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Letters To A German Princess
''Letters to a German Princess, On Different Subjects in Physics and Philosophy'' (French: ''Lettres à une princesse d'Allemagne sur divers sujets de physique et de philosophie'') were a series of 234 letters written by the mathematician Leonhard Euler between 1760 and 1762 addressed to Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt and her younger sister Louise. Contents Euler started the first letter with an explanation of the concept of "size". Starting with the definition of a foot, he defined the mile and the diameter of the earth as a unit in terms of foot and then calculated the distance of the planets of the Solar System in terms of the diameter of the earth. Publication The first two volumes of the 234 letters originally written in French appeared in print in Saint Petersburg in 1768 and the third in Frankfurt in 1774. The letters were later reprinted in Paris with the first volume in 1787, the second in 1788 and the third in 1789. The publication of the book was suppo ...
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Catherine II
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst , birth_place = Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia, Holy Roman Empire(now Szczecin, Poland) , death_date = (aged 67) , death_place = Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire , burial_date = , burial_place = Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg , signature = Catherine The Great Signature.svg , religion = Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power following the overthrow of her husband, Peter III. Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of ...
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Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of Cronus (Saturn). It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. Uranus is similar in composition to Neptune, and both have bulk chemical compositions which differ from that of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. For this reason, scientists often classify Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" to distinguish them from the other giant planets. As with gas giants, ice giants also lack a well defined "solid surface." Uranus's atmosphere is similar to Jupiter's and Saturn's in its primary composition of hydrogen and helium, but it contains more " ices" such as water, ammonia, and methane, along with traces of other hydrocarbons. It has the coldest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System, with a m ...
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Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy'', 1st edition, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976. 2nd edition, 1986. 3rd edition, Routledge, London, 1996. p. 286 More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".Bourke, Vernon J., "Rationalism," p. 263 in Runes (1962). In an old John Locke (1690), An Essay on Human Understanding controversy, rationalism was opposed to empiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics ...
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Age Of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries with global influences and effects. The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, and constitutional government. The Enlightenment was preceded by the Scientific Revolution and the work of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and others. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment to the publication of René Descartes' '' Discourse on the Method'' in 1637, featuring his famous dictum, '' Cogito, ergo sum'' ("I think, therefore I am"). Others cite the publication of Isaa ...
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Sylvestre François Lacroix
Sylvestre François Lacroix (28 April 176524 May 1843) was a French mathematician. Life He was born in Paris, and was raised in a poor family who still managed to obtain a good education for their son. Lacroix's path to mathematics started with the novel Robinson Crusoe. That gave him an interest in sailing and thus navigation too. At that point geometry captured his interest and the rest of mathematics followed. He had courses with Antoine-René Mauduit at College Royale de France and Joseph-Francois Marie at Collége Mazaine of University of Paris. In 1779 he obtained some lunar observations of Pierre Charles Le Monnier and began to calculate the variables of lunar theory. The next year he followed some lectures of Gaspard Monge. In 1782 at the age of 17 he became an instructor in mathematics at the École de Gardes de la Marine in Rochefort. Monge was the students' examiner and Lacroix's supervisor there until 1795. Returning to Paris, Condorcet hired Lacroix to fill in for ...
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Marquis De Condorcet
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet (; 17 September 1743 – 29 March 1794), known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher and mathematician. His ideas, including support for a liberal economy, free and equal public instruction, constitutional government, and equal rights for women and people of all races, have been said to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, of which he has been called the "last witness," and Enlightenment rationalism. He died in prison after a period of hiding from the French Revolutionary authorities. Early years Condorcet was born in Ribemont (in present-day Aisne), descended from the ancient family of Caritat, who took their title from the town of Condorcet in Dauphiné, of which they were long-time residents. Fatherless at a young age, he was taken care of by his devoutly religious mother who dressed him as a girl till age eight. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the ''Collège de Navarr ...
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Henry Hunter (divine)
Henry Hunter(25 August 1741 – 27 October 1802) was a Scottish minister who translated the works of noted scholars including Leonard Euler and Johann Kaspar Lavater. Life Henry Hunter was born at Culross on the Firth of Forth, on 25 August 1741. He was the fifth child of David and Agnes Hunter. In 1754 he was sent to the University of Edinburgh at the age of 13. He became tutor to Claud Irvine Boswell, Lord Balmuto whom he befriended at university. Hunter then became the family tutor to Alexander, Earl of Dundonald at Culross Abbey. In 1764 he received licence to preach from the presbytery of Dunfermline and he became the "second charge" minister of the important South Leith Parish Church near Edinburgh in January 1766, with his predecessor Rev Thomas Scott rising to "first charge". In 1769 he preached in London and although invited to lead a Scottish congregation in Piccadilly he finally accepted an invitation from the Scots Church at London Wall in August 1771. Soon afte ...
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Stepan Rumovsky
Stepan Yakovlevich Rumovsky (russian: Степан Яковлевич Румовский; , Vladimir Governorate – , Saint Petersburg) was a Russian astronomer and mathematician, considered to be the first Russian astronomer of renown. Biography Rumovsky studied in Berlin under Leonhard Euler. He taught mathematics and astronomy at the University of St. Petersburg from 1756 to 1812 and held numerous important positions in the St. Petersburg Academy, including director of the geography department from 1766 to 1786 and director of the observatory and professor of astronomy from 1763 until his death. At some point, he became a vice-president of the Academy of Sciences. He was appointed an honorary foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1763. Rumovsky joined the Russian School Administration Board in 1803 and was responsible for several reforms. As superintendent of the Kazan Department of Education between 1803 and 1812 he played a major role in the found ...
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Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov
Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov (russian: Михаи́л Илларио́нович Воронцо́в) (12 July 171415 February 1767) was a Russian statesman and diplomat, who laid foundations for the fortunes of the Vorontsov family. At the age of fourteen, Vorontsov was appointed a kammerjunker at the court of the tsesarevna Yelizaveta Petrovna, whom he materially assisted during the famous coup d'etat of 6 December 1741, when she mounted the Russian throne on the shoulders of the Preobrazhensky Grenadiers. On 3 January 1742 Vorontsov married countess Anna Karlovna Skavronskaya, the empress's maternal first cousin, and in 1744 was created a count and vice-chancellor. His envy of Aleksei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin induced him to participate in Count Lestocq's conspiracy against that statesman. The empress's affection for him (she owed much to his skilful pen and still more to the liberality of his rich kinsfolk) saved him from the fate of his accomplices, but he lived ...
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Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economis ...
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Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. He introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and Mathematical notation, notation, including the notion of a function (mathematics), mathematical function. He is also known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy and music theory. Euler is held to be one of the greatest mathematicians in history and the greatest of the 18th century. A statement attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace expresses Euler's influence on mathematics: "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all." Carl Friedrich Gauss remarked: "The study of Euler's works will remain the best school for the different fields of mathematics, a ...
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