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Kavan Ratnatunga
Kavan Ratnatunga is a Sri Lankan scholar, with interests in astronomy, archaeology and numismatics. Education Kavan Ratnatunga went to school at Royal College, Colombo, Ceylon. In 1976 from the University of Ceylon, Colombo, he was awarded a first-class BSc Honours Degree in Physics. In 1979 he obtained a MS from University of Pittsburgh in USA, and in 1983 a PhD from Australian National University, specializing in automated statistical analysis of astronomical data and digital images. Career Ratnatunga's career included research at Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria Canada, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt (1989/91), Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (1992/96), and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (1996/2004). He returned to Sri Lanka in 2005. His current interests include increasing the information on Lanka on the Internet; archaeology with a special ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, and southeast of the Arabian Sea; it is separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Lanka shares a maritime border with India and Maldives. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and financial centre. Sri Lanka has a population of around 22 million (2020) and is a multinational state, home to diverse cultures, languages, and ethnicities. The Sinhalese are the majority of the nation's population. The Tamils, who are a large minority group, have also played an influential role in the island's history. Other long established groups include the Moors, the Burghers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other means of payment used to resolve debts and exchange goods. The earliest forms of money used by people are categorised by collectors as "Odd and Curious", but the use of other goods in barter exchange is excluded, even where used as a circulating currency (e.g., cigarettes or instant noodles in prison). As an example, the Kyrgyz people used horses as the principal currency unit, and gave small change in lambskins; the lambskins may be suitable for numismatic study, but the horses are not. Many objects have been used for centuries, such as cowry shells, precious metals, cocoa beans, large stones, and gems. Etymology First attested in English 1829, the word ''numismatics'' comes from the adjective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinhalese Academics
Sinhala may refer to: * Something of or related to the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka * Sinhalese people * Sinhala language, one of the three official languages used in Sri Lanka * Sinhala script, a writing system for the Sinhala language ** Sinhala (Unicode block), a block of Sinhala characters in Unicode * Sinhala cinema * Sinhala Kingdom, the Lankan kingdom mentioned in the ''Mahābhārata'' * "Sinhala", a song from the 1999 album ''The Magical Sounds of Banco de Gaia ''The Magical Sounds of Banco de Gaia'' is an album by Banco de Gaia. It was released in 1999 on Six Degrees Records Six Degrees Records is an independent record label noted for its catalog of recordings from international musicians and vocal ...'' {{disambig Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living People
Related categories * :Year of birth missing (living people) / :Year of birth unknown * :Date of birth missing (living people) / :Date of birth unknown * :Place of birth missing (living people) / :Place of birth unknown * :Year of death missing / :Year of death unknown * :Date of death missing / :Date of death unknown * :Place of death missing / :Place of death unknown * :Missing middle or first names See also * :Dead people * :Template:L, which generates this category or death years, and birth year and sort keys. : {{DEFAULTSORT:Living people 21st-century people People by status ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versatile, renowned both as a vital research tool and as a public relations boon for astronomy. The Hubble telescope is named after astronomer Edwin Hubble and is one of NASA's Great Observatories. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) selects Hubble's targets and processes the resulting data, while the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) controls the spacecraft. Hubble features a mirror, and its five main instruments observe in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to capture extremely high-resolution images with substantially lower background light than ground-based telescopes. It has recorded some of the most detaile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gravitational Lens
A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels toward the observer. This effect is known as gravitational lensing, and the amount of bending is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Treating light as corpuscles travelling at the speed of light, Newtonian physics also predicts the bending of light, but only half of that predicted by general relativity. Although Einstein made unpublished calculations on the subject in 1912, Orest Khvolson (1924) and Frantisek Link (1936) are generally credited with being the first to discuss the effect in print. However, this effect is more commonly associated with Einstein, who published an article on the subject in 1936. Fritz Zwicky posited in 1937 that the effect could allow galaxy clusters to act as gravitational lenses. It was not until 1979 that this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Halo
A galactic halo is an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy which extends beyond the main, visible component. Several distinct components of galaxies comprise the halo: * the stellar halo * the galactic corona (hot gas, i.e. a plasma) * the dark matter halo The distinction between the halo and the main body of the galaxy is clearest in spiral galaxies, where the spherical shape of the halo contrasts with the flat disc. In an elliptical galaxy, there is no sharp transition between the other components of the galaxy and the halo. A halo can be studied by observing its effect on the passage of light from distant bright objects like quasars that are in line of sight beyond the galaxy in question. Components of the galactic halo Stellar halo The stellar halo is a nearly spherical population of field stars and globular clusters. It surrounds most disk galaxies as well as some elliptical galaxies of type cD. A low amount (about one percent) of a galaxy's stellar mas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Moratuwa
(''Vidyaayev Sharvadhanam'') , motto_lang = Sanskrit , mottoeng = Wisdom is all Wealth , established = , type = Public , chancellor = K. K. Y. W. Perera , vice_chancellor = N. D. Gunawardena , location = Katubedda, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka , students = 10,000+ , undergrad = 7,000 , postgrad = 2,500 , academic_staff = 500 , administrative_staff = 800 , nickname = Mora , campus = Urban - , website = , accreditation = University Grants Commission (Sri Lanka) , affiliations = * University Grants Commission *Association of Commonwealth Universities *International Association of Universities *Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors *RIBA * Institution of Engineers Australia *Institution of Engineering and Technology , former_names = Katubedda Campus of University of Ceylon The University of Moratuwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goddard Space Flight Center
The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors. It is one of ten major NASA field centers, named in recognition of American rocket propulsion pioneer Robert H. Goddard. GSFC is partially within the former Goddard census-designated place; it has a Greenbelt mailing address.CENSUS 2000 BLOCK MAP: GODDARD CDP " . Retrieved on September 1, 2018. 1990 Census map of Prince ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Ceylon
The University of Ceylon was the only university in Sri Lanka (earlier Ceylon) from 1942 until 1972. It had several constituent campuses at various locations around Sri Lanka. The University of Ceylon Act No. 1 of 1972, replaced it with the University of Sri Lanka which existed from 1973 to 1978. In 1978 it was separated into four independent universities. These are the University of Colombo, the University of Peradeniya, University of Kelaniya (Vidyalankara University) and the University of Sri Jayawardanapura (Vidyodaya University). History Agitation for the provision of higher education in the island and for the establishment of a university began by the mid-19th century. This agitation gathered momentum by the beginning of the 20th century, and the Ceylon University Association, formed in 1906 by Sir James Peiris, Sir Ponnambalam Arunachalam and Sir Marcus Fernando with some other modern/western educated elite, urged the establishment of a national university. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal College, Colombo
Royal College, Colombo is a selective entry boys' school located in Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Started as a private school by Rev Joseph Marsh in 1835, it was established as the Colombo Academy by Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton in January 1836, as part of the implementation of the recommendations of the Colebrooke Cameron Commission (1833), and was the first government-run secondary school for boys in the island. Royal College is the first public school in Sri Lanka and is often referred to as the "Eton of Sri Lanka". The school was founded in the British public school tradition, based on the recommendations of the Colebrooke Cameron Commission (1833), and having been named the Royal College, Colombo in 1881 with consent from Queen Victoria, it became the first school to gain the prefix, "Royal", outside of the British Isles and it was one of the first schools to be designated as a national school by the Sri Lankan Government in the 1980s. As a national school, it is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology (in North America – the four-field approach), history or geography. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, which is the study of fossil remains. Archaeology is particularly important for learning about prehistoric societies, for which, by definition, there are no written records. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the adven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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