A REVIEW OF "A FEW GOOD MEN" A RETRO REVIEW, 1992 by Ryan Ellis
give me a buzz on the ol' e-lines<EMAIL_ADDRESS>(NOTE-This is the 2nd of 5 retro reviews of Jack Nicholson films I plan to do in the next few weeks. Starting with "Chinatown" last week, I will analyze five of Jack's very best performances.)
Great dialogue stays with you. Heck, if it's good enough, you can sit around with your friends and recite half a movie. There was a time in college that I could shout out almost every line in "A Few Good Men". The famous courtroom climax ("YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH...") was only the best part of a script where if you sat beside me, you might think the stereo surround effect of this movie was really terrific. Of course, some people get annoyed by such grandstanding, so I had to watch the powerful film alone. Soon after, I stopped watching it altogether and hadn't seen it for well over a year. That is, until a few nights ago when the worn-out tape found its way into the VCR. And you know what--I can STILL follow right along almost flawlessly!
A critical and financial success, this film hits the right buttons. A blockbuster when it came out in '92, "A Few Good Men" is full of people who are movie stars, not actors. Although Jack Nicholson has won 3 Oscars and Tom Cruise should win one or two eventually, they are movie stars first and thespians second. This label has kept Cruise from getting the critical praise he deserves, but it doesn't hinder him at all in finding great projects and great castmates. By co-starring with Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, and Robert Duvall before this role opposite Nicholson (and later with Gene Hackman and Jon Voight), Cruise showed he was worthy of working with the best. And, save for Steven Spielberg, Cruise has been guided by most of the great directors of the last 30 years. Holding it against him because he's handsome is silly. He graces the scenes he's in with charm and talent instead of barging in and dominating them.
Director Rob Reiner was looking for "a few good men" when he shot this picture. He found more than a few--first selecting the right man to play Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Cruise) in this charged-up courtroom drama. All the aforementioned barging and dominating is done by one of the great villains of the '90s, Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (Nicholson in his 10th Oscar-nominated performance). Nicholson could easily have won the Best Supporting Actor award for turning this movie upside down and for so effectively tearing everything apart. Let's not forget about Lt./Commander JoAnne Galloway (played by another movie star, Demi Moore), Captain Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon), Lt. Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollack), or Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland).
The powerhouse cast compliments Aaron Sorkin's screenplay (based on his own play) about two young marines based in Cuba who are charged with the murder of one of their fellow marines. The movie opens with the death of PFC William T. Santiago, a notorious screw-up who accidentally dies during a hazing ritual administered by Lnc./Cpl. Dawson and PFC Downie. We later learn that their superior officers (Jessep and Kendrick) ordered this "Code Red" to bring Santiago back in line after breaking the chain of command and ratting to higher authorities on Dawson for an illegal fenceline shooting. Santiago had been pleading for a transfer off the base for 9 months and hoped the information he had about the fenceline shooting could be exchanged for that transfer. The fanatical Colonel Jessep gets hold of the letter and lectures to his Executive Officer Lt./Colonel Markinson (J.T. Walsh) and Kendrick that rather than pawning off their sub-standard marine, they should "train the lad". Ironically, they order Dawson--the very marine who could face disciplinary action because of Santiago's tattling--to beat some sense into him. After the boy dies, Jessep covers it up and Markinson goes along with it despite his strenuous objections.
While that is essentially the plot, this film is not just about marines or cover-ups or revenge. It's about daring to defy higher powers (and often logic) and doing what's right by following your conscience. That applies to Dawson and Downie (Wolfgang Bodison and James Marshall, respectively) as well as Kaffee, their attorney. He's the hot-shot young Navy lawyer and the best young litigator in the JAG corps--particularly at plea-bargaining. He's never seen the inside of a courtroom and tries to get his two clients to accept a deal rather than risk getting put in jail for life by facing a losing battle in a formal court martial. The young marines refuse to plead guilty and take the deal because they maintain they were only following orders. Galloway nags Kaffee to stand up and defend them. He reluctantly takes the case to court despite a complete lack of evidence in their favour (after all, they DID kill Santiago). They step on numerous landmines until the infamous climax between young pony Cruise and old warhorse Nicholson where the truth is exposed in a huge explosion of tension and drama.
The script takes a few liberties. Any lawyer worth his salt would drop the case when the reluctance of his two defendants to accept a sweet deal puts them all in such peril. By going into the courtroom with no evidence (and with their clients having a motive), they can only assign the blame for the death to Jessep and Kendrick. If Kaffee falsely accuses the decorated officers without proper evidence, he would face a career-destroying court martial of his own. It's the superfluous sub-plot about his late father (who was a legendary lawyer) that probably explains why he throws caution to the wind and tries to win such an unwinnable case by street-smarts and spin-doctoring alone. He wants to live up to his father's legacy (and probably to stop Galloway from pestering him!).
