1.
Belgrade Planetarium
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Belgrade Planetarium is one of two planetariums in Serbia. It is operated by the Astronomical Society Ruđer Bošković, the planetariums instrument, little Zeisss planetarium ZKP-2, was purchased at the Belgrade Fair of technology in 1966 thanks to J. B. Tito, after an initiative of the members of the Society and it is located in a specially adapted oriental Turkish bath from the 19th century in the lower city of the Belgrade Fortress. Unofficially, it started working in 1969, and officially in the 1970, the planetariums hall has a diameter of eight meters and eighty seats. The main visitors to the planetarium are students of Belgrade primary, following periodic activities of the Society are taking place in the Planetarium, Astronomy courses for beginners Belgrade Astronomical weekend Summer astronomy meetings ASRB, Planetarium
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Serbia
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Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia numbers around 7 million residents, and its capital, Belgrade, following the Slavic migrations to the Balkans from the 6th century onwards, Serbs established several states in the early Middle Ages. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by Rome and the Byzantine Empire in 1217, in the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the regions first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro which dissolved peacefully in 2006, in 2008 the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of organizations such as the UN, CoE, OSCE, PfP, BSEC. An EU membership candidate since 2012, Serbia has been negotiating its EU accession since January 2014, the country is acceding to the WTO and is a militarily neutral state. Serbia is an income economy with dominant service sector, followed by the industrial sector. The country ranks high on the Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index, relatively high on the Human Development Index, located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe, Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total of 88,361 km2, which places it at 113th place in the world, with Kosovo excluded, the area is 77,474 km2. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km, all of Kosovos border with Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are under control of the Kosovo border police. The Pannonian Plain covers the third of the country while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of the part of the country, with the region of Šumadija at its heart. Mountains dominate the third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina, the Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system, elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres to the lowest point of just 17 metres near the Danube river at Prahovo. The largest lake is Đerdap Lake and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube, the climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
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Nishapur
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It had an estimated population of 239,185 as of 2011 and its county 433,105. Nearby are the mines that have supplied the world with turquoise for at least two millennia. The city was founded in the 3rd century by Shapur I as a Sasanian satrapy capital, Nishapur later became the capital of Tahirid dynasty and was reformed by Abdullah Tahir in 830, and was later selected as the capital of Seljuq dynasty by Tughril in 1037. From the Abbasid era to the Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia and Eastern Iran, the city evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center within the Islamic world. Nishapur reached the height of its prosperity under the Samanids in the 10th century, but was destroyed by Mongols in 1221 and they worked at Nishapur between 1935 and 1940, returning for a final season in the winter of 1947–48. What remains of old Nishapur region is a 3500-hectare Kohandejh area, little archaeology has been done on this vast and complicated site. George Curzon remarked that Nishapur had been destroyed and rebuilt more times than any city in history. The Metropolitan Museum of Art undertook excavations from 1935 that were interrupted in 1940, searching largely for museum-worthy trophies that they shared with the government of the Shah, the Metropolitans publications were limited to its own Nishapur ceramics. The site of Nishapur has been ransacked for half a century since World War II, shadiyakh was one of the main palaces of old Nishapur up to the 9th century AD, which became more important and populated after that. Some notable people like Attar lived there, attars tomb is nowadays in that area. This palace was completely ruined in the 13th century. Nishapur occupies an important strategic position astride the old Silk Road that linked Anatolia, on the Silk Road, Nishapur has often defined the flexible frontier between the Iranian plateau and Central Asia. The town derived its name from its founder, the Sassanian king Shapur I. Nearby are the mines that supplied the world with turquoise for at least two millennia. In the year 1000 CE, it was among the ten largest cities on earth, after the husband of Genghis Khans daughter was killed at Nishapur in 1221, she or Genghis ordered the death of the entire population of the city, which was reputedly 1.7 million. Their skulls were reputedly piled in pyramids by the Mongols and this massacre, combined with subsequent earthquakes destroyed the pottery industry. US band Santana released a track entitled Incident at Neshabur on their 1970 LP release. Carlos Santana says this was a reference to a place in Haiti, yo-Yo Ma released an instrumental track entitled Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur as part of the Silk Road Project
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Theatre
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The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence, the specific place of the performance is also named by the word theatre as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι. Modern theatre, broadly defined, includes performances of plays and musical theatre, there are connections between theatre and the art forms of ballet, opera and various other forms. The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated, participation in the city-states many festivals—and mandatory attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member in particular—was an important part of citizenship. The Greeks also developed the concepts of dramatic criticism and theatre architecture, Actors were either amateur or at best semi-professional. The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play, the origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle, the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus. The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10, the stage consisted of a dancing floor, dressing room and scene-building area. Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics, the actors wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century BCE have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institution alised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysus. As contestants in the City Dionysias competition playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays, the performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE, official records begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced. More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics, Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the surviving plays of Aristophanes. New Comedy is known primarily from the papyrus fragments of Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster. In addition to the categories of comedy and tragedy at the City Dionysia, finding its origins in rural, agricultural rituals dedicated to Dionysus, the satyr play eventually found its way to Athens in its most well-known form. Satyrs themselves were tied to the god Dionysus as his loyal companions, often engaging in drunken revelry
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Astronomy
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Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry, in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, galaxies, and comets, while the phenomena include supernovae explosions, gamma ray bursts, more generally, all astronomical phenomena that originate outside Earths atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject, physical cosmology, is concerned with the study of the Universe as a whole, Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, during the 20th century, the field of professional astronomy split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain the results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences where amateurs can play an active role, especially in the discovery. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, Astronomy means law of the stars. Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects. Although the two share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct. Generally, either the term astronomy or astrophysics may be used to refer to this subject, however, since most modern astronomical research deals with subjects related to physics, modern astronomy could actually be called astrophysics. Few fields, such as astrometry, are purely astronomy rather than also astrophysics, some titles of the leading scientific journals in this field includeThe Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal and Astronomy and Astrophysics. In early times, astronomy only comprised the observation and predictions of the motions of objects visible to the naked eye, in some locations, early cultures assembled massive artifacts that possibly had some astronomical purpose. Before tools such as the telescope were invented, early study of the stars was conducted using the naked eye, most of early astronomy actually consisted of mapping the positions of the stars and planets, a science now referred to as astrometry. From these observations, early ideas about the motions of the planets were formed, and the nature of the Sun, Moon, the Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system. The Babylonians discovered that lunar eclipses recurred in a cycle known as a saros
6.
Night sky
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The term night sky refers to the sky as seen at night. The term is associated with astronomy, with reference to views of celestial bodies such as stars, the Moon. Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight, starlight, the aurora borealis and aurora australis light up the skies of the Arctic and Antarctic circles respectively. Occasionally, a large coronal mass ejection from the Sun or simply high levels of solar wind extend the phenomenon toward the equator, the night sky and studies of it have a historical place in both ancient and modern cultures. In the past, for instance, farmers have used the state of the sky as a calendar to determine when to plant crops. Many cultures have drawn constellations between stars in the sky, using them in association with legends and mythology about their deities, the anciently developed belief of astrology is generally based on the belief that relationships between heavenly bodies influence or convey information about events on Earth. The scientific study of the sky and bodies observed within it, meanwhile. The visibility of objects in the night sky is affected by light pollution. The presence of the Moon in the sky has historically hindered astronomical observation by increasing the amount of ambient lighting. With the advent of light sources, however, light pollution has been a growing problem for viewing the night sky. The intensity of the sky varies greatly over the day and the cause differs as well. During daytime when the sun is above the horizon direct scattering of sunlight is the dominant source of light. In twilight, the period of time between sunset and sunrise, the situation is complicated and a further differentiation is required. Twilight is divided in three segments according to how far the sun is below the horizon in segments of 6°, after sunset the civil twilight sets in, and ends when the sun drops more than 6° below the horizon. This is followed by the nautical twilight, when the sun reaches heights of -6° and -12°, when the sun drops more than 18° below the horizon the sky generally attains its minimum brightness. Several sources can be identified as the source of the brightness of the sky, namely airglow, indirect scattering of sunlight, scattering of starlight. Stars appear as, depending on how dark the sky is, to the naked eye, they all appear to be equidistant on a dome above the earth because stars are much too far away for stereopsis to offer any depth cues. Visible stars range in color from blue to red, but with small points of faint light
7.
