An Alternative Source of Energ essays

An Alternative Source of Energ essays Alternative Solution for Hawaii=s Future Source of Energy What would life in Hawaii be like without energy? We would have no lights, no refrigerators, no TVs, no VCRs, no gas. We would have to do without automobiles, airplanes, banks, movies or mail. Imagine Hawaii with no cooking, no air conditioning, no computers, no traffic lights, and basically no jobs. We would have very little left of what we take for granted. Imported oil is used to supply about 90 percent of Hawaii's energy needs. No place else in the United States is so critically dependent on imported oil. Unlike the Mainland, Hawaii can't turn to neighboring states to make up for any temporary or permanent energy shortages. Unlike any other state, imported oil is the single thread that can completely unravel Hawaii's future. But Hawaii is blessed with a variety of other energy sources lots of sunshine, strong winds, fastgrowing crops, flowing streams, geothermal heat, and both warm and cold ocean waters. All these resources have the potential to help produce energy and reduc e our dependency on imported petroleum. Hawaii is determined to explore the best ways to take advantage of its renewable energy resources. Each of the renewable energy resources will defiantly help slow the process of global warming by reducing air pollution. Every barrel of oil or ton of coal replaced with these renewable resources will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is considered by many as one of the major contributors to global warming. The State of Hawaii is actively supporting the development of a mix of renewable energy resources including solar power, biomass, hydro power, wind power, geothermal energy, and ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). But just how actively is the State of Hawaii supporting these alternative renewable natural energy=s? In this paper I will briefly summarize the operations of OTEC and the...

Space Exploration essays

Space Exploration essays If the nation is serious about the manned exploration and development of space, then more attention must be focused now on research to study how weightlessness and reduced gravity would affect everything from power production to plumbing. The research is critical for the development of space-related technologies. There are certain scientific and engineering problems of a fundamental nature that need to be addressed before these technologies can be developed. This research should be done now because it will take years to develop the needed technologies. This will likely slow the United States progress in space exploration. For example, seemingly mundane components such as piping, valves and bearings will have to be adapted to the altered structural forces and loads in reduced- and variable-gravity environments. Technologies will be needed to manufacture and repair failed parts in the microgravity of space and in the low gravity of other planets, moons and asteroids. Workers will have to build structures and operate mining and processing facilities. Many technologies will be needed for the very survival of humans in space. If an electrical fire starts, how do you extinguish it? It may not be possible to spray it with a fire extinguisher because it may affect the environment in which the astronauts are living and breathing. The particles, very fine droplets, behave differently in gravitational environments than they do in space. ...

CHRONIC HEALTH PROBLEMS Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

CHRONIC HEALTH PROBLEMS - Assignment Example It affects the smooth lining in the joints leading to pain and notable stiffness. The cartilage of the joints thins and tissues become less active, leading to swelling (Crisp, Taylor & Douglas, 2013). The case also results in body spurs due to eroding of the bones at the joints. Rheumatoid arthritis is common in women and is thrice more likely to affect women than men. The condition develops when the immune system of the body targets affected joints leading to pain and swelling. It affects the outer covering of the joints first and the spreads across the joint hence pain. People with the rheumatoid can also develop problems with other tissues and other body organs (Crisp, Taylor & Douglas, 2013). The common clinical manifestations of the arthritis condition include long-term inflammation of the joint areas, affecting the bones and muscles in that joint. The patient also depicts aspects of stiffness in movement, swelling of the tendons and eyes. It can also reflect in swelling of the neck and in cases where it affects other tissues or organs, it can reflect as pain in those organs. Mr. Elliot is 70 years of age and suffers from chronic arthritis. In the interview, he says he began developing symptoms of pain and swelling of the ankle joints at the age of 52 years. However, at this time, he sought treatment for pains thinking it was a normal joint defect resulting from his past career. Mr. Elliot was a professional footballer and at his formative years, he spend alit of time exercising, and in the process suffered multiple joint injuries. Therefore, when the condition started developing, he thought it was from the injuries he suffered at his young age playing football. However, he condition worsened, persisting for over 8 years, before he sought professional care. He learnt it was osteoarthritis at age of 60 years. Currently, he understands the cause of the condition and its impact to his health and lives positively, while undertaking

