Scrape wikipedia-science: 5624 new, 3123 updated, 9003 total (kb-cron)
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1674_in_science-0.md
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title: "1674 in science"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1674_in_science"
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category: "reference"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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The year 1674 in science and technology involved some significant events.
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== Biology ==
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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers infusoria using the microscope.
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== Pharmacology ==
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Thomas Willis publishes Pharmaceutice rationalis.
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== Births ==
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== Deaths ==
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Jean Pecquet, French anatomist (born 1622)
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== References ==
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1809_in_paleontology-0.md
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title: "1809 in paleontology"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1809_in_paleontology"
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1809.
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== Pterosaurs ==
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=== New taxa ===
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== References ==
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Pais_Prize"
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title: "Antonina Leśniewska Museum of Pharmacy"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonina_Leśniewska_Museum_of_Pharmacy"
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date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:29.042014+00:00"
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Muzeum Farmacji im. Antoniny Leśniewskiej w Warszawie is a museum of pharmacy in Warsaw, Poland. It is a branch of the Museum of Warsaw. It was established in 1985. Exhibits include original pharmaceutical laboratory equipment from the 1930s. There are also displays covering the history of Warsaw pharmacies.
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There are over 2,500 antiquities on display at the museum.
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== History ==
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The museum opened on 26 January 1985. The sponsor was Antonina Leśniewska, who was experienced in the field of medicine.
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In 2011, the museum has imported some of the most ancient medical furniture from the 17 and 19th centuries.
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Some of the oldest antiquities came from archaeological remains from 1602.
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The museum was nominated for European Museum of the Year in 2022.
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== References ==
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== External links ==
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Media related to Muzeum Farmacji im. mgr Antoniny Leśniewskiej w Warszawie at Wikimedia Commons
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Official website
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Mariz_Carneiro-0.md
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title: "António de Mariz Carneiro"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Mariz_Carneiro"
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António de Mariz Carneiro (15?? in Lisbon – 1669) was a Portuguese nobleman who served as the official cosmographer to the Portuguese crown.
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== Biography ==
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Mariz Carneiro was educated at the University of Osuna and the University of Coimbra, gaining a bachelor's degree in 1623. He came from the noble Mariz family, which had long been employed as judges and high officials at the Portuguese court.
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In 1631, Carneiro was appointed as Royal Cosmographer by Philip III of Portugal. This post had previously been occupied by Pedro Nunes. Mariz Carneiro published several books and was the first to include precise drawings, with coastal hydrology.
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Married first time with Angela de Menezes that died in 1642 in Porto, while he was nominated to be the judge of Porto court house.
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Married second time with his cousin Antonia Luisa de Menezes.
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== Works ==
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Descrição da Fortaleza de Sofala e das mais da Índia (1639)
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Regimento de pilotos, e roteiro das navegaçoens da India Oriental : agora novamente emendado & acresentado co[m] o Roteiro da costa de Sofala, ate Mo[m]baça : & com os portos, & barras do Cabo de Finis taerra ate o Estreito de Gibaltar, com suas derrotas, sondas, & demonstraçoens (1642)
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Regimento de pilotos e roteiro da navegaçam, e conquistas do Brasil, Angola, S. Thome, Cabo Verde, Maranhão, Ilhas, & Indias Occidentais (5a. ed., 1655)
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Roteiro da India Oriental : com as emmendas que novamente se fizeraõ a elle : e acresentado com o Roteiro da costa de Sofala, atè Mombaça, & com os portos, & barras do Cabo de Finis terrae atè o Estreito de Gibaltar, com suas derrotas, & demonstraçoens (1666)
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== See also ==
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Pedro Nunes
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Portuguese Empire
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== References ==
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astatic_needles"
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date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:36:24.009462+00:00"
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title: "Australian Computer Museum Society"
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Computer_Museum_Society"
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The Australian Computer Museum Society Inc, (ACMS) is a society dedicated to the preservation of the history of computing in Australia, including software, hardware, operating systems and literature. ACMS was registered and is a charitable institution which relies on memberships and donations to operate. Established in 1994, their members have since amassed a large number of unique devices designed and built by Australians.
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== References ==
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baconian_method-0.md
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The Baconian method is the investigative method developed by Francis Bacon, one of the founders of modern science, and thus a first formulation of a modern scientific method. The method was put forward in Bacon's book Novum Organum (1620), or 'New Method', to replace the old methods put forward in Aristotle's Organon. It influenced the early modern rejection of medieval Aristotelianism.
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== Description in the Novum Organum ==
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=== Bacon's view of induction ===
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Bacon's method is an example of the application of inductive reasoning. However, Bacon's method of induction is much more complex than the essential inductive process of making generalisations from observations. Bacon's method begins with description of the requirements for making the careful, systematic observations necessary to produce quality facts. He then proceeds to use induction, the ability to generalise from a set of facts to one or more axioms. However, he stresses the necessity of not generalising beyond what the facts truly demonstrate. The next step may be to gather additional data, or the researcher may use existing data and the new axioms to establish additional axioms. Specific types of facts can be particularly useful, such as negative instances, exceptional instances and data from experiments. The whole process is repeated in a stepwise fashion to build an increasingly complex base of knowledge, but one which is always supported by observed facts, or more generally speaking, empirical data.
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He argues in the Novum Organum that our only hope for building true knowledge is through this careful method. Old knowledge-building methods were often not based in facts, but on broad, ill-proven deductions and metaphysical conjecture. Even when theories were based in fact, they were often broad generalisations and/or abstractions from few instances of casually gathered observations. Using Bacon's process, man could start fresh, setting aside old superstitions, over-generalisations, and traditional (often unproven) "facts". Researchers could slowly but accurately build an essential base of knowledge from the ground up. Describing then-existing knowledge, Bacon claims:
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There is the same degree of licentiousness and error in forming axioms as [there is] in abstracting notions, and [also] in the first principles, which depend in common induction [versus Bacon's induction]; still more is this the case in axioms and inferior propositions derived from syllogisms.
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While he advocated a very empirical, observational, reasoned method that did away with metaphysical conjecture, Bacon was a religious man, believed in God, and believed his work had a religious role. He contended, like other researchers at the time, that by doing this careful work man could begin to understand God's wonderful creation, to reclaim the knowledge that had been lost in Adam and Eve's "fall", and to make the most of his God-given talents.
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=== Role of the English Reformation ===
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There is a wider array of seminal works about the interaction of Puritanism and early science. Among others, Dorothy Stimson, Richard Foster Jones, and Robert Merton saw Puritanism as a major driver of the reforms initiated by Bacon and the development of science overall. Steven Matthews is cautious about the interaction with a single confession, as the English Reformation allowed a higher doctrinal diversity compared to the continent. However, Matthews is quite outspoken that "Bacon's entire understanding of what we call 'science,' and what he called 'natural philosophy,' was fashioned around the basic tenets of his belief system."
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=== Approach to causality ===
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The method consists of procedures for isolating and further investigating the form nature, or cause, of a phenomenon, including the method of agreement, method of difference, and method of concomitant variation.
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Bacon suggests that you draw up a list of all things in which the phenomenon you are trying to explain occurs, as well as a list of things in which it does not occur. Then you rank your lists according to the degree in which the phenomenon occurs in each one. Then you should be able to deduce what factors match the occurrence of the phenomenon in one list and don't occur in the other list, and also what factors change in accordance with the way the data had been ranked.
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Thus, if an army is successful when commanded by Essex, and not successful when not commanded by Essex: and when it is more or less successful according to the degree of involvement of Essex as its commander, then it is scientifically reasonable to say that being commanded by Essex is causally related to the army's success.
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From this Bacon suggests that the underlying cause of the phenomenon, what he calls the "form", can be approximated by interpreting the results of one's observations. This approximation Bacon calls the "First Vintage". It is not a final conclusion about the formal cause of the phenomenon but merely a hypothesis. It is only the first stage in the attempt to find the form and it must be scrutinised and compared to other hypotheses. In this manner, the truth of natural philosophy is approached "by gradual degrees", as stated in his Novum Organum.
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=== Refinements ===
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The "Baconian method" does not end at the First Vintage. Bacon described numerous classes of Instances with Special Powers, cases in which the phenomenon one is attempting to explain is particularly relevant. These instances, of which Bacon describes 27 in the Novum Organum, aid and accelerate the process of induction.
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Aside from the First Vintage and the Instances with Special Powers, Bacon enumerates additional "aids to the intellect" which presumably are the next steps in his method. These additional aids, however, were never explained beyond their initial limited appearance in Novum Organum.
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baconian_method-1.md
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== Natural history ==
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The Natural History of Pliny the Elder was a classical Roman encyclopedia work. Induction, for Bacon's followers, meant a type of rigour applied to factual matters. Reasoning should not be applied in plain fashion to just any collection of examples, an approach identified as "Plinian". In considering natural facts, a fuller survey was required to form a basis for going further. Bacon made it clear he was looking for more than "a botany" with discursive accretions.
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In concrete terms, the cabinet of curiosities, exemplifying the Plinian approach, was to be upgraded from a source of wonderment to a challenge to science. The main source in Bacon's works for the approach was his Sylva Sylvarum, and it suggested a more systematic collection of data in the search for causal explanations.
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Underlying the method, as applied in this context, are therefore the "tables of natural history" and the ways in which they are to be constructed. Bacon's background in the common law has been proposed as a source for this concept of investigation.
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As a general intellectual programme, Bacon's ideas on "natural history" have been seen as a broad influence on British writers later in the 17th century, in particular in economic thought and within the Royal Society.
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== Idols of the mind (idola mentis) ==
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Bacon also listed what he called the idols (false images) of the mind. He described these as things which obstructed the path of correct scientific reasoning.
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Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus): This is humans' tendency to perceive more order and regularity in systems than truly exists, and is due to people following their preconceived ideas about things.
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Idols of the Cave (Idola specus): This is due to individuals' personal weaknesses in reasoning due to particular personalities, likes and dislikes.
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Idols of the Marketplace (Idola fori): This is due to confusion in the use of language and taking some words in science to have a different meaning than their common usage.
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Idols of the Theatre (Idola theatri): This is the following of academic dogma and not asking questions about the world.
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== Influence ==
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The physician Thomas Browne (1605–1682) was one of the first scientists to adhere to the empiricism of the Baconian method. His encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1st edition 1646 – 5th edition 1672) includes numerous examples of Baconian investigative methodology, while its preface echoes lines from Bacon's On Truth from The Advancement of Learning (1605). Isaac Newton's saying hypotheses non fingo (I don't frame hypotheses) occurs in later editions of the Principia. It represents his preference for rules that could be demonstrated, as opposed to unevidenced hypotheses.
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The Baconian method was further developed and promoted by John Stuart Mill. His 1843 book, A System of Logic, was an effort to shed further light on issues of causation. In this work, he formulated the five principles of inductive reasoning now known as Mill's methods.
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== Frankfurt School critique of Baconian method ==
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Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno observe that Bacon shuns "knowledge that tendeth but to satisfaction" in favor of effective procedures. While the Baconian method disparages idols of the mind, its requirement for effective procedures compels it to adopt a credulous, submissive stance toward worldly power.
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Power confronts the individual as the universal, as the reason which informs reality.
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Knowledge, which is power, knows no limits, either in its enslavement of creation or in its deference to worldly masters.
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Horkheimer and Adorno offer a plea to recover the virtues of the "metaphysical apologia", which is able to reveal the injustice of effective procedures rather than merely employing them.
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The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed the injustice of the established order through the incongruence of concept and reality. The impartiality of scientific language deprived what was powerless of the strength to make itself heard and merely provided the existing order with a neutral sign for itself. Such neutrality is more metaphysical than metaphysics.
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== See also ==
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Corroborating evidence
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== Notes ==
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== References ==
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Klein, Juergen (December 7, 2012). "Francis Bacon". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 ed.). ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 429049174.
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_mill-0.md
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A blade mill was a variety of water mill used for sharpening newly fabricated blades, including scythes, swords, sickles, and knives.
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In the Sheffield area, they were known as cutlers wheels, scythesmiths wheels, etc. Examples are preserved in Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet. They also existed in the 17th century and 18th century in Birmingham and in connection with the scythe industry in Belbroughton and Chaddesley Corbett in north Worcestershire. There were also small numbers in other areas of England.
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A water wheel was used to turn a grind stone, which wore down from being up to two metres in diameter to a 'cork' of a fraction of this size. The dust generated by the process was bad for the grinder's health, and many of them died young from 'grinder's disease'.
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== References ==
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"What used to happen at Shepherd Wheel?". Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust. Archived from the original on 2007-10-17.
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crell's_Annalen-0.md
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Crell's Annalen is a German chemistry journal. It was originally named Chemisches Journal, then Die neuesten Entdeckungen in der Chemie, and later Chemische Annalen für die Freunde der Naturlehre, Arzneygelährtheit, Haushaltungskunst und Manufakturen, which is usually shortened to Chemische Annalen and often referred to as Crell's Annalen after the editor Lorenz Florenz Friedrich von Crell (1744–1816), professor of theoretical medicine and materia medica at the University of Helmstedt; it was first published in 1778.
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== References ==
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== Further reading ==
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Hufbauer, Karl (1982). The Formation of the German Chemical Community. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
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Reviewed in Lowood, Henry (1984). Eighteenth-Century Studies. 18 (1): 108–112. doi:10.2307/2738316. JSTOR 2738316.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Adams_(biologist)-0.md
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title: "David S. Adams (biologist)"
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David S. Adams is a Professor of Biology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
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== Education ==
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In 1974, Adams received his BS in physiology from Oklahoma State University.
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In 1976, he obtained his MS in Biophysical Sciences from the University of Houston.
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In 1979, he obtained his PhD Molecular Biology from the University of Texas.
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From 1979 to 1984 Adams received his Postdoc in Molecular Biology from Rockefeller University, New York City.
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== Alzheimer's Disease research ==
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In 1995, he was the first person to successfully replicate Alzheimer's disease in a mouse. His work in the field suggests that an over-abundance of protein production causes the disease, as opposed to "twists" in neurons, as is alternately argued. The finding remains one of the most significant discoveries in Alzheimer's research to date.
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== Worcester Polytechnic Institute ==
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Adams lectures multiple biology classes at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, notably Cell Biology, Virology, and Advanced Cell Biology. He is an avid supporter of abolishing textbooks for upper classes, due to his belief that memorization does not contribute to a greater understanding of biology.
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== Awards and honors ==
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He was elected in 2008 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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||||
== Research interests ==
|
||||
Molecular medicine
|
||||
Neurodegenerative diseases
|
||||
Neurotrophic factors as therapeutics for neuro-regeneration
|
||||
Mouse models for Alzheimer's
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
WPI's Biology Department website on David Adams
|
||||
@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Encyclopaedia Cursus Philosophici"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopaedia_Cursus_Philosophici"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:36.314315+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Encyclopaedia Cursus Philosophici is an encyclopedia of Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638).
|
||||
|
||||
Johann Heinrich Alsted published the Encyclopaedia in seven volumes in 1620 in Herborn. It is often argued that this is the first work to bear the title "encyclopedia", though Joachim Sterck van Ringelbergh's Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia was published in 1588, and Paul Scalich published Encyclopediae seu orbis disciplinarum tam sacrarum quam profanarum epistemon in 1559.
|
||||
Alsted was attempting with his Encyclopaedia to emulate the combination system of Ramon Llull as set out in Llull's 1308 Ars Magna, and thus to formulate a system of universal knowledge and a Llullian method for systematising the sciences. The scheme includes categorisations such as:
|
||||
|
||||
generic - specific;
|
||||
peripheral - central;
|
||||
internal - external;
|
||||
communal - individual;
|
||||
quantum ad locum - ad conditionem ad aetatem;
|
||||
preparatorius - elaboratorius.
|
||||
Alsted's approach influenced, among others, the pedagogue Johann Amos Comenius and the Hungarian encyclopedist Apáczai Csere János (1625–1659). Alsted's vision was that with the right methodologies of teaching and application, any person could have access to a perfect knowledge of all sciences.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Extant copies ==
|
||||
|
||||
There is a copy of the 1630 edition in the Town Library of Ipswich, Suffolk
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann: Vorwort zum Reprint von J. H. Alsted, "Encyclopaedia" (1630). Stuttgart, Bad Cannstatt 1989
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_cultures"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:07:08.075962+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:37.466212+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
20
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euctemon-0.md
Normal file
20
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euctemon-0.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Euctemon"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euctemon"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:38.679198+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Euctemon (Greek: Εὐκτήμων, gen. Εὐκτήμονος; fl. 432 BC) was an Athenian astronomer. He was a contemporary and collaborator of Meton, who developed the 19-year Metonic cycle, which synchronises 235 lunar months with 19 solar years to form the basis of ancient Greek calendrical systems. Little is known of his work apart from his partnership with Meton and what is mentioned by Ptolemy. With Meton, he made a series of observations of the solstices (the time or date (twice each year) at which the sun reaches its maximum or minimum declination, marked by the longest and shortest days (about 21 June and 22 December) in order to determine the length of the tropical year). Geminus and Ptolemy quote him as a source on the rising and setting of the stars. Pausanias's Description of Greece names Damon and Philogenes as the children of Euctemon.
|
||||
The lunar crater Euctemon is named after him.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
The Ancient Library
|
||||
Greek Astronomy Archived 2016-04-07 at the Wayback Machine
|
||||
42
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_N._Saegmuller-0.md
Normal file
42
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_N._Saegmuller-0.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "George N. Saegmuller"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_N._Saegmuller"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:23.402663+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
George N. Saegmuller (1847 - 1934) was an American inventor of many astronomical instruments and other mechanical devices.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Early life ==
|
||||
Saegmuller attended technical schools in Erlangen and Nuremberg. In 1870 he moved to the United States, where he settled in Washington, D.C., and began working for a craftsman involved in the production of astronomical and geodetic instruments. He also worked for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in charge of precision instruments.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Personal life ==
|
||||
Saegmuller married Maria Jane Van den Bergh while living in Washington and lived on the Van den Bergh family farm, Reserve Hill, in Arlington County, Virginia. Saegmuller was involved in many different scientific pursuits including road maintenance and water wheel pumps. He worked with Camill Fauth in the scientific equipment supply business.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Career ==
|
||||
Saegmuller invented or contributed to the development of a multitude of devices. He held more than 35 patents. His inventions include the solar attachment for engineering transits, a new type of naval bore sight, and numerous telescopes and telescope mounts.