Dome
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A dome is an architectural element that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. The precise definition has been a matter of controversy, there are also a wide variety of forms and specialized terms to describe them. A dome can rest upon a rotunda or drum, and can be supported by columns or piers that transition to the dome through squinches or pendentives, a lantern may cover an oculus and may itself have another dome. Domes have a long architectural lineage that extends back into prehistory and they have been constructed from mud, snow, stone, wood, brick, concrete, metal, glass, and plastic over the centuries. The symbolism associated with domes includes mortuary, celestial, and governmental traditions that have developed over time. Domes have been found from early Mesopotamia, which may explain the forms spread and they are found in Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Chinese architecture in the Ancient world, as well as among a number of contemporary indigenous building traditions. They were popular in Byzantine and medieval Islamic architecture, and there are examples from Western Europe in the Middle Ages. The Renaissance style spread from Italy in the Early modern period, advancements in mathematics, materials, and production techniques since that time resulted in new dome types. The domes of the world can be found over religious buildings, legislative chambers, sports stadiums. The English word dome ultimately derives from the Latin domus —which, up through the Renaissance, labeled a revered house, such as a Domus Dei, or House of God, the French word dosme came to acquire the meaning of a cupola vault, specifically, by 1660. A dome is a rounded vault made of either curved segments or a shell of revolution, sometimes called false domes, corbel domes achieve their shape by extending each horizontal layer of stones inward slightly farther than the lower one until they meet at the top. A false dome may also refer to a wooden dome, true domes are said to be those whose structure is in a state of compression, with constituent elements of wedge-shaped voussoirs, the joints of which align with a central point. The validity of this is unclear, as domes built underground with corbelled stone layers are also in compression from the surrounding earth, as with arches, the springing of a dome is the level from which the dome rises. The top of a dome is the crown, the inner side of a dome is called the intrados and the outer side is called the extrados. The haunch is the part of an arch that lies halfway between the base and the top. The word cupola is another word for dome, and is used for a small dome upon a roof or turret. Cupola has also used to describe the inner side of a dome. Drums, also called tholobates, are cylindrical or polygonal walls with or without windows that support a dome, a tambour or lantern is the equivalent structure over a domes oculus, supporting a cupola
8.
Celestial sphere
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In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere of arbitrarily large radius, concentric with Earth. All objects in the sky can be thought of as projected upon the inside surface of the celestial sphere. The celestial sphere is a tool for spherical astronomy, allowing observers to plot positions of objects in the sky when their distances are unknown or unimportant. Because astronomical objects are at such distances, casual observation of the sky offers no information on the actual distances. All objects seem equally far away, as if fixed to the inside of a sphere of large but unknown radius, which rotates from east to west overhead while underfoot, the celestial sphere can be considered to be infinite in radius. This means any point within it, including that occupied by the observer, all parallel planes will seem to intersect the sphere in a coincident great circle. On an infinite-radius celestial sphere, all observers see the things in the same direction. For some objects, this is over-simplified, objects which are relatively near to the observer will seem to change position against the distant celestial sphere if the observer moves far enough, say, from one side of the Earth to the other. This effect, known as parallax, can be represented as an offset from a mean position. The celestial sphere can be considered to be centered at the Earths center, the Suns center, or any convenient location. Individual observers can work out their own small offsets from the mean positions, in many cases in astronomy, the offsets are insignificant. The celestial sphere can thus be thought of as a kind of astronomical shorthand, for many rough uses, this position, as seen from the Earths center, is adequate. This greatly abbreviates the amount of detail necessary in such almanacs and these concepts are important for understanding celestial coordinate systems – frameworks for measuring the positions of objects in the sky. Certain reference lines and planes on Earth, when projected onto the celestial sphere and these include the Earths equator, axis, and the Earths orbit. At their intersections with the sphere, these form the celestial equator, the north and south celestial poles. As the celestial sphere is considered infinite in radius, all observers see the celestial equator, celestial poles, from these bases, directions toward objects in the sky can be quantified by constructing celestial coordinate systems. Similar to terrestrial longitude and latitude, the coordinate system specifies positions relative to the celestial equator and celestial poles. The ecliptic coordinate system specifies positions relative to the Earths orbit, besides the equatorial and ecliptic systems, some other celestial coordinate systems, such as the galactic coordinate system, are more appropriate for particular purposes
9.
Star
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A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, many other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. However, most of the stars in the Universe, including all stars outside our galaxy, indeed, most are invisible from Earth even through the most powerful telescopes. Almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the stars lifetime, near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity, and many properties of a star by observing its motion through space, its luminosity. The total mass of a star is the factor that determines its evolution. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the environment affects its rotation. A plot of the temperature of stars against their luminosities produces a plot known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Plotting a particular star on that allows the age and evolutionary state of that star to be determined. A stars life begins with the collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium. When the stellar core is sufficiently dense, hydrogen becomes steadily converted into helium through nuclear fusion, the remainder of the stars interior carries energy away from the core through a combination of radiative and convective heat transfer processes. The stars internal pressure prevents it from collapsing further under its own gravity, a star with mass greater than 0.4 times the Suns will expand to become a red giant when the hydrogen fuel in its core is exhausted. In some cases, it will fuse heavier elements at the core or in shells around the core, as the star expands it throws a part of its mass, enriched with those heavier elements, into the interstellar environment, to be recycled later as new stars. Meanwhile, the core becomes a remnant, a white dwarf. Binary and multi-star systems consist of two or more stars that are bound and generally move around each other in stable orbits. When two such stars have a close orbit, their gravitational interaction can have a significant impact on their evolution. Stars can form part of a much larger gravitationally bound structure, historically, stars have been important to civilizations throughout the world
10.
Planet
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The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, astrology, science, mythology, and religion. Several planets in the Solar System can be seen with the naked eye and these were regarded by many early cultures as divine, or as emissaries of deities. As scientific knowledge advanced, human perception of the planets changed, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union officially adopted a resolution defining planets within the Solar System. This definition is controversial because it excludes many objects of mass based on where or what they orbit. The planets were thought by Ptolemy to orbit Earth in deferent, at about the same time, by careful analysis of pre-telescopic observation data collected by Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler found the planets orbits were not circular but elliptical. As observational tools improved, astronomers saw that, like Earth, the planets rotated around tilted axes, and some shared such features as ice caps and seasons. Since the dawn of the Space Age, close observation by space probes has found that Earth and the planets share characteristics such as volcanism, hurricanes, tectonics. Planets are generally divided into two types, large low-density giant planets, and smaller rocky terrestrials. Under IAU definitions, there are eight planets in the Solar System, in order of increasing distance from the Sun, they are the four terrestrials, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, then the four giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Six of the planets are orbited by one or more natural satellites, several thousands of planets around other stars have been discovered in the Milky Way. e. in the habitable zone. On December 20,2011, the Kepler Space Telescope team reported the discovery of the first Earth-sized extrasolar planets, Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, orbiting a Sun-like star, Kepler-20. A2012 study, analyzing gravitational microlensing data, estimates an average of at least 1.6 bound planets for every star in the Milky Way, around one in five Sun-like stars is thought to have an Earth-sized planet in its habitable zone. The idea of planets has evolved over its history, from the lights of antiquity to the earthly objects of the scientific age. The concept has expanded to include not only in the Solar System. The ambiguities inherent in defining planets have led to much scientific controversy, the five classical planets, being visible to the naked eye, have been known since ancient times and have had a significant impact on mythology, religious cosmology, and ancient astronomy. In ancient times, astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky, as opposed to the fixed stars, ancient Greeks called these lights πλάνητες ἀστέρες or simply πλανῆται, from which todays word planet was derived. In ancient Greece, China, Babylon, and indeed all pre-modern civilizations, it was almost universally believed that Earth was the center of the Universe and that all the planets circled Earth. The first civilization known to have a theory of the planets were the Babylonians
11.
