title: Angular velocity

text: In general, the angular velocity in an "n"-dimensional space is the time derivative of the angular displacement tensor, which is a second rank skew-symmetric tensor.


title: Angular velocity

text: This tensor "W" will have independent components, which is the dimension of the Lie algebra of the Lie group of rotations of an "n"-dimensional inner product space.


title: Angular velocity

text: In three dimensions, angular velocity can be represented by a pseudovector because second rank tensors are dual to pseudovectors in three dimensions. Since the angular velocity tensor "W" = "W"("t") is a skew-symmetric matrix:


title: Angular velocity

text: If we know an initial frame "A"(0) and we are given a "constant" angular velocity tensor "W", we can obtain "A"("t") for any given "t". Recall the matrix differential equation:


title: Angular velocity

text: A rotation matrix "A" is orthogonal, inverse to its transpose, so we have formula_68. For formula_69 a frame matrix, taking the time derivative of the equation gives:


title: Angular velocity

text: At any instant formula_13, the angular velocity tensor represents a linear map between the position vector formula_74 and the velocity vectors formula_75 of a point on a rigid body rotating around the origin:


title: Angular velocity

text: The relation between this linear map and the angular velocity pseudovector formula_77 is the following.


title: Angular velocity

text: is skew-symmetric. Thus we can apply the fact of exterior algebra that there is a unique linear form formula_79 on formula_80 that


title: Angular velocity

text: Introducing formula_86, as the Hodge dual of "L", and applying the definition of the Hodge dual twice supposing that the preferred unit 3-vector is formula_87


title: Angular velocity

text: Since the spin angular velocity tensor of a rigid body (in its rest frame) is a linear transformation that maps positions to velocities (within the rigid body), it can be regarded as a constant vector field. In particular, the spin angular velocity is a Killing vector field belonging to an element of the Lie algebra SO(3) of the 3-dimensional rotation group SO(3).


title: Angular velocity

text: Also, it can be shown that the spin angular velocity vector field is exactly half of the curl of the linear velocity vector field v(r) of the rigid body. In symbols,


title: Angular velocity

text: The same equations for the angular speed can be obtained reasoning over a rotating rigid body. Here is not assumed that the rigid body rotates around the origin. Instead, it can be supposed rotating around an arbitrary point that is moving with a linear velocity "V"("t") in each instant.


title: Angular velocity

text: To obtain the equations, it is convenient to imagine a rigid body attached to the frames and consider a coordinate system that is fixed with respect to the rigid body. Then we will study the coordinate transformations between this coordinate and the fixed "laboratory" system.


title: Angular velocity

text: As shown in the figure on the right, the lab system's origin is at point "O", the rigid body system origin is at and the vector from "O" to is R. A particle ("i") in the rigid body is located at point P and the vector position of this particle is R in the lab frame, and at position r in the body frame. It is seen that the position of the particle can be written:


title: Angular velocity

text: The defining characteristic of a rigid body is that the distance between any two points in a rigid body is unchanging in time. This means that the length of the vector formula_94 is unchanging. By Euler's rotation theorem, we may replace the vector formula_94 with formula_96 where formula_97 is a 3×3 rotation matrix and formula_98 is the position of the particle at some fixed point in time, say . This replacement is useful, because now it is only the rotation matrix formula_97 that is changing in time and not the reference vector formula_98, as the rigid body rotates about point . Also, since the three columns of the rotation matrix represent the three versors of a reference frame rotating together with the rigid body, any rotation about any axis becomes now visible, while the vector formula_94 would not rotate if the rotation axis were parallel to it, and hence it would only describe a rotation about an axis perpendicular to it (i.e., it would not see the component of the angular velocity pseudovector parallel to it, and would only allow the computation of the component perpendicular to it). The position of the particle is now written as:


title: Angular velocity

text: where V is the velocity of the particle (in the lab frame) and V is the velocity of (the origin of the rigid body frame). Since formula_97 is a rotation matrix its inverse is its transpose. So we substitute formula_105:


title: Angular velocity

text: It can be proved that this is a skew symmetric matrix, so we can take its dual to get a 3 dimensional pseudovector that is precisely the previous angular velocity vector formula_111:


title: Angular velocity

text: Substituting "ω" for "W" into the above velocity expression, and replacing matrix multiplication by an equivalent cross product:


title: Angular velocity

text: It can be seen that the velocity of a point in a rigid body can be divided into two terms – the velocity of a reference point fixed in the rigid body plus the cross product term involving the orbital angular velocity of the particle with respect to the reference point. This angular velocity is what physicists call the "spin angular velocity" of the rigid body, as opposed to the "orbital" angular velocity of the reference point about the origin "O".


title: Angular velocity

text: We have supposed that the rigid body rotates around an arbitrary point. We should prove that the spin angular velocity previously defined is independent of the choice of origin, which means that the spin angular velocity is an intrinsic property of the spinning rigid body. (Note the marked contrast of this with the "orbital" angular velocity of a point particle, which certainly "does" depend on the choice of origin.)


title: Angular velocity

text: See the graph to the right: The origin of lab frame is "O", while "O" and "O" are two fixed points on the rigid body, whose velocity is formula_114 and formula_115 respectively. Suppose the angular velocity with respect to "O" and O is formula_116 and formula_117 respectively. Since point "P" and "O" have only one velocity,


title: Angular velocity

text: If the reference point is the instantaneous axis of rotation the expression of the velocity of a point in the rigid body will have just the angular velocity term. This is because the velocity of the instantaneous axis of rotation is zero. An example of the instantaneous axis of rotation is the hinge of a door. Another example is the point of contact of a purely rolling spherical (or, more generally, convex) rigid body.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Diane de Poitiers (9 January 1500 – 25 April 1566) was a French noblewoman and prominent courtier. She wielded much power and influence as King Henry II's royal mistress and adviser until his death. Her position increased her wealth and family's status. She was a major patron of French Renaissance architecture.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Diane de Poitiers was born on 9 January 1500, in Château de Saint-Vallier, Drôme, France. Her parents were Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint Vallier, and Jeanne de Batarnay. She became a keen athlete, and kept a fit figure by riding and swimming regularly, remaining in good physical condition for her time.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: When still a girl, Diane was briefly in the retinue of Princess Anne de Beaujeu, King Charles VIII's eldest sister who skillfully held the regency of France during his minority. Like her fellow charges, Diane was educated according to the principles of Renaissance humanism, including Greek and Latin, rhetoric, etiquette, finance, law, and architecture.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: On 29 March 1515, at the age of 15, Diane was married to Louis de Brézé, seigneur d'Anet, Count of Maulévrier, and Grand Seneschal of Normandy, who was 39 years her senior. He was a grandson of King Charles VII by his mistress Agnès Sorel and served as a courtier to King Francis I. They had two daughters, Françoise (1518–1574) and


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Shortly after her marriage, Diane became lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude of France. After the Queen died, she served in the same capacity to Louise of Savoy, the King's mother, and then Queen Eleanor of Austria.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: In 1523, her husband uncovered Constable Charles de Bourbon's plot against King Francis I, but did not know at the time that his father-in-law was involved as well. In 1524, Jean de Poitiers was accused of treason and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted. He instead was confined to prison until the Treaty of Madrid in 1526.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: After her husband died in 1531 in Anet, Diane adopted the habit of wearing black and white for the rest of her life. They were among the permitted colours of mourning and the symbolic colours of the sides of the moon, playing on her name which derived from the Roman moon goddess. She commissioned sculptor Jean Goujon to build