|
||||
Saegmuller, as part of Fauth & Co., joined with Bausch & Lomb Optical Company in 1905.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Death ==
|
||||
|
||||
He died on February 12, 1934, in Arlington, Virginia. He is buried in Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
List of astronomical instrument makers
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
Surveyors Historical Society article in Backsights magazine.
|
||||
G. N. Saegmuller, Story of My Life
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globe_of_Matelica"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:37:06.372345+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:42.195626+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
24
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_report-0.md
Normal file
24
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_report-0.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Green report"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_report"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:43.430216+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Green report was written by Andrew Conway Ivy, a medical researcher and vice president of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ivy was in charge of the medical school and its hospitals. The report justified testing malaria vaccines on Statesville Prison, Joliet, Illinois prisoners in the 1940s. Ivy mentioned the report in the 1946 Nuremberg Medical Trial for Nazi war criminals. He used it to refute any similarity between human experimentation in the United States and the Nazis.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Background ==
|
||||
Malaria experiments in the Statesville Prison were publicized in the June 1945 edition of LIFE, entitled "Prisoners Expose Themselves to Malaria".
|
||||
When Ivy testified at the 1946 Nuremberg Medical Trial for Nazi war criminals, he misled the trial about the report, in order to strengthen the prosecution case. Ivy stated that the committee had debated and issued the report, when the committee had not met at that time. It was only formed when Ivy departed for Nuremberg after he requested then Illinois Governor Dwight Green to convene a group that would advise on ethical considerations concerning medical experimentation. An account stated that he wrote the report on his own after he cited its existence in the trial. It was later published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Notes ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
Harkness, JM (November 1996). "Nuremberg and the issue of wartime experiments on US prisoners: the Green Committee". The Journal of the American Medical Association. 276 (20): 1672–1675. doi:10.1001/jama.276.20.1672. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 8922455.
|
||||
Temme, Leonard A. (December 2003). "Ethics in Human Experimentation: the Two Military Physicians Who Helped Develop the Nuremberg Code". Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine. 74 (12): 1297–1300. PMID 14692476.
|
||||
26
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefner_lamp-0.md
Normal file
26
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefner_lamp-0.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Hefner lamp"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefner_lamp"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:44.649603+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Hefner lamp, or in German Hefnerkerze, is a flame lamp used in photometry that burns amyl acetate.
|
||||
The lamp was invented by Friedrich von Hefner-Alteneck in 1884 and he proposed its use as a standard flame for photometric purposes with a luminous intensity unit of the Hefnerkerze (HK). The lamp was specified as having a 40 mm flame height and an 8 mm diameter wick.
|
||||
The Hefner lamp provided the German, Austrian, and Scandinavian standard for luminosity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The unit of light intensity was defined as that produced by the lamp burning amyl acetate with a 40 mm flame height. The light unit was adopted by the German gas industry in 1890 and known as the Hefnereinheit. In 1897 it was also adopted by the Association of German Electrical Engineers under the name Hefnerkerze (HK).
|
||||
Germany moved to using the new candle (NC) from 1 July 1942 and the candela (cd) from 1948.
|
||||
|
||||
1 Hefnerkerze is about 0.920 candelas.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Candlepower
|
||||
List of obsolete units of measurement
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
"Lichtstärke und Lichteinheit" (in German). Archived from the original on 2008-04-19.
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenophilia"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:23:39.446814+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:45.832393+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Heroic theory of invention and scientific development"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_theory_of_invention_and_scientific_development"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:16.628412+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The heroic theory of invention and scientific development is the view that the principal authors of inventions and scientific discoveries are unique heroic individuals—i.e., "great scientists" or "geniuses".
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Competing hypothesis ==
|
||||
A competing hypothesis (that of multiple discovery) is that most inventions and scientific discoveries are made independently and simultaneously by multiple inventors and scientists.
|
||||
The multiple-discovery hypothesis may be most patently exemplified in the evolution of mathematics, since mathematical knowledge is highly unified and any advances need, as a general rule, to be built from previously established results through a process of deduction. Thus, the development of infinitesimal calculus into a systematic discipline did not occur until the development of analytic geometry, the former being credited to both Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and the latter to both René Descartes and Pierre de Fermat.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Genius
|
||||
Great man theory
|
||||
Grand narrative
|
||||
Hive mind
|
||||
List of multiple discoveries
|
||||
Multiple discovery
|
||||
People known as the father or mother of something
|
||||
Scientific priority
|
||||
Scientific theory
|
||||
Discovery and invention controversies
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
Epstein, Ralph C. 1926. "Industrial Invention: Heroic, or Systematic?" The Quarterly Journal of Economics 40(2):232–72. JSTOR 1884619. doi:10.2307/1884619.
|
||||
Johansson, Frans. 2004. The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation. US: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 1-4221-0282-3.
|
||||
Merton, Robert K. 1957. "Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science." American Sociological Review 22(6):635–59. JSTOR 2089193. doi:10.2307/2089193.
|
||||
—— 1961. "Singletons and Multiples in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 105(5):470–86. JSTOR 985546
|
||||
Shireman, William K. 1999. "Business strategies for sustainable profits: systems thinking in practice." Systems Research and Behavioral Science 16(5):453–62. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-1743(199909/10)16:5<453::AID-SRES336>3.0.CO;2-9.
|
||||
Turney, Peter. 15 January 2007. "The Heroic Theory of Scientific Development." Apperceptual.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
http://www.philsci.com/book2-2.htm
|
||||
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
|
||||
25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidrodoe-0.md
Normal file
25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidrodoe-0.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Hidrodoe"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidrodoe"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:46.986766+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Hidrodoe is a science museum dedicated to water and located in the Netepark Herentals, Belgium. The central part of Hidrodoe consists of Waterworld where the visitor can have experiences and perform experiments with regard to water. The Waterworld itself comprises the Drop, the What Is Water Zone, the History Cave, the Landscape and the Aqua Station.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== History ==
|
||||
Hidrodoe was founded by Pidpa (Provinciale en Intercommunale Drinkwatermaatschappij van de Provincie Antwerpen) the water supply company of the Antwerp province. Hidrodoe was declared open to the public on the World Day for Water 2003.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Sources ==
|
||||
Record aantal bezoekers voor Hidrodoe Archived 2011-06-12 at the Wayback Machine (Dutch)
|
||||
Hidrodoe (Pidpa)
|
||||
Hidrodoe (Flanders)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Hidrodoe
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_metrology"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:31:58.287463+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:48.236633+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/11
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/11
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 11/11
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 3/11
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 4/11
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 5/11
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:27:03.632775+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:13.002530+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (c. 965 – c. 1040), was a mathematician, astronomer, and physicist of the Islamic Golden Age from present-day Iraq. Referred to as "the father of modern optics", he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular. His most influential work is titled Kitāb al-Manāẓir (Arabic: كتاب المناظر, 'Book of Optics'), written during 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition. The works of Alhazen were frequently cited during the Scientific Revolution by Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Johannes Kepler, and Christiaan Huygens.
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Ibn al-Haytham was the first to correctly prove vision as intromissive rather than extramissive, and to argue that vision occurs in the brain, pointing to observations that it is subjective and affected by personal experience. He also stated the principle of least time for refraction which would later become Fermat's principle. He made major contributions to catoptrics and dioptrics by studying reflection, refraction and nature of images formed by light rays. He was the first physicist to give complete statement of the law of reflection. Ibn al-Haytham was an early proponent of the concept that a hypothesis must be supported by experiments based on confirmable procedures or mathematical reasoning – an early pioneer in the scientific method five centuries before Renaissance scientists, he is sometimes described as the world's "first true scientist". He was also a polymath, writing on philosophy, theology and medicine.
|
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Born in Basra, he spent most of his productive period in the Fatimid capital of Cairo and earned his living authoring various treatises and tutoring members of the nobilities. Ibn al-Haytham is sometimes given the byname al-Baṣrī after his birthplace, or al-Miṣrī ('the Egyptian'). Al-Haytham was dubbed the "Second Ptolemy" by Abu'l-Hasan Bayhaqi and "The Physicist" by John Peckham. Ibn al-Haytham paved the way for the modern science of physical optics.
|
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== Biography ==
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Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) was born c. 965 to a family of Arab or Persian origin in Basra, Iraq, which was at the time part of the Buyid emirate. His initial influences were in the study of religion and service to the community. At the time, society had a number of conflicting views of religion that he ultimately sought to step aside from religion. This led to him delving into the study of mathematics and science. He held a position with the title of vizier in his native Basra, and became famous for his knowledge of applied mathematics, as evidenced by his attempt to regulate the flooding of the Nile.
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Upon his return to Cairo, he was given an administrative post. After he proved unable to fulfill this task as well, he contracted the ire of the caliph Al-Hakim, and is said to have been forced into hiding until the caliph's death in 1021, after which his confiscated possessions were returned to him.
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Legend has it that Alhazen feigned madness and was kept under house arrest during this period. During this time, he wrote his influential Book of Optics. Alhazen continued to live in Cairo, in the neighborhood of the famous University of al-Azhar, and lived from the proceeds of his literary production until his death in c. 1040. (A copy of Apollonius' Conics, written in Ibn al-Haytham's own handwriting exists in Aya Sofya: (MS Aya Sofya 2762, 307 fob., dated Safar 415 A.H. [1024]).)
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Among his students were Sorkhab (Sohrab), a Persian from Semnan, and Abu al-Wafa Mubashir ibn Fatek, an Egyptian prince.
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== Book of Optics ==
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Alhazen's most famous work is his seven-volume treatise on optics Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), written from 1011 to 1021. In it, Ibn al-Haytham was the first to explain that vision occurs when light reflects from an object and then passes to one's eyes, and to argue that vision occurs in the brain, pointing to observations that it is subjective and affected by personal experience.
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Optics was translated into Latin by an unknown scholar at the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th century.
|
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This work enjoyed a great reputation during the Middle Ages. The Latin version of De aspectibus was translated at the end of the 14th century into Italian vernacular, under the title De li aspecti.
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It was printed by Friedrich Risner in 1572, with the title Opticae thesaurus: Alhazeni Arabis libri septem, nuncprimum editi; Eiusdem liber De Crepusculis et nubium ascensionibus (English: Treasury of Optics: seven books by the Arab Alhazen, first edition; by the same, on twilight and the height of clouds).
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Risner is also the author of the name variant "Alhazen"; before Risner he was known in the west as Alhacen.
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Works by Alhazen on geometric subjects were discovered in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris in 1834 by E. A. Sedillot. In all, A. Mark Smith has accounted for 18 full or near-complete manuscripts, and five fragments, which are preserved in 14 locations, including one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and one in the library of Bruges.
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=== Theory of optics ===
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Two major theories on vision prevailed in classical antiquity. The first theory, the emission theory, was supported by such thinkers as Euclid and Ptolemy, who believed that sight worked by the eye emitting rays of light. The second theory, the intromission theory supported by Aristotle and his followers, had physical forms entering the eye from an object. Previous Islamic writers (such as al-Kindi) had argued essentially on Euclidean, Galenist, or Aristotelian lines. The strongest influence on the Book of Optics was from Ptolemy's Optics, while the description of the anatomy and physiology of the eye was based on Galen's account. Alhazen's achievement was to come up with a theory that successfully combined parts of the mathematical ray arguments of Euclid, the medical tradition of Galen, and the intromission theories of Aristotle. Alhazen's intromission theory followed al-Kindi (and broke with Aristotle) in asserting that "from each point of every colored body, illuminated by any light, issue light and color along every straight line that can be drawn from that point". This left him with the problem of explaining how a coherent image was formed from many independent sources of radiation; in particular, every point of an object would send rays to every point on the eye.
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What Alhazen needed was for each point on an object to correspond to one point only on the eye. He attempted to resolve this by asserting that the eye would only perceive perpendicular rays from the object – for any one point on the eye, only the ray that reached it directly, without being refracted by any other part of the eye, would be perceived. He argued, using a physical analogy, that perpendicular rays were stronger than oblique rays: in the same way that a ball thrown directly at a board might break the board, whereas a ball thrown obliquely at the board would glance off, perpendicular rays were stronger than refracted rays, and it was only perpendicular rays which were perceived by the eye. As there was only one perpendicular ray that would enter the eye at any one point, and all these rays would converge on the centre of the eye in a cone, this allowed him to resolve the problem of each point on an object sending many rays to the eye; if only the perpendicular ray mattered, then he had a one-to-one correspondence and the confusion could be resolved. He later asserted (in book seven of the Optics) that other rays would be refracted through the eye and perceived as if perpendicular. His arguments regarding perpendicular rays do not clearly explain why only perpendicular rays were perceived; why would the weaker oblique rays not be perceived more weakly? His later argument that refracted rays would be perceived as if perpendicular does not seem persuasive. However, despite its weaknesses, no other theory of the time was so comprehensive, and it was enormously influential, particularly in Western Europe. Directly or indirectly, his De Aspectibus (Book of Optics) inspired much activity in optics between the 13th and 17th centuries. Kepler's later theory of the retinal image (which resolved the problem of the correspondence of points on an object and points in the eye) built directly on the conceptual framework of Alhazen.
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Alhazen showed through experiment that light travels in straight lines, and carried out various experiments with lenses, mirrors, refraction, and reflection. His analyses of reflection and refraction considered the vertical and horizontal components of light rays separately.
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Alhazen studied the process of sight, the structure of the eye, image formation in the eye, and the visual system. Ian P. Howard argued in a 1996 Perception article that Alhazen should be credited with many discoveries and theories previously attributed to Western Europeans writing centuries later. For example, he described what became in the 19th century Hering's law of equal innervation. He wrote a description of vertical horopters 600 years before Aguilonius that is actually closer to the modern definition than Aguilonius's – and his work on binocular disparity was repeated by Panum in 1858. Craig Aaen-Stockdale, while agreeing that Alhazen should be credited with many advances, has expressed some caution, especially when considering Alhazen in isolation from Ptolemy, with whom Alhazen was extremely familiar. Alhazen corrected a significant error of Ptolemy regarding binocular vision, but otherwise his account is very similar; Ptolemy also attempted to explain what is now called Hering's law. In general, Alhazen built on and expanded the optics of Ptolemy.
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In a more detailed account of Ibn al-Haytham's contribution to the study of binocular vision based on Lejeune and Sabra, Raynaud showed that the concepts of correspondence, homonymous and crossed diplopia were in place in Ibn al-Haytham's optics. But contrary to Howard, he explained why Ibn al-Haytham did not give the circular figure of the horopter and why, by reasoning experimentally, he was in fact closer to the discovery of Panum's fusional area than that of the Vieth-Müller circle. In this regard, Ibn al-Haytham's theory of binocular vision faced two main limits: the lack of recognition of the role of the retina, and obviously the lack of an experimental investigation of ocular tracts.
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Alhazen's most original contribution was that, after describing how he thought the eye was anatomically constructed, he went on to consider how this anatomy would behave functionally as an optical system. His understanding of pinhole projection from his experiments appears to have influenced his consideration of image inversion in the eye, which he sought to avoid. He maintained that the rays that fell perpendicularly on the lens (or glacial humor as he called it) were further refracted outward as they left the glacial humor and the resulting image thus passed upright into the optic nerve at the back of the eye. He followed Galen in believing that the lens was the receptive organ of sight, although some of his work hints that he thought the retina was also involved.
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Alhazen's synthesis of light and vision adhered to the Aristotelian scheme, exhaustively describing the process of vision in a logical, complete fashion.
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His research in catoptrics (the study of optical systems using mirrors) was centred on spherical and parabolic mirrors and spherical aberration. He made the observation that the ratio between the angle of incidence and refraction does not remain constant, and investigated the magnifying power of a lens.
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=== Law of reflection ===
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Alhazen was the first physicist to give complete statement of the law of reflection. He was first to state that the incident ray, the reflected ray, and the normal to the surface all lie in a same plane perpendicular to reflecting plane.
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=== Alhazen's problem ===
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His work on catoptrics in Book V of the Book of Optics contains a discussion of what is now known as Alhazen's problem, first formulated by Ptolemy in 150 AD. It comprises drawing lines from two points in the plane of a circle meeting at a point on the circumference and making equal angles with the normal at that point. This is equivalent to finding the point on the edge of a circular billiard table at which a player must aim a cue ball at a given point to make it bounce off the table edge and hit another ball at a second given point. Thus, its main application in optics is to solve the problem, "Given a light source and a spherical mirror, find the point on the mirror where the light will be reflected to the eye of an observer." This leads to an equation of the fourth degree. This eventually led Alhazen to derive a formula for the sum of fourth powers, where previously only the formulas for the sums of squares and cubes had been stated. His method can be readily generalized to find the formula for the sum of any integral powers, although he did not himself do this (perhaps because he only needed the fourth power to calculate the volume of the paraboloid he was interested in). He used his result on sums of integral powers to perform what would now be called an integration, where the formulas for the sums of integral squares and fourth powers allowed him to calculate the volume of a paraboloid. Alhazen eventually solved the problem using conic sections and a geometric proof. His solution was extremely long and complicated and may not have been understood by mathematicians reading him in Latin translation.
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Later mathematicians used Descartes' analytical methods to analyse the problem. An algebraic solution to the problem was finally found in 1965 by Jack M. Elkin, an actuarian. Other solutions were discovered in 1989, by Harald Riede and in 1997 by the Oxford mathematician Peter M. Neumann.
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Recently, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) researchers solved the extension of Alhazen's problem to general rotationally symmetric quadric mirrors including hyperbolic, parabolic and elliptical mirrors.
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=== Camera obscura ===
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The camera obscura was known to the ancient Chinese, and was described by the Han Chinese polymath Shen Kuo in his scientific book Dream Pool Essays, published in the year 1088 C.E. Aristotle had discussed the basic principle behind it in his Problems, but Alhazen's work contained the first clear description of camera obscura. and early analysis of the device.
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Ibn al-Haytham used a camera obscura mainly to observe a partial solar eclipse.
