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.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
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
7.
Astronomer
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An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who concentrates their studies on a specific question or field outside of the scope of Earth. They look at stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies, as well as other celestial objects — either in observational astronomy. Examples of topics or fields astronomers work on include, planetary science, solar astronomy, there are also related but distinct subjects like physical cosmology which studies the Universe as a whole. Astronomers usually fit into two types, Observational astronomers make direct observations of planets, stars and galaxies, and analyze the data, theoretical astronomers create and investigate models of things that cannot be observed. They use this data to create models or simulations to theorize how different celestial bodies work, there are further subcategories inside these two main branches of astronomy such as planetary astronomy, galactic astronomy or physical cosmology. Today, that distinction has disappeared and the terms astronomer. Professional astronomers are highly educated individuals who typically have a Ph. D. in physics or astronomy and are employed by research institutions or universities. They spend the majority of their time working on research, although quite often have other duties such as teaching, building instruments. The number of astronomers in the United States is actually quite small. The American Astronomical Society, which is the organization of professional astronomers in North America, has approximately 7,000 members. This number includes scientists from other such as physics, geology. The International Astronomical Union comprises almost 10,145 members from 70 different countries who are involved in research at the Ph. D. level. Before CCDs, photographic plates were a method of observation. Modern astronomers spend relatively little time at telescopes usually just a few weeks per year, analysis of observed phenomena, along with making predictions as to the causes of what they observe, takes the majority of observational astronomers time. Astronomers who serve as faculty spend much of their time teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, most universities also have outreach programs including public telescope time and sometimes planetariums as a public service to encourage interest in the field. Those who become astronomers usually have a background in maths, sciences. Taking courses that teach how to research, write and present papers are also invaluable, in college/university most astronomers get a Ph. D. in astronomy or physics. Keeping in mind how few there are it is understood that graduate schools in this field are very competitive
8.
Richard Neutra
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Richard Joseph Neutra was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district of Vienna, Austria Hungary, on April 8,1892 into a wealthy Jewish family. His Jewish-Hungarian father Samuel Neutra was a proprietor of a metal foundry, Richard had two brothers who also emigrated to the United States, and a sister who married in Vienna. Neutra attended the Sophiengymnasium in Vienna until 1910, and he studied under Adolf Loos at the Vienna University of Technology and he was a student of Max Fabiani and Karl Mayreder. In 1912 he undertook a trip to Italy and Balkans with Ernst Ludwig Freud. In June 1914, Neutras studies were interrupted when he was ordered to Trebinje and he took a leave in 1917 to return to the Technische Hochschule to take his final examinations. After World War I Neutra went to Switzerland where he worked with the landscape architect Gustav Ammann, in 1921 he served briefly as city architect in the German town of Luckenwalde, and later in the same year he joined the office of Erich Mendelsohn in Berlin. Neutra contributed to the competition entry for a new commercial centre for Haifa, Palestine. He married Dione Niedermann, the daughter of an architect, in 1922 and they had three sons, Frank L, Dion an architect and his fathers partner and Raymond Richard a physician and environmental epidemiologist. Neutra moved to the United States by 1923 and became a citizen in 1929. In California, he celebrated for rigorously geometric but airy structures that symbolized a West Coast variation on the mid-century modern residence. Clients included Edgar J. Kaufmann, Galka Scheyer, and Walter Conrad Arensberg, in the early 1930s, Neutras Los Angeles practice trained several young architects who went on to independent success, including Gregory Ain, Harwell Hamilton Harris, and Raphael Soriano. In 1932, he tried to move to the Soviet Union, to design workers housing that could be easily constructed. In 1932, Neutra was included in the seminal MoMA exhibition on architecture, curated by Philip Johnson. In 1949 Neutra formed a partnership with Robert E. Alexander that lasted until 1958, in 1955, the United States Department of State commissioned Neutra to design a new embassy in Karachi. In 1965 Neutra formed a partnership with his son Dion Neutra, between 1960 and 1970, Neutra created eight villas in Europe, four in Switzerland, three in Germany, and one in France. Prominent clients in this period included Gerd Bucerius, publisher of Die Zeit, Neutra died in Wuppertal, Germany, on April 16,1970, at the age of 78. Neutra sometimes used detailed questionnaires to discover his clients needs, much to their surprise and his domestic architecture was a blend of art, landscape, and practical comfort
9.
