The Lonely Muon

[daryl1730]

Once upon a time, a lonely muon was traveling through the Earth's atmosphere. It lived for 20 microseconds, before decaying.

Posted before the deadline

[Bitchy Grammar Queen]

Jan 29, 2009 0:59:54 GMT -5 @daryl1730 said:

Posted before the deadline

Excellent ending!

[Admin]

Deadline was a general time. I did specify, however, that no entries after voting process.

Ugh. I hate you Daryl... I'll enter you... fuckhat...

[Bitchy Grammar Queen]

Jan 28, 2009 15:08:44 GMT -5 Admin said:

Story in BY midnight, central time. The vote will be tomorrow for about 2 days.

That doesn't seem like a general time to me. It's not "around midnight" or "approximately midnight". It's "BY midnight", which means you have up until midnight to submit a story.

Jan 28, 2009 15:08:44 GMT -5 Admin said:

The vote will be tomorrow for about 2 days.

Assuming we're using CST still, the poll would have been early, being made before "tomorrow".

[daryl1730]

Chapter 2:

[Hauskaz]

I like it.

[daryl1730]

Chapter 3:

www.addictinggames.com/scriball.html

My score: 8420 seconds

[Admin]

Great chapter.

My score: 4930.1 seconds. Just saying.

[daryl1730]

You sure kicked my ass.

[daryl1730]

I got 3122.2 seconds that time...

[Admin]

My second time, I got 1756.9 seconds.

[daryl1730]

Grr...

[Admin]

Hey, you're better at math, and I'm better at pointless games and sexual favors.

[Wulfi]

Feb 20, 2009 3:39:36 GMT -5 Admin said:

Hey, you're better at math, and I'm better at pointless games and sexual favors.

Pwned.

[daryl1730]

Chapter 4.

Economic Advance and Social Unrest (1830 – 1850)