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In his essay, Ibn al-Haytham writes that he observed the sickle-like shape of the sun at the time of an eclipse. The introduction reads as follows: "The image of the sun at the time of the eclipse, unless it is total, demonstrates that when its light passes through a narrow, round hole and is cast on a plane opposite to the hole it takes on the form of a moonsickle."
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It is admitted that his findings solidified the importance in the history of the camera obscura but this treatise is important in many other respects.
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Ancient optics and medieval optics were divided into optics and burning mirrors. Optics proper mainly focused on the study of vision, while burning mirrors focused on the properties of light and luminous rays. On the shape of the eclipse is probably one of the first attempts made by Ibn al-Haytham to articulate these two sciences.
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Very often Ibn al-Haytham's discoveries benefited from the intersection of mathematical and experimental contributions. This is the case with On the shape of the eclipse. Besides the fact that this treatise allowed more people to study partial eclipses of the sun, it especially allowed to better understand how the camera obscura works. This treatise is a physico-mathematical study of image formation inside the camera obscura. Ibn al-Haytham takes an experimental approach, and determines the result by varying the size and the shape of the aperture, the focal length of the camera, the shape and intensity of the light source.
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In his work he explains the inversion of the image in the camera obscura, the fact that the image is similar to the source when the hole is small, but also the fact that the image can differ from the source when the hole is large. All these results are produced by using a point analysis of the image.
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=== Refractometer ===
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In the seventh tract of his book of optics, Alhazen described an apparatus for experimenting with various cases of refraction, in order to investigate the relations between the angle of incidence, the angle of refraction and the angle of deflection. This apparatus was a modified version of an apparatus used by Ptolemy for similar purpose.
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=== Unconscious inference ===
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Alhazen basically states the concept of unconscious inference in his discussion of colour before adding that the inferential step between sensing colour and differentiating it is shorter than the time taken between sensing and any other visible characteristic (aside from light), and that "time is so short as not to be clearly apparent to the beholder." Naturally, this suggests that the colour and form are perceived elsewhere. Alhazen goes on to say that information must travel to the central nerve cavity for processing and:the sentient organ does not sense the forms that reach it from the visible objects until
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after it has been affected by these forms; thus it does not sense color as color or light as light until after it has been affected by the form of color or light. Now the affectation received by the sentient organ from the form of color or of light is a certain change; and change must take place in time; .....and it is in the time during which the form extends from the sentient organ's surface to the cavity of the common nerve, and in (the time) following that, that the sensitive faculty, which exists in the whole of the sentient body will perceive color as color...Thus the last sentient's perception of color as such and of light as such takes place at a time following that in which the form arrives from the surface of the sentient organ to the cavity of the common nerve.
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=== Color constancy ===
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Alhazen explained color constancy by observing that the light reflected from an object is modified by the object's color. He explained that the quality of the light and the color of the object are mixed, and the visual system separates light and color. In Book II, Chapter 3 he writes:Again the light does not travel from the colored object to the eye unaccompanied by the color, nor does the form of the color pass from the colored object to the eye unaccompanied by the light. Neither the form of the light nor that of the color existing in the colored object can pass except as mingled together and the last sentient can only
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perceive them as mingled together. Nevertheless, the sentient perceives that the visible object is luminous and that the light seen in the object is other than the color and that these are two properties.
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=== Other contributions ===
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The Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics) describes several experimental observations that Alhazen made and how he used his results to explain certain optical phenomena using mechanical analogies. He conducted experiments with projectiles and concluded that only the impact of perpendicular projectiles on surfaces was forceful enough to make them penetrate, whereas surfaces tended to deflect oblique projectile strikes. For example, to explain refraction from a rare to a dense medium, he used the mechanical analogy of an iron ball thrown at a thin slate covering a wide hole in a metal sheet. A perpendicular throw breaks the slate and passes through, whereas an oblique one with equal force and from an equal distance does not. He also used this result to explain how intense, direct light hurts the eye, using a mechanical analogy: Alhazen associated 'strong' lights with perpendicular rays and 'weak' lights with oblique ones. The obvious answer to the problem of multiple rays and the eye was in the choice of the perpendicular ray, since only one such ray from each point on the surface of the object could penetrate the eye.
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Sudanese psychologist Omar Khaleefa has argued that Alhazen should be considered the founder of experimental psychology, for his pioneering work on the psychology of visual perception and optical illusions. Khaleefa has also argued that Alhazen should also be considered the "founder of psychophysics", a sub-discipline and precursor to modern psychology. Although Alhazen made many subjective reports regarding vision, there is no evidence that he used quantitative psychophysical techniques and the claim has been rebuffed.
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Alhazen offered an explanation of the Moon illusion, an illusion that played an important role in the scientific tradition of medieval Europe. Many authors repeated explanations that attempted to solve the problem of the Moon appearing larger near the horizon than it does when higher up in the sky. Alhazen argued against Ptolemy's refraction theory, and defined the problem in terms of perceived, rather than real, enlargement. He said that judging the distance of an object depends on there being an uninterrupted sequence of intervening bodies between the object and the observer. When the Moon is high in the sky there are no intervening objects, so the Moon appears close. The perceived size of an object of constant angular size varies with its perceived distance. Therefore, the Moon appears closer and smaller high in the sky, and further and larger on the horizon. Through works by Roger Bacon, John Pecham and Witelo based on Alhazen's explanation, the Moon illusion gradually came to be accepted as a psychological phenomenon, with the refraction theory being rejected in the 17th century. Although Alhazen is often credited with the perceived distance explanation, he was not the first author to offer it. Cleomedes (c. 2nd century) gave this account (in addition to refraction), and he credited it to Posidonius (c. 135 – c. 51 BCE). Ptolemy may also have offered this explanation in his Optics, but the text is obscure. Alhazen's writings were more widely available in the Middle Ages than those of these earlier authors, and that probably explains why Alhazen received the credit.
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== Scientific method ==
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Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. The duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and ... attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.
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||||
An aspect associated with Alhazen's optical research is related to systemic and methodological reliance on experimentation (iḵtibār) (Arabic: اختبار) and controlled testing in his scientific inquiries. Moreover, his experimental directives rested on combining classical physics (ilm tabi'i) with mathematics (ta'alim; geometry in particular). This mathematical-physical approach to experimental science supported most of his propositions in Kitab al-Manazir (The Optics; De aspectibus or Perspectivae) and grounded his theories of vision, light and colour, as well as his research in catoptrics and dioptrics (the study of the reflection and refraction of light, respectively).
|
||||
According to Matthias Schramm, Alhazen "was the first to make a systematic use of the method of varying the experimental conditions in a constant and uniform manner, in an experiment showing that the intensity of the light-spot formed by the projection of the moonlight through two small apertures onto a screen diminishes constantly as one of the apertures is gradually blocked up." G. J. Toomer expressed some skepticism regarding Schramm's view, partly because at the time (1964) the Book of Optics had not yet been fully translated from Arabic, and Toomer was concerned that without context, specific passages might be read anachronistically. While acknowledging Alhazen's importance in developing experimental techniques, Toomer argued that Alhazen should not be considered in isolation from other Islamic and ancient thinkers. Toomer concluded his review by saying that it would not be possible to assess Schramm's claim that Ibn al-Haytham was the true founder of modern physics without translating more of Alhazen's work and fully investigating his influence on later medieval writers.
|
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||||
== Other works on physics ==
|
||||
|
||||
=== Optical treatises ===
|
||||
Besides the Book of Optics, Alhazen wrote several other treatises on the same subject, including his Risala fi l-Daw' (Treatise on Light). He investigated the properties of luminance, the rainbow, eclipses, twilight, and moonlight. Experiments with mirrors and the refractive interfaces between air, water, and glass cubes, hemispheres, and quarter-spheres provided the foundation for his theories on catoptrics.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Celestial physics ===
|
||||
Alhazen discussed the physics of the celestial region in his Epitome of Astronomy, arguing that Ptolemaic models must be understood in terms of physical objects rather than abstract hypotheses – in other words that it should be possible to create physical models where (for example) none of the celestial bodies would collide with each other. The suggestion of mechanical models for the Earth centred Ptolemaic model "greatly contributed to the eventual triumph of the Ptolemaic system among the Christians of the West". Alhazen's determination to root astronomy in the realm of physical objects was important, however, because it meant astronomical hypotheses "were accountable to the laws of physics", and could be criticised and improved upon in those terms.
|
||||
He also wrote Maqala fi daw al-qamar (On the Light of the Moon).
|
||||
|
||||
=== Mechanics ===
|
||||
In his work, Alhazen discussed theories on the motion of a body.
|
||||
|
||||
== Astronomical works ==
|
||||
|
||||
=== On the Configuration of the World ===
|
||||
In his On the Configuration of the World Alhazen presented a detailed description of the physical structure of the earth:The earth as a whole is a round sphere whose center is the center of the world. It is stationary in its [the world's] middle, fixed in it and not moving in any direction nor moving with any of the varieties of motion, but always at rest.
|
||||
The book is a non-technical explanation of Ptolemy's Almagest, which was eventually translated into Hebrew and Latin in the 13th and 14th centuries and subsequently had an influence on astronomers such as Georg von Peuerbach during the European Middle Ages and Renaissance.
|
||||
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||||
=== Doubts Concerning Ptolemy ===
|
||||
In his Al-Shukūk ‛alā Batlamyūs, variously translated as Doubts Concerning Ptolemy or Aporias against Ptolemy, published at some time between 1025 and 1028, Alhazen criticized Ptolemy's Almagest, Planetary Hypotheses, and Optics, pointing out various contradictions he found in these works, particularly in astronomy. Ptolemy's Almagest concerned mathematical theories regarding the motion of the planets, whereas the Hypotheses concerned what Ptolemy thought was the actual configuration of the planets. Ptolemy himself acknowledged that his theories and configurations did not always agree with each other, arguing that this was not a problem provided it did not result in noticeable error, but Alhazen was particularly scathing in his criticism of the inherent contradictions in Ptolemy's works. He considered that some of the mathematical devices Ptolemy introduced into astronomy, especially the equant, failed to satisfy the physical requirement of uniform circular motion, and noted the absurdity of relating actual physical motions to imaginary mathematical points, lines and circles:
|
||||
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Ptolemy assumed an arrangement (hay'a) that cannot exist, and the fact that this arrangement produces in his imagination the motions that belong to the planets does not free him from the error he committed in his assumed arrangement, for the existing motions of the planets cannot be the result of an arrangement that is impossible to exist... [F]or a man to imagine a circle in the heavens, and to imagine the planet moving in it does not bring about the planet's motion.
|
||||
Having pointed out the problems, Alhazen appears to have intended to resolve the contradictions he pointed out in Ptolemy in a later work. Alhazen believed there was a "true configuration" of the planets that Ptolemy had failed to grasp. He intended to complete and repair Ptolemy's system, not to replace it completely. In the Doubts Concerning Ptolemy Alhazen set out his views on the difficulty of attaining scientific knowledge and the need to question existing authorities and theories:
|
||||
|
||||
Truth is sought for itself [but] the truths, [he warns] are immersed in uncertainties [and the scientific authorities (such as Ptolemy, whom he greatly respected) are] not immune from error...
|
||||
He held that the criticism of existing theories – which dominated this book – holds a special place in the growth of scientific knowledge.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets ===
|
||||
Alhazen's The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets was written c. 1038. Only one damaged manuscript has been found, with only the introduction and the first section, on the theory of planetary motion, surviving. (There was also a second section on astronomical calculation, and a third section, on astronomical instruments.) Following on from his Doubts on Ptolemy, Alhazen described a new, geometry-based planetary model, describing the motions of the planets in terms of spherical geometry, infinitesimal geometry and trigonometry. He kept a geocentric universe and assumed that celestial motions are uniformly circular, which required the inclusion of epicycles to explain observed motion, but he managed to eliminate Ptolemy's equant. In general, his model did not try to provide a causal explanation of the motions, but concentrated on providing a complete, geometric description that could explain observed motions without the contradictions inherent in Ptolemy's model.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Other astronomical works ===
|
||||
Alhazen wrote a total of twenty-five astronomical works, some concerning technical issues such as Exact Determination of the Meridian, a second group concerning accurate astronomical observation, a third group concerning various astronomical problems and questions such as the location of the Milky Way; Alhazen made the first systematic effort of evaluating the Milky Way's parallax, combining Ptolemy's data and his own. He concluded that the parallax is (probably very much) smaller than Lunar parallax, and the Milky way should be a celestial object. Though he was not the first who argued that the Milky Way does not belong to the atmosphere, he is the first who did quantitative analysis for the claim.
|
||||
The fourth group consists of ten works on astronomical theory, including the Doubts and Model of the Motions discussed above.
|
||||
|
||||
== Mathematical works ==
|
||||
|
||||
In mathematics, Alhazen built on the mathematical works of Euclid and Thabit ibn Qurra and worked on "the beginnings of the link between algebra and geometry". Alhazen made developments in conic sections and number theory.
|
||||
He developed a formula for summing the first 100 natural numbers, using a geometric proof to prove the formula.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Geometry ===
|
||||
|
||||
Alhazen explored what is now known as the Euclidean parallel postulate, the fifth postulate in Euclid's Elements, using a proof by contradiction, and in effect introducing the concept of motion into geometry. He formulated the Lambert quadrilateral, which Boris Abramovich Rozenfeld names the "Ibn al-Haytham–Lambert quadrilateral". He was criticised by Omar Khayyam who pointed that Aristotle had condemned the use of motion in geometry.
|
||||
In elementary geometry, Alhazen attempted to solve the problem of squaring the circle using the area of lunes (crescent shapes), but later gave up on the impossible task. The two lunes formed from a right triangle by erecting a semicircle on each of the triangle's sides, inward for the hypotenuse and outward for the other two sides, are known as the lunes of Alhazen; they have the same total area as the triangle itself.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Number theory ===
|
||||
Alhazen's contributions to number theory include his work on perfect numbers. In his Analysis and Synthesis, he may have been the first to state that every even perfect number is of the form 2n−1(2n − 1) where 2n − 1 is prime, but he was not able to prove this result; Euler later proved it in the 18th century, and it is now called the Euclid–Euler theorem.
|
||||
Alhazen solved problems involving congruences using what is now called Wilson's theorem. In his Opuscula, Alhazen considers the solution of a system of congruences, and gives two general methods of solution. His first method, the canonical method, involved Wilson's theorem, while his second method involved a version of the Chinese remainder theorem.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Calculus ===
|
||||
Alhazen discovered the sum formula for the fourth power, using a method that could be generally used to determine the sum for any integral power. He used this to find the volume of a paraboloid. He could find the integral formula for any polynomial without having developed a general formula.
|
||||
|
||||
== Other works ==
|
||||
|
||||
=== Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals ===
|
||||
Alhazen also wrote a Treatise on the Influence of Melodies on the Souls of Animals, although no copies have survived. It appears to have been concerned with the question of whether animals could react to music, for example whether a camel would increase or decrease its pace.
|
||||
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||||
=== Engineering ===
|
||||
In engineering, one account of his career as a civil engineer has him summoned to Egypt by the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to regulate the flooding of the Nile River. He carried out a detailed scientific study of the annual inundation of the Nile River, and he drew plans for building a dam, at the site of the modern-day Aswan Dam. His field work, however, later made him aware of the impracticality of this scheme, and he soon feigned madness so he could avoid punishment from the Caliph.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Philosophy ===
|
||||
In his Treatise on Place, Alhazen disagreed with Aristotle's view that nature abhors a void, and he used geometry in an attempt to demonstrate that place (al-makan) is the imagined three-dimensional void between the inner surfaces of a containing body. Abd-el-latif, a supporter of Aristotle's philosophical view of place, later criticized the work in Fi al-Radd 'ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan (A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham's place) for its geometrization of place.
|
||||
Alhazen also discussed space perception and its epistemological implications in his Book of Optics. In "tying the visual perception of space to prior bodily experience, Alhazen unequivocally rejected the intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore, the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions of distance and size for
|
||||
correlation, sight can tell us next to nothing about such things."
|
||||
|
||||
=== Theology ===
|
||||
Alhazen was a Muslim and most sources report that he was a Sunni and a follower of the Ash'ari school. Ziauddin Sardar says that some of the greatest Muslim scientists, such as Ibn al-Haytham and Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, who were pioneers of the scientific method, were themselves followers of the Ashʿari school of Islamic theology. Like other Ashʿarites who believed that faith or taqlid should apply only to Islam and not to any ancient Hellenistic authorities, Ibn al-Haytham's view that taqlid should apply only to prophets of Islam and not to any other authorities formed the basis for much of his scientific skepticism and criticism against Ptolemy and other ancient authorities in his Doubts Concerning Ptolemy and Book of Optics.
|
||||
Alhazen wrote a work on Islamic theology in which he discussed prophethood and developed a system of philosophical criteria to discern its false claimants in his time.
|
||||
He also wrote a treatise entitled Finding the Direction of Qibla by Calculation in which he discussed finding the Qibla, where prayers (salat) are directed towards, mathematically.
|
||||
There are occasional references to theology or religious sentiment in his technical works, e.g.
|
||||
in Doubts Concerning Ptolemy:
|
||||
|
||||
Truth is sought for its own sake ... Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough. For the truths are plunged in obscurity. ... God, however, has not preserved the scientist from error and has not safeguarded science from shortcomings and faults. If this had been the case, scientists would not have disagreed upon any point of science...
|
||||
In The Winding Motion:
|
||||
|
||||
From the statements made by the noble Shaykh, it is clear that he believes in Ptolemy's words in everything he says, without relying on a demonstration or calling on a proof, but by pure imitation (taqlid); that is how experts in the prophetic tradition have faith in Prophets, may the blessing of God be upon them. But it is not the way that mathematicians have faith in specialists in the demonstrative sciences.
|
||||
Regarding the relation of objective truth and God:
|
||||
|
||||
I constantly sought knowledge and truth, and it became my belief that for gaining access to the effulgence and closeness to God, there is no better way than that of searching for truth and knowledge.
|
||||
|
||||
== Legacy ==
|
||||
|
||||
Alhazen made significant contributions to optics, number theory, geometry, astronomy and natural philosophy. Alhazen's work on optics is credited with contributing a new emphasis on experiment.
