzian differential equations predict that if two balls strike three, the fifth and fourth balls will leave with velocities of 1.14 and 0.80 times the initial velocity. This is 2.03 times more kinetic energy in the fifth ball than the fourth ball, which means the fifth ball would swing twice as high in the vertical direction as the fourth ball. But in a real Newton's cradle, the fourth ball swings out as far as the fifth ball. To explain the difference between theory and experiment, the two striking balls must have at least ≈ 10 μm separation (given steel, 100 g, and 1 m/s). This shows that in the common case of steel balls, unnoticed separations can be important and must be included in the Hertzian differential equations, or the simple solution gives a more accurate result.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The forces in the Hertzian solution above were assumed to propagate in the balls immediately, which is not the case. Sudden changes in the force between the atoms of material build up to form a pressure wave. Pressure waves (sound) in steel travel about 5  cm in 10 microseconds, which is about 10 times faster than the time between the first ball striking and the last ball being ejected. The pressure waves reflect back and forth through all five balls about ten times, although dispersing to less of a wavefront with more reflections. This is fast enough for the Hertzian solution to not require a substantial modification to adjust for the delay in force propagation through the balls. In less-rigid but still very elastic balls such as rubber, the propagation speed is slower, but the duration of collisions is longer, so the Hertzian solution still applies. The error introduced by the limited speed of the force propagation biases the Hertzian solution towards the simple solution because the collisions are not affected as much by the inertia of the balls that are further away.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Identically-shaped balls help the pressure waves converge on the contact point of the last ball: at the initial strike point one pressure wave goes forward to the other balls while another goes backward to reflect off the opposite side of the first ball, and then it follows the first wave, being exactly 1 ball-diameter behind. The two waves meet up at the last contact point because the first wave reflects off the opposite side of the last ball and it meets up at the last contact point with the second wave. Then they reverberate back and forth like this about 10 times until the first ball stops connecting with the second ball. Then the reverberations reflect off the contact point between the second and third balls, but still converge at the last contact point, until the last ball is ejected—but it is less of a wavefront with each reflection.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Using different types of material does not change the action as long as the material is efficiently elastic. The size of the spheres does not change the results unless the increased weight exceeds the elastic limit of the material. If the solid balls are too large, energy is being lost as heat, because the elastic limit increases with the radius raised to the power 1.5, but the energy which had to be absorbed and released increases as the cube of the radius. Making the contact surfaces flatter can overcome this to an extent by distributing the compression to a larger amount of material but it can introduce an alignment problem. Steel is better than most materials because it allows the simple solution to apply more often in collisions after the first strike, its elastic range for storing energy remains good despite the higher energy caused by its weight, and the higher weight decreases the effect of air resistance.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The most common application is that of a desktop executive toy. Another use is as an educational physics demonstration, as an example of conservation of momentum and conservation of energy. A similar principle, the propagation of waves in solids, was used in the Constantinesco Synchronization gear system for propeller / gun synchronizers on early fighter aircraft.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The principle demonstrated by the device, the law of impacts between bodies, was first demonstrated by the French physicist Abbé Mariotte in the 17th century. His work on the topic was first presented to the French Academy of Sciences in 1671; it was published in 1673 as "Traité de la percussion ou choc des corps" ("Treatise on percussion or shock of bodies").


title: Newton's cradle

text: Newton acknowledged Mariotte's work, along with Wren, Wallis and Huygens as the pioneers of experiments on the collisions of pendulum balls, in his "Principia".


title: Newton's cradle

text: Christiaan Huygens used pendulums to study collisions. His work, "De Motu Corporum ex Percussione" (On the Motion of Bodies by Collision) published posthumously in 1703, contains a version of Newton's first law and discusses the collision of suspended bodies including two bodies of equal mass with the motion of the moving body being transferred to the one at rest.


title: Newton's cradle

text: There is much confusion over the origins of the modern Newton's cradle. Marius J. Morin has been credited as being the first to name and make this popular executive toy. However, in early 1967, an English actor, Simon Prebble, coined the name "Newton's cradle" (now used generically) for the wooden version manufactured by his company, Scientific Demonstrations Ltd. After some initial resistance from retailers, they were first sold by Harrods of London, thus creating the start of an enduring market for executive toys. Later a very successful chrome design for the Carnaby Street store Gear was created by the sculptor and future film director Richard Loncraine.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The largest cradle device in the world was designed by "MythBusters" and consisted of five one-ton concrete and steel rebar-filled buoys suspended from a steel truss. The buoys also had a steel plate inserted in between their two-halves to act as a "contact point" for transferring the energy; this cradle device did not function well because concrete is not elastic so most of the energy was lost to a heat buildup in the concrete. A smaller-scale version constructed by them consists of five chrome steel ball bearings, each weighing , and is nearly as efficient as a desktop model.


title: Newton's cradle

text: The cradle device with the largest-diameter collision balls on public display was visible for more than a year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the retail store American Science and Surplus (see photo). Each ball was an inflatable exercise ball in diameter (encased in steel rings), and was supported from the ceiling using extremely strong magnets. It was dismantled in early August 2010 due to maintenance concerns.


title: Newton's cradle

text: Newton's cradle has been used more than 20 times in movies, often as a trope on the desk of a lead villain such as Paul Newman's role in "The Hudsucker Proxy", Magneto in "X-Men", and the Kryptonians in "Superman II". It was used to represent the unyielding position of the NFL towards head injuries in "Concussion". It has also been used as a relaxing diversion on the desk of lead intelligent/anxious/sensitive characters such as Henry Winkler's role in "Night Shift", Dustin Hoffman's role in "Straw Dogs", and Gwyneth Paltrow's role in "Iron Man 2". It was featured more prominently as a series of clay pots in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", and as a row of 1968 Eero Aarnio bubble chairs with scantily-clad women in them in Gamer. In "Storks", Hunter the CEO of Cornerstore has one not with balls, but with little birds.


title: Newton's cradle

text: In 2017, an episode of the "Omnibus" podcast, featuring "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings and musician John Roderick, focused on the history of Newton's Cradle. Newton's cradle is also featured on the desk of Deputy White House Communications Director Sam Seaborn in "The West Wing".


title: Newton's cradle

text: Rock band Jefferson Airplane used the cradle on the 1968 album "Crown of Creation" as a rhythm device to create polyrhythms on an instrumental track.


title: Wear OS

text: Wear OS (also known simply as Wear and formerly Android Wear) is a version of Google's Android operating system designed for smartwatches and other wearables. By pairing with mobile phones running Android version 6.0 "Marshmallow" or newer, or iOS version 10.0 or newer with limited support from Google's pairing application, Wear OS integrates Google Assistant technology and mobile notifications into a smartwatch form factor.


title: Wear OS

text: Wear OS supports Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi, 3G, and LTE connectivity, as well as a range of features and applications. Watch face styles include round, square and rectangular. Hardware manufacturing partners include Asus, Broadcom, Fossil, HTC, Intel, LG, MediaTek, Imagination Technologies, Motorola, New Balance, Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei, Skagen, Polar, TAG Heuer, Suunto, and Mobvoi.


title: Wear OS

text: In the first six months of availability, Canalys estimates that over 720,000 Android Wear smartwatches were shipped. , Wear OS had between 10 and 50 million application installations. Wear OS was estimated to account for 10% of the smartwatch market in 2015.


title: Wear OS

text: The platform was announced on March 18, 2014, along with the release of a developer preview. At the same time, companies such as Motorola, Samsung, LG, HTC and Asus were announced as partners. On June 25, 2014, at Google I/O, the Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch were launched, along with further details about Android Wear. The LG G Watch is the first Android Wear smartwatch to be released and shipped.


title: Wear OS

text: On December 10, 2014, an update started to roll out, adding new features including a watch face API and changed the software to be based on Android 5.0 "Lollipop".


