Bernhart’s 2008 book ”Our Values: Past, Present, Future” is dedicated to enlightened people who accept the emerging constellations of values – and act accordingly. It describes his seven dimensions. of human perceptions and abilities and how each generates a group of value judgments. The seven dimensions explained:

1) Human reaction to Distance

The first dimension: length, is perceived as distance between two points, objects or people. Distance is of declining value due to the advancement of communication technology

2) Human response to Area

In the second dimension: width combines with length to create area. This is important to sustain life. Bernhart sees area too as having a declining value due to the growing desire for togetherness.

3) Human perception of Height

Height is an important tool to accommodate many people while maintaining their need for close interactions.

4) Human experience of Time

We evaluate time as being passed enjoyably, unpleasantly that its passing is stimulating or boring. This is distinctly different from time’s cosmic aspects by which the fourth dimension drives the cosmos.

5) Human enjoyment of Life

The value of the quality of life, guided by the intellectual aspect of the fifth dimension, – will lead to a steady, no longer explosive increase in global population and all will enjoy a satisfactory life.

6) Human desire for Togetherness

Values of sharing will form the credo of the emerging society, and will bring mankind a unified language as well as an all-encompassing spiritual concept.

7) Human fulfillment by Creative

Thinking

Prerogative of humanity, the supreme gift of creative thinking, through which humanity achieved its superior position among living beings,- drives the satisfying expansion of knowledge, with its simultaneous refinement of value judgments.

Evapotranspiration

Tying into Alfred Bernhart’s seven dimensions of human perceptions and abilities the change in values leads to changes in views on the disposal of waste water to views on the use of effluent water and its nutrients.

Evapotranspiration of effluent water combined with uptake of oxidized nutrient substances is the best method of “use” (not disposal) of organically polluted effluents because the method adheres best to the cycle of nature. In this cycle, human and animal excreta, as well as other organic materials, become nutrients for vegetation after microbial decomposition and oxidation. The resulting plant biomass produced by photosynthesis and stimulated by solar energy is, or should be, food for humans and animals.

Metropolis

Alfred Bernhart’s unfinished (2008) work ”Metropolis” is based on seven dimensions of human perception. With the emergence of a “SHARING” society, replacing the fading industrial society a new value constellation evolves, which brings values arising from the sixth dimension of human conception: community in TOGETHERNESS to steeply rising guiding influence. The concepts of urban forms, – from the beginning responding to the power of the togetherness dimension, – result as multidimensional, intensely interactive metropolis.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Alfred Bernhart, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Geometric art and architecture

Geometric artwork in the form of the Arabesque was not widely used in the Middle East or Mediterranean Basin until the golden age of Islam came into full bloom, when Arabesque became a common feature of Islamic art. Euclidean geometry as expounded on by Al-Abbās ibn Said al-Jawharī (ca. 800-860) in his ”Commentary on Euclid’s Elements”, the trigonometry of Aryabhata and Brahmagupta as elaborated on by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (ca. 780-850), and the development of spherical geometry by Abū al-Wafā’ al-Būzjānī (940–998) and spherical trigonometry by Al-Jayyani (989-1079) for determining the Qibla and times of Salah and Ramadan, all served as an impetus for the art form that was to become the Arabesque.

Recent discoveries have shown that geometrical quasicrystal patterns were first employed in the girih tiles found in medieval Islamic architecture dating back over five centuries ago. In 2007, Professor Peter Lu of Harvard University and Professor Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University published a paper in the journal ”Science” suggesting that girih tilings possessed properties consistent with self-similar fractal quasicrystalline tilings such as the Penrose tilings, predating them by five centuries.

Mathematical astronomy

An impetus behind mathematical astronomy came from Islamic religious observances, which presented a host of problems in mathematical astronomy, particularly in spherical geometry. In solving these religious problems the Islamic scholars went far beyond the Greek mathematical methods. For example, predicting just when the crescent moon would become visible is a special challenge to Islamic mathematical astronomers. Although Ptolemy’s theory of the complex lunar motion was tolerably accurate near the time of the new moon, it specified the moon’s path only with respect to the ecliptic. To predict the first visibility of the moon, it was necessary to describe its motion with respect to the horizon, and this problem demands fairly sophisticated spherical geometry. Finding the direction of Mecca and the time of Salah are the reasons which led to Muslims developing spherical geometry. Solving any of these problems involves finding the unknown sides or angles of a triangle on the celestial sphere from the known sides and angles. A way of finding the time of day, for example, is to construct a triangle whose vertices are the zenith, the north celestial pole, and the sun’s position. The observer must know the altitude of the sun and that of the pole; the former can be observed, and the latter is equal to the observer’s latitude. The time is then given by the angle at the intersection of the meridian (the arc through the zenith and the pole) and the sun’s hour circle (the arc through the sun and the pole).

The ”Zij” treatises were astronomical books that tabulated the parameters used for astronomical calculations of the positions of the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets. Their principal contributions to mathematical astronomy reflected improved trigonometrical, computational and observational techniques. The ”Zij” books were extensive, and typically included materials on chronology, geographical latitudes and longitudes, star tables, trigonometrical functions, functions in spherical astronomy, the equation of time, planetary motions, computation of eclipses, tables for first visibility of the lunar crescent, astronomical and/or astrological computations, and instructions for astronomical calculations using epicyclic geocentric models. Some ”zījes” go beyond this traditional content to explain or prove the theory or report the observations from which the tables were computed.

In observational astronomy, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī’s ”Zij al-Sindh” (830) contains trigonometric tables for the movements of the sun, the moon and the five planets known at the time. Al-Farghani’s ”A compendium of the science of stars” (850) corrected Ptolemy’s ”Almagest” and gave revised values for the obliquity of the ecliptic, the precessional movement of the apogees of the sun and the moon, and the circumference of the earth. Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (853-929) discovered that the direction of the Sun’s eccentric was changing, and studied the times of the new moon, lengths for the solar year and sidereal year, prediction of eclipses, and the phenomenon of parallax. Around the same time, Yahya Ibn Abi Mansour wrote the ”Al-Zij al-Mumtahan”, in which he completely revised the ”Almagest” values. In the 10th century, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) carried out observations on the stars and described their positions, magnitudes, brightness, and colour and drawings for each constellation in his ”Book of Fixed Stars” (964). Ibn Yunus observed more than 10,000 entries for the sun’s position for many years using a large astrolabe with a diameter of nearly 1.4 meters. His observations on eclipses were still used centuries later in Simon Newcomb’s investigations on the motion of the moon, while his other observations inspired Laplace’s ”Obliquity of the Ecliptic” and ”Inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn’s”.

In the late 10th century, Abu-Mahmud al-Khujandi accurately computed the axial tilt to be 23°32’19″ (23.53°), which was a significant improvement over the Greek and Indian estimates of 23°51’20″ (23.86°) and 24°, and still very close to the modern measurement of 23°26′ (23.44°). In 1006, the Egyptian astronomer Ali ibn Ridwan observed SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, and left a detailed description of the temporary star. He says that the object was two to three times as large as the disc of Venus and about one-quarter the brightness of the Moon, and that the star was low on the southern horizon. In 1031, al-Biruni’s ”Canon Mas’udicus” introduced the mathematical technique of analysing the acceleration of the planets, and first states that the motions of the solar apogee and the precession are not identical. Al-Biruni also discovered that the distance between the Earth and the Sun is larger than Ptolemy’s estimate, on the basis that Ptolemy disregarded annular eclipses.

During the “Maragha Revolution” of the 13th and 14th centuries, Muslim astronomers realized that astronomy should aim to describe the behavior of physical bodies in mathematical language, and should not remain a mathematical hypothesis, which would only save the phenomena. The Maragha astronomers also realized that the Aristotelian view of motion in the universe being only circular or linear was not true, as the Tusi-couple showed that linear motion could also be produced by applying circular motions only. Unlike the ancient Greek and Hellenistic astronomers who were not concerned with the coherence between the mathematical and physical principles of a planetary theory, Islamic astronomers insisted on the need to match the mathematics with the real world surrounding them, which gradually evolved from a reality based on Aristotelian physics to one based on an empirical and mathematical physics after the work of Ibn al-Shatir. The Maragha Revolution was thus characterized by a shift away from the philosophical foundations of Aristotelian cosmology and Ptolemaic astronomy and towards a greater emphasis on the empirical observation and mathematization of astronomy and of nature in general, as exemplified in the works of Ibn al-Shatir, Ali Qushji, al-Birjandi and al-Khafri. In particular, Ibn al-Shatir’s geocentric model was mathematically identical to the later heliocentric Copernical model.

Mathematical geography and geodesy

The Muslim scholars, who held to the spherical Earth theory, used it in an impeccably Islamic manner, to calculate the distance and direction from any given point on the earth to Mecca. This determined the Qibla, or Muslim direction of prayer. Muslim mathematicians developed spherical trigonometry which was used in these calculations.

Around 830, Caliph al-Ma’mun commissioned a group of astronomers to measure the distance from Tadmur (Palmyra) to al-Raqqah, in modern Syria. They found the cities to be separated by one degree of latitude and the distance between them to be 66 2/3& miles and thus calculated the Earth’s circumference to be 24,000& miles. Another estimate given by Al-Farghānī was 56 2/3 Arabic miles per degree, which corresponds to 111.8 km per degree and a circumference of 40,248 km, very close to the currently modern values of 111.3 km per degree and 40,068 km circumference, respectively.

In mathematical geography, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, around 1025, was the first to describe a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere. He was also regarded as the most skilled when it came to mapping cities and measuring the distances between them, which he did for many cities in the Middle East and western Indian subcontinent. He often combined astronomical readings and mathematical equations, in order to develop methods of pin-pointing locations by recording degrees of latitude and longitude. He also developed similar techniques when it came to measuring the heights of mountains, depths of valleys, and expanse of the horizon, in ”The Chronology of the Ancient Nations”. He also discussed human geography and the planetary habitability of the Earth. He hypothesized that roughly a quarter of the Earth’s surface is habitable by humans, and also argued that the shores of Asia and Europe were “separated by a vast sea, too dark and dense to navigate and too risky to try” in reference to the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī is considered the father of geodesy for his important contributions to the field, along with his significant contributions to geography and geology. At the age of 17, al-Biruni calculated the latitude of Kath, Khwarazm, using the maximum altitude of the Sun. Al-Biruni also solved a complex geodesic equation in order to accurately compute the Earth’s circumference, which were close to modern values of the Earth’s circumference. His estimate of 6,339.9 km for the Earth radius was only 16.8 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7 km. In contrast to his predecessors who measured the Earth’s circumference by sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, al-Biruni developed a new method of using trigonometric calculations based on the angle between a plain and mountain top which yielded more accurate measurements of the Earth’s circumference and made it possible for it to be measured by a single person from a single location.

Mathematical physics

Ibn al-Haytham’s work on geometric optics, particularly catoptrics, in “Book V” of the ”Book of Optics” (1021) contains the important mathematical problem known as “Alhazen’s problem” (”Alhazen” is the Latinized name of Ibn al-Haytham). It comprises drawing lines from two points in the plane of a circle meeting at a point on the circumference and making equal angles with the normal at that point. This leads to an equation of the fourth degree. This eventually led Ibn al-Haytham to derive the earliest formula for the sum of the fourth powers, and using an early proof by mathematical induction, he developed a method for determining the general formula for the sum of any integral powers, which was fundamental to the development of infinitesimal and integral calculus. Ibn al-Haytham eventually solved “Alhazen’s problem” using conic sections and a geometric proof, but Alhazen’s problem remained influential in Europe, when later mathematicians such as Christiaan Huygens, James Gregory, Guillaume de l’Hôpital, Isaac Barrow, and many others, attempted to find an algebraic solution to the problem, using various methods, including analytic methods of geometry and derivation by complex numbers. Mathematicians were not able to find an algebraic solution to the problem until the end of the 20th century.

Ibn al-Haytham also produced tables of corresponding angles of incidence and refraction of light passing from one medium to another show how closely he had approached discovering the law of constancy of ratio of sines, later attributed to Snell. He also correctly accounted for twilight being due to atmospheric refraction, estimating the Sun’s depression to be 19 degrees below the horizon during the commencement of the phenomenon in the mornings or at its termination in the evenings.

Ibn al-Haytham systematically endeavoured to mathematize physics in the context of his experimental research and controlled testing, which was oriented by geometric models of the structural mathematical principles that governed physical phenomena, particularly in relation to the explication of the behaviour and nature of vision and light. Ibn al-Haytham also advanced in his ”Discourse on Place” (”Qawl fi al-makan”) a geometrical understanding of place as ”mathematical space” that is akin to the 17th century conceptions of ”extensio” by Descartes and ”analysis situs” by Leibniz. Ibn al-Haytham established his geometrical thesis about ”place as space” in the context of his mathematical refutation of the Aristotelian physical definition of ”topos” as a ”boundary surface of a containing body” (as argued in Book delta [IV] of Aristotle’s ”Physics”).

Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973-1048), and later al-Khazini (fl. 1115-1130), were the first to apply experimental scientific methods to the statics and dynamics fields of mechanics, particularly for determining specific weights, such as those based on the theory of balances and weighing. Muslim physicists applied the mathematical theories of ratios and infinitesimal techniques, and introduced algebraic and fine calculation techniques into the field of statics.

Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ma’udh, who lived in Al-Andalus during the second half of the 11th century, wrote a work on optics later translated into Latin as ”Liber de crepisculis”, which was mistakenly attributed to Alhazen. This was a “short work containing an estimation of the angle of depression of the sun at the beginning of the morning twilight and at the end of the evening twilight, and an attempt to calculate on the basis of this and other data the height of the atmospheric moisture responsible for the refraction of the sun’s rays.” Through his experiments, he obtained the accurate value of 18°, which comes close to the modern value.

In 1574, Taqi al-Din estimated that the stars are millions of kilometres away from the Earth and that the speed of light is constant, that if light had come from the eye, it would take too long for light “to travel to the star and come back to the eye. But this is not the case, since we see the star as soon as we open our eyes. Therefore the light must emerge from the object not from the eyes.”

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Mathematics in medieval Islam, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Wiccan beliefs vary markedly between different traditions. However, various commonalities exist between these disparate groups, which usually include views on theology, the afterlife, magic and morality.

Theology

Many Wiccans believe that the God and Goddess are merely two aspects of the same Godhead, often viewed as a pantheistic deity, thereby encompassing everything in the universe within its divinity. In his public writings, Gardner referred to this being as the Prime Mover, and claimed that it remained unknowable, although in the rituals of his tradition, Gardnerianism, it is referred to as ”Dryghten”, which had originally been an Old English term meaning “lord”. Since then it has been given other names by different Wiccans, for instance Scott Cunningham called it “The One”.

As well as pantheism and duotheism, many Wiccans accept the concept of polytheism, thereby believing that there are many different deities. Some accept the view espoused by the occultist Dion Fortune that “all gods are one god, and all goddesses are one goddess” —that is that the gods and goddesses of all cultures are, respectively, aspects of one supernal God and Goddess. With this mindset, a Wiccan may regard the Germanic Eostre, Hindu Kali, and Christian Virgin Mary each as manifestations of one supreme Goddess and likewise, the Celtic Cernunnos, the ancient Greek Dionysus and the Judeo-Christian Yahweh as aspects of a single, archetypal God. A more strictly polytheistic approach holds the various goddesses and gods to be separate and distinct entities in their own right. The Wiccan writers Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone have postulated that Wicca is becoming more polytheistic as it matures, tending to embrace a more traditionally pagan worldview. Some Wiccans conceive of deities not as literal personalities but as metaphorical archetypes or thoughtforms, thereby technically allowing them to be atheists. Such a view was purported by the High Priestess Vivianne Crowley, herself a psychologist, who considered the Wiccan deities to be Jungian archetypes that existed within the subconscious that could be evoked in ritual. It was for this reason that she said that “The Goddess and God manifest to us in dream and vision.”

