title: State

paragraphs: In modern politics, a state is an association which has control over a geographic area or territory. States are seen as having three main pieces:

paragraphs: There are different forms of government a state can have, for example a republic or a monarchy. Sometimes states form their own countries. At other times many states work together to form a country (like the United States). Most states also have armed forces, civil service, law and police.

paragraphs: The earliest states were just human settlements. A group of farmers and merchants working together could be 'states' since people can control them and protect them.

paragraphs: More organized states could be monarchies such as early Egypt under the Pharaoh. Following this were larger more military-based states such as the Babylonian Empire or Roman Empire. The most famous early states, however, were the Ancient Greek states which had freedom, writing and a democracy.

paragraphs: When the military-based state, the Roman Empire,and fell, lots of little states were made and each was also military-based and controlled by a king. These states did not often work together and war raged. However, once people within the state itself started fighting (what's called a Civil war), the kings had to make peace and start parliaments.

paragraphs: Modern states soon started in the late 15th century. The main states in Europe were:

paragraphs: These states all tried to improve their politics and economy and became more and more like the states today. They formed proper boundaries for their lands and worked with power within the state itself more, such as the Church or the nobility. They made armies, tax systems and embassies all to help make them more powerful and stable.

paragraphs: Types of state can be separated into two categories: democracy and dictatorship. However, just because a group of states are all democratic does not mean that they follow the same rules. Iran, Pakistan, France, Germany and the United States of America are all states. Each of them sees itself as a democracy. Each of them however has a different idea of what "democracy" really means.

paragraphs: Different states of the same 'category' can also function differently. For example, two democratic states may be quite different if one has a well-trained police or army while the other does not. Therefore, the word 'state' only tells us what type of government that state follows (democratic or dictatorship) and does not tell us about the country itself.

paragraphs: There are lots of sub-types of state branching off from democracy and dictatorship. The main ones are Pluralism, Marxism and Institutionalism.

paragraphs: Pluralism has been very popular in the United States. It shows the state as a neutral place for settling arguments between other states. Pluralism tells us that all people are not equal, but still allows each group of people to tell the state what to do. This type of state is called a polyarchy.

paragraphs: Also in a pluralist state, politics, the military and the economy are all united and work together. This means that all power in the state is 'diffused' across the people who live there.

paragraphs: Marxism was popular in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. It was started by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism rejects the idea that a state is there for all the people living in it, and is definitely not a neutral place for settling arguments.

paragraphs: The main job of a Marxist state is to protect capitalist-made profits and to help people make contracts to keep economy in the state fair. This is a good idea, however, the person who makes the money by using production or contracts has power over the people who do not make as much money as him. This means that the working class (the people who work in factories etc.) have hardly any power but the people who own the factories have a lot of power. Basically, instead of giving power to everyone such as a polyarchy would do, only a small part of the people have power.

paragraphs: Both Marxism and Pluralism states have to react to the activities of groups of people in the state itself. Institutionalist states do not see themselves as 'instruments' to be controlled, they are more just geographical areas. In this area, the people just form groups themselves. An Institutionalist state can be made up of both Marxist and Pluralist people, both which have the power to control themselves and not influence the other parties of the state.

paragraphs: Anarchism is when a group of people have complete freedom and do not believe in having a state at all. Anarchists are a lot like Marxists, since they do not believe that all people are equal, but they believe (opposite to Marxists) that a country can work without any organizations in it. Law and order are not necessary.

paragraphs: Anarchists (such as Bakunin and Kropotkin in the 19th century), often want a form of Marxism but ignoring some of their rules. They want workers to manage themselves and simply get paid for what they do, rather than getting paid in wages.


title: Stream

paragraphs: A stream is a natural flow of water moving across country between banks. It is smaller than a river.

paragraphs: The primary meaning of stream is a body of water, confined within a bed and banks, and detectably flowing. Synonyms or related words include river, creek, tributary, run, branch, brook, bourne, wash, and fork. Navigable streams are sometimes called waterways, though the term may apply to any size of permanent and natural water feature except oceans.

paragraphs: In the United States, an intermittent stream is one that only flows for part of the year and is marked on topographic maps with a line of blue dashes and dots. In desert areas of the American Southwest, this also includes washes, which only flow after thunderstorms or other significant rains. A blue-line stream is one which flows for most or all of the year and is marked on topographic maps with a solid blue line. In Australia, an intermittent stream is usually called a creek, and marked on topographic maps with a solid blue line.

paragraphs: Generally, streams that form only during and immediately after precipitation are termed ephemeral streams.

paragraphs: Streams in geographic terms are awarded order designations. A stream of the first order is a blue-line stream which does not have any other blue-line stream feeding into it. A stream of the second order is one which is formed by the joining of two or more blue-line streams. A third-order stream is one below the confluence of two or more second-order streams; a fourth-order stream is formed by the confluence of at least two third-order streams, and so forth.

paragraphs: Typically, streams are said to have a particular profile, beginning with steep gradients, no flood plain, and little shifting of channels, eventually evolving into streams with low gradients, wide flood plains, and extensive meanders. The initial stage is sometimes termed a "young" stream, and the later state a "mature" or "old" stream. However, a stream may meander for some distance before falling into a "young" stream condition.

paragraphs: The gradient of a stream is a critical factor in determining its character, and is entirely determined by its base level of erosion. The base level of erosion is the point at which the stream either enters the ocean, a lake or pond, or enters a stretch in which it has a much lower gradient, and may be specifically applied to any particular stretch of a stream. In geologic terms, the stream will erode down through its bed to achieve the base level of erosion throughout its course. If this base level is low, then the stream will rapidly cut through underlying strata and have a steep gradient, and if the base level is relatively high, then the stream will form a flood plain and meanders.

paragraphs: When a stream flows over an especially resistant stratum and forms a waterfall or cascade, or the same results because for some reason the base level of erosion suddenly drops, perhaps as a result of a fault, the resulting sudden change in stream elevation is called a nickpoint. The stream, of course, expends kinetic energy in "trying" to eliminate the nickpoint.

paragraphs: Meanders are looping changes of direction of a stream. These may be somewhat sine-wave in form. Typically, over time, the meanders don't disappear but gradually migrate downstream. However, if some resistant material slows or stops the downstream movement of a meander, a stream may erode through the neck between two legs of a meander to become temporarily straighter, leaving behind an arc-shaped body of water termed an oxbow lake or bayou. A flood may also result in a meander being cut through in this way.

paragraphs: The point of origin of a stream is often called the headwaters or source. The entire basin drained by the stream is termed the watershed. Every watershed is made up of smaller watersheds, while most watersheds are parts of larger watersheds. For instance, the Continental Divide in North America divides the Atlantic Ocean watershed from the Pacific Ocean watershed, but the Atlantic Ocean watershed may be first divided into the Atlantic Ocean drainage and the Gulf of Mexico drainage. This delineation within the United States is termed the Eastern Divide. The Gulf of Mexico watershed may be divided into Mississippi River basin and a number of smaller watersheds, such as the Tombigbee River watershed.

paragraphs: The Mississippi River watershed includes the Ohio River watershed, which in turn includes the Kentucky River watershed, and so forth.

paragraphs: The point at which a stream empties into an ocean or other large body of relatively level water is termed the mouth. There may often be an estuary or delta at the mouth.

paragraphs: Some streams flow underground through unconsolidated sediments or through caves. Especially with caves, a stream may flow aboveground for part of its course, and underground for part of its course. When a stream emerges from an underground course, it is termed a spring.

paragraphs: The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology and is important in environmental geography or environmental geology.


title: Solar System

paragraphs: The Solar System is the Sun and all the objects that orbit around it. The Sun is orbited by planets, asteroids, comets and other things.

paragraphs: The Solar System is about 4.6 billion years old. It formed by gravity in a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, and the rest flattened into an orbiting disk that became the Solar System. It is thought that almost all stars form by this process.

paragraphs: The Sun is a star. It contains 99.9% of the Solar System's mass. This means that it has strong gravity. The other objects are pulled into orbit around the Sun. The Sun is mostly made out of hydrogen, and some helium.

paragraphs: There are eight planets in the Solar System. From closest to farthest from the Sun, they are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The first four planets are called terrestrial planets. They are mostly made of rock and metal, and they are mostly solid. The last four planets are called gas giants. This is because they are much larger than other planets and are mostly made of gas.