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Diane's keen interest in financial matters and legal acumen became apparent for the first time during this period. She managed to retain her late husband's emoluments as grand seneschal of Normandy and challenged in court the obligation to return the family's appanages to the royal domain. Impressed, King Francis I allowed the widowed Diane to manage her inherited estates without the supervision of a male guardian and keep their considerable revenues.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Charles V's troops captured Francis during the battle of Pavia (1525), and in 1526 the princes Francis and Henry were sent to Spain as hostages for their father. Because the ransom was not paid, the two boys (eight and seven at the time) spent nearly four years isolated in a bleak castle. The experience may account for the strong impression that Diane made on Henry, as the very embodiment of the ideal gentlewoman: as his mother was already dead, his grandmother's lady-in-waiting gave him the farewell kiss when he was sent to Spain. At the tournament held in 1531 for the coronation of Francis's new wife, Eleanor of Austria, the Dauphin Francis wore the colors of the new Queen as expected, but Henry wore Diane's colors.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: In 1533, Henry married Catherine de' Medici despite opposition to the alliance, since the Medicis were no more than merchant upstarts in the eyes of many in the French court. However, Diane approved of the choice of bride, to whom she was related (Catherine's maternal grandfather and Diane's paternal grandmother being siblings, making them second cousins). Based on allusions in their correspondence, it is generally believed that Diane became his mistress in 1534, when she was 35 years old and Henry was 15. As the couple remained childless and she became concerned by rumours of a possible repudiation of a royal wife that she had in control, Diane made sure that Henry's visits to the marital bedroom would be frequent, to the point that he had ten legitimate children. In another act of self-preservation toward the royal family, Diane helped nurse Catherine back to health when she fell ill.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Despite his occasional affairs with other women, such as Philippa Duci, Janet Fleming, and Nicole de Savigny, Diane remained Henry's lifelong companion. For the next 25 years, she was one of the most powerful women in France. When Francis I was still alive, Diane had to compete at the court with his mistress, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly. In 1544, Anne convinced Francis I that Henry (now the Dauphin) and Diane were working to reinstate Constable Montmorency at court. After his father banished Diane, Henry and his supporters retreated to the chateau of Anet; father and son wouldn't reconcile until 1545. After Francis's death, Henry had Anne banned from court and confiscated her duchy of Étampes. By then, Diane's position in the Court was such that when Pope Paul III sent the new Queen the "Golden Rose", he also presented the royal mistress with a pearl necklace. She received the prestigious title of Duchess of Valentinois in 1548 and was made Duchesse d'Étampes in 1553. Through the extensive patron-client network she cultivated, her sons-in-law received important positions.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Although she was not openly involved, Diane's sharp intellect, confident maturity and loyalty to Henry II made her his most dependable ally in the court. He trusted her to write many of his official letters, which were signed jointly with the one name: "HenriDiane". Until 1551, she was in charge of the education of Henry's children, and gave orders to their governors, Jean and Françoise d'Humières. Her daughter Françoise managed the Queen's household as "première dame d'honneur" (chief lady-in-waiting). The King's adoration for Diane caused a great deal of jealousy on the part of Queen Catherine, particularly when Henry entrusted Diane with the Crown Jewels of France and gave her the Château de Chenonceau, a piece of royal property that Catherine had wanted for herself. However, as long as the King lived, the Queen was powerless to change that.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Most of the sources in Diane's hand are accounts, demonstrating her meticulous attention to finances. She profited from the confiscation of Anne de Pisseleu's estates and managed the lands well, to the point where she became the beneficiary of 300,000 écus. One of the most successful royal mistresses in acquiring wealth, Diane used her income to build castles by commissioning architect Philibert de l'Orme. Making strikingly effective use of Renaissance arts and rhetoric, she constructed an image of herself as a paragon of virtue and presented the image of Henry II as a model of chivalry.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Diane supervised the remodeling of Château d'Anet, her late husband's feudal castle of stone. It has a porch with widely spaced paired ionic columns between towers crowned by pyramidal spires. The château is noted for its exterior, notably the Fountain of Diana, in which the mistress represented the goddess reclining with her two dogs and stag. There is the mortuary chapel built according to Diane's wishes to contain her tomb, commissioned from architect Claude de Foucques by her daughter Louise, Duchess of Aumale.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Although its ownership remained with the crown until 1555, Diane was the unquestioned mistress of Château de Chenonceau, the jewel of the Loire Renaissance palaces. In 1555, she asked de l'Orme to build the arched bridge joining the château to its opposite bank and oversaw the planting of extensive gardens filled with varieties of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, her exquisite gardens were famous and copied.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Despite wielding such power over the court, Diane's status depended on the King's welfare and remaining in power. In 1559, Henry was critically wounded in a jousting tournament, when his lance wore her favour (ribbon), rather than his wife's. Queen Catherine soon assumed control, restricting access to the royal chambers. Although Henry was alleged to have called out repeatedly for Diane, she wasn't admitted to his deathbed nor invited to his funeral (the latter as was custom and tradition). She was


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: immediately obliged to give to the Queen Mother the Château de Chenonceau in exchange for the less attractive Château de Chaumont, a punishment much less severe than the ones suffered by other royal mistresses.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: Diane lived out her remaining years in her château in Anet, Eure-et-Loir, where she lived in comfortable obscurity as a virtual exile. At the age of 64, she suffered a fall during a ride from which she never fully recovered and died a year later. In accordance with Diane's wishes and to provide a resting place for her, her daughter completed the funeral chapel, built near the castle. During the French Revolution, her tomb was opened, her corpse desecrated, and her remains thrown into a mass grave.


title: Diane de Poitiers

text: In 1866, Georges Guiffrey published her correspondence. When French experts dug up her remains in 2009, they found high levels of gold in her hair. It is suggested that the "drinkable gold" that she "reportedly" regularly took, believed to preserve youth, may have ultimately killed her. In May 2010, she was reburied at her original tomb in the Château d'Anet.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Set in a post-apocalyptic and futuristic "Neo-Tokyo", more than two decades after a mysterious explosion destroyed the city, the story centers on teenage biker gang leader Shotaro Kaneda, militant revolutionary Kei, a trio of espers, and Neo-Tokyo military leader Colonel Shikishima, who attempt to prevent Tetsuo Shima, Kaneda's mentally unbalanced childhood friend, from using his unstable and destructive telekinetic abilities to ravage the city and awaken a mysterious entity with powerful psychic abilities named "Akira". Otomo uses conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of political turmoil, social isolation, corruption, and power. Widely regarded as a landmark work in cyberpunk and credited with pioneering the Japanese cyberpunk subgenre, "Akira" received universal acclaim from readers and critics, with Otomo's artwork, storytelling, characters, and exploration of mature themes and concepts subject to particular praise. The manga also achieved international commercial success, selling millions of copies worldwide.


title: Akira (manga)

text: An animated film adaptation released in 1988 shortened the plot considerably, but retained many of the manga's primary characters and plot elements alongside additional scenes, settings, and motifs. The film was similarly lauded and has served as a significant influence to the anime industry and sci-fi media as a whole. The adaptation also marked Otomo's transition from a career primarily in manga to one almost exclusively in anime.


title: Akira (manga)

text: "Akira" was instrumental in the surge in popularity of manga outside Japan, especially in the United States and France. The manga won several awards, including the Kodansha Manga Award, a Harvey Award, and four Eisner Awards.


title: Akira (manga)

text: On December 6, 1982, an apparent nuclear explosion destroys Tokyo and starts World War III. By 2019, a new city called Neo-Tokyo has been built on artificial islands in Tokyo Bay. Although Neo-Tokyo is set to host the XXXII Olympic Games, the city is gripped by anti-government terrorism and gang violence. While exploring the ruins of old Tokyo, Tetsuo Shima, a member of the bōsōzoku gang led by Shōtarō Kaneda, is accidentally injured when his bike crashes after Takashi — a child Esper with wizened features — blocks his path. This incident awakens psychic powers in Tetsuo, attracting the attention of a secret government project directed by JSDF Colonel Shikishima. These increasing powers unhinge Tetsuo's mind, exacerbating his inferiority complex about Kaneda and leading him to assume leadership of the rival Clown Gang through violence.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Meanwhile, Kaneda becomes involved with Kei, a member of a terrorist organization that stage attacks against the government. The terrorists, led by Ryusaku and opposition Diet leader Nezu, get wind of the Colonel's project and a mysterious figure connected with it known as "Akira". They hope to use this leaked information and try to restrict Kaneda's movements because of his involvement with their activities. However, when Tetsuo and the Clowns begin a violent citywide turf war, Kaneda instigates a counter-attack that unites all of Neo-Tokyo's biker gangs against Tetsuo. While the Clown Gang is easily defeated, Tetsuo's psionic powers make him virtually invincible. Tetsuo kills Yamagata, Kaneda's second-in-command, and astonishingly survives after being shot by Kaneda. The Colonel arrives with the powerful drugs needed to suppress Tetsuo's violent headaches, extending Tetsuo an offer to join the project.


title: Akira (manga)

text: After their confrontation with the JSDF, Kaneda, Kei, and Tetsuo are taken into military custody and held in a highly secure skyscraper in Neo-Tokyo. Kei soon escapes after becoming possessed as a medium by another Esper, Kiyoko. Kei/Kiyoko briefly does battle with Tetsuo and frees Kaneda. After rapidly healing from his wounds, Tetsuo inquires about Akira, and forces Doctor Onishi, a project scientist, to take him to the other espers: Takashi, Kiyoko, and Masaru. There, a violent confrontation unfolds between Tetsuo, Kaneda, Kei, and the Espers. The Doctor decides to try to let Tetsuo harness Akira — the project's test subject that destroyed Tokyo — despite Tetsuo's disturbed personality. Upon learning that Akira is being stored in a cryogenic chamber beneath Neo-Tokyo's new Olympic Stadium, Tetsuo escapes the skyscraper with the intent of releasing Akira.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The following day, Tetsuo enters the secret military base at the Olympic site, killing many soldiers. The Colonel comes to the base and tries to talk Tetsuo out of his plan; Kaneda and Kei enter the base through the sewers and witness the unfolding situation. Tetsuo breaks open the underground cryogenic chamber and frees Akira, who turns out to be an ordinary-looking little boy. The terror of seeing Akira causes one of the Colonel's men to declare a state of emergency that causes massive panic in Neo-Tokyo. The Colonel himself tries to use SOL, a laser satellite, to kill Tetsuo and Akira, but only succeeds in severing Tetsuo's arm.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Tetsuo disappears in the subsequent explosion, and Kaneda and Kei come across Akira outside of the base. Vaguely aware of who he is, they take him back into Neo-Tokyo. Both the Colonel's soldiers and the followers of an Esper named Lady Miyako begin scouring Neo-Tokyo in search for him. Kaneda, Kei, and a third terrorist, Chiyoko, attempt to find refuge with Akira on Nezu's yacht. However, Nezu betrays them and kidnaps Akira for his use, attempting to have them killed. They survive the attempt and manage to snatch Akira from Nezu's mansion. The Colonel, desperate to find Akira and fed up with the government's tepid response to the crisis, mounts a coup d'état and puts the city under martial law. The Colonel's men join Lady Miyako's acolytes and Nezu's private army in chasing Kaneda, Kei, Chiyoko, and Akira through the city.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The pursuit ends at a canal, with Kaneda's group surrounded by the Colonel's troops. As Akira is being taken into the Colonel's custody, Nezu attempts to shoot Akira rather than have him be put into government hands; he is immediately fired upon and killed by the Colonel's men. However, Nezu's shot misses Akira and hits Takashi in the head, killing him instantly. The trauma of Takashi's death causes Akira to trigger a second psychic explosion that destroys Neo-Tokyo. Kei, Ryu, Chiyoko, the Colonel, and the other two Espers survive the catastrophe; Kaneda, however, disappears as he is surrounded by the blast. After the city's destruction, Tetsuo reappears and meets Akira.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Some time later, an American reconnaissance team led by Lieutenant George Yamada covertly arrives in the ruined Neo-Tokyo. Yamada learns that the city has been divided into two factions: the cult of Lady Miyako, which provides food and medicine for the destitute refugees, and the Great Tokyo Empire, a group of zealots led by Tetsuo with Akira as a figurehead, both worshiped as deities for performing "miracles". The Empire constantly harasses Lady Miyako's group and kills any intruders with Tetsuo's psychic shock troops. Kiyoko and Masaru become targets for the Empire's fanatical soldiers: Kei, Chiyoko, the Colonel, and Kai, a former member of Kaneda's gang, ally themselves with Lady Miyako to protect them.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Yamada eventually becomes affiliated with Ryu, and updates him on how the world has reacted to the events in Neo-Tokyo; they later learn that an American naval fleet lingers nearby. Tetsuo becomes heavily dependent on government-issued pills to quell his headaches. Seeking answers, he visits Lady Miyako at her temple and is given a comprehensive history of the government project that unleashed Akira. Miyako advises Tetsuo to quit the pills to become more powerful; Tetsuo begins a withdrawal. Meanwhile, Tetsuo's aide, the Captain, stages an unsuccessful Empire assault on Miyako's temple. After the Colonel uses SOL to attack the Empire's army, a mysterious event opens a rift in the sky dumping massive debris from Akira's second explosion, as well as Kaneda.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Kaneda is reunited with Kei and joins Kai and Joker, the former Clown leader, in planning an assault on the Great Tokyo Empire. Meanwhile, an international team of scientists meets up on an American aircraft carrier to study the recent psychic events in Neo-Tokyo, forming Project Juvenile A. Ryu has a falling out with Yamada after learning that he plans to use biological weapons to assassinate Tetsuo and Akira; Yamada later meets up with his arriving commando team. Akira and Tetsuo hold a rally at the Olympic Stadium to demonstrate their powers to the Empire, which culminates with Tetsuo tearing a massive hole in the Moon's surface and encircling it with a ring of the debris.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Following the rally, Tetsuo's power begins to contort his physical body, causing it to absorb surrounding objects; he later learns that his abuse of his powers has caused them to expand beyond the confines of his body, giving him the ability to transmute inert matter into flesh and integrate it into his physical form. Tetsuo makes a series of visits on board the aircraft carrier to attack the scientists and do battle with American fighter jets. Eventually, Tetsuo takes over the ship and launches a nuclear weapon over the ocean. Kei—accepting the role of a medium controlled by Lady Miyako and the Espers—arrives and battles Tetsuo. Meanwhile, Kaneda, Kai, Joker, and their small army of bikers arrive at the Olympic Stadium to begin their all-out assault on the Great Tokyo Empire.


