who is the author of crime and punishment

Crime and Punishment (pre-reform Russian: Преступленіе и наказаніе; post-reform Russian: Преступление и наказание, tr. Prestupléniye i nakazániye, IPA: [prʲɪstʊˈplʲenʲɪje ɪ nəkɐˈzanʲɪje]) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866.[1] Later, it was published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia. Crime and Punishment is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing.[2]

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Before the killing, Raskolnikov believes that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds; but confusion, hesitation, and chance muddy his plan for a morally justifiable killing.

Dostoevsky conceived the idea of Crime and Punishment in the summer of 1865. At the time the author owed large sums of money to creditors, and was trying to help the family of his brother Mikhail, who had died in early 1864. Projected under the title The Drunkards, it was to deal "with the present question of drunkness... [in] all its ramifications, especially the picture of a family and the bringing up of children in these circumstances, etc., etc." Once Dostoevsky conceived Raskolnikov and his crime, inspired by the case of Pierre François Lacenaire, this theme became ancillary, centering on the story of the Marmeladov family.[3]

Dostoevsky offered his story or novella (at the time Dostoevsky was not thinking of a novel[4]) to the publisher Mikhail Katkov, whose monthly journal, The Russian Messenger, was a prestigious publication of its kind, and the outlet for both Ivan Turgenev and Leo Tolstoy. However, Dostoevsky, having carried on quite bruising polemics with Katkov in the early 1860s, had never published anything in its pages. Nonetheless, forced by his situation, after appeals elsewhere failed, Dostoevsky turned as a last resort to Katkov, urging for an advance on a proposed contribution.[5] In a letter to Katkov written in September 1865, Dostoevsky explained to him that the work was to be about a young man who yields to "certain strange, 'unfinished' ideas, yet floating in the air";[6] he had thus embarked on his plan to explore the moral and psychological dangers of the ideology of "radicalism".[7] In letters written in November 1865 an important conceptual change occurred: the "story" has become a "novel", and from here on all references to Crime and Punishment are to a novel.[8]

Dostoevsky had to race against time in order to finish both The Gambler and Crime and Punishment on time. Anna Snitkina, a stenographer who soon became his second wife, was a great help for Dostoevsky during this difficult task.[9] The first part of Crime and Punishment appeared in the January 1866 issue of The Russian Messenger, and the last one was published in December 1866.[10]

â€” Dostoevsky's letter to his friend Alexander Wrangel in February 1866[11]

In the complete edition of Dostoevsky's writings published in the Soviet Union, the editors reassembled and printed the notebooks that the writer kept while working on Crime and Punishment, in a sequence roughly corresponding to the various stages of composition. Because of these labors, there is now a fragmentary working draft of the story, or novella, as initially conceived, as well as two other versions of the text. These have been distinguished as the Wiesbaden edition, the Petersburg edition, and the final plan, involving the shift from a first-person narrator to the indigenous variety of third-person form invented by Dostoevsky.[12] The Wiesbaden edition concentrates entirely on the moral and psychological reactions of the narrator after the murder. It coincides roughly with the story that Dostoevsky described in his letter to Katkov, and written in a form of a diary or journal, corresponds to what eventually became part II.[13]

â€” Dostoevsky's letter to A.P. Milyukov[14]

Why Dostoevsky abandoned his initial version remains a matter of speculation. According to Joseph Frank, "one possibility is that his protagonist began to develop beyond the boundaries in which he had first been conceived".[15] The notebooks indicate that Dostoevsky was aware of the emergence of new aspects of Raskolnikov's character as the plot action proceeded, and he structured the novel in conformity with this "metamorphosis," Frank says.[16] Dostoevsky thus decided to fuse the story with his previous idea for a novel called The Drunkards.[17] The final version of Crime and Punishment came into being only when, in November 1865, Dostoevsky decided to recast his novel in the third person. This shift was the culmination of a long struggle, present through all the early stages of composition.[18] Once having decided, Dostoevsky began to rewrite from scratch, and was able to easily integrate sections of the early manuscript into the final textâ€”Frank says that he did not, as he told Wrangel, burn everything he had written earlier.[19]

The final draft went smoothly, except for a clash with the editors of The Russian Messenger, about which very little is known. Since the manuscript Dostoevsky turned in to Katkov was lost, it is unclear to what the editors had objected in the original.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former law student, lives in extreme poverty in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He has abandoned all attempts to support himself and has devised a plan to murder and rob an elderly pawn-broker, Alyona Ivanovna. While still considering the plan, Raskolnikov makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. Marmeladov tells him about his teenage daughter, Sonya, who has chosen to become a prostitute in order to support the family. Raskolnikov also receives a letter from his mother in which she speaks of their coming visit to Saint Petersburg, and describes at length the problems of his sister Dunya, who has been working as a governess, with her ill-intentioned employer. To escape her vulnerable position, and with hopes of helping her brother, Dunya has chosen to marry a wealthy suitor. Raskolnikov is inwardly enraged at her sacrifice, feeling it is the same as what Sonya felt compelled to do.

After much deliberation, Raskolnikov sneaks into Alyona Ivanovna's apartment, where he murders her with an axe. He also kills her half-sister, Lizaveta, who happens to stumble upon the scene of the crime. Shaken by his actions, Raskolnikov manages to steal only a handful of items and a small purse, leaving much of the pawn-broker's wealth untouched. Raskolnikov then flees and, due to a series of coincidences, manages to leave unseen and undetected.

After the bungled murder, Raskolnikov falls into a feverish state and begins to worry obsessively over the murder. He hides the stolen items and purse under a rock, and tries desperately to clean his clothing of any blood or evidence. He falls into a fever later that day, though not before calling briefly on his old friend Razumikhin. As the fever comes and goes in the following days, Raskolnikov behaves as though he wishes to betray himself. He shows strange reactions to whoever mentions the murder of the pawn-broker, which is now known about and talked of in the city. In his delirium, Raskolnikov wanders Saint Petersburg, drawing more and more attention to himself and his relation to the crime. In one of his walks through the city, he sees Marmeladov, who has been struck mortally by a carriage in the streets. Raskolnikov rushes to help and succeeds in conveying the stricken man back to his family's apartment. Calling out for Sonya to forgive him, Marmeladov dies in his daughter's arms. Raskolnikov gives his last twenty roubles (from money that had been sent him by his mother) to Marmeladov's consumptive wife, Katerina Ivanovna, saying it is the repayment of a debt to his friend.

In the meantime, Raskolnikov's mother, Pulkheria Alexandrovna, and his sister, Avdotya Romanovna (Dunya), have arrived in the city. Dunya had been working as a governess for the Svidriga誰lov family until this point, but was forced out of the position by the head of the family, Arkady Ivanovich Svidriga誰lov. Svidriga誰lov, a married man, was attracted to Dunya's physical beauty and her feminine qualities, and offered her riches and elopement. Mortified, Dunya fled the Svidriga誰lov family and lost her source of income, only to meet Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, a man of modest income and rank. Luzhin proposes to marry Dunya, thereby securing her and her mother's financial safety, provided she accept him quickly and without question. It is for these very reasons that the two of them come to Saint Petersburg, both to meet Luzhin there and to obtain Raskolnikov's approval. Luzhin, however, calls on Raskolnikov while he is in a delirious state and presents himself as a foolish, self-righteous and presumptuous man. Raskolnikov dismisses him immediately as a potential husband for his sister, and realizes that she only accepted him to help her family.

As the novel progresses, Raskolnikov is introduced to the detective Porfiry, who begins to suspect him of the murder purely on psychological grounds. At the same time, a chaste relationship develops between Raskolnikov and Sonya. Sonya, though a prostitute, is full of Christian virtue and is only driven into the profession by her family's poverty. Meanwhile, Razumikhin and Raskolnikov manage to keep Dunya from continuing her relationship with Luzhin, whose true character is exposed to be conniving and base. At this point, SvidrigaÃ¯lov appears on the scene, having come from the province to Petersburg, almost solely to seek out Dunya. He reveals that his wife, Marfa Petrovna, is dead, and that he is willing to pay Dunya a vast sum of money in exchange for nothing. She, upon hearing the news, refuses flat out, suspecting him of treachery.

