1.
Albert Einstein
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Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, Einsteins work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led him to develop his theory of relativity during his time at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Briefly before, he aquired the Swiss citizenship in 1901, which he kept for his whole life and he continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the theory of relativity to model the large-scale structure of the universe. He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to Germany and he settled in the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1940. This eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project, Einstein supported defending the Allied forces, but generally denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955. Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works, on 5 December 2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einsteins papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique documents. Einsteins intellectual achievements and originality have made the word Einstein synonymous with genius, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879. His parents were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, the Einsteins were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews, and Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich from the age of 5 for three years. At the age of 8, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium, the loss forced the sale of the Munich factory. In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan, when the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the schools regimen. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning, at the end of December 1894, he travelled to Italy to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctors note. During his time in Italy he wrote an essay with the title On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field
2.
Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam
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Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam is a German research institute. It is the successor of the Berlin Observatory founded in 1700, the latter was the worlds first observatory to emphasize explicitly the research area of astrophysics. The AIP was founded in 1992, in a following the German Reunification. The AIP is privately funded and member of the Leibniz Association, the key topics of the AIP are cosmic magnetic fields on various scales and extragalactic astrophysics. Astronomical and astrophysical fields studied at the AIP range from solar and stellar physics to stellar, the institute also develops research technology in the fields of spectroscopy and robotic telescopes. Furthermore, work on several projects are carried out at the AIP. The history of astronomy in Potsdam really began in Berlin in 1700, initiated by Gottfried W. Leibniz, on July 11,1700 the Brandenburgische Societät was founded by the elector Friedrich III in Berlin. Two months earlier the national calendar monopoly provided the funding for an observatory, by May 18 the first director, Gottfried Kirch, had been appointed. This happened in a hurry, because the profits from the basic calendar, calculated and sold by the observatory. This kind of financing existed until the beginning of the 19th century, alexander von Humboldt was then promoting astronomy by his famous Kosmos lectures in 1827–28. He played an important role in providing the funds for both observatory and instruments, the Berlin Observatory became known worldwide when Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune in 1846. The last two events took place when Wilhelm Julius Foerster was director of the observatory, which was meanwhile attached to the University of Berlin. He prepared the basis for the observatories in Potsdam, in 1874 the foundation of the AOP on the Telegrafenberg. In the middle of the 19th century spectral analysis was developed by Gustav Kirchhoff and it enabled the acquisition of information on the physical parameters and chemical abundances of stars, by the spectral analysis of their light. This idea was extended to the whole of astrophysics. The site of the observatory was chosen on a hill south of Potsdam, the Telegrafenberg, on which had been, from 1832 to 1848, on 1 July 1874 the AOP was founded. The construction work started in 1876, the observatory building. The AOP was managed by a board of directors comprising Wilhelm Julius Foerster, Gustav Kirchhoff, in 1882 Carl Hermann Vogel was appointed as sole director of the observatory
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Observatory
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An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geology, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed, historically, observatories were as simple as containing an astronomical sextant or Stonehenge. Astronomical observatories are mainly divided into four categories, space based, airborne, ground based, ground-based observatories, located on the surface of Earth, are used to make observations in the radio and visible light portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Most optical telescopes are housed within a dome or similar structure, Telescope domes have a slit or other opening in the roof that can be opened during observing, and closed when the telescope is not in use. In most cases, the upper portion of the telescope dome can be rotated to allow the instrument to observe different sections of the night sky. Radio telescopes usually do not have domes, for optical telescopes, most ground-based observatories are located far from major centers of population, to avoid the effects of light pollution. The ideal locations for modern observatories are sites that have dark skies, a percentage of clear nights per year, dry air. At high elevations, the Earths atmosphere is thinner, thereby minimizing the effects of atmospheric turbulence, sites that meet the above criteria for modern observatories include the southwestern United States, Hawaii, Canary Islands, the Andes, and high mountains in Mexico such as Sierra Negra. Major optical observatories include Mauna Kea Observatory and Kitt Peak National Observatory in the USA, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in Spain, and Paranal Observatory in Chile. Specific research study performed in 2009 shows that the best possible location for ground-based observatory on Earth is Ridge A — a place in the part of Eastern Antarctica. This location provides the least atmospheric disturbances and best visibility, beginning in 1930s, radio telescopes have been built for use in the field of radio astronomy to observe the Universe in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the mid-20th century, a number of observatories have been constructed at very high altitudes, above 4. The largest and most notable of these is the Mauna Kea Observatory, the Chacaltaya Astrophysical Observatory in Bolivia, at 5,230 m, was the worlds highest permanent astronomical observatory from the time of its construction during the 1940s until 2009. It has now surpassed by the new University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory. As a result, the resolution of space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope is often much smaller than a ground-based telescope with a similar aperture. However, all these advantages do come with a price, Space telescopes are much more expensive to build than ground-based telescopes. Due to their location, space telescopes are also difficult to maintain. The Hubble Space Telescope was serviced by the Space Shuttle while many other space telescopes cannot be serviced at all, Airborne observatories have the advantage of height over ground installations, putting them above most of the Earths atmosphere
5.
