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1654 In Science
The year 1654 in science and technology involved some significant events. Astronomy * Sicilian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna publishes ''De systemate orbis cometici, deque admirandis coeli characteribus'' including a catalog of comets and nebulae. Mathematics * At the prompting of the Chevalier de Méré, Blaise Pascal corresponds with Pierre de Fermat on gambling problems, from which is born the theory of probability. Physics * May 8 – Otto von Guericke demonstrates the effectiveness of his vacuum pump and the power of atmospheric pressure using the Magdeburg hemispheres before Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, in Regensburg. Births * December 27 – Jakob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (died 1705). * John Banister, English missionary and botanist (died 1692). * ''prob. date'' – Eleanor Glanville, English entomologist (died 1709). Deaths * August 31 – Ole Worm, Danish physician, natural historian and antiquary (born 1588) * October 18 – Nicholas Culpeper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magdeburg Hemispheres
The Magdeburg hemispheres are a pair of large copper hemispheres, with mating rims. They were used to demonstrate the power of atmospheric pressure. When the rims were sealed with grease and the air was pumped out, the sphere contained a vacuum and could not be pulled apart by teams of horses in a famous first public demonstration in 1654. The Magdeburg hemispheres were invented by German scientist and mayor of Magdeburg, Otto von Guericke, to demonstrate the air pump that he had invented, and the concept of atmospheric pressure. The first artificial vacuum had been produced a few years earlier by Evangelista Torricelli, and had inspired Guericke to design the world's first vacuum pump, which consisted of a piston and cylinder with one-way flap valves. The hemispheres became popular in physics lectures as an illustration of the strength of air pressure, and are still used in education. The original hemispheres are on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Aside from its sci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entomologist
Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arachnids, myriapods, and crustaceans. This wider meaning may still be encountered in informal use. Like several of the other fields that are categorized within zoology, entomology is a taxon-based category; any form of scientific study in which there is a focus on insect-related inquiries is, by definition, entomology. Entomology therefore overlaps with a cross-section of topics as diverse as molecular genetics, behavior, neuroscience, biomechanics, biochemistry, systematics, physiology, developmental biology, ecology, morphology, and paleontology. Over 1.3 million insect species have been described, more than two-thirds of all known species. Some insect species date back to around 400 million years ago. They have many kinds of intera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleanor Glanville
Eleanor Glanville (born Goodricke; first married name Ashfield; 1654–1709) was an England, English entomologist and Natural history, naturalist, specializing in the Lepidopterology, study of butterflies and moths. She inherited family properties across Somersetshire and married twice (once widowed). She had seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood. After separating from her second husband in the late 1690s, Glanville returned to an early passion for butterfly collecting and established herself among the ranks of early insect enthusiasts, corresponding with other entomologists such as James Petiver and John Ray. Glanville sent multiple first-known butterfly specimens to Petiver, contributing to his British insect catalogue ''Gazophylacium naturae et artis'', and her experiments in raising butterflies resulted in some of the earliest detailed descriptions of butterfly rearing. She is known for discovering the Glanville fritillary, the only native British butterfly n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1692 In Science
The year 1692 in science and technology: Events * In the American colonies, the Salem witch trials develop, following 250 years of witch-hunts in Europe. Mathematics * The tractrix, sometimes called a tractory or equitangential curve, is first studied by Christiaan Huygens, who gives it its name. * John Arbuthnot publishes ''Of the Laws of Chance'' (translated from Huygens' ''De ratiociniis in ludo aleae''), the first work on probability theory in English. Medicine * Thomas Sydenham's ''Processus integri'' ("The Process of Healing") is published posthumously. Births * April 22 – James Stirling, Scottish mathematician (died 1770) Deaths * May – John Banister, English missionary and botanist, accidentally shot (born 1654 Events January–March * January 6– In India, Jaswant Singh of Marwar (in what is now the state of Rajasthan) is elevated to the title of Maharaja by Emperor Shah Jahan. * January 11– In the Battle of Río Bueno in sout ...) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Botanist
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek word (''botanē'') meaning "pasture", " herbs" "grass", or " fodder"; is in turn derived from (), "to feed" or "to graze". Traditionally, botany has also included the study of fungi and algae by mycologists and phycologists respectively, with the study of these three groups of organisms remaining within the sphere of interest of the International Botanical Congress. Nowadays, botanists (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of land plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants (including approximately 369,000 species of flowering plants), and approximately 20,000 are bryophytes. Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify – and later cultivate – edible, med ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English People
