(1) At the present time or moment (literally a point in
time).
(2) Without further delay; immediately; at once; at this
time or juncture in some period under consideration or in some course of
proceedings described.
(3) As “just now”, a time or moment in the immediate past
(historically it existed as the now obsolete “but now” (very recently; not long
ago; up to the present).
(4) Under the present or existing circumstances; as
matters stand.
(5) Up-to-the-minute; fashionable, encompassing the
latest ideas, fads or fashions (the “now look”, the “now generation” etc).
(6) In law, as “now wife”, the wife at the time a will is
written (used to prevent any inheritance from being transferred to a person of
a future marriage) (archaic).
(7) In phenomenology, a particular instant in time, as
perceived at that instant.
Pre 900: From the Middle English now, nou & nu from
the Old English nū (at the present
time, at this moment, immediately), from the Proto-West Germanic nū, from the Proto-Germanic nu, from the primitive Indo-European nū (now) and cognate with the Old Norse nu, the Dutch nu, the German nun, the Old
Frisian nu and the Gothic nū.It was the source also of the Sanskrit and Avestan nu, the Old Persian nuram,
the Hittite nuwa, the Greek nu & nun, the Latin nunc, the
Old Church Slavonic nyne, the Lithuanian
nū and the Old Irish nu-. The original senses may have been akin to “newly,
recently” and it was related to the root of new.Since Old English it has been often merely
emphatic, without any temporal sense (as in the emphatic use of “now then”,
though that phrase originally meant “at the present time”, and also (by the
early thirteenth century) “at once”.In
the early Middle English it often was written as one word.The familiar use as a noun (the present time)
emerged in the late fourteenth century while the adjective meaning “up to date”
is listed by etymologists as a “mid 1960s revival” on the basis the word was
used as an adjective with the sense of “current” between the late fourteenth
and early nineteenth centuries.The phrase
“now and then” (occasionally; at one time and another) was in use by the mid
1400s, “now or never” having been in use since the early thirteenth century.“Now” is widely used in idiomatic forms and as
a conjunction & interjection.Now is
a noun, adjective & adverb, nowism, nowness & nowist are nouns; the
noun plural is nows.
“Now” is one of the more widely used words in English and
is understood to mean “at the present time or moment (literally a point in
time)”.However, it’s often used in a
way which means something else: Were one to say “I’ll do it now”, in the narrow
technical sense that really means “I’ll do it in the near future”.Even things which are treated as happening “now”
really aren’t such as seeing something.Because light travels at a finite speed, it takes time for it to bounce
from something to one’s eye so just about anything one sees in an exercise in
looking back to the past.Even when
reading something on a screen or page one’s brain is processing something from
a nanosecond (about one billionth of a second) earlier. For most purposes, “now” is but a convincing (an
convenient) illusion and even though, in certain, special sense, everything in
the universe is happening at the same time (now) it’s not something that can
ever be experienced because of the implications of relativity.None of this causes many problems in life but
among certain physicists and philosophers, there is a dispute about “now” and
there are essentially three factions: (1) that “now” happened only once in the
history of the known universe and cannot again exist until the universe ends, (2)
that only “now” can exist and (3) that “now” cannot ever exist.
Does now exist? (2013), oil & acrylic on canvas by Fiona Rae (b 1963)
on MutualArt.
The notion that “now” can have happened only once in the history
of our universe (and according to the cosmological theorists variously there
may be many universes (some which used to exist, some extant and some yet to be
created) or our universe may now be in one of its many phases, each which will
start and end with a unique “now”) is tied up with the nature of time, the
mechanism upon which “now” depends not merely for definition but also for existence.That faction deals with what is essentially
an intellectual exercise whereas the other two operate where physics and
linguistics intersect.Within the
faction which says "now can never exist" there is a sub-faction which holds that to say “now” cannot exist is a
bit of a fudge in that it’s not that “now” never happens but only that it can
only every be described as a particular form of “imaginary time”; an address in
space-time in the past or future.The
purists however are absolutists and their proposition is tied up in the nature
of infinity, something which renders it impossible ever exactly to define “now”
because endlessly the decimal point can move so that “now” can only ever be
tended towards and never attained.If
pushed, all they will concede is that “now” can be approximated for purposes of
description but that’s not good enough: there is no now.
nower than now!: Lindsay Lohan on the cover of i-D
magazine No.269, September, 2006.
The “only
now can exist” faction find tiresome the proposition that “the moment we
identify something as happening now, already it has passed”, making the point
that “now” is the constant state of existence and that a mechanism like time
exists only a thing of administrative convenience. The “only now can exist” faction are most
associated with the schools of presentism or phenomenology and argue only the
present moment (now) is “real” and that any other fragment of time can only be
described, the past existing only in memory and the future only as anticipation
or imagination; “now” is the sole verifiable reality. They are interested especially in what they
call “change & becoming”, making the point the very notion of change
demands a “now”: events happen and things become in the present; without a “now”,
change and causality are unintelligible.
The debate between the factions hinges often on differing
interpretations of time: whether fundamentally it is subjective or objective,
continuous or discrete, dynamic or static. Linguistically and practically, “now” remains central
to the human experience but whether it corresponds to an independent
metaphysical reality remains contested.
(1) A one-year version of the Plymouth Road Runner with
certain aerodynamic enhancements, built to fulfil the homologation
requirements for use in competition.