Criticisms--It's doubtful that Nicholson's remarkable thundering during a court martial would be accepted by any judge. He doesn't so much answer questions on the witness stand as he tells the world how lucky it is to have such a strong man defending the nation. Other small problems occurred with the usually top-notch editing. During an early scene where baseball-loving Kaffee takes batting practice, the conversation between he and Galloway is cut in such a way that the continuity is a little off. In one shot he's in the process of swinging the bat. Quickly cut to the other and the bat is already on his shoulder. And to nitpick, we see Kaffee watching a ballgame between Minnesota and Baltimore after the case has begun. How?! The case starts on October 3rd and that would be World Series time. Well, at least American League Championship Series time, but those two teams didn't even meet in the playoffs! Sorry, I'm scrutinizing, but it's a noticeable gaffe. Also, I HATE when modern movies say "The End" when it's over. Arggh!
However, everything in those last two paragraphs is a careful criticism. This movie scores in a big way and only a long-time fan would even care about the mistakes. Two of the finest dialogue-driven films of the '90s (non-Tarantino works, of course) came out in 1992 (this and "Glengarry Glen Ross") and "A Few Good Men" stands above all. Sorkin wrote this in a way that the court scenes were dynamic and the Kaffee/Galloway relationship was heated yet platonic. Many of the characters learn to respect each other, but the film doesn't manipulate a perfect ending. It wraps up right when it should. Because of the sharp editing--save for those small continuity errors--this is fast-paced and completely riveting. During scenes of conversation, it's like you're right there with the actors and you forget that everyone's dialogue was filmed separately.
The screenplay has racist, sexist characters, but the movie rises above those shady slimeballs. Both Jessep and Kendrick have racial and sexist issues (if you listen to what they say and how they say it, you'll understand). Still, the underdogs (the female Galloway, the black Dawson, the Jewish Weinberg, and the kid Kaffee) match the tough guys because the actors exude appropriate strength and charisma. You'll get some laughs when the subject matter eases up a little, too. The cinematography is fantastic at times--especially during the rifle drill during the opening credits--and the sound mix is fine. This film scored for North Americans for many reasons--it's patriotic, dynamic, cultural, interesting, and so well acted by its superstars.
In two of Nicholson's few scenes, he and Cruise are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Cruise looks like a baby next to Jack, but that's the point. Will we buy into Kaffee beating the proverbial truth out of Jessep? Oh yeah, we do. This is "Star Wars" without the lightsabers. We know exactly who the good guy is and who the bad guy is. Cruise is confident, but he's human. We relate to the young man and we like him. Without a doubt, Colonel Jessep is one of the great screen villains of the '90s.
"A Few Good Men" skillfully hits the mark with a bullseye. It's intense when it should be and funny when it should be. Finely crafted and well-cast, it remains one of the more memorable courtroom dramas in film history. If you ever forget why, give me a buzz and I'd be happy to shout "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH..." and the rest of the script in near-perfect synchronization.
USELESS TRIVIA--Along with the superstars in "A Few Good Men", youngsters Noah Wyle (Dr. Carter on TV's "E.R.") and Cuba Gooding Jr. (Oscar-winner in "Jerry Maguire") also appeared.
This film gets a 9/10. It also ranks #21 on My 100 Favourite Films list.

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| ZIC(8) | System Manager's Manual | ZIC(8) |
Link timezone localtime
Link timezone posixrules
This feature is obsolete and poorly supported. Among other things it should not be used for timestamps after the year 2037, and it should not be combined with -b slim if timezone's transitions are at standard time or Universal Time (UT) instead of local time.
The input specifies a link to a link.
A year that appears in a data file is outside the range of representable years.
A time of 24:00 or more appears in the input. Pre-1998 versions of zic prohibit 24:00, and pre-2007 versions prohibit times greater than 24:00.
A rule goes past the start or end of the month. Pre-2004 versions of zic prohibit this.
A time zone abbreviation uses a %z format. Pre-2015 versions of zic do not support this.
A timestamp contains fractional seconds. Pre-2018 versions of zic do not support this.
The input contains abbreviations that are mishandled by pre-2018 versions of zic due to a longstanding coding bug. These abbreviations include “L” for “Link”, “mi” for “min”, “Sa” for “Sat”, and “Su” for “Sun”.
The output file does not contain all the information about the long-term future of a timezone, because the future cannot be summarized as an extended POSIX TZ string. For example, as of 2019 this problem occurs for Iran's daylight-saving rules for the predicted future, as these rules are based on the Iranian calendar, which cannot be represented.
The output contains data that may not be handled properly by client code designed for older zic output formats. These compatibility issues affect only timestamps before 1970 or after the start of 2038.
The output file contains more than 1200 transitions, which may be mishandled by some clients. The current reference client supports at most 2000 transitions; pre-2014 versions of the reference client support at most 1200 transitions.
