text:
User:Vuara/The first tongue

Mr. Vuara -- and others:

I've been with and spoken with my Father (Dr. James R. Harris, Sr. Professor Emeritus at BYU, etc.) many times over the last several years, including this morning (Thursday, 13 July 2006). He continues his work with ancient southwest enscriptions. He was most amused to discover that he is dead!! Please take it upon yourself to correct this here and in other places where this error may be lurking. Thanks much!

James R. Harris, Jr. --JamesHarrisJr 03:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Editor's Note: Before his untimely death, Dr. James Harris of BYU, along with Dann Hoane, succeeded in establishing the algorithm for the oldest alphabetical system yet discovered. The team brilliantly assigned sound values based on the pre-Thamudic (early Hebrew and Aramaic) dialects instead of sounds used in Arabic dialects. The results were dramatic. Prior to their discovery it was believed that Southern Arabia held the root language on which the first alphabet was based. This was because the old signs were found in Ethiopia and Yemen. While other similar inscriptions were found in the Sinai, it was thought that these were from people that migrated from the South, and who spoke Arabic.

Viewzone's expedition to Yemen in 2001, showed the possibility that the language originated in the Sinai and was brought to Yemen through the marriage of Solomon (King of Israel) and Queen Sheba (Yemen). The Queen's conversion from belief in planetary deities (the Sun and Moon) to the One God would almost require that the pre-Thamudic language of old the Judaic texts should be taught and used as the official tongue. The birth of their child, Menelik, also would have strengthened the reliance on the language of Israel since Menelik subsequently received the responsibility for caring for the Ark of the Covenant when Israel was invaded by the Assyrians. Indeed, many of the texts found at the Queen's palace, dated to the second millennium BC., have been successfully translated using the old Hebrew algorithm and dialect discovered by Harris and Hoane. And many of these texts speak of the union of the Queen with Solomon and the important prophecies given to Menelik by the Lord, EL, supposedly through the Ark.

Surprisingly, the same alphabet has also been found, dated and translated in other areas of the globe. Multiple inscriptions are grouped in Southeast Colorado and many more are scattered around the major Oceans and waterways of our planet. This may suggest that the alphabet was indeed the earliest one, based on Egyptian hieroglyphics, and was spread globally by an intelligent sea-faring culture at least 4 millennia ago.

What follows is a brief history of the language, including the important contributions made by Harris and Hoane, and which has been copied from an old web site that was accessible just prior to the death of James Harris.

The author spoke with Harris many times and developed a computer program to help translate the symbols in to English (see translation program) using JavaScript and Explorer.

The History of the First Tongue: Prior to Viewzone (1905 to 1998) Sir William Flinders Petrie (1905) Up to the beginning of this century, the Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone, a royal inscription of a king of Moab named Mesha, ca. 850 BCE) was the earliest known alphabetic inscription. Speculation on the origin of West Semitic alphabets was based largely on the Bible, or traditional attempts to reconstruct the past.

In the winter of 1904-1905 Sir Wm. Flinders Petrie discovered the inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim that became known as Proto-Sinaitic. Petrie reached the conclusion that the inscriptions were alphabetic but made no attempt to identify any related offshoots. An exhibition catalogue was published in 1905 and an expedition report in 1906.

http://www.viewzone.com/111.jpg

Sir Alan Gardiner (1916)

A major breakthrough came with the decipherment of the word b'lt, (B'alat) by Sir Alan Gardiner in 1916. Gardiner concluded that the Sinaitic signs were created by reforming Egyptian Hieroglyphic signs based upon their acrophonic value. His reasoning has been found to be sound and his work continues to be the foundation upon which progress advances to the present. His early decipherment's are called the B'alat inscriptions (b`lt).

http://www.viewzone.com/222.jpg

C. Hubert Grimme and A. Van den Branden (1929's)

Hubert Grimme stood alone, with modest support from Van den Brenden, in postulating the existence of a pre-Thamudic alphabet, and rejected the notion that Thamudic scripts evolved from the South Arabic script. He was never able to find such a script (possibly because he looked for it in the wrong desert). Had he looked closer to the birthplace of West Semitic scripts he may have recognized "Old Thamudic" (Old Negev) which was the most probable parent of the Arabian scripts. While Grimme's translations may have some serious defects [the same can be said of all translations before and since his time] his sign lists showing the correspondence of Proto-Sinaitic &Proto-Canaanite to Egyptian Hieroglyphic signs is very helpful and was as well done as any others of more recent vintage.

http://www.viewzone.com/444.jpg

II. The Harvard Expeditions (1927 and 1930)

In 1927 a Harvard University Expedition in the Sinai made a side trip upon their return from Santa Catherina through Serabit el-Khadim.

They removed some inscriptions left by Petrie and delivered them to the Cairo Museum. They also increased the corpus of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions by three (Lake, Blake, and Butin 1928).

1930-35

The above effort was a prelude to a much more ambitious and well planned under-taking by Harvard University. From 1930 to 1935 Harvard and the Catholic University of America worked at Serabit el-Khadim and uncovered ten more inscriptions from the area (Butin, New, Lake and Barrois 1932; and Butin, and Starr 1936).

http://www.viewzone.com/555.jpg

Decades of the 20th Century When Research Lagged

It seems possible that during the decades of the thirties through the fifties West Semitic scholars accepted earlier reconstruction's of alphabetic origins as solid facts and assumed that all essential questions had been adequately answered. In the era of this mind set Winnett, of the University of Toronto, attempted to translate what he called, "Thamudic of the Negev."

Scripts of Pre-Dialects: Fredrich V. Winnett & Emmanuel Anati (1959)

Winnett was a tireless researcher of the nine or ten pre-Arabic scripts of the Arabian Desert, among which he spent a major part of his professional life. He also attempted to reconstruct the emergence, and identify some relationships, between these alphabets. No doubt his work with pre-Arabic scripts was excellent but his brief exposure to Old Negev resulted in his participation in perpetuating the error that the Negev inscriptions were graffiti left by post Thamudic vagabonds. The extensive research and study of J. R. Harris & D. W Hone has led to a more probable and substantial conclusion, i.e. that the Negev inscriptions are Post Proto-Canaanite and the major parent script of the pre-Arabic Thamudic scripts.

In 1959 Winnett published an article in Atiqot, Vol. 2, pp. 146-149 titled, "Thamudic Inscriptions from the Negev." The four pages of this article contained fourteen inscriptions, one of which he pronounced "Illegible" (No. 10393), two of the remaining thirteen were composed of three and four lines respectively and the remaining ten were one liners. The introduction paragraph contained the following information:

http://www.viewzone.com/666.jpg

The following graffiti (fig. 1. pl. XXII), which Mr. E. Anati has very kindly allowed me to study, are all of the type which in my study of the Lihyanite and Thamudic Inscriptions, Toronto, 1937, I labeled Thamudic C and dated to the 1st or 2nd centuries C.E. (p. 52). They may be as late as the 3rd century (see A. VAN DEN BRANDEN, Les inscriptions thamudeennes, Louvain, 1950, p. 24), but in the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to be more definite (Winnett, 1959, p. 146). No doubt the above collection was gathered by Emmanuel Anati in April of 1954 & January of 1955 and was the bases for his articles in P.E.Q. of July/Dec. 1954, "Ancient Rock Drawings in the Central Negev," pp. 49-57. Jan/June 1956, titled, "Rock Engravings From the Jebel Ideid (Southern Negev)."

The above site (Jebel Ideid) is now called Har Karkom (of which more will be said later). Anati called the inscriptions Thamudic-Nabatean, style IV2, and Winnett called them Thamudic C. 1st to 3rd Cent C.E.. More resent research has made it clear that neither of the above two men had a clear perception of the nature and origin of the script in question.

