Pandora (redirected from Pandora box)

Pandora, in Greek mythology

Pandora (păndôr`ə), in Greek mythology, first woman on earth. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create her as vengeance upon man and his benefactor, Prometheus. The gods endowed her with every charm, together with curiosity and deceit. Zeus sent her as a wife to Epimetheus, Prometheus' simple brother, and gave her a box that he forbade her to open. Despite Prometheus' warnings, Epimetheus allowed her to open the box and let out all the evils that have since afflicted man. Hope alone remained inside the box.

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Pandora, in astronomy

Pandora (păndôr`ə), in astronomy, one of the named moons, or natural satellites, of Saturn. Also known as Saturn XVII (or S17), Pandora is an irregularly shaped (nonspherical) body measuring about 71 mi (114 km) by 52 mi (84 km) by 38 mi (62 km); it orbits Saturn at a mean distance of 88,050 mi (141,700 km) and has an orbital period of 0.6285 earth days. The rotational period is unknown but is assumed to be the same as the orbital period. It was discovered by a team led by S. Collins in 1980 from an examination of photographs taken by Voyager 1 during its flyby of Saturn. Pandora is more heavily cratered—with at least two of the craters being more than 18 mi (30 km) in diameter—than the nearby moon Prometheus but exhibits neither linear ridges nor valleys. Pandora is the outer shepherd satellite (a moon that limits the extent of a planetary ring through gravitational forces) of Saturn's F ring.

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Pandora

In Greek mythology, the first woman. After Prometheus stole fire from heaven and bestowed it on mortals, Zeus decided to counteract this blessing and commissioned Hephaestus to fashion a woman out of earth, upon whom the gods bestowed their choicest gifts. After marrying Prometheus's brother, Pandora opened a jar containing all kinds of misery and evil, which escaped and flew out over the earth. In one version, Hope alone remained inside, the lid having been shut before she could escape.

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Pandora

A leading music recommendation and Internet radio service from Pandora Media, Inc. (www.pandora.com). Pandora lets users create their own personalized radio stations by selecting a favorite artist and voting thumbs up or down on each song that is delivered. The more songs you hear and vote on, the more Pandora is able to fine tune the station to your preferences. Songs can be heard on the computer from the Pandora Web site or a smartphone. User selections made on the Web appear on the phone and vice versa.

The Music Genome Project
The heart of Pandora is the Music Genome Project that was started in 2000 by Will Glaser, Jon Kraft and Tim Westergren. It is a musicological study analyzing 400 attributes of a song, including melody, harmony, the singer's voice and instruments. Pandora uses its history of billions of thumbs up and down in combination with the music DNA to recommend songs. It should be noted that the "music DNA" has no relationship to the acoustic fingerprints used to identify a song (see acoustic fingerprint). See Last.fm, music recommendation service and music search.

Thumbs Up or Down

By voting yeah or nay on the songs Pandora recommends, the system is able to fine tune subsequent selections for each user. In addition, all the "those-who-like-this-also-like-that" history that Pandora collects helps make recommendations to other users better.

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Pandora [pan′dȯr·ə]

(astronomy)

A satellite of Saturn which orbits at a mean distance of 88,000 miles (142,000 kilometers), just outside the F ring; together with Prometheus, it holds this ring in place.

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Pandora

inquisitively opens box of plagues given by Zeus. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 191]

See : Curiosity

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(language)

Pandora - Parlog extended to allow don't-know nondeterminism. ["Pandora: Non-Deterministic Parallel Logic Programming", R. Bahgat et al, Proc 6th Intl Conf Logic Programming, MIT Press 1989 pp. 471-486].

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Pandora

in classical Greek mythology, a woman created by Hephaestus at the order of Zeus to punish mortals for Prometheus’ abduction of fire from the gods. According to the myth, Hephaestus fashioned Pandora from water and earth, endowing her with the appearance of a goddess and the voice of a mortal. Aphrodite gave Pandora irresistible charm, and Hermes gave her cunning, deceitfulness, and treachery. Athena wove beautiful garments for her.

With her beauty, Pandora captivated the brother of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and became his wife. In Epimetheus’ house was a box, which had never been opened because it contained all the woes of mankind. Pandora, curious, opened the box and released all the misfortunes that have afflicted men ever since. In accordance with the will of Zeus, the lid slammed shut with only hope remaining at the bottom of the box. P. P. Rubens and other artists have created works dealing with the myth of Pandora.