Simplified Rules of Order. Before a meeting can conduct business it requires a quorum--the minimum number of members who must be present at the meeting before business can be legally transacted. The requirement of a quorum is a protection against unrepresentative action in the name of the association by an unduly small number of people.
Extra credit: Sandburg volunteered for the U.S. Army and served in Puerto Rico (but did not see combat) during the Spanish-American War of 1898... Sandburg was married to Lillian Steichen, sister to the photographer Edward Steichen, from 1908 until his death in 1967...
Einstein began an affair with his cousin Elsa Lowenthal while on a trip to Berlin in 1912, leaving Mileva and his family two years later. Einstein and Mileva finally divorced in 1919, but not until after Einstein sent his wife a list of 'conditions' under which he was willing to remain married. The list included such autocratic demands as You are neither to expect intimacy nor to reproach me in any way. After the divorce, he saw little of his sons. The elder, Hans Albert, later reflected: Probably the only project he ever gave up on was me. The younger, Eduard, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and died in an asylum.