1.
Shreveport, Louisiana
–
Shreveport is the third-largest city in the state of Louisiana and the 113th-largest city in the United States. It is the seat of Caddo Parish and extends along the Red River into neighboring Bossier Parish, Bossier City is separated from Shreveport by the Red River. The population of Shreveport was 199,311 in 2010, the Shreveport-Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks 111th in the United States, according to the United States Census Bureau. Shreveport is the commercial and cultural center of the Ark-La-Tex region, where Arkansas, Louisiana, Shreveport was established to launch a town at the meeting point of the Red River and the Texas Trail. The Red River was cleared and made navigable by Captain Henry Miller Shreve. A 180-mile-long natural log jam, the Great Raft, had previously obstructed passage to shipping, Shreve used a specially modified riverboat, the Heliopolis, to remove the log jam. The company and the village of Shreve Town were named in Shreves honor, Shreve Town was originally contained within the boundaries of a section of land sold to the company by the indigenous Caddo Indians in 1835. In 1838 Caddo Parish was created from the large Natchitoches Parish, on March 20,1839, the town was incorporated as Shreveport. Originally, the town consisted of 64 city blocks, created by eight streets running west from the Red River and eight streets running south from Cross Bayou, Shreveport soon became a center of steamboat commerce, mostly cotton and agricultural crops. Shreveport also had a market, though slave trading was not as widespread as in other parts of the state. Steamboats plied the Red River, and stevedores loaded and unloaded cargo, by 1860, Shreveport had a population of 2,200 free people and 1,300 slaves within the city limits. During the American Civil War, Shreveport was the capital of Louisiana from 1863 to 1865, having succeeded Baton Rouge, the city was a Confederate stronghold throughout the war and was the site of the headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate Army. Fort Albert Sidney Johnston was built on a ridge northwest of the city, because of limited development in that area, the site is relatively undisturbed. Confederate President Jefferson Davis tried to flee to Shreveport, intending to go down the Mississippi, throughout the war, women in Shreveport did much to assist the soldiers fighting mostly far to the east. Winters writes of them in The Civil War in Louisiana, The women of Shreveport and vicinity labored long hours over their sewing machines to provide their men with adequate underclothing, joined by others, the Society collected blankets for the wounded and gave concerts and tableaux to raise funds. Tickets were sold for a ring given by the mercantile house of Hyams. A Confederate minstrel show gave two performances to raise money for the war effort in Shreveport in December 1862, the Shreveport Ladies Aid Society announced a grand dress ball for April 6,1863. That same month students at the Mansfield Female College in Mansfield in De Soto Parish presented a vocal and instrumental concert to support the war, the Red River, which had been opened by Shreve in the 1830s, remained navigable throughout the Civil War
2.
New York City
–
The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
3.
New York (state)
–
New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
4.
Hubble Space Telescope
–
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. Although not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, with a 2. 4-meter mirror, Hubbles four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra. Hubbles orbit outside the distortion of Earths atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images, Hubble has recorded some of the most detailed visible light images ever, allowing a deep view into space and time. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as determining the rate of expansion of the universe. The HST was built by the United States space agency NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute selects Hubbles targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center controls the spacecraft. Space telescopes were proposed as early as 1923, Hubble was funded in the 1970s, with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the Challenger disaster. When finally launched in 1990, Hubbles main mirror was found to have been ground incorrectly, the optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mission in 1993. Hubble is the telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. After launch by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, five subsequent Space Shuttle missions repaired, upgraded, the fifth mission was canceled on safety grounds following the Columbia disaster. However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved the fifth servicing mission, the telescope is operating as of 2017, and could last until 2030–2040. Its scientific successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled for launch in 2018, the history of the Hubble Space Telescope can be traced back as far as 1946, to the astronomer Lyman Spitzers paper Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory. In it, he discussed the two advantages that a space-based observatory would have over ground-based telescopes. First, the resolution would be limited only by diffraction, rather than by the turbulence in the atmosphere. Second, a telescope could observe infrared and ultraviolet light. Spitzer devoted much of his career to pushing for the development of a space telescope, space-based astronomy had begun on a very small scale following World War II, as scientists made use of developments that had taken place in rocket technology. An orbiting solar telescope was launched in 1962 by the United Kingdom as part of the Ariel space program, oAO-1s battery failed after three days, terminating the mission. It was followed by OAO-2, which carried out observations of stars and galaxies from its launch in 1968 until 1972. The continuing success of the OAO program encouraged increasingly strong consensus within the community that the LST should be a major goal
5.
Dan David Prize
–
The Dan David Prize grants annually three prizes of US$1 million each for outstanding achievement. Fields are chosen for Past, Present and Future, the Dan David Prize is awarded for innovative and interdisciplinary research. The Dan David Foundation was founded in 2000 with a $100 million endowment by Romanian-born Israeli businessman, the Founding Director was Professor Gad Barzilai. The foundation and Tel Aviv University award the prizes, the first awards ceremony took place at Tel Aviv University on May 2002. In 2016, Catherine Hall of University College London rejected the Dan David Prize and her prize money was donated to fund scholarships at Tel Aviv University. Official website – includes complete list of all laureates by year
6.
