## Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Coriolis effect is the apparent deflection of moving objects from a straight path when they are viewed from a rotating frame of reference. The effect is named after Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis, a French scientist who described it in 1835, though the mathematics appeared in the tidal equations of Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1778. One of the most notable examples is the deflection of winds moving along the surface of the Earth to the right of the direction of travel in the Northern hemisphere and to the left of the direction of travel in the Southern hemisphere. This effect is caused by the rotation of the Earth and is responsible for the direction of the rotation of large cyclones: winds around the center of a cyclone rotate counterclockwise on the northern hemisphere and clockwise on the southern hemisphere.
The Coriolis effect is caused by the Coriolis force, which appears in the equation of motion in a rotating frame of reference. Sometimes this force is called a fictitious force (or pseudo force), because it does not appear when the motion is expressed in an inertial frame of reference. In such a frame, the motion is explained by the real impressed forces, together with inertia. In a rotating frame, the Coriolis and centrifugal forces are needed in the equation to correctly describe the motion.
Contrary to popular belief, the Coriolis effect is not the determining factor in the rotation of water in toilets or bathtubs (see the Draining bathtubs and toilets section below).

Formula
The Coriolis effect exists only when using a rotating reference frame. It is mathematically deduced from the law of inertia. Hence it does not correspond to any actual acceleration or force, but only the appearance thereof from the point of view of a rotating system.
The Coriolis effect exhibited by a moving object can be interpreted as being the sum of the effects of two different causes of equal magnitude.
The first cause is the change of the velocity of an object in time. The same velocity (in an inertial frame of reference where the normal laws of physics apply) will be seen as different velocities at different times in a rotating frame of reference. The apparent acceleration is proportional to the angular velocity of the reference frame (the rate at which the coordinate axes changes direction), and to the velocity of the object. This gives a term $-boldsymbolomegatimesmathbf{v}$. The minus sign arises from the traditional definition of the cross product (right hand rule), and from the sign convention for angular velocity vectors.
The second cause is change of velocity in space. Different points in a rotating frame of reference have different velocities (as seen from an inertial frame of reference). In order for an object to move in a straight line it must therefore be accelerated so that its velocity changes from point to point by the same amount as the velocities of the frame of reference. The effect is proportional to the angular velocity (which determines the relative speed of two different points in the rotating frame of reference), and the velocity of the object perpendicular to the axis of rotation (which determines how quickly it moves between those points). This also gives a term $-boldsymbolomegatimesmathbf{v}$.

Causes

The Coriolis effect is not a result of the curvature of the Earth, only of its rotation. (However, the value of the Coriolis parameter, $f$, does vary with latitude, and that dependence is due to the Earth's shape.)
The fact that ballistic missiles and satellites appear to follow curved paths when plotted on common world maps is mainly due to the fact that the earth is spherical and the shortest distance between two points on the earth's surface (called a great circle) is usually not a straight line on those maps. Every two-dimensional (flat) map necessarily distorts the earth's curved (three-dimensional) surface in some way. Typically (as in the commonly used Mercator projection, for example), this distortion increases with proximity to the poles. In the northern hemisphere for example, a ballistic missile fired toward a distant target using the shortest possible route (a great circle) will appear on such maps to follow a path north of the straight line from target to destination, and then curve back toward the equator. This occurs because the latitudes, which are projected as straight horizontal lines on most world maps, are in fact circles on the surface of a sphere, which get smaller as they get closer to the pole. Being simply a consequence of the sphericity of the Earth, this would be true even if the Earth didn't rotate. The Coriolis effect is of course also present, but its effect on the plotted path is much smaller.
The Coriolis force should not be confused with the centrifugal force given by $m boldsymbolomegatimes(boldsymbolomegatimesmathbf{r})$. A rotating frame of reference will always cause a centrifugal force no matter what the object is doing (unless that body is particle-like and lies on the axis of rotation), whereas the Coriolis force requires the object to be in motion relative to the rotating frame with a velocity that is not parallel to the rotation axis. Because the centrifugal force always exists, it can be easy to confuse the two, making simple explanations of the effect of Coriolis in isolation difficult. In particular, when $mathbf{v}$ is tangential to a circle centered on and perpendicular to the axis of rotation, the Coriolis force is parallel to the centrifugal force. It is then possible to construct a rotating reference frame of a different rotational speed, where $mathbf{v}$ is zero and there is no Coriolis force What the Coriolis effect is not
To demonstrate the Coriolis effect, a parabolic turntable can be used. On a flat turntable the centrifugal force, which always acts outwards from the rotation axis, would force co-rotating objects off the edge. But if the surface of the turntable has the correct parabolic bowl shape and is rotated at the correct rate, then the component of gravity tangential to the bowl surface will exactly equal the centripetal force necessary to keep the water rotating at its velocity and radius of curvature. This allows the Coriolis force to be displayed in isolation. When a container of fluid is rotating on a turntable, the surface of the fluid naturally assumes the correct parabolic shape. This fact may be exploited to make a parabolic turntable by using a fluid that sets after several hours, such as a synthetic resin.
Discs cut from cylinders of dry ice can be used as pucks, moving around almost frictionlessly over the surface of the parabolic turntable, allowing effects of Coriolis on dynamic phenomena to show themselves. To get a view of the motions as seen from the reference frame rotating with the turntable, a video camera is attached to the turntable so as to co-rotate with the turntable. Because this reference frame rotates several times a minute, rather than only once a day like the Earth, the Coriolis acceleration produced is many times larger, and so easier to observe on small time and spatial scales, than is the Coriolis acceleration caused by the rotation of the Earth.
In a manner of speaking, the Earth is analogous such a turntable. The rotation has caused the planet to settle on a spheroid shape such that the normal force, the gravitational force, and the centrifugal force exactly balance each other on a "horizontal" surface. (See equatorial bulge.)
The Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of the Earth can be seen indirectly through the motion of a Foucault pendulum.

