1.
Jack Kirby
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Jack Kirby, born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer, and editor, widely regarded as one of the mediums major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. Kirby grew up in New York City, and learned to draw cartoon figures by tracing characters from comic strips and he entered the nascent comics industry in the 1930s, drawing various comics features under different pen names, including Jack Curtiss, before ultimately settling on Jack Kirby. In 1940, he and writer-editor Joe Simon created the highly successful superhero character Captain America for Timely Comics, during the 1940s, Kirby, generally teamed with Simon, created numerous characters for that company and for National Comics Publications, later to become DC Comics. After serving in World War II, Kirby produced work for a number of publishers, including DC, Harvey Comics, at Crestwood Publications he and Simon created the genre of romance comics and later founded their own short-lived comic company, Mainline Publications. Ultimately, Kirby found himself at Timelys 1950s iteration, Atlas Comics, there, in the 1960s, Kirby and writer-editor Stan Lee co-created many of the companys major characters, including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk. The Lee-Kirby titles garnered high sales and critical acclaim, but in 1970, feeling he had been treated unfairly, at DC, Kirby created his Fourth World saga, which spanned several comics titles. While these series proved unsuccessful and were canceled, the Fourth Worlds New Gods have continued as a significant part of the DC Universe. Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the mid-to-late 1970s, then ventured into television animation, Kirby was married to Rosalind Roz Goldstein in 1942. They had four children, and remained married until his death from heart failure in 1994, the Jack Kirby Awards and Jack Kirby Hall of Fame were named in his honor. Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28,1917, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City and his parents, Rose and Benjamin Kurtzberg, were Austrian Jewish immigrants, and his father earned a living as a garment factory worker. In his youth, Kirby desired to escape his neighborhood and he liked to draw, and sought out places he could learn more about art. He was rejected by the Educational Alliance because he drew too fast with charcoal and he later found an outlet for his skills by drawing cartoons for the newspaper of the Boys Brotherhood Republic, a miniature city on East 3rd Street where street kids ran their own government. At age 14, Kirby enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, I wasnt the kind of student that Pratt was looking for. They wanted people who would work on something forever, I didnt want to work on any project forever. I intended to get things done, Kirby joined the Lincoln Newspaper Syndicate in 1936, working there on newspaper comic strips and on single-panel advice cartoons such as Your Health Comes First. He remained until late 1939, when he began working for the animation company Fleischer Studios as an inbetweener on Popeye cartoons. I went from Lincoln to Fleischer, he recalled, from Fleischer I had to get out in a hurry because I couldnt take that kind of thing, describing it as a factory in a sense, like my fathers factory. Around that time, the American comic book industry was booming, Kirby began writing and drawing for the comic-book packager Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of firms creating comics on demand for publishers
2.
Jefferson City, Missouri
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Jefferson City is the capital of the State of Missouri and the fifteenth most populous city in the state. It is also the county seat of Cole County and the city of the Jefferson City Metropolitan Statistical Area. Jefferson City is named for Thomas Jefferson, the president of the United States. Jefferson City currently holds the title of Americas Most Beautiful Small Town, Jefferson City is on the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau on the southern side of the Missouri River in a region known as Mid-Missouri. It is also at the edge of one of the major wine-producing regions of the Midwest. Often referred to as Jeff, many of Jefferson Citys primary employers fall within the service and manufacturing industries, Jefferson City is also home to Lincoln University, a public historically black land-grant university founded in 1866 by the 62nd Regiment of U. S. Colored Troops with additional support from the 65th Regiment of U. S, in pre-Columbian times, this region was home of an ancient people known only as the Mound Builders. They were no longer present by the time of the first white settlers, when the Missouri Territory was organized in 1812, St. Louis was Missouris seat of government, and St. Charles would serve as the next capital. In the middle of the state, Jefferson City was chosen as the new capital in 1821 when Thomas Jefferson was still living, the village first was called Lohmans Landing, and when the legislature decided to relocate there, they proposed the name Missouriopolis before settling on Jefferson City. For years, this village was more than a trading post located in the wilderness about midway between St. Louis and Kansas City. In 1825, the settlement was incorporated as a city and a year later, Jefferson City was chosen as the site of a state prison. This prison, named the Missouri State Penitentiary, opened in 1836 and this prison was home to multiple infamous Americans, including former heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, assassin James Earl Ray, and bank robber Charles Pretty Boy Floyd. During the Civil War, Jefferson City was occupied by Union troops, some of the legislators later reconvened in Neosho, Missouri and passed an ordinance of secession. Missouri was claimed by both the Confederacy and the Union, just like the neighboring state Kentucky, German immigrants created vineyards in small towns on either side of the Missouri River, especially on the north from the city east to Marthasville, located outside of St. Louis. Known as the Missouri Rhineland for its vineyards and first established by German immigrants in the mid-1800s, this region has become part of the agricultural and tourist economy. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 37.58 square miles. Jefferson City has a climate between a humid subtropical and humid continental climate with hot, rainy summers and cold winters. Thunderstorms are common in both the spring and summer, light snow is common during the winter, although about half of wintertime precipitation falls as rain
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
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
5.