paragraphs: The Solar System also contains other things. There are asteroid belts, mostly between Mars and Jupiter. Further out than Neptune, there is the Kuiper belt and the scattered disc. These areas have dwarf planets, including Pluto, MakeMake,Haumea,Ceres and Eris. There are thousands of very small objects in these areas. There are also comets, centaurs, and there is interplanetary dust.

paragraphs: Six of the planets and three of the dwarf planets are orbited by moons. Furthermore, planetary dust orbits the gas giants. Many other systems like the Solar System have been found. Each of the billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy might have a planetary system.

paragraphs: The formation and evolution of the Solar System began 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud.

paragraphs: Most of the collapsing mass collected in the centre, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a protoplanetary disk of loose dust, out of which the planets, moons, asteroids, and other Solar System bodies formed.

paragraphs: This model, known as the nebular hypothesis, was developed in the 18th (1700s) century by Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, and Pierre-Simon Laplace. It has been adjusted by scientific disciplines such as astronomy, physics, geology, and planetary science. As our knowledge of space has grown, the models have been changed to account for the new observations.

paragraphs: The Solar System has evolved considerably since its initial formation. Many moons have formed from circling discs of gas and dust around their parent planets, while other moons are believed to have formed and were later captured by their planets. Still others, as the Earth's Moon, may be the result of giant collisions.

paragraphs: Many collisions between bodies have occurred, and have been important to the evolution of the Solar System. In the early stages, the positions of the planets sometimes shifted, and planets have switched places. This planetary migration is thought to have been responsible for much of the Solar System's early evolution.

paragraphs: The Earth's orbit around the Sun is nearly a perfect circle, but when mapped it is found that the Earth moves around the Sun in a very slightly oval shaped orbit, called an elliptical orbit. The other planets in the Solar System also orbits the Sun in slightly elliptical orbits. Mercury has a more elliptical orbit than the others, and some of the smaller objects orbit the Sun in very eccentric orbits.

paragraphs: For thousands of years, people had no need for a name for the "Solar System". They thought the Earth stayed still at the center of everything (geocentrism). Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos suggested that there was a special order in the sky, Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematical system that described what we now call the "solar system". This was called a new "system of the world". In the 17th century, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton began helping people understand physics more clearly. People began to accept the idea that the Earth is a planet and moves around the Sun, and that the planets are worlds with the same physical laws that control Earth. More recently, telescopes and space probes have led to discoveries of mountains and craters, and seasonal meteorological phenomena such as clouds, dust storms and ice caps on the other planets.

paragraphs: The planets are the biggest objects that go around the Sun. It took people many years of using telescopes to find the objects that were farthest away. New planets might still be found, and more small objects are found every year. Most of the planets have moons that orbit around them just as the planets orbit the Sun. There are at least 173 of these moons in the solar system.

paragraphs: Pluto had been called a planet since it was discovered in 1930, but in 2006 astronomers meeting at the International Astronomical Union decided on the definition of a planet, and Pluto did not fit. Instead they defined a new category of dwarf planet, into which Pluto did fit, along with some others. These small planets are sometimes called plutinos.

paragraphs: There are a few main parts of the Solar System. Here they are in order from the Sun, with the planets numbered, and the dwarf planets marked with the letters a - e.

paragraphs: The first four planets closest to the Sun are called the inner planets. They are small and dense terrestrial planets, with solid surfaces. They are made up of mostly rock and metal with a distinct internal structure and a similar size. Three also have an atmosphere. The study of the four planets gives information about geology outside the Earth. Most asteroids are also often counted with the inner planets

paragraphs: The Oort cloud is separate from the trans-Neptune region, and much farther out. It contains the long-period comets.

paragraphs: The "plane of the ecliptic" is defined by the Earth's orbit around the Sun. All of the planets orbit the Sun roughly around this same orbital plane. The farther away from this plane a planet orbits, the more "inclined" is its orbit to the ecliptic. If you could look at the solar system "edge on" then all the planets would be orbiting more or less in the plane of the ecliptic.


title: Saturn

paragraphs: Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is one of the four gas giant planets, along with Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune.

paragraphs: Inside Saturn is probably a core of iron, nickel, silicon and oxygen compounds, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, then a layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium and finally, an outer gaseous layer.

paragraphs: Saturn has 67 known moons orbiting the planet. 38 are officially named and 29 are waiting to be named. The largest moon is Titan, which is larger in volume than the planet Mercury. Titan is the second-largest moon in the Solar System. The largest moon is Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. There is also a very large system of rings around Saturn. These rings are made of ice with smaller amounts of rocks and dust. Some people believe that the rings were caused from a moon impact or other event. Saturn is about 1,433,000,000 km (869,000,000 mi) on average from the Sun. Saturn takes 29.6 Earth years to revolve around the Sun.

paragraphs: Saturn was named after the Roman god Saturnus (called Kronos in Greek mythology). Saturn's symbol is ♄ which is the symbol of Saturnus' sickle.

paragraphs: Saturn is an oblate spheroid, meaning that it is flattened at the poles, and it swells out around its equator. The planet's equatorial diameter is , while its polar diameter (the distance from the north pole to the south pole) is ; a 9% difference. Saturn has a flattened shape due to its very fast rotation, once every 10.8 hours.

paragraphs: Saturn is the only planet in the Solar System that is less dense than water. Even though the planet's core is very dense, it has a gaseous atmosphere, so the average specific density of the planet is 0.69 g/cm. This means if Saturn could be placed in a large pool of water, it would float.

paragraphs: The outer part of Saturn's atmosphere is made up of about 96% hydrogen, 3% helium, 0.4% methane and 0.01% ammonia. There are also very small amounts of acetylene, ethane and phosphine.

paragraphs: Saturn's clouds show a banded pattern, like the cloud bands seen on Jupiter. Saturn's clouds are much fainter and the bands are wider at the equator. Saturn's lowest cloud layer is made up of water ice, and is about thick. The temperature here is quite low, at 250 K (-10°F, -23°C). However scientists do not agree about this. The layer above, about thick, is made up of ammonium hydrosulfide ice, and above that is a layer of ammonia ice clouds thick. The highest layer is made up of hydrogen and helium gases, which extends between and above the water cloud tops. Auroras are also known to form in Saturn in the mesosphere. The temperature at Saturn's cloud tops is extremely low, at 98 K (-283 °F, -175 °C). The temperatures in the inner layers are much higher than the outside layers because of the heat produced by Saturn's interior.

paragraphs: Saturn's winds are some of the fastest in the Solar System, reaching 1,800 km/h (1,118 mph), ten times faster than winds on Earth.

paragraphs: Saturn's atmosphere is also known to form oval shaped clouds, similar to the clearer spots seen in Jupiter. These oval spots are cyclonic storms, the same as cyclones seen on Earth. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope found a very large white cloud near Saturn's equator. Storms like the one in 1990 were known as "Great White Spots". These unique storms only exist for a short time and only happen about every 30 Earth years, at the time of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

paragraphs: Great White Spots were also found in 1876, 1903, 1933, and 1960. If this cycle continues, another storm will form in about 2020.

paragraphs: The Voyager 1 spacecraft found a hexagonal cloud pattern near Saturn's north pole at about 78°N. The Cassini−Huygens probe later confirmed it in 2006. Unlike the north pole, the south pole does not show any hexagonal cloud feature. The probe also discovered a hurricane-like storm locked to the south pole that clearly showed an eyewall. Until this discovery, eyewalls had only been seen on Earth.

paragraphs: Saturn's interior is similar to Jupiter's interior. It has a small rocky core about the size of the Earth at its center. It is very hot; its temperature reaches 15,000 K (). Saturn is so hot that it gives out more heat energy into space than it receives from the Sun. Above it is a thicker layer of metallic hydrogen, about deep. Above that layer is a region of liquid hydrogen and helium. The core is heavy, with about 9 to 22 times more mass than the Earth's core.

paragraphs: Saturn has a natural magnetic field that is weaker than Jupiter's. Like the Earth's, Saturn's field is a magnetic dipole. Saturn's field is unique in that it is perfectly symmetrical, unlike any other known planet. This means the field is exactly in line with the planet's axis. Saturn generates radio waves, but they are too weak to be detected from Earth. The moon Titan orbits in the outer part of Saturn's magnetic field and gives out plasma to the field from the ionised particles in Titan's atmosphere.

paragraphs: Saturn's average distance from the Sun is over 1,400,000,000 km (869,000,000 mi), about nine times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. It takes 10,759 days, or about 29.8 years, for Saturn to orbit around the Sun. This is known as Saturn's "orbital period".