title: Akira (manga)

text: As Kaneda and the bikers launch their assault on the stadium, Tetsuo returns from his battle with Kei. As his powers continue to grow, Tetsuo's body begins involuntarily morphing, and his cybernetic arm is destroyed as his original arm regrows. He then faces Yamada's team, but absorbs their biological attacks and temporarily regains control of his powers. Tetsuo kills Yamada and the commandos; he also eludes the Colonel's attempts to kill him by guiding SOL with a laser designator. Kaneda confronts Tetsuo, and the two begin to fight; they are joined by Kei. However, the brawl is interrupted when the Americans try to carpet bomb Neo-Tokyo and destroy the city outright with their laser satellite, FLOYD. Tetsuo flies into space and brings down FLOYD, causing it to crash down upon the aircraft carrier, killing the fleet admiral and one of the scientists.


title: Akira (manga)

text: After the battle, Tetsuo tries to resurrect Kaori, a girl he loved who was killed in the battle. He succeeds to a small degree but is unable to maintain focus. He retreats to Akira's cryogenic chamber beneath the stadium, carrying her body. Kaneda and his friends appear to fight Tetsuo once more, but his powers transform him into a monstrous, amoeba-like mass resembling a fetus, absorbing everything near him. Tetsuo pulls the cryogenic chamber above-ground and drops it onto Lady Miyako's temple. Lady Miyako dies while defying Tetsuo, after guiding Kei into space to fire upon him with SOL. Kei's attack awakens Tetsuo's full powers, triggering a psychic reaction similar to Akira's. With the help of Kiyoko, Masaru, and the spirit of Takashi, Akira can cancel out Tetsuo's explosion with one of his own. They are also able to free Kaneda, who was trapped in Tetsuo's mass, and he witnesses the truth about the Espers' power as they, alongside Akira and Tetsuo, ascend to a higher plane of existence.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The United Nations sends forces to help the surviving parties of Neo-Tokyo. Kaneda and his friends confront them, declaring the city's sovereignty as the Great Tokyo Empire and warning them that Akira still lives. Kaneda and Kei meet up with the Colonel and part ways as friends. As Kaneda and Kei ride through Neo-Tokyo with their followers, they are joined by ghostly visions of Tetsuo and Yamagata. They also see the city shedding its ruined façade, returning to its former splendor.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Kodansha had been repeatedly asking Katsuhiro Otomo to write a series for their new manga magazine "Young Magazine" for some time, but he was busy with other work for another publisher and turned them down. After finishing "Kanojo no Omoide..." (1980) and "Farewell to Weapons" (1981) for "Young Magazine", he started thinking of a new project. From the first meeting with the publisher, "Akira" was to be a short work of about ten chapters "or something like that," so Otomo said he was "really not" expecting it to be a success. Otomo had previously created "Fireball" (1979), a series in which he disregarded accepted manga art styles and established his interest in science fiction as a setting. "Fireball" anticipated a number of plot elements of "Akira", with its story of young freedom fighters trying to rescue one of the group's older brother who was being used by the government in psychic experiments, with the older brother eventually unleashing a destructive "fireball" of energy (the story may have drawn inspiration from the Alfred Bester's 1953 novel "The Demolished Man"). Otomo used a science fiction setting again the following year in "Domu", which won the Nihon SF Taisho Award and Seiun Award and became a bestseller. He then began work on his most ambitious work to date, "Akira".


title: Akira (manga)

text: Due to a lack of planning, Otomo had to hastily end "Fireball" without the finale he wanted and stated, "You could say that "Akira" was born from the frustration I had about that at the time." Not wanting to repeat what happened with that manga, he had the basic plot of "Akira" outlined from the start in a two-page synopsis and predicted he would finish it in six months. However, just like what happened with "Domu", new ideas and problems immediately came up and expanded the story gradually as he wrote. Mitsuteru Yokoyama's manga series "Tetsujin 28-go" (1956–1966) had particular influence on "Akira", as Otomo wanted to pay homage to the children's manga. He explained, "the grand plot for "Akira" is about an ultimate weapon developed during wartime and found during a more peaceful era. So the accidents and story develop around that ultimate weapon. If you know, "Tetsujin 28-go" then this is the same overall plot." With "Akira", Otomo also wanted to depict the later Showa period, including preparations for the Olympics, the rapid economic growth, and the student protests of the 1960s. "I wanted to recreate the assorted elements that built this era and craft an exciting story that would seem believable enough in reality." Otomo said that while there had been post-apocalyptic works before, he could not think of one that depicted an apocalypse in the middle of the story and wanted to do that with "Akira". Mark Schilling reported that Otomo has also cited influence from the 1977 live-action film "Star Wars" on his series.


title: Akira (manga)

