title: Profiles in Courage

text: In addition to Kennedy's speechwriter Sorensen, Jacqueline Kennedy recruited her history instructor from Georgetown University, Jules Davids, to work on the project. Davids told a Kennedy biographer that he and Sorensen had researched and written drafts of most of the book. Kennedy's handwritten notes, which Senator Kennedy showed to reporters to prove his authorship, are now in the Kennedy Library, but are mostly preliminary notes about John Quincy Adams, a particular interest of Kennedy's, and are not a readable draft of the chapter on Adams. During the six-month period when the book was being written, Sorensen worked full-time on the project, sometimes twelve-hour days; Kennedy spent most of the same period traveling, campaigning, or hospitalized. Kennedy's preserved notes show that he kept up with the book's progress, but historian Garry Wills remarked that Kennedy's notes contain no draft of any stage of the manuscript, or of any substantial part of it.


title: Profiles in Courage

text: In Sorensen's 2008 autobiography, "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History", he said he wrote "a first draft of most of the chapters" of "Profiles in Courage" and "helped choose the words of many of its sentences". Sorensen also wrote: "While in Washington, I received from Florida almost daily instructions and requests by letter and telephone – books to send, memoranda to draft, sources to check, materials to assemble, and Dictaphone drafts or revisions of early chapters" (Sorensen, p. 146). Sorensen wrote that Kennedy "worked particularly hard and long on the first and last chapters, setting the tone and philosophy of the book". Kennedy "publicly acknowledged in his introduction to the book my extensive role in its composition" (p. 147). Sorensen claimed that in May 1957, Kennedy "unexpectedly and generously offered, and I happily accepted, a sum to be spread over several years, that I regarded as more than fair" for his work on the book. Indeed, this supported a long-standing recognition of the collaborative effort that Kennedy and Sorensen had developed since 1953.


title: Profiles in Courage

text: Craig Fehrman, author of "Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote", wrote in 2020 that "The book's structure, research, first draft and most of its second came from [Sorensen]". According to Fehrman, "Even the book's idea came from him (Sorensen)"; after Kennedy suggested that Sorensen write a magazine article on Adams's courage as senator for publication with Kennedy's name, Sorensen suggested to Kennedy in a letter accompanying the draft article that he ask Harper & Brothers—where Michael Temple Canfield, Jacqueline Kennedy's brother-in-law, worked—if the publisher were interested in a book on the topic. They shared in profits from all work Sorensen ghostwrote for Kennedy, as agreed when the former joined the latter's staff. Kennedy wrote the preface but did not mention Sorensen. After Sorensen returned an edited draft of the preface with a request for a mention, Kennedy added a line thanking him "for his invaluable assistance". Sorensen received a $6,000 bonus, about one third of his annual salary.


title: Profiles in Courage

text: After the Wallace–Pearson television appearance, Kennedy and Sorensen agreed that the rumor could ruin Kennedy's presidential plans. Sorensen swore an affidavit stating that his only role was "to assist [Kennedy] in the assembly and preparation of research and other materials upon which much of the book is based". The document said that Sorensen's work was "very generously acknowledged by the Senator in the preface", despite the credit only appearing after Sorensen asked Kennedy for it. Kennedy claimed that he had kept all of the earnings from "Profiles" despite the two payments to Sorensen, and that the Pulitzer was proof of his authorship. "The lies became cover for the lies", Fehrman concluded.


title: Profiles in Courage

text: Fehrman further claimed the senator worked harder on promoting "Profiles", signing autographs and making many public appearances for the book, than he did writing it. Kennedy tried to have it published before the end of 1955 to qualify for the Pulitzer Prizes in 1956; "Profiles" appeared on its original date of January 2, 1956, eligible for the 1957 prizes. Although friends and family said that the Pulitzer made Kennedy happier than his World War II Purple Heart or any other award, and Kennedy told Margaret Coit in 1953 "I would rather win a Pulitzer Prize than be president", the award caused the press to investigate "Profiles"s authorship. In May 1957, two weeks after the award, Gilbert Seldes discussed the rumor that Kennedy had not written the book in "The Village Voice". That month the Kennedys agreed to pay Sorensen more than $100,000, an amount Fehrman said was "frankly astonishing".


title: Profiles in Courage

text: Though Kennedy's legacy continues to take criticism for relying on Sorensen for improving Kennedy's grammar and style, and for creating the final prose of much of the volume, contemporary Kennedy scholar and foreign policy expert Professor Fredrick Logevall wrote that in several ways Kennedy may have played the more essential role in the book, noting importantly that "Kennedy made the final choices about which figures to feature in the book. And although Sorensen took the lead role in drafting the bulk of the chapters, with significant input on some of them from Professor Jules Davids and Jim Landis, the senator (Kennedy) was responsible for the book's architecture, themes, and arguments." As noted earlier, Kennedy was especially critical to the first and the last chapters, as well as a large portion of Chapter 2 on John Quincy Adams. Logevall went on to add that Sorensen, though a highly capable writer, as a political novice didn't have Kennedy's ability to reflect on the importance and place of compromise in political life, nor was he as knowledgeable about American history as Kennedy. According to Logevall, and attested to by both Jackie Kennedy, and many friends, Kennedy worked for many weeks on the book during his long and painful recovery from back surgery, noting, "often he worked while prone in bed, on heavy white paper in his loose, widely spaced hand; on better days he was propped up on the patio or the porch." Further, Kennedy played a highly active role in locating research sources, for "on an almost daily basis, Sorensen recalled, Kennedy sent him instructions about 'books to ship down, memoranda to prepare, sources to check, materials to assemble.'" Kennedy instructed Sorensen to scan more than two hundred books, journals, magazines, (and) Congressional records. Sorenson later noted, "the way Jack worked was to take all the material, mine and his, pencil it, dictate the fresh copy in his own words, pencil it again, he never used a typewriter".


title: Profiles in Courage

text: In response to claims by other authors such as Fehrman and Seldes that Kennedy was deceptive in claiming the book's authorship, Logevall noted "Kennedy had a bigger role in the writing, and certainly in the conception and framing of the book than many of these analysts suggested; the book's broad themes and overarching structure were his." Logevall also added that it was standard for American politicians in the mid-twentieth century, as well as later, to get significant assistance on books that appeared under their name alone. Had Kennedy denied authorship or not accepted the Pulitzer, it may have been damaging to his political career, and though much of the work of the book was indeed Sorenson's, by legal arrangement accepted by Sorensen, the authorship was indeed Kennedy's.


title: Profiles in Courage

text: According to Logevall, the book's most significant contribution was not as an in-depth history, nor was it exceptional in its literary style, of which Sorensen was likely the greatest contributor. Rather, he argues the book's value lay in its "broad interpretive claims", best told in the two chapters in which Kennedy's contribution was greatest, the first and the last. Logevall wrote that for Kennedy, the book's central theme, which he and not Sorenson selected, may have been "We can compromise our political positions, but not ourselves". Kennedy further wrote, "We can resolve the clash of interests without conceding our ideals." Logevall observed the ability to compromise while staying faithful to ideals was central to Kennedy's political aspirations.


title: Profiles in Courage

text: Author David O. Stewart has questioned the accuracy of the book's chapter on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Of Johnson's defenders in the Senate, "Profiles in Courage" stated that "Not a single one of them escaped the terrible torture of vicious criticism engendered by their vote to acquit." However, Stewart described the supposed persecution as a "myth" and continued, "None was a victim of postimpeachment retribution. Indeed, their careers were not wildly different from those of the sixty-five senators who voted to convict Andrew Johnson." However, Ross lost his bid for re-election two years after casting a vote acquitting Johnson. There is also evidence that Edmund Ross was bribed to vote for Johnson's acquittal, which is not mentioned in "Profiles in Courage".


title: Profiles in Courage

text: Kennedy also praised Lucius Lamar, who, while working in the public eye towards reconciliation, privately was an instigator, according to the claim of author Nicholas Lemann, of growing racial agitation. In the profile of Lamar, Kennedy had also included a single paragraph condemning Adelbert Ames, the Maine-born governor of Mississippi from 1873 to 1876, as an opportunistic carpetbagger whose administration was "sustained and nourished by Federal bayonets". Ames' daughter, Blanche Ames Ames, was outraged, and regularly wrote to Kennedy for years afterward in protest, demanding a retraction of the "defamatory insinuations" and accused him of pandering to Southern readers. The letter-writing continued even after Kennedy had been elected to the presidency. This prompted Kennedy to turn to George Plimpton, Ames' grandson and a classmate of Robert F. Kennedy at Harvard, asking him if he could get his grandmother to cease, claiming her letters were interfering with government business. Blanche Ames Ames would eventually publish her own biography of her father in 1964.


title: Lego Duplo

text: Lego Duplo (trademarked as DUPLO and stylized in the logo as duplo) is a core product range of the construction toy Lego by The LEGO Group, designed for children from to 5 years old. Duplo bricks are twice the size of traditional Lego bricks, making them easier to handle and less likely to be swallowed by younger children. Despite their size, they are still compatible with traditional Lego bricks.


title: Lego Duplo

text: Initially launched in 1969, the Duplo range has expanded since then to include sets with figures, cars, houses, and trains. Duplo products are manufactured in Nyíregyháza, Hungary.


title: Lego Duplo

text: Before its introduction in 1969, The Lego Group investigated ways to produce safe, age-appropriate Lego bricks that were larger in size than traditional bricks in order to target young children aged one-and-a-half years and above. The company initially struggled to find a scale that would fit with the existing Lego System of Play, exploring 3:1 and 4:1 scales, but eventually settled on a 2:1 scale. In 1968, second generation owner Godtfred Kirk Christiansen provided the idea of hollowing out the studs on the Duplo bricks to make them compatible with the system. Duplo is derived from the Latin word for "duplex", meaning double.