As Raskolnikov and Porfiry continue to meet, Raskolnikov's motives for the crime become exposed. Porfiry becomes increasingly certain of the man's guilt, but has no concrete evidence or witnesses with which to back up this suspicion. Furthermore, another man admits to committing the crime under questioning and arrest. However, Raskolnikov's nerves continue to wear thinner, and he is constantly struggling with the idea of confessing, though he knows that he can never be truly convicted. He turns to Sonya for support and confesses his crime to her. By coincidence, Svidriga誰lov has taken up residence in a room next to Sonya's and overhears the entire confession. When the two men meet face to face, Svidriga誰lov acknowledges this fact, and suggests that he may use it against him, should he need to. Svidriga誰lov also speaks of his own past, and Raskolnikov grows to suspect that the rumors about his having committed several murders are true. In a later conversation with Dunya, Svidriga誰lov denies that he had a hand in the death of his wife.

Raskolnikov is at this point completely torn; he is urged by Sonya to confess, and Svidrigaïlov's testimony could potentially convict him. Furthermore, Porfiry confronts Raskolnikov with his suspicions and assures him that confession would substantially lighten his sentence. Meanwhile, Svidrigaïlov attempts to seduce Dunya, but when he realizes that she will never love him, he lets her go. He then spends a night in confusion and in the morning shoots himself. This same morning, Raskolnikov goes again to Sonya, who again urges him to confess and to clear his conscience. He makes his way to the police station, where he is met by the news of Svidrigaïlov's suicide. He hesitates a moment, thinking again that he might get away with a perfect crime, but is persuaded by Sonya to confess.

The epilogue tells of how Raskolnikov is sentenced to eight years of penal servitude in Siberia, where Sonya follows him. Dunya and Razumikhin marry and are left in a happy position by the end of the novel, while Pulkheria, Raskolnikov's mother, falls ill and dies, unable to cope with her son's situation. Raskolnikov himself struggles in Siberia. It is only after some time in prison that his redemption and moral regeneration begin under Sonya's loving influence.[20]

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky fuses the personality of his main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, with his new anti-radical ideological themes. The main plot involves a murder as the result of "ideological intoxication," and depicts all the disastrous moral and psychical consequences that result from the murder. Raskolnikov's psychology is placed at the center, and carefully interwoven with the ideas behind his transgression; every other feature of the novel illuminates the agonizing dilemma in which Raskolnikov is caught.[21] From another point of view, the novel's plot is another variation of a conventional nineteenth-century theme: an innocent young provincial comes to seek his fortune in the capital, where he succumbs to corruption, and loses all traces of his former freshness and purity. However, as Gary Rosenshield points out, "Raskolnikov succumbs not to the temptations of high society as Honoré de Balzac's Rastignac or Stendhal's Julien Sorel, but to those of rationalistic Petersburg".[22]

Raskolnikov (Rodion) is the protagonist, and the novel focuses primarily on his perspective. A 23-year-old man and former student, now destitute, Raskolnikov is described in the novel as "exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, well built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair." Perhaps the most striking feature of Raskolnikov, however, is his dual personality. On the one hand, he is cold, apathetic, and antisocial; on the other, he can be surprisingly warm and compassionate. He commits murder as well as acts of impulsive charity. His chaotic interaction with the external world and his nihilistic worldview might be seen as causes of his social alienation or consequences of it.

Despite its title, the novel does not so much deal with the crime and its formal punishment, as with Raskolnikov's internal struggle (the book shows that his punishment results more from his conscience than from the law). Believing society would be better for it, Raskolnikov commits murder with the idea that he possessed enough intellectual and emotional fortitude to deal with the ramifications, [based on his paper/thesis, "On Crime", that he is a Napoleon], but his sense of guilt soon overwhelms him to the point of psychological and somatic illness. It is only in the epilogue that he realizes his formal punishment, having decided to confess and end his alienation from society.

Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, variously called Sonya and Sonechka, is the daughter of a drunkard named Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, whom Raskolnikov meets in a tavern at the beginning of the novel. She is often characterized as self-sacrificial, shy, and even innocent despite the fact that she is compelled into prostitution to help her family. She also, as Raskolnikov discerns, shares the same feelings of shame and alienation as he does and becomes the first person to whom Raskolnikov confesses his crime, and she supports him even though she was friends with one of the victims (Lizaveta). Throughout the novel, Sonya is an important source of moral strength and rehabilitation for Raskolnikov. She is forced to prostitute herself to provide for her family, leading some critics to make comparisons with Mary Magdalene.

Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova – Raskolnikov's dominant and sympathetic sister, called Dunya or Dunechka for short. She initially plans to marry the wealthy, yet smug and self-possessed, Luzhin, to free the family from financial destitution. She has a habit of pacing across the room while thinking. She is followed to Saint Petersburg by the disturbed Svidrigailov, who seeks to win her back through blackmail. She rejects both men in favour of Raskolnikov's loyal friend, Razumikhin.

Pulkheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova – Raskolnikov's naïve, hopeful and loving mother. Following Raskolnikov's sentence, she falls ill (mentally and physically) and eventually dies. She hints in her dying stages that she is slightly more aware of her son's fate, which was hidden from her by Dunya and Razumikhin.

Dmitry Prokofyich Vrazumikhin, often referred to as Razumikhin, is Raskolnikov's loyal friend and also a former law student. In terms of Razumikhin's contribution to Dostoevsky's anti-radical thematics, he is intended to represent something of a reconciliation of the pervasive thematic conflict between faith and reason. The fact that the name Razumikhin means "reason" shows Dostoevsky's desire to employ this faculty as a foundational basis for his Christian faith in God.

Porfiry Petrovich – The head of the Investigation Department in charge of solving the murders of Lizaveta and Alyona Ivanovna, who, along with Sonya, moves Raskolnikov towards confession. Unlike Sonya, however, Porfiry does this through psychological games. Despite the lack of evidence, he becomes certain Raskolnikov is the murderer following several conversations with him, but gives him the chance to confess voluntarily. He attempts to confuse and provoke the unstable Raskolnikov in an attempt to coerce him to confess.

Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaïlov – Sensual, depraved, and wealthy former employer and current pursuer of Dunya. He overhears Raskolnikov's confessions to Sonya and uses this knowledge to torment both Dunya and Raskolnikov, but does not inform the police. Despite his apparent malevolence, Svidrigaïlov seems to be capable of generosity and compassion. When Dunya tells him she could never love him (after attempting to shoot him) he lets her go. He tells Sonya that he has made financial arrangements for the Marmeladov children to enter an orphanage (after both their parents die), and gives her three thousand rubles, enabling her to follow Raskolnikov to Siberia. Having left the rest of his money to his juvenile fiancée, he commits suicide.

Other characters of the novel are:

Crime and Punishment has a distinct beginning, middle and end. The novel is divided into six parts, with an epilogue. The notion of "intrinsic duality" in Crime and Punishment has been commented upon, with the suggestion that there is a degree of symmetry to the book.[23] Edward Wasiolek who has argued that Dostoevsky was a skilled craftsman, highly conscious of the formal pattern in his art, has likened the structure of Crime and Punishment to a "flattened X", saying:

Parts I-III [of Crime and Punishment] present the predominantly rational and proud Raskolnikov: Parts IV-VI, the emerging "irrational" and humble Raskolnikov. The first half of the novel shows the progressive death of the first ruling principle of his character; the last half, the progressive birth of the new ruling principle. The point of change comes in the very middle of the novel.[24]

This compositional balance is achieved by means of the symmetrical distribution of certain key episodes throughout the novel's six parts. The recurrence of these episodes in the two halves of the novel, as David Bethea has argued, is organized according to a mirror-like principle, whereby the "left" half of the novel reflects the "right" half.[23] For her part, Margaret Church discerns a contrapuntal structuring: parts I, III and V deal largely with the main hero's relationship to his family (mother, sister and mother surrogates), while parts II, IV and VI deal with his relationship to the authorities of the state "and to various father figures".[25]

The seventh part of the novel, the Epilogue, has attracted much attention and controversy. Some of Dostoevsky's critics have criticized the novel's final pages as superfluous, anti-climactic, unworthy of the rest of the work,[26] while others have rushed to the defense of the Epilogue, offering various ingenious schemes which conclusively prove its inevitability and necessity. Steven Cassedy argues that Crime and Punishment "is formally two distinct but closely related, things, namely a particular type of tragedy in the classical Greek mold and a Christian resurrection tale".[27] Cassedy concludes that "the logical demands of the tragic model as such are satisfied without the Epilogue in Crime and Punishment... At the same time, this tragedy contains a Christian component, and the logical demands of this element are met only by the resurrection promised in the Epilogue".[28]

