Now

Now (pronounced nou)

(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.

Right here, right now: Acid House remix of Greta Thunberg’s (b 2003) How dare you? speech by Theo Rio.

“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.

Bubbletop

Bubbletop (pronounced buhb-uhl-top)

(1) In aircraft design, a design of pilot’s canopy (originally military slang for what designers dubbed the “bubble canopy”, a Perspex molding which afforded exceptional outward visibility).

(2) An automobile using a transparent structure over the passenger compartment, replacing the usual combination of roof & windows.

(3) A descriptor of certain automobiles of the early 1960s, based on the shape rather than the method of construction, the conventional metal and glass used.

1940s: The construct was bubble +‎ top.  Bubble dates from the late fourteenth century and was from the Middle English noun bobel which may have been from the Middle Dutch bubbel & bobbel and/or the Low German bubbel (bubble) and Middle Low German verb bubbele, all thought to be of echoic origin.  The related forms include the Swedish bubbla (bubble), the Danish boble (bubble) and the Dutch bobble.  Top pre-dates 1000 and was from the Middle English top, toppe & tope (top, highest part; summit; crest; tassel, tuft; (spinning) top, ball; a tuft or ball at the highest point of anything), and the Old English top & toppa (top, summit, tuft of hair), from the Proto-West Germanic topp, from the Proto-Germanic tuppaz (braid, pigtail, end), of unknown origin.  It was cognate with the Old Norse toppr (top), the Scots tap (top), the North Frisian top, tap & tup (top), the Saterland Frisian Top (top), the West Frisian top (top), the Dutch top (top, summit, peak), the Low German Topp (top), the German Zopf (braid, pigtail, plait, top), the Swedish topp (top, peak, summit, tip) and the Icelandic toppur (top).  Alternative forms are common; bubble-top in automotive & aeronautical engineering and bubble top in fashion.  Bubbletop is a noun and bubbletopped is an adjective; the noun plural is bubbletops.

Evolution of the Mustang's bubbletop: P-51C (top), P-51 III (centre) and P-51D (bottom).

“Bubbletop” began as World War II (1939-1945) era military slang for officially was described as the “bubble canopy”, the transparent structure sitting atop the cockpit of fighter aircraft, the advantages being (1) superior visibility (the purest interpretation of the design affording an unobstructed, 360° field-of-view, (2) improved aerodynamics, (3) easier cockpit ingress & egress (of some significance to pilots force to parachute and (4), weight reduction (in some cases).  Bubbletops had been seen on drawing boards in the early days of aviation and some were built during World War I (1914-1918) but it was the advent of Perspex and the development of industrial techniques suitable for the creation of large, variably-curved moldings which made mass-production practical.  The best known early implementations were those added to existing air-frames including the Supermarine Spitfire, Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and North American P-51 Mustang.  By 1943, the concept had become the default choice for fighter aircraft and the technology was applied also to similar apparatuses used elsewhere on the fuselage where they were styled usually as “blisters”.  In the post war years it extended to other types, most dramatically in the Bell 47 helicopter where the cabin was almost spherical, some 70% of the structure clear Perspex.

The enormous and rapid advances in wartime aeronautics profoundly influenced designers in many fields and nowhere was that more obvious than in the cars which began to appear in the US during the 1950s.  Elements drawn variously from aeronautics and ballistics did appear in the first generation of genuinely new post-war models (most of what was offered between 1945-1948 being barely revised versions of the 1942 lines) but it was in the next decade the designers were able to embrace the jet-age (a phrase which before it referred to the mass-market jet-airline travel made possible by the Boeing 707 (which entered commercial service in 1958) was an allusion to military aircraft, machines which during the Cold War were a frequent sight in popular culture).  On motif the designers couldn’t resist was the bubble canopy, something which never caught on in mass-production although Perspex roofed cars were briefly offered before word of their unsuitability for use in direct sunlight became legion.

GM Firebird XP-21 (Firebird I, 1953).

