"A vision of love and luxury": The commercialization of nineteenth-century American weddings

This article traces the commercialization of weddings in the second half of the nineteenth century. During this period, jewelers and silverware manufacturers recognized the possibilities of the bridal trade. They began to offer special bridal goods and services; they addressed themselves specifically to bridal couples and to those in search of presents for them; and they sought to influence the practices surrounding fashionable weddings in order to expand demand. Fancy bridal gift giving was further justified by a new sentimental attachment to goods among the middle to upper classes, whose fetishistic rhetoric remains a feature of wedding advertising today. © 2004 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. All rights reserved

A Two-Path Method for Eliminating the Effects of Self-Absorption on Temperature for Isothermal Flames

It is the purpose of the current note to outline a two-path method for the determination of flame temperatures. The method is valid for isothermal systems and spectral lines with Doppler contour. All errors arising from self-absorption are eliminated. Practical applications are made by determining the ratio of the total intensity observed when the flame is viewed with a cool blackbody as background to the total intensity obtained with a cool mirror as background

Oscillator strengths of the ultraviolet γ bands of NO

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Are Baby Boomers Saving Enough for Their Retirement?

Discusses factors that determine the amount of savings baby boomers need for retirement, including income and pre-retirement consumption levels, housing wealth, family type and size, and entitlement to Social Security and defined benefit pension plans

The role of combustion research in rocket propulsion

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On Maximum Evaporation Rates of Liquid Droplets in Rocket Motors

Upper limits have been estimated for the rate of evaporation of small liquid droplets in representative rocket combustion chambers. The droplets are assumed to be isothermal at all times. The droplet temperature as a function of time is determined by an appropriate heat balance. The calculations are useful in determining the significance of inelastic collisions between liquid droplets for complete combustion. Radiant heat transfer to moving liquid droplets is considered briefly

Will It Take a Crisis to Fix Fiscal Policy?

Explains how federal spending growth is driven by Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, and other health costs, driven by the aging of the population; challenges for fiscal policy, including congressional dysfunction; and possible reactions to a crisis