title: Quantum entanglement

text: In quantum information theory, entangled states are considered a 'resource', i.e., something costly to produce and that allows implementing valuable transformations. The setting in which this perspective is most evident is that of "distant labs", i.e., two quantum systems labeled "A" and "B" on each of which arbitrary quantum operations can be performed, but which do not interact with each other quantum mechanically. The only interaction allowed is the exchange of classical information, which combined with the most general local quantum operations gives rise to the class of operations called LOCC (local operations and classical communication). These operations do not allow the production of entangled states between systems A and B. But if A and B are provided with a supply of entangled states, then these, together with LOCC operations can enable a larger class of transformations. For example, an interaction between a qubit of A and a qubit of B can be realized by first teleporting A's qubit to B, then letting it interact with B's qubit (which is now a LOCC operation, since both qubits are in B's lab) and then teleporting the qubit back to A. Two maximally entangled states of two qubits are used up in this process. Thus entangled states are a resource that enables the realization of quantum interactions (or of quantum channels) in a setting where only LOCC are available, but they are consumed in the process. There are other applications where entanglement can be seen as a resource, e.g., private communication or distinguishing quantum states.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Not all quantum states are equally valuable as a resource. To quantify this value, different entanglement measures (see below) can be used, that assign a numerical value to each quantum state. However, it is often interesting to settle for a coarser way to compare quantum states. This gives rise to different classification schemes. Most entanglement classes are defined based on whether states can be converted to other states using LOCC or a subclass of these operations. The smaller the set of allowed operations, the finer the classification. Important examples are:


title: Quantum entanglement

text: A different entanglement classification is based on what the quantum correlations present in a state allow A and B to do: one distinguishes three subsets of entangled states: (1) the "non-local states", which produce correlations that cannot be explained by a local hidden variable model and thus violate a Bell inequality, (2) the "steerable states" that contain sufficient correlations for A to modify ("steer") by local measurements the conditional reduced state of B in such a way, that A can prove to B that the state they possess is indeed entangled, and finally (3) those entangled states that are neither non-local nor steerable. All three sets are non-empty.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In this section, the entropy of a mixed state is discussed as well as how it can be viewed as a measure of quantum entanglement.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In classical information theory , the Shannon entropy, is associated to a probability distribution, formula_53, in the following way:


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Since a mixed state is a probability distribution over an ensemble, this leads naturally to the definition of the von Neumann entropy:


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In general, one uses the Borel functional calculus to calculate a non-polynomial function such as . If the nonnegative operator acts on a finite-dimensional Hilbert space and has eigenvalues formula_56, turns out to be nothing more than the operator with the same eigenvectors, but the eigenvalues formula_57. The Shannon entropy is then:


title: Quantum entanglement

text: the convention is adopted. This extends to the infinite-dimensional case as well: if has spectral resolution


title: Quantum entanglement

text: As in statistical mechanics, the more uncertainty (number of microstates) the system should possess, the larger the entropy. For example, the entropy of any pure state is zero, which is unsurprising since there is no uncertainty about a system in a pure state. The entropy of any of the two subsystems of the entangled state discussed above is (which can be shown to be the maximum entropy for mixed states).


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Entropy provides one tool that can be used to quantify entanglement, although other entanglement measures exist. If the overall system is pure, the entropy of one subsystem can be used to measure its degree of entanglement with the other subsystems. For bipartite pure states, the von Neumann entropy of reduced states is the unique measure of entanglement in the sense that it is the only function on the family of states that satisfies certain axioms required of an entanglement measure.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: It is a classical result that the Shannon entropy achieves its maximum at, and only at, the uniform probability distribution {1/"n"...,1/"n"}. Therefore, a bipartite pure state is said to be a maximally entangled state if the reduced state of each subsystem of is the diagonal matrix


title: Quantum entanglement

text: As an aside, the information-theoretic definition is closely related to entropy in the sense of statistical mechanics (comparing the two definitions in the present context, it is customary to set the Boltzmann constant ). For example, by properties of the Borel functional calculus, we see that for any unitary operator ,


title: Quantum entanglement

text: The reversibility of a process is associated with the resulting entropy change, i.e., a process is reversible if, and only if, it leaves the entropy of the system invariant. Therefore, the march of the arrow of time towards thermodynamic equilibrium is simply the growing spread of quantum entanglement.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Entanglement measures quantify the amount of entanglement in a (often viewed as a bipartite) quantum state. As aforementioned, entanglement entropy is the standard measure of entanglement for pure states (but no longer a measure of entanglement for mixed states). For mixed states, there are some entanglement measures in the literature and no single one is standard.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Most (but not all) of these entanglement measures reduce for pure states to entanglement entropy, and are difficult (NP-hard) to compute.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: The Reeh-Schlieder theorem of quantum field theory is sometimes seen as an analogue of quantum entanglement.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Entanglement has many applications in quantum information theory. With the aid of entanglement, otherwise impossible tasks may be achieved.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Most researchers believe that entanglement is necessary to realize quantum computing (although this is disputed by some).


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Entanglement is used in some protocols of quantum cryptography, but to prove the security of QKD under standard assumptions does not require entanglement. However, the "device independent" security of QKD is shown exploiting entanglement between the communication partners.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: These four pure states are all maximally entangled (according to the entropy of entanglement) and form an orthonormal basis (linear algebra) of the Hilbert space of the two qubits. They play a fundamental role in Bell's theorem.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: which reduces to the Bell state formula_68 for formula_69. The traditional GHZ state was defined for formula_70. GHZ states are occasionally extended to qudits, i.e., systems of "d" rather than 2 dimensions.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Also for M>2 qubits, there are spin squeezed states, a class of squeezed coherent states satisfying certain restrictions on the uncertainty of spin measurements, which are necessarily entangled. Spin squeezed states are good candidates for enhancing precision measurements using quantum entanglement.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: This is like the Bell state formula_72 except the basis kets 0 and 1 have been replaced with "the "N" photons are in one mode" and "the "N" photons are in the other mode".


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Finally, there also exist twin Fock states for bosonic modes, which can be created by feeding a Fock state into two arms leading to a beam splitter. They are the sum of multiple of NOON states, and can be used to achieve the Heisenberg limit.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: For the appropriately chosen measures of entanglement, Bell, GHZ, and NOON states are maximally entangled while spin squeezed and twin Fock states are only partially entangled. The partially entangled states are generally easier to prepare experimentally.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Entanglement is usually created by direct interactions between subatomic particles. These interactions can take numerous forms. One of the most commonly used methods is spontaneous parametric down-conversion to generate a pair of photons entangled in polarisation. Other methods include the use of a fiber coupler to confine and mix photons, photons emitted from decay cascade of the bi-exciton in a quantum dot, the use of the Hong–Ou–Mandel effect, etc. In the earliest tests of Bell's theorem, the entangled particles were generated using atomic cascades.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: It is also possible to create entanglement between quantum systems that never directly interacted, through the use of entanglement swapping. Two independently prepared, identical particles may also be entangled if their wave functions merely spatially overlap, at least partially.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: A density matrix ρ is called separable if it can be written as a convex sum of product states, namely


title: Quantum entanglement

text: For 2-Qubit and Qubit-Qutrit systems (2 × 2 and 2 × 3 respectively) the simple Peres–Horodecki criterion provides both a necessary and a sufficient criterion for separability, and thus—inadvertently—for detecting entanglement. However, for the general case, the criterion is merely a necessary one for separability, as the problem becomes NP-hard when generalized. Other separability criteria include (but not limited to) the range criterion, reduction criterion, and those based on uncertainty relations. See Ref. for a review of separability criteria in discrete-variable systems and Ref. for a review on techniques and challenges in experimental entanglement certification in discrete-variable systems.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: A numerical approach to the problem is suggested by Jon Magne Leinaas, Jan Myrheim and Eirik Ovrum in their paper "Geometrical aspects of entanglement". Leinaas et al. offer a numerical approach, iteratively refining an estimated separable state towards the target state to be tested, and checking if the target state can indeed be reached. An implementation of the algorithm (including a built-in Peres-Horodecki criterion testing) is "StateSeparator" web-app.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In continuous variable systems, the Peres-Horodecki criterion also applies. Specifically, Simon formulated a particular version of the Peres-Horodecki criterion in terms of the second-order moments of canonical operators and showed that it is necessary and sufficient for formula_75-mode Gaussian states (see Ref. for a seemingly different but essentially equivalent approach). It was later found that Simon's condition is also necessary and sufficient for formula_76-mode Gaussian states, but no longer sufficient for formula_77-mode Gaussian states. Simon's condition can be generalized by taking into account the higher order moments of canonical operators or by using entropic measures.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In 2016, China launched the world’s first quantum communications satellite. The $100m Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) mission was launched on Aug 16, 2016, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China at 01:40 local time.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: For the next two years, the craft – nicknamed "Micius" after the ancient Chinese philosopher – will demonstrate the feasibility of quantum


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In the June 16, 2017, issue of "Science", Yin et al. report setting a new quantum entanglement distance record of 1,203 km, demonstrating the survival of a two-photon pair and a violation of a Bell inequality, reaching a CHSH valuation of 2.37 ± 0.09, under strict Einstein locality conditions, from the Micius satellite to bases in Lijian, Yunnan and Delingha, Quinhai, increasing the efficiency of transmission over prior fiberoptic experiments by an order of magnitude.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: The electron shells of multi-electron atoms always consist of entangled electrons. The correct ionization energy can be calculated only by consideration of electron entanglement.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: It has been suggested that in the process of photosynthesis, entanglement is involved in the transfer of energy between light-harvesting complexes and photosynthetic reaction centers where the energy of each absorbed photon is harvested in the form of chemical energy. Without such a process, the efficient conversion of light into chemical energy cannot be explained. Using femtosecond spectroscopy, the coherence of entanglement in the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex was measured over hundreds of femtoseconds (a relatively long time in this regard) providing support to this theory.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: However, critical follow-up studies question the interpretation of these results and assign the reported signatures of electronic quantum coherence to nuclear dynamics in the chromophores or to the experiments being performed at cryogenic rather than physiological temperatures.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In 2020, researchers reported the quantum entanglement between the motion of a millimetre-sized mechanical oscillator and a disparate distant spin system of a cloud of atoms. Later work complemented this work by quantum-entangling two mechanical oscillators.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: In October 2018, physicists reported producing quantum entanglement using living organisms, particularly between photosynthetic molecules within living bacteria and quantized light.