title: Lego Duplo

text: Duplo bricks were introduced in 1969, in four colors: red, yellow, blue, and white. The following year, two more sets were added with blue and red wheel plates. In the product catalog for 1971, the sets were described as being for children from 1 to 2 years, but were still sold mixed with Lego bricks, normally designed for ages 3 to 12. In 1972, the Duplo brick with two rows of two studs was introduced.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 1975, Duplo became its own product brand, with five sets made up exclusively of Duplo bricks. New additions included a round-topped two-by-two stud brick and a small four-wheeled wagon with two rows of six studs. With these new Duplo sets, Lego began targeting children years old with the intention that when the children became older, their Duplo bricks could be used together with regular Lego bricks.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 1977, the Duplo name was dropped in favor of Lego Preschool. Small figures the size of two-by-two bricks were introduced, made up of a cylindrical head and a tapered, limbless body, similar in design to Fisher-Price's Little People. Another new brick was a half arch. The new sets included figures, doors, and two-by-six brick wagons that could act as a car or train.


title: Lego Duplo

text: The name Duplo was brought back in 1979, along with a new reworked logo. Some brick sets were sold inside a plush version of the rabbit from the logo, that zipped closed.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 1983, other Duplo figures appeared, often called Duplo people. These figures have a moveable head, arms, and legs and look like large Lego minifigures, but cannot be taken apart, making them safer for small children. Also in 1983, set number 2700 was introduced with a model of a steam engine with two train cars. In 1986, a Duplo doll house with sliding doors was introduced. This included a Duplo people mother, father, and smaller child.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 1992, Duplo Toolo was introduced, which was a range of construction sets using screw drivers and was aimed at children between the ages of three and six.


title: Lego Duplo

text: 1993 brought a grey rail train system with a stop and start track. Later, two more train systems arrived. In 2005, Lego started selling Duplo trains themed as Thomas the Tank Engine.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 1995, Duplo Primo was launched, which was a line aimed at children aged between 6 and 24 months. Most of the products in this line were not construction toys. Duplo Primo was later renamed Lego Primo.


title: Lego Duplo

text: The name Duplo was dropped again in favour of Explore in 2002. The new brand name was used to emphasise the relationship between the bricks and the child's learning. Explore introduced four different ways of exploring play: explore being me; explore together; explore imagination and explore logic. In the 2004 spring catalog, there was a reminder that Duplo was now called Explore, but that fall the well-known Duplo name was back yet again with a new rabbit logo designed to match the new elephant logo for the Lego Quatro range.


title: Lego Duplo

text: Lego have made Duplo sets licensed with Bob the Builder and Thomas & Friends characters. Those Duplo ranges have been discontinued, but Duplo sets now include farm, zoo, town, castle, and pirate lines. A doll house and princess castle are available as of 2008. Some Duplo sets have cars, trucks, and buildings which cannot be disassembled. Some DUPLO sets do not include building manuals.


title: Lego Duplo

text: Lego Duplo is manufactured at a factory in Nyíregyháza, Hungary. Over 90% of all Duplo elements are manufactured at the plant, alongside traditional Lego bricks. Csaba Tóth, Communications Director commented, "Every year, about 14 million Duplo boxes come out of the Nyíregyháza factory. For this, we inject 2 million Duplo cubes and Duplo parts a day".


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 1995, Lego Duplo was the sponsor of the British children's pre-school television series "Tots TV" on CITV.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In 2014, Lego Duplo made an appearance in "The Lego Movie", as aliens built from Duplo bricks that threaten the citizens of Bricksburg. They reappear in the 2019 sequel, "", as the same alien invaders, with the story picking up from the events of the previous film.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In March 2020, a new theme park attraction was announced at Legoland Windsor Resort. The Duplo Dino Coaster was introduced as part of Duplo Valley, an area of the park designed for children aged five and under. The area also includes Duplo Valley Airport, which involves fully controllable helicopters.


title: Lego Duplo

text: In October 2019, "Lego Duplo World" was launched, which is an educational games app that was designed to help children between the ages of two and five reach their key learning goals. It was developed by StoryToys in partnership with The Lego Group. The app has won several awards, including a 2020 Licensing International Award, a 2020 KAPI award at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a 2021 Notable Children's Digital Media award from the American Library Association and a 2021 Kidscreen Award for best learning app (branded).


title: Igor Putin

text: Igor Alexandrovich Putin (; born 30 March 1953) is a Russian businessman and politician, former vice president of Master Bank. He is a first cousin of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.


title: Igor Putin

text: He is the Chairman of Igor Putin Fund, an investment company supporting and developing the industry in outlying regions of Russia.


title: Igor Putin

text: Igor Putin was born in Leningrad to the family of a Soviet military officer Alexander Putin, a younger brother of Vladimir Putin senior, father of the Russian President. Soon the family moved to Kovrov and then to Ryazan, where Alexander Putin served as an instructor in Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School.


title: Igor Putin

text: In 1974–1998, Igor Putin served in the Soviet Army and then in Russian Army. In 1998, he retired from the military and moved to Ryazan. In 1998–2000, he worked in Ryazan Oblast Statistics Committee. In 2000–2005, he worked as the chairman of the Ryazan Licensing Chamber. In 2002, he became the chairman of Ryazan Coordination Committee of the United Russia party. During those years Igor Putin also obtained degrees from the Volgo-Vyatskaya Academy of State Service (2000) and from Moscow Institute of Economics, Management, and Law (2003)


title: Igor Putin

text: In 2005, Igor Putin moved to Samara to become the chairman of the Samara Reservoir Plant (part of VolgaBurMash holding). In October 2006, Igor Putin changed his political affiliations from the United Russia to A Just Russia political party, but his political uplifting was halted by his cousin who did not want to develop nepotism within the government. In 2007, he became a director of AvtoVAZbank.


title: Igor Putin

text: In September 2010, Igor Putin became Vice President of Master Bank. In the same month, the bank received a lucrative contract with Russian Nanotechnology Corporation. Still, Igor Putin held the vice president position only a few months and retired in December 2010.


title: Igor Putin

text: In February 2012, he invested in the development of the Murmansk port. At that time, he also owned 51% of Energiya, 40% of Avangard 500, and 25% of Gorizont TV. As of 2013, as Board Chairman of Pechenga International Sea Port, he was a member the Government Marine Board.


title: Igor Putin

text: His retirement coincided with a criminal investigation in which over 30 million Russian roubles was allegedly stolen from the bank by its employees using IT technologies. The investigation accused a leading IT specialist of the bank, Mery Tevanyan of operating a large illegal business with the daily volume up to 500 million Russian roubles using bank's money. In March 2011, five days after conclusion of the investigations Igor Putin returned to the bank as a director. According to the bank he is not supposed to manage its daily operations. Igor Putin also keeps his position as a director of the AvtoVAZbank.


title: Igor Putin

text: In November 2013, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the banking licence of Master Bank following money-laundering scandals. Igor Putin was director of the Board of the bank at the time of the scandal, and had previously served as Vice-President.


title: Igor Putin

text: In 2014, a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) exposed a $20-billion money-laundering scheme between Russian banks and the Moldovan bank Moldindconbank, scheme where the Russian Land Bank wired $5 billion to the Moldovan bank. Igor Putin was a director of Land Bank, and declared to Forbes Russia that he quit this position when he grew uncomfortable about the suspicious activities of the bank. Other banks associated with Igor Putin were involved in a massive money laundering scheme dubbed the Russian Laundromat. The system moved money through Putin's and other banks using fake loans between offshore, paper companies, bribed Moldovan judges and Moldovan and Latvian banks to move money out of Russia and into Europe. The UK company Lantana Trade LLP, owned by Igor Putin, was the company that triggered the attention of the whistleblower Howard Wilkinson who broke the story after he noticed Lantana Trade was filed dormant in the UK while millions of dollars were going in and out of the company's bank account in Estonia. The OCCRP originally exposed The operation involved $230 billion transferred through Danske Bank. The Russky Zemelny Bank, in which Igor Putin was an investor, shut down that same year for suspicious activities related to a 20-billion money-laundering affair. Igor Putin resigned from the Board of Directors of the Russkiy Zemelny Bank, Promyshlenny Sberegatelny Bank and the construction company Yakut.


title: Igor Putin

text: In 2017, the banker Alexei Kulikov was arrested for illegally pumping $10 billion out of the country through Promersbank, a bank that held Igor Putin on its Board at the time of this arrest.


title: Igor Putin

text: His son is Roman Putin, a businessman who set up the Russian firm Putin Consulting in March 2014, and launched the Russian Railways corruption scandal the following month. He has a niece, Vera Putina, sometimes erroneously referred to as the niece of President Putin.


title: Satisficing

text: Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term "satisficing", a portmanteau of "satisfy" and "suffice", was introduced by Herbert A. Simon in 1956, although the concept was first posited in his 1947 book "Administrative Behavior". Simon used satisficing to explain the behavior of decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined. He maintained that many natural problems are characterized by computational intractability or a lack of information, both of which preclude the use of mathematical optimization procedures. He observed in his Nobel Prize in Economics speech that "decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the world of management science".


title: Satisficing

text: Simon formulated the concept within a novel approach to rationality, which posits that rational choice theory is an unrealistic description of human decision processes and calls for psychological realism. He referred to this approach as bounded rationality. Some consequentialist theories in moral philosophy use the concept of satisficing in the same sense, though most call for optimization instead.


title: Satisficing

text: In decision making, satisficing refers to the use of aspiration levels when choosing from different paths of action. By this account, decision-makers select the first option that meets a given need or select the option that seems to address most needs rather than the "optimal" solution.


title: Satisficing

text: A crucial determinant of a satisficing decision strategy concerns the construction of the aspiration level. In many circumstances, the individual may be uncertain about the aspiration level.


