Hopton is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located just south of the Norfolk border on the B1111 road between Stanton and Garboldisham, in 2011 it had a population of 653. It shares a parish council with neighbouring Knettishall.
All Saints’ Church is at the geographical centre of the village, it has regular services and is part of the United Benefice of Stanton, Hopton, Market Weston, Barningham & Coney Weston.[2]
There is a primary school, and a pre-school. The primary school feeds students both to Thurston Community College in Thurston and Ixworth Free School in Ixworth.
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“Civil Parish 2011”. Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 23 August 2016.
Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment may not have nailed every single aspect of Star Wars Outlaws‘ ambitious approach to open-world video game design, but it sure nails the scoundrel fantasy of living inside the galaxy far, far away’s dangerous underworld.
More importantly, it lets players and longtime fans finally explore detailed and wide open maps, filled to the brim with activities and colorful characters. We wanted to put the spotlight on the planets themselves with this article, so you’ll have a much better understanding of their origins and history if you’ve been watching Star Wars from afar until now or have yet to jump into Kay Vess and Nix’s unpredictable adventure.
Just so we’re all on the same page: Star Wars Outlaws takes place in the gap between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, which means it’s part of the Age of Rebellion era of the official Star Wars timeline as shared by Lucasfilm. In practice, this means the Empire still rules over the galaxy, but cracks are beginning to show, and the Rebel Alliance is gaining more allies and starting to push back. Meanwhile, the crime syndicates are making tons of money, taking advantage of the chaos and disorganization.
With that small intro to the setting and chronology of Star Wars Outlaws out of the way, we’re ready to jump into the five planetary locations you’ll be visiting (or have already visited) in the game. But before that, make sure to note down the best Star Wars games you need to play as well as the Star Wars TV shows you might’ve missed before we’re off to a new romp with Skeleton Crew this next December.
Cantonica
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
First introduced in The Last Jedi during what many fans call the movie’s weakest subplot, Cantonica may look like a lush green planet with vast oceans up close, but that’s just because both Episode VIII and Star Wars Outlaws only explore the city of Canto Bight and its surroundings, a destination built for the wealthy, gamblers, and war profiteers. Cantonica is actually a desert planet, and Canto Bight is located on the shores of the artificial Sea of Cantonica, which costs a huge amount of credits to maintain (can you make the real-life connection here?).
As a direct result of this process, the lower levels of Canto Bight, inhabited by the working class and the homeless, are damp and unfit for for living. In these streets, protagonist Kay Vess was raised as a common thief, yet her skills (and some luck) eventually took her away from the planet. Star Wars Outlaws – at least right now – doesn’t allow us to return to the ‘Casino City’ outside certain story segments, so make sure to take all the nice screenshots of it you want while you can!
In both Outlaws and The Last Jedi, Cantonica is free from the Empire, the First Order, and the New Republic because it’s part of the Corporate Sector, a fiefdom where the corporate entities could self-govern their territories. Its deserts still house pirates and gangs of criminals that want to lay low for a while, but Canto Bight is where most of the planetary activity is, and the Canto Bight Police Department acts as a deterrent to crime and thievery… while also predictably falling to corruption.
Related: Star Wars movies in order: Chronological and release
Toshara
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Toshara isn’t a planet, actually. It’s a moon with an arid climate that orbits the planet Toshaal in the vast Outer Rim. For the most part, its geography consists of plains and canyons covered with veins of amberine. While it’s been habitable for ages, the moon’s landscape was at some point eroded by strong winds. The native humans are masters of ‘harvesting’ the wind and taking advantage of it to power their homes and machinery.
This location may seem peaceful at first glance, but it’s increasingly become a go-to refuge for pirates, bandits, and other criminals to escape and store contraband. By the time Outlaws starts, the Pykes are at the top of the food chain, yet the Empire is the faction that technically controls the moon and the system it belongs to.
Toshara was created specifically for Star Wars Outlaws, but we should expect to see more of it in the future, as almost no location in the Star Wars universe is ‘one and done’ (maybe it’ll pop up in comic books?). While most of the action takes place around the crowded Mirogana City, the game offers plenty of opportunities in the plains, valleys, hideouts, and Imperial outposts and bases that surround the area.
Kijimi
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Kijimi, a frigid planet located in the Bryx sector of the Mid Rim, was one of the coolest new locations introduced in the divisive ninth episode of the Skywalker Saga, The Rise of Skywalker. In both that movie and Outlaws, the story takes the main characters to its main settlement: Kijimi City, originally known as Kijimiko. While it was built around a Dai Bendu monastery, the city soon became a haven for criminals, guilds, and all sorts of gangs.
The Ashiga Clan, a dynasty based around a Melitto hive, ruled over Kijimi City and most of the planet for generations. In spite of its code of honor, the group soon became part of the underworld and took over extortion, sabotage, and weapons manufacturing operations. However, they seemingly punished the contraband of spice and substances that were deemed harmful for Kijimi and its inhabitants. This led to crime syndicates like Crimson Dawn attempting to overthrow them around the time Kay Vess arrived.
Decades later, Kijimi was occupied by the First Order during their expansion and war against the Resistance and remnants of the New Republic. In 35 ABY, shortly before the ultimate defeat of the Sith Eternal and the First Order on Exegol, the planet was completely obliterated by a planet-destroyer ship as a warning to other worlds who supported the Resistance.
Tatooine
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
Everyone knows Tatooine, an unremarkable Outer Rim desert planet that ended up at the center of so many galaxy-shaking stories. Its scorched surface was the result of the planet orbiting two twin suns, with some scant animal and plant life that had adapted to its rough conditions. The Jawas – who also spread to other planets – and the enigmatic Tusken Raiders are the only sentient species supposedly native to the iconic desert world.
Following the search for mining deposits long ago, Tatooine saw a population explosion and quickly became yet another haven for criminals and smugglers. It wasn’t very long before the Hutts took over, promoting slavery and controlling almost all trade and deals away from the Republic’s (and later the Empire’s) eyes. In Outlaws, Jabba continues to firm control the planet (and his rancor is still alive), but as we all know, his end at the hands of Leia Organa and Luky Skywalker isn’t too far off. Bib Fortuna would take over his palace and turf, only to be murdered and replaced by Boba Fett years later.
Kay Vess’ adventure takes her to Mos Eisley, the “wretched hive of scum and villainy” you’ve always wanted to visit for some odd reason, Jabba’s palace, dangerous valleys, and even part of the Dune Sea. Of course, after the events of A New Hope, the Empire is still around even if it can’t do much with Jabba in power, so it’s a far more dangerous planet during the final stages of the Galactic Civil War.
Akiva
(Image credit: Ubisoft)
You might think Akiva is yet another brand-new addition to Star Wars canon thanks to Outlaws, but you’d be wrong. It was first introduced in the novel Aftermath (2015), first of a trilogy. This is, however, its first on-screen appearance, and we can safely say that it’s among the game’s best-looking locales.
Also located in the Outer Rim, Akiva is a hot and humid planet full of lush jungles where rain and storms can last weeks if not months. This led to most of the population developing ‘storm ladders’ to quickly get away from the fairly common flash floods. It might seem like an unremarkable world as part of the larger picture, yet both the Clone War and the Galactic Civil War reached this world. First, the Separatists built massive droid factories underground, away from the Republic. Later, the Empire had a notable presence, building a number of outposts and bases.