title: Quantum entanglement

text: Living organisms (green sulphur bacteria) have been studied as mediators to create quantum entanglement between otherwise non-interacting light modes, showing high entanglement between light and bacterial modes, and to some extent, even entanglement within the bacteria.


title: The Wall

text: The Wall is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released on 30 November 1979 by Harvest/EMI and Columbia/CBS Records. It is a rock opera that explores Pink, a jaded rock star whose eventual self-imposed isolation from society forms a figurative wall. The album was a commercial success, topping the US charts for 15 weeks and reaching number three in the UK. It initially received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom found it overblown and pretentious, but later received accolades as one of the greatest albums of all time and one of the band's finest works.


title: The Wall

text: Bassist Roger Waters conceived "The Wall" during Pink Floyd's 1977 In the Flesh tour, modelling the character of Pink after himself and former bandmate Syd Barrett. Recording spanned from December 1978 to November 1979. Producer Bob Ezrin helped to refine the concept and bridge tensions during recording, as the band members were struggling with personal and financial issues at the time. "The Wall" was the last album to feature Pink Floyd as a quartet; keyboardist Richard Wright was fired by Waters during production but stayed on as a salaried musician.


title: The Wall

text: Three singles were issued from the album: "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" (Pink Floyd's only UK "and" US number-one single), "Run Like Hell", and "Comfortably Numb". From 1980 to 1981, Pink Floyd performed the full album on a tour that featured elaborate theatrical effects. In 1982, "The Wall" was adapted into a feature film for which Waters wrote the screenplay.


title: The Wall

text: "The Wall" is one of the best-known concept albums. With over 30 million copies sold, it is the second best-selling album in the band's catalogue (behind "The Dark Side of the Moon"), the best selling double-album of all time, and one of the best-selling albums of all time overall. Some of the outtakes from the recording sessions were used on the group's next album, "The Final Cut" (1983). In 2000, it was voted number 30 in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums". In 2003, 2012, and 2020, it was included in "Rolling Stone"s lists of the greatest albums of all time. From 2010 to 2013, Waters staged a new "Wall" live tour that became the highest-grossing tour by a solo musician.


title: The Wall

text: In 1977, Pink Floyd played the "In the Flesh" Tour. Bassist and singer-songwriter Roger Waters despised the experience, feeling the audience was not listening and that many were too far away to see the band. He said: "It became a social event rather than a more controlled and ordinary relationship between musicians and an audience." Some audience members set off firecrackers, leading Waters to stop playing and scold them. In July 1977, on the final date at the Montreal Olympic Stadium, a group of noisy and excited fans near the stage irritated Waters so much that he spat on one of them.


title: The Wall

text: Guitarist and singer-songwriter David Gilmour refused to perform a final encore and sat at the soundboard, leaving the band, with backup guitarist Snowy White, to improvise a slow, sad 12-bar blues, which Waters announced to the audience as "some music to go home to". That night, Waters spoke with producer Bob Ezrin and Ezrin's psychiatrist friend about the alienation and despair he was experiencing, and he articulated his desire to isolate himself by constructing a wall across the stage between the performers—himself, along with the rest of the band—and the audience.


title: The Wall

text: While Gilmour and Wright were in France recording solo albums, and drummer Nick Mason was busy producing Steve Hillage's "Green", Waters began to write material. The spitting incident became the starting point for a new concept, which explored the protagonist's self-imposed isolation after years of traumatic interactions with authority figures and the loss of his father as a child.


title: The Wall

text: In July 1978, Pink Floyd reconvened at Britannia Row Studios, where Waters presented two new ideas for concept albums. The first was a 90-minute demo with the working title "Bricks in the Wall". The second was about a man's dreams across one night, and dealt with marriage, sex, and the pros and cons of monogamy and family life versus promiscuity. The band chose the first option; the second eventually became Waters's first solo album, "The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking" (1984).


title: The Wall

text: By September, Pink Floyd were having financial problems and urgently needed to produce an album to make money. Financial planners Norton Warburg Group (NWG) had invested £1.3–3.3 million, up to £ in contemporary value, of the group's money in high-risk venture capital to reduce their tax liabilities. The strategy failed when many of the businesses NWG invested in lost money, leaving the band facing tax rates potentially as high as 83 percent. "We made "Dark Side" and it looked as if we'd cracked it," recalled Waters. "Then suddenly these bastards had stolen it all. It looked as if we might be faced with huge tax bills for the money that had been lost. Eighty-three per cent was a lot of money in those days and we didn't have it." Pink Floyd terminated their relationship with NWG, demanding the return of uninvested funds. "By force of necessity, I had to become closely involved in the business side," said Gilmour, "because no one around us has shown themselves sufficiently capable or honest to cope with it, and I saw with Norton Warburg that the shit was heading inexorably towards the fan. They weren't the first crooks we stupidly allied ourselves with. Ever since then, there's not a penny that I haven't signed for. I sign every cheque and examine everything."


title: The Wall

text: To help manage the project's 26 tracks, Waters decided to bring in an outside producer and collaborator, feeling he needed "a collaborator who was musically and intellectually in a similar place to where I was". They hired Ezrin at the suggestion of Waters's then-wife Carolyne Christie, who had worked as Ezrin's secretary. Ezrin had previously worked with Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Kiss, and Peter Gabriel. From the start, Waters made it clear who was in charge, telling him: "You can write anything you want. Just don't expect any credit."


title: The Wall

text: Ezrin and Gilmour reviewed Waters's concept, discarding what they thought was not good enough. Waters and Ezrin worked mostly on the story, improving the concept. Ezrin presented a 40-page script to the rest of the band, with positive results. He recalled: "The next day at the studio, we had a table read, like you would with a play, but with the whole of the band, and their eyes all twinkled, because then they could see the album." Ezrin broadened the storyline, distancing it from the autobiographical work Waters had written and basing it on a composite character named Pink. Engineer Nick Griffiths later said: "Ezrin was very good in "The Wall", because he did manage to pull the whole thing together. He's a very forceful guy. There was a lot of argument about how it should sound between Roger and Dave, and he bridged the gap between them." Waters wrote most of the album, with Gilmour co-writing "Comfortably Numb", "Run Like Hell", and "Young Lust", and Ezrin co-writing "The Trial".


title: The Wall

text: "The Wall" is a rock opera that explores abandonment and isolation, symbolized by a wall. The songs create an approximate storyline of events in the life of the protagonist, Pink, a character based on Syd Barrett as well as Roger Waters, whose father was killed during World War II, which is where Pink starts to build a metaphorical wall around himself. The album includes several references to former band member Syd Barrett, including "Nobody Home", which hints at his condition during Pink Floyd's abortive US tour of 1967, with lyrics such as "wild, staring eyes", "the obligatory Hendrix perm" and "elastic bands keeping my shoes on". "Comfortably Numb" was inspired by Waters' injection with a muscle relaxant to combat the effects of hepatitis during the "In the Flesh Tour", while in Philadelphia.


title: The Wall

text: Pink is a depressed rock star. He imagines a crowd of fans entering one of his concerts, and a flashback on his life up to that point begins. In the flashback, it is revealed that his father was killed defending the Anzio bridgehead during World War II ("In the Flesh?", "When the Tigers Broke Free" (movie only)). Pink's mother raises him alone ("The Thin Ice"), and with the death of his father, Pink starts to build a metaphorical wall around himself ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1"). Growing older, Pink is tormented at school by tyrannical, abusive teachers ("The Happiest Days of Our Lives"), and memories of these traumas become metaphorical "bricks in the wall" ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2").


title: The Wall

text: Now an adult, Pink remembers his oppressive and overprotective mother ("Mother") and his upbringing during the Blitz ("Goodbye Blue Sky"). Pink soon marries, and after more bricks are created through more trauma, he is preparing to complete his "wall" ("Empty Spaces"). While touring in the United States, he is wanting casual sex with a woman to relieve the tedium of touring, though in making a phone call home, he learns of his wife's infidelity ("Young Lust"). He brings a groupie back to his hotel room, only to trash it in a violent fit of rage, terrifying her out of the room ("One of My Turns"). Depressed, Pink thinks about his wife, and feels trapped in his room ("Don't Leave Me Now"), and he dismisses every traumatic experience he has ever had as even more "bricks" in the metaphorical wall while rejecting human contact and medication ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 3"). Pink's wall is now finished, completely isolating himself from the outside world ("Goodbye Cruel World").


title: The Wall

text: Immediately after the wall's completion, Pink questions his decisions ("Hey You") and locks himself in his hotel room ("Is There Anybody Out There?"). Beginning to feel depressed, Pink turns to his possessions for comfort ("Nobody Home"), and yearns for the idea of reconnecting with his personal roots ("Vera"). Pink's mind flashes back to World War II, with the people demanding that the soldiers return home ("Bring the Boys Back Home"). Returning to the present, Pink's manager and roadies have busted into his hotel room, where they find him unresponsive. A paramedic injects him with drugs to enable him to perform ("Comfortably Numb").


