title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Carroll has also worked on the arrow of time problem. He and Jennifer Chen posit that the Big Bang is not a unique occurrence as a result of all of the matter and energy in the universe originating in a singularity at the beginning of time, but rather one of many cosmic inflation events resulting from quantum fluctuations of vacuum energy in a cold de Sitter space. They claim that the universe is infinitely old but never reaches thermodynamic equilibrium as entropy increases continuously without limit due to the decreasing matter and energy density attributable to recurrent cosmic inflation. They assert that the universe is "statistically time-symmetric", insofar as it contains equal progressions of time "both forward and backward". Some of his work has been on violations of fundamental symmetries, the physics of dark energy, modifications of general relativity and the arrow of time. Recently he started focusing on issues at the foundations of cosmology, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics and complexity.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: In 2017, Carroll presented an argument for rejecting certain cosmological models, including those with Boltzmann brains, on the basis that they are cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed. The article was solicited as a contribution to a larger work on "Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science".


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Carroll, while raised as an Episcopalian, is an atheist, or as he calls it, a "poetic naturalist". He turned down an invitation to speak at a conference sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, because he did not want to appear to be supporting a reconciliation between science and religion.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: In 2004, he and Shadi Bartsch taught an undergraduate course at the University of Chicago on the history of atheism. In 2012, he organized the workshop "Moving Naturalism Forward", which brought together scientists and philosophers to discuss issues associated with a naturalistic worldview. His article "Does the Universe Need God?" in "The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity" develops the claim that science no longer needs to posit a divine being to explain the existence of the universe. The article generated significant attention when it was discussed on "The Huffington Post". Carroll received an "Emperor Has No Clothes" award at the Freedom From Religion Foundation Annual National Convention in October 2014.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: His 2016 book "The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself "develops the philosophy of poetic naturalism, the term he is credited with coining. The book talks about wide range of topics such as submicroscopic components of the universe, whether human existence can have meaning without God—and everything between the two.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Carroll's speeches on the philosophy of religion also generate interest as his speeches are often responded to and talked about by philosophers and apologists. Carroll believes that thinking like a scientist leads one to the conclusion that God does not exist. Carroll thinks that over four centuries of scientific progress have convinced most professional philosophers and scientists of the validity of "naturalism". Carroll also asserts that the term methodological naturalism is an inaccurate characterisation of science, that science is not characterised by methodological naturalism but by methodological empiricism.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Carroll is a vocal atheist who has debated with Christian apologists such as Dinesh D'Souza and William Lane Craig. He occasionally takes part in formal debates and discussions about scientific, religious and philosophical topics with a variety of people.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Carroll has been involved in numerous public debates and discussions with other academics and commentators. In 2012, he gathered a number of well-known academics from a variety of backgrounds for a three-day seminar titled Moving Naturalism Forward. The participants were Steven Weinberg, Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Jerry Coyne, Simon DeDeo, Massimo Pigliucci, Janna Levin, Owen Flanagan, Rebecca Goldstein, David Poeppel, Alex Rosenberg, Terrence Deacon and Don Ross with James Ladyman.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Also in 2012, Carroll teamed up with Michael Shermer to debate with Ian Hutchinson of MIT and author Dinesh D'Souza at Caltech in an event titled "The Great Debate: Has Science Refuted Religion?"


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: In 2014, Carroll participated in a highly anticipated debate with philosopher and Christian apologist William Lane Craig as part of the Greer-Heard Forum in New Orleans. The topic of debate was "The Existence of God in Light of Contemporary Cosmology".


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: In a podcast in 2018, Sam Harris engaged with Carroll. They discussed consciousness, the many-worlds view of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, free will, facts and values, and other topics including moral realism.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: Also in 2014, Carroll partook in a debate held by Intelligence Squared, the title of the debate was "Death is Not Final". Carroll teamed up with Steven Novella, a neurologist by profession and known for his skepticism,; the two argued against the motion. Their adversaries were Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon and an author, and Raymond Moody, a philosopher, author, psychologist and physician.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: In 2017, Carroll took part in a discussion with B. Alan Wallace, a Buddhist scholar and monk ordained by the Dalai Lama. It was organized by an institution sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. In this public dialogue, they discussed the nature of reality from spiritual and scientific viewpoints.


title: Sean M. Carroll

text: In 2018, Carroll and Roger Penrose held a symposium on the subject of The Big Bang and Creation Myths. The two also engaged in a dialogue in Sean Carroll's MindScape Podcast on its 28th episode.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Andaz Apna Apna () is a 1994 Indian Hindi-language comedy film directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and produced by Vinay Kumar Sinha. It stars Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Raveena Tandon, Karishma Kapoor, Paresh Rawal (in a dual role) and Shakti Kapoor in lead roles. The film was released on 4 November 1994 and the plot elements of the film were later used in other language films such as "Ullathai Allitha" (1996), "Veedevadandi Babu" (1997) and "Galate Aliyandru" (2000), though none being a frame-to-frame remake. Although the film was a semi-hit at the box office, the film has emerged as a cult film over the years. The lexicon of the film has become part of everyday language. The climax of this film is a rehashed version of the climax of a 1972 film "Victoria No. 203".


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Both Amar Manohar and Prem Bhopali are daydreamers living with their fathers Murli and Bankelal respectively. They learn that millionaire Ram Gopal Bajaj's daughter Raveena Bajaj is coming to India from London with her secretary Karishma to find a suitable groom. Amar and Prem decide to woo Raveena to get a share in her father's wealth.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Amar and Prem meet each other when they escape from their towns and board a bus bound for Ooty where Raveena and Karishma live. They soon realise that they have the same goal and they also fail at several attempts to woo Raveena and Karishma but they manage to enter their house.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Amar pretends that he has lost his memory and eyesight after getting knocked out by Raveena when he tried to flirt with her, while Prem pretends to be a doctor at their house to cure him from his diseases but he unknowingly falls in love with Karishma.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Meanwhile, nobody knows that Ram Gopal has an evil twin-brother Shyam Gopal "Teja" Bajaj who plans to kidnap him and pose as him to go to London. He has also sent his two sidekicks Robert and Bhalla to live in Raveena and Karishma's house as their servants. Later, Amar and Prem discover that the secretary Karishma is actually the wealthy "Raveena" while the wealthy Raveena is actually the secretary "Karishma", as they had exchanged their identities as Raveena wanted to find a suitable groom for herself who will love her, not her money. However, Amar still falls in love with the real Karishma while Prem also still falls in love with the real Raveena.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Soon, Ram Gopal arrives in India and seeing the true nature of Amar and Prem, declines their marriages with Raveena and Karishma, respectively. They plan a fake kidnapping of him along with their friends where they will heroically "rescue" him which will make him agree for their marriages. Teja also plans along with Robert and Bhalla to kidnap Ram Gopal and steal all of his money converted into his diamonds. Robert and Bhalla somehow manage to kidnap Ram Gopal which shocks Amar and Prem. When they go to Teja's hideout to rescue Ram Gopal, they mistake Teja for him and take him to his house.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: The next day, Raveena and Karishma tell their suspicion to Amar and Prem who discover the truth on secretly following Teja to his hideout where Ram Gopal tricks him and escapes his hideout prison. However, Amar and Prem mistake him for Teja and imprison him again - resulting in Teja imprisoning Amar and Prem as well before escaping from his hideout. Amar and Prem still manage to convince Robert and Bhalla and Ram Gopal is Teja and free him from the prison. An escaping Teja is then stopped by Amar and Prem along with Robert and Bhalla.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Meanwhile, throughout the film, Robert and Bhalla are constantly harassed by Crime Master Gogo who is demanding his money taken by Teja back, but he discovers Ram Gopal's diamonds and he kidnaps him along with Raveena and Karishma. At Gogo's hideout, Amar and Prem arrive and they try to control the situation along with Ram Gopal as each motive of each villain is revealed in a comic standoff. However, the police who were already called by Amar and Prem, are able to find Gogo's hideout and arrest all of the criminals. Ram Gopal finally gets all of his diamonds back and he also agrees for the marriages of Amar and Prem with Raveena and Karishma, respectively.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: After the success of his debut film "Ghayal" (1990), director Rajkumar Santoshi was approached by producer Vinay Kumar Sinha for a film. The latter wanted to make a film with Aamir Khan. Having made a film on a serious subject, Santoshi wanted to make a comedy film now. It was then decided that he would write a story about two warring buddies, the human versions of Tom and Jerry. Santoshi wrote the screenplay with Dilip Shukla, also modelling the characters on "Archie comics". Despite the film feeling impromptu, every scene and dialogue was in the script.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Santoshi then decided to cast Salman Khan followed by then relative newcomers Karisma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon as the female leads along with Paresh Rawal in a double role. Santoshi finished the script after the casting. He also wrote several dialogues on the set which were in his mind and not in the script. Amrish Puri was supposed to play the role of Mogambo's younger brother, Zorambo. But due to the length of the film, the character was removed. Sunny Deol was supposed to do a cameo in the film, who was not available at that time. It was done by Govinda.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Initially, Salman Khan wanted more screen space than the other but later agreed to have the same amount of screen time. Tinnu Anand was offered the role of the villain "Gogo", but could not do it because of date issues. It eventually played by Shakti Kapoor. While shooting, Santoshi had to call for a cut as almost the entire crew including the director of photography laughed so hard that it shook the camera. The Muhurat shot was done by cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. "Andaz Apna Apna" took three years in making, which resulted in some continuity issues. Ishwar Bidri was the director of photography while V. N. Mayekar served as the editor.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: The film only did moderately well at box-office; it was able to recover its budget cost mainly due to business from big cities but did not turn out to be a massive hit contrary to everyone's expectations. It earned an excess of net in India. Its total domestic gross was , and its overseas gross was $150,000, bringing its worldwide gross to . It was the year's 17th highest-grossing Indian film.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: The lack of publicity and tough competition from other films of that year were reasons for its average business. Santoshi also attributes the failure to the fact that the film was not released and distributed well due to a new distributor. All of these films were very strong in their box office presence and "Andaz Apna Apna", belonging to a different genre, could not compete well. It has however, in subsequent years, achieved a cult classic status among Hindi audiences.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: While reviewing "Grand Masti" in 2013, critic Khalid Mohamed described "Andaz Apna Apna" in the "collection of excellent comedies" from Hindi cinema. Film critic Raja Sen called it a "cornball classic" and "one of the greatest comedies in recent times." In 2014, comedian Aditi Mittal wrote: "Writing about "Andaz Apna Apna", I have realized, is like writing about mother's love. Everyone has their own version of how it affects them, what lines they remember the most." The film was featured in "Filmfare"'s 100 Days series. It is available on the streaming platform Netflix and Prime Video.


