Just Before The Beginning Of World War II, Albert Einstein Wrote A Let

Just before the beginning of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Urged by Hungarian-born physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wingner, and Edward Teller, Einstein told Roosevelt about Nazi German efforts to purify Uranium-235 which might be used to build an atomic bomb. Shortly after that the United States Government began work on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the United States effort to develop the atomic bomb before the Germans did. "The first successful experiments in splitting a uranium atom had been carried out in the autumn of 1938 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin"(Groueff 9) just after Einstein wrote his letter. So the race was on. Major General Wilhelm D. Styer called the Manhattan Project "the most important job in the war . . . an all-out effort to build an atomic bomb."(Groueff 5) It turned out to be the biggest development in warfare and science's biggest development this century. The mos t complicated issue to be addressed by the scientists working on the Manhattan Project was "the production of ample amounts of 'enriched' uranium to sustain a chain reaction."(Outlaw 2) At the time, Uranium-235 was hard to extract. Of the Uranium ore mined, only about 1/500 th of it ended up as Uranium metal. Of the Uranium metal, "the fissionable isotope of Uranium (Uranium- 235) is relatively rare, occurring in Uranium at a ratio of 1 to 139."(Szasz 15) Separating the one part Uranium-235 from the 139 parts Uranium-238 proved to be a challenge. "No ordinary chemical extraction could separate the two isotopes. Only mechanical methods could effectively separate U-235 from U-238."(2) Scientists at Columbia University solved this difficult problem. A "massive enrichment laboratory/plant"(Outlaw 2) was built at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. H. C. Urey, his associates, and colleagues at Columbia University designed a system that "worked on the principle of gaseous diffusion."(2) After this proc ess was completed, "Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the Cyclotron) at the University of California in Berkeley implemented a process involving magnetic separation of the two isotopes."(2) Finally, a gas centrifuge was used to further separate the Uranium-235 from the Uranium-238. The Uranium-238 is forced to the bottom because it had more mass than the Uranium-235. "In this manner uranium-235 was enriched from its normal 0.7% to weapons grade of more than 90%."(Grolier 5) This Uranium was then transported to "the Los Alamos, N. Mex., laboratory headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer."(Grolier 5) "Oppenheimer was the major force behind the Manhattan Project. He literally ran the show and saw to it that all of the great minds working on this project made their brainstorms work. He oversaw the entire project from its conception to its completion."(Outlaw 3) Once the purified Uranium reached New Mexico, it was made into the components of a gun-type atomic weapon. "Two pieces of U-235, individu ally not large enough to sustain a chain reaction, were brought together rapidly in a gun barrel to form a supercritical mass that exploded instantaneously."(Grolier 5) "It was originally nicknamed 'Thin Man'(after Roosevelt, but later renamed 'Little Boy' (for nobody) when technical changes shortened the proposed gun barrel."(Szasz 25) The scientists were so confident that the gun-type atomic bomb would work "no test was conducted, and it was first employed in military action over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945."(Grolier 5) Before the Uranium-235 "Little Boy" bomb had been developed to the "point of seeming assured of success,"(Grolier 5) another bomb was proposed. The Uranium-238 that had been earlier ruled out as an option was being looked at. It could capture a free neutron without fissioning and become Uranium-239. "But the Uranium-239 thus produced is unstable (radioactive) and decays first to neptunium-239 and then to plutonium-239."(Grolier 5) This proved to be useful bec ause the newly created plutonium-239 is fissionable and it can "be separated from uranium by chemical techniques,"(6) which would be far simpler than the physical processes to separate the Uranium-235 from the Uranium-238. Once again the University of Chicago, under Enrico Fermi's direction built the first reactor. "This led to the construction of five large reactors at Hanford, Wash., where U-238 was irradiated with neutrons and transmuted into plutonium."(6) The plutonium was sent to Just Before The Beginning Of World War II, Albert Einstein Wrote A Let Just before the beginning of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Urged by Hungarian-born physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wingner, and Edward Teller, Einstein told Roosevelt about Nazi German efforts to purify Uranium-235 which might be used to build an atomic bomb. Shortly after that the United States Government began work on the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the United States effort to develop the atomic bomb before the Germans did. "The first successful experiments in splitting a uranium atom had been carried out in the autumn of 1938 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin"(Groueff 9) just after Einstein wrote his letter. So the race was on. Major General Wilhelm D. Styer called the Manhattan Project "the most important job in the war . . . an all-out effort to build an atomic bomb."