A History of the Metric System Controversy in the United States
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RICE, CARL ROSS. Diocletian's “Great
ABSTRACT RICE, CARL ROSS. Diocletian’s “Great Persecutions”: Minority Religions and the Roman Tetrarchy. (Under the direction of Prof. S. Thomas Parker) In the year 303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian and the other members of the Tetrarchy launched a series of persecutions against Christians that is remembered as the most severe, widespread, and systematic persecution in the Church’s history. Around that time, the Tetrarchy also issued a rescript to the Pronconsul of Africa ordering similar persecutory actions against a religious group known as the Manichaeans. At first glance, the Tetrarchy’s actions appear to be the result of tensions between traditional classical paganism and religious groups that were not part of that system. However, when the status of Jewish populations in the Empire is examined, it becomes apparent that the Tetrarchy only persecuted Christians and Manichaeans. This thesis explores the relationship between the Tetrarchy and each of these three minority groups as it attempts to understand the Tetrarchy’s policies towards minority religions. In doing so, this thesis will discuss the relationship between the Roman state and minority religious groups in the era just before the Empire’s formal conversion to Christianity. It is only around certain moments in the various religions’ relationships with the state that the Tetrarchs order violence. Consequently, I argue that violence towards minority religions was a means by which the Roman state policed boundaries around its conceptions of Roman identity. © Copyright 2016 Carl Ross Rice All Rights Reserved Diocletian’s “Great Persecutions”: Minority Religions and the Roman Tetrarchy by Carl Ross Rice A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts History Raleigh, North Carolina 2016 APPROVED BY: ______________________________ _______________________________ S. -
Varying Constants, Gravitation and Cosmology
Varying constants, Gravitation and Cosmology Jean-Philippe Uzan Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR-7095 du CNRS, Universit´ePierre et Marie Curie, 98 bis bd Arago, 75014 Paris (France) and Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, Cape Town University, Rondebosch 7701 (South Africa) and National Institute for Theoretical Physics (NITheP), Stellenbosch 7600 (South Africa). email: [email protected] http//www2.iap.fr/users/uzan/ September 29, 2010 Abstract Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of our physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would reflect the existence of an almost massless field that couples to mat- ter. This will induce a violation of the universality of free fall. It is thus of utmost importance for our understanding of gravity and of the domain of validity of general relativity to test for their constancy. We thus detail the relations between the constants, the tests of the local posi- tion invariance and of the universality of free fall. We then review the main experimental and observational constraints that have been obtained from atomic clocks, the Oklo phenomenon, Solar system observations, meteorites dating, quasar absorption spectra, stellar physics, pul- sar timing, the cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis. At each step we arXiv:1009.5514v1 [astro-ph.CO] 28 Sep 2010 describe the basics of each system, its dependence with respect to the constants, the known systematic effects and the most recent constraints that have been obtained. We then describe the main theoretical frameworks in which the low-energy constants may actually be varying and we focus on the unification mechanisms and the relations between the variation of differ- ent constants. -
ACADIA PLANTATION RECORDS Mss
ACADIA PLANTATION RECORDS Mss. 4906 Inventory Compiled by Catherine Ashley Via and Rebecca Smith Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library Louisiana State University Libraries Baton Rouge, Louisiana 2005 Revised 2015 Updated 2020, 2021 ACADIA PLANTATION RECORDS Mss. 4906 1809-2004 SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, LSU LIBRARIES CONTENTS OF INVENTORY SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................... 4 HISTORICAL NOTE ..................................................................................................................... 5 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ............................................................................................................... 8 SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE ................................................................................................. 10 LIST OF SERIES AND SUBSERIES .......................................................................................... 11 SERIES DESCRIPTIONS ............................................................................................................ 12 INDEX TERMS ............................................................................................................................ 25 CONTAINER LIST ...................................................................................................................... 28 Appendix A: Oversized materials from Series II, Legal Records, Subseries 1, General Appendix B: Oversized -