(2) A one-off Ford Falcon XA GT built by Ford Australia for
the motor show circuit in 1973 (and subsequently a derived (though much
toned-down) regular production model offered for a limited time).
1969: The construct was super + bird.The Middle English super was a re-purposing of
the prefix super, from the Latin super, from the Proto-Italic super, from the primitive Indo-European upér (over, above) and cognate with the
Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér).In this context, it was used as an adjective suggesting “excellent
quality, better than usual; wonderful; awesome, excellent etc.Bird was from the Middle English bird & brid,
from the Old English bridd (chick, fledgling, chicken).The origin was a term used of birds that
could not fly (chicks, fledglings, chickens) as opposed to the Old English fugol
(from which English gained the modern “fowl”) which was the general term for “flying
birds”.From the earlt to mid-fourteenth
century, “bird” increasingly supplanted “fowl” as the most common term.Superbird is a noun; the noun plural is Superbirds
and an initial capital is appropriate for all uses because Superbird is a
product name.
Of super- and supra-
The super- prefix was a learned
borrowing of the Latin super-, the
prefix an adaptation of super, from
the Proto-Italic super, from the
primitive Indo-European upér (over,
above) and cognate with the Ancient Greek ὑπέρ
(hupér).It was used to create forms conveying
variously (1) an enhanced sense of inclusiveness, (2) beyond, over or upon (the
latter notable in anatomy where the a super-something indicates it's
"located above"), (3) greater than (in quantity), (4) exceptionally
or unusually large, (5) superior in title or status (sometimes clipped to
"super"), (6) of greater power or potency, (7) intensely, extremely
or exceptional and (8) of supersymmetry (in physics).The standard antonym was “sub” and the
synonyms are listed usually as “on-, en-, epi-, supra-, sur-, ultra- and hyper-”
but both “ultra” and “hyper-” have in some applications been used to suggest a
quality beyond that implied by the “super-” prefix.In English, there are more than a thousand
words formed with the super- prefix. The supra- prefix was a learned
borrowing from the Latin suprā-, the
prefix an adaptation of the preposition suprā,
from the Old Latin suprād & superā, from the Proto-Italic superād and cognate with the Umbrian subra.It was used originally to create forms conveying variously (1) above,
over, beyond, (2) greater than; transcending and (3) above, over, on top (in anatomy
thus directly synonymous with super) but in modern use supra- tends to be
differentiated in that while it can still be used to suggest “an enhanced
quality or quantity”, it’s now more common for it to denote physical position
or placement in spatial terms.
The Plymouth Superbird was a "homologation special" build only for the 1970 model year. By the mid 1950s, various NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) competitions had become wildly popular and the factories (sometimes in secret) provided support for the racers. This had started modestly enough with the supply of parts and technical support but so tied up with prestige did success become that soon some manufacturers established racing departments and, officially and not, ran teams or provided so much financial support some effectively were factory operations. NASCAR had begun as a "stock" car operation in the literal sense that the first cars used were "showroom stock" with only minimal modifications. That didn't last long, cheating was soon rife and in the interests of spectacle (ie higher speeds), certain "performance enhancements" were permitted although the rules were always intended to maintain the original spirit of using cars which were "close" to what was in the showroom. The cheating didn't stop although the teams became more adept in its practice. One Dodge typified the way manufactures used the homologation rule to effectively game the system. The homologation rules (having to build and sell a minimum number of a certain model in that specification) had been intended to restrict the use of cars to “volume production” models available to the general public but in 1956 Dodge did a special run of what it called the D-500 (an allusion to the number built to be “legal”). Finding a loophole in the interpretation of the word “option” the D-500 appeared in the showrooms with a 260-hp V8 and crossed-flag “500” emblems on the hoods (bonnet) and trunk (boot) lids, the model’s Dodge’s high-performance offering for the season. However there was also the D-500-1 (or DASH-1) option, which made the car essentially a race-ready vehicle and one available as a two-door sedan, hardtop or convertible (the different bodies to ensure eligibility in NASCAR’s various competitions). The D-500-1 was thought to produce around 285 hp from its special twin-four-barrel-carbureted version of the 315 cubic inch (5.2 litre) but more significant was the inclusion of heavy-duty suspension and braking components. It was a successful endeavour and triggered both an arms race between the manufacturers and the ongoing battle with the NASCAR regulators who did not wish to see their series transformed into something conested only by specialized racing cars which bore only a superficial resemblance to the “showroom stock”. By the 2020s, it’s obvious NASCAR surrendered to the inevitable but for decades, the battle raged.
1970 Plymouth Superbird (left) and 1969 Dodge Daytona (right) by Stephen Barlow on DeviantArt. Despite the visual similarities, the aerodynamic enhancements differed between the two, the Plymouth's nose-cone less pointed, the rear wing higher and with a greater rake.
By 1969 the NASCAR regulators had fine-tuned their rules restricting engine power and mandating a minimum weight so manufacturers resorted to the then less policed field of aerodynamics, ushering what came to be known as the aero-cars. Dodge made some modifications to their Charger which smoothed the air-flow, labelling it the Charger 500 in a nod to the NASCAR homologation rules which demanded 500 identical models for eligibility. However, unlike the quite modest modifications which proved so successful for Ford’s Torino Talladega and Mercury’s Cyclone Spoiler, the 500 remained aerodynamically inferior and production ceased after 392 were built. Dodge solved the problem of the missing 108 needed for homologation purposes by introducing a different "Charger 500" which was just a trim level and nothing to do with competition but, honor apparently satisfied on both sides, NASCAR turned the same blind eye they used when it became clear Ford probably had bent the rules a bit with the Talladega.