title: The Wall

text: The drugs kick in, resulting in a hallucinatory on-stage performance ("The Show Must Go On") where he believes that he is a fascist dictator, and that his concert is a Neo-Nazi rally, at which he sets brownshirt-like men on fans that he considers unworthy ("In the Flesh"). He proceeds to attack ethnic minorities ("Run Like Hell"), and then holds a rally in suburban London, symbolizing his descent into insanity ("Waiting for the Worms"). Pink's hallucination then ceases, and he begs for everything to stop ("Stop"). Tormented with guilt, Pink places himself on trial for "showing feelings of an almost human nature" before his inner judge orders him to "tear down the wall" ("The Trial"). This is an opening Pink to the outside world ("Outside the Wall").


title: The Wall

text: The album turns full circle with its closing words "Isn't this where...", the first words of the phrase that begins the album, "...we came in?", with a continuation of the melody of the last song hinting at the cyclical nature of Waters' theme, and that the existential crisis at the heart of the album will never truly end.


title: The Wall

text: The album was recorded in several locations. In France, Super Bear Studios was used between January and July 1979, and Waters recorded his vocals at the nearby Studio Miraval. Michael Kamen supervised the orchestral arrangements at CBS Studios in New York, in September. Over the next two months the band used Cherokee Studios, Producers Workshop and The Village Recorder in Los Angeles. A plan to work with the Beach Boys at the Sundance Productions studio in Los Angeles was cancelled.


title: The Wall

text: James Guthrie, recommended by previous Floyd collaborator Alan Parsons, arrived early in the production process. He replaced engineer Brian Humphries, who was emotionally drained by his five years with the band. Guthrie was hired as a co-producer, but was initially unaware of Ezrin's role: "I saw myself as a hot young "producer" ... When we arrived, I think we both felt we'd been booked to do the same job." The early sessions at Britannia Row were emotionally charged, as Ezrin, Guthrie and Waters each had strong ideas about the direction the album would take. Relations within the band were at a low ebb, and Ezrin became an intermediary between Waters and the rest of the band.


title: The Wall

text: As Britannia Row was initially regarded as inadequate for "The Wall," the band upgraded much of its equipment, and by March another set of demos was complete. However, their former relationship with NWG placed them at risk of bankruptcy, and they were advised to leave the UK by no later than 6 April 1979, for a minimum of one year. As non-residents they would pay no UK taxes during that time, and within a month all four members and their families had left. Waters moved to Switzerland, Mason to France, and Gilmour and Wright to the Greek Islands. Some equipment from Britannia Row was relocated in Super Bear Studios near Nice. Gilmour and Wright were both familiar with the studio and enjoyed its atmosphere, having recorded solo albums there. While Wright and Mason lived at the studio, Waters and Gilmour stayed in nearby houses. Mason later moved into Waters's villa near Vence, while Ezrin stayed in Nice.


title: The Wall

text: Ezrin's poor punctuality caused problems with the tight schedule dictated by Waters. Mason found Ezrin's behaviour "erratic", but used his elaborate and unlikely excuses for his lateness as ammunition for "tongue-in-cheek resentment". Ezrin's share of the royalties was less than the rest of the band and he viewed Waters as a bully, especially when Waters mocked him by having badges made that read NOPE (No Points Ezrin), alluding to his lesser share. Ezrin later said he had had marital problems and was not "in the best shape emotionally".


title: The Wall

text: More problems became apparent when Waters's relationship with Wright broke down. The band were rarely in the studio together. Ezrin and Guthrie spliced Mason's previously recorded drum tracks together, and Guthrie worked with Waters and Gilmour during the day, returning at night to record Wright's contributions. Wright, worried about the effect that the introduction of Ezrin would have on band relationships, was keen to have a producer's credit on the album; their albums since "More" (1969) had credited production to "Pink Floyd". Waters agreed to a trial period with Wright producing, after which he was to be given a producer's credit, but after a few weeks he and Ezrin expressed dissatisfaction with Wright's methods. A confrontation with Ezrin led to Wright working only at nights. Gilmour also expressed his annoyance, complaining that Wright's lack of input was "driving us all mad". Ezrin later reflected: "it sometimes felt that Roger was setting him up to fail. Rick gets performance anxiety. You have to leave him alone to freeform, to create ..."


title: The Wall

text: Wright was troubled by a failing marriage and the onset of depression, exacerbated by his non-residency. While the other band members brought their children, Wright's children were older and could not join as they were attending school; he said he missed them "terribly". The band's holidays were booked for August, after which they were to reconvene at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, but Columbia offered the band a better deal in exchange for a Christmas release of the album. Waters increased the band's workload accordingly, booking time at the nearby Studio Miraval. He also suggested recording in Los Angeles ten days earlier than agreed, and hiring another keyboardist to work alongside Wright, whose keyboard parts had not yet been recorded. Wright, however, refused to cut short his family holiday in Rhodes.


title: The Wall

text: Accounts of Wright's subsequent departure from the band differ. In his autobiography, "", Mason says that Waters called O'Rourke, who was travelling to the US on the "QE2", and told him to have Wright out of the band by the time Waters arrived in LA to mix the album. In another version recorded by a later historian of the band, Waters called O'Rourke and asked him to tell Wright about the new recording arrangements, to which Wright responded: "Tell Roger to fuck off". Wright denied this, stating that the band had agreed to record only through the spring and early summer, and that he had no idea they were so far behind schedule. Mason later wrote that Waters was "stunned and furious", and felt that Wright was not doing enough. Gilmour was on holiday in Dublin when he learnt of Waters's ultimatum, and tried to calm the situation. He later spoke with Wright and gave him his support, but reminded him about his minimal contributions. Waters, however, insisted that Wright leave, or he would refuse to release "The Wall". Several days later, worried about their financial situation and the failing interpersonal relationships within the band, Wright quit. News of his departure was kept from the music press. Although his name did not appear on some editions of the album (it does appear on the U.K. gatefold sleeve), he was employed as a session musician on the band's subsequent tour.


title: The Wall

text: By August 1979, the running order was largely complete. Wright completed his duties at Cherokee Studios aided by session musicians Peter Wood and Fred Mandel, and Jeff Porcaro played drums in Mason's stead on "Mother". Mason left the final mix to Waters, Gilmour, Ezrin and Guthrie, and travelled to New York to record his debut solo album, "Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports". In advance of its release, technical constraints led to some changes to the running order and content of "The Wall", with "What Shall We Do Now?" replaced by the similar but shorter "Empty Spaces", and "Hey You" being moved from the end of side three to the beginning. With the November 1979 deadline approaching, the band left the inner sleeves of the album unchanged.


title: The Wall

text: Mason's early drum sessions were performed in an open space on the top floor of Britannia Row Studios. The 16-track recordings from these sessions were mixed down and copied onto a 24-track master, as guide tracks for the rest of the band to play to. This gave the engineers greater flexibility, but also improved the audio quality of the mix, as the original 16-track drum recordings were synced to the 24-track master and the duplicated guide tracks removed. Ezrin later related the band's alarm at this method of working – they apparently viewed the erasure of material from the 24-track master as "witchcraft".


title: The Wall

text: While at Super Bear studios, Waters agreed to Ezrin's suggestion that several tracks, including "Nobody Home", "The Trial" and "Comfortably Numb", should have an orchestral accompaniment. Michael Kamen, who had previously worked with David Bowie, was booked to oversee these arrangements, which were performed by musicians from the New York Philharmonic and New York Symphony Orchestras, and a choir from the New York City Opera. Their sessions were recorded at CBS Studios in New York without Pink Floyd present. Kamen eventually met the band once recording was complete.


title: The Wall

text: "Comfortably Numb" has its origins in Gilmour's debut solo album, and was the source of much argument between Waters and Gilmour. Ezrin claimed that the song initially started life as "Roger's record, about Roger, for Roger", but he thought that it needed further work. Waters changed the key of the verse and added more lyrics to the chorus, and Gilmour added extra bars for the line "I have become comfortably numb". Waters's "stripped-down and harder" recording was not to Gilmour's liking; Gilmour preferred Ezrin's "grander Technicolor, orchestral version", although Ezrin preferred Waters's version. Following a major argument in a North Hollywood restaurant, the two compromised; the song's body included the orchestral arrangement, with Gilmour's second and final guitar solo standing alone.


title: The Wall

text: Ezrin and Waters oversaw the capture of the album's sound effects. Waters recorded the phone call used on the original demo for "Young Lust", but neglected to inform its recipient, Mason, who assumed it was a prank call and angrily hung up. A real telephone operator was also an unwitting participant. The call references Waters' viewpoint of his bitter 1975 divorce from first wife Judy. Waters also recorded ambient sounds along Hollywood Boulevard by hanging a microphone from a studio window. Engineer Phil Taylor recorded some of the screeching tyre noises on "Run Like Hell" from a studio car park, and a television set being destroyed was used on "One of My Turns". At Britannia Row Studios, Nick Griffiths recorded the smashing of crockery for the same song. Television broadcasts were used, and one actor, recognising his voice, accepted a financial settlement from the group in lieu of legal action against them.


title: The Wall

text: The maniacal schoolmaster was voiced by Waters, and actress Trudy Young supplied the groupie's voice. Backing vocals were performed by a range of artists, although a planned appearance by the Beach Boys on "The Show Must Go On" and "Waiting for the Worms" was cancelled by Waters, who instead settled for Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and Toni Tennille.


title: The Wall

text: Ezrin's suggestion to release "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" as a single with a disco-style beat did not initially find favour with Gilmour, although Mason and Waters were more enthusiastic. Waters opposed releasing a single, but became receptive once he listened to Ezrin and Guthrie's mix. With two identical verses the song was felt to be lacking, and so a copy was sent to Griffiths in London with a request to find children to perform several versions of the lyrics. Griffiths contacted Alun Renshaw, head of music at the nearby Islington Green school, who was enthusiastic, saying: "I wanted to make music relevant to the kids – not just sitting around listening to Tchaikovsky. I thought the lyrics were great – 'We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control ...' I just thought it would be a wonderful experience for the kids."