The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment: Wm. Foxwell Albright (1966)

Albright's publication was a major step forward in that it included transliterations and translations of all of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions identified up to that point in time. We have some reservations with Albright's translations because it is now possible to recognize ligatures and consequently assign them the several sound values they represent (rather than viewing them as single signs with an elaborate flourish). Also no-one (in that period) recognized the clues that signal a word break, but each translator was left to arbitrarily decide where these breaks should be made.

Research Revival: Proto-Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite & Old Negev: Itzhaq Beit-Arieh (Ophir Expedition 1982)

http://www.viewzone.com/777.jpg

Beit-Arieh BAR, Winter, 1982 p. 13.

Beit-Arieh BAR, Winter, 1982 p. 16

Beit-Arieh was a Senior Research Associate and Lecturer of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. Since 1971 he has been the director of the Ophir Expedition in the Sinai Peninsula. His work at Mine L, in the Serabit el-Khadim area was of great importance in establishing 1500 BCE (the cave-in date for Mine L.) as a time when there was a reasonably mature alphabet, reinforcing the probability that Proto-Sinaitic began to emerge about 1700 BCE.

Early on, the Ophir Expedition became an extension of the 1927 to 1935 Harvard expedition, not because Harvard had joined them but because they could see that they had a possibility of successfully dating the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions (which had been a major objective of the Harvard project). Mine L, had not been excavated by Harvard because cracks in the over head made them fear a cave-in if debris was removed. After appropriate precautions had been made the Ophir crew began a three week task of removing debris (1977). Each stone, large or small, "was carefully examined twice before being discarded" (Beit-Arieh, BA, Winter, 1981, pp. 14-15).

One of the early stones with an inscription carried the name El (God) and may well be the earliest West Semitic inscription of the divine name. Other appearances of this special name were also found. A concluding statement by Beit-Arieh will help to highlight the significance of his work. He wrote:

The dating of the above finds is a key issue in the present study, because only archaeological evidence of this kind can bring us closer to solving the problem of the period of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. Since Mine L contained another inscription besides the one carved on the rock inside it, we may assume that all the finds are contemporaneous and were buried at the end of a single mining season. Weighty evidence for dating the find to the Late Bronze Age (the New Kingdom in Egypt) is a sherd from a bichrome flask found in the mine. The sherd is burnished and decorated with black and brown stripes on a light ground and belongs to a class of pottery ubiquitous in the Near East in the Late Bronze Age between the 16th and 14th centuries BC. Parallels for axes occur in occupation levels and tombs from the time of the New Kingdom in some places in Egypt, as well as on wall paintings depicting their use. . . The ax was probably the symbol of the miners. . . The many finds of the Late Bronze Age discovered during the clearing of Mine L. together with the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions discussed here strongly suggest that the mine was worked and the inscriptions carved in this period [LBA](Beit-Arieh, 1981, pp. 17-18).

Beit-Arieh BAR, (Winter, 1982)

Benjamin Sass (West Semitic Alphabets)

In 1988 a very important doctoral dissertation was completed at Tel Aviv University, by Benjamin Sass titled, The Genesis of the Alphabet and its Development in the Second Millennium BC, Agypten Und Altes Testament, Band 13, in Kommission bei Otto Harrassowitz, Weisbaden. Sass had been a student of Beit-Arieh and spent considerable time in the Sinai as a deputy officer of the Israeli Antiquities Department.

Much of this current, brief scan of important events in the unfolding history of the emergence of West Semitic alphabets is based on the Sass dissertation. While working in the Sinai, Sass expanded the corpus of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions and also carefully verified several very important inscriptions. The final impact of his work was best stated in his 7th and last chapter, page 161, as follows:

The origin of the Phoenician letters [and even more so the Old Negev letters] in the Proto-Canaanite and Proto-Sinaitic scripts, and the borrowing of most, if not all, letter forms in the latter script from Egyptian hieroglyphics on the basis of acrophony are now seen as indubitable facts (cf. Snyczer 1974, 9).

http://www.viewzone.com/122.jpg

(Sass 78 fig. 10) 304. Sinai 380 (Sass 93. Sinai 376 (Gerster 1961, 65 lower)

http://www.viewzone.com/133.jpg

inai 376 (Rainey 1975, fig. 1) Sinai 380 1978 fig. 10).

The bracketed insertion in the paragraph above was justified by the research of Harris and Hone in which they discovered that twenty one of twenty-two Canaanite/Phoenician sound signs are clearly of archaic origin; i.e., they retain a clear correspondence to Proto-Canaanite and Proto-Sinaitic.

Out of a shorter list of twenty Old Negev sound signs positions, forty-two are archaic. The number forty-two is possible because each of the twenty Old Negev sound positions may have several abstract alternative signs and several alternative archaic signs. The above short sign lists were used because their study was confined to signs found in the inscription of the Land of Canaan, the Negev and the Sinai that were included in their research. Old Negev has a stronger link to Proto-Canaanite and Proto-Sinaitic than does Canaanite Phoenician.

http://www.viewzone.com/144.jpg

Sinai 357 (Beit-Arieh 1978, fig. 6 with modifications by B. Sass) Sinai 357 (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology Tel Aviv University) obtained by B. Sass 1988 Sinai 357 (courtesy of Prof. I. Beit-Arieh, Institute if Archaeology, Tel Aviv University) obtained by B. Sass 1988) 62. Sinai 357 Butin 1936, pl. 16).

Sass and Beit-Arieh carefully made an on-site verification of the several renditions made by earlier scholars of Sinai 357. As a result Harris and Hone proceeded with confidence to observe in this inscription one of the earliest uses of identifying word breaks by changing the size or shape of a letter (in the column letters #'s 12-13). The phrase involved reads,= "for 'Avev."

Linder, M. Halloun & M. Sharon (Ancient Rock Inscriptions 1990)

In 1990 the Archaeological Survey of Israel, project of the Israel Antiquities Authority, under the direction of Yeshua`yahu Lender, published a two volume series on the findings of their survey. The first Volume was titled, Map of Har Nafha (196), and Vol. 2, titled, ANCIENT ROCK INSCRIPTIONS, SUPPLEMENT TO MAP OF HAR NAFHA (196) 12-01, The so-called "Thamudic" inscriptions were translated by Dr. Moin Halloun. Although Halloun continued to refer to this collection of inscriptions as "Thamudic" and although he translated them as if they were a pre-Arabic dialect, he also expressed his reservation about the labeling and the dating of the inscriptions. He said:

If at one time it was assumed that inscriptions discovered in the Negev were but the traces of Thamudic tribes passing through the region, particularly along the main trade routes, this assemblage of inscriptions, as well as additional inscriptions, published and unpublished, now calls for a reevaluation of the subject.

Archaeological evidence from the first and second centuries (CE) - the presumed dates of the inscriptions - is insufficient to establish the history of settlement in the region, especially insofar as settlement and sedentarization is concerned. Comprehensive epigraphic research could contribute a great deal to this complex subject (Moin Halloun, 1990, Vol. 2, p. 36.).

Research of Harris and Hone, conducted from 1994 to April of 1997 focused on verifying some of Halloun's photographs and transliteration by an on-site examination. Their conclusion was that the inscriptions at Nahal `Avedat date to the period of the colonization of the Negev enacted by the Royal Kings of the House of Judah to secure safer trade lanes from the Gulf of Elath to the Mediterranean (six to eight hundred years before the dates suggested by Winnett).

Harris and Hone (aided by Jon & Cindy Polansky) now have a growing corpus of about 130 inscriptions from the Negev. From a careful examinations of the twenty two sound signs (each sign having from one to nine alternative forms) they have concluded that a large number of archaic forms are retained in use and that this "Old Negev" alphabet is the ancient parent of the Thamudic scripts.