The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language in England, English language, a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of History of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in Old English as the ('race or tribe of the Angles'). Their ethnonym is derived from the Angles, one of the Germanic peoples who migrated to Great Britain around the 5th century AD. The English largely descend from two main historical population groups the West Germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians) who settled in southern Britain following the withdrawal of the Ancient Rome, Romans, and the Romano-British culture, partially Romanised Celtic Britons already living there.Martiniano, R., Caffell, A., Holst, M. et al. Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons. Nat Commun 7, 10326 (2016). https://doi.org/10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Banister (naturalist)
John Baptist Banister (1654 – May 1692) was an English clergyman and one of the first university-trained naturalists in North America. His primary focus was botany but he also studied insects and molluscs. He was sent out as a missionary chaplain by the garden-loving Bishop Henry Compton, with whom he soon established a correspondence. Banister was first in Barbados in the West Indies and then by April 1679 in Virginia, where, while serving a rector of the parish of Charles City he became one of Bishop Compton's most energetic plant collectors, "the first Virginia botanist of any note". Banister matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he could see and study the American plants grown from seed in the Oxford Physic Garden under the care of Dr. Robert Morison. From Virginia, his first letter to Dr Morison at the Oxford Physic Garden was dated 1679: in it he listed the bounty of American oaks that would supplement Britain's impoverished flora: dwarf, black, white, red, Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1705 In Science
The year 1705 in science and technology involved some significant events. Astronomy * Edmond Halley, in his ''Synopsis Astronomia Cometicae'', states that comets seen in 1456, 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually a single comet and correctly predicts that it will return in 1758. Life sciences * Dutch lepidopterist Maria Merian publishes ''Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium''. * French anatomist Raymond Vieussens publishes ''Novum vasorum corporis humani systema'', considered an early classic work on cardiology. * French surgeon Jean Louis Petit publishes ''L'Art de guerir les maladies des os'', the first significant work on bone disease. Other events * April 16 – Isaac Newton is knighted by Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Births * February 22 – Peter Artedi, Swedish naturalist (died 1735) * April 11 – William Cookworthy, English chemist (died 1780) * June 21 – David Hartley, English physician and psychologist (died 1757) * ''undated'' – Charles Labelye, Swiss engin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History One of the earliest known mathematicians were Thales of Miletus (c. 624–c.546 BC); he has been hailed as the first true mathematician and the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, by deriving four corollaries to Thales' Theorem. The number of known mathematicians grew when Pythagoras of Samos (c. 582–c. 507 BC) established the Pythagorean School, whose doctrine it was that mathematics ruled the universe and whose motto was "All is number". It was the Pythagoreans who coined the term "mathematics", and with whom the study of mathematics for its own sake begins. The first woman mathematician recorded by history was Hypati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss People
The Swiss people (german: die Schweizer, french: les Suisses, it, gli Svizzeri, rm, ils Svizzers) are the citizens of Switzerland or people of Swiss abroad, Swiss ancestry. The number of Swiss nationality law, Swiss nationals has grown from 1.7 million in 1815 to 8.7 million in 2020. More than 1.5 million Swiss citizens hold multiple citizenship. About 11% of citizens Swiss abroad, live abroad (0.8 million, of whom 0.6 million hold multiple citizenship). About 60% of those living abroad reside in the European Union (0.46 million). The largest groups of Swiss descendants and nationals outside Europe are found in the Swiss Americans, United States, Brazil and Swiss Canadian, Canada. Although the Switzerland as a federal state, modern state of Switzerland originated in 1848, the period of romantic nationalism, it is not a nation-state, and the Swiss are not a single ethnic group, but rather are a Confederation, confederacy (') or ' ("nation of will", "nation by choice", tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jakob Bernoulli
Jacob Bernoulli (also known as James or Jacques; – 16 August 1705) was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He was an early proponent of Leibnizian calculus and sided with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz during the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy. He is known for his numerous contributions to calculus, and along with his brother Johann, was one of the founders of the calculus of variations. He also discovered the fundamental mathematical constant . However, his most important contribution was in the field of probability, where he derived the first version of the law of large numbers in his work ''Ars Conjectandi''.Jacob (Jacques) Bernoulli [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
