Crystal growth

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_growth 

Schematic of a small part of a growing crystal. The crystal is of (blue) cubic particles on a simple cubic lattice. The top layer is incomplete, only ten of the sixteen lattice positions are occupied by particles. A particle in the fluid (shown with red edges) is joining the crystal, growing the crystal by one particle. It is joining the lattice at the point where its energy will be a minimum, which is in the corner of the incomplete top layer (on top of the particle shown with yellow edges). Its energy will be a minimum because in that position it has three neighbors (one below, one to its left and one above right) which it will interact with. All other positions on an incomplete crystal layer have only one or two neighbours.

A crystal is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. Crystal growth is a major stage of a crystallization process, and consists of the addition of new atoms, ions, or polymer strings into the characteristic arrangement of the crystalline lattice. The growth typically follows an initial stage of either homogeneous or heterogeneous (surface catalyzed) nucleation, unless a "seed" crystal, purposely added to start the growth, was already present.

The action of crystal growth yields a crystalline solid whose atoms or molecules are close packed, with fixed positions in space relative to each other. The crystalline state of matter is characterized by a distinct structural rigidity and very high resistance to deformation (i.e. changes of shape and/or volume). Most crystalline solids have high values both of Young's modulus and of the shear modulus of elasticity. This contrasts with most liquids or fluids, which have a low shear modulus, and typically exhibit the capacity for macroscopic viscous flow.

Overview

After successful formation of a stable nucleus, a growth stage ensues in which free particles (atoms or molecules) adsorb onto the nucleus and propagate its crystalline structure outwards from the nucleating site. This process is significantly faster than nucleation. The reason for such rapid growth is that real crystals contain dislocations and other defects, which act as a catalyst for the addition of particles to the existing crystalline structure. By contrast, perfect crystals (lacking defects) would grow exceedingly slowly. On the other hand, impurities can act as crystal growth inhibitors and can also modify crystal habit.

Nucleation

Main article: Nucleation

Silver crystal growing on a ceramic substrate.

Nucleation can be either homogeneous, without the influence of foreign particles, or heterogeneous, with the influence of foreign particles. Generally, heterogeneous nucleation takes place more quickly since the foreign particles act as a scaffold for the crystal to grow on, thus eliminating the necessity of creating a new surface and the incipient surface energy requirements.

Heterogeneous nucleation can take place by several methods. Some of the most typical are small inclusions, or cuts, in the container the crystal is being grown on. This includes scratches on the sides and bottom of glassware. A common practice in crystal growing is to add a foreign substance, such as a string or a rock, to the solution, thereby providing nucleation sites for facilitating crystal growth and reducing the time to fully crystallize.

The number of nucleating sites can also be controlled in this manner. If a brand-new piece of glassware or a plastic container is used, crystals may not form because the container surface is too smooth to allow heterogeneous nucleation. On the other hand, a badly scratched container will result in many lines of small crystals. To achieve a moderate number of medium-sized crystals, a container which has a few scratches works best. Likewise, adding small previously made crystals, or seed crystals, to a crystal growing project will provide nucleating sites to the solution. The addition of only one seed crystal should result in a larger single crystal.

Mechanisms of growth

An example of the cubic crystals typical of the rock-salt structure.

The interface between a crystal and its vapor can be molecularly sharp at temperatures well below the melting point. An ideal crystalline surface grows by the spreading of single layers, or equivalently, by the lateral advance of the growth steps bounding the layers. For perceptible growth rates, this mechanism requires a finite driving force (or degree of supercooling) in order to lower the nucleation barrier sufficiently for nucleation to occur by means of thermal fluctuations. In the theory of crystal growth from the melt, Burton and Cabrera have distinguished between two major mechanisms:

Non-uniform lateral growth

The surface advances by the lateral motion of steps which are one interplanar spacing in height (or some integral multiple thereof). An element of surface undergoes no change and does not advance normal to itself except during the passage of a step, and then it advances by the step height. It is useful to consider the step as the transition between two adjacent regions of a surface which are parallel to each other and thus identical in configuration—displaced from each other by an integral number of lattice planes. Note here the distinct possibility of a step in a diffuse surface, even though the step height would be much smaller than the thickness of the diffuse surface.

Uniform normal growth

The surface advances normal to itself without the necessity of a stepwise growth mechanism. This means that in the presence of a sufficient thermodynamic driving force, every element of surface is capable of a continuous change contributing to the advancement of the interface. For a sharp or discontinuous surface, this continuous change may be more or less uniform over large areas for each successive new layer. For a more diffuse surface, a continuous growth mechanism may require changes over several successive layers simultaneously.

Non-uniform lateral growth is a geometrical motion of steps—as opposed to motion of the entire surface normal to itself. Alternatively, uniform normal growth is based on the time sequence of an element of surface. In this mode, there is no motion or change except when a step passes via a continual change. The prediction of which mechanism will be operative under any set of given conditions is fundamental to the understanding of crystal growth. Two criteria have been used to make this prediction:

Whether or not the surface is diffuse: a diffuse surface is one in which the change from one phase to another is continuous, occurring over several atomic planes. This is in contrast to a sharp surface for which the major change in property (e.g. density or composition) is discontinuous, and is generally confined to a depth of one interplanar distance.

