Biography.

Ryszard Kapuściński was born in Pinsk (now in Belarus), Polesie Voivodeship, in the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the Second Polish Republic in 1932, the son of Maria Bobka (b. 1910) and Józef Kapuściński (b. 1903), primary school teachers. His sister Barbara was born the following year. They were born into poverty: he would later say that he felt at home in Africa as "food was scarce there too and everyone was also barefoot." In September 1938 Ryszard started attending Primary School No 5 in Pinsk. He spent the summer of 1939 together with his mother and sister in Pawłów, a small village near Rejowiec in Lublin Voivodeship. When the Second World War began in September 1939 they came back to Pinsk after the city was captured by the Red Army and Ryszard returned to school there. In 1940 Maria, afraid of deportation to the East, together with Ryszard and Barbara left Pinsk and moved to Sieraków, near Warsaw. There they met Józef. Later the family moved near Otwock. Ryszard continued education in primary school in Otwock (1944–45). He described his early life in the book "Imperium".  In 1945 the family settled in Warsaw where Ryszard began education in Stanisław Staszic Gymnasium. He became an amateur boxer (bantamweight) and football player. In 1948, Kapuściński joined the official Communist youth organisationthe ZMPand served lower rank posts. Kapuściński was the hero of the article published in the weekly periodical "Odrodzenie" reporting on a poetry conference organised at his school, in which the teenager's poems were compared with works of Mayakovsky and Wierzyński.  In June 1950 he graduated from Gymnasium and started working for the "Sztandar Młodych" (The Banner of Youth), a nationwide newspaper founded in 1950 as the organ of the ZMP. In October 1950 he began his studies at Warsaw University (Department of Polish Studies) and in 1951 he moved to the department of history after he suspended working for "Sztandar Młodych" till 1955. He participated in the Youth Festival in East Berlin staged in August 1951 in East Germany. This was his first foreign trip. From 1952 and till his death Ryszard Kapuściński was married to doctor Alicja Mielczarek (b. 1933). Their daughter Zofia was born in 1953. During the period from 1953 to 1981the year of the imposition of the martial law in PolandKapuściński was a member of the Polish United Workers' Party (the PZPR). His attitude to the PZPR changed early on, "the decisive moment having come in the year 1956" (presumably a reference to the events of Poznań June and the process of de-Stalinisation brought about by the Thaw of Gomułka, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956).  In June 1955 he graduated from Warsaw University. After publishing, in September 1955, a critical article about the construction of Nowa Huta, a Cracow conurbation built on a site chosen as the "first socialist municipality in Poland", which brought to light the inhuman working and living conditions of the labourers involved in the venture—a story which occasioned consternation before eventually winning favour with the Communist authorities unsure at first how to react to a fault-finding depiction of their pet project by one of their own—Kapuściński was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit at the age of 23.  In August 1956 he reported from Kiev and in September he was sent to India, his first travel outside Europe. He returned via Afghanistan (where he was detained at the airport in Kabul) and Moscow. In August 1957 he went for half a year to China (via Tokyo and Hong Kong). He came back to Poland by the Trans-Siberian Railway. Beginning with that journey to India undertaken at the age of 24, he travelled across the developing world reporting on wars, coups and revolutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He started learning English in India by reading, with the help of a dictionary, a copy of Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls". He wrote about his first travels to Asia in the book "Travels with Herodotus".  In 1958 he left "Sztandar Młodych" and started working for the Polish Press Agency. Shortly afterwards he also joined the weekly "Polityka" (where he worked till 1962). The result of his work for the weekly was the book "Busz po polsku" (The Polish Bush) published in 1962, a collection of his articles from the "Polish wilderness" that he went into to relate "the perspectives of forgotten, invisible, marginal people and so to record a living history of those seldom deemed worthy to enter the annals of official history" (in the words of Diana Kuprel, the literary scholar and translator of Kapuściński's works). He was aggrieved at the indifference of the reading public towards the majority of his early books.  In the late 1950s he went for the first time to Africa (Ghana, Republic of Dahomey and Niger). After honing his skills on domestic stories he was later "'responsible' for fifty countries" for the Polish Press Agency in Africa. (Although a correspondent of an official state press agency, he never in his life asked a single question at any press conference that he attended). When he finally returned to Poland, he had lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, been jailed 40 times and survived four death sentences. In the English-speaking world, Kapuściński is best known for his reporting from Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, when he witnessed first-hand the end of the European colonial empires on that continent.  In 1961 he reported from the Republic of the Congo. He described his escape to Bujumbura and subsequent arrest in the book "The Soccer War". In the years 1962–65 he lived initially in Dar es Salaam and later in Nairobi from where he travelled to other countries in Africa. He came back to Poland only for few weeks in 1965 but returned to Africa to live in Lagos and continue reporting. In April 1965 he travelled to Senegal and Mauritania which he later described in the book "The Shadow of the Sun". At the end of 1966 he came back to Poland. In April 1967 he went to Central Asia and Caucasus. In November the same year he started working as a foreign correspondent in South America, based in Santiago. Later he moved to Mexico (1969–72). In 1969 he witnessed war in Honduras which he described in the book "The Soccer War". In 1969 he edited and translated from the Spanish "El diario del Che en Bolivia", the final literary bequest of Che Guevara. Kapuściński analyzed the situation in Guatemala after a German diplomat Karl von Spreti was kidnapped. He published his reportage in 1970 entitled "Dlaczego zginął Karl von Spreti" (Why Karl von Spreti Died). He returned to Poland in 1972 and later worked for magazines "Kontynenty" and "Kultura". In September 1975 he went to Angola after which he published the book "Another Day of Life". In 1975 and 1977 he went to Ethiopia. "The Emperor" was written after his travels there. In 1979 he visited his birthplace Pinsk for the first time since 1940. In 1979 he went to Iran to witness the Iranian Revolution. His book "Shah of Shahs" deals with this subject and the fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. In 1980 he witnessed the strikes that took place in Gdańsk, Poland. In 1988 two episodes of Arena were dedicated to him and his work. He travelled in European and Asian parts of the Soviet Union (1989–1992) and witnessed the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. After this experience he wrote "Imperium". He was awarded German Academic Exchange Service scholarship in Berlin in 1994. In 1999 Kapuściński talked about his life in VPRO in a series of autobiographical interviews with prominent people from the worlds of science, culture and politics.  In a 2006 interview with Reuters, Kapuściński said that he wrote for "people everywhere still young enough to be curious about the world." He was fluent in Polish, English, Russian, Spanish, French and Portuguese. He was visiting professor in Bangalore (1970s), Bonn, Cape Town, Caracas (1979), Columbia University (1983), Harvard University, Irkutsk, London, Madrid, Mexico (1979), San Sebastian, Temple University (1988) and Vancouver.  Kapuściński died on January 23, 2007, of a heart attack suffered in a Warsaw hospital where he was being treated for unrelated ailments.

Literary works.

From the early 1960s onwards, Kapuściński published books of increasing literary craftsmanship characterized by sophisticated narrative technique, psychological portraits of characters, a wealth of stylization and metaphor and unusual imagery that serves as means of interpreting the perceived world. Kapuściński's best-known book, "The Emperor", concerns itself with the decline of Haile Selassie's anachronistic régime in Ethiopia. The book's story had a special meaning that was not lost on the people of Poland, especially as dissent against the PZPR was taking root. "The Emperor" was also the book that established Kapuściński's reputation in the West. When it appeared in English translation in 1983 it received an immediate critical success. In 1987 the book was adapted by Michael Hastings and Jonathan Miller into a theatre play, produced by the Royal Court Theatre, London.  Kapuściński was fascinated by the humanity he found in different worlds and people, as well as the books of these worlds and people: he approached foreign countries first through literature, spending months reading before each trip. He was skilled in listening to the diverse people he met, but he was also capable of "reading" the hidden sense of the scenes he encountered: the way the Europeans moved out of Angola, a discussion regarding alimony in the Tanganyikan parliament, the reconstruction of frescoes in the new Russiahe turned each of these vignettes into a metaphor of historical transformation.  This tendency to process private experiences into a greater social synthesis made Kapuściński an eminent thinker, and the volumes of the ongoing "Lapidarium" series are a record of the shaping of a reporter's observations into philosophical reflections on the world, its people and their suffering. He had great compassion for the poor, the victimised, and the debased.  Kapuściński himself called his work "literary reportage", and "reportage d'auteur". In the English-speaking world, his genre is sometimes characterised as "magic journalism" (in counterpoint to magic realism), a term coined by Adam Hochschild in 1994. Kapuściński often introduced himself with the line "I am a poor reporter who unfortunately lacks the imagination of a writer".  Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani and Ryszard Kapuściński shared a similar vision of journalism. Jaime Abello Banfi, the friend and associate of Gabriel García Márquez, reports that García Márquez and Kapuściński, unbeknownst to each other, shared the opinion that the way to good journalism led through poetry (on account of the fact that it inculcates both the conciseness of expression and its aptness).  Kapuściński considered the ancient Greek historian Herodotus a great reporter and his master. He wrote a book "Travels with Herodotus" where he shows that the "Histories" of Herodotus are timeless and the masterpiece of reportage. He also considered Curzio Malaparte, Melchior Wańkowicz, Ksawery Pruszyński and Franciszek Gil (1917–1960) to have been his literary models and stylistic precursors. On some level, Pruszyński and Wańkowicz shared a very similar approach to facts with Kapuściński, believing that the general picture of the story can be glued from bits and pieces to reveal a truth as a wholly independent construct. Students of Kapuściński's work observed correspondences between his work and that of J. M. Coetzee in that both writers were supposedly beholden to the theory of "the responsibility of witness".  One reviewer saw in Kapuściński's mixing of subtle psychological reflection with vivid description an invitation to a comparison with Joseph Conrad; Binyavanga Wainaina and Aleksandar Hemon made the same comparison, if for other, less laudatory reasons. Kapuściński confirmed to Bill Deedes the fact that Conrad was one of his literary inspirations. Neal Ascherson likened him to Egon Erwin Kisch (1885–1948) considered the father of literary reportage. Kapuściński himself cites Kisch with approval as the "classic of reportage" who dealt a death blow to traditional forms of reporting by putting the person of the reporter at centre stage. Certainly, neither Kisch nor Kapuściński believed in what might be called "journalistic objectivity": whereas Kisch thought it necessary for a (Communist) reporter to "engage politically" with his subject, Kapuściński would put objectivity as a concept out of court altogether, stating explicitly, "There is no such thing as objectivity. Objectivity is the question of the conscience of the one who writes. And he himself should answer the question is this what he writes close to the truth or not".  Kapuściński's views on his craft were published in 2000 in the book in Italian "Il cinico non è adatto a questo mestiere: conversazioni sul buon giornalismo" (A Cynic wouldn't Suit This Profession: Conversations about Good Journalism), the book in Spanish from 2003 (distributed for free) "Los cinco sentidos del periodista (estar, ver, oír, compartir, pensar)" (The Journalist's Five Senses: Witnessing, Seeing, Listening, Sharing and Thinking) and in his Polish book "Autoportret reportera" (A Reporter's Self Portrait) published the same year. In 1987 Marek Miller talked with Kapuściński on the art of reportage and his life. These conversations were published in Poland in 2012 in the book "Pisanie" (Writing) but broadcast in Canada on "Kalejdoskop Polski" TV as early as 1988. He was vocal denouncing manipulations and ignorance of big media.

