Wagner's Siegfried act III scene 1: a study in 'renunciation of the will' and the 'sublime'

In Wagner’s composition of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Siegfried Act III Scene 1 marks a significant milestone both in terms of its drama and its music. Wagner’s first significant work on the Ring was his sketch of 4 October 18482 but with the purpose of composing just one heroic opera, Siegfried’s Death, and the first version of the libretto was composed 12-28 November 1848. Although the emphasis was on the hero Siegfried, Wotan has a role as a ‘respected god’: he is called upon to consecrate the drink of Siegfried and Gunther in Act I;3 oaths are made in his name;4 the vassals call upon him as ‘All-father! Ruling god!’;5 and at the end of the opera Siegfried enters Valhalla with Brünnhilde (as a Valkyrie)6 and she praises Wotan as ‘All-father! Magnificent one!’7 his sovereignty being underlined by the vassals and women: ‘Wotan! Wotan! Ruling god!’8 However, as Wagner worked further on the libretto over the next five years, expanding this drama into the cycle of four opera, Wotan, although becoming the focus of attention and eclipsing Siegfried, was to experience a rude demotion from a ‘Magnificent god’ who graciously receives Siegfried and Brünnhilde into Valhalla to one who seemingly meets his end at the hands of this couple. I stress seemingly because although it appears Wotan’s end comes about through certain external events (such as Siegfried’s destruction of Wotan’s spear in Siegfried Act III), Wotan in fact voluntarily renounces his power

Wagner's Siegfried act III scene 1: a study in 'renunciation of the will' and the 'sublime'

In Wagner’s composition of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Siegfried Act III Scene 1 marks a significant milestone both in terms of its drama and its music. Wagner’s first significant work on the Ring was his sketch of 4 October 18482 but with the purpose of composing just one heroic opera, Siegfried’s Death, and the first version of the libretto was composed 12-28 November 1848. Although the emphasis was on the hero Siegfried, Wotan has a role as a ‘respected god’: he is called upon to consecrate the drink of Siegfried and Gunther in Act I;3 oaths are made in his name;4 the vassals call upon him as ‘All-father! Ruling god!’;5 and at the end of the opera Siegfried enters Valhalla with Brünnhilde (as a Valkyrie)6 and she praises Wotan as ‘All-father! Magnificent one!’7 his sovereignty being underlined by the vassals and women: ‘Wotan! Wotan! Ruling god!’8 However, as Wagner worked further on the libretto over the next five years, expanding this drama into the cycle of four opera, Wotan, although becoming the focus of attention and eclipsing Siegfried, was to experience a rude demotion from a ‘Magnificent god’ who graciously receives Siegfried and Brünnhilde into Valhalla to one who seemingly meets his end at the hands of this couple. I stress seemingly because although it appears Wotan’s end comes about through certain external events (such as Siegfried’s destruction of Wotan’s spear in Siegfried Act III), Wotan in fact voluntarily renounces his power

The stellar mass-accretion rate relation in T Tauri stars and brown dwarfs

Recent observations show a strong correlation between stellar mass and accretion rate in young stellar and sub-stellar objects, with the scaling $\dot{M}_{acc} \propto M_*^2$ holding over more than four orders of magnitude in accretion rate. We explore the consequences of this correlation in the context of disk evolution models. We note that such a correlation is not expected to arise from variations in disk angular momentum transport efficiency with stellar mass, and suggest that it may reflect a systematic trend in disk initial conditions. In this case we find that brown dwarf disks initially have rather larger radii than those around more massive objects. By considering disk evolution, and invoking a simple parametrization for a shut-off in accretion at the end of the disk lifetime, we show that such models predict that the scatter in the stellar mass-accretion rate relationship should increase with increasing stellar mass, in rough agreement with current observations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Thermal and non-thermal nature of the soft excess emission from Sersic 159-03 observed with XMM-Newton