title: Satisficing

text: Another key issue concerns an evaluation of satisficing strategies. Although often regarded as an inferior decision strategy, specific satisficing strategies for inference have been shown to be ecologically rational, that is in particular decision environments, they can outperform alternative decision strategies.


title: Satisficing

text: Satisficing also occurs in consensus building when the group looks towards a solution everyone can agree on even if it may not be the best.


title: Satisficing

text: One popular method for rationalizing satisficing is optimization when "all" costs, including the cost of the optimization calculations themselves and the cost of getting information for use in those calculations, are considered. As a result, the eventual choice is usually sub-optimal in regard to the main goal of the optimization, i.e., different from the optimum in the case that the costs of choosing are not taken into account.


title: Satisficing

text: Alternatively, satisficing can be considered to be just constraint satisfaction, the process of finding a solution satisfying a set of constraints, without concern for finding an optimum. Any such satisficing problem can be formulated as an (equivalent) optimization problem using the indicator function of the satisficing requirements as an objective function. More formally, if denotes the set of all options and denotes the set of "satisficing" options, then selecting a satisficing solution (an element of ) is equivalent to the following optimization problem


title: Satisficing

text: A solution to this optimization problem is optimal if, and only if, it is a satisficing option (an element of ). Thus, from a decision theory point of view, the distinction between "optimizing" and "satisficing" is essentially a stylistic issue (that can nevertheless be very important in certain applications) rather than a substantive issue. What is important to determine is should be optimized and should be satisficed. The following quote from Jan Odhnoff's 1965 paper is appropriate:


title: Satisficing

text: In economics, satisficing is a behavior which attempts to achieve at least some minimum level of a particular variable, but which does not necessarily maximize its value. The most common application of the concept in economics is in the behavioral theory of the firm, which, unlike traditional accounts, postulates that producers treat profit not as a goal to be maximized, but as a constraint. Under these theories, a critical level of profit must be achieved by firms; thereafter, priority is attached to the attainment of other goals.


title: Satisficing

text: More formally, as before if denotes the set of all options , and we have the payoff function which gives the payoff enjoyed by the agent for each option. Suppose we define the optimum payoff the solution to


title: Satisficing

text: with the optimum actions being the set ' of options such that (i.e. it is the set of all options that yield the maximum payoff). Assume that the set ' has at least one element.


title: Satisficing

text: The idea of the was introduced by Herbert A. Simon and developed in economics by Richard Cyert and James March in their 1963 book "A Behavioral Theory of the Firm". The aspiration level is the payoff that the agent aspires to: if the agent achieves at least this level it is satisfied, and if it does not achieve it, the agent is not satisfied. Let us define the aspiration level and assume that . Clearly, whilst it is possible that someone can aspire to something that is better than the optimum, it is in a sense irrational to do so. So, we require the aspiration level to be at or below the optimum payoff.


title: Satisficing

text: We can then define the set of satisficing options ' as all those options that yield at least ': . Clearly since , it follows that . That is, the set of optimum actions is a subset of the set of satisficing options. So, when an agent satisfices, then she will choose from a larger set of actions than the agent who optimizes. One way of looking at this is that the satisficing agent is not putting in the effort to get to the precise optimum or is unable to exclude actions that are below the optimum but still above aspiration.


title: Satisficing

text: An equivalent way of looking at satisficing is (that means you choose your actions so that the payoff is within epsilon of the optimum). If we define the "gap" between the optimum and the aspiration as ' where . Then the set of satisficing options ' can be defined as all those options such that .


title: Satisficing

text: Apart from the behavioral theory of the firm, applications of the idea of satisficing behavior in economics include the Akerlof and Yellen model of menu cost, popular in New Keynesian macroeconomics. Also, in economics and game theory there is the notion of an Epsilon-equilibrium, which is a generalization of the standard Nash equilibrium in which each player is within ' of his or her optimal payoff (the standard Nash-equilibrium being the special case where ').


title: Satisficing

text: What determines the aspiration level may be derived from past experience (some function of an agent's or firm's previous payoffs), or some organizational or market institutions. For example, if we think of managerial firms, the managers will be expected to earn normal profits by their shareholders. Other institutions may have specific targets imposed externally (for example state-funded universities in the UK have targets for student recruitment).


title: Satisficing

text: An economic example is the Dixon model of an economy consisting of many firms operating in different industries, where each industry is a duopoly. The endogenous aspiration level is the average profit in the economy. This represents the power of the financial markets: in the long-run firms need to earn normal profits or they die (as Armen Alchian once said, "This is the criterion by which the economic system selects survivors: those who realize positive profits are the survivors; those who suffer losses disappear"). We can then think what happens over time. If firms are earning profits at or above their aspiration level, then they just stay doing what they are doing (unlike the optimizing firm which would always strive to earn the highest profits possible). However, if the firms are earning below aspiration, then they try something else, until they get into a situation where they attain their aspiration level. It can be shown that in this economy, satisficing leads to collusion amongst firms: competition between firms leads to lower profits for one or both of the firms in a duopoly. This means that competition is unstable: one or both of the firms will fail to achieve their aspirations and hence try something else. The only situation which is stable is one where all firms achieve their aspirations, which can only happen when all firms earn average profits. In general, this will only happen if all firms earn the joint-profit maximizing or collusive profit.


title: Satisficing

text: Some research has suggested that satisficing/maximizing and other decision-making strategies, like personality traits, have a strong genetic component and endure over time. This genetic influence on decision-making behaviors has been found through classical twin studies, in which decision-making tendencies are self-reported by pairs of twins and then compared between monozygotic and dizygotic twins. This implies that people can be categorized into "maximizers" and "satisficers", with some people landing in between.


title: Satisficing

text: The distinction between satisficing and maximizing not only differs in the decision-making process, but also in the post-decision evaluation. Maximizers tend to use a more exhaustive approach to their decision-making process: they seek and evaluate more options than satisficers do to achieve greater satisfaction. However, whereas satisficers tend to be relatively pleased with their decisions, maximizers tend to be less happy with their decision outcomes. This is thought to be due to limited cognitive resources people have when their options are vast, forcing maximizers to not make an optimal choice. Because maximization is unrealistic and usually impossible in everyday life, maximizers often feel regretful in their post-choice evaluation.


title: Satisficing

text: As an example of satisficing, in the field of social cognition, Jon Krosnick proposed a theory of statistical survey satisficing which says that optimal question answering by a survey respondent involves a great deal of cognitive work and that some people would use satisficing to reduce that burden.


title: Rick Nash

text: Richard McLaren Nash (born June 16, 1984) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who serves as the director of player development for the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League (NHL). After being selected first overall in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft by Columbus, he played 15 seasons in the NHL for the Blue Jackets, New York Rangers and Boston Bruins, and was selected to play in six National Hockey League All-Star Games.


title: Rick Nash

text: Prior to turning professional, Nash was a highly regarded prospect with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) where he spent two seasons, earning the Emms Family Award in 2001 as the League's Rookie of the Year. He began his NHL career with the Blue Jackets immediately following his draft, in 2002–03, and was nominated for the Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year. In his second NHL season, Nash scored 41 goals to tie with Jarome Iginla and Ilya Kovalchuk as winners of the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the NHL's leading goal-scorer. Nash is a five-time NHL All-Star and was also awarded the NHL Foundation Player Award in the 2008–09 season for his charitable work in the Columbus community. He is the all-time Blue Jackets franchise leader in goals, points, and games played. In 2022, Nash's number 61 was retired by the Blue Jackets.


title: Rick Nash

text: Internationally, Nash has represented Team Canada, with whom he has won one gold and two silver medals at the World Championships, and two gold medals at the Winter Olympics in 2010 and 2014. Additionally, he has represented Canada at the 2002 World Junior Championships, helping the team to a silver medal, and also competed for Canada in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash was raised in Brampton, Ontario, where he attended Brampton Centennial Secondary School. He played minor hockey in the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL), where he caught the attention of OHL scouts in 1999. He played in the 1998 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the Toronto Marlboros minor ice hockey team.


title: Rick Nash

text: As a member of the London Knights for two seasons in the OHL, Rick Nash began his major junior career with 66 points in his first year, receiving the Emms Family Award as the League's top rookie. The following season, he amassed 72 points in 54 games and was subsequently selected first overall in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft by the Columbus Blue Jackets.


title: Rick Nash

text: The first NHL contract for Nash was negotiated minutes before the signing deadline by Gord Kirke. It was the most lucrative contract for an NHL rookie at the time, valued at 1.2 million USD per season plus bonuses and incentives which ranged from 8 to US$12 million.


title: Rick Nash

text: Joining the Blue Jackets in 2002–03, Nash debuted on October 10, 2002, and scored a goal in a 2–1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. He was the eighth number one overall pick to score a goal in his first game and the first to do so in his draft year since Mario Lemieux in 1984. That season, Nash was nominated for the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie, but lost to defenseman Barret Jackman of the St. Louis Blues. He would, however, join Jackman on the NHL All-Rookie Team.


title: Rick Nash

text: In Nash's sophomore campaign, he improved his rookie goal total from 17 to 41, a career-high that tied Jarome Iginla and Ilya Kovalchuk for the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy for most goals in the League. At 19 years of age, Nash was the youngest player in history to lead the League in goals. Recording 16 assists, Nash finished the year with 57 points.


title: Rick Nash

text: During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Nash played for HC Davos of the Swiss Nationalliga A (NLA). He scored 26 goals and 46 points in 44 games and added 11 more points (nine goals and two assists) in 15 games in the NLA playoffs. Joined by fellow NHL-er Joe Thornton, Davos went on to win the Swiss Championship, as well as the 2004 Spengler Cup.


title: Rick Nash

text: With the NHL set to resume play in 2005–06, the Blue Jackets re-signed Nash to a five-year, $27 million contract. The deal saw his annual salary increase each year, with $3.5 million the first season and $7 million in the last season of the contract for a $5.4 million average salary. Knee and ankle injuries, however, sidelined Nash for much of the first half of the season. Missing 28 games total, Nash was still named to Team Canada for the 2006 Olympics, shortly after being activated from the injured reserve. Upon returning from a disappointing seventh-place finish in Turin, Nash completed the season at a point-per-game pace with 54 points in 54 games.


