1.
Mexico City
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Mexico City, or City of Mexico, is the capital and most populous city of Mexico. As an alpha global city, Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in the Americas and it is located in the Valley of Mexico, a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 metres. The city consists of sixteen municipalities, the 2009 estimated population for the city proper was approximately 8.84 million people, with a land area of 1,485 square kilometres. The Greater Mexico City has a domestic product of US$411 billion in 2011. The city was responsible for generating 15. 8% of Mexicos Gross Domestic Product, as a stand-alone country, in 2013, Mexico City would be the fifth-largest economy in Latin America—five times as large as Costa Ricas and about the same size as Perus. Mexico’s capital is both the oldest capital city in the Americas and one of two founded by Amerindians, the other being Quito. In 1524, the municipality of Mexico City was established, known as México Tenochtitlán, Mexico City served as the political, administrative and financial center of a major part of the Spanish colonial empire. After independence from Spain was achieved, the district was created in 1824. Ever since, the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution has controlled both of them, in recent years, the local government has passed a wave of liberal policies, such as abortion on request, a limited form of euthanasia, no-fault divorce, and same-sex marriage. On January 29,2016, it ceased to be called the Federal District and is now in transition to become the countrys 32nd federal entity, giving it a level of autonomy comparable to that of a state. Because of a clause in the Mexican Constitution, however, as the seat of the powers of the federation, it can never become a state, the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan was founded by the Mexica people in 1325. According to legend, the Mexicas principal god, Huitzilopochtli indicated the site where they were to build their home by presenting an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak. Between 1325 and 1521, Tenochtitlan grew in size and strength, eventually dominating the other city-states around Lake Texcoco, when the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec Empire had reached much of Mesoamerica, touching both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. After landing in Veracruz, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés advanced upon Tenochtitlan with the aid of many of the native peoples. Cortés put Moctezuma under house arrest, hoping to rule through him, the Aztecs thought the Spaniards were permanently gone, and they elected a new king, Cuitláhuac, but he soon died, the next king was Cuauhtémoc. Cortés began a siege of Tenochtitlan in May 1521, for three months, the city suffered from the lack of food and water as well as the spread of smallpox brought by the Europeans. Cortés and his allies landed their forces in the south of the island, the Spaniards practically razed Tenochtitlan during the final siege of the conquest. Cortés first settled in Coyoacán, but decided to rebuild the Aztec site to erase all traces of the old order and he did not establish a territory under his own personal rule, but remained loyal to the Spanish crown
2.
Harvard University
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Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
3.
Princeton University
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Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The institution moved to Newark in 1747, then to the current site nine years later, Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. The university has ties with the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton has the largest endowment per student in the United States. The university has graduated many notable alumni, two U. S. Presidents,12 U. S. Supreme Court Justices, and numerous living billionaires and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princetons alumni body. New Light Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey in 1746 in order to train ministers, the college was the educational and religious capital of Scots-Irish America. In 1754, trustees of the College of New Jersey suggested that, in recognition of Governors interest, gov. Jonathan Belcher replied, What a name that would be. In 1756, the moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Its home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal House of Orange-Nassau of William III of England, following the untimely deaths of Princetons first five presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that office until his death in 1794. During his presidency, Witherspoon shifted the focus from training ministers to preparing a new generation for leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards and solicited investment in the college, in 1812, the eighth president the College of New Jersey, Ashbel Green, helped establish the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. The plan to extend the theological curriculum met with approval on the part of the authorities at the College of New Jersey. Today, Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary maintain separate institutions with ties that include such as cross-registration. Before the construction of Stanhope Hall in 1803, Nassau Hall was the sole building. The cornerstone of the building was laid on September 17,1754, during the summer of 1783, the Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the countrys capital for four months. The class of 1879 donated twin lion sculptures that flanked the entrance until 1911, Nassau Halls bell rang after the halls construction, however, the fire of 1802 melted it. The bell was then recast and melted again in the fire of 1855, James McCosh took office as the colleges president in 1868 and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the American Civil War. McCosh Hall is named in his honor, in 1879, the first thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy Ph. D. was submitted by James F. Williamson, Class of 1877. In 1896, the officially changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University to honor the town in which it resides
4.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, also known as U of I, University of Illinois, UIUC, or simply Illinois, is a public research-intensive university in the U. S. state of Illinois. Founded in 1867 as a land-grant institution in the cities of Champaign and Urbana, it is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system. In fiscal year 2015, total research expedentures at Illinois totaled $640 million, the campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States after Harvard University. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is home to the fastest supercomputer on a university campus, the university comprises 17 colleges that offer more than 150 programs of study. Additionally, the university operates an extension that offers programs to more than 1.5 million registrants per year around the state of Illinois. The university holds 647 buildings on 4,552 acres and its operating budget in 2016 was over $2 billion. Even though Illinois is a university, only about 12% of the budget comes from the state. Between several cities, Urbana was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school, the University opened for classes on March 2,1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students. Gregory is largely credited with establishing the University as it is today, Gregorys grave is on the Urbana campus, between Altgeld Hall and the Henry Administration Building. His headstone reads, If you seek his monument, look about you, the Library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes. Subsequently, President Edmund J. James, in a speech to the Board of Trustees in 1912 and it is now one of the worlds largest public academic collections. In 1870, the Mumford House was constructed as a farmhouse for the schools experimental farm. The Mumford House remains the oldest structure on campus, the original University Hall was the fourth building built, it stood where the Illini Union stands today. During the Presidency of Edmund J. James, James is credited for building the foundation of the large Chinese international student population on campus, on June 11,1929, the Alma Mater statue was unveiled. The Alma Mater was established by donations by the Alumni Fund, the University replaced the original university hall with Gregory Hall and the Illini Union. After World War II, the university experienced rapid growth, the enrollment doubled and the academic standing improved. This period was marked by large growth in the Graduate College and increased federal support of scientific. During the 1950s and ’60s the university experienced the turmoil common on many American campuses, among these were the water fights of the fifties and sixties
5.