Electrical engineering
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Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. This field first became an occupation in the later half of the 19th century after commercialization of the electric telegraph, the telephone. Subsequently, broadcasting and recording media made electronics part of daily life, the invention of the transistor, and later the integrated circuit, brought down the cost of electronics to the point they can be used in almost any household object. Electrical engineers typically hold a degree in engineering or electronic engineering. Practicing engineers may have professional certification and be members of a professional body, such bodies include the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Electrical engineers work in a wide range of industries and the skills required are likewise variable. These range from basic circuit theory to the management skills required of a project manager, the tools and equipment that an individual engineer may need are similarly variable, ranging from a simple voltmeter to a top end analyzer to sophisticated design and manufacturing software. Electricity has been a subject of scientific interest since at least the early 17th century and he also designed the versorium, a device that detected the presence of statically charged objects. In the 19th century, research into the subject started to intensify, Electrical engineering became a profession in the later 19th century. Practitioners had created an electric telegraph network and the first professional electrical engineering institutions were founded in the UK. Over 50 years later, he joined the new Society of Telegraph Engineers where he was regarded by other members as the first of their cohort, Practical applications and advances in such fields created an increasing need for standardised units of measure. They led to the standardization of the units volt, ampere, coulomb, ohm, farad. This was achieved at a conference in Chicago in 1893. During these years, the study of electricity was considered to be a subfield of physics. Thats because early electrical technology was electromechanical in nature, the Technische Universität Darmstadt founded the worlds first department of electrical engineering in 1882. The first course in engineering was taught in 1883 in Cornell’s Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering. It was not until about 1885 that Cornell President Andrew Dickson White established the first Department of Electrical Engineering in the United States, in the same year, University College London founded the first chair of electrical engineering in Great Britain. Professor Mendell P. Weinbach at University of Missouri soon followed suit by establishing the engineering department in 1886
6.
Integrated circuit
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An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece of semiconductor material, normally silicon. The ICs mass production capability, reliability and building-block approach to circuit design ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of using discrete transistors. ICs are now used in all electronic equipment and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones, and other home appliances are now inextricable parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the small size. These advances, roughly following Moores law, allow a computer chip of 2016 to have millions of times the capacity, ICs have two main advantages over discrete circuits, cost and performance. Cost is low because the chips, with all their components, are printed as a unit by photolithography rather than being constructed one transistor at a time, furthermore, packaged ICs use much less material than discrete circuits. Performance is high because the ICs components switch quickly and consume little power because of their small size, the main disadvantage of ICs is the high cost to design them and fabricate the required photomasks. This high initial cost means ICs are only practical when high production volumes are anticipated, Circuits meeting this definition can be constructed using many different technologies, including thin-film transistor, thick film technology, or hybrid integrated circuit. However, in general usage integrated circuit has come to refer to the single-piece circuit construction originally known as a integrated circuit. Jacobi disclosed small and cheap hearing aids as typical industrial applications of his patent, an immediate commercial use of his patent has not been reported. The idea of the circuit was conceived by Geoffrey Dummer. Dummer presented the idea to the public at the Symposium on Progress in Quality Electronic Components in Washington and he gave many symposia publicly to propagate his ideas, and unsuccessfully attempted to build such a circuit in 1956. A precursor idea to the IC was to create small ceramic squares, Components could then be integrated and wired into a bidimensional or tridimensional compact grid. This idea, which seemed very promising in 1957, was proposed to the US Army by Jack Kilby, however, as the project was gaining momentum, Kilby came up with a new, revolutionary design, the IC. In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as a body of semiconductor material … wherein all the components of the circuit are completely integrated. The first customer for the new invention was the US Air Force, Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit. His work was named an IEEE Milestone in 2009, half a year after Kilby, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor developed his own idea of an integrated circuit that solved many practical problems Kilbys had not. Noyces design was made of silicon, whereas Kilbys chip was made of germanium, Noyce credited Kurt Lehovec of Sprague Electric for the principle of p–n junction isolation, a key concept behind the IC
7.