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: Several dialogues from this film like "Teja main hu. Mark Idhar hai", "Crime Master Gogo, Mogambo ka Bhatija", "Do dost ek cup me chay piyenge" etc., are popular. It went on to be an inspiration for the plot element of the Tamil film "Ullathai Allitha", the Telugu film "Veedevadandi Babu" and the Kannada film "Galate Aliyandru". It was also reported that the climax of 1973 film "Victoria No. 203", including the set and the action, was shot-to-shot copied in this film. Andaz Apna Apna didn't have a bound script most of the dialogues were improvised by the cast and crew during the shoot of the film. The film was featured in "Filmfare"'s 100 Days series. It was voted as the 2nd best Bollywood comedy film of all time in an online poll conducted by "The Indian Express".


title: Andaz Apna Apna

text: The plot elements of the film were used in many languages as "Ullathai Allitha" (1996), "Veedevadandi Babu" (1997) and "Galate Aliyandru" (2000). "Andaz Naya Naya" is a Bollywood animated 3D film, which is an official remake of "Andaz Apna Apna", but it has been shelved due to unknown reasons. Producer Sidharth Jain began to question if the film would do any good at the box office because Indian animated films do not get the good market, so Jain shelved the film after being 35% done.


title: Telescopic sight

text: A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope informally, is an optical sighting device based on a refracting telescope. It is equipped with some form of a referencing pattern – known as a "reticle" – mounted in a focally appropriate position in its optical system to provide an accurate point of aim. Telescopic sights are used with all types of systems that require magnification in addition to reliable visual aiming, as opposed to non-magnifying iron sights, reflector (reflex) sights, holographic sights or laser sights, and are most commonly found on long-barrel firearms, particularly rifles, usually via a scope mount. The optical components may be combined with optoelectronics to add night vision or smart device features.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The first experiments directed to give shooters optical aiming aids go back to the early 17th century. For centuries, different optical aiming aids and primitive predecessors of telescopic sights were created that had practical or performance limitations. In the late 1630s, English amateur astronomer William Gascoigne was experimenting with a Keplerian telescope and left it with the case open. Later he found that a spider had spun its web inside the case, and when he looked through the telescope he found that the web was in focus with distant objects. Gascoigne realised that he could use this principle to make a telescopic sight for use in his astronomical observations.


title: Telescopic sight

text: In 1776, Charles Willson Peale collaborated with David Rittenhouse to mount a telescope to a rifle as a sighting aid, but was unable to mount it sufficiently far forward to prevent the eyepiece impacting with the operator's eye during recoils. In the same year, James Lind and Captain Alexander Blair described a gun which included a telescopic sight.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The first documented telescopic rifle sight was invented between 1835 and 1840. In a book titled "The Improved American Rifle", written in 1844, British-American civil engineer John R. Chapman documented the first telescopic sights made by gunsmith Morgan James of Utica, New York. Chapman gave James the concepts and some of the design, whereupon they produced the Chapman-James sight. In 1855, optician William Malcolm of Syracuse, New York began producing his own telescopic sight, used an original design incorporating achromatic lenses such as those used in telescopes, and improved the windage and elevation adjustments. These Malcolm sights were between 3× and 20× magnification (possibly more). Malcolm's sights and those made by Vermont jeweller L. M. Amidon were the standard sharpshooter equipments during the American Civil War.


title: Telescopic sight

text: An early practical refracting telescope based telescopic sight was built in 1880 by August Fiedler (of Stronsdorf, Austria), forestry commissioner of German Prince Reuss.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Later telescopic sights with extra long eye relief became available for use on handguns and scout rifles. A historic example of a long-eye relief (LER) telescopic sight is the German ZF41 which was used during World War II on Karabiner 98k rifles.


title: Telescopic sight

text: An early example of a man-portable sight for low visibility/night use is the "Zielgerät" (aiming device) 1229 (ZG 1229), also known by its code name "Vampir" ("vampire"). The ZG 1229 Vampir was a Generation 0 active infrared night vision device developed for the "Wehrmacht" for the StG 44 assault rifle, intended primarily for night use. The issuing of the ZG 1229 Vampir system to the military started in 1944 and it was used on a small scale in combat from February 1945 until the final stages of World War II.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights are classified in terms of the optical magnification (i.e. "power") and the objective lens diameter. For example, "10×50" would denote a fixed magnification factor of 10×, with a 50 mm objective lens. In general terms, larger objective lens diameters, due to their ability to gather a higher luminous flux, provide a larger exit pupil and hence provide a brighter image at the eyepiece.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Most early telescopic sights were fixed-power, and were in essence specially designed viewing telescopes. Telescopic sights with variable magnifications appeared later, and were varied by manually adjusting a zoom mechanism behind the erector lenses. Variable-power sights offer more flexibility when shooting at varying distances, target sizes and light conditions, and offer a relative wide field of view at lower magnification settings. The syntax for variable sights is the following: "minimal magnification – maximum magnification × objective lens", for example "3-9×40" means a telescopic sight with variable magnification between 3× and 9×, and a 40 mm objective lens. The ratio between the maximum and minimum magnifications of a variable-power sight is known as its "zoom ratio".


title: Telescopic sight

text: Confusingly, some older telescopic sights, mainly of German or other European manufacture, have a different classification where the second part of the designation refers to light-gathering power. In these cases, a 4×81 (4× magnification) sight would be presumed to have a brighter sight picture than a 2.5×70 (2.5× magnification), but the objective lens diameter would not bear any direct relation to picture brightness, as brightness is affected also by the magnification factor. Typically objective lenses on early sights are smaller than modern sights, in these examples the 4×81 would have an objective 36 mm diameter and the 2.5×70 should be approximately 21 mm (relative luminosity is the square of the exit pupil as measured in mm; a 36 mm objective lens diameter divided by the 4× magnification gives an exit pupil of 9 mm; (9×9=81)


title: Telescopic sight

text: A relatively new type of telescopic sight, called prismatic telescopic sight, prismatic sight or "prism scope", replaces the image-erecting relay lenses of a traditional telescope with a roof prism design commonly found in compact binoculars, monoculars and spotting scopes. The reticle is etched onto one of the prism's internal reflection surfaces, which allows an easy way to illuminate the reticle (from the back side of the prism) even when active illumination is turned off. Being optical telescopes, prism sights can focally compensate for a user's astigmatism.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Prismatic sights are lighter and more compact than conventional telescopic sights, but are mostly fixed-powered in the low magnification ranges (usually 2×, 2.5×, 3× or more commonly 4×, occasionally 1× or 5× or more), suitable for shooting at short/medium distances. One of the best known examples is the battle-proven Trijicon ACOG used by the USMC, US Army, and USSOCOM, although variable-magnification prism sights do also exist, such as the ELCAN Specter DR/TR series.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Variable-zoom telescopic sights in the low magnification range (1–4×, 1–6×, 1–8×, or even 1–10×) are known as low-power variable optics or LPVOs. These telescopic sights are often equipped with built-in reticle illumination, and can be dialed down to 1× magnification. As low magnifications are mostly used in close- and medium ranges, LPVOs typically have no parallax compensation (though a few rare models do) and have a completely cylindrical shape ahead of the eyepiece, since the image illuminance is often sufficient without needing an enlarged objective bell to enhance light-gathering. Most LPVOs have reticles mounted at the second focal plane, but recently first-focal plane LPVOs have become popular, especially those with high zoom ratios above 6×.


title: Telescopic sight

text: LPVOs are also informally referred to as "AR scopes" or "carbine scopes", due to the recently increasing popularity on modern sporting rifles and compact "tactical"-style semi-automatic rifles used among the law enforcement, home defense and practical shooting enthusiasts crowd.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights are usually designed for the specific application for which they are intended. Those different designs create certain optical parameters. Those parameters are:


title: Telescopic sight

text: Because a typical telescopic sight has several optical elements with special characteristics and several air-to-glass surfaces, telescopic sight manufacturers use different types of optical coatings for technical reasons and to improve the image they produce. Lens coatings can increase light transmission, minimize reflections, repel water and grease and even protect the lens from scratches. Manufacturers often have their own designations for their lens coatings.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Anti-reflective coatings reduce light lost at every optical surface through reflection at each surface. Reducing reflection via anti-reflective coatings also reduces the amount of "lost" light present inside the telescopic sight which would otherwise make the image appear hazy (low contrast). A telescopic sight with good optical coatings may yield a brighter image than uncoated telescopic sights with a larger objective lens, on account of superior light transmission through the assembly. The first transparent interference-based coating "Transparentbelag (T)" used by Zeiss was invented in 1935 by Olexander Smakula. A classic lens-coating material is magnesium fluoride, which reduces reflected light from 5% to 1%. Modern lens coatings consist of complex multi-layers and reflect only 0.25% or less to yield an image with maximum brightness and natural colors. Determined by the optical properties of the lenses used and intended primary use of the telescopic sight, different coatings are preferred, to optimize light transmission dictated by the human eye luminous efficiency function variance. Maximal light transmission around wavelengths of 555 nm (green) is important for obtaining optimal photopic vision using the eye cone cells for observation in well-lit conditions. Maximal light transmission around wavelengths of 498 nm (cyan) is important for obtaining optimal scotopic vision using the eye rod cells for observation in low light conditions. These allow high-quality 21st century telescopic sights to practically achieve measured over 90% light transmission values in low light conditions. Depending on the coating, the character of the image seen in the telescopic sight under normal daylight can either "warmer" or "colder" and appear either with higher or lower contrast. Subject to the application, the coating is also optimized for maximum color fidelity through the visible spectrum.