Weights and Measures Standards of the United States: a Brief History
1 .0 11 8 1.25 1.4 I 6_ DOCUMENT RESUME ED 142 418 SE 022 719 AUTHOE Judson, Lewis V. TITLE Weights and Measures Standards of the United States: A Brief History. Updated Edition. INSTITUTION National Bureau of Standards (DOC) ,Washington, D.C. REPORT NO NBS-SP-447 PUB DATE Mar 76 NOTE 42p.; Contains occasional small print; Photographs may not reproduce well AVAILABLE FROM Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 (Stock Number 003-0O3-01654-3, $1.00) EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 HC-$2.06 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Government Publications; History; *Mathematics Education; *Measurement; *Metric System; *Science History; *Standards ABSTRACT This document was published by the National Bureau of Standards to meet the current demand for information on the history of weights and measures in the United States. It includes an illustrated discussion of this history through 1962 followed by an addendum covering the period 1963-1975. Appendices provide a bibliography and photographic copies of eight documents important to the development of official standards of measurement. (SD) *********************************************************************** Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * * -to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not * responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. *********************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. -
Land Surveying in Alabama J. M. Faircloth
LAND SURVEYING IN ALABAMA J. M. FAIRCLOTH PREFACE There are numerous treatises on land surveying available to the engineer or surveyor today. The legal, theoretical, and practical aspects of general land surveying are all easily available in great detail.* However, there is no writing known to the author which deals specifically with surveying in Alabama or which touches in any appreciable degree upon the problems encountered in Alabama. This manual is not intended to cover the general type of material easily available in the usual surveying text, the manual of the U.S. Land Office or the many other references on surveying; but rather is intended to supplement these writings with information specific to Alabama. The author recognizes a growing need in Alabama for some source of information for the young land surveyor. Few colleges continue to include courses in land surveying in their required curricula, and few references are made to land surveying in the engineering courses on surveying. The increasing values of real property creates a growing public demand for competent land surveyors. The engineering graduate has little training or background for land surveying and has no avenue available for obtaining this information other than through practical experience. One of the purposes of this manual is to provide some of this information and to present some of the problems to be encountered in Alabama. The Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors in Alabama is faced with the problem of a large public demand for land surveyors that cannot be filled on the one hand, and the maintenance of high professional standards with adequate means for training land surveyors on the other. -
Frequency Response and Bode Plots
1 Frequency Response and Bode Plots 1.1 Preliminaries The steady-state sinusoidal frequency-response of a circuit is described by the phasor transfer function Hj( ) . A Bode plot is a graph of the magnitude (in dB) or phase of the transfer function versus frequency. Of course we can easily program the transfer function into a computer to make such plots, and for very complicated transfer functions this may be our only recourse. But in many cases the key features of the plot can be quickly sketched by hand using some simple rules that identify the impact of the poles and zeroes in shaping the frequency response. The advantage of this approach is the insight it provides on how the circuit elements influence the frequency response. This is especially important in the design of frequency-selective circuits. We will first consider how to generate Bode plots for simple poles, and then discuss how to handle the general second-order response. Before doing this, however, it may be helpful to review some properties of transfer functions, the decibel scale, and properties of the log function. Poles, Zeroes, and Stability The s-domain transfer function is always a rational polynomial function of the form Ns() smm as12 a s m asa Hs() K K mm12 10 (1.1) nn12 n Ds() s bsnn12 b s bsb 10 As we have seen already, the polynomials in the numerator and denominator are factored to find the poles and zeroes; these are the values of s that make the numerator or denominator zero. If we write the zeroes as zz123,, zetc., and similarly write the poles as pp123,, p , then Hs( ) can be written in factored form as ()()()s zsz sz Hs() K 12 m (1.2) ()()()s psp12 sp n 1 © Bob York 2009 2 Frequency Response and Bode Plots The pole and zero locations can be real or complex. -
