In an alternate society dealing with racism we meet Callum and Sephy.They both begin high school atHeathcroft (an unknown thing for naughts)and situations will happen that will change their friendship forever.
After Callum find out that his older brother and father have joined the Liberation Militia his older sister Lynette throws herself in front of a bus. Later, Callum is expelled from school after the Liberation Militia bombs a local mall. Callum, caught up in all of grief, neglects to talk to Sephy. Meanwhile, Sephy begins drinking and decides that she wants to go to a boarding school so she can get away from alcohol mother and the absence of her father. Having not heard from Callum she writes him a letter asking his to run away with her, but of course, he doesn't receive it until it's too late.
Three years later, when Sephy returns from Chivers Boarding school, Callum is deep into the LM, Stiletto Unit. The day she returns, Callum sends a message asking Sephy to meet him in their secret place on the beach. After finally having their first kiss together, Sephy finds out the meeting was actually a trap set up by the LM. Sephy is forced into a car, taken miles away from her family's house, and put in a dark, damp, basement. She believes there is no way she will get out alive, and asks Callum to be the one to kill her. But soon he realizes that the feelings he still holds for Sephy will not allow him to kill her, and secretly they have sex.
The same night, the LM is betrayed and the members that return to their secret hide-out agree that they must kill SephyHadley. Not wanting them to due so,Callum allows her to escape. The LMmembers agree to split up and lay low for six months, and within that timeCallum finds out that Sephy is pregnant.While trying to contact Sephy, Callum is captured and sent to hang. Sephy'sfather makes Sephy a deal, if she has an abortion, Callum will not hang. Even though the deal will save Callum's life,Sephy knows that it is not what he wants. He would rather hang then kill their unborn child.
On the day of his hanging, Sephy goes and proclaims her love for Callum.Callum's final words were, "I Love You Too!"
One night, all the animals at Mr. Jones' Manor Farm assemble in a barn to hear old Major, a pig, describe a dream he had about a world where all animals live free from the tyranny of their human masters. old Major dies soon after the meeting, but the animals — inspired by his philosophy of Animalism — plot a rebellion against Jones. Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, prove themselves important figures and planners of this dangerous enterprise. When Jones forgets to feed the animals, the revolution occurs, and Jones and his men are chased off the farm. Manor Farm is renamed Animal Farm, and the Seven Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall.
Initially, the rebellion is a success: The animals complete the harvest and meet every Sunday to debate farm policy. The pigs, because of their intelligence, become the supervisors of the farm. Napoleon, however, proves to be a power-hungry leader who steals the cows' milk and a number of apples to feed himself and the other pigs. He also enlists the services of Squealer, a pig with the ability to persuade the other animals that the pigs are always moral and correct in their decisions.
Later that fall, Jones and his men return to Animal Farm and attempt to retake it. Thanks to the tactics of Snowball, the animals defeat Jones in what thereafter becomes known as The Battle of the Cowshed. Winter arrives, and Mollie, a vain horse concerned only with ribbons and sugar, is lured off the farm by another human. Snowball begins drawing plans for a windmill, which will provide electricity and thereby give the animals more leisure time, but Napoleon vehemently opposes such a plan on the grounds that building the windmill will allow them less time for producing food. On the Sunday that the pigs offer the windmill to the animals for a vote, Napoleon summons a pack of ferocious dogs, who chase Snowball off the farm forever. Napoleon announces that there will be no further debates; he also tells them that the windmill will be built after all and lies that it was his own idea, stolen by Snowball. For the rest of the novel, Napoleon uses Snowball as a scapegoat on whom he blames all of the animals' hardships.
Much of the next year is spent building the windmill. Boxer, an incredibly strong horse, proves himself to be the most valuable animal in this endeavor. Jones, meanwhile, forsakes the farm and moves to another part of the county. Contrary to the principles of Animalism, Napoleon hires a solicitor and begins trading with neighboring farms. When a storm topples the half-finished windmill, Napoleon predictably blames Snowball and orders the animals to begin rebuilding it.
Napoleon's lust for power increases to the point where he becomes a totalitarian dictator, forcing "confessions" from innocent animals and having the dogs kill them in front of the entire farm. He and the pigs move into Jones' house and begin sleeping in beds (which Squealer excuses with his brand of twisted logic). The animals receive less and less food, while the pigs grow fatter. After the windmill is completed in August, Napoleon sells a pile of timber to Jones; Frederick, a neighboring farmer who pays for it with forged banknotes. Frederick and his men attack the farm and explode the windmill but are eventually defeated. As more of the Seven Commandments of Animalism are broken by the pigs, the language of the Commandments is revised: For example, after the pigs become drunk one night, the Commandment, "No animals shall drink alcohol" is changed to, "No animal shall drink alcohol to excess."