text: With "Akira", Otomo wanted to "dig deeper into [his] issues" with speed and flow, telling a story with as few words as possible, "edit it to gain that sense of speed and make people read it faster, and at the same time make them stop cold at the important scenes." When it started, he was drawing 20 pages a chapter, for a total of 40 pages a month. Otomo began the process for each chapter by fully completing the first page as practice. In order to save time, he did not bother with character-pose sketches or the like; he drew directly onto the page he was submitting to the editors. After he drew each page, his assistant inked the lines of the buildings and the rest of the backgrounds with a Rotring pen and a ruler. Otomo would complete the rough draft two days before his deadline. He would spend half a day drawing the characters, then finish the buildings by adding dust, crevices and cracks to windows. Otomo estimated that they would finish the final rough draft at 5 a.m. on Sunday, ink the characters by 7 p.m., and then submit the completed chapter at 8 a.m. Monday morning. When Otomo began production on the anime film adaptation of "Akira", he said the manga had a weekly schedule of 20 pages a week. So he hired a second assistant to help, and occasionally brought in a third just to handle the screentone. "When the manga deadline drew near, we’d pull several all-nighters, then I’d walk right into the anime studio the day after." Manga artist and film director Satoshi Kon was an uncredited assistant on the series.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The image model for the character Akira was Shōryū from "Saiyūki" (1960). Otomo liked his sorrowful expression and used him as a reference after deciding to make Akira a child. While editing his film "Jiyū wo Warera ni", Otomo would often hear someone in the studio next door yell "Akira!", which he took to be the name of the assistant director. Because in the film industry the name "Akira" is often used to refer to Akira Kurosawa, Otomo "thought that gap" was funny and decided to use the name in his work one day. The character names Tetsuo and Kaneda, and the Espers' codenames of Nos. 25–28, were taken from "Tetsujin 28-go". Kaneda's iconic motorcycle from the manga had no specific design. So Otomo said it came out "kind of random" and changed every time he drew it. The character Chiyoko was originally designed to be an old man, but Otomo felt that was too ordinary and "a little boring" and came up with the idea for an old lady, which then became a large old lady. The character grew on him as he drew and she ended up with a greater role than he originally planned.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The logo for the manga changed several times throughout its serialization, including switching between Japanese and English. The first 35 chapters used "katakana" in the font Thick Textbook, chosen by Otomo for its ease of understanding and impact. After getting tired of this logo and having entered "Chapter 2" a few chapters previously, he used English in Broadway for chapter 36 because he wanted an Art Deco feel. However, Otomo did not like it when he saw the magazine and for chapters 37–48 he changed the font to a different Art Deco-style and wrote his name in English as "OHTOMO KATSUHIRO". Otomo was often drawing Art Deco-styled skyscrapers on the title pages at this time, but that stopped when Neo Tokyo is destroyed in the story, at which point the logo changed again and he removed the "H" from his surname. The fourth logo for "Akira", used for chapters 49–71, returned to using "katakana" and was created by manga artist Hiroshi Hirata as Otomo wanted a Japanese calligraphy-style. Otomo's name was still written in English until chapter 55. Having come to the "final chapter" of the series, Otomo figured he should change the logo again and went with an English font similar to Impact for the title and his name for chapters 72–120. He had already been using Impact with the top "trimmed off", which gives a dignified and American comics feel, for the covers of the collected volumes. However, some fans believe some of the fonts actually used do not match the above named typefaces.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Otomo was meticulous in creating the collected "tankōbon" volumes of "Akira", often leading to them being released late. During serialization he faced not only schedule deadlines but also page limits and would have to cut stuff in order to fit said limit. He therefore would draw rough designs of what he actually "wanted" to draw in the margins of the chapters' manuscripts so that he would remember when time came to redraw the collected volume. He also had to make alterations in the collected volumes due to all the chapter title pages being removed, for example to make sure two-page spreads ended up on opposing pages. He wanted everything about the collected volumes, including the page count and paintings, to give a deep and full American comics feel. The covers are entirely in English, but he said this was not with an eye towards global distribution, he simply "had this incredible enthusiasm to just try to make something new." With its all-English cover, B5 size and painted page edges, the first volume of "Akira" caused a sensation in Japan.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Otomo painted the cover illustration of the first volume very thick, while its inside cover illustration was influenced by Tetsuji Fukushima's manga "Sabaku no Maō" and how he used colors like American comics. Because the first volume had a "hot" red cover, Otomo felt volume two should have a "cool" one. Its back cover image was created using video, and he said he ruined Kodansha's VCR by repeatedly changing the color balance to get it right. Following the American and European cover images of the previous two volumes, Otomo felt the third should have an Asian one and so included the signs in its background. Its back cover is a composite photograph taken during a race at the Tokyo Racecourse when an image of "Akira" was shown on the jumbotron. Because the first three images had followed a pattern of "action-silence-action," the artist figured volume four should continue it and so drew Akira sitting down for the cover. Its back cover features an original "Akira" pinball machine created by Taito with animation cels pasted onto it by Otomo. The cover of volume five was the first to feature an event actually related to the content inside the book. Its back cover features an Otomo-designed decorative bamboo rake that cost 2 million yen to make and features a custom made Miyako doll and mecha models. Otomo felt the sixth cover had to be cool because it was the final one, and as a result it went through the most number of rough designs as he had to really work to get Kaneda's line of sight towards the reader without it feeling forced. For the back cover photograph, a life-size kiosk featuring numerous "Akira" goods was constructed in Kodansha's studio with cooperation from Sudo Art Workshop and a stage manager from Nikkatsu. Construction, which included two fluorescent signs (cropped out of the final image) and handmade newspapers, and shooting took three days.


title: Akira (manga)

text: "Akira", like some of Otomo's other works (such as "Domu"), revolves around the basic idea of individuals with superhuman powers, especially psychokinetic abilities. However, these are not central to the story, which instead concerns itself with character, societal pressures and political machination. Motifs common in the manga include youth alienation, government corruption and inefficiency, and a military grounded in old-fashioned Japanese honor, displeased with the compromises of modern society.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Jenny Kwok Wah Lau writes in "Multiple Modernities" that "Akira" is a "direct outgrowth of war and postwar experiences." She argues that Otomo grounds the work in recent Japanese history and culture, using the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II, alongside the economic resurgence and issues relating to overcrowding as inspirations and underlying issues. Thematically, the work centers on the nature of youth to rebel against authority, control methods, community building and the transformation experienced in adolescent passage. The latter is best represented in the work by the morphing experienced by characters.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Susan J. Napier identified this morphing and metamorphosis as a factor that marks the work as postmodern: "a genre which suggests that identity is in constant fluctuation." She also sees the work as an attack on the Japanese establishment, arguing that Otomo satirizes aspects of Japanese culture: in particular, schooling and the rush for new technology. "Akira"s central image of characters aimlessly roaming the streets on motorbikes is seen to represent the futility of the quest for self-knowledge. The work also focuses on loss, with all characters in some form orphaned and having no sense of history. The landscapes depicted are ruinous, with old Tokyo represented only by a dark crater. The nihilistic nature of the work is felt by Napier to tie into a wider theme of pessimism present in Japanese fantasy literature of the 1980s.


title: Akira (manga)

text: According to Dolores P. Martinez, the serial nature of the work influenced the storyline structure, allowing for numerous sub-plots, a large cast, and an extended middle sequence. This allowed for a focus on destructive imagery and afforded Otomo the chance to portray a strong sense of movement. The work has no consistent main character, but Kaneda and Tetsuo are featured the most prominently throughout.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo, "Akira" was serialized biweekly in Kodansha's "Young Magazine" from December 20, 1982, to June 25, 1990. While drawing the manga, Otomo began work on an anime film adaptation, leading to a lengthy break between chapters 87 on April 20, 1987, and 88 on November 21, 1988. Otomo agreed to a film adaptation of the work, provided he retained creative control. This insistence was based on his experiences working on "Harmagedon". The film was released theatrically in Japan in July 1988, and followed by limited theatrical releases in various Western territories from 1989 to 1991. Even when "Young Magazine" became a weekly publication in 1989, Otomo and "Akira" retained a biweekly schedule. The 120 chapters and more than 2,000 pages were collected and released in six "tankōbon" volumes by publisher Kodansha between September 21, 1984, and March 23, 1993.


title: Akira (manga)

text: A five-volume anime comic version created using scenes from the film adaptation was published between August 29 and December 6, 1988, with newly painted covers by Otomo. The colored version created for America by Marvel Comics was published in Japan in 12 volumes between October 7, 1988, and September 20, 1996.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Otomo and Kodansha's Yasumasa Shimizu visited New York City in 1983 to meet with Archie Goodwin of Marvel Comics, who had seen "Akira" and wanted to publish it in America. Shimizu said that Kodansha had received offers from many other publishers, including the newly established Viz Media, but Otomo chose Goodwin because he was really close to French artists that Otomo was a fan of. Otomo did not want "Akira" to be seen as some "strange thing from Japan," leading to a meticulous and now-"unimaginable" process of altering the art and coloring to make it accessible to American audiences. Because Japanese manga is read right-to-left, the artwork had to be flipped to read the other way. But the process was not as simple as mirroring, backgrounds had to be redone in order to remove the Japanese sound effects and reshape the word balloons to fit the Roman alphabet. So Otomo went in and made substantial retouches and adjustments that are specific to the American version.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Japanese manga is largely in black and white, but it was decided to fully color the artwork in the English version of "Akira" to match most American and European comics. The coloring was done by Steve Oliff at Olyoptics, who was hand-picked for the role by Otomo after being introduced by Goodwin. Otomo sent Oliff illustrations that he colored with markers as samples. Oliff had also received slides from the anime film adaptation of "Akira" to use as reference. At one point, Otomo visited Oliff in Point Arena, California and worked alongside him for several days, but after the first 5 or 6 issues, Oliff said he was given free rein. Oliff persuaded Marvel to use computer coloring. The coloring was more subtle than that seen before and far beyond the capabilities of Japanese technology of the time. It played an important part in "Akira"s success in Western markets, and revolutionized the way comics were colorized. Coloring lasted from 1988 to 1994, being delayed by Otomo's work on "Steamboy". "Akira" was the first comic in the world to be colored digitally, using computers. Its release in color led to the widespread adoption of computer coloring in comics and Oliff's work on "Akira" earned him three consecutive Harvey Awards for Best Colorist (1990–1992) and the first Eisner Award for Best Coloring (1992).


title: Akira (manga)

text: "Akira" began being published in the American comic book format in the United States in 1988 by Epic Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics. This colorized version ended its 38-issue run in 1995. Delays in the English publication were caused by Otomo's retouching of artwork for the Japanese collected volumes. It was these collections that formed the basis for translation, rather than the initial magazine serialization. The Epic version suffered significant delays toward the end, requiring several years to publish the final 8 issues. Marvel planned to collect the colorized versions as a 13-volume paperback series, and teamed with Graphitti Designs to release six limited-edition hardcover volumes; however, these ceased in 1993, so the final 3 paperbacks and planned sixth hardcover volume were never published. British publisher Reed began releasing full color versions of the six "Akira" volumes in 1994. A partially colorized version was serialized in British comic/magazine "Manga Mania" in the early to mid-'90s. A new edition of "Akira" was published in six paperback volumes from 2000 to 2002 by Dark Horse Comics in North America and Titan Books in the UK. This version is in black-and-white with a revised translation, although Otomo's painted color pages are used minimally at the start of each book as in the original Japanese volumes. In 2003, Tokyopop published the anime comic version in North America.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The English-language rights to "Akira" are currently held by Kodansha Comics, who re-released the manga from 2009 to 2011 through Random House. Kodansha's version is largely identical to the Dark Horse version. In honor of the 35th anniversary of the manga, Kodansha released a box set in late October 2017, containing hardcover editions of all six volumes, as well as the "Akira Club" art book, and an exclusive patch featuring the iconic pill design. This release was presented in the original right-to-left format, with unaltered original art and Japanese sound effects with endnote translations.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The first "tankōbon" volume, which was released on September 14, 1984, significantly exceeded sales expectations, with its print run increasing from an initial 30,000 copies up to nearly 300,000 copies within two weeks, becoming the number-one best-seller in Japan before eventually selling about 500,000 copies. By 1988, "Akira" had sold approximately 2 million copies in Japan, from four volumes averaging about 500,000 copies each. The manga was published in the United States in 1988, followed by Spain in 1990, France and Italy by 1991, and then Germany, Sweden, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Brazil. It was reported by Critique international that by 2000 "Akira" had sold copies worldwide, including in Japan and overseas. As of 2005, "Akira" has been published in more than a dozen languages worldwide. In 2020, the first volume of "Akira" became publisher Kodansha's first manga to receive a 100th printing. At a price of in Japan and $24.95 overseas, the manga "tankōbon" volumes grossed estimated revenues of () in Japan and overseas, for an estimated total of grossed worldwide.


