# kb

id: kenneth-hsu-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Hsu-5.md
category: reference
title: Kenneth Hsu
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Hsu
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:31.108462+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kenneth-hsu-20260505-0
summary:
== Other writings == 1970 Development of the Northern Apennines Geosyncline, ed. by G. Sestini, Palaoegeography, Palaeoclimatol, Palaeocol., 11, (1972), pp. 72–74, XIV 1973 Atlas of Palaeobiogeography, ed. by Anthony Hallam, Sedimentology (1973), v. 20, Aug. 1973, pp. 453–454, XIII 1974 Marine Evaporites, Origin, Diagenesis and Geochemistry, ed. by D.W. Kirkland, et al. Sedimentology, v. 21, no. 3, Aug. 1974, pp. 486–487, XIII. 1977 International Stratigraphic Guide, ed. by H.D. Hedberg, et al., Sedimentology (1977), v. 24, pp. 597–598, XIII. 1978 Sedimentary Rocks, by F.J. Petitjohn - Sedimentary Petrology, Part II, by H. Füchtbauer - Sediment Petrologie, Teil II, by H. Füchtbauer & G. Müller - Origin of Sedimentary Rocks, by H. Blatt, et al. Sedimentology (1978), 25, pp. 149–152, XIII 1978 The Evolution of North America, by Ph. B. King - Studies in Palaeo-Oceanography, by W.W. Hay - Palaeographic Provinces and Provinciality, by Ch. A. Ross - Tectonics and Sedimentation, by W.R. Dickinson Sedimentology, v. 25, no. 5, Oct. 1978, pp. 732–735, XIII. 1979 Sorby on Geology, ed. by Ch. Summerson, Sedimentology, v. 26, no. 6, Dec. 1979, pp. 873–875, XIII. 1981 The Geological Evolution of the River Nile, by R. Said, Springer 1981, 151 pp. 73 figs., in


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-0.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, while his advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement pioneered modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Humboldt and Carl Ritter are both regarded as the founders of modern geography as they established it as an independent scientific discipline. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas, exploring and describing them for the first time from a non-Spanish European scientific point of view. On these travels, along with French explorer Aimé Bonpland, he traversed thousands of miles through some of the most difficult and little-known places on Earth, to include identifying the source of the Orinoco River and in 1802 climbing the highest mountain in Ecuador to a height of 19,286 feet, at the time a world record altitude for a Westerner. His description of the journey was written up and published in several volumes over 21 years. Humboldt resurrected the use of the


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-1.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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Due to his youthful penchant for collecting and labeling plants, shells, and insects, Alexander received the playful title of "the little apothecary". Marked for a political career, Alexander studied finance for six months in 1787 at the University of Frankfurt (Oder), which his mother might have chosen less for its academic excellence than its closeness to their home in Berlin. On 25 April 1789, he matriculated at the University of Göttingen, then known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and anatomist J. F. Blumenbach. His brother Wilhelm was already a student at Göttingen, but they did not interact much, since their intellectual interests were quite different. His vast and varied interests were by this time fully developed. At the University of Göttingen, Humboldt met Steven Jan van Geuns, a Dutch medical student, with whom he travelled to the Rhine in the fall of 1789. In Mainz, they met Georg Forster, a naturalist who had been with Captain James Cook on his second voyage. Humboldt's scientific excursion resulted in his 1790 treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790) (Mineralogic Observations on Several Basalts on the River Rhine). The following year, 1790, Humboldt returned to Mainz to embark


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-2.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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In 1794, Humboldt was admitted to the famous group of intellectuals and cultural leaders of Weimar Classicism. Goethe and Schiller were the key figures at the time. Humboldt contributed (7 June 1795) to Schiller's new periodical, Die Horen, a philosophical allegory entitled Die Lebenskraft, oder der rhodische Genius (The Life Force, or the Rhodian Genius). In this short piece, the only literary story Humboldt ever authored, he tried to summarize the often contradictory results of the thousands of Galvanic experiments he had undertaken. In 1792 and 1797, Humboldt was in Vienna; in 1795 he made a geological and botanical tour through Switzerland and Italy. Although this service to the state was regarded by him as only an apprenticeship to the service of science, he fulfilled its duties with such conspicuous ability that not only did he rise rapidly to the highest post in his department, but he was also entrusted with several important diplomatic missions. Neither brother attended the funeral of their mother on 19 November 1796. Humboldt had not hidden his aversion to his mother, with one correspondent writing of him after her death, "her death... must be particularly welcomed by you". After severing his official connections, he awaited


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-3.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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Armed with authorization from the King of Spain, Humboldt and Bonpland made haste to sail, taking the ship Pizarro from La Coruña, on 5 June 1799. The ship stopped six days on the island of Tenerife, where Humboldt climbed the volcano Teide, and then sailed on to the New World, landing at Cumaná, Venezuela, on 16 July. The ship's destination was not originally Cumaná, but an outbreak of typhoid on board meant that the captain changed course from Havana to land in northern South America. Humboldt had not mapped out a specific plan of exploration, so that the change did not upend a fixed itinerary. He later wrote that the diversion to Venezuela made possible his explorations along the Orinoco River to the border of Portuguese Brazil. With the diversion, the Pizarro encountered two large dugout canoes each carrying 18 Guayaqui Indians. The Pizarro's captain accepted the offer of one of them to serve as pilot. Humboldt hired this Indian, named Carlos del Pino, as a guide. Venezuela from the 16th to the 18th centuries was a relative backwater compared to the seats of the Spanish viceroyalties based in New Spain (Mexico) and Peru, but during the Bourbon reforms, the