During Kay Vess’ visits to the planet, the Empire still had a firm grasp on the planet, especially in Myrra, its main city, but crime lords had already started amassing more and more power as the Imperial presence was weakened by the war effort elsewhere. Star Wars readers with a good memory might recognize a certain someone who helps Vess at some point (hint: he also shows up in two of the sequel movies).
”’Yaña Öcem”’ ({{lang-tt-Cyrl|Яңа Өҗем|translit=Yaña Öcem}}, {{lang-ru|Новый Узюм}}) is a [[types of inhabited localities in Russia|rural locality]] (a [[Village#Russia|derevnya]]) in [[Atninsky District]], [[Tatarstan]]. The population was 62 as of 2010.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Яңа Өҗем |url=https://tatarica.org/tat/razdely/municipalnye-obrazovaniya/municipalnye-rajony/tn-rajony/yaa-em |access-date=2022-08-08 |website=tatarica.org |language=tt}}</ref>
”’Yaña Öcem”’ ({{tt-Cyrl|Яңа Өҗем|translit=Yaña Öcem}}, {{ru|Новый Узюм}}) is a [[types of inhabited localities in Russia|rural locality]] (a [[Village#Russia|derevnya]]) in [[Atninsky District]], [[Tatarstan]]. The population was 62 as of 2010.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Яңа Өҗем |url=https://tatarica.org/tat/razdely/municipalnye-obrazovaniya/municipalnye-rajony/tn-rajony/yaa-em |access-date=2022-08-08 |website=tatarica.org |language=tt}}</ref>
== Geography ==
== Geography ==
Latest revision as of 14:48, 17 October 2024
Derevnya in Tatarstan, Russia
Yaña Öcem (Tatar: Яңа Өҗем, romanized: Yaña Öcem, Russian: Новый Узюм) is a rural locality (a derevnya) in Atninsky District, Tatarstan. The population was 62 as of 2010.[1]
Yaña Öcem is located 15 km northeast of Olı Ätnä, district’s administrative centre, and 94 km north of Qazan, republic’s capital, by road.[2][3]
The village was established in 18th century.
From 18th to the first half of the 19th centuries village’s residents belonged to the social estate of state peasants.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, village had a mosque and 3 small shops.
Before the creation of the Tatar ASSR in 1920 was a part of Çar Uyezd of Qazan Governorate. Since 1920 was a part of Arça Canton; after the creation of districts in Tatar ASSR (Tatarstan) in Tuqay (1930–1935), Tuqay (former Qızıl Yul) (1935–1963), Arça (1963–1990) and Ätnä districts.[4]
Bridges are a crucial part of our infrastructure, allowing us to connect and traverse various terrains. They play a significant role in transportation, enabling the movement of people and goods across rivers, valleys, and other obstacles. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the different types of bridges, their advantages and disadvantages, famous examples, factors to consider when designing a bridge, the role of engineering in bridge construction, how bridges have evolved over time, and future developments in bridge technology.
Introduction to Bridges and Their Importance
Bridges are engineering marvels that have been around for centuries. They serve as vital links, connecting communities and facilitating trade and travel. Without bridges, our ability to explore and expand would be severely limited. These structures are designed to withstand immense forces, ensuring their longevity and safety.
The Different Types of Bridges
Bridges come in various forms, each with its unique characteristics and construction methods. Understanding the different types of bridges can help us appreciate the engineering behind them and their suitability for specific situations. Let’s explore the most common types of bridges:
Arch bridges
Arch bridges are one of the oldest bridge designs and are known for their elegant curves. They rely on the strength of the arch shape to distribute weight and withstand compression forces. Arch bridges are typically made of stone, concrete, or steel, and are commonly found in areas with strong bedrock or stable foundations.
ARCH Bridge
Beam bridges
Beam bridges, also known as girder bridges, are the simplest and most common type of bridge. They consist of horizontal beams supported by piers or abutments at each end. Beam bridges are often used for short spans, such as highway overpasses or pedestrian walkways. They are cost-effective, easy to construct, and can be made from various materials, including wood, steel, or concrete.
types of bridges
Suspension bridges
Suspension bridges are iconic structures that feature long cables suspended from towers. These cables support the bridge deck, which hangs freely between the towers. Suspension bridges are known for their impressive span lengths, making them ideal for spanning large bodies of water. The cables distribute the weight of the bridge across the towers and anchorages, enabling them to withstand tension forces.
Cable-stayed bridges
Cable-stayed bridges are similar to suspension bridges, but instead of hanging freely, the bridge deck is supported by cables connected directly to the towers. This design provides additional stability and allows for more flexibility in bridge construction. Cable-stayed bridges are commonly used for medium to long spans and can be found in both urban and rural settings.
Truss bridges
Truss bridges are characterized by their triangular framework of interconnected beams, known as trusses. These bridges are highly efficient in distributing weight and can span long distances. Truss bridges can be made from steel or timber and are often found in railway or highway applications.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Bridge Type
Each type of bridge offers its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Understanding these factors is crucial when deciding which bridge type is most suitable for a particular location or purpose.
Arch bridges provide excellent aesthetic appeal and can span long distances without intermediate supports. However, they may require extensive materials and skilled labor during construction.
Beam bridges are cost-effective and relatively simple to construct. They are ideal for short spans but may not be suitable for longer distances or areas with unstable foundations.
Suspension bridges offer unmatched span lengths and are visually striking. However, they require complex engineering and careful maintenance to ensure their stability.
Cable-stayed bridges provide a balance between cost, span length, and aesthetics. They are versatile and can be adapted to different environments. However, the design and construction process can be more complex than other bridge types.
Truss bridges are lightweight and efficient in distributing weight. They are often used in situations where long spans are required. However, their open framework design may limit their use in certain settings.
Famous Examples of Each Bridge Type
Throughout history, numerous bridges have captured our imagination and showcased the brilliance of engineering. Let’s explore some famous examples of each bridge type:
Golden Gate Bridge (Suspension Bridge)
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is an iconic suspension bridge that spans the Golden Gate Strait. Completed in 1937, it has become a symbol of the city and a marvel of engineering. The bridge’s graceful design and vibrant red-orange color have made it a beloved landmark.
Tower Bridge (Bascule Bridge)
Tower Bridge in London, England, is a bascule bridge that crosses the River Thames. Its distinctive towers and suspension mechanism allow the central section of the bridge to lift, providing clearance for passing ships. Tower Bridge is an iconic symbol of London and a popular tourist attraction.
Sydney Harbour Bridge (Arch Bridge)
The Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia, is an arch bridge that spans Sydney Harbour. Completed in 1932, it is one of the world’s largest steel arch bridges. The bridge not only provides a vital transportation route but also offers breathtaking views of the city and its iconic Opera House.
Brooklyn Bridge (Cable-Stayed Bridge)
The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, New York, is a cable-stayed bridge that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn. Completed in 1883, it was the first steel-wire suspension bridge of its kind. The Brooklyn Bridge is an engineering marvel and an enduring symbol of the city.
Forth Bridge (Cantilever Bridge)
The Forth Bridge in Scotland is a cantilever bridge that spans the Firth of Forth. Completed in 1890, it is considered a masterpiece of engineering and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Forth Bridge is renowned for its innovative use of steel and its distinctive red color.
Factors to Consider When Designing a Bridge
Designing a bridge involves careful consideration of various factors to ensure its structural integrity and functionality. Here are some key factors to consider:
Load Capacity
Bridges must be designed to withstand the anticipated loads they will experience throughout their lifespan. Factors such as traffic volume, weight of vehicles, and environmental conditions must be taken into account to determine the appropriate load capacity.