Superbirds: 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird in "Lime Light" (left) and Lindsay Lohan (right), generated in AI (artificial intelligence) as a superbird by Stable Diffusion.
Not discouraged by the aerodynamic setback, Dodge recruited engineers from Chrysler's aerospace & missile division (which was being shuttered because the Nixon-era détente had just started and the US & USSR were beginning their arms-reduction programmes) and quickly created the Daytona, adding to the 500 a protruding nosecone and high wing at the rear. Successful on the track, this time the required 500 really were built, 503 coming of the line. NASCAR responded by again moving the goalposts, requiring manufacturers to build at least one example of each vehicle for each of their dealers before homologation would be granted, something which typically would demand a run well into four figures. Plymouth duly complied and for 1970 about 2000 Superbirds (NASCAR acknowledging 1920 although Chrysler insists there were 1,935) were delivered to dealers, an expensive exercise given they were said to be invoiced at below cost. Now more unhappy than ever, NASCAR lawyered-up and drafted rules rendering the aero-cars uncompetitive and their brief era ended.
The graphic for the original Road Runner (1968, left) and the version used for the Superbird (1970, right). Both were created under licence from Warner Brothers, like the distinctive "beep-beep" horn sound, horn sound, the engineering apparently as simple as replacing the aluminium strands in the mechanism with copper windings.
So extreme in appearance were the cars they proved at the time sometimes hard to sell and some were converted back to the standard specification by dealers anxious to get them out of the showroom. Views changed over time and they're now much sought by collectors, the record price known price paid for a Superbird being US$1,650,000 for one of the 135 fitted with the 426 Street Hemi. Despite the Superbirds having been produced in some four times the quantity of Daytonas, collectors indicate the're essentially interchangable with the determinates of price (all else being equal) being determined by (1) engine specification (the Hemi-powered models the most desirable followed by the 6-BBL Plymouths (there were no Six-Pack Daytonas built) and then the 4 barrel 440s), (2) transmission (those with a manual gearbox attracting a premium) and (3) the combination of mileage, condition and originality. Mapped on to that equation is the variable of who happens to be at an auction on any given day, something unpredictable. That was demonstrated in August 2024 when a highly optioned Daytona in the most desirable configuration achieved US$3.36 million at Mecum’s auction at Monterey, California. The price was impressive but what attracted the interest of the amateur sociologists was the same Daytona in May 2022 sold for US$1.3 million when offered by Mecum at their auction held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The US$1.3 million was at the time the highest price then paid for a Hemi Daytona (of the 503 Daytonas built, only 70 were fitted with the Hemi and of those, only 22 had the four-speed manual) and the increase in value by some 250% was obviously the result of something other than the inflation rate. The consensus was that although the internet had made just about all markets inherently global, local factors can still influence both the buyer profile and their behaviour, especially in the hothouse environment of a live auction. Those who frequent California’s central coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco include a demographic not typically found in the mid-west and among other distinguishing characteristics there are more rich folk, able to spend US$3.36 million on a half-century old car they’ll probably never drive. That’s how the collector market now works.
1973 XA Ford Falcon GT Superbird, built for the show circuit.
Based on the then-current XA Falcon GT Hardtop, Ford Australia’s
original Superbird was a one-off created for display at the 1973 Sydney and
Melbourne Motor Shows, the purpose of the thing to distract attention from
Holden’s new, four-door Monaro model, a range added after the previous year’s limited
production SS had generated sufficient sales for the “proof-of-concept” to be
judged a success.Such tactics are not
unusual in commerce and Ford were responding to the Holden’s earlier release of
the SS being timed deliberately to steal the thunder expected to be generated
by the debut of the Falcon Hardtop. Although it featured a new "rough-blend" upholstery and a power-steering system with the rim-effort increased from 4 to 8 lbs (1.8 to 3.6 kg), mechanically,
the Superbird show car was something of a “parts-bin special” in that it
differed from a standard GT Hardtop mostly in the use of some of the components
orphaned when the plan run of 250-odd (Phase 4) Falcon GTHOs was cancelled
after in 1972 a Sydney tabloid newspaper had stirred a moral panic with one of
their typically squalid and untruthful stories about “160 mph (258 km/h)
supercars” soon to be available to males ages 17-25 (always a suspect
demographic in the eyes of a tabloid editor).Apparently, it was a “slow news day” so the story got moved from the sports
section at the back to the front page where the headline spooked the
politicians who demanded the manufacturers not proceed with the limited-production
specials which existed only to satisfy the homologation rules for competition.Resisting for only a few days, the
manufacturers complied and within a week the nation’s regulatory body for motor
sport announced the end of “series-production” racing and that in future the
cars used on the track would no longer need to be so closely related to those
available in showrooms.