|
||||
His main work, Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), was known in the Muslim world mainly, but not exclusively, through the thirteenth-century commentary by Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī, the Tanqīḥ al-Manāẓir li-dhawī l-abṣār wa l-baṣā'ir. In al-Andalus, it was used by the eleventh-century prince of the Banu Hud dynasty of Zaragossa and author of an important mathematical text, al-Mu'taman ibn Hūd. A Latin translation of the Kitab al-Manazir was made probably in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. This translation was read by and greatly influenced a number of scholars in Christian Europe including: Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, Witelo, Giambattista della Porta, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Christiaan Huygens, René Descartes, and Johannes Kepler. Meanwhile, in the Islamic world, Alhazen's legacy was further advanced through the 'reforming' of his Optics by Persian scientist Kamal al-Din al-Farisi (died c. 1320) in the latter's Kitab Tanqih al-Manazir (The Revision of [Ibn al-Haytham's] Optics). Alhazen wrote as many as 200 books, although only 55 have survived. Some of his treatises on optics survived only through Latin translation. During the Middle Ages his books on cosmology were translated into Latin, Hebrew and other languages.
|
||||
H. J. J. Winter, a British historian of science, summing up the importance of Ibn al-Haytham in the history of physics wrote:
|
||||
|
||||
After the death of Archimedes no really great physicist appeared until Ibn al-Haytham. If, therefore, we confine our interest only to the history of physics, there is a long period of over twelve hundred years during which the Golden Age of Greece gave way to the era of Muslim Scholasticism, and the experimental spirit of the noblest physicist of Antiquity lived again in the Arab Scholar from Basra.
|
||||
Although only one commentary on Alhazen's optics has survived the Islamic Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer mentions the work in The Canterbury Tales:
|
||||
|
||||
The impact crater Alhazen on the Moon is named in his honour, as was the asteroid 59239 Alhazen. In honour of Alhazen, the Aga Khan University (Pakistan) named its Ophthalmology endowed chair as "The Ibn-e-Haitham Associate Professor and Chief of Ophthalmology".
|
||||
The 2015 International Year of Light celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the works on optics by Ibn Al-Haytham.
|
||||
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In 2014, the "Hiding in the Light" episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson, focused on the accomplishments of Ibn al-Haytham. He was voiced by Alfred Molina in the episode.
|
||||
Over forty years previously, Jacob Bronowski presented Alhazen's work in a similar television documentary (and the corresponding book), The Ascent of Man. In episode 5 (The Music of the Spheres), Bronowski remarked that in his view, Alhazen was "the one really original scientific mind that Arab culture produced", whose theory of optics was not improved on till the time of Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
|
||||
UNESCO declared 2015 the International Year of Light and its Director-General Irina Bokova dubbed Ibn al-Haytham 'the father of optics'. Amongst others, this was to celebrate Ibn Al-Haytham's achievements in optics, mathematics and astronomy. An international campaign, created by the 1001 Inventions organisation, titled 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham featuring a series of interactive exhibits, workshops and live shows about his work, partnering with science centers, science festivals, museums, and educational institutions, as well as digital and social media platforms. The campaign also produced and released the short educational film 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham.
|
||||
Ibn al-Haytham appears on the 10,000 dinar banknote of the Iraqi dinar, series 2003.
|
||||
|
||||
== List of works ==
|
||||
According to medieval biographers, Alhazen wrote more than 200 works on a wide range of subjects, of which at least 96 of his scientific works are known. Most of his works are now lost, but more than 50 of them have survived to some extent. Nearly half of his surviving works are on mathematics, 23 of them are on astronomy, and 14 of them are on optics, with a few on other subjects. Not all his surviving works have yet been studied, but some of the ones that have are given below.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Lost works ===
|
||||
A Book in which I have Summarized the Science of Optics from the Two Books of Euclid and Ptolemy, to which I have added the Notions of the First Discourse which is Missing from Ptolemy's Book
|
||||
Treatise on Burning Mirrors
|
||||
Treatise on the Nature of [the Organ of] Sight and on How Vision is Achieved Through It
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
|
||||
== Notes ==
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
== Sources ==
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
|
||||
=== Primary ===
|
||||
|
||||
=== Secondary ===
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
|
||||
Works by Ibn al-Haytham at Open Library
|
||||
Langermann, Y. Tzvi (2007). "Ibn al-Haytham: Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 556–5567. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)
|
||||
'A Brief Introduction on Ibn al-Haytham' based on a lecture delivered at the Royal Society in London by Nader El-Bizri
|
||||
Ibn al-Haytham on two Iraqi banknotes Archived 3 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine
|
||||
The Miracle of Light – a UNESCO article on Ibn al-Haytham
|
||||
Biography from Malaspina Global Portal Archived 29 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine
|
||||
Short biographies on several "Muslim Heroes and Personalities" including Ibn al-Haytham
|
||||
Biography from ioNET at the Wayback Machine (archived 13 October 1999)
|
||||
"Biography from the BBC". Archived from the original on 11 February 2006. Retrieved 16 September 2008.
|
||||
Biography from Trinity College (Connecticut)
|
||||
Biography from Molecular Expressions
|
||||
The First True Scientist from BBC News
|
||||
Over the Moon From The UNESCO Courier on the occasion of the International Year of Astronomy 2009
|
||||
The Mechanical Water Clock Of Ibn Al-Haytham, Muslim Heritage
|
||||
Alhazen's (1572) Opticae thesaurus Archived 24 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine (English) – digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library
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||||
John of St Amand, Canon of Tournay (c. 1230 – 1303), also known as Jean de Saint-Amand and Johannes de Sancto Amando, was a medieval author on pharmacology, teaching at the University of Paris. He wrote treatises on a variety of topics including magnetism and experimental method.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Writings ==
|
||||
Among St Amand's many treatises was one on the magnet. His pharmacopoeia was the Commentary on the Antedotary of Nicholas.
|
||||
Like Roger Bacon (c. 1219 – c. 1292) after him, St Amand wrote on experimental method. The historian of science Lynn Thorndike explains that St Amand "asserts that experimentum alone is 'timorous and fallacious', but that 'fortified by reason' it gives 'experimental knowledge'". In his view, what St Amand meant was that experimentation had to be methodical, and used alongside theory. On simples used in herbal medicine, St Amand stated specific rules for practical testing: he advised that the specimen had to be pure; that the test should be on a simple disease; that the test be repeated; and that the dose should depend on the patient. Thorndike notes that both St Amand and Albertus Magnus preceded Bacon in their use of the phrase "experimental knowledge".
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
33
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||||
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|
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|
||||
The La Recherche Expedition of 1838 to 1840 was a French Admiralty expedition whose destination was the North Atlantic and Scandinavian islands, including the Faroe Islands, Spitsbergen and Iceland.
|
||||
The expedition in the Scandinavian countries from 1838 to 1840, was a direct continuation of shipments in 1835 and 1836. A letter dated 22 March 1837 revealed that Joseph Paul Gaimard and Xavier Marmier were preparing a trip to Copenhagen and Christiania (Norway) whose purpose was to gather additional information on Iceland and Greenland.
|
||||
On 13 June 1838 the French corvette La Recherche left Le Havre in France, bound for Northern Scandinavia. Joseph Paul Gaimard (1796–1858), a physician and zoologist was the commanding officer of the expedition. The expedition was on a purely scientific nature, rather than a colonial venture in cooperation with the governments of Norway and Sweden. Gaimard invited the Sámi minister and botanist Lars Levi Læstadius on the voyage for his knowledge in botany and Sámi culture. Auguste Bravais, a French scientist and Louis Bévalet, a French artist, also accompanied the expedition. The company was given an international dimension. Gaimard had hired many renowned European scholars. The Arctic exploration in the 1870s marked a watershed in the history of international scientific cooperation. The first evidence of this cooperation was, in 1882, the International Polar Year.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Publications ==
|
||||
Lottin V., Bravais A. and Lilliehöök C.B. (1842). Voyages en Scandinavie, en Laponie, au Spitzberg et aux Feröe, pendant les années 1838, 1839, 1840 sur la corvette la Recherche. Arthus Bertrand.
|
||||
Vol. 1, part 1. Preface & Chapitre I, p. 1-286 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11348/7917.pdf
|
||||
Vol. 1, rest of Chapitre I, p. 287-564 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11348/7917.pdf
|
||||
Vol. 2, part. 1. Chapitre II & III p. 1 - 248 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11356/7929.pdf
|
||||
Vol. 2, part 2. Chapitre IV p. 249 - 448 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11357/7930.pdf
|
||||
Vol. 3, part 1. Chapitre V, Variations de l'Intensité magnétique verticale, Chapitre VI, Variations de l'inclinaison magnétique, Chapitre VII, Mesures de l'inclinaison magnétique. Chapitre VIII, Variations simultanées des éleménts du magnétisme terrestre p. 1-250 http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11358/7931.pdf
|
||||
Vol. 3, part 2., s. 249-497 Chapitre IX, Électricité atmosphérique http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00002/11359/7932.pdf
|
||||
Voyages de la Commission scientifique du Nord en Scandinavie. 1, Danemark, Norvège, Spitzberg: Atlas historique et pittoresque, lithographié d'aprés les dessins de MM. Mayer, Lauvergne et Giraud. A. Bertrand. 1852.
|
||||
Voyages de la Commission scientifique du Nord en Scandinavie. 2, Laponie, Suède, Finlande, Russie, Lithuanie, Pologne, etc.; Atlas historique et pittoresque, lithographié. A. Bertrand. 1852.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Fragments of Lappish Mythology
|
||||
Lars Levi Læstadius
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
26
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Tarutius_Firmanus-0.md
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26
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Tarutius_Firmanus-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Lucius Tarutius Firmanus"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Tarutius_Firmanus"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:39.859071+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Lucius Tarutius Firmanus (or Lucius Tarutius of Firmum) (unknown-fl. 86 BC) was a Roman philosopher, mathematician, and astrologer (Taruntius or Tarrutius are also used, but are incorrect).
|
||||
Tarutius was a close friend of both Marcus Terentius Varro and Cicero. At Varro's request, Tarutius took the horoscope of Romulus. After studying the circumstances of the life and death of the founder of Rome, Tarutius calculated that Romulus was born on March 24 (when the date is correctly translated from the Egyptian calendar) in the second year of the second Olympiad (i.e. 771 BC). He also calculated that Rome was founded on 4 October 754 BC, between the second and third hour of the day (Plutarch, Rom., 12; Cicero, De Divin., ii. 47.).
|
||||
The proximity of this date to an eclipse was discussed by Scaliger.
|
||||
The crater Taruntius on the Moon is named after him.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Tarutius
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Notes ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
(in English) Eduardo Vila-Echagüe, Lucius Tarutius and the foundations of Rome
|
||||
Donne, William Bodham (1870). "Firmanus, Tarutius". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 2. p. 151.
|
||||
23
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma'aseh_Toviyyah-0.md
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23
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma'aseh_Toviyyah-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Ma'aseh Toviyyah"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma'aseh_Toviyyah"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:55.559739+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Ma'aseh Toviyyah or Ma'aseh Tobiyyah (Hebrew: מעשה טוביה, lit. 'Work of Tobias') was an encyclopedic scientific reference book written by Tobias Cohn. It was published in Venice, Italy, in 1707, and reprinted there in 1715, 1728, 1769, and 1850.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Contents ==
|
||||
The work is divided into eight parts: (1) theology; (2) astronomy; (3) medicine; (4) hygiene; (5) Syphilitic maladies; (6) botany; (7) cosmography; and (8) an essay on the four elements. The most important is the third part, which contains an illustration showing a human body and a house side by side and comparing the members of the former to the parts of the latter (see illustration).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Illustrations and dictionary ==
|
||||
In part 2 are found an astrolabe and illustrations of astronomical and mathematical instruments. Inserted between parts 6 and 7 is Turkish-Latin-Spanish dictionary; and prefixed to the work is a poem by Solomon Conegliano.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). "Cohn, Tobias". The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_for_the_History_of_Science"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:35:06.418095+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:58.000797+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
14
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sokal-0.md
Normal file
14
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sokal-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Michael Sokal"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Sokal"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:28.168762+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Michael Mark Sokal was an American historian and educator. He died on Dec 18, 2025, age 80 . Born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 6, 1945, he was the son of the late Martin and Adele (Wattenberg) Sokal. After earning a degree in engineering and a doctorate in history, he joined the History faculty at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and published many works exploring the history of science, technology, and psychology. He also served as an editor and administrator for several prominent national organizations, including the History of Science Society, American Psychological Association, National Endowment for the Humanities, and National Science Foundation. He taught his entire career at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the history of science. He received his PhD in history of science and technology from Case Western Reserve University in 1972. His research focused on James McKeen Cattell, a prominent psychologist and scientific impresario in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the 2004-2005 president of the History of Science Society.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
40
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinology-0.md
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40
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinology-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Molinology"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinology"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:59.199344+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Molinology (from Latin: molīna, mill; and Greek λόγος, study) is the study of mills and other similar devices which use energy for mechanical purposes such as grinding, fulling or sawing.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Mill technology ==
|
||||
The term "Molinology" was coined in 1965 by the Portuguese industrial historian João Miguel dos Santos Simões. Mills make use of moving water or wind, or the strength of animal or human muscle to power machines for purposes such as hammering, grinding, pumping, sawing, pressing or fulling. Since the material resources and technology available to harness mill power have varied across societies and across time, different human societies developed different solutions to the problem. Thus molinology is a multidisciplinary area of study which reaches beyond mechanical analysis of the mills.
|
||||
Cultural and scientific interest in molinology is maintained by The International Molinological Society (TIMS), a non-profit organisation which brings together around five hundred members worldwide. It was founded in 1973 after earlier international symposia in 1965 and 1969. The Society aims to retain the knowledge of those traditional engines which have been rendered obsolete by modern technical and economic trends.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Watermill – Structure that uses a water wheel or turbine
|
||||
Tide mill – Type of watermill
|
||||
Windmill – Machine that makes use of wind energy
|
||||
Horse mill – Type of mill powered by horses
|
||||
Ship mill – Watermill on a floating platform
|
||||
Treadmill – Exercise machine
|
||||
Treadwheel – Form of engine typically powered by humans
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
Watts, M (2002). The Archaeology of Mills and Milling. Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-1966-8.
|
||||
Ogden, D; G.Bost (2010). The Quest for American Milling Secrets (BM20 ed.). Congleton, England: TIMS Publication. ISBN 978-92-9134-025-5. LCCN 2011401534.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Official website of The International Molinological Society
|
||||
The Society for the Preservation of Old Mills (SPOOM)
|
||||
The Mills Archive
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
29
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery-0.md
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29
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Multiple discovery"
|
||||
chunk: 1/2
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:20.249298+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The concept of multiple discovery (also known as simultaneous invention) is the hypothesis that most scientific discoveries and inventions are made independently and more or less simultaneously by multiple scientists and inventors. The concept of multiple discovery opposes a traditional view—the "heroic theory" of invention and discovery. Multiple discovery is analogous to convergent evolution in biological evolution.
|
||||
|
||||
== Multiples ==
|
||||
When Nobel laureates are announced annually—especially in physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, and economics—increasingly, in the given field, rather than just a single laureate, there are two, or the maximally permissible three, who often have independently made the same discovery.
|
||||
Historians and sociologists have remarked the occurrence, in science, of "multiple independent discovery". Robert K. Merton defined such "multiples" as instances in which similar discoveries are made by scientists working independently of each other. Merton contrasted a "multiple" with a "singleton"—a discovery that has been made uniquely by a single scientist or group of scientists working together. As Merton said, "Sometimes the discoveries are simultaneous or almost so; sometimes a scientist will make a new discovery which, unknown to him, somebody else has made years before."
|
||||
Commonly cited examples of multiple independent discovery are the 17th-century independent formulation of calculus by Isaac Newton, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and others; the 18th-century discovery of oxygen by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Joseph Priestley, Antoine Lavoisier and others; and the theory of evolution of species, independently advanced in the 19th century by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. What holds for discoveries, also goes for inventions. Examples are the blast furnace (invented independently in China, Europe and Africa), the crossbow (invented independently in China, Greece, Africa, northern Canada, and the Baltic countries), magnetism (discovered independently in Greece, China, and India), the computer mouse (both rolling and optical), powered flight, and the telephone.
|
||||
Multiple independent discovery, however, is not limited to only a few historic instances involving giants of scientific research. Merton believed that it is multiple discoveries, rather than unique ones, that represent the common pattern in science.
|
||||
|
||||
== Mechanism ==
|
||||
|
||||
Multiple discoveries in the history of science provide evidence for evolutionary models of science and technology, such as memetics (the study of self-replicating units of culture), evolutionary epistemology (which applies the concepts of biological evolution to study of the growth of human knowledge), and cultural selection theory (which studies sociological and cultural evolution in a Darwinian manner).
|
||||
Multiple independent discovery and invention, like discovery and invention generally, have been fostered by the evolution of means of communication: roads, vehicles, sailing vessels, writing, printing, institutions of education, reliable postal services, telegraphy, and mass media, including the internet. Gutenberg's invention of printing (which itself involved a number of discrete inventions) substantially facilitated the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times. All these communication developments have catalyzed and accelerated the process of recombinant conceptualization, and thus also of multiple independent discovery.
|
||||
Multiple independent discoveries show an increased incidence beginning in the 17th century. This may accord with the thesis of British philosopher A.C. Grayling that the 17th century was crucial in the creation of the modern world view, freed from the shackles of religion, the occult, and uncritical faith in the authority of Aristotle. Grayling speculates that Europe's Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), with the concomitant breakdown of authority, made freedom of thought and open debate possible, so that "modern science... rests on the heads of millions of dead." He also notes "the importance of the development of a reliable postal service... in enabling savants... to be in scholarly communication.... [T]he cooperative approach, first recommended by Francis Bacon, was essential to making science open to peer review and public verification, and not just a matter of the lone [individual] issuing... idiosyncratic pronouncements."
|
||||
|
||||
== Humanities ==
|
||||
The paradigm of recombinant conceptualization (see above)—more broadly, of recombinant occurrences—that explains multiple discovery in science and the arts, also elucidates the phenomenon of historic recurrence, wherein similar events are noted in the histories of countries widely separated in time and geography. It is the recurrence of patterns that lends a degree of prognostic power—and, thus, additional scientific validity—to the findings of history.
|
||||
|
||||
== The arts ==
|
||||
Lamb and Easton have argued that science and art are similar with regard to multiple discovery. When two scientists independently make the same discovery, their papers are not word-for-word identical, but the core ideas in the papers are the same; likewise, two novelists may independently write novels with the same core themes, though their novels are not identical word-for-word.
|
||||
30
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery-1.md
Normal file
30
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery-1.md
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@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Multiple discovery"
|
||||
chunk: 2/2
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:20.249298+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
== Civility ==
|
||||
After Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had exchanged information on their respective systems of calculus in the 1670s, Newton in the first edition of his Principia (1687), in a scholium, apparently accepted Leibniz's independent discovery of calculus. In 1699, however, a Swiss mathematician suggested to Britain's Royal Society that Leibniz had borrowed his calculus from Newton. In 1705 Leibniz, in an anonymous review of Newton's Opticks, implied that Newton's fluxions (Newton's term for differential calculus) were an adaptation of Leibniz's calculus. In 1712 the Royal Society appointed a committee to examine the documents in question; the same year, the Society published a report, written by Newton himself, asserting his priority. Soon after Leibniz died in 1716, Newton denied that his own 1687 Principia scholium "allowed [Leibniz] the invention of the calculus differentialis independently of my own"; and the third edition of Newton's Principia (1726) omitted the tell-tale scholium. It is now accepted that Newton and Leibniz discovered calculus independently of each other.
|
||||
In another classic case of multiple discovery, the two discoverers showed more civility. By June 1858 Charles Darwin had completed over two-thirds of his On the Origin of Species when he received a startling letter from a naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, 13 years his junior, with whom he had corresponded. The letter summarized Wallace's theory of natural selection, with conclusions identical to Darwin's own. Darwin turned for advice to his friend Charles Lyell, the foremost geologist of the day. Lyell proposed that Darwin and Wallace prepare a joint communication to the scientific community. Darwin being preoccupied with his mortally ill youngest son, Lyell enlisted Darwin's closest friend, Joseph Hooker, director of Kew Gardens, and together on 1 July 1858 they presented to the Linnean Society a joint paper that brought together Wallace's abstract with extracts from Darwin's earlier, 1844 essay on the subject. The paper was also published that year in the Society's journal. Neither the public reading of the joint paper nor its publication attracted interest; but Wallace, "admirably free from envy or jealousy," had been content to remain in Darwin's shadow.