title: Telescopic sight

text: A common application technique is physical vapor deposition of one or more superimposed very thin anti-reflective coating layer(s) which includes evaporative deposition, making it a complex production process.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The main tube of telescopic sights vary in size, material, the applied production process and surface finish. The typical outside diameters vary between and , although , 30 mm and recently 34 mm are by far the most common sizes. The internal diameter of the main tube influences the amount of space within which the relay lens group and other optical elements can be mounted, the maximum size of the erector tube, and the maximum angular ranges for elevation and windage adjustments. Telescopic sights intended for long-range and/or low-light usage generally feature larger main tube diameters. Besides optical, spatial and attainable range of elevation and windage adjustments considerations, larger diameter main tubes offer the possibility to increase the tube walls thickness (hence a more robust sight) without sacrificing a lot of internal diameter.


title: Telescopic sight

text: All telescopic sights have the first three (diopter, elevation, windage) adjustment controls, and the fourth (magnification) control is offered on variable-power sights. The remaining two adjustments are optional and typically only found on higher-end models with additional features.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The windage and elevation adjustment knobs (colloquially called "tracking turrets") often have internal ball detents to help accurately index their rotation, which provide a crisp tactile feedback corresponding to each graduation of turn, often accompanied by a soft but audible clicking sound. Each indexing increment is thus colloquially called a "click", and the corresponding angular adjustment of the optical axis is known as the "click value". The most commonly seen click values are  MOA (often expressed in approximations as " inch at 100 yards") and 0.1 mil (often expressed as "10 mm at 100 meters"), although other click values such as  MOA,  MOA or  MOA and other mil increments are also present on the commercial and military and law enforcement sights.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Older telescopic sights often did not offer internal windage and/or elevation adjustments in the telescopic sight. In case the telescopic sight lacked internal adjustment mechanisms adjustable mounts are used (on the scope rings, or the mounting rail itself) for sighting-in.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights come with a variety of different reticles, ranging from the simple crosshairs to complex reticles designed to allow the shooter to range a target, to compensate for the bullet drop and windage required due to crosswinds. A user can estimate the range to objects of known size, the size of objects at known distances, and even roughly compensate for both bullet drop and wind drifts at known ranges with a reticle-equipped sight.


title: Telescopic sight

text: For example, with a typical Leupold brand 16 minute of angle (MOA) duplex reticle (similar to image B) on a fixed-power telescopic sight, the distance from post to post (between the heavier lines of the reticle spanning the center of the sight picture) is approximately at , or, equivalently, approximately from the center to any post at 200 yards. If a target of a known diameter of 16 inches fills just half of the total post-to-post distance (i.e. filling from sight center to post), then the distance to target is approximately . With a target of a diameter of 16 inches that fills the entire sight picture from post to post, the range is approximately 100 yards. Other ranges can be similarly estimated accurately in an analog fashion for known target sizes through proportionality calculations. Holdover, for estimating vertical point of aim offset required for bullet drop compensation on level terrain, and horizontal windage offset (for estimating side to side point of aim offsets required for wind effect corrections) can similarly be compensated for through using approximations based on the wind speed (from observing flags or other objects) by a trained user through using the reticle marks. The less-commonly used holdunder, used for shooting on sloping terrain, can even be estimated by an appropriately-skilled user with a reticle-equipped sight, once both the slope of the terrain and the slant range to target are known.


title: Telescopic sight

text: There are two main types of reticle constructions: wire reticle and etched reticle. Wire reticles are the oldest type of reticles and are made out of metal wire or thread, mounted in an optically appropriate position in the telescopic sight's tube. Etched reticles are an optic element (often a glass plate) with inked patterns etched onto it, and are mounted as an integrated part of the lightpath. When backlit through the ocular, a wire reticle will reflect incoming light and cannot present a fully opaque (black) reticle with high contrast; while an etched reticle will stay fully opaque (black) if backlit.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Reticle patterns can be as simple as a round dot, small cross, diamond, chevron and/or circle in the center (in some prism sights and reflex/holographic sights), or a pointed vertical bar in a "T"-like pattern (such as the famous "German #1" reticle used on the Wehrmacht ZF41 sights during the Second World War, or the SVD-pattern reticle used on the Soviet PSO-1 sights during the Cold War) that essentially imitates the front post on iron sights. However, most reticles have both horizontal and vertical lines to provide better visual references.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The crosshair is the most rudimentary reticle, represented as a pair of smooth, perpendicularly intersecting lines in the shape of a "+", and the crosshair center is used for aiming the weapon. The crosshair lines geometrically resemble the X- and Y-axis of the Cartesian coordinate system, which the shooter can use as a simple reference for rough horizontal and vertical calibrations.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Crosshair reticles are typically not graduated, and thus are unsuitable for stadiametric rangefinding. However some crosshair designs have thickened outer sections that help with aiming in poor contrast situations when the crosshair center cannot be seen clearly. These "thin-thick" crosshair reticles, known as duplex reticles, can also be used for some rough estimations if the transition point between thinner and thicker lines are at a defined distance from the center, as seen in designs such as the common 30/30 reticles (both the fine horizontal and vertical crosshair lines are 30 MOAs in length at 4× magnification before transition to thicker lines). There can also be additional features such as enlarged center dot (frequently also illuminated), concentric circle (solid or broken/dashed), chevron, stadia bars, or a combination of the above, that are added to a crosshair to help with easier aiming.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Many modern reticles are designed for (stadiametric) rangefinding purposes. Perhaps the most popular and well-known ranging reticle is the mil-dot reticle, which consists of a duplex crosshair with small dots marking each milliradian (or "mil") intervals from the center. An alternative variant uses perpendicular hash lines instead of dots, and is known as the mil-hash reticle. Such graduated reticles, along with those with MOA-based increments, are collectively and unofficially called "milling reticles", and have gained significant acceptance in NATO and other military and law enforcement organizations.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Mil-based reticles, being decimal in graduations, are by far more prevalent due to the ease and reliability of ranging calculations with the ubiquitous metric units, as each milliradian at each meter of distance simply corresponds to a subtension of 1 millimeter; while MOA-based reticles are more popular in civilian usage favoring imperial units (e.g. in the United States), because by coincidence 1 MOA at 100 yards (the most common sight-in distance) can be confidently rounded to 1 inch.


title: Telescopic sight

text: To allow methodological uniformity, accurate mental calculation and efficient communication between spotters and shooters in sniper teams, mil-based sights are typically matched by elevation/windage adjustments in 0.1 mil increments. There are however military and shooting sport sights that use coarser or finer reticle increments.


title: Telescopic sight

text: By means of a mathematical formula "[Target size] ÷ [Number of mil intervals] × 1000 = Distance", the user can easily calculate the distance to a target, as a 1-meter object is going to be exactly 1 milliradian at a 1000-meter distance. For example, if the user sees an object known to be 1.8 meters tall as something 3 mils tall through the telescopic sight, the distance to that object will be 600 meters (1.8 ÷ 3 × 1000 = 600).


title: Telescopic sight

text: Some milling reticles have additional marking patterns in the bottom two quadrants, consisting of elaborate arrays of neatly spaced fine dots, "+" marks or hashed lines (usually at 0.2 mil or ½ MOA intervals), to provide accurate references for compensating bullet drops and wind drifts by simply aiming "above" (i.e. "hold [the aim] over" the target) and upwind of the target (i.e. deflection shooting, or "Kentucky windage"). This type of reticles, designed to hold the aim high and away from the target, are therefore called holdover reticles. Such aiming technique can quickly correct for ballistic deviations without needing to manually readjust the sight's zero, thus enabling the shooter to place rapid, reliably calibrated follow-up shots.