Expressionist architecture
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Brick Expressionism is a special variant, that dominates in western and northern Germany and the Amsterdam School in the Netherlands. The term Expressionist architecture initially described the activity of the German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech, subsequent redefinitions extended the term backwards to 1905 and also widened it to encompass the rest of Europe. Ephemeral exhibition buildings were numerous and highly significant during this period, the major permanent extant landmark of Expressionism is Erich Mendelsohns Einstein Tower in Potsdam. A few, notably Hans Scharoun, continued to work in an expressionist idiom, in 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, expressionist art was outlawed as degenerate. Until the 1970s scholars commonly played down the influence of the expressionists on the later International style, Expressionist architecture was individualistic and in many ways eschewed aesthetic dogma, but it is still useful to develop some criteria which defines it. Though containing a variety and differentiation, many points can be found as recurring in works of Expressionist architecture. Distortion of form for an emotional effect, subordination of realism to symbolic or stylistic expression of inner experience. An underlying effort at achieving the new, original, and visionary, profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of concepts more important than pragmatic finished products. Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single concept, themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock formations. As such it is more mineral and elemental than florid and organic which characterized its close contemporary art nouveau, uses creative potential of artisan craftsmanship. Tendency more towards the gothic than the classical, Expressionist architecture also tends more towards the romanesque and the rococo than the classical. Though a movement in Europe, expressionism is as eastern as western and it draws as much from Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture as from Roman or Greek. Conception of architecture as a work of art, an influential body of the artistic community, including architects, sought a similar revolution as had occurred in Russia. The costly and grandiose remodelling of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, was reminiscent of the imperial past, than wartime budgeting. Artistic movements that preceded expressionist architecture and continued with some overlap were the arts and crafts movement and art nouveau or in Germany, unity of designers with artisans, was a major preoccupation of the Arts and Crafts movement which extended into expressionist architecture. The frequent topic of naturalism in art nouveau, which was prevalent in romanticism, continued as well. The naturalist, Ernst Haeckel was known by Finsterlin and shared his source of inspiration in natural forms, the Futurist and constructivist architectural movements, and the dada anti-art movement were occurring concurrently to expressionism and often contained similar features. Bruno Tauts magazine, Frülicht included constructivist projects, including Vladimir Tatlins Monument to the Third International, however, futurism and constructivism emphasized mechination, and urbanism tendencies which were not to take hold in Germany until the Neue Sachlichkeit
10.
Heliostat
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The target may be a physical object, distant from the heliostat, or a direction in space. To do this, the surface of the mirror is kept perpendicular to the bisector of the angle between the directions of the sun and the target as seen from the mirror. In almost every case, the target is stationary relative to the heliostat, according to contemporary sources the heliostata, as it was called at first, was invented by Willem s Gravesande. Other contenders are Giovanni Alonso Borelli and Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, nowadays, most heliostats are used for daylighting or for the production of concentrated solar power, usually to generate electricity. They are also used in solar cooking. A few are used experimentally, or to reflect beams of sunlight into solar telescopes. Before the availability of lasers and other lights, heliostats were widely used to produce intense, stationary beams of light for scientific. Most modern heliostats are controlled by computers, the computer is given the latitude and longitude of the heliostats position on the earth and the time and date. From these, using astronomical theory, it calculates the direction of the sun as seen from the mirror, e. g. its compass bearing and this sequence of operations is repeated frequently to keep the mirror properly oriented. Large installations such as power stations include fields of heliostats comprising many mirrors. Usually, all the mirrors in such a field are controlled by a single computer, there are older types of heliostat which do not use computers, including ones that are partly or wholly operated by hand or by clockwork, or are controlled by light-sensors. Heliostats should be distinguished from solar trackers or sun-trackers that point directly at the sun in the sky, however, some older types of heliostat incorporate solar trackers, together with additional components to bisect the sun-mirror-target angle. A siderostat is a device which is designed to follow a fainter star. The medium travels through a heat exchanger to heat water, produce steam, a somewhat different arrangement of heliostats in a field is used at experimental solar furnaces, such as the one at Odeillo, in France. All the heliostat mirrors send accurately parallel beams of light into a large paraboloidal reflector which brings them to a precise focus. The mirrors have to be located close enough to the axis of the paraboloid to reflect sunlight into it along lines parallel to the axis, a closed loop control system is used. Sensors determine if any of the heliostats is slightly misaligned, if so, they send signals to correct it. It has been proposed that the high temperatures generated could be used to water producing hydrogen sustainably
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