James Harris & Dann Hone (Expanding the Old Negev Corpus)

Introduction:

> Observing the inadequate translations of Winnett, Harris was encouraged to begin with a careful study of the signs and the result was that the abundance of archaic letter forms and archaic construction and usage demanded that this script be considered an early post Proto-Canaanite script and not a pre-Arabic dialect script. As a post Proto-Canaanite script it was best translated in Hebrew (i.e. pre Massoretic Hebrew).

In the years that followed James R. Harris and Dann W Hone expanded their corpus of "Old Negev" inscriptions. They abandoned the misleading word "Thamudic" because Old Negev (1200 BCE) is the ancient parent of the Arabian Scripts, while Thamudic (pre-Christian) is a late offspring.

We have discovered a script in the Negev of Israel that appears to be a local variation of Proto-Canaanite [a generic formative script widely used among Canaanite peoples during the second millennium B.C.]. This local variation, which we call the Old Negev script, was widely used by Negev Canaanites (such as Kenites and Israelites) from 1200-600 BC. In the interest of not straining the strong indications from archaeology, inscriptions, and the Bible that the major carriers of this script were Midianites we call this script Old Negev and identify its carriers as ancient Canaanite people or peoples.

This Old Negev script not only has a distinctive sign system with features that go back to it's Proto-Sinaitic parent script but also a grammatical structure persisting from Proto-Sinaitic through Proto-Canaanite to Old Negev. These distinctive characteristics were not passed on to Canaanite/Phoenician or to Old Negev's offspring scripts of the Arabian desert. Therefore these features will become "ear marks" for the identification of this script where ever it may be found and must be clearly presented so that all may judge the certainty of our observations.

With a collection of over one hundred and thirty inscriptions this study has opened a small window to the early (pre-Exile) history of Canaanite peoples of the Negev. And since twenty-five percent of the inscriptions contain names of the God of Israel (Yah, El/Yah, Yahu, and Yahh) it seems fair to say that these Canaanite speakers had a covenant relationship with Yahweh.

The Shechem Plaque:

Proto-Canaanite:

Old Hebrew:

http://www.viewzone.com/335.jpg

The second letter from the right (above) is an intrusive abstract resh placed in the inscription at some later period, therefore we will simply ignore it. [From Benjamin Sass, (1988) pp. 56-57, translation by Harris and hone. ]

Some General Characteristics of Old Negev:

(Some General Characteristics of Old Negev that were not continued in Canaanite/Phoenician or in the pre-Arabic scripts of the Arabian Desert.)

1. Sign Rotation; the orientation of a sign can signal the reader that, when in horizontal position, it represents an inseparable preposition or an article.

2. When in an upside down position it represents the end of a word or phrase.

3. When a letter is larger or smaller than the preceding letters it indicates the end of a word or phrase.

4. The numbers 2 & 3 above also indicate the direction of language flow.

5. All West Semitic alphabets (emerging after Proto-Canaanite) utilize the abstracted forms but Old Negev retains in use a very large number of archaic forms (i.e. Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite forms).

6. Old Negev also retains an elaborate use of ligatures to create symbols that often complement or enhance the inscriptions. [This form of composition was especially useful when a population was a mix of literate persons and persons with varying levels of illiteracy.

title: User:Vuara/The first tongue


text:
User:Rs2~enwikibooks/Matlab

=This page is not complete=

Preface
2004, March 22nd

For better or for worse, Matlab has become part of modern engineering. For those who work with Matlab regularly, few things are as frustrating as knowing that Matlab can solve one's problem, but not knowing how. For this reason, I wanted to start a Matlab Wiki. Every time I need to figure out how to do something by myself or give up and e-mail Mathworks support, I have the desire to prevent others from repeating the process. A few dozen people collaborating on a Wiki could help each other a great deal. A few hundred people collaborating could write the definitive Matlab reference. Feel free to criticize me as wickedly as you like, just make sure that the effect of your edits are increases in the amount of information or in its clarity. My plan is to write an entry a day, starting with things that are undocumented or poorly documented on the internet. Hopefully you will join in.

--Rs2 05:41, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * I'm just starting out with this whole Wikibooks thing, and I'd like to contribute where I can. Hopefully soon I can contribute to the Matlab book-to-be, but until I dust off my cobwebs, I'm just going to start with some minor copy editing, such as changing all the interwiki links to the short form that doesn't generate the off-site image. Scott B

Introduction
From Wikipedia: (all links to Wikipedia) MATLAB is a computer program by MathWorks which allows one to easily manipulate matrices, plot functions and data, and implement algorithms in its own internal programming language. It runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux, and Unix and is widely used in the teaching of linear algebra and numerical analysis. The language was invented by Cleve Moler in the late 1970s.

Free software alternatives to MATLAB include GNU Octave and Scilab, which have an identical (or at least very similar) syntax. Another free alternative is Python in combination with libraries like Numeric Python and SciPy.

Controls
Gone are the days when engineers used drafting boards and pencils. In today's world, high speed computing replaces hand-drawn Bode, Nyquist, root locus, and Nichols plots as well as impulse and step responses with numerically generated ones.

source: wikimedia

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Rs2~enwikibooks/Matlab


text:
Discrete Mathematics/Recursion

In this section we will look at certain mathematical processes which deal with the fundamental property of recursion at its core.

What is Recursion?
Recursion, simply put, is the process of describing an action in terms of itself. This may seem a bit strange to understand, but once it "clicks" it can be an extremely powerful way of expressing certain ideas.

Let's look at some examples to make things clearer.

Exponents
When we calculate an exponent, say x3, we multiply x by itself three times. If we have x5, we multiply x by itself five times.

However, if we want a recursive definition of exponents, we need to define the action of taking exponents in terms of itself. So we note that x4 for example, is the same as x3 × x. But what is x3? x3 is the same as x2 × x. We can continue in this fashion up to x0=1. What can we say in general then? Recursively,
 * xn = x × (xn-1)

with the fact that
 * x0=1

We need the second fact because the definitions fail to make sense if we continue with negative exponents, and we would continue indefinitely!

Recursive definitions
Reducing the problem into same problem by smaller inputs. for example a power n            2 power 4 the recursion(smaller inputs) of this function is = <IP_ADDRESS>.1 for this we declare some recursive definitions a=2 n=4 f(0)=1 f(1)=2 f(2)=2 f(3)=2 f(4)=2 for this recursion we form a formula f(n)= a.f(n-1) by putting these smaller values we get the same answer.

Recurrence relations
In mathematics, we can create recursive functions, which depend on its previous values to create new ones. We often call these recurrence relations.

For example, we can have the function :f(x)=2f(x-1), with f(1)=1 If we calculate some of f ' s values, we get
 * 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ...

However, this sequence of numbers should look familiar to you! These values are the same as the function 2x, with x = 0, 1, and so on.

What we have done is found a non-recursive function with the same values as the recursive function. We call this solving also know as x'to sup with value 0 and so on.

Linear recurrence relations
We will look especially at a certain kind of recurrence relation, known as linear.

Here is an example of a linear recurrence relation:
 * f(x)=3f(x-1)+12f(x-2), with f(0)=1 and f(1)=1

Instead of writing f(x), we often use the notation an to represent a(n), but these notations are completely interchangeable.

Note that a linear recurrence relation should always have stopping cases, otherwise we would not be able to calculate f(2), for example, since what would f(1) be if we did not define it? These stopping cases when we talk about linear recurrence relations are known as initial conditions.