paragraphs: Voyager 1 measured Saturn's rotation as being 10 hours 14 minutes at the equator, 10 hours 40 minutes closer to the poles, and 10 hours 39 minutes 24 seconds for the planet's interior. This is known as its "rotational period".

paragraphs: Cassini measured the rotation of Saturn as being 10 hours 45 minutes 45 seconds ± 36 seconds. That is about six minutes, or one percent, longer than the radio rotational period measured by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, which flew by Saturn in 1980 and 1981.

paragraphs: Saturn's rotational period is calculated by the rotation speed of radio waves released by the planet. The Cassini−Huygens spacecraft discovered that the radio waves slowed down, suggesting that the rotational period increased. Since the scientists do not think Saturn's rotation is actually slowing down, the explanation may lie in the magnetic field that causes the radio waves.

paragraphs: Saturn is best known for its planetary rings which are easy to see with a telescope. There are seven named rings; A, B, C, D, E, F, and G rings. They were named in the order they were discovered, which is different to their order from the planet. From the planet the rings are: D, C, B, A, F, G and E.

paragraphs: Scientists believe that the rings are material left after a moon broke apart. A new idea says that it was a very large moon, most of which crashed into the planet. This left a large amount of ice to form the rings, and also some of the moons, like Enceladus, which are thought to be made of ice.

paragraphs: The rings were first discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, using his telescope. They did not look like rings to Galileo, so he called them "handles". He thought that Saturn was three separate planets that almost touched one another. In 1612, when the rings were facing edge on with the Earth, the rings disappeared, then reappeared again in 1613, further confusing Galileo. In 1655, Christiaan Huygens was the first person to recognise Saturn was surrounded by rings. Using a much more powerful telescope than Galilei's, he noted Saturn "is surrounded by a thin, flat, ring, nowhere touching...". In 1675, Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered that the planet's rings were in fact made of smaller ringlets with gaps. The largest ring gap was later named the Cassini Division. In 1859, James Clerk Maxwell showed that the rings cannot be solid, but are made of small particles, each orbiting Saturn on their own, otherwise, it would become unstable or break apart. James Keeler studied the rings using a spectroscope in 1895 which proved Maxwell's theory.

paragraphs: The rings range from to above the planet's equator. As proved by Maxwell, even though the rings appear to be solid and unbroken when viewed from above, the rings are made of small particles of rock and ice. They are only about thick; made of silica rock, iron oxide and ice particles. The smallest particles are only specks of dust while the largest are the size of a house. The C and D rings also seem to have a "wave" in them, like waves in water. These large waves are high, but only moving slowly at about each day. Some scientists believe that the wave is caused by Saturn's moons. Another idea is the waves were made by a comet hitting Saturn in 1983 or 1984.

paragraphs: The largest gaps in the rings are the Cassini Division and the Encke Division, both visible from the Earth. The Cassini Division is the largest, measuring wide. However, when the Voyager spacecrafts visited Saturn in 1980, they discovered that the rings are a complex structure, made out of thousands of thin gaps and ringlets. Scientists believe this is caused by the gravitational force of some of Saturn's moons. The tiny moon Pan orbits inside Saturn's rings, creating a gap within the rings. Other ringlets keep their structure due to the gravitational force of shepherd satellites, such as Prometheus and Pandora. Other gaps form due to the gravitational force of a large moon farther away. The moon Mimas is responsible for clearing away the Cassini gap.

paragraphs: Recent data from the Cassini spacecraft has shown that the rings have their own atmosphere, free from the planet's atmosphere. The rings' atmosphere is made of oxygen gas, and it is produced when the Sun's ultraviolet light breaks up the water ice in the rings. Chemical reaction also occurs between the ultraviolet light and the water molecules, creating hydrogen gas. The oxygen and hydrogen atmospheres around the rings are very widely spaced. As well as oxygen and hydrogen gas, the rings have a thin atmosphere made of hydroxide. This anion was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope.

paragraphs: The Voyager space probe discovered features shaped like rays, called "spokes". These were also seen later by the Hubble telescope. The Cassini probe photographed the spokes in 2005. They are seen as dark when under sunlight, and appear light when against the unlit side. At first it was thought the spokes were made of microscopic dust particles but new evidence shows that they are made of ice.

paragraphs: They rotate at the same time with the planet's magnetosphere, therefore, it is believed that they have a connection with electromagnetism. However, what causes the spokes to form is still unknown. They appear to be seasonal, disappearing during solstice and appearing again during equinox.

paragraphs: Saturn has 53 named moons, and another nine which are still being studied. Many of the moons are very small: 33 are less than in diameter and 13 moons are less than . Seven moons are large enough to be a near perfect sphere caused by their own gravitation. These moons are Titan, Rhea, Iapetus, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas. Titan is the largest moon, larger than the planet Mercury, and it is the only moon in the Solar System to have a thick, dense atmosphere. Hyperion and Phoebe are the next largest moons, larger than in diameter.

paragraphs: In December 2004 and January 2005 a man-made satellite called the Cassini−Huygens probe took lots of close photos of Titan. One part of this satellite, known as the Huygens probe, then landed on Titan. Named after the Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, it was the first spacecraft to land in the outer Solar System. The probe was designed to float in case it landed in liquid.

paragraphs: Enceladus, the sixth largest moon, is about in diameter. It is one of the few outer solar system objects that shows volcanic activity. In 2011, scientists discovered an electric link between Saturn and Enceladus. This is caused by ionised particles from volcanos on the small moon interacting with Saturn's magnetic fields. Similar interactions cause the northern lights on Earth.

paragraphs: Saturn was first explored by the Pioneer 11 spacecraft in September 1979. It flew as close as above the planet's cloud tops. It took photographs of the planet and a few of its moons, but were low in resolution. It discovered a new, thin ring called the F ring. It also discovered that the dark ring gaps appear bright when viewed towards the Sun, which shows the gaps are not empty of material. The spacecraft measured the temperature of the moon Titan.

paragraphs: In November 1980, Voyager 1 visited Saturn, and took higher resolution photographs of the planet, rings and moons. These photos were able to show the surface features of the moons. Voyager 1 went close to Titan, and gained much information about its atmosphere. In August, 1981, Voyager 2 continued to study the planet. Photos taken by the space probe showed that changes were happening to the rings and atmosphere. The Voyager spacecrafts discovered a number of moons orbiting close to Saturn's rings, as well as discovering new ring gaps.

paragraphs: On July 1, 2004, the Cassini−Huygens probe entered into orbit around Saturn. Before then, it flew close to Phoebe, taking very high resolution photos of its surface and collecting data. On December 25, 2004, the Huygens probe separated from the Cassini probe before moving down towards Titan's surface and landed there on January 14, 2005. It landed on a dry surface, but it found that large bodies of liquid exist on the moon. The Cassini probe continued to collect data from Titan and a number of the icy moons. It found evidence that the moon Enceladus had water erupting from its geysers. Cassini also proved, in July 2006, that Titan had hydrocarbon lakes, located near its north pole. In March 2007, it discovered a large hydrocarbon lake the size of the Caspian Sea near its north pole.

paragraphs: Cassini observed lightning occurring in Saturn since early 2005. The power of the lightning was measured to be 1,000 times more powerful than lightning on Earth. Astronomers believe that the lightning observed in Saturn is the strongest ever seen.


title: Slavery

paragraphs: Slavery is when a person is treated as the property of another person. This person is usually called a slave, with the owner being called a slavemaster. It often means that slaves are forced to work, or else they will be punished by the law (if slavery is legal in that place) or by their master.

paragraphs: There is evidence that even before there was writing, there was slavery. There have been different types of slavery, and they have been in almost all cultures and continents. Some societies had laws about slavery, or they had an economy that was built on it. Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome had many slaves.

paragraphs: During the 20th century almost all countries made laws forbidding slavery. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that slavery is wrong. Slavery is now banned by international law. Nevertheless, there are still different forms of slavery in some countries.

paragraphs: The English word "slave" comes from the medieval word for the Slavic peoples of Central Europe and Eastern Europe, because these were the last ethnic group to be captured and enslaved in Central Europe. According to Adam Smith and Auguste Comte, a slave was mainly defined as a captive or prisoner of war. Slave-holders used to buy slaves at slave auctions. In many cases slaves are not allowed rights.