(Groueff 5) It turned out to be the biggest development in warfare and science's biggest development this century. The mos t complicated issue to be addressed by the scientists working on the Manhattan Project was "the production of ample amounts of 'enriched' uranium to sustain a chain reaction."(Outlaw 2) At the time, Uranium-235 was hard to extract. Of the Uranium ore mined, only about 1/500 th of it ended up as Uranium metal. Of the Uranium metal, "the fissionable isotope of Uranium (Uranium- 235) is relatively rare, occurring in Uranium at a ratio of 1 to 139."(Szasz 15) Separating the one part Uranium-235 from the 139 parts Uranium-238 proved to be a challenge. "No ordinary chemical extraction could separate the two isotopes. Only mechanical methods could effectively separate U-235 from U-238."(2) Scientists at Columbia University solved this difficult problem. A "massive enrichment laboratory/plant"(Outlaw 2) was built at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. H. C. Urey, his associates, and colleagues at Columbia University designed a system that "worked on the principle of gaseous diffusion."(2) After this proc ess was completed, "Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the Cyclotron) at the University of California in Berkeley implemented a process involving magnetic separation of the two isotopes."(2) Finally, a gas centrifuge was used to further separate the Uranium-235 from the Uranium-238. The Uranium-238 is forced to the bottom because it had more mass than the Uranium-235. "In this manner uranium-235 was enriched from its normal 0.7% to weapons grade of more than 90%."(Grolier 5) This Uranium was then transported to "the Los Alamos, N. Mex., laboratory headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer."(Grolier 5) "Oppenheimer was the major force behind the Manhattan Project. He literally ran the show and saw to it that all of the great minds working on this project made their brainstorms work. He oversaw the entire project from its conception to its completion."(Outlaw 3) Once the purified Uranium reached New Mexico, it was made into the components of a gun-type atomic weapon. "Two pieces of U-235, individu ally not large enough to sustain a chain reaction, were brought together rapidly in a gun barrel to form a supercritical mass that exploded instantaneously."(Grolier 5) "It was originally nicknamed 'Thin Man'(after Roosevelt, but later renamed 'Little Boy' (for nobody) when technical changes shortened the proposed gun barrel."(Szasz 25) The scientists were so confident that the gun-type atomic bomb would work "no test was conducted, and it was first employed in military action over Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945."(Grolier 5) Before the Uranium-235 "Little Boy" bomb had been developed to the "point of seeming assured of success,"(Grolier 5) another bomb was proposed. The Uranium-238 that had been earlier ruled out as an option was being looked at. It could capture a free neutron without fissioning and become Uranium-239. "But the Uranium-239 thus produced is unstable (radioactive) and decays first to neptunium-239 and then to plutonium-239."(Grolier 5) This proved to be useful bec ause the newly created plutonium-239 is fissionable and it can "be separated from uranium by chemical techniques,"(6) which would be far simpler than the physical processes to separate the Uranium-235 from the Uranium-238. Once again the University of Chicago, under Enrico Fermi's direction built the first reactor. "This led to the construction of five large reactors at Hanford, Wash., where U-238 was irradiated with neutrons and transmuted into plutonium."(6) The plutonium was sent to

Bag of Bones essays

Bag of Bones essays Bag of Bones is the best book Stephen King has written in years. As shocking as Carrie, as mysterious and menacing as The Shining, as funny and honest about writers as Misery, as evocative of place as his record-setting bestseller The Green Mile, this is a horror novel steeped in all the finest qualities of our favorite Stephen King stories. And yet it is also a bold step beyond, toward a more mature vision of marriage, sex, loss, family-and, especially, evil. Narrator Mike Noonan is a best-selling writer of romantic thrillers-"V.C. Andrews with a prick," as he ruefully puts it. Plagued by nightmares and writer's block following the sudden death of his wife, Mike escapes to their lakeside summer house, known as Sara Laughs. But this is King territory, and Mike's beloved Yankee town has its dark side. A century ago, a group of local men murdered a black blues singer and her family. The killers' heirs have paid the price ever since. But this is only one of the buried secrets Mike unearths. The community is held in the grip of Max Devore, a powerful millionaire with a wicked past. Devore is obsessed with taking away his granddaughter, Kyra, from her young widowed mother, Mattie. As Mike falls in love with Mattie and comes to adore Kyra, he has to decode the warnings that only he and the child are receiving-from ghosts. He must do all these things, or the killing won't stop. It would be unfair to reveal any more of King's story, a complex web of relationships, rivalries, and revenge. Refrigerator magnets that spell out warnings and a spooky trip back in time to a country fair are just the beginning of a long and scary ride. By the end, King has given you a larger sense of the interrelatedness of past and present-and of the wages of sin. Bag of Bones, then, is the author at his best, and something more. ...