title: Akira (manga)

text: During its run, the "seinen" manga magazine where it was first serialized, "Weekly Young Magazine", experienced an increase in its weekly circulation, from 1 million in 1986 to 1.5 million in 1990. At an average manga magazine price of at the time, the 120 issues serializing "Akira" sold an estimated total of 120–180.0 million copies and grossed an estimated ().


title: Akira (manga)

text: "Akira" has won much recognition in the industry, including the 1984 Kodansha Manga Award for Best General Manga. Fans in the United Kingdom voted it Favourite Comic at the 1990 Eagle Awards. It won a Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material in 1993, and was nominated for a Harvey for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work in 2002. In 2002, "Akira" won the Eisner Awards for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material and Best Archival Collection. The 35th anniversary edition won Best Archival Collection again at the 2018 Eisner Awards, in addition to Best Publication Design.


title: Akira (manga)

text: "Akira" is credited with having introduced both manga and anime to Western audiences. According to Kodansha USA's Naho Yamada, ""Akira" ignited a new generation of dynamism not only in manga but also in European and American comics. Its impact shattered all borders." "The Essential Guide to World Comics" states that the translation of the work into French in 1991 by Glénat "opened the floodgates to the Japanese invasion." The imagery in "Akira", together with that of "Blade Runner", formed the blueprint for similar Japanese works of a dystopian nature of the late 1990s, such as "Ghost in the Shell" and "Armitage III". Yamada also said that "Otomo jacked into his generation's frustration with society, in the wake of the defeat of Japan's liberal student movement, and created an epic that, in true Japanese fashion, processed societal trauma through cataclysmic visual symbolism." Writing for "The Japan Times", Matt Schley said "For many readers, "Akira" was a revelation. Each panel features a head-spinning amount of detail, and Otomo, an avowed film buff, keeps things moving at a breathless, cinematic pace." In her book "The Fantastic in Japanese Literature", Susan J. Napier described the work as a "no holds barred enjoyment of fluidity and chaos". "Akira" cemented Otomo's reputation and the success of the animated adaptation allowed him to concentrate on film rather than the manga form in which his career began.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Katherine Dacey of "MangaBookshelf" called "Akira" one of manga's "greatest sci-fi epics." She also noted how Tetsuo and Kaneda seem like real teenage boys in the manga, not generic action figures like in the film's "grossly" simplified depiction of their relationship. Although stating that "Akira"s plot was still as topical as ever in the year 2009, Dacey felt that the art had not aged as gracefully.


title: Akira (manga)

text: In his reviews of the first three volumes of "Akira", Mark Pellegrini of AIPT Comics strongly praised Otomo's art as "simple, but very lively" and called him a master at drawing architecture. Pellegrini reviewed the series by making many comparisons to the animated film adaptation, calling the characterizations in the manga both "better and on par" with those in it.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Anime News Network had four writers review Kodansha USA's 35th Anniversary box set of "Akira". Austin Price and Lynzee Loveridge both gave it a perfect 5 out of 5 rating. Loveridge wrote that ""Akira" still feels incredibly relevant 35 years later. Giving it a three ½ star rating, Amy McNulty praised Otomo's art and setting. However, she called the characterizations weak and concluded that although "Akira" "does little to appeal to those who aren't interested in sci-fi, paranormal, or dystopian tales [...] manga fans owe it to themselves to at least check it out." Rebecca Silverman gave the series a rating of three out of five, calling "Akira" a must-read for anyone interested in manga.


title: Akira (manga)

text: While most of the character designs and basic settings were directly adapted from the original manga, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, changing much of the second half of the series. The film "Akira" is regarded by many critics as a landmark anime film: one that influenced much of the art in the anime world that followed its release.


title: Akira (manga)

text: A video game, simply titled "Akira", based on the animated film was released on December 24, 1988, by Taito for the Famicom console. The game has the player in the role of Kaneda, with the storyline starting with Kaneda and his motorcycle gang in police custody. In 1994, a British-made action game was released for the Amiga CD32 and it's considered one of the console's worst games. In 2002, Bandai released a pinball simulation titled "Akira Psycho Ball" for the PlayStation 2.


title: Akira (manga)

text: On June 9, 1995, Kodansha released "Akira Club", a compilation of various materials related to the production of the series. These include test designs of the paperback volume covers, title pages as they appeared in "Young Magazine", images of various related merchandise and commentary by Otomo. Dark Horse collaborated with Kodansha to release an English-translated version of the book in 2007.


title: Akira (manga)

text: Since 2002, Warner Bros. had acquired rights to create an American live action film of "Akira". Since the initial announcement, a number of directors, producers and writers have been reported to be attached to the film, starting with Stephen Norrington (writer/director) and Jon Peters (producer). By 2017, it was announced Taika Waititi would officially serve as the director of the live-action adaptation, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Michael Golamco. Warner Bros. planned to distribute the film on May 21, 2021, but after Waititi was officially confirmed to both direct and write "", the film was put on hold and taken off the release slot.


title: Akira (manga)

text: On July 4, 2019, Bandai Namco Entertainment announced an anime television series to be made by Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks).


title: Akira (manga)

text: "Akira" is considered a landmark work in the cyberpunk genre, credited with spawning the Japanese cyberpunk subgenre. It actually predates the seminal cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer" (1984), which was released two years after "Akira" began serialization in 1982 and was not translated into Japanese until 1985. "Akira" inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk-infused manga and anime works, including "Ghost in the Shell", "Battle Angel Alita", "Cowboy Bebop", and "Serial Experiments Lain". Tetsuo Hara cited "Akira" as an influence on the dystopian post-apocalyptic setting of his manga "Fist of the North Star" (1983 debut). Manga artist Tooru Fujisawa, creator of "Great Teacher Onizuka", cited "Akira" as one of his greatest inspirations and said it changed the way he wrote. "Naruto" creator Masashi Kishimoto has cited both the "Akira" manga and anime as major influences, particularly as the basis of his own manga career. "Bartkira", a fan-made web comic parody of "Akira" created by Ryan Humphrey, is a panel-for-panel retelling of all six volumes of the manga illustrated by numerous artists contributing several pages each, with Otomo's characters being portrayed by members of the cast of "The Simpsons": for example, Kaneda is represented by Bart Simpson, Milhouse Van Houten replaces Tetsuo, and Kei and Colonel Shikishima are portrayed by Laura Powers and Principal Skinner respectively.


title: Akira (manga)

text: The city depicted in the first two stages of the 1992 video game "Last Resort" is very similar to that of Neo Tokyo from the anime film. In the 1998 video game "Half-Life", aspects of the level design were influenced directly by scenes from the manga. For example, the diagonal elevator leading down to the sewer canals as well as the design of the canals themselves are taken from scenes in the manga. This was confirmed by Brett Johnson, the developer who designed the levels. The "NeoTokyo" mod for its 2004 sequel, "Half-Life 2", was also inspired by "Akira". In the 2002 video game "The King of Fighters 2002", Kusanagi and K9999 have an Akira-esque intro before they fight. Kaneda's motorcycle appears in the 2020 video game "Cyberpunk 2077".


title: Akira (manga)

text: The Akira Class starship from the "Star Trek" franchise, first introduced in the 1996 feature film "", was named after the anime by its designer Alex Jaeger, of Industrial Light & Magic. In the 1998 film "Dark City", one of the last scenes, in which buildings "restore" themselves, is similar to the last panel of the "Akira" manga. Its writer-director Alex Proyas called the end battle a "homage to Otomo's "Akira"". Director Josh Trank cited "Akira" as an influence on the 2012 film "Chronicle".


title: Akira (manga)

text: Rapper Kanye West has a tribute to the anime film in his 2007 music video for "Stronger". Electronic pop group M83 created a three-part tribute to "Akira" (and other influences) with their music videos for "Midnight City", "Reunion" and "Wait". Rapper Lupe Fiasco's 2015 album "Tetsuo & Youth" was loosely inspired by the "Akira" character Tetsuo Shima.


title: Jet Li filmography

text: Jet Li is a Chinese actor, producer, martial artist, and retired Wushu champion. His first non-Chinese film role was as a villain in the 1998 buddy cop action film "Lethal Weapon 4" with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. His first leading role in a Hollywood film was as Han Sing in the 2000 martial arts action film "Romeo Must Die" with Aaliyah. He has gone on to star in other international action films, including the Luc Besson-produced French films "Kiss of the Dragon" (2001) and "Unleashed" (2005). He co-starred in "The One" (2001) and "War" (2007) with Jason Statham, "The Forbidden Kingdom" (2008) with Jackie Chan, all three of "The Expendables" films with Sylvester Stallone (2010-2014), and as the title character villain in "" (2008). In 2020, he portrayed The Emperor of China in the live-action fantasy drama Disney film "Mulan".


title: The Bell Curve

text: The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life is a 1994 book by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray, in which the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and that it is a better predictor of many personal outcomes, including financial income, job performance, birth out of wedlock, and involvement in crime than are an individual's parental socioeconomic status. They also argue that those with high intelligence, the "cognitive elite", are becoming separated from those of average and below-average intelligence, and that this separation is a source of social division within the United States.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The book was and remains highly controversial, especially where the authors discussed purported connections between race and intelligence and suggested policy implications based on these purported connections. Shortly after its publication, many people rallied both in criticism and in defense of the book. A number of critical texts were written in response to it. Many criticisms were collected in the book "The Bell Curve Debate".