title: The Wall

text: Griffiths first recorded small groups of pupils and then invited more, telling them to affect a Cockney accent and shout rather than sing. He multitracked the voices, making the groups sound larger, before sending his recordings back to Los Angeles. The result delighted Waters, and the song was released as a single, becoming a Christmas number one. There was some controversy when the British press reported that the children had not been paid for their efforts; they were eventually given copies of the album, and the school received a £1,000 donation (£ in contemporary value).


title: The Wall

text: The album's cover art is one of Pink Floyd's most minimal – a white brick wall and no text. Waters had a falling out with Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgerson a few years earlier when Thorgerson had included the cover of "Animals" in his book "The Work of Hipgnosis: 'Walk Away René"'. "The Wall" is therefore the first album cover of the band since "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" not to be created by the design group. Issues of the album would include the lettering of the artist name and album title by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, either as a sticker on sleeve wrapping or printed onto the cover itself, in either black or red. Scarfe, who had previously created animations for the band's "In the Flesh" tour, also created the LP's inside sleeve art and labels of both vinyl records of the album, showing the eponymous wall in various stages of construction, accompanied by characters from the story. The drawings would be translated into dolls for "The Wall" Tour, as well as into Scarfe's animated segments shown during the tour and the film based on the album. It is notable that the stadium drawn in the inner sleeve looks a lot like the Montreal Olympic Stadium where the album's concept happens to find its origin. It seems plausible that the artist was inspired by the stadium's appearance in 1977 and its inclined tower which was completed only at a third of its projected (and present) height, reminiscent of the many "towers" pictured in the artist's stadium.


title: The Wall

text: When the completed album was played for an assembled group of executives at Columbia's headquarters in California, several were reportedly unimpressed by what they heard. Matters had not been helped when Columbia Records offered Waters smaller publishing rights on the grounds that "The Wall" was a double album, a position he did not accept. When one executive offered to settle the dispute with a coin toss, Waters asked why he should gamble on something he owned. He eventually prevailed. The record company's concerns were alleviated when "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" reached number one in the UK, US, Norway, Portugal, West Germany and South Africa. It was certified platinum in the UK in December 1979, and platinum in the US three months later. In Germany, the album reached the one million sales mark within three months of its release. In Canada, the album had sold 830,000 copies by January 1981.


title: The Wall

text: "The Wall" was released in the UK and in the US on 30 November 1979. Coinciding with its release, Waters was interviewed by veteran DJ Tommy Vance, who played the album in its entirety on BBC Radio 1. Critical opinion of its content was mixed. Reviewing for "Rolling Stone" in February 1980, Kurt Loder hailed it as "a stunning synthesis of Waters's by now familiar thematic obsessions" that "leaps to life with a relentless lyrical rage that's clearly genuine and, in its painstaking particularity, ultimately horrifying." By contrast, "The Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau regarded it as "a dumb tribulations-of-a-rock-star epic" backed by "kitschy minimal maximalism with sound effects and speech fragments", adding in "The New York Times" that its worldview is "self-indulgent" and "presents the self-pity of its rich, famous and decidedly post-adolescent protagonist as a species of heroism". "Melody Maker" declared, "I'm not sure whether it's brilliant or terrible, but I find it utterly compelling."


title: The Wall

text: Nevertheless, the album topped the Billboard charts for 15 weeks, selling over a million copies in its first two months of sales and in 1999 was certified 23× platinum. It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time in the US, between 1979 and 1990 selling over 19 million copies worldwide. "The Wall" is Pink Floyd's second-best selling album after 1973's "The Dark Side of the Moon".


title: The Wall

text: Engineer James Guthrie's efforts were rewarded in 1980 with a Grammy award for Best Engineered Recording (non-classical), and the album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. "Rolling Stone" placed it at number 87 on its "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list in 2003, maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, although this was updated to 129 with the list's 2020 revision. Based on such rankings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists "The Wall" as the 166th most acclaimed album in history.


title: The Wall

text: "The Wall", said Billy Corgan at his induction of the Floyd into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, was "at my tender age of fourteen… too creepy, too intense, too nihilistic. And, of course, these are all the things that I believe in now… But at twenty-eight years old, it's one of the bravest records I've ever heard. And I really can't point to anything else that's ever summed up everything that's fucked up about life; everything that's fucked up about rock. It takes on politics, hero worship, rock 'n' roll, and our desires to connect with the universe, all in one fell swoop. It really, truly, is an amazing testament to how far they were willing to go to reach the outer limits of what's important."


title: The Wall

text: ""The Wall" is stupefyingly good," Waters declared in 1992. "Christ, what a brilliant idea that was. It holds together so well… And of course Dave's musical influence on that was considerable. Despite what has happened between us since then, I still have great respect for him as a guitarist."


title: The Wall

text: A 1994 digitally remastered CD version manufactured in China omits "Young Lust", but retains a composition credit for Waters/Gilmour in the booklet. The album was reissued in three versions as part of the "Why Pink Floyd...?" campaign, which featured a massive restoration of the band's catalogue with remastering by producer James Guthrie: in 2011, a "Discovery" edition, featuring the remastered version with no extras; and in 2012, both the "Experience" edition, which adds a bonus disc of unreleased material and other supplementary items, and the "Immersion" version, a seven-disc collection that also adds video materials. The album was reissued under the Pink Floyd Records label on 26 August 2016 along with "The Division Bell".


title: The Wall

text: Despite it eventually becoming possible to fit more than 80 minutes of audio onto a single CD, all official uncut releases of the album have so far comprised two CDs.


title: The Wall

text: "The Wall Tour" opened at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on 7 February 1980. As the band played, a wall of cardboard bricks was gradually built between them and the audience. Several characters were realised as giant inflatables, including a pig, replete with a crossed hammers logo. Scarfe was employed to produce a series of animations to be projected onto the wall. At his London studio, he employed a team of 40 animators to create nightmarish visions of the future, including a dove of peace, a schoolmaster, and Pink's mother.


title: The Wall

text: For "Comfortably Numb", while Waters sang his opening verse, Gilmour waited in darkness at the top of the wall, standing on a flight case on casters, held steady by a technician, both precariously balanced atop a hydraulic platform. On cue, bright blue and white lights would suddenly illuminate him. At the end of the concert, the wall collapsed, revealing the band. Along with the songs on the album, the tour featured an instrumental medley, "The Last Few Bricks", played before "Goodbye Cruel World" to allow the construction crew to complete the wall.


title: The Wall

text: During the tour, band relationships dropped to an all-time low; four Winnebagos were parked in a circle, with the doors facing away from the centre. Waters used his own vehicle to arrive at the venue, and stayed in separate hotels from the rest of the band. Wright, returning as a salaried musician, was the only member of the band to profit from the tour, which lost about £400,000.


title: The Wall

text: A film adaptation, "Pink Floyd – The Wall", was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in July 1982. It was written by Waters and directed by Alan Parker, with Bob Geldof as Pink. It used Scarfe's animation alongside actors, with little conventional dialogue. A modified soundtrack was created for some of the film's songs.


title: The Wall

text: On 21 July 1990, Waters and producer Tony Hollingsworth created "The Wall – Live in Berlin", staged for charity at a site once occupied by part of the Berlin Wall. In the concert, great artists of the 80's played at the concert, such as Scorpions, Cyndi Lauper, Sinéad O'Connor, Ute Lemper, Tim Curry, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams and many more artists. The concert was broadcast on television in 52 countries, and was later released as a video and album at the end of that same year, although they omitted the song "Outside the Wall" and instead played "The Tide Is Turning", a song from Roger Waters' 1987 solo album Radio K.A.O.S. In 2003, the album was remastered and for the first time, the video was released on DVD.


title: The Wall

text: In 2000, Pink Floyd released "Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980–81", which contains portions of various live shows from the Wall Tour, but mainly the shows in the Earls Court in London. In 2012, it was remastered and released on The Wall "Immersion" Box-Set as an extra.


title: The Wall

text: Beginning in 2010 and with dates lasting into 2013, Waters performed the album worldwide on his tour, "The Wall Live". This had a much wider wall, updated higher quality projected content and leading-edge projection technology. Gilmour and Mason played at one show in London at The O2 Arena. A film of the live concert, "", was released in 2015.


title: The Wall

text: In 2016, Waters adapted "The Wall" into an opera, "" with contemporary classical composer Julien Bilodeau. It premiered at Opéra de Montréal in March 2017, and was produced by Cincinnati Opera in July 2018. It is orchestrated for a score of eight soloists, 48 chorus members, and a standard 70-piece operatic orchestra.


title: The Wall

text: In 2018, a tribute album "The Wall [Redux]" was released, with individual artists covering the entire album. This included Melvins' version of "In The Flesh?", Pallbearer covering "Run Like Hell", former Screaming Trees' singer Mark Lanegan covering "Nobody Home" and Church of the Cosmic Skull reworking "The Trial".


title: Ray Dalio

text: Raymond Thomas Dalio (born August 8, 1949) is an American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager, who has served as co-chief investment officer of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, since 1985. He founded Bridgewater in 1975 in New York. A $5 million investment from the World Bank's retirement fund was made within five years. His innovations are regarded as some of the best in the industry, having popularized many commonly used practices, such as risk parity, currency overlay, portable alpha and global inflation-indexed bond management.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio was born in New York City and attended C.W. Post College of Long Island University before receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1973. Two years later, in his apartment, Dalio launched Bridgewater. In 2013, it was listed as the largest hedge fund in the world. In 2020 "Bloomberg" ranked him the world's 79th-wealthiest person. Dalio is the author of the 2017 book "Principles: Life & Work", about corporate management and investment philosophy. It was featured on "The New York Times" best seller list, where it was called a "gospel of radical transparency."