Standard for Terminology V2
Joint Monitoring Programme for Ambient Noise North Sea 2018 – 2020 Standard for Terminology WP 3 Deliverable/Task: 3.1 Authors: L. Wang, S Robinson Affiliations: NPL Version 2.0 Date: March 2020 INTERREG North Sea Region Jomopans Project Full Title Joint Monitoring Programme for Ambient Noise North Sea Project Acronym Jomopans Programme Interreg North Region Programme Programme Priority Priority 3 Sustainable North Sea Region Colophon Name Niels Kinneging (Project Manager) Organization Name Rijkswaterstaat Email [email protected] Phone +31 6 5321 5242 This report should be cited: JOMOPANS standard: Terminology for ambient ocean noise monitoring Cover picture: UK Crown copyright 2 INTERREG North Sea Region Jomopans Table of contents 1 General acoustic terms ......................................................................................................... 5 1.1 Definitions of basic quantities and metrics ............................................................................ 5 1.2 Levels used in underwater acoustics ...................................................................................11 2 Metrics for ambient noise monitoring in JOMOPANS ..........................................................14 2.1 Metrics for use in JOMOPANS ............................................................................................14 2.2 Other common metrics not used in JOMOPANS .................................................................14 3 Terminology used in acoustic modelling ..............................................................................15 -
A History of the National Bureau of Standards
APPENDIX A FERDINAND RUDOLPH HASSLER First Superintendent of the Coast Survey and of Weights and Measures When Professor Stratton arrived at the Office of Weights and Measures on B Street in Washington in the spring of 1898 to survey its equipment and operations, he found there in the person of Louis A. Fischer, the adjuster, a link with Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, the first Superintendent of Weights and Measures in the Federal Government. It was in the atmosphere of the office over which Hassler had presided, Stratton said, with its sacred traditions concerning standards, its unsurpassed instrument shop, its world-known experts in the construction and comparison of standards, and especially in the most precise measurement of length and mass, that the boy Fischer, scarcely over 16, found himself when he entered the employ of Govern- ment in a minor capacity [about the year 18801. * * Scarcely 40 years had passed since the end of Hassler's services and the beginning of Fischer's. His first instructors were the direct disciples of Hassler and he knew and talked with those who had come in personal contact with the first superintendent.1 Fischer's reminiscences concerning the early historyof the Weights and Measures office, gathered from his association with the successors of Hassler, were never recorded, to Stratton's regret, and the only biography of Hassler, by Florian Cajori, professor of mathematics at the University of California, centers on his career in the Coast Survey gathered from his association with the successors of Hassler, were never recorded, to in the history of science in the Federal Government, is the principal source of the present sketch.2 1 Stratton, "Address Memorializing Louis Albert Fischer, 1864.—1921," 15th Annual Con. -
Towards a New Enlightenment? a Transcendent Decade
Towards a New Enlightenment? A Transcendent Decade Preface This book, Towards a New Enlightenment? A Transcendent Decade, is the eleventh in an annual series that BBVA’s OpenMind project dedicates to disseminating greater knowledge on the key questions of our time. We began this series in 2008, with the first book, Frontiers of Knowledge, that celebrated the launching of the prizes of the same name awarded annually by the BBVA Foundation. Since then, these awards have achieved worldwide renown. In that first book, over twenty major scientists and experts used language accessible to the general public to rigorously review the most relevant recent advances and perspectives in the different scientific and artistic fields recognized by those prizes. Since then, we have published a new book each year, always following the same model: collections of articles by key figures in their respective fields that address different aspects or perspectives on the fundamental questions that affect our lives and determine our futu- re: from globalization to the impact of exponential technologies, and on to include today’s major ethical problems, the evolution of business in the digital era, and the future of Europe. The excellent reaction to the first books in this series led us, in 2011, to create OpenMind (www.bbvaopenmind.com), an online community for debate and the dissemination of knowle- dge. Since then, OpenMind has thrived, and today it addresses a broad spectrum of scientific, technological, social, and humanistic subjects in different formats, including our books, as well as articles, posts, reportage, infographics, videos, and podcasts, with a growing focus on audiovisual materials. -
