Sunday, September 30, 2007

Personality - Alexandre Dumas



One of the most popular writers of his time, Alexandre Dumas led as colorful a life as any of the characters in his books. He has left behind a mass of work whose authorship has been questioned because of its size and the numerous collaborations that he went into.

He wrote rapidly and feverishly to repay his debts as soon as possible. His memoirs tell about the incidents of his life and reflect his candid, boastful personality.

Never during his life did he know a moment of despair. He filled the stage with his dramas and the newspapers with prose. He swept women off their feet and made a fortune, only to squander them by living a life of splendor. He had a wonderful knack of satisfying the public. His novels The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo continue to be as popular today as they were in his time and we still have films being made on them.

Alexandre Dumas Pére, was born on July 24, 1802 to Thomas–Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie (son of the Marquis de la Pailleterie) and a black woman from Santo Domingo named Marie Cessette Dumas in Villers – cotterêts, Aisne, France. Alexandre had a sister named Marie-Alexandrine Aimee who was nine years old when he was born.

Alexandre's father was a general in the Napoleonic army in 1806. Alexandre had a life that was well provided for, that is, until his father was alive. With the passing of his father, miserable times came upon the family. The general’s widow was not entitled to a pension because the general had not been killed fighting; furthermore, the general had been in disgrace for being a rebel. The emperor would, under no circumstances, would grant a widow of a rebel an audience. His mother’s parents, the Labourets, who ran the Hôtel de l’Épée took in the widow and the grandchildren. They all lived together in a poor but affectionate household.

An intelligent child, Alexandre was taught by his mother and sister to write. He developed beautiful handwriting but could never go beyond multiplication in arithmetic. He learnt to dance, to fence, and also to shoot and was extremely good at these, but did not have an ear for music, which his mother wanted him to learn.

He was a child of the forest. He would rise early to catch birds with Hanniquet or Boudoux, his poacher friends. He liked nothing better than spending a day in the forest or at the Chateau Villers–Helon with M Collard. When the weather was bad, Alexandre went to father Mounier, an old fencing master who taught him fencing with the best of methods in spite of having a frightful stammer, which he had acquired by a wound in the mouth. On other days, his mother took him visiting with her. Dressed in his company jacket he went around with complete assurance. He even interrupted grown-ups in conversation and was beaten for it, though he could not, for the life of him understand why.

When he was 10, a cousin, Father Consiel died and left him a scholarship to a seminary. But this was on condition that he took the orders. His mother, whose only livelihood was her tobacco-shop and who did not know what to do with him decided to send him hoping that he would learn a thing or two that would help him for facing life. He was given 12 sous (French currency) to buy his inkstand. With this money, he bought some food to last for three-four days and went and hid in the forest, under the protection of his friend Boudox. When he returned home, the question of the seminary was not brought up again. He was then sent to a private school in Villers–Cotterêts run by a priest called Father Grègoire. He did not learn much in school except a little Latin and a little grammar.

Auguste, the son of Lafarge the coppersmith, to whom Mme Dumas had rented premises, came to visit from Paris. He was a chief clerk to a solicitor there and it was he who introduced to Alexandre all the glories of Paris. He regaled young Alexandre with stories of this magnificent city to which Alexandre would listen with rapt attention and dreamed of going there one day.

There was a change of government and his mother asked him if he wanted to resume the noble name of Davy de la Pailleterie. In the new monarchy, having a noble name would be advantageous to him. But he decided to keep the name of Dumas that his father, a Republican, had taken up. That decision made, he now had to earn his livelihood. His mother asked M.Mennesson to engage young Dumas as a third clerk. In the Spring of 1818, he turned 16. By this time, he had learnt that he was handsome and that he attracted a good deal of attention from the ladies, but he was also aware that he still required elegance and refinement to add to his charms.

It was during this time, at one of the Sunday festivities that he met Adolphe de Leuven, the son of an exiled Swedish Count. He enthralled Alexandre with his stories of actresses. It was also at this time that he met Amédée de la Ponce, who was later to be an influence on him. He spoke to Dumas about literature and the theatre.


A company of actors playing Shakespeare came to Villeres-Cotterêts. Watching the performances, he had no doubt that he wanted to become a playwright. He then collaborated with Adolphe de Leuven and prepared an outline for a one-act Vaudeville in couplets called The Major of Strasborg. Adolphe then returned to Paris, but he left Alexandre with a growing desire to see the city of Paris and also the beautiful ladies that he had talked so much about.

In due time, Alexandre made up his mind and decided to go to Paris for a few days. Having no means to pay for the trip, he carried a gun and shot game on his way. On reaching Paris, he was lodged at the Hôtel des Grand-Augistins, in return for his two quails, four hares and 12 patridges that he had shot.

Adolphe, took him to see Françios-Joseph Talma, the great actor, who wrote out a pass for the son of the general he knew. After watching a stunning performance on stage the next day by Talma, they went to thank him. Dumas asked for his blessings. Talma touched his forehead and blessed him.

On returning home, he told his mother of his decision to settle in Paris. At the age of 20, with no experience and little education, the move to Paris was only motivated by a strong force within urging him to strive to achieve the greatness he always imagined acquiring. He arrived in Paris with little more than the determination he had brought along with him. He had with him letters of recommendation to his father’s old colleagues, but most of the letters proved to be useless, that is, all but one letter. The letter that helped him was addressed to General Foy, a major figure in the army during the Napoleonic wars, who had retired after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. He helped Dumas to obtain service with the Duc d’Orleans. But the actual factor that helped him secur his job was his wonderful skill for elegant handwriting.

While in the services of the Duke, he improved his knowledge by reading the classics that his senior officer, M. Oudard would lend him. Quite unknowingly, Dumas shared the opinion of changes required in the world of literature that was aimed at by the new literature that was springing up when he arrived in Paris in 1823. That was the beginning of the Romantic Movement.

As soon as his job was settled, he moved into a small apartment on the Place des Italiens which was very close to the Palais Royal, where he worked. He found he was attracted to the occupant of the flat across the landing, a beautiful young woman. Upon enquiring, he learnt that she was a seamstress and that her name was Catherine Labay; she had been married once but was now separated. In due tim, he fell in love with her and a very amorous and passionate courtship followed. It must have been a very shocking moment for young Alexandre when, one day, Catherine confided to him that she was pregnant. On July 27, 1824 a child was born to them; a son who they named Alexandre Dumas Fils. At the age of just 22, Dumas already had a household to manage, and as if that responsibility was not enough, his mother came to live with them in Paris. He was still earning only 1,500 francs a year and whatever little money he earned by writing an occasional vaudeville.

In 1825, Dumas collobarated with Adolphe de Leuven in writing a light comedy, finding this successful, he again collobarated on a similar endeavour, with the writers Lassagne and Gustave in writing another comedy, which was another brilliant success.

He continued writing and going to the theatre. He also had a chance meeting with Charles Nodier, the famous writer who became a good friend to him. Life after that was beautiful. Charles Nodier introduced him to the literary class. He moved in literary circles and was known and loved for his wit and good spirits. Another fact that elevated him in such circles was that his play Christine à Fontainebleau had been accepted by the Théâtre-Français.

Late in 1828, after quarrels at the ‘Théâtre-Français’ over his play Henri III et sa cour, he left his job and borrowed 3,000 francs from the banker Laffitte, leaving the script of Henri III as a pledge. It was a great success and the young romantics hailed him as a great dramatist. He had an affair with one on the actresses for the play Henri III. Her name was Belle Krelsamer. Their courtship was short and, but Belle did give him a daughter whom he named Marie-Alexandrine, and who would eventually be staying with him.

Once, after accompanying a friend to a public lecture, he was introduced to the lecturer Professor Villenave and his family. But what interested him most was the professor's daughter, Melanie Waldor, a married lady. Again, suppressing any pangs of conscience he might have felt for Catharine, he launched himself into the courtship of Mme Melanie Waldor, urged by the fact that she was now widowed.

He had numerous affairs during which he wrote several plays, most significantly Antony, which was a tremendous success and the opening night was considered as one of the most memorable premieres in the annals of romantic drama. By this time, he was engaged in another courtship, this time with an actress, Ida Ferrier, who soon became his mistress.

Dumas went on to write additional plays, of which La Tour de Nesle, which he wrote in 1832, is considered the greatest masterpiece of French melodrama. He wrote constantly, producing a steady stream of plays, novels, and short stories.

In February 1840, he married Ida Ferrier in a solemnized ceremony, followed four days later by an elaborate church wedding. This holy union proved to be the herald of prosperous times for Alexandre Dumas. Historical novels brought Dumas enormous fortune, but he could spend money faster than he made it. He produced some 250 books with his 73 assistants, especially with the history teacher Auguste Maquet, whom he wisely allowed to work quite independently. Dumas earned roughly 200,000 francs yearly and received an annual sum of 63,000 francs for 220,000 lines from the newspapers Presse and the Constitutionel. Eventually, he separated from Ida Ferrier after having spent her entire dowry. With the money earned from his writings, he decided to build a fantastic château on the outskirts of Paris.


In 1844, he published the novel that would make him immortal in the literary world for generations to come; the story of Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan, The Three Musketeers.

From 1845 to 1855 he wrote an amazing number of novels. He turned out five to six hundred volumes. There were of course a few novels that did not succeed so well but for most part his novels were full of life and were hard to put down. Alexandre Dumas prospered and was soon considered one of the richest writers in France.

On July 25, 1845 he invited 600 friends for dinner, for the housewarming of his Chateau between Bougival and Saint-Germain, which the people of the surrounding countryside soon dubbed Chateau of Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo was where he lived till 1853. It was a splendid place, decorated like a palace. The doors were always open and any struggling artist was welcome there. Dumas continued to write and collaborate and to entertain in style. His son Alexandre Dumas Fils also lived with him.