Crime and Punishment is written from a third-person omniscient perspective. It is focalized primarily from the point of view of Raskolnikov; however, it does at times switch to the perspective of Svidrigailov, Razumikhin, Peter Petrovich, or Dunya. This narrative technique, which fuses the narrator very closely with the consciousness and point of view of the central characters of the plot, was original for its period. Franks notes that his identification, through Dostoevsky's use of the time shifts of memory and his manipulation of temporal sequence, begins to approach the later experiments of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce. A late nineteenth-century reader was, however, accustomed to more orderly and linear types of expository narration. This led to the persistence of the legend that Dostoevsky was an untidy and negligent craftsman and to critical observations like the following by Melchior de Vogüé:

A word... one does not even notice, a small fact that takes up only a line, have their reverberations fifty pages later... [so that] the continuity becomes unintelligible if one skips a couple of pages.[29]

Dostoevsky uses different speech mannerisms and sentences of different length for different characters. Those who use artificial language—Luzhin, for example—are identified as unattractive people. Mrs. Marmeladov's disintegrating mind is reflected in her language, too. In the original Russian text, the names of the major characters have something of a double meaning, but in translation the subtlety of the Russian language is predominately lost due to major differences in the language structure and culture. For example, the original title ("Преступление и наказание") is not the direct equivalent to the English. "Преступление" is literally translated as a stepping across. The physical image of crime as a crossing over a barrier or a boundary is lost in translation. So is the religious implication of transgression, which in English refers to a sin rather than a crime.[30]

Raskolnikov's dreams have a symbolic meaning, which suggests a psychological view. The dream of the mare being whipped has been suggested as the fullest single expression of the whole novel,[31] symbolizing gratification and punishment, contemptible motives and contemptible society, depicting the nihilistic destruction of an unfit mare, the gratification therein, and Rodion's disgust and horror, as an example of his conflicted character. Raskolnikov's disgust and horror is central to the theme of his conflicted character, his guilty conscience, his contempt for society, his rationality of himself as an extraordinary man above greater society, holding authority to kill, and his concept of justified murder. His reaction is pivotal, provoking his first taking of life toward the rationalization of himself as above greater society. The dream is later mentioned when Raskolnikov talks to Marmeladov. Marmeladov's daughter, morally chaste and devout Sonya, must earn a living as a prostitute for their impoverished family, the result of his alcoholism. The dream is also a warning, foreshadowing an impending murder and holds several comparisons to his murder of the pawnbroker. The dream occurs after Rodion crosses a bridge leading out of the oppressive heat and dust of Petersburg and into the fresh greenness of the islands. This symbolizes a corresponding mental crossing, suggesting that Raskolnikov is returning to a state of clarity when he has the dream. In it, he returns to the innocence of his childhood and watches as a group of peasants beat an old mare to death. After Raskolnikov awakes, he reflects on it as a “such a hideous dream,” the same term he earlier used to describe his plot to kill the old woman (62).[32] This diction draws a parallel between the two, suggesting that the child represents the part of him that clings to morality and watches horrified as another facet, represented by the peasants, is driven by hardship and isolation to become cold and unfeeling. The constant laughing of the peasants in the face of brutal slaughter reveals the extent to which they have been desensitized by their suffering, which is a reflection of Raskolnikov’s own condition. This interpretation is further supported by fact that the main peasant, Mikolka, feels that he has the right to kill the horse, linking his actions to Raskolnikov’s theory justifying murder for a select group of extraordinary men. The comparison between the cruel slaughter of the old mare and the plan to murder Alyona Ivanovna delineates the brutality of Raskolnikov’s crime, which is often downplayed by his habitual dehumanizing referral to the old woman as simply a “louse.” While awake, Raskolnikov’s view of the old woman is spiteful, defined by his tenacious belief in his extraordinary man theory. However, the dream acts as a conduit for Raskolnikov’s subconscious, and without the constraints of his theory the horrific nature of his crime becomes apparent. Therefore, in order for Raskolnikov to find redemption, he must ultimately renounce his theory. In the final pages, Raskolnikov, who at this point is in the prison infirmary, has a feverish dream about a plague of nihilism, that enters Russia and Europe from the east and which spreads senseless dissent (Raskolnikov's name alludes to "raskol", dissent) and fanatic dedication to "new ideas": it finally engulfs all of mankind. Though we don't learn anything about the content of these ideas they clearly disrupt society forever and are seen as exclusively critical assaults on ordinary thinking: it is clear that Dostoevsky was envisaging the new, politically and culturally nihilist ideas which were entering Russian literature and society in this watershed decade and with which Dostoevsky would be in debate for the rest of his life (cp. Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?, Dobrolyubov's abrasive journalism, Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and Dostoevsky's own The Possessed). Janko Lavrin, who took part in the revolutions of the World War I era, knew Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky and many others, and later would spend years writing about Dostoevsky's novels and other Russian classics, called this final dream "prophetic in its symbolism".

Sonya gives Rodya a cross when he goes to turn himself in and symbolizes the burden Raskolnikov must bear.[original research?] Sonya tells him they will bear the cross together and is taking part of his burden onto herself, encouraging him to confess. Sonya and Lizaveta had exchanged crosses, so originally the cross was Lizaveta'sâ€”whom Rodya didn't intend to kill, making it an important symbol of redemption. Sonya's face reminds him of Lizaveta's face, another example of his guilty conscience and symbolizes a shared grief. Self-sacrifice, along with poverty, is a larger theme of the novel. The desperation of poverty creates a situation where the only way to survive is through self-sacrifice, which Raskolnikov consistently rejects, as part of his philosophical reasoning. For example, he rejects Razumikhin's offer of employment and the idea of his sister's arranged marriage. Raskolnikov originally rejects Sonya's offer to accompany him to the confession but, in a feverish state of mind, sees her following him through the market, and finds power in that idealism.

A certain detail that comes up in the novel is whether we are limited to certain realities, such as 2+2=4, a theme that also comes up in Yevgeny Zamyatin's We and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.[original research?] Dostoevsky continues the use of this symbol from his earlier work Notes from Underground where the narrator rants about determinism and logic.[original research?]

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge.[33]

The above opening sentence of the novel has a symbolic function: Russian critic Vadim K. Kozhinov argues that the reference to the "exceptionally hot evening" establishes not only the suffocating atmosphere of Saint Petersburg in midsummer but also "the infernal ambience of the crime itself".[34] Dostoevsky was among the first to recognize the symbolic possibilities of city life and imagery drawn from the city. I. F. I. Evnin regards Crime and Punishment as the first great Russian novel "in which the climactic moments of the action are played out in dirty taverns, on the street, in the sordid back rooms of the poor".[35]

Dostoevsky's Petersburg is the city of unrelieved poverty; "magnificence has no place in it, because magnificence is external, formal abstract, cold". Dostoevsky connects the city's problems to Raskolnikov's thoughts and subsequent actions.[36] The crowded streets and squares, the shabby houses and taverns, the noise and stench, all are transformed by Dostoevsky into a rich store of metaphors for states of mind. Donald Fanger asserts that "the real city... rendered with a striking concreteness, is also a city of the mind in the way that its atmosphere answers Raskolnikov's state and almost symbolizes it. It is crowded, stifling, and parched."[37] The inner turmoil suffered by Raskolnikov can also be perceived as a Shakespearean pathetic fallacy. For example, the great storm in Shakespeare's King Lear reflects the state of the titular character's mind, much like the chaos, disorder and noise of St. Petersburg reflects the state of Raskolnikov's mind.[38]

The color yellow is used throughout the novel to signify suffering and mental illness.[original research?] Examples include Sonya's yellow ticket, a license to practice prostitution, the walls of Raskolnikov's garret, and the walls of the old pawnbroker, among numerous other examples. Of note, the Russian term for lunatic asylum, "zholti dom", is literally translated as "yellow house". Yellow is also mentioned as the color of Luzchin's ring.

Dostoevsky's letter to Katkov reveals his immediate inspiration, to which he remained faithful even after his original plan evolved into a much more ambitious creation: a desire to counteract what he regarded as nefarious consequences arising from the doctrines of Russian nihilism.[39] In the novel, Dostoevsky pinpointed the dangers of both utilitarianism and rationalism, the main ideas of which inspired the radicals, continuing a fierce criticism he had already started with his Notes from Underground.[40] A Slavophile religious believer, Dostoevsky utilized the characters, dialogue and narrative in Crime and Punishment to articulate an argument against westernizing ideas in general. He thus attacked a peculiar Russian blend of French utopian socialism and Benthamite utilitarianism, which had led to what revolutionaries, such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky, called "rational egoism".

