Mercury (toy manufacturer) Marklin, the company was started in 1932, by Attilio Clemente and Antonio Cravero, but its first toy was a gun produced about 1939 (Batazzi et al 1974; Force 1992, 5; History of Mercury 2013; Ralston 2009, 62). The company first began making toy cars just after World War II, so is one of the earliest diecast model makers preceding Corgi and many others and it was the earliest producer in Italy (Richardson 1999, 134). In Italy there was little competition for Mercury through most of the 1950s (Force 1992, 5). Early cars were more Tootsietoy-like with simple cast bodies, wheels
Spekkens toy model Spekkens toy model The Spekkens toy model is a conceptually simple toy model introduced by Robert Spekkens in 2004, to argue in favour of the epistemic view of quantum mechanics. The model is based on a foundational principle: "If one has maximal knowledge, then for every system, at every time, the amount of knowledge one possesses about the ontic state of the system at that time must equal the amount of knowledge one lacks." This is called the "knowledge balance principle". Within the bounds of this model, many phenomena typically associated with strictly quantum-mechanical effects are present. These include (but