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-4.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
On 24 November 1800, the two friends set sail for Cuba, landing on 19 December, where they met fellow botanist and plant collector John Fraser. Fraser and his son had been shipwrecked off the Cuban coast, and did not have a license to be in the Spanish Indies. Humboldt, who was already in Cuba, interceded with crown officials in Havana, as well as giving them money and clothing. Fraser obtained permission to remain in Cuba and explore. Humboldt entrusted Fraser with taking two cases of Humboldt and Bonpland's botanical specimens to England when he returned, for eventual conveyance to the German botanist Willdenow in Berlin. Humboldt and Bonpland stayed in Cuba until 5 March 1801, when they left for the mainland of northern South America again, arriving there on 30 March. Humboldt is considered to be the "second discoverer of Cuba" due to the scientific and social research he conducted on this Spanish colony. During an initial three-month stay at Havana, his first tasks were to survey that city properly and the nearby towns of Guanabacoa, Regla, and Bejucal. He befriended Cuban landowner and thinker Francisco de Arango y Parreño; together they visited the Guines area in south Havana, the


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-5.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
Humboldt and Bonpland had not intended to go to New Spain, but when they were unable to join a voyage to the Pacific, they left the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil and headed for Acapulco on Mexico's west coast. Even before Humboldt and Bonpland started on their way to New Spain's capital on Mexico's central plateau, Humboldt realized the captain of the vessel that brought them to Acapulco had reckoned its location incorrectly. Since Acapulco was the main west-coast port and the terminus of the Asian trade from the Spanish Philippines, having accurate maps of its location was extremely important. Humboldt set up his instruments, surveying the deep-water bay of Acapulco, to determine its longitude. Humboldt and Bonpland landed in Acapulco on 15 February 1803, and from there they went to Taxco, a silver-mining town in modern Guerrero. In April 1803, he visited Cuernavaca, Morelos. Impressed by its climate, he nicknamed the city the City of Eternal Spring. Humboldt and Bonpland arrived in Mexico City, having been officially welcomed via a letter from the king's representative in New Spain, Viceroy Don José de Iturrigaray. Humboldt was also given a special passport to travel throughout New Spain and letters of introduction to


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-6.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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=== The United States, 1804 === Leaving from Cuba, Humboldt decided to take an unplanned short visit to the United States. Knowing that the current U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, was himself a scientist, Humboldt wrote to him saying that he would be in the United States. Jefferson warmly replied, inviting him to visit the White House in the nation's new capital. In his letter Humboldt had gained Jefferson's interest by mentioning that he had discovered mammoth teeth near the Equator. Jefferson had previously written that he believed mammoths had never lived so far south. Humboldt had also hinted at his knowledge of New Spain. Arriving in Philadelphia, which was a center of learning in the U.S., Humboldt met with some of the major scientific figures of the era, including chemist and anatomist Caspar Wistar, who pushed for compulsory smallpox vaccination, and botanist Benjamin Smith Barton, as well as physician Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who wished to hear about cinchona bark from a South American tree, which cured fevers. Humboldt's treatise on cinchona was published in English in 1821. After arriving in Washington D.C, Humboldt held numerous intense discussions with Jefferson on both scientific matters and


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-7.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
Humboldt saw the need for an approach to science that could account for the harmony of nature among the diversity of the physical world. For Humboldt, "the unity of nature" meant that it was the interrelation of all physical sciences—such as the conjoining between biology, meteorology and geology—that determined where specific plants grew. He found these relationships by unraveling myriad, painstakingly collected data, data extensive enough that it became an enduring foundation upon which others could base their work. Humboldt viewed nature holistically, and tried to explain natural phenomena without the appeal to religious dogma. He believed in the central importance of observation, and as a consequence had amassed a vast array of the most sophisticated scientific instruments then available. Each had its own velvet lined box and was the most accurate and portable of its time; nothing quantifiable escaped measurement. According to Humboldt, everything should be measured with the finest and most modern instruments and sophisticated techniques available, for that collected data was the basis of all scientific understanding. This quantitative methodology would become known as Humboldtian science. Humboldt wrote "Nature herself is sublimely eloquent. The stars as they sparkle in firmament fill us with delight and ecstasy, and


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-8.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
Humboldt conducted a census of the indigenous and European inhabitants in New Spain, publishing a schematized drawing of racial types and populations distribution, grouping them by region and social characteristics. He estimated the population to be six million individuals. He estimated Indians to be forty percent of New Spain's population, but their distribution being uneven; the most dense were in the center and south of Mexico, the least dense in the north. He presented these data in chart form, for easier understanding. He also surveyed the non-Indian population, categorized as Whites (Spaniards), Negroes, and castes (castas). American-born Spaniards, so-called creoles had been painting depictions of mixed-race family groupings in the eighteenth century, showing father of one racial category, mother of another, and the offspring in a third category in hierarchical order, so racial hierarchy was an essential way elites viewed Mexican society. Humboldt reported that American-born Spaniards were legally racial equals of those born in Spain, but the crown policy since the Bourbons took the Spanish throne privileged those born in Iberia. Humboldt observed that "the most miserable European, without education and without intellectual cultivation, thinks himself superior to whites born in the new continent". The truth in this assertion,