Potsdam
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Potsdam is the capital and largest city of the German federal state of Brandenburg. It directly borders the German capital Berlin and is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region and it is situated on the River Havel,24 kilometres southwest of Berlins city centre. Potsdam was a residence of the Prussian kings and the German Kaiser, around the city there are a series of interconnected lakes and cultural landmarks, in particular the parks and palaces of Sanssouci, the largest World Heritage Site in Germany. The Potsdam Conference in 1945 was held at the palace Cecilienhof, the Filmstudio Babelsberg is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world. Potsdam developed into a centre of science in Germany in the 19th century, today, there are three public colleges, the University of Potsdam, and more than 30 research institutes in the city. The area was formed from a series of large moraines left after the last glacial period, today, the city is three-quarters green space, with just a quarter as urban area. There are about 20 lakes and rivers in and around Potsdam, such as the Havel, the Griebnitzsee, Templiner See, Tiefer See, Jungfernsee, Teltowkanal, Heiliger See, the highest point is the 114-metre high Kleiner Ravensberg. Potsdam is divided into seven city districts and nine new Ortsteile. The appearances of the city districts are quite different, the districts in the north and in the centre consist mainly of historical buildings, the south of the city is dominated by larger areas of newer buildings. Potsdam has an Oceanic climate, with cool, snowy winters, the average winter high temperature is 3.5 °C, with a low of −1.7 °C. Snow is common in the winter, summers are mild, with a high of 23.6 °C and a low of 12.7 °C. The name Potsdam originally seems to have been Poztupimi, a common theory is that it derives from an old West Slavonic term meaning beneath the oaks, i. e. the corrupted pod dubmi/dubimi. The area around Potsdam shows occupancy since the Bronze Age and was part of Magna Germania as described by Tacitus. After the great migrations of the Germanic peoples, Slavs moved in and it was first mentioned in a document in 993 AD as Poztupimi, when Emperor Otto III gifted the territory to the Quedlinburg Abbey, then led by his aunt Matilda. By 1317, it was mentioned as a small town and it gained its town charter in 1345. In 1573, it was still a market town of 2,000 inhabitants. Potsdam lost nearly half of its due to the Thirty Years War. After the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Potsdam became a centre of European immigration and its religious freedom attracted people from France, Russia, the Netherlands and Bohemia
6.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
7.
Erich Mendelsohn
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Mendelsohn is a pioneer of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne architecture, notably with his 1921 Mossehaus design. Erich Mendelsohn was born in Allenstein, East Prussia and his birthplace was at the former Oberstrasse 21, now no.10 Staromiejska street. A plaque embedded on the wall on the side of Barbara street commemorates his place of birth and he was the fifth of six children, his mother was Emma Esther, a hatmaker and his father David was a shopkeeper. He attended a humanist Gymnasium in Allenstein and continued with commercial training in Berlin, in 1906 he took up the study of national economics at the University of Munich. In 1908 he began studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin, from 1912 to 1914 he worked as an independent architect in Munich. In 1915 he married the cellist Luise Maas, through his wife, he met the cello-playing astrophysicist Erwin Finlay Freundlich. Freundlich was the brother of Herbert Freundlich, the deputy director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Physikalische Chemie und Elektrochemie, Freundlich wished to build a suitable astronomical observatory to experimentally confirm Einsteins Theory of Relativity. Through his relationship with Freundlich, Mendelsohn had the opportunity to design and this relationship and also the family friendship with the Luckenwalde hat manufacturers Salomon and Gustav Herrmann helped Mendelsohn to an early success. The 2011 documentary film by Duki Dror titled Incessant Visions is about Erich Mendelsohn and his wife, in which Dror animates the memoirs of Louise, at the end of 1918, upon his return from World War I, he settled his practice in Berlin. The Einsteinturm and the hat factory in Luckenwalde established his reputation, the Hat Factory was commissioned in 1921, Mendelsohns design included four production halls, a boiler, a turbine house, two gatehouses and a dyeing hall. The dyeing hall became a feature of the factory, the building was shaped with a modern. The structure even ironically resembled a hat, as early as 1924 Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst produced a booklet about his work. In that same year, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius and his practice employed as many as forty people, among them, as a trainee, Julius Posener, later an architectural historian. Mendelsohns work encapsulated the consumerism of the Weimar Republic, most particularly in his shops, nonetheless he was also interested in the socialist experiments being made in the USSR, where he designed the Red Banner Textile Factory in 1926. His Mossehaus newspaper offices and Universum cinema were also influential on art deco. In 1926, he bought an old villa, and in 1928, he designed Rupenhorn, nearly 4000 m², with an expensive publication about his new home, illustrated by Amédée Ozenfant among others, Mendelsohn became the subject of envy. In the spring of 1933, in the wake of growing antisemitism and his fortune was seized by the Nazis, his name struck from the list of the German Architects Union, and he was excluded from the Prussian Academy of Arts. In England he began a partnership with Serge Chermayeff, which continued until the end of 1936
8.
