Eiffel Tower Research Articles

“Hive of Words”: The Transnational Poetics of the Eiffel Tower

“Hive of Words”: The Transnational Poetics of the Eiffel Tower

City rats: From rat behaviour to human spatial cognition in urban environments

AbstractThe structure and shape of an urban environment influence our ability to find our way about in the city^1-2^. Indeed, urban designers who face the challenge of planning environments that facilitate wayfinding^3^, have a consequent need to understand the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition^4^. Previous studies have suggested that certain qualities of city elements, such as a distinct contrast with the background (e.g. The Eiffel Tower in Paris), or a clear morphology (e.g. the grid layout of Manhattan's streets) affect spatial behaviour and cognition^1,5-7^. However, only a few empirical studies have examined the relations between the urban environment and spatial cognition. Here we suggest that testing rats in experimental environments that simulate certain facets of urban environment can provide an insight into human spatial behaviour in urban environments with a similar layout. Specifically, we simulated two city layouts: (1) a grid street layout such as that of Manhattan; and (2) an irregular street layout such as that of Jerusalem. We found that the rats that were tested in the grid layout covered more ground and visited more locations, compared with the restricted movement demonstrated by the rats tested in the irregular layout. This finding in rats is in accordance with previous findings that urban grids conduce to high movement flow throughout the city, compared to low movement flow in irregular urban layouts^8-9^. Previous studies revealed that the spatial behaviour of rats and humans is controlled by the same underlying mechanisms^10-11^. In the same vein, we show that rats demonstrate spatial movement patterns that recall those of humans in similar urban environments. Rat behaviour may thus offer an in-vivo means for testing and analyzing the spatial cognitive principles of specific urban designs and for inferring how humans may perceive a particular urban environment and orient in it.

“How ‘ya gonna keep’em down at the farm now that they’ve seen Paree?”: France in Super Hero Comics

Any extensive reading of super hero comics will reveal that the representation of France within the genre borrows mostly from touristic cliches, using the country as a foreign, exotic yet not too disorientating setting. Narrative economy and gradual refinements have led to the creation of a codified, consensual and unrealistic depiction of France, centered mostly on Paris and the Eiffel Tower. However, this efficient codification is not value-free. A study of Justice League Europe, a rare example of super-hero series set in France over a long period reveals that France is consistently depicted as a place of history, while being denied a contemporary significance. The country appears as a fascinating but subordinate neighbor, and this evaluation can in turn be found, albeit in a more elliptic way, in numerous series portraying France only in short episodes. The self-consciousness of modern super hero comics, however, suggests that the notion of representation should be handled with care. The depiction of France in super-hero comics originates in part in the perception of the country in the United States, but it also derives in a significant way from the internal evolutions of the genre.

Paris nous appartient : Reading Without a Map

This essay, based on extensive research into the exact locations shown in Paris nous appartient (1961), asks if having a precisely plotted map of the film would be useful to readers embarking on an interpretative analysis thereof. I give at least one answer, in conclusion, on the evidence of the one place that is not accurately “plotted” by Rivette. Prior to that conclusion, the essay considers “reading”, “mapping” and “viewing” as complementary ways of approaching the film. My point of departure is a challenge to the pertinence of Rivette’s title as clarion-call for the French New Wave. When, in Les quatre cents coups (1959), the Doinels go to the cinema, the film they see, impossibly, is Paris nous appartient. Impossibly, because Rivette’s film would not be released for at least two years, and anyway it would never be playing at the Gaumont Palace (their local cinema). By means of this characteristic in-joke,1 Truffaut claimed authority over the truth of his representations, and announced that Paris would very soon belong to the French New Wave. Les quatre cents coups is one of several New Wave films circa 1959 in which such a claim might have been made, which could indeed have had the phrase as title. Hanoun’s Une histoire simple (1958), Rohmer’s Le Signe du Lion (1959) and Godard’s A bout de souffle (1960) might have had to be called “Paris m’appartient”, but the plural form fits well, for example, Chabrol’s Les Cousins (1959), Les Bonnes Femmes (1960) and Les Godelureaux (1961), Mocky’s Les Dragueurs (1959) and Un couple (1960), Godard’s Une femme est une femme (1960) and Rouch’s Chronique d’un ete (1961). In each case, however, including Rivette’s, the claim would be loaded with irony. In watching Truffaut’s film, audiences would see that the Paris there laid claim to was an unfamiliar city. If in the 1950s you were mostly watching American movies, Paris was more or less the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees and Montmartre, and it belonged mostly to Hollywood stars on their holidays.2 If it