In general, a linear recurrence relation is in the form
 * an=A1an-1 + A2an-2 + ... +  Ajan-j
 * with f(t1)=u1, f(t2)=u2, ..., f(tj)=uj as initial conditions.

The number j is important, and it is known as the order of the linear recurrence relation. Note we always need at least j initial conditions for the recurrence relation to make sense.

Recall in the previous section we saw that we can find a nonrecursive function (a solution) that will take on the same values as the recurrence relation itself. Let's see how we can solve some linear recurrence relations - we can do so in a very systematic way, but we need to establish a few theorems first.

Sum of solutions
This theorem says that:
 * If f(n) and g(n) are both solutions to a linear recurrence relation an=Aan-1+Ban-2, their sum is a solution also.

This is true, since if we rearrange the recurrence to have an-Aan-1-Ban-2=0 And we know that f(n) and g(n) are solutions, so we have, on substituting into the recurrence
 * f(n)-Af(n-1)-Bf(n-2)=0
 * g(n)-Ag(n-1)-Bg(n-2)=0

If we substitute the sum f(n)+g(n) into the recurrence, we obtain
 * (f(n)+g(n))-A(f(n-1)+g(n-1))-B((f(n-2)+g(n-2))=0

On expanding out, we have
 * f(n)-Af(n-1)-Bf(n-2)+g(n)-Ag(n-1)-Bg(n-2)

But using the two facts we established first, this is the same as
 * 0+0=0

So f(n)+g(n) is indeed a solution to the recurrence.

General solution
The next theorem states that:
 * Say we have a second-order linear recurrence relation, an-Aan-1-Ban-2=0, with supplied initial conditions.

Then γrn is a solution to the recurrence, where r is a solution of the quadratic equation
 * x2-Ax-B=0

which we call the characteristic equation. We guess (it doesn't matter why, accept it for now) that γrn may be a solution. We can prove that this is a solution IF (and only if) it solves the characteristic equation ;

We substitute γrn (r not zero) into the recurrence to get
 * γrn-Aγrn-1-Bγrn-2=0

then factor out by γrn-2, the term farthest on the right
 * γrn-2(r2-Ar-B)=0

and we know that r isn't zero, so rn-2 can never be zero. So r2-Ar-B must be zero, and so γrn, with r a solution of r2-Ar-B=0, will indeed be a solution of the linear recurrence. Please note that we can easily generalize this fact to higher order linear recurrence relations.

 Where did this come from? Why does it work (beyond a rote proof)? Here's a more intuitive (but less mathematically rigorous) explanation.  Solving the characteristic equation finds a function that satisfies the linear recurrence relation, and conveniently doesn't require the summation of all n terms to find the nth one. We want : a function F(n) such that F(n) =  A * F(n-1) + B * F(n-2) We solve : x2 = A* x  + B, and call the solution(s) r. There can be more than one value of r, like in the example below! We get : a function F(n)  = rn  that satisfies F(n) = A * F(n-1) + B * F(n-2) Let's check: Does rn = A*rn-1 + B*rn-2 ? Divide both sides by rn-2 and you get r2 = A*r + B, which must be true because r is a solution to x2 = A* x + B

Why does γ*rn also satisfy the recurrence relation?

If F(n)=rn is a solution, that is, rn-A*rn-1-B*rn-2=0, then certainly F(n)=γrn is a solution since γrn-A*γrn-1-B*γrn-2=γ(rn-A*rn-1-B*rn-2)=0.

Because we have a second order recurrence, the general solution is the sum of two solutions, corresponding to the two roots of the characteristic equation. Say these are r and s. The general solution is C(rn)+D(sn) where C,D are some constants. We find them using the two (there must be two so that we can find C and D) starting values of the relation. Substituting these into the general solution will give two equations which we can (hopefully) solve.

Example
Let's work through an example to see how we can use the above theorems to solve linear recurrence relations. Examine the function a(n) given here
 * a(n)=a(n-1)+2a(n-2)

The characteristic equation of this recurrence relation is
 * r2-r-2 = 0 from above, as A=1 and B=2

i.e. (r-2)(r+1)=0 which has roots 2, -1.

So the general solution is C(2n)+D(-1)n.

To find C and D for this specific case, we need two starting values, let's say a(1) = 0 and a(2) = 2. These give a system of two equations 0 = C(21)+D(-1)1 2 = C(22)+D(-1)2  Solving these two equations yields: C = 1/3, D = 2/3, so the solution is 1/3*(2n)+2/3*(-1)n.

title: Discrete Mathematics/Recursion


text:
Russian Revolution/Week 7

History of events after October 1917
The Russian Civil War was fought from 1917 to 1921. It began immediately after the collapse of the Russian provisional government and the Bolshevik takeover of Petrograd, rapidly intensifying after Lenin's dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly and the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The main hostilities took place between Communist forces known as the Red Army and loosely allied anti-Communist forces known as the White Army, and the worst fighting took place from 1918 to 1920. The Communists won after four years of savage fighting, and established the Soviet Union in 1922.

Overview
Following the abdication of Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the turbulent Russian Revolution throughout 1917, a socialist-leaning Provisional Government was established. In October another revolution occurred in which the Red Guard, armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of St. Petersburg and began an immediate armed takeover of cities and villages throughout Russia. In January 1918, Lenin had the Constituent Assembly violently dissolved, proclaiming the Bolsheviks as the new government of Russia.

The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with Germany and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. This decision has also been attributed by historians to Vladimir Lenin's sponsorship by the foreign office of Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany, offered by the latter in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I.

A cease fire was immediately announced and peace talks began. As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease fire, following the policy of "No fighting, but no peace treaty".

In view of this, the Germans began an all out advance on the Eastern Front, encountering no resistance. Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, because the Russian army was demobilized and the newly formed Red Guard were incapable of stopping the advance. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on March 6, 1918.

In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian army had been demobilized and the volunteer based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military arm. In January, Trotsky headed its reorganization into the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army," in order to create a more professional fighting force. He instituted a forceful conscription program, frequently resorting to repressive tactics, and used former Tsarist officers as "military specialists".

The Bolsheviks banned all non-Bolshevik political activity around the same time, even other socialist groups, when it became clear that the Bolsheviks could not hold a majority of the seats in any democratically elected governing body outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow. This was particularly visible in the elections to the Constituent Assembly where Bolsheviks constituted a minority of the vote (despite Bolshevik supervision at major urban polling centers).

While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very next day after the Bolshevik coup, the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the political ban became a catalyst for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.

A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including republican, conservative, reactionary, pro-monarchist, liberal, non-Bolshevik socialists, and democratic reformist supporters, voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule. Their military forces became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army"), and they controlled significant parts of the former Russian empire for most of the war.

A Ukrainian nationalist movement known as the Green Army and an anarchist movement known as the Black Army played a much smaller part in the war, sometimes harrying both the Reds and the Whites, and sometimes even each other.

The Western Allies, upset at the withdrawal of Russia from the war effort, also expressed their dismay at the Bolsheviks. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". In addition, there was also a concern - shared by many countries in the Central Powers as well - that the socialist revolution would spread and so many expressed support for the Whites, occasionally provided troops and supplies.

The majority of the fighting ended in 1920 with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea, but a notable resistance in certain areas continued until 1922 (e.g, Kronstadt Uprising, Tambov Rebellion, and the final resistance of the White movement in the Far East).

The Soviet government held that the Bolshevik movement was an international workers' movement and not specifically Russian; therefore, Soviet historiography traditionally referred to the conflict as the "Civil War and Military Intervention of 1917-1922". This term also encompassed the Polish-Soviet War, resistance in Ukraine, as well as Basmachi resistance and foreign intervention in Central Asia in its definition.

Geography and Chronology
The war was fought across three main fronts; the eastern, the southern and the north-western. It can also be roughly split into three periods.