title: The Bell Curve

text: "The Bell Curve", published in 1994, was written by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray to explain the variations in intelligence in American society, warn of some consequences of that variation, and propose social policies for mitigating the worst of the consequences. The book's title comes from the bell-shaped normal distribution of intelligence quotient (IQ) scores in a population.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The book starts with an introduction that appraises the history of the concept of intelligence from Francis Galton to modern times. Spearman's introduction of the general factor of intelligence and other early advances in research on intelligence are discussed along with a consideration of links between intelligence testing and racial politics. The 1960s are identified as the period in American history when social problems were increasingly attributed to forces outside the individual. This egalitarian ethos, Herrnstein and Murray argue, cannot accommodate biologically based individual differences.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The introduction states six of the authors' assumptions, which they claim to be "beyond significant technical dispute":


title: The Bell Curve

text: At the close of the introduction, the authors warn the reader against committing the ecological fallacy of inferring things about individuals based on the aggregate data presented in the book. They also assert that intelligence is just one of many valuable human attributes and one whose importance among human virtues is overrated.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In the first part of the book Herrnstein and Murray chart how American society was transformed in the 20th century. They argue that America evolved from a society where social origin largely determined one's social status to one where cognitive ability is the leading determinant of status. The growth in college attendance, a more efficient recruitment of cognitive ability, and the sorting of cognitive ability by selective colleges are identified as important drivers of this evolution. Herrnstein and Murray propose that the cognitive elite has been produced by a more technological society which offers enough high skill jobs for those with a higher intelligence to fill. They also propose that by removing race, gender or class as criteria (via the establishment of free primary education and the prohibition of discrimination) the main criteria of success in academic and professional life is becoming primarily based on cognitive ability. Increased occupational sorting by cognitive ability is discussed. They maintain that cognitive ability is the best predictor of worker productivity.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Herrnstein and Murray argue that due to increasing returns to cognitive ability, a cognitive elite is being formed in America. They argue that this elite is getting richer and progressively more segregated from the rest of society.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The second part describes how cognitive ability is related to social behaviors: high ability predicts socially desirable behavior, low ability undesirable behavior. The argument is made that group differences in social outcomes are better explained by intelligence differences rather than socioeconomic status, a perspective, the authors argue, that has been neglected in research.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The analyses reported in this part of the book were done using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience of Youth (NLSY), a study conducted by the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics tracking thousands of Americans starting in the 1980s. Only non-Hispanic whites are included in the analyses so as to demonstrate that the relationships between cognitive ability and social behavior are not driven by race or ethnicity.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Herrnstein and Murray argue that intelligence is a better predictor of individuals' outcomes than parental socioeconomic status. This argument is based on analyses where individuals' IQ scores are shown to better predict their outcomes as adults than the socioeconomic status of their parents. Such results are reported for many outcomes, including poverty, dropping out of school, unemployment, marriage, divorce, illegitimacy, welfare dependency, criminal offending, and the probability of voting in elections.


title: The Bell Curve

text: All participants in the NLSY took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a battery of ten tests taken by all who apply for entry into the armed services. (Some had taken an IQ test in high school, and the median correlation of the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores and those IQ test scores was .81). Participants were later evaluated for social and economic outcomes. In general, Herrnstein and Murray argued, IQ/AFQT scores were a better predictor of life outcomes than social class background. Similarly, after statistically controlling for differences in IQ, they argued that many outcome differences between racial-ethnic groups disappeared.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Values are the percentage of each IQ sub-population, among non-Hispanic whites only, fitting each descriptor.


title: The Bell Curve

text: This part of the book discusses ethnic differences in cognitive ability and social behavior. Herrnstein and Murray report that Asian Americans have a higher mean IQ than white Americans, who in turn outscore black Americans. The book argues that the black-white gap is not due to test bias, noting that IQ tests do not tend to underpredict the school or job performance of black individuals and that the gap is larger on apparently culturally neutral test items than on more culturally loaded items. The authors also note that adjusting for socioeconomic status does not eliminate the black-white IQ gap. However, they argue that the gap is narrowing.


title: The Bell Curve

text: According to Herrnstein and Murray, the high heritability of IQ within races does not necessarily mean that the cause of differences between races is genetic. On the other hand, they discuss lines of evidence that have been used to support the thesis that the black-white gap is at least partly genetic, such as Spearman's hypothesis. They also discuss possible environmental explanations of the gap, such as the observed generational increases in IQ, for which they coin the term Flynn effect. At the close of this discussion, they write:


title: The Bell Curve

text: The authors also stress that regardless of the causes of differences, people should be treated no differently.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In Part III, the authors also repeat many of the analyses from Part II, but now compare whites to blacks and Hispanics in the NLSY dataset. They find that after controlling for IQ, many differences in social outcomes between races are diminished.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The authors discuss the possibility that high birth rates among those with lower IQs may exert a downward pressure on the national distribution of cognitive ability. They argue that immigration may also have a similar effect.


title: The Bell Curve

text: At the close of Part III, Herrnstein and Murray discuss the relation of IQ to social problems. Using the NLSY data, they argue that social problems are a monotonically decreasing function of IQ, in other words at lower IQ scores the frequency of social problems increases.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In this final chapter, the authors discuss the relevance of cognitive ability for understanding major social issues in America.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Evidence for experimental attempts to raise intelligence is reviewed. The authors conclude that currently there are no means to boost intelligence by more than a modest degree.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The authors criticize the "levelling" of general and secondary education and defend gifted education. They offer a critical overview of affirmative action policies in colleges and workplaces, arguing that their goal should be equality of opportunity rather than equal outcomes.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Herrnstein and Murray offer a pessimistic portrait of America's future. They predict that a cognitive elite will further isolate itself from the rest of society, while the quality of life deteriorates for those at the bottom of the cognitive scale. As an antidote to this prognosis, they offer a vision of society where differences in ability are recognized and everybody can have a valued place, stressing the role of local communities and clear moral rules that apply to everybody.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Herrnstein and Murray argued the average genetic IQ of the United States is declining, owing to the tendency of the more intelligent having fewer children than the less intelligent, the generation length to be shorter for the less intelligent, and the large-scale immigration to the United States of those with low intelligence. Discussing a possible future political outcome of an intellectually stratified society, the authors stated that they "fear that a new kind of conservatism is becoming the dominant ideology of the affluent—not in the social tradition of an Edmund Burke or in the economic tradition of an Adam Smith but 'conservatism' along Latin American lines, where to be conservative has often meant doing whatever is necessary to preserve the mansions on the hills from the menace of the slums below." Moreover, they fear that increasing welfare will create a "custodial state" in "a high-tech and more lavish version of the Indian reservation for some substantial minority of the nation's population." They also predict increasing totalitarianism: "It is difficult to imagine the United States preserving its heritage of individualism, equal rights before the law, free people running their own lives, once it is accepted that a significant part of the population must be made permanent wards of the states."


title: The Bell Curve

text: The authors recommended the elimination of welfare policies which they claim encourage poor women to have babies.


title: The Bell Curve

text: "The Bell Curve" received a great deal of media attention. The book was not distributed in advance to the media, except for a few select reviewers picked by Murray and the publisher, which delayed more detailed critiques for months and years after the book's release. Stephen Jay Gould, reviewing the book in "The New Yorker", said that the book "contains no new arguments and presents no compelling data to support its anachronistic social Darwinism" and said that the "authors omit facts, misuse statistical methods, and seem unwilling to admit the consequence of their own words."


title: The Bell Curve

text: A 1995 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting writer Jim Naureckas criticized the media response, saying that "While many of these discussions included sharp criticisms of the book, media accounts showed a disturbing tendency to accept Murray and Herrnstein's premises and evidence even while debating their conclusions". A 1995 article by the Brookings Institute argued that critics had narrowly focused their attention on the book's arguments regarding race and intelligence while ignoring other contents of the book, but added that "the book may have fared even worse had the discussion of race and genetics not distracted attention from some serious problems of analysis and logic in its main arguments. There are indeed some useful messages in the book. But there is also much wrong with it."


title: The Bell Curve

text: After reviewers had more time to review the book's research and conclusions, more significant criticisms began to appear. Nicholas Lemann, writing in "Slate", said that later reviews showed the book was "full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors." Lemann said that "Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis."


title: The Bell Curve

text: Herrnstein and Murray did not submit their work to peer review before publication, an omission many have seen as incompatible with their presentation of it as a scholarly text. Nicholas Lemann noted that the book was not circulated in galley proofs, a common practice to allow potential reviewers and media professionals an opportunity to prepare for the book's arrival.


title: The Bell Curve

text: An opinion statement endorsing a number of the views presented in "The Bell Curve" called "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" was published in "The Wall Street Journal" in 1994 and subsequently reprinted in the journal "Intelligence". The statement was drafted by Linda Gottfredson, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Delaware. It was sent to 131 researchers whom Gottfredsen described as "experts in intelligence and allied fields". Of these, 52 signed the statement, 48 returned the request with an explicit refusal to sign, and 31 ignored the request.


title: The Bell Curve

text: According to a 1996 response by former American Psychological Association president Donald Campbell, only ten of those who signed were actual experts in intelligence measurement. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that 20 of the signers were recipients of funding from the white-supremacist organization the Pioneer Fund, including Gottfredson herself.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In subsequent years, both the substance and the interpretation of this letter have received widespread criticism from the scientific community.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In response to the controversy surrounding "The Bell Curve", the American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific Affairs established a special task force chaired by Ulric Neisser to publish an investigative report focusing solely on the research presented in the book, not the policy recommendations that it made. The report, "", was first released in 1995 and published in "American Psychologist" in 1996.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Stephen Jay Gould wrote that the "entire argument" of the authors of "The Bell Curve" rests on four unsupported, and mostly false, assumptions about intelligence:


title: The Bell Curve

text: In a 1995 interview with Frank Miele of "Skeptic", Murray denied making each of these four assumptions.