paragraphs: Slavery has existed for a long time. Early hunter-gatherers had no use for slaves. They did everything for themselves. Having another pair of hands to help them meant another mouth to feed. Slavery or owning another person made no sense to these people. Once men gathered in cities and towns and there was more than enough food, having a cheap supply of labor made sense. This is when the earliest forms of slavery appeared. Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the "Code of Hammurabi" (c. 1760 BC). This refers to it as an established institution.

paragraphs: In the Ancient Near East, captives obtained through warfare often became slaves. This was seen by the laws in the Bible book of Deuteronomy as a legal form of slavery. But the Israelites were not allowed to enslave other Israelites. The Deuteronomic Code calls for the death penalty for the crime of kidnapping Israelites to enslave them.

paragraphs: In Ancient Egypt, slaves were mainly prisoners of war. Other ways people could become slaves was by inheriting the status from their parents who were slaves. Someone could become a slave if he could not pay his debts. People also sold themselves into slavery because they were poor peasants and needed food and shelter. The lives of slaves were normally better than that of peasants. Young slaves could not be put to hard work, and had to be brought up by the mistress of the household. Not all slaves went to houses. Some also sold themselves to temples, or were assigned to temples by the king. Slave trading was not very popular until later in Ancient Egypt. Afterwards, slave trades sprang up all over Egypt.

paragraphs: In many places, citizens were partly or fully protected from being enslaved, so most slaves were foreigners.

paragraphs: Roman slaves played an important role in society and the economy. Besides manual labor, slaves performed many domestic services. They could work at highly skilled jobs and professions. Teachers, accountants, and physicians were often slaves. Greek slaves were often highly educated. Unskilled slaves, or those sentenced to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines, and at mills. Their living conditions were brutal, and their lives short.

paragraphs: Slaves were considered property under Roman law and had no legal personhood. Unlike Roman citizens, they could be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation (prostitutes were often slaves), torture, and summary execution. The testimony of a slave could not be accepted in a court of law unless the slave was tortured—a practice based on the belief that slaves in a position to be privy to their masters' affairs would be too virtuously loyal to reveal damaging evidence unless coerced. Over time, however, slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters. Attitudes changed in part because of the influence among the educated elite of the Stoics, whose egalitarian views of humanity extended to slaves.

paragraphs: Roman slaves could hold property which, even though it belonged to their masters, they were allowed to use as if it were their own. Skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money. With enough money they could buy their freedom.

paragraphs: After the Roman Empire broke up, slavery gradually changed into serfdom.

paragraphs: Historians estimate that between 650 AD and the 1960s, 10 to 18 million people were enslaved by Arab slave traders. They were taken from Europe, Asia and Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara desert. Male slaves were often employed as servants, soldiers, or workers by their owners. Many male slaves were castrated. It is estimated that as many as 6 out of every 10 boys bled to death during the process. But the high price of Eunuchs made it worthwhile. According to Ronald Segal, author of "Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora" (2002), "The calipha in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th Century had 7,000 black eunuchs and 4,000 white eunuchs in his palace”. Women and children taken as slaves were mainly used as servants and concubines. While the later Atlantic slave trade concentrated on men for labor, the Arab slave trade started with men and boys, but shifted over time to concentrate more on woman and young girls for sexual purposes. By the 1900s, Arab slave traders had taken between 10 and 20 million slaves out of Africa.

paragraphs: For four centuries, beginning in the late 15th century, millions of Africans were taken as slaves by Europeans. Europeans began exporting Africans to the New World as a source of cheap labor on colonial plantations.

paragraphs: Between 1452 and 1455, Pope Nicolas V issued a series of papal bulls authorizing the Portuguese to take African slaves. At first slave traders raided coastal areas and carried black people off. But the mines and fields of the colonies needed more and more slaves. In the early 16th century Spain began to issue licenses and contracts to supply slaves. By the 1750s large slaving companies were established. Most of Europe at the time was involved in the slave trade.

paragraphs: Many Europeans who arrived in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries came under contract as indentured servants. The change from indentured servitude to slavery was a gradual process in Virginia. The earliest legal documentation of such a shift was in 1640. This is where an African, John Punch, was sentenced to lifetime slavery for attempting to run away. This case also marked the disparate treatment of Africans as held by the Virginia County Court, where two white runaways received far lesser sentences. After 1640, planters started to ignore the expiration of indentured contracts. They kept their servants as slaves for life. This was demonstrated by the case Johnson v. Parker. The court ruled that John Casor, an indentured servant, be returned to Johnson who claimed that Casor belonged to him for his life. According to the 1860 U. S. census, 393,975 individuals, representing 8% of all US families, owned 3,950,528 slaves. One-third of Southern families owned slaves. Slavery in United States was legally abolished by Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865.

paragraphs: Millions of people are still slaves in some parts of the world, mostly in South Asia and Africa. It is less common in the developed world because of better law enforcement, but it still happens there as well. The ways in which it is done have changed. Today, slaves may work because of things like a high debt (for example, slaves have to work to pay off a debt). Many victims are told that their families will be harmed if they report the slave owners. Many slaves are forced to be domestic servants. In some cases, their families sell them to the slave owners. Some slaves have been trafficked from one part of the world to another. These people are illegally in their host country, and therefore do not report the abuse. Forced prostitution is a type of slavery. Another form of slavery still happening today is forced child labor. Some children have to work in mines or in plantations, or they have to fight wars as child soldiers, for no pay.

paragraphs: One study says that there are 27 million people (but others say there could be as many as 200 million) in slavery today.

paragraphs: Other terms that describe the recruitement of laborers, and that may have similarities to slavery are Blackbirding, Impressment and Shanghaiing.

paragraphs: Some of the countries where there is still slavery are in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. In summer 2007, 570 people were found to be slaves for brick makers in China. They included 69 children. The Chinese government made a force of 35,000 police check northern Chinese brick kilns for slaves, and sent lots of kiln supervisors and officials to prison and sentenced one kiln foreman to death for killing a worker who was a slave.

paragraphs: In Mauritania, it is thought that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are slaves, and that many of them are used as bonded labour. Slavery in Mauritania was made illegal in August 2007. In Niger, there is also much slavery. A Nigerian study has found that more than 800,000 people are slaves, almost 8% of the population. Child slavery has commonly been used when making cash crops and mining. According to the United States Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in 'the worst forms of child labour' in 2002.

paragraphs: In November 2006, the International Labour Organization said that it would prosecute members of the junta that rules Myanmar (also called Burma) at the International Court of Justice for "Crimes against Humanity". This is because the military makes some citizens do forced labour. The International Labour Organisation says that it thinks that about 800,000 people are forced to work this way.

paragraphs: Scholars of Islamic law have condemned the revival of the slave trade of non-Muslim women by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

paragraphs: An agitation called Abolitionism against slavery began in Christian countries in the 18th century. First they abolished the slave trade so more people wouldn't become slaves. In 1833, the British Empire stopped slavery. Several other countries followed. In the United States, disagreement over slavery led to the American Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1865, when the North won, all slaves were made free. Still more countries abolished slavery afterwards. Pedro II of Brazil abolished it in 1888. Forced labor however continued, either against the law or by debt peonage or other methods which the laws of the various countries did not count as slavery.


title: Soul

paragraphs: Many philosophies and religions say that a soul is the part of a living human being which is supernatural and lives after death. It is usually said to be immortal. It cannot be discovered by science, because it cannot be tested in any controlled way. Many different opinions exist as to what happens to personal experience after death.

paragraphs: Reincarnation is a belief that after the body dies, the soul will be born again in another body. It is important to Hinduism. Buddhists understand the idea of an eternal soul, and the idea of simple annihilation as delusion; they say that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in phenomena. Buddhists believe in transmigration, or rebirth in samsara or other planes of existence, based on how they understand kamma (Pāli; karma in Sanskrit), and nibbana (nirvana in Sanskrit) for Enlightened ones.

paragraphs: Resurrection is the Christian belief that a soul returns in the same body. In most Christian denomination this was realized in Jesus Christ but is also the promise for all souls; see heaven, hell, and Final Judgement.

paragraphs: Most atheists say that there is no such thing as a soul, and that the body is the only part of a person.

paragraphs: In popular culture, soul usually means deep feeling and commitment. It is in this sense that the word appears in the term soul music. However that music was also influenced by gospel music which was religious.