Visualization of the Coriolis effect
A misconception in popular culture is that the Coriolis effect determines the direction in which bathtubs or toilets drain, such that water always drains in one direction in the Northern Hemisphere, and in the other direction in the Southern Hemisphere. This urban legend has been perpetuated by several television programs, including an episode of The Simpsons and The X-Files.
When the water is being drawn towards the drain, the radius with which it is spinning around it decreases, so its rate of rotation increases from the low background level to a noticeable spin in order to conserve its angular momentum (the same effect as ice skaters bringing their arms in to cause them to spin faster). As shown by Ascher Shapiro in a 1961 educational video (Vorticity, Part 1), this effect can indeed reveal the influence of the Coriolis force on drain direction, but only under carefully controlled laboratory conditions. In a large, circular, symmetrical container (ideally over 1m in diameter and conical), still water (whose motion is so little that over the course of a day, displacements are small compared to the size of the container) escaping through a very small hole, will drain in a cyclonic fashion: counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere—the same direction as the Earth rotates with respect to the corresponding pole.

Draining bathtubs and toilets
Perhaps the most important instance of the Coriolis effect is in the large-scale dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere. In meteorology, it is convenient to use a rotating frame of reference where the Earth is stationary. The fictitious centrifugal and Coriolis forces must then be introduced. The former, however, is cancelled by the non-spherical shape of the earth (see the turntable analogy above). Hence the Coriolis force is the only fictitious force to have a significant impact on calculations.

Coriolis in meteorology
If a low-pressure area forms in the atmosphere, air will tend to flow in towards it, but will be deflected perpendicular to its velocity by the Coriolis acceleration. A system of equilibrium can then establish itself creating circular movement, or a cyclonic flow.
The force balance is largely between the pressure gradient force acting towards the low-pressure area and the Coriolis force acting away from the center of the low pressure. To get some grip on the size of the effect, consider a high-pressure area at 1020 millibars at a distance of 1000 km from a low at 980 millibars. The pressure gradient is then 0.004 N/m Cyclones cannot form on the equator, because in the equatorial region the coriolis parameter is small, and exactly zero on the equator.

Flow around a low-pressure area
An air or water mass moving with speed $v,$ subject only to the Coriolis force travels in a circular trajectory called an 'inertial circle'. Since the force is directed at right angles to the motion of the particle, it will move with a constant speed, and perform a complete circle with frequency f. The magnitude of the Coriolis force also determines the radius of this circle:
$R=v/f,$.
On the Earth, a typical mid-latitude value for f is 10; hence for a typical atmospheric speed of 10 m/s the radius is 100 km, with a period of about 14 hours. In the ocean, where a typical speed is closer to 10 cm/s, the radius of an inertial circle is 1 km. These inertial circles are clockwise in the northern hemisphere (where trajectories are bent to the right) and anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere.
If the rotating system is a parabolic turntable, then f is constant and the trajectories are exact circles. On a rotating planet, f varies with latitude and the paths of particles do not form exact circles. Since the parameter f varies as the sine of the latitude, the radius of the oscillations associated with a given speed are smallest at the poles (latitude = ±90°), and increase toward the equator.

Inertial circles
Further information: Rossby number
The time, space and velocity scales are important in determining the importance of the Coriolis effect. Whether rotation is important in a system can be determined by its Rossby number, which is the ratio of the velocity, U, of a system to the product of the Coriolis parameter, f, and the length scale, L, of the motion:
$Ro = frac{U}{fL}$.
A small Rossby number signifies a system which is strongly affected by rotation, and a large Rossby number signifies a system in which rotation is unimportant.
An atmospheric system moving at U = 10 m/s occupying a spatial distance of L = 1000 km, has a Rossby number of approximately 0.1. A man playing catch may throw the ball at U = 30 m/s in a garden of length L = 50 m. The Rossby number in this case would be about = 6000. Needless to say, one does not worry about which hemisphere one is in when playing catch in the garden. However, an unguided missile obeys exactly the same physics as a baseball, but may travel far enough and be in the air long enough to notice the effect of Coriolis. Long-range shells in the Northern Hemisphere landed close to, but to the right of, where they were aimed until this was noted. (Those fired in the southern hemisphere landed to the left.)
The Rossby number can also tell us about the bathtub. If the length scale of the tub is about L=1m, and the water moves towards the drain at about 60cm/s, then the Rossby number is about 6 000. Thus, the bathtub is, in terms of scales, much like a game of catch, and rotation is likely to be unimportant.

Other terrestrial effects
The practical impact of the Coriolis effect is mostly caused by the horizontal acceleration component produced by horizontal motion.
There are other components of the Coriolis effect. Eastward-traveling objects will be deflected upwards (feel lighter), while westward-traveling objects will be deflected downwards (feel heavier). This is known as the Eötvös effect. This aspect of the Coriolis effect is greatest near the equator. The force produced by this effect is similar to the horizontal component, but the much larger vertical forces due to gravity and pressure mean that it is generally unimportant dynamically.
In addition, objects traveling upwards or downwards will be deflected to the west or east respectively. This effect is also the greatest near the equator. Since vertical movement is usually of limited extent and duration, the size of the effect is smaller and requires precise instruments to detect.