title: Rick Nash

text: In 2006–07, Nash matched his sophomore points total with 57, and was named to the Western Conference All-Star Team for the second time in his career. He was Columbus' lone representative both times. Nash scored the game-winning goal in the West win.


title: Rick Nash

text: The following season, on January 17, 2008, Nash scored what many commentators called the "goal of the year" in the final minute versus the Phoenix Coyotes. Breaking a tied score, Nash deked around two defenders and the goaltender to score the eventual game-winner. Later, at the end of the season, the goal was nominated for an ESPY Award in the category of Best Play. Selected to his third All-Star Game in 2008 that season, Nash scored the quickest goal in All-Star Game history, just 12 seconds in and ended the game with a hat-trick.


title: Rick Nash

text: Completing the season with 38 goals and 69 points, Nash nearly matched his personal best goals total and set a career high for points and assists. Shortly before the end of the season, on March 12, 2008, Nash was also named the fifth captain in Blue Jackets history, replacing the recently traded Adam Foote.


title: Rick Nash

text: In the off-season, in May 2008, Nash was named the cover athlete and spokesman for the "NHL 2K9" video game.


title: Rick Nash

text: Going into the 2008–09 campaign, the Blue Jackets had gone without a playoff appearance in franchise history. Led by the newly appointed captain Nash and bolstered by rookie goaltender Steve Mason, the Blue Jackets finished the season as the seventh seed in the Western Conference to earn a post-season berth against division-rival the Detroit Red Wings. The series was preceded by an 8–2 rout over the Red Wings on March 7, 2009, a game in which Nash scored three unassisted goals. According to the "Columbus Dispatch", citing the Elias Sports Bureau, the last player to score three goals unassisted was Maurice Richard (who scored four) against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on March 14, 1948. Despite the convincing victory late in the season, the Blue Jackets were swept by the Red Wings in four games.


title: Rick Nash

text: In addition to leading the Blue Jackets to the playoffs, Nash had a career season with 79 points, in addition to scoring 40 goals for the first time since 2003–04. In the off-season, on July 3, 2009, Nash signed an eight-year contract extension with the Blue Jackets worth $62.4 million set to take effect in 2010–11.


title: Rick Nash

text: As the 2011–12 season began to unfold, Columbus recorded a dismal 2–12–1 record, the worst start to an NHL season by any team in 19 years. With the team struggling, rumors began circulating that the Blue Jackets were contemplating trading Nash as a solution to their on-ice woes. While Blue Jackets General Manager Scott Howson stated publicly that he had had no discussions regarding a Nash deal, other teams had indeed inquired about his availability. When asked about it, Nash stated that if the franchise felt it could improve itself by dealing him, he would be willing to waive his no-trade clause in order to get the deal done. Though Howson had previously maintained that he had no intention of trading Nash, two weeks before the trade deadline, he stated in the press that the team was open to all options and they were willing to listen to trade proposals for Nash, despite not actively shopping him. Speculation was that in return for Nash the Blue Jackets would ask for a top six forward, a top prospect and a first-round draft pick.


title: Rick Nash

text: Trade speculation continued on into the summer with no deal imminent. While Howson claimed he merely wanted to receive "market value" in any deal for Nash, there was speculation that his asking price was too high for many rival NHL GMs to consider. Columbus eventually found a trade partner in the New York Rangers. Nash, along with Steven Delisle and a conditional third-round pick in the 2013 NHL Entry Draft, were traded to the Rangers for Artem Anisimov, Brandon Dubinsky, Tim Erixon and a 2013 first-round draft pick.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash signed a contract to play with HC Davos again during the 2012–13 NHL lockout. In late September 2012, while playing for Davos, Nash injured his shoulder and left the game.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash had a successful first regular season with the Rangers, scoring 21 goals and 21 assists for 42 points in 44 games played in the lockout-shortened 2012–13 season. However, in the playoffs, Nash underwhelmed with only one goal and four assists in 12 playoff games.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash opened the 2013–14 season well, with three assists in two games. But on October 8, 2013, in a game against the San Jose Sharks, Nash suffered a concussion from a hit by Brad Stuart, which forced him to miss 17 games. On November 21, Nash scored his first goal of the season in a 3–2 win against the Dallas Stars. He would finish the season with a solid goal total of 26 in 65 games, but with only 13 assists, his 39 points tied a career low. Nash struggled mightily in the playoffs for the second straight year, scoring only three goals in 25 playoff games. Despite his low offensive production, however, he was solid defensively throughout, and the Rangers reached the Stanley Cup Finals, ultimately losing in five games to the Los Angeles Kings in a series in which all the games were close decisions.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash had a superstar season in 2014–15 scoring a career-high 42 goals (third in the NHL behind Steven Stamkos with 43 and Alexander Ovechkin with 53) and 27 assists. Nash's production also improved during the 2015 playoffs, as he scored five goals and nine assists (14 points) in 19 games as the Rangers fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning in a hard-fought seven-game Eastern Conference Finals series.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash's performance declined at the start of the 2015–16 season as he struggled to recapture his scoring pace from the previous season. This was further exacerbated by muscle spasms that caused Nash to miss 22 games. Despite being involved in trade rumors, few teams seemed to be interested in Rick Nash and his $7.9 million cap hit. Nash scored a career-low 15 goals, going with 21 assists for a career-low 36 points. He then recorded two goals and two assists in New York's five-game opening round loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs.


title: Rick Nash

text: On October 11, 2016 Nash was named an alternate captain for the New York Rangers, joining Daniel Girardi, Marc Staal, and Derek Stepan along with captain Ryan McDonagh. On November 8, 2016, Nash scored his 400th goal in a 5–3 loss against the Vancouver Canucks. Nash again missed several games during the 2016–17 season, this time with a nagging groin injury. He still managed to score 23 goals and 15 assists for 38 points, in 67 games. Nash's production continued to improve during the 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs. He recorded two goals and one assist in the Rangers six-game opening-round victory over the Montreal Canadiens.


title: Rick Nash

text: On October 26, 2017, Nash skated in his 1,000th NHL career game, which resulted in a 5–2 win over the Arizona Coyotes. He became the 312th player in NHL history to play at least 1,000 career games.


title: Rick Nash

text: During the 2017–18 season, the Rangers struggled relative to their results from past seasons. On February 8, 2018, the team released a letter to fans that signaled intentions to begin a rebuild, to which rumors of a Nash trade began to swirl, as he was in the last year of his contract. On February 25, 2018, one day before the trade deadline, Nash was traded to the Boston Bruins in exchange for Ryan Spooner, Matt Beleskey, prospect Ryan Lindgren, a 2018 first-round pick, and a 2019 seventh-round pick. Rick Nash's first goal as a Bruin, and his 800th career point, came on February 27, 2018, in a 4–3 overtime Bruins home ice win over the Carolina Hurricanes.


title: Rick Nash

text: On January 11, 2019, at age 34, due to unresolved symptoms from a concussion sustained in March 2018, Nash was forced to retire from professional hockey after playing 1,060 career games spanning over 15 seasons.


title: Rick Nash

text: In Nash's second junior season, he was chosen to play for Team Canada's junior squad in the 2002 World Junior Championships, scoring three points in a silver medal effort.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash would make his senior international debut for Team Canada at the 2005 World Championship, leading the tournament in goals while earning his second silver medal.


title: Rick Nash

text: In 2006, shortly after returning from an injury, he was selected to play on Team Canada's Olympic team, but managed just one point in a disappointing seventh-place finish.


title: Rick Nash

text: The following year, Nash captured his first gold medal with Team Canada at the 2007 World Championship in a 4–2 victory over Finland in Moscow. Scoring two goals in the gold medal game against Finland and 11 points total, Nash was named to the tournament All-Star Team and earned MVP honours.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash appeared in his third World Championship in 2008, but failed to repeat as gold medal champion with Canada, earning silver. In the championship game against Russia, Nash attempted to clear the puck in overtime, but accidentally shot it over the glass, resulting a delay of game penalty. On the powerplay, Russia capitalized, defeating Canada 5–4. Despite his misplay, Nash was named to the tournament All-Star Team for the second consecutive year, finishing with 13 points.


title: Rick Nash

text: On December 30, 2009, Nash was selected to play for Team Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. After starting the tournament on Sidney Crosby's wing, he was switched to a line with Mike Richards and Jonathan Toews, who was named Best Forward. Nash earned his first Olympic medal in the tournament as Team Canada went on to win gold.


title: Rick Nash

text: Nash was named captain of Team Canada for the 2011 IIHF World Championship. Canada finished fifth in the tournament.


title: Electron affinity (data page)

text: This page deals with the electron affinity as a property of isolated atoms or molecules (i.e. in the gas phase). Solid state electron affinities are not listed here.


title: Electron affinity (data page)

text: Electron affinity can be defined in two equivalent ways. First, as the energy that is released by adding an electron to an isolated gaseous atom. The second (reverse) definition is that electron affinity is the energy required to remove an electron from a singly charged gaseous negative ion. The latter can be regarded as the ionization energy of the –1 ion or the "zeroth" ionization energy. Either convention can be used.


title: Electron affinity (data page)

text: Negative electron affinities can be used in those cases where electron capture requires energy, i.e. when capture can occur only if the impinging electron has a kinetic energy large enough to excite a resonance of the atom-plus-electron system. Conversely electron removal from the anion formed in this way releases energy, which is carried out by the freed electron as kinetic energy. Negative ions formed in these cases are always unstable. They may have lifetimes of the order of microseconds to milliseconds, and invariably autodetach after some time.