title: Telescopic sight

text: When shooting at extended distances, the further the target, the greater the bullet drops and wind drifts that need to be compensated. Because of this, the reference arrays of holdover reticles are typically much wider at the lower portion, shaping into an isosceles triangle/trapezium that resembles the canopy of a spruce, the ornamental tree traditionally used to make Christmas trees. Holdover reticles therefore are colloquially also known as "Christmas tree reticles". Well-known examples of these reticles include GAP G2DMR, Horus TReMoR2 and H58/H59, Vortex EBR-2B and Kahles AMR.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights based on image erector lenses (used to present to the user with an upright image) have two planes of focus where a reticle can be placed: at the focal plane between the objective and the image erector lens system (the First Focal Plane (FFP)), or the focal plane between the image erector lens system and the eyepiece (the Second Focal Plane (SFP)). On fixed power telescopic sights there is no significant difference, but on variable power telescopic sights a first focal plane reticle expands and shrinks along with the rest of the image as the magnification is adjusted, while a second focal plane reticle would appear the same size and shape to the user as the target image grows and shrinks. In general, the majority of modern variable-power sights are SFP unless stated otherwise. Every European high-end telescopic sight manufacturer offers FFP reticles on variable power telescopic sights, since the optical needs of European hunters who live in jurisdictions that allow hunting at dusk, night and dawn differ from hunters who traditionally or by legislation do not hunt in low light conditions.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The main disadvantage of SFP designs comes with the use of range-finding reticles such as mil-dot. Since the proportion between the reticle and the target is dependent on selected magnification, such reticles only work properly at one magnification level, typically the highest power. Some long-range shooters and military snipers use fixed-power telescopic sights to eliminate this potential for error. Some SFP sights take advantage of this aspect by having the shooter adjust magnification until the target fits a certain way inside the reticle and then extrapolate the range based on the power adjustment. Some Leupold hunting sights with duplex reticles allow range estimation to a White-tailed deer buck by adjusting magnification until the area between the backbone and the brisket fits between the crosshairs and the top thick post of the reticle. Once that's done, the range be read from the scale printed on the magnification adjustment ring.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Although FFP designs are not susceptible to magnification-induced errors, they have their own disadvantages. It's challenging to design a reticle that is visible through the entire range of magnification: a reticle that looks fine and crisp at 24× magnification may be very difficult to see at 6×. On the other hand, a reticle that's easy to see at 6× may be too thick at 24× to make precision shots. Shooting in low light conditions also tends to require either illumination or a bold reticle, along with lower magnification to maximize light gathering. In practice, these issues tend to significantly reduce the available magnification range on FFP sights compared to SFP, and FFP sights are much more expensive compared to SFP models of similar quality. Most high-end optics manufacturers leave the choice between a FFP or SFP mounted reticle to the customer or have sight product models with both setups.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Variable-power telescopic sights with FFP reticles have no problems with point of impact shifts. Variable-power telescopic sights with SFP reticles can have slight point-of-impact shifts through their magnification range, caused by the positioning of the reticle in the mechanical zoom mechanism in the rear part of the telescopic sight. Normally these impact shifts are insignificant, but accuracy-oriented users, who wish to use their telescopic sight trouble-free at several magnification levels, often opt for FFP reticles. Around the year 2005 Zeiss was the first high-end European telescopic sight manufacturer who brought out variable magnification military grade telescopic sight models with rear SFP mounted reticles. They get around impermissible impact shifts by laboriously hand-adjusting every military grade telescopic sight. The American high-end telescopic sight manufacturer U.S. Optics Inc. also offers variable magnification military grade telescopic sight models with SFP mounted reticles.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Either type of reticle can be illuminated for use in low-light or daytime conditions. With any illuminated low-light reticle, it is essential that its brightness can be adjusted. A reticle that is too bright will cause glare in the operator's eye, interfering with their ability to see in low-light conditions. This is because the pupil of the human eye closes quickly upon receiving any source of light. Most illuminated reticles provide adjustable brightness settings to adjust the reticle precisely to the ambient light.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Illumination is usually provided by a battery-powered LED, though other electric light sources can be used. The light is projected forward through the sight, and reflects off the back surface of the reticle. Red is the most common colour used, as it least impedes the shooter's natural night vision. This illumination method can be used to provide both daytime and low-light conditions reticle illumination.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Radioactive isotopes can also be used as a light source, to provide an illuminated reticle for low-light condition aiming. In sights such as the SUSAT or Elcan C79 Optical Sight tritium-illuminated reticles are used for low-light condition aiming. Trijicon Corporation uses tritium in their combat and hunting-grade firearm optics, including the ACOG. The (radioactive) tritium light source has to be replaced every 8–12 years, since it gradually loses its brightness due to radioactive decay.


title: Telescopic sight

text: With fiber optics ambient can be collected and directed to an illuminated daytime reticle. Fiber-optics reticles automatically interact with the ambient light level that dictates the brightness of the reticle. Trijicon uses fiber optics combined with other low-light conditions illumination methods in their AccuPoint telescopic sights and some of their ACOG sights models.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Bullet drop compensation (BDC, sometimes referred alternatively as "ballistic elevation") is a feature available on some telescopic sights, usually those used by more tactically-oriented semi-automatic and assault rifles. The feature provides pre-determined reference markings for various distances (referred to as "bullet drops") on the reticle or (much less commonly) on the elevation turret, which gives reasonably accurate estimations of potential gravitational deviation upon the bullet in flat-firing scenarios, so the shooter can proactively adjust their aim to compensate without needing to trial with missed shots or dealing with complex ballistic calculation. The BDC feature is usually tuned only for the ballistic trajectory of a particular gun-cartridge combination with a predefined projectile weight/type, muzzle velocity and air density. Military sights featuring BDC reticles (e.g. the ACOG) or elevation turrets with range markings (e.g. PSO-1) are fairly common, though commercial manufacturers also offer the option to install a BDC reticle or elevation turret as long as the customer supplies the necessary ballistic data. Since the usage of standardized ammunition is an important prerequisite to match the BDC feature to the external ballistic behaviour of the employed projectiles, telescopic sights with BDC are generally intended to assist with field-shooting at targets within varying medium to longer ranges rather than precise long range shooting. With increasing range, inevitable BDC-induced errors will occur when the environmental and meteorological circumstances deviate from the predefined circumstances for which the BDC was calibrated. Marksmen can be trained to understand the main forces acting on the projectile and their effect on their particular gun and ammunition and the effects of external factors at longer ranges to counter these errors.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Parallax problems result from the target image projected from the objective not being coplanar with the reticle. If the target and the reticle are not coplanar (i.e. focal plane of the target is either in front of or behind the reticle), when the shooter's pupil position changes (often due to small alterations in head alignment) behind the eyepiece, the target will produce a different parallax to the reticle image. This parallax difference will produce an apparent movement of the reticle "floating" over the target, known as the "parallax shift". This optical effect causes aiming errors that can make a shooter miss a small target at a distance, due to actually aiming at a different spot to the assumed point of aim. It can also lead to unreliabilities when zeroing the gun.


title: Telescopic sight

text: To eliminate parallax-induced aiming errors, telescopic sights can be equipped with a parallax compensation mechanism which basically consists of a movable optical element that can shift the target/reticle focus back or forward into exactly the same optical plane. There are two main methods to achieve this.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Most telescopic sights lack parallax compensation due to cost-benefit, as they can perform very acceptably without such refinement since most applications do not demand very high precision, so adding extra production cost for parallax compensation is not justified. For example, in most hunting situations, the "kill zone" on the game (where the vital organs are located) can be so forgivingly big that a shot hitting anywhere within the upper torso guarantees a successful kill. In these sights, the manufacturers often design for a "parallax-free" distance that best suits their intended usage. Typical standard parallax-free distances for hunting telescopic sights are or as most sport hunting rarely exceed 300 yd/m. Some long-range target and "tactical-style" sights without parallax compensation may be adjusted to be parallax-free at ranges up to 300 yd/m to make them better suited for the longer ranges. Telescopic sights used by rimfire guns, shotguns and muzzleloaders that are rarely fired beyond 100 yd/m ranges will have shorter parallax settings, commonly 50 yd/m for rimfire sights and 100 yd/m for shotguns and muzzleloaders. However, due to parallax effect being more pronounced at close distances (as a result of foreshortening), sights for airguns (which are commonly used at very short ranges) almost always have parallax compensation, frequently an adjustable objective design, which may adjust down to as near as .


title: Telescopic sight

text: The reason why telescopic sights intended for short range use are often equipped with parallax compensation is that at short range (and at high magnification) parallax errors become proportionally more noticeable. A typical telescopic sight objective lens has a focal length of . An optically ideal 10× sight in this example has been perfectly parallax corrected at and functions flawlessly at that distance. If the same sight is used at the target picture would be projected (1000 m / 100 m) / 100 mm = 0.1 mm behind the reticle plane. At 10× magnification the error would be 10 × 0.1 mm = 1 mm at the ocular. If the same telescopic sight was used at the target picture would be (1000 m / 10 m) / 100 mm = 1 mm projected behind the reticle plane. When 10× magnified the error would be 10 × 1 mm = 10 mm at the ocular.


title: Telescopic sight

text: In 1997 Swarovski Optik introduced the LRS series telescopic sight, the first sight on the civilian market with an integrated laser rangefinder. The LRS 2-12x50 sight can measure ranges up to . The LRS sights are currently (2008) not produced anymore, but sights with similar features are commercially available from several manufacturers.


title: Telescopic sight

text: An integrated ballistic computer/telescopic sight system known as BORS has been developed by the Barrett Firearms Company and became commercially available around 2007. The BORS module is in essence an electronic Bullet Drop Compensation (BDC) sensor/calculator package intended for long-range sniping out to for some telescopic sight models made by Leupold and Nightforce. To establish the appropriate elevation setting the shooter needs to enter the ammunition type into the BORS (using touch pads on the BORS console) determine the range (either mechanically or through a laser rangefinder) and crank the elevation knob on the sight until the proper range appears in the BORS display. The BORS automatically determines the air density, as well as the cant or tilt in the rifle itself, and incorporates these environmental factors into its elevation calculations.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The SAM (Shooter-supporting Attachment Module) measures and provides aiming and ballistic relevant data and displays this to the user in the ocular of the Zeiss 6–24×72 telescopic sight it is developed for. The SAM has different sensors integrated (temperature, air pressure, shooting angle) and calculates the actual ballistic compensation. All indications are displayed in the ocular.


title: Telescopic sight

text: It memorizes up to 4 different ballistics and 4 different firing tables. So it is possible to use 1 SAM with four total different loads or weapons without an additional adjustment.


title: Telescopic sight

text: A totally different approach recently developed, which has been applied in the ELCAN DigitalHunter series and the ATN X-Sight series, essentially uses a video camera system to digitally capture, process and display the target image into the eyepiece, often with additional built-in rangefinder, ballistic calculator, signal filters, memory card and/or wireless access smart device interface to create a "smart scope" that can use augmented reality and store/share data. The ELCAN DigitalHunter, for instance, combines CCD and LCD technology with electronic ballistics compensation, automatic video capture, 4-field selectable reticles and customizable reticles. In 2008, a DigitalHunter Day/Night Riflescope that uses infrared captured by the CCD to enhance low-light capabilities became available. It is also possible to attach infrared light sources to use such sights in total darkness, though the image quality, and overall performance is often poor. Some jurisdictions however forbid or limit the use of night vision devices for civilian use.