title: Wear OS

text: The LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live started shipping in July 2014, while the Motorola Moto 360, began shipping in September 2014. The next batch of Android Wear devices, which arrived at the end of 2014, included the Asus ZenWatch, the Sony SmartWatch 3, and the LG G Watch R. , the latest Wear OS devices are the LG Watch Urbane, and the Huawei Watch.


title: Wear OS

text: On August 31, 2015, Google launched a Wear OS app for IOS version 8.2 or newer, allowing limited support for receiving iOS notifications on smartwatches running Wear OS. , only the LG Watch Urbane and Huawei Watch are supported, but Google announced support for more smartwatch models.


title: Wear OS

text: In March 2018, Android Wear was rebranded as Wear OS. It was stated that the renaming "better reflects our technology, vision, and most important of all — the people who wear our watches." In September 2018, Google announced Wear OS 2.0, which made the personalized Google feed (replacing Google Now) and new fitness tracking platform Google Fit accessible from the watch face, and redesigned the notification area to use a scrolling pane rather than pages, and support automatically-generated smart replies (as on Android Pie). In November 2018, the underlying platform of Wear OS was upgraded to a version of Android Pie.


title: Wear OS

text: In January 2021, Google completed its acquisition of wearables manufacturer Fitbit; upon its announcement of the purchase in November 2019, Google's head of hardware Rick Osterloh stated that it would be "an opportunity to invest even more in Wear OS as well as introduce Made by Google wearable devices into the market."


title: Wear OS

text: In May 2021 at Google I/O, Google announced a major update to the platform, internally known as Wear OS 3.0. It incorporates a new visual design inspired by Android 12, and Fitbit exercise tracking features. Google also announced a partnership with Samsung Electronics, who is collaborating with Google to unify its Tizen-based smartwatch platform with Wear OS, and has committed to using Wear OS on its future smartwatch products. The underlying codebase was also upgraded to Android 11. Wear OS 3.0 will be available to Wear OS devices running Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 system on chip, and will be an opt-in upgrade requiring a factory reset to install.


title: Wear OS

text: Wear OS can synchronize notifications from a paired device, and supports voice control with the "OK Google" hotword along with gesture-based input. Wear OS integrates with Google services such as the Google Assistant and Google mobile services (including Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Wallet), as well as third-party watch apps from Play Store. From the watch face, the user can swipe up to access their notifications, down to access a quick settings panel, from the left to view their personalized Google feed, and the right to view Google Fit. Via Google Fit and similar applications, Wear OS supports ride and run tracking, and devices containing heart rate sensors can perform a reading on-demand, or at intervals throughout the day. The watch can control media being played on streamed on paired devices.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. Headquartered in New York City, it is the largest UN development aid agency, with offices in 170 countries.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP emphasizes developing local capacity towards long-term self-sufficiency and prosperity. It administers projects to attract investment, technical training, and technological development, and provides experts to help build legal and political institutions and expand the private sector.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP operates in 177 countries and is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from UN member states. Also, UNDP is governed by a 36-member executive board overseen by an administrator, who is third-highest ranking UN official after the Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP was founded on 22 November 1965 with the merging of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA) and the Special Fund in 1958. The rationale was to "avoid duplication of [their] activities". The EPTA was set up in 1949 to help the economic and political aspects of underdeveloped countries while the Special Fund was to enlarge the scope of UN technical assistance. The Special Fund arose from the idea of a Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development (SUNFED) (which was initially called the United Nations Fund for Economic Development (UNFED).


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Countries such as the Nordic countries were proponents of such a United Nations (UN) controlled fund. However, the fund was opposed by developed countries, especially by the United States who was wary of the Third World dominating such a funding and preferred it to be under the auspices of the World Bank. The concept of SUNFED was dropped to form the Special Fund. This Special Fund was a compromise over the SUNFED concept, it did not provide investment capital, but only helped to bring pre-conditions for private investment.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: With the US proposing and creating the International Development Association within the World Bank's umbrella, the EPTA and the Special Fund appeared to be conducting similar work. In 1962, the United Nations Economic and Social Council asked the Secretary General to consider the merits and disadvantages of merging UN technical assistance programs and in 1966, the EPTA and the Special Fund merged to form the UNDP.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The following table lists the top 15 DAC 5 Digit Sectors to which UNDP has committed funding, as recorded in its International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) publications. The UNDP claims on the IATI Registry website that the data covers 100% of development flows.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP topped the Aid Transparency Index published by Publish What You Fund in 2015 and 2016. "The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) tops the Index for the second time with an excellent score of 93.3%, the only organisation to score above 90%".


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP links and coordinates global and national efforts to achieve the goals and national development priorities laid out by host countries. UNDP focuses primarily on five developmental challenges:


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP supports national democratic transitions by providing policy advice and technical support, improving institutional and individual capacity within countries, educating populations about and advocating for democratic reforms, promoting negotiation and dialogue, and sharing successful experiences from other countries and locations. UNDP also supports existing democratic institutions by increasing dialogue, enhancing national debate, and facilitating consensus on national governance programmes.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP helps countries develop strategies to combat poverty by expanding access to economic opportunities and resources, linking poverty programmes with countries' larger goals and policies, and ensuring a greater voice for the poor. It also works at the macro level to reform trade, encourage debt relief and foreign investment, and ensure the poorest of the poor benefit from globalisation. On the ground, UNDP sponsors developmental pilot projects, promotes the role of women in development, and coordinates efforts between governments, NGOs, and outside donors. In this way, UNDP works with local leaders and governments to provide opportunities for impoverished people to create businesses and improve their economic condition.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP united nation development programme International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) in Brasília, Brazil, expands the capacities of developing countries to design, implement and evaluate socially inclusive development projects. IPC-IG is a global forum for South-South policy dialogue and learning, having worked with more than 7,000 officials from more than 50 countries.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: A 2013 evaluation of the UNDP's poverty reduction efforts states that the UNDP has effectively supported national efforts to reduce poverty, by helping governments make policy changes that benefit the poor. Nevertheless, the same evaluation also states there is a strong need for better measurement and monitoring of the impacts of the UNDP's work. The UNDP's Strategic Plan from 2014 to 2017 incorporates the recommendations of this poverty evaluation.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP works to reduce the risk of armed conflicts or disasters, and promote early recovery after crisis have occurred. UNDP works through its country offices to support local government in needs assessment, capacity development, coordinated planning, and policy and standard setting.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Examples of UNDP risk reduction programmes include efforts to control small arms proliferation, strategies to reduce the impact of natural disasters, and programmes to encourage use of diplomacy and prevent violence. Recovery programmes include disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants, demining efforts, programmes to reintegrate displaced persons, restoration of basic services, and transitional justice systems for countries recovering from warfare.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Following the suspension of most foreign aid to Afghanistan due to its takeover by the Taliban, the UNDP took responsibility for funding most essential health services in the country, including the salaries of over 25,000 health care professionals. This was observed as being outside the organization's usual development activities, and was facilitated by special licensing by the United States government.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: As the poor are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and lack of access to clean, affordable water, sanitation, and energy services, UNDP seeks to address environmental issues in order to improve developing countries' abilities to develop sustainably, increase human development and reduce poverty. UNDP works with countries to strengthen their capacity to address global environmental issues by providing innovative policy advice and linking partners through environmentally sensitive development projects that help poor people build sustainable livelihoods.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP's environmental strategy focuses on effective water governance including access to water supply and sanitation, access to sustainable energy services, Sustainable land management to combat desertification and land degradation, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and policies to control emissions of harmful pollutants and ozone-depleting substances. UNDP's Equator Initiative office biennially offers the Equator Prize to recognize outstanding indigenous community efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and thus making local contributions to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Between 1996 and 1998, the UNDP sponsored the deployment of 45 Multifunction Platforms (MFP) in rural Mali. These installations, driven by a diesel engine, power devices such as pumps, grain mills and appliances. By 2004, the number of MFPs in Mali reached 500.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In 2012 the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) was established. BIOFIN brings 30 countries together to develop and implement evidence-based finance plans to safeguards biodiversity. BIOFIN has developed an innovative and adaptable methodology to guide countries to analyze the policy and institutional context for biodiversity finance; measure the current biodiversity expenditures; assess future financial needs, and identify the most suitable finance solutions to achieve national biodiversity targets.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP works to help countries prevent further spreading of and reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS, convening The Global Commission on HIV and the Law which reported in 2012.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Since 1991, the UNDP has annually published the Human Development Report, which includes topics on Human Development and the annual Human Development Index.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP spends about 0.2% of its budget on internal evaluation of the effectiveness of its programmes. The UNDP's Evaluation Office is a member of the UN Evaluation Group (UNEG) which brings together all the units responsible for evaluation in the UN system. Currently the UNEG has 43 members and 3 observers.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP runs six Global Policy Centres, including the Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) on partnerships, the Nairobi Global Policy Centre on Resilient Ecosystems and Desertification (GPC-Nairobi), the Singapore-based Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development (GC-TISD), the Istanbul International Centre for Private Sector in Development (IICPSD), the Oslo Governance Centre, and the Singapore-based Global Centre for Public Service Excellence (GCPSE) that issues the "Raffles Review" email newsletter on developments in public administration research.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: UNDP plays a significant coordination role for the UN's activities in the field of development. This is mainly executed through its leadership of the UN Development Group and through the Resident Coordinator System.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The United Nations Development Group (UNDG) was created by the Secretary-General in 1997, to improve the effectiveness of UN development at the country level. The UNDG brings together the operational agencies working on development. The Group is chaired by the Administrator of UNDP. UNDP also provides the Secretariat to the Group.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDG develops policies and procedures that allow member agencies to work together and analyze country issues, plan support strategies, implement support programs, monitor results and advocate for change. These initiatives increase UN impact in helping countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including poverty reduction.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Thirty-two UN agencies are members of the UNDG. The executive committee consists of the four "founding members": UNICEF, UNFPA, WFP and UNDP. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is an ex-officio member of the executive committee.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The Resident Coordinator (RC) system coordinates all organizations of the United Nations system dealing with operational activities for development in the field. The RC system aims to bring together the different UN agencies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of operational activities at the country level. Resident Coordinators lead UN country teams in more than 130 countries and are the designated representatives of the Secretary-General for development operations. Working closely with national governments, Resident Coordinators and country teams advocate the interests and mandates of the UN drawing on the support and guidance of the entire UN family. It is now coordinated by the UNDG.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP established the Innovation Facility in 2014, with support from the Government of Denmark, as a dedicated funding mechanism to nurture promising development interventions.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The Innovation Facility offers technical assistance and seed funding to collaborators across 170 countries and territories to explore new approaches to complex development challenges. Since its inception, the Innovation Facility has fostered innovation labs across all 5 regions to better deliver and monitor SDGs. In 2015, the Innovation Facility invested in 62 initiatives across 45 countries to achieve 16 SDGs.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Documents of Edward Snowden showed in December 2013 that British and American intelligence agencies surveillance targets with the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) included organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme, the UN's children's charity UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In August 2016, Israel's Shin Bet security agency publicized the arrest of Wahid Abdallah al Bursh, a Palestinian engineer employed by the UNDP, stating he had confessed to being recruited in 2014 to help Hamas, the dominant Islamist group in Gaza. Among "various assignments" Bursh performed on behalf of Hamas was "using UNDP resources" to build a maritime jetty for its fighters; no further details were provided on this claim. Shin Bet also claimed Bursh had persuaded his UNDP superiors to prioritize neighborhoods with Hamas operatives when earmarking reconstruction funds for Gaza, which was devastated by the 2014 war with Israel.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP had been criticised by members of its staff and the Bush administration of the United States for irregularities in its finances in North Korea. Artjon Shkurtaj claimed that he had found counterfeit US dollars in the programmes' safe despite staff being paid in euros. The UNDP denied keeping improper accounts and any other wrongdoing.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In mid-2006, as first reported by Inner City Press and then by "New Vision", UNDP halted its disarmament programmes in the Karamoja region of Uganda in response to human rights abuses in the parallel forcible disarmament programmes carried out by the Uganda People's Defence Force.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In 2019, reports alleging possible misappropriation of funds for UNDP projects in Russia began to appear in the mainstream media. An article called Greed and Graft in August 2019 in Foreign Policy reported the findings of a 2017 final evaluation that a UNDP Global Environment Facility greenhouse gas reduction project, the UNDP GEF Energy Efficiency Standards and Labels project in Russia with a budget of $7.8 million dollars, did not meet its goals and had "strong indications of deliberate misappropriation" of funds. The Foreign Policy article reported that concerns raised by whistleblowers Dmitry Ershov and John O’Brien and multiple other consultants to the project over many years about irregularities in the program — which were first reported internally as far back in 2011— were largely dismissed or ignored for several years by their superiors in Istanbul, New York, and Washington, as well as by donor governments, including the United States. The Foreign Policy article reported that a 2017 confidential audit appendix prepared by final evaluators found “strong indicators of deliberate misappropriation” of millions of dollars in funds from the project between 2010 and 2014.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: This led in March 2020 to 12 donor governments writing a letter to UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner demanding from UNDP an independent review of UNDP's handling of the energy efficiency standards and labels project in Russia, as reported again in Foreign Policy magazine in December 2020 where it was revealed that these donors had blasted UNDP for resisting appeals to fight corruption and further reports by the Financial Times about the 'systemic nature' of the problems and also reports by various other media outlets such as Climate Change News , Passblue and in Newsroom in the New Zealand media. In January 2021, this independent report into the matter as requested by the donors was published, 'Systems and Silos'. This independent review found "irregularities" and concluded the project in question was not managed "either efficiently or effectively" by UNDP and that a number of individuals were able to 'game the relatively weak systems of governance and technical capacity.' It suggested UNDP consider returning to the Global Environment Facility (which funded the project) its "entire management fee" as "restitution" and proposed "ongoing efforts to achieve changes in the work culture that reward greater transparency and remove fears of unfair reprisals" aimed at whistleblowers. Concerns over UNDP's failure to handle the Russia controversy in a satisfactory manner led to the government of the Netherlands withholding some 10 million euros in funding in early 2021.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In February 2022, the leaders of three leading NGOs in the fight against corruption, Transparency International, the Whistleblower International Network or WIN, and the Government Accountability Project wrote a public letter to UNDP's administrator Achim Steiner, expressing their serious concerns about the lack of whistleblower protection for John O'Brien and Dmitry Ershov by UNDP and highlighting the conclusion of the independent review on the failure by UNDP to carry out John O'Brien's whistleblower case in a satisfactory manner. According to the 2019 Foreign Policy article, Ershov claimed he was "pushed out of his U.N. job" after raising concerns about procurement irregularities and project conflicts of interest way back at the end of 2014.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In June 2022, BBC Two broadcast a 90-minute documentary, The Whistleblowers: Inside the UN, which reported on whistleblower cases across the UN system, including John O'Brien's case. It reported that O'Brien was fired from UNDP in March 2022 several days after his BBC interview. The documentary was described by The Guardian media outlet as exposing "a toxic culture" where senior UN leaders hide "behind a cloak of saintliness". As of June 2022, there has been zero accountability for the cover up among senior officials at UNDP. The only two persons at UNDP who lost their job after years and years of alleged UNDP corruption and cover up were the two whistleblowers.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The UNDP Administrator has the rank of an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. While the Administrator is often referred to as the third highest-ranking official in the UN (after the UN Secretary General and the UN Deputy Secretary General), this has never been formally codified.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: In addition to his/her responsibilities as head of UNDP, the Administrator is also the vice-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The position of Administrator is appointed by the Secretary-General of the UN and confirmed by the General Assembly for a term of four years.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Achim Steiner is the current Administrator. The five countries on the UNDP board have some influence over selection of the administrator.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: The first administrator of the UNDP was Paul G. Hoffman, former head of the Economic Cooperation Administration which administered the Marshall Plan.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Other holders of the position have included: Bradford Morse, former Republican congressman from Massachusetts; William Draper, venture capitalist and friend of George H. W. Bush who saw one of the UN system's major achievements, the Human Development Report, introduced during his tenure; Mark Malloch Brown, who was previously Vice President of External Affairs at the World Bank and subsequently became UN Deputy Secretary General. Kemal Derviş, a former finance minister of Turkey and senior World Bank official, was the previous UNDP Administrator. Derviş started his four-year term on 15 August 2005.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: During meetings of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, which are chaired by the Administrator, UNDP is represented by the Associate Administrator. The position is currently held by Usha Rao-Monari, as of 6 April 2021.