title: The Bell Curve

text: The Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist James Heckman considers two assumptions made in the book to be questionable: that "g" accounts for correlation across test scores and performance in society, and that "g" cannot be manipulated. Heckman's reanalysis of the evidence used in "The Bell Curve" found contradictions:


title: The Bell Curve

text: In response, Murray argued that this was a straw man and that the book does not argue that "g" or IQ are totally immutable or the only factors affecting outcomes.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In a 2005 interview, Heckman praised "The Bell Curve" for breaking "a taboo by showing that differences in ability existed and predicted a variety of socioeconomic outcomes" and for playing "a very important role in raising the issue of differences in ability and their importance" and stated that he was "a bigger fan of ["The Bell Curve"] than you might think." However, he also maintained that Herrnstein and Murray overestimated the role of heredity in determining intelligence differences.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In 1995, Noam Chomsky criticized the book and its assumptions on IQ. He takes issue with the idea that IQ is 60% heritable, arguing that the "statement is meaningless" because heritability does not have to be genetic. Chomsky gives the example of women wearing earrings:


title: The Bell Curve

text: He goes on to say there is almost no evidence of a genetic link, and greater evidence that environmental issues are what determine IQ differences.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Philosopher Ned Block argues that "The Bell Curve" misleads about intelligence as it conflates genetic determination with heritability. Genetic determination and heritability are not interchangeable as there are traits that are genetically determined but not heritable, and vice versa. For example, the number of fingers on a human hand are genetically determined as genes code for five fingers in nearly everybody. However, the heritability of the number of fingers is very low, as variations in numbers of fingers are usually environmentally caused. The aforementioned earring example quoted by Chomsky is an instance where the opposite is true: high heritability, but not genetic determination.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Given that genetic determination and heritability are not equivalent, Block contends that IQ is one such trait that is heritable but not genetically determined. Block cites the fact that IQ has not been constant as evidence, namely the increase of approximately 15 points of IQ across the world after World War 2 (around the same gap between blacks and whites), something that Murray himself notes in "The Bell Curve". Since this is the case, the conclusions that Murray draws are based on equivocating between genetic determination and heritability, which Block criticizes as intellectually dishonest.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Finally, Block contends that utilizing twin studies to randomize the environment automatically fail: Black twins will always bring a part of their environment with them as they are both Black and will be treated as such.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Canadian psychologist Sidney Segalowitz concurs with Block that twin studies fail to draw conclusions about heritability, and as a result Murray's work is methodologically flawed.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Claude S. Fischer, Michael Hout, Martín Sánchez Jankowski, Samuel R. Lucas, Ann Swidler, and Kim Voss in the book "Inequality by Design" recalculated the effect of socioeconomic status, using the same variables as "The Bell Curve", but weighting them differently. They found that if IQ scores are adjusted, as Herrnstein and Murray did, to eliminate the effect of education, the ability of IQ to predict poverty can become dramatically larger, by as much as 61 percent for whites and 74 percent for blacks. According to the authors, Herrnstein and Murray's finding that IQ predicts poverty much better than socioeconomic status is substantially a result of the way they handled the statistics.


title: The Bell Curve

text: In August 1995, National Bureau of Economic Research economist Sanders Korenman and Harvard University sociologist Christopher Winship argued that measurement error was not properly handled by Herrnstein and Murray. Korenman and Winship concluded: "...there is evidence of substantial bias due to measurement error in their estimates of the effects of parents' socioeconomic status. In addition, Herrnstein and Murray's measure of parental socioeconomic status (SES) fails to capture the effects of important elements of family background (such as single-parent family structure at age 14). As a result, their analysis gives an exaggerated impression of the importance of IQ relative to parents' SES, and relative to family background more generally. Estimates based on a variety of methods, including analyses of siblings, suggest that parental family background is at least as important, and may be more important than IQ in determining socioeconomic success in adulthood."


title: The Bell Curve

text: In the book "Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to The Bell Curve", a group of social scientists and statisticians analyzes the genetics-intelligence link, the concept of intelligence, the malleability of intelligence and the effects of education, the relationship between cognitive ability, wages and meritocracy, pathways to racial and ethnic inequalities in health, and the question of public policy. This work argues that much of the public response was polemic, and failed to analyze the details of the science and validity of the statistical arguments underlying the book's conclusions.


title: The Bell Curve

text: William J. Matthews writes that part of "The Bell Curve"'s analysis is based on the AFQT "which is not an IQ test but designed to predict performance of certain criterion variables". The AFQT covers subjects such as trigonometry.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Heckman observed that the AFQT was designed only to predict success in military training schools and that most of these tests appear to be achievement tests rather than ability tests, measuring factual knowledge and not pure ability. He continues:


title: The Bell Curve

text: Janet Currie and Duncan Thomas presented evidence suggesting AFQT scores are likely better markers for family background than "intelligence" in a 1999 study:


title: The Bell Curve

text: The cognitive elite concept has been widely criticized. Frank Wilson refuted "as cultural superstition and social science pornography "The Bell Curve"'s theories on the role of intelligence in the social stratification of postindustrial America." Nicholas Lemann described the notion of a cognitive elite as "a sociological cartoon with political uses, not a phenomenon to be accepted at face value."


title: The Bell Curve

text: Charles R. Tittle and Thomas Rotolo found that the more the written, IQ-like, examinations are used as screening devices for occupational access, the stronger the relationship between IQ and income. Thus, rather than higher IQ leading to status attainment because it indicates skills needed in a modern society, IQ may reflect the same test-taking abilities used in artificial screening devices by which status groups protect their domains.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Min-Hsiung Huang and Robert M. Hauser write that Herrnstein and Murray provide scant evidence of growth in cognitive sorting. Using data from the General Social Survey, they tested each of these hypotheses using a short verbal ability test which was administered to about 12,500 American adults between 1974 and 1994; the results provided no support for any of the trend hypotheses advanced by Herrnstein and Murray. One chart in "The Bell Curve" purports to show that people with IQs above 120 have become "rapidly more concentrated" in high-IQ occupations since 1940. But Robert Hauser and his colleague Min-Hsiung Huang retested the data and came up with estimates that fell "well below those of Herrnstein and Murray." They add that the data, properly used, "do not tell us anything except that selected, highly educated occupation groups have grown rapidly since 1940."


title: The Bell Curve

text: In 1972, Noam Chomsky questioned Herrnstein's idea that society was developing towards a meritocracy. Chomsky criticized the assumptions that people only seek occupations based on material gain. He argued that Herrnstein would not want to become a baker or lumberjack even if he could earn more money that way. He also criticized the assumption that such a society would be fair with pay based on value of contributions. He argued that because there are already substantial inequalities, people will often be paid at levels that preserve such inequalities rather than commensurately with their contribution to society.


title: The Bell Curve

text: One part of the controversy concerned the parts of the book which dealt with racial group differences on IQ and the consequences of this. In chapter 13, the authors state: "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences." The introduction to the chapter, however, provides the caveat that "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved".


title: The Bell Curve

text: In an article praising the book, economist Thomas Sowell criticized some of its aspects, including some of its arguments about race and the malleability of IQ:


title: The Bell Curve

text: In 1996, Stephen Jay Gould released a revised and expanded edition of his 1981 book "The Mismeasure of Man", intended to more directly refute many of "The Bell Curve"'s claims regarding race and intelligence, and argued that the evidence for heritability of IQ did not indicate a genetic origin to group differences in intelligence.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Psychologist David Marks has suggested that the ASVAB test used in the analyses of "The Bell Curve" correlates highly with measures of literacy, and argues that the ASVAB test in fact is not a measure of general intelligence but of literacy.


title: The Bell Curve

text: Melvin Konner, professor of anthropology and associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Emory University, called "Bell Curve" a "deliberate assault on efforts to improve the school performance of African-Americans":


title: The Bell Curve

text: The 2014 textbook "Evolutionary Analysis" by Herron and Freeman devoted an entire chapter to debunking what they termed the "Bell Curve fallacy", saying that "Murray and Herrnstein's argument amounts to little more than an appeal to


title: The Bell Curve

text: personal incredulity" and that it is a mistake to think that heritability can tell us something about the causes of differences between population means. In reference to the comparison of African-American with European-American IQ scores, the text states that only a common garden experiment, in which the two groups are raised in an environment typically experienced by European-Americans, would allow one to see if the difference is genetic. This kind of experiment, routine with plants and animals, cannot be conducted with humans. Nor is it possible to approximate this design with adoptions into families of the different groups, because the children would be recognizable and possibly be treated differently. The text concludes: "There is no way to assess whether genetics has anything to do with the difference in IQ score between ethnic groups."


title: The Bell Curve

text: Rutledge M. Dennis suggests that through soundbites of works like Jensen's famous study on the achievement gap, and Herrnstein and Murray's book "The Bell Curve", the media "paints a picture of Blacks and other people of color as collective biological illiterates—as not only intellectually unfit but evil and criminal as well", thus providing, he says "the logic and justification for those who would further disenfranchise and exclude racial and ethnic minorities".


title: The Bell Curve

text: Charles Lane pointed out that 17 of the researchers whose work is referenced by the book have also contributed to "Mankind Quarterly", a journal of anthropology founded in 1960 in Edinburgh, which has been viewed as supporting the theory of the genetic superiority of white people. David Bartholomew reports Murray's response as part of the controversy over the Bell Curve. In his afterword to the 1996 Free Press edition of "The Bell Curve", Murray responded that the book "draws its evidence from more than a thousand scholars" and among the researchers mentioned in Lane's list "are some of the most respected psychologists of our time and that almost all of the sources referred to as tainted are articles published in leading refereed journals".


