What is the hypothesis of "The Necklace" by Guy De Maupassant?

One educated guess about the story's moral is that an obsession with money and material things can be destructive. Mathilde is frustrated with how her life has turned out. She had envisioned herself living among the wealthier, upper class. Instead of making the best of her lower class life, Mathilde spends lots of time daydreaming about that "better" life. 

Her husband is comfortable with his life and he does whatever he can to make Mathilde happy. He sacrifices his own savings to buy her a dress. Mathilde is a hit at the party, but this probably has more to do with her positive attitude than it does with her gown and the necklace. When she loses the necklace, she works incredibly hard to repay the loan. Essentially, she works very hard to pay for something she never needed. 

It turns out that the necklace was not that expensive. Mathilde had only thought that the necklace was extremely valuable. She was popular at the party because her behavior reflected her pride in how she looked. This is the other moral of the story. Your happiness in life (upper or lower class) depends upon your attitude. Imagine you are "rich," in any sense of the word, and you will feel rich. Imagine you are happy, and your behavior will reflect that positive outlook. 

Hi I need help with this optimization problem for calculus. In the wake of a natural disaster, a civil engineer is tasked with building a...

Hello!

Let's set up the problem with the variables. Besides the given height `H = 10 ft,` a rectangular prism also has a length `L` and a width `W` (both in feet). Of course we know that the volume of the rectangular prism is `V = H*L*W ft^3 = 10L*W ft^3,` and we need to maximize it.

Next, the constraint relating to the walls surface. It is not clear whether "walls" means four side walls excluding both the ceiling and the floor. I suppose walls are four vertical walls only. There are two walls of the dimensions `L xx H` and two walls `W xx H,` so their total area is `2*L*H + 2*W*H,` and this is equal to `S = 2000 ft^2.`

This equation, `2*L*H + 2*W*H = 2*L*10 + 2*W*10 = 2000,` gives us the simple constraint `L + W = 2000/20 = 100,` so `L = 100 - W.` The function we need to maximize becomes `V = V(W) = 10(100-W)W = -10W^2 + 1000W.`

It is the quadratic function of `W` with the negative factor `a = -10` at `W^2` and the factor `b=1000` at `W^1.` Its graph is a parabola branches down and it has the only maximum. The point where it is reached is `W_0 = -b/(2a) = -1000/(-20) = 50 (ft).`

Thus `L_0 = 100 - W_0 = 50 (ft),` and the volume they give is `V = 10*50*50 = 25000 (ft^3).`

The answer: the (horizontal) dimensions of the room that give a maximum volume are 50 ft and 50 ft. The maximum volume is `25000 ft^3.`

(if we have to take the ceiling and/or the floor with the area `L*W` each into account, the function remains quadratic and the solution remains similar)

Who died in the book The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin?

Sam Westing and Bertha Crow’s daughter Violet died. 

Even though she never appears in the book, Violet Westing heavily influences events.  Her death devastates her mother and father.  It is the cause of Crow’s alcoholism and mental health issues, and Sam Westing’s bizarre eccentricities.  Neither parent recovers. 

Violet Westing was supposed to be married.  She was young, and had her whole life in front of her. 

The paper king’s later years were marred by tragedy. His only daughter, Violet, drowned on the eve of her wedding, and two years later his troubled wife deserted their home. Although Mr. Westing obtained a divorce, he never remarried. (Ch. 4) 

The mystery of who killed Sam Westing stems from his daughter’s death.  Westing writes a will and concocts an elaborate game to find out which of his heirs is worthy of his fortune, but he is never actually dead.  Westing is there the whole time in his various disguises as Barney Northrup and Sandy McSouthers. 

Sam Westing has his fun, and finds that not all of his heirs are hopeless. 

His watery blue eyes stared at her over his rimless half-glasses. Hard eyes. His teeth were white, not quite even (no one would ever guess they were false). He was smiling. He wasn’t angry with her, he was smiling.

“Hi, Sandy,” Turtle said. “I won!" (Ch. 27) 

Eventually, Sam Westing does die.  He dies of old age, with Turtle by his side.  

So while there are a lot of explosions and questions about who killed Sam Westing, the only real deaths in this novel are of natural causes.  Sam Westing’s daughter drowned, and Sam Westing died of old age.  Before he died, he got to know all of his relatives a lot better.

What were some similarities between the Space Race and the Arms Race?

