1.
Legion of Honour
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The Legion of Honour, full name National Order of the Legion of Honour, is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction, Chevalier, Officier, Commandeur, Grand Officier and Grand-Croix. The orders motto is Honneur et Patrie and its seat is the Palais de la Légion dHonneur next to the Musée dOrsay, in the French Revolution, all French orders of chivalry were abolished, and replaced with Weapons of Honour. The Légion however did use the organization of old French orders of chivalry, the badges of the legion also bear a resemblance to the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which also used a red ribbon. Napoleon originally created this to ensure political loyalty, the organization would be used as a facade to give political favours, gifts, and concessions. The Légion was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional cohorts, the highest rank was not a grand cross but a Grand Aigle, a rank that wore all the insignia common to grand crosses. The members were paid, the highest of them extremely generously,5,000 francs to an officier,2,000 francs to a commandeur,1,000 francs to an officier,250 francs to a légionnaire. Napoleon famously declared, You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led, do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning. That is good only for the scholar in his study, the soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards. This has been quoted as It is with such baubles that men are led. The order was the first modern order of merit, under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, and all knights had to be noblemen. The military decorations were the perks of the officers, the Légion, however, was open to men of all ranks and professions—only merit or bravery counted. The new legionnaire had to be sworn in the Légion and it is noteworthy that all previous orders were crosses or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion is a secular institution. The jewel of the Légion has five arms, in a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII, a grand decoration was instituted. This decoration, a cross on a sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand Aigle. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, the title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees. Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the legion among his family and this collar was abolished in 1815. The Légion dhonneur was prominent and visible in the French Empire, the Emperor always wore it and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time
2.
French Executive Commission (1848)
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The Executive Commission of 1848 was a short-lived government during the French Second Republic, chaired by François Arago, that exercised executive power from 9 May 1848 to 24 June 1848. It succeeded the Provisional Government of 1848 and was in turn replaced by the Cabinet of General Cavaignac, the members of the Commission acted as joint head of state. The Commission lacked support in the National Assembly and it soon found itself at odds with the conservative majority and effectively unable to properly govern. The closure of the National Workshops, by leading to the June Days Uprising, judging the Commission unable to quell the uprising, the Assembly effectively dissolved it on June 24 by a vote of no confidence and gave full powers to General Louis Eugène Cavaignac. In May 1848 the National Assembly decided to establish the Executive Commission as a form of collective presidency, the members were chosen from prominent members of the former Provisional Government. These members acted jointly as head of state, Lamartine was seen by many as representing order and respect for property, while Ledru-Rollin stood for violence and communism. However, Lamartine used his strong popular mandate to force the National Assembly to make Ledru-Rollin one of the members of the Executive Commission, lamartines motives are unclear, but perhaps he was concerned that the power was swinging too far towards the Conservatives. The members of the Executive Commission were not assigned ministries, instead, at the first meeting on 11 May 1848 the commission appointed ministers. They were all moderate republicans apart from Ferdinand Flocon, the composition of the government was thus unsatisfactory to both the conservative majority of the National Assembly and the radical left. At this time the bourgeoisie were becoming increasingly uneasy about the possibility of mob rule leading to a repeat of the Reign of Terror of the first French Revolution. Ledru-Rollin planned a fête de la Concorde on 15 May celebrating peace, on 13 May the Executive Commission, nervous about rumors of planned demonstrations, announced that the festival was postponed. A crowd led by Louis Auguste Blanqui launched an attack on 15 May on the Palais Bourbon, the head of the National Guard of Paris, General Amable de Courtais, would not order his men to use violence. For three hours the Assembly was paralyzed by the demonstrators, order was restored, but the authority of the Commission was damaged. The conservative majority in the Assembly blamed the Executive Committee for allowing the incident to occur, the arrest of the leaders of the workers, Armand Barbès and Blanqui, left the working people without leaders. General Coutais was also arrested, accused of treason, the government reorganized the National Guard and moved a large garrison of regular army troops into the center of Paris. On 22 May 1848 the Executive Commission dissolved the Club Raspail, Louis Napoleon, who was in exile in London, was elected to the National Assembly on 4 June 1848. He was known to be ambitious to take power, and had already made two failed attempts, in 1836 and 1840. A circular appeared in the departments on 16 June 1848 in which the Executive Government ordered the arrest of Louis Napoleon and it appears to have been issued just before the question was raised in the National Assembly, and indicates that the government was confident that the motion would pass
3.
Co-Prince of Andorra
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The Co-Princes of Andorra are the two rulers of the Principality of Andorra, a landlocked microstate lying in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain. Founded in 1278 through a treaty between the Bishop of Urgell and the French Count of Foix, this unique arrangement has persisted through medieval times to the present day. The French president is also the person to be a monarch. Each Co-Prince appoints a representative, the French Co-Prince currently being represented by Jean-Pierre Hugues. Tradition holds that Charlemagne granted a charter to the Andorran people in return for their fighting against the Moors, the feudal overlord of this territory was at first the Count of Urgell. In 988, however, the count, Borrell II, gave Andorra to the Diocese of Urgell in exchange for land in Cerdanya, the Bishop of Urgell, based in Seu dUrgell, has ruled Andorra ever since. In 1095, the Lord and the Bishop signed a declaration of their co-sovereignty over Andorra, arnalda, daughter of Arnau of Caboet, married the Viscount of Castellbò, and both became Viscounts of Castellbò and Cerdanya. Their daughter, Ermessenda, married Roger Bernat II, the French Count of Foix and they became, respectively, count and countess of Foix, viscount and viscountess of Castellbò and Cerdanya, and also co-sovereigns of Andorra. In the 11th century, a dispute arose between the bishop of Urgell and the count of Foix, the conflict was mediated by Aragon in 1278, and led to the signing of the first paréage, which provided that Andorras sovereignty be shared between the count and the bishop. This gave the principality its territory and political form, and marked the commencement of Andorras unique monarchical arrangement. Over the years, the French title to Andorra passed from the counts of Foix to the kings of Navarre. After King Henry III of Navarre became King Henry IV of France, he issued an edict in 1607 establishing the King of France, in 1812–13, the First French Empire annexed Catalonia and divided it into four départements, with Andorra forming part of the district of Puigcerdà. Following the defeat of Napoleon I, this annexation was reversed and Andorra reverted to its former independence, the French head of state—whether king, emperor, or president—has continued to serve as a co-prince of Andorra ever since. On July 12,1934, Andorras monarchical system was challenged by an adventurer named Boris Skossyreff, though initially enjoying some support within Andorras political establishment, he was ultimately arrested by Spanish authorities on July 20 of that year after declaring war on the Bishop of Urgell. Skossyfreff was expelled, and was never considered to have been the Andorran monarch in any legal sense, before 1993, Andorra had no codified constitution, and the exact prerogatives of the co-princes were not specifically defined in law. It clarified the continuance of the unique Andorran monarchy, and also delineated the precise role and this medieval custom was subsequently abandoned in 1993. In 2009, French president Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to abdicate as Co-prince if the principality did not change its laws to eliminate its longstanding status as a tax haven. The Constitution of Andorra carefully defines the role and prerogatives of the co-princes of Andorra today
4.
Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure
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Jacques-Charles Dupont de lEure was a French lawyer and statesman. He is best known as the first head of state of the Second Republic, born in Le Neubourg, Normandy, he was a lawyer at the parlement of Normandy when the French Revolution began. During the First Republic and the First Empire, he filled successive judicial offices at Louviers, Rouen and he had adopted revolutionary principles, and in 1798 began his political life as a member of the French Directorys Council of Five Hundred. In 1813 he became a member of the Corps législatif and, when the Seventh Coalition armies entered Paris, he drew up the declaration asserting the necessity of maintaining the principles of government that had been established at the Revolution. He was chosen as one of the commissioners to negotiate with the Coalition sovereigns, from 1817 until 1849 he was, without interruption, a member of the chamber of deputies, and he acted consistently with the Liberal opposition, of which he was the virtual leader. For a few months in 1830 he held office as Minister of Justice, when the 1848 Revolution began, Dupont de lEure was made President of the provisional assembly, being its oldest member. On the same day, he was made President of the Provisional Government and his prestige and popularity prevented the heterogeneous republican coalition from having to immediately agree upon a common leader. Due to his age, Dupont de lEure effectively delegated part of his duties to Minister of Foreign Affairs Alphonse de Lamartine. On 4 May, he resigned in order to make way for the Executive Commission and he supported Louis-Eugène Cavaignac against Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. In 1849, having failed to secure his re-election to the chamber, he retired from public life
5.
Minister of the Armed Forces (France)
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The Ministry of Defence is the French cabinet member charged with running the military of France. The minister in charge of the French military has evolved within the epoque, the minister is always attached to a ministry or state secretary bureau, today attached to the Ministry of Defense. The Secretary of State of War was one of the four specialised secretaries of state established in France in 1589 and this State Secretary was responsible for the French Army. In 1791, the secretary of state of war becomes Minister of War, with this function being abolished in 1794. In 1930, the position was referred to as Minister of War. The current Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs is Jean-Yves Le Drian. org
6.
National Assembly (France)
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The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. The upper house is the Senate, the National Assemblys members are known as députés. There are 577 députés, each elected by a constituency through a two-round voting system. Thus,289 seats are required for a majority, the assembly is presided over by a president, normally from the largest party represented, assisted by vice-presidents from across the represented political spectrum. The term of the National Assembly is five years, however and it is guarded by Republican Guards. The Constitution of the French Fifth Republic greatly increased the power of the executive at the expense of Parliament, the President of the Republic can decide to dissolve the National Assembly and call for new legislative elections. This is meant as a way to resolve stalemates where the Assembly cannot decide on a political direction. The National Assembly can overthrow the government by a vote of no confidence. For this reason, the minister and his cabinet are necessarily from the dominant party or coalition in the assembly. The Government used to set the priorities of the agenda for the Assemblys sessions and this, however, was amended on 23 July 2008. Under the amended constitution, the Government sets the priorities for two weeks in a month, another week is designated for the Assemblys control prerogatives. And the fourth one is set by the Assembly, also, one day per month is set by a minority or opposition group. Members of the assembly can ask written or oral questions to ministers, the Wednesday afternoon 3 p. m. session of questions to the Government is broadcast live on television. Like Prime Ministers Questions in Britain, it is largely a show for the viewers, with members of the majority asking flattering questions, while the opposition tries to embarrass the government. Since 1988, the 577 deputies are elected by universal suffrage with a two-round system by constituency, for a five-year mandate. The constituencies each have approximately 100,000 inhabitants, however, districts were not redrawn between 1982 and 2009. As a result of population movements over that period, there were inequalities between the less populous rural districts and the urban districts, the constituencies were redrawn in 2009, but this redistribution was controversial. Among other controversial measures, it created eleven constituencies and seats for French residents overseas, albeit without increasing the overall number of seats beyond 577
7.
Seine (department)
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Seine was a department of France encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs. Its capital was Paris and its number was 75. The Seine department was abolished in 1968 and its divided among four new departments. From 1929 to its abolition in 1968, the department consisted of the city of Paris and 80 suburban communes surrounding Paris and it had an area of 480 km², 22% of that area being the city of Paris, and 78% being independent suburbs. It was divided into three arrondissements, Paris, Sceaux, and Saint-Denis, the Seine department was created on March 4,1790 as the Paris department. In 1795, it was renamed the Seine department after the Seine River flowing through it, with the growth of Paris and its suburbs over the next 150 years, the population of the Seine department increased tremendously. By 1968 it contained 5,700,754 residents, making it by far the most populous department of France. The break-up of the Seine department involved the following changes, The city of Paris was turned into a department in its own right, the official number 75 which was used for the Seine department was given to the new Paris department. Taken together, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, and Seine-Saint-Denis, known in France as the petite couronne, at the 2006 census, the population of the communes that had previously comprised the Seine department was 5,496,468. The population of the department peaked in 1968 at 5,700,754 and this new population growth after a long period of decline is comparable to what is observed in the central areas of other large Western metropolises such as Inner London. Of the new departments created in 1968, Paris was the most populous in 2006 with 2,181,371 inhabitants, the Paris department is currently the second-most populous of France behind that of Nord. The breakup of the Seine department was universally welcomed at the time, the building of the large Périphérique freeway around Paris also contributed to the feeling of marked segregation between Paris proper and its suburbs. In contrast, today rich Paris administers itself solely and leaves the suburbs to their own fate, however, there are no real plans to revive the old Seine department
8.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
9.
Chamber of Deputies (France)
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1875–1940 during the French Third Republic, the Chamber of Deputies was the legislative assembly of the French Parliament, elected by universal suffrage. When reunited with the French Senate at Versailles, the French Parliament was called the National Assembly, created by the Charter of 1814 and replacing the Corps législatif, which existed under the First French Empire, the Chamber of Deputies was composed of individuals elected by census suffrage. Its role was to discuss laws and, most importantly, to vote taxes, according to the Charter, deputies were elected for five years, with one-fifth renewed each year. Deputies needed to be 40 years old and to pay 1000 francs in direct contributions, government ministers could be chosen from among the deputies, and this resulted in giving the Restoration government a slight, albeit minor, parliamentary and liberal character. This body was dissolved upon the entry of Coalition troops into Paris on 7 July, for the period 1815–1816, the Ultra-royalist chamber was referred to as the Chambre introuvable. The Chamber of Deputies was elected by census suffrage according to the Charter of 1830, the political life of the July Monarchy was defined by the split within the Chamber of Deputies between the progressive movement and the conservative wing. Although both parties traded power in the stages, by 1840 the conservative members around François Guizot had seized control. From 1830, deputies were elected for five years and they needed to be 30 years old and to pay 500 francs in direct contributions. In 1852, the Chamber of Deputies retook the name Corps législatif
10.