title: The Bell Curve

text: "The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America" is a collection of articles published in reaction to the book. Edited by Steven Fraser, the writers of these essays do not have a specific viewpoint concerning the content of "The Bell Curve", but express their own critiques of various aspects of the book, including the research methods used, the alleged hidden biases in the research and the policies suggested as a result of the conclusions drawn by the authors. Fraser writes that "by scrutinizing the footnotes and bibliography in "The Bell Curve", readers can more easily recognize the project for what it is: a chilly synthesis of the work of disreputable race theorists and eccentric eugenicists".


title: The Bell Curve

text: Since the book provided statistical data making the assertion that blacks were, on average, less intelligent than whites, some people have argued that "The Bell Curve" could be used by extremists to justify genocide and hate crimes. Much of the work referenced by "The Bell Curve" was funded by the Pioneer Fund, which aims to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences, and which has been accused of promoting white supremacist views, particularly scientific racism. Murray criticized the characterization of the Pioneer Fund as a racist organization, arguing that it has as much relationship to its founder as "Henry Ford and today's Ford Foundation".


title: The Bell Curve

text: Evolutionary biologist Joseph L. Graves described "The Bell Curve" as an example of racist science, containing all the types of errors in the application of scientific method that have characterized the history of scientific racism:


title: The Bell Curve

text: Eric Siegel wrote on the "Scientific American" blog that the book "endorses prejudice by virtue of what it does not say. Nowhere does the book address why it investigates racial differences in IQ. By never spelling out a reason for reporting on these differences in the first place, the authors transmit an unspoken yet unequivocal conclusion: Race is a helpful indicator as to whether a person is likely to hold certain capabilities. Even if we assume the presented data trends are sound, the book leaves the reader on his or her own to deduce how to best put these insights to use. The net effect is to tacitly condone the prejudgment of individuals based on race." Similarly, Howard Gardner accused the authors of engaging in "scholarly brinkmanship", arguing that "Whether concerning an issue of science, policy, or rhetoric, the authors come dangerously close to embracing the most extreme positions, yet in the end shy away from doing so ... Scholarly brinkmanship encourages the reader to draw the strongest conclusions, while allowing the authors to disavow this intention."


title: The Bell Curve

text: Columnist Bob Herbert, writing for "The New York Times", described the book as "a scabrous piece of racial pornography masquerading as serious scholarship". "Mr. Murray can protest all he wants", wrote Herbert; "his book is just a genteel way of calling somebody a nigger."


title: Lou Holtz

text: Louis Leo Holtz (born January 6, 1937) is a former American football player, coach, and analyst. He served as the head football coach at The College of William & Mary (1969–1971), North Carolina State University (1972–1975), the New York Jets (1976), the University of Arkansas (1977–1983), the University of Minnesota (1984–1985), the University of Notre Dame (1986–1996), and the University of South Carolina (1999–2004), compiling a career record of 249–132–7. Holtz's 1988 Notre Dame team went 12–0 with a victory in the Fiesta Bowl and was the consensus national champion. Holtz is the only college football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the final top 20 rankings.


title: Lou Holtz

text: After retiring from coaching, Holtz worked as a TV college football analyst for CBS Sports in the 1990s and ESPN from 2005 until 2015. On May 1, 2008, Holtz was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz was born in Follansbee, West Virginia, the son of Anne Marie (Tychonievich) and Andrew Holtz, a bus driver. His father was of German and Irish descent, while his maternal grandparents were emigrants from Chernobyl, Ukraine. He grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio, where he was raised as a Roman Catholic. He graduated from East Liverpool High School. After high school, Holtz attended Kent State University. He was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity, and graduated in 1959 with a degree in history. Holtz also trained under Kent State's Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps and earned a commission as a Field Artillery Officer in the United States Army Reserve at the time of his graduation from college. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant in 1960, at Iowa, where he received his master's degree. From there, he made stops as an assistant at William & Mary (1961–1963), Connecticut (1964–1965), South Carolina (1966–1967) and Ohio State (1968). The 1968 Ohio State Buckeyes football team won a national championship with Holtz as an assistant.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz's first job as head coach came in 1969, at the College of William & Mary, who played in the Southern Conference at that time. In 1970, he led the William & Mary Indians (now Tribe) to the Southern Conference title and a berth in the Tangerine Bowl.


title: Lou Holtz

text: In 1972, Holtz moved to North Carolina State University and had a 33–12–3 record in four seasons. His first three teams achieved final Top 20 rankings, including a final Top 10 finish in the 1974 Coaches Poll. His 1973 team won the ACC Championship. His Wolfpack teams played in four bowl games, going 2–1–1. Holtz received offers to become the Tulane head coach. He at first accepted the offer from David Dixon, the New Orleans Saints founder, then Holtz called Dixon saying he wouldn't come to Tulane. Following the 1975 season, Holtz accepted an offer to leave college football and become the head coach of the NFL's New York Jets.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz's lone foray into the professional ranks began when he was appointed as head coach of the New York Jets on February 10, 1976. He was selected over Johnny Majors, Darryl Rogers, and Marv Levy. Holtz resigned ten months later on December 9 with the Jets at 3–10 and one game remaining in the 1976 season. Upon his departure, he lamented, "God did not put Lou Holtz on this earth to coach in the pros." Holtz's jump to the NFL as head coach for only thirteen games with a 3–10 record before returning to the college game with Arkansas would be duplicated eerily similarly by Bobby Petrino 31 years later in 2007; another 14 years after, his run would be matched in terms of length and broken in terms of record by Urban Meyer, fired by the Jacksonville Jaguars with a 2–11 record in 2021.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz went to the University of Arkansas in 1977. In his seven years there, the Razorbacks compiled a 60–21–2 record and reached six bowl games. In his first season at Arkansas, he led them to a berth in the 1978 Orange Bowl against the Oklahoma Sooners, then coached by University of Arkansas alumnus Barry Switzer. The Sooners were in position to win their third national championship in four seasons after top-ranked Texas lost earlier in the day to fifth-ranked Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Arkansas' chances looked slim after the team lost several key personnel just before the game. In one of his last practices, All-American guard, Leotis Harris suffered a season-ending injury, and only a couple of days later Holtz suspended both starting running backs, Ben Cowins and Michael Forrest, and top receiver, Donny Bobo, for disciplinary reasons. However, behind an Orange Bowl record of 205 yards rushing from reserve running back Roland Sales the Hogs defeated the Sooners, 31–6. That team was recognized by the Rothman (FACT) poll as co-national champions, along with Texas and Notre Dame for 1977. Holtz was widely considered to be the leading candidate to replace Woody Hayes at Ohio State in 1979, but Holtz did not pursue the job because he did not want to follow Hayes.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz led Arkansas to a 10–2 record in 1979 and a share of the SWC championship, and a 9-2-1 record in 1982 with a Bluebonnet Bowl victory over Florida. Holtz was then dismissed following a 6–5 campaign in 1983. At the time, athletic director Frank Broyles stated that Holtz had resigned because he was "tired and burned out", and was not fired. Broyles testified 20 years later that he had fired Holtz because he was losing the fan base with things he said and did. Holtz confirmed that he had been fired, but that Broyles never gave him a reason, although reports cited his political involvement as a major reason: controversy arose over his having taped two television advertisements from his coach's office endorsing the re-election of Jesse Helms as Senator from North Carolina at a time when Helms was leading the effort to block Martin Luther King Day from becoming a national holiday.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz accepted the head coaching job at the University of Minnesota before the 1984 season. The Golden Gophers had only won one game vs. Rice in 1983, but under Holtz won 4 games, including 3 in the Big Ten. In 1985 the team was 7-5 and were invited to the Independence Bowl, where they defeated Clemson, 20–13. Holtz did not coach the Gophers in that bowl game, as he had already accepted the head coaching position at Notre Dame. His contract purportedly included a "Notre Dame clause" that allowed him to leave if that coaching job were to become available. This later proved to be false, as most standard contracts do not include a "Notre Dame" clause.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz's tenure at Minnesota was not without controversy. Just prior to the 1991 Orange Bowl, the NCAA implicated the Holtz-era Golden Gophers for recruiting violations. Sanctions handed down in March 1991 included a bowl ban in 1992 for the Golden Gophers and "two more years ... [of] continued probation".


title: Lou Holtz

text: In 1986, Holtz left Minnesota to take over the then-struggling Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program. A taskmaster and strict disciplinarian, Holtz had the names removed from the backs of the players' jerseys when he took over at Notre Dame, wanting to emphasize team effort. With the exception of select bowl games, names have not been included on Notre Dame's jerseys since. Although his 1986 squad posted an identical 5–6 mark that the 1985 edition had, five of their six losses were by a combined total of 14 points. In the season finale against the archrival USC Trojans, Notre Dame overcame a 17-point fourth-quarter deficit and pulled out a 38–37 win.


title: Lou Holtz

text: In his second season, Holtz led the Fighting Irish to an appearance in the 1988 Cotton Bowl Classic, where the Irish lost to the Texas A&M Aggies, 35–10. The following year, Notre Dame won all eleven of their regular season games and defeated the third-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers, 34–21, in the Fiesta Bowl, claiming the national championship. The 1989 squad also won their first eleven games (and in the process set a school record with a 23-game winning streak) and remained in the No. 1 spot all season until losing to Miami in the season finale. A 21–6 win over Colorado in the Orange Bowl gave the Irish a second-place ranking in the final standings, as well as back-to-back 12-win seasons for the first time in school history.


title: Lou Holtz

text: Holtz's 1993 Irish team ended the season with an 11–1 record and ranked second in the final AP poll. Although the Florida State Seminoles were defeated by the Irish in a battle of unbeatens during the regular season and both teams had only 1 loss at season's end (Notre Dame lost to seventeenth-ranked Boston College), FSU was then voted national champion in the final 1993 AP and Coaches Poll. Between 1988 and 1993, Holtz's teams posted an overall 64–9–1 record. He also took the Irish to bowl games for nine consecutive seasons, still a Notre Dame record.