Not content with borrowing the odd element from aircraft, the General Motors (GM) team decided the best way to test which concepts were adaptable from sky to road was to “put wheels on a jet aircraft” and although they didn’t do that literally, by 1953 when Firebird XP-21 was first displayed, it certainly looked as though it was exactly that.  Its other novelty was it was powered by a gas turbine engine, the first time a major manufacturer in the US had built such a thing although a number of inventors had produced their own one-offs.  When the XP-21 (re-named Firebird I for the show circuit) made its debut, some in the press referred to it as a “prototype” but GM never envisaged it as the basis for a production car, being impractical for any purpose other than component-testing; it should thus be thought of as a “test-bed”.  The bubble canopy looked as if it could have come from a US Air Force (UFAF) fighter jet and would have contributed to the aerodynamically efficiency, the 370 hp (280 kW), fibreglass-bodied Firebird I said to be capable of achieving 200 mph (320 km/h) although it’s believed this number came from slide-rule calculations and was never tested.  Despite that, in its day the Firebird II made quite a splash and a depiction of it sits atop the trophy (named after the car’s designer, Harley Earl (1893–1969), the long time head of GM’s styling studio) presented each year to the winner of NASCAR’s (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) premiere event, the Daytona 500.

GM Firebird II (1956).

Compared with its predecessor, the Firebird II (1956), rendered this time in titanium was almost restrained, the Perspex canopy a multi-part structure over a passenger compartment designed to seat “a family of four”.  The family might have chosen to drive mostly in darkness because the heat build-up under the midday sun would have tested the “individually-controlled air conditioning”, a system upon which comfort depended because the Perspex sections were fixed; there were no opening “windows”.  Still, even if hot, the family would have got places fast because the same 200 mph capability was claimed.

GM Firebird III (1958).

The Firebird III was displayed at the 1958 Motorama and although GM never built any car quite like it, within a season, elements of it did begin to appear on regular production models in showrooms (notably the rear skegs which Cadillac used for a couple of years) and some of its features are today standard equipment in even quite modest vehicles.  The striking “double bubbletop” never made the assembly lines although some race cars have at least partially implemented the concept.  What proved more of a harbinger was the specification, the Firebird III fitted with anti-lock brakes, cruise control, air conditioning, an automated “accident avoidance system” and instead of a steering wheel, the driver controlled the thing with a joystick, installed in a centrally-mounted “Unicontrol & Instrument Panel”.  All these were analogue-era electro-mechanical devices too bulky, fragile or expensive for mass production, wider adoption in the decades to come made possible by integrated circuits (IC) and micro-processors.

1959 Cadillac Cyclone (XP-74).

Borrowing from the Firebird II, Cadillac also used a bubble top for the Cyclone (XP-74) concept car which in 1959 toured the show circuit.  Although it was powered by the corporation’s standard 390 cubic inch (6.5 litre) V8, there was some adventurous engineering including a rear-mounted automatic transaxle and independent rear suspension (using swing axles, something not as bad as it sounds given the grip of tyres at the time) but few dwelt long on such things, their attention grabbed by features such as the bubble top (this time silver coated for UV (ultra violet) protection) which opened automatically in conjunction with the electrically operated sliding doors.  The Perspex bubble canopies from fighter aircraft never caught on for road or race cars but so aerodynamically efficient was the shape it found several niches.

1953 Ferrari F166MM Spider by Vignale (left) and 1968 MGCGT (centre & right).

Bubbles often appeared atop the hood (bonnet) to provide clearance for components inconveniently tall.  Most were centrally located (there was the occasional symmetrical pair) but the when BMH (British Motor Holdings, the old  BMC (British Motor Corporation) shoehorned their big, heavy straight-six into the MGB (1963-1980), it wouldn’t fit under the bonnet, the problem not the cylinder head but the tall radiator so the usual solution of a “bonnet bulge” was used.  However, for that to clear the forward carburetor, the bulge would have been absurdly high so a small bubble (and usually, ones this size are referred to as "blisters") was added.  It probably annoyed some there wasn’t a matching (fake) one on the other side but it’s part of the MGC’s charm, a quality which for years most found elusive although it’s now more appreciated.  For MGC owners wish to shed some weight or for MGB owners who like the look, the “bonnet with bubble” is now available in fibreglass.

The winning Ford GT40 Mark IV (J-Car) with bubble to the right, Le Mans 1967 (left) and the after-market (for replicas) “Gurney Bubble” (right).

US racing driver Dan Gurney (1931–2018) stood 6' 4" (1.9 m) tall which could be accommodated in most sports cars and certainly on Formula One but when he came to drive the Ford GT40 Mark IV it was found he simply didn’t fit when wearing his crash helmet.  The original GT40 (1964) gained its name from the height being 40 inches (1016 mm) but Mark IV (the “J-Car”, 1966) was lower still at 39.4 inches (1,000 mm).  Gurney was the tallest ever to drive the GT40 and the solution sounds brutish but fix was effected elegantly, a “bubble added to the roof to clear the helmet.  Gurney and AJ Foyt (b 1935) drove the GT40 to victory in the 1967 Le Mans 24-hour endurance classic and the protrusion clearly didn’t compromise straight-line speed, the pair clocked at 213 mph (343 km’h), on the famous 3.6-mile Mulsanne Straight (which was a uninterrupted 3.6 miles (5.8 km) until the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation and world sport’s dopiest regulatory body) imposed two “chicanes”),  Known ever since as the “Gurney Bubble”, such is the appeal that they’re now available for any GT40 replica: Like the AC Shelby Cobra, the GT40 “reproduction” industry is active and there are many times more of these than there are survivors of 105 originals.