Span Length
The span length refers to the distance between bridge supports. Longer spans often require more complex engineering solutions and materials to ensure stability. Factors such as water depth, geological conditions, and clearance requirements must be considered when determining the span length.
Aesthetics
Bridges are not merely functional structures; they also contribute to the visual appeal of their surroundings. Aesthetics play a crucial role in bridge design, ensuring that the structure harmonizes with its environment and becomes a landmark in its own right.
Environmental Factors
Bridges must be designed to withstand environmental conditions such as wind, earthquakes, and temperature variations. Factors such as corrosion resistance, material durability, and environmental impact must be considered during the design and construction process.
The Role of Engineering in Bridge Construction
Engineering plays a vital role in the construction of bridges, from the initial design phase to the final construction and maintenance. Structural engineers employ various techniques and principles to ensure the safety, durability, and functionality of bridges. They analyze loads, conduct structural calculations, and employ advanced technologies to create innovative and efficient bridge designs.
How Bridges Have Evolved Over Time
Bridges have evolved significantly throughout history, driven by advances in engineering, materials, and construction techniques. Early bridges were constructed using natural materials such as wood and stone, while modern bridges utilize high-strength materials like steel and concrete. The development of new construction methods and innovative designs has allowed for longer spans, increased load capacities, and improved aesthetics.
Future Developments in Bridge Technology
As technology continues to advance, we can expect further developments in bridge design and construction. New materials, such as carbon fiber composites, may revolutionize bridge construction by offering increased strength and durability. Advanced sensors and monitoring systems will allow for real-time assessment of bridge conditions, enhancing safety and maintenance practices. Additionally, the integration of smart technologies, such as self-healing materials and renewable energy sources, may pave the way for sustainable and resilient bridges of the future.
Conclusion
Bridges are remarkable structures that have shaped our world and enabled human progress. From arch bridges to cable-stayed bridges, each type offers unique advantages and contributes to our infrastructure in different ways. Understanding the factors involved in bridge design, the role of engineering, and the evolution of bridge technology allows us to appreciate the complexity and beauty of these vital connections. As we look to the future, we can anticipate further advancements in bridge construction, ensuring that these essential structures continue to facilitate our growth and exploration.
Sachin Thorat
Sachin is a B-TECH graduate in Mechanical Engineering from a reputed Engineering college. Currently, he is working in the sheet metal industry as a designer. Additionally, he has interested in Product Design, Animation, and Project design. He also likes to write articles related to the mechanical engineering field and tries to motivate other mechanical engineering students by his innovative project ideas, design, models and videos.
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Mark Boxer, OFS Technical Manager, reveals what makes Rollable Ribbon so special. To form these ribbons, fibers are partially bonded to each other at intermittent points. This design not only enables mass fusion ribbon splicing but allows for easier individual fiber breakout than flat ribbons. The preferential bending plane of the rollable ribbons facilitates rolling and routing in smaller closures and splice trays, similar to individual fibers.
Learn more about Rollable Ribbon here.
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Mark Boxer with OFS. Today I’d like to talk about Rollable Ribbon and if you haven’t seen it before, it is this stuff, so it’s pretty neat. It collapses upon itself when it’s rolled into a tight cylinder so you can kind of collapse it.
And then you can also easily separate it out to pull out an individual fiber. So, I’ll do that and get a little bit closer. So you can see that and then it just snaps back into place so you can slice it again. So, it splices like a ribbon. It can be rolled very, very tightly, providing the ability of tight fiber density in a very, very small package.
So, you compare this to a flat ribbon. This is a flat ribbon and so there is no there is no moving of this or no rolling this without breaking the ribbon. So why this is important really comes back to geometry. So, this is an 864 fiber central to flat ribbon cable. So, if you look at it, you can see that there is a lot of space in between the flat ribbons and the tube.
And that’s because we’ve got ribbons that are fundamentally rectangles. And the cable is fundamentally a circle. When you have a circle and a rectangle, then it those don’t fit that efficiently. If you look at a rollable version of this cable with 864 fibers, you can see here there’s not very much space between the fibers and the tube.
And let me go ahead and put both of these side by side. And you can see that this is the flat ribbon 864. This is the rollable 864. Now there’s a significant difference in size between the two.
Rollable Ribbon was dreamed up in Japan back in the 2000’s and went through a development path that was actually similar to the SC Connector that happened in the early 1990s.
And what I mean by that is that NTT in Japan farmed out the concept to various companies who ultimately brought it to market. For the case of Rollable Ribbon OFS parent company, Furukawa was one of those companies that introduced Rollable Ribbon and so we brought it back to brought it to market during the middle part of the 2010’s.
So there are so many benefits to Rollable Ribbon. You know, we see it in a lot of different environments, and I call this the buffet of benefits using Rollable Ribbon. It’s small. The ribbons themselves are very small so they can be rolled. That means that cables can be much smaller and lighter for a given size.
That can gives the ability to fit more fiber into smaller ducts. It can mean smaller hand holds more cable on a real for longer lengths or fewer slice points. And then for aerial installations also since everything’s smaller, also less weight on the pole, less amount of ice to build up. Smaller in general typically makes things easier. Some customers like it because it can be placed in thinner slice trays enabling more trays and a closure or a smaller closure for a given fiber count.
All of these cables are gel free, so they’re easier to prepare for slicing. And of course, these are ribbon. So there can be mass fusion spliced 12 at a time. The initial installations were primarily used to connect data centers together because data centers use very high fiber count cables, you know, think of 1728s, 3456s.
But what I’m really excited about is the concept of using rollable ribbons in lower fiber count networks. Including fiber to the home, backbone, and distribution networks. For those applications, we have typically used, lose tube cables in the past because it’s easier to pull out an individual fiber to connect a subscriber. But now with Rollable Ribbon, it’s easier to pick out an individual fiber versus a loose tube. The ribbons or clearly marked, the fiber color is always going to be in the same place. You just basically pick out whatever you need.
So now the cables can be smaller, they can be easier to work with in the field. If you compare these so these 288 fiber count cables. The first is a loose tube. It’s actually pretty big. And this is a flat ribbon cable 288.
So now look at the rollable – and so we’ve got a couple of different versions of this but actually the larger rollable you can see that even the larger rollable is much smaller than either the loose tube or the flat ribbon.
All of these cables are GR20 rated. So you have the same rugged, crush, impact, and tinsel performance that we’ve come to rely on for decades. So give Rollable Ribbon some thoughts for your network. Now you can get the benefits of ribbon slicing when you can use it. Or also single fiber access. You can do either one, whenever or where ever you need to.
It can act as a ribbon. It can also act as a single fiber giving you a lot of freedom to use either platform in a much smaller package.
So overall, we think we’re going to see a lot more customers move towards Rollable Ribbon in their fiber to the home distribution networks. And now in the future.
Hallelujah is a 1929 American pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical directed by King Vidor, and starring Daniel L. Haynes and Nina Mae McKinney.
Filmed in Tennessee and Arkansas and chronicling the troubled quest of a sharecropper, Zeke Johnson (Haynes), and his relationship with the seductive Chick (McKinney), Hallelujah was one of the first films with an all-African American cast produced by a major studio. (Although frequently touted as Hollywood’s first all-black cast musical, that distinction more properly belongs to Hearts in Dixie, which premiered several months earlier.) It was intended for a general audience and was considered so risky a venture by MGM that they required King Vidor to invest his own salary in the production. Vidor expressed an interest in “showing the Southern Negro as he is”[1] and attempted to present a relatively non-stereotyped view of African-American life.