Wicca is essentially an immanent religion, and for some Wiccans, this idea also involves elements of animism. A belief central to Wicca is that the Goddess and the God (or the goddesses and gods) are able to manifest in personal form, most importantly through the bodies of Priestesses and Priests via the rituals of Drawing down the Moon or Drawing down the Sun.

Afterlife

Belief in the afterlife varies among Wiccans, although reincarnation is a traditional Wiccan teaching dating back to the New Forest coven in the 1930s. The influential High Priest Raymond Buckland said that a human’s soul reincarnates into the same species over many lives in order to learn lessons and advance spiritually, but this belief is not universal, as many Wiccans believe in the reincarnation of the soul through different species. However, a popular saying amongst Wiccans is that “once a witch, always a witch”, indicating a belief that Wiccans are the reincarnations of previous witches.

Typically, Wiccans who believe in reincarnation believe that the soul rests between lives in the Otherworld or Summerland, known in Gardner’s writings as the “ecstasy of the Goddess”. Many Wiccans believe in the ability to contact the spirits of the dead who reside in the Otherworld through spirit mediums and ouija boards, particularly on the Sabbat of Samhain, though some disagree with this practice, such as the High Priest Alex Sanders, who stated that “they are dead; leave them in peace.” This belief was likely influenced by Spiritualism, which was very popular at the time of Wicca’s emergence, and with which Gardner and other early Wiccans such as Buckland and Sanders had some experience.

Despite some belief therein, Wicca does not place an emphasis on the afterlife, focusing instead on the current one; as the historian Ronald Hutton remarked, “the instinctual position of most [Wiccans], therefore, seems to be that if one makes the most of the present life, in all respects, then the next life is more or less certainly going to benefit from the process, and so one may as well concentrate on the present”.

Magic

Many Wiccans believe in magic, a force they see as being capable of manipulation through the practice of witchcraft or sorcery. Some spell it “magick”, a variation coined by the influential occultist Aleister Crowley, though this spelling is more commonly associated with Crowley’s religion of Thelema than with Wicca. Indeed, many Wiccans agree with the definition of magic offered by ceremonial magicians, such as Aleister Crowley, who declared that magic was “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will”, whilst another prominent ceremonial magician, MacGregor Mathers stated that it was “the science of the control of the secret forces of nature”. Many Wiccans believe magic to be a law of nature, as yet misunderstood or disregarded by contemporary science, and as such they do not view it as being supernatural, but being a part of the “super powers that reside in the natural” according to Leo Martello. Some Wiccans believe that magic is simply making full use of the five senses that achieve surprising results, whilst other Wiccans do not claim to know how magic works, merely believing that it does because they have observed it to be so.

Wiccans cast spells or ”workings” during ritual practices, often held inside a sacred circle, in an attempt to bring about real changes in the physical world (these rituals are further explained in the “Ritual practices” section below). Common Wiccan spells include those used for healing, for protection, fertility, or to banish negative influences. Many early Wiccans, such as Alex Sanders, Sybil Leek and Doreen Valiente, referred to their own magic as “white magic”, which contrasted with “black magic”, which they associated with evil and Satanism. Sanders also used the similar terminology of “left hand path” to describe malevolent magic, and “right hand path” to describe magic performed with good intentions; terminology that had originated with the occultist Madame Blavatsky in the 19th century. Some modern Wiccans however have stopped using the white-black magic and left-right hand path dichotomies, arguing for instance that the colour black should not necessarily have any associations with evil.

The scholars of religion, Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, claimed, in 1985, that Wicca had “reacted to secularisation by a headlong plunge back into magic” and that it was a reactionary religion which would soon die out. This view was heavily criticised in 1999 by the historian Ronald Hutton, who claimed that the evidence displayed the very opposite, that “a large number [of Wiccans] were in jobs at the cutting edge [of scientific culture], such as computer technology.”

Morality

There exists no dogmatic moral or ethical code followed universally by Wiccans of all traditions, however a majority follow a code known as the Wiccan Rede, which states “an it harm none, do what ye will”. This is usually interpreted as a declaration of the freedom to act, along with the necessity of taking responsibility for what follows from one’s actions and minimising harm to oneself and others. Another common element of Wiccan morality is the Law of Threefold Return which holds that whatever benevolent or malevolent actions a person performs will return to that person with triple force, or with equal force on each of the three levels of body, mind and spirit, similar to the eastern idea of karma. Both the Rede and the Threefold Law were introduced into the Craft by Gerald Gardner, and subsequently adopted by the Gardnerian and other traditions.

Many Wiccans also seek to cultivate a set of eight virtues mentioned in Doreen Valiente’s ”Charge of the Goddess”, these being mirth, reverence, honour, humility, strength, beauty, power and compassion. In Valiente’s poem, they are ordered in pairs of complementary opposites, reflecting a dualism that is common throughout Wiccan philosophy. Some lineaged Wiccans also observe a set of Wiccan Laws, commonly called the ”Craft Laws” or ”Ardanes”, 30 of which exist in the Gardnerian tradition and 161 of which are in the Alexandrian tradition. Valiente, one of Gardner’s original High Priestesses, argued that the first thirty of these rules were most likely invented by Gerald Gardner himself in mock-archaic language as the by-product of inner conflict within his Bricket Wood coven – the others were later additions made by Alex Sanders during the 1960s.

Although Gerald Gardner initially demonstrated an aversion to homosexuality, claiming that it brought down “the curse of the goddess”, it is now generally accepted in all traditions of Wicca, with certain groups like the Minoan Brotherhood openly crafting their philosophy around it, and various important figures in the Craft, such as Alex Sanders and Eddie Buczynski, being openly homosexual or bisexual.

The Five Elements

In certain traditions, there is a belief in the five classical elements, although unlike in ancient Greece, they are seen as symbolic as opposed to literal; that is, they are representations of the phases of matter. These five elements are invoked during many magical rituals, notably when consecrating a magic circle. The five elements are Air, Fire, Water and Earth, plus Aether (or Spirit), which unites the other four. Various analogies have been devised to explain the concept of the five elements; for instance, the Wiccan Ann-Marie Gallagher used that of a tree, which is composed of Earth (with the soil and plant matter), Water (sap and moisture), Fire (through photosynthesis) and Air (the creation of oxygen from carbon dioxide), all of which are believed to be united through Spirit.

Traditionally in the Gardnerian Craft, each element has been associated with a cardinal point of the compass; Air with east, Fire with south, Water with west, Earth with north and the Spirit with centre. However, some Wiccans, such as Frederic Lamond, have claimed that the set cardinal points are only those applicable to the geography of southern England, where Wicca evolved, and that Wiccans should determine which directions best suit each element in their region, for instance, those living on the east coast of North America should invoke Water in the east and not the west because the colossal body of water, the Atlantic ocean, is to their east. Other Craft groups have associated the elements with different cardinal points, for instance Robert Cochrane’s Clan of Tubal Cain associated Earth with south, Fire with east, Water with west and Air with north, and each of which were controlled over by a different deity who were seen as children of the primary Horned God and Goddess. The five elements are symbolised by the five points of the pentagram, the most prominently used symbol of Wicca.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Wicca, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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*”Eye of the Peacock” (“Глаз Павлина”) series

**”Eye of the Peacock” – Darwin was wrong, as Dandy and Eric, employees of an unusual detective agency, have discovered – among our ancestors were werewolves and Atlanteans… Both races carefully protect the secrets of their ancient civilizations and meddle in human affairs only when absolutely necessary. One of these moments have arrived: the existence of the three races is threatened by an unknown force. This means that Dandy and Eric, who already have a full plate, have even more work to do.

**”Import of Justice” (“Импорт правосудия”) – apparently, Earth is not only the human homeworld but also of two others: Atlanteans, vague mentions of whom have been preserved in ancient manuscripts, and man-wolves, known to us through the scary stories about insidious werewolves. Private investigators Eric and Dandy know firsthand that there is truth in every story – it was them who were previously involved in a bitter struggle for the legacy of the ancient races. A year passed after those events, but, so far, nobody has been able to locate the Projector. Now, there is a new misfortune – Creatures from beyond the Edge, sentient beings of pure energy. The way to combat them is written on a scroll, one half of which is owned by the wolves, and the other – by the Atlanteans.

*”Falcon” (“Сокол”) series

**”The Hunt for Falcon” (“Охота на Сокола”) – the soldiers fell, cut down by the hail of bullets from his machinegun, and Sasha finally understood the main thing – he became a killer… Only several hours ago he turned from a simple scientist into the carrier of the mysterious “Falcon”, giving him supernatural abilities. Now Sasha can control the electronic “seine” which enmeshed the entire planet. However, there turned out to be too many of those who wish to possess such might. Absolute power over the world drew the competition – the “Reds”, the “Blacks”, and the “Whites”. All government “agencies” were full of double- and triple-agents. Sasha became the target of a true manhunt. The most terrible thing, however, is that one of the groups decided to use his wife and child as bait.

**”Dr. Falcon” (“Dr. Сокол”)

**”Falcon’s Mission” (“Миссия Сокола”)

**”Falcon’s Fury” (“Ярость Сокола”)

*”Path from the Skies” (“Путь с небес”) – the interests of the ruler of Callisto, Knyaz Sergey Preobrazhensky, never went far beyond the moons of Jupiter… well, maximum – the Solar System. Fate arrive to the knyaz in the form of a strange Chinese merchant, who predicted the appearance of a mysterious Boundary in deep space, which led to the destruction of many inhabited worlds. Sergey became involved in cruel games of the Firstborn. He must fight those who tries to free the multidimentional Universe from the presence of humans at any cost.

*”No Future” (“Будущего.net”) (”net” means ”no” in Russian) – it is difficult to be a chosen one. Especially when you do not know who or why chose you and what awaits beyond the multitude of incredible adventures into which you were dragged… Security Lieutenant Vladimir Volkov with each step kept feeling more and more how the Noose of Time, dividing the fates of two parallel worlds, tightened itself around his neck. In one the worlds, reality strangely interwove itself with virtual reality, and the price of failure in a computer game was real death. The other world was not much better – it was in the middle of a nuclear winter. The masters of that world were mutants, who wanted to own Future itself, leaving normal humans only one right – to become a food source.

*”Aquarius Rising” (“Восход Водолея”) – what was on the strange tape, which several government agencies were looking for? Who ripped apart the terrorists who hijacked a plane? Cyborgs? But who controls them and, more importantly, how?.. In these disturbing times, it is as if nature went insane – earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods followed one another. Perhaps, this severe universal wisdom was trying to save humanity from itself.

*”The Enemy Inside” (“Враг внутри”)

*”Blood of the Titans” (“Кровь титанов”) – the existence of the race of Titans – wise supermen and great Warriors, created in Earth laboratories as a result of genetic experimentation, is threatened. Their comrades, killed in battles past, somehow returned with their spaceships, attack and defeat their former colleagues. Pilot-Titan Aleksey Turkin must engage in a crucial battle with invincible invisibles and uncover the dreadful secrets of mighty races.

*”The Fall of the “Galaxy”” (“Падение «Галактики»”) – in the middle of an interplanetary plot known by a significant name “Galaxy” and additional threat was thoroughly concealed. This threat was a thousand times more terrible – an alien. The conspirators themselves were only pawns in the insidious game of the envoy from other worlds. However, even the heartless monsters, who sent him to the human sector of space in preparation for an invasion, were panically afraid of others following in their wake. Humanity defends its right to remain itself thgrough incredible battles and agonizing meditations.

*”Legacy of Others” (“Чужое наследие”)

*”Exam for Humanoids” (“Экзамен для гуманоидов”) – not only mafia is immortal but also intelligence. Especially planetary intelligence, the agents of which attempt to defuse the powder keg of a new space conflict without revealing themselves. This is especially important when the enemies are the arrogant and numerous nomads-amoebas, who couldn’t care less about the galactic laws and the wild, backward planet Earth. When it is time to stop hiding, weapons of the spies become ordinary laser rifles, their allies – space marines-traders, and the language of interstellar communication – the sound of bullets striking an armored suit.

*”Our Purple Brothers” (“Наши фиолетовые братья”)

*”Immortality of the Mercenary” (“Бессмертие наемника”) – they always have been and always will be. They were sent to the most deadly places, but they always came back. They were blamed for the stupidity of generals and miscalculations of politicians, and their victories were appropriated by others. They have never known glory but were always attracted to gold. They are the mercenaries. Let them be despised and accused of all deadly sins, but, whether it is under the walls of Troy or at the edge of the galaxy, they remain true to their unwritten code of honor. That is why they are immortal, because, if necessary, they are capable of travelling through time… as long as there is a reward!

*”Future Dream” (“Сон грядущий”)

*”Cure for Happiness” (“Лекарство от счастья”)

*”The Fight with the Shadow” (“Бой с тенью”)

*”Iron City” (“Железный город”)

*”The Fifth Galactic War” (“Пятая космическая”)

*”War for the Revival” (“Война за возрождение”)

*”Fire, Vodka, and Copper Corpses” (“Огонь, водка и медные трупы”)

*”The Best Defense” (“Лучшая защита”)

*”Looking through the Sun” (“Взгляд сквозь Солнце”)

*”Mad Dog” (“Бешеный пес”)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Vyacheslav Shalygin, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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K. K. Downing and Ian Hill had known each other since early childhood, as they lived near one another and attended the same nursery and school in West Bromwich. They became close friends in their early teens, when they shared similar musical interests (Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Cream, The Yardbirds) and learned to play instruments. The band was founded in 1969 in Birmingham, England, after a local ensemble named Judas Priest (after Bob Dylan’s song “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” from the ”John Wesley Harding” album) split up. The band’s singer, Al Atkins, approached Downing and Hill, who were playing as a power trio with drummer John Ellis, and asked if he could become their singer. With Atkins now in the band, Downing suggested they change their name to Judas Priest as he had been a fan of the original band.

With Downing as acting leader, the band moved away from their original blues influences to play hard rock and what would later come to be defined as heavy metal. This quartet played around Birmingham and the surrounding areas with various drummers until 1974, sometimes opening for bands such as Budgie, Thin Lizzy and Trapeze. Eventually, financial difficulties and problems with their management, Tony Iommi’s company, IMA, led to the departure of Alan Atkins and drummer Alan Moore.

At the time, Ian Hill was dating a woman from the nearby town of Walsall who suggested her brother, Rob Halford, be considered as a singer. Halford joined the band, bringing drummer John Hinch from his previous band, Hiroshima. This line-up toured in the UK, often supporting Budgie, and even headlining some shows in Norway and Germany.

”Rocka Rolla” and ”Sad Wings of Destiny”

Before the band entered the studio to record their first album, their record company suggested they add another musician to the line-up. As Downing was reluctant to incorporate a keyboard or horn player into the band, he chose another guitarist, Glenn Tipton, from the Stafford-based Flying Hat Band as their new member. The two guitarists worked together to adapt the existing material and Tipton also received credits as a song writer. In August 1974, the band released their debut single “Rocka Rolla” and followed this a month later with an album of the same name.

Technical problems during the recording contributed to the poor sound quality of the record. Producer Rodger Bain, whose CV included Black Sabbath’s first three albums as well as Budgie’s first album, dominated the production of the album and made decisions with which the band did not agree. Bain also chose to leave fan favourites from the band’s live set, such as “Tyrant,” “Genocide” and “The Ripper,” off the album and he cut the song “Caviar and Meths” from a 10-minute song down to a 2-minute instrumental.