Ferrari 250 GT “Tour de France” LWB Berlinettas by Zagato: The “double bubble” roof (left), the Hofmeister kink (centre) and the famous “Z” kink, (right).

The Italian coachbuilding house Zagato was founded in 1919 by Ugo Zagato (1890-1968) and since the early post-war years, their designs have sometimes been polarizing (the phrase “acquired taste” sometimes seen), their angularity often contrasted with the lines of other, notably Pinninfarina and Bertone but unlike many which have over the years folded, Zagato remains active still.  One Zagato design never criticized was his run in 1956 of five Ferrari 250 GT “Tour de France” LWB Berlinettas, memorable also for introducing the signature “Zagato double-bubble roof.  The roof was practical in that it better accommodated taller occupants but it really was a visual trick and a variation on the trick Mercedes-Benz used on the “Pagoda” (W113; 230, 250 & 280 SL; 1963-1971) which they explained by saying “We didn’t lower the roof, we rained the windows”.  The other famous feature (which appeared on only one) was the fetching “Z” shape on the rear pillar, replacing the “Hofmeister kink” used on some others.

1962 Chevrolet Impala “bubbletop” Sport Coupe (left), 1963 Ford Consul Capri (centre) and 1972 BMW 3.0CS (E9, right).

The 1959 Chevrolet quickly came to be nicknamed “bubbletop” and the style spread, both within GM and beyond.  The “bubbletop” reference was to the canopy on aircraft like the P-51D Mustang but was an allusion to the shape, not the materials used; on cars things were done in traditional glass and metal.  Across the Atlantic, Ford in the UK applied the idea to their Consul Capri (1961-1964), a two-door hardtop which the company wanted to be thought of as a “co-respondent's” car (ie the sort of rakish design which would appeal to the sort of chap who slept with other men’s wives, later to be named as “co-respondent” in divorce proceedings).  The Capri was a marketplace failure and the styling was at the time much criticized but it’s now valued as a period piece.  Chevrolet abandoned the look on the full-size cars after 1963 but it was revived for the second series Corvair (1965-1969).  A fine implementation was achieved in the roofline of the BMW E9 (1968-1975) which remains the company’s finest hour.

The bubble shirt and bubble tops.

The bubble skirt (worn by Lindsay Lohan (centre)) is one of those garments which seems never to quite die, although there are many who wish it would.  Once (or for an unfortunate generation, twice) every fashion cycle (typically 10-12 years), the industry does one of its "pushes" and bubble skirts show up in the high street, encouraged sometimes by the odd catwalk appearance; it will happen again.  While the dreaded bubble skirt is easily identifiable, the “bubble top” is less defined but there seem to be two variations: (1) a top with a “bubble skirt-like” appendage gathering unhappily just above the hips (left) and (2) a kind of “boob tube” which, instead of being tightly fitted is topped with an additional layer of material, loosely gathered.  The advantages of the latter (which may be thought of as a “boob bubble”) are it can (1) without any additional devices create the illusion of a fuller bust and (2) allow a strapless bra to be worn, something visually difficult with most boob tubes because the underwear’s outline is obvious under the tight material.

Coterminous

Coterminous (pronounced koh-tur-muh-nuhs)

(1) In geography, having the same border or covering the same area; bordering; contiguous; having matching boundaries; or, adjoining and sharing a boundary.

(2) Being the same in extent; coextensive in range, scope, time etc.

(3) Of objects or abstractions, meeting end to end or at the ends.

(4) By extension, anything having the same scope, range of meaning, or extent in time. 

(5) In the law of real property, linked or related property leases which expire together.