Whether or not the surface is singular: a singular surface is one in which the surface tension as a function of orientation has a pointed minimum. Growth of singular surfaces is known to requires steps, whereas it is generally held that non-singular surfaces can continuously advance normal to themselves.

Driving force

Consider next the necessary requirements for the appearance of lateral growth. It is evident that the lateral growth mechanism will be found when any area in the surface can reach a metastable equilibrium in the presence of a driving force. It will then tend to remain in such an equilibrium configuration until the passage of a step. Afterward, the configuration will be identical except that each part of the step but will have advanced by the step height. If the surface cannot reach equilibrium in the presence of a driving force, then it will continue to advance without waiting for the lateral motion of steps.

Thus, Cahn concluded that the distinguishing feature is the ability of the surface to reach an equilibrium state in the presence of the driving force. He also concluded that for every surface or interface in a crystalline medium, there exists a critical driving force, which, if exceeded, will enable the surface or interface to advance normal to itself, and, if not exceeded, will require the lateral growth mechanism.

Thus, for sufficiently large driving forces, the interface can move uniformly without the benefit of either a heterogeneous nucleation or screw dislocation mechanism. What constitutes a sufficiently large driving force depends upon the diffuseness of the interface, so that for extremely diffuse interfaces, this critical driving force will be so small that any measurable driving force will exceed it. Alternatively, for sharp interfaces, the critical driving force will be very large, and most growth will occur by the lateral step mechanism.

Note that in a typical solidification or crystallization process, the thermodynamic driving force is dictated by the degree of supercooling.

Morphology

Silver sulfide whiskers growing out of surface-mount resistors.

It is generally believed that the mechanical and other properties of the crystal are also pertinent to the subject matter, and that crystal morphology provides the missing link between growth kinetics and physical properties. The necessary thermodynamic apparatus was provided by Josiah Willard Gibbs' study of heterogeneous equilibrium. He provided a clear definition of surface energy, by which the concept of surface tension is made applicable to solids as well as liquids. He also appreciated that an anisotropic surface free energy implied a non-spherical equilibrium shape, which should be thermodynamically defined as the shape which minimizes the total surface free energy.

It may be instructional to note that whisker growth provides the link between the mechanical phenomenon of high strength in whiskers and the various growth mechanisms which are responsible for their fibrous morphologies. (Prior to the discovery of carbon nanotubes, single-crystal whiskers had the highest tensile strength of any materials known). Some mechanisms produce defect-free whiskers, while others may have single screw dislocations along the main axis of growth—producing high strength whiskers.

The mechanism behind whisker growth is not well understood, but seems to be encouraged by compressive mechanical stresses including mechanically induced stresses, stresses induced by diffusion of different elements, and thermally induced stresses. Metal whiskers differ from metallic dendrites in several respects. Dendrites are fern-shaped like the branches of a tree, and grow across the surface of the metal. In contrast, whiskers are fibrous and project at a right angle to the surface of growth, or substrate.

Diffusion-control

NASA animation of dendrite formation in microgravity.

Pyrolusite (manganese(IV) oxides) dendrites on a limestone bedding plane from Solnhofen, Germany. Scale in mm.

Very commonly when the supersaturation (or degree of supercooling) is high, and sometimes even when it is not high, growth kinetics may be diffusion-controlled. Under such conditions, the polyhedral crystal form will be unstable, it will sprout protrusions at its corners and edges where the degree of supersaturation is at its highest level. The tips of these protrusions will clearly be the points of highest supersaturation. It is generally believed that the protrusion will become longer (and thinner at the tip) until the effect of interfacial free energy in raising the chemical potential slows the tip growth and maintains a constant value for the tip thickness. 

In the subsequent tip-thickening process, there should be a corresponding instability of shape. Minor bumps or "bulges" should be exaggerated—and develop into rapidly growing side branches. In such an unstable (or metastable) situation, minor degrees of anisotropy should be sufficient to determine directions of significant branching and growth. The most appealing aspect of this argument, of course, is that it yields the primary morphological features of dendritic growth.

Fiscal policy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_policy 

In economics and political science, fiscal policy is the use of government revenue collection (taxes or tax cuts) and expenditure to influence a country's economy. The use of government revenue expenditures to influence macroeconomic variables developed in reaction to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the previous laissez-faire approach to economic management became unworkable. Fiscal policy is based on the theories of the British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose Keynesian economics theorised that government changes in the levels of taxation and government spending influence aggregate demand and the level of economic activity. Fiscal and monetary policy are the key strategies used by a country's government and central bank to advance its economic objectives. The combination of these policies enables these authorities to target inflation and to increase employment. In modern economies, inflation is conventionally considered "healthy" in the range of 2%–3%. Additionally, it is designed to try to keep GDP growth at 2%–3% percent and the unemployment rate near the natural unemployment rate of 4%–5%. This implies that fiscal policy is used to stabilise the economy over the course of the business cycle.

Changes in the level and composition of taxation and government spending can affect macroeconomic variables, including:

• aggregate demand and the level of economic activity
• saving and investment
• income distribution
• allocation of resources.

Fiscal policy can be distinguished from monetary policy, in that fiscal policy deals with taxation and government spending and is often administered by a government department; while monetary policy deals with the money supply, interest rates and is often administered by a country's central bank. Both fiscal and monetary policies influence a country's economic performance.