1973 XA Ford Falcon GT Superbird with model in floral dress.
The Falcon GT Superbird displayed at the motor shows in
1973 however proved something of a harbinger in that it proved a bit of a “trial
run” for future ventures in which parts intended solely for racing would be
added to a sufficient number of vehicles sold to the public to homologate them
for use on the circuits.In that sense,
the mechanical specification of the Superbird previewed some of what would
later in the year be supplied (with a surprising amount of car-to-car
variability) in RPO83 (regular production option 83) including the GTHO’s suspension
settings, a 780 cfm (cubic feet per minute) carburetor, the 15” x 7” aluminium wheels, a 36 (imperial) gallon (164 litre)
fuel tank and some of the parts designed for greater durability under extreme (ie on the race track) conditions.Cognizant of the effect the tabloid
press has on politicians, none of the special runs in the immediate aftermath of the 1972 moral
panic included anything to increase performance.
Toned down: 1973 Ford Falcon 500 Hardtop with RPO77 (Superbird option pack).
Most who saw the Superbird probably didn’t much dwell on
the mechanical intricacies, taken more by the stylized falcon which extended
for three-quarters the length of the car.
It was the graphic which no doubt generated publicity in a way the
specification sheet never could and it was made available through Ford dealers
but the take-up rate was low so which it was decided to capitalize on the
success of the show car by releasing a production Superbird (as RPO77), the
graphic had been reduced to one about 18 inches (450 mm) in length which was
applied to the rear quarters, an ever smaller version appearing on the glovebox
lid. In keeping with that restraint, RPO
77 included only “dress-up” items and a 302 cubic inch (4.9 litre) V8 in the
same mild-mannered state of tune as the versions sold to bank managers and such
and very different from the high-compression 351 (5.8) in the show car. Still, RPO 77 did succeed in stimulating interest
in the two-door Hardtop, sales of which had proved sluggish after the initial
spike in 1972; some 750 were built and that all but 200 were fitted with an
automatic transmission was an indication of the target market. In Australia, the surviving Superbirds are now advertised for six figure sums while the surviving three Phase 4 GTHOs (the fourth was destroyed in a rally which seems an improbable place to use such a thing) can command over a million. The 1973 show car was repainted from "Pearl Silver" to its original "Wild Violet" before being sold.
(2) As “undecennial
magnetic period”, the Sun’s solar cycle.
1858: The
construct was undec-, (from the Latin
undecim, (eleven), the construct
being unus (one) + decem (ten)) + -ennial.The -ennial suffix was from the Latin -enniālis, the construct being annus (year (and figuratively “time,
season, epoch”)) + -ium (the suffix
used to form abstract nouns) + -ālis
(suffixed to nouns or numerals creating adjectives of relationship).It was a combining form denoting years.The Latin undecentesimus was from ūndēcentum
(ninety-nine; 99).In Roman numerals, 99
was written as XCIX, the construct of which was XC (90: 100 minus 10) + IX (9:
10 minus 1) thus XC (90) plus IX (9) equals XCIX (99).The fear of the number 11 is described as hendecaphobia.The alternative adjective (and non-standard
noun) is undecennary (once every eleven years) and the adjective in Portuguese is undecenal.Undecennial & undecennary are adjectives and a (non-standard) noun;
the noun plural is undecennials.
Centennial
(every hundred years; commemoration of an event that happened a hundred years earlier)
is the best known of the words suffixed with “-ennial” but there are fun constructs
with meanings not immediately obvious including demisesquicentennial (75 years),
the construct being demi- (half-of) + sesqui- (one-and-a-half) + centennial (of 100 years) and quadranscentennial (twenty-fifth
anniversary (now often called “silver jubilee)), the construct being quad, from
the Latin quadrans (quarter) + -ennium (a variant of annus) + -ālis (the “quad” thus a reference to the four 25 year
quarter-centuries in a century).Unfortunately,
sexennial (pertaining to a period of six years; taking place once every six
years) (the construct being sexennium
(a period of six years) + -al) means just a “six year period or cycle” although
in August 2024, in Boston Massachusetts there was the Sexennial: A Sex-Positive Variety Show.
In modern
use, there’s also been some re-purposing.The first use of “postmillennial” was to describe the world after the
year 1000 and it has been used of things Pos-2000 but it was also adopted in
the nineteenth century by certain Christian sects to describe the doctrine the
Second Coming of Christ will take place after the millennium; the antonym was premillennial
(pertaining to the belief the Second Coming will take place before the
millennium.).In the 21st century,
it’s used also of “Generation Z”, the one following the “Millennial Generation”.Premillennial seems not to be used in this
context (that would be the (Baby) Boomers).The construct of the adjective perennial was the Latin perenn(is) (lasting through the whole year or for several years,
perennial; continual, everlasting, perpetual”) + the English -al (the
adjective-forming suffix imparting the meaning “of or pertaining to”.It’s familiar from its use in botany where it
describes plants active throughout the year, or having a life cycle of more
than two growing seasons (and thus used sometimes in the sense of “appearing
again each year; annual”) but is used also (sometime loosely) of waterways and
such.In figurative use, “perennial” is
used widely (and loosely) of just about anything (art, music, politics et al) with
the quality of or tending to “continuing without cessation or intermission for
several years, or for an undetermined or infinite period; never-ending or never
failing; perpetual, unceasing”.
Images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory highlight the appearance of the Sun at solar minimum (December 2019, left) versus solar maximum (May 2024, right). These images are in the 171-angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, which reveals the active regions on the Sun that are more common during solar maximum.