The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. First, in late November of 1917 the new Bolshevik government declared that traditional Cossack lands were now to be run by the state. This provoked a revolt in Don region headed by General Kaledin, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.

Most of the fighting in this first period was sporadic, involving only small groups amid a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic scene. Among the antagonists were the Czech-Slovaks, known simply as the Czech Legion or White Czechs (Белочехи, Byelochekhi), the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen (Красные латышские стрелки, Krasnye Latyshskiye strelki).

Lenin was surprised by the outbreak of civil war and initially underestimated the extent of the forces that rose against his new government.

The second period of the war was the key stage, which lasted from January to November of 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Denikin), the east (under Kolchak) and the northwest (under Yudenich) were successful, pushing back the new Red Army on all three fronts. But Leon Trotsky reformed the Red Army and pushed back Kolchak's forces (in June) and Denikin's and Yudenich's armies (in October). The fighting power of all the White armies was broken almost simultaneously in mid-November.

The final period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea. Wrangel had gathered the remnants of the armies of Denikin, and they had fortified their positions in the Crimea. They held these positions until the Red Army returned from Poland where they had been fighting the Polish-Soviet war. When the full force of the Red Army was turned on them the Whites were soon overwhelmed, and the remaining troops were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920.

While historiography generally considers the Russian Civil War to be over after the defeat of Wrangel's troops, organized military resistance continued up until the evacuation of General Diterikhs' troops in Vladivostok in October of 1922, after which the Soviet Union declared itself a state. Thereon after, military resistance to the Soviet government was not to resume on a massive scale until the emergence of the Russian Liberation Movement during World War II.

Course of events
The first attempt to seize the power from the Bolsheviks was made by the Kerensky-Krasnov uprising in October, 1917. It was supported by the Junker mutiny in Petrograd, but quickly put down by the Red Guards.

The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Prominent among them were Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks. In November, General Alekseev, the old Tsarist Commander-in-Chief, began to organize a Volunteer Army (Добровольческая Армия, Dobrovolcheskaya Armiya) in Novocherkassk. He was joined in December by Kornilov. These forces fought against the Bolshevik army all across the Ukraine. The Cossacks took Rostov in December 1917.

1918
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which pulled Russia out of the war and gave Germany control over vast stretches of western Russia, came as a nasty shock to the Allies. The British and the French had supported Russia on a massive scale with war materials and money. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. As a result the United Kingdom and France sent troops into Russian ports. There were violent confrontations with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks but little bloodshed.

It was not until the spring of 1918 that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionary Party joined the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. Initially they had been opposed to war with the Bolsheviks but the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the establishment of harsh dictatorial measures changed their position. They could have been a serious threat, as they had some popular support and the authority of their election victory on the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918; However, they needed an army. An early attempt by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to recruit Latvian troops in July 1918 was a failure. Fortunately, the Czech Legion proved to be a more reliable group to aid their "democratic counter-revolution".

The Czech Legion had been part of the Russian army and by October 1917 numbered around 30,000 men. Most were ex-prisoners of war and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. Encouraged by Tomáš Masaryk, the legion was renamed the Czecho-Slovak Army Corps and hoped to continue fighting the Germans. An agreement with the new Bolshevik government to pass by sea through Vladivostok (so they could unite with the Czechoslovak legions in France) collapsed over an attempt to disarm the Corps. Instead their soldiers disarmed the Bolshevik forces in June 1918 at Cheliabinsk. Within a month the Czech Legion controlled most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Lake Baikal to the Ural Mountains regions. By August they had extended their control even farther, taking over Ekaterinburg on July 26 1918.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasant fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czech Legion they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Комуч, Komuch). By July the authority of Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czech Legion. The Komuch implemented a socialist reform program but without the unpopular economic changes the Soviets were pursuing.

There were also conservative and nationalist "governments" being formed by the Bashkirs, the Kirghiz and the Tatars (see Idel-Ural State) as well as a Siberian Regional Government in Omsk. In September 1918 all the anti-Soviet governments met in Ufa and agreed to form a new Russian Provisional Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: three Socialist-Revolutionaries (Avksentiev, Boldyrev and Zenzinov) and two Kadets, (V. A. Vinogradov and P. V. Vologodskii).

However, the new government quickly came under the influence the new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Kolchak. On November 18 a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak was proclaimed "Supreme Ruler of Russia". Kolchak was apolitical and not involved in the coup. He proved to be ineffective as both a political and military leader (his training was all in naval warfare). He also did not get along with the leaders of Czech Legion, the strongest military force in the area.

To the Soviets the emergence of Admiral Kolchak was a political victory because it confirmed their opponents as anti-democratic reactionaries. Following a reorganization of the People's Army, Kolchak's forces captured Perm and Ufa in December of 1918. But this was to be the high water-mark for his army.

In July two Socialist-Revolutionaries; Blyumkin and Andreyev; assassinated the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, in an attempt to provoke the Germans into renewing hostilities. Other Socialist-Revolutionaries attempted to rouse Red Army troops against the regime. The Soviets managed to put down these local uprisings, and Lenin personally apologized to the Germans for the assassination. There were mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Following two further terrorist acts on August 30—the assassination of the Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, and the wounding of Lenin—the "Red Terror" was unleashed in response. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were expelled from the Soviets and anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activity could be imprisoned or executed without trial.

1919
The stage was now set for the key year of the Civil War. The Bolshevik government was firmly in control of the core of Russia, from Petrograd through Moscow and south to Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd). Against this government in the east, Admiral Kolchak had a small army and had some control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In the south Cossacks armies controlled much of the Don and the Ukraine. In the Caucasus, General Denikin had established an army. In the newly independent country of Estonia General Yudenich was organizing an army. Estonia was overtly hostile to the Bolsheviks and had been fighting with them since November 1918 (see Estonian War of Independence for details). The French occupied Odessa. The British occupied Murmansk. The British and Americans occupied Arkhangelsk and the Japanese occupied Vladivostok.

Trotsky ordered the Bolshevik army to recapture Ukraine first. This they did in a quick campaign in the winter-spring of 1919. The Cossacks had been unable to organize and capitalize on their successes at the end of 1917. Consequently, when the Soviet counter-offensive began in January 1919—under the Bolshevik leader Antonov-Ovseenko—the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on February 3 1919 and ten days later, with his army in chaos, General Kaledin committed suicide. Rostov was captured in March 1918. The Cossack Volunteer Army was evacuated to the Kuban, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Ekaterinodar. General Kornilov was killed in the fighting on April 13, Operational command passed to General Denikin who spent the next few months rebuilding his Cossack army. In October, General Alekseev died of a heart attack and General Denikin was (in theory at least) now the top political leader for the White armies in Southern Russia.

With Bolshevik forces seemingly triumphant in Ukraine, the French, having done almost no fighting, withdrew their troops from Odessa on April 8 1919.

While the war was going on in Ukraine, Trotsky sent another army against Kolchak's forces. This army, lead by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, recaptured Ekaterinburg on January 27 1919 and continued to push along the Trans-Siberian railroad. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red army was larger than the White army and was winning back lands it had lost earlier. The British and Americans pulled their troops out of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk before the onset of winter, having accomplished little. The Red Army captured Omsk on November 14 1919. Admiral Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after this defeat and in fact, the White army in Siberia essentially ceased to exist by December.

Even though the United Kingdom withdrew its troops, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition, and some military advisors) to the White armies during 1919, especially to General Yudenich. Without this support the White armies would likely have lost the war much earlier due to lack of weapons and food.