title: United Nations Development Programme

text: Assistant Administrators of the UNDP, Assistant United Nations Secretaries General and Directors of the Regional Bureaus are:


title: Alan Bennett

text: Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter. Over his distinguished entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film "The Madness of King George" (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue "Beyond the Fringe" at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame and later a Special Tony Award. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full time, his first stage play, "Forty Years On", being produced in 1968. He also became known for writing dramatic monologues "Talking Heads" which ran in 1988, and 1999 on BBC1 earning a British Academy Television Award.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett gained acclaim with his various plays at the Royal National Theatre. He received his the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Play for "Single Spies" in 1990. He then made his breakthrough with the play "The Madness of George III" in 1992. For his play he received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. The following year he staged a theatrical production of the BBC series "Talking Heads" in 1992. He continued receiving acclaim for his plays "The Lady in the Van" in 1999, "The History Boys" in 2004, and "The Habit of Art" in 2009. He won his second Tony Award for Best Play for "The History Boys" in 2005. The following plays were later adapted into films, "The Madness of King George" (1994), for which he received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, "The History Boys" (2005), and "The Lady in the Van" (2015).


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett is also known for a wide variety of audio books, including his readings of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Winnie-the-Pooh".


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett was born on 9 May 1934 in Armley, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. The younger son of a Co-op butcher, Walter, and his wife Lilian Mary (née Peel), Bennett attended Christ Church, Upper Armley, Church of England School (in the same class as Barbara Taylor Bradford), and then Leeds Modern School (now Lawnswood School). He has an older brother, Gordon, who is three years his senior.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his national service before applying for a scholarship at Oxford University. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford, from which he graduated with a first-class degree in history. While at Oxford he performed comedy with a number of eventually successful actors in the Oxford Revue. He remained at the university for several years, where he served as a junior lecturer of Medieval History at Magdalen College, before deciding, in 1960, that he was not suited to being an academic.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In August 1960, Bennett – along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook – gained fame after an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in the satirical revue "Beyond the Fringe", with the show continuing in London and New York. He also appeared in "My Father Knew Lloyd George". His television comedy sketch series "On the Margin" (1966) was erased; the BBC re-used expensive videotape rather than keep it in the archives. However, in 2014 it was announced that audio copies of the entire series had been found.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett's first stage play "Forty Years On," directed by Patrick Garland, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose, and broadcasting and many appearances as an actor.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Despite a long history with both the National Theatre and the BBC, Bennett never writes on commission, saying "I don't work on commission, I just do it on spec. If people don't want it then it's too bad."


title: Alan Bennett

text: His many works for television include his first play for the medium, "A Day Out" in 1972, "A Little Outing" in 1977, "Intensive Care" in 1982, "An Englishman Abroad" in 1983, and "A Question of Attribution" in 1991. But perhaps his most famous screen work is the 1988 "Talking Heads" series of monologues for television which were later performed at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1992. A second set of six "Talking Heads" followed a decade later.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett wrote the play "Enjoy" in 1980. It barely scraped a run of seven weeks at the Vaudeville Theatre, in spite of the stellar cast of Joan Plowright, Colin Blakely, Susan Littler, Philip Sayer, Liz Smith (who replaced Joan Hickson during rehearsals) and, in his first West End role, Marc Sinden. It was directed by Ronald Eyre. A new production of "Enjoy" attracted very favourable notices during its 2008 UK tour and moved to the West End of London in January 2009. The West End show took over £1 million in advance ticket sales and even extended the run to cope with demand. The production starred Alison Steadman, David Troughton, Richard Glaves, Carol Macready and Josie Walker.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett wrote "The Lady in the Van" based on his experiences with an eccentric woman called Miss Shepherd, who lived on Bennett's driveway in a series of dilapidated vans for more than fifteen years. It was first published in 1989 as an essay in the "London Review of Books". In 1990 he published it in book form. In 1999 he adapted it into a stage play, which starred Maggie Smith and was directed by Nicholas Hytner. The stage play includes two characters named Alan Bennett. On 21 February 2009 it was broadcast as a radio play on BBC Radio 4, with Maggie Smith reprising her role and Alan Bennett playing himself. He adapted the story again for a 2015 film, with Maggie Smith reprising her role again, and Nicholas Hytner directing again. In the film Alex Jennings plays the two versions of Bennett, although Alan Bennett appears in a cameo at the very end of the film.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett adapted his 1991 play "The Madness of George III" for the cinema. Entitled "The Madness of King George" (1994), the film received four Academy Award nominations: for Bennett's writing and the performances of Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren. It won the award for best art direction.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett's critically acclaimed "The History Boys" won three Laurence Olivier Awards in 2005, for Best New Play, Best Actor (Richard Griffiths), and Best Direction (Nicholas Hytner), having previously won Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and Evening Standard Awards for Best Actor and Best Play. Bennett also received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre. "The History Boys" won six Tony Awards on Broadway, including best play, best performance by a leading actor in a play (Richard Griffiths), best performance by a featured actress in a play (Frances de la Tour) and best direction of a play (Nicholas Hytner). A film version of "The History Boys" was released in the UK in October 2006. In his 2005 prose collection "Untold Stories", Bennett wrote of the mental illness that his mother and other family members suffered.


title: Alan Bennett

text: At the National Theatre in late 2009 Nicholas Hytner directed Bennett's play "The Habit of Art", about the relationship between the poet W. H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett's play "People" opened at the National Theatre in October 2012. In December that year, "Cocktail Sticks", an autobiographical play by Bennett, premièred at the National Theatre as part of a double bill with the monologue "Hymn". The production was directed by Bennett's long-term collaborator Nicholas Hytner. It was well-received, and transferred to the Duchess Theatre in the West End of London, being subsequently adapted for radio broadcast by BBC Radio 4.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In July 2018, "Allelujah!", a comic drama by Bennett about a National Health Service hospital threatened with closure, opened at London's Bridge Theatre to critical acclaim.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett lived for 40 years on Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town in London but now lives a few minutes' walk away at Primrose Hill with his partner Rupert Thomas, the former editor of "The World of Interiors" magazine. Bennett also had a long-term relationship with his former housekeeper, Anne Davies, until her death in 2009.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In 1988, Bennett declined the award of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and in 1996 declined a knighthood.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In September 2005, Bennett revealed that, in 1997, he had undergone treatment for colorectal cancer, and described the illness as a "bore". His chances of survival were given as being "much less" than 50% and surgeons had told him they removed a "rock-bun" sized tumour. He began "Untold Stories" (published 2005) thinking it would be published posthumously, but his cancer went into remission.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In the autobiographical sketches which form a large part of the book Bennett wrote openly for the first time about his bisexuality. Previously Bennett had referred to questions about his sexuality as like asking a man who has just crawled across the Sahara desert to choose between Perrier or Malvern mineral water.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In October 2008, Bennett announced that he was donating his entire archive of working papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries and books to the Bodleian Library, stating that it was a gesture of thanks repaying a debt he felt he owed to the British welfare state that had given him educational opportunities which his humble family background would otherwise never have afforded.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In September 2015, Bennett endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. The following month, after Corbyn's election victory, Bennett said: "I approve of him. If only because it brings Labour back to what they ought to be thinking about."