Astronomical object
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An astronomical object or celestial object is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that current astronomy has demonstrated to exist in the observable universe. In astronomy, the object and body are often used interchangeably. Examples for astronomical objects include planetary systems, star clusters, nebulae and galaxies, while asteroids, moons, planets, and stars are astronomical bodies. A comet may be identified as both body and object, It is a body when referring to the nucleus of ice and dust. The universe can be viewed as having a hierarchical structure, at the largest scales, the fundamental component of assembly is the galaxy. Galaxies are organized groups and clusters, often within larger superclusters. Disc galaxies encompass lenticular and spiral galaxies with features, such as spiral arms, at the core, most galaxies have a supermassive black hole, which may result in an active galactic nucleus. Galaxies can also have satellites in the form of dwarf galaxies, the constituents of a galaxy are formed out of gaseous matter that assembles through gravitational self-attraction in a hierarchical manner. At this level, the fundamental components are the stars. The great variety of forms are determined almost entirely by the mass, composition. Stars may be found in systems that orbit about each other in a hierarchical organization. A planetary system and various objects such as asteroids, comets and debris. The various distinctive types of stars are shown by the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram —a plot of stellar luminosity versus surface temperature. Each star follows a track across this diagram. If this track takes the star through a region containing a variable type. An example of this is the instability strip, a region of the H-R diagram that includes Delta Scuti, RR Lyrae, the table below lists the general categories of bodies and objects by their location or structure. International Astronomical Naming Commission List of light sources List of Solar System objects Lists of astronomical objects SkyChart, Sky & Telescope Monthly skymaps for every location on Earth
12.
Slide projector
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A slide projector is an opto-mechanical device for showing photographic slides. Slide projectors were widely used in educational and other institutional settings. This glass transmits visible wavelengths but absorbs infrared, light passes through the transparent slide and lens, and the resulting image is enlarged and projected onto a perpendicular flat screen so the audience can view its reflection. Alternatively, the image may be projected onto a translucent rear projection screen, often used for continuous automatic display for close viewing and this form of projection also avoids the audience interrupting the light stream by casting their shadows on the projection or by bumping into the projector. Slide projectors get smarter all the time
13.
Video
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Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video systems vary greatly in the resolution of the display and refresh rate, video can be carried on a variety of media, including radio broadcast, tapes, DVDs, computer files etc. Video was originally exclusively a live technology, charles Ginsburg led an Ampex research team developing one of the first practical video tape recorder. In 1951 the first video tape recorder captured live images from television cameras by converting the electrical impulses. Video recorders were sold for $50,000 in 1956, however, prices gradually dropped over the years, in 1971, Sony began selling videocassette recorder decks and tapes into the consumer market. The use of techniques in video created digital video, which allowed higher quality and, eventually. After the invention of the DVD in 1997 and Blu-ray Disc in 2006, sales of videotape, the advent of digital broadcasting and the subsequent digital television transition is in the process of relegating analog video to the status of a legacy technology in most parts of the world. PAL standards and SECAM specify 25 frame/s, while NTSC standards specify 29.97 frames, film is shot at the slower frame rate of 24 frames per second, which slightly complicates the process of transferring a cinematic motion picture to video. The minimum frame rate to achieve a comfortable illusion of an image is about sixteen frames per second. Video can be interlaced or progressive, analog display devices reproduce each frame in the same way, effectively doubling the frame rate as far as perceptible overall flicker is concerned. NTSC, PAL and SECAM are interlaced formats, abbreviated video resolution specifications often include an i to indicate interlacing. For example, PAL video format is specified as 576i50, where 576 indicates the total number of horizontal scan lines, i indicates interlacing. In progressive scan systems, each refresh period updates all scan lines in each frame in sequence, when displaying a natively progressive broadcast or recorded signal, the result is optimum spatial resolution of both the stationary and moving parts of the image. Deinterlacing cannot, however, produce video quality that is equivalent to true progressive scan source material, aspect ratio describes the dimensions of video screens and video picture elements. All popular video formats are rectilinear, and so can be described by a ratio between width and height, the screen aspect ratio of a traditional television screen is 4,3, or about 1.33,1. High definition televisions use a ratio of 16,9. The aspect ratio of a full 35 mm film frame with soundtrack is 1.375,1. Therefore, a 720 by 480 pixel NTSC DV image displayes with the 4,3 aspect ratio if the pixels are thin, the popularity of viewing video on mobile phones has led to the growth of vertical video
14.
Latitude
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In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the Earths surface. Latitude is an angle which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90° at the poles, lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the location of features on the surface of the Earth. Without qualification the term latitude should be taken to be the latitude as defined in the following sections. Also defined are six auxiliary latitudes which are used in special applications, there is a separate article on the History of latitude measurements. Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definition of latitude and longitude, in the first step the physical surface is modelled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the oceans and its continuation under the land masses. The second step is to approximate the geoid by a mathematically simpler reference surface, the simplest choice for the reference surface is a sphere, but the geoid is more accurately modelled by an ellipsoid. The definitions of latitude and longitude on such surfaces are detailed in the following sections. Lines of constant latitude and longitude together constitute a graticule on the reference surface, latitude and longitude together with some specification of height constitute a geographic coordinate system as defined in the specification of the ISO19111 standard. This is of importance in accurate applications, such as a Global Positioning System, but in common usage, where high accuracy is not required. In English texts the latitude angle, defined below, is denoted by the Greek lower-case letter phi. It is measured in degrees, minutes and seconds or decimal degrees, the precise measurement of latitude requires an understanding of the gravitational field of the Earth, either to set up theodolites or to determine GPS satellite orbits. The study of the figure of the Earth together with its field is the science of geodesy. These topics are not discussed in this article and this article relates to coordinate systems for the Earth, it may be extended to cover the Moon, planets and other celestial objects by a simple change of nomenclature. The primary reference points are the poles where the axis of rotation of the Earth intersects the reference surface, the plane through the centre of the Earth and perpendicular to the rotation axis intersects the surface at a great circle called the Equator. Planes parallel to the plane intersect the surface in circles of constant latitude. The Equator has a latitude of 0°, the North Pole has a latitude of 90° North, the latitude of an arbitrary point is the angle between the equatorial plane and the radius to that point. The latitude, as defined in this way for the sphere, is termed the spherical latitude
15.
