Order (honour)

An order or order of merit is a visible honour awarded by a sovereign state, monarch, dynastic house or organisation to a recipient, typically in recognition of individual merit.

The modern distinction between orders and decorations is somewhat vague, except that most historic chivalric orders imply a membership in a group, typically a confraternity. In a few exclusive European orders, membership is or was also limited in number. Decorations seldom have such limitations. Orders often come in multiple classes, including knights and dames, which may or may not be parallelled in decorations.

History

Modern orders of merit and decorations can trace their origin back to the monarchical and honorific orders of chivalry as established in the Middle Ages. While these were "societies, fellowships and colleges of knights", created by European monarchs in imitation of the military orders of the Crusades, granting membership in such societies gradually developed into an honour that could be bestowed in recognition of service or to ensure the loyalty of a certain clientele. Some of modern Europe's highest honours, such as the Order of the Golden Fleece, England's Order of the Garter, Denmark's Order of the Elephant and Scotland's Order of the Thistle, were created during that era. They were essentially courtly in nature, characterised by close personal relations between the orders' members and the orders' sovereign.

Horsell Common (band)

Horsell Common are an Australian band from Melbourne, Victoria. They made their live debut in early 2002, following this up with a string of EPs, and released their first full-length album The Rescue on 29 September 2007. The first single off the album - titled "Good From Afar" - was released on 1 September 2007 and has received national airplay on the triple j radio station.

Brief history

2002 to 2004

Horsell Common made their live debut in early 2002, and released their debut EP A Who's Who Road Of Living in 2003. The song "Order" won a Kerrang! Magazine competition and "In Theory" was a "Melbourne Unearthed" (competition run by Triple J) finalist. "In Theory" was also released with a film clip starring celebrity criminal and Australian folk hero Chopper Read, which was later banned by the ABC due to its graphic nature. In 2004 the band also released a limited edition 7" vinyl single of "Order".

2005 to 2006

In 2005, following on from the initial success of their debut recording, the band released their second EP (Lost A Lot Of Blood) and soon after released a split EP with fellow Melbourne band Trial Kennedy entitled The Birds & the Bees. On that EP each band recorded an acoustic cover version of a song by the other.

Order and disorder (physics)

In physics, the terms order and disorder designate the presence or absence of some symmetry or correlation in a many-particle system.

In condensed matter physics, systems typically are ordered at low temperatures; upon heating, they undergo one or several phase transitions into less ordered states. Examples for such an order-disorder transition are:

The degree of freedom that is ordered or disordered can be translational (crystalline ordering), rotational (ferroelectric ordering), or a spin state (magnetic ordering).

The order can consist either in a full crystalline space group symmetry, or in a correlation. Depending on how the correlations decay with distance, one speaks of long-range order or short-range order.

If a disordered state is not in thermodynamic equilibrium, one speaks of quenched disorder. For instance, a glass is obtained by quenching (supercooling) a liquid. By extension, other quenched states are called spin glass, orientational glass. In some contexts, the opposite of quenched disorder is annealed disorder.

Fictional universe of The Guardians of Time

In the fictional Guardians of Time Trilogy, author Marianne Curley constructs a highly detailed alternate universe in which much of the action of the series takes place, unknown to the regular world. In this universe, two organizations battle for control over time.

The Guard

The Guardians of Time (known also as The Guard) is a society dedicated to preserving history against the attempts of the Order of Chaos to alter it. It is headed by a sexless immortal called Lorian, who is backed by a Tribunal of nine members, each a representative of a house.

The headquarters of the Tribunal, as well as the Guard itself, is located in Athens, year 200 BC, outside of the mortal measurements of time. For their purposes, they also use a place called the Citadel, connected to another area known as the labyrinth (also used by Order of Chaos) which serves as a disembarkation point for the Guards' missions into the past. Guard meetings frequently take place in Arkarian's, a Guard member's, abode hidden within the depths of a mountain. Connected to this mountain is the hidden city of Veridian and later learned, also connected to Neriah's fortress.