1790–1800: A re-formation of the earlier conterminous, from the Latin conterminus, the construct being con- (with) + terminus (border, end).  The con- prefix was from the Middle English con-, from the Latin con-, from the preposition cum (with), from the Old Latin com, from the Proto-Italic kom, from the primitive Indo- European ḱóm (next to, at, with, along).  It was cognate with the Proto-Germanic ga- (co-), the Proto-Slavic sъ(n) (with) and the Proto-Germanic hansō.  It was used with certain words to add a notion similar to those conveyed by with, together, or joint or with certain words to intensify their meaning.  Terminus was from the primitive Indo-European térmn̥ (boundary) of uncertain origin but perhaps from terh- (pass through).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek τέρμα (térma) (a goal) and τέρμων (térmōn) (a border) and although contested, some etymologists suggest a relationship with the Sanskrit तरति (tar-) (to overcome), the Classical Latin trāns (through, across, over) and even possibly intrō (I enter, I go into).  Most dictionaries insist that despite having been in use since the 1630s, the hyphenated co-terminous is a malformation but, coterminous being a rare word, it’s not often disputes arise.  Purists who prefer always to stick to the classics reject both as needless formations and prefer the original Latin: conterminous.  Coterminous, coterminated & coterminal are adjectives, conterminousness is a noun, coterminal is a noun & adjective, coterminate & coterminating are verbs and coterminously & coterminally are adverbs; the noun plural is coterminals.

417 & 419 Venice Way, Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California where, during 2011, Lindsay Lohan lived (in 419 (right)).  This style of construction is sometimes called a “pigeon pair” but these two are only "semi-mirrored" because there are detail differences in the architecture.  Next door (417) lived Ms Lohan's former special friend Samantha Ronson.  Each four bedroom (3½ bathrooms) house included a floating stairway leading to a mezzanine which the property’s agent described as “ideal for a studio or office”.

In the law of real property, the term "coterminous" is used of a lease (or leases) which cover two properties with separate titles where the lease (or leases) expire simultaneously.  Whether the properties are geographically coterminous (or have any contiguous boundaries) is not relevant, indeed the two (or more) can be separated by great distances, the conterminousness of the relationship a product of the active lease(s), not the physical geography.  The land on which stands 417 & 419 Venice Way could be titled as a single entity and thus the two houses would sit on the one coterminous space or (as is more common), the land can have two separate titles and the two would sit contiguously.  At law, a coterminous lease of the houses could accommodate either arrangement and either 417 or 419 could also be part of a coterminous lease with one or more properties in another part of the state.        

The advantage of being original

The constitutions of some nations were written in the blood shed in war, revolutions or long struggles between sovereign and subjects so their foundation documents, their basic law, often contain stirring words, preambles especially sometimes even with literary merit.  The Constitution of Australia is not one of those documents.  While there were arguments during the eight-odd years it took for the six self-governing British colonies to agree on a draft, the matters in dispute mostly were procedural and mercantile rather than the rights of man and the pursuit of happiness.  Things were hammered-out in committees and smoke-filled rooms (the phrase then used literally), there were no mobs taking to the street or storming a parliament; apparently not even an effigy was burned.  The document which emerged has proved durable and adaptable but not a great read, befitting a nation which gained its independence (if originally incomplete until 1986) not through battle but bureaucracy.  The draft reached London in 1900 and was soon passed by the imperial parliament as the Constitution of Australia Act which effectively created the country, its executive, legislature and judiciary, empowering a parliament to meet.  Thus assembled, the Parliament of Australia passed the Constitution of Australia Act, becoming effective on 1 January 1901, the first day of the new century.

So Australia was born not on streets running with rivers of blood but by a grant of freedom from a colonial oppressor which had learned the lessons of 1776.  The constitution passed has since been little modified (a process technically simple but politically challenging) has accommodated some changes better to suit a place where things do change.  It tends to be forgotten that, even in 1901, anything like what’s now thought to be genuine democracy was rare anywhere and, where it existed to the extent it did, it was a recent and sometimes fragile thing.  The Australian constitution did however create a framework for one structural aspect of democracy now thought fundamental: the equality of the value of the individual citizen’s vote although, on that framework hung an imperfect skin and it wouldn't be for decades that something close to "one vote-one value" was achieved. 

That didn't however apply to the Australian Senate (the upper house) and that was one of the prices to pay for nationhood; the smaller states would never have agreed to federate had they not been afforded equality of representation in what they seemed genuinely to believe would be the place where their interests would be protected.  That illusion didn’t long last but the distortions, now actually worse, remain.  Regarding the lower house, Chapter I, Part III, Section 24 of the constitution provides (1) it shall have twice the number of members of the upper house and (2) the number of members in each of the six states shall be in proportion to the state’s population.  That, even today, is about as equitable as is possible but a further clause provided that (3) none of the original states can have fewer than five members, regardless of the math imposed by (1) & (2).

