SHA in DEVON Join Us at the Norman Lockyer Observatory This Summer OXFORD SUCCESS
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Helium Mrs. Ahng the Second Lightest Element on Earth, Helium Is One Of
Helium Mrs. Ahng The second lightest element on Earth, Helium is one of the most important elements in our universe. It is the reason that we have sunlight, it makes balloons float, and used to cool down nuclear reactors. Although it is a simple noble gas with only two protons and two electrons, it is a powerful and essential resource. Discovered in1868 by astronomer Pierre Janssen while studying a solar eclipse; he noticed a yellow line around sun that had a wavelength that he had not seen before. English Astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer later named the element after the Greek word “Helios”, making the connection to how it was discovered. Helium only makes ups less than 1% of Earth’s atmosphere because of how light it is. It’s atomic mass is only 4.003, so the surrounding air is heavier than helium. An example of the difference in mass can be seen when comparing a helium filled balloon to a balloon filled with a mixture of atmospheric gases. The mass of the mixture is much heavier, and therefore is more effected by gravitational pull. Helium is found mostly in space in the core of stars, but it was also found on Earth in 1895 trapped underground. Scientists believe that the Helium that we harvest today was created during the creation of the universe, or the “Big Bang”. Only two electrons energize one orbital for this element, giving us the popular image for all atoms. With the outer orbital shell full, the element is referred to as inert and nonreactive. -
Arxiv:0906.0144V1 [Physics.Hist-Ph] 31 May 2009 Event
Solar physics at the Kodaikanal Observatory: A Historical Perspective S. S. Hasan, D.C.V. Mallik, S. P. Bagare & S. P. Rajaguru Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, India 1 Background The Kodaikanal Observatory traces its origins to the East India Company which started an observatory in Madras \for promoting the knowledge of as- tronomy, geography and navigation in India". Observations began in 1787 at the initiative of William Petrie, an officer of the Company, with the use of two 3-in achromatic telescopes, two astronomical clocks with compound penduumns and a transit instrument. By the early 19th century the Madras Observatory had already established a reputation as a leading astronomical centre devoted to work on the fundamental positions of stars, and a principal source of stellar positions for most of the southern hemisphere stars. John Goldingham (1796 - 1805, 1812 - 1830), T. G. Taylor (1830 - 1848), W. S. Jacob (1849 - 1858) and Norman R. Pogson (1861 - 1891) were successive Government Astronomers who led the activities in Madras. Scientific high- lights of the work included a catalogue of 11,000 southern stars produced by the Madras Observatory in 1844 under Taylor's direction using the new 5-ft transit instrument. The observatory had recently acquired a transit circle by Troughton and Simms which was mounted and ready for use in 1862. Norman Pogson, a well known astronomer whose name is associated with the modern definition of the magnitude scale and who had considerable experience with transit instruments in England, put this instrument to good use. With the help of his Indian assistants, Pogson measured accurate positions of about 50,000 stars from 1861 until his death in 1891. -
The Smith Family…
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROVO. UTAH Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Brigham Young University http://www.archive.org/details/smithfamilybeingOOread ^5 .9* THE SMITH FAMILY BEING A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF MOST BRANCHES OF THE NAME—HOWEVER SPELT—FROM THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY DOWNWARDS, WITH NUMEROUS PEDIGREES NOW PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPTON READE, M.A. MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD \ RECTOR OP KZNCHESTER AND VICAR Or BRIDGE 50LLARS. AUTHOR OP "A RECORD OP THE REDEt," " UH8RA CCELI, " CHARLES READS, D.C.L. I A MEMOIR," ETC ETC *w POPULAR EDITION LONDON ELLIOT STOCK 62 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1904 OLD 8. LEE LIBRARY 6KIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY PROVO UTAH TO GEORGE W. MARSHALL, ESQ., LL.D. ROUGE CROIX PURSUIVANT-AT-ARM3, LORD OF THE MANOR AND PATRON OP SARNESFIELD, THE ABLEST AND MOST COURTEOUS OP LIVING GENEALOGISTS WITH THE CORDIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS OP THE COMPILER CONTENTS CHAPTER I. MEDLEVAL SMITHS 1 II. THE HERALDS' VISITATIONS 9 III. THE ELKINGTON LINE . 46 IV. THE WEST COUNTRY SMITHS—THE SMITH- MARRIOTTS, BARTS 53 V. THE CARRINGTONS AND CARINGTONS—EARL CARRINGTON — LORD PAUNCEFOTE — SMYTHES, BARTS. —BROMLEYS, BARTS., ETC 66 96 VI. ENGLISH PEDIGREES . vii. English pedigrees—continued 123 VIII. SCOTTISH PEDIGREES 176 IX IRISH PEDIGREES 182 X. CELEBRITIES OF THE NAME 200 265 INDEX (1) TO PEDIGREES .... INDEX (2) OF PRINCIPAL NAMES AND PLACES 268 PREFACE I lay claim to be the first to produce a popular work of genealogy. By "popular" I mean one that rises superior to the limits of class or caste, and presents the lineage of the fanner or trades- man side by side with that of the nobleman or squire. -