title: Electron affinity (data page)

text: The electron affinities "E" of some molecules are given in the table below, from the lightest to the heaviest. Many more have been listed by . The electron affinities of the radicals OH and SH are the most precisely known of all molecular electron affinities.


title: The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

text: "The Measure of a Man" is the ninth episode of the of the American science fiction television series "", the 35th episode overall. It was originally released on February 13, 1989, in broadcast syndication. It was written as a spec script by former attorney and "" novelist Melinda M. Snodgrass. It was directed by Robert Scheerer.


text: Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet crew of the Federation starship Enterprise-D. In this episode, the rights of the android officer Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) are threatened by a scientist who wishes to dismantle him in order to produce replicas of him. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) fights in a Starfleet court for Data's right of self-determination in order not to be declared mere property of Starfleet, while Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) is obligated to argue on behalf of the scientist.


text: The script was accepted due to the impact of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, and resulted in Snodgrass being recruited as a staff writer and script editor. She would remain on the staff until the end of the . "The Measure of a Man" has been seen as highlighting themes of slavery and the rights of artificial intelligence. Similar subjects were discussed in a follow-up episode, "". "The Measure of a Man" received Nielsen ratings of 11.3 percent on the first broadcast. It was received positively by the cast and crew because of the subject matter, and has been considered by critics to be the first great episode of "The Next Generation". It has also been included in lists of the best and most groundbreaking episodes of the series.


text: While the "Enterprise" is visiting Starbase 173 for routine maintenance, cyberneticist Commander Bruce Maddox (Brian Brophy) comes aboard to pay a visit to Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner), wishing to better understand Data's positronic brain. It quickly becomes clear that Maddox has an ulterior motive of transferring the contents of Data's memory to the starbase mainframe computer and shutting down and disassembling him to learn how to recreate the technology. Though Maddox promises to restore Data following his analysis and assures him his memories will be intact, Data is concerned that the procedure is riskier than Maddox is letting on, and argues that while the factual details of his memories will be preserved, the nuances of his experiences may not be. Data refuses, causing Maddox to turn to Starfleet to order him to comply. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) supports Data's position, and is advised that the only way for Data to evade the order is to resign from Starfleet, which Data does. Maddox, however, argues that Data is Starfleet property, not a sentient being, and as such does not have the right to choose to resign.


text: Meanwhile, Picard has to deal with the presiding Judge Advocate General for the sector, Captain Philippa Louvois (Amanda McBroom), who was a former love interest until she aggressively prosecuted Picard in a court-martial involving his actions on the "USS Stargazer". When Louvois rules for Maddox, Picard requests a formal hearing to challenge the ruling. Louvois agrees, and allows Picard to represent Data during the proceedings. Due to a shortage of qualified legal staff, Louvois compels Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) to represent Maddox. Riker's arguments portray Data as merely a machine constructed by man, and no more than the sum of his parts. In a striking final demonstration, Riker activates Data's "off switch", causing the android to shut down. Picard calls for a recess, during which he meets in Ten Forward with Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who suggests that regardless of whether Data is a machine or not, Maddox's plans for reproducing him would lead to a situation tantamount to slavery. Picard uses this to defuse Riker's arguments, and turns the discussion to metaphysical matters of Data's sentience, using Data and Maddox as witnesses. Picard points out that Data meets two of the three criteria that Maddox uses to define sentient life. Data is intelligent and self-aware, and Picard asks anyone in the court to show a means of measuring consciousness.


text: With no one able to answer this, Louvois acknowledges that neither she nor anyone else can measure this in Data and rules that he has the right to choose. Upon the court's ruling, Data formally refuses to undergo the procedure. After the hearing, Data clearly holds no ill will against Maddox; Data reminds the scientist that his work remains intriguing, and offers to assist in further research after Maddox has had more time to study and perfect his techniques. Maddox, for his part, refers to Data for the first time as "he" rather than "it". Later during a party celebrating Data's victory, Data finds Riker alone in a conference room, ashamed of having had to argue against his friend in the hearing. Data cheers him up by telling him that his action was an act of self-sacrifice that gave Data the chance to win his freedom, as had Riker refused to participate, Louvois' original judgement in favor of Maddox would have been final. The two then happily return to the celebration together.


text: The episode was the television debut for writer Melinda M. Snodgrass. She had previously been an attorney at a law practice, but she quit the position, and a friend suggested that she become a writer. She wrote an outline of a "" novel for Pocket Books, which was purchased and became "The Tears of the Singers". She also acted as a co-writer for the "Wild Cards" anthology and subsequent books, alongside George R.R. Martin. Snodgrass submitted a spec script to Paramount Television for "The Measure of a Man" for "". As a result of the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, the studio was looking for more scripts of this type and so it was accepted.


text: She said that although most watchers perceived the episode as being Data-centric, Snodgrass felt that it focused on the actions of Picard and referred to Data as taking the role of the catalyst for the plot. Following her work on this episode, Snodgrass was recruited as a staff writer and story editor alongside Leonard Mlodinow and Scott Rubenstein. When four episodes later, the other two editors left the series, Snodgrass ended up being the only one on staff for the remainder of the season. She was promoted to executive script consultant for the , but left the staff after the end of that year.


text: "The Measure of a Man" features several references to events in previous episodes, such as the discussion of Data's relationship with Tasha Yar, previously alluded to in "The Naked Now" and the revelation of Data's off switch in "Datalore". This is also the first episode to have a scene of the crew's poker game, which continued to feature throughout the series and was the final scene of the series finale, "".


text: Guest stars included Brian Brophy, who had previously appeared as Traker in the science fiction television series "Max Headroom". His character, Bruce Maddox, was later mentioned in "The Next Generation" episode "Data's Day" as continuing to correspond with Data. Bruce Maddox later appeared in Star Trek: Picard played by John Ales. Amanda McBroom played Captain Phillipa Louvois; McBroom was a longtime fan of "Star Trek", and was well known for appearances on Broadway, several television series and from winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1980 for "The Rose" from the film of the same name. Louvois later appeared in the non-canon novel "Articles of the Federation". Clyde Kusatsu appeared as Admiral Nakamura, and would later appear in "" and "The Next Generation" series finale. The character has since also appeared in several pieces of non-canon fiction. Though uncredited, Denise Crosby makes a very brief cameo as Tasha Yar in a holographic projection.


text: The episode includes special effect shots in space of the fictional spacecraft and space stations. The exterior shot of "Starbase 173" used a miniature model previously made for one of the "Star Trek" theatrical films. The set for the courtroom aboard the station was actually a redress of the Enterprise D's battle bridge set. This set was previously used in such episodes as "Conspiracy" and was used in several other episodes in the series.


text: "The Measure of a Man" has been given as an example of the complexity and depth of "Star Trek". The subject matter has been seen as ranging from the rights of artificial lifeforms to slavery. In the wake of discussions regarding the ethical and moral dilemmas of computer scientists, the episode also received attention amongst academe and was used as lecture material, including in a course on Computer Ethics at the University of Kentucky in a section covering robot and cyborg rights. The idea of non-human ethics had been discussed prior to "The Measure of a Man" in papers and books such as "Animal Liberation: a New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals" by Peter Singer in 1977 and "On Being Morally Considerable" by K.E. Goodpaster in 1978.


text: In the essay "The 'Measure of a Man' and the Ethos of Hospitality: Towards an Ethical Dwelling with Technology" within the "AI & Society" journal in 2009, Lucas D. Introna explained that Data's main issue in this episode was that this area of ethics is dealt with purely in human terms. Thus, the argument regarding his rights as an individual must be framed within those boundaries. The episode was also analysed in a "Toledo Law Journal" article by Paul Joseph and Sharon Carton about the legal system of the Federation as portrayed in "Star Trek: The Next Generation".


text: The episode proved influential, with the test established in "The Measure of a Man" being revisited when Data created Lal in "". Picard directly references the events of this episode as it appears that the outcome of "The Measure of a Man" had only been applied to Data and not all androids in general. Outside of the series, "Star Trek" fan Seth MacFarlane referenced the events of "The Measure of a Man" in the plot of his comedy film "Ted 2" (2015). In the events of the film, Samantha Jackson (Amanda Seyfried) must argue for the rights of Ted, a sentient Teddy Bear, as he is at risk of being considered property rather than a person in the eyes of the law.


text: Bruce Maddox would appear again in "". In this story, he continued his research into cybernetics, building the androids Dahj and Soji, among others.


text: "The Measure of a Man" was first shown on February 13, 1989, in broadcast syndication. It was the ninth episode of the second season and received Nielsen ratings of 11.3 percent on the first broadcast. It was one of the best rated episodes during the second season, alongside the previous episode, "A Matter of Honor", which were the highest since "The Big Goodbye" released in syndication during the week of February 14, 1988.


text: Director Robert Scheerer called it his favorite show, adding that it was interesting to see Riker and Picard treating Data "not as a dear friend, but as someone whose worth has to be resolved". He said that the episode was non-typical and "beautifully crafted", with "a great deal to say about man, humanity, what our problems in the world are today and hopefully what we can do about it in the future." Producer Maurice Hurley called the episode "stunning", saying "That's the kind of show you want to do", "it just worked great, everything about it". He also lauded Whoopi Goldberg's role in the episode. Michael Piller, who had not yet joined the crew at the time of "The Measure of a Man", later described it as one of his three favourite episodes alongside "" and "The Offspring" as "they had remarkable emotional impacts. And they genuinely explored the human condition, which this franchise does better than any other when it does it well."


text: Spiner identified this episode as his favorite episode of "The Next Generation". In an interview, Stewart concurred that this is "the first truly great episode of the series", and added that it went to the "heart of the fundamentals of the "Star Trek" philosophy and what Gene Roddenberry had been writing about in different ways from the mid '60s." But he said that his favourite episode was "The Inner Light". On Twitter in April 2013, Marina Sirtis (Troi) named this as her favorite episode.


