Prism

In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light. At least two of the flat surfaces must have an angle between them. The exact angles between the surfaces depend on the application. The traditional geometrical shape is that of a triangular prism with a triangular base and rectangular sides, and in colloquial use "prism" usually refers to this type. Some types of optical prism are not in fact in the shape of geometric prisms. Prisms can be made from any material that is transparent to the wavelengths for which they are designed. Typical materials include glass, plastic and fluorite.

A dispersive prism can be used to break light up into its constituent spectral colors (the colors of the rainbow). Furthermore, prisms can be used to reflect light, or to split light into components with different polarizations.

How prisms work

Light changes speed as it moves from one medium to another (for example, from air into the glass of the prism). This speed change causes the light to be refracted and to enter the new medium at a different angle (Huygens principle). The degree of bending of the light's path depends on the angle that the incident beam of light makes with the surface, and on the ratio between the refractive indices of the two media (Snell's law). The refractive index of many materials (such as glass) varies with the wavelength or color of the light used, a phenomenon known as dispersion. This causes light of different colors to be refracted differently and to leave the prism at different angles, creating an effect similar to a rainbow. This can be used to separate a beam of white light into its constituent spectrum of colors. Prisms will generally disperse light over a much larger frequency bandwidth than diffraction gratings, making them useful for broad-spectrum spectroscopy. Furthermore, prisms do not suffer from complications arising from overlapping spectral orders, which all gratings have.

List of Humanx Commonwealth planets

This is a list of the fictional planets in the Humanx Commonwealth series of novels by Alan Dean Foster.

Alaspin

Alaspin has large jungles surrounded by equally large savannas and river plains; its only notable celestial feature is two moons.

Currently the planet has no sentient race; the native race died out, possibly by racial suicide, over 75,000 years ago leaving behind hundreds of ancient, abandoned cities that have proved a source of fascination to modern xeno-archaeologists.

A variety of lifeforms currently live on Alaspin, most notably the Alaspinian minidrag.

Annubis

Annubis is most notable for the fictional Hyperion forests from which the fictional drug bloodhype is manufactured. In an attempt to eradicate the highly addictive and deadly drug, the trees were burned in 545 A.A. and are thought to be completely destroyed.

The planet first appeared in the novel Bloodhype.

Blasusarr

Blasusarr is the homeworld of the AAnn race and is often called the Imperial Home World. Climate is dry and hot, largely desert, the preferred atmospheric conditions of the AAnn. Beyond this, little is known about Blasusarr other than the fact that it is very well-protected by a detection and space defense network. Its capital city, also the capital of the AAnn Empire, is Krrassin.

Yoshida Brothers

The Yoshida Brothers (吉田兄弟, Yoshida Kyōdai) are Japanese musicians who have released several albums on the Domo Records label.

The two brothers are performers of the traditional Japanese music style of Tsugaru-jamisen which originated in northern Japan. They debuted in 1999 in Japan as a duo playing the shamisen. Their first album sold over 100,000 copies and made them minor celebrities in Japan, a fact that surprised the Yoshida Brothers themselves. They have since attracted an international audience.

Their music has been a fusion of the rapid and percussive Tsugaru-jamisen style along with Western and other regional musical influences. In addition to performing songs that are only on the shamisen, they also use instruments such as drums and synthesizers.

The commercials for the Nintendo's Wii video game console that began airing in North America in November 2006 featured the Yoshida Brothers song "Kodo (Inside the Sun Remix)".

Members

Ryōichirō Yoshida (吉田 良一郎, Yoshida Ryōichirō, born 26 July 1977) and Kenichi Yoshida (吉田 健一, Yoshida Ken'ichi, born 16 December 1979) were born in Noboribetsu in Hokkaido, Japan. The two brothers have played the shamisen from a very young age. They both began to study and play the shamisen from five years of age under Koka Adachi, learning the Minyō-shamisen style; from about 1989 they studied the Tsugaru-jamisen style under Takashi Sasaki.

Daniel Ramos

Daniel "Chaka" Ramos (Born August 27, 1972) in Los Angeles, California was one of the most prolific graffiti taggers of the late 20th century. CHAKA tags were widespread, from Orange County on up to San Francisco.

Authorities in Los Angeles County and surrounding areas throughout the West Coast ascribed to Chaka between ten and fifty thousand unique incidents of him "tagging" the word "CHAKA" on various vertical surfaces of private and state property, using equipment ranging from permanent markers to spray paint and incurring up to half a million dollars in monetary damage. Chaka was eventually caught, tried, and convicted in 1991 on these charges. He was sentenced to three years probation and 1,560 hours of community service to be spent cleaning graffiti. Ramos was accused of tagging the interior of a civic-center elevator as he left a courtroom. He was arrested and charged again. In the music video for the song, "Smells like Teen Spirit," by Nirvana, Dave Grohl's drum kit has "CHAKA" written on it in white lettering, supposedly in tribute to Ramos.

List of recurring alien characters in Stargate SG-1

This is a list of recurring alien characters in the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1.

Abydonians

The Abydonians are the people whom Colonel O'Neill's team encounters on another planet in the Stargate film. They are the slaves of the alien Ra and are descendants from ancient Egyptians brought through the Stargate to mine the fictional mineral naqahdah. The film gives the location of their homeworld—named Abydos in SG-1's pilot episode "Children of the Gods"—as the Kaliem galaxy "on the far side of the known universe" (a vague reference to the constellation Caelum, perhaps) in the film; and as the closest planets to Earth in the Stargate network in "Children of the Gods". In the film, O'Neill and Daniel Jackson inspire the Abydonians and their leader, Kasuf, to rise up against Ra. The military personnel return to Earth, while Daniel falls in love with Kasuf's daughter Sha're and remains behind. In "Children of the Gods", set a year after the film, the Goa'uld Apophis attacks Abydos, abducting Sha're and her brother Skaara to serve as hosts for his queen Amonet and son Klorel. In season 6's "Full Circle", the Goa'uld Anubis destroys Abydos, but Oma Desala helps its entire population Ascend.

Chaka (album)

Chaka is the debut solo album by American R&B/funk singer Chaka Khan, released on the Warner Bros. Records label in 1978.

Overview

Two singles were released from Chaka, the first being her anthemic solo debut "I'm Every Woman", one of Khan's signature tunes alongside "Ain't Nobody" (1983) and "I Feel For You" (1984). The song has over the past three decades been re-released, remixed and covered a number of times, most notably by Whitney Houston in 1992 for the soundtrack album The Bodyguard, then featuring guest vocals by Khan herself and topping Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. A remix of Khan's original recording was also a Top Ten hit in the U.K. in 1989. The remix was included on the compilation Life is a Dance - The Remix Project, the title track of which was the second single release from the Chaka album in early 1979 (US R&B #40). The album also features the ballad "Roll Me Through the Rushes", never commercially released as a single but still receiving considerable airplay in 1979, as well as Khan's cover version of Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her", re-titled "I Was Made to Love Him".