Photographer.

Kapuściński debuted as a photographer in the year 2000 with the publication of the album entitled "Z Afryki" ("Out of Africa"), a photographic harvest of his journeys in that continent. "Every snapshot is a recollection, a remembrance," he writes in the introduction, "and nothing can sensitise us more to the fragility of time, to its impermanent and fleeting naturethan photography." A sequel, entitled "Ze świata" ("From the World", published in November 2008 with the introduction of John Updike), comprising a cross-section of Kapuściński's photographs from all parts of the world, contains some truly outstanding shots.

Posthumous and non-reportage works.

In "Ten Inny" ("The Other"), a collection of lectures delivered in Vienna, Graz and Cracow, published shortly before his death, Kapuściński laments a state of affairs perpetuated by the myths which inculcate the notion of the Other as sub-human or non-human. He saw encountering the Other as the main challenge for the twenty-first century. The posthumously published "Ho dato voce ai poveri: dialogo con i giovani" ("I Gave a Voice to the Poor: Conversations with the Youth"; Trent, Il Margine, 2007; subsequently published in Poland as "Dałem głos ubogim. Rozmowy z młodzieżą"; Cracow, Znak, 2008) is a record of Kapuściński's interactions with the students of the University of Bolzano in Italy in October 2006; while "Rwący nurt historii. Zapiski o XX i XXI wieku" ("In the Whirlpools of History: Jottings on the 20th and the 21st Centuries"; Cracow, Znak, 2007) is a compilation of interviews and lectures, reflecting Kapuściński's training as a historian and dealing with contemporary issues and their historical and cross-cultural parallels (including such issues as globalisation, Islam, the birth of the Third World, and the dawn of the Pacific civilisation).  Kapuściński's pronouncements on current affairs were noteworthy: he thought that the causes of the 9/11 tragedy, for example, were too complex to lend themselves to an exhaustively thorough analysis at present, although he offered an extensive and sophisticated exposition of some of the key elements of the puzzle in the "Clash of Civilisations". He was critical on the "Clash of Civilisations" theory which he saw as an American vision of the world. He told a BBC interviewer right after the attacks: "I greatly fear that we will waste this moment. That instead of meaningful dialogue, it will just be gates and metal detectors".  In an interview granted in 2002 to the then editor-in-chief of the monthly "Letras Libres", Ricardo Cayuela Gally, Kapuściński opined that the war on terror, owing to the asymmetrical character of the combatants engaged in it, could only be wonand indeed easily, within a monththrough a (re)introduction of "Stalinism", a method undesirable for the sole reason that it would leave the world under the permanent "hegemony" of the United States, a circumstance that would spell the end of "the free society".  In Poland, since 1986 Kapuściński was also known as a poet: he privately confided in his Swedish translator, Anders Bodegård, that he considered this to be his primary identity. In November 2007 the Canadian publishing house Biblioasis published Kapuściński's selected poems in English, "I Wrote Stone", the first English translation of his poetry. Los Angeles Times wrote: "Big events (...) may have been treated lyrically in his prose, but (...) these poems capture the moments between crises, impressions that carry a book-length argument in a few lines". Collected poems from his books were published in Poland and Canada in 2012 in both Polish and English in the book "Collected Poems", translated by Diana Kuprel and Marek Kusiba.  Although he was not the sole model for the role, Kapuściński was given a portrayal as the main character in Andrzej Wajda's 1978 film "Without Anesthesia". Aleksandar Hemon, the Bosnian-American novelist (who had previously impugned Robert D. Kaplan's stereotyping of "the Balkan mind"), in a critique of Kapuściński's Africa writings published in "The Village Voice", accused Kapuściński's readers of turning a blind eye to "the underlying proto-racist essentialism" that informs his vision of and his approach to the cultures of the continent: "[Kapuściński] fumes against the racism absurdly based on skin colour, and would probably be shocked if told that his obsessive listing of essential differences [between "the African mind" and "the European mind"] is essentially racist".

Reception.

Kapuściński had a global reputation, and is one of the Polish writers translated into the highest number of foreign languages.  In an obituary published in "Der Spiegel", Kapuściński was described by German journalist Claus Christian Malzahn as "one of the most credible journalists the world has ever seen". Daniel Alarcón, a Peruvian-American novelist, cited Kapuściński as a formative influence together with Dostoyevsky. The American journalist and reportage-writer Richard Bernstein, saw value in the "penetrating intelligence" of Kapuściński's vision and in his "crystallised descriptive" style of writing. The British journalist Bill Deedes, who had witnessed the Rwandan genocide first-hand, said of Kapuściński that what he "writes about Africa is authoritative as well as captivating. His account of how the Hutus and the Tutsis were drawn into that dark night of genocide in Rwanda is the most enlightening I have read anywhere" and that he had "transformed journalism into literature in his writings about Africa". Professor Philip Melling of Swansea University has concurred with this opinion, citing Kapuściński as an authority on the Rwandan conflict.  Salman Rushdie wrote about him: "One Kapuściński is worth more than a thousand whimpering and fantasizing scribblers. His exceptional combination of journalism and art allows us to feel so close to what Kapuściński calls the inexpressible true image of war".  Frequently mentioned as a favorite to win the Nobel Prize in literature, he never did. Kapuściński's dying before he could be awarded the Prize was bemoaned in the Swedish press as late as October 2010. Since his death he has been offered many epitaphs in the press, such as, "The master of modern journalism", "Translator of the World" and "The Greatest Reporter in the World", "Herodotus of our times", "Third World chronicler".  Over the years, particularly since 1983 when "The Emperor" was named Book of the Year by "The Sunday Times" of London, Kapuściński was the recipient of many international literary prizes that brought recognition to his creative "oeuvre": these included, for example, the biennial Hanseatic Goethe Prize awarded by the Hamburg-based foundation, the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung, which he received in 1999; or the Italian Elsa Morante Prize (Premio Elsa Morante, Sezione Culture D'Europa) in 2005, for his "Travels with Herodotus" (the new category of the Premio Elsa Morante, called "Cultures of Europe", in effect a separate prize awarded by the same jury, having apparently been created specially for him).  In 2001 Kapuściński received the literary Prix Tropiques of the French Development Agency for his book "The Shadow of the Sun", published in France under the title "Ébène: Aventures africaines", which had a year earlier been named the best book of the year by the French literary monthly, "Lire"; the book also won the Italian literary award, Feudo Di Maida Prize (in full, Premio Letterario Internazionale Feudo Di Maida), for the year 2000. That same year (2000) Kapuściński was honoured with the prestigious Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia, as well as having received the Creola Prize (Premio Creola) in Bologna (awarded for travel books and facilitation of intercultural encounters), and the "Premio Letterario 'Della Resistenza' of the Piedmontese city of Omegna (Premio Omegna).  In 2003 Kapuściński received the Premio Grinzane Cavour per la Lettura in Turin; shared the Prince of Asturias Award (in the category "Communications and Humanities") with the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez; and was awarded the Kreisky Prize (Bruno-Kreisky-Preis für das politische Buch) for the entirety of his work ("Sonderpreis für das publizistische Gesamtwerk"; the award ceremony having taken place in Vienna in May of the following year). As the doyen of literary reportage, he was the keynote speaker at the inaugural ceremony, held in Berlin in October 2003, for the Lettre Ulysses Awards for the Art of Reportage.  In 2005 the Italian edition of Kapuściński's poems (which appeared in print the previous year as "Taccuino d'appunti" in the translation of Silvano De Fanti) won the state-funded Naples Prize (Premio Napoli). To complete the round-up of Italian prizes, the next year Kapuściński was awarded a special category of the Ilaria Alpi Prize for the entirety of his career (Premio Ilaria Alpi alla carriera), one of the best-known of Italian journalistic awards, named for an Italian investigative reporter murdered in Somalia in 1994 (although the scope of the prize is limited to TV journalism, special categories of prizes for which he would not otherwise qualifyas also for example in the case of the Elsa Morante Prizehave been created for Kapuściński). Kapuściński received honorary doctorates from the University of Silesia (1997), the University of Wrocław (2001), the University of Sofia (2002), the University of Gdańsk (2004), Jagiellonian University (2004). In June 2005 Kapuściński was invested with an honorary doctorate by the private Ramon Llull University of Barcelona, Spain; and in May 2006, just eight months before his death, he received a similar degree from the University of Udine in Italy.  In 2010, the Council of the Capital City of Warsaw established the Ryszard Kapuściński Award for literary reportage as a form of distinction and promotion of the most worthwhile reportage books which touch on important contemporary issues, evoke reflection, and deepen our knowledge of the world of other cultures.