A time zone abbreviation has fewer than 3 or more than 6 characters. POSIX requires at least 3, and requires implementations to support at least 6.
An output file name contains a byte that is not an ASCII letter, “-”, “/”, or “_”; or it contains a file name component that contains more than 14 bytes or that starts with “-”.
Input files should be text files, that is, they should be a series of zero or more lines, each ending in a newline byte and containing at most 511 bytes, and without any NUL bytes. The input text's encoding is typically UTF-8 or ASCII; it should have a unibyte representation for the POSIX Portable Character Set (PPCS) ⟨http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap06.html⟩ and the encoding's non-unibyte characters should consist entirely of non-PPCS bytes. Non-PPCS characters typically occur only in comments: although output file names and time zone abbreviations can contain nearly any character, other software will work better if these are limited to the restricted syntax described under the -v option.
Input lines are made up of fields. Fields are separated from one another by one or more white space characters. The white space characters are space, form feed, carriage return, newline, tab, and vertical tab. Leading and trailing white space on input lines is ignored. An unquoted sharp character (#) in the input introduces a comment which extends to the end of the line the sharp character appears on. White space characters and sharp characters may be enclosed in double quotes (") if they're to be used as part of a field. Any line that is blank (after comment stripping) is ignored. Nonblank lines are expected to be of one of three types: rule lines, zone lines, and link lines.
Names must be in English and are case insensitive. They appear in several contexts, and include month and weekday names and keywords such as maximum, only, Rolling, and Zone. A name can be abbreviated by omitting all but an initial prefix; any abbreviation must be unambiguous in context.
A rule line has the form
Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S
For example:
Rule US 1967 1973 - Apr lastSun 2:00w 1:00d D
The fields that make up a rule line are:
5 the fifth of the month lastSun the last Sunday in the month lastMon the last Monday in the month Sun>=8 first Sunday on or after the eighth Sun<=25 last Sunday on or before the 25th
A weekday name (e.g., Sunday) or a weekday name preceded by “last” (e.g., lastSunday) may be abbreviated or spelled out in full. There must be no white space characters within the ON field. The “<=” and “>=” constructs can result in a day in the neighboring month; for example, the IN-ON combination “Oct Sun>=31” stands for the first Sunday on or after October 31, even if that Sunday occurs in November.
2 time in hours 2:00 time in hours and minutes 01:28:14 time in hours, minutes, and seconds 00:19:32.13 time with fractional seconds 12:00 midday, 12 hours after 00:00 15:00 3 PM, 15 hours after 00:00 24:00 end of day, 24 hours after 00:00 260:00 260 hours after 00:00 -2:30 2.5 hours before 00:00 - equivalent to 0
Although zic rounds times to the nearest integer second (breaking ties to the even integer), the fractions may be useful to other applications requiring greater precision. The source format does not specify any maximum precision. Any of these forms may be followed by the letter w if the given time is local or “wall clock” time, s if the given time is standard time without any adjustment for daylight saving, or u (or g or z) if the given time is universal time; in the absence of an indicator, local (wall clock) time is assumed. These forms ignore leap seconds; for example, if a leap second occurs at 00:59:60 local time, “1:00” stands for 3601 seconds after local midnight instead of the usual 3600 seconds. The intent is that a rule line describes the instants when a clock/calendar set to the type of time specified in the AT field would show the specified date and time of day.
A zone line has the form
Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] For example: Zone Asia/Amman 2:00 Jordan EE%sT 2017 Oct 27 01:00The fields that make up a zone line are:
If a zone changes at the same instant that a rule would otherwise take effect in the earlier zone or continuation line, the rule is ignored. A zone or continuation line L with a named rule set starts with standard time by default: that is, any of L's timestamps preceding L's earliest rule use the rule in effect after L's first transition into standard time. In a single zone it is an error if two rules take effect at the same instant, or if two zone changes take effect at the same instant.
A link line has the form
Link TARGET LINK-NAME For example: Link Europe/Istanbul Asia/IstanbulThe TARGET field should appear as the NAME field in some zone line. The LINK-NAME field is used as an alternative name for that zone; it has the same syntax as a zone line's NAME field.
Except for continuation lines, lines may appear in any order in the input. However, the behavior is unspecified if multiple zone or link lines define the same name, or if the source of one link line is the target of another.
The file that describes leap seconds can have leap lines and an expiration line. Leap lines have the following form:
Leap YEAR MONTH DAY HH:MM:SS CORR R/S For example: Leap 2016 Dec 31 23:59:60 + SThe YEAR, MONTH, DAY, and HH:MM:SS fields tell when the leap second happened. The CORR field should be “+” if a second was added or “-” if a second was skipped. The R/S field should be (an abbreviation of) “Stationary” if the leap second time given by the other fields should be interpreted as UTC or (an abbreviation of) “Rolling” if the leap second time given by the other fields should be interpreted as local (wall clock) time.
