A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle. The wheel is one of the main components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be moved easily facilitating movement or transportation while supporting a load, or performing labor in machines. Wheels are also used for other purposes, such as a ship's wheel, steering wheel and flywheel.

Common examples are found in transport applications. A wheel greatly reduces friction by facilitating motion by rolling together with the use of axles. In order for wheels to rotate, a moment needs to be applied to the wheel about its axis, either by way of gravity, or by the application of another external force or torque.

The English word wheel comes from the Old English word hweol, hweogol, from Proto-Germanic *hwehwlan, *hwegwlan, from Proto-Indo-European *k^wek^wlo-, an extended form of the root *k^wel- "to revolve, move around". Cognates within Indo-European include Greek κύκλος kýklos, "wheel", Sanskrit chakra, Old Church Slavonic kolo, all meaning "circle" or "wheel",

Darius "Hootie" Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld and Dean Felber. The band has released five studio albums with him as a member, and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote the majority of the band's songs with the other three members.

He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then, in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but did not chart any singles from it. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as a country music artist, releasing the album Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first African American to chart a number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. It was followed by two more number-one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first African American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and only the second African American to win any award from the association. A second Capitol album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number-one singles "Come Back Song" and "This".

Cass McCombs is an American songwriter and performer.

McCombs was born in Concord, California in 1977. He has led a nomadic existence for most of his adult life, moving from one city to the next, living in cars, on couches and at campsites. McCombs spent time developing his songwriting abilities in New York City, until the events of 9/11 (coupled with running out of money) sent him back, via Greyhound bus, to San Francisco, where he recorded his debut E.P., entitled Not the Way E.P. It would be released by the small Baltimore-based Monitor Records in 2002. After relocating there, his first full-length album, A, was released early the following year on Monitor in the U.S. and in Europe and the U.K. by 4AD. McCombs and his band spent much of 2003 and 2004 touring, performing everywhere from the All Tomorrow's Parties festival to house shows. McCombs otherwise divided his time amongst the Pacific Northwest, England and Baltimore. After a week of recording in Michigan, his second LP, PREfection, arrived in spring 2005.  Later that year, he decamped to Southern California to begin work on his third full-length, Dropping the Writ, which was released on October 9, 2007, by Domino Records and later named one of Amazon.com’s Best Albums of 2007.  Following a period in Chicago, he returned to California to record Catacombs before its eventual U.S. release on July 7, 2009. The album was named one of the top 50 albums of 2009 by Pitchfork Media.  His fifth LP, Wit's End, was released by Domino on April 26, 2011. It was followed by another LP, entitled Humor Risk and released on November 8, 2011 - less than 7 months after the release of his previous LP. Like Catacombs and Wit's End, it was produced by Ariel Rechtshaid and McCombs.

Old Crow Medicine Show is a folk band based in Nashville, Tennessee. Their music has been called bluegrass, Americana, and alt-country. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs. They have been recording since 1998.

Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua first met in the seventh grade in Harrisonburg, Virginia in Rockingham County, and began playing music together. They performed open mics at the Little Grill diner which was "really the first chance that . . Critter had to play on stage." Being "a bit younger" than the "college students at James Madison University who typically hung out there" Secor "was considered a townie." As Secor says today: "They knew that we had talent, but it was raw. I mean, I was up there beating on a jaw harp when I was 13."

It was at Little Grill Ketch first saw his "contemporary" Robert St. Ours—who later went on to found The Hackensaw Boys--singing and "he was so cool with his leather jacket and side burns. I knew that's what I wanted to do." His early influences also included " . . driving up to Mt. Jackson, VA to the bluegrass Saturday night in the summer. And going up to Davis and Elkins College to participate in the Old Time Music week there, and meeting guys like Richie Stearns." Secor formed the Route 11 Boys with St. Ours and his brothers and performed often at Little Grill.

Walter H. G. Lewin (born January 29, 1936), PhD, is a Dutch American astrophysicist and professor emeritus of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

He earned his Ph.D. degree in nuclear physics in 1965 at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Walter Lewin went to MIT in January 1966 as a post-doctoral associate, and became an assistant professor later that year. He joined an X-ray astronomy group at MIT and conducted all-sky balloon surveys with George W. Clark. Through the late seventies, there were about twenty successful balloon flights. These balloon surveys led to the discovery of five new X-ray sources, which doubled the number known at the time. Furthermore, some of these X-ray sources were found to be varying, and some were X-ray flares. The rockets used by other researchers could not have discovered that the X-ray sources varied because they were only in the air for a few minutes, whereas the balloons could be in the air for many hours. The surveys also resulted in the discovery of GX 1+4, which was the first slowly rotating X-ray pulsar found.