Controversy and biographies.

Since at least 1987 Kapuściński's veracity as a reporter has been disputed, and he responded with the explanation that his work had been allegorical. By his own account he chose to avoid dates, names, and orders of events. Since at least 2001, there has been literary debate about to which genre Kapuściński's work should be categorized.  A 2001 review by John Ryle concerned the Kapuściński memoir entitled "The Shadow of the Sun" released in the same year. Ryle alleged that questions about the reliability of Kapuściński's reportage began with "The Emperor". Scrutinizing Kapuściński's translation of expressions of fealty by Ethiopian courtiers, Ryle said that "native speakers of Amharic say that these honorifics correspond to no known expressions in their language." Ryle wrote that he visited Ethiopia in the 1990s when the action of "The Shadow of the Sun" was taking place. He said there were inaccuracies in the story, for example, that Mengistu's generals did not escape justice and that the 'academics' among them were few and far in between. Ryle noticed that the initials of Kapuściński's informants did not correspond to the names of witnesses in the trial of the Derg in Addis Ababa. He added that Kapuściński's description of the capital devoid of bookstores did not correspond to what he has seen on his last visit there, because he found six bookstores there. He also disputed Kapuściński's assertion that Haile Selassie did not read books by saying he had a library, was well read, and annotated documents.  Ryle continued:  Polish scholars Dr. Beata Nowacka (University of Silesia) and Dr. Zygmunt Ziątek (Polish Academy of Sciences) wrote the first biography of Kapuściński, which was published by Znak in 2008 under the title "Ryszard Kapuściński. Biografia pisarza". Their monograph was translated in 2010 to Spanish ("Kapuscinski. Una biografía literaria") and in 2012 to Italian ("Ryszard Kapuściński. Biografia di uno scrittore"). Professor Silvano De Fanti from the University of Udine wrote Kapuściński's biography for the "Opere" (2009), published in Italian in the Meridiani series which aims to collect major writers of all times from all countries.  In 2010, a Polish language monograph titled "Kapuściński Non-Fiction" written by Artur Domosławski was published in Warsaw. Kapuściński's widow, Alicja Kapuścińska, sought an injunction against Domosławski's book, claiming defamation and invasion of privacy. The injunction was rejected by the Polish court on the grounds that she had chosen to give Domosławski access to her husband's archive. In an interview with "The Guardian" Domosławski said: "Kapuściński was experimenting in journalism. He wasn't aware he had crossed the line between journalism and literature. I still think his books are wonderful and precious. But ultimately, they belong to fiction." Domosławski's monograph was translated to English in 2012 by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and first published by Verso Books as "Ryszard Kapuściński. A Life" in 2012.  Neal Ascherson defended Kapuściński in March 2010 by saying: "None of the doubts, as far as I can see, are about the despatches and features he sent to newspapers, or to the Polish Press Agency. They are about his books. The adventures and encounters he describes in his books are on a different level of veracity. Like his friend Gabriel García Márquez, Kapuściński used to talk about "literary reportage". You're meant to believe what you are being told, but not in every literal detail.... Scrupulous in his journalism, in his books he was capable of inventing in order to make a truth even truer. He was a great story-teller, but not a liar." Timothy Garton Ash was more critical. Ash wrote later that month (reprinted in his "Facts Are Subversive"): "with Kapuscinski, we keep crossing from the Kenya of fact to the Tanzania of fiction, and back again, but the transition is nowhere explicitly signalled."  Reviewing the English translation of Domosławski's book for "The Financial Times" in 2012, the then permanent secretary of the Nobel-awarding Swedish Academy, Peter Englund, said: "In any case, the "literary" in "literary reportage" doesn't absolve you of your duty to the facts. Neither is it possible, in my mind, to see it as a sliding scale, in which you are able slowly to introduce droplets of fiction into a factual text until, at a certain point, the mixture transforms into pure fiction. No, once an element of fiction is introduced into a text everything immediately turns into fiction – maybe fiction with a strong resemblance to the real world, but still fiction."  The first biographers, Nowacka and Ziątek, responded to Domosławski's allegations with their own new book, "Literatura non-fiction. Czytanie Kapuścińskiego po Domosławskim" ("Non‐fiction literature: Reading Kapuściński after Domosławski") which was published in Polish by the University of Silesia Press in 2013. They oppose the accusation of creating a myth, and his own legend, as well as confabulations and opportunism, showing a selected and tendentious usage of the author's life knowledge, the lack of comprehension of literary reportage, manipulation with texts and quotations, as well as numerous factual and technical mistakes made by Domosławski. In 2013 the publisher of Domosławski's book apologized to Alicja Kapuścińska and her daughter. In May 2015 amendments were ordered by a court in Warsaw which also ruled that Domosławski should apologise to Kapuściński's widow, however in August 2015 the same court has ruled that the author will not have to apologise to Kapuściński's daughter.

Documentary films.

Kapuściński wrote a screenplay for a 1962 Polish documentary film "80-dni Lumumby" (80 days of Lumumba) directed by Tadeusz Jaworski about Patrice Lumumba. Imperfect Journey is a 1994 Ethiopian documentary film directed by Haile Gerima. Gerima travelled to Ethiopia together with Kapuściński. The film explores the political and psychic recovery of the Ethiopian people after the repression of the military junta of Mengistu Haile Mariam.  Documentary films about Kapuściński include Jacek Talczewski's "Ryszard Kapuściński" (Polish, 1987, the idea of the film by Marek Miller), Filip Bajon's "Poszukiwany Ryszard Kapuściński" (Polish, 1998), Piotr Załuski's "Druga Arka Noego" (Polish, 2000), "Pejzaże dzieciństwa. Ryszard Kapuściński" (Polish, 2005), Gabrielle Pfeiffer's "A Poet on the Front Line: The Reportage of Ryszard Kapuściński" (English, 2004), Beata Hyży-Czołpińska's "Ostatnia książka Ryszarda Kapuścińskiego" (Polish, 2008), Olga Prud'homme-Farges' "L'Afrique vue par Ryszard Kapuściński" (French, 2014, also in German as "Am Puls Afrikas")., and Ela Chrzanowska's "Los ríos. El viaje a México con el Maestro Kapuściński" (Spanish and Polish, 2016).

Ryszard Kapuściński (; March 4, 1932 – January 23, 2007) was a Polish journalist, photographer, poet and author. He received many awards and was considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Kapuściński's personal journals in book form attracted both controversy and admiration for blurring the conventions of reportage with the allegory and magical realism of literature. He was the Communist-era Polish Press Agency's only correspondent in Africa during decolonization, and also worked in South America and Asia. Between 1956 and 1981 he reported on 27 revolutions and coups, until he was fired because of his support for the pro-democracy Solidarity movement in his native country. He was celebrated by other practitioners of the genre. The acclaimed Italian reportage-writer Tiziano Terzani, Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, and Chilean writer Luis Sepúlveda accorded him the title "Maestro".

Ryszard Kapuściński [ryšard kapuščiňski] (* 4. března 1932, Pińsk, Bělorusko – 23. ledna 2007, Varšava, Polsko) byl polský reportér, novinář a publicista. Je to v současnosti nejpřekládanější polský autor.


Versus shell collecting.

The terms "shell collector" and "conchologist" can be regarded as two distinct categories. Not all shell collectors are conchologists; some are primarily concerned with the aesthetic value of shells instead of their scientific study. It is also true that not all conchologists are shell collectors; this type of research only requires access to private or institutional shell collections. There is some debate in the conchological community, with some people regarding all shell collectors (regardless of motivation) as conchologists.

History.