paragraphs: One popular idea about souls that is easy to express, is that a person "is" a soul, and "has" a body. The soul is the "I" in "I exist" that feels and lives life. What people call the mind could be "part" of the soul: one soul started this article, other souls have edited it, and another soul is reading it. This view, however, implies that the human body is a possession, and seems to devalue bodies that do not have souls as defined or understood by the speaker (some people say that animals, heretics, and people of another religion do not have souls). Like most uses of the verb to be, there is an ideology in these simple words.

paragraphs: Christianity teaches that all humans have an immortal soul. This means that it is a part of them which does not die when their physical body dies, but lives on with them to heaven or to hell. Christians believe that the soul is the 'breath of life' which God gave to Adam.

paragraphs: In Japan the soul is believed to weigh 21 grams. This belief may have been influenced by the observations of in the early 1900s.

paragraphs: One distinction often made is between soul, which is distinct from other souls, and spirit which may be combined with that of other beings. The idea of the Holy Spirit in Christianity, for example, is a universal and shared spirit many souls are part of, and which is expressed on Earth in that faith by "the Church" meaning "the body of Christ" meaning "all bodies that follow Jesus." This could be more inclusive than the is/has view of souls and bodies.


title: Soap

paragraphs: Soap is a chemical compound resulting from the reaction of an alkali (commonly sodium or potassium hydroxide) with a fatty acid. Soaps are the metallic salts of long chain fatty acids. When mixed with water during bathing or washing, they help people and clothes get clean by lowering the chance of dirt and oil to get to the skin or fabric. Soaps are made from animal fats or vegetable oils. There are two basic steps in making soap. They are called Saponification and Salting-out of soap. Some people like to make their own soap.

paragraphs: Soap cleans very well in soft water. It is not toxic to water life. It can be broken down by bacteria. However, it is slightly soluble in water, so it is not often used in washing machines. It does not work well in hard water. It cannot be used in strongly acidic solutions. Mild hand soaps are only basic enough to remove unwanted skin oils. For other forms of oil, dishwashing soap is strong enough to remove almost all forms of oil without damaging petroleum products such as plastics. It does not damage skin either.

paragraphs: Soap has been made in many ways. Humanity has used soap-like things for thousands of years. The earliest recorded evidence of the making of soap-like materials dates back to around 2800 BC in Ancient Babylon and Sumeria. They were soap solutions, or soapy water. People made them by mixing ashes with water and fat and boiling them. The Babylonians used water, alkali and cassia to make soap.

paragraphs: A recipe for solid soap appeared in about 800 c.e. Gauls added salt to the soap solution to make the solid soap fall out.

paragraphs: The Ebers papyrus (Egypt, 1550 BC) suggests that ancient Egyptians bathed often and had animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to make a soap-like substance. Egyptian documents say that a soap-like substance was used in the preparation of wool for weaving.


title: Summary

paragraphs: A summary is a condensed explanation of an event, story, document, etc.. i.e. "summing up the facts." They are not constrained to any medium or topics. Not to be confused with abstract, which is a summary of a document. There are many different levels of summarization that can be done. The summarizer may choose any length, but the sumarees may not appreciate anything more than absolutely necessary to get the required facts.

paragraphs: Summaries help to spread information fast. They also help people make decisions on if it is something worth looking further into.

paragraphs: A quick "good/bad" can suffice in some situations. In other situations, the summary may rival the length of the original.

paragraphs: "This book was really cool. This guy drives a pickup to work everyday, and has a dangerous job."

paragraphs: Many scientific journals publish a summary for every large article so people who do not have much time can read the main information quickly without spending too much time reading the article.


title: Service economy

paragraphs: A service is a job or work done for someone else. All the service trades in a place form a service economy. The service economy can be in a region like a country or in a town or city.

paragraphs: Often, the person who gives the service will get something in return for the service. The person who gives the service can get money in return. The person who gives the service can get goods in return. The person who gives the service can get another service in return. This is a type of trade.


title: Sense

paragraphs: There are several meanings of the word sense. This page is for - there are more detailed articles on each meaning:

paragraphs: When a word has several meanings, one can refer to it as being used "in the sense of..." some context or other. In Simple English for instance we avoid using words in unusual senses.

paragraphs: The human sensory system is usually said to have six senses:

paragraphs: Other animals may have other senses. Fish have lateral lines which detect changes in the water pressure around them, and some can detect changes in electric fields around them.

paragraphs: Sense in this context is the meaning conveyed by language.

paragraphs: Another use is to flag whether an argument or statement is correct and understood. "That makes no sense" or "That is nonsense" are examples from everyday speech.

paragraphs: A variation of this is to say that something does not make "economic sense". Usually these words signal a political dispute or some failure to define terms correctly.

paragraphs: The term "common sense" is thinking based on a wide experience of life. It used to mean practical wisdom. It has a long history of being used in politics, often to mean that some idea will be accepted or rejected because of human nature (what people are like).


title: Synagogue

paragraphs: A synagogue is a place where Jews meet to worship and pray to God.

paragraphs: In Hebrew, a synagogue is called "beit knesset", which means, a "house of gathering". The word "synagogue" comes from "sunagoge", which is a Greek word. In a synagogue, Jews carry out the Jewish services, which consist of prayers, sometimes with special actions.

paragraphs: A synagogue will usually have a large room for prayers. There might be some smaller rooms for studying. There will be some offices. There will also usually be a big room for special events.

paragraphs: The front of a synagogue faces towards Jerusalem in Israel. In the front is the holiest part of the synagogue, the Ark. This is a closet which has the Torah scrolls inside. The Torah scrolls have the holy writings of Judaism on them. The Ark usually has a curtain in front of it.

paragraphs: On top of the Ark is light which is always lit, called the “Eternal Lamp”. It is a symbol which means that God is always there.

paragraphs: Every synagogue has a raised platform called the “Bimah”. The person who reads the Torah scroll stands there when he reads. The Bimah is either in the middle of the hall, or in front of the Ark.

paragraphs: In some synagogues men and women sit in different places. Some synagogues even have a short wall so that they can not see each other. This is so that the people will think about the prayers better.

paragraphs: Jews may call synagogues by different names. Many Orthodox and Conservative Jews living in English-speaking countries use the name "synagogue" or the word "shul", which is Yiddish. Jews who speak Spanish or Portuguese call synagogues "esnoga". Some Jews call the synagogue a temple.

paragraphs: Jewish worship does not have to be carried out in a synagogue. It can be wherever a minyan of ten Jews are. It could be in someone's home or anywhere such as a cruise liner or an airplane. Some synagogues have a separate room or torah study, this is called the "beth midrash" meaning house of study. Some kinds of Jewish worship can be done alone or with fewer than ten people.

paragraphs: Synagogues are places were Jews can worship.


title: Scarcity

paragraphs: Scarcity in economics is used to describe the lack of various forms of capital. Scarcity can be used to describe an economic situation in economics, or it can be used to describe more general situations.

paragraphs: In economics, scarcity is the result of people having "Unlimited Wants and Needs," or always wanting something new, and having "Limited Resources." Limited Resources means that there are never enough resources, or materials, to satisfy, or fulfill, the wants and needs that every person have. Scarcity is called the "basic economic problem," meaning that always exists.

paragraphs: Scarcity exists due to the effects of nature such as drought, floods, storms, pest infestation, fire and other things. Real scarcity can also exist by over use of non-renewable resources. Goods (things) and services are also scarce because there are only a limited number of things in the world and due to the limits of technology and our own priorities.

paragraphs: Scarcity of capital is main constraint in economic development of developing countries. Economic growth is an increase in the production and consumption of goods and services. It entails increasing population or per capita consumption. It is represented by increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Scarcity refers to limited resources. These resources are the inputs of production i.e., land, labor and capital.


title: Textual difficulty

paragraphs: Textual difficulty means how easy or hard a text is to read. Research has shown that two main factors affect the ease with which texts are read.

paragraphs: A readability test is a way to measure a text for how easy it is to read. Readability tests give a prediction as to how difficult readers will find a particular text. They do this by measuring one or both of the two main causes, as follows:

paragraphs: Word difficulty is usually measured by vocabulary lists or word length.

paragraphs: In 1923, Bertha A. Lively and Sidney L. Pressey published the first reading ease formula. They had been concerned that science textbooks in junior high school had so many technical words. They felt that teachers spent all class time explaining their meaning. They argued that their formula would help to measure and reduce the “vocabulary burden” of textbooks. Their formula used the Thorndike word list as a basis. Manually, it took three hours to apply the formula to a book.

