Alhazen In medieval Europe, he was honored as Ptolemaeus Secundus ("Ptolemy the Second")[10] or simply called "The Physicist".[11] He is also sometimes called al-Basri (Arabic: البصري) after Basra, his birthplace.[12] He spent most of his life close to the court of the Caliphate in Cairo and earned his living authoring various treatises and tutoring members of the nobilities.[13] Overview[edit] Biography[edit] Born c. 965 in Basra, which was then part of the Buyid emirate,[1] to an Arab family.[14][15] Legacy[edit] Front page of the Opticae Thesaurus, which included the first printed Latin translation of Alhazen's Book of Optics. Alhazen made significant contributions to optics, number theory, geometry, astronomy and natural philosophy. One of the major scientific anniversaries that will be celebrated during the 2015 International Year of Light is: the works on optics by Ibn Al-Haytham (1015). Book of Optics[edit] Main article: Book of Optics Theory of vision[edit] Alhazen on Iraqi 10 dinars G. A.
Second law of thermodynamics The second law of thermodynamics states that every process occurring in nature proceeds in the sense in which the sum of the entropies of all bodies taking part in the process is increased. In the limit, i.e. for reversible processes, the sum of the entropies remains unchanged.[1][2][3] The second law is an empirical finding that has been accepted as an axiom of thermodynamic theory. Statistical thermodynamics, classical or quantum, explains the law. The second law has been expressed in many ways. Introduction[edit] The first law of thermodynamics provides the basic definition of thermodynamic energy, also called internal energy, associated with all thermodynamic systems, but unknown in classical mechanics, and states the rule of conservation of energy in nature.[4][5] The concept of energy in the first law does not, however, account for the observation that natural processes have a preferred direction of progress. For mathematical analysis of processes, entropy is introduced as follows. .
Change Of Habit: How Seattle Cops Fought An Addiction To Locking Up Drug Users Jeremy Bradford and a friend were walking through downtown Seattle one summer night in 2011, looking for a place where they could share the contents of the baggie in Bradford’s pocket, when they ran into a man who told them about a spot under the freeway. A narrow trail led through a thicket of blackberry brambles to a small clearing. Eight or nine people were sitting around on salvaged chairs and mattresses, smoking cigarettes and talking. Bradford didn’t feel like he belonged there. In another life, Bradford supervised 13 soldiers as a corporal in the Marines, and later sold good suits in the men’s section of a department store. A few months after that night under the freeway, the cops found their way to the hidden spot. For Bradford, it represented another chance. Jeremy Bradford, a former suit salesman who was arrested for drugs more than 20 times in half as many years, stands for a portrait in downtown Seattle on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014. Daugaard remembers feeling taken aback.
Galileo Galilei Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564[3] – 8 January 1642), often known mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy",[4] the "father of modern physics",[5][6] the "father of science",[6][7] and "the father of modern science".[8] Early life Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, in 1564,[15] the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and Giulia Ammannati. Although a genuinely pious Roman Catholic,[17] Galileo fathered three children out of wedlock with Marina Gamba. Career as a scientist Galileo, Kepler and theories of tides
Occam's razor The sun, moon and other solar system planets can be described as revolving around the Earth. However that explanation's ideological and complex assumptions are completely unfounded compared to the modern consensus that all solar system planets revolve around the Sun. Ockham's razor (also written as Occam's razor and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in problem-solving devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287 - 1347). It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better. Solomonoff's theory of inductive inference is a mathematically formalized Occam's Razor:[2][3][4][5][6][7] shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the probability of the next observation, using all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations.
32 Florida Prison Guards Fired Amid Outrage Over Inmate Abuse Sept 20 (Reuters) - The secretary of Florida's prison system has fired nearly three dozen guards in the wake of the recent scrutiny given to inmate deaths across the state during recent years, the Miami Herald newspaper reported. Florida Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Crews dismissed 32 guards on Friday, according to the newspaper. All of them had been accused of criminal misconduct or wrongdoing stemming from inmate deaths at four different prisons, the report said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report as representatives for the department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Florida's prison system came under increasing scrutiny after the circumstances of the 2012 death of mentally ill prisoner Darren Rainey came to light. In June, the American Civil Liberties Union penned a letter to U.S. After two hours, Rainey was found dead with his skin separated from his body, the letter stated.
James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell FRS FRSE (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish[2][3] mathematical physicist.[4] His most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics"[5] after the first one realised by Isaac Newton. With the publication of A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field in 1865, Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light. Maxwell proposed that light is an undulation in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.[6] The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves. Life[edit] Early life, 1831–39[edit] Education, 1839–47[edit] Edinburgh Academy, where Maxwell was schooled ...
