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Kaleidoscope Programming Language
A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a symmetrical pattern when viewed from the other end, due to repeated reflection. These reflectors are usually enclosed in a tube, often containing on one end a cell with loose, colored pieces of glass or other transparent (and/or opaque) materials to be reflected into the viewed pattern. Rotation of the cell causes motion of the materials, resulting in an ever-changing view being presented. Etymology The term "kaleidoscope" was coined by its Scottish inventor David Brewster. It is derived from the Ancient Greek word (), "beautiful, beauty", (), "that which is seen: form, shape" and (), "to look to, to examine", hence "observation of beautiful forms". It was first published in the patent that was granted on July 10, 1817. History Multiple reflection by two or more ref ...
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Camera Lucida
A ''camera lucida'' is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists and microscopy, microscopists. It projects an optics, optical superimposition of the subject being viewed onto the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface simultaneously, as in a photographic double exposure. This allows the artist to duplicate key points of the scene on the drawing surface, thus aiding in the accurate rendering of perspective. History The ''camera lucida'' was patented in 1806 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. The basic optics were described 200 years earlier by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his ''Dioptrice'' (1611), but there is no evidence he constructed a working ''camera lucida''. There is also evidence to suggest that the Elizabethan spy Arthur Gregory's 1596 "perspective box" operated on at least highly similar principles to the later ''camera lucida'', but the secretive nature of his work and fear of rivals ...
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Magic Lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that uses pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lens (optics), lenses, and a light source. Because a single lens inverts an image projected through it (as in the phenomenon which inverts the image of a camera obscura), slides are inserted upside down in the magic lantern, rendering the projected image correctly oriented. It was mostly developed in the 17th century and commonly used for entertainment purposes. It was increasingly used for education during the 19th century. Since the late 19th century, smaller versions were also mass-produced as toys. The magic lantern was in wide use from the 18th century until the mid-20th century when it was superseded by a compact version that could hold many 35 mm photographic slides: the slide projector. Technology Apparatus The magic lantern used a concave mirror behind a light so ...
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Camera Obscura
A camera obscura (; ) is the natural phenomenon in which the rays of light passing through a aperture, small hole into a dark space form an image where they strike a surface, resulting in an inverted (upside down) and reversed (left to right) projector, projection of the view outside. ''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions such as a darkened room, box or tent in which an exterior image is projected inside or onto a translucent screen viewed from outside. ''Camera obscuras'' with a lens in the opening have been used since the second half of the 16th century and became popular as aids for drawing and painting. The technology was developed further into the photographic camera in the first half of the 19th century, when ''camera obscura'' boxes were used to exposure (photography), expose photosensitivity, light-sensitive materials to the projected image. The image (or the principle of its projection) of a lensless ''camera obscura'' is also referred to as a " ...
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Sir George Mackenzie, 7th Baronet
Sir George Steuart Mackenzie, 7th Baronet Royal Society of London, FRS FRSE FSA (22 June 1780–26 October 1848) was a Scottish geologist, chemist and agricultural improver. Life The only son of Major General Sir Alexander Mackenzie of Coul (d.1796), a General in the Bengal Army, by his wife Katharine Ramsay (d.1806), daughter of Robert Ramsay of Camno, he was born on 22 June 1780. He was tutored privately and spent one year at Royal High School, Edinburgh, Edinburgh's High School (1795/6). He then studied sciences at the University of Edinburgh. In 1796, he succeeded to the baronetcy at 16, on his father's death. He first became known to scientists in 1800, when he claimed proof of the identity of diamond with carbon by a series of experiments concerning the formation of steel by the combination of diamonds with iron; for these experiments, he is said to have made free use of his mother's jewels. In 1799, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His propos ...
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Royal Society Of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established in 1783. , there are around 1,800 Fellows. The Society covers a broader range of fields than the Royal Society of London, including literature and history. The Fellowship includes people from a wide range of disciplines: science and technology, arts, humanities, medicine, social science, business, and public service. History At the start of the 18th century, Edinburgh's intellectual climate fostered many clubs and societies (see Scottish Enlightenment). Though there were several that treated the arts, sciences and medicine, the most prestigious was the Society for the Improvement of Medical Knowledge, commonly referred to as the Medical Society of Edinburgh, co-founded by the mathematician Colin Maclaurin in 1731. Maclaurin was u ...
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Light Polarization
, or , is a property of transverse waves which specifies the geometrical orientation of the oscillations. In a transverse wave, the direction of the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave. One example of a polarized transverse wave is vibrations traveling along a taut string, for example, in a musical instrument like a guitar string. Depending on how the string is plucked, the vibrations can be in a vertical direction, horizontal direction, or at any angle perpendicular to the string. In contrast, in longitudinal waves, such as sound waves in a liquid or gas, the displacement of the particles in the oscillation is always in the direction of propagation, so these waves do not exhibit polarization. Transverse waves that exhibit polarization include electromagnetic waves such as light and radio waves, gravitational waves, and transverse sound waves (shear waves) in solids. An electromagnetic wave such as light consists of a coupled oscillating electr ...
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Kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope () is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of these mirrors are shown as a symmetrical pattern when viewed from the other end, due to repeated reflection. These reflectors are usually enclosed in a tube, often containing on one end a cell with loose, colored pieces of glass or other transparent (and/or opaque) materials to be reflected into the viewed pattern. Rotation of the cell causes motion of the materials, resulting in an ever-changing view being presented. Etymology The term "kaleidoscope" was coined by its Scottish inventor David Brewster. It is derived from the Ancient Greek word (), "beautiful, beauty", (), "that which is seen: form, shape" and (), "to look to, to examine", hence "observation of beautiful forms". It was first published in the patent that was granted on July 10, 1817. History Multiple reflection by two or more r ...
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Richard Bradley (botanist)
Richard Bradley Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (1688 – 5 November 1732) was an English naturalist specialising in botany. He published important works on ecology, horticulture, and natural history. Biography Little is known about Bradley's childhood aside from an early interest in gardening and the fact that he lived in the vicinity of London, a city at the time with many amateur naturalists. Though Bradley lacked a university education, his first publication, ''Treatise of Succulent Plants'', gained him traction with influential patrons like James Petiver and later, Hans Sloane. With their support, he was proposed and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Society in 1712, at the age of 24. In 1714, Bradley visited the Netherlands and took an interest in horticulture. He spent the next decade back in England writing treatises on topics related to this central interest, like weather, fertiliser, productivity (ecology), productivity, and hybrid (biology ...
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Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Society of Jesus, Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his vast range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".Woods, p. 108. He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities that would become the Kircherian Museum. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs, hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language, but most of his assumptions and translations in the field turned out to be wrong. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and the Coptic language, Coptic languages, and some com ...
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Magia Naturalis
' (in English, ''Natural Magic'') is a work of popular science by Giambattista della Porta first published in Naples in 1558. Its popularity ensured it was republished in five Latin editions within ten years, with translations into Italian (1560), French, (1565) Dutch language, Dutch (1566) and English (1658) printed. ''Natural Magic'' was revised and considerably expanded throughout the author's lifetime; its twenty books (Naples 1589) include observations upon geology, optics, medicines, poisons, cooking, metallurgy, magnetism, cosmetics, perfumes, gunpowder, and invisible writing. ''Natural Magic'' is an example of pre-Francis Bacon, Baconian science. Its sources include the ancient learning of Pliny the Elder and Theophrastus as well as numerous scientific observations made by Della Porta. Author Giambattista della Porta (also known as John Baptist Porta) was born in Vico Equense, Italy, between October 3rd and November 15th, 1535 and was the second of three sons. The Po ...
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