The expiration line, if present, has the form:
Expires YEAR MONTH DAY HH:MM:SS For example: Expires 2020 Dec 28 00:00:00The YEAR, MONTH, DAY, and HH:MM:SS fields give the expiration timestamp in UTC for the leap second table; zic outputs this expiration timestamp by truncating the end of the output file to the timestamp. If there is no expiration line, zic also accepts a comment “#expires E ...” where E is the expiration timestamp as a decimal integer count of seconds since the Epoch, not counting leap seconds. However, the “#expires” comment is an obsolescent feature, and the leap second file should use an expiration line instead of relying on a comment.
In this example, the timezone is named Europe/Zurich but it has an alias as Europe/Vaduz. This example says that Zurich was 34 minutes and 8 seconds east of UT until 1853-07-16 at 00:00, when the legal offset was changed to 7°26′22.50″, which works out to 0:29:45.50; zic treats this by rounding it to 0:29:46. After 1894-06-01 at 00:00 the UT offset became one hour and Swiss daylight saving rules (defined with lines beginning with “Rule Swiss”) apply. From 1981 to the present, EU daylight saving rules have applied, and the UTC offset has remained at one hour.
# Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER/S Rule Swiss 1941 1942 - May Mon>=1 1:00 1:00 S Rule Swiss 1941 1942 - Oct Mon>=1 2:00 0 - Rule EU 1977 1980 - Apr Sun>=1 1:00u 1:00 S Rule EU 1977 only - Sep lastSun 1:00u 0 - Rule EU 1978 only - Oct 1 1:00u 0 - Rule EU 1979 1995 - Sep lastSun 1:00u 0 - Rule EU 1981 max - Mar lastSun 1:00u 1:00 S Rule EU 1996 max - Oct lastSun 1:00u 0 - # Zone NAME STDOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone Europe/Zurich 0:34:08 - LMT 1853 Jul 16 0:29:45.50 - BMT 1894 Jun 1:00 Swiss CE%sT 1981 1:00 EU CE%sT Link Europe/Zurich Europe/Vaduz
In 1941 and 1942, daylight saving time applied from the first Monday in May at 01:00 to the first Monday in October at 02:00. The pre-1981 EU daylight-saving rules have no effect here, but are included for completeness. Since 1981, daylight saving has begun on the last Sunday in March at 01:00 UTC. Until 1995 it ended the last Sunday in September at 01:00 UTC, but this changed to the last Sunday in October starting in 1996.
For purposes of display, “LMT” and “BMT” were initially used, respectively. Since Swiss rules and later EU rules were applied, the time zone abbreviation has been CET for standard time and CEST for daylight saving time.
If, for a particular timezone, a clock advance caused by the start of daylight saving coincides with and is equal to a clock retreat caused by a change in UT offset, zic produces a single transition to daylight saving at the new UT offset without any change in local (wall clock) time. To get separate transitions use multiple zone continuation lines specifying transition instants using universal time.


'Copland'
A movie review by Walter Frith
Police corruption has been a powerful subject for examination and perhaps the most famous and well remembered story is 1973's 'Serpico' in which Al Pacino played the title character and the film was based on a true story involving a lone New York City police officer who blew the whistle on several of his peers and then was forced to leave his career behind.
'Copland' looks at the same subject of corrupt cops but puts a twist on an old story you wouldn't expect to see. It seems that for many years it was a rule set in motion by the governing body in New York City that officers who worked for the NYPD had to live in the city so their actions could be kept under observation by Internal Affairs (these are the people who police the police) but on a technicality many officers were later allowed to be declared eligible to live in surrounding areas such as New Jersey and Connecticut and it seems in this movie that across the Hudson River by way of the George Washington Bridge is a little town named Garrison, New Jersey (pop. 1280) in which a handful of cops have set up shop to perform many clandestine activities of a corrupt nature and the town's honest but rather timid sheriff (Sylvester Stallone) becomes embroiled in a conflict not usually seen in this small town where he boasts that they have (quote) "one of the lowest crime rates in Northern New Jersey" (unquote).
 Because his jurisdiction ends at the George Washington Bridge he tries to convince Stallone that something has to be done by way of an investigation to resolve this unusual situation One of the crooked cops in question (Ray Liotta) has a redeemable side to his sinful persona and has some of the best work of his career in this movie.