Zipf's law Zipf's law /ˈzɪf/, an empirical law formulated using mathematical statistics, refers to the fact that many types of data studied in the physical and social sciences can be approximated with a Zipfian distribution, one of a family of related discrete power law probability distributions. The law is named after the American linguist George Kingsley Zipf (1902–1950), who first proposed it (Zipf 1935, 1949), though the French stenographer Jean-Baptiste Estoup (1868–1950) appears to have noticed the regularity before Zipf.[1] It was also noted in 1913 by German physicist Felix Auerbach[2] (1856–1933). Motivation[edit] Zipf's law states that given some corpus of natural language utterances, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. The same relationship occurs in many other rankings unrelated to language, such as the population ranks of cities in various countries, corporation sizes, income rankings, and so on. Theoretical review[edit] Formally, let:
Agent Storm: Inside al Qaeda for the CIA Your video will begin momentarily. Morten Storm was a radical Islamist turned double agentHe switched sides when he lost his faithStorm says he set a key al Qaeda leader up with a wifeHe decided to go public after a falling out with his Western handlers Watch "Double Agent: Inside al Qaeda for the CIA" Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET. (CNN) -- Two worlds. Two identities and the ever-present, very real risk of death. That was the life of Morten Storm, a radical Islamist turned double agent, who's now lifting the lid on some of the world's best-kept secrets. His life is the stuff of spy novels, and he talks about it in his book: "Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA," co-authored by CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister. He also recently sat down with CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson. Double Agent Inside al Qaeda for the CIA Turning double-agent on al Qaeda America's Most Wanted Terrorists "I had these different names. Growing up Finding 'truth'
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, an armoured vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine,[7] and the double hull, also outlining a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime,[nb 2] but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded.[nb 3] He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.[8] Life Childhood, 1452–1466 Leonardo's earliest known drawing, the Arno Valley (1473), Uffizi Verrocchio's workshop, 1466–1476 Professional life, 1476–1513 In 1482 Leonardo, who according to Vasari was a most talented musician,[25] created a silver lyre in the shape of a horse's head. Old age, 1513–1519 Personal life
Jimmy Savile: police investigate alleged rape and sex abuse 'on national scale' | Media | The Guardian Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% Police are pursuing 120 separate lines of inquiry involving alleged rape and sexual abuse by Sir Jimmy Savile stretching over a period of four decades and "on a national scale", Scotland Yard has said. Two formal criminal allegations of rape and six of indecent assault have been recorded to date against the late DJ and television presenter, who died last year, but police said they had received information relating to up to 25 potential victims, the majority of whom were girls aged between 13 and 16 when the alleged abuse took place. The earliest allegation dates from 1959, said Commander Peter Spindler, head of serious crime investigations at the Metropolitan police, which is co-ordinating the inquiry, but the reports "span four decades of abuse", the majority relating to incidents in the 1970s and 1980s. Peter Liver, director of the NSPCC, said the charity had passed 24 reports of abuse to the Met, 17 of which related directly to Savile.
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (/ˈælbərt ˈaɪnʃtaɪn/; German: [ˈalbɐrt ˈaɪnʃtaɪn]; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science.[4][5] He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics).[3][6]:274 Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation").[7] He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics", in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolution of quantum theory.[8] Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. Life Early life and education Death
5 Amazing Things Your Brain Does While You Sleep We spend a third of our lives sleeping, an activity as crucial to our health and well-being as eating. But exactly why we need sleep hasn’t always been clear. We know that sleep makes us feel more energized and improves our mood, but what’s really happening in the brain and body when we’re at rest? Research has identified a number of reasons that sleep is critical to our health. When we’re sleeping, the brain is anything but inactive. In fact, during sleep, neurons in the brain fire nearly as much as they do during waking hours — so it should come as no surprise that what happens during our resting hours is extremely important to a number brain and cognitive functions. Here are five incredible things your brain does while you’re asleep — and good reason to get some shuteye tonight: The brain can process information and prepare for actions during sleep, effectively making decisions while unconscious, new research has found. Creates and consolidates memories. Makes creative connections. Alamy
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (/ˈdɑrwɪn/;[1] 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist and geologist,[2] best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory.[I] He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors,[3] and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.[4] Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species.[5][6] By the 1870s the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. Biography Early life and education Painting of seven-year-old Charles Darwin in 1816. Voyage of the Beagle Death and funeral Works