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio was born in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City's Queens borough. When he was 8, the family moved from Jackson Heights to Manhasset in Nassau County, New York. He is the son of a jazz musician, Marino Dallolio (1911–2002), who "played the clarinet and saxophone at Manhattan jazz clubs such as the Copacabana," and Ann, a homemaker. As a child, Dalio had various odd jobs, including mowing lawns, shoveling snow, and a paper route. He is of Italian descent. At age 12, he started caddying at The Links Golf Club, which was within walking distance of his childhood home. He caddied for many Wall Street professionals during his time there, including Wall Street veteran George Leib. Leib and his wife Isabelle invited Dalio to their Park Avenue apartment for family dinners and holiday gatherings. The couple's son, a Wall Street trader, later gave Dalio a summer job at his trading firm. He began investing at age 12, when he bought shares of Northeast Airlines for $300 and tripled his investment after the airline merged with another company. By the time he reached high school, he had built up an investment portfolio of several thousand dollars. He received a bachelor's degree in finance from Long Island University (C.W. Post College) and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1973.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In his high school years, Dalio was an average student. He found school repetitive and monotonous and saw no practical applications for the skills he was learning. Because of this, he had trouble finding a college at which to enroll. He finally applied and got into C.W. Post College, a campus of Long Island University. He continued to buy and sell stocks in college, but became attracted to something new: commodity futures. Commodity futures had low borrowing requirements at the time, and Dalio knew he could profit more handsomely than with simple stocks. At the same time, he was beginning to enjoy school. With more freedom given to him, he took up transcendental meditation, which he still practices to this day. Through the use of this stress-management technique and a renewed interest in learning, Dalio achieved academic excellence. At the end of his time at C.W. Post College, he was admitted to Harvard Business School.


title: Ray Dalio

text: After graduating from C.W. Post College, Dalio had a free summer. He took a job as a clerk on the New York Stock Exchange. While there, he witnessed Nixon's decision to take the United States off of the gold standard. Due to the inflation this caused, stock prices on the exchange rose, on average, 33% the following day. These events set in motion the Great Inflation of the 1970s. The combination of easy money policy and abandonment of fiscal discipline set prices soaring. The next summer, after his first year at Harvard, Dalio and his friends created the company that later became Bridgewater Associates. It started off as a small entity, and its goal was to trade commodities. But they lacked experience and the venture yielded little fruit. Although the original Bridgewater failed, Dalio later used the name to start what would become the largest hedge fund in history. The experience of trading commodities later became much more valuable, as the high-interest rates used to break the back of inflation caused the stock market to fall. This caused investors on Wall Street to turn to commodities, which are typically more resilient and thrive during times of inflation.


title: Ray Dalio

text: After graduating from Harvard, Dalio married and started a family. He moved to Wilton, Connecticut, where he lived and traded out of a converted barn. Dalio then worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and traded commodity futures. He later worked as the Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick LLC. In 1974 he became a futures trader and broker at Shearson Hayden Stone, a securities firm run by Sandy Weil, who later became famous for building up Citigroup. At the firm, Dalio's job was to advise cattle ranchers, grain producers, and other farmers on how to hedge risks, primarily with futures. But he was largely dissatisfied with Shearson Hayden Stone's hierarchical structure, which reminded him of primary education. He longed for the more freedom-based lifestyle of college. At one point, he paid a stripper to drop her clothes in front of a crowd at the annual convention of the California Food and Grain Growers' Association. His creative ways of blowing off steam continued, and exploded on New Year's Eve in 1974 after he went out drinking with some colleagues, including his boss. After a disagreement with his superior, a drunk Dalio punched him in the face. Soon afterward, he was let go from his job at Shearson Hayden Stone.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Despite his aggressive behavior, numerous clients at Shearson Hayden Stone retained their trust in Dalio, and continued to allow him to manage their money. With this capital, he was able to scrape together the beginnings of his asset management fund. In 1975, he founded Bridgewater Associates out of his two-bedroom New York City apartment. Bridgewater started out as a wealth advisory firm, in which capacity it served numerous corporate clients, mostly retained from Dalio's job at Shearson Hayden Stone. The main areas in which Dalio advised were currencies and interest rates. The company began publishing a paid subscription research report, "Daily Observations", in which it analyzed global market trends. Dalio's big break came when McDonald's signed on as a client of his firm. Bridgewater then began to grow rapidly. The firm signed on larger clients, including the pension funds for the World Bank and Eastman Kodak. In 1981 the firm opened an office in Westport, Connecticut, which was where Ray and his wife wanted to start a family. Dalio started to become well-known outside of Wall Street after turning a profit from the 1987 stock market crash. The next year, he appeared on an "Oprah Winfrey Show" episode titled "Do Foreigners Own America?" In 1991, he launched Bridgewater's flagship strategy, "Pure Alpha", a reference to the Greek letter that, in Wall Street terminology, represents the surcharge a money manager can earn above a particular market benchmark, such as the NASDAQ. In 1996, Dalio launched All Weather, a fund that pioneered a steady, low-risk strategy that later became known as risk parity.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Bridgewater Associates became the world's largest hedge fund in 2005. From 1991 to 2005, it lost money in only three calendar years, and never more than 4%. During the same period, the S&P 500 also had three down years, including a negative return of 22.1% in 2002. The fund grew in size by using the standard hedge fund model, which takes a 2% management fee of assets and 20% of yearly profits accrued from using an investment system. By 2005, Dalio was managing money for extremely large entities, including the $196 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the $27 billion Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System| (Penn SERS or SERS), Melbourne-based National Australia Bank Ltd. and the pension fund of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp. In 2007, Bridgewater suggested there might be a global financial crisis, and in 2008 Dalio published "How the Economic Machine Works: A Template for Understanding What is Happening Now", an essay assessing the potential of various economies by various criteria. The firm's total assets under management increased to $50 billion in 2007 (up from $33 billion seven years earlier).


title: Ray Dalio

text: According to a 2007 article in "Barron's" magazine, "nobody was better prepared for the global market crash" than Bridgewater's clients and subscribers to its "Daily Observations". The company "began sounding alarms...in the spring of 2007 about the dangers of excessive financial leverage." Researchers at the firm examined the public records of most of the world's largest financial entities and discovered that estimated future liabilities related to bad debts totaled $839 billion. When Dalio met with U.S. Treasury Department staff and other White House economic advisors in December, these findings were disclosed but were largely ignored. Due to this research, Bridgewater's Pure Alpha fund avoided much of the 2008 stock market implosion for its investors. In 2008, a disastrous year for many of Bridgewater’s rivals, the firm’s flagship Pure Alpha fund rose in value by 9.5% after accounting for fees. Dalio did this by anticipating that the Federal Reserve would be forced to print a lot of money to revive the economy. He went long on Treasury bonds, shorted the dollar, and bought gold and other commodities. During his 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain paid a visit to the firm and spoke to staff. The next year was not as bright. In 2009, when economic growth was higher than expected and the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by 19%, the company's Pure Alpha fund reportedly earned just 2% to 4%.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In 2011, Dalio self-published a 123-page volume, "Principles", that outlines his philosophy of investment and corporate management. By that same year, Dalio was managing money for the SERS, Kodak, General Motors and the Government Investment Corporation of Singapore. In 2012, he appeared on the annual "Time" 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2011 and 2012, "Bloomberg Markets" listed him as one of the 50 Most Influential people. Under Dalio's leadership, Bridgewater's Pure Alpha II had just three losing years in its history, with an average return of 10.4%. A stake in Bridgewater Associates Intermediate Holdings, LP was purchased by the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) for $250 million in February 2012. This stake was non-voting and thus provided the pension fund with very little control of corporate governance. "Institutional Investor's Alpha" ranked Dalio No. 2 on its 2012 Rich List. Dalio has controlled Bridgewater Associates alongside co-chief investment officers Bob Prince and Greg Jensen since its inception. The hedge fund recently announced plans to reorganize as a partnership. Dalio said the reason for this was the continued sustainability and profit-sharing of the company. Dalio was co-CEO of Bridgewater for 10 months before announcing in March 2017 that he would step down as part of a company-wide shakeup by April 15. The company had been in a seven-year management and equity transition to find a replacement. Jon Rubinstein, co-CEO of the fund, was announced to step down with Dalio, but would retain an advisory role. As of October 2017 Bridgewater Associates had $160 billion in assets under management. In reference to the personality that led him to investment success, Dalio has said that he considers himself a "hyperrealist", and that he is motivated to understand the mechanisms that dictate how the world actually functions, without adding in abstract value judgments.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio uses multiple strategies with Bridgewater Associates, allocating capital to each as he sees fit. According to Dalio, Bridgewater Associates is a "global macro firm", investing around economic trends, such as changes in exchange rates, inflation, and G.D.P. growth. The New Yorker called Dalio “a big-picture thinker connected to a street-smart trader". Dalio divides his holdings into two different areas: beta investments and alpha investments. Beta investments produce returns through passive management and normal market risk. Alpha investments are actively managed and aim to generate better returns than beta investments. Alpha investments are not related to the general market. Dalio uses "quantitative" investment methods to identify new investments while avoiding unrealistic historical models. Dalio's goal is to structure portfolios with uncorrelated investment returns based on risk allocations rather than asset allocations. Dalio's hedge fund mostly accepts money from institutional clients such as pension funds, foundations, endowments, and central banks. Private investors can rarely invest in Dalio's holdings.