Magnetic Suspended AB-Structures and Motionless Space Stations

In this paper, the writer provides new ideas, theory, and computations for building with the current technology low-cost magnetic suspended structures and motionless space stations up to 37,000 (geosynchronous orbit) km of altitude. These structures (towers) can be used for the launching of spaceships, radio, television, and communication transmissions for tourism, scientific observation of the Earth’s surface, weather of the top atmosphere, and military radiolocation. The main idea and attribute of the invention is the following: The suspended structures (space station) are supported by a MAGNETIC column which has a mass (weight) close to zero. The writer estimates two projects of motionless magnetic space stations: one height is equal to 100 km and the second project up to 37,000 km (geosynchronous orbit). These projects are not expensive and do not require a high crane or complex technology. They do require a superconductive material and a thin strong film composed of artificial fibers. Both materials are fabricated by the current industry. The structures (space stations) can easily be built using present technology without rockets. The structure is built by unreeling a special roll. The structures (towers) can be used (for communication, tourism, etc.) during the construction process and provide self-financing for further construction. The building does not require work at high altitudes; all construction can be done on the Earth’s surface. The transport system (climber) consists of a very simple magnetic engine provided with electricity from a wire connecting the structure with the Earth. Problems involving security, control, repair, and stability of the proposed towers are shortly considered. The writer is prepared to discuss these and other problems with serious organizations desiring to research and develop this project. Magnetic towers may also become a civic symbol giving any city a distinctive landmark such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Ostankino Tower (Russian: Останкинская телебашня, Ostankinskaya telebashnya) in Moscow.

Unveiling the Right Side: Joan Miró and I

The painter Joan Miro (1893–1983) was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Fifty years ago, I went to Paris to attend a congress in biochemistry. I do not remember anything from the meeting, but I do recall occasionally noticing the new UNESCO headquarters building near the Eiffel Tower. It was decorated with 2 large ceramic murals, one containing a sun and the other a moon. The size and the brilliant colors made a great impression on me, and I decided to learn as much as possible about the artist. According to Miro, there are only 2 ways for a visual artist to reach many people: with sculptures or murals in public places or with posters. Paintings run the risk of ending up on the wall over a collector’s sofa or in museums, which only a small minority of the population visit. The Maeght Gallery in Paris had published several posters, and there I met the poet and author Jacques Dupin. He had just published a big book on Joan Miro. I studied it in detail, as I was accustomed to doing with medical books. The author noticed my great interest and made it possible for me to meet Joan Miro. In 1971, I visited his home and studio in Palma de Mallorca for several hours. Joan Miro was a small man, of my size, with kind blue eyes, so it was easy to develop a good rapport with him. We spoke in French, and I told him that I had started a group of admirers, Societe des Admirateurs de Joan Miro, with members from all over the world. He was very pleased and said that he liked to have admirers, as he knew that Elvis Presley had them. His studio had many paintings on the walls. They …

Ray-Tracing Simulation Techniques for Understanding High-Resolution SAR Images

In this paper, a simulation concept is presented for creating synthetic aperture radar (SAR) reflectivity maps based on ray tracing. Three-dimensional models of man-made objects are illuminated by a virtual SAR sensor whose signal is approximated by rays sent through the model space. To this end, open-source software tools are adapted and extended to derive output data in SAR geometry followed by creating the reflectivity map. Rays can be followed for multiple reflections within the object scene. Signals having different multiple reflection levels are stored in separate image layers. For evaluating the potentials and limits of the simulation approach, simulated reflectivity maps and distribution maps are compared with real TerraSAR-X images for various complex man-made objects like a skyscraper in Tokyo, the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The results show that the simulation can provide very valuable information to interpret complex SAR images or to predict the reflectivity of planned SAR image acquisitions.

RETURN TO THE QUAI BRANLY

The Musee du quai Branly, built in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, opened to great fanfare in 2006. Since then it has sponsored a wide variety of exhibitions and conjoint activities and fueled rich debates about museology in the postcolonial world—from collecting practices in the field and issues concerning cultural property to the politics of display and the distribution of power among collectors, dealers, curators, anthropologists, and art historians. This article follows on the book in which Price (2007) chronicled events leading up to the museum's inauguration. It lays out developments over the past three years and engages the literature, in France and elsewhere, that has swirled around the museum's undertaking.