title: Alan Bennett

text: Following the death of Jonathan Miller in 2019, he became the only surviving member of the original "Beyond the Fringe" quartet which had also included Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.


title: Alan Bennett

text: Bennett was made an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1987. He was also awarded a D.Litt by the University of Leeds in 1990 and an honorary doctorate from Kingston University in 1996. In 1998 he refused an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, in protest at its acceptance of funding for a chair from press baron Rupert Murdoch. He also declined a CBE in 1988 and a knighthood in 1996. He has stated that, although he is not a republican, he would never wish to be knighted, saying it would be a bit like having to wear a suit for the rest of his life.


title: Alan Bennett

text: In December 2011 Bennett returned to Lawnswood School, nearly 60 years after he left, to unveil the renamed Alan Bennett Library. He said he "loosely" based "The History Boys" on his experiences at the school and his admission to Oxford. Lawnswood School dedicated its library to the writer after he emerged as a vocal campaigner against public library cuts. Plans to shut local libraries were "wrong and very short-sighted", Bennett said, adding: "We're impoverishing young people."


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire, also called .22 WMR, .22 Magnum, .22 WMRF, .22 MRF, or .22 Mag, is a rimfire cartridge. Originally loaded with a bullet weight of delivering velocities in the range from a rifle barrel, .22 WMR is now loaded with bullet weights ranging from at to at .


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The .22 WMR was introduced in 1959 by Winchester, but was not used by Winchester until the Winchester Model 61 slide rifle could be chambered for it in 1960. The first rifle to be offered in the new chambering was the Marlin Levermatic rifle in 1959, because its design was easily modified to accept the more powerful cartridge. By the time of the introduction of the Winchester 61, Smith & Wesson and Ruger had revolvers for it, and Savage had come out with the Model 24 and since late 2012, the Model 42, a more modern update than the 24, a .22/.410 rifle/shotgun combination gun. It was the only successful rimfire cartridge introduced in the 20th century.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The .22 WMR uses a larger case than the more popular .22 Long Rifle (LR) both in diameter and length. The .22 WMR case is a lengthened version of the older .22 WRF. Both of these have the bullet seated within the case, instead of using a heeled bullet as in the .22 LR. In the most common modern .22 WMR loadings using a bullet, the combination of more powder and higher sustained pressures gives velocities of from a rifle and from a handgun. A .22 WMR round will not fit into the chamber of a .22 LR firearm due to the greater length and width of the magnum case.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Although the bullet diameters are the same, the larger .22 WMR chamber does not support the smaller .22 LR cartridge. Firing the smaller .22 LR round in a .22 WMR chamber results in swollen or split cartridge cases, high-pressure gas leakage from the rear of the chamber, and bullets striking the chamber throat out of alignment, which can result in injury to the shooter or bystander and which does result in poor ammunition performance.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Gun makers offer .22 revolver models with cylinders chambered either in .22 LR or in .22 WMR and as convertible kits with both cylinders which allow the shooter to easily switch calibers on the same firearm.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Since the .22 WMR uses bullets comparable in weight to the .22 Long Rifle, but is considerably faster, it shoots flatter and farther and hits harder at all ranges. The same bullet from a .22 WMR at still has 50% more kinetic energy than .22 LR at the muzzle. The .22 WMR provides improved penetration and more reliable expansion at longer ranges with expanding bullets.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: If sighted in for maximum point blank range on a high target, the .22 WMR has an effective range of nearly . This makes the .22 WMR an effective short to medium-range varmint rifle and hunting rifle cartridge. The .22 WMR can effectively kill small game such as rabbits, hares, groundhogs, prairie dogs, foxes, raccoons, opossums, and coyotes. The relatively quiet report and negligible recoil also make it a very pleasant target and plinking round to shoot for extended periods.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: It first appeared in the Marlin Model 57M Levermatic carbines in 1959, which was followed by the .22 WMR over .410 gauge Savage Model 24 combination gun, followed by Winchester's own Model 61 and 275 pump-action rifles and Model 255 lever-action rifle. The Chiappa Double Badger combination gun also comes with a .22 WMR over .410 gauge option. The Springfield Armory M6 Scout is also made in .22 Magnum over .410 gauge. The Chiappa M6 Survival Gun is similar combination gun that comes with a 12 gauge or 20 gauge shotgun barrel over a .22 Magnum barrel.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: A number of single-shot and repeating rifles were offered in .22 WMR. The .22 WMR operates at pressures beyond what normal blowback actions typically handle, but the self-loading Jefferson Model 159 was introduced for the cartridge. Until the 1990s, most .22 WMR firearms were bolt-action rifles. In 1977-1985 Harrington & Richardson produced the first American-made semi-automatic .22 WMR. In the 1990s semi-automatic .22 WMR rifles were also introduced by Ruger (10/22) and Marlin, and are currently produced by Remington (Model 597) and Tanfoglio Appeal Rifle as well as the Excel Arms Accelerator Rifle and Savage arms A22 magnum.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Revolvers in .22 WMR are made by Smith & Wesson, Colt, Taurus, North American Arms, Heritage Arms, and Sturm Ruger. Semi-automatic pistols for this cartridge are (or were) produced by Kel-Tec, Grendel and AMT, the latter two now defunct (AMT has been since resurrected by High Standard). The Grendel, AMT and Kel-Tec designs used specially designed chambers with flutes or gas ports, designed to lubricate the long, thin cartridge with gases from the chamber, overcoming the Blish effect and allowing easy extraction of the cartridge. High-Standard produced various models and versions of their classic two-shot over/under derringer in both .22 WMR and .22 LR.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The Marlin Model 25MG is a smooth bore, eight-shot, magazine-fed, .22 WMR, bolt-action shotgun manufactured by Marlin firearms Company. It was specifically designed to use snake shot, and marketed as a "garden gun" for use in dispatching small garden and farm pests. It has an effective range of about 15 yards when using snake shot. Based on earlier Marlin .22 caliber designs, the garden gun was equipped with a high-visibility front sight but no rear sight.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: In 2014 Kel-Tec released the CMR-30, a PDW-style rifle chambered in 22. WMR with a 16" barrel and a 1:14 twist rate. It uses the same double stack 30-round magazine as the PMR-30.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: In 2018 Standard Manufacturing introduced an 8-round .22 WMR revolver at the Las Vegas Shot Show. The revolver was originally introduced as the Volleyfire. The gun has side-by-side barrels, and fires 2 rounds of .22 WMR (1 bullet per barrel) with every pull of the trigger. In 2019 the gun went into production and was renamed "Thunderstruck".


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: In recent years, a few UK companies such as Guncraft Ltd have been making semi-automatic AR-15-style rifles chambered in 22 WMR, marketed to civilian shooters who, due to the UK's tight gun laws, do not have access to self-loading center-fire rifles.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The .22 WMR is an enlarged, more powerful version of the much earlier .22 WRF. Despite frequent claims to the contrary, it cannot be safely used in any firearm except those specifically chambered for it. Even firearms chambered for the .22 WRF are not suitable; for one thing, the case lengths are different, and the fact that the cartridge fits into the chamber does not guarantee that using the wrong cartridge is either safe or effective.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The .22 WMR was for a time the most powerful rimfire round available; it even outperformed the .22 WCF. It has since been eclipsed in velocity and overall kinetic energy by the .17 Winchester Super Magnum.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Commonly available in retail stores, the selection and availability of the .22 WMR nevertheless do not match the popular .22 Long Rifle. Furthermore, .22 WMR is typically much more expensive than .22 LR per round, though it is comparable to .17 HMR, which is much more similar in overall performance, and is less expensive than .22 caliber centerfire ammunition.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Because many of the rifles that are chambered for the .22 WMR have tubular magazines, the bullet noses generally are flat or at least blunt to allow smooth feeding and reduce damage to the bullet. Although a pointed bullet in a rimfire cartridge will not contact the primer of the round in front of it (which is a hazard with centerfire cartridges in a tubular magazine), the manufacturer's stamp is in the middle of the base of a rimfire cartridge, and this may interfere with pointed metal bullets in a tube. However, Remington, CCI, and Hornady now produce bullet designs with 30 or polymer plastic ballistic tips that reduce the hazards of pointed ammunition in tubular magazines.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Bullets for the .22 WMR are generally unlubricated lead with heavy copper plating, in either solid nose or hollow point style designed for small game hunting or pest control (varmint hunting).