Molluscs have probably been used by primates as a food source long before humans evolved. The Asturian culture of the European Mesolithic, in modern north Spain, is one of many coastal archaeological cultures around the world characterized by the creation of very large shell-middens or waste-heaps. The extremely large Whaleback Shell Midden appears to have been created over a period of 1,000 years or more.  Shell collecting, the precursor of conchology, probably goes back as far as there have been humans living near beaches. Stone Age seashell necklaces have been found, sometimes in areas far from the ocean, indicating that they were traded. Shell jewellery is found at almost all archaeological sites, including at ancient Aztec ruins, digs in ancient China, and the Indus Valley.  During the Renaissance people began taking interest in natural objects of beauty to put in cabinets of curiosities. Because of their attractiveness, variety, durability and ubiquity, shells became a large part of these collections. Towards the end of the 17th century, people began looking at shells with scientific interest. In 1681 the two-volume shell atlas "Ricreazione dell'occhio et della mente nell'osservazione delle chiocciole" was published in Rome by the Jesuit priest Filippo Bonanni (1638–1725). This was the first treatise entirely devoted to molluscs.  George Rumpf, or Rumphius (1627–1702) published the first mollusc taxonomy. He suggested "single shelled ones" (Polyplacophora, limpets, and abalone), "snails or whelks" (Gastropoda), and "two-shelled ones" (Bivalvia). Many of Rumpf's terms were adopted by Carl Linnaeus. Rumpf continued to do important scientific work after he went blind, working by touch.  The study of zoology, including conchology, was revolutionized by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus and his system of binomial nomenclature. 683 of the 4000 or so animal species he described are now considered to be molluscs, although Linnaeus placed them in several phyla at the time. The English word "conchology" was coined in the 1770s by the British Sephardi naturalist Emanuel Mendez da Costa, who published "The Elements of Conchology: or, an Introduction to the Knowledge of Shells" in London in 1776.  There have been many prominent conchologists in the past two centuries. The Sowerby family were famous collectors, dealers, and illustrators. John Mawe (1764–1829) produced arguably the first conchology guidebook, "The Voyager's Companion or Shell-Collector's Pilot" as well as "The Linnæan System of Conchology". Hugh Cuming (1791–1865) is famous for his huge collection and numerous discoveries of new species. Thomas Say wrote the fundamental work "American Conchology, or Descriptions of the Shells of North America, Illustrated From Coloured Figures From Original Drawings, Executed from Nature" in six volumes (1830–1834).  R. Tucker Abbott was the most prominent conchologist of the 20th century. He authored dozens of books and was museum director of the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, bringing the world of seashells to the public. His most prominent works are "American Seashells", "Seashells of the World", and "The Kingdom of the Seashell".  Many of the finest collections of seashells are private. John DuPont and Jack Lightbourne are known for their extensive collections. John DuPont donated his shell collection to the Delaware Museum of Natural History in 1984. Emperor Hirohito of Japan also amassed a huge collection, and was a competent and respected amateur conchologist.

Museums.

Many museums worldwide contain very large and scientifically important mollusc collections. However, in most cases these are research collections, behind the scenes of the museum, and thus not readily accessible to the general public in the same way that exhibits are.  The largest assemblage of mollusc shells is housed at the Smithsonian Institution which has millions of lots representing perhaps 50,000 species, versus about 35,000 species for the largest private collections.

Organizations.

Like other scientific fields, conchologists have a number of local, national, and international organizations. There are also many organizations specializing in specific subareas.

Fake shells.

Shell collectors who purchase shells from dealers may sometimes encounter shells which have been altered to represent new species or rare color varieties. It is claimed that in previous centuries, fake examples of "Epitonium scalare" were created out of rice paste.

Depictions of shells on stamps and coins.

Shells have been featured on over 5,000 postage stamps worldwide.  Shells have also been featured on many coins, including the Bahamian dollar (1974), the Cuban peso (1981), the Haitian gourde (1973), the Nepalese rupee (1989) and Philippine peso (1993).

Conchology (from "konkhos", "cockle") is the study of mollusc shells. Conchology is one aspect of malacology, the study of molluscs; however, malacology is the study of molluscs as whole organisms, whereas conchology is confined to the study of their shells. It includes the study of land and freshwater mollusc shells as well as seashells and extends to the study of a gastropod's operculum.

Konchologie je sběr a studium schránek měkkýšů jako součást malakologie. Konchologové (lidé zabývající se konchologií) studují schránky měkkýšů aby porozuměli biodiverzitě a taxonomii měkkýšů nebo jednoduše oceňují jejich estetickou hodnotu.


Description.

"Caltha palustris" is a 10–80 cm high, hairless, fleshy, perennial, herbaceous plant, that dies down in autumn and overwinters with buds near the surface of the marshy soil. The plants have many, 2–3 mm thick strongly branching roots. Its flowering stems are hollow, erect or more or less decumbent. The alternate true leaves are in a rosette, each of which consist of a leaf stem that is about 4× as long as the kidney-shaped leaf blade, itself between 3–25 cm long and 3–20 cm wide, with a heart-shaped foot, a blunt tip, and a scalloped to toothed, sometime almost entire margin particularly towards the tip. In their youth the leaves are protected by a membranous sheath, that may be up to 3 cm long in fully grown plants.

Inflorescence.

The common marsh-marigold mostly has several flowering stems of up to 80 cm long, carrying – mostly several – seated leaflike stipules – or the lower ones may be on a short petiole -, and between four and six (but occasionally as few as one or as many as twenty five) flowers. The flowers are approximately 4 (2–51⁄2) cm in diameter. There are four to nine (mostly five) petal-like, brightly colored – yolk yellow, white or magenta -, inverted egg-shaped sepals, each about 13⁄4 (1–21⁄2) cm long and 11⁄3 (3⁄4–13⁄4) cm wide with a blunt or sometimes acute tip. Real petals and nectaries are lacking. Between fifty and hundred-twenty stamens with flattened yellow filaments and yellow tricolpate or sometimes pantoporate pollen encircle between five and twenty-five free, flattened, linear-oblong, yellow to green carpels, with a two-lobed, obliquely positioned stigma, and each with many seedbuds. This later on develops into a seated, funnel-shaped fruit (a so-called follicle) of 3⁄4–2 cm long and 1⁄4–1⁄2 cm wide, that opens with one suture at the side of the axis and contains seven to twenty ovoid, brown to black seeds of about 21⁄2×11⁄3 mm.

Taxonomy.

Taxonomic history.

The oldest description that is generally acknowledged in the botanical literature dates from 1700 under the name "Populago" by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in part 1 of his Institutiones rei herbariae. He distinguished between "P. flore major", "P. flore minor" and "P. flore plena", and already says all of these are synonymous to "Caltha palustris", without mentioning any previous author. As a plant name published before 1 May 1753, "Populago" is invalid. And so is the first description as "Caltha palustris" by Carl Linnaeus in his Genera Plantarum of 1737. But Linnaeus re-describes the species under the same name in Species Plantarum of 1 May 1753, thus providing the correct name.

Etymology.

The generic name "Caltha" is derived from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "goblet", and is said to refer to the shape of the flower. The species epithet "palustris" is Latin for "of the marsh" and indicates its common habitat.  In the UK, "Caltha palustris" is known by a variety of vernacular names, varying by geographical region. These include in addition to the most common two, marsh marigold and kingcup, also brave bassinets, crazy Beth, horse blob, Molly-blob, May blob, mare blob, boots, water boots, meadow-bright, bullflower, meadow buttercup, water buttercup, soldier's buttons, meadow cowslip, water cowslip, publican's cloak, crowfoot, water dragon, drunkards, water goggles, meadow gowan, water gowan, yellow gowan, goldes, golds, goldings, gools, cow lily, marybuds, and publicans-and-sinners. The common name "marigold" refers to its use in medieval churches at Easter as a tribute to the Virgin Mary, as in "Mary gold". In North America "Caltha palustris" is sometimes known as cowslip. However, cowslip more often refers to "Primula veris", the original plant to go by that name. Both are herbaceous plants with yellow flowers, but "Primula veris" is much smaller.

Culture.

"Caltha palustris" is a plant commonly mentioned in literature, including Shakespeare:  It also appears in Charlotte Brontë's "Shirley":  and in Thomas Hardy's poem 'Overlooking the River Stour':  "Kingcup Cottage" by Racey Helps is a children's book which features the plant.  In Latvia Caltha palustris is also known as, which is also used as a girls name and symbolizes fire. The word is made from 2 words – ("fire") and ("burned"). This refers to the burning reaction that some people experience from contact with "Caltha" sap.

Subdivision, synonymy and culture varieties.

"Caltha palustris" is a very variable species. Since most character states occur in almost any combination, this provides little basis for subdivisions. The following varieties are nevertheless widely recognised. They are listed with their respective synonyms. If an epithet based on the same type specimen is used at different levels, only the use at the highest taxonomic rank is listed, so as "C. himalensis" is already listed, "C. palustris" var. "himalensis" is not.  The 2006–2007 edition of the Royal Horticultural Society "Plant Finder", a British publication which lists over 70,000 plants available in nurseries in the United Kingdom, lists in addition to these varieties the following cultivars: Single flowered: "Marilyn", "Trotter's form", "Yellow Giant". Double flowered: "Flore Pleno" (RHS's Award of Garden Merit), "Multiplex", "Plena", "Semiplena".

Ecology.

The marsh-marigold grows in places with oxygen-rich water near the surface of the soil. It likes richer soils, but dislikes application of fertilizer and avoids high concentrations of phosphate and ammonium, and is also shy of brackish water. It is often associated with seepage that is rich in iron, because iron ions react with phosphate, thus making it unavailable for plants. The resulting insoluble mineral appears as "rusty" flocs on the water soil and the surface of the stems of marsh plants. Around the edge of lakes and rivers it grows between reeds, and it can be found in black alder coppices and other regularly flooded and always moist forests. When it is present it often visually dominates when it is in bloom. It also used to be common on wet meadows, but due to agricultural rationalization it is now limited to ditches.  It is a component of Purple moor grass and rush pastures – a type of Biodiversity Action Plan habitat in the UK. It occurs on poorly drained neutral and acidic soils of the lowlands and upland fringe.  In western Europe, the marsh-marigold moth "Micropterix calthella" bites open the anthers of the marsh-marigold and other plants to eat the pollen. The caterpillars that are present in summer and autumn also feed on marsh-marigold, although these are sometimes found on mosses too. Another visitor of "Caltha palustris" in western Europe is the leaf beetle "Prasocuris phellandrii", which is black with four orange stripes and around 1⁄2 cm and eats the sepals. Its larvae inhabit the hollow stems of members of the parsley family. In the USA (Illinois) two species of leaf beetle can be found on Caltha: "Plateumaris nitida" and "Hydrothassa vittata". The maggots of some "Phytomyza" species (Agromyzidae) are miners in "Caltha" leaves.

