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Gambling on papal elections has at least a 500-year history. Betting on 16th-century papal conclaves are among the first documented examples of gambling on election outcomes. During the same period, gambling was also common on the outcomes of secular Italian elections, such as that of the Doge of Venice. Leighton Vaughan Williams and David Paton employ a unique dataset to investigate betting on the 2013 papal election, set within the context of the history of betting on papal conclaves.

The Phaistos Disc (also spelled Phaistos Disk, Phaestos Disc) is a disk of fired clay from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the island of Crete, possibly dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (second millennium B.C.). The disk is about 15 cm (5.9 in) in diameter and covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols. Its purpose and meaning, and even its original geographical place of manufacture, remain disputed, making it one of the most famous mysteries of archaeology. This unique object is now on display at the archaeological museum of Heraklion.

The disc was discovered in 1908 by the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in the Minoan palace-site of Phaistos, and features 241 tokens, comprising 45 distinct signs, which were apparently made by pressing hieroglyphic "seals" into a disc of soft clay, in a clockwise sequence spiraling toward the center of the disk.

The Phaistos Disc captured the imagination of amateur and professional archaeologists, and many attempts have been made to decipher the code behind the disc's signs. While it is not clear that it is a script, most attempted decipherments assume that it is; most additionally assume a syllabary, others an alphabet or logography. Attempts at decipherment are generally thought to be unlikely to succeed unless more examples of the signs are found, as it is generally agreed that there is not enough context available for a meaningful analysis.

Although the Phaistos Disc is generally accepted as authentic by archaeologists, a few scholars believe that the disc is a forgery or a hoax.

A light pillar is an atmospheric optical phenomenon in which a vertical beam of light appears to extend above and/or below a light source. The effect is created by the reflection of light from tiny ice crystals that are suspended in the atmosphere or that comprise high-altitude clouds (e.g. cirrostratus or cirrus clouds). If the light comes from the Sun (usually when it is near or even below the horizon), the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. Light pillars can also be caused by the Moon or terrestrial sources, such as streetlights and erupting volcanoes.

Impossible colors (forbidden, non-physical, unrealizable or chimerical colors) are supposed colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. Non-physical colors are those notionally resulting from combinations of retinal outputs which cannot arise in normal vision. Chimerical colors are perceived, typically transiently, through contrast effects.

Smeed's Law, named after R. J. Smeed, who first proposed the relationship in 1949, is a purported empirical rule relating traffic fatalities to traffic congestion as measured by the proxy of motor vehicle registrations and country population. The law proposes that increasing traffic volume (an increase in motor vehicle registrations) leads to an increase in fatalities per capita, but a decrease in fatalities per vehicle.

Smeed also predicted that the average speed of traffic in central London would always be nine miles per hour, because that is the minimum speed that people tolerate. He predicted that any intervention intended to speed traffic would only lead to more people driving at this "tolerable" speed unless there were any other disincentives against doing so.

His hypothesis in relation to road traffic safety has been refuted by several authors, who point out that fatalities per person have decreased in many countries, when the "Law" requires that they should increase as long as the number of vehicles per person continues to rise.

Évariste Galois (; French: [evaʁist ɡalwa]; 25 October 1811 – 31 May 1832) was a French mathematician and political activist. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by radicals, thereby solving a problem that had been open for 350 years. His work laid the foundations for Galois theory and group theory, two major branches of abstract algebra.

Galois was a staunch republican and was heavily involved in the political turmoil that surrounded the French Revolution of 1830. As a result of his political activism, he was arrested repeatedly, serving one jail sentence of several months. For reasons that remain obscure, shortly after his release from prison, Galois fought in a duel and died of the wounds he suffered.

The tennis racket theorem or intermediate axis theorem is a result in classical mechanics describing the movement of a rigid body with three distinct principal moments of inertia. It is also dubbed the Dzhanibekov effect, after Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov who noticed one of the theorem's logical consequences while in space in 1985 although the effect was already known for at least 150 years before that.

The theorem describes the following effect: rotation of an object around its first and third principal axes is stable, while rotation around its second principal axis (or intermediate axis) is not.

This can be demonstrated with the following experiment: hold a tennis racket at its handle, with its face being horizontal, and try to throw it in the air so that it will perform a full rotation around the horizontal axis perpendicular to the handle, and try to catch the handle. In almost all cases, during that rotation the face will also have completed a half rotation, so that the other face is now up. By contrast, it is easy to throw the racket so that it will rotate around the handle axis (the third principal axis) without accompanying half-rotation around another axis; it is also possible to make it rotate around the vertical axis perpendicular to the handle (the first principal axis) without any accompanying half-rotation.

The experiment can be performed with any object that has three different moments of inertia, for instance with a book, remote control or smartphone. The effect occurs whenever the axis of rotation differs only slightly from the object's second principal axis; air resistance or gravity are not necessary.

In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when he or she works in a group than when working alone and is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals. Research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by Ringelmann, who found that members of a group tended to exert less effort in pulling a rope than did individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from individual members feeling their individual effort will not matter to the group.

The French professor of agricultural engineering called Max Ringelman demonstrated what “social loafing” was in the 1890s. Ringelman, who was also considered one of the founders of social psychology, made people pull on ropes separately and in groups, and he measured and compared how hard they pulled. After collecting the results he realized that members of a group tended to exert less effort in pulling a rope than did individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from individual members feeling that his or her effort will not matter to the group. This is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals, but should be distinguished from the accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience.

Several studies found, a lack of an understanding of individual contributions, unchallenging tasks given to the individual, low personal satisfaction from the task, and a lack of a united group to be the most prevalent motivational origins of social loafing. Theories investigating why social loafing occurs range from a group member feeling their contribution will not be noticed to a group member realizing their efforts are not necessary. In a work setting, most managers agree if a task is new or complex employees should work alone. While tasks that are well known and have room for individual effort are better when done in groups.

In order to diminish social loafing from a group, several strategies could be put forward. Social loafing primarily happens when an individual unconscious or conscious exerts less effort due to a decrease in social awareness. In order to counteract the likelihood of this happening, Miguel Herraez, conducted a study on students where he used accountability and cooperation when unequal participation is found. The students were encouraged to do provide equal participation in the work and to point out sources of conflict that could arise. The conclusion of the study found that providing support to the group members lacking in commitment and creating options for independence among group members lowered social loafing. The support for the weaker students improves their standing while also benefiting the other students.

Social loafing should be distinguished from the accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience.

Cancer Alley (French: Allée du Cancer) is the regional nickname given to an 85-mile (137 km) stretch of land along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, in the River Parishes of Louisiana, which contains over 200 petrochemical plants and refineries. This area accounts for 25% of the petrochemical production in the United States. Environmentalists consider the region a sacrifice zone where rates of cancer caused by air pollution exceed the federal government's own limits of acceptable risk. Others have referred to the same region as "Death Alley".

Community leaders such as Sharon Lavigne have led the charge in protesting the expansion of the petrochemical industry in Cancer Alley, as well as addressing the associated racial and economic disparities.

Hoare logic (also known as Floyd–Hoare logic or Hoare rules) is a formal system with a set of logical rules for reasoning rigorously about the correctness of computer programs. It was proposed in 1969 by the British computer scientist and logician Tony Hoare, and subsequently refined by Hoare and other researchers. The original ideas were seeded by the work of Robert W. Floyd, who had published a similar system for flowcharts.