Category: Uncategorized

demand (n.)

late 13c., demaunde, “a question,” from Old French demande, from demander “to request; to demand” (see demand (v.)). Meaning “a request, a claim, an asking for by virtue of a right or supposed right to the thing sought,” also “that which is demanded or required, exaction as a tribute or concession,” without reference to right, is from c. 1300.

In the political economy sense of “desire to purchase and possess, coupled with the means to do so” (correlating to supply) it is attested from 1776 in Adam Smith. Meaning “state of being sought after” (especially by consumers) is from 1711. In demand “much sought after” is attested by 1825; on demand “on being requested” is from 1690s.

demand (v.)

late 14c., demaunden, “ask questions, make inquiry,” from Old French demander (12c.) “to request; to demand,” from Latin demandare “entrust, charge with a commission” (in Medieval Latin, “to ask, request, demand”), from de- “completely” (see de-) + mandare “to order” (see mandate (n.)).

Meaning “ask for with insistence or urgency” is from early 15c., from Anglo-French legal use (“to ask for as a right”). Meaning “require as necessary or useful” is by 1748. Related: Demanded; demanding.

require (v.)

late 14c., “to ask a question, inquire,” from Old French requerre “seek, procure; beg, ask, petition; demand,” from Vulgar Latin *requaerere, from Latin requirere “seek to know, ask,” from re-, here perhaps meaning “repeatedly” (see re-), + quaerere “ask, seek” (see query (v.)).

The original sense of this word has been taken over by request (v.). Sense of “demand (someone) to do (something)” is from 1751, via the notion of “to ask for imperatively, or as a right” (late 14c.). Related: Required; requiring.

cancel (v.)

late 14c., “cross out with lines, draw lines across (something written) so as to deface,” from Anglo-French and Old French canceler, from Latin cancellare “to make like a lattice,” which in Late Latin took on especially a sense “cross out something written” by marking it with crossed lines, from cancelli, plural of *cancellus (n.) “lattice, grating,” diminutive of cancer “crossed bars, a lattice,” a variant of carcer “prison” (see incarceration).

Figurative use, “to nullify (an obligation, etc.)” is from mid-15c. Related: Canceled (also cancelled); cancelling.

clandestine (adj.)

“secret, private, hidden, furtive,” 1560s, from Latin clandestinus “secret, hidden,” from clam “secretly,” from adverbial derivative of base of celare “to hide” (from PIE root *kel- (1) “to cover, conceal, save”), perhaps on model of intestinus “internal.” Related: Clandestinely. As a noun form, there is awkward clandestinity (clandestineness apparently being a dictionary word).

Tachyon

A tachyon (/ˈtækiɒn/) or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light. Most physicists believe that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics.[1][2] If such particles did exist, they could be used to build a tachyonic antitelephone and send signals faster than light, which (according to special relativity) would lead to violations of causality.[2] No experimental evidence for the existence of such particles has been found.

The possibility of particles moving faster than light was first proposed by Robert Ehrlich and Arnold Sommerfeld, independently of each other. In the 1967 paper that coined the term,[3] Gerald Feinberg proposed that tachyonic particles could be quanta of a quantum field with imaginary mass. However, it was soon realized that excitations of such imaginary mass fields do not under any circumstances propagate faster than light,[4] and instead the imaginary mass gives rise to an instability known as tachyon condensation.[1] Nevertheless, in modern physics the term tachyon often refers to imaginary mass fields rather than to faster-than-light particles.[1][5] Such fields have come to play a significant role in modern physics.

The term comes from the Greek: ταχύ, tachy, meaning rapid. The complementary particle types are called luxons (which always move at the speed of light) and bradyons (which always move slower than light); both of these particle types are known to exist.

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

Ecological pyramid

An ecological pyramid (also trophic pyramid, Eltonian pyramid, energy pyramid, or sometimes food pyramid) is a graphical representation designed to show the biomass or bioproductivity at each trophic level in a given ecosystem.

A pyramid of energy shows how much energy is retained in the form of new biomass at each trophic level, while a pyramid of biomass shows how much biomass (the amount of living or organic matter present in an organism) is present in the organisms. There is also a pyramid of numbers representing the number of individual organisms at each trophic level. Pyramids of energy are normally upright, but other pyramids can be inverted or take other shapes.

Ecological pyramids begin with producers on the bottom (such as plants) and proceed through the various trophic levels (such as herbivores that eat plants, then carnivores that eat flesh, then omnivores that eat both plants and flesh, and so on). The highest level is the top of the food chain.

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

alliance (n.)

c. 1300, “bond of marriage” (between ruling houses or noble families), from Old French aliance (12c., Modern French alliance) “alliance, bond; marriage, union,” from aliier (Modern French allier) “combine, unite” (see ally (v.)).

General sense of “combination for a common object” is from mid-14c., as are those of “bond or treaty between rulers or nations, contracted by treaty” and “aggregate of persons allied.” Unlike its synonyms, “rarely used of a combination for evil” [Century Dictionary]. Meaning “state of being allied or connected” is from 1670s. The Latin word was alligantia.