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Johann Rudolph Wolf
Johann Rudolf Wolf (7 July 1816 – 6 December 1893) was a Swiss astronomer and mathematician best known for his research on sunspots. Wolf was born in Fällanden, near Zurich. He studied at the universities of Zurich, Vienna, and Berlin. Encke was one of his teachers. Wolf became professor of astronomy at the University of Bern in 1844 and director of the Bern Observatory in 1847. In 1855 he accepted a chair of astronomy at both the University of Zurich and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Wolf was greatly impressed by the discovery of the sunspot cycle by Heinrich Schwabe and he not only carried out his own observations, but he collected all the available data on sunspot activity back as far as 1610 and calculated a period for the cycle of 11.1 years. In 1848 he devised a way of quantifying sunspot activity. The Wolf number, as it is now called, remains in use. In 1852 Wolf was one of four people who discovered the link between the cycle and geomagnetic activity on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fällanden
Fällanden is a municipality in the district of Uster in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland, and belongs to the Glatt Valley (German: ''Glattal''). History Fällanden is first mentioned around 820 as ''Fenichlanda''. Geography Fällanden has an area of . Of this area, 40.8% is used for agricultural purposes, while 29.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 26.2% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (3.6%) is non-productive (rivers, etc.). housing and buildings made up 20% of the total area, while transportation infrastructure made up the rest (6.1%). Of the total unproductive area, water (streams and lakes) made up 1.2% of the area. 26.7% of the total municipal area was undergoing some type of construction. The municipality is an agglomeration that grew up from the village of Fällanden and the settlements of Benglen, Pfaffhausen und Neuhausen. It is located on the north-east slope of the Pfannenstiel mountain chain, with Greifensee lake nearby. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Sabine
Sir Edward Sabine ( ; 14 October 1788 – 26 June 1883) was an Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, explorer, soldier and the 30th president of the Royal Society. He led the effort to establish a system of magnetic observatories in various parts of British territory all over the globe. Much of his life was devoted to their direction, and to analyzing their observations. Other research focused on the birds of Greenland, ocean temperatures, the Gulf Stream, barometric measurement of heights, arc of the meridian, glacial transport of rocks, the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands, and various points of meteorology. Early life Edward Sabine was born in Dublin to Joseph Sabine, a member of a prominent Anglo-Irish family who was visiting his Irish relatives at the time of his son's birth. The family connections with Ireland can be traced back to the 17th century. His mother, Sarah Hunt, died when he was just one month old. He was the couple's fifth son and ninth chil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Zurich Faculty
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the designation is reserved for colleges that have a graduate school. The word ''university'' is derived from the Latin ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". The first universities were created in Europe by Catholic Church monks. The University of Bologna (''Università di Bologna''), founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: *Being a high degree-awarding institute. *Having independence from the ecclesiastic schools, although conducted by both clergy and non-clergy. *Using the word ''universitas'' (which was coined at its foundation). *Issuing secular and non-secular degrees: grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law, notarial law.Hunt Janin: "The university ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Zurich Alumni
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the designation is reserved for colleges that have a graduate school. The word ''university'' is derived from the Latin ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". The first universities were created in Europe by Catholic Church monks. The University of Bologna (''Università di Bologna''), founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: *Being a high degree-awarding institute. *Having independence from the ecclesiastic schools, although conducted by both clergy and non-clergy. *Using the word ''universitas'' (which was coined at its foundation). *Issuing secular and non-secular degrees: grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law, notarial law.Hunt Janin: "The university i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historians Of Astronomy
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. Some historians are recognized by publications or training and experience.Herman, A. M. (1998). Occupational outlook handbook: 1998–99 edition. Indianapolis: JIST Works. Page 525. "Historian" became a professional occupation in the late nineteenth century as research universities were emerging in Germany and elsewhere. Objectivity During the ''Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt'' trial, people became aware that the court needed to identify what was an "objective historian" in the same vein as the reasonable person, and reminiscent of the standard traditionally used in English law of "the man on the Clapham omnibus". This was necessary so that there would be a legal benchmark to compare and contrast the scholar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1893 Deaths
Events January–March * January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America. * Mark Twain started writing Puddn'head Wilson. * January 6 – The Washington National Cathedral is chartered by Congress; the charter is signed by President Benjamin Harrison. * January 13 ** The Independent Labour Party of the United Kingdom has its first meeting. ** U.S. Marines from the ''USS Boston'' land in Honolulu, Hawaii, to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution. * January 15 – The ''Telefon Hírmondó'' service starts with around 60 subscribers, in Budapest. * January 17 – Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii: Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizen's Committee of Public Safety in Hawaii, with the intervention of the United States Marine Corps, overthrow the government of Queen Liliuokalani. * January 21 ** The Cherry Sisters first perform in Marion, Iowa. ** The Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1816 Births