Monetary or fiscal policy?

Main article: Monetary/fiscal debate

Since the 1970s, it became clear that monetary policy performance has some benefits over fiscal policy due to the fact that it reduces political influence, as it is set by the central bank (to have an expanding economy before the general election, politicians might cut the interest rates). Additionally, fiscal policy can potentially have more supply-side effects on the economy: to reduce inflation, the measures of increasing taxes and lowering spending would not be preferred, so the government might be reluctant to use these. Monetary policy is generally quicker to implement as interest rates can be set every month, while the decision to increase government spending might take time to figure out which area the money should be spent on.

The recession of the 2000s decade shows that monetary policy also has certain limitations. A liquidity trap occurs when interest rate cuts are insufficient as a demand booster as banks do not want to lend and the consumers are reluctant to increase spending due to negative expectations for the economy. Government spending is responsible for creating the demand in the economy and can provide a kick-start to get the economy out of the recession. When a deep recession takes place, it is not sufficient to rely just on monetary policy to restore the economic equilibrium. Each side of these two policies has its differences, therefore, combining aspects of both policies to deal with economic problems has become a solution that is now used by the US. These policies have limited effects; however, fiscal policy seems to have a greater effect over the long-run period, while monetary policy tends to have a short-run success.

In 2000, a survey of 298 members of the American Economic Association (AEA) found that while 84 percent generally agreed with the statement "Fiscal policy has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy", 71 percent also generally agreed with the statement "Management of the business cycle should be left to the Federal Reserve; activist fiscal policy should be avoided." In 2011, a follow-up survey of 568 AEA members found that the previous consensus about the latter proposition had dissolved and was by then roughly evenly disputed.

Stances

See also: Procyclical and countercyclical variables § Economic policy making

Depending on the state of the economy, fiscal policy may reach for different objectives: its focus can be to restrict economic growth by mediating inflation or, in turn, increase economic growth by decreasing taxes, encouraging spending on different projects that act as stimuli to economic growth and enabling borrowing and spending. The three stances of fiscal policy are the following:

• Neutral fiscal policy is usually undertaken when an economy is in neither a recession nor an expansion. The amount of government deficit spending (the excess not financed by tax revenue) is roughly the same as it has been on average over time, so no changes to it are occurring that would have an effect on the level of economic activity.
• Expansionary fiscal policy is used by the government when trying to balance the contraction phase in the business cycle. It involves government spending exceeding tax revenue by more than it has tended to, and is usually undertaken during recessions. Examples of expansionary fiscal policy measures include increased government spending on public works (e.g., building schools) and providing the residents of the economy with tax cuts to increase their purchasing power (in order to fix a decrease in the demand).
• Contractionary fiscal policy, on the other hand, is a measure to increase tax rates and decrease government spending. It occurs when government deficit spending is lower than usual. This has the potential to slow economic growth if inflation, which was caused by a significant increase in aggregate demand and the supply of money, is excessive. By reducing the economy's amount of aggregate income, the available amount for consumers to spend is also reduced. So, contractionary fiscal policy measures are employed when unsustainable growth takes place, leading to inflation, high prices of investment, recession and unemployment above the "healthy" level of 3%–4%.

However, these definitions can be misleading because, even with no changes in spending or tax laws at all, cyclic fluctuations of the economy cause cyclic fluctuations of tax revenues and of some types of government spending, altering the deficit situation; these are not considered to be policy changes. Therefore, for purposes of the above definitions, "government spending" and "tax revenue" are normally replaced by "cyclically adjusted government spending" and "cyclically adjusted tax revenue". Thus, for example, a government budget that is balanced over the course of the business cycle is considered to represent a neutral and effective fiscal policy stance.

Methods of fiscal policy funding

Governments spend money on a wide variety of things, from the military and police to services such as education and health care, as well as transfer payments such as welfare benefits. This expenditure can be funded in a number of different ways:

• Taxation
• Seigniorage, the benefit from printing money
• Borrowing money from the population or from abroad
• Dipping into fiscal reserves
• Sale of fixed assets (e.g., land)
• Selling equity to the population

Borrowing

A fiscal deficit is often funded by issuing bonds such as Treasury bills or and gilt-edged securities but can also be funded by issuing equity. Bonds pay interest, either for a fixed period or indefinitely that is funded by taxpayers as a whole. Equity offers returns on investment (interest) that can only be realized in discharging a future tax liability by an individual taxpayer. If available government revenue is insufficient to support the interest payments on bonds, a nation may default on its debts, usually to foreign creditors. Public debt or borrowing refers to the government borrowing from the public. It is impossible for a government to "default" on its equity since the total returns available to all investors (taxpayers) are limited at any point by the total current year tax liability of all investors.

Dipping into prior surpluses

A fiscal surplus is often saved for future use, and may be invested in either local currency or any financial instrument that may be traded later once resources are needed and the additional debt is not needed.

Fiscal straitjacket

The concept of a fiscal straitjacket is a general economic principle that suggests strict constraints on government spending and public sector borrowing, to limit or regulate the budget deficit over a time period. Most US states have balanced budget rules that prevent them from running a deficit. The United States federal government technically has a legal cap on the total amount of money it can borrow, but it is not a meaningful constraint because the cap can be raised as easily as spending can be authorized, and the cap is almost always raised before the debt gets that high.