title: Ray Dalio

text: When it comes to application, Dalio translates his market insights into algorithms, much like fellow quantitative hedge fund managers David Elliot Shaw and Jim Simons. His strategy mainly focuses on currency and fixed income markets. This is in contrast to buying individual shares in companies, like investors such as Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. Dalio also popularized the risk parity approach, which he uses for risk management and diversification within Bridgewater Associates. Dalio employs an investment strategy that blends conventional diversification with "wagers on or against markets around the world" according to Bloomberg. Dalio's risk parity approach allows for both leverage and external diversification when investing, as well as short selling. This allows Dalio to use any asset combination he chooses when investing. Dalio's strategy uses an optimal risk target level as its basis for investing. This is in contrast to first allocating capital and then achieving a risk target. Dalio implements this strategy by using leverage to evenly distribute exposure across various asset classes while maintaining the best risk target level. Dalio began using the term "d-process" in February 2009 to describe the deleveraging and deflationary process of the subprime mortgage industry as distinct from a recession, and subsequently incorporated the term into his investment philosophy. Dalio's exact investment portfolios are largely kept a secret from the outside world. This includes most employees as well as external investors, and only a dozen people within his firm understand how it trades at a given time.


title: Ray Dalio

text: While Dalio has stated that capitalism is generally the best economic system, he has argued that it needs to be reformed due to it "not working well for most Americans". In April 7, 2019, Dalio said on "60 Minutes" that income inequality in the United States was a national emergency requiring reform. In July 2019, he again called for refinement of capitalism and called wealth inequality a national emergency. In November 2019, he posted a blog entry stating that excess capital, unfunded social liabilities, and government deficits had created a recipe for disaster, in what he called a "paradigm shift". In May 2020, he stressed the importance of reforming capitalism, not abandoning it, saying, "As the current crisis unfolds, we should remember that throughout history, capitalism has proven to be the best system, though it can sometimes be highly flawed." In October 2020, Dalio said that there has been little income growth for average citizens over the preceding two decades, with the bottom 60% of workers having no inflation-adjusted income growth since the 1980s. He mentioned that income inequality was at its highest level since the 1930s, when the top 1% of earners had more wealth than the bottom 99% combined. Dalio said that the odds of a low-wage earner moving to a higher level of wealth were decreasing over time and that this demonstrated Americans' lower economic and social mobility. He warned that inequality was becoming more entrenched and rising fast. He said that a hypothetical improved capitalism would have to be good at creating a bigger pie and redistributing it as well.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In October 2020, Dalio cautioned people to not be blind to China's rise, arguing that it had continued to emerge as a global superpower. He claimed that China had succeeded in "exceptional ways", including high economic performance in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the lowest COVID-19 case rates, and being the center of half of all listed initial public offerings globally. Dalio asserted that when he visited China in 1984, high-ranking officials would marvel at basic technology such as calculators, calling them "miracle devices". He argued that China was now on a par with the U.S. in advanced technologies and would probably take the lead in the next five years. In addition, Dalio said that there were many indicators that favored China. He discussed the growing population of well-educated citizens, as well as China's continued growth in the absorption and processing of data, which many headlines have called "the new oil". Dalio also called China favorable from an investor's perspective. He said that the Chinese economy's fundamentals were strong and its assets relatively attractively priced. Dalio also maintained that China's stocks and bonds were currently underweighted in terms of the global portfolio, and that the U.S. was bloated. A natural shift in pricing would give China another comparative advantage. While stressing that things could always go wrong, Dalio stated that he believed China's path of economic reform would continue, bringing it unabated prosperity. He also downplayed and denied Chinese human rights violations, instead likening the Chinese government to a "strict parent". Dalio's stance on China has garnered criticism.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In August 2022, Ray Dalio's Bridgewater wiped its portfolio clean of almost all Chinese stocks, including Alibaba, Bilibili, NetEase, JD.com, DiDi Global.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio lives with his wife Barbara, a descendant of sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, in Greenwich, Connecticut. They have four sons, Devon, Paul, Matthew, and Mark. Their oldest son, Devon, died in an automobile accident in 2020 at age 42. Their second son, Paul Dalio (born 1979), is a film director.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio has suffered from Barrett's esophagus, a form of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), a pre-malignant condition that if not treated properly can lead to cancer.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In 2011, Dalio was the subject of John Cassidy's "New Yorker" article "Mastering the Machine". In 2015, "Forbes" estimated his net worth at $15.4 billion, making him the second-wealthiest hedge fund manager after George Soros. In 2014 he reportedly earned $1.1 billion, including a share of his firm's management and performance fees, cash compensation and stock and option awards. In 2018, Dalio was estimated to have personally received $2 billion in compensation for the year, after his fund posted a 14.6% return.


title: Ray Dalio

text: According to "Forbes", Dalio has an estimated net worth of $20 billion as of January 21, 2022, ranking him 88th on their billionaires list and 36th on the Forbes 400 list. In January 2022, "Bloomberg News" reported Dalio's net worth as $15.7 billion, making him the world's 123rd-richest person according to their rankings.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In April 2011, Dalio and his wife joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge, vowing to donate more than half his fortune to charitable causes within his lifetime. He created the Dalio Foundation, which serves as his personal philanthropic vehicle. By the end of 2012, the Dalio foundation had built up assets of $590 million. In 2013, Dalio contributed another $400 million to the foundation, which increased its assets to about $842 million.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Through his foundation, Dalio has directed millions in donations to the David Lynch Foundation, which promotes and sponsors research on Transcendental Meditation.


title: Ray Dalio

text: The Dalio Foundation has also contributed to the National Philanthropic Trust, to polio eradication projects.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio has sat on NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital's board of trustees since 2020. In February 2020, the Dalio Foundation donated $10 million to support China's coronavirus recovery efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, the foundation gave $4 million to the state of Connecticut to fund healthcare and nutrition. On October 13, 2020, NYP launched the Dalio Center for Health Justice, a research and advocacy organization, which will focus on reducing differences in access to quality health care that overwhelmingly affect communities of color with a gift of $50 million. The money was used to establish the Dalio Center for Health Justice. In a statement, Dalio said, "Our goal is to contribute to equal healthcare and equal education because we believe that these are the most fundamental building blocks of equal opportunity and a just society."


title: Ray Dalio

text: The foundation has also supported the Fund for Teachers, an initiative that supports professional learning fellowships for teachers. The foundation was part of a group of foundations supporting the 2018 launch of TED's Audacious Project, an initiative to fund social entrepreneurs working to solve global issues. In March 2019, "Forbes" named Dalio one of the highest-earning hedge fund managers and traders. A special focus of his philanthropy is the world's oceans and the effects of damaging them. Dalio's research yacht and submarine have appeared on the Discovery Channel during Shark Week and have been used to hunt for a giant squid. In 2018, OceanX, an initiative of the Dalio family, and Bloomberg Philanthropies committed $185 million over four years to protect the oceans. In 2019, Dalio pledged $100 million to Connecticut public schools.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio has also backed the Volcker Alliance, the public policy group headed by former Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Overall, the Dalio family has donated more than $5 billion to his foundation, and the foundation has given out more than $1 billion in charitable grants.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio is an avid outdoorsman, and enjoys both hunting and fishing. He has hunted cape buffalo, grouse, elk and warthog. He is especially fond of bow-hunting, which is his weapon of choice when hunting.


title: Ray Dalio

text: "How the Economic Machine Works; A Template for Understanding What is Happening Now" is Dalio's first book, published in 2007"." In it, he describes the economy as a machine. His stated aim for the book was to explain how the economic machine works, as he saw many people did not understand. By defining money properly as credit instead of aggregates (currency plus M1, M2 money supply etc.), the total amount of debt in the U.S. is $50 trillion, whereas the total amount of money is $3 trillion. Dalio explains the government "prints" money and uses it to combat some of the consequences of contracting credit. This is reflected in money growing at an extremely fast rate at the same time as credit and real economic activity contract. Dalio argues that if the money printing occurs on a large enough level, it devalues the currency, decreases interest rates and drives investors from financial assets to inflation hedge assets.


title: Ray Dalio

text: "Principles: Life & Work" is Dalio's second book, published in 2017 by Simon and Schuster. It was a "New York Times" #1 bestseller and Amazon's #1 business book of 2017. The catalyst for the book was a frank memo from his top lieutenants in 1993 about his interpersonal performance as a manager at Bridgewater Associates. Following the harsh but realistic critique, Dalio began to develop a unique company culture based on principles and unadorned feedback. He originally published a shorter version of "Principles" online in 2011, which received over three million downloads. He has announced that he will write a second volume, "Principles: Economics & Investing". Dalio has said that he could continue improving his returns by solidifying recurring lessons into "principles".


title: Ray Dalio

text: "Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises" is Dalio's third book, published in 2018. In it, he provides a substructure for interpreting the mechanics of large debt plights. Dalio sets out six stages, from the roots of the crisis to its rectification. He analyzes 48 historical examples of debt crises when real GDP growth fell by 3% or more, in various historical economies, including developed and prosperous countries as well as emerging economies. Dalio categorizes big debt crises into two types—deflationary and inflationary—and provides historical and economic contexts for both, as well as lessons that can be learned from them. The first type of debt crisis is deflationary. Dalio says that deflationary debt rotations generally happen when the majority of debt is denominated in a country’s own currency. An example of a country with this type of issue is Japan. Dalio believes it is possible for legislators to handle these scenarios relatively well, but even a good end result will be extremely costly to some people. The second type of scenario is inflationary. Inflationary debt cycles occur when most debt is denominated in foreign currencies. This situation makes it harder for a country’s policymakers to adjust risk and spread it out, a key step in resolving the crisis. Dalio says that the legislators must choose the beneficiaries and who suffers. This process often necessitates a need to recapitalize systemically important institutions, such as large banks.


title: Ray Dalio

text: Dalio's newest book, "The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail," was published on November 16, 2021.


title: Ray Dalio

text: In 2012, Dalio received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, during the International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. CNBC listed "Principles" among the 13 Best Business Books of 2017. Dalio was called the "Steve Jobs of Investing" by "aiCIO Magazine" and "Wired Magazine."