Albert Einstein's Philadelphia Experiment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Albert Einstein's Philadelphia Experiment - Essay Example The Philadelphia experiment was done on a Navy destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, which was fitted with required equipment and generators, began in the summers of 1943 and was initially a success to a limited degree. First, the experiment was conducted using domestic Animals on a ship; the animals were placed in metal cages on the USS Eldridge, the ship became invisible but when it materialized many of the animals were missing and some had radiation and burn marks on them, for the first time humans were not be tested. Yet the next time the Experiment was performed with a full crew aboard reportedly underwent the Philadelphia Experiment. The men on board did not know what was happening; they were only told that they were going to be made invisible with the ship. For the second time Eldridge being rendered almost completely invisible, with some eyewitnesses reporting a greenish fog; however, crew members complained of serious nausea afterward. At that time the experiment was altered b y the Navy, with the new goal being invisible to radar only. Equipments used were not recalibrated, and the Experiment was performed again with a new crew member and few scientists. This time, Eldridge not only actually became almost entirely invisible to the naked eye but actually vanished from the area entirely. Concurrent with the phenomenon, the U.S Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, just over 375 miles away, reported sighting the Eldridge vanished again and reappeared in the Philadelphia, not only it was vanished and moved miles away but it was also years away. The effect of this experiment on the crew members was profound and almost all of the crew members were violently ill. Some suffered from mental illness because of the experience; behavior conforming to schizophrenia is described in some accounts. Some of the members were missing supposedly vanished and some were actually fused to the mental bulkhead. Some of the Survivors of the experiment said that they were horrified by the experiment and tried to jump out of the ship and went through a time travel, they were in the year 1983 and they met the scientist who was with them on the ship, they were very much scared and were asked to shut down the Machine on the ship and when they returned to the ship they switched off the machine, but it was too late. Some of the other sailor also went through time travel, they found themselves in a

Department of Human Resource Development and Performance Technologies Essay

Department of Human Resource Development and Performance Technologies - Essay Example It is anchored on sustainable development strategies which seek to provide a long term solution instead of short term measures of poverty alienation. Sustainability is a concept within the development agenda which refers to ability of people to use various resources without finishing them up for the future generation or use. These international developments have been pegged on sustainable technology campaign and this brings the above dined terms into one umbrella idea. †¢ Provide background information about your worksite and its mission. My worksite is an Islamic Center of Terre Haute which is a religious center that serves diverse roles in nurturing the future Muslim faithful and makes effort to promote peaceful co-existence with other communities from different religious faith. This institution is a learning center with an organized curriculum and the workforce deliver services of high standards (Bargach, 2002). There is a spirited management effort to champion for technologi cal application in learning and execution of various administrative issues in line with the concept of sustainable development. ... †¢ Briefly describe what you did while you were at the worksite. Describe your own thinking, understanding, and learning as your project evolved. My work in Islamic center was to help with cleaning, arranging the books in the library, also arranging the Quran books. These activities provided a great challenge which also served as a lesson to me in view of the wider concept of the society. As the project progressed, I began to reflect on the theories learnt in class and compare with the real life situation. It is worth to note that the theoretical concepts learnt in class give a guideline and appropriate hint on how to handle different issues in any situation. Practical application of learnt concepts requires patience and perseverance as they don’t automatically fit. In arranging the books in this institution for instance, there are some cases