1.
Dominique, comte de Cassini
–
Jean-Dominique, comte de Cassini was a French astronomer, son of César-François Cassini de Thury. Cassini was born at the Paris Observatory, in 1784 he succeeded his father as director of the observatory, but his plans for its restoration and re-equipment were wrecked in 1793 by the animosity of the National Assembly. His position having become intolerable, he resigned on 6 September and was thrown into prison in 1794 and he then withdrew to Thury, where he died in 1845. He published in 1770 an account of a voyage to America in 1768 and his proposal was accepted, resulting in the Anglo-French Survey. The results of the survey were published in 1791 and he visited England for the purposes of the work with Pierre Méchain and Adrien-Marie Legendre, and the three met William Herschel at Slough. He completed his father’s map of France, which was published by the Academy of Sciences in 1793 and it served as the basis for the Atlas National, showing France in departments. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts, cassini’s Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de l’observatoire de Paris embodied portions of an extensive work, the prospectus of which he had submitted to the Academy of Sciences in 1774. The volume included his Eloges of several academicians, and the autobiography of his great-grandfather and his youngest son Henri was a botanist of some note
Dominique, comte de Cassini
–
Jean-Dominique, comte de Cassini, 1820.
Lithograph by
Julien-Léopold Boilly.
2.
Republic of Genova
–
It began when Genoa became a self-governing commune within the Regnum Italicum, and ended when it was conquered by the French First Republic under Napoleon and replaced with the Ligurian Republic. Corsica was ceded to France in the Treaty of Versailles of 1768, before 1100, Genoa emerged as an independent city-state, one of a number of Italian city-states during this period. Nominally, the Holy Roman Emperor was overlord and the Bishop of Genoa was president of the city, however, actual power was wielded by a number of consuls annually elected by popular assembly. The Adorno, Campofregoso, and other merchant families all fought for power in this Republic, as the power of the consuls allowed each family faction to gain wealth. The Republic of Genoa extended over modern Liguria and Piedmont, Sardinia, Corsica, through Genoese participation on the Crusades, Genoese colonies were established in the Middle East, in the Aegean, in Sicily and Northern Africa. The collapse of the Crusader States was offset by Genoa’s alliance with the Byzantine Empire, as Venices relations with the Byzantine Empire were temporarily disrupted by the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath, Genoa was able to improve its position. Genoa took advantage of opportunity to expand into the Black Sea and Crimea. Internal feuds between the families, the Grimaldi and Fieschi, the Doria, Spinola, and others caused much disruption. However, this prosperity did not last, the Black Death was imported into Europe in 1347 from the Genoese trading post at Caffa in Crimea, on the Black Sea. Following the economic and population collapse, Genoa adopted the Venetian model of government, the wars with Venice continued, and the War of Chioggia -- where Genoa almost managed to decisively subdue Venice—ended with Venices recovery of dominance in the Adriatic. In 1390 Genoa initiated a crusade against the Barbary pirates with help from the French, though it has not been well-studied, the fifteenth century seems to have been a tumultuous time for Genoa. After a period of French domination from 1394–1409, Genoa came under rule by the Visconti of Milan, Genoa lost Sardinia to Aragon, Corsica to internal revolt and its Middle Eastern, Eastern European and Asia Minor colonies to the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Under the ensuing economic recovery, many aristocratic Genoese families, such as the Balbi, Doria, Grimaldi, Pallavicini, according to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others, the practices Genoa developed in the Mediterranean were crucial in the exploration and exploitation of the New World. At the time of Genoa’s peak in the 16th century, the city attracted many artists, including Rubens, Caravaggio and Van Dyck. The architect Galeazzo Alessi designed many of the city’s splendid palazzi, as did in the decades that followed by fifty years Bartolomeo Bianco, a number of Genoese Baroque and Rococo artists settled elsewhere and a number of local artists became prominent. At the time of its founding in the early 11th century the Republic of Genoa consisted of the city of Genoa, as the commerce of the city increased, so did the territory of the Republic. By 1015 all of Liguria fell under the Republic of Genoa, after the First Crusade in 1098 Genoa gained settlements in Syria. In 1261 the city of Smyrna in Asia Minor became Genoese territory, in 1255 Genoa established the colony of Caffa in Crimea
Republic of Genova
–
View of Genoa and its fleet by Christoforo de Grassi (1597 copy, after a drawing of 1481); Galata Museo del Mare, Genoa.
Republic of Genova
–
Flag
Republic of Genova
–
Siege of
Antioch, 1098
Republic of Genova
–
Galata Tower (1348) in
Galata,
Istanbul.
3.
Cassini Division
–
The rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of small particles, ranging from μm to m in size. The ring particles are made almost entirely of ice, with a trace component of rocky material. Although reflection from the rings increases Saturns brightness, they are not visible from Earth with unaided vision. In 1610, the year after Galileo Galilei turned a telescope to the sky, he became the first person to observe Saturns rings, in 1655, Christiaan Huygens was the first person to describe them as a disk surrounding Saturn. Although many people think of Saturns rings as being made up of a series of tiny ringlets and it is more correct to think of the rings as an annular disk with concentric local maxima and minima in density and brightness. On the scale of the clumps within the rings there is empty space. Stabilizing resonances, on the hand, are responsible for the longevity of several rings, such as the Titan Ringlet. Well beyond the rings is the Phoebe ring, which is tilted at an angle of 27 degrees to the other rings and, like Phoebe. Galileo Galilei was the first to observe the rings of Saturn in 1610 using his telescope, but was unable to identify them as such. He wrote to the Duke of Tuscany that The planet Saturn is not alone and they are arranged in a line parallel to the zodiac, and the middle one is about three times the size of the lateral ones. He also described the rings as Saturns ears, in 1612 the Earth passed through the plane of the rings and they became invisible. Mystified, Galileo remarked I do not know what to say in a case so surprising, so unlooked for and he mused, Has Saturn swallowed his children. — referring to the myth of the Titan Saturn devouring his offspring to forestall the prophecy of them overthrowing him and he was further confused when the rings again became visible in 1613. Early astronomers used anagrams as a form of commitment scheme to lay claim to new discoveries before their results were ready for publication, Galileo used smaismrmilmepoetaleumibunenugttauiras for Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi for discovering the rings of Saturn. In 1655, Christiaan Huygens became the first person to suggest that Saturn was surrounded by a ring, robert Hooke was another early observer of the rings of Saturn, and noted the casting of shadows on the rings. In 1675, Giovanni Domenico Cassini determined that Saturns ring was composed of multiple smaller rings with gaps between them, the largest of these gaps was later named the Cassini Division and this division is a 4,800 km-wide region between the A Ring and B Ring. In 1787, Pierre-Simon Laplace suggested that the rings were composed of a number of solid ringlets
Cassini Division
–
The full set of rings, imaged as
Saturn eclipsed the Sun from the vantage of the
Cassini spacecraft, 1,200,000 km (746,000 mi) distant, on
19 July 2013 (brightness is exaggerated). Earth appears as a
dot at 4 o'clock, between the
G and
E rings.