In 1848, Dumas Fils spoke to his father about dramatizing Camille that had been a great success as a novel. Dumas Pére wasn’t very enthusiastic. His son, fired by this opposition went away to write the play in five acts. He finished and then read the play to his father who accepted it and gave permission for it to be made for the Historical Theatre.

In 1850, he had an affair with a married lady named Anna Bauer, and whose child, Henri Bauer, had a striking resemblance to Dumas, and it is accepted that indeed, Henri Bauer was the son of Alexandre Dumas.

In 1853, the Historical theatre and Monte Cristo were both liquidated. Dark and miserable times were once again upon Alexandre Dumas. Soon, he came to live in Paris. There he founded an evening newspaper called The Musketeer. He managed to bring it out every evening until he had to close it down in 1857 because all his best writers had left him.

To console himself, he started visiting people again and going to evening parties. He traveled to Russia and on returning, wrote Travel Impressions, a book in seven volumes. He took off after that, on a small schooner that he called ‘Emma’. On board were two friends, two sailors and Émilie Cordier, his latest love, dressed like a seaman. En route, he assisted Garibaldi in his plan to free Sicily and Naples and restore them to Italy.

His relationship with Emilie lasted longer than his usual liasions, and on December 24, 1860, she gave him a daughter, Micaella, but when she insisted that Dumas married her, he refused and she took the child with her and dropped out of his life, and they would have no further dealings whatsoever..

After playing some role in liberating Sicily, he stayed there, at the Palazzo Chiatamone, as Garibaldi appointed him the Director of Antiques. But Garibaldi soon grew tired of Dumas and soon he left for France after some more adventures.

In 1867, he met the last great love of his life. A bareback rider from Louisiana, her name was Adah Isaacs Menken and she was just like a heroine straight out of Dumas' stories. She died suddenly in August 1865, and Dumas went through a time of acute grief.

His financial status in a very bad condition, his life became extremely difficult. He would not accept financial assistance from his son who was well off. He began a number of projects but all failed. Nevertheless, he continued to work. He wrote Story of My Animals which was just as good as his other works but the public did not accept it. When he could not work at all because his thoughts were not any more organized, he shut himself up and read his old works.

As said before in this manuscript, after leading a life much similar to a character out of his stories, Alexandre Dumas Pere died peacefully on December 5, 1870 at Puys, near Dieppe in France. He had lived life to the fullest; done almost everything he had dreamed of doing as a youngster; and indulged in political intrigues very much like a character of his own fiction. Alexandre Dumas died, a happy man, who loved and doted on his grandchildren.



Todays Pic(Bottle Work)



Observant Wife

Bill has the typical observant wife. One evening after dinner, she handed him a bottle of Rogaine hair-restorer.

Bill told her while he was indeed starting to thin out some, he didn't really think he needed hair-restorer yet.

She said, "Oh. It's not for you, it's for your secretary; she seems to be losing quite a bit of her hair on your jacket."

Nothing

A man in a bar sees a friend at a table, drinking by himself.

Approaching the friend he comments, "You look terrible. What's the problem?"

"My mother died in August," he said, "and left me $25,000."

"Gee, that's tough," he replied.

"Then in September," the friend continued, "My father died, leaving me $90,000."

"Wow. Two parents gone in two months. No wonder you're depressed."

"And last month my aunt died, and left me $15,000."

"Three close family members lost in three months? How sad."

"Then this month," continued, the friend, "absolutely nothing!"

Quotes

If opportunity does not knock then build a door...........but dont ever give up.

It is easy to gather momentum when ur going downhill and equally difficult when going uphill.

Obstacles are placed across our life, not to be boggled at, but to be surmounted.

Necessity is the mother of invention

THINK BIG becoz.........Low aim is CRIME.

Spend each moment perfecting the next, not correcting the last

Climb the ladder........but remember it is really really lonely at the top.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Personality - Madam Curie (1867-1934)



Dr. Marie Curie is known to the world as the inventor of radioactive metals i.e. Radium & Polonium. Originally of Polish descent, she settled down in France. She was of that rare breed of people who shied away from the limelight. Apparently, life had different plans for her often with the spotlight remaining focused on her because of her pioneering work in the field of Radioactivity. She was a person of unique attributes, and one such lady who broke the gender barrier prevalent at that age and who went on to be awarded the coveted Nobel Prize twice.

She was not merely associated with re-defining scientific values; she was equally at home pioneering for social causes. Her faith in science, her tenacity and her strong work ethics, allowed her to pursue and realize her dreams. The pioneering spirit of Curie led the way for the discovery of twenty-nine new radioactive isotopes in the period 1903-12. Her work has affected the lives of people everywhere through application of radioactive principles in medicine, communications and in industrial technology. A Sorbonne University scholar, she proved her mettle working extensively during World War I. Madame Curie was perhaps an ideal ‘working parent’ who lived her life with the guiding thought: "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."

MARIE ALIAS ‘MANYA’

A noted chemist and physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie was the youngest child of her family. Manya was the affectionate name of Marya Sklodowska. She had four elder sisters Sophie, Bronya, Hela and Maria, and one brother named Joseph. Marie was a girl with rough hair and red skin, born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Her father, Wladyslaw Sklodowska was the president of Dublin University and ran several schools, and her mother was a lecturer at the Warsaw University.
Marie's mother, Bronislawa, had an enormous influence on all her children's lives, but especially on Manya. Bronislawa was a working parent: the headmistress of one Warsaw's better girls' schools. For a few years, the family lived in an apartment in the rear of the school, in a stately town house on Freta Street. Marie was born in this apartment. Madam Sklodowska often found herself overloaded with all the work of running a big household and school. Sometimes she used to wish she were a single woman. Nevertheless, she found time to make all the children's shoes by hand. Bronislawa was a republican in her own way, and little Marie learned never to look down on manual labor. At the age of nine, she faced the death of her eldest sister Sophie; this was the first tragic event of her life.

In 1871, Marie's uncle came to live with them. None of the family were aware that he had a terminal case of tuberculosis, which is a highly infectious pathogen or germ which iscarried through the air. In those days, tuberculosis was a very dreaded disease; it affected almost every household, infecting both rich and poor families alike.

It is very likely that Marie's mother became infected with tuberculosis from her brother-in-law or perhaps from one of her own students.

After just two years of her sister's death, her mother succumbed to tuberculosis. Marie was only 11 when she had to face this second tragedy.

THIRST FOR EDUCATION

Her parents had always ben firm believers of the importance of education. In fact, she was born in a family of teachers, a family that considered education above anything else. Marie had her first lessons in physics and chemistry from her father. For her formal education, she was first admitted to a private grammar school.

At the grammar school that Marie attended, they had a "double curriculum." The teachers would pretend to study Russiam-approved subjects whenever the inspector would visit (Russians had the control over the all the public schools). This was stressful for Marie because she was usually called on to recite some passage in Russian for the inspector since she was a top student. When she was around 10 years old, her father transferred her to the Russian-controlled public schools. The students there spoke only Russian in class, and every subject was taught in the politically correct way. Despite this, Marie enjoyed school, and her father had very high expectations for all his children. Bronia, Jozef, and Helena, Maries older sisters and brother, had all graduated first in their class. Marie was expected to do the same. Both Bronia and Marie wished to study abroad, perhaps in Paris where there were many Polish ex-patriots. They knew their father could not afford it. In fact, the family had to take student boarders and to run a school there in the apartment when Marie's father lost his job in the public schools. However, the girls were persistent; they never gave up on their dream, they would find an ingenious solution to the financial obstacle.

When Marie Sklodowska graduated from public school at the age of 15, she was awarded a gold medal as the Valedictorian of her class. She had a brilliant aptitude for study and a great thirst for knowledge. Nevertheless, the five years of intense study had taken their toll. She must have been under enormous pressure todo as well as her older siblings, Bronia and Jozef. Marie was exhausted, and so her father decided that Marie and her older sister Helena would spend a year with her wealthy uncle and his wife at their country estate. There Marie relaxed with horse-back riding, fishing, swinging "hard and high," and rowing on a lake. In the winter, they went on several kuligs or sleigh rides through the Polish countryside and danced sometimes all night at many parties. Famous polish artists and intellectuals would often drop by at the manor house for a visit. The experience gave Marie a view of life at the top, and it was a needed escape from all the pressure of exams, grades, and school.

Marie dreamed of being able to study at the Sorbonne University in Paris. But the dream was beyond the means of her family. To solve the problem, Marie and her elder sister Bronya made a plan that first Marie should go to work as a governess and help Bronya to study medicine at the Sorbonne, and when Bronya took her degree, she would contribute to the cost of Marie’s studies. As a result, Marie could not start further studies until she was 24. Marie’s experience as a governess was very unsatisfactory. She found an opening with a rich Warsaw family and hoped that children would be pleasant and their parents would be helpful and understanding. Marie was a healthy, honest, tender hearted and gay girl. According to her teachers, she was a ‘notably gifted’ student. It is almost tragic that a girl of such gifted qualities had to suffer with the extremely dense and quarrelsome people of the Warsaw family.

The years Marie spent working as a governess were frustrating. Sometimes she felt quite worthless as if her life was going nowhere. The situation became more difficult when Marie fell in love with the son of one her employers, Kazimierz Zorawski. They talked seriously of marriage, but ultimately his parents rejected her because of her family's impoverished financial situation. Marie had to stay on another year in this position. It was awkward to say the least. The hope of marriage to Kazimierz lingered on and then collapsed when Marie later decided to go back to Warsaw.

Eventually, she decided to resign from her post as governess. At the time, she was only eighteen and did not know what the future held in store for her. When Bronya married a doctor of Polish origin, she invited her to come and live with them. Marie agreed and immediately left for Paris.