The film's writer and director (James Mangold) has approached the subject matter in this movie with total credibility and has nailed down the attitudes and personalities of police officers (both corrupt and honest) in a very convincing fashion and while the film's climax is straight forward and contains little surprises it is still powerful and intelligent filmmaking done with characters both compelling and believable. No actor has a leading performance in this film and while each has a supporting role, Sylvester Stallone shines bright with some of his best work in more than a decade and proves he CAN act given the right set of circumstances and his portrayal of a small town sheriff dealing with big city corruption is one of the most sympathetic and interesting characters he's ever played. Stallone dumps the macho act entirely after gaining 40 pounds to play this role. In fact there are no slackers in this cast which also includes Robert Patrick, Michael Rapaport and Annabella Sciorra
'Copland' is a smashing success so far as movie making is concerned and is one of the best films of 1997 and is certainly one of the most convincing police stories of all time.
OUT OF 5> * * * * *
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Earlier this year I had heard that freon gives a wicked buzz and makes you hallucinate. This was just the beginning of my problems.
My dad works on ac units he has large tanks of freon sitting around all over. After about a month of getting familiar with the gas I knew exactly how much to breath and when I would spend hours in my basement watching people walk by and strange figures dancing around the walls. Later I found that if I put headphones on and listen to 'stoner' music the effects were much more intense and colorful. As I increased the dose of freon it seemed as though I was god and was able travel anywhere and understand anything.
It all ended one day after I wrecked my car. I was upset and just wanted to get away. After about an hour of tripping I decided to just take a big hit and let the lights go out for a while. passing out was common with freon. I took two deep breaths and was out but something was wrong I felt my body slowly dying it was something I never felt before suddenly I was standing in front of my body punching it and holding on to it because it felt as though somebody was pulling me away. The terror lasted forever I really thought I was dead and my 'conscious' self was actually my soul apart from my body. Finally I came too but I couldn't move I couldn't see straight. I just laid on the floor for at least 15 minutes trying to understand what happened. I crawled upstairs to my bed and crashed. The next day I vowed never to do freon again and I haven't.
Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the individual authors who submit them.
Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid.


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 Watching the film, my mind wandered to the many films in which Nicholson starred over the years, almost all fine films: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, A FEW GOOD MEN, PRIZZI'S HONOR, REDS, CHINATOWN, FIVE EASY PIECES, and EASY RIDER, to name some of the more outstanding. And I am watching Nicholson looking and acting very much as he did in every film he has been in: the white eyeballs, the devilish look, the way he wipes his mouth, the way he lowers his voice into a hushed mumble. And I think, maybe he ought to start looking different in different kinds of films. Even at the Lakers' games, with his dark glasses, he is Nicholson. His "look" is getting a bit boring.
The film's story is not much help. Written and directed by Sean Penn, it's a simple story and not terribly interesting. John Booth (David Morse) accidentally ran over Gale's seven-year-old daughter with his car. After spending his time in jail he is about to be released. While he is ticking off the days on his calendar in the jail cell, Nicholson is doing the same in his home. Both know that when Booth is released, Gale is going to go after him.
 Mary has remarried. They had gotten divorced, presumably because of Gale's behavior once his beloved daughter was killed; he has become a changed man who hangs out at strip joints with other jewelers who look more like sleazy gangsters. It now becomes, for the audience to watch and guess how the film will develop and the development is nothing spectacular. There is a short look at an elderly crossing guard asleep, or half asleep, sitting in a chair while the children are in a playground. If there were any significance to that, and to the film's title, I missed it.
Supporting actors are Robin Wright who befriends and comforts booth and Piper Laurie (as beautiful as ever) as Booth's mother.
One of the obviously "silly" incidents (to use a kind word) is the policewoman who, when Gale is pulled over for possible drunk driving, takes his gun (he has a license for it as he is a jeweler who carries valuables) and lays the gun on the trunk of his car within easy reach of Gale if he chooses to make a grab for it and escape.
There is not much else to the film worth mentioning.
1.5 bytes 4 Bytes = Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money.
-- Ben Hoffman
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Physicists irreversibly split photons by freezing them in Bose-Einstein condensate
| Source: | University of Bonn |
| Summary: | Light can be directed in different directions, usually also back the same way. Physicists have however succeeded in creating a new one-way street for light. They cool photons down to a Bose-Einstein condensate, which causes the light to collect in optical 'valleys' from which it can no longer return. The findings could also be of interest for the quantum communication of the future. |
Light can be directed in different directions, usually also back the same way. Physicists from the University of Bonn and the University of Cologne have however succeeded in creating a new one-way street for light. They cool photons down to a Bose-Einstein condensate, which causes the light to collect in optical "valleys" from which it can no longer return. The findings from basic research could also be of interest for the quantum communication of the future.
A light beam is usually divided by being directed onto a partially reflecting mirror: Part of the light is then reflected back to create the mirror image. The rest passes through the mirror. "However, this process can be turned around if the experimental set-up is reversed," says Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz from the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bonn. If the reflected light and the part of the light passing through the mirror are sent in the opposite direction, the original light beam can be reconstructed.