Other aspects of the Coriolis effect

Coriolis elsewhere
A practical application of the Coriolis effect is the mass flow meter, an instrument that measures the mass flow rate and density of a fluid flowing through a tube. The operating principle, introduced in 1977 by Micro Motion Inc., involves inducing a vibration of the tube through which the fluid passes. The vibration, though it is not completely circular, provides the rotating reference frame which gives rise to the Coriolis effect. While specific methods vary according to the design of the flow meter, sensors monitor and analyze changes in frequency, phase shift, and amplitude of the vibrating flow tubes. The changes observed represent the mass flow rate and density of the fluid.

Coriolis flow meter
In polyatomic molecules, the molecule motion can be described by a rigid body rotation and internal vibration of atoms about their equilibrium position. As a result of the vibrations of the atoms, the atoms are in motion relative to the rotating coordinate system of the molecule. Coriolis effects will therefore be present and will cause the atoms to move in a direction perpendicular to the original oscillations. This leads to a mixing in molecular spectra between the rotational and vibrational levels.

Molecular physics
The Coriolis effects became important in external ballistics for calculating the trajectories of very long-range artillery shells. The most famous historical example was the Paris gun, used by the Germans during World War I to bombard Paris from a range of about 120 km. The Coriolis effect plays a role in almost all modern artillery trajectory calculations.

Insect flight

## Friday, March 28, 2008

Politics of the Republic of Macedonia occurs within the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

President

• Branko Crvenkovski Prime Minister

• Nikola Gruevski Assembly
Political parties Elections:

• President 2004 Parliament 2006
Municipalities
Albanians Human rights Language and politics
Foreign relations

• EU accession Naming issue Executive branch
The Assembly (Sobranie) has 120 members, elected for a four year term, by proportional representation.

Legislative branch
For other political parties see List of political parties in the Republic of Macedonia. An overview on elections and election results is included in Elections in the Republic of Macedonia.

Main article: Macedonian presidential election, 2004 Political parties and elections
Judiciary power is exercised by courts, with the court system being headed by the Judicial Supreme Court, Constitutional Court and the Republican Judicial Council. The assembly appoints the judges.

## Thursday, March 27, 2008

Edgar Purnell Hooley (1860 - 1942) is the inventor of Tarmac.
He was the County Surveyor of Nottinghamshire. He was passing a tarworks in 1901. He saw that a barrel of tar had spilled on the roadway, and in an attempt to reduce the mess, gravel had been dumped on top of it. The area was remarkably dust-free compared to the surrounding road, and it inspired Hooley to develop and patent Tarmac in Britain.
He called his company Tar Macadam (Purnell Hooley's Patent) Syndicate Limited, but unfortunately he had trouble selling his product as he was not an experienced businessman. His company was soon bought out by the Wolverhampton MP, Sir Alfred Hickman, the owner of a steelworks which produced large quantities of waste slag. The Tarmac company was relaunched in 1905, and became an immediate success: it remains a major player in the UK market for heavy building materials.

Patents

Hooley, E. Purnell, U.S. Patent 765,975 , "Apparatus for the preparation of tar macadam", July 26, 1904.

## Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Law and Politics
Arbitrary actions are closely related to teleology, the study of purpose. Actions lacking a telos, a goal, are necessarily arbitrary. With no end to measure against, there can be no standard applied to choices, so all decisions are alike. Note that arbitrary or random methods in the standard sense of arbitrary may not qualify as arbitrary choices philosophically, if they were done in furtherance of a larger purpose; in the examples above, discipline in school and avoiding overcrowding at gas stations.
Nihilism is the philosophy that believes that there is no purpose in the universe, and that every choice is arbitrary. According to nihilism, the universe contains no value and is essentially meaningless. Because the universe and all of its constituents contain no higher goal for us to make subgoals from, all aspects of human life and experiences are completely arbitrary. There is no right or wrong decision, thought or practice, and whatever choice a human being makes is just as meaningless and empty as any other choice he or she could've made.
Many brands of theism, the belief in a deity or deities, believe that everything has a purpose and that nothing is arbitrary. In these philosophies, God created the universe for a reason, and every event flows from that. Even seemingly random events cannot escape God's hand and purpose. This is somewhat related to the argument from design, the argument for God's existence because a purpose can be found in the universe.
Arbitrariness is also related to ethics, the philosophy of decision-making. Even if a person has a goal, they may choose to attempt to achieve it in ways that may be considered arbitrary. Rationalism holds that knowledge comes about through intellectual calculation and deduction; many rationalists (though not all) apply this to ethics as well. All decisions should be made through reason and logic, not via whim or how one "feels" what is right. Randomness may occasionally be acceptable as part of a subtask in furtherance of a larger goal, but not in general.

Mathematics

Arbitration

## Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Five for Fighting is the stage name of American singer-songwriter John Ondrasik. His 2000 album America Town went platinum in the U.S. largely due to the success of the song "Superman (It's Not Easy)" following the September 11 attacks in 2001. The 2004 album The Battle for Everything has also enjoyed chart success in the United States. Ondrasik has also released a DualDisc of his 2004 album which has one side containing The Battle for Everything in its entirety and the other side being a DVD containing bonus footage and the "100 Years" music video. Five for Fighting's fourth album, Two Lights, was released on August 1, 2006.

It may violate Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons. Tagged since September 2007. It needs additional references or sources for verification. Tagged since September 2007. It contains a trivia section. Tagged since September 2007.
America Town

Main article: The Battle for Everything The Battle for Everything

Main article: Two Lights (album) Two Lights
In the spring of 2007, Ondrasik created the first video charity website. The website allows fans to upload videos answering the central question, "What Kind of World do You Want?" from his hit song,"World". Each time a fan-made video is viewed, up to .49 cents goes to a selected charity. The charities are: Augie's Quest (www.augiesquest.org) Autism Speaks (www.autismspeaks.org) Fisher House Foundation (www.fisherhouse.org) Save the Children (www.savethechildren.org)

Philanthropy
Backcountry is a live CD/DVD to be released on November 6th, 2007.