TOWARDS HER ‘LITTLE WORLD'


Though she was wearied from the tiresome journey from Warsaw; as soon as she alighted from the train at the Paris station, she felt at considerable ease. For the first time, she was breathing the air of a free country, and in her enthusiasm, everything seemed utterly wonderful. The passer-bys could actually speak the language they wished to; the booksellers could sell any works they chose. But above all, it was wonderful that the streets of Paris were leading her to the heart of the city and opening the doors of "the little world", The University of Sorbonne. Little ‘Manya’ was now Marie Sklodowska, a student in the faculty of Science. She was much more interested in the learned professors than in the young men.

By then, she had been away from her studies for six years, nor had she any training in understanding rapidly spoken French. But her keen interest in studying and her joy being at the Sorbonne with all its opportunities, helped her surmount all the difficulties. To save herself from a two-hour journey, she rented a little attic in the Quartier Latin. The atmosphere was so cold at night that she had to pile on everything she had in the way of clothing, so as to be able to sleep. But as compensation for all her privations, she had total freedom to be able to devote herself totally to studies. She wrote later, "It was like a new world had opened for me, the world of science, which I was at last permitted to know in all liberty."

AMONGST MASTERMINDS

At Paris, she was able to hear the leading mathematicians and physicists of France: Marcel Brillouin, Paul Painleve, Gabriel Lippmann and Paul Appell. On her first day, November 3, 1891, Paul Appell was giving a lecture in mathematics. Marie was one of the first to arrive.

In a quite natural voice, he said: ‘I take the sun and I throw it…’

The Polish girl Marie smiled with delight and her eyes were filled with happiness. She thought that surely science was more interesting than any story, and full of imagination and magic than any fairy tale.

After hearing such words, she increasingly felt that it was worthwhile to have struggled and suffered for six long years. After two years, in 1893, she took her degree in physics and the next year, she got the second one in mathematics. Now, her goal was to take a teacher’s diploma and then to return her motherland.

AN INTELLECTUAL AFFECTION

In 1894, there occurred an event that was to be of decisive importance in her life. Marie had been asked by the "Society for the Encouragement of National Industry", to make a study of the magnetic powers of various steels, and she was looking for a suitable place for her experiments. This was known to a Polish friend of hers and one day, he said to her: "I have an idea. I know a scientist, a very gifted man, who works in the school of Physics and Chemistry. Perhaps he might have a room for you. Come to see my wife tomorrow evening after dinner. I will ask the young man to meet you. You probably know his name: it is Pierre Curie."

Thus, at the beginning of the year 1894, Marie and Pierre met for the first time. Marie was twenty-six, and Pierre was thirty-five years old. His clear eyes and his careless grace struck Marie. They had a conversation on scientific subjects and became quite friendly. Pierre was an internationally known physicist, but an outsider in the French scientific community. He was a serious idealist and dreamer whose greatest wish was to be able to devote his life to scientific work. He passed his baccalaureate at the early age of 16.

Marie was an idealist. Pierre and Marie immediately discovered an intellectual affinity and in July 1895, they got married in the town hall at Sceax. They bought a bicycle with the money they recieved as wedding presents. Soon, long and sometime adventurous cycle rides became their way of relaxing. Apart from these rides, their life was quiet, monotonous, and filled with hard work and study.

HISTORICAL DISCOVERY

The next year in 1896, Marie passed her teachers diploma. She became a mother in September 1897. Her husband had managed to arrange that Marie should be allowed to work in the laboratory of the school of Physics. Marie conducted a number of experiments on the magnetic properties of steel on behalf of an Industrial Association. She decided to continue the research and made a systematic investigation of mysterious ‘uranium rays.’ Just after a few days, Marie discovered that thorium gives off the same rays as uranium. The results were surprising. Pierre gave up his research into ‘Crystals and Symmetry’ in nature and involved himself in Marie’s project.

The Curies discovered that they needed to use the products of radioactivity. Then they isolated an unknown element of uranium. They named the metal ‘polonium’ after Marie’s beloved Poland. By the end of the year, they announced the discovery of a second radioactive element, which they named ‘radium’, because of its capacity to reflect light.

THE ‘NOBLE’ CURIES

In 1903, Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. The citation was, ‘in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel.’ In a letter to the Swedish Academy of Sciences, Pierre explained that neither of them was able to come to Stockholm to receive the prize. They could not get away because of their teaching obligations. In June 1905, they went to Stockholm, where Pierre gave a Nobel lecture. Although the Nobel Prize alleviated their financial crises, the Curies now suddenly found themselves in the focus of the interest of the public and the press. To escape from the crowd, they spent their holidays where they were unlikely to be discovered. Their appearance helped them to escape notice. The tall, carelessly dressed man, and the young woman looking like a country girl – surely they could not be the famous Nobel Prize winners!

On one occasion, an American reporter followed their track to a little village. He stopped, puzzled, in front of a fisherman’s cottage. Where could Marie Curie be? Perhaps he could find out from a woman who was sitting on the steps at the door. She was shaking sand out of her bathing–shoes. The reporter knew that this was the face that he had stared back in hundreds of photographs published in newspapers. He sat down beside her and took out his notebook. Marie, finding escape impossible, answered several questions as shortly as possible. The American news–man thought that he might ask her a few personal questions about her youth, her way of working, and her feelings. But at that moment, Marie put an end to the conservation with the words, "In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons." Such was her dedication and shyness.

A MISERABLE DAY

It was April 19, 1906. The sky was dark and it was raining fast. On that Thursday, Pierre made weak by radiation and exhausted by work, was run over by a horse–drawn wagon near the Pont Neuf in Paris and was killed. When Marie heard the news, she remained still, she neither moaned nor wept. After a long despairing silence, her lips moved at last and she asked in a low voice, hoping against hope: "Pierre is dead? Actually dead ?"

From that day, Marie Curie became not only a widow, but also a pitiful and hopelessly lonely woman. She felt that everything was over. But the opinion of her supporters was that Marie was the only physicist who could replace Pierre at the Sorbonne. For the first time, a position in French higher education was given to a woman.

When she came to know about it, she said, "I will try". There came to her memory, the words of Pierre: ‘Whatever happens, even if one has to go on like a body without a soul, one must work just the same.’

And she made up her mind, started working in the laboratory. In her diary, she said to Pierre: ‘I would like to continue your work.'

THE TROUBLED TIMES

In the beginning of November 1977, the press in the France started a campaign against Marie Curie. They took up a personal issue regarding her relation with her colleague Paul Langeuin. He had had marital problems for several years and had moved from his suburban home to a small apartment in Paris. Marie was depicted as the reason. Both were described in slanderous terms. The scandal developed dramatically. Marie defended herself and got an apology from the newspaper "Le Temps".

‘NOBEL’ PRIZE AWARDED TWICE – A RARE FEAT

Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel twice in her life. It was the first time a person had been awarded the Nobel Prize twice: one in 1903 and the other in 1911. Those historical moments propelled Madame Curie to dizzy heights of fame. Madame Curie and her husband were the ‘parents’ of radium and polonium.

She served in the battle zones of World War I. And in this way, she prevented innumerable amputations, by enabling surgeons to find the precise location of bullets and shattered bones, by using mobile X-ray services. She was the founder of a course to instruct technicians in Radiology. Her paper, "Radiology and War" showed how scientific research could save human life from suffering. She also unashamedly asked for support from the wealthiest families in the community. Madame Curie believed in love and peace. She also supported world peace by serving on the council of the League of Nations and on its International Committee on intellectual cooperation.

WAR AND PEACE

In 1914, when Marie was in the process of beginning to lead one of the departments in the Radium Institute established jointly by the University of Paris and the Pasteur Institute, the First World War broke out. Marie sent her two daughters; Irene aged 17, and Eve, aged 10, to safety in Brittany. She at once began to study the conditions of the army medical services and to plan about improvements in the treatment of the wounded. The hospitals in and near Paris were provided with X-ray apparatuses. Cars were fitted up with the necessary X-ray and electrical apparatus, and sent out to deal with the wounded that were being brought to the hospitals. For the splendid work she had done, Madame Curie was offered honors, which she refused. When the battle was over and the world became calm, in 1919, she took her place as the head of the laboratory of the Radium Institute.

LAST WARM YEARS

During the last years, she regularly refused all those wanted to interview her. However, a prominent American female journalist, Marie Maloney, known as ‘Missy’ managed to meet her. The meeting proved to be of great importance to both of them. Marie told Missy that researchers in the USA had some 50 grams of radium at their disposal. Where as she herself had only one gram, of the same. This made Missy determined and she launched a campaign for the same in America.

The greatest day in America for Marie was May 20, 1921. On that day, at the White House in Washington, the Head of the State, President Harding, presented to Madame Curie her gram of radium collected from the American people by Missy. He put into her hands the deed of gift and hung a small golden key round her neck – the key of the radium case. Last of all, the President addressed himself to the, ‘noble creature, the devoted wife and loving mother’- - -

On June 28, the little family of Madame Curie went on board the ‘Olympic’ for the return Journey. During the next few years, she journeyed to many different countries. She did valuable work for the ‘League of Nations’.

The ashes of Marie and Pierre Curie have now been laid to rest under the famous dome of the Pantheon, in Paris, along with the world-renowned writer Victor Hugo, the shrewd politician Jean Jaures and the Resistance fighter Jean Moulin.

SACRIFICE FOR SCIENCE

In the last ten years, Marie had the joy of seeing her daughter Irene and her son-in-law Frederic Joliot do successful research in the laboratory. She could see their discovery of artificial radioactivity, but before they would be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1935, she left the world, on July 4, 1934.

The director of the sanatorium, where she was admitted, said in his report on her death that it was caused by the long and continued exposure to radium.

SCIENCE DECLARED:

"Madame Curie can be counted among the victims of the radioactive bodies which she and her husband discovered."

The news of her death soon spread over the world and caused great sorrow. Young scientists said grievingly. ‘We have lost everything.’

Madame Curie was laid to rest in the same grave as her husband, on Friday, July 24.