Both the Space Race and the Arms Race were part of the Cold War struggle between the United States and its market-driven, democratic ideology, and the Soviet Union, with its communist, totalitarian ideology. Both races were bound up in the struggle for technological supremacy that came to define post-World War Two foreign policy for the two superpowers. The Arms Race shifted the balance of power back and forth several times in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the United States and Soviet Union were trying to build up their nuclear arsenals so that each could claim nuclear superiority, and maintain their so-called First Strike Capability, in the event of a nuclear war.

While the United States was ahead of the Soviet Union in enlarging its arsenal of nuclear weapons and miniaturizing warheads to place on top of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), the Soviet Union stunned the Americans in 1957 by launching Sputnik, the first man made satellite to enter Earth's orbit. This launch was deeply unsettling and embarrassing for the Eisenhower administration and for the United State's public relations, which aimed to convince unaligned countries that it was the better ally to have. 

For the United States, at least up until the launch of Sputnik, building up its nuclear capabilities and containing the spread of communism through proxy war, both overt and covert, was the main priority. Once the Soviets beat the United States into space, however, and showed that they weren't a second rate technological innovator, the Space Race became a main forum for the United States and the USSR to wage their ideological and public relations battles.

The fear on both sides that other country would colonize space first and weaponize it led to a massive outlay in spending from the pentagon, and when JFK announced his intention to land a man on the moon within ten years, the real competition began. The Space Race was not just a race into space, but a race between two diametrically opposed ideological forces who wanted to prove their supremacy to the world. Both sides understood that whoever got a manned mission into space first would claim bragging rights for eternity, and that kind of propaganda victory could win or lose the Cold War. Whoever won the space race would likely win struggle, and export its ideology and power around the globe. As it happened, the United States landed its astronauts on the Moon in 1969 and went on to win the Cold War, proving this thesis. 

Finally, the Space Race and the Arms Race were not separate races, but rather, they became conflated when the United States and Soviet Union realized that the military applications of space technology such as communication satellites could determine which side had more effective nuclear arsenals. Both sides used their space technology for missile guidance and detection of enemy missiles and enemy positions. The ability to place spy satellites in space and to use low orbiting ICBMs to launch nuclear attacks changed the face of warfare forever. Once the United States and Soviet Union realized that they could launch missiles with nuclear warheads from the other side of the world and have those missiles hit their targets in 35 minutes, instead of the  hours it took for bombers to deliver their payloads from nearby bases, the idea of having first strike capability became a moot point. Both sides used their space satellites to set up missile shields, that could detect incoming missiles and self-launch a so-called Massive Retaliation, which would ensure that a nuclear war, regardless of who started it, would end with the destruction of human civilization. 

This realization brought about the notion of Mutually Assured Destruction, and convinced both the United States and the Soviet Union that nuclear weapons had no practical use except as deterrents. In some ways, the Space Race actually brought the two countries closer together, making both of them realize that treaties such as Open Skies, SALT (The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) and a ban on weaponizing and colonizing outer space exclusively, was the best way to avoid a nuclear holocaust. The Space Race also brought about unprecedented cooperation between the two countries, who finally understood from the vantage point of outer space that they shared a planet, and needed to learn how not to destroy it, even as they both sought to defeat on another.

How has Rabindranath Tagore poignantly described the bonding of friendship as well as heartbreak in "Kabuliwala?"

Tagore describes the heartbreak of bonding and separating as the result of time's passage.

Time plays a significant role in the emotional dynamics of the Kabuliwala and Mini's friendship. As they interact daily, their bond strengthens. Familiarity plants the seeds of friendship in the form of inside jokes, such as the one about when Mini will go visit her "father-in-law." When the Kabuliwala is sent away to prison, time takes its toll. Mini changes.

Time passed away, and he was not remembered . . . Even my light-hearted Mini, I am ashamed to say, forgot her old friend. New companions filled her life. As she grew older, she spent more of her time with girls. So much time indeed did she spend with them that she came no more, as she used to do, to her father's room. I was scarcely on speaking terms with her.

Years had passed away. It was once more autumn and we had made arrangements for our Mini's marriage.

