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1844 In Science
The year 1844 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Astronomy * August 10 – German astronomer Friedrich Bessel deduces from the motion of the bright stars Sirius and Procyon that they have dark companions. Biology * June 3 – The last definitely recorded pair of great auks (''Pinguinus impennis'') are killed on the Icelandic island of Eldey. * August 1 – Opening of Berlin Zoological Garden. * Gabriel Gustav Valentin notes the digestive activity of pancreatic juice. * George Robert Gray begins publication in London of ''The Genera of Birds''. * Joseph Dalton Hooker begins publication of ''The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' ... 1839–1843'' in London. Chemistry * Karl Klaus discovers ruthenium. * Professor Gustaf Erik Pasch of Stockholm is granted the privilege of manufacturing a safety match. * French chemist Adolphe Wurtz reports the first synthesis of copper hydride, a well-kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruthenium
Ruthenium is a chemical element; it has symbol Ru and atomic number 44. It is a rare transition metal belonging to the platinum group of the periodic table. Like the other metals of the platinum group, ruthenium is unreactive to most chemicals. Karl Ernst Claus, a Russian scientist of Baltic-German ancestry, discovered the element in 1844 at Kazan State University and named it in honor of Russia. (He used the Latin name '' Ruthenia'', which can have other meanings, but specifically stated that the element was named in honor of his "motherland".) Ruthenium is usually found as a minor component of platinum ores; the annual production has risen from about 19 tonnes in 2009 to some 35.5 tonnes in 2017. Most ruthenium produced is used in wear-resistant electrical contacts and thick-film resistors. A minor application for ruthenium is in platinum alloys and as a chemical catalyst. A new application of ruthenium is as the capping layer for extreme ultraviolet photoma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish People
The Irish ( or ''Na hÉireannaigh'') are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common ancestry, history and Culture of Ireland, culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been continually inhabited for more than 10,000 years (see Prehistoric Ireland). For most of Ireland's recorded history, the Irish have been primarily a Gaels, Gaelic people (see Gaelic Ireland). From the 9th century, small numbers of Vikings settled in Ireland, becoming the Norse-Gaels. Anglo-Normans also Norman invasion of Ireland, conquered parts of Ireland in the 12th century, while Kingdom of England, England's 16th/17th century Tudor conquest of Ireland, conquest and Plantations of Ireland, colonisation of Ireland brought many English people, English and Scottish Lowlands, Lowland Scottish people, Scots to parts of the island, especially the north. Today, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland (officially called Republic of Irela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Grassmann
Hermann Günther Grassmann (, ; 15 April 1809 – 26 September 1877) was a German polymath known in his day as a linguist and now also as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, general scholar, and publisher. His mathematical work was little noted until he was in his sixties. His work preceded and exceeded the concept which is now known as a vector space. He introduced the Grassmannian, the space which parameterizes all ''k''-dimensional linear subspaces of an ''n''-dimensional vector space ''V''. In linguistics he helped free language history and structure from each other. Biography Hermann Grassmann was the third of 12 children of Justus Günter Grassmann, an ordained minister who taught mathematics and physics at the Stettin Gymnasium, where Hermann was educated. Grassmann was an undistinguished student until he obtained a high mark on the examinations for admission to Prussian universities. Beginning in 1827, he studied theology at the University of Berlin, also ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transcendental Number
In mathematics, a transcendental number is a real or complex number that is not algebraic: that is, not the root of a non-zero polynomial with integer (or, equivalently, rational) coefficients. The best-known transcendental numbers are and . The quality of a number being transcendental is called transcendence. Though only a few classes of transcendental numbers are known, partly because it can be extremely difficult to show that a given number is transcendental. Transcendental numbers are not rare: indeed, almost all real and complex numbers are transcendental, since the algebraic numbers form a countable set, while the set of real numbers and the set of complex numbers are both uncountable sets, and therefore larger than any countable set. All transcendental real numbers (also known as real transcendental numbers or transcendental irrational numbers) are irrational numbers, since all rational numbers are algebraic. The converse is not true: Not all irrational numbers are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Liouville
Joseph Liouville ( ; ; 24 March 1809 – 8 September 1882) was a French mathematician and engineer. Life and work He was born in Saint-Omer in France on 24 March 1809. His parents were Claude-Joseph Liouville (an army officer) and Thérèse Liouville (née Balland). Liouville gained admission to the École Polytechnique in 1825 and graduated in 1827. Just like Augustin-Louis Cauchy before him, Liouville studied engineering at École des Ponts et Chaussées after graduating from the Polytechnique, but opted instead for a career in mathematics. After some years as an assistant at various institutions including the École Centrale Paris, he was appointed as professor at the École Polytechnique in 1838. He obtained a chair in mathematics at the Collège de France in 1850 and a chair in mechanics at the Faculté des Sciences in 1857. Besides his academic achievements, he was very talented in organisational matters. Liouville founded the ''Journal de Mathématiques Pures et A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Origin Of Species