A year later, her last message to the young lovers of physics was published as a book posthumously. The title was made of one radiant word: Radioactivity.

THE DISCOVERY OF RADIUM & POLONIUM

The scientific history of radium and polonium is awe-inspiring. In the year 1897, Madame Curie and her husband Professor Curie were working in the laboratory of Physics and Chemistry. While, Professor Curie held his lectures, Marie was engaged in some work on Uranium rays, which had been discovered two years ago by Professor Becquerel. She started working on the way of making good measurements of the uranium rays. She was also trying to know if there are any other elements, giving out the same kind of rays. She worked on all known elements, and their compounds. During her study, she found that uranium compounds were active and also all thorium compounds, but neither were the other elements active nor were their compounds. As for the uranium and thorium compounds, she found that they were active in proportion to their uranium or thorium content. Then she took up the measurements of minerals and found that several of them contained uranium or thorium, or both were active. Finally, she came to a conclusion that there should be some unknown element in the minerals having a much greater radioactivity than uranium or thorium. She was anxious to find out and isolate that element. She settled to work with her husband. It was not an easy task. They thought it would be done in several weeks or months, but it actually took them many years of hard work. As a result, the most important element, radium, could be separated in a pure state.

THE PROPERTIES OF RADIUM

The properties of the rays of radium have been studied extensively. The particles, expelled from radium have a velocity equivalent to that of light. The atoms of radium are destroyed by expulsion of these particles, some of that are atoms of helium. Radium is not the only dement having these properties. Many other radioactive elements are already known like polonium, mesothorium, radiothorium, and actinium. There are also certain radioactive gases, named emanations.

IMPORTANCE OF RADIUM

The intensity of the rays of Radium is several million times greater than the uranium rays. This effect is what makes radium so important. From the practical point of view, the most important property of the rays is the production of physiological effects on the cells of the human organism. These effects may be used for the cure of several diseases. Effective results have been obtained in many cases, in the treatment of cancer. It’s medical utilization made it necessary to get that element in sufficient quantities. To fulfill the demand, the first factory of radium was started in France, and later in America where a big quantity of ore named carnotite is available. Although the production of radium is in many grams per year, the price is still high because the quantity of radium contained in the ore is very small. Radium is a hundred thousand times more expensive than gold.

When radium was discovered, no one knew that it would be prove to be useful in hospitals. The work that the Curie couple did was one of ‘Pure Sciences’. This is the proof that scientific work must never be considered from the point of view of its direct usefulness.

PIONEERS OF RADIOACTIVE AGE

New discoveries at the end of the nineteenth century became of importance also for the blossoming of modern art. X-Ray photography focused art on the invisible. For the physicists of Madame Curie’s age, the new discoveries were no less revolutionary. During a radioactive decay, heat is given off from an invisible and apparently inexhaustible source and the radioactive element is subsequently transformed into new elements. Just as in the ancient dreams of an alchemist, the possibility of making gold, all these things contravened the most entrenched principles of classical physics. For radioactivity to be understood, the development of quantum mechanics was required. But it should be noted that the birth of quantum mechanics was not initiated by the study of radioactivity, but by Max Planck’s study of radiation from a black body in 1900. It was an old field that was not the object of the same interest and publicity as this new spectacular discovery. It was not until 1928, that the type of radioactivity that is called alpha decay obtained its theoretical explanation.

Much has changed in the conditions under which researchers worked, since Marie and Pierre Curie worked in a draughty shed. Their refusal to patent the discovery was more so in terms of their moral ethics as researchers. These might definitely have been looked down upon in those times

STUBBORN SCIENTIST

Madame Curie paved the way for the development of nuclear physics and cancer therapy. Born in Poland, a conservative country of that time, she established herself as a woman of science and courage, compassionate yet stubbornly determined. Her discovery of ‘radium’ became the reason for her death. She harbored within her the dream of a scientific career, a concept inconceivable for a woman of that time. But she never gave up, and fulfilled her scientific dream. When she died, she was almost blinded; her fingers were burnt and stigmatized by her ‘dear’ radium. She was a gifted scientist. Her work at Sorbonne opened the new way to nuclear science. She often used the words ‘We must act’. It was the motive of her life. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Suffragette Movement towards the equal rights of woman was developed in Europe. While she was not actively involved in it, her achievements and awards were a great encouragement to the movement.

‘NOBEL’ PRIZE AWARDED TWICE – A RARE FEAT

Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel twice in her life. It was the first time a person had been awarded the Nobel Prize twice: one in 1903 and the other in 1911. Those historical moments propelled Madame Curie to dizzy heights of fame. Madame Curie and her husband were the ‘parents’ of radium and polonium.

She served in the battle zones of World War I. And in this way, she prevented innumerable amputations, by enabling surgeons to find the precise location of bullets and shattered bones, by using mobile X-ray services. She was the founder of a course to instruct technicians in Radiology. Her paper, "Radiology and War" showed how scientific research could save human life from suffering. She also unashamedly asked for support from the wealthiest families in the community. Madame Curie believed in love and peace. She also supported world peace by serving on the council of the League of Nations and on its International Committee on intellectual cooperation.

DOOR OF NUCLEAR AGE

Aligned with Einstein, Madame Curie carries the glory as well as the blame attached to ushering in the world the nuclear age. It is true that no one had the answer to the toxic legacy of the radioactive waste that caused the total destruction of Hiroshima in 1945. Yet, the work of these scientific pioneers has given the world a greater understanding and respect for the atomic process and its dangers. Einstein’s message to Roosevelt in 1939, concerning the possibility of a nuclear bomb, was always intended as deterrent to war. The misuse of the technology by unsafe testing was never part of Einstein’s or Madame Curie’s equations. Immense knowledge is a double- edged sword, but ignoring the process for fear of change, harbors its own intrinsic dangers. ‘New York Times’, in 1921 with a front-page headline promising, ‘MADAME CURIE PLANS TO END ALL CANCERS’, celebrated her precious invention.

BALANCE OF MIND

Documentaries and dramatization of her life have had a common theme, praise for the selfless pursuit of alleviating human suffering, which was Madame Curie’s lifetime work. Her fame stretched to the commissioning of commemorative, 50 years anniversary postage stamps, celebrating the discovery of radium. She possessed the determination as well as the vision necessary to succeed in her research. Madame Curie always believed in love, and love was out of her life after the death of her husband. She also fought the prejudices of that day, hatred of foreigners and sexism. But Madame Curie, in her youth, was attracted towards an intellectual physicist Pierre and decided to marry him. The idea of choosing between a family life and that of a scientist did not even cross her mind. She resolved to face love, motherhood and science. Through her unconquerable will and her enthusiasm, she succeeded in balancing her domestic life as well as her career as a scientist. Madame Curie was, what we today would call a "working parent". Her exceptional dedication, courage and endurance would prove to be an inspiration for today’s generation.

Todays Pic(Bottle Work)







Affair

Jake was dying. His wife sat at the bedside.

He looked up and said weakly, "I have something I must confess."

"There's no need to," his wife replied.

"No," he insisted, "I want to die in peace. I slept with your sister, your best friend, her best friend!"

"I know, I know," she replied. "Now just rest and let the poison work."

Did you know this?

Letters 'a', 'b', 'c' & 'd' do not appear anywhere in the spellings of 1 to 99
(Letter 'd' comes for the first time in Hundred)

Letters 'a', 'b' & 'c' do not appear anywhere in the spellings of 1 to 999
(Letter 'a' comes for the first time in Thousand)

Letters 'b' & 'c' do not appear anywhere in the spellings of 1 to 999,999,999
(Letter 'b' comes for the first time in Billion)

And

Letter 'c' does not appear anywhere in the spellings of entire English
Counting

Sardar Again !!!

Prince Charles & Sardarji were having dinner.
Prince said, "Pass the wine you divine".
Sardar thinks "how poetic"
Sardar says, "pass the custard you bastard".
***********************************************

Sardar at bar in New York.
Man on his right says "Johny Walker single"
Man on his left says "Peter Scotch single"
Sardar says - "Baljith Singh Married"
***********************************************

Boss : am giving u job as a driver. STARTING salary Rs.2000/-, is it o.k
Sardar : U R great sir! Starting salary is o.k.......but??
how much is DRIVING salary...?
***********************************************

Sardar's theory : Moon is more impt than Sun, coz it gives light at
night when light is needed & Sun gives light during the day when light
is not needed!!!
***********************************************

2 sardars are driving a Car, one puts on the indicator and asks the
other to check whether its working, he puts his head out and says
YES...NO...YES...NO...YES...NO...
***********************************************
Sardar shouting 2 his girl friend " u said v will do register marriage
and cheated me, I was waiting 4 u yesterday whole day in the post
office....
***********************************************

A Tamilian call up sardar and asks " tamil therima??"
Sardar got mad, angrily replied.... "Hindi tera baap!!!"
***********************************************

2 sardarjis looking at Egyptian mummy.
Sar 1 : Look so many bandages, pakka lorry accident case.
Sar 2 : Aaho, lorry number is also written...BC 1760!!!....
***********************************************

A sardar on an interview 4 da post detective.
Interviewer : who killed Gandhi?
Sardar : Thank u sir 4 giving me d job, I will start investigating.......
***********************************************

Interviewar: what s ur qualification?
Sardarji : Sir I am Ph.d.
Interviewar : what do u mean by Ph.d?
Sardarji : (smiling) PASSED HIGHSCHOOL with DIFFICULTY....
***********************************************

Amitab : In which state Cauvery flows?
Sardar : liquid state.....
Audience clapped.. Amitab stunned, looks behind, ALL WERE SARDARS......

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Personality - Alexander Graham Bell




How often do you use the telephone? Every day, two or three times a day or almost daylong? What would it be like if there was no phone? Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell, who invented one of the most significant domestic device of today – the Telephone. This Scottish – American scientist had an inventive mind and a great vision. An inventor and a teacher of deaf, he is more famous today for his invention of the telephone then his pioneering efforts for the deaf and the mutes. Both Graham’s mother and wife had serious hearing impairments, a challenge that directed him towards the path of inventions. He defined an inventor as someone "who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees; he wants to benefit the world; he is haunted by an idea."

