Victory Gin Lane : Starvation and Beverages in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

Gin is an ubiquitous presence in the domestic and urban scenery of Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). For a population mercilessly hungered, it represents a handy and cheap commodity item providing a fluid opportunity for social aggregation. Victory Gin, served \u201cin handless chine mugs\u201d (53), is part of the workers\u2019 staple diet at the Ministry of Truth, and is sold \u201cat ten cents the large nip\u201d from the small bar (actually, \u201ca mere hole in the wall\u201d, 51) in the canteen; served with cloves, it is the \u201cspeciality\u201d (79) of that disreputable place which is the Chestnut Tree Caf\ue9, where Winston Smith once spotted three fallen-out-of-favor members of the Inner Party \u2013 Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford \u2013 drink it silently after their release from Oceania prison camps (79). As is typical of the fate of spirits in literature, gin also serves as self-medication and can fuel a kind of inner escapism. It is to make the world \u201clook more cheerful\u201d that Winston gulps it down \u201clike a dose of medicine\u201d, and only after the \u201cshock\u201d of swallowing it can he squeeze himself into his alcove and begin his diary (7); gin clears out Winston\u2019s stomach (53), and is the ultima ratio against that prescient \u201cdull ache\u201d in his belly (105; 106) that originates after bumping into \u201cthe girl with dark hair\u201d (later: Julia) one evening outside Mr. Charrington\u2019s shop

Orwell’s Intentional Fallacy in Nineteen Eighty-Four

The essay deals with Orwell's authorial role in Nineteen Eighty-Four and the errors that he deliberately inserted in the novel. In particular, the pattern of dates and the general distribution of weekdays in the novel are tackled

Evidence of anomalous dispersion of the generalized sound velocity in glasses

The dynamic structure factor, S(Q,w), of vitreous silica, has been measured by inelastic X-ray scattering in the exchanged wavevector (Q) region Q=4-16.5 nm-1 and up to energies hw=115 meV in the Stokes side. The unprecedented statistical accuracy in such an extended energy range allows to accurately determine the longitudinal current spectra, and the energies of the vibrational excitations. The simultaneous observation of two excitations in the acoustic region, and the persistence of propagating sound waves up to Q values comparable with the (pseudo-)Brillouin zone edge, allow to observe a positive dispersion in the generalized sound velocity that, around Q=5 nm-1, varies from 6500 to 9000 m/s: this phenomenon was never experimentally observed in a glass.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.

High-order high-frequency solutions of rough surface scattering problems

A new method is introduced for the solution of problems of scattering by rough surfaces in the high-frequency regime. It is shown that high-order summations of expansions in inverse powers of the wave number can be used within an integral equation framework to produce highly accurate results for surfaces and wavelengths of interest in applications. Our algorithm is based on systematic use and manipulation of certain Taylor-Fourier series representations and explicit asymptotic expansions of oscillatory integrals. Results with machine precision accuracy are presented which were obtained from computations involving expansions of order as high as 20

Spectral- and size-resolved mass absorption efficiency of mineral dust aerosols in the shortwave spectrum: a simulation chamber study

This paper presents new laboratory measurements of the mass absorption efficiency (MAE) between 375 and 850 nm for 12 individual samples of mineral dust from different source areas worldwide and in two size classes: PM10:6 (mass fraction of particles of aerodynamic diameter lower than 10.6 \u3bcm) and PM2:5 (mass fraction of particles of aerodynamic diameter lower than 2.5 \u3bcm). The experiments were performed in the CESAM simulation chamber using mineral dust generated from natural parent soils and included optical and gravimetric analyses. The results show that the MAE values are lower for the PM10:6 mass fraction (range 37\u2013135x10-3 m2 g-1 at 375 nm) than for the PM2:5 (range 95\u2013711x10-3 m2 g-1 at 375 nm) and decrease with increasing wavelength as lambda-AAE, where the \uc5ngstr\uf6m absorption exponent (AAE) averages between 3.3 and 3.5, regardless of size. The size independence of AAE suggests that, for a given size distribution, the oxide fraction, which could ease the application and the validation of climate models that now start to include the representation of the dust composition, as well as for remote sensing of dust absorption in the UV\u2013vis spectral region