Free Essays on The Gift

The Gift I am presenting an analysis of The Gift, a fictional novel by Danielle Steel. I will give a basic summary of the story line, and I intend to show the omniscient narrator’s point of view in analysis of the characters. I greatly recommend this novel for anyone to read, as it affected my emotions in several ways. I laughed and cried within the first chapter. The entire book makes you think long and hard about life, how precious it is, and how quickly it can be taken from you. We are all given gifts of different kinds in our lives. We have to learn to recognize and appreciate those gifts and mourn them when they are no longer with us. A happy home in a small town is shattered by tragedy. A young healthy five-year-old named Annie senselessly and suddenly dies. Her parents’ marriage begins to unravel upon her death. Her sixteen-year-old brother is going downhill. Suddenly, a pregnant stranger stops in town and decides to stay. The 16-year-old brother falls in love with the pregnant teenager, and hope springs anew in the unfortunate Whittaker family. Life is a gift revealed in this novel that evokes many emotional tears and lots of laughter. The ending leaves you wanting to write the author and beg her to tell you what happens next. The omniscient narrator’s point of view allows the reader to feel the emotions of all the characters, as well as see both sides of a conversation as it is happening. The setting is in a 1950’s small Midwestern town. Children play in the streets, on the skating pond, and attend the movie house. The story is told over a time period of several months, from De cember 1952 through December 1953. The book opens with the story of the death of the five-year-old who is adored by her family. The novel ends with a surprise gift to that family. The omniscient narrator’s point of view reveals all the thoughts and emotions of each character, making it very easy to empathize with them.... Free Essays on The Gift Free Essays on The Gift The Gift I am presenting an analysis of The Gift, a fictional novel by Danielle Steel. I will give a basic summary of the story line, and I intend to show the omniscient narrator’s point of view in analysis of the characters. I greatly recommend this novel for anyone to read, as it affected my emotions in several ways. I laughed and cried within the first chapter. The entire book makes you think long and hard about life, how precious it is, and how quickly it can be taken from you. We are all given gifts of different kinds in our lives. We have to learn to recognize and appreciate those gifts and mourn them when they are no longer with us. A happy home in a small town is shattered by tragedy. A young healthy five-year-old named Annie senselessly and suddenly dies. Her parents’ marriage begins to unravel upon her death. Her sixteen-year-old brother is going downhill. Suddenly, a pregnant stranger stops in town and decides to stay. The 16-year-old brother falls in love with the pregnant teenager, and hope springs anew in the unfortunate Whittaker family. Life is a gift revealed in this novel that evokes many emotional tears and lots of laughter. The ending leaves you wanting to write the author and beg her to tell you what happens next. The omniscient narrator’s point of view allows the reader to feel the emotions of all the characters, as well as see both sides of a conversation as it is happening. The setting is in a 1950’s small Midwestern town. Children play in the streets, on the skating pond, and attend the movie house. The story is told over a time period of several months, from De cember 1952 through December 1953. The book opens with the story of the death of the five-year-old who is adored by her family. The novel ends with a surprise gift to that family. The omniscient narrator’s point of view reveals all the thoughts and emotions of each character, making it very easy to empathize with them....

The Agapito Flores Fluorescent Lamp Controversy

The Agapito Flores Fluorescent Lamp Controversy No one knows who initially proposed the notion that Agapito Flores, a Filipino electrician who lived and worked in the early 20th century, invented  the first  fluorescent lamp. In spite of evidence that disproves the claim, the controversy has raged for years.  Some proponents of the tale have gone so far as to suggest that the word fluorescent was derived from Flores last name, but considering the verifiable history of fluorescence and the subsequent development of fluorescent lighting, its clear that the assertions are false. The Origin of Fluorescence While fluorescence  had been observed by many scientists as far back as the 16th century, it was Irish physicist and mathematician George Gabriel Stokes who finally explained the phenomenon in 1852. In his paper on the wavelength properties of light, Stokes described how uranium glass and the mineral fluorspar could transform invisible ultra-violet light into visible light of greater wavelengths.  He referred to this phenomenon as dispersive reflection, but wrote: â€Å"I confess that I do not like this term. I am almost inclined to coin a word, and call the appearance  Ã‚  fluorescence  Ã‚  from fluor-spar, as the analogous term opalescence is derived from the name of a mineral.† In 1857, the French physicist Alexandre E. Becquerel,  who had investigated both fluorescence and  phosphorescence, theorized about the construction of fluorescent tubes similar to those still used today. Let There Be Light On May 19, 1896, about 40 years after Becquerel postulated his light-tube theories, Thomas Edison filed a patent for a fluorescent lamp. In 1906, he filed a second application, and finally, on September 10, 1907, he was granted a patent. Unfortunately, instead of utilizing ultraviolet light, Edisons lamps employed X-rays, which is likely the reason his company never produced the lamps commercially. After one of Edisons assistants died of radiation poisoning, further research and development were suspended. American  Peter Cooper Hewitt patented the first low-pressure mercury-vapor lamp in 1901 (U.S. patent 889,692), which is considered the first prototype for todays modern fluorescent lights. Edmund Germer, who invented a high-pressure vapor lamp, also invented an improved fluorescent lamp. In 1927, he co-patented an experimental fluorescent lamp with Friedrich Meyer and Hans Spanner. The Flores Myth Busted   Agapito Flores was born in Guiguinto, Bulacan, the Philippines, on September 28, 1897. As a young man, he worked as an apprentice in a machine shop. He later moved to Tondo, Manila, where he trained at a vocational school to become an electrician. According to the myth surrounding his supposed invention of the fluorescent lamp, Flores allegedly was granted a French patent for a fluorescent bulb and the General Electric Company subsequently bought those patent rights and manufactured a version of his fluorescent bulb.   Its quite a story, as far as it goes, however, it ignores the fact that Flores was born 40  years after Becquerel first explored the phenomenon  of fluorescence, and was only 4 years old when Hewitt patented his mercury vapor lamp. Likewise, the term fluorescent could not have been coined in homage to Flores, since it predates his birth by 45 years (as evidenced by the prior existence of George Stokes paper) According to Dr. Benito Vergara of the Philippine Science Heritage Center, As far as I could learn, a certain Flores presented the idea of fluorescent light to Manuel Quezon when he became president, however, Dr. Vergara goes on to clarify that at that time, the General Electric Company had already presented the fluorescent light to the public. The final takeaway to the tale is that while Agapito Flores may or may not have explored the practical applications of fluorescence, he neither gave the phenomenon its name nor invented the lamp that used it as illumination.