# kb

id: vitality-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality-0.md
category: reference
title: Vitality
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:38.783384+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vitality-20260505-0
summary:
Vitality (from Middle French vitalité, from Latin vītālitās, from Latin vīta 'life') is the capacity to live, grow, or develop. Vitality is also the characteristic that distinguishes living from non-living things. To experience vitality is regarded as a basic psychological drive and, in philosophy, a component to the will to live. As such, people seek to maximize their vitality or their experience of vitality—that which corresponds to an enhanced physiological capacity and mental state. == Overview == The pursuit and maintenance of health and vitality have been at the forefront of medicine and natural philosophy throughout history. Life depends upon various biological processes known as vital processes. Historically, these vital processes have been viewed as having either mechanistic or non-mechanistic causes. The latter point of view is characteristic of vitalism, the doctrine that the phenomena of life cannot be explained by purely chemical and physical mechanisms. Prior to the 19th century, theoreticians often held that human lifespan had been less limited in the past, and that aging was due to a loss of, and failure to maintain, vitality. A commonly held view was that people are born with finite vitality, which diminishes over time until illness and debility set in,


id: wolfstein-the-murderer-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfstein,_the_Murderer-0.md
category: reference
title: Wolfstein, the Murderer
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfstein,_the_Murderer
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:39.939727+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: wolfstein-the-murderer-20260505-0
summary:
Wolfstein, the Murderer; or, The Secrets of a Robber's Cave is an 1850 chapbook based on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1811 Gothic horror novel St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian. == Background == The 1811 novel St. Irvyne, or, The Rosicrucian was republished by John Joseph Stockdale in 1822 following Shelley’s death. Two chapbooks were also published based on the novel. No publication date appeared on the title page. The first chapbook version was entitled Wolfstein; or, The Mysterious Bandit and was published and printed by John Bailey at 116, Chancery Lane in London in 1822. The chapbook was a condensed version of the novel in 20 pages. The total length was 28 pages including the second story. Chapbooks were meant for popular consumption, serving the same function as a paperback would. The chapbook sold for sixpence. Another more condensed twelve-page chapbook was published in 1850 by Thomas Redriffe in London entitled Wolfstein, the Murderer; or, The Secrets of a Robber's Cave: A Terrific Romance. To which is Added, The Two Serpents, an Oriental Apologue. The Ossian epigraph appeared on the title page: "A tale of horror, of murder, and of deeds done in darkness." Printed for Thomas Redriffe, Piccadilly. The price


id: the-world-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: The World (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:41.137887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-world-book-20260505-0
summary:
The World, also called Treatise on the Light (French title: Traité du monde et de la lumière), is a book by René Descartes (1596–1650). Written between 1629 and 1633, it contains a nearly complete version of his philosophy, from method, to metaphysics, to physics and biology. Descartes espoused mechanical philosophy, a form of natural philosophy popular in the 17th century. He thought everything physical in the universe to be made of tiny "corpuscles" of matter. Corpuscularianism is closely related to atomism. The main difference was that Descartes maintained that there could be no vacuum, and all matter was constantly swirling to prevent a void as corpuscles moved through other matter. The World presents a corpuscularian cosmology in which swirling vortices explain, among other phenomena, the creation of the Solar System and the circular motion of planets around the Sun. The World rests on the heliocentric view, first explicated in Western Europe by Copernicus. Descartes delayed the book's release upon news of the Roman Inquisition's conviction of Galileo for "suspicion of heresy" and sentencing to house arrest. Descartes discussed his work on the book, and his decision not to release it, in letters with another philosopher, Marin Mersenne. Some material from


id: the-world-book-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(book)-1.md
category: reference
title: The World (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:41.137887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-world-book-20260505-0
summary:
Descartes elaborates on how the universe could have started from utter chaos and with these basic laws could have had its particles arranged so as to resemble the universe we observe today. Once the particles in the chaotic universe began to move, the overall motion would have been circular because there is no void in nature, so whenever a single particle moves, another particle must also move to occupy the space where the previous particle once was. This type of circular motion, or vortex, would have created what Descartes observed to be the orbits of the planets about the Sun with the heavier objects spinning out towards the outside of the vortex and the lighter objects remaining closer to the center. To explain this, Descartes used the analogy of a river that carried both floating debris (leaves, feathers, etc.) and heavy boats. If the river abruptly arrived at a sharp bend, the boats would follow Descartes third law of motion and hit the shore of the river since the flow of the particles in the river would not have enough force to change the direction of the boat. However, the much lighter floating debris would follow the river since the


id: adamic-language-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamic_language-0.md
category: reference
title: Adamic language
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamic_language
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:42.683318+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: adamic-language-20260505-0
summary:
The Adamic language, according to Abraham Abulafia and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden. It is variously interpreted as either the language used by God to address Adam (the divine language), or the language invented by Adam with which he named all things (including Eve), as in the second Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 2:19). In the Middle Ages, various Jewish commentators held that Adam spoke Hebrew, a view also addressed in various ways by the late medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri. In the early modern period, some authors continued to discuss the possibility of an Adamic language, some continuing to hold to the idea that it was Hebrew, while others such as John Locke were more skeptical. According to Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions, the ancient Semitic language of Geʽez is the language of Adam, the first and original language. More recently, a variety of Mormon authors have expressed various opinions about the nature of the Adamic language. == Patristic period == Augustine addresses the issue in The City of God. While not explicit, the implication of there being but one human language prior to the Tower of Babel's collapse is


id: adamic-language-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamic_language-1.md
category: reference
title: Adamic language
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamic_language
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:42.683318+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: adamic-language-20260505-0
summary:
=== Latter Day Saint movement === Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, in his revision of the Bible, declared the Adamic language to have been "pure and undefiled". Some Mormons believe it to be the language of God. Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, was commonplace in the early years of the movement, and it was commonly believed that the incomprehensible language spoken during these incidents was the language of Adam. However, this belief seems to have never been formally or officially adopted. Some other early Latter Day Saint leaders, including Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and Elizabeth Ann Whitney, claimed to have received several words in the Adamic language by revelation. Some Latter Day Saints believe that the Adamic language is the "pure language" spoken of by Zephaniah and that it will be restored as the universal language of humankind at the end of the world. Apostle Orson Pratt declared that "Ahman", part of the name of the settlement "Adam-ondi-Ahman" in Daviess County, Missouri, was the name of God in the Adamic language. An 1832 handwritten page from the Joseph Smith Papers, titled "A Sample of the Pure Language", and reportedly dictated by Smith to "Br. Johnson", asserts


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-0.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
The cosmology of the ancient Near East refers to beliefs about where the universe came from, how it developed, and its physical layout, in the ancient Near East, an area that corresponds with the Middle East today (including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula). The basic understanding of the world in this region from premodern times included a flat earth, a solid layer or barrier above the sky (the firmament), a cosmic ocean located above the firmament, a region above the cosmic ocean where the gods lived, and a netherworld located at the furthest region in the direction down. Creation myths explained where the universe came from, including which gods created it (and how), as well as how humanity was created. These beliefs are attested as early as the fourth millennium BC and dominated until the modern era, with the only major competing system being the Hellenistic cosmology that developed in Ancient Greece in the mid-1st millennium BC. Geographically, these views are known from the Mesopotamian cosmologies from Babylonia, Sumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from Ugarit and ancient Israel and Judah (the biblical cosmology); the Egyptian cosmology from Ancient Egypt; and the


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-1.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
==== Terminology ==== There were many ways to speak about or refer to the totality of the world, equivalent to contemporary words like "cosmos" or "universe". This included phrases like "heaven and earth" or "heaven and underworld". Terms like "all" or "totality" similarly connoted the entire universe. These ideas are found in hymns and royal inscriptions found in temples. Temples symbolized cosmic structures that reached heaven at their height and the underworld at their depths/foundations. Surviving evidence does not specify the exact physical bounds of the cosmos or what lies beyond the region described in the texts. ==== Unity ==== Mythical bonds, akin to ropes or cables, played the role of cohesively holding the entire world and all its layers of heaven and Earth together. These are sometimes called the "bonds of heaven and earth". They can be referred to with terminology like durmāhu (typically referring to a strong rope made of reeds), markaṣu (referring to a rope or cable, of a boat, for example), or ṣerretu (lead-rope passed through an animals nose). A deity can hold these ropes as a symbol of their authority, such as the goddess Ishtar "who holds the connecting link of all heaven and earth


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-2.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
Some texts describe seven heavens and seven earths, but within the Mesopotamian context, this is likely to refer to a totality of the cosmos with some sort of magical or numerological significance, as opposed to a description of the structural number of heavens and Earth. Israelite texts do not mention the notion of seven heavens or earths. === Firmament === The firmament was believed to be a solid boundary above the Earth, separating it from the upper or celestial waters. In the Book of Genesis, it is called the raqia. In ancient Egyptian texts, and from texts across the Near East generally, the firmament was described as having special doors or gateways on the eastern and western horizons to allow for the passage of heavenly bodies during their daily journeys. These were known as the windows of heaven or the gates of heaven. Canaanite text describe Baal as exerting his control over the world by controlling the passage of rainwater through the heavenly windows in the firmament. In Egyptian texts particularly, these gates also served as conduits between the earthly and heavenly realms for which righteous people could ascend. The gateways could be blocked by gates to prevent entry by


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-3.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
According to iconographic and literary evidence, the cosmic mountain, known as Mashu in the Epic of Gilgamesh, was thought to be located at or extend to both the westernmost and easternmost points of the earth, where the sun could rise and set respectively. As such, the model may be called a bi-polar model of diurnal solar movement. The gates for the rising and setting of the sun were also located at Mashu. Some accounts have Mashu as a tree growing at the center of the earth with roots descending into the underworld and a peak reaching to heaven. The cosmic mountain is also found in Egyptian cosmology, as Pyramid Text 1040c says that the mountain ranges on the eastern and western sides of the Nile act as the "two supports of the sky." In the Baal Cycle, two cosmic mountains exist at the horizon acting as the point through which the sun rises from and sets into the underworld (Mot). The tradition of the twin cosmic mountains may also lie behind Zechariah 6:1. === Heavenly bodies === ==== Sun ==== The sun god (represented by the god Utu in Sumerian texts or Shamash in Akkadian texts) rises in the day


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-4.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
==== Moon ==== Mesopotamians believed the moon to be a manifestation of the moon god, known as Nanna in Sumerian texts or Sîn in Akkadian texts, a high god of the pantheon, subject to cultic devotion, and father of the sun god Shamash and the Venus god Inanna. The path of the moon in the night sky and its lunar phases were also of interest. At first, Mesopotamia had no common calendar, but around 2000 BC, the semi-lunar calendar of the Sumerian center of Nippur became increasingly prevalent. Hence, the moon god was responsible for ordering perceivable time. The lunar calendar was divided into twelve months of thirty days each. New months were marked by the appearance of the moon after a phase of invisibility. The Enuma Elish creation myth describes Marduk as arranging the paths of the stars and then spends considerable space on Marduk's ordering of the moon:12 He made Nannaru (=the moon-god) appear (and) entrusted the night to him. 13 He assigned him as the jewel of the night to determine the days. 14 Month by month without cease, he marked (him) with a crown: 15 “At the beginning of the month, while rising over the land,


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-5.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
Above the firmament was a large, cosmic body of water which may be referred to as the cosmic ocean or celestial waters. In the Tablet of Shamash, the throne of the sun god Shamash is depicted as resting above the cosmic ocean. The waters are above the solid firmament that covers the sky. In the Enuma Elish, the upper waters represented the waters of Tiamat, contained by Tiamat's stretched out skin. Canaanite mythology in the Baal Cycle describes the supreme god Baal as enthroned above the freshwater ocean. Egyptian texts depict the sun god sailing across these upper waters. Some also convey that this body of water is the heavenly equivalent of the Nile River. === Lower waters === Both Babylonian and Israelite texts describe one of the divisions of the cosmos as the underworldly ocean. In Babylonian texts, this is coincided with the region/god Abzu. In Sumerian mythology, this realm was created by Enki. It was also where Enki lived and ruled over. Due to the connection with Enki, the lower waters were associated with wisdom and incantational secret knowledge. In Egyptian mythology, the personification of this subterranean body of water was instead Nu. The notion of a cosmic


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-6.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
=== Creation of the gods === The core Mesopotamian myth to explain the gods' origins begins with the primeval ocean, personified by Nammu, containing Father Sky and Mother Earth within her. In the god-list TCL XV 10, Nammu is called 'the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth'. The conception of Nammu as mother of Sky-Earth is first attested in the Ur III period (early 2nd millennium BC), though it may go back to an earlier Akkadian era. Earlier in the 3rd millennium BC, the starting point was not Nammu, but just Sky and Earth, with little apparent question about their own origins. The representation of Sky as male and Earth as female may come from the analogy between the generative power of the male sperm and the rain that comes from the sky, which respectively fertilize the female to give rise to newborn life or the Earth to give rise to vegetation. In the desert-dweller milieu, life depended on pastureland. Sky and Earth are in a union. Because they are the opposite sex, they inevitably reproduce. Every generation of their offspring includes a pair of gods, and altogether, this successive pairs or generations of gods is known as


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-7.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
=== Stretching out the heavens === The idiom of the heavens and earth being stretched out plays both a cultic and cosmic role in the Hebrew Bible where it appears repeatedly in the Book of Isaiah (40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13, 16), with related expressions in the Book of Job (26:7) the Psalms (104:2), Jeremiah (10:12) and in Zechariah (12:1). One example reads "The one who stretched out the heavens like a curtain / And who spread them out like a tent to dwell in" (Is 40:22). The idiom is used in these texts to identify the creative element of Yahweh's activities and the expansion of the heavens signifies its vastness, acting as Yahweh's celestial shrine. In Psalmic tradition, the "stretching" of the heavens is analogous to the stretching out of a tent. The Hebrew verb for the "stretching" of the heavens is also the regular verb for "pitching" a tent. The heavens, in other words, may be depicted as a cosmic tent (a motif found in many ancient cultures). This finds architectural analogy in descriptions of the tabernacle, which is itself a heavenly archetype, over which a tent is supposed to have been spread. The phrase is frequently


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-8.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
The Enuma Elish is the most famous Mesopotamian creation story and was widely known in among learned circles across Mesopotamia, influencing both art and ritual. It is also the only complete cosmogony, whereas others must be reconstructed from disparate sources. The story was, in many ways, an original work, and as such is not a general representative of ancient Near Eastern or even Babylonian cosmology as a whole, and its survival as the most complete creation account appears to be a product of it having been composed in the milieu of Babylonian literature that happened to survive and get discovered in the present day. On the other hand, recent evidence suggests that after its composition, it played an important role in Babylonian scribal education. The story is preserved foremost in seven clay tablets discovered from the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. The creation myth seeks to describes how the god Marduk created the world from the body of the sea monster Tiamat after defeating her in battle, after which Marduk ascends to the top of the heavenly pantheon. The Enuma Elish is one of a broader set of Near Eastern traditions describing the cosmic battle between the storm and sea


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-9.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
=== Other biblical creation narratives === Other prominent biblical cosmogonies include Psalm 74:12–17; Psalm 89:6–13; and Job 26:7–13, with a variety of additional briefer passages expounding on subsections of these lengthier passages (like Isaiah 51:9–10). Like traditions from Babylon, Egypt, Anatolia, and Canaan and the Levant, these cosmogonies describe a cosmic battle (on the part of Yahweh in the biblical versions) with a sea god (named Leviathan, Rahab) but only with Babylonian versions like the Enuma Elish is the victory against the sea god followed by an act of creation. The seemingly well-known cosmogony proceeded as follows: Yahweh fights and subdues the sea god while portrayed as holding a weapon and fighting with meteorological forces; the Sea that previously covered the earth is forced to make way for dry land and parts of it are confined behind the seashore, in the clouds, and into storehouses below the earth; Mount Zaphon is established and a temple for Yahweh is erected; finally, Yahweh is enthroned above all the gods. An alternative cosmogony appears in the doxologies of Amos (4:13; 5:8; 9:5–6). Instead of the earth being already covered by a primal sea, the earth is originally in a dry state and only


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-10.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
=== Survival === Copies from the Sippar Library indicate the Enuma Elish was copied into Seleucid times. One Hellenistic-era Babylonian priest, Berossus, wrote a Greek text about Mesopotamian traditions called the Babyloniaca (History of Babylon). The text survives mainly in fragments, especially by quotations in Eusebius in the fourth-century. The first book contains an account of Babylonian cosmology and, though concise, contains a number of echoes of the Enuma Elish. The creation account of Berossus is attributed to the divine messenger Oannes in the period after the global flood and is derivative of the Enuma Elish but also has significant variants to it. Babylonian cosmology also received treatments by the lost works of Alexander Polyhistor and Abydenus. The last known evidence for reception of the Enuma Elish is in the writings of Damascius (462–538), who had a well-informed source. As such, some learned circles in late antiquity continued to know the Enuma Elish. Echoes of Mesopotamian cosmology continue into the 11th century. === Early Greek cosmology === Early Greek cosmology was closely related to the broader domain of ancient near eastern cosmology, reflected 8th century BC works like the Theogony of Hesiod and the works of Homer, and prior to


id: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology-11.md
category: reference
title: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ancient-near-eastern-cosmology-20260505-0
summary:
Cosmographies were described in works other than those of the Hexaemeral genre. For example, in the genre of novels, the Alexander Romance would portray a mythologized picture of the journeys and conquests of Alexander the Great, ultimately inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh. The influence is evident in the texts cosmography, as Alexander reaches an outer ocean circumscribing the Earth which cannot be passed. Both in the Alexander Romance, and in later texts like the Syriac Alexander Legend (Neshana), Alexander journeys to the ends of the Earth which is surrounded by an ocean. Unlike in the story of Gilgamesh, however, this ocean is an unpassable boundary that marks the extent to which Alexander can go. The Neshana also aligns with a Mesopotamian cosmography in its description of the path of the sun: as the sun sets in the west, it passes through a gateway in the firmament, cycles to the other side of the earth, and rises in the east in its passage through another celestial gateway. Alexander, like Gilgamesh, follows the path of the sun during his journey. These elements of Alexander's journey are also described as part of the journey of Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Quran. Gilgamesh's journey


id: animal-magnetism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism-0.md
category: reference
title: Animal magnetism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:45.147761+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: animal-magnetism-20260505-0
summary:
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, is a pseudoscientific theory promoted by German physician Franz Mesmer in the 18th century. It posits the existence of an invisible natural force (Lebensmagnetismus) possessed by all living things, including humans, animals, and vegetables. He claimed that the force could have physical effects, including healing. The vitalist theory attracted numerous followers in Europe and the United States and was popular into the 19th century. Practitioners were often known as magnetizers rather than mesmerists. It had an important influence in medicine for about 75 years from its beginnings in 1779, and continued to have some influence for another 50 years. Hundreds of books were written on the subject between 1766 and 1925, but it is no longer practiced today except as a form of alternative medicine in some places. This theory also had a strong influence on the development of Kardecism. == Etymology and definitions == === Magnetizer === The terms magnetizer and mesmerizer have been applied to people who study and practice animal magnetism. These terms have been distinguished from mesmerist and magnetist, which are regarded as denoting those who study animal magnetism without being practitioners; and from hypnotist, someone who practises hypnosis. The


id: animal-magnetism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism-1.md
category: reference
title: Animal magnetism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:45.147761+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: animal-magnetism-20260505-0
summary:
and in contra-distinction to the Transcendental [i.e., metaphysical] Mesmerism of the Mesmerists … [allegedly] induced through the transmission of an occult influence from [the body of the operator to that of the subject,] Hypnotism, [by which] I mean a peculiar condition of the nervous system, into which it can be thrown by artificial contrivance … [a theoretical position that is entirely] consistent with generally admitted principles in physiological and psychological science [would] therefore [be most aptly] designated Rational Mesmerism. === "Mesmerism" and "hypnotism" === While there is a great range of theories and practices collectively denoted mesmerism, research has clearly identified that there are substantial and significant differences between "mesmerism" and "hypnotism" however they may be defined. == Vital fluid and animal magnetism == A 1791 London publication explains Mesmer's theory of the vital fluid: Modern philosophy has admitted a plenum or universal principle of fluid matter, which occupies all space; and that as all bodies moving in the world, abound with pores, this fluid matter introduces itself through the interstices and returns backwards and forwards, flowing through one body by the currents which issue therefrom to another, as in a magnet, which produces that phenomenon which we call Animal


id: animal-magnetism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism-2.md
category: reference
title: Animal magnetism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:45.147761+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: animal-magnetism-20260505-0
summary:
Doctor: They have refused to grant me a diploma—forbid me to practice as a physician, and all because I don't know a parcel of insignificant words; but exercise my profession according to the rules of reason and nature; Is it not natural to die, then if a dozen or two of my patients have died under my hands, is not that natural? ... Although the doctor's obsession with the use of animal magnetism, not merely to cure but to force his ward to fall in love with him, made for a humorous storyline, Inchbald's light-hearted play commented on what society perceived as threats posed by the practice. De Mainanduc brought animal magnetism to England in 1787 and promulgated it into the social arena. In 1785, he had published proposals to the ladies of Britain to establish a "hygean society" or society of health, by which they would pay to join and enjoy his treatments. As both popularity and skepticism increased, many became convinced that animal magnetism could lead to sexual exploitation of women. Not only did the practice involve close personal contact via the waving of hands over the body, but people were concerned that the animal magnetists could hypnotize


id: animal-magnetism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism-3.md
category: reference
title: Animal magnetism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:45.147761+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: animal-magnetism-20260505-0
summary:
== See also == Biomagnetism – Magnetic fields produced by organisms Caloric theory – Obsolete scientific theory of heat flow James Esdaile – Scottish surgeon Charles Lafontaine – 19th-century French showman known for demonstrations of animal magnetism Magnetoception – Biological ability to perceive magnetic fieldsPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Odic force – Hypothetical vital energy or life force Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism – 1784 French scientific bodies' investigations involving systematic controlled trials The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral Physiology & Mesmerism, and Their Applications to Human Welfare – Academic journal devoted to pseudoscientific concepts == References == == Sources == == Further reading == Anton Mesmer, "Propositions Concerning Animal Magnetism" (1779), from: Binet, A. & Féré, C. Animal Magnetism, New York: Appleton and Co., 1888; web archive The Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy. An Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism. London: Saunders & Otley, 1838; full text William Gregory. Letters to a Candid Inquirer on Animal Magnetism. Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1851; full text Charles Poyen. Animal magnetism. Boston: Weeks, Jordan & co., 1837; full text == External links == The dictionary definition of animal magnetism at Wiktionary Ripley, George; Dana, Charles A., eds. (1879). "Animal Magnetism"


id: antiperistasis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiperistasis-0.md
category: reference
title: Antiperistasis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiperistasis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:46.342176+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: antiperistasis-20260505-0
summary:
Antiperistasis, in philosophy, is a general term for various processes, real or contrived, in which one quality heightens the force of another, opposing, quality. == Overview == Historically, antiperistasis as a type of explanation was applied to numerous phenomena, from the interaction of quicklime with cold water, to the origin of thunder and lightning. In his Timaeus, Plato introduces the concept of periosis pushing around in order to explain various phenomena. Plato, for instance, appeals to it to explain how respiration functions in human beings. His 'theory' has been most famously adopted by Aristotle who made popular the term antiperistasis. In a nutshell it was "the doctrine that a moving object, which is no longer in touch with the mover, is moved by the medium through which it moves. Logically, it is connected to the idea that void does not exist. It was using this explanation that academic philosophers claimed that cold, on many occasions, increases a body's temperature, and dryness increases its moisture. Thus, it was said, quicklime (CaO) was apparently set ablaze when doused with cold water (an effect later explained as an exothermic reaction). It was also the understood reason for why water, such as that in


id: arca-no-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arca_Noë-0.md
category: reference
title: Arca Noë
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arca_Noë
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:47.505668+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: arca-no-20260505-0
summary:
Arca Noë ("Noah's Ark") is a book published in 1675 by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It is a study of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, published by the cartographer and bookseller Johannes van Waesbergen in Amsterdam. Kircher's aim in Arca Noë was to reconcile recent discoveries in nature and geography with the text of the Bible. This demonstration of the underlying unity and truth between revelation and science was a fundamental task of Catholic scholarship at the time. Together with its sister volume Turris Babel ("The Tower of Babel"), Arca Noë presented a complete intellectual project to demonstrate how contemporary science supported the account of the Book of Genesis. == Structure == The work is divided into three volumes: the first, De rebus quae ante Diluvium, dealt with the story of Noah before the Genesis flood narrative, the building of the Ark, the choice of animals to go on board and how they were accommodated. The second, De iis, quae ipso Diluvio e jusque duratione, concerned the flood itself and how the Ark was managed while the flood lasted, as well as providing a mystical and allegorical explanation of its meaning, as a vessel carrying the human soul.


id: arca-no-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arca_Noë-1.md
category: reference
title: Arca Noë
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arca_Noë
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:47.505668+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: arca-no-20260505-0
summary:
Kircher sought to account for how different kinds of animal were accommodated in the Ark, and to do this, he classified them, focusing mainly on Old World species. Echoing Pliny, he ignored the taxonomies of his contemporary scholars and simply classified them by size, from the elephant downwards. He went on to explain how they would have been accommodated, with plant-eaters separated from meat-eaters, land-dwellers from amphibians and water creatures, and 'clean' from 'unclean'. The chart showing the floor plan for the Ark shows how the animals were housed. On the lower deck one side berthed beavers, otters, crocodiles, hippopotami, goat-stags, gazelles, elks, bison, goats, sheep, cattle, deer, reindeer, wild goats, chamois, fallow deer, dogs, aquatic hare-hounds, Molossian hounds, Maltese dogs, Indian dogs, seals, turtles, hedgehogs, porcupines, badgers, dormice, martens and weasels. The other side housed small Indian pigs, rabbits, hares, squirrels, monkeys, apes, cats, asses, donkeys, horses, dromedaries, camels, elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, bears, tigers, panthers, leopards, unicorns, other horned animals from Africa, lynxes, gluttons, wolves, foxes, wild boars and domestic pigs. The middle deck carried food and supplies both for the voyage and for life after it. On one side were stored agricultural tools, clothes and household linens, metal


id: azoic-hypothesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azoic_hypothesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Azoic hypothesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azoic_hypothesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:48.682838+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: azoic-hypothesis-20260505-0
summary:
The Azoic hypothesis (sometimes referred to as the Abyssus theory) is a superseded scientific theory proposed by Edward Forbes in 1843, stating that the abundance and variety of marine life decreased with increasing depth and, by extrapolation of his own measurements, Forbes calculated that marine life would cease to exist below 300 fathoms (1,800 ft; 550 m). == Overview == The theory was based upon Forbes' findings aboard HMS Beacon (1832), a survey ship to which he had been appointed naturalist by the ship's commander Captain Thomas Graves. With Forbes aboard, HMS Beacon set sail around the Aegean Sea on 17 April 1841, from Malta. It was at this point that Forbes began to take dredging samples at various depths of the ocean, he observed that samples from greater depths displayed a narrower diversity of creatures which were generally smaller in size. Forbes reported his findings from the Aegean Sea in his 1843 report to the British Association entitled Report on the Mollusca and Radiata of the Aegean Sea. His findings were widely accepted by the scientific community and were bolstered by other scientific figures of the time. David Page (1814–1879), a respected geologist, reinforced the theory by stating that


id: balance-of-nature-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature-0.md
category: reference
title: Balance of nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:49.833645+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: balance-of-nature-20260505-0
summary:
The balance of nature, also known as ecological balance, is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium or homeostasis, which is to say that a small change (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance" with the rest of the system. The balance is sometimes depicted as easily disturbed and delicate, while other times it is inversely portrayed as powerful enough to correct any imbalances by itself. The concept has been described as "normative", as well as teleological, as it makes a claim about how nature should be: nature is balanced because "it is supposed to be balanced". The theory has been employed to describe how populations depend on each other, for example in predator-prey systems, or relationships between herbivores and their food source. It is also sometimes applied to the relationship between the Earth's ecosystem, the composition of the atmosphere, and weather. The theory has been discredited by scientists working in ecology, as it has been found that constant disturbances leading to chaotic and dynamic changes are the norm in nature. During the later


id: balance-of-nature-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature-1.md
category: reference
title: Balance of nature
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:49.833645+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: balance-of-nature-20260505-0
summary:
Despite being discredited among ecologists, the theory is widely held to be true by the general public, conservationists and environmentalists, with one author calling it an "enduring myth". Environmental and conservation organizations such as the WWF, Sierra Club and Canadian Wildlife Federation continue to promote the theory, as do animal rights organizations such as PETA. Kim Cuddington considers the balance of nature to be a "foundational metaphor in ecology", which is still in active use by ecologists. She argues that many ecologists see nature as a "beneficent force" and that they also view the universe as being innately predictable; Cuddington asserts that the balance of nature acts as a "shorthand for the paradigm expressing this worldview". Douglas Allchin and Alexander J. Werth assert that although "ecologists formally eschew the concept of balance of nature, it remains a widely adopted preconception and a feature of language that seems not to disappear entirely." At least in Midwestern America, the balance of nature idea was shown to be widely held by both science majors and the general student population. In a study at the University of Patras, educational sciences students were asked to reason about the future of ecosystems which suffered human-driven disturbances.