title: Telescopic sight

text: As very few firearms come with factory-built telescopic sights (the Steyr AUG, SAR 21 and H&K G36 being exceptions), mounting a separately acquired sight to a firearm requires additional accessories. A typical sight mounting system consists of two parts, the scope rings and the scope base. The mounting generally positions the telescopic sight axis without cant over the receiver and bore center axis, to make sighting in and the use of ballistic tracking at various ranges for the user as easy as possible.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Because the majority of telescopic sights do not come with a built-in design for direct attachment onto something, intermediate mounting accessories are needed. Because telescopic sights universally have a round main tube, the standard mounting method is to use scope rings, which are essentially round metal pipe shoes that clamp firmly onto the telescopic sight body. Most commonly, a pair of scope rings are used, though unusually short telescopic sights occasionally do use only a single scope ring. There are also one-piece mounting accessories with two integral rings, called scope mounts, that can even offer "cantilever" or "offset" mounting (leaning off to one end, away from the center).


title: Telescopic sight

text: The scope ring size (inner diameter) must correspond closely to the outer diameter of the telescopic sight main tube, or else the telescopic sight would either be loosely mounted, or sustain compressive fatigue due to being clamped too tightly. The three most common ring sizes are:


title: Telescopic sight

text: The scope base is the attachment interface on the rifle's receiver, onto which the scope rings or scope mount are fixed. Early telescopic sights almost all have the rings that are fastened directly into tapped screw holes on the receiver, hence having no additional scope base other than the receiver top itself. While this is simple and cheap, it comes with the problem that any misalignment of the screw holes can cause the scope rings to exert bending stress on the telescopic sight body, and often requires the inner edges of the rings to be lapped before the telescopic sight can be safely mounted. Some scope bases, such as Leupold & Stevens's proprietary STD mounts, use socketed bases screw-fastened to the receiver and a twistlock-like interface to secure the accompanied scope rings.


title: Telescopic sight

text: An alternative design that has remained popular since the early 20th century is the dovetail rail, which is a straight metal flange with an inverted trapezoid cross-section (similar to the dovetail joint used in woodworking). When mounting a telescopic sight, dovetail-interfaced scope rings can be slid onto the rail at any desired position, and friction-fastened via set screws, or clamped firm with screw-tightened plates called "grabbers". Due to the relative ease of machining a reliably straight metal bar, dovetail rails pretty much eliminated the misalignment concerns of the screw-and-hole scope rings. Most dovetail rails are made by cutting triangular grooves into the receiver top, but there are aftermarket rails that can be installed with screws into the aforementioned scope ring holes. The top of receivers featuring an integral dovetail rail can feature shape connection drillings that function as one or more recoil to prevent undesired backward and forward sliding movement.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Some manufacturers provide integral bases on many of their firearms; an example of such a firearm is the Ruger Super Redhawk revolver. The most commonly encountered mounting systems are the 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) and the 11 mm dovetail rails (sometimes called "tip-off mounts") commonly found on rimfires and air guns, the Weaver rails, the mil-spec MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rail (STANAG 2324), and the NATO Accessory Rail (STANAG 4694). Ruger uses a proprietary scope base system, though adapters are available to convert the Ruger bases into other Weaver-type bases.


title: Telescopic sight

text: European telescopic sight manufacturers often offer the option to have mounting rails underneath the sight to provide for mounting solutions that do not use scope rings or a single scope ring around the objective of the sight. These rails are an integral part of the telescopic sight body and can not be removed. The mounting rail permits the telescopic sight to be securely and tension-free mounted at the preferred height and correct distance from the shooter's eye and on different guns.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The traditional standard prism mounting rail system requires to have the mounting rail drilled from the side for fixture screws. The more recent proprietary systems mainly offer aesthetic advantages for people who have problems with redundant drill holes in the sight in case it is used on different guns. To avoid drilling the mounting rail, the proprietary rail mounting systems have special shape connections machined in the inside of the rail. These shape connections prevent ever showing any exterior damage from mounting work on the sight. The proprietary rail systems use matching slide-in mount fasteners to connect the telescopic sight to the gun. Some proprietary rails also offer the possibility to tilt the sight up to 1° (60 moa; 17.5 mrad) to the left or right.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Technical advantages of rail mounting systems are the reliability and robustness of such mounting solutions. Even under hard recoil there will be no play in mounts and tolerances will not change over time and hard use. The additional material due to rail on the underside of the sight's construction also adds stiffness and robustness to the sight's body.


title: Telescopic sight

text: For mounting telescopic sights and/or other accessories to guns several rail interface systems are available to provide a standardized mounting platform.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The best known rail interface system is the standardized MIL-STD-1913 Picatinny rail or "Pic rail", also known as the STANAG 2324 rail after its adoption by NATO forces on 3 February 1995. It is named after the Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, where it was originally designed, tested and proposed for military adoption over other rail standards at the time. The Picatinny rail comprises a T-rail whose top portion has a flattened hexagonal cross-section, interspersed with evenly spaced transverse "spacing slots" to accommodate long horizontal screws. Telescopic sight mounting rings are mounted either by sliding them on from one end or the other; by means of a "rail-grabber" which is clamped to the rail with bolts, thumbscrews or levers; or onto the slots between the raised sections.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Another older, commercially available rail system is the Weaver rail, which was designed and popularized in the 1950s by William R. Weaver (1905–1975), and was the non-standardized conceptual precursor of the Picatinny rail. The main differences between the Picatinny rail and the Weaver rail are the rail dimensions and the spacing of the cross-slots, although the Picatinny rail is backward-compatible with almost all Weaver accessories (but not "vice versa").


title: Telescopic sight

text: The NATO Accessory Rail (NAR), defined by the new STANAG 4694, was approved by NATO on 8 May 2009 to replace the Picatinny rail as the standard rail interface system for mounting auxiliary equipment such as telescopic sights, tactical lights, laser aiming modules, night vision devices, reflex sights, foregrips, bipods, and bayonets to small arms such as rifles and pistols. The NATO Accessory Rail is a metric upgrade of the Picatinny rail with redesigned grabber surfaces but almost identical profile and dimensions, and the two rail systems are essentially cross-compatible.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights for use on light-recoiling firearms, such as rimfire guns, can be mounted with a single ring, and this method is not uncommon on handguns, where space is at a premium. Most telescopic sights are mounted with two rings, one in the front half of the telescopic sight and one on the back half, which provides additional strength and support. The heaviest-recoiling firearms, such as Thompson Center Arms Contender pistols in heavy-recoiling calibers, will use three rings for maximum support of the telescopic sight. Use of too few rings can result not only in the telescopic sight moving under recoil, but also excessive torque on the telescopic sight tube as the gun rolls up under recoil.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights on heavy-recoiling firearms and spring piston airguns (which have a heavy "reverse recoil" caused by the piston reaching the end of its travel) suffer from a condition called "scope creep", where the inertia of the telescopic sight holds it still as the firearm recoils under it. Because of this, scope rings must be precisely fitted to the telescopic sight, and tightened very consistently to provide maximum hold without putting uneven stress on the body of the telescopic sight. Rings that are out of round, misaligned in the bases, or tightened unevenly can warp or crush the body of the telescopic sight.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Another problem is mounting a telescopic sight on a rifle where the shell is ejected out the top of the action, such as some lever action designs. Usually this results in the telescopic sight being offset to one side (to the left for right-handed people, right for left-handed) to allow the shell to clear the telescopic sight. Alternately a scout rifle-type mount can be used, which places a long-eye-relief telescopic sight forward of the action.


title: Telescopic sight

text: A firearm may not always be able to fit all aiming optics solutions, so it is wise to have a preferred aiming optics solution first reviewed by a professional.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Some modern mounts also allow for adjustment, but it is generally intended to supplement the telescopic sight's own internal adjustments in the case of needing unusually large elevation adjustments. For example, some situations require fairly extreme elevation adjustments, such as very short range shooting common with airguns, or very long-range shooting, where the bullet drop becomes very significant and thus requires more elevation compensation than the sight internal adjustment mechanism can provide. Also, loose manufacturing tolerances may result in base mounting holes being less than perfectly aligned with the bore. In this case, rather than adjusting the telescopic sight to the extremes of its elevation adjustment, the telescopic sight mount can be adjusted. This allows the telescopic sight to operate near the center of its adjustment range, which puts less stress on the internal components. Some companies offer adjustable bases, while others offer tapered bases with a given amount of elevation built in (commonly listed in MOA). The adjustable bases are more flexible, but the fixed bases are far more durable, as adjustable bases may loosen and shift under recoil and can be susceptible to dirt ingress. Also, adjustable bases are considerably more expensive, as well.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights have both advantages and disadvantages relative to iron sights. Standard doctrine with iron sights is to focus the eye on the front sight and align it with the resulting blur of the target and the rear sight; most shooters have difficulty doing this, as the eye tends to be drawn to the target, blurring both sights. Gun users over 30 years of age with keen eyesight will find it harder to keep the target, front sight element and rear sight element in focus well enough for aiming purposes, as human eyes gradually lose focusing flexibility with rising age, due to presbyopia. Telescopic sights allow the user to focus on both the crosshair and the target at the same time, as the lenses project the crosshair into the distance (50 meters or yards for rimfire sights, 100 meters or yards more for centerfire calibers). This, combined with telescopic magnification, clarifies the target and makes it stand out against the background. The main disadvantage of magnification is that the area to either side of the target is obscured by the tube of the sight. The higher the magnification, the narrower the field of view in the sight, and the more area is hidden. Rapid fire target shooters use reflex sights, which have no magnification; this gives them the best field of view while maintaining the single focal plane of a telescopic sight. Telescopic sights are expensive and require additional training to align. Sight alignment with telescopic sights is a matter of making the field of vision circular to minimize parallax error. For maximum effective light-gathering and brightest image, the exit pupil should equal the diameter of the fully dilated iris of the human eye—about 7 mm, reducing with age.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Though they had been used as early as the 1850s on rifles, and even earlier for other tasks, until the 1980s, when optical device and assault rifle combinations such as the Austrian Steyr AUG and the British SUSAT mounted on the SA80, became standard issue, military use of telescopic sights was restricted to snipers because of the fragility and expense of optical components. Additionally the glass lenses are prone to breakage, and environmental conditions such as condensation, precipitation, dirt, and mud obscure external lenses. The sight's tube also adds significant bulk to the rifle. Snipers generally used moderate to high magnification sights with special reticles that allow them to estimate range to the target. Since the 1990s many other armed forces have adopted optical devices for general issue to infantry units and the rate of adoption has increased as the cost of manufacture has fallen.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Telescopic sights provide some tactical disadvantages. Snipers rely on stealth and concealment to get close to their target. A telescopic sight can hinder this because sunlight may reflect from the lens and a sniper raising his head to use a telescopic sight might reveal his position. The famous Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present less of a target. Harsh climate can also cause problems for telescopic sights as they are less rugged than iron sights. Many Finnish snipers in WWII used iron sights heavily because telescopic sights did not cope with very cold Finnish winters.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The market for military telescopic sights intended for military long-range shooting is highly competitive. Several high end optics manufacturers are constantly adapting and improving their telescopic sights to fulfill specific demands of military organizations. Two European companies that are active this field are Schmidt & Bender and Zeiss/Hensoldt. American companies that are also very active in this field are Nightforce, U.S. Optics Inc. and Leupold. These high-end sighting components generally cost €1500 / $2000 or more. Typical options for military telescopic sights are reticle illumination for use under adverse light circumstances and the presentation of sight settings or ballistic relevant environmental measurements data to the operator through the sights ocular.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The former Warsaw Pact members produce military telescopic sights for their designated marksmen and developed a range finding reticle based on the height of an average human. This stadiametric rangefinder reticle was originally used in the Russian PSO-1 4×24 telescopic sight and is calibrated for ranging a 1.7-m-tall target from 200 m to 1000 m. The target base has to be lined up on the horizontal line of the range-finding scale and the target top point has to touch the upper (dotted) line of the scale without clearance. The digit under which this line up occurs determines the distance to the target. The PSO-1 basic design and stadiametric rangefinder are also found in the POSP and other telescopic sight models.