Toward an Industrial Society
Great Britain was already an industrial nation by the second quarter of the 19th century, but continental Europe was lagging behind. While Britain had readily adopted such innovations as the Steam Engine and was supplying much of the world with textiles and other goods, Continental Europe was just starting to adopt newer technologies. Although innovations like LEDs were a long way off, Europe had begun practices such as using coke in place of Charcoal to make iron and steel, and engine use was steadily increasing.
Population and Migration
Europe continued the population booms of the 18th century. The major powers of Western Europe had gained as much as 4 million new people between 1831 and 1851, and their population was becoming increasingly urban while they were at it. Eastern Europe, on the other hand, remained mostly rural. The European infrastructure was in no way prepared for such an explosion in urban population, and as a result, conditions rapidly deteriorated. Slums grew in number and unpleasantness, crime became a way of life for many, and disease ravaged the population. Conditions in Eastern Europe wasn't much better, where newly freed serfs gained land under new liberal ownership laws, but were rarely self-sufficient. Industrialization was significantly slower in Eastern Europe as a result of countries emancipating serfs at differing times, thus making travel difficult for the middle class, and inhibiting the job market in such places. The industrialization of Europe did not help stop famines. During the Irish Famine (1845-47), about 500,000 Irish starved, and hundreds of thousands emigrated elsewhere.
Railways
As the century progressed, railways became increasingly common in Europe, especially during the 1830s and 40s. By midcentury, Britain, France, and Germany had a combined total of 18,568 kilometers of railway, over half of that belonging to Britain. The huge increase in railways made it much easier for people to leave their place of birth, and move to cities. Additionally, this cheap mode of transportation allowed raw materials to be transported in greater numbers for less cost. With this, demand for iron and steel grew, and the construction of ironclad ships and iron machinery also expanded.
The Labor Force
The people who composed the labor force of the early 19th century varied wildly in each field. No single description could describe everyone in a given area of work. Those employed ranged from the reasonably well payed, to those who were barely getting enough to live on. Conditions also varied wildly. In some areas, women and children worked nearly naked in coal mines, even. Only the textile industry became fully mechanized during the first half of the century.
The Emergence of a Wage-Labor Force
Proletarianization occurred during the 19th century. This process hurt Artisans particularly, who in the process lost control over how their creations were used, and were sometimes replaced by newer inventions such as the Printing Press. The creation of cities and factories helped craftsmen by increasing demand for their services. In the 18th century, most towns usually had a few artisans laboring under a master, regulated by guilds. In contrast, the 19th century saw the outlaw of Guilds and workers' associations after the French Revolution in France, and they were generally frowned upon in other places. As a result, the previous model collapsed. The uniform nature of products in this time also made skills less valuable to factories, where workers only made small parts of generally identical products.
Working-Class Political Action: The Example of British Chartism
Chartism was a political reform which aimed to solve the economic plight of artisans who had been displaced by these changes. Some Chartists formed the London Working Men's Association, which lobbied for the Six Points of the Charter, which included: Universal Male Suffrage, Annual Election of the House of Commons, the Secret Ballot, Equal Electoral Distracts, and the Abolition of Property Qualifications for and the payment of salaries to members of the House of Commons. Chartism failed completely.
Family Structures and the Industrial Revolution
The Family in the Early Factory System
Contrary to what was once thought, new machinery and factory production techniques did not destroy traditional working class family structure. Although the father left the home to work, the structure of early English factories allowed the father to preserve some of his traditional family roles. Life was still changed to a degree, though. Before these innovations, textile production was done at home, as a family job. Children would be trained by the parents, and everyone would earn an income. This ceased to occur after the aforementioned revolutions. The new factory settings allowed some men who were sufficiently paid to send their kids to school. Around the 1830s, concerns over child labor began to emerge. The English Factory Act of 1833 forbid the employment of children under 9, limited the workday of those aged 9 to 13, and required factory owners to pay for two hours of education a day for these children. In 1847, under pressure, Parliament mandated a 10 hour workday, as opposed to the 12 hour workday that previously existed, so workers could spend more time with their kids. It was in this time that the view of woman as belonging in the home first arose. Although the family remained an economic unit, as in the past, the family's income was now derived from a variety of sources, as opposed to just one.
Women in the Early Industrial Revolution
Opportunities and Exploitation in Employment
Unmarried women often made up a majority of the population at textile factories, although as time went on the amount of skill they required to operate such factories went down. As manual labor was replaced with machinery, the skill levels of the workforce generally dropped. Men almost always supervised the women. Married women rarely worked, either because the factory didn't want them due to the risk of pregnancy, or because their husbands earned enough to support them. Although many women worked in factories such as this, most employed women worked elsewhere, on the land. Women worked as Domestic Servants in England, and in cottage industries elsewhere in Western Europe. Due to their low wages, women often turned to prostitution.
Changing Expectations in the Working-Class Marriage
In the cities, co-habitation before marriage was common. Parents less to do with the arranging of marriages than they had in the past. When a woman married, she would usually leave the work force, and live on her husband's earnings. Marriages weren't seen as economic units anymore, as the woman did not generate an income. Most employed married women worked in the nonindustrial sector. Woman, not working, became the keepers of the house. They would do the cooking and such, and often were in charge of a families finances.
Problems of Crime and Order
As cities grew in size and population, crime did too. Throughout the first 60 years of the 1800s, crime steadily rose in the cities of Europe, before leveling off.
New Police Forces
The result of this increased crime was the employment of the first Professional Police Forces, which did not exist before this. They had all the duties of a modern police officer, were distinct from the army, and protected the citizens.
Prison Reform
Prisons before the reforms which will be mentioned in a few sentences were in terrible conditions. Those who commit the worst crimes were housed with the most petty of offenders, and prisoners were often abused. In the late 18th century, the British government started to send their most serious offenders to Australia instead. They stopped this practice in the mid-19th century, when the Australian Colonies got pretty pissed off. In the 1840s, after John Howard and Elizabeth Fry had exposed the horrible conditions of prison along with Charles Lucas, England and France began to improve their prisons. People who commit crimes were now seen as people with character flaws, rather than people making assaults on society's order. Prisons were thereafter designed to rehabilitate, which created exceedingly repressive prison systems. In the Pentonville Prison, each prisoner was in a separate cell, was never allowed to speak to or see other prisoners, had to wear masks when in the prison yard, and were separated at the prison chapel. In France, prisoners were taught skills while in prison.
Classical Economics
Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo suggested that absolutely nothing could improve the condition of the working class. Malthus proposed the idea that the population would eventually outstrip the food supply, because human population grows geometrically, while the food supply only grows arithmetically.
Ricardo on Wages
David Ricardo suggested the 'iron law of wages,' which stated that if wages were raised, parents would have more children, those children would enter the workforce and raise the number of workers, and lower the wages again. Thus, wages would always tend towards a minimum level.
Government Policies Based on Classical Economics
The Corn Laws were repealed in 1847.
Early Socialism
Utopian Socialism
Utopian Socialists were named as such because they often had revolutionary ideals, and questioned the structures and values of the existing system. Count Claude Henri de Saint-Simon was an early socialist. He made a career as a social critic. He was, in a sense, the idealogical father of technocracy. He died in 1825. Robert Owen created Owenism in England sometime between 1771 and 1858. He believed that humans, in the right environment, could be improved. Owen tested his theory in New Lanark. He provided workers with good quarters, gave them many recreational possibilities, gave children education, provided churches, etc. His factory made a profit, and attracted much attention. Nothing Owen did after that succeeded.
Anarchism
Anarchists rejected industry and the dominance of government.
Marxism
Marxism eventually came to dominate over all other forms of socialism. It gained ground in the Soviet Union and much of Eastern Europe after World War II. Marxism differed from other forms of socialism in that it claimed to be scientifically accurate, it rejected reform, and it called for revolution. Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1847, for the Communist League. Despite the Manifesto's later importance, it was very un-influential at the time of its publishing. Marx got many of his major ideas from Hegelianism, a form of French Utopian Socialism and British classical economics. Marx applied concrete historical, social, and economic developments the philosophical concept that thought develops from the clash of thesis and antithesis into a new intellectual synthesis. …. People were drawn to Marx's brand of socialism because of his utopian predictions, even though they often did not come true. Marx realized that, historically, the organization of the goods required for survival have always involved conflict between the classes which owned and controlled the means of production and the classes which worked for them. That conflict lead to historical development. Marx believed that capitalism would eventually lead to the collapse of this sort of society. He believed that a communistic society would emerge from this dead capitalistic one, and all would be well. This new system would not involve conflict between the classes, as the classes would no longer exist. His predictions of capitalistic collapse did not happen. Nonetheless, his Communist Manifesto had made its mark within a generation, and captured an entire generation of socialists, especially in Germany.
1848: Year of Revolutions
In 1848, Europe was hit with a series of famines. There was an economic depression of sorts, and unemployment was high. The main source of political reform came from the Liberals, who were pushing for more representation in government, more civil liberties, and an unregulated economic life. Nationalism played a part in the revolutions, as well. The 1848 revolutions had wide impacts. Europe had more major uprisings than any other time, ever. The French Monarchy fell, other monarchies were shaken, but in the end, the revolutions accomplished essentially nothing. Without exception, the revolutions failed to establish a genuinely liberal or nationalistic state.
France: The Second Republic and Louis Napoleon
Revolution in France started in Paris, again. The liberals were tired of Louis Philippe's corrupt regime, and organized a series of political banquets. The government banned further banquets after it was criticized at them, and the people protested in anger. Louis fled to England. The Liberals formed a provisional government, which held an election with universal male suffrage to choose the new National Assembly. The new government was conservative. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president in late 1848. The new Napoleon was not concerned about Republicanism or anything like that, but about his own fame and glory. He fought with Parliament over his ability to be elected twice, and they refused to budge. So, Napoleon performed – get this – a military coup. He dispersed the parliament and called for new elections. Louis became Emperor Napoleon III in 1852. The Vesuvians were a group of radical women who lobbied for women rights. Like similar efforts by other groups throughout history, they failed to achieve any new rights for women.
The Habsburg Empire: Nationalism Resisted
The Habsburg Empire resisted change at every level, where ever it could. The serfs were emancipated in much of Austria. The Magyar leaders of the Hungrarian March Revolution were primarily liberals supported by nobles who wanted their aristocratic liberties guaranteed against the central government in Vienna. They also hoped to establish a separate Hungarian state. Northern Italy, Czech, and Germany also had some revolutions.