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: The limited selection of commercial ammunition for the .22 WMR has inspired specialist wildcatters to select the .22 WMR case for handloading high performance rimfire ammunition. Generally they load the wildcat cartridges with pointed bullets for the aerodynamic advantages, using the same bullets as those in .22 caliber centerfire cartridges. Though such bullets are generally heavier than standard .22 WMR, the sharp nose and tapered tail conserve energy better, delivering greater impact at longer ranges.


title: .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire

text: Other wildcatters neck the .22 WMR down to smaller calibers, such as .20 (5 mm) and .17 (4.5 mm) or even smaller, in an attempt to get maximum velocity and the flattest possible trajectory. An example of such an experimental design is the Swedish 4.5×26mm MKR.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Lunar New Year is the beginning of a calendar year whose months are moon cycles, based on the lunar calendar or lunisolar calendar.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The Lunar New Year as a celebration is observed by numerous cultures. It is also named "Chinese New Year" because it is a traditional festival in China. It is featured in East Asian cultural sphere countries, the Hindu-Buddhist calendars of South and Southeast Asia, the Islamic calendar and the Jewish calendar in the Middle East, and is also celebrated by the indigenous Nisga'a people of Canada.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The Lunar New Year celebrations of the East Asian cultural sphere occur on the same date across the region, on the new moon, which occurs in late January or early February, and are based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Although occurring on the same new moon day, celebrations are unique to their own cultures, each with its interpretations, zodiacs and traditions.


title: Lunar New Year

text: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, and South Korea celebrate the lunar new year in addition to the solar new year.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Mongols and Tibetans celebrate New Year in February or early March, based on the closely related Mongolian and Tibetan lunisolar calendars. Depending on the year, the New Year can either coincide with the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese New Year, or take place around one month later.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Japan, excluding the Ryukyu islands, now only celebrates the solar new year with the remnants of the lunar celebration called occurring on the 15th day of the first lunar month.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Before the new year celebration was formed, ancient Chinese gathered around and celebrated at the end of harvest in autumn. However, the celebration is not Mid-Autumn Festival, during which Chinese gathered with family and worship the moon. In the "Classic of Poetry", a poem written during Western Zhou (1045 BC – 771 BC), by an anonymous farmer, described how people cleaned up millet stack-sites, toasted to guests with mijiu, killed lambs and cooked the meat, went to their master's home, toasted to the master, and cheered for long lives together, in the 10th month of an ancient solar calendars, which was in autumn. The celebration is believed to be one of the prototypes of the Chinese New Year.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The first dated Chinese new year celebration can be traced back to Warring States period (475 BC – 221 AD). In "Lüshi Chunqiu", a exorcistic ritual called "Big Nuo (大儺)" was recorded being carried out in the ending day of a year to expel illness in Qin (state). Later, after Qin unified China and the Qin dynasty was founded, the ritual was continued. It evolved to cleaning up houses thoroughly in the preceding days of Chinese New Year.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The first mentioning of the celebration of the start of a new year was recorded in Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD). In the book "Simin Yueling" (四民月令), written by Eastern Han's agronomist and writer Cui Shi (崔寔), the celebration was recorded by stating "The starting day of the first month, is called ‘Zheng Ri’. I bring my wife and children, to worship ancestors and commemorate my father." Later he wrote: "Children, wife, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren all serve pepper wine to their parents, make their toast, and wish their parents good health. It's a thriving view." People also went to acquaintances' homes and wished each other a happy new year. In "Book of the Later Han" Volume 27, 吴良, a county officer was recorded going to his prefect's house with a government secretary, toasting to the prefect and praising the prefect's merit.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Lunar new year is the grandest ancient traditional festival in China, commonly known as "Guo Nian". This festival means the beginning of spring and the arrival of the new year. The customs of Chinese lunar new year include sticking Spring Festival couplets, buying New Year's goods, and having family dinner together.


title: Lunar New Year

text: While there is little recorded history of when Lunar New Year was first observed in Taiwan, it is known that the indigenous population had other ceremonies and did not originally celebrate the festival. It was likely first celebrated by the Hakka or Hoklo populations that migrated from China to the island during the 17th century. Due to Taiwan's most population being Han Chinese and its history with China, Lunar New Year is celebrated in Taiwan in a very similar way to China, especially in regards to traditions. However, in modern day, there can be more of a focus on visiting Buddhist or Taoist temples with extended family members. There are also notable variations to the food that is eaten during this time, such as the consumption of pineapple cakes and other products derived from pineapples or white turnips since the latter is a homophone for "good fortune" in Hokkien.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The earliest references to Korean New Year are found in 7th century in Chinese historical works, the "Book of Sui" and the "Old Book of Tang", containing excerpts of celebrations during the New Year in the Silla Kingdom, which was influenced by Tang dynasty's calendaric system. Korea's own record of new year celebration is found in ("Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms"), compiled in the 13th century. Under the rule of 21st King of Silla, new year was celebrated in 488 AD. Then celebration of Korean New Year have continued to Goryeo and Joseon. By the 13th century, Korean New Year was one of the nine major Korean festivals that included ancestral rites, according to the Korean historical work, the .


title: Lunar New Year

text: The earliest celebration of the Lunar New Year in Vietnam is presumed by some to be brought by the Emperor Triệu Đà. The Chinese brought with them their own policies, cultures, and traditions. The Lunar New Year was passed to the Vietnamese people and has stayed relatively intact through the centuries, despite uneasy and often hostile relations between the two countries. The main difference between the Chinese and Vietnamese lunar calendars is that the Vietnamese replace the Ox and Rabbit in the Chinese calendar with the Buffalo and Cat, respectively. However, it is noteworthy that the Lunar New Year (Spring Festival) which is celebrated in late January or in the first half of February coincides with the onset of Spring in the regions of northern Vietnam and parts of southern China where the ancient Vietnamese kingdom of Âu Lạc and some regions of the Baiyue people are located. The celebration marks the beginning of a new planting season, particularly rice. There is also the historical legend of the origin of bánh chưng or chung cake, which started on the occasion of Tết. All early written records of the country have been destroyed through the millennia by numerous invasions from various groups with the last major destruction occurred during the Ming invasion of Vietnam 1406–1407 AD.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Vietnamese New Year can also be traced back to Lý dynasty (1009 AD - 1226 AD). Vietnamese people often celebrated their Tết holiday by painting tattoos on themselves, drinking rice liquor, eating betel nuts, and making bánh chưng (chung cake), as well as pickled onions. During the period of King Lê Thánh Tông (1442 AD - 1497 AD), Tết was considered a significant festival in Vietnam. Lucky money is also given on Lunar New Year.