Affected by tuberculosis in his youth, he never recovered fully and often suffered from severe headaches; yet never let his problems hold him back from being creative. Despite devoting his entire life in search of new inventions, he never accepted that he had reached the top.

In the great man’s words: "I never really completed my revisions on telegraphy. I do believe that the concept of telephony has greatly impacted our society. I hope that this invention will be remembered."

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the invention-fever was in full swing. That period was the most important in modern history of technology, particularly in the western world. It was a period when Thomas Alva Edison invented the first light-bulb, record player and movie camera; George Eastman created the first camera, the Wright Brothers flew their plane, and a German scientist Max Planck opened the new vistas in science by his quantum theory of physics. It was also a time when the barriers amongst continents, countries and communities were broken by none other than Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of Telephone.

BIRTH AND FAMILY BACKGROUND

Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in a Scottish family with a passion for communication. His father Alexander Melville Bell was a well-known Scottish educator of Edinburgh. He developed a system called "visible speech". His mother Eliza Bell, daughter of a surgeon in the Royal Navy, was a portrait painter and accomplished musician.

His grandfather, also Alexander Bell, had forged for himself a reputation as an impressive, though under employed, actor and orator. Gifted with a commanding speech and considerable physical bearing, he sought to unleash in others the full potential of the spoken word. His attention was especially drawn to those for whom the act of speaking frightened challenges. His experience with such persons led him to publish some writings The Practical Elocutionist, Stammering and Other Impediments of Speech. By 1838, before Graham’s birth, he acquired the reputation and was referred to in the London press as "the celebrated professor of Elocution". Graham’s keen interest in communication was rooted in his heredity.

His father Melville had the similar interest in the mechanics and methods of vocal communication. Melville enthusiastically joined his father in his elocutionary endeavors. And his keen interest in speech pathologies was sharpened when he fell in love with a deaf woman, who was ten years elder to him. He married her and they had three sons. Graham was the second; and his siblings were Melville and Edward.

Graham’s mother was a sweet tempered and refined intelligent woman. Despite being held captive in a world of virtual silence, she developed her talent and became a pianist, whose tenacity and determination to "hear" might have inspired Graham.

EARLY YEARS

His family knew young Graham as Aleck. He took to reading and writing at a very young age. Bell family lore told of his insistence upon mailing a letter to a family friend, before Graham had grasped any understanding of the alphabet. As he matured, Aleck displayed an expressive, flexible, and resonant voice – that came to be known as Bell family trademark.

Young Aleck forged a unique bond with his deaf mother through usage of this impressive vocal instrument. While others spoke to his mother through an ear tube, little Aleck used to communicate with her by speaking soft, sonorous tones very close to her forehead. He assumed that his mother, Eliza, would be able to ‘hear’ him through the vibrations of his vocal chords. This early insight proved to be significant factor for Alexander Graham Bell to develop more elaborate theories regarding the characteristics of sound waves.

At 14, Graham conceived of a device designed to remove the husks from wheat. That device combined a nailbrush and paddle into a rotary brushing wheel. While visiting London with his father, Aleck was fascinated by a demonstration of Sir Charles Wheatston’s ‘speaking machine’. When they returned home, Melville Sr., challenged Aleck and his brother to make their own model. The boys accepted the challenge and created an apparatus consisting of a facsimile mouth, throat, nose, movable tongue, and bellow lungs. The apparatus actually produced human-like sounds. Inspired by this success, Aleck tried further and succeeded in manipulating the mouth and vocal chords of his pet Skye terrier so that the dog’s growls were audible as words.

Graham’s family had a great influence on his future. He didn’t go to school much. He spent a year at a private school, two years at Edinburgh’s Royal High School. Graham was mainly family trained child, and he was also used to self-teaching. Little Graham was a gifted musician; he played piano pieces by ear!

With growing age, Graham’s intellectual horizons diversified. The 16-year-old boy was teaching music and elocution at a boy’s boarding school.

He and his brothers traveled throughout Scotland and impressed audiences with demonstration of their father’s ‘visible speech’ techniques. Combining such ventures, Graham helped his father at the University College in London along with his study there.

German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz’s thesis On The Sensations of Tone excited Graham. In this thesis, Von Helmholtz declared that vowel sounds could be produced by a combination of electrical tuning forks and resonators. Though Graham was unable to read German, it did not restrain him from hungrily consuming this information. It did lead to his making what he later described as a very valuable blunder’. At that time, he interpreted Von Helmholtz’s findings as stating that vowel sounds could be transmitted ‘over a wire’. Later, he said, "It gave me confidence. If I had been able to read German, I might never have begun my experiments in electricity".

MIDDLE YEARS

In 1870, the midst of his early academic and professional career, Graham had to face a series of personal tragedies. His two brothers died from tuberculosis, within the span of four months. Tuberculosis, the scourge of the late 19th century, also threatened 23 year old Graham during the voyage with his parents to Canada. At a spacious farmhouse in Brantford, Ontario – what he called ‘my dreaming place’. – Graham was able to recover and enriched his mind with a great enthusiasm to dwell in his ever-expanding ambitions.

A year later, Graham went to Boston, U.S.A., becoming professor of vocal physiology at the University of Boston. His work in vocal physiology was a continuation of a system devised by his father to teach deaf mutes to speak with ‘visible speech’ or lip reading. His work with the deaf students proved to be a heart touching event in his life. One of his deaf students, Mabel Hubbard, occupied a unique place in Graham’s heart. Mabel Hubbard was ten years younger than him. Her father Gardinier Guillard Hubbard, was one of the co–founders of the Bell Telephone Company along with Thomas Sanders.

Mabel’s parents were worried by Graham’s obvious interest in their daughter. She was only 17, while they mistakenly believed him to be about 35. In the end, they permitted him and he got engaged with Mabel. ‘Graham’ had a habit of working late in the night and sleeping through the morning. Once, Mabel drew a painting of ‘Graham’. The painting turned out to be the image of a great white owl!

Because of ‘Graham’s tendency to jump from one subject to another, Mabel and her family were distressed. Mabel’s father persuaded her to give Graham an ultimatum – no marriage until the completion of multiple telegraph. ‘Graham’ became furious at that decision. Moreover his mother, deaf herself, was not happy with his engagement. When she wrote to ask if Mabel’s deafness was inherited, ‘Graham’ found it hard to forgive his mother. Eventually, love conquered all obstacles. At the wedding ceremony, the bridegroom presented all, but ten of his shares in the newly formed Bell Telephone Company, to the bride. Mabel played a vital role in Graham’s life and his innovative efforts.

CREATING HISTORY: INVENTION OF TELEPHONE

Graham had keen interest in sound and electricity. He devoted much of his time to electrical experiments. While experimenting, he felt sure that speech could be sent by electricity. He found he could not cope with all the work these experiments entailed, and enlisted the help of an electrician, Thomas Watson. Both tried countless methods to transmit the speech. When Bell obtained his patent, he still did not have a working device. The line of experiments that led to the first successful transmission of speech is depicted here.

The box that is lower and to the right is connected by a minus and a plus sign with devices next to each. This is a short-hand way of indicating that to get from one box to the other, Bell removes an electromagnet and substitutes a dish of water. The box called 'spark arrester" above it is connected by an arrow, to indicate that Bell had previous experience using water as a medium of resistance in a device that prevented sparks in a telegraph rely. The liquid experiments eventually, led to the famous "Watson--come here--I want you" result obtained on March 10th, 1876. The secret of their success was a carbon microphone. When Graham was experimenting on his circuit, he said to his assistant who was in another room – the historical words – ‘Watson, come here. I want you.’ Immediately Watson appeared and confirmed that these were the first words ever to be transmitted by the ‘dream device’ – the Telephone.

In the same year the telephone was demonstrated at Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, introducing the wonderful device to the world and led to the foundation of the Bell Telephone Company in 1877. Three years later, Bell was awarded 50,000 Franc Volta Prize for his invention. With this money, Graham founded a laboratory in Washington, DC. There with his associates, he invented a photophone, a device that transmitted speech by light waves. In the following years, he invented the audiometer, a valuable instrument used to compare the hearing abilities of different people.

In 1882, Graham was granted American citizenship. But the very next year had a shock for him, as his son Edward, died.

Throughout the rest of his life Graham continued to experiment. Among the many other things he invented was a method for making gramophone records. He devised the first wax-recording cylinder for phonographs. It was an improved version of the device invented by Thomas Alva Edison.

LATER YEARS

In the later years, Graham became interested in aeronautics and in 1907; he helped to organize the Aerial Experiment Association [AEA]. His wife financed the AEA. He discovered movable sections for the wings of aeronautical principles to boats, devised a full-sized prototype of the hydrofoil, the HD-4, which reached the record-breaking speed of 114 kph. His other experiments include the field of eugenics, the science of improving offspring, which he applied to sheep breeding. Apart from this, he served as the president of the National Geographic Society of U.S., from 1896 to 1903. He was one of the founders of the society.

In the twilight of his career, Graham became less interested in his company matters. He always tried to infuse love towards science and nature in the minds of the people. To increase such interest, he lent considerable financial and editorial support to the magazines – Science and National Geographic. He continued the studies on the causes and heredity of deafness, and published the books Duration of life and Conditions Associated with Longevity, in 1918. He breathe his last at the age of 75, at Baddeck in Canada, where a museum containing many of his original inventions are still maintained by the Canadian Government. On the day of his death, August 2, 1922, that nation’s telephones remained silent for a minute as a tribute to this great man’s contribution that spurred a new era of communication.