Hallelujah was King Vidor’s first sound film, and combined sound recorded on location and sound recorded post-production in Hollywood.[2] King Vidor was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for the film.
In 2008, Hallelujah was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”[3][4] In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor’s career.[5]
The film contains two scenes of “trucking”: a contemporary dance craze where the participant makes movements backward and forward, but with no actual change of position, whilst moving the arms like a piston on a locomotive wheel.[6]
Years before creating Hallelujah, King Vidor had longed to make a film employing an all-African American cast. He had floated the idea around for years but “the studio kept turning the idea down”.[7] Vidor’s was in Europe during 1928 promoting his film The Crowd, when heard of talking motion pictures emerging in the United States. He wanted an all-African American cast to sing “negro spirituals” after he had seen the success of it on Broadway. Vidor stated, “If stage plays with all negro casts, and stories like those by Octavus Roy Cohen and others, could have such great success, why shouldn’t the screen make a successful negro play?”[8] Vidor was able to convince Nicholas Schenck, who was the president of MGM at the time, to get the movie made by framing it more as a film that depicted African American’s sexual deviance. Schenck put it simply to Vidor, “Well, if you think like that, I’ll let you make a picture about whores”.[7] Vidor received the inspiration to create this film based on real incidents he witnessed as a child during his time at home in the south. He observed: “I used to watch the negroes in the South, which was my home. I studied their music, and I used to wonder at the pent-up romance in them”.[8] Vidor began shooting in Arkansas, Memphis and Southern California at the MGM studios.
The people inhabit a world of racial paternalism where, partly due to religion, the plantation workers are happy with the status quo. Zeke the plantation boy represents the morally upstanding country boy (the good) against the morally corrupt (due to Hotshot’s influence) city girl Chick (the bad) who tempts him from the straight and narrow.[6]
Hallelujah (1929). L to R: William Fountaine, Daniel L Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney
Sharecroppers Zeke and Spunk Johnson sell their family’s portion of the cotton crop for $100. They are promptly cheated out of the money by the shill Chick (Nina Mae McKinney), in collusion with her gambling-hustler boyfriend, Hot Shot. Spunk is murdered in the ensuing brawl. Zeke runs away and reforms his life: becoming a Baptist minister, and using his full name – Zekiel. This is the first example of black character development in cinema.[6]
Sometime later, he returns and preaches a rousing revival. After being ridiculed and enticed by Chick, Zekiel becomes engaged to a virtuous maiden named Missy (Victoria Spivey), thinking this will ward off his desires for the sinful Chick. Chick attends a sermon, heckling Zekiel, then asks for baptism but is clearly not truly repentant. During a rousing sermon, Chick seduces Zekiel and he throws away his new life for her. Months later, Zeke has started a new life; he is working at a sawmill and is married to Chick, who is secretly cheating on him with her old flame, Hot Shot (William Fountaine).
Chick and Hot Shot decide to run off together; Zeke finds out about their affair and chases after them. The carriage carrying Hot Shot and Chick loses a wheel and throws Chick out, giving Zeke a chance to catch up to them. Holding her in his arms, he watches Chick die as she apologizes to him for being unable to change her ways. Zeke then chases Hot Shot on foot. He stalks him relentlessly through the woods and swamp while Hot Shot tries to escape, but stumbles until Zeke finally catches and kills him. Zeke spends time in prison for his crime, breaking rocks.
The movie ends with Zeke returning home to his family, just as they are harvesting their crop. Despite the time that has passed and the way Zekiel left, the family joyfully welcomes him back into the flock.
The film gives, in some sections, an authentic representation of black entertainment and religious music in the 1920s, though some of the sequences are Europeanized and over-arranged. In the outdoor revival meeting, with the preacher singing and acting out the “train to hell,” is authentic in style until the end, where he launches into Irving Berlin’s “Waiting at the End of the Road”. Similarly, an outdoor group of workers near the beginning of the film are singing a choral arrangement of “Way Down Upon the Swanee River” (written by Stephen Foster, who never visited the South). Supposedly, according to Vidor himself in an interview given to The New York Times, “while Stephen Foster and others were inspired by hearing negro songs on the levees, their music was not at all of the negro type”. He went on to add that Foster’s music had “the distinct finish and technique of European music, possibly of German Origin.”[8]
A sequence which is of vital importance in the history of classic jazz is in the dancehall, where Nina Mae McKinney performs Irving Berlin’s “Swanee Shuffle.” Although actually filmed in a New York studio using black actors, the sequence gives an accurate representation of a low-life black dance-hall – part of the roots of classic jazz. Most Hollywood films of the period sanitized black music.
Given the equipment available at the time, the film’s soundtrack was a technical achievement, employing a much wider range of editing and mixing techniques than was generally used in “talkies” in this period.
Exhibitors were worried that white audiences would stay away due to the black cast. They hosted two premieres, one in Manhattan and one in Harlem. The Black people who came to watch the film in Manhattan were forced to sit in the balcony.[9]Hallelujah was commercially and critically successful. Photoplay praised the film for its depiction of African Americans and commented on the cast: “Every member of Vidor’s cast is excellent. Although none of them ever worked before a camera or a microphone before, they give unstudied and remarkably spontaneous performances. That speaks a lot for Vidor’s direction.”[10] Mordaunt Hall, in The New York Times, wrote approvingly of the all-Black cast, stating, “Hallelujah!, with its clever negro cast, is one of the few talking pictures that is really a separate and distinct form of entertainment from a stage play”.[11] The combination of two groundbreaking aspects of the film, audible dialogue and an all-black cast, set the movie apart from its contemporaries. Some of the critiques of the film spoke to the particular spirit of the times, and would likely be vastly different today. In The New York Times, Mordaunt Hall wrote: “in portraying the peculiarly typical religious hysteria of the darkies and their gullibility, Mr. Vidor atones for any sloth in preceding scenes.”[12]
Hallelujah and black stereotypes
[edit]
Hallelujah was one of the early projects that gave African Americans significant roles in a movie, and though some contemporary film historians and archivists have said that it had “a freshness and truth that was not attained again for thirty years”, a number of contemporary film historians and archivists agree that Hallelujah exhibits Vidor’s paternalistic view of rural blacks that included racial stereotyping.[13][14]
Daniel L. Haynes in Hallelujah (1929)
The emphasis these critics place on Vidor’s white prejudice—all the more apparent today “given the enormous changes in ideology [and] sensibilities” since 1929—covers a spectrum of opinions. Vidor biographer John Baxter reports “a now-disconcerting [white] paternalism” that pervades Hallelujah, while film scholars Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell argue that “the film was as progressive as one could expect in the day.” Film critics Kerryn Sherrod and Jeff Stafford agree that “seen today, Hallelujah invites criticism for its stereotypes; blacks are depicted as either naive idealists or individuals ruled by their emotions.” Media critic Beretta Smith-Shomade considers Vidor’s Hallelujah a template for racist and degrading portrayals of “Negras” in the movie industry in subsequent years.[15]
Warner Bros., who own the rights to Hallelujah, have added a disclaimer at the opening of the archive edition:
“The films you are about to see are a product of their time. They may reflect some of the prejudices that were common in American society, especially when it came to the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. These films are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. While the following certainly does not represent Warner Bros.’ opinion in today’s society, these images certainly do accurately reflect a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored.”[16]
In Hallelujah, Vidor develops his characterizations of black rural workers with sensitivity and compassion. The “social consciousness” of the film and its sympathetic rendering of a tale of sexual passion, family affection, redemption and revenge performed by black actors earned enmity from the Deep South’s white movie exhibitors and the “gripping melodrama” was banned entirely south of the Mason–Dixon line.[17][18][19] Vidor’s film crew was racially mixed, and included Harold Garrison (1901–1974) as an assistant director. Black female choral conductor Eva Jessye served as musical director on Hallelujah; she would later act as music director with George Gershwin on Porgy and Bess (1935).[20]
The overall assessment of the film from film historians ranges from condemnation to qualified praise.