Pollination.

Flowers produce both nectar and copious amounts of pollen which attract many insect visitors. They may be most commonly pollinated by hoverflies (Syrphidae). In Canada, beetles (Cantharidae, Nitidulidae, Coccinellidae, Chrysomelidae, Cerambycidae), thrips (Thripidae), bugs (Miridae), butterflies (Pieridae), sawflies (Tenthredinidae), bees (Apidae, Halictidae, Andrenidae), ants (Formicidae) and flies (Sepsidae, Sciomyzidae, Ephydridae, Syrphidae, Anthomyiidae, Tachinidae and Muscidae) have been observed to visit the leaves or flowers, many of which were found carrying "Caltha" pollen. In addition to other forms of pollination, this plant is adapted to rain-pollination.  "Caltha palustris" is infertile when self-pollinated. Rather high fertility in crosses between sibling plants suggest that this phenomenon is genetically regulated by several genes. This regulation mechanism also occurs in "Ranunculus" and as far as known only in these two genera.

Seed dispersal.

In "Caltha palustris" up to two hundred seeds may be produced by each flower. When the follicles open, they form a "splash cup". When a raindrop hits one at the right angle, the walls are shaped such that the seeds are expelled. The seeds also have some spongy tissue that makes them float on water, until they wash up in a location that may be suitable for this species to grow.

Diseases.

The marsh-marigold is affected by the rust species "Puccinia calthea" and "P. calthicola".

Use.

Early spring greens and buds of "Caltha palustris" are edible when cooked. Young leaves or buds should be submerged a few times in fresh boiling water until barely tender, cut into bite-sized pieces, lightly salted, and served with melted butter and vinegar. Very young flowerbuds have been prepared like capers and used as a spice.  The common marsh marigold is planted as an ornamental throughout temperate regions in the world, and sometimes recommended for low maintenance wildlife gardens. The double-flowered cultivar 'Flore Pleno' has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Toxicology.

"Caltha" contains several active substances of which the most important from a toxicological point of view is protoanemonin. Larger quantities of the plant may cause convulsions, burning of the throat, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, dizziness and fainting. Contact of the skin or mucous membranes with the juices can cause blistering or inflammation, and gastric illness if ingested. Younger parts seem to contain less toxics and heating breaks these substances down. Small amounts of "Caltha" in hay do not cause problems when fed to husbandry, but larger quantities lead to gastric illness.

Caltha palustris, known as marsh-marigold and kingcup, is a small to medium size perennial herbaceous plant of the buttercup family, native to marshes, fens, ditches and wet woodland in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It flowers between April and August, dependent on altitude and latitude, but occasional flowers may occur at other times.

Blatouch bahenní ("Caltha palustris") je bylina z čeledi pryskyřníkovitých ("Ranunculaceae"), která roste ve střední Evropě na podmáčených stanovištích od nížin do hor. V roce 1999 se stal německou Rostlinou roku.


History.

Ptolemy, in Alexandria, Egypt, had found a relationship regarding refraction angles, but it was inaccurate for angles that were not small. Ptolemy was confident he had found an accurate empirical law, partially as a result of fudging his data to fit theory (see: confirmation bias). Alhazen, in his "Book of Optics" (1021), came closer to discovering the law of refraction, though he did not take this step.  The law eventually named after Snell was first accurately described by the Persian scientist Ibn Sahl at the Baghdad court in 984. In the manuscript "On Burning Mirrors and Lenses", Sahl used the law to derive lens shapes that focus light with no geometric aberrations.  The law was rediscovered by Thomas Harriot in 1602, who however did not publish his results although he had corresponded with Kepler on this very subject. In 1621, the Dutch astronomer Willebrord Snellius (1580–1626)—Snell—derived a mathematically equivalent form, that remained unpublished during his lifetime. René Descartes independently derived the law using heuristic momentum conservation arguments in terms of sines in his 1637 essay "Dioptrics", and used it to solve a range of optical problems. Rejecting Descartes' solution, Pierre de Fermat arrived at the same solution based solely on his principle of least time. Descartes assumed the speed of light was infinite, yet in his derivation of Snell's law he also assumed the denser the medium, the greater the speed of light. Fermat supported the opposing assumptions, i.e., the speed of light is finite, and his derivation depended upon the speed of light being slower in a denser medium. Fermat's derivation also utilized his invention of adequality, a mathematical procedure equivalent to differential calculus, for finding maxima, minima, and tangents.  In his influential mathematics book "Geometry", Descartes solves a problem that was worked on by Apollonius of Perga and Pappus of Alexandria. Given n lines L and a point P(L) on each line, find the locus of points Q such that the lengths of the line segments QP(L) satisfy certain conditions. For example, when n = 4, given the lines a, b, c, and d and a point A on a, B on b, and so on, find the locus of points Q such that the product QA*QB equals the product QC*QD. When the lines are not all parallel, Pappus showed that the loci are conics, but when Descartes considered larger n, he obtained cubic and higher degree curves. To show that the cubic curves were interesting, he showed that they arose naturally in optics from Snell's law.  According to Dijksterhuis, "In "De natura lucis et proprietate" (1662) Isaac Vossius said that Descartes had seen Snell's paper and concocted his own proof. We now know this charge to be undeserved but it has been adopted many times since." Both Fermat and Huygens repeated this accusation that Descartes had copied Snell. In French, Snell's Law is called "la loi de Descartes" or "loi de Snell-Descartes."  In his 1678 "Traité de la Lumière", Christiaan Huygens showed how Snell's law of sines could be explained by, or derived from, the wave nature of light, using what we have come to call the Huygens–Fresnel principle.  With the development of modern optical and electromagnetic theory, the ancient Snell's law was brought into a new stage. In 1962, Bloembergen showed that at the boundary of nonlinear medium, the Snell's law should be written in a general form. In 2008 and 2011, plasmonic metasurfaces were also demonstrated to change the reflection and refraction directions of light beam.

Explanation.

Snell's law is used to determine the direction of light rays through refractive media with varying indices of refraction. The indices of refraction of the media, labeled formula_5, formula_6 and so on, are used to represent the factor by which a light ray's speed decreases when traveling through a refractive medium, such as glass or water, as opposed to its velocity in a vacuum.  As light passes the border between media, depending upon the relative refractive indices of the two media, the light will either be refracted to a lesser angle, or a greater one. These angles are measured with respect to the "normal line", represented perpendicular to the boundary. In the case of light traveling from air into water, light would be refracted towards the normal line, because the light is slowed down in water; light traveling from water to air would refract away from the normal line.  Refraction between two surfaces is also referred to as "reversible" because if all conditions were identical, the angles would be the same for light propagating in the opposite direction.  Snell's law is generally true only for isotropic or specular media (such as glass). In anisotropic media such as some crystals, birefringence may split the refracted ray into two rays, the "ordinary" or "o"-ray which follows Snell's law, and the other "extraordinary" or "e"-ray which may not be co-planar with the incident ray.  When the light or other wave involved is monochromatic, that is, of a single frequency, Snell's law can also be expressed in terms of a ratio of wavelengths in the two media, formula_7 and formula_8:

Derivations and formula.

Snell's law can be derived in various ways.

Derivation from Fermat's principle.

Snell's law can be derived from Fermat's principle, which states that the light travels the path which takes the least time. By taking the derivative of the optical path length, the stationary point is found giving the path taken by the light (though the result does not show light taking the least time path, but rather one that is stationary with respect to small variations as there are cases where light actually takes the greatest time path, as in a spherical mirror). In a classic analogy, the area of lower refractive index is replaced by a beach, the area of higher refractive index by the sea, and the fastest way for a rescuer on the beach to get to a drowning person in the sea is to run along a path that follows Snell's law. As shown in the figure to the right, assume the refractive index of medium 1 and medium 2 are formula_5 and formula_6 respectively. Light enters medium 2 from medium 1 via point O.  formula_12 is the angle of incidence, formula_13 is the angle of refraction with respect to the normal.  The phase velocities of light in medium 1 and medium 2 are  formula_16 is the speed of light in vacuum.  Let T be the time required for the light to travel from point Q through point O to point P. where a, b, l and x are as denoted in the right-hand figure, x being the varying parameter.  To minimize it, one can differentiate :  Note that formula_19  and formula_20  Therefore,

Derivation from Huygens's principle.

Alternatively, Snell's law can be derived using interference of all possible paths of light wave from source to observer—it results in destructive interference everywhere except extrema of phase (where interference is constructive)—which become actual paths.

Derivation from Maxwell's Equations.

Another way to derive Snell's Law involves an application of the general boundary conditions of Maxwell equations for electromagnetic radiation.

Derivation from conservation of energy and momentum.