THE TELEPHONE

Telephone, the device, that played a vital role in turning the world in a 'global village' is not just an instrument, but a revolution in itself. The invention of telephone makes an interesting reading. It enables people to talk to each other over great distances by means of electricity. It was mankind’s dream realized by Alexander Graham Bell.

It was Robert Hooke who first suggested the model of string telephone in 1667. Two persons connected by a light piece of string having a tin at each end, and were able to send verbal messages over it. However, it was not a very practical device and didn’t work over long distances. The device, suggested by Robert Hooke, was working on this principle – When you speak, the vocal chords in your throat vibrate. This causes tiny changes in the air pressure, and sound waves radiate from your mouth. When you listen to someone, the sound waves coming from the person’s mouth enter your ear. The small pressure changes are converted into nerve signals, which are sent to your brain. But air does not transmit sound waves very well over a distance. So some other alternative was needed.

In order to find out such alternative, two Americans working independently of each other, invented telephones at the same time. We know Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone because he got to the Patent Office a few hours before Elisha Gray, the other inventor, on February 14, 1876.

Bell brought together the work of several scientists to invent the telephone. His telephone was based on electromagnets. He used two of them joined together by two wires. This worked, but not efficiently. However, it was the discovery of the carbon microphone that ensured the early success of the telephone. Bell’s telephone was working on this principle - When you speak into the microphone of the telephone, the sound waves from your mouth make the diaphragm vibrate. The diaphragm presses on to carbon granules and this affects the electric current that flows through them. The microphone converts the sound waves into the electric current. This electric current is fed down a pair of wires to the receiving telephone. Here, the fluctuating current passes through the coil of wire and makes the diaphragm vibrate. This reproduces the sound waves, which entered the microphone. Thus, enabling the messenger and the recipient to communicate through this device.

The first telephone systems had no telephone exchange. Like some small internal office telephone systems today, wires to every other telephone connected each telephone in the system. For example, in a network of 50 telephones, each one had to have 49 pairs of wires connected to it, each with a switch. A much simpler arrangement was to link each telephone by a single pair of wires to a central exchange where all the switching took place. In most early telephone exchanges, operators made the connections by plugging wires into numbered sockets in a switchboard.

Bell promoted his telephone very enthusiastically. He demonstrated his wonderful device all over America and also in England. Due to Bell’s efforts, the development of the telephone was rapid in America. However, in those days, in the countries like England and France, people were not so enthusiastic about the telephone. They preferred usage of messenger boys. One of the reasons being sound quality of the early telephone being poor and it failed working over long distances. Another factor was that it was very expensive. In 1878, the cost of connecting two offices with telephones was more than a year’s wages for a servant. At that time, a lot of money had been invested in the Telegraph system. So the investors did not want to encourage something, which would affect their business. Since the telephone was to carry speech, it had to be of a higher quality than telegraph lines. Telephones had to be connected by pairs of copper wires. These wires were carried overhead from pole to pole. But there was a possible danger of natural factors like gales, thunderstorm and freezing of wires due to snow. The best solution was underground wiring (cabling), but it was very expensive. This problem was solved gradually with the development of modern communication technology.

Another limitation of the system was that the telephone just linked two houses or offices, together. There was no alternative of connecting one pair of telephones to the other pair. Obviously, this was inconvenient. So very quickly, exchanges were built and installed to enable this to happen. The first exchanges were called Manual Exchanges that were operated by the people called Operators. The first Automatic Exchange was patented in 1891, following Manual Exchanges. It was called ‘Strowger Exchange’ and was named after its inventor Almon B. Strowger.

Today, there are over two hundred million telephones in use throughout the world. Anybody can talk to anyone, whether he is in the next street, the next city, next country or half–way round the globe. In some cases, a user may have to ask a telephone operator in his local telephone exchange to connect the call for him. But more and more calls can now be connected automatically. The caller signaling the telephone number he wants to get in touch through his telephone dialed is the required telephone number. Some of the latest telephones called videophones have a small display screen so that the callers can see each other as they talk. Now a days, the advanced technology Cellular Telephones have transformed the living standards of the world.

PASSION FOR DEAF

With Alexander Graham Bell, the humanitarian came before the inventor. His most experiments were undertaken with the aim of providing employment in a hard world. Behind his efforts to improve the communication field, there was Graham’s warm desire to decrease the distances among the world communities. It is perhaps as an advocate for the deaf that Graham made his most profound impact. Every deaf child who appealed to him found an open heart and a supporting hand. He was a child of a deaf mother. In his youth he found the same physical disability in Mabel, one of his pupils, yet he accepted her as his wife and remained loyal to her throughout his life. He considered himself above all a ‘Teacher of the deaf’ to the end of his life. One of his most famous students was Helen Keller, who came to him as a child unable to see, hear and speak. She later said, "You have always shown a father’s joy in my success and a father’s tenderness when things have not gone right." Admiring Graham, she said that he dedicated his life to the penetration of that inhuman silence that separates and estranges. In early 1887, Helen Keller's father brought her to the attention of Alexander Graham Bell who apart from being an inventor of the telephone was a teacher and advocate of the deaf. Bell recommended Keller to the Perkins Institute, stating that she was certainly capable of being taught. There she began a lifelong association with teacher Annie Sullivan (1866-1936), who, in less than three weeks, used finger spelling to communicate with Keller by manually pressing the alphabet onto the child's palm. This enabled Keller to make her famous breakthrough in understanding, realizing the simple but profound notion that people and things had names. Keller called this awakening her "soul's birthday," and attributed its occurrence to Bell, whom she later described as "the door through which I should pass from darkness into light."

Significantly, it was also Bell who encouraged Keller to attend a regular school, thus permitting her eventually to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904. All her life she remained a grateful, close friend of Bell, visiting his home and family, and in one case even dedicating an intensely descriptive poem to her kind and loving mentor. Bell also had taken early note of Keller's "marvelous knowledge of language" and believed she had a future in literature. Many called Keller's achievements a miracle, but Bell, ever the scientist, insisted that Sullivan's success with the child was not supernatural but rather a brilliantly successful experiment.

Todays Pic(Bottle Work)


Affair

A woman was in bed with her lover when she heard her husband opening the front door."Hurry," she said, "stand in the corner."

She rubbed baby oil all over him, then dusted him with talcum powder.

"Don't move until I tell you," she said. "Pretend you're a statue."

"What's this?" the husband inquired as he entered the room.

"Oh it's a statue." she replied. "The Smith's bought one and I liked it so much I got one for us, too."

No more was said, not even when they went to bed.

Around 2 AM the husband got up, went to the kitchen and returned with a sandwich and a beer.
"Here," he said to the statue, "have this. I stood like that for two days at the Smith's and nobody offered me a damned thing."

Lateral Thinking

This is a real story that happened between the customer of General Motors and its Customer-Care Executive. Pls read on.....

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

'This is the second time I have written to you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of Ice-Cream for dessert after dinner each night, but the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem.....

You see, every time I buy a vanilla ice-cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds "What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?" The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an Engineer to check it out anyway.

The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start.

The Engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, they got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: He jotted down all sorts of data: time of day, type of gas uses, time to drive back and forth etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store.

Vanilla,

being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to check out the flavor.

Now, the question for the Engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Eureka - Time was now the problem - not the vanilla ice cream!!!! The engineer quickly came up with the answer: "vapor lock".

It was happening every night; but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

Even crazy looking problems are sometimes real and all problems seem to be simple only when we find the solution, with cool thinking.

Nothing is silly

Wireless

Once a Indian goes to USA and meets President Bush. Bush takes him to a jungle to prove that Americans are technologically advanced.

In the jungle,Bush asks the Indian to start digging. He keeps on digging. When he reaches 100ft Bush tells him to start searching. The Indian finds a piece of wire.

Bush proudly says "You see; even 100 years back we had telephone".

At this the Indian gets really annoyed. Next year Bush comes to India.

The Indian takes him to a jungle and tells him to start digging.


Bush digs 100 ft and stops. The Indian tells him to continue. He digs 200ft. The Indian tells him to continue.

Bush finally reaches 400ft and Indian tells him to stop.

But Bush doesn't find anything and is annoyed.

Bush asks the Indian "What did you want to prove?".

The Indian replies " Even 400 years back we had wireless".

Quote for the Day:- "If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up".

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Personality - Plato




According to the most reliable accounts, Plato was born in the spring of year 427 BC, in the island of Agina, near Athens. His father was Ariston. His mother was Perictone who belonged to the highly esteemed family of Solon, the early Greek philosopher.

Critias and Charmides, two leaders of The Thirty Tyrants, were respectively cousin and brother of Perictone; both were friends of Socrates, and through them Plato must have known the philosopher from boyhood.Plato studied music under Dracon. He also then occupied himself with painting and poetry.

Plato spent some portion of his years in camp, perhaps as a cavalryman. Even in ordinary times, the young Athenian was required to perform garrison and sentry duty. Much more so at an epoch like this, when Athens was straining every nerve to meet the attack of Sparta.

Plato’s own early ambition, under Socrates’ influence and disillusioned by what he saw of Athenian politics in his youth, including the tyranny led by his relatives, and culminating in Socrates’ condemnation and execution. Mankind’s fate was hopeless unless there was a deep change in men’s education, specially for statesmen. He therefore never took part in active politics himself.

Year 399 BC proved a turning point for Plato. With condemnation and execution of Socrates, in that Plato’s years of study ended and years of travel begun.The next dozen years 387-398 BC were spent by Plato in extended travels. A few short or long visits to his city might have interrupted these years, but his travels were not done in any restless hurry. He desired to see and admire the wonders of nature and art to gain knowledge of those subjects more fully studied abroad than in Athens of that day. Not least of all, his object was to see "the men of many cities" and learn to know their "mind".

Plato travelled in Greece, Egypt and Italy. He himself stated that he visited Italy and Sicily at the age of 40 and was disgusted at the gross sensuality of life there, but found a hundred spirit in Dion, brother-in-law of Dionysius I, the ruler of Seracuse.