id: brain-matures-at-25-myth-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_matures_at_25_myth-0.md
category: reference
title: Brain matures at 25 myth
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_matures_at_25_myth
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:50.993982+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: brain-matures-at-25-myth-20260505-0
summary:
The "brain matures at 25" myth or "twenty-five year old brain" myth is the claim that the human brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, reaches an adult level maturity approximately around age 25. This myth occasionally has others numbers cited, but 25 is by far the most commonly occurring. Teen brain theory is the pseudoscientific theory based on this myth. The myth suggests that a person does not have full adult capacity or maturity until this age threshold is achieved. It has been attributed to various figures, notably Jay Giedd and Laurence Steinberg. It has been shown that the prefrontal cortex does prune gray matter with age, but these changes are not conclusively linked with better cognitive function or a higher level of socioemotional maturity. It is widely quoted on social media outlets, usually in debates regarding legal age limits or youth behavior. == Origin and spread == A common source for the myth is from the research of Jay Giedd. The study in particular was longitudinal, following a group of thirteen people from 1994 to 2004 with ages at the end of the study ranging from 4–21 years old. His team of researchers found that changes in the prefrontal cortex


id: center-of-the-universe-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_universe-0.md
category: reference
title: Center of the universe
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_universe
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:52.208732+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: center-of-the-universe-20260505-0
summary:
The center of the universe is a concept in historical cosmological models prior to the 20th century. Modern cosmological theories are based on the Copernican principle that all locations are equivalent and the universe has no spatial center. Historically, different people have suggested various locations as the center of the Universe. Many mythological cosmologies included an axis mundi, the central axis of a flat Earth that connects the Earth, heavens, and other realms together. In the 4th century BC Greece, philosophers developed the geocentric model, based on astronomical observation; this model proposed that the center of the Universe lies at the center of a spherical, stationary Earth, around which the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars rotate. With the development of the heliocentric model by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century, the Sun was believed to be the center of the Universe, with the planets (including Earth) and stars orbiting it. In the early-20th century, the discovery of other galaxies and the development of the Big Bang theory led to the development of cosmological models of a homogeneous, isotropic Universe which has no distinct spatial central point because, given that space expands from a shared central point in time (the Big


id: center-of-the-universe-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_universe-1.md
category: reference
title: Center of the universe
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_universe
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:52.208732+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: center-of-the-universe-20260505-0
summary:
Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of the Solar System. The word comes from the Greek (ἥλιος helios "sun" and κέντρον kentron "center"). The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but had received no support from most other ancient astronomers. Nicolaus Copernicus' major theory of a heliocentric model was published in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), in 1543, the year of his death, though he had formulated the theory several decades earlier. Copernicus' ideas were not immediately accepted, but they did begin a paradigm shift away from the Ptolemaic geocentric model to a heliocentric model. The Copernican Revolution, as this paradigm shift would come to be called, would last until Isaac Newton’s work over a century later. Johannes Kepler published his first two laws about planetary motion in 1609, having found them by analyzing the astronomical observations of Tycho Brahe. Kepler's third law was published in 1619. The first law was "The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun


id: center-of-the-universe-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_universe-2.md
category: reference
title: Center of the universe
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_of_the_universe
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:52.208732+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: center-of-the-universe-20260505-0
summary:
== The nonexistence of a center of the Universe == In 1917, Heber Doust Curtis observed a nova within what then was called the "Andromeda Nebula". Searching the photographic record, 11 more novas were discovered. Curtis noticed that novas in Andromeda were drastically fainter than novas in the Milky Way. Based on this, Curtis was able to estimate that Andromeda was 500,000 light-years away. As a result, Curtis became a proponent of the so-called "island Universes" hypothesis, which held that objects previously believed to be spiral nebulae within the Milky Way were actually independent galaxies. In 1920, the Great Debate between Harlow Shapley and Curtis took place, concerning the nature of the Milky Way, spiral nebulae, and the dimensions of the Universe. To support his claim that the Great Andromeda Nebula (M31) was an external galaxy, Curtis also noted the appearance of dark lanes resembling the dust clouds in this galaxy, as well as the significant Doppler shift. In 1922 Ernst Öpik presented an elegant and simple astrophysical method to estimate the distance of M31. His result put the Andromeda Nebula far outside this galaxy at a distance of about 450,000 parsec, which is about 1,500,000 ly. Edwin Hubble settled


id: cosmic-age-problem-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_age_problem-0.md
category: reference
title: Cosmic age problem
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_age_problem
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:53.430171+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cosmic-age-problem-20260505-0
summary:
The cosmic age problem was a historical problem in astronomy concerning the age of the universe. The problem was that at various times in the 20th century, the universe was estimated to be younger than the oldest observed stars. Estimates of the universe's age came from measurements of the current expansion rate of the universe, the Hubble constant H 0 {\displaystyle H_{0}} , as well as cosmological models relating H 0 {\displaystyle H_{0}} to the universe's matter and energy contents (see the Friedmann equations). Issues with measuring H 0 {\displaystyle H_{0}} as well as not knowing about the existence of dark energy led to spurious estimates of the age. Additionally, objects such as galaxies, stars, and planets could not have existed in the extreme temperatures and densities shortly after the Big Bang. Since around 1997–2003, the problem is believed to have been solved by most cosmologists: modern cosmological measurements lead to a precise estimate of the age of the universe (i.e. time since the Big Bang) of 13.8 billion years, and recent age estimates for the oldest objects are either younger than this, or consistent allowing for measurement uncertainties. == Historical development == === Early years === Following theoretical developments


id: cosmic-age-problem-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_age_problem-1.md
category: reference
title: Cosmic age problem
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_age_problem
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:53.430171+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: cosmic-age-problem-20260505-0
summary:
=== Late 1990s: probable solution === The age problem was eventually thought to be resolved by several developments between 1995 and 2003: firstly, a large program with the Hubble Space Telescope measured the Hubble constant at 72 (km/s)/Mpc with 10 percent uncertainty. Secondly, measurements of parallax by the Hipparcos spacecraft in 1995 revised globular cluster distances upwards by 5-10 percent; this made their stars brighter than previously estimated and therefore younger, shifting their age estimates down to around 12-13 billion years. Finally, from 1998 to 2003 a number of new cosmological observations including supernovae, cosmic microwave background observations and large galaxy redshift surveys led to the acceptance of dark energy and the establishment of the Lambda-CDM model as the standard model of cosmology. The presence of dark energy implies that the universe was expanding more slowly at around half its present age than today, which makes the universe older for a given value of the Hubble constant. The combination of the three results above essentially removed the discrepancy between estimated globular cluster ages and the age of the universe. More recent measurements from WMAP and the Planck spacecraft lead to an estimate of the age of the universe of 13.80


id: council-of-jamnia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia-0.md
category: reference
title: Council of Jamnia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:54.611504+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: council-of-jamnia-20260505-0
summary:
Scholars refer to the Council of Jamnia (presumably Yavneh in the Holy Land) as a late 1st-century AD gathering that some claim finalized the canon of the Hebrew Bible in response to Christianity. Heinrich Graetz first proposed this theory in 1871, and many scholars accepted it throughout much of the 20th century. Since the 1960s, scholars have increasingly challenged and largely discredited the theory, arguing instead that the Hebrew canon emerged earlier, possibly during the Hasmonean period. Rabbinic and Messianic Jewish scholars, however, highlight Jamnia's role in consolidating Jewish textual tradition and communal identity, emphasizing its importance for scriptural interpretation and religious authority rather than formal canonical closure. == Background == The Talmud records that shortly before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai negotiated with the Roman authorities to establish a center of Jewish learning in Yavneh (Jamnia). After the Romans besieged Jerusalem, Yohanan ben Zakkai obtained permission from the Roman general Vespasian to relocate and found a school dedicated to studying and developing halakha (Jewish religious law). This action ensured that Jewish scholarship and religious life could continue outside the Temple-centric system, which the Romans had destroyed. Yohanan ben Zakkai and other


id: council-of-jamnia-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia-1.md
category: reference
title: Council of Jamnia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:54.611504+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: council-of-jamnia-20260505-0
summary:
== Rabbinic and Messianic Jewish perspectives on Jamnia == Rabbinic and Messianic Jewish scholars emphasize how the gatherings at Yavneh (Jamnia) actively shaped Jewish identity and religious literature after the destruction of the Second Temple. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, a scholar of Jewish Studies and founder of the Israel Bible Center, explains that the sages at Yavneh deliberately worked to define and consolidate sacred texts within the Jewish community during this turbulent period. He highlights that the discussions at Yavneh focused on establishing religious authority and scriptural interpretation rather than formalizing a closed biblical canon. Lizorkin-Eyzenberg stresses that these efforts helped unify the Jewish people by reaffirming shared traditions and texts amid the upheaval caused by the Temple's destruction and the rise of competing religious groups. Jacob Neusner, a leading scholar of Rabbinic Judaism, acknowledges that the sages at Yavneh did not formally finalize the Hebrew Bible canon in a single council. Instead, he shows how they engaged in authoritative debates and interpretations that gradually established normative boundaries for Jewish sacred literature. Neusner argues that this discursive process at Yavneh served as a critical foundation for the later codification of Jewish scripture and law. Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the United


id: dirac-large-numbers-hypothesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Dirac large numbers hypothesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:55.823362+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dirac-large-numbers-hypothesis-20260505-0
summary:
The Dirac large numbers hypothesis (LNH) is an observation made by Paul Dirac in 1937 relating ratios of size scales in the Universe to that of force scales. The ratios constitute very large, dimensionless numbers: some 40 orders of magnitude in the present cosmological epoch. According to Dirac's hypothesis, the apparent similarity of these ratios might not be a mere coincidence but instead could imply a cosmology with these unusual features: The strength of gravity, as represented by the gravitational constant, is inversely proportional to the age of the universe: G ∝ 1 / t {\displaystyle G\propto 1/t\,} The mass of the universe is proportional to the square of the universe's age: M ∝ t 2 {\displaystyle M\propto t^{2}} . Physical constants are actually not constant. Their values depend on the age of the Universe. Stated in another way, the hypothesis states that all very large dimensionless quantities occurring in fundamental physics should be simply related to a single very large number, which Dirac chose to be the age of the universe. == Background == LNH was Dirac's personal response to a set of large number "coincidences" that had intrigued other theorists of his time. The "coincidences" began with Hermann


id: dirac-large-numbers-hypothesis-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis-1.md
category: reference
title: Dirac large numbers hypothesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:55.823362+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dirac-large-numbers-hypothesis-20260505-0
summary:
== Later developments and interpretations == Dirac's theory has inspired and continues to inspire a significant body of scientific literature in a variety of disciplines, with it sparking off many speculations, arguments and new ideas in terms of applications. In the context of geophysics, for instance, Edward Teller seemed to raise a serious objection to LNH in 1948 when he argued that variations in the strength of gravity are not consistent with paleontological data. However, George Gamow demonstrated in 1962 how a simple revision of the parameters (in this case, the age of the Solar System) can invalidate Teller's conclusions. The debate is further complicated by the choice of LNH cosmologies: In 1978, G. Blake argued that paleontological data is consistent with the "multiplicative" scenario but not the "additive" scenario. Arguments both for and against LNH are also made from astrophysical considerations. For example, D. Falik argued that LNH is inconsistent with experimental results for microwave background radiation whereas Canuto and Hsieh argued that it is consistent. One argument that has created significant controversy was put forward by Robert Dicke in 1961. Known as the anthropic coincidence or fine-tuned universe, it simply states that the large numbers in LNH are


id: list-of-discredited-substances-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_discredited_substances-0.md
category: reference
title: List of discredited substances
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_discredited_substances
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:57.026496+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-discredited-substances-20260505-0
summary:
This is a list of substances or materials generally considered discredited. A substance can be discredited in one of three ways: It was widely believed to exist at one time but no longer is. Such substances are often part of an obsolete scientific theory. It was once believed to have drastically different properties from those accepted now. It was widely claimed and believed to possess significant properties that are no longer attributed to it. It is currently believed to exist as part of a theory that has not met the theoretical and experimental requirements of mainstream science. In particular, such a theory must be predictive. == Substances whose existence is discredited == == Substances whose properties are discredited == This is not to be construed as implying that these items–as they are understood today–are discredited. What is listed are fire, water, metal, etc. as universal principles or fundamentals. Classical elements and Chinese elements discredited by atomic theory and nuclear physics. Fire (classical element) Water (classical element) Earth (classical element) Air (classical element) Wood (classical element) Metal (classical element) Aether (classical element): Now known not to exist (see above) The four bodily humours: Blood, Phlegm, Black Bile, and Yellow Bile. Fluids


id: firmament-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament-0.md
category: reference
title: Firmament
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:58.201988+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: firmament-20260505-0
summary:
In Ancient Near Eastern cosmology, the firmament was a celestial barrier that separated the Heavenly waters above from the Earth below. In Biblical cosmology, the firmament (Hebrew: רָקִ֫יעַ‎ rāqīaʿ) was the vast solid dome created by God during the Genesis creation narrative to separate the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear. The concept was adopted into the subsequent Classical and Medieval models of heavenly spheres, but was dropped with advances in astronomy in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today the word is sometimes used as a synonym for the sky or for heaven. == Etymology == === Firmament === In English, the word "firmament" is recorded as early as 1250, in the Middle English Story of Genesis and Exodus. It later appeared in the King James Bible. The same word is found in French and German Bible translations, all from the Latin firmamentum (a firm object), used in the Vulgate (4th century). This in turn is a calque of the Greek στερέωμᾰ (steréōma), also meaning a solid or firm structure (Greek στερεός = rigid), which appears in the Septuagint, the Greek translation made by Jewish scholars around 200 BC. === Raqia ===


id: firmament-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament-1.md
category: reference
title: Firmament
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:58.201988+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: firmament-20260505-0
summary:
Prior to the systematic study of the cosmos by the Ionian School in the city of Miletus in the 6th century BC, the early Greek conception of cosmology was closely related to that of near eastern cosmology and envisioned a flat Earth with a solid firmament above the Earth supported by pillars. However, the work of Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Thales, followed by classical Greek theoreticians like Aristotle and Ptolemy ushered in the notions of a spherical Earth and an Earth floating in the center of the cosmos as opposed to resting on a body of water. This picture was geocentric and represented the cosmos as a whole as spherical. === Patristic cosmology === One problem for Christian interpreters was in understanding the distinction between the heaven created on the first day and the firmament created in the second day. Origen followed the cosmological dualism of the Hellenistic Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria, who proposed a distinction between the material and eternal creations but does not appear to have associated matter or materiality with evil. Under Origen's influence the waters above became associated with the spiritual plane of Christian contemplative exercise and the waters below with the demonic and infernal. The


id: firmament-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament-2.md
category: reference
title: Firmament
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:58.201988+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: firmament-20260505-0
summary:
A distinctive collection of ideas about the cosmos were drawn up and recorded in the rabbinic literature, though the conception is rooted deeply in the tradition of near eastern cosmology recorded in Hebrew, Akkadian, and Sumerian sources, combined with some additional influences in the newer Greek ideas about the structure of the cosmos and the heavens in particular. The rabbis viewed the heavens to be a solid object spread over the Earth, which was described with the biblical Hebrew word for the firmament, raki’a. Two images were used to describe it: either as a tent, or as a dome; the former inspired from biblical references, though the latter is without an evident precedent. As for its composition, just as in cuneiform literature the rabbinic texts describe that the firmament was made out of a solid form of water, not just the conventional liquid water known on the Earth. A different tradition makes an analogy between the creation of the firmament and the curdling of milk into cheese. Another tradition is that a combination of fire and water makes up the heavens. This is somewhat similar to a view attributed to Anaximander, whereby the firmament is made of a mixture of


id: francien-language-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francien_language-0.md
category: reference
title: Francien language
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francien_language
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:33:59.387734+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: francien-language-20260505-0
summary:
Francien (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃sjɛ̃]), also anglicized as Francian (), is a 19th-century term in linguistics that was applied to the French dialect that was spoken during the Middle Ages in the regions of Île-de-France (with Paris at its centre), Orléanais, as well as Touraine, Berry, and Bourbonnais before the establishment of the French language as a standard language. According to one theory of the development of French, Francien was chosen out of all the competing oïl languages as an official language (Norman and Picard being the main competitors in the medieval period). The theory currently prevailing, however, is that Francien was one of the dialects in the dialect continuum on top of which an administrative language, untrammeled by perceived regionalisms, was imposed as a compromise means of communication and record to replace Latin. The existence and definition of Francien were put forward in the 19th century, partly to support the idea of the French language as enjoying a direct and pure lineage from Latin and to minimize the contributions of the various Romance languages of France. Nowadays, the question of Francien is a controversial topic in discussions of language policy in France. == See also == Old French Ordinance of


id: geohumoral-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geohumoral_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Geohumoral theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geohumoral_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:00.516614+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: geohumoral-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Geohumoral theory or Geohumoralism was a racialist concept propounded in Renaissance Europe. Briefly, it "held that variations in topography and climate produced variations in national characteristics" (Wilson 133). This embodied the early modern "...common way of understanding human nature...through analyzing how European bodies altered as a result of being in one climate rather than another – some Europeans, notably those in cold northern climes, such as the English and Scots, and those in southern climes, such as those close to the shores of tropical Africa, had their bodies altered sufficiently by environmental factors so as to be morally defective and physically decrepit" (Abulafia qtd. in Burnard par. 7). Geohumoralism was, in part, a philosophical justification for the European imperial encroachment upon the New World. == References ==


id: global-cooling-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling-0.md
category: reference
title: Global cooling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:02.304703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: global-cooling-20260505-0
summary:
Global cooling was a conjecture, especially during the 1970s, of imminent cooling of the Earth culminating in a period of extensive glaciation, due to the cooling effects of aerosols or orbital forcing. Some press reports in the 1970s speculated about continued cooling; these did not accurately reflect the scientific literature of the time, which was generally more concerned with warming from an enhanced greenhouse effect. An overall warming trend from the late Industrial Revolution did slow and reverse slightly from the 1940s to the 1970s, but then continued sharply upward into the 2020s. == Introduction: general awareness and concern == By the 1970s, scientists were becoming increasingly aware that estimates of global temperatures showed cooling since 1945, as well as the possibility of large scale warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases. In the scientific papers which considered climate trends of the 21st century, fewer than 10% were inclined towards future cooling, while most papers predicted future warming. The general public had little awareness of carbon dioxide's effects on climate, but Science News in May 1959 forecast a 25% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the 150 years from 1850 to 2000, with a consequent warming trend. The actual increase


id: global-cooling-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling-1.md
category: reference
title: Global cooling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:02.304703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: global-cooling-20260505-0
summary:
Orbital forcing refers to the slow, cyclical changes in the tilt of Earth's axis and shape of its orbit. These cycles alter the total amount of sunlight reaching the Earth by a small amount and affect the timing and intensity of the seasons. This mechanism is thought to be responsible for the timing of the ice age cycles, and understanding of the mechanism was increasing rapidly in the mid-1970s. The paper of Hays, Imbrie, and Shackleton "Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages" qualified its predictions with the remark that "forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted ... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate". The idea that ice age cycles were predictable appears to have become conflated with the idea that another one was due


id: global-cooling-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling-2.md
category: reference
title: Global cooling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:02.304703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: global-cooling-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1970 SCEP report === The 1970 Study of Critical Environmental Problems reported the possibility of warming from increased carbon dioxide, but no concerns about cooling, setting a lower bound on the beginning of interest in "global cooling". === 1971 to 1975: papers on warming and cooling factors === By 1971, studies indicated that human caused air pollution was spreading, but there was uncertainty as to whether aerosols would cause warming or cooling, and whether or not they were more significant than rising CO2 levels. J. Murray Mitchell still viewed humans as "innocent bystanders" in the cooling from the 1940s to 1970, but in 1971 his calculations suggested that rising emissions could cause significant cooling after 2000, though he also argued that emissions could cause warming depending on circumstances. Calculations were too basic at this time to be trusted to give reliable results. An early numerical computation of climate effects was published in the journal Science in July 1971 as a paper by S. Ichtiaque Rasool and Stephen H. Schneider, titled "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate". The paper used rudimentary data and equations to compute the possible future effects of large increases in


id: global-cooling-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling-3.md
category: reference
title: Global cooling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:02.304703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: global-cooling-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1975 National Academy of Sciences report === There also was a Report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) entitled, "Understanding Climate Change: A Program for Action". The report stated (p. 36) that, "The average surface air temperature in the northern hemisphere increased from the 1880s until about 1940 and has been decreasing thereafter." It also stated (p. 44) that, "If both the CO2 and particulate inputs to the atmosphere grow at equal rates in the future, the widely differing atmospheric residence times of the two pollutants means that the particulate effect will grow in importance relative to that of CO2." The report did not predict whether the 25-year cooling trend would continue. It stated (Forward, p. v) that, "we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course [so] it does not seem possible to predict climate", and (p. 2) "The climates of the earth have always been changing, and they will doubtless continue to do so in the future. How large these future changes will be, and where and how rapidly they will occur, we do not know." The Report's "program for action" was a call for creation of


id: global-cooling-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling-4.md
category: reference
title: Global cooling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:02.304703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: global-cooling-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1990s === In 1991, a prediction by Carl Sagan and other scientists who had worked on the famous TTAPS study on nuclear winter that massive oil well fires in Kuwait would cause significant effects on climate was incorrect. In January 1999, contrarian Patrick Michaels wrote a commentary offering to "take even money that the 10 years ending on December 31, 2007, will show a statistically significant global cooling trend in temperatures measured by satellite", on the basis of his view that record temperatures in 1998 had been a blip. Indeed, over that period, satellite-measured temperatures never again approached their 1998 peak. Due to a sharp but temporary dip in temperatures in 1999–2000, a least-squares linear regression fit to the satellite temperature record showed little overall trend. The RSS satellite temperature record showed a slight cooling trend, but the UAH satellite temperature record showed a slight warming trend. == Twenty-first century == In 2003, the Office of Net Assessment at the United States Department of Defense was commissioned to produce a study on the likely and potential effects of abrupt modern climate change should a shutdown of thermohaline circulation occur. The study, conducted under ONA head Andrew Marshall, modelled its


id: global-cooling-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling-5.md
category: reference
title: Global cooling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:02.304703+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: global-cooling-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == Carslaw, K. S. "The Climate Record: The Last Several Centuries and Last Several Decades. Is the Climate Stable?". ENVI2150 Climate Change: Scientific Issues. Archived from the original on February 20, 2007. Retrieved November 17, 2005. unknown. "History of Continental Drift - Before Wegener". Archived from the original on November 23, 2005. Retrieved November 17, 2005. http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=52903 Vanderbilt Television News Archive Johnson, Scott K. (June 7, 2016). "That '70s myth—did climate science really call for a "coming ice age?"". Ars Technica. Retrieved June 8, 2019. == External links == What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?, summaries for laypeople of research and conspiracy theories by Skeptical Science, described by the marine biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg "the most prominent knowledge-based website dealing with climate change in the world". Discussion and quotes from various papers about the "1970s prediction of an imminent ice age", by Wm Connolley SCOPE 13 - The Global Carbon Cycle, SCOPE, 1976. SCOPE 27 - Climate Impact Assessment, 1984. "Another Ice Age?". Time. June 24, 1974. Archived from the original on March 12, 2007. Chambers FM, Brain SA (2002). "Paradigm shifts in late-Holocene climatology?". The Holocene. 12 (2): 239–249. Bibcode:2002Holoc..12..239C. doi:10.1191/0959683602hl540fa. S2CID 128774561. Past Climate


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-0.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
Astrology is a belief in a relation between celestial observations and terrestrial events. People made conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles. Early evidence of such practices appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that the lunar cycle was being noted as early as 25,000 years ago; the first step towards recording the Moon's influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organizing a communal calendar. With the Neolithic Revolution new needs were also being met by the increasing knowledge of constellations, whose appearances in the night-time sky change with the seasons, thus allowing the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities. By the 3rd millennium BCE, widespread civilisations had developed sophisticated understanding of celestial cycles, and are believed to have consciously oriented their temples to create alignment with the heliacal risings of the stars. There is scattered evidence to suggest that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made during this period, particularly in Mesopotamia. Two, from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (compiled in Babylon round 1700 BC) are reported to have been made during the reign of king Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC).


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-1.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
... In the beginning of the year a flood will come and break the dikes. When the Moon has made the eclipse, the king, my lord, should write to me. As a substitute for the king, I will cut through a dike, here in Babylonia, in the middle of the night. No one will know about it. Ulla Koch-Westenholz, in her 1995 book Mesopotamian Astrology, argues that this ambivalence between a theistic and mechanic worldview defines the Babylonian concept of celestial divination as one which, despite its heavy reliance on magic, remains free of implications of targeted punishment with the purpose of revenge, and so "shares some of the defining traits of modern science: it is objective and value-free, it operates according to known rules, and its data are considered universally valid and can be looked up in written tabulations". Koch-Westenholz also establishes the most important distinction between ancient Babylonian astrology and other divinatory disciplines as being that the former was originally exclusively concerned with mundane astrology, being geographically oriented and specifically applied to countries, cities and nations, and almost wholly concerned with the welfare of the state and the king as the governing head of the nation. Mundane astrology


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-2.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
== Greece and Rome == The conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great exposed the Greeks to the cultures and cosmological ideas of Syria, Babylon, Persia and central Asia. Greek overtook cuneiform script as the international language of intellectual communication and part of this process was the transmission of astrology from cuneiform to Greek. Sometime around 280 BC, Berossus, a priest of Bel from Babylon, moved to the Greek island of Kos in order to teach astrology and Babylonian culture to the Greeks. With this, what historian Nicholas Campion calls, "the innovative energy" in astrology moved west to the Hellenistic world of Greece and Egypt. According to Campion, the astrology that arrived from the Eastern World was marked by its complexity, with different forms of astrology emerging. By the 1st century BC two varieties of astrology were in existence, one that required the reading of horoscopes in order to establish precise details about the past, present and future; the other being theurgic (literally meaning 'god-work'), which emphasised the soul's ascent to the stars. While they were not mutually exclusive, the former sought information about the life, while the latter was concerned with personal transformation, where astrology served as a form


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-3.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
Astrology was taken up enthusiastically by Islamic scholars following the collapse of Alexandria to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th century. The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754–775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as Bayt al-Hikma 'Storehouse of Wisdom', which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included the Persian Jewish astrologer Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad, and Sahl ibn Bishr (a.k.a. Zael), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century. In the 9th century, Persian astrologer Albumasar was thought to be one of the greatest astrologer at that time. His practical manuals for training astrologers profoundly influenced Muslim intellectual history and, through translations, that of western Europe and Byzantium In the 10th century. Albumasar's Introductorium


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-4.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
In medieval Europe, a university education was divided into seven distinct areas, each represented by a particular planet and known as the seven liberal arts. Dante attributed these arts to the planets. As the arts were seen as operating in ascending order, so were the planets in decreasing order of planetary speed: grammar was assigned to the Moon, the quickest moving celestial body, dialectic was assigned to Mercury, rhetoric to Venus, music to the Sun, arithmetic to Mars, geometry to Jupiter and astrology/astronomy to the slowest moving body, Saturn. Medieval writers used astrological symbolism in their literary themes. For example, Dante's Divine Comedy builds varied references to planetary associations within his described architecture of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, (such as the seven layers of Purgatory's mountain purging the seven cardinal sins that correspond to astrology's seven classical planets). Similar astrological allegories and planetary themes are pursued through the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's astrological passages are particularly frequent and knowledge of astrological basics is often assumed through his work. He knew enough of his period's astrology and astronomy to write a Treatise on the Astrolabe for his son. He pinpoints the early spring season of the Canterbury Tales in the


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-5.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
The earliest recorded use of astrology in India is recorded during the Vedic period. Astrology, or jyotiṣa is listed as a Vedanga, or branch of the Vedas of the Vedic religion. The only work of this class to have survived is the Vedanga Jyotisha, which contains rules for tracking the motions of the sun and the moon in the context of a five-year intercalation cycle. The date of this work is uncertain, as its late style of language and composition, consistent with the last centuries BC, albeit pre-Mauryan, conflicts with some internal evidence of a much earlier date in the 2nd millennium BC. Indian astronomy and astrology developed together. The earliest treatise on Jyotisha, the Bhrigu Samhita, was compiled by the sage Bhrigu during the Vedic era. The sage Bhirgu is also called the 'Father of Hindu Astrology', and is one of the venerated Saptarishi or seven Vedic sages. The Saptarishis are also symbolized by the seven main stars in the Ursa Major constellation. The documented history of Jyotisha in the subsequent newer sense of modern horoscopic astrology is associated with the interaction of Indian and Hellenistic cultures through the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdoms. The oldest surviving treatises, such as


id: history-of-astrology-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology-6.md
category: reference
title: History of astrology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astrology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:04.287800+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-astrology-20260505-0
summary:
== Sources == Al Biruni (11th century), The Chronology of Ancient Nations; tr. C. E. Sachau. London: W.H Allen & Co, 1879. Online edition available on the Internet Archive, retrieved 6 August 2011. Barton, Tamsyn, 1994. Ancient Astrology. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-11029-7. Belo, Catarina, 2007. Chance and determinism in Avicenna and Averroës. London: Brill. ISBN 90-04-15587-2. Burckhardt, Titus, 1969. 'The Seven Liberal Arts and the West Door of Chartres Cathedral' Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer, 1969). (Online reproduction), retrieved 4 July 2012. Campion, Nicholas, 2008. A History of Western Astrology, Vol. 1, The Ancient World (first published as The Dawn of Astrology: a Cultural History of Western Astrology. London: Continuum. ISBN 9781441181299. Nicholas Campion, A History of Western Astrology Vol. 2, The Medieval and Modern Worlds, Continuum 2009. ISBN 978-1-84725-224-1. Crane, Joseph, 2012. Between Fortune and Providence: Astrology and the Universe in Dante's Divine Comedy. Wessex. ISBN 9781902405759. Maternus, Julius Firmicus, 4th century. Matheseos libri VIII . Translated by Jean Rhys Bram in Ancient astrology theory and practice, Noyes Press, 1975. Reprinted by Astrology Center of America, 2005. ISBN 978-1-933303-10-9. Hesiod (c. 8th century BC) . Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica translated by Evelyn-White, Hugh G.,


id: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate-0.md
category: reference
title: History of the extraterrestrial life debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:05.499336+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-0
summary:
The existence of extraterrestrial life is a scientific idea that has been debated for centuries. Initially, the question was purely speculative; in modern times a limited amount of scientific evidence provides some answers. The idea was first proposed in Ancient Greece, where it was supported by atomists and rejected by Aristotelians. The debate continued during the Middle Ages, when the discussion centered upon whether the notion of extraterrestrial life was compatible with the doctrines of Christianity. The Copernican Revolution radically altered mankind's image of the architecture of the cosmos by removing Earth from the center of the universe, which made the concept of extraterrestrial life more plausible. Today we have no conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial life, but experts in many different disciplines gather to study the idea under the scientific umbrella of astrobiology. == Ancient Greece == During the early days of the history of astronomy the things seen in the night sky were explained as the actions of mythological deities. However, it soon became evident that celestial objects move and behave in regular and predictable patterns, which helped in keeping track of time, tides, and seasons, crucial for ancient agriculture. Most ancient civilizations had great knowledge of astronomy but


id: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate-1.md
category: reference
title: History of the extraterrestrial life debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:05.499336+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-0
summary:
The Greeks discussed as well the possible existence of other worlds, but did not consider the planets as such. In their view, the celestial sphere was a part of Earth and other potential worlds would have their own ones. There was consensus that the world was made of the four classical elements, earth, water, fire and air. From there, they had two opposite ideas: Atomists thought that all existence was composed by atoms, small and indivisible pieces of the four elements, and Aristotelians thought that the four elements were exclusive to Earth and that the universe was made of a fifth one, the Aether. The atomist view would allow the existence of other worlds, as the processes that created Earth may happen elsewhere as well. Although very few of their writings were preserved, it is known that early atomists Leucippus and Democritus thought that atoms should create other worlds the same way Earth was created. Epicurus said in his "Letter to Herodotus" that "There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours... we must believe that in all worlds there are living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world". Aristotle and Plato opposed


id: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate-2.md
category: reference
title: History of the extraterrestrial life debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:05.499336+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-0
summary:
Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543, kickstarting the Copernican Revolution. This book restored and updated the old idea of Aristarchus that Earth spins around the sun. The new version was written with so much mathematical detail that it could contest the Ptolemaic model. By this time, scientists noticed several inaccuracies in the Ptolemaic model. They were more open to revising it, but largely kept using it because of the huge work involved in changing the tables. Copernicus thought that Earth spinning around the sun could provide a simpler explanation for the retrograde motion of the planets, and calculated the distance of the planets to the Sun. However, he kept the idea of circular orbits, and added several composite orbits to explain the errors caused by it. Although he correctly displaced the center of the Solar System, this first model turned out to be as inaccurate and as complex as the Ptolematic one, and did not get much supporters in the first decades. A recurring problem for both models was the lack of quality data, as the telescope had not been invented yet and naked eye observations are highly inaccurate. The Danish Tycho Brahe sought to gather such


id: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate-3.md
category: reference
title: History of the extraterrestrial life debate
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_extraterrestrial_life_debate
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:05.499336+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-the-extraterrestrial-life-debate-20260505-0
summary:
However, some scientists had concerns over the new model. Aristotle had once stated that Earth could not move because, if it did so, birds, clouds, and falling objects would be left behind. Orbits had to be circular because the heavens had to be perfect and unchanging. And if Earth moved, the stars should leave a stellar parallax. Those concerns were addressed by Galileo Galilei. First, he explained that an object in motion stays in motion unless a force stops it; a principle nowadays included in the first of Newton's laws of motion. The idea of heavenly perfection was already being challenged by Tycho's observations. Tycho had observed a supernova, which proved that sometimes the heavens do change. The newly invented telescope also revealed "imperfections" in celestial bodies: the sun was shown with sunspots, and the Moon has many features such as craters and mountain ranges. If the heavens were not as perfect as originally considered, then the idea that orbits are not perfect circles was not so questionable. Galileo also discovered the Galilean moons of Jupiter, celestial bodies orbiting another planet, and the phases of Venus. The existence of the Galilean moons refuted the common argument that the Moon would


id: hollow-moon-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon-0.md
category: reference
title: Hollow Moon
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:06.737539+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hollow-moon-20260505-0
summary:
The Hollow Moon and the closely related Spaceship Moon are pseudoscientific hypotheses that propose that Earth's Moon is either wholly hollow or otherwise contains a substantial interior space. No scientific evidence exists to support the idea; seismic observations and other data collected since spacecraft began to orbit or land on the Moon indicate that it has a solid, differentiated interior, with a thin crust, extensive mantle, and a dense core which is significantly smaller (in relative terms) than Earth's. While Hollow Moon hypotheses usually propose the hollow space as the result of natural processes, the related Spaceship Moon hypothesis holds that the Moon is an artifact created by an alien civilization; this belief usually coincides with beliefs in UFOs or ancient astronauts. This idea dates from 1970, when two Soviet authors published a short piece in the popular press speculating that the Moon might be "the creation of alien intelligence"; since then, it has occasionally been endorsed by conspiracy theorists like Jim Marrs and David Icke. An at least partially hollow Moon has made many appearances in science fiction, the earliest being H. G. Wells' 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon, which borrowed from earlier works set in


id: hollow-moon-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon-1.md
category: reference
title: Hollow Moon
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:06.737539+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hollow-moon-20260505-0
summary:
Multiple lines of evidence disprove that the Moon is hollow. One involves moment of inertia parameters; the other involves seismic observations. The moment of inertia parameters indicate that the core of the Moon is both dense and small, with the rest of the Moon consisting of material with nearly-constant density. Seismic observations have been made, constraining the thickness of the Moon's crust, mantle and core, demonstrating it could not be hollow. Mainstream scientific opinion on the internal structure of the Moon overwhelmingly supports a solid internal structure with a thin crust, an extensive mantle and a small denser core. ==== Moment of inertia factor ==== The moment of inertia factor is a number, ranging from 0 to .67, that represents the distribution of mass in a spherical body. A moment of inertia factor of 0 represents a body with all its mass concentrated at its central core, while a factor of .67 represents a perfectly hollow sphere. A moment of inertia factor of 0.4 corresponds to a sphere of uniform density, while factors less than 0.4 represent bodies with cores that are more dense than their surfaces. The Earth, with its dense inner core, has a moment of inertia factor


id: island-of-california-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California-0.md
category: reference
title: Island of California
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:09.063111+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: island-of-california-20260505-0
summary:
Island of California (Spanish: Isla de California) refers to the long-held global misconception, dating from the 16th century, that the California region was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island separated from the continent by a strait now known to be the Gulf of California. One of the most famous cartographic errors in history, it was propagated on many maps during the 17th and 18th centuries, despite contradictory evidence from various explorers. The legend was initially infused with the idea that California was a terrestrial paradise, like the Garden of Eden or Atlantis. This mapping error was not a one-off event. From the mid-1500s to the late 1700s great controversy surrounded the geography of California. For instance, a Spanish map from 1548 depicts California as a peninsula, while a 1622 Dutch map depicts California as an island. A 1626 Portuguese map depicts the land as a peninsula, while a 1630 British map depicts it as an island. A French map from 1682 only shows the tip of the Baja Peninsula. There are slightly over 1,000 maps in Stanford's Glen McLaughlin Collection of California as an Island, the largest collection of such maps in the world. ==


id: island-of-california-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California-1.md
category: reference
title: Island of California
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:09.063111+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: island-of-california-20260505-0
summary:
Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons. It is thought that, because of the widespread popularity of Las sergas de Esplandián at the time of European exploration of California, that it is reasonable that the book inspired the naming of California. The book's description is also thought to have prompted early explorers to misidentify the Baja California peninsula as the island in these legends. In 1533, Fortún Ximénez, a mutineer on an exploring expedition sent by Hernán Cortés, discovered the southern portion of Baja California, around present-day La Paz. He was killed by natives but his men returned to New Spain and reported on their find. In 1535, Cortés arrived in the bay there and named the area Santa Cruz; he attempted to start a colony but abandoned his efforts after several years due to logistical problems. Cortés' limited information on southern Baja California apparently led to the naming of the region after the legendary California and to an initial but short-lived assumption


id: island-of-california-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California-2.md
category: reference
title: Island of California
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:09.063111+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: island-of-california-20260505-0
summary:
In his account of the voyage, Cardona claims to have sailed as far north as 34° N, where he observed that the sea continued to separate California from the mainland, writing near the end of his account that “it is now proven that California is a very large island and not part of the continent.” A day prior to this observation, Cardona recorded the passage of a severe storm that nearly drowned the crew, and which may led to the temporary extension of the Gulf.