Perpignan
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Perpignan is a city, a commune, and the capital of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. Perpignan was the capital of the province and County of Roussillon. In 2013 Perpignan had 118,238 inhabitants in the city proper, the metropolitan area had a total population of 305,837 in 2010. Perpignan is located in the center of the Roussillon plain,13 km west of the Mediterranean coast and it is the southern most of the cities of metropolitan France. Perpignan is crossed by the largest river in Roussillon, the Têt, and by one of its tributaries, floods often occur, as in 1892 when the rising of the Têt in Perpignan destroyed 39 houses, leaving more than 60 families homeless. Perpignan experiences a Mediterranean climate similar to much of the Mediterranean coastline of France, roads The motorway A9 connects Perpignan with Barcelona and Montpellier. Trains Perpignan is served by the Gare de Perpignan railway station, which offers connections to Paris, Barcelona, Toulouse, salvador Dalí proclaimed it to be the Center of the Universe after experiencing a vision of cosmogonic ecstasy there in 1963. Airport The nearest airport is Perpignan–Rivesaltes Airport, attested forms The name of Perpignan appears in 927 as Perpinianum, followed in 959 by Villa Perpiniano, Pirpinianum in the 11th century, Perpiniani in 1176. Perpenyà, which appears in the 13th century, is the most common form until the 15th century, though settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, the medieval town of Perpignan seems to have been founded around the beginning of the 10th century. Soon Perpignan became the capital of the counts of Roussillon, historically, it was part of the region known as Septimania. In 1172 Count Girard II bequeathed his lands to the Counts of Barcelona, Perpignan acquired the institutions of a partly self-governing commune in 1197. French feudal rights over Roussillon were given up by Louis IX in the Treaty of Corbeil, when James I the Conqueror, king of Aragon and count of Barcelona, founded the Kingdom of Majorca in 1276, Perpignan became the capital of the mainland territories of the new state. The succeeding decades are considered the age in the history of the city. It prospered as a centre of manufacture, leather work, goldsmiths work. King Philippe III of France died there in 1285, as he was returning from his crusade against the Aragonese Crown. In 1344 Peter IV of Aragon annexed the Kingdom of Majorca, a few years later it lost approximately half of its population to the Black Death. Perpignan is one of the houses of Lancaster Girls Grammar School, the festival has a broad mainstream focus with pop-related music as well as traditional acoustic guitar music and alternative music. The festival has attracted international guests like Caetano Veloso, Rumberos Catalans, Pedro Soler, Bernardo Sandoval, Peter Finger, in 2008, Perpignan became Capital of Catalan Culture
11.
Estagel
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Estagel is a commune in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. Estagel is located in the canton of Latour-de-France and in the arrondissement of Perpignan, jacques Arago, writer, artist and explorer. Joseph Gaudérique Aymerich, military officer and colonial administrator, communes of the Pyrénées-Orientales department INSEE
12.
Roussillon
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Roussillon is one of the historical counties of the former Principality of Catalonia, corresponding roughly to the present-day southern French département of Pyrénées-Orientales. It may also refer to Northern Catalonia or French Catalonia, the first used by Catalan-speakers, a 1998 survey found that 34% of respondents stated they speak Catalan, and a further 21% understand it. Roussillon was a French province before the Revolution and it derived its name from Ruscino, a small fortified place near modern-day Perpignan where Gaulish chieftains met to consider Hannibals request for a conference. The region formed part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis from 121 BC to AD462 and his successor, Amalaric, on his defeat by Clovis in 531, retired to Hispania, leaving a governor in Septimania. Roussillon was occupied by the Carolingians in 760, on the invasion of Hispania in 778, Charlemagne found the Marca Hispanica wasted by war and the inhabitants settled in the mountains. He granted some lands in the plains to Visigothic refugees from Moorish Hispania, in 792, the Saracens again invaded France, but they were repulsed by Count Guillaume of Toulouse - regent of the child Louis the Pious, King of Aquitaine - whose hegemony extended into Catalonia. The different portions of his kingdom in time grew into allodial fiefs and, in 893, but his rule only extended over the eastern part of what became the later province. The western part, the Cerdanya, was ruled in 900 by Miró as first count, the Counts of Roussillon were allied to their cousins the Counts of Empúries in a centuries-long conflict with the surrounding great nobles. Count Girard I participated in the First Crusade in the following of Raymond IV of Toulouse, and was one of the first to set foot in Jerusalem when it was stormed by the Crusaders in 1099. At the beginning of the 12th century, the prestige of the Counts of Barcelona began to rise to such a height that the Counts of Roussillon had no choice but to swear fealty to them. In 1111, Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, inherited the fief of Besalú, the possession of Roussillon by its last count, Girard II, was challenged by his illegitimate brothers. To ensure that his brothers would not inherit his territories, in his will Girard II left all his lands to Alfonso II of Aragon, who took possession in 1172. Under the Aragonese monarchs, economic and demographic growth of the continued, and Collioure. As the French and Spanish crowns grew in power, the region of Roussillon, James I of Aragon had wrested the Balearic Isles from the Moors and joined these islands with Roussillon to create the Kingdom of Majorca, with its capital at Perpignan. In 1276, James I granted this kingdom to his son, the subsequent disputes of this monarch with his brother Peter III were exploited by Philip III of France in his quarrel with Peter III for the crown of the Two Sicilies. Philip III espoused James IIs cause and led an army into Aragon but, retreating and his successor, James III of Majorca, refused to do homage to Philip VI of France for the seigneury of Montpellier, and applied to Peter IV of Aragon for aid. Peter not only refused, but declared war and seized Majorca, the province was now reunited to the Crown of Aragon, and it enjoyed peace until 1462. In that year, the disputes between John II of Aragon and his son over the Crown of Navarre spurred Louis XI of France to support John against his subjects, who had risen in revolt
13.
Kingdom of France
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The Kingdom of France was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and it was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. France originated as West Francia, the half of the Carolingian Empire. A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, the territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself Roi de France was Philip II, France continued to be ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines—the Valois and Bourbon—until the monarchy was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution. France in the Middle Ages was a de-centralised, feudal monarchy, in Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine and Provence were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France, during the Late Middle Ages, the Kings of England laid claim to the French throne, resulting in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War. Subsequently, France sought to extend its influence into Italy, but was defeated by Spain in the ensuing Italian Wars, religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion. France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France, Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America, the Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the great powers in 1814. During the later years of the elderly Charlemagnes rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks, after Charlemagnes death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Viking advances were allowed to increase, and their dreaded longboats were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other waterways, wreaking havoc. During the reign of Charles the Simple, Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, that was to become Normandy. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years. Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married Frances newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne. The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line, under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman, so the throne passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois
14.
Second French Empire
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The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor
15.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
16.
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
17.