title: Telescopic sight

text: The Israeli military began widespread use of telescopic sights by ordinary infantrymen to increase hit probability (especially in dim light) and extend effective range of standard issue infantry rifles. Palestinian militants in the al Aqsa Intifada likewise found that adding an inexpensive telescopic sight to an AK-47 increased its effectiveness.


title: Telescopic sight

text: Today, several militaries issue telescopic sights to their infantry, usually compact, low-magnification sights suitable for snap-shooting. The U.S. military issues the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG), designed to be used on the M16 rifle and M4 carbine. American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan frequently purchase their own combat optics and carry them from home. The British army fields the SA80 rifle with the SUSAT 4× optical sight as standard issue. The Canadian Forces standard C7 rifle has a 3.4× Elcan C79 optical sight. Both Austria and Australia field variants of the Austrian Steyr AUG which has built an integral 1.5× optical sight since its deployment in the late 1970s. The German Army G36 assault rifles have a more or less built in dual combat sighting system consisting of a ZF 3×4° telescopic sight combined with an unmagnified electronic red dot sight. The dual combat sighting system weighs due to a housing made out of glass fibre reinforced polyamide. All German G36 rifles are adapted to use the Hensoldt NSA 80 II third-generation night sight, which clamps into the G36 carry handle adapter in front of the optical sight housing and mates with the rifle's standard dual-combat sighting system.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Crazy Jane is a fictional character created by Grant Morrison and Richard Case for their work on the Vertigo Comics version of "Doom Patrol". She first appears in "Doom Patrol" (vol. 2) #19 (February 1989). According to the afterword in the first trade paperback collection of Morrison's "Doom Patrol", she is based on Truddi Chase, whose autobiography, "When Rabbit Howls", Morrison was reading while creating the series.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Jane is portrayed by Diane Guerrero in the TV series "Doom Patrol" on HBO Max along with Skye Roberts portraying Kay Challis.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Jane Morris is the current dominant alter, or host, of Kay Challis's system (used to refer to every alter someone has as a collective). Kay Challis, as a result of repeated childhood trauma, developed dissociative identity disorder. Later in life, while being exposed to the alien Dominators' "gene bomb", each of her dissociative parts, or alters (which is numbered at 64), has a different super-power.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Beginning at only five years old, Kay Challis is continuously abused by her father. The first time this happens, she is putting a jigsaw puzzle together; this becomes an important symbol in her future. As the abuse continues, Kay withdraws and goes dormant, retreating to the unconscious brain. Her role as host is then taken over by an alter with the name "Miranda". One Easter Sunday while at church, Miranda is raped, which triggers several flashbacks to her former abuse. This causes the dormancy of Miranda and a massive amount of alters to be split off. She is committed to a mental institution soon after. During that time, an alien species called Dominators invade Earth and activate a device which they call their "gene bomb". When the gene bomb goes off, Jane and all of her alters are affected; each alter gains a different power (e.g., Black Annis has retractable claws, Flit can teleport, etc.).


title: Crazy Jane

text: The superhero Cliff Steele, or Robotman, suffered several losses due to this bomb. Killing many of his Doom Patrol teammates, he was struggling emotionally. While staying in the same institution as Jane, Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the group "the Metal Men", asks Cliff to look after her, which leads to Jane becoming a member of the Doom Patrol.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Near the end of the Grant Morrison run of "Doom Patrol", Jane makes a pilgrimage back to her childhood home, facing her own traumas and overcoming them. This brings peace to her inner turmoil, causing her and her alters to come to an understanding and live in co-operation.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Upon returning to the Doom Patrol, Jane is attacked by the Candlemaker and thrown into another dimension, which is similar to the real world, where she is diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with shock therapy. Cliff eventually rescues Jane from the other dimension and they relocate to Danny the World, formerly Danny the Street. In Rachel Pollack's run, it is revealed that Jane's alters still exist, which causes many arguments between the two. Cliff decides to leave her with Danny and returns to Earth.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Jane makes a cameo appearance in "Teen Titans" (vol. 3) #36, where she is seen on Danny the World through a portal in Dayton Manor in Prague. She returns in "Doom Patrol" (vol. 5) #7, written by Keith Giffen, on Oolong Island, asking for Cliff and carrying with her the remains of Danny the Street. Danny has now been reduced to a single brick, making them Danny the Brick. Jane says "If you build it, he will come", although she does not explain further.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Jane then travels around the universe along with Danny the Brick. A man named "D" then uses Danny the Brick to kill a god and causes another alter to split, or "break off". This alter starts a cult and plans to spread Crazy Jane's alters among the 63 cult members and then kill the cultists. She is stopped by the Doom Patrol, who then return Jane to the front, in order to be the host.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Jane now accepts her mental illness, no longer seeking to cure it but to cope with it and healthily coexist with her alters. Robotman also helps and accepts her disorder.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Crazy Jane's alters are organized in a mental subway grid called "the Underground", their headspace. Each alter has their own "station", which appears to serve as home when they are not in control. In the lower section of the Underground is a well where the alters can go to destroy themselves. This is where Miranda was "killed". This well houses Daddy, an alter who resembles their father, in the deepest, most protected part of the Underground. The alters consist of:


title: Crazy Jane

text: There are still other 13 alters in Jane who haven't yet been properly identified. They include a red-headed girl with a beauty mark in a red dress; someone in gladiator gear; a red-headed school girl; a boy with short blonde hair; a person with an orange, odd-shaped head; and a woman whose face is shadowed over.


title: Crazy Jane

text: Jane appears in "Doom Patrol", portrayed by Diane Guerrero (who also portrays Driver 8 and Karen, alongside whichever alter is in the front at any given point), Skye Roberts as a child, and Leela Owen as a teenager. In the Underground, Black Annis is performed by Helen Abell, Hammerhead is portrayed by Stephanie Czajkowski, Lucy Fugue is portrayed by Tara Lee, Penny Farthing is portrayed by Anna Lore, Pretty Polly is portrayed by Hannah Alline, Silver Tongue is portrayed by Chelsea Alana Rivera, the Secretary is portrayed by Jackie Goldston, Driller Bill is portrayed by Shay Mack, Baby Doll is portrayed by Sara Borne, the Weird Sisters are voiced and motion-captured by Monica Louwerens, Daddy is portrayed by David A. MacDonald, Balladeer is portrayed by Ana Aguilar, Miranda is portrayed by Samantha Marie Ware, and Mama Pentecost is portrayed by Va Liu. This version of Jane is the "designated driver" alter out of the 64 other alters, who prefer if she stays in control while they keep to themselves. In season two, Daddy impersonates Miranda in an attempt to gain control of the body.


title: Dev.D

text: Dev.D is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language romantic black comedy film released on 6 February 2009. Written and directed by Anurag Kashyap, it is a modern-day take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's classic Bengali novel "Devdas", previously adapted for the screen by P.C. Barua and Bimal Roy and more recently by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. "Dev.D" received positive critical reviews. The film is set in contemporary Punjab and Delhi, where familial ties are negotiated by the traditional system and marriages are a game of power and a matter of honour.


title: Dev.D

text: Paro is an idealistic, young, middle-class girl living in Punjab. Her childhood sweetheart is Dev, the son of a rich businessman. Paro cares for him immensely, and fully expects a future with him.


title: Dev.D

text: Dev constantly takes Paro's love and affection for granted. He grows up to be arrogant and lazy, which causes his father to send him to London to complete his education. While separated by distance, Paro and Dev's youthful love only blossoms more, despite Dev becoming increasingly more egotistical and entitled. After finishing his studies, Dev returns to Chandigarh and meets Paro, and they rekindle their romance. After some time, Dev overhears scandalous rumours about Paro concerning her reputation and sexual history, which he immediately believes. Paro is shocked to see Dev's chauvinist attitude towards her, even after she claims innocence. Dev hypocritically passes judgement on Paro and does not approve of the things that he has heard. Paro turns her back on him when she hears him insult her and rashly agrees to marry a man of her parents' choice. On her wedding day, Dev learns that the rumors were false but his ego doesn't let him accept his mistake, and he lets Paro marry someone else.