id: island-of-california-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California-3.md
category: reference
title: Island of California
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:09.063111+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: island-of-california-20260505-0
summary:
Reports from Oñate's expedition reached Antonio de la Ascención, a Carmelite friar who had participated in Sebastián Vizcaíno's explorations of the west coast of California in 1602 and 1603. Ascención was a tireless propagandist in favor of Spanish settlement in California, and his later writings referred to the region as an island. As older maps confirm, Spanish authorities and local residents were well aware where the actual northern terminus of the Gulf of California lay, but by extending the coastline north past Cape Mendocino and eventually even into Puget Sound, Francis Drake's claim of Nova Albion for England (1579) could be invalidated by the priority of Cortes' claim (1533). The Jesuit missionary and cartographer Eusebio Francisco Kino revived the fact that Baja California was a peninsula. While studying in Europe, Kino had accepted the insularity of California, but when he reached Mexico he began to have doubts. He made a series of overland expeditions from northern Sonora to areas within or near the Colorado River's delta in 1698–1706, in part to provide a practical route between the Jesuits' missions in Sonoran and Baja California but also to resolve the geographical question. Kino satisfied himself that a land connection must exist,


id: japhetic-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Japhetic theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:10.275318+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: japhetic-theory-20260505-0
summary:
In linguistics, the Japhetic hypothesis or Japhetic theory (Russian: яфетическая теория, yafeticheskaya teoriya) of Soviet linguist Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr (1864–1934) postulated that the Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus area are related to the Semitic languages of the Middle East. The hypothesis gained favor in the 1930s and '40s among some Soviet linguists for ideological reasons as it was thought to represent "proletarian science" as opposed to "bourgeois science", but also had numerous detractors, most notably Arnold Chikobava. The hypothesis finally fell into disrepute and was largely discarded after 1950, when Joseph Stalin published a scathing critique of the views of Marr and his supporters, titled "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics". == Term == Marr adopted the term "Japhetic" from Japheth, the name of one of the sons of Noah, in order to characterise his hypothesis that the Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus area were related to the Semitic languages of the Middle East (named after Shem, Japheth's brother). Marr postulated a common origin of Caucasian, Semitic-Hamitic, and Basque languages. This initial hypothesis pre-dated the October Revolution (the first reference to it is made in Pan Tadeusz written by Adam Mickiewicz in the 1830s). In 1917, Marr enthusiastically endorsed the revolution,


id: list-of-superseded-scientific-theories-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories-0.md
category: reference
title: List of superseded scientific theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:11.427498+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-superseded-scientific-theories-20260505-0
summary:
This list includes well-known general theories in science and pre-scientific natural history and natural philosophy that have since been superseded by other scientific theories. Many discarded explanations were once supported by a scientific consensus, but replaced after more empirical information became available that identified flaws and prompted new theories which better explain the available data. Pre-modern explanations originated before the scientific method, with varying degrees of empirical support. Some scientific theories are discarded in their entirety, such as the replacement of the phlogiston theory by energy and thermodynamics. Some theories known to be incomplete or in some ways incorrect are still used. For example, Newtonian classical mechanics is accurate enough for practical calculations at everyday distances and velocities, and it is still taught in schools. The more complicated relativistic mechanics must be used for long distances and velocities nearing the speed of light, and quantum mechanics for very small distances and objects. Some aspects of discarded theories are reused in modern explanations. For example, miasma theory proposed that all diseases were transmitted by "bad air". The modern germ theory of disease has found that diseases are caused by microorganisms, which can be transmitted by a variety of routes, including touching


id: list-of-superseded-scientific-theories-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories-1.md
category: reference
title: List of superseded scientific theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:11.427498+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-superseded-scientific-theories-20260505-0
summary:
==== Chemistry ==== Energeticism – a theory that attempted to reinterpret all chemistry in terms of energy, rejecting the concept of atoms. Caloric theory – the theory that a self-repelling fluid called "caloric" was the substance of heat. Rendered obsolete by the mechanical theory of heat. Origin of the calorie's name, a unit of energy still used for nutrition in some countries. Classical elements – All matter was once thought composed of various combinations of classical elements (most famously air, earth, fire, and water). Antoine Lavoisier finally refuted this in his 1789 publication, Elements of Chemistry, which contained the first modern list of chemical elements. Electrochemical dualism – the theory that all molecules are salts composed of basic and acidic oxides Phlogiston theory – The theory that combustible goods contain a substance called "phlogiston" that entered air during combustion. Replaced by Lavoisier's work on oxidation. Point 2 of Dalton's Atomic Theory was rendered obsolete by discovery of isotopes, and point 3 by discovery of subatomic particles and nuclear reactions. Radical theory – the theory that organic compounds exist as combinations of radicals that can be exchanged in chemical reactions just as chemical elements can be interchanged in inorganic compounds. Vitalism


id: list-of-superseded-scientific-theories-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories-2.md
category: reference
title: List of superseded scientific theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superseded_scientific_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:11.427498+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-superseded-scientific-theories-20260505-0
summary:
==== Geography and climate ==== Ptolemy's estimate of the size of the Earth Buenaventura River Flat Earth theory, generally known to be false among educated people in various ancient and medieval societies Terra Australis, which technically is Antarctica, but the original idea was based on an unproven belief that land in the Northern hemisphere must have a Southern counterpart for balance. Hollow Earth theory The Open Polar Sea, an ice-free sea once supposed to surround the North Pole Rain follows the plow – the theory that human settlement increases rainfall in arid regions (only true to the extent that crop fields evapotranspirate more than barren wilderness) Island of California – the theory that California was not part of mainland North America but rather a large island Strait of Anian – a supposed strait connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, superseded by the Bering Strait (discovered 1728) Mountains of Kong and Mountains of the Moon - mythical mountain ranges in Central Africa, based on the accounts of travelers Inland sea of Australia Pre-modern environmental determinism (as explanations for moral behavior, as opposed to modern theories such as factor endowments, state formation, and theories of the social effects of climate change) Climatic


id: lubbock-subpluvial-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubbock_Subpluvial-0.md
category: reference
title: Lubbock Subpluvial
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubbock_Subpluvial
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:12.592347+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: lubbock-subpluvial-20260505-0
summary:
Lubbock Subpluvial is a discredited paleoclimate theory about a wet period in early Holocene Texas and New Mexico. During this period, part of the Llano Estacado was supposedly covered with pine and spruce forest but later research has found that vegetation there scarcely changed from grasslands through the Quaternary. == Supposed manifestations == The Lubbock Subpluvial was localized to the Llano Estacado region of New Mexico and Texas. According to the hypothesis, between 8,600 and 8,300 BCE, the climate was moister, the region was covered with pine and spruce forests and temperatures were colder than today. Archeologically, this period coincides with the Folsom period. This moist period was in turn defined as a subcomponent of a longer-lasting climate anomaly, the "San Jon Pluvial". This wet climate episode in the Southern High Plains was in turn correlated to advances of the Rocky Mountain and Laurentide Ice Sheet glaciers, with individual advances connected to specific subcomponents of the "San Jon Pluvial" including the Lubbock Subpluvial. Alternatively, it was correlated with the Younger Dryas cold period. == Research history and refutation == The existence of this humid period was originally postulated on the basis of lake and pollen deposits at the Lubbock Lake


id: martian-canals-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals-0.md
category: reference
title: Martian canals
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:13.852100+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: martian-canals-20260505-0
summary:
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed by astronomers using early telescopes without photography. They were first described by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and attested to by later observers. Schiaparelli called these canali ("channels"), which was mistranslated into English as "canals". The Irish astronomer Charles E. Burton made some of the earliest drawings of straight-line features on Mars, although his drawings did not match Schiaparelli's. Around the turn of the century there was even speculation that they were engineering works, irrigation canals constructed by a civilization of intelligent aliens indigenous to Mars. By the early 20th century, improved astronomical observations revealed that, with the possible exception of the natural canyon Valles Marineris, the "canals" were likely an optical illusion, and modern high-resolution mapping of the Martian surface by spacecraft supports this interpretation. Modern historians of science widely agree that the Martian canals were a perceptual and linguistic artifact, arising from telescope limitations combined with the mistranslation of Schiaparelli’s term


id: martian-canals-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals-1.md
category: reference
title: Martian canals
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canals
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:13.852100+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: martian-canals-20260505-0
summary:
Other observers disputed the notion of canals. The influential observer Eugène Antoniadi used the 83 cm (32.6 inch) aperture telescope at Meudon Observatory during the 1909 opposition of Mars and saw no canals, the outstanding photos of Mars taken at the new Baillaud dome at the Pic du Midi observatory also brought formal discredit to the Martian canals theory in 1909, and the notion of canals began to fall out of favor. Around this time spectroscopic analysis also began to show that no water was present in the Martian atmosphere. However, as of 1916 Waldemar Kaempffert (editor of Scientific American and later Popular Science Monthly) was still vigorously defending the Martian canals theory against skeptics. In 1907 the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace published the book Is Mars Habitable? that severely criticized Lowell's claims. Wallace's analysis showed that the surface of Mars was almost certainly much colder than Lowell had estimated, and that the atmospheric pressure was too low for liquid water to exist on the surface. He also pointed out that several recent efforts to find evidence of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere with spectroscopic analysis had failed. He concluded that complex life was impossible, let alone the


id: mechanical-explanations-of-gravitation-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_explanations_of_gravitation-0.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical explanations of gravitation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_explanations_of_gravitation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:29.920491+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-explanations-of-gravitation-20260505-0
summary:
Mechanical explanations of gravitation (or kinetic theories of gravitation) are attempts to explain the action of gravity by aid of basic mechanical processes, such as pressure forces caused by pushes, without the use of any action at a distance. These theories were developed from the 16th until the 19th century in connection with the aether. However, such models are no longer regarded as viable theories within the mainstream scientific community because general relativity is now the standard model to describe gravitation without the use of actions at a distance. Modern "quantum gravity" hypotheses also attempt to describe gravity by more fundamental processes such as particle fields, but they are not based on classical mechanics. == Screening == This theory is probably the best-known mechanical explanation, and was developed for the first time by Nicolas Fatio de Duillier in 1690, and re-invented, among others, by Georges-Louis Le Sage (1748), Lord Kelvin (1872), and Hendrik Lorentz (1900), and criticized by James Clerk Maxwell (1875), and Henri Poincaré (1908). The theory posits that the force of gravity is the result of tiny particles or waves moving at high speed in all directions, throughout the universe. The intensity of the flux of particles is


id: mechanical-explanations-of-gravitation-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_explanations_of_gravitation-1.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical explanations of gravitation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_explanations_of_gravitation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:29.920491+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-explanations-of-gravitation-20260505-0
summary:
Because of his philosophical beliefs, René Descartes proposed in 1644 that no empty space can exist and that space must consequently be filled with matter. The parts of this matter tend to move in straight paths, but because they lie close together, they cannot move freely, which according to Descartes implies that every motion is circular, so the aether is filled with vortices. Descartes also distinguishes between different forms and sizes of matter in which rough matter resists the circular movement more strongly than fine matter. Due to centrifugal force, matter tends towards the outer edges of the vortex, which causes a condensation of this matter there. The rough matter cannot follow this movement due to its greater inertia—so due to the pressure of the condensed outer matter those parts will be pushed into the center of the vortex. According to Descartes, this inward pressure is nothing other than gravity. He compared this mechanism with the fact that if a rotating, liquid filled vessel is stopped, the liquid goes on to rotate. Now, if one drops small pieces of light matter (e.g. wood) into the vessel, the pieces move to the middle of the vessel. This idea on the formation


id: mechanical-explanations-of-gravitation-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_explanations_of_gravitation-2.md
category: reference
title: Mechanical explanations of gravitation
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_explanations_of_gravitation
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:29.920491+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mechanical-explanations-of-gravitation-20260505-0
summary:
I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. And according to the testimony of some of his friends, such as Nicolas Fatio de Duillier or David Gregory, Newton thought that gravitation is based directly on divine influence. Similar to Newton, but mathematically in greater detail, Bernhard Riemann assumed in 1853 that the gravitational aether is an incompressible fluid and normal matter represents sinks in this aether. So if the aether is destroyed or absorbed proportionally to the masses within the bodies, a stream arises and carries all surrounding bodies into the direction of the central mass. Riemann speculated that the absorbed aether is transferred into another world or dimension. Another attempt to solve the energy problem was made by Ivan Osipovich Yarkovsky in 1888. Based on his aether stream model, which was similar to that of


id: montpellier-vitalism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier_vitalism-0.md
category: reference
title: Montpellier vitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier_vitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:31.114545+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: montpellier-vitalism-20260505-0
summary:
The vitalism of the Montpellier medical school, more succinctly called "Montpellier vitalism", is a medical and philosophical school of thought. == History == It emerged in France in the second half of the 18th century under the influence of physicians and philosophers shaped by the intellectual context of the time. Disease was interpreted in an original way as a dysfunction of the entire organism, compromising its integrity. This medical philosophy persisted for over a century and found fertile ground at the University of Montpellier, an institution renowned for its openness to philosophical ideas. The term "vitalism" arose in the wake of the Montpellier school of medicine, in the south of France, and was notably introduced by Charles-Louis Dumas, dean of the city's Faculty of Medicine, in his Principes de Physiologie in 1800. The vitalism of this school viewed living organisms as indivisible units animated by a "vital principle" that could not be reduced to the physical activity of organs, though it was also distinct from the thinking soul. It positioned itself as an intermediate stance between the mechanistic perspective of the early 18th century and the animist vitalism attributed to Stahl, as well as between materialism and spiritualism. By the


id: musurgia-universalis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musurgia_Universalis-0.md
category: reference
title: Musurgia Universalis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musurgia_Universalis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:32.322353+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: musurgia-universalis-20260505-0
summary:
Musurgia Universalis, sive Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni ("The Universal Musical Art, or the Great Art of Consonance and Dissonance") is a 1650 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was printed in Rome by Ludovico Grignani and dedicated to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria. It was a compendium of ancient and contemporary thinking about music, its production and its effects. It explored, in particular, the relationship between the mathematical properties of music (e.g. harmony and dissonance) with health and rhetoric. The work complements two of Kircher's other books: Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica had set out the secret underlying coherence of the universe and Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae had explored the ways of knowledge and enlightenment. What Musurgia Universalis contained, through its exploration of dissonance within harmony, was an explanation of the presence of evil in the world. == Composition and publication == Kircher compiled all the musical knowledge available in his day, making this the first encyclopedia of music. Since its publication it has been a valuable source of information to musicologists about baroque concepts of style and composition. It provides the earliest account of the doctrine of the affections in music. As well as including


id: musurgia-universalis-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musurgia_Universalis-1.md
category: reference
title: Musurgia Universalis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musurgia_Universalis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:32.322353+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: musurgia-universalis-20260505-0
summary:
An engraved portrait of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm faces the frontispiece of volume one, was designed by Johann Paul Schor and engraved by Paulus Pontius, a student of Rubens. It is dated 'Antwerp 1649'. Each of the work's two volumes had its own frontispiece. For volume one this followed the design common to many of Kircher's works, depicting a threefold universe with the divine at the top, the celestial in the middle and the earthly below. At the top the eye of God overlooks all from within a triangle which bathes choirs of angels in divine light. Two angels hold aloft a banner proclaiming the sanctus as a 'Canon angelicus 36 vocum... in 9 choros distributus' ('a 36-voice canon of angels, divided into nine choirs'). Beneath this sits Apollo on the celestial sphere, holding the lyre that symbolises harmony and pushing away the panpipes associated with his rival Marsyas. Together with the signs of the zodiac, the sphere carries a quotation from the Book of Job (38:37): 'Quis concentum coeli dormire faciet?' ('Who shall make the concert of heaven to sleep?'). At the bottom left of the image Pythagoras sits, with one arm resting on this theorem and the other pointing


id: obsolete-models-of-dna-structure-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_models_of_DNA_structure-0.md
category: reference
title: Obsolete models of DNA structure
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsolete_models_of_DNA_structure
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:33.536077+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: obsolete-models-of-dna-structure-20260505-0
summary:
In addition to the variety of verified DNA structures, there have been a range of proposed DNA models that have either been disproven, or lack sufficient evidence. Some of these structures were proposed during the 1950s before the structure of the double helix was solved, most famously by Linus Pauling. Non-helical or "side-by-side" models of DNA were proposed in the 1970s to address what appeared at the time to be problems with the topology of circular DNA chromosomes during replication (subsequently resolved via the discovery of enzymes that modify DNA topology). These were also rejected due to accumulating experimental evidence from X-ray crystallography, solution NMR, and atomic force microscopy (of both DNA alone, and bound to DNA-binding proteins). Although localised or transient non-duplex helical structures exist, non-helical models are not currently accepted by the mainstream scientific community. Finally, there exists a persistent set of contemporary fringe theories proposing a range of unsupported models. == Prior to Watson–Crick structure == The DNA double helix was discovered in 1953 (with further details in 1954) based on X-ray diffraction images of DNA (most notably photo 51, taken by Raymond Gosling and Rosalind Franklin) as well as base-pairing chemical and biochemical information. Prior to


id: open-polar-sea-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Polar_Sea-0.md
category: reference
title: Open Polar Sea
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Polar_Sea
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:34.688578+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: open-polar-sea-20260505-0
summary:
The Open Polar Sea was a conjectured ice-free body of water that was believed to encircle the North Pole. Although this theory was widely accepted and served as a basis for many exploratory expeditions aimed at reaching the North Pole by sea or discovering a navigable route between Europe and the Pacific via the North Pole, it was ultimately proven to be untrue. == History == The theory that the North Pole region might be a practical sea route goes back to at least the 16th century, when it was suggested by English cartographer Robert Thorne (1492-1532). The explorers William Barents and Henry Hudson also believed in the Open Polar Sea. For a time, the theory was put aside because of the practical experience of navigators who encountered impenetrable ice as they went north. However, the idea was revived again in the mid-19th century by theoretical geographers, such as Matthew F. Maury and August Petermann. At the time, interest in polar exploration was high because of the search for John Franklin's missing expedition, and many would-be polar explorers took up the theory, including Elisha Kent Kane, Dr. Isaac Israel Hayes, and George Washington De Long. It was believed that once


id: panbabylonism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panbabylonism-0.md
category: reference
title: Panbabylonism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panbabylonism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:35.884640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: panbabylonism-20260505-0
summary:
Panbabylonism (also known as Panbabylonianism) was the school of thought that considered the cultures and religions of the Middle East and civilization in general to be ultimately derived from Babylonian myths which in turn they viewed as being based on Babylonian astronomy, often in hidden ways. == Overview == A related school of thought is the Bible-Babel school, which regarded the Hebrew Bible and Judaism to be directly derived from Mesopotamian (Babylonian) mythology; both are forms of hyperdiffusionism in archaeology. Both theories were popular in Germany, and Panbabylonism remained popular from the late 19th century to World War I. Prominent advocates included Friedrich Delitzsch, Peter Jensen, Alfred Jeremias and Hugo Winckler. Panbabylonist thought largely disappeared from legitimate scholarship after the death of one of its greatest proponents, Hugo Winckler. The claims of the school were largely discredited by astronomical and chronological arguments of Franz Xaver Kugler (a Jesuit priest). == See also == Ancient near eastern cosmology Ancient Semitic religion Christianity and Paganism Comparative mythology Comparative religion Mesopotamian religion The Two Babylons Worship of heavenly bodies == References == == Further reading == Anonymous. (1912). Some Recent Books on Panbabylonism. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 1 (3): 563–578. G. H.


id: rain-follows-the-plow-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow-0.md
category: reference
title: Rain follows the plow
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:37.055430+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rain-follows-the-plow-20260505-0
summary:
Rain follows the plow is the conventional name for a now-discredited theory of climatology that was popular throughout the American West and Australia during the late 19th century. The phrase was employed as a summation of the theory by Charles Dana Wilber: God speed the plow. ... By this wonderful provision, which is only man's mastery over nature, the clouds are dispensing copious rains ... [the plow] is the instrument which separates civilization from savagery; and converts a desert into a farm or garden. ... To be more concise, Rain follows the plow. The basic premise of the theory was that human habitation and agriculture through homesteading caused permanent change in the climate of arid and semi-arid regions, making these regions more humid. The theory was widely promoted in the 1870s as a justification for the settlement of the Great Plains, a region previously known as the "Great American Desert". It was also used to justify the expansion of wheat growing on marginal land in South Australia during the same period. According to the theory, increased human settlement in the region and cultivation of soil would result in an increased rainfall over time, rendering the land more fertile and lush


id: ryb-color-model-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_color_model-0.md
category: reference
title: RYB color model
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_color_model
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:38.376563+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ryb-color-model-20260505-0
summary:
RYB (an abbreviation of red–yellow–blue) is a subtractive color model used in art and applied design in which red, yellow, and blue pigments are considered primary colors. Under traditional color theory, this set of primary colors was advocated by Moses Harris, Michel Eugène Chevreul, Johannes Itten and Josef Albers, and applied by countless artists and designers. The RYB color model underpinned the color curriculum of the Bauhaus, Ulm School of Design and numerous art and design schools that were influenced by the Bauhaus, including the IIT Institute of Design (founded as the New Bauhaus), Black Mountain College, Design Department Yale University, the Shillito Design School, Sydney, and Parsons School of Design, New York. In this context, the term primary color refers to three exemplar colors (red, yellow, and blue) as opposed to specific pigments. As illustrated, in the RYB color model, red, yellow, and blue are intermixed to create secondary color segments of orange, green, and purple. This set of primary colors emerged at a time when access to a large range of pigments was limited by availability and cost, and it encouraged artists and designers to explore the many diverse colors through mixing and intermixing a limited range of


id: ryb-color-model-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_color_model-1.md
category: reference
title: RYB color model
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_color_model
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:38.376563+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ryb-color-model-20260505-0
summary:
=== Traditional coloring with three primaries === The first known case of trichromacy coloration (of 3 primaries) can be found in a work on optics by the Belgian thinker Franciscus Aguilonius in 1613, who in his "Opticorum libri sex, philosophis iuxtà ac mathematicis utiles" in Latin (Roughly, Six books of optics: useful to philosophers as well as to mathematicians), graphed the colors flavvus, rvbevs and cærvlevs (yellow, red and blue) giving rise to the intermediate colors avrevs, viridis and pvrpvrevs (orange, green and purple) and their relationship with the extremes albvs and niger (white and black). However, the idea of three primary colors is older, as Aguilonius supported the view known since the Middle Ages that the colors yellow, red, and blue were the basic or "noble" colors from which all others are derived. This model was used for printing by Jacob Christoph Le Blon in 1725 and called it Coloritto or harmony of colouring, stating that the primitive (primary) colors are yellow, red and blue, while the secondary are orange, green and purple, or violet. In 1766, Moses Harris developed an 18-color color wheel based on this model, including a wider range of colors by adding light and dark


id: scotophobin-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotophobin-0.md
category: reference
title: Scotophobin
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotophobin
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:39.574142+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scotophobin-20260505-0
summary:
Scotophobin (from Ancient Greek σκότος (skótos) 'darkness' and φόβος (phóbos) 'fear') is a peptide discovered by neuroscientist Georges Ungar in 1965 and reported in 1968. The results of Ungar and his collaborators seemed to show that scotophobin induces fear of the dark in various mammals and fish. It was discovered in the brain of laboratory rats conditioned to have a fear of darkness. Moreover, it was claimed that its injection could transfer fear to unconditioned rats. It was the core argument for the hypothesis about memory transfer: that memories are molecularly stored in the brain. Chemical memory transfer was a subject of conferences and books. According to the current knowledge, scotophobin cannot have the effect attributed to it. The history of scotophobin is covered in the 2006 book Scotophobin: Darkness at the Dawn of the Search for Memory Molecules, a personal account of Louis Neal Irwin, who participated in this research. == Experimental setup == In his main work Ungar made rats choose to enter either a lighted box or a dark box. Normally nocturnal animals, upon entering the dark, rats were given an electric shock, and the rats were quickly trained to enter the lighted box. After a prolonged


id: scrutinium-physico-medicum-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrutinium_Physico-Medicum-0.md
category: reference
title: Scrutinium Physico-Medicum
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrutinium_Physico-Medicum
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:40.758985+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scrutinium-physico-medicum-20260505-0
summary:
Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Contagiosae Luis, Quae Pestis Dicitur (A Physico-Medical Examination of the Contagious Pestilence Called the Plague) is a 1658 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher, containing his observations and theories about the bubonic plague that struck Rome in the summer of 1656. Kircher was the first person to view infected blood through a microscope, and his observations are described in the book. The work was printed on the presses of Vitale Mascardi and dedicated to Pope Alexander VII. Kircher attributed the plague to microscopic 'worms' which appeared due to spontaneous generation, and which infected various organisms through the food chain process. Already infected plants would infect the animals that ate them, and the infected animals would infect the humans who ate them. Kircher explained his findings through a series of experiments, but Francesco Redi later concluded that there was no reproducibility in these experiments. Redi had attempted to reproduce the experiments which Kircher described, and noted that there was no actual evidence for spontaneous generation in the results. On the other hand, Kircher popularized the idea "that contagion was the method of disease transmission". Kircher's work was discussed by the Royal Society, and the concept of contagion was


id: seven-earths-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_earths-0.md
category: reference
title: Seven earths
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_earths
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:41.919441+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: seven-earths-20260505-0
summary:
Seven earths is a cosmological doctrine attested in ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic traditions, according to which the cosmos is structured into multiple, specifically seven, terrestrial realms, often arranged in parallel with or in symmetry to a corresponding scheme of seven heavens. In some cases, the seven earths may refer to seven layers of the Underworld or Hell. The seven earths belief first appears in Sumerian literature, likely as a magical or symbolic way to speak about the totality of the cosmos. The doctrine of a real, cosmologically structured seven heavens and seven earths, evolves out of Jewish and Late Antique literature where a growing interest in the depiction of Hell can be found. The earliest traces of the idea are found in texts like the Babylonian Talmud, where the underworld is given seven names. A second layer of texts interprets these seven names, as seven distinct regions of the underworld. Finally, texts such as Leviticus Rabbah, Seder Rabbah di-Bereshit, and more, begin to speak of the idea of seven real and distinct earths. Around this time, the seven earths also appear in the Quran (65:12). == By genre of literature == === Ancient Near Eastern literature === The


id: superstition-in-india-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India-0.md
category: reference
title: Superstition in India
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:43.156548+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: superstition-in-india-20260505-0
summary:
Superstitions in India are prevalent and are based on myths, legends, fables, traditions and stories. People stop if a black cat crosses their path, or if someone sneezes, auspicious work is postponed. Common superstitions in India today include a black cat crossing the road being bad luck, cutting fingernails/toenails at nighttime is considered to give bad luck, a crow calling meaning that guests are arriving, drinking milk after eating fish causing skin diseases, and itchy palms signaling the arrival of money. == Overview == Superstitions are usually attributed to lack of education; however, this has not always been the case in India, as there are many educated people with beliefs considered superstitious by the public. Superstitious beliefs and practices vary from one region to another, ranging from harmless practices such as lemon-and-chili to terms in order to ward off the evil eye, to harmful acts like witch-burning. Being part of tradition and religion, these beliefs and practices have been passed down from one generation to another for centuries. The Indian government has tried to put new laws prohibiting such practices into effect. Due to the rich history of superstition, these laws often face a lot of opposition from the general


id: superstition-in-india-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India-1.md
category: reference
title: Superstition in India
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:43.156548+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: superstition-in-india-20260505-0
summary:
=== Horoscopes === In India, people who follow Hindu religion believe to be born with a star on their name which is one of twenty seven stars in Hindu astrology based on their time and date of birth. They also believe that planets and their position and size and shape of moon such a full moon or full solar eclipse influence their day-to-day life. Horoscopes are tailored to each and every Hindu person and a horoscope typically mentions any defects or negative influences a person has or may face. Horoscope is used in marriages in which the bride and groom should have a matching horoscope which is also called Janam Kundali. Without a matching horoscope, a marriage between Hindu male and female may not happen. Hindu wedding matchmakers typically carry information about a person's horoscope. Hindu persons prefer arranged marriage as it allows them to find a bride or groom with a matching horoscope. A person born under the influence of Mars (Mangala) is said to have Mangala Dosha ("mars defect"); such a person is called a manglik. According to the superstition, the marriage between a Manglik and a non-Manglik is disastrous. To prevent this disaster, the manglik person is


id: superstition-in-india-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India-2.md
category: reference
title: Superstition in India
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:43.156548+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: superstition-in-india-20260505-0
summary:
==== Notable persons and incidents ==== Originally from Sri Lanka, Swami Premananda moved to India in 1984 and founded an ashram in Pudukkotai, Tamil Nadu, in 1989. In 1996, one of the girls living the ashram escaped and reported that she was raped and was pregnant. In view of the so-called spiritual powers of the accused, which included doing miracles like materializing vibhuti and regurgitating small Shiva lingams, an illusionist was invited to the court and he performed both the miracles in the open court. In 1997, the Swami was sentenced to life imprisonment and fined ₹60 lakh for 13 counts of rape and a murder. Chandraswami, astrologer and spiritual guru, was a close associate of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. He was indicted in several lawsuits including in the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In 2011, the Supreme Court of India fined him ₹9 crore (US$1.4 million) for multiple violations of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). In December 2002, Santosh Madhavan defrauded an Indian expatriate woman living in Dubai of DH 400,000 (₹50 lakh) by claiming he had supernatural powers, and disappeared. The Interpol issued an alert for his arrest on the advice of Dubai police. Later


id: superstition-in-india-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India-3.md
category: reference
title: Superstition in India
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:43.156548+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: superstition-in-india-20260505-0
summary:
On 10 March 2012, Sanal Edamaruku investigated a so-called miracle in Vile Parle, where a Jesus statue had started weeping and concluded that the problem was caused by faulty drainage. Later that day, during a TV discussion with some church members, Edamaruku accused the Catholic Church of miracle-mongering. On 10 April, Angelo Fernandes, President of the Maharashtra Christian Youth Forum, filed a police complaint against Edamaruku under Indian Penal Code Section 295A. In July, while on a tour in Finland, Edamaruku was informed by a friend that his house was visited by the police. Since the offence is not bailable, Edamaruku decided to stay in Finland. == Historical predictions and challenges == === Historical predictions === In September 1951, responding to a newspaper article about an astrologer predicting an imminent war with Pakistan, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru expressed his desire to pass a law against astrology and sooth-saying. In January 1962, Indian astrologers predicted a global catastrophe on Sunday, 4 February 1962. People took refuge in hills to escape the event. The Maharajah of Sikkim, Palden Thondup Namgyal postponed his marriage to Hope Cooke to 1963 on the advice of some astrologers. Business and travel also


id: superstition-in-india-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India-4.md
category: reference
title: Superstition in India
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_in_India
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:43.156548+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: superstition-in-india-20260505-0
summary:
=== Article 51 A (h), Constitution of India === The Article 51 A (h) of the Constitution of India, lists "to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform" as a fundamental duty for every Indian citizen. Rationalist Narendra Nayak has argued the Article 51 A (h) is contrary to IPC 295A and the constitution should be held over to IPC 295A. There have been calls to implement this article more widely (e.g., 2011 Janhit Manch vs Union of India, Bombay High Court). === Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 === This act prohibits advertisements of magical remedies, like amulets or spells, for certain diseases. The law lists 56 of these diseases. The law also curbs sales and promotion of so-called miracle drugs and cures. But, the law is rarely enforced and several such products are freely available to the public. The law is considered severely outdated as 14 of the diseases in the list are now curable, and newer diseases like AIDS are not on the list. Some advertisements of these categories are also known to appear on cable television channels without much repercussions. Proposed amendments to this law has also raised questions


id: tetranucleotide-hypothesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetranucleotide_hypothesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Tetranucleotide hypothesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetranucleotide_hypothesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:44.333299+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: tetranucleotide-hypothesis-20260505-0
summary:
The tetranucleotide hypothesis of Phoebus Levene proposed that DNA was composed of repeating sequences of four nucleotides. It was very influential for three decades, and was developed by Levene at least into the 1910, and the diagram at the right illustrates the view of Levene and Tipson. In 1940, at the time of Levene's death, Bass wrote in his obituary As a result of Levene’s work we have an exact concept of the structures of these huge molecules, probably the most complex biological materials whose architectural picture has been reconstructed. In that form there is an implication that the four bases are present in equal amounts in DNA, and small variations in the experimental values were assumed to be the result of experimental error. However, Erwin Chargaff showed that the four frequencies were not equal, with variations consistent between different studies. Specifically, according to his rules the correct relationship is G = C ≠ A = T. The equalities G = C and A = T suggested that these bases were paired, this pairing being the basis of the DNA structure that is now known to be correct. Conversely the inequalities G ≠ A etc. meant that DNA could not


id: theory-on-immigration-to-norway-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_on_immigration_to_Norway-0.md
category: reference
title: Theory on immigration to Norway
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_on_immigration_to_Norway
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:45.494843+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: theory-on-immigration-to-norway-20260505-0
summary:
The theory on immigration to Norway (Norwegian: innvandringsteorien) refers to an outdated theory on the origin of the Norwegian people. The theory is mainly associated with Rudolf Keyser, and developed by Peter Andreas Munch. The theory posited that Norway and northern Sweden had been populated by indigenous Norse people from the north, whereas Denmark and southern Sweden had been populated by Gothic peoples from the south. The theory was generally rejected by historians. == Theory == Following studies in Iceland from 1825 to 1827, Rudolf Keyser was appointed as a docent at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania, Norway in 1828. From the same year he worked with, and held lectures on, his theory on immigration to Norway. This theory was inspired by the works of Gerhard Schøning, who had released Afhandling om de Norskes og endeel andre Nordiske Folkes Oprindelse in 1769, and was first published in 1839 under the name Om Nordmændenes Herkomst og Folke-Slægtskab. In short, his theory stated that Norway as well as northern Sweden had been populated by indigenous people from the north, whereas Denmark and southern Sweden (south of Götaland) had been populated from the south. In other words, Norway was especially influenced by