Museum of Modern Arts film archivist Charles Silver made this appraisal:
“On one level, Hallelujah clearly reinforces the stereotypes of Blacks as childishly simple, lecherously promiscuous, fanatically superstitious, and shiftless [yet] Vidor could never be accused of the overt racial venom exhibited by Griffith in The Birth of a Nation…Is there, then, a defense for Hallelujah beyond its aesthetic importance? I think there is, and I think it lies in Vidor’s personality as we know it from his films…Hallelujah can and should be accepted as the remarkable achievement it is.”[21]
Media critic Beretta Smith-Shomade asserts that from Vidor’s Hallelujah, there issued forth racist characterizations of black rural figures, in particular “the black harlot”, establishing these stereotypes in both black and white motion pictures for decades.
“In these decades before television’s arrival, negras appeared in films as servants, harlots, mammies, tragic mulattoes and religious zealots. The nation’s carefree attitude during the 1920s forwarded the Harlem Renaissance and launched the Colored woman as featured artist on screen. Nina Mae McKinney distinguished herself as the first colored harlot. She played in King Vidor’s Hallelujah sound film, as a Jezebel, of course, bamboozling a good man…Donald Bogle describes McKinney’s character, Chick, as a ‘black, exotic sex object, half woman, half child…She was a black woman out of control of her emotions, split in two by her loyalties and her own vulnerabilities. Implied throughout the battle with self was the tragic mulatto theme; the white half of her represented the spiritual, the black half the animalistic.’ [These] screen stereotypes presented themselves in both mainstream and early black cinema. They stood as Negras’ predominant roles.”[22][23][24]
Film critic Kristin Thompson registers an objection to Warner Bros.’ disclaimer attached to its Hallelujah archive edition:
“Unfortunately the company has chosen to put a boilerplate warning at the beginning that essentially brands Hallelujah as a racist film…I don’t think this description fits Hallelujah, but it certainly sets the viewer up to interpret the film as merely a regrettable document of a dark period of US history. Warner Bros. demeans the work of the filmmakers, including the African-American ones. The actors seem to have been proud of their accomplishment, as well they should be.”[25]
Nina Mae McKinney as Hallelujah‘s “harlot”
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Source:[22]
Critic Donald Bogle identifies McKinney as the silver screens’ “first black whore”, with respect to the role Vidor had fashioned for her in Hallelujah.[26][27][28]
Nina Mae McKinney, coming from the recent stage production of Blackbirds of 1928 portrayed Chick, the object of Zeke’s desire and victim in the films’ tragic denouement. Theater critic Richard Watts Jr., a contemporary of McKinney, described her as “one of the most beautiful women of our time” She was dubbed “the Black Garbo” when touring Europe in the 1930s. Vidor considered her performance central to the success of Hallelujah.[29] [30][31]
Nina Mae McKinney
Though McKinney was the first to portray a black prostitute, this “archetypal narrative” goes back as far as 1900, when only white female actors played “the fallen woman” who turn to prostitution. Many of these films appeared in the silent era with narratives deploring the “plight of women who have fallen on hard times due to unemployment, unwanted pregnancies, divorce, childhood deprivation or simply because they have been ‘born on the wrong side of the track’.” Throughout the silent film era, the cautionary tales of woman turning to prostitution had been uniformly presented as shameful and degrading. These Victorian-inspired scenarios, however, were declining at the time of Hallelujah‘s production, as they were in the industrialized countries globally. As a result “the concept of a loss of chastity leading inexorably to prostitution became no longer tenable.”[32]
The formula that Vidor used for McKinney’s Chick was modeled after conventional scenarios depicting white prostitutes in these earlier films: narratives that were already in decline. Film and social critic Russel Campbell describes the formula:
“The prostitute “is likely to die at the end of the film, through suicide, illness, accident, murder or execution (the conventions of Victorian art and literature…ordained that ‘a woman’s fall ends in death’). Otherwise she may survive and save her soul through an act of redemption; frequently she is paired off with a good man whose upright character serves to cancel out the poor impression of the male sex given earlier in the film…for others, death awaits.”[33]
McKinney’s exuberant and highly seductive portrayal of Chick anticipates the change in perception towards female sexual expression. Her performance influenced both black and white actresses with her version of a “rough nightlife heroine”, among them Jean Harlow, a white film star who also engagingly portrayed brothel whores and prostitutes. According to film historian Jean-Marie Lecomte, “prostitutes, ladies of leisure, street walkers, and tramps, as the borderline women of Depression era America, flourished on the Hollywood screen” in the Pre-Code Hollywood following Hallelujah‘s release.[34][35]
While acknowledging Hallelujah‘s racial stereotyping, critics Kerryn Sherrod and Jeff Stafford report that “the film set a high standard for all subsequent all-black musicals and still stands as an excellent showcase for the talents of Ms. McKinney and company.”[36][37]
^Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. (1997). The Oxford History of World Cinema (paperback ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 500. ISBN 9780198742425.
^Donald Crafton, The Talkies: American Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1926–1931 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 405. ISBN 0-684-19585-2
^“Cinematic Classics, Legendary Stars, Comedic Legends and Novice Filmmakers Showcase the 2008 Film Registry”. Library of Congress. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
^“Complete National Film Registry Listing”. Library of Congress. Retrieved October 13, 2020.
^“Berlinale 2020: Retrospective “King Vidor”“. Berlinale. Retrieved February 28, 2020.
^ abcPines, Jim (1975). Blacks in Films. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. ISBN 978-0289703267.
^ abRobinson, Cedric J. (2007). Forgeries of memory and meaning : Blacks and the regimes of race in American theater and film before World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807858417.
^ abc“ANOTHER NEGRO FILM: King Vidor Realizes Ambition by Making “Hallelujah,” an Audible Picture His Ambition”. New York Times. June 2, 1929.
^Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1997.
^Kreuger, Miles (ed.), The Movie Musical from Vitaphone to 42nd Street as Reported in a Great Fan Magazine (New York: Dover Publications), p. 70. ISBN 0-486-23154-2
^Hall, Mordaunt (August 25, 1929). “Vidor’s Negro Film: Hallelujah” Reveals Adroit Blending of Photography and Dialogue”. New York Times.
^Hall, Mordaunt (August 25, 1929). “Vidor’s Negro Film: Hallelujah” Reveals Adroit Blending of Photography and Dialogue”. The New York Times.