paragraphs: Several vocabulary lists have been published by researchers. These lists are based on samples of published texts in English, and (less often) samples of recorded spoken language. The lists differ slightly according to the sources chosen, but they are very reliable. The items listed may represent more than one actual word; they are lemmas. For instance the entry "be" contains within it the occurrences of "is", "was", "be" and "are". The top 100 lemmas account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.

paragraphs: "The Reading Teachers Book of Lists" claims that the first 25 words make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and that the first 100 make up about one-half of all written material.

paragraphs: One of the first readability tests, the Dale–Chall formula, used a vocabulary list. It counted the number of listed words in a passage, and applied a formula which gave a grade level. It was used to rate textbooks for grade levels in US school districts.

paragraphs: It is easy, in principle, to use a vocabulary list as part of a computer-based readability measure. The list is organised as a look-up table. The percentage of listed words in a passage gives the data for the formula, and the user is presented with a grade level.

paragraphs: This is called an "index", or a "proxy". This is because word length is correlated with word frequency, and word frequency is correlated with word difficulty. "Longer words are, "on average", harder than short words".

paragraphs: Word length is measured by counting the letters in each word, or by counting syllables. Since most syllables have one vowel, some computer programs count vowels per average word. A few tests measure the percentage of words on a list; the list is based on the known frequency of words in a language.

paragraphs: Sentence difficulty is usually measured by sentence length. This again is an index, because longer sentences are, on average, harder than short sentences. Computers count the number of words between full stops, but this is a second-best method. Humans can judge whether a semi-colon or colon should count as the end of a sentence for testing purposes.

paragraphs: Since both factors may vary independently of each other, the best prediction is gained by devising a formula with makes use of both indices. What this means is that a single score is produced for a text, and that score is looked up on a table or graph. That tells you how difficult the text is in terms of either a) an American school grade level, or b) an artificial scale of 0% to 100%. Either way is effective. What really makes a difference is:

paragraphs: It is possible to get a good prediction by getting a group of subjects to read through a passage, followed by multiple-choice questions. Even better is a method called cloze, where subjects fill in blanks on a text they have not seen before. The percentage of correctly completed blanks is an outstandingly good predictor of text difficulty.

paragraphs: Naturally, this kind of direct measure requires subjects and a skilled experimenter. It also requires the prior preparation of texts suitable for the chosen sample of subjects. The method is therefore too expensive for widespread use.

paragraphs: A person can perform readability tests himself by counting and doing some math, or by using word-processing software.

paragraphs: Wikipedia Signposts 2015-06-24 surveyed recent studies of web information on medical topics, including articles in English wiki.

paragraphs: That shows these articles, and presumably many other medical articles on English wiki, are written in prose far too difficult for the average member of the public.


title: Theatre

paragraphs: Theatre (British English and also American English), or Theater (mostly American English), has several meanings.

paragraphs: The word comes originally from the Greek "Theatron", meaning roughly, 'a place to behold'. In American English, the word 'theater' can mean either a place where films are shown (this is also called a cinema) or a place where live stage plays are performed. In British English, 'theatre' means a place where live plays are performed. Some people, both English and American, use the spelling 'theatre' to mean a place where live plays are performed, and the spelling 'theater' to mean a cinema.

paragraphs: 'Theatre' can also mean the business of putting on plays. An actor might say "I am in the theatre business", or a writer might say "I write for the theatre", meaning that they write plays, rather than writing for movies or television shows.

paragraphs: The first people we know created plays were the Ancient Greeks, about the year 500 B.C. They divided plays into two kinds: tragedy and comedy. This division is still used today. The best known Ancient Greek writers of plays are Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Some of their plays survived, and are still performed today.

paragraphs: These ancient Greek plays were performed outdoors in large amphitheatres, so that many people could see them. There were contests among the playwrights (people who write plays are called playwrights) and the winner would get a prize.

paragraphs: The Greeks had many brilliant ideas. They used mechanical devices like trap doors and the "machina": a crane for winching gods on and off the stage (hence 'Deus ex machina'). They had a "Greek chorus" that offered information to help the audience follow the performance. The chorus comments on themes, and shows how an audience might react to the drama. The players wore masks. Illustrations on vases show helmet-like masks, covering the entire face and head, with holes for the eyes and a small aperture for the mouth, plus a wig. The mask was to ‘melt’ into the face and allow the actor to vanish into the role. Therefore, onlookers did not think about the actor, but thought about the character.

paragraphs: In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church began to use theatre as a way of telling the stories from the Bible to people who did not know how to read. They wrote Mystery Plays, where each part of the Bible story would be a play put on by a different group of people. They wrote "miracle plays" which were about the lives of the saints. They wrote "morality plays" which taught the audiences how to live a good Christian life.

paragraphs: In the 1500s, groups of actors toured around Italy performing comic plays to entertain townspeople. These plays were called Commedia dell'arte, and different stories would be created around the same group of characters. Often the spoken lines would be made up by the actors for each performance.

paragraphs: Other kinds of plays called Neoclassical Dramas and Neoclassical Comedies were also popular in Italy and in France at this time. These plays were written to copy the style of the plays from Ancient Greece and Rome.

paragraphs: At the end of the sixteenth century (before 1600), the traveling actors began to perform in fixed theatre buildings. This was the period when William Shakespeare wrote. He lived from 1564 to 1616. At that time, in England, women were not allowed to perform, so male actors would play female characters.

paragraphs: His theatre was in London, England. It was called The Globe Theatre. It was an outdoor theatre and plays were performed in the daytime for large audiences. His plays were very popular and many are still performed today. Many people believe Shakespeare was one of the best playwrights (a writer of plays).

paragraphs: Plays including Shakespeare's were banned during the Protectorate'. After that, many more were written and acted.

paragraphs: After World War II, playwrights in Europe and the United States began doing plays in a new style called "Theatre of the Absurd." After seeing the horrors of war, these playwrights felt that all their old values had been destroyed. Playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Harold Pinter, and Jean Genet wrote plays that are considered to be "Theatre of the Absurd."

paragraphs: The "Theatre of the Absurd" plays have some of the same ideas that are found in the philosophy (a way of thinking) called existentialism. Existentialism is very different from many other "philosophies". Most religions and philosopies say that human life has a meaning (or a purpose). The philosophy of existentialism is that human life does not have a meaning (or a purpose). When something has no meaning, it is "absurd". (absurd means means silly and meaningless.)

paragraphs: The plays written in this style make people think about questions like "what is it like to be a person in the world?" and "what does it mean for a person to be free?" They are often filled with sad emotions, such as worry, fear, and thoughts about death.

paragraphs: Theatre breaks are a form of short holiday, based around viewing a theatrical convention show. Theatre breaks tend to include a nights hotel accommodation included in the price.


title: Test

paragraphs: A test is a way of checking something to see if it is true, or false, or if it is edible or not. If something can be tested, or finishes the tests correctly, it is testable. The "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" defines a test as: "a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something".

paragraphs: A test is different from an experiment: Before a test is done, there is an expected result. The test is performed, to show this result. In an experiment, the outcome is open. Very often, tests are performed as part of an experiment.

paragraphs: Products are usually tested for quality, so customers will get good products.

paragraphs: In software engineering, a test is used to see if the software system can do what it should. Software is tested before it is released. "Alpha" testing is where software developers check the software for bugs. Software can also be checked for quality and usability. "Beta" testing is done by groups of users.

paragraphs: Tests of cars and other vehicles include a crash test. The car is put under severe conditions to see what will make it fail, or deliberately crashed to measure the damage. Other machines can also be crash tested. Crash test dummies can be used instead of humans. They are placed in the car seat to see if a human in the crash would have been injured or killed.

paragraphs: People are tested to see what they have learned. This is often called an assessment or examination. In learning, a test item is a question, or set of questions.

paragraphs: Many people think tests are valuable. They believe tests:

paragraphs: However, academic tests are not perfect measures. Tests could only partly measure a student’s memory and maybe their understanding. The test would only be about a small part of the subject, and only at that moment in time. Measurement can vary considerably and randomly based on questions being asked.

paragraphs: People and animals can also be tested for illnesses. For example, a blood test can be used to check for disease.

paragraphs: In science, tests can done to check for a presence of a substance, or to check the quality of something.


title: Time horizon

paragraphs: A time horizon is a future point in time when something must be "done" (a "deadline") or will be "over" (a "time limit"). Either way, the matter will be closed when the time horizon is reached.