Back Country

Discography

1997: Message for Albert
2000: America Town #54 U.S., #30 Australia
2004: Acoustic Live (EP)
2004: The Battle for Everything #20 U.S.
2004: 2+2 Makes 5 (EP)
2006: The Battle for Everything (DualDisc)
2006: The Riddle (EP)
2006: Two Lights #8 U.S.
2007: Backcountry Singles

On the weekend of January 27/28, 2007, John Ondrasik filled in for legendary radio host Casey Kasem on the American Top 20 and American Top 10 radio programs. On AT20, he counted down his own hit "World," and on AT10 he counted down his own hit "The Riddle."
In 2005 he recorded the song "Penguin Lament" for Sandra Boynton's "Dog Train" book and CD.
In March 2007, Ondrasik began appearing in a series of short videos profiling Republican presidential contenders in an interview format at gather.com. So far he has interviewed Mike Huckabee[2] and Newt Gingrich[3].
John Ondrasik co-wrote the Josh Groban song "February Song" for Groban's third album, Awake.

## Monday, March 24, 2008

Deontic logic is the field of logic that is concerned with obligation, permission, and related concepts. Alternatively, a deontic logic is a formal system that attempts to capture the essential logical features of these concepts. Typically, a deontic logic uses OA to mean it is obligatory that A, (or it ought to be (the case) that A), and PA to mean it is permitted (or permissible) that A. The term deontic is derived from the ancient Greek déon, meaning, roughly, that which is binding or proper.

History
Philosophers from the Indian Mimamsa school to those of Ancient Greece have remarked on the formal logical relations of deontic concepts In his Elementa juris naturalis, Leibniz notes the logical relations between the licitum, illicitum, debitum, and indifferens are equivalent to those between the possible, impossible, necessarium, and contingens respectively.
Pre-History of Deontic Logic
Ernst Mally, a pupil of Alexius Meinong, was the first to propose a formal system of deontic logic in his Grundgesetze des Sollens and he founded it on the syntax of Whitehead's and Russell's propositional calculus. Mally's deontic vocabulary consisted of the logical constants U and ∩, unary connective !, and binary connectives f and ∞. * Mally read !A as "A ought to be the case". * He read A f B as "A requires B" . * He read A ∞ B as "A and B require each other." * He read U as "the unconditionally obligatory" . * He read ∩ as "the unconditionally forbidden". Mally defined f, ∞, and ∩ as follows:
Def. f. A f B = A → !B Def. ∞. A ∞ B = (A f B) & (B f A) Def. ∩. ∩ = ¬U Mally proposed five informal principles:
(i) If A requires B and if B then C, then A requires C. (ii) If A requires B and if A requires C, then A requires B and C. (iii) A requires B if and only if it is obligatory that if A then B. (iv) The unconditionally obligatory is obligatory. (v) The unconditionally obligatory does not require its own negation. He formalized these principles and took them as his axioms:

Mally's First Deontic Logic and von Wright's First Plausible Deontic Logic
In von Wright's first system, obligatoriness and permissibility were treated as features of acts. It was found not much later that a deontic logic of propositions could be given a simple and elegant Kripke-style semantics, and von Wright himself joined this movement. The deontic logic so specified came to be known as "standard deontic logic," often referred to as SDL, KD, or simply D. It can be axiomatized by adding the following axioms to a standard axiomatization of classical propositional logic:
$O(A rightarrow B) rightarrow (OA rightarrow OB)$
$OA rightarrow PA$
In English, these axioms say, respectively:
FA, meaning it is forbidden that A, can be defined (equivalently) as $O lnot A$ or $lnot PA$.
The propositional system D can be extended to include quantifiers in a relatively straightforward way.

If it ought to be that A implies B, then if it ought to be that A, it ought to be that B;
If it ought to be that A, then it is permissible that A. Standard deontic logic
An important problem of deontic logic is that of how to properly represent conditional obligations, e.g. If you smoke (s), then you ought to use an ashtray (a). It is not clear that either of the following representations is adequate:
$O(mathrm{smoke} rightarrow mathrm{ashtray})$
$mathrm{smoke} rightarrow O(mathrm{ashtray})$
Under the first representation it is vacuously true that if you commit a forbidden act, then you ought to commit any other act, regardless of whether that second act was obligatory, permitted or forbidden (Von Wright 1956, cited in Aqvist 1994). Under the second representation, we are vulnerable to the gentle murder paradox, where the plausible statements if you murder, you ought to murder gently, you do commit murder and to murder gently you must murder imply the less plausible statement: you ought to murder.
Some deontic logicians have responded to this problem by developing dyadic deontic logics, which contain a binary deontic operators:
$O(A mid B)$ means it is obligatory that A, given B
$P(A mid B)$ means it is permissible that A, given B.
(The notation is modeled on that used to represent conditional probability.) Dyadic deontic logic escapes some of the problems of standard (unary) deontic logic, but it is subject to some problems of its own.

Many other varieties of deontic logic have been developed, including non-monotonic deontic logics, paraconsistent deontic logics, and dynamic deontic logics.

Other variations
Deontic logic faces Jørgensen's Dilemma. Norms cannot be true or false, but truth and truth values seem essential to logic. There are two possible answers:

Deontic logic handles norm propositions, not norms;
There might be alternative concepts to truth, e.g. validity or success, as it is defined in speech act theory. Jørgensen's Dilemma

Modal logic
Imperative logic
Norm (philosophy)

## Sunday, March 23, 2008

Hess' Law is a law of physical chemistry named for Germain Hess's expansion of the Hess Cycle and used to predict the enthalpy change and conservation of energy (denoted as state function ΔH) regardless of the path through which it is to be determined.