^Mills, Michael (2011). “Midnight Ramble: The Negro in Early Hollywood Introduction”. Modern Times. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
^Silver,2010 Baxter, 1976 p. 43 Thompson & Boardwell, 2010 Reinhardt, 2020: Reinhardt quotes Lisa Gotto, critic for the Retrospective at the Berlin Film Festival: Vidor’s film “is not without problems…combining the revolutionary potential of sound technology with a reactionary view of African-American life.” Smith-Shomade, 2002 p. 9-10 Sherrod & Stafford, TMC
^Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 99 Thompson & Bordwell, 2010: “It is easy from a modern perspective to dismiss it as racist or dependent on stereotypes. But I think that put in the context of 1929, the film was as progressive as one could expect in the day.” Baxter, 1976 p. 43: Vidor’s Hallelujah reveals “a now-disconcerting paternalism…His vision of the black as a mindless hedonist singing the day away may be specious, but it was of its time.” Sherrod & Stafford, TMC Smith-Shomade, 2002 p. 9-10: “In these decades before television’s arrival, negras appeared in films as servants, harlots, mammies, tragic mulattoes and religious zealots. The nation’s carefree attitude during the 1920s forwarded the Harlem Renaissance and launched the Colored woman as featured artist on screen. Nina Mae McKinney distinguished herself as Nina Mae McKinney, “executing sensuous bumps and grinds in the famous cabaret in Hallelujah was the movies’ first black whore…. She played in King Vidor’s Hallelujah sound film, as a jezebel, of course, bamboozling a good man…[These] screen stereotypes presented themselves in both mainstream and early black cinema. They stood as Negras’ [sic] predominant roles.”
^Thompson & Bordwell, 2010: “Hallelujah is available on DVD from the Warner Brothers Archive Collection. Unfortunately the company has chosen to put a boilerplate warning at the beginning that essentially brands Hallelujah as a racist film.”
^Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 98-99: “Vidor’s sympathetic interest in Southern blacks…” Thompson & Bordwell, 2010: Vidor “acknowledged that a gripping melodrama could be just as entertaining with an all-black cast as an all-white cast. That is, entertaining to those outside the deep South, where exhibitors refused to play the film, robbing it of its chance to become profitable.” Sherrod & Stafford, TMC: “As expected, Hallelujah was banned by the Southern Theater Federation…”
^Lecomte, 2010, p. 13-14: “William Wellman displayed a social consciousness that could only be matched by mavericks such as King Vidor, Charlie Chaplin or Orson Welles, all of whom eventually paid a heavy price for it… He understood the mind of underdogs – and like King Vidor – felt sympathy for them.”
^Reinhardt, 2020: “Vidor demonstrates his powerful humanitarian approach and his opposition to racism…In Hallelujah, Vidor sincerely and evocatively reveals the emotional world of his characters, [confirming] universal, complex sentiments.”
^Thompson & Bordwell, 2010: “The crew was racially mixed, including an assistant director, Harold Garrison, who was black. More importantly, the musical director, responsible for the many musical numbers, was Eva Jessye, the first widely successful black female choral conductor. A few years later she would participate in the premiere of Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts, and alongside George Gershwin, she was musical director for Porgy and Bess.”
^Silver, 2010
^ abSmith-Shomade, 2002 p. 9-10
^Eagan, Daniel (2010). America’s film legacy : the authoritative guide to the landmark movies in the National Film Registry ([Online-Ausg.]. ed.). New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-0826429773.
^Smith-Shomade, Beretta E. (2002). Shaded lives : African American women and television. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.]: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813531052.
^Thompson and Bordwell, 2010
^Bogle, 2001 p. 31: Nina May McKinney, “executing sensuous bumps and grinds in the famous cabaret in Hallelujah was the movies’ first black whore….”
^Smith-Shomade, 2002 p. 9-10: “…first colored harlot“ in Vidor’s film.
^Bogle, Donald (2001). Toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies, and bucks : an interpretive history of Blacks in American films (4. ed.). New York, NY [u.a.]: Continuum. ISBN 978-0826412676.
^Bogle, 2001 p. P. 31, p. 33: “Nina May McKinney, ‘executing sensuous bumps and grinds in the famous cabaret in Hallelujah was the movies’ first black whore….Almost every black leading lady in motion pictures owes a debt to the playfully sexy moves and maneuvers of McKinney’s character Chick.’ And: McKinney ’emerged as the first black actress of the silver screen.’ And ‘Vidor [acknowledged] that it was McKinney’s performance that more than any other actor’s helped carry Hallelujah to its success… ‘ M-G-M was so impressed they signed her to a five-year contract.”
^Reinhart, 2020: “Nina Mae McKinney, only 17 or so at the time of filming Hallelujah and a remarkable performer, appeared in the Broadway show Blackbirds of 1928.”
^Thompson & Bordwell, 2010: “Nina Mae McKinney, also coming from a stage career”.
^Campbell, 1999: “the key elements in what was to become [a] recurrent tale, depicts the woman who descends into prostitution – to which a negative sign is almost invariably attached – as a figure of pathos.” And: “Poverty may be the primary factor in the decision to venture into prostitution, as in Out of the Night (USA, 1918)…The Painted Lady A(USA, 1924), The Red Lily (USA, 1924), The Salvation Hunters (USA, 1925), and The Joyless Street (Germany, 1925).” And: “In most industrial and post-industrial societies…these [Victorian] premises were well under way to obsolescence by mid-century. As a result, the concept of a loss of chastity leading inexorably to prostitution became no longer tenable. Most films with a fully-developed fallen woman pattern were in fact produced prior to 1940.”
^Campbell, 1999: “In the representation of the female prostitute in the cinema, the earliest archetypal narratives to emerge are those of the fallen woman and the white slave…tracing the fate of the innocent young woman lured into forced prostitution….[I]t carried a powerful appeal throughout the silent era but tailed off during the early years of sound…”
^Campbell, 1999: “Complicit to an indeterminate extent in her downfall, the fallen woman in the cinema often has a sense of fun which mitigates her newly acquired cynicism.” Lecomte, 2010, p. 1-2: “A spate of ‘vice films’ …was released during the pre-Code years. Prostitutes, ladies of leisure, street walkers, and tramps, as the borderline women of depression America, flourished on the Hollywood screen of the period. The figure of the prostitute in film drama is largely a cinematic artifact and cannot be primarily construed as a countersign of reality.”
^Bogle, 2001 p. 33-34: “rough nightlife heroine” Sigal, 1964: In Hell’s Angels Jean Harlow plays an “amoral girl-on-the-town (whore) who puts out for the RAF.” James, 1993: “In Red Dust (1932)…[Harlow] is a prostitute and Clark Gable runs a rubber plantation.”
^Sherrod & Stafford, 2010
^Thompson & Bordwell, 2010: “Well established as a classic of both early sound cinema and African-American cinema, Hallelujah retains its entertaining quality. It is easy from a modern perspective to dismiss it as racist or dependent on stereotypes. But I think that put in the context of 1929, the film was as progressive as one could expect in the day.”
Baxter, John. 1976. King Vidor. Simon & Schuster, Inc. Monarch Film Studies. LOC Card Number 75-23544.
Campbell, Russel. 1999. “Fallen Woman” Prostitute Narratives in the Cinema in Screening the Past. November 12, 1999. http://www.screeningthepast.com/2014/12/fallen-woman-prostitute-narratives-in-the-cinema/ Retrieved August 5, 2020.
Durgnat, Raymond and Simmon, Scott. 1988. King Vidor, American. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-05798-8
Gotto, Lisa. 2020. Liminal Sounds – Hallelujah (1929). King Vidor, ed. Karin Herbst-Messliner and Rainer Rother, Bertz + Fischer, Berlin. ISBN 978-3-86505-265-0
Kramer, Fritzi. 2019. Why We Need to Keep Searching for Lost Silent Films. Smithsonian Magazine, January 9, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-we-need-keep-searching-lost-silent-films-180971196/ Retrieved August 4, 2020.