title: Lunar New Year

text: These South Asian traditional lunisolar celebrations are observed according to the local lunisolar calendars. They are influenced by Indian tradition, which marks the system of lunar months in a solar sidereal year. A separate solar new year also exists for those Indian regions which use solar months in a solar sidereal year.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Various lunar calendars continue to be used throughout India in traditional and religious life. However, they are different from the Chinese lunisolar calendar used in East Asia. The two most common lunar new year celebrations in India are Diwali, and Gudi Padwa/Ugadi/Puthandu. Diwali typically falls in October or November, and Gudi Padwa/Ugadi/Puthandu typically falls in April.


title: Lunar New Year

text: In ancient times, the sun's entry into Aries coincided with the equinox. However, due to the earth's axial precession, the sidereal year is slightly longer than the tropical year, causing the dates to gradually drift apart. Today, the sun's entry into Aries occurs around 18 April, according to astronomical definitions. Some traditional calendars are still marked by the sun's actual movements while others have since been fixed to the Gregorian calendar.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The sun's entry into Aries is known as "" in Sanskrit, and is observed as Mesha Sankranti and Songkran in South and South-east Asian cultures.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The following Southeast Asian Lunar New Year celebration is observed according to the local lunisolar calendar and is influenced by Indian Hindu traditions.


title: Lunar New Year

text: The following Southeast Asian Lunar New Year celebration is observed according to the local lunisolar calendar and is influenced by Islamic traditions.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Lunar New Year is officially known as "Chinese New Year" in Singapore. It is celebrated in Singapore primarily by members of Chinese diaspora, who make up three-quarters of the population. They include those who are Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew from southeastern China; Hainanese from the island province of Hainan; Hakka, a migrant group spread out all over China; and Peranakan, who have been in the region for over 400 years and also have mixed Malay and European ancestry. Each ethnic group has its own set of traditions, as well as creating new ones incorporating elements from other cultures like Malays and Indians.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Malaysia is a multi-cultural country. The three dominant races in Malaysia are the Malays, the Chinese, and the Indians. Each race has its unique culture and traditional festivals. Public holidays are declared on the three important festivals celebrated by the Malays, Chinese, and Indians, namely Hari Raya Puasa, Chinese New Year and Deepavali respectively.


title: Lunar New Year

text: As timing of these three important festivals fluctuates due to their reliance on the lunar calendars, they occasionally occur close to one another - every 33 years to be exact. Malaysians has named this phenomenon Kongsi Raya (Gongxi Raya), a Malaysian portmanteau, denoting the Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Aidilfitri festivals.


title: Lunar New Year

text: Hobiyee, also spelled Hoobiyee, Hobiyee, Hobiiyee and Hoobiiyee, is the new year of the Nisg̱a'a people, celebrated in February or March. It signifies the emergence of the first crescent moon and begins the month Buxw-laḵs. Celebrations of Hobiyee are done by Nisg̱a'a wherever they are located, but the largest celebrations are in Nisg̱a'a itself and in areas with a large Nisg̱a'a presence like Vancouver.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Kanniyakumari (; , referring to Devi Kanya Kumari), also known as Cape Comorin, is a city in Kanniyakumari district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent and the southernmost city in mainland India, thus referred to as 'The Land's End'. The city is situated south of Thiruvananthapuram city, and about  south of Nagercoil, the headquarters of Kanniyakumari district.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Kanniyakumari is a popular tourist destination and pilgrimage centre in India. Notable tourist spots include its unique sunrise and sunset points, the Thiruvalluvar Statue and Vivekananda Rock Memorial off the coast. Lying at the tip of peninsular India, the town is bordered on the west, south and east by the Laccadive Sea. It has a coastal line of  stretched on the three sides.


title: Kanyakumari

text: On the shores of the city is a temple dedicated to Goddess Kanniyakumari (the virgin Goddess), after which the town is named. Kanniyakumari has been a city since the Sangam period and has been referred to in old Malayalam literature and in the accounts of Ptolemy and Marco Polo.


title: Kanyakumari

text: The place derives its name from the goddess Kanya Kumari, considered to be the sister of Krishna. The goddess is believed to remove the rigidity from the mind, and women pray for marriage at her temple. In 1656, the Dutch East India Company conquered Portuguese Ceylon from the Portuguese East Indies, and the name eventually corrupted to "Comorin" and was called "Cape Comorin" during British rule in India. The city was later renamed "Kanniyakumari" by the Government of India and the Government of Madras.


title: Kanyakumari

text: According to a Hindu legend, Kanya Devi, an avatar of Parvati, was to marry Shiva, who failed to show up on his wedding day. Rice and other grains meant for the wedding feast remained uncooked and unused. The uncooked grains turned into stones as time went by. Some believe that the small stones on the shore today, which look like rice, are indeed grains from the wedding that was never solemnised. Kanya Devi is now considered a virgin goddess who blesses pilgrims and tourists who flock to the town. Her temple located in Kanniyakumari is a Shakti Peetha or a holy shrine in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism.


title: Kanyakumari

text: According to another Hindu legend, Hanuman dropped a piece of earth as he was carrying a mountain with his life-saving herb, Mrita Sanjivani, from the Himalayas to Lanka (Sri Lanka) during the Ramayana War. This chunk of earth is called Marunthuvazh Malai, literally "hills where medicine lives". This is said to be the reason for the abundance of unique native medicinal plants in the area.Marunthuvazh Malai is located near Kottaram about from Kanniyakumari town on the Kanniyakumari-Nagercoil highway. The sage Agasthya, who was an expert in medicinal herbs, is believed to have lived around this site in ancient days. It is also believed to be the reason so many medicinal herbs are found on the hills near Kanniyakumari. There is an ashram on the middle of the hill, which tourists visit (after a short trek from the base of the hill), both to visit the Ashram and also to take a glimpse of the sea near Kanniyakumari a few kilometres away.


title: Kanyakumari

text: As per the Census of 2011, Kanniyakumari town had 61.16% Christians, 32.97% Hindus and 5.47% Muslims.


title: Kanyakumari

text: As of the census of India 2001, Kanniyakumari had a population of 19,739, comprising 9,884 males and 9,855 females, making the sex ratio (number of females per thousand males) of the town 997. A total of 2,403 people were under six years of age and the child sex ratio (number of females per thousand males under six years of age) stood at 1,024. The town had an average literacy of 88.62%, higher than the national average of 59.5%. There were a total of 4,236 households in the town. As of 2001, Kanniyakumari had a total of 5,929 main workers: 11 cultivators, 78 agricultural labourers, 66 in household industries, and 5,774 other workers. There were a total of 119 marginal workers: 4 marginal cultivators, 3 marginal agricultural labourers, 11 marginal workers in household industries, and 101 other marginal workers.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Kanniyakumari is located at . and has an average elevation of 30 metres. The peninsular tip of Kanniyakumari is bordered on three sides by the Laccadive Sea. It is located at the confluence of the Western Coastal Plains and Eastern Coastal Plains.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Kanniyakumari is at the southern tip and is the southernmost point of the contiguous Indian Subcontinent. It thus finds itself being a part of the common Hindustani phrase used to describe the length of India "Kashmir se Kanniyakumari"; before the partition, the phrase in undivided India was "Khyber se Kanniyakumari". However, the southernmost point of Republic of India is at Indira Point on Great Nicobar Island, at 6°45’10″N and 93°49’36″E. The nearest city is Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala ( away), nearest airport is Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, and the nearest town is Nagercoil, the administrative headquarters of Kanniyakumari District ( away).


title: Kanyakumari

text: The Thiruvalluvar Statue has a height of and stands upon an rock that represents the 38 chapters of "virtue" in the Thirukkural. The statue standing on the rock represents "wealth" and "pleasures", signifying that wealth and love be earned and enjoyed on the foundation of solid virtue. The combined height of the statue and pedestal is , denoting the 133 chapters in the Thirukkural. It has a total weight of 7000 tons. The statue is reminiscent of a dancing pose of Nataraja. It was sculpted by the Indian sculptor V. Ganapati Sthapati, who also created the Iraivan Temple. Its opening ceremony was on 1 January 2000. The monument was hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004. but stood unaffected. The statue is designed to survive earthquakes of high magnitude. During maintenance work, as well as during rough sea, entry is restricted for tourists.