In the early summer, the Caucasus Army (now under operational command of General Wrangel) attacked north, trying to relieve the pressure on Kolchak's army or even link up with it. Wrangel's troops managed to capture Tsaritsyn on June 17 1919. Trotsky responded to this threat by sending Tukhachevsky with a new army against Wrangel's troops. The Caucasus army of Wrangel, faced with superior numbers, retreated south, leaving Tsaritsyn to the Bolsheviks.

Later in the summer, another Cossack force called the Don Army under the command of Cossack General Mamontov and attacked into Ukraine. The Red army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on September 2 1919. Mamontov's Don Army continued north towards Voronezh but there they were defeated by Tukhachevsky's army on October 24. Tukhachevsky's army then turned towards yet another threat, the rebuilt Volunteer Army, and destroyed that army at Orel in October. The Red Army recaptured Kiev on December 17 and the defeated Cossacks fled back towards the Black Sea.

While the White Armies were being defeated in the south, the center and the east, there was still one more threat to the Bolshevik government. This threat came from General Yudenich who had spent the spring and summer organizing a small army in Estonia, with British support. In October of 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well executed, with night attacks and maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red army. Yudenich also had six British tanks that caused panic whenever they appeared. By October 19 1919 Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of Petrograd. The Bolshevik leadership in Moscow was willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss and personally went to the city to organize the defenses. Trotsky did everything he could to defend the city including arming the industrial workers and ordering the transfer of military forces up from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich gave up his attack and withdrew his army back to Estonia. Upon his return to Estonia, his army was disarmed by order of the Estonian government. The Bolshevik forces that followed Yudenich were beaten back by the Estonian army. Following the Treaty of Tartu most of Yudenich's soldiers then went into exile.

These victories by the Bolsheviks over Mamontov's Cossack army at Voronezh, Yudenich at Petrograd, and Kolchak at Omsk—all in a one month period—transformed the war. Quite suddenly the Bolshevik government had triumphed over all its internal enemies; the job that remained now was mopping up.

1920
In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Semenov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long after this he was arrested by a dissident faction (which was probaly made up of nationalist Bashkirs ) as he traveled towards Irkutsk (historian Richard Pipes thinks the French military liaison was involved in this). Kolchak was turned over to the Red army in February 1920 and executed two weeks later (likely on Lenin's order). Fighting in Siberia continued for the next year as armed gangs—essentially bandits—roamed the land. Semenov and his tattered band of Cossacks ultimately retreated into China.

The Czech Legion had no real interest in fighting in the Russian Civil War. They wanted to fight the German army, but with the end of World War I, that desire died. Uninspired by Kolchak (and not, in turn, trusted by him) they spent most of 1919 moving their troops east and having them shipped, boat by boat, back to Europe. They were aided in this effort by American military units, under the command of General William S. Graves, who took control over the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Czech Legion managed to evacuate all their forces out from Vladivostok (as had been their original plan in 1918). They were gone by April 1920 which is when the American troops also left Siberia.

Most of the White Armies were evacuated by British ships during the winter-spring of 1920. General Wrangel was the only holdout; his army remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout the summer of 1920. Then, trying to take advantage of the Red Army defeat in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, General Wrangel attacked north. This offensive was rapidly halted by the Red Army and his troops were forced to retreat back to the Crimea in November 1920. He was evacuated by the British out of the Crimea on November 14 1920 amidst horrific scenes of desperation and cruelty. Tens of thousands of Russians tried to escape from the Red army but were unable to find transport on the British ships.

The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur region of Eastern Siberia, finally pulled their troops out in October of 1922 as the Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over all of Siberia. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.

Explanations for the Red victory
The Reds held the central, industrial area, which gave them control over railways and the production of amunitions. They also controlled a huge population base from which they could conscript large armies (which they did starting in 1919). The Reds were united in the face of a common enemy, they feared the Tsar’s return, and they made use of the fear of invasion and newfound patriotism in the people. They relied on no one else, which made it easier to coordinate defense. The peasants feared the Tsar’s return and that of the landlords. They were worried that they would lose their land.

The core area which the Bolsheviks controlled was the most populous area of Russia and, when the decisive battles took place at the end of 1919, they had more than 3,000,000 men under arms. By the end of the Civil war in 1921 they had 5,000,000 men in their army. More than 75,000 ex-Tsarist officers served in the Red army. Compared to this, the strength of the White armies never exceeded 250,000 men. The core area which the Bolsheviks controlled contained the main industrial regions and almost all of the weapons of the Czarist army. They had the advantage of inner and better lines of communications, in particular railway lines. This allowed soldiers to be transported quickly to battlefields, and sufficient supplies to reach them. These inner lines of communication allowed Trotsky to shift Tukhachevsky and some of his best troops from the east - where they were fighting against Kolchak's army - to the south - where they fought against Wrangel's army at Tsaritsyn; all in the summer of 1919.

Leon Trotsky turned out to be an effective leader and organizer; he was also a brilliant speaker. He was appointed as Commissar for War in 1918 after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. From a core of Red Guards, which had been armed by the Provisional Government during the Kornilov Revolt, Trotsky built up the Red Army through conscription. Traveling on his legendary train, he boosted the Red Army's morale. He also re-introduced strict discipline (after a short period of "equality" under Soviet Order No. 1). Deserters were shot, and political commissars, committed Bolsheviks, were placed in the ranks to ensure loyalty. Trotsky was personally responsible for ending the panic in Petrograd and turning back Yudenich's army. However, Trotsky was not usually responsible for the local conduct of the military operations, which remained in the capable hands of energetic men like Tukhachevsky.

Weaknesses of the Whites
Victory for the Bolsheviks was partially due to the weaknesses of the Whites. The Whites consisted of a coalition of many different diverse groups, all with different ideologies and objectives. Many peasants didn’t support the Whites and tried to maintain neutrality. The peasants were worried that a White victory could restore their land to the former land owners. While some White factions supported radical change and land reform, such as General Pyotr Wrangel's land reform, most Whites did not want to get involved in the land question and some were content giving the land back to its original owners, at least until another political solution was decided.

Admiral Kolchak was a capable naval officer but was not politically educated and had no prior experience in commanding a land based army. His tensions with certain commanders of the Czech Legion, the strongest and best organized military force in Siberia, caused difficulties. He had also been unable to gain the support of top Allied powers (Britain, France, or the United States). No Allied government recognized Kolchak's government as legitimate, partly owing to the Allies' uncertainty in the future of Kolchak's government (many socialists sought to replace him). Other reasons for not recognizing Kolchaks government include dislike of the Kolchaks autocratic rule and fear of a new united Russian empire with colonial interests.

The Whites were unable to gain support from three powers that had an interest in the conflict: Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States. While the Bolsheviks were quite willing to recognize the independence of these new countries (the Bolsheviks thought that all countries would soon cease to exist as Communism would dissolve national boundaries), the Whites were hesitant in deciding the question outside of the yet to be convened Constituent Assembly. As a result, General Yudenich was unable to get military support from Estonia or Finland for his attack on Petrograd. The Polish government lead by Yusuf Pilsudski, chose instead to ally with the Ukrainian government lead by Symon Petlura, whose territory had been invaded by the whites.

The Whites suffered because of their strategic position, which was scattered throughout the country, while the Bolsheviks were centralized. It was difficult too for Whites to communicate, much less coordinate attacks. There were also disputes over politics and military tactics. Some of the White generals (such as Semenov) became known for torture, rape and murder of civilians, which gave them many enemies. .

Aftermath
...it [is] possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia a rival of the United States. At the end of the Civil War, Soviet Russia was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921 and the 1921 famine worsened the disaster. The war had taken an estimated 15 million lives, including at least one million soldiers of the Russian Red Army who died in battle. Fifty thousand Russian Communists were killed by the counter-revolutionary Whites. Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, epidemics, wholesale massacres by both sides, and even pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. The economic loss to Soviet Russia was 50 billion rubles, or 35 billion in current U.S. Dollars. The industrial production value descended to 4-20% of the value of 1913.