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
|
||||
== References and notes ==
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
Lamb, David, and S.M. Easton, chapter 9: Originality in art and science, Multiple Discovery: The Pattern of Scientific Progress, Amersham, Avebury Publishing, 1984, ISBN 0861270258.
|
||||
Colin McGinn, "Groping Toward the Mind" (review of George Makari, Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind, Norton, 656 pp., $39.95; and A.C. Grayling, The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind, Bloomsbury, 351 pp., $30.00), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXIII, no. 11 (June 23, 2016), pp. 67–68.
|
||||
Merton, Robert K. (1996). Sztompka, Piotr (ed.). On Social Structure and Science. Chicago, IL, USA: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-52070-4.
|
||||
Merton, Robert K. (1973). The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago, IL, USA: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226520919.
|
||||
Whalen, Eamon, "The Man Who Saw It Coming: Rob Wallace warned us that industrial agriculture could cause a deadly pandemic, but no one listened. Until now." (article on Rob Wallace and his books, Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science and Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19), The Nation, vol. 313, no. 5 (September 6/13, 2021), pp. 14–19.
|
||||
Zuckerman, Harriet (1977). Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States. New York, NY: The Free Press. ISBN 9780029357606.
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
"Annals of Innovation: In the Air: Who says big ideas are rare?", Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, May 12, 2008
|
||||
The Technium: Simultaneous Invention, Kevin Kelly, May 9, 2008
|
||||
Apperceptual: The Heroic Theory of Scientific Development at the Wayback Machine (archived May 12, 2008), Peter Turney, January 15, 2007
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musée_Pasteur"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:32:42.862017+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:12.656578+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Nice"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muséum_d'histoire_naturelle_de_Nice"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:00.395015+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Natural History Museum of Nice (French: Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Nice) is a French natural-history museum located in Nice.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Origins ==
|
||||
|
||||
The museum was founded in 1846 by Jean Baptiste Vérany (1800–1865), a French pharmacist and naturalist who specialized in the study of cephalopods, and Jean-Baptiste Barla (1817–1896), a French botanist.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Collections ==
|
||||
It has extensive collections mainly from the Mediterranean region but also from Africa, the Indian Ocean and South America.
|
||||
Currently, following the upgrading of the exhibition halls, only the museum space built at the beginning of the 20th century is open to the public and constitutes the establishment's permanent exhibition hall. Periodically, a few temporary exhibitions are scheduled at Parc Phœnix, at the Louis-Nucéra library, at the Maison de la nature in the Grande Corniche departmental park. The museum was to be relocated to a future Cité des Sciences et de la Nature, including a new building for the museum and the Phoenix Park, with an opening scheduled for 2013. The project has been postponed indefinitely.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Location ==
|
||||
The museum's address is 60 du boulevard Risso, just behind Place Garibaldi near the MAMAC (Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain), Nice, France.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
|
||||
List of museums in France
|
||||
List of natural history museums
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
mhnnice.org (in French), museum's official website
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Historical_Advisory_Committee"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:35:07.580393+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:01.614367+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Natural History Museum of Tripoli"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_History_Museum_of_Tripoli"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:02.766268+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Natural History Museum of Tripoli is a museum located in Tripoli, Libya. It was developed by Professor Zahid Baig Mirza (Z. B. Mirza).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
|
||||
List of museums in Libya
|
||||
List of natural-history museums
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/2
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_magic"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:24:04.723586+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:03.992122+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/2
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_magic"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:24:04.723586+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:03.992122+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturhistorieselskabet"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:30:07.963217+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:05.257723+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neeff's_wheel"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:37:22.748713+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:06.522988+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
34
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|
||||
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|
||||
|
||||
The Novum Organum, fully Novum Organum, sive Indicia Vera de Interpretatione Naturae ("New organon, or true directions concerning the interpretation of nature") or Instaurationis Magnae, Pars II ("Part II of The Great Instauration"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.
|
||||
For Bacon, finding the essence of a thing was a simple process of reduction, and the use of inductive reasoning. In finding the cause of a "phenomenal nature" such as heat, one must list all of the situations where heat is found. Then another list should be drawn up, listing situations that are similar to those of the first list except for the lack of heat. A third table lists situations where heat can vary. The "form nature", or cause, of heat must be that which is common to all instances in the first table, is lacking from all instances of the second table and varies by degree in instances of the third table.
|
||||
The title page of Novum Organum depicts a galleon passing between the mythical Pillars of Hercules that stand either side of the Strait of Gibraltar, marking the exit from the well-charted waters of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic Ocean. The Pillars, as the boundary of the Mediterranean, have been smashed through by Iberian sailors, opening a new world for exploration. Bacon hopes that empirical investigation will, similarly, smash the old scientific ideas and lead to greater understanding of the world and heavens. This title page was liberally copied from Andrés García de Céspedes's Regimiento de Navegación, published in 1606.
|
||||
The Latin tag across the bottom – Multi pertransibunt & augebitur scientia – is taken from the Old Testament (Daniel 12:4) and means "Many will travel and knowledge will be increased".
|
||||
|
||||
== Bacon and the scientific method ==
|
||||
|
||||
Bacon's work was instrumental in the historical development of the scientific method. His technique bears a resemblance to the modern formulation of the scientific method in the sense that it is centered on experimental research. Bacon's emphasis on the use of artificial experiments to provide additional observances of a phenomenon is one reason that he is often considered "the Father of the Experimental Philosophy" (for example famously by Voltaire). On the other hand, so-called modern scientific method, which is a pluralistic hodge-podge, obviously does not follow Bacon's methods in its details, but more in the spirit of billing itself as "methodical and experimental", and so his position in this regard can be disputed. Importantly though, Bacon set the scene for science to develop various methodologies and ideologies, because he made the case against older Aristotelian approaches to science, arguing that method was needed because of the natural biases and weaknesses of the human mind, including the natural bias it has to seek metaphysical explanations which are not based on real observations.
|
||||
|
||||
== Preface ==
|
||||
Bacon begins the work with a rejection of pure a priori deduction as a means of discovering truth in natural philosophy. Of his philosophy, he states:
|
||||
|
||||
Now my plan is as easy to describe as it is difficult to effect. For it is to establish degrees of certainty, take care of the sense by a kind of reduction, but to reject for the most part the work of the mind that follows upon sense; in fact I mean to open up and lay down a new and certain pathway from the perceptions of the senses themselves to the mind.
|
||||
|
||||
The emphasis on beginning with observation pervades the entire work. In fact, it is in the idea that natural philosophy must begin with the senses that we find the revolutionary part of Bacon's philosophy, and its consequent philosophical method, eliminative induction, is one of Bacon's most lasting contributions to science and philosophy.
|
||||
|
||||
== Instauratio Magna ==
|
||||
Novum organum was actually published as part of a much larger work, Instauratio Magna ("The Great Instauration"). The word instauration was intended to show that the state of human knowledge was to simultaneously press forward while also returning to that enjoyed by man before the Fall. Originally intending Instauratio Magna to contain six parts (of which Novum organum constituted the second), Bacon did not come close to completing this series, as parts V and VI were never written at all. Novum organum, written in Latin and consisting of two books of aphorisms, was included in the volume that Bacon published in 1620; however, it was also unfinished, as Bacon promised several additions to its content which ultimately remained unprinted.
|
||||
|
||||
== Book I ==
|
||||
Bacon titled this first book Aphorismi de Interpretatione Naturae et Regno Hominis ("Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature, and the Kingdom of Man").
|
||||
In the first book of aphorisms, Bacon criticizes the current state of natural philosophy. The object of his assault consists largely in the syllogism, a method that he believes to be completely inadequate in comparison to what Bacon calls "true Induction":
|
||||
|
||||
The syllogism is made up of propositions, propositions of words, and words are markers of notions. Thus if the notions themselves (and this is the heart of the matter) are confused, and recklessly abstracted from things, nothing built on them is sound. The only hope therefore lies in true Induction.
|
||||
36
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||||
In many of his aphorisms, Bacon reiterates the importance of inductive reasoning. Induction, methodologically prior to deduction, entails beginning with particular cases observed by the senses and then attempting to discover the general axioms from those observations. Thus, induction presupposes the possibility of intelligent sensory observation. Deduction, on the other hand, begins with general axioms ("highest" or "middle"), which might be viewed as first principles or as inductively derived principles, on the basis of which it is possible to derive a systematic, i.e., scientific, knowledge of things. Bacon claims that there are two, and only two, distinct modes of induction and that the second allegedly distinct mode – which he claims will be a "new" way or method, supposedly newly discovered or invented by himself – will be much better than the old one:
|
||||
|
||||
There are and can only be two ways of investigating and discovering truth. The one rushes up from the sense and particulars to axioms of the highest generality and, from these principles and their indubitable truth, goes on to infer and discover middle axioms; and this is the way in current use. The other way draws axioms from the sense and particulars by climbing steadily and by degrees so that it reaches the ones of highest generality last of all; and this is the true but still untrodden way.
|
||||
After many similar aphoristic reiterations of these important concepts, Bacon presents his famous Idols.
|
||||
|
||||
== The Idols (Idola) ==
|
||||
Novum organum, as suggested by its name, is focused just as much on a rejection of received doctrine as it is on a forward-looking progression. In Bacon's Idols are found his most critical examination of man-made impediments which mislead the mind's objective reasoning. They appear in previous works but were never fully fleshed out until their formulation in Novum organum:
|
||||
|
||||
=== Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus) ===
|
||||
"Idols of the Tribe are rooted in human nature itself and in the very tribe or race of men. For people falsely claim that human sense is the measure of things, whereas in fact all perceptions of sense and mind are built to the scale of man and not the universe." (Aphorism 41).
|
||||
Bacon includes in this idol the predilection of the human imagination to presuppose otherwise unsubstantiated regularities in nature. An example might be the common historical astronomical assumption that planets move in perfect circles.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Idols of the Cave (Idola specus) ===
|
||||
These "belong to the particular individual. For everyone has (besides vagaries of human nature in general) his own special cave or den which scatters and discolours the light of nature. Now this comes either of his own unique and singular nature; or his education and association with others, or the books he reads and the several authorities of those whom he cultivates and admires, or the different impressions as they meet in the soul, be the soul possessed and prejudiced, or steady and settled, or the like; so that the human spirit (as it is allotted to particular individuals) is evidently a variable thing, all muddled, and so to speak a creature of chance..." (Aphorism 42).
|
||||
This type of idol stems from the particular life experiences of the individual. Variable educations can lead the individual to a preference for specific concepts or methods, which then corrupt their subsequent philosophies. Bacon himself gives the example of Aristotle, "who made his natural philosophy a mere slave to his logic" (Aphorism 54).
|
||||
|
||||
=== Idols of the Market (Idola fori) ===
|
||||
These are "derived as if from the mutual agreement and association of the human race, which I call Idols of the Market on account of men's commerce and partnerships. For men associate through conversation, but words are applied according to the capacity of ordinary people. Therefore shoddy and inept application of words lays siege to the intellect in wondrous ways" (Aphorism 43).
|
||||
Bacon considered these "the greatest nuisances of them all" (Aphorism 59). Because humans reason through the use of words they are particularly dangerous, because the received definitions of words, which are often falsely derived, can cause confusion. He outlines two subsets of this kind of idol and provides examples (Aphorism 60).
|
||||
|
||||
First, there are those words which spring from fallacious theories, such as the element of fire or the concept of a first mover. These are easy to dismantle because their inadequacy can be traced back to the fault of their derivation in a faulty theory.
|
||||
Second, there are those words that are the result of imprecise abstraction. Earth, for example, is a vague term that may include many different substances the commonality of which is questionable. These terms are often used elliptically, or from a lack of information or definition of the term.
|
||||
|
||||
=== Idols of the Theatre (Idola theatri) ===
|
||||
"Lastly, there are the Idols which have misguided into men's souls from the dogmas of the philosophers and misguided laws of demonstration as well; I call these Idols of the Theatre, for in my eyes the philosophies received and discovered are so many stories made up and acted out stories which have created sham worlds worth of the stage." (Aphorism 44).
|
||||
These idols manifest themselves in the unwise acceptance of certain philosophical dogmas, namely Aristotle's sophistical natural philosophy (named specifically in Aphorism 63), which was corrupted by his passion for logic, and Plato's superstitious philosophy, which relied too heavily on theological principles.
|
||||
27
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||||
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|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:21.436473+00:00"
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||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
== Book II ==
|
||||
After enumerating the shortcomings of the current and past natural philosophies, Bacon can now present his own philosophy and methods.
|
||||
Bacon retains the Aristotelian causes, but redefines them in interesting ways. While traditionally the final cause was held as most important among the four (material, formal, efficient, and final), Bacon claims that it is the least helpful and in some cases actually detrimental to the sciences (aph. 2). For Bacon, it is the formal cause which is both the most illusive and most valuable, although each of the causes provides certain practical devices. By forms and formal causes, Bacon means the universal laws of nature. To these Bacon attaches an almost occult like power:
|
||||
|
||||
But he who knows forms grasps the unity of nature beneath the surface of materials which are very unlike. Thus is he able to identify and bring about things that have never been done before, things of the kind which neither the vicissitudes of nature, nor hard experimenting, nor pure accident could ever have actualised, or human thought dreamed of. And thus from the discovery of the forms flows true speculation and unrestricted operation (aphorism 3).
|
||||
|
||||
In this second book, Bacon offers "true induction" as an example of the process. In this example, Bacon attempts to grasp the form of heat.
|
||||
The first step he takes is to survey all known instances where the nature of heat appears to exist. To this compilation of observational data Bacon gives the name "Table of Essence and Presence". The next table, the "Table of Absence in Proximity", is essentially the opposite – a compilation of all the instances in which the nature of heat is not present. Because these are so numerous, Bacon enumerates only the most relevant cases. Lastly, Bacon attempts to categorise the instances of the nature of heat into various degrees of intensity in his Table of Degrees. The aim of this final table is to eliminate certain instances of heat which might be said to be the form of heat, and thus get closer to an approximation of the true form of heat. Such elimination occurs through comparison. For example, the observation that both a fire and boiling water are instances of heat allows us to exclude light as the true form of heat, because light is present in the case of the fire but not in the case of the boiling water. Through this comparative analysis, Bacon intends to eventually extrapolate the true form of heat, although it is clear that such a goal is only gradually approachable by degrees. Indeed, the hypothesis that is derived from this eliminative induction, which Bacon names The First Vintage, is only the starting point from which additional empirical evidence and experimental analysis can refine our conception of a formal cause.
|
||||
The "Baconian method" does not end at the First Vintage. Bacon described numerous classes of Instances with Special Powers, cases in which the phenomenon one is attempting to explain is particularly relevant. These instances, of which Bacon describes 27 in Novum Organum, aid and accelerate the process of induction. They are "labour-saving devices or shortcuts intended to accelerate or make more rigorous the search for forms by providing logical reinforcement to induction".
|
||||
Aside from the First Vintage and the Instances with Special Powers, Bacon enumerates additional "aids to the intellect" which presumably are the next steps in his "method". In Aphorism 21 of Book II, Bacon lays out the subsequent series of steps in proper induction: including Supports to Induction, Rectification of Induction, Varying the Inquiry according to the Nature of the Subject, Natures with Special Powers, Ends of Inquiry, Bringing Things down to Practice, Preparatives to Inquiry and Ascending and Descending Scale of Axioms.
|
||||
These additional aids, however, were never explained beyond their initial limited appearance in Novum Organum. It is likely that Bacon intended them to be included in later parts of Instauratio magna and simply never got to writing about them.
|
||||
As mentioned above, this second book of Novum organum was far from complete and indeed was only a small part of a massive, also unfinished work, the Instauratio magna.