id: thomsen-berthelot-principle-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomsen–Berthelot_principle-0.md
category: reference
title: Thomsen–Berthelot principle
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomsen–Berthelot_principle
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:46.661203+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomsen-berthelot-principle-20260505-0
summary:
In thermochemistry, the Thomsen–Berthelot principle is a hypothesis in the history of chemistry which argued that all chemical changes are accompanied by the production of heat and that processes which occur will be ones in which the most heat is produced. This principle was formulated in slightly different versions by the Danish chemist Julius Thomsen in 1854 and by the French chemist Marcellin Berthelot in 1864. This early postulate in classical thermochemistry became the controversial foundation of a research program that would last three decades. This principle came to be associated with what was called the thermal theory of affinity, which postulated that the heat evolved in a chemical reaction was the true measure of its affinity. == Limitations == The experimental objections to the Thomsen–Berthelot principle include incomplete dissociation, reversibility, and spontaneous endothermic processes. Such cases were dismissed by orthodox thermochemist as outliers not covered by the principle, or the experiments were manipulated to fit it through with somewhat contrived justifications was later disproved. In 1873, Thomsen acknowledged that his theory might not have universal or definitive credibility. Later, under newly created chemical thermodynamics framework, the principle was explained to only be valid as an idealization under extreme conditions


id: turris-babel-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turris_Babel-0.md
category: reference
title: Turris Babel
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turris_Babel
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:48.371917+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: turris-babel-20260505-0
summary:
Turris Babel (The Tower of Babel) was a 1679 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was the last of his books published during his lifetime. Together with his earlier work Arca Noë (Noah's Ark), it represents Kircher's endeavour to show how modern science supported the Biblical narrative in the Book of Genesis. The work was also a broad synthesis of many of Kircher's ideas on architecture, language and religion. The book was dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and printed in Amsterdam by the cartographer and bookseller Johannes van Waesbergen. == Book one: the generations between Noah and Nimrod == In Book One, Kircher resumed the account he had begun in Arca Noë of the generations that came after Noah. He addressed the question of how, just 275 years after the Flood, Noah's great-grandson Nimrod could command such a large number of people to build the Tower. He demonstrated that, assuming each of Noah's sons had a son and a daughter each year, and each of them in turn began procreating at the age of thirty, the world population would have been 24,328,000,000 by Nimrod's time. In fact, Kircher's mathematics were flawed, and by his own


id: vicarious-hypothesis-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_Hypothesis-0.md
category: reference
title: Vicarious Hypothesis
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_Hypothesis
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:49.506995+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vicarious-hypothesis-20260505-0
summary:
The Vicarious Hypothesis, or hypothesis vicaria, was a planetary hypothesis proposed by Johannes Kepler to describe the motion of Mars. The hypothesis adopted the circular orbit and equant of Ptolemy's planetary model as well as the heliocentrism of the Copernican model. Calculations using the Vicarious Hypothesis did not support a circular orbit for Mars, leading Kepler to propose elliptical orbits as one of three laws of planetary motion in Astronomia Nova. == History == In 1600, Johannes Kepler met and began working with Tycho Brahe at Benátky, a town north of Prague where Brahe's new observatory was being built. Brahe assigned Kepler the task of modeling the motion of Mars using only data that Brahe had collected himself. Upon the death of Brahe in 1601, all of Brahe's data was willed to Kepler. Brahe's observational data was among the most accurate of his time, which Kepler used in the construction of the Vicarious Hypothesis. === Predecessors === ==== Ptolemy ==== Claudius Ptolemy's planetary model consisted of a stationary earth surrounded by fixed circles, called deferents, which carried smaller, rotating circles called epicycles. Planets rotated on the epicycles as the epicycles traveled along the deferent. Ptolemy shifted the Earth away from


id: vitalism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism-0.md
category: reference
title: Vitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:50.752615+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vitalism-20260505-0
summary:
Vitalism is an idea that living organisms are differentiated from the non-living by the presence of forces, properties or powers including those which may not be physical or chemical. Varied forms of vitalist theories were held in former times and they are now considered pseudoscientific concepts. Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark", "energy", "élan vital" (coined by vitalist Henri Bergson), "vital force", or "vis vitalis", which some equate with the soul. In the 18th and 19th centuries, vitalism was discussed among biologists, between those belonging to the mechanistic school who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Vitalist biologists such as Johannes Reinke proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but their experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence, and hence regard it either as a superseded scientific theory, or as a pseudoscience since the mid-20th century. Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: many


id: vitalism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism-1.md
category: reference
title: Vitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:50.752615+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vitalism-20260505-0
summary:
Jöns Jakob Berzelius, one of the early 19th century founders of modern chemistry, argued that a regulative force must exist within living matter to maintain its functions. Berzelius contended that compounds could be distinguished by whether they required any organisms in their synthesis (organic compounds) or whether they did not (inorganic compounds). Vitalist chemists predicted that organic materials could not be synthesized from inorganic components, but Friedrich Wöhler synthesised urea from inorganic components in 1828. However, contemporary accounts do not support the common belief that vitalism died when Wöhler made urea. This Wöhler Myth, as historian Peter Ramberg called it, originated from a popular history of chemistry published in 1931, which, "ignoring all pretense of historical accuracy, turned Wöhler into a crusader who made attempt after attempt to synthesize a natural product that would refute vitalism and lift the veil of ignorance, until 'one afternoon the miracle happened'". Between 1833 and 1844, Johannes Peter Müller wrote a book on physiology called Handbuch der Physiologie, which became the leading textbook in the field for much of the nineteenth century. The book showed Müller's commitments to vitalism; he questioned why organic matter differs from inorganic, then proceeded to chemical analyses of the


id: vitalism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism-2.md
category: reference
title: Vitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:50.752615+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vitalism-20260505-0
summary:
Contemporary science and engineering sometimes describe emergent processes, in which the properties of a system cannot be fully described in terms of the properties of the constituents. This may be because the properties of the constituents are not fully understood, or because the interactions between the individual constituents are important for the behavior of the system. Whether emergence should be grouped with traditional vitalist concepts is a matter of semantic controversy. According to Emmeche et al. (1997): On the one hand, many scientists and philosophers regard emergence as having only a pseudo-scientific status. On the other hand, new developments in physics, biology, psychology, and cross-disciplinary fields such as cognitive science, artificial life, and the study of non-linear dynamical systems have focused strongly on the high level 'collective behaviour' of complex systems, which is often said to be truly emergent, and the term is increasingly used to characterize such systems. == Mesmerism == A popular vitalist theory of the 18th century was "animal magnetism", in the theories of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815). However, the use of the (conventional) English term animal magnetism to translate Mesmer's magnétisme animal can be misleading for three reasons: Mesmer chose his term to clearly distinguish his variant


id: vitalism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism-3.md
category: reference
title: Vitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:50.752615+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vitalism-20260505-0
summary:
It is, therefore, unwarranted to continue the statement that in addition to the acceleration of oxidations the beginning of individual life is determined by the entrance of a metaphysical "life principle" into the egg; and that death is determined, aside from the cessation of oxidations, by the departure of this "principle" from the body. In the case of the evaporation of water we are satisfied with the explanation given by the kinetic theory of gases and do not demand that to repeat a well-known jest of Huxley the disappearance of the "aquosity" be also taken into consideration. Bechtel states that vitalism "is often viewed as unfalsifiable, and therefore a pernicious metaphysical doctrine." For many scientists, "vitalist" theories were unsatisfactory "holding positions" on the pathway to mechanistic understanding. In 1967, Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, stated "And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow." While many vitalistic theories have in fact been falsified, notably Mesmerism, the pseudoscientific retention of untested and untestable theories continues to this day. Alan Sokal published an analysis of the wide acceptance among


id: vitalism-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism-4.md
category: reference
title: Vitalism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:50.752615+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vitalism-20260505-0
summary:
== See also == Animal magnetism – Pseudoscientific theory about force in living things Argument from ignorance – Informal fallacy Henri Bergson – French philosopher (1859–1941) Georges Canguilhem – French philosopher (1904–1995) Egregore – Occult concept Élan vital – Hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms Emergentism – Philosophical belief in emergence Energy (esotericism) – Term used in esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine Energy medicine – Pseudo-scientific alternative medicine Etheric body – Concept in neo-Theosophy Holism in science – Approach to research that emphasizes the study of complex systems Homeopathy – Pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine Hylozoism – Philosophical doctrine which holds that all matter is alive Irreducible complexity – Argument by proponents of intelligent design Lebensphilosophie – German philosophical movement Mana (Oceanian cultures) – Life force energy, power, effectiveness, and prestige in Pacific Island culturePages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Manitou – Fundamental life force in Algonquian mythologies in North America Medicus curat, natura sanat – Medical aphorism ("the physician treats, nature heals") Mind–body dualism – Philosophical theory Montpellier vitalism – Medical and philosophical school of thought Morphic resonance (Rupert Sheldrake) – English author and parapsychological researcher (born 1942) Odic force – Hypothetical vital energy


id: atomic-energy-commission-s-historical-advisory-committee-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Commission's_Historical_Advisory_Committee-0.md
category: reference
title: Atomic Energy Commission's Historical Advisory Committee
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Commission's_Historical_Advisory_Committee
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:52.283375+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: atomic-energy-commission-s-historical-advisory-committee-20260505-0
summary:
The Atomic Energy Commission's Historical Advisory Committee was established in February 1958, when the United States Atomic Energy Commission was a decade old and continued until 1974 when the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and later the United States Department of Energy replaced the commission. == History == In 1957, the United States Atomic Energy Commission appointed Dr Richard G. Hewlett to be the historian of the Atomic Energy Commission. Upon taking up this post, Hewlett proposed the creation of an historical advisory committee for the AEC. His proposal was referred to historians James Phinney Baxter III and Samuel Eliot Morison and Nobel Prize–winning physicist Isidor I. Rabi. These three men recommended the approval of Hewlett's proposal as a means of giving credibility of the AEC Historical Office's work and avoiding self-serving official history. == Chairman == The following is a chronological list of chairmen, 1958–1974. In cases where a chairman also served as a regular member of the committee, his dates of such service are listed in the alphabetical listing of members. James Phinney Baxter III, 1958-1967 George E. Mowry, 1967-1969 Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., 1969-1974 == Members == The following is an alphabetical listing of members who


id: british-society-for-the-history-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Society_for_the_History_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: British Society for the History of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Society_for_the_History_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:53.464500+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: british-society-for-the-history-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) was founded in 1947 by Francis Butler, Joan Eyles and Victor Eyles. == Overview == It is Britain's largest learned society devoted to the history of science, technology, and medicine. The society's aim is to bring together people with interests in all aspects of the field, and to publicise relevant ideas within the wider research and teaching communities and the media. Its mission statement states the society will strive "to foster the understanding of the history and social impact of science, technology and medicine in all their branches in the academic and the wider communities, and to provide a national focus for the discipline." Publications are a key feature of the society's professional activity. Print publications include: The British Journal for the History of Science (BJHS): a peer-reviewed quarterly academic journal, including articles and reviews of the latest books in the history of science, technology and medicine BJHS Themes: a peer-reviewed open access academic journal, an annual themed collection of articles Viewpoint: magazine of the society, published three times a year and featuring news and views from across the field BSHS Monographs: work of lasting scholarly value that might not otherwise


id: centre-for-history-and-philosophy-of-science-university-of-leeds-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_History_and_Philosophy_of_Science,_University_of_Leeds-0.md
category: reference
title: Centre for History and Philosophy of Science, University of Leeds
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_History_and_Philosophy_of_Science,_University_of_Leeds
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:54.673496+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: centre-for-history-and-philosophy-of-science-university-of-leeds-20260505-0
summary:
The Centre for History and Philosophy of Science is a research centre devoted to the historical and philosophical study of science, technology and medicine, based in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, at the University of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. The Centre – previously known as the Division of History and Philosophy of Science, which was founded in 1956 – is one of the oldest units of its kind in the world. Throughout its history, the Centre has been home to many of the leading historians and philosophers of science who have deepened our understanding of scientific activity and how it shapes and is shaped by wider society. == History == The key figure in establishing history and philosophy of science (HPS) as a discipline at Leeds was the philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin, who was appointed Professor of Philosophy at Leeds in 1954 and head of department in 1956. Whilst Thomas Kuhn is often seen as the founder of the modern field of history and philosophy of science, Toulmin had argued for an integration of philosophy of science and history of science some nine years before Kuhn published his famous work, The Structure of Scientific


id: computer-conservation-society-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Conservation_Society-0.md
category: reference
title: Computer Conservation Society
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Conservation_Society
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:55.853249+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: computer-conservation-society-20260505-0
summary:
The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) is a British organisation, founded in 1989. It is under the joint umbrella of the British Computer Society (BCS), the London Science Museum and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. == Overview == The CCS is interested in the history of computing in general and the conservation and preservation of early British historical computers in particular. The society runs a series of monthly public lectures between September and May each year in both London and Manchester. The events are detailed on the society's website. The CCS publishes a quarterly journal, Resurrection. The society celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2014. Dr Doron Swade, formerly the curator of the computing collection at the London Science Museum, was a founding committee member and As of 2021 is the current chair of the society. David Morriss, Rachel Burnett, and Roger Johnson are previous chairs, also all previous presidents of the BCS. == Projects == The society organises a number of projects to reconstruct and maintain early computers and to conserve early software. For example: Restorations Elliott 401 Elliott 803 Elliott 903 and 905 DEC Systems Ferranti Pegasus ICT 1301 Project Harwell Dekatron Computer Differential analyser HEC 1 Reconstructions


id: history-of-science-society-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Science_Society-0.md
category: reference
title: History of Science Society
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Science_Society
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:57.012726+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: history-of-science-society-20260505-0
summary:
The History of Science Society (HSS), founded in 1924, is the primary professional society for the academic study of the history of science. The society has over 3,000 members worldwide. It publishes the quarterly journal Isis and the yearly journal Osiris, sponsors the IsisCB: History of Science Index, and holds an annual conference. As of January 2024, the current president of the HSS is Evelynn M. Hammonds. == History == The History of Science Society was founded in 1924 by George Sarton, David Eugene Smith, and Lawrence Joseph Henderson, primarily to support the publication of Isis, a journal of the history of science Sarton had started in 1912 in Belgium. George Sarton edited the journal Isis from 1913 until 1952, when he retired. Bernard Cohen served as managing editor of Isis from 1947 to 1952 and took over as editor from 1952 to 1958. Subsequent editors of Isis include Harry Woolf, 1959–1963; Robert P. Multhauf, 1964–1978; Arnold Thackray (1979–1985); Charles E. Rosenberg, 1986–1988; Ronald Numbers, 1989–1993; Margaret W. Rossiter, 1994–2003; Bernard Lightman, 2004–2014; H. Floris Cohen, 2014–2019; co-editors Alexandra Hui and Matthew Lavine, 2019–2024; and Projit Bihari Mukharji and Elise K. Burton 2024–present. Thackray also served as editor of Osiris


id: institute-for-the-history-of-science-of-the-polish-academy-of-sciences-20260505-0
category: reference
title: Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:34:58.167608+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: institute-for-the-history-of-science-of-the-polish-academy-of-sciences-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_History_of_Science_of_the_Polish_Academy_of_Sciences-0.md

summary:
The Institute for the History of Science was established in 1954 as an institution of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland. == Overview == The Institute is located in the Staszic Palace in the center of Warsaw, near the Copernicus monument. Among its founders were professors: Bogdan Suchodolski and Aleksander Birkenmajer. In the mid 1970s, it was renamed to the Institute for the History of Science, Education and Technology. Since 1994, the name has been shortened to the Institute for the History of Science, but with its previous research scope. The head of its present Academic Council is Leszek Zasztowt. Since 2011 the Institute has taken the official name of Ludwik Birkenmajer and Aleksander Birkenmajer: L & A Birkenmajer Institute for the History of Science (Polish: Instytut Historii Nauki PAN imienia Ludwika i Aleksandra Birkenmajerów). == Structure == The Institute consists of two departments: the Department of the History of Social Sciences, History of Education and Scholarly Institutions (Sections: History of Social Sciences, History of Education, History of Scientific Organizations), and the Department of the History of Exact Sciences, Natural Sciences and Technology (Sections: History of Exact Sciences and Technology, History of Medicine, History of Chemistry and Pharmacy, History

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_the_History_of_Science_of_the_Polish_Academy_of_Sciences


id: international-academy-of-wood-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Academy_of_Wood_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: International Academy of Wood Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Academy_of_Wood_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:00.521885+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: international-academy-of-wood-science-20260505-0
summary:
The International Academy of Wood Science (IAWS) is an international academy and a non-profit assembly of wood scientists, recognizing all fields of wood science with their associated technological domains and securing a worldwide representation. Since June 2023, the academy is represented by Dr. Stavros Avramidis, a Greek-Canadian professor and wood scientist who serves as the 19th President of the IAWS, and, also by Dr. Ingo Burgert, a German-Swiss wood scientist, who is presently the elected vice-president for the period 2023–2026. == History == The academy was first established on June 2, 1966, at the Centre Technique du Bois in Paris. The development and establishment of the International Academy of Wood Science involved many people, but the individual who decided to found a wood academy was Professor Franz Gustav Kollmann, who had studied in the Wood Research (German: Holzforschung) department at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and was then working in industry. He was also the first elected President of the academy in the years 1966–1972. Since 1967, the official scientific journal of the IAWS is the journal of Wood Science and Technology. == Objectives == The Academy aims to advance the field of wood science globally by fostering coordinated


id: it-history-society-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IT_History_Society-0.md
category: reference
title: IT History Society
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IT_History_Society
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:05.249053+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: it-history-society-20260505-0
summary:
The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, it advises historians, promotes collaboration among academic organizations and museums, and assists IT corporations in preparing and archiving their histories for future studies. == Activities == The IT History Society provides background information to those with an interest in the history of Information Technology, including papers that provide advice on how to perform historical work and how historical activities can benefit private sector organizations. It tracks historical projects seeking funding as well as projects underway and completed. It maintains online, publicly available, lists of events pertaining to IT history, IT history resources, an IT Honor Roll acknowledging more than 700 individuals who have made a noteworthy contribution to the information technology industry, and a database of notable technology quotes. A continuing project is one of aggregating the locations and content of IT history archival information around the world to facilitate and encourage IT history research and scholarship. This International Database of Historical and Archival Sites currently consists of 1,663 international information technology historical and archival collections encompassing


id: newcomen-society-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomen_Society-0.md
category: reference
title: Newcomen Society
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomen_Society
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:08.743857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: newcomen-society-20260505-0
summary:
The Newcomen Society is an international learned society that promotes and celebrates the history of engineering and technology. It was founded in London in 1920, and takes its name from Thomas Newcomen, one of the inventors associated with the early development of the steam engine and who is widely considered the "father of the Industrial Revolution". An early president was Loughnan St. L. Pendred. The society is concerned with all branches of engineering: civil, mechanical, electrical, electronic, structural, aeronautical, marine, chemical and manufacturing as well as biography and invention. The Newcomen Society is based at the Science Museum in London. There are regional branches in England: Midlands (Birmingham), North West (Manchester), North East (Newcastle), Western (Bristol) and Southern (Portsmouth), South Yorkshire (Sheffield) and one in Scotland (Glasgow and Edinburgh). It publishes the International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology (formerly the Transactions of the Newcomen Society) and Newcomen Links, a quarterly newsletter. An online archive of previous Transactions is available to members. The society also has a YouTube Channel with videos of meetings, conferences and online lectures. The motto of the Society is the Latin actorum memores simul affectamus agenda, meaning "mindful of things that have taken place,


id: society-for-social-studies-of-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Social_Studies_of_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Society for Social Studies of Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Social_Studies_of_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:09.949299+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: society-for-social-studies-of-science-20260505-0
summary:
The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is a non-profit scholarly association devoted to the social studies of science and technology (STS). It was founded in 1975 and it has grown considerably over the years. In 2024, over 3,000 people attended the society's annual meeting in Amsterdam, co-hosted by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST). Its charter was drafted in 1975, and its first President was the American sociologist Robert K. Merton. 4S is governed by a nine-person council as well as its president. 4S publishes the quarterly academic journal Science, Technology, & Human Values as well as the diamond open access journal Engaging STS, and it organizes an annual conference attended by thousands of scholars from a range of fields including science and technology studies, sociology of science, science studies, history of science, philosophy of science, anthropology of science, economics, political science, and psychology, as well as science educators and scientists. It gives out the Ludwik Fleck Prize annually for "best book in the area of science and technology studies", the Rachel Carson Prize for "a work of social or political relevance", the John Desmond Bernal Prize for an individual who made "a


id: society-for-the-history-of-astronomy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_History_of_Astronomy-0.md
category: reference
title: Society for the History of Astronomy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_History_of_Astronomy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:11.126432+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: society-for-the-history-of-astronomy-20260505-0
summary:
The Society for the History of Astronomy is an organisation based in the United Kingdom that promotes research into the history of astronomy. It publishes a research journal called The Antiquarian Astronomer and a regular Bulletin. == The society == The Society for the History of Astronomy was founded in 2002 to promote the study of the history of astronomy by hosting talks by members and publishing new research into the field. One main objective was to encourage research into past astronomers who have previously been neglected within the history of science. Some of its members are professional historians of science but most are amateur historians. The honorary president is Dr Allan Chapman of Wadham College, Oxford. The honorary vice-presidents are Emily Winterburn (who was chair at the time of foundation) and Prof. Mike Edmunds. Previous vice-presidents have included Sir Patrick Moore, Sir Arnold Wolfendale, FRS, and Dr Michael Hoskin. The society hosts several one-day conferences at venues across the United Kingdom each year. A Bulletin is published twice yearly containing articles and news items about astronomical history. The Bulletin includes short reports of original research by members. The society maintains a library of publications of importance to the history


id: society-for-the-history-of-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_History_of_Technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Society for the History of Technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_History_of_Technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:13.497382+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: society-for-the-history-of-technology-20260505-0
summary:
The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) is the primary professional society for historians of technology. SHOT was founded in 1958 in the United States, and it has since become an international society with members "from some thirty-five countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa." SHOT owes its existence largely to the efforts of Professor Melvin Kranzberg (1917–1995) and an active network of engineering educators. SHOT co-founders include John B. Rae, Carl W. Condit, Thomas P. Hughes, and Eugene S. Ferguson. SHOT's flagship publication is the journal Technology and Culture, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Kranzberg served as editor of Technology and Culture until 1981, and was succeeded as editor by Robert C. Post until 1995, and John M. Staudenmaier from 1996 until 2010. Suzanne Moon then took over, from 2010 to 2020. The current editor of Technology and Culture is Ruth Oldenziel at the Eindhoven University of Technology. SHOT is an affiliate of the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Historical Association and publishes a book series with the Johns Hopkins University Press entitled "Historical Perspectives on Technology, Society, and Culture," under the co-editorship of Pamela O. Long and Asif Azam Siddiqi. Pamela


id: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:16.120569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
19th-century science was greatly influenced by Romanticism (or the Age of Reflection, c. 1800–1840), an intellectual movement that originated in Western Europe as a counter-movement to the late-18th-century Enlightenment. Romanticism incorporated many fields of study, including politics, the arts, and the humanities. In contrast to the Enlightenment's mechanistic natural philosophy, European scientists of the Romantic period held that observing nature implied understanding the self and that knowledge of nature "should not be obtained by force". They felt that the Enlightenment had encouraged the abuse of the sciences, and they sought to advance a new way to increase scientific knowledge, one that they felt would be more beneficial not only to mankind but to nature as well. Romanticism advanced a number of themes: it promoted anti-reductionism (that the whole is more valuable than the parts alone) and epistemological optimism (man was connected to nature), and encouraged creativity, experience, and genius. It also emphasized the scientist's role in scientific discovery, holding that acquiring knowledge of nature meant understanding man as well; therefore, these scientists placed a high importance on respect for nature. Romanticism declined beginning around 1840 as a new movement, positivism, took hold of intellectuals, and lasted until about 1880. As


id: romanticism-in-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:16.120569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Naturphilosophie == In Friedrich Schelling's Naturphilosophie, he explained his thesis regarding the necessity of reuniting man with nature; it was this German work that first defined the Romantic conception of science and vision of natural philosophy. He called nature "a history of the path to freedom" and encouraged a reunion of man's spirit with nature. === Biology === The "new science of biology" was first termed biologie by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1801, and was "an independent scientific discipline born at the end of a long process of erosion of 'mechanical philosophy,' consisting in a spreading awareness that the phenomena of living nature cannot be understood in the light of the laws of physics but require an ad hoc explanation." The mechanical philosophy of the 17th century sought to explain life as a system of parts that operate or interact like those of a machine. Lamarck stated that the life sciences must detach from the physical sciences and strove to create a field of research that was different from the concepts, laws, and principles of physics. In rejecting mechanism without entirely abandoning the research of material phenomena that do occur in nature, he was able to point out that "living


id: romanticism-in-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:16.120569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
==== Organic chemistry ==== The development of organic chemistry in the 19th century necessitated the acceptance by chemists of ideas deriving from Naturphilosophie, modifying the Enlightenment concepts of organic composition put forward by Lavoisier. Of central importance was the work on the constitution and synthesis of organic substances by contemporary chemists. == Popular image of science == Science was a subject of great interest to important romantic writers and artists. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, for example, was a passionate student of chemistry as well as optics, medicine, and the now-discredited field of animal magnetism. William Wordsworth was one of several writers whose poetry about the natural world is associated with the rise of ecology, even though ecology would not be formalized as a discipline until the second half of the nineteenth century. Another British Romantic writer interested in science was Mary Shelley. Her famous book Frankenstein also conveyed important aspects of Romanticism in science as she included elements of anti-reductionism and manipulation of nature, both key themes that concerned Romantics, as well as the scientific fields of chemistry, anatomy, and natural philosophy. She stressed the role and responsibility of society regarding science, and through the moral of her


id: dark-romanticism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Romanticism-0.md
category: reference
title: Dark Romanticism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Romanticism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:17.269786+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dark-romanticism-20260505-0
summary:
Dark Romanticism is a literary sub-genre of Romanticism, reflecting popular fascination with the irrational, the demonic and the grotesque. Often conflated with Gothic fiction, it has shadowed the euphoric Romantic movement ever since its 18th-century beginnings. Edgar Allan Poe is often celebrated as one of the supreme exponents of the tradition. Dark Romanticism focuses on human fallibility, self-destruction, judgement, punishment, as well as the psychological effects of guilt and sin. == Historical context == The term "Romanticism" comes from Old French "romanz," meaning stories written in the vernacular (local) "Roman" tongue (not Latin), which evolved from Latin "romanice" ("in the Roman manner"). Not only has it become an iconic style of art, but also had an effect on literature and music. It was driven by emotions and imagination rather than science and rationality. The Romantic Movement began in Europe at the end of the 18th century and migrated to America in the early 19th century. American Romanticism authors were most productive between 1830 and 1865. Within Romanticism, two conflicting sub-genres arose: optimists who believed in human virtue and spirituality formed the Transcendentalism Movement, while pessimists who accepted human fallibility and our proclivity for sin formed the Dark Romantic Movement. ==


id: dark-romanticism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Romanticism-1.md
category: reference
title: Dark Romanticism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Romanticism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:17.269786+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dark-romanticism-20260505-0
summary:
Delacroix is usually considered as the founder of the Romantic movement in French painting throughout the nineteenth century. His painting technique – full of rich, agitated brushwork and throbbing with vibrant color – expressed the movement's concern for emotion, exoticism, and the sublime, and his life and work embodied the movement's concern for passion, exoticism, and the sublime. == Timeline == The American Renaissance (literature) was between 1840 and 1860. This included Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Since it allowed for the study of gloomy ideas, writing, and topics, Dark Romanticism had a huge effect on American literature. Dark Romanticism began as a response to the Transcendental movement of the mid-nineteenth century. This was a mental shift in thinking from rigid religious Puritan thought to a dark, immoral point of view. People were disinterested in optimism when they considered their sin and human nature. Authors and artists were not afraid to express their sinister side. Authors began to investigate man's wicked nature even before 1840. 1809 – Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe is probably one of the most influential writers of this time. His themes focused on human sin and the evil in man. Herman Melville –


id: c-h-douglas-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._H._Douglas-0.md
category: reference
title: C. H. Douglas
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._H._Douglas
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:18.412919+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: c-h-douglas-20260505-0
summary:
Major Clifford Hugh Douglas, MIMechE, MIEE (20 January 1879 – 29 September 1952), was a British engineer, economist and pioneer of the social credit economic reform movement. == Education and engineering career == C. H. Douglas was born in either Edgeley or Manchester, the son of Hugh Douglas and his wife Louisa (Hordern) Douglas. Few details are known about his early life and training; he probably served an engineering apprenticeship before beginning an engineering career that brought him to locations throughout the British Empire in the employ of electric companies, railways and other institutions. He taught at Stockport Grammar School. After a period in industry, he went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, at the age of 31 but stayed only four terms and left without graduating. He worked for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation of America and claimed to have been the Reconstruction Engineer for the British Westinghouse Company in India (the company has no record of him ever working there), Deputy Chief Engineer of the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway Company, Railway Engineer of the London Post Office (Tube) Railway and Assistant Superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory Farnborough during World War I, with a temporary commission as captain in


id: romanticism-in-evolution-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_evolution_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in evolution theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_evolution_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:19.585670+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-evolution-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Romanticism was an intellectual movement that arose in the late eighteenth century and continued through the nineteenth century. The movement had roots in the arts, literature, and science. Largely conceived as a reaction towards the extreme rationalism of the Enlightenment, it championed expressing emotions through aesthetic and emphasizing the transcendent allure of the natural world. There has been significant work done by historians about how romanticism played a significant role in the development of modern theories of evolution. Most notable is the work done by Robert J. Richards, a professor at the University of Chicago. Richards, and others, have contributed significantly to the conversation about how Romanticism plays a significant role in evolution theory, especially regarding German Romanticism. == Alexander von Humboldt == === Romantic contributions to Darwin's theory of evolution === Charles Darwin became acquainted with Humboldt's exploration and science while studying at Cambridge. Here, Darwin was taken under the direction of John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861), Professor of Botany, who strongly encouraged Darwin to travel and study nature. Henslow also encouraged Darwin to read Alexander von Humboldt's manuscripts on exploring nature, and it was, at least in part, Humboldt's work that inspired Darwin's romantic notion of travel and discovery.


id: romanticism-in-evolution-theory-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_evolution_theory-1.md
category: reference
title: Romanticism in evolution theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism_in_evolution_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:19.585670+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romanticism-in-evolution-theory-20260505-0
summary:
Conversely, "The Loves of Plants" was focused on uniting nature with man through the appreciation of botany. In it, Darwin encourages humans to study botany because plants are a part of the same natural world as man. He also argues that sexual reproduction gives rise to phenotypic change (which his grandson would later incorporate into his own theory of evolution put forth in On the Origin of Species).In 1794, Erasmus Darwin also wrote Zoonomia, another book of verse, this time dealing with human physiology. In this volume, Erasmus Darwin presents himself as a Lamarckian evolutionist, advocating the "inheritance of acquired characteristics" theory. He also suggests a theory of pangenesis in the third volume of Zoonomia, a hypothesis Charles Darwin later propelled. The theories posited in Zoonomia are some of the first formal theories on evolution. === Erasmus Darwin's direct contributions to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution === Although Erasmus Darwin died seven years before Charles Darwin was born, the younger Darwin was not without his grandfather's teachings and works. Charles Darwin read Zoonomia when he was 18 years old and found it inspirational. However, as Charles Darwin got older, he began to resent Erasmus Darwin's work. In the "short historical


id: goethean-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Goethean science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:20.813797+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: goethean-science-20260505-0
summary:
Goethean science concerns the natural philosophy (German Naturphilosophie "philosophy of nature") of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Although primarily known as a literary figure, Goethe did research in morphology, anatomy, and optics. He also developed a phenomenological approach to natural history, an alternative to Enlightenment natural science, which is still debated today among scholars. His works in natural history include his 1790 Metamorphosis of Plants and his 1810 book Theory of Colors. His work in colour, and his polemics against the Newtonian Optics had a mixed reception from the natural history establishment of the time — under half spoke against Goethe, while a third of natural scientists had favourable reviews of Goethe's colour theory. == Background == The rationalist scientific method, which had worked well with inert nature (Bacon's natura naturata), was less successful in seeking to understand vital nature (natura naturans). At the same time, the rational-empirical model based on the predominance of mentative thinking (German: sinnen) via the intellect (German: Sinn), started by Descartes and advanced most notably in France, was leading to confusion and doubt rather than clarity. Especially in subjective topics, equally rational arguments could be made for widely divergent propositions or conceptions. The more


id: goethean-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Goethean science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:20.813797+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: goethean-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== Goethe's approach to vital nature === In relation to Goethe's Colour Theory — Ernst Lehrs writes, "In point of fact, the essential difference between Goethe's theory of colour and the theory which has prevailed in science (despite all modifications) since Newton's day, lies in this: While the theory of Newton and his successors was based on excluding the colour-seeing faculty of the eye, Goethe founded his theory on the eye's experience of colour." "The renouncing of life and immediacy, which was the premise for the progress of natural science since Newton, formed the real basis for the bitter struggle which Goethe waged against the physical optics of Newton. It would be superficial to dismiss this struggle as unimportant: there is much significance in one of the most outstanding men directing all his efforts to fighting against the development of Newtonian optics." (Werner Heisenberg, during a speech celebrating Goethe's birthday) Goethe undertook his 'adventure of reason', starting with the "crisis" in botany, the merely and purely mechanical classification-taxonomy of plant life. In so doing, Goethe also "wagered a sweeping theory about Nature itself." Goethe was concerned with the narrowing specialization in science and emphasis on accumulating data in a merely


id: goethean-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Goethean science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:20.813797+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: goethean-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Goethe's ur-phenomena == Five arts was Goethe's method of transmuting his observation of human nature into sharable form. Drawing from his novel, Elective Affinities (Wahlverwandschaften), Goethe discerned a geheime Verwandschaft (hidden relationship) of parts that explains how one form can transform into another form while being part of an underlying archetypal form (Ur-phänomen). It is this organizing idea or form that guides the consideration of the parts; it is a Bild or virtual image that "emerges and re-emerges from the interaction of experience and ideas". This consideration is a special type of thinking (noetic ideation or denken) carried out with a different organ of cognizance to that of the brain (mentation or sinnen), one that involves an act of creative imagination, what Goethe terms "the living imaginal beholding of Nature" (das lebendige Anschauen der Natur). Goethe's nature (natura naturans, the activity of "nature naturing" – as distinguished from natura naturata, "nature natured", the domain of naturally formed objects) is one in constant flux and flow, but nonetheless governed by law, logic and intelligence above the mind. To approach vital nature requires a different cognitive capacity (denken) and cognitive organ (Gemüt) from that used to perceive inert nature (sinnen based


id: goethean-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Goethean science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethean_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:20.813797+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: goethean-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Goethe and the idea of evolution == In the 1790s, Goethe rediscovered the premaxilla in humans, known as the incisive bone. He cited this as morphological evidence of humanity's connection to other mammalian species. Goethe writes in Story of My Botanical Studies (1831): The ever-changing display of plant forms, which I have followed for so many years, awakens increasingly within me the notion: The plant forms which surround us were not all created at some given point in time and then locked into the given form, they have been given… a felicitous mobility and plasticity allowing them to grow and adapt themselves to many different conditions in many different places. Andrew Dickson White also writes with respect to evolutionary thought, in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896): About the end of the eighteenth century fruitful suggestions and even clear presentations of this or that part of a large evolutionary doctrine came thick and fast, and from the most divergent quarters. Especially remarkable were those from Erasmus Darwin in England, Maupertuis in France, Oken in Switzerland, and Herder, and, most brilliantly of all, from Goethe in Germany. == Reception == Arthur Schopenhauer expanded on


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-0.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
Romantic medicine is part of the broader movement known as Romanticism, most predominant in the period 1800–1840, and involved both the cultural (humanities) and natural sciences, not to mention efforts to better understand man within a spiritual context ('spiritual science'). Romanticism in medicine was an integral part of Romanticism in science. Richard Sha of American University wrote in Romanticism on the Net: Romantic writers were far better read in medicine than we tend to remember: Byron consulted popular health manuals by Adair and Solomon; Coleridge read deeply in his physician, James Gillman's, library; Percy Shelley ordered Spallanzani's complete works and immersed himself in the vitalist controversy, while Mary Shelley read Gall and Spurzheim; Blake engraved plates for medical literature published by Joseph Johnson; and Keats, of course, was trained as a physician. The impetus for Romantic ideas in medicine came from the Great Britain, and more specifically Scotland - John Hunter (1728–93) - and the idea of life as a principle not reducible to material constructs, and John Brown (1735–88), founder of the Brunonian system of medicine (see also, Romanticism in Scotland#Science). The nexus for Romantic Medicine was Germany, largely nurtured and guided by German natural scientific inquiries regarding the


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-1.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
== Romantic medicine and dynamics == The attempt on the part of philosophers and scientists to come to grips with the question of life led to an emphasis away from mechanics or statics, to dynamics. Life was action, living movement, a manifestation of an underlying polarity in nature and the universe. Instead of seeing nature from a ‘one-eyed, color blind’ spectator perspective, what was needed was a perspective that was binocular and participative. Inertial science had advanced in man's understanding of inert nature, her outer form or shell, what Francis Bacon termed natura naturata (outer form or appearance). However, it was not capable of going beyond this to a more dynamic discernment or apperception of the living inner content of nature, the domain of life – life in general, not just life biological as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, at the philosophic core of the scientific effort to penetrate to natura naturans, put it, asking further “what is not life?” based on the understanding of life as a dynamic polarity between powers, forces and energies. As one observer wrote "Die eigentliche Lebenslehre der Romantik aber war: Polarität." But as he promptly adds: "Sie klingt uns überall entgegen, nicht nur in der Naturphilosophie."