Use
Typical table for making a Hess cycle:
Using this ΔHf

## Saturday, March 22, 2008

Hannah Gordon (born 9 April 1941) is a Scottish actress who is well known in the United Kingdom for her television work, including Upstairs, Downstairs, Telford's Change, My Wife Next Door and an appearance in the final episode of One Foot in the Grave.

Early life
Having married cameraman Norman Warwick, they had a son Ben, and Gordon returned to work after a year out in 1974.

## Friday, March 21, 2008

Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data in a study. They provide simple summaries about the sample and the measures. Together with simple graphics analysis, they form the basis of virtually every quantitative analysis of data. Various techniques that are commonly used are classified as:
In general, statistical data can be described as a list of subjects or units and the data associated with each of them. Although most research uses many data types for each unit, we will limit ourselves to just one data item each for this simple introduction.
We have two objectives for our summary:
When we are summarizing a quantity like length or weight or age, it is common to answer the first question with the arithmetic mean, the median, or the mode. Sometimes, we choose specific values from the cumulative distribution function called quantiles.
The most common measures of variability for quantitative data are the variance; its square root, the standard deviation; the range; interquartile range; and the average absolute deviation (average deviation).

Graphical description in which we use graphs to summarize data.
Tabular description in which we use tables to summarize data.
Summary statistics in which we calculate certain values to summarize data.
We want to choose a statistic that shows how different units seem similar. Statistical textbooks call the solution to this objective, a measure of central tendency.
We want to choose another statistic that shows how they differ. This kind of statistic is often called a measure of statistical variability. Steps in descriptive statistics

Collect data
Classify data
Summarize data
Present data
Proceed to inferential statistics if there are enough data to draw a conclusion.

## Thursday, March 20, 2008

Coordinates: 53°45′N, 71°59′W
Quebec (pronounced [kʰwəˈbɛk] or [kʰəˈbɛk]) or, in French, Québec (pronounced [kebɛk]), is a province in Canada.
Affectionately known as la belle province ("the beautiful province"), Quebec is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario, James Bay and Hudson Bay. To the north are the Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay, to the east the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the provinces of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, and to the south the United States (the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine). It also shares maritime borders with the Territory of Nunavut and the provinces of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is the second most populated province, and most of its inhabitants live along or close to the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. The central and north portion of the province is sparsely populated and inhabited by the aboriginal peoples of Canada. Quebec operates North America's largest and most extensive civil service.
The official language of Quebec is French; it is the sole Canadian province whose population is mainly French Canadian, and where English is not an official language at the provincial level.
Quebec, then called Canada, formed part of the colonial empire of New France until the Seven Years' War, when it was conquered by Great Britain; the 1763 Treaty of Paris formally transferred the colony to British possession. After the Constitutional Act of 1791, it became known as Lower Canada (with Ontario being Upper Canada, the names derived from elevation, not latitude). In 1840, Quebec became Eastern Canada after the British Parliament unified Upper and Lower Canada on the recommendation of Lord Durham. Quebec was one of the first 4 provinces to join the Canadian Confederation in 1867.
While the province's substantial natural resources have long been the mainstay of its economy, Quebec has renewed itself to function effectively in the knowledge economy: information and communication technologies, aerospace, biotechnology, and health industries.

Geography
In 1870, Canada purchased Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company and over the next few decades the Parliament of Canada transferred portions of this territory to Quebec that would more than triple the size of the province. In 1898, the Canadian Parliament passed the first Quebec Boundary Extension Act that expanded the provincial boundaries northward to include the lands of the aboriginal Cree. This was followed by the addition of the District of Ungava through the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act of 1912 that added the northernmost lands of the aboriginal Inuit to create the modern Province of Quebec.

Provincial boundary expansions
As a result of the boundary expansions, the province currently occupies a vast territory (nearly three times the size of France), most of which is very sparsely populated. More than 90 percent of Quebec's area lies within the Canadian Shield and includes the greater part of the Labrador Peninsula. The most populated region is the St. Lawrence River valley in the south, where the capital, Quebec City, and the largest city, Montreal, are situated. North of Montreal are the Laurentians, a mountain range, and to the east are the Appalachian Mountains which extend into the Eastern Townships and Gaspésie regions. Quebec's highest mountain is Mont D'Iberville, which is located on the border with Newfoundland and Labrador in the northeastern part of the province. The Gaspé Peninsula juts into the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the east.
The northern region of Nunavik is subarctic or arctic and is mostly inhabited by Inuit. A major hydro-electric project is found on the La Grande and Eastmain rivers in the James Bay region (the La Grande Complex) and on the Manicouagan River, north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Current territory
Quebec has three main climate regions. Southern and western Quebec, including most of the major population centres, have a humid continental climate (Koppen climate classification Dfb) with warm, humid summers and long, cold winters. The main climatic influences are from western and northern Canada which move eastward and from the southern and central United States that move northward. Due to the influence of both storm systems from the core of North America and the Atlantic Ocean, precipitation is abundant throughout the year, with most areas receiving more than 1,000 mm (40 inches) of precipitation, including over 300 cm (120 inches) of snow in many areas. Severe summer weather (such as tornadoes and severe thunderstorms) are far less common than in southern Ontario, although they occasionally occur.
Most of central Quebec has a subarctic climate (Koppen Dfc). Winters here are long and among the coldest in eastern Canada, while summers are warm but very short due to the higher latitude and the greater influence of Arctic air masses. Precipitation is also somewhat less than farther south, except at some of the higher elevations.
The northern regions of Quebec have an arctic climate (Koppen ET), with very cold winters and short, much cooler summers. The primary influences here are the Arctic Ocean currents (such as the Labrador Current) and continental air masses from the High Arctic.