title: Kanyakumari

text: The Vivekananda Rock Memorial is a popular tourist monument in Vavathurai, Kanniyakumari, India. The memorial stands on one of two rocks located about east of the mainland of Vavathurai. It was built in 1970 in honour of Swami Vivekananda who is said to have attained enlightenment on the rock. According to local legends, it was on this rock that Goddess Kumari performed austerity. A meditation hall (Dhyana Mandapam) is also attached to the memorial for visitors to meditate. The design of the mandapa incorporates different styles of temple architecture from all over India. It houses a statue of Vivekananda. The rocks are surrounded by the Laccadive Sea. The memorial consists of two main structures, the Vivekananda Mandapam and the Shripada Mandapam.


title: Kanyakumari

text: The Gandhi Memorial Mandapam has been built on the spot where the urn containing the Mahatma's ashes was kept for public viewing before immersion. Resembling central Indian Hindu temples in form, the memorial was designed in a way that on Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, the first rays of the sun fall on the exact place where his ashes were kept.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Near Kanniyakumari's southern shore stands a monument to the memory of those who died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, an underwater megathrust earthquake that claimed around 280,000 lives in many countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Thailand, Maldives, and Indonesia.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Bhagavathy Amman Temple is a 3000-year-old temple dedicated to Goddess Kumari Amman located at Kanniyakumari. Kumari Amman is one of the forms of Devi, popularly known as "Kumari Bhagavathy Amman". Kumari Bhagavathy Amman temple is the first Durga temple created by Lord Parasurama and one of the 108 Shakthi Peethas. This temple is situated at the shore of the Laccadive Sea. The Kumari temple has been mentioned in Ramayana, Mahabharata and Purananooru.


title: Kanyakumari

text: Kamarajar Mani Mantapa Monument was raised and dedicated to a freedom fighter and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, President of Indian National Congress, Mr Kamarajar. He is also popularly known as Black Gandhi among the masses. Like the Gandhi Mantapa, this place is where Kamarajar's ashes were kept for the public to pay homage before immersion into the sea.


title: Kanyakumari

text: The state-owned Poompuhar Shipping Corporation runs ferry services between the town and the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvalluvar statue, situated on rocky islets off the coast. The operation of the ferry service began in 1984. Two ferries were used to ferry the tourists until June 2013, after which a new ferry was added to the service on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Swamy Vivekananda. Kanniyakumari and nearby Nagercoil are directly connected by rail with almost all metropolitan cities in India. The nearest airport is Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, from Kanniyakumari Town and from Nagercoil. Kanniyakumari is from Chennai.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The quantum harmonic oscillator is the quantum-mechanical analog of the classical harmonic oscillator. Because an arbitrary smooth potential can usually be approximated as a harmonic potential at the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point, it is one of the most important model systems in quantum mechanics. Furthermore, it is one of the few quantum-mechanical systems for which an exact, analytical solution is known.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: This energy spectrum is noteworthy for three reasons. First, the energies are quantized, meaning that only discrete energy values (integer-plus-half multiples of ) are possible; this is a general feature of quantum-mechanical systems when a particle is confined. Second, these discrete energy levels are equally spaced, unlike in the Bohr model of the atom, or the particle in a box. Third, the lowest achievable energy (the energy of the state, called the ground state) is not equal to the minimum of the potential well, but above it; this is called zero-point energy. Because of the zero-point energy, the position and momentum of the oscillator in the ground state are not fixed (as they would be in a classical oscillator), but have a small range of variance, in accordance with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The ground state probability density is concentrated at the origin, which means the particle spends most of its time at the bottom of the potential well, as one would expect for a state with little energy. As the energy increases, the probability density peaks at the classical "turning points", where the state's energy coincides with the potential energy. (See the discussion below of the highly excited states.) This is consistent with the classical harmonic oscillator, in which the particle spends more of its time (and is therefore more likely to be found) near the turning points, where it is moving the slowest. The correspondence principle is thus satisfied. Moreover, special nondispersive wave packets, with minimum uncertainty, called coherent states oscillate very much like classical objects, as illustrated in the figure; they are "not" eigenstates of the Hamiltonian.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The "ladder operator" method, developed by Paul Dirac, allows extraction of the energy eigenvalues without directly solving the differential equation. It is generalizable to more complicated problems, notably in quantum field theory. Following this approach, we define the operators and its adjoint ,


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: formula_4Note these operators classically are exactly the generators of normalized rotation in the phase space of formula_5 and formula_6, "i.e" they describe the forwards and backwards evolution in time of a classical harmonic oscillator.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The operator is not Hermitian, since itself and its adjoint are not equal. The energy eigenstates (also known as Fock states), when operated on by these ladder operators, give


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: It is then evident that , in essence, appends a single quantum of energy to the oscillator, while removes a quantum. For this reason, they are sometimes referred to as "creation" and "annihilation" operators.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: This means that acts on to produce, up to a multiplicative constant, , and acts on to produce . For this reason, is called a annihilation operator ("lowering operator"), and a creation operator ("raising operator"). The two operators together are called ladder operators. In quantum field theory, and are alternatively called "annihilation" and "creation" operators because they destroy and create particles, which correspond to our quanta of energy.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: Given any energy eigenstate, we can act on it with the lowering operator, , to produce another eigenstate with less energy. By repeated application of the lowering operator, it seems that we can produce energy eigenstates down to . However, since


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: In this case, subsequent applications of the lowering operator will just produce zero kets, instead of additional energy eigenstates. Furthermore, we have shown above that


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: Finally, by acting on |0⟩ with the raising operator and multiplying by suitable normalization factors, we can produce an infinite set of energy eigenstates


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The preceding analysis is algebraic, using only the commutation relations between the raising and lowering operators. Once the algebraic analysis is complete, one should turn to analytical questions. First, one should find the ground state, that is, the solution of the equation formula_22. In the position representation, this is the first-order differential equation


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: Conceptually, it is important that there is only one solution of this equation; if there were, say, two linearly independent ground states, we would get two independent chains of eigenvectors for the harmonic oscillator. Once the ground state is computed, one can show inductively that the excited states are Hermite polynomials times the Gaussian ground state, using the explicit form of the raising operator in the position representation. One can also prove that, as expected from the uniqueness of the ground state, the Hermite functions energy eigenstates formula_25 constructed by the ladder method form a "complete" orthonormal set of functions.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: Explicitly connecting with the previous section, the ground state |0⟩ in the position representation is determined by formula_26,


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The quantum harmonic oscillator possesses natural scales for length and energy, which can be used to simplify the problem. These can be found by nondimensionalization.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The result is that, if "energy" is measured in units of and "distance" in units of , then the Hamiltonian simplifies to


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: while the energy eigenfunctions and eigenvalues simplify to Hermite functions and integers offset by a half,


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: To avoid confusion, these "natural units" will mostly not be adopted in this article. However, they frequently come in handy when performing calculations, by bypassing clutter.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: For example, the fundamental solution () of , the time-dependent Schrödinger operator for this oscillator, simply boils down to the Mehler kernel,


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: The coherent states (also known as Glauber states) of the harmonic oscillator are special nondispersive wave packets, with minimum uncertainty , whose observables' expectation values evolve like a classical system. They are eigenvectors of the annihilation operator, "not" the Hamiltonian, and form an overcomplete basis which consequentially lacks orthogonality.


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: Because formula_37 and via the Kermack-McCrae identity, the last form is equivalent to a unitary displacement operator acting on the ground state: formula_38. The position space wave functions are


title: Quantum harmonic oscillator

text: Since coherent states are not energy eigenstates, their time evolution is not a simple shift in wavefunction phase. The time-evolved states are, however, also coherent states but with phase-shifting parameter instead: formula_40.