|
||||
|
||||
== Bacon and Descartes ==
|
||||
Bacon is often studied through a comparison to his contemporary René Descartes. Both thinkers were, in a sense, some of the first to question the philosophical authority of the ancient Greeks. Bacon and Descartes both believed that a critique of preexisting natural philosophy was necessary, but their respective critiques proposed radically different approaches to natural philosophy. Two over-lapping movements developed; "one was rational and theoretical in approach and was headed by Rene Descartes; the other was practical and empirical and was led by Francis Bacon". They were both profoundly concerned with the extent to which humans can come to knowledge, and yet their methods of doing so projected diverging paths.
|
||||
On the one hand, Descartes begins with a doubt of anything which cannot be known with absolute certainty and includes in this realm of doubt the impressions of sense perception, and thus, "all sciences of corporal things, such as physics and astronomy". He thus attempts to provide a metaphysical principle (this becomes the Cogito) which cannot be doubted, on which further truths must be deduced. In this method of deduction, the philosopher begins by examining the most general axioms (such as the Cogito), and then proceeds to determine the truth about particulars from an understanding of those general axioms.
|
||||
Conversely, Bacon endorsed the opposite method of Induction, in which the particulars are first examined, and only then is there a gradual ascent to the most general axioms. While Descartes doubts the ability of the senses to provide us with accurate information, Bacon doubts the ability of the mind to deduce truths by itself as it is subjected to so many intellectual obfuscations, Bacon's "Idols". In his first aphorism of New organum, Bacon states:
|
||||
33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_Organum-3.md
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title: "Novum Organum"
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||||
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|
||||
|
||||
Man, the servant and interpreter of nature, does and understands only as much as he has observed, by fact or mental activity, concerning the order of nature; beyond that he has neither knowledge nor power.
|
||||
|
||||
So, in a basic sense the central difference between the philosophical methods of Descartes and those of Bacon can be reduced to an argument between deductive and inductive reasoning and whether to trust or doubt the senses. However, there is another profound difference between the two thinkers' positions on the accessibility of Truth. Descartes professed to be aiming at absolute Truth. It is questionable whether Bacon believed such a Truth can be achieved. In his opening remarks, he proposes "to establish progressive stages of certainty". For Bacon, a measure of truth was its power to allow predictions of natural phenomena (although Bacon's forms come close to what we might call "Truth", because they are universal, immutable laws of nature).
|
||||
|
||||
== Original contributions ==
|
||||
An interesting characteristic of Bacon's apparently scientific tract was that, although he amassed an overwhelming body of empirical data, he did not make any original discoveries. Indeed, that was never his intention, and such an evaluation of Bacon's legacy may wrongfully lead to an unjust comparison with Newton. Bacon never claimed to have brilliantly revealed new unshakable truths about nature – in fact, he believed that such an endeavour is not the work of single minds but that of whole generations by gradual degrees toward reliable knowledge.
|
||||
In many ways, Bacon's contribution to the advancement of human knowledge lies not in the fruit of his scientific research but in the reinterpretation of the methods of natural philosophy. His innovation is summarised in The Oxford Francis Bacon:
|
||||
|
||||
Before Bacon where else does one find a meticulously articulated view of natural philosophy as an enterprise of instruments and experiment, and enterprise designed to restrain discursive reason and make good the defects of the senses? Where else in the literature before Bacon does one come across a stripped-down natural-historical programme of such enormous scope and scrupulous precision, and designed to serve as the basis for a complete reconstruction of human knowledge which would generate new, vastly productive sciences through a form of eliminative induction supported by various other procedures including deduction? Where else does one find a concept of scientific research which implies an institutional framework of such proportions that it required generations of permanent state funding to sustain it? And all this accompanied by a thorough, searching, and devastating attack on ancient and not-so-ancient philosophies, and by a provisional natural philosophy anticipating the results of the new philosophy?
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
The Four Great Errors – Mistakes of human reason proposed by Nietzsche
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
|
||||
"Francis Bacon" at Early Modern Texts, with English translation The New Organon, prepared by Jonathan Bennett with adjustments to make the text more accessible
|
||||
The New Organon, English translation, based on the 1863 translation of James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath
|
||||
Novum Organum (English), Thomas Fowler (ed., notes, etc.) MacMillan and Co., Clarendon Press, Oxford (1878), public domain
|
||||
Novum Organum (Latin), English (annotated), Farsi (Persian) (annotated), prepared by Hossein Jorjani.
|
||||
Novum Organum, original Latin text
|
||||
The New Organon public domain audiobook at LibriVox
|
||||
22
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_of_brick-0.md
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||||
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|
||||
title: "Oil of brick"
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_of_brick"
|
||||
category: "reference"
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|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:07.683020+00:00"
|
||||
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|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Oil of brick, called by apothecaries Oleum de Lateribus and by alchemists Oil of Philosophers, was an empyreumatic oil obtained by subjecting a brick soaked in oil, such as olive oil, to distillation at a high temperature.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Manufacture ==
|
||||
The process initially started with pieces of brick, which were heated red hot in live coals, and extinguished in an earth half-saturated with olive oil. Being then separated and pounded grossly, the brick absorbs the oil. It was then put in a retort, and placed in a reverberatory furnace, where the oil was drawn out by fire.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Uses ==
|
||||
Oil of brick was used in pre-modern medicine as a treatment for tumors, in the spleen, in palsies, and epilepsies. It was used by lapidaries as a vehicle for the emery by which stones and gems were sawn or cut.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oman_Children's_Museum"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:03:39.340773+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:08.893004+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_square"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:37:27.471188+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:10.158697+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrosains"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:03:40.560682+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:13.937666+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Pharmacy Museum of the Jagiellonian University Medical College"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy_Museum_of_the_Jagiellonian_University_Medical_College"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:15.106992+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Muzeum Farmacji Collegium Medicum Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego (Pharmacy Museum, Jagiellonian University Medical College) is a museum on Floriańska Street, Kraków, Poland, specializing in the history of pharmacy and pharmaceutical technology. It was established in 1946.
|
||||
The museum was founded by Stanisław Proń, legal counsel and administrative director of the Regional Chamber of Pharmacists in Kraków. Until the late 1980s, the museum was housed in the building at 3 ul. Basztowa. It was then transferred to the newly renovated building at ul. St. Florian's, where it remains today.
|
||||
It is the largest and oldest Museum of Pharmacy in Poland, and one of the largest museums of its kind in the world.
|
||||
The museum occupies all five floors of the building, including the basement and the attic, in a manner appropriate to the historical use of such premises in as an apothecary. On the first floor is a room dedicated to Ignacy Łukasiewicz, a pharmacist, pioneer in the field of crude oil, and the inventor of the modern kerosene lamp. The room on the second floor of the exhibition is devoted to Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Roman Catholic who ran the "Under the Eagle" pharmacy in the Kraków Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Among the various exhibits of pharmaceutical technology are weights of less than one gram as patented by Marian Zahradnik, the shape of which indicates their importance. Such weights were adopted in the countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and later across Europe, and are still used with minor modifications. Another interesting invention is an electrical device to sterilize prescriptions. It was to protect the pharmacist from infection by germs transferred on the prescription.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_box_(electricity)"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:37:34.501965+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:16.280999+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
31
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_circle-0.md
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31
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Repeating circle"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeating_circle"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:18.640518+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The repeating circle is an instrument for geodetic surveying, developed from the reflecting circle by Étienne Lenoir in 1784. He invented it while an assistant of Jean-Charles de Borda, who later improved the instrument. It was notable as being the equal of the great theodolite created by the renowned instrument maker, Jesse Ramsden. It was used to measure the meridian arc from Dunkirk to Barcelona by Jean Baptiste Delambre and Pierre Méchain (see: meridian arc of Delambre and Méchain).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Construction and operation ==
|
||||
The repeating circle is made of two telescopes mounted on a shared axis with scales to measure the angle between the two. The instrument combines multiple measurements to increase accuracy with the following procedure:
|
||||
|
||||
At this stage, the angle on the instrument is double the angle of interest between the points. Repeating the procedure causes the instrument to show 4× the angle of interest, with further iterations increasing it to 6×, 8×, and so on. In this way, many measurements can be added together, allowing some of the random measurement errors to cancel out.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Use in geodetic surveys ==
|
||||
The repeating circle was used by César-François Cassini de Thury, assisted by Pierre Méchain, for the triangulation of the Anglo-French Survey. It would later be used for the Arc measurement of Delambre and Méchain as improvements in the measuring device designed by Borda and used for this survey also raised hopes for a more accurate determination of the length of the French meridian arc.
|
||||
When the metre was chosen as an international unit of length, it was well known that by measuring the latitude of two stations in Barcelona, Méchain had found that the difference between these latitudes was greater than predicted by direct measurement of distance by triangulation and that he did not dare to admit this inaccuracy. This was later explained by clearance in the central axis of the repeating circle causing wear and consequently the zenith measurements contained significant systematic errors.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Reflecting circles
|
||||
Meridional definition
|
||||
Grade (angle)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescuing_Prometheus"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T08:56:52.254253+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:19.846216+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
24
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorius-0.md
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24
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorius-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Rhetorius"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorius"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:21.032525+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Rhetorius of Egypt (Greek: Ῥητόριος) was the last major classical astrologer from whom we have any excerpts. He lived in the sixth or early seventh century, in the early Byzantine era. He wrote an extensive compendium in Greek of the techniques of the Hellenistic astrologers who preceded him, and is one of our best sources for the work of Antiochus of Athens. Although no intact original manuscript survives of his work, we do have several late Byzantine versions of it.
|
||||
Rhetorius provides important confirmation of the survival of the more obscure astrological techniques of Vettius Valens, the practicing astrologer whose tradition is somewhat at variance with the more well-known methods of Claudius Ptolemy; for example, in his treatment of the Lot of Fortune as a horoskopos, much as Valens treated Lots, and in his use of sect with lots. In addition, Rhetorius discusses the late-Roman systems of time lords, a topic which came to be heavily developed by the Persians, Arabs and medieval Europeans. Rhetorius provides an informative link between the earlier Hellenistic tradition and the Arab and medieval practices that followed him.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Sources ==
|
||||
Rhetorius qui dictur: Compendium astrologicum: Libri Vi et VI, edited by David Pingree, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2007.
|
||||
Rhetorius the Egyptian, Astrological Compendium (Tempe, Az.: A.F.A., Inc., 2009.) translated by James Herschel Holden.
|
||||
Robert Schmidt, Project Hindsight.
|
||||
Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum (translation and commentary). Late Classical Astrology: Paulus Alexandrinus and Olympiodorus (with the Scholia of later Latin Commentators). ARHAT, 2001.
|
||||
Rhetorius of Egypt on The Hellenistic Astrology website.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Ἐπιτομή τέχνης ἀστρονομικῆς (Compendium of astronomical art), original hellenic text online & biography
|
||||
33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_of_Chester-0.md
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33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_of_Chester-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Robert of Chester"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_of_Chester"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:22.215028+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Robert of Chester (Latin: Robertus Castrensis) was an English Arabist of the 12th century. He translated several historically important books from Arabic to Latin, such as:
|
||||
|
||||
Book on the Composition of Alchemy (Liber de compositione alchemiae): translated in 1144, this was the first book on alchemy to become available in Europe
|
||||
Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing (Liber algebrae et almucabola): al-Khwārizmī's book about algebra, translated in 1145
|
||||
In the 1140s Robert worked in Iberia, where the division of the region between Muslim and Christian rulers resulted in opportunities for interchange between the different cultures. However, by the end of the decade he had returned to England. Some sources identify him with Robert of Ketton (Latin: Robertus Ketenensis) who was also active as an Arabic-Latin translator in the 1140s.
|
||||
However, Ketton and Chester, while both places in England, are a long way apart. Also, when in Iberia, Robert of Ketton was based in the Kingdom of Navarre, whereas Robert of Chester is known to have worked in Segovia.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Latin translations of the 12th century
|
||||
Louis Charles Karpinski
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Notes ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
Lo Bello, Anthony (22 April 2024). "Robert of Chester". The commentary of Al-Nayrizi on Book I of Euclid's Elements of geometry, with an introduction on the transmission of Euclid's Elements in the Middle Ages. Boston: Brill Academic. pp. 41–44. ISBN 978-0-391-04192-9.
|
||||
Charles Burnett, ‘Ketton, Robert of (fl. 1141–1157)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. (This is, in effect, a double biography covering both Robert of Ketton and Robert of Chester.)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
[1], complete text online. Translation of Robert of Chester, or Robert of Ketton.
|
||||
37
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Galton_Jr.-0.md
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37
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Galton_Jr.-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Samuel Galton Jr."
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Galton_Jr."
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:41.013272+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Samuel John Galton Jr. FRS (18 June 1753 – 19 June 1832) was an English arms manufacturer. He was born in Duddeston, Birmingham, England, into a Quaker family. He would go on to join his father's gun manufacturing company. He was a member of the Lunar Society in December of 1785 and lived at Great Barr Hall, one of the meeting places for the Lunar Society. He also built a house at Warley Woods, and commissioned Humphry Repton to lay out its grounds.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Family life ==
|
||||
Galton married Lucy Barclay (1757–1817), the daughter of Robert Barclay Allardice, MP, 5th of Ury. They would go on to have eight children together. His first born was Mary Anne Galton (1778–1856) who was a writer in the anti-slavery movement. She would marry Lambert Schimmelpenninck in 1806. Galton's second child was Sophia Galton who would go on to marry Charles Brewin. His first son, Samuel Tertius Galton (1783–1844) would also become a member of the Lunar Society. He would end the family arms business in 1815. He married Violetta Darwin in 1807 and had a son named Francis Galton (1822–1911) who would go on to be a famous proponent of eugenics.
|
||||
Galton had another son, Theodore Galton (1784–1810), although not much is known about him. His next child was Adele Galton (1784–1869) who would go on to marry John Kaye Booth, MD, in 1827. Next would come Hubert John Barclay Galton (1789–1864), followed by Ewen Cameron Galton (1791–1800) who died at the age of 9. His last child was John Howard Galton who married Isabelle Strutt. They had a son named Douglas Galton (1822–1899) who became one of the royal engineers.
|
||||
Galton was a lover of animals and even owned many bloodhounds. He loved birds as well, publishing three book volumes about them.
|
||||
Galton owned 300 acres (120 ha) of land at Westhay Moor, Somerset, which he had drained, by constructing Galton's Canal.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== The Lunar Society ==
|
||||
Samuel Galton joined the Lunar Society in December of 1785. Galton would join the Lunar Society as an in-person replacement for Erasmus Darwin, who remarried and moved away. He would be one of the fourteen members to be active during the height of the society. One reason for his inclusion into the Society was his love for statistics and data and his tendency to compare datasets.
|
||||
Galton also had a great love for natural history, one of the subjects taught in Quaker schools. This, compounded with his love for animals, lead him to write many natural history books on them. His first set was The Natural History of Birds: containing a variety of facts ... for the amusement and instruction of children. This was a three-volume set of books intended for the education of children, specifically at first for his children. These were also the first natural history books written with the intent for children to be the primary readers.
|
||||
Galton would have one more book project intended for younger audiences, and in 1801, The Natural History of Quadrupeds; including all the Linnaean class of mammalia...For the instruction of young persons was published. However, only one complete copy of this work exists in world libraries, specifically the Baldwin Library in the University of Florida.
|
||||
During his time with the Lunar Society, Galton was known as a careful experimenter and a very original man. Some his notable experiments were that of color mixing, which he would publish on August 1, 1799 in Monthly Magazine. Galton also showed interest in canals, publishing a paper on them called On Canal Levels in 1817. This was for commercial reasons though, as Galton put those before scientific ones more times than not, leading to not many of his contributions being well known or published.
|
||||
His family, many of which were members of the society, are remembered by the Moonstones in Birmingham and a tower block in the center of that city.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Galton's gun manufacturing ==
|
||||
Galton was condemned by the Quakers for manufacturing guns, as they believed it was against their pacifist values. His defense stated that since Britain was in a constant state of war, it was his duty as a citizen of his country to contribute through its massive industrial complex.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
Galton, Francis (1909). Memories of My Life (2nd ed.). New York: E.P. Dutton and Co. pp. 3–5.
|
||||
23
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_ibn_Sahl-0.md
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23
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_ibn_Sahl-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Shapur ibn Sahl"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapur_ibn_Sahl"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:24.561699+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Sābūr ibn Sahl (شاپور بن سهل گندیشاپوری; d. 869 CE) was a 9th-century Persian Christian physician from the Academy of Gundishapur.
|
||||
Among other medical works, he wrote one of the first medical books on antidotes called Aqrabadhin (القراباذين), which was divided into 22 volumes, and which was possibly the earliest of its kind to influence Islamic medicine. This antidotary enjoyed much popularity until it was superseded Ibn al-Tilmidh's version later in the first half of twelfth century.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
List of Iranian scientists
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
F. Wustenfled: arabische Aerzte (25, 1840).
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_science"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T06:24:49.574280+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:25.807361+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodalitas_Litterarum_Vistulana"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:27.009350+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Sodalitas Litterarum Vistulana ("Literary Sodality of the Vistula") was an international academic society modelled after the Roman Academy, founded circa 1495 in Kraków by Conrad Celtes, a German humanist scholar who also founded the Sodalitas Literarum Hungarorum in Hungary and the Sodalitas Literarum Rhenana (of the Rhine) in Heidelberg. In 1494, the seat was transferred from Cracow to Vienna and the name was changed to Sodalitas Litterarum Danubiana (of the Danube).
|
||||
Between 1497 and 1499, it was presided by the John Vitéz the Younger (died 1499) bishop of Vienna, nephew of John Vitéz.
|
||||
Notable members, besides Celtes, were Johann Reuchlin, Johannes Trithemius, Jakob Wimpfeling, Conrad of Leonberg, Johannes Cuspinian, and Filippo Buonaccorsi, Laurentius Corvinus and Johann Sommerfeld the Elder (died 1501).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratonautical_space_suit-0.md
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25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratonautical_space_suit-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Stratonautical space suit"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratonautical_space_suit"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:29.332038+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The stratonautical space suit (Spanish: escafandra estratonáutica) was a pressurised suit designed by Colonel Emilio Herrera in 1935 to be worn during a stratospheric flight using an open-basket balloon scheduled for the following year. It is considered one of the antecedents of the space suit.