Physicist
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A physicist is a scientist who has specialized knowledge in the field of physics, the exploration of the interactions of matter and energy across the physical universe. A physicist is a scientist who specializes or works in the field of physics, physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate causes of phenomena, and usually frame their understanding in mathematical terms. Physicists can also apply their knowledge towards solving real-world problems or developing new technologies, some physicists specialize in sectors outside the science of physics itself, such as engineering. The study and practice of physics is based on a ladder of discoveries. Many mathematical and physical ideas used today found their earliest expression in ancient Greek culture and Asian culture, the bulk of physics education can be said to flow from the scientific revolution in Europe, starting with the work of Galileo and Kepler in the early 1600s. New knowledge in the early 21st century includes an increase in understanding physical cosmology. The term physicist was coined by William Whewell in his 1840 book The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, many physicist positions require an undergraduate degree in applied physics or a related science or a Masters degree like MSc, MPhil, MPhys or MSci. In a research oriented level, students tend to specialize in a particular field, Physics students also need training in mathematics, and also in computer science and programming. For being employed as a physicist a doctoral background may be required for certain positions, undergraduate students like BSc Mechanical Engineering, BSc Electrical and Computer Engineering, BSc Applied Physics. etc. With physics orientation are chosen as research assistants with faculty members, the highest honor awarded to physicists is the Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded since 1901 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The three major employers of career physicists are academic institutions, laboratories, and private industries, with the largest employer being the last, physicists in academia or government labs tend to have titles such as Assistants, Professors, Sr. /Jr. As per the American Institute for Physics, some 20% of new physics Ph. D. s holds jobs in engineering development programs, while 14% turn to computer software, a majority of physicists employed apply their skills and training to interdisciplinary sectors. For industry or self-employment. and also in science and programming. Hence a majority of Physics bachelors degree holders are employed in the private sector, other fields are academia, government and military service, nonprofit entities, labs and teaching
18.
Mathematician
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A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in his or her work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematics is concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, one of the earliest known mathematicians was Thales of Miletus, he has been hailed as the first true mathematician and the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, the number of known mathematicians grew when Pythagoras of Samos established the Pythagorean School, whose doctrine it was that mathematics ruled the universe and whose motto was All is number. It was the Pythagoreans who coined the term mathematics, and with whom the study of mathematics for its own sake begins, the first woman mathematician recorded by history was Hypatia of Alexandria. She succeeded her father as Librarian at the Great Library and wrote works on applied mathematics. Because of a dispute, the Christian community in Alexandria punished her, presuming she was involved, by stripping her naked. Science and mathematics in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages followed various models and it was extensive patronage and strong intellectual policies implemented by specific rulers that allowed scientific knowledge to develop in many areas. As these sciences received wider attention from the elite, more scholars were invited and funded to study particular sciences, an example of a translator and mathematician who benefited from this type of support was al-Khawarizmi. A notable feature of many working under Muslim rule in medieval times is that they were often polymaths. Examples include the work on optics, maths and astronomy of Ibn al-Haytham, the Renaissance brought an increased emphasis on mathematics and science to Europe. As time passed, many gravitated towards universities. Moving into the 19th century, the objective of universities all across Europe evolved from teaching the “regurgitation of knowledge” to “encourag productive thinking. ”Thus, seminars, overall, science became the focus of universities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students could conduct research in seminars or laboratories and began to produce doctoral theses with more scientific content. According to Humboldt, the mission of the University of Berlin was to pursue scientific knowledge. ”Mathematicians usually cover a breadth of topics within mathematics in their undergraduate education, and then proceed to specialize in topics of their own choice at the graduate level. In some universities, a qualifying exam serves to test both the breadth and depth of an understanding of mathematics, the students, who pass, are permitted to work on a doctoral dissertation. Mathematicians involved with solving problems with applications in life are called applied mathematicians. Applied mathematicians are mathematical scientists who, with their knowledge and professional methodology. With professional focus on a variety of problems, theoretical systems
19.
Optical rotation
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Optical rotation or optical activity is the rotation of the plane of polarization of linearly polarized light as it travels through certain materials. Optical activity occurs only in chiral materials, those lacking microscopic mirror symmetry, unlike other sources of birefringence which alter a beams state of polarization, optical activity can be observed in fluids. This can include gases or solutions of chiral molecules such as sugars, molecules with helical secondary structure such as some proteins and it can also be observed in chiral solids such as certain crystals with a rotation between adjacent crystal planes or metamaterials. The rotation of the plane of polarization may be either clockwise, to the right, for instance, sucrose and camphor are d-rotary whereas cholesterol is l-rotary. For a given substance, the angle by which the polarization of light of a wavelength is rotated is proportional to the path length through the material and proportional to its concentration. The rotation is not dependent on the direction of propagation, unlike the Faraday effect where the rotation is dependent on the direction of the applied magnetic field. Optical activity is measured using a source and polarimeter. Modulation of a liquid crystals optical activity, viewed between two polarizers, is the principle of operation of liquid-crystal displays. The rotation of the orientation of polarized light was first observed in 1811 in quartz by French physicist François Jean Dominique Arago. Jean Baptiste Biot also observed the rotation of the axis of polarization in certain liquids, simple polarimeters have been used since this time to measure the concentrations of simple sugars, such as glucose, in solution. In fact one name for D-glucose, is dextrose, referring to the fact that it causes linearly polarized light to rotate to the right or dexter side. In a similar manner, levulose, more known as fructose. Fructose is even more strongly levorotatory than glucose is dextrorotatory, in 1849, Louis Pasteur resolved a problem concerning the nature of tartaric acid. Pasteur noticed that the crystals come in two forms that are mirror images of one another. Sorting the crystals by hand gave two forms of the compound, Solutions of one form rotate polarized light clockwise, while the other form rotate light counterclockwise, an equal mix of the two has no polarizing effect on light. If the 4 neighbors are all different, then there are two possible orderings of the neighbors around the tetrahedron, which will be mirror images of each other and this led to a better understanding of the three-dimensional nature of molecules. Optical activity occurs due to molecules dissolved in a fluid or due to the fluid itself only if the molecules are one of two stereoisomers, this is known as an enantiomer, the structure of such a molecule is such that it is not identical to its mirror image. In mathematics, this property is known as chirality
20.
Polarizer
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A polarizer or polariser is an optical filter that lets light waves of a specific polarization pass and blocks light waves of other polarizations. It can convert a beam of light of undefined or mixed polarization into a beam of well-defined polarization, the common types of polarizers are linear polarizers and circular polarizers. Polarizers are used in many techniques and instruments, and polarizing filters find applications in photography. Polarizers can also be made for other types of electromagnetic waves besides light, such as waves, microwaves. The simplest linear polarizer is the wire-grid polarizer, which consists of many fine parallel wires that are placed in a plane perpendicular to the incident beam. Electromagnetic waves which have a component of their electric fields aligned parallel to the wires will induce the movement of electrons along the length of the wires, for waves with electric fields perpendicular to the wires, the electrons cannot move very far across the width of each wire. Therefore, little energy is reflected and the incident wave is able to pass through the grid, in this case the grid behaves like a dielectric material. Overall, this causes the wave to be linearly polarized with an electric field that is completely perpendicular to the wires. The hypothesis that the waves slip through the gaps between the wires is incorrect, for practical purposes, the separation between wires must be less than the wavelength of the incident radiation. In addition, the width of each wires should be compared to the spacing between wires. Therefore, it is easy to construct wire-grid polarizers for microwaves, far-infrared. In addition, advanced techniques can also build very tight pitch metallic grids. Since the degree of polarization depends little on wavelength and angle of incidence, certain crystals, due to the effects described by crystal optics, show dichroism, preferential absorption of light which is polarized in particular directions. They can therefore be used as linear polarizers, the best known crystal of this type is tourmaline. However, this crystal is used as a polarizer, since the dichroic effect is strongly wavelength dependent. Herapathite is also dichroic, and is not strongly coloured, but is difficult to grow in large crystals, a Polaroid polarizing filter functions similarly on an atomic scale to the wire-grid polarizer. It was originally made of microscopic herapathite crystals and its current H-sheet form is made from polyvinyl alcohol plastic with an iodine doping. Stretching of the sheet during manufacture causes the PVA chains to align in one particular direction, valence electrons from the iodine dopant are able to move linearly along the polymer chains, but not transverse to them
21.
