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1737 In Science
The year 1737 in science and technology involved some significant events. Astronomy * May 28 – The planet Venus passes in front of Mercury. The event is witnessed during the evening by amateur astronomer John Bevis at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England. Botany * February 27 – French scientists Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon publish the first study correlating past weather conditions with an examination of tree rings. * Elizabeth Blackwell's ''A Curious Herbal'', with her own colour illustrations, is published in London. * Johannes Burman's ''Thesaurus zeylanicus'', a flora of Ceylon, is published in Amsterdam. Geology * Francesco Serao is the first person to use the word lava in connection with extruded magma in a short account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which took place between May 14 and June 4. * October 11 – An earthquake in Calcutta, India is said to have caused 300,000 deaths; this is now in question: it was pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Serao
Francesco Serao (20 September 1702 – 5 August 1783) was an Italian physician, physicist, geologist, philosopher and scholar. He was born in San Cipriano d'Aversa and died in Naples, Italy. Biography Serao was taught by the Jesuits in Naples. He followed the thinking of Descartes. At eighteen, he graduated in medicine and in 1727 he was awarded the chair of theoretical medicine. In 1732 he was professor of anatomy, then of medicine. He was a member of the Royal Academy or Academy of Sciences of Naples with his teacher Niccolò Cirillo and was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, of the London Academy, of the Benedictine University of Bologna and of other important scientific and literary groups in Europe. He translated John Pringle's medical works into Italian. Serao was chief physician of the Kingdom of Naples and physician to King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon. Serao died in 1783 and was buried in the church of Monteverginella in Naples. Works *''Vita Nicolai Cirilli' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longitude Prize
The Longitude Prize is an inducement prize contest offered by Challenge Works, a social enterprise which was historically part of Nesta, a British lottery funded charity, in the spirit of the 18th-century Longitude rewards. It runs a £10 million prize fund, offering an £8 million payout to the team of researchers that develops an affordable, accurate, and fast point of care test for bacterial infection that is easy to use anywhere in the world. Such a test will allow the conservation of antibiotics for future generations and help solve the global problem of antimicrobial resistance. The prize was announced by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron in 2013, and a shortlist of six challenges to be put to a public vote was announced at the BBC's Broadcasting House in May 2014. Longitude Committee A committee chaired by Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, chose the six challenges that were to be put to a public vote, and subsequently decided the format of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Harrison
John Harrison ( – 24 March 1776) was an English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the History of longitude, problem of how to calculate longitude while at sea. Harrison's solution revolutionized navigation and greatly increased the safety of long-distance sea travel. The problem he solved had been considered so important following the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 that the Parliament of Great Britain, British Parliament was offering financial rewards of up to £20,000 (equivalent to £ in ) under the 1714 Longitude Act, though Harrison never received the full reward due to political rivalries. He presented his first design in 1730, and worked over many years on improved designs, making several advances in time-keeping technology, finally turning to what were called sea watches. Harrison gained support from the Board of Longitude, Longitude Board in building and testing his designs. Towards the end of his life, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics, such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. He also introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and Mathematical notation, notation, including the notion of a mathematical function. He is known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy, and music theory. Euler has been called a "universal genius" who "was fully equipped with almost unlimited powers of imagination, intellectual gifts and extraordinary memory". He spent most of his adult life in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia. Euler is credited for popularizing the Greek letter \pi (lowercase Pi (letter), pi) to denote Pi, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divergence Of The Sum Of The Reciprocals Of The Primes
The sum of the reciprocals of all prime numbers diverges; that is: \sum_\frac1p = \frac12 + \frac13 + \frac15 + \frac17 + \frac1 + \frac1 + \frac1 + \cdots = \infty This was proved by Leonhard Euler in 1737, and strengthens Euclid's 3rd-century-BC result that there are infinitely many prime numbers and Nicole Oresme's 14th-century proof of the divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the integers (harmonic series). There are a variety of proofs of Euler's result, including a lower bound for the partial sums stating that \sum_\frac1p \ge \log \log (n+1) - \log\frac6 for all natural numbers . The double natural logarithm () indicates that the divergence might be very slow, which is indeed the case. See Meissel–Mertens constant. The harmonic series First, we will describe how Euler originally discovered the result. He was considering the harmonic series \sum_^\infty \frac = 1 + \frac + \frac + \frac + \cdots = \infty He had already used the following " product formu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively. Immediately offshore along the Pacific coast of the peninsula runs the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench. The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Commander Islands, and Karaginsky Island constitute Kamchatka Krai of the Russian Federation. The majority of the 322,079 inhabitants are ethnic Russians, with about 13,000 being Koryaks (2014). More than half of the population lives in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (179,526 in 2010) and nearby Yelizovo (38,980). The Kamchatka Peninsula contains the volcanoes of Kamchatka, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that form part of the Ring of Fire. Geography Politically, the peninsula forms part of Kamchatka Krai. The southern tip is called Cape Lopatka. (Lopatka is Russian for spade.) The circular bay to the north of this on the Pacific side is Ava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kamchatka Earthquakes
Many major earthquakes have occurred in the region of the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia. Events in 1737, 1923 and 1952, were megathrust earthquakes and caused tsunamis. There are many more earthquakes and tsunamis originating from the region. Tectonic setting The southern part of the Kamchatka peninsula lies above the convergent plate margin where the Pacific plate is subducting beneath the Okhotsk microplate along the line of the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench. The rate of convergence between the two plates is about 86 mm per year. Earthquakes are generated by rupture along the megathrust boundary between the two plates, within the descending Pacific plate and within the overriding Okhotsk Plate. The northern part of the peninsula lies away from the convergent boundaries of the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench and the Aleutian Trench but across the boundary between two blocks within the North American plate, the Kolyma-Chukotka and Bering Sea microplates. This boundary a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-1890 North Indian Ocean Cyclone Seasons
The years before 1890 featured the pre-1890 North Indian Ocean cyclone seasons. Each season was an event in the annual cycle of tropical cyclone formation. The North Indian tropical cyclone season has no bounds, but they tend to form between April and December, peaks in May and November. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the northern Indian Ocean. Below are the most significant cyclones in the time period. Because much of the North Indian coastline is near sea level and prone to flooding, these cyclones can easily kill many with storm surge and flooding. These cyclones are among the deadliest on earth in terms of numbers killed. Before 18th century *1000 – A cyclone with hurricane force winds struck North Cinque Island of Andaman Islands. *1480 – A cyclone deepened the channels of Rama's Bridge, making it no longer possible to walk from India to Sri Lanka. *1484 – A cyclone struck the Chittagong Coa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