text: "Entertainment Weekly" said that "It is well-established Trek gospel that the first truly great episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is 'The Measure of a Man'". Mark Jones and Lance Parkin, in their book "Beyond the Final Frontier: An Unauthorised Review of Star Trek", called "The Measure of a Man" "a blunt episode lacking finesse." They added that while including Riker in the plot was a positive move, it was not clearly rationalized. They described the argument at the center of the episode as a "balloon debate". The majority of reviewers, however, received the episode more positively. James Van Hise and Hal Schuster in "The Complete Trek: The Next Generation" described it as a "stirring episode" that that the "Enterprise" did not need to be endangered to generate drama. They said overall that "The Measure of a Man" was "pure "Next Generation" at its best". Wendy Rathbone provided a guest review in the same book; she said that she enjoyed the believability of the plot and the characterization of Data. She compared it to "The Original Series" episode "", and called it "riveting" with "first rate dialogue and powerful tension" Following the end of the series in 1994, "The Measure of a Man" was given an honorable mention in a list of the best episodes by television critic Mike Antonucci for the "San Jose Mercury News".


text: Upon the release of a DVD box set in 2002, "The Measure of a Man" was called the "standout episode" of the season by Mark Rahner for "The Seattle Times" via the Knight Ridder media company. "Entertainment Weekly" named this episode the sixth best of the series in a list compiled in 2007. Zack Handlen reviewed the episode for The A.V. Club in 2010, giving it a grade of A−. He praised the actions of Picard, but thought that Diana Muldaur as Katherine Pulaski could have been featured more. He disliked the "shoehorning" of Riker into the plot, and felt that Guinan's comparison to slavery was not required and there were some "soft arguments" in the court scenes. Nonetheless, Handlen said that the episode featured "the sort of profound philosophizing that "Trek" has always made its bread and butter", and that ""TNG" hasn't lost its flaws, but it's finally, definitively shown that it can be great". In 2011, Keith DeCandido gave "The Measure of a Man" a rating of nine out of ten in his review for Tor.com. He praised the guest actors, and called the episode "Quite simply one of Trek‘s finest hours." He said that the procedures in the courtroom scenes were an issue, as the witnesses were not cross examined and Riker did not make a closing statement. In 2011, this episode was noted by "Forbes" as one of the top ten episodes of the franchise that explores the implications of advanced technology.


text: In 2012, "Wired" magazine said this was one of the best episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".


text: In 2013, James Hunt writing for Den of Geek reviewed "The Measure of a Man". He said that while he was surprised the arguments presented in the episode had not been raised earlier in Data's Starfleet career, he felt it was "the first episode of "TNG" that doesn't just reach the potential of "Star Trek", it stretches far, far beyond it". He called it "a solid contender for the best "TNG" episode full stop", recommended "If you only watch one episode of "TNG", it might be a good idea to make it this one." To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series in 2012, "Wired" magazine conducted a reader's survey of their favourite episodes. Several were listed, including "The Measure of a Man". That same year, Juliette Harrisson ranked the episode as the 8th most groundbreaking episodes of the series. In 2014, the episode was ranked as the 70th best out of the 700 plus episodes in the "Star Trek" franchise by Charlie Jane Anders for io9. She said that the trial raised "fascinating questions", but the best part of the episode was "Riker's total ruthlessness as prosecutor".


text: In 2017, Space.com rated "The Measure of a Man" as the #1 "Star Trek" episode overall out of its seven hundred plus episodes, ahead of "The Trouble with Tribbles" (#2), "The Menagerie" (#3), "The Best of Both Worlds" (#4), and "In The Pale Moonlight" (#5). In May 2019, "The Hollywood Reporter" ranked "The Measure of a Man" among the top twenty-five episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Screen Rant ranked "The Measure of Man" as one of the top ten episodes of all "Star Trek" up to December 2018.


text: In 2016, "Radio Times" ranked the space-court room sequence as the 17th best moment in all "Star Trek," remarking "The franchise is at its philosophising best as we see a grim-faced Riker prosecute the case while Picard champions Data’s self-awareness".


text: In 2016, "The Washington Post" ranked it the 8th best episode of all Star Trek television series, noting that it made full use of Patrick Stewart's acting as Captain Picard with space court case about the android Data and sentience.


text: In 2017, "Den of Geek" ranked this episode as one of the top 25 "must watch" episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".


text: In 2017, "Nerdist" ranked this episode the number one best episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", on a list of the top ten episodes. They ranked "The Inner Light" in second place, and "The Best of Both Worlds" (Parts I & II) as third.


text: In 2019, Screen Rant ranked "The Measure of a Man" the tenth best episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".


text: In 2019, "The Hollywood Reporter" listed this episode among the 25 best episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation".


text: In 2020, "SciFiPulse.net" ranked this episode one of the top seven about the character Captain Picard.


text: In 2020, "Vulture" recommended as one of the best "Star Trek"s watch along with "Star Trek: Picard," noting that it has court trial for Data triggered by Cpt Maddox, and Picard must defend Data or lose him to Starfleet


text: The first home media release of "The Measure of the Man" was on VHS cassette, appearing on October 12, 1994, in the United States and Canada. The episode has been included in the season two DVD box set, released in on May 7, 2002. The most recent release was as part of the season two Blu-ray set on December 4, 2012. For the season two Blu-ray set, CBS decided to include a special "Extended Cut". This added thirteen minutes of footage, previously cut from the broadcast version, most of which only existed on a VHS cassette owned by Snodgrass. CBS was able to add further footage from their archives. The difference in the running time was attributed to "small personal moments" by Snodgrass, which added that Riker wanted to beat Picard although he cared for Data. This was emphasised in one particular scene, which Snodgrass was pleased had been restored to the episode. "The Measure of a Man" received a cinematic release alongside "Q Who" for one night on November 29, 2012, to promote the Blu-ray release. This was the second time that a pair of "The Next Generation" episodes received a cinematic release to promote the release of a Blu-ray season box set.


text: An extended version was known to exist as VHS copy in the possession of Melinda Snodgrass, who wrote several episodes of this series. CBS produced an extended version of "The Measure of a Man" and released it in 2012. The runtime is 57 minutes, which is 13 minutes longer than the original broadcast version.


title: Paulicianism

text: Paulicianism (Classical Armenian: Պաւղիկեաններ, ; , "The followers of Paul"; Arab sources: "Baylakānī", "al Bayāliqa" ) was a Medieval Christian sect which originated in Armenia in the 7th century. Followers of the sect were called Paulicians and referred to themselves as Good Christians. Little is known about the Paulician faith and various influences have been suggested, including Gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichaeism and Adoptionism, with other scholars arguing that doctrinally the Paulicians were a largely conventional Christian reform movement unrelated to any of these currents.


title: Paulicianism

text: The founder of the Paulicians is traditionally held to have been an Armenian by the name of Constantine, who hailed from a Syrian community near Samsat in modern-day Turkey. The sect flourished between 650 and 872 around the Byzantine Empire's frontier with the Arab Caliphate in Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, despite intermittent persecutions and deportations by the imperial authorities in Constantinople. After a period of relative toleration, renewed Byzantine persecution in the mid 9th century prompted the Paulicians to establish a state centered on Tephrike in the Armenian borderlands under Arab protection.


title: Paulicianism

text: After prolonged warfare, the state of Tephrike was destroyed by the Byzantines in the 870s. Over the next century, some Paulicians migrated further into Armenia, while others were relocated by the imperial authorities to the Empire's Balkan frontier in Thrace. In Armenia, the Paulicians were assimilated into the related religious movement of Tondrakism over the next century. In Thrace, the sect continued practicing their faith for some time, in some places until the 17th–18th centuries, before gradually converting to other religions and are considered to be the ancestors of the modern Roman Catholic Banat Bulgarians and the Muslim Pomaks. The movement may have also been an influence on medieval European Christian heteredox movements such as Bogomilism and Catharism.


title: Paulicianism

text: The Paulicians called themselves 'Good Christians' or 'True Believers'. and referred to orthodox Christians as "Romanists". The name 'Paulician' was used by outsiders to refer to the sect and literally means 'the followers of Paul'. The identity of the Paul for whom the movement was named is disputed. It is most likely to be Paul the Apostle, a figure whom the Paulicians are consistently stated as according special veneration from the earliest sources up to their apparent extinction in the early modern period. Medieval Byzantine sources generally derive the name from the 3rd century Bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, although this may be a potential misidentification with the separate Paulianist sect, and the earliest Byzantine source to describe the movement explicitly distinguishes the "Paul of Samosata" supposed to have given the movement its name from the more famous heresiarch. Another possible source is Paul the Armenian, an otherwise obscure Paulician figure said to have led the sect in its migration to Episparis following its persecution by Justinian II at the close of the 7th century.


title: Paulicianism

text: The sources indicate that most Paulician leaders were Armenians and the founder of the sect is said to have been an Armenian by the name of Constantine, who hailed from Mananalis, a community near Samosata. He studied the Gospels and Epistles, combined dualistic and Christian doctrines and, upon the basis of the former, vigorously opposed the formalism of the church. Regarding himself as having been called to restore the pure Christianity of Paul the Apostle, he adopted the name Silvanus (after one of Paul's disciples), and about 660, he founded his first congregation at Kibossa, Armenia. Twenty-seven years later, he was arrested by the Imperial authorities, tried for heresy and stoned to death. Simeon, the court official who executed the order, was himself converted, and adopting the name Titus, became Constantine's successor. He was burned to death, the punishment pronounced upon the Manichaeans, in 690.


title: Paulicianism

text: The adherents of the sect fled, with their new leader Paul at their head, to Episparis. He died in 715, leaving two sons, Gegnaesius (whom he had appointed his successor) and Theodore. The latter, giving out that he had received the Holy Ghost, protested against the leadership of Gegnaesius but was unsuccessful. Gegnaesius was taken to Constantinople, appeared before Emperor Leo I, was declared innocent of heresy and returned to Episparis, but, fearing danger, went with his adherents to Mananalis in Eastern Anatolia. His death (in 745) was the occasion of a division in the sect.