Traitement des fractures de la phalange proximale des doigts par brochage percutané en tour Eiffel. À propos de 45 cas

The authors report in the treatment of fractures of the proximal phalanx of the fingers, the use of Eiffel Tower pinning, a relatively simple method, fast and stable, associated to a protection and early rehabilitation. The objective of this method is to offer to the patient a pollici-digital grip. Our study is a retrospective study of 45 patients treated for fractures of the proximal phalanx of the fingers by percutaneous pinning according to Eiffel Tower method. We detail this simple and economic technique and examine the functional and radiological results of this series of patients. The amplitude of the active total motion of the proximal interphalangeal joint is on average 94.16° (78.5 % of the normal active mobility of the proximal interphalangeal joint), and the amplitude of the active total motion of the metacarpo-phalangeal joint is on average 90.05° (75 % of the normal active mobility of the metacarpo-phalangeal joint).

L’Alsacienne by Maurice Denuzière

le narrateur comprend combien il leur est profondément attaché: “Comment ferai-je pour passer dix ans sans revoir ces gens que j’aime et que je hais avec l’intensité, l’exagération, la ferveur avec lesquelles on aime et avec lesquelles on hait seulement dans les débuts?” (120). Philippe Chardin a réussi à écrire un roman intime dans lequel chacun peut se reconnaître. En évaluant l’impact du temps sur les êtres, leur existence et leurs sentiments, il nous montre toute la complexit é des rapports humains qui résistent malgré tout à ce méchant vieux temps. Siena College (NY) Nathalie Degroult DENUZIÈRE, MAURICE. L’Alsacienne. Paris: Fayard, 2009. ISBN 978-2-213-63398-5. Pp. 587. 23,90 a. There are several sagas going on at once in Maurice Denuzière’s latest work. The historical novel follows the course of an initially unlikely friendship, struck up in Paris at the foot of the Colonne Vendôme at its re-erection in 1875, which symbolizes the rise and solidification of the Third Republic as seen through its successes (political, industrial, artistic, literary, architectural, etc.), and perhaps more dramatically through its failures (financial, social, and diplomatic). Denuzière captures the dizzying speed of innovation that marks the final decades of nineteenth-century France. Added to these events is the fate of Alsace after its annexation by Germany, as seen through the prism of the pro-France Alsatian émigrés in Paris. There is much to be learned in this hefty novel, and the interplay of history and the fictional stories is adeptly done. But it is really the history that is more convincing and intriguing than the fictional loves and adventures of the protagonists, who are presented with affection and humor, and probably more wonder than they merit. The two young men—one a pianist, intellectual, and romantic appropriately named Tristan Dionys, the other, Maximilien Leroy, an adventurer, cynic, and bon vivant—travel in circles that make close observation of society possible. Dionys teaches piano in the hôtels particuliers of old nobility and nouveaux riches alike, and takes us to concert halls, grand hotels, and salons. Dionys champions new music in Europe, and particularly Liszt, whom he both resembles and emulates. Pale maidens abound, and repressed and passionate mothers see another Julien Sorel in Dionys. Denuzière alludes to the growing women’s rights movement and to historical figures, such as Cosima Wagner, but his female characters lack a social or feminist consciousness that would have made them fascinating. Leroy’s career is far less conventional, and at the same time more questionable and dangerous. An opportunist, he writes speeches for politicians, lobbies for both right and left, manipulates stock and auction house prices, is a secret courier for the government, and is also the manager of Dionys’ career. Leroy reports firsthand on the happenings in the Assemblée Nationale and quotes Victor Hugo, Gambetta, Boulanger, Poubelle, and many others, both famous and forgotten. He is at the Bourse when the Panama Canal scandal breaks. A consummate boulevardier, he can quote menus and vintages in the many restaurant scenes. And of course he understands the principles and esthetics of modernity, of crystal palaces and the Eiffel Tower. When Clémence Ricker, the Alsatian of the title, enters the friends’ lives quite late in the novel, a Belle Epoque Jules et Jim story ensues. Dionys and Leroy make a pact that neither will be first to court Clémence; 412 FRENCH REVIEW 84.2 and if there is to be romance or love, it is for Clémence to decide. They persevere longer than expected, singing the praises of friendship as the noblest of qualities, with patriotism not being far behind. It is in the last chapters that Denuzière writes splendidly about the trauma of the Dreyfus affair and ties it to Leroy’s secret mission to the eastern border of France. Denuzière’s characters view the case as another humiliation for an unjustly punished Alsace, since for them Dreyfus, an Alsatian, would be incapable of treason. Clémence’s story remains unfinished in the last section of the book, entitled “En attendant la...