title: Portmanteau

text: A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words in which parts of multiple words are combined into a new word, as in "smog", coined by blending "smoke" and "fog", or "motel", from "motor" and "hotel". In linguistics, a portmanteau is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes. When portmanteaus shorten established compounds, they can be considered clipped compounds.


title: Portmanteau

text: A portmanteau word is similar to a "contraction", but contractions are formed from words that would otherwise appear together in sequence, such as "do" and "not" to make "don't", whereas a portmanteau is formed by combining two or more existing words that all relate to a single concept. A portmanteau also differs from a compound, which does not involve the truncation of parts of the stems of the blended words. For instance, "starfish" is a compound, not a portmanteau, of "star" and "fish", as it includes both words in full. If it were called a ""stish"" or a ""starsh"", it would be a portmanteau.


title: Portmanteau

text: The word "portmanteau" was introduced in this sense by Lewis Carroll in the book "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871), where Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the coinage of unusual words used in "Jabberwocky". "Slithy" means "slimy and lithe" and "mimsy" means "miserable and flimsy". Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice the practice of combining words in various ways, comparing it to the then-common type of luggage, which opens into two equal parts:


title: Portmanteau

text: In his introduction to his 1876 poem "The Hunting of the Snark", Carroll again uses "portmanteau" when discussing lexical selection:


title: Portmanteau

text: In then-contemporary English, a portmanteau was a suitcase that opened into two equal sections. According to the OED Online, a portmanteau is a "case or bag for carrying clothing and other belongings when travelling; (originally) one of a form suitable for carrying on horseback; (now esp.) one in the form of a stiff leather case hinged at the back to open into two equal parts". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHD), the etymology of the word is the French , from , "to carry", and , "cloak" (from Old French , from Latin ). According to the OED Online, the etymology of the word is the "officer who carries the mantle of a person in a high position (1507 in Middle French), case or bag for carrying clothing (1547), clothes rack (1640)". In modern French, a is a clothes valet, a coat-tree or similar article of furniture for hanging up jackets, hats, umbrellas and the like.


title: Portmanteau

text: An occasional synonym for "portmanteau word" is "frankenword", an autological word exemplifying the phenomenon it describes, blending "Frankenstein" and "word".


title: Portmanteau

text: Many neologisms are examples of blends, but many blends have become part of the lexicon. In "Punch" in 1896, the word brunch (breakfast + lunch) was introduced as a "portmanteau word". In 1964, the newly independent African republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar chose the portmanteau word Tanzania as its name. Similarly Eurasia is a portmanteau of Europe and Asia.


title: Portmanteau

text: Some city names are portmanteaus of the border regions they straddle: Texarkana spreads across the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana border, while Calexico and Mexicali are respectively the American and Mexican sides of a single conurbation. A scientific example is a "liger", which is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger (a "tigon" is a similar cross in which the male is a tiger).


title: Portmanteau

text: Many company or brand names are portmanteaus, including Microsoft, a portmanteau of "microcomputer" and "software"; the cheese "Cambozola" combines a similar rind to "Camembert" with the same mould used to make "Gorgonzola"; passenger rail company "Amtrak", a portmanteau of "America" and "track"; "Velcro", a portmanteau of the French (velvet) and (hook); "Verizon", a portmanteau of (Latin for truth) and "horizon"; and ComEd (a Chicago-area electric utility company), a portmanteau of "Commonwealth" and "Edison".


title: Portmanteau

text: "Jeoportmanteau!" is a recurring category on the American television quiz show "Jeopardy!" The category's name is itself a portmanteau of the words "Jeopardy" and "portmanteau". Responses in the category are portmanteaus constructed by fitting two words together.


title: Portmanteau

text: Portmanteau words may be produced by joining proper nouns with common nouns, such as "gerrymandering", which refers to the scheme of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry for politically contrived redistricting; the perimeter of one of the districts thereby created resembled a very curvy salamander in outline. The term gerrymander has itself contributed to portmanteau terms bjelkemander and playmander.


title: Portmanteau

text: Oxbridge is a common portmanteau for the UK's two oldest universities, those of Oxford and Cambridge. In 2016, Britain's planned exit from the European Union became known as "Brexit".


title: Portmanteau

text: The word "refudiate" was famously used by Sarah Palin when she misspoke, conflating the words "refute" and "repudiate". Though the word was a gaffe, it was recognized as the "New Oxford American Dictionary"s "Word of the Year" in 2010.


title: Portmanteau

text: The business lexicon includes words like "advertainment" (advertising as entertainment), "advertorial" (a blurred distinction between advertising and editorial), "infotainment" (information about entertainment or itself intended to entertain by its manner of presentation), and "infomercial" (informational commercial).


title: Portmanteau

text: Company and product names may also use portmanteau words: examples include "Timex" (a portmanteau of "Time" [referring to Time magazine] and Kleenex), Renault's "Twingo" (a combination of "twist", "swing" and "tango"), and Garmin (portmanteau of company founders' first names Gary Burrell and Min Kao). "Desilu Productions" was a Los Angeles–based company jointly owned by actor couple Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Miramax is the combination of the first names of the parents of the Weinstein brothers.


title: Portmanteau

text: Two proper names can also be used in creating a portmanteau word in reference to the partnership between people, especially in cases where both persons are well-known, or sometimes to produce epithets such as "Billary" (referring to former United States president Bill Clinton and his wife, former United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton). In this example of recent American political history, the purpose for blending is not so much to combine the meanings of the source words but "to suggest a resemblance of one named person to the other"; the effect is often derogatory, as linguist Benjamin Zimmer states. For instance, Putler is used by critics of Vladimir Putin, merging his name with Adolf Hitler. By contrast, the public, including the media, use portmanteaus to refer to their favorite pairings as a way to "...giv[e] people an essence of who they are within the same name." This is particularly seen in cases of fictional and real-life "supercouples". An early known example, Bennifer, referred to film stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Other examples include Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) and TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). On Wednesday, 28 June 2017, "The New York Times" crossword included the quip, "How I wish Natalie Portman dated Jacques Cousteau, so I could call them 'Portmanteau'".


title: Portmanteau

text: Holidays are another example, as in Thanksgivukkah, a portmanteau neologism given to the convergence of the American holiday of Thanksgiving and the first day of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah on Thursday, 28 November 2013. Chrismukkah is another pop-culture portmanteau neologism popularized by the TV drama "The O.C.", merging of the holidays of Christianity's Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah.


title: Portmanteau

text: In the Disney film "Big Hero 6", the film is situated in a fictitious city called "San Fransokyo", which is a portmanteau of two real locations, San Francisco and Tokyo.


title: Portmanteau

text: Modern Hebrew abounds with blending. Along with CD, or simply (), Hebrew has the blend (), which consists of (, 'phonograph record') and (, 'light'). Other blends in Hebrew include the following:


title: Portmanteau

text: Sometimes the root of the second word is truncated, giving rise to a blend that resembles an acrostic:


title: Portmanteau

text: There is a tradition of linguistic purism in Icelandic, and neologisms are frequently created from pre-existing words. For example, 'computer' is a portmanteau of 'digit, number' and 'oracle, seeress'.


title: Portmanteau

text: In the Malaysian national language of Bahasa Melayu, the word jadong was constructed out of three Malay words for evil ("jahat"), stupid ("bodoh") and arrogant ("sombong") to be used on the worst kinds of community and religious leaders who mislead naive, submissive and powerless folk under their thrall.


title: Portmanteau

text: A very common type of portmanteau in Japanese forms one word from the beginnings of two others (that is, from two back-clippings). The portion of each input word retained is usually two morae, which is tantamount to one kanji in most words written in kanji.


title: Portmanteau

text: The inputs to the process can be native words, Sino-Japanese words, gairaigo (later borrowings), or combinations thereof. A Sino-Japanese example is the name for the University of Tokyo, in full . With borrowings, typical results are words such as , meaning personal computer (PC), which despite being formed of English elements does not exist in English; it is a uniquely Japanese contraction of the English . Another example, , is a contracted form of the English words and . A famous example of a blend with mixed sources is , blending the Japanese word for and the Greek word . The Japanese fad of egg-shaped keychain pet toys from the 1990s, Tamagotchi, is a portmanteau combining the two Japanese words tamago (たまご), which means "egg", and uotchi (ウオッチ) "watch". The portmanteau can also be seen as a combination of tamago (たまご), "egg", and tomodachi (友だち), which means "friend".


title: Portmanteau

text: Some titles also are portmanteaus, such as "Hetalia" (ヘタリア). It came from He"tare (ヘタレ), which means "idiot", and Ita"lia (イタリア) which means Italy. Another example is "Servamp",


title: Portmanteau

text: Although traditionally uncommon in Spanish, portmanteaus are increasingly finding their way into the language, mainly for marketing and commercial purposes. Examples in Mexican Spanish include from combining "coffee shop" and "bookstore", or 'telethon' from combining and . Portmanteaus are also frequently used to make commercial brands, such as "chocolleta" from "chocolate" + "galleta." They are also often used to create business company names, especially for small, family-owned businesses, where owners' names are combined to create a unique name (such as Rocar, from "Roberto" + "Carlos", or Mafer, from "María" + "Fernanda"). These usages are helpful for registering of a distinguishable trademark.


title: Portmanteau

text: A somewhat popular example in Spain is the word , a portmanteau of ("cockerel and elephant"). It was the prize on the Spanish version of the children TV show "Child's Play" () that ran on the public television channel La 1 of Televisión Española (TVE) from 1988 to 1992.


title: Portmanteau

text: In linguistics, a blend is an amalgamation or fusion of independent lexemes, while a "portmanteau" or "portmanteau morph" is a single morph that is analyzed as representing two (or more) underlying morphemes. For example, in the Latin word , the ending is a portmanteau morph because it is used for two morphemes: the singular number and the genitive case. In English, two separate morphs are used: "of an animal". Other examples include → and → .


title: Amon Göth

text: Amon Leopold Göth (; alternative spelling "Goeth"; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II.