paragraphs: It is very important to know at what time horizon something you are doing will be scored, evaluated, marked or paid for.

paragraphs: Sports, for example football (soccer) and basketball, often have time limits. Baseball and others do not, which sometimes causes problems.


title: Time limit

paragraphs: A time limit is a time horizon that is imposed on everyone at once.

paragraphs: It may be used to try to achieve fairness in some system of ethics. For instance, if poor people and rich people are debating something, a time limit may be imposed so that the rich people cannot keep debating until the poor people have to go to work, and lose.

paragraphs: Time limits are very important in accounting so that everyone can report their results (for tax and investment purposes) at the same time. This in turn creates deadlines for the accountant and those reporting.

paragraphs: However, the deadline is imposed by an authority, whereas the time limit is imposed by a system. So there can be slack in a deadline, so that results do not have to be reported always very fast.

paragraphs: For example, in the United States of America, the end of the calendar year on December 31 is the time limit for taxes, but the deadline for reporting is April 15. Sometimes the government allows more time, as it did for the families of those who were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.


title: Taiwan

paragraphs: Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a region and country in East Asia. It is the nationalist government of China since its settlement in 1949. It is called the Republic of China (ROC) (also called "Taiwan") which is a special region comprising the island of Taiwan and nearby islands (Pescadores islands and parts of Fujian). The ROC government led by Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang abbreviated as KMT) moved to Taiwan after the Communist army took over the capital of Beijing. Currently, the ROC government governs Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Taiwan is southeast of the People's Republic of China's mainland, south of Japan, and north of the Philippines.

paragraphs: Taiwan has also been called Formosa, a Portuguese name which means "beautiful" in Portuguese.

paragraphs: The largest cities in Taiwan are the capital, Taipei, and the port city of Kaohsiung.

paragraphs: Most people living in Taiwan (sometimes called Taiwanese) are Han. Taiwan has three large Han groups. They speak different dialects of Chinese and their ancestors came from different places: the Southern Fujianese (from China's Fujian Province), the Hakka (from China), and Mainlanders (from Mainland China after 1948).

paragraphs: There are also Taiwanese Aborigines who have lived in Taiwan before the Han came to live there.

paragraphs: There are two Chinese governments in the world: The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). Today, in reality, the PRC government controls mainland China, and the ROC government governs Taiwan. The ROC government governed most of China mainland from 1911 to 1949, before losing control of China mainland to the PRC.

paragraphs: Today, people who live in Taiwan have different ideas. Although many Taiwanese think there is no freedom in China, there are still some Taiwanese who want to be united again with China. The majority of the people in Taiwan want to keep everything like it is now.

paragraphs: Today most countries of the world recognize the People's Republic of China as China. Even though Taiwan is not recognized by the UN as a sovereign nation, most countries still have close economic and cultural relations with Taiwan. So, both sides are not making any big changes from the political status quo. This policy was expressed in a 1992 Consensus among some leaders of both sides.

paragraphs: In March 2004, China's government passed a law called the Anti-Secession Law. The law requires the Chinese military to invade Taiwan immediately if they declare independence. The law shows China's concern over a growing move towards independence by the government of Taiwan.

paragraphs: The island of Taiwan is about 180 kilometers off the southeastern coast of China. It is across the Taiwan Strait. It has an area of . The East China Sea is to the north, the Philippine Sea to the east, the Luzon Strait directly to the south and the South China Sea to the southwest.

paragraphs: Taiwan's highest point is Yu Shan (Jade Mountain). It is 3,952 meters high (12,966 ft). There are five other peaks over 3,500 meters.

paragraphs: The Penghu Islands are west of the main island. They have an area of . More distant islands controlled by the Republic of China are the Kinmen, Wuchiu and Matsu Islands off the coast of Fujian. They have a total area of . The Pratas Islands and Taiping Island in the South China Sea have a total area of . They have no permanent inhabitants.


title: Trademark

paragraphs: A trademark (or trade mark) is a way for a business to help people to identify the products that the business makes from products made by another business. A trademark can be a name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design, or picture. It can only be used on things made by the business that owns the trademark.

paragraphs: For example, Coca-Cola and Coke are trademark names for a certain drink made by the Coca-Cola Company. No other business can use these names or any names similar to them. Other businesses can make a drink that is similar, like colas soft drinks, but they have to use a different name for their drink, such as Pepsi.

paragraphs: Another example is the Nike company which makes sporting goods like shoes and clothes. The "swoosh" symbol used on their products is a trademark.

paragraphs: Famous trademarks like Coca-Cola and Nike are used for branding whole families of products.

paragraphs: Trademarks are protected by law. In some countries, a person or company can get a trademark simply by using the name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design, or picture on its products.

paragraphs: Trademarks can also be registered. In that case, the business tells the government of its country that it wants to use a certain name, word, phrase, symbol, logo, design or picture as a trademark for the products it sells. If no other person or business is using the trademark to sell those products, then the government will list that trademark. Once it is listed, no one else can use that trademark for those products. This is called "registering" the trademark.

paragraphs: If someone uses the trademark in a wrong way, the trademark owner can sue the other person. If a court decides that the other person was not allowed to use the trademark, they might have to pay damages to the trademark owner.

paragraphs: If another person wants to use a trademark that they do not own, they can ask the trademark owner for permission. The trademark owner can grant the other person a license. The other person usually must pay some money to the trademark owner for the license. This can be in the form of a percentage of the cost of the product that the other person sells called a royalty. For example, a person might pay Nike ten percent (10%) of the cost of each pair of shoes it sells for the right to include the Swoosh.

paragraphs: When people write a word that is a trademark or show a picture or symbol that is a trademark, they should say that it is a trademark. If a trademark is not registered, they can write the word "Trademark", use the abbreviation "TM", or use the symbol ™ on their products.

paragraphs: If a trademark is registered, they can use the letter R in a circle symbol: "®". People can also say it is a "registered trademark" or use the abbreviation "Reg.

paragraphs: Trademarks are used for products. Businesses that do things for people instead of making things are called service providers. They can get a service mark instead of a trademark. When people write or show a service mark, they can use the service mark symbol: "℠".

paragraphs: In the United States, the governing law for trademarks is the Lanham Act, in Germany the Markengesetz.


title: Ten Commandments

paragraphs: The Ten Commandments are a set of rules or laws. God gave them to the people of Israel. The commandments exist in different versions. One version can be found in the Book of Exodus of the Bible. Another version can be found in the Book of Deuteronomy . In the Book of Exodus, the mountain where they were given is called Mount Sinai, the Book of Deuteronomy talks about Mount Horeb. Both are probably different names for the same mountain. The rules were written on stone tablets. These rules are important for Judaism and Christianity. Countries which follow those religions have some of the commandments as part of their Civil laws.

paragraphs: Sometimes these rules are also called Decalogue (from Greek, can be translated as "ten statements"). The name decalogue first occurs in the Septuagint. The Israelites received the commandments after they had left Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose. There are different texts talking about the commandments. Most of them are in the Bible: The Book of Exodus, Chapter 20 and the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 5. The Qu'ran mentions the tablets but does not list exactly the same commandments. For instance Quran 17:23-39 starts with worshipping God alone and honouring your parents.

paragraphs: The Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy Chapter 5: verses 1-22 NKJV

paragraphs: 5 And Moses called all Israel, and said to them: “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who "are" here today, all of us who "are" alive. The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain. "He" said:

paragraphs: These commandments are translated from ancient Hebrew to Basic English, so the exact words chosen may not mean to us exactly what they meant to the Hebrews. There are a variety of interpretations of these commandments:

paragraphs: The Roman Catholics understanding of the commandment to not make "any image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above" means that "likenesses" may be built and used, as long as the object is not worshipped as an idol.

paragraphs: The Eastern Orthodox Church has a very similar position. Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that the incarnation of an invisible God as a visible human, Jesus, makes it alright to use flat images in worship (see Iconoclasm).

paragraphs: Most other Christians allow statues of religious figures, provided there is no "veneration" of them. They are not commonly found in Protestant Churches, but may be found nearby or in Museums. Historical figures or busts may be used for educational purposes. Stained glass windows may contain depictions of honored historical or Biblical persons.

paragraphs: Judaism in its various forms usually takes a position somewhere between the Protestant view and that of Islam. Synagogues would not have any statues in them. Images of God are forbidden anywhere.