Climbing up the Eiffel Tower

Climbing up the Eiffel Tower Authors Michael Crombach PDF Article info Impact Citations Published at 13. December 2009 https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.8741 Issue: Vol. 3 No. 4 (2009) Section: Reviews Keywords: language evolution Share: Z PlumX Dimensions Views: Total Abstract PDF 10 7 3

The spectator and the spectacle: audiences in modernity and postmodernity

Part I. The Problem of the Spectator: 1. Introduction: assisting at the spectacle 2. The director, the spectator and the Eiffel Tower 3. The avant-garde and the audience Part II. Shakespeare and the Politics of Spectation: 4. Shakespeare and the Cold War 5. The spectator as tourist 6. Interculturalism and the global spectator 7. The body of the spectator Part III. Subjectivity and the Spectator: 8. Society, spectacle and sport 9. The aroused spectator 10. Memory, performance and the idea of the museum 11. Assisting belief: ritual and the spectator.

Seeing From Above: A Particular History of the General Observer

In his essay on the Eiffel Tower, Roland Barthes associates the bird’s eye view of nineteenth‐century Paris with “a new sensibility of vision.” Rather than presenting something spectacular or unsee...

Gustave Eiffel and his optimal structures

The eponymous tower, as noted by its chief architect Alexandre Gustave Eiffel himself, overshadows his other structural marvels. It is not just the beauty of the Tower that ought to impress an onlooker but also its optimality. Eiffel, as we explain in this article, excelled in using the material in the most optimal way in many of his structures that include more than 42 bridges and many buildings built in various parts of the world. We also draw an analogy between Nature’s designs and Eiffel’s designs in the way the material is arranged hierarchically with different shapes at different scales. We consider the Maria Pia Bridge and the Eiffel Tower to illustrate this point and highlight their optimal characteristics. We argue that the structural designs of Eiffel & Co. have an aesthetic appeal that emerges from the economic use of material with their roots in rigorous engineering principles.

Fragmented Territories: AIDS and Paris in Les Nuits Fauves of Cyril Collard

Written at the height of the AIDS crisis, Cyril Collard's novel Les Nuits fauves (1989) is a singular approach to mapping AIDS on the body and in the city of Paris. Collard uses Paris and the ailing body as interchangeable metonyms for one another, in a style that renews classic nineteenth-century narrative's use of the mapping of geographic space as a figure of the protagonist's success or failure. Thus, in Le Pere Goriot, to choose the most famous example, Balzac sets out three separate neighborhoods--the Latin Quarter, the Faubourg St. Honore, and the Faubourg St. Germain--the understanding and ultimate conquest of which are signs of Eugene de Rastignac's eventual success. And, when at Goriot's funeral, Rastignac launches his challenge to Paris, it is as if he can see all of Paris from the vantage point of the elevated Pere Lachaise cemetery. (1) Similarly, in Bel-Ami, Maupassant traces a finely hewn itinerary for Georges Duroy, whose success can once again be gauged by where he is in Paris. (2) In both cases, the authors tie a semiotics of socio-cultural and socio-political values to a geography, by which the informed reader can follow plot development with the aid of his or her knowledge of the city, and can chart the vagaries, peripetiaie, and trajectories informing the development of AIDS as well. (3) If an author like Proust winds up having a more limited geography (largely restricted to the eighth, sixteenth, and seventeenth arrondissements) and if Queneau's Paris in Zazie dans le metro goes somewhat awry because of the unreliable geographical knowledge of his characters, we still find a number of more recent novels and films using Paris--a new Paris, a reinscribed Paris of the post-modern--as a semiotic touchstone. For example, Matthieu Kassovitz's epoch-making film La Haine, used Paris (and its implicit and explicit opposition to the banlieue) as a geographic metaphor for underlining some of the serious social problems facing France. And films like Jeunet's he Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulin and the more recent multi-authored film, Paris, je t'aime, use both stereotypical touristic Paris and more typically Parisian Paris (i.e., a Paris recognizable to locals, even without the seemingly obligatory shot of the Eiffel Tower) to reinscribe the relations of characters and city, of characters within the city, and of the structuring of subjectivity by the city. Moreover, an experimental filmmaker like Lionel Soukaz often uses the space in a way to show how Paris reinscribes straight Paris, even when, as is the case of Soukaz (and that of Guy Hocquenghem) the act is somewhat disruptive and anti-institutional. In all these recent cases, Paris and protagonists rework a semiotics of space. (4) Thus it comes as no surprise that an author and director such as Cyril Collard uses geography as a figure for understanding the traversal of the AIDS crisis by his autofictional counterpart. And specifically, there is an association of geography, gay liberation, illness, and mourning that are all tied together in what might, retrospectively, from the point of view of the twenty-first century, seem to be typical of the period, yet counterproductive for a complete historical understanding of the lived past. However, now that we are in the second decade of combination therapy, it behooves critics to tease out the various strands of discourses--personal, traumatic, public, liberatory, and even literary--that were bundled during the first decade and a half of the AIDS crisis, in order to see the construction (and deconstruction) of these discourses through a historical and cultural perspective. And to do that, I am suggesting that an analysis of a personal and public geography is in order. (5) As we think about the social construction into which male same-sex desire has fit, however comfortably or not, since the early nineteenth century, if not before, namely what we consider to be homosexuality, it is invariably associated with city life. …

What Is the Sound of the Eiffel Tower?