Prussian semaphore system
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The Prussian Semaphore System was a telegraphic communications system used between Berlin and the Rhine Province from 1832 to 1849. It could transmit administrative and military messages by optical signal over a distance of nearly 550 kilometres, the telegraph line comprised 62 stations each furnished with a signal mast with six cable-operated arms. The stations were equipped with telescopes that operators used to copy coded messages, three dispatch departments located in Berlin, Cologne and Koblenz handled the coding and decoding of official telegrams. Although electric telegraphy made the system obsolete for use, simplified semaphores were still used for railway signals. At the time of construction of the Prussian semaphore system, the technology had already known for thirty years. It was based on designs by Claude Chappe and his brother which were in use in France on many telegraph lines from 1794. Soon Sweden, Denmark, and England also had working optical telegraph systems while couriers remained in use throughout Germany and they were therefore far more motivated to build an advanced communications network. Prussia was at time the second largest German state in terms of area. Plans for the construction of a first telegraph line were delayed by resistance from the conservative Prussian military and it was exactly this technology that was used with success by Napoleon Bonaparte and this at least awakened the interest of the Prussian military. However, Prussia was confronted with a domestic political situation in its western provinces at the beginning of the 1830s. Nobles and liberals from the Rhine region were opposed to the administration in Berlin and they were strengthened in their movement for a national constitution by the July Revolution in France and the revolution in Belgium in 1830. In this time of turmoil, urgent official messages traveled slowly by courier on horseback and this was unsatisfactory to the Prussian military, therefore, the proponents of a telegraph network could finally execute a plan for a line from Berlin to Koblenz via Cologne. The technical idea and the initiative to build the then longest telegraph line in central Europe came from the Geheime Postrat Carl Philipp Heinrich Pistor. Pistor wrote a memorandum to the Prussian General Staff in December 1830 which laid out a proposal for a telegraph line within the Royal Prussian States. Pistor’s ideas were inspired by the Englishman Bernard L. Watson whose designs were based on the Second Polygrammatic Telegraph of William Pasley, the design went back to 1810 and consisted of a mast with six telegraph arms. Pistor took the six-arm principle and thoroughly reworked the mechanics of the construction, further, his workshop developed the optical telescopes which were a necessary component of the system. The order for the construction of the system was given by an order of the Prussian Cabinet on July 21,1832. The Prussian system remained the only state-run optical telegraph system within German territory, there were also a couple of examples of privately run systems
9.
Solar telescope
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A solar telescope is a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun. Solar telescopes usually detect light with wavelengths in, or not far outside, obsolete names for sun telescopes include heliograph and photoheliograph. Solar telescopes need optics large enough to achieve the best possible diffraction limit, however, recently newer narrower filters and higher framerates have also driven solar telescopes towards photon-starved operations. Both the European Solar Telescope as well as the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope have larger apertures not only to increase the resolution, to alleviate this, solar telescopes are usually built on towers and the structures are painted white. The Dutch Open Telescope is built on a framework to allow the wind to pass through the complete structure. Another solar telescope-specific problem is the heat generated by the tightly-focused sunlight, for this reason, a heat stop is an integral part of the design of solar telescopes. For the upcoming ATST, the load is 2.5 MW/m2. The goal of such a stop is not only to survive this heat load. However, this is not possible for apertures over 1 meter, therefore, the EST and ATST have active cooling of the dome to minimize the temperature difference between the air inside and outside the telescope. Because the Sun travels on a fixed path across the sky, some solar telescopes are fixed in position. One example of this is the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, the Einstein Tower became operational in 1924 McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope McMath-Hulbert Observatory Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope Richard B. Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, a telescope with 4m aperture. European Solar Telescope, a future 4-meter class aperture telescope, national Large Solar Telescope, is a Gregorian multi-purpose open telescope proposed to be built and Installed in India and aims to study the suns microscopic structure. The Radio Solar Telescope Network is a network of solar observatories maintained and operated by the U. S. Air Force Weather Agency. CERN Axion Solar Telescope, looks for solar axions in the early 2000s In the field of astronomy there are many methods used to observe the sun. In contrast to professional telescopes, amateur solar telescopes are much smaller. List of solar telescopes List of telescope types Heliostat Solar telescopes, Wolfgang Schmidt, doi,10. 4249/scholarpedia.4333 CSIRO Solar Heliograph part 2 Solar Gallery of an amateur astronomer Solar Gallery of the Hong Kong Astronomical Society Lawrence, Pete
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