Climate

Main article: History of Quebec History
At the time of first European contact and later colonization, Algonquian, Iroquoian and Inuit groups were the peoples of what is now Québec. Their lifestyles and cultures reflected the land on which they lived. Seven Algonquian groups lived nomadic lives based on hunting, gathering, and fishing in the rugged terrain of the Canadian Shield: (James Bay Cree, Innu, Algonquins) and Appalachian Mountains (Mi'kmaq, Abenaki). St. Lawrence Iroquoians lived more settled lives, planting squash and maize in the fertile soils of St. Lawrence Valley. The Inuit continue to fish, whale, and seal in the harsh Arctic climate along the coasts of Hudson and Ungava Bay. These peoples traded fur and food, and sometimes warred with each other.
The name "Quebec", which comes from a Míkmaq word meaning "strait, narrows", originally meant the narrowing of the St. Lawrence River off what is currently Quebec City. There have been variations in spelling of the name:

Québecq — Levasseur, 1601
Kébec — Lescarbot, 1609
Québec — Champlain, 1613 First Nations: before 1500
Basque whalers and fishermen traded furs with Saguenay natives throughout the 1500s. [2]
The first French explorer to reach Quebec was Jacques Cartier, who planted a cross either in Gaspé in 1534 or at Old Fort Bay on the Lower North Shore. He sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1535 and established an ill-fated colony near present-day Quebec City at the site of Stadacona, an Iroquoian village.

Early European exploration: 1500

Main article: New France New France
In 1753 France began building a series of forts in the British Ohio Country. They refused to leave after being notified by the British Governor and, in 1754, George Washington launched an attack on the French Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburgh) in the Ohio Valley in an attempt to enforce the British claim to take territory. This frontier battle set the stage for the French and Indian War in North America. By 1756, France and Britain were battling the Seven Years' War worldwide. In 1758, the British mounted an attack on New France by sea and took the French fort at Louisbourg.
On 13 September 1759, General James Wolfe defeated General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City. France ceded its North American possessions to Great Britain through the Treaty of Paris (1763). By the British Royal Proclamation of 1763, Canada (part of New France) was renamed the Province of Quebec.
In 1774, fearful that the French-speaking population of Quebec (as the colony was now called) would side with the rebels of the Thirteen Colonies to the south, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act giving recognition to French law, Catholic religion and French language in the colony; before that Catholics had been excluded from public office and recruitment of priests and brothers forbidden, effectively shutting down Quebec's schools and colleges. The first British policy of assimilation (1763-1774) was deemed a failure. Both the petitions and demands of the Canadiens' élites, and Governor Guy Carleton, played an important part in convincing London of dropping the assimilation scheme, but the looming American revolt was certainly a factor. By the Quebec Act, the Quebec people obtained their first Charter of rights. That paved the way to later official recognition of the French language and French culture. The Act allowed Canadiens to maintain French civil law and sanctioned the freedom of religious choice, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain. It also restored the Ohio Valley to Quebec, reserving the territory for the fur trade.
The act, designed to placate one North American colony, had the opposite effect among its neighbors to the south. The Quebec Act was among the Intolerable Acts that infuriated American colonists, who launched the American Revolution. A 1775 invasion by the American Continental Army met with early success, but was later repelled at Quebec City.

Conquest of New France
When the American army came to Quebec they found many sympathetic supporters. According to Baby, Tachereau and Williams, as many as 747 peoples in Quebec took up active service with the Americans. Most notably Clément Gosselin of the 2nd Canadian Regiment. At sea, Louis-Philippe de Vaudreuil beat the British Navy at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. John Graves Simcoe, the founder of Ontario, was soundly defeated by the French Cavalry of the Duke of Lauzun, who was brought to America by Louis-Philippe.
William Howe who led the attack on the Plains of Abraham before Wolfe, was met by the 2nd Canadian Regiment at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777. This was a diversion battle while other Quebecers in the 1st Canadian Regiment of James Livingston defeated John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.
At the end of the war, 50,000 Loyalists came to Canada and settled amongst a population of 90,000 French people. English Canada was built by the British who were defeated by the Americans, French and Quebecers at the Battle of Yorktown.
The American Revolutionary War was ultimately successful in winning the independence of the Thirteen Colonies. With the Treaty of Paris (1783), the British would cede its territory south of the Great Lakes to the new United States of America.

The English defeat at Yorktown 1781

Main article: Lower Canada Rebellion The Patriotes' Rebellion in Lower and Upper Canada
After the rebellions, Lord Durham was asked to undertake a study and prepare a report on the matter and to offer a solution for the British Parliament to assess.
The final report recommended that the population of Lower Canada be assimilated. Following Durham's Report, the British government merged the two colonial provinces into one Province of Canada in 1840 with the Act of Union.
However, the political union proved contentious. Reformers in both Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) and Canada East (formerly Lower Canada) worked to repeal limitations on the use of the French language in the Legislature. The two colonies remained distinct in administration, election, and law.
In 1848, Baldwin and LaFontaine, allies and leaders of the Reformist party, obtained the grant (from Lord Elgin) for responsible government and returned the French language to legal status in the Legislature.

Act of Union
In the 1860s, the delegates from the colonies of British North America (Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland) met in a series of conferences to discuss self-governing status for a new confederation.
The first Charlottetown Conference took place in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island followed by the Quebec Conference in Quebec City which led to a delegation going to London, England to put forth the proposal for the national union.
As a result of those deliberations, in 1867 the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the British North America Act, providing for the Confederation of most of these provinces.
The former Province of Canada was divided into its two previous parts as the provinces of Ontario (Upper Canada) and Quebec (Lower Canada).