The radicals refused, however, to recognize themselves in the novel's pages (Dimitri Pisarev ridiculed the notion that Raskolnikov's ideas could be identified with those of the radicals of his time), since Dostoevsky pursued nihilistic ideas to their most extreme consequences. The aim of these ideas was altruistic and humanitarian, but these aims were to be achieved by relying on reason and suppressing entirely the spontaneous outflow of Christian pity and compassion. Chernyshevsky's utilitarian ethic proposed that thought and will in Man were subject to the laws of physical science.[41] Dostoevsky believed that such ideas limited man to a product of physics, chemistry and biology, negating spontaneous emotional responses. In its latest variety of Bazarovism, Russian nihilism encouraged the creation of an Ã©lite of superior individuals to whom the hopes of the future were to be entrusted.[42]

Raskolnikov exemplifies all the potentially disastrous hazards contained in such an ideal. Frank notes that "the moral-psychological traits of his character incorporate this antinomy between instinctive kindness, sympathy, and pity on the one hand and, on the other, a proud and idealistic egoism that has become perverted into a contemptuous disdain for the submissive herd".[43] Raskolnikov's inner conflict in the opening section of the novel results in a utilitarian-altruistic justification for the proposed crime: why not kill a wretched and "useless" old moneylender to alleviate the human misery? Dostoevsky wants to show that this utilitarian type of reasoning and its conclusions had become widespread and commonplace; they were by no means the solitary invention of Raskolnikov's tormented and disordered mind.[44] Such radical and utilitarian ideas act to reinforce the innate egoism of Raskolnikov's character and, likewise, contempt for the lower qualities in Man and for His ideals. He even becomes fascinated with the majestic image of a Napoleonic personality who, in the interests of a higher social good, believes that he possesses a moral right to kill. Indeed, his "Napoleon-like" plan drags him to a well-calculated murder, the ultimate conclusion of his self-deception with utilitarianism.[45]

In his depiction of the Petersburg background, Dostoevsky accentuates the squalor and human wretchedness that pass before Raskolnikov's eyes. He also uses Raskolnikov's encounter with Marmeladov to present both the heartlessness of Raskolnikov's convictions and the alternative set of values to be set against them.[44] Dostoevsky believes that the "freedom" propounded by the aforementioned ideas is a dreadful freedom "that is contained by no values, because it is before values". The product of this "freedom", Raskolnikov, is in perpetual revolt against society, himself, and God.[46] He thinks that he is self-sufficient and self-contained, but at the end "his boundless self-confidence must disappear in the face of what is greater than himself, and his self-fabricated justification must humble itself before the higher justice of God".[47] Dostoevsky calls for the regeneration and renewal of the "sick" Russian society through the re-discovering of its country, its religion, and its roots.[48]

The first part of Crime and Punishment published in the January and February issues of The Russian Messenger met with public success. Although the remaining parts of the novel had still to be written, an anonymous reviewer wrote that "the novel promises to be one of the most important works of the author of The House of the Dead". In his memoirs, the conservative belletrist Nikolay Strakhov recalled that in Russia Crime and Punishment was the literary sensation of 1866.[49]

The novel soon attracted the criticism of the liberal and radical critics. G.Z. Yeliseyev sprang to the defense of the Russian student corporations, and wondered, "Has there ever been a case of a student committing murder for the sake of robbery?" Pisarev, aware of the novel's artistic value attempted in 1867 another approach: he argued that Raskolnikov was a product of his environment, and explained that the main theme of the work was poverty and its results. He measured the novel's excellence by the accuracy and understanding with which Dostoevsky portrayed the contemporary social reality, and focused on what he regarded as inconsistencies in the novel's plot. Strakhov rejected Pisarev's contention that the theme of environmental determinism was essential to the novel, and pointed out that Dostoevsky's attitude towards his hero was sympathetic: "This is not mockery of the younger generation, neither a reproach nor an accusationâ€”it is a lament over it."[50]

The Garnett translation was the dominant translation for more than 80 years after its publication in 1914. Since the 1990s, McDuff and Pevear/Volokhonsky have become its major competitors.[51]

There have been over 25 film adaptations of Crime and Punishment. They include:

When Crime and Punishment came up in their extended interview, Alfred Hitchcock told French director Francois Truffaut that he would never consider filming it. Hitchcock explained that he could make a great film out of a good book, and even (or especially) a mediocre book, but never a great book, because the film would always suffer by comparison.


when was trigonometry first thought to be used

Early study of triangles can be traced to the 2nd millennium BC, in Egyptian mathematics (Rhind Mathematical Papyrus) and Babylonian mathematics. Systematic study of trigonometric functions began in Hellenistic mathematics, reaching India as part of Hellenistic astronomy.[1] In Indian astronomy, the study of trigonometric functions flourished in the Gupta period, especially due to Aryabhata (sixth century CE). During the Middle Ages, the study of trigonometry continued in Islamic mathematics, hence it was adopted as a separate subject in the Latin West beginning in the Renaissance with Regiomontanus. The development of modern trigonometry shifted during the western Age of Enlightenment, beginning with 17th-century mathematics (Isaac Newton and James Stirling) and reaching its modern form with Leonhard Euler (1748).

History of trigonometry

The term "trigonometry" was derived from Greek τρίγωνον trigōnon, "triangle" and μέτρον metron, "measure".[2]

The modern word "sine" is derived from the Latin word sinus, which means "bay", "bosom" or "fold", translating Arabic jayb. The Arabic term is in origin a corruption of Sanskrit jīvā, or "chord". Sanskrit jīvā in learned usage was a synonym of jyā "chord", originally the term for "bow-string". Sanskrit jīvā was rendered into Arabic as jiba.[3][4] This term was then transformed into the genuine Arabic word jayb,[4] meaning "bosom, fold, bay", either by the Arabs or by a mistake of the European translators such as Robert of Chester (perhaps because the words were written without vowels), who translated jayb into Latin as sinus.[3] Particularly Fibonacci's sinus rectus arcus proved influential in establishing the term sinus.[5] The words "minute" and "second" are derived from the Latin phrases partes minutae primae and partes minutae secundae.[6] These roughly translate to "first small parts" and "second small parts".

The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians had known of theorems on the ratios of the sides of similar triangles for many centuries. However, as pre-Hellenic societies lacked the concept of an angle measure, they were limited to studying the sides of triangles instead.[7]

The Babylonian astronomers kept detailed records on the rising and setting of stars, the motion of the planets, and the solar and lunar eclipses, all of which required familiarity with angular distances measured on the celestial sphere.[4] Based on one interpretation of the Plimpton 322 cuneiform tablet (c. 1900 BC), some have even asserted that the ancient Babylonians had a table of secants.[8] There is, however, much debate as to whether it is a table of Pythagorean triples, a solution of quadratic equations, or a trigonometric table.

The Egyptians, on the other hand, used a primitive form of trigonometry for building pyramids in the 2nd millennium BC.[4] The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, written by the Egyptian scribe Ahmes (c. 1680â€“1620 BC), contains the following problem related to trigonometry:[4]

"If a pyramid is 250 cubits high and the side of its base 360 cubits long, what is its seked?"

Ahmes' solution to the problem is the ratio of half the side of the base of the pyramid to its height, or the run-to-rise ratio of its face. In other words, the quantity he found for the seked is the cotangent of the angle to the base of the pyramid and its face.[4]

Ancient Greek and Hellenistic mathematicians made use of the chord. Given a circle and an arc on the circle, the chord is the line that subtends the arc. A chord's perpendicular bisector passes through the center of the circle and bisects the angle. One half of the bisected chord is the sine of one half the bisected angle, that is,

and consequently the sine function is also known as the half-chord. Due to this relationship, a number of trigonometric identities and theorems that are known today were also known to Hellenistic mathematicians, but in their equivalent chord form.[9]

Although there is no trigonometry in the works of Euclid and Archimedes, in the strict sense of the word, there are theorems presented in a geometric way (rather than a trigonometric way) that are equivalent to specific trigonometric laws or formulas.[7] For instance, propositions twelve and thirteen of book two of the Elements are the laws of cosines for obtuse and acute angles, respectively. Theorems on the lengths of chords are applications of the law of sines. And Archimedes' theorem on broken chords is equivalent to formulas for sines of sums and differences of angles.[7] To compensate for the lack of a table of chords, mathematicians of Aristarchus' time would sometimes use the statement that, in modern notation, sin α/sin β < α/β < tan α/tan β whenever 0° < β < α < 90°, now known as Aristarchus's inequality.[10]