Liberty Science Center
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Liberty Science Center is an interactive science museum and learning center located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Liberty Science Center completed a 22-month, $109 million expansion and renewal project on July 19,2007, the expansion added 100,000 square feet to the facility, bringing it to nearly 300,000 square feet. However, the amount of exhibit space slightly decreased with the expansion as all the new space added is open space such as queue lines for the ticketing office, Liberty Science Center also has state-of-the-art surround sound as well as a technologically advanced picture screen in the IMAX dome. The museums expansion has received criticism for a perceived politicization of science, for example, Liberty Science Centers permanent exhibitions include, Skyscraper. Eat and Be Eaten – This exhibit of life animals explores the relationship, offering lots of live animals including deadly vipers, amazing puffer fish. Communication explores human communication in four areas—body and language, symbols, signs, and writing, print, audio, and video, and signals and networks. Here you can also do Language Karaoke, where you are taught to say phrases in a new language, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, infection Connection – Helps guests understand how individual actions may affect global health issues. You may ride the IC Express, which shows a film about different types of infectious diseases and our Hudson Home – Teaches guests about the wildlife and ecology of the Hudson River. It includes a deck with great views of the Hudson. Wonder Why – Holds many of the exhibits from the earliest days of the museum Energy Quest – Explores different energy types. Wildlife Challenge – A seasonal outdoor exhibit in which guests can take part in a variety of physical activities, activities include balance beams, and a zip line accessible only to guests that can hold on to a rope for at least ten seconds. Rubiks Cube exhibition - Beyond Rubiks Cube opened to the public on April 26,2014, travelling exhibitions – Various temporary exhibits The first exhibit since the center re-opened was Islamic Science Re-Discovered. The Science of Fear, let guests see how they would react when they were exposed to creepy animals, loud noises, electric shock, the exhibit explored why their bodies react the way they do. Mammoths and Mastodons, Titans of the Ice Age used video installations, hands-on interactive displays, the exhibit showcased Lyuba, the worlds best preserved woolly mammoth specimen. Titanic, The Artifact Exhibition featured over 100 authentic artifacts from the Titanic, the exhibit also allowed visitors to touch an iceberg to simulate how cold the water was when the ship sank. In July 2007, Center for Science Learning and Teaching opened, LSC is in negotiation with the city of Jersey to receive for a nominal fee city-owned land which would be developed as a educational and residential area called Sci Tech Scity. Museum Review, Touch Me Feel Me Science
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New Jersey
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New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state but the 11th-most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies entirely within the statistical areas of New York City. New Jersey was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, in the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. New Jersey was the site of decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War in the 18th century. In the 19th century, factories in cities such as Camden, Paterson, Newark, Trenton, around 180 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, New Jersey bordered North Africa. The pressure of the collision between North America and Africa gave rise to the Appalachian Mountains, around 18,000 years ago, the Ice Age resulted in glaciers that reached New Jersey. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind Lake Passaic, as well as rivers, swamps. New Jersey was originally settled by Native Americans, with the Lenni-Lenape being dominant at the time of contact, scheyichbi is the Lenape name for the land that is now New Jersey. The Lenape society was divided into clans that were based upon common female ancestors. These clans were organized into three distinct phratries identified by their animal sign, Turtle, Turkey, and Wolf and they first encountered the Dutch in the early 17th century, and their primary relationship with the Europeans was through fur trade. The Dutch became the first Europeans to lay claim to lands in New Jersey, the Dutch colony of New Netherland consisted of parts of modern Middle Atlantic states. Although the European principle of ownership was not recognized by the Lenape. The first to do so was Michiel Pauw who established a patronship called Pavonia in 1630 along the North River which eventually became the Bergen, peter Minuits purchase of lands along the Delaware River established the colony of New Sweden. During the English Civil War, the Channel Island of Jersey remained loyal to the British Crown and it was from the Royal Square in St. Helier that Charles II of England was proclaimed King in 1649, following the execution of his father, Charles I. The North American lands were divided by Charles II, who gave his brother, the Duke of York, the region between New England and Maryland as a proprietary colony. James then granted the land between the Hudson River and the Delaware River to two friends who had remained loyal through the English Civil War, Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton, the area was named the Province of New Jersey. Since the states inception, New Jersey has been characterized by ethnic, New England Congregationalists settled alongside Scots Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed migrants
17.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
18.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
19.
American Museum of Natural History
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The American Museum of Natural History, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, is one of the largest museums in the world. The museum has a scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year. Before construction of the present complex, the museum was housed in the Arsenal building in Central Park. Sherman, A. G. Phelps Dodge, William A. Haines, Charles A. Dana, Joseph H. Choate, Henry G. Stebbins, Henry Parish, the founding of the museum realized the dream of naturalist Dr. Albert S. Bickmore. Bickmore, a student of Harvard zoologist Louis Agassiz, lobbied tirelessly for years for the establishment of a natural history museum in New York. In 1874, the cornerstone was laid for the museums first building, the original Victorian Gothic building, which was opened in 1877, was designed by J. Wrey Mould, both already closely identified with the architecture of Central Park. The original building was eclipsed by the south range of the museum, designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. It extends 700 feet along West 77th Street, with corner towers 150 feet tall and its pink brownstone and granite, similar to that found at Grindstone Island in the St. Lawrence River, came from quarries at Picton Island, New York. The entrance on Central Park West, the New York State Memorial to Theodore Roosevelt and it leads to a vast Roman basilica, where visitors are greeted with a cast of a skeleton of a rearing Barosaurus defending her young from an Allosaurus. The museum is accessible through its 77th street foyer, renamed the Grand Gallery. The hall leads into the oldest extant exhibit in the museum, since 1930, little has been added to the exterior of the original building. The architect Kevin Roche and his firm Roche-Dinkeloo have been responsible for the planning of the museum since the 1990s. Various renovations both interior and exterior have been carried out including improvements to Dinosaur Hall and mural restoration in Roosevelt Memorial Hall, in 1992 the firm designed the new eight story AMNH Library. The museums south façade, spanning 77th Street from Central Park West to Columbus Avenue was cleaned, repaired and re-emerged in 2009, steven Reichl, a spokesman for the museum, said that work would include restoring 650 black-cherry window frames and stone repairs. The museums consultant on the latest renovation is Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. an architectural and engineering firm with headquarters in Northbrook, the museums first two presidents were John David Wolfe and Robert L. Stuart, both among the museums founders. The museum was not put on a sound footing until the appointment of the president, Morris K. Jesup. Jesup was president for over 25 years, overseeing its expansion, the fourth president, Henry Fairfield Osborn, was appointed in 1906 on the death of Jesup. Osborn consolidated the museums expansion, developing it into one of the worlds foremost natural history museums, F. Trubee Davison was president from 1933 to 1951, with A. Perry Osborn as Acting President from 1941 to 1946
20.
New York City
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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
21.
Orrery
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An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates or predicts the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons, usually according to the heliocentric model. It may also represent the sizes of these bodies, but since accurate scaling is often not practical due to the actual large ratio differences. They are typically driven by a mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre. The Antikythera mechanism, discovered in 1900 in a wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera and extensively studied, exhibited the diurnal motions of the Sun, Moon, and it has been dated between 150 and 100 BC. The Antikythera hand driven mechanism is now considered one of the first orreries and it was geocentric and used as a mechanical calculator designed to calculate astronomical positions. According to Cicero, the Roman philosopher who was writing in the first century BC, the clock itself is lost, but Dondi left a complete description of the astronomic gear trains of his clock. As late as 1650, P. Schirleus built a geocentric planetarium with the Sun as a planet, the clocks are now on display in Kassel at the Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett and in Dresden at the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon. In De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, published in Nuremberg in 1543 and he observed that some Greek philosophers had proposed a heliocentric universe. This simplified the apparent epicyclic motions of the planets, making it feasible to represent the paths as simple circles. This could be modelled by the use of gears, tycho Brahes improved instruments made precise observations of the skies, and from these Johannes Kepler deduced that planets orbited the Sun in ellipses. In 1687 Isaac Newton explained the cause of motion in his theory of gravitation. Orreries take three forms, Solid Models typically the size of a coffee table, real World Orreries typically the length of a walk. Virtual World Orreries where the imagination is unlimited. Clock makers George Graham and Thomas Tompion built the first modern orrery around 1704 in England, Graham gave the first model, or its design, to the celebrated instrument maker John Rowley of London to make a copy for Prince Eugene of Savoy. Rowley was commissioned to make another copy for his patron Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery and this model was presented to Charles son John, later the 5th Earl of Cork and 5th Earl of Orrery. Independently, Christiaan Huygens published details of a heliocentric planetary machine in 1703 and he calculated the gear trains needed to represent a year of 365.242 days, and used that to produce the cycles of the principal planets. The Sun in a brass orrery provides the light in the room. The orrery depicted in the painting has rings, which give it a similar to that of an armillary sphere
22.
Eise Eisinga Planetarium
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The Royal Eise Eisinga Planetarium is an 18th-century orrery in Franeker, Friesland, Netherlands. It is currently a museum and open to the public, the orrery has been on the top 100 Dutch heritage sites list since 1990 and in December 2011 was nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site candidate. It is the oldest working orrery in the world, the orrery was built from 1774 to 1781 by Eise Eisinga. It is listed as a Rijksmonument, number 15668, an orrery is a planetarium, a working model of the solar system. The face of the model looks down from the ceiling of what used to be his living room and it is driven by a pendulum clock, which has 9 weights or ponds. The planets move around the model in time, automatically. The planetarium includes a display for the current time and date, the plank that has the year numbers written on it has to be replaced every 22 years. The Eise Eisinga Planetarium is the oldest still working planetarium in the world, to create the gears for the model,10,000 handmade nails were used. In addition to the basic orrery, there are displays of the phase of the moon, the orrery was constructed to a scale of 1,1,000,000,000,000. Official website Eisinga Planetarium at Atlas Obscura Eise Eisinga Planetarium at Jusonline. nl
23.