Economic effects

See also: Gross fixed capital formation § Economic analysis

Governments use fiscal policy to influence the level of aggregate demand in the economy, so that certain economic goals can be achieved:

• Price stability;
• Full employment;
• Economic growth.

The Keynesian view of economics suggests that increasing government spending and decreasing the rate of taxes are the best ways to have an influence on aggregate demand, stimulate it, while decreasing spending and increasing taxes after the economic expansion has already taken place. Additionally, Keynesians argue that expansionary fiscal policy should be used in times of recession or low economic activity as an essential tool for building the framework for strong economic growth and working towards full employment. In theory, the resulting deficits would be paid for by an expanded economy during the expansion that would follow; this was the reasoning behind the New Deal.

The IS curve shifts to the right, increasing real interest rates (r) and expansion in the "real" economy (real GDP, or Y).

The IS-LM model is another way of understanding the effects of fiscal expansion. As the government increases spending, there will be a shift in the IS curve up and to the right. In the short run, this increases the real interest rate, which then reduces private investment and increases aggregate demand, placing upward pressure on supply. To meet the short-run increase in aggregate demand, firms increase full-employment output. The increase in short-run price levels reduces the money supply, which shifts the LM curve back, and thus, returning the general equilibrium to the original full employment (FE) level. Therefore, the IS-LM model shows that there will be an overall increase in the price level and real interest rates in the long run due to fiscal expansion.

Governments can use a budget surplus to do two things:

• to slow the pace of strong economic growth;
• to stabilise prices when inflation is too high.

Keynesian theory posits that removing spending from the economy will reduce levels of aggregate demand and contract the economy, thus stabilizing prices.

But economists still debate the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus. The argument mostly centers on crowding out: whether government borrowing leads to higher interest rates that may offset the stimulative impact of spending. When the government runs a budget deficit, funds will need to come from public borrowing (the issue of government bonds), overseas borrowing, or monetizing the debt. When governments fund a deficit with the issuing of government bonds, interest rates can increase across the market, because government borrowing creates higher demand for credit in the financial markets. This decreases aggregate demand for goods and services, either partially or entirely offsetting the direct expansionary impact of the deficit spending, thus diminishing or eliminating the achievement of the objective of a fiscal stimulus. Neoclassical economists generally emphasize crowding out while Keynesians argue that fiscal policy can still be effective, especially in a liquidity trap where, they argue, crowding out is minimal.

In the classical view, expansionary fiscal policy also decreases net exports, which has a mitigating effect on national output and income. When government borrowing increases interest rates it attracts foreign capital from foreign investors. This is because, all other things being equal, the bonds issued from a country executing expansionary fiscal policy now offer a higher rate of return. In other words, companies wanting to finance projects must compete with their government for capital so they offer higher rates of return. To purchase bonds originating from a certain country, foreign investors must obtain that country's currency. Therefore, when foreign capital flows into the country undergoing fiscal expansion, demand for that country's currency increases. The increased demand, in turn, causes the currency to appreciate, reducing the cost of imports and making exports from that country more expensive to foreigners. Consequently, exports decrease and imports increase, reducing demand from net exports.

Some economists oppose the discretionary use of fiscal stimulus because of the inside lag (the time lag involved in implementing it), which is almost inevitably long because of the substantial legislative effort involved. Further, the outside lag between the time of implementation and the time that most of the effects of the stimulus are felt could mean that the stimulus hits an already-recovering economy and overheats the ensuing h rather than stimulating the economy when it needs it.

Some economists are concerned about potential inflationary effects driven by increased demand engendered by a fiscal stimulus. In theory, fiscal stimulus does not cause inflation when it uses resources that would have otherwise been idle. For instance, if a fiscal stimulus employs a worker who otherwise would have been unemployed, there is no inflationary effect; however, if the stimulus employs a worker who otherwise would have had a job, the stimulus is increasing labor demand while labor supply remains fixed, leading to wage inflation and therefore price inflation.

Scientific terminology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_terminology

Scientific terminology is the part of the language that is used by scientists in the context of their professional activities. While studying nature, scientists often encounter or create new material or immaterial objects and concepts and are compelled to name them. Many of those names are known only to professionals. However, due to popularization of science, they gradually become part of common languages. Several categories of scientific terminology can be distinguished.

New concepts

Those are specific notions and terms, e.g.,

• nanoarchitectonics,
• spintronics - a neologism meaning "spin transport electronics",
• spinplasmonics, which are often not yet big enough to create a new field of science. Arguably, introducing many of those terms is unnecessary and can be considered as an attempt to produce something "new", if not scientifically then at least in words.

New materials

The increasing focus of science on technological applications results in extensive search for new materials having unusual or superior properties. Their names can be categorized into new substances (nanotubes, etc.) and registered trademarks and brand names, such as Teflon. Trademarks and brand names are vast fields on their own and are not covered in this article.

New techniques and devices

Unlike laser and SQUID, many names of the new devices and techniques are commonly used in full spelling, e.g., scanning tunneling microscope, etc. Some devices like transistor, magnetron, etc., have integrated into our life so much that their names are no longer considered terminology and are rather neologisms.