Cassini Division
Cassini Division
–
Voyager 2 view of
Saturn casting a shadow across its rings. Four satellites and
ring spokes are visible.
Cassini Division
–
Galileo first observed the rings in 1610.
4.
Cassini oval
–
A Cassini oval is a quartic plane curve defined as the set of points in the plane such that the product of the distances to two fixed points is constant. This may be contrasted to an ellipse, for which the sum of the distances is constant, Cassini ovals are the special case of polynomial lemniscates when the polynomial used has degree 2. Cassini ovals are named after the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini who studied them in 1680, Cassini believed that the Sun traveled around the Earth on one of these ovals, with the Earth at one focus of the oval. Other names include Cassinian ovals, Cassinian curves and ovals of Cassini, let q1 and q2 be two fixed points in the plane and let b be a constant. Then a Cassini oval with foci q1 and q2 is defined to be the locus of points p so that the product of the distance from p to q1 and the distance from p to q2 is b2. That is, if we define the function dist to be the distance from a point x to a point y, if the foci are and, then the equation of the curve is = b 4. When expanded this becomes 2 −2 a 2 + a 4 = b 4, the equivalent polar equation is r 4 −2 a 2 r 2 cos 2 θ = b 4 − a 4. The curve depends, up to similarity, on e = b/a, when e <1, the curve consists of two disconnected loops, each of which contains a focus. When e =1, the curve is the lemniscate of Bernoulli having the shape of a figure eight with a double point at the origin. When e >1, the curve is a single, connected loop enclosing both foci and it is peanut-shaped for 1 < e <2 and convex for e ≥2. The limiting case of a →0, in case the foci coincide with each other, is a circle. The curve always has x-intercepts at ±c where c2 = a2 + b2, when e <1 there are two additional real x-intercepts and when e >1 there are two real y-intercepts, all other x and y-intercepts being imaginary. The curve has points at the circular points at infinity. These points are biflecnodes, meaning that the curve has two distinct tangents at these points and each branch of the curve has a point of inflection there, the tangents at the circular points are given by x ± iy = ±a which have real points of intersection at. So the foci are, in fact, foci in the sense defined by Plücker, the circular points are points of inflection so these are triple foci. When e ≠1 the curve has class eight, which implies that there should be at total of eight real foci, six of these have been accounted for in the two triple foci and the remaining two are at. So the additional foci are on the x-axis when the curve has two loops and on the y-axis when the curve has a single loop. When the foci of the Cassini ovals are the points and, the second lemniscate of the Mandelbrot set is a Cassini oval defined by the equation L2 =
Cassini oval
–
Some Cassini ovals. (b = 0.6a, 0.8a, a, 1.2a, 1.4a, 1.6a)
5.
Mathematics
–
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
Mathematics
–
Euclid (holding
calipers), Greek mathematician, 3rd century BC, as imagined by
Raphael in this detail from
The School of Athens.
Mathematics
–
Greek mathematician
Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC), commonly credited with discovering the
Pythagorean theorem
Mathematics
–
Leonardo Fibonacci, the
Italian mathematician who established the Hindu–Arabic numeral system to the Western World
Mathematics
–
Carl Friedrich Gauss, known as the prince of mathematicians
6.
Astrology
–
Astrology is the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial objects as a means for divining information about human affairs and terrestrial events. Throughout most of its history astrology was considered a tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology. It was present in political circles, and is mentioned in works of literature, from Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in it has largely declined, Astrology is now recognized to be pseudoscience. The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, which derives from the Greek ἀστρολογία—from ἄστρον astron, astrologia later passed into meaning star-divination with astronomia used for the scientific term. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems. Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, with roots in systems used to predict seasonal shifts. A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia, Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty. Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, Alexander the Greats conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with Chaldean wisdom, after the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe, major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer. Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and it was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. At the end of the 17th century, new concepts in astronomy. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined, Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. This was a first step towards recording the Moons influence upon tides and rivers, by the 3rd millennium BCE, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars. Scattered evidence suggests that the oldest known references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa thought to be compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE, a scroll documenting an early use of electional astrology is doubtfully ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash
Astrology
Astrology
–
Marcantonio Raimondi engraving, 15th century
Astrology
–
'The Zodiac Man' a diagram of a human body and astrological symbols with instructions explaining the importance of astrology from a medical perspective. From a 15th century Welsh manuscript
Astrology
–
The Roman orator
Cicero objected to astrology.
7.
Astronomy
–
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
Astronomy
–
A
star -forming region in the
Large Magellanic Cloud, an
irregular galaxy.
Astronomy
–
A giant
Hubble mosaic of the
Crab Nebula, a
supernova remnant
Astronomy
–
19th century
Sydney Observatory,
Australia (1873)
Astronomy
–
19th century
Quito Astronomical Observatory is located 12 minutes south of the
Equator in
Quito,
Ecuador.
8.
University of Bologna
–
The University of Bologna, founded in 1088, is the oldest university in continuous operation. It was the first place of study to use the term universitas for the corporations of students and masters which came to define the institution, located in Bologna, as of 2013, the Universitys crest carries the motto Alma mater studiorum and the date A. D.1088. The University has about 85,500 students in its 11 schools and it has campuses in Ravenna, Forlì, Cesena and Rimini and a branch center abroad in Buenos Aires. It also has a school of excellence named Collegio Superiore di Bologna, an associate publisher of the University of Bologna is Bononia University Press S. p. A. The date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088 and these students then hired scholars from the city to teach them. In time the various nations decided to form an association, or universitas—thus. The foreign students in Bologna received greater rights, and collective punishment was ended, there was also collective bargaining with the scholars who served as professors at the university. By the initiation or threat of a student strike, the students could enforce their demands as to the content of courses, the professors could also be fined if they failed to finish classes on time, or complete course material by the end of the semester. A student committee, the Denouncers of Professors, kept tabs on them, Professors themselves were not powerless, however, forming a College of Teachers, and securing the rights to set examination fees and degree requirements. Eventually, the city ended this arrangement, paying professors from tax revenues, until modern times, the only degree granted at that university was the doctorate. Higher education processes are being harmonised across the European Community, nowadays the University offers 101 different Laurea or Laurea breve first-level degrees, followed by 108 Laurea specialistica or Laurea magistrale second-level degrees. After the Laurea one may attain 1st level Master, after second-level degrees are attained, one may proceed to 2nd level Master, specialisation schools, or doctorates of research. A new department of Latin History was added in 2015, on 25 April 1951 the first issue of the review was published in Bologna. In a short time, il Mulino became one of the most interesting points in Italy for the political and cultural debate. Editorial activities evolved along with the review, in 1954, the il Mulino publishing house was founded, which today represents one of the most relevant Italian publishers. In addition to this were initiated research projects, that led, in 1964. In the 2016-17 THE World University Rankings the University of Bologna was ranked in the worlds top 250 universities
University of Bologna
–
The entry of some students in the Natio Germanica Bononiae, the
nation of German students at Bologna; miniature of 1497.