Eddy current
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Eddy currents are loops of electrical current induced within conductors by a changing magnetic field in the conductor, due to Faradays law of induction. Eddy currents flow in closed loops within conductors, in perpendicular to the magnetic field. By Lenzs law, an eddy current creates a field that opposes the magnetic field that created it. For example, a conductive surface will exert a drag force on a moving magnet that opposes its motion. This effect is employed in eddy current brakes which are used to stop rotating power tools quickly when they are turned off, the current flowing through the resistance of the conductor also dissipates energy as heat in the material. Eddy currents are used to heat objects in induction heating furnaces and equipment. The term eddy current comes from analogous currents seen in water in fluid dynamics, somewhat analogously, eddy currents can take time to build up and can persist for very short times in conductors due to their inductance. The first person to observe eddy currents was François Arago, the 25th Prime Minister of France, in 1824 he observed what has been called rotatory magnetism, and that most conductive bodies could be magnetized, these discoveries were completed and explained by Michael Faraday. Eddy currents produce a field that cancels a part of the external field. French physicist Léon Foucault is credited with having discovered eddy currents, the first use of eddy current for non-destructive testing occurred in 1879 when David E. Hughes used the principles to conduct metallurgical sorting tests. A magnet induces circular electric currents in a metal sheet moving past it and it shows a metal sheet moving to the right under a stationary magnet. The magnetic field of the north pole N passes down through the sheet. Since the metal is moving, the flux through the sheet is changing. At the part of the sheet under the edge of the magnet the magnetic field through the sheet is increasing as it gets nearer the magnet. From Faradays law of induction, this creates an electric field in the sheet in a counterclockwise direction around the magnetic field lines. This field induces a flow of electric current, in the sheet. At the trailing edge of the magnet the magnetic field through the sheet is decreasing, d B d t <0, the mobile charge carriers in the metal, the electrons, actually have a negative charge so their motion is opposite in direction to the conventional current shown. Both of these forces oppose the motion of the sheet, the kinetic energy which is consumed overcoming this drag force is dissipated as heat by the currents flowing through the resistance of the metal, so the metal gets warm under the magnet
22.
Arago spot
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In optics, an Arago spot, Fresnel bright spot, or Poisson spot is a bright point that appears at the center of a circular objects shadow due to Fresnel diffraction. This spot played an important role in the discovery of the nature of light and is a common way to demonstrate that light behaves as a wave. The basic experimental setup requires a point source, such as a pinhole or a diverging laser beam. The dimensions of the setup must comply with the requirements for Fresnel diffraction. Namely, the Fresnel number must satisfy F = d 2 ℓ λ ≳1, finally, the edge of the circular object must be sufficiently smooth. These conditions together explain why the bright spot is not encountered in everyday life, however, with the laser sources available today, it is undemanding to perform an Arago-spot experiment. In astronomy, the Arago spot can also be observed in the strongly defocussed image of a star in a Newtonian telescope, there, the star provides an almost ideal point source at infinity, and the secondary mirror of the telescope constitutes the circular obstacle. When light shines on the obstacle, Huygens principle says that every point in the plane of the obstacle acts as a new point source of light. This results in a spot at the shadows center, where geometrical optics. At the beginning of the 19th century, the idea that light does not simply propagate along straight lines gained traction, thomas Young published his double-slit experiment in 1807. The original Arago spot experiment was carried out a decade later and was the experiment on the question of whether light is a particle or a wave. It is thus an example of an experimentum crucis, at that time, many favored Isaac Newtons corpuscular theory of light, among them the theoretician Siméon Denis Poisson. In 1818 the French Academy of Sciences launched a competition to explain the properties of light, the civil engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel entered this competition by submitting a new wave theory of light. Poisson studied Fresnels theory in detail and, being a supporter of the theory of light. Since the Arago spot is not easily observed in everyday situations, Poisson interpreted it as an absurd result, however, the head of the committee, Dominique-François-Jean Arago decided to perform the experiment in more detail. He molded a 2 mm metallic disk to a plate with wax. He succeeded in observing the predicted spot, which convinced most scientists of the nature of light. Arago later noted that the phenomenon had already observed by Delisle
23.
Copley Medal
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The Copley Medal is a scientific award given by the Royal Society, London, for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science. It alternates between the physical and the biological sciences, the medal was created following a donation of £100 to be used for carrying out experiments by Sir Godfrey Copley, for which the interest on the amount was used for several years. A second donation of £1666 13s, 4d. was made by Sir Joseph William Copley in 1881, and the interest from that amount is used to pay for the medal. The medal in its current format is made of silver gilt, since its inception, it has been awarded to many notable scientists, including 52 winners of the Nobel Prize,17 in Physics,21 in Physiology or Medicine, and 14 in Chemistry. John Theophilus Desaguliers has won the medal the most often, winning in 1734,1736 and 1741, in 1976, Dorothy Hodgkin became the first and as of 2015 the only female recipient
24.
Astronomy
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Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, however, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than also astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, Moon, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
25.
Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. There is a range of views among mathematicians and philosophers as to the exact scope, Mathematicians seek out patterns and use them to formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof, when mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature. Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation, measurement, practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist. The research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained inquiry, rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclids Elements. Galileo Galilei said, The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and it is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth, carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as the Queen of the Sciences. Benjamin Peirce called mathematics the science that draws necessary conclusions, David Hilbert said of mathematics, We are not speaking here of arbitrariness in any sense. Mathematics is not like a game whose tasks are determined by arbitrarily stipulated rules, rather, it is a conceptual system possessing internal necessity that can only be so and by no means otherwise. Albert Einstein stated that as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics, Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, the history of mathematics can be seen as an ever-increasing series of abstractions. The earliest uses of mathematics were in trading, land measurement, painting and weaving patterns, in Babylonian mathematics elementary arithmetic first appears in the archaeological record. Numeracy pre-dated writing and numeral systems have many and diverse. Between 600 and 300 BC the Ancient Greeks began a study of mathematics in its own right with Greek mathematics. Mathematics has since been extended, and there has been a fruitful interaction between mathematics and science, to the benefit of both. Mathematical discoveries continue to be made today, the overwhelming majority of works in this ocean contain new mathematical theorems and their proofs. The word máthēma is derived from μανθάνω, while the modern Greek equivalent is μαθαίνω, in Greece, the word for mathematics came to have the narrower and more technical meaning mathematical study even in Classical times
26.