''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'')The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''. In the 1872 sixth edition, "On" was omitted, so the full title is ''The origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.'' This edition is usually known as ''The Origin of Species.'' The 6th is Darwin's final edition; there were minor modifications in the text of certain subsequent issues. See Freeman, R. B. In Van Wyhe, John, ed. ''Darwin Online: On the Origin of Species'', 2002. is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. It was published on 24 November 1859. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a Common descent, common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint presentation with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this Phylogenetics, branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by Burials and memorials in Westminster Abbey, burial in Westminster Abbey. Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh Medical Schoo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation
''Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'' is an 1844 work of speculative natural history and philosophy by Robert Chambers. Published anonymously in England, it brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous scientific theories of the age. ''Vestiges'' was initially well received by polite Victorian society and became an international bestseller, but its unorthodox themes contradicted the natural theology fashionable at the time and were reviled by clergymen – and subsequently by scientists who readily found fault with its amateurish deficiencies. The ideas in the book were favoured by Radicals, but its presentation remained popular with a much wider public. Prince Albert read it aloud to Queen Victoria in 1845. ''Vestiges'' caused a shift in popular opinion which – Charles Darwin believed – prepared the public mind for the scientific theories of evolution ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Chambers (publisher Born 1802)
Robert Chambers (; 10 July 1802 – 17 March 1871) was a Scottish publisher, geologist, evolutionary thinker, author and journal editor who, like his elder brother and business partner William Chambers, was highly influential in mid-19th-century scientific and political circles. Chambers was an early phrenologist in the Edinburgh Phrenological Society. He was also the anonymous author of '' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation'', which was so controversial that his authorship was not acknowledged until after his death. Early life Chambers was born in Peebles in the Scottish Borders 10 July 1802 to Jean Gibson (''c''. 1781–1843) and James Chambers, a cotton manufacturer. He was their second son of six children. The town had changed little in centuries. The town had old and new parts, each consisting of little more than a single street. Peebles was mainly inhabited by weavers and labourers living in thatched cottages. His father, James Chambers, made his living as a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copper Hydride
Copper hydride is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula CuHn where n ~ 0.95. It is a red solid, rarely isolated as a pure composition, that decomposes to the elements. Copper hydride is mainly produced as a reducing agent in organic synthesis and as a precursor to various catalysts. History In 1844, the French chemist Adolphe Wurtz synthesised copper hydride for the first time. He reduced an aqueous solution of copper(II) sulfate with hypophosphorous acid (H3PO2). In 2011, Panitat Hasin and Yiying Wu were the first to synthesise a metal hydride (copper hydride) using the technique of sonication. Copper hydride has the distinction of being the first metal hydride discovered. In 2013, it was established by Donnerer et al. that, at least up to fifty gigapascals, copper hydride cannot be synthesised by pressure alone. However, they were successful in synthesising several copper-hydrogen alloys under pressure. Chemical properties Structure In copper hydride, elem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolphe Wurtz
Charles Adolphe Wurtz (; 26 November 181710 May 1884) was an Alsatian French chemist. He is best remembered for his decades-long advocacy for the atomic theory and for ideas about the structures of chemical compounds, against the skeptical opinions of chemists such as Marcellin Berthelot and Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville. He is well known by organic chemists for the Wurtz reaction, to form carbon-carbon bonds by reacting alkyl halides with sodium, and for his discoveries of ethylamine, ethylene glycol, and the aldol reaction. Wurtz was also an influential writer and educator. Life Adolphe Wurtz (he never used the name "Charles") was born in Strasbourg, where his father, Johann Jacob (Jean Jacques) Wurtz, was a Lutheran pastor in the nearby town of Wolfisheim. His wife, Adolphe's mother, Sophie Kreiss, died in 1878. When he left the Protestant gymnasium at Strasbourg in 1834, his father allowed him to study medicine as next best to theology. He devoted himself speciall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