Hellenistic period
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It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
24.
Polymath
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A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century, the related term, the term is often used to describe great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment who excelled at several fields in science and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti and this term entered the lexicon during the twentieth century and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance. Renaissance man was first recorded in written English in the early 20th century and it is now used to refer to great thinkers living before, during, or after the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci has often described as the archetype of the Renaissance man. These polymaths had an approach to education that reflected the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play an instrument, write poetry. The idea of an education was essential to achieving polymath ability. At this time, universities did not specialize in specific areas but rather trained students in an array of science, philosophy. This universal education gave them a grounding from which they could continue into apprenticeship toward becoming a master of a specific field, aside from Renaissance man as mentioned above, similar terms in use are Homo Universalis and Uomo Universale, which translate to universal person or universal man. The related term generalist—contrasted with a used to describe a person with a general approach to knowledge. The term Universal Genius or Versatile Genius is also used, with Leonardo da Vinci as the prime example again. The term seems to be used especially when a person has made lasting contributions in at least one of the fields in which he was involved. When a person is described as having knowledge, they exhibit a vast scope of knowledge. This designation may be anachronistic, however, in the case of such as Eratosthenes whose reputation for having encyclopedic knowledge predates the existence of any encyclopedic object. One whose accomplishments are limited to athletics would not be considered a polymath in the sense of the word. An example is Howard Baker, who was called a sporting polymath by the Encyclopedia of British Football for winning high jump titles and playing cricket, football, many polymaths from across the centuries have their roots in medical applications. One of the well known polymaths, Leonardo da Vinci, was known for his immense interest in human anatomical structure
25.
Archimedes
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Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the scientists in classical antiquity. He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics and statics and he is credited with designing innovative machines, such as his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion. Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere and a cylinder, unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Archimedes was born c.287 BC in the city of Syracuse, Sicily, at that time a self-governing colony in Magna Graecia. The date of birth is based on a statement by the Byzantine Greek historian John Tzetzes that Archimedes lived for 75 years, in The Sand Reckoner, Archimedes gives his fathers name as Phidias, an astronomer about whom nothing is known. Plutarch wrote in his Parallel Lives that Archimedes was related to King Hiero II, a biography of Archimedes was written by his friend Heracleides but this work has been lost, leaving the details of his life obscure. It is unknown, for instance, whether he married or had children. During his youth, Archimedes may have studied in Alexandria, Egypt and he referred to Conon of Samos as his friend, while two of his works have introductions addressed to Eratosthenes. Archimedes died c.212 BC during the Second Punic War, according to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was contemplating a mathematical diagram when the city was captured. A Roman soldier commanded him to come and meet General Marcellus but he declined, the soldier was enraged by this, and killed Archimedes with his sword. Plutarch also gives an account of the death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the thought that they were valuable items. General Marcellus was reportedly angered by the death of Archimedes, as he considered him a valuable asset and had ordered that he not be harmed. Marcellus called Archimedes a geometrical Briareus, the last words attributed to Archimedes are Do not disturb my circles, a reference to the circles in the mathematical drawing that he was supposedly studying when disturbed by the Roman soldier. This quote is given in Latin as Noli turbare circulos meos. The phrase is given in Katharevousa Greek as μὴ μου τοὺς κύκλους τάραττε
26.
Sun
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The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounting for about 99. 86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three quarters of the Suns mass consists of hydrogen, the rest is mostly helium, with smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star based on its spectral class and it formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into a disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core and it is thought that almost all stars form by this process. The Sun is roughly middle-aged, it has not changed dramatically for more than four billion years and it is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large enough to engulf the current orbits of Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth. The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, the synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of the solar calendar, which is the predominant calendar in use today. The English proper name Sun developed from Old English sunne and may be related to south, all Germanic terms for the Sun stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn. The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English and is ultimately a result of a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis, the Latin name for the Sun, Sol, is not common in general English language use, the adjectival form is the related word solar. The term sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on another planet. A mean Earth solar day is approximately 24 hours, whereas a mean Martian sol is 24 hours,39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, portrayed as a falcon-headed divinity surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. In the New Empire period, the Sun became identified with the dung beetle, in the form of the Sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton. The Sun is viewed as a goddess in Germanic paganism, Sól/Sunna, in ancient Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. It was adopted as the Sabbath day by Christians who did not have a Jewish background, the symbol of light was a pagan device adopted by Christians, and perhaps the most important one that did not come from Jewish traditions
27.
Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
28.
Antikythera mechanism
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Found housed in a 340 millimetres ×180 millimetres ×90 millimetres wooden box, the device is a complex clockwork mechanism composed of at least 30 meshing bronze gears. Its remains were found as one lump, later separated in three fragments, which are now divided into 82 separate fragments after conservation works. Four of these fragments contain gears, while inscriptions are found on many others, the largest gear is approximately 140 millimetres in diameter and originally had 223 teeth. The artefact was recovered probably in July 1901 from the Antikythera shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. Believed to have designed and constructed by Greek scientists, the instrument has been dated either between 150 and 100 BC, or, according to a more recent view, in 205 BC. All known fragments of the Antikythera mechanism are kept at the National Archaeological Museum, in Athens, the Antikythera mechanism was discovered in 45 metres of water in the Antikythera shipwreck off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera. All were transferred to the National Museum of Archaeology in Athens for storage, merely a lump of corroded bronze and wood at the time, the mechanism went unnoticed for two years while museum staff worked on piecing together more obvious statues. On 17 May 1902, archaeologist Valerios Stais was examining the finds, investigations into the object were soon dropped until British science historian and Yale University professor, Derek J. de Solla Price became interested in it in 1951. In 1971, both Price and Greek nuclear physicist Charalampos Karakalos made X-ray and gamma-ray images of the 82 fragments, Price published an extensive 70-page paper on their findings in 1974. Generally referred to as the first known computer, the quality and complexity of the mechanisms manufacture suggests it has undiscovered predecessors made during the Hellenistic period. Its construction relied upon theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers, in 1974, Derek de Solla Price concluded from gear settings and inscriptions on the mechanisms faces that it was made about 87 BC and lost only a few years later. Jacques Cousteau and associates visited the wreck in 1976 and recovered coins dated to between 76 and 67 BC, though its advanced state of corrosion has made it impossible to perform an accurate compositional analysis, it is believed the device was made of a low-tin bronze alloy. All its instructions are written in Koine Greek, and the consensus among scholars is that the mechanism was made in the Greek-speaking world, syracuse was a colony of Corinth and the home of Archimedes, which might imply a connection with the school of Archimedes. With its many scrolls of art and science, it was second in only to the Library of Alexandria during the Hellenistic period. A busy trading port in antiquity, Rhodes was also a centre of astronomy and mechanical engineering, home to the astronomer Hipparchus and that the mechanism uses Hipparchuss theory for the motion of the moon suggests the possibility he may have designed, or at least worked on it. He regarded the Antikythera mechanism as more valuable than the Mona Lisa, in 2014, a study by Carman and Evans argued for a new dating of approximately 200 BC. Moreover, according to Carman and Evans, the Babylonian arithmetic style of prediction fits much better with the devices predictive models than the traditional Greek trigonometric style, further dives are being undertaken in the hope of discovering more of the mechanism. The original mechanism apparently came out of the Mediterranean as a single encrusted piece, soon afterward it fractured into three major pieces
29.
Ancient history
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Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC. This roughly coincides with the date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. In India, ancient history includes the period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China. Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world, archaeology and the study of source texts, primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artefacts in an effort to interpret, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, the city of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans. The Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China, the discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans. The discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquitys own historians. Although it is important to take account the bias of each ancient author. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Sima Qian, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, the Roman Empire was one of the ancient worlds most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived, prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, the controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia
30.