The band participated more in the production of their next album, recorded during January and February 1976, and chose the producers themselves. The result, ”Sad Wings of Destiny” (1976), included a variety of old material, including the aforementioned stage favorites and the epic “Victim of Changes”. This song was a combination of “Whiskey Woman”, a stage classic from the Al Atkins’ era of Judas Priest, and “Red Light Lady”, a song that Halford had written with his previous group, Hiroshima. This album and a strong performance at the 1975 Reading Festival helped to raise wider interest in the band and extend their fanbase.

Les Binks era

For their next album, 1977′s ”Sin After Sin”, produced by ex-Deep Purple bass player Roger Glover, the band chose to use session drummer Simon Phillips for the recordings. For the following tour Les (James Leslie) Binks played with the band, who were impressed with his performance and asked him to stay. Together they recorded 1978′s ”Stained Class” and ”Killing Machine” (released in America as ”Hell Bent for Leather”). Binks, credited with writing the very powerful “Beyond the Realms of Death”, was an accomplished and technically skilled drummer and his addition added a dexterous edge to the band’s sound. Binks also played on ”Unleashed in the East”, which was recorded live in Japan during the Killing Machine tour. Compared with previous records ”Killing Machine” had shorter songs with increased commercial appeal while still retaining the band’s heavy metal punch.

Mainstream success

Following the release of ”Killing Machine” was the live release from the supporting tour, entitled ”Unleashed in the East”. It was the first of many Judas Priest albums to go Platinum. At the time, there was some criticism of the band’s use of studio-enhancements and overdubbing in what was marketed as a live album.

After Les Binks quit, in part because of the band’s direction, the band replaced him with Dave Holland, formerly from the band Trapeze. With this line-up, Judas Priest recorded six studio and one live album which garnered different degrees of critical and financial success. Overall, the band has sold in excess of 30 million albums globally.

In 1980, the band released ”British Steel”. The songs were shorter and had more mainstream radio hooks, but retained the heavy metal feel. Tracks such as “United”, “Breaking the Law”, and “Living After Midnight” were frequently played on the radio. The next release, 1981′s ”Point of Entry”, followed the same formula, but critics generally panned it. However, the tour in support was successful, with new songs such as “Solar Angels” and “Heading Out to the Highway”.

The 1982 album ”Screaming for Vengeance” featured the song “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”, which garnered strong US radio airplay. Songs such as “Electric Eye” and “Riding on the Wind” also appeared off this album, and proved to be popular live tracks. “(Take These) Chains” (by Bob Halligan, Jr) was released as a single and received heavy airplay. This album went two times Platinum.

”Defenders of the Faith” was released in 1984. Even though it was more progressive than their earlier efforts, some critics dubbed it as “Screaming for Vengeance II”, due to its musical likeness to the previous album.

On 13 July 1985, Judas Priest, along with Black Sabbath and other performers, played at Live Aid. The band played at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Their setlist was “Living After Midnight”, “The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)” and “(You’ve Got) Another Thing Comin’”.

”Turbo” was released in April 1986. The band adopted a more colourful stage look and gave their music a more mainstream feel by adding guitar synthesizers. The album also went Platinum and had a successful tour in support. A live album recorded on the tour, titled ”Priest…Live!”, was released the next year, offering fans live tracks from the 1980s era. The video documentary ”Heavy Metal Parking Lot” was created by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn in 1986. It documents the heavy metal fans waiting on 31 May 1986 for a Judas Priest concert (with special guests Dokken) at the Capital Centre (later renamed US Airways Arena) in Landover, Maryland.

In May 1988, ”Ram It Down” was released, featuring several reworked songs left over from ”Turbo”, in addition to new songs. A reviewer has called ”Ram It Down” a “stylistic evolution” that resulted from the band’s “…attempt to rid themselves of the tech synthesiser approach…and return to the traditional metal of their fading glory days.” The reviewer argued the album showed “…how far behind they were lagging…the thrashers they helped influence” in earlier years. As well, in the late 1980s, longtime drummer Dave Holland left the band.

In September 1990, the ”Painkiller” album used a new drummer, Scott Travis (formerly from Racer X). This comeback album dropped the 1980s-style synthesisers for all of the songs except “A Touch of Evil”. The tour used bands such as Pantera, Megadeth and Sepultura as opening bands, and culminated in the Rock in Rio performance in Brazil in front of 100,000+ music fans.

Part of the Judas Priest stage show often featured Rob Halford riding onstage on a Harley-Davidson motorbike, dressed in motorcycle leathers and sunglasses. In a Toronto show in August 1991, Halford was seriously injured as he rode on stage, when he collided with a drum riser that was hidden behind clouds of dry ice mist. Although the show was delayed, he performed the entire set before going to hospital. Hill later noted “he must have been in agony”. In a 2007 interview Rob later claimed the accident had nothing to do with his departure from the band.

Subliminal message trial

In the summer of 1990, the band was involved in a civil action that alleged they were responsible for the self-inflicted gunshot wounds in 1985 of 20-year old James Vance and 18-year old Raymond Belknap in Reno, Nevada, USA. On 23 December 1985, Vance and Belknap, after hours of drinking beer, smoking marijuana and allegedly listening to Judas Priest music, went to a playground at a church in Reno with a 12-gauge shotgun to end their lives. Belknap was the first to place the shotgun under his chin. He died instantly after pulling the trigger. Vance was the next to follow suit but only blew away the lower half of his face. This was possibly because the weapon was slippery with blood.

The men’s parents and their legal team alleged that a subliminal message of “do it” had been included in the Judas Priest song “Better By You, Better Than Me” from the ”Stained Class” album (actually a cover of a Spooky Tooth number). They alleged the command in the song triggered the suicide attempt. The trial lasted from 16 July to 24 August 1990, when the suit was dismissed. One of the defense witnesses, Dr. Timothy E. Moore, wrote an article for ”Skeptical Inquirer” chronicling the trial.

The trial was covered in the 1991 documentary ”Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance Vs. Judas Priest”. In the documentary, Halford commented that if they wanted to insert subliminal commands in their music, killing their fans would be counterproductive and they would prefer to insert the command “Buy more of our records.” Regarding the plaintiff’s assertions that the statement “do it” was a command to commit suicide, Halford pointed out “do it” had no direct message.

Halford leaves

After the end of the ”Painkiller” tour in 1991, Halford left Judas Priest. In September 1991, there were indications of internal tensions within the band. Halford went on to form a street-style thrash metal group named Fight in the summer of 1993 with Scott Travis on drums for the recording sessions. He formed this band due to his desire to explore new musical territory, but due to contractual obligations, he left Judas Priest in May 1992.

Halford collaborated with Judas Priest in the release of a compilation album entitled ”Metal Works ’73-’93” to commemorate their 20th anniversary. He also appeared in a video by the same title, documenting their history, in which his departure from the band was officially announced later that year.

In a 1998 interview on MTV, Halford also revealed his homosexuality, but it came as little surprise to fans or Halford’s bandmates.

Ripper Owens

Tim “Ripper” Owens, who had previously sung in a Judas Priest tribute band called British Steel, was hired in 1996 as Judas Priest’s new singer. This line up released two albums, ”Jugulator” and ”Demolition”, as well as two live double-albums – ”’98 Live Meltdown” and ”Live in London”, the latter of which had a live DVD counterpart. ”Jugulator” sold relatively well.

Owens’ move from fan and weekend tribute band singer to frontman for the actual band was the inspiration for the film ”Rock Star”. Because the film’s content bore only a tangential resemblance to Owens’s actual history with the band, Judas Priest later moved to disassociate themselves from the film.

Reunion

After almost twelve years apart, faced with an ever-growing demand for a reunion, Judas Priest and original lead vocalist Rob Halford announced they would reunite in July 2003, to coincide with the release of the Metalogy box set. They did a live concert tour in Europe in 2004, and co-headlined the 2004 Ozzfest, being named as the “premier act” by almost all U.S. media coverage of the event.

A new studio album, ”Angel of Retribution”, was released on 1 March 2005 (U.S.) on Sony Music/Epic Records to critical and commercial success.[citation needed] A global tour in support of the album ensued, and was hugely successful. Judas Priest and “Ripper” Owens parted amicably, with Owens joining American heavy metal band Iced Earth.

As for the band Halford, writing for the fourth release was cut off. However, after the Retribution tour in June 2006, Halford announced he would create his own record company, entitled Metal God Entertainment, where he would release all his solo material under his own control. In November 2006 he remastered his back catalog and released it exclusively through Apple’s iTunes Store. Two new songs allegedly set for the fourth release, “Forgotten Generation” and “Drop Out”, were released through iTunes as well.

VH1 Rock Honors

Along with Kiss, Queen, and Def Leppard, Judas Priest were the inaugural inductees into the “VH1 Rock Honors”. The ceremony took place 25 May 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and first aired on 31 May 2006. Their presentation was preceded by the band Godsmack performing a medley of “Electric Eye”/”Victim of Changes”/”Hell Bent for Leather”, and Judas Priest themselves played “Breaking the Law”, “The Green Manalishi” and “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”, before which Halford rode a Harley onstage.

Nostradamus and recent events

In a June 2006 interview with MTV.com, frontman Rob Halford said in regards to the group’s concept album about the legendary 16th century French prophet Nostradamus, “Nostradamus is all about metal, isn’t he? He was an alchemist as well as a seer — a person of extraordinary talent. He had an amazing life that was full of trial and tribulation and joy and sorrow. He’s a very human character and a world-famous individual. You can take his name and translate it into any language and everybody knows about him, and that’s important because we’re dealing with a worldwide audience.” In addition to digging new lyrical ground for the band, the album would contain musical elements which might surprise their fans. “It’s going to have a lot of depth”, Halford said. “There’ll be a lot of symphonic elements. We might orchestrate it, without it being overblown. There may be a massive choir at parts and keyboards will be featured more prominently, whereas they’ve always been in the background before.” The album ”Nostradamus” was released in June 2008; the band began a support tour in that same month.

In early February 2009, the band joined the ranks of bands speaking out against ticket-touting (“scalping”), issuing a statement condemning the practice of selling tickets at well above face value and urging their fans to buy tickets only from official sources. In the same month, Judas Priest continued their tour, bringing their “Priest Feast” (with support from guests Megadeth and Testament) to multiple arenas in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland in February and March 2009. From there the tour progressed to multiple venues in Sweden. Later in March 2009, Judas Priest performed in Portugal (at Lisbon on the Atlantic Pavilion), which they had not visited since 2005. The tour then continued on to Milan, Italy, and then to Paris, France; Halford had last performed with Judas Priest in Paris in 1991.

From June through August 2009, Judas Priest completed a North American tour to commemmorate the 30th anniversary of the release of the album British Steel; the album was performed in its entirety on each tour date, with some other Judas Priest songs thrown into the setlist. This tour was to be a joint effort with fellow Englishman David Coverdale and Whitesnake. Unfortunately, Whitesnake would have to leave the tour after the 11 August 2009 show in Denver, Colorado, due to singer David Coverdale falling ill with a serious throat infection; he was advised to stop singing immediately to avoid permanently damaging his vocal chords.

On 14 July 2009, Judas Priest released a new live album, featuring 11 previously unreleased live tracks from the 2005 and 2008 world tours, ”A Touch of Evil: Live”. The performance of “Dissident Aggressor” won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.

In May 2010, Halford said that the band had been offered a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, but “we’ve just never been there when they wanted to do the ceremony.” He also revealed that a ”Nostradamus” tour is still being contemplated: “We were in Hollywood recently and met with some producers and agents, so there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes.”

The Judas Priest song “Electric Eye” was used in the temp score for Toy Story 3 but was always ultimately replaced by another piece of music.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Judas Priest, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Allosimanius Syneca

Allosimanius Syneca is a planet noted for ice, snow, mind-hurtling beauty and stunning cold. The view from the top of the Ice Crystal Pyramids of Sastantua is widely known for its ability to release the observer’s mind to hitherto unexperienced horizons of beauty.

Argabuthon

Argabuthon is a technologically advanced planet whose perspex Sceptre of Justice turned out to be part of the key to the Wikkit Gate. It is also the home of Prak, a man placed into solitary confinement after an overdose of truth drug caused him to tell the Truth in its absolute and final form, causing anyone to hear it to go insane. The planet’s Arglebard Forest provided the wood to build the Argabuthon Chamber of Law.

Arkintoofle Minor

Motivated by the fact that the only thing in the Universe that travels faster than light is bad news, the Hingefreel people native to Arkintoofle Minor constructed a starship powered by bad news. Unfortunately, the ship’s drives didn’t work terribly well, and, even if they did, their fuel source rendered them incredibly unwelcome, thus defeating the whole point.

Bartledan

An Earthlike planet on which Arthur Dent lived for a short time. Inhabited by Bartledanians who neither breathe nor experience desire in any form.

Bethselamin

Bethselamin is a fabulously beautiful planet which attracts billions of tourists each year. Unsurprisingly, erosion is a primary concern of the local authorities. Their solution is to remove any net imbalance between the amount of matter eaten and the amount subsequently excreted through amputative surgery. Thus it is vitally important to get a receipt after every trip to the lavatory while on the planet.

Blagulon Kappa

Blagulon Kappa is the planet which the police that attack Zaphod Beeblebrox are from. Its air is rich in methane, as its lifeforms depend on it for survival.

Brequinda

Brequinda on the Foth of Avalars was famed in myth, legend and incredibly dull tri-d mini-series as home of the magnificent and magical Fuolornis Fire Dragon. As the guide hardly ever updates, it now mystifies tourists who go to visit the City State of Brequinda.

Brontitall

Brontitall is a planet with a warm, rich atmosphere and no mountains. It is populated by highly evolved bird people who live in the right ear of a 15-mile high marble statue of Arthur Dent, built as a reminder of the moment when Arthur (due to a freak occurrence) appeared in the sky over the city arguing with a Nutrimatic Drink Dispenser, inspiring the people of the planet to get rid of all robots.

On the ground, three clones of an archaeologist called Lintilla discover the strata of shoes, thus revealing the planet’s history.

Nearby, a derelict spaceport contains a number of crumbling old spaceships, but one of which is still on power, “delayed” for over 900 years due to the non-arrival of its complement of lemon-soaked paper napkins.

Originally the bird people were ground dwellers, but gradually the planet was taken over by the shoe shops of the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation, apparently thanks to the shoe shop intensifier ray deployed by the corporation in order to keep the populace buying more and more poorly made and ill-fitting shoes. The guide later reveals that the shoe shop intensifier ray “is, in actuality, a phony, designed to make Dolmansaxlil executives feel they are doing something excitingly aggressive, when in fact all they need to do is wait”. Rather than falling to the predation of the corporation, the planet had instead succumbed to the natural state of decay known as the Shoe Event Horizon.

Shoe Event Horizon

The foundation of the Shoe Event Horizon theory is that when depressed, people tend to look down, and when they look down, they see their shoes. To cheer themselves up, they might buy themselves a new pair. Thus, in a generally depressed society, demand for shoes will rise.

In the critical condition, demand for shoes rises faster than the capacity to make good quality footwear. As shoe quality decreases, the demand increases further because shoes wear out faster and need to be replaced more often; as the demand for shoes increases, cheap mass production causes shoe quality to drop even more. What results is a spiral of increasing shoe demand and decreasing shoe quality. Eventually, this destabilizes the economy to the point where it is “no longer economically viable to build anything other than shoe shops”, and planetary society collapses.

Adams had gone to London’s Oxford Street where, quoting him, “You can’t throw a brick without breaking a shoe shop window”. Despite every shop stocking thousands of shoes, none had a pair which was the right size, price, or colour, or which was comfortable, durable or stylish without being outrageous.