Several nearby clusters exhibit an excess of soft X-ray radiation which cannot be attributed to the hot virialized intra-cluster medium. There is no consensus to date on the origin of the excess emission: it could be either of thermal origin, or due to an inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background. Using high resolution XMM-Newton data of Sersic 159-03 we first show that strong soft excess emission is detected out to a radial distance of 0.9 Mpc. The data are interpreted using the two viable models available, i.e., by invoking a warm reservoir of thermal gas, or relativistic electrons which are part of a cosmic ray population. The thermal interpretation of the excess emission, slightly favored by the goodness-of-fit analysis, indicates that the warm gas responsible for the emission is high in mass and low in metallicity.Comment: ApJ in pres

Spatial and Electronic Manipulation of Silicon Nanocrystals by Atomic Force Microscopy

[As silicon-based devices shnnk, interest is increasing in fast, low-power devices sensitive to small numbers of electrons. Recent work suggests that MOS structures with large arrays of Si nanocrystals comprising a floating gate can be extremely fast, reliable and nonvolatile relative to conventional floating gate memories. In these structures approximately one electron is stored per nanocrystal. Despite promising initial results, current devices have a distribution of charge transit times during writing of nanocrystal ensembles, which limits speed. This behavior is not completely understood, but could be related to a dispersion in oxide thicknesses, nanocrystals interface states, or shifts in the electronic bound states due to size variations. To address these limitations, we have developed an aerosol vapor synthesis/deposition technique for silicon nanocrystals with active size classification, enabling narrow distributions of nanocrystal size (~10-15% of particle in the 2-10 nm size range). The first goal of these experiments has been to use scanning probe techniques to perform particle manipulation and to characterize particle electronic properties and charging on a single-particle basis. Si nanocrystal structures (lines, arrows and other objects) have been formed by contact-mode operation and subsequently imaged in noncontact mode without additional particle motion. Further, single nanocrystal charging by a conducting AFM tip has been observed, detected as an apparent height change due to electrostatic force, followed by a slow relaxation as the stored charge dissipates. Ongoing and future efforts will also be briefly discussed, including narrowing of nanocrystal size distributions, control of oxide thickness on the nanocrystals, and measurements of electron transport through individual particles and ensembles

Richard Wagner’s prose sketches for Jesus of Nazareth: historical and theological reflections on an uncompleted opera

In May 1849 Wagner fled Dresden after the failure of the uprising of which he was a leader. His last creative work in Dresden was prose sketches for an opera Jesus of Nazareth, the result of his study of the Graeco-Roman world and the New Testament together with some knowledge of biblical criticism. Although he portrays Jesus as a social revolutionary in that he attacks the Pharisees, oppression and injustice, he is by no means a political messiah; indeed Wagner emphases his sacrificial death which results in the giving of the Holy Spirit. Key theological themes of the work which I explore include Jesus’ messiahship, law and freedom, and the significance of his death

Wagner's Siegfried act III scene 1: a study in 'renunciation of the will' and the 'sublime'

In Wagner’s composition of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Siegfried Act III Scene 1 marks a significant milestone both in terms of its drama and its music. Wagner’s first significant work on the Ring was his sketch of 4 October 18482 but with the purpose of composing just one heroic opera, Siegfried’s Death, and the first version of the libretto was composed 12-28 November 1848. Although the emphasis was on the hero Siegfried, Wotan has a role as a ‘respected god’: he is called upon to consecrate the drink of Siegfried and Gunther in Act I;3 oaths are made in his name;4 the vassals call upon him as ‘All-father! Ruling god!’;5 and at the end of the opera Siegfried enters Valhalla with Brünnhilde (as a Valkyrie)6 and she praises Wotan as ‘All-father! Magnificent one!’7 his sovereignty being underlined by the vassals and women: ‘Wotan! Wotan! Ruling god!’8 However, as Wagner worked further on the libretto over the next five years, expanding this drama into the cycle of four opera, Wotan, although becoming the focus of attention and eclipsing Siegfried, was to experience a rude demotion from a ‘Magnificent god’ who graciously receives Siegfried and Brünnhilde into Valhalla to one who seemingly meets his end at the hands of this couple. I stress seemingly because although it appears Wotan’s end comes about through certain external events (such as Siegfried’s destruction of Wotan’s spear in Siegfried Act III), Wotan in fact voluntarily renounces his power