By the early twenty-first century, that meant in New South Wales, there was one senator for every 680,000-odd souls whereas one represented every 45,000 Tasmanians, a impressive imbalance around 85:15; in the lower house it was a much more democratic 62:38.  Better still, if ever Tasmanians feel somehow unrepresented, there’s also a state parliament with an upper and lower house and a generous layer of local government.  These distortions do happen in other countries (notably the United States Senate) but among those with some claim to free and fair electoral systems, the Tasmanian example is probably extreme.  In Australia, it pays to be an original state.

Electoral divisions, Tasmania, Australia.

In the state parliament, a feature of Tasmania’s mysterious Hare-Clark electoral system for the House of Assembly (state lower house) is its five electoral divisions are coterminous with the five House of Representatives (Commonwealth lower house) divisions (Bass, Braddon, Clark, Franklin and Lyons).  Although it may sound a rare example of bureaucratic efficiency, it’s dictated more by the practicalities of the multi-member Hare-Clark system in which each seat returns the same number of MHAs (Member of the House of Assembly although the modern practice is for them to be styled “MP” (Member of Parliament)); the number of seats in the legislative assembly is thus always divisible by five.  The House of Assembly first sat in 1856 when the bicameral parliament was established with the proclamation of responsible government and the Hare-Clark system was the co-creation of Thomas Hare (1806-1891), an English lawyer with an interest in political reform & Andrew Inglis Clark (1848–1907), an engineer & lawyer who served as attorney-general in Tasmania between 1887-1892 & 1894-1897.  Hare's original design dated from 1856 and was one of many systems of proportional representation explored during the nineteenth century and it was modified by Clark, becoming law in 1896 and has been used state-wide since 1909.

Eric Abetz MP (Liberal Party, Franklin), official ministerial photograph, Office of the Cabinet, Tasmania, Australia.

When other systems were in use, the number of seats varied several times between 32-38 but, after the Commonwealth's divisional boundaries were co-opted, the number of seats for decades remained relatively stable: set at 35 in 1900, 30 in 1906, & 35 in 1959.  In a rare moment of rationality, this was in 1998 reduced to 25 but in an unfortunate "triumph of politics" moment, this was restored to 35 for the 2024 general election.  So, the place is back to having too many politicians but however unpleasing the surplus, it may be thought a small price to pay for the return of Eric Abetz (b 1958) to politics.  Upon his election to the House of Assembly in 2024, Mr Abetz was immediately elevated to cabinet as Minister for Business, Industry and Resources, Minister for Transport & Leader of the House.  Having previously served as a senator (Liberal Party) for Tasmania between 1994-2022, it’s a remarkable resuscitation of a political career which had seemed terminal.  Having Eric Abetz back to represent the views of the eighteenth century has been welcomed by all political junkies.

Equiluminant

Equiluminant (pronounced ee-kwuh-loom-uh-nuhnt)

(1) In optics, the quality of two or more objects or phenomenon being equally luminant.

(2) Figuratively, two or more people being judged equally illustrious, attractive, talented etc.

1860s: The construct was equi- +‎ luminant.  As an adjective, luminant means "that which illuminates; that which is luminous" while as a noun it describes "an illuminating agent".  Luminant was from the Latin verb lūminant, the third-person plural present active indicative of lūminō, the construct being lūmen, from the Proto-Italic louksmən, from the primitive Indo-European léwk-s-mn̥, from the root lewk- (bright) +‎ -ō (appended to form agent nouns).  The accepted synonym is isoluminant and equiluminescent is the alternative form.  When used figuratively, although it would make no sense in science, the comparative is “more equiluminant” and the superlative most “equiluminant”.  Equiluminant & equiluminescent are adjectives and equiluminance is a noun; the noun plural is equiluminances (which some list as non-standard).

The prefixes: equi-, homo-, peri- & iso-

The prefixes “equi-”, “homo-”, “peri-” & “iso-” are all used to in same way suggest a concept of sameness or equality, but by tradition and convention, are used in different contexts to produce different meanings or emphasis:

Equi- is used to indicate equality, evenness, or uniformity and is often seen in mathematical, scientific & technical publications to describe something is equal in measure or evenly distributed such as equilateral (a shape having all sides of equal length, equidistant (being at equal distances from two or more points) & equilibrium (a state of balance where opposing forces or influences are equal).  Homo- is used to imply “same” or “alike” and thus sameness or (sometimes by degree) similarity.  In technical use it is a standard form in biology, chemistry & the social sciences to indicate sameness in kind, structure, or composition and by far the most common modern use is in the now familiar “homosexual” which in many jurisdictions is now a proscribed (or at least discouraged) term because of negative associations (“homo” as a stand-alone word also having evolved as a slur used of, about or against homosexual men).  The uses of the prefix are illustrated by homogeneous (composed of parts or elements that are all of the same kind, homologous (having the same relation, relative position, or structure) & homonym (in linguistics words which sound the same or are spelled the same but have different meanings).  Iso- is used to denote equality, uniformity, or constancy in terms of specific characteristics like size, number, or configuration and is most used in scientific and mathematical publications.  Examples of use include isometric (having equal dimensions or measurements, isothermal (having constant temperature) & isosceles (having two sides of equal length).  Peri- is used to denote “surrounding or enclosing”, or “something near or around a specific area or object”, examples including perimeter (the continuous line forming the boundary of a closed geometric figure), periscope (an optical instrument for viewing objects that are above the level of direct sight, using mirrors or prisms to reflect the view & peripheral (relating to or situated on the edge or periphery of something.

So equi-focuses on equality in measure, distance, or value, homo- focuses on sameness in kind, structure, or composition, iso- focuses on equality or uniformity in specific characteristics or conditions while peri- :focuses on surrounding or enclosing, or being near or around something.  For most purposes equi- & iso- can be used interchangeably and which is used tends to be a function of tradition & convention.

Equiluminant colors

An example the equiluminant in blue & orange.  In color the text appears at the edges to "shimmer" or "vibrate".  When re-rendered in grayscale, because the value of the luminance is so close, the two shades become almost indistinguishable.

In optics, “equiluminant” is a technical term used to colors with the same (or very similar) luminance (brightness) but which differ in hue (color) or saturation (intensity).  The standard test for the quality is to convert a two-color image to grayscale and, if equiluminant, the colors would appear nearly indistinguishable because they share the same level of “lightness”.  It’s of some importance in fields as diverse as military camouflage, interior decorating, fashion, astronomy and cognitive psychology.  In the study of visual Perception, when colors are equiluminant, the human visual system relies primarily on the differences in hue and saturation rather than brightness to distinguish them and can create unique visual effects and challenges in perception, as the brain struggles will in most cases struggle to segregate colors based solely on luminance; essentially, there is a lack of information.

An enigmatic abstraction (2024) by an unknown creator.  This is an example of the use of non-equiluminant shades of orange & blue.

In art and design, the qualities of is used to create visual effects, the perception of some “shimmering” or “vibrating” at the edges where colors meet actually a product of the way the different hues are perceived by the brain to be “less defined” (a process not dissimilar to the “grayscaling”) and thus “dynamic”, lending the impression of movement even in a static image, especially if seen with one’s peripheral vision.  While a handy device for visual artists, that’s something of significance in the world of practicalities because the close conjunction of equiluminant colors can make certain visual tasks more difficult, most obviously reading text or distinguishing shapes and objects.  All that happens is the luminance contrast can means there’s a perception of fuzziness at the edges of shapes which means people can suffer a diminished ability to distinguish fine details and the smaller the object (text, numerals or geometric shape), the more acute the problem.  The phenomenon has been well researched, scientists using the properties in equiluminant colors to study how the brain processes color and the findings have been important in fields like instrumentation the production of warning signs.

Richard Petty's 1974 NASCAR Dodge Charger (left) and 3 ton Super-Duty Jack, produced under licence by the Northern Tool Company (right).  1974 was the last year in which the big-block engines were allowed to run in NASCAR; the big-block era (1962-1973) was NASCAR's golden age.  Richard Petty (b 1937) used a "reddish orange" to augment his traditional blue when he switched from Plymouth to Dodge as the supplier of his NASCAR stockers in the early 1970s.  His team was actually sponsored by STP rather than Gulf and STP wanted their corporate red to be used but in the end a "reddish orange" compromise was negotiated.  However, when he licenced the Northern Tool Company to sell a "Richard Petty" jack, the shade used appeared to be closer to the Gulf orange.

1968 Lamborghini 1R tractor in signature colors (left) and rendered in grey-scale (right); the combination non-equiluminant.  This version of 1R is known as the cofano squadrato (squared hood (bonnet)).  It was produced between 1966-1969 and replaced the earlier 1R (1961-1965) which featured a rounded hood.  The earlier model seems not retrospectively to have been christened but presumably it would have been the cofano arrotondato, proving everything sounds better in Italian than English.  An Italian could read from a lawnmower repair manual and it would sound poetic.  