Boxer again offers his strength to help build a new windmill, but when he collapses, exhausted, Napoleon sells the devoted horse to a knacker (a glue-boiler). Squealer tells the indignant animals that Boxer was actually taken to a veterinarian and died a peaceful death in a hospital — a tale the animals believe.
Years pass and Animal Farm expands its boundaries after Napoleon purchases two fields from another neighboring farmer, Pilkington. Life for all the animals (except the pigs) is harsh. Eventually, the pigs begin walking on their hind legs and take on many other qualities of their former human oppressors. The Seven Commandments are reduced to a single law: "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others." The novel ends with Pilkington sharing drinks with the pigs in Jones' house. Napoleon changes the name of the farm back to Manor Farm and quarrels with Pilkington during a card game in which both of them try to play the ace of spades. As other animals watch the scene from outside the window, they cannot tell the pigs from the humans.
Summary of a brief history of time
The notion that a book about cosmology (the study of the universe), a book including topics such as elementary particles and the unification of physics, could become a widespread bestseller was a long shot at best. Its author, however, British physicist Stephen Hawking, has proven himself capable of defying the odds: though he was given a life expectancy of two years in 1963, when at age twenty-one he was diagnosed with a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, he continues his work today. In A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes about the origin and composition of the universe in accessible terminology for the masses. By explaining complex topics such as relativity and quantum mechanics, and phenomena such as the big bang and black holes, Hawking expanded general interest in cosmology and sold more than twenty million copies of the book along the way. What distinguishes Hawking’s bestseller from traditional scientific textbooks is his ability to be clear, without the use of intimidating equations. Indeed, only one equation appears in the entire book: E=mc2.
Hawking begins with an account of the historical studies of astronomy by ancients such as Aristotle and Ptolemy. The concept of a round-shaped Earth that was held by Aristotle was contrary to most others of his time. He came to this conclusion via his observations of lunar eclipses and by considering the altitude of the North Star from various observational points. He, like Ptolemy, believed the sun and stars orbited the Earth. This hypothesis was later disproven by the work of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. As studies of the origin of the universe progressed, two opposing viewpoints become the most common: philosophers believed that the universe had always existed, while theologians generally contended that the universe was created at a specific point in time. The dominant name among the theologians, St. Augustine, held this belief, coupled with the idea that time itself was a concept that did not exist until the creation of the universe. By the twentieth century, Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies are moving away from each other, meaning that at one time they were all in one place. Scientists continue to seek a theory that would encompass everything in the universe and be able to explain it all.
Space and time are examined in Chapter Two, especially with respect to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. The big bang, which grew to be the dominant theory of the creation of the universe, is the basis for the third chapter. This concept of an expanding universe is explained by Hawking via the Doppler shift, which occurs when something moves toward or away from something else. The uncertainty principle, which indicates that the speed and the position of particles cannot both be found at the same time, is the concept of Chapter Four. This chapter considers the behaviors of light and serves to undermine the concept of deterministic theories, which were said to be able to predict everything in the future. The next chapter explains the building blocks of the universe. These are the smallest things from which all matter is made, and are called quarks. Nuclear forces unite the quarks into neutrons and protons and keep the neutrons and protons together in atoms. Hawking goes on to describe what is known as a “grand unified theory” in which some scientists attempt to explain weak and strong nuclear forces and electromagnetic forces in a unified manner.
Black holes are the central focus of the next chapter. Black holes are stars that have collapsed into one very small point called a singularity. They have a very strong gravitational force, thus are able to pull things, including light and stars, to their centers. Black holes are almost impossible to locate because they do not let light out. However, they can be seen by telescopes when they suck in other stars, thus emitting x-rays. Subsequent chapters explain topics in cosmology including entropy, which concerns disorder in the universe, and the big bang explosion, which is commonly believed to have been the birth of the universe. Worm holes and time travel are discussed as well. A worm hole is, in theory, a passage that could serve as a shortcut through the universe by collapsing space and time.
What sets A Brief History of Time apart from other texts on cosmology is, according to the New York Times Book Review, that it provides readers “with a jaunty overview of key cosmological ideas, past and present” and is at its best when Hawking “allows us a peek at his impish humor, inner motivations, theoretical goofs and scientific prejudices.” By injecting his personality into what previously had been staid accounts of ancient theories, “Mr. Hawking is bravely taking some of the first, though tentative, steps toward quantizing the early universe, and he offers us a provocative glimpse of the work in progress.”
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