paragraphs: Islam forbids any images whatsoever of Allah (God) or persons, including Mohammad. That is why their buildings are generally decorated with calligraphy but never depictions of living beings.

paragraphs: Jehovah's Witnesses criticize the use of all of the above, as well as the use of the cross.

paragraphs: The Amish forbid any sort of image, such as photos.

paragraphs: This can be understood to mean cursing or using profanity which includes the name of God.

paragraphs: Many languages have expressions of anger or dismay that include the word "God". In addition, many times people "swear to God" to try to convince others they are telling the truth. Another offense might be to say that "God told me" to do something when He didn't. The actual name of God in the Old Testament was YHWH, sometimes pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah. Pious Jews refrain from using this name or even the word God, for which they substitute G_d. This is to avoid using God's name in a way that might break this commandment.

paragraphs: Jews honor the Sabbath "(Shabbat)" from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night, the seventh day of the week on the Jewish calendar.

paragraphs: In the New Testament Jesus did things that made the Sabbath command different from the other nine. Jesus seemed to reduce its demands, unlike some other commandments where he made them stronger. Jesus was often criticized for healing on the Sabbath or doing other things. He said that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath". Doing good on the Sabbath seemed to be praised and practiced by Jesus. In that way he disobeyed some of the strict interpretations that had become common in His day.

paragraphs: Most Christians honor the Sabbath on Sunday to remember the Resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week on the Jewish calendar.

paragraphs: Some conservative Christians are "Sabbatarians" (most of these follow the Reformed traditions). Sabbatarians think the first day of the week or "Lord's Day" is the new Sabbath, because the 4th commandment has never been removed. They also say that the Sabbath law was given when the world was made. It came before the ten commandments were given.

paragraphs: Others believe that the Sabbath remains as a day of rest on Saturday, while Sunday as a day of worship, in reference to Acts 20:7: the disciples came together on the first day of the week to break bread and to hear the preaching of the apostle Paul. Also, Jesus appeared to his followers on the "first day of the week" while they were in hiding.

paragraphs: The Seventh-day Adventist Church, and some others, believe that the custom of meeting for worship on Sunday originated in paganism, specifically Sol Invictus and Mithraism (in which sun god worship took place on Sunday). Instead, Adventists keep Saturday as the Sabbath as a memorial to God's work of creation believing that none of the Ten Commandments can ever be destroyed. Seventh-day Sabbatarians claim that the seventh day Sabbath was kept by the majority of Christian groups until the 2nd and 3rd century, but because of opposition to Judaism after the Jewish-Roman wars, the original custom was gradually replaced by Sunday as the day of worship.

paragraphs: To "be false to the married relation", called adultery, is when a married person has sexual relations with a person other than his or her spouse. Having sex outside of marriage is fornication and is also sin. It is condemned in other places in the Bible, but not specifically in the Ten Commandments. Jesus taught his audience that the outward act of adultery does not happen apart from sins of the heart: "From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” In The New Testament Jesus says "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

paragraphs: There are different translations of this commandment; the Hebrew words are translated either as "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not murder". Older Protestant translations of the Bible, those based on the Vulgate and Roman Catholic translations usually translate it "Thou shalt not kill". The Catholic Church believes that endangerment of human life or safety is a mortal sin that breaks The Fifth Commandment. Furthermore, the Catholic Church does not believe in a difference between murder and manslaughter the way the law does. With the exceptions of killing in self-defense (a form of manslaughter in many nations' laws) and killing in war, the Catholic Church believes all other forms of killing or attempting to kill violate The Fifth Commandment. Unsafe driving could also lead to unintentional killing. Jewish and newer Protestant versions tend to use "You shall not murder". There are different opinions as to which translation is more faithful to the original.

paragraphs: The many examples in the Old Testament of killing sanctioned by God, are quoted in defense of the view that "murder" is more accurate. Furthermore, the Hebrew word for "kill" is "" - ""harog"", while the Hebrew word for "murder" is "" - ""retzach"", which is found in the Ten Commandments "" - ""lo tirtzach"".

paragraphs: Many theologians (such as German Old Testament scholar A. Alt: "Das Verbot des Diebstahls im Dekalog" (1953)) suggest that commandment "you shall not steal" was originally intended against stealing people—abductions and slavery. This would be the same as the Jewish interpretation of the statement as "you shall not kidnap" (e.g. as stated by Rashi). Civil laws in most countries list many types of stealing. These include burglary, embezzlement, looting, robbery, shoplifting or fraud. The penalties depend on the value of the thing stolen, and if violence was used to take it.

paragraphs: In some places stealing horses brought a death penalty. That is because it could cause danger or even death to the horse's owner who could no longer do necessary travel. Poaching is the illegal killing of wild animals. Especially in modern times, money is often stolen by trickery or keeping false bank or debt records. In the 21st century this can be done using computers. This is called "White-collar crime".

paragraphs: Some societies have attempted to say that no property is "private" but everything belongs to the whole society. If this were ever put in practice, it would make stealing impossible, but it has not been fully practiced anywhere.

paragraphs: To "give false witness" would include lying in court which is called perjury. Telling false gossip which harms someone is similar. Some think this commandment includes all lying. It is to knowingly give any false statement. Others allow a white lie. Some Jewish teachers said that not all lying is false witness (perjury). They say that lying is sometimes "permissible or even commendable". This would include changing the truth to be modest or to avoid harm to someone. Saint Augustine believed that some lies could be pardoned, and that there were in fact occasions when lying would be the right thing to do. He says that lies which hurt nobody and benefit someone may be forgiven. These need to used with great caution, however.

paragraphs: The Bible does not number the commandments. Different religious groups have numbered them in different ways. The Jews, followed by Christian Protestants, end the first commandment with "You are to have no other gods but me." as above. Catholics and Lutherans end the first commandment at "I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws." and separate in their last two commandments the desire for a man's wife from the desire for other things he owns.

paragraphs: The commandments passage in Exodus has more than ten important statements, there are 14 or 15 in all. While the Bible itself gives the count as "10", using the Hebrew phrase "ʻaseret had'varim"—translated as "the 10 words", "statements" or "things", this phrase does not appear in the passages usually presented as being "the Ten Commandments". Various religions divide the commandments differently. The table below shows those differences.

paragraphs: The "Ten Commandments" usually means the list mentioned in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Another set of commandments is given in Exodus 34. A story starts in Exodus 31:18. There the stones with the commandments written on them are created. Exodus 32:19 tells how the the stones are broken. The commandments in Exodus 34 are sometimes called "Ritual Decalogue". That is because the are about religious rituals and not moral commands.

paragraphs: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and some others believed that the book of Exodus is a combination of several different texts. These people thought that the commandments in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 show a later set of Ten Commandments. They say that the ten ritual commandments in Exodus 34 were the original Ten Commandments. The say that the moral ones came later.

paragraphs: The commandments have influenced Jewish ethics and law and, through Judaism and Christianity, Western ethics and law since the Roman Empire. Historically monuments containing the Commandments have been placed outside courts of law. In the early 21st century some have been challenged or removed as a violation of freedom of religion.

paragraphs: Christians disagree somewhat as to the purpose of the commandments. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus states that He came to "fulfill" the Law rather than destroy it. He reinforces the commands about murder and adultery. He also says that the righteousness of His followers must be higher than that of the "scribes and pharisees". They were very strict in observing the Ten Commandments.

paragraphs: Saint Paul, in his letter to the Roman Christians, says the the purpose of the Law is to show us how sinful we are. It acts as a "schoolmaster" to bring us to Christ for salvation. The leaders of the Reformation said that this means that keeping the Ten Commandments could not make us holy in God's eyes. Only faith in Jesus could do that. However, after finding salvation through faith, most of the reformers said we should obey the law. Some extreme reformers said we could break them since only our faith mattered, not our actions. This teaching is called "Antinomianism" (against the law).

paragraphs: Some modern Christians say that today our only law is the law of love. Others say that the "moral" law of the Old Testament still applies to Christians today. They say that all of the Ten Commandments are repeated somewhere in the New Testament books.

paragraphs: There have been two famous movie called The Ten Commandments. They both were directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The first was a silent movie in 1923, and the second in 1956, starring Charlton Heston as Moses, was the biggest money making movie of that year.

paragraphs: In the anime series Seven Deadly Sins, a Japanese manga and anime by mangaka Nakaba Suzuki, there is a group of characters called the Ten Commandments. These individuals all possess a title and supernatural ability named after each commandment.


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