title: Dev.D

text: Leni is a Delhi student of half-European descent. A date with her much older boyfriend turns sexual and lands Leni in an MMS sex scandal. The incident becomes public knowledge after the video is widely circulated. Her father, having watched the video, commits suicide out of shame and disgust, and Leni's family decides to send her to live in a small rural town. Refusing to live a life of shame and ridicule, she returns to Delhi where she works as a prostitute at night, while continuing with her studies during the day. She adopts the name 'Chanda' for her profession. Her 'foreign' looks mean her services are reserved for the highest-paying customers and she finds some dignity and independence in the new way of living. One night, an inebriated, half-conscious customer is brought to her room – it turns out to be Dev.


title: Dev.D

text: Dev, tormented by Paro's wedding, has been seeking refuge in alcohol and drugs. He finds some solace with Chanda but is unable to forget Paro. While in a drug fueled haze, he calls Paro's husband in the middle of the night, Paro visits him at the cheap lodge where he is staying. She shows her love by taking care of him but spurns his attempts at physical intimacy. The meeting ends on a bitter note, and Paro returns to her married life. Dev resolves to go back to Chanda, but confronted by the reality of her profession, he abandons her, too. He resumes his destructive lifestyle of alcohol, drugs, and reckless behaviour. Months later, after his life has completely fallen apart and hit an all-time low, Dev attempts to pick up the pieces. He seeks Chanda once again and, with her help, sets out to start life afresh.


title: Dev.D

text: The original idea of film was suggested by Abhay Deol to Anurag Kashyap, who then worked on the script along with Vikramaditya Motwane, using "news headlines about Generation X" to give a youth feel. "Dev.D" was produced by Ronnie Screwvala and shot in places including Paharganj in central Delhi. For the scenes where Dev is high, British director Danny Boyle suggested the use of a still camera as Kashyap did not have the budget for special effects.


title: Dev.D

text: Kashyap did not want another remake of any of the nine film versions titled "Devdas". Kashyap wanted to make his own version of "Devdas" to reflect the original novel but through 2008 mores, with the lead character of Devdas as a debauching, hypocritical sensualist, who is self-destructive without knowing it. Talking about the story and his role as Dev, Abhay Deol told Radio Sargam, "The story is very much from the book which I've read in English. I have played the character according to my interpretation of the book. His character was contemporary, he was quite urban in many ways, he's misplaced in the surrounding and has a spoilt, obsessive and addictive personality."


title: Dev.D

text: After the box office disaster of Kashyap's "No Smoking", it was rumoured that United Television (UTV) had backed out of the director's next project, "Dev.D", starring Abhay Deol. But, according to sources, UTV had signed Abhay for three projects and the actor had blocked dates from November 2007 to March 2008 for Kashyap's film, as the idea was to wrap up the film in one schedule. When "Dev.D" hit initial snags and was stalled, it was rumoured that UTV had backed out. At that time, the director denied these rumours. He explained the delay by saying that he was still looking out for his Chandramukhi and had locked in Abhay and newcomer Mahi Gill. It was further delayed as he took more time to find an actress suitable for the role of Chandramukhi, which he eventually found with Kalki Koechlin, who was one of the last to be auditioned.


title: Dev.D

text: "Dev.D" had opening day collection of Rs 15 million. The movie picked up in box office soon and recovered its budget of Rs 60 million in a few weeks. The net collection in its first four weeks was nearly Rs 150 million. "Dev.D" crossed added another 3 million in week 6. The film's final domestic gross was Rs 215.0 million with distributor share of Rs 65.5 million. The film was declared a 'Hit'.


title: Dev.D

text: Reviews to the film were positive. The widespread acclaim was chiefly due to its fearless visual style, its experimental soundtrack and the innovative narrative structure which included dividing the script into chapters as in the films of Quentin Tarantino. Rony D'Costa of Box Office India gave it 4 stars out of 5, stating "Missing "Dev.D" would be an 'Emotional Attyachar' to oneself." Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave "Dev.D" 3.5/5, calling it a 'fantastic visual ride', and ranked it No 2 in his list of the best movies of 2009. "Times of India" reviewer Nikhat Kazmi termed the film a "brilliant breakthrough for Bollywood" and rated it 5/5. Shubhra Gupta of "Indian Express" praised the performance of Abhay Deol and the movie overall. "Hindustan Times" praised the film for its "slick style and adventurous interpretation that pushes the boundaries of Hindi cinema" and rating it as 3.5/5. Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India was "completely bowled out by the movie" and stated, "go and watch "Dev.D" and be blown away by a sample of what Anurag Kashyap is capable of as a director. Shahrukh Khan praised Abhay Deol's efforts and said that Abhay is contributing to the new era of Indian film industry."


title: Dev.D

text: "Dev.D" has 18 tracks by artiste Amit Trivedi. The songs were written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, Shellee, Anusha Mani, and Shruti Pathak. Released on 31 December under T-Series, he specifically reports that there are two special Punjabi tracks, one which is raw Punjabi and the other with a street band baaja flavor to it. He also reports two romantic Haryanvi folk tracks, apart from a hard rock song, world music, an Awadhi number and a song with 1970s-80s pop touch to it. The soundtrack received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Critic Joginder Tuteja said, "Chuck the very thought around whether this album will do well commercially or not; it is an exemplary piece of work and that's what that matters most." Ekansh Aatre, critic of "Hindustan Times" fame, said "Each part of each song in this album is special & gives a great impact on audience."


title: Dev.D

text: The song "O Pardesi" was replicated using a cycle as a Sprite commercial quotient and is available on YouTube with 140K+ views in the first 24 hours. The song "Emosanal Attyachaar" has become a catch phrase for many Indian youth. Nikhil Taneja of "Hindustan Times" noted that the song was "singularly responsible for driving audiences to the theater to watch a movie."


title: Dallas Liu

text: Dallas Liu is an American actor. Originally a martial artist, Liu made his acting debut as young Jin Kazama in "Tekken" (2009). He has gone on to appear in the television series "PEN15" as Shuji Ishii-Peters and as Carter in "Legendary Dudas". He will portray Prince Zuko in the upcoming Netflix live action remake series "".


title: Dallas Liu

text: Liu grew up in San Gabriel Valley, California. Liu practices Japanese Shotokan and competed in the North American Sport Karate Association. He began practicing martial arts when he was 5 years old and stopped competing internationally at 13 years old.


title: Dallas Liu

text: Liu made his film debut as young Jin Kazama on "Tekken" (2009). He was referred to the audition by one of his martial arts teachers. Liu's manager initially found him through karate videos uploaded onto YouTube. He had a recurring role as Carter on Nickelodeon's "Legendary Dudas".


title: Dallas Liu

text: Liu played Taylor King in Snapchat's young-adult drama series, "Players." Liu later appeared in the 2021 Marvel film, "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings". He portrayed Ruihua, the younger brother of Awkwafina's Katy.


