Who were the Band of Merry Men in Robin Hood?

The Band of Merry Men refers to the group of men who accompany the outlaw Robin Hood in English folklore. All of these men were outlaws who gained access to the Band by displaying skills in shooting and weaponry, and they accompanied Robin Hood in stealing from the rich and aiding the poor. Different interpretations of the Robin Hood legend provide varying numbers of Merry Men, with some claiming there were over a hundred. Robin Hood could signal to the Merry Men that he was in danger by using a horn that he kept around his neck. The most famous member of the group and closest to Robin Hood was "Little John," born John Little. Other named members of the Band of Merry Men include Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, and Much the Miller's son.

What is a superdelegate and what is their significance to the presidential election?

A superdelegate is a person who is automatically seated at the Democratic National Convention and who is not pledged to either candidate in advance. In other words, the superdelegates can choose who to vote for. All Democratic governors who are currently in office, as well as Democratic senators and representatives and some party officials, serve as superdelegates. Superdelegates are different than pledged delegates, who are selected using the results of the party primaries and caucuses and who pledge their support to certain candidates in advance. The Republican National Convention also has delegates with automatic seats, but they are not called superdelegates and are restricted to three per state.

The significance of superdelegates to the presidential election is that they can swing the convention to choose a candidate who did not win the popular vote during the party's primary elections. The significance to the election of 2016 is that some superdelegates may choose to vote for Bernie Sanders, even if Hillary Clinton wins the majority of the popular vote. This scenario is unlikely, however, as  Clinton seems to have the superdelegates lined up in her column. 

What are the main ideas of Hamlet's soliloquy in Act III, Scene III?

Act Three, Scene Three opens shortly after the play-within-the-play has finished. King Claudius is wildly unnerved by what he has just seen and now feels that Hamlet may pose a threat to him. Unwilling to continue to deal with the potential risk, Claudius decides to send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to accompany Hamlet on a trip to England, believing that he will be safer with the crazed boy out of the country.

After a discussion with Polonius about the two's plans to spy on Hamlet in Gertrude's room, Claudius breaks down in prayer, confessing the murder of King Hamlet to God and seeking forgiveness. Hamlet discreetly enters the room intent on killing Claudius, which is when his soliloquy begins.

Watching Claudius, Hamlet realizes that if he kills him during the act of prayer, he will send the murderer straight to heaven:

A villain kills my father, and, for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

Hamlet does not want Claudius to get off that easily, especially since Claudius murdered King Hamlet before the King had a chance to repent his own sins. To allow Claudius to repent when the man he killed did not have that opportunity would seem particularly twisted—a favor rather than an act of revenge:

To take him in the purging of his soul

When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?

No.

Hamlet realizes that he has no choice but to wait for a more opportune moment to kill Claudius, be it when he's engaging in sex or gambling or some other sin. The objective here is to send Claudius straight to hell with his soul "damned and black." Resolute in this decision, Hamlet slips away to meet his mother.

What are the "four vital physical process that create food" that Pollan focuses on in his book Cooked?

In his book Cooked, Michael Pollan investigates the four main physical processes that are used to cook food: fire, air, water, and earth (fermentation). He starts with fire because, as he says, "fire is the first and most fundamental form of cookery" (page 29). In studying cooking with fire, he wants to "learn something about the deeper meaning of this curious, uniquely human activity called cooking" (page 29). He wants to learn how to cook without gadgets and to strip the process of preparing food down to its fundamentals. Humans' control of fire is, as he points out, what enabled us to advance our civilization. In the chapter on fire, Pollan describes ancient and more modern forms of cooking with this technique. 

In later chapters, Pollan uncovers and examines the processes of cooking with air (baking bread, primarily); water (braising); and the earth (fermenting). He believes these are essential and ancient processes that return us to the fundamentals of what it means to prepare food. The author is interested in examining these processes because Americans spend so little time actually cooking and cleaning today--an amount of time that has declined drastically since his childhood in the 1960s. He wants to go back to the fundamentals of cooking to restore healthfulness and community to the process of eating. 

What does the Prince hope to do by locking himself in the castle in "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe? Why would also he have the...

The Prince is attempting to keep himself and his guests in denial. His kingdom is dying off from the Red Death. He wants to make sure no one can get in and infect his castle, and he also wants to make sure no one can leave.

Prince Prospero is described as “dauntless,” meaning he is not intimidated by anything. The fact that he is not intimidated by the plague demonstrates this. Unfortunately, instead of trying to help his people or find a cure, he builds himself an impenetrable castle and holes himself up inside it with a thousand of his closest friends.

When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste.

The prince is avoiding reality. He is not just trying to make sure that death can’t get in; he is also trying to avoid facing his responsibilities. None of his people can leave, either. They are all going to stay, party, and pretend time stopped.

The party and masquerade are an example of the Prince’s insane desire to evade reality.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial suite. . . Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the bizarre.

The prince and his courtiers can't keep pretending nothing has happened outside, and they can’t go outside because that will destroy the illusion. As a result, they barricade themselves inside and seal off the walls.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, what is Harper Lee's tone toward Tom Robinson's death? Does she want us to believe that he was shot while escaping?

The author's tone is defined as the attitude behind the subject matter--in this case, Tom Robinson's death. Harper Lee chose to have Atticus break the news of Tom's death to other characters, which means that the news comes by way of good authority. For example, Scout doesn't learn about Tom's death through Stephanie Crawford, the town gossip; she hears it from Atticus, a man who is respected by the community and wouldn't lie or joke about a subject so serious. Therefore, one could infer that the tone behind the news of Tom's death is critical and instrumental to the story and its characters. Lee also chooses to have Atticus simply blurt out, "He's dead," in Chapter 24, rather than to have him use a euphemism to soften the blow. Atticus is upset that Tom is dead. He was very determined to return Tom to his family after going through an appeals process. Not only that, but Tom was illegally tried and a victim of a racist society; so, that makes Atticus frustrated as well. Hence, the tone regarding Tom's death is frustration and disappointment as shown through the character of Atticus. 

In response to the second question, yes, Tom died trying to escape. While he was in prison, he charged for the fences during exercise time and almost made his way to freedom before he was shot to death. The guards reported that if he had had two good arms, he would have escaped completely. As it was, they shot up a few warning shots, but Tom kept running. In the end, he was shot multiple times and died there. 

Is glass the result of a physical or chemical change?

The process of making glass involves a chemical change. While a physical change describes change in the superficial properties of a substance-- like melting ice into water, or tearing up a piece of paper-- a chemical change alters the chemical makeup of the substance itself. 

Glass is made when sand is heated to a very high temperature, causing it to melt. The main component of sand is silicon dioxide, and when this is heated at extreme temperatures, the chemical structure of the silicon dioxide begins to rearrange! Actually, because of its unique molecular structure, we sometimes refer to glass as an "amorphous solid." This means that it behaves like a solid, but the molecular structure isn't the typical crystalline pattern we find in other solids. Different substances may be added to sand before melting or to the molten glass to change the molecular structure or final color of the resulting glass.

Glass can undergo physical changes, too! Have you ever seen glass shatter? This is an example of a physical change. Even though the initial drinking glass or window broke into lots of pieces, the chemical structure is essentially still the same.