Yet another way to derive Snell's law is based on translation symmetry considerations. For example, a homogeneous surface perpendicular to the z direction cannot change the transverse momentum. Since the propagation vector formula_25 is proportional to the photon's momentum, the transverse propagation direction formula_26 must remain the same in both regions. Assume without loss of generality a plane of incidence in the formula_27 plane formula_28. Using the well known dependence of the wavenumber on the refractive index of the medium, we derive Snell's law immediately.  where formula_32 is the wavenumber in vacuum. Although no surface is truly homogeneous at the atomic scale, full translational symmetry is an excellent approximation whenever the region is homogeneous on the scale of the light wavelength.

Vector form.

Given a normalized light vector formula_33 (pointing from the light source toward the surface) and a normalized plane normal vector formula_34, one can work out the normalized reflected and refracted rays, via the cosines of the angle of incidence formula_12 and angle of refraction formula_13, without explicitly using the sine values or any trigonometric functions or angles:  Note: formula_38 must be positive, which it will be if formula_34 is the normal vector that points from the surface toward the side where the light is coming from, the region with index formula_5. If formula_38 is negative, then formula_34 points to the side without the light, so start over with formula_34 replaced by its negative.  This reflected direction vector points back toward the side of the surface where the light came from.  Now apply Snell's law to the ratio of sines to derive the formula for the refracted ray's direction vector:  The formula may appear simpler in terms of renamed simple values formula_48 and formula_49, avoiding any appearance of trig function names or angle names:  Example:  The cosine values may be saved and used in the Fresnel equations for working out the intensity of the resulting rays.  Total internal reflection is indicated by a negative radicand in the equation for formula_54, which can only happen for rays crossing into a less-dense medium (formula_55).

Total internal reflection and critical angle.

When light travels from a medium with a higher refractive index to one with a lower refractive index, Snell's law seems to require in some cases (whenever the angle of incidence is large enough) that the sine of the angle of refraction be greater than one. This of course is impossible, and the light in such cases is completely reflected by the boundary, a phenomenon known as total internal reflection. The largest possible angle of incidence which still results in a refracted ray is called the critical angle; in this case the refracted ray travels along the boundary between the two media.  For example, consider a ray of light moving from water to air with an angle of incidence of 50°. The refractive indices of water and air are approximately 1.333 and 1, respectively, so Snell's law gives us the relation  which is impossible to satisfy. The critical angle θ is the value of θ for which θ equals 90°:

Dispersion.

In many wave-propagation media, wave velocity changes with frequency or wavelength of the waves; this is true of light propagation in most transparent substances other than a vacuum. These media are called dispersive. The result is that the angles determined by Snell's law also depend on frequency or wavelength, so that a ray of mixed wavelengths, such as white light, will spread or disperse. Such dispersion of light in glass or water underlies the origin of rainbows and other optical phenomena, in which different wavelengths appear as different colors.  In optical instruments, dispersion leads to chromatic aberration; a color-dependent blurring that sometimes is the resolution-limiting effect. This was especially true in refracting telescopes, before the invention of achromatic objective lenses.

Lossy, absorbing, or conducting media.

In a conducting medium, permittivity and index of refraction are complex-valued. Consequently, so are the angle of refraction and the wave-vector. This implies that, while the surfaces of constant real phase are planes whose normals make an angle equal to the angle of refraction with the interface normal, the surfaces of constant amplitude, in contrast, are planes parallel to the interface itself. Since these two planes do not in general coincide with each other, the wave is said to be inhomogeneous. The refracted wave is exponentially attenuated, with exponent proportional to the imaginary component of the index of refraction.

Snell's law (also known as Snell–Descartes law and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water, glass, or air.

Snellův zákon patří k základním zákonům popisujícím šíření vlnění, které přechází (tzv. lomem) přes rozhraní z jednoho prostředí do jiného prostředí, kde se skokově mění optické vlastnosti prostředí. Např. voda – vzduch, sklo – vzduch.


Nationality.

Schweitzer was born a citizen of the German Empire in the Imperial Territory of

Education.

Schweitzer was born 14 January 1875 in Kaysersberg in Alsace, in what had less than four years previously become The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine in The German Empire. He was the son of Louis Schweitzer and Adèle Schillinger. He spent his childhood in Gunsbach, also in Alsace, where his father, the local Lutheran-Evangelical pastor of the EPCAAL, taught him how to play music. The tiny village would become home to the Association Internationale Albert Schweitzer (AIAS). The medieval parish church of Gunsbach was shared by the Protestant and Catholic congregations, which held their prayers in different areas at different times on Sundays. This compromise arose after the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War. Schweitzer, the pastor's son, grew up in this exceptional environment of religious tolerance, and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work towards a unity of faith and purpose.  Schweitzer's first language was the Alsatian dialect of German. At the Mulhouse gymnasium he received his "Abitur" (the certificate at the end of secondary education) in 1893. He studied organ in Mulhouse from 1885 to 1893

Music.

Schweitzer rapidly gained prominence as a musical scholar and organist, dedicated also to the rescue, restoration and study of historic pipe organs. With theological insight, he interpreted the use of pictorial and symbolical representation in J. S. Bach's religious music. In 1899, he astonished Widor by explaining figures and motifs in Bach's Chorale Preludes as painter-like tonal and rhythmic imagery illustrating themes from the words of the hymns on which they were based. They were works of devotional contemplation in which the musical design corresponded to literary ideas, conceived visually. Widor had not grown up with knowledge of the old Lutheran hymns.  The exposition of these ideas, encouraged by Widor and Munch, became Schweitzer's last task, and appeared in the masterly study "J. S. Bach: Le Musicien-Poète", written in French and published in 1905. There was great demand for a German edition, but, instead of translating it, he decided to rewrite it. The result was two volumes ("J. S. Bach"), which were published in 1908 and translated into English by Ernest Newman in 1911. Ernst Cassirer, a contemporaneous German philosopher, called it "one of the best interpretations" of Bach. During its preparation Schweitzer became a friend of Cosima Wagner, then resident in Strasbourg, with whom he had many theological and musical conversations, exploring his view of Bach's descriptive music, and playing the major Chorale Preludes for her at the Temple Neuf. Schweitzer's interpretative approach greatly influenced the modern understanding of Bach's music. He became a welcome guest at the Wagners' home, Wahnfried. He also corresponded with composer Clara Faisst, who became a good friend.  His pamphlet "The Art of Organ Building and Organ Playing in Germany and France" (1906, republished with an appendix on the state of the organ-building industry in 1927) effectively launched the 20th-century "Orgelbewegung", which turned away from romantic extremes and rediscovered baroque principles—although this sweeping reform movement in organ building eventually went further

Theology.

In 1899, Schweitzer became a deacon at the church of Saint Nicholas in Strasbourg. In 1900, with the completion of his licentiate in theology, he was ordained as curate, and that year he witnessed the Oberammergau Passion Play. In the following year he became provisional Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas, from which he had just graduated, and in 1903 his appointment was made permanent.  In 1906, he published "Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung" ("History of Life-of-Jesus research"). This book, which established his reputation, was first published in English in 1910 as "The Quest of the Historical Jesus". Under this title the book became famous in the English-speaking world. A second German edition was published in 1913, containing theologically significant revisions and expansions: this revised edition did not appear in English until 2001. In 1931, he published "Mystik des Apostels Paulus" ("The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle"); a second edition was published in 1953.

"The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906)".

In "The Quest", Schweitzer maintained that the life of Jesus must be interpreted in the light of Jesus' own convictions, which reflected late Jewish eschatology and apocalypticism. Schweitzer writes: Schweitzer cross-referenced the many New Testament verses declaring imminent fulfilment of the promise of the World's ending within the lifetime of Jesus's original followers. He wrote that in his view, in the Gospel of

"The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (1931)".

In "The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle", Schweitzer first distinguishes between two categories of mysticism: primitive and developed. Primitive mysticism "has not yet risen to a conception of the universal, and is still confined to naive views of earthly and super-earthly, temporal and eternal." Additionally, he argues that this view of a "union with the divinity, brought about by efficacious ceremonies, is found even in quite primitive religions."  On the other hand, a more developed form of mysticism can be found in the Greek mystery-cults that were popular in first-century A.D. society. These included the cults of Attis, Osiris, and Mithras. A developed form of mysticism is attained when the "conception of the universal is reached and a man reflects upon his relation to the totality of being and to Being in itself." Schweitzer claims that this form of mysticism is more intellectual and can be found "among the Brahmans and in the Buddha, in Platonism, in Stoicism, in Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Hegel."  Next, Schweitzer poses the question: "Of what precise kind then is the mysticism of Paul?" He locates Paul between the two extremes of primitive

Medicine.

At the age of 30, in 1905, Schweitzer answered the call of The Society of the Evangelist Missions of Paris, which was looking for a physician. The committee of this missionary society was not ready to accept his offer, considering his Lutheran theology to be "incorrect". He could easily have obtained a place in a German evangelical mission, but wished to follow the original call despite the doctrinal difficulties. Amid a hail of protests from his friends, family and colleagues, he resigned his post and re-entered the university as a student in a three-year course towards the degree of Doctorate in Medicine, a subject in which he had little knowledge or previous aptitude. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the verbal process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching.  Even in his study of medicine, and through his clinical course, Schweitzer pursued the ideal of the philosopher-scientist. By extreme application and hard work, he completed his studies successfully at the end of 1911. His medical degree dissertation was another work on the historical Jesus, "The Psychiatric Study of Jesus". He defended Jesus′ mental health in it. In June 1912, he married Helene Bresslau, municipal inspector for orphans and daughter of the Jewish pan-Germanist historian Harry Bresslau.  In 1912, now armed with a medical degree, Schweitzer made a definite proposal to go as a physician to work at his own expense in the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon, in Africa (then a French colony). He refused to attend a committee to inquire into his doctrine, but met each committee member personally and was at last accepted. Through concerts and other fund-raising, he was ready to equip a small hospital. In early 1913, he and his wife set off to establish a hospital (Albert Schweitzer Hospital) near an existing mission post. The site was nearly 200 miles (14 days by raft) upstream from the mouth of the Ogooué at Port Gentil (Cape Lopez) (and so accessible to external communications), but downstream of most tributaries, so that internal communications within Gabon converged towards Lambaréné.  In the first nine months, he and his wife had about 2,000 patients to examine, some travelling many days and hundreds of kilometres to reach him. In addition to

Schweitzer's views.