Another million people, known as the White emigres, fled Russia - many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East, others fled west into the newly independent Baltic countries in order to escape the ravages of the war, the famine, or the rule of either warring faction. These émigrés included a large part of the educated and skilled population.

War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. Private industry and trade was proscribed, and the newly established (and barely stable) state was unable to run the economy on a sufficient scale. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20 % of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5 %, and iron to 2 % of pre-war levels.

The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62 % of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37 % of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate of the U.S. dollar declined from two rubles in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.

Although Russia eventually recovered and even experienced extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War One and the Civil War left a lasting scar in Russian society, and had permanent effects on the later history of the Soviet Union.

Many socialist theorists, particularly those in the Trotskyist tradition, cite the combined devastation of these two experiences as the basis for Stalin's rise to power and the reason for the dissolution of the workers' state established by Lenin and the original Bolsheviks. They argue that the proletariat had been crippled by both massive physical death and the destruction of class consciousness. What is more, they strongly emphasize the ruinous state that Russian economy was in after years of national conflict. They claim that the ascendency of Stalinism took root in the shambles of the country's socioeconomic system.

Questions
Week 7 Questions

title: Russian Revolution/Week 7


text:
Agama sankaranica

Agama sankaranica, also known as the Senegal agama, is a species of agamid lizard. It has a wide geographical distribution across West Africa, possibly reaching Cameroon in Central Africa. It is called mbuwo in the Mwaghavul language of Nigeria.

title: Agama sankaranica


text:
Orange peel (effect)

Orange peel is a certain kind of finish that may develop on painted and cast surfaces. The texture resembles the surface of the skin of an orange, hence the name "orange peel".

Gloss paint sprayed on a smooth surface (such as the body of a car) should also dry into a smooth surface. However, various factors can cause it to dry into a bumpy surface. This is typically the result of improper painting technique, and is caused by the quick evaporation of thinner, incorrect spray gun setup (e.g., low air pressure or incorrect nozzle), spraying the paint at an angle other than perpendicular, or applying excessive paint.

Such a texture can be smoothed out with ultra-fine sandpaper, but it can be prevented altogether by changing the painting technique or the materials used.

In some situations, such as interior house paint, the orange peel texture is desirable. In this case, a texture paint is generally applied with a spray gun. The texture is then painted over with the appropriate color. When painting walls, orange peel can also develop by using a roller with too little paint or too thick a paint and the surface dries before the texture can level.

title: Orange peel (effect)


text:
bizzarro

Etymology
it, but probably related to, which could be of origin. See for more.

Adjective

 * 1) odd, queer, eccentric, bizarre, weird
 * 2) frisky (horse)

title: bizzarro


text:
Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2007-10/User:RJFJR for admin

RJFJR for admin

 * Nomination: I hereby nominate as a local English Wiktionary Administrator. He's been around here for a while now, made a lot of good contributions, and contributed in an upbeat and helpful fashion to a lot of discussions. —Ruakh TALK 03:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Vote ends: 3 November 2007 23:59 UTC
 * Vote started: 20 October 2007 23:59 UTC

 * Acceptance:
 * Languages: en
 * Timezone: UTC-5 (UTC-4 during Daylight savings)
 * I accept (with appropriate humility, I hope) RJFJR 13:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support (Conditional on formal acceptance, addition of Babel templates to user-page, etc.) —Ruakh TALK 03:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Don't be ridiculous, he's been an admin for years. What? He hasn't? Support! (upon acceptance of nomination, of course). bd2412 T 04:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support DAVilla 04:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC) Any palindrome who can welcome himself has my vote.
 * 4) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Connel MacKenzie 05:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC) He's not already?  Wow.  I too, thought he's been a sysop (here) forever.  --Connel MacKenzie 05:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Dvortygirl 05:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC) Obviously! And what do you mean we have to wait for acceptance?
 * We must have a guideline somewhere that suggests waiting for acceptance (and for the vote to start!) I guess we're not too good at following silly rules, sometimes.  (I hope I didn't just violate a guideline that I wrote!)  --Connel MacKenzie 22:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Cynewulf 16:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC) Whaddya mean he's not an admin?! We must correct this grave oversight immediately!
 * 2) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Williamsayers79 11:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Tohru 13:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support —Stephen 16:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 5) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Widsith 16:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 6) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Neskaya talk 17:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 7) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Jyril 18:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 8) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support EncycloPetey 01:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 9) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Robert Ullmann 14:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 10) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Medellia 11:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 11) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support — Beobach972 03:44, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 12) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support H. (talk) 18:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 13) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Jeffqyzt 16:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 14) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Rod (A. Smith) 19:15, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 15) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support —SaltmarshTalk 08:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 16) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Jonathan Webley 18:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 17) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support —Celestianpower háblame 20:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Decision

 * With 21 votes in favor and none opposed or abstaining, this vote passes; adminship will be granted as soon as we flag down a bureaucrat. —Ruakh TALK 02:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Now made sysop. SemperBlotto 08:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


text:
Bollons' rattail

Bollons' rattail, Coelorinchus bollonsi, is a species of rattail found along the east coast of New Zealand at depths of between 300 and 800 m. Its length is between 10 and 25 cm.

title: Bollons' rattail


text:
User:Robert Elliott

{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0em 0em 1em 0em; width:100%" The "About Me" Page for Robert Elliott
 * colspan="2" style="width:100%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid Sienna; background-color:White;" |

{| border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=15|| style="width:700px"

Filmmaking Instructor
Robert Elliott is the instructor for the Filmmaking courses at Wikiversity.

 * }

 * }

{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0em 0em 1em 0em; width:100%" Filmmaking
 * style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid Gold; background-color: LightYellow;" rowspan="2"|

Filmmaking

 * The subject of "filmmaking" is more than creating a motion picture or television drama. Narrative filmmaking is the most efficient way to communicate ideas.

 * Everyone is fascinated by motion pictures. Therefore, use motion pictures to communicate your ideas.

 * Through these courses, you learn the technology of filmmaking so you will understand how to convey more information in a shorter amount of time.

Free lessons

 * The lessons in this course are free. Most of the lessons in these courses use FREE software.  Therefore, you can learn all about filmmaking at home for free.

 * style="padding:0em 0.5em 0em 0.5em;" |

Contact your instructor
 * style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid #abd5f5; background-color:#f1f5fc;" |

 * @undefined to send me an email [[Image:Crystal Clear app xfmail.png|24px]]

 * Send me an email directly to r_elliott -at- innercite.com.

 * You can leave a message on my discussion page however email is usually faster.
 * style="padding:0em 0.5em 0em 0.5em;" |
 * style="padding:0em 0.5em 0em 0.5em;" |

How to upload your assignment
 * style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid #abd5f5; background-color:#f1f5fc;" |

 * If you know how, you can upload your assignments yourself.

 * Or you can send me an email directly to r_elliott -at- innercite.com and attach the assignment to the email.
 * }

{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0em 0em 1em 0em; width:100%" Film scoring course information
 * colspan="2" style="width:100%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid Sienna; background-color:Cornsilk;" |

Why I teach the film scoring course

 * My background is in filmmaking and film editing (as well as civil engineering, computer science, and printing technology with minors in accounting and enology.)

 * I do not have a musical background. But I have been forced to learn.

 * When I needed music for a dramatic movie, I naturally searched out the most talent musicians I could find.

 * Over the last 20 years, I discovered two things about musicians :

 * 1. Good  news :  Musicians are extremely gifted.  They are a thousand time better at creating music than I am.