He did not intend to let the Athenians silence and forget Socrates by executing him. He intended to show that Socrates was as he claimed to be a public benefactor, not a criminal. On return from his voyages, Plato decided to set up a school, a specific institution designed for exploring, discussing, recording and perhaps experimenting for continued advancement of knowledge. Plato established his educational centre on the adjoining ground, and thus it acquired the name THE ACADEMY. It was designed to be a university – a small replica of the universe it was to study. It was to carry forward Socrates’ ideas of inquiry and so it was given a teaching as well as a research function.

The Academy was a great success and quickly achieved reputation in Greece and beyond. In 361 BC Plato went to Seracuse again to act as a mediator between Diongsiusil and Dion, but was unsuccessful.During 387-347 BC Plato worked hard till his death. After opening the Academy, Plato began to see more clearly how his ideas could be combined in a new system of philosophy. In his later dialogues of this period he shared his new vision with his readers.

For the last 20 years of his life, Plato worked in his school, leading discussion, writing and investigating. His last dialogues are much more technical and analytical than his earlier works.When he died at the age of 80, Plato was still hard at work on The Laws, a monumental detailed model legal code for cities of the time.Of Plato’s character and personality, little is known and little can be inferred from his writings. But it is worth recording that Aristotle, his most able pupil, described Plato as a man "whom it is blasphemy in the base even to praise," character that bad men should not even speak about him.

A very rough measure of Plato’s importance in Western intellectual history is indicated by the facts that the Academy continued as a centre of learning until 529 AD, and that Platonism remains, down to the present day, one of the major traditions in Western philosophy.Plato was born in Athens, about 427 B.C., and died there about 347 B.C. In early life Plato saw war service and had political ambitions. However, he was never really sympathetic to the Athenian democracy and he could not join wholeheartedly in its government. He was devoted follower of Socrates, whose disciple he became in 409 B.C., and the execution of that philosopher by the democrats in 399 B.C. was a crushing blow. He left Athens, believing that until "kings were philosophers or philosophers were kings" things would never go well with the world. (He traced his descent from the early kings of Athens and perhaps he had himself in mind.). Thus he gave immense weightage to philosopher.

For several years he travelled in the Greek cities of Africa and Italy, absorbing Pythagorean beliefs, and then in 387 B.C. he returned to Athens. (En route, he had been captured by pirates and held for ransom.) There, the second half of his long life, he devoted himself to philosophy. In the western suburbs he founded a school that might be termed the first university. Because it was on the grounds that had once belonged to a legendary Greek called A cademus, later on it was called the Academy, and this term has been for schools ever since.

Plato remained at the Academy for the rest of his life, except for two brief periods in the 360s. At that time he visited Syracuse, the chief city of Greek Sicily, to serve as tutor for the new king, Dionysius II. Here was his chance to make a king a philosopher. It turned out very badly. The king insisted on behaving like a king and of course made the Athenian democrats look good by comparison. Plato managed only with difficulty to return safely to Athens. His end was peaceful and happy, for he is supposed to have died in his sleep at the age of eighty after having attended the wedding feast of one of his students.

Then Plato died, he was succeeded at the head of the Academy, not by Aristotle, who, by then, had been for about twenty years student and then teacher at the Academy, but by his nephew, Speusippus. The Academy kept functioning, under different guises, for centuries after Plato's death.

But one thing we don't have the slightest piece of material evidence about is when Plato wrote each one of his dialogues, and even whether all or part of them were "published" (that is, made available outside the Academy) while he was still alive, despite strong statements to that effect from most scholars, who take it for granted without further proof.

IDEOLOGIES

When I was young, I felt like so many in that situation: I expected, as soon as I would become master of myself, to go straight to the city's affairs. And here is, how I happened to find the state of public affairs then: many being dissatisfied with the existing constitution, a revolution took place.... and fifty-one men took the leadership of the revolution, eleven in town and ten in Piraeus - each one of these two groups having in charge the marketplace and all the urban affairs - while thirty assumed full power as commanders in chief. Of these were some of my relatives and acquaintances... who Immediately asked me to join them, as in something fit for me. Feeling not the least surprised, owing to my youth, I expected them to govern the city so as to lead it from a life of injustice toward a just behavior, and so I watched with the utmost attention what they would do, only to see these men make in very little time the former state of affairs look like a golden age.

Among other things, they called on my friend, old Socrates, whom I wouldn't shy to call the most just man there was in his time, to join some other men in arresting one of their fellow citizens who was to be put to death, in order to involve him in their activity, whether he liked it or not. But he didn't obey, preferring to expose himself to all sorts of troubles rather than getting associated with their impious deeds....

Seeing all this, and other no less serious affairs, I couldn't stand it and fled away from the evils of the time. It didn' take long, though, for the Thirty to fall, and with them, all their constitution; so, once again, though more languidly, the desire to get involved in public affairs and politics was dragging me. Yet there were, like in any such troubled time, many unbearable deeds, and there is nothing surprising that, in revolutions, some people take greater revenge on those that have become their enemies. However that may be, those who came back from exile at the time displayed in truth great fairness. And yet, by a twist of fate, some of those in power brought that same Socrates, our friend, to court, throwing at him a most sacrilegious accusation, one least of all deserved by Socrates; it is for impiety that the ones assigned him, while the others condemned and put to death the one who at the time had not accepted to take part in an impious deed against one of their then banished friends, when they were in distress, being themselves banished....

Considering all this, and the kind of men who where active in politics and ultimately the laws and manners, the more deeply I considered these things while growing older, the more difficult it appeared to me to be right in managing public affairs. Neither was it possible to act without friends and trusted associates, nor was it easy to find some among those in charge, for our city was no longer managed according to the manners and habits of our fathers and it was impossible to easily win new ones; besides, the legislative records and the manners were corrupted and relaxed to such an amazing degree that I, at first full of zeal for working in public affairs, looking at all this and seeing everything going in all directions, ended up feeling dizzy; yet, on the one hand, I didn't give up watching if by chance all these things, and especially the whole constitution, might in any way improve, while on the other hand, I kept always waiting for the right time to act, until I ended up understanding that all the cities of this time are all together badly administered - actually, the state of their laws is almost incurable without incredible preparations along with luck - and I was of necessity driven to acknowledge, in praise of true philosophy, that through it only is it possible to come to fully conceive justice in public as well as private affairs; therefore, humankind will not put an end to evils until either the kind of those who rightly and truly philosophize takes a leading role in public affairs, or that of those who hold power in cities, by some sort of divine share, really gets to philosophizing. Such was the state of my thoughts when I went to Italy and Sicily for the first time.

The soul is then immortal and has come to life a number of times. It has seen what is here and in the underworld and everything and there is nothing which it has not come to know. Small wonder it can call to mind what it has previously known about virtue and other things…the whole of research and learning is only recollection.

And the purest knowledge will be that of the man who approaches each subject as far as possible with thought alone, who makes no use of…any other perception along with his reason… freeing himself as much as possible… from his body. For when body participates, it does not allow the mind to acquire truth and wisdom.

I am not dogmatic as to the manner of its presence, but I insist that it is through beauty that all beautiful things are beautiful.

Ordinary men are brave though fear of worse happening – their virtue is fake.

My dear Simmias, this is not the right way to goodness – to exchange pleasure for pleasure, pain for pain, fear for fear, the bigger for the smaller like coins – wisdom alone in proper medium for which all should be exchanged. For with this, and with this alone, is courage real courage, and self-control and in a world true virtue, with wisdom, with or without pleasure and fear and all other such things.

There are three kinds of life, that of the lover of wisdom which is actuated by a passion for truth, that of the ambitious which is actuated by a passing of honor and victory, and the "passionate" properly so called, whose main object is the qualification of physical desires which gives the most pleasure ?

Three things are essential to a correct judgement : experience, knowledge and power of expressing it… the money-maker knows nothing of the joy that comes from the discovery of truth, whereas the philosopher must have experienced from childhood the advantages of money and the physical pleasures; honor comes with success to all three kinds of men, so that the philosopher also knows the pleasure it gives; while with the pleasures of research he alone is acquainted…clearly then the philosopher alone has the experience, the wisdom and the power of expression required to make any comparison; his opinion therefore will be the true one.

He then makes an important concession :

As for the desires of the greedy and the ambitious parts of the soul, if they obey the commands of reason and with its help seek and grasp such pleasures as wisdom dictates, they too will attain pleasures that are as near truth as possible for them.

We have discussed the ways of life one should follow, and the kind of man one should be, but we have restricted ourselves to what one may call divine, and have not spoken of what is but human. Yet we must do so, for we are speaking for man, not Gods. It is pleasures, pain and passion that are by nature most human.

We all want pleasure, pain we neither choose nor want. What is neither one nor the other we do not prefer to pleasure, but we want relief from pain. Little pain we choose if accompanied by greater pleasure, greater pain with less pleasure and pain are equally balanced, we must reason as before: we will choose whichever is more pleasant to a friend, not to an enemy…

To yield for profit or honor is shameful. As in everything else depends upon the way the thing is done, and the only worthy association is that which has moral excellence as its aim. When the physical association tends to educate the beloved in wisdom and courage, then and then alone is it free from blame. It is the motive that counts.

The opposites hot and cold, bitter and sweet and the like must be harmonized by means of Eros’ desire. This is the aim of medicine, as also of music to make harmony out of discords and it requires scientific knowledge. To reduce things to order we must yield to the better kind of desire and this is the love called heavenly… by encouraging desires that lead to justice and piety.
Beauty is the object of love, it is not love itself. Love aims at happiness, which is the aim of all men. Men love the good, and they wish to possess it always. Furthermore, Eros aims at creation in beauty, whether in the body or in the soul. That is its final object.