The Sun’s
11-year cycle was first detected in 1843 by German apothecary & amateur
astronomer Heinrich Schwabe (1789–1875). Schwabe noticed a pattern in the
number of sunspots that appeared on the Sun's surface over time.In 1825 Herr Schwabe obtained his first
telescope and between then and 1867 (on every day the skies were clear) he
recorded the size & shape of sunspots and it was in 1838 he first suspected
the phenomenon might be cyclical, his initial findings suggesting a ten-year
cycle.The discovery was wholly serendipitous
because he wasn’t interested in sunspots (then thought random events) but was
one of a number of astronomers searching for “Vulcan” a speculative planet in
an orbit between Mercury which theories suggested should exist because its
presence would account for the otherwise inexplicable peculiarities in
Mercury's orbital path.As a theory, the
science was sound because earlier the same math had been used correctly to
predict the existence of Neptune, based on calculation which determined the gravitational
influence required to explain disturbances in the orbit of Uranus.Over the decades, sightings of Vulcan had
been reported but all quickly were discounted and the search continued until Albert
Einstein’s (1879-1955) theory of general relativity (1915) was confirmed and Mercury's
variation from the orbit predicted by Newtonian physics was understood to be a
manifestation of the curvature of space-time induced by the mass of the Sun.
Because of Vulcan’s
predicted proximity to the Sun, it would have been very difficult to observe with
the telescopes of the nineteenth century, the only plausible method being to
view it during its transit in front of the Sun.The reason Herr Schwabe kept notebooks with almost daily sketches of the
Sun and its spots was that he wanted to ensure he would never confuse a spot
with the passing Vulcan and mush have be surprised when he noticed the
suggesting of a cyclical pattern.In
1843 he published his initial findings which indicated sunspot activity appeared
to peak every ten-odd years and which his paper attracted little interest, it
did inspire a Swiss professional astronomer to begin his own regular
observations and these, combined with Herr Schwabe’s earlier drawings confirmed
the sun’s undecennial pattern.The use
in 1858 of “undecennial” to describe the solar cycle seems to have been the
first use of the word in English.
Visible light images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory highlight the appearance of the Sun at solar minimum (Dec 2019, left) versus solar maximum (May 2024, right). During solar minimum, often the Sun is "spotless".
The Sun's eleven-year
cycle (the solar cycle) is driven almost wholly by changes in the body’s magnetic
field dynamics.The Sun’s magnetic field
isn’t as stable as that of Earth which, although subject to some ongoing movement,
retains its essential polarity for at least hundreds of thousands of
years.Deep within the Sun there exists
a layer called the convection zone (where hot plasma rises, cools, and sinks) and
these interactions, over time, cause the Sun’s magnetic field lines to twist
and tangle.Things are influenced also
by differential rotation, the Sun rotating faster at its equator than at its
poles (the equatorial regions taking some 25 days to complete a rotation, the
polar regions around 35.What this does
is “stretches and wind up” the magnetic field lines, resulting in what astronomers
describe as “a twisted, complex magnetic environment”. All this
combines to produce the “solar maximum & minimum”: Every eleven years the “twisted
& tangled” magnetic field lines stretch to the point where suddenly they “snap”,
creating a realigning process in which they are “straightened out”.During solar maximum, the Sun has many
sunspots (regions of intense magnetic activity), solar flares, and coronal mass
ejections. When the cycle resets to
solar minimum, these activities reduce as the Sun's magnetic field temporarily
stabilizes.The other obvious effect of
the undecennial magnetic period is the periodic polarity flip: Every 11 years, the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse,
north becoming south and vice-versa, something which happens on earth every few
hundred-thousand years.
Quantum Tech Club's chart of the solar cycle: This cycle of low-high-low sun activity operates on a cycle of about eleven years though there are always variations, the length of each cycle not exact and the volume of activity also varies. The previous Solar Cycle (24) was classified "not particularly active" and the current cycle (25) was predicted to be similar but it turned out to be more vibrant. So, while the numbers bounce around, the undecennial pattern remains constant.
For
cultural reasons, an eleven year cycle sounds somehow strange to us and we’re
unaccustomed to such things being associated with prime numbers although in
entomology there are insects with no aversion to primes.In entymology, there are insects with no fear
of the number 17.In the US, the
so-called “periodical cicadas” (like those of the genus Magicicada) exist in a
17 year life cycle, something thought to confer a number of evolutionary
advantages, all tied directly to the unique timing of their mass emergence: (1)
The predator satiation strategy: The creatures emerge in massive numbers (in
the billions), their sheer volume meaning it’s physically impossible for
predators (both small mammals & birds) to eat enough of them to threaten
the survival of the species. (2) Prime number cycles: Insects are presumed to
be unaware of the nature of prime numbers but 17 is a prime number and there
are also periodic cicadas with a 13 year cycle.The 13 (Brood XIX) & 17-year (Brood X) periodic cicadas do sometimes
emerge in the same season but, being prime numbers, it’s a rare event, the
numbers' least common multiple (LCM) being 221 years; the last time the two
cicadas emerged together was in 1868 and the next such even is thus expected in
2089.The infrequency in overlap helps
maintain the effectiveness of the predator avoidance strategies, the predators
typically having shorter (2-year, 5-year etc) cycles which don’t synchronize
with the cicadas' emergence, reducing chances a predator will evolve to
specialize in feeding on periodical cicadas. (3) Avoidance of Climate
Variability: By remaining underground for 17 years, historically, periodical
cicadas avoided frequent climate changes or short-term ecological disasters
like droughts or forest fires. The long underground nymph stage also allows
them to feed consistently over many years and emerge when the environment is
more favorable for reproduction.Etymologists and biological statisticians are modelling scenarios under
which various types of accelerated climate change are being studied to try to
understand how the periodic cicadas (which evolved under “natural” climate
change) may be affected. (4) Genetic Isolation: Historically, the unusually
extended period between emergences has isolated different broods of cicadas,
reducing interbreeding and promoting genetic diversity over time, helping to
maintain healthy populations over multiple life-cycles.