The physicist investigates exotic optical quantum states of light. Together with his team and Prof. Dr. Achim Rosch from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Cologne, Weitz was looking for a new method to generate optical one-way streets by cooling the light particles (photons): As a result of the smaller energy of the photons, the light should collect in various valleys and thereby be irreversibly divided. The physicists used a Bose-Einstein condensate made of photons for this purpose, with which Weitz made a name for himself in 2010 because he was the first to create such a "super-photon."
A beam of light is thrown back and forth between two mirrors. During this process, the photons collide with dye molecules located between the reflecting surfaces. The dye molecules "swallow" the photons and then spit them out again. "The photons acquire the temperature of the dye solution," says Weitz. "In the course of this, they cool down to room temperature without getting lost."
By irradiating the dye solution with a laser, the physicists increase the number of photons between the mirrors. The strong concentration of the light particles combined with simultaneous cooling causes the individual photons to fuse to form a "super photon," also known as Bose-Einstein condensate.
Two optical valleys "catch" the light
The current experiment by the team of physicists from Bonn and Cologne worked in accordance with this principle. However, one of the two mirrors was not completely flat, but had two small optical valleys. When the light beam enters one of the indents, the distance, and therefore the wavelength, becomes slightly longer. The photons then have a lower energy. These light particles are "cooled" by the dye molecules and then pass into a low-energy state in the valleys.
However, the photons in the indents do not behave like marbles rolling over a corrugated sheet. Marbles roll into the valleys of the corrugated sheet and remain there, separated by the "peaks." "In our experiment, the two valleys are so close together that a tunnel coupling occurs," reports lead author Christian Kurtscheid from the Weitz team. It is therefore no longer possible to determine which photons are in which valley. "The photons are held in the two valleys and enter the lowest energy state of the system," explains Weitz. "This irreversibly splits the light as if it were passing through an intersection at the end of a one-way street, while the light waves remain in lockstep in different indents."
The scientists hope that this experimental arrangement will make it possible to produce even more complex quantum states that allow the generation of interlaced photonic multi-particle states. "Perhaps quantum computers might one day use this method to communicate with each other and form a kind of quantum Internet," says Weitz with a view towards the future.
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Materials provided by University of Bonn.
Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Christian Kurtscheid et al. Thermally condensing photons into a coherently split state of light. 2019, Nov 15th, 2019 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aay1334
Cite This Page:
| MLA | University of Bonn. "Physicists irreversibly split photons by freezing them in Bose-Einstein condensate." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 14 November 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191114141246.htm>. |
| APA | University of Bonn. (2019, November 14). Physicists irreversibly split photons by freezing them in Bose-Einstein condensate. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 17, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191114141246.htm |
| Chicago | University of Bonn. "Physicists irreversibly split photons by freezing them in Bose-Einstein condensate." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191114141246.htm (accessed November 17, 2019). |


Viewing "The first 500 frequency bins from the sound data (FrogHunt_mixdown.json)"
The graph is a set of:
Nodes (e.g., 130Hz) correspond peak responses in Hertz ;
Edges (i.e., links) between nodes correspond to the succession of peaks in time.
Copyright: Spectral Visibility Graphs: Application to Similarity of Harmonic Signals.


The Start
My journey to my car started online.I was really excited at first because I was in a much better position in order to get the car I wanted.I started out looking at articles and websites trying to pin down the type of car that I wanted to commit to.After days of reading and searching,I had it finally down to the Honda Accord Coupe.Now it was on to the search to find the perfect car.
The Search
After finding the car I wanted I had the fabled mindset that it should be a breeze now that I then picked out the car. I was so wrong and then some and I learned quite quickly that the road to the car was going to be rough.I started pinpointing several cars and once I did that I started calling around to ask about them. The problem I kept running into was that the car would either be on hold for someone or was about to be sold or not ready to be shown off yet but yet they had it on online to show off.
The Purchase
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In short, the perceptron is an algorithm. A very simple one at that.
The algorithm it performs, in machine learning lingo, is known as binary classification.
Binary classification is the task of classifying elements into two groups. Hence the word binary — meaning 2.
All the algorithm does, it take an input and produce an output. The method by which the perceptron produces an output is called the weighted sum. It takes some input X, multiplies it by some weight W, adds in a bias B and then runs that value through some step function which classifies the weighted sum as a 0 or 1 (most of the time).
If there are multiple inputs, then there is a single weight assigned to each input and all of the inputs are multiplied by their corresponding weight and then summed together and added to the bias before being passed through the step function.
Here is visual of what a simple perceptron with n inputs may look like:
This image depicts the inputs (represented as subscripts of X) each being multiplied by their corresponding weights, summed together, and passed through some step function that takes the weighted sum and produces either a 0 or a 1. Notice that there is a constant that is fed into the perceptron as well as the other inputs. This constant will always be 1 and when multiplied with the first weight, represents the bias. So, essentially, that weight is the bias — it is added to the sum of the weights without being multiplied first with an input.