Nothing is more precious than the beautiful beloved. Mother, brother, friends are all forgotten, fortune lost through neglect is of no account. Law and manners, in which it (soul) formerly took pride, are all despised and it is ready to be a slave and to sleep as near the object of desire as one allows it. And besides revering the beautiful one it finds in him the only healer of its greatest travail. That is the state that men call love…

Death is a born to the thinker, indeed… the pursuit of philosophy is but a practice for death. Death is separation of soul from body and it is the aim of the philosophic soul to free itself, even during life, from the obstacles, such as distracting pleasures and confusing sensations, which the body puts in the way of the soul’s development."In truth then justice appears to be something of this kind. It is not concerned with external actions but with the inner state of a man and his several parts. He must not allow every part of himself to interfere where it has no lousiness, the different kinds of soul must not hinder one another. The just man puts his own house in order, thus ruling over himself harmonizing (himself into) a unity…

Such was the state of my thoughts when I went to Italy and Sicily for the first time.

The soul is then immortal and has come to life a number of times. It has seen what is here and in the underworld and everything and there is nothing which it has not come to know. Small wonder it can call to mind what it has previously known about virtue and other things…the whole of research and learning is only recollection.

When a man’s passion inclines violently in one direction, they are as we know, weakened in other directions by this fact, like a stream that has been canalized

When they flow towards study and things of that kind and are concentrated upon the pleasures of the mind (psyche) alone, the physical pleasures are given up; when a man, that is a true philosopher and does not merely pretend to be.

Such a man will be controlled and will never be greedy for wealth.

The intellect alone is immortal as the most divine part of the soul. It is that which is akin to the Gods and that alone which is the work of the Maker…"Of divine things He Himself is the maker, mortal things. He orders his own offspring to bring about. They received from Him the immortal first principle of soul and next in imitation of Him fashioned around it a mortal body as a carriage for it and within this they built another part of the soul, which holds strange and compelling attributes within itself.

All soul is immortal. For that which is ever in motion is immortal… That, alone which moves itself, since it never fails, never ceases to move, but is the source and beginning of motion for all other things that move. For the beginning never came to be. And from the beginning all that comes to be is born, whereas itself it derives from none. For if the beginning was born of something else, it would no longer be the beginning."However, he adds, in this kind of state .

Harmony is ensured in the individual when the rational part of his soul is in command; with regard to society, when philosophers are its rulers because philosophers – Platonic philosophers – have a clear understanding of justice, based on their vision of the Form of the Good.

Dialectic is, etymologically, the art of conversation, of question and answer; and according to Plato, dialectical skill is the ability to pose and answer questions about the essences of things. The dialectician replaces hypotheses with secure knowledge, and his aim is to ground all science, all knowledge, on some ‘unhypothetical first principle’.

The Laws, Plato’s longest and most intensely practical work contains his ripest utterances on ethics, education and jurisprudence, as well as his one entirely nonmythical exposition of theology. The immediate object is to provide a model of constitution making and legislation to assist in the actual founding of cities. The problem of the dialogue is thus not the construction of an ideal state as in the Republic but the framing of a constitution and code that might be successfully adopted by a society of average Greeks. Hence the demands made on average human nature, though exacting, are not pitched too high; and the communism of the Republic is dropped.

Purely speculative philosophy and science are excluded from the purview of the Laws, and the metaphysical interest is introduced only so far as to provide a basis for a moral theology. In compensation the dialogue is exceptionally rich in political and legal thought and appears, indirectly, to have left its mark on the great system of Roman jurisprudence.The Laws also create a natural theology. There are three false beliefs, Plato holds that they are fatal to moral character : atheism, denial of the moral government of the world, and the belief that divine judgement can be bought off by offerings.

And what is the best way to live one’s life ? For Plato, one should always aspire toward "Truth" – and even if one can’t reach it, one should never cease to strive for it. And what is this Truth ? For Plato, Truth was permanence, the unchanging, the constant, the reliable, the reasonable, the rational.Above all, Plato wanted to try to lead people to search for the ultimate Truth, which has been most commonly translated as the "Good" or the "Fine". If everyone made this pursuit of Truth their life’s goal, then people would live the best of all possible lives. The problems that have caused so much hardship (war, famine, crime) would vanish.

Nothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are playing in the sky. He has finished his thinking before he brings it to the reader, and he abounds in the surprises of a literary master. He has the opulence which furnishes, at every turn, the precise weapon he needs. As the rich man wears no more garments, drives no more horses, sits in no more chambers than the poor,- but has that one dress, or equipage, or instrument, which is fit for the hour and the need; so Plato, in his plenty, is never restricted, but has the fit word. There is indeed no weapon in all the armory of wit which he did not possess and use,- epic, analysis, mania, intuition, music, satire and irony, down to the customary and polite. His illustrations are poetry and his jests illustrations. Socrates' profession of obstetric art is good philosophy; and his finding that word "cookery," and

adulatory art," for rhetoric, in the Gorgias, does us a substantial service still. No orator can measure in effect with him who can give good nicknames. What moderation and understatement and checking his thunder in mid-volley !

He has good-naturedly furnished the courtier and citizen with all that can be said against the schools. "For philosophy is an elegant thing, if any one modestly meddles with it; but if he is conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts the man." He could well afford to be generous,- he, who from the sunlike centrality and reach of his vision, had a faith without cloud. Such as his perception, was his speech : he plays with the doubt and makes the most of it : he paints and quibbles; and by and by comes a sentence that moves the sea and land. The admirable earnest comes not only at intervals, in the perfect yes and no of the dialogue, but in bursts of light.

Conclusion :
Plato would willingly have a Platonism, a known and accurate expression for the world, and it should be accurate. It shall be the world passing through the mind of Plato. Every atom shall have the Platonic tinge; every atom, every relation or quality you knew before, you shall know again and find here, but now ordered; not nature, but art. And you shall feel that Alexander indeed overran, with men and horses, some countries of the planet; but countries, and things of which countries are made, elements, the planet itself, laws of the planet and of men, have passed through this man as bread into his body, and have become no longer bread, but body: so all this mammoth morsel has become Plato. He has clapped copyright on the world. This is the ambition of individualism – Plato’s ultimate. In the final analysis, Plato turns out to be the ultimate philosopher – body, soul, and mind – eternally.

Plato's Academy

If we combine the various traditions concerning Plato's Academy into a narrative account, a somewhat elaborate but nonetheless clear portrait of this philosophical diatribê emerges: About 388/7, the son of Ariston chose a remote and "unhealthy" locale to dedicate a Mouseion (Temple of the Muses). Plato established his temenos (an allotted piece of sacred land) to the Muses among the groves and gymnasium (exercise gardens) dedicated to the Attic hero Academus (Hekademos). The area rested on the Sacred Way, some distance Northwest from Athens (city proper). Plato dedicated this Mouseion following a trip to Sicily, and it was in the grove that he began writing and regular instruction to groups of followers. Plato continued his pursuit of philosophy for about forty years. He was later buried nearby, in a garden facing Colonus, and the sculptor Silanium erected a statue of the philosopher - dedicating it to the Muses as well.

Individuals soon came from all over Greece to pursue philosophy in the Academy, but Plato accepted only those "intoxicated to learn what was in their souls." A student then listened as Plato walked about the gymnasium lecturing, and they all enjoyed moderate but pleasant banquets. The meals were conducted according to an elaborate set of rules, but Plato did not hold these feasts simply to celebrate till dawn. He held his banquets so "that [he and his companions] might manifestly honor the gods and enjoy each others company and chiefly to refresh themselves with learned discussion."

The tradition that Plato's school was founded in an unhealthy locale is late Christian embroidery. The embellishment persisted in spite of the fact Cimon had renovated the gardens (Plutarch, Cimon 13.8), making them one of the most beautiful in the Attic countryside, and they remained as such well into Roman times. If Plato desired to found a "society of learner-companions" who dined together in honor of the Muses, allotting for himself its own land in a gymnasium, he would have formed a thiasos (cult association) - specifically, he would have formed a sussitos, i.e., a specific type of thiasos whose members gathered to dine in honor of the gods. Thiasoi were small close-knit socio-religious associations and crucial in the life of the polis. They shared religious rites and rituals and also provided ideal opportunities for social intercourse as well as engaged their memberships in financial and political activities.There are two opposing opinions about this school's "nature." Exactly what Plato discussed with his "learner companions" is a more complicated affair. First, there is Plato's own attested emphasis on definitions, geometry, and other more esoteric metaphysical-epistemological matters. Second, there exists more general reputation that the Academy produced philosophical statesmen. Side by side the two traditions appear to conflict with one another, or, it is difficult to understand how the former areas of study produce the latter applied results.


"Philosophy" was the principal focus of the Academy, but what exactly does this mean ? Mathematics, solid geometry, astronomy, natural science, and the "Theory of Ideas" are all attested subjects of study. In fact, over the entrance to Plato's Mouseion was the inscription "Ageometretos medeis eisito." There is also mention of a predilection with definitions -- by both Plato and many of his students -- as well as frequent references to "lectures" (skolê). For instance, there is a detailed report on Plato's only recorded public offering "On the Good." This was a discourse which digressed into an exposé on mathematics, numbers, geometry, astronomy, and the unity of goodness. Among all of this, would be, undoubtedly, discussions on Plato's dialogues. But there also exist cryptic remarks concerning Plato's "unwritten doctrines."

The issues are indeed difficult. Nevertheless, when attempted to analyze Plato's Academy carefully, we realize, we are facing three problems. Once disassociated, the overall uncertainty is more manageable. The first two problems are an issue of intention; the third is one of relationship. The initial two difficulties may be summed up with general questions: what purpose did Plato's teachings serve ? And what was the connection between Plato's writings and his oral discussions ? The final difficulty, however, is, by far, the most complex. It is, in essence, a doctrinal difficulty between that, which, we today can clearly see in Plato's writings versus that which Plato's students claimed to have understood from Plato's discussions.