Lohanic undecenniality: Lindsay Lohan at eleven year intervals: 2002 (left), 2013 (centre) and 2024 (right).
A “year” as
defined (one orbit of our world around the sun) on Earth is a standard measure
and on this planet it makes complete sense but in other places (such as the
Sun) it’s just an abstraction although we map “years” onto many remote places,
vast distances best understood as expressed in “light years” although
cosmologists for many purposes prefer the parsec (a unit of astronomical
length, based on the distance from Earth at which a star would have a parallax
of one second of arc which is equivalent to 206,265 times the distance from the
earth to the sun or 3.26 light-years.Its lineal equivalent is about 19.1 trillion miles (30.8 trillion km)).It takes Pluto 248 Earth years to make its
orbit of the Sun so that’s the length of one Plutoian year, meaning that
between being discovered in 1930 and the humorous cosmic clerks at the International
Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 voting re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet (on
the basis that the icy orb failed to meet a set of criteria which the IAU
claimed had been accepted for decades), not even on year had there passed.
So it’s
only on Earth one of our “years” is of direct relevance and we tend to measure anniversaries
with the numbers we prefer (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50. 100, 250, 500, 1000,
10,000 etc) (21 is a special case) but this meaning nothing to the physics of
the Sun and even here there have been cultures in which some things have tended
to the undecennial. In India, the Kumbh
Mela (or Kumbha Mela) is one of the great pilgrimage festivals in Hinduism (the
pre-Covid gathering in 2019 said to be the largest (peaceful) assembly of
people ever known) and although it is celebrated in what tends to be a twelve
year cycle, because of the complexity and regional distribution of some celebrations,
there have been times when things have happened at an eleven year interval. Among the indigenous peoples of North America
(notably the Hopi), there were also reports from anthropologists of ceremonial
cycles based on natural and astronomical cycles that can approximate an eleven year
pattern due to environmental changes or social cycles, although it doesn’t
appear the intervals ever assumed a precise, recurrent eleven-year pattern. Certain ceremonies were linked with observations
of the sun (and other celestial bodies), aligning closely with solar maximums
in some cases.
(1) A
thin vesicle on the skin, containing watery matter or serum and induced
typically by caused by friction, pressure, burning, freezing, chemical
irritation, disease or infection.
(2) In
botany, a swelling on a plant.
(3) A
swelling containing air or liquid, as on a painted surface.
(4) In medicine,
something applied to the skin to raise a blister; a vesicatory (blister agent) or
other applied medicine (mostly archaic).
(5) In
glass-blowing, a relatively large bubble occurring during the process.
(5) In roofing,
an enclosed pocket of air, which may be mixed with water or solvent vapor,
trapped between impermeable layers of felt or between the membrane and
substrate.
(7) In
military jargon, a transparent bulge or dome on the fuselage of an airplane,
usually for purposes of observation or mounting a gun but used sometimes as a
housing for rearward air extraction.
(8) In
photography, a bubble of air formed where the emulsion has separated from the
base of a film, usually as a result of defective processing.
(9) In metallurgy,
a form of smelted copper with a blistered surface.
(10) A
dome or skylight on a building.
(11) The
moving bubble in a spirit level.
(12) The
small blister-like covering of plastic, usually affixed to a piece of cardboard
or other flat sheet, and containing a small item (pens, hardware items etc).
(13) As
“blister pack” or “blister card”, the packaging used for therapeutic or medicinal
tablets in which the pills sit under small blister-like coverings, often
labeled sequentially (1,2,3 or Mon, Tue, Wed etc) to aid patients.
(14) As
“blister packaging” a type of pre-formed packaging made from plastic that
contains cavities; a variant of bubble-wrap.
(15) In
slang, an annoying person; an irritant.
(16) The
rhyming slang for “sister”, thus the derived forms “little blister”, “big blister”,
“evil blister” et al).
(17) In
slang, a “B-lister” (ie a celebrity used for some purpose or invited to an
event when it’s not possible to secure the services of an “A-Lister”.In industry slang, the less successful celebrity
managers are “blister agencies”.
(18) To
raise a blister; to form or rise as a blister or blisters; to become blistered.
(19) To
criticize or severely to rebuke (often as “blistering attack”).
(20) To
beat or thrash; severely to punish.