University of Bologna
–
University of Bologna
University of Bologna
–
Area above Bologna's old city centre.
University of Bologna
–
Interior view of the Porticum and
Loggia of its oldest College, the
Royal Spanish College.
9.
Astronomer
–
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
Astronomer
–
The Astronomer by
Johannes Vermeer
Astronomer
–
Galileo is often referred to as the Father of
modern astronomy
Astronomer
–
Guy Consolmagno (Vatikan observatory), analyzing a meteorite, 2014
Astronomer
–
Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Conference 2013
10.
Astrologer
–
Astrology is the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial objects as a means for divining information about human affairs and terrestrial events. Throughout most of its history astrology was considered a tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology. It was present in political circles, and is mentioned in works of literature, from Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in it has largely declined, Astrology is now recognized to be pseudoscience. The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, which derives from the Greek ἀστρολογία—from ἄστρον astron, astrologia later passed into meaning star-divination with astronomia used for the scientific term. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems. Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, with roots in systems used to predict seasonal shifts. A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia, Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty. Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, Alexander the Greats conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with Chaldean wisdom, after the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe, major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer. Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and it was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. At the end of the 17th century, new concepts in astronomy. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined, Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. This was a first step towards recording the Moons influence upon tides and rivers, by the 3rd millennium BCE, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars. Scattered evidence suggests that the oldest known references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa thought to be compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE, a scroll documenting an early use of electional astrology is doubtfully ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash
Astrologer
Astrologer
–
Marcantonio Raimondi engraving, 15th century
Astrologer
–
'The Zodiac Man' a diagram of a human body and astrological symbols with instructions explaining the importance of astrology from a medical perspective. From a 15th century Welsh manuscript
Astrologer
–
The Roman orator
Cicero objected to astrology.
11.
County of Nice
–
The County of Nice or Niçard Country is a historical region of France, located in the south-eastern part, around the city of Nice, and roughly equivalent to the modern department of Alpes-Maritimes. Its territory lies between the Mediterranean Sea, Var River and the southernmost crest of the Alps, ligurian tribes populated the Contea di Nizza prior to its occupation by the Romans. These tribes, conquered by Augustus, had become fully Romanized by the 4th century, in those Roman centuries the area was part of the Regio IX Liguria of Italy. It was initially a part of the ancient County of Provence. The region received the name County of Nice during the 15th century, from 1388 to 1860 the history of the County of Nice was tied to that of Italian Piedmont-Sardinia. Its historical capital city is Nice, France annexed the County in 1860, during the Italian Wars of Independence. In exchange for French military assistance, Piedmont was to cede Nice, the annexation was temporarily put into doubt after the Italian war of 1859, during which Napoleon III concluded a separate peace with Austria before Venetia could be captured. In March 1860, however, as Piedmont was in the process of annexing Parma, Modena, France annexed the provinces by the provisions of the Treaty of Turin, signed on 24 March 1860. France took formal possession of Nice and Savoy on 12 June 1860, during World War II, when Italy occupied parts of southeastern France, it included Nice administratively in the Kingdom of Italy. Since 1860 the County has been coterminous with the Arrondissement of Nice. Nevertheless, the term County of Nice continues in use today to identify the territory as a cultural and historical region. The historical language used by inhabitants of the County of Nice was Niçard, population amounted to 506,694 inhabitants in 1999. In 2010 the statue Neuf Lignes Obliques was erected along the Promenade des Anglais on the shoreline to commemorate the 150th year of Nices annexation, bishopric of Nice Provence Italia irredenta Italian irredentism in Nice Amicucci, Ermanno. Histoire de lidentité niçoise, Nice, Serre,1995, territorial changes in the history of the County of Nice Dances and traditional musics used in the County of Nice Map of the Kingdom of Sardinia
County of Nice
–
The County of Nice was part of the Italian "Kingdom of Sardinia" in 1796
County of Nice
–
Flag
12.
Saturn (planet)
–
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with a radius about nine times that of Earth. Although it has only one-eighth the average density of Earth, with its larger volume Saturn is just over 95 times more massive, Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture, its astronomical symbol represents the gods sickle. Saturns interior is composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock. This core is surrounded by a layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium. Saturn has a yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. Saturns magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiters, the outer atmosphere is generally bland and lacking in contrast, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h, higher than on Jupiter, sixty-two moons are known to orbit Saturn, of which fifty-three are officially named. This does not include the hundreds of moonlets comprising the rings, Saturn is a gas giant because it is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium. It lacks a definite surface, though it may have a solid core, Saturns rotation causes it to have the shape of an oblate spheroid, that is, it is flattened at the poles and bulges at its equator. Its equatorial and polar radii differ by almost 10%,60,268 km versus 54,364 km, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, the other giant planets in the Solar System, are also oblate but to a lesser extent. Saturn is the planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water—about 30% less. Although Saturns core is considerably denser than water, the specific density of the planet is 0.69 g/cm3 due to the atmosphere. Jupiter has 318 times the Earths mass, while Saturn is 95 times the mass of the Earth, together, Jupiter and Saturn hold 92% of the total planetary mass in the Solar System. On 8 January 2015, NASA reported determining the center of the planet Saturn, the temperature, pressure, and density inside Saturn all rise steadily toward the core, which causes hydrogen to transition into a metal in the deeper layers. Standard planetary models suggest that the interior of Saturn is similar to that of Jupiter, having a rocky core surrounded by hydrogen. This core is similar in composition to the Earth, but more dense, in 2004, they estimated that the core must be 9–22 times the mass of the Earth, which corresponds to a diameter of about 25,000 km. This is surrounded by a liquid metallic hydrogen layer, followed by a liquid layer of helium-saturated molecular hydrogen that gradually transitions to a gas with increasing altitude
Saturn (planet)
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Saturn in natural color, photographed by
Cassini in 2004
Saturn (planet)
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Composite image roughly comparing the sizes of Saturn and Earth
Saturn (planet)
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Auroral lights at Saturn’s north pole.