Bruno Latour
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Bruno Latour is a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist. He is especially known for his work in the field of science, after teaching at the École des Mines de Paris from 1982 to 2006, he is now Professor at Sciences Po Paris, where he is the scientific director of the Sciences Po Medialab. He is also a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, Latour is best known for his books We Have Never Been Modern, Laboratory Life and Science in Action. Although his studies of scientific practice were at one time associated with social constructionist approaches to the philosophy of science and he is best known for withdrawing from the subjective/objective division and re-developing the approach to work in practice. Latours monographs earned him a 10th place among most-cited book authors in the humanities, Latour is related to a well-known family of winemakers from Burgundy, but is not associated with the similarly named estate in Bordeaux. As a student, Latour originally focused on philosophy and was influenced by Michel Serres. Latour received his Ph. D. in theology at Université de Tours and he quickly developed an interest in anthropology, and undertook fieldwork in Ivory Coast which resulted in a brief monograph on decolonization, race, and industrial relations. In 2005 he also held the Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, on 13 March 2013, he was announced as the winner of the 2013 Holberg Prize. A2013 article in Aftenposten by Jon Elster criticised the conferment to Latour, by saying The question is, …If the statutes had used new knowledge as a main criteria, instead of one of several, then he would be completely unqualified in my opinion. After his early efforts, Latour shifted his research interests to focus on laboratory scientists. Latour rose in following the 1979 publication of Laboratory Life. In the book, the authors undertake a study of a neuroendocrinology research laboratory at the Salk Institute. This early work argued that naïve descriptions of the scientific method, Latour and Woolgar produced a highly heterodox and controversial picture of the sciences. Some of Latours position and findings in this era provoked vehement rebuttals, after a research project examining the sociology of primatologists, Latour followed up the themes in Laboratory Life with Les Microbes, guerre et paix. In it, he reviews the life and career of one of Frances most famous scientists Louis Pasteur and his discovery of microbes, Latour highlights the social forces at work in and around Pasteurs career and the uneven manner in which his theories were accepted. Another work, Aramis, or, The Love of Technology focuses on the history of an unsuccessful mass-transit project, Latours work Nous n’avons jamais été modernes, Essais d’anthropologie symétrique was first published in French in 1991. It was soon translated into English by Catherine Porter and published in 1993 as We Have Never Been Modern, Latour encouraged the reader of this anthropology of science to re-think and re-evaluate our mental landscape. He evaluated the work of scientists and contemplated the contribution of the method to knowledge and work, blurring the distinction across various fields
6.
Lee Smolin
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Smolin is best known for his contributions to quantum gravity theory, in particular the approach known as loop quantum gravity. He advocates that the two approaches to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity and string theory, can be reconciled as different aspects of the same underlying theory. His research interests also include cosmology, elementary theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics. Smolin was born in New York City and his brother, David M. Smolin, became a professor in the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama. Smolin dropped out of Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio and he received his Ph. D in theoretical physics from Harvard University in 1979. Smolin contributed to the invention of quantum gravity in collaborative work with Ted Jacobson, Carlo Rovelli, Louis Crane, Abhay Ashtekar. With Rovelli he discovered the discreteness of areas and volumes and found their expression in terms of a discrete description of quantum geometry in terms of spin networks. These include very high energy cosmic rays and photons and neutrinos from gamma ray bursts, among Smolin’s contributions are the coinvention of doubly special relativity and of relative locality. Smolins hypothesis of cosmological natural selection, also called the fecund universes theory, Smolin published the idea in 1992 and summarized it in a book aimed at a lay audience called The Life of the Cosmos. Black holes have a role in natural selection, each universe thus gives rise to as many new universes as it has black holes. The theory contains the ideas of reproduction and mutation of universes. Alternatively, black holes play a role in natural selection by reshuffling only some matter affecting the distribution of elementary quark universes. This was the first use of the notion of a landscape of parameters in physics, leonard Susskind, who later promoted a similar string theory landscape, stated, Im not sure why Smolins idea didnt attract much attention. I actually think it deserved far more than it got, according to Susskind and many other physicists, the last decade of black hole physics has shown us that no information that goes into a black hole can be lost. Indeed, the debate over this issue has been resolved with Stephen Hawking, in this light, information transfer from the parent universe into the baby universe through a black hole is not conceivable. Smolin has noted that the string theory landscape is not Popper-falsifiable if other universes are not observable and this is the subject of the Smolin–Susskind debate concerning Smolin’s argument, Anthropic Principle cannot yield any falsifiable predictions, and therefore cannot be a part of science. There are then only two out, traversable wormholes connecting the different parallel universes, and signal nonlocality, as described by Antony Valentini. In a critical review of The Life of the Cosmos, astrophysicist Joe Silk suggested that our universe falls short by four orders of magnitude from being maximal for the production of black holes
7.