Calculator
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An electronic calculator is a small, portable electronic device used to perform operations ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid state electronic calculator was created in the 1960s, building on the history of tools such as the abacus. It was developed in parallel with the computers of the day. The pocket sized devices became available in the 1970s, especially after the first microprocessor and they later became used commonly within the petroleum industry. Modern electronic calculators vary, from cheap, give-away, credit-card-sized models to sturdy desktop models with built-in printers and they became popular in the mid-1970s. By the end of decade, calculator prices had reduced to a point where a basic calculator was affordable to most. In addition to general purpose calculators, there are designed for specific markets. For example, there are scientific calculators which include trigonometric and statistical calculations, some calculators even have the ability to do computer algebra. Graphing calculators can be used to graph functions defined on the real line, as of 2016, basic calculators cost little, but the scientific and graphing models tend to cost more. In 1986, calculators still represented an estimated 41% of the worlds general-purpose hardware capacity to compute information, by 2007, this diminished to less than 0. 05%. Modern 2016 electronic calculators contain a keyboard with buttons for digits and arithmetical operations, most basic calculators assign only one digit or operation on each button, however, in more specific calculators, a button can perform multi-function working with key combinations. Large-sized figures and comma separators are used to improve readability. Various symbols for function commands may also be shown on the display, fractions such as 1⁄3 are displayed as decimal approximations, for example rounded to 0.33333333. Also, some fractions can be difficult to recognize in decimal form, as a result, Calculators also have the ability to store numbers into computer memory. Basic types of these only one number at a time. The variables can also be used for constructing formulas, some models have the ability to extend memory capacity to store more numbers, the extended memory address is termed an array index. Power sources of calculators are, batteries, solar cells or mains electricity, some models even have no turn-off button but they provide some way to put off. Crank-powered calculators were also common in the computer era
8.
Great Bend, Kansas
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Great Bend is a city in and the county seat of Barton County, Kansas, United States. It is named for its location at the point where the course of the Arkansas River bends east then southeast, as of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 15,995. Prior to American settlement of the area, the site of Great Bend was located in the reaches of Kiowa territory. Claimed first by France as part of Louisiana and later acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Kansas became a state in 1861, and the state government delineated the surrounding area as Barton County in 1867. The first settlers of the arrived in 1870. Living in sod houses and dugouts, they worked as buffalo hunters since trampling by bison herds precluded crop farming and they named the settlement after its location at the great bend in the Arkansas River where the river’s course turns eastward. The town began to grow as settlers arrived over the following year. The railroad reached Great Bend in July 1872, and an election at about the time declared the town the permanent county seat. Great Bend was incorporated as a city soon thereafter, the county courthouse and the city’s first public school were built the following year. In 1873, following the arrival of the railroad, Great Bend became a point for cattle. This stimulated local business but also transformed the city into a rowdy, in 1876, the Kansas Legislature extended the legal dead line restricting the presence of Texas cattle 30 miles west of Barton County. The cattle trade moved westward accordingly, and the city more peaceful. Over the following decades, Great Bend continued to grow and modernize and this was despite two disasters which struck the city, a downtown fire in 1878 and a smallpox outbreak in 1882 which resulted in a brief quarantine. In 1886, local speculators began to fund exploration for petroleum in the area, by 1930, the oil and gas industry brought more than $20 million annually to the county. More than 3,000 wells produced during the 1930s, the U. S. Army Air Forces opened Great Bend Army Airfield west of the city in 1943. The base served as training facility for B-29 bomber aircraft personnel during World War II, after the war, the City of Great Bend acquired the base and repurposed it for civilian use as Great Bend Municipal Airport. The city continued to grow through the 1950s, its population peaking at almost 17,000 in 1960, in 1973, the Fuller Brush Company relocated its production facilities to Great Bend, becoming one of the city’s major employers. Despite a modest decline in population in recent decades, Great Bend continues to serve as a center for central Kansas
9.