|
||||
The flight never took place, due to the start of the Spanish Civil War. Herrera, a supporter of the Republican side, fled in 1939 to France, where he died in exile in 1967. The balloon, made of vulcanized silk, was cut and used to make raincoats for the troops.
|
||||
The suit was in the Cuatro Vientos airbase, fell to the Nationalist side and disappeared.
|
||||
It would have been the first fully pressurized functional suit in history, although it was never worn under real conditions.
|
||||
The suit had a woolen layer and a hermetic cover on the inside (tested in the bathroom of Herrera's apartment in Seville), covered with an articulated metal frame with accordion-like folds. It had articulated parts for the shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, and fingers. The mobility of the suit was tested at the Cuatro Vientos experimental station, and according to Herrera it was "satisfactory". The suit was supplied with pure oxygen. Herrera designed a special carbon-free microphone to use inside the suit and avoid any possibility of spontaneous ignition. The helmet visor used three layers of glass: one unbreakable, one with an ultraviolet filter, and an opaque infrared exterior. All three layers had an anti-fog treatment.
|
||||
Herrera included an electric heater in the suit, but during tests in a chamber simulating high altitudes it turned out that the suit was heated to 33 °C (91 °F) while the temperature of the atmosphere around it dropped to −79 °C (−110 °F). Herrera soon realized that the problem with a pressurized suit in a near-vacuum environment was that it actually removed excess heat produced by the human body.
|
||||
A cloak made of reflective material would protect the stratonaut from solar and cosmic radiation.
|
||||
It is the only extant part of the suit, preserved by family friends from Granada.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Escafandra Estratonautica
|
||||
33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_galvanometer-0.md
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33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_galvanometer-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "String galvanometer"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_galvanometer"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:01.968350+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
A string galvanometer is a sensitive fast-responding measuring instrument that uses a single fine filament of wire suspended in a strong magnetic field to measure small currents. In use, a strong light source is used to illuminate the fine filament, and the optical system magnifies the movement of the filament allowing it to be observed or recorded by photography.
|
||||
The principle of the string galvanometer remained in use for electrocardiograms until the advent of electronic vacuum-tube amplifiers in the 1920s.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== History ==
|
||||
Submarine cable telegraph systems of the late 19th century used a galvanometer to detect pulses of electric current, which could be observed and transcribed into a message. The speed at which pulses could be detected by the galvanometer was limited by its mechanical inertia, and by the inductance of the multi-turn coil used in the instrument. Clément Adair, a French engineer, replaced the coil with a much faster wire or "string" producing the first string galvanometer.
|
||||
For most telegraphic purposes it was sufficient to detect the existence of a pulse. In 1892 André Blondel described the dynamic properties of an instrument that could measure the wave shape of an electrical impulse, an oscillograph.
|
||||
Augustus Waller had discovered electrical activity from the heart and produced the first electrocardiogram in 1887. But his equipment was slow. Physiologists worked to find a better instrument. In 1901, Willem Einthoven described the science background and potential utility of a string galvanometer, stating "Mr. Adair has already built an instrument with a wires stretched between poles of a magnet. It was a telegraph receiver." Einthoven developed a sensitive form of string galvanometer that allowed photographic recording of the impulses associated with the heartbeat. He was a leader in applying the string galvanometer to physiology and medicine, leading to today's electrocardiography. Einthoven was awarded the 1924 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work.
|
||||
|
||||
Previous to the string galvanometer, scientists were using a machine called the capillary electrometer to measure the heart's electrical activity, but this device was unable to produce results of a diagnostic level. Willem Einthoven adapted the string galvanometer at Leiden University in the early 20th century, publishing the first registration of its use to record an electrocardiogram in a Festschrift book in 1902. The first human electrocardiogram was recorded in 1887; however, it was not until 1901 that a quantifiable result was obtained from the string galvanometer. In 1908, the physicians Arthur MacNalty, M.D. Oxon, and Thomas Lewis teamed to become the first of their profession to apply electrocardiography in medical diagnosis.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Mechanics ==
|
||||
Einthoven's galvanometer consisted of a silver-coated quartz filament of a few centimeters length (see picture on the right) and negligible mass that conducted the electrical currents from the heart. This filament was acted upon by powerful electromagnets positioned either side of it, which caused sideways displacement of the filament in proportion to the current carried due to the electromagnetic field. The movement in the filament was heavily magnified and projected through a thin slot onto a moving photographic plate.
|
||||
The filament was originally made by drawing out a filament of glass from a crucible of molten glass. To produce a sufficiently thin and long filament an arrow was shot across the room so that it dragged the filament from the molten glass. The filament so produced was then coated with silver to provide the conductive pathway for the current. By tightening or loosening the filament it is possible to very accurately regulate the sensitivity of the galvanometer.
|
||||
The original machine required water cooling for the powerful electromagnets, required 5 operators and weighed some 600 lb.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
=== Procedure ===
|
||||
Patients are seated with both arms and left leg in separate buckets of saline solution. These buckets act as electrodes to conduct the current from the skin's surface to the filament. The three points of electrode contact on these limbs produces what is known as Einthoven's triangle, a principle still used in modern-day ECG recording.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
55
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor's_wheel-0.md
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55
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor's_wheel-0.md
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@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Surveyor's wheel"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor's_wheel"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:03.094892+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
A surveyor's wheel, also called a clickwheel, hodometer, waywiser, trundle wheel, measuring wheel or perambulator is a device for measuring distance.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Origin ==
|
||||
|
||||
The origins of the surveyor's wheel are connected to the origins of the odometer. While the latter is derived to measure distances travelled by a vehicle, the former is specialized to measure general distances.
|
||||
In the 17th century, the surveyor's wheel was introduced and used to measure distances. A single wheel is attached to a handle and the device can be pushed or pulled along by a person walking. Early devices were made of wood and may have had an iron rim to provide strength. The wheels themselves would be made in the same manner as wagon wheels and often by the same makers. The measuring devices would be made by makers of scientific instruments and the device and handles would be attached to the wheel by them. The device to read the distance travelled would be mounted either near the hub of the wheel or at the top of the handle.
|
||||
In some cases, double-wheel hodometers were constructed.
|
||||
Francis Ronalds extended the concept in 1827 to create a device that recorded the distances travelled in graphical form as a survey plan. The apparatus had a worm on the axle of the two wheels that meshed with a toothed wheel to drive another transverse screw that carried a slider. A pencil on the slider recorded the distance travelled along the screw on an attached drawing board at a chosen scale.
|
||||
Modern surveyor's wheels are constructed primarily of aluminium, with solid or pneumatic tyres on the wheel. Some can fold for transport or storage.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Principle ==
|
||||
|
||||
The surveyor's wheel is marked in fractional increments of revolution from a reference position. Thus its current position can be represented as a fraction of a revolution from this reference. If the wheel rotated a full turn (360 angular degrees), the distance traveled would be equal to the circumference of the wheel. Otherwise, the distance the wheel traveled is the circumference of the wheel multiplied by the fraction of a full turn. In the figure on the right, the blue line is the reference starting point. As the wheel turns during measurement, it is seen that the wheel sweeps out an angle of 3π/4 radians, which is equal to 135 degrees or 3/8 of a full turn.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Usage ==
|
||||
Each revolution of the wheel measures a specific distance, such as a yard, meter or half-rod. Thus counting revolutions with a mechanical device attached to the wheel measures the distance directly.
|
||||
Surveyor's wheels will provide a measure of good accuracy on a smooth surface, such as pavement. On rough terrain, wheel slippage and bouncing can reduce the accuracy. Soft sandy or muddy soil can also affect the rolling of the wheel. As well, obstacles in the way of the path may have to be accounted for separately. Good surveyors will keep track of any circumstance on the path that can influence the accuracy of the distance measured and either measure that portion with an alternative, such as a surveyor's tape or measuring tape, or make a reasonable estimate of the correction to apply.
|
||||
Surveyor's wheels are used primarily for lower accuracy surveys. They are often used by road maintenance or underground utility workers and by farmers for fast measures over distances too inconvenient to measure with a surveyor's tape.
|
||||
The surveyor's wheel measures the distance along a surface, whereas in normal land surveying, distances between points are usually measured horizontally with vertical measurements indicated in differences in elevation. Thus conventionally surveyed distances will be less than those measured by a surveyor's wheel.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Trundle wheel ==
|
||||
|
||||
The trundle wheel is a simplified form of a surveyor's wheel. It is commonly used by people who need an easy way to find the rough distance from one place to another. The trundle wheel is composed of a wheel, a handle which is attached to the axle allowing the trundle wheel to be held easily, and a clicking device which is triggered once per revolution of the wheel. Trundle wheels are not as accurate as other methods of measuring distance but are a good way to get a rough estimation of a fairly long distance over a good surface.
|
||||
It works by having a wheel which has a circumference of exactly 1 metre (or other known unit of measure), hence one revolution of the wheel equates to 1 unit of distance traveled on the ground if there is no slip. Every time the wheel makes a rotation, the wheel produces an audible click which is then counted and therefore the number of clicks that are counted by the user is approximately the number of distance units traveled. Due to the design of the trundle wheel, it has the potential to not always travel in a straight line which may add extra distance to the final reading.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Curvimeter
|
||||
Odometer
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
Gerard L'E. Turner, Nineteenth Century Scientific Instruments, Sotheby Publications, 1983, ISBN 0-85667-170-3
|
||||
Gerard L'E. Turner, Antique Scientific Instruments, Blandford Press Ltd. 1980, ISBN 0-7137-1068-3
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Perambulator Information on the use of perambulators in surveying in Queensland, Australia in the 19th century.
|
||||
Waywisers at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History
|
||||
Example of 16th century German hodometer
|
||||
25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takwin-0.md
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25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takwin-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Takwin"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takwin"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:30.520733+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Takwin (Arabic: تكوين, lit. 'creation') was a goal of certain Muslim alchemists, notably Jabir ibn Hayyan. In the alchemical context, takwin refers to the creation of synthetic life in the laboratory, up to and including human life. Whether Jabir meant this goal to be interpreted literally is unknown.
|
||||
Jabir states in his Book of Stones (4:12) that "The purpose is to baffle and lead into error everyone except those whom God loves and provides for!" The Book of Stones was deliberately written in a highly esoteric code, so that only those who had been initiated into his alchemical school could understand them. It is therefore difficult at best for the modern reader to discern which aspects of Jabir's work are to be read as symbols (and what those symbols mean), and what is to be taken literally.
|
||||
Kathleen Malone O'Connor writes:
|
||||
|
||||
From the emic perspective of the alchemist, the act of takwin was an emulation of the divine creative and life-giving powers of Genesis and Resurrection and tapped the physical and spiritual forces in nature. At the same time it was an act through which the alchemist was inwardly transformed and purified, a spiritual regeneration. Such an act highlights the creative and often uneasy interrelationship of Islamic magic and science with Islamic revelation and tradition.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Golem
|
||||
Homunculus
|
||||
Abiogenesis
|
||||
Tulpa
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
35
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopolis_(Belgium)-0.md
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35
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopolis_(Belgium)-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Technopolis (Belgium)"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopolis_(Belgium)"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:31.741567+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Technopolis is a Flemish technology education centre located in Mechelen.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Flanders Technology International ==
|
||||
Technopolis is an initiative which grew out of the Flanders Technology International (FTI) Foundation, which was an initiative of the Flemish government. Since 7 October 1999, the FTI offices are located within the premises of the Technopolis centre and the name of the organization was changed to Technopolis. The goal of the organization is to stimulate biotechnology and micro-electronics, and to increase the visibility of science in Flanders.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Exhibition ==
|
||||
The Technopolis science museum was opened on 26 February 2000. It has a permanent interactive (hands-on) exhibition for science and technology on display.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Science and technology in Flanders
|
||||
Agoria, technology industry in Belgium.
|
||||
Institute for the promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT)
|
||||
Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC)
|
||||
Deutsches Museum
|
||||
Euro Space Center
|
||||
Evoluon
|
||||
Scienceworks Museum
|
||||
Telus Spark
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Technopolis
|
||||
20
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermo_galvanometer-0.md
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data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermo_galvanometer-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Thermo galvanometer"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermo_galvanometer"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:39:32.932584+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The thermo-galvanometer is an instrument for measuring small electric currents. It was invented by William Duddell about 1900. The following is a description of the instrument taken from a trade catalog of Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company dated 1905:
|
||||
|
||||
For a long time the need of an instrument capable of accurately measuring small alternating currents has been keenly felt. The high resistance and self-induction of the coils of instruments of the electro-magnetic type frequently prevent their use. Electro-static instruments as at present constructed are not altogether suitable for measuring very small currents, unless a sufficient potential difference is available.
|
||||
The thermo-galvanometer designed by Mr W. Duddell can be used for the measurement of extremely small currents to a high degree of accuracy. It has practically no self-induction or capacity and can therefore be used on a circuit of any frequency (even up to 120,000~ per sec.) and currents as small as twenty micro-amperes can be readily measured by it . It is equally correct on continuous and alternating currents. It can therefore be accurately standardized by continuous current and used without error on circuits of any frequency or wave-form.
|
||||
The principle of the thermo-galvanometer is simple. The instrument consists of a resistance which is heated by the current to be measured, the heat from the resistance falling on the thermo-junction of a Boys radio-micrometer. The rise in temperature of the lower junction of the thermo-couple produces a current in the loop which is deflected by the magnetic field against the torsion of the quartz fibre.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
Vladimir Karapetoff, Experimental Electrical Engineering and Manual for Electrical Testing for Engineers and for Students in Engineering Laboratories. Volume. 1 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1910. page 70
|
||||
Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company Ltd. 1905 trade catalog.
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 1/3
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_the_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:35:39.373334+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:14.255635+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 2/3
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_the_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:35:39.373334+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:14.255635+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ chunk: 3/3
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_history_of_the_scientific_method"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:35:39.373334+00:00"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:14.255635+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torquetum-0.md
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25
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torquetum-0.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Torquetum"
|
||||
chunk: 1/2
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torquetum"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:05.427993+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The torquetum or turquet is a medieval astronomical instrument for taking and converting measurements made in three sets of coordinates: horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic. It is characterised by R. P. Lorch as a combination of Ptolemy's astrolabon (Greek: αστρολάβον) and the plane astrolabe. In a sense, the torquetum is an analog computer.
|
||||
|
||||
== Invention ==
|
||||
The origins of the torquetum are unclear. Its invention has been credited to multiple figures, including Jabir ibn Aflah, Bernard of Verdun and Franco of Poland.
|
||||
In 1469, Regiomontanus credited an 11th-century Arab astronomer from Seville, Jabir ibn Aflah. Later, in 1598, Tycho Brahe speculated that it was a 12th-century creation of "Arabians or Chaldeans." Eventually, early 20th-century German historians shifted the attribution to the "Turks." Jabir ibn Aflah of Al-Andalus in the early 12th century has been assumed by several historians to be the inventor of the torquetum, based on a similar instrument he described in his Islah Almajisti. However, while his device is similar in function, it has not been identified as a torquetum, but evidence suggests it inspired the torquetum.
|
||||
According to Joseph Needham, a simplified version of the torquetum was among the instruments documented at the imperial Chinese observatory of the Yuan dynasty from 1276 to 1279. He credited Jamal al-Din Muhammad al-Najjari as the possible transmitter of this Arabic invention to China in 1267.
|
||||
In Europe, the first known references to the instrument are found in Latin texts dating to the 1280s. These foundational documents introduce the term turketum to describe the device, but they omit both the identity of its creator and the origin of its name. Accounts of the torquetum appear in the 13th century writings of Bernard of Verdun and Franco of Poland. Franco of Poland's work was published in 1284; however, Bernard of Verdun's work does not contain a date. Therefore, it is impossible to know which work was written first. Franco's work was more widely known and is credited with the distribution of knowledge about the torquetum.
|
||||
The only surviving examples of the torquetum are dated from the 16th century. In the middle of the 16th century, the torquetum had numerous structural changes to the original design. The most important change was by instrument-maker, Erasmus Habermel. His alteration allowed for astronomers to make observations to all three of the scales.
|
||||
|
||||
A torquetum can be seen in the famous portrait The Ambassadors (1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger. It is placed on the right side of the table, next to and above the elbow of the ambassador clad in a long brown coat or robe. The painting shows much of the details of the inscriptions on the disk and half disk, which make up the top of this particular kind of torquetum.
|
||||
A 14th century instrument, the rectangulus, was invented by Richard of Wallingford. This carried out the same task as the torquetum, but was calibrated with linear scales, read by plumb lines. This simplified the spherical trigonometry by resolving the polar measurements directly into their Cartesian components.
|
||||
|
||||
== Notable historic uses ==
|
||||
Following the conception of the torquetum, the device had been put through many of the following uses. The astronomer, Peter of Limoges, used this device for his observation of what is known today as Halley's Comet at the turn of the 14th century. In the early 1300s, John of Murs mentions the torquetum as his defence "of the reliability of observational astronomy", thus further solidifying its practicality and viability in ancient astronomy. Additionally, Johannes Schoner built a torquetum model for his own personal use in the observation of Halley's Comet in the 1500s.
|
||||
The best-documented account of the torquetum was done by Peter Apian in 1532. Peter Apian was a German humanist, specializing in astronomy, mathematics, and cartography. In his book Astronomicum Caesareum (1540), Apian gives a description of the torquetum near the end of the second part. He also details how the device is used. Apian explains that the torquetum was used for astronomical observations and how the description of the instrument was used as a basis for common astronomical instruments. He also notes the manufacturing process of the instrument and the use of the torquetum for astronomical measurements.
|
||||
33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torquetum-1.md
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33
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torquetum-1.md
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|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Torquetum"
|
||||
chunk: 2/2
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torquetum"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:05.427993+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
== Components ==
|
||||
The torquetum is a complex medieval analog computer that measures three sets of astronomical coordinates: the horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic. One of the defining attributes of the torquetum is its ability to interconvert between these three sets of coordinate dimensions without the use of calculations, as well as to demonstrate the relationship between the same coordinate sets. However, it is a device that requires a thorough understanding of the components and how they work together to make relative positional measurements of certain celestial objects.