A simple step function is depicted below:
Unit Step Function
This step function takes some value. If the value is greater than or equal to 0, then it outputs 1, otherwise, it outputs 0.
How is it useful at classifying things?
The perceptron is a subset of machine learning algorithms known as supervised learning. This means that when you teach a perceptron to learn to classify inputs into 2 categories, you give it the inputs and the labels that you want the perceptron to produce in the end (0 or 1 for binary classification, usually).
The perceptron initializes its weights randomly and get’s fed the inputs. It takes its final output from the step function and compares it to the label that you gave it for the specified set of inputs.
The perceptron can then see whether it was wrong at all and how wrong. It can quantify how wrong it is by producing a loss function which takes the perceptron’s output and the target label provided by you and produces a number. In essence, the loss function is saying, “this perceptron is 2.76 wrong” or “this perceptron is 8.92 wrong”, etc. Here is a common loss function for binary classification known as Squared Error:
Squared Error Loss
So, in a simple example, if the perceptron was fed inputs and produced a 1, but the label assigned to the inputs was 0, then the loss of the perceptron would be:
The perceptron in this case was “1 wrong”.
It can then use this value to adjust the weights is various ways, one of which is known as Gradient Descent. In GD, you adjust the weights by subtracting the partial derivative of the loss function with respect to each weight. To actually figure out the derivatives, you would use the chain rule because the loss function is in actuality a composition of the weighted sum plus the bias, piped through the step function:
Chain Rule with Gradient Descent
If you are familiar with Calculus and derivatives, this concept shouldn’t be too difficult to understand and I am planning on writing an article on this soon. But it is beyond the scope of this high-level paper.
What is a Binary Classifier?
This means that the input entered is mapped to 2 different categories.
Another way to describe this is by saying that the information entered into a perceptron is linearly separable:
Linearly Separable
This means that the input entered can be separated by a single line.
A perceptron is just like a linear function
One thing to note about a perceptron is that it is functions kind of line a linear function. For example, here is a function in slope-intercept form:
When comparing this to a perceptron you can see they are much alike. The X is the input, the m is the weight, and the b is the bias. Here is what the perceptron value before it is run through the step function would look like:
Perceptron function simplified
Looks pretty similar, huh?
This high level overview of a perceptron is a good prep for learning about Neural Networks which are just perceptrons stacked on top of each other and gathered into layers.
Install apache. Head into terminal and update the available packages
$ sudo apt-get update
Then, install apache2
$ sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
Test the web server
By default, Apache puts a test HTML file in the web folder. This default web page is served when you browse to http://localhost/ on the pi itself, or http://<IP_ADDRESS> (whatever the pi’s internal ip address is) from another computer on the local network. To find the pi’s ip address, type hostname -I at the terminal. Learn more about finding IP’s
The default page will look something like this:
If you see this, you have apache working!
Changing the default page
This default web page is an HTML file on the filesystem. It is located at /var/www/html/index.html.
Navigate to this directory in terminal and see what is in there:
$ cd /var/www/html
$ ls -al
This will spit out:
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 8 01:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Jan 8 01:28 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 177 Jan 8 01:29 index.html
This means that there is one file in /var/www/html/ called index.html and is owned by the root user. In order to edit the file, you have to change ownership. You could use sudo. Like this: sudo chown pi: index.html.
Now, if you want to put files in your website, you can place them in the /var/www/html folder!
Install PHP (If you want)
Go into terminal and type:
$ sudo apt-get install php libapache2-mod-php -y
Now, you can run php from your server. We are going to try it!
Go into the web folder where index.html is stored (/var/www/html) and remove the index by typing:
$ sudo rm index.html
Now, we are going to create an index for our site in php. Create and edit a new index:
$ sudo nano index.php
NOTE: nano is a text editor install on all raspberry pi’s
Put some PHP in it (we’ll make it dynamic):
<?phpecho"hello world. Today is ".date('Y-m-d H:i:s');?>
Making it public
This will explain how others can access your web site through port forwarding and your IPv4 address.
Go to terminal. If you type ifconfig and press enter, you will get something like this:
Now, if you want to get your internal ip address, you can search for the value after inet addr:my.ip.add.ress. Search for it like this:
$ ifconfig | grep "inet addr:"
This address you can type into any computer attatched to the local network and be able to access your server’s site.
But what if you want for everyone to be able to access your website?
To do this you have to use something called port forwarding. Port forwarding makes it so that when a request comes in to your router on a certain port, it can be redirected to a local computer. We will make it so that when you type in the browser my.routers.ip.address:8090 you will be able to access your website from anywhere.
Port forwarding
Log into your router’s configuration page. To do this, go into your browser and type in the ip for the page. Usually the ip is something like this: <IP_ADDRESS>. If it is not that, search the web for your router’s configuration page address and type that as the url.
