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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] |
Cologny
Cologny () is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. History Cologny is first mentioned in 1208 as ''Colognier''. The oldest trace of a settlement in the area is a Neolithic lake side village which was discovered near the village of La Belotte. The Lake Geneva area was conquered by the Roman Empire, Romans in the 2nd century. They built a Roman road, road from Corsier through the Cologny area to Frontenex during their 2 centuries of residency. During the Middle Ages, it was part of the lands of the Counts of Geneva, before it was acquired by the Bishopric of Geneva. The village church of Saint Peter was placed under the parish of Vandœuvres in 1406, indicating that it was probably built before the 15th century. In 1536, Cologny joined the new faith of the Protestant Reformation as nearby Geneva became a center of reform. Two years later, in May 1538 a treaty between Bern and Geneva placed Cologny in the city of Geneva. In the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equatorial Mount
An equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that compensates for Earth's rotation by having one rotational axis, the polar axis, parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. This type of mount is used for astronomical telescopes and cameras. The advantage of an equatorial mount lies in its ability to allow the instrument attached to it to stay fixed on any celestial object with diurnal motion by driving one axis at a constant speed. Such an arrangement is called a sidereal or clock drive. Equatorial mounts achieve this by aligning their rotational axis with the Earth, a process known as polar alignment. Astronomical telescope mounts In astronomical telescope mounts, the equatorial axis (the '' right ascension'') is paired with a second perpendicular axis of motion (known as the '' declination''). The equatorial axis of the mount is often equipped with a motorized "''clock drive''", that rotates that axis one revolution every 23 hours and 56 minutes in exact sync with the appar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1881 Deaths
Events January–March * January 1– 24 – Siege of Geok Tepe: Russian troops under General Mikhail Skobelev defeat the Turkomans. * January 13 – War of the Pacific – Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos: The Chilean army defeats Peruvian forces. * January 15 – War of the Pacific – Battle of Miraflores: The Chileans take Lima, capital of Peru, after defeating its second line of defense in Miraflores. * January 24 – William Edward Forster, chief secretary for Ireland, introduces his Coercion Bill, which temporarily suspends habeas corpus so that those people suspected of committing an offence can be detained without trial; it goes through a long debate before it is accepted February 2. * January 25 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company. * February 13 – The first issue of the feminist newspaper ''La Citoyenne'' is published by Hubertine Auclert. * February 16 – The Canadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1793 Births
The French Republic introduced the French Revolutionary Calendar starting with the year I. Events January–June * January 7 – The Ebel riot occurs in Sweden. * January 9 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first to fly in a gas balloon in the United States. * January 13 – Nicolas Jean Hugon de Bassville, a representative of Revolutionary France, is lynched by a mob in Rome. * January 21 – French Revolution: After being found guilty of treason by the French National Convention, ''Citizen Capet'', Louis XVI of France, is guillotined in Paris. * January 23 – Second Partition of Poland: The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia partition the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. * February – In Manchester, Vermont, the wife of a captain falls ill, probably with tuberculosis. Some locals believe that the cause of her illness is that a demon vampire is sucking her blood. As a cure, Timothy Mead burns the heart of a deceased person in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academic Staff Of The University Of Geneva
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. Etymology The word comes from the ''Academy'' in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, ''Akademos''. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". In these gardens, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, established what is known today as the Old Academy. By extension, ''academia'' has come to mean the accumulation, dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Paris 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 ... [...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] |
Johann Von Lamont
Johann von Lamont, FRSE (13 December 1805 – 6 August 1879), born John Lamont, was a Scottish-German astronomer and physicist. Biography Lamont was born at Corriemulzie near Inverey in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The son of Robert Lamont (forester to Earl Fife) and Elizabeth Ewan, his education began at the local school in Inverey, near Braemar. In 1817 his father died and John was sent to be educated at St James' monastery (Scots Benedictine College) at Ratisbon, Germany. He began to work in astronomy and joined the Bogenhausen Observatory, became its director in 1835, took his doctorate of philosophy in 1830 and became professor of astronomy in 1852 at Munich University. At the observatory he undertook the task of creating a star catalog that had about 35,000 entries. In 1845 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His most important work was on the magnetism of the Earth. He performed magnetic surveys in Bavaria and northern Germany, F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolf 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 ... [...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] |
Samuel Heinrich Schwabe
Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (25 October 1789 – 11 April 1875) a German astronomer remembered for his work on sunspots. Schwabe was born at Dessau. At first an apothecary, he turned his attention to astronomy, and in 1826 commenced his observations on sunspots. Schwabe was looking for a possible planet inside the orbit of Mercury. Because of the proximity to the Sun, it would have been very difficult to observe such a planet, and Schwabe believed one possibility to detect a new planet might be to see it as a dark spot when passing in front of the Sun. For 17 years, from 1826 to 1843, on every clear day, Schwabe would scan the Sun and record its spots trying to detect any new planet among them. He did not find any planet but noticed the regular variation in the number of sunspots and published his findings in a short article entitled "Solar Observations during 1843". In it he made the suggestion of a probable ten-year period (i.e. that at every tenth year the number of spots reac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meridian Circle
The meridian circle is an instrument for timing of the passage of stars across the local meridian, an event known as a culmination, while at the same time measuring their angular distance from the nadir. These are special purpose telescopes mounted so as to allow pointing only in the meridian, the great circle through the north point of the horizon, the north celestial pole, the zenith, the south point of the horizon, the south celestial pole, and the nadir. Meridian telescopes rely on the rotation of the sky to bring objects into their field of view and are mounted on a fixed, horizontal, east–west axis. The similar transit instrument, transit circle, or transit telescope is likewise mounted on a horizontal axis, but the axis need not be fixed in the east–west direction. For instance, a surveyor's theodolite can function as a transit instrument if its telescope is capable of a full revolution about the horizontal axis. Meridian circles are often called by these names, altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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