Lord Byron He travelled all over Europe especially in Italy where he lived for seven years and then joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero.[1] He died one year later at age 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece. Often described as the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs with both sexes, rumours of a scandalous incestuous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile.[2] Early life[edit] Byron's paternal grandparents were Vice-Admiral the Hon. He was christened, at St Marylebone Parish Church, "George Gordon Byron" after his maternal grandfather George Gordon of Gight, a descendant of James I of Scotland, who had committed suicide[2] in 1779. Catherine Gordon, Byron's mother Upon the death of Byron's mother-in-law Judith Noel, the Hon. Education and early loves[edit] Ah! Career[edit]
Entropy (information theory) 2 bits of entropy. A single toss of a fair coin has an entropy of one bit. A series of two fair coin tosses has an entropy of two bits. The number of fair coin tosses is its entropy in bits. This definition of "entropy" was introduced by Claude E. Entropy is a measure of unpredictability of information content. Now consider the example of a coin toss. English text has fairly low entropy. If a compression scheme is lossless—that is, you can always recover the entire original message by decompressing—then a compressed message has the same quantity of information as the original, but communicated in fewer characters. Shannon's theorem also implies that no lossless compression scheme can compress all messages. Named after Boltzmann's H-theorem, Shannon defined the entropy H (Greek letter Eta) of a discrete random variable X with possible values {x1, ..., xn} and probability mass function P(X) as: When taken from a finite sample, the entropy can explicitly be written as . , with
Charles Babbage Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath.[1] He was a mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, who is best remembered now for originating the concept of a programmable computer. Considered a "father of the computer",[2] Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs. His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century.[1] Parts of Babbage's uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. Early life Babbage's birthplace is disputed, but according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography he was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London, England.[3] A blue plaque on the junction of Larcom Street and Walworth Road commemorates the event.[4] The Illustrated London News (4 November 1871).[8] Babbage was one of four children of Benjamin Babbage and Betsy Plumleigh Teape.
Top 50 Free Open Source Classes on Computer Science : Comtechtor Computer science is an interesting field to go into. There are a number of opportunities in computer science that you can take advantage of. With computers increasingly becoming a regular part of life, those who can work with computers have good opportunities. You can find a good salary with a program in computer science, and as long as you are careful to keep up your skills. Here are 50 free opencourseware classes that can help you learn more about computer science: Introduction to Computer Science Learn the basics of computer science, and get a foundation in how computer science works. Introduction to Computer Science: Learn about the history of computing, as well as the development of computer languages. Comprehensive Computer Science Collections If you are interested in courses that are a little more comprehensive in nature, you can get a good feel for computer science from the following collections: Programming and Languages Computer Software Computer Systems and Information Technology
Ada Lovelace: Founder of Scientific Computing Born: London, England, December 10, 1815 Died: London, England, November 27, 1852 Ada Byron was the daughter of a brief marriage between the Romantic poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabelle Milbanke, who separated from Byron just a month after Ada was born. Lady Byron wished her daughter to be unlike her poetical father, and she saw to it that Ada received tutoring in mathematics and music, as disciplines to counter dangerous poetic tendencies. Lady Byron and Ada moved in an elite London society, one in which gentlemen not members of the clergy or occupied with politics or the affairs of a regiment were quite likely to spend their time and fortunes pursuing botany, geology, or astronomy. One of the gentlemanly scientists of the era was to become Ada's lifelong friend. In 1835, Ada married William King, ten years her senior, and when King inherited a noble title in 1838, they became the Earl and Countess of Lovelace.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The two results are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible, giving a negative answer to Hilbert's second problem. The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an "effective procedure" (i.e., any sort of algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. Background[edit] First incompleteness theorem[edit] Diagonalization[edit] B.
Mary Shelley Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Godwin's mother died when she was eleven days old; afterwards, she and her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, were raised by her father. When Mary was four, Godwin married his neighbour, Mary Jane Clairmont. In 1816, the couple famously spent a summer with Lord Byron, John William Polidori, and Claire Clairmont near Geneva, Switzerland, where Mary conceived the idea for her novel Frankenstein. Biography Early life Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797.