(21) In
cooking, to sear after blanching
1250–1300:
From the Middle English blister &
blester (thin vesicle on the skin
containing watery matter), possibly from the Old French blestre (blister, lump, bump), probably from the Middle Dutch blyster & bluyster (swelling; blister), from the Old Norse blǣstri (a
blowing), dative of blāstr (swelling).All the European forms are from the primitive
Indo-European bhlei- (to blow, swell),
an extension of the root bhel- (to
blow, swell).The verb emerged late in
the fifteenth century in the sense of “to become covered in blisters” and the
medical use (of vesicatories) meaning “to raise blisters on” is in the literature
from the 1540s.The noun & adjective
vesicatory dates from the early eighteenth century was from the Modern Latin vesicularis, from vesicula (little blister), diminutive of vesica (bladder).In
historic medicine, a vesicant (plural vesicants) or vesicatory (plural
vesicatories) is used as an agent which induces blistering.Typically a chemical compound, the primary
purpose was intentionally to create a blister to draw blood or other bodily
fluids to the surface, often in an attempt to relieve inflammation, improve
circulation in a specific area, or treat various conditions indirectly by this
counter-irritation technique.Historically,
vesicatories were commonly used with substances like cantharidin (from blister
beetles) being applied to the skin to achieve this effect but in modern medicine
the practice is (mostly) obsolete because more effective and less invasive
treatments now exist.Blister & blistering
are nouns, verbs & adjectives, blistered is a verb & adjective, and
blisterlike, blisterless & blistery are adjectives; the noun plural is
blisters.
1968 MGC Roadster with bulge, blister and the bulge's curious stainless steel trim.
The MGC
(1967-1969) was created by replacing the MGB’s (1962-1980) 1.8 litre four
cylinder engine with a 2.9 litre (178 cubic inch) straight-six, something which
necessitated a number of changes, one of which was the bonnet (hood) which
gained a bulge to accommodate the revised placement of the radiator and, on the
left-hand side, a small blister because the forward of the two carburettors sat
just a little too high to fit even with the bulge.Because to raise the whole bulge would have the
bonnet look absurd, the decision was taken just to add a blister.A blister (in this context) is of course a
type of bulge and where a blister ends a bulge begins is just a convention of
use, blisters informally defined as being smaller and of a “blister-like shape”,
something recalling one appearing on one’s foot after a day in tight, new
shoes.A blister (which some seem to
insist on calling a “teardrop” in they happen to assume that shape) also
differs from a scoop in that it’s a enclosed structure whereas a scoop has an aperture
to permit airflow.There are however
some creations in the shape of a typical blister which are used for air-extraction
(the aperture to the rear) but these tend to be called “air ducts” rather than
blisters.MGC’s bulged and blistered bonnet
has always been admired (especially by students of asymmetry) and both the
originals (in aluminium which is an attraction in itself) and reproduction
items are often used by MGB owners, either just for the visual appeal or to
provide greater space for those who have installed a V8.The apparently superfluous stainless steel trim piece in
the bulge (there's no seam to conceal) is believed to be a motif recalling the small grill which was in a similar place on BMC’s (British Motor Corporation) old Austin-Healey 3000 (1959-1967), the MGC created because the 3000 couldn’t easily
be modified to comply with the increasingly onerous US regulations. Because there were doubts the cost of developing a
replacement would ever be recovered, the decision was taken to build what was, in effect, a six-cylinder MGB.The considerable additional weight of the bigger engine spoiled the MGB’s almost perfect
balance and although a genuine 120 mph (195 km/h) machine, the MGC was never a critical or commercial success with only 8,999 (4,542 roadsters & 4,457 coupés) produced during its brief, two season life.
Republic P-47C Thunderbolt with the original colonnaded canopy (top) and the later P-47D with blister canopy (bottom).
When
the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt (1941-1945) entered service with the USAAF
(United States Army Air Force) in 1942, it was the largest, heaviest, single
seat, piston-engined fighter ever produced, a distinction it enjoys to this
day.However, one thing it did share
with some of its contemporaries was the replacement in later versions of the colonnaded
canopy over the cockpit by an all-enveloping single panoramic structure which afforded
the pilot unparalleled visibility, something made possible by advances in
injection molding to fabricate shapes in Perspex, then still a quite novel
material.These canopies were adopted
also for later versions of the The Supermarine Spitfire (1938-1948) and the North
American P-51 Mustang (1941-1946) but the historians of aviation seem never to
have settled on a description, opinion divided between “bubble-top” and “blister
top”.
In
military aviation, “blister” is more familiar as a use to describe the transparent
bulge (or dome) on the fuselage of an airplane, usually for purposes of
observation or mounting a gun but used sometimes to house a rearward air
extraction device.However, because of
other linguistic traditions in military design, the “blisters” used as gun
mounting position were also described with other words, the use sometimes a
little “loose”.One term was barbette (plural
barbettes), a borrowing from the French and used historically to mean (1) a
mound of earth or a platform in a fortification, on which guns are mounted to
fire over the parapet and (2) (in naval use), the inside fixed trunk of a
warship's gun-mounting, on which the turret revolves and used to contain the
hoists for shells and cordite from the shell-room and magazine.
Also
used was turret, from the Middle English touret,
from the Old French torete (which
endures in Modern French as tourette),
a diminutive of tour (tower), from the Latin turris.In architecture (and
later adoptions like electronic circuitry and railcar design), turrets tended
to be variations of or analogous with “towers” but in military use there was a
specific evolution.The early military
turrets were “siege towers”, effectively a “proto-tank” or APC (armoured personnel
carrier) in the form of what was essentially a “building on wheels”, used to
carry ladders, casting bridges, weapons and soldiers equipped with the tools
and devices need to storm so fortified structure such as a fort or castle.From this evolved the still current idea notion
of an armoured, rotating gun installation on a fort or warship and as powered
land vehicles and later flying machines (aircraft) were developed, the term was
adopted for their various forms of specialized gun mountings.In aircraft, the term blister came later, and
allusion to the blister-like shape increasingly used to optimize aerodynamic
efficiency, something of little concern to admiralties.