What Is the Sound of the Eiffel Tower?

Distribution and spatial variation of hydrothermal faunal assemblages at Lucky Strike (Mid-Atlantic Ridge) revealed by high-resolution video image analysis

Whilst the fauna inhabiting hydrothermal vent structures in the Atlantic Ocean is reasonably well known, less is understood about the spatial distributions of the fauna in relation to abiotic and biotic factors. In this study, a major active hydrothermal edifice (Eiffel Tower, at 1690 m depth) on the Lucky Strike vent field (Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR)) was investigated. Video transects were carried out by ROV Victor 6000 and complete image coverage was acquired. Four distinct assemblages, ranging from dense larger-sized Bathymodiolus mussel beds to smaller-sized mussel clumps and alvinocaridid shrimps, and two types of substrata were defined based on high definition photographs and video imagery. To evaluate spatial variation, faunal distribution was mapped in three dimensions. A high degree of patchiness characterizes this 11 m high sulfide structure. The differences observed in assemblage and substratum distribution were related to habitat characteristics (fluid exits, depth and structure orientation). Gradients in community structure were observed, which coincided with an increasing distance from the fluid exits. A biological zonation model for the Eiffel Tower edifice was created in which faunal composition and distribution can be visually explained by the presence/absence of fluid exits.

Relationship between the occurrence of filamentous bacteria on Bathymodiolus azoricus shell and the physiological and toxicological status of the vent mussel

The edifice walls of the Eiffel Tower hydrothermal vent site (Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Lucky Strike vent field) are populated with dense communities of dual symbioses harboring vent mussel Bathymodiolus azoricus, some of which are covered by white filamentous mats belonging to sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. Mussels were collected in both the presence and absence of the filamentous bacteria. A sample of the filamentous bacteria was collected and water measurements of temperature, CH 4 and H 2S were recorded at the collection area. The whole soft tissues were analyzed for total lipid, carbohydrate and total protein. Metallothioneins and metals (Cu, Fe and Zn) levels were determined in the major organs. The results showed no significant physiological and toxicological evidence that emphasizes the influence of associated sulfur-oxidizing filamentous bacteria on B. azoricus mussel shells. However, B. azoricus mussel seems to be well adapted to the assorted physico-chemical characteristics from the surrounding environment since it is able to manage the constant fluctuation of physico-chemical compounds.

Modified shape of the Eiffel Tower determined for an atmospheric boundary-layer wind profile

The design and construction of the Eiffel Tower was based, in part, on a uniform horizontal wind model giving 300 kg m−2 kinematic pressure acting on the surface of the tower. Eiffel received a patent for his method of construction that eliminates the need for diagonal trellis bars used to resist the moment of an oncoming wind. At the end of the 19th century boundary-layer theory, laminar or turbulent, was nonexistent. Now, however, models for atmospheric flow over rough landscapes are available, the simplest being a power-law distribution of velocity with height. In this paper we deduce the shape of the tower had Eiffel incorporated this information into the design and construction of his world famous tower. Moreover, we prove Eiffel’s observation that the tower profile conforms to the moment distribution wrought by the wind.

The Feast of Nemesis Media: Jean Cocteau's The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party

Jean Cocteau's The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party is marked by a fascination with the fractious relationship both between technology and theatricality and between human desire and mechanization. In its anti-theatricality, the play shifts away from reproduction with a greater fidelity to “life,” or the theatrical representation of life, toward the assumptions that inform the desire for photographic reproduction. Eschewing banal hypotheses like “machines are dehumanizing,” Cocteau suggests a more complex desire: we want machines to exert control over the moment of the live event. His use of machines uncannily shows us that we exalt the representation of the event over its emotional content. What Cocteau is asking us to witness, then, in his exploration of our relationship to media, is a creative process inherent in the destruction of theatricality. In Walter Benjamin's terms, one could argue that the play is a significant moment in the ongoing decay and transformation of theatricality's aura.