 * 2. Bad  news :  Musicians do not understand film scoring.  This is because schools don't teach practical film scoring for musicians.  Therefore, I can never use their music... no matter how wonderful it is.

 * So when I could not find a musician who understands the purpose of film scoring, my next step was to learn to do film scoring myself. My music still sounds dreadful but now I know what is needed.

 * I also learned that filmmakers and film editors are unable to communicate what they need. Therefore, musicians cannot rely on filmmakers and film editors to help them plan the score.  It is a mess!

This course

 * That is why I now offer a very simple course film scoring course for free. I want to explain to musicians what filmmakers like me need from them.

 * I promise to make the film scoring for musicians lessons as quick and as painless as possible.

 * }

{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="margin:0em 0em 1em 0em; width:100%" Film editing course information
 * colspan="2" style="width:100%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid Sienna; background-color:Cornsilk;" |

Why I teach the film editing course

 * I am developing a new product on spec for a large computer located in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 * In this course, you get to work on actual television dramas. There is no better way to learn film editing.

 * Note :
 * Most of the scenes require a musical score. That is one reason I offer the film scoring course.

 * }

title: User:Robert Elliott


text:
User:SamE

I am not an active user anymore. Feel free to change any articles that I have created or edited significantly. I'm currently (as of February 2007) a junior at Poudre High School and so over my head with many other activities that I no longer have the time that I had back in 8th grade to create and maintain books on this site. Maybe that will change some day. But for now, I will not be able to spend time working on this site.

When I was active, back in 2004-2005, I was most noted for my work on the German Wikibook. I proposed and created the first few lessons for German: Level I, but that was it. Coming back three years later, I find that there still isn't much more than what I put into it, so it would be great if someone could devote a little more than just administrative effort to the book.

I also did create a couple video game guides due to my interests at the time. However, those "books" became little more than introductions, and I have moved on from many of those games anyway. Again, feel free to edit or delete anything I have written on those pages.

Below is a copy of what information I had on my user page when I was active on this site.

Farewell, enjoy what I created, and improve on it. After all, that's what Wikibooks is all about.

What my user page looked like back in 2004-2005
I joined Wikibooks (after Wikipedia) on February 5th, 2004. If you want to send me a message see my Talk page.

I'm also SamE at Wikipedia and Meta, but I'm one of the few who spend more time here at Wikibooks than at either of those.

I'm also User:<IP_ADDRESS> if I'm not logged on.

Wikibooks I'm Editing
I am currently working on the German book, specifically German: Level I. I have done most of the editing there; see the history for German:Beginner Lesson 2 for example.

I've worked on the Chip's Challenge game walkthrough, but my computer crashed and I lost the game.

I am also helping write the Civilization walkthrough, as I play Civilization III.

I'm working on the Super Mario World and Phoenix game guides, but they are currently very bad.

Towards the end of 2004, I did a lot to improve the Main Page in various ways. I've also written Help:How to start a book, which newbies seem to be using (they're following the directions in the order they are on the page).

I like to look into a book (US History for example) and start reading it, and of course, there are errors. Most of the time I will correct those errors.

Over the summer I hope to be editing more and more often.

2004
I created German: Level I on March 6th, and Game Guides and Strategy on March 27th.

I created Super Mario World on April 11th, and Phoenix on May 12th.

Copypastes
Ä ä

Ö ö

Ü ü

ß

Colored Text:

(For font color, replace '#FFFFFF' with color name/number)

title: User:SamE


text:
Talk:Addictive TV

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Addictive TV. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080503042526/http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/officially-cool/officially-cool-iron-man-trailer-re-mixed.php to http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/officially-cool/officially-cool-iron-man-trailer-re-mixed.php

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:16, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Addictive TV


text:
User:Jeebesh

Dear Jeebesh,

"So, who is this user then? Sounds more like a creative producer than a normal user..."

The above question is distracting. It's better to remove it. What do you say?

title: User:Jeebesh


text:
Sunset (2018 film)

Sunset (Napszállta) is a 2018 Hungarian historical drama film co-written and directed by László Nemes. It is set in Budapest before World War I, starring newcomer Juli Jakab and Vlad Ivanov. It premiered at the 75th Venice International Film Festival and was also screened at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It was selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.

Plot
1913, Budapest, in the heart of Europe. The young Irisz Leiter arrives in the Hungarian capital with high hopes to work as a milliner at the legendary hat store that belonged to her late parents. She is nonetheless sent away by the new owner, Oszkár Brill. While preparations are under way at the Leiter hat store to host guests of uttermost importance, a man abruptly comes to Irisz looking for a certain Kálmán Leiter. Refusing to leave the city, the young woman follows Kálmán's tracks, her only link to a lost past. Her quest brings her through the dark streets of Budapest, where only the Leiter hat store shines, into the turmoil of a civilization on the eve of its downfall.

Development
The film received €5 million from the Hungarian National Film Fund and the project is produced by Gabor Sipos and Gabor Rajna through Laokoon Filmgroup. Sunset is being sold and co-produced by French outfit Films Distribution. The film is expected to get support also from Eurimages.

Casting
Juli Jakab, who plays the protagonist of the film, was chosen among more than 1,000 Hungarian actresses.

Filming
Shooting took place between 12 June and 2 September 2017 in Hungary.

Release
Sunset premiered in competition at the 75th Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2018. The film was released in Hungary on 27 September 2018.

Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on  reviews, with an average rating of. The site's critical consensus says, "Sunset (Napszállta) struggles to fill its runtime with consistently compelling drama, but uses one woman's experiences to convincingly capture a society at a crossroads." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 23 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades
At the Venice Film Festival, the film won the FIPRESCI Award.

title: Sunset (2018 film)


text:
Talk:Dennis Lehane

Works
As a general rule, an author's "Works" or "Bibliography" implies specific (by title) reference to published, or very soon to be published, material. Less specific info--"He has published several short stories" or "He is working on a novel about X"--belongs in the body of the article, I think. My two cents.--ShelfSkewed 05:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Dennis 'jumped the shark' with Mystic River and hasn't written anything, IMHO, worthwhile since then. Too bad, I really enjoyed his books before that, they were fun. I guess now he feels that he has to write something 'important'. Money isn't everything, Dennis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 20:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

This article is outside my normal circle of edits, so to speak, but I find the lead a bit troubling. His stories "featured a couple of protagonists?" Really? I am extremely busy right now, but if nobody beats me to it, I'll be back to fix that. Etamni | ✉ | ✓ 05:22, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Dennis Lehane. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071219203806/http://www.wga.org/subpage_newsevents.aspx?id=2653 to http://wga.org/subpage_newsevents.aspx?id=2653#TheWireHBO
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081212052838/http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=3410 to http://wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=3410

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:06, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 7 external links on Dennis Lehane. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070927150609/http://www.mysteryauthorsonline.com/lehane.html to http://www.mysteryauthorsonline.com/lehane.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071004201320/http://www.eckerd.edu/commencement/05/main.php?f=lehaneintro to http://www.eckerd.edu/commencement/05/main.php?f=lehaneintro
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110616132650/http://www.observer.com/2007/scorsese-dicaprio-team-shutter-island to http://www.observer.com/2007/scorsese-dicaprio-team-shutter-island
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110616132712/http://www.observer.com/2007/ruffalo-star-scorseses-island to http://www.observer.com/2007/ruffalo-star-scorseses-island
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.writing-life.com/fiction/interview.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071222083203/http://www.powells.com/authors/lehane.html to http://www.powells.com/authors/lehane.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060308155330/http://www.eckerd.edu/news/Maddux_Lehane.pdf to http://www.eckerd.edu/news/Maddux_Lehane.pdf

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:19, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dennis Lehane