Saturn (planet)
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A global storm girdles the planet in 2011. The head of the storm (bright area) passes the tail circling around the left limb.
13.
Topographic map
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Traditional definitions require a topographic map to show both natural and man-made features. A topographic map is published as a map series, made up of two or more map sheets that combine to form the whole map. A contour line is a line connecting places of equal elevation, however, in the vernacular and day to day world, the representation of relief is popularly held to define the genre, such that even small-scale maps showing relief are commonly called topographic. The study or discipline of topography is a broader field of study. Topographic maps are based on topographical surveys, performed at large scales, these surveys are called topographical in the old sense of topography, showing a variety of elevations and landforms. This is in contrast to older cadastral surveys, which primarily show property, the first multi-sheet topographic map series of an entire country, the Carte géométrique de la France, was completed in 1789. Topographic surveys were prepared by the military to assist in planning for battle, as such, elevation information was of vital importance. As they evolved, topographic map series became a resource in modern nations in planning infrastructure. Excluding borders, each sheet was 44 cm high and up to 66 cm wide, although the project eventually foundered, it left an indexing system that remains in use. TIGER was developed in the 1980s and used in the 1990, digital elevation models were also compiled, initially from topographic maps and stereographic interpretation of aerial photographs and then from satellite photography and radar data. Since all these were government projects funded with taxes and not classified for security reasons. Initial applications were mostly professionalized forms such as innovative surveying instruments, by the mid-1990s, increasingly user-friendly resources such as online mapping in two and three dimensions, integration of GPS with mobile phones and automotive navigation systems appeared. As of 2011, the future of standardized, centrally printed topographical maps is left somewhat in doubt, the various features shown on the map are represented by conventional signs or symbols. For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads and these signs are usually explained in the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet. Topographic maps are commonly called contour maps or topo maps. In the United States, where the national series is organized by a strict 7. 5-minute grid. Topographic maps conventionally show topography, or land contours, by means of contour lines, contour lines are curves that connect contiguous points of the same altitude. In other words, every point on the line of 100 m elevation is 100 m above mean sea level
Topographic map
–
Part of the same map in a perspective
shaded relief view illustrating how the contour lines follow the terrain
Topographic map
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A topographic map with contour lines
Topographic map
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Section of topographical map of
Nablus area (
West Bank) with contour lines at 100-meter intervals. Heights are colour-coded
Topographic map
–
Curvimeter used to measure the length of a curve
14.
Cornelio Malvasia
–
Cornelio Malvasia, Marquis di Bismantova was an Italian aristocrat, patron of astronomy and military leader. Malvasia was born in 1603 to a family of Bologna and was the cousin of Carlo Cesare Malvasia. During the Wars of Castro he led papal army cavalry against the Dukes of Parma and he became close to the nephews of Pope Urban VIII and his later correspondence and publications carried the Barberini crest, three bees. His cousin Carlo later received assistance, in Rome, from Barberini loyalist, despite the Duchy of Modena having sided with the Dukes of Parma during the Wars of Castro, Malvasia later became a military advisor to Alfonso IV dEste, Duke of Modena. He was later named Marechal of the French army in Italy while Francesco II dEste was General of that army. In 1656 he visited Paris and received honours from King Louis XIV of France - a 400 doppie annual pension for his position of Marechal, throughout his military career, Malvasia maintained a strong general interest in astronomy, optics and scientific engineering. He is credited with having contributed to the invention of the reticle or cross-hairs during the 1620s, Malvasia was elected a Senator of Bologna and began construction of the privately owned Panzano Observatory in the early 1640s. In 1645 Malvasia invited Giovanni Domenico Cassini to Bologna and offered him a position in his observatory, most of their time was spent calculating newer, better, and more accurate ephemerides for astrological purposes using the rapidly advancing astronomical methods and tools of the day. 17 years later, in 1662, their work, Ephemerides novissimae motuum coelestium, was published by Malvasia. Malvasia corresponded with a number of other astronomers during his development of new methods
Cornelio Malvasia
–
Cornelio Malvasia
15.
Giovanni Battista Riccioli
–
Giovanni Battista Riccioli was an Italian astronomer and a Catholic priest in the Jesuit order. Riccioli was born in Ferrara, Italy and he entered the Society of Jesus on 6 October 1614. After completing his novitiate, he study of the humanities in 1616, pursuing those studies first at Ferrara. From 1620 to 1628 he studied philosophy and theology at the College of Parma, Parma Jesuits had developed a strong program of experimentation, such as with falling bodies. One of the most famous Italian Jesuits of the time, Giuseppe Biancani, was teaching at Parma when Riccioli arrived there, Riccioli mentions him with gratitude and admiration. By 1628 Ricciolis studies were complete and he requested missionary work, but that request was turned down. Instead he was assigned to teach at Parma, there he taught logic, physics, and metaphysics from 1629 to 1632, and engaged in some experiments with falling bodies and pendulums. In 1632 he became a member of a group charged with the formation of younger Jesuits and he spent the 1633-1634 academic year in Mantua, where he collaborated with Niccolo Cabeo in further pendulum studies. In 1635 he was back at Parma, where he taught theology, in 1636 he was sent to Bologna to serve as Professor of theology. Riccioli described himself as a theologian, but one with a strong and ongoing interest in astronomy since his student days and he said that many Jesuits were theologians, but few were astronomers. He said that once the enthusiasm for astronomy arose within him he could never extinguish it, eventually his superiors in the Jesuit order officially assigned him to the task of astronomical research. However, he continued to write on theology. Riccioli dealt not only with astronomy in his research, but also with physics, arithmetic, geometry, optics, gnomonics, geography and he was awarded a prize by Louis XIV in recognition of his activities and their relevance to contemporary culture. Riccioli continued to publish on both astronomy and theology up to his death and he died in Bologna at 73 years of age. One of Ricciolis most significant works was his 1651 Almagestum Novum, a work consisting of over 1500 folio pages densely packed with text, tables. Riccioli envisioned that the New Almagest would have three volumes, but only the first was completed, Riccioli is credited with being the first person to precisely measure the acceleration due to gravity of falling bodies. Books 2 and 9 of the New Almagest Riccioli included a significant discussion of and extensive experimental reports on the motions of falling bodies and he was interested in the pendulum as a device for precisely measuring time. He also reported that a pendulums period increases if the amplitude of its swing is increased to 40 degrees and he sought to develop a pendulum whose period was precisely one second – such a pendulum would complete 86,400 swings in a 24-hour period
Giovanni Battista Riccioli
–
Giovanni Battista Riccioli
Giovanni Battista Riccioli
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Riccioli as portrayed in the 1742 Atlas Coelestis (plate 3) of Johann Gabriel Doppelmayer.
