Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a type of atomic emission spectroscopy which uses a highly energetic laser pulse as the excitation source. The laser is focused to form a plasma, which atomizes and excites samples. In principle, LIBS can analyse any matter regardless of its physical state, be it solid, liquid or gas. Because all elements emit light of characteristic frequencies when excited to sufficiently high temperatures, LIBS can (in principle) detect all elements, limited only by the power of the laser as well as the sensitivity and wavelength range of the spectrograph & detector. If the constituents of a material to be analyzed are known, LIBS may be used to evaluate the relative abundance of each constituent element, or to monitor the presence of impurities. In practice, detection limits are a function of a) the plasma excitation temperature, b) the light collection window, and c) the line strength of the viewed transition. LIBS makes use of optical emission spectrometry and is to this extent very similar to arc/spark emission spectroscopy.

Mad Libs

Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game where one player prompts others for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story, before reading the – often comical or nonsensical – story aloud. The game is frequently played as a party game or as a pastime.

The game was invented in the United States, and more than 110 million copies of Mad Libs books have been sold since the series was first published in 1958.

History

Mad Libs was invented in 1953 by Leonard Stern and Roger Price. Stern and Price co-created the game, but couldn't agree on a name for their invention. No name was chosen until five years later (1958), when Stern and Price were eating eggs Benedict at a restaurant in New York City. While eating, the two overheard an argument at a neighboring table between a talent agent and an actor. According to Price and Stern, during the overheard argument, the actor said that he wanted to "ad-lib" an upcoming interview. The agent, who clearly disagreed with the actor's suggestion, retorted that ad-libbing an interview would be "mad". Stern and Price used that eavesdropped conversation to finally create the name "Mad Libs". The duo released the first Mad Libs book themselves in 1958. The first Mad Libs resembled the earlier games of Consequences and Exquisite Corpse.

Smosh

Smosh is an American web-based sketch comedy duo consisting of Ian Andrew Hecox (born November 30, 1987) and Anthony Padilla (born September 16, 1987).

Padilla began posting flash animations on Newgrounds in 2003, under the name Smosh. He was later joined by his friend Ian Hecox. Soon afterward, they began to post videos on YouTube in the autumn of 2005 and became one of the most popular channels on that site. As of February 2016, the Smosh channel has more than 21 million subscribers and 5.2 billion video views. The Smosh team has expanded to include others to handle animated, other language, and video gaming content videos, and the sketches have included more actors.

The Smosh channel has experienced three different spans as the most subscribed YouTube channel. The first period spanned from May to June 2006, the second spanned from April 2007 to September 2008, and the third span lasted from January to August 2013.

History

Formation and Pokémon Theme Music Video: 2002–2006

The franchise began when Anthony Padilla built a website in 2002, smosh.com, and made several different Flash animations. He has stated that the name Smosh came from an incident where he mistook a friend explaining a mosh pit, as a "smosh pit". Later, his friend, Ian Hecox, joined the venture. Padilla and Hecox first met in their sixth grade science class. They became friends, and quickly discovered their knack for comedy. In 2005, they joined YouTube and made several videos together, lip syncing the theme songs to Mortal Kombat, Power Rangers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. At first, these videos were not intended to be posted online, but after they sent them to their friends, they started a YouTube channel.