Equatorium
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An equatorium is an astronomical calculating instrument. It can be used for finding the positions of the Moon, Sun, theorica Planetarum by Campanus of Novara describes the construction of an equatorium, the earliest known description in Latin Europe. Richard of Wallingford is known to have built a sophisticated equatorium named Albion in 1326 and it could calculate lunar, solar and planetary longitudes. Unlike most equatoria, the Albion could also predict eclipses, the device is described in a manuscript and in drawings by the Abbot. It consisted of rotating disks, showing the courses of the sun, moon. It was not a clockwork mechanism, antikythera mechanism Armillary sphere Astrarium Astrolabe Astronomical clock Orrery Planetarium Torquetum Seb Falks blog, making a planetary equatorium
31.
Globe of Gottorf
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The Globe of Gottorf is a 17th-century large globe of the earth in the Kunstkamera museum in St. Petersburg in Russia. It measures 3.1 meters in diameter, the globe details a map of the earth’s surface on the outside and a map of star constellations with astrological and mythological symbols on the inside. Turned by water power, it demonstrates the “movement” of the heavens to those seated inside in candlelight and it was a predecessor of the modern planetarium. Modern German spells the name of Gottor with an F, not a P The original globe was built between 1654 to 1664 in Gottorf on request of Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Construction was carried out under the supervision of Adam Olearius and completed by Andreas Bösch and it was put in a palace garden to amuse and amaze visitors. The globe was given to Peter the Great during the Great Northern War, initially, it was placed in a special pavilion on the Tsaristin meadow. It is known that the Tsar frequently examined the Gottorf globe in the morning, in 1717, the globe was moved to the tower of the Kunstkamera building. It was severely damaged in a fire in 1747, and its surface was destroyed, elizabeth of Russia had the globe rebuilt, but strictly speaking it was no more than a replica since not much was left after the fire. It was built and painted using the original wooden ribs. The Germans seized the globe at the Dutch Admiralty during the Second World War, the original globe now resides in the Kunstkamera, a museum in St. Petersburg. German charitable foundations agreed to build a near-replica of the globe in the 1990s, but this time in steel, with motors and lights
32.
Earl of Orrery
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Earl of Orrery is a title in the Peerage of Ireland that has been united with the earldom of Cork since 1753. It was created in 1660 for the soldier, statesman and dramatist Roger Boyle, 1st Baron Boyle, third but eldest surviving son of Richard Boyle and he had already been created Lord Boyle, Baron of Broghill, in the Peerage of Ireland in 1628. He was succeeded by his son, the second Earl and he represented County Cork in the Irish House of Commons and served as Vice-President of Munster. On his death the titles passed to his eldest son, the third Earl and he represented East Grinstead in the English House of Commons. He was succeeded by his brother, the fourth Earl. He was a Lieutenant-General in the Army and a prominent diplomat, in 1711 he was created Baron Boyle of Marston, in the County of Somerset, in the Peerage of Great Britain. His son, the fifth Earl, succeeded his cousin as fifth Earl of Cork in 1753. See the latter title for further history of the peerages, Henry Boyle, son and namesake of the Hon. Henry Boyle, younger son of the first Earl of Orrery, was created Earl of Shannon in 1756. The Irish placename Orrery came from Gaelic Orbhraighe, which was at first the name of a tribe, and then of a territory, new York, St Martins Press,1990, Leigh Rayments Peerage Pages Lundy, Darryl
33.
Adam Walker (inventor)
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Adam Walker was an English inventor, writer, and popular science lecturer connected with York. He was the son of a manufacturer in Patterdale, Westmorland, England. Mainly self-taught, he attended lectures on experimental philosophy in Manchester. In 1766 he purchased the “philosophical apparatus” of an itinerant lecturer, for publicity he inserted advertisements in local papers and wrote a book entitled Syllabus of a Course on Natural Philosophy. His syllabus covered ‘Astronomy, the use of Globes, Pneumatics, Electricity, Magnetism, Chemistry, Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Engineering, Fortifications, as a lecturer he travelled the north of England, using Manchester as a base. His philosophic apparatus is shown in an advertisement in the York Courant in 1772 and he settled in London after many years as a travelling science lecturer. He was responsible for the introduction of the Eidouranion and a type of harpsichord. In London he shared a room in George Street, Hanover Square with Henry Moyes where lectures were given to groups of Gentry. He also had an interest in astronomy and his numerous popular works on science included An Epitome of Astronomy. Two of his sons became astronomers and he was a friend of Joseph Priestley and of other members of the Lunar Society. His portrait was painted by Samuel Drummond and by George Romney, in the latter portrait, three of them are examining a geometric diagram which shows some theorem relating to the squares on secants of an ellipse. The portrait was a gift from the artist to his friend Adam Walker, the portrait was bequeathed to Beningbrough Hall, where it now hangs, by Walkers granddaughter, Miss Ellen Gibson in 1897
34.
Eidouranion
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An Eidouranion is a kind of orrery that combined mechanical movement with a method of back projection. Its invention is attributed to Adam Walker who in the 1780s built one measuring 27 feet in diameter and he used it to accompany his lectures on astronomy. It is an ancestor of planetarium projectors and it is known that Adam Walker held lectures featuring the Eidouranium at the Royal Theatre in London in the 1780s and the London Lyceum. The word eidouranion derives from the Greek compound eid + ouranos, the combining elements are eidos, which means what is seen, shape, form, and ouranos, which was the name of the god of the heavens. Thus, the combined form means shaped like the heavens or formed like the heavens, the Shows of London by Richard Daniel Altick, p.364 King, Henry C, and John R. Millburn. Geared to the Stars, The Evolution of Planetariums, Orreries, Toronto, University of Toronto Press,1978
35.
Franeker
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Franeker is one of the eleven historical cities of Friesland and capital of the municipality of Franekeradeel. It is located about 20 km west of Leeuwarden on the Van Harinxma Canal, as of 1 January 2006, it had 12,996 inhabitants. The Eisinga Planetarium from around the year 1800 is located in the city, Franeker was founded around 800 as a Carolingian stronghold. The name probably derives from Froon-acker, meaning country of the king, beginning around the 11th century, Franeker developed into the administrative center Westergoa. Franeker received city rights in 1374, in the 15th century, Albert, Duke of Saxony established himself in Franeker. The city appeared for a time to be growing into the city of Friesland. During the period of the Dutch Revolt, the town sided early on with William I, from 1585 to 1811, the city housed the University of Franeker, which was the second Protestant university in the Netherlands. It was closed shortly after the incorporation of the Kingdom of Holland into the French Empire, a successor institution, the Rijksatheneum, was founded in 1815, but in 1847 it, too, closed. The Krystkongres, usually held in Franeker, is the convention for Frisian students living in Dutch student towns. Franeker is located at 53°12′N 5°32′E in the municipality of Franekeradeel in the west of the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands and it is east of the city of Harlingen and about 20 km west of the provincial capital Leeuwarden. It is situated on the Van Harinxma Canal, as of 1 January 2006, the city of Franeker had a population of 12,996. The Eisinga Planetarium and the Museum Martena are museums located in the city, the Planetarium is an orrery built by a local wool carder to explain a conjunction of the planets and to help mitigate local fears of what would happen during the planets alignment. Built in Eisingas own living room, it is one of the oldest operating orreries in the world, the Museum Martena, opened in 2006, is housed in a manor house built in 1498 and is devoted to the history of the city and the region. The windmill Arkens is a hollow post mill which has been restored and it originally stood in Arkens and was moved in 1972. It is the windmill in the Netherlands equipped with Vlinderwieken. Since 1852 Franeker is the home of the PC. the most important tournament in Frisian handball, Franeker is a regular host of the Frisian draughts competitions. Being one of the Frisian cities, Franeker is also on the route of the 200 kilometres Elfstedentocht, in August 2014, Jeffrey Peereboom, a student from Franeker, introduced an idea of the speed limits for bicycles in order to make biking in the city safer. Franeker railway station is a station on the NS line between Leeuwarden and Harlingen and it also had a station on the North Friesland Railway which was the terminus of a branch from Tzummarum
36.