Giovanni Battista Riccioli
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The crescent phases of Venus and detailed representations of its appearance as seen through a telescope, from Riccioli's 1651 New Almagest.
Giovanni Battista Riccioli
–
Map of the Moon from the New Almagest.
16.
Francesco Maria Grimaldi
–
Francesco Maria Grimaldi was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician and physicist who taught at the Jesuit college in Bologna. He was born in Bologna to Paride Grimaldi and Anna Cattani, between 1640 and 1650, working with Riccioli, he investigated the free fall of objects, confirming that the distance of fall was proportional to the square of the time taken. Grimaldi and Riccioli also made a calculation of the gravitational constant by recording the oscillations of an accurate pendulum. C and he was the first to make accurate observations on the diffraction of light, and coined the word diffraction. Through experimentation he was able to demonstrate that the passage of light could not be reconciled with the idea that it moved in a rectilinear path. Rather, the light passed through the hole took on the shape of a cone. Later physicists used his work as evidence that light was a wave and he also discovered what are known as diffraction bands. The crater Grimaldi on the Moon is named after him, physicomathesis de lumine, coloribus, et iride, aliisque annexis List of Jesuit scientists List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics Catholic Encyclopedia article for Francesco Maria Grimaldi. Grimaldis Physico-mathesis de lumine - digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library
Francesco Maria Grimaldi
–
Francesco Maria Grimaldi
17.
Florence Cathedral
–
The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore is the main church of Florence, Italy. The exterior of the basilica is faced with marble panels in various shades of green. The cathedral complex, located in Piazza del Duomo, includes the Baptistery and these three buildings are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Florence and are a major attraction to tourists visiting Tuscany. The basilica is one of Italys largest churches, and until development of new materials in the modern era. It remains the largest brick dome ever constructed, the cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Florence, whose archbishop is currently Giuseppe Betori. Santa Maria del Fiore was built on the site of a cathedral dedicated to Saint Reparata. The new church was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio and approved by city council in 1294, di Cambio was also architect of the church of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio. He designed three wide naves ending under the dome, with the middle nave covering the area of Santa Reparata. The first stone was laid on September 9,1296, by Cardinal Valeriana, the building of this vast project was to last 140 years, Arnolfos plan for the eastern end, although maintained in concept, was greatly expanded in size. After Arnolfo died in 1310, work on the cathedral slowed for thirty years, when the relics of Saint Zenobius were discovered in 1330 in Santa Reparata, the project gained a new impetus. In 1331, the Arte della Lana, the guild of merchants, took over patronage for the construction of the cathedral. Assisted by Andrea Pisano, Giotto continued di Cambios design and his major accomplishment was the building of the campanile. When Giotto died in 1337, Andrea Pisano continued the building work was halted due to the Black Death in 1348. In 1359, Talenti was succeeded by Giovanni di Lapo Ghini who divided the nave in four square bays. Other architects were Alberto Arnoldi, Giovanni dAmbrogio, Neri di Fioravante, by 1375, the old church Santa Reparata was pulled down. The nave was finished by 1380, and by 1418, only the dome remained incomplete, on 18 August 1418, the Arte della Lana announced an architectural design competition for erecting Neris dome. The two main competitors were two master goldsmiths, Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi, the latter of whom was supported by Cosimo de Medici. Ghiberti had been the winner of a competition for a pair of doors for the Baptistery in 1401
Florence Cathedral
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Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (Italian) Cathedral Sanctae Mariae Floris (Latin)
Florence Cathedral
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Florence Cathedral
Florence Cathedral
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Giotto's bell tower (campanile)
Florence Cathedral
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The Duomo, as if completed, in a fresco by Andrea di Bonaiuto, painted in the 1360s, before the commencement of the dome
18.
San Petronio Basilica
–
The Basilica of San Petronio is the main church of Bologna, Emilia Romagna, northern Italy. It is the tenth-largest church in the world by volume,132 metres long and 66 metres wide, with its volume of 258,000 m³, it is the largest church built of bricks of the world. The basilica is dedicated to the saint of the city, Saint Petronius. It has been the seat of the relics of Bolognas patron saint only since 2000, following a council decree of 1388, the first stone of construction was laid June 7,1390, when the town council entrusted Antonio di Vincenzo with raising a Gothic cathedral. Works lasted for centuries, after the completion of the first version of the facade. The series were completed only in 1479, according to tradition, Pope Pius IV halted such a majestic project. The facing of the facade remains unfinished, many architects were commissioned to propose solutions for it. The heroic nudes of Adam and other figures in the rectangular panels were an inspiration to artists of the Renaissance. The 65-metre-tall campanile was built at the end of the 1400s, the interior houses a Madonna with Saints by Lorenzo Costa the Younger and a Pietà by Amico Aspertini. Also the colours of the walls and the glass windows are noteworthy. The choir was made in the 15th century by Agostino de Marchi, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola was chief architect of the fabbrica, his is the design of the ciborium over the altar. The vaulting and decoration of the nave is by Girolamo Rainaldi. The twenty-two chapels are the following, I, Chapel of St. Abbondio, formerly of the Dieci di Balia - restored in neo-Gothic style in 1865. In this chapel, in the year 1530, Emperor Charles V was crowned by Pope Clement VII, Chapel of St. Petronio, once of the Cospi and Aldrovandi families, designed by Alfonso Torreggiani, designed to contain the relic of the head of San Petronio. On the pillar, two clocks, one of the first made in Italy with the correction of the pendulum. Chapel of the Magi, once of Bolognini family, its marble Gothic balustrade designed by Antonio di Vincenzo, Chapel of St. Sebastian, once of Vaselli family. Chapel of St. Vincent Ferrer, formerly of the Griffoni, Chapel of St. James, formerly of the Rossi and Baciocchi families, the Madonna Enthroned on the altar was painted by Lorenzo Costa, to the same author attributed the designs of the stain glass. Funeral monument containing the remains of Prince Felix Baciocchi and his wife Elisa Bonaparte, Chapel of St. Rocco, formerly of the Ranuzzi family, it contains a ‘’San Rocco’’ by Parmigianino
San Petronio Basilica
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The unfinished facade of the San Petronio Basilica.
San Petronio Basilica
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The Porta Magna with sculpture by
Jacopo della Quercia
San Petronio Basilica
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San Petronio Basilica and
Piazza Maggiore.
San Petronio Basilica
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The nave, with Vignola's
ciborium
19.