The Responsible Parties for Samuel's Death Research Paper

The Responsible Parties for Samuel's Death - Research Paper Example The elders, who passed them by, disapproved of their actions but did nothing about it. According to the first element that was responsible for Sam’s death, the lady felt too embarrassed to warn the boys of the impending danger. The lady wanted to caution them to be careful but for fear of embarrassment that they might laugh at her she said nothing. Her embarrassment is one of the chief elements that were responsible for Samuel’s death because if she had acted immediately she could have averted a tragedy. All she did was to say -â€Å"You boys will be hurt. You will be 1 killed†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Paley 356). According to Paley (355) the woman was more concerned about herself and her embarrassment, than the boys. â€Å"She wasn't afraid they'd hit her, but she was afraid of embarrassment.† Regarding the second element that was responsible for Samuel’s death, the man had pulled the emergency brake with the idea of safety in his mind. However, according to the ex planation given in the story, the actions of the man could either be morally right or wrong. Never at any point did he realize what the outcome of his actions would be.

Environmental Law, The regulation of Air Quality Essay

Environmental Law, The regulation of Air Quality - Essay Example These are important in order to find out any weak points in the regulations, to check for possible improvements in laws, and to obtain sufficient data to support or debunk regulations as needed.As such, initiating test runs for these policies and regulations can contribute to long-term solutions to air quality issues by supporting efforts to implement these at the earliest possible time. For the last four decades, sources of large-scale air pollutants such as cement factories and petroleum drilling sites were identified to pose high hazards in greatly-affecting air quality for large areas. However, in recent decades the contribution of automobile emissions were also seen as sources of particulate matter and greenhouse gases due to the gasoline combustion process in these vehicles. These results prompted the US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA to create regulations for the reduction of toxic pollutants and the release of particulate matter into the atmosphere. The successful reduction of air pollutants were tied with the implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendment of 1970, and at present has reduced emissions by up to two-thirds of emission rates during the 1960’s (Costa, 2011). However, the EPA still recognizes the need to further reduce vehicle emission rates through the generation of greener automobile technologies, thus the initiation of the National Program to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve fuel economy for cars to be released in the years 2017-2025, which are based on the standards under the Clean Air Act (US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, 2013). It is expected that through the implementation of these new emission standards, carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced to an average of 163g/mile, there will be lesser dependence on oil due to higher efficiency rates, and in turn will benefit consumers a net of $3,400 to $5,000 worth of fuel