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth was tried after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people. He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial, for "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified number of people."


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth was executed by hanging not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp. The 1993 film "Schindler's List", in which Göth is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, depicts his running of the Płaszów concentration camp.


title: Amon Göth

text: Amon Göth, an only child named after his father and grandfather, was born on 11 December 1908 in Vienna to a wealthy Catholic family in the book publishing industry. His mother was Berta Schwendt Göth and his father, Amon Franz Göth, owned "Verlagsanstalt Amon Franz Göth" (Amon Franz Göth Publishing House). Its offerings included religious literature, postcards, and military history books. He was raised mostly by his aunt, due to his father travelling for business and his mother frequently working at the publishing house. As a child he went by the nickname "Mony". He attended public school in Vienna and later studied agriculture in Waidhofen an der Thaya for a few semesters. He abandoned his studies when he was 17 to pursue his interest in radical right-wing ideas. Göth joined the local youth chapter of the Austrian Nazi Party in 1925 and, from 1927 to 1930, was a member of the "" (Styrian Home Protection Organization in Vienna), a radical and powerful faction of the antisemitic nationalist paramilitary group "Heimwehr" (Home Guard). He dropped his membership to join the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party and was assigned the party membership number 510,764 in September 1930. He was granted full party membership on 31 May 1931. His decision to join the party at this early stage meant that he was considered an "Alter Kämpfer" (Old Fighter), i.e., one who had joined the party before Adolf Hitler's rise to the position of Chancellor of Germany. Göth began working for the party in the "Ortsgruppe" (local group) of the Margareten district in Vienna and soon moved to the Mariahilf "Ortsgruppe", where he was a political leader in the "Sturmabteilung" (SA). Göth joined the Austrian SS in 1930, and was granted full membership in 1932 after the two-year candidacy period. He was appointed an SS-"Mann" with the SS number 43,673.


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth served with the SS "Truppe" Deimel and "Sturm" Libardi in Vienna until January 1933, when he was promoted to serve as adjutant and "Zugführer" (platoon leader) of the 52nd SS-Standarte, a regimental-sized unit. He was soon promoted to SS-"Scharführer" (squad leader). He fled to Germany when his illegal activities, including obtaining explosives for the Nazi Party, made him a wanted man. The Austrian Nazi Party was declared illegal in Austria on 19 June 1933, so it set up operations in exile in Munich. From this base, Göth smuggled radios and weapons into Austria and acted as a courier for the SS. He was arrested in October 1933 by the Austrian authorities but was released for lack of evidence in December 1933. He was again detained after the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed Nazi coup attempt in July 1934. He escaped custody and fled to the SS training facility at Dachau, next to Dachau Concentration Camp. He temporarily quit the SS and Nazi Party activities until 1937 because of differences with his "Oberführer" (commander) Alfred Bigler, and lived in Munich while trying to help his parents to develop their publishing business. He married on the recommendation of his parents, but was divorced after only a few months.


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth returned to Vienna shortly after the Anschluss in 1938 and resumed his party activities. He married Anna Geiger, a woman he met at a motorcycle race, in an SS civil ceremony on 23 October 1938. Prior to the wedding, the couple had to pass a set of strict physical tests administered by the SS to determine the suitability of the marriage. The couple had three children: Peter, born in 1939, who died of diphtheria aged seven months; Werner, born in 1940; and a daughter, Ingeborg, born in 1941. The couple maintained a permanent home in Vienna throughout World War II.


title: Amon Göth

text: Initially assigned to 89th SS-Standarte, Göth was transferred to the 1st SS-Sturmbann of the 11th SS-Standarte at the start of the war, and was promoted to SS-"Oberscharführer" (staff sergeant) in early 1941. On 5 March 1940, he was drafted into the "Wehrmacht" with the rank of "Unterfeldwebel" (Under Field Sergeant), but his continuous SS service record indicates he did not actively serve. From mid-1941 to late May 1942, as "Einsatzführer" (action leader), and financial officer in East Upper Silesia in the Kattowitz office of the "Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums – RKFDV" (Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood), he gained a reputation as a seasoned administrator in the Nazi efforts to isolate, relocate, and kill the Jewish population of Europe. He was commissioned to the rank of SS-"Untersturmführer" (second lieutenant) on 14 July 1941. Göth also received a "Dienstleistungszeugnis" (Certificate of Service) from his commanding officer, praising his service, as well as his physical and ideological traits.


title: Amon Göth

text: He was transferred to Lublin in the summer of 1942, where he joined the staff of SS-"Brigadeführer" Odilo Globočnik, the SS and Police Leader of the Kraków area, as part of Operation Reinhard, the code name given to the establishment of the three extermination camps at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka. Nothing is known of his activities in the six months he served with Operation Reinhard, because participants were sworn to secrecy. But according to the transcripts of his later trial, Göth was responsible for rounding up and transporting victims to these camps to be murdered.


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth was assigned to the "SS-Totenkopfverbände" ("Death's head" unit; concentration camp service). His first assignment, starting on 11 February 1943, was to oversee the construction of the 200 acre Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, which he was to command. Göth was atypical of most SS officers who served in concentration camps, as most hailed from small municipalities. He likely had a personal interview with Heinrich Himmler before being appointed to the post, as was the standard procedure when assigning SS camp commanders. Located on the grounds of two old Jewish cemeteries, the camp took one month to construct using slave labour. On 13 March 1943, the Jewish ghetto of Kraków was liquidated and those still fit for work were sent to the new camp at Płaszów. Several thousand deemed not fit for work were sent to extermination camps and murdered. Hundreds more were murdered on the streets by the Nazis as they cleared out the ghetto. In his opening address as the "Kommandant" of the newly populated camp, Göth told his new prisoners, "I am your god." Göth had complete authority over the camp, especially in this early stage.


title: Amon Göth

text: In addition to his duties at Płaszów, Göth was the officer in charge of the liquidation of the ghetto at Tarnów, which had been home to 25,000 Jews (about 45 per cent of the city's population) at the start of World War II. About 10,000 were sent to Płaszów to be slave labourers. By the time the ghetto was liquidated, 8,000 Jews remained. The final roundup began on 1 September 1943, when the remaining Jews were assembled in Magdeburg Square, which was surrounded by heavily armed guards. The trains were loaded and departed by midday the next day. Most of the victims were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp; less than half survived the journey. Most of the survivors were deemed unsuitable for slave labour and were murdered immediately on their arrival at Auschwitz. According to testimony of several witnesses as recorded in his 1946 indictment for war crimes, Göth personally shot between 30 and 90 women and children during the liquidation of the ghetto.


title: Amon Göth

text: On his birthday in 1943, Göth ordered Natalia Karp, who had just arrived in Płaszów, to play the piano. Karp performed Frédéric Chopin's "Nocturne in C-sharp minor" so well that Göth allowed her and her sister to live.


title: Amon Göth

text: Göth was also the officer in charge of the liquidation of Szebnie concentration camp, which interned 4,000 Jewish and 1,500 Polish slave labourers. Evidence presented at Göth's trial indicates he delegated this task to a subordinate, SS-"Hauptscharführer" Josef Grzimek, who was sent to assist camp commandant SS-"Hauptsturmführer" Hans Kellermann with mass killings. Between 21 September 1943 and 3 February 1944, the camp was gradually liquidated. Almost all of the Polish inmates were transferred to Płaszów or the Bochnia Ghetto, where Göth was also in command. Around a thousand Jews were taken to the nearby forest and shot, and the remainder were sent to Auschwitz, where most were gassed immediately on arrival. After the liquidation, Göth had all the camp's supplies sorted and transported to Płaszów.


title: Amon Göth

text: On 28 July 1943, Göth was assigned to Section F, the SS and Police "Fachgruppe" (section of experts) that specialised in ghetto liquidation and transport. By April 1944, Göth had been promoted to the rank of SS-"Hauptsturmführer" (captain), the highest of the company grade ranks, having received a double promotion, skipping the rank of SS-"Obersturmführer" (first lieutenant). He was also appointed a reserve officer of the Waffen-SS. In early 1944 the status of the Kraków-Płaszów Labour Camp changed to a permanent concentration camp under the direct authority of the "SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt" (WVHA; SS Economics and Administration Office). This distinction made Kraków-Płaszów one of 13 official concentration camps in Poland. Mietek Pemper testified at the trial that it was during the earlier period that Göth committed most of the random and brutal killings for which he became notorious. In early May 1944, Göth was informed that 10,000 Hungarian Jews would soon be sent to be imprisoned in Płaszów. To create space for the new arrivals, on 14 May Göth ordered all children in the camp to be moved to the kindergarten. The next day, Göth had the majority of them, with only a few exceptions, sent to Auschwitz to be killed. Concentration camps were more closely monitored by the SS than labour camps, so conditions improved slightly when the designation was changed.


title: Amon Göth

text: The camp housed about 2,000 inmates when it opened. At its peak of operations in 1944, a staff of 636 guards oversaw 25,000 permanent inmates, and an additional 150,000 people passed through the camp in its role as a transit camp. Göth, described by survivors as a huge and imposing man, personally murdered prisoners on a daily basis. His two dogs, Rolf, a Great Dane, and Ralf, an Alsatian mix, were trained to tear inmates to death. He shot people from the window of his office if they appeared to be moving too slowly or resting in the yard. He shot a Jewish cook to death because the soup was too hot. He brutally mistreated his two maids, Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig and Helen Hirsch, who were in constant fear for their lives, as were all the inmates. During his time at Płaszów, Göth lived comfortably in a villa, owning cars and horses that he rode in the camp. He had a Jewish cobbler inmate make him new shoes each week.