Cycle

“ A cycle thus transfers and transforms energy radiated to the earth from the sun, building up the vegetable, sacrificing the structure in the building of the animal organism, breaking down the animal structure again, and setting free the circling energy to continue its progress along other paths into other organic matter, or elsewhere, as directing agencies may compel. ”

“ But there is another description of cycles which can only effectually be expressed, in a condensed form, by the preceding notation. We shall call them varying cycles. They are of frequent occurrence, and include successive cycles of operations of the following nature:— (9.)
,
where each cycle contains the same group of operations, but in which the number of repetitions of the group varies according to a fixed rate, with every cycle. (9.) can be well expressed as follows:— (10.) ”

“ The solar cycle, the lunar cycle, and the cycle of indiction.
The solar cycle is a period of time after which the same days of the year recur on the same days of the week. If every year contained 365 days, then every year would commence one day later in the week than the year preceding, and the cycle would be completed in seven years. For if the first day of January, in any given year, fall on Sunday, then the following year on Monday, the third on Tuesday, and so on to Sunday again in seven years. ”

“ The more important cycles are discussed in the articles Calendar and Eclipse. In physics, the term is applied to a series of operations which, performed upon a system, brings it back to its original state; “Carnot’s Cycle” is an example (see Thermodynamics) . From the use of the word for any period at the end of which the same events recur in the same order or for any complete series of phenomena, it is used loosely of any long period of time. The name ὁ ἐπικὸς κύκλος, the epic cycle, was given to the poems which complete the Homeric account of the Trojan War (see below) . ”

“ Any supposition that the astronomical cycle has occasioned the physiological one, that the structure of plants has been brought to be what it is by the action of external causes, or that such plants as could not accommodate themselves to the existing day have perished, would be not only an arbitrary and baseless assumption, but moreover useless for the purposes of explanation which it professes, as we have noticed of a similar supposition with respect to the annual cycle. How came plants to have periodicity at all in those functions which have a relation to light and darkness? ”

“ A Cycle, in the application of the Science of Numbers, is a period of nine years, and the effect of the Cycle upon the life of the individual is to make the characteristics of each letter of the name assert the greatest degree of influence during the period of nine years in which it is in force. ”

“ It is, in fact, the orderly sequence of metabolic events occurring in interphase that leads from one mitosis to the next.
The Cell Cycle
Figure 25 is a diagram of the cell cycle. Try to imagine the cell cycle as a race track and individual cells as cars that race around it. You are sitting at the finish wire, which is mitosis (we chose mitosis because it is easy to recognize when the cell is observed with the aid of a microscope) . At a certain time during the race, all the cars in a portion of the track, say a 200-yard sector of the backstretch, are sprayed with a blue dye as they race by. ”

“ There is good reason why animals should have the periods of gestation, generation, and duration of life in certain cycles—I mean by cycle, a day, night, month, and year, and{524} the time which is described by these; also the motions of the moon—for these are the common origin of generation to all. ”

“ The present sub-cycle producing an entirely different influence to that of the past cycle, whose force was watery, magnetic and feminine, causes a warring of elements, confusion and uncertainty, until the old are displaced by the new conditions. ”

“ The whole range of operations included within the scope of inquiry in this branch of the science may be regarded as a vast cycle of change, into which we may break at any point, and round which we may travel, only to find ourselves brought back to our starting-point. It is a matter of comparatively small moment at what part of the cycle we begin our inquiries. We shall always find that the changes we see in action have resulted from some that preceded, and give place to others which follow them. ”

“ The point at which the grand cycle begins is marked thus: ——:o:——. If we examine Table XIV we see that 1 Cauac is the first year of a cycle, and 1 Muluc the first of the usually "counted years" of an Ahau, and that both are within the period covered by the four plates; each is surrounded by a ring in order to designate it. As a matter of course, each is the first year of an "Indication" or week of years; so are 1 Kan and 1 Ix in the same period, yet neither of these is thus distinguished. ”

“ Hence, even on natural grounds, the most intelligible view of the history of the animal and vegetable kingdoms seems to be, that each period which is marked by a distinct collection of species forms a cycle; and that at the beginning of each such cycle a creative power was exerted, of a kind to which there was nothing at all analogous in the succeeding part of the same cycle. ”

“ How are we to select the one right idea out of several conceivable ones? To which we can only reply, that this must be done by trying which will succeed. If there really exist a cycle of the weather, as well as of eclipses, this must be established by comparing the asserted cycle with a good register of the seasons, of sufficient extent. ”

“ Under the influence of the life impulse, the old routine of matter—from compound to compound, from solid to fluid, from fluid to gaseous, from rock to soil, the cycle always ending where it began—is broken into, and cycles of a new order are instituted. ”

“ The essential element of the cycle sign, however, the clasped hand, appears only in the head of this bird, where the student will readily find it. Indeed, the head of this full-figure form is nothing more nor less than a head-variant cycle glyph, and as such determines the meaning of the whole figure. Compare this head with figure 25, d-f, or with any of the other head-variant cycle forms figured in the preceding texts. This grotesque "cycle bird," perhaps the parrot, is bound to the back of an anthropomorphic figure, which we have every reason to suppose records the cycle coefficient. ”

“ A cycle that includes other cycles, successively contained one within another, is called a cycle of the th order. A cycle may simply include many other cycles, and yet only be of the second order. If a series follows a certain law for a certain number of terms, and then another law for another number of terms, there will be a cycle of operations for every new law ”