Time's passing has an effect on the relationship between the Kabuliwala and Mini. She forgets about him. She values different ideas and the qualities she used to have are no longer there. Tagore shows time's effect on their relationship in a poignant way. It is sad to read about the Kabuliwala's deep pain. He does not feel the simple pain of a memory passing. Rather, it is something more, and deeper in the fact that time has passed without caring for his feelings. We get what the Kabuliwala is feeling because we all know the experience of seeing a deep relationship that time has forever altered. This poignance is enhanced through the Kabuliwala's ache of being unable to go back to what once was.

The Kabuliwala is overcome when he sees Mini after eight years. He has to take in seeing her all grown up. He also has to grasp how time has buried their friendship. Additionally, Tagore recognizes that time has also transformed the Kabuliwala's connection with his own daughter:

When she [Mini] had gone, Rahmun heaved a deep sigh, and sat down on the floor. The idea had suddenly come to him that his daughter too must have grown in this long time, and that he would have to make friends with her anew. Assuredly he would not find her, as he used to know her. And besides, what might not have happened to her in these eight years?

By detailing time's effect on relationships, Tagore is able to poignantly depict the creation and rupturing of bonds. He links the Kabuliwala's pain and hurt to an experience we can understand. In doing so, Tagore is able to enhance the sadness intrinsic to many relationships.

What is the significant difference of events in the lives of the two young characters of "The Flower" by Alice Walker and "A&P" by John...

The main difference between what occurs in the two young lives of the protagonists of Walker's and Updike's stories is that the loss of a romantic notion of life is forced upon Myop while Sammy brings his crash into reality upon himself.

That Myop dwells in a childish world of her own is evinced in the opening lines of "The Flowers":

It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from hen house to pigpen to smoke house that the days had never been as beautiful as there.

For, even though her parents and she are obviously poor sharecroppers and their lowly cabin has "rusty boards," Myop is not affected by such humble surroundings because these are all she knows in her innocence. With pigs and chickens and crops, the family probably has enough to eat, as well. Besides, she has the beauty of nature around her in which she delights. So, it is only when her innocent notions of life collide with the reality of man's inhumanity to man that the romantic cloud under which she dwells is harshly removed from Myop.

Similarly, Sammy's view of life is clouded by his youth in which he, too, has not yet been confronted by harsh realities. While he is critical of the middle-aged women--"houseslaves"--with their curlers and "varicose veins mapping their legs," Sammy is completely smitten when the girl he names Queenie enters the grocery store in her swim wear. He describes her in desirous tones, and concludes that she is "more than pretty." Then, when the store manager Mr. Lengel approaches Queenie and her two friends, telling them that they must leave because policy does not allow anyone to enter the store with their shoulders uncovered, Sammy acts according to his romanticized perceptions. He decides that he must rebelliously be their heroic defender.

That's policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins want. What the others want is juvenile delinquency.

Believing that he will impress the girls, particularly Queenie,  Sammy decides upon the chivalrous gesture of quitting his job in order to put on display for the girls his disapproval of the rules.

However, Sammy's romantic notions are destroyed once he is outside the store. For, his act goes unnoticed by the girls who are "gone, of course," as Sammy notes. Alone outside, Sammy looks back into the store and suddenly realizes the rashness of his romantic and voluntary act:

...my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be for me hereafter. 

Certainly, an examination of the two stories reveals that the cultural differences of the two characters is apparent in the limitations of life. For those like Myop's people, poverty and cruelty are often imposed upon them, whereas for people like Sammy and the three girls there is more freedom to act. 

What are some racist quotes that are found throughout the novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers?

In the scene where James, Steve, Johnny, and Peaches are sitting on some steps discussing who they could rob and not get caught, Johnny makes a racist comment. After Peaches suggests that they rob a bank, Johnny says that banks are too serious. He says,

"You need to find a getover where nobody don’t care—you know what I mean. You cop from somebody with a green don’t even report it" (Myers 56).

Johnny's comment would be considered racist because he believes that the authorities would not care about an immigrant. He views immigrants as easy targets and believes that there would be no repercussions for stealing from them.

Another scene that depicts racism takes place when Steve asks O'Brien how she thinks the trial is going. She mentions that nothing speaks to Steve's innocence and says,

"Half of those jurors, no matter what they said when we questioned them when we picked the jury, believed you were guilty the moment they laid eyes on you. You're young, you're Black, and you're on trial" (Myers 83).

O'Brien's comments display the prejudice of each jury member who judges Steve by the color of his skin. The jurors believe that Steve is guilty for the simple fact that he is a young black male on trial.