Lecomte, Jean-Marie. 2010. Outcast Lilies: Prostitutes in Pre-Code Movies (1929-1934). LECOMTE FILM JOURNAL. University of Nancy, France. http://filmjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Outcast_Lilies.pdf Retrieved August 5, 2020.
Reinhardt, Bernd. 2020. Rediscovering Hallelujah (1929), director King Vidor’s sensitive film with all-black cast: 70th Berlin International Film Festival. World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved May 24, 2020. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/07/ber2-a07.html
Clancy Sigal. 1964. Hell’s Angels. The New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/07/09/hells-angel/ Retrieved August 5, 2020
Sherrod, Kerryn and Stafford, Jeff. TCM. HALLELUJAH! Turner Movie Classics. http://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/movies/2120/Hallelujah/ Retrieved August 6, 2020
Silver, Charles. 2010. King Vidor’s Hallelujah http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/06/15/king-vidors-hallelujah/ Retrieved June 24, 2020
Thompson, Kristin and Bordwell, David. 2010. Observations on film art: Hallelujah. http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/category/directors-von-sternberg/ Retrieved August 5, 2020.
At age 12, Tracy Slatyer felt sorry for a book. She read a newspaper article about how lots of people were buying A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. “But then … nobody was actually reading it,” she says. “People were just leaving it on their coffee tables.”
Determined to rectify this wrong, Slatyer obtained a copy and diligently read each page. The famous physicist’s popular text revealed to her “that math was in some sense an expressive language for describing how things really work,” she says. “That, to me, was exciting.”
These days, Slatyer, a theoretical physicist at MIT, uses her mathematical aptitude to dream up new ideas about dark matter. The mysterious substance makes up around 85 percent of the matter in the universe. Yet it has consistently eluded scientists’ attempts to pin it down. Slatyer tries to figure out what dark matter could be made from, how it might interact with itself or anything else and, most important, the consequences of those interactions.
Physicists know dark matter exists because they can see its gravitational influence on galaxies, galaxy clusters and the overall evolution of the universe. Beyond that, there are few clues to work with. Slatyer has helped imagine the myriad ways that dark matter could leave some subtle signature on the fabric of reality that would show up in observations.
Among scientists doing such work, “I don’t think there’s been anybody who’s been more impactful,” says Dan Hooper, a physicist at the University of Chicago. “She’s as big a deal as I can make her out to be.”
Discovering the Fermi bubbles
Born in the Solomon Islands, Slatyer grew up in Canberra, Australia. After her encounter with Hawking’s book, she knew she wanted to study physics. While in graduate school at Harvard University in the 2000s, she met physicist Douglas Finkbeiner, who was investigating mysterious signals at the Milky Way’s center.
A research satellite had noticed odd excesses of positrons, the electron’s antiparticle, and high-energy photons called gamma rays that couldn’t be explained with conventional theories. Together, Slatyer and Finkbeiner began looking more deeply at a type of self-annihilating dark matter that might address the mystery. In their particular model, this dark matter would leave behind electrons and positrons, which would interact with starlight to create gamma rays.
In 2008, NASA launched the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which offered unprecedented views of high-energy photons emanating from the galactic plane. If dark matter was indeed self-annihilating, it would show up in Fermi’s observations. The next year, Slatyer and Finkbeiner used Fermi’s public data to hunt for the stuff.
“We analyzed the data and saw this big fuzzy glow north and south of the galactic center,” Slatyer recalls. “So we’re like, ‘Victory!’”
But the more they and another of Finkbeiner’s students, Meng Su, looked at the signals, the more they realized that this wasn’t dark matter. Fermi’s images revealed an enormous hourglass figure that stretched 25,000 light-years above and below the Milky Way’s plane. Dark matter is thought to be present in a diffuse halo all around our galaxy, but this structure had very sharp edges.
Towering structures called the Fermi bubbles spread 25,000 light-years above and below the plane of the Milky Way, as shown in this artist’s impression. The mysterious structures are thought to be connected to processes in the galactic center, though nobody is sure of their origin.GSFC/NASA
Supermassive black holes feeding on gas and dust in the centers of other galaxies have been known to belch out material into hourglass figures. Eventually, Slatyer and her colleagues realized that this could be something similar. These Fermi bubbles, as they came to be known, have been the subject of numerous follow-up studies, leading to a long-running debate over the mechanisms driving the bubbles’ creation (SN: 11/9/10; SN: 4/20/23).
Slatyer hadn’t found dark matter, but, she says, “I try not to complain when nature gives me exciting new things, whether or not they were what I was looking for in the first place.”
Dark matter in the early universe
Much of her work since then has focused on different dark matter scenarios. For instance, some of her research has looked at how the mysterious substance could have annihilated or decayed in the early universe, leaving behind fundamental particles that would cause small variations in the expected temperature of the overall cosmos. Such an effect might show up in the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, a remnant light left over from when the universe was just 380,000 years old.
Satellites measuring this light have found that it indicates the cosmos had almost exactly the same temperature no matter which direction they look, with deviations of only one part in 100,000. Slatyer and her colleagues calculated that, if dark matter annihilation happened, it might have generated an even subtler temperature signature, down to one part in a million. Her team reported in 2023 how the presence of self-annihilating dark matter would distort the CMB — a signal for future instruments to look for.
In a study published in May 2024, she and colleagues looked at other potential effects of excessive heat in the early universe from dark matter. Under some scenarios, this higher temperature might have generated surplus free electrons. Those free electrons could have acted as catalysts for chemical reactions that would have favored the formation of stars, possibly leading to the creation of enormous numbers of stars very early on.
Other teams have suggested that excess heat would have pushed gas and dust around more readily, a motion that may have reduced star formation. In that case, larger clumps of material might have instead collapsed into massive black holes, which could have become seeds around which the first galaxies coalesced.
Such ideas could help explain what the James Webb Space Telescope has been seeing as it peers into cosmic history. The telescope appears to have found unexpectedly large black holes and galaxies early in the universe (SN: 3/4/24). Slatyer and her colleagues are suggesting that dark matter may be the culprit behind these strangely massive cosmic objects.
By taking her theories to their logical conclusions, Slatyer has made herself invaluable to the community of theoretical and observational physicists searching for dark matter. “She’s one of these people who’s kind of ubiquitous,” Finkbeiner says. “She shows up at every meeting. She has her finger in every pie. She’s on every panel to figure out what the field should do for the next 10 years.”
Given how little researchers know about dark matter, Slatyer thinks it’s important to imagine a wide range of potential possibilities and then come up with experiments to test those options. “We try to … make sure that we don’t miss anything blindingly obvious,” she says.
A collaborative team works on the magnet inside the test stand housed at MIT. Research, construction, and testing of this magnet has been the single largest activity for the SPARC team, which has grown to include 270 members. Credit:
Gretchen Ertl, CFS/MIT-PSFC, 2021
It was a moment three years in the making, based on intensive research and design work: On September 5, 2021, for the first time, a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet was ramped up to a field strength of 20 tesla, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth. That successful demonstration helps resolve the greatest uncertainty in the quest to build the world’s first fusion power plant that can produce more power than it consumes, according to the project’s leaders at MIT and startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS).
That advance paves the way, they say, for the long-sought creation of practical, inexpensive, carbon-free power plants that could make a major contribution to limiting the effects of global climate change.