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-2.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
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parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
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=== Locke, Fichte and German Idealism === Romanticism also involved a fundamental understanding of functional polarities as the basis for and essence of life as Idea, Law and Principle. One of these polarities in cultural history involved the seminal influence of the English genius and the germinal or gestational genius of German-language culture. Coleridge mentions this in his Essays on Method, and the theme is explored in D.E. Faulkner-Jones' The English Spirit. The seminal ideas came from Francis Bacon regarding scientific method and from John Locke regarding the ideas of self-consciousness and mind. Locke set up a relationship between mind (subject) and outer world (object) wherein the mind is set in motion by objects producing sensations but also has an internal activity of its own (reflection) that acts on the sensations to create perception and conceptions. For Locke, the activity of mind is paramount, as for Bacon, and it is only through the activity of mind (consciousness) that the outer world can be ‘realized’ as causative and as actual. Identity for Locke lay in the capacity for the ‘I’ (consciousness) to unite disparate ‘deeds’ or actions of nature (as cognized by the mind), into a meaningful unity. For Locke, identity


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-3.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
== The ‘elements’ of a new system == Johann B. Erhard’s essay, coupled with the earlier introduction of the Brunonian system into German medical circles, almost immediately triggered a remarkable surge of writings by a graduating medical student, Andreas Röschlaub. Röschlaub wrote his doctoral dissertation on the work of a rather obscure and then little known Scottish physician, John Brown, Elementa Medicinae. Almost at the same time, in 1796, a German physician., Samuel Friedrich Hahnemann, who had been highly critical of the medical practices of his day, published a remarkable essay on the treatment of disease that became the foundation for the homeopathic approach to medicine, as part of a more comprehensive scientific approach for therapeutics he termed Heilkunde, and then later Heilkunst. (Lesser Writings, p. 251) While Brown’s work had been available in Germany for almost 15 years, since its publication in 1780, it had been mostly ignored or rejected, as in England itself, because the method outlined by Brown was seen as a mechanical approach, which hardly endeared it to the German philosophical tradition and mindset seeking a more dynamic, vital approach. However, Röschlaub grasped, where no one else had been able, even Schelling with his Naturphilosophie, that


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-4.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
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parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
=== Röschlaub and the general theory of disturbance and disorder === Through Röschlaub’s writings, mainly between 1795 and 1806, Brown’s conception of life was brought out: as a potential in us that is brought into action and reality as a result of the workings of the actual (excitants or stimulants) on us, and of the living principle as a receptive potentiality (‘excitability’, or the capacity to be impinged upon) and pro-active (‘excitement’, or the capacity to respond to impingements), that is, as a dynamic power. Brown's use in the original Latin of ‘incitability’ (rather than the more restricted term used in the English – ‘excitability) contained the germ of a distinction between the sustentive (Lebenskraft) and generative (Bildungstrieb) powers, as Coleridge astutely noted: “Brown has not proved that the Incitability itself cannot be altered – not merely thro’ incitement – but unmittlebar [unmediated]– Says the Jena recensent, Feb. 1799, No. 48 (Notebooks 1:38). He might have been thinking of Brown's discussion of contagious diseases wherein we see this interplay between the general action (‘affection’) of the sustentive power (excitability/excitement) and the more specific and different action of ‘contagions’ (e.g., LXXVI: “Contagious diseases are] not an exception...because...no general affection follows the


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-5.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
=== Hahnemann and the special theory of disease === At the same time that Röschlaub embarked on his quest for a true science of life and health, a compatriot, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, who had quit his medical practice earlier in protest against the lack of science and efficacy of the Old School and the empty ‘metaschematisms’ of the academic ‘doctors’, had also begun a similar quest for a true system of medicine. Hahnemann's essay of 1796 and subsequent writings, all part of an extended Organon der Heilkunst, laid down the basic foundation for a distinction between the sustentive (Lebenserhaltungskraft) [Aphorism 63, 205 fn., 262] and generative (Erzeugungskraft) [Aphorism 21-22] sides of the living principle, between physic, operating under the natural healing law of opposites (contraria contrarius), and medicine proper, operating under the natural curative law of similars (similia similibus), and between disease, a dynamica impingement on the generative power (degeneration), a derangement of the sustentive power, or disturbance of homeostasis. Hahnemann further established various principles for the application of the law of similars, including a crucial distinction between diseases of a fixed nature (tonic diseases), and those of a variable nature, the basis for the later discovery by some of


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-6.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
In order to treat successfully the other cases of disease occurring in man, and which, be they acute or chronic, differ so vastly among each other [pathic], if they cannot be referred to some primary disease which is constant in its character [tonic], they must each be regarded as peculiar diseases, and a medicine which in its pure effects on the healthy body shows symptoms similar to those of the case before us, must be administered. (Lesser Writings, p. 693) While the curative medicines for the tonic diseases could be largely determined by the principle linking disease and medicinal agent for the relevant jurisdiction, pathic disease treatment required a corresponding image of derangement of the Lebenskraft or Leib (executive organ of the Kraftwesen) so that this could be matched to the image presented by the patient. The problem lay in that a patient could present with more than one disease, each with a particular grouping of symptoms, but how could the practitioner link which symptoms manifest disorder(s) and of those ascribable to disease, and to which disease of the several possible at a given time in the patient, and finally, how could one trace any symptoms so identified to their


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-7.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
...Dr. Samuel Hahnemann...certainly a world-famous physician...I believe more than ever in this wonderful doctor’s theory as I have experienced...and continue to experience so clearly the efficacy of a very small administration.” And in another letter he strongly proclaimed himself a “Hahnemannian disciple”... In his famous play, Faust, Goethe has the lead character, Mephistopheles, assert the homeopathic principle of similars: “To like things like, whatever one may ail; there’s certain help.” In his later life and in his writing and diaries, Goethe writes in Faust: ‘Similia Similibus applies to all disorders‘, identifying the central theme of homeopathy and elaborating his sympathy and understanding of homeopathy, as illustrated in Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and his Tower Society which ‘adopts the homeopathic approach to its own psychological methods by using the irrational beliefs of its patients to cure them‘, portraying the ‘mistaken ideas as illness’, and using sickness to combat sickness. [also Werthe] Goethe wrote several letters in 1820 mentioning and supporting ‘Hahnemann’s method’, ‘Hahnemann’s terminology’, and declaring his ‘confession of faith of a Hahnemannian disciple’, and indicating that he had read his works and looked forward to reflecting on ‘the wonder physician’. Goethe was also aware of and followed Hahnemann's dietary rules. In


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-8.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
The only way for a scientist to establish connections between seemingly isolated Erfahrungen or phenomena is through the "Vermannigfaltigung eines jeden einzelnen Versuches." [cf. Hahnemann's Materia Medica derived from a plurality of provers for each medicament and the plurality of provings comprising the whole] The scientist must work "indefatigably" through the manifold permutations and forms of a particular experiment (Naturlehre 35). The scientist must first conduct a series [Reihe] of experiments and, second, serialize them, i.e. consider them as one continuous and complete series of experiments. Studied in this manner—a method that I laid out above as the first step in the practice of morphology—these serialized experiments can represent "einen Versuch, nur eine Erfahrung" (Naturlehre 34) [cf. Hahnemnn's Arzneiversuche]. The serialization and subsequent reflection [meditation] on singular experiments and Erfahrungen, writes Goethe, produces an "Erfahrung [Phenomenon] von einer höhern Art." In his approach to disease diagnoses and treatment, Hahnemann avoided what Goethe considered the ‘greatest failure’ (Unheil) and fault of material science, namely the separation of experimenter from nature, producing abstract hypotheses (notions) and artificial (künstlich) approaches/treatments based on an accumulation of disparate facts, rather than seeing nature as a complex web of associations, and understanding, as did Hahnemann and


id: romantic-medicine-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine-9.md
category: reference
title: Romantic medicine
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_medicine
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:23.165435+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: romantic-medicine-20260505-0
summary:
== The schism == Up until the middle of the 19th century, following the pioneering work of Brown, Hahnemann, Röschlaub, Lutze and Schönlein, to mention only the main figures, the scientific approach to the question of life, particularly as reflected in the development of Healthcare, seemed conducive to the development of a method that was based on a cognitive capacity going beyond mere mentation (Sinn or mens) and a true physiology involving living functions rather than simply mechanics and chemistry. However, it seemed that the Zeitgeist (Spirit of the Times) could not yet accept such an approach, most minds being still fully ensconced in the intellectual phase (Coleridge's "epoch of the intellect and the senses") of human consciousness. It was only the extraordinary mind of genius that was able at this stage to meet the challenge of a true science of life and mind, what Colerdige termed the “Dynamic System of Thought.” As a result, the analytical approach favored by the French, schooled in the Cartesian system of mind-body duality, and with their significant advances in surgery (albeit based on access to and development of original Greek medical writings and more modern Greek surgical practice), came to dominate Western science.


id: list-of-years-in-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_science-0.md
category: reference
title: List of years in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_years_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:24.712768+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-years-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
The following entries cover events related to science or technology which occurred in the listed year. == Before 1500s == 0s: 1st century in science 100s: 2nd century in science 200s: 3rd century in science 300s: 4th century in science 400s: 5th century in science 500s: 6th century in science 600s: 7th century in science 700s: 8th century in science 800s: 9th century in science 900s: 10th century in science 1000s: 11th century in science 1100s: 12th century in science 1200s: 13th century in science 1300s: 14th century in science 1400s: 15th century in science == 1500s == 1500s: 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510s: 1510 1511 1512 1513 1514 1515 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520s: 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 1529 1530s: 1530 1531 1532 1533 1534 1535 1536 1537 1538 1539 1540s: 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550s: 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560s: 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570s: 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580s: 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590s: 1590 1591


id: list-of-lunar-eclipses-in-the-21st-century-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_eclipses_in_the_21st_century-0.md
category: reference
title: List of lunar eclipses in the 21st century
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lunar_eclipses_in_the_21st_century
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:26.098144+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-lunar-eclipses-in-the-21st-century-20260505-0
summary:
During the 21st century, there will be 228 lunar eclipses of which 86 will be penumbral, 57 will be partial and 85 will be total. Of the total eclipses, 24 will be central, in the sense that the Moon will pass through the very center (axis) of the Earth's shadow (for more information see gamma). In the 21st century, the greatest number of eclipses in one year is four, in 2009, 2020, 2038, 2056, 2085, and 2096. The predictions given here are by Fred Espenak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The longest measured duration in which the Earth completely covered the Moon, known as totality, was during the lunar eclipse of July 27, 2018. This total lunar eclipse had a maximum duration of 1 hour, 42 minutes, and 57 seconds. The longest possible duration of a total lunar eclipse is 1 hour and 47 minutes.[a] The table contains the date and time of the greatest eclipse (in dynamical time, which in this case is the time when the axis of the Earth's shadow passes over the Moon; this is in (Ephemeris Time). The number of the saros series that the eclipse belongs to is given, followed by the type


id: timeline-of-scientific-computing-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_computing-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific computing
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_computing
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:27.280600+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-computing-20260505-0
summary:
The following is a timeline of scientific computing, also known as computational science. == Before modern computers == === 18th century === Simpson rediscovers Simpson's rule, a century after Johannes Kepler (who derived it in 1615 after seeing it used for wine barrels). 1733 – The French naturalist Comte de Buffon poses his needle problem. Euler comes up with a simple numerical method for integrands. c. 500 BCE - Urdhva Tiryakbhyam algorithm, a Vedic method for fast integer multiplication; foundational for Indian mathematics. 300 BCE - Babylonian root extraction method, Earliest documented numerical algorithm for square roots. c. 250 BCE - Chinese Remainder Theorem Systematic solution to simultaneous congruences; used in cryptography. === 19th century === First formulation of Gram-Schmidt orthogonalisation by Laplace, to be further improved decades later. Babbage in 1822, began work on a machine made to compute/calculate values of polynomial functions automatically by using the method of finite differences. This was eventually called the Difference engine. Lovelace's note G on the Analytical Engine (1842) describes an algorithm for generating Bernoulli numbers. It is considered the first algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and thus the first-ever computer programme. The engine was never completed, however,


id: timeline-of-scientific-computing-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_computing-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific computing
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_computing
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:27.280600+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-computing-20260505-0
summary:
== 1970s == 1975 – Benoit Mandelbrot coins the term "fractal" to describe the self-similarity found in the Fatou, Julia and Mandelbrot sets. Fractals become the first mathematical visualization tool extensively explored with computing. 1977 – Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken prove the four colour theorem, the first theorem to be proved by computer. == 1980s == Fast multipole method (voted one of the top 10 algorithms of the 20th century) invented by Vladimir Rokhlin and Leslie Greengard. Car–Parrinello molecular dynamics developed by Roberto Car and Michele Parrinello == 1990s == 1990 – In computational genomics and sequence analysis, the Human Genome Project, an endeavour to sequence the entire human genome, begins. 1998 – Kepler conjecture is almost all but certainly proved algorithmically by Thomas Hales. The appearance of the first research grids using volunteer computing – GIMPS (1996), distributed.net (1997) and Seti@Home (1999). == 2000s == 2000 – The Human Genome Project completes a rough draft of human genome. 2003 – The Human Genome Project completed. 2002 – The BOINC architecture is launched. == 2010s == Foldit players solve virus structure, one of the first cases of a game solving a scientific question. == See also == Computational science


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
The timeline below shows the date of publication of possible major scientific breakthroughs, theories and discoveries, along with the discoverer. This article discounts mere speculation as discovery, although imperfect reasoned arguments, arguments based on elegance/simplicity, and numerically/experimentally verified conjectures qualify (as otherwise no scientific discovery before the late 19th century would count). The timeline begins at the Bronze Age, as it is difficult to give even estimates for the timing of events prior to this, such as of the discovery of counting, natural numbers and arithmetic. To avoid overlap with timeline of historic inventions, the timeline does not list examples of documentation for manufactured substances and devices unless they reveal a more fundamental leap in the theoretical ideas in a field. == Bronze Age == Many early innovations of the Bronze Age were prompted by the increase in trade, and this also applies to the scientific advances of this period. For context, the major civilizations of this period are Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley, with Greece rising in importance towards the end of the third millennium BC. The Indus Valley script remains undeciphered and there are very little surviving fragments of its writing, thus any inference about scientific discoveries


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
500 BC: Hippasus, a Pythagorean, discovers irrational numbers. 500 BC: Anaxagoras identifies moonlight as reflected sunlight. 5th century BC: The Greeks start experimenting with straightedge-and-compass constructions. 5th century BC: The earliest documented mention of a spherical Earth comes from the Greeks in the 5th century BC. It is known that the Indians modeled the Earth as spherical by 300 BC 460 BC: Empedocles describes thermal expansion. Late 5th century BC: Antiphon discovers the method of exhaustion, foreshadowing the concept of a limit. 4th century BC: Greek philosophers study the properties of logical negation. 4th century BC: The first true formal system is constructed by Pāṇini in his Sanskrit grammar. 4th century BC: Eudoxus of Cnidus states the Archimedean property. 4th century BC: Thaetetus shows that square roots are either integer or irrational. 4th century BC: Thaetetus enumerates the Platonic solids, an early work in graph theory. 4th century BC: Menaechmus discovers conic sections. 4th century BC: Menaechmus develops co-ordinate geometry. 4th century BC: Mozi in China gives a description of the camera obscura phenomenon. 4th century BC: Around the time of Aristotle, a more empirically founded system of anatomy is established, based on animal dissection. In particular, Praxagoras makes the


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-2.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
1st to 4th century: A precursor to long division, known as "galley division" is developed at some point. Its discovery is generally believed to have originated in India around the 4th century AD, although Singaporean mathematician Lam Lay Yong claims that the method is found in the Chinese text The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, from the 1st century AD. 60 AD: Heron's formula is discovered by Hero of Alexandria. 2nd century: Ptolemy formalises the epicycles of Apollonius. 2nd century: Ptolemy publishes his Optics, discussing colour, reflection, and refraction of light, and including the first known table of refractive angles. 2nd century: Galen studies the anatomy of pigs. 100: Menelaus of Alexandria describes spherical triangles, a precursor to non-Euclidean geometry. 150: The Almagest of Ptolemy contains evidence of the Hellenistic zero. Unlike the earlier Babylonian zero, the Hellenistic zero could be used alone, or at the end of a number. However, it was usually used in the fractional part of a numeral, and was not regarded as a true arithmetical number itself. 150: Ptolemy's Almagest contains practical formulae to calculate latitudes and day lengths. 3rd century: Diophantus discusses linear diophantine equations. 3rd century: Diophantus uses a primitive form of


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-3.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
6th century: Varahamira in the Gupta empire is the first to describe comets as astronomical phenomena, and as periodic in nature. 525: John Philoponus in Byzantine Egypt describes the notion of inertia, and states that the motion of a falling object does not depend on its weight. His radical rejection of Aristotlean orthodoxy lead him to be ignored in his time 628: Brahmagupta states the arithmetic rules for addition, subtraction, and multiplication with zero, as well as the multiplication of negative numbers, extending the basic rules for the latter found in the earlier The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. 628: Brahmagupta writes down Brahmagupta's identity, an important lemma in the theory of Pell's equation. 628: Brahmagupta produces an infinite (but not exhaustive) number of solutions to Pell's equation. 628: Brahmagupta provides an explicit solution to the quadratic equation. 628: Brahmagupta discovers Brahmagupta's formula, a generalization of Heron's formula to cyclic quadrilaterals. 628: Brahmagupta discovers second-order interpolation, in the form of Brahmagupta's interpolation formula. 628: Brahmagupta invents a symbolic mathematical notation, which is then adopted by mathematicians through India and the Near East, and eventually Europe. 629: Bhāskara I produces the first approximation of a transcendental function with a rational


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-4.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
16th century: Gerolamo Cardano solves the general cubic equation (by reducing them to the case with zero quadratic term). 16th century: Lodovico Ferrari solves the general quartic equation (by reducing it to the case with zero quartic term). 16th century: François Viète discovers Vieta's formulas. 16th century: François Viète discovers Viète's formula for π.1500: Scipione del Ferro solves the special cubic equation x 3 = p x + q {\displaystyle x^{3}=px+q} . Late 16th century: Tycho Brahe proves that comets are astronomical (and not atmospheric) phenomena. 1517: Nicolaus Copernicus develops the quantity theory of money and states the earliest known form of Gresham's law: ("Bad money drowns out good"). 1543: Nicolaus Copernicus develops a heliocentric model, rejecting Aristotle's Earth-centric view, would be the first quantitative heliocentric model in history. 1543: Vesalius: pioneering research into human anatomy. 1545: Gerolamo Cardano discovers complex numbers. 1556: Niccolò Tartaglia introduces parenthesis. 1557: Robert Recorde introduces the equal sign. 1564: Gerolamo Cardano is the first to produce a systematic treatment of probability. 1572: Rafael Bombelli provides rules for complex arithmetic. 1591: François Viète's New algebra shows the modern notational algebraic manipulation. == 17th century == 1600: William Gilbert: Earth's magnetic field. 1608: Earliest record of


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-5.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
== 1850–1899 == 1856: Robert Forester Mushet develops a process for the decarbonisation, and re-carbonisation of iron, through the addition of a calculated quantity of spiegeleisen, to produce cheap, consistently high quality steel. 1858: Rudolf Virchow: cells can only arise from pre-existing cells. 1859: Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace: Theory of evolution by natural selection. 1861: Louis Pasteur: Germ theory. 1861: John Tyndall: Experiments in Radiant Energy that reinforced the Greenhouse effect. 1864: James Clerk Maxwell: Theory of electromagnetism. 1865: Gregor Mendel: Mendel's laws of inheritance, basis for genetics. 1865: Rudolf Clausius: Definition of entropy. 1868: Robert Forester Mushet discovers that alloying steel with tungsten produces a harder, more durable alloy. 1869: Dmitri Mendeleev: Periodic table. 1871: Lord Rayleigh: Diffuse sky radiation (Rayleigh scattering) explains why sky appears blue. 1873: Johannes Diderik van der Waals: was one of the first to postulate an intermolecular force: the van der Waals force. 1873: Frederick Guthrie discovers thermionic emission. 1873: Willoughby Smith discovers photoconductivity. 1875: William Crookes invented the Crookes tube and studied cathode rays. 1876: Josiah Willard Gibbs founded chemical thermodynamics, the phase rule. 1877: Ludwig Boltzmann: Statistical definition of entropy. 1880s: John Hopkinson develops three-phase electrical supplies, mathematically proves how multiple


id: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries-6.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific discoveries
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:28.514390+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-discoveries-20260505-0
summary:
== 1950–1999 == 1951: George Otto Gey propagates first cancer cell line, HeLa 1952: Jonas Salk: developed and tested first polio vaccine 1952: Stanley Miller: demonstrated that the building blocks of life could arise from primeval soup in the conditions present during early Earth (Miller-Urey experiment) 1952: Frederick Sanger: demonstrated that proteins are sequences of amino acids 1953: James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin: helical structure of DNA, basis for molecular biology 1957: Chien Shiung Wu: demonstrated that parity, and thus charge conjugation and time-reversals, are violated for weak interactions 1962: Riccardo Giacconi and his team discover the first cosmic x-ray source, Scorpius X-1 1963: Lawrence Morley, Fred Vine, and Drummond Matthews: Paleomagnetic stripes in ocean crust as evidence of plate tectonics (Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis). 1964: Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig: postulates quarks, leading to the Standard Model 1964: Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson: detection of CMBR providing experimental evidence for the Big Bang 1965: Leonard Hayflick: normal cells divide only a certain number of times: the Hayflick limit 1967: Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish discover first pulsar 1967: Vela nuclear test detection satellites discover the first gamma-ray burst 1970: James H. Ellis proposed the possibility


id: timeline-of-earth-estimates-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Earth_estimates-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Earth estimates
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Earth_estimates
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:29.742433+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-earth-estimates-20260505-0
summary:
This is a timeline of humanity's understanding of the shape and size of the planet Earth from antiquity to modern scientific measurements. The Earth has the general shape of a sphere, but it is oblate due to the revolution of the planet. The Earth is an irregular oblate spheroid because neither the interior nor the surface of the Earth are uniform, so a reference oblate spheroid such as the World Geodetic System is used to horizontally map the Earth. The current reference spheroid is WGS 84. The reference spheroid is then used to create an equigeopotential geoid to vertically map the Earth. A geoid represents the general shape of the Earth if the oceans and atmosphere were at rest. The geoid elevation replaces the previous notion of sea level since the oceans are never at rest. == Shape == From the apparent disappearance of mountain summits, islands, and boats below the horizon as their distance from the viewer increased, many ancient peoples understood that the Earth had some sort of positive curvature. Observing the ball-like appearance of the Moon, many ancient peoples thought that the Earth must have a similar shape. Around 500 BCE, Greek mathematician Pythagoras of Samos taught


id: timeline-of-scientific-experiments-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_experiments-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific experiments
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_experiments
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:30.924586+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-experiments-20260505-0
summary:
The timeline below shows the date of publication of major scientific experiments: == 5th century BC == 430 BC - Empedocles proves that air is a material substance by submerging a clepsydra into the ocean. == 2nd century BC == 240 BC - Archimedes devised a principle which he later used to solve the riddle of the suspect crown. 230 BC – Eratosthenes measures the Earth's circumference and diameter. == 10th century == Abu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes) introduces controlled experiment into the field of medicine and carried out the first medical experiment in order to find the most hygienic place to build a hospital. == 11th century == 1020 – Avicenna (Ibn Sina) introduces experimentation and quantification into the study of medicine and physiology, including the introduction of experimental medicine and clinical trials, in The Canon of Medicine. 1021 – Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) pioneers the experimental scientific method and experimental physics in his Book of Optics, where he devises the first scientific experiments on optics, including the first use of the camera obscura to prove that light travels in straight lines and the first experimental proof that visual perception is caused by light rays travelling to the eyes, which also


id: timeline-of-scientific-experiments-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_experiments-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of scientific experiments
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_experiments
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:30.924586+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-scientific-experiments-20260505-0
summary:
== 20th century == 1909 – Robert Millikan: oil-drop experiment which suggests that electric charge occurs as quanta (the electron). 1911 – Ernest Rutherford's gold foil experiment determines that atoms are mostly empty space, and that the core of each atom, which he named the atomic nucleus, is dense and positively charged 1911 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes: superconductivity. 1914 - James Franck and Gustav Ludwig Hertz conduct the Franck–Hertz experiment demonstrating quantization of atomic ionization energy. 1919 – Arthur Eddington: The Sun as gravitational lens, a proof of the theory of relativity. 1920 – Otto Stern and Walter Gerlach conduct the Stern–Gerlach experiment, which demonstrates particle spin. 1920 – John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conduct the Little Albert experiment. 1928 – Griffith's experiment shows that living cells can be transformed via a transforming principle, later discovered to be DNA. 1934 – Enrico Fermi splits the atom. 1935 – Lady tasting tea experiment by Ronald A. Fisher, foundational in statistical hypothesis testing. 1940 – Karl von Frisch decodes the "dance" honeybees use to communicate the location of flowers. 1944 – Barbara McClintock breeds maize plants for color, which leads to the discovery of jumping genes. 1947 – John Bardeen and


id: timeline-of-information-theory-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_information_theory-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of information theory
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_information_theory
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:32.131422+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-information-theory-20260505-0
summary:
A timeline of events related to information theory, quantum information theory and statistical physics, data compression, error correcting codes and related subjects. 1872 – Ludwig Boltzmann presents his H-theorem, and with it the formula Σpi log pi for the entropy of a single gas particle 1878 – J. Willard Gibbs defines the Gibbs entropy: the probabilities in the entropy formula are now taken as probabilities of the state of the whole system 1924 – Harry Nyquist discusses quantifying "intelligence" and the speed at which it can be transmitted by a communication system 1927 – John von Neumann defines the von Neumann entropy, extending the Gibbs entropy to quantum mechanics 1928 – Ralph Hartley introduces Hartley information as the logarithm of the number of possible messages, with information being communicated when the receiver can distinguish one sequence of symbols from any other (regardless of any associated meaning) 1929 – Leó Szilárd analyses Maxwell's demon, showing how a Szilard engine can sometimes transform information into the extraction of useful work 1940 – Alan Turing introduces the deciban as a measure of information inferred about the German Enigma machine cypher settings by the Banburismus process 1944 – Claude Shannon's theory of information is


id: timeline-of-science-and-engineering-in-the-muslim-world-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engineering_in_the_Muslim_world-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of science and engineering in the Muslim world
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engineering_in_the_Muslim_world
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:33.325784+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-science-and-engineering-in-the-muslim-world-20260505-0
summary:
This timeline of science and engineering in the Muslim world covers the time period from the eighth century AD to the introduction of European science to the Muslim world in the nineteenth century. All year dates are given according to the Gregorian calendar except where noted. == Eighth century == Astronomers and astrologers d 777 CE Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulayman ibn Samura ibn Jundab al-Fazari (Arabic: إبراهيم بن حبيب بن سليمان بن سمرة بن جندب الفزاري‎) (died 777 CE) was an 8th-century Muslim mathematician and astronomer at the Abbasid court of the Caliph Al-Mansur (r. 754–775). He should not be confused with his son Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī, also an astronomer. He composed various astronomical writings ("on the astrolabe", "on the armillary spheres", "on the calendar"). d 796 Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Sulayman ibn Samra ibn Jundab al-Fazari (Arabic: إبراهيم بن حبيب بن سليمان بن سمرة بن جندب الفزاري‎) (died 796 or 806) was a Muslim philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. He is not to be confused with his father Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī, also an astronomer and mathematician. Some sources refer to him as an Arab, other sources state that he was a Persian. Al-Fazārī translated many


id: timeline-of-science-and-engineering-in-the-muslim-world-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engineering_in_the_Muslim_world-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of science and engineering in the Muslim world
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engineering_in_the_Muslim_world
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:33.325784+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-science-and-engineering-in-the-muslim-world-20260505-0
summary:
== Twelfth century == Cartography 1100–1165: Muhammad al-Idrisi, aka Idris al-Saqalli aka al-sharif al-idrissi of Andalusia and Sicily. Known for having drawn some of the most advanced ancient world maps. Mathematics 1130–1180: Al-Samawal. An important member of al-Karaji's school of algebra. Gave this definition of algebra: "[it is concerned] with operating on unknowns using all the arithmetical tools, in the same way as the arithmetician operates on the known." 1135: Sharaf al-Din al-Tusi. Follows al-Khayyam's application of algebra of geometry, rather than follow the general development that came through al-Karaji's school of algebra. Wrote a treatise on cubic equations which describes thus: "[the treatise] represents an essential contribution to another algebra which aimed to study curves by means of equations, thus inaugurating the beginning of algebraic geometry." (quoted in ). == Thirteenth century == Chemistry Al-Jawbari describes the preparation of rose water in the work "Book of Selected Disclosure of Secrets" (Kitab kashf al-Asrar). Materials; glassmaking: Arabic manuscript on the manufacture of false gemstones and diamonds. Also describes spirits of alum, spirits of saltpetre and spirits of salts (hydrochloric acid). An Arabic manuscript written in Syriac script gives description of various chemical materials and their properties such as sulfuric acid,


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:34.508535+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-0
summary:
The timeline of meteorology contains events of scientific and technological advancements in the area of atmospheric sciences. The most notable advancements in observational meteorology, weather forecasting, climatology, atmospheric chemistry, and atmospheric physics are listed chronologically. Some historical weather events are included that mark time periods where advancements were made, or even that sparked policy change. == Antiquity == 3000 BC – Meteorology in India can be traced back to around 3000 BC, with writings such as the Upanishads, containing discussions about the processes of cloud formation and rain and the seasonal cycles caused by the movement of the Earth around the Sun. 600 BC – Thales may qualify as the first Greek meteorologist. He reputedly issues the first seasonal crop forecast. 400 BC – There is some evidence that Democritus predicted changes in the weather, and that he used this ability to convince people that he could predict other future events. 400 BC – Hippocrates writes a treatise called Airs, Waters and Places, the earliest known work to include a discussion of weather. More generally, he wrote about common diseases that occur in particular locations, seasons, winds and air. 350 BC – The Greek philosopher Aristotle writes Meteorology, a work


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
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== Middle Ages == 500 AD – In around 500 AD, the Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer: Varāhamihira published his work Brihat-Samhita's, which provides clear evidence that a deep knowledge of atmospheric processes existed in the Indian region. 7th century – The poet Kalidasa in his epic Meghaduta, mentions the date of onset of the south-west Monsoon over central India and traces the path of the monsoon clouds. 7th century – St. Isidore of Seville, in his work De Rerum Natura, writes about astronomy, cosmology and meteorology. In the chapter dedicated to Meteorology, he discusses the thunder, clouds, rainbows and wind. 9th century – Al-Kindi (Alkindus), an Arab naturalist, writes a treatise on meteorology entitled Risala fi l-Illa al-Failali l-Madd wa l-Fazr (Treatise on the Efficient Cause of the Flow and Ebb), in which he presents an argument on tides which "depends on the changes which take place in bodies owing to the rise and fall of temperature." 9th century – Al-Dinawari, a Kurdish naturalist, writes the Kitab al-Nabat (Book of Plants), in which he deals with the application of meteorology to agriculture during the Muslim Agricultural Revolution. He describes the meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations,


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-2.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:34.508535+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-0
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1450 – Leone Battista Alberti developed a swinging-plate anemometer, and is known as the first anemometer. – Nicolas Cryfts, (Nicolas of Cusa), described the first hair hygrometer to measure humidity. The design was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, referencing Cryfts design in da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus. 1483 − Yuriy Drohobych publishes Prognostic Estimation of the year 1483 in Rome, where he reflects upon weather forecasting and that climatic conditions depended on the latitude. 1488 – Johannes Lichtenberger publishes the first version of his Prognosticatio linking weather forecasting with astrology. The paradigm was only challenged centuries later. 1494 – During his second voyage Christopher Columbus experiences a tropical cyclone in the Atlantic Ocean, which leads to the first written European account of a hurricane. 1510 – Leonhard Reynmann, astronomer of Nuremberg, publishes ″Wetterbüchlein Von warer erkanntnus des wetters″, a collection of weather lore. 1547 − Antonio Mizauld publishes "Le miroueer du temps, autrement dit, éphémérides perpétuelles de l'air par lesquelles sont tous les jours donez vrais signes de touts changements de temps, seulement par choses qui à tous apparoissent au cien, en l'air, sur terre & en l'eau. Le tout par petits aphorismes, & breves sentences diligemment compris" in Paris, with


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-3.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
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1800 – The Voltaic pile was the first modern electric battery, invented by Alessandro Volta, which led to later inventions like the telegraph. 1802–1803 – Luke Howard writes On the Modification of Clouds in which he assigns cloud types Latin names. Howard's system establishes three physical categories or forms based on appearance and process of formation: cirriform (mainly detached and wispy), cumuliform or convective (mostly detached and heaped, rolled, or rippled), and non-convective stratiform (mainly continuous layers in sheets). These are cross-classified into lower and upper levels or étages. Cumuliform clouds forming in the lower level are given the genus name cumulus from the Latin word for heap, while low stratiform clouds are given the genus name stratus from the Latin word for a flattened or spread out sheet. Cirriform clouds are identified as always upper level and given the genus name cirrus from the Latin for hair. From this genus name, the prefix cirro- is derived and attached to the names of upper level cumulus and stratus, yielding the names cirrocumulus, and cirrostratus. In addition to these individual cloud types; Howard adds two names to designate cloud systems consisting of more than one form joined together or located in


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-4.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
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1804 – Sir John Leslie observes that a matte black surface radiates heat more effectively than a polished surface, suggesting the importance of black-body radiation. 1806 – Francis Beaufort introduces his system for classifying wind speeds. 1808 – John Dalton defends caloric theory in A New System of Chemistry and describes how it combines with matter, especially gases; he proposes that the heat capacity of gases varies inversely with atomic weight. 1810 – Sir John Leslie freezes water to ice artificially. 1817 – Alexander von Humboldt publishes a global map of average temperature, the first global climate analysis. 1819 – Pierre Louis Dulong and Alexis Thérèse Petit give the Dulong-Petit law for the specific heat capacity of a crystal. 1820 – Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes publishes the first synoptic weather maps. – John Herapath develops some ideas in the kinetic theory of gases but mistakenly associates temperature with molecular momentum rather than kinetic energy; his work receives little attention other than from Joule. 1822 – Joseph Fourier formally introduces the use of dimensions for physical quantities in his Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur. 1824 – Sadi Carnot analyzes the efficiency of steam engines using caloric theory; he develops the notion of


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-5.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
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1870 – The US Weather Bureau is founded. Data recorded in several Midwestern cities such as Chicago begins. 1870 – Benito Viñes becomes the head of the Meteorological Observatory at Belen in Havana, Cuba. He develops the first observing network in Cuba and creates some of the first hurricane-related forecasts. 1872 – The "Oficina Meteorológica Argentina" (today "Argentinean National Weather Service") is founded. 1872 – Ludwig Boltzmann states the Boltzmann equation for the temporal development of distribution functions in phase space, and publishes his H-theorem. 1873 – International Meteorological Organization formed in Vienna. – United States Army Signal Corp, forerunner of the National Weather Service, issues its first hurricane warning.


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-6.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:34.508535+00:00
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1875 – The India Meteorological Department is established, after a tropical cyclone struck Calcutta in 1864 and monsoon failures during 1866 and 1871. 1876 – Josiah Willard Gibbs publishes the first of two papers (the second appears in 1878) which discuss phase equilibria, statistical ensembles, the free energy as the driving force behind chemical reactions, and chemical thermodynamics in general. 1880 – Philip Weilbach, secretary and librarian at the Art Academy in Copenhagen proposes and has accepted by the permanent committee of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), a forerunner of the present-day World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the designation of a new free-convective vertical or multi-étage genus type, cumulonimbus (heaped rain cloud). It would be distinct from cumulus and nimbus and identifiable by its often very complex structure (frequently including a cirriform top and what are now recognized as multiple accessory clouds), and its ability to produce thunder. With this addition, a canon of ten tropospheric cloud genera is established that comes to be officially and universally accepted. Howard's cumulostratus is not included as a distinct type, having effectively been reclassified into its component cumuliform and stratiform genus types already included in the new canon. 1881 – Finnish Meteorological Central Office


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-7.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
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== 20th century == 1902 – Richard Assmann and Léon Teisserenc de Bort, two European scientists, independently discovered the stratosphere. - The Marconi Company issues the first routine weather forecast by means of radio to ships on sea. Weather reports from ships started 1905. 1903 – Max Margules publishes „Über die Energie der Stürme", an essay on the atmosphere as a three-dimensional thermodynamical machine. 1904 – Vilhelm Bjerknes presents the vision that forecasting the weather is feasible based on mathematical methods. 1905 – Australian Bureau of Meteorology established by a Meteorology Act to unify existing state meteorological services. 1919 – Norwegian cyclone model introduced for the first time in meteorological literature. Marks a revolution in the way the atmosphere is conceived and immediately starts leading to improved forecasts. - Sakuhei Fujiwhara is the first to note that hurricanes move with the larger scale flow, and later publishes a paper on the Fujiwhara effect in 1921. 1920 – Milutin Milanković proposes that long term climatic cycles may be due to changes in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit and changes in the Earth's obliquity. 1922 – Lewis Fry Richardson organises the first numerical weather prediction experiment. 1923 – The oscillation effects


id: timeline-of-meteorology-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology-8.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of meteorology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_meteorology
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1959 – The first weather satellite, Vanguard 2, was launched on February 17. It was designed to measure cloud cover, but a poor axis of rotation kept it from collecting a notable amount of useful data. 1960 – The first successful weather satellite, TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite), is launched on April 1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with the participation of The US Army Signal Research and Development Lab, RCA, the US Weather Bureau, and the US Naval Photographic Center. During its 78-day mission, it relays thousands of pictures showing the structure of large-scale cloud regimes, and proves that satellites can provide useful surveillance of global weather conditions from space. TIROS paves the way for the Nimbus program, whose technology and findings are the heritage of most of the Earth-observing satellites NASA and NOAA have launched since then. 1961 – Edward Lorenz accidentally discovers Chaos theory when working on numerical weather prediction. 1962 – Keith Browning and Frank Ludlam publish first detailed study of a supercell storm (over Wokingham, UK). Project STORMFURY begins its 10-year project of seeding hurricanes with silver iodide, attempting to weaken the cyclones. 1968 – A hurricane database


id: timeline-of-planetariums-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_planetariums-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of planetariums
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_planetariums
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:35.700518+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-planetariums-20260505-0
summary:
This is a timeline of the history of planetariums. == Historic influences == == Development of modern planetariums == == Digital and Fulldome video == == References ==


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:36.902705+00:00
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Education has been of prime interest to Poland's rulers since the early 12th century. The catalog of the library of the Cathedral Chapter in Kraków dating from 1110 shows that Polish scholars already then had access to western European literature. In 1364, King Casimir III the Great founded the Cracow Academy, which would become one of the great universities of Europe. The Polish people have made considerable contributions in the fields of science, technology and mathematics. The list of famous scientists in Poland begins in earnest with the polymath, astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, who formulated the heliocentric theory and sparked the European Scientific Revolution. In 1773, King Stanisław August Poniatowski established the Commission of National Education (Polish: Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, KEN), the world's first ministry of education. After the third partition of Poland, in 1795, no Polish state existed. The 19th and 20th centuries saw many Polish scientists working abroad. One of them was Maria Skłodowska-Curie, a physicist and chemist living in France. Another noteworthy one was Ignacy Domeyko, a geologist and mineralogist who worked in Chile. In the first half of the 20th century, Poland was a flourishing center of mathematics. Outstanding Polish mathematicians formed the Lwów School


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
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parent: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-0
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Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Polish-American chemist, discoverer of atom-transfer radical polymerization (1995), a novel method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made. Bohdan Paczyński, Polish astronomer, credited with the development of a new method of detecting space objects and establishing their mass using the gravitational lenses effect; he is acknowledged for coining the term microlensing. Artur Ekert, Polish physicist; one of the pioneers of quantum cryptography known for quantum entanglement swapping and E91 protocol. Janusz Pawliszyn, Polish chemist, inventor of solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Andrzej Tarkowski, Polish embryologist and Professor of Warsaw University, known for his pioneering research on embryos and blastomeres, which have created theoretical and practical basis for achievements of biology and medicine of the twentieth century – in vitro fertilization, cloning and stem cell discovery. Janusz Brzozowski, Polish-Canadian computer scientist known for developing the Brzozowski derivative and Brzozowski's algorithm. Aleksander Wolszczan, Polish astronomer who, in 1992, co-discovered the first ever extrasolar planet – PSR 1257+12, a pulsar located 2,630 light years from Earth. It is believed to be orbited by at least four planets. Tadeusz Reichstein, Polish-Swiss chemist and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate (1950), who was awarded for his work on the


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-2.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
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Stephanie Kwolek, American chemist of Polish origin, who in 1965 created the first of a family of synthetic fibers of exceptional strength and stiffness. The best-known member is Kevlar, a material used in protective vests as well as in boats, airplanes, ropes, cables, and much more—in total about 200 applications. Andrzej Szczeklik, Polish immunologist; credited with discovering the anti-thrombotic properties of aspirin, and studies on the pathogenesis and treatment of aspirin-induced bronchial asthma. Antoni Zygmund, Polish mathematician, considered one of the greatest analysts of the 20th century. Leonid Hurwicz, Polish economist and mathematician; he originated incentive compatibility and mechanism design, which show how desired outcomes are achieved in economics, social science and political science. In 2007, he shared the Nobel Prize in Economics. Jacek Pałkiewicz, Polish journalist, traveler and explorer; fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, discoverer of the sources of the Amazon River (1996). Kazimierz Kuratowski, Polish mathematician, a leading representatives of the Warsaw School of Mathematics; Kuratowski's theorem, Kuratowski-Zorn lemma; Kuratowski closure axioms. Tadek Marek, Polish automobile engineer, known for his Aston Martin engines. Otto Marcin Nikodym, Polish mathematician; Radon–Nikodym theorem, Nikodym set, Radon–Nikodym property. Zygmunt Bauman, Polish sociologist and philosopher; one of the world's most eminent social


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-3.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
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Albert Sabin, Polish-American medical researcher, best known for developing the oral polio vaccine which has played a key role in nearly eradicating the disease. Jacek Karpiński, Polish pioneer in computer engineering and computer science. He became a developer of one of the first machine learning algorithms, techniques for character and image recognition. In 1971, he designed one of the first minicomputers, the K-202. Stefan Kudelski, Polish audio engineer known for creating the Nagra series of professional audio recorders. Zdzisław Pawlak, Polish mathematician and computer scientist; known for his contribution to many branches of theoretical computer science; he is credited with introducing the rough set theory and also known for his fundamental works on it; he had also introduced the Pawlak flow graphs, a graphical framework for reasoning from data. Samuel Eilenberg, Polish-American mathematician, Eilenberg–MacLane space, Eilenberg–Mazur swindle, Eilenberg–Maclane spectrum, Eilenberg–Steenrod axioms. Jan Czekanowski, Polish anthropologist, ethnographer, statistician and linguist; one of the founders of computational linguistics, he introduced the Czekanowski binary index. Henryk Iwaniec, mathematician, he is noted for his outstanding contributions to analytic number theory and sieve theory; Friedlander-Iwaniec theorem. Andrzej Piotr Ruszczyński, Polish-American applied mathematician, noted for his contributions to mathematical optimization, in particular, stochastic programming and risk-averse


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-4.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
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Reverse Polish notation, (RPN), also known as postfix notation (1920) Henryk Zygalski, Polish mathematician who in 1938 invented the Zygalski sheets, also known as "perforated sheets", one of a number of devices created by the Polish Cipher Bureau to facilitate the breaking of German Enigma ciphers. Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician who is considered the founder of modern functional analysis. He is known for Banach space, Banach–Tarski paradox, Banach algebra, Functional analysis, Banach fixed-point theorem, uniform boundedness principle, Banach–Alaoglu theorem and Banach measure. Lwów School of Mathematics was a group of eminent Polish mathematicians that included Hugo Steinhaus, Stanisław Ulam, Mark Kac and many more. Stefan Kaczmarz, Polish mathematician known for the Kaczmarz method, which provided the basis for many modern imaging technologies, including the CAT scan. Tadeusz Banachiewicz, Polish astronomer, inventor of the chronocinematograph (1927). 7TP, light tank of the Second World War (1935). Piotr Wilniewczyc, Polish engineer and arms designer. He designed FB Vis, a 9×19mm caliber, single-action, semi-automatic pistol. PZL.23 Karaś, light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft designed in the PZL (1934) Zygmunt Pulawski, Polish aircraft designer. He designed in the early 1930s PZL P.11, Polish fighter aircraft. It was briefly the most advanced fighter aircraft of its kind


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-5.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:36.902705+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-0
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Ralph Modjeski, Polish civil engineer who achieved prominence as a pre-eminent bridge designer in the United States. Wojciech Świętosławski, Polish chemist and physicist, considered the father of thermochemistry Józef Tykociński, Polish engineer and a pioneer of sound-on-film technology Mieczysław Mąkosza, Polish chemist specializing in organic synthesis and investigation of organic mechanisms; he is credited for the discovery of the aromatic vicarious nucleophilic substitution, VNS; he also contributed to the discovery of phase transfer catalysis reactions. Bronisław Malinowski, Polish anthropologist, often considered one of the most important 20th-century anthropologists. His writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a profound influence on the discipline of anthropology. Mirosław Hermaszewski, Polish Air Force officer and cosmonaut; the first Polish person in space. Henryk Arctowski, Polish scientist, explorer and an internationally renowned meteorologist; a pioneer in the exploration of Antarctica. Stefan Drzewiecki, Polish engineer and inventor who constructed the world's first electric submarine in 1884. He developed several models of propeller-driven submarines that evolved from single-person vessels to a four-man model; he developed the blade element theory (1885), the theory of gliding flight, developed a method for the manufacture of ship and plane propellers (1892), and presented a general theory for screw-propeller


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-6.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:36.902705+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-0
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Maria Skłodowska-Curie, Polish chemist and physicist, a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, co-discoverer of the chemical elements radium and polonium. Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski, the first to liquefy oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in a stable state (not, as had been the case up to then, in a dynamic state in the transitional form as vapour) (1833). Zygmunt Florenty Wróblewski discovers carbon dioxide clathrate (1882). Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Polish pharmacist and petroleum industry pioneer who in 1856 built the world's first oil refinery; his achievements included the discovery of how to distill kerosene from seep oil, the invention of the modern kerosene lamp, the introduction of the first modern street lamp in Europe, and the construction one of the world's first modern oil well. The Polish Academy of Learning, an academy of sciences, was founded in Kraków in 1872. Casimir Zeglen, inventor of one of the first bulletproof vests. Józef Paczoski, Polish botanist; he coined the term of phytosociology and was one of the founders of this branch of botany (1896). Jan Szczepanik, Polish inventor, with several hundred patents and over 50 discoveries to his name, many of which are still applied today, especially in the


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-7.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:36.902705+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-0
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Jan Mikulicz-Radecki, Polish-German pioneering surgeon. He was the inventor of new operating techniques and tools, and is one of the pioneers of antiseptics and aseptic techniques. He created a surgical mask and was the first to use medical gloves during surgery. He is known for Mikulicz' disease, Heineke–Mikulicz strictureplasty, Mikulicz's drain. Aleksander Możajski, Polish-Russian aviation pioneer, researcher and designer of Mozhaysky's airplane. Stanisław Olszewski, Polish engineer and inventor. He is best known as the co-creator of the technology of arc welding (along with Nikolay Benardos). Karol Adamiecki, Polish engineer and management theorist. He invented a novel means of displaying interdependent processes so as to enhance the visibility of production schedules (1896). With minor modifications, Adamiecki's chart is now more commonly referred to in English as the Gantt chart. Walery Jaworski, one of the pioneers of gastroenterology in Poland; he described bacteria living in the human stomach and speculated that they were responsible for stomach ulcers, gastric cancer and achylia. It was one of the first observations of Helicobacter pylori. He published those findings in 1899 in a book titled "Podręcznik chorób żołądka" ("Handbook of Gastric Diseases"). His findings were independently confirmed by Robin Warren and Barry Marshall, who received the


id: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology-8.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of Polish science and technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Polish_science_and_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:36.902705+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-polish-science-and-technology-20260505-0
summary:
Adam Adamandy Kochański, Polish mathematician, physicist and clockmaker found an approximation of π today called the Kochański's Approximation (1685). He also suggested replacing the clock's pendulum with a spring (1659), constructed a clock with a magnetic pendulum (1667), and was the author of the world's first systematic paper on the construction of clocks. Johannes Hevelius was an astronomer who published the earliest exact maps of the moon and the most complete star catalog of his time, containing 1,564 stars. In 1641 he built an observatory in his house; he is known as "the founder of lunar topography". Jan Brożek (Ioannes Broscius) was the most prominent 17th-century Polish mathematician. Following his death, his collection of Nicolaus Copernicus' letters and documents, which he had borrowed 40 years earlier with the intent of writing a biography of Copernicus, was lost. Kazimierz Siemienowicz, Polish–Lithuanian general of artillery, gunsmith, military engineer, and pioneer of rocketry who developed the concept of a multistage rocket. King of Poland, John II Casimir, founded the University of Lviv (1661). Michał Boym, Polish Jesuit missionary to China, scientist and explorer; he is notable as one of the first westerners to travel within the Chinese mainland, and the author of numerous


id: timeline-of-rocket-and-missile-technology-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of rocket and missile technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:38.147133+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-rocket-and-missile-technology-20260505-0
summary:
This article gives a concise timeline of rocket and missile technology. == 11th century – 13th century == 11th century AD - The first documented record of what appears to be gunpowder and the fire arrow, an early form of rocketry, appears in the Chinese text Wujing Zongyao. In Europe, around 1250 both Roger Bacon and the Liber Ignium gave instructions for constructing devices that appear to be rockets. == 17th century – 19th century == 1633 - Lagâri Hasan Çelebi launched a seven-winged rocket using 50 okka (140 lbs) of gunpowder from Sarayburnu, the point below Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. 1650 - Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima ("Great Art of Artillery, the First Part") is printed in Amsterdam, about a year before the death of its author, Kazimierz Siemienowicz. 1664 - A "space rocket" is imagined as a future technology to be studied in France and its drawing is ordered by French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert; designed by Charles Le Brun on a Gobelins tapestry (see: French space program) 1696 - Robert Anderson suggests making rockets out of "a piece of a Gun Barrel" whose metal casing is much stronger than pasteboard or wood 1798 - Tipu Sultan, the


id: timeline-of-rocket-and-missile-technology-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of rocket and missile technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:38.147133+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-rocket-and-missile-technology-20260505-0
summary:
== 20th century == 1902 - French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès directs A Trip to the Moon, the first film about space travel. 1903 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky begins a series of papers discussing the use of rocketry to reach outer space, space suits, and colonization of the Solar System. Two key points discussed in his works are liquid fuels and staging. 1913 - Without knowing the work of Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, French engineer Robert Esnault-Pelterie derived the equations for space flight, produced a paper that presented the rocket equation and calculated the energies required to reach the Moon and nearby planets. 1916 - first use of rockets (with the solid fuel Le Prieur rocket) for both air-to-air attacks, and air-to-ground. 1921 - Gas Dynamics Laboratory the first rocket research and development organization in the USSR established by N. I. Tikhomirov. 1922 - Hermann Oberth publishes his scientific work about rocketry and space exploration: Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen ("By Rocket into Planetary Space"). 1924 - Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel founded in Moscow by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Friedrich Zander and 200 other space and rocket experts 1926 - Robert Goddard launches the first liquid fuel rocket. This is considered


id: timeline-of-rocket-and-missile-technology-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology-2.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of rocket and missile technology
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_rocket_and_missile_technology
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:38.147133+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-rocket-and-missile-technology-20260505-0
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1966 - USSR Luna 9, the first soft landing on the Moon 1966 - USSR launches Soyuz spacecraft, the longest-running series of spacecraft, eventually serving Soviet, Russian and International space missions. 1968 - USSR Zond 5, two tortoises and smaller biological Earthlings circle the Moon and return safely to Earth. 1968 - US Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to reach and orbit the Moon. 1969 - US Apollo 11, first crewed landing on the Moon, first lunar surface extravehicular activity. 1975 - EU ESA, creation of the European Space Agency. 1979 - EU Ariane 1, first Ariane European rocket. 1980 - EU Arianespace, creation of Arianespace, world's first commercial space transportation company. 1981 - US Space Shuttle pioneers reusability and glide landings 1988 - EU Ariane 4, first launch of the Ariane 4 rocket. 1988 - USSR Energia delivers a Buran spaceplane to orbit. 1996 - EU Ariane 5, first flight of the Ariane 5 rocket, self-destructed in flight. After that, Ariane 5 will be the main European rocket for decades. 1998 - US Deep Space 1 is first deep space mission to use an ion thruster for propulsion. 1998 - Russia launches the Zarya module, the first part


id: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020 to the present
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:42.409530+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-0
summary:
This timeline of sustainable energy research from 2020 to the present documents research and development in renewable energy, solar energy, and nuclear energy, particularly regarding energy production that is sustainable within the Earth system. Events currently not included in the timelines include: goal-codifying policy about, commercialization of, adoptions of, deployment-statistics of, announced developments of, announced funding for and dissemination of sustainable energy -technologies and -infrastructure/systems research about related phase-outs in general – such as about the fossil fuel phase out research about relevant alternative technologies – such as in transport, HVAC, refrigeration, passive cooling, heat pumps and district heating research about related public awareness, media, policy-making and education research about related geopolitics, policies, and integrated strategies == Grids == === Smart grids === ==== 2022 ==== A study provides results of simulations and analysis of "transactive energy mechanisms to engage the large-scale deployment of flexible distributed energy resources (DERs), such as air conditioners, water heaters, batteries, and electric vehicles, in the operation of the electric power system". === Super grids === ==== 2022 ==== Researchers describe a novel strategy to create a global sustainable interconnected energy system based on deep-ocean-compressed hydrogen transportation. === Microgrids and off-the-grid === Researchers describe a


id: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020 to the present
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:42.409530+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-0
summary:
=== Floating solar === ==== 2020 ==== A study concludes that deploying floating solar panels on existing hydro reservoirs could generate 16%–40% (4,251 to 10,616 TWh/year) of global energy needs when not considering project-siting constraints, local development regulations, "economic or market potential" and potential future technology improvements. ==== 2022 ==== Researchers develop floating artificial leaves for light-driven hydrogen and syngas fuel production. The lightweight, flexible perovskite devices are scalable and can float on water similar to lotus leaves. ==== 2023 ==== An analysis concludes there is large potential (≈9,400 TWh/yr) for floating solar photovoltaics on reservoirs, at the upper range of the prior 2020 study (see above). === Agrivoltaics === 2021 – An improved agrivoltaic system with a grooved glass plate is demonstrated. 2021 – A report reviews several studies about the potential of agrivoltaics, which partly suggest "high potential of agrivoltaics as a viable and efficient technology" and outline concerns for refinements to the technology. 2022 – Researchers report the development of greenhouses (or solar modules) by a startup that generate electricity from a portion of the spectrum of sunlight, allowing spectra that interior plants use to pass through. 2023 – Demonstration of another agrivoltaic greenhouse which outperforms a


id: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present-2.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020 to the present
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:42.409530+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-0
summary:
=== 2022 === A study describes a way by which geothermal power plants could store their energy within their reservoirs for dispatch to (better) help manage intermittency of solar and wind. == Waste heat recovery == === 2020 === Reviews about WHR in the aluminium industry and cement industry are published. === 2023 === A report by the company Danfoss estimates EU's excess heat recovery potential, suggesting there is "huge, unharnessed potential" and that action could involve initial mapping of existing waste heat sources. == Bioenergy, chemical engineering and biotechnology == === 2020 === Scientists report the development of micro-droplets for algal cells or synergistic algal-bacterial multicellular spheroid microbial reactors capable of producing oxygen as well as hydrogen via photosynthesis in daylight under air. === 2022 === Researchers report the development of 3D-printed nano-"skyscraper" electrodes that house cyanobacteria for extracting substantially more sustainable bioenergy from their photosynthesis than before. News outlets report about the development of algae biopanels by a company for sustainable energy generation with unclear viability after other researchers built the self-powered BIQ house prototype in 2013. ==== 2023 ==== A bacterial hydrogenase enzyme, Huc, for biohydrogen energy from the air is reported. == General == Research about


id: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present-3.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of sustainable energy research 2020 to the present
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_sustainable_energy_research_2020_to_the_present
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:42.409530+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-sustainable-energy-research-2020-to-the-present-20260505-0
summary:
===== 2024 ===== Norway approved commercial deep-sea mining. 80% of Parliament voted to approve. On February 7, 2024, the European Parliament voted in favor of a Motion for Resolution, expressing environmental concerns regarding Norway's decision to open vast areas in Arctic waters for deep-sea mining activities and reaffirming its support for a moratorium. In July 2024, at the 29th General Assembly of the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, 32 countries united against the imminent start of mining for metallic nodules on the seafloor. In his address titled "Upholding the Common Heritage of Humankind", President Surangel S. Whipps Jr. of Palau spoke about exploitation and modern-day colonialism. In November 2024, the People's Republic of China unveiled its first deep-sea drilling vehicle. In December 2024 Norway suspended deep sea mining, after the Socialist Left (SV) party said that otherwise, it would not support the budget. ===== 2025 ===== On January 1st, 2025, Brazilian oceanographer Leticia Carvalho assumed the office of Secretary-General of the International Seabed Authority, after being elected in August 2024 to succeed Michael Lodge in the position. In April 2025, U.S. President Trump signed an Executive Order instructing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to expedite permits for companies


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
This is a timeline of women in science, spanning from ancient history up to the 21st century. While the timeline primarily focuses on women involved with natural sciences such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, and physics, it also includes women from the social sciences (e.g. sociology, psychology), and the formal sciences (e.g. mathematics, computer science), as well as notable science educators and medical scientists. The chronological events listed in the timeline relate to both scientific achievements and gender equality within the sciences. == Ancient history == 1900 BCE: Aganice, also known as Athyrta, was an Egyptian princess during the Middle Kingdom (about 2000–1700 BCE) working on astronomy and natural philosophy. c. 1505–1458 BCE: Hatshepsut, also known as the Queen Doctor, promoted a botanical expedition searching for officinal plants. 1200 BCE: The Mesopotamian perfume-maker Tapputi-Belatekallim was referenced in the text of a cuneiform tablet. She is often considered the world's first recorded chemist. 500 BCE: Theano was a Pythagorean philosopher. c. 150 BCE: Aglaonice became the first female astronomer to be recorded in Ancient Greece. == Early post-classical history == 1st century BCE: A woman known only as Fang became the earliest recorded Chinese female alchemist. She is credited with "the discovery


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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1561: Italian alchemist Isabella Cortese published her popular book The Secrets of Lady Isabella Cortese. The work included recipes for medicines, distilled oils and cosmetics, and was the only book published by a female alchemist in the 16th century. 1572: Italian botanist Loredana Marcello died from the plague – but not before developing several effective palliative formulas for plague sufferers, which were used by many physicians. 1572: Danish scientist Sophia Brahe (1556–1643) assisted her brother Tycho Brahe with his astronomical observations. 1590: After her husband's death, Caterina Vitale took over his position as chief pharmacist to the Order of St John, becoming the first female chemist and pharmacist in Malta. == 17th century == 1609: French midwife Louise Bourgeois Boursier became the first woman to write a book on childbirth practices. 1636: Anna Maria van Schurman is the first woman ever to attend university lectures. She had to sit behind a screen so that her male fellow students would not see her. 1642: Martine Bertereau, the first recorded female mineralogist, was imprisoned in France on suspicion of witchcraft. Bertereau had published two written works on the science of mining and metallurgy before being arrested. 1650: Silesian astronomer Maria Cunitz published


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
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1702: Pioneering English entomologist Eleanor Glanville captured a butterfly specimen in Lincolnshire, which was subsequently named the Glanville fritillary in her honour. Her extensive butterfly collection impressed fellow entomologist William Vernon, who called Glanville's work "the noblest collection of butterflies, all English, which has sham'd us". Her butterfly specimens became part of early collections in the Natural History Museum. 1702: German astronomer Maria Kirch became the first woman to discover a comet. c. 1702–1744: In Montreal, Canada, French botanist Catherine Jérémie collected plant specimens and studied their properties, sending the specimens and her detailed notes back to scientists in France. 1732: At the age of 20, Italian physicist Laura Bassi became the first female member of the Bologna Academy of Sciences. One month later, she publicly defended her academic theses and received a PhD. Bassi was awarded an honorary position as professor of physics at the University of Bologna. She was the first female physics professor in the world. 1738: French polymath Émilie du Châtelet became the first woman to have a paper published by the Paris Academy, following a contest on the nature of fire. 1740: French polymath Émilie du Châtelet published Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics) providing


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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1808: Anna Sundström began assisting Jacob Berzelius in his laboratory, becoming one of the first Swedish women chemists. 1809: Sabina Baldoncelli earned her university degree in pharmacy but was allowed to work only in the Italian orphanage where she resided. 1815: English archaeologist Lady Hester Stanhope used a medieval Italian manuscript to locate a promising archaeological site in Ashkelon, becoming the first archaeologist to begin an excavation in the Palestinian region. It was one of the earliest examples of the use of textual sources in field archaeology. 1816: French mathematician and physicist Sophie Germain became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her work on elasticity theory. 1823: English palaeontologist and fossil collector Mary Anning discovered the first complete Plesiosaurus. 1831: Italian botanist Elisabetta Fiorini Mazzanti published her best-known work Specimen Bryologiae Romanae. 1830–1837: Belgian botanist Marie-Anne Libert published her four-volume Plantae cryptogamicae des Ardennes, a collection of 400 species of mosses, ferns, lichen, algae and fungi from the Ardennes region. Her contributions to systemic cryptogamic studies were formally recognized by Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III, and Libert received a gold medal of merit. 1832: French marine biologist Jeanne Villepreux-Power invented the first


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-4.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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1854: Mary Horner Lyell was a conchologist and geologist. She is most well known for her scientific work in 1854, where she studied her collection of land snails from the Canary Islands. She was married to the notable British geologist Charles Lyell and assisted him in his scientific work. It is believed by historians that she likely made major contributions to her husband's work. 1854–1855: Florence Nightingale organized care for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. She was an English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. Her pie charts clearly showed that most deaths resulted from disease rather than battle wounds or "other causes," which led the general public to demand improved sanitation at field hospitals. 1855: Working with her father, Welsh astronomer and photographer Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn produced some of the earliest photographs of the moon. 1856: American atmospheric scientist Eunice Newton Foote presented her paper "Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays" at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She was an early researcher of the greenhouse effect. 1862: Belgian botanist Marie-Anne Libert became the first woman to join the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium. She was


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-5.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
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=== 1890s === 1890: Austrian-born chemist Ida Freund became the first woman to work as a university chemistry lecturer in the United Kingdom. She was promoted to full lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge. 1890: Popular science educator and author Agnes Giberne co-founded the British Astronomical Association. Subsequently, English astronomer Elizabeth Brown was appointed the director of the association's Solar Section, well known for her studies in sunspots and other solar phenomena. 1890: Mathematician Philippa Fawcett became the first woman to obtain the highest score in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos examinations, a score "above the Senior Wrangler". (At the time, women were ineligible to be named Senior Wrangler.) 1891: American-born astronomer Dorothea Klumpke was appointed as Head of the Bureau of Measurements at the Paris Observatory. For the next decade, in addition to completing her doctorate of science, she worked on the Carte du Ciel mapping project. She was recognized for her work with the first Prix de Dames award from the Société astronomique de France and named an Officier of the Paris Academy of Sciences. 1892: American psychologist Christine Ladd-Franklin presented her evolutionary theory on the development of colour vision to the International Congress of Psychology. Her theory was the


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-6.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
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1900: American botanist Anna Murray Vail became the first librarian of the New York Botanical Garden. A key supporter of the institution's establishment, she had earlier donated her entire collection of 3000 botanical specimens to the garden. 1900: Physicists Marie Skłodowska–Curie and Isabelle Stone attended the first International Congress of Physics in Paris, France. They were the only two women out of 836 participants. 1901: American Florence Bascom became the first female geologist to present a paper before the Geological Survey of Washington. 1901: Czech botanist and zoologist Marie Zdeňka Baborová-Čiháková became the first woman in the Czech Republic to receive a PhD. 1901: American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon published her first catalog of stellar spectra, which classified stars by temperature. This method was universally and permanently adopted by other astronomers. 1903: Grace Coleridge Frankland née Toynbee was an English microbiologist. Her most notable work was Bacteria in Daily Life. She was one of the nineteen female scientists who wrote the 1904 petition to the Chemical Society to request that they should create some female fellows of the society. 1903: Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Skłodowska–Curie became the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize when she received the Nobel


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-7.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
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1911: Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Curie became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which she received "[for] the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element". This made her the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice. As of 2022, she is the only woman to win it twice and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. 1911: Norwegian biologist Kristine Bonnevie became the first woman member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. 1912: American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt studied the bright-dim cycle periods of Cepheid stars, then found a way to calculate the distance from such stars to Earth. 1912: Canadian botanist and geneticist Carrie Derick was appointed a professor of morphological botany at McGill University. She was the first woman to become a full professor in any department at a Canadian university. 1913: Regina Fleszarowa became the first Polish woman to receive a PhD in natural sciences. 1913: Izabela Textorisová, the first Slovakian female botanist, published "Flora Data from the County of Turiec" in the journal Botanikai Közlemények. Her


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-8.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
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summary:
1920: Louisa Bolus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa for her contributions to botany. Over the course of her lifetime, Bolus identified and named more than 1,700 new South African plant species - more species than any other botanist in South Africa. 1921: Edelmira Inés Mórtola (1894–1973), the first woman to become a geologist in Argentina was awarded her PhD at the University of Buenos Aires, the first woman to received her doctorate there. The university named the Mórtola Mineralogy Museum in her honor. 1923: María Teresa Ferrari, an Argentine physician, earned the first diploma awarded to a woman by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris for her studies of the urinary tract. 1924: Florence Bascom became the first woman elected to the Council of the Geological Society of America. 1925: Mexican-American botanist Ynes Mexia embarked on her first botanical expedition into Mexico, collecting over 1500 plant specimens. Over the course of the next thirteen years, Mexia collected more than 145,000 specimens from Mexico, Alaska, and multiple South American countries. She discovered 500 new species. 1925: American medical scientist Florence Sabin became the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences.


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-9.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
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parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
1940: Turkish Archaeologist, Sumerologist, Assyriologist, and writer Muazzez İlmiye Çığ. Upon receiving her degree in 1940, she began a multi-decade career at Museum of the Ancient Orient, one of three such institutions comprising Istanbul Archaeology Museums, as a resident specialist in the field of cuneiform tablets, thousands of which were being stored untranslated and unclassified in the facility's archives. In the intervening years, due to her efforts in the deciphering and publication of the tablets, the museum became a Middle Eastern languages learning center attended by ancient history researchers from every part of the world. 1941: American scientist Ruth Smith Lloyd became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in anatomy. 1942: Austrian-American actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. 1942:


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-10.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
1950s: Chinese-American medical scientist Tsai-Fan Yu co-founded a clinic at Mount Sinai Medical Center for the study and treatment of gout. Working with Alexander B. Gutman, Yu established that levels of uric acid were a factor in the pain experienced by gout patients, and subsequently developed multiple effective drugs for the treatment of gout. 1950: Chinese-American particle physicist Chien-Shiung Wu proved the validity of Quantum entanglement which counters Albert Einstein's EPR Paradox and published her work on the new year of the new decade. She also proved the validity of beta decay around this time. 1950: Ghanaian, Matilda J. Clerk became the first woman in Ghana and West Africa to attend graduate school, earning a postgraduate diploma at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. 1950: Isabella Abbott became the first Native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in any science; hers was in botany. 1950: American microbiologist Esther Lederberg became the first to isolate lambda bacteriophage, a DNA virus, from Escherichia coli K-12. 1951: Ghana's Esther Afua Ocloo became the first person of African ancestry to obtain a cooking diploma from the Good Housekeeping Institute in London and to take the post-graduate Food Preservation Course at Long Ashton


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-11.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
1960: British primatologist Jane Goodall began studying chimpanzees in Tanzania; her study of them continued for over 50 years. Her observations challenged previous ideas that only humans made tools and that chimpanzees had a basically vegetarian diet. Early 1960s: German-Canadian metallurgist Ursula Franklin studied levels of radioactive isotope strontium-90 that were appearing in the teeth of children as a side effect of nuclear weapons testing fallout. Her research influenced the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. 1960s: American mathematician Katherine Johnson calculated flight paths at NASA for crewed space flights. 1961: Indian chemist Asima Chatterjee became the first female recipient of a Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. She was recognized in the Chemical Sciences category for her contributions to phytomedicine. 1962: Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. 1962: South African botanist Margaret Levyns became the first female president of the Royal Society of South Africa. 1962: French physicist Marguerite Perey became the first female Fellow elected to the Académie des Sciences. 1963: Elsa G. Vilmundardóttir became the first female Icelandic geologist, completing her studies at Stockholm University. 1963: Maria Goeppert


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-12.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
1980: Japanese geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi became the first woman elected to the Science Council of Japan. 1980: Nigerian geophysicist Deborah Ajakaiye became the first woman in any West African country to be appointed a full professor of physics. Over the course of her scientific career, she became the first female Fellow elected to the Nigerian Academy of Science, and the first female dean of science in Nigeria. 1981: Vera Rubin was the second female astronomer elected to the National Academy of Science. Beginning her academic career as the sole undergraduate in astronomy at Vassar College, Rubin went on to graduate studies at Cornell University and Georgetown University, where she observed deviations from Hubble flow in galaxies and provided evidence for the existence of galactic superclusters. 1982: Nephrologist Leah Lowenstein became the first female dean of a co-educational medical school in the United States. 1982: Janet Vida Watson FRS FGS (1923–1985) was a British geologist. She was a professor of geology at Imperial College, London. A fellow of the Royal Society, she is well known for her contribution to the understanding of the Lewisian complex and as an author and co-author of several books. In 1982 she was elected president of


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-13.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== 2000s === 2000: Venezuelan astrophysicist Kathy Vivas presented her discovery of approximately 100 "new and very distant" RR Lyrae stars, providing insight into the structure and history of the Milky Way galaxy. 2003: American geophysicist Claudia Alexander oversaw the final stages of Project Galileo, a space exploration mission that ended at the planet Jupiter. 2004: American biologist Linda B. Buck received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Richard Axel "for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system". 2006: Chilean biochemist Cecilia Hidalgo Tapia became the first woman to receive the Chilean National Prize for Natural Sciences. 2006: Chinese-American biochemist Yizhi Jane Tao led a team of researchers to become the first to map the atomic structure of Influenza A, contributing to antiviral research. 2006: Parasitologist Susan Lim became the first Malaysian scientist elected to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. 2006: Merieme Chadid became the first Moroccan person and the first female astronomer to travel to Antarctica, leading an international team of scientists in the installation of a major observatory in the South Pole. 2006: American computer scientist Frances E. Allen won the Turing Award for "pioneering contributions to the theory


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-14.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== 2010s === 2010: Marcia McNutt became the first female director of the United States Geological Survey. 2011: Kazakhstani neuroscience student and computer hacker Alexandra Elbakyan launched Sci-Hub, a website that provides users with pirated copies of scholarly scientific papers. Within five years, Sci-Hub grew to contain 60 million papers and recorded over 42 million annual downloads by users. Elbakyan was finally sued by major academic publishing company Elsevier, and Sci-Hub was subsequently taken down, but it reappeared under different domain names. 2011: Taiwanese-American astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma led a team of scientists in discovering two of the largest black holes ever observed. 2012: Computer scientist and cryptographer Shafi Goldwasser won the Turing award for her contributions to cryptography and complexity theory. 2013: Canadian genetic specialist Turi King identified the 500-year-old skeletal remains of King Richard III. 2013: Kenyan ichthyologist Dorothy Wanja Nyingi published the first guide to freshwater fish species of Kenya. 2013: Canadian teenagers Miranda Wang and Jeanny Yao jointly identify a bacteria in British Columbia's Fraser River that breaks down phthalates. 2014: Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist May-Britt Moser received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Edvard Moser and John O'Keefe, "for their discoveries of cells


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science-15.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:43.747307+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-20260505-0
summary:
=== 2020s === 2020: The Nigerian Academy of Science elected epidemiologist/parasitologist Ekanem Braide as its first female president. 2020: Brazilian Scientist and Researcher Jaqueline Goes de Jesus, sequenced COVID-19 genome in 12 hours. 2020: Biochemists Jennifer Doudna (American) and Emmanuelle Charpentier (French) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on CRISPR genome editing tool. 2020: Andrea M. Ghez received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of a supermassive compact object. 2020: German-Turkish scientist Özlem Türeci is the co-founder and chief medical officer of BioNTech. Her team developed BNT162b2 (tozinameran (INN)), commonly known as the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. 2020: British vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert leads the development and testing of a vaccine which becomes the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. 2021: Catherine Heymans was appointed as the first female Astronomer Royal for Scotland. 2022: American chemist Carolyn R. Bertozzi received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her development of Bioorthogonal chemistry. 2023: Australian geomicrobiologist Jillian Banfield became the first female recipient of the van Leeuwenhoek Medal, which she received for her studies of complex microbial communities and their interaction with the environment. 2025: South African-born physicist and space scientist Michele Dougherty is appointed Astronomer Royal for the United Kingdom, becoming


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-in-the-united-states-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science_in_the_United_States-0.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science in the United States
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science_in_the_United_States
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:44.973581+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-in-the-united-states-20260505-0
summary:
This is a timeline of women in science in the United States. == 19th Century == 1848: Maria Mitchell became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; she had discovered a new comet the year before. 1850: Margaretta Morris and Maria Mitchell became the first women elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Morris was a renowned entomologist who specialized in agricultural pests and water beetles, the latter of which was cited by Charles Darwin in his novel On the Origin of Species. 1853: Jane Colden was the only female biologist mentioned by Carl Linnaeus in his masterwork Species Plantarum. 1889: Mary Emilie Holmes became the first female Fellow of the Geological Society of America. 1889: Susan La Flesche Picotte became the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States. 1893: Florence Bascom became the second woman to earn her Ph.D. in geology in the United States, and the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Geologists consider her to be the "first woman geologist in this country [America]." 1896: Florence Bascom became the first woman to work for the United States Geological Survey. ==


id: timeline-of-women-in-science-in-the-united-states-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science_in_the_United_States-1.md
category: reference
title: Timeline of women in science in the United States
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_science_in_the_United_States
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:44.973581+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: timeline-of-women-in-science-in-the-united-states-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1980s === 1982: Nephrologist Leah Lowenstein became the first woman dean of a co-educational medical school in the United States. 1983: Barbara McClintock received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of genetic transposition; she was the first woman to receive that prize without sharing it, and the first American woman to receive any unshared Nobel Prize. 1984: Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to walk in space. 1988: Patricia Bath was the first African American woman to receive a medical patent, which was her invention of laser cataract treatment. 1988: Gertrude B. Elion received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment". === 1990s === 1990: Antonia Novello became the first woman, first person of color, and first Hispanic to serve as Surgeon General of the United States. 1991: Doris Malkin Curtis became the first woman president of the Geological Society of America. 1992: Edith M. Flanigen became the first woman awarded the Perkin Medal (widely considered the highest honor in American industrial chemistry) for her outstanding achievements in applied chemistry. The medal especially recognized her


id: al-ijliyyah-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-ʻIjliyyah-0.md
category: reference
title: Al-ʻIjliyyah
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-ʻIjliyyah
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:47.719208+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: al-ijliyyah-20260505-0
summary:
Al-ʻIjliyyah bint al-ʻIjliyy (Arabic: العجلية بنت العجلي) was a 10th-century maker of astrolabes active in Aleppo, in what is now northern Syria. She is sometimes known in modern popular literature as Mariam al-Asṭurlābiyya (Arabic: مريم الأسطرلابية) but her supposed first name 'Mariam' is not mentioned in the only known source about her life. == Life == According to ibn al-Nadim, she was the daughter of another astrolabe maker known as al-ʻIjliyy; she and her father were apprentices (tilmīthah) of an astrolabe maker from Baghdad, Nasṭūlus. Al-ʻIjliyyah manufactured astrolabes, an astronomical instrument, during the 10th century; she was employed by the first Emir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla, who reigned from 944 to 967. Beyond that information, nothing is known about her. Her supposed name, "Mariam", is not supported by sources from her time, and the phrase "al-Asturlabiyy" in the names by which she and her father are known simply means "the astrolabist", and indicates their profession; astrolabes were long known by her time. == Legacy == The main-belt asteroid 7060 Al-ʻIjliya, discovered by Henry E. Holt at Palomar Observatory in 1990, was named in her honor. The naming citation was published on 14 November 2016 (M.P.C. 102252). She inspired a character


id: christian-boyling-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Boyling-0.md
category: reference
title: Christian Boyling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Boyling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:48.883715+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: christian-boyling-20260505-0
summary:
Christian Boyling (flourished in 1669) was a scientific instrument maker. All that is known for certain about this craftsman is that he was serving as "Mechanic" to the Duke of Saxony in 1669. He designed and built a perpetual calendar held by the Museo Galileo in Florence, consisting of two overlapping brass plates sandwiching a revolving disk containing twelve enameled disks representing the months (eleven are extant) which show through a window on the front plate. The finely perforated front plate is decorated with the arms of the House of Saxony. At its center is a circle showing the hours and containing three-time disks: a moon phase night clock, a perpetual calendar, and a zodiacal calendar showing lengths of the diurnal cycle over the year. == See also == Duke of Saxony == References == == External links ==


id: f-j-duarte-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._J._Duarte-0.md
category: reference
title: F. J. Duarte
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._J._Duarte
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:50.108359+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: f-j-duarte-20260505-0
summary:
Francisco Javier "Frank" Duarte (born c. 1954) is a laser physicist and author/editor of several books on tunable lasers. His research on physical optics and laser development has won several awards, including an Engineering Excellence Award in 1995 for the invention of the N-slit laser interferometer. == Research == === Laser oscillators === Duarte and Piper introduced multiple-prism near-grazing-incidence grating cavities which originally were disclosed as copper-laser-pumped narrow-linewidth tunable laser oscillators. Subsequently, he developed narrow-linewidth multiple-prism grating configurations for high-power CO2 laser oscillators and solid-state tunable organic laser oscillators. === Intracavity dispersion theory === Duarte also conceived the multiple-prism dispersion theories for tunable narrow-linewidth laser oscillators, and multiple-prism laser pulse compression, which are summarized in several of his books. The introduction to this theory is the generalized multiple-prism dispersion equation ∇ λ ϕ 2 , m = H 2 , m ∇ λ n m + ( k 1 , m k 2 , m ) − 1 ( H 1 , m ∇ λ n m ± ∇ λ ϕ 2 , ( m − 1 ) ) {\displaystyle \nabla _{\lambda }\phi _{2,m}=H_{2,m}\nabla _{\lambda }n_{m}+(k_{1,m}k_{2,m})^{-1}{\bigg (}H_{1,m}\nabla _{\lambda }n_{m}\pm \nabla _{\lambda }\phi _{2,(m-1)}{\bigg )}} which has found a variety of


id: f-j-duarte-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._J._Duarte-1.md
category: reference
title: F. J. Duarte
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._J._Duarte
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:50.108359+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: f-j-duarte-20260505-0
summary:
=== American phase === In 1983, Duarte traveled to the United States to assume a physics professorship at the University of Alabama. In 1985 he joined the Imaging Research Laboratories, at the Eastman Kodak Company, where he remained until 2006. While at Kodak he was chairman of Lasers '87 and subsequent conferences in this series. Duarte has had a long association with the US Army Missile Command and the US Army Aviation and Missile Command, where he has participated (with R. W. Conrad and T. S. Taylor) in directed energy research. He was elected Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics in 1987) and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 1993. In 1995, he received the Engineering Excellence Award for "the invention of an electrooptic coherent interferometer for direct applications to imaging diagnostics of transparent surfaces, such as photographic film and film substrates. and in 2016, he was awarded the David Richardson Medal for "seminal contributions to the physics and technology of multiple-prism arrays for narrow-linewidth tunable laser oscillators and laser pulse compression," from the Optical Society. === Personal === Duarte was born in Santiago, Chile, and traveled to Sydney, Australia, as a teenager. There, he lived


id: johann-michael-ekling-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Michael_Ekling-0.md
category: reference
title: Johann Michael Ekling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Michael_Ekling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:51.261055+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: johann-michael-ekling-20260505-0
summary:
Johann Michael Ekling (also spelt Eckling) (8 August 1795, Vienna – 30 March 1876, Vienna) was an Austrian mechanic and inventor of scientific apparatuses and instruments. == Life == Johann Michael Ekling was the posthumous son of the army surgeon Joseph Ekling. His mother was Anna Maria Euphrosina Ekling née Spitzbarth. He was born in the suburb of Wieden (then a part of Vienna). At the age of 32 he married Theresia Schwarz, with whom he had five sons and a daughter. In the years to follow, he cooperated closely with mathematics and physics professors Andreas von Baumgartner (German Wikipedia) and Andreas von Ettingshausen of the University of Vienna. He produced artificial magnets on behalf of Baumgartner and one of the first photographic apparatuses in Austria (1839) following instructions by Ettingshausen, who had worked with Daguerre. By 1844 he is referred to as a "university mechanic". An announcement in a paper describes his range of products as follows: "[Ekling] makes all sorts of mathematical and physical instruments and apparatuses, air pumps with glass barrel chambers, travel barometers, goniometers, chemical and mineralogical apparatuses". His multiplicator was used for the analysis of mineral waters among other things and praised for its sensitivity.


id: carl-gunnar-engstr-m-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gunnar_Engström-0.md
category: reference
title: Carl Gunnar Engström
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gunnar_Engström
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:52.416806+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: carl-gunnar-engstr-m-20260505-0
summary:
Carl Gunnar David Engström (1 September 1912 – 9 January 1987) was a Swedish physician and innovator. He is the inventor of the first intermittent positive pressure mechanical ventilator that could deliver breaths of controllable volume and frequency and also deliver inhalation anesthetics. The Engström150 Respirator (EngströmUniversal Respirator) began series production in 1954. The basic principle of the mechanical ventilator is still the same today, but a technological leap was made with the Siemens-Elema servo fan in the 1970s. == Life == Engström was born on 1 September 1912 in Oskarshamn to Carl Johan Engström and Judith Ringberg. He obtained is degree in medicine in 1941. He worked from 1941 at Stockholm Hospital for Infectious Diseases and started to work in the Swedish Air Force in 1956. He got his PhD in medicine at Uppsala University in 1963 with a thesis entitled The clinical application of prolonged controlled ventilation: with special reference to a method developed by the author. Before the invention of Engström, the only available respirator was the iron lung. It is a negative pressure ventilator, a mechanical respirator which encloses most of a person's body, and varies the air pressure in the enclosed space, to stimulate breathing.


id: gualterus-arsenius-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gualterus_Arsenius-0.md
category: reference
title: Gualterus Arsenius
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gualterus_Arsenius
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:53.579060+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gualterus-arsenius-20260505-0
summary:
Gualterus Arsenius (c. 1530 – c. 1580), also known as Gualterius Arsenius, Gautier Arsens, and Walter Arsenius, was a Flemish scientific instrument maker. He was the nephew of the mathematician and cosmographer Gemma Frisius (1508–1555), and he worked in Louvain from 1555 to about 1570 (his presence there is still documented in 1579). The most prominent member of a family of scientific instrument makers, Arsenius produced exquisitely crafted and highly accurate devices such as armillary spheres, astrolabes, astronomical annuli (rings) and sundials, whose designs reveal the influence of his uncle and Gerard Mercator (1512–1594). == References == == External links == "Museo Galileo - object description".


id: pierre-louis-guinand-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Louis_Guinand-0.md
category: reference
title: Pierre-Louis Guinand
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Louis_Guinand
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:55.695857+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pierre-louis-guinand-20260505-0
summary:
Pierre-Louis Guinand (1748–1824) was a Swiss lens maker. who in the late 1700s came up with a breakthrough for making better quality and larger glass, and in time went on to teach a young Fraunhofer at Joseph von Utzschneider's (1763-1840) glassworks, and eventually started his own optical glass works. Guinand would supply glass for the Paris Observatory telescopes and also Cauchoix. He was a pioneer in the manufacture of optical glass for microscopes, telescopes, glasses and other optical instruments. == See also == Markree Observatory#Pierre-Louis Guinand == References == == Bibliography == King, Henry C. (1979). The History of the Telescope. New York, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. pp. 176–9, 188–9, 191–2, 196, 204, 252. ISBN 978-0-486-23893-7.


id: johannes-hevelius-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Hevelius-0.md
category: reference
title: Johannes Hevelius
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Hevelius
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:56.877752+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: johannes-hevelius-20260505-0
summary:
Johannes Hevelius (in German also known as Hevel; Polish: Jan Heweliusz; (1611-01-28)28 January 1611 – 28 January 1687) was a councillor and chairman of the city council of the Old Town, Gdańsk (in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth). As an astronomer, he gained a reputation as "the founder of lunar topography", and described ten new constellations, seven of which are still used by astronomers. == Etymology == According to the Polish Academy of Sciences (1975) the origin of the name goes back to the surname Hawke, a historical alternative spelling for the English word hawk, which changed into Hawelke or Hawelecke. In Poland he is known as Jan Heweliusz. Other versions of the name include Hewel, Hevel, Hevelke or Hoefel, Höwelcke, Höfelcke. According to Feliks Bentkowski (1814), during his early years he also signed as Hoefelius. Along with the Latinized version of his name, Ludwig Günther-Fürstenwalde (1903) also reports Hevelius's signature as Johannes Höffelius Dantiscanus in 1631 and Hans Höwelcke in 1639. == Early life == Hevelius's father was Abraham Hewelke (1576–1649), his mother Kordula Hecker (1576–1655). They were German-speaking Lutherans, wealthy brewing merchants of Bohemian origin. As a young boy, Hevelius was sent to Gądecz (Gondecz) where he studied the Polish


id: johannes-hevelius-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Hevelius-1.md
category: reference
title: Johannes Hevelius
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Hevelius
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:56.877752+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: johannes-hevelius-20260505-0
summary:
In late 1683, in commemoration of the victory of Christian forces led by Polish King John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna, he invented and named the constellation Scutum Sobiescianum (Sobieski's Shield), now called Scutum. This constellation first occurred publicly in his star atlas Firmamentum Sobiescianum, which was printed in his own house at lavish expense, and he himself engraved many of the printing plates. His health had suffered from the shock of the 1679 fire and he died on his 76th birthday, 28 January 1687. Hevelius was buried in St. Catherine's Church in his hometown. Descendants of Hevelius live in Urzędów in Poland where they support local astronomy enthusiasts. == Works == Selenographia (1647) De nativa Saturni facie ejusque varis Phasibus (1656) Historiola Mirae (1662), in which he named the periodic variable star Omicron Ceti "Mira", or "the Wonderful" Mercurius in Sole visus Gedani (1662), principally on the transit of Mercury, but containing chapters on many other observations Prodromus cometicus (1665) Cometographia (1668) Machina coelestis (first part, 1673), containing a description of his instruments; the second part (1679) is extremely rare, nearly the whole issue having perished in the conflagration of 1679. Hevelius's description of his "naked eye"


id: hipparchus-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-0.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
Hipparchus (; Greek: Ἵππαρχος, Hípparkhos; c. 190 – c. 120 BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus was born in Nicaea, Bithynia, and probably died on the island of Rhodes, Greece. He is known to have been a working astronomer between 162 and 127 BC. Hipparchus is considered the greatest ancient astronomical observer and, by some, the greatest overall astronomer of antiquity. He was the first whose quantitative and accurate models for the motion of the Sun and Moon survive. For this he certainly made use of the observations and perhaps the mathematical techniques accumulated over centuries by the Babylonians and by Meton of Athens (fifth century BC), Timocharis, Aristyllus, Aristarchus of Samos, and Eratosthenes, among others. He developed trigonometry and constructed trigonometric tables, and he solved several problems of spherical trigonometry. His other reputed achievements include the discovery and measurement of Earth's precession, the compilation of the first known comprehensive star catalog from the western world, and possibly the invention of the astrolabe, as well as of the armillary sphere that he may have used in


id: hipparchus-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-1.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
== Geometry, trigonometry and other mathematical techniques == Hipparchus was recognized as the first mathematician known to have possessed a trigonometric table, which he needed when computing the eccentricity of the orbits of the Moon and Sun. He tabulated values for the chord function, which for a central angle in a circle gives the length of the straight line segment between the points where the angle intersects the circle. He may have computed this for a circle with a circumference of 21,600 units and a radius (rounded) of 3,438 units; this circle has a unit length for each arcminute along its perimeter. (This was “proven” by Toomer, but he later “cast doubt“ upon his earlier affirmation. Other authors have argued that a circle of radius 3,600 units may instead have been used by Hipparchus.) He tabulated the chords for angles with increments of 7.5°. In modern terms, the chord subtended by a central angle in a circle of given radius R equals R times twice the sine of half of the angle, i.e.: chord ⁡ θ = 2 R ⋅ sin ⁡ 1 2 θ {\displaystyle \operatorname {chord} \theta =2R\cdot \sin {\tfrac {1}{2}}\theta } The now-lost work in which Hipparchus


id: hipparchus-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-2.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
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parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
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=== Orbit of the Moon === It had been known for a long time that the motion of the Moon is not uniform: its speed varies. This is called its anomaly and it repeats with its own period; the anomalistic month. The Chaldeans took account of this arithmetically, and used a table giving the daily motion of the Moon according to the date within a long period. However, the Greeks preferred to think in geometrical models of the sky. At the end of the third century BC, Apollonius of Perga had proposed two models for lunar and planetary motion: In the first, the Moon would move uniformly along a circle, but the Earth would be eccentric, i.e., at some distance of the center of the circle. So the apparent angular speed of the Moon (and its distance) would vary. The Moon would move uniformly (with some mean motion in anomaly) on a secondary circular orbit, called an epicycle that would move uniformly (with some mean motion in longitude) over the main circular orbit around the Earth, called deferent; see deferent and epicycle. Apollonius demonstrated that these two models were in fact mathematically equivalent. However, all this was theory and had


id: hipparchus-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-3.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
Before Hipparchus, Meton, Euctemon, and their pupils at Athens had made a solstice observation (i.e., timed the moment of the summer solstice) on 27 June 432 BC (proleptic Julian calendar). Aristarchus of Samos is said to have done so in 280 BC, and Hipparchus also had an observation by Archimedes. He observed the summer solstices in 146 and 135 BC both accurately to a few hours, but observations of the moment of equinox were simpler, and he made twenty during his lifetime. Ptolemy gives an extensive discussion of Hipparchus's work on the length of the year in the Almagest III.1, and quotes many observations that Hipparchus made or used, spanning 162–128 BC, including an equinox timing by Hipparchus (at 24 March 146 BC at dawn) that differs by 5 hours from the observation made on Alexandria's large public equatorial ring that same day (at 1 hour before noon). Ptolemy claims his solar observations were on a transit instrument set in the meridian. At the end of his career, Hipparchus wrote a book entitled Peri eniausíou megéthous ("On the Length of the Year") regarding his results. The established value for the tropical year, introduced by Callippus in or before 330 BC


id: hipparchus-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-4.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
Hipparchus also undertook to find the distances and sizes of the Sun and the Moon, in the now-lost work On Sizes and Distances (Ancient Greek: Περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων Peri megethon kai apostematon). His work is mentioned in Ptolemy's Almagest V.11, and in a commentary thereon by Pappus; Theon of Smyrna (2nd century) also mentions the work, under the title On Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon. Hipparchus measured the apparent diameters of the Sun and Moon with his diopter. Like others before and after him, he found that the Moon's size varies as it moves on its (eccentric) orbit, but he found no perceptible variation in the apparent diameter of the Sun. He found that at the mean distance of the Moon, the Sun and Moon had the same apparent diameter; at that distance, the Moon's diameter fits 650 times into the circle, i.e., the mean apparent diameters are 360⁄650 = 0°33′14″. Like others before and after him, he also noticed that the Moon has a noticeable parallax, i.e., that it appears displaced from its calculated position (compared to the Sun or stars), and the difference is greater when closer to the horizon. He knew that this


id: hipparchus-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-5.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
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parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
=== Eclipses === Pliny (Naturalis Historia II.X) tells us that Hipparchus demonstrated that lunar eclipses can occur five months apart, and solar eclipses seven months (instead of the usual six months); and the Sun can be hidden twice in thirty days, but as seen by different nations. Ptolemy discussed this a century later at length in Almagest VI.6. The geometry, and the limits of the positions of Sun and Moon when a solar or lunar eclipse is possible, are explained in Almagest VI.5. Hipparchus apparently made similar calculations. The result that two solar eclipses can occur one month apart is important, because this can not be based on observations: one is visible on the Northern Hemisphere and the other on the Southern Hemisphere—as Pliny indicates—and the latter was inaccessible to the Greek. Prediction of a solar eclipse, i.e., exactly when and where it will be visible, requires a solid lunar theory and proper treatment of the lunar parallax. Hipparchus must have been the first to be able to do this. A rigorous treatment requires spherical trigonometry, thus those who remain certain that Hipparchus lacked it must speculate that he may have made do with planar approximations. He may have discussed


id: hipparchus-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-6.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
Hipparchus also constructed a celestial globe depicting the constellations, based on his observations. His interest in the fixed stars may have been inspired by the observation of a supernova (according to Pliny), or by his discovery of precession, according to Ptolemy, who says that Hipparchus could not reconcile his data with earlier observations made by Timocharis and Aristillus. For more information see Discovery of precession. In Raphael's painting The School of Athens, Hipparchus may be depicted holding his celestial globe, as the representative figure for astronomy. It is not certain that the figure is meant to represent him. Previously, Eudoxus of Cnidus in the fourth century BC had described the stars and constellations in two books called Phaenomena and Entropon. Aratus wrote a poem called Phaenomena or Arateia based on Eudoxus's work. Hipparchus wrote a commentary on the Arateia—his only preserved work—which contains many stellar positions and times for rising, culmination, and setting of the constellations, and these are likely to have been based on his own measurements. According to Roman sources, Hipparchus made his measurements with a scientific instrument and he obtained the positions of roughly 850 stars. Pliny the Elder writes in book II, 24–26 of his Natural


id: hipparchus-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-7.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
Delambre in his Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne (1817) concluded that Hipparchus knew and used the equatorial coordinate system, a conclusion challenged by Otto Neugebauer in his History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (1975). Hipparchus seems to have used a mix of ecliptic coordinates and equatorial coordinates: in his commentary on Eudoxus he provides stars' polar distance (equivalent to the declination in the equatorial system), right ascension (equatorial), longitude (ecliptic), polar longitude (hybrid), but not celestial latitude. This opinion was confirmed by the careful investigation of Hoffmann who independently studied the material, potential sources, techniques and results of Hipparchus and reconstructed his celestial globe and its making. As with most of his work, Hipparchus's star catalog was adopted and perhaps expanded by Ptolemy, who has (since Brahe in 1598) been accused by some of fraud for stating (Syntaxis, book 7, chapter 4) that he observed all 1025 stars—critics claim that, for almost every star, he used Hipparchus's data and precessed it to his own epoch 2+2⁄3 centuries later by adding 2°40′ to the longitude, using an erroneously small precession constant of 1° per century. This claim is highly exaggerated because it applies modern standards of citation to an ancient author. True is


id: hipparchus-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-8.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
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parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
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== Geography == Hipparchus's treatise Against the Geography of Eratosthenes in three books is not preserved. Most of our knowledge of it comes from Strabo, according to whom Hipparchus thoroughly and often unfairly criticized Eratosthenes, mainly for internal contradictions and inaccuracy in determining positions of geographical localities. Hipparchus insists that a geographic map must be based only on astronomical measurements of latitudes and longitudes and triangulation for finding unknown distances. In geographic theory and methods Hipparchus introduced three main innovations. He was the first to use the grade grid, to determine geographic latitude from star observations, and not only from the Sun's altitude, a method known long before him, and to suggest that geographic longitude could be determined by means of simultaneous observations of lunar eclipses in distant places. In the practical part of his work, the so-called "table of climata", Hipparchus listed latitudes for several tens of localities. In particular, he improved Eratosthenes's values for the latitudes of Athens, Sicily, and southern extremity of India. In calculating latitudes of climata (latitudes correlated with the length of the longest solstitial day), Hipparchus used an unexpectedly accurate value for the obliquity of the ecliptic, 23°40′ (the actual value in the second


id: hipparchus-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus-9.md
category: reference
title: Hipparchus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:58.068622+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: hipparchus-20260505-0
summary:
== References == == Works cited == Berger, Ernst Hugo, ed. (1869). Die geographischen Fragmente des Hipparch [The Geographical Fragments of Hipparchus] (in German). Leipzig: Teubner. OCLC 981902787. Cusinato, Bruna; Vanin, Gabriele, eds. (2022) [2013]. Commentari di Ipparco ai Fenomeni di Arato ed Eudosso [Hipparchus' Commentaries on the Phenomena of Aratus and Eudoxus] (in Italian). Translation by Bruna Cusinato; Introduction and astronomical commentary by Gabriele Vanin (3rd ed.). arXiv:2206.08243. Dicks, D. R., ed. (1960). The Geographical Fragments of Hipparchus. University of London classical studies. London: Athlone Press. OCLC 490381. Hoffmann, Susanne M. (2017). Hipparchs Himmelsglobus: Ein Bindeglied in der babylonisch-griechischen Astrometrie? [Hipparchus' Celestial Globe: A Link in Babylonian-Greek Astrometry?] (in German). Wiesbaden: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-18683-8. ISBN 978-3-658-18683-8. Jones, Alexander (2001). "Hipparchus". In Murdin, Paul (ed.). Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Bristol: Institute of Physics Pub. ISBN 978-0-333-75088-9. OCLC 1193410336. Manitius, Karl, ed. (1894). Hipparchou Tōn Aratou kai Eudoxou Phainomenōn exēgēseōs vivlia tria = Hipparchi in Arati et Eudoxi Phaenomena commentariorum libri tres [Hipparchus' Commentaries on the Phenomena of Aratus and Eudoxus in three books] (in Ancient Greek and Latin). Leipzig: Teubner. OCLC 1127047584. Neugebauer, Otto E. (1975). A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Berlin: Springer. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.


id: fran-ois-antoine-jecker-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François-Antoine_Jecker-0.md
category: reference
title: François-Antoine Jecker
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François-Antoine_Jecker
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:35:59.288765+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: fran-ois-antoine-jecker-20260505-0
summary:
François-Antoine Jecker (November 14, 1765 – September 30, 1834) was a French scientific-instrument maker. Trained in London under Jesse Ramsden, he established a workshop in Paris that produced astronomical, optical, and measuring instruments. == Life and work == Jecker was born in Hirtzfelden near Colmar, Haut-Rhin, the son of a farmer. His brother Laurenz Jecker (1769–1834) became a needle manufacturer. He apprenticed with a watchmaker in Besançon where two uncles worked as musicians. He went to London in 1786 and trained with Jesse Ramsden and returned to Paris in 1792 where he started a workshop to manufacture astronomical instruments and precision measuring instruments. He was joined by his brothers Gervais and Protais and by 1800 he had nearly 40 employees. == References == == External links == Jecker Museum in Hirtzfelden Drum microscopes made by Jecker


id: abu-mahmud-khujandi-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu-Mahmud_Khujandi-0.md
category: reference
title: Abu-Mahmud Khujandi
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu-Mahmud_Khujandi
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:00.430468+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: abu-mahmud-khujandi-20260505-0
summary:
Abu Mahmud Hamid ibn al-Khidr al-Khujandi (known as Abu Mahmood Khujandi, al-khujandi or Khujandi, Persian: ابومحمود خجندی, c. 940 – 1000) was a Transoxanian astronomer and mathematician. He was born in Khujand (now part of Tajikistan) and lived in the late 10th century. He helped build an observatory, near the city of Ray (near today's Tehran), in Iran. == Astronomy == Khujandi worked under the patronage of the Buwayhid Amirs at the observatory near Ray, Iran. There he is known to have constructed the first huge mural sextant in 994 AD, intended to determine the Earth's axial tilt ("obliquity of the ecliptic") to high precision. He determined the axial tilt to be 23°32'19" for the year 994 AD. He noted that measurements by earlier astronomers had found higher values (Indians: 24°; Ptolemy 23° 51') and thus discovered that the axial tilt is not constant but is in fact (currently) decreasing. His measurement of the axial tilt was however about 2 minutes too small, probably due to his heavy instrument settling over the course of the observations. == Mathematics == Khujandi stated a special case of Fermat's Last Theorem for n = 3, but his attempted proof of the theorem was


id: lala-bulhomal-lahori-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lala_Bulhomal_Lahori-0.md
category: reference
title: Lala Bulhomal Lahori
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lala_Bulhomal_Lahori
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:01.561097+00:00
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parent: lala-bulhomal-lahori-20260505-0
summary:
Lāla Bulhomal (also Balhumal) Lāhorī was an Indian metallurgist and instrument maker from the city of Lahore in modern Pakistan. He was famous for crafting ornate astrolabes and celestial globes made in the tradition of Indo-Persian instruments. The toponymic surname Lāhorī indicates that he came from Lahore, while the prefix Lāla is an honorific indicating social status. His instruments, likely made between 1839 and 1851, were constructed mainly of brass, with inscriptions in Sanskrit, Devanagari, Arabic, and Persian. He is known to have produced at least twenty-eight such instruments. Forty-five instruments produced by Bulhomal and his associates are known to exist in museums and collections around the world; an 1849 astrolabe crafted for Sir Henry Miers Elliot, an officer of the East India Company, is now in the Science Museum, London. Bulhomal's patron was Nihal Singh Ahluwalia, the Raja of Kapurthala (1837–1852), and his apprentices included Ghulām Qādir Kapūrthalī and Ustād Pīr Bakhsh Lāhorī. He may also have been associated with contemporary instrument maker Joshi Dharam Chand. Bulhomal's celestial globes were made both for decorative and instructive uses. The stars and constellations on these globes are labeled based on Arabic and Persian versions from Ptolemaic traditions. These seamless and hollow


id: paul-marmet-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marmet-0.md
category: reference
title: Paul Marmet
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Marmet
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:02.820714+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: paul-marmet-20260505-0
summary:
Paul Marmet, (20 May 1932 – 20 May 2005) was a Canadian physicist, inventor, author, and professor at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, who served as the President of the Canadian Association of Physicists. Marmet is notable for developing a novel high-resolution electron velocity selector, a scientific instrument which became widely used by scientists around the world. == Inventions == Early in his career, Marmet developed a high-resolution electron selector with his mentor Larkin Kerwin, a scientific instrument for studying ionic electronic states. Along with a mass spectrometer Marmet developed, the novel instrument had an energy resolution superior to then-available instruments and has been used widely by scientists studying electron scattering, which led to the discovery of enhanced vibrational excitation in nitrogen and of Feshbach resonances. == Research == Using the Marmet-Kerwin electron selector, Marmet and his research group discovered atomic and molecular states excited by electron impact but not by photons, such as doubly excited states that disobey spectroscopic selection rules. The group also found negative-ion resonances in which the incident electron temporarily attaches to the target atom or molecule. == Career == After receiving his physics BSc in 1956 and DSc in 1960 from Laval University and


id: nastulus-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastulus-0.md
category: reference
title: Nastulus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nastulus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:04.021468+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: nastulus-20260505-0
summary:
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Nasṭūlus (Arabic: محمد بن عبد الله نسطولس; known as Nasṭūlus, but also referred to as Basṭūlus) was a 10th-century astronomer. He is known for making one of the oldest surviving astrolabes, dated 927/928, as well as of another partially preserved astrolabe that bears his signature, "Made by Nasṭūlus in the year 315" of hijra (925). Very little is known about Nasṭūlus. His full name, based on a testimony given by a contemporary astronomer, Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi, indicates that he was a Muslim, but some modern historians have suggested that his foreign last name may indicate that he was Greek or Nestorian. == References == == Sources == Dodge, Bayard (1970). The Fihrist of Al-Nadīm: A Tenth-century Survey of Muslim Culture. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-02925-4. Rius, Mònica (2007). "Nasṭūlus: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh". In Thomas Hockey; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 822–3. ISBN 9780387310220. (PDF version) King, David A. (1999). World Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance of Mecca: Examples of Innovation and Tradition in Islamic Science. Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-11367-1. == Further reading == Websites "A remarkable mathematical and astronomical brass instrument signed by Nastulus, one of


id: friedrich-adolph-nobert-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Adolph_Nobert-0.md
category: reference
title: Friedrich Adolph Nobert
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Adolph_Nobert
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:05.169864+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: friedrich-adolph-nobert-20260505-0
summary:
Friedrich Adolph Nobert (17 January 1806 – 21 February 1881) was a Pomeranian microscope designer who pioneered the use of diamond-ruled microscope slide gratings for accurate measurements. This extended further to diffraction gratings for use in spectrometers and the measurement of the solar spectrum by Anders Jonas Ångström which was published in 1868 made use of gratings made by Nobert. The finest lines were found to be at a distance of 0.1128 μm. == Biography == Nobert was born in Barth on the Baltic coast, where his father Johann Friedrich Nobert was a clockmaker. He was known as Fritz, and being the eldest son, he was expected to receive a technical education and continue as a clockmaker. A younger brother studied theology and became a pastor. He found his schooling insufficient for the clockmaking work and tried to study arithmetic, geometry and trigonometry on his own. He made a watch that could measure seconds, and corrected for temperature and sent it for an exhibition in Berlin in 1827. This was examined by astronomer Johann Franz Encke who wrote to Nobert and encouraged him to check its accuracy with astronomical measurements. This required a telescope and not able to purchase one,


id: pedro-nunes-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Nunes-0.md
category: reference
title: Pedro Nunes
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Nunes
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:06.341524+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pedro-nunes-20260505-0
summary:
Pedro Nunes (Portuguese: [ˈpeðɾu ˈnunɨʃ]; Latin: Petrus Nonius; 1502 – 11 August 1578) was a Portuguese mathematician, cosmographer, and professor, probably from a New Christian (of Jewish origin) family. Considered one of the greatest mathematicians of his time, Nunes is best known for being the first to approach navigation and cartography with mathematical tools. Among other accomplishments, he was the first to propose the idea of a loxodrome (a rhumb line), and was the inventor of several measuring devices, including the nonius (from which the Vernier scale was derived), named after his Latin surname. == Life == Little is known about Nunes' early education, life or family background, only that he was born in Alcácer do Sal in Portugal, his origins are possibly Jewish and that his grandchildren spent a few years behind bars after they were accused by the Portuguese Inquisition of professing and secretly practicing Judaism. He studied at the University of Salamanca, maybe from 1517 until 1522. He returned to Lisbon c. 1529 and started teaching at the university. He continued his medical studies but held various teaching posts within the University of Lisbon, including Moral, Philosophy, Logic and Metaphysics. He obtained his doctorate in medicine in


id: pedro-nunes-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Nunes-1.md
category: reference
title: Pedro Nunes
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Nunes
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:06.341524+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pedro-nunes-20260505-0
summary:
Nunes worked on several practical nautical problems concerning course correction as well as attempting to develop more accurate devices to determine a ship's position. He created the nonius to improve the accuracy of instruments (such as the quadrant). This device consisted of a number of concentric circles traced on the instrument, with each successive circle divided into one fewer division than the adjacent outer circle.Thus, the outermost quadrant would comprise 90° divided into 90 equal parts; the next inner quadrant would have 89 divisions, the next 88, and so on. When an angle was measured, the circle and the division on which the alidade fell was noted. A table was then consulted to provide the exact measure. The nonius was used by Tycho Brahe, who considered it too complex. The method inspired improved systems by Christopher Clavius and Jacob Curtius. These were eventually improved further by Pierre Vernier in 1631, which reduced the nonius to the Vernier scale that includes two scales, one of them fixed and the other movable. Vernier himself used to say that his invention was a perfected nonius and for a long time it was known as the “nonius”, even in France. In some languages, the


id: list-of-developers-of-optical-scientific-equipment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_developers_of_optical_scientific_equipment-0.md
category: reference
title: List of developers of optical scientific equipment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_developers_of_optical_scientific_equipment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:07.567295+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: list-of-developers-of-optical-scientific-equipment-20260505-0
summary:
A developer of optical scientific equipment is an individual who makes and adjusts optical aids for scientific purposes, including telescope optics and microscope lenses. == Telescope developers == James Gilbert Baker Denis Albert Bardou John A. Brashear Laurent Cassegrain Henri Chrétien Alvan Clark John Dollond Charles Wesley Elmer and Richard Scott Perkin Galileo Galilei James Gregory John Hadley Chester Moore Hall Robert Hooke Johannes Kepler Frederick James Hargreaves Christiaan Huygens Hans Lippershey Raymond Augustin Mailhat Dmitri Dmitrievich Maksutov James Henry Marriott Jacob Metius Isaac Newton Georg Simon Plössl Russell W. Porter Jesse Ramsden George Willis Ritchey Christoph Scheiner Bernhard Schmidt James Short See also Timeline of telescope technology and List of astronomical instrument makers == Microscope developers == Ernst Karl Abbe Denis Albert Bardou Christopher Cock Siegfried Czapski Cornelius Drebbel Galileo Galilei Robert Hooke Christiaan Huygens Carl Kellner Anton van Leeuwenhoek Moritz von Rohr See also Timeline of microscope technology == References ==


id: simon-pl-ssl-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Plössl-0.md
category: reference
title: Simon Plössl
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Plössl
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:08.713363+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: simon-pl-ssl-20260505-0
summary:
Simon Plössl (September 19, 1794, Vienna – January 29, 1868, Vienna) was an Austrian optical instrument maker. Initially trained at the Voigtländer company, he set up his own workshop in 1823. His major achievement at the time was the improvement of the achromatic microscope objective. Today he is best known for the eponymous Plössl telescope eyepiece, which follows his 1860 design and has been used extensively by amateur astronomers since the 1980s. == External links == Instruments by Simon Georg Plössl 10 Plössl, Georg Simon A short biography and some instruments from the Hellenic Archives of Scientific Instruments Early large microscope by Simon Plössl, made in 1840 Early travel microscope by Simon Plössl, made in 1845 Plössl Non-inclining Large Microscope, c. 1845


id: ivan-puluj-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Puluj-0.md
category: reference
title: Ivan Puluj
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Puluj
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:09.885912+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ivan-puluj-20260505-0
summary:
Ivan Pavlovych Puluj (Ukrainian: Іван Павлович Пулюй, pronounced [iˈwɑn pʊˈlʲuj]; German: Johann Puluj; 2 February 1845 – 31 January 1918) was a Ukrainian physicist and inventor known for his early research into X-rays. His contributions were largely neglected until the end of the 20th century. == Biography == Puluj was born on 2 February 1845 in Hrymailiv, which was then part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria in the Austrian Empire. He was the son of Pavlo Puluj and Xenia née Burshtynska (Ukrainian: син Павла́ Пулю́я i Ксенiї ур. Бурштинської). The family's original surname was Pulguy until 1861. His father, Pavlo, was a landowner who served as burgomaster of Hrymayliv from 1861 to 1865. Ivan grew up in Hrymayliv, and attended primary school in the village. He then attended the gymnasium at Ternopil, where he became a co-founder and active member of the Ukrainian student society Hromada. He graduated with honors from Theological Faculty of the University of Vienna (1869), later also from the Department of Philosophy (1872). During his time there, he was the co-founder and later head of the Sich movement. After graduating, he worked as an assistant to the University of Vienna's experimental physics department. In


id: radiguet-et-fils-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiguet_et_Fils-0.md
category: reference
title: Radiguet et Fils
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiguet_et_Fils
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:11.718314+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: radiguet-et-fils-20260505-0
summary:
Radiguet et Fils (stylized Radiguet & Fils; English: "Radiguet and Son") was a French manufacturer of precision scientific instruments, established in 1805. According to a history of the firm published in L'Industrie parisienne in 1888, the company was founded in 1805 by a Madame Collot. Ownership then passed to Louis Chevalier (c.1778-1848), younger brother of Vincent Chevalier. In 1830, Chevalier left the company to Honoré-Marie Radiguet (1791-1867), who had once worked as Chevalier's apprentice, and who had made a name for himself in the production of optical equipment, especially parallel mirrors [glaces parallèles] for astronomy and maritime navigation. Under the management of Honoré-Marie's son, Antoine-Honoré Radiguet (1824-1887), the company's purview expanded to include barometers, thermometers, and other scientific equipment. Antoine-Honoré was president of the Trade Association of Precision Instruments [chambre syndicale des instruments de précision]. Antoine-Honoré's financial investment in the application of parallel mirrors to daguerreotype photography lost the company significant sums, as the problem of image reversal which the introduction of his mirrors was supposed to solve was solved by other means. Antoine-Honoré and his son Arthur (1850-1905) marketed their company to a broader public through engineering and photography workshops, as well as through a line of scientific toys


id: horace-b-n-dict-de-saussure-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Bénédict_de_Saussure-0.md
category: reference
title: Horace Bénédict de Saussure
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Bénédict_de_Saussure
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:12.944546+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: horace-b-n-dict-de-saussure-20260505-0
summary:
Horace Bénédict de Saussure (French: [ɔʁas benedikt də sosyʁ]; 17 February 1740 – 22 January 1799) was a Genevan geologist, meteorologist, physicist, mountaineer and Alpine explorer (specifically the Mont Blanc massif), often called the founder of alpinism and modern meteorology, and considered to be the first person to build a successful solar oven. == Early life and education == Horace Bénédict de Saussure was born 17 February 1740, in Conches, near Geneva, in the Republic of Geneva. Saussure's family were Genevan patricians. His father, Nicolas de Saussure, was an agriculturist, agronomist and author. Because his mother was "sickly", Saussure was brought up by his mother's sister and her husband the Genevan naturalist Charles Bonnet, who sparked Horace-Bénédict's early interest in botany. After attending the "Collège" of his hometown, he completed his studies at the Geneva Academy in 1759 with a dissertation on heat (Dissertatio physica de igne). == Career == In 1760, Saussure made the first of numerous trips to Chamonix valley, to collect plant specimens for the noted Swiss anatomist, physiologist and botanist Albrecht von Haller. In 1760, Saussure offered a reward to the first man to reach the summit of Mont Blanc. Inspired by his uncle, Charles Bonnet,


id: horace-b-n-dict-de-saussure-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Bénédict_de_Saussure-1.md
category: reference
title: Horace Bénédict de Saussure
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Bénédict_de_Saussure
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:12.944546+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: horace-b-n-dict-de-saussure-20260505-0
summary:
All of Saussure's observations and experiments from seven Alpine journeys were summed up and published in four quarto volumes, under the general title of Voyages dans les Alpes (1779 – 1796) (There was an octavo issue in eight volumes, issued from 1780 to 1796). The non-scientific portions of the work were first published in 1834, and often since, as Partie pittoresque des ouvrages de M. de Saussure. The Alps were the focus of Saussure's investigations. He saw them as the grand key to the true theory of the earth, and they gave him the opportunity to study geology in a manner never previously attempted. Saussure closely examined the inclination of the strata, the nature of the rocks, the fossils and the minerals. Saussure had a thorough knowledge of the chemistry of the day and applied it to the study of minerals, water and air. His geological observations made him a firm believer in the Neptunian theory: He regarded all rocks and minerals as deposited from aqueous solution or suspension, and attached much importance to the study of meteorological conditions. His work with rocks, erosion, and fossils also led him to believe that the earth was much older than generally thought


id: horace-b-n-dict-de-saussure-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Bénédict_de_Saussure-2.md
category: reference
title: Horace Bénédict de Saussure
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Bénédict_de_Saussure
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:12.944546+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: horace-b-n-dict-de-saussure-20260505-0
summary:
== References == Lives by J Senebier (Geneva, 1801), by Cuvier in the Biographie universelle, and by A. P. de Candolle in Décade philosophique DeCandolle, A.P. (1799). "XVII. Biographical memoirs of M. de Saussure". Philosophical Magazine. Series 1. 4 (13): 96–102. doi:10.1080/14786449908677038. articles by E. Naville in the Bibliothèque universelle (March, April, May 1883) chaps. v.-viii. of Ch. Durier's Le Mont-Blanc (Paris, various editions between 1877 and 1897). This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Coolidge, William Augustus Brevoort (1911). "Saussure, Horace Bénédict de". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 238. René Sigrist, Le capteur solaire de Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. Genèse d'une science empirique. Geneva, Passé-Présent / Jullien, 1993. Albert V. Carozzi & Gerda Bouvier, The scientific library of Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1797): annotated catalog of an 18th-century bibliographic and historic treasure, Geneva, 1994 (Mémoires de la SPHN, t. 46). René Sigrist (ed.), H.-B. de Saussure (1740–1799): un regard sur la terre. Geneva, Georg, 2001. == External links == Pictures and texts of "Les Voyages dans les Alpes" by H. B. de Saussure can be found in the database VIATIMAGES (archived from www3.unil.ch) Horace-Benedict de Saussure and


id: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf-0.md
category: reference
title: Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:14.178868+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-0
summary:
Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf ash-Shami al-Asadi (Arabic: تقي الدين محمد بن معروف الشامي; Ottoman Turkish: تقي الدين محمد بن معروف الشامي السعدي; Turkish: Takiyüddin‎ 1526–1585) was an Ottoman polymath active in Cairo and Istanbul. He was the author of more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy. In 1574 the Ottoman Sultan Murad III invited Taqi ad-Din to build an observatory in the Ottoman capital, Istanbul. Taqi ad-Din constructed instruments such as an armillary sphere and mechanical clocks that he used to observe the Great Comet of 1577. He also used European celestial and terrestrial globes that were delivered to Istanbul in gift exchanges. His major work from the use of his observatory is titled "The tree of ultimate knowledge [in the end of time or the world] in the Kingdom of the Revolving Spheres: The astronomical tables of the King of Kings [Murad III]" (Sidrat al-muntah al-afkar fi malkūt al-falak al-dawār– al-zij al-Shāhinshāhi). The work was prepared according to the results of the observations carried out in Egypt and Istanbul in order to correct and complete Ulugh Beg's 15th century work, the Zij-i Sultani. The first


id: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf-1.md
category: reference
title: Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:14.178868+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-0
summary:
The main purpose behind the observatory was to cater to the needs of the astronomers and provide a library and workshop so they could design and produce instruments. This observatory would become one of the largest ones in the Islamic world. It was complete in 1579. It would go on to run until January 22, 1580 which is when it was destroyed. Some say religious arguments was the reason why it was destroyed, but it really came down to political problems. A report by the grand vizier Sinan Pasha to Sultan Murad III goes into how the Sultan and the vizier attempted to keep Taqī Ad-Dīn away from the ulama because it seemed like they wanted to take him to trial for heresy. The vizier informs the sultan that Taqī Ad-Dīn wanted to go to Syria regardless of the sultan's orders. The vizier also warned the sultan that if Taqī Ad-Dīn went there, there is a possibility that he would be noticed by the ulama who would take him to trial. Despite Taqī al-Dīn's originality, his influence seemed to be limited. There are only a small number of surviving copies of his works so they were not able to reach


id: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf-2.md
category: reference
title: Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:14.178868+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-0
summary:
=== Politics === The rise and fall of Taqī al-Dīn and his observatory depended on political issues that surrounded him. Due to his father's occupation as a professor at the Damascene College of law Taqī al-Dīn spent much of his life in Syria and Egypt. During his trips to Istanbul he was able to make connections with many scholar-jurists. He was also able to use the private library of the Grand Vizier of the time, Semiz Ali Pasha. He then began working under Sultan Murad III's new Grand Vizier's, private mentor Sokollu. Continuing his research on observations of the heavens while in Egypt Taqī al-Dīn used the Galata tower and Sokollu's private residence. Although Murad III was the one who commanded an observatory to be built it was actually Sokollu who brought the idea to him knowing about his interest in science. The Sultan ultimately would provide Taqī al-Dīn with everything he needed from financial assistance for the physical buildings, to intellectual assistance making sure he had easy access to many types of books he would need. When the Sultan decided to create the observatory he saw it as a way to show off the power his monarchy had besides


id: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf-3.md
category: reference
title: Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:14.178868+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: taqi-ad-din-muhammad-ibn-ma-ruf-20260505-0
summary:
==== Types of clocks examined ==== Of the clocks in the Grand Vizier's treasury Taqī al-Dīn examined three different types. Those three were weight-driven, spring-driven, and driven by lever escapement. He wrote of these three types of watches but also made comments on pocket watches and astronomical ones. As Chief Astronomer, Taqī al-Dīn created a mechanical astronomical clock. This clock was made to permit more precise measurements at the Constantinople observatory. As stated above the creation of this clock was thought to be one of the most important astronomical discoveries of the sixteenth century. Taqī al-Dīn constructed a mechanical clock with three dials which show the hours, minutes, and seconds, with each minute consisting of five seconds. After this clock it is not known whether Taqī al-Dīn's work in mechanical clocks was ever continued, given that much of the clockmaking after that time in the Ottoman Empire was taken over by Europeans. === Steam === In 1551 Taqī al-Dīn described a self-rotating spit that is important in the history of the steam turbine. In Al-Turuq al-samiyya fi al-alat al-ruhaniyya (The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines) al-Dīn describes this machine as well as some practical applications for it. The spit is


id: ulugh-beg-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg-0.md
category: reference
title: Ulugh Beg
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:15.412895+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ulugh-beg-20260505-0
summary:
Mīrzā Muhammad Tarāghāy bin Shāhrukh (Chagatay: میرزا محمد تراغای بن شاهرخ; Persian: میرزا محمد طارق بن شاهرخ), better known as Ulugh Beg (Persian: الغ‌بیک; 22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449), was a Timurid sultan, as well as an astronomer and mathematician. Ulugh Beg was notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry, as well as his general interests in the arts and intellectual activities. It is thought that he spoke five languages: Arabic, Persian, Chaghatai Turkic, Mongolian, and a small amount of Chinese. During his rule (first as a governor, then outright) the Timurid Empire achieved the cultural peak of the Timurid Renaissance through his attention and patronage. Samarkand was captured and given to Ulugh Beg by his father Shah Rukh. He built the great Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand between 1424 and 1429. It was considered by scholars to have been one of the finest observatories in the Islamic world at the time and the largest in Central Asia. Ulugh Beg was subsequently recognized as the most important observational astronomer from the 15th century by many scholars. He also built the Ulugh Beg Madrasah (1417–1420) in Samarkand and Bukhara, transforming the cities into


id: ulugh-beg-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg-1.md
category: reference
title: Ulugh Beg
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:15.412895+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ulugh-beg-20260505-0
summary:
Astronomy piqued Ulugh Beg's interest when he visited the Maragheh Observatory at a young age. This observatory, located in Maragheh, Iran, is where the well-known astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi practised. In 1428, Ulugh Beg built an enormous observatory, similar to Tycho Brahe's later Uraniborg as well as Taqi al-Din's observatory in Constantinople. Lacking telescopes to work with, he increased his accuracy by increasing the length of his sextant; the so-called Fakhri sextant had a radius of about 36 meters (118 feet) and the optical separability of 180" (seconds of arc). The Fakhri sextant was the largest instrument at the observatory in Samarkand (an image of the sextant is on the side of this article). There were many other astronomical instruments located at the observatory, but the Fakhri sextant is the most well-known instrument there. The purpose of the Fakhri sextant was to measure the transit altitudes of the stars. This was a measurement of the maximum altitude above the horizon of the stars. It was only possible to use this device to measure the declination of celestial objects. The image, which can be found in this article, shows the remaining portion of the instrument, which consists of the underground, lower


id: ulugh-beg-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg-2.md
category: reference
title: Ulugh Beg
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:15.412895+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ulugh-beg-20260505-0
summary:
Ulugh Beg led two major campaigns against his neighbours. This first one took place in 1425 and was directed against Moghulistan and its ruler Shir Muhammad. He was victorious but the impact of the campaign was limited and Shir Muhammad remained in power. A year later, Baraq, Khan of the Golden Horde and former protégé of Ulugh Beg, laid claim to Timurid possessions around the Syr Darya, including the town of Sighnaq. In response to that, in 1427 Ulugh Beg, accompanied by his brother Muhummad Juki, marched against Baraq. In a hill close to Sighnaq the Timurid army was surprised by a smaller enemy force but was soundly defeated. The humiliation suffered at the hands of Baraq was to have a lasting effect on Ulugh Beg. His campaign against the Golden Horde would be the last he would undertake against a neighbouring power. The armies he later sent against them would not win any resounding victories and by the end of his reign his territories would be raided by his northern and easterly foes. In 1439, the Zhengtong emperor ordered an artist to produce a painting of a black horse with white feet and a white forehead that had been


id: ulugh-beg-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg-3.md
category: reference
title: Ulugh Beg
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:15.412895+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ulugh-beg-20260505-0
summary:
== Bibliography == O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Ulugh Beg", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews 1839. L. P. E. A. Sedillot (1808–1875). Tables astronomiques d’Oloug Beg, commentees et publiees avec le texte en regard, Tome I, 1 fascicule, Paris. A very rare work, but referenced in the Bibliographie generale de l’astronomie jusqu’en 1880, by J. 1847. L. P. E. A. Sedillot (1808–1875). Prolegomenes des Tables astronomiques d’Oloug Beg, publiees avec Notes et Variantes, et precedes d’une Introduction. Paris: F. Didot. 1853. L. P. E. A. Sedillot (1808–1875). Prolegomenes des Tables astronomiques d’Oloug Beg, traduction et commentaire. Paris. Le Prince Savant annexe les étoiles, Frédérique Beaupertuis-Bressand, in Samarcande 1400–1500, La cité-oasis de Tamerlan : coeur d'un Empire et d'une Renaissance, book directed by Vincent Fourniau, éditions Autrement, 1995, ISSN 1157-4488. L'âge d'or de l'astronomie ottomane, Antoine Gautier, in L'Astronomie, (Monthly magazine created by Camille Flammarion in 1882), December 2005, volume 119. L'observatoire du prince Ulugh Beg, Antoine Gautier, in L'Astronomie, (Monthly magazine created by Camille Flammarion in 1882), October 2008, volume 122. Le recueil de calendriers du prince timouride Ulug Beg (1394–1449), Antoine Gautier, in Le Bulletin, n° spécial Les calendriers, Institut National des Langues et


id: pierre-vernier-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Vernier-0.md
category: reference
title: Pierre Vernier
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Vernier
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:16.630856+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pierre-vernier-20260505-0
summary:
Pierre Vernier (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ vɛʁnje]; 19 August 1580 at Ornans, Franche-Comté (at that time ruled by the Spanish Habsburgs, now part of France) – 14 September 1637, same location) was a mathematician and instrument inventor. He was the inventor and eponym of the vernier scale used in measuring devices. == Life == He was born in Ornans, France, in 1580. He was taught science by his father. He became captain and castellan of the castle at Ornans, for the King of Spain. He was also later councillor and director general of economy in the County of Burgundy. In Brussels, in the year 1631, Vernier published his treatise La construction, l'usage, et les propriétés du quadrant nouveau de mathématique, and dedicated it to the Infanta. In it, he described the ingenious device which now bears his name, the vernier scale. To a quadrant with a primary scale in half degrees Vernier proposed to attach a movable sector, thirty-one half degrees in length but divided into thirty equal parts (each part therefore consisting of a half-degree plus one minute). In measuring an angle, minutes could be easily reckoned by noticing which division line of the sector coincided with a division line


id: les-william-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_William-0.md
category: reference
title: Les William
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_William
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:17.760881+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: les-william-20260505-0
summary:
J. L. (Les) William (18 January 1915 – 4 June 1994) was an Australian builder of scientific instruments. Born in Melbourne, Australia he was known for his beautiful and precision craftsmanship and was known as one of the best scientific instrument makers in Australia. His equipment can be found in Australian laboratories that existed from the 1930s through to the 1980s. He founded a company situated in the Melbourne suburb of Hughesdale called J.L. William Scientific Instruments. William attended Caulfield Technical School and worked at his brother's firm during the Second World War. Soon after he set up his own instrumentation company. He never married and in his later years suffered from motor neurone disease. Les William liked to recall Lord Kelvin's dictum that one did not truly understand a scientific quantity until one could measure it and provide an accurate numerical value. William's career was closely linked to that of his older brother Austin (1913 - 1985). During the Second World War the two brothers worked together producing electrical meters. After the war, Austin continued on in the manufacture of electrical meters while Les established his own company producing high accuracy standard resistors. He died in Melbourne on 4


id: al-zarqali-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zarqali-0.md
category: reference
title: Al-Zarqali
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zarqali
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:18.928040+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: al-zarqali-20260505-0
summary:
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā al-Naqqāsh al-Zarqālī al-Tujibi (Arabic: إبراهيم بن يحيى الزرقالي); also known as Al-Zarkali or Ibn Zarqala (1029–1100), was an Arab maker of astronomical instruments and an astrologer from the western part of the Islamic world. Although his name is conventionally given as al-Zarqālī, it is probable that the correct form was al-Zarqālluh. In Latin he was referred to as Arzachel or Arsechieles, a modified form of Arzachel, meaning 'the engraver'. He lived in Toledo, Al-Andalus before moving to Córdoba later in his life. His works inspired a generation of Islamic astronomers in Al-Andalus, and later, after being translated, were very influential in Europe. His invention of the Saphaea (a perfected astrolabe) proved very popular and was widely used by navigators until the 16th century. The crater Arzachel on the Moon is named after him. == Life == Al-Zarqālī, of Arab origin, was born in a village near the outskirts of Toledo, the then capital of the newly established Taifa of Toledo. He started work after 1048 under Said al-Andalusi for the Emir Al-Mamun of Toledo and also under Al-Mu'tamid of the Taifa of Seville. Assuming a leading position under Said, Al-Zarqālī conducted solar observations for 25


id: al-zarqali-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zarqali-1.md
category: reference
title: Al-Zarqali
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zarqali
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:36:18.928040+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: al-zarqali-20260505-0
summary:
=== Tables of Toledo === Al-Zarqālī also contributed to the famous Tables of Toledo, an adaptation of earlier astronomical data by Al-Khwarizmi and Al-Battani, to locate the coordinates of Toledo. His zij and almanac were translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century, and contributed to the rebirth of a mathematically based astronomy in Christian Europe and were later incorporated into the Tables of Toledo in the 12th century and the Alfonsine tables in the 13th century. Famous as well for his own Book of Tables, of which many had been compiled. Al-Zarqālī's almanac contained tables which allowed one to find the days on which the Coptic, Roman, lunar, and Persian months begin, other tables which give the position of planets at any given time, and still others facilitating the prediction of solar and lunar eclipses. This almanac that he compiled directly provided "the positions of the celestial bodies and need no further computation", it further simplifies longitudes using planetary cycles of each planet. The work provided the true daily positions of the sun for four Julian years from 1088 to 1092, the true positions of the five planets every 5 or 10 days over a period