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-9.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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During his lifetime Humboldt became one of the most famous men in Europe. Academies, both native and foreign, were eager to elect him to their membership, the first being The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, which he visited at the tail end of his travel through the Americas. He was elected to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1805. Over the years other learned societies in the U.S. elected him a member, including the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA) in 1816; the Linnean Society of London in 1818; the New York Historical Society in 1820; a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822; the American Ethnological Society (New York) in 1843; and the American Geographical and Statistical Society, (New York) in 1856. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1810. The Royal Society, whose president Sir Joseph Banks had aided Humboldt as a young man, now welcomed him as a foreign member. After Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, the Mexican government recognized him with high honors for his services to the nation. In 1827, the first President of Mexico, Guadalupe Victoria granted Humboldt Mexican citizenship and


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-10.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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In 1811, and again in 1818, projects of Asiatic exploration were proposed to Humboldt, first by Tsar Nicholas I's Russian government, and afterwards by the Prussian government; but on each occasion, untoward circumstances interposed. It was not until he had begun his sixtieth year that he resumed his early role of traveler in the interests of science. The Russian Finance Minister, Count Georg von Cancrin, contacted Humboldt about whether a platinum-based currency was possible in Russia and invited him to visit the Ural Mountains. Humboldt was not encouraging about a platinum-based currency, when silver was the standard as a world currency. But the invitation to visit the Urals was intriguing, especially since Humboldt had long dreamed of going to Asia. He had wanted to travel to India and made considerable efforts to persuade the British East India Company to authorize a trip, but those efforts were fruitless. When Russia renewed its earlier invitation to Humboldt, he accepted. The Russians sought to entice Humboldt by engaging his enduring interest in mining sites, for comparative scientific purposes for Humboldt, but for the Russians to gain expert knowledge about their resources. For Humboldt, the Russian monarch's promise to fund the trip was extremely


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-11.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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Between May and November 1829 he and the growing expedition traversed the wide expanse of the Russian empire from the Neva to the Yenisei, accomplishing in twenty-five weeks a distance of 9,614 miles (15,472 km). Humboldt and the expedition party travelled by coach on well maintained roads, with rapid progress being made because of changes of horses at way stations. The party had grown, with Johann Seifert, who was a huntsman and collector of animal specimens; a Russian mining official; Count Adolphe Polier, one of Humboldt's friends from Paris; a cook; plus a contingent of Cossacks for security. Three carriages were filled with people, supplies, and scientific instruments. For Humboldt's magnetic readings to be accurate, they carried an iron-free tent. This expedition was unlike his Spanish American travels with Bonpland, with the two alone and sometimes accompanied by local guides. The Russian government was interested in Humboldt's finding prospects for mining and commercial advancement of the realm and made it clear that Humboldt was not to investigate social issues, nor criticize social conditions of Russian serfs. In his publications on Spanish America, he did comment on the conditions of the indigenous populations, and deplored black slavery, but well after he


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-12.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
As with most of Humboldt's works, Kosmos was also translated into multiple languages in editions of uneven quality. It was very popular in Britain and America. In 1849 a German newspaper commented that in England two of the three different translations were made by women, "while in Germany most of the men do not understand it". The first translation by Augustin Pritchard—published anonymously by Mr. Baillière (volume I in 1845 and volume II in 1848)—suffered from being hurriedly made. In a letter Humboldt said of it: "It will damage my reputation. All the charm of my description is destroyed by an English sounding like Sanskrit." The other two translations were made by Elizabeth Juliana Leeves Sabine under the superintendence of her husband Col. Edward Sabine (4 volumes 1846–1858), and by Elise Otté (5 volumes 1849–1858, the only complete translation of the 4 German volumes). These three translations were also published in the United States. The numbering of the volumes differs between the German and the English editions. Volume 3 of the German edition corresponds to the volumes 3 and 4 of the English translation, as the German volume appeared in 2 parts in 1850 and 1851. Volume 5 of the


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-13.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
Humboldt was generous toward his friends and mentored young scientists. He and Bonpland parted ways after their return to Europe, and Humboldt largely took on the task of publishing the results of their Latin American expedition at Humboldt's expense, but he included Bonpland as co-author on the nearly 30 published volumes. Bonpland returned to Latin America, settling in Buenos Aires, Argentina, then moved to the countryside near the border with Paraguay. The forces of Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the strong man of Paraguay, abducted Bonpland after killing Bonpland's estate workers. Bonpland was accused of "agricultural espionage" and of threatening Paraguay's virtual monopoly on the cultivation of yerba mate. Despite international pressure, including the British government and Simón Bolívar's, along with European scientists including Humboldt, Francia kept Bonpland prisoner until 1831. He was released after nearly 10 years in Paraguay. Humboldt and Bonpland maintained a warm correspondence about science and politics until Bonpland's death in 1858. During Humboldt's time in Paris, he met in 1818 the young and brilliant Peruvian student of the Royal Mining School of Paris, Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustariz. Subsequently, Humboldt acted as a mentor of the career of this promising Peruvian scientist. Another


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-14.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
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In the Napoleonic wars, Prussia had capitulated to France, signing the Treaty of Tilsit. The Prussian royal family returned to Berlin, but sought better terms of the treaty and Friedrich Wilhelm III commissioned his younger brother Prince Wilhelm with this. Friedrich Wilhelm III asked Alexander to be part of the mission, charged with introducing the prince to Paris society. This turn of events for Humboldt could not have been better, since he desired to live in Paris rather than Berlin. In 1814 Humboldt accompanied the allied sovereigns to London. Three years later he was summoned by the king of Prussia to attend him at the congress of Aachen. Again in the autumn of 1822 he accompanied the same monarch to the Congress of Verona, proceeded thence with the royal party to Rome and Naples and returned to Paris in the spring of 1823. Humboldt had long regarded Paris as his true home. Thus, when at last he received from his sovereign a summons to join his court at Berlin, he obeyed reluctantly. Between 1830 and 1848 Humboldt was frequently employed in diplomatic missions to the court of King Louis Philippe of France, with whom he always maintained the most cordial