The first trigonometric table was apparently compiled by Hipparchus of Nicaea (180 – 125 BCE), who is now consequently known as "the father of trigonometry."[11] Hipparchus was the first to tabulate the corresponding values of arc and chord for a series of angles.[5][11]

Although it is not known when the systematic use of the 360° circle came into mathematics, it is known that the systematic introduction of the 360° circle came a little after Aristarchus of Samos composed On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon (ca. 260 BC), since he measured an angle in terms of a fraction of a quadrant.[10] It seems that the systematic use of the 360° circle is largely due to Hipparchus and his table of chords. Hipparchus may have taken the idea of this division from Hypsicles who had earlier divided the day into 360 parts, a division of the day that may have been suggested by Babylonian astronomy.[12] In ancient astronomy, the zodiac had been divided into twelve "signs" or thirty-six "decans". A seasonal cycle of roughly 360 days could have corresponded to the signs and decans of the zodiac by dividing each sign into thirty parts and each decan into ten parts.[6] It is due to the Babylonian sexagesimal numeral system that each degree is divided into sixty minutes and each minute is divided into sixty seconds.[6]

Menelaus of Alexandria (ca. 100 AD) wrote in three books his Sphaerica. In Book I, he established a basis for spherical triangles analogous to the Euclidean basis for plane triangles.[9] He establishes a theorem that is without Euclidean analogue, that two spherical triangles are congruent if corresponding angles are equal, but he did not distinguish between congruent and symmetric spherical triangles.[9] Another theorem that he establishes is that the sum of the angles of a spherical triangle is greater than 180Â°.[9] Book II of Sphaerica applies spherical geometry to astronomy. And Book III contains the "theorem of Menelaus".[9] He further gave his famous "rule of six quantities".[13]

Later, Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 90 – ca. 168 AD) expanded upon Hipparchus' Chords in a Circle in his Almagest, or the Mathematical Syntaxis. The Almagest is primarily a work on astronomy, and astronomy relies on trigonometry. Ptolemy's table of chords gives the lengths of chords of a circle of diameter 120 as a function of the number of degrees n in the corresponding arc of the circle, for n ranging from 1/2 to 180 by increments of 1/2.[14] The thirteen books of the Almagest are the most influential and significant trigonometric work of all antiquity.[15] A theorem that was central to Ptolemy's calculation of chords was what is still known today as Ptolemy's theorem, that the sum of the products of the opposite sides of a cyclic quadrilateral is equal to the product of the diagonals. A special case of Ptolemy's theorem appeared as proposition 93 in Euclid's Data. Ptolemy's theorem leads to the equivalent of the four sum-and-difference formulas for sine and cosine that are today known as Ptolemy's formulas, although Ptolemy himself used chords instead of sine and cosine.[15] Ptolemy further derived the equivalent of the half-angle formula

Ptolemy used these results to create his trigonometric tables, but whether these tables were derived from Hipparchus' work cannot be determined.[15]

Neither the tables of Hipparchus nor those of Ptolemy have survived to the present day, although descriptions by other ancient authors leave little doubt that they once existed.[16]

Some of the early and very significant developments of trigonometry were in India. Influential works from the 4th–5th century, known as the Siddhantas (of which there were five, the most important of which is the Surya Siddhanta[17]) first defined the sine as the modern relationship between half an angle and half a chord, while also defining the cosine, versine, and inverse sine.[18] Soon afterwards, another Indian mathematician and astronomer, Aryabhata (476–550 AD), collected and expanded upon the developments of the Siddhantas in an important work called the Aryabhatiya.[19] The Siddhantas and the Aryabhatiya contain the earliest surviving tables of sine values and versine (1 − cosine) values, in 3.75° intervals from 0° to 90°, to an accuracy of 4 decimal places.[20] They used the words jya for sine, kojya for cosine, utkrama-jya for versine, and otkram jya for inverse sine. The words jya and kojya eventually became sine and cosine respectively after a mistranslation described above.

In the 7th century, Bhaskara the First produced a formula for calculating the sine of an acute angle without the use of a table. He also gave the following approximation formula for sin(x), which had a relative error of less thanÂ 1.9%:

Later in the 7th century, Brahmagupta redeveloped the formula

(also derived earlier, as mentioned above) and the Brahmagupta interpolation formula for computing sine values.[21]

Madhava (c. 1400) made early strides in the analysis of trigonometric functions and their infinite series expansions. He developed the concepts of the power series and Taylor series, and produced the power series expansions of sine, cosine, tangent, and arctangent.[22][23] Using the Taylor series approximations of sine and cosine, he produced a sine table to 12 decimal places of accuracy and a cosine table to 9 decimal places of accuracy. He also gave the power series of π and the θ, radius, diameter, and circumference of a circle in terms of trigonometric functions. His works were expanded by his followers at the Kerala School up to the 16th century.[22][23]

The Indian text the Yuktibhāṣā contains proof for the expansion of the sine and cosine functions and the derivation and proof of the power series for inverse tangent, discovered by Madhava. The Yuktibhāṣā also contains rules for finding the sines and the cosines of the sum and difference of two angles.

The Indian works were later translated and expanded in the medieval Islamic world by Muslim mathematicians of mostly Persian and Arab descent, who enunciated a large number of theorems which freed the subject of trigonometry from dependence upon the complete quadrilateral, as was the case in Hellenistic mathematics due to the application of Menelaus' theorem. According to E. S. Kennedy, it was after this development in Islamic mathematics that "the first real trigonometry emerged, in the sense that only then did the object of study become the spherical or plane triangle, its sides and angles."[25]

In addition to Indian works, Hellenistic methods dealing with spherical triangles were also known, particularly the method of Menelaus of Alexandria, who developed "Menelaus' theorem" to deal with spherical problems.[9][26] However, E. S. Kennedy points out that while it was possible in pre-Islamic mathematics to compute the magnitudes of a spherical figure, in principle, by use of the table of chords and Menelaus' theorem, the application of the theorem to spherical problems was very difficult in practice.[27] In order to observe holy days on the Islamic calendar in which timings were determined by phases of the moon, astronomers initially used Menelaus' method to calculate the place of the moon and stars, though this method proved to be clumsy and difficult. It involved setting up two intersecting right triangles; by applying Menelaus' theorem it was possible to solve one of the six sides, but only if the other five sides were known. To tell the time from the sun's altitude, for instance, repeated applications of Menelaus' theorem were required. For medieval Islamic astronomers, there was an obvious challenge to find a simpler trigonometric method.[28]

In the early 9th century AD, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī produced accurate sine and cosine tables, and the first table of tangents. He was also a pioneer in spherical trigonometry. In 830 AD, Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi produced the first table of cotangents.[29][30] Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albatenius) (853-929 AD) discovered the reciprocal functions of secant and cosecant, and produced the first table of cosecants for each degree from 1° to 90°.[30]

By the 10th century AD, in the work of Abū al-Wafā' al-Būzjānī, Muslim mathematicians were using all six trigonometric functions.[31] Abu al-Wafa had sine tables in 0.25° increments, to 8 decimal places of accuracy, and accurate tables of tangent values.[31] He also developed the following trigonometric formula:[32]

In his original text, Ab큰 al-Waf훮' states: "If we want that, we multiply the given sine by the cosine minutes, and the result is half the sine of the double".[32] Ab큰 al-Waf훮 also established the angle addition and difference identities presented with complete proofs:[32]

For the second one, the text states: "We multiply the sine of each of the two arcs by the cosine of the other minutes. If we want the sine of the sum, we add the products, if we want the sine of the difference, we take their difference".[32]

He also discovered the law of sines for spherical trigonometry:[29]

Also in the late 10th and early 11th centuries AD, the Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus performed many careful trigonometric calculations and demonstrated the following trigonometric identity:[33]

Al-Jayyani (989â€“1079) of al-Andalus wrote The book of unknown arcs of a sphere, which is considered "the first treatise on spherical trigonometry".[34] It "contains formulae for right-handed triangles, the general law of sines, and the solution of a spherical triangle by means of the polar triangle." This treatise later had a "strong influence on European mathematics", and his "definition of ratios as numbers" and "method of solving a spherical triangle when all sides are unknown" are likely to have influenced Regiomontanus.[34]