Respicite Astra: a Historic Journey in Astronomy Through Books
0 Respicite Astra: A Historic Journey in Astronomy through Books RReessppiicciittee AAssttrraa A Historic Journey in Astronomy through Books The Astronomiicall Sociiety of Mallta The Natiionall Liibrary of Mallta The Astronomical Society of Malta The National Library of Malta 1 Respicite Astra: A Historic Journey in Astronomy through Books Respicite Astra A Historic Journey in Astronomy through Books Exhibition held between 25 September – 18 October 2010-09-21 at the National Library, Valletta, Malta on the occasion of Notte Bianca 2010 Introductory Text Mr Victor Farrugia Captions Mr Leonard Ellul Mercer – Pgs 23-24, 57 Mr Alexander Pace – Pgs 25-26, 58, 63, 70 Prof Frank Ventura – Pgs 4, 6-13, 15-18, 21, 27-31, 33, 35-38, 40, 42- 43, 45-48, 50-56, 60-62, 65-69, 72-76, 80, 85, 87, 93 Acknowledgements The Committee of the Astronomical Society of Malta would like to acknowledge the following persons for their kind and generous help in setting up this Exhibition at the Main Hall of the National Library starting on 25th September 2010 during the Notte Bianca event: Mr Fabio Agius (MaltaPost Philatelic Archives) Ms C Michelle Buhagiar (National Library of Malta) Ms Maroma Camilleri National Library of Malta) Mr Leonard Ellul Mercer (Personal capacity) Victor Farrugia (Astronomical Society of Malta) Mr Alexander Pace (Astronomical Society of Malta) Arch Alexei Pace (Astronomical Society of Malta) Ms Joanne Sciberras (National Library of Malta) Mr Tony Tanti (Astronomical Society of Malta) Prof Frank Ventura (University of Malta) Staff of the National Library of Malta Front Image Great Orion Nebula by Mr Leonard Ellul Mercer Production The Astronomical Society of Malta P.O. -
Download This Article (Pdf)
244 Trimble, JAAVSO Volume 43, 2015 As International as They Would Let Us Be Virginia Trimble Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-4575; [email protected] Received July 15, 2015; accepted August 28, 2015 Abstract Astronomy has always crossed borders, continents, and oceans. AAVSO itself has roughly half its membership residing outside the USA. In this excessively long paper, I look briefly at ancient and medieval beginnings and more extensively at the 18th and 19th centuries, plunge into the tragedies associated with World War I, and then try to say something relatively cheerful about subsequent events. Most of the people mentioned here you will have heard of before (Eratosthenes, Copernicus, Kepler, Olbers, Lockyer, Eddington…), others, just as important, perhaps not (von Zach, Gould, Argelander, Freundlich…). Division into heroes and villains is neither necessary nor possible, though some of the stories are tragic. In the end, all one can really say about astronomers’ efforts to keep open channels of communication that others wanted to choke off is, “the best we can do is the best we can do.” 1. Introduction astronomy (though some of the practitioners were actually Christian and Jewish) coincided with the largest extents of Astronomy has always been among the most international of regions governed by caliphates and other Moslem empire-like sciences. Some of the reasons are obvious. You cannot observe structures. In addition, Arabic astronomy also drew on earlier the whole sky continuously from any one place. Attempts to Greek, Persian, and Indian writings. measure geocentric parallax and to observe solar eclipses have In contrast, the Europe of the 16th century, across which required going to the ends (or anyhow the middles) of the earth. -
Norman Lockyer Resources Information Sheet
Norman Lockyer resources information sheet Sir Joseph Lockyer was born in Rugby in 1836, the only son of a surgeon-apothecary, Joseph Hooley Lockyer and was educated privately in England and he also studied languages on the Continent. At the age of twenty-one he became a clerk in the War Office, and married Winifred James in the following year. He developed an interest in astronomy and journalism, and in 1863 began to give scientific papers to the Royal Astronomical Society. It is his discovery of helium which he has become most well known for. In 1869 Lockyer founded the journal 'Nature', which he edited until a few months before his death, and which remains to this day a major resource for international scientific knowledge. In 1870 he was appointed secretary to the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction, which over the next five years reported on scientific education and resulted in the government setting up a laboratory of solar physics at South Kensington. To further this work Lockyer was transferred from the War Office to the Science and Art Department at South Kensington in 1875. Here he organised an international exhibition of scientific apparatus, as well as establishing the loan collection which eventually formed the nucleus of the collections of the Science Museum. Throughout this period, Lockyer continued to be active in astronomical observations and in spectroscopic studies in the laboratory of the College of Chemistry; he also wrote several books on astronomy and spectral analysis. Lockyer also studied the correlations between solar activity and weather, and developed interests in meteorology. -