where the books have erroneous coding and their search process in the database may as well not help. At this point, critical thinki ng is required to advance book search methods. When it comes to cleaning, the effect of the litter and dust on the compound should be seen to be an environmental threat beyond the limits of the institution and this explains the need to place litter bins in places of higher population concentration. This is a sustainable approach that promotes environmental care and a perfect precedent for the future generation. †¢ Identify what was puzzling, problematic, engaging, exciting, etc. about your project. My project entail cleaning and arrangement of books which attracted several problems and equally puzzling situation. Despite my attempts to put litter bins in the

Skills I Learned in High School Essay Example for Free

Skills I Learned in High School Essay My Skills From High School Learning to read and write in college is a situation parallel to Issac Newton’s quote, â€Å"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.† This is because Newton was able to advance the knowledge of science because he simply advanced the research of other great scientists. The skills that will be attained here in college are simply the sharpening of the skills I have already learned in high school. My freshman English teacher taught me to sit down and just read a book and enjoy it. She also helped me expand my vocabulary by showing me the Latin roots in words. Mr. Cicoletti was my English teacher for grades 10th-12th . He was a kind man who had us look at the philosophical side of literature. Existentialism is a great example of this because it deals with you creating your own reality and deciding to make a positive change or a negative one on this â€Å"nonsensical† world. Albert Camus’ novel â€Å"The Stranger† is one of the existentialism books I read. I learned a little Greek mythology and was able to understand the definition of a tragic hero. Joseph Conrad’s novel â€Å"Heart of Darkness† was filled with symbolism and imagery and was fun to analyze because it had so much content. It’s true that it was hard to read but by using literary devices, I was able to break down the density of the book and realize that the Congo represented darkness and the further man went into it the wilder man became. That novel helped me see how man is primarily evil and society’s boundaries and structure us overcome our lower nature. My English teacher also had us read a book that had to do with African culture called, â€Å"Things Fall Apart,† and a book called, â€Å"Night,† which had to do with the Holocaust. We read these books because my teacher  said they helped us understand other people’s cultures and see how other people think. I liked how he showed us that by reading literature you can understand different parts of the world without even going there. I also learned a lot more about writing when I was introduced to literary devices. I learned about research papers. That included learning how to cite your resources and use the MLA format. We also learned how to write argument papers, analysis reports, and compare and contrast essays. I was also able to take the AP Language and Writing Composition Exam my junior year, where I wrote three Essays in a limited amount of time. I felt proud of myself because I am usually a slow writer but I was able to think of topics Samuelson 2  quickly and write down my main points in a standard formatted essay. My senior year AP exam was not as successful because I didn’t understand the second writing prompt very well and so I wrote down a poorly constructed essay that didn’t make much sense but I was still able to finish the test. My teacher showed us that by being able to write well meant we would be able to communicate easier with many people and get substantial jobs by writing goo d resumes. Mr. Cicoletti taught me a lot of literary devices which includes, Alliteration, the repeated sound of one letter. I learned that this is used a lot in poetry to make the words fit together better, such as the nursery rhyme, â€Å"She sells sea shells by the sea shore.† Setting, the location and time era of a literary piece, is a very important element for every story because it helps the reader understand the background pf the story better. Metaphors, saying something is something else, are used a lot in stories because they help you understand a concept better such as â€Å"The woman was a snake.