At scale, equiluminance doesn’t have to be obvious for it still to have desirable “side effects” and while it’s often noted two specific hues: (1) the blue Llewellyn Rylands pigments 3707 (Zenith Blue, replicated by Dulux as “Powder Blue”) & (2) the orange Rylands pigments 3957 (Tangerine, replicated by Dulux as “Marigold”) are “equiluminant colors”, that their use in combination appears so often on cars, motor-cycles and other stuff with wheels is due less to the claim the shades seem at the edge to “vibrate” that the striking combination appearing on some of the Gulf Oil sponsored Ford GT40s and Porsche 917s during sports car racing’s golden era which ended in the early 1970s.  Given the surface area involved, the effect is probably imperceptible which viewed at close range but the science does suggest that at speed (and these were fast machines), at the typical viewing range found on racetracks, there was what the optical analysts call “visual pop”, something which heightens the brain’s perception of motion,

Ford GT40 chassis# 1075, winner of the 1968 & 1969 Mans 24 hour endurance classic in Gulf livery.

Gulf Oil however didn’t explicitly have the equiluminescent in mind when they choose to adopt the combination.  Originally, the Gulf GT40s were painted in the their corporate colors of dark blue & orange but Gulf was an acquisitive conglomerate and in late 1967 it took over the Wilshire Oil Company of California, the corporate colors of which were powder blue and orange, something which Gulf’s management thought “more exciting” and better suited to a racing car.  The change was made for the 1968 season with the Fords now running as five-litre (302 cubic inch) sports cars, governing body having banned the seven-litre engines the cars previously had used (under a variety of names, motorsport has for decades been governed by some of sport’s dopiest regulatory bodies).  In the Gulf colors, GT40 chassis #1075 won the Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic in 1968 & 1969 (repeating the brace Ford had achieved with the seven-litre (427 cubic inch) machines in 1966-1967), the first time the same car had achieved victory twice.  In 1968, the same car won the BOAC International 500, the Spa 1000-kilometer race, and the Watkins Glen 6-hour endurance race, while in 1969 it also took the Sebring 12-hour race, a remarkable achievement for a race car thought obsolescent.  The livery has since been much replicated.

1971 Porsche 917K in Gulf livery.  The fins were added to improve straight-line stability and were strikingly similiar to those which appeared on some late 1950s US Chryslers although the aerodynamic properties of those were dubious.

Interestingly, the team painting the GT40s were aware of the issue created by equiluminant colors and as a matter of professional pride didn’t want it thought they’d created something with “fuzzy edges” so deliberately they included a dark blue hairline-border around the orange, reducing the optical illusion to ensure everything looked immaculately smart when photographed.  When the Gulf team in 1970 switched to using Porsche 917s for the World Sports Car championship, they adopted the expedient of a black line of definition between the blue & orange so the whole enduring appeal of the combination lies just in the striking contrast and relies not at all on the equiluminance.

Ford GT Heritage Edition First Generation (left) and Second Generation (right). 

Little more than 100 GT40s were built but Ford noted with interest the ongoing buoyancy of the replica market, thousands of the things built in a number of countries.  In the twenty-first century, the company decided to create their own replicas but the new GT (2004-2006) was hardly a clone and although it shared the basic mechanical layout and the shape (though larger) was close, it was a modern machine.  The car wasn’t called GT40 because the rights to the name had ended up with another company and Ford declined to pay the demanded price.  Over 4000 were built and one special run was a tribute to the 1968-1969 cars in Gulf livery, 343 of the “Heritage Editions” produced.  A second generation of GTs was produced between 2016-2022 and was very modern, the demands of the wind-tunnel this time allowed to prevail over paying tribute to the classic lines of the 1960s.  Although the supercharged 5.4 litre V8 didn’t return and the new car used a turbocharged 3.5 litre (214 cubic inch) V6, it outperformed all its predecessors over the last 60-odd years (all the original GT40 chassis built between 1964-1969) including the 7 litre (427 cubic inch) monsters which won at Le Mans in 1966 & 1967 so it took decades, but eventually there really was a "replacement for displacement".  The V6 also was used also in pick-up trucks which doesn't sound encouraging but versions of the small & big block V8s used in the GT40s also saw similar service, the latter even first appearing in the doomed Edsel.  Production of the second generation was limited to 1350 units, 50 of which were “Heritage Editions” in the Gulf colors, one of several “limited editions”.

Lindsay Lohan who when swimming uses both orange and blue, sometimes as solids (left and centre), sometimes in combination (right).

Facade

Facade (pronounced fuh-sahd or fa-sahd)

(1) In architecture, the front of a building, especially an imposing or decorative one; any side of a building facing a public way or space and finished accordingly.