This year was known as the ''Year Without a Summer'', because of low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly the result of the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, causing severe global cooling, catastrophic in some locations. Events January–March * December 25 1815–January 6 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia signs an order, expelling the Jesuits from St. Petersburg and Moscow. * January 9 – Sir Humphry Davy's Davy lamp is first tested underground as a coal mining safety lamp, at Hebburn Colliery in northeast England. * January 17 – Fire nearly destroys the city of St. John's, Newfoundland. * February 10 – Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, dies and is succeeded by Friedrich Wilhelm, his son and founder of the House of Glücksburg. * February 20 – Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa ''The Barber of Seville'' premières at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. * March 1 – The Gork ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
19th-century Swiss Astronomers
The 19th (nineteenth) century began on 1 January 1801 ( MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 ( MCM). The 19th century was the ninth century of the 2nd millennium. The 19th century was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanding beyond its British homeland for the first time during this century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Islamic gunpowder empires fell into decline and European imperialism brought much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and almost all of Africa under colonial rule. It was also marked by the collapse of the large S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwin Jaynes
Edwin Thompson Jaynes (July 5, 1922 – April 30, 1998) was the Wayman Crow Distinguished Professor of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis. He wrote extensively on statistical mechanics and on foundations of probability and statistical inference, initiating in 1957 the maximum entropy interpretation of thermodynamics as being a particular application of more general Bayesian/information theory techniques (although he argued this was already implicit in the works of Josiah Willard Gibbs). Jaynes strongly promoted the interpretation of probability theory as an extension of logic. In 1963, together with Fred Cummings, he modeled the evolution of a two-level atom in an electromagnetic field, in a fully quantized way. This model is known as the Jaynes–Cummings model. A particular focus of his work was the construction of logical principles for assigning prior probability distributions; see the principle of maximum entropy, the principle of maximum caliber, the princ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monte Carlo Method
Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be deterministic in principle. They are often used in physical and mathematical problems and are most useful when it is difficult or impossible to use other approaches. Monte Carlo methods are mainly used in three problem classes: optimization, numerical integration, and generating draws from a probability distribution. In physics-related problems, Monte Carlo methods are useful for simulating systems with many coupled degrees of freedom, such as fluids, disordered materials, strongly coupled solids, and cellular structures (see cellular Potts model, interacting particle systems, McKean–Vlasov processes, kinetic models of gases). Other examples include modeling phenomena with significant uncertainty in inputs such as the calculation of ris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffon's Needle
In mathematics, Buffon's needle problem is a question first posed in the 18th century by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon: :Suppose we have a floor made of Parallel (geometry), parallel strips of wood, each the same width, and we drop a Sewing needle, needle onto the floor. What is the probability that the needle will lie across a line between two strips? Buffon's needle was the earliest problem in geometric probability to be solved; it can be solved using integral geometry. The solution for the sought probability ''p'', in the case where the needle length ''ℓ'' is not greater than the width ''t'' of the strips, is :p=\frac \cdot \frac\ell t. This can be used to design a Monte Carlo method for approximating the number pi, , although that was not the original motivation for de Buffon's question. Solution The problem in more mathematical terms is: Given a needle of length \ell dropped on a plane ruled with parallel lines ''t'' units apart, what is the probability that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Alfred Gautier
Jean-Alfred Gautier or Alfred Gautier (18 July 1793 – 30 November 1881) was a Swiss astronomer. Biography He was born in Cologny. He was the son of François Gautier, merchant, and of Marie de Tournes. He studied astronomy at the University of Geneva, then at the University of Paris. He was awarded a doctorate in celestial mechanics in Paris in 1817; his thesis was entitled ''Historical essay on the problem of three bodies''. His academic advisors were Laplace, Lagrange and Legendre. In 1818 he worked in England with Herschel. Back in Geneva in 1819, he was appointed astronomy professor then, in 1821, professor of advanced mathematics at the University of Geneva and director of the Observatory of Geneva. He had a new building constructed on the site in 1830 which was equipped with new instruments: an equatorial of Gambey and a meridian circle. In 1839, visual impairments prevented him from continuing his career and he gave up his position to one of his pupils, Emile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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