Physics
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Physics is the natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion and behavior through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. One of the most fundamental disciplines, the main goal of physics is to understand how the universe behaves. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, perhaps the oldest through its inclusion of astronomy, Physics intersects with many interdisciplinary areas of research, such as biophysics and quantum chemistry, and the boundaries of physics are not rigidly defined. New ideas in physics often explain the mechanisms of other sciences while opening new avenues of research in areas such as mathematics. Physics also makes significant contributions through advances in new technologies that arise from theoretical breakthroughs, the United Nations named 2005 the World Year of Physics. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, the stars and planets were often a target of worship, believed to represent their gods. While the explanations for these phenomena were often unscientific and lacking in evidence, according to Asger Aaboe, the origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia, and all Western efforts in the exact sciences are descended from late Babylonian astronomy. The most notable innovations were in the field of optics and vision, which came from the works of many scientists like Ibn Sahl, Al-Kindi, Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Farisi and Avicenna. The most notable work was The Book of Optics, written by Ibn Al-Haitham, in which he was not only the first to disprove the ancient Greek idea about vision, but also came up with a new theory. In the book, he was also the first to study the phenomenon of the pinhole camera, many later European scholars and fellow polymaths, from Robert Grosseteste and Leonardo da Vinci to René Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, were in his debt. Indeed, the influence of Ibn al-Haythams Optics ranks alongside that of Newtons work of the same title, the translation of The Book of Optics had a huge impact on Europe. From it, later European scholars were able to build the devices as what Ibn al-Haytham did. From this, such important things as eyeglasses, magnifying glasses, telescopes, Physics became a separate science when early modern Europeans used experimental and quantitative methods to discover what are now considered to be the laws of physics. Newton also developed calculus, the study of change, which provided new mathematical methods for solving physical problems. The discovery of new laws in thermodynamics, chemistry, and electromagnetics resulted from greater research efforts during the Industrial Revolution as energy needs increased, however, inaccuracies in classical mechanics for very small objects and very high velocities led to the development of modern physics in the 20th century. Modern physics began in the early 20th century with the work of Max Planck in quantum theory, both of these theories came about due to inaccuracies in classical mechanics in certain situations. Quantum mechanics would come to be pioneered by Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, from this early work, and work in related fields, the Standard Model of particle physics was derived. Areas of mathematics in general are important to this field, such as the study of probabilities, in many ways, physics stems from ancient Greek philosophy
27.
French Academy of Sciences
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The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the forefront of developments in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Currently headed by Sébastien Candel, it is one of the five Academies of the Institut de France, the Academy of Sciences makes its origin to Colberts plan to create a general academy. He chose a group of scholars who met on 22 December 1666 in the Kings library. The first 30 years of the Academys existence were relatively informal, in contrast to its British counterpart, the Academy was founded as an organ of government. The Academy was expected to remain apolitical, and to avoid discussion of religious, on 20 January 1699, Louis XIV gave the Company its first rules. The Academy received the name of Royal Academy of Sciences and was installed in the Louvre in Paris, following this reform, the Academy began publishing a volume each year with information on all the work done by its members and obituaries for members who had died. This reform also codified the method by which members of the Academy could receive pensions for their work, on 8 August 1793, the National Convention abolished all the academies. Almost all the old members of the previously abolished Académie were formally re-elected, among the exceptions was Dominique, comte de Cassini, who refused to take his seat. In 1816, the again renamed Royal Academy of Sciences became autonomous, while forming part of the Institute of France, in the Second Republic, the name returned to Académie des sciences. During this period, the Academy was funded by and accountable to the Ministry of Public Instruction, the Academy came to control French patent laws in the course of the eighteenth century, acting as the liaison of artisans knowledge to the public domain. As a result, academicians dominated technological activities in France, the Academy proceedings were published under the name Comptes rendus de lAcadémie des sciences. The Comptes rendus is now a series with seven titles. The publications can be found on site of the French National Library, in 1818 the French Academy of Sciences launched a competition to explain the properties of light. The civil engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel entered this competition by submitting a new theory of light. Siméon Denis Poisson, one of the members of the judging committee, being a supporter of the particle-theory of light, he looked for a way to disprove it. The Poisson spot is not easily observed in every-day situations, so it was natural for Poisson to interpret it as an absurd result. However, the head of the committee, Dominique-François-Jean Arago, and he molded a 2-mm metallic disk to a glass plate with wax
28.
Paris Observatory
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The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world. Its historic building is to be found on the Left Bank of the Seine in central Paris, administratively, it is a grand établissement of the French Ministry of National Education, with a status close to that of a public university. Its missions include, research in astronomy and astrophysics, education, diffusion of knowledge to the public and it maintains a solar observatory at Meudon and a radio astronomy observatory at Nançay. It was also the home to the International Time Bureau until its dissolution in 1987 and its foundation lies in the ambitions of Jean-Baptiste Colbert to extend Frances maritime power and international trade in the 17th century. Louis XIV promoted its construction, which was started in 1667 and it thus predates by a few years the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England, which was founded in 1675. The architect of the Paris Observatory was Claude Perrault whose brother, Charles, was secretary to Colbert, optical instruments were supplied by Giuseppe Campani. The buildings were extended in 1730,1810,1834,1850, the last extension incorporates the spectacular Meridian Room designed by Jean Prouvé. The worlds first national almanac, the Connaissance des temps, was published by the observatory in 1679, in 1863, the observatory published the first modern weather maps. In 1882, a 33 cm astrographic lens was constructed, an instrument that catalysed what proved to be the over-ambitious international Carte du Ciel project. The Meudon great refractor was a 83 cm aperture refractor, which with September 20,1909 observations by E. M. Antoniadi helped disprove the Mars canals theory and it was a double telescope completed in 1891, with secondary having 62 cm aperture lens for photography. It was one of the largest active telescopes in Europe, the title of Director of the Observatory was officially given for the first time to César-François Cassini de Thury by a Royal brevet dated November 12,1771. However, the important role played by his grandfather and father in this institution during its first century actually gives them somewhat the role of director, a coronograph was in operation there for ten years, the dome was moved there from the Perrault building of the Observatoire de Paris. Nowadays, the AstroQueyras amateur astronomy association operates the facility, using a 60 cm telescope on loan from the Observatoire de Haute Provence, numerous asteroids have been discovered there. Paris Observatory, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Deluxe CDROM edition Aubin, D, the fading star of the Paris Observatory in the nineteenth century, astronomers urban culture of circulation and observation. History of the Bureau International de lHeure, polar Motion, Historical and Scientific problems. Paris Observatory Paris Observatory History Location in Paris Publications of the Observatoire de Paris in Gallica, the digital library of the BnF
29.