Mar-a-Lago, Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach, Florida.
Another
military blister was the cupola (plural cupolas or cupolae), from the Italian cupola, from the Late Latin cūpula (a small cask; a little tub),
from the Classical Latin cuppella,
from cuppa & cūpa (tub), from the Ancient Greek κύπελλον (kúpellon) (small cup), the construct being cūp(a) + -ula, from the primitive Indo-European -dlom (the instrumental suffix) and used
as a noun suffix denoting an instrument.The origin in Latin was based on the resemblance to an upturned cup,
hence the use to describe the rounded top of just about any structure where no specific
descriptor existed.In military use, a
cupola is basically a helmet fixed in place and that may be on a building, a
ship or an armored vehicle, the function being to protect the head while
offering a field of view.Sometimes,
especially in tanks or armored cars, guns or flame-throwers were integrated
into cupolas and in naval gunnery, there was the special use to describe the
dome-like structures protecting a (usually single) gun mounting, something
which distinguished them from the larger, flatter constructions which fulfilled
the same purpose for multi-gun batteries.Turrets and cupolas are among the architectural features of Mar-a-Lago, Donald
Trump’s (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) winter palace on Ocean Boulevard, Palm
Beach, Florida.
Northrop P-61 Black Widow: A prototype with the troublesome dorsal blister turret (left), the early production P-61A with the blister removed (upper right) and the later P-61B with the blister restored (lower right).
The attractive
aerodynamic properties of the classic blister shape was an obvious choice for
use in aircraft but even then, they weren’t a complete solution. The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first
aircraft designed from a clean sheet of paper as a night-fighter, cognizant of
the experience of the RAF (Royal Air Force) which during the Luftwaffe’s (the
German air force) Blitz of London (1940-1941) had pressed into service day-fighter
interceptors. Designed to accommodate on-board
radar, the Black Widow was heavily gunned and incorporated notable US
innovations such as remote control firing mechanisms. Part of the original was a remotely-controlled
blister turret on the dorsal section which proved the shape’s aerodynamic properties
worked only when pointed in the appropriate direction; when pointed at
right-angles to the aircraft’s centre-line, the tail section between the
twin-booms suffered severe buffeting.
Accordingly, the blister turret was deleted from the early production
versions but the early experience of the military confirmed the need for
additional firepower and after a re-design, it was restored to the slightly lengthened
P-61B. The integration of so many novel
aspects of design meant the P-61 didn’t enter service until 1944 and, as the
first of its breed, it was never a wholly satisfactory night-fighter but it was
robust, had good handling characteristics and offered the advantage of being
able to carry a heavy payload which meant it could operate as a nocturnal intruder
with a lethal disposable load. It was
however in some ways a demanding airframe to operate, the manufacturer recommending
that when fully-loaded in its heaviest configuration, a take-off run-up of 3
miles (4.8 km) was required. Although
its service in World War II (1939-1945) was limited, remarkably, like the de
Havilland Mosquito (DH.98), the Black Widow was also a Cold War fighter, both
in service until 1951-1952 because of a technology deficit which meant it wasn’t
until then jet-powered night-fighters came into service. The Black Widow was in 1949 (by then designated F-51), the first
aircraft in service in the embryonic USADC (US Air Defense Command), formed to
defend the country from any Soviet intrusion or attack.
Xanax (Alprazolam), a fast-acting benzodiazepine. It is marketed as anti-anxiety medication and supplied in blister packs.
Lindsay Lohan released the trackXanaxin 2019.With a contribution from Finnish pop star Alma (Alma-Sofia Miettinen; b 1996), the accompanying music video was said to be “a compilation of vignettes of life”,Xanax reported as being inspired by Ms Lohan’s “personal life, including an ex-boyfriend and toxic friends”.Structurally,Xanax was quoted as being based around "an interpolation of" Better Off Alone, by Dutch Eurodance-pop collectiveAlice Deejay, slowed to a Xanax-appropriate tempo.
Xanax by Lindsay Lohan
I don't like the parties in LA, I go home
In a bad mood, pass out, wake up alone
Just to do it all over again, oh
Looking for you
Only one reason I came here
Too many people, I can't hear
Damn, I got here at ten
Now it's 4 AM
I can't be in this club
It's too crowded and I'm fucked
Ain't nobody here for love
Ain't nobody care about us
I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah
Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe
No, I can't be in this club
It's too crowded and I'm fucked
Ain't nobody here for love
Ain't nobody care 'bout us
I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah
Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe, yeah
But you're like Xanax to me
When you kiss me, I can't breathe
I try to stay away from you, but you get me high
Only person in this town that I like
Guess I can take one more trip for the night
Just for the night
Only one reason I came here
Too many people, I can't hear
Damn, I got here at ten
Now it's 4 AM
I can't be in this club
It's too crowded and I'm fucked
Ain't nobody here for love
Ain't nobody care about us
I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah
Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe
No, I can't be in this club
It's too crowded and I'm fucked
Ain't nobody here for love
Ain't nobody care 'bout us
I got social anxiety, but you're like Xanax to me, yeah
Social anxiety, when you kiss me, I can't breathe, yeah