Brontitall is only mentioned in the original BBC radio show. However, in the books, Frogstar B has some (but not all) of the attributes of Brontitall.

Ciceronicus 12

Ciceronicus 12 is the planet on which the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler, the Magic and Indefatigable, is located.

Damogran

A small, remote, uninteresting planet whose surface comprises a number of small, uninteresting islands surrounded by ocean. Two of these islands are coincidentally named “Easter Island” and “France”. The starship ”Heart Of Gold” was built, and subsequently stolen from, here.

The background shot used in the film version contains a view of Church Rock, near Stackpole in Pembrokeshire in west Wales, UK. This location is later used (in unaltered form) during the flyby sequence of Slartibartfast and Arthur in the planet-builder’s factory.

Dangrabad Beta

Dangrabad Beta is noted for its sand blizzards. The Googolplex Star Thinker was said to have been able to calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard.

Earth

Mostly Harmless.

For more information, see: The Sun

Eroticon VI

Place of residence of Eccentrica Gallumbits, a triple-breasted whore who has several cameos throughout the series. Her erogenous zones are thought to reach an area of 4 miles around her actual body. Ford Prefect disagrees, believing it to be 5.

Esflovian

Mentioned in a ”Guide” entry on the first ”Hitchhikers” LP sleeve, Esflovian is a “planet populated by the descendants of an ancient personal-growth-orientated hippy peace commune… It is rumoured to have destroyed itself in recent nuclear encounter therapy”.

Fallia

The planet Fallia is best known for its marshes which, according to the instructions on how to make a proper Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, are quite dangerous. You should allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through the drink “in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia.” It can therefore be assumed that these gases are highly intoxicating, possibly even hallucinogenic.

Gagrakacka

The band Disaster Area were from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones. It is later referred to as a place with ”all that stuff going on out there” in ”Mostly Harmless”. It is one of the 85 percent of inhabited worlds in the galaxy that has, for reasons unknown, independently developed a drink named with a phonetic variant of “gin and tonics.” The Gagrakakan version, however, tzjin-anthony-ks, kills cows at a hundred paces.

Golgafrincham

Golgafrincham is a red semi-desert planet that is home of the Great Circling Poets of Arium and a species of particularly inspiring lichen. Its people decided it was time to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population, and so the descendants of the Circling Poets concocted a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed in a great catastrophe. (It was apparently under threat from a “mutant star goat”). The useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers*, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitisers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow and “led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone”.

The B-Ark was programmed to crash-land on a suitably remote planet on one of the outer spiral arms of the galaxy, which happened to be Earth, and the Golgafrinchan rejects gradually mingled with and usurped the native cavemen**, becoming the ancestors of humanity and thereby altering the course of the great experiment to find the question for the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, or so Ford Prefect presumes. A lot of them didn’t make it through the winter three years prior to Arthur Dent’s reunion with Ford Prefect, and the few who remained in the spring said they needed a holiday and set out on a raft. History says they must have survived.

People from Golgafrincham are called ”Golgafrinchans”. In some versions of , the planet is also referred to as “Golgafrinchan”, but this usage is less common and is thought to be an error of typography.

* Tired was a typo for Tri-D, but was left as is because D.A. thought there should be some tired TV producers too.

** Arthur reflexively called the primitive Earth primates “cavemen”, despite Ford pointing out that they didn’t actually live in caves as such.

The city of Vassilian on the planet of Golgafrincham is where the five princes journey of the traditional long poems started from, in the second novel.

Han Wavel

An exotic holiday planet, Han Wavel is one of the wonders of the Galaxy, a world of fabulous ultra-luxury hotels and casinos, all of which have been formed by the natural erosion of wind and rain. However geophysicists, probability statisticians, meteoranalysts or bizzarrologists who are so keen to research it cannot afford to stay there to find how this “infinity to one against” situation came about. It appears in .

Happi-Werld III

Home of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Teleport Systems factory. As per usual with the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, their teleport systems seldom work properly, and the results are, as can be imagined, rather drastic. For this reason the planet has seen an almost continuous mob of protestors outside the factory, chanting songs of defiance, one featuring the memorable lyrics: “”I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg/Ron stole Meggy’s heart away and I got Sidney’s leg”.”

Hawalius

Hawalius, was home to oracles, seers, soothsayers and take-away pizza shops, but was being Plutoed by time-travel taking away the planet’s trade. Arthur Dent travelled there and met the smelly Old Woman in the Cave (with a photocopier) and the Old Man on the Poles in .

Jaglan Beta

Jaglan Beta is, evidently, the second planet in a star system near the Axle Nebula. The entry on the usefulness of towels in the ”Hitchhiker’s Guide” notes that Jaglan Beta’s moons are quite cold, and that a towel is useful for wrapping up with while on them.

In the parking lot at Milliways, Ford Prefect briefly recounts a tale about being passed by a Lazlar Lyricon Custom spaceship that subsequently crashed into the third moon of Jaglan Beta, observing that the ship looked like a fish and moved like a fish, but steered like a cow.

A popular showtune in the ”Hitchhiker’s” universe is “I Left My Leg in Jaglan Beta.”

Jajazikstak

Jajazikstak is home to the warlike Strangulous Stilettans in .

Kakrafoon

Kakrafoon is an arid world which has a reddish surface similar to that of Mars. Unlike Mars, Kakrafoon has a sentient species known as the Belcerebons. Due to their highly antisocial habit of being quiet, the Belcerebons were sentenced by Galactic Tribunal to be telepathic, the only ways of blocking out these messages is to either talk constantly about anything and everything, or to play host to a Disaster Area rock concert.

In fact, one such concert, following Hotblack Desiato’s visit to Milliways, was so loud that the whole landscape of Kakrafoon’s Rudlit Desert was turned upside down like a big pancake, then hit by the solar flares from the star nearest it when Hotblack’s stuntship hit it. These flares caused the desert land to turn into a great, beautiful fertile landscape. Also, the force of the explosion dispersed the telepathy of the Belcerebons. This may or may not have anything to do with the large Improbability Field floating around at this time. Hotblack’s agent would later call it “a good gig.”

Kria

Home world of the Azgoths, Kria is therefore home to the second worst poetry in the Universe according to ”The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Azgoth poetry was once exceeded in awfulness by a human poet from Essex, England (on Earth), though the Vogons’ demolition of that planet leaves the Azgoths in the top spot. Their poetry master, Grunthos the Flatulent, is best known for his work “Ode to a Small Lump of Putty I Found in my Ear One Midsummer Morning”, which caused four listeners to die of internal hemhorraging and forced a fifth to gnaw his own legs off to survive. However, Grunthos was disappointed by this reception, so apparently the Azgoths’ poetry isn’t deliberately horrid like the Vogons’ poems are.

Krikkit

The planet Krikkit is (at the beginning of ) located in a dust cloud composed chiefly of the disintegrated remains of the enormous spaceborne computer Hactar. Hactar was originally created by the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax to design the Ultimate Weapon. Hactar produced a very, very small bomb that, when activated, would connect every star to every other star, cause them to all go supernova simultaneously and, thus, destroy the universe. The bomb proved dysfunctional because Hactar had designed it with a tiny flaw, reasoning that no consequence could be worse than that of setting the bomb off. The Silastic Armorfiends disagreed and destroyed Hactar.

Due to the dust cloud, the sky above Krikkit was completely black, and thus the people of Krikkit led insular lives and never realised the existence of the Universe. With the population thus prepared, Hactar, disintegrated but still functional, built and crashed a model spaceship onto Krikkit in order to introduce its inhabitants to the concept of the Universe. Secretly guided by Hactar, the Krikkiters built their first spaceship, Krikkit One, penetrated the dust cloud, and surveyed the Universe before them. Unbeknownst to the Krikkiters, Hactar had been subliminally conditioning their minds to the point where they could not accept a Universe into their world view with the intention of putting them into a similar mindset to that of the Silastic Armorfiends. Sooner or later, they would require an Ultimate Weapon, and this would allow Hactar to finally complete his purpose, something he had felt considerably guilty about not doing before. Upon first witnessing the glory and splendor of the Universe, they casually, whimsically, decided to destroy it, remarking, “It’ll have to go.” Aided again by the mind of Hactar, the Krikkiters built an incredible battlefleet and waged a massive war against the entire Universe. The Galaxy, then in an era of relative peace, was unprepared, and spent the next 2,000 years fighting the Krikkiters in war that resulted in about two “grillion” casualties.

When Krikkit was eventually defeated, Judiciary Pag sentenced Krikkit and its sun to be sealed in a Slo-Time envelope within which time would pass almost infinitely slowly until the end of the Universe, thus serving the dual purpose of protecting the Universe from Krikkit, and allowing the Krikkiters to enjoy a solitary existence in the twilight of Creation. Light would be deflected around the envelope, making it invisible and impenetrable. The Wikkit Gate, the key that would unlock the envelope, was disintegrated into time, and could therefore not be used to free the planet from the envelope ahead of time.

However, a Krikkit warship carrying deadly white robots of the kind used in the war escaped before the envelope was sealed, and, within a brief ten billion years, managed to reassemble the Wikkit Gate. The Gate was composed of the Steel Pillar of Strength and Power (Marvin the Paranoid Android’s artificial leg), the Golden Bail of Prosperity (The Heart of Gold, the small golden box that makes the Infinite Improbability Drive function), the Perspex Pillar of Science and Reason (The Argabuthon Scepter of Justice; “Plastic Pillar” in the American version), the Silver Bail of Peace (The Rory Award For The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word “Fuck” In A Serious Screenplay—The Rory Award for the Most Gratuitous Use of the Word “Belgium” in a Serious Screenplay in the American version), and the Wooden Pillar of Nature and Spirituality (The reconstituted ashes of the stump signifying the death of English cricket: see The Ashes).

The robots unsealed the envelope, but Arthur, Slartibartfast, Trillian, and Ford Prefect, with the unintentional help of Marvin, were able to disperse Hactar’s particles, freeing the Krikkiters from his continued influence, and thus saving the Universe. Arthur then went to live on Krikkit for three years, before leaving for an unexplained reason.

Krikkit also managed to leave other marks besides the destruction of numerous worlds: due to racial memories, the Earth sport of cricket and the pan-dimensional sport of Brockian Ultra-Cricket were based on the Krikkit Wars. Slartibartfast enjoys the game of cricket, but he notes that most sensible citizens of the galaxy find the sport to be in rather bad taste.

The Krikketers are described as humanoid aliens who are charming and polite, despite their cosmocidal tendencies. They are capable of composing incredibly moving and poetic music. Some of the younger Krikketers are interested in developing sporting links with the rest of the Universe rather than destroying it.

(Most of the Krikkit material from the novel was adapted by Adams from an episode treatment, “Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen”, which he had written for the television series ”Doctor Who”. It would have featured the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.)

The “Krikkit Song” was composed and performed by Philip Pope for , featured on ”An Informational Visit” and ”Arthur Diverted”, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 5 October 2004.

The song’s lyrics provided clues to Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect that the people of Krikkit could never see any neighbouring planets or stars, and the odd effects that may have on them. The song also features in when Ford Prefect pays Elvis to play the song at the Domain of the King and incidently starts to cry.

Lamuella

Lamuella is the planet on which Arthur Dent lives and works as The Sandwich Maker at the start of . The planet is mostly made up of villages, though there is only one significant settlement on the planet. It intersects a plural zone, allowing for teleportation to the Domain of the King. The primary species of the planet are humanoids, Perfectly Normal Beasts,so named by Old Thrashbarg, and Pikka Birds. The residents of Lamuella worship a deity by the name of Almighty Bob. Among the things Arthur likes about Lamuella are the number of suns and moons (one of each), the number of hours in a day (25, and thus an extra hour in bed and a few minutes every day adjusting his watch) and the number of days in a year (about 300, so the year doesn’t drag on). The planet is mostly unknown, so few space travelers ever taste the superbly made sandwiches that would be the planet’s claim to fame.

Magrathea

Magrathea is an ancient planet located in orbit around the twin suns

Soulianis and Rahm in the heart of the Horsehead nebula. Magrathea is a planet whose economy was based on the manufacturing of other planets for the wealthiest people in the universe. It was the people of Magrathea (known as “Magratheans”) who created the Earth.

Magrathea is considered the home of the industry of “Custom-made luxury planet building.” It was a market aimed at the richest of the rich, during the days of the former Galactic Empire. The Magratheans would design and create entire planets for wealthy clients. They were so successful that Magrathea became the richest planet of all time. However, this resulted in the rest of the galaxy being plunged into abject poverty and the economy collapsing. The planet then faded from memory with most people believing it to be just a myth.

Amongst the clients who asked for planets to be created were a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who asked the Magratheans to create the Earth which, in addition to being a planet, was a super-computer designed to calculate the ultimate question to the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything. Amongst the people who worked on it was Slartibartfast, a coastal designer who won an award for his work on Norway.

The surface of the planet appears to be dead, with the Magratheans kept in cryogenic state, not to be awakened until the economy was good enough to pay off Magrathea’s expensive services. The surface is described as “Blighted”. The book says that, “Bits of it were dullish grey, bits of it dullish brown, the rest of it rather less interesting to look at. It was like a dried-out marsh, now barren of all vegetation and covered with a layer of dust about an inch thick. It was very cold.” They were later awakened for the reconstruction of the Earth (the Earth, Mk. II).

When the television version of the series was made, a clay pit in St Austell, Cornwall was used to film the exterior shots of Magrathea. Creator of the series Douglas Adams however, claimed that he wanted to film in Iceland or Morocco, but these locations were too expensive.

In the radio series and TV series (but not the novels or the film), Magrathea is the location of Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

In , you complete the game once you set foot on Magrathea.

Nano

In , Nano is the home of an Earth colony lead by Hillman Hunter.

NowWhat

NowWhat is a planet in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash formerly known as the ”Hitchhiker’s Guide” universe. NowWhat can be found in place of planet Earth at an unlikely position along the probability axis, in a parallel universe.

According to , “the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light-years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell.”

The only export of NowWhat is the NowWhattian boghog skin, which no one in their right minds would want to buy because it’s thin and very leaky, and the export trade only manages to survive because of the significant number of people in the Galaxy who are not in their right minds.

Travelers that arrive on NowWhat are greeted by a picture of the president smiling a ghastly smile; the picture was taken after he shot himself, and the missing corner of his face has been drawn in crayon. No one wants to be the president of NowWhat. Everyone there pursues one ambition: to leave.

Arthur Dent arrives on NowWhat in search of Earth. After turning the map upside down and adjusting for different sea levels, he discovers that the shapes of the continents of NowWhat resemble those of the planet Earth. For lack of any other similarity Arthur Dent concludes that it is the right planet but the wrong universe and leaves again.

Oglaroon

The large forest planet Oglaroon is home to the Oglaroonians, an “intelligent” species who reside in their entirety in one small nut tree, believing it to be the entire universe, and other trees to be merely Oglanut-induced illusions. From .

Poghril

Located in the Pansel system, Poghril was once inhabited by a primitive tribe of humanoids, who were wiped out by famine, with the exception of one man. A few weeks after the Infinite Improbability Drive caused a space-time rip to dump two hundred and thirty-nine thousand lightly fried eggs on the planet, this man died of cholesterol poisoning.

Santraginus V

Santraginus V is a planet known widely for its marble-sanded beaches. Seawater from the oceans adjoining those beaches, which contain extremely oblivious fish that apparently don’t care where they’re going, forms a key ingredient for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. The drummer of rock band Disaster Area once stayed here while the rest of the band moved onto the next tour location (the planet Kakrafoon), and found a small pebble that he declared would be his friend.