Eise Eisinga
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Eise Jeltes Eisinga was a Frisian amateur astronomer who built the Eise Eisinga Planetarium in his house in Franeker, Frisia Province in the Netherlands. The orrery still exists and is the oldest functioning planetarium in the world, Eise Jeltes Eisinga was born on 21 February 1744 in Dronrijp in the Dutch Republic. He was the son of Jelte Eises from Oosterlittens, a wool carder, although Eisinga was moderately gifted, he was not allowed to go to school. When he was only 17 years old he published a book about the principles of astronomy, Eisinga became a wool carder in Franeker, Netherlands. Through self-education he mastered mathematics and astronomy, which he studied at the Franeker Academy. At the age of 24 he married Pietje Jacobs and they had three children, one girl and two boys, Trijntje Jelte Jacobus Due to a political crisis in 1787, he had to leave Friesland and went to Germany. Later he moved to Visvliet where he worked as a wool comber and he was banned from Friesland for five years and therefore stayed in Visvliet just across the border in Groningen. Meanwhile his wife died, and on 27 May 1792 he married Trijntje Eelkes Sikkema in Visvliet and they had one son and two daughters. Eelke Hittje Minke In 1795 he returned to Franeker, Eisinga became a professor at the Franeker Academy, until 1811 when Napoleon ordered it to be closed. Eisinga died on 27 August 1828, at the age 84, on 8 May 1774 a conjunction of the moon and the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter was forecast to appear. Reverend Eelco Alta, from Boazum, Netherlands, published a book in which he interpreted this as a return to the state of the planets at the day of creation and a likely occasion for Armageddon. Alta predicted that the planets and the moon would collide, with the result that the earth would be pushed out of its orbit, Due to this prediction there was a lot of panic in Friesland. The canonical view holds that Eisinga decided to build an orrery in his room to prove that there was no reason for panic. He expected to finish it within six months and eventually finished it in 1781, during the same year Uranus was discovered, but there was no room for this planet on the ceiling of his living room, where the orrery was located. However, recent research indicates that this chain of causality is dubious, the construction of the orrery saved Eijsinga a lot of time, however, because he no longer needed to calculate the planets respective positions by hand. On 30 June 1818 King William I of the Netherlands and Prince Frederik visited the orrery, King William I bought the orrery for the Dutch state. In 1859 the orrery was donated by the Dutch state to the city of Franeker, Eisinga was rewarded by becoming an honorary citizen of Franeker. The street of his planetarium was renamed Eise Eisingastraat, on 5 May 1994 an 80 cent stamp was issued by the post office to celebrate his 250th birthday
37.
Oskar von Miller
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Oskar von Miller was a German engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, a large museum of technology and science. Born in Munich into an Upper Bavarian family from Aichach, he was the son of the first supervisor of the royal ore foundry in Munich, Ferdinand von Miller and his wife Anna Pösl. Miller married the painter Marie Seitz in 1884, with whom he had seven children and his brother was the ore caster and director of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts Baron Ferdinand von Miller. Miller decided to study technology and the building industry, soon he discovered the recently developed field of electrotechnology, and so turned to it. In 1882 he organized the first electrotechnical exhibition in Germany, after having been fascinated by the first exhibition of this kind in Paris, in 1883, along with Emil Rathenau, he was a director of the German Edison Company. He built the first power station in Germany in 1884 in Munich, in 1890 he founded his own engineering office, which soon became prominent in the energy industry. He took over management of the exhibition at Frankfurt am Main in 1891. In 1903 he fulfilled his dream of founding a museum devoted to science, Miller had recruited widespread contacts for many years for such a museum. In Prince Regent Luitpold he found a patron who assured him also of national support, famous scientists and entrepreneurs such as Max Planck, Hugo Junkers, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen and Emil Rathenau advised him on the structure of the departments. Nearly all the material needed for the construction of the building was donated, with Carl von Linde, he educated the first museum executive committee to the developer of the refrigeration technology and Walther von Dyck, the rector of the technical university. In 1906 Emperor Wilhelm II laid the cornerstone of the complex in its current location on the museum island. Until the grand opening, which place on von Millers 70th birthday on 7 May 1925. From 1918 to 1924 he was manager in the building of the then-largest high pressure hydroelectric power station in the world. Miller died in 1934 in the Deutsches Museum as a consequence of a heart attack and he was interred next to the church at the Neuhausen Cemetery in Munich. In German personal names, von is a preposition which approximately means of or from, in, Katharina Weigand, Große Gestalten der bayerischen Geschichte. Munich, Herbert Utz Verlag,2011, ISBN 978-3-8316-0949-9
38.
Deutsches Museum
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The museum was founded on 28 June 1903, at a meeting of the Association of German Engineers as an initiative of Oskar von Miller. Its official name is Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik and it is the largest museum in Munich. The main site of the Deutsches Museum is an island in the Isar river. The island did not have any buildings before 1772 because it was regularly flooded prior to the building of the Sylvensteinspeicher, in 1772 the Isar barracks were built on the island and, after the flooding of 1899, the buildings were rebuilt with flood protection. In 1903 the city announced that they would donate the island for the newly built Deutsches Museum. The island formerly known as Kohleninsel was then renamed Museumsinsel, in addition to the main site on the Museumsinsel, the museum has two branches in and near Munich and one in Bonn. The Flugwerft Schleißheim branch is located some 18 kilometres north of Munichs city centre close to Schleißheim Palace and it is based on the premises of one of the first military airbases in Germany founded just before World War I. The Flugwerft Schleißheim displays various interesting airplanes for which there was insufficient room at the Museumsinsel site in downtown Munich, among the more prominent exhibits is a Horten flying wing glider built in the 1940s, restored from the few surviving parts. A collection of the German constructions of VTOL planes developed in the 1950s and 1960s is unique, a range of Vietnam era fighter planes as well as Russian planes taken over from East Germany after the reunification are on display. This outstation also features a dedicated to the restoration of all types of airplanes intended for static display. The latest branch of the Deutsches Museum, located at Theresienhöhe in Munich, the branch located in Bonn was opened in 1995 and focuses on German technology, science and research after 1945. In 1883 he joined AEG and founded an office in Munich. The Frankfurt electricity exhibition in 1891 and several power plants contributed to the reputation of Oskar von Miller, in the early years, the exhibition and the collection of the Deutsches Museum were strongly influenced personally by Oskar von Miller. A few months before the 1903 meeting of the Society of German Engineers, Oskar von Miller gathered a group who supported his desire to found a science. In a showing of support this group spontaneously donated 260,000 marks to the cause, in June 1903, Prince Ludwig agreed to act as patron of the museum and the city of Munich donated Coal Island as a site for the project. In addition, exhibits began to arrive from Munich, Germany, as no dedicated museum building existed, the exhibits were displayed in the National Museum. On 12 November 1906, the exhibits at the National Museum were ceremonially opened to the public. Oskar von Miller opened the new museum on his 70th birthday,2 May 1925, from the beginning, the museum displays are backed up by documents available in a public library and archives, which are open seven days a week to ensure access to the working public
39.
Munich
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Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, the Munich Metropolitan Region is home to 5.8 million people. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute Munich is considered an alpha-world city, the name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning by the monks. It derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich, Munich was first mentioned in 1158. From 1255 the city was seat of the Bavarian Dukes, black and gold—the colours of the Holy Roman Empire—have been the citys official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian, when it was an imperial residence. Following a final reunification of the Wittelsbachian Duchy of Bavaria, previously divided and sub-divided for more than 200 years, like wide parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the area recovered slowly economically. In 1918, during the German Revolution, the house of Wittelsbach, which governed Bavaria since 1180, was forced to abdicate in Munich. In the 1920s, Munich became home to political factions, among them the NSDAP. During World War II, Munich was heavily bombed and more than 50% of the entire city, the postwar period was characterised by American occupation until 1949 and a strong increase of population and economic power during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder after 1949. The city is home to corporations like BMW, Siemens, MAN, Linde, Allianz and MunichRE as well as many small. Munich is home to national and international authorities, major universities, major museums. Its numerous architectural attractions, international events, exhibitions and conferences. Munich is one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany and it is a top-ranked destination for migration and expatriate location, despite being the municipality with the highest density of population in Germany. Munich nowadays hosts more than 530,000 people of foreign background, the year 1158 is assumed to be the foundation date, which is the earliest date the city is mentioned in a document. The document was signed in Augsburg, by that time the Guelph Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, had built a bridge over the river Isar next to a settlement of Benedictine monks—this was on the Old Salt Route and a toll bridge. In 1175, Munich was officially granted city status and received fortification, in 1180, with the trial of Henry the Lion, Otto I Wittelsbach became Duke of Bavaria and Munich was handed over to the Bishop of Freising. In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328. He strengthened the position by granting it the salt monopoly
40.
