Сборник материалов международной научной конференции студентов, магистрантов, аспирантов
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- Д.В. Уснарский
А.П. ТерешкоРеспублика Беларусь, Брест, БрГУ имени А.С. Пушкина Научный руководитель – Т.С. Троцюк THE HISTORY OF RUBIK’S CUBERubik’s Cube is one of the most popular and exciting toys in the world. The cube is considered the best gift that you can give for all occasions: birthday, wedding, Christmas or New Year. It does have any language, social or national boundaries. The father of the cube is Erno Rubik, who was born in Budapest during the World War II. Erno was influenced by both parents during the rest of his life. He started sculpture studies and in 1967 graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical College of Budapest. Then he did postgraduate studies in interior architecture, in the 70s he worked as an architect, later became a professor of Interior design at the School of Applied Arts. During his work as a teacher, he was convinced that the education was the best way for discovering and learning. He was constantly searching for new methods of teaching and that is how the Cube was born. It was the spring of 1974 when Erno Rubik got the idea to create a cube with interchangeable pieces. Originally he thought to build a 2×2 cube but stopped on the 3×3 cube because in this cube the centres remain constant. He tested different designs to hold the pieces together, even a failed design with elastic bands. In the final prototype pieces stayed together because they fitted with each other. In this way, he managed to create a cube and he couldn’t imagine that in the future it would become so popular. On January 30, 1975 Erno requested a patent for the Rubik’s Cube, originally called the Magic Cube. The patent was granted in 1977 and the cube started selling at the end of that year. The popularity of the cube grew immediately, but Hungary was not able to do more than a few million pieces per year. That is why a factory for the production of cubes was opened in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Costa Rica and Brazil. So three years later the Rubik’s Cube achieved fame throughout the world and Rubik’s Cube fever began. Bank managers, baseball players, librarians, students, parking attendants revolve the cube all day and night. In many restaurants the cube was one of the compulsory subjects on the table along with salt and pepper. The popularity of Rubik's Cube in the USSR came in 1981. Teachers felt the force of the puzzle first. Students were collecting a cube during lessons under their desks. The first world championship opened on June 5, 1982 in Budapest. Nineteen cubists of different nationalities took part in the event. The cubes were scrambled by computer and then brought on the spot in sealed cases. The competitors had the possibility to examine the cube during 15 seconds before starting the game. A sixteen-year-old student from Los Angeles, Minh Thai won the world championship by unscrambling a Cube in 22.95 seconds. The competitions for collecting the Rubik’s Cube were resumed in the 21st century. World Cube Association has appeared and it organizes competitions in accordance with the official rules and has keeps the official world ranking results. People are improving record after record, approaching the fantastic mark of 10 seconds. There are a lot of extraordinary varients for collecting the cube: by one hand, by the legs, by reflection in the mirror, with eyes closed and many more. The Rubik’s cube appeared in Belarus in 2008. Rubiks.RU company began supplying quality cubes and its variants. Formal and informal competitions were organized every year in different cities of Belarus. Among the participants of the competitions the Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Lithuanians, etc. can be seen. Erno Rubik is now a very famous person, not easily accessible and he doesn’t even always appear at Rubik’s Cube events. However, with his own company Rubik Studio he continues designing games and puzzles, as the Rubik’s Magic, Rubik’s Master Magic, Rubik’s Snake or Rubik’s 360. He also continues teaching at the university and has created the International Rubik Foundation to help talented young engineers and industrial designers.