Saquo-Pilia Hensha

Saquo-Pilia Hensha is the planet to which the Vogons move the headquarters of the ”Guide” after InfiniDim Enterprises bought it out. One of Saquo-Pilia Hensha’s most renowned holidays is Assumption of St. Antwelm. Because King Antwelm assumed everybody wanted to be happy, enjoy themselves, and have the best possible time together, on his death he willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival to remind everyone. Features of this holiday include an annual feast, dancing, and silly games such as Hunt the Wocket.

Stegbartle Major

Stegbartle Major is a planet in the Constellation Fraz. In , the Greater Drubbered Wintwock is no longer found there.

Striterax

Striterax is the home world of the insanely aggressive Silastic Armorfiends in . A world ravaged by the insatiable combativeness of its sentient inhabitants, who abandoned the surface long ago and migrated into underground bunkers. Said Armorfiends have since blown themselves up, presumably taking the planet with them.

Stug

Stug is the home planet of Strenuous Garfighters, from .

Traal

Traal is home to the infamous Ravenous Bugblatter Beast, and because of its inclusion in the ”Guide”, an infamous court case about the literal interpretation of the entry came about because it said “Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists” rather than “beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists” and a place where protection can be sought by wrapping a towel around the eyes but only from the aforementioned beast, which is “so mind-boggling stupid it believes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you”. The planet has only one surviving oral hygienist. From .

Viltvodle VI

Viltvodle VI is the home world of the small, blue, fifty-armed Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of what they refer to as “The Coming of the Great White Handkerchief.” This is their cosmology’s version of the end of the Universe, and can be explained by the fact that they believe that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.

The Jatravartids are also unique because they were the first people in Universe who invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel. In , they seem to not have invented the wheel at all, as a square-wheeled bicycle can be seen in the foreground.

Other Galactic religions have sent missionaries to Viltvodle VI to attempt to convert the Jatravartids to whichever religion the specific missionary in question happens to be a follower of. The most notable of these missionaries is Humma Kavula (although in , he seems to be preaching the Jatravartids’ religion.)

In , the guide describes a bit of it. This passage is also included in :

Vod

A primeval planet (at least it was 20 billion years ago) with three suns, and at one time famed for its beaches, whose skies “glittered with some of the greatest tanning power ever known.” Judiciary Pag stayed here after passing judgement on the people of Krikkit.

Vogsphere

This is the homeworld of the Vogons. In the books it is said to be long-abandoned, although in it still seems to be a “thriving” (if the word can be used) administrative center. According to , anyone standing on Vogsphere must be careful not to think, because the planet is infested with shovel-like creatures which leap up out of the ground and smack you in the face if you do so. These creatures, parasites which prey on free thought and punish original ideas, were conceived by Adams and apparently represent the physical embodiment of bureaucracy. It may be that the existence of such creatures on the Vogons’ homeworld is the reason for their pathological hatred of independent thought, as survival on Vogsphere would entail avoiding such thinking. It is also home to the indigenous jewel-encrusted crabs and silky-coated gazelle-like creatures that the Vogons take such delight in tormenting and abusing.

In , the exterior shots of Vogsphere were filmed at Trefil Quarry, a few miles north of Tredegar in south Wales.

Voondon

Voondon is the home planet of the Holy Lunching Friars who were a great influence on the Guide’s fourth editor, Lig Lury Jr. From .

Xaxis

Home of the Xaxisian Giant Robot ship from , Xaxis is at war when Ford Prefect suggests that Bournemouth may be nicer. It is a democracy where the humanoid majority are ruled by a lizard elite. Although the humanoids hate the lizards, they won’t vote against them, in case the wrong lizard gets in.

Zarss

A star in Galactic Sector Active J Gamma, beyond what used to be known as the Limitless Lightfields of Flanux, until the Grey Binding Fiefdoms of Saxaquine were discovered lying beyond them. It is orbited by the planet Preliumtarn, on which is the land of Sevorbeupstry, in which is the Great Red Plain of Rars, bounded on the South side by the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains. According to the dying words of Prak, written here in thirty foot high letters of fire is God’s Final Message to His Creation. In ‘, Arthur and Fenchurch journey here, and do indeed see the Message.

Zirzla

Xaxis is fighting an automated war against Zirzla during .

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Places in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Early life and education

Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire on 14& March 1879. His father was Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer. His mother was Pauline Einstein. In 1880, the family moved to Munich, where his father and his uncle founded ”Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie”, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.

The Einsteins were non-observant Jews. Their son attended a Catholic elementary school from the age of five until ten. Although Einstein had early speech difficulties, he was a top student in elementary school.

His father once showed him a pocket compass; Einstein realized that there must be something causing the needle to move, despite the apparent “empty space”. As he grew, Einstein built models and mechanical devices for fun and began to show a talent for mathematics. In 1889, Max Talmud (later changed to Max Talmey) introduced the ten-year old Einstein to key texts in science, mathematics and philosophy, including Immanuel Kant’s ”Critique of Pure Reason” and ”Euclid’s Elements” (which Einstein called the “holy little geometry book”). Talmud was a poor Jewish medical student from Poland. The Jewish community arranged for Talmud to take meals with the Einsteins each week on Thursdays for six years. During this time Talmud wholeheartedly guided Einstein through many secular educational interests.

In 1894, his father’s company failed: direct current (DC) lost the War of Currents to alternating current (AC). In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan and then, a few months later, to Pavia. When the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to pursue electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the school’s regimen and teaching method. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought were lost in strict rote learning. In the spring of 1895, he withdrew to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctor’s note. During this time, Einstein wrote his first scientific work, “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields”.

Einstein applied directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland. Lacking the requisite Matura certificate, he took an entrance examination, which he failed, although he got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics.

The Einsteins sent Albert to Aarau, in northern Switzerland to finish secondary school. While lodging with the family of Professor Jost Winteler, he fell in love with the family’s daughter, Marie. (His sister Maja later married the Wintelers’ son Paul.) In Aarau, Einstein studied Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory. At age 17, he graduated, and, with his father’s approval, renounced his citizenship in the German Kingdom of Württemberg to avoid military service, and in 1896 he enrolled in the four year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Polytechnic in Zurich. Marie Winteler moved to Olsberg, Switzerland for a teaching post.

Einstein’s future wife, Mileva Marić, also enrolled at the Polytechnic that same year, the only woman among the six students in the mathematics and physics section of the teaching diploma course. Over the next few years, Einstein and Marić’s friendship developed into romance, and they read books together on extra-curricular physics in which Einstein was taking an increasing interest. In 1900 Einstein was awarded the Zurich Polytechnic teaching diploma, but Marić failed the examination with a poor grade in the mathematics component, theory of functions. There have been claims that Marić collaborated with Einstein on his celebrated 1905 papers, but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions.

Marriages and children

In early 1902, Einstein and Mileva Marić had a daughter they named Lieserl in their correspondence, who was born in Novi Sad where Marić’s parents lived. Her full name is not known, and her fate is uncertain after 1903.

Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, the couple’s first son, Hans Albert Einstein, was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their second son, Eduard, was born in Zurich in July 1910. In 1914, Einstein moved to Berlin, while his wife remained in Zurich with their sons. Marić and Einstein divorced on 14 February 1919, having lived apart for five years.

Einstein married Elsa Löwenthal (née Einstein) on 2 June 1919, after having had a relationship with her since 1912. She was his first cousin maternally and his second cousin paternally. In 1933, they emigrated permanently to the United States. In 1935, Elsa Einstein was diagnosed with heart and kidney problems and died in December 1936.

Patent office

U.S. Citizenship

He became an American citizen in 1940. Not long after settling into his career at Princeton, he expressed his appreciation of the “meritocracy” in American culture when compared to Europe. According to Isaacson, he recognized the “right of individuals to say and think what they pleased”, without social barriers, and as result, the individual was “encouraged” to be more creative, a trait he valued from his own early education. Einstein writes:

:”What makes the new arrival devoted to this country is the democratic trait among the people. No one humbles himself before another person or class. . . American youth has the good fortune not to have its outlook troubled by outworn traditions.

As a member of the NAACP at Princeton who campaigned for the civil rights of African Americans, Einstein corresponded with civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, and in 1946 Einstein called racism America’s “worst disease”. He later stated, “Race prejudice has unfortunately become an American tradition which is uncritically handed down from one generation to the next. The only remedies are enlightenment and education”.

After the death of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, in November 1952, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion offered Einstein the position of President of Israel, a mostly ceremonial post. The offer was presented by Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Abba Eban, who explained that the offer “embodies the deepest respect which the Jewish people can repose in any of its sons”. However, Einstein declined, and wrote in his response that he was “deeply moved”, and “at once saddened and ashamed” that he could not accept it:

:”All my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official function. I am the more more distressed over these circumstances because my relationship with the Jewish people became my strongest human tie once I achieved complete clarity about our precarious position among the nations of the world.”

Death

On April 17, 1955, Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had previously been reinforced surgically by Dr. Rudolph Nissen in 1948. He took the draft of a speech he was preparing for a television appearance commemorating the State of Israel’s seventh anniversary with him to the hospital, but he did not live long enough to complete it. Einstein refused surgery, saying: “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” He died in Princeton Hospital early the next morning at the age of 76, having continued to work until near the end.

Einstein’s remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered around the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study.

During the autopsy, the pathologist of Princeton Hospital, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein’s brain for preservation, without the permission of his family, in hope that the neuroscience of the future would be able to discover what made Einstein so intelligent.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Albert Einstein, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Background

Pliny’s father took him to Rome to be educated. Pliny relates that he saw Marcus Servilius Nonianus as consul, who served half a year in 35 CE, when Pliny was 12, and then fled to escape proscription by Marcus Antonius Primus, who desired an expensive jewel owned by Servilius. Pliny was still in Rome at age 15, when he observed Lollia Paulina, the emperor’s wife, at a wedding. She was only married to the emperor for 6 months, in 38 AD. At 20 years old in 43 AD he saw a trapped whale capsize a boat at Ostia, the port of Rome, when the harbor was being constructed, a dateable Pliny was a teenager, ages 14–18, during the short reign of Caligula, considered insane by his contemporaries. He says that he saw the construction of the impious Palace of Caligula (it joined the Palace of Tiberius to the Temple of Castor and Pollux, where Caligula posed as a god).

Pliny mentions the grammarians and rhetoricians, Remmius Palaemon and Arellius Fuscus, and he may have been their student, as he claims to have personally observed the silver rings of Fuscus’ hand when the latter’s school was at its peak of popularity. In Rome he visited the ”topiarius” (garden) of the aged Antonius Castor, and saw the fine old lotus trees in the grounds that had once belonged to Crassus, for which the latter was once offered 10 million sesterces (and refused).

Pliny the Younger wrote of his uncle:

… for a considerable time he practiced at the bar … he died in his fifty-sixth year … between these two periods he was much distracted and hindered partly by the discharge of important offices, and partly by his intimacy with the emperors.

This passage is evidence that Pliny was a career lawyer. Unknown for certain is when he began practicing. Roman lawyers generally began young; his nephew, a famous lawyer almost immediately, pleaded his first cases at age 18. As Pliny the Elder certainly returned to the law on his discharge from the service in his 30′s, it is likely that he had practiced it in his early 20′s before enlistment, perhaps earlier.

Junior officer

In 46 AD at age 23 Pliny entered the army as a junior officer, as was the custom for young men of equestrian rank. Ronald Syme, Plinian scholar, reconstructs three periods at three ranks. Pliny’s interest in Roman letters attracted the attention and friendship of other men of letters in the higher ranks, with whom he formed lasting friendships. Later these friendships assisted his entry into the upper echelons of the state; however, he was trusted for his knowledge and ability as well. According to Syme, he began as a ”praefectus cohortis”, a “commander of a cohort” (an infantry cohort, as junior officers began in the infantry), under Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, himself a writer (whose works did not survive) in Germania Inferior. In 47 AD he took part in the Roman conquest of the Chauci and the construction of the canal between the rivers Maas and Rhine. His description of the Roman ships anchored in the stream overnight having to ward off floating trees has the stamp of an eyewitness account.

At some uncertain date Pliny was transferred to the command of Germania Superior under Publius Pomponius Secundus with a promotion to military tribune, which was a staff position, with duties assigned by the district commander. Pomponius was a half-brother of Corbulo. They had the same mother, Vistilia, a powerful matron of the Roman upper classes, who had seven children by six husbands, many of which children had imperial connections, including a future empress. Pliny’s assignments are not clear, but he must have participated in the campaign against the Chatti of 50 AD, at age 27, in his fourth year of service. Associated with the commander in the praetorium he became a familiar and close friend of Pomponius, who also was a man of letters.

At another uncertain date Pliny was transferred back to Germania Inferior. Corbulo had moved on assuming command in the east. This time Pliny was promoted to ”praefectus alae”, “commander of an ala”, with responsibility for a cavalry battalion of about 480 men. A distinction was still being made between legionaries and allied auxiliaries, even though all Italians were now Roman citizens. Pliny, being from north Italy, was an allied commander, like most of the cavalry at that time (but equal in rank, authority and benefits to Roman counterparts). He spent the rest of his enlistment there. A decorative phalera, or piece of harness, with his name on it has been found at ”Castra Vetera”, a large Roman army and naval base on the lower Rhine river. Pliny’s last commander there, apparently neither a man of letters nor a close friend of his, was Pompeius Paulinus, governor of Germania Inferior 55-58 CE. Pliny relates that he personally knew Paulinus to have carried around 12,000 pounds of silver service on which to dine on campaign against the Germans (a practice which would not have endeared him to the disciplined Pliny).

According to his nephew, it was during this period that he wrote his first book (perhaps in winter-quarters when spare time was more abundant), a work on the use of missiles on horseback, ”De jaculatione equestri”. It did not survive but in ”Natural History” he seems to reveal at least in part its content: using the intelligence of the horse to assist the javelineer to throw missiles from its back. During this period also he dreamed that the spirit of Drusus Nero begged him to save his memory from oblivion. The dream prompted Pliny to begin forthwith a history of all the wars between the Romans and the Germans, which he was not to complete for some years.

Book I, Chapter 1 of ”Historia Naturalis” dedicates the work to the emperor, Titus Flavius, son of Vespasian. In that dedication Pliny calls Titus an old messmate (the relationship of a ”contubernium”, “sharing the same tent”): “you … have regarded me as a fellow-soldier and a messmate. Nor has the extent of your prosperity produced any change in you ….” The problem with the passage is the 16-year difference in age between Pliny and the younger Titus. At the time Titus was a military tribune. He could not have been a comrade, of the same rank as Pliny, in Germania Superior, as in 50 AD Titus was only 11 years old. Recourse to the later campaigns of Titus in the east lack evidence and do not fit the circumstances: Titus was the commanding general (not a lower-ranking comrade) while Pliny was either a private citizen or a general himself on assignment by Vespasian.

The duty in Germania Inferior is the only credible opportunity for Titus to have shared a ”contubernium” with Pliny. Officers of the upper classes assumed a 10-year obligation (as opposed to the ordinary legionary’s 20 or 25 years). Pliny’s term would have been up in 56 AD at age 33. As his account of a solar eclipse, which occurred in Campania in 59 AD, appears to be an eyewitness account, he was probably a civilian at that time. In 56 AD Titus was 17 years old. His father was not then emperor. The staff of a commander often shared quarters and mess with the commander, especially in the field. On the bare circumstances, Titus was a new officer on Pliny’s staff toward the end of Pliny’s service. The relationship between the two, one almost old enough to be the other’s father, must have been as close as had been Pliny’s with Pomponius.