The method of triangulation was first developed by Muslim mathematicians, who applied it to practical uses such as surveying[35] and Islamic geography, as described by Abu Rayhan Biruni in the early 11th century. Biruni himself introduced triangulation techniques to measure the size of the Earth and the distances between various places.[36] In the late 11th century, Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) solved cubic equations using approximate numerical solutions found by interpolation in trigonometric tables. In the 13th century, Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī was the first to treat trigonometry as a mathematical discipline independent from astronomy, and he developed spherical trigonometry into its present form.[30] He listed the six distinct cases of a right-angled triangle in spherical trigonometry, and in his On the Sector Figure, he stated the law of sines for plane and spherical triangles, discovered the law of tangents for spherical triangles, and provided proofs for both these laws.[37]

In the 15th century, Jamshīd al-Kāshī provided the first explicit statement of the law of cosines in a form suitable for triangulation.[citation needed] In France, the law of cosines is still referred to as the theorem of Al-Kashi. He also gave trigonometric tables of values of the sine function to four sexagesimal digits (equivalent to 8 decimal places) for each 1° of argument with differences to be added for each 1/60 of 1°.[citation needed] Ulugh Beg also gives accurate tables of sines and tangents correct to 8 decimal places around the same time.[citation needed]

In China, Aryabhata's table of sines were translated into the Chinese mathematical book of the Kaiyuan Zhanjing, compiled in 718 AD during the Tang Dynasty.[38] Although the Chinese excelled in other fields of mathematics such as solid geometry, binomial theorem, and complex algebraic formulas, early forms of trigonometry were not as widely appreciated as in the earlier Greek, Hellenistic, Indian and Islamic worlds.[39] Instead, the early Chinese used an empirical substitute known as chong cha, while practical use of plane trigonometry in using the sine, the tangent, and the secant were known.[38] However, this embryonic state of trigonometry in China slowly began to change and advance during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), where Chinese mathematicians began to express greater emphasis for the need of spherical trigonometry in calendrical science and astronomical calculations.[38] The polymath Chinese scientist, mathematician and official Shen Kuo (1031–1095) used trigonometric functions to solve mathematical problems of chords and arcs.[38] Victor J. Katz writes that in Shen's formula "technique of intersecting circles", he created an approximation of the arc s of a circle given the diameter d, sagitta v, and length c of the chord subtending the arc, the length of which he approximated as[40]

Sal Restivo writes that Shen's work in the lengths of arcs of circles provided the basis for spherical trigonometry developed in the 13th century by the mathematician and astronomer Guo Shoujing (1231â€“1316).[41] As the historians L. Gauchet and Joseph Needham state, Guo Shoujing used spherical trigonometry in his calculations to improve the calendar system and Chinese astronomy.[38][42] Along with a later 17th-century Chinese illustration of Guo's mathematical proofs, Needham states that:

Guo used a quadrangular spherical pyramid, the basal quadrilateral of which consisted of one equatorial and one ecliptic arc, together with two meridian arcs, one of which passed through the summer solstice point...By such methods he was able to obtain the du lü (degrees of equator corresponding to degrees of ecliptic), the ji cha (values of chords for given ecliptic arcs), and the cha lü (difference between chords of arcs differing by 1 degree).[43]

Despite the achievements of Shen and Guo's work in trigonometry, another substantial work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607, with the dual publication of Euclid's Elements by Chinese official and astronomer Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) and the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552–1610).[44]

In 1342, Levi ben Gershon, known as Gersonides, wrote On Sines, Chords and Arcs, in particular proving the sine law for plane triangles and giving five-figure sine tables.[45]

A simplified trigonometric table, the "toleta de marteloio", was used by sailors in the Mediterranean Sea during the 14th-15th Centuries to calculate navigation courses. It is described by Ramon Llull of Majorca in 1295, and laid out in the 1436 atlas of Venetian captain Andrea Bianco.

Regiomontanus was perhaps the first mathematician in Europe to treat trigonometry as a distinct mathematical discipline,[46] in his De triangulis omnimodis written in 1464, as well as his later Tabulae directionum which included the tangent function, unnamed.

The Opus palatinum de triangulis of Georg Joachim Rheticus, a student of Copernicus, was probably the first in Europe to define trigonometric functions directly in terms of right triangles instead of circles, with tables for all six trigonometric functions; this work was finished by Rheticus' student Valentin Otho in 1596.

In the 17th century, Isaac Newton and James Stirling developed the general Newtonâ€“Stirling interpolation formula for trigonometric functions.

In the 18th century, Leonhard Euler's Introductio in analysin infinitorum (1748) was mostly responsible for establishing the analytic treatment of trigonometric functions in Europe, deriving their infinite series and presenting "Euler's formula" eix = cos x + i sin x. Euler used the near-modern abbreviations sin., cos., tang., cot., sec., and cosec. Prior to this, Roger Cotes had computed the derivative of sine in his Harmonia Mensurarum (1722).[47] Also in the 18th century, Brook Taylor defined the general Taylor series and gave the series expansions and approximations for all six trigonometric functions. The works of James Gregory in the 17th century and Colin Maclaurin in the 18th century were also very influential in the development of trigonometric series.


has the uk been hit by a hurricane

The Great Storm of 1987 was a violent extratropical cyclone that occurred on the night of 15â€“16 October, with hurricane-force winds causing casualties in England, France and the Channel Islands as a severe depression in the Bay of Biscay moved northeast. Among the most damaged areas were Greater London, the East Anglian coast, the Home Counties, the west of Brittany and the Cotentin Peninsula of Normandy which weathered gusts typically with a return period of 1 in 200 years.[2][3]

Great Storm of 1987

Forests, parks, roads and railways were strewn with fallen trees as well as schools being closed. The British National Grid suffered heavy damage, leaving thousands without power. At least 22 people were killed in England and France.[4] The highest measured gust of 117 kn (217 km/h; 135 mph) was recorded at Pointe Du Roc, Granville, France and the highest gust in the U.K. of 100 kn (190 km/h; 120 mph) was recorded at Shoreham-by-Sea.[5]

That day's weather reports had failed to indicate a storm of such severity, an earlier, correct forecast having been negated by later projections. The apparent suggestion by the BBC's Michael Fish of a false alarm is celebrated as a classic gaffe, though he claims he was misquoted.[6] The storm has been termed a weather bomb due to its rapid development.[7]

Major improvements were later implemented in atmospheric observation, relevant computer models, and the training of forecasters.[8]

On the Sunday before the storm struck, the farmers' forecast had predicted bad weather on the following Thursday or Friday, 15â€“16 October.[9] By midweek, however, guidance from weather prediction models was somewhat equivocal. Instead of stormy weather over a considerable part of the UK, the models suggested that severe weather would reach no farther north than the English Channel and coastal parts of southern England.[9]

During the afternoon of 15 October, winds were very light over most parts of the UK. The pressure gradient was slack. A depression was drifting slowly northwards over the North Sea off eastern Scotland. A trough lay over England, Wales and Ireland. Over the Bay of Biscay, a depression was developing.[10]

The first gale warnings for sea areas in the English Channel were issued at 0630 UTC on 15 October and were followed, four hours later, by warnings of severe gales. At 1200 UTC on 15 October, the depression which originated in the Bay of Biscay was centred near 46째 N, 9째 W and its depth was 970 mb. By 1800 UTC, it had moved north-east to about 47째 N, 6째 W, and deepened to 964 mb.

At 2235 UTC, winds of Force 10 were forecast. By midnight, the depression was over the western English Channel, and its central pressure was 953 mb. At 0140 on 16 October, warnings of Force 11 were issued. The depression now moved rapidly north-east, filling a little as it did, reaching the Humber estuary at about 0530 UTC, by which time its central pressure was 959 mb. Dramatic increases in temperature were associated with the passage of the storm's warm front.

In the sea areas, warnings of severe weather were both timely and adequate, although forecasts for land areas left much to be desired. During the evening of 15 October, radio and TV forecasts mentioned strong winds, but indicated that heavy rain would be the main feature, rather than wind. By the time most people went to bed, exceptionally strong winds had not been mentioned in national radio and TV weather broadcasts.

Warnings of severe weather had been issued, however, to various agencies and emergency authorities, including the London Fire Brigade. Perhaps the most important warning was issued by the Met Office to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) at 0135 UTC, 16 October. It warned that the anticipated consequences of the storm were such that civil authorities might need to call on assistance from the military.

A highest gust of 119 kn (220 km/h; 137 mph) is estimated from satellite data at Quimper, Brittany, with the highest measured gust at 117 kn (217 km/h; 135 mph) at Pointe du Roc, Granville Normandy.[4]

In south-east England, where the greatest damage occurred, gusts of 70 knots (130 km/h; 81 mph) or more were recorded continually for three or four consecutive hours. During this time, the wind veered from southerly to south-westerly. To the north-west of this region, there were two maxima in gust speeds, separated by a period of lower wind speeds. During the first period, the wind direction was southerly. During the latter, it was south-westerly. Damage patterns in south-east England suggested that tornadoes accompanied the storm.