Milwaukee
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Milwaukee is the largest city in the state of Wisconsin and the fifth-largest city in the Midwestern United States. The county seat of Milwaukee County, it is on Lake Michigans western shore, Milwaukees estimated population in 2015 was 600,155. Milwaukee is the cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee–Racine–Waukesha Metropolitan Area with an estimated population of 2,046,692 as of 2015. Ranked by estimated 2014 population, Milwaukee is the 31st largest city in the United States, the first Europeans to pass through the area were French Catholic missionaries and fur traders. In 1818, the French Canadian explorer Solomon Juneau settled in the area, large numbers of German immigrants helped increase the citys population during the 1840s, with Poles and other immigrants arriving in the following decades. Known for its traditions, Milwaukee is currently experiencing its largest construction boom since the 1960s. In addition, many new skyscrapers, condos, lofts and apartments have been built in neighborhoods on and near the lakefront, the word Milwaukee may come from the Potawatomi language minwaking, or Ojibwe language ominowakiing, Gathering place. The first recorded inhabitants of the Milwaukee area are the Menominee, Fox, Mascouten, Sauk, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, many of these people had lived around Green Bay before migrating to the Milwaukee area around the time of European contact. In the second half of the 18th century, the Indians at Milwaukee played a role in all the wars on the American continent. During the French and Indian War, a group of Ojibwas, in the American Revolutionary War, the Indians around Milwaukee were some of the few Indians who remained loyal to the American cause throughout the Revolution. After American independence, the Indians fought the United States in the Northwest Indian War as part of the Council of Three Fires, during the War of 1812, Indians held a council in Milwaukee in June 1812, which resulted in their decision to attack Chicago. This resulted in the Battle of Fort Dearborn on August 15,1812, the War of 1812 did not end well for the Indians, and after the Black Hawk War in 1832, the Indians in Milwaukee signed their final treaty with the United States in Chicago in 1833. This paved the way for American settlement, Europeans had arrived in the Milwaukee area prior to the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. French missionaries and traders first passed through the area in the late 17th and 18th centuries, alexis Laframboise, in 1785, coming from Michilimackinac settled a trading post, therefore, he is the first European descent resident of the Milwaukee region. Early explorers called the Milwaukee River and surrounding lands various names, Melleorki, Milwacky, Mahn-a-waukie, Milwarck, for many years, printed records gave the name as Milwaukie. One story of Milwaukees name says, ne day during the thirties of the last century a newspaper calmly changed the name to Milwaukee, the spelling Milwaukie lives on in Milwaukie, Oregon, named after the Wisconsin city in 1847, before the current spelling was universally accepted. Milwaukee has three founding fathers, Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn, and George H. Walker, Solomon Juneau was the first of the three to come to the area, in 1818. He was not the first European settler but founded a town called Juneaus Side, or Juneautown, in competition with Juneau, Byron Kilbourn established Kilbourntown west of the Milwaukee River and made sure the streets running toward the river did not join with those on the east side
10.
Germanium
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Germanium is a chemical element with symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid in the group, chemically similar to its group neighbors tin. Pure germanium is a semiconductor with a similar to elemental silicon. Like silicon, germanium naturally reacts and forms complexes with oxygen in nature, unlike silicon, it is too reactive to be found naturally on Earth in the free state. Because it seldom appears in high concentration, germanium was discovered late in the history of chemistry. Germanium ranks near fiftieth in relative abundance of the elements in the Earths crust, in 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted its existence and some of its properties from its position on his periodic table, and called the element ekasilicon. Nearly two decades later, in 1886, Clemens Winkler found the new element along with silver and sulfur, although the new element somewhat resembled arsenic and antimony in appearance, the combining ratios in compounds agreed with Mendeleevs predictions for a relative of silicon. Winkler named the element after his country, Germany, today, germanium is mined primarily from sphalerite, though germanium is also recovered commercially from silver, lead, and copper ores. Germanium metal is used as a semiconductor in transistors and various electronic devices. Historically, the first decade of semiconductor electronics was based entirely on germanium, today, the amount of germanium produced for semiconductor electronics is one fiftieth the amount of ultra-high purity silicon produced for the same. Presently, the end uses are fibre-optic systems, infrared optics, solar cell applications. Germanium compounds are used for polymerization catalysts and have most recently found use in the production of nanowires. This element forms a number of organometallic compounds, such as tetraethylgermane. Germanium is not thought to be an element for any living organism. Some complex organic compounds are being investigated as possible pharmaceuticals. Similar to silicon and aluminum, natural germanium compounds tend to be insoluble in water, however, synthetic soluble germanium salts are nephrotoxic, and synthetic chemically reactive germanium compounds with halogens and hydrogen are irritants and toxins. Because of its position in his Periodic Table, Mendeleev called it ekasilicon, in mid-1885, at a mine near Freiberg, Saxony, a new mineral was discovered and named argyrodite because of the high silver content. The chemist Clemens Winkler analyzed this new mineral, which proved to be a combination of silver, sulfur, Winkler was able to isolate the new element in 1886 and found it similar to antimony