Literary interlude

At the earliest time Pliny could have left the service, Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, had been emperor for two years. He did not leave office until 68 AD, when Pliny was 45 years old. During that time Pliny did not hold any high office or work in the service of the state. In the subsequent Flavian Dynasty his services were in such demand that he had to give up the law practice, which suggests that he had been trying not to attract the attention of Nero, a ruler believed by his contemporaries (not without justification) to be a dangerous acquaintance.

Under Nero Pliny lived mainly in Rome. He mentions the map of Armenia and the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea, which was sent to Rome by the staff of Corbulo in 58. He also saw the building of Nero’s Domus Aurea or “Golden House” after the fire of 64.

Besides pleading law cases, Pliny wrote, researched and studied. His second published work was a biography of his old commander, Pomponius Secundus, in two books. After several years in prison under Tiberius, 31-37 AD (which he used to write tragedies), Secundus was rehabilitated by Caligula (who later married his half-sister, Caesonia) in 38, made consul in 41 and was sent as ”legatus” to Germany, where he won a victory against the Chatti and was allowed a triumph. After this peak he disappears from history, never to be mentioned again, except by the Plinies, and is not among either the friends or the enemies of Nero.

The elder Pliny mentions that he saw “in the possession of Pomponius Secundus, the poet, a very illustrious citizen,” manuscripts in the “ancient handwriting of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus.” The time of his maximum illustriousness would have been his triumph of 50 or 51. In 54 Nero came to power; at that time Pliny was working on his two military writings. Pliny the Younger says that the biography of Secundus was “a duty which he owed to the memory of his friend”, implying that Secundus had died. The circumstances of this duty and whether or not it had anything to do with his probable avoidance of Nero have disappeared with the work.

Meanwhile he was completing the twenty books of his ”History of the German Wars”, the only authority expressly quoted in the first six books of the ”Annals” of Tacitus, and probably one of the principal authorities for the ”Germania”. It disappeared in favor of the writings of Tacitus (which are far shorter), and, early in the 5th century, Symmachus had little hope of finding a copy.

Like Caligula, Nero seemed to grow gradually more insane as his reign progressed. Pliny devoted much of his time to writing on the comparatively safe subjects of grammar and rhetoric. He published a three-book, six-volume educational manual on rhetoric, entitled ”Studiosus”, “the Student.” Pliny the Younger says of it: “the orator is trained from his very cradle and perfected.” It was followed by eight books on ”Dubii sermonis”, “On Doubtful Phraseology.” (These are both now lost works.) His nephew relates: “He wrote this under Nero, in the last years of his reign, when every kind of literary pursuit which was in the least independent or elevated had been rendered dangerous by servitude.”

In 68 Nero no longer had any friends and supporters. He committed suicide, and the reign of terror was at an end; also the interlude in Pliny’s obligation to the state.

Senior officer

At the very end of 69 AD, after a year of civil war consequent on the death of Nero, Vespasian, a successful general, became emperor. Like Pliny, he had come from the middle, or equestrian, class, rising through the ranks of the army and public offices and defeating his contenders for the highest office. His main tasks were to reestablish peace under imperial control and place the economy on a sound footing. He needed in his administration all the loyalty and assistance he could find. Pliny, apparently trusted without question, perhaps (reading between the lines) recommended by Titus, was put to work immediately and was kept in a continuous succession of the most distinguished procuratorships, according to Suetonius. A procurator was generally a governor of an imperial province. The empire was perpetually short of, and always was seeking, office-holders for its numerous offices.

A definitive study of the procuratorships of Pliny was done by the classical scholar Friedrich Münzer, which was re-asserted by Ronald Syme and became a standard reference point. Münzer hypothesized four procuratorships, of which two are certainly attested and two are probable but not certain. However, two does not satisfy Suetonius’ description of a continuous succession. Consequently Plinian scholars present two to four procuratorships, with the others described as visits if they do not utilize the full range. Münzer’s full range is as follows.

According to Syme, Pliny may have been “successor to Valerius Paulinus”, procurator of Gallia Narbonensis (southeastern France), early in 70 AD. He seems to have a “familiarity with the provincia”, which, however, might otherwise be explained. For example, he says In the cultivation of the soil, the manners and civilization of the inhabitants, and the extent of its wealth, it is surpassed by none of the provinces, and, in short, might be more truthfully described as a part of Italy than as a province.

It is certain that Pliny spent some time in Africa Province, most likely as a procurator. Among other events or features that he saw are the provoking of ”rubetae”, poisonous toads (Bufonidae), by the Psylli; the buildings made with molded earthen walls, “superior in solidity to any cement;” and the unusual, fertile seaside oasis of Gabès (then Tacape), Tunisia, currently a World Heritage Site. Syme assigns the African procuratorship to 70-72 AD.

The procuratorship of Hispania Tarraconensis is next. A statement by Pliny the Younger that his uncle was offered 400,000 sesterces for his manuscripts by Larcius Licinius while he (Pliny the Elder) was procurator of Hispania makes it the most certain of the three. Pliny lists the peoples of “Hither Hispania”, including population statistics and civic rights (modern Asturias and Gallaecia). He stops short of mentioning them all for fear of “wearying the reader”. As this is the only geographic region for which he gives this information, Syme hypothesizes that Pliny contributed to the census of Hither Hispania conducted in 73/74 by Vibius Crispus, legate from the emperor, thus dating Pliny’s procuratorship there.

During his stay in Hispania he became familiar with the agriculture and especially the gold mines of the north and west of the country. His descriptions of the various methods of mining appear to be eye-witness judging by his discussion of gold mining methods in the Natural History. He might have visited the mine excavated at Las Medulas.

The last position of procurator, an uncertain one, was of Gallia Belgica, based on Pliny’s familiarity with it. The capital of the province was Augusta Treverorum (Trier), named for the Treveri surrounding it. Pliny says that in “the year but one before this” a severe winter killed the first crops planted by the Treviri; they sowed again in March and had “a most abundant harvest.” The problem is to identify “this”, the year in which the passage was written. Using 77 as the date of composition Syme arrives at 74-75 AD as the date of the procuratorship, when Pliny is presumed to have witnessed these events. The argument is based entirely on presumptions; nevertheless, this date is required to achieve Suetonius’ continuity of procuratorships, if there was one in Gallia Belgica.

Pliny was allowed home (Rome) at some time in 75/76 AD. He was presumably at home for the first official release of ”Natural History” in 77. Whether he was in Rome for the dedication of Vespasian’s Temple of Peace in the Forum in 75 AD, which was in essence a museum for display of art works plundered by Nero and formerly adorning the Domus Aurea, is uncertain, as is his possible command of the ”vigiles” (night-watchmen), a lesser post. The latter post is not consistent with what Pliny the Younger says of this period:

Before daybreak he used to wait upon Vespasian (who also used his nights for transacting business), and then proceed to execute the orders he had received.

When that business was transacted, he turned to reading and making extracts, clearly in the process of working on the ”Natural History”. No actual post is discernable in this regimen, which he could not have conducted as admiral at Misenum, unless his duties as admiral did not require his presence at Misenum. On the bare circumstances he was an official agent of the emperor in a quasi-private capacity. Perhaps he was between posts. In any case, his appointment as prefect of the fleet at Misenum took him to Misenum, where he was residing with his sister and nephew. Vespasian died of disease on June 23, 79. Pliny outlived him by two months.

Famous author

During Nero’s reign of terror, Pliny avoided working on any writing that would attract attention to himself. His works on oratory in the last years of Nero’s reign (67, 68) focused on form rather than on content. He began working on content again probably after Vespasian’s rule began in 69, when it was clear that the terror was over and was not going to be replaced. It was to some degree reinstituted (and later cancelled by his son Titus) when Vespasian suppressed the philosophers at Rome, but not for Pliny, who was not among them, representing, as he says, something new at Rome, an encyclopedist (certainly, a venerable tradition outside Italy).

In his next work, he “… completed the history which Aufidius Bassus left unfinished, and … added to it thirty books.” Aufidius Bassus was a ”cause célèbre” according to Seneca the Younger, a man much admired at Rome. He had begun his history at some unknown contemporaneous time, ending with the reign of Tiberius. It was cut short when Bassus died slowly of a lingering disease, with such spirit and objectivity that Seneca remarked he seemed to treat it as someone else’s dying.

Pliny’s Bassus’ ”History” was one of the authorities followed by Suetonius and Plutarch. Tacitus also cites Pliny as a source. He is mentioned concerning the loyalty of Burrus, commander of the Praetorian Guard, whom Nero removed for disloyalty. Tacitus portrays parts of Pliny’s view of the Pisonian conspiracy to kill Nero and make Piso emperor as “absurd” and mentions that he could not decide whether Pliny’s account or that of Messalla was more accurate concerning some of the details of the Year of the Four Emperors. Evidently Pliny’s extension of Bassus extended at least from the reign of Nero to that of Vespasian. Pliny seems to have known it was going to be controversial, as he deliberately reserved it for publication after his death:

It has been long completed and its accuracy confirmed; but I have determined to commit the charge of it to my heirs, lest I should have been suspected, during my lifetime, of having been unduly influenced by ambition. By this means I confer an obligation on those who occupy the same ground with myself; and also on posterity, who, I am aware, will contend with me, as I have done with my predecessors.

Pliny’s last work, according to his nephew, was the ”Naturalis Historia”, an encyclopedia into which he collected much of the knowledge of his time. Answers concerning the date of its publication, composition, or when he started or stopped work upon it, depend on the questions asked.

The encyclopedia utilizes some material from his memories of earlier times and from his prior works, such as the book on Germany. There is no evidence that he had planned to use this material in an encyclopedia later in his career. Most of the references in the encyclopedia must have come from his extracts, which he kept on an ongoing basis, hiring a reader and a secretary to keep them, and furnishing that secretary with gloves in winter so that his writing hand would not stiffen with cold. The extracts collected for this purpose filled rather less than 160 volumes, which Larcius Licinus, the praetorian legate of Hispania Tarraconensis, vainly offered to purchase for 400,000 sesterces. That would have been in 73/74 (see above). At his death Pliny left the 160 volumes to his nephew. When composition began is unknown. Since he was preoccupied with his other works under Nero and then had to finish the history of his times, it is unlikely he began before 70. The procuratorships offered the ideal opportunity for an encyclopedic frame of mind. The date of an overall composition cannot be assigned to any one year. The dates of different parts must be determined, if they can, by philological analysis (the “post-mortem” of the scholars).

The closest known event to a single publication date; that is, when the manuscript was probably released to the public for borrowing and copying, and was probably sent to the Flavians, is the date of the Dedication in the first of the 37 books. It is to the “emperor” Titus. As Titus and Vespasian had the same name, ”Titus Flavius Vespasianus”, earlier writers hypothesized a dedication to Vespasian. Pliny’s mention of a brother (Domitian) and joint offices with a father, calling that father “great”, points certainly to Titus. Since Titus is addressed as emperor ostensibly Vespasian had died, in which case the date would be 79.

However, Pliny says that Titus had been consul six times. The first six consulships of Titus are in 70, 72, 74, 75, 76 and 77, all conjointly with Vespasian, which brings the date of the Dedication to 77. In that year Vespasian was 68. He had been ruling conjointly with Titus for some years, which may be why he allowed Pliny to call Titus “emperor” and dedicate the work to him.

Aside from minor finishing touches, the work in 37 books was completed in AD 77. It would be unsubstantiated to presume that it was written entirely in 77 or that Pliny was finished with it then. Moreover, the dedication could have been written before publication, and it could have been published either privately or publicly earlier without dedication. The only certain fact is that Pliny did no further work on it after AD 79.

The Naturalis Historia is one of the largest single works to have survived from the Roman empire to the modern day and purports to cover the entire field of ancient knowledge, based on the best authorities available to Pliny. He claims to be the only Roman ever to have undertaken such a work.

The work became a model for all later encyclopedias in terms of the breadth of subject matter examined, the need to reference original authors, and a comprehensive index list of the contents. The work is dedicated to the emperor Titus, son of Pliny’s close friend, the emperor Vespasian, in the first year of Titus’ reign. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published, lacking a final revision at his sudden and unexpected death in the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Pliny the Elder, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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There are exactly seven verses in the Quran that specify that there are seven heavens.

One verse says that each heaven or sky has its own order, possibly meaning laws of nature. Another verse says after mentioning the seven heavens “and similar earths”.

In 850, al-Farghani wrote ”Kitab fi Jawani” (“”A compendium of the science of stars””). The book primarily gave a summary of Ptolemic cosmography. However, it also corrected Ptolemy’s ”Almagest” based on findings of earlier Iranian astronomers. Al-Farghani gave revised values for the obliquity of the ecliptic, the precessional movement of the apogees of the sun and the moon, and the circumference of the earth. The books were widely circulated through the Muslim world, and even translated into Latin.

Cosmography

”ʿAjā’ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā’ib al-mawjūdāt” (, meaning ”Marvels of creatures and Strange things existing”) is an important work of cosmography by Zakariya ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud Abu Yahya al-Qazwini who was born in Qazwin year 600 (AH (1203 AD).

Temporal finitism

In contrast to ancient Greek philosophers who believed that the universe had an infinite past with no beginning, medieval philosophers and theologians developed the concept of the universe having a finite past with a beginning (see Temporal finitism). This view was inspired by the creation myth shared by the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Christian philosopher, John Philoponus, presented the first such argument against the ancient Greek notion of an infinite past. His arguments were adopted by many most notably; early Muslim philosopher, Al-Kindi (Alkindus); the Jewish philosopher, Saadia Gaon (Saadia ben Joseph); and the Muslim theologian, Al-Ghazali (Algazel). They used two logical arguments against an infinite past, the first being the “argument from the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite”, which states:

:”An actual infinite cannot exist.”

:”An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite.”

:”.•. An infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist.”

The second argument, the “argument from the impossibility of completing an actual infinite by successive addition”, states:

:”An actual infinite cannot be completed by successive addition.”

:”The temporal series of past events has been completed by successive addition.”

:”.•. The temporal series of past events cannot be an actual infinite.”

Both arguments were adopted by later Christian philosophers and theologians, and the second argument in particular became more famous after it was adopted by Immanuel Kant in his thesis of the first antimony concerning time.

Galaxy observation

The Arabian astronomer Alhazen (965–1037) made the first attempt at observing and measuring the Milky Way’s parallax, and he thus “determined that because the Milky Way had no parallax, it was very remote from the earth and did not belong to the atmosphere.” The Persian astronomer Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973–1048) proposed the Milky Way galaxy to be “a collection of countless fragments of the nature of nebulous stars.” The Andalusian astronomer Ibn Bajjah (“Avempace”, d. 1138) proposed that the Milky Way was made up of many stars which almost touched one another and appeared to be a continuous image due to the effect of refraction from sublunary material, citing his observation of the conjunction of Jupiter and Mars on 500 AH (1106/1107 AD) as evidence. Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350) proposed the Milky Way galaxy to be “a myriad of tiny stars packed together in the sphere of the fixed stars”.

In the 10th century, the Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (known in the West as ”Azophi”) made the earliest recorded observation of the Andromeda Galaxy, describing it as a “small cloud”. Al-Sufi also identified the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is visible from Yemen, though not from Isfahan; it was not seen by Europeans until Magellan’s voyage in the 16th century. These were the first galaxies other than the Milky Way to be observed from Earth. Al-Sufi published his findings in his ”Book of Fixed Stars” in 964.

Possible worlds

Al-Ghazali, in ”The Incoherence of the Philosophers”, defends the Ash’ari doctrine of a created universe that is temporally finite, against the Aristotelian doctrine of an eternal universe. In doing so, he proposed the modal theory of possible worlds, arguing that their actual world is the best of all possible worlds from among all the alternate timelines and world histories that God could have possibly created. His theory parallels that of Duns Scotus in the 14th century. While it is uncertain whether Al-Ghazali had any influence on Scotus, they both may have derived their theory from their readings of Avicenna’s ”Metaphysics”.