title: Paulicianism

text: In 747, Emperor Constantine V is reported to have moved a significant number of Paulicians from Eastern Anatolia to Thrace to strengthen the Bulgarian frontier, beginning the presence of the sect in Europe. Despite deportations and continued persecution the sect continued to grow, receiving additions from some of the iconoclasts.


title: Paulicianism

text: In the late eighth century, the Paulicians suffered a schism and split into two groupings; the Baanites (the old party) and the Sergites (the reformed sect). Sergius, the reformed leader, was a zealous and effective converter for his sect; he boasted that he had spread his Gospel "from East to West; from North to South". Sergius succeeded in supplanting Baanes, the leader of the old party, by 801 and was active for the next thirty-four years. His activity was the occasion of renewed persecutions on the part of Leo the Armenian. Upon the death of Sergius, the control of the sect was divided between several leaders.


title: Paulicianism

text: In 843, the Empress Theodora, as regent to her son Michael III, instituted a major persecution against the Paulicians throughout Asia Minor in which 100,000 adherents in Byzantine Armenia alone were said to have lost their lives or property.


title: Paulicianism

text: In response to the renewed persecution many Paulicians, under their new leader Karbeas, fled across the border to the areas of Armenia under Arab control. Under the protection of Umar al-Aqta, the Emir of Melitene, the sect was permitted by the Arabs to build to two fortress cities, Amara and Tephrike, and establish an independent state. Karbeas died in 863 during Michael III's campaign against the Arabs and possibly was with Umar at Malakopea before the Battle of Lalakaon.


title: Paulicianism

text: Karbeas's successor, Chrysocheres ('the goldenhand'), devastated many cities in the continued wars with the Byzantines; in 867, he advanced as far as Ephesus, where he took many priests as prisoners. In 868, Emperor Basil I dispatched Petrus Siculus to arrange for their exchange. His sojourn of nine months among the Paulicians gave him an opportunity to collect many facts, which he preserved in his "History of the empty and vain heresy of the Manichæans, otherwise called Paulicians". The propositions of peace were not accepted, the war was renewed, and Chrysocheres was killed at Battle of Bathys Ryax in 872 or 878.


title: Paulicianism

text: By 878, the emperor Basil I had conquered the Paulician strongholds in Asia Minor (including Tephrike) and the survivors from the destruction of the Paulician state were largely displaced. One group migrated east further into Armenia, where they were assimilated into the emerging Tondrakian sect throughout the 10th century. Others were transferred to the Western frontier of the empire, including a military detachment of some 20,000 Paulicians serving in Byzantine Italy under the general Nikephoros Phokas the Elder.


title: Paulicianism

text: In 970, 200,000 Paulicians on Byzantine territory were reportedly transferred by the emperor John Tzimisces to Philippopolis in Thrace. As a reward for their promise to keep back "the Scythians" (in fact Bulgarians), the emperor granted the group toleration to practice their faith unmolested. This was the beginning of a revival for the sect in the West.


title: Paulicianism

text: The policy of transferring Paulicians to the West proved to be harmful for the Byzantines, with the group bringing limited economic and military benefits for the empire's Balkan frontier. The sect also failed to assimilate with the orthodox Roman and Bulgarian inhabitants and are reported to have successfully the converted many existing inhabitants of Thrace to their heresy. According to Anna Komnene, by the end of 11th century Philippopolis and its surroundings were entirely inhabited by Paulicians and were being joined by new groups of Armenian migrants.


title: Paulicianism

text: According to "Annales Barenses", several thousand Paulicians served in the army of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos against the Norman Robert Guiscard in 1081 but subsequently deserted the emperor and were imprisoned. The Alexiad, written by the emperor's daughter Anna, reports that Alexios I succeeded in converting many of the sect around Philippopolis to Christian orthodoxy, building a new city of Alexiopolis for the converts.


title: Paulicianism

text: During the First Crusade some Paulicians, called "Publicani", were present in the Muslim armies although others were reported as assisting the Crusaders. When Frederick Barbarossa passed near Philippopolis during the Third Crusade, on the contrary to the Greek inhabitants, they welcomed him as a liberator. In 1205, the Paulicians cooperated with Kaloyan to surrender Philippopolis to the Second Bulgarian Empire.


title: Paulicianism

text: According to the historian Yordan Ivanov, some of the remaining Thracian Paulicians converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity during the Second Bulgarian Empire. After the fall of the Bulgarian Empire and the conquest of Thrace by the Ottoman Empire, this group then converted with some Bulgarians to Islam and became the Pomak people.


title: Paulicianism

text: The remaining Thracian Paulicians who still practiced their original faith are said to have eventually converted to Roman Catholicism during the 16th or 17th century. At the end of the 17th century, these Roman Catholic descendants of Paulicians were living around Nikopol, Bulgaria and suffered religious persecution by the Ottomans. After the uprising of Chiprovtsi in 1688, a large number of this group fled across the Danube, settled in the Banat region and became known as Banat Bulgarians. After Bulgaria's liberation from Ottoman rule in 1878, a number of these Banat Bulgarians resettled in the northern part of Bulgaria.


title: Paulicianism

text: In Armenia, after the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, communities whose practices were believed to be influenced by the Paulicians or Tondrakians could still be found in the part of Armenia occupied by the Russians. Documents of their professions of faith and disputations with the Gregorian bishop about 1837 were later published by Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare.


title: Paulicianism

text: The Paulicians self-identified as Christians, but much about the nature of their beliefs is disputed. Their beliefs prompted Christian critics to brand them as Jews, Muslims, and Manichaeans but it is likely that their opponents employed these "pejorative" appellations merely as terms of abuse rather than as an accurate reflection of their beliefs. Controversies about the sect's faith include disputes about their beliefs regarding the nature of God, the nature of Christ and their devotional rituals and practices.


title: Paulicianism

text: There are few sources for the beliefs of the Paulicians except for the reports of opponents and some Paulician material preserved in the "History of the Paulician Heresy" by Petrus Siculus, comprising certain letters ascribed to Sergius-Tychicus and, seemingly, a reworking of an account of their history composed by the Paulicians themselves. For some scholars, another major source is "The Key of Truth", a text claimed to be a manual of the medieval Paulician or Tondrakian church in Armenia. This text was first identified by Armenian ecclesiastical authorities in 1837 while tracing a group of dissidents led by Hovhannes Vartabedian; British Orientalist Frederick Conybeare published a translation and edition of it in 1898. However, the manuscript transmission of the "Key" can only be traced to the late 18th century, and more recent historians such as Anna Ohanjanyan have raised doubts over its background, suggesting that its composition was influenced by Protestant missionary activity in Armenia at that time.


title: Paulicianism

text: Some scholars argue that the Paulician belief system was dualistic, a cosmological system of twin, opposing deities; an Evil demiurge who is author and lord of the present visible world; and a Good Spirit who is the God of the future world. Dualist cosmologies were professed by the Near Eastern Manichaean faith, as well as early Christian sects such as the Marcionists, and the sect's identification with dualism led the Paulicians to be traditionally labeled as Manichaeans and Marcionists by critics and scholars.


title: Paulicianism

text: Eighteenth century scholar Johann Lorenz von Mosheim criticised the identification of Paulicians as Manichaeans, although he agreed both sects were dualistic he argued that the Paulicians differed on several points and undoubtedly rejected the doctrine of the prophet Mani. Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler and August Neander saw the sect as deriving from Marcionism, considering them as descendants of a dualistic sect reformed to become closer to proto-orthodox Early Christianity yet unable to be freed from Gnosticism. By the mid-19th century the mainstream scholarly theory was that the sect was a non-Manichaean, dualistic Gnostic doctrine with substantial elements of Early Christianity closest to Marcionism, although others disputed this. Frederick Conybeare asserted that "The Paulicians are not dualists in any other sense than the New Testament is itself dualistic. Satan is simply the adversary of man and God".


title: Paulicianism

text: The reports of Catholic missionaries working among the remaining Paulicians in the Balkans during the 16th–18th centuries do not reference dualist beliefs.


title: Paulicianism

text: Paulicians may have held several unorthodox beliefs about Jesus, including nontrinitarianism (the belief that Jesus was not coeternal, coequal and indivisibly united in one being with God the Father and the Holy Spirit) and docetism (the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion). Nontrinitarian beliefs were held by Arian Christians and many early Christian sects such as the Adoptionists. The identification with nontrinitarianism sometimes led the Paulicians to be labeled as Arians by critics and Adoptionists by scholars.


title: Paulicianism

text: Frederick Conybeare, in his edition of "The Key of Truth", concluded that "The word Trinity is nowhere used, and was almost certainly rejected as being unscriptural" and that Paulicians believed that Christ came down from heaven to emancipate humans from the body and from the world. Conybeare also asserted that the movement were survivors of early Adoptionist Christianity in Armenia rather than dualist or Gnostic sects. Coynbeare's theory, part of a broader argument that Adoptionism represented the original form of Christianity that had subsequently been suppressed by the Catholic Church, met a skeptical reception at the time. In the 1960s, however, Nina Garsoïan, in a comprehensive study of both Greek and Armenian sources, argued in support of a link to Adoptionism, and asserted that Paulicianism independently developed features of docetism and dualism.


title: Paulicianism

text: The Paulicians were said to have used a different canon of sacred texts from the orthodox Christian bible. Byzantine scholars claimed that the sect accepted the four Gospels (especially of Luke); fourteen Epistles of Paul; the three Epistles of John; the epistles of James and Jude; and an Epistle to the Laodiceans, which they professed to have. On the Byzantine account, the Paulicians rejected the First Epistle of Peter and the whole Tanakh, also known as the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.