“Fusion in a lot of ways is the ultimate clean energy source,” says Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research and E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics. “The amount of power that is available is really game-changing.” The fuel used to create fusion energy comes from water, and “the Earth is full of water—it’s a nearly unlimited resource. We just have to figure out how to utilize it.”
Developing the new magnet is seen as the greatest technological hurdle to making that happen; its successful operation now opens the door to demonstrating fusion in a lab on Earth, which has been pursued for decades with limited progress. With the magnet technology now successfully demonstrated, the MIT-CFS collaboration is on track to build the world’s first fusion device that can create and confine a plasma that produces more energy than it consumes. That demonstration device, called SPARC, is targeted for completion in 2025.
“The challenges of making fusion happen are both technical and scientific,” says Dennis Whyte, director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), which is working with CFS to develop SPARC. But once the technology is proven, he says, “it’s an inexhaustible, carbon-free source of energy that you can deploy anywhere and at any time. It’s really a fundamentally new energy source.”
Whyte, who is the Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, says this demonstration represents a major milestone, addressing the biggest questions remaining about the feasibility of the SPARC design. “It’s really a watershed moment, I believe, in fusion science and technology,” he says.
The sun in a bottle
Fusion is the process that powers the sun: the merger of two small atoms to make a larger one, releasing prodigious amounts of energy. But the process requires temperatures far beyond what any solid material could withstand. To capture the sun’s power source here on Earth, what’s needed is a way of capturing and containing something that hot—100,000,000 degrees or more—by suspending it in a way that prevents it from coming into contact with anything solid.
That’s done through intense magnetic fields, which form a kind of invisible bottle to contain the hot swirling soup of protons and electrons, called a plasma. Because the particles have an electric charge, they are strongly controlled by the magnetic fields, and the most widely used configuration for containing them is a donut-shaped device called a tokamak. Most of these devices have produced their magnetic fields using conventional electromagnets made of copper, but the latest and largest version under construction in France, called ITER, uses what are known as low-temperature superconductors.
The major innovation in the MIT-CFS fusion design is the use of high-temperature superconductors, which enable a much stronger magnetic field in a smaller space. This design was made possible by a new kind of superconducting material that became commercially available a few years ago. The idea initially arose as a class project in a nuclear engineering class taught by Whyte. The idea seemed so promising that it continued to be developed over the next few iterations of that class, leading to the ARC power plant design concept in early 2015. SPARC, designed to be about half the size of ARC, is a testbed to prove the concept before construction of the full-size, power-producing plant.
Until now, the only way to achieve the colossally powerful magnetic fields needed to create a magnetic “bottle” capable of containing plasma heated up to hundreds of millions of degrees was to make them larger and larger. But the new high-temperature superconductor material, made in the form of a flat, ribbon-like tape, makes it possible to achieve a higher magnetic field in a smaller device, equaling the performance that would be achieved in an apparatus 40 times larger in volume using conventional low-temperature superconducting magnets. That leap in power versus size is the key element in ARC’s revolutionary design.
The use of the new high-temperature superconducting magnets makes it possible to apply decades of experimental knowledge gained from the operation of tokamak experiments, including MIT’s own Alcator series. The new approach, led by Zach Hartwig, the MIT principal investigator and the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, uses a well-known design but scales everything down to about half the linear size and still achieves the same operational conditions because of the higher magnetic field.
A series of scientific papers published last year outlined the physical basis and, by simulation, confirmed the viability of the new fusion device. The papers showed that, if the magnets worked as expected, the whole fusion system should indeed produce net power output, for the first time in decades of fusion research.
Martin Greenwald, deputy director and senior research scientist at the PSFC, says unlike some other designs for fusion experiments, “the niche that we were filling was to use conventional plasma physics, and conventional tokamak designs and engineering, but bring to it this new magnet technology. So, we weren’t requiring innovation in a half-dozen different areas. We would just innovate on the magnet, and then apply the knowledge base of what’s been learned over the last decades.”
That combination of scientifically established design principles and game-changing magnetic field strength is what makes it possible to achieve a plant that could be economically viable and developed on a fast track. “It’s a big moment,” says Bob Mumgaard, CEO of CFS. “We now have a platform that is both scientifically very well-advanced, because of the decades of research on these machines, and also commercially very interesting. What it does is allow us to build devices faster, smaller, and at less cost,” he says of the successful magnet demonstration.
Proof of the concept
Bringing that new magnet concept to reality required three years of intensive work on design, establishing supply chains, and working out manufacturing methods for magnets that may eventually need to be produced by the thousands.
“We built a first-of-a-kind, superconducting magnet. It required a lot of work to create unique manufacturing processes and equipment. As a result, we are now well-prepared to ramp up for SPARC production,” says Joy Dunn, head of operations at CFS. “We started with a physics model and a CAD design, and worked through lots of development and prototypes to turn a design on paper into this actual physical magnet.” That entailed building manufacturing capabilities and testing facilities, including an iterative process with multiple suppliers of the superconducting tape, to help them reach the ability to produce material that met the needed specifications—and for which CFS is now overwhelmingly the world’s biggest user.
They worked with two possible magnet designs in parallel, both of which ended up meeting the design requirements, she says. “It really came down to which one would revolutionize the way that we make superconducting magnets, and which one was easier to build.” The design they adopted clearly stood out in that regard, she says.
In this test, the new magnet was gradually powered up in a series of steps until reaching the goal of a 20-tesla magnetic field—the highest field strength ever for a high-temperature superconducting fusion magnet. The magnet is composed of 16 plates stacked together, each one of which by itself would be the most powerful high-temperature superconducting magnet in the world.
“Three years ago we announced a plan,” says Mumgaard, “to build a 20-tesla magnet, which is what we will need for future fusion machines.” That goal has now been achieved, right on schedule, even with the pandemic, he says.
Citing the series of physics papers published last year, Brandon Sorbom, the chief science officer at CFS, says “basically the papers conclude that if we build the magnet, all of the physics will work in SPARC. So, this demonstration answers the question: Can they build the magnet? It’s a very exciting time! It’s a huge milestone.”
The next step will be building SPARC, a smaller-scale version of the planned ARC power plant. The successful operation of SPARC will demonstrate that a full-scale commercial fusion power plant is practical, clearing the way for the rapid design and construction of that pioneering device to proceed at full speed.
Zuber says that “I now am genuinely optimistic that SPARC can achieve net positive energy, based on the demonstrated performance of the magnets. The next step is to scale up, to build an actual power plant. There are still many challenges ahead, not the least of which is developing a design that allows for reliable, sustained operation. And realizing that the goal here is commercialization, another major challenge will be economic. How do you design these power plants so it will be cost-effective to build and deploy them?”
Someday in a hoped-for future, when there may be thousands of fusion plants powering clean electric grids around the world, Zuber says, “I think we’re going to look back and think about how we got there, and I think the demonstration of the magnet technology, for me, is the time when I believed that, wow, we can really do this.”
The successful creation of a power-producing fusion device would be a tremendous scientific achievement, Zuber notes. But that’s not the main point. “None of us are trying to win trophies at this point. We’re trying to keep the planet livable.”
A team of engineers and scientists from CFS and MIT’s PSFC lower the superconducting magnet into the test stand in which the magnet was cooled and powered to produce a magnetic field of 20 tesla. Credit: Gretchen Ertl, CFS/MIT-PSFC, 2021
This article appears in the Autumn 2021 issue of Energy Futures.
Media related to Hopton, Suffolk at Wikimedia Commons