В статье речь идёт о великой головоломке «Кубик Рубика», покорившей миллионы людей и за рекордно короткий срок ставшей самой продаваемой игрушкой в мире, и её изобретателе – Эрно Рубике, который из простого преподавателя превратился в знаменитость и миллионера. Д.В. УснарскийРеспублика Беларусь, Брест, БрГУ имени А.С. Пушкина Научный руководитель – Т.В. Кравченко INDEPENDENTISM IN THE EUROPEAN UNIONThe success of European integration has caused the importance of internal borders to diminish – but this development is deceptive. The idea of realizing one’s own state is alive and well, and its appeal is growing. Civic participation and federalism are regarded as prescriptions for mollifying secessionist regions. Switzerland is credited with a high level of competence regarding issues such as these. The economic problems in Europe have fanned the desire for autonomy – nowhere more than in the regions that are economic powerhouses. In this context, demands for independence also serve as leverage for applying pressure on the central government. It is not always easy to determine whether movements are indeed pursuing independent statehood or whether they are actually striving for more autonomy rights. Scotland, Catalonia, the Basque regions, and Flanders are ruled by parties that seek independent statehood. They embody a new, modern form of independentism. In addition to established sources of legitimacy, it is notable that they regard themselves as European movements, believing that independence will bring them advantages in the global competition of economic regions. Movements for autonomy in these regions seem to many observers to be potentially successful and as such threaten to de-stabilize the European Union in as much as secession would then pose extraordinarily difficult questions to the Union about continued membership in the Union for one part of the dismembered unit of the other. Moreover, these secessionist forces in and of themselves seem to pose a strong threat to the dream of a unified, integrated Europe such as we find in the thoughts and aspirations of Founding Fathers, e.g., Konrad Adenauer. Since its creation in 1958, the EU supranational system encountered many problems that nation-states brought into its multilevel polity. Countries such as Spain, the UK, and Belgium, have had a prolonged historical fight with their subnational entities in order to stop fragmentation and separatist movements. Desire to separate oneself escalates when one group feels discriminated against, oppressed, or held back from obtaining economic benefits. Separatist feelings represent a threat to the integrity of the nation-state, and in this case, separatist movements might destabilize peace and highlight some of the EU’s deficiencies. Due to its interconnectedness with the economies of national governments, the overall EU economic situation directly affects every single member state and its regional entities. The EU is normally quite neutral as regards the internal problems of its member states. It doesn’t prevent the Catalan people to wish and to obtain their independence. There is just no uncertainty concerning the consequences of such a decision, that is to say an exit from the EU. The article 4.2 of the Treaty on the European Union provides that “the Union shall respect the equality of member states before the Treaties as well as their national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government”. This means that each country is organized as it wishes: Spain is regionalised, Germany has a Federal system, etc. But there is another sentence in this article, which was added upon a Spanish request when the “Constitutional Treaty” was drafted, and then maintained in the Lisbon Treaty: “(The Union) shall respect their essential state functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the state, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security”. This sentence is a slight message in favour of the protection of the EU integrity, from a legal point of view. Interestingly, the EU plays an important role in contemporary independence movements, as their aim is to create an independent state within the EU. In the eyes of many regionalists, the principle of subsidiarity as anchored in the Maastricht Treaty makes the EU a guarantor of far-reaching regional competences. Dreams of self-determination have further been fuelled by the vision of overcoming the nation-state in a unified Europe. However, the further development of European integration is currently in question, which has in turn fostered support for the realization of independent nation-states. The existence of the EU enhances the economic prospects of separatist regions. The common market is especially important for small national economies. Moreover, small states in the EU enjoy a certain degree of over-representation, which is an additional incentive. For advocates of independence, a seamless continuation of EU membership after secession would be the most welcome scenario. Thus, independence would bring continuity. Besides political, cultural and social reasons behind independentism, economic factors are highly influential when it comes to causes and re-exacerbations of existing political separatist claims. The economic theory of secession states that regions with previously established separatist intentions are more likely to have higher demands for independence during an economic downturn. In the regions where separatist claims are reoccurring, their respective nation states use economic policy as a way to make peace. Perceptions of economic injustice represent one of the most important reasons as to why certain regions have high demands for independence. These perceptions depend upon the “region’s relative economic situations within the state”. Regions with low income tend to believe that their regions do not get enough domestic or foreign investment, political representation, etc. On the other hand, wealthier regions believe that they contribute a lot to the central budget, but they do not get enough capital investment. Additionally, wealthier regions are usually dissatisfied with their representation in the national government, along with having too little control over its own resources. Regions such as Catalonia and Scotland differ from the rest of the country in terms of its wealth. These regions are much more prosperous than the rest of the country, and their separatist claims are based on the fact that their national governments are taking advantage and benefiting significantly from their well-off economic situation, thus putting the region itself into an unpropitious economic situation. Making subnational entities such as Catalonia or Scotland satisfied with their economic and political standing within a nation-states reduces the likelihood of secession, thus leading to a more peaceful and stress-free relationship with the EU. Although, there is a possibility for regionalist parties to be empowered by the nation-state decentralization, decentralization reduces the incentives for parties to compete state-wide by reducing the power of national legislatures and, thereby, giving parties fewer incentives to merge with each other in order to control the national government. Overall, in the last couple of decades, the EU, as a multilevel polity, has increased its regional significance and its influence on the nation states. A combination of the EU’s possible fragmentation, political crisis, and vague federal, territorial integrity, sheds light on whether subnational mobilization increases because of the historical and national differences or specifically because of the EU’s difficult economic situation and harsh economic policies.
В статье рассматриваются тенденции стремления к независимости, развивающиеся в странах Европейского союза. Автор акцентирует внимание на экономических причинах таких настроений. В статье даётся оценка последствиям индепендентизма для европейской интеграции. Yüklə 1,51 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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