Gnomon
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A gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term has come to be used for a variety of purposes in mathematics, a painted stick from 2300 BCE found in China is the oldest known gnomon. Anaximander is credited with introducing this Babylonian instrument to the Greeks, oenopides used the phrase drawn gnomon-wise to describe a line drawn perpendicular to another. Later, the term was used for an L-shaped instrument like a steel square used to right angles. This shape may explain its use to describe a shape formed by cutting a square from a larger one. Euclid extended the term to the figure formed by removing a similar parallelogram from a corner of a larger parallelogram. Indeed, the gnomon is the increment between two successive figurate numbers, including square and triangular numbers, hero of Alexandria defined a gnomon as that which, when added to an entity, makes a new entity similar to the starting entity. In this sense Theon of Smyrna used it to describe a number added to a polygonal number produces the next one of the same type. The most common use in this sense is an odd integer especially when seen as a number between square numbers. Perforated gnomons projecting an image of the sun were described in the Chinese Zhoubi Suanjing writings. The location of the circle can be measured to tell the time of day. In Arab and European cultures its invention was later attributed to Egyptian astronomer. With markings on the floor it tells the time of each midday as well as the date of the summer solstice. Italian mathematician, engineer, astronomer and geographer Leonardo Ximenes reconstructed the gnomon according to his new measurements in 1756, in the northern hemisphere, the shadow-casting edge of a sundial gnomon is normally oriented so that it points north and is parallel to the rotation axis of the Earth. That is, it is inclined to the horizontal at an angle equals the latitude of the sundials location. At present, such a gnomon should thus point almost precisely at Polaris, on some sundials, the gnomon is vertical. These were usually used in times for observing the altitude of the Sun. The style is the part of the gnomon that casts the shadow and this can change as the sun moves
Gnomon
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The gnomon is the
triangular blade in this sundial
Gnomon
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Gnomon situated on the wall of a building facing Tiradentes Square,
Curitiba, Brazil
20.
Camera obscura
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The surroundings of the projected image have to be relatively dark for the image to be clear, so many historical camera obscura experiments were performed in dark rooms. The term camera obscura also refers to constructions or devices that use of the principle within a box. Camerae obscurae with a lens in the opening have been used since the second half of the 16th century, before the term camera obscura was first used in 1604, many other expressions were used including cubiculum obscurum, cubiculum tenebricosum, conclave obscurum and locus obscurus. Rays of light travel in straight lines and change when they are reflected and partly absorbed by an object, retaining information about the color, lit objects reflect rays of light in all directions. The human eye itself works much like a camera obscura with an opening, a biconvex lens, a camera obscura device consists of a box, tent or room with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside, where the scene is reproduced, inverted and reversed. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce an accurate representation. In order to produce a reasonably clear projected image, the aperture has to be about 1/100th the distance to the screen, many camerae obscurae use a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus. As the pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, with too small a pinhole, however, the sharpness worsens, due to diffraction. Using mirrors, as in an 18th-century overhead version, it is possible to project a right-side-up image, another more portable type is a box with an angled mirror projecting onto tracing paper placed on the glass top, the image being upright as viewed from the back. There are theories that occurrences of camera obscura effects inspired paleolithic cave paintings and it is also suggested that camera obscura projections could have played a role in Neolithic structures. Perforated gnomons projecting an image of the sun were described in the Chinese Zhoubi Suanjing writings. The location of the circle can be measured to tell the time of day. In Arab and European cultures its invention was later attributed to Egyptian astronomer. Some ancient sightings of gods and spirits, especially in worship, are thought to possibly have been conjured up by means of camera obscura projections. In these writings it is explained how the image in a collecting-point or treasure house is inverted by an intersecting point that collected the light. Light coming from the foot of a person would partly be hidden below. Rays from the head would partly be hidden above and partly form the part of the image
Camera obscura
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A drawing of a camera obscura
Camera obscura
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Camerae obscurae for
Daguerreotype called "Grand Photographe" produced by Charles Chevalier (
Musée des Arts et Métiers)
Camera obscura
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An image of the New Royal Palace at
Prague Castle projected onto an attic wall by a hole in the tile roofing
Camera obscura
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Camera obscura in
Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers
21.
Johannes Kepler
–
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newtons theory of universal gravitation, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague and he was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Kepler lived in an era when there was no distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy and physics. Kepler was born on December 27, the feast day of St John the Evangelist,1571 and his grandfather, Sebald Kepler, had been Lord Mayor of the city. By the time Johannes was born, he had two brothers and one sister and the Kepler family fortune was in decline and his father, Heinrich Kepler, earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and he left the family when Johannes was five years old. He was believed to have died in the Eighty Years War in the Netherlands and his mother Katharina Guldenmann, an innkeepers daughter, was a healer and herbalist. Born prematurely, Johannes claimed to have weak and sickly as a child. Nevertheless, he often impressed travelers at his grandfathers inn with his phenomenal mathematical faculty and he was introduced to astronomy at an early age, and developed a love for it that would span his entire life. At age six, he observed the Great Comet of 1577, in 1580, at age nine, he observed another astronomical event, a lunar eclipse, recording that he remembered being called outdoors to see it and that the moon appeared quite red. However, childhood smallpox left him with vision and crippled hands. In 1589, after moving through grammar school, Latin school, there, he studied philosophy under Vitus Müller and theology under Jacob Heerbrand, who also taught Michael Maestlin while he was a student, until he became Chancellor at Tübingen in 1590. He proved himself to be a mathematician and earned a reputation as a skilful astrologer. Under the instruction of Michael Maestlin, Tübingens professor of mathematics from 1583 to 1631 and he became a Copernican at that time. In a student disputation, he defended heliocentrism from both a theoretical and theological perspective, maintaining that the Sun was the source of motive power in the universe. Despite his desire to become a minister, near the end of his studies, Kepler was recommended for a position as teacher of mathematics and he accepted the position in April 1594, at the age of 23. Keplers first major work, Mysterium Cosmographicum, was the first published defense of the Copernican system
Johannes Kepler
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A 1610 portrait of Johannes Kepler by an unknown artist
Johannes Kepler
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Birthplace of Johannes Kepler in Weil der Stadt
Johannes Kepler
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Portraits of Kepler and his wife in oval medallions
Johannes Kepler
–
House of Johannes Kepler and Barbara Müller in Gössendorf near Graz (1597–1599)
22.