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-15.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
Because Humboldt did not mention God in his work Cosmos, and sometimes spoke unfavourably of religious attitudes, it was occasionally speculated that he was a materialist philosopher, or perhaps an atheist. However, unlike irreligious figures such as Robert G. Ingersoll, who went so far as to use Humboldtian science to campaign against religion, Humboldt himself denied imputations of atheism. In a letter to Varnhagen von Ense he emphasized that he believed the world had indeed been created, writing of Cosmos: "...'creation' and the 'created world' are never lost sight of in the book. And did I not, only eight months ago, in the French translation, say, in the plainest terms: 'It is this necessity of things, this occult but permanent connection, this periodical return in the progress, development of formation, phenomena, and events which constitute 'Nature' submissive to a controlling power?'" It has been argued that "although Humboldt emphasizes the basis of morality in the nature of man, he does acknowledge that a belief in God is linked directly to acts of virtue" and therefore "the dignity of man lies at the centre of Humboldt's religious thought". Humboldt also believed firmly in an afterlife. A letter he wrote to his


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-16
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-16.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
=== Illness and death === On 24 February 1857, Humboldt suffered a minor stroke, which passed without perceptible symptoms. It was not until the winter of 1858–1859 that his strength began to decline; on 6 May 1859, he died peacefully in Berlin, aged 89. His last words were reported to be "How glorious these sunbeams are! They seem to call Earth to the Heavens!" His remains were conveyed in state through the streets of Berlin, in a hearse drawn by six horses. Royal chamberlains led the cortège, each charged with carrying a pillow with Humboldt's medals and other decorations of honor. Humboldt's extended family, descendants of his brother Wilhelm, walked in the procession. Humboldt's coffin was received by the prince-regent at the door of the cathedral. He was interred at the family resting-place at Tegel, alongside his brother Wilhelm and sister-in-law Caroline. == Honours and namesakes == The honours which had been showered on Humboldt during their life continued after his death. More species are named after Humboldt than after any other human being. The first centenary of Humboldt's birth was celebrated on 14 September 1869, with great enthusiasm in both the New and Old Worlds. Numerous monuments were constructed


id: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-17
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt-17.md
category: reference
title: Alexander von Humboldt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:32.417759+00:00
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parent: alexander-von-humboldt-20260505-0
summary:
=== Ships === Alexander von Humboldt is also a German ship named after the scientist, originally built in 1906 by the German shipyard AG Weser at Bremen as Reserve Sonderburg. She was operated throughout the North and Baltic Seas until being retired in 1986. Subsequently, she was converted into a three-masted barque by the German shipyard Motorwerke Bremerhaven, and was re-launched in 1988 as Alexander von Humboldt. The Jan De Nul Group operates a hopper dredger built in 1998 also named Alexander von Humboldt. === Recognitions by contemporaries === Simón Bolívar wrote that "The real discoverer of South America was Humboldt, since his work was more useful for our people than the work of all conquerors". Charles Darwin expressed his debt to Humboldt, and admiration for his work, writing to Joseph Dalton Hooker that Humboldt was the "greatest scientific traveller who ever lived". Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote that "Alexander is destined to combine ideas and follow chains of thoughts which would otherwise have remained unknown for ages. His depth, his sharp mind and his incredible speed are a rare combination." Johann Wolfgang Goethe observed that "Humboldt showers us with true treasures". Friedrich Schiller wrote that "Alexander impresses many, particularly when


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-0.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2], 1743 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Father, second vice president, and third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels. Jefferson was born into the Colony of Virginia's planter class. During the American Revolution, he represented Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, which unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's advocacy for individual rights, including freedom of thought, speech, and religion, helped shape the ideological foundations of the revolution. Jefferson served as the second governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781. In 1785, Congress appointed him as U.S. Minister to France, where he served from 1785 to 1789. President George Washington then appointed Jefferson the nation's first secretary of state, where he served from 1790 to 1793. In 1792, Jefferson and political ally James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the nation's First Party System. Jefferson and Federalist John Adams became both personal friends and political rivals. In


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-1.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743, Old Style, Julian calendar), at the family's Shadwell Plantation in the Colony of Virginia, then one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America. He was the third of ten children. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter and surveyor; his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 following the death of William Randolph III, the plantation's owner and Jefferson's friend, who in his will had named Peter guardian of Randolph's children. The Jeffersons returned to Shadwell before October 1753. Jefferson began his education together with the Randolph children at Tuckahoe under tutors. Thomas' father Peter, who was self-taught and regretted not having a formal education, entered Thomas into an English school at age five. In 1752, at age nine, he attended a local school run by a Presbyterian minister and also began studying the natural world, which he grew to love. He studied Latin, Greek, and French, and began learning to ride horses. Thomas read books from his father's modest library. He was taught from 1758 to 1760 by the Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, Virginia, where he studied history, science, and the