Centre Georges Pompidou
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It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, along with Gianfranco Franchini. Because of its location, the Centre is known locally as Beaubourg and it is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by President Valéry Giscard dEstaing. As of 2006, the Centre Pompidou has had over 180 million visitors since 1977 and more than 5,209,678 visitors in 2013, including 3,746,899 for the museum. The sculpture Horizontal by Alexander Calder, a mobile that is 7.6 m tall, was placed in front of the Centre Pompidou in 2012. Hoping to renew the idea of Paris as a city of culture and art. Paris also needed a large, free library, as one did not exist at this time. At first the debate concerned Les Halles, but as the settled, in 1968. A year later in 1969, the new president adopted the Beaubourg project, in the process of developing the project, the IRCAM was also housed in the complex. By the mid-1980s, the Centre Pompidou was becoming the victim of its huge and unexpected popularity, its activities. By 1992, the Centre de Création Industrielle was incorporated into the Centre Pompidou, since re-opening in 2000 after a three-year renovation, the Centre Pompidou has improved accessibility for visitors. Now they can access the escalators if they pay to enter the museum. The Centre was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, British architect Richard Rogers, the project was awarded to this team in an architectural design competition, the results of which were announced in 1971. It was the first time in France that international architects were allowed to participate, world-renowned architects Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Prouvé and Philip Johnson made up the jury which would select one design out of the 681 entries. National Geographic described the reaction to the design as love at second sight, an article in Le Figaro declared Paris has its own monster, just like the one in Loch Ness. The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou revolutionised museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, the Centre was built by GTM and completed in 1977. The building cost 993 million 1972 French francs, renovation work conducted from October 1996 to January 2000 was completed on a budget of 576 million 1999 francs. The black-painted mechanical sculptures are by Tinguely, the works by de Saint-Phalle. Video footage of the fountain appeared frequently throughout the French language telecourse, the Place Georges Pompidou in front of the museum is noted for the presence of street performers, such as mimes and jugglers
8.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
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The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, the museum’s current collection includes over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts. They are displayed in 170,000 square feet of space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall. SFMOMA reopened on May 14,2016, following a major expansion project. SFMOMA was founded in 1935 under director Grace L. McCann Morley as the San Francisco Museum of Art, for its first sixty years, the museum occupied the fourth floor of the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue in the Civic Center. A gift of 36 artworks from Albert M. Bender, including The Flower Carrier by Diego Rivera, Bender donated more than 1,100 objects to SFMOMA during his lifetime and endowed the museums first purchase fund. The museum began its second year with an exhibition of works by Henri Matisse, in this same year the museum established its photography collection, becoming one of the first museums to recognize photography as a fine art. SFMOMA held its first architecture exhibition, entitled Telesis, Space for Living, SFMOMA was obliged to move to a temporary facility on Post Street in March 1945 to make way for the United Nations Conference on International Organization. The museum returned to its original Van Ness location in July, later that year SFMOMA hosted Jackson Pollocks first solo museum exhibition. Founding director Grace Morley held film screenings at the beginning in 1937. In 1946 Morley brought in filmmaker Frank Stauffacher to found SFMOMA’s influential Art in Cinema film series, SFMOMA continued its expansion into new media with the 1951 launch of a biweekly television program entitled Art in Your Life. The series, later renamed Discovery, ran for three years, Morley ended her 23-year tenure as museum director in 1958 and was succeeded by George D. Culler and Gerald Nordland. The museum rose to prominence under director Henry T. Hopkins. Since 1967, SFMOMA has honored San Francisco Bay Area artists with its biennial SECA Art Award, the positions of director of education and director of photography were elevated to full curatorial roles. At this time SFMOMA took on a special exhibitions program. Including major presentations of the work of Jeff Koons, Sigmar Polke, in January 1995 the museum opened its current location at 151 Third Street, adjacent to Yerba Buena Gardens in the SOMA district. Mario Botta, a Swiss architect from Canton Ticino, designed the new US$60 million facility, Art patron Phyllis Wattis helped the museum acquire key works by Magritte, Mondrian, Andy Warhol, Eva Hesse and Wayne Thiebaud. SFMOMA made a number of important acquisitions under the direction of David A and those and acquisitions of works by Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Chuck Close and Frank Stella put the institution in the top ranks of American museums of modern art