Colonialism.

Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become "fishers of men" but also as a small recompense for the historic

Paternalism.

Schweitzer was nonetheless still sometimes accused of being paternalistic, colonialist, and racist in his attitude towards Africans, and in some ways his views did differ from that of many liberals and other critics of colonialism. For instance, he thought that Gabonese independence came too early, without adequate education or accommodation to local circumstances. Edgar Berman quotes Schweitzer as having said in 1960, "No society can go from the primeval directly to an industrial state without losing the leavening that time and an agricultural period allow." Schweitzer believed dignity and respect must be extended to blacks, while also sometimes characterizing them as children. He summarized his views on European-African relations by saying "With regard to the negroes, then,

Hospital conditions.

The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor and was without modern amenities, and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people. Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a BBC dramatisation, he made the unusual journalistic decision

Reverence for life.

The keynote of Schweitzer's personal philosophy (which he considered to be his greatest contribution to mankind) was the idea of "Reverence for Life" (""Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben""). He thought that Western civilization was decaying because it had abandoned affirmation of life as its ethical foundation.  In the Preface to "Civilization and Ethics" (1923) he argued that Western philosophy from Descartes to Kant had set out to explain the objective world expecting that humanity would be found to have a special meaning within it. But no such meaning was found, and the rational, life-affirming optimism of the Age of Enlightenment began to evaporate. A rift opened between this world-view, as material knowledge, and the life-view, understood as Will, expressed in the pessimist philosophies from Schopenhauer onward. Scientific materialism (advanced by Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin) portrayed an objective world process devoid of ethics, entirely an expression of the will-to-live.  Schweitzer wrote, "True philosophy must start from the most immediate and comprehensive fact of consciousness, and this may be formulated as follows: 'I am life which wills to live, and I exist in the midst of life which wills to live.'" In nature one form of life

Later life.

After the birth of their daughter (Rhena Schweitzer Miller), Albert's wife, Helene Schweitzer was no longer able to live in Lambaréné due to her health. In 1923, the family moved to Königsfeld im Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, where he was building a house for the family. This house is now maintained as a Schweitzer museum.  From 1939–1948, he stayed in Lambaréné, unable to go back to Europe because of the war. Three years after the end of World War II, in 1948, he returned for the first time to Europe and kept travelling back and forth (and once to the US) as long as he was able. During his return visits to his home village of Gunsbach, Schweitzer continued to make use of the family house, which after his death became an archive and museum to his life and work. His life was portrayed in the 1952 movie "Il est minuit, Docteur Schweitzer", starring Pierre Fresnay as Albert Schweitzer and Jeanne Moreau as his nurse Marie. Schweitzer inspired actor Hugh O'Brian when O'Brian visited in Africa. O'Brian returned to the United States and founded the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation (HOBY).  Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of 1952, accepting the prize with the speech, "The Problem of Peace". From 1952 until his death he worked against nuclear tests and nuclear weapons with Albert Einstein, Otto Hahn and Bertrand Russell. In 1957 and 1958, he broadcast four speeches over Radio Oslo which were published in "Peace or Atomic War". In 1957, Schweitzer was one of the founders of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. On 23 April 1957, Schweitzer made his "Declaration of Conscience" speech; it was broadcast to the

International Albert Schweitzer Prize.

The prize was first awarded on 29 May 2011 to Eugen Drewermann and the

Sound recordings.

Recordings of Schweitzer playing the music of Bach are available on CD. During 1934 and 1935 he resided in Britain, delivering the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh University, and those on "Religion in Modern Civilization" at Oxford and London. He had originally conducted trials for recordings for HMV on the organ of the old Queen's Hall in London. These records did not satisfy him, the instrument being too harsh. In mid-December 1935 he began to record for Columbia Records on the organ of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, London. Then at his suggestion the sessions were transferred to the church of Ste Aurélie in Strasbourg, on a mid-18th-century organ by Johann Andreas Silbermann (brother of Gottfried), an organ-builder greatly revered by Bach, which had been restored by the Lorraine organ-builder Frédéric Härpfer shortly before the First World War. These recordings were made in the course of a fortnight in October 1936.

Schweitzer Technique.

Schweitzer developed a technique for recording the performances of Bach's music. Known as "The Schweitzer Technique", it is a slight improvement on what is commonly known as mid-side. The mid-side sees a figure-8 microphone pointed off-axis, perpendicular to the sound source. Then a single cardioid microphone is placed on axis, bisecting the figure-8 pattern.

Columbia recordings.

Altogether his early Columbia discs included 25 records of Bach and eight of César Franck. The Bach titles were mainly distributed as follows:  Later recordings were made at Parish church, Günsbach:

Portrayals.

Dramatisations of Schweitzer's life include:

Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 18754 September 1965) was an Alsatian polymath. He was a theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran, Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by the historical-critical method current at this time, as well as the traditional Christian view. His contributions to the interpretation of Pauline Christianity concern the role of Paul's mysticism of "being in Christ" as primary and the doctrine of Justification by Faith as secondary.

Albert Schweitzer (14. ledna 1875, Kaysersberg, Horní Alsasko, dnes Francie – 4. září 1965, Lambaréné, dnes Gabon) byl francouzský protestantský teolog, misionář, filozof, etik, muzikolog (proslul především jako jeden z nejvýznamnějších znalců, vykladačů a interpretů díla Johanna Sebastiana Bacha), varhanní virtuóz a lékař. V roce 1952 obdržel Nobelovu cenu za mír.


Background.

The 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix was the third of sixteen scheduled single seater motor races of the 2003 Formula One World Championship, the 32nd edition of the event and the 700th Formula One World Championship round. It took place at the 15-turn Autódromo José Carlos Pace in the Brazilian city of São Paulo on 6 April 2003. The bumpy track placed a large amount of strain and g-force onto a driver. To compensate for cars being driven over its bumpy surface, teams employed a computer programme fed into a chassis to reconstruct every movement under undulation. Under a Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; Formula One's governing body) regulation mandating Formula One's two tyre suppliers Bridgestone and Michelin to bring a single wet-weather tyre compound to each race to lower operating costs: Michelin brought the full wets and Bridgestone the intermediates.  After winning the Malaysian Grand Prix two weeks earlier, McLaren driver Kimi Räikkönen led the World Drivers' Championship with 16 points, six ahead of his teammate David Coulthard in second. Juan Pablo Montoya of Williams, Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello and Fernando Alonso for Renault tied for third with eight points each. In the World Constructors' Championship, McLaren led with 26 points; Ferrari and Renault were tied for second position with 16 points. Williams were a further two points behind in fourth and Sauber rounded out the top five with four points. Following the 2002 edition, race organisers invested $1.7 million in resurfacing of track surface in an attempt to reduce its bumpiness, rebuilt its drainage system and introduced run-off areas in the first seven turns.  In preparation for the race, the majority of teams conducted in-season test sessions at the Circuit de Catalunya (now called the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya) in Spain from 25 to 28 March 2003 and worked to alter the aerodynamic performance of their cars. Sauber and Williams evaluated revised chassis components and both teams assessed their selection of tyre compounds from the Malaysian Grand Prix, optimising the setup of their vehicles to better suit it. A lap of 1 minute and 17.288 seconds topped the time sheets for the Williams test driver Marc Gené on the first day. Pedro de la Rosa, the McLaren test driver, set the second day's fastest time, a 1 minute and 15.506

Private test session.

On Friday morning, a two-hour test session took place for teams who opted for limited testing during the season. In variable weather conditions that saw rain fell 90 minutes in, Renault driver Jarno Trulli set the session's fastest lap, a 1 minute and 14.262 seconds. Antônio Pizzonia was second in a Jaguar and his teammate Mark Webber third.

Practice, qualifying and warm-up sessions.

Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race: one 60-minute session on Friday morning and two 45-minute sessions on Saturday morning. In the first practice session, held in torrential weather conditions and saw four drivers record no lap times, Michael Schumacher was quickest with a lap of 1 minute and 28.060 seconds, followed by Coulthard, British American Racing (BAR) driver Jenson Button, Trulli, Montoya, Barrichello, the Toyota pair of Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta, Fisichella and Heinz-Harald Frentzen of Sauber. Seconds after Räikkönen exited the pit lane, he lost control of his vehicle into the Reta Oposta straight and spun onto some grass. He narrowly avoided a collision with a barrier to his left. With fifteen minutes to go, Pizzonia crashed heavily leaving the Curva do Sol turn and struck the barriers on both sides of the circuit on his first timed lap, temporarily stopping the session so that his Jaguar car could be removed from the track. After the session restarted, Alonso slid on the wet track and made minor contact against a wall at the Senna S chicane.  The torrential rain observed in the first session prompted several drivers to express concerns they would lose control of their vehicles and crash in those conditions. Around twenty minutes before the first qualifying session began, Coulthard, a senior member of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, Trulli and Michael Schumacher wrote a petition mandating the FIA cancel the session if there was no improvement in the track conditions. The petition was signed by a majority of drivers; it was later disregarded after it was unable to be sent to everyone in time and race officials had deemed the circuit safe to drive on after the rain tapered off before qualifying commenced. Jacques Villeneuve of BAR said the petition was detrimental to Formula One, "What would it bring to Formula One for us not to go and qualify? People would think that we are just a bunch of sissies. We can't do that. We are paid a whole lot of money and it would be an insult to the fans."  Qualifying was split into two one-hour sessions; the first was held on Friday afternoon, and the second on Saturday afternoon. The first session's starting order was determined by the World Drivers' Championship order (first to last) and the second was run in reverse of the first session times (slowest to fastest). Each competitor was limited to one lap per session and the starting order was determined by the second session's fastest times. The level of standing water fluctuated during the session. Webber took provisional pole position on a drying track with a 1 minute and 23.249 seconds lap. He was 0.138 seconds faster than Barrichello in second, who had pole

Race.