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-2.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
In 1767, Jefferson was granted admission to the Virginia bar, and lived with his mother at Shadwell. Between 1769 and 1775, he represented Albemarle County in Virginia's House of Burgesses. While serving in the House of Burgesses, Jefferson pursued reforms to slavery, including writing and sponsoring legislation in 1769 to strip power from the royal governor and courts, instead providing masters of slaves with the discretion to emancipate them. Jefferson persuaded his cousin Richard Bland to spearhead the legislation's passage, but it faced strong opposition in a state whose economy was largely agrarian. As a lawyer, Jefferson took on seven freedom-seeking enslaved people as clients and waived his fee for one he claimed should be freed before the minimum statutory age for emancipation. Jefferson invoked natural law, arguing "everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person and using it at his own will ... This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because it is necessary for his own sustenance." The judge cut him off and ruled against his client. As a consolation, Jefferson gave his client some money, which was conceivably used to aid his escape shortly


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-3.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. At age 33, he was one of the youngest delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which convened in the colonial capital of Philadelphia following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which launched the American Revolutionary War in 1775. Delegates to the Congress overwhelmingly favored authoring, ratifying, and issuing a formal declaration of independence from Britain. Jefferson was inspired by the Enlightenment ideals of the sanctity of the individual, and the writings of Locke and Montesquieu. Jefferson sought out John Adams, a Continental Congress delegate from Massachusetts and an emerging leader in the Congress. They became close friends, and Adams supported Jefferson's appointment to the Committee of Five, which the Congress charged with authoring the Declaration: Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The committee initially thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded the committee to choose Jefferson due to Jefferson being a Virginian, popular, and a good writer by Adams. Jefferson consulted with his fellow committee members, but mostly wrote the Declaration of Independence in isolation between June 11 and 28, 1776. Jefferson drew considerably on his proposed draft of the Virginia Constitution, George


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-4.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
In 1780, Jefferson received a letter of inquiry from French diplomat François Barbé-Marbois into the geography, history, and government of Virginia, as part of a study of the United States. Jefferson organized his responses in a book, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785). The book explores what constitutes a good society, using Virginia as an exemplar. Jefferson included extensive data about the state's natural resources and economy and wrote at length about slavery and miscegenation; he articulated his belief that blacks and whites could not live together as free people in one society because of justified resentments of the enslaved. He also wrote of his views on the American Indians, equating them to European settlers. Notes was first published in 1785 in French and appeared in English in 1787. Biographer George Tucker considered the work "surprising in the extent of the information which a single individual had been thus far able to acquire, as to the physical features of the state"; University of Virginia historian Merrill D. Peterson described it as an accomplishment for which all Americans should be grateful. == Member of Congress == Jefferson was appointed a Virginia delegate to the Congress of the Confederation organized following


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-5.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson sent for his youngest surviving child, nine-year-old Polly, in June 1787. She was accompanied by a young slave from Monticello, Sally Hemings. Jefferson had taken her older brother, James Hemings, to Paris as part of his domestic staff and had him trained in French cuisine. According to Sally's son, Madison Hemings, 16-year-old Sally and Jefferson began a sexual relationship in Paris, where she became pregnant. Madison indicated his mother agreed to return to the United States only after Jefferson promised to free her children when they came of age. While in France, Jefferson became a regular companion of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolution, and Jefferson used his influence with Lafayette to procure trade agreements with France. As the French Revolution began, Jefferson agreed to allow his Paris residence at Hôtel de Langeac to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other revolutionary leaders. He was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and he consulted with Lafayette as Lafayette drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device, the "Wheel


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-6.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
In the presidential campaign of 1796, Jefferson lost the electoral college vote to Federalist John Adams 71–68. He did, however, receive the second-highest number of votes and, under the electoral laws at the time, was elected as vice president. As presiding officer of the United States Senate, Jefferson assumed a more passive role than his predecessor, John Adams. He allowed the Senate to freely conduct debates and confined his participation to procedural issues, which he called an "honorable and easy" role. Jefferson previously studied parliamentary law and procedure for 40 years, making him qualified to serve as presiding officer. In 1800, he published his assembled notes on Senate procedure as A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. He cast only three tie-breaking votes in the Senate. In four confidential talks with French consul Joseph Létombe in the spring of 1797, Jefferson attacked Adams, predicting that his rival would only serve one term. He also encouraged France to invade England, and advised Létombe to stall any American envoys sent to Paris. This toughened the tone that the French government adopted toward the Adams administration. After Adams's initial peace envoys were rebuffed, Jefferson and his supporters lobbied for the release of papers related to


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-7.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
=== Financial affairs === Jefferson's first challenge as president was shrinking the $83 million national debt. He began dismantling Hamilton's Federalist fiscal system with help from the secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin. Gallatin devised a plan to eliminate the national debt in sixteen years by extensive annual appropriations and reduction in taxes. The administration eliminated the whiskey excise and other taxes after closing "unnecessary offices" and cutting "useless establishments and expenses". Jefferson believed that the First Bank of the United States represented a "most deadly hostility" to republican government. He wanted to dismantle the bank before its charter expired in 1811, but was dissuaded by Gallatin. Gallatin argued that the national bank was a useful financial institution and set out to expand its operations. Jefferson looked to other corners to address the growing national debt. He shrank the Navy, for example, deeming it unnecessary in peacetime, and incorporated a fleet of inexpensive gunboats intended only for local defense to avoid provocation against foreign powers. After two terms, he had lowered the national debt from $83 million to $57 million. === Domestic affairs === Jefferson pardoned several of those imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Congressional Republicans repealed the