When you get to the login page you will need to input the username and password. Usually, the username is admin and the password is password
When you are in, navigate to a tab called firewalls, and find a page called port forwarding/virtual servers.
To add a port forwarding rule, click add
Fill out all of the ports with this number: 8090. NOTE: I would normally use port 80 so people would not have to bother with typing the port more than once, but some companies (like cox) do not allow forwarding on 80
For the IP address, put in the ip for your raspberry pi (inet addr: my.r.pi’s.ip). We found our pi’s ip in the previous section.
For the option to use TCP, UDP, or BOTH, choose BOTH.
Click the add button
You have now successfully added port forwarding for your website!
BlackDoc is a two-column Jekyll theme that’s ideal for websites that require a master-detail layout for viewing of content. It’s based on Poole, the Jekyll butler, and the Hyde theme.
I needed a two-column layout with a scrolling sidebar to publish my code cheatsheets, and found the Hyde Jekyll theme to be a good starting theme. To complement the color scheme of my main website, I customised the theme to make it look great in black background and changed the sidebar to display scrolling content. I created this theme because I can’t seem to find any good Jekyll theme with a master-detail layout. Hopefully, someone will find this useful as well in their own projects.
Built on Poole
Poole is the Jekyll Butler, serving as a foundation for creating Jekyll themes. Poole-based themes, such as BlackDoc here, include the following:
Easily scalable text and component sizing with rem units in the CSS
Support for a wide gamut of HTML elements
Related posts (time-based, because Jekyll) below each post
Syntax highlighting using Pygments (the Python-based code snippet highlighter)
BlackDoc Features
In addition to the features of Poole and Hyde, BlackDoc theme adds the following:
Scrolling sidebar with a thin scrollbar to allow displaying of numerous top-level content.
Elements and classes of the Hyde theme were updated to look great in black background. Check out the Theme Styles to see the stylings used in the theme.
Check out the Readme of Poole and Hyde theme to learn more about the features.
Browser support
BlackDoc theme supports most modern browsers and only compatible with Internet Explorer 9 and above.
Download
BlackDoc is a free Jekyll theme and hosted with GitHub. Head to the GitHub repository to download.
Howdy! This is an example blog post that shows several types of HTML content supported in this theme.
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum.
Curabitur blandit tempus porttitor. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit.
Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod. Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur.
Inline HTML elements
HTML defines a long list of available inline tags, a complete list of which can be found on the Mozilla Developer Network.
To bold text, use <strong>.
To italicize text, use <em>.
Abbreviations, like HTML should use <abbr>, with an optional title attribute for the full phrase.
Citations, like — Mark otto, should use <cite>.
Deleted text should use <del> and inserted text should use <ins>.
Superscript text uses <sup> and subscript text uses <sub>.
Most of these elements are styled by browsers with few modifications on our part.
Heading
Vivamus sagittis lacus vel augue rutrum faucibus dolor auctor. Duis mollis, est non commodo luctus, nisi erat porttitor ligula, eget lacinia odio sem nec elit. Morbi leo risus, porta ac consectetur ac, vestibulum at eros.
Code
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis code element montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Aenean lacinia bibendum nulla sed consectetur. Etiam porta sem malesuada magna mollis euismod. Fusce dapibus, tellus ac cursus commodo, tortor mauris condimentum nibh, ut fermentum massa.
Gists via GitHub Pages
Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo. Donec sed odio dui.
Aenean eu leo quam. Pellentesque ornare sem lacinia quam venenatis vestibulum. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec sed odio dui. Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.
Lists
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Praesent commodo cursus magna, vel scelerisque nisl consectetur et.
Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus.
Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue.
Donec ullamcorper nulla non metus auctor fringilla. Nulla vitae elit libero, a pharetra augue.
Vestibulum id ligula porta felis euismod semper.
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
Maecenas sed diam eget risus varius blandit sit amet non magna.
Cras mattis consectetur purus sit amet fermentum. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
The language used to describe and define the content of a Web page
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Used to describe the appearance of Web content
JavaScript (JS)
The programming language used to build advanced Web sites and applications
Integer posuere erat a ante venenatis dapibus posuere velit aliquet. Morbi leo risus, porta ac consectetur ac, vestibulum at eros. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo.
Images
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Tables
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Name
Upvotes
Downvotes
Totals
21
23
Alice
10
11
Bob
4
3
Charlie
7
9
Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit. Sed posuere consectetur est at lobortis. Nullam quis risus eget urna mollis ornare vel eu leo.
Jekyll is a static site generator, an open-source tool for creating simple yet powerful websites of all shapes and sizes. From the project’s readme:
Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator. It takes a template directory […] and spits out a complete, static website suitable for serving with Apache or your favorite web server. This is also the engine behind GitHub Pages, which you can use to host your project’s page or blog right here from GitHub.