Weights and Measures Standards of the United States—A Brief History (1963), by Lewis V
WEIGHTS and MEASURES STANDARDS OF THE UMIT a brief history U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS NBS Special Publication 447 WEIGHTS and MEASURES STANDARDS OF THE TP ii 2ri\ ii iEa <2 ^r/V C II llinCAM NBS Special Publication 447 Originally Issued October 1963 Updated March 1976 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Wash., D.C. 20402. Price $1; (Add 25 percent additional for other than U.S. mailing). Stock No. 003-003-01654-3 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 76-600055 Foreword "Weights and Measures," said John Quincy Adams in 1821, "may be ranked among the necessaries of life to every individual of human society." That sentiment, so appropriate to the agrarian past, is even more appropriate to the technology and commerce of today. The order that we enjoy, the confidence we place in weighing and measuring, is in large part due to the measure- ment standards that have been established. This publication, a reprinting and updating of an earlier publication, provides detailed information on the origin of our standards for mass and length. Ernest Ambler Acting Director iii Preface to 1976 Edition Two publications of the National Bureau of Standards, now out of print, that deal with weights and measures have had widespread use and are still in demand. The publications are NBS Circular 593, The Federal Basis for Weights and Measures (1958), by Ralph W. Smith, and NBS Miscellaneous Publication 247, Weights and Measures Standards of the United States—a Brief History (1963), by Lewis V. -
Imperial Units
Imperial units From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the post-1824 measures used in the British Empire and countries in the British sphere of influence. For the units used in England before 1824, see English units. For the system of weight, see Avoirdupois. For United States customary units, see Customary units . Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined (until 1959) and reduced. The system came into official use across the British Empire. By the late 20th century most nations of the former empire had officially adopted the metric system as their main system of measurement. The former Weights and Measures office in Seven Sisters, London. Contents [hide] • 1 Relation to other systems • 2 Units ○ 2.1 Length ○ 2.2 Area ○ 2.3 Volume 2.3.1 British apothecaries ' volume measures ○ 2.4 Mass • 3 Current use of imperial units ○ 3.1 United Kingdom ○ 3.2 Canada ○ 3.3 Australia ○ 3.4 Republic of Ireland ○ 3.5 Other countries • 4 See also • 5 References • 6 External links [edit] Relation to other systems The imperial system is one of many systems of English or foot-pound-second units, so named because of the base units of length, mass and time. Although most of the units are defined in more than one system, some subsidiary units were used to a much greater extent, or for different purposes, in one area rather than the other. The distinctions between these systems are often not drawn precisely. -
Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine
Poverty and charity in Roman Palestine Gildas Hamel Abstract The present book reformats the text, notes, and appendices of the origi- nal 1990 publication by the University of California Press. Its pagination is different. There is no index. i D’ur vamm ha d’ur breur aet d’an Anaon re abred A.M.G. 31 Meurzh 1975 Y.M.H. 12 Geñver 1986 Contents Contents ii List of Figures iv List of Tables iv Introduction ix 1 Daily bread 1 1.1 Food items ............................. 2 1.2 Diets ................................ 19 1.3 Diseases and death ........................ 55 1.4 Conclusion ............................ 58 2 Poverty in clothing 61 2.1 Common articles of clothing ................... 61 2.2 Lack of clothing .......................... 70 2.3 Clothing and social status .................... 81 2.4 Conclusion ............................ 104 3 Causes of poverty 107 3.1 Discourse of the ancients on yields . 108 3.2 Aspects of agriculture: climate and soil . 116 3.3 Work and technical standards . 125 3.4 Yields ............................... 145 3.5 Population of Palestine . 159 3.6 Conclusion ............................ 163 4 Taxes and rents 165 4.1 Roman taxes . 168 ii Contents iii 4.2 Jewish taxes and history of tax burden . 171 4.3 Labor and ground rents . 176 4.4 Conclusion ............................ 190 5 The vocabulary of poverty 193 5.1 Explicit vocabulary: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek . 196 5.2 Explicit vocabulary: self-designations . 209 5.3 Greek and Jewish views on poverty and wealth . 229 5.4 Implicit vocabulary . 239 5.5 Conclusion ............................ 248 6 Charity in Roman Palestine 251 6.1 Discourses on charity .