Multiversal cosmology

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1209), in dealing with his conception of physics and the physical world in his ”Matalib al-’Aliya”, criticizes the idea of the Earth’s centrality within the universe and “explores the notion of the existence of a multiverse in the context of his commentary” on the Qur’anic verse, “All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Worlds.” He raises the question of whether the term “worlds” in this verse refers to “multiple worlds within this single universe or cosmos, or to many other universes or a multiverse beyond this known universe.” In volume 4 of the ”Matalib”, Al-Razi states:

Al-Razi rejected the Aristotelian and Avicennian notions of a single universe revolving around a single world. He describes their main arguments against the existence of multiple worlds or universes, pointing out their weaknesses and refuting them. This rejection arose from his affirmation of atomism, as advocated by the Ash’ari school of Islamic theology, which entails the existence of vacant space in which the atoms move, combine and separate. He discussed more on the issue of the void in greater detail in volume 5 of the ”Matalib”. He argued that there exists an infinite outer space beyond the known world, and that God has the power to fill the vacuum with an infinite number of universes.

Refutations of astrology

The study of astrology was refuted by several Muslim writers at the time, including al-Farabi, Ibn al-Haytham, Avicenna, Biruni and Averroes. Their reasons for refuting astrology were often due to both scientific (the methods used by astrologers being conjectural rather than empirical) and religious (conflicts with orthodox Islamic scholars) reasons.

Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1292–1350), in his ”Miftah Dar al-SaCadah”, used empirical arguments in astronomy in order to refute the practice of astrology and divination. He recognized that the stars are much larger than the planets, and thus argued:

Al-Jawziyya also recognized the Milky Way galaxy as “a myriad of tiny stars packed together in the sphere of the fixed stars” and thus argued that “it is certainly impossible to have knowledge of their influences.”

Early heliocentric models

The Babylonian astronomer, Seleucus of Seleucia, who advocated a heliocentric model in the 2nd century BC, wrote a work that was later translated into Arabic. A fragment of his work has survived only in Arabic translation, which was later referred to by the Persian philosopher Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865-925).

In the late ninth century, Ja’far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma’shar al-Balkhi (Albumasar) developed a planetary model which some have interpreted as a heliocentric model. This is due to his orbital revolutions of the planets being given as heliocentric revolutions rather than geocentric revolutions, and the only known planetary theory in which this occurs is in the heliocentric theory. His work on planetary theory has not survived, but his astronomical data was later recorded by al-Hashimi, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī and al-Sijzi.

In the early eleventh century, al-Biruni had met several Indian scholars who believed in a heliocentric system. In his ”Indica”, he discusses the theories on the Earth’s rotation supported by Brahmagupta and other Indian astronomers, while in his ”Canon Masudicus”, al-Biruni writes that Aryabhata’s followers assigned the first movement from east to west to the Earth and a second movement from west to east to the fixed stars. Al-Biruni also wrote that al-Sijzi also believed the Earth was moving and invented an astrolabe called the “Zuraqi” based on this idea:

In his ”Indica”, al-Biruni briefly refers to his work on the refutation of heliocentrism, the ”Key of Astronomy”, which is now lost:

Early ”Hay’a” program

During this period, a distinctive Islamic system of astronomy flourished. It was Greek tradition to separate mathematical astronomy (as typified by Ptolemy) from philosophical cosmology (as typified by Aristotle). Muslim scholars developed a program of seeking a physically real configuration (”hay’a”) of the universe, that would be consistent with both mathematical and physical principles. Within the context of this ”hay’a” tradition, Muslim astronomers began questioning technical details of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

Some Muslim astronomers, however, most notably Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī, discussed whether the Earth moved and considered how this might be consistent with astronomical computations and physical systems. Several other Muslim astronomers, most notably those following the Maragha school of astronomy, developed non-Ptolemaic planetary models within a geocentric context that were later adapted by the Copernican model in a heliocentric context.

Between 1025 and 1028, Ibn al-Haytham (Latinized as Alhazen), began the ”hay’a” tradition of Islamic astronomy with his ”Al-Shuku ala Batlamyus” (”Doubts on Ptolemy”). While maintaining the physical reality of the geocentric model, he was the first to criticize Ptolemy’s astronomical system, which he criticized on empirical, observational and experimental grounds, and for relating actual physical motions to imaginary mathematical points, lines and circles. Ibn al-Haytham developed a physical structure of the Ptolemaic system in his ”Treatise on the configuration of the World”, or ”Maqâlah fî ”hay’at” al-‛âlam”, which became an influential work in the ”hay’a” tradition. In his ”Epitome of Astronomy”, he insisted that the heavenly bodies “were accountable to the laws of physics.”

In 1038, Ibn al-Haytham described the first non-Ptolemaic configuration in ”The Model of the Motions”. His reform was not concerned with cosmology, as he developed a systematic study of celestial kinematics that was completely geometric. This in turn led to innovative developments in infinitesimal geometry. His reformed model was the first to reject the equant and eccentrics, separate natural philosophy from astronomy, free celestial kinematics from cosmology, and reduce physical entities to geometrical entities. The model also propounded the Earth’s rotation about its axis, and the centres of motion were geometrical points without any physical significance, like Johannes Kepler’s model centuries later. Ibn al-Haytham also describes an early version of Occam’s razor, where he employs only minimal hypotheses regarding the properties that characterize astronomical motions, as he attempts to eliminate from his planetary model the cosmological hypotheses that cannot be observed from Earth.

In 1030, Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī discussed the Indian planetary theories of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Varahamihira in his ”Ta’rikh al-Hind” (Latinized as ”Indica”). Biruni stated that Brahmagupta and others consider that the earth rotates on its axis and Biruni noted that this does not create any mathematical problems. Abu Said al-Sijzi, a contemporary of al-Biruni, suggested the possible heliocentric movement of the Earth around the Sun, which al-Biruni did not reject. Al-Biruni agreed with the Earth’s rotation about its own axis, and while he was initially neutral regarding the heliocentric and geocentric models, he considered heliocentrism to be a philosophical problem. He remarked that if the Earth rotates on its axis and moves around the Sun, it would remain consistent with his astronomical parameters:

Andalusian Revolt

In the 11th-12th centuries, astronomers in al-Andalus took up the challenge earlier posed by Ibn al-Haytham, namely to develop an alternate non-Ptolemaic configuration that evaded the errors found in the Ptolemaic model. Like Ibn al-Haytham’s critique, the anonymous Andalusian work, ”al-Istidrak ala Batlamyus” (”Recapitulation regarding Ptolemy”), included a list of objections to Ptolemic astronomy. This marked the beginning of the Andalusian school’s revolt against Ptolemaic astronomy, otherwise known as the “Andalusian Revolt”.

In the 12th century, Averroes rejected the eccentric deferents introduced by Ptolemy. He rejected the Ptolemaic model and instead argued for a strictly concentric model of the universe. He wrote the following criticism on the Ptolemaic model of planetary motion:

Averroes’ contemporary, Maimonides, wrote the following on the planetary model proposed by Ibn Bajjah (Avempace):

Ibn Bajjah also proposed the Milky Way galaxy to be made up of many stars but that it appears to be a continuous image due to the effect of refraction in the Earth’s atmosphere. Later in the 12th century, his successors Ibn Tufail and Nur Ed-Din Al Betrugi (Alpetragius) were the first to propose planetary models without any equant, epicycles or eccentrics. Al-Betrugi was also the first to discover that the planets are self-luminous. Their configurations, however, were not accepted due to the numerical predictions of the planetary positions in their models being less accurate than that of the Ptolemaic model, mainly because they followed Aristotle’s notion of perfectly uniform circular motion.

Maragha Revolution

The “Maragha Revolution” refers to the Maragheh school’s revolution against Ptolemaic astronomy. The “Maragha school” was an astronomical tradition beginning in the Maragheh observatory and continuing with astronomers from Damascus and Samarkand. Like their Andalusian predecessors, the Maragha astronomers attempted to solve the equant problem and produce alternative configurations to the Ptolemaic model. They were more successful than their Andalusian predecessors in producing non-Ptolemaic configurations which eliminated the equant and eccentrics, were more accurate than the Ptolemaic model in numerically predicting planetary positions, and were in better agreement with empirical observations. The most important of the Maragha astronomers included Mo’ayyeduddin Urdi (d. 1266), Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (1201–1274), Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī (d. 1277), Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311), Sadr al-Sharia al-Bukhari (c. 1347), Ibn al-Shatir (1304–1375), Ali al-Qushji (c. 1474), al-Birjandi (d. 1525) and Shams al-Din al-Khafri (d. 1550).

Some have described their achievements in the 13th and 14th centuries as a “Maragha Revolution”, “Maragha School Revolution”, or “Scientific Revolution before the Renaissance”. An important aspect of this revolution included the realization that astronomy should aim to describe the behavior of physical bodies in mathematical language, and should not remain a mathematical hypothesis, which would only save the phenomena. The Maragha astronomers also realized that the Aristotelian view of motion in the universe being only circular or linear was not true, as the Tusi-couple showed that linear motion could also be produced by applying circular motions only.

Unlike the ancient Greek and Hellenistic astronomers who were not concerned with the coherence between the mathematical and physical principles of a planetary theory, Islamic astronomers insisted on the need to match the mathematics with the real world surrounding them, which gradually evolved from a reality based on Aristotelian physics to one based on an empirical and mathematical physics after the work of Ibn al-Shatir. The Maragha Revolution was thus characterized by a shift away from the philosophical foundations of Aristotelian cosmology and Ptolemaic astronomy and towards a greater emphasis on the empirical observation and mathematization of astronomy and of nature in general, as exemplified in the works of Ibn al-Shatir, al-Qushji, al-Birjandi and al-Khafri.

The work of Ali al-Qushji (d. 1474), who worked at Samarkand and then Istanbul, is seen as a late example of innovation in Islamic theoretical astronomy and it is believed he may have possibly had some influence on Nicolaus Copernicus due to similar arguments concerning the Earth’s rotation. Before al-Qushji, the only astronomer to present empirical evidence for the Earth’s rotation was Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (d. 1274), who used the phenomena of comets to refute Ptolemy’s claim that a stationary Earth can be determined through observation. Al-Tusi, however, eventually accepted that the Earth was stationary on the basis of Aristotelian cosmology and natural philosophy. By the 15th century, the influence of Aristotelian physics and natural philosophy was declining due to religious opposition from Islamic theologians such as Al-Ghazali who opposed to the interference of Aristotelianism in astronomy, opening up possibilities for an astronomy unrestrained by philosophy. Under this influence, Al-Qushji, in his ”Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy”, rejected Aristotelian physics and completely separated natural philosophy from astronomy, allowing astronomy to become a purely empirical and mathematical science. This allowed him to explore alternatives to the Aristotelian notion of a stationary Earth, as he explored the idea of a moving Earth. He also observed comets and elaborated on al-Tusi’s argument. He took it a step further and concluded, on the basis of empirical evidence rather than speculative philosophy, that the moving Earth theory is just as likely to be true as the stationary Earth theory and that it is not possible to empirically deduce which theory is true. His work was an important step away from Aristotelian physics and towards an independent astronomical physics.

Despite the similarity in their discussions regarding the Earth’s motion, there is uncertainty over whether al-Qushji had any influence on Copernicus. However, it is likely that they both may have arrived at similar conclusions due to using the earlier work of al-Tusi as a basis. This is more of a possibility considering “the remarkable coincidence between a passage in ”De revolutionibus” (I.8) and one in Ṭūsī’s ”Tadhkira” (II.1[6]) in which Copernicus follows Ṭūsī’s objection to Ptolemy’s “proofs” of the Earth’s immobility.” This can be considered as evidence that not only was Copernicus influenced by the mathematical models of Islamic astronomers, but may have also been influenced by the astronomical physics they began developing and their views on the Earth’s motion.

In the 16th century, the debate on the Earth’s motion was continued by al-Birjandi (d. 1528), who in his analysis of what might occur if the Earth were moving, develops a hypothesis similar to Galileo Galilei’s notion of “circular inertia”, which he described in the following observational test (as a response to one of Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi’s arguments):

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Islamic cosmology, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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When Gruzzlebeard steals the toy machine in an attempt to stop toy production and it accidentally gets smashed. Though it is salvageable, the pearl that powers it, breaks on exposure to sunlight. Santa, Balbo, Guilfi and Thoren head to the cave where they first found the pearl to find another. However, they are opposed by a giant Abominable Snowman and a monster bat. With luck and cunning, they are able to find the pearl and get it back to a repaired toy machine.

The 12 Tests Of Santa

Santa reveals to the elves he got a letter in the mail stating that he is being given the 12 tests that he takes every 100 years in order to be allowed to stay Santa. When the judges get lost, Gruzzlebeard shows them where Santa is, and is sure that he and Dudley will make Santa lose. He passes the first test, and for the second test, Gruzzlebeard explains to Dudley how he will cheat to make Santa lose. The elves hear this, and decide that they must keep an eye on Gruzzlebeard. Gruzzlebeard and Dudley try cheating many times, but the elves always make sure Santa passes the task. On the 12th task, the elves once again save Santa from being cheated by Gruzzlebeard. However, Santa finds some children watching him, and over one child, an icicle is about to fall. Santa leaves the test to go and save the child from the icicle. Although he did not get back in time, he is still Santa for another 100 years because of his bravery.

Little Geniuses

The database says that there are only twin brothers in a place called Sugartown. Santa takes Thoren and Guilfi to that place, posing as a family. The elves learn from the other children that the twins are troublemaking geniuses because of their computer expert parents. The elves figured that the twins hacked the gift database and Thoren sneaks into their house only to be caught. Guilfi manages to help her “escape”, only for the boys to follow them and stowaway on Santa’s sleigh. They figure to hack the main computer so that Santa will give them all the present. When Balbo finds them in the candy bag he brought into the storehouse, he runs off scared and informs Santa, who decides to each the boys a lesson. They trick them over to Gruzzlebeard’s house, where he catches them and make them his personal house cleaners. When he hears about Santa’s website, he is eager to access it only for Santa and the elves to arrive on time to relieve them of service. After the boys get home, they send a big supply of candy.

Rudolph Is Missing

It is a practice run for Santa’s sleigh ride. Afterwards, the reindeer get a little break. Rudolph disobeys Santa’s orders and goes skating. When he falls through the ice, he gets a cold and cannot carry the sleigh anymore. At night, Rudolph is upset because he thinks Santa won’t need him anymore. Gruzzlebeard, meanwhile, got a letter to Santa sent to him accidentally asking for Rudolph. Gruzzlebeard tells Rudolph to deliver the present himself and prove to Santa how great he is. Rudolph runs away to deliver himself, and Santa and the elves are worried about him. They go after him and get Rudolph back. They then punish Gruzzlebeard. In the end, Santa gets the child a baby reindeer whose parents were caught by the wolves.

The Starchild

Santa gets a message from a boy named Simon who wants a pony…and he’s in Outer Space! Santa, Jordi and Thoren decide to go to Space to give him a pony while Balbo and the other elf stay at home. Gruzzlebeard tries wrecking the sleigh, but the pony kicks Gruzzlebeard into it. Santa and the two elves go to space after shrinking the pony so they can take him. However, Gruzzlebeard is also in space with them! Santa shrinks Gruzzlebeard as well and delivers the pony. However, a meteorite is coming straight for the space station which Simon is at. The sleigh pulls the space station out of the way from the meteorite so it is a merry Christmas for Simon and his family. The note left says that the horse will return to normal size upon return to Earth.