Alternative meaning of common words

SIESTA, SQUID and SHRIMP are acronyms distinguished from siesta, squid and shrimp by capitalization. However, there are pairs of scientific terminology and common words, which can only be distinguished by context. Representative examples come from particle physics where certain properties of particles are called flavour, color, but have no relation to conventional flavor and color. Another famous example is frustration used to describe ground state properties in condensed matter physics, and especially in magnetic systems.

Composite words

Recent scientific activity often creates interdisciplinary fields, for which new names, classified into portmanteau words or syllabic abbreviations, are often created by combining two or more words, sometimes with extra prefixes and suffixes. Examples of those – biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc. – are well known and understood, at least superficially, by most non-scientists.

Elementary particles, quasiparticles and chemical elements

Progress of particle physics, nuclear physics and atomic physics has resulted in discoveries of new elementary particles and atoms. Their names – quark, gluon, lepton, graviton, neutrino, Higgs boson, mendelevium, etc. – are traditionally given by those people who first discovered them and often include surnames of classical scientists. Fundamental particles are particles that are not made up by any other particles, such as a quark.

Another group of physics terminology terms, exciton, magnon, phonon, plasmon, phason, polaron, roton etc., refers to quasiparticles – quanta of corresponding excitations (spin, heat, plasma, polarization waves), which do not exist separately and were imagined by theoretists to consistently describe properties of solids and liquids.

Most relevant terminology can be found in the following Wikipedia articles and their links:

• Discoveries of the chemical elements
• Elementary particle
• Quasiparticle
• List of quasiparticles
• Subatomic particle

(The word plasmon was well-known around the 1900s for a proprietary dried milk manufactured by the International Plasmon Company, which was added to a number of products to make Plasmon Oats, Plasmon Cocoa, and Plasmon Biscuits. Plasmon Biscuits were a popular snack used by Ernest Shackleton in his Antarctic Expedition of 1902.)

Classical and non-vernacular terms and expressions

In modern science and its applied fields such as technology and medicine, a knowledge of classical languages is not as rigid a prerequisite as it used to be. However, traces of their influence remain. Firstly, languages such as Greek, Latin and Arabic – either directly or via more recently derived languages such as French – have provided not only most of the technical terms used in Western science, but also a de facto vocabulary of roots, prefixes and suffixes for the construction of new terms as required. Echoes of the consequences sound in remarks such as "Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it." (referring to it being a hybrid word).

A special class of terminology that overwhelmingly is derived from classical sources, is biological classification, in which binomial nomenclature still is most often based on classical origins. The derivations are arbitrary however and can be mixed variously with modernisms, late Latin, and even fictional roots, errors and whims. However, in spite of the chaotic nature of the field, it still is helpful to the biologist to have a good vocabulary of classical roots.

Branches of science that are based, however tenuously, on fields of study known to the ancients, or that were established by more recent workers familiar with Greek and Latin, often use terminology that is fairly correct descriptive Latin, or occasionally Greek. Descriptive human anatomy or works on biological morphology often use such terms, for example, musculus gluteus maximus simply means the "largest rump muscle", where musculus was the Latin for "little mouse" and the name applied to muscles. During the last two centuries there has been an increasing tendency to modernise the terminology, though how beneficial that might be is subject to discussion. In other descriptive anatomical terms, whether in vertebrates or invertebrates, a frenum (a structure for keeping something in place) is simply the Latin for a bridle; and a foramen (a passage or perforation) also is the actual Latin word.

All such words are so much terminology. It does not much matter whether modern users know that they are classical or not. Some distinct term is necessary for any meaningful concept, and if it is not classical, a modern coinage would not generally be any more comprehensible (consider examples such as "byte" or "dongle"). Another modern use of classical language however, is the subject of often acrimonious debate. It is the use of foreign or classical (commonly Latin) expressions terms, or "tags", where it would be possible to use the vernacular instead. This is common in everyday speech in some circles, saying "requiescat in pace" instead of "rest in peace" might be pretension or pleasantry, but in law and science among other fields, there are many Latin expressions in use, where it might be equally practical to use the vernacular. Consider the following discussion of the Latin term "sensu".

Latin, its current relevance or convenience

There is no definite limit to how sophisticated a level of Latin may be brought to bear in conventional scientific terminology; such convention dates back to the days when nearly all standard communications in such subjects were written in Latin as an international scientific lingua franca. That was not so long ago; from the latter days of the Roman empire, Classical Latin had become the dominant language in learned, civil, diplomatic, legal, and religious communication in many states in Europe. Even after Latin had lost its status as a vernacular, Medieval or Late Latin increasingly became the de facto lingua franca in educated circles during the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire. The peak of the dominance of Latin in such contexts probably was during the Renaissance, but the language only began to lose favour for such purposes in the eighteenth century, and gradually at that. The presence of Latin terms in modern writing is largely the residue of the terminology of old documents.