† This helps you understand that â€Å"The woman† is untrustworthy and not safe to be around. Symbolism, a concrete object representing an abstract idea, is a very important concept that I learned that was used a lot in â€Å"the Heart of Darkness†. One of the symbols in that novel was the ivory which represented the white pilgrims’ greed and lust for wealth. Similes, saying something is like something, is a common device used in everyday  writing, such as a diary where someone might write, â€Å"My heart was like a bouncy ball when I bumped into Cody Johnson this morning.† Personification, describing a lifeless object as if it had human characteristics, is a literary device used in â€Å"The Heart of Darkness† because Marlow describes the jungle as being alive and waiting to swallow him and his crew up even though it’s obvious that a forest can’t really swallow human beings. Hyperbole, exaggeration, is something used in tall tales. Verbal irony is the speaker saying the opposite of what he is feeling; Dramatic irony is the reader of a book knowing something a character in the book doesn’t; Cosmic irony is forces that negatively influence somebody’s life that are beyond that person’s control. Shakespeare uses a lot of dramatic irony in his play â€Å"Macbeth†. Sonnets are poems that are written in three quatrains and one couplet, making up a total of fourteen lines. Ballads are poems that tell a story. Haikus are poems that have three lines with seven in the first line, five in the second, and seven in the last. Poetry was a big focus my senior year and I was able to research the famous children’s author A.A. Milne who was an extremely talented poet and I enjoyed reading his works! By accumulating all these skills in high school, I hope to develop even better writing and reading skills in college. I trust that my teachers have done their best to prepare me for this new chapter in my life but I know I will still be learning a lot!

Professional Sports - NBA Players are Greedy Essay example -- Argument

NBA Players are Greedy      Ã‚  Ã‚   How many of us would love to make $2.4 million a year? Or even better, how does $126 million over a six-year period sound? Then again, why stop there? As John Donovan, a sports analyst for Sports Illustrated and CNN points out, with the average salary of players in the NBA at $2.4 million a year, and some players with contracts well over $100 million, it's hard to see what many of them are complaining about. Players in the NBA need to stop being so greedy, agree to a drug policy and realize that they are employed by the owners and should follow all rules and regulations set by the league.      Ã‚  Ã‚   Even though the NBA is a multi-billion dollar industry, it does not mean that the owners should have to pay over 50% of their revenues in player salaries. Something needs to be done to stop the enormous growth of player salaries that has been taking place the last couple of years. The NBA players union seems to believe that they should have salaries as high as the market can bear. The NBA was started by the owners and others as a business. Therefore, all of the players are employees of the owners and the league. The league and owners are the ones who do all of the advertising, make deals with television stations, sign contracts for licensing and make it all happen. They are the ones who should be reaping the most financial rewards. In his magazine article, "Held Ball", Phil Taylor, a writer for Sports Illustrated lets us know that with the signing of a new four year, 2.6 billion dollar contract with NBC and Turner Sports, the league seems to have plenty of money. But wit h figures of about a billion dollars being paid out in player salaries, there is not enough money to pay for all the employees, ... ...h the introduction of a hard salary cap, restricted free agency, and a drug policy, the league would be more competitive and have a better image with the public. It is sad that some players in the league care more about how much money they make than the opportunity that they have, created by the league and the owners, to play the great game of basketball.    Works Cited Donovan, John. "A lockout primer." October, 1998, Online. World Wide Web. http://cnnsi.com/basketball/nba/1998/labor/news/1998/06/24/lockout_primer/ 13 Oct 1998 Donovan, John. "NBA on Shaky Ground as Owners, Players Fight Over Money." CNN/SI. June 24, 1998 Jorgensen, Loren. "Black day for NBA." Deseret News 14 Oct 1998, none Robinson, Doug. "In NBA tiff, who are the good guys?" Deseret News 14 Oct 1998, none Taylor, Phil. "Held Ball." Sports Illustrated Oct 1998: 68-73. Professional Sports - NBA Players are Greedy Essay example -- Argument NBA Players are Greedy      Ã‚  Ã‚   How many of us would love to make $2.4 million a year? Or even better, how does $126 million over a six-year period sound? Then again, why stop there? As John Donovan, a sports analyst for Sports Illustrated and CNN points out, with the average salary of players in the NBA at $2.4 million a year, and some players with contracts well over $100 million, it's hard to see what many of them are complaining about. Players in the NBA need to stop being so greedy, agree to a drug policy and realize that they are employed by the owners and should follow all rules and regulations set by the league.      