Astrophysics
–
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that employs the principles of physics and chemistry to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space. Among the objects studied are the Sun, other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and their emissions are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. In practice, modern astronomical research often involves an amount of work in the realms of theoretical and observational physics. Although astronomy is as ancient as recorded history itself, it was separated from the study of terrestrial physics. Their challenge was that the tools had not yet been invented with which to prove these assertions, for much of the nineteenth century, astronomical research was focused on the routine work of measuring the positions and computing the motions of astronomical objects. Kirchhoff deduced that the lines in the solar spectrum are caused by absorption by chemical elements in the Solar atmosphere. In this way it was proved that the elements found in the Sun. Among those who extended the study of solar and stellar spectra was Norman Lockyer and he thus claimed the line represented a new element, which was called helium, after the Greek Helios, the Sun personified. By 1890, a catalog of over 10,000 stars had been prepared that grouped them into thirteen spectral types, most significantly, she discovered that hydrogen and helium were the principal components of stars. This discovery was so unexpected that her dissertation readers convinced her to modify the conclusion before publication, however, later research confirmed her discovery. By the end of the 20th century, studies of astronomical spectra had expanded to cover wavelengths extending from radio waves through optical, x-ray and it is the practice of observing celestial objects by using telescopes and other astronomical apparatus. The majority of observations are made using the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio astronomy studies radiation with a greater than a few millimeters. The study of these waves requires very large radio telescopes, infrared astronomy studies radiation with a wavelength that is too long to be visible to the naked eye but is shorter than radio waves. Infrared observations are made with telescopes similar to the familiar optical telescopes. Objects colder than stars are studied at infrared frequencies. Optical astronomy is the oldest kind of astronomy, telescopes paired with a charge-coupled device or spectroscopes are the most common instruments used. The Earths atmosphere interferes somewhat with optical observations, so adaptive optics, in this wavelength range, stars are highly visible, and many chemical spectra can be observed to study the chemical composition of stars, galaxies and nebulae
7.
Institute for Advanced Study
–
The IAS is perhaps best known as the academic home of Albert Einstein, John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel, after their immigration to the United States. Although it is close to and collaborates with Princeton University, Rutgers University, Flexners guiding principle in founding the Institute was the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. There are no programs or experimental facilities at the Institute. Research is never contracted or directed, it is left to each individual researcher to pursue their own goals and it is supported entirely by endowments, grants, and gifts, and is one of the eight American mathematics institutes funded by the National Science Foundation. It is the model for the eight members of the consortium Some Institutes for Advanced Study. The institute consists of four schools–Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, in 2016, the Institute has been in the news for a faculty housing project proposal. While the Institute owns the property on which it wants to build these houses, historians and archaeological evidence confirm the site witnessed Gen. George Washingtons arrival and charge on horseback across the battlefield during the January 3,1777 Battle of Princeton. The Institute was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner, together with philanthropists Louis Bamberger, Flexner is generally regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of American medicine and played a major role in the reform of medical education. This led to an interest in education generally and as early as 1890 he had founded a school which had no formal curriculum, exams. It was a success at preparing students for prestigious colleges. The Bamberger siblings wanted to use the proceeds from the sale of their department store in Newark, New Jersey, Flexner convinced them to put their money in the service of more abstract research. In 1932 Veblen resigned from Princeton and became the first professor in the new Institute for Advanced Study and he selected most of the original faculty and also helped the Institute acquire land in Princeton for both the original facility and future expansion. Flexner and Veblen set out to recruit the best mathematicians and physicists they could find, the rise of fascism and the associated anti-semitism forced many prominent mathematicians to flee Europe and some, such as Einstein and Hermann Weyl, found a home at the new institute. Weyl as a condition of accepting insisted that the Institute also appoint the thirty year old Austrian-Hungarian polymath John von Neumann, indeed, the IAS became the key lifeline for scholars fleeing Europe. Einstein was Flexners first coup and shortly after that he was followed by Veblens brilliant student James Alexander, Flexner was fortunate in the luminaries he directly recruited but also in the people that they brought along with them. Thus, by 1934 the fledgeling institute was led by six of the most prominent mathematicians in the world, in 1935 quantum physics pioneer Wolfgang Pauli became a faculty member. With the opening of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton replaced Göttingen as the center for mathematics in the twentieth century. Princeton Universitys science departments are less than two miles away and informal ties and collaboration between the two institutions occurred from the beginning and this helped start an incorrect impression that it was part of the University, one that has never been completely eradicated
. Bibcode:2009ARNPS..59....1H. doi:10.1146/annurev.nucl.010909.083722.
