Levitation

Levitation (from Latin levitas "lightness") is the process by which an object is held aloft, without mechanical support, in a stable position.

Levitation is accomplished by providing an upward force that counteracts the pull of gravity (in relation to gravity on earth), plus a smaller stabilizing force that pushes the object toward a home position whenever it is a small distance away from that home position. The force can be a fundamental force such as magnetic or electrostatic, or it can be a reactive force such as optical, buoyant, aerodynamic, or hydrodynamic.

Levitation excludes floating at the surface of a liquid because the liquid provides direct mechanical support. Levitation excludes hovering flight by insects, hummingbirds, helicopters, rockets, and balloons because the object provides its own counter-gravity force.

Physics

Levitation (on Earth or any planetoid) requires an upward force that cancels out the weight of the object, so that the object does not fall (accelerate downward) or rise (accelerate upward). For positional stability, any small displacement of the levitating object must result in a small change in force in the opposite direction. The small changes in force can be accomplished by gradient field(s) or by active regulation. If the object is disturbed, it might oscillate around its final position, but its motion eventually decreases to zero due to damping effects. (In a turbulent flow, the object might oscillate indefinitely.)

Levitation (band)

Levitation were an English psychedelic rock band, formed in 1990 in London. The band consisted of frontman Terry Bickers (formerly guitarist with The House of Love), drummer David Francolini, guitarist Christian Hayes, bassist Laurence O'Keefe and keyboardist Robert White.

Bickers announced his departure from the band onstage at Tufnell Park Dome in north London on 14 May 1993. The release of the band's already completed second album Meanwhile Gardens was shelved. The band enlisted former Some Have Fins frontman Steve Ludwin to replace Bickers, which saw a remixed version of the album with new vocals from Ludwin released in Australia the following year. The band split in October 1994, leaving their second album remaining unreleased. Hayes, Francolini and O'Keefe regrouped in 1996 to form Dark Star. They released Twenty Twenty Sound in 1999 before disbanding in 2001.

History

Formation & Early EPs

Following his departure from The House Of Love in 1990, Terry Bickers began forming a new band with drummer David Francolini. The pair met during Bickers' last tour with his previous band in December 1989, on which Francolini was playing with support band Something Pretty Beautiful whom he joined just days before going out on tour. They first enlisted Christian Hayes, who had played with Ring and Panixphere, played bass in The Dave Howard Singers and was currently playing guitar in Cardiacs and working as a courier. Bickers knew Hayes through musical friends in South London, and when Bickers and Francolini spotted Hayes on his courier bike by chance in Covent Garden, London they arranged to meet up in the studio. Hayes' former Ring bandmate, keyboardist Robert White (also formerly of Zag and the Coloured Beads) soon joined along with bassist Joe Allen and violinist Johnny T, a member of The Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra.

Levitation (paranormal)

Levitation or transvection in the paranormal context is the rising of a human body into the air by mystical means. Some parapsychology and religious believers interpret alleged instances of levitation as the result of supernatural action of psychic power or spiritual energy. The scientific community states there is no evidence that levitation exists and alleged levitation events are explainable by natural causes (such as magic trickery, illusion, and hallucination).

Religious views

Various religions have claimed examples of levitation amongst their followers. This is generally used either as a demonstration of the validity or power of the religion, or as evidence of the holiness or adherence to the religion of the particular levitator.

Buddhism

Incident

Incident may refer to:

See also

Graph (discrete mathematics)

In mathematics, and more specifically in graph theory, a graph is a representation of a set of objects where some pairs of objects are connected by links. The interconnected objects are represented by mathematical abstractions called vertices (also called nodes or points), and the links that connect some pairs of vertices are called edges (also called arcs or lines). Typically, a graph is depicted in diagrammatic form as a set of dots for the vertices, joined by lines or curves for the edges. Graphs are one of the objects of study in discrete mathematics.

The edges may be directed or undirected. For example, if the vertices represent people at a party, and there is an edge between two people if they shake hands, then this is an undirected graph, because if person A shook hands with person B, then person B also shook hands with person A. In contrast, if there is an edge from person A to person B when person A knows of person B, then this graph is directed, because knowledge of someone is not necessarily a symmetric relation (that is, one person knowing another person does not necessarily imply the reverse; for example, many fans may know of a celebrity, but the celebrity is unlikely to know of all their fans). The former type of graph is called an undirected graph and the edges are called undirected edges while the latter type of graph is called a directed graph and the edges are called directed edges.

Incident (Scientology)

L. Ron Hubbard used the term Incident in a specific context for auditing in Scientology and Dianetics: the description of space operatic events in the Universe's distant past, involving alien interventions in past lives. It is a basic belief of Scientology that a human being is an immortal spiritual being, termed a thetan, trapped on planet Earth in a "meat body".

Although Incidents can be any incident anywhere, Hubbard's writings described some in particular, set in Earth's prehistory. Many of them first appeared in Hubbard's book What to Audit (later retitled A History of Man).

In his writings and lectures, Hubbard describes Incidents said to have occurred to thetans during the past few trillion years. Most of these followed a consistent pattern, wherein a hostile alien civilization captured and brainwashed free thetans. Often, instances of implantation are termed Incidents, while the subject of the implants are often termed Goals. Some Incidents are simply unusual and traumatic events, whereof the memory is said to linger for trillions of years. According to Hubbard, only Scientology's methods can remove the resulting neuroses.