Carl Zeiss AG
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Carl Zeiss is a German manufacturer of optical systems, industrial measurements and medical devices, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott they built a base for modern optics, there are currently two parts of the company, Carl Zeiss AG located in Oberkochen with important subsidiaries in Aalen, Göttingen and Munich, and Carl Zeiss GmbH located in Jena. Carl Zeiss AG is the company of the Zeiss Gruppe. The Zeiss Gruppe is located in Heidenheim and Jena, also controlled by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung are the glass manufacturers Schott AG and Jenaer Glas, located in Mainz and Jena respectively. Carl Zeiss is one of the oldest existing optics manufacturers in the world, Carl Zeiss opened an optics workshop in Jena in 1846. By 1847 he was making microscopes full-time, by 1861 Zeiss was considered to be among the best scientific instrument makers in Germany with about 20 people working under him with his business still growing. By 1866 the Zeiss workshop sold their 1, 000th microscope, in 1872 physicist Ernst Abbe joined Zeiss and along with Otto Schott designed greatly improved lenses for the optical instruments they were producing. After Carl Zeisss death in 1888, the business was incorporated as the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung in 1889, by World War I, Zeiss was the worlds largest location of camera production. Zeiss Ikon represented a significant part of the production along with dozens of brands and factories. The Hensoldt System Technology division was continued by Zeiss under the Hensoldt name until 2006, as part of Nazi Germany Zwangsarbeiter program, Zeiss used forced labour during the Second World War. The destruction of the war caused many companies to divide into smaller subcompanies, at the end of the war Jena was occupied by the US Army. As part of the World War II reparations, the Soviet army took most of the existing Zeiss factories and tooling back to the Soviet Union as the Kiev camera works. The western business was restarted in Oberkochen as Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1946, which became Zeiss-Opton Optische Werke Oberkochen GmbH in 1947, but was soon renamed to Carl Zeiss. West German Zeiss products were labelled Opton for sale in the Eastern bloc and this collaboration continued under Yashicas successor, Kyocera, until the latter ceased all camera production in 2005. Zeiss later produced lenses for the industry and, more recently, has again produced high-quality 35 mm camera lenses. Jenoptik GmbH was split off as a specialty company in the areas of photonics, optoelectronics, the Hensoldt AG was renamed Carl Zeiss Sports Optics GmbH on 1 October 2006. The companies of the Zeiss Gruppe in and around Dresden have branched into new technologies, screens and products for the automotive industry, today, there are arguably three companies with primarily Zeiss Ikon heritage, Zeiss Germany, the Finnish/Swedish Ikon, and the independent eastern Zeiss Ikon. On 28 June 2013, Carl Zeiss officially announced its plan to rename the brand from Carl Zeiss to simply Zeiss, all the products will be standardized under the Zeiss brand
41.
Jena
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Jena is a German university city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Jena is a centre of education and research, the Friedrich Schiller University was founded in 1558 and has 21,000 students today, furthermore, there are many institutes of the leading German research societies. Jena was first mentioned in 1182 and stayed a small town until the 19th century, for most of the 20th century, Jena was a world centre of the optical industry around companies like Carl Zeiss, Schott and Jenoptik. As one of only a few medium-sized cities in Germany, it has some buildings in the city centre. These also have their origin in the former Carl Zeiss factory, between 1790 and 1850, Jena was a focal point of the German Vormärz as well as of the student liberal and unification movement and German Romanticism. Notable persons of this period in Jena were Friedrich Schiller, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Novalis, the citys economy is based on the high-technology industry and research. The optical and precision industry is the branch to date, while software engineering, other digital businesses. Furthermore, Jena is also a hub for the surrounding regions. Jena lies in a landscape in the east of Thuringia. Until the High Middle Ages, the Saale was the border between Germanic regions in the west and Slavic regions in the east, owing to its function as a river crossing, Jena was conveniently located. The first unequivocal mention of Jena was in an 1182 document, the first local rulers of the region were the Lords of Lobdeburg with their eponymous castle near Lobeda, roughly 6 km south of the city centre on the eastern hillside of the Saale valley. Around 1230, Jena received town rights and a city grid was established between todays Fürstengraben, Löbdergraben, Teichgraben and Leutragraben. The city got a marketplace, main church, town hall, council and city walls during the late 13th, in this time, the citys economy was based mainly on wine production on the warm and sunny hillsides of the Saale valley. The two monasteries of the Dominicans and the Cistercians rounded out Jenas medieval appearance, as the political circumstances in Thuringia changed in the middle of the 14th century, the weakened Lords of Lobdeburg sold Jena to the aspiring Wettins in 1331. Jena obtained the Gotha municipal law and the citizens strengthened their rights, moreover, the Wettins were more interested in their residence in the nearby city of Weimar, and so Jena could develop itself relatively autonomously. The Protestant Reformation was brought to the city in 1523, Martin Luther visited the town to reorganize the clerical relations and Jena became an early centre of his doctrine. In the following years, the Dominican and the Carmelite convents were attacked by the townsmen, an important step in Jenas history was the foundation of the university in 1558. Ernestine Elector John Frederick the Magnanimous founded it, because he had lost his old university in Wittenberg to the Albertines after the Schmalkaldic War
42.
Heliocentrism
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Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. Historically, Heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center, in the following century, Johannes Kepler elaborated upon and expanded this model to include elliptical orbits, and Galileo Galilei presented supporting observations made using a telescope. With the observations of William Herschel, Friedrich Bessel, and others, astronomers realized that the sun, the Ptolemaic system was a sophisticated astronomical system that managed to calculate the positions for the planets to a fair degree of accuracy. However, he rejected the idea of a spinning earth as absurd as he believed it would create huge winds and his planetary hypotheses were sufficiently real that the distances of moon, sun, planets and stars could be determined by treating orbits celestial spheres as contiguous realities. This system postulated the existence of a counter-earth collinear with the Earth and central fire, the Sun revolved around the central fire once a year, and the stars were stationary. The Earth maintained the same face towards the central fire. Kepler gave an explanation of the Pythagoreans central fire as the Sun. Heraclides of Pontus said that the rotation of the Earth explained the apparent daily motion of the celestial sphere and it used to be thought that he believed Mercury and Venus to revolve around the Sun, which in turn revolves around the Earth. Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius later described this as the Egyptian System, stating that it did not escape the skill of the Egyptians, the first person known to have proposed a heliocentric system, however, was Aristarchus of Samos. Like Eratosthenes, Aristarchus calculated the size of the Earth, and measured the size and distance of the Moon and Sun, from his estimates, he concluded that the Sun was six to seven times wider than the Earth and thus hundreds of times more voluminous. His writings on the system are lost, but some information is known from surviving descriptions and critical commentary by his contemporaries. This is the account as you have heard from astronomers. The stars are in fact much farther away than the distance that was assumed in ancient times. Archimedes says that Aristarchus made the stars distance larger, suggesting that he was answering the natural objection that Heliocentrism requires stellar parallactic oscillations and he apparently agreed to the point but placed the stars so distant as to make the parallactic motion invisibly minuscule. Thus Heliocentrism opened the way for realization that the universe was larger than the geocentrists taught, according to one of Plutarchs characters in the dialogue, the philosopher Cleanthes had held that Aristarchus should be charged with impiety for moving the hearth of the world. Since Plutarch mentions the followers of Aristarchus in passing, it is likely there were other astronomers in the Classical period who also espoused Heliocentrism. Seleucus adopted the system of Aristarchus and is said to have proved the heliocentric theory. He may have used trigonometric methods that were available in his time