Advent Of The Printing Press

Advent Of The Printing Press The printing revolution and advent of the printing press is an event against which there is no other even approaching in importance in the history of mankind. Nowadays, even in the electronic age, it is hard to imagine a world without the printed word. However what the printing revolution and classic cases of revolution, such as Russia (1917) and France (1789), have in common is not as clear cut as the scale of its impact. This essay will seek to evaluate the revolutionary qualities of the printing revolution in the context of the Reformation and the rise of modern science. It will begin with a brief introduction to the features of the printing revolution. Following this will be a discussion based around the extant literature on the word revolution from which an adequate set of criteria will be derived. These criteria will subsequently be used as the benchmark against which the revolutionary characteristics of the printing revolution will be measured using the evidence presented. By taking a retrospective look at two major events in the aftermath of the printing revolution I hope to be able to determine the viability of calling the printing revolution a revolution with a degree of certainty. Subsequently I will consider the impact the printing revolution had on other revolutions, and whether it was a pre-requisite for revolutions in the future. The paper will close with an assessment of which of the features of revolution apply most to the printing revolution, followed by a brief discussion of criticisms of the concept as proposed by Eisenstein. The late fifteenth century in Europe saw a dramatic shift in the way texts were reproduced. Before the invention of the printing press there was a reliance on handwritten manuscript reproduction, a slow and incredibly time-consuming process. Man (2002) provides some idea of the times involved when he states that one 1,272 page document took two scribes five years to copy.  [2]  Like any human, a scribe was also susceptible to error and because texts were copied this meant that an errors were copied again and again. Gutenbergs invention of the printing press around 1440 would mark a turning point in the history of human civilisation. Although printing had existed before with wood-blocks, it was the ability to edit and correct a text in every copy which made Gutenbergs invention so important.  [3]  He also made it possible for a large number of uniform copies to be produced. The spread of this technology from Mainz to all corners of the continent came quickly and was motivated by profit, as rather than any attempt to spread culture widely. Printing presses were established in quick succession in Cologne (1464), Basel (1466), Rome (1467), Venice (1469), London (1480) and Stockholm (1483), the centres of international trade at the time.  [4]  Gutenberg laid the foundations of modern publicity..which is dependent on the identical mass-production of free combinable letter-units in almost infinite variety of composition.  [5]  The importance of his invention to human civilisation is unquestionable and it has had one of the longest lasting legacies of any. What remains up for debate, however, are the revolutionary qualities of the printing revolution. Any discussion of how revolutionary an event was requires a suitable definition of the word revolution. Constructing a definition is, however, a difficult task as the number of attempts at doing so shows; there is little consensus as to what revolution actually means. Despite this lack of agreement certain words are predominant in definitions, such as violent, brief and success.  [6]  A thorough debate over differing definitions is out of the scope of this essay, although a brief mention of some ideas is important to shape an answer to the question. Eisenstein highlights the issues around the use of the word revolution in the context of printing, and argues that there are actually two different uses of the word as an overarching concept. The first of these is what is broadly what will be discussed in this essay and what most historians use the term for; that is, a significant break from a long-standing condition. The second is a prolonged, irreversible, cumulative process with ef fects that become ever more pronounced the longer it goes on.  [7]  She cites the Industrial Revolution as an example of this more drawn-out sense of revolution. Both the conventional and the secondary definitions have their criteria fulfilled with the printing revolution. In the first instance, the speed of the change shows the revolutionary nature of the printing revolution. It wasnt so much that a new innovative machine was conceived in Mainz that is important; it is that it began to be used in so many places in a short space of time. By the 1490s each of the major states had one important publishing centre and some had several notes Hay. Correspondingly, Man says that by 1480, 122 towns in Western Europe had printing presses.  [8]  The speed and breadth of the spread of the technology, and specifically the replacement of hand-copying with printing as the chief mode of book reproduction, is enough for Eisenstein to consider the printing revolution a revolution in the sens e of the word that most historians use. The justification for the printing revolution being typical of the second use of the word is based on its longevity. The output of 500 years of printing along with millennia of hand-writing, and the expansion of knowledge, show the irreversibility and length of the process. Indeed, it is a process which has not yet reached an end. This raises another important point; can it be a revolution if the process has an unquantifiable end? It is safe to assume that the majority of people, when asked to define revolution, would include a notion of violence. Images of mass beheadings in France and street battles in Russia no doubt contribute to this. Friedrich (1966) defines revolution as the sudden and violent overthrow of an established political order.  [9]  This applies neatly to the classic cases but not so to the printing revolution, where the affected party was not a political entity but writing by hand. Similarly, although more extreme, Arendt (1965) states that war and revolution are related, going so far as to say revolutionsare not even conceivable outside the domain of violence.  [10]  Both these definitions and the use of the word violence are insufficient in trying to explain a non-political, technological revolution. Preferable would be to take the idea of violence and use the implicit idea of destruction,  [11]  such as the definition proposed by Trimberger (1978) where a takeover destroys the economic and political power of the dominant social group of the old regime. This also shows that a revolution has an element of replacement; a revolution is not just seeking to overthrow and destroy what is already there, it also substitutes old for new. The speed and depth of change caused by a revolution is also a recurring theme in definitions. Neumann (1949) defines revolution as a sweeping, fundamental changeindicating a major break in the continuity of development.  [12]  He also makes a significant distinction between revolution and evolution, where the former is such a radical separation and the latter is a persistent transformation within the existing institutional framework; the parallels with Eisenstein are clear. Revolutions can be seen as only accelerating and crystallising the evolutionary process. Similarly, Johari (1987) sees revolution as essentially meaning a sudden, fundamental and major transformation. Kroeber (1996) defines revolution as all demands, suggestions and attempts at radical change.  [13]  Once the revolutionary processes have begun parts of culture and society and different relationships between people may be fashioned anew. Revolutions signify drastic and fundamental change. The use of the wo rd radical also implies an element of speed to events. It is this velocity of change which separates revolution from other ideas of change such as reform and revolt.  [14]   The final overriding feature of definitions of revolution is that the process must be successful, and this success is where a movement overturns a regime.  [15]  All the definitions considered above imply that the revolution does end with the goals of the movement attained. This fact is evident through the historiography of rebellions and revolution; it is not chance that has named the failed uprising in Ireland in 1798 the Irish Rebellion but the action in the thirteen British colonies of America the American Revolution. For the printing revolution to be considered successful it will have to remain an established and useful medium of communication. The definition I will use in this essay will be a blend of the previously proposed definitions that have been discussed. Although most are designed to refer to political and social change they do have elements which can be transferred to non-political events. For the printing revolution to be called a revolution or revolutionary it must destroy and replace what was previously the norm, contain some sense of radical change and upheaval over a short space of time and prove useful and successful. These are the criteria against which the revolutionary properties of the printing revolution will be measured in the rest of this essay. The Reformation was one of the defining events of the early modern period in Europe. The role of the printing press is a hallmark of the process by which the old Catholic Church became ever more rejected and the Protestant Church was founded. Indeed it seems difficult to exaggerate the significance of the Press, without which a revolution of this magnitude could scarcely have been consummated.  [16]  A detailed enough discussion to do justice to the impact of the book on the Reformation is out of the scope of this essay; instead it will focus on Germany, the birthplace of the movement. The importance of the printing press for religious reform cannot be underestimated, as all of the attempts at reform prior to the invention and diffusion of the printing press were rather easily suppressed by the Church.  [17]  The most famous example of such attempts is that of Jan Hus in the early fifteenth century. After his martyrdom in 1415 a series of wars broke out and the Hussites formed a rival church in Bohemia, but their sphere of influence never really extended beyond this small area as they had no way to transport their ideas.  [18]  Away from the Continent in England there is a dissimilar story though. The Lollard movement had been avid readers and writers, and had sealed the relationship between heresy and books in the early fifteenth century before Gutenberg. Over 230 manuscripts of the Lollard Bible survive and evidence suggests large quantities of ephemera were also produced.  [19]  However, the ultimate failure of the movement suggests that this was not enough. Rubins argument that highly centralised institutions are able to easily suppress small revolts that are not able to spread due to a lack of information technology seems to be accurate. The printing press did destroy the use of manuscript in revolts as it was not able to be widely reproduced and distributed. The Reformation was the first movement to make full use of the printing press technology and it is no coincidence that it was the most successful of the period. The Reformation also saw a massive break from past ways of campaigns for change. For the first time in history a mass propaganda campaign could be carried out, and it was used to its full extent.  [20]  The Reformers saw how it made rapid dissemination of materials possible, and for this reason Luther saw the printing press as a gift from God who wanted to drive forward the cause of true religion to the ends of the earth and to make it available in all languages.  [21]  Luthers Theses against clerical abuses, which sparked the Reformation, had been seen in every part of Germany within 15 days of him posting them to the chapel door in Wittenberg.  [22]  The ability to spread information and ideas quickly was crucial to the Reformation. Once Luther had nailed his Theses to the door by a stroke of magic he found himself addressing the whole world and as such the start of the Protestant Revolt can be directly attributed to this act.  [23]  The speed at which pamphlets by Luther could be printed and sold was phenomenal; four thousand copies of An den Christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des Christlichen Standes Besserung were sold in 5 days, and in total there were seventeen different editions of the work.  [24]  Similarly the pamphlet Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen underwent 18 editions in a single year.  [25]  The course of distribution of literature shows the revolutionary qualities of the printing revolution. Whereas previously the dissemination of new ideas would have been through word of mouth or by copying, the use of the printing press meant that the same material and thoughts could be spread uniformly and quickly during the Reformation. The sheer speed and volume of materials and the way they were used signified a radical change from what had gone before. The Reformation was the first real example of the power of printing and was the first propaganda campaign conducted through the medium of the press.  [26]   The usefulness and successfulness of printing in the Reformation is clearly demonstrated by the vast amount of editions of writings published. Rubins empirical study of the spread of the Reformation and the importance of pamphlets to it shows that cities which produced pamphlets were more likely to be Protestant than Catholic throughout the sixteenth century, although the effect did diminish over time.  [27]  Despite the obvious success of the printing press described, Luther and his contemporaries held reservations about the number of books being published. Hauser invites us to consider what might have been if, for example, the printing press had have been around for the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century.  [28]  Such counterfactual, what if questions are interesting but would place too much emphasis on the role of printing. It would be going too far to say that the Reformation was the child of the printing revolution; this ridiculous thesis is indeed just that.  [29]à ‚  It was not books, publishers and propagandists who caused the Reformation. Religion had become more and more of an issue in the preceding years, and was now at the forefront of peoples minds. Luthers grievances were quickly echoed by both laymen and clerics, which according to Rubin indicates there were deep-rooted anti-Papal sentiments before Luther.  [30]  Printing was simply the medium of exchange through which people learnt about these new ideas, it was not the new idea in itself. There is no question that the Reformation would not have had the success it did without the ability to disseminate information quickly and widely. Having considered the three key elements of a revolution discussed previously, it is clear that in the context of the Reformation the printing revolution can be justifiably called as such. The use of printing presses to create and widely distribute material marked a radical break from the previous ways to spread ideas. Both the speed and volume of production of books and pamphlets were on a scale unlike anything seen before and would certainly have been impossible without mechanised printing. The printing revolution and its impact upon the Reformation show its success; there is little doubt that without it the Reformation would have taken a different course. However, as Postman points out, it is questionable as to whether the Catholic Church would have fallen had the printing press been used exclusively for the reproduction of pictures, as is conceivable.  [31]  It was the use of the printed word which was the crucial factor in the Reformation, not simply the invention of the pri nting press itself. The Scientific Revolution changed the way humanity saw and studied the world around it forever. Until the early modern period scientific observers, for they were only that, simply read doctrine which had been published previously and took that as truth. The Renaissance changed this and more people began to ask scientific questions, and the use of printing served to galvanise the scientific community. It was in this time that the three cornerstones of classical intellect, Ptolemaic astronomy, Galenic anatomy and Aristotelian physics, met their downfall and were replaced by the science of Copernicus and Newton. The advent of printing allowed for faster copying of works compared to manuscript, of that there is no question. However it was not simply a case of one replacing the other; a lot of works remained in manuscript form for a large amount of time once printing technology had been developed. Mathematical works frequently were released in print yet the Triparty by Nicolas Chuquet, the most original work on algebra and arithmetic from the latter half of the 15th century, remained in manuscript.  [32]  Similary, De triangulis by Regiomontanus was not printed until 1533, nearly 60 years after his death.  [33]  The printing revolution did not have as great an impact on the production of manuscripts as might be thought. Given this, the printing revolution may not have been as revolutionary in science as the Reformation. Although there were a lot of works published in print it did not totally take the place of manuscript and as such cannot be considered truly revolutionary event. The printing revolution created a huge contrast between the medieval and early modern periods. A noteworthy example of this is raised by Eisenstein in the development of astronomy around the time of Copernicus. As a young student in the 1480s Copernicus would have struggled to get a single copy of Ptolemys Almagest, which at the time was the authoritative work on the cosmos. By the time he died in 1543 three different editions were available.  [34]  In a similar vein, in 1499 Aldus published a collection of the works of the ancient astronomers in five folios in Latin and Greek.  [35]  Publication of classical works made them accessible to a lot more students and scholars than previously. In turn, this meant that they could be analysed, scrutinised and updated. The same is true of journals and new discoveries; it was because of the printing press that the idea of peer review and experiment duplication became familiar. The spread of knowledge went beyond just books and journals , however. The invention of the telescope also shows the impact that printing had. Although the object was invented in the Netherlands with a patent granted in October 1608, Galileo in Italy had heard of it by November of the same year.  [36]  News of it was also widespread in other parts of the continent.  [37]  The publication of a French newsletter, The Embassy of the King of Siam Sent to His Excellency Maurice of Nassau, in the same month detailing the invention meant that the news was able to travel uniformly and quickly to other intellectuals in Germany, France and Italy. The next year telescopes were on sale in Paris.  [38]  The spread of knowledge, both academic and practical, shows the revolutionary qualities of the printing press. The success of the printing press in the context of the Scientific Revolution is clear. The ability to spread ideas and information widely and quickly allowed for an acceleration of scientific discovery and progress unlike anything that had been seen before. A study of Copernicuss De revolutionibus proves this point.  [39]  It is shown that a first edition in 1543 consisted of around 450 copies with a similar run in 1566, and that it got into the hands of the majority of astronomy professors in the sixteenth century, as well as into major libraries.  [40]  More interestingly, there are people from all walks of life who owned a copy; an architect, a musical theoretician and a financier are mentioned. Whereas previously the domain of science was amongst academics, now people had freer access to materials from which they could study. The acceleration of scientific discovery after the invention of the printing press also shows the success of printing. According to Ferguson, 38% o f the worlds most important scientific breakthroughs occurred between the Reformation and the French Revolution, including the heliocentric model of the Solar System and Galileos tests on gravity.  [41]  Scientific knowledge was spreading faster than it ever had, and a community of intellectual peers developed. The breadth and depth of distribution and development of knowledge would not have been possible without the printing press. However, in terms of what we nowadays called science, the printing revolution had only a limited amount of success. Although the printing press allowed books to be accessible to wider areas of the public, most people remained interested in softer subjects. This stimulated the development of a mass market for summaries, medical remedies, prognostications and astrological tables written in the vernacular.  [42]  There is no question that the printing press increased the volume of works being published. What is problematic is that the majority of works were of no lasting scientific interest.  [43]  The effect this had was to dilute the amount of quality material available and keep what we would call scientific and what was then considered scientific the same. The printing revolution was successful in that it made the dissemination of scientific information more widespread but the practises of the booksellers stunted this success. Their primary goal was to make money, and would p ublish what would sell; some have even gone as far as to say the printing revolution a negative role in the Scientific Revolution as the printing of outdated, medieval texts which sold may have delayed the acceptance of new ideas such as Copernicus.  [44]  By making conventional authoritative works widely available printingcould even have said to have represented an obstacle to the acceptance of new ideas.  [45]  Rather than progressing knowledge it popularised long cherished beliefs, strengthened prejudices and gave authority to seductive fallacies.  [46]  The main point remains though, that there was an increase in the volume of works published. Not only was the printing revolution revolutionary in its own right, the printed word became a vital part of revolutions throughout history. The French Revolution of 1789 is widely accepted as one of the classic cases of revolution and makes for a good example of the influence of print on revolutionary movements. Darnton argues that the printing press was crucial at every stage of the process, and without it the widespread restructuring of French life could not have not taken place. Without the press, they can conquer the Bastille but they cannot overthrow the Old Regime he says, and this is the key point.  [47]  The battle to change the minds of an entire nation could not be won without the spreading of books, almanacs, posters and anything else that would carry an impression. The same is also true of the non-classical cases of revolution, such as the Russian Revolution of 1905. In a similar vein to Darnton, Ruud argues that without the communications infrastructurein place in 1 905, the millions of copies of revolutionary books, periodicals, brochures and proclamations could never had made so compelling a political statement to the government.  [48]  The Russian example also shows the fear that incumbent regimes have of the power of print. The government continued to deploy censorship into the 20th century and in the same year as the uprising decided against reform of censorship.  [49]  Furthermore, it shows consciousness as to the power of print. Alexander Herzen, writing in 1861, formulated a new idea as to how to use print in a revolution; make the organisation produce a regular publication and make it central to the way they operate.  [50]  Lenin also realised the importance of the distribution of party publications as ideal for local agitation in What Is To Be Done?, his seminal 1902 pamphlet. Print allowed the spread of new and avant-garde ideas quickly and to a wide audience. That is not to say that revolutions happened because of printi ng; it is to say that printing sped up both the path to revolution and the revolution itself. The printing press did not create the underlying issues but it did create consciousness and awareness of these issues amongst a wider group than would otherwise have been possible. In the classical sense of the word, the printing revolution was not revolutionary. Neumann notes that the meaning of the word revolution has changed.  [51]  Whereas in the 19th century it almost exclusively applied to political change, it has become far more wide-reaching as an adjective. Nowadays it is transferable and applicable to other fields of study with an appropriate qualifying adjective such as industrial, managerial, colonial, cultural, scientific, technological etc.  [52]  Johari concludes his discussion of the nature of revolution by saying that a revolution seldom fulfils definitions of the word completely so it is not alone in that respect.  [53]  However given the criteria proposed in this paper, it is clear that the printing revolution does have revolutionary aspects. In the context of both the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution it has been shown that the printing revolution was indeed revolutionary. The printing press changed the way that religious reforms and movements happened in that although there were already manuscripts being produced, as shown by the Lollards, it was the ease of production and distribution which made the difference. The Reformation was the first event to make full employment of the propaganda potential of the printing press, and the spreading of Luthers Theses in such a short space of time across such a large area undoubtedly played a large part in the ultimate success of the movement. This also underlines the succes