The expression of fine distinctions in academically correct Latin technical terminology may well help in conveying intended meanings more flexibly and concisely, but the significance of the language need not always be taken seriously. An inspection of any collection of references will produce a range of very variable and dubious usages, and often a great deal of obsessive dispute. In contrast, the authoritative glossary attached to the textbook on Biological Nomenclature produced by the Systematics Association displays a very dismissive attitude to the question; for example, the only relevant entries it presents on the subject of the term sensu are:

sens. str.: see s.s.

sens. lat.: see s.l.

sensu amplo: see s.l.

s.l., sens. lat., sensu lato : Latin, in the broad sense; i.e. of a taxon, including all its subordinate taxa and/or other taxa sometimes considered as distinct.

s.s., sens. str., sensu stricto : Latin, in the strict sense, in the narrow sense, i.e. of a taxon, in the sense of the type of its name ; or in the sense of its circumscription by its original describer ; or in the sense of its nominate subordinate taxon (in the case of a taxon with 2 or more subordinate taxa) ; or with the exclusion of similar taxa sometimes united with it.

Such entries suggest that the Systematics Association is not concerned with hair-splitting in the use of the Latin terms.

In informal or non-technical English, to say "strictly speaking" for sensu stricto and "broadly speaking" and so on is valid. Even in formal writing, there is no formal requirement to use the Latin terms rather than the vernacular.

Valid reasons for using these Latin or partly Latin expressions are not points of pretentiousness; they include:

• Tradition: Where the terms and their abbreviations have been used formally for generations and appear repeatedly in records and textbooks in fixed contexts, it can be cumbersome and confusing to change unexpectedly to more familiar English or other vernacular.
• Precision: Vernacular expressions that most nearly correspond to these terms in meaning, might also be understood in subtly or even crashingly misleading senses, whereas the Latin terms are used according to strict conventions that are not easy to mistake in professional circles familiar with the usages.
• Efficiency: Not only are these terms compact (even in comparison to say, broadly speaking and strictly speaking) but in the proper contexts they lend themselves to understandable abbreviation as s.s. and s.l., better than the most compact vernacular expressions. In much the same way, think of etc or &c; practically everyone knows what those mean, and uses them unthinkingly, even people who do not know that they are abbreviations for et cetera or even et caetera, or that those mean "and the rest" in Latin. Even monoglot laymen would not usually trouble to write "and so on" instead of etc.

Acronyms

A good example is the word laser, an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", and therefore all its letters should be capitalized. However, because of frequent use, this acronym became a neologism, i.e., it has integrated into English and most other languages. Consequently, laser is commonly written in small letters. It has even produced secondary acronyms such as LASIK (Laser-ASsisted in Situ Keratomileusis). A related acronym and neologism maser (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is much less known. Nevertheless, it is commonly written in small letters. On the contrary, acronym SPASER (Surface Plasmon Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is capitalized.

Many scientific acronyms or abbreviations reflect the artistic sense of their creators, e.g.,

• AMANDA – Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array, a neutrino telescope
• BLAST – Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope
• COMICS – COoled Mid-Infrared Camera and Spectrometer
• FROG - Frequency-resolved optical gating
• MARVEL – Multi-object Apache Point Observatory Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey, a NASA-funded project to search for exoplanets
• METATOY – METAmaTerial fOr raYs – a material that changes the direction of transmitted light rays
• PLANET – Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork, a program to search for microlensing events
• SCREAM – Single Crystal Reactive Etch And Metallization, a process used in making some microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)
• SHRIMP – Sensitive High-Resolution Ion MicroProbe
• SIESTA – Spanish Initiative for Electronic Simulations with Thousands of Atoms (siesta = afternoon nap in Spanish)
• SPIDER – Spectral Phase Interferometry for Direct Electric-field Reconstruction
• SQUID – Superconducting Quantum Interference Device,

etc. (see also List of astronomy acronyms).

"Polish death camp" controversy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Polish_death_camp%22_controversy

This article is about the controversy over the use of the term. For the camps in question, see German camps in occupied Poland during World War II.

All of the Nazi extermination camps operated on the territory that is now Poland, although Nazi concentration camps were built in Germany and other countries.

The terms "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp" have been controversial as applied to the concentration camps and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Poland. The terms have been criticized as misnomers. The terms have occasionally been used by politicians and news media in reference to the camps' geographic location in German-occupied Poland. However, Polish officials and organizations have objected to the terms as misleading, since they can be misconstrued as meaning "death camps set up by Poles" or "run by Poland". Some Polish politicians have portrayed inadvertent uses of the expression by foreigners as a deliberate disinformation campaign.

While use of the terms was widely considered objectionable by Poles, an Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance in 2018 generated outrage, both within and outside Poland. The law criminalized public statements ascribing, to the Polish nation, collective responsibility in Holocaust-related crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, or war crimes, or which "grossly reduce the responsibility of the actual perpetrators". It was generally understood that the law criminalized use of the expressions "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp".

The amendment also prohibited use of the expression "Polish concentration camp" in relation to camps operated by the Polish government after the war on sites of former Nazi camps. In a court case in January 2018, Newsweek.pl was sentenced for referring to the Zgoda concentration camp, operated by Polish authorities after World War II, as a "Polish concentration camp".

In 2019, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland ruled that the fragments of the amendment relating to the terms "Ukrainian nationalists" and "Eastern Lesser Poland" were void and non-binding.

Historical context

Main articles: The Holocaust in Poland, Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), List of Nazi concentration camps, and German camps in occupied Poland during World War II

Borders of Polish areas before and after 1939 and 1941 invasions

Czesława Kwoka, a Polish Catholic girl, 14 when she was murdered by the Nazi Germans at Auschwitz. 230,000 children, most of them Jewish, were murdered in the German camp.