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-8.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Spain ceded ownership of the Louisiana territory in 1800 to France. Jefferson was concerned that Napoleon's interests in the vast territory would threaten the security of the continent and Mississippi River shipping. He wrote that the cession "works most sorely on the U.S. It completely reverses all the political relations of the U.S." In 1802, he instructed James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans and adjacent coastal areas. In early 1803, Jefferson offered Napoleon nearly $10 million for 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometres) of tropical territory. Napoleon realized that French military control was impractical over such a vast remote territory, and he was in dire need of funds for his wars on the home front. In early April 1803, he unexpectedly made negotiators a counter-offer to sell 827,987 square miles (2,144,480 square kilometres) of French territory for $15 million (~$380 million in 2024), doubling the size of the United States. U.S. negotiators accepted the offer and signed the treaty on April 30, 1803. Word of the unexpected purchase did not reach Jefferson until July 3, 1803. He unknowingly acquired the most fertile tract of land of its size on Earth, making the new


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-9.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson refuted the contemporary notion that Indians were inferior and maintained that they were equal in body and mind to people of European descent, although he believed them to be inferior in terms of culture and technology. As governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War, Jefferson recommended moving the Cherokee and Shawnee tribes, who had allied with the British, to west of the Mississippi River. But when he took office as president, he quickly took measures to avert another major conflict, as American and Indian societies were in collision and the British were inciting Indian tribes from Canada. In Georgia, he stipulated that the state would release its legal claims for lands to its west in exchange for military support in expelling the Cherokee from Georgia. This facilitated his policy of western expansion, to "advance compactly as we multiply". In keeping with his Enlightenment thinking, President Jefferson adopted an assimilation policy toward American Indians known as his "civilization program" which included securing peaceful U.S.–Indian treaty alliances and encouraging agriculture. Jefferson advocated that Indian tribes should make federal purchases by credit holding their lands as collateral. Various tribes accepted Jefferson's policies, including the Shawnees led by Black Hoof, the Muscogee, and


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-10.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Following the 1801 electoral deadlock, Jefferson's relationship with his vice president, Aaron Burr, rapidly eroded. Jefferson suspected Burr of seeking the presidency for himself, while Burr was angered by Jefferson's refusal to appoint some of his supporters to federal office. Burr was dropped from the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1804 in favor of charismatic George Clinton. The same year, Burr was soundly defeated in his bid to be elected New York governor. During the campaign, Alexander Hamilton made publicly callous remarks regarding Burr's moral character. Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel, held on July 11, 1804. In the duel, Burr mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the following day. Burr was subsequently indicted for Hamilton's murder, causing him to flee to Georgia, even though he remained president of the U.S. Senate during Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase's impeachment trial. Both indictments quietly died and Burr was not prosecuted. In August 1804, Burr contacted British Minister Anthony Merry offering to cede U.S. western territory in return for money and British ships. After leaving office in April 1805, Burr traveled west and conspired with Louisiana Territory governor James Wilkinson, beginning a large-scale recruitment for a military expedition. Burr discussed seizing control of Mexico or


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-11.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
In December 1807, news arrived that Napoleon had extended the Berlin Decree, globally banning British imports. The Royal Navy, meanwhile continued to impress sailors from American merchant ships. However, Congress had no appetite to prepare the U.S. for war; Jefferson asked for and received the Embargo Act, an alternative that allowed the U.S. more time to build up defensive works, militias, and naval forces. Meacham argued that the Embargo Act was a projection of power that surpassed the Alien and Sedition Acts, and R. B. Bernstein said that Jefferson "was pursuing policies resembling those he had cited in 1776 as grounds for independence and revolution". In November 1807, Jefferson, for several days, met with his cabinet to discuss the deteriorating foreign situation. Secretary of State James Madison supported the embargo, while Treasury Secretary Gallatin opposed it, due to its indefinite time frame and the risk to the policy of American neutrality. The U.S. economy suffered, criticism grew, and opponents began evading the embargo. Instead of retreating, Jefferson sent federal agents to secretly track down smugglers and violators. Three acts were passed in Congress during 1807 and 1808, called the Supplementary, the Additional, and the Enforcement acts. The government could not


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-12.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
=== Autobiography === In 1821, at the age of 77, Jefferson began writing his Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson: 1743–1790, in which he said he sought to "state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself". He focused on the struggles and achievements he experienced until July 29, 1790, where the narrative stopped short. He excluded his youth, emphasizing the revolutionary era. He related that his ancestors came from Wales to America in the early 17th century and settled in the western frontier of the Virginia colony, which influenced his zeal for individual and state rights. Jefferson described his father as uneducated, but with a "strong mind and sound judgement". He also addressed his enrollment in the College of William & Mary and his election to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775. He expressed opposition to the idea of a privileged aristocracy made up of large landowning families partial to the King, and instead promoted "the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society, & scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic". The work is primarily concerned with the Declaration and reforming


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-13.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson subscribed to the political ideals expounded by John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, whom he considered the three greatest men who ever lived. He was also influenced by the writings of Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. Jefferson thought that the independent yeoman and agrarian life were ideals of republican virtues. He distrusted cities and financiers, favored decentralized government power, and believed that the tyranny that had plagued the common man in Europe was due to corrupt political establishments and monarchies. He supported efforts to disestablish the Church of England, wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and he pressed for a wall of separation between church and state. The Republicans under Jefferson were strongly influenced by the 18th-century British Whig Party, which believed in limited government. His Democratic-Republican Party became dominant in early American politics, and his views became known as Jeffersonian democracy. === Philosophy, society, and government === Jefferson wrote letters and speeches prolifically; these show him to be well-read in the philosophical literature of his day and of antiquity. Nevertheless, some scholars do not take Jefferson seriously as a philosopher mainly because he did not produce a formal work on philosophy. However, he has


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-14.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson considered democracy to be the expression of society and promoted national self-determination, cultural uniformity, and education of all males of the commonwealth. He supported public education and a free press as essential components of a democratic nation. After resigning as secretary of state in 1793, Jefferson focused on the electoral bases of the Republicans and Federalists. The "Republican" classification for which he advocated included "the entire body of landholders" everywhere and "the body of laborers" without land. Republicans united behind Jefferson as vice president, with the election of 1796 expanding democracy nationwide at grassroots levels. Jefferson promoted Republican candidates for local offices. Beginning with Jefferson's electioneering for the "revolution of 1800", his political efforts were based on egalitarian appeals. In his later years, he referred to the 1800 election "as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of '76 was in its form", one "not effected indeed by the sword ... but by the ... suffrage of the people". Voter participation grew during Jefferson's presidency, increasing to "unimaginable levels" compared to the Federalist Era, with turnout of about 67,000 in 1800 rising to about 143,000 in 1804. At the onset of the American Revolution, Jefferson


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-15.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; & that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. In 1791, President Washington asked Jefferson, then secretary of state, and Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, if the Congress had the authority to create a national bank. While Hamilton believed so, Jefferson and Madison thought a national bank would ignore the needs of individuals and farmers, and would violate the Tenth Amendment by assuming powers not granted to the federal government by the states. Hamilton successfully argued that the implied powers given to the federal government in the Constitution supported the creation of a national bank, among other federal actions. Jefferson used agrarian resistance to banks and speculators as the first defining principle of an opposition party, recruiting candidates for Congress on the issue as early as 1792. As president, Jefferson was persuaded by Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to leave the bank intact but sought to restrain its influence. === Slavery === Scholars give radically differing interpretations on Jefferson's views and relationship with slavery. Opinions range from "emancipationists" who view him as an early


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-16
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-16.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Claims that Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings after his wife's death have been debated since 1802. In that year James T. Callender, after being denied a position as postmaster, alleged Jefferson had taken Hemings as a concubine and fathered several children with her. In 1998, a panel of researchers conducted a Y-DNA study of living descendants of Jefferson's uncle, Field, and of a descendant of Hemings's son, Eston Hemings. The results showed a match with the male Jefferson line. Subsequently, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF) formed a nine-member research team of historians to assess the matter. The TJF report concluded that "the DNA study ... indicates a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings". The TJF also concluded that Jefferson likely fathered all of Hemings's children listed at Monticello. In July 2017, the TJF announced that archeological excavations at Monticello had revealed what they believe to have been Sally Hemings's quarters, adjacent to Jefferson's bedroom. Since the results of the DNA tests were made public, the consensus among most historians has been that Jefferson had a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings and that he was the father of her son Eston Hemings. A minority of scholars


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-17
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-17.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
=== Linguistics === Jefferson had a lifelong interest in linguistics, and could speak, read, and write in a number of languages, including French, Greek, Italian, and German. In his early years, he excelled in classical languages. Jefferson later came to regard Greek as the "perfect language" as expressed in its laws and philosophy. While attending the College of William & Mary, he taught himself Italian. Here Jefferson first became familiar with the Anglo-Saxon language, studying it in a linguistic and philosophical capacity. He owned 17 volumes of Anglo-Saxon texts and grammar and later wrote an essay on the Anglo-Saxon language. Jefferson claimed to have taught himself Spanish during his nineteen-day journey to France, using only a grammar guide and a copy of Don Quixote. Linguistics played a significant role in how Jefferson modeled and expressed political and philosophical ideas. He believed that the study of ancient languages was essential in understanding the roots of modern language. Jefferson criticized language purists and supported the introduction of neologisms to English, foreseeing the emergence of "an American dialect". He described the Académie Française, a body designated to regulate the French language, as an "endeavor to arrest the progress of their language". He collected


id: thomas-jefferson-20260505-18
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson-18.md
category: reference
title: Thomas Jefferson
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: thomas-jefferson-20260505-0
summary:
Jefferson has been memorialized with buildings, sculptures, postage, and currency. In the 1920s, Jefferson, together with George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, was chosen by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and approved by President Calvin Coolidge to be depicted in a stone national memorial at Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills in South Dakota. The Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., in 1943, on the 200th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. The interior of the memorial includes a 19-foot (6 m) statue of Jefferson by Rudulph Evans and engravings of passages from Jefferson's writings. Most prominent among these passages are the words inscribed around the Jefferson Memorial: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man", a quote from Jefferson's September 23, 1800, letter to Benjamin Rush. Several species have been named after Jefferson, both during and after his life. Most notable is from a fossil taxon of ground sloths, †Megalonyx. Jefferson himself had defined the genus in 1799 without naming a species. The species of the type fossil would be classified †M. jeffersonii (Jefferson's ground sloth) in honor of Jefferson by Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest in 1822. The flower genus


id: charles-alexander-johns-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Alexander_Johns-0.md
category: reference
title: Charles Alexander Johns
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Alexander_Johns
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:35.073374+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: charles-alexander-johns-20260505-0
summary:
Charles Alexander Johns (1811–1874) was a 19th-century British botanist and educator who was the author of a long series of popular books on natural history. == Early years == Charles Alexander Johns was born on 31 December 1811 in Plymouth, England, one of eight surviving children of Henry Incledon Johns, a banker and poet, and Maria (Boone) Johns. Two of his sisters, Emily and Julia, would prove to be exceptionally talented botanical artists. An economic crisis in 1825 forced the closure of the bank where Johns's father Henry was a working partner, throwing him out of a job and causing hardship for the family. Henry Johns then went to work as a teacher at Plymouth New Grammar School. Johns's father had encouraged his interest in natural history from an early age, and Charles had aimed for a career in the church, following an established pattern in Britain of "parson naturalists." One of his early teachers was a local silversmith and amateur botanist, George Banks, who published a study of English botany in 1823. Johns was, however, largely self-taught as a botanist. == Teaching == In 1830, Johns's father suffered a stroke that led to failing health, creating further economic uncertainty


id: charles-alexander-johns-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Alexander_Johns-1.md
category: reference
title: Charles Alexander Johns
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Alexander_Johns
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:35.073374+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: charles-alexander-johns-20260505-0
summary:
The launce or sand-eel is a small cylindrical fish from six to twelve inches long, which by day swims about in shoals on the sandy coast, and by night burrows in the sand, keeping near the water line. It is used by fishermen as bait for larger fish, and by others is eaten either fresh or salted. The method of catching it is quite peculiar. As it begins to grow dark the fisherman, armed with a crooked iron instrument, which, with its handle, is about a foot in length, buries its point a few inches in the sand which has just been left by a receding wave, and draws it towards him with a quick motion, holding his left hand ready to catch whatever he may scrape up. When he feels any impediment he lifts his hook with a jerk, bringing up a lively fish, which if it be not immediately secured, by a few contortions of its body penetrates the sand and disappears; or if it happen that the sand be covered by ever so shallow a coating of water, instantly turns its head towards the sea and shoots down to meet the coming wave with such rapidity as


id: robert-kraichnan-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kraichnan-0.md
category: reference
title: Robert Kraichnan
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kraichnan
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:36.814147+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: robert-kraichnan-20260505-0
summary:
Robert Harry Kraichnan (KRAYSH-nan; January 15, 1928 – February 26, 2008), a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was an American theoretical physicist (fluid dynamicist) best known for his work on the theory of fluid turbulence. == Life == Kraichnan received his B.S. and Ph.D. in physics from MIT, graduating in 1949. He became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1949/50, and was one of the last assistants to Albert Einstein. After his appointment at Princeton, he worked in Columbia University and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. From 1962 on, he was supported by research grants and worked as a freelance consultant for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Princeton University, the Office of Naval Research, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and NASA. He had a keen passion for hiking, so he lived in the mountains of New Hampshire and later in White Rock, New Mexico and eventually to Santa Fe, New Mexico near Los Alamos. In 2003, he returned to academia when he was appointed Homewood Professor in the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, but by this time he had already fallen ill. He was the recipient


id: leopold-kronecker-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker-0.md
category: reference
title: Leopold Kronecker
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:38.132385+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: leopold-kronecker-20260505-0
summary:
Leopold Kronecker (German: [ˈkʁoːnɛkɐ]; 7 December 1823 – 29 December 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory, abstract algebra and logic, and criticized Georg Cantor's work on set theory. Heinrich Weber quoted Kronecker as having said, "Die ganzen Zahlen hat der liebe Gott gemacht, alles andere ist Menschenwerk" ("God made the integers, all else is the work of man"). Kronecker was a student and life-long friend of Ernst Kummer. == Biography == Leopold Kronecker was born on 7 December 1823 in Liegnitz, Prussia (now Legnica, Poland) in a wealthy Jewish family. His parents, Isidor and Johanna (née Prausnitzer), took care of their children's education and provided them with private tutoring at home—Leopold's younger brother Hugo Kronecker would also follow a scientific path, later becoming a notable physiologist. Kronecker then went to the Liegnitz Gymnasium where he was interested in a wide range of topics including science, history and philosophy, while also practicing gymnastics and swimming. At the gymnasium he was taught by Ernst Kummer, who noticed and encouraged the boy's interest in mathematics. In 1841 Kronecker became a student at the University of Berlin where his interest did not immediately focus on mathematics, but rather spread over


id: leopold-kronecker-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker-1.md
category: reference
title: Leopold Kronecker
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Kronecker
date_saved: 2026-05-05T04:06:38.132385+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: leopold-kronecker-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == Bell, E. T. (1986), Men of Mathematics, New York: Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-0-671-62818-5 Davis, Martin (2001), Engines of Logic Mathematicians and the Origin of the Computer, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-32229-3 Edwards, Harold (1987), "An Appreciation of Kronecker", Mathematical Intelligencer, 9 (1): 28–35, doi:10.1007/BF03023570, S2CID 120885744 Edwards, Harold (1989), "Kronecker's Views on the Foundations of Mathematics", in Rowe, D. E.; McCleary, J. (eds.), The History of Modern Mathematics, vol. 1, Academic Press, pp. 67–78, ISBN 978-0-12-599661-7 Kronecker, Leopold (1996) [1887], "On the concept of number", in Ewald, William B. (ed.), From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics, vol. 2, Oxford University Press, pp. 947–955, ISBN 978-0-19-850536-5 van Heijenoort, Jean (1977), From Frege to Gödel A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879–1931, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-32449-7 Weber, H. (1893), "Leopold Kronecker" (PDF), Mathematische Annalen, 43 (1), Springer Berlin / Heidelberg: 1–25, doi:10.1007/BF01446613, ISSN 0025-5831, S2CID 177800385 == External links == O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Leopold Kronecker", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews Leopold Kronecker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project The Infinite Heist Story of "the hard-fought journey to embed the concept of infinity