Ã‚  Ã‚   Even though the NBA is a multi-billion dollar industry, it does not mean that the owners should have to pay over 50% of their revenues in player salaries. Something needs to be done to stop the enormous growth of player salaries that has been taking place the last couple of years. The NBA players union seems to believe that they should have salaries as high as the market can bear. The NBA was started by the owners and others as a business. Therefore, all of the players are employees of the owners and the league. The league and owners are the ones who do all of the advertising, make deals with television stations, sign contracts for licensing and make it all happen. They are the ones who should be reaping the most financial rewards. In his magazine article, "Held Ball", Phil Taylor, a writer for Sports Illustrated lets us know that with the signing of a new four year, 2.6 billion dollar contract with NBC and Turner Sports, the league seems to have plenty of money. But wit h figures of about a billion dollars being paid out in player salaries, there is not enough money to pay for all the employees, ... ...h the introduction of a hard salary cap, restricted free agency, and a drug policy, the league would be more competitive and have a better image with the public. It is sad that some players in the league care more about how much money they make than the opportunity that they have, created by the league and the owners, to play the great game of basketball.    Works Cited Donovan, John. "A lockout primer." October, 1998, Online. World Wide Web. http://cnnsi.com/basketball/nba/1998/labor/news/1998/06/24/lockout_primer/ 13 Oct 1998 Donovan, John. "NBA on Shaky Ground as Owners, Players Fight Over Money." CNN/SI. June 24, 1998 Jorgensen, Loren. "Black day for NBA." Deseret News 14 Oct 1998, none Robinson, Doug. "In NBA tiff, who are the good guys?" Deseret News 14 Oct 1998, none Taylor, Phil. "Held Ball." Sports Illustrated Oct 1998: 68-73.

Hamlet Scene 1 Act 1 Essay

Thomas Kyd is the author of the 16th Century play A Spanish Tragedy which was highly influential and introduced a new variant of tragedy that includes a ghost and a mad hero. Many subsequent works followed that developed Kyd’s original idea into the sub-genre known as revenge tragedy. A piece of literature that falls under this genre is Shakespeare’s Hamlet and in order to meet the specification to become an effective tragedy it is heavily based upon Aristotle’s criteria used to measure tragedies and Ancient works of literature such as Virgil’s Aenied. In Hamlet dialogue accomplishes a variety of things. It develops relationships but most importantly displays the hostility of the characters towards the â€Å"strange† and â€Å"gross† ghost. Shakespeare uses dialogue to describe the setting including the â€Å"cold† weather and the time so that a contemporary audience in an Elizabethan theatre would be able to imagine the scene. The description is able to evoke a mood and create and sinister atmosphere. The language used in Hamlet is dramatically intense and unfamiliar due to the use of heavily-charged words such as â€Å"harbingers† which are uncommon in both contemporary and modern vocabularies. The diction and syntax of these words are not problematic during a performance of Hamlet but can cause difficulties when studying the written script. Therefore they are used as a reflection of the inner turmoil of the characters within the play. Dialogue also contributes to the themes of the play, especially the tragic factors. The edginess of the opening dialogue immediately alarms the audience by foreboding horror therefore establishing an effective tragedy. Act I scene i is set at midnight when â€Å"’tis now struck twelve†, the traditional time for sightings of the supernatural. It is perceived that midnight has associations with chaos, death, mystery and the underworld. This increases the tragic intensity of the play by foreboding the death and chaos that is to follow as well as it evokes fear both in the characters and in the audience. The weather in act I scene i plays a major role as the â€Å"bitter cold† of winter creates an uncomfortable atmosphere and exaggerates the unnerving setting as it is both dark and freezing. The word bitter has various associations with grief and pain. This forces the audience to sympathise and pity the characters due to Shakespeare’s use of violent