|
||||
The anatomy of the torquetum involves many different components, which can be grouped into subdivisions of the torquetum structure, those being: the base, the midframe, and the upperframe. The base starts with the tabula orizontis, which is the bottommost rectangular piece in contact with the ground, and this component represents the horizon of the Earth, relative to the point of measurement. Hinged to the tabula orizontis is a similarly shaped component, the tabula equinoctialis, which represents the latitude of the Earth. This piece can rotate up to 90 degrees, coinciding with the latitudinal lines of the Earth from the equator to the poles. This angle of rotation is created by the stylus, which is an arm mechanism that pins to the slotted holes, which are part of the tabula orizontis.
|
||||
The midframe of the torquetum consists of a free-spinning disk (unnamed) that can be locked into place, and the tabula orbis signorum, directly hinged to it above. The angle between these two pieces is defined by the basilica, a solid stand piece, which is used to either set the draft angle at 0 degrees (Where the basilica is removed) or 23.5 degrees, representing the off-set of the axis of rotation of the Earth. Whether or not the basilica is included depends on the point of measurement either below or above the tropical latitudinal lines. Inscribed on the tabula equinoctialis along, although separate from, the outer perimeter of the bottom disk is a 24-hour circle, which is used to measure the angle between the longitudinal line facing the poles, and the line to the object being measured.
|
||||
Lastly, the upper frame is made up of the crista, the semis and the perpendiculum. The base of the crista is joined to another free-spinning disk directly above the tabula orbis signorum.
|
||||
Similarly, on the outer edge of the tabula orbis signorum is a zodiacal calendar and degree scale, with each of the 12 signs divided amongst it. This scale measures the zodiacal sector of the sky the object being measured is in. The crista itself is a circular piece that corresponds with the meridian of the celestial sphere, which has four quadrants inscribed along the edges, each starting at 0 degrees along the horizontal, and 90 degrees along the vertical. Adjacent, and locked with the crista at 23.5 degrees angle is the semis, which is a half-circle composed of two quadrants starting at 0 degrees along the vertical (relative to 23.5-degree placement) and 90 degrees at the horizontal. Finally, the last major component is the perpendicular, a free-hanging pendulum which measures the angle between the radial line of the Earth and the measured object using the semis.
|
||||
|
||||
== Parts and configurations ==
|
||||
The base of the instrument represents the horizon and is built on a hinge and a part known as the stylus holds the instrument up to the viewer's complementary latitude. This represents the celestial equator and the angle varies depending on where the view is located on Earth. The several plates and circles that make up the upper portion of the instrument represent the celestial sphere. These parts are built on top of the base and above the basilica, which rotates on a pin to represent the axis of the Earth. The zodiac calendar is inscribed on the tabula orbis signorum this is part of the mechanical aspects of the instrument that take away the tedious calculations required in previous instruments.
|
||||
The versatility of the "torquetum" can be seen in its three possible configurations for the measuring. The first method used lays the instruments flat on a table with no angles within the instrument set. This configuration gives the coordinates of celestial bodies as related to the horizon. The basilica is set so that 0 degree mark faces north. The user can now measure altitude of the target celestial body as well as use the base as a compass for viewing the possible paths they travel. The second configuration uses the stylus to elevate the base set at co-latitude of 90 degrees. The position of the celestial bodies can now be measured in hours, minutes, and seconds using the inscribed clock on the almuri. This helps give the proper ascension and decline coordinates of the celestial bodies as they travel through space. The zero point for ascension and decline coordinates of the celestial bodies as they travel through space. The zero point for ascension is set to the vernal equinox while the end measurement (decline) is the equator, this would put the North Pole at the 90 degree point. The third and most commonly seen configuration of the "torquetum" uses all its assets to make measurements. The upper portion is now set at an angle equal to the obliquity of the ecliptic, which allows the instrument to give ecliptic coordinates. This measures the celestial bodies now on celestial latitude and longitude scales which allow for greater precision and accuracy in making measurements. These three differing configurations allowed for added convenience in taking readings and made once tedious and complicated measuring more streamlined and simple.
|
||||
|
||||
== Further reading ==
|
||||
Astrolabe
|
||||
Jabir ibn Aflah
|
||||
List of astronomical instruments
|
||||
|
||||
== Notes and references ==
|
||||
|
||||
Ralf Kern: Wissenschaftliche Instrumente in ihrer Zeit. Vom 15. – 19. Jahrhundert. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König 2010, ISBN 978-3-86560-772-0
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Instructions for the construction of a Torquetum
|
||||
Sidereal pointer – to determine RA/DEC.
|
||||
@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
|
||||
---
|
||||
title: "Transversal (instrument making)"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transversal_(instrument_making)"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:06.602771+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Transversals are a geometric construction on a scientific instrument to allow a graduation to be read to a finer degree of accuracy. Their use creates what is sometimes called a diagonal scale, an engineering measuring instrument which is composed of a set of parallel straight lines which are obliquely crossed by another set of straight lines. Diagonal scales are used to measure small fractions of the unit of measurement.
|
||||
Transversals have been replaced in modern times by vernier scales. This method is based on the Intercept theorem (also known as Thales's theorem).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== History ==
|
||||
Transversals were used at a time when finely graduated instruments were difficult to make. They were found on instruments starting in the early 14th century, but the inventor is unknown. In 1342 Levi Ben Gerson introduced an instrument called Jacob's staff (apparently invented the previous century by Jacob Ben Makir) and described the method of the transversal scale applied to the mentioned instrument.
|
||||
Thomas Digges mistakenly attributed the discovery of the transversal scale to the navigator and explorer Richard Chancellor (cited by some authors as watchmaker and with other names, among them: Richard Chansler or Richard Kantzler). Its use on astronomical instruments only began in the late 16th century. Tycho Brahe used them and did much to popularize the technique. The technique began to die out once verniers became common in the late 18th century – over a century after Pierre Vernier introduced the technique.
|
||||
In the interim between transversals and the vernier scale, the nonius system, developed by Pedro Nunes, was used. However, it was never in common use. Tycho also used nonius methods, but he appears to be the only prominent astronomer to do so.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Etymology ==
|
||||
Diagonal scale is derived from the Latin word Diagonalis. The Latin word was originally coined from the Greek word diagōnios where dia means "through" and gonios denotes "corners".
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Principle of a diagonal scale ==
|
||||
Diagonal scale follows the principle of similar triangles where a short length is divided into number of parts in which sides are proportional.
|
||||
Divided into required number of equal parts
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Linear transversals ==
|
||||
|
||||
Linear transversals were used on linear graduations. A grid of lines was constructed immediately adjacent to the linear graduations. The lines extending above the graduations formed part of the grid. The number of lines perpendicular to the extended graduation lines in the grid was dependent on the degree of fineness the instrument maker wished to provide.
|
||||
A grid of five lines would permit determination of the measure to one-fifth of a graduation's division. A ten-line grid would permit tenths to be measured. The distance between the lines is not critical as long as the distance is precisely uniform. Greater distances makes for greater accuracy.
|
||||
As seen in the illustration on the right, once the grid was scribed, diagonals (transverse lines) were scribed from the uppermost corner of a column in the grid to the opposite lowest corner. This line intersects the cross lines in the grid in equal intervals. By using an indicator such as a cursor or alidade, or by measuring using a pair of dividers with points on the same horizontal grid line, the closest point where the transversal crosses the grid is determined. That indicates the fraction of the graduation for the measure.
|
||||
In the illustration, the reading is indicated by the vertical red line. This could be the edge of an alidade or a similar device. Since the cursor crosses the transversal closest to the fourth grid line from the top, the reading (assuming the leftmost long graduation line is 0.0) is 0.54.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Application ==
|
||||
Diagonal scale is used in engineering to read lengths with higher accuracy as it represents a unit into three different multiple in metres, centimeters and millimeters. Diagonal scale is an important part in Engineering drawings.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Circular transversals ==
|
||||
Circular transversals perform the same function as the linear ones but for circular arcs. In this case, the construction of the grid is significantly more complicated. A rectangular grid will not work. A grid of radial lines and circumferential arcs must be created. In addition, a linear transverse line will not divide the radial grid into equal segments. Circular arc segments must be constructed as transversals to provide the correct proportions.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
=== Tycho Brahe ===
|
||||
|
||||
Tycho Brahe created a grid of transversal lines made with secants between two groups of arcs that form two graduated limbs. The secants are drawn by joining the division of a limb with the next division of the other limb, and so on (see figure with the magnification of 2 degrees of the Tycho Brahe's quadrant of 2m radius).
|
||||
He drew, for each degree, six straight transversals in an alternate mode forming a "V" and each transversal consisted of 9 points that divided it into 10 parts, which multiplied by 6 give 60 minutes. While Abd al-Mun'im al 'Âmilî (16th century) drew them all in the same direction (although his instrument has less precision).
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
=== Other authors ===
|
||||
The method of the "straight transversals" applied to the measurements of angles on circular or semicircular limbs in astronomical and geographic instruments was treated by several authors. Studying the accuracy of the system, some of them indicated the convenience of employing "Circular transversals", instead of the "straight transversals".
|
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|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Micrometer
|
||||
Vernier scale
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Bibliography ==
|
||||
Daumas, Maurice, Scientific Instruments of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries and Their Makers, Portman Books, London 1989 ISBN 978-0-7134-0727-3
|
||||
Van Poelje, Otto E. (2004). "Diagonals and Transversals: Magnifying the Scale" (PDF). Journal of the Oughtred Society. 13 (2): 22–28.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
|
||||
Thin Strip Jig with Transversal Scale
|
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30
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triquetrum_(astronomy)-0.md
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title: "Triquetrum (astronomy)"
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date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:07.815892+00:00"
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---
|
||||
|
||||
The triquetrum (derived from the Latin tri- 'three' and quetrum 'cornered') was the medieval name for an ancient astronomical instrument first described by Ptolemy (c. 90 – c. 168) in the Almagest (V. 12). Also known as Parallactic Rulers, it was used for determining altitudes of heavenly bodies. Ptolemy calls it a "parallactic instrument" and seems to have used it to determine the zenith distance and parallax of the Moon.
|
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|
||||
|
||||
== Design ==
|
||||
The triquetrum performed the same function as the quadrant and was devised to overcome the difficulty of graduating arcs and circles. It consisted of a vertical post with a graduated scale and two pivoted arms hinged at the top and bottom, the upper arm carrying sights. The two arms were joined so that their ends could slide. As a person sighted along the upper arm, the lower one changed its angle. By reading the position of the lower rod, in combination with the vertical length, the zenith distance (or, alternatively, the altitude) of a celestial object could be calculated.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Use ==
|
||||
The triquetrum was one of the most popular astronomical instruments until the invention of the telescope, it could measure angles with a better precision than the astrolabe. Copernicus describes its use in the fourth book of the De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) under the heading "Instrumenti parallactici constructio." The instrument was also used by Tycho Brahe in the same century.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
List of astronomical instruments
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Notes ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
Media related to Triquetrum at Wikimedia Commons
|
||||
16
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verona_astrolabe-0.md
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||||
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|
||||
title: "Verona astrolabe"
|
||||
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verona_astrolabe"
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||||
category: "reference"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:09.037763+00:00"
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||||
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|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Verona astrolabe is an archaeological discovery unearthed in the vaults of a museum in Verona, Italy. Dating back to the eleventh century, this Islamic astrolabe is one of the oldest examples of its kind and is among the few known to exist worldwide. It appears to have been employed by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities spanning Spain, North Africa, and Italy over several centuries.
|
||||
Described by historian Tom Almeroth-Williams of the University of Cambridge as the "world's first smartphone," the astrolabe served as a portable astronomical instrument capable of diverse functionalities. It provided users with a two-dimensional representation of the universe, enabling the plotting of star positions, calculation of time and distances, and even the development of horoscopes.
|
||||
Initially doubted to be authentic, the Verona Astrolabe was authenticated as an eleventh-century artifact by Dr. Federica Gigante of Cambridge University's History Faculty. Her analysis, published in the journal Nuncius, confirmed its origins in Al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled region of Spain during the medieval period. The astrolabe bears Hebrew inscriptions alongside Arabic, indicating its circulation within the Jewish diaspora community in Italy, where Hebrew was used in place of Arabic.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
14
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphal_balance-0.md
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||||
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|
||||
title: "Westphal balance"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
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||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphal_balance"
|
||||
category: "reference"
|
||||
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:10.254606+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
A Westphal balance (also known as a Mohr balance) is a scientific instrument used to measure the density of liquids.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
46
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimshurst_machine-0.md
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||||
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|
||||
title: "Wimshurst machine"
|
||||
chunk: 1/1
|
||||
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimshurst_machine"
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||||
category: "reference"
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|
||||
date_saved: "2026-05-05T09:38:11.370553+00:00"
|
||||
instance: "kb-cron"
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Wimshurst machine or Wimshurst influence machine is an electrostatic generator capable of generating high voltages. It was developed between 1880 and 1883 by British inventor James Wimshurst (1832–1903).
|
||||
It has a distinctive appearance with two large contra-rotating discs mounted in a vertical plane, two crossed bars with metallic brushes, and a spark gap formed by two metal spheres.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Design ==
|
||||
These machines belong to a class of electrostatic generators called influence machines, which separate electric charges through electrostatic induction, or influence, not depending on friction for their operation. Earlier machines in this class were developed by Wilhelm Holtz (1865 and 1867), August Toepler (1865), J. Robert Voss (1880), and others. The older machines are less efficient and exhibit an unpredictable tendency to switch their polarity, while the Wimshurst machine has neither defect.
|
||||
In a Wimshurst machine, the two insulated discs and their metal sectors rotate in opposite directions passing the crossed metal neutralizer bars and their brushes. An imbalance of charges is induced, amplified, and collected by two pairs of brushes or metal combs with points placed near the surfaces of each disc. These collectors are mounted on insulating supports and connected to the output terminals. The positive feedback increases the accumulating charges exponentially until the dielectric breakdown voltage of the air is reached and an electric spark jumps across the gap.
|
||||
The machine is theoretically not self-starting, meaning that if none of the sectors on the discs has any electrical charge, there is nothing to induce charges on other sectors. In practice, even a small residual charge on any sector is enough to start the process going once the discs start to rotate. The machine will work satisfactorily only in a dry atmosphere. It requires mechanical power to turn the disks against the electric field, and it is this energy that the machine converts into the electric power of the spark. The insulation and size of the machine determine the maximal output voltage that can be reached. The accumulated spark energy can be increased by adding a pair of Leyden jars, an early type of capacitor suitable for high voltages, with the jars' inner plates independently connected to each of the output terminals and the jars’ outer plates interconnected. A typical Wimshurst machine can produce sparks that are about a third of the disc's diameter in length and several tens of microamperes.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Operation ==
|
||||
|
||||
The two contra-rotating insulating discs have an even number of metal sectors stuck onto them. The machine is provided with four small brushes, two on each side of the machine on the neutralizer bars, plus a pair of charge-collection brushes or combs. These are typically mounted along the horizontal and contact the sectors on both front and back discs. They are usually connected to respective Leyden jars. The neutralizer bars that momentarily connect opposite sectors together form the shape of an "X". The angle of these bars can typically be varied from 30° to the horizontal to 60°. It is essential that the neutralizer bars are angled in such a way that the sectors on the discs connect with the neutralizer bar before reaching the vertical position. For example, if a disc is rotating clockwise when viewed from the front, the neutralizer bar must be angled from top left to bottom right.
|
||||
Any small charge on either of the two discs suffices to begin the charging process. Suppose, therefore, that some of the sectors on the front disc ([A] lower chain) are positively charged (red) and that the front disc rotates counter-clockwise (right to left). As the charged sector (moving red square) rotates to the position of the brush on the rear neutralizer bar ([Y] down arrow tip) it induces a polarization of charge on the neutralizer bar ([Y-Y1] upper horizontal black line) attracting negative (green) charge to the sector immediately opposite it ([Y] upper square becoming green) and positive (red) charge on the sector across the disc 180 degrees away ([Y1] upper square becoming red). When this latter positive charge reaches the place where the front neutralizer bar is ([X]) it induces a negative charge on the sector on the front disc ([X] lower square becoming green) and simultaneously a positive (red) charge on the sector on the opposite side of the disc ([X1] becoming red). The positive charges are collected from both sides of the discs at [Z] and [Z] and the negative charges are collected on the other side of the discs (not labelled on the diagram).
|
||||
The process repeats, with each charge on A inducing charges on B, inducing more charges on A, etc. This process, by itself, will not, however, produce the high voltages which are actually obtained because the charge induced on B will necessarily be smaller than the charge inducing it on A. The exponential increase in voltage is due to the fact that any voltage which appears on the poles of the machine generates an electric field across the machine which contributes enormously to the polarization of the neutralizer bars. Obviously, the bigger the voltage across the poles, the greater the degree of polarization and the faster the machine charges up. In the end, this positive feedback loop is more important than the charge transfer process described above which serves merely to get the process going. The energy generated by the machine is derived from the work done in separating the charges on the sectors from the charges on the polarized neutralizer bars at the time when they break contact.
|
||||
The ultimate potential difference which can be achieved is limited principally by the maximum voltage which can be sustained across the sectors on the discs between the neutralizer bars (which are always at zero potential) and the poles. This distance is maximised when the neutraliser bars are as near vertical as possible. (Of course, if the bars were actually vertical, the electric field would not polarize them and the machine would cease to work.)
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== Applications ==
|
||||
Wimshurst machines were used during the 19th century in physics research. They were also occasionally used to generate high voltage to power the first-generation Crookes X-ray tubes during the first two decades of the 20th century, although Holtz machines and induction coils were more commonly used. Today they are used only in science museums and education to demonstrate the principles of electrostatics.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== See also ==
|
||||
Kelvin water dropper – Type of electrostatic generator
|
||||
Pelletron – Type of electrostatic generator
|
||||
Tesla coil – Electrical resonant transformer circuit invented by Nikola Tesla
|
||||
Van de Graaff generator – Electrostatic generator operating on the triboelectric effect
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== References ==
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
== External links ==
|
||||
|
||||
The Wimshurst Machine Website: Photos and Video Clips of a Wimshurst Machine
|
||||
MIT video demonstration and explanation of a Wimshurst machine (MIT TechTV physics demo)
|
||||
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