[Hauskaz]

Nice.

[daryl1730]

Chapter 5.

A parabola is defined by a point (focus) (p, q) and a horizontal line (directrix) y = n. The parabola is the set of all points (x, y) such that the distance between (x, y) and (p, q) is the same as the perpendicular distance between (x, y) and y = n. For parabolas, the focus is always the same distance above the minimum/maximum as the directrix is below it. The purpose of this is to attempt to prove that for parabola y = ax^2 + bx + c, the focus is always 1/4a units above the minimum/maximum value of this parabola. To make the proof easier to interpret, the focus and directrix will be defined by their distance q above or below the minimum/maximum of the parabola. The object is to prove that q = 1/4a.

(p, o) -> Minimum
(p, o+q) -> Focus.
y = o-q -> Directrix.
(x, y) -> Point on parabola.

sqrt((x-p)^2 + (y-(o+q))^2) -> Distance between (x, y) and (p, o+q).
y - (o-q) -> Distance between (x, y) and y = o-q.
sqrt(x^2 -2px + p^2 + y^2 - 2(o+q)y + (o+q)^2) = y - (o-q) -> Equal distances.
x^2 - 2px + p^2 + y^2 - 2(o+q)y + (o+q)^2 = y^2 - 2(o-q)y + (o-q)^2 -> Squaring both sides.
x^2 - 2px + p^2 + (o+q)^2 - (o-q)^2 = 2(o+q)y - 2(o-q)y -> Isolating x and y.
y(2(o+q)-2(o-q)) = x^2 - 2px + p^2 + (o+q)^2 - (o-q)^2 -> Factoring out y.
y = (x^2 - 2px + p^2 + (o+q)^2 - (o-q)^2) / (2(o+q) - 2(o-q)) -> Solving for y.
y = (x^2 - 2px + p^2 + o^2 + 2oq + q^2 - o^2 + 2oq - q^2) / (2o + 2q - 2o + 2q) -> Expanding binomials.
y = (x^2 - 2px + p^2 + 4oq) / (4q) -> Simplifying.
y = (x^2)/(4q) - (px/2q) + (p^2)/(4q) + o -> Removing common denominator.
a = 1/(4q). -> Follows from y = ax^2 + bx + c. b = -p/(2q) and c = (p^2)/(4q) + o.
qa = 1/4. -> Multiply by q.
q = 1/(4a). -> Divide by a.
QED

[Hauskaz]

Cool.