Leon’s Christmas

Santa is getting less and less Christmas letters. It turns out that a boy named Leon is persuading people to stop believing in Santa Claus! Santa and the elves discover that Leon’s letter got lost years ago, wanting his dog Lenny back who was given away to a lady who wanted to dye him pink, as she did for all her dogs, but he ran away. Since Santa didn’t give him his dog back, Leon started doing this, going as far as ripping his brother Humfrey’s letter. Santa and co get Lenny back and Leon finally learns that Santa is real.

A Present For Two

Santa did not get a letter from one kid yet, Alex. He is the richest boy in the world, but his father doesn’t let him play with other children, but hires adults to play with him. He is also home schooled, so he has no friends. Santa takes him to the workshop to choose a toy but Alex’s father bought every single one. After a mishap in which Alex get lost with the reindeer, he finally decides what he wants – to be Santa! Santa lets him give a present to one person, and he chooses his crush, Kathy, so he can get closer with her. Kathy asked Santa for a bike for Christmas, so she gets a bike with two seats, one for Kathy and one for Alex. Alex is finally happy.

Super Rabbit

A boy named Randy has a rabbit doll named Jumper, but his older brother Frank throws it away, saying that it is for babies. Santa and the elves get the toy back, but Frank doesn’t let Randy take it back through any means. Santa decides to make a video game, the brother’s favourite thing, called “Super Rabbit”, and it comes with a free Super Rabbit doll. Since the brother is interested in it, he lets him have the doll. It turns out that the older brother is very into the doll as well.

The Lucky Charm

A figure skater girl named Crystal has lost her lucky charm, so she is no longer skating well. Santa and the elves must look for that lucky charm. Gruzzlebeard, meanwhile, puts Dudley in the world skating competition but cheats so Dudley will win. Jordy steals the remote and fixes it so if Gruzzlebeard cheats, Dudley will sure be in for a surprise! Santa gives Crystal a fake lucky charm and she skates great; she is the winner along with her best friend, Natasha. Thorn and Balbo also enter and win a prize. Dudley, however, does not skate great. When Santa reveals to Crystal that the lucky charm was fake, she learns to believe in herself. He then gives her a pair of crystal skates for Christmas

The Flying Carpet

A boy’s father won’t come home for Christmas because he is an archaeologist. Something from his site has been stolen and he cannot leave until it is found. Meanwhile, Santa has gone to Almeria and Gruzzlebeard has mixed up the telephone chords so when the elves call Santa, they’d really be calling Gruzzlebeard. They call asking to go to Almeria to get a magic carpet, and their answer is yes. However, they get captured by people…who actually stole the missing item from the site, who ransom for the elves! Gruzzlebeard helps out Santa in order for him to forgive him. Then, the boy’s father is brought back to his son on the magic carpet for Christmas.

Santa Claus’ Memoirs

When a famed reporter comes to the North Pole to interview Santa on his greatest adventure, he tells her about his time about a thousand years ago. When his tower receives a letter from a boy named Arthur, asking for Excalibur, Santa and Guilfi head off for England. After being mistaken for a jouster named the White Baron and defeated Gruzzlebeard, who was a Vi-count, he learns that Excalibur is a sword that is held by Merlin. In the enchanted forest, the two met the famed wizard who doesn’t have the sword; the Lady of the Lake has it. They managed to get the sword after solving a riddle about the wind, but Guilfi accidentally mentions Merlin, which he told them never to say his name in front of her. Santa was able to talk to the two of them, convincing each other that they made the sword in the first place. Just as they were bout to deliver Arthur’s present to him, Gruzzlebeard steals it only for Merlin to put in a stone. He then decrees that on Christmas Eve, the one who pulls it out of the stone shall become king of England. After numerous knights (comically Gruzzlebeard) tried, Arthur was able to pull it out. with his tale concluded, the reporter asks for the group’s picture, which might reveal too much. Luckily, Santa had magically erased their photo.

Magic Wand

Morgan is always made fun of because of her long nose, so she wishes for a magic wand to make it shorter. Gruzzlebeard makes a fake magic wand out of the wrong wood under the full moon and gives it to her, pretending it’s from Santa. Morgan cannot control this wand and people all over the city begin turning into animals. Santa and the elves come to save the day, and she learns to live with the way she looks. Gruzzlebeard is then punished when they give him a defective wand.

The Boy Who Wished To Be Little Again

Dudley is tired of being teased by Gruzzlebeard because he is small. Another boy named David wants to get smaller for Christmas because his baby sister gets all the attention. Dudley steals a machine from Santa and secretly makes him huge and David smaller than a spider. David learns his lesson, and Santa becomes small and Thorn becomes huge so Santa can save David. Everybody is then turned back to normal.

A Present For Santa

The elves are called to the village nearby by its children, who want to ask for what Santa wants as a present. First, as the children’s hangout, they try everyone’s ideas but nothing seemed to fit. Meanwhile, Gruzzlebeard unleashes two termites upon Santa’s home, intending for them to eat it down to the ground. Geordi catches them after they eaten a special suit that Santa wears every once in a while for a Christmas Convention. However, Santa is distressed, for his good suit had special powers and without it, he’d look like a fool. The elves and Balbo head off to the forest of the Trolls to get the materials to make a new one, as well as to gather fireflies for the runway’s lighting. They got the materials but since they had nothing to pay for them, they had to trade Balbo’s fur. After a lot of difficulty putting the suit together, they present it to Santa at the children’s hangout. Next morning, the elves find a big present outside. Apparently, the children had also planned their present while they were away. They open it and it turned into a hot air balloon. As they float abort, the elves return the termites to Gruzzlebeard’s house, eating it down to the ground.

The Christmas Conference

Every hundred years, Santa invites his magical friends to the North Pole. He then transforms the area near his workshop into a sunny paradise. However, he then gets a letter from a boy who wishes to fly because the city he lives in can only be reached by helicopter. He sends Thoren and Guilfi to get his friends, Frosty Freddie, who controls snow and ice, Helpy Helga, who has the power of rain and Stardust Glitter, who controls fire. Santa is also expects Bafauna, an old lady who rides on a broomstick and controls the wind but she gets sidetracked over misinformed instructions and gets caught by Gruzzlebeard. Gruzzlebeard poses as her to sneak over to the Christmas Conference. Santa decides on a contest to see who can create the best present for flying. However, when his friends are finished their inventions, Gruzzlebeard sabotages them when they go to sleep. Next day, they try out the inventions on the elves who perform greatly, but they feel apart. They are saved by each magical beings’ powers. Afterward, they accuse each other of sabotage until the elves unmask Gruzzlebeard. Everyone goes to Gruzzlebeard’s house to free Bafauna. Frosty Freddie then freezes Gruzzlebeard and Dudley within their own home. Santa then figures out they been going out at this all wrong; instead of competing against each other, they should be working together. His friends then work to create a flight suit that is resistant to all the element. as Santa brings his friends back to their respective homes, Gruzzlebeard and Dudley dig out of their frozen house and try to get warm at the melted lake, not knowing that Guilfi and Balbo are shutting down the heater then melted the lake. The duo soon find out too late.

The Story Of The Trolls

Two young Scottish boy and girl had requested for information about elves. Santa then proceeds to tells the elves about their origins. Elves were raised in a magical land where they had fierce competition with their cousin, the Terrible Trolls. They then make a book then makes it look like the characters are moving. However, Gruzzlebeard catches on and has Dudley construct an antimatter beam straight to the workshop transceiver. As the book is finished, the Trolls came out of the book, causing mass chaos in the workshop. Everyone was able to get out and lock the trolls inside. In order to know how to stop the Trolls before they destroy all of the toys, Santa, Thoren and Jordi search for the elves. The only thing they could get is that the trolls would know. They sneak into Gruzzlebeard’s house, finding the beam which Jordi tinkers with. Santa finds under Dudley’s hat the globe that is traditional for trolls, it is made of steel. Next day, the sleigh is equipped with a solar panel. Thoren and Guilfi have the remaining toys chase the trolls out. Unfortunately, the skies are cloudy, so there is no power for the magnet. Rudolph has an idea and takes them above the cloudline, giving the magnet enough juice to bring the trolls together and have their balls smashed. They are then returned to the book. As they fix the book, Jordi reveals that he tweaked the antimatter beam to act as a giant magnet.

Christmas For Dudley

Dudley is fed up with doing all of Gruzzlebeard’s chores, so he wants a robot for Christmas to do all his chores. The elves feel bad for Dudley and make him one even though they didn’t ask Santa yet. However, the robot is crazy and is using all of the North Pole’s electricity! Everybody works together to stop the robot, but it isn’t easy. They eventually capture him, and they make the robot peddle enough to generate electricity. Santa then gives Dudley a robot to keep Gruzzlebeard preoccupied which he relaxes.

The Return Of Santa Claus

Jordy creates a teleportation device. Santa and the three elves go into it, but Gruzzlebeard cuts a wire, sending them to the year 2222! There, Santa is unknown and Gruzzlebeard is a monument. The only person who remembers Santa is a boy named Hubert, who has a picture that Santa gave one of his ancestors. Santa and the elves, along with Hubert, stop the future Gruzzlebeard and save the future. They then come back to the present and stop Gruzzlebeard before he cuts the wire. The future is then changed and Santa awards an unknowing Hubert a toy Santa.

The Tall Little Girl

Balbo’s birthday is coming up, and Santa is making a surprise party for him, although he has a lot on his sleeve. A girl named Kinshey wants to be taller because her coach won’t let her play in basketball games. Disobeying Santa, Jordy gives Kinshey a potion that would make her taller, but it makes her giant! She begins wrecking the city, but eventually Santa comes to the rescue and makes her normal sized once again. She then appreciates her real size. Afterwards is Balbo’s party. They then go to the basketball game…in which Kinshey is allowed to play. She plays great. Santa then gives her a pair of spring-heeled shoes.

The Teddy Bear

A boy wants a teddy bear the size of a real bear for Christmas! The elves are being mean to Balbo, meanwhile, so Balbo decides to run away and give himself to the boy. Gruzzlebeard goes after Balbo because he wants to hypnotize Balbo into telling him all about Santa. The boy becomes attached to Balbo, but Gruzzlebeard takes him away. Soon, Gruzzlebeard, Balbo and the boy all find themselves in the middle of a lake, risking their lives, and Santa eventually comes to save the day. He then gives the boy a plush of Balbo then can grow to life-size.

Stolen Christmas

A boy named Jesse didn’t get a present on Christmas when he was little, so he doesn’t think anybody else should. He dresses up as Santa Claus to bring all the letters to him and robs stores so others cannot get the toys. However, the real Santa is arrested and the imposter goes home with the elves! The imposter asks the toy machine to make him pills, so he becomes a huge monster. Meanwhile, Santa escapes from prison and uses a toy plane to fly to the North Pole. But he runs out of gas. Luckily for him, a young boy trades his fish for gas. He arrives just in time to save his elves from Jesse. He lure the behemoth to the frozen lake, where he falls in, in which the side effects of his pills give him a different color. He asks Santa for help, who uses magic to return him to normal and Jesse reveals that he didn’t get a present because he never wrote to Santa. Santa then brings Jesse to the police and returns all the toys. He also gives the generous boy a new fishing rod and a pond full of fish.

Havoc in Toyland

Gruzzlebeard casts a spell on all the toys, making them come to life. Santa and the elves must return them to normal, but Gruzzlebeard traps Santa in a lot of bubble gum. Santa eventually escapes and helps the elves return the toys to normal. One toy decides to rebel against Santa, but the other toys stand up to him and tell Santa. The bad toy asks Gruzzlebeard for a potion to turn all toys at the toy store alive, but Santa arrives on the scene to set everything right.

Message in a Bottle

Gruzzlebeard goes ice-fishing and finds a letter to Santa in a bottle. It is from a boy named Marlo in Animalia, where animals talk. Marlo and his parents ended up stranded there but the friendly animals help them enjoy Christmas. An evil troll witch who hates Christmas turned everybody except him and a number of others, to stone. Gruzzlebeard and Dudley go, deciding to team-up with this witch. When Santa finds out about this, he goes with his elves, but he gets turned to stone as well. His elves and the remaining animals all un-due the witch’s spell. Santa then defeats the witch by spraying bubble gum at her. He promises to reward Marlo though it isn’t specified what Santa is giving him for Christmas.

Balthazar Can’t Make Up His Mind

A boy named Balthazar cannot decide what he wants for Christmas. Santa and the elves decide to visit him and ask him. When Balthazar finds the squirrel Hoppy with them, he decides he wants to keep him. However, Hoppy falls out the window and is stolen by a man who sells animals. He decides to sell this rare squirrel, but not if Santa has anything to do about it. Santa gets Hoppy back for Balthazar.

The Longest Night

On Christmas Eve, Santa reveals some of his most greatest secrets. Having his elves drink a special syrup, he shows them the Master Clock, a device that can stop time so he could make his runs every year. Those who drink the syrup are immune to its effects. However, Gruzzlebeard takes two glasses of the syrup, planning to destroying the clock so that Santa can’t complete his run. While Guilfi and Balbo are left behind to watch over the workshop, Santa, Jordi and Thoren go out to deliver all the gifts. Gruzzlebeard gives Balbo trick honey that makes him sleep and trapped Guilfi in a cage. He then proceeds to destroy the clock. Instead of what he was expecting, everything else in time went backwards, right back to the prehistoric times. The others return the North Pole, free Guilfi and head inside the room where the Clock is. They were able to fix the damage and fast forward time to its original point. Gruzzlebeard tries to trap them in the room but realizes he hammered the wrong nail which Dudley pointed out. Guilfi is invited on the Christmas run while Dudley and Balbo keep Gruzzlebeard occupied by throwing snowballs at him.

Santa Claus’ Secrets

Continuing off from the last episode, Santa and his elves continue their Christmas run. As they arrive in a city, Santa and Guilfi head to a young boy’s apartment. Though Guilfi suggests getting in the “old fashion way”, Santa has a better idea; he uses a magical dust to bring other toys inside to life so they could get in. However, Gruzzlebeard escapes his comical torture form Balbo and Dudley and uses his guitar and amplifiers to wreck the Master Clock. With time running again, Santa and his elves had to make the last three deliveries to the West before it is too late. as they arrive in the desert, they are attacked by a pack of dingos. Though Geordi wasn’t able to get them to stop, Santa talks sense into them. the get to a nomadic camp and deliver the present. The second-last stop was at a rainforest. While Santa and Thoren make their way through the forest and are attacked by a panther, which they catapult away, the others are caught between crocodiles and piranhas. Returning to the sleigh, Thoren sprinkles more of the magic dust to freeze the lake they landed upon. Meanwhile, Balbo tries to stop Gruzzlebeard but gets caught and Santa’s nemesis decides to stop him before he delivered the last present. As Santa makes his way to Greenland, where a young Billy lives, the reindeer get very tired, so they temporarily have storks help them. When they arrives, they find a note from Gruzzlebeard, saying that he had caught Billy. However, it was just a trap; Billy was home in bed the whole time. Gruzzlebeard locks the four in a glass cage and as a token of his appreciation, he leaves the key – if they can get it. Santa tells Guilfi he can get them out by selecting a magically power that was inside him all along. Guilfi then telekinetically lifts the key to free them. They managed to get Billy his present and later returned the one Gruzzlebeard left. When they come home, they free Balbo. Santa promotes Guilfi to master elf for outstanding bravery. He then shows one of his last secret: how to make a delicious Yule Log. His elves then tells him there is one last present to deliver: a globe for him that can show the faces of all the kids he made happy.

Category:French animated television series

Category:French television miniseries

Category:Christmas television specials

de:Weihnachtsmann & Co. KG

fr:Le Monde secret du Père Noël
Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Secret World of Santa Claus, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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