In the UK, winds at Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex reached 100 kn (190 km/h; 120 mph) before the anemometer failed.[4][11][12] Many anemometers were reliant on mains power, and ceased recording as the south east of the United Kingdom was blacked-out by power cuts, thus losing much valuable data.[10] Winds with an estimated 200-year return period hit the counties of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and along the coastal strip of Essex, Suffolk and South Eastern Norfolk.[10] North of a line from Portland Bill, Dorset to Cromer, Norfolk the return period of the respective gusts were under 10 years.[10]

Sustained winds speeds greater than 75 mph were recorded for over an hour in southern Britain.[13] According to the Beaufort scale of wind intensities, this storm had winds of hurricane force 12 (73 mph or greater); as the term hurricane refers to tropical cyclones originating in the North Atlantic or North Pacific, the descriptor "great storm" has tended to be reserved for those storms in recent years reaching this velocity. Hurricanes have a very different wind profile and distribution from storms, and significantly higher precipitation levels.

The storm made landfall in Cornwall, and tracked north-east towards Devon and then over the Midlands, going out to sea via The Wash. The strongest gusts, of up to 100 knots (190 km/h; 120 mph), were recorded along the south-eastern edge of the storm, hitting mainly Hampshire, Sussex, Essex and Kent. The Royal Sovereign lighthouse 6 miles (9.7 km) off Eastbourne recorded wind speeds on its instruments at the highest velocity it could measure, 110 mph (180 km/h).

The storm caused substantial damage over much of England, felling an estimated 15Â million trees[14] (including six of the seven eponymous oaks in Sevenoaks,[15] historic specimens in Kew Gardens, Wakehurst Place, Nymans Garden, Hyde Park, London and Scotney Castle[16] and most of the trees making up Chanctonbury Ring). At Bedgebury National Pinetum, Kent almost a quarter of the trees were brought down.[17][18] There have been many claims that the damage to forestry was made worse by broadleaf trees still being in leaf at the time of the storm, though this was not borne out by an analysis by the Forestry Commission.[19]

Fallen trees blocked roads and railways and left widespread structural damage primarily to windows and roofs. Several hundred thousand people were left without power, not fully restored until more than two weeks later. Local electric utility officials later said they lost more wires in the storm than in the preceding decade. At sea, as well as many small boats being wrecked, a Sealink cross-channel ferry, the MV Hengist, was driven ashore at Folkestone and the bulk carrier MV Sumnea capsized at Dover, Kent.[20]

The National Grid sustained heavy damage during the event, as crashing cables short-circuited, which in some cases overheated the main system. Its headquarters faced the choice of keeping the Grid online to help London as the storm approached but risk an incremental system breakdown, failure and burnout, or to shut down most of South East England including London and avert that risk. The headquarters made the decision, the first one like it since before World War II: to shut down the South East power systems to maintain the network as soon as signs of overheating began.[verification needed]

In London, many of the trees lining streets, particularly plane trees, were blown down overnight, blocking roads and crushing parked cars. Building construction scaffolding and billboards collapsed in many places, and many buildings were damaged. The following morning, the BBC's largest broadcasting site, Lime Grove Studios in White City, was unable to function due to a power failure â€” ITV's TV-am and BBC1's Breakfast Time programmes were broadcast from different emergency facilities in emergency formats. TV-am broadcast from Thames Television's Euston Road studios, while BBC newsreader Nicholas Witchell had to broadcast from the BBC1 continuity studio at BBC Television Centre, with the wall decorations used for Children's BBC hastily taken down. Much of the public transport in the capital was not functioning, and people were advised against trying to go to work. TV-am host Anne Diamond did go back to the regular TV-am studio with reporter Kay Burley, whilst Richard Keys remained in the Thames Television studio in case the power became even worse, and indeed, power did go back down at around 8:15am.

The départements of Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes-d'Armor and Ille-et-Vilaine in Brittany, and the Cotentin Peninsula (Manche and part of Calvados) in Normandy were the areas in France most affected by the storm, which followed a line from Morbihan and Rennes to Deauville.[21] 1.79 million homes were left without electricity supply and water, and a quarter of Brittany's forest was destroyed. The total damage was estimated at ₣23 billion.

Météo France announced "une petite tempête en provenance des Açores" (a little storm coming in from the Azores), which reached Brittany's coast at about 18:00, later than expected. This depression caused little damage, with only 50 to 60 km/h (31 to 37 mph; 27 to 32 kn) winds. A much deeper depression hit Ushant on the extreme western tip of Brittany at midnight. It was measured at 948 hPa (or 948 mb) at the Brest-Guipavas weather station, the lowest reading in its records dating back to 1945.[21]

Weather stations on the coast at pointe du Raz, pointe Saint-Mathieu and Penmarch gave no readings, as they were damaged by the high winds. The wind speed measured at Brest was 148 km/h (92 mph; 80 kn). The centre of the storm crossed Brittany from Penmarch to Saint-Brieuc at 110 km/h (68 mph; 59 kn), with gusts of wind up to 187 km/h (116 mph; 101 kn) at Quimper, 200 km/h (120 mph; 110 kn) at Ouessant and 220 km/h (140 mph; 120 kn) at la pointe de Penmarch and Granville. Waves were measured at 16 m (52 ft) off Ushant and Belle Île.[21]

Similar strength storms in France since 1960:

The church at Concarneau was damaged but never rebuilt, and was finally demolished a few years later.

The MS Herald of Free Enterprise was caught in the storm off Cape Finisterre as it was making its way for scrapping in Taiwan. The ship was cast adrift after its tow rope parted, finally resuming its journey on 19 October 1987.[22]

The storm cost the insurance industry Â£2 billion, making it the second most expensive UK weather event on record to insurers after the Burns' Day Storm of 1990.[23] Peak wind velocities were in the early hours of the morning, which may have helped reduce the death toll. The storm hit the Isle of Wight at 02:00. Shanklin Pier on the south-east coast of the island was broken into three pieces as a result of mountainous waves. Plans to rebuild the pier were soon abandoned, and the rest of the pier was demolished by contractors shortly afterwards. A monument now stands in front of what used to be the pier entrance.

A great deal of effort and money was put into the post-storm clean-up of forests and wooded areas. The writer Oliver Rackham and the charity Common Ground, were active in trying to prevent unnecessary destruction of trees which, although fallen, were still living.[24][25] Some landowners, such as the National Trust, did not attempt complete clearing and replanting, realising that there was a unique opportunity to study the patterns of natural regeneration after such an event.[26]

A number of wild boar may have escaped from captivity during the storm, after enclosures were damaged by falling trees. These boar have since bred and established populations in woods across southern England.[27]

A more positive aspect could be found among some British gardeners; as Heather Angel wrote in the Royal Horticultural Society's Journal:

In some places this natural disaster has resulted in splendid vistas- views long since forgotten by some and never before seen by a whole new generation. Because of gaps left by fallen trees, visitors to Arundel Castle, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Norfolk, can now look out over the picturesque town... At the renowned woodland rhododendron garden at Leonardslee, Sussex, the gale... opened magnificent views by removing about a thousand trees which owner Robin Loder said he would never have had the courage to thin out himself.[28]

Following the storm meteorologists at the University of Reading led by Professor Keith Browning developed the Sting jet concept. During reanalysis of the storm they identified a mesoscale flow where the most damaging winds were shown to be emanating from the evaporating tip of the hooked cloud head on the southern flank of the cyclone. This cloud, hooked like a scorpion's tail, gives the wind region its name the "Sting Jet".[11][29]

The Met Office was severely criticised by most of the national press for failing to forecast the storm correctly.[9]

The Met Office conducted an internal inquiry, scrutinised by two independent assessors, and a number of recommendations were made. Chiefly, observational coverage of the atmosphere over the ocean to the south and west of the UK was improved by increasing the quality and quantity of observations from ships, aircraft, buoys and satellites. Continued refinements were made to the computer models used in forecasting, and changes were made in the training of forecasters. In addition, reforms in the way the Met Office reports warnings of severe weather were implemented, leading to substantially more warnings being issued in the future. Further deployment of improved tracking devices and improvements in the computer model simulations were supported by the purchase of an additional Cray supercomputer. Warnings for the Burns' Day Storm just over two years later were accurate and on time, although the model forecast hinged on observations from two ships in the Atlantic near the developing storm the day before it reached the UK.[30]