title: Dallas Liu

text: On September 26, 2020, Liu did a virtual reading of "Seven Minutes in Heaven" for the play's 10th anniversary.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: The Ahom kingdom (, 1228–1826) was a late medieval kingdom in the Brahmaputra Valley in Assam. It maintained its sovereignty for nearly 600 years having successfully resisted Mughal expansion in Northeast India. Established by Sukaphaa, a Tai prince from Mong Mao (present-day Yunnan Province, China), it began as a mong in the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra based on wet rice agriculture. It expanded suddenly under Suhungmung in the 16th century and became multi-ethnic in character, casting a profound effect on the political and social life of the entire Brahmaputra valley. The kingdom became weaker with the rise of the Moamoria rebellion, and subsequently fell to repeated Burmese invasions of Assam. With the defeat of the Burmese after the First Anglo-Burmese War and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, control of the kingdom passed into East India Company hands.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: Though it came to be called the Ahom kingdom in the colonial and subsequent times, it was largely multi-ethnic, with the ethnic Tai-Ahom people constituting less than 10% of the population toward the end.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: People from different ethnic groups became a part of the Ahom population due to the process known as Ahomisation. The identity of the Ahom people in this kingdom was fluid, with the king controlling who belonged to it and who did not. The Ahoms initially called their kingdom "Mong Dun Shun Kham" till 1401 (; ), but adopted "Assam" in later times. The British-controlled province after 1838 and later the Indian state of Assam came to be known by this name. The kingdom maintained close political ties with other Tai-states especially with Mong Kwang (Nara) till the end of its rule in the 19th century.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: The Ahom kingdom was established in 1228 when Sukaphaa, a Tai prince, entered the Brahmaputra valley having crossed the rugged Patkai mountain range from Mong Mao. During Sukaphaa's journey from his homeland he was supported and joined by other Tai chiefs and common followers totaling about nine thousand persons. His destiny was Upper Assam, earlier the domain of the Kamarupa kingdom but which had since lapsed into retarded conditions, and his intention was not to conquer and raid but to permanently settle in fallow land and practice agriculture. The Tai-shans had with them the basic political structures for state-building, surplus producing technologies such as sedentary wet-rice cultivation and hydrology, a patriarchal social organisation based on chiefs, and a literary form of their language. Whereas the earlier state formations (Kamarupa) borrowed political structures from North India that led to Indo-Aryan domination, the Ahom state formation provided an alternate model built on Southeast Asian political structures, and which provided the space for the development of a distinct political, social and cultural identity. Though Brahminical myth-making was a common feature that all ancient and medieval kingdoms in Assam utilised for legitimacy to various degrees, for example in the other medieval kingdoms such as the Chutia and Kachari kingdoms, the Ahoms were able to use their alternate Lengdon-based legitimacy to effectively negotiate with the indigenous people; but the Tungkhungia kings veered towards Saktism and the persecution of the shudra Mahantas and their laity that began during the reign of Siva Singha ultimately led to the Moamoria rebellion and ultimately the eclipse of the kingdom.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: Sukaphaa (1228–1268) spent a couple of decades moving from place to place establishing colonies and finally settled down in Charaideo in 1253. He established the offices of the Dangarias— the Burhagohain ("Chao-Frongmung") and the Borgohain ("Chao-Thaonmung"). In the 1280s, these two offices were given independent regions of control; partly hereditary and partly elected, the king and the two counsellors held each other in check and balance. These institutions of checks and balances thus seeded held fast for six hundred years—in the 18th century John Peter Wade, a British officer, observed these unique institutions and novel system of government. Sukaphaa had instructed that events during his rule be chronicled, a practice sustained by his successors; and there emerged the institution of Buranji writing, a practice of historiography rare in India. In the late medieval era, the Ahom kingdom was known to be a "kaghazi raj" (a kingdom with records) just as the Mughal Empire was.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: At the time of their advent, the Ahoms came with advanced technologies of rice cultivation, and it was their belief that they were divinely ordained to turn fallow land to agriculture and also to absorb stateless and shifting agriculturists to their own ways. The shifting people were called "kha" and many such "kha" people were ceremonially adopted into different Ahom clans, a process called Ahomisation. Sukaphaa befriended those among the Morans and Barahi who were amenable to join him and put to the sword those who opposed him, and in due course, many others were incorporated into Ahom clans. The Ahoms were acutely aware of their smaller numbers, and adroitly avoided confrontations with larger groups. The additions via Ahomisation enhanced the Ahom numbers significantly. This process of Ahomization was particularly significant till the 16th century when under Suhungmung, the kingdom made large territorial expansions at the cost of the Chutiya and the Kachari kingdoms.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: At this initial stage the kingdom was still not fully sovereign. Sukaphaa sent his word of allegiance and tributes to Mong Mao, a practice that was continued by some of his successors till about the early 14th century when the power of Mong Mao faded to be replaced the power of Mong Kwang, at which point the Ahoms stopped the tributes. The Ahoms began to call their domain "Mong Dun Sun Kham" ("a country of golden gardens"). Though Sukaphaa had avoided the Namdang region mindful of the numerically small Ahom contingent, but his son Suteuphaa made the Kacharis withdraw on their own via a stratagem and the Ahoms expanded into it; but no further expansions of the Ahom domain occurred for the next two hundred years. The Ahom kingdom, for most of its history, had been closed and population movement closely monitored—nevertheless, there were two significant contacts. One was a friendly encounter with Chutia kingdom that turned into a conflict, and the other was a marriage alliance with the Kamata kingdom. At the end of the 14th century, the nascent Ahom polity faced crises of succession, two regicides, and three quick interregnum periods when the kingdom was without a king.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: Sudangphaa "Bamuni Konwar" (), born and raised in a Brahmin household in Habung, was identified as a descendant of a past king and installed on the throne by the "Burhaohain" and "Borgohain". He established Brahmin officers, advisors and communities near the capital and the Brahmin influence, though negligible, was felt for the first time. A number of rebellions erupted purportedly against this influence and Sudangphaa was able to suppress them and solidify his rule. One of the rebels invited a military expedition from Mong Kwang (called Nara in the Buranjis, the successor state of Mong Mao to which the early Ahom kings used to send tribute) in 1401, but Sudangphaa defeated the expedition with the result that the boundary between the two polities were fixed at Patkai. This event was significant since it moved the Ahom polity from implicit subordination to explicit sovereignty, and this was accompanied by the transition of the name of the polity from "Mong-Dun-Sun-Kham" to "Assam", a derivative from "Shan"/"Shyam". Sudangphaa established a new capital at Charagua, broke the clan allegiances that held the Ahom polity together earlier replacing it with political authority, and introduced the tradition of the "singarigharutha" ceremony, the state coronation of the Ahom kings that symbolised royal Ahom sovereignty, authority and legitimacy. Sudangphaa brought the Ahom kingdom very close to a full-fledged state.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: The next hundred years saw the kingdom mostly suppressing rebellious Naga groups, but a conflict with the Dimasa kingdom in 1490 saw the Ahoms suing for peace, and not strong enough to take them on frontally. The alliance that the Ahom royalty had developed with the Brahmans was progressively strengthening.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: The Ahom kingdom transitioned into a full state rather dramatically in a short period during the reign of Suhungmung "Dihingia Raja" (). It began first with a consolidation of the militia in 1510, followed by an expansion into the Bhuyan region at Habung in 1512 (probably with the help of the descendants of the Habungia Brahmans settled during Sudangpha's time). The Indo-Aryan Bhuyans were relocated to the capital and absorbed into the lower echelons of the growing state as scribes and warriors. They in turn helped in the elimination of the royalty of the advanced Chutia kingdom in 1523; and that kingdom's nobility, commanders, professional classes, warriors and technologies were absorbed into the Ahom kingdom. It was this formation of the Ahom kingdom that met the aggression from Bengal under Turbak in 1532 and it was able to eliminate the aggressive leadership (with significant loss to itself) and pursue the retreating invaders to the Karatoya river. In 1536, after the series of contacts with the Kachari kingdom, the Ahom rule extended up to the Kolong river in Nagaon; and by the end of Suhungmung's reign, the size of the kingdom had effectively doubled.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: These expansions created significant changes in the kingdom—the Assamese speaking Hindu subjects outnumbered the Ahoms themselves; and the absorption of the Chutia kingdom meant a wide range of artisan skills became available to it increasing the scope for division of labour. To provide legitimacy to the rule of the Ahom kings among the new subjects Suhungmung assumed the title "Swarganarayana" ("Swargadeo"), though nothing like the Rajputisation process occurred with the Ahoms. The nature of the kings institutional relationship to the ministers changed with the creation of a new position, the "Borpatrogohain", named after a Chutia office; and the creation of the offices of "Sadiyakhowa Gohain" (territories acquired from the Chutia kingdom) and the "Marangikhowa Gohain" (territories acquired from the Kachari kingdom), both of which were reserved for the Borgohain and Burhagohain lineages. The traditional nobles ("Chao") now aligned with the Brahmin literati and an expanded ruling class developed. And when the Ahoms under Ton Kham Borgohain pursued the invaders and reached the Karatoya river they began to see themselves as the rightful heir of the erstwhile Kamarupa kingdom.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: The Ahom kingdom took many features of its mature form under Pratap Singha (). The Paik system was reorganized under the professional "khel" system, replacing the kinship-based system. Under the same king, the offices of the Borphukan, and the Borbarua were established along with other smaller offices. No more major restructuring of the state structure was attempted until the end of the kingdom. In 1616, the Battle of Samdhara was fought with the Mughals in which the Mughals had a disastrous defeat , this battle also marked the beginning of Ahom–Mughal conflicts which lasted the till 1682.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: Jayadhwaj Singha in 1657 taking advantage of instability of the Mughals during the (War of succession), crossed Barnadi, the recognised boundary of the Mughal Kamrup on the east, and advanced towards Guwahati, defeated the faujdar of Guwahati. And became the master of Guwahati. The Mughal faujdar Mir Lutfullah, fled to Dacca, abondaning Kamrup, taking every opportunity Jayadhwaj Singha pushed as far as Sherpur in Mymensingh District of Bangladesh and the northern part of Sylhet, and the latter place was fortified and garrisoned. Arrangements were made to control the newly conquered tracts. The whole of Brahmaputra Valley, from Sadiya on the east to Sherpur on south was brought under the Ahom domains under one sway, this is also the time when the Ahom state attained the greatest territorial expansion. For nearly three years, the Ahoms remained in undisputed possession of the newly conquered tracts.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: In 1662, Aurangzeb to bring the lost tracts and to punish the rebels elements in that quarter, launched an invasion under his chief lieutenant Mir Jumla II, in this invasion the Ahoms couldn't resist up well , and the Mughals occupied the capital, Garhgaon. Unable to keep it, and in at the end of the Battle of Saraighat, the Ahoms not only fended off a major Mughal invasion but extended their boundaries west, up to the Manas river. The western border was fixed at Manas river after the Battle of Itakhuli, which remained the same till the annexation by the British.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: Following the Battle of Saraighat, the kingdom fell into 10 years of political unrest, where the ministers held more power and influence than the kings themselves. This was first engineered due to a religious dispute. The first minister to hold this influence was Debera Borbarua, succeeded by Atan Burhagohain and then Laluksola Borphukan who even surrendered Guwahati back to the Mughal in his bid to become the king. During this period 7 kings were placed and deposed. The political unrest was put to a pause by Gadadhar Singha, and established the Tungkhungia regime, a sub clan of princes, which ruled till the end of the kingdom.


title: Ahom kingdom

text: Swargadeo Gadadhar Singha (1682–1696) established the Tungkhungia regime in Assam with iron hands in 1682 after suppressing all the internal conflicts and conspiracies, which lasted till the down fall of the kingdom in 1826. Also in 1682 he had defeated the Mughals in the Battle of Itakhuli. Gadadhar Singha had directly came into conflict with the Vaisnava Satras of Assam, who began to exercise immense power over the state and the nobles and started a ruthless persecution of the fake kewalaiya bhakats (fake disciples).


title: Ahom kingdom

text: The rule of Tungkhungia Ahom kings was marked by achievements in the Arts and engineering constructions, the Tungkhungia reigme witnessed a relative time of peace and stability till the Moamoria rebellion, also festering internal conflicts that tore the kingdom asunder. According to Guha (1986) Ahom Assam continued to flourish till 1770. The Tungkhungia regime witnessed a relative time of peace till first half of the 18th century, where the population increased, trade expanded, Coinage and monetization made headway. New arts and crafts, new crops and even new style of dress were introduced.