Pierre-Simon Laplace
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Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was an influential French scholar whose work was important to the development of mathematics, statistics, physics and astronomy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique Céleste and this work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace, Laplace formulated Laplaces equation, and pioneered the Laplace transform which appears in many branches of mathematical physics, a field that he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, widely used in mathematics, is named after him. Laplace is remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time, sometimes referred to as the French Newton or Newton of France, he has been described as possessing a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries. Laplace became a count of the Empire in 1806 and was named a marquis in 1817, Laplace was born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy on 23 March 1749, a village four miles west of Pont lEveque in Normandy. According to W. W. Rouse Ball, His father, Pierre de Laplace and his great-uncle, Maitre Oliver de Laplace, had held the title of Chirurgien Royal. It would seem that from a pupil he became an usher in the school at Beaumont, however, Karl Pearson is scathing about the inaccuracies in Rouse Balls account and states, Indeed Caen was probably in Laplaces day the most intellectually active of all the towns of Normandy. It was here that Laplace was educated and was provisionally a professor and it was here he wrote his first paper published in the Mélanges of the Royal Society of Turin, Tome iv. 1766–1769, at least two years before he went at 22 or 23 to Paris in 1771, thus before he was 20 he was in touch with Lagrange in Turin. He did not go to Paris a raw self-taught country lad with only a peasant background, the École Militaire of Beaumont did not replace the old school until 1776. His parents were from comfortable families and his father was Pierre Laplace, and his mother was Marie-Anne Sochon. The Laplace family was involved in agriculture until at least 1750, Pierre Simon Laplace attended a school in the village run at a Benedictine priory, his father intending that he be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. At sixteen, to further his fathers intention, he was sent to the University of Caen to read theology, at the university, he was mentored by two enthusiastic teachers of mathematics, Christophe Gadbled and Pierre Le Canu, who awoke his zeal for the subject. Here Laplaces brilliance as a mathematician was recognised and while still at Caen he wrote a memoir Sur le Calcul integral aux differences infiniment petites et aux differences finies. About this time, recognizing that he had no vocation for the priesthood, in this connection reference may perhaps be made to the statement, which has appeared in some notices of him, that he broke altogether with the church and became an atheist. Laplace did not graduate in theology but left for Paris with a letter of introduction from Le Canu to Jean le Rond dAlembert who at time was supreme in scientific circles. According to his great-great-grandson, dAlembert received him rather poorly, and to get rid of him gave him a mathematics book
30.
Gaspard Monge
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Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse was a French mathematician, the inventor of descriptive geometry, and the father of differential geometry. During the French Revolution he served as the Minister of the Marine, Monge was born at Beaune, Côte-dOr, the son of a merchant. He was educated at the college of the Oratorians at Beaune, in 1762 he went to the Collège de la Trinité at Lyon, where, one year after he had begun studying, he was made a teacher of physics at the age of just seventeen. An officer of engineers who saw it wrote to the commandant of the École Royale du Génie at Mézières, recommending Monge to him and those studying at the school were drawn from the aristocracy, so he was not allowed admission to the institution itself. His manual skill was highly regarded, but his skills were not made use of. Nevertheless, he worked on the development of his ideas in his spare time, after a year at the École Royale Monge was asked to produce a plan for a fortification in such a way as to optimise its defensive arrangement. There was a method for doing this which involved lengthy calculations. After Bossut left the École Royale du Génie Monge took his place in January 1769, in 1777, Monge married Cathérine Huart, who owned a forge. This caused Monge to develop an interest in metallurgy, in 1780 he became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, his friendship with C. L. In 1783, after leaving Mézières, he was, on the death of É, bézout, appointed examiner of naval candidates. In 1786 he wrote and published his Traité élémentaire de la statique, the French Revolution completely changed the course of Monges career. Leçons données aux écoles normales was published in 1799 from transcriptions of his lectures given in 1795 and he later published Application de lanalyse à la géométrie, which enlarged on the lectures. From May 1796 to October 1797 Monge was in Italy with C. L, Berthollet and some artists to select the paintings and sculptures being levied from the Italians. While there he became friendly with Napoleon Bonaparte, from there Monge joined Napoleons expedition to Egypt, taking part with Berthollet in the scientific work of the Institut dÉgypte and the Egyptian Institute of Sciences and Arts. They accompanied Bonaparte to Syria, and returned with him in 1798 to France, Monge was appointed president of the Egyptian commission, and he resumed his connection with the École Polytechnique. His later mathematical papers are published in the Journal and the Correspondence of the École Polytechnique, then on the fall of Napoleon he had all of his honours taken away, and he even excluded from the list of members of the reconstituted Institute. Monge died in Paris on 28 July 1818 and his remains were first interred in a mausoleum in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and later transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. A statue portraying him was erected in Beaune in 1849, Monges name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the base of the Eiffel Tower
31.
Joseph-Louis Lagrange
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Joseph-Louis Lagrange, born Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia or Giuseppe Ludovico De la Grange Tournier, was an Italian and French Enlightenment Era mathematician and astronomer. He made significant contributions to the fields of analysis, number theory, in 1787, at age 51, he moved from Berlin to Paris and became a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He remained in France until the end of his life, Lagrange was one of the creators of the calculus of variations, deriving the Euler–Lagrange equations for extrema of functionals. He also extended the method to take into account possible constraints and he proved that every natural number is a sum of four squares. His treatise Theorie des fonctions analytiques laid some of the foundations of group theory, in calculus, Lagrange developed a novel approach to interpolation and Taylor series. Born as Giuseppe Lodovico Lagrangia, Lagrange was of Italian and French descent and his mother was from the countryside of Turin. He was raised as a Roman Catholic, a career as a lawyer was planned out for Lagrange by his father, and certainly Lagrange seems to have accepted this willingly. He studied at the University of Turin and his subject was classical Latin. At first he had no enthusiasm for mathematics, finding Greek geometry rather dull. It was not until he was seventeen that he showed any taste for mathematics – his interest in the subject being first excited by a paper by Edmond Halley which he came across by accident. Alone and unaided he threw himself into mathematical studies, at the end of a years incessant toil he was already an accomplished mathematician, in that capacity, Lagrange was the first to teach calculus in an engineering school. In this Academy one of his students was François Daviet de Foncenex, Lagrange is one of the founders of the calculus of variations. Starting in 1754, he worked on the problem of tautochrone, Lagrange wrote several letters to Leonhard Euler between 1754 and 1756 describing his results. He outlined his δ-algorithm, leading to the Euler–Lagrange equations of variational calculus, Lagrange also applied his ideas to problems of classical mechanics, generalizing the results of Euler and Maupertuis. Euler was very impressed with Lagranges results, Lagrange published his method in two memoirs of the Turin Society in 1762 and 1773. Many of these are elaborate papers, the article concludes with a masterly discussion of echoes, beats, and compound sounds. Other articles in volume are on recurring series, probabilities. The next work he produced was in 1764 on the libration of the Moon, and an explanation as to why the face was always turned to the earth
32.
Alexis Bouvard
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Alexis Bouvard was a French astronomer. He is particularly noted for his observations of the irregularities in the motion of Uranus. Born in Contamines, Duchy of Savoy, Bouvards achievements included the discovery of eight comets, while the former two tables were eminently successful, the latter showed substantial discrepancies with subsequent observations. This led Bouvard to hypothesise the existence of an eighth planet responsible for the irregularities in Uranus orbit, the position of Neptune was subsequently calculated from Bouvards observations, independently, by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier after his death. Bouvard was eventually director of the Paris Observatory after starting there as a student astronomer in 1793, Bouvard is also a semi-rural residential suburb, while Port Bouvard is a major residential development in the same region. All three locations are located within the city of Mandurah on the southwest coast of Western Australia, Bouvard, Alexis, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Deluxe CDROM edition
33.
Michael Faraday
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Michael Faraday FRS was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, although Faraday received little formal education, he was one of the most influential scientists in history. It was by his research on the field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was a relationship between the two phenomena. He similarly discovered the principles of induction and diamagnetism. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, Faraday ultimately became the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a lifetime position. James Clerk Maxwell took the work of Faraday and others and summarized it in a set of equations which is accepted as the basis of all theories of electromagnetic phenomena. The SI unit of capacitance is named in his honour, the farad, albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. Faraday was born in Newington Butts, which is now part of the London Borough of Southwark but was then a part of Surrey. His family was not well off and his father, James, was a member of the Glassite sect of Christianity. James Faraday moved his wife and two children to London during the winter of 1790 from Outhgill in Westmorland, where he had been an apprentice to the village blacksmith, Michael was born in the autumn of that year. The young Michael Faraday, who was the third of four children, at the age of 14 he became an apprentice to George Riebau, a local bookbinder and bookseller in Blandford Street. During his seven-year apprenticeship Faraday read many books, including Isaac Wattss The Improvement of the Mind, at this time he also developed an interest in science, especially in electricity. Faraday was particularly inspired by the book Conversations on Chemistry by Jane Marcet, many of the tickets for these lectures were given to Faraday by William Dance, who was one of the founders of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Faraday subsequently sent Davy a 300-page book based on notes that he had taken during these lectures, davys reply was immediate, kind, and favourable. In 1813, when Davy damaged his eyesight in an accident with nitrogen trichloride, very soon Davy entrusted Faraday with the preparation of nitrogen trichloride samples, and they both were injured in an explosion of this very sensitive substance. In the class-based English society of the time, Faraday was not considered a gentleman, Faraday was forced to fill the role of valet as well as assistant throughout the trip. Davys wife, Jane Apreece, refused to treat Faraday as an equal, the trip did, however, give him access to the scientific elite of Europe and exposed him to a host of stimulating ideas
34.
Augustin-Jean Fresnel
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Augustin-Jean Fresnel, was a French engineer and physicist who contributed significantly to the establishment of the theory of wave optics. Fresnel studied the behaviour of light both theoretically and experimentally and he is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Fresnel lens, first adopted in lighthouses while he was a French commissioner of lighthouses, and found in many applications today. His Fresnel equations on waves and reflectivity also form the basis for many applications in computer graphics today — for instance, Fresnel was the son of an architect, born at Broglie. His early progress in learning was slow, and he still could not read when he was eight years old, at thirteen he entered the École Centrale in Caen, and at sixteen and a half the École Polytechnique, where he acquitted himself with distinction. From there he went to the École des Ponts et Chaussées and he received only scant public recognition during his lifetime for his labours in the cause of optical science. Some of his papers were not printed by the Académie des Sciences until many years after his death, but as he wrote to Young in 1824, in himself that sensibility, or that vanity, which people call love of glory had been blunted. Fresnel has been described as a man with interest in religious questions, as a form of consolation, he took religion very seriously especially during his illness. He spent much of his life in Paris, and died of tuberculosis at Ville-dAvray and his is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. The writer Prosper Mérimée was his first cousin and he served as an engineer successively in the departments of Vendée, Drôme and Ille-et-Vilaine, but having supported the Bourbons in 1814 he lost his appointment on Napoleons return to power. He appears to have begun his research in optics around 1814, in 1815, on the second restoration of the monarchy, he obtained a post as engineer in Paris. In 1818 he wrote a memoir on diffraction, for which he received the prize of the Académie des Sciences at Paris the following year and he was the first to construct a special type of lens, now called a Fresnel lens, as a substitute for mirrors in lighthouses. In 1819, he was nominated to be a commissioner of lighthouses, in 1823 he was unanimously elected a member of the academy. In 1825 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, in 1827, the time of his last illness, the Royal Society of London awarded him the Rumford Medal. In 1818 he published his Memoir on the Diffraction of Light, in 1817, Young had proposed a small transverse component to light, while yet retaining a far larger longitudinal component. Fresnel, by the year 1821, was able to show by mathematical methods that polarization could be explained if light was entirely transverse. He proposed the aether drag hypothesis to explain a lack of variation in astronomical observations. His use of two plane mirrors of metal, forming with other a angle of nearly 180°, allowed him to avoid the diffraction effects caused in the experiment of F. M. Grimaldi on interference. This allowed him to account for the phenomenon of interference in accordance with the wave theory
35.
Thomas Young (scientist)
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Thomas Young was an English polymath and physician. Young made notable contributions to the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony. He made a number of original and insightful innovations in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs before Jean-François Champollion eventually expanded on his work and he was mentioned by, among others, William Herschel, Hermann von Helmholtz, James Clerk Maxwell, and Albert Einstein. Young has been described as The Last Man Who Knew Everything, Young belonged to a Quaker family of Milverton, Somerset, where he was born in 1773, the eldest of ten children. At the age of fourteen Young had learned Greek and Latin and was acquainted with French, Italian, Hebrew, German, Aramaic, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, in 1797 he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In the same year he inherited the estate of his granduncle, Richard Brocklesby, which made him financially independent, Young published many of his first academic articles anonymously to protect his reputation as a physician. In 1801 Young was appointed professor of philosophy at the Royal Institution. In two years, he delivered 91 lectures, in 1802, he was appointed foreign secretary of the Royal Society, of which he had been elected a fellow in 1794. He resigned his professorship in 1803, fearing that its duties would interfere with his medical practice and his lectures were published in 1807 in the Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and contain a number of anticipations of later theories. In 1811 Young became physician to St Georges Hospital, and in 1814 he served on an appointed to consider the dangers involved in the general introduction of gas into London. Young was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts, a few years before his death he became interested in life insurance, and in 1827 he was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1828, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Thomas Young died in London on 10 May 1829, and was buried in the cemetery of St. Giles Church in Farnborough, Kent, England. Westminster Abbey houses a marble tablet in memory of Young bearing an epitaph by Hudson Gurney, Young was highly regarded by his friends. He was said never to impose his knowledge, but if asked was able to even the most difficult scientific question with ease. Although very learned he had a reputation for sometimes having difficulty in communicating his knowledge and it was said by one of his contemporaries that His words were not those in familiar use, and the arrangement of his ideas seldom the same as those he conversed with. He was therefore worse calculated than any man I ever knew for the communication of knowledge, later scholars and scientists have praised Youngs work although they may know him only through achievements he made in their fields. His contemporary Sir John Herschel called him a truly original genius, Albert Einstein praised him in the 1931 foreword to an edition of Newtons Opticks
Kingdom of Belgium: Officer of the Order of Leopold.[15]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Arago, Dominique François Jean". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 312–313.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the 