How the Saha Ionization Equation Was Discovered
How the Saha Ionization Equation Was Discovered Arnab Rai Choudhuri Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore – 560012 Introduction Most youngsters aspiring for a career in physics research would be learning the basic research tools under the guidance of a supervisor at the age of 26. It was at this tender age of 26 that Meghnad Saha, who was working at Calcutta University far away from the world’s major centres of physics research and who never had a formal training from any research supervisor, formulated the celebrated Saha ionization equation and revolutionized astrophysics by applying it to solve some long-standing astrophysical problems. The Saha ionization equation is a standard topic in statistical mechanics and is covered in many well-known textbooks of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics [1–3]. Professional physicists are expected to be familiar with it and to know how it can be derived from the fundamental principles of statistical mechanics. But most professional physicists probably would not know the exact nature of Saha’s contributions in the field. Was he the first person who derived and arrived at this equation? It may come as a surprise to many to know that Saha did not derive the equation named after him! He was not even the first person to write down this equation! The equation now called the Saha ionization equation appeared in at least two papers (by J. Eggert [4] and by F.A. Lindemann [5]) published before the first paper by Saha on this subject. The story of how the theory of thermal ionization came into being is full of many dramatic twists and turns. -
Book Reviews Biman Nath, the Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics
Phys. Perspect. 15 (2013) 361–370 Ó 2013 Springer Basel 1422-6944/13/030361-10 DOI 10.1007/s00016-013-0121-5 Physics in Perspective Book Reviews Biman Nath, The Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics. Heidelberg: Springer, 2012, 285 pages. $39.95 (cloth). Helium is the only chemical element ever to be first found anyplace except on earth, despite transitory claims for nebulium, coronium, aldebarium, asterium, cassiopeum, and more. Because the periodic table is now filled at least as far as Z = 112 (Copernicium, with a very short half-life) this will remain true at least as long as the only chemists and physicists we know are confined to terrestrial labs. Biman Nath’s history of the discovery of helium involves astronomy, chemistry, and physics, and so is particularly appropriate for 2013, which is the centenary both of the Bohr atom and of the first of two short papers by Henry Moseley (1887–1915) that established the primacy of Z (atomic number) over A (atomic weight) for constructing periodic tables and, in due course, for understanding the synthesis of the elements in stars. The crucial observations in the helium story were made from Guntur and Masulipam, India, during a long total solar eclipse in August 1868 by expeditions under the leadership of Jules Janssen (for France) and James Tennant and Norman Pogson (for England). John Herschel, son of the one most astronomers know, Captain Haig, and Professor Kero Laxuman also observed from other sites in India, and George Rayet (fresh from his 1867 triumph in codiscovering stars with emission-line spectra) from the Malay Peninsula. -
Henry Stevens Papers, Ca
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/ft258003k1 No online items Finding Aid for the Henry Stevens Papers, ca. 1819-1886 Processed by Saundra Taylor and Christine Chasey; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Manuscripts Division Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library Box 951575 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/ © 2002 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Finding Aid for the Henry Stevens 801 1 Papers, ca. 1819-1886 Finding Aid for the Henry Stevens Papers, ca. 1819-1886 Collection number: 801 UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Manuscripts Division Los Angeles, CA Contact Information Manuscripts Division UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library Box 951575 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575 Telephone: 310/825-4988 (10:00 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., Pacific Time) Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/special/scweb/ Processed by: Saundra Taylor and Christine Chasey Encoded by: Caroline Cubé Text converted and initial container list EAD tagging by: Apex Data Services Online finding aid edited by: Josh Fiala, May 2003 © 2002 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Descriptive Summary Title: Henry Stevens Papers, Date (inclusive): ca. 1819-1886 Collection number: 801 Creator: Stevens, Henry, 1819-1886 Extent: 71 boxes (35.5 linear ft.) Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections. Los Angeles, California 90095-1575 Abstract: Henry Stevens (1819-1886) was a London bookseller, bibliographer, publisher, and an expert on early editions of the English Bible and early voyages and travels to America. -