Overview of the Sport Softball Essay -- essays research papers

George Hancock's first intention was to come up with a way for baseball players to stay in practice during the winter. Instead, on September 16, 1887 in Chicago, he invented a whole new sport, the first version of softball. It was referred to then as just "Indoor Baseball." The first game of baseball consisted of a boxing glove tied into a ball and a broom handle which was used as the bat. After the game was successful with a score of 44-40, Hancock developed a ball and a bat that could be used to play the game. The new sport was moved outside the next year. Another version of softball came about when Lewis Rober, Sr. organized an outdoor game to be used as exercise for firefighters. It was called kitten ball, pumpkin ball, or diamond ball. His game used a ball with a circumference of 12 inches whereas Hancock's game used a ball with a circumference of 16 inches. When sports that were fairly the same were being played all over with different rules and names, the Joint Rules Committee on Softball was formed and standardized the rules and the name, "Softball." The rules of softball can be easily altered yet there are some basic rules no matter how it is played. It is a strike if a legally pitched ball is swung at and missed by a batter or when a foul ball is not caught when the batter has less than two strikes. A ball is called when a legally pitched ball does not enter the strike zone or hits the ground before reaching the home plate, but only if the batter had not attempted to swing. A ball is also called when the pitch is illegal. The batter must always run when a fair ball is hit. If a fair ball or foul ball is caught by an opponent before it hits the ground, the batter is out. When four b... ..., fair ball, is a batted ball is hit into fair territory. Fair territory is the part of the playing field within and including first base and third base foul lines from home base to the bottom of the playing field. A foul ball is a ball that is hit into foul territory. A dead ball is a ball that is not in play. Any ball that is hit into the air is called a fly ball. The strike zone is the space over the home-plate, which is between the batter's armpits and the top of the knees when the batter is in batting position. An overthrow is a play in which a ball is thrown from one fielder to another to try to retire a base-runner who hasn't gotten to or is off a base. The team in the field is called the defensive team. The team at bat is called the offensive team. The batting order is the official listing of offensive players in the order to go up to bat.