Image evolution What is this? A simulated annealing like optimization algorithm, a reimplementation of Roger Alsing's excellent idea. The goal is to get an image represented as a collection of overlapping polygons of various colors and transparencies. We start from random 50 polygons that are invisible. Fitness is a sum of pixel-by-pixel differences from the original image. This implementation is based on Roger Alsing's description, though not on his code. How does it look after some time? 50 polygons (4-vertex) ~15 minutes 644 benefitial mutations 6,120 candidates 88.74% fitness 50 polygons (6-vertex) ~15 minutes 646 benefitial mutations 6,024 candidates 89.04% fitness 50 polygons (10-vertex) ~15 minutes 645 benefitial mutations 5,367 candidates 87.01% fitness 50 polygons (6-vertex) ~45 minutes 1,476 benefitial mutations 23,694 candidates 93.35% fitness 50 polygons (6-vertex) ~60 minutes 1,595 benefitial mutations 28,888 candidates 93.46% fitness Does it work on all images? It depends, success varies.
Mary Wollstonecraft First published Wed Apr 16, 2008; substantive revision Tue Sep 17, 2013 Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was a moral and political theorist whose analysis of the condition of women in modern society retains much of its original radicalism. One of the reasons her pronouncements on the subject remain challenging is that her reflections on the status of the female sex were part of an attempt to come to a comprehensive understanding of human relations within a civilization increasingly governed by acquisitiveness. Her first publication was on the education of daughters; she went on to write about politics, history and various aspects of philosophy in a number of different genres that included critical reviews, translations, pamphlets, and novels. 1. The second of seven children, Mary Wollstonecraft was born in Spitalfields, London, on 27 April 1759, in a house in Primrose Street. In 1778, she was engaged as a companion to a Mrs Dawson and lived at Bath. Wollstonecraft had a girl by Imlay.
Antikythera mechanism The Antikythera mechanism (Fragment A – front) The Antikythera mechanism (Fragment A – back) The Antikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɨkɨˈθɪərə/ ANT-i-ki-THEER-ə or /ˌæntɨˈkɪθərə/ ANT-i-KITH-ə-rə) is an ancient analog computer[1][2][3][4] designed to predict astronomical positions and eclipses. Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University, who led a 2006 study of the mechanism, described the device as "just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind", and said that its astronomy was "exactly right". The mechanism was housed in a wooden box approximately 340 × 180 × 90 mm in size and comprised 30 bronze gears (although more could have been lost). The Antikythera mechanism is kept at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Origins and discovery[edit] The mechanism was discovered in a shipwreck off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera. Mechanism[edit] Schematic of the artifact's known mechanism Operation[edit] Gearing[edit] Known gear scheme[edit] Wright proposal.
Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Wollstonecraft (/ˈwʊlstən.krɑːft/; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an eighteenth-century English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Wollstonecraft is best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she argues that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional personal relationships, received more attention than her writing. After Wollstonecraft's death, her widower published a Memoir (1798) of her life, revealing her unorthodox lifestyle, which inadvertently destroyed her reputation for almost a century. Biography Early life Wollstonecraft was born on 27 April 1759 in Spitalfields, London. Two friendships shaped Wollstonecraft's early life.
Analytical Engine Trial model of a part of the Analytical Engine, built by Babbage, as displayed at the Science Museum (London)[1] The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician Charles Babbage.[2] It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's Difference engine, a design for a mechanical computer. The Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms as Turing-complete.[3][4] Babbage was never able to complete construction of any of his machines due to conflicts with his chief engineer and inadequate funding.[5][6] It was not until the 1940s that the first general-purpose computers were actually built. Design[edit] Two types of punched cards used to program the machine. Construction[edit] Instruction set[edit] From (Bromley, A.G. Influence[edit]
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797 The Anglo-Irish feminist, intellectual and writer, Mary Wollstonecraft, was born in London, the second of six children. Her father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, was a family despot who bullied his wife, Elizabeth Dixon, into a state of wearied servitude. He spent a fortune which he had inherited in various unsuccessful ventures at farming which took the family to six different locales throughout Britain by 1780, the year Mary's mother died. At the age of nineteen Mary went out to earn her own livelihood. In 1783, she helped her sister Eliza escape a miserable marriage by hiding her from a brutal husband until a legal separation was arranged. The two sisters established a school at Newington Green, an experience from which Mary drew to write Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: With Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life (1787). In 1788 she became translator and literary advisor to Joseph Johnson, the publisher of radical texts. | Return to the Lecture |