(2) By extension, the face or front (most visible side) of any other thing.

(3) Figuratively, a superficial appearance or illusion of something; a deceptive or insincere outward appearance; a front.

(4) In computing (object-oriented programming), a structural design pattern that provides an object that is a simplified interface to a larger body of code, such as a class library.

1650–1660: From the sixteenth century French façade, from the Italian facciata (the front of a building), from the Upper Italian faciada & facciata, derivations of faccia (front; face), from the Vulgar Latin facia from the Classical Latin facies (face).  The French façade, appears still to be an accepted alternative spelling and one popular with architects.  The figurative use dates from 1845.  Facade, facadectomy and facadism are nouns and facadal is an adjective; the noun plural is facades.

Neoclassicism in eighteenth century architecture

Neoclassicism (new classicism (from the Latin classicus (highest; best)), refers to an eighteenth and early-nineteenth century movement which took inspiration from Greece between the eighth and fourth centuries BC and Rome between the fifth and first.  The revival was expressed in art, literature, philosophy, history, music, and, most memorably, architecture.  Neoclassicism could not exactly replicate the works of antiquity.  Because only fragments remained, either as ruins or (perhaps not entirely reliable) depictions of what was built by the earlier civilizations, the world imagined was a construct, an idea of what once was.  This did mean neoclassicism tended often to adopt the few, most dramatic motifs which survived either in the representational record or as crumbling remains, a movement, at least initially, driven more by idealism than reality.  It was another example of the West’s enduring reverence for the ancient world and its supposed sublimity of form, neoclassicism serving what was perhaps the myth of classical perfection.

Facade of Chiswick House (1729), London, a villa built and designed by Richard Boyle (third Earl of Burlington (1694-1753)) in the Neo-Palladian style (a European school which followed the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580).

Classical revivalism actually began during the Renaissance, some four centuries earlier, renaissance (rebirth) translating historically as the rebirth in Europe of the spirit of Ancient Greece and Rome.  However, eighteenth century Europe saw the Age of Enlightenment, transforming philosophy, politics, society & culture and the new science of archaeological excavation which led to astonishing discoveries such as the largely intact Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried after a volcanic eruption in 79 AD.  From these ruins, it was found the societies of antiquity were technologically more sophisticated and their art more extraordinary than once thought and the discoveries sparked renewed interest and as part of the research effort, a less idealized view of the past evolved.

A McMansion which features at least one element a architect would describe as a facade and (possibly) a sub-facade.  However, being a McMansion, it may appear on the plan as a "Demi-Façade".

With the rise of Romanticism in the nineteenth century, neoclassicism fell from fashion but it didn’t die and elements continue to be interpolated into modern architecture although, the borrowing of aspects usually rendered on large scale and applying them to relatively small-scale suburban houses is unfortunate though many critics think it no worse that the mash-up of motifs, neoclassical and otherwise, which appear on McMansions.  The noun facadism is a technical term from architecture and structural engineering which describes (1) the practice of retaining only the facade of an old building when redeveloping a site (something often required by heritage legislation) and (2) in building construction, a technique where the facade is designed to be constructed independently of the rest of the building (a modular approach which not only can mean a cheaper build but also one which permits a much easier “updating” or “refreshing” of the appearance, conceptually (though not structurally) analogous with a surgical facelift.  The noun facadectomy probably began as humorous in-house slang among architects and builders but is now accepted as a standard word, something doubtlessly assisted by the frequency with which facadectomies are latterly performed.  On the model of appendectomy (The surgical procedure for the removal of the vermiform appendix) etc, it describes either (1) the removal (and sometimes replacement) of a building's facade or (2) the retention of a building's facade behind which a new structure is built after the original building is demolished.

Lindsay Lohan in front of the Louvre, Paris, March, 2015.

Architects point out that regardless of the way dictionaries tend to describe the things, a facade is not simply "the front or outward facing surface of a structure" and that to be defined as such one must in some way be separate from the structure in that were it to be removed, the building would still stand.  That might deprive the building of it aesthetic appeal and even let in the wind and rain but it would remain standing.  In that, the architects' precision is closely aligned also with the way the word is used figuratively of people or institutions.  Depending on how one deconstructs, the Louvre has a facade, a multi-piece facade or a number of facades whereas the Louvre Pyramid has none at all; it is a unitary structure.  Like the Eiffel Tower which in the years immediately after its erection was much derided (especially by Parisians), the pyramid was much criticized but opinion seems to be softening; either the disapproving are dying off or they're coming at least to tolerate it.