On the morning of 6 April, McLaren sought permission from the FIA to change Räikkönen's engine after a crack in its casting was detected via telemetry. The FIA authorised the engine switch after it analysed data proving the engine was damaged. Telemetry from BAR also detected damage to Villeneuve's engine and were also allowed to change it. Rain was forecast for the race; at the start the track was flooded because of a torrential downpour that fell from at 11:00 Brasilia Time (). 120,000 spectators attended the Grand Prix. It was due to commence at 14:00 local time, beforel the FIA race director Charlie Whiting delayed it for fifteen minutes, to enable standing water to be drained from the circuit. Event organisers permitted teams to alter the setup of their cars to run on a sodden track, specially the wings and ride heights. The standing water caused heavy spray and impaired visibility, and all vehicles used wet-weather tyre compounds. The track's deficient drainage caused a large amount of water to cascade from a slope onto the tarmac surface at the Curva do Sol corner and made it susceptible for cars to aquaplane.  The race began behind the safety car, with no formation lap; notwithstanding the slow speed drivers struggled for grip on the flooded track surface. Some drivers (including Verstappen, Frentzen, Pizzonia, Panis, Fisichella and Firman) elected to make pit stops for fuel under safety car conditions in an attempt to avoid having to make a second pit stop later in the race. After the rain had stopped, the safety car drove into the pit lane at the end of lap eight, and cars were allowed to overtake. Barrichello bunched up the field on the approach to the start/finish line; the manoeuvre failed to work and Coulthard passed him for the lead under braking for the Senna S chicane. Barrichello was circumspect for the rest of the lap as Webber and Räikkönen pressured him. Further down the order, Montoya moved from ninth to fifth. Heidfeld became the Grand Prix's first retirement on lap nine when his engineers informed him over the radio of an oil feed problem that cut out his engine. He pulled off to the side of the track to ensure that no oil was deposited on the racing line.  On lap ten, Räikkönen overtook Barrichello for second at the Senna S chicane and lost third when Montoya passed him later that lap. There were overtakes further down the field on that lap. Ralf Schumacher moved past Trulli for sixth and Pizzonia passed Verstappen for fifteenth. On the 11th lap, Räikkönen closed up to his teammate Coulthard and passed him to take the lead on the approach to the Senna S chicane. Not long after Montoya overtook Coulthard for third at the end of the Reta Oposta straight that leads to the Descida do Lago corner. That same lap, Ralf Schumacher and Trulli made contact, causing the former to spin. Webber then overtook Barrichello for fourth and Michael Schumacher did the same on his teammate soon after for fifth. Ralf Schumacher began to recover lost positions with an overtake on Villeneuve for tenth on the 12th lap. At the front of the field, Räikkönen had increased his lead over Montoya to five seconds by lap 14. On the same lap, Montoya reported a loss of rear tyre grip to his team over the radio and ran wide leaving Juncao turn. Coulthard overtook Montoya for second.  As the circuit began to dry, except for turn three which continued to have water stream across it, Coulthard began to close up to his teammate Räikkönen, as Michael Schumacher overtook Webber on the inside for fourth on lap 15 leaving Arquibancdas turn. On the 16th lap, Michael Schumacher moved into third position with a pass on the slower Montoya around the outside at the Bico de Pato corner. Wilson drove through a river at the Curva do Sol turn and aquaplaned off another on the following lap. He retired after he was unable to restart his car. Coulthard drew close enough to his teammate Räikkönen by the 18th lap, just as Barrichello moved past Webber for fifth place. That same lap, Firman's right-front suspension system failed on the start/finish straight, causing him to lose control of his car and his flailing right-front wheel narrowly avoided striking its cockpit. He narrowly avoided a collision with his teammate Fisichella, struck the rear of Panis' car at almost. Panis' rear wing was removed and the front of Firman's car sustained damage.  The safety car was deployed for the second time for debris clearing. Several drivers took the opportunity to make pit stops for fuel and tyres. Montoya avoided a collision with Trulli and Alonso stopped twice since he had the incorrect tyres installed on

Post-race.

Because Alonso was in hospital, Räikkönen and Fisichella appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference. Räikkönen stated his belief he was lucky to be awarded the victory: "I think that it came so quickly that we didn't make the decision quickly enough but in the end it was the right decision, so thanks to the team. It was a difficult race because the conditions were so bad and the safety car was out so often, but I'm pretty happy." Fisichella said he was disappointed about the race's situation: "first of all for Fernando, I hope that he's alright and then also because I won the race but the rules say that when there is a red flag, the result is taken from one lap before (two laps in fact) so I am very sorry about that but I never thought I would finish in second position so it's a great day anyway."  Alonso received messages of well-being from the public and rally driver Carlos Sainz. He was discharged from hospital after 12 hours, and returned to Madrid on the morning of 8 April to begin physical therapy for the season's next race, the San Marino Grand Prix. Alonso commented on the accident: "I thought my race was going pretty well. But then I came round the final corner to find debris everywhere and I had nowhere to go. I think I hit a wheel, and the next thing I knew I was headed for the barriers." He attributed the HANS device for preventing him from sustaining more serious injuries. Webber was not required to take a medical test and performed 60 push-ups to persuade his physiotherapist he had suffered no long-term complications from his crash. He called it "the biggest accident I've had in a Formula One car" and revealed his neck and knees took most of the force from the impact: "I haven't been in a race that crazy before and it's the most damage I've done to a Formula One car. I've knocked two corners off before but nothing like this."  The way in which Alonso and Michael Schumacher crashed put them at risk of sanctioning by the FIA. An FIA observer reported Schumacher and Alonso to the governing body; the stewards could not question Alonso in Brazil because he was hospitalised. Schumacher was interviewed by the race director Charlie Whiting at the San Marino Grand Prix pre-event drivers' meeting on 17 April. Two days later, Alonso and Schumacher had separate meetings with Whiting; he cautioned the two over their future driving standards and did not further reprimand them.  Villeneuve said he felt the drivers and not the track conditions contributed to the unsafe racing observed in the Grand Prix: "It is down to the drivers to be less crazy in those conditions and there was some crazy driving out there. Some drivers were overtaking under the yellow flags, halfway through the race I saw Alonso overtake under the flags. I think that is the kind of driving that leads to big accidents." After his first race retirement since the 2001 German Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher stated he was not worried about the possibility of him winning his sixth World Drivers' Championship: "In terms of the championship, obviously it would have been better for us if Fisichella had won the race in Brazil instead of Raikkonen, especially as Giancarlo drove a good race anyway. But the gap to the championship leader is not so big, given there are still 13 races, so there is no need to be concerned about it." Barrichello said he would continue to strive for a win at the Brazilian Grand Prix and was frustrated to learn a fuel problem caused his retirement: "I feel an enormous disappointment but I am not losing hope. I will not stop racing until I win in this country."  Coulthard said he was annoyed with himself for making a pit stop before the red flags were shown because he believed he could have won the race had he not done so: "I am going away from here without a grand prix win that I worked hard for. I believe I have more claim on that victory than other people. I'd done my final stop of the race and I know the three guys in front of me all had to come in again if the race had not been stopped." Frentzen lauded Sauber's decision to change its strategy that saw him start the event in the team's spare car: "At the end of the day it turned out to be the right decision. It was not easy to run with a full tank and I had a lot of aquaplaning which made me spin once. But we finished fifth and scored four points, so I am very happy about this result." Paul Stoddart, the Minardi team owner, claimed they could have taken victory had both its cars been running: "Today saw possibly the first time ever that Minardi was potentially in a genuine, race-winning position. Many people may laugh, but only those of us within the team will ever know the truth. We had the strategy, but not the luck."

Timekeeping error.

After he flew to London from Brazil on the morning of 8 April, Whiting launched an internal investigation into the result of the race because FIA officials were unhappy at the timesheets provided to the governing body by Formula One's timekeepers TAG Heuer. He was concerned about a possible timekeeping error and asked representatives from TAG Heuer and the three race stewards for the Brazilian Grand Prix, to attend a

The 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 6 April 2003 at Autódromo José Carlos Pace (Interlagos). It was attended by 120,000 spectators. It was the third round of the 2003 Formula One World Championship, the 32nd Brazilian Grand Prix and the 700th Formula One World Championship race.

Grand Prix Brazílie XXXII Grande Premio Marlboro do Brasil Závod původně vypsán na 71 kol, závod ukončen po nehodě Marka Webbera a Fernanda Alonsa.