“ The Life Cycle.—Ultimately both plants and animals grow old and die. Some plants, for example the pea or bean, live but [Pg 104] a season; others, such as the big trees of California, live for hundreds of years. Some insects exist as adults but a day, while the elephant is said to live almost two hundred years. The span of life from the time the plant or animal begins to grow until it dies is known as the life cycle. ”

“ At first an eight years’ cycle was adopted, but it was found to be faulty, then the Jewish cycle of 84 years was used, and remained in force at Rome till the year 457, when a more accurate calculation of a cycle of 532 years, invented by Victorius of Acquitaine, took its place. Ultimately a cycle of 19 years was accepted, and it is the use of this cycle which makes the Golden Number and Sunday Letter, explained in the preface to the Book of Common Prayer, necessary. ”

“ A cycle of three drawings is sufficient to give a vivid representation of the puffing exhaust from an automobile.
Little happenings that form part of a general scene are managed, as a rule, too, by cycles of drawings or cycles of details in a drawing. To specify a few things, we may cite puffs of vapor from an automobile, steam pouring out of the spout of a teakettle, and smoke from a chimney. ”

“ The first day or year of the cycle is Ki no E, Ne, "Wood—Elder Brother, Rat;" the second is Ki no To, Ushi, "Wood—Younger Brother, Bull;" and so on, until the sixtieth, Mizu no To, I, "Water—Younger Brother, Boar," is reached, and the cycle begins again.
These things, especially the lunar calendar, still largely influence the daily actions of the people. The peasantry scrupulously observe the traditional times and seasons in all the operations of agriculture. ”

“ The concept of cycle is something very ancient and permanent in the human spirit. In the Brahmanian theory, cycles form the calendar of the gods. In ancient India the human year is made up of 360 days, without including the interpolated ones; the divine year is made up of 360 human years. One Haha Yuga is formed by 120,000 divine years and is divided into four eras of unequal duration and similar rhythm. An era is preceded by an ascending period and is followed by a phase of expiration; each one of them lasts one tenth of the principal era. ”

“ If the objector were to suppose that plants were originally fitted to years of various lengths, and that such only have survived to the present time as had a cycle of a length equal to our present year, or one which could be accommodated to it, we should reply that the assumption is too gratuitous and extravagant to require much consideration. ”

“ Number of cycles covered by the given curve. (2) Shortness of maxima in relation to length of cycle; if the maximum is sudden and sharp, as in rainfall, the accuracy may be very great; if the maximum is long, as in a sine curve, the accuracy is less. (3) Regularity in the maxima and freedom from interference. These features all appear in the differential pattern and hence the accuracy of any period is its most evident feature and all observers can judge it equally well. ”

“ Has the duration and complexity of the life-cycle expanded or contracted since organisms first appeared on the earth? According to the current view, the life-cycle is continually being shortened at one end by the abbreviation of embryonic development and by the absorption of larval stages into the embryonic period, and lengthened at the other by the evolutionary creation of new adult phases. ”

“ Now such an adjustment must surely be accepted as a proof of design, exercised in the formation of the world. Why should the solar year be so long and no longer? or, this being of such a length, why should the vegetable cycle be exactly of the same length? Can this be chance? And this occurs, it is to be observed, not in one, or in a few species of plants, but in thousands. Take a small portion only of known species, as the most obviously endowed with this adjustment, and say ten thousand. How should all these organized bodies be constructed for the same period of a year? ”

“ The corresponding words in the Sanscrit are Yuga, Kalpa, Manvantara, but of these yuga comes nearest to cycle, as it is lesser in duration than the others. The beginning of a cycle must be a moment, that added to other moments makes a day, and those added together constitute months, years, decades, and centuries. ”

“ Therefore, to find the year of the Solar Cycle, add 9 to any given year of Christ, and divide the sum by 28, the Quotient is the number of Cycles elapsed since his birth, and the remainder is the Cycle for the given year: if nothing remains, the Cycle is 28. To find the Lunar Cycle, add 1 to the given year of Christ, and divide the sum by 19; the Quotient is the number of Cycles elapsed in the interval, and the remainder is the Cycle for the given year: if nothing remains, the Cycle is 19. ”

“ Out of every 24 hours the cycle saves me one to two or more in this slow Tokio, so that I shouldn’t grumble at it.
October 16.—At work all the morning, lunch with the Faculty at the Goten, and then at work all the afternoon. The fossils proved so enticing that though I had worn a traily frock all day intending to go to the Belgian Legation garden party, when it came to the point the fossils won, and I didn’t go. In the evening I cycled down to dinner at our Embassy.
When once one makes up one’s mind to a cycle, one can even go out to dinner on it. ”

“ But why should the cycle begin or end at one point of time rather than at another; and what determines the length of the cycle? Some of the new dynamic forces such as inventions and growth of population are distributed pretty regularly along the line, so that their influences are nearly equalized. But occasionally some large impulse may serve to start a swing and if this impulse is somewhat regularly repeated, it may serve to keep up the rhythmic motion. ”

“ The total cycle of energy from the start of storage to the end of liberation of energy, starting once more with the storing of energy, may be regarded as the cycles of organic functional activity which is classified under metabolism. We deal here with a reservoir of vital energy whose life activities or reactions depend on the amount of energy contained in the cell or the neuron, and whose functioning and reactions vary with the level of energy in the reservoir. ”

“ DISSECTED PENEPLAINS. When a rise of the land brings one cycle to an end and begins another, the characteristic land forms of each cycle are found together and the topography of the region is composite until the second cycle is so far advanced that the land forms of the first cycle are entirely destroyed. The contrast between the land surfaces of the later and the earlier cycles is most striking when the earlier had advanced to age and the later is still in youth. ”