Coversheet for Thesis in Sussex Research Online
A University of Sussex MPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the aut hor, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details THE MEANING OF ICE Scientific scrutiny and the visual record obtained from the British Polar Expeditions between 1772 and 1854 Trevor David Oliver Ware M.Phil. University of Sussex September 2013 Part One of Two. Signed Declaration I hereby declare that this Thesis has not been and will not be submitted in whole or in part to another University for the Award of any other degree. Signed Trevor David Oliver Ware. CONTENTS Summary………………………………………………………….p1. Abbreviations……………………………………………………..p3 Acknowledgements…………………………………………….. ..p4 List of Illustrations……………………………………………….. p5 INTRODUCTION………………………………………….……...p27 The Voyage of Captain James Cook. R.N.1772 – 1775..…………p30 The Voyage of Captain James Cook. R.N.1776 – 1780.…………p42 CHAPTER ONE. GREAT ABILITIES, PERSEVERANCE AND INTREPIDITY…………………………………………………….p54 Section 1 William Scoresby Junior and Bernard O’Reilly. Ice and the British Whaling fleet.………………………………………………………………p60 Section 2 Naval Expeditions in search for the North West passage.1818 – 1837...........……………………………………………………………..…….p 68 2.1 John Ross R.N. Expedition of 1818 – 1819…….….…………..p72 2.2 William Edward Parry. -
Lick Observatory Records: Correspondence UA.036.Ser.01
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8dj5m3f No online items Guide to the Lick Observatory Records: Correspondence UA.036.Ser.01 Alix Norton University of California, Santa Cruz 2015 1156 High Street Santa Cruz 95064 [email protected] URL: http://guides.library.ucsc.edu/speccoll Guide to the Lick Observatory UA.036.Ser.01 1 Records: Correspondence UA.036.Ser.01 Language of Material: English Contributing Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz Title: Lick Observatory Records: Correspondence Creator: Lick Observatory Identifier/Call Number: UA.036.Ser.01 Physical Description: 148.5 Linear Feet257 boxes and 54 microfilm reels Date (inclusive): 1833-2009 Date (bulk): 1870-1960 Access Collection is open for research. The physical copybooks are restricted due to the fragile nature of the material. All use is directed to the microfilm of these volumes. The microfilm reels can be accessed by requesting them from Special Collections via the Library Catalog. Historical note The Lick Observatory was completed in 1888 and continues to be an active astronomy research facility at the summit of Mount Hamilton, near San Jose, California. It is named after James Lick (1796-1876), who left $700,000 in 1875 to purchase land and build a facility that would be home to "a powerful telescope, superior to and more powerful than any telescope yet made". The completion of the Great Lick Refractor in 1888 made the observatory home to the largest refracting telescope in the world for 9 years, until the completion of the 40-inch refractor at Yerkes Observatory in 1897. Since its founding in 1887, the Lick Observatory facility has provided on-site housing on Mount Hamilton for researchers, their families, and staff, making it the world's oldest residential observatory. -
Bedfordshire People Past and Present
Bedfordshire People Past and Present 1 Bedfordshire People Past and Present This is just a selection of some of the notable people associated with Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire Borough and Central Bedfordshire libraries offer a wealth of resources, for more detailed information see the Virtual Library: www.bedford.gov.uk or www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk Click on Libraries Click on Local and Family History Click on People The Local Studies section at Bedford Central Library also holds an archive of newspaper cuttings, biography files, an obituary index, local periodicals and books, including A Bedfordshire Bibliography by L.R. Conisbee, which has a large biography section. 2 Bedfordshire People Past Offa (? -796 BC) King Offa, regarded as one of the most powerful kings in early Anglo-Saxon England, ruled for 39 years from 757 to his death in 796. It is traditionally believed that he was buried in Bedford, somewhere near Batts Ford. Falkes De Breaute (1180-1225) A French soldier and adventurer, Falkes's loyalty to King John was rewarded with a number of titles. The king also gave him Bedford Castle, which Falkes held until 1224 when it was besieged and demolished by King Henry III. Falkes escaped and fled to the continent but died on route from food poisoning. Queen Eleanor (1244-1290) The sad death of Queen Eleanor links her to Dunstable. She died in Lincolnshire and King Edward 1st – her husband – wanted her to be buried in Westminster, thus the body was taken back to London and passed through Dunstable. The king ordered memorial crosses to be erected at every place the funeral cortege stopped overnight.