BBC meteorologist Michael Fish drew particular criticism for reporting several hours before the storm hit:

Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, but having said that, actually, the weather will become very windy, but most of the strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into France.[31]

Fish has subsequently claimed that his comments about a hurricane had nothing to do with the UK; they referred to Florida, USA, and were linked to a news story immediately preceding the weather bulletin, but had been so widely repeated out of context that the British public remains convinced that he was referring to the approaching storm. According to Fish, the woman in question was actually a colleague's mother who was about to go on holiday in the Caribbean, and had called regarding (the already long-dissipated) Hurricane Floyd to see if it would be safe to travel.[32] Fish has also claimed that "nobody phoned up" and that she was a "non-existing woman", apparently contradicting the previous declaration, when interviewed about Anita Hart's claims of being the woman who made the call.[33]

Fish went on to warn viewers that it would be "very windy" across the south of England, but predicted that the storm would move further south along the English Channel and the British mainland would escape the worst effects. The remainder of his warning is frequently left out of re-runs, which only adds to the public's misconception of that day's forecasting. His analysis has been defended by weather experts. In particular, the lack of a weather ship in the Southwest Approaches, due to Met Office cutbacks,[34] meant the only manner of tracking the storm was by using satellite data, as automatic buoys had not been deployed at the time.

Ironically, earlier forecasts as far back as the preceding weekend had correctly identified that gale-force winds would affect Southern England. However, later runs of the model had indicated a more southerly track for the low pressure system, incorrectly indicating that the strongest winds would be confined to Northern and Central France. The French meteorological office used a different computer weather model to the British, and the French model proved more accurate in predicting the severity of the storm in the Channel.

In the wake of the storm the Met Office set up the National Severe Weather Warning Service.[8]

It is claimed this storm was the worst since the Great Storm of 1703,[8][35][36] which has been challenged as a myth.[2][3] Storms of this strength regularly form over the North Atlantic, where they typically track to the north of Scotland. Storms of such a strength have a return period of 30 to 40 years.[4] The unusual aspect of the storm was that it struck the densely populated southeast of England.[2][3] That winds in the South East had return periods of 1 in 200 years does not mean the winds of this strength occur once every 200 years, but that the winds have a 0.5% probability of happening in a given year.[Note 1]

Following this storm 1.3 million incidents of damage were reported, which is only exceeded by the Gale of January 1976 where destruction covered a wider area of the U.K., with 1.5 million incidents of damage reported.[1] The Burns' Day storm hit the United Kingdom in January 1990, less than three years later and with comparable intensity.

Following the storm few dealers made it to their desks and stock market trading was suspended twice and the market closed early at 12.30pm. The disruption meant the City was unable to respond to the late dealings at the beginning of the Wall Street fall-out on Friday 16 October, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded its biggest-ever one-day slide at the time, a fall of 108.36. City traders and investors spent the weekend, 17â€“18 October, repairing damaged gardens in between trying to guess market reaction and assessing the damage.[37] 19 October, Black Monday, was memorable as being the first business day of the London markets after the Great Storm.


who is the singer of sing me to sleep

"Sing Me to Sleep" is a song by Norwegian record producer and DJ Alan Walker. Incorporating uncredited vocals provided by Norwegian recording artist Iselin Solheim, it was released commercially for digital consumption on 3 June 2016.[3] Upon release, the recording was generally acclaimed by music critics, with several noticing similarities to the style of its predecessor, "Faded".[4]

Sing Me to Sleep

The release of the music video for "Sing Me to Sleep" was published on Walker's YouTube channel on 2 June 2016, with an cameo appearance by Jessica Chastain.[5]

An accompanying music video for the single was shot in Hong Kong.[6] The video shows the young man from the music video of "Faded", as well as another man and a woman, walking and running in the city of Hong Kong. Throughout the video, the camera filter transitions from normal to thermal sensor, with some buildings and pedestrians occasionally glitching as though from the viewer's point of view. At the end, the three characters meet up inside a warehouse in an industrial building, where they assemble some sort of machine together, which projects glowing blue lines throughout the city of Hong Kong, as the video glitches and ends.

*sales figures based on certification alone^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone


who sang the song we've got tonight

"We've Got Tonite" (sic) is a song written by American Bob Seger, from his 1978 album Stranger in Town. It was a hit single for Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, reaching No. 13 on the US pop charts. In the UK, it reached No. 41 in 1979, later making it to No. 22 during a 1995 re-release to promote a Greatest Hits album, while in 1982 a live version from the in-concert album Nine Tonight reached No. 60.

We've Got Tonite

It also played in the background of Melissa Sue Anderson's 1979 TV film Survival of Dana, in a scene where Anderson's character was visiting one of her new friends' homes and was in a room with co-star Robert Carradine's character Donny Davis, whom she was falling for.[1] In Season 4, episode 4 of Ray Donovan, Liev Schreiber sings a karaoke version of the song, then a reprise to his wife as the episode ends.

In 1983, country-pop star Kenny Rogers recorded the song as a duet with pop star Sheena Easton, and made it the title track of his album We've Got Tonight. It reached number one on the Billboard Country Singles chart, number six on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart, and number two on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. It also reached the top 30 in the United Kingdom.[17]

"We've Got Tonight" was remade by Lulu and Ronan Keating for Together a 2002 album release featuring Lulu with a number of diverse duet partners: the track, also featured on Keating's album Destination, was issued as a single – credited to "Ronan Keating featuring Lulu" – reaching #4 UK and becoming an international hit reaching #7 in the Netherlands, #12 in Australia, #14 in Belgium, #10 in Ireland, #25 in Sweden and #46 in New Zealand. In some territories the single was released with Lulu's vocal replaced by that of Jeanette Biedermann: credited to "Ronan Keating featuring Jeanette" the track was a hit in Austria (#6), Germany (#7) and Switzerland (#25). In Italy the track was issued with the Italian Soul singer Giorgia Todrani and pubished as the b-side of Giorgia's sigle "Gocce di memoria" reaching #1 in italian single chart. This track is also featured on Keating's album "Destination". In the Philippines, Keating performed the song with Kyla.

Elkie Brooks recorded "We've Got Tonight" for her 1986 No More the Fool album from which it was released as a single in July 1987, it reached 69 in the UK charts.

American Idol Season 11 contestant and eventual winner Phillip Phillips performed "We've Got Tonight" on the series episode broadcast May 16, 2012: his studio recording of the song appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 97.

Amii Stewart and Gianni Morandi had a number 5 hit in Italy in 1984 with "Grazie perchÃ©" [Thanks because], which is an Italian rendering of "We've Got Tonight".

Adam Harvey and Beccy Cole covered the song on their album, The Great Country Songbook Volume 2 (2017).


who sings don't stop thinking about tomorrow

"Don't Stop" is a song by the British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, written by vocalist and keyboard player Christine McVie. Sung by guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and McVie, it was a single taken from the band's 1977 hit album, Rumours. It is one of the band's most enduring hits, peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard singles chart. In the UK market, "Don't Stop" followed "Go Your Own Way" as the second single from Rumours and peaked at No. 32. In the US, it was the third single released, and peaked at No. 3 in October 1977.

Don't Stop (Fleetwood Mac song)

"Don't Stop" reflects Christine McVie's feelings after her separation from Fleetwood Mac's bass guitarist, John McVie, after eight years of marriage. "'Don't Stop' was just a feeling. It just seemed to be a pleasant revelation to have that 'yesterday's gone'," she remembers in The Fleetwood Mac Story: Rumours and Lies, "It might have, I guess, been directed more toward John, but I'm just definitely not a pessimist."[1]

It was used by United States presidential candidate Bill Clinton as the theme for his first campaign, most notably at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Upon winning the election, Clinton persuaded the then-disbanded group to reform to perform it for his inaugural ball in 1993.

At the 2000 convention, he ended his speech by saying, "Keep putting people first. Keep building those bridges. And don't stop thinking about tomorrow!" Immediately after the final sentence, the song began playing over the loudspeakers. The song was also played for Clinton's appearances at the 2004, 2008 and 2012 conventions.

A live performance of the song was used as a music video.

A cover by Elton John was included on the 1998 compilation Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.

Status Quo covered the song in their 1996 covers album Don't Stop.

Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist Nina Nesbitt released a cover version of "Don't Stop" on August 23, 2013 in the United Kingdom.

It is included as one of the many songs in "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley".[11]

It was also covered in 2010 by the cast of the TV show Glee in the episode titled "Rumours".