Geocentric model
–
In astronomy, the geocentric model is a superseded description of the universe with the Earth at the center. Under the geocentric model, the Sun, Moon, stars, the geocentric model served as the predominant description of the cosmos in many ancient civilizations, such as those of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Two observations supported the idea that the Earth was the center of the Universe, first, the Sun appears to revolve around the Earth once per day. While the Moon and the planets have their own motions, they appear to revolve around the Earth about once per day. The stars appeared to be on a sphere, rotating once each day along an axis through the north and south geographic poles of the Earth. Second, the Earth does not seem to move from the perspective of an Earth-bound observer, it appears to be solid, stable, Ancient Greek, ancient Roman and medieval philosophers usually combined the geocentric model with a spherical Earth. It is not the same as the older flat Earth model implied in some mythology, the ancient Jewish Babylonian uranography pictured a flat Earth with a dome-shaped rigid canopy named firmament placed over it. The astronomical predictions of Ptolemys geocentric model were used to prepare astrological and astronomical charts for over 1500 years. The geocentric model held sway into the modern age, but from the late 16th century onward, it was gradually superseded by the Heliocentric model of Copernicus, Galileo. There was much resistance to the transition between these two theories, christian theologians were reluctant to reject a theory that agreed with Bible passages. Others felt a new, unknown theory could not subvert an accepted consensus for geocentrism, the geocentric model entered Greek astronomy and philosophy at an early point, it can be found in Pre-Socratic philosophy. In the 6th century BC, Anaximander proposed a cosmology with the Earth shaped like a section of a pillar, the Sun, Moon, and planets were holes in invisible wheels surrounding the Earth, through the holes, humans could see concealed fire. About the same time, the Pythagoreans thought that the Earth was a sphere, later these views were combined, so most educated Greeks from the 4th century BC on thought that the Earth was a sphere at the center of the universe. In the 4th century BC, two influential Greek philosophers, Plato and his student Aristotle, wrote works based on the geocentric model, according to Plato, the Earth was a sphere, stationary at the center of the universe. In his Myth of Er, a section of the Republic, Plato describes the cosmos as the Spindle of Necessity, attended by the Sirens and these spheres, known as crystalline spheres, all moved at different uniform speeds to create the revolution of bodies around the Earth. They were composed of a substance called aether. Aristotle believed that the moon was in the innermost sphere and therefore touches the realm of Earth, causing the dark spots and he further described his system by explaining the natural tendencies of the terrestrial elements, Earth, water, fire, air, as well as celestial aether. His system held that Earth was the heaviest element, with the strongest movement towards the center, the tendency of air and fire, on the other hand, was to move upwards, away from the center, with fire being lighter than air
Geocentric model
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Figure of the heavenly bodies — An illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric system by Portuguese cosmographer and cartographer
Bartolomeu Velho, 1568 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)
Geocentric model
–
Pages from 1550 Annotazione on Sacrobosco's Tractatus de Sphaera, showing the Ptolemaic system.
Geocentric model
–
This drawing from an
Icelandic manuscript dated around 1750 illustrates the geocentric model.
Geocentric model
–
Map of the Square and Stationary Earth, by Orlando Ferguson (1893)
23.
Paris Observatory
–
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
Paris Observatory
–
Paris Observatory
Paris Observatory
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Meridian Room (or Cassini Room) at the Paris Observatory. The
Paris Meridian is traced on the floor.
Paris Observatory
–
Solar Observatory Tower
24.
Machine de Marly
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King Louis XIV needed a large water supply for his fountains at Versailles. Before the Marly Machine was built, the amount of water delivered to Versailles already exceeded that used by the city of Paris, but this was insufficient, and fountain-rationing was necessary. Ironically most of the water pumped by the Marly Machine ended up being used to develop a new garden at the Château de Marly. However, even if all the water pumped at Marly had been supplied to Versailles, it still would not have been enough, Louis XIV had countless schemes and inventions that were supposed to bring water to his fountains. The Machine de Marly was by far his most extensive and costly plan, after three years of construction and a cost of approximately 5,500,000 livres, the massive contraption, considered the most complex of the 17th century, was completed. The chief engineer for the project was Arnold de Ville and the contractor was Rennequin Sualem, both men had experience in pumping water from coal mines in the region of Liège. The machine suffered from frequent breakdowns, required a permanent staff of sixty to maintain, and often required costly repairs, destroyed in 1817, it was replaced by a machine temporaire during 10 years and then a steam engine entered in service from 1827 to 1859. From 1859 to 1963, the pumping at Marly was assumed by another hydraulic machine conceived by the engineer Xavier Dufrayer, Dufrayers machine was scrapped in 1968 and replaced by electromechanical pumps. From the beginning, the construction of the château and the park of Versailles water supply had posed a problem, the site chosen by Louis XIV, a former hunting lodge of Louis XIII, was far removed from any river and high in elevation. The idea to bring water from the Seine to Versailles had always been under consideration, but more than just the distance - the river is located nearly 10 km from the château - there was the problem of the elevation to ascend, nearly 150 meters. The Machine de Marly site is located 7 km north of the Château de Versailles and 16.3 km west of the center of Paris, on the Seine in the Yvelines department. The river pumps and administration buildings are in the town of Bougival, relay pumps, machinery, one reservoir is in the town of Marly-le-Roi. A dam at Bezons on the right arm creates a hydraulic head measuring 3.1 meters high to power the wheels of the Machine de Marly. To design and build this machine, Arnold de Ville, who did not have the technical skills and he had already worked with them on a pump at the Château de Modave and Rennequin Sualem was the designer of the pump at the Château de Val. The entire project – channeling and dikes on the Seine, construction of the machine, the site chosen on the Seine was that of Bougival. The construction mobilized 1800 workers and require more than 100,000 tons of wood,17,000 tons of iron and 800 tons of lead and as much cast iron. The wood used in the construction of the platform and the wheels of the machine, the iron for rods came from the Nivernais and Champagne and most of the cast iron pipe was produced in Normandy. A large number of Walloons came to work on the project and they possessed a know-how acquired from their work on water evacuation from mines
Machine de Marly
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Vue de la Machine de Marly (1723) by
Pierre-Denis Martin, showing the Machine de Marly on the Seine, the Louveciennes hillside, and in the background to the right, the
aqueduc de Louveciennes to which the water was pumped by the Machine
Machine de Marly
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The 1859 Machine de Marly painted circa 1873 by
Alfred Sisley
Machine de Marly
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Location of the Machine de Marly
Machine de Marly
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Location of the components of the Machine de Marly (detail)
25.
Aerial telescope
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An aerial telescope is a type of very long focal length refracting telescope, built in the second half of the 17th century, that did not use a tube. Instead, the objective was mounted on a pole, tree, tower, the observer stood on the ground and held the eyepiece, which was connected to the objective by a string or connecting rod. By holding the string tight and maneuvering the eyepiece, the observer could aim the telescope at objects in the sky and this degraded the quality of the images they produced. Telescope makers from that era found that very long focal length objectives had no appreciable chromatic aberration and they also realized that when they doubled the diameter of their objectives they had to make the objectives focal length 4 times as long to achieve the same amount of minimal chromatic aberration. As the objective diameter of these refracting telescopes was increased to more light. Besides having very long tubes, these telescopes needed scaffolding or long masts and their value as research tools was minimal since the telescopes support frame and tube flexed and vibrated in the slightest breeze and sometimes collapsed altogether. Around 1675 the brothers Christiaan and Constantine Huygens decided to accommodate the long focal length objectives they were creating by eliminating the tube altogether. In the Huygens aerial telescope the objective was mounted inside an iron tube mounted on a swiveling ball-joint on top of an adjustable mast. The eyepiece was mounted in another short tube, and the two tubes were kept aligned by a connecting string. The Huygens contrived some ingenious arrangements for aiming these aerial telescopes at an object visible in the night sky. The telescope could be aimed at bright objects such as planets by looking for their image cast on a white pasteboard ring or oiled translucent paper screen and then centering them in the eyepiece. Fainter objects could be found by looking for the reflection of a lamp held in the hand being bounced back by the objective. Other contrivances for the purpose are described by Philippe de la Hire. The objectives for aerial telescopes sometimes had very long focal lengths, Christiaan Huygens states that in 1686 he and his brother made objectives of 8 inch and 8.5 inch diameter and 170 and 210 ft focal length, respectively. Constantijn Huygens, Jr. presented a 7.5 inch diameter 123 ft focal length objective to the Royal Society of London in 1690. Adrien Auzout and others made telescopes of from 300 to 600 ft focal length, on this tower he mounted long tubed telescopes and the objectives of aerial telescopes made for him by the Italian optician Giuseppe Campani. In 1684 he used one of his telescopes to find Dione and Tethys. The extreme difficulty of using very long focal length telescopes led astronomers to develop alternative designs
Aerial telescope
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An engraving of Huygens's 210-foot aerial telescope showing the eyepiece and objective mounts and connecting string.
Aerial telescope
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1673 woodcut illustration of
Johannes Hevelius 's 8 inch telescope with an open work wood and wire "tube" that had a focal length of 150 feet to limit chromatic aberration.
26.
Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood
Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV by
Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701)
Louis XIV of France
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Louis-Dieudonné,
Dauphin of France, in 1643 by
Claude Deruet
Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV as a child, unknown painter
Louis XIV of France
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1655 portrait of Louis, the Victor of the Fronde, portrayed as the god
Jupiter
27.
Astrology and astronomy
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Astrology and astronomy were archaically treated together, and were only gradually separated in Western 17th century philosophy with the rejection of astrology. During the later part of the period, astronomy was treated as the foundation upon which astrology could operate. Since the 18th century they have come to be regarded as separate disciplines. Astronomy, the study of objects and phenomena originating beyond the Earths atmosphere, is a science and is a widely studied academic discipline, in pre-modern times, most cultures did not make a clear distinction between the two disciplines, putting them both together as one. This overlap does not mean that astrology and astronomy were always regarded as one, in ancient Greece, pre-Socratic thinkers such as Anaximander, Xenophanes, Anaximenes, and Heraclides speculated about the nature and substance of the stars and planets. Astronomers such as Eudoxus observed planetary motions and cycles, and created a geocentric cosmological model that would be accepted by Aristotle and this model generally lasted until Ptolemy, who added epicycles to explain the retrograde motion of Mars. The Platonic school promoted the study of astronomy as a part of philosophy because the motions of the heavens demonstrate an orderly, in the third century BC, Babylonian astrology began to make its presence felt in Greece. Astrology was criticized by Hellenistic philosophers such as the Academic Skeptic Carneades, however, the notions of the Great Year and eternal recurrence were Stoic doctrines that made divination and fatalism possible. In the Hellenistic world, the Greek words astrologia and astronomia were often used interchangeably, plato taught about astronomia and stipulated that planetary phenomena should be described by a geometrical model. The first solution was proposed by Eudoxus, Aristotle favored a physical approach and adopted the word astrologia. Eccentrics and epicycles came to be thought of as useful fictions, for a more general public, the distinguishing principle was not evident and either word was acceptable. For the Babylonian horoscopic practice, the words used were apotelesma and katarche. Isidore identified the two strands entangled in the discipline and called them astrologia naturalis and astrologia superstitiosa. Astrology was widely accepted in medieval Europe as astrological texts from Hellenistic and Arabic astrologers were translated into Latin, in the late Middle Ages, its acceptance or rejection often depended on its reception in the royal courts of Europe. Not until the time of Francis Bacon was astrology rejected as a part of scholastic metaphysics rather than empirical observation, because of their lengthy shared history, it sometimes happens that the two are confused with one another even today. Many contemporary astrologers, however, do not claim that astrology is a science, but think of it as a form of divination like the I-Ching, the primary goal of astronomy is to understand the physics of the universe. Astrologers use astronomical calculations for the positions of bodies along the ecliptic and attempt to correlate celestial events with earthly events. Astronomers consistently use the method, naturalistic presuppositions and abstract mathematical reasoning to investigate or explain phenomena in the universe
Astrology and astronomy
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Early science, particularly
geometry and astronomy/astrology (astronomia), was connected to the divine for most
medieval scholars. The
compass in this 13th-century manuscript is a symbol of God's act of
creation, as many believed that there was something intrinsically divine or perfect that could be found in
circles.
Astrology and astronomy
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New millennium astrological chart
Astrology and astronomy
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Astrologer–astronomer
Richard of Wallingford is shown measuring an
equatorium with a pair of compasses in this 14th-century work.
Astrology and astronomy
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An engraving by
Albrecht Dürer featuring
Mashallah, from the title page of the De scientia motus orbis (Latin version with engraving, 1504). As in many medieval illustrations, the
compass here is an icon of religion as well as science, in reference to God as the architect of creation.
28.
Jacques Cassini
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Jacques Cassini was a French astronomer, son of the famous Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini. Cassini was born at the Paris Observatory, admitted at the age of seventeen to membership of the French Academy of Sciences, he was elected in 1696 a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and became maître des comptes in 1706. His two separate calculations for a degree of meridian arc were 57,097 toises de Paris and 57,061 toises, giving results for Earths radius of 3,271,420 toises and 3,269,297 toises, respectively. He published the first tables of the satellites of Saturn in 1716 and he died at Thury, near Clermont, France. The asteroid 24102 Jacquescassini is named after him, Jacques Cassini married Suzanne Françoise Charpentier de Charmois. Their second son was astronomer César-François Cassini de Thury, who was known as Cassini III. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. OConnor, John J. Robertson, Edmund F. Jacques Cassini, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, Jacques Cassini at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Jacques Cassini
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Jacques Cassini