title: Paulicianism

text: In common with the Nestorians, the Paulicians were said to have rejected the title "Theotokos" ("Mother of God") for Mary and refused all veneration of her. The sect's places of worship were apparently called "places of prayer" and were small rooms in modest houses and, despite their potential ascetic tendencies, made no distinction in foods and practiced marriage. Due to supposed iconoclasm it was asserted that the sect rejected the Christian cross, rites, sacraments, the worship, and the hierarchy of the established Church, because of which Edward Gibbon considered them as "worthy precursors of Reformation".


title: Paulicianism

text: In the putatively Paulician or Tondrakian work "The Key of Truth", copied in the 18th century, the Old Testament, Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist are all accepted. Early modern Catholic reports of the Paulicians remaining in the Balkans claimed that they were iconoclasts, rejecting the veneration of images and the Cross, that they used fire rather than water in baptism, and that they had a relatively simple conception of priesthood. The practice of baptism by fire by Paulicians in the region before their conversion to Catholicism is corroborated by the English diplomat Paul Rycaut.


title: Paulicianism

text: In the 1940s, Soviet scholars saw the sect primarily as a product of proletarian revolt which found expression through a theological movement. Garsoïan agreed that this assertion is supported by both Greek and Armenian sources, but held it only a limited description of the sect.


title: Aether theories

text: In physics, aether theories (also known as ether theories) propose the existence of a medium, a space-filling substance or field as a transmission medium for the propagation of electromagnetic or gravitational forces. Since the development of special relativity, theories using a substantial aether fell out of use in modern physics, and are now replaced by more abstract models.


title: Aether theories

text: This early modern aether has little in common with the aether of classical elements from which the name was borrowed. The assorted theories embody the various conceptions of this medium and substance.


title: Aether theories

text: Isaac Newton suggests the existence of an aether in the Third Book of "Opticks" (1st ed. 1704; 2nd ed. 1718): "Doth not this aethereal medium in passing out of water, glass, crystal, and other compact and dense bodies in empty spaces, grow denser and denser by degrees, and by that means refract the rays of light not in a point, but by bending them gradually in curve lines? ...Is not this medium much rarer within the dense bodies of the Sun, stars, planets and comets, than in the empty celestial space between them? And in passing from them to great distances, doth it not grow denser and denser perpetually, and thereby cause the gravity of those great bodies towards one another, and of their parts towards the bodies; every body endeavouring to go from the denser parts of the medium towards the rarer?"


title: Aether theories

text: In the 19th century, luminiferous aether (or ether), meaning light-bearing aether, was a theorized medium for the propagation of light. James Clerk Maxwell developed a model to explain electric and magnetic phenomena using the aether, a model that led to what are now called Maxwell's equations and the understanding that light is an electromagnetic wave. However, a series of increasingly complex experiments had been carried out in the late 1800s like the Michelson–Morley experiment in an attempt to detect the motion of Earth through the aether, and had failed to do so. A range of proposed aether-dragging theories could explain the null result but these were more complex, and tended to use arbitrary-looking coefficients and physical assumptions. Joseph Larmor discussed the aether in terms of a moving magnetic field caused by the acceleration of electrons.


title: Aether theories

text: Hendrik Lorentz and George Francis FitzGerald offered within the framework of Lorentz ether theory an explanation of how the Michelson–Morley experiment could have failed to detect motion through the aether. However, the initial Lorentz theory predicted that motion through the aether would create a birefringence effect, which Rayleigh and Brace tested and failed to find (Experiments of Rayleigh and Brace). All of those results required the full application of the Lorentz transformation by Lorentz and Joseph Larmor in 1904. Summarizing the results of Michelson, Rayleigh and others, Hermann Weyl would later write that the aether had "betaken itself to the land of the shades in a final effort to elude the inquisitive search of the physicist". In addition to possessing more conceptual clarity, Albert Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity could explain all of the experimental results without referring to an aether at all. This eventually led most physicists to conclude that the earlier notion of a luminiferous aether was not a useful concept.


title: Aether theories

text: From the 16th until the late 19th century, gravitational phenomena had also been modelled utilizing an aether. The most well-known formulation is Le Sage's theory of gravitation, although variations on the idea were entertained by Isaac Newton, Bernhard Riemann, and Lord Kelvin. For example, Kelvin published a note on Le Sage's model in 1873, in which he found Le Sage's proposal thermodynamically flawed and suggested a possible way to salvage it using the then-popular vortex theory of the atom. Kelvin later concluded,


title: Aether theories

text: Albert Einstein sometimes used the word "aether" for the gravitational field within general relativity, but the only similarity of this relativistic aether concept with the classical aether models lies in the presence of physical properties in space, which can be identified through geodesics. As historians such as John Stachel argue, Einstein's views on the "new aether" are not in conflict with his abandonment of the aether in 1905. As Einstein himself pointed out, no "substance" and no state of motion can be attributed to that new aether. Einstein's use of the word "aether" found little support in the scientific community, and played no role in the continuing development of modern physics.


title: Aether theories

text: Quantum mechanics can be used to describe spacetime as being non-empty at extremely small scales, fluctuating and generating particle pairs that appear and disappear incredibly quickly. It has been suggested by some such as Paul Dirac that this quantum vacuum may be the equivalent in modern physics of a particulate aether. However, Dirac's aether hypothesis was motivated by his dissatisfaction with quantum electrodynamics, and it never gained support from the mainstream scientific community.


title: Aether theories

text: Louis de Broglie stated, "Any particle, ever isolated, has to be imagined as in continuous "energetic contact" with a hidden medium." However, as de Broglie pointed out, this medium "could not serve as a universal reference medium, as this would be contrary to relativity theory."


title: Internet area network

text: An Internet area network (IAN) is a concept for a communications network that connects voice and data endpoints within a cloud environment over IP, replacing an existing local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) or the public switched telephone network (PSTN).


title: Internet area network

text: Seen by proponents as the networking model of the future, an IAN securely connects endpoints through the public Internet, so that they can communicate and exchange information and data without being tied to a physical location.


title: Internet area network

text: The IAN eliminates a geographic profile for the network entirely because the applications and communications services have become virtualized. Endpoints need to be connected only over a broadband connection across the Internet. Opposed to IAN, LAN interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, a school, a computer laboratory or an office building. The WAN also differs from the IAN, because it is a network that covers a broad area, such as any telecommunications network that links across metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries, using private or public network transports.


title: Internet area network

text: Hosted in the cloud by a managed services provider, an IAN platform offers users secure access to information from anywhere, at any time, via an Internet connection. Users also have access to telephony, voicemail, e-mail, and fax services from any connected endpoint. For businesses, the hosted model reduces IT and communications expenses, protects against loss of data and disaster downtime, while realizing a greater return on their invested resources through increased employee productivity and reduction in telecom costs.


title: Internet area network

text: The IAN is rooted in the rise of cloud computing, the underlying concept of which dates back to the 1950s; when large-scale mainframes became available in academia and corporations, accessible via thin clients and terminal computers. Because it was costly to buy a mainframe, it became important to find ways to get the greatest return on the investment in them, allowing multiple users to share both the physical access to the computer from multiple terminals as well as to share the CPU time, eliminating periods of inactivity, which became known in the industry as time-sharing.


title: Internet area network

text: The increasing demand and use of computers in universities and research labs in the late 1960s generated the need to provide high-speed interconnections between computer systems. A 1970 report from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory detailing the growth of their "Octopus" network gave a good indication of the situation.


title: Internet area network

text: As computers became more prevalent, scientists and technologists explored ways to make large-scale computing power available to more users through time sharing, experimenting with algorithms to provide the optimal use of the infrastructure, platform and applications with prioritized access to the CPU and efficiency for the end users.


title: Internet area network

text: John McCarthy opined in the 1960s that "computation may someday be organized as a public utility.". Almost all the modern-day characteristics of cloud computing (elastic provision, provided as a utility, online, illusion of infinite supply), the comparison to the electricity industry and the use of public, private, government, and community forms, were thoroughly explored in Douglas Parkhill's 1966 book, The Challenge of the Computer Utility. Other scholars have shown that cloud computing's roots go all the way back to the 1950s when scientist Herb Grosch (the author of Grosch's law) postulated that the entire world would operate on dumb terminals powered by about 15 large data centers. Due to the expense of these powerful computers, many corporations and other entities could avail themselves of computing capability through time sharing and several organizations, such as GE's GEISCO, IBM subsidiary The Service Bureau Corporation (SBC, founded in 1957), Tymshare (founded in 1966), National CSS (founded in 1967 and bought by Dun & Bradstreet in 1979), Dial Data (bought by Tymshare in 1968), and Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) marketed time sharing as a commercial venture.


title: Internet area network

text: The development of the Internet from being document centric via semantic data towards more and more services was described as "Dynamic Web". This contribution focused in particular in the need for better meta-data able to describe not only implementation details but also conceptual details of model-based applications.


title: Internet area network

text: In the 1990s, telecommunications companies who previously offered primarily dedicated point-to-point data circuits, began offering virtual private network (VPN) services with comparable quality of service but at a much lower cost. By switching traffic to balance utilization as they saw fit, they were able to optimize their overall network usage. The cloud symbol was used to denote the demarcation point between that which was the responsibility of the provider and that which was the responsibility of the users. Cloud computing extends this boundary to cover servers as well as the network infrastructure.


title: Internet area network

text: After the dot-com bubble, Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers, which, like most computer networks, were using as little as 10% of their capacity at any one time, just to leave room for occasional spikes. Having found that the new cloud architecture resulted in significant internal efficiency improvements whereby small, fast-moving "two-pizza teams" (teams small enough to be fed with two pizzas) could add new features faster and more easily, Amazon initiated a new product development effort to provide cloud computing to external customers, and launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) on a utility computing basis in 2006.