imagery. Winter is used to symbolise both death and loss of hope and is therefore a reflection upon the plot of the play. Throughout the scene the ghost does not engage in any conversation but instead â€Å"stalks† across the stage ignoring the other characters who demand it to â€Å"speak, speak! I charge thee speak! † Despite all best efforts made by Horatio the ghost seems unable to communicate. This adds to the sense of terror as the ghost doesn’t act human and pays no attention to any human interaction. The ghost’s presence enforces a sombre atmosphere, allowing the seriousness of the play to develop. In the 1964 Russian film versioni of Hamlet, the ghost conjures both fear of the ghost and pity towards the other characters in the audience as the ghost is dressed in a full armour suit, has shadows concealing its face and identity which is disturbing to see and the scene is directed so that the ghost appears much larger than the other characters. The intensity of the scene is exaggerated by the dramatic music used to influence the atmosphere and the large and threatening appearance of castle in the background. Similarly the Westminster School productionii of Hamlet presents the ghost as being twice the size of other characters with its face glowing an unnatural green colour. The ghost was uplifted by the other characters who echoed the ghost’s booming words. Fear is created due to the ghost’s supernatural and eerie appearance and pity is created as the other character’s acted possessed by the ghost which will ultimately add to the catharsis at the end of the play. The ghost is also thought to be ambiguous when it is firstly described as â€Å"majestical† by Marcellus and then later the ghost is thought to be â€Å"like a guilty thing†. This leaves the audience confused about the ghosts intentions as it appears ambivalent throughout this scene. Shakespeare helps develop the tragedy by creating a political background to the play. Throughout Hamlet there is a fear that Prince Fortinbras of Norway will invade Denmark which inevitably causes a tense and foreboding atmosphere. The political unrest is increased as Denmark is presented as a troubled kingdom through use of Horatio’s understanding that the ghost’s appearance â€Å"bodes some strange eruption to [the] state. † Horatio establishes a link between the ghost and the â€Å"sheeted dead† that â€Å"did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets† referring to the downfall of Julius Caesar who was killed by those he trusted similar to King Hamlet who was killed by his brother. This suggests that the ghost is an â€Å"omen† foretelling the ominous fall of Denmark which is one of the main elements of tragedy. This fulfils Aristotle’s criteria of the play revolving around an issue of great magnitude. Horatio exclaims that the sight of the ghost â€Å"harrows [him] with fear and wonder† which expresses the horror of what he has witnessed. In the Elizabethan era the word â€Å"harrow† referred to the sharp teeth of agricultural tools that would rip into the earth. Shakespeare uses this word to visualize how the ghost lacerates or distresses the feelings of those witnessing his appearance. Marcellus questions whether he should â€Å"strike [the ghost] with [his] partisan† illustrating the premonitions of the ghost as being evil. Shakespeare uses violent imagery to convey a sense of terror in order to establish the opening scene of Hamlet as a tragedy. Francisco admits to being â€Å"sick at heart† which emphasizes the mood of the play and suggests the impact the ghost has had upon the characters. The characters describe the ghost as a â€Å"thing† and refer to the â€Å"illusion† in the singular neuter pronoun, â€Å"it†, which is dehumanising and objectifying. This provides the ghost with a sense of mystery, but more importantly it reinforces the differences between the earthly matters and the supernatural element of the play. Shakespeare uses the main characters name as the title of the play to focus the audience’s attention on the tragic hero. This is similar to Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aenied both of which are ancient epic poems feature aspects of tragedy such as death, tragic flaws and the supernatural divinities. Both poems are named after the hero therefore this intertextual reference places gravitas upon Hamlet i Directed by Grigori Kozintsev ii Directed by Chris Barton. BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCES Shakespeare, William, Hamlet, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, 2008 SECONDARY SOURCES Hamlet, directed by Grigori Kozintsev, 1964 Hamlet, directed by Chris Barton, 2009 Kyd, Thomas, A Spanish Tragedy, Revels Student Editions, Manchester University Press, 1996.