During World War II, three million Polish Jews (90% of the prewar Polish-Jewish population) were killed due to Nazi German genocidal action. At least 2.5 million non-Jewish Polish civilians and soldiers perished. One million non-Polish Jews were also forcibly transported by the Nazis and killed in German-occupied Poland. At least half of 140,000 ethnic Poles deported died in the Auschwitz camp alone.

After the German invasion, Poland, in contrast to cases such as Vichy France, experienced direct German administration rather than an indigenous puppet government.

The western part of prewar Poland was annexed outright by Germany. Some Poles were expelled from the annexed lands to make room for German settlers. Parts of eastern Poland became part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and Reichskommissariat Ostland. The rest of German-occupied Poland, dubbed by Germany the General Government, was administered by Germany as occupied territory. The General Government received no international recognition. It is estimated that the Germans killed more than 2 million non-Jewish Polish civilians. Nazi German planners called for "the complete destruction" of all Poles, and their fate, as well as that of many other Slavs, was outlined in a genocidal Generalplan Ost (General Plan East).

Historians have generally stated that relatively few Poles collaborated with Nazi Germany, in comparison with the situations in other German-occupied countries. The Polish Underground judicially condemned and executed collaborators, and the Polish Government-in-Exile coordinated resistance to the German occupation, including help for Poland's Jews.

Some Poles were complicit in, or indifferent to, the rounding up of Jews. There are reports of neighbors turning Jews over to the Germans or blackmailing them (see "szmalcownik"). In some cases, Poles themselves killed their Jewish fellow citizens, the most notorious examples being the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom and the 1946 Kielce pogrom, after the war had ended.

Poles publicly hanged by the Germans for helping Jews in hiding, Przemyśl, 6 September 1943

However, many Poles risked their lives to hide and assist Jews. Poles were sometimes exposed by Jews they were helping, if the Jews were found by the Germans—resulting in the murder of entire Polish rescue networks. Possibly a million Poles aided Jews; some estimates run as high as three million helpers. Poles have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Israel's Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations — non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Holocaust.

Analysis of the expression

Supporting rationale

Defenders argue that the expression "Polish death camps" refers strictly to the location of the Nazi death camps and does not indicate involvement by the Polish government in France or, later, in the United Kingdom. Some international politicians and news agencies have apologized for using the term, notably Barack Obama in 2012. CTV Television Network News President Robert Hurst defended CTV's usage (see § Mass media) as it "merely denoted geographic location", but the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled against it, declaring CTV's use of the term to be unethical. Others have not apologized, saying that it is a fact that Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Chełmno, Bełżec, and Sobibór were situated in German-occupied Poland.

Commenting upon the 2018 bill criminalizing such expressions (see § Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance), Israeli politician (and later Prime Minister) Yair Lapid justified the expression "Polish death camps" with the argument that "hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier".

Criticism of the expression

Opponents of the use of these expressions argue that they are inaccurate, as they may suggest that the camps were a responsibility of the Poles, when in fact they were designed, constructed, and operated by the Germans and were used to exterminate both non-Jewish Poles and Polish Jews, as well as Jews transported to the camps by the Germans from across Europe. Historian Geneviève Zubrzycki and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have called the expression a misnomer. It has also been described as "misleading" by The Washington Post editorial board, The New York Times, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, and Nazi hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff. Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem described it as a "historical misrepresentation", and White House spokesman Tommy Vietor referred to its use a "misstatement".

Abraham Foxman of the ADL described the strict geographical defence of the terms as "sloppiness of language", and "dead wrong, highly unfair to Poland". Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Adam Daniel Rotfeld said in 2005 that "Under the pretext that 'it's only a geographic reference', attempts are made to distort history".

Public use of the expression

As early as 1944, the expression "Polish death camp" appeared as the title of a Collier's magazine article, entitled "Polish Death Camp". This was an excerpt from the Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski's 1944 memoir, Courier from Poland: The Story of a Secret State (reprinted in 2010 as Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World). Karski himself, in both the book and the article, had used the expression "Jewish death camp", not "Polish death camp". As shown in 2019, the Collier's editor changed the title of Karski's article typescript, "In the Belzec Death Camp", to "Polish Death Camp".

Other early-postwar, 1945 uses of the expression "Polish death camp" occurred in the periodicals Contemporary Jewish Record, The Jewish Veteran, and The Palestine Yearbook and Israeli Annual, as well as in a 1947 book, Beyond the Last Path, by Hungarian-born Jew and Belgian resistance fighter Eugene Weinstock and in Polish writer Zofia Nałkowska's 1947 book, Medallions.

A 2016 article by Matt Lebovic stated that West Germany's Agency 114, which during the Cold War recruited former Nazis to West Germany's intelligence service, worked to popularize the term "Polish death camps" in order to minimize German responsibility for, and implicate Poles in, the atrocities.

Mass media

On 30 April 2004 a Canadian Television (CTV) Network News report referred to "the Polish camp in Treblinka". The Polish embassy in Canada lodged a complaint with CTV. Robert Hurst of CTV, however, argued that the term "Polish" was used throughout North America in a geographical sense, and declined to issue a correction. The Polish Ambassador to Ottawa then complained to the National Specialty Services Panel of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. The Council rejected Hurst's argument, ruling that the word "'Polish'—similarly to such adjectives as 'English', 'French' and 'German'—had connotations that clearly extended beyond geographic context. Its use with reference to Nazi extermination camps was misleading and improper."

In November 2008, the German newspaper Die Welt called Majdanek concentration camp a "former Polish concentration camp" in an article; it immediately apologized when this was pointed out. In 2009, Zbigniew Osewski, grandson of a Stutthof concentration camp prisoner, sued Axel Springer AG. The case started in 2012; in 2015, the case was dismissed by Warsaw district court.

In the 16 November 2009 edition of Maclean's magazine, the journalist Kathie Engelhart in an article about John Demjanjuk called him a man who had been mistaken for "a notorious sadist at Poland’s Treblinka death camp", spoke about " “Poland’s Treblinka death camp", and stated that Demjanjuk had "served at three Polish camps" as a guard. Engelhart's article led to a formal complaint from Piotr Ogrodziński, the Polish ambassador in Ottawa, who stated: "It’s absolutely false that Poles had anything to do with concentration camps, with the exception that they were the first prisoners".

On 23 December 2009, historian Timothy Garton Ash wrote in The Guardian: "Watching a German television news report on the trial of John Demjanjuk a few weeks ago, I was amazed to hear the announcer describe him as a guard in 'the Polish extermination camp Sobibor'. What times are these, when one of the main German TV channels thinks it can describe Nazi camps as 'Polish'? In my experience, the automatic equation of Poland with Catholicism, nationalism and antisemitism – and thence a slide to guilt by association with the Holocaust – is still widespread. This collective stereotyping does no justice to the historical record."

In 2010 the Polish-American Kosciuszko Foundation launched a petition demanding that four major U.S. news organizations endorse use of the expression "German concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland".

Canada's Globe and Mail reported on 23 September 2011 about "Polish concentration camps". Canadian Member of Parliament Ted Opitz and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney supported Polish protests.

In 2013 Karol Tendera, who had been a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau and is secretary of an association of former prisoners of German concentration camps, sued the German television network ZDF, demanding a formal apology and 50,000 zlotys, to be donated to charitable causes, for ZDF's use of the expression "Polish concentration camps". ZDF was ordered by the court to make a public apology. Some Poles felt the apology to be inadequate and protested with a truck bearing a banner that read "Death camps were Nazi German - ZDF apologize!" They planned to take their protest against the expression "Polish concentration camps" 1,600 kilometers across Europe, from Wrocław in Poland to Cambridge, England, via Belgium and Germany, with a stop in front of ZDF headquarters in Mainz.

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends against using the expression, as does the AP Stylebook, and that of The Washington Post. However, the 2018 Polish bill has been condemned by the editorial boards of The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Politicians

In May 2012 U.S. President Barack Obama referred to a "Polish death camp" while posthumously awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski. After complaints from Poles, including Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Alex Storozynski, President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, an Obama administration spokesperson said the President had misspoken when "referring to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland." On 31 May 2012 President Obama wrote a letter to Polish President Komorowski in which he explained that he used this phrase inadvertently in reference to "a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland" and further stated: "I regret the error and agree that this moment is an opportunity to ensure that this and future generations know the truth."

Polish government action

Media

The Polish government and Polish diaspora organizations have denounced the use of such expressions that include the words "Poland" or "Polish". The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs monitors the use of such expressions and seeks corrections and apologies if they are used. In 2005, Poland's Jewish Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld remarked upon instances of "bad will, saying that under the pretext that 'it's only a geographic reference', attempts are made to distort history and conceal the truth." He has stated that use of the adjective "Polish" in reference to concentration camps or ghettos, or to the Holocaust, can suggest that Poles perpetrated or participated in German atrocities, and emphasised that Poland was the victim of the Nazis' crimes.

Monuments

In 2008, the chairman of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (the IPN) wrote to local administrations, calling for the addition of the word "German" before "Nazi" to all monuments and tablets commemorating Germany's victims, stating that "Nazis" is not always understood to relate specifically to Germans. Several scenes of atrocities conducted by Germany were duly updated with commemorative plaques clearly indicating the nationality of the perpetrators. The IPN also requested better documentation and commemoration of crimes that had been perpetrated by the Soviet Union.

The Polish government also asked UNESCO to officially change the name "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau", to clarify that the camp had been built and operated by Nazi Germany. At its 28 June 2007 meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee changed the camp's name to "Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940–1945)." Previously some German media, including Der Spiegel, had called the camp "Polish".

Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance

Main article: Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance

 

On 6 February 2018 Poland's President Andrzej Duda signed into law an amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, criminalizing statements that ascribe collective responsibility in Holocaust-related crimes to the Polish nation, It was generally understood that the law would criminalize use of the expressions "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp". After international backlash, the law was revised to remove criminal penalties, but also the exceptions for scientific or artistic expression. The law met with widespread international criticism, as it was seen as an infringement on freedom of expression and on academic freedom, and as a barrier to open discussion on Polish collaborationism, in what has been described as "the biggest diplomatic crisis in [Poland's] recent history".