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined Ontario and Quebec in the new Dominion of Canada.
Prince Edward Island joined in 1873 and the Dominion of Newfoundland entered Confederation in 1949. Canadian Confederation

Main article: Quiet Revolution The "Quiet Revolution"
Lévesque and his party had run in the 1970 and 1973 Quebec elections under a platform of separating Quebec from the rest of Canada. The party failed to win control of Quebec's National Assembly both times — though its share of the vote increased from 23% to 30% — and Lévesque himself was defeated both times in the riding he contested. In the 1976 election, he softened his message by promising a referendum (plebiscite) on sovereignty-association rather than outright separation, by which Quebec would have independence in most government functions but share some other ones, such as a common currency, with Canada. On November 15, 1976, Lévesque and the Parti Québécois won control of the provincial government for the first time. The question of sovereignty-association was placed before the voters in the 1980 Quebec referendum. During the campaign, Pierre Trudeau promised that a vote for the NO side was a vote for reforming Canada. Trudeau advocated the patriation of Canada's Constitution from the United Kingdom. The existing constitutional document, the British North America Act, could only be amended by the United Kingdom Parliament upon a request by the Canadian parliament.
Sixty percent of the Quebec electorate voted against the proposition. Polls showed that the overwhelming majority of English and immigrant Quebecers voted against, and that French Quebecers were almost equally divided, with older voters less in favour, and younger voters more in favour. After his loss in the referendum, Lévesque went back to Ottawa to start negotiating a new constitution with Trudeau, his minister of Justice Jean Chrétien and the nine other provincial premiers. Lévesque insisted Quebec be able to veto any future constitutional amendments. The negotiations quickly reached a stand-still.
Then on the night of November 4, 1981 (widely known in Quebec as La nuit des longs couteaux or the "Night of the Long Knives"'), Federal Justice Minister Jean Chretien met all the provincial premiers except René Lévesque to sign the document that would eventually become the new Canadian constitution. The next morning, they put Lévesque in front of the "fait accompli." Lévesque refused to sign the document, and returned to Quebec. In 1982, Trudeau had the new constitution approved by the British Parliament, with Quebec's signature still missing (a situation that persists to this day). The Supreme Court of Canada confirmed Trudeau's assertion that every province's approval is not required to amend the constitution.
In subsequent years, two attempts were made to gain Quebec's approval of the constitution. The first was the Meech Lake Accord of 1987, which was finally abandoned in 1990 when the provinces of Manitoba and Newfoundland refused to support it. This led to the formation of the sovereignist Bloc Québécois party in Ottawa under the leadership of Lucien Bouchard, who had resigned from the federal cabinet. The second attempt, the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, was rejected by 56.7% of all Canadians and 57% of Quebecers. This result caused a split in the Quebec Liberal Party that led to the formation of the new Action Démocratique (Democratic Action) party led by Mario Dumont and Jean Allaire.
On October 30, 1995, with the Parti Québécois back in power since 1994, a second referendum on sovereignty took place. This time, it was rejected by a slim majority (50.6% NO to 49.4% YES); a clear majority of French-speaking Quebecers voted in favour of sovereignty.
The referendum was enshrouded in controversy. Federalists complained that an unusually high number of ballots had been rejected in pro-federalist areas, notably in the largely Jewish and Greek riding of Chomedey (11.7 % or 5,500 of its ballots were spoiled, compared to 750 or 1.7% in the general election of 1994) although Quebec's chief electoral officer found no evidence of outright fraud. The Government of Canada was accused of not respecting provincial laws with regard to spending during referendums (leading to a corruption scandal that would become public a decade later, greatly damaging the Liberal Party's standing), and to having accelerated the naturalization of immigrant people living in the province of Quebec (43,850 immigrants were naturalized in 1995, whereas the average number between 1988 and 1998 was 21,733).
The same night of the referendum, an angry Jacques Parizeau, then premier and leader of the "Yes" side, declared that the loss was due to "money and the ethnic vote". Parizeau resigned over public outrage and as per his commitment to do so in case of a loss. Lucien Bouchard became Quebec's new premier in his place.
Federalists accused the sovereignist side of asking a vague, overly complicated question on the ballot. Its English text read as follows:
Do you agree that Québec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Québec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?
After winning the next election, Bouchard retired from politics in 2001. Bernard Landry was then appointed leader of the Parti Québécois and premier of Quebec. In 2003, Landry lost the election to the Quebec Liberal Party and Jean Charest. Landry stepped down as PQ leader in 2005, and in a crowded race for the party leadership, André Boisclair was elected to succeed him. The PQ has promised to hold another referendum should it return to government.
Given the province's heritage and the preponderance of French (unique among the Canadian provinces), there is an ongoing debate in Canada regarding the status of Quebec and/or its people (wholly or partially). Prior attempts to amend the Canadian constitution to acknowledge Quebec as a 'distinct society' – referring to the province's uniqueness within Canada regarding law, language, and culture – have been unsuccessful; however, the federal government under prime minister Jean Chrétien would later endorse recognition of Quebec as a distinct society. On October 30, 2003, the National Assembly voted unanimously to affirm "that the Quebecers form a nation". As only a motion of the House, it is not legally binding.

The Parti Québécois and constitutional crisis

Main articles: Politics of Quebec and Monarchy in Quebec Administrative subdivisions
The data are from the 2006 census of Canada. [5]

Population centres
¹These figures are adjusted to reflect boundary changes for the 2006 census.
²Where a metropolitan area straddles more than one administrative region, the region of the central municipality is given.
³These figures pertain to the part of the Ottawa-Gatineau census metropolitan area that is in Quebec. The total figures for the CMA, including the part in Ontario, are 1,130,761 (2006), 1,067,800 (2001).

Census metropolitan areas by population
The municipalities of the Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan areas exceeding 50,000 in population in 2006 are given below with their administrative regions in parentheses.
Montreal CMA:
The population of the Island of Montreal was 1,854,442.
Quebec CMA:
Ottawa-Gatineau CMA:
The population of Ottawa, Ontario is 812,129.

Montreal (Montréal), 1,620,693;
Laval (Laval), 368,709;
Longueuil (Montérégie), 229,330;
Terrebonne (Lanaudière), 94,703;
Repentigny (Lanaudière) 76,237;
Brossard (Montérégie), 71,154;
Saint-Jérôme (Laurentides), 63,729.
Quebec City (Capitale-Nationale), 491,142;
Lévis (Chaudière-Appalaches), 130,006.
Gatineau (Outaouais), 242,124. Major municipalities
¹These figures are adjusted to reflect boundary changes for the 2006 census.
²Where a census agglomeration straddles more than one administrative region, the region of the central municipality is given.
The municipalities of Quebec which are not part of a CMA or CA but which had populations exceeding 10,000 in 2006, with administrative regions in parentheses, are: Gaspé (Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine), 14,819; Saint-Lin-Laurentides (Lanaudière), 14,159; Mont-Laurier (Laurentides), 13,405; Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine), 12,560; Sainte-Marie (Chaudière-Appalaches), 11,584; Montmagny (Chaudière-Appalaches), 11,353; Sainte-Adèle (Laurentides), 10,634; Roberval (Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean), 10,544; Saint-Félicien (Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean), 10,477; Sainte-Sophie (Laurentides), 10,355; Prévost (Laurentides), 10,132; Rawdon (Lanaudière), 10,058.

Other census agglomerations

Main article: Economy of Quebec Economy

Main article: Culture of Quebec Culture

Main article: Demographics of Quebec Demographics

Population of Quebec since 1851
The information regarding ethnicities at the right is from the 2001 Canadian Census. The percentages add to more than 100% because of dual responses (e.g., "French-Canadian" generates an entry in both the category "French" and the category "Canadian".) Groups with greater than 70,000 responses are included.

Ethnic origins
Quebec is unique among the provinces in its overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population. This is a legacy of colonial times; only Catholics were permitted to settle in the New France colony.

90.2% Christian

• 83.3% Roman Catholic
4.7% Protestant
1.4% Eastern Orthodox
0.8% other Christian
7.1% non-religious
1.5% Muslim
1.2% Jewish Religious groups

Main article: Demolinguistics of Quebec Language
The motto of Quebec is Je me souviens ("I remember"), which is carved into the Parliament Building façade in Quebec City and is seen on the coat of arms and licence plates.
The graphic emblem of Quebec is the fleur-de-lis, usually white on a blue background, as on the flag of Quebec, the Fleurdelisé. As indicated on the government of Quebec's Web site, the flag recalls the French Royal banner said to have accompanied the army of General Montcalm, Marquis de Saint-Véran during the victorious battle of Carillon in 1758. While the fleur-de-lis, a symbol of France's Ancien Régime, may be thought of as "counter-revolutionary" in France today, it is a modern symbol in Quebec (which was never ruled by the French Republic) and is prominent in its coat of arms.
The floral emblem of Quebec is the Iris versicolor. It was formerly the Madonna lily, to recall the fleur-de-lis, but has been changed to the iris, which is native to Quebec.
The avian emblem of Quebec is the snowy owl.
In addition to the other emblems, an insect emblem has been chosen by popular vote in October 1998 during a poll sponsored by the Montreal Insectarium: The White Admiral (Limenitis arthemis) [12] won with 32 % of the 230 660 votes. The butterfly was in competition with four other candidates: the Spotted lady beetle (Coleomegilla maculata lengi), the Ebony Jewelwing damselfly (Calopteryx maculata), a species of bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) and the six-spotted tiger beetle (Cicindela sexguttata sexguttata). The Ministère du Développement durable, de l'Environnement et des Parcs supports and finances actions to officially recognize the White Admiral as the insect emblem.
The patron saints of French Canada are Saint Anne and John the Baptist. La Saint-Jean, June 24, is Quebec's national day and has been officially called the Fête nationale du Québec since 1977. The song "Gens du pays" by Gilles Vigneault is sometimes regarded as Quebec's unofficial anthem.

Symbols and emblems

National Hockey League

• Montreal Alouettes
Can-Am League

• Quebec Capitales
National Women's Hockey League

• Montreal Axion
Quebec Avalanche
United Soccer Leagues

• Montreal Impact Former sports teams
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Alliance Quebec
Anglo-Quebecer
Autoroute (Quebec) (Quebec's Autoroute system)
Charter of the French Language
Cinema of Quebec
Civil Code of Quebec
Civil unions in Quebec
Distinct society
Education in Quebec
État québécois
A few acres of snow
Irish Quebecer
List of Canadian provincial and territorial symbols
Quebec lists:

Cathedrals · Communities · County seats · Lieutenant Governors · Actors · Authors · Counties (historic) · County regional municipalities (current) · Premiers · Provincial highways · Regions · Universities · Quebecers · Airports · Quebec-related topics

Musicians of Quebec
National Assembly of Quebec
National Order of Quebec
New France
Office québécois de la langue française
Quebec French
Quebec general elections
Quebec sovereignty movement
Québécois
Same